Moves & abilities that need buffing/nerfing

[Zeb]

Self-destruct and Explosion should be changed to be like Giga Impact and Hyper Beam imo. Same base power and effect, but one is physical and the other should be special. Both being physical feels a bit of a waste.

 

[UB-01 Kenobi]

But when you choose to teach it to your Pokemon you are aware of these negative qualities it has and you choose to use that move knowing that if it misses you will lose half your health. So when you're battling and in a position needing to use it you do so knowing its side effects and if you don't like being in that position where those side effects aren't ideal then you go back to the earlier part and put a different move on your Pokemon to start with. It's the players decisions before going into battle to use the move, you can't then complain that the outcome of the move is not what you wanted and it missed costing you the game, because you knew that was a possibility when letting your Pokemon learn the move. The same could happen with missing a Fire Blast and then something hits you in return and KOs you.

And RNG is a pointless thing to base an argument around in Pokemon really. The entire battle system uses it and you're essentially wanting the removal and change of everything involved with that if you want no RNG. Moves have different accuracy factors, crits being possible at any time, damage ranges/rolls instead of set damage, getting paralyzed turn after turn or sleeping too long and not waking, random freezes and whatever else. If you don't like RNG then Pokemon is pretty much the wrong game to be playing imo.

I still maitain the move is fine as it is (Jump Kick can have some recoil removed though, I would agree to that) and there's already Close Combat and Superpower as high-powered Fighting moves which have less of drawback if High Jump Kick doesn't take your choosing.

This mindset - the "if you didn't want to miss you should have used Flamethrower" mindset - is a really common misconception that does not really reflect reality very well. Are there "safer" moves out there - Low Kick vs HJK, Flamethrower vs Fire Blast, etc? Yes. Do these moves accomplish the same things as their higher risk higher reward counterparts? Not in the slightest. The thing is, any Pokemon that uses Fire Blast over Flamethrower is using it because it has to, not because it wants to. Just because a Pokemon can learn Flamethrower does not mean that it can use Flamethrower, because Fire Blast kills certain things that Flamethrower simply does not. In a battle, it is always better to have a 85% chance of winning (by using FB) than a 100% chance of losing (by using Flamethrower). HJK takes that dynamic even further to the extreme. In some scenarios, you need to hit, say, one out of two Fire Blasts because one will kill the opponent whereas the opponent needs to hit you twice before you die. If that was a HJK user instead of a FB user, then you need to hit - period. Not one out of two, because if you miss you either die (if your HP is below 50%, which is hardly unlikely in down-to-the-wire situations due to Stealth Rock, Spikes, Fake Out, poison, burn, Life Orb, etc accumulating over the course of the match) or are put into a situation where it is extremely likely that you will die due to how significant 50% of your HP is. The fact that you can consistently outplay your opponent for an entire match, then miss a HJK and just flat-out lose is extremely frustrating, but it WILL happen because like MachDragonX mentioned, both OU HJK users (Lop and Medicham) use it out of necessity. Their other moves just flat out are not viable. Drain Punch Medicham is a joke, low kick lop is a joke, etc. Low Kick is only a good move in Ubers where weights are consistently high - in OU, low kick is not a consistent primary STAB and should be used as coverage to target specific Pokemon (like greninja going for tran and ttar back when it was OU).

Of course there are some pokemon that have the luxury of being able to use safe moves - Volcanion, for instance, runs Flamethrower over FB because FB does not give it any notable KOs, making Flamethrower better due to the high accuracy. This is part of what makes them good - consistency

 

[Mijzelffan]

This mindset - the "if you didn't want to miss you should have used Flamethrower" mindset - is a really common misconception that does not really reflect reality very well. Are there "safer" moves out there - Low Kick vs HJK, Flamethrower vs Fire Blast, etc? Yes. Do these moves accomplish the same things as their higher risk higher reward counterparts? Not in the slightest. The thing is, any Pokemon that uses Fire Blast over Flamethrower is using it because it has to, not because it wants to. Just because a Pokemon can learn Flamethrower does not mean that it can use Flamethrower, because Fire Blast kills certain things that Flamethrower simply does not. In a battle, it is always better to have a 85% chance of winning (by using FB) than a 100% chance of losing (by using Flamethrower). HJK takes that dynamic even further to the extreme. In some scenarios, you need to hit, say, one out of two Fire Blasts because one will kill the opponent whereas the opponent needs to hit you twice before you die. If that was a HJK user instead of a FB user, then you need to hit - period. Not one out of two, because if you miss you either die (if your HP is below 50%, which is hardly unlikely in down-to-the-wire situations due to Stealth Rock, Spikes, Fake Out, poison, burn, Life Orb, etc accumulating over the course of the match) or are put into a situation where it is extremely likely that you will die due to how significant 50% of your HP is. The fact that you can consistently outplay your opponent for an entire match, then miss a HJK and just flat-out lose is extremely frustrating, but it WILL happen because like MachDragonX mentioned, both OU HJK users (Lop and Medicham) use it out of necessity. Their other moves just flat out are not viable. Drain Punch Medicham is a joke, low kick lop is a joke, etc. Low Kick is only a good move in Ubers where weights are consistently high - in OU, low kick is not a consistent primary STAB and should be used as coverage to target specific Pokemon (like greninja going for tran and ttar back when it was OU).

Of course there are some pokemon that have the luxury of being able to use safe moves - Volcanion, for instance, runs Flamethrower over FB because FB does not give it any notable KOs, making Flamethrower better due to the high accuracy. This is part of what makes them good - consistency

And even if you hit your high jump kick you might get a low roll and lose the game anyway, that's pokemon. Don't play the game in such a way you get into a position where a 85% accurate fire blast decides whether you win or lose the game if you want to consistently win. Rather than arguing the game should change you could also start playing safer. Maybe switch to a pokemon that doesn't rely on an inaccurate high jump kick to deal damage if it bothers you so much; build a team around mega gardevoir instead. Sometimes haxy situations are unavoidable but if pokemon is as luck based as you say the same clique of people wouldn't get into VGC worlds every single year. They consistently get such good results because they don't play unnecesarily risky: this year for instance that means running scald on kyogre instead of origin pulse even if it misses out on some ko's. And in singles there's even more chip damage than in doubles, meaning pokemon often won't be at the 100% of hp you're running calcs for anyway.

As the old saying goes in the competitive pokemon community, it's the bad players that complain the most about hax.

 

[Alola]

Don't know if this counts, but it would be nice if they made tutor moves available much earlier than post game. I would like my Pikachu to be able slam Gym Leader pokes with Iron Tail, please.

 

[UB-01 Kenobi]

And even if you hit your high jump kick you might get a low roll and lose the game anyway, that's pokemon. Don't play the game in such a way you get into a position where a 85% accurate fire blast decides whether you win or lose the game if you want to consistently win. Rather than arguing the game should change you could also start playing safer. Maybe switch to a pokemon that doesn't rely on an inaccurate high jump kick to deal damage if it bothers you so much; build a team around mega gardevoir instead. Sometimes haxy situations are unavoidable but if pokemon is as luck based as you say the same clique of people wouldn't get into VGC worlds every single year. They consistently get such good results because they don't play unnecesarily risky: this year for instance that means running scald on kyogre instead of origin pulse even if it misses out on some ko's. And in singles there's even more chip damage than in doubles, meaning pokemon often won't be at the 100% of hp you're running calcs for anyway.

As the old saying goes in the competitive pokemon community, it's the bad players that complain the most about hax.

Lol. I use mega manectric + volcanion + kyuremb as of right now, all of which use 100% accurate moves (and steam eruption, but flamethrower is 100%). Please don't assume that it's a personal thing - i'm making a generalization. If a pokemon is running Focus Blast, or Stone Edge, or HJK, it is because they have to run that move, is my point. I wanted to address the very common criticism of those moves - the "you should have used flamethrower" - criticism. It's a moot point because flamethrower does not get the same OHKOs and 2HKOs that Fire Blast does on every pokemon who uses it. A Pokemon like Lopunny can either a) run HJK or b) not run viable Fighting STAB. If Lopunny lacks HJK, it can't 2hko a healthy Rotom-W on the switch, for instance. That means it's a necessary part of Lopunny's set, and thus a necessary downside of using Lopunny. That's why I stopped using the team I got to 1800 with most recently (a lop+raikou deal) because I tilted hard on the ladder after an unlucky turn of events where i predicted a Msable and missed HJK on the switch - i lost that game and got tilted and decided to shake things up.

Clicking HJK =/= playing "unnecessarily risky" - it's playing "necessarily risky". Like I said, if you don't click HJK, you don't beat a multitude of opposing pokemon - Rotom, Heatran, TTar, MSableye, etc. Your claim is that "using Lopunny at all" = "unnecessarily risky", which is patently false. Lopunny is extremely good in this meta (although it may be falling out of favor soon as things like MLatias get more popular to handle volcanion).

I never said that pokemon was luck based. I especially never implied that luck eclipsed skill. Please tell me where I said that. I said that running inaccurate moves is a necessary evil. I said that HJK adds insult to injury when you miss. I said that it is frustrating if you lose a game that you would have won if you didn't miss. I never said that luck plays a dominant role in determining the outcome of the game.

That's more going towards PKyogre being broken and Scald being silly than anything. Like I specifically said, there are some pokemon who have the luxury of running accurate moves because they don't need the extra power coming from the inaccurate ones - my example was Volcanion being able to run Flamethrower over Fire Blast. PKyogre can afford to run Scald because a) Pokemon is terrible at balancing its own game and it let PKyogre into a meta where most other things have much lower stats than it and b) Scald is unarguably a top 3 move in Pokemon, period, because of the 30% burn chance so everything that can get it uses it regardless of what other options it has.

That's why the calc has an "after Rocks" button ;]

But seriously, if a pokemon like a Mega Gyarados comes in on Rocks once (so it's at 75 because it used to be Flying) and sets up a Dragon Dance on your switch, sometimes you have to go into your MegaZam and click Focus Blast. It can always be argued that you could have avoided that situation - made a better double earlier so the Gyara couldn't set up - but no one game of pokemon is completely one sided. You will outplay the opponent at times, the opponent will outplay you at times. And if your only available counterplay comes with a 70% accuracy, well, it's better than 0. That's what my point was: My point is that it is better to have Focus Blast on your Zam and win 70% of the time than have HP Fighting and win 0% of the time. I'm not sure entirely where you got "this guy is whining about hax", but that was far from the point. The point was "if you didn't want to miss, you should have used flamethrower" is a misrepresentation of reality and is not a proper criticism of the usage of moves like Fire Blast.

I'm going to ignore the last bit because a) as I just said, I wasn't complaining about hax and b) I'm not entirely sure how to respond because I'm not sure if you're trying to implicate that I'm bad. If you want to battle sometime to judge for yourself, feel free to PM me, but I don't want to beef you if beef wasn't the intention

 

[Matleo]

a Pikachu with a new fairy or dragon type move would be cool.

 

[Mijzelffan]

Lol. I use mega manectric + volcanion + kyuremb as of right now, all of which use 100% accurate moves (and steam eruption, but flamethrower is 100%). Please don't assume that it's a personal thing - i'm making a generalization. If a pokemon is running Focus Blast, or Stone Edge, or HJK, it is because they have to run that move, is my point. I wanted to address the very common criticism of those moves - the "you should have used flamethrower" - criticism. It's a moot point because flamethrower does not get the same OHKOs and 2HKOs that Fire Blast does on every pokemon who uses it. A Pokemon like Lopunny can either a) run HJK or b) not run viable Fighting STAB. If Lopunny lacks HJK, it can't 2hko a healthy Rotom-W on the switch, for instance. That means it's a necessary part of Lopunny's set, and thus a necessary downside of using Lopunny. That's why I stopped using the team I got to 1800 with most recently (a lop+raikou deal) because I tilted hard on the ladder after an unlucky turn of events where i predicted a Msable and missed HJK on the switch - i lost that game and got tilted and decided to shake things up.

Clicking HJK =/= playing "unnecessarily risky" - it's playing "necessarily risky". Like I said, if you don't click HJK, you don't beat a multitude of opposing pokemon - Rotom, Heatran, TTar, MSableye, etc. Your claim is that "using Lopunny at all" = "unnecessarily risky", which is patently false. Lopunny is extremely good in this meta (although it may be falling out of favor soon as things like MLatias get more popular to handle volcanion).

I never said that pokemon was luck based. I especially never implied that luck eclipsed skill. Please tell me where I said that. I said that running inaccurate moves is a necessary evil. I said that HJK adds insult to injury when you miss. I said that it is frustrating if you lose a game that you would have won if you didn't miss. I never said that luck plays a dominant role in determining the outcome of the game.

That's more going towards PKyogre being broken and Scald being silly than anything. Like I specifically said, there are some pokemon who have the luxury of running accurate moves because they don't need the extra power coming from the inaccurate ones - my example was Volcanion being able to run Flamethrower over Fire Blast. PKyogre can afford to run Scald because a) Pokemon is terrible at balancing its own game and it let PKyogre into a meta where most other things have much lower stats than it and b) Scald is unarguably a top 3 move in Pokemon, period, because of the 30% burn chance so everything that can get it uses it regardless of what other options it has.

That's why the calc has an "after Rocks" button ;]

But seriously, if a pokemon like a Mega Gyarados comes in on Rocks once (so it's at 75 because it used to be Flying) and sets up a Dragon Dance on your switch, sometimes you have to go into your MegaZam and click Focus Blast. It can always be argued that you could have avoided that situation - made a better double earlier so the Gyara couldn't set up - but no one game of pokemon is completely one sided. You will outplay the opponent at times, the opponent will outplay you at times. And if your only available counterplay comes with a 70% accuracy, well, it's better than 0. That's what my point was: My point is that it is better to have Focus Blast on your Zam and win 70% of the time than have HP Fighting and win 0% of the time. I'm not sure entirely where you got "this guy is whining about hax", but that was far from the point. The point was "if you didn't want to miss, you should have used flamethrower" is a misrepresentation of reality and is not a proper criticism of the usage of moves like Fire Blast.

I'm going to ignore the last bit because a) as I just said, I wasn't complaining about hax and b) I'm not entirely sure how to respond because I'm not sure if you're trying to implicate that I'm bad. If you want to battle sometime to judge for yourself, feel free to PM me, but I don't want to beef you if beef wasn't the intention

Don't use lopunny then, use mega kangaskhan or mega salamence and their 100% accurate double edges or mega gardevoir's hyper voices, all of which wallbreak just as well as the high jump kickers. You can even use mega gallade's close combat if you must have a fighting type. Like when you start building around lopunny or medicham you know there's an inherent risk you're taking and should plan around it. If there's any hax in pokemon that's problematic it's the hax you can't control: getting fully paralyzed or moody boosts working against your favour are big ones. But using inaccurate moves is all on you. It sucks for a specific pokemon if it has to rely on inaccurate moves but at least they don't have base stat totals of only 300.

Also kyogre isn't running scald because of the burn chance or because "it's good enough no matter what you run" it's literally only running it because it's more accurate than origin pulse. An origin pulse miss can lose you the game, scald barely missing out on a ko means at least a pokemon you have in the back can often deal a weak hit and win you the game. That's what chip damage is, which is not just stealth rock. Unless you're facing a heavy stall team eventually pokemon will be at varying degrees of damage % due to switching into resisted hits meaning that moves that would normally not be able to ohko now can. Similarly for primal groudon, who doesn't have a viable alternative for precipice blades, people have started using it on gravity teams instead to always hit precipice blades.

In your scenario you can definitely argue that you should've played it better, because if ou rely on a focus blast you have a 30% of throwing the game away. Trying to isolate the matchup from the rest of the game is wrong, if you somehow managed into a situation were focus blast hitting is your only way to win you should see it as a 70% chance to save the game you could've played better. If you're not ok with a focus blast miss costing you the game at some point (and with focus blast it'll be a lot of games) you should probably go back to the teambuilder and replace alakazam with something that doesn't rely on 70% accuracy moves. That's what the best pokemon players in the world do in order to be the best, the scald kyogre example for instance. I'm definitely not saying you're a bad player but by taking on a mindset that you're forced to run low accuracy moves in order to win then you're gonna end up losing some games to those moves missing, that's just how it is.

 

[UB-01 Kenobi]

Don't use lopunny then, use mega kangaskhan or mega salamence and their 100% accurate double edges or mega gardevoir's hyper voices, all of which wallbreak just as well as the high jump kickers. You can even use mega gallade's close combat if you must have a fighting type. Like when you start building around lopunny or medicham you know there's an inherent risk you're taking and should plan around it. If there's any hax in pokemon that's problematic it's the hax you can't control: getting fully paralyzed or moody boosts working against your favour are big ones. But using inaccurate moves is all on you. It sucks for a specific pokemon if it has to rely on inaccurate moves but at least they don't have base stat totals of only 300.

Also kyogre isn't running scald because of the burn chance or because "it's good enough no matter what you run" it's literally only running it because it's more accurate than origin pulse. An origin pulse miss can lose you the game, scald barely missing out on a ko means at least a pokemon you have in the back can often deal a weak hit and win you the game. That's what chip damage is, which is not just stealth rock. Unless you're facing a heavy stall team eventually pokemon will be at varying degrees of damage % due to switching into resisted hits meaning that moves that would normally not be able to ohko now can. Similarly for primal groudon, who doesn't have a viable alternative for precipice blades, people have started using it on gravity teams instead to always hit precipice blades.

In your scenario you can definitely argue that you should've played it better, because if ou rely on a focus blast you have a 30% of throwing the game away. Trying to isolate the matchup from the rest of the game is wrong, if you somehow managed into a situation were focus blast hitting is your only way to win you should see it as a 70% chance to save the game you could've played better. If you're not ok with a focus blast miss costing you the game at some point (and with focus blast it'll be a lot of games) you should probably go back to the teambuilder and replace alakazam with something that doesn't rely on 70% accuracy moves. That's what the best pokemon players in the world do in order to be the best, the scald kyogre example for instance. I'm definitely not saying you're a bad player but by taking on a mindset that you're forced to run low accuracy moves in order to win then you're gonna end up losing some games to those moves missing, that's just how it is.

Listen bro I can tell that we're not going to agree here. First off, Kangaskhan and Salamence are both banned, and so is Moody. And Gardevoir is good, yes, but lacks speed and is not quite as good as Lopunny. On top of that, it fits onto a different team archetype - Lopunny checks offense with its blazing speed and access to Fake Out while Garde eats stall with Hyper Voice, Taunt, Psyshock, etc. They're not interchangeable

I will fully admit to not following VGC, so maybe that's true. But I can say with 100% confidence that in OU singles, if something "switches into a resisted hit", there's a good chance that a) your current pokemon doesn't have the proper coverage to beat it and b) if you switch, it WILL set up a SD or DD or QD or whatever and sweep your team. So by your own definition, allowing that Pokemon to switch in and take that chip damage was irresponsible of you because you should have played better and double switched into a check or a counter to prevent that pokemon from setting up.

Again, this is the point where you don't seem to understand what I'm trying to say - I'm not saying that "I'm not OK with a focus blast miss costing me the game", and "the best pokemon players in the world" DO use Focus Blast.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3WQfYim7Iw


This is a good example of an extremely high level game that comes down to a Focus Blast as wel as the correct attitude to have when something like that happens.

 

[Mijzelffan]

Listen bro I can tell that we're not going to agree here. First off, Kangaskhan and Salamence are both banned, and so is Moody. And Gardevoir is good, yes, but lacks speed and is not quite as good as Lopunny. On top of that, it fits onto a different team archetype - Lopunny checks offense with its blazing speed and access to Fake Out while Garde eats stall with Hyper Voice, Taunt, Psyshock, etc. They're not interchangeable

I will fully admit to not following VGC, so maybe that's true. But I can say with 100% confidence that in OU singles, if something "switches into a resisted hit", there's a good chance that a) your current pokemon doesn't have the proper coverage to beat it and b) if you switch, it WILL set up a SD or DD or QD or whatever and sweep your team. So by your own definition, allowing that Pokemon to switch in and take that chip damage was irresponsible of you because you should have played better and double switched into a check or a counter to prevent that pokemon from setting up.

Again, this is the point where you don't seem to understand what I'm trying to say - I'm not saying that "I'm not OK with a focus blast miss costing me the game", and "the best pokemon players in the world" DO use Focus Blast.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3WQfYim7Iw


This is a good example of an extremely high level game that comes down to a Focus Blast as wel as the correct attitude to have when something like that happens.

okay but why should game freak care about a completely arbitrary metagame like smogon ou? Like if you keep altering a metagame in such a way that eventually you're forced to run stuff with inaccurate moves then that's not really game freak's fault. I watch spl matches when they happen and during them I almost never see anyone go for set-up moves mid-match with the intention to sweep, so there's definitely a lot of chip damage. If you go to 5:00 you can hear Joey explain that the scizor might run knock off to weaken all the pokemon for a kyurem-b sweep: that's what chip damage is. I agree he has the correct attitude about missing that focus blast, I thought you were the one who disagreed with that lmao.

Also a nitpick but I wouldn't go and call smogon OU players the best in the world because it's mostly american people (which isn't the world) and smogon OU is for all intends and purposes an unofficial metagame. I know some high-ranking smogon members are good at vgc or battle spot singles but most don't have any real records to their name.

 

[Veteran Trainer Eric]

I have wanted Teleport to have its PP lowered to 10 and be given the same effect as Protect since G&S. Keep its out of battle effect, but make it useful in battle. The current in battle effect is dumb and only effects capturing Abra, an outdated gimmick.

 

[UB-01 Kenobi]

okay but why should game freak care about a completely arbitrary metagame like smogon ou? Like if you keep altering a metagame in such a way that eventually you're forced to run stuff with inaccurate moves then that's not really game freak's fault. I watch spl matches when they happen and during them I almost never see anyone go for set-up moves mid-match with the intention to sweep, so there's definitely a lot of chip damage. If you go to 5:00 you can hear Joey explain that the scizor might run knock off to weaken all the pokemon for a kyurem-b sweep: that's what chip damage is. I agree he has the correct attitude about missing that focus blast, I thought you were the one who disagreed with that lmao.

Also a nitpick but I wouldn't go and call smogon OU players the best in the world because it's mostly american people (which isn't the world) and smogon OU is for all intends and purposes an unofficial metagame. I know some high-ranking smogon members are good at vgc or battle spot singles but most don't have any real records to their name.

I agree that GF doesn't necessarily have to care, I was offering my opinion on MachDragonX's post (which was about Smogon OU). Mach wanted HJK to be buffed because for some Fighting types, it is the only option they have for primary STAB. I agree that it is annoyingly inconsistent as a primary STAB, although that just means that Lop and Medi oughta get Close Combat IMO, not that HJK needs a buff (although CC MMedi would be terrifying so idk maybe HJK is good enough for it lmao)

The reaosn you don't often see clean sweeps during spl matches is because the players are at such a high level that they don't generally allow that to happen - but the point is, in singles, an offensive Pokemon generally will not switch unless you make it switch by bringing in a check or counter (or if the opponent predicts you bring in a check or counter). So sweepers are typically less susceptible to chip damage than bulkier pivots, wallbreakers, walls, etc, as they typically only need to come in once or twice during a game if they're being played right - and those are the situations where it can come down to a Focus Blast

My entire point since the beginning is that misses are a part of gameplay and that everybody needs to accept that instead of seeking consistency in things like flamethrower because those moves simply don't accomplish the target goal. Fire Blast Garchomp can beat skarm and ferro. Flamethrower garchomp cannot. Simple.

There are large brazilian, mexican, italian, etc populations in smogon tournaments, so i wouldn't necessarily agree - "Brazilian Offense" was a common term for HO teams built around Twave Tyranitar, for instance. For instance, while USA was represented in WCOP X finals, they were up against Spain, not another US region: World Cup of Pokemon X - Finals [Won by Team USA East] | Smogon Forums

In fact, France was seeded first at that tournament, followed by Spain, then Germany, then Oceania, and only then US West, followed by Asia, then US Central with US East being last seed at 8th (they won, funnily enough).

While it's true that Smogon is not sponsored by Nintendo in anyway, I strongly disagree that that should be a point against Smogon players being the best because, in my opinion the VGC metagame is a poorly balanced mess, and I believe that winning a Smogon tournament means you are a better player than winning a VGC tournament of comparable size does. After all, we say that the best Smash player in the world is Armada (for Melee) or ZeRo (for Smash 4), but these players use a fan created ruleset - 1v1, no items, a certain stock count, an extremely limited stage list - that was not sponsored or approved of by Nintendo until VERY recently. This is an ideological conflict that is definitely super off topic so I won't go too deep into it, but feel free to post in the Battle Center or even PM me because I think the discussion has its merits.

 

[MachDragonX]

I agree that GF doesn't necessarily have to care, I was offering my opinion on MachDragonX's post (which was about Smogon OU). Mach wanted HJK to be buffed because for some Fighting types, it is the only option they have for primary STAB.

Not "buffed," just balanced in a different way. I agree with Zeb and pretty much everyone else that HJK is balanced as it currently is, I just don't agree that taking 50% of your Pokemon's health when the move misses is necessarily the best way to balance it, especially considering that other moves with identical Base Power and Accuracy don't have to resort to doing that.

There's more than one way to balance a move.

 

[Matleo]

Pursuit- If the target Pokémon is switched out "or uses a Stats move"(if something uses defense boosting move, that means it hides and "avoids" battle) on the turn Pursuit is used, Pursuit's power becomes 80 and will deal damage before the Pokémon is switched out or uses the Stats boosting move. Theoretically even if a new pokemon enters battle the move also could have double power.
Theoretically this move and Feint could double power and break both through "Protect based moves" when they are used.

 

[Blue_Cheshire]

I would love it if all the elemental fangs were boosted to at least the power of the punches. 65 BP is just not very good and even the 75 that the punches have is still way worse than the special counterparts like flamethrower and nice meme.

An ability I'd love to see buffed a bit is mega launcher. There are only 6 moves boosted by this ability including one that heals the hit pokemon, one that is restricted to a legendary that doesn't even have this ability and one that still gets outclassed due to its low BP.

There are a lot of moves I could see being added to mega launcher: hydro pump, heat wave, vacuum wave etc.

When the ability first came out I even read a lot of speculation that heat wave would get boostet due to the german names of water pulse and heatwave being "aquawelle" and "hitzewelle".

If you buffed this ability you could then give it to new pokemon with types other than water and maybe even some megas. I could really see a mega magmortar with the new mega launcher for example.

 

[Falconwing]

I think the fangs are 65 bp because they have two secondary effects that may occur.

 

[firepanda]

Some of the pathetic abilities could do with a buff. I'm talking stuff like Honey Gather with almost no in-battle effect. A few random ideas:

Run Away could grant immunity to Pursuit.
Anticipation should reveal all super-effective moves of the opponent.
Forewarn could reveal the opponent's item.
Illuminate could decrease opponent's accuracy by one upon switching in (cross between flash and intimidate)
If the Pokemon has no item and an item has been knocked off/flung, Pick Up has a 50% chance of gaining the item each term (Harvest for Fling/Knock off).
Steadfast can activate even if the opponent moves second. So correctly anticipating a Fake Out would grant a boost in speed.

 

[The Outrage]

Give Iron Fist a x1.5 boost rather than x1.2. Tough Claws basically encompasses Iron Fist, but with more power so I think it should be equivalent to Strong Jaw in power at least.

 

[Yamitora1]

Illuminate: Gives resistance to Dark and Ghost attacks (like Thick Fat does with Fire and Ice).

Spoiler

Illuminate is the same as Honey Gather in that it has no in-battle effect. I think this would be an interesting change (that also makes sense) given how Ghost resists are few and Knock Off is so popular.

That would be awesome, but Dark-types are weak against Bug-types as it is, so that would make bugs a little OP

Speaking of OP, I think Dark Void needs to be seriously nerfed. The accuracy needs to be lowered or something.

 

[Matleo]

Anticipation should reveal all super-effective moves of the opponent.
Forewarn could reveal the opponent's item.

Or allow you to avoid them when their the first time used against you?

 

[Gengarzilla]

Illuminate: Gives resistance to Dark and Ghost attacks (like Thick Fat does with Fire and Ice).

Spoiler

Illuminate is the same as Honey Gather in that it has no in-battle effect. I think this would be an interesting change (that also makes sense) given how Ghost resists are few and Knock Off is so popular.

Give this buffed Illuminate to a good Dark/Fairy type and I will use it alongside my usual Gengar without question. Double Ghost resist and triple Dark resist alongside that Psychic immunity, Gengar's Poison typing, and double Poison resistance would seriously make my day!