Who Should I Power Up In Pokémon GO: The Mythical Zarude

Stardust is one of the most valuable assets in Pokémon GO. It can be used for trades, powering up Pokémon, and using the new Form Change mechanic. While there are definite benefits to saving your Stardust and hitting a personal goal of a minimum amount of Stardust to keep, the fact remains that when put to use, this resource can dramatically increase your abilities as a trainer. In this Who Should I Power Up in Pokémon GO? series, I will spotlight species that are useful in various aspects of the game, exploring their moveset, strengths, and why they’d be a good bet to power up. In this installment, we will take a look Zarude.

• Pokémon: Zarude
• Typing: Dark/Grass-type
• Dex entry: Within dense forests, this Pokémon lives in a pack with others of its kind. It’s incredibly aggressive, and the other Pokémon of the forest fear it.
• Raids: While quite a few Dark-types outrank it, Zarude is up there as a Grass-type attacker. I would suggest using Zarude as a Grass-type attacker against Water-type raids such as Kyogre and Suicune. When it comes to types weak to Dark-types such as Ghost-types and Psychic-types, Zarude is still viable but doesn’t top the charts as it does with those weak to Grass-type.
• Moves:
  • Fast: Vine Whip is Zarude’s ideal Fast Attack.
  • Charged: Power Whip is the best Grass-type Charged Attack for Zarude. To make its Dark-typing useful as well, I’d add a second move of Dark Pulse.
• Zarude is weak against: Fire-types, Flying-types, Fighting-types, Ice-types, Poison-types, Fairy-types, Bug-types.
• Other: Zarude is a relatively fast attacker when it comes to charging its moves, so I tend to use it in Team GO Rocket encounters when I’m up against a Shadow Pokémon weak to Grass-types.

VERDICT: As a top Grass-type attacker, Zarude is an all-around worthy Stardust investment, especially when Kyogre or Suicune raids are on the horizon.

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