'Pokémon Go' Charged TM vs. Fast TM: What you need to know about the items added in the raid update
The new Pokémon Go gym update has shaken up the meta in pretty incredible ways, but the biggest change is raids — massive collaborative battles where trainers work together to bring down powerful Pokémon. Raids give players the opportunity to catch strong Pokémon and acquire powerful items like the Golden Razz Berry and — for the first time in Pokémon Go history — TMs. If that's news to you, here's what it means.
Pokémon Go raids: Charged TMs will offer a reprieve to players looking for the "best" movesets
Truly competitive players in Pokémon Go focus on two things when choosing their gym attackers and defenders: their IVs — or Individual Values — and their moveset. IVs require a lot of testing, but the Silph Road has a streamlined way to test them, and IVs don't change as you evolve your Pokémon. Good IVs stay that way.
The same isn't true of movesets, which change as you evolve. So there's a chance when you finally evolve that perfect-IV Dragonair into a Dragonite, you'll end up with a less-than-stellar moveset, making it harder to use in gym battling.
That's where TMs come in. TMs, short for technical machines, will, for the first time, allow you to change the moves your Pokémon know, according to Pokémon Go Hub. You'll obtain TMs from raids, and they'll come in two flavors, fast and charged. Fast TMs are available to any trainer level 15 or above, and charged TMs are available to any trainer level 25 or above.
As the names suggest, they'll either change the fast or charged move that your Pokémon currently knows when you use them. According to Pokémon Go Hub, you can use an unlimited number of TMs on your Pokémon until you get the moveset that you want. Hopefully this is the first step towards rebalancing battles so that more movesets are considered good. However we're content to settle for the guarantee that our Golden Magikarp won't be stuck with crunch forever once we evolve it.
More Pokémon Go news, updates, tips and tricks
Raids are here! See why they may be the key to legendary Pokémon. Find out how to determine how long it will take you to reach level 40, and see what we think of the Gen 2 Pokémon added to the game. Here are the kinds of Pokémon you get from 10-kilometer eggs, and here's where you can check out what you missed during the Water Festival and Solstice events. Find out more about the upcoming Chicago event and why you'll probably be able to catch Unown while you're there — if you're not busy searching for rare evolutionary items, that is.
