(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

[Pikachu315111]

1. Because she doesn't take responsibility! She's allowed to leave and she does so. She doesn't think she hurt a lot of people and maybe she should do any form or reparations. The plot says she can go and she takes it. The only selfless thing she might have done for other characters would be giving them back their Key Stone but I don't remember it saying she did and even if she did she probably didn't stay around to apologize for her behavior towards the characters.

2. There's a difference between thinking about how a certain mechanic or concept would work in real life and judging a character by their thoughts & actions. If we're not suppose to judge any character then why give them a personality or backstory? Why try to make the player fell sad for them or understand their motivation? The designer want us to speculate and judge a character otherwise what's the point of making them a unique character? And I personally think it's a good idea to discuss ways a character that's meant to be likable fails to do so for so many people as we can identify what about that character was liked or not liked. That way either that character or future characters can be made to be liked (or disliked) as the designers intend them to be.

Also, going back a bit, since when did "oh, well she's just acting like a teenager" exempt her from being an unlikable character? Okay, fine, she's acting like a teenager, I still don't like what she's doing and find her unrelatable. How does her being a teenager affect her being likable or not? We're judging her as a character in ORAS, not how she might mature in the future.

 

[Norne]

1) I have no idea why you keep using the fact that she got away without any repercussions as a fault in her character. That would be a fault in the plot? Half of the criticisms of her character seem to actually be criticisms of the plot.

2) You're playing a video game where 10 year olds are entrusted to save the world and no parents are ever charged with child endangerment laws. Maybe chill a bit on intellectuallizing something you aren't supposed to overthink anyway.

One of the traits of a Mary Sue is getting away with everything.

Second she is a terrible person and the game put her snowflake traits in our faces so we would like her... It didn't work, she is basically Scrappy Doo.

 

[Karxrida]

The concept of a "Mary Sue" has deteriorated to the point that there's no concrete and agreed-upon definition (the TV Tropes article is a massive wall of text covering variations or something, and it's locked specifically because it's a huge mess that nobody is satisfied with), and it's kind of hard to take its use seriously anymore.

Zinnia is just an unlikable character who was written horribly.

 

[ToadBrigade]

Zinnia isn't unlikeable for being a Mary Sue (honestly I don't think she is but anyway), she's unlikeable for some because of pretty much everything that has been said above like poor personality, her storyline, etc. There's nothing wrong with having Mary Sues in games, especially like Pokemon where a core audience is younger gamers. Characters like Cynthia could be considered a Mary Sue but because they were written well they are well loved by fans.

 

[Karxrida]

Zinnia isn't unlikeable for being a Mary Sue (honestly I don't think she is but anyway), she's unlikeable for some because of pretty much everything that has been said above like poor personality, her storyline, etc. There's nothing wrong with having Mary Sues in games, especially like Pokemon where a core audience is younger gamers. Characters like Cynthia could be considered a Mary Sue but because they were written well they are well loved by fans.

I know I just said that nobody can agree upon what a Mary Sue is, but what people do agree upon is that the connotation is pretty much exclusively negative and pertains to bad writing. The sole exception to the negative label is the Parody Sue (which has a sort of concrete definition that's self-explanatory), and you can still screw those up.

Cynthia is more along the lines of the Ace, the Paragon, or the Big Good, which I would expect her to be since she's the Champion.

 

[Norne]

OK I'm probably the only human in the world able to be pissed off over receiving a free shiny in wonder trade. But I need to wind up.

People who have the ability to gen anything they want, yet they somehow fuck it up.

Basically I got a lighting rood shiny luxury ball male Manectric holding a ppmax, maxed pp moves and hp ice.

How did this manages to piss me off?

It's fucking modest, losing all the important speed tiers Mega Manectric is supposed to use, also it's hp ice uses one of the worst spreads for a non physical attacker.

30 31 30 31 31 31, basically the best hp numbers for a mixed attacker, but on a Manectric this means suicide to Stab foul play after rocks on 2 entries.

So they managed to give me a pokemon that is not only useless in competitive, but also useless for breeding those hp ice traits.

The idiot had on his passerby message had "enjoy the shiny" after the wonder trade...

I don't know, I could have been happy if this piece of crap was actually usable in battles, but I guess I got a PPMAX out of a breeding reject...

You know timid 31 0 30 31 31 31 would have made anyone happy, heck hp grass could as well...but this guy went for modest and max attack hp ice Manectric...

Even when you get a shiny out of wonder trade it somehow manages to be shit, I wonder traded a bunch of near perfect Ha pichus, 6 of them shiny with volt tackle, and the one time I get a shiny in a ball that fits...It ends up being this piece of garbage.

 

[ToadBrigade]

OK I'm probably the only human in the world able to be pissed off over receiving a free shiny in wonder trade. But I need to wind up.

People who have the ability to gen anything they want, yet they somehow fuck it up.

Basically I got a lighting rood shiny luxury ball male Manectric holding a ppmax, maxed pp moves and hp ice.

How did this manages to piss me off?

It's fucking modest, losing all the important speed tiers Mega Manectric is supposed to use, also it's hp ice uses one of the worst spreads for a non physical attacker.

30 31 30 31 31 31, basically the best hp numbers for a mixed attacker, but on a Manectric this means suicide to Stab foul play after rocks on 2 entries.

So they managed to give me a pokemon that is not only useless in competitive, but also useless for breeding those hp ice traits.

The idiot had on his message enjoy the shiny after the wonder trade...

I don't know, I could have been happy if this piece of crap was actually usable in battles, but I guess I got a PPMAX out of a breeding reject...

You know timid 31 0 30 31 31 31 would have made anyone happy, heck hp grass could as well...but this guy went for modest and max attack hp ice Manectric...

Even when you get a shiny out of wonder trade it somehow manages to be shit, I wonder traded a bunch of near perfect Ha pichus, 6 of them shiny with volt tackle, and the one time I get a shiny in a ball that fits...It ends up being this piece of garbage.

When trying to breed a competitive shiny Froakie I got a shiny Gren in WT and it was modest =.= I don't like using Pokemon that I haven't bred myself let alone genned ones but that really annoyed me. Notable others are a Dedenne in a love ball, telepathy moon ball Ralts, and a love ball Chimchar. Even when they're the diamond among the Zigzagoon and Wurmple, I'd rather just get a regular level one Pokemon than something that is not only obnoxiously genned but also illegal.

 

[Xen]

OK I'm probably the only human in the world able to be pissed off over receiving a free shiny in wonder trade. But I need to wind up.

People who have the ability to gen anything they want, yet they somehow fuck it up.

Basically I got a lighting rood shiny luxury ball male Manectric holding a ppmax, maxed pp moves and hp ice.

How did this manages to piss me off?

It's fucking modest, losing all the important speed tiers Mega Manectric is supposed to use, also it's hp ice uses one of the worst spreads for a non physical attacker.

30 31 30 31 31 31, basically the best hp numbers for a mixed attacker, but on a Manectric this means suicide to Stab foul play after rocks on 2 entries.

So they managed to give me a pokemon that is not only useless in competitive, but also useless for breeding those hp ice traits.

The idiot had on his message enjoy the shiny after the wonder trade...

I don't know, I could have been happy if this piece of crap was actually usable in battles, but I guess I got a PPMAX out of a breeding reject...

You know timid 31 0 30 31 31 31 would have made anyone happy, heck hp grass could as well...but this guy went for modest and max attack hp ice Manectric...

Even when you get a shiny out of wonder trade it somehow manages to be shit, I wonder traded a bunch of near perfect Ha pichus, 6 of them shiny with volt tackle, and the one time I get a shiny in a ball that fits...It ends up being this piece of garbage.

Well...at least it wasn't a 31/31/31/31/31/30 spread. :p

While we're on the subject of crappy wonder trade mons, I want to slap the guy at Game Freak who thought it was a good idea to give Ferrothorn a HA, but not Ferroseed. Shortly after X/Y came out, I got a good Ferroseed breedject from WT complete with 5 IVs and Leech Seed/Spikes/Stealth Rock. I went through several eggs until I hatched a 31/31/31/x/31/0 Relaxed one, EV'd it, and procceded to level it in Restaurant Le Wow, only to realize the original parent had the HA tag when my EV'd seed evolved into an Anticipation Ferrothorn. Pretty sure I've never been so pissed off over a game. I haven't used wonder trade since that day.

 

[Norne]

I love nicknaming my Pokémon, but I can deal with no nickname ones if they are useful.

Needless to say I would love replacing my hp grass non shiny Mega Manectric nicknamed DoritoTigr for an updated one with hp ice since I breed grass on a bygone Era.

This managed to hit me right where it hurts.

Sweet Jesus that ferrothorn incident...OMFG...

 

[Kurona]

OK I'm probably the only human in the world able to be pissed off over receiving a free shiny in wonder trade. But I need to wind up.

People who have the ability to gen anything they want, yet they somehow fuck it up.

Basically I got a lighting rood shiny luxury ball male Manectric holding a ppmax, maxed pp moves and hp ice.

How did this manages to piss me off?

It's fucking modest, losing all the important speed tiers Mega Manectric is supposed to use, also it's hp ice uses one of the worst spreads for a non physical attacker.

30 31 30 31 31 31, basically the best hp numbers for a mixed attacker, but on a Manectric this means suicide to Stab foul play after rocks on 2 entries.

So they managed to give me a pokemon that is not only useless in competitive, but also useless for breeding those hp ice traits.

The idiot had on his passerby message had "enjoy the shiny" after the wonder trade...

I don't know, I could have been happy if this piece of crap was actually usable in battles, but I guess I got a PPMAX out of a breeding reject...

You know timid 31 0 30 31 31 31 would have made anyone happy, heck hp grass could as well...but this guy went for modest and max attack hp ice Manectric...

Even when you get a shiny out of wonder trade it somehow manages to be shit, I wonder traded a bunch of near perfect Ha pichus, 6 of them shiny with volt tackle, and the one time I get a shiny in a ball that fits...It ends up being this piece of garbage.

I mean hey, if you don't want it; my friend code's 5000-4239-4257...

 

[cityscapes]

Well...at least it wasn't a 31/31/31/31/31/30 spread. :p

While we're on the subject of crappy wonder trade mons, I want to slap the guy at Game Freak who thought it was a good idea to give Ferrothorn a HA, but not Ferroseed. Shortly after X/Y came out, I got a good Ferroseed breedject from WT complete with 5 IVs and Leech Seed/Spikes/Stealth Rock. I went through several eggs until I hatched a 31/31/31/x/31/0 Relaxed one, EV'd it, and procceded to level it in Restaurant Le Wow, only to realize the original parent had the HA tag when my EV'd seed evolved into an Anticipation Ferrothorn. Pretty sure I've never been so pissed off over a game. I haven't used wonder trade since that day.

I'm breeding a bunch of HA good IV female Ferroseeds and going to WT them (60% of them will be HA, but I won't bother to check because you need to evolve it to find out). Then I'll watch the world burn as people evolve those Ferroseeds and find an Anticipate Ferrothorn, or unknowingly use them as parents and WT HA spitbacks away to repeat the cycle.

DragonWhale it's happening

 

[JES]

OK I'm probably the only human in the world able to be pissed off over receiving a free shiny in wonder trade. But I need to wind up.

People who have the ability to gen anything they want, yet they somehow fuck it up.

Basically I got a lighting rood shiny luxury ball male Manectric holding a ppmax, maxed pp moves and hp ice.

How did this manages to piss me off?

It's fucking modest, losing all the important speed tiers Mega Manectric is supposed to use, also it's hp ice uses one of the worst spreads for a non physical attacker.

30 31 30 31 31 31, basically the best hp numbers for a mixed attacker, but on a Manectric this means suicide to Stab foul play after rocks on 2 entries.

So they managed to give me a pokemon that is not only useless in competitive, but also useless for breeding those hp ice traits.

The idiot had on his passerby message had "enjoy the shiny" after the wonder trade...

I don't know, I could have been happy if this piece of crap was actually usable in battles, but I guess I got a PPMAX out of a breeding reject...

You know timid 31 0 30 31 31 31 would have made anyone happy, heck hp grass could as well...but this guy went for modest and max attack hp ice Manectric...

Even when you get a shiny out of wonder trade it somehow manages to be shit, I wonder traded a bunch of near perfect Ha pichus, 6 of them shiny with volt tackle, and the one time I get a shiny in a ball that fits...It ends up being this piece of garbage.

Wow, what a rant. But then again, I can understand why!

As for me, I wish that Showdown players would know when I was using my phone while away from home and my computer when I'm in the mood for a randbat, so maybe they wouldn't turn on the timer. It's harder using a phone. Looking at the stats, moves, and speed difference isn't as easy, and the phone isn't responsive. So be patient, and give me a break with the timer, alright?!
Unrated randbats are supposed to be fun and pressure free!

 

[Fawfulmk-II]

The fact that it's been 20 years and Teleport is still useless in battle.

 

[Taistelu]

Wow, what a rant. But then again, I can understand why!

As for me, I wish that Showdown players would know when I was using my phone while away from home and my computer when I'm in the mood for a randbat, so maybe they wouldn't turn on the timer. It's harder using a phone. Looking at the stats, moves, and speed difference isn't as easy, and the phone isn't responsive. So be patient, and give me a break with the timer, alright?!
Unrated randbats are supposed to be fun and pressure free!

Unrated Randbats has a longer timer though... (5 minutes)

 

[Pikachu315111]

The fact that it's been 20 years and Teleport is still useless in battle.

But what could they do with Teleport? The only thing I can think of is that giving you a new option to select the user, the user vanishes for a turn, and at the beginning of next turn the trainer sends out another Pokemon. Make it a safe form of switching to another Pokemon (and making the opponent waste PP).

 

[Taistelu]

Teleport should forever be the most useless move that is also annoying.

 

[Codonbyte]

Pixilate, Aerilate, and Refrigerate, for a couple of reasons:

1) Kind of a boring concept. They provide a flat damage boost. Compared to an ability like Stance Change which actually adds depth to the game, the -ate abilities are very one-dimensional.
2) They encourage the use of moves with boring animations. Moonblast has a much cooler animation that fully illustrates the power and fairy-ness of the fairy type, while Hyper Voice has a generic sound-based normal-type animation. The least they could have done is add some appropriate particles when a move is boosted by an -ate ability.
3) They're just plain lazy. Aerilate was obviously created to solve the problem of Pinsir (and later Salemence) lacking any good flying-type moves. imo, the way to solve this problem is to give pinsir and mence some flying-type moves. Obviously that's tricky in Pinsir's case. Because regular Pinsir isn't a flying-type, having it learn Brave Bird would be kind of weird, not to mention that MP flies very differently compared to how a bird flies (short rapidly-flapping wings, sort of like a helicopter). But GF clearly wanted Mega Pinsir to have a really powerful stab move. They could have given Pinsir its own unique flying-type move that makes sense for a flying beetle to use. Maybe something that uses those short, rapidly-flapping wings? Imagine that MP's wings had some sharp, serrated edges on the front, and thus would act sort of like a reciprocating saw if pinser were to fly into an opponent. Or maybe MP grabs the opponent with its horns and holds them against the serrated front edges of its wings. A signature move like that would add to the flavor of MP, and every time you attack with it you'd be reminded of Pinsir's monstrous horns, and you'd feel more sympathetic towards Misty for being terrified of bugs. Of course they'd have to make up for the power loss due to not giving it Aerilate, but that could easily be compensated for by adjusting the base-power of this signature move. And because it's a signature move, buffing it wouldn't be breaking some other pokemon that gets it.

Come to think of it, another thing that annoys me is bad signature moves (or a lack of signature moves). Signature moves add lots of flavor to the pokemon that use them, and it'd be nice if players were actually encouraged to use signature moves competitively. They finally got Crabhammer right; why can't they do this with other signature moves?

Also they should make more signature moves in general. I want pokemon X to feel like pokemon X when I'm fighting it; not like "generic physical fire type with Flare Blits/Fire Punch/Whatever".

 

[Pikachu315111]

Pixilate, Aerilate, and Refrigerate, for a couple of reasons:

1) Kind of a boring concept. They provide a flat damage boost. Compared to an ability like Stance Change which actually adds depth to the game, the -ate abilities are very one-dimensional.
2) They encourage the use of moves with boring animations. Moonblast has a much cooler animation that fully illustrates the power and fairy-ness of the fairy type, while Hyper Voice has a generic sound-based normal-type animation. The least they could have done is add some appropriate particles when a move is boosted by an -ate ability.
3) They're just plain lazy. Aerilate was obviously created to solve the problem of Pinsir (and later Salemence) lacking any good flying-type moves. imo, the way to solve this problem is to give pinsir and mence some flying-type moves. Obviously that's tricky in Pinsir's case. Because regular Pinsir isn't a flying-type, having it learn Brave Bird would be kind of weird, not to mention that MP flies very differently compared to how a bird flies (short rapidly-flapping wings, sort of like a helicopter). But GF clearly wanted Mega Pinsir to have a really powerful stab move. They could have given Pinsir its own unique flying-type move that makes sense for a flying beetle to use. Maybe something that uses those short, rapidly-flapping wings? Imagine that MP's wings had some sharp, serrated edges on the front, and thus would act sort of like a reciprocating saw if pinser were to fly into an opponent. Or maybe MP grabs the opponent with its horns and holds them against the serrated front edges of its wings. A signature move like that would add to the flavor of MP, and every time you attack with it you'd be reminded of Pinsir's monstrous horns, and you'd feel more sympathetic towards Misty for being terrified of bugs. Of course they'd have to make up for the power loss due to not giving it Aerilate, but that could easily be compensated for by adjusting the base-power of this signature move. And because it's a signature move, buffing it wouldn't be breaking some other pokemon that gets it.

Come to think of it, another thing that annoys me is bad signature moves (or a lack of signature moves). Signature moves add lots of flavor to the pokemon that use them, and it'd be nice if players were actually encouraged to use signature moves competitively. They finally got Crabhammer right; why can't they do this with other signature moves?

Also they should make more signature moves in general. I want pokemon X to feel like pokemon X when I'm fighting it; not like "generic physical fire type with Flare Blits/Fire Punch/Whatever".

Now I'm not saying you're wrong, what you said are fair reasons. Though I actually quite like those Abilities for almost opposing reasons to yours:

1) I find them a rather clever concept: it turn the moves of a Type which people would normally ignore for not being able to provide any significant coverage to moves you're hoping a Pokemon with those Abilities have. Not every Ability in the game needs to add a level of complexity, some of the best Abilities in the game are "boring" concepts: Huge/Pure Power doubles Attack, Adaptability have STAB moves do 2x damage instead of 1.5x, Speed Boost increases Speed by 1 stage after every turn. And most importantly the Pokemon with the type changing Abilities can make full use of them compared to other Pokemon who have Abilities that are passive or they can't use at all.

2) I would say at least seeing this moves breaks up the monotony of seeing the same powerful moves over and over again, or at least add more powerful moves to the list. Though I do agree with maybe having the animation gain an extra color filter or particle affect due to the move being changes to another type would spice things up.

3) I thought giving Aerilite to Mega Pinsir was actually a clever move (or going the route to making it part Flying-type). As you said, it would otherwise limit Pinsir what Flying-type moves it could learn since its normal form doesn't have wings. Like that Signature Move you suggested, would only Mega Pinsir be able to use it? And if not, how is normal Pinsir suppose to use it?
And think about the Pokemon who have strong attacking potential but something about their Type is holding them back. Like maybe they're a Special oriented Fighting-, Rock-, Dark-, or Ground-type or a Physical oriented Ice-, Fire-, Psychic-, or Ghost-type, those Types don't support that type of attacker. But what if those Pokemon get a Type changing Ability? Suddenly they become MUCH more usable and might even get some nifty tricks since Normal-type is also the "gimmick" type which also goes for their Moves. Think about if one of these Pokemon would gets a Normal-type move like Extreme Speed (or even Quick Attack), Explosion (or Self-Destruct), Facade, Fake Out, or Rapid Spin. Maybe even Chip Away, Covet, Swift, Super Fang, Sonic Boom, Horn Drill/Guillotine, or Flail?

Useless Signature Moves:
I completely agree with you here. Not only should they be useful but I even feel they should be just as or even more powerful than normal option.

 

[Cutefluffysheep]

Useless Signature Moves:
I completely agree with you here. Not only should they be useful but I even feel they should be just as or even more powerful than normal option.

Yea it's a shame when I look at bulbapedia and go "wow I never knew you had a signature move!"

 

[Kurona]

Talking of bad signature moves, Latios' and Latias' are both absolutely disgusting. Luster Purge and whatever Latias' was called (it's so bad and annoying I can't even be bothered to look it up) are weaker versions of Psychic with 5PP all because of the chance to raise special attack or special defence. Absolutely atrocious and no-one would even consider using them when they can very easily slap Psyshock or Psychic on them.

 

[Taistelu]

Talking of bad signature moves, Latios' and Latias' are both absolutely disgusting. Luster Purge and whatever Latias' was called (it's so bad and annoying I can't even be bothered to look it up) are weaker versions of Psychic with 5PP all because of the chance to raise special attack or special defence. Absolutely atrocious and no-one would even consider using them when they can very easily slap Psyshock or Psychic on them.

Mist Ball

 

[Detective Barricade]

Talking of bad signature moves, Latios' and Latias' are both absolutely disgusting. Luster Purge and whatever Latias' was called (it's so bad and annoying I can't even be bothered to look it up) are weaker versions of Psychic with 5PP all because of the chance to raise special attack or special defence. Absolutely atrocious and no-one would even consider using them when they can very easily slap Psyshock or Psychic on them.

Luster Purge and Mist Ball lower their target's Special Defense and Special Attack respectively, (with an impressive 50% chance to do so) but... yeah, they're both rather lame for otherwise really great Pokemon.

 

[Codonbyte]

I thought giving Aerilite to Mega Pinsir was actually a clever move (or going the route to making it part Flying-type). As you said, it would otherwise limit Pinsir what Flying-type moves it could learn since its normal form doesn't have wings. Like that Signature Move you suggested, would only Mega Pinsir be able to use it? And if not, how is normal Pinsir suppose to use it?
And think about the Pokemon who have strong attacking potential but something about their Type is holding them back. Like maybe they're a Special oriented Fighting-, Rock-, Dark-, or Ground-type or a Physical oriented Ice-, Fire-, Psychic-, or Ghost-type, those Types don't support that type of attacker. But what if those Pokemon get a Type changing Ability? Suddenly they become MUCH more usable and might even get some nifty tricks since Normal-type is also the "gimmick" type which also goes for their Moves. Think about if one of these Pokemon would gets a Normal-type move like Extreme Speed (or even Quick Attack), Explosion (or Self-Destruct), Facade, Fake Out, or Rapid Spin. Maybe even Chip Away, Covet, Swift, Super Fang, Sonic Boom, Horn Drill/Guillotine, or Flail?

Oh it was definitely a clever move on Game-Freak's part, since it saved them the trouble of creating an entirely new move for just one pokemon, balance-testing the move, creating the animation for the move, which would involve creating new textures, particles, possibly new models, and potentially even an animation sequence for pinsir's model to perform while using the move (since it's a signature move and all). Anything that saves you money and still produces decent gameplay can definitely be considered clever.

Think about if one of these Pokemon would gets a Normal-type move like Extreme Speed (or even Quick Attack), Explosion (or Self-Destruct), Facade, Fake Out, or Rapid Spin. Maybe even Chip Away, Covet, Swift, Super Fang, Sonic Boom, Horn Drill/Guillotine, or Flail?

Okay, I'll give you this one. I'm actually planning to raise a Mega Pinsir just so I can use Aerilate False Swipe to help catch Giratina, plus the extra power will be handy to avoid having to grind up too much. Also, Pinsir actually does get Guillotine, which after Aerilate means that Mega-Pinsir's Guillotine is just as good as Sheer Cold. Actually it's slightly better, since it hits Shedinja, whereas Sheer Cold won't. Now that I think about it, Pinsir can hit every single pokemon in the entire game with a OHKO move, since Moldbreaker hits through sturdy users, and if a ghost type comes in (including shedinja), Pinsir can just Mega-Evolve and wreck them (30% of the time, that is). I wonder if anybody is taking advantage of that in non-smogon metagames?
And yes, I agree that Mega Glalie is pretty cool with Refrigerate Explosion. It sort of helps to make up for the explosion nerf (only helps a little, though).
So yeah I guess I'm fine with Mega Glalie, not too upset with Mega Pinsir, but you gotta be kidding me with Mega Guardevoir and the fossil pokemon with the shitty typing who's name I can't remember. Guardevoir already has Moon Blast! If they wanted it to hit harder with STAB moves they should have just given it Adaptability or something! And the same goes for Mega Altaria. Seriously? They couldn't have given Altaria Play Rough? Or better yet, given it a signature physical fairy-type move! Unlike with mega pinsir, where it would be weird for regular pinsir to have a powerful flying-type move, GF has literally NO excuse on this one! There is NO reason why regular Altaria couldn't learn Play Rough or some new physical fairy-type move.

I would say at least seeing this moves breaks up the monotony of seeing the same powerful moves over and over again, or at least add more powerful moves to the list. Though I do agree with maybe having the animation gain an extra color filter or particle affect due to the move being changes to another type would spice things up.

Now I have to disagree with you on this one. The solution to the monotony of not seeing normal-type moves too often is to create some normal-types that are good enough to warrant use in competitive battles. In fact, they did create a good normal type in gen VI, one that was a little too good (looking at you, mega Kangaskan). Seeing the same animation and move as a primary STAB move on multiple pokemon of completely different types far outweighs getting to actually see return and hyper voice in competitive matches, imo.

Luster Purge and Mist Ball lower their target's Special Defense and Special Attack respectively, (with an impressive 50% chance to do so) but... yeah, they're both rather lame for otherwise really great Pokemon.

The worst part is the 5pp, imo. If they'd at least given it 15-25pp, it could have been a useful move in-game, which might have saved it from being completely forgotten while simultaneously helping to keep Lati@s from making the game too easy for players who chose to use h(i|e)(m|r).

Also lol I had no idea those were even signature moves. I just assumed they were random early-mid game psychic-type moves.

 

[Kurona]

helping to keep Lati@s from making the game too easy for players who chose to use h(i|e)(m|r).

(it's easier to say 'them')

 

[Pikachu315111]

Oh it was definitely a clever move on Game-Freak's part, since it saved them the trouble of creating an entirely new move for just one pokemon, balance-testing the move, creating the animation for the move, which would involve creating new textures, particles, possibly new models, and potentially even an animation sequence for pinsir's model to perform while using the move (since it's a signature move and all). Anything that saves you money and still produces decent gameplay can definitely be considered clever.

I can't tell if you're actually agreeing with me or condescending GF for what you think is them being lazy (or both).

All I'm going to say is it's not about the work that would need to go into it but rather having to work around giving a Pokemon a type of move which it normally shouldn't be able to learn.

Okay, I'll give you this one. I'm actually planning to raise a Mega Pinsir just so I can use Aerilate False Swipe to help catch Giratina, plus the extra power will be handy to avoid having to grind up too much. Also, Pinsir actually does get Guillotine, which after Aerilate means that Mega-Pinsir's Guillotine is just as good as Sheer Cold. Actually it's slightly better, since it hits Shedinja, whereas Sheer Cold won't. Now that I think about it, Pinsir can hit every single pokemon in the entire game with a OHKO move, since Moldbreaker hits through sturdy users, and if a ghost type comes in (including shedinja), Pinsir can just Mega-Evolve and wreck them (30% of the time, that is). I wonder if anybody is taking advantage of that in non-smogon metagames?
And yes, I agree that Mega Glalie is pretty cool with Refrigerate Explosion. It sort of helps to make up for the explosion nerf (only helps a little, though).
So yeah I guess I'm fine with Mega Glalie, not too upset with Mega Pinsir, but you gotta be kidding me with Mega Guardevoir and the fossil pokemon with the shitty typing who's name I can't remember. Guardevoir already has Moon Blast! If they wanted it to hit harder with STAB moves they should have just given it Adaptability or something! And the same goes for Mega Altaria. Seriously? They couldn't have given Altaria Play Rough? Or better yet, given it a signature physical fairy-type move! Unlike with mega pinsir, where it would be weird for regular pinsir to have a powerful flying-type move, GF has literally NO excuse on this one! There is NO reason why regular Altaria couldn't learn Play Rough or some new physical fairy-type move.

I can agree that some Pokemon getting the Type Changing Ability don't really need it aside getting a more powerful move of that type instead of using what's available. Mega Gardevoir, Mega Salamence, and Amaura family really don't need them, at least for that type (Amaura family would rather a Rock-type one, since for some reason they're not given Power Gem). Altaria I'd give a pass to since only in its Mega form does it become part Fairy. It wouldn't naturally learn that many Fairy-type moves though, as you pointed out, there's no reason it can't learn at least the most powerful ones like Play Rough (though it does get Moonblast). Though I still think they should have focused on making it a defensive Pokemon, but that's just me.

You know what Pokemon needed a type changing Ability? Mega Gyarados. It can't really learn that many Dark-type moves, so a Dark-type Pixilate would have really helped it.

Now I have to disagree with you on this one. The solution to the monotony of not seeing normal-type moves too often is to create some normal-types that are good enough to warrant use in competitive battles. In fact, they did create a good normal type in gen VI, one that was a little too good (looking at you, mega Kangaskan). Seeing the same animation and move as a primary STAB move on multiple pokemon of completely different types far outweighs getting to actually see return and hyper voice in competitive matches, imo.

I think you misunderstood me. What I meant is that it never hurts to see more kinds of moves being used period.

The worst part is the 5pp, imo. If they'd at least given it 15-25pp, it could have been a useful move in-game, which might have saved it from being completely forgotten while simultaneously helping to keep Lati@s from making the game too easy for players who chose to use h(i|e)(m|r).

Also lol I had no idea those were even signature moves. I just assumed they were random early-mid game psychic-type moves.

I'd would just have made Luster Purge & Mist Ball have the same Power and PP as Psychic, just with a better secondary effect.