Pain split is learned by Keldeo, Rampardos, Alomomola, Passimian, Clobbopus, Stunfisk, Chesnaught, and a few other odd choices. I always thought the justification for who got it was that the mon has some magical or supernatural powers since plenty of ghosts, psychics, and fairies gets it. But some mons that get it don't really show that. I see some mons like Stunfisk, Chesnaught and Qwilfish having it cause they seem painful to touch so when they get damaged, their opponent also gets hurt. I guess some fighting types get it for the same reason why Revenge is a fighting type move, but if thats the case, shouldn't a lot more fighting types get it. And I cant think of explanations for real weird choices like Alomomola and Rampardos. Am I looking at the move wrong or something
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Pokémon Movepool Oddities & Explanations
- Thread starter Kurona
- Start date
Keldeo getting Pain Split at least can be explained by the fact it's partially based on the kelpie, which is for all intents and purposes a water demon. So fey adjacent and in line with the regular suspects.
I think the intention with Alomomola learning it is to leverage the mon's high HP stat to act as a roundabout healer in Doubles? Could have given it Heal Pulse, but points for creativity I guess.
I think the intention with Alomomola learning it is to leverage the mon's high HP stat to act as a roundabout healer in Doubles? Could have given it Heal Pulse, but points for creativity I guess.
Rampardos is probably a recklessness thing, it hurts itself as much as it does the target.
It gets Heal Pulse, or at least it used to. Gen 8 took it away, which is weird since it learns a move every 4 levels and removing Heal Pulse just has created an 8 level gap where it doesn't learn anything.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Passimian's whole vibe is teamwork, to a degree that's almost (but not quite) telepathic - empathic would probably be closer to the mark.
It's never really explained how exactly Receiver works, but given that it's a distinct ability from the otherwise identical Power of Alchemy, my take is that it works on that basis, or even something more akin to the adoptive muscle memory you occasionally see in superhero fiction.
Pain Split feels like it operates on a similar vibe. It's not quite a psychic ability, but one that runs on spirit/force of will much like Destiny Bond (which Qwilfish learns) or Spite (which Stunfisk learns). Generally the expectation would be that you'd use it to heal yourself but it's not necessarily a damaging move - used correctly, it can heal the foe, so under the right circumstances it's a move you might actually want to use on a teammate. It's an unconventional tactic that a team player like Passimian could absolutely make use of.
I think Qwilfish learns Destiny Bond because it's a sea mine lol. So it blows up and takes you out.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Pokemon that get Bug Bite:
-Bug types
-Things that are bug "enough" (Trapinch, Hydapple)
-Mew, because it's Mew
-Heatmor (probably because its a pun)
-Heatran
....Why Heatran? It got it the entire time it was a move tutor, but didn't get it back when it became a TM....was it just a mistake back in Gen 4 that just carried forward because it was a copy/pasted learner list?
-Bug types
-Things that are bug "enough" (Trapinch, Hydapple)
-Mew, because it's Mew
-Heatmor (probably because its a pun)
-Heatran
....Why Heatran? It got it the entire time it was a move tutor, but didn't get it back when it became a TM....was it just a mistake back in Gen 4 that just carried forward because it was a copy/pasted learner list?
I can only assume it was an oversight because nothing about it seems to be bug-related. Bulbapedia thinks that Heatran more closely associated with dragons, if only tangentially, due to its Japanese name. Though that does explain why it gets Dragon Pulse.
Actually as long as we're talking about Heatran: what's with it getting Dark Pulse? That one feels random.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Breeding Ledyba atm and only just noticed it doesn't learn Counter (in Gen IV, where I'm specifically breeding them - it eventually got it in USUM onwards as an egg move). That's a weirdly longstanding omission for something that learns a grab-bag of Fighting moves - Brick Break, Power-Up Punch, Drain Punch, Mach Punch, Focus Punch, Focus Blast, Rock Smash, even Dynamicpunch.
My understanding is that the dex lore gimmick of (mostly Ledian specifically?) is that they try to punch but suck at it, so that would fit with having few other Fighting moves (and that their mainstay was Comet Punch, a Normal move).
Apparently Tentacruel gets Hex for some reason? And so does Toedscruel?
Also I'm not sure why the Quaxly line gets Disarming Voice by TM, or why Disarming Voice is a TM in the first place.
Also I'm not sure why the Quaxly line gets Disarming Voice by TM, or why Disarming Voice is a TM in the first place.
Speaking of Power of Alchemy, why is it on Alolan Muk specifically? Always seemed weird to me.
Because it's a Pokemon (Form) made of a concoction of substances that compound into something else, I assume
Between aesthetic, lore and the crystals it produces it seems they wanted to specifically lean into that for Muk-A
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Well, Quaxly is a cute little duckie, so it makes sense for it to learn Disarming Voice, but it's very much not a Fairy-type and eventually becomes a Fighting-type so it fits that it wouldn't be a move it learns naturally.
As for why Disarming Voice is a TM, one might ask that question about literally any teachable move. In most generations there are at least a couple of oddball choices - Gen I has some frankly bizarre ones like Pay Day, Egg Bomb, Softboiled, and Dragon Rage; Gen II has equally strange ones in Defence Curl, Detect, Icy Wind, and Psych Up*. Disarming Voice does not strike me as anything close to the most questionable move taught via TM.
*not in itself the weirdest move (it's actually been teachable in every generation since it was introduced) but moreso the fact you can only get this by trading Abra from Gen I
i think some TMs being weaker moves to be distributed early/midgame is very good game design, not to mention their lower base power means they can be more widely distributed than the lategame/competitive ones. SHOCK WAVE TM MY OLDGEN BELOVED.
if anything i always question why some moves are TMs in the sense that those things should Not be more distributed than they were before the TM (close combat, spikes without defog also being a TM, draining kiss, etc)
if anything i always question why some moves are TMs in the sense that those things should Not be more distributed than they were before the TM (close combat, spikes without defog also being a TM, draining kiss, etc)
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QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Well this is precisely it isn't it? In RBY Water Gun is a TM but it's found at just the right time (in Mt Moon after the first badge); the same could be said of Mud-Slap in Gen II, being given out by Falkner. At that point it's just about good enough to last you until you get hold of Dig a bit down the line (and then Earthquake in turn even later). Rock Tomb is another example of your point because it feels tremendously powerful for the point of the game you get it and because several Pokemon you're likely to have at that point can learn it (all three starters, Nuzleaf, Makuhita, Aron, Machop).
But then you've got weird stuff like Defence Curl being found in a part of Mt. Mortar you literally need all eight badges to access. Are you really going to want that move at a point long after most species which learn it naturally will have forgotten it in favour of something else (not least given that Rollout - assuming you're desperate to do a DC+Rollout combo with something - is obtained much earlier on)?
I mean I feel like you could probably rationalise most moves being TMs or not being TMs in some way if you tried hard enough. Not every TM is going to have widespread compability or be massively useful, nice as it would be for every TM to contain a high-powered move lots of things can learn. Though it does get puzzling when you consider certain moves like Quash, for instance, which hardly anything learns (and in fact literally no Pokemon introduced in BW can learn). At least in RBY when you get given Softboiled it's clearly intended to be a bit of a gag because the NPC who gives it to you specifically tells you "only one Pokemon can use it!"
yes, quash is a VERY weird TM, because it's both incredibly restricted and also very niche because it's a doubles move and the in-game battles are singles. it's even weirder that they dragged it all the way to gen 7 despite being such a gen 1-coded choice.
pay day returning in gen 8 and being given to almost no post-gen 1 mons that aren't related to gen 1 to begin with is also baffling, but at least the move has a distinct in-game use lol.
I've been binge watching a lot of "speed run X pokemon game with all pokemon" videos lately and one thing I've noticed is that in gen2, most of the TMs seem pretty universal - I feel like most pokemon in gen 2 learn about 75% of the tms and there's a lot of overlap in that 75%. Also, a lot of the TM's a just kinda, not super good? Most of the notable ones in Johto are either normal type moves, the elemental punches, or severely lacking in power or accuracy. And honestly, I really like that approach. I like the TMs being widely available moves that can be usable if you don't have much else (mud slap, swift, headbutt, even the elemental punches) but they don't overshadow a pokemon's level up movepool so there's still a lot of uniqueness. I think in modern pokemon games where you can get 150 TMs for the best moves by the 3rd gym and they're widely learned, a lot of uniqueness for each individual pokemon is lost
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
This is what I recall sucking a lot of the fun out of ORAS for me - how much more available high-powered TM moves were compared to RSE. Like, when you reach Mauville City, you're able to purchase Facade, Aerial Ace, Bulldoze, Charge Beam, and Dragon Tail - all moves which typically come much later in the game than this, and which all have very high base power and highly useful secondary effects considering the stage of the game you're at. Bulldoze for instance absolutely wrecks Wattson's gym.
Not just that, but the fact that TMs are infinite in this game makes choosing what should learn each move a non-issue. Sure, you might get a powerful TM early on in RSE occasionally - you get Steel Wing very early in the game, for instance. But you can only use it once, so you need to be careful who you use it on because they might not be suited to having it or you might choose to drop them from your team. In ORAS - mmm, Pelipper doesn't really suit having Steel Wing? All good, you can overwrite it without consequence.
You might think "but you don't have to use TMs" and yeah, obviously I don't. But the natural movesets of Pokemon are altered too, and pretty powerfully so. Whenever I replay RSE, what makes the early-game challenging (and enjoyable) is that a lot of Pokemon have fairly crap movesets early on and you have to work with that. Lombre, as a random example, is stuck with a bunch of low-base power moves well into its 40s, and doesn't even get a damaging Water move until level 49. Until you get Surf, your only options for STAB are the underwhelming Absorb or the unreliable Bullet Seed, which might not even OHKO a foe weak to them. This changes in ORAS as it gets Bubblebeam relatively quickly, and can one-shot a bunch of foes with it. Similarly, Combusken is pretty powerful but basically stuck with Peck (meh), Double Kick (good, but not great) and Ember (weak, but workable) until it evolves and learns Blaze Kick. Here, it gets Flame Charge early on which is a pretty gamebreaking move both in terms of its power and its secondary effect, and also learns Quick Attack significantly earlier than it did in RSE to add onto that. I just felt a much lesser degree of challenge in ORAS than I ever got playing RSE and I'm pretty sure little changes like this were a big part of why.
i do think a middle ground can be found between some frankly frustrating oldgen level up movepools (yanma is basically unusable before BDSP) and some too strong ones (and not even necessarily recent! why did zangoose learn swords dance so early on until B2W2???), because while good moves too early is bad, literally not having early STAB (or, sometimes, no STAB at all...) is also bad
This post reminded me of how Sky Drop had barely any distribution.
Like I kind of get it? The move's been a menace to Game Freak since its inception (bunch of glitches, potential balancing issues for Doubles, etc.) and they seem to have Dexited it. But why did they bother making it a TM in Gen 5 if only 16(?) Pokémon could learn it there and then keep the move as a TM (with 6 more Pokémon being added to the learn list!) for two more gens. It's just weird.
As an aside, I was initially gonna laugh about Rufflet learning Sky Drop via level up, but I thought better of it after remembering a video of an eagle carrying off a deer. Like a fully grown deer.
I actually had a surprising amount of friction in ORAS with the team I used, even when I wound up using Megas. After XY I really expected it just be ez town, but I raelly wanted to use megas this time in the end game and was pleasantly surprised. It certainly made using some of these guys more fun.
I also liked actually being able to use TMs without going "okay well if I use this on a subpar mon i'll never use it again so. I guess I'll never use it at all" or "well all the good TMs are TRs now but I dont want to grind raids or watts for random chance TRs so I'm stuck with bad moves I'll never use" or "i dont wanna grind materials....much less for a lot of bad moves i'll never use...."
In conclusion the way people interact with the movepools of these games are a land of contrast
e: OK in fairness to SV I have used a lot of TMs by this point because I'm super involved in the raids and also it helped raelizing that Let's Go mode does not, in fact, raise affection.
I also liked actually being able to use TMs without going "okay well if I use this on a subpar mon i'll never use it again so. I guess I'll never use it at all" or "well all the good TMs are TRs now but I dont want to grind raids or watts for random chance TRs so I'm stuck with bad moves I'll never use" or "i dont wanna grind materials....much less for a lot of bad moves i'll never use...."
In conclusion the way people interact with the movepools of these games are a land of contrast
e: OK in fairness to SV I have used a lot of TMs by this point because I'm super involved in the raids and also it helped raelizing that Let's Go mode does not, in fact, raise affection.
EVERYTHING about sky drop is so incomprehensible and stupid. i 99% disagree with move dexit but this one can stay gone forever and ever
i think TMs being one use but easily accessible post-game is the happiest medium. and by easily i mean more like BDSP did it than SV lol.
I'm reminded of some of the nonsensical TMs in SWSH.
There's a Razor Shell TM! Ok, cool, that's an interesting move to have especially if you could get it maybe around mid game but
1. They put it in the The Battle Tower.
2. The learners at launch were exclusively Pokemon that already learned the move, Escavalier and Mew
3. The DLC learners were solely Slowbro, Slowking, Kabutops & Carracosta
4. Not to belabor the point too much but all the Pokemon that learned it naturally learn it in their 30s or by Move Reminder
Why even bother making it a TM at this point. Could have just put it as an Egg Move if you wanted to spread it around...
There's a Razor Shell TM! Ok, cool, that's an interesting move to have especially if you could get it maybe around mid game but
1. They put it in the The Battle Tower.
2. The learners at launch were exclusively Pokemon that already learned the move, Escavalier and Mew
3. The DLC learners were solely Slowbro, Slowking, Kabutops & Carracosta
4. Not to belabor the point too much but all the Pokemon that learned it naturally learn it in their 30s or by Move Reminder
Why even bother making it a TM at this point. Could have just put it as an Egg Move if you wanted to spread it around...