We don’t often post about our Pokémon GO Database, but we think the update we released last night deserves a post on the main GO Hub website, if for nothing, just for ourselves to keep track of all the amazing work that is being done on the database.
First of all, for those of you who don’t know, GO Hub runs two main websites:
- pokemongohub.net, where we publish news, guides, meta analyses, and all the other content that is written by actual humans. This is also the website where you are reading this article right now.
- we also run db.pokemongohub.net, a comprehensive, stat-heavy, website built to provide our readers with detailed stats for every Pokémon in Pokémon GO. Over the recent few months, we’ve done some amazing work on our Pokémon GO database, and yesterday we released an update that makes it even more accurate, user friendly, and helpful.
So here’s what’s new in the GO Database V6 (*).
Support for Shadow Raids and Enrage mechanic
If you navigate to any Shadow Pokémon’s counters in the database, you will notice that they are now much more difficult to counter in 3-Star and 5-Star Raids. We included support for the new Enrage mechanic which dramatically increases the opponent’s Attack and Defense stats. Bosses Enrage from 60% to 15% HP.
During that time their Attack is increased by 81%, and their Defense is increased by 200%. The database currently doesn’t account for Purified Gems, so it always calculates the worst case scenario, as if the Boss is enraged for the entire duration of the Enrage window.
New Raid Counters UI and group size recommendations
We’ve heard your complaints: tables are great for desktop, but they are not that great for mobile. They are also quite difficult to quickly glance over and figure out which are the best counters for a given Pokémon. We also understand that Trainers who use our Database for finding out counters need to get that information fast, as they often look just before the fight starts.
We are happy to announce that we are introducing a new, streamlined, and particularly colourful best raid counters UI on every Pokémon. Don’t worry, the old tabular view is not going away, it has just been pushed down on the page a bit.
In addition to the new UI, we are introducing a new feature: group size estimation! The database will now try to recommend the minimal Trainer count required to defeat a boss, the optimal group size, and the “overkill” group size. Be aware that these are just estimations, and the database assumes that you are using a full team of a given Pokémon – ie. 6 Primal Groudon in this case. This is not perfect, nor is it always possible, so be aware of these limitations.
If you don’t want to simulate with Primal and Mega Pokémon, you can do so by changing the simulation settings, and turning off Primal and Mega Pokémon all together.
Best Pokémon per type lists now show more Pokémon, and have expanded functionality
When we initially built the Database, we made a silly assumption that our readers are only interested in “pure” best Pokémon of every type. Pure meaning Pokémon that have a particular typing, and both a fast and charge move of that type. This is not correct, and multiple readers told us that they want to see Pokémon that have a particular typing, and a charge move of that same type.
For example, Buzzwole with Counter Fighting and Fell Stinger Bug would never have appeared in our “Best Bug-types in Pokémon GO” list before this update. This was not intended, and our readers were right to point out that there are people who use Buzzwole as a Bug-type attacker. The same goes for multiple other Pokémon, like Ho-Oh with Incinerate/Brave Bird, Diancie with Rock Throw/Moonblast.
But that’s not all – you can now rank all Pokémon that have access to moves of a particular typing! For example, if you navigate to our list of Best Ice-type Attackers in Pokémon GO, you can see how non-Ice Pokémon that have Ice-type moves perform compared to all other Ice-types:
You can finally see how some of those “weird” Pokémon / moves combos rank compared to true type attackers, and the results are quite surprising. We knew that Ice Beam Mewtwo and Triple Axel Gardevoir were strong, but we had no idea how strong they are compared to Mamoswine and Weavile.
This functionality is active for all “Best Pokémon per type” lists.
Cosmetic and misc changes
There was also a handful of tuning and cosmetic changes we want you to be aware of.
Cosmetic changes
- Shadow Pokémon effect has been changed. Purple-tinted icons are gone, and a new purple flame background is active.
- Mega Pokémon now display the mega evolution symbol in the background
- All links should light up when hovered, regardless if they are textual or image links
Tuning changes
- Glass-cannon type Pokémon will be now ranked lower in counters and best per type lists. We have applied a penalty for Pokémon that faint more than 50 times in a fight, and an even stricter penalty for Pokémon that faint more than 100 times. This affects Pheromosa, Gengar and other squishy Pokémon
- Due to a problem with the new Shadow Pokémon background, Shadow Pokémon will no longer appear in the Who’s that Pokémon game.
(*) We are using integer-based versioning for our Database website. Every major release gets a number bump. We do not count the in-between bug fixes and patches towards version numbers. V1 was released back in 2017, V2, V3, and V4 over 2018-2022, and V5 is the major version we released the revamped database in September 2023.
