I have one particular pkmn who I want to have a Ground attack, but only one. I have the choice of using Earthquake or Magnitude, and I can't decide which one to pick. Earthquake is more powerful on average: it has a fixed power of 100. But it only has 10 PP. Magnitude can vary in power from 10 to 150 according to probability, with 70 being most common power - but it has 30 PP. Which should I go for? pokefor.tk gives the following probabilities for Magnitude, btw: Code: Magnitude Power Probability 4 10 5.5% 5 30 9.8% 6 50 19.9% 7 70 30.1% 8 90 19.9% 9 110 9.8% 10 150 5.0%
I'd definitely choose EQ. If you pump up its PP you can get a fair amount of turns out of it, and in a serious battle it's better to have the fixed 100 then risk doing a lesser amount of damage like 70. My advice is to use Magnitude if you're playing through the game, but once you decide to focus on battling replace it with EQ.
Yeah, especially since Magnitude's chances of doing more than an Earthquake would are so slim, Earthquake's the better choice for a battling team. There's a reason that Earthquake's all over the place on Netbattle...