The best moveset for Excadrill in Pokemon GO

By Shane Foley
Modified Oct 03, 2021 23:22 GMT
Excadrill can learn strong moves like Earthquake (Image via The Pokemon Company)
Excadrill can learn strong moves like Earthquake (Image via The Pokemon Company)

Excadrill proves to be a fantastic asset to any team in Pokemon GO, with both great typing and great moves.

Pokemon fans may remember Excadrill from being on Clay’s team in Driftveil City from Generation V. In Pokemon GO, Excadrill shares a Ground and Steel-type combination with Galarian Stunfisk, another phenomenal Pokemon. Exadrill lags behind in the bulk department, but it also has much more Attack (255 base stat) than Galarian Stunfisk.

Which moves should this Ground/Steel-type Pokemon be using?

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Excadrill has three interesting abilities to pick for a quick move: Metal Claw, Mud Shot and Mud Slap. Statistically, it may seem like Metal Claw would be the best of these, since it has decent energy gain as well as damage output.

Excadrill, however, doesn’t benefit from Steel-type coverage as much as Ground-type coverage. From a Raids perspective, Excadrill’s Steel-type charge move is Iron Head, which does a miserly 60 damage off of taking half the bar of energy. Since this does so little damage, trainers are better off using Dialga and Metagross as Steel-type Attackers.

That being the case, it then may seem like Mud Slap is the best option to go with. This is true for Excadrills who want to complete in-game content or beat Raid bosses. Mud Slap has amazing damage output, doing 18 damage any time it’s used.

If it is being used for PvP, though, Mud Shot is actually the move it will want to run. This is simply because its energy gain is higher than the other two moves. In GO Battle League, sometimes charging energy is more valued than simple damage from quick moves.

In terms of charge moves, Excadrill will not want to run Iron Head since, as aforementioned, it does a pitifully low amount of damage. That leaves Excadrill with three options: Rock Slide, Earthquake and Drill Run.

Out of these choices, Excadrill will want to run one of the STAB Ground-type moves and Rock Slide. Believe it or not, Rock Slide offers much more coverage for Excadrill than Iron Head does. In terms of the Ground-type move, Drill Run should be used over Earthquake due to the lower energy cost that Drill Run has.