The "big 19" basic explanation – Snorlax (week: 11-3) – No dodge bug, inferior to other moves

Hyper Beam is a slow move with a late dodge window. Since the dodge bug rarely exists at this time, I would say HB Snorlaxes are quite easy to beat with dodging. But 1 missed dodge may cause your Pokémon to faint, if not with enough Hit Points or defense stat.

Hyper Beam has 150 base power, even with a type disadvantage, it manages to take out at least half of most pokémon's Hit Points. It can take out 56 Hit Points from a same level Gengar, which is really amazing. The downside is that normal hits nothing for super effective damage, so successfully dodging it won't cause the attacker to faint, assuming the attacker has 50 Hit Points left, unless stated, the dodge bug exists.

1 undodged Hyper Beam can kill a Shuckle with full HP.

However, Heavy Slam, I think, is on par with Earthquake now.

Heavy Slam has a quite bad type coverage, but it has 2 bars. Although Earthquake has only 1 bar and is far more risky, it has a pretty good type coverage against common attackers except for Dragonite.

Heavy Slam can be easily countered by Vaporeon, which more than 99% of experienced trainers have one. But Dragonite is a rare Pokémon and can't be obtained from raids, thus making Earthquake not that bad.

Heavy Slam was only arguably inferior to Body Slam before and is good for prestiging. Now, prestiging does not exist and Heavy Slam is strictly inferior to Body Slam.

You may regret it if you TM an Earthquake Snorlax, now it becomes at least a viable charge move.

Earthquake Snorlaxes can be used against Jolteon raid bosses as a tanky attacker.

Heavy Slam can be used against Clefables and also for practicing good dodging.

Next post, will be Dragonite!