SPOILERS! [Crown Tundra!] List of Movepool Changes

[MrHands]

I guess to answer the question, I doubt special Blaziken will be a thing. Aura Sphere is waaay weaker than High Jump Kick / Close Combat and I don't think Scorching Sands covers anything besides Toxapex and it's not like Blaziken didn't have EQ already. Additionally Blaziken has Swords Dance but not Nasty Plot / Calm Mind. Also stuff like Intimidate Gyarados / Salamence / Landorus-T that in the past might have made a Special Blaziken look nice aren't really common anymore (Lando-T will be back I guess).

So it probably won't see any usage in OU / Ubers as a special attacker. There's just no real reason to take such a massive drop in power in exchange for special attacks instead of physical.

252 Atk Life Orb Blaziken High Jump Kick vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Manaphy: 261-308 (76.5 - 90.3%)

252 SpA Life Orb Blaziken Aura Sphere vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Manaphy: 152-179 (44.5 - 52.4%)

No thanks.

 

[MaahirMomtaz12]

I guess to answer the question, I doubt special Blaziken will be a thing. Aura Sphere is waaay weaker than High Jump Kick / Close Combat and I don't think Scorching Sands covers anything besides Toxapex and it's not like Blaziken didn't have EQ already. Additionally Blaziken has Swords Dance but not Nasty Plot / Calm Mind. Also stuff like Intimidate Gyarados / Salamence / Landorus-T that in the past might have made a Special Blaziken look nice aren't really common anymore (Lando-T will be back I guess).

So it probably won't see any usage in OU / Ubers as a special attacker. There's just no real reason to take such a massive drop in power in exchange for special attacks instead of physical.

252 Atk Life Orb Blaziken High Jump Kick vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Manaphy: 261-308 (76.5 - 90.3%)

252 SpA Life Orb Blaziken Aura Sphere vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Manaphy: 152-179 (44.5 - 52.4%)

No thanks.

Mixed Blaziken looks nice

 

[MrHands]

Mixed Blaziken looks nice

But why? What does it do better than pure physical. Blaziken has always had Focus Blast + Overheat and no one really used it. Aura Sphere and Scorching Sands are MUCH weaker than Close Combat / High Jump Kick and Earthquake.

If it was to ever go mixed it would likely be something like Fire Blast / Close Combat / Earthquake / Protect or something to break past Chansey / Landorus-T... but even then you can do that with a purely physical set. All running mixed does is split EVs and remove the ability to sweep with Swords Dance as effectively.

 

[DarkWerewolf144]

A Special Blaziken set seems pretty nifty and all. Maybe if it comes back, pair it with Decorate Alcremie and see how that goes. Think of it. Getting +2 SpA and then +1 Speed at the end of the turn. Also, I'm shocked Kinesis was revived but angry because out of all possible moves to revive, they chose that! Why not Signal Beam, why not Pursuit (though I never used it cuz weak BP), why not Sky Uppercut or Hidden Power?

 

[DrPumpkinz]

A Special Blaziken set seems pretty nifty and all. Maybe if it comes back, pair it with Decorate Alcremie and see how that goes. Think of it. Getting +2 SpA and then +1 Speed at the end of the turn. Also, I'm shocked Kinesis was revived but angry because out of all possible moves to revive, they chose that! Why not Signal Beam, why not Pursuit (though I never used it cuz weak BP), why not Sky Uppercut or Hidden Power?

You'd also be getting to +2 Attack, which is much more useful.

 

[Worldie]

. Also, I'm shocked Kinesis was revived but angry because out of all possible moves to revive, they chose that!

Kinesis was "revived" because it was a signature move of a returning pokemon.

End. No fancy reason. No cospiracy.

(Also please stop wishing for hidden power return. It's nice to not need to softreset for years or have to hack for legendaryes and eggs)

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Kinesis was "revived" because it was a signature move of a returning pokemon.

Barrage was also the signature move of a returning Pokemon, and it wasn't revived. It is also somewhat concerning that even moves that have gotten their descriptions scrubbed can be brought back. There were plenty of signature moves that were unselectable pre-DLC that got added back in, but their descriptions were never changed, and the only way you'd know something was amiss is if you hacked the move in. But Kinesis shows that even if a move's description explicitly states that the move cannot be used and recommends that it be forgotten, it can at any point be brought back and you'd be shit out of luck because as the descriptions also states, it is impossible to relearn the move. We're lucky it's only happened with an utterly useless move limited to a single family like Kinesis. If this happens to a move that is useful, widely learned, and doesn't have a way to relearn it like a new TM or amended egg moves or whatever, then anyone who took the game's recommendation to forget the move is fucked.

Imagine for a second that Wish was one of the moves originally removed in Sword and Shield. You have a legit Wish Chansey in HOME, one that you had to transfer up from some obscure Gen 3 event. You see that Wish is no longer usable, so you delete it. After all, this Chansey also came with Sweet Scent, and you deleted that move long ago because it's not useful. Isle of Armor rolls around, and now you can use your Chansey in the game. But what's this? Wish's description has been changed, and it's usable in-game. Now you'll need to somehow track down another Wish Chansey, and good luck with that.

The obvious solution is of course just to hack a new one, because as a wise cat thing once said, "the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant", but if you've made a game where people are already practically required to hack in order to reasonably play at a top level, you should be trying to reduce that problem, not make it even worse. And no, the Galar mark is not a good solution. It is a sloppy band-aid solution.

 

[Worldie]

Imagine for a second that Wish was one of the moves originally removed in Sword and Shield. You have a legit Wish Chansey in HOME, one that you had to transfer up from some obscure Gen 3 event. You see that Wish is no longer usable, so you delete it. After all, this Chansey also came with Sweet Scent, and you deleted that move long ago because it's not useful. Isle of Armor rolls around, and now you can use your Chansey in the game. But what's this? Wish's description has been changed, and it's usable in-game. Now you'll need to somehow track down another Wish Chansey, and good luck with that.

With all the respect, we both know such situation wouldn't be bothering GF at all as they do not care for old event pokemon due to them not being legal for competitiveness and them always having actually bothered to make unique mons re-catchable in every generation to ensure VGC legality.
To the point that the brand new NPC that makes old gen pokemon legal wipes out their learned moves.

And specifically as far as event moves that were potentially competitive... from what we've seen from the datamine, several formerly-event-only moves that would have had competitiveness (see Aura Sphere Raikou, Hurricane Lugia, etc) have been actually integrated in pokemon's movesets in gen 8 via either learnset or TR/TMs.

In this very hypotetical scenario you described, I'd not have been surprised in the slightest if Wish suddently became a regular either learnable, or egg move for Chansey (which would also probably have set OU on fire)

 

[DrPumpkinz]

With all the respect, we both know such situation wouldn't be bothering GF at all as they do not care for old event pokemon due to them not being legal for competitiveness and them always having actually bothered to make unique mons re-catchable in every generation to ensure VGC legality.
To the point that the brand new NPC that makes old gen pokemon legal wipes out their learned moves.

And specifically as far as event moves that were potentially competitive... from what we've seen from the datamine, several formerly-event-only moves that would have had competitiveness (see Aura Sphere Raikou, Hurricane Lugia, etc) have been actually integrated in pokemon's movesets in gen 8 via either learnset or TR/TMs.

In this very hypotetical scenario you described, I'd not have been surprised in the slightest if Wish suddently became a regular either learnable, or egg move for Chansey (which would also probably have set OU on fire)

Sure. But Kinesis suddenly getting unscrubbed, combined with Game Freak's lack of giving a shit for anyone who doesn't play by the official rules and the fact that this gen has more transfer-exclusive common moves than ever (Knock Off, Roost, Toxic, etc.), still introduces this looming spectre. Game Freak doesn't need to commit to their move removals... but you might.

 

[Worldie]

the fact that this gen has more transfer-exclusive common moves than ever (Knock Off, Roost, Toxic, etc.),

Ehhh... yes but no there too.
A significant amount of "previously tutored" moves being transfer-only for a while isn't exactly a first.
Was like that in gen 6 until ORAS, was like that in gen 7 until USUM.
I expect all those moves (minus maybe Toxic? But possibly that too) to just be available again by the end of this gen, being it the second DLC's arrival, or whatever title gets released after SwSh.

 

[Kurona]

All that said, the removed moves for the most part aren't that bad. A very large proportion of them are useless filler moves no-one really cared about anyway like Bubble or Mud Sport or Lucky Chant, and many others are as said Signature Moves of Pokémon that aren't even in the game yet -- as well as some that border on that such as Sky Uppercut.

There are a few that seem to be for reasons of balancing and/or making in-game preparation easier -- Hidden Power, Return/Frustration, Pursuit. Personally I think the only real mistake here is removing Pursuit as it does allow Psychics and Ghosts to run rampant and I would like to see it be added back, but I do at least understand where they're coming from with it.

Outside of that though there are some oddities -- Dragon Rage there was no problem with and was a fun early-game move, and Signal Beam was a nice option for bug-types and had interesting odd distribution. I don't mind cutting moves because as said above, a lot of them really were excess stuff that their removal is only really a positive; but some choices were a bit of a shame.

 

[Worldie]

I don't mind cutting moves because as said above, a lot of them really were excess stuff that their removal is only really a positive; but some choices were a bit of a shame.

I think the choice of , say, reintroduce Kinesis but not Barrage was mostly due to how iconic Kinesis is for the Kadabra line (the animation is literally bending spoons), compared to Barrage which has a much more ""appropriate"" equivalent in both Seed Bomb and Bullet Seed.
Remember barrage was simply "throwing round objects at the enemy"

And considering it's the signature move (and a pretty bad/pointless one at it) of a grass-type line, I can perfectly see why not bothering to reintroduce it.

Signal Beam is in a weird spot where it's a move that realistically noone ever run, it was just "there" mostly for in-game flavour, a relic of very ancient times before Bug Buzz and Pollen Puff were a thing.

I am still unsure of the reasoning behind the replacement of Pursuit, of all the moves removed either were in the field of "make teambuilding and breeding a hassle" or "old, unused attack that had no real purpose"

In fact, I do wonder if this is connected to the removal of, for example, Dragon Rage, as a few of the "removed" moves had weird not necessarly intuitive mechanics.
I was going through the list of removed moves and noticed... a few of those.
- Sonic Boom / Dragon Rage: fixed HP damage
- Rage: increases attack but only if hit
- Bide: stores damage then hits back after some turns for double of it
- Psywave / Magnitude: random damage
- Secret Power / Camouflage: effect varying on location of the player in game
- Natural Gift: effect varying with each single different berry without way to know without trying
- Hidden Power: effect based on IVs
- Frustration/Return: effect based on happiness value
- Pursuit: damage amplified if the opponent swaps out (bonus, this move never really saw any competitive usage in official formats nor in-game as trainers barely ever swap)

It strikes to me that they did remove a lot of relatively unintuitive mechanics that are also relatively... difficult to explain for someone who isnt in the series, or significantly break "immersion".
Yeah yeah immersion in pokemon games nice joke, but I always point back that Pokemon is a game for kids mostly, with adult players making a "added benefit" and not the main target playerbase, and a kid, expecially a newcomer, would have probably had issues figuring how to make those work or simply not cared at all.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Signal Beam is in a weird spot where it's a move that realistically noone ever run, it was just "there" mostly for in-game flavour, a relic of very ancient times before Bug Buzz and Pollen Puff were a thing.

Bug types may not have much reason to run Signal Beam nowadays, but a fair number of Electric-types learned it as well. In a world without HP Ice and Fire, a strong-ish move that hits Grass-types super effectively would be very handy.

 

[Kurona]

Competitive use aside, it was always a fun in-game move; a little along the lines of say, having Aerial Ace before a better flying move like Drill Peck. Not just for Bug-types, but also for random stuff like Octillery.

 

[R_N]

Gonna be honest, a lot of those moves you point out as "weird" in effect don't seem that weird or unintuitive. Several of them are pretty intuitive by their actual effect. Compare & Contrast with some of these moves still in the game:
-Fling, wildly variable power for every single item in the game and, also, if you use it in-game it will permanently remove that item so better not misclick
-Beat Up. This move's pretty weird. The number of hits is based on how many Pokemon are in your party and the base power of each hit is based on that party member's attack and it uses the User's attack stat.
-Memento & Healing Wish kills you to lower stats on the opponent/heal the next pokemon you send in.
-Endeavor forces the opposing pokemon to match your current HP
-Swallow & Spit Up are moves that only work if you use a different move first and how many times you use that move determines how effective they are and also removes any stat boosts you got from that move.
-Magnetic Flux only works if you or an allied pokemon has the specific ability Plus or Minus
-Electrify makes the next move used by the opponent that turn Electric type


So things like "varies in use based on berry", "does set damage", "does more damaged based on the damage taken" and so on really don't stand out as so weird as to cut.

Straight up Magnetic Flux alone is one of the most specific, bizarre moves still in the game and makes me think a number of these moves (not just or even all the ones you listed, but in general) were removed more because they had limited time, they had a priority in their list and these other moves just fell by the wayside.

 

[Worldie]

So things like "varies in use based on berry", "does set damage", "does more damaged based on the damage taken" and so on really don't stand out as so weird as to cut.

Note that with "weird" I don't mean difficult to understand per se, just that would require prior knowledge of how the mechanic work, or trial and error, or specifically referring numerical values (which isnt something that makes sense, how does an attack exactly do "always the same" damage?)
Pursuit is also on that list for me, because how exactly you're meant to be doing more damage to a pokemon going back into the pokeball? From what I know, pokemon just "disappear" when recalled, they aren't actually running away and leaving themselves exposed.

 

[R_N]

Note that with "weird" I don't mean difficult to understand per se, just that would require prior knowledge of how the mechanic work, or trial and error, or specifically referring numerical values (which isnt something that makes sense, how does an attack exactly do "always the same" damage?)
Pursuit is also on that list for me, because how exactly you're meant to be doing more damage to a pokemon going back into the pokeball? From what I know, pokemon just "disappear" when recalled, they aren't actually running away and leaving themselves exposed.

I assumed you hit them as they're absorbed by the light or they let their guard down when their trainer calls them back

so either
"Return, Charizard" *begins to be reabsorbed* [[this is my chance to hit them hard]]
or
"Return, Charizard" *lets guard down as they're about to be called back* [[this is my chance to hit them]]

 

[Worldie]

I assumed you hit them as they're absorbed by the light or they let their guard down when their trainer calls them back

so either
"Return, Charizard" *begins to be reabsorbed* [[this is my chance to hit them hard]]
or
"Return, Charizard" *lets guard down as they're about to be called back* [[this is my chance to hit them]]

Was there ever a case of Pursuit being used in the anime or mangas?

 

[R_N]

Was there ever a case of Pursuit being used in the anime or mangas?

anime no, manga yes! Seems like they went with the latter interpretation

 

[earl]

Never understood the whole “pursuit removal has made psychics/ghosts overpowered” point. No other type has a move that hard-counters them as hard as pursuit did (see blacephalon vs ttar gen 7) and it’s not like Psychic is anywhere near a top-tier offensive type at the moment. Ghost is a bit strong offensively, but I don’t think it’s any worse than ghost, ground, or fairy nor did it ever deserve a move that traps it. If other pursuit-type moves existed, like a water-type one for grounds, I’d see this point as more legitimate, but as it stands psychics and ghosts weren’t really dominating the metagame before and after pursuit removal.

The real victim of pursuit removal are mons like TTar that lost a niche in deleting darks and psychics.

 

[PokemonTrainerLui]

The main ghost type I wish Pursuit was still around for is Dragapult.

 

[DarkWerewolf144]

I question why Confide was spared. I find the move to be freaking useless and pointless. And Signal Beam provided coverage for some Pokemon that needed it and that sort of screwed up options for some.

Though I run Signal Beam on my Raikou currently in USUM, I can't wait to teach it Scald when I transfer it. I hope Home gets an update and see if the TR/TM learnsets were updated. I don't think the Mobile update could bring an update to datamine.

 

[Worldie]

Though I run Signal Beam on my Raikou currently in USUM, I can't wait to teach it Scald when I transfer it. I hope Home gets an update and see if the TR/TM learnsets were updated. I don't think the Mobile update could bring an update to datamine.

I can tell you that it also got Aura Sphere and Weather Ball (previously event moves) on top of Scald. It'll be a legit threat under rain or weather.

 

[DarkWerewolf144]

Definitely Aura Sphere's addition is a huge plus. Of course a lot of Pokemon got Weather Ball but it is somewhat gimmicky since it requires setting up a weather or be paired with someone who sets one up via ability or Max move. Too bad it doesn't get Nature Power though it seems odd for a Raikou to get it. At least Entei has a new special option so I can replace HP Steel from mine with Scorching Sands.

 

[R_N]

Confide probably remained because it's a wide spread move that lowers special attack. Most moves that lower the enemy's special attack are either a side effect of another move, need a special condition (Venom Drench, Captivate) or limited in distribution (Tearful Look, which also lowers Attack). Confide's on a ton of Pokemon and no questions asked lowers Special Attack.

Ideally it should be about as common as Growl & Leer are on early game sets instead of being a TM, but I can see why it stayed.