The best moveset for Hoopa Confined in Pokémon Go

For those jumping into the Misunderstood Mischief Special Research in Pokémon Go, the starting steps for the Season of Mischief challenge allow you to capture this Pokémon on September 5 at 11 AM in your local time zone. Once you’ve captured Hoopa in its Confined form, you’ll want to make sure you give it the best moveset to use it effectively in battle. This guide details the best moveset Hoopa Confined can learn in Pokémon Go.

Hoopa Confined is a Psychic and Ghost-type Pokémon. It will be weak against Dark and Ghost-type moves, but it is resistant against Fighting, Normal, Poison, and Psychic-type attacks. Unfortunately, the Pokémon’s overall stats in Pokémon Go for PvP make it a glass cannon, with far more attack power than defense, which means you need to be extremely careful when using it.

These are all of the moves Hoopa Confined can learn.

Fast moves

• Astonish (Ghost-type) – 5 damage and 3 energy per turn (1.6 damage per turn) – 3 turns
• Confusion (Psychic-type) – 16 damage and 3 energy per turn (4 damage per turn) – 4 turns

Charged moves

• Psybeam (Psychic-type) – 70 damage and 60 energy
• Psychic (Psychic-type) – 90 damage and 55 energy (10% chance to lower opponent’s defense by one rank)
• Shadow Ball (Ghost-type) – 100 damage and 55 energy

There are only two fast moves you need to worry about when it comes to Hoopa Confined. However, despite the selection, you only want to worry about getting a Hoopa with confusion. Astonish is a waste of an attack, and you never want it on any of your characters. The overall damage it does is horrible, while the energy per turn is okay. Still, comparing astonish to confusion, confusion provides the same energy for nearly triple the damage. Therefore, confusion is the obvious winner.

Next, we have Hoopa Confined’s charged moves. Similar to the fast moves, there are clear winners in these choices. You want to go with the charged move psychic and shadow ball. Psybeam is a lesser attack than both shadow ball and psychic because it requires 60 energy to do 70 damage, which is less than both psychic and shadow ball. You can do far more damage with a Hoopa that knows psychic and shadow ball, far more often.

The best moveset to teach Hoopa Confined is the fast move confusion and the charged moves psychic and shadow ball.