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The Best Attack in Gen IV

What is the best move in Gen IV

  • Total voters
    961
I voted for Stealth Rock, since it has been (and still is) the most influential move in the metagame.

I mean, if there was no Stealth Rock, Pokemon like Articuno would be in OU. The very tiers of competitve Pokemon have been influenced by Stealth Rock.

That's why I think Stealth Rock is the best attack in Generation IV.
 
Lamb2 said:
I mean, if there was no Stealth Rock, Pokemon like Articuno would be in OU. The very tiers of competitve Pokemon have been influenced by Stealth Rock.
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Articuno wouldnt be ou even without stealth rock ice isnt a good defensive typing since it lacks good resists and is weak to common things like fire fighting, rock and steel etc.
 
It was BL iirc after being deemed too powerful for UU. It's still a pretty good defensive pokemon despite its flaws, one to watch out for!
 
While all of these options seem appealing, in my opinion: Pursuit is the most powerful move in the game, mainly because of its ability to hit nearly any switching pokemon. The pokemon that benefit most from Pursuit are those with either Technician or a Dark Type. The Dark Types have an advantage in using pursuit because they will take resisted damage from Ghost and Psychic and deal supereffective damage to them. Pursuit becomes a 120 Base Power move if the opponent does not switch; if they do switch, Pursuit's power doubles to a whopping base 240!

Ghost types in particular help many teams because they prevent two moves from helping their user: Rapid Spin and Explosion. The former reason is more crucial when building teams that rely on entry hazards. The second is for nearly any team that needs a switchin and would like the other members to be in good health.

Psychic is also a bit annoying because they are one of the few types that resist Fighting in OU. There is no physical wall comparable to how Blissey fares taking special attacks. Skarmory nowadays runs Specially Defensive spreads, weakening its physical durability.


Most of the other types that resist Fighting are either SR weak, thus preventing them from taking many hits (Flying, Bug with the exception of Scizor and Forretress), are mainly filled with horrible defensive stats (Bug with the exception of Forretress and Scizor), or are simply are outclassed Defensively (Poison with the Exceptions of Weezing and Nidoqueen). In addition, most Defensive Flying types (Skarmory, Zapdos, Gliscor) rely on Roost as their recovery move, causing them to lose their flying type and make them neutral or weak to a DynamicPunch or Close Combat.

Those pokemon that I've mentioned as exceptions do not have a reliable recovery move and thus being forced to run Rest, have Wish Support or use Pain Split (Weezing, Forretress), which allows other pokemon on the team to set up.

To sum it up, Pursuit is the ultimate trapping move, and its typing helps complement one of the best attacking types in the game.
 
Stealth Rock easily gets my vote simply for the fact that it singlehandedly limits switches by your opponents and what the amount of times a pokemon can switch in. By compromising such a big part of your opponent's strategy, it is no wonder that Stealth Rock is on every team.
 
Shouldn't Stealth Rock be banned? I'm so tired of flying types getting boned ._.


Spikes is absolutely nothing compared to it, and it was a prominent move in RBY...
 
StevenSnype said:
While all of these options seem appealing, in my opinion: Pursuit is the most powerful move in the game, mainly because of its ability to hit nearly any switching pokemon. The pokemon that benefit most from Pursuit are those with either Technician or a Dark Type. The Dark Types have an advantage in using pursuit because they will take resisted damage from Ghost and Psychic and deal supereffective damage to them. Pursuit becomes a 120 Base Power move if the opponent does not switch; if they do switch, Pursuit's power doubles to a whopping base 240!
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Can you explain how either of these are true? You can look here for your reference: http://www.smogon.com/dp/moves/pursuit
 
I'm really surprised that i am one of only 2 who voted taunt as the best attack, I mean taunt is at its best making the game simpler for you as a player, you only have to consider attacks when playing against a taunted pokemon and even if they do attack you while you taunt, you should only be using taunt against pokemon who lose advantage when forced to attack the taunter anyway.

I would also say trick is the next best thing to have going, as it also limits options in theory.
 
I believe SR is the 'best move in the game'. It only takes 1 turn to set up and restricts so many pokemon (charzard, Moltress, Gyarados). Also certain warstories have shown just how devastating SR can be to certain teams
 
BurningMan said:
Articuno wouldnt be ou even without stealth rock ice isnt a good defensive typing since it lacks good resists and is weak to common things like fire fighting, rock and steel etc.
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Well, there are better examples than Articuno, but you get what I mean. Stealth Rock basically influences the very tiers of competitive battling.
 
Stealth Rock, the move is so broken, and makes some Pokemon utterly useless. DP without Stealth Rock would probably look like something closer to the ADV metagame.
 
I voted for Spore. The ability to completely shut down a member of a team's core and/or start a sweep set-up for free in invaluable. Breloom needs spore to do what it does; without Spore, Breloom is very unexceptional as an offensive Pokemon. Smeargle, a Pokemon who has access to every single move in the game, almost always uses Spore.

Yes, Stealth Rock has impacted the metagame significantly, but it can be spun away, and there are Pokemon that don't give a shit about it. Almost nothing can stop the threat of Spore, except of course for sleep clause. If Spore was as widely spread as SR, it would be banned on-the-spot for being absolutely broken. This isn't about the most influential Pokemon move, it's about the best. SR may keep Pokemon in lower tiers, but Spore put those blessed with it up there in the big leagues! What other move can do that? Not a single other move listed boasts being the primary reason why a Pokemon is OU.
 
Really good moves indeed though I'd have to nominate endeavor and explosion to the list as they are gamebreaking on their own as well. Endeavor when coupled with a focus sash (and a little of good prediction) will certainly leave the opponent into a difficult situation "should I switch to a priority user to wall an incoming attack? or should I stay assuming he'll use endeavor again to screw me up?" nothing beats this. Explosion is self explanatory, you sacrifice one pokemon for the greater good, but it allows the likes of metagross with their insanely high attack stats to take down the biggest walls of the game in one move...
 
Extremespeed.
With Decent attack and Choice Band or Sword Dance (possibly DD), the move was one of the best. Good examples are Arceus (If you play PO) and Lucario. It's just unfortunate that such a move wasn't distributed too much...well no pretty much not at all.
 
I voted for Stealth Rock. The sheer number of things it has a big effect on put it ahead. Pretty much every single sweeper has 2HKOs become OHKOs and 3HKOs become 2HKOs because of it. Pretty much every tank/wall has to consider if it can take the hits it needs after SR damage, and also benefits from the damage it does to help score KOs (when you don't invest offensive EVs much, that 12% can really help, especially with how it adds up with Life Orb damage). It also makes Roar/Whirlwind much more viable, since instead of needing to KO something to get rid of it you can just force it out and before long it can't switch in safely any more. Nearly every Pokemon has to consider what KOs it gets with and without Stealth Rock and what attacks it can and can't survive with that 3/6/12/25% damage involved. Definitely the best move in the game, no single move can change a game in one use to the same extent it does.
 
It's definitely Stealth Rock. A lot of switching is necessary in every battle, and the ability to inflict up to 50% damage from a switch is wonderful. Every single strategy I read says something like, "is a OHKO after SR or a 2HKO after SR". Pokemon with a 4x weakness to rock are discouraged to switch in because of it. And it is a lot more reliable than Spikes because of the one turn set-up compared to a three turn set-up. Also, there are whole strategies based on Stealth Rock, whether it is a suicide lead or a taunter to stop the opponent from setting up rocks.
 
Stealth Rock no doubt is one of the best moves in the game currently. Allowing an easy 12.5% damage for free to your opponents Pokemon, sometimes more or less, is just too great of a move to pass up. And it only takes one turn. Little cost for a huge gain. It's found on many common walls like Swampert or Blissey that can easily force Pokemon to switch out and give you that free turn to set up.

I remember someone made a quote or talked about Stealth Rock being like a mind-game of it's own. People become so determined to get it up that it can affect their play in drastic ways. For example, if you don't get Stealth Rock up in one ladder match, then in the next you might focus on getting it up rather than executing your plan. You might pass up an opportunity to set up your Kingdra or Lucario because you wanted to set up Stealth Rock. (Not the greatest example that I could have thought of, but I think it gets across my point.)

Second most influential move is probably Substitute. Throughout this generation it has allowed so many great sets to be played. Sub-Petaya Empoleon, SubPunch Breloom, SubDD Kingdra, etc. are all great Pokemon that would have a harder time being such potent threats without Substitute. Breloom, mostly, really, but Sub Petaya makes Empoleon very, very threatening. Not much to say on Substitute, though. Oh, Sub-CM Jirachi is very hard to defeat. Haha, Sub set up sweepers in general are all hard to beat. Substitute really just allowed a Pokemon to run 2 or 3 great coverage moves and STAB and get it's move of choice at the cost of 25% of it's health, which could allow for an easy KO that could open up the perfect hole in your opponents team.
 
I voted Taunt, not because it is the most ubiquitous (SR, duh), but because it is the best. It had pretty good distribution, and can be such a pivotal move against (or for that matter, in the case of lead Skarmory) Stall. When I think of a game-changing, but not necessarily breaking, move, this is the one that comes to mind. Finally, the animation for it is a big hand waving an index finger, but it might as well be the middle one.
 
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