Hyper Beam > every other move?

Question

Slaking using Hyper Beam, after STAB, has 225 power if I'm not mistaken, and if you use a supereffective move like Earthquake against an Electric type, gives it 2x power, making it's power 200. So, as long as your target is not resistant to Normal type attacks, is it not always best to use Hyper Beam over any other attack? (Unless the target has double weakness to another type of attack in your arsenal, ie. Hammer Arm on Weaville)

Comments

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fizz im talking about

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One thing you might want to consider is that after using most moves, you can have Slaking switch out on what would be the Truant turn to obtain a better matchup, while Hyper Beam and Giga Impact force you to wait through the recharge turn (which is subsumed into the Truant turn) before you're allowed to switch. Particularly if your move gets a KO and they bring out a threatening setup sweeper, that inability to switch can really come back to bite you, and it's proof enough that Hyper Beam/Giga Impact are not *entirely* without their drawbacks just because you're using Slaking.

Answer 1

Before I answer your main question, I'll quickly address a couple of things you mentioned that technically aren't accurate. The first is that STAB doesn't multiply the base power of the move as you suggest, at least not directly. STAB is part of a separate calculation that is later multiplied with the main calculation, where base power is considered. More detail and the exact formulas are available on Bulbapedia, though in practise this only makes a difference of one or two HP points, so it's fine to use for comparison as you have done. Just keep it in mind!

I'll also quickly make sure that you're talking about Giga Impact as opposed to Hyper Beam. Unless you're playing a Generation 3 game, Hyper Beam works according to Slaking's much worse Special Attack stat and will be weaker than a lot of different moves on Slaking's physical side. Giga Impact is the same move except physical, so I'll assume that's what you meant in this answer.

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So to finally address your question: no, Giga Impact is not always Slaking's best move, but it does come very close. Excluding moves that hit for 4x or 0.5x damage, there are only two moves in Slaking's learnset that will ever hit for more damage than Giga Impact, both occasions involving a super effective attack of course. Those moves are Gunk Shot and Focus Punch, which have 120 and 150 base power respectively. If we use the rough comparison with the base power, Gunk Shot produces 240 base power on a super effective hit and Focus Punch 300. Nothing else in Slaking's physical movepool is above base 113 power, which is the amount required to beat Giga Impact after STAB.

According to some numbers from Pokemon Showdown's damage calculator, Gunk Shot will deal about 7% more damage than Giga Impact on average, depending on the precise stats involved in the calculation. Focus Punch will average about 34% more damage, so Giga Impact is a ways off the highest output possible, though of course you'll only be using Focus Punch in very select scenarios. Even Gunk Shot is not included on Slaking's standard set for competitive, so in practise neither of these moves matter very much, and Slaking's strongest attack on its standard competitive set will in fact be Giga Impact apart from when it does 4x or 0.5x damage.

Damage calculations used to get these figures:

252 Atk Slaking Giga Impact vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Rapidash: 382-450 (140.9 - 166%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Slaking "113 base power physical Ground move" vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Rapidash: 384-452 (141.6 - 166.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0 Atk Slaking Giga Impact vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Glalie: 292-345 (97 - 114.6%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
0 Atk Slaking Focus Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Glalie: 390-460 (129.5 - 152.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0 Atk Slaking Giga Impact vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Azumarill: 292-345 (85.3 - 100.8%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
0 Atk Slaking Gunk Shot vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Azumarill: 314-370 (91.8 - 108.1%) -- 50% chance to OHKO

You can see in the calculation with Azumarill that even the small bit of extra power Gunk Shot has matters quite a lot, with the chance of an OHKO reaching 50% as opposed to 6%.

Comments

Awesome. Thano you so much for taking the time to write this answer. With what you wrote and the links you provided, I think you've answered any question I've ever had about the game. I haven't been playing too long, so I don't have a full understanding of the mechanics, so this helps a ton.

ThanKS again.

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Hey, that's awesome to hear. I'm glad the answer was so helpful! Fortunately these are tons of resources online for Pokemon mechanics once you know where to look, so you can become familiar with them pretty quickly.

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This is kind of late, but giga impact prevents Slaking from switching out on the next turn. I think you should use return or frustration whenever they're enough to defeat the opponent, so you can switch out if the opponent tries to revenge-kill Slaking.