A PvE Analysis of Steeled Resolve: Taken Over

Welcome, Trainers! Another Team GO Rocket takeover is here, and this time it’s the Steeled Resolve: Taken Over event bringing a fresh wave of Shadow Pokémon into Pokémon GO. With Rocket Grunts, Leaders, and Giovanni once again shaking up their lineups, players have plenty of new shadows to look at from a PvE perspective. So, how much do these new additions actually matter for raids and overall attacker rankings? Let’s dive in and find out! Trainers can encounter the following Shadow Pokémon for the first time: Shadow Helioptile, Shadow Dewpider, Shadow Morelull, Shadow Stufful, and Incarnate Shadow Landorus. The newest batch of Shadow Pokémon is here and this time we have Helioptile, Dewpider, Morelull, and Stufful joining the Shadow lineup along with the Unovan Legendary Shadow Landorus (Incarnate Forme). Let’s take a closer look at each of them, and you can decide for yourself which ones are actually worth rescuing. Let’s clear out a few Pokémon quickly. Shadow Heliolisk, Araquanid, and Shiinotic, the respective evolutions of Shadow Helioptile, Dewpider, and Morelull, have basically no meaningful PvE value. None of them have the combination of stats and moves needed to stand out in raids, so they are not going to make a dent compared to stronger options in their respective types. Yes, some PvP utility exists here, but that does not really matter for this discussion. From a PvE perspective, these three are not relevant picks so much as Pokédex fillers, making them easy skips for Trainers who want to spend their resources on better raid attackers. Stufful, the Flailing Pokémon, evolves into Bewear, the Strong Arm Pokémon, and while Shadow Bewear brings some respectable PvE power to the table in Pokémon GO, its raid value is still a bit awkward because its biggest strength comes as a Normal-type attacker, and Normal types are rarely relevant in raids since they never hit anything for super effective damage. Shadow Bewear does benefit from the usual Shadow damage boost, so its raw output looks appealing at first glance, especially if you just want something that can throw out solid neutral damage, but that alone is usually not enough to make a Normal type attacker worth prioritizing for serious raid teams. And now we have the Legendary from the Unova Region, and a member of the Forces of Nature, the Abundance Pokémon, Landorus (Incarnate Forme). While the Incarnate Forme is let down by its stats and moveset, particularly next to its Therian Forme, it still makes for an interesting analysis. The impact of Sandsear Storm can be seen vividly. Firstly, it is evident that Landorus (Therian Forme) is the better version of Landorus. But, talking about Shadow Landorus Incarnate having Earth Power as its Charged Attack, is certainly a capable Ground attacker, with its DPS on par with Therian Landorus. The real interesting thing is its access to Sandsear Storm. In future, if Shadow Landorus Incarnate gets access to Sandsear Storm, it will go past Shadow…