Is Skarmory good in Pokémon Go?

The Pokémon you use in the Pokémon Go Battle League vary slightly from the ones you’ll be using the raids, typically the five-star ones. The Battle League features several leagues with various tiers of CP requirements, meaning even weaker Pokémon that typically hovers around 1,500 CP are useful in the Great League, even if you don’t have much use for them outside of that. For Skarmory, it’s a Pokémon that you want to use in the Great and Ultra. In the Great League, you can use the standard Pokémon, but in the Ultra League, you want to power it up using XL candy. A Skarmory with XL candy is difficult to beat in the Ultra League, and even before XL candy was introduced, it was a powerful force. Overall, Skarmory is good, and you want to have one or two of them in your Pokémon Go collection.

Skarmory is a Flying and Steel-type Pokémon. It’s going to be weak to Fire and Electric-type moves, but it’s resistant to Bug, Dragon, Fairy, Flying, Grass, Ground, Normal, Poison, Psychic, and Steel. Because of its wide variety of resistances, it’s difficult for most trainers to find a good team to take it down. Most players will want to have a Pokémon capable of using a Fire or Electric-type charged move to defeat Skarmory.

When you use Skarmory in PvP, it has a maximum CP of 2,108, an attack of 128, a defense of 190, and a stamina of 140. For PvE raid battles, it has an attack of 148, a defense of 226, and a stamina of 163. When you use XL candy on Skarmory in PvP, the maximum CP increases to 2,383, an attack of 136, a defense of 202, and a stamina of 149. Skarmory also has a shadow version, but we do not recommend it over the standard version.

What’s really nice is Skarmory has pretty high defenses, making it hard to defeat. You can use Skarmory’s high defensive stats to your advantage with the charged move brave bird. It’s a move that lowers the user’s defenses by several ranks every time you use it. With Skarmory’s higher-than-average defenses, brave bird is the perfect charged move to turn it into a powerhouse.

For the Great League, a standard Skarmory is a good choice. It doesn’t reach the highest ranks, but it’s a solid Pokémon that can be the final Pokémon you use to survive a battle. For the Ultra League, before XL candy, Skarmory was a great Pokémon. Now, with XL candy, it needs this powerup to compete with the other Pokémon. Still, it becomes even more powerful, and it’s even more recommended in the Ultra League’s Premier Cup.

Skarmory will always be a reliable Pokémon for you to use in raids, but you probably don’t want to use it against any legendary Pokémon. There are better Pokémon with higher overall CP that you’ll want to use.

Overall, Skarmory is an excellent Pokémon for you to use in Pokémon Go. It’s useful in the Great League, it’s good in the Ultra League with XL candy, and it’s even better in the Premier Cup. We recommend you go out of your way to catch this Pokémon and grind XL candy for it.