Kingler is Now a Powerhouse in Pokemon Go

A relatively common and mostly forgotten Pokemon is now a top-tier attacker in Pokemon Go. [...]

By Christian Hoffer

A relatively common and mostly forgotten Pokemon is now a top-tier attacker in Pokemon Go. Yesterday, Pokemon Go launched its annual Water Festival event, which focuses on Water-type Pokemon. While much of fans' attention was on the new Shiny Pokemon and other bonuses, Pokemon Go also quietly shook up its metagame with the introduction of the Charged Move Crabhammer. Crabhammer is a Charged Move with a base attack of 85 and two charge bars - which means that it doesn't take too long to charge up for an attack. Only two Pokemon can learn Crabhammer - Kingler and Crawdaunt - and the new move gives both Pokemon a level of unexpected relevancy in Pokemon Go's metagame.

A Crabhammer Kingler now dishes out the most damage per second (DPS for short) of any Water-type attacker in Pokemon Go. DPS is a critical stat in Pokemon Go as it tells players how much bang they can get for their attacking buck. While the Legendary Pokemon Kyogre has sat on top of the Water-type charts basically since the Pokemon was added to the game, it now finds itself in second place due to the Crabhammering power of Kingler.

Because Kingler has lower Defense and Stamina stats than Kyogre, Kyogre still has an edge of Kingler in terms of Total Damage Output (TDO), the stat that calculates how much damage a Pokemon can do before it gets knocked out. However, Crabhammer Kingler still has a decent TDO - it has the third-highest TDO among all Water-type Pokemon. And unlike Kyogre, which takes a ton of Candies and Stardust to power up to an acceptable level, Kingler is a relatively cheap Pokemon as Krabby remains a relatively common Pokemon in the game.

Thanks to Crabhammer, Kingler is now the Water-type equivalent of Gengar, a Pokemon that can do a lot of damage but has a tendency of getting knocked out fast. However, many veteran Pokemon Go players can easily build up a team of Kingler Shock troops, ready to dish out a ton of damage in a raid in a short amount of time.

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