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Interactive Deoxys – Speed Counters Guide

Deoxys – Speed

Deoxys 4th and final variant is coming! This form is often forgotten as originally there was only 3 forms, but after the movie this flashy Speed Form was introduced. In the main games it is optimized for the “Speed” stat, which Pokemon go integrates into both the Attack and Defense stats. This leaves it inbetween The Normal and Attack Forms in terms of stat distribution.

This bizarre DNA Helix Pokemon was officially Mythical in it’s release like Mew, but Pokemon Go has chosen to treat it much more like it’s Genetics-Theme’d Brother Mewtwo instead and put it in EX Raids. It’s possible following this round Deoxys’ will be released publicly like Mewtwo, but no one can say for sure.The last 3 Deoxys forms were all available for roughly 3 months, so expect some news on this front mid-September if Niantic follows it’s pattern roughly aligning with the seasons.

EX-Raid Basics

Deoxys (all of it’s forms thus far) are featured in something called EX Raids! So whats that?

Basically, Scheduled Raids. You can only get the chance to Raid Deoxys if you get an Invite, with a specific Time Range and Date, at participating Gyms. When you are in a gym screen in the corner there will be a notation if it is a EX eligible Gym! If you raid at these Gyms there is a chance you will get invited, with a black EX Raid Pass. The algorithm for selection is unknown, and has changed as Niantic experiments.

You may also Invite someone on your friends list who you are at least Ultra Friends with to join you. Try to arrive early and coordinate with people, as you do still usually need support to pull off the raids. That said, EX Raids have slightly higher catch rates than normal legendaries, at 6% rather than 2%.

It appears that Pokemon introduced in EX Raids are ineligible to be traded (at least until some event makes them globally available). Thus you won’t be able to trade your Deoxys’ to others right now.

Deoxys – Speed Movesets

• Thunderbolt- Strongest Charge Move despite no Stab. Not resisted by almost all of it’s counters.
• Swift- Ghost Types will delight it this moveset thanks to their Resistances.
• Psycho Boos-t Dark Types similarly will love this moveset for their Resistances.

General Deoxys – Speed Counters

Deoxys – Speed takes 1.6x damage from Bug / Ghost / Dark .

Deoxys – Speed can be beaten by 2 players in optimal weather, with max friendship and perfect level 40 counters OR by 5 unfriended players using level 20 counters from this guide. When caught, Deoxys – Speed will be between 1568 and 1645 cp without a weather boost. In Windy weather, Deoxys – Speed will be between 1960 and 2056 when caught.

Giratina – Origin

Giratina (Origin) is the overall best choice here given on top of having incredible stats- it’s practically the only counter that has resistance to Deoxys (Speed) hard hitting electric attacks! With the Bonus of Ghost Pokemon’s double resistance to Normal Type attacks. These all add up to Giratina having the overall best survivability of any option. Note: Contrary to assumption however, Ghost Pokemon do NOT have resistance to

Psychic moves!

While he is already the number one choice, his relatively unique position resisting Charge Beam / Thunderbolt makes that his best matchup, making up the DPS difference between him and Gengar.

Giratina was released relatively recently and has high payoff as a legendary to power up if you can get the candy.

NOTE: (Legacy) Gengar and Giratino-O are the only Pokemon able to pull off a possible duo in Foggy Weather.

Gengar

Gengar not to be outdone, remains at Giratina’s heel. It raw attack stat has overall the best Damage per Second – provided you have legacy moves. Notably, on average Sucker Punch is actually the preferred non-legacy option as opposed to Hex. But if you can get your hands on Lick or Shadow Claw that shaves off quite a lot of time (although not so much that it would fall from second best Pokemon).

Gengars unfortunate Psychic weakness hurts it against Zen Headbutt / Psycho Boost, especially due to psycho boost being a double bar charge move that can fire more frequently. Swift is it’s preferred matchup, with the double resistance helping it more than it does for Giratina, allowing it to very comfortably be the number 1 choice in DPS.

Gengar isn’t too difficult to acquire with Gastlys nesting and being a common night spawn, as well as being featured in the recent Go Fest global spawns. The main issue comes with Legacy Moves, but Lick at least was made available relatively recently in Gengar Raid Day.

NOTE: Legacy) Gengar and Giratino-O are the only Pokemon able to pull off a possible duo in Foggy Weather.

Weavile

Weaviles Dark Typing gives it the standard Double Resistance that it gives all dark types. Although just like with Gengar, resistances particularly buff it! Given it mitigates it’s Glass Cannon problem of possibly not getting charge moves off and being consistent. It actually becomes one of the best surviving Pokemon VS Zen Headbutt / Psycho Boost

Weavile Evolves from Sneasel which is uncommon outside of events, northern biomes and snow-but does nest. It also requires a Sinnoh Stone to evolve which can be randomly acquired from your first Trainer Battle daily.

Tyranitar

Tyraintars massive bulk is comparable to Giratina, but he sadly falls behind a tad without an Electric Resistance here. That said he is the best Surviving Option against Zen Headbutt / Psycho Boost. His Rock typing does give him a resistance to Normal, but the effect it has on the Glass Cannon Ghost Types does more to hurt than help his comparable ranking.

Tyraintar has had quite an illustrious history as an accessible raid boss and even a community day! Also had some increased spawn recently. That said, accessibility will be a bit tough if you are only starting now as Larvitars do not nest and are rare.

Mewtwo

Mewtwo is in a bit of an awkward position here, it’s psychic resistance gives it an edge on other ghost type attackers, but not as much as it helps ghost types. There’s no real situation where Mewtwo is the best in terms of survivability or damage, but overall has excellent consistency.

That said, if you weren’t lucky enough to get an Ex Raid back during it’s era Shadow Ball is very much inaccessible. Even when Mewtwo was released from its EX shackles for a global event-that move was removed from it’s TM pool. This used to be more unfortunate, but there are quite a lot of alternative options at this point so don’t sweat it too much.

Pinsir Rainy

Pinsir’s bug typing has absolutely no interaction with any of Deoxy’s movesets, which makes it very consistent overall. However that leads it consistently performing lower on average than many other Pokemon, particularly in terms of bulk. It’s very likely you will need more than one team if you are going with Pinsirs.

Pinsir is the first counter here who can really be said to be accessible. You don’t need to evolve them, they can be found at high levels in the wild, they nest, they got a lot going for them. Might be a bit difficult to get under a 4 man however with just wild caught ones.

It notably fires TREMENDOUSLY up in Rainy weather, becoming THE Number 1 counter.

Alternative Deoxys – Speed Counters

Banette

Banette has always lived in Gengars shadow and now is no different. It lack of weakness to psychic doesn’t make up the difference in performance between them. That said, it is still the 3rd best counter against Swift and doesn’t even need a legacy moveset!

Shuppets are uncommon but not too hard to find, and they nest, so getting some hopefully wouldn’t be too outlandish. Not boosted in a common weather like Gastlys though.

Honchkrow Fog

Honchkrow really got a raw deal here with Electric weakness. But even so it’s performance is ok-just it’s possible he won’t do as much as you’d hope if you get unlucky.

Murkrows are very common (although less so than they used to be) but are only weather boosted in Windy and Foggy-which are generally rare. Honchkrow also requires a Sinnoh Stone evolution which can be acquired from Trainer Battlers.

Houndoom

Houndooms fire typing has no interaction with Deoxys, so it performs functionally as monotype Dark. It’s got the benefits of being a dark type that doesn’t involve a ton of extra work to evolve and find as a high level, and Houndours can be found weather boosted in the common Sunny weather. It’s also a relatively common research reward as well.

Absol

Absol performs basically identical to Houndoom, but is far more work to power up. Unless you were lucky enough to catch some high level ones at Go Fest, it requires powering up from raiding for candy or using rare candy-and often there are better priorities you can spend those on.

Mismagius

Mismagius is in an interesting place, with the dark type Sucker Punch actually being it’s preferred fast move as opposed to STAB Hex. Even against Swift it doesn’t break into the top 6 choices (somehow Legacy Haunter even does better), butt it does at least have on average better bulk than both Gengar and Banette.

That said, Mismagius is pretty expensive to acquire. Mismagius are uncommon, and you need a Sinnoh Stone from Trainer Battles.

Raikou

Now here’s an oddball. Raikou is only ranking so high due to it’s Electric Resistance being very desirable-enough to overlook things like STAB somewhat.

It would be madness to catch and power up a Raikou for this one Niche given its status as the best Electric Type, but there’s plenty of reason to power one up for other uses. If you are not short of TMs, or maybe just caught one at the Raikou Raid day with the Moveset-you can throw it in pretty fine.

Scizor Rainy

This little stylish bugger is only weak to Fire, and has Resistances to all of Deoxys attacks! Unfortunately the Dark and Ghost types have DOUBLE resistances which is what is keeping Scizor from the spotlight. That said, it has better bulk than the Dark Types against Swift, and the Ghost Types against Psych Boost (san Giratina) so if you want to be more independent of moveset-Scizors your boi.

Scyther and Scizor has also been featured a couple times recently reducing the difficulty to acquire one comparatively. It notably surges up TREMENDOUSLY in Rainy Weather landing between Gengar and Tyraintar in performance.

Cacturne

Cacturne is a nice B list Dark type, with it’s grass typing giving it no unique type interactions. Even so, it does make it so Cacnea can be found in the common Sunny weather-but is almost non-existent outside of it if you somehow don’t see much sun.

Yanmega Rainy

Yanmega is usually hugging Pinsir and Scizor closely in ranking, but unfortunately it’s Flying Sub-Typing is NOT a fan of Thunderbolt. Even so, in the Rain it skyrockets to in the top 6 best options!

Yanmega is a Sinnoh Stone Evolution of an uncommon Pokemon, so not the easiest thing to get your hands on from scratch.

Shiftry

Shifty is just like Cacturne. B list Dark type, with it’s grass typing giving it no unique type interactions. Very accessible, but available even outside of sunny weather at least.

Metagross Snow

Legacy Metagross is a very interesting one. Through Sheer force of resistances it overcomes lacking any Type Effectiveness. It ranks pretty good on Bulk even while slacking on Damage. That said, take a look at it under Snowy Conditions, where it manages to break into the top 6! Vast Majority of players won’t be seeing any snow these months, but if you do might be an interesting challenge!

Closing Thoughts

Deoxys Speed will be rounding off the year of Deoxys we’ve gotten right after Go Fest! While it may not be the most useful of mons (especially given it’s siblings are more optimized for what extreme niche it could have) it’s an extremely unique Pokemon that is likely to have movesets locked away if it ever gets publicly released. So get out and hunting trainers!

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