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The Best Attack in Gen IV

What is the best move in Gen IV

  • Total voters
    961
Stealth Rock alone is responsible for the tiering of so many Pokemon. Spore comes close, but it doesn't beat out the metagame shakeup that Stealth Rock brought to the table.
 
I'm glad Stealth Rock is getting the majority of the votes. Sure, Outrage and Draco Meteor can tear it up in the hands of a dragon. But get rocks on the field with the vast number of pokes that can use it, and all of a sudden you're limiting your opponent by a lot--what he can switch in, how many times he can switch in, what you can OHKO instead of 2HKO.

Against Outrage/Draco Meteor you can switch in a bulky Steel or revenge with Ice Shard. Against rocks you can spin, but the number of viable spinners is limited, and getting it off can be really hard if your opponent has a spinblocker (or two).

I really don't think you could make a stronger case for any of the other moves listed above. Perhaps if more pokemon had access to Spore you could make a case for it, but that as well as Sleep Clause prevent it from being #1.
 
I believe Close Combat deserves an honorable mention. 120 base attack with virtually no drawbacks (especially when frail sweepers use it) with one of the better offensive typings in the game.

But yeah, Stealth Rock is the no-brainer (even if it's not really an attack lol). Useful on any team/strategy and mentioned in nearly every damage calculation. Plus, the whole making entire dual types practically unusable in standard play.

Spore is a distant second in my book because not enough Pokemon learn the move (compare that to the list of SR users!) and because Sleep Clause limits its effectiveness. U-turn and the Dragon attacks would round out my top 5.
 
I'm thinking Sub should be a very close competitor to SR because who really knows how to deal with Subs? Sub is easily a great move because suddenly a "counter" to your Pokemon become a mere "check" once it switches in on a Subbed Pokemon.
 
Stealth Rock would get my vote, if not for several candidates that can be found in "Other". Close Combat should be a viable option. It basically became the standard move of anything with the ability to use it, and its hard to imagine how useful pokemon like Infernape and Lucario in OU and Primape in UU without the use of it.

Another strong candidate is Bullet Punch. While other non-Quick Attack/Extreme Speed moves with priority have their uses, its hard to imagine the metagame without this menace. Scizor would have to use a non-STAB Quick Attack to be anywhere near as powerful as it has become, removing the top ranked OU pokemon from commission, and Machamp and Metagross would be missing out on priority without it, further altering the metagame.

Still other candidates exist. Stone Edge, if only for the fact that we finally got a strong Rock type attack worth using. Payback, giving slower pokemon the ability to punish those faster than them. Nasty plot, finally giving Special Attackers a Sword's Dance-esque move. Ice Shard, every Dragon types bane. Iron Head, giving Jirachi the power to dominate. For all of these moves, I vote other, simply because they have all effected the metagame in such a deep manner, it is impossible to forget.
 
Stealth Rock is the fundament of IV's gen metagame. Basically next to all leads are built to either lay down SR, or preventing SR. It decreases the amount of possible switches and keeps several Pokémon like Yanmega and Moltres away from the OU metagame and prevents that Pokémon like Zapdos and Gyarados are breaking the metagame. At least it's the move with the biggest impact on GenIV's metagame.

Draco Meteor / Outrage
Draco Meteor is responsible for Latias / Latios / Mence to not being able to take part in OU today, whereas Outrage is guilty for stealing Garchomp (and to a lesser extent Mence). At least these both moves are the best attacking moves in the game and broke most dragons.

U-Turn
Scouting - yay!

The glitched version of Encore that was/is (?) on Shoddy is easily the best move in the game. Still, in OU there are no common Pokémon that frequently use Encore, so it doesn't deserve the title of the best move in the game, but in fact at least on Shoddy it is/was for a long time.

->
#1 SR
#2 DM
#3 U-Turn
#4 Encore (in fact it should be way higher)
 
U-Turn gets my vote. It's an amazing move with an interesting side effect.

SR changed the entire metagame sure, but IMO, it was a negative change, so it doesn't get my vote. Most broken and overpowered move? Yes. Best move? Not by a long shot.
 
Spore. Breloom would undoubtedly be Uber if it wasn't for the Sleep Clause. The fact that a move requires a clause to prevent viable pokemon with it from being Uber, is more than enough evidence that Spore is the best move in Gen 4.

Hell, without Sleep Clause, Parasect would even probobly rise to at least UU, especially with his Water-Immunity.
 
Stealth Rock, but it's close. Spore is basically what stops Breloom from being just a good Pokemon, and allows him to fit onto almost any team with ease due to the support he offers.

Stealth Rock does a massive amount of damage over time.

U-Turn is a fantastic scouting move.
 
I voted Substitute. Now SR is a great move an all but it gets too much love. It has changed the metagame because it effects everything. Spikes is worse in a way because it is more damaging on more things. Anyway that isn't what I am talking about.

Now sub. I love sub. Sub lets me beat Blissey with a special attacker. Sub lets me beat Breloom without losing anything. Sub lets me go down to a pinch berry safely without putting myself on 1HP. Sub nets me a free move on my switch in when I would otherwise have to predict.

Those were just the ones I thought of off the top of my head. So remember people. SR has changed the metagame because of its universality but Sub can be more devestating in isolation.
 
Draco meteor and Outrage deserved a mention. These moves caused Lati@s' and Salamece's banning to ubers and have made dragon attacks the most difficult to counter.
 
Draco Meteor hands down. When you can turn shit like Flygon (80 SpA) into a decent mixed sweeper JUST by sticking a Draco Meteor on it, you know you've got yourself a broken move.

Stealth Rock is the close second. Free damage on every switch in, makes several Pokes nearly unusable blahblah...
 
Draco Meteor is a fantastic move - most teams run a steel type, but when Latias and Salamence were running around you needed one.

Although it's arguably not the move that is broken, but rather the typing and it's resistances (or lack thereof) - still, it's awesome.
 
I'd have to say Dragon Dance. Mixmence was only effective because of the threat DDMence posed. If Salamence only had one viable set, it would still be OU. Without Dragon Dance, Dragonite has to rely on MixNite or being a Cleric, Gyarados is BL, Altaria is useless save for the uncommon Band, TTar becomes easy to predict (as no-one runs BandTar anyway) and Whiscash is even worse. Other pokemon that get it are Feraligatr, Crawdaunt, Tropius, and Charizard, most of which are unaffected, either due to being awful anyway or having better/other options. Rayquaza is forced to use Swords Dance or Mixquaza (both very good sets anyway), and Kingdra doesn't need to run DDance, there is a nice mixed set as well.

SR is good but Articuno, Charizard and the like weren't that good anyway; the only pokemon seriously hampered by it is Yanmega.

I would argue that the key move on Breloom isn't Spore, but Substitute. It can 6-0 without putting anything to sleep, it just gives it a slightly easier time. The main attraction to Breloom is unhampered Focus Punch, and what causes that? Sub.
 
TheValkyries said:
Meanwhile, Stealth Rock has never made anything broken, nor prevented it from being banned.
Click to expand...

It has - Moltres is UU largely because of Stealth Rock. Without the 4x weakness to Stealth Rock, Moltres would be an easy BL.

I voted Stealth Rock. It's my opinion that Stealth Rock is far and away the best move in the game. It's so deeply entrenched that everything is based around it, from suicide leads whose purpose is nothing other than to get up Stealth Rock while preventing the opposing lead from setting it up, to stall teams based on entry hazards, to Pokemon who aren't viable because of SR (Articuno, Charizard, etc), to Pokemon using it to aid a sweep, to Pokemon using it to aid a stall, the list goes on and on and on ...
 
I voted other. It's probably because I don't play Singles. In VGC the one move that I believe has forcibly molded a large part of the metagame is Dark Void. Dark Void can only be learned by one VGC Legal Pokemon (smeargle), and yet EVERYBODY has Lum, Chesto, or Fake Out on their leads. Are those just generally good to have? Yes. But does ScarfVoidSmeargle have something to do with that? Yes.

one pokemon
one move
countless teams changed
 
Substitute got my vote. A lot of pokemon can take out 1 or 2 pokemon under a sub. Much more convenient than stealth rocks.
 
Draco Meteor, honestly. At least when whatever could use it wasn't banned.

Otherwise, Stealth Rock takes it by faaaar.
 
Voted for U-turn. You're basically screwed no matter what you do, as the opponent has a very good chance (especially with standard sets being used) of bringing in a devastating counter/check.
Stealth Rock is a very close runner up for me.
 
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