Is Dark Pulse or Destiny Bond better for Gengar?

Question

I have a Gengar that I am training. It's pretty good, but I don't know whether to pick Dark Pulse or Destiny Bond.
FYI
This Gengar is mostly going to be used for online battles+mostly focused on Sp. Atk and speed
or
if you have a better move suggestion please let me know

Comments

Destiny Bond is useful for Killing stuff that will probably Kill Gengar. This works even better if you use Mega Gengar.

Dark Pulse may flinch but is mostly coverage, and not phenomenal at best.

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Singles or doubles? This is for Battle Spot, right?

Answer 1

Destiny Bond is much better than Dark Pulse for a few reasons:

• Destiny Bond is very useful on Gengar because it’s fast and frail; if it moves first, Gengar can take its opponents down with it if its HP is low.
• Dark Pulse doesn’t really cover anything that Shadow Ball doesn’t, and Shadow Ball gets STAB.
• Gengar has access to better coverage or utility moves than Dark Pulse, such as Taunt and Focus Blast

There’s no good reason to use Dark Pulse, and Destiny Bond is actually viable on Pokemon with speed and special attack investment. If you don’t think Destiny Bond is useful enough, Taunt and Substitue are good status moves. If you want more attacking moves, use Shadow Ball and Sludge Wave for STAB, and Focus Blast for coverage.

Answer 2

Dark Pulse. You said you wanted a Sp Attacker. Here's a move set for this Dark Pulse Gengar.

Nature: Modest
Move set:
Dark Pulse (Obvious)
Shadow Ball (STAB, may lower Sp. D)
Sludge Bomb (STAB, may poison)
Psychic (Good power, may lower Sp. D)

Hope this works out for you!

Comments

this is the moveset i use but i couldn't deside for dark pulse or destiny bond. thanks

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Why would you use dark pulse when it's almost never stronger than shadow ball? Are you playing a format with Meloettas everywhere?

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Oh yeah, and Dark Pulse can flinch the opponent.

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I think dark pulse misses the OHKO or 2HKO more often than it makes the opponent flinch.

Answer 3

Out of the two, I would definitely have to to say destiny bond. The types that Dark Pulse is good against is already covered by the ghost/poison typing of Gengar. a great move for Gengar is Brick Break because It does well against dark types, which is one of Gengar’s weaknesses. Also a lot of ground Pokemon (which Gengar is weak to) have a secondary typing of rock or steel making Brick Break even more useful.

Comments

But Gengar's Attack stat is garbage.

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Brick Break is terrible, Gengar’s Attack is garbage