Sneasel and Weavile can't learn Sucker Punch. What.
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Pokémon Movepool Oddities & Explanations
- Thread starter Kurona
- Start date
It's especially weird considering how the move is distributed. Outside of obvious candidates such as Pokémon based around living beings with camouflage/stealth, predators, or both, some seem to get it just for being fast or humanoids capable of hand-to-hand trickery. Also consider that Latias had access to the move via tutor in Gen 4 but not Latios for what I can only assume is Pokédex lore reasons specific to the female Eon.
Despite fitting neatly into a bunch of the above criteria (fast humanoid hunters) and being logical fits for the move, Sneasel and Weavile are snubbed regardless. Why? This is especially egregious when Sneasel's Crystal dex entry explicitly states that it hides in the dark to ambush prey.
As an aside, how does Yveltal learn it? It's really good STAB, yeah, but how are you being surprised or feinted in combat by the very much not stealthy massive bird with a literal death aura.
That's a weird one with Latias and Latios too. I suppose the (possible) reason is that she's more about trickery and deception in the moves she uses, and it fits the profile of a less direct, more defensively-minded fighter, but it's such a nebulous distinction given that Latios learns a whole bunch of status/indirect offensive moves like Ally Switch, Power Split, and so on. Or it could just be a mistake; for some reason it wasn't carried forward into later games like a lot of the other tutor moves from Gen V so maybe if it had been they'd have given Latios the move.
It's a bird so I suppose it's attacking from above...? It also learns Phantom Force so one can imagine it obscuring itself or shifting out of view. Not to mention its crawling animations in PLZA are pretty unsettling too. But I think it also skates by on the "it's a legendary, it learns loads of stuff" doctrine. Xerneas getting Outrage has always been weird to me. Even though it's a stag and they can be pretty damn brutal when they're angry.
I heard that this was the reason
Diamond/Pearl/Platinum: Its body is covered with a down that can refract light in such a way that it becomes invisible.
Latios is never mentioned to be able to do it as well
Edit: how do add the reply to the top of the message?
Diamond/Pearl/Platinum: Its body is covered with a down that can refract light in such a way that it becomes invisible.
Latios is never mentioned to be able to do it as well
Edit: how do add the reply to the top of the message?
Looking at movesets again today and another slightly odd move has me contemplating it: Energy Ball.
Gen III and IV were typically where a lot of older moves which weren't always explained in great detail got slightly more illustrative descriptions (Agility, for instance) thanks to their larger textboxes. Because of this, a lot of moves introduced in those gens haven't changed a lot in terms of how they're described - Energy Ball is no exception to this.
Gen IV description: The user draws power from nature and fires it at the target. It may also lower the target's Sp. Def.
PLZA description: The user attacks by drawing power from nature and firing it at targets. This may also lower targets' Sp. Def stats.
So that's a pretty standard Grass-type technique. As you'd expect, everything that learns Energy Ball by level is a Grass-type, apart from Flabebe (obvious, basically an honorary Grass-type) and... Swirlix, for whatever reason.
But since it's been a teachable move in every generation, lots of other Pokemon learn it too. Which fits for a relatively bland description like "the user draws power from nature": many different Pokemon should be capable of that. A huge amount of Psychic-types get it, as do a lot of Bugs, quite a few Fairies, and interestingly quite a few Ghosts (Gastly, Frillish, Yamask, Misdreavus, Sandygast). So do a handful of other Pokemon who live in natural environments or have a stronger-than-usual connection to the elements: Vulpix*, Stantler, Passimian, Castform, Glimmora, Terapagos.
There's a few species for which I question the logic of them learning (Magearna, Deoxys, Giratina, Gengar, Beheeyem, Xurkitree, Celesteela, Iron Moth) but I'm more interested in how many things don't learn it, especially Water-types. Octillery does, but that seems more to do with it being a projectile move (of which Octillery learns basically every single one) than because of a connection to nature; Manaphy does too, but that might be the whole "it's a legendary/mythical so it learns loads of moves" thing I mentioned in the last post; Frillish also does, but equally it's part Ghost so maybe it's just because of that.
But if any type represents nature outside of Grass and Fairy, it's surely Water: and even though Grass moves are a stretch for a lot of Water-types (given that many of them are fairly mundane aquatic creatures without much in the way of vast intelligence or elemental power) there's at least a few I'd think should be capable of learning it: Starmie, Lanturn, Politoed, Clawitzer, Lapras, Corsola, Araquanid, Tapu Fini, Dracovish, Walking Wake. Starmie is quite possibly the oddest exception given that it's a Psychic-type with mysterious elemental abilities.
Non-Water-types I'm also a little surprised have never been able to learn it:
-Zygarde (it's literally all about nature)
-Tapu Koko (all the Tapus are about nature - I can sort of see the thinking behind only Lele and Bulu getting it, but I don't think it'd be out of place for the other two)
-Landorus (it's not like it really needs it, but, again, is a nature-oriented species)
-Espeon (a notable Psychic exception; it learns Grass Knot, Trailblaze, and Morning Sun, but not this)
-Slaking, Furret, Miltank, Kecleon (all grassland-dwelling Normal-types with wide elemental learnsets)
-Ariados, Ledian, Vespiquen, Yanmega (all notable Bug exceptions)
-Altaria and Goodra (perhaps the most nature-attuned of all the dragons)
-Togekiss (learns just about everything else)
-Audino (as does this)
-Carbink/Diancie (the latter is especially odd, as most of the other pixie-like mythicals do - and Diancie is a very "natural" species)
-Hatterene (Fairy AND Psychic, and yet doesn't learn this despite learning moves like Life Dew, Magical Leaf, and both its native terrain moves)
*though that one could just as easily be due to its affinity to Psychic- and Ghost-types than its connection to nature
Gen III and IV were typically where a lot of older moves which weren't always explained in great detail got slightly more illustrative descriptions (Agility, for instance) thanks to their larger textboxes. Because of this, a lot of moves introduced in those gens haven't changed a lot in terms of how they're described - Energy Ball is no exception to this.
Gen IV description: The user draws power from nature and fires it at the target. It may also lower the target's Sp. Def.
PLZA description: The user attacks by drawing power from nature and firing it at targets. This may also lower targets' Sp. Def stats.
So that's a pretty standard Grass-type technique. As you'd expect, everything that learns Energy Ball by level is a Grass-type, apart from Flabebe (obvious, basically an honorary Grass-type) and... Swirlix, for whatever reason.
But since it's been a teachable move in every generation, lots of other Pokemon learn it too. Which fits for a relatively bland description like "the user draws power from nature": many different Pokemon should be capable of that. A huge amount of Psychic-types get it, as do a lot of Bugs, quite a few Fairies, and interestingly quite a few Ghosts (Gastly, Frillish, Yamask, Misdreavus, Sandygast). So do a handful of other Pokemon who live in natural environments or have a stronger-than-usual connection to the elements: Vulpix*, Stantler, Passimian, Castform, Glimmora, Terapagos.
There's a few species for which I question the logic of them learning (Magearna, Deoxys, Giratina, Gengar, Beheeyem, Xurkitree, Celesteela, Iron Moth) but I'm more interested in how many things don't learn it, especially Water-types. Octillery does, but that seems more to do with it being a projectile move (of which Octillery learns basically every single one) than because of a connection to nature; Manaphy does too, but that might be the whole "it's a legendary/mythical so it learns loads of moves" thing I mentioned in the last post; Frillish also does, but equally it's part Ghost so maybe it's just because of that.
But if any type represents nature outside of Grass and Fairy, it's surely Water: and even though Grass moves are a stretch for a lot of Water-types (given that many of them are fairly mundane aquatic creatures without much in the way of vast intelligence or elemental power) there's at least a few I'd think should be capable of learning it: Starmie, Lanturn, Politoed, Clawitzer, Lapras, Corsola, Araquanid, Tapu Fini, Dracovish, Walking Wake. Starmie is quite possibly the oddest exception given that it's a Psychic-type with mysterious elemental abilities.
Non-Water-types I'm also a little surprised have never been able to learn it:
-Zygarde (it's literally all about nature)
-Tapu Koko (all the Tapus are about nature - I can sort of see the thinking behind only Lele and Bulu getting it, but I don't think it'd be out of place for the other two)
-Landorus (it's not like it really needs it, but, again, is a nature-oriented species)
-Espeon (a notable Psychic exception; it learns Grass Knot, Trailblaze, and Morning Sun, but not this)
-Slaking, Furret, Miltank, Kecleon (all grassland-dwelling Normal-types with wide elemental learnsets)
-Ariados, Ledian, Vespiquen, Yanmega (all notable Bug exceptions)
-Altaria and Goodra (perhaps the most nature-attuned of all the dragons)
-Togekiss (learns just about everything else)
-Audino (as does this)
-Carbink/Diancie (the latter is especially odd, as most of the other pixie-like mythicals do - and Diancie is a very "natural" species)
-Hatterene (Fairy AND Psychic, and yet doesn't learn this despite learning moves like Life Dew, Magical Leaf, and both its native terrain moves)
*though that one could just as easily be due to its affinity to Psychic- and Ghost-types than its connection to nature