Going Elite with TMs

Pokémon Go takes after many things from the main series, including the use of TMs to change the moves of Pokémon, something that I briefly discussed nearly two years ago in a post about those moves themselves. The problem with those TMs, of course, is that they can't do a thing about "special" moves gained from events like Community Day, Raid Day, and so on (except to get rid of them, something often undesirable) and since they change moves at random, it may be a trial-and-error process to find and settle on a desired move. That has been somewhat resolved with new, special kinds of TMs.

Enter the Elite TMs, one for each kind of move: Elite Fast TMs and Elite Charged TMs. Unlike the regular TMs, the Elite TMs allow a Trainer to directly select a desired move for a Pokémon, instead of relying on random choice, from the pool of possible moves for either kind for a Pokémon. The TMs also allow one to change to one of the "special" moves gained from the events as previously mentioned above, allowing a Pokémon to relearn those moves if for some reason they were lost with a regular TM or to newly learn the move altogether. This makes it an especially powerful kind of TM.

That power comes at a price, however. At this point, these TMs can only be gotten if one has reached certain ranks in the GO Battle League, and even then only at the end of a season, which takes a long time. Alternatively, one can pay up for a Community Day Box, as was true last month and will be true this month (more on this when that happens), but one can only get one of the box package, which is pricey and only contains one of those TMs. Likewise, the league reward is limited to just one of the TMs. Thus, not only are the TMs pricey, they are also limited as well by any means of getting them. 

Being that the TMs are rather limited, one must consider very carefully which Pokémon the TMs are to be used on and what move to change to. Due to their considerable value, at this point, the TMs are only viable to change to a "special" move, not so much to directly select a move, which may be made up with a handful of regular TMs that may be a little easier to get nowadays. A notable usefulness of these Elite TMs is to have a Pokémon learn two "special" moves, such as two of these for Charged moves; a few in my raid group have practiced this to have a certain Pokémon learn two "special" Charged moves.

These new TMs are undoubtedly significant with their power of move selection and "special" move options. At the same time, they are also very limited and/or hard to get, which means they have to be used very wisely. Though they are not all-purpose solutions for the former, allowing the latter is quite appreciable, especially if one may have missed out on certain "special" moves. The Elite TMs have to be regarded in the same "special" manner as the "special" moves that they allow to learn, at least for now. But what is certain is that they allow a degree of freedom to change moves in Pokémon Go, just like their main series brethren.

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