How bad is Bulldoze?
I have 2 Arcanines that I am considering powering up. One is 84% 15/12/11 with Bite/Flamethrower,the other is 95% 14/14/15 with FF/Bulldoze. Growlithes are pretty rare where I am and it's taken a looong time to get these two. Which, if either, do you guys think I should power up? Or both?
Answers
What are the levels of the pokemon? Neither moveset is the most optimal, so if they're also low level, then it'd cost you a lot of stardust to get them to where they'd even be usable.
But of the two, Bite + Flamethrower is the better attacking moveset compared to Fire Fang + Bulldoze.
The difference in damage between Bite and Fire Fang isn't as much as the difference in damage between Bulldoze and Arcanine's other 2 charge moves that aren't complete garbage.
At least Bite gives more energy gain to use your charge moves. Against a pokemon that has neutral typing to Fire Fang, Bite with the same charge move will deal close to Fire Fang's damage. But against pokemon which Fire Fang is super effective against, Fire Fang will obviously be better.
38/45 is already really good for IVs, those 5 extra IV points that the other Arcanine has don't even come close to making up the damage you lose from having Bulldoze as a charge move. Getting Bulldoze on Arcanine is like getting Twister on Gyarados.
Unfortunately vaporeon is the most common counter to arcanine and ground is not effective against water. So the move is really horrible as it doesnt have stab either.
Its a good gym leveling pokemon because you can prolly take 2 out with one 50% cp with water gun hydropump. If your active on gyms Id definitely keep it. If I come across a nearby gym with Lapras or Snoralax on the bottom I like putting a bulldoze Arcanine underneath and training the gym with them. Bite bulldoze is a better training pokemon by alot.
It sucks.. it sucks so bad I don't even bother to dodge it when I'm fighting an Arcanine that has it. I don't care if I have a perfect IV Arcanine, he gets transferred if he has that move...
Growlithes are so common (in the wild and from eggs) - you shouldn't have any problem evolving 1 (or 12, like me) with bite/fireblast (best for offense) or bite/flamethrower (good for defense). Finding one with fire fang AND either fireblast or thrower is not so common - in fact, I've never evolved one - but still you can do better than bulldoze.
