• Smogon Premier League is here and the team collection is now available. Support your team!

Needs Triage Bug Report - Validator (HOME moves not implemented correctly)

What type of bug are you reporting? Validator

What is the bug?
Hat Pikachus (Pikachu-Original, Pikachu-Hoenn, Pikachu-Sinnoh, Pikachu-Unova, Pikachu-Kalos, Pikachu-Alola, Pikachu-World) incorrectly cannot learn Volt Tackle in SV on PS. In real life, they can. Screenshots as proof:

First Screenshot: Hat Pikachu in Pokémon HOME, where you can teach it Volt Tackle through the HOME move reminder.
image0.jpg


Second Screenshot: The same Pikachu, now transferred to SV, where you can see it retains Volt Tackle.
image1.jpg


The same bug was affecting Alolan Raichu, and I submitted a bug report concerning both Araichu and the hat Pikachus about a year ago (I think? It may actually have been more recent than that) and recently noticed that Araichu's moveset had been recently fixed to include Volt Tackle on PS in SV (thanks by the way!) but that the Hat Pikachus' remain incorrect.

Are you able to replicate it? If so, how?
Simply open the teambuilder and add any of the Hat Pikachu (Pikachu-Original, Pikachu-Hoenn, Pikachu-Sinnoh, Pikachu-Unova, Pikachu-Kalos, Pikachu-Alola, Pikachu-World) variants and try to teach it Volt Tackle and validate the team.
 
Last edited:
I discussed this as part of a larger validator issue concerning HOME Move Relearner. I wrote about the cap Pikachu and Alolan Raichu in this thread from 2024, and described some of the rules for how Volt Tackle should work for gen 7 cap Pikachu. I believe parts of it may have been implemented already (? LA moves).


Most of the gen 8 cap Pikachu came with Volt Tackle as a relearnable move so they don't need to be tutored again.
Example: https://projectpokemon.org/home/files/file/4328-ash-world-cap-pikachu/

I believe only this one did not come with it: https://projectpokemon.org/home/files/file/4795-25th-film-anniversary-サトシ-world-cap-pikachu/
 
Last edited:
That explains a lot! Hopefully these problems can be fixed. I never noticed that it affected pokemon beyond the cap Pikachus; seems like the problem is way deeper. Would this (to your knowledge) affect the movepool of any relevant SVOU Pokemon ??
 
That explains a lot! Hopefully these problems can be fixed. I never noticed that it affected pokemon beyond the cap Pikachus; seems like the problem is way deeper. Would this (to your knowledge) affect the movepool of any relevant SVOU Pokemon ??
I am not aware of what is used in any format. The relearner issues mostly affect Pokémon learning moves at lower levels than in their native games, because being able to learn it in any other game enables it. Volt Tackle shares this property. The fix would not be to manually list and hard-code every single Pokémon affected, but to implement the mechanics in a more general manner. I have not been tracking what has already been done, but I recall work on adding Legends: Arceus movesets that other games could reference.
 
1772207799800.png

Still not fixed as of today. If it's part of a larger underlying issue as mentioned by Anubis I can understand this but also it would be pretty easy to just add volt tackle to all the pikachus first. Not to mention the first time I reported this (in a separate bug report thread) was like 1 or 2 years ago and it was fixed for Alolan-Raichu. Would be nice to at least get some sort of update? Maybe I'm asking for too much, sorry if I am.
 
Hey, I'm the one who typically does validator stuff, and I have a current PR to make the Cap Pikachus able to learn Volt Tackle (which is also handling legality for the official formats). In your previous bug report, you state that Raichu-Alola is not allowed to bring Volt Tackle to Battle Stadium but can be brought to VGC Worlds. However, I've been told that BS and VGC use the same validation system, so Volt Tackle Raichu-Alola shouldn't be legal in VGC, which conflicts with the details of your report. Since I'm unsure what is accurate, the PR has just been left dormant.
 
Back
Top