Do you have a fancy (or shiny) new Shadow Mewtwo that you’d love to use in raids and PvP battles? Not so fast! You see, those shadow Pokémon aren’t like normal characters. They’ve been kinda of tortured and pushed to their limits to deliver that much power in battles, which means their charge attack has been replaced by the useless Frustration. So what do you do? Well, you can always purify them and make them closer to normal, but then you lose that sweet attack bonus. So, here’s how to replace Frustration on Shadow Pokémon in Pokémon GO.
How to Replace Frustration
As I said, the quick and easy way to replace Frustration with any of that character’s normal charge attacks you can purify them. For a small Stardust and Candy cost you will take that shadow character and make them whole again. Better actually, as they’ll be purified which will replace Frustration, increase their IVs overall, and allow them to be powered up for less Stardust and Candy in the future. But while they’re better than a normal version of that Pokémon, they aren’t actually better than their Shadow form.
Shadow Pokémon in Pokémon GO get a significant attack bonus, making even the lowest IV Shadow version better than a high IV purified or normal one. So you want to use Shadow Mewtwo or anything else powerful enough in these battles, but need Frustration replaced with something actually useful. To do this you have two options. The first isn’t really replacing Frustration as just making it irrelevent. By adding a second Charged Attack to whatever Shadow Pokémon you want to use you will unlock a normal attack and can then TM it however you would like. This can be costly, especially in Candy, so use it wisely.
Afterward you can make changes all you would like to that second attack. The best way is an Elite Charged TM, which can replace any non-Frustration attack with any of that character’s previously available (and legal) attacks. This typically costs a lot of money but is also handed out as a reward for Battle League season ranks or other events. If you have one, be sure to use it wisely to get yourself a Psystrike Mewtwo, Meteor Mash Metagross, or other equally valuable Pokémon.
Your only other option is to be patient and wait. During some events in Pokémon GO you will be able to use normal and Elite Charged TMs to replace Frustration on your Shadow Pokémon. These events are rare and are becoming moreso as time goes on though, so don’t expect them to come around every month or two. Previous ones were quite popular, with hardcore players TMing Frustration off of all of their powerful Shadow Pokémon, but that has made for some overpowered options out there that Niantic is pumping the brakes on.
So that’s how to replace Frustration in Pokémon GO, and a workaround if you can’t wait to do that properly.
