Zapdos, raikou, side by side

In preparation for when the electric dog hits Europe I'll set the two electric type legendaries against each other.

Zapdos:

• Base stamina 180
• Base attack 253
• Base defence 188
• Type electric / flying
• Best attacks Charge Beam / Thunderbolt

Raikou:

• Base stamina 180
• Base attack 241
• Base defence 210
• Type electric
• Best attacks Thunder Shock / Wild Charge

Both pokemon share the same stamina with raikou coming out ahead in terms of defence.

The flying typing for zapdos makes it a little iffy for attacking into lapras since ice attacks are supereffective against flying.

Since the two pokemon don't share the best move sets it's not a given that the 12 extra base attack will settle which one is the best attacker even in terms of raw dps.

Zapdos comes with Charge Beam as a primary attack. It pretty much shares the attributes of Bullet Seed for exeggutor, with Charge Beam being slightly better at pumping up energy for the charge attacks. As a primary attack Charge Beam is pretty lackluster, and it's basically only there to prepare the charge attack.

Raikou has access to Thunder Shock and Volt Switch as primary attacks. While Volt Switch comes with a slighty better DPS, Thunder Shock ramps up energy at a distinctly better pace. It's also much easier to dodge incoming attacks if you use Thunder Shock.

Thunder Shock and Charge Beam ramps up energy at a basically identical rate, and since Thunder Shock comes with a higher DPS than Charge Beam it's likely that Raikou will deal more damage than Zapdos with the primary attacks despite a lower base attack stat.

Zapdos has the two bar Thunderbolt as its best charge attack. It's an 80 power move with a 2.5 second cast time. While using Zap Cannon should yield a higher dps for a long fight, zapdos' stamina simply won't sustain any long fights. You're likely to end combat with a lot of unused energy.

Raikou has the two bar Wild Charge as its best charge attack. It's a 90 power move with a 2.6 second cast time.

As far as charge moves go Wild Charge deals 10% higher dps compared to Thunderbolt given the same attack stat. Zapdos 12 higher base attack stat only gives a 5% advantage, so raikou should come out ahead again.

With better bulk, no type disadvantages against likely targets and a slightly higher dps, raikou is the better attacker of the two electric type legendaries.

Apart from some fights against gyarados, and not even all of those fights, raikou is the best electric type pokemon for attacks in the game. Jolteon will be better against some gyardos, but overall picking raikou as your goto electric type attacker is a no-brainer.