The Legacies of "Pokémon GO" III Quiz

Answer: Machamp

In the early going of the game, Submission was the only Fighting type charged move in the game. It was so laughably awful that Machamp's performance against Fighting weak threats was being outperformed by Pokémon lacking type advantages against them. Vaporeon wasn't just better at beating Rock types, it was even better at beating Dark, Ice and Steel than Machamp was, for example.

Fortunately, the second generation came with it access to Dynamic Punch, a move which was quite brilliant and enabled Machamp to become a mainstay in raiding lineups for the following three and a half years of play.

Answer: Shadow Ball

Shadow Ball made Mewtwo into the best attacker in pretty much any context, anywhere, allowing it to be introduced to the game as a whole with a bang.

Apart from the aforementioned impact on community everyday life, it also actually had quite the economic impact as well; the popular online merchant EBay reports that, from the years 2017-2019, when Shadow Ball Mewtwo was briefly released again, independent sellers sold a single Shadow Ball Mewtwo at an average of $43.29 apiece!

Mewtwo was still a perfectly fine Pokémon, with or without Shadow Ball, but Shadow Ball was head and shoulders better than anything else it could muster; this was key in an era that favored moves with strong parameters over specialist moves that covered a specific typing more.

Answer: Fire Punch

Fire Punch is a fast charged move, sporting an early damage window. It sadly was not useful for Groudon in Player-Versus-Environment settings such as raids or attacking gyms due to lacking STAB and not being particularly strong. Still, the move is great in PvP, where it's low energy requirement in tandem with Mud Shot's high energy generation make the move very spammable.

Answer: Hyper Beam

Zapdos got the fast move Thundershock, Moltres received Sky Attack for a charged move and Articuno got the charged move Hurricane. Thundershock was a huge upgrade over Charge Beam for Zapdos' fast move, Sky Attack turned Moltres into an elite Flying type attacker, but Articuno was shafted as Hurricane did next to nothing for it. None of them would have benefitted in the slightest had they received Hyper Beam.

Answer: Snorlax

Snorlax with Yawn was released as an event where it became an incredibly common wild encounter, where it would always have this move upon being caught. As Yawn can only ever do a single point of damage upon being used and has horrible energy generation, it is obviously dramatically inferior to any other fast move option Snorlax ever has or ever will have, including options like Zen Headbutt for gym defending or Lick for PvP settings.

Answer: Lick

Lick is a highly competitive fast move with Shadow Claw; the main difference is that the former is weaker but allows Gengar to reach its charged moves faster with superior energy generation. For a Pokémon so incredibly frail, firing off as many charged moves as possible before kicking the bucket is prudent, giving Lick the upper hand over Shadow Claw, and being considerably superior to any other option Gengar might have.

Answer: Drill Run

To be quite frank, Seaking's stats are really poor all around, so no amount of moves it could get given or taken away can seriously change this and make it a good Pokémon. Still, getting a STAB move better than the uninspiring Water Pulse would've been helpful. Instead, Niantic has given and taken away random moves, with the non STAB Drill Run being one of such options.

Answer: Grass Knot

Grass Knot is useless in any sort of PvE setting, and to be fair, it is not in anyway mandatory for a Cresselia in PvP, making the process of seeking one out to be arguably more trouble than its worth. Still, a Cresselia with the move can make for a good answer to Rock, Ground and Water types, allowing it to patch up a hole on a team weak to these threats.

Answer: Earthquake

Being resisted by Grass types used to counter it and lacking STAB, there really hasn't ever been a reason to equip Politoed with Earthquake, apart from the novelty of having the move. It's also not useful despite hitting Electric types hard, as the move is slow and easy to dodge on defense.

Answer: Ampharos

With no Dragon type fast move, even when Mega Ampharos was released, the lack of a synergistic fast move still made Dragon Pulse unusable. To say nothing of the move's fairly meager parameters and Mega Ampharos' lowly attacking stat.