Some pvp quirks and attack differences
I have been playing training battles non-stop. I consider myself an avid ice-pokemon trainer, and thus use ice pokemon in those battles. Ofcourse Houndoom, Lapras, Milotic and Infernape of the team leaders give me troubles but I get by with coverage moves. Glalie is nice to have, shadow ball is strong against all except Houndoom.
Anyway. I noticed some vast differences in attacks in pvp. Notably, energy requirements for charge attacks and energy build up of fast attacks seem different than gym battles.
Ice shard is slow, but builds up energy nicely. 5 ice shards generare enough energy for Shadow ball and Gyro Ball.
Frost breath hits faster, but generates energy slower than Ice shard. This cripples Jynx and Articuno. They sometimes may not find time to fire off their charge attacks with frost breath before getting KOed. Confusion Jynx builds up energy faster and can attack with a powerful Avalanche.
Powder snow is weak but generates energy nicely. It is the fastest energy builder in gym battles, though. A Snorunt with powder snow+avalanche can spam avalanches fast in gym battles. I look forward to try it on a Mamoswine.
In charge attacks, there are some quirks. Blizzard is the best move in gyms, not so in pvp where it takes too long to charge especially with frost breath. Blizzard Articuno sucks because of this.
Avalanche is the king of ice charge moves. Undisputed. It requires little energy, 4-5 ice shards are enough to fill up one avalanche. It hits for massive damage.
One trick I found: you can stack energies for charge moves indefinitely in pvp. As long as you don't fire them, their energies will stay built up for more than 2-3 charges. I ko a mon only using fast attacks, and when the second mon is sent out, I can use avalanche 3-4 times non-stop, not even giving the opponent a chance to retaliate. It is devastating even if it is resisted.
Icy wind is terrible. In gyms it is terrible because it has a long animation. However in pvp animation is moot because when a mon uses charge attack the game pauses. However, icy wind requires the same energy as avalanche in pvp. This is terribad as it does only 2/3 the damage of avalanche. At least in gym battles it requires little energy to fire off.
Ice beam is in the middle, good damage as avalanche, but requires a tiny bit more energy than avalanche.
Aurora beam is only a little worse than Ice beam, but it is TERRIBLE in gym battles because it has the longest casting animation ever. So it is an upgrade in pvp.
So best Articuno is ice beam one in pvp, my shiny Articuno has icy wind and I have no tms. This makes me sad. Frost breath+Icy wind is the worst ice moveset. Even Sneasel's Ice shard/Ice punch is better. Ice shard/Avalanche is infinitely better.
Cloyster is surprisingly good, with ice shard+avalanche I think it is the best ice attacker in pvp. (I don't have an ice set Weavile, I think it can be better.) It can stand quite a few hits, too. If Jynx or Articuno had ice shard they would be better mons. Frost breath builds up damage fast, but gives low energy gain.
Alolan Sandlash is solid ice attacker with blizzard. However it is actually the best ice-type killer all around. With 2xresist to ice, and stab powered super effective gyro ball. It is a terror for fellow ice types! But double weakness to fire and fighting is very, very bad and hurts its competitiviness.
I favour Glalie for its versatility, I have one with ice shard+gyro ball+shadow ball 2 charge moves which can deal with a large number of foes. I have another with frost breath+avalanche for max ice damage. Ice shard/avalanche could be better but I like my Glalies have all the available attacks between the two of them.
Playing with my Octillery, one of the first mons I caught when I started playing 2-3 years ago. It has water gun and aurora beam. He has always been an honorary member of my ice team, but was a bit weak on gym battles because aurora beam sucked hard. In pvp, he is miles better. Water gun is actually a very powerful move that can pile on damage fast, he can solo Candela's fire types easily. Aurora beam does ok damage and has no casting animation in pvp.
Have you noticed some other differences in other attack types as well? Any balance ideas on the horizon from Niantic?
Answers
It's good to see that your observations pretty much agree with the spreadsheets from datamining results. Check them out, you can learn about exactly how much better or worse a move is than another, the balance of energy vs. damage, etc.
Ice in general is a weak type because it adds one resistance (Ice) and four weaknesses (Fighting, Fire, Rock and Steel). Despite this, it has its uses. Kudos to you for sticking with it, instead of using one of the 'easy' types like Steel or Dragon.
If you like Glalie, you'll love Froslass. Comparable to Glalie, but with a slightly different stat balance, and STAB for Shadow Ball. Powder Snow generates energy crazy fast (albeit very low damage) or you can use Hex, which does the same damage but generates slightly less energy (still more than Ice Shard), and you trade off Gyro Ball for Crunch, which is a better attack (although you'll likely be using Avalanche and SB).
Those sheets are very helpful, thank you both! Now I know ice shard equals frost breath in damage, but ice shard generates better energy. And as I guessed, Avalanche is very unbalancingly powerful than all other ice attacks.
Yeah I stick with ice, I know it is bad defensively. I hate it when my beautiful shiny legendary Articuno gets horribly crushed by Stoneedge. I like the type's offensive coverage and theme, nevertheless. I have a near max lvl female Snorunt to evolve into Froslass, I look forward to it. I don't care about ivs (my only %100 mon is a high level caught Swallot with a surprising Ice beam but even then I prefer to use my %50-60 iv pure ice mons for sweet stab.) but I want good charge attacks.
In a match of Glalie vs Froslass, I believe Glalie has upper hand as it can use shadow ball and gyro ball for super effective damage against Froslass. Froslass only has a stab shadow ball, which may not be enough.
