Proposal for New Move Ranking
Recently, I have been working on a new method for ranking both fast and charged moves. I know we recently started looking at DPE*DPS, but I feel that that is at the very least not perfect, and sometimes even irrelevant. Since we never know for sure what fast move a charged move will be paired with, we never know the weight that DPS and DPE need to have with respect to each other.
So I have decided to try ranking moves by average cycle DPS. Essentially, I calculated the average statistics of all fast and charged moves (that are actually used by at least one pokemon), and then used this to calculate the cycle DPS of each fast and charge move when paired with this made-up "average performance" move. This google sheet contains both my calculations and the results. Be sure to check the different tabs. Also, credit goes to dondon151 for inputting all the moves and basic statistics.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_v5GESdCCRrZ2Kyom1q9YC-fLLuSvqnpIEMRuCJbVxg/edit?usp=sharing
This is probably a little confusing, and I know I'm not doing the best job of explaining it, so here's some clarification. The average fast move is used 12.61 times per cycle, does 109.75 damage in a cycle, and takes 10.46 seconds to complete a cycle. Imagine that there was an actual move in the game (call it move x) with those exact properties. So a Pokemon that has a moveset of move x and Hydro Pump will output roughly 17.43 DPS for an entire cycle, and a pokemon with a moveset of move x and Water Pulse will output 14.82 DPS for the cycle. Therefore we can conclude that Hydro Pump is a superior move to Water Pulse because it will output more DPS over a long period of time, when paired with the average fast move.
Another thing to take into account is if a pokemon faints before filling the energy meter. This is also examined in this ranking system. I have calculated the average DPS of a half-cycle (which is when a pokemon faints just after doing the first attack of a 2-bar charge move), and a third-cycle (when a pokemon faints just after doing the first attack of a 3-bar charge move). As you might expect, when you sort by 1/2 cycle DPS, 1-bar moves all fall to the bottom of the list, as their 1/2 cycle DPS is simply equal to the average fast move DPS. Same goes for 2-bar moves when sorting by 1/3 cycle DPS.
Unsurprisingly, Frenzy Plant ranks highest among charged moves (for both full-cycle and half-cycle), but Origin Pulse and Precipice Blades (which are yet unused) are very close behind. This already corresponds more closely with simulations than the DPS*DPE ranking, which puts Origin Pulse and Precipice Blades far ahead.
I know this method still does not account for the individual moves that certain moves can and will be paired with, but it seems that this is going to be just about the most accurate ranking short of calculating the DPS for each individual move combination.
If anyone has anything to note or sees anywhere I went wrong, please let me know, and I hope this helps some of you. Here's the link again:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_v5GESdCCRrZ2Kyom1q9YC-fLLuSvqnpIEMRuCJbVxg/edit?usp=sharing
