"Evaluating Charge Moves: Energy per Second and lost Quick Attack damage."

#PokemonGO: Edit: the methodology is still sound, but some of the comments below have mentioned that Quick Attacks cast times on defense aren't 2s, but instead an extra 1.5s-2.5s is added instead. I've redone the Defensive tables with an average added cast time of 2s to both Quick Attacks and Charge Attacks. Thanks to everyone who posted about it.So, I keep replying to questions about movesets and I think this is worth a post of its own. Many people don't understand why some Charge Moves are rated more highly than others and I want to present some factors that are often being missed in posts.Firstly, when evaluating Charge Moves, don't forget about Damage per Energy (DPE). It's easiest to think about how much damage you get for every 100 energy. A simple way is to just muliply the damage by the number of bars a move has. However, the more time you spend using your charge move, the less time you spend using your resource-free Quick Attack, which leads me to the second point: Oppotunity Cost. This is often what makes one bar Charge Moves like Hydro Pump and Solar Beam better than multi-bar moves, especially if you have a high DPS Quick Move like Water Gun.I'll use the example of Vaporeon and the information at http://ift.tt/2aYAaq6 We calulate the total damage that each Charge Move produces for every 100 Energy. Now, while Vaporeon is using its Charge Move, it can't use it's amazing Water Gun Quick Attack of 14 TrueDPS. To figure how much lost Water Gun damage we have per 100 energy, we can just multiply its DPS by the total time it takes to use 100 energy per Charge Move:MoveTrueDPSTotalTimeChargeDamage per 100EOppotunity Cost (WaterGunDPS * TotalTime)ChargeDamage per 100EAqua Tail22.552.35*2 = 4.7s106-65.840.2Hydro Pump27.633.80s105-53.251.8Water Pulse12.423.30*4 = 13.2s164-184.8-20.8So we can see that Water Pulse sucks for attack, although we knew that already just based off its DPS. Aqua Tail's DPS was about 80% of Hydro Pump, but because of its total casting time being longer, it actually only produces about 77% of the Hydro Pump's damage due to lost Water Gun time.So, why is Water Pulse so much better on Defense that it becomes the preferred move? Because on Defense, Pokemon only use their Quick Attack every 2s so the lost Water Gun damage matters less. Water Gun does 7 damage every 2 seconds, so it's Defensive DPS is actually 3.5 DPS.MoveChargeDamage per 100ETotal CastTimeOpp Cost (WGunDPS * ChargeCastTime)ChargeDamageAqua Tail106(2.35+2)*3 = 4.7s-16.45106-16.45 = 89.5Hydro Pump1053.8s-13.3105-13.3 = 91.7Water Pulse1643.30*4 = 13.2s-46.2164-46.2 = 117.8Edit: if the below commenters are correct and cast time is actually, +2s rather than a flat 2s, then Water Gun DPS would be: (14*.5)/(.5+2) = 2.8 dps. Cast times of Charge moves also have 2s added. The conclusion is still the same, but the numbers will be slightly different.MoveChargeDamage per 100ETotal CastTimeOpp Cost (WGunDPS * ChargeCastTime)ChargeDamageAqua Tail106(2+2.35)*2 = 8.7s-24.36106-24.36 = 81.64Hydro Pump1052+3.8s = 5.8s-16.24105-16.24 = 88.74Water Pulse164(2+3.30)*4 = 21.2s-59.36164-59.36 = 104.64You can see, even though you lose a substantial chunk of Water Gun damage due to the lengthy total cast time of Water Pulse, the extra Water Pulse damage more than makes up for it because Defenders only use Water Gun every 2s instead of 0.5s.This is purely numbers based, and doesn't include qualifiers like dodgability, wasted overkill potential, unpredictabilty, etc but everyone can use the numbers to weigh their personal preferences against. Please comment if I've made an incorrect assumption or missed a mechanic or something.Assumptions:Pokemon can't use their Quick Attack while using their Charge Attack.Defensive Pokemon use Quick Attacks every 2 seconds many comments below indicate it's actually +2s average. I've made new tables with this values.The way I calculate damage per attack is correct i.e. DPS / Casttime(what Gamepress calls cooldown).The way I calculate damage per attack is correct for defense (Gamepress has just added Defensive DPS to their database, but I'm still not sure how they come to these figures).Defensive Pokemon have an energy bar that works like it does on attack (limit of 100) /u/Violent_Milk has mentioned that the cap is 200. This shouldn't affect the results.Defensive Pokemon won't "waste energy" by continuing to Quick Attack if they are capped at 100 energy.Missing Factors:Initial double Quick Attacks from Defenders at the start of a match.Energy gain due to damage taken (means DPE becomes more important).Lost Energy gain due to time spent Charge Attacking instead of Quick Attacking (means lower cast time becomes more important).This was getting long, so I'll add that you can also use this to better weigh up the effects of typing on the effectiveness of your Pokemon. For example, with Poliwrath, you might think that Ice Punch is a great defensive Charge Move to counter the likely Grass attacker. However, because Bubble is such a strong Quick Move on Defense, Hydro Pump still ends up being better.http://ift.tt/2dEDBIY, but with Poliwrath, Bubble does more DPS than Mud Shot on defense, no matter what the typing. Bubble even does more DPS than Ice Punch unless the attacker is weak to Ice, in which case it's about the same. Assuming constant 2s attack speed:Bubble on defense = 14.5 dps. We can skew all the water attacks NVE with x0.8 modifier which gives Bubble 11.6 dps. We give Ice Punch VE x1.25 modifier, and leave Submission at neutral.For every 100 energy cycle:MoveBase DamModDamCast TimeLost Bubble DamTotalHPump1020.881.63.8-4481.6-44 = 37.6Sub34*3 = 10211022.1*3 = 6.3-73102-73 = 29IceP41*3 = 1231.251543.5*3 = 10.5-121154-121 = 33That means, even against Leaf types, Hydro Pump is better than Ice Punch and Submission. If an attacker chose a type that was weak to Fight but strong against Water then Submission would be better (29 damage becomes 54 damage per 100 energy), but I don't think that typing exists. Closest are the Rock/Water types (Omastar/Kabutops), which Water is neutral against, meaning Bubble does 14.5 dps instead, so the total Submission damage per 100 energy would be 36. Lower than a neutral Hydro Pump, which would be 58 damage per 100 energy instead.Someone might still prefer Submission over Hydro Pump because of the 3-bar advantages (dodge difficulty, unpredictability, less overkill), but that's a personal judgement call about how much that's worth for the lost damage.(This isn't including lost energy generation, which would make HydroPump slightly better).Edit: if the below commenters are correct and cast time is actually, +2s rather than a flat 2s, then Bubble DPS would be: (12.61*2.3)/(2.3+2) = 6.74dps. NVE would be 5.39dps. 2s cast time has also been added to Charge Moves:MoveBase DamModDamCast TimeLost Bubble DamTotalHPump1020.881.62+3.8= 5.8-31.2681.6-31.26= 50.34Sub34*3= 1021102(2+2.1)*3= 12.3-66.3102-66.3= 35.7IceP41*3= 1231.25154(2+3.5)*3= 16.5-88.935154-88.935= 65This means that Ice Punch is a better Defensive move against a Grass attacker. Although if the attacker were neutral to Ice, Ice Punch would be 123-(5.39*16.5) = 34.06, worse than Submission!To make this post even longer, you could factor in energy generation/damage of Quick Moves to get an overall evaluation of Moveset. I was disappointed when I got Bite/Flash Cannon on my Blastoise, but when I calculated the defensive moveset I realised it was pretty good. In general I'd say just checking http://ift.tt/2coiU3x is the easiest thing to do. :) via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2dn3oma