Battling in Pokemon Go Has Been Overhauled

Battling in Pokemon Go used to be pretty simple. You'd show up to the gym, prep a lineup with your strongest Pokemon, and then tap your screen as quickly as you could. You were probably unstoppable, especially if you had a few Vaporeons on your team, and you never bothered to learn how to use the charge attack because it was a waste of time.

That's how battling used to be, as Pokemon Go retooled its battling system yesterday to make the game a lot more competitive and balanced. Along with changing what Pokemon came out of Pokemon nests, Pokemon Go developers also changed the strength of certain attacks, making certain charge attacks much more powerful and weakening most "quick" attacks. Most of the strongest attacks in the game like Hyper Beam and Solar Beam have nearly doubled in power, giving players additional incentive to use charge attacks.

The folks over on /r/TheSilphRoad, a Reddit community that tracks and follows Pokemon Go, analyzed all of the new attack strengths and came up with a few conclusions. While "Body Slam" used to be the most effective attack in the game (as it could dish out a whopping 32.1 points of damage per second), the fighting move "Cross Chop" is now the most effective move as "Body Slam" has been moderately weakened.

Power moves like Solar Beam, Hyper Beam, and Thunder are now significantly more effective and efficient to use, while quick moves like Psycho Cut, Mud Shot, and Water Gun have all been nerfed to discourage players from "spamming" their quick move and neglecting their charge moves.

So what does this mean for Pokemon Go players? Well, the new balancing of moves means that type advantages and strategy are a lot more important when trying to take a gym. If your top Pokemon is going up against a defender that has a type advantage, you might want to dodge instead of just trying to speed through the battle.

Between the changes to the battling system and the new Pokemon nests, it seems that Niantic is trying to find a way to keep experienced Pokemon Go players engaged.