The inspiration for this article came from a disagreement with Mekkah in Create-A-Pokemon vis-a-vis movepool. Critique it as you will.
Why Four Moveslot Syndrome is a Good Thing(DP)
Article created by Deck Knight
Have you ever heard:
“Yeah, *pokemon* is great, but it is hampered by 4-moveslot syndrome.”
My premise is that any pokemon about which the above statement is made is better than nearly all pokemon that do not inspire that statement. Further, the more a pokemon suffers from Four Moveslot Syndrome (4MS onward), the better that pokemon is.
In order to understand why, I will start by defining 4MS.
Four Moveslot Syndrome: A trait a pokemon possesses if it has more than 4 equally or similarly viable unique options outside of STAB attacks.
Where: Equally or similarly viable means the move addresses a potential counter or threat, or works universally with any team (e.g. Screens, Stealth Rock.)
Where: Unique means a move that does not have universal access (ex: Substitute, Swagger, Rest, Sleep Talk, Toxic, Hidden Power, Return) unless that pokemon is extremely proficient with it (usu. Toxic or Rest).
Where: Outside of STAB attacks is self-explanatory.
In order to get an idea of what has 4MS, lets’ look at a few pokemon that 4MS does not strongly effect.
Section 1: Examples of pokemon with limited 4MS Syndrome
Limited 4MS Luxray:
STAB options: Spark, Thunder Fang, Thunderbolt, Thunder, Discharge, Charge Beam
Unique non-STAB options: Ice Fang, Iron Tail, Crunch, Fire Fang, Quick Attack
Support: Charge, Howl, Thunder Wave, Light Screen, Roar.
Luxray, like all pokemon, has around 10 or so theoretically useful moves. In order to determine 4MS, we have to look at viability.
Given Luxray’s stats, you will likely want to lean offensive physical, since your defenses are average. Your only special move outside STAB options are Hidden Power and Hyper Beam, making Charge Beam ineffective for an SA using set. This leaves you with Ice Fang, Fire Fang, Iron Tail, Crunch, and Quick Attack for offensive options.
Immediate problems for Luxray come from Grass, Ground, and Dragon types. Therefore, Ice Fang is a highly viable choice. Many Ground types are part Rock (and many Rock types carry Ground moves), and one big threat, Mamoswine, is part Ice. Iron Tail allows some coverage of these threats, and has 100 BP to boot. Fire Fang can be used against Grass, Bug, Ice, and Steel pokemon, but only the first type directly hampers Luxray’s STAB attacks, and it is already covered by Ice Fang. Ice types are covered by Iron Tail. Many Steel types have high defense, and Fire Fang is not a high-powered move. Quick Attack is a useful tech move, but again suffers from low power. Return is there, but has little to recommend it. Crunch adds the ability to hit Psychic and Ghost types harder, but is otherwise inferior overall to a STAB option.
When it comes to support options, Howl raises attack, which helps all of Luxray’s moves, but you could have just used Choice Band to go for a strong hit immediately. Thunder Wave can cause paralysis, but Spark, Discharge, and Thunder paralyze 30% of the time anyway. Charge acts like a one-time Swords Dance/Nasty Plot for a STAB move and increases SDef, but it is wasted if your opponent switches in a Ground type. Light Screen is unique and usable, although there are arguably better screeners. Roar is in the same boat as Light Screen. Toxic is somewhat usable if only because Luxray’s defenses aren’t as abysmal as other electric types, and it has Intimidate on a switch.
Overview of Luxray’s viable options:
STAB: Spark, Discharge, Thunderbolt, Thunder.
Non-STAB: Ice Fang, Iron Tail, Crunch
Support: Toxic, Light Screen, Roar
When you build Luxray’s moveset, you will take item into account. If you use Choice Band or Scarf, immediately your support options are taken off the table. This leaves you essentially with Spark, Ice Fang, Iron Tail for coverage, and a move of your choice out of Crunch, Return, and Quick Attack. None of these enhance your power in a significant way.
Leftovers sets have the option of setting up Light Screen or Toxishuffling. Toxishuffling might have been alright in ADV, but now Toxic Spikes can do the job, so you’re left with either parashuffling with Thunder Wave (until you hit a Ground type), or just a non-choice offensive set.
In other words, you don’t really have more than 4 equally or similarly viable unique options outside of STAB attacks. The only equally or similarly viable unique moves in your possession are Ice Fang and Iron Tail, which address potential threats to Luxray.
Limited 4MS Snorlax:
Snorlax doesn’t really suffer from 4MS. It is almost entirely predictable, but so overpowering that it doesn’t matter much.
STAB options: Double-Edge, Return, Body Slam
Unique Non-STAB options: Crunch, Pursuit, Earthquke, Fire Punch, Fire Blast, Ice Punch, Thunderpunch, Rock Slide, Zen Headbutt
Support: Curse, Belly Drum, Charm, Screech, Whirlwind, Yawn, Amnesia.
Snorlax is very fat and has time to set up. Curse is thus the option that immediately comes to mind. You can thus afford to spend EV’s strengthening its special defense and HP in order to take more special hits as you Curse up, although with the low Base Defense, a few EVs won’t hurt there either.
Immediate problems for Snorlax include Ghost, Rock, and Steel pokemon. Crunch and Pursuit can dispatch Ghosts, while Earthquake addresses Rock and Steel types. Both are boosted by Snorlax’s high attack and the ability to Curse. Fire Punch also hits Steels and doesn’t have to worry if they’re flying or levitating. Ice Punch and Thunderpunch are only more effective than Return against 4x weaks to them in the forms of Salamence, Garchomp, and Gyarados. They can add more potential power to a Body Slam using set. Rock Slide and Zen Headbutt don’t help against any primary threat.
For support options, Charm and Screech can both be effectively supplanted by Curse. Snorlax is too slow to take much benefit from either, as the opponent can always hit before you lower their attack or switch before you can utilize their lowered defenses. Curse is the halfway house, and since it boosts Snorlax it remains regardless of whether the opponent switches or is KO’d. Belly Drum is high-risk high-reward, and Snorlax does have the defenses to pull it off, it just has to be wary. Universal options that are effective on Snorlax are Rest and Sleep Talk, since they allow it recovery with its massive defenses. Whirlwind isn’t really seen that much, although this is probably because Snorlax is slower than other phazers.
Overview of Snorlax’s viable options:
STAB: Double-Edge, Return, Body Slam
Unique Non-STAB: Crunch, Pursuit, Earthquake, Fire Punch, Fire Blast, Ice Punch.
Support: Belly Drum, Curse, Rest, Sleep Talk
The logic behind the non-STAB moves goes back to our definition of equally or similarly viable. Aside from Gyarados/Mantine/Pelliper, Either Return, Fire, or Ice Punch deals equal or more damage to threats than Thunderpunch.
The only place 4MS comes in is when you want to use a Curselax with recovery. You’ll either forgo Earthquake to hit levitating ghosts or forgo Crunch/Pursuit to better hit non-floaty steels, or forgo both for Fire Punch/Blast in order to hit Ghosts for lower power and Steels effectively. Either way your opponent needs a different counter for each potential option. However, if you go for a Choice Band set or a set without Curse, you can use Earthquake, a Dark move, and a Fire move with a Normal move to cover all your bases and have STAB.
The thing is, Luxray and Snorlax are both entirely predictable. Luxray is a UU pokemon so naturally it has more counters and a few 100% counters, but insofar as Snorlax, no single pokemon can come in on any of its 3 or so moveset options. However, it does have several 80% counters. Skarmory can counter every set except Belly Drum + Fire Punch. Weezing can Burn it and Haze it, but won’t like eating Choice-Banded Double-Edge. Steelix laughs off any set without a Fire move, while Gengar/Mismagius stop sets without a dark or fire move. Similarly, Steelix easily switches in on any set lacking Earthquake and Fire Punch/Blast. You can switch Weezing, Hippowdon, or Skarmory in 80% of the time without worrying about what Snorlax is packing, since it only has one particular set, not one particular option that can defeat them. Naturally if you were worried about Skarmory you could pump SA and use Fire Blast, but this is impractical competitively; it detracts from the effectiveness of your other moves.
Section 2: Examples of pokemon with high 4MS.
The obvious answer here is Smeargle, but I’m not going to go into him. Smeargle has the biggest case of 4MS ever, and even with the crap stats he still manages to make OU. The two examples I choose are the #2 and #3 Pokemon in OU, Blissey and Gengar. Since exposition on each potential option like the examples above, I will skill right to the viable movepools.
Blissey:
STAB options: Body Slam, Double-Edge (lol), Giga Impact (OWN!), Hyper Beam (Yes sir!)
Unique Non-STAB: Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, Flamethrower, Fire Blast, Grass Knot, Psychic, Counter, Focus Blast, Seismic Toss.
Support: Calm Mind, Charm, Defense Curl, Light Screen, Thunder Wave, Sing, Toxic, Softboiled, Wish, Heal Bell, Aromatherapy, Stealth Rock, Gravity.
The long and short of this is: Blissey can be used on any team for several purposes. Aromatheapist? Check. Special Wall? Check. Surprise physical sweeper killer? It can do that. Status enducer? Yup. Special Sweeper? Calm Mind, my friend.
No single pokemon can come in without being potentially crippled by Blissey. No single team is ever made weaker by including a Blissey, since it can do almost anything support-wise outside of Reflect. Furthermore, Blissey has enough defensive power to turn around a game by removing some of the would-be crippling mistakes you may have already made. Not only that, since just about everything STAB on Blissey outside of Body Slam(para for Grounds) is utterly useless, Blissey really can use all its slots to full effectiveness.
Gengar:
STAB options: Shadow Claw (no), Shadow Ball (yes!), SLudge Bomb
Unique Non-STAB: Focus Punch, Focus Blast, Thunderbolt, Energy Ball, Giga Drain, Explosion.
Support: Hypnosis, Will-O-Wisp, Destiny Bond, Trick Room, Haze, Taunt
Gengar can be summarized as follows: Gengar can be used on most teams for status and special sweeping purposes. With the special exception of aforementioned Blissey, no pokemon can switch into all of Gengar’s attacks with impunity (and Blissey hates Explosion, btw). Some that can switch into most attacks and pose a threat greatly dislike being burned. Destiny Bond can overcome even those pokemon. In other words, Gengar is virtually guaranteed to take one or more opposing pokemon down with it. Furthermore, it has such supreme coverage with Shadow Ball/Focus Blast, that you can only guess at the third and fourth moves. Those third and fourth moves are the moves most likely to destroy whatever the rest of the Gengar user’s team has difficulty with. Destiny Bond is a trump in most cases anyway, as is Explosion.
Section 3: What removing a move of a pokemon with 4MS would do.
For this example I am going to use Salamence. Any pokemon with 4MS syndrome is defined by having multiple competitively viable options. Take away one of their viable options and they will be open up to new counters. Initially I was going to use Garchomp and Fire moves, but Chompy is rather like Snorlax in that his brute power is the determinant of his popularity, not his move diversity. Dragon STAB + Earthquake + Fire Move + Stone Edge or Swords Dance is the general formula for a Garchomp set.
The options I’ll be experimenting with on Salamence are Brick Break and Hydro Pump.
If you remove Brick Break from Salamence, LO Salamence becomes unable to counter Blissey or Empoleon. It leaves the Dragon Dance or Choice Band sets effective against those pokemon. Removing Hydro Pump decreases the power of the Specs set greatly. Unless replaced with Brick Break or HP Fite, Tyranitar could come in on a Pump-less Specsmence and force it out, although not with impunity. Hydro Pump adds that crucial X-Factor that causes you to resist the temptation of throwing Heatran in there as well, since it resists Draco Meteor and absorbs Fire Blast. Aggron and Probopass could also come in to some degree (during Sandstorm). In other words, even slightly weaknening the 4MS of a pokemon opens up holes for more counters to that pokemon.
Conclusion: 4MS is powerful (and therefore a good thing) because it increases the perceived threat of a pokemon. Actual threats posed by pokemon are a matter of concrete numbers; a pokemon can only, as Mekkah pointed out in our brief back-and-forth, have 4 moves. However, unless you have perfect knowledge of every pokemon’s moveset on your oponent’s team, their perceived threat will always impact your decision making. Knowing that your opponent has a Salamence, Blissey, and Gengar on their team is only slightly better than knowing nothing at all. You could switch from your Gengar into your Garchomp expecting a Thunder Wave from your opponent’s Blissey, only to find out it has Sing and your Garchomp is now crippled. Granted you could have mispredicted into an Ice Beam, but that still gives you a 100% chance to use CB Outrage or whatever.
Look at the Shoddy statistics. About half of the first 20 pokemon have deep 4MS. Blissey, Gengar, Lucario, Tyranitar, Starmie, Infernape, Metagross, Salamence, Celebi, and Swampert, with Azelf not far behind at #22.
Even if your opponent knew your team was Salamence, Gengar, Lucario, Tyranitar, Blissey, and Infernape [all in the Top 10], they would still only have the most remote clue of what your pokemon could do (I’m not saying this is a great team, btw, just a thoroughly unpredictable one).
On the other hand, if your opponent knew your team was Garchomp, Snorlax, Heracross, Gyarados, Heatran, and Forretress,[all in the Top 21], your opponent would probably be able to guess their movesets and act accordingly. You might be able to surprise them with say, the Chainchomp set, but otherwise your opponent mainly has to focus on how to counter their known attributes. I’m not saying this team is a bad team (nor a good one), what I am saying is that as far as the perceived threat of this team vs. the team above, the team above is much more likely to cause your opponent pause. As far as utilizing 4MS as a way to influence your opponent, the first team is far superior to this one.
I had a conversation with Aldaron and thought I would add these, with some insight:
The main thrust is that the more 4MSs you have on a team, the better that team enables you to predict, since it takes more predictive power away from your opponent. In other words, the more unpredictable your team is to your opponent, the more leeway you have for mistakes. Since mistakes are arguably more punishable in DP than they ever have been, any time sheer unpredictability forces an error in your favor, you gain a competitive advantage.
Please Critique/Blow Holes/Applaud >_>
Why Four Moveslot Syndrome is a Good Thing(DP)
Article created by Deck Knight
Have you ever heard:
“Yeah, *pokemon* is great, but it is hampered by 4-moveslot syndrome.”
My premise is that any pokemon about which the above statement is made is better than nearly all pokemon that do not inspire that statement. Further, the more a pokemon suffers from Four Moveslot Syndrome (4MS onward), the better that pokemon is.
In order to understand why, I will start by defining 4MS.
Four Moveslot Syndrome: A trait a pokemon possesses if it has more than 4 equally or similarly viable unique options outside of STAB attacks.
Where: Equally or similarly viable means the move addresses a potential counter or threat, or works universally with any team (e.g. Screens, Stealth Rock.)
Where: Unique means a move that does not have universal access (ex: Substitute, Swagger, Rest, Sleep Talk, Toxic, Hidden Power, Return) unless that pokemon is extremely proficient with it (usu. Toxic or Rest).
Where: Outside of STAB attacks is self-explanatory.
In order to get an idea of what has 4MS, lets’ look at a few pokemon that 4MS does not strongly effect.
Section 1: Examples of pokemon with limited 4MS Syndrome
Limited 4MS Luxray:
STAB options: Spark, Thunder Fang, Thunderbolt, Thunder, Discharge, Charge Beam
Unique non-STAB options: Ice Fang, Iron Tail, Crunch, Fire Fang, Quick Attack
Support: Charge, Howl, Thunder Wave, Light Screen, Roar.
Luxray, like all pokemon, has around 10 or so theoretically useful moves. In order to determine 4MS, we have to look at viability.
Given Luxray’s stats, you will likely want to lean offensive physical, since your defenses are average. Your only special move outside STAB options are Hidden Power and Hyper Beam, making Charge Beam ineffective for an SA using set. This leaves you with Ice Fang, Fire Fang, Iron Tail, Crunch, and Quick Attack for offensive options.
Immediate problems for Luxray come from Grass, Ground, and Dragon types. Therefore, Ice Fang is a highly viable choice. Many Ground types are part Rock (and many Rock types carry Ground moves), and one big threat, Mamoswine, is part Ice. Iron Tail allows some coverage of these threats, and has 100 BP to boot. Fire Fang can be used against Grass, Bug, Ice, and Steel pokemon, but only the first type directly hampers Luxray’s STAB attacks, and it is already covered by Ice Fang. Ice types are covered by Iron Tail. Many Steel types have high defense, and Fire Fang is not a high-powered move. Quick Attack is a useful tech move, but again suffers from low power. Return is there, but has little to recommend it. Crunch adds the ability to hit Psychic and Ghost types harder, but is otherwise inferior overall to a STAB option.
When it comes to support options, Howl raises attack, which helps all of Luxray’s moves, but you could have just used Choice Band to go for a strong hit immediately. Thunder Wave can cause paralysis, but Spark, Discharge, and Thunder paralyze 30% of the time anyway. Charge acts like a one-time Swords Dance/Nasty Plot for a STAB move and increases SDef, but it is wasted if your opponent switches in a Ground type. Light Screen is unique and usable, although there are arguably better screeners. Roar is in the same boat as Light Screen. Toxic is somewhat usable if only because Luxray’s defenses aren’t as abysmal as other electric types, and it has Intimidate on a switch.
Overview of Luxray’s viable options:
STAB: Spark, Discharge, Thunderbolt, Thunder.
Non-STAB: Ice Fang, Iron Tail, Crunch
Support: Toxic, Light Screen, Roar
When you build Luxray’s moveset, you will take item into account. If you use Choice Band or Scarf, immediately your support options are taken off the table. This leaves you essentially with Spark, Ice Fang, Iron Tail for coverage, and a move of your choice out of Crunch, Return, and Quick Attack. None of these enhance your power in a significant way.
Leftovers sets have the option of setting up Light Screen or Toxishuffling. Toxishuffling might have been alright in ADV, but now Toxic Spikes can do the job, so you’re left with either parashuffling with Thunder Wave (until you hit a Ground type), or just a non-choice offensive set.
In other words, you don’t really have more than 4 equally or similarly viable unique options outside of STAB attacks. The only equally or similarly viable unique moves in your possession are Ice Fang and Iron Tail, which address potential threats to Luxray.
Limited 4MS Snorlax:
Snorlax doesn’t really suffer from 4MS. It is almost entirely predictable, but so overpowering that it doesn’t matter much.
STAB options: Double-Edge, Return, Body Slam
Unique Non-STAB options: Crunch, Pursuit, Earthquke, Fire Punch, Fire Blast, Ice Punch, Thunderpunch, Rock Slide, Zen Headbutt
Support: Curse, Belly Drum, Charm, Screech, Whirlwind, Yawn, Amnesia.
Snorlax is very fat and has time to set up. Curse is thus the option that immediately comes to mind. You can thus afford to spend EV’s strengthening its special defense and HP in order to take more special hits as you Curse up, although with the low Base Defense, a few EVs won’t hurt there either.
Immediate problems for Snorlax include Ghost, Rock, and Steel pokemon. Crunch and Pursuit can dispatch Ghosts, while Earthquake addresses Rock and Steel types. Both are boosted by Snorlax’s high attack and the ability to Curse. Fire Punch also hits Steels and doesn’t have to worry if they’re flying or levitating. Ice Punch and Thunderpunch are only more effective than Return against 4x weaks to them in the forms of Salamence, Garchomp, and Gyarados. They can add more potential power to a Body Slam using set. Rock Slide and Zen Headbutt don’t help against any primary threat.
For support options, Charm and Screech can both be effectively supplanted by Curse. Snorlax is too slow to take much benefit from either, as the opponent can always hit before you lower their attack or switch before you can utilize their lowered defenses. Curse is the halfway house, and since it boosts Snorlax it remains regardless of whether the opponent switches or is KO’d. Belly Drum is high-risk high-reward, and Snorlax does have the defenses to pull it off, it just has to be wary. Universal options that are effective on Snorlax are Rest and Sleep Talk, since they allow it recovery with its massive defenses. Whirlwind isn’t really seen that much, although this is probably because Snorlax is slower than other phazers.
Overview of Snorlax’s viable options:
STAB: Double-Edge, Return, Body Slam
Unique Non-STAB: Crunch, Pursuit, Earthquake, Fire Punch, Fire Blast, Ice Punch.
Support: Belly Drum, Curse, Rest, Sleep Talk
The logic behind the non-STAB moves goes back to our definition of equally or similarly viable. Aside from Gyarados/Mantine/Pelliper, Either Return, Fire, or Ice Punch deals equal or more damage to threats than Thunderpunch.
The only place 4MS comes in is when you want to use a Curselax with recovery. You’ll either forgo Earthquake to hit levitating ghosts or forgo Crunch/Pursuit to better hit non-floaty steels, or forgo both for Fire Punch/Blast in order to hit Ghosts for lower power and Steels effectively. Either way your opponent needs a different counter for each potential option. However, if you go for a Choice Band set or a set without Curse, you can use Earthquake, a Dark move, and a Fire move with a Normal move to cover all your bases and have STAB.
The thing is, Luxray and Snorlax are both entirely predictable. Luxray is a UU pokemon so naturally it has more counters and a few 100% counters, but insofar as Snorlax, no single pokemon can come in on any of its 3 or so moveset options. However, it does have several 80% counters. Skarmory can counter every set except Belly Drum + Fire Punch. Weezing can Burn it and Haze it, but won’t like eating Choice-Banded Double-Edge. Steelix laughs off any set without a Fire move, while Gengar/Mismagius stop sets without a dark or fire move. Similarly, Steelix easily switches in on any set lacking Earthquake and Fire Punch/Blast. You can switch Weezing, Hippowdon, or Skarmory in 80% of the time without worrying about what Snorlax is packing, since it only has one particular set, not one particular option that can defeat them. Naturally if you were worried about Skarmory you could pump SA and use Fire Blast, but this is impractical competitively; it detracts from the effectiveness of your other moves.
Section 2: Examples of pokemon with high 4MS.
The obvious answer here is Smeargle, but I’m not going to go into him. Smeargle has the biggest case of 4MS ever, and even with the crap stats he still manages to make OU. The two examples I choose are the #2 and #3 Pokemon in OU, Blissey and Gengar. Since exposition on each potential option like the examples above, I will skill right to the viable movepools.
Blissey:
STAB options: Body Slam, Double-Edge (lol), Giga Impact (OWN!), Hyper Beam (Yes sir!)
Unique Non-STAB: Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, Flamethrower, Fire Blast, Grass Knot, Psychic, Counter, Focus Blast, Seismic Toss.
Support: Calm Mind, Charm, Defense Curl, Light Screen, Thunder Wave, Sing, Toxic, Softboiled, Wish, Heal Bell, Aromatherapy, Stealth Rock, Gravity.
The long and short of this is: Blissey can be used on any team for several purposes. Aromatheapist? Check. Special Wall? Check. Surprise physical sweeper killer? It can do that. Status enducer? Yup. Special Sweeper? Calm Mind, my friend.
No single pokemon can come in without being potentially crippled by Blissey. No single team is ever made weaker by including a Blissey, since it can do almost anything support-wise outside of Reflect. Furthermore, Blissey has enough defensive power to turn around a game by removing some of the would-be crippling mistakes you may have already made. Not only that, since just about everything STAB on Blissey outside of Body Slam(para for Grounds) is utterly useless, Blissey really can use all its slots to full effectiveness.
Gengar:
STAB options: Shadow Claw (no), Shadow Ball (yes!), SLudge Bomb
Unique Non-STAB: Focus Punch, Focus Blast, Thunderbolt, Energy Ball, Giga Drain, Explosion.
Support: Hypnosis, Will-O-Wisp, Destiny Bond, Trick Room, Haze, Taunt
Gengar can be summarized as follows: Gengar can be used on most teams for status and special sweeping purposes. With the special exception of aforementioned Blissey, no pokemon can switch into all of Gengar’s attacks with impunity (and Blissey hates Explosion, btw). Some that can switch into most attacks and pose a threat greatly dislike being burned. Destiny Bond can overcome even those pokemon. In other words, Gengar is virtually guaranteed to take one or more opposing pokemon down with it. Furthermore, it has such supreme coverage with Shadow Ball/Focus Blast, that you can only guess at the third and fourth moves. Those third and fourth moves are the moves most likely to destroy whatever the rest of the Gengar user’s team has difficulty with. Destiny Bond is a trump in most cases anyway, as is Explosion.
Section 3: What removing a move of a pokemon with 4MS would do.
For this example I am going to use Salamence. Any pokemon with 4MS syndrome is defined by having multiple competitively viable options. Take away one of their viable options and they will be open up to new counters. Initially I was going to use Garchomp and Fire moves, but Chompy is rather like Snorlax in that his brute power is the determinant of his popularity, not his move diversity. Dragon STAB + Earthquake + Fire Move + Stone Edge or Swords Dance is the general formula for a Garchomp set.
The options I’ll be experimenting with on Salamence are Brick Break and Hydro Pump.
If you remove Brick Break from Salamence, LO Salamence becomes unable to counter Blissey or Empoleon. It leaves the Dragon Dance or Choice Band sets effective against those pokemon. Removing Hydro Pump decreases the power of the Specs set greatly. Unless replaced with Brick Break or HP Fite, Tyranitar could come in on a Pump-less Specsmence and force it out, although not with impunity. Hydro Pump adds that crucial X-Factor that causes you to resist the temptation of throwing Heatran in there as well, since it resists Draco Meteor and absorbs Fire Blast. Aggron and Probopass could also come in to some degree (during Sandstorm). In other words, even slightly weaknening the 4MS of a pokemon opens up holes for more counters to that pokemon.
Conclusion: 4MS is powerful (and therefore a good thing) because it increases the perceived threat of a pokemon. Actual threats posed by pokemon are a matter of concrete numbers; a pokemon can only, as Mekkah pointed out in our brief back-and-forth, have 4 moves. However, unless you have perfect knowledge of every pokemon’s moveset on your oponent’s team, their perceived threat will always impact your decision making. Knowing that your opponent has a Salamence, Blissey, and Gengar on their team is only slightly better than knowing nothing at all. You could switch from your Gengar into your Garchomp expecting a Thunder Wave from your opponent’s Blissey, only to find out it has Sing and your Garchomp is now crippled. Granted you could have mispredicted into an Ice Beam, but that still gives you a 100% chance to use CB Outrage or whatever.
Look at the Shoddy statistics. About half of the first 20 pokemon have deep 4MS. Blissey, Gengar, Lucario, Tyranitar, Starmie, Infernape, Metagross, Salamence, Celebi, and Swampert, with Azelf not far behind at #22.
Even if your opponent knew your team was Salamence, Gengar, Lucario, Tyranitar, Blissey, and Infernape [all in the Top 10], they would still only have the most remote clue of what your pokemon could do (I’m not saying this is a great team, btw, just a thoroughly unpredictable one).
On the other hand, if your opponent knew your team was Garchomp, Snorlax, Heracross, Gyarados, Heatran, and Forretress,[all in the Top 21], your opponent would probably be able to guess their movesets and act accordingly. You might be able to surprise them with say, the Chainchomp set, but otherwise your opponent mainly has to focus on how to counter their known attributes. I’m not saying this team is a bad team (nor a good one), what I am saying is that as far as the perceived threat of this team vs. the team above, the team above is much more likely to cause your opponent pause. As far as utilizing 4MS as a way to influence your opponent, the first team is far superior to this one.
I had a conversation with Aldaron and thought I would add these, with some insight:
The main thrust is that the more 4MSs you have on a team, the better that team enables you to predict, since it takes more predictive power away from your opponent. In other words, the more unpredictable your team is to your opponent, the more leeway you have for mistakes. Since mistakes are arguably more punishable in DP than they ever have been, any time sheer unpredictability forces an error in your favor, you gain a competitive advantage.
Please Critique/Blow Holes/Applaud >_>
