"How Strong Must Ampharos' new charge move be to Make Ampharos Relevant?"

#PokemonGO: TL;DR: Ampharos would be possible to be a meta-relevant electric Pokemon, if equipped with a Frenzy-Plant-equivalent electric move.Does this title sound similar? Yes, because you have seen a similar post made by my buddy u/biowpn, but about the prediction of Frenzy Plant on Venusaur back then. And I have to give biowpn a big shoutout here, because without his support, I might have messed this Ampharos analysis up.First of all, let's briefly review the base stats of Ampharos, attack 211, defense 172, HP 180. His stats are all fairly above average, yet is not strong enough to be relevant in the electric type meta. What worsen things is his mediocre movesets, Charge Beam is not that bad thanks to its high eps, what messes Ampharos up in this game is the charge move, both Zap Cannon and Thunder are considered as second-tier moves, which further pushes this electric dragon away from the term "useful".Now, Mareep community day is on the horizon, would giving Ampharos a reasonably strong charge move be able to shake up the electric type meta, like what Venusaur did with the grass meta?According to the dps formula made by gamepress, I have made a DPS and TDO ranking for current relevant electric and grass types, including Zap Cannon Ampharos, assuming they are all level 40, and are attacking something with the same type effectiveness.DPS Current RankingRankPokemonMovesDPS1RaikouThunder Shock/Wild Charge11.162ZapdosCharge Beam/Thunderbolt10.293JolteonThunder Shock/Thunderbolt9.864JolteonThunder Shock/Discharge9.735VenusaurVine Whip/Frenzy Plant9.6166SceptileFury Cutter/Leaf Blade9.457SceptileBullet Seed/Leaf Blade9.388ExeggutorBullet Seed/Solar Beam8.799AmpharosCharge Beam/Zap Cannon7.80TDO Current RankingRankPokemonMovesTDO1RaikouThunder Shock/Wild Charge305837.292ZapdosCharge Beam/Thunder Shock254342.263VenusaurVine Whip/Frenzy Plant223846.104ExeggutorBullet Seed/Solar Beam194805.415JolteonThunder Shock/Thunderbolt192836.326JolteonThunder Shock/Discharge190378.737SceptileFury Cutter/Leaf Blade178396.148AmpharosCharge Beam/Zap Cannon177695.769SceptileBullet Seed/Leaf Blade176991.14From the above two ranking, we can see a Zap Cannon Ampharos is not great at all.What would be the exclusive move?Let's do a little prediction of what the exclusive charge move is gonna be. Among Ampharos' learnset by leveling up in Gen 6 games, there are two possible candidates for becoming the Community Day's exclusive charge move, Discharge and Electro Ball. For TM moves, Ampharos can also learn Thunderbolt. As for tutor moves, Electroweb and Shockwave are the only two damage-dealing moves, so they can also be possibilities. I will assume Ampharos will either get Discharge or an entirely new move, for now I will call this new move Electro Ball.Let's talk about discharge (and thunderbolt) firstDPS RankPokemonLevel7Zapdos308Sceptile(BS)409Jolteon3010Exeggutor4011Venusaur3012Ampharos (D)4015Ampharos (D)3017Ampharos (ZC)40TDO RankPokemonLevel3Raikou304Venusaur405Zapdos306Ampharos (D)407Exeggutor40At level 40, a Discharge Ampharos would have a higher TDO than a level 40 Solar Beam Exeggutor. And at level 30, a Discharge Ampharos would have an even better DPS than a level 40 Zap Cannon Ampharos.Discharge is indeed an improvement, but not enough to make Ampharos relevant, the same case can be applied to Thunderbolt too. In terms of DPS, a level 40 Discharge Ampharos is not better than a level 30 Frenzy Plant Venusaur, a level 30 Jolteon (both charge move), and the level 30 electric legendaries. TDO-wise, a level 40 Discharge is still worse than level 30 Legendaries and level 40 Frenzy Plant Venusaur, for a non-legendary it is a pretty good ranking, but a Discharge/Thunderbolt Ampharos is definitely not enough to shake up the meta.What if Electro Ball (the new move) is exactly the electric-type Frenzy Plant?We all know Frenzy Plant is crazily good, which changes Venusaur’s standing in the meta. So, what about giving Ampharos a move that is exactly same as Frenzy Plant but electric type?DPS RankPokemonLevelDPS1Raikou4011.162Ampharos(EB)4010.413Zapdos4010.294Raikou3010.255Jolteon(TB)409.866Jolteon(D)409.737Venusaur409.618Ampharos(EB)309.559Sceptile(FC)409.4516Ampharos(D)408.68TDO RankPokemonLevelTDO1Raikou40305837.292Zapdos40254342.263Raikou30240884.714Ampharos(EB)40237138.815Venusaur40223846.106Zapdos30199676.757Ampharos(D)40197585.1011Ampharos(EB)30186474.9712Sceptile(FC)40178396.14Also mentioned by u/RyanoftheDay, at level 40, Ampharos with Electro Ball (Electric-type Frenzy Plant) would be able to defeat Zapdos to become the second best DPS among electric and grass types. At level 30, the DPS it deals is nearly as good as a level 40 Frenzy Plant Venusaur, while exceeding a level 40 Fury Cutter Sceptile. In terms of TDO, it is sandwiched between a level 30 Raikou and level 40 Frezny Plants Venusaur. Therefore, an electric-type frenzy plant would definitely make Ampharos replacing Jolteon as the strongest non-legendary electric type.How good should Electro Ball be to exceed Raikou as a two-bar charge move?PokemonlevelDPSTDOAmpharos (EB, 150dmg)4013.43305782.03Ampharos (EB, 110dmg)4011.17254432.35Raikou4011.16305837.29As the table shows, if Electro Ball is having 110 damage, Ampharos at level 40 would have greater DPS than Raikou, and if the damage is 150, Ampharos’ TDO would be on par with Raikou. This shows that, without a way too overpowered move, Ampharos is impossible to surpass Raikou.What if Electro Ball is a single bar charge move? How good has it to be in order to be relevant?When it comes to single-bar charge move, I want it to be ridiculously strong, let’s say it is an electric-type equivalent of Origin Pulse/ Precipice Blade, which has a cool down time for 1.7 secs and 130 damage power.PokemonLevelDPSTDORaikou4011.16305837.29Zapdos4010.29254342.26Ampharos (EB-OP 130dmg)409.32212340.79Jolteon(TB)409.86192836.32Jolteon(D)409.73190378.73A little disappointing, Electro Ball with the same power and cooldown of OP/PB can only enable Ampharos to be at the similar rank as Jolteon. But in some situation, Ampharos can outperform Jolteon because of the higher TDO. So how many more power is required to make Ampharos at least totally stronger than Jolteon?PokemonLevelDPSTDOAmpharos (EB-OP 130dmg)409.32212340.79Ampharos (EB-OP 140dmg)409.75222008.57Amapharos(EB-OP 150dmg)4010.17231676.36Jolteon(TB)409.86192836.32Zapdos4010.29254342.26So, the charge move needs to have 150 power and 1.7 sec of cooldown time to make Ampharos better, which the move would be outrageously OP.ConclusionAs the TL;DR says, if the upcoming exclusive move is new, it has to be a good, or even overpowered move in order to make Ampharos to be better than the current best non-legendary electric-type attacker, Jolteon. And there is nearly no chance that Ampharos can surpass Raikou, the electric king, unless Niantic goes nuts and releases an over-overpowered charge move, or suddenly releases Mega Ampharos. For attacking water type and compared to Frenzy Plant Venusaur, Ampharos could be able to outclass Venusaur if it also has an electric-type Frenzy Plant, thanks to its higher attack stat (211) than Venusaur’s (198). So, Ampharos can be a pretty great electric type attacker, but won’t be the best. via /r/TheSilphRoad https://ift.tt/2GT3VcW