I'm still "justifying" it by saying that since Zapdos's wings are super awkward and only have one degree of freedom compared to other Pokemon's wings. They can't really bend enough to be flapped and form a hurricane.
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Pokémon Movepool Oddities & Explanations
- Thread starter Kurona
- Start date
Because Tornadus has maybe some Wings ? Well Hidden !
Well, Tornadus is named after a wind-related natural calamity, I guess it's excused. The real culprit here is Whimiscott. It really has no way to whip a Hurricane up.
Also Zapdos is a storm bird, it wouldn't be so strange if it got the move as well.
I'm guessing maybe by blowing? It's the only logical way I can see it. I mean Whimsicott can like compress itself flat so I guess if it sucks in itself and blows itself until its flat it might be hurricane-like winds.
The answer about Whimsicott is found in its Dex entries:
"Like the wind, it can slip through any gap, no matter how small. It leaves balls of white fluff behind."
"Riding whirlwinds, they appear. These Pokémon sneak through gaps into houses and cause all sorts of mischief."
"They appear along with whirlwinds. They pull pranks, such as moving furniture and leaving balls of cotton in homes."
In fact, Whimsicott can learn other wind-based moves, namely Gust and Tailwind. Considering that Whimsicott seems to take some inspiration from mischievous spirits (further confirmed by it gaining the Fairy-type) I suppose Whimsicott has learned how to control the winds with telekinetic powers or something like this.
Now, regarding another oddity, there is the fact that Rufflet can learn Sky Drop, a move that no other light-weight Pokémon (aside of Mew and Smeargle) can learn. How come this little bird can learn Sky Drop, a move that involves lifting an opponent weighing less than 440.9 lbs/200 kg, and its tiny bird brethren can't? A lot of little birds can lift heavy targets, such as their Trainers, with Fly, so why can't they also drop said targets?
"Like the wind, it can slip through any gap, no matter how small. It leaves balls of white fluff behind."
"Riding whirlwinds, they appear. These Pokémon sneak through gaps into houses and cause all sorts of mischief."
"They appear along with whirlwinds. They pull pranks, such as moving furniture and leaving balls of cotton in homes."
In fact, Whimsicott can learn other wind-based moves, namely Gust and Tailwind. Considering that Whimsicott seems to take some inspiration from mischievous spirits (further confirmed by it gaining the Fairy-type) I suppose Whimsicott has learned how to control the winds with telekinetic powers or something like this.
Now, regarding another oddity, there is the fact that Rufflet can learn Sky Drop, a move that no other light-weight Pokémon (aside of Mew and Smeargle) can learn. How come this little bird can learn Sky Drop, a move that involves lifting an opponent weighing less than 440.9 lbs/200 kg, and its tiny bird brethren can't? A lot of little birds can lift heavy targets, such as their Trainers, with Fly, so why can't they also drop said targets?
That could be a reference to how eagles/hawks sometimes kill big or difficult (like a turtle hiding in its shell) prey, they lift them up into the air and drop them from high up.
the mental picture of a turtle being picked up and dropped by an eagle is making me so sad
Just ask Aeschylus. A conveniently tragic end.
These arguments really annoy me because these move pool absences for "balance" are completely at odds with them doing things like Parental Bond Kang, Shadow Tag-Gar, Mega Rayquaza, Speed Boost Blaziken, Aerialate M-Sal etc who all have move pools that push broken abilities and stats to far more broken levels than dual weather stab zapdos.
Not saying that isn't game freaks logic, just that if that is the case, they are letting far more terrifying threats roam their metagames that seem to have passed this "balance check". It seems to be a common response throughout this thread of good to average mons not getting moves that fit their flavour because of balance reasons. Gen 1 not giving Gyarados dragon water typing for balance fair enough. Gen V (and subsequently gen VI) not giving zapdos hurricane when it is literally the storm pokemon is dumb.
Yeah, but the examples you gave are Megas which seem to have a trend of being intentionally broken to be more impressive. For a normal pokemon (or even a normal non-box cover legend), that need to impress isn't quite there.
So I got a few Ability (that has to do with moves) oddities but it's not exactly a straight forward. I think you'll better understand going through them.
Strong Jaw: So would Strong Jaw increase the Power of Hyper Fang and Bug Bite if a Pokemon with this Abilyty and those moves got them? What about Super Fang, would it can increased in some way?
BTW, how is it that certain biting-based Pokemon don't get like the Ratatta family, Totodile family, Snubbull family, Gible family, Mawile, Hippopotas family, Carnivine, and Sandile family?
Iron Fist: Pokemon who get Iron Fist presumably used their fists as their main means of attacking, so why is it moves which are specifically punch-based that's only powered up? Poison Jab, Sucker Punch, Close Combat, Superpower, Revenge, Pursuit, Feint, Feint Attack, Retaliate, Chip Away, Giga Impact, Rock Smash, and I'm sure others will probably be in a form of a punch by a Pokemon who uses Iron Fist. So what's the difference? Also Vacuum Wave should be increased as well, it's still a punch even though its the air movement from the punch is doing the damage.
BTW, Iron Fist really needs a power boost. With Tough Claws increasing moves by 33% and Strong Jaw by 50%, why is Iron Fist only doing a 20% increase? It should be 50% like Strong Jaws.
Tough Claws: I don't get why its call Tough Claws. It increases the power of all contact moves including punches, kicks, tackles, bites, etc.. You'd think from the name alone it would only power-up cutting/slashing moves (why isn't there an Ability that does that yet?). Like I guess its for distribution purposes, but still when a Pokemon with Tough Claws uses a non-cutting/slashing move how is the power being increased when its the claws that are suppose to be providing the power boost.
Also why doesn't the the Sneasel family and Zangoose get it? Part of their gimmick is their claws.
Strong Jaw: So would Strong Jaw increase the Power of Hyper Fang and Bug Bite if a Pokemon with this Abilyty and those moves got them? What about Super Fang, would it can increased in some way?
BTW, how is it that certain biting-based Pokemon don't get like the Ratatta family, Totodile family, Snubbull family, Gible family, Mawile, Hippopotas family, Carnivine, and Sandile family?
Iron Fist: Pokemon who get Iron Fist presumably used their fists as their main means of attacking, so why is it moves which are specifically punch-based that's only powered up? Poison Jab, Sucker Punch, Close Combat, Superpower, Revenge, Pursuit, Feint, Feint Attack, Retaliate, Chip Away, Giga Impact, Rock Smash, and I'm sure others will probably be in a form of a punch by a Pokemon who uses Iron Fist. So what's the difference? Also Vacuum Wave should be increased as well, it's still a punch even though its the air movement from the punch is doing the damage.
BTW, Iron Fist really needs a power boost. With Tough Claws increasing moves by 33% and Strong Jaw by 50%, why is Iron Fist only doing a 20% increase? It should be 50% like Strong Jaws.
Tough Claws: I don't get why its call Tough Claws. It increases the power of all contact moves including punches, kicks, tackles, bites, etc.. You'd think from the name alone it would only power-up cutting/slashing moves (why isn't there an Ability that does that yet?). Like I guess its for distribution purposes, but still when a Pokemon with Tough Claws uses a non-cutting/slashing move how is the power being increased when its the claws that are suppose to be providing the power boost.
Also why doesn't the the Sneasel family and Zangoose get it? Part of their gimmick is their claws.
because jesus christ that would be terrifying
Why? Wouldn't you like 104 BP Pursuit? Or 123 BP Knock Off? *shivers*
EDIT: Used the wrong multiplier. It would be 106.6 BP and 126.6 BP
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What are you waiting for, Game Freak? DO IT!! Though really, I wouldn't want Weavile to get kicked to Ubers.
By the way, there's something I've suddenly remembered of that has left me quite puzzled since Gen V, and it's that I can't simply picture how quadruped Pokemon can use Close Combat.
Close Combat is basically beating up the opponent as fast as you can. How can you keep balance if you have to kick with several legs in quick succession?
Close Combat is basically beating up the opponent as fast as you can. How can you keep balance if you have to kick with several legs in quick succession?
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Well the only quadruped that can learn Close Combat is the Swords of Justice, Xerneas, and Growlithe (via breeding).
For the Swords of Justice and Xerneas I can see them maybe using their horns to furiously slash and stab the opponent. As for the Growlithe family, I can only assume charging into and biting, slashing, maybe even trampling.
I'm honestly surprised that Strong Jaw doesn't boost those moves, because GF has been very good at covering their bases for move+ability combos that don't naturally exist (e.g. Origin Pulse being boosted by Mega Launcher) due to the existence of Smeargle and Skill Swap.
tfw you do your 4.4k without realizing it until it's too late.
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I'm too lazy to look up a gif of deer "boxing" each other but, yea, that.
This so much.
I don't like the "balance" argument when explaining movepools. Not that it doesn't make sense per se, but then you get those super-broken mons with gargantuan movepools along with huge stats and strong abilities and you think "fuck balance".
I mean, I can sort of understand not giving Snorlax Slack Off in Gen III, since Lax was the absolute king of GSC competitive scene, and a recovery move would probably break it. I can even understand not giving Xerneas Earth Power, even if other nature-themed legends like Celebi and Shaymin get it, since it hits every type that resists Fairy super-effectively. You look at these examples in a vacuum and think "Yeah, they don't want to make an already strong Pokémon too powerful or broken. Makes a lot of sense".
But then Gen III got Kyogre, Rayquaza and Deoxys, and Gen VI got Mega-Rayquaza and all the super-strong megas, and you realize that they don't give a crap about balance. I can understand why: kids don't like balanced stuff, they like grossly overpowered stuff that wreak havoc wherever they go. Toning down some monsters while making massively broken others isn't really "balance".
Yes, they are. As I said, kids love overpowered things and GF will keep making them. But doesn't this just show us how the creator of Pokémon just don't care about balance? As such, it makes no sense to say (for example) that Zapdos doesn't get Hurricane "because it'd get two perfect STAB in Rain". Why would you need to "balance" Zapdos when far more broken stuff exist? Giving Zapdos Hurricane would make it better, but not even remotely as strong as the top dogs.
What I'm saying is that using the balance issue to explain lacking movepools doesn't make sense. If they make things that are already broken, why do they need to limit Pokémon that are already non-broken?
Because using a bit of common sense, maybe they intended for box-cover Legendaries that take a ton of difficulty to catch and are portrayed almost as gods and the Mega Evolutions which are represented as the ultimate bond between Trainer and Pokémon as just a little bit more powerful than your average Pokémon.
Megas and Legendaries are clearly designed to be broken with little care about the metagame. All that takes is one cursory glance at their BST and in some cases their abilities and movepools. And it's clear why they are - if you're to take the box-cover Legendary seriously with how much they're built up as all-powerful and godly, it makes sense for them to be portrayed as stronger than everything you've encountered until that point. It's a similar case for Megas, but Game Freak probably also thought that some of them would be balanced - they built in two very important weaknesses in that they had no hold item and you could only use one. With those in mind, it's not difficult to imagine that they went all-out and decided that Megas should be all-powerful in order to compensate for this.
But everything else? ... no, they have no reason to be broken. I realize why a lot of people would be cynical in saying "Ah they don't give a shit about balance", except... they clearly do. Gen 6 made some very obvious steps in fixing balance. The Fairy type was introduced to stop the spam of Dragon and Fighting. Weather was nerfed to not dominate anymore. Grass-types are now immune to Spore which was a very big problem in Gen 5's VGC. Hell, Mega Gallade is speculated to have Inner Focus to counter Mega Kangaskhan using Fake Out a lot in VGC. You can argue about how effective or ineffective these attempts at balancing may have been, but the point is the portray an effort to balance things out. If Game Freak didn't care about balance, what reason would they have to bother with any of that?
So you can possibly understand my annoyance when people just cynically brush aside arguments about Game Balance like "Game Freak clearly doesn't care when they made Mega Rayquaza, who was never intended to be used competitively and was just made to be powerful because it would only be used for fun, broken". You're comparing apples to oranges.
Hence, when normal Pokémon do not have the same excuses as box-cover legendaries and Megas, they are subject to different scrutiny when it comes to balance.
Which is why Zapdos not being given Hurricane makes sense. Not only is it the most offensively-inclined of the trio - drawing with Moltres in Special Attack but surpassing it in Speed - but it has also consistently been seen as a big player in Competitive since Gen 1 - both OU and VGC - while it's fellow birds haven't been able to ever been good. Aside from Articuno's brief stint in Gen 1. Game Freak likely sought to make Articuno and Moltres more viable while not giving Zapdos access to even more tools - more than likely, they wanted to get them on at least a slightly similar level to each other.
It was obviously a complete failure, but you can see the intention.
Game Balance as an argument is a bit more of a difficult one to find examples of for a move than Flavour, but that doesn't mean it's not gonna be the case. And please stop with the "Game Freak doesn't care about balance because Mega Salamence!!!!" arguments, because it's just completely false, falls over itself and it's a complete dead horse.
To add on to what Kurona said, Gamefreak is made of humans too. They make mistakes. They admitted they made mistakes with Mega Kangaskhan (they said Parental Bond was a bit too powerful) and Aegislash (which surprised them when they say it was being used as a special attacker despite really only have three special moves). Mega Salamence was probably another of those that might have been a BIT too much. I mean it isn't NEARLY as broken in Doubles as it is in Singles. Though, of course as you might or might know, even Smogon Doubles banned it but I felt the arguments for it's ban were that it was nearly perfect with the not-nearly-as-broken support mons that was used with it (I wonder if it will be halfway as broken anymore if Jirachi gets banned and now all the good Follow Me users share a weakness with it).
I can agree with you now that you put things this way. It makes sense if you say "Legends and Mega are supposed to be broken so we keep all the others tame to make them look even more broken" (a simplistic summary, but that's how I read it). Zapdos getting Hurricane was just one example out of many, but I really wish the poor thunderbird had the move =(
If I recall correctly, Mega Salamence and Mega Kangaskhan are usable in the official competitive scene and they are totally dominating.
EDIT: ninja'd by Darth Manaphy.
Yeah, tbh I kinda want Zapdos to get Hurricane too. At one point I thought the absence of Hurricane in it's movepool compared to the other two birds meant it was gonna get Aeroblast since Entei got Sacred Fire... but it wasn't meant to be I guess.
Also sorry if I came across as a dick