"[Analysis]Result of new move balance? Become casual."

#PokemonGO: Battling -> This is the one thing I care about. I don't care about biome diveristy/balancing. I don't care about catch mechanics. I don't care about the buddy system, avatar customization, Day or Night, Pokestop sponsors or anything else. I just want a fun and enjoyable battling game. At this point, I’m going to assume you [Niantic] just change numbers at random. It doesn’t seem like anyone within your company makes a spreadsheet and evaluates movesets. When you have such a simple battling system, it seems quite hard to create the imbalances I am seeing.TL;DR - move balance takes away distinct offensive/defensive movesets, screws a lot of Pokemon that used to be good, and shifts the meta even closer to bland uniformity.For a list of the movepools and DPS changes, see TSR's inforgraphic. Gamepress also has an updated list that shows energy generation/energy use for quick/charge moves.Now without further ado, here is the big problem with the new moveset re-balance:Offensive vs Defensive movesPreviously, though shallow the meta was, there was a clear distinction between optimal offensive and defensive quick attacks. Offensive quick attacks tended to have quick animation durations with good energy gain. Defensive quick attacks did more damage but were slower, and thus had worse overall DPS. But having lower DPS didn't matter, because the AI doesn't use moves as often as possible. Thus, the gym AI did more damage with lengthy, but meaty, quick attacks than with short, but low power, moves (bite, water gun, dragon breath, etc.)DPS is now king. In almost all cases, Moves that deal more damage are simply better overall moves. The duration for every existing attack was lengthened, and the enegy generation per use was decreased for most moves as well. As a result, moves like Confusion, which deals 20 damage in 2.1 seconds, is better than Zen Headbutt, which deals 12 damage in 1.55 seconds. Confusion has a higher DPS on offense or defense. Zen Headbutt has better EPS, 6.45 vs. 4.76, but it is still extremely low energy generation.Have you recently evolved an Espeon? Well if you got ZH instead of Confusion, you are SOL. After all the data I looked at, I was able to create a ranking:Confusion/Futuresight - 100%Confusion/Psychic - 94%Confusion/Psybeam - 92%Zen Headbutt/Psybeam - 69%Zen Headbutt/Futuresight - 65%Zen Headbutt/Psychic - 64%That is the ranking of the best offensive moves for Espeon. What does the defensive ranking look like? Here it is:Confusion/Futuresight - 100%Confusion/Psybeam - 100%Confusion/Psychic - 94%Zen Headbutt/Psybeam - 56%Zen Headbutt/Futuresight - 48%Zen Headbutt/Psychic - 48%Guess what Dragonite’s new best offensive moveset is (excluding legacy movesets)…Steel Wing/Outrage. Guess what Dragonite’s best defensive moveset is (not excluding legacy moves)…Steel Wing/Outrage. What about Snorlax? Well if you got a Lick/Body Slam Snorlax before Gen II launched (it can’t learn BS anymore), you have the best offensive and defensive moveset as well.And Vaporeon? Water Gun/Aqua Tail is best for both. Despite the homogenization of attack/defense moves, you’d think at least the power gap would have been closed between a Pokemon’s best and worse moveset, but look no further than Espeon.Glass Cannons vs TanksBecause every move takes longer to perform, your ability to dodge is severely hampered. This hurts fragile, but powerful attackers. Because now formerly powerful moves like Psycho Cut are extremely weak, Confusion is better but it takes 2.1 seconds to perform, leaving Alakazam vulnerable to being pulverized by the AI defender. Alakzam's short-lived usability as a glass cannon has plummeted. Jolteon's Thunder Shock delivers a measly 6 damage in 1.1 seconds (5.45 DPS)...Meanwhile in VapeNation, our resident water god's quick move still sits high on the the DPS list. Water Gun's base power was increased with the animation length, so it is still doing a respectable 10 DPS (base 10 power in 1 second animation). Thunder Shock generates 8.18 energy per second, and Water Gun generates 6 energy. Slightly more energy per second, for nearly half the damage -> Seems fair.Expect to see frail Pokemon get absolutely punished by the slow animation times. Defenders are doing more damage than ever before with the newly beefed up charge moves. Meanwhile you will struggle to both land your attacks and avoid damage with delicate but powerful Attackers like Gengar, Alakazam, Espeon, and Flareon who all learn powerful, but fairly slow quick moves. Gengar's new move, Hex, takes 1.2 seconds to use which means you won't be able to use it more than once before you need to dodge (and Gengar really needs to dodge to be usable).Charge move energy changesYou may have noticed that many 2 bar charge moves are now 1 bar moves, or 3/4 bar moves are now 2 bar moves. This has a profound effect on the meta. Especially considering how weak quick moves are now in comparison to charge moves.1 bar vs 2 bars. Previously, 1 bar moves usually had the DPS advantage, while 2 bar moves gave you more flexibility in terms of dodging as well as not wasting energy generation, since energy overflowed into the next bar.2 bars are better. In most cases, 2/3 bar moves will now be outright better than their 1 bar counterparts. Because the base power for many 2 bar moves has increased enormously. Here is an example:Thunder now is one of the highest DPS moves in the game. It still has base 100 power, but the animation duration was decreased to 2.4 seconds, which means it is doing 41.67 DPS. However looking at DPS over 2.4 seconds isn't an accurate portrayal of how a battle plays out. Remember that in every battle you spend most of the time using your quick move. Now with Thunderbolt, you are doing 80 damage in 2.5 seconds, which is a lower DPS. BUT, you have 2 uses of that move for the same 100 energy that Thunder is using. What results? 2 Jolteons, both charge 100 energy using Thunder Shock. Jolteon1 uses Thunder, does 100 damage in 2.4 seconds. Jolteon2 uses Thunderbolt, does 80 damage in 2.5 seconds. Then you use Thunderbolt again, cumulatively doing 160 damage in 5 seconds. In order to catch up, Jolteon1 must now do 60 damage in 2.6 seconds, which is impossible to do with a move as weak as Thunder Shock. In that period of time you can use Thunder Shock twice, and do 12 damage in 2.2 seconds.The effects of the move balanceYou might think that the re-balance has made some movesets/Pokemon more usable, and to an extent that is true. But it has absolutely trashed other Pokemon.Did you power up a Psycho Cut/Psychic Alakazam? Formerly #1 for damage output, it is now utterly outclassed by so many Pokemon/Movesets. Power up a Vine Whip/Solar Beam or Vine Whip/Petal Blizzard Venusaur to use against Vapes? Well VW is incredibly weak, and Petal Blizzard isn't even close to Solar Beam now. VW/PB used to do ~95% of the damage that VW/SB did...but after the change...VW/PB does an abysmal 78% of the damage of Razor Leaf/Solar Beam. I have put so much dust and candy into formerly strong Pokemon which are now either sub-optimal or outright useless. Given the fact Niantic can just make sweeping changes anytime they like, you can never have confidence when investing resources into a moveset.Further, many of the top Pokemon typically have 1 or 2 movesets that are good for both offense and defense, which ruins diversity in my opinion. Add to the fact that many powerful attackers are now much closer in DPS to more durable dual-purpose or straight-up defensive type Pokemon, and you will see people continue to use the same Pokemon for attacking and holding gyms.Take Away:If you still intend to tryhard gyms, then:Look for quick moves with the highest DPS output, because they will outperform other moves since the energy generation difference is likely to be negligible (Hex is an exception, EPS is high enough to be better than the higher DPS Shadow Claw). Razor Leaf is better on offense and defense than Vine Whip. Fire Spin is better on offense/defense than Ember. Confusion is better on offense/defense than Psycho Cut or Zen Headbutt. Etc.When available, STAB moves that have 2/3 bars are likely better than 1 bar moves, both giving you more room to dodge, and doing more damage. Of course there are some 1 bar moves with very high damage output, like Overheat and Solar Beam, that are clearly better than multi-bar alternatives. But where you see multi-bar moves that, when all 100 energy is used, significantly exceed the damage output of a comparable 1 bar move, it is a safe bet that the multi-bar move is better.Personally, I think I'm throwing in the towel and going casual. I just don't have it in me to farm candy/dust to re-roll and power up new movesets. I'm just a dex-jockey now, no more gyms for meEDIT: Things I would power upOffense:Dragonite with Dragon BreathMachamp with Counter/Dynamic Punch or Close CombatCharizard with Air Slash/OverheatFlareon with Fire Spin/Overheat or Fire Blast (if you don't have Charizard which I think is overall better for taking out Grass types due to having a double resistance to grass)Tyranitar with Bite/Crunch or Stone EdgeUrasring with Counter/Hyper BeamExeggutor with Extrasensory/Solar BeamVictreebel or Vileplume with Razor Leaf/Solar Beam, RL/Leaf Blade(Victree only)Defense:Blissey, or something with higher CP than BlisseyPSA: Scyther with Air Slash/X-Scissor is stronger than any version of Scizor -__- via /r/pokemongo http://ift.tt/2kW89ox