If You Could Change a Pokémon...

[Alola]

To this day, I still don't understand why Tynamo and its evolutions aren't part Water-type. They are based on electric eels after all.

An interview regarding the Unovan Pokémon revealed that a lot of the typing for the Pokémon was considered, and reconsidered, for balance purposes. For example, Stunfisk was originally going to be a Water/Electric type, but they changed the Water typing to Ground for balance purposes. I don't know if the Tynamo line were considered to be Water-types during development, but three more Water-types was something they were likely trying to avoid.

 

[Norzan]

Special Attack variant of Moxie for Pyroar instead of regular Moxie. This would have been the perfect time to introduce this variant of the ability, and also give it an actual useful hidden ability. Instead it gets an ability that increases its meager 68 base attack.

 

[swiftgallade46]

Special Attack variant of Moxie for Pyroar instead of regular Moxie. This would have been the perfect time to introduce this variant of the ability, and also give it an actual useful hidden ability. Instead it gets an ability that increases its meager 68 base attack.

While they’re at it, I’ve always wondered why a Special Attack variant of Intimidate has never been created.

 

[Enzo]

While they’re at it, I’ve always wondered why a Special Attack variant of Intimidate has never been created.

I mean, it has. Grim Neigh. The only problem is that is the signature ability of a legendary.

I always thought something more along the lines of ''Imponence'' would be fitting. Like, you defeat a foe and it goes over your head and you start to become more ''inponent'' and feel superior to others and such. Hence the Special Attack boost, since the ''special'' part of Pokémon has always been more associated with ''mental, magical'' abilities rather than the physical strenght and such.

 

[swiftgallade46]

I mean, it has. Grim Neigh. The only problem is that is the signature ability of a legendary.

I always thought something more along the lines of ''Imponence'' would be fitting. Like, you defeat a foe and it goes over your head and you start to become more ''inponent'' and feel superior to others and such. Hence the Special Attack boost, since the ''special'' part of Pokémon has always been more associated with ''mental, magical'' abilities rather than the physical strenght and such.

Grim Neigh is a special variant of Moxie (which is exclusive to Spectrier; I think Norzan was looking for a more generic ability), not Intimidate.

 

[Enzo]

Grim Neigh is a special variant of Moxie (which is exclusive to Spectrier; I think Norzan was looking for a more generic ability), not Intimidate.

Hum. But I did suggested one generic special version of Moxie tho. This idea of ''Imponence'' is not a special Intimidate as you might have implied.

The problem is because Moxie would also fit as a name for a special version of it. The name just makes sense for something like that, you know?

 

[Norzan]

Yeah, i meant a generic version of a special attack variant of Moxie, like Mold Breaker to Turboblaze and Teravolt.

I was gonna suggest Spirit Break for a special attack variant of Intimidate, but apparently that's already a signature move for Grimmsnarl in Gen 8. Which ironically also reduces special attack by one stage.

 

[swiftgallade46]

Hum. But I did suggested one generic special version of Moxie tho. This idea of ''Imponence'' is not a special Intimidate as you might have implied.

The problem is because Moxie would also fit as a name for a special version of it. The name just makes sense for something like that, you know?

I think you may have misread lol. I was asking for a special variant of Intimidate and you replied saying that one existed.

 

[BigBadButterfree]

I think you may have misread lol. I was asking for a special variant of Intimidate and you replied saying that one existed.

I feel like they could have easily repurposed the useless Illuminate into a special intimidate.

Otherwise, it would probably be something named with like... Lowering self esteem or something, like "condescend" or "assertion" or "dominance." Basically making the other pokemon feel weak mentally as opposed to physically.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

I feel like if we're gonna have a special-based version of Intimidate, it's only fair that we also get an item that's a physical-based version of Assault Vest. Remember, Special Attacks overall tend to have lower base power than Physical ones, and high Special Defenses are generally more common than the inverse. This is why nerfs such as Intimidate and Burn's secondary effect exist.

Anyways, back on the thread's actual topic, I feel like Swablu should have been our first pure Flying-type. There's really nothing about it that seems "Normal" to me based on its design, especially with the whole "cloud on the sky" motif it has going on, which to me seems perfect for a pure Flying-type. Swablu feels more like a pure Flying than Rookidee and Corvisquire do to me at least.

 

[swiftgallade46]

Remember, Special Attacks overall tend to have lower base power than Physical ones

Is this true? At least among the most commonly used attacks, I tend to see special attacks having equal or higher base power than physical ones. The elemental Fangs and Punches for example are all 65 and 75 respectively, meanwhile Thunderbolt, Flamethrower, and Ice Beam are all 90.

 

[Enzo]

Is this true? At least among the most commonly used attacks, I tend to see special attacks having equal or higher base power than physical ones. The elemental Fangs and Punches for example are all 65 and 75 respectively, meanwhile Thunderbolt, Flamethrower, and Ice Beam are all 90.

Yeah, it might seem like it at first glance, especially with moves such as Fire Blast and Hydro Pump, that are both 110 base power each, and other Special moves are also powerful as well. But most of them lack accuracy. The ones that I meantioned, that are the two special moves most used in the competitive scene, only have 85 and 80 accuracy each. Powerful, yet not truly reliable.

But Physical?
-102 bp Return
-120 bp Outrage, Double-Edge, Wood Hammer, Close Combat, Brave Bird and Flare Blitz (Volt Tacke too, even tho nobody runs physical Pikachu/Raichu)
-100 bp Earthquake
- 85 bp Fishious Rend that becomes 170 bp since nobody runs Dracovish without CS (without even counting STAB and Strong Jaw bonuses)
- 110 bp Acrobatics, etc.

Yes, some of them do have their drawbacks, such as confusion, recoil, lowered stats, and all, but they are super strong and put a dent onto any team. And guess what? ALL have 100 accuracy.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Is this true? At least among the most commonly used attacks, I tend to see special attacks having equal or higher base power than physical ones. The elemental Fangs and Punches for example are all 65 and 75 respectively, meanwhile Thunderbolt, Flamethrower, and Ice Beam are all 90.

Well, Physical Attacks also have things like Close Combat, High Jump Kick, Flare Blitz, Earthquake, Stone Edge, and Outrage. All of these are both very common attacks and don't have as debilitating drawbacks as Special counterparts of similar power do.

 

[swiftgallade46]

Yeah, it might seem like it at first glance, especially with moves such as Fire Blast and Hydro Pump, that are both 110 base power each, and other Special moves are also powerful as well. But most of them lack accuracy. The ones that I meantioned, that are the two special moves most used in the competitive scene, only have 85 and 80 accuracy each. Powerful, yet not truly reliable.

But Physical?
-102 bp Return
-120 bp Outrage, Double-Edge, Wood Hammer, Close Combat, Brave Bird and Flare Blitz (Volt Tacke too, even tho nobody runs physical Pikachu/Raichu)
-100 bp Earthquake
- 85 bp Fishious Rend that becomes 170 bp since nobody runs Dracovish without CS (without even counting STAB and Strong Jaw bonuses)
- 110 bp Acrobatics, etc.

Yes, some of them do have their drawbacks, such as confusion, recoil, lowered stats, and all, but they are super strong and put a dent onto any team. And guess what? ALL have 100 accuracy.

Well, Physical Attacks also have things like Close Combat, High Jump Kick, Flare Blitz, Earthquake, Stone Edge, and Outrage. All of these are both very common attacks and don't have as debilitating drawbacks as Special counterparts of similar power do.

Right, but the claim was regarding BP; not accuracy or drawbacks. For nearly all of those moves there are more or at least equally powerful special attacks such as Boomburst for Normal, Draco Meteor for Dragon, Overheat for Fire, Hurricane for Flying, Solar Beam for Grass, and then the aforementioned Hydro Pump or even Water Spout for water. Fighting, Ground, and Rock hardly have much special representation but they do also have Focus Blast and Meteor Beam (even though I know that HJK is 130).

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Right, but the claim was regarding BP; not accuracy or drawbacks. For nearly all of those moves there are more or at least equally powerful special attacks such as Boomburst for Normal, Draco Meteor for Dragon, Overheat for Fire, Hurricane for Flying, Solar Beam for Grass, and then the aforementioned Hydro Pump or even Water Spout for water. Fighting, Ground, and Rock hardly have much special representation but they do also have Focus Blast and Meteor Beam (even though I know that HJK is 130).

Yes, but notice how nearly every one of those examples you mentioned has either a significant drawback or lower power than its Physical counterpart:
-Overheat's Special Attack reduction is generally much more detrimental than Flare Blitz's recoil since the latter is much more spammable and can reliably defeat more things until the user is KO'd by recoil. By contrast, Overheat can only be used at full power a maximum of two times per battle, upon which it steadily gets much weaker and in turn forcies the user to switch more frequently, and given the abundance of entry hazards and the fact that nearly every user of this move will obviously be a weak-to-floating-pebbles Fire-type, that's not a very favorable position to be in.
-Draco Meteor is in a similar position as Overheat (not to mention that it was reduced in power come Gen 6 and beyond), though perhaps not quite as debilitating on account of Dragon being less defensively vulnerable than Fire.
-Hydro Pump (Along with Fire Blast, Thunder, and Blizzard) was reduced in power from 120 to 110 and has somewhat shaky accuracy and low PP.
-Hurricane is only accurate under the Rain
-Water Spout can only be used at full power if the user is at full health, which isn't easy to maintain and practically forces you to run Choice Scarf, making you predictable
-Solar Beam is only effective under the sun, as otherwise it requires a charge turn, and it gets weaker if used under other weathers
-Focus Blast is known as Focus Miss for a reason (and also had its power lowered from 120 to 110 like the fire/electric/ice trio mentioned above)
-Meteor Beam is only effective if you run Power Herb, which again makes you predictable
-Boomburst is the only one I'll give you, since it's a powerful move whose highly situational drawbacks are much more negligible than Double-Edge's recoil.

By contrast, none of the Physical moves' downside are as debilitating: most things that run Flare Blitz and/or Close Combat are already pretty defensively frail, so the recoil and drops in Defense and Special Defense are hardly a drawback in exchange for such power, since chances are the user wouldn't survive many or any hits anyway. Same goes for High Jump Kick. Meanwhile, Stone Edge is actually 10% more accurate than Focus Blast despite technically being something of a physical Rock-type counterpart to it, which results in it being more reliable.

 

[swiftgallade46]

Spoiler

Yes, but notice how nearly every one of those examples you mentioned has either a significant drawback or lower power than its Physical counterpart:
-Overheat's Special Attack reduction is generally much more detrimental than Flare Blitz's recoil since the latter is much more spammable and can reliably defeat more things until the user is KO'd by recoil. By contrast, Overheat can only be used at full power a maximum of two times per battle, upon which it steadily gets much weaker and in turn forcies the user to switch more frequently, and given the abundance of entry hazards and the fact that nearly every user of this move will obviously be a weak-to-floating-pebbles Fire-type, that's not a very favorable position to be in.
-Draco Meteor is in a similar position as Overheat (not to mention that it was reduced in power come Gen 6 and beyond), though perhaps not quite as debilitating on account of Dragon being less defensively vulnerable than Fire.
-Hydro Pump (Along with Fire Blast, Thunder, and Blizzard) was reduced in power from 120 to 110 and has somewhat shaky accuracy and low PP.
-Hurricane is only accurate under the Rain
-Water Spout can only be used at full power if the user is at full health, which isn't easy to maintain and practically forces you to run Choice Scarf, making you predictable
-Solar Beam is only effective under the sun, as otherwise it requires a charge turn, and it gets weaker if used under other weathers
-Focus Blast is known as Focus Miss for a reason (and also had its power lowered from 120 to 110 like the fire/electric/ice trio mentioned above)
-Meteor Beam is only effective if you run Power Herb, which again makes you predictable
-Boomburst is the only one I'll give you, since it's a powerful move whose highly situational drawbacks are much more negligible than Double-Edge's recoil.

By contrast, none of the Physical moves' downside are as debilitating: most things that run Flare Blitz and/or Close Combat are already pretty defensively frail, so the recoil and drops in Defense and Special Defense are hardly a drawback in exchange for such power, since chances are the user wouldn't survive many or any hits anyway. Same goes for High Jump Kick. Meanwhile, Stone Edge is actually 10% more accurate than Focus Blast despite technically being something of a physical Rock-type counterpart to it, which results in it being more reliable.

Right, and I totally agree (aside from maybe the fact that I would say several of the physical moves also have comparable drawbacks). But, again, the claim was regarding Base Power alone.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Right, and I totally agree (aside from maybe the fact that I would say several of the physical moves also have comparable drawbacks). But, again, the claim was regarding Base Power alone.

Yes, but the only examples that you used to support your claim that Physical attacks had lower BP than Special ones were the Elemental Fangs and Punches, which while true, doesn't account for a very important factor: the Elemental Fangs/Punches do happen to have more powerful alternatives: Fire Fang/Punch has flare Blitz, Ice Fang/Punch has Icicle Crash, and Thunder Fang/Punch has Wild charge. Of those attacks, the only one that's truly disappointing is Wild Charge, and that's mostly because its power is too low to justify the recoil drawback (and even then, it's the exact same as Thunderbolt). The others are far more reliable. the Special variants on the other hand, while it's true that their power is more consistent, their stronger alternatives have worse drawbacks than the alternatives for the Physical counterparts do in that they have lower PP or shaky accuracy (unless under specific circumstances), meaning that in practice, Special Attackers are often doing less damage in a battle than Physical Attackers are, simply because their more reliable attacks aren't as strong while Physical Attackers have no such disadvantages. That's what I meant when I said that Special Attacks generally had lower power.

 

[swiftgallade46]

Yes, but the only examples that you used to support your claim that Physical attacks had lower BP than Special ones were the Elemental Fangs and Punches, which while true, doesn't account for a very important factor: the Elemental Fangs/Punches do happen to have more powerful alternatives: Fire Fang/Punch has flare Blitz, Ice Fang/Punch has Icicle Crash, and Thunder Fang/Punch has Wild charge. Of those attacks, the only one that's truly disappointing is Wild Charge, and that's mostly because its power is too low to justify the recoil drawback (and even then, it's the exact same as Thunderbolt). The others are far more reliable. the Special variants on the other hand, while it's true that their power is more consistent, their stronger alternatives have worse drawbacks than the alternatives for the Physical counterparts do in that they have lower PP or shaky accuracy (unless under specific circumstances), meaning that in practice, Special Attackers are often doing less damage in a battle than Physical Attackers are, simply because their more reliable attacks aren't as strong while Physical Attackers have no such disadvantages. That's what I meant when I said that Special Attacks generally had lower power.

Well, if you’re looking at drawbacks then the examples I gave initially are fairly optimal, no? They’re all 100% accurate, have good BP, most of them have added effects, their distribution is even, and none have drawbacks. And they’re all higher than the physical moves. Looking at higher tier attacks, the drawbacks are indeed overall worse for special moves, but the BP is still comparable or better.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Well, if you’re looking at drawbacks then the examples I gave initially are fairly optimal, no? They’re all 100% accurate, have good BP, most of them have added effects, their distribution is even, and none have drawbacks. And they’re all higher than the physical moves. Looking at higher tier attacks, the drawbacks are indeed overall worse for special moves, but the BP is still comparable or better.

Yes, but again, the Physical Attackers can afford to run their higher powered options much better than the Special Attackers do, meaning that in practice the former are the ones dealing more damage in a fight.

 

[swiftgallade46]

Yes, but again, the Physical Attackers can afford to run their higher powered options much better than the Special Attackers do, meaning that in practice the former are the ones dealing more damage in a fight.

That’s fair. If you’re looking at both drawbacks and BP I agree with you. Looking at just one or the other, though, I still see Special Moves coming out on top.