Don't invest stardust into something with poor moves.
I’m not certain what I’m looking for here. How can I tell if a Pokemon has poor moves or not?
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-08-02-pokemon-go-moves-movesets-move-list-and-highest-dps-attacks
That list is probably outdated now. Move powers sometimes change (e.g. early on, Water Gun was nerfed and Hydro Pump was buffed) and movesets can be changed as well (e.g. Gyarados can no longer have Dragon Breath, Golem now gets Mud Slap instead of Mud Shot). Also, some moves are better for offense vs. defense. Every Pokemon has 1-3 quick moves and like 2-3 charge moves possible, I think. As far as anybody knows right now, it's all random and the moves get re-rolled upon evolution.
Values to note are:
- Power
- Type
- Cooldown
- Energy (gain for quick moves, cost for charge moves)
Only the first two are shown. For the others, you've got to check online.
Power is self-explanatory. Higher means more damage per attack.
Type matters because you get a Same Type Attack Bonus (STAB) multiplier when your Pokemon's move matches its type. Lapras using Blizzard is better than Seadra using Blizzard, for example. Note that STAB and type effectiveness (e.g. Water vs. Fire) are both 1.25x multipliers, which basically means that the STAB move will usually be better. Some people online tout Gyarados with Dragon Pulse as a Dragonite counter, except that Hydro Pump will actually deal more damage to Dragonite despite Dragonite resisting Water, and that's thanks to naturally higher base damage and STAB on Hydro Pump. I'm hoping that a future update will make it more like the games, where STAB is 1.5x and type effectiveness is 2x. Maybe that won't carry over well to real-time battling though.
Cooldown matters in two ways. First, it affects DPS. A fast attack like Frost Breath has lower damage but higher DPS on offense because you can spam it so fast. But on defense, the AI seems to attack at a consistent pace so it's better to defend a gym with the slower, stronger quick move. Secondly, a faster attack makes it a lot easier to dodge. With slower moves, you may be stuck in an attack animation and miss the dodge timing.
Finally, Energy gain and cost are important because they determine how often you can use your charge move, which can be extremely powerful. Cooldown actually affects this too (energy per second from your fast attack!) and I think a lot of lists online don't factor this in, focusing on individual DPS instead. A lot of people called it an upgrade when Golem's Mud Shot was replaced with Mud Slap due to the higher DPS of Mud Slap, but I like my legacy Golem with its fast Mud Shot that charges up Earthquake quickly.
As a general rule of thumb, you want low-cooldown fast moves for offense and high-power fast moves for defense. You want the powerful one-bar charge moves for offense and the weak multi-bar moves for defense (this is because the AI attacks slowly but gains energy from being damaged, so it's better for them to be using the charge move as often as possible). For example, Vaporeon with Water Pulse is best for gym defense, but the DPS on Water Pulse is actually lower than DPS of Water Gun so on offense you shouldn't use Water Pulse at all (Hydro Pump is ideal here).