TL;DR: Noctowl is a very tanky generalist prestiger and it packs a punch against Snorlax.



Some long-time players may remember the times when Pidgeot with Wing Attack / Hurricane was considered the best commonly available prestiger. In particular it was excellent against Snorlax with Lick and/or Earthquake.

Then came Gen2 with the movesets overhaul, Pidgeot can’t learn Wing Attack anymore, Hurricane has been outclassed by other charge moves and Wing Attack has been slightly nerfed in both duration and power.

So let me introduce to you the new King of Flying Prestigers: Noctowl!

Noctowl’s typing is Normal/Flying, which makes it automatically resistant to Ghost (e.g. Lick), Grass (e.g. Solar Beam), Ground (e.g. Earthquake) and Bug moves, and only vulnerable to Electric, Rock and Ice.

Its best moveset, Wing Attack / Sky Attack, has a weave DPS of 21.7 (92% of the max possible neutral weave DPS) and it is neutral or Super Effective against everything but Electric, Rock and Steel.

But above all, Noctowl has the 8th-highest Defense x Stamina / Attack2 ratio among Pokémon capable of reaching 1300 CP at level 30:



Rank # Tanky prestiger sqrt (D x S / A2) Max CP (level 30) 1 Blissey 2.56 2765 2 Umbreon 1.69 1759 3 Steelix 1.49 2094 4 Jumpluff 1.43 1332 5 Hypno 1.31 1756 6 Lanturn 1.30 1764 7 Lapras 1.30 2232 8 Noctowl 1.29 1739 9 Dewgong 1.29 1624 10 Snorlax 1.29 2876

According to my CP efficiency calculator, here is the relative performance of Noctowl (in terms of combined time and revive efficiency) against some of the most common defenders gym sitters:



Defender Defending moveset Noctowl performance Benchmark Vaporeon Water Gun / Water Pulse 57% Tangela / Parasect Snorlax Zen Headbutt / Body Slam 65% Machamp Snorlax Lick / Heavy Slam 70% Poliwrath Snorlax Lick / Earthquake 87% Poliwrath Exeggutor Confusion / Seed Bomb 60% Scizor Dragonite Steel Wing / Outrage 51% Cloyster

These are already pretty good numbers, especially against Snorlax. If your main concern is prestige per revive, however, that is where Noctowl shows excellent performance:



Defender Defending moveset Noctowl performance Most resilient prestiger (excl. Chansey/Blissey) Vaporeon Water Gun / Aqua Tail 68% Kingdra Snorlax Zen Headbutt / Body Slam 73% Forretress Snorlax Lick / Heavy Slam 81% Lanturn Snorlax Lick / Earthquake 99% Umbreon Exeggutor Confusion / Seed Bomb 78% Skarmory Dragonite Steel Wing / Outrage 74% Steelix

These rankings are done with a 0%-70%-30% dodge setting, i.e. dodge only specials and more likely to dodge if using a non-Super-Effective fast move (because it doesn’t delay the “Defender used Charge Move” message).

Anyway, Wing Attack is fast enough to allow flexibility when dodging the defender’s fast moves, so the rankings are similar in a dodge-all scenario.

Complete moveset ranking:

1) Wing Attack / Sky Attack

2) Extrasensory / Sky Attack

3) Wing Attack / Psychic

4) Extrasensory / Psychic, Wing Attack / Night Shade

6) Extrasensory / Night Shade

Even if only #1 and maybe #2 are worth keeping, whenever I evolve a Noctowl I use it at least once in order to save a revive, just because of its tankiness.