Is Obstagoon with Charged Attack Obstruct good in Pokemon GO PvP?

The competitive scene for Pokemon GO has witnessed a newfound spotlight following its inclusion in the Pokemon World Championships. With so many seeing the action first-hand, it can inspire casual players to give the competitive battling league a try. This may prompt them to make teams out of the best creatures in the current meta.

This will eventually bring the evolution of Galarian Zigzagoon and Obstagoon to beginners' attention. With the latter being a fairly great creature to use in both Great and Ultra League, there will be players who want it on their battle teams, which will lead them to ponder its charged attacks.

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Is Obstruct worth using in Pokemon GO?

Obstagoon as seen in the anime (Image via The Pokemon Company)

While Obstagoon on its own is worth using in Pokemon GO's competitive scene, its signature move, Obstruct, is fairly suboptimal compared to its other tools. While in the main series, Obstruct is a great protection hit that debuffs opponents, GO completely removes such utility, turning it into a subpar damaging move with a decent bonus effect.

To exacerbate things for the signature attack, Obstagoon has better spammable Dark-type charged attacks even before it got access to Obstruct. With Night Slash being the better-charged attack, those who want to maximize their damage output and efficiency would do better with that move instead.

The only benefit of using Obstruct in Pokemon GO is that it grants Obstagoon a boost in attack and defense. While a great idea in concept, this ultimately hurts Obstagoon's damage output in short-term play since opponents can switch out and take it down fairly easily before it can set up.

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Best moveset for Obstagoon in Pokemon GO

The first detail players will want to know about Obstagoon is its elemental typing. It is a Dark and Normal-type Pokemon. While this particular combination is incredibly unique in the franchise, it does have a few devastating weaknesses. Of course, what many will notice right away is Obstagoon's double weakness to Fighting-type attacks.

In addition to this, Obstagoon is weak to Fairy and Bug-type attacks. Thankfully, it has access to Gunk Shot, a Poison-type charged attack, to help eliminate Fairies. Sadly, Obstagoon still plays into Fairies terribly due to its fast attack of choice being Counter, a Fighting-type move.

However, since Night Slash and Counter are already amazing moves on their own, players are free to pick a secondary charged attack from Obstagoon's huge arsenal. In most cases, players looking to inflict flat damage will want to take Cross Chop second.

For setting up, Obstruct is a serviceable choice. Hyper Beam is a decent choice for players wanting to deal a nuclear-level amount of damage, but a lot of metagame staples in Pokemon GO resist Normal-type moves.