Pokemon GO players discuss potential problems with Black & White Kyurem's moves ahead of release

Kyurem's two fused forms are set to come to Pokemon GO during the GO Tour 2025 event. The forms will make their grand debut in the game during the in-person renditions of the event set to take place in New Taipei City and Los Angeles starting on February 21, 2025. Included with these new forms are their respective signature moves.

Many players on the Silph Road subreddit have taken issue with Freeze Shock, the exclusive charged attack for Black Kyurem. Though both forms of these creatures are yet to be available, datamines have revealed that Freeze Shock is too powerful, eclipsing White Kyurem's Ice Burn ability. This makes it less effective in most Raid Battles compared to its variant.

User Nickren2347 started a discussion about this topic with their post on the Silph Road subreddit.

The problem with Black & White Kyurem as they current stand byu/NickRen2347 inTheSilphRoad

In their post, accompanied by screenshots, the Redditor describes that Freeze Shock grants Black Kyurem substantially higher damage output per second compared to its counterpart in Pokemon Go. One advantage White Kyurem has over Black Kyurem is access to Ice Fang. This actually makes the former the preferred choice for creatures with major weaknesses to Ice attacks like Rayquaza and Mega Salamence.

Some users discuss about Black Kyurem's playstyle and how White Kyurem could be balanced (Image via Reddit)

User WriterJuggler brings up the talking point of Black Kyurem's optimal fast attack, Dragon Tail. This move is notoriously slow and given to Black Kyurem most likely for balancing reasons, as base Kyurem has the much-better Dragon Breath attack. Dragon Tail's slow animation leads to taking much more damage, as players cannot dodge boss attacks as frequently.

Comment byu/NickRen2347 from discussion inTheSilphRoad

Pandanoko-Fan137 also points out the detail that Ice Burn in its current state does less damage than Glaciate, base Kyurem's signature attack. Being a form that requires some effort to acquire in Pokemon Go, it seems a bit weird to many users that Niantic would make White Kyurem worse than its base form.

---

Should Niantic fix White Kyurem before Pokemon GO's GO Tour 2025?

Ice Burn should receive a slight buff for PvE, especially seeing that it is worse than Glaciate (Image via The Pokemon Company)

Ice Burn in its current state is slightly underwhelming, especially considering its damage output per second being lower than Glaciate. While it can be seen that Niantic wanted to make White Kyurem more focused on spamming charged attacks compared to Black Kyurem's focus on burst, raw damage is the way many players choose to play Raid Battles.

However, buffing Ice Burn could come with its own complications, as there would be little to separate it from Freeze Shock in PvE play since both share a typing. Since White Kyurem is semi-balanced around its weaker charged attack by having access to Ice Fang, buffing Ice Burn too much could shift the power too far. This will, in turn, make White Kyurem immensely better than Black Kyurem.

White Kyurem's access to double-Ice attacks gives it a fair amount of utility in PvE content. Looking at the movesets for both creatures, it would appear that Black Kyurem is being geared more towards PvE and Raid Battle content, while White Kyurem seems to have more potential for competitive play in Pokemon GO's Battle League. As such, Niantic will likely keep these attacks in their current state.

---

For more information on the game, check out the articles below:

• Ditto disguises
• Sierra counters
• Cliff counters
• Arlo counters
• Giovanni counters
• Team GO Rocket Grunts