GO Battle League: Ultra League Pokemon you may not have thought of
Pokemon CompanyWith Pokemon Go trainers relentlessly trying to gain an edge over one another in GO Battle League, it may be time to look at some species outside the familiar faces. Here’s some alternative Pokemon to use in GBL Ultra League.
You’ll be hard pushed to find teams without the likes of Giratina, Togekiss, Swampert, or Charizard. These along with a few others are resounding best Pokemon to use in GO Battle Ultra League.
With so much of the same, though, it may take some alternative picks to really gain an advantage. Here we list some Pokemon that you may not have considered without sacrificing on their ability to win.
BulbapediaAlolan Muk
The Alolan form of Muk has a huge advantage over its normal counterpart. Due to its dual typing of dark and poison it goes from being weak to psychic attacks to actually resistant to them. It also gains resistance to dark-type attacks. This leaves its only weakness as ground-types. It is also great for the Ultra League as its max CP is just above the 2,500 limit. It also comes out on top against both forms of Giratina and Togekiss – making it a very useful Pokemon to have.
This is some debate about which of its Fast Moves are better. That is between Poison Jab, a poison-type move (who’d have guessed) and Snarl, a dark-type move. The latter has higher energy generation but deals nearly as little as half the damage of Poison Jab. Their effectiveness doesn’t really help draw a conclusion either, as Snarl is useful against the widely picked ghost and psychic-types whereas Poison Jab is effective against fairy and grass.
As Poison Jab is weak against a greater variety of types though, a lot of trainers will argue Snarl is the way to go. Poison type moves are also doubly ineffective against steel – something that’s certainly worth noting.
BulbapediaSnorlax
The infamous sleeping Pokemon has some of the best bulk in the entirety of Pokemon Go. As species with such impressive stamina go, Snorlax has relatively decent attack, too. With its CP maxing out at 3,225, it’s not too expensive to get it to the Ultra League limit either. As a normal-type it is doubly resistant to ghost attacks and weak against fighting. Snorlax has two Fast Moves – Lick and Zen Headbutt. Lick is by far the better option here as it has both better damage and energy generation. Zen Headbutt does counteract his fighting weakness, though.
Choosing between Charge Moves is much harder, however. The obvious choice is Body Slam due to its very low energy requirement. It should be noted, that as a normal-type move it is super effective against nothing and particularly weak against ghost Pokemon. Assuming we stick with Body Slam then, which you should, the next question becomes which of Earthquake and Outrage should you use. That’s assuming you decide to invest in teaching it a second move.
Earthquake hits a bit harder and is super effective against a lot of types and therefore is probably the better choice. Outrage, however, is an excellent move to counter Giratina – and we all know how annoying the Renegade Pokemon can be.
Pokemon FandomClefable
With Ultra League playing host to a lot of dark and dragon types, it can’t hurt to have a fairy-type – especially one as as bulky as Clefable. The aptly named ‘Fairy Pokemon’ is Giratina’s kryptonite but more importantly super resistant to the much used Dragon Claw. Not only is it resistant to these attacks, fairy-types moves are strong against the, giving them next to no chance in battle. Avoid encounters with poison and steel types and you’ll be looking good.
Charm is Clefable’s clear best choice for its Fast Move. The fairy-type move takes advantage of same attack type bonus (STAB) and makes the most of why you’re using Clefable in the first place – its strength against otherwise annoying Pokemon to defeat. Dazzling Gleam and Moonblast are both powerful fairy-type moves, each costing 70 energy. However, with Charm already in play, another fairy-type isn’t essential.
Meteor Smash and Psychic cost 50 and 55 energy respectively, and give you effective options against ice, rock and fellow fairy-types. Psychic is also strong against one of Clefable’s weaknesses – poison. Unfortunately, no matter what moves you’re using you’ll always be susceptible to steel-types, so bare that in mind.
The Pokemon CompanyGyarados
There’s a lot of reasons to have Gyarados in your Ultra League team, and at the very least have one available. It may require a bit of investment in terms of time or Rare Candy to get those 400 Magikarp candies, but it’s worth it. Fortunately, once you get one it shouldn’t take too much Stardust to get it to the 2,500 CP limit – around level 27. Gyarados has excellent all round stats, which makes it appealing in its own-right.
What’s more is its dual flying and water typing limits its vulnerability while increasing its resistance. It’s super effective against water-types and only has two weaknesses in electric and rock. Electric will decimate Gyarados, so avoid at all costs. On paper Dragon Breath is its best Fast Move with 4 damage per turn and 3 energy generation. Waterfall deals the same damage but does have STAB to boost it up. Its energy generation is ever so slightly less.
Waterfall also provides an advantage against fire, ground and rock but is also weaker against other water-types, grass and dragon. Many will argue Dragon Breath is the superior move but given you’ll likely have dragon-type moves elsewhere, we’d side with Waterfall. The good thing about running Waterfall is it means you can avoid the juicy Hydro Pump. Slow charging moves in PvP are hit and miss if your opponent is managing their Protect Shields well.
Instead you can the dark-type Crunch or the dragon-type Outrage (or both!). The latter has much better damage per energy but Crunch is 25% quicker to generate.
There are, of course, plenty of other Pokemon to consider for GO Battle Ultra League but these four are all very good for their own reasons.