Pokémon Movepool Oddities & Explanations

[Axiemeister]

i actually agree that not all mons need to have viable accessible STAB and coverage or else identity starts to be lost, but also that's not quite what i was arguing. i just said i don't think gamefreak thinks about balance when doing that most of the time. dragapult not getting poltergeist is more an exception than a rule, and i do think signature moves are an indicator of that because it doesn't really matter if it's confined to one or two mons if the move breaks them anyway (see: another ghost move, last respects)

i also feel like if a pokémon has a type it should, you know, be able to have moves of that type, competitively viable or not - there is a difference between gyarados not having a flamethrower-esque flying STAB, and gyarados currently not having a physical flying move in gen 9 at all (and only hurricane overall!)

 

[Worldie]

i actually agree that not all mons need to have viable accessible STAB and coverage or else identity starts to be lost, but also that's not quite what i was arguing. i just said i don't think gamefreak thinks about balance when doing that most of the time. dragapult not getting poltergeist is more an exception than a rule, and i do think signature moves are an indicator of that because it doesn't really matter if it's confined to one or two mons if the move breaks them anyway (see: another ghost move, last respects)

For most of the old pokemon, usually they were giving out moves mainly based on flavour with little care for balance. Gyarados doesn't have any phisical flying stab (other than Bounce in some gens) because none of the currently existing flying phisical moves makes sense on it in first place.
(Also we do not speak of gen 1-2 movesets in general due to many of them being remnants of "let's just give them for no reason", see nidos)

For more modern pokemon, it's very often intentional balance reasons. A typical example from very recently is as mentioned Dragapult, but it was also very intentional that they did not give rising voltage / grassy glide / expanding force to the tapus for example (and everyone is glad of that), as well as nerfing notably the distribution of Scald and of Knock Off this generation (and notably, Lando-T did not get it back while the other 2 genies did, clear sign that was a intentional choice)

While the idea of "balance" that GF has sometimes is questionable, there is generally some thought behind it. Do note that "we want this to be op" is tecnically also a conscious choice. If they didn't want Calyrex to be spectacular, they wouldn't have made his signature move THAT strong.

(Also, remember that Last Respects is actually a relatively awful move in the official formats. Noone runs Basculegion or Houndstone and the few who do in rain just use shadow ball or tera blast instead)

 

[Hugin]

So no, I don't see a issue with Gyarados, Dragonite and few others flying type not having access to a flying stab that doesn't suck or require a gimmick (note: Dragonite actually has Dual Wingbeat which is a pretty strong move regardless, 90% accuracy is a fine price to pay for the benefit of disregarding focus sash).

Why do 90% accurate moves exist at all? At 80%, sure, that feels like you're taking a risk and making a tradeoff(I don't think it's a coincidence that a lot of the high BP/low accuracy moves sit at the 70%-85% range), so if you miss because of 1-in-5 it's your fault for using that move. But 90%? That's rare enough that you should basically never take "what if I miss" into account, but it does happen. And it's close enough to 100% that it usually functions as it's type's standard move. So it's not the player's fault for taking a risk, it's just RNG for the sake of RNG, and that's not fun.

 

[Omastar68]

Maybe Regieleki not having Discharge? It gets so many electric moves, but not that potentially useful mid-ground between t-bolt and t-wave. I would run it, a screens set is still not fat enough to love taking a turn(and a chance to even miss!) for t-wave, while uninvested t-bolt, esp. uninvested, is just a smidge more powerful than discharge, not worth the big gap in para chance. But nvm that, it lacks this:|

 

[Worldie]

Why do 90% accurate moves exist at all? At 80%, sure, that feels like you're taking a risk and making a tradeoff(I don't think it's a coincidence that a lot of the high BP/low accuracy moves sit at the 70%-85% range), so if you miss because of 1-in-5 it's your fault for using that move. But 90%? That's rare enough that you should basically never take "what if I miss" into account, but it does happen. And it's close enough to 100% that it usually functions as it's type's standard move. So it's not the player's fault for taking a risk, it's just RNG for the sake of RNG, and that's not fun.

That's sadly Pokemon design, as in, intentional design.

GameFreaks did not want to make "rock paper scissor" so to say.

The fact pretty much everything (bar rare exception) in this game has some rng attached to it is intentional design to "create tension" or something on these lines.
Whenever agreeable or not, it's what makes Pokemon different from "20D chess", the fact that for most actions you take the result is not completely guaranteed.

 

[pika pal]

My problem with the argument about not every type needing a middle-ground move is that because GF is grafting eSports balance onto systems and a type-chart that were obviously not designed with them in mind, several types end up in an awkward spot where the type is too strong WITH a move but disproportionately weaker without one.

Flying without a good middle ground is kind of middling as an offensive type, but with it the wide coverage makes it good enough to even be a Mono-Attacking type; yet if you have an insufficient flying movie, several Pokemon it becomes a liability defensively such as adding a weakness to some very prominent offensive types like Electric, Rock (SR) and Ice. Rock is in a similar boat because of its very bad Defensive type charting, but the offensive synergy Rock gets means they rarely give good moves to anything unless it's a Sig like Ogerpon, so if you have a Rock Typing you're actively worse than without it unless a bunch of other shit about you is overtuned like Gargancl (which between Salt Cure and PS is basically only balanced by having a horrible typing without Tera).

 

[Worldie]

My problem with the argument about not every type needing a middle-ground move is that because GF is grafting eSports balance onto systems and a type-chart that were obviously not designed with them in mind, several types end up in an awkward spot where the type is too strong WITH a move but disproportionately weaker without one.

I won't disagree tbh, funnily the same argument i generally use against smogon works in this purpose too: these games weren't exactly designed with the idea of being big competitive games in mind.

Ironically I think an apt comparison is Hearthstone: that game is often very fun to *watch* because of all the randomness involved. While there's obviously plenty of skill in deckbuilding and turn by turn decisionmaking, ultimately not only it's a card game (so there's the draw RNG involved) but also the fact large majority of the cards have random effects. And while it's indeed fun to see games turned in the brink of an eye by a lucky draw, at same time, how satisfactory is it really to win a lost game because you threw Yogg Saron and highrolled 2 pyroblasts to the enemy face?

Pokemon is kind of the same, they bank a lot on the "viewer impression", and the hype of seeing a match turned by a lucky crit, and honestly, while some degree of randomness is fine (probability management is part of game skill, trying to not put yourself in the position where you lose to a crit is part of player ability and why crit-me-not strats tend to not work for example), some of the random elements really should not exist.

TLDR: The design is definitely intentional, miss chance, status chance, etc etc, are all there to keep a sense of tension in every match, but at same time, these should really be much more limited in competitive environment.

 

[Karxrida]

This one falls under "makes sense actually" but also paradoxically "wtf".

So Cryogonal learns Solar Beam by level-up. While that may seem a bit odd, snow and ice are actually very, very reflective, especially in large quantities. If you've ever gone skiing/snowboarding you've almost certainly had to wear goggles partially due to the glare caused by the sun's light bouncing off the snowfall and making everything bright.

However, the fact that Solar Beam is learned by a bunch of Fire-types also seems to suggest there's a bit of a heat factor involved with the move. They are just sitting there soaking up the sun's rays. The Black and Shield Pokédex entries for Cryogonal say it just flat-out melts when the weather is too hot. So shouldn't Cryogonal melt before it gets to use the move?

 

[Kin+ak (✧∇✧)]

where i'm at rn it's very very sunny And meanhmwhile it's -6°C

 

[pika pal]

This one falls under "makes sense actually" but also paradoxically "wtf".

So Cryogonal learns Solar Beam by level-up. While that may seem a bit odd, snow and ice are actually very, very reflective, especially in large quantities. If you've ever gone skiing/snowboarding you've almost certainly had to wear goggles partially due to the glare caused by the sun's light bouncing off the snowfall and making everything bright.

However, the fact that Solar Beam is learned by a bunch of Fire-types also seems to suggest there's a bit of a heat factor involved with the move. They are just sitting there soaking up the sun's rays. The Black and Shield Pokédex entries for Cryogonal say it just flat-out melts when the weather is too hot. So shouldn't Cryogonal melt before it gets to use the move?

Maybe Solarbeam in Cryogonal's case works by reflecting sunlight off of itself, instead of absorbing it into its body as Fire Types would for the heat energy (Reflected Light imparts less heat than "absorbed" like how Lighter Colors are "cooler" in the sun)? Fire Types thrive in the Sun regardless and the move description only discusses blasting the opponent with the bundled Light rather than specifying the heat of it.

 

[Girlhero]

Why can't the Amaura line learn Power Gem? They have gems on their body.

 

[Nokocchi]

Why can't the Amaura line learn Power Gem? They have gems on their body.

I won't be surprised if they get it the next time they appear in a game with Power Gem as a TM. There is a lot of Pokemon that were in both Sword/Shield and Scarlet/Violet that couldn't learn the Power Gem TR in Sword/Shield but COULD learn the TM in Scarlet/Violet.

 

[R_N]

I won't be surprised if they get it the next time they appear in a game with Power Gem as a TM. There is a lot of Pokemon that were in both Sword/Shield and Scarlet/Violet that couldn't learn the Power Gem TR in Sword/Shield but COULD learn the TM in Scarlet/Violet.

Granted it should be learning it naturally anyway

It's a special attacking rock type with gems in its design, it's kind of designed for the special attacking rock move based around gems in a design

 

[KalosianPorygon]

Why do 90% accurate moves exist at all? At 80%, sure, that feels like you're taking a risk and making a tradeoff(I don't think it's a coincidence that a lot of the high BP/low accuracy moves sit at the 70%-85% range), so if you miss because of 1-in-5 it's your fault for using that move. But 90%? That's rare enough that you should basically never take "what if I miss" into account, but it does happen. And it's close enough to 100% that it usually functions as it's type's standard move. So it's not the player's fault for taking a risk, it's just RNG for the sake of RNG, and that's not fun.

95% accurate moves: Are we a joke to you?

[...] Solar Beam is learned by a bunch of Fire-types also seems to suggest there's a bit of a heat factor involved with the move.

Is it true Flareon is the only Fire-type Pokémon that can't learn Solar Beam? Flareon and its 1,650°F/900°C body temperature?
I get Eeveelutions are designed to have limited movepools, but geez.

 

[Nokocchi]

95% accurate moves: Are we a joke to you?

Is it true Flareon is the only Fire-type Pokémon that can't learn Solar Beam? Flareon and its 1,650°F/900°C body temperature?
I get Eeveelutions are designed to have limited movepools, but geez.

It's mostly regulated to fully-evolved Fire types, and this near-universal compatibility with fully-evolved Fire types and the Solar Beam TM wasn't enacted until gen IV.

It's especially odd since there are numerous examples of Eeveelutions learning damaging moves of their relative's types over the years:

-Vaporeon: Aurora Beam, Bite, Blizzard, Ice Beam, Icy Wind, Stored Power, Synchronoise, Trailblaze
-Jolteon: Bite, Stored Power, Synchronoise, Trailblaze
-Flareon: Bite, Stored Power, Synchronoise, Trailblaze, Zap Cannon
-Espeon: Bite, Dazzling Gleam, Draining Kiss, Grass Knot, Magical Leaf, Trailblaze, Zap Cannon
-Umbreon: Dream Eater, Psychic, Stored Power, Synchronoise, Trailblaze, Zap Cannon
-Leafeon: Bite, Knock Off, Stored Power, Synchronoise
-Glaceon: Aqua Tail, Bite, Chilling Water, Mirror Coat, Stored Power, Synchronoise, Trailblaze, Water Pulse
-Sylveon: Bite, Magical Leaf, Mystical Fire, Psychic, Psyshock, Stored Power, Synchronoise, Trailblaze

 

[Kin+ak (✧∇✧)]

Aye wTF zap cannon? Like wTF? Also, I'd Add that I L'ost a game Cause I missed three dual wingbeat outta 4. So I completely agree. But I Also missed two SNARL in a row, And sometimes Even miss all opponents With heat savez.in doubles, causing me to lose the game.

 

[MaahirMomtaz12]

Well, see the attached image for how Tauros surfs.

Additionally, why doesn't Typhlosion learn Earth Power? I mean, the animation looks like a volcano exploding underneath the earth and Typhlosion is the Volcano Pokemon!

I said this in another thread also, but Hawlucha should be able to learn Brave Bird. Isn't its whole gimmick being a brave warrior/wrestler? I mean, I'd even take Drill Peck for Hawlucha since it clearly has a beak. It would also give it a usable option over Acrobatics (Life Orb Drill Peck is about as strong as itemless Acrobatics).

You got your wish 4 years later

 

[MaahirMomtaz12]

I won't be surprised if they get it the next time they appear in a game with Power Gem as a TM. There is a lot of Pokemon that were in both Sword/Shield and Scarlet/Violet that couldn't learn the Power Gem TR in Sword/Shield but COULD learn the TM in Scarlet/Violet.

Two examples being Heatran and Garchomp

 

[SlowAriados]

Weird that Sentret can learn Quick Attack with a base speed of 20! I thought Sentret had higher speed than that!

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Weird that Sentret can learn Quick Attack with a base speed of 20! I thought Sentret had higher speed than that!

Speed=/=speed. Speed the stat is considered by a lot of fans to be more about agility, dexterity, and reaction times than it is about literal physical movement. It's an approach that allows you to reconcile why Dragonite has a fairly middling Speed stat despite being the fastest Pokemon in existence (the Pokedex describes it as capable of reaching a flying speed of 1556 mph, or enough to circle the globe in 16 hours) or why Escavalier is described as travelling around at high speeds despite having an extremely low Speed stat.

To circle back to your original point we can presume that Quick Attack (and similar moves) is simply a learned technique that allows the user to strike first, but nothing says that only fast Pokemon can do that. In fact the amount of slower Pokemon which learn such moves almost supports the idea of it being the other way round: the move is notable because it can strike ahead of speedier Pokemon. Several moves are described as being fast (Aerial Ace comes to mind) even though Pokemon of varying speeds can learn them.

 

[Celever]

I’d go even further with regards to priority moves and say that they specifically exist because of gameplay implications first and foremost, and that informs the types that receive priority at all.

All of the types that get priority are on the slower side, when the priority move in question was introduced, with probably 1 major exception. Ignoring signature moves since in recent gens they have inexplicably put those on fast Pokémon, besides Rillaboom (let’s be honest Grassy Glide is its signature lol).

• Steel is a slow, defensive type
• Water is a tanky type of varying speeds. However, when Aqua Jet was introduced, the only real Water-Type speedsters were the new introduction Floatzel, and special attackers Starmie and Tentacruel. On the bulk, Water-Type had middling speed at best.
• Fighting-Type, nowadays, boasts many fast members. However, when Vacuum Wave was introduced back in Gen 2, they only ever reached fairy middling speeds. The fastest was Primeape, at 95 Speed. I think Mach Punch probably was created just to have a physical version because they decided Vacuum Wave should be special, but even in Gen IV newly introduced Infernape was the only real Fighting-Type speedster.
• While special Ghost-Type Pokémon tended to be fast (Gengar, Mismagius) they would never run Shadow Sneak, a much needed speed control option for the plethora of slow physical Ghost-Type Pokémon.
• Most Ice-Type Pokémon were also considerably slow, with the notable exceptions of new introductions Froslass and Weavile when Ice Shard was introduced, and Sneasel itself had decent speed. Since most Ice-Type Pokémon were specially inclined, this may have actually been introduced to help these two against scarfers, as they finally committed to making glass cannon style Ice-Type Pokémon in Gen IV.
• First Impression is barely a Bug-Type move, since its small distribution has a very wide range of different types. However, every single Pokémon that learns it has pretty low speed, especially compared to contemporary parallels (Falinks and Sirfetch’d lower than many Fighting-Type Pokémon now, Golisopod of course slow, Haxorus slower than many strong Dragon-Type Pokémon. [looking at the learnset they refocused on Bug-Type in gen 9 with Lokix and Slither Wing, 2 similarly slow Bug-Type Pokémon]. The exception is Durant, who’s fast anyway.
• Sucker Punch is very widely distributed and is mainly Dark-Type for flavour IMO. Dark-Type is also a decent neutral type, though, only resisted by Dark- and Steel-Type on introduction, and in many ways I view it as a Normal-Type attack that just dunks on Psychic-Type further lol. Also good to have widely distributed priority that’s strong against Ghost-Type since the other widely distributed priority does nothing to them…

The exception to the rule is Normal-Type, which was very much a fast type in earlier Pokémon. However, I think this is also fuelled by gameplay. Quick Attack, Feint, and Extreme Speed don’t exist to buff Normal-Type so much as they exist to be a basic priority option for Pokémon of all types to have. Being that basic option for everything is kind of the whole point of Normal-Type. In particular, Fake Out could easily be an Electric-Type flavour (Shock Jolt or something) but being Normal-Type is better for gameplay because the point is to for sure flinch notwithstanding Protect or faster Fake Out, any typing would just be an add-on.

None of the elemental faster types actually get priority moves, because they shouldn’t really need it. Earlier on, the “fast” types were really Electric-, Flying-, and Fire-Type, alongside the previously mentioned Normal-Type. The mentality seems to be “if you outspeed anyway just use Thunderbolt, sorry Ampharos”.

 

[R_N]

I’d go even further with regards to priority moves and say that they specifically exist because of gameplay implications first and foremost, and that informs the types that receive priority at all.

All of the types that get priority are on the slower side, when the priority move in question was introduced, with probably 1 major exception. Ignoring signature moves since in recent gens they have inexplicably put those on fast Pokémon, besides Rillaboom (let’s be honest Grassy Glide is its signature lol).

• Fighting-Type, nowadays, boasts many fast members. However, when Vacuum Wave was introduced back in Gen 2, they only ever reached fairy middling speeds. The fastest was Primeape, at 95 Speed. I think Mach Punch probably was created just to have a physical version because they decided Vacuum Wave should be special, but even in Gen IV newly introduced Infernape was the only real Fighting-Type speedster.

I think you've got a lot pretty spot on in this (though I feel like a good case is for fire to have a priority move, gameplay wise) but some small corrections here:
Mach Punch was the Gen 2 move, and it was exclusive to Hitmonchan (by level, the other Hitmons could get it through Egg move passing to Tyrogue). In this scenario it's more "signature move" type deal, probably to give Hitmonchan a little more even to Lee & Top who got like. 3 of the things.
Gen 3 only gave it to Breloom, who is also slow & got a good niche out of it as an early fighting move.
Gen 4 & 5 spread it a smidge, LA gave it to a number of Pokemon for its rebalance reasons.


Vaccuum Wave (gen 4) existing at all is honestly kind of weird in that regard. Mach Punch wasn't given out a lot, and other priorities didn't get similar treatment. And then it was still basically a signature move of Hitmonchan again (but Lucario & Toxicroak got it by breeding) who doesnt really use it. Platinum did give it a Tutor and Gen 9 gave it a TM so its more widespread than Mach Punch in the end, but in the moment it was very "why is this here...?"

 

[CPU]

Uh Celever Mach Punch was the OG Fighting priority move back in gen 2, not Vacuum Wave. Vacuum Wave is kinda weird because before they made it a tutor in the later Gen 4 games, it was also learned by the first learner of Mach Punch... Hitmonchan.

Actually IIRC Mach Punch was exclusive to Hitmonchan when it was added, aside from breeding it to other Hitmons.


Ninja'd by R_N lol

 

[Hugin]

The real question is why Vacuum Wave exists at all. Nearly everything* that learns it is a physical attacker who would much rather run Mach Punch. I'd assume it was made for Lucario, except Lucario only got it by breeding originally and didn't get it by level until Gen IX. It's one of only 4 special Fighting moves(Aura Sphere, Vacuum Wave, Focus Miss, Secret Sword). Just...why did they feel this was a niche that needed to be filled, instead of making literally anything else?

It's also surprisingly common with Water-type users, which I assume is because of the name, but also very silly when you're looking at the learnset and Golduck is at the top.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

Does any move need a reason to exist? Plus, for all DP's faults, it was kinda charming as a kid to discover these random new moves on postgame-exclusive mons after importing them from FRLG/RSE and going to the Move Relearner.