Pokémon Go’s upcoming Boomburst move has been datamined, and the players have spoken

Pokémon Go fans are days away from the next event in the mobile game, Noibat’s Community Day for February 2023. Fans are looking forward to their chance to catch elusive Dragon and Flying-type Pokémon, eventually evolving them into Noivern. However, in typical Community Day fashion, Noivern is set to learn an exclusive move, and it will be a new attack called Boomburst. The stats for this move have been datamined ahead of its release, and fans already know how they feel about it.

The datamine comes from the Pokeminers, a reliable group that often shares these details. They revealed these details alongside the reveal of Breaking Swipe, an upcoming Dragon-type move that launches with Rayquaza in the Primal Rumblings event. In contrast, Boomburst and Breaking Swipe are drastically different, especially in their public perception.

Boomburst becomes available for Noivern during its Community Day on February 5 from 2 PM to 5 PM in players’ local time zone. For PvP, it will deal 150 damage and cost 75 energy. For PvE battles and raids, it will deal 140 damage and cost 100 energy.

Overall, it’s a disappointing reveal that many Pokémon Go players saw coming. When it was announced that Boomburst would be making its way to the game, developer Niantic only revealed the damage numbers, which the community correctly predicted would have an equally high energy cost. Adding this move to Noivern’s moveset does little to make it a worthwhile PvP Pokémon or even make it a suitable choice to use in raids. Many compare it to similarly strong moves that are equally not used, such as Hyper Beam or Solar Beam.

These high energy costs work with some Pokémon, but not for Noivern, which does not have a suitable fast move to generate those energy requirements in a timely fashion for a player battle or in raids.

The outcome for Boomburst is what many speculative community members expected. Although many players are likely excited to encounter Noibat to complete their Pokédex and to potentially catch a shiny version during the Community Day event, using it in legitimate gameplay strategy seems to be off the table — at least for now.