Why Noivern with Boomburst is bad and what it needs

Noivern FlyingDragon

Hi Trainers!

Any Community Day always brings excitement and grandeur, even if the said Pokémon “isn’t really worth it”. But if it’s a Dragon type, one can’t help but get psyched! The Feb 2023 CD brings the adorable little bat dragon Noibat to the forefront. Being among the rarer mons in the game and more importantly, requiring 400 candies for evolution, while it gets 1 candy for 5 km is a pain. 

But nonetheless, it’s Community Day and will help numerous trainers get the elusive Noivern in their arsenal. Noivern is undoubtedly one of the most astounding Pokémon and has a brilliant shiny. Good good… all sorted, right? Right?

Umm, so I didn’t talk about Noivern’s CD exclusive move: Boomburst. 

Competitive players would applaud Boomburst as being one of the most OP moves. But in Pokémon GO, the ‘OP-ness’ of a move is adjourned by several factors: the move’s power, energy cost, speed of fast moves and at times, the stats of the Pokémon in question. 

So let’s check out Boomburst, shall we?

Boomburst Stats

Boombust is a Normal type charged move with the following stats:

PvE

Power: 140

Energy: -100

PvP

Power: 150

Energy: -75

What to interpret from Boomburst’s stats?

PvE

Rhyperior, Garchomp, Hydreigon… yeah, that’s how often a CD Pokémon gained prominence in PvE as well as PvP. Not to be confused with good moves like Meteor Beam where the PvE aspect suffered due to the Pokémon having bad stats. In a nutshell, PvE value coming out of a Community Day is super rare these days and sadly, Boomburst doesn’t do any favors.

• For one, it’s a Normal type charged move. No super-effective damage, ladies and gentlemen… nada!
• But but… it has huge damage potential! Maybe good neutral damage in Partly Cloudy weather? Well, Noivern ain’t a Normal type, so no STAB duh
• Lastly, Noivern’s ATK and fast moves are meh

So if you thought of taking your brand new Boomburst Noivern on a PvE flight… it’s not going to take off, captain!

PvP

There are too many Pokémon with the Dragon and Flying combo, and Noivern may just be the worst.

• Dragonite is a seasoned ML dragon that just got better with the addition of Superpower. Plus, it is always a good addition to your Dragon raid party
• Altaria is still one of the most formidable mons in the Great League and also has a bulky Dragon/Fairy mega evolution that can help the mega boosts stay longer in Dragon raids
• Salamence is one of the most powerful PvE dragons and also has a fearsome mega evolution
• Rayquaza is the cream of the cream in this category. A PvE monster as both a Dragon and Flying type, an OP mega evolution, and also a brand new PvP meta pick with Breaking Swipe

Noivern has no niche whatsoever (except maybe the Flying type background on your screen). But other than that, there’s literally nothing to take home when it comes to Noivern, with Boomburst or not. 

Let’s see the two pressing reasons why Noivern isn’t going to make any noise in the meta.

Reason 1: Noivern’s Stats

Noivern has the following stats in Pokémon GO:

Noivern FlyingDragon
Level 40 CP 2764 | Level 50 CP 3125
ATK 205		DEF 175		HP 198
Weak to			Resistant to
Fairy Dragon Ice Rock			Bug Fighting Fire Grass Water Ground

 

First thing’s first… Noivern has no play in the Master League. The several legendary and pseudo legendary Dragon types, the omnipresent Fairy types, and the quirky Ice types would give Noivern a phobia of the Master League. Noivern will absolutely not find Gotham in the ML meta.

To be quite honest, Noivern’s stats aren’t bad per se and would ideally be applicable in the Ultra and Great Leagues. In fact, it is a well-known fact among PvP enthusiasts that Noivern ends up being bulkier than the famed Dragonite in the lower leagues. But it doesn’t even come close to the OG dragon’s performance. The reason? Noivern’s horrendous movepool. 

Reason 2: Noivern’s Movepool

Frankly, Noivern’s ‘Reason 1’ does get the benefit of doubt. As mentioned, Noivern does has workable stats. But from a larger perspective, it lacks the bulk to make an impact. But more importantly, it lacks good moves.

I mean, what the Hex is this:

Fast Moves	Charged Moves
Bite Dark Air Slash Flying	Hurricane Flying Draco Meteor Dragon Psychic Psychic Heat Wave Fire Boomburst* Normal

*Exclusive Community Day move

Bite? Sucks, rather. Why not use its Dragon Tail?

Air Slash? Soooo mid. Why not Wing Attack or even Gust??

Draco Meteor. Hmm, okay but the fast moves would take ages to reach Draco Meteor. Give it Dragon Claw or even Outrage!

Hurricane? Expensive again and Noivern’s broke af. Give it Fly, Acrobatics, or even Sky Attack, y’all! YOU. HAVE. OPTIONS.

Heat Wave? I’ll throw up.

Psychic isn’t making the cut either. It’s cheap energy-wise but Noivern lacks the fast move chops to make it viable.

Niantic, for a Pokémon that has such an atrocious candy requirement and such elusiveness, you could have made it meta relevant. You easily could have, the moves are right there!

But hey, Boomburst is good. Make no mistake about it. The problem lies in the fact that Air Slash and Bite are bad, bad moves that ensure that Noivern wouldn’t be able to salvage Boomburst at all. 

Does Noivern have any hope in the future?

The word ‘nope’ rhymes with ‘hope’

But there’s ‘hope’ for Noivern to ‘cope’

All Niantic needs to do is to ‘rope’ in Noivern in their seasonal GBL move updates and make it eat…

Let’s take a STAB at the menu, shall we?

Possible fast moves

Wing Attack Flying

Gust Flying

Dragon Tail Dragon

Possible charged moves

Fly Flying

Sky Attack Flying

Dragon Claw Dragon

Outrage Dragon

What Noivern needs?

The biggest pain point of Noivern is a fast move that can generate energy quickly and is preferably STAB. 

• Wing Attack with a [DPT/EPT] set of [2.50/4.00] is the clear winner in this regard. Even the cooldown is only 1 sec
• Dragon Tail with [4.33/3.00] deals good damage but has the same EPT and cooldown as Air Slash
• Gust with [4.00/3.00] is like a Flying type Dragon Breath except that it has a painfully long cooldown that’s even higher than Air Slash

So when it comes to fast moves, Wing Attack it is!

• Dragon Claw is a superb bait move with low energy cost and decent damage. Moreover, it can make Noivern a much larger threat than it can ever imagine at this moment
• Fly is an excellent Flying type move. Period
• Draco Meteor is one of the most powerful moves in the game but its severe ATK debuff harms Noivern’s potential. Boomburst is a welcome alternative despite being costlier since it has no debuffs

So when it comes to charged moves, Dragon Claw it is!

The Ideal Scenario

Noivern with Wing Attack + Dragon Claw and Boomburst is a menace to the UL and GL meta. It’s the dark knight that it dreams to be.

Parting Words

Other than the gorgeous shiny and dex addition, Noivern is not ‘noice’. It doesn’t even make the noise that its lore claims.

Really underwhelming for a Dragon type Community Day but ah well, let’s ‘hope’ that Noivern is rewarded in a future moveset update. 

Have a great Community Day, trainers!