Better use of charged tm: Mamoswine or Tyranitar?
Ok, so I’m looking to maximize my current mons and resources. I have 1 Ttar and one Mamoswine (my only Sinnoh evolve so far); both have crappy movesets. Looking for advice on the most efficient/effective way to make them relevant for my playing style (solo mostly, casual but fairly active, suburbs with a few gyms/stops around, PvE>PvP).
Item inventory:
3 fast tm
1 charged tm
5 sinnoh stones
21 rare candy
Ttar: iron tail/fire blast, lvl 20
@105 candy - was saving to maybe evolve a second larvitar (lvl 9 shiny or lvl 26 non-shiny)
Mamo: powder snow/stone edge, lvl 30
@185 candy - have several other swinub/piloswine to potentially evolve (a few @lvl 33-35 with iv’s 47-76, and one lvl 28 with 93 iv’s, 15-12-15)
Was thinking before using the charge tm on Mamoswine, it might be best to get 2nd charge move and hope for avalanche...if unsuccessful, then use the charge tm...if successful, then save the charge tm to use on Ttar. Sound logic? Am I overlooking anything?
Haven’t planned out use of other Sinnoh stones yet, but was thinking to use 1 - Rhyperior, 1 - electivire, maybe another 1-2 on roserade/weavile and save the other stone(s) for future use...CD, etc. But open to recommends on evolving another Mamoswine, since the most meta-relevant. [fyi - only legendaries I have are the birds and beasts, but they are all low level and I have limited rare candy.]
Thanks in advance for any helpful thoughts or suggestions.
Answers
In my experience, Ttar has more versatility in general and can do a pretty decent job against many opponents, even when in a type disadvantage. It is also harder to evolve due to how many candies it requires, and from what you describe, the candies might not be so readily available to you right now. However, Ttar is also a better rock attacker than it is a dark type one, and you seem to have missed that train (you MIGHT have a chance to get some in December again of they pull off another community weekend for all previous CD species, but that also might not happen). Rock attacks also have a generally better chance to be weather boosted than dark ones, which is a plus.
Mamoswine is the best ice type attacker, presumably for all generations to come, but that is also a very niche spot for it since it only really shines against foes with a double weakness to ice, which in normal gameplay only applies to raiding Dragonite and Rayquaza (which is currently out of raid rotation), and fighting Dnite and Salamence in gyms. It can do a decent job as a ground attacker in some instances, but you can also do well by just using Rhydon or Rhyperior if you happen to own some of those.
It all comes down to your dust levels, I guess. Unlocking secondary moves is a burly decision if you aren't well stacked in dust and I would generally only recommend it to hardcore players cause it can set you back real bad. If you think you can absorb that hit, then the strategy you described seems sound and could get you all set up if you are lucky, but it is a big gamble.
Honestly, if I was in your situation I would wait a little to see if you can gather a bit more resources in general. You do not seem to raid enough, perhaps because of your situation or your local raid scene, so I wouldn't be in a rush to optimize your current options. I would follow the starting strategy for newcomers of building a team of decent weather boosted Eevees into Espeons and use those to farm Machamp raids (dunno if they are currently raidable, but in case they are not, you still need to get the Espeon team first regardless). Then use the Machamp to short-man more Ttar raids and hope you get one with a better moveset. That will also get you more Ttar candies, which is never a bad thing.
All in all, I think you should play the waiting game and be patient, the way this game is designed favors being patient over anything else. Once you get to a point where you have enough battle fodder to throw against gyms and low tier raid bosses you can start to evaluate where to put your hard-earned resources to better use.
If you decide you cannot wait, however, and you are really aching to optimize those two options, then I'd try your plan. I would not evolve the shiny larvitar by no means. It is very low level and makes for a better trophy than a fighter. Remember that IVs have a very minimal impact on gameplay and, in many cases, you are better off just evolving and using the high-level mons rather than tanking thousands of dust and candies towards making low-level, high-IV options up to usable levels, unless you can make that jump in a single power up session.
Thx to all for the responses. Think I’ll follow your advice and just evolve a Rhyperior for now and wait on the rest and hope to catch a Ttar raid sometime. For whatever reason larvitars are basically non-existent around my area and I seldom if ever see any Ttar raids while out and about. Also very little community play where I live so mostly on my own unless visiting friends and can convince them to take a fortnite break for half an hour.
Ps just to round out the info:
Me: lvl 34
Dust: @740k
Espeon: have 5, lvls 32-34, good moves, stockpile of @ 20 eevees w/both high lvl (33-35) and iv (80-98) and 500+ candy ready to deploy - just waiting to reach next stage of ripple in time research to evolve another espeon. (eevees basically used to be the most prevalent mon in my neighborhood for like 2 yrs...used to have 10+ of all the early eeveelutions but for space and boredom decided to cull the herds down to 6 best of each last yr. ...reminds me to check when the next ones being released.)
Machamp: have 4 - 1 lvl 27, 3 lvls 34-36, most with good movesets, except...my lvl 36 ‘perfect’ iv champ saddled with bullet punch/close combat. Need @30 more candy for next evolve (@ 2-3 wks likely). Strongly considering a fast tm on this one. Think that’s a good idea? Will counter make much difference over bp in most raids (esp. against Ttar, for instance)?
Thx agn!