Pokémon Movepool Oddities & Explanations

[R_N]

While Lugia is a tank, Aeroblast isn't too odd. Especially at the time they probably wanted signature moves of the 2 box legends to be very strong & they're equivalent: 100 base power, 95% accuracy, 5 PP but with a high crit ratio for aeroblast (probably so it could help offset Lugia's lower attack stats?) and a high burn chance for sacred fire.

but even to this day, most box legends get directly offensive moves. Xerneas is the one exception with Geomancy & that was probably more to go with its "life of the land" shtick.

Maybe if Aeroblast had been made today it'd be like Oblivion Wing and heal Lugia too, but I still think it'd be offensive in nature.

 

[mattgcn]

I also always found it's funny that nothing else has ever gotten Aeroblast, while Lugia itself of course has access to someone else's signature move (Psycho Boost) through XD. It's time to spread the love!

 

[shinquickman]

Why is Poliwrath, a Water Pokemon often compared to Olympic swimmers in its Pokedex entries, incapable of learning Flip Turn, a literal professional swimming technique?

 

[mattgcn]

The tutors distribution is kind of bogus in a lot of places. That they made the moves so good that obvious things don't get them entirely for reasons of balance maybe clues that they shouldn't have made them like that lol

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Not really a movepool oddity, but certainly a move oddity. What exactly is Drain Punch supposed to be? Every other draining move makes at least some sense.

• Absorb, Mega Drain, Giga Drain: Lifesteal seems to be a semi-common thing in plant magic across media, probably since plants use their roots to suck nutrients out of the ground.
• Horn Leech: Makes much less sense than the special attacks, but plant magic be plant magic.
• Dream Eater: Literally eating dreams.
• Leech Life: Literally eating blood.
• Draining Kiss: Kisses are performed by sucking in your lips, so throw in some magic, and now it sucks life force.
• Oblivion Wing: Absorbing life energy is Yveltal's whole schtick.
• Parabolic Charge: I always envisioned it as a bolt of electricity that travels in a sort of boomerang path through everyone on the field and then back to the user with all the power it took in tow. That's not exactly the shape a parabola makes, but it's close enough. Definitely the second weirdest draining move, though.

But Drain Punch? The Fighting type has pretty much no association with lifesteal magic. Hell, it has pretty much no association with magic at all. Sure, it has Aura Sphere and Focus Blast, but I've always seen them as analogous to Hadouken and Kamehameha: blasts of that draw from physical strength and distinctly not magic.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I always did find it odd that Aeroblast was Lugia's signature move. The extremely powerful special flying-type move, exception as something that just doesn't happen... is given to one of the few legendaries that doesn't have an outstanding offensive stat and is instead meant to tank. Bit odd!

Aeroblast itself is strange. I described it as 'extremely powerful', but it's actually only 100 power despite its exclusivity and 5PP. Surely it should be 120? ... and have 100% accuracy instead of 95%, come on, why does even THIS flying move get plagued with that?

I agree that there's probably a more fitting signature move for Lugia (and that Aeroblast is an incredibly underwhelming move for its position) but flavour-wise it's incredibly fitting given Lugia's dex entries:

Lugia's wings pack devastating power - a light fluttering of its wings can blow apart regular houses. [...] If it flaps its wings, it is said to cause a 40-day storm.

 

[Pikachu315111]

I always did find it odd that Aeroblast was Lugia's signature move. The extremely powerful special flying-type move, exception as something that just doesn't happen... is given to one of the few legendaries that doesn't have an outstanding offensive stat and is instead meant to tank. Bit odd!

Aeroblast itself is strange. I described it as 'extremely powerful', but it's actually only 100 power despite its exclusivity and 5PP. Surely it should be 120? ... and have 100% accuracy instead of 95%, come on, why does even THIS flying move get plagued with that?

Does seem odd Lugia, the Pokemon associated with the sea, gets Aeroblast while the Pokemon associated with the sky, Rayquaza, doesn't.

Still, they could make Aeroblast more of Lugia's move if they gave it a secondary effect which fits it; increased Critical Hit Ratio really doesn't do much for it. Maybe have it do increased damage in the weather conditions of Hail, Rain, or Sunshine (maybe even also a chance for it to Freeze/Paralyze/Burn too); a reference to it being the master of the Bird Trio. Or if you prefer an effect that works with its stat, maybe have it have a more supporting effect such as removing the target's increased stat changes (or have it be a copy of Defog).

Maybe if Aeroblast had been made today it'd be like Oblivion Wing and heal Lugia too, but I still think it'd be offensive in nature.

Makes me curious if Lugia was made today would they have made it a defensive or would it be a Special Attacker to mirror Ho-Oh (I'd make Ho-Oh's 106/130/154/90/90/110 & Lugia's 106/90/90/130/154/110).

I also always found it's funny that nothing else has ever gotten Aeroblast, while Lugia itself of course has access to someone else's signature move (Psycho Boost) through XD. It's time to spread the love!

As said, I can see Rayqauza getting it, maybe Tornadus. I'd be iffy about giving it to Ho-Oh since I don't see Lugia using Sacred Fire so wouldn't be fair. Also, unlike with Entei getting Sacred Fire, I don't really see any of the Legendary Birds getting it. And that's really it unless they want to be SUPER generous and give it to a com mon (though if they did something like that I'd imagine it would be a special thing they'd do with all the Legendary's Sig moves and severely limited).

What exactly is Drain Punch supposed to be?

It's a Fighting-type move so its probably manipulating the flow of ki/energy between your Pokemon & their target for the short amount of time their fist is connected to the opponent. Your Pokemon uses ki/energy to put power behind their attack and maybe even allow for a flow connection, and once that connection is made it siphons the energy the target is now giving off in the form of damage. So it's more taking the spoils from the damage it caused rather then directly taking the target's energy which is the form of the damage.

 

[R_N]

So I'd never seen the animation for Sky Attack in gen 2 until this video:

And imagine my surprise when for some reason the animation for this gen specifically uses what is clearly...Fearow??

A quick rundown of Sky Attack:
-Moltres is the only Pokemon to learn it naturally in gens 1 & 2
-Moltres is, also, not in GSC, you have to trade it up.
-Sky Attack is only a TM in Gen 1, where the Pidgeot, Fearow (hey!), Dodrio lines, Aerodactyl and the legendary birds can learn it.
-Sky Attack was added as an egg move in Crystal to...Hoothoot, Skarmory and Murkrow. Which yes combined with the above means that the only way to get those moves on those Pokemon is to trade one of the non-legendary Pokemon who learned the move from gen 1 to gen 2 and then breed.

Why portray fearow using the move and then not give it to Fearow. In general why not give anyone the move naturally, other than Moltres, to it in gen 2; its literally a transfer only move! You'd think Crystal would give someone the move so you could breed it, surely.
additionally, why portray the move with fearow at all

e: on top of all this I wonder why it was Moltres' signature move to begin with. It doesn't even learn a fire attack by level up....

 

[StarKirb94]

I was checking out Hyper Beam's availability and found out a very odd little thing about it. So, conceptually, Hyper Beam is meant to be this super strong attack that's given to fully-evolved Pokémon, and that rule is generally well followed throughout the series, if a Pokémon is fully evolved, there's a very big chance that it might be able to learn Hyper Beam in some sort of way, mostly through a TM.

There are several exceptions to this "fully evolved" rule, although most of them are very understandable. The first of which is Pokémon who were fully evolved at some point in the series but aren't anymore, such as Lickitung, Porygon or Chansey. This exception explains itself. The second exception is a bit weirder, Pokémon that were never fully evolved at any point. This makes more sense when you analyse each case individually, with Hyper Beam being given to these Pokémon generally due to it making thematic sense. This exception is applied to several unevolved pseudo-legendaries (which are conceptually meant to be stronger, exceptional Pokémon), Trapinch (very similar idea to those), Remoraid, Klink (both being Pokémon sorta related to "beam" moves and that kinda stuff, so it makes sense from a thematic standpoint) and Amaura (which is also like that, and also they really wanted to showcase Refrigerate with it).

Here's the thing about all the Pokémon from this second exception: all Pokémon that were always considered unevolved and still can learn Hyper Beam will learn it through level up, it was a move deliberately given to their natural learnsets individually, so them being able to learn it through a TM only makes sense. But there's a single exception to this:

Nuzleaf.

Nuzleaf was never considered a fully evolved Pokémon, and it still being able to learn Hyper Beam anyways makes so little thematic sense that they didn't even give the move for it to learn naturally through leveling up. It's the only Pokémon from this second exception that only learns it through TM, and that's been the case with it ever since its introduction in Gen 3. This doesn't even happen to its counterpart Lombre, so it is the only case I noticed that had this bizarre quirk in its learnset, and I cannot think of any explanations for why this happens.

 

[Yung Dramps]

I was checking out Hyper Beam's availability and found out a very odd little thing about it. So, conceptually, Hyper Beam is meant to be this super strong attack that's given to fully-evolved Pokémon, and that rule is generally well followed throughout the series, if a Pokémon is fully evolved, there's a very big chance that it might be able to learn Hyper Beam in some sort of way, mostly through a TM.

There are several exceptions to this "fully evolved" rule, although most of them are very understandable. The first of which is Pokémon who were fully evolved at some point in the series but aren't anymore, such as Lickitung, Porygon or Chansey. This exception explains itself. The second exception is a bit weirder, Pokémon that were never fully evolved at any point. This makes more sense when you analyse each case individually, with Hyper Beam being given to these Pokémon generally due to it making thematic sense. This exception is applied to several unevolved pseudo-legendaries (which are conceptually meant to be stronger, exceptional Pokémon), Trapinch (very similar idea to those), Remoraid, Klink (both being Pokémon sorta related to "beam" moves and that kinda stuff, so it makes sense from a thematic standpoint) and Amaura (which is also like that, and also they really wanted to showcase Refrigerate with it).

Here's the thing about all the Pokémon from this second exception: all Pokémon that were always considered unevolved and still can learn Hyper Beam will learn it through level up, it was a move deliberately given to their natural learnsets individually, so them being able to learn it through a TM only makes sense. But there's a single exception to this:

Nuzleaf.

Nuzleaf was never considered a fully evolved Pokémon, and it still being able to learn Hyper Beam anyways makes so little thematic sense that they didn't even give the move for it to learn naturally through leveling up. It's the only Pokémon from this second exception that only learns it through TM, and that's been the case with it ever since its introduction in Gen 3. This doesn't even happen to its counterpart Lombre, so it is the only case I noticed that had this bizarre quirk in its learnset, and I cannot think of any explanations for why this happens.

Maybe at some point in development Nuzleaf was going to be the final form of a 2 stage line and Hyper Beam was given to it under this assumption, but then Shiftry was later added and they never fixed this quirk? That's all I've got

 

[Kurona]

I imagine it's just an error they never fixed.

 

[Worldie]

I imagine it's just an error they never fixed.

Nah, it's clearly a nod to lord and savior Nuzleaf from SMD

 

[Billee]

So why does Crawdaunt get dragon dance? Every other Pokémon who gets it has some lizard/dragon/serpent or otherwise reptilian aspect to it (except Mew but it's Mew) but Crawdaunt doesn't at all. I might be totally missing something, but there's nothing I can see about it that justifies it learning it.

I realize TR moves and egg moves do tend to be a bit of a stretch in terms of logic, but this still seems out of place.

 

[Imperial Magala]

I believe it's because in Japanese, Lobster can mean Dragon Shrimp. To get a jumpstart, I don't know why Whishcash gets Dragon Dance. My guess is that its origin of the Namazu means it's as powerful as a dragon? At least Whishcash learns Thrash in reference to the myth.

 

[Bakugames]

It probably just looks dragon "enough" for the move or something (i agree with that personally). Dragon is a bit of an arbitrary type as what a dragon is can change from culture to culture, and I think amphibians, fish and birds have been used in dragon-like mythos. A crawfish isnt that out of the picture, honestly they'd be great dragob material

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Idly browsing Slowbro's Bulbapedia page and I noticed something...

...why the hell can Slowbro learn Aerial Ace?

Literally every description of the move emphasises that it's fast, and yet Slowbro gets it. It's literally the very opposite of what Slowbro exists to do. There was a bit of discussion on Aerial Ace in this thread a while back, which highlighted the fact that it's actually a reference to a sword technique...

...Aerial Ace gets on a lot of non-flying Pokemon because it's specifically referring to a sword technique ("Swallow Return"), so you get a lot of Pokemon with sharp spikes, claws, horns or held instruments (bones, leeks) get it as much as you do birds getting it because they're birds.

...which explains why many non-flying Pokemon that simply have claws or weapons get it. But while Slowbro gets a fair few unusual options, like Flamethrower, this really stands out as an oddity. It does have (very tiny) claws - or is it performing the attack with its shell? That seems unwieldy - a reasoning that was used as the justification for why Sirfetch'd doesn't learn it. Interestingly, neither Slowpoke or Slowking get this move - it's just Slowbro that does. Ironically, Galarian Slowbro does rather suit the flavour of Aerial Ace but doesn't learn it.

What was the thinking here?

 

[Pikachu315111]

...why the hell can Slowbro learn Aerial Ace?

(...)

What was the thinking here?

Even stranger is that Aerial Ace has been a TM since Gen III (and until SwSh), but Slowbro didn't learn it until Gen V. I can't think of anything that would prompt them to make the change, heck, Slowbro is a Special Attacker so it wouldn't even use Aerial Ace!

 

[Siggu]

Aerial Ace's distribution has a few other oddities:
- Spearow has been able to learn the move by level up since Gen III, but Fearow had to wait until Gen IV to do the same.
- Wingull can learn Aerial Ace by level up, but Pelipper can't. There are not many examples (outside of pre-Gen VIII stone evolutions) of moves being removed from level up learnsets after evolving, and such removal being persistent through generations (in contrast with the aforementioned Fearow case).
- In a similar vein to Slowbro, Mr. Mime, Heracross, Hitmontop, and Flygon couldn't learn Aerial Ace by TM in Gen III, but it was added to their learnsets in Gen IV.
- Kabuto could learn Aerial Ace by TM in Gen III, but for some reason it lost access to Aerial Ace... until ORAS, where it regained the ability to learn the move by TM. In contrast, Kabutops was always able to learn Aerial Ace by TM.

 

[Kurona]

I imagine Heracross and Flygon were a situation of "oh we missed that last time" as it makes sense for them to have it, while Mr. Mime and Hitmontop were due to Technician.

 

[R_N]

I imagine Heracross and Flygon were a situation of "oh we missed that last time" as it makes sense for them to have it, while Mr. Mime and Hitmontop were due to Technician.

hitmontop I think makes sense anyway. Sharp claws on its feet and a spike on its head as it does crazy spin maenuvers

 

[Hugin]

I imagine Heracross and Flygon were a situation of "oh we missed that last time" as it makes sense for them to have it, while Mr. Mime and Hitmontop were due to Technician.

Hitmontop learns more priority moves than any other poke. Arial Ace isn't priority but seems similar enough in technique to fit. WHY Hitmontop of all mons fills the "Learns all the fast-moving moves" niche, I couldn't tell you. There's plenty of fighting-types that are fast martial artists, why is the one with base 70 speed getting the speedy moves?

 

[R_N]

Hitmontop learns more priority moves than any other poke. Arial Ace isn't priority but seems similar enough in technique to fit. WHY Hitmontop of all mons fills the "Learns all the fast-moving moves" niche, I couldn't tell you. There's plenty of fighting-types that are fast martial artists, why is the one with base 70 speed getting the speedy moves?

spins fast, i guess

 

[CTNC]

spins fast, i guess

Spins Fast? Yes. Rapid Spin? No. :P
Edit: Never mind. For some reason I didn't think Hitmontop could learn Rapid Spin... X(


Garbodor has Metal Claw as a Level 1 move in SwSh. I'm not asking why, I'm asking why didn't it learn it sooner. That arm's made for it!

 

[R_N]

Spins Fast? Yes. Rapid Spin? No. :P

This made me worry Hitmontop didn't get Rapid Spin and was about to pull out every question mark in the book but no it's learned it since gen 2

 

[CTNC]

This made me worry Hitmontop didn't get Rapid Spin and was about to pull out every question mark in the book but no it's learned it since gen 2

*facepalm* I'm kind of tempted to delete that post... But that did remind me that some moves were lost (without transfer) in Gen 8. Dunsparce has had Spite as a Level up Move and Vupix has had it as an Egg Move since Gen 2 but they can't learn it in SwSh. Dratini, Natu, and Rowlet also had lost Haze as Egg Moves. I'm guessing there's more Egg Move losses, but those are the ones I've happened to notice.