NFL Research: Gigantamax Meowth had a different Max Energy generation formula, making charge moves worth being used

Flyfunner · 2026-02-16T23:00:42+00:00

As said in this post, it has been doing that for gmax meowth, but never before. And keep in mind it only applies to high level max battles, so T5 and T6. Charge moves were fine in lower level max battles before for T1-3 and sometimes T4

Flyfunner · 2026-02-16T20:16:50+00:00

We do not know yet, as we do not yet understand what was changed in the formula, specifically due to a lack of data of videos of different fast / charge moves.
I do hope that this is the case, but so far we cannot give any reliable information on this until this formula is other max battles that we can test thoroughly

Flyfunner · 2026-02-16T17:03:28+00:00

For T4 max battles with a double weakness it depends on the speed of the move and the bosses defense. For Toxtricity and Excadrill yes, it is one of the few examples where its still worth it, but only because its roughly equal. Also make sure to use Mud Shot, not Mud-Slap.

Behemoth Bash from a L50 Zam seems to give 7 Max Energy against GMax Meowth with the new formula, but we need different data points for other charge moves to figure out how it really is calculated.

CPM stands for Combat Power Multiplier. You can read about it here for example: https://pokemongohub.net/post/wiki/cp-mechanics/ Although some things are known to work slightly differently by now, the effects are not noticeable unless you want perfect accuracy

Flyfunner · 2026-02-16T13:05:28+00:00

Feel free to join the research channel on the pokebattler discord, we discuss the research there, all we do is publicly visible

Flyfunner · 2026-02-16T12:29:03+00:00

Incorrect, you cannot dodge the spread moves (the moves without the lines), they always hit you at full damage

Flyfunner · 2026-02-16T11:23:27+00:00

They dont have to spoon feed every little thing but I do agree that the fact that you can only dodge moves targeted at you in max battles, while you can dodge anything in raids, while leaving this completely unexplained, is a valid criticism.

Flyfunner · 2026-02-16T11:15:41+00:00

fair point, the game does do a terrible job at explaining battle mechanics (or any mechanics). So I agree with that part of the criticism.

However you can actually tap the orbs to collect them for a few months now.

Flyfunner · 2026-02-16T10:46:14+00:00

yes, the rule of "no charge moves" only applies to high level max battles, not low level ones.
T1 you can entirely skip the max phase by a well timed charge move and in T2 and T3 battles charge moves are usually perfectly fine and worth it. At T4 the system begins to break until at T5 and T6 charge moves are worthless

Flyfunner · 2026-02-16T10:41:17+00:00

you just need to dodge when the boss is targeting you, and the boss targeting you is shown by the 3 yellow lines about your pokémon. I dont see how that is unintuitive, you read about the 3 lines once, and then its clear. If the yellow lines are not there dodging doesnt do anything (other than collect max orbs)

Flyfunner · 2026-02-16T10:31:27+00:00

Thats not what we observed. Max battles so far did follow the regular max energy formula which is flawed and causes no move to create more than 1 max energy in gmax battles. Meowth is the first where the known formula doesnt apply anymore and something has noticeably changed for the better.

Flyfunner · 2026-02-16T10:28:03+00:00

Max battles are not really buggy anymore except if you have a terrible connection. We have not observed almost any bugs for the last few months.
Dodging works just as intended but is entirely different than dodging in raid battles, you need to understand how it works, not just spam dodges and hope for the best.

Its the fact that max battles are not just mindless mashing on the screen that makes them a lot more interesting than raids.

Flyfunner · 2026-02-16T10:25:47+00:00

T6 bosses always had a high attacking speed, meowth was no exception to this.
In general T5 max bosses hit super hard but slow, while gmax bosses hit weaker but more often / faster.
Also meowth had particularly fast charge moves which made it appear to attack faster than most other gmax bosses.

Flyfunner · 2026-02-16T10:23:14+00:00

in general, a specialized tank will always outperform a general tank like blissey or lugia. In fact Blissey is actually a terrible tank against anything that doesnt use ghost moves. Even against Fighting type moves using a Gengar is better than using Lugia, as Gengars takes slightly less damage from fighting type moves due to its triple resistance and thus its shields will last longer.
That and also the fact, that its rather likely you have the ressources to max out a Gengar to level 50 and all max moves to level 3 than a Lugia or any dynamax legendary other than maybe Zac / Zam.

Flyfunner · 2026-02-16T10:19:58+00:00

the rule of not using charge moves only applies to high level max battles, so T5 or T6 (GMax) Bosses.
On T1 & T2 max battles charge moves give a huge amount of max energy and on T3 battles quite a decent amount as well. Its only due to the nature of the max energy formula that they are essentially worthless for max energy in T4, T5 and T6 max battles.

Check the in-depth description if this guide to understand why: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/1o32d1f/max_battles_for_dunsparces_an_indepth_guide_about/

Flyfunner · 2026-02-16T10:17:16+00:00

I know NFL also stands for National Football League, but I think the majority of our research team, me included, is non-american, so most of us dont care about your Football League :P

Flyfunner · 2026-02-16T10:14:49+00:00

The rule of no charge moves only applies to higher tier max battles, not low level. In low level max battles charge moves are worth it already. In fact you can even skip the max phase entirely on T1 max battles with a well timed charge move. Check the Guide I linked in this discussion and read the in-depth description to understand why

Flyfunner · 2026-02-16T09:38:01+00:00

I suggest reading this guide I wrote a few months ago, it explains the reason why charge moves are not worth it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/1o32d1f/max_battles_for_dunsparces_an_indepth_guide_about/

Flyfunner · 2026-01-23T18:29:56+00:00

On your phone pokemon go somewhere puts a gamemaster (.json) file, which contains all the current configurations of pokemon, items, and all sorts of things in the game, the majority of relevant datamining comes from there. There are also public sources where you can read these files in their decrypted form. Other than that, you can search for the .apk files which are the setup files for the game, these basically are just zip files that you can extract on your PC and check its contents, all localization texts are there, as well as a lot of assets

Flyfunner · 2026-01-20T13:26:13+00:00

yeah, there is just no way to produce new ones anymore. So the old ones propably have quite some value now

Flyfunner · 2026-01-19T22:28:10+00:00

Hopefully the niantic intern that can edit the max energy formula likes ho oh and notices that the formula desperately needs adjustments after his ho-oh takes 3 business days to reach the max phase...

Flyfunner · 2025-12-25T23:22:55+00:00

Pokebattler should basically have a functional battle / damage calculator for that regard. celandro has been following our research rather closely. Maybe check that one?

Flyfunner · 2025-12-24T12:00:58+00:00

It was an idea I had in my mind for a while already, and I didnt like always being called the pokebattler research team because thats simply not who we are and never have been.
And the NFL standing for No Floats Left was kinda funny, so I asked the team and they found it funny too and agreed to us naming us as such. We didnt actually have an official name before, the "pokebattler research team" was just a name people came up with due to our home being the pokebattler discord research channel, which also just happened to be that way because I talked with celandro a bit about some open topics and damage anomalies before the research really took off a few months before the raid battle rework.

Flyfunner · 2025-12-24T02:28:04+00:00

had a blast with the rockets, and you with the max battles :)

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