Considering the infamy of that scene, I'm surprised there has been no reference of it in the games so far, unlike things like Lightning Rod Rhydon.
Like, some Electric-type version of Spiky Shield or Baneful Bunker.
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Pokémon Movepool Oddities & Explanations
- Thread starter Kurona
- Start date
Considering the infamy of that scene, I'm surprised there has been no reference of it in the games so far, unlike things like Lightning Rod Rhydon.
Like, some Electric-type version of Spiky Shield or Baneful Bunker.
just wait GF turning that into an actual ability to bait Hoenn fans... oh wait, Hoenn isn't KANTO!
To be fair, Fire Spin was actually a good move, when it landed, assuming you were faster, due to how trapping moves worked in gen 1.
I heard legends about Wrap dragonite... :D
Fortunately that did not happen to me, but I did teach Strength to my starter Blastoise in my first playthrough of Blue. This was something I regretted back then, but I guess it wasn't that bad in retrospect since Strength was a fairly decent Normal-type move back in Gen 1. I think the one thing that really annoyed me was knowing that I would never be able to get rid of it.
You might be onto something there... I guess this is another reason as for why the anime can be seen as a bad advertisement for the games. If it shows certain moves being better than others (like how it did with Fire Spin being better than Flamethrower) when it is the other way around in the games, then it gives the wrong message to those like me who watched the anime before playing the games.
Anyway, since this isn't the annoyances thread like I thought when I made my post yesterday, I want to post a minor movepool oddity which I have been thinking about for some time. Not sure if it has been mentioned here before. Celebi, despite being a Psychic-type which learns some of the standard Psychic-type attacking moves like Confusion and Psychic, is unable to learn Psyshock. I have always found that to be pretty odd. I decided to check if there are any other Psychic-types that don't get Psyshock, and there are a few more:
- Unown, Wynaut/Wobbuffet, Beldum and Cosmog/Cosmoem. All of these are Pokémon with very limited movepools, so that makes sense.
- Silvally and Oricorio. Both are Psychic-type only through form change and they have somewhat limited movepools as well, so it makes sense for them too.
- Darmanitan (Zen mode). Another one which is only Psychic-type through form change, but standard Darmanitan can learn Psychic, so why not Psyshock? Doesn't really make sense.
- Inkay and Bruxish. Those are a bit odd since they get a lot of other Psychic moves, including the standard Psychic. However, while Inkay can't learn Psyshock, Malamar can.
So that's a total of three or four which should get Psyshock but doesn't. I think Celebi is the one that stands out the most though.
Tbh, unless you're planning to teach it EQ, and even then you can slot it as the 4th move, Surf/Strength Blastoise is pretty much an optimal efficiency mon for RBY because then you don't need to waste a slot on an HM mook for that.
It actually helps to save the Body Slam TM for things that actually need it too. Mega Punch works fine until Strength. I used that on my last run.
Leafeon doesn't want to cut down trees because they're family.
Only
huh, that would be neat if true.
During my runthrough of Leafgreen, I've been finding a lot of success in using Sunny Day on Charizard to improve its matchups and blast through certain would-be counters. It's worked out very well so far, and I decided once I reached Cinnabar to bolster and capitalise on that by teaching it Solarbeam; as I figured that would completely turn around matchups on Blastoise and Lorelei! ... except I then found out that it uh. Didn't learn it until Gen 4.
But you know what CAN learn it on my team, and has even been able to do so since red and blue? You know what popped up when I tried to teach the TM and made me swear I'd selected the wrong one at first?
But you know what CAN learn it on my team, and has even been able to do so since red and blue? You know what popped up when I tried to teach the TM and made me swear I'd selected the wrong one at first?
During my runthrough of Leafgreen, I've been finding a lot of success in using Sunny Day on Charizard to improve its matchups and blast through certain would-be counters. It's worked out very well so far, and I decided once I reached Cinnabar to bolster and capitalise on that by teaching it Solarbeam; as I figured that would completely turn around matchups on Blastoise and Lorelei! ... except I then found out that it uh. Didn't learn it until Gen 4.
But you know what CAN learn it on my team, and has even been able to do so since red and blue? You know what popped up when I tried to teach the TM and made me swear I'd selected the wrong one at first?
Solarbeam on Mr. Mime isn't strange to me. Given its emphasis on barriers (so much that it's in its japanese name), it might use a barrier to reflect sunlight, kind of like those rumored weaponized mirrors Archimedes had made.
Now, on Charizard NOT learning it... I find it weird, by default, that a Pokémon can learn Solar Beam but not Sunny Day.
By checking through a /ds command on Showdown, these are all the Pokémon that have that weird trait as of Gen VIII: Abomasnow, Alcremie, Celesteela, Coalossal, Crustle, Cryogonal, Dottler, Dragapult, Duraludon, Dwebble, Emolga, Eternatus, Genesect, Gigalith, Golurk, Lapras, Magearna, Melmetal, Necrozma, Ninetales-Alola, Orbeetle, Sigilyph, Snover, Vikavolt, Zamazenta.
Many of those cases scream as either "it should also learn Sunny Day" or "it shouldn't learn Solar Beam in the first place".
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During my runthrough of Leafgreen, I've been finding a lot of success in using Sunny Day on Charizard to improve its matchups and blast through certain would-be counters. It's worked out very well so far, and I decided once I reached Cinnabar to bolster and capitalise on that by teaching it Solarbeam; as I figured that would completely turn around matchups on Blastoise and Lorelei! ... except I then found out that it uh. Didn't learn it until Gen 4.
But you know what CAN learn it on my team, and has even been able to do so since red and blue? You know what popped up when I tried to teach the TM and made me swear I'd selected the wrong one at first?
Solar Beam being a common coverage move for Fire types didn't start until Gen IV. Most Gen I-III Fire types suddenly gained the ability to learn it in Diamond and Pearl.
I was going to argue with this, since I remember it happening in gen II. Turns out, none of the Gen I fires got it until III at the earliest, and most as you said got it in IV. Gen II gave it to Houndoom, Entei, and Ho-Oh, but not Typhlosion or Magcargo. And III didn't give it to any fires except Ponyta/Rapidash for whatever reason. So Gen II was definitely making it a coverage move, giving it to most of the prominent fire-types, but they didn't update the Gen I movesets, and then III returned it to Grass+etc status, with a few serious oddities*. It's stuff like this that makes me question why GF has never sat down with a clear set of rules and started over on Movesets or anything like that. Because some things are just incoherent.
*Aggron, sure, it's reflective, but Mawile? Volbeat glows, but what's Surskit's excuse? And Gulpin and Flygon get it, which...what?
Gen III did actually update many previous generation mons to give them Solar Beam. A huge number of Normal-Type Pokémon — potentially all of them — and Beedrill also gained access to the Solar Beam TM in Gen III. From Aipom to Furret to Tauros to Lickitung, think of a Normal-Type Pokémon from the first 2 gens (besides Ditto) and it probably received Solar Beam in Gen III, though Chansey could learn it right from day 1!
Eh, I think it makes sense. Gen III was the introduction of doubles, where weather archetypes began being more viable as opposed to just having a weather setter and abuser in the same slot as had previously been the case in singles. Things were still pretty rudimentary at this point, so throwing Solar Beam on a bunch of Normal-Type Pokémon who have good TM coverage anyway was kind of sensible so that Sunny Day teams hypothetically weren’t just Fire- and Grass-Type Pokémon. That’s likely why they included it in the moveset of new Pokémon like Flygon, Aggron, and Mawile too. Probably just a gameplay thing to encourage players to try weather out while still being able to use their favourites. Hell, weather was a central theme of Hoenn from a gameplay perspective, what with the introduction of Groudon / Kyogre and Castform.
For what it’s worth, Thunder already had kind of insane coverage where almost everything could learn it (Primeape for instance!) but Gen III also added it to Furret and Stantler alongside Solar Beam, and continued giving it to odd cases like Banette, likely to help encourage people to use rain too.
Had Hurricane existed at the time, I’d certainly enjoy wondering how my Furret causes one of those too.
Edit (I really should learn how to multiquote properly on phone):
Most of these kind of make complete sense for one of three reasons. Prisms, reflectiveness, and snow.
Did you know that snow is amazing at intensifying the heat of the sun? Kind of poetic, considering the sun also kills snow. I don’t have a great understanding of physics, but I think it actually works by reflecting the solar rays so the snow projects the heat from the sun elsewhere at a higher temperature than the sun puts on the snow itself. This might also be the work of prisms, but I’m not sure so I’m putting them in separate categories. This explains Abomasnow, Lapras (though Lapras lost Solar Beam from Gen II onwards), and Ninetales-Alola.
The second is prisms which do the same. Again, not a science guy, but I do know that prisms do something to light and it makes it stronger. I got a C in GCSE Physics, probably because I wrote that in the exam. Nonetheless it makes particularly prismatic Pokémon good candidates for Solar Beam. This explains Cryogonal (who kinda fits in both categories, but better fits here), Orbeetle, Gigalith, and Necrozma.
Sigilyph gets it because the Nazca Lines it’s based off of were situated in the desert and believed to absorb energy from the sun, pretty simple there. Zamazenta legit probably gets it because it wears a huge reflective shield. Emolga and Vikavolt also receive Energy Ball, and given Solar Beam’s far wider distribution than Energy Ball, I’d be surprised if anything learns Energy Ball but not Solar Beam (though I’m not sure why they learn either tbh, maybe just to dunk on Ground-Type mons despite being Electric-Type since they have an immunity too). Melmetal, Duraludon, Celesteela, Genesect, and Magearna get it because they’re shiny, and Genesect in particular learns most “beam” moves given its large mechanic cannon on its back.
I’d say it leaves Golurk, Crustle, Coalossal, Alcremie and Dragapult with difficult justifications. Crustle live in very hot and sunny places, and as the rocks on their back are dark they will absorb the sun and heat up, so with Pokémon magic it actually seems fine that they could use that absorbed sunlight as a beam. Hermit crabs shelter under rocks and shells specifically so the sun doesn’t bake them, in fact, so there’s a biological link for sure. Similarly, though not quite the same, coal is heated in fire in order to extract its energy. A fire isn’t quite the same as sunlight, but it’s near enough for Pokémon to run with. A much more sci-fi Pokémon like Golurk also almost doesn’t require an explanation — it can turn into a rocket jet for some reason, so hey maybe it’s solar powered lmao. Dragapult and Alcremie I really have nothing for, but it’s notable that this list is just Pokémon who also can’t learn Sunny Day. Sunny Day itself is one of the most widely distributed moves in all of Pokémon, so the distinction of learning Solar Beam but not Sunny Day doesn’t mean too much. I suppose the point of this part of the post is to show that actually, in more recent generations Solar Beam has been distributed with reasonable levels of rationale. Certainly liberally, but still with thought.
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Dragapult is strongly implied to have a rather shiny/light-reflective body, especially its head. Its 3D model shows it being distinctly shiny/light-reflective and one of its abilities is Clear Body, so I think its body is capable of utilizing sunlight in that way considering its head clearly reflects sunlight in that manner, so it can absorb whatever sunlight touches it. Plus it's a ghost, and also capable of using a myriad of special/magic attacks such as Flamethrower/Fire Blast, Thunderbolt/Thunder, Surf, and vice versa plus some Psychic moves.
Good late evening to anyone who's reading this. There's a little something I wanted to ask this thread about in correlation with a discussion that I started earlier tonight. I will elaborate more on why I say this if anyone's interested, but basically, I'm doing some "research" if you can even call it that to see how a newly hatched Oshawott in an older Pokémon game could have access to the move Air Slash. I know this sounds like a strange question, but I'm seeking to find what combination of possible parent Pokémon could allow an Oshawott to access this particular Egg Move.
My apologies for the strange entrance into this discussion. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me with this :D
My apologies for the strange entrance into this discussion. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me with this :D
From ingame breeding mechanics? Swoobat (and Woobat) both learn Air Slash by level and share an egg group with the Oshawott line, so it can pass down Air Slash even in BW1's main game.
Lore mechanics, the move's described as a "blade of air" and the Oshawott's line is all about the shell swords it uses. This is just wrapping the shell in air for "sword" fighting instead of water.
I know I’m late to this, but I’ve been thinking about this for awhile, and I think I got the answer.
As we all know, there was no physical/special split before Gen 4, and attack categories were either physical or special based on their types. And Ice was a pure special type back then.
Looking at the mons that learn the move, we can clearly see that many of them are special attackers. The Abra, Spoink, and Duskull, lines also learn them. As we know, Psychic and Ghost are mostly associated with special attackers, and those types could be seen as the 'magic' types.
They use Ice Punch by conjuring and shaping ice as a fist. Simple enough.
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Metagross and Aggron both have arms.
Whoops, that was a leftover from a previous draft I had, thanks for informing me of it
Armless Metagross, the carnivorous, iron, psychic calzone
...but Ghost was physical before the physical/special split rip
Tell that to the Ghastly family & Misdreavus. In Gen III they finally realized Ghost was Physical so made a batch of Physical-focused Ghosts, but until then if feels like GF accidentally switched Ghost and Dragon with what Category they were.
Not really. In Gen I, the only non-fixed-damage Ghost-type move was the clearly physical Lick.
They just didn't think it through (as always).
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