Moltres

Moltres stands out as the strongest special attacker in RBY OU, tied with Articuno. It shares a lot of strengths and weaknesses with the other legendary bird: Moltres can also 2HKO Tauros and threaten Snorlax significantly while nailing Exeggutor and having Agility to clean up late-game. However, it too has a hard time breaking through very common special walls such as Starmie and Chansey, which holds it back tremendously. Should these walls be incapacitated or removed, Moltres can wreak havoc and make great use of its titanic Special stat.

Due to these shared traits with Articuno, it is worth analyzing where they differ to understand which fits your team best. Moltres has access to Fire Spin in tandem with higher Attack, giving it a stronger Hyper Beam. These two qualities allow Moltres to muscle through checks like Starmie and Chansey more effectively than Articuno, especially when these Pokemon have been paralyzed and chipped beforehand. Moltres also possesses no hard walls: while Articuno really struggles against Lapras and Cloyster, there aren't any Pokemon that shut down Moltres quite so hard. However, Moltres's lower physical bulk and a weakness to Ice make it considerably easier to take down. Additionally, the type chart is unkind to Fire-type attacks in RBY, making Moltres considerably weaker in various matchups compared to Articuno, such as Zapdos and especially Rhydon. Furthermore, Fire Spin's accuracy makes it very unreliable; Fire Blast also suffers from this problem to a lesser degree. Overall, Moltres is a phenomenal late-game threat, despite being niche overall, as the ability to beat Tauros one-on-one is of crucial importance; while supporting it can be difficult, this Pokemon remains a sweeping threat that can tear down passive builds.