You know, this is a super belated response because we were thinking about it and digesting it and it's literally a shower thought at this point, but... I think personally I might have to disagree re: Charge Beam? Like, not in Kracko's moveset in particular, but just, like, in general.
On someone with a beastly SpA like Rock Biter especially, a move with 50 power and STAB is not bad. Recall that Rock Biter's Grass-type Hidden Power has 62 power and no STAB, and that's enough for it to live up to its name with that "Rock Crit-er" clip from the last stream. Part of why I love that move on Rock Biter so much is that it can hit things that its Electric moves normally couldn't touch at all, but the other part is because it was one-shotting fools with it.
So, Charge Beam. In PvE, there are a lot of enemy trainers that have like three Pokemon and the first two are glorified warmups. Even a lot of gym leaders too that. In other words, Rock Biter ends up facing a lot of enemies that even a Charge Beam is enough to OHKO; anything more than that is quite honestly overkill on Fisherman Ralph's fucking Goldeen or whatever. The idea was against bait like that, one could sweep and boost SpA in the same turn, so that by the time the ace comes out you're ready to sweep even more. And... it works. From what we saw in the last stream plus some of the offline rematches we've been having because people won't stop calling us for those, it does exactly what it's supposed to, allowing us to get a good warmup move when that's honestly all we need and a free SpA boost to make the eventual Thunderbolt spam even deadlier in the same turn, without having to slow down.
Honestly, I even see it working as one of those OR&PB setup I seem to be developing a crush on now, even though Charge Beam bucks the usual trend for the "Old Reliable" slot by having significantly fewer PP than the "Panic Button" slot Thunderbolt.
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On someone with a beastly SpA like Rock Biter especially, a move with 50 power and STAB is not bad. Recall that Rock Biter's Grass-type Hidden Power has 62 power and no STAB, and that's enough for it to live up to its name with that "Rock Crit-er" clip from the last stream. Part of why I love that move on Rock Biter so much is that it can hit things that its Electric moves normally couldn't touch at all, but the other part is because it was one-shotting fools with it.
So, Charge Beam. In PvE, there are a lot of enemy trainers that have like three Pokemon and the first two are glorified warmups. Even a lot of gym leaders too that. In other words, Rock Biter ends up facing a lot of enemies that even a Charge Beam is enough to OHKO; anything more than that is quite honestly overkill on Fisherman Ralph's fucking Goldeen or whatever. The idea was against bait like that, one could sweep and boost SpA in the same turn, so that by the time the ace comes out you're ready to sweep even more. And... it works. From what we saw in the last stream plus some of the offline rematches we've been having because people won't stop calling us for those, it does exactly what it's supposed to, allowing us to get a good warmup move when that's honestly all we need and a free SpA boost to make the eventual Thunderbolt spam even deadlier in the same turn, without having to slow down.
Honestly, I even see it working as one of those OR&PB setup I seem to be developing a crush on now, even though Charge Beam bucks the usual trend for the "Old Reliable" slot by having significantly fewer PP than the "Panic Button" slot Thunderbolt.