Advanced Preparation For The Fire and Ice Event

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USER GUIDE | Submitted by DavidKSAWith the rumored Fire and Ice event approaching, I thought now would be a good time to examine how players can approach the event to prepare for the future. The obvious goal of Dex completion aside, here is what you should keep in mind during this event.

Saving Candy For Future Evolutions

Magmar, Sneasel, and Swinub all have evolutions in Gen IV. Magmar to Magmortar will probably cost 100 candies (typical 3 stage evolution: Magby-Magmar-Magmortar). Sneasel to Weavile, being a 2 stage evolutionary line, we’d expect to cost 50 candies. Swinub to Piloswine will probably be reduced to a 25 candy evolution, and Piloswine to Mamoswine will likely cost 100 candies.

Magmortar (Fire)

In the Gen I games, Magmar was outclassed by Charizard, Arcanine, Rapidash. It was never particularly good for a Fire type, and Game Freak understood this which is why they gave Magmar a much needed stat boost via a new evolution when Gen IV came out.

Out of all 7 Generations of Fire types, Magmortar will have the 2nd highest (non-legendary) CP, surpassing Gen I’s Flareon. Magmortar has 247 Attack, 186 Defense, 150 HP and a max 2980CP. It has a 1 point advantage in Attack over Flareon, with a higher effective health. Of course, game balance, the way base stats/CP is calculated, and other factors could change in the future. Regardless, Magmortar will probably be a decent Fire type attacker no matter what Niantic does to the game.

Weavile (Dark/Ice)

Weavile has the second highest attack stat out of all 7 Generations of Ice types (we’ll be discussing number 1 shortly). At 243 Attack, 182 Defense, 140 HP and a max 2815CP, Weavile could be a promising attacker into Dragonite (and other strong Dragon types that will be arriving in the future), and also has some flexibility on offense given that it is a Dark type as well. By the time Gen IV arrives, you may already have good Dragon type counters, but at the very least you may as well save 50 Sneasel candies for your Dex completion.

Mamoswine (Ice/Ground)

This is a significant evolution. If you think that being plagued by Swinubs is a bad thing, Gen IV will prove you wrong with the arrival of Mamoswine. Mamoswine has the highest non-legendary Attack stat out of all 7 Generations of Ice types (and 2nd highest including Legendaries), and the 2nd highest non-Legendary max CP. 247 Attack, 157 Defense, 220 HP with a max 3289CP – Mamoswine is going to be a monster, with the potential to deal massive damage combined with respectable bulk, better than that of Cloyster and Dewgong.

In a Gym system dominated by CP rankings, strong Dragon types will continue to dominate the meta:

  • Haxorus (3395CP – Gen V)
  • Hydreigon (3401CP – Gen V)
  • Salamence (3532CP – Gen III)
  • Goodra (3538CP – Gen VI)
  • Dragonite (3581CP – Gen I)
  • Garchomp (3823CP – Gen IV)

All of these Pokemon have a weakness to Ice, and this list doesn’t even include the Legendary Dragon types (which are numerous and overpowered). Ice types will remain highly relevant offensively, so I suggest you hoard your Swinub candies while you can.

Evolutions To Hold Off On

There a few (a lot) Pokemon that are redundant in the meta – meaning, there are better options currently available for their type. With respect to this event, consider this – if you need a Fire type, Flareon and Charizard and superior to Arcanine and Typhlosion. However, this may not always be the case in the future. Moves could be rebalanced, and new moves could be added to the game. Thus, unless you need these Pokemon to complete the Dex and cannot wait, I’d recommend holding off on evolving them, because they actually have decent stats and could perform better with an updated movepool.

Arcanine

Arcanine, even in the best case scenario (unlikely) of getting Fire Fang/Fire Blast, is still outperformed by Charizard and Flareon. Niantic may choose to add Overheat to Arcanine’s movepool, or they may implement other strong Fire types moves from the main games. Burn Up and Flare Blitz are very powerful Fire type charge moves that could make Arcanine better if they are added to its Pokemon Go movepool.

Typhlosion

Typhlosion is essentially a worse Charizard. Evolving one now serves no purpose, other than Dex completion. However, If you do choose to save your Cyndaquil candy, you may eventually have a chance to evolve a better outcome should new moves be added. Typhlosion can learn Burn Up and Flare Blitz. Also in its main series movepool, Typhlosion can learn two of the highest base power moves in the series, Blast Burn (exclusively learned by Fire type starters) and Eruption (Typhlosion’s signature move). Typhlosion has room to improve in the future, so I recommend not wasting your candies on a second-rate Charizard (which itself is still worse than Flareon).

Now there are obviously other Pokemon that fall into the redundant category (Ninetales, Magcargo, Dewgong, Rapidash, etc.), but Arcanine and Typhlosion have better base stats so they stand more to gain from better moves.

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Zeroghan
Zeroghanhttps://pokemongohub.net/
Zeroghan started the Hub in July 2016 and hasn't had much sleep since. A lover of all things Pokémon, web development, and writing.

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