What it does
This attack charges on the first turn and executes on the second. Power is halved if the weather is Primordial Sea, Rain Dance, Sandstorm, or Snow and the user is not holding Utility Umbrella. If the user is holding a Power Herb or the weather is Desolate Land or Sunny Day, the move completes in one turn. If the user is holding Utility Umbrella and the weather is Desolate Land or Sunny Day, the move still requires a turn to charge.
At 120 base power it is the
5th strongest of the 39 damaging special
moves that appear in this format.
Who carrys it
13 of the 277 Pokémon measured on the
Regulation M-B ladder carry Solar Beam.
The one that matters most is Mega Charizard Y,
which is on 26.5% of teams and carrys it on 64.4% of its sets.
The full list is above, ordered by how much of the format each one is.
What it hits
As a Grass move it is super effective against Ground, Rock and Water, resisted by Bug, Dragon, Fire, Flying, Grass, Poison and Steel.
5 other Grass moves appear in this format: Sleep Powder, Giga Drain, Leaf Storm, Energy Ball, Leech Seed.
Who could and does not
77 Pokémon legal in this regulation can learn Solar Beam at all,
against the 13 that actually bring it. The gap is the interesting number: it is
the set of Pokémon that have the option and decline it.
The most-played of those are Sinistcha, Whimsicott, Archaludon, Ninetales-Alola, Arcanine-Hisui and Glimmora — each of them measured on the ladder, each of them leaving this move on the shelf.
How concentrated it is
Across the ladder, Solar Beam accounts for an expected
0.22 of the six slots on an average team, which makes it the
24th most-brought of the 121 moves this format runs.
79% of that comes from Mega Charizard Y alone, so it is really one Pokémon’s move rather than the format’s.
Its carriers are mostly Fire (9), Grass (4) and Poison (3).
Where these numbers come from
Usage is Smogon's published statistics for the Regulation M-B VGC ladder, and the description is
the one shipped in the Pokémon Showdown data set. Both are regenerated on every build rather than
written by hand, so this page follows the format instead of trailing it. Take any of it to the
team builder or the damage calculator.
Mega Charizard Y
26.5%
64.4%
Venusaur
11.6%
14.7%
Torkoal
4.8%
10.4%
Mega Camerupt
1.4%
0.7%
Mega Pyroar
1.2%
68.4%
Mega Meganium
0.65%
97.2%
Typhlosion-Hisui
0.57%
9.5%
Ninetales
0.56%
88.4%
Vileplume
0.40%
51%
Mega Victreebel
0.17%
1.6%
Mega Houndoom
0.13%
15.5%
Typhlosion
0.03%
42.8%
Charizard
0.02%
74.5%