(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

Upon having a new look at it, I've noticed that the Seasons mechanic in Gen V can genuinely lock you out of certain relevant items for as long as THREE months depending on the moment you're in.

You cannot get the TM90 (Substitute) in Twist Mountain outside of Winter in BW1.
You cannot get the Eject Button in Twist Mountain outside of Winter in BW2.
You cannot get the Never-Melt Ice in Dragonspiral Tower outside of Winter in BW2.

Can't seem to check if there are other missing important items, but that's... kind of a big deal. Especially for Serperior users in BW1.
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
is a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
Upon having a new look at it, I've noticed that the Seasons mechanic in Gen V can genuinely lock you out of certain relevant items for as long as THREE months depending on the moment you're in.

You cannot get the TM90 (Substitute) in Twist Mountain outside of Winter in BW1.
You cannot get the Eject Button in Twist Mountain outside of Winter in BW2.
You cannot get the Never-Melt Ice in Dragonspiral Tower outside of Winter in BW2.

Can't seem to check if there are other missing important items, but that's... kind of a big deal. Especially for Serperior users in BW1.
Yeah, it's so weird that Winter is the only season to do this. Like, I get why, you need the snow piles (BTW, another example of the season blocking off access for 3 months because you need the Winter's snow pile to even reach the house: the ex-grunt house in Icirrus City), but it just makes the other seasons feel a bit superfluous as it breaks down to: snow pile (ramp) or no snow pile (ramp). I could think of a batch of other ways to have the other seasons provide access to a secret path:

  • Summer:
    * A small stream that flows into a pond flows more full causing overflow which creates an auxiliary pond needed to access a cave.
    * There are a few vines which grow longer during the warmer seasons which the player can then climb up to a path (though may end up covering access to a cave/crawlspace).

  • Spring:
    * Stream that flows into a pond has normal flow filling it up but not the auxiliary pond, while you can't access the cave this does reveal that there's a crawlspace you can now access.
    * The vines that grow during the warmer seasons will also be long enough to climb up (BUT some may not be too long/thick that it prevents access to certain caves/crawlspaces).

  • Autumn:
    * Leafs start falling and clog up the small stream, preventing it from flowing and creating the main pond (the main pond is needed to surf across to access the Summer cave/Spring crawlspace of the auxiliary pond; in Autumn & Winter they're completely inaccessible).
    * Some leafs pile up at certain locations where the snow pile ramps are also creating a ramp (and there's some locations where only a leaf pile ramp gives access to).
    * The vines aren't long enough to climb up, but for some of them that reveals a crawlspace underneath (some caves are also accessible, though a few still are too blocked by what vines are there).

  • Winter:
    * Small stream is frozen thus no flow thus no main pond.
    * As it is in the actual game there's the snow pile ramps giving access to certain higher up locations.
    * Vines are completely gone giving full access to all caves blocked by vines, HOWEVER while some crawlspaces are available others are covered by a snow pile.
 
The problem with this logic is that it can go both ways. Yeah, an ice cube melts when its on a warm water steam, but water almost immediately freezes in an icy environemnt (thats how snow and hail even happen in the first place)

You just either need to make it go both ways or accept that youre being biased to one part of the interaction, which isn't /bad/ (because if you added the entire interaction of most types the chart would be a lot weirder).
I kind of feel like Poison and Water could be super-effective against each other for the same reasons (pollution/dilution). Type interactions are weird.
 

QuentinQuonce

formerly green_typhlosion
Upon having a new look at it, I've noticed that the Seasons mechanic in Gen V can genuinely lock you out of certain relevant items for as long as THREE months depending on the moment you're in.

You cannot get the TM90 (Substitute) in Twist Mountain outside of Winter in BW1.
You cannot get the Eject Button in Twist Mountain outside of Winter in BW2.
You cannot get the Never-Melt Ice in Dragonspiral Tower outside of Winter in BW2.

Can't seem to check if there are other missing important items, but that's... kind of a big deal. Especially for Serperior users in BW1.
You also miss out the chance to get a Zen Mode Darmanitan pre-E4 iirc, as Juniper only gives you the RageCandyBars after beating the game.
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
is a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
No, a move that applies a status ailment. Bad poison is still bad poison no matter how it's inflicted.
I'll give you that, but I still don't see why that means Ice can't give the status ailment associated with it a boost in use under certain conditions. Heck, it would make more sense than Grass-types being immune to every spore & powder move.

And likewise maybe Fire-types should have a boon concerning Burn and Electric-types with Paralysis.

I'm still annoyed that Ice doesn't resist Water, that seems so logical, will nerf one of the best offensive type and a small buff to one of the worst defensive type and that's so logical!
"Logical", eh. What's the logic exactly? Ice is the solid form of water, so if Water resists Water therefore another form or water should resist it? That's kind of ignoring the different properties which Ice-types have. "Ice" is just as much as the "Cold" Type, it's not strictly referring to the solid form of water but rather ice & snow is the most common form that cold takes. Ice-types are usually creatures which have adapted to the cold. If hit with a Water-type attack they may not be affected by the temperature but the water is still hitting them at high pressure and with an element they're not used to (unless they're an aquatic species and more of them are Ice/Water so do get a resistance). And for the few Pokemon who are made of ice, yeah ice is a form of water but if you think about it that's even more of a reason why Ice isn't immune to it: even cold water still retains enough heat to keep it in its liquid form, therefore water sprayed on ice overtime will melt the ice; and once again that doesn't take into account the water pressure being applied that's likely doing most of the damage.

Mechanically there are other ways to buff Ice (like making it resist Dragon)
Why would dragon energy be resisted by ice? Dragons are weak to Ice moreso for biological reasons than energy. For some it's because they're reptilians, avian, or some other animal which is harmed by cold for various reasons. Though maybe on a more broader scale Dragons are weak to Ice because it takes a lot of energy to control the raw power that dragons control, and the cold properties of ice (mind you, "cold" isn't an element but rather absence of an element, heat; it's not like fire, water, grass, or electricity which has a presence) numbs their senses which makes them unable to properly keep their power in check thus getting them additionally harmed.

But Dragon-type attacks? They're just pure energy, and if Ice-type don't dampen the damage done to them by Fire than they're not going to dampen the power of Dragon energy.

I could mention another idea I have for Ice-types (as well as Rock and Grass) could maybe make themselves better but we've move on from this top. However I have mentioned it elsewhere so if you're interested you can read my idea HERE.

I hate how Hitmonlee hasn't been able to learn a new kick move since ADV (I get Trop Kick and Thunderous Kick are supposed to be signature moves, but Hitmonlee's signature move is given out like candy, so why not add them to his learnset?)
Think the problem with Hitmonlee not getting that many new kick moves is probably because it doesn't have a kick-version of Iron Fist. If they made a "Iron Foot" Ability then maybe we'll be seeing more kick moves being made. Other elemental versions of Blaze Kick like Shock Kick and Frost Kick. Maybe a Dark-type kick that always does super effective damage (like Storm Throw & Frost Breath) cause it hit below the belt. Make a Flying-type Hi Jump Kick. And so on.
 
Mienshao has pretty high special attack for a Fighting type, and with access to Work Up making a mixed attacker would be interesting... but it's special movepool is so crap that there is no reason to pick them over its vast number of physical options. It's special movepool across the four gens it's been around consists of Aura Sphere, Focus Blast, Grass Knot, Hidden Power, and a menagerie of various normal type moves. It's base 95 special attack is pretty much useless without having a must-have coverage move that can't be covered by what it can do physically.
 

ScraftyIsTheBest

On to new Horizons!
is a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
One minor peeve I have with both BW2 and XY is that for some reason, there are areas in both Unova and Kalos that are only accessible via Waterfall, which you can only get very late in the game in both games, yet the levels of the Trainers you battle in those areas are way too low for the point you will see them, as your team in both cases should be in the 50s, but these Trainers have their mons in the low 30s. These levels are closer to the levels you will be at when you gain access to Surf, rather than when you get Waterfall. By this I mean both the Abundant Shrine in BW2 and a side area in Route 22 in XY. Someone definitely screwed up there in the level curve department, even if BW2 and XY have very well designed level curves overall.

With the same mistake appearing in both games, and the two being released a year apart from each other (I am fairly certain both games were in development at the same time at some point), I have to wonder if the same person was in charge of designing the level curve of both BW2 and XY, because there's no way this exact same mistake shows up in two games would have been done by two different people.
 
Mienshao has pretty high special attack for a Fighting type, and with access to Work Up making a mixed attacker would be interesting... but it's special movepool is so crap that there is no reason to pick them over its vast number of physical options. It's special movepool across the four gens it's been around consists of Aura Sphere, Focus Blast, Grass Knot, Hidden Power, and a menagerie of various normal type moves. It's base 95 special attack is pretty much useless without having a must-have coverage move that can't be covered by what it can do physically.
Special Fighting is one of those things that's just never going to happen, even though it feels like it really should. There's a bunch of Fighting-types who learn Vacuum Wave, Focus Blast or Aura Sphere, but all have an ATK about 20-50 points higher than their SPA. Even the two Psychic/Fightings(Gallade and Medicham) have roughly double the ATK as SPA.
The only options where the stats are similar are Blaziken, Cobalion, Kommo-o, Virizion, Infernape, Lucario, Keldeo and Pheromosa. Those last 4 have all had very successful special sets, but the others...looking through the Smogon movesets for them through the years, most at least have special coverage mentioned for various reasons(Overheat instead of Flare Blitz on the fire-types, Kommo-o's significant Special movepool), but it seems like the prevalence of Swords Dance and the low-drawback nature of Close Combat compared to Focus Miss makes a lot of people default to using Physical over Special.
Special shout-out to Toxicroak for being similar to your Mienshao example, as it gets Nasty Plot, Vacuum Wave, a SPA of 86 vs an ATK of 106, and absolute trash for the remainder of the Special movepool.
 
One minor peeve I have with both BW2 and XY is that for some reason, there are areas in both Unova and Kalos that are only accessible via Waterfall, which you can only get very late in the game in both games, yet the levels of the Trainers you battle in those areas are way too low for the point you will see them, as your team in both cases should be in the 50s, but these Trainers have their mons in the low 30s. These levels are closer to the levels you will be at when you gain access to Surf, rather than when you get Waterfall. By this I mean both the Abundant Shrine in BW2 and a side area in Route 22 in XY. Someone definitely screwed up there in the level curve department, even if BW2 and XY have very well designed level curves overall.

With the same mistake appearing in both games, and the two being released a year apart from each other (I am fairly certain both games were in development at the same time at some point), I have to wonder if the same person was in charge of designing the level curve of both BW2 and XY, because there's no way this exact same mistake shows up in two games would have been done by two different people.
I mean, at least with Unova, HM use isn't restricted by badges so having a friend trade you a Pokemon with Waterfall can let you use it immediately. You can technically go to the routes west of the starting town before you get your first badge, but unlike the waterfall case they are leveled around to when you get Surf.
 
I mean, at least with Unova, HM use isn't restricted by badges so having a friend trade you a Pokemon with Waterfall can let you use it immediately. You can technically go to the routes west of the starting town before you get your first badge, but unlike the waterfall case they are leveled around to when you get Surf.
There is one thing I don't get from the removal of the badge requirement in HMs in Unova: why did they bring requirements back in Gen VI? Outside of being traded a Pokémon with the HM it made no difference at all.
 
There is one thing I don't get from the removal of the badge requirement in HMs in Unova: why did they bring requirements back in Gen VI? Outside of being traded a Pokémon with the HM it made no difference at all.
HMs in Gen 5 were, outside of Cut (which DID have a badge requirement iirc) in BW1, broadly optional.
HMs in gen 6 were more required, so they needed badges as gatekeeping.
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
is a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
Mienshao has pretty high special attack for a Fighting type, and with access to Work Up making a mixed attacker would be interesting... but it's special movepool is so crap that there is no reason to pick them over its vast number of physical options.
Too bad it doesn't get Vacuum Wave, such a confusing move as barely no Pokemon that learns it would want to use it.

Hm, for a fun thought experiment, let's look through the Special Moves and see what it could learn if they were to stretch things.
  • There's all the "Pulse" moves that are sorta made to be a generic elemental shockwave move (mainly Dark Pulse, Dragon Pulse, and Heal Pulse as a bonus; don't see it getting Water Pulse)
  • Snarl
  • Charge Beam (it's already an odd move a lot of non-Electric-types get)
  • Not sure if it would get any of the Fairy Moves, none feel to fit it.
  • Vacuum Wave
  • Air Cutter, Air Slash (I can see it using its whips to do them)
  • Shadow Ball is sort of another generic elemental move a lot of Pokemon get.
  • Energy Ball is a bit iffy, but can see it getting Grass Knot at least.
And that's it really unless you REALLY want to go out there.
 
HMs in Gen 5 were, outside of Cut (which DID have a badge requirement iirc) in BW1, broadly optional.
The only required HMs were Cut (BW) and Surf (B2W2).

They don't have official badge requirements, but there's no way to get Cut in BW without the HM, and acquisition of Surf is tied to story progress. I'm not sure if you can skip anything by trading over a Surfer to B2W2.
 
Flapple:
"It ate a sour apple, and that induced its evolution."

Own Tempo:
"This Pokémon has its own tempo, and that prevents it from becoming confused."

Oblivious:
"The Pokémon is oblivious, and that keeps it from being infatuated or falling for taunts."

Moxie:
"The Pokémon shows moxie, and that boosts the Attack stat after knocking out any Pokémon."

Am I alone in finding this phrasing incredibly awkward? Like, that's not how native English-speaking humans talk.

Can someone who knows Japanese read the original text? I'm curious if this is a case of overly literal translation and the original sounded normal to a Japanese speaker, or if it always sounded like a robot trying to pass as a human.
 
Uhh let's see I think....this is the description of Own Tempo ("My Pace") in gen 7 & 8
マイペースなので こんらん じょうたいに ならない。 (7)

マイペースなので こんらん状態に ならない。 (8)

and deepl gives a rough translatoin of...
I don't get into a state of confusion because of my pace.
I can't get into a state of confusion because of my pace.

Likely deepl is getting a little confused on indirect pronouns but it seems like it's a different structure from the localization.
If I had to guess, it's probably a quirk of the translator's way of speaking that feeds into their writing.


Like If I were a localizer I would probably have a lot of little quirks that wouldn't be scrubbed out professionally. You wouldn't see a ton of "probably" or "likes" but would see stuff like "but would see" or "and so"
 
Honchkrow has a number of issues in the movepool department. Seriously, it doesn't seem to have gained anything significant since its debut in Gen IV besides its hidden ability. It seems like GAMEFREAK just forgot about the poor thing, and it's been falling behind in power creep ever since. My chief issues are:

- Lack of Knock Off: It is one of the unlucky Dark types that doesn't have access to this move, and it doesn't even get a decent equivalent like Crunch. Instead, its strongest reliable option is Night Slash, at only 70 base power. With so many Pokémon gaining access to this increasingly important move, Honchkrow is being left behind quickly.
- Lack of a good special Flying STAB: Its best option is Air Cutter, which has the same base power as Hidden Power. It doesn't get Air Slash or Hurricane. This hurts, as it has access to Nasty Plot and its special movepool is otherwise decent but this oversight prevents special sets from being very good.
- Lack of any good Attack boosting moves. Its only options for boosting its attack besides its ability are either Curse, which it is not bulky enough to pull off, or the even riskier Swagger + Psych Up. Even if you don't want to give it Swords Dance, it doesn't even get a mid-tier Attack boosting move, like Bulk Up, Work Up, or Hone Claws (which Talonflame actually has interestingly enough). Other Moxie users have access to these, but Honchkrow doesn't.

Honchkrow has a decent amount of versatility on paper, but the fact that they haven't been giving it the movepool improvements it desperately needs means that it is stuck running the same sets that are bound to be outclassed when it is competing with more and more Pokémon that actually have these options. And BDSP came along and fixed not a damn thing, with the only new addition being... Gust. Yeah, I'm sure Honchkrow can definitely make use of that. And it sucks, because Honchkrow is my favorite Pokémon, but the generations have not been kind to it.

The problem with this logic is that it can go both ways. Yeah, an ice cube melts when its on a warm water steam, but water almost immediately freezes in an icy environemnt (thats how snow and hail even happen in the first place)

You just either need to make it go both ways or accept that youre being biased to one part of the interaction, which isn't /bad/ (because if you added the entire interaction of most types the chart would be a lot weirder).
It's the difference in the specific heat c between the two, which is twice as high for liquid water as it is for ice. Basically, this means that you need twice as much ice as liquid water for the water to freeze, any less and the ice would melt. This is why it makes sense for Water to resist Ice but not the other way around.
 
It's the difference in the specific heat c between the two, which is twice as high for liquid water as it is for ice. Basically, this means that you need twice as much ice as liquid water for the water to freeze, any less and the ice would melt. This is why it makes sense for Water to resist Ice but not the other way around.
...touché.

I still think Ice should resist Flying tho.
 
Lack of a good special Flying STAB: Its best option is Air Cutter, which has the same base power as Hidden Power. It doesn't get Air Slash or Hurricane. This hurts, as it has access to Nasty Plot and its special movepool is otherwise decent but this oversight prevents special sets from being very good.
Funnily enough, the datamine that reavealed the TR list for every unobtainable Pokémon revealed that Honchkrow learns Hurricane via TR. Granted it not perfect, but maybe its allowed in SwSh through a patch, it can finally gain a new STAB.
 
Honchkrow has a number of issues in the movepool department. Seriously, it doesn't seem to have gained anything significant since its debut in Gen IV besides its hidden ability. It seems like GAMEFREAK just forgot about the poor thing, and it's been falling behind in power creep ever since. My chief issues are:

- Lack of Knock Off: It is one of the unlucky Dark types that doesn't have access to this move, and it doesn't even get a decent equivalent like Crunch. Instead, its strongest reliable option is Night Slash, at only 70 base power. With so many Pokémon gaining access to this increasingly important move, Honchkrow is being left behind quickly.
- Lack of a good special Flying STAB: Its best option is Air Cutter, which has the same base power as Hidden Power. It doesn't get Air Slash or Hurricane. This hurts, as it has access to Nasty Plot and its special movepool is otherwise decent but this oversight prevents special sets from being very good.
- Lack of any good Attack boosting moves. Its only options for boosting its attack besides its ability are either Curse, which it is not bulky enough to pull off, or the even riskier Swagger + Psych Up. Even if you don't want to give it Swords Dance, it doesn't even get a mid-tier Attack boosting move, like Bulk Up, Work Up, or Hone Claws (which Talonflame actually has interestingly enough). Other Moxie users have access to these, but Honchkrow doesn't.

Honchkrow has a decent amount of versatility on paper, but the fact that they haven't been giving it the movepool improvements it desperately needs means that it is stuck running the same sets that are bound to be outclassed when it is competing with more and more Pokémon that actually have these options. And BDSP came along and fixed not a damn thing, with the only new addition being... Gust. Yeah, I'm sure Honchkrow can definitely make use of that. And it sucks, because Honchkrow is my favorite Pokémon, but the generations have not been kind to it.
You seem to be forgetting Honchkrow's alternate physical STAB besides Night Slash, that being Brave Bird (waaaay stronger than a boosted Knock Off, second strongest user of the move behind Reckless Staraptor) and Sucker Punch (great priority, second strongest user of the move behind Absol and tied with Bisharp). Also Pursuit, it's one of the strongest users of that move too (cool synergy with Sucker Punch).

It's also got excellent coverage options in Superpower and Heat Wave (its base special attack is high enough that it doesn't really need investment, and its defenses are low enough to not mind a defense-lowering nature).

Finally, I usually love Dark moves, but Knock Off is so brain dead spammable that it's incredibly boring. It used to be a rare (but still very useful) utility move, but then it got its power hella buffed and became learnable by everyone and their mother. Less Pokemon should learn it, not more.
 
You seem to be forgetting Honchkrow's alternate physical STAB besides Night Slash, that being Brave Bird (waaaay stronger than a boosted Knock Off, second strongest user of the move behind Reckless Staraptor) and Sucker Punch (great priority, second strongest user of the move behind Absol and tied with Bisharp). Also Pursuit, it's one of the strongest users of that move too (cool synergy with Sucker Punch).

It's also got excellent coverage options in Superpower and Heat Wave (its base special attack is high enough that it doesn't really need investment, and its defenses are low enough to not mind a defense-lowering nature).

Finally, I usually love Dark moves, but Knock Off is so brain dead spammable that it's incredibly boring. It used to be a rare (but still very useful) utility move, but then it got its power hella buffed and became learnable by everyone and their mother. Less Pokemon should learn it, not more.
Of course, with Brave Bird you run into the problem that it kills itself by using the move, and it would help it to have a better safe option than Night Slash. If I wanted a Brave Bird wallbreaker, Staraptor is better suited due to Reckless, Honchkrow is supposed to be more of a sweeper. Sucker Punch + Moxie is the main thing keeping it from being outclassed by mons like Braviary, but the move always comes with a risk and mainly threatens only teams that are unprepared for it, and it was hurt by the Gen VII nerf of the move. Blame the removal of Z-Moves and Mega Evolution for making Knock Off absurd, but Night Slash just isn't an acceptable option for your strongest Dark STAB in this day and age.
 
Blame the removal of Z-Moves and Mega Evolution for making Knock Off absurd,
No, it was absurd back in Gen 7 too. The problem with Knock Off is that it's way too widely distributed, combined with its high base power incentivizing physical attackers to use it as a mindlessly spammable attack rather than specifically for utility.
 
Last edited:
No, it was absurd back in Gen 7 too. The problem with Knock Off is that it's way too widely distributed.
I think it might just be that Dark is too good of an offensive type. It hits Steel, Water, Poison, and Grass neutrally, all of which are commonly used by walls, while Dark walls are uncommon and Fighting walls are basically nonexistant. Fairy walls might seem like an Achilles heel, but considering that most Fairy walls are special walls while most Dark types are physical and have the coverage to deal with them anyway, it doesn't really slow them down that much.
 
Uhh let's see I think....this is the description of Own Tempo ("My Pace") in gen 7 & 8
マイペースなので こんらん じょうたいに ならない。 (7)

マイペースなので こんらん状態に ならない。 (8)

and deepl gives a rough translatoin of...
I don't get into a state of confusion because of my pace.
I can't get into a state of confusion because of my pace.
What's funny is that the two are actually the same with the exception of hiragana vs kanji for "state" (じょうたい/状態)
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 5, Guests: 10)

Top