USER GUIDES | Written by D.K. on July 07 2017Can Moltres be a good Raid Attacker in Pokémon GO?
Team Valor really lucked out with this update, because Niantic has graciously spared them the embarrassment of putting Moltres in a gym. The Fire Bird would have been utterly humiliated by Golem, who is proving to be a beast against most Legendaries.
Now that there’s more diversity in gyms, there is a better chance that you will be able to use a fire type like Moltres Super Effectively; I would keep an eye out for Exeggutor.
Moltres in Pokémon GO: overview
| STATS | Quick Moves | Charge Moves | |
|---|---|---|---|
| MAX CP | 3272 | Fire Spin | Overheat Fire Blast Heat Wave |
| ATK | 251 | ||
| STA | 180 | ||
| DEF | 184 | ||
With double weakness to rock, Moltres has a number of easily accessible counters, however, his incredibly high ATK and Max CP give him an edge over every Grass, Bug and Steel type.
Moltres as a Raider
Like Articuno, Moltres doesn’t have any useful matchups against Tier 3 raid bosses. But it does have one redeeming use.
Moltres is the highest DPS Fire type out of Gen I and II, and it will deal the highest Fire type DPS to Venusaur (Mewtwo will be the best overall, but more on that later).
As a much better version of Charizard, Moltres has a higher effective health, better damage output, and enjoys that double resistance to grass.
Moltres has an interesting relationship with Lapras. Fire types have some use here, because they resist Ice. Arcanine and Typhlosion, in particular, can perform rather well with Wild Charge and Solar Beam respectively (both Super Effective against Lapras).
Moltres does deal very respectable Neutral DPS, but because it is Flying it does take Neutral damage from Ice. Moltres does have to worry about Water moves, but overall it isn’t a bad choice for attacking into Lapras.
Side note
Check out this weird quirk of the game. In the main games, Super Effective is 2x damage, and Not Very Effective is ½ damage. Multiply them together, and you get 1. Previously in PoGo, Super Effective was 1.25x, and Not Very Effective was .8x. Multiply them together and you get 1. Well, now we have Super Effective dealing 1.4x damage, and Not Very Effective dealing .71x damage. Multiply them together and you get .994, which means that it isn’t quite Neutral.
Quick note on raids
The challenge of raiding is finding the balance between DPS and Total Damage Output. No, they aren’t the same thing. With raids, obviously you need to beat the clock, but you also need Pokemon that can survive long enough to win. This challenge is more apparent in smaller groups/lower level players.
If you have a Pokemon that deals damage very quickly, that’s good – but consider this: Attacker 1 deals 100 damage in 5 seconds, Attacker 2 deals 120 damage in 7 seconds. Attacker 1 has the higher DPS (20 vs 17), but Attacker 2 dealt more damage in its life (120 vs 100).
In extreme cases like Gengar, it may well deal the highest DPS to a given raid boss, but it may not contribute as much damage overall as Tankier, lower DPS attackers. In large groups, this doesn’t even matter, you can choose almost anything and win since the collective damage from 20 people is immense.
Not all Legendaries top the DPS charts, but they do represent a good combination of survivability and DPS, and can help you find that balance you need for Raiding when you don’t have a lot of players to rely on.
