Pokémon Movepool Oddities & Explanations

[Castersvarog]

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”.

Thinking about it, the whole quick attack being the generic priority move might be why I’ve never been a big on introducing more priority moves of different types.
Priority is extremely good, but it always has a stipulation to it. Not being spammable with Fake out or Sucker punch, being extremely rare with extreme speed, or being really weak and often without STAB via Quick attack. So giving every type it’s own quick attack would undermine the move into a generic one move fits all sets.

 

[AztecCroc]

stone edge Also isn't a slicing move, somewhy.

Stone Edge has been calling rocks from below the opponent to attack.

aura cutter

Assuming you mean Aqua Cutter, as Aura Cutter isn't a move, Gallade does learn Aqua Cutter. As does Samurott-H for that matter. The only Pokémon with Sharpness that doesn't is Kleavor.

Stone Edge and even Precipice Blades.

Stone Edge and Precipice Blades are all about breaking open the ground to hit the target with rocks. They're Rock Slide in reverse why would they be Slicing moves?

Boomburst Pikipek just makes zero sense to me lol.

Trumbeak is Woody Woodpecker, the dex entry mentions it being able to bend its bill into a trumpet shape to create loud noises, and Toucannon is a cannon.

Nobody should talk about lgpe in this thread. arcanine from lgpe has TELEPORT And that makes literally no sense

Arcanine learned Teleport in gen 1 as well. Over a third of the dex learned it in gen 1.

Air cutter but I got a french autocorrect

Kleavor actually does learn that.

(as a tangent, astral barrage is the most egregious of these moves to me because they really gave a 120 bp, 100% accuracy, spread ghost-type move to a mon with deoxys-attack level of offenses that Would do just fine with shadow ball, as base spectrier does. who is balance i don't know her)

You are aware that after the spread damage reduction Astral Barrage becomes effectively power 90 in doubles right? The metagame that they actually balance for? 120 × 0.75 = 90

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).

Dragonite HAD Dual Wingbeat, it doesn't get it in gen 9.

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

Remove the Ice moves from Vaporeon, it learned all of those before Glaceon existed.
Most of the other ones (Bite, Synchronoise, Stored Power, and Trailblaze) are ones learned by Eevee and thus must be available to all.

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.

Mach Punch is from gen 2, Vaccuum Wave is from gen 4.

 

[KalosianPorygon]

You are aware that after the spread damage reduction Astral Barrage becomes effectively power 90 in doubles right? The metagame that they actually balance for? 120 × 0.75 = 90

True, the real culprits are Shadow Calyrex' offensive stats. A higher SpA than vanilla Kyogre coupled with Electrode's Speed stat is just obscene, no wonder Trick Room and Focus Sash are common sights.
I'm not that familiar with VGC, is Sucker Punch a common move in formats with the Shadow King?

 

[Worldie]

I'm not that familiar with VGC, is Sucker Punch a common move in formats with the Shadow King?

Yesn't.

There aren't many VGC-viable pokemon that learn it, and the few who do often struggle to slot it in due to 4MSS, as Protect is almost mandatory in doubles on anything that is not AV or choiced. Follow Me and Rage Powder being a thing also severely hurt Sucker Punch as you know you can't really click it if a redirector is on the field.

Last generation, the only Pokemon I can remind that would almost always run Sucker Punch was Yveltal during restricted format, both cause it often ran AV and dark aura being a thing.

In current generation, it used to be the dark stab of choice for Chien Pao (generally in order to revenge booster / choiced Flutter Mane and Iron Bundle as well as have a tool to work in Trick Room), however with Farigiraf becoming meta relevant, some people have started to prefer using Crunch to not risk being completely shut down as soon as the giraffe hits the field.
Kingambit and Urshifu-Dark generally always run Sucker Punch (in fact kinggambit often doesn't run any offensive move other than Kotow and Sucker), however the 2 mons are relatively uncommon currently, and I can't really think of any other relevant pokemon that runs it.

(This is obviously subject to change once DLC2 happens and pokedex gets expanded + eventually restricted meta comes around. I can definitely see a increase in SP once Calyrex is unleashed)

 

[Kin+ak (✧∇✧)]

Assuming you mean Aqua Cutter, as Aura Cutter isn't a move, Gallade does learn Aqua Cutter. As does Samurott-H for that matter. The only Pokémon with Sharpness that doesn't is Kleavor.

I meant Air Cutter

VGC Is a strabge thing. Ban lunala And keep caly-s. Really. But haye what's stranger than quick attack illumise/volbeat? Qatk charmander? Maybe.

 

[Axiemeister]

True, the real culprits are Shadow Calyrex' offensive stats. A higher SpA than vanilla Kyogre coupled with Electrode's Speed stat is just obscene, no wonder Trick Room and Focus Sash are common sights.

yes, which was my point. 165 spatk/150 spd with not bad bulk means that even in vgc it would be usable as a mon that forces trades with just shadow ball - but they gave it a spread move that is stronger than shadow ball even after spread reduction, which would warp any doubles meta. regardless, singles is also a format they think about because of bss

 

[khlaylav]

There's a YouTuber I like who does solo runs with just about every Pokemon and ranks them based on time and resets. That's how I found out about the baby Pokemon's movesets in Crystal.

Magby: Starts with Ember (STAB move, 40 power) and gets Leer at 7 and Smog at 13.
Smoochum: Starts with Pound and Lick and gets Sweet Kiss at 9 and Powder Snow (STAB move, 40 power) at 13.
Elekid: Starts with Tackle and Leer and gets THUNDERPUNCH (STAB move, 75 POWER) at level 9.

Did... did someone screw up the coding? Was Elekid supposed to get Thundershock and someone put Thunder Punch by accident? Because that's cracked.

 

[R_N]

There's a YouTuber I like who does solo runs with just about every Pokemon and ranks them based on time and resets. That's how I found out about the baby Pokemon's movesets in Crystal.

Magby: Starts with Ember (STAB move, 40 power) and gets Leer at 7 and Smog at 13.
Smoochum: Starts with Pound and Lick and gets Sweet Kiss at 9 and Powder Snow (STAB move, 40 power) at 13.
Elekid: Starts with Tackle and Leer and gets THUNDERPUNCH (STAB move, 75 POWER) at level 9.

Did... did someone screw up the coding? Was Elekid supposed to get Thundershock and someone put Thunder Punch by accident? Because that's cracked.

Elekid & Magby just have the same move sets as their evolved forms, but at lower level and with the redundant Level 1 Punch removed
The latter probably had their movesets ironed out first, then they backported to their baby form. They probably SHOULD have given Electabuzz Thundershock, and thus Elekid, but both are post game and Electabuzz is found at a low level anyway.

Smoochum/Jynx are in a similar boat, majority of the moveset is the same just at lower levels, but there's a different design ethos of "The baby gets different moves at certain points than the evovled form". For some reason.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

If you want a lore-based reason, though, Elekid is associated with using its arms to create electricity a lot in its flavour text.

Gold Pokedex entry: It rotates its arms to generate electricity, but it tires easily, so it charges up only a little bit.

Emerald Pokedex entry: If it touches metal and discharges the electricity it has stored in its body, an Elekid begins swinging its arms in circles to recharge itself.

DP Pokedex entry: It generates electricity by whirling its arms. However, it can't store the energy it makes.

B2W2 Pokedex entry: Spinning its arms around to generate electricity makes the area between its horns shine light blue.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Oricorio getting Pound is consistent with the move's description ("The foe is physically pounded with a long tail or a foreleg, etc.") but I have to admit I did a double-take upon catching one that knew the move just now since to "pound" someone typically implies heavy physical strength beyond the capacity of a spindly-legged, floaty little bird. And yes, I know lots of birds are stronger than they look. But still.

 

[Hiddenfreezer]

There's a YouTuber I like who does solo runs with just about every Pokemon and ranks them based on time and resets. That's how I found out about the baby Pokemon's movesets in Crystal.

Magby: Starts with Ember (STAB move, 40 power) and gets Leer at 7 and Smog at 13.
Smoochum: Starts with Pound and Lick and gets Sweet Kiss at 9 and Powder Snow (STAB move, 40 power) at 13.
Elekid: Starts with Tackle and Leer and gets THUNDERPUNCH (STAB move, 75 POWER) at level 9.

Did... did someone screw up the coding? Was Elekid supposed to get Thundershock and someone put Thunder Punch by accident? Because that's cracked.

Just logged in to say this is one of my favorite video series on Youtube so far and I wonder how good Electabuzz would be now. Or Electrivire if back ported by him.

---

You know funnily enough Pound was translated to "Pfund" in German, as in the literal... pound for measurement. It was fixed later in some generation to "Klaps" which is like... Slap in English? Basically it fits.

 

[WinterArcanine]

Which youtuber is this?

 

[R_N]

Which youtuber is this?

Scott's Thoughts, he's a solo challenge guy who tries to see how optimally he can solo gen 1/2/3 with a given Pokemon and tracks a bunch of little statistics for ranking them.
I like him a lot, especially having seen him since close to his start since he's constantly trying to improve his knowledge on the game and also stat tracking, the pokemon, etc

 

[DrPumpkinz]

The "why didn't Lickitung learn Lick in gen 1" mystery is even weirder than I previously thought: Lickitung's entries in Blue, Yellow, and Stadium all talk about how Lickitung's licks induce paralysis, presumably in reference to the move Lick's secondary effect.

 

[Celever]

The "why didn't Lickitung learn Lick in gen 1" mystery is even weirder than I previously thought: Lickitung's entries in Blue, Yellow, and Stadium all talk about how Lickitung's licks induce paralysis, presumably in reference to the move Lick's secondary effect.

This made me look at the learnset for Lick (because I figured they probably just made it signature to the Gastly line but no, Jynx of all things learns it in Gen I) and I discovered that Lick is a level 7 move for… Skeledirge?

Crocodiles are one of the land-dwelling animals that are closest to not having a tongue at all. The tongue they do have is basically just a bone that we call a tongue, can barely move (and is in fact usually secured to the roof of their mouth via a membrane) and doesn’t even have taste buds of any description on it. Skeledirge is also usually depicted with its mouth open and I can’t see a tongue in any of its depictions.

I assume they just threw a random weak Ghost-Type STAB into its early level up, since these moves are never being seen outside of hacking anyway, but Lick has never fulfilled that purpose outside of the Gastly line. The only other Ghost-Type family to even learn Lick is the Greavard line, and they’re dogs so it makes perfect sense there. It actually has pretty terrible Ghost-Type distribution.

 

[KalosianPorygon]

It's been pointed out in the unpopular opinions thread that Lapras was able to learn Solar Beam in Generation I, then never again except for LGPE.
I don't what's weirder: that the icy plesiosaur could learn it, or the fact you can't teach it this move in most games after the first ones.

 

[pika pal]

Brief thing I noticed while making an Aerodactyl ramble in the Annoying things thread.

In Generations 4-7, Aerodactyl has the Elemental Fangs as Level 1 moves, likely to fit its Pokedex entries referencing its very dangerous teeth for hunting prey. In Generation 8, the Fangs were removed from its level up pool in favor of TM access, which I can't recall another major instance of for losing level-up access after holding it for that long (i.e. disregarding a potential Gen 1-2 Edge case before the mechanical soft-reset of Gen 3). It's not even like most of these cases in which Gamefreak were removing the move from non-Transfer access, a Gen 8 Aerodactyl can still learn the moves with little to no additional effort.

 

[R_N]

Brief thing I noticed while making an Aerodactyl ramble in the Annoying things thread.

In Generations 4-7, Aerodactyl has the Elemental Fangs as Level 1 moves, likely to fit its Pokedex entries referencing its very dangerous teeth for hunting prey. In Generation 8, the Fangs were removed from its level up pool in favor of TM access, which I can't recall another major instance of for losing level-up access after holding it for that long (i.e. disregarding a potential Gen 1-2 Edge case before the mechanical soft-reset of Gen 3). It's not even like most of these cases in which Gamefreak were removing the move from non-Transfer access, a Gen 8 Aerodactyl can still learn the moves with little to no additional effort.

Gen 8 did this very haphazardly to several Pokemon, Aerodactyl's probably just a good poster child of it.

My favorite is Gallade, who lost Leaf Blade despite having it since its inception and then that carried over to BDSP despite not having Leaf Blade as a TM. At least it got it back in LA & SV.





Similar shoutouts once more to Shellder who lost Rapid Spin (an egg move since gen 2) in SWSH because it didn't have any parents to pass it down, then didn't have it added back to its movepool when parents came back in the DLC, had it in BDSP because it just reused the same egg move list as usual, and now still doesnt have it in SV because they just pasted over the SWSH moveset.

 

[doipy hooves]

I found out Pikachu lost access to Slam between Gen 8 and 9, replacing it for Iron Tail. It's kind of random for a Gen 1 move that's been in its learnset for ages.

 

[Axiemeister]

a post in another thread made me realise misdreavus and mismagius only learn psyshock starting this current gen. maybe they wanted flutter mane to have it and then realised the original misdreavus didn't?

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I found out Pikachu lost access to Slam between Gen 8 and 9, replacing it for Iron Tail. It's kind of random for a Gen 1 move that's been in its learnset for ages.

Interestingly, Bonsly lost it a few generations back too.

Which brings up another point: I've often noticed that Sudowoodo doesn't get (m)any useful moves from Bonsly, unlike a lot of Pokemon with baby forms - for several generations, literally the only moves it got from Bonsly were Fake Tears and Uproar. Mr Mime is in the same unfortunate boat, only inheriting Tickle and Uproar from Mime Jr. Hey Game Freak, you need to GIVE Bonsly extra moves, not remove the ones it's already got.

 

[Bruxish supremacy]

Why did ambipom lose tail slap??

 

[R_N]

Why did ambipom lose tail slap??

So I offer one of 2 explanations:
1. They just copied over the egg moves from BDSP, which excluded Tail Slap entirely since it wasn't in the game.
2. They left it out similar to Rapid Spin Shellder in SWSH but forgot Tail Slap was actually available due to Fezandipiti having it.

Either of these would also cover Vulpix & Buizel not having it (Buizel same reason as Aipom + no Tail Slap in the base game, Vulpix because of a TM).

 

[doipy hooves]

1. They just copied over the egg moves from BDSP, which excluded Tail Slap entirely since it wasn't in the game.

Honestly I don't think the SV team considered BDSP movesets at all, since it didn't bother with Spore Breloom or any of the moves they added to replace removed moves in learnsets like Harden replacing Magnitude on Geodude in BDSP while SV just moved Bulldoze down instead.

Plusle and Minun's relationship with Fake Tears and Charm in their levelup learnsets is pretty strange.
In Gen 3, Plusle had Fake Tears and Minun had Charm, with no overlap between them.
In Gen 4, Minun gained Fake Tears at level 31. At the same time, Plusle also learnt an extra slot of Fake Tears at level 31 to parallel it, while it already still learned Fake Tears at level 21 when Minun learned Charm.
In ORAS, Plusle lost Fake Tears but gained Charm for the first time, while Minun lost Charm, but both moves also became egg moves anyway so they didn't lose access to them. The moves they naturally learn just ended up completely opposite of how they were in Gen 3 in their own remakes.

 

[doipy hooves]

Honestly I don't think the SV team considered BDSP movesets at all, since it didn't bother with Spore Breloom or any of the moves they added to replace removed moves in learnsets like Harden replacing Magnitude on Geodude in BDSP while SV just moved Bulldoze down instead.

Plusle and Minun's relationship with Fake Tears and Charm in their levelup learnsets is pretty strange.
In Gen 3, Plusle had Fake Tears and Minun had Charm, with no overlap between them.
In Gen 4, Minun gained Fake Tears at level 31. At the same time, Plusle also learnt an extra slot of Fake Tears at level 31 to parallel it, while it already still learned Fake Tears at level 21 when Minun learned Charm.
In ORAS, Plusle lost Fake Tears but gained Charm for the first time, while Minun lost Charm, but both moves also became egg moves anyway so they didn't lose access to them. The moves they naturally learn just ended up completely opposite of how they were in Gen 3 in their own remakes.

View attachment 579351
View attachment 579352

Update: Plusle and Minun made it into SV DLC2! Charm and Fake Tears are TMs now, but surely that shouldn't affect anything.

Actually they just removed Charm and Fake Tears from the levelup learnset altogether, moved Charge 2 levels down to compensate, and Plusle lost Fake Tears as an egg move on top of that but Minun was untouched. They can still both learn both moves by TM but what the heck?