In addition, so many Feint Attack users already learnt Bite already. Making the move incredibly redundant unless Sand Attack is that much of an annoyance.
-
Follow our Instagram!
-
Curious about what we're currently doing about bots? Check out the latest updates from staff in this thread.
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Pokémon Movepool Oddities & Explanations
- Thread starter Kurona
- Start date
Shout-outs to Gen 3 Houndour and Houndoom, who both learn Bite like 15 levels before Feint Attack.
The state of Dark-type moves was honestly kind of dire before Gen 4.
Last edited:
Speaking of Bite and Faint Attack, I was hatching a bunch of eggs for shinies in Crystal. I had an Eevee in my party so it could passively gain friendship, then evolve into Umbreon for the rest of my playthrough. Little did I know, only Eevee learns Bite at level 30, not Umbreon, which gets Confuse Ray instead. To pour salt in the wound, Umbreon learns Pursuit at level 16 if you wanted to hatch an Eevee, but again, would not have access to Bite, having to wait until level 36 for our favorite move, Faint Attack. For a while, I was using combinations of Return, Mud-Slap, Quick Attack, Iron Tail, Confuse Ray, and Shadow Ball before finally getting my needed STAB move to hit physically defensive Pokemon.
I definitely should have delayed evolving Eevee to level 30, to get Bite AND Confuse Ray at the same time, but hindsight is 50/50 and I just didn't know lol. Still, yeah, Dark-types had it rough in the beginning.
I definitely should have delayed evolving Eevee to level 30, to get Bite AND Confuse Ray at the same time, but hindsight is 50/50 and I just didn't know lol. Still, yeah, Dark-types had it rough in the beginning.
Bite on Umbreon only via Eevee is a temporary miss on your way to Feint Attack, while also being a weird learnset omission overall.
Bite on Espeon via Eevee meanwhile makes Espeon silly as heck in-game. A psychic with special SE coverage against other psychics is ridiculous.
That may be true, but if I had to choose between the two, I'd rather have Bite for the flinch chance. Umbreon's not one-shotting most things, and pairing flinching next to Confuse Ray hax lets it cheese through stuff lol
Bite Espeon is indeed really good, though, yeah.
The CAP process got me thinking about Recover's users, and one of them jumped out to me as unusual.
:sv/milotic:
Recover is learned by members of a few different groups of Pokemon:
:corsola::toxapex::pincurchin:
Pokemon with biological regenerative properties.
:alakazam::medicham::articuno-galar:
Pokemon with capital-P Psychic powers.
:magcargo::cryogonal::gholdengo:
Pokemon with amorphous bodies, the idea presumably being that they can reconstitute themselves.
:vespiquen::shaymin::lilligant-hisui:
These don't count, but they had Recover in Legends: Arceus to replace other recovery moves, which aren't in that game.
:eternatus::pecharunt:
These two are a bit strange. They both survived being defeated and went into a slumber, but it took quite a long time for either to reawaken, and Eternatus couldn't even do it without Rose's help. As Legendary and Mythical Pokemon, they have immense power that, though not Psychic, could maybe be called psychic, especially when you look at Pecharunt's mind control. Eternatus also has the argument that it's an alien with bizarre physiology, and it's a common trope for hostile aliens to exhibit powerful regeneration.
:milotic:
But why does this fleshy, non-Psychic sea serpent get to recover? Does its ability to calm people's emotions hint at broader psychic powers? Or perhaps, and this is the explanation I like better, the implication is that its body evolved to restore itself so that it can maintain its peerless beauty.
:sv/milotic:
Recover is learned by members of a few different groups of Pokemon:
:corsola::toxapex::pincurchin:
Pokemon with biological regenerative properties.
:alakazam::medicham::articuno-galar:
Pokemon with capital-P Psychic powers.
:magcargo::cryogonal::gholdengo:
Pokemon with amorphous bodies, the idea presumably being that they can reconstitute themselves.
:vespiquen::shaymin::lilligant-hisui:
These don't count, but they had Recover in Legends: Arceus to replace other recovery moves, which aren't in that game.
:eternatus::pecharunt:
These two are a bit strange. They both survived being defeated and went into a slumber, but it took quite a long time for either to reawaken, and Eternatus couldn't even do it without Rose's help. As Legendary and Mythical Pokemon, they have immense power that, though not Psychic, could maybe be called psychic, especially when you look at Pecharunt's mind control. Eternatus also has the argument that it's an alien with bizarre physiology, and it's a common trope for hostile aliens to exhibit powerful regeneration.
:milotic:
But why does this fleshy, non-Psychic sea serpent get to recover? Does its ability to calm people's emotions hint at broader psychic powers? Or perhaps, and this is the explanation I like better, the implication is that its body evolved to restore itself so that it can maintain its peerless beauty.
Milotic might in part be based on oarfish, which I believe can self amputate there tail. While the tail doesn't recover, it can heal the wound. Maybe they just extended that to making it so milotic can do something similar? It can self amputate its tail to get away, but because "its a kids game" they also made it so milotic can regenerate its own tail.
Few more I'll give shoutouts to.
:ho oh: Ofc this is because ho oh has the ability to revive other pokemon (giving us entei, suicune, and raikou), but it feels a bit weird? Didn't really even matter too much in certain gens cause roost was just better.
:porygon: the porygon line can also learn recover, which is kinda funny when you think about it. "Recovering a file" is restoring a file to a usable state, and ofc the porygon line are digital creations. They are literally recovering there own files if you think about it.
:arceus: Its god, its understandable, but still, its weird when you somewhat think about it.
Okay so I was actually planning on making a Ho-Oh post when I saw this lol, but mine is for questioning why it doesn't get Revival Blessing. It's a perfect fit and some games even have Ho-Oh drop the super rare Sacred Ash (read: the full party rez item) after you fight it.
I wonder if there's something we're missing to explain how the move is distributed, because nothing thematic ties it specifically to Pawmot and Rabsca? Or the two even to each other besides evolution method. Could be balance, but Pawmot has a competent stat spread so idk. I'm also not even sure the move would break Ho-Oh in VGC because you'd want the RB user to be bringing back your Restricteds, not hitch your wagon to Ho-Oh as one of those slots just for a potential revive.
Ho-Oh definitely had usage in restricted teams back in SwSh and even some usage in SV.
I am quite sure the decision to not give it Revival Blessing is a balance choice. We're talking of a very bulky pokemon with Regenerator, Tailwind, and that actually has a strong offensive presence due to high BP stabs (one of which with 50% burn chance btw).
Expecially in double restricted format, being able to revive your Miraidon or Calyrex without needing to carry a shitmon is 100% worth your 2nd slot, moreso when Ho-oh ticks a lot of boxes (it's also decent into other big boys like Zamazenta, Zacian and Caly-Ice for example).
Oh and it'd absolutely fuck over BSS for the same reason. Nah, I don't see that ever happening o.o
Ultimately the only reason Revival Blessing is fair is cause it's
1) on a shitmon
2) on a glass cannon decent-but-not-overwhelming pokemon
Putting it on a real, bulky utility mon shouldn't happen.
I am quite sure the decision to not give it Revival Blessing is a balance choice. We're talking of a very bulky pokemon with Regenerator, Tailwind, and that actually has a strong offensive presence due to high BP stabs (one of which with 50% burn chance btw).
Expecially in double restricted format, being able to revive your Miraidon or Calyrex without needing to carry a shitmon is 100% worth your 2nd slot, moreso when Ho-oh ticks a lot of boxes (it's also decent into other big boys like Zamazenta, Zacian and Caly-Ice for example).
Oh and it'd absolutely fuck over BSS for the same reason. Nah, I don't see that ever happening o.o
Ultimately the only reason Revival Blessing is fair is cause it's
1) on a shitmon
2) on a glass cannon decent-but-not-overwhelming pokemon
Putting it on a real, bulky utility mon shouldn't happen.
Last edited:
Rabsca is based on an egyptian beetle. In old Egyptian mythology, beetles were the symbol of immortality.
As for Pawmot, it is based partly on an AED device.
The evolution method connection is probably some Japanese Buddhist motif that I am not well versed enough on.
Well, I can think of a really obvious reason why Rellor, the bug that rolls.......mud.........., would get the funny "let's walk around" evolution method. See also: Bramblin.
Pawmot getting the same method is a bit stranger since nothing about Pawmo or Pawmot really screams it, but I have a few considerations:
-You get access to it early, around the time players might experiment with the walking feature, and a pikaclone that evolves is a good usecase someone might stumble into
-Weird marketing associatoin. It's a pikaclone, you can imagine someone like Nemona (who basically has it as a quasi-ace) running around with it all the time, viola it now evolves by walking
-Lorewise, Pawmot's entry has this to say "Pawmot's fluffy fur acts as a battery. It can store the same amount of electricity as an electric car.". You're charging Pawmo's batteries to evolve.
Also just incidentally I'm convinced the decision to give Pawmot something called "Revival Blessing" was probably done later in development when they thought the AED connection could have something else to it., and was otherwise Rabsca's signature move conceptually
It's a phoenix syncretizing elements from the Fenghuang/Ho-o and the western Phoenix. It's why it's associated with Sacred Ash. It's tying in to the legend of how the phoenix lights itself aflame when it's time for it to die only to be reborn from the ashes. It makes sense why something with those origins would learn recover.
Also I'm pretty sure the reason it doesn't get revival blessing is balance. Rabsca and Pawmot aren't exactly the best mons. Do we really want Revival Blessing on something with 106/90/154 defenses with recover/roost, regenerator, and can actually hit pretty hard while crippling physical attackers? Rock Slide/Stone Edge would become mandatory in every format that monstrosity is allowed.
If we're gonna talk about weird Recover users, can someone please educate me on why Chien-Pao gets it but not Wo-Chien?
My understanding is that all four of the Treasures could kind of fit into the "amorphous body" category, since the rest of them are just constructs created by the relics. Ironically this means Wo-Chien having the tablets form a snail shell is counterproductive since it's sheltering replaceable parts with irreplaceable ones. I could also see balance concerns being why Recover is kept away from the defensively focused Wo-Chein and Ting-Lu (and Chi-Yu's fire is to insubstantial to reconstruct?)If we're gonna talk about weird Recover users, can someone please educate me on why Chien-Pao gets it but not Wo-Chien?
Now I've convinced myself that Spiritomb needs Recover.
Wo chien is denied to be good in order for us to maintain the sacred memeIf we're gonna talk about weird Recover users, can someone please educate me on why Chien-Pao gets it but not Wo-Chien?
(Not that it'll really ever get a chance to be good expecially once it loses access to tera.. that typing is yikes for a mon that's supposed to be defensive :( )
Walking charges things in Pokémon, the VS Seeker, the PokeWalker, etc.