I think that takes the cake. Wooper has a tail and Togekiss has wings, but I see no appendages whatsoever on this guy.And a new candidate for "I have no arms yet I can punch" has emerged:
Despite having no arms Shroomish gets Drain Punch, Focus Punch,
and Wake-Up Slap via Breeding & oddly Tutors. Now obviously this is because it evolves into Breloom which not only has arms but also is a punching Pokemon. Still, odd it can learn some of these moves from Tutors who can wait till its a Breloom.
NOTE: If you look through its TM list you'll also see it can learn False Swipe. This isn't a mistake. False Swipe's Japanese name is "Mineuchi". Mineuchi roughly translates to "Strike with the Back of the Sword" and is a sword technique where you strike an opponent with the back of a sword to incapacitate them but not kill them (the sword being a katana which are sharp on one side but blunt on the other, thus you hitting them with the blunt side of a katana). However being this would damage the sword also it has never been actually done, but in terms of Pokemon it just means the Pokemon is attacking them with blunt force which is meant to stun (leave with 1 HP) than knock them out.
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Pokémon Movepool Oddities & Explanations
- Thread starter Kurona
- Start date
... maybe it kicks?
For that matter, why can't Breloom learn (Hi) Jump Kick? I mean, it's a kangaroo...
Not a move but I want to know why Gamefreak gave Empoleon Defiant instead of Competitive as a hidden ability. I mean, they must have known Empoleon's base stats & movepool when they decided on these things right? I assume it has something to do with what Empoleon is based on but I can't figure it out.
Well for one thing, Competitive didn't exist in Gen 5. For another, the Empoleon family's dex entries have it as very prideful - so Defiant makes a lot of sense character-wise.
Still wish it had something useful...
Oh yeah, well if there was ever a time for a new generation to begin its when the current one feels old.
I think Contrary would have worked in the same vein if that is the reason. Tbh I thought it would be something about emperor penguins being defiant til death or something.
It's really such a weird pokemon. Shallow move pool on both ends of the offensive spectrum, unique typing, and one ability that leans toward physical offense but the same ability is offset by a mediocre base stat. I mean, it's my favorite gen 4 starter but I really question what Gamefreak was doing with it.
No worse than giving Pyroar Defiant and a lot of random physical moves when it's stat'd as a special attacker. At least Empoleon has decent STAB and Swords Dance to help it out there.
Contrary would make even less sense competitively since Empoleon gets literally no self-stat-drop moves, while it gets boosting moves such as Agility and Sword Dance. I agree that Defiant is not very useful on it but as Kurona said, it makes sense character-wise. Same with Pyroar, which has been mentioned a thousand times anyway.
Analytic is an Ability made for slow Pokemon, raising their move's Power by 30% if they move last. So what Pokemon get it:
Elgyem/Beheeyem: 30/40 (good choice)
Magnemite/-ton/-zone: 45/70/60 (alright, on the edge of use there)
Patrat/Watchog: 42/77 (hmm, I'd say 70 might be entering into a zone where it'll work maybe around half the time so other Abilities might be a better choice)
Porygon/2/Z: 40/60/90 (mixed bag, normal and 2 works fine but Z not so much, but it was brought over from it pre-evolutions so you can't really blame it (though that hasn't stopped them from changing it with others))
Staryu/-me: 85/115 (what made you think that was a good idea? And it's not like Staryu was slow either, for a first stage it's very fast and it even outpaces many fully evolved Pokemon even of the ones I listed here)
Elgyem/Beheeyem: 30/40 (good choice)
Magnemite/-ton/-zone: 45/70/60 (alright, on the edge of use there)
Patrat/Watchog: 42/77 (hmm, I'd say 70 might be entering into a zone where it'll work maybe around half the time so other Abilities might be a better choice)
Porygon/2/Z: 40/60/90 (mixed bag, normal and 2 works fine but Z not so much, but it was brought over from it pre-evolutions so you can't really blame it (though that hasn't stopped them from changing it with others))
Staryu/-me: 85/115 (what made you think that was a good idea? And it's not like Staryu was slow either, for a first stage it's very fast and it even outpaces many fully evolved Pokemon even of the ones I listed here)
Believe it or not, Analytic is useful for Starmie because going last also counts for when the opponent switches out. So if you bring Starmie in on, say, a Mega Camerupt and they decide to switch out (because, y'know, it's not gonna be pretty otherwise), Starmie gets that 1.3X analytic boost.
That said, it's difficult for me to accept the idea that that was what was intended. If it was... then good on you, GF. It just sort of seems like one of those things that was unintentional but ended up being really good.
Considering the japanese name for the ability is Analyze, I'm quite curious as to why Staryu and Starmie have it, as well as the Magnemite line.
Patrat and Watchog are implied to have excellent vision, the Porygon line has... processing power, I guess, Elgyem and Beheyeem are aliens. It kind of seems themed around Pokemon that have a good vision of what's going to happen.
Oh, well that's a happy coincidence. And I guess it could be helpful against priority, especially Sucker Punch (Starmie may be weak to it but with 85 Defense I think it could survive a Sucker Punch from a non-Stab and/or high Attack stat Pokemon).
Well the Magnemite family have one eye so they better make the most use out of it (plus its also sort of a machine like the Porygon family). As for the Staryu family, no clue. The middle core isn't said to be an eye so that can't be it (unless it vaguely looking like an eye counts). Also sea stars don't have brains but rather a simple nervous system (true this doesn't need to count toward Pokemon logic, but sometimes real world logic does make some decisions within Pokemon logic like the Skiddo family getting Milk Drink for example).
Probably because its an Electric-type, only Electric-type to learn Earthquake is Stunkfisk and that's because its part Ground-type (and through a TM). Electivire can also have Earthquake via Battle Revolutions.
Electivire gets it through TM anyway, and being electric-type likely isn't the reason - few electric-types are really the sort of heavyweights you'd expect to pull off an Earthquake. Hell, only Electivire and Zekrom really fill that criteria - plus Reshiram and Kyurem aren't able to get EQ either.
Meanwhile Ekans can pull it off.
I'd say it's case dependent. No hard and fast rule about it; sometimes it's for gameplay purposes, sometimes it's for flavour, sometimes it's just out of nowhere.
In one of staryu's pokedex entries it says that it tries to communicate with the stars at night. This is probably why it has the ability analyze/analytic, it is probably recieving alien transmissions or analyzing cosmic rays from space etc. The staryu family is probably a space pokemon like beheeyem both are psychic and communicate via flashing lights.
http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Extraterrestrial_Pokémon#.23120_Staryu_and_.23121_Starmie
http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Extraterrestrial_Pokémon#.23120_Staryu_and_.23121_Starmie
Looking at Analytic, it has one of the best distributions flavor-wise. It makes sense on all the Pokémon that get it, and plausible explanations have been given for all of them.
Earthquake... it seems that Ground/Rock/Steel types get it, as well as anything with a heavy/bulky enough build. Of course the are outliers, like Ekans, Tyrogue, Teddiursa, Riolu... and the mentioned Reshiram and Zekrom.
Earthquake... it seems that Ground/Rock/Steel types get it, as well as anything with a heavy/bulky enough build. Of course the are outliers, like Ekans, Tyrogue, Teddiursa, Riolu... and the mentioned Reshiram and Zekrom.
Gen V was really, really stingy with movepools for the new Pokemon for some reason (some sort of attempt to balance newly infinite TMs?).
It's really noticeable with EQ in particular because the number of things that learn it drops pretty noticeably from Gen V on. For example, all the gen I-IV starters can learn it, but after that only Emboar and Chesnaught do.
There's something I noticed recently.
Articuno can learn Hurricane.
Moltres can learn Hurricane.
Zapdos can not learn Hurricane.
Why?
(For that matter, I've noticed just now that while Articuno learns Blizzard by level up and Zapdos learns Thunder by level up, Moltres does not learn Fire Blast by level up)
Articuno can learn Hurricane.
Moltres can learn Hurricane.
Zapdos can not learn Hurricane.
Why?
(For that matter, I've noticed just now that while Articuno learns Blizzard by level up and Zapdos learns Thunder by level up, Moltres does not learn Fire Blast by level up)
To take a stab in the dark, just about everything that gets Hurricane has been depicted with large, bird-like wings. Even Dragonite's wings are at least natural in some way and it's always been depicted as having a ton of moves and powers at it's disposal.
In any case, it seems to me to be implied that those who use Hurricane use their wings to generate it. Zapdos' wings, unlike Articuno and Moltres' wings, don't... Exactly seem all that usable or workable.
I doubt Zapdos' wings are less functional than Dragonite's.
Also, looking at it now, why does Whimsicott even learn Hurricane? At least Shiftry has "fans for hands" going for it.
Also, looking at it now, why does Whimsicott even learn Hurricane? At least Shiftry has "fans for hands" going for it.
Its just they dont want a Pokémon with perfect double stab under rain
Same thing with Tornadus/Thundurus
Same thing with Tornadus/Thundurus