Cresselia
Attack
Defense
Stamina
Best Movesets
Analysis
Cresselia is a sitting lunar duck for punishment, which is fine in the main series Pokemon games, where it can stall opponents to death. For now, the only targets that it can stall to death in GO are players battling it in a raid.
Offense
- Pick Confusion over Psycho Cut.
- Only lunatics would use Cresselia, but go with Future Sight if you do.
Psycho Cut gives Cress the ability to fire off charged moves far faster, at the cost of making her much less effective when your opponent still has shields available. While Confusion is strong, it is often outclassed as it does a rather poor job fueling Cresselia's fairly expensive Charged Attacks.
The update to Moonblast following the Go Battle League Season 2 update makes it more necessary due to its cheaper energy and useful coverage. Future Sight hits quite hard with STAB, but 65 energy is a lot to ask for. Aurora Beam is a terrible move and not viable given the updates to Cresselia's movepool. Grass Knot is limited by its accessibility, but is Cresselia's cheapest move and the only one that can be fired back to back. It provides coverage against Water-types and prevents Cresselia from being outright walled by select Pokemon that would otherwise shut it down.
A Great League Cresselia can be obtained in two ways: 1) From research or 2) Any Level 20 Cresselia can hit below the 1500 CP threshold if it is traded and its IVs roll low enough. Low-level friendship helps improve these chances.
Cresselia is an extraordinarily bulky Pokemon that can fulfill multiple roles. It acts as a pseudo-Grass Pokemon, destroying Water-types like Lanturn and Quagsire like you'd expect any actual Grass-type to do. However, unlike other Grass-types, Cresselia is also able to smash Dragon- and Fighting-type Pokemon, courtesy of its typing and access to Moonblast. In metagames where true Grass-types struggle to find a footing, Cresselia becomes a highly popular pick due to its rare role compression.
Cresselia mostly struggles against Steel-type Pokemon. If it lacks Future Sight, it will have problems against Fire-type Pokemon. On the other hand, if it lacks Moonblast, it will struggle against Dark-type Pokemon, and some Dragon-type Pokemon can become challenging to overcome. There's also the fact that the meta has shifted over the years, making Cresselia's unique advantages a bit less impactful than they once were.
