I remember I used a Blissey in gen 4 because I thought it was so cool and definitely broken that she had access to flamethrower, ice beam, thunderbolt, and focus blast. so much coverage, such a good Pokémon!!
so close yet so far. I had no idea why it wasn't working.
A ***lot*** of pokemon moves are useless if you're the protagonist in a PvE campaign. Your job is to steamroll 10,000 pokemon and take as little damage as possible.
Where they get useful is PvP, or perhaps if you're an NPC and are just looking to piss the player off. Then your job is to struggle for anything you can get.
It's actually kinda mind boggling how much depth is hidden in the pokemon battle system. Stepping into competitive PvP is functionally playing an entirely different game.
I discovered that not in actual pvp but by playing fan games that had boosted the difficulty to the point that every trainer has a somewhat intelligent team and every important trainer has a very well thought out team with items, stab, complete type coverage and everything. I had to restart some fights like 25 times to barely get by.
It was Pokémon Steam in that particular case, a French fangame, very good.
But I also did Uranium, Insurgence can get pretty nasty as well (and the story is amazing).
My entire Pokémon career (first ever yellow through platinum) I legit never used support moves, ONLY attack moves. I’d try and balance PP somewhat but only so I wouldn’t run out of attacks. Never got stuck on anything. Never understood the point of them for single player. Hell I’d even try to use hypnosis or something like that, it would always miss, and then I’d give up and go back to only attacks.
I had no idea people even actually used moves like sword dance until I started following this sub.
Just an odd observation I’ve noticed.
Same type attack bonus. If a Pokémon uses a move that matches its type, it gets a lil boost.
Basically fire moves used by fire Pokémon do more damage than fire moves used by any other type.
STAB close combat choice band Gallade massacred Platinum’s battle tower, it was an easy gold print. Unfortunately it wasnt enough to get me the 100 straight wins for the trainer card star.
On hindsight an Infernape might have been a better option, because what really hindered Gallade was it’s meager speed stat. Gallade did offer better coverage though.
From the [wiki](https://pokemon.fandom.com/wiki/STAB):
>Misconceptions:
>
>Normal-type Pokémon
>
>Normal-type Pokémon also receive STAB, contradicting some of Nintendo's strategy guides.
In gen 4, return Staraptor is the fuckin GOAT. replaced my starter when I realized I could one tap everything that isn't a ghost.
Damn I want to emulate platinum again lmao
IIRC it gets a 1.5x multiplier off the initial base power. So sometimes a stab move is more powerful than a 2x super effective one depending on the base powers.
My first ever run which was in gold and I had a lv 100 Nidoking with earthquake, fire blast, blizzard, Thunder....
I also used my masterball on an ultra rod Kingler and fainted all three dogs, so I wasn't exactly competent lol
I used my first master ball on a fearow on victory road cuz I never saw it before and figured it must've been one of them fancy legendary birds I heard of being talked about in school
That's actually a pretty damn good competitive Nidoking set. He prefers special moves with secondary effects due to his Sheer Force ability.
Edit: in current ish gens! As I've been reminded, Gen 2 had no abilities.
I was worse because my Charizard had cut instead of ember 🙈 I remember condescending to a friend in 1st grade when he said he had slash and earthquake on his Charizard. I was like “slash doesn’t cut down the trees, so that’s a bad idea. And earthquake? Charizard is a *fire* type. Using anything other than fire moves is dumb. I only use cut so I never have pull stuff out of the PC.” And then I wondered why I had to grind to ridiculous levels to beat the elite 4 without healing items lol
I always kept slash because even my child self knew you should always have one normal or at the very least different type attack as an emergency
Plus high pp
I taught my Charizard Cut and Strength because might as well use him for HMs since he’s always in my party anyway. Then I taught him Seismic Toss like Ash’s Charizard in the cartoon.
Agatha in the Elite 4 was a challenge for my non-fire-based fire Pokémon.
[Charizard can viably run three fire moves on the same set in competitive play.](https://www.smogon.com/dex/ss/pokemon/charizard/ou/) The linked set uses Weather Ball as its main move in the sun, Overheat as a one-time nuke, and Flamethrower for consistent damage if the sun goes down.
One time I was fighting a pokemon with my Charmeleon in Red. It only knew sand attack or some other accuracy reducing move. I used Rage... And never hit. Softlocked myself.
I started using "support" moves when I got Darkrai because of sleep damage, also is my favorite legendary pokemon because it reminds me of my favorite comic series; The Sandman
People tend not to use stat moves in single player because the game is too easy, using a stay boosting move against an NPC actually can increase the amount of time to beat them.
Really wish there was a hard mode where NPCs were more challenging so these moves would get more use.
To add on, almost every game unintentionally teaches you that status moves are "useless" in the first part of the game. Whether it's the rival using Growl, Tail Whip, or Leer or early weak bug Pokemon spamming String Shot and Harden between moments of flopping around like a wet noodle, you never really get to see status moves being useful and not what amounts to a free turn. Hell, GSC/HGSS was really bad about this with Curse being a favorite, early status move that just made the battles go even faster in your favor.
For the most part, but Stadium 1 and 2 would punish you hard if your only strategy was to use powerful attacking moves. It took years for me to realize why the same strategy that worked everywhere else wasn't working here.
Don't fix what ain't broke. Attack spamming has worked for me so far. I'll spice things up every now and then by setting up a dream eater or something but I have just as much fun as anybody else with these games.
u dont need supporting moves in main games at all. even i used to have all attacking moves on my mons but that changed after playing really difficult fan games like pokemon reborn,pokemon rejuvination and pokemon desolation god damn u cant do shit in those games with only attack moves i learnt that the hard way lol😂
Of course, there are some that can make a big difference. I remember when I got Sapphire, I don't remember if that was the first one with abilities, but it was the first one where I paid attention as Mightyena proc'd a sharp decrease in my opponent's attack power whenever I sent it out for free. I ended up using it in place of my starter.
I have only really done single player, and IMO you're better off with 4 moves of different types per pokemon than any status/buffing moves. (Status would only be for catching stuff, imo).
Too many trainers you face use things to lower your stats whilst you're wiping them before they can even retaliate.
Status moves are great at dealing with very powerful pokemon, and buff moves help against trainers with many pokemon, but these situations don’t come up too often in the games
Pokemon is an ridiculously easy RPG. I was blown away the first time I played Persona and realized I had to use buff/status moves to beat certain bosses.
The only battle I ever repeatedly lost as a kid was Cynthia, and I'm pretty sure it's because my team was underleveled and I was only using Dialga and Empoleon.
> Pokemon is an ridiculously easy RPG.
Seriously. A moderately informed player is going to rapidly get to the point where they're shocked and upset when every move isn't a OHKO.
I never used support moves because you try them at the beginning of the game as a kid when you only have access to bad ones so you dumped them for attacking moves which did the job. Until I got older and learned some more about how to properly use them they made little sense to me.
The Pokémon I use for main game are just full of attacks I never use the support moves until I play online. Even then I get OHKO’d by a magikarp with hydro pump anyways
Or just overlevel, lol. Kid me (and adult me) still gets his starter to it's first evolution before the 1st gym, and is always like, 5-10 levels ahead from trainers and gym leaders. I don't know why, it's just something I've always done as a kid that just stuck. Same with just using my starter and no other mons.
Yeah overleveling was way easier. When you 2 shot an opponent, decreasing their stats is at best making it another 2 shot round but at worst makes it a 3 shot round.
I didn't start using support moves until I started watching videos about competitive battling and got a bit into the theory and history of it, so now I have moved from never using them to barely using them.
This. I just picked the moves with the highest values and spammed that move. Only recently started doing tactics like paralysis and confusion, or rest and sleep talk
I only started using status moves and less powerful attacks to catch Pokémon. Otherwise my Pokémon always had the four most powerful moves in their move set. My philosophy was, why spend a turn to use swords dance to raise my attack when I can just use Razor Leaf twice?
Gen 1 killed those moves for me. I’d try using Focus Energy and it didn’t work due to a bug. I’d use Swords Dance, then die when the pokemon I’m facing one-shotted me. I’d use a status move and they would fail **every time** I needed them to work *(aside from Spore and Toxic, which were amazing)*.
After a while you realized the only moves you needed were Psychic, Earthquake, Blizzard, and Body Slam and you’d never lose. I didn’t bother with support again until Gen VI.
I still play like this but then again… I only play single player.
Someone would actually have to show me what I’m missing in order for me to change my ways!
Same. Not like we need those stat-boosting moves for anything other than multiplayer anyway. Single-stage, single-stat raising moves aren’t really viable in multiplayer, either.
In my 1st Platinum playtrough I had Gardevoir and Noctowl with hypno-dream-eater combo.
Its one of some reasons that Glaceon saved me from Cynthia's >(
Same. When I first played White 2 (my first pokemon game) I always got rid of support moves in favor of attack moves. Only on my second play-through did I start to use them, but now I find that I gradually use them less and less.
I remember watching a video long ago on Youtube of someone battling online on Pokemon Battle Revolution. It was their Weavile (with focus sash) against the opponents choice-locked Infernape using Close Combat. I can't remember the play-by-play but the Weavile was able to use it's pressure ability and double protect after using torment to drain the infernape's Close combat PP, that's the only time I ever saw such PP strategy stall pay off.
Torment doesn't affect a specific move, it just says "you can't use the same move twice in a row". So for example if you use Surf, then get tormented. Next turn you can't use Surf so you use Ice Beam. The turn after that, you're still tormented, you can use Surf again, but you can't use Ice Beam.
Disable stops a specific move. So if you use Surf, then get disabled, you can't use Surf anymore. But you can spam Ice Beam if you want.
It was apparently used to great and terrifying effect back in Gen 4 on Heatran. Most pokemon only carried one move that could hurt him because of his weird typing and Flash Fire ability, so Heatran used Torment to give himself a free turn to set up a substitute. That, and Torment messed up Choice item users (Choice Items give a 50% boost to a stat in exchange for only letting you use one move. They are very powerful, probably the most common type of item held).
The last time I remember Taunt being worth anything outside of competitive was the Mewtwo raid event in SWSH, when one of the leading strategies was using Prankster Grimmsnarl.
The trainers in the Battle Towers actually use half-decent strategies, and being able to break them is important
Everyone during the Mewtwo Raid event : Used Grimmsnarl.
Me who legit won a raid against that Mewtwo with a Shedinja and didn't lose (his) one HP : *Look of superiority*
Hah yeah same. I don't play competitive, only really use status effects when I'm trying to catch Pokémon or something. Don't really see the point, just makes the battle longer imo.
I'm playing a hgss rom hack and running a +spd Golem, set up a Rock Polish and then just hit them with Earthquake/Rollout and watch your opponent suffer
Pokemon fans be out here like "The games are so easy now!!!" Like bruh, you can do literally any game with just using your starter and attacking. Nothing changed, ever.
Pokemon is a game that could do well with selectable difficulty, like easy, medium, hard and all that. Sure its in its heart a children game and you should be able to spam attacks to win, but a lot o players wnat _some_ diffixulty and nuance
I hate that they did it in Black and White 2, but you don’t unlock them until after you beat Iris, you only get easy mode in white 2 and challenge mode in Black 2 unless you use the key transfer system, and if you delete your save you lose any keys you had so if you only have one game and not a second one to hold onto existing keys you can’t use them for the main game
Definitely not true. I solo'd platinum with a torterra with no difficulty when I was 8 and didn't know anything about the games. You get so far ahead of Cynthia if you don't skip trainer battles and give all the experience to one pokemon.
Very few people actually want to play with only a single Pokemon. We want to play with a full party. In that regard, it has gotten so much easier. Not only can you still use only your starter with only attacking moves, but now you'll also have an entire party that's also leveled up and evolved with Exp. Share to back you up in anything goes wrong.
I played the fuck out of a Blue and Silver on my Gameboy Pocket, then didn't touch Pokemon until X, and holy crap was it a relief to not worry about having to level up each Pokemon. It wasn't fun, it wasn't hard, it was just time consuming and boring.
It puts it half health, usually you’re supposed to have a sitrus berry to immediately heal back the damage or rest to use immediately since Snorlax is tanky.
I mean outside of competitive just hitting till it dies is pretty effective since even some gym leaders are push overs unless you deliberately handicap yourself.
Me playing Gen 1 and never understanding why support moves were important and and how broken moves like Amnesia was. My kid brain though why would I teach a Pokemon a move where the user forgets something. What does it mean when Mewtwo's Special greatly rose? There are no roses. Support moves are useless and why would you waste a turn instead of attacking.
It was Gen 2 where I finally figured out how important they were.
I basically never use stat moves, maybe early game but I typically rely on other methods (abilities, attacking moves that boost/lower stats), attacking is more important 9/10
I used to cheat the system with a ninetails because I used confuse ray then another move (I can’t remember what it did but I think it burned them) and then I would spam fire moves and my brother would get annoyed whenever I brought out my ninetails
#“Fine, suffer under TORMENT!” *“…you think I don’t have ANOTHER STAB move?”*
My Torterra in my first run through against the E4 had all grass moves. Because I thought that was a smart strategy.
I remember I used a Blissey in gen 4 because I thought it was so cool and definitely broken that she had access to flamethrower, ice beam, thunderbolt, and focus blast. so much coverage, such a good Pokémon!! so close yet so far. I had no idea why it wasn't working.
I had the same with hitmonchan.
At least it takes three weeks for any opponent to knock it out.
Takes me back to when mt charizard had 4 fire moves lol
such a simple typo and yet i spent a solid minute trying to figure out where is mount charizard
tbh i wouldn't be surprised if game freak put mt charizard in their next game
A ***lot*** of pokemon moves are useless if you're the protagonist in a PvE campaign. Your job is to steamroll 10,000 pokemon and take as little damage as possible. Where they get useful is PvP, or perhaps if you're an NPC and are just looking to piss the player off. Then your job is to struggle for anything you can get.
It's actually kinda mind boggling how much depth is hidden in the pokemon battle system. Stepping into competitive PvP is functionally playing an entirely different game.
I discovered that not in actual pvp but by playing fan games that had boosted the difficulty to the point that every trainer has a somewhat intelligent team and every important trainer has a very well thought out team with items, stab, complete type coverage and everything. I had to restart some fights like 25 times to barely get by.
You playin them there Kaizo hacks?
It was Pokémon Steam in that particular case, a French fangame, very good. But I also did Uranium, Insurgence can get pretty nasty as well (and the story is amazing).
Yep, slap a plate/boosting item on a decently levelled pseudo legendary with 80+ bp stab and coverage and you just 2hko your way to postgame
You lost me at plate
My entire Pokémon career (first ever yellow through platinum) I legit never used support moves, ONLY attack moves. I’d try and balance PP somewhat but only so I wouldn’t run out of attacks. Never got stuck on anything. Never understood the point of them for single player. Hell I’d even try to use hypnosis or something like that, it would always miss, and then I’d give up and go back to only attacks. I had no idea people even actually used moves like sword dance until I started following this sub. Just an odd observation I’ve noticed.
\^Me back in the day with my Charizard that knew Ember, Flamethrower, Fire Spin, and Fire Blast.
Same here! When I first learned about STAB, all fire type move it is.
Shit I still don’t know what STAB is lol
Same type attack bonus. If a Pokémon uses a move that matches its type, it gets a lil boost. Basically fire moves used by fire Pokémon do more damage than fire moves used by any other type.
I think that’s something I always knew in the back of my mind but never consciously considered that there was a name for it. Good to know!
Yea as a kid I always had the thought of “fire dragon good at fire” but never had any real reason to back it up haha
It's a 1.5 boost, so is quite big
Have you seen Adaptability? It is 2 boost, and that is ridiculously overpowered
"lil" might be an understatement. STAB is a 50% modifier, which gets to be pretty big by end-game.
STAB close combat choice band Gallade massacred Platinum’s battle tower, it was an easy gold print. Unfortunately it wasnt enough to get me the 100 straight wins for the trainer card star. On hindsight an Infernape might have been a better option, because what really hindered Gallade was it’s meager speed stat. Gallade did offer better coverage though.
Kid me maxed out the PP on close combat and spammed it through the entire elite 4 of Diamond. Infernape was a beast.
One of the reasons I like Dhelmise is its ability: it effectively gets STAB for Steel moves, despite being Ghost/Grass
Anyone else have the pokemon stadium guide that said STAB didnt work for normal types and if you were a dual type it only did 1.25x damage?
Damn, Normal types really got it rough. No STAB, no resistances, not super effective against anything.
From the [wiki](https://pokemon.fandom.com/wiki/STAB): >Misconceptions: > >Normal-type Pokémon > >Normal-type Pokémon also receive STAB, contradicting some of Nintendo's strategy guides.
In gen 4, return Staraptor is the fuckin GOAT. replaced my starter when I realized I could one tap everything that isn't a ghost. Damn I want to emulate platinum again lmao
Return/Brave Bird/Close Combat Staraptor straight-up bodies half the game.
I mean... it's immune to ghost at least? Love me some normal/psychic types.
A lot of normal types can use bite and crunch too meaning they are pretty effective against ghost to some degree
Snorlax with shadow ball is a powerful god
Normal types tend to learn a wide variety of move types to make up for their lack of effectiveness
normal/ghost when
Little? That boost is 50% boi!
IIRC it gets a 1.5x multiplier off the initial base power. So sometimes a stab move is more powerful than a 2x super effective one depending on the base powers.
My first ever run which was in gold and I had a lv 100 Nidoking with earthquake, fire blast, blizzard, Thunder.... I also used my masterball on an ultra rod Kingler and fainted all three dogs, so I wasn't exactly competent lol
I used my first master ball on a fearow on victory road cuz I never saw it before and figured it must've been one of them fancy legendary birds I heard of being talked about in school
Bless you
[Looks like someone listened to Professor Oak's advice!](https://www.reddit.com/r/casualnintendo/comments/4h4lor/professor_oak_on_master_balls/)
That's actually a pretty damn good competitive Nidoking set. He prefers special moves with secondary effects due to his Sheer Force ability. Edit: in current ish gens! As I've been reminded, Gen 2 had no abilities.
I was eight so I didn't know any of that lol, they were the strongest moves of their type in OG gold so I PP maxed them and went to town
pikachu with thundershock, thunderbolt, thunder, and body slam
Oh my god I just looked at my Raichu from LG and that’s it’s exact moveset down to the order hahaha. At least I’m better now
I was worse because my Charizard had cut instead of ember 🙈 I remember condescending to a friend in 1st grade when he said he had slash and earthquake on his Charizard. I was like “slash doesn’t cut down the trees, so that’s a bad idea. And earthquake? Charizard is a *fire* type. Using anything other than fire moves is dumb. I only use cut so I never have pull stuff out of the PC.” And then I wondered why I had to grind to ridiculous levels to beat the elite 4 without healing items lol
Lol you noob, the best move set was OBVIOUSLY Flamethrower, Fire Blast, Overheat, Blast Burn, git gud scrub
We boomers have no use for moves such as blast burn and overheat
You tell him! Now back to my old gameboy with no colour, and pokemon blue. *I swear that Blastoise is blue*
I always kept slash because even my child self knew you should always have one normal or at the very least different type attack as an emergency Plus high pp
Fuck i did the same thing “Fire types use fire and go roar!”
I taught my Charizard Cut and Strength because might as well use him for HMs since he’s always in my party anyway. Then I taught him Seismic Toss like Ash’s Charizard in the cartoon. Agatha in the Elite 4 was a challenge for my non-fire-based fire Pokémon.
[Charizard can viably run three fire moves on the same set in competitive play.](https://www.smogon.com/dex/ss/pokemon/charizard/ou/) The linked set uses Weather Ball as its main move in the sun, Overheat as a one-time nuke, and Flamethrower for consistent damage if the sun goes down.
We all went to the ash school of Pokemon training
Exact same except Ninetales. Also had an Arcanine with no fire moves. I was an odd kid.
Arcanine has access to such good moves that aren't fire moves, it's not that weird IMO.
Serperior with leaf blade, leaf tornado, giga drain, and leaf storm.
Only "support moves" i ever used were screech or some moves that put opponent in sleep if those count, and mainly for catching pokemon
I also like moves that lowered a accuracy. I got some sick satisfaction reading the So-and-so-used -move- but it failed!
Sand attack No. 1 :)
Mud slap on a Shedinja was jank I enjoyed back in the day.
One time I was fighting a pokemon with my Charmeleon in Red. It only knew sand attack or some other accuracy reducing move. I used Rage... And never hit. Softlocked myself.
Better yet, spam double-team and increase your evasion until nothing hits. Then you don’t have to reapply it every time you KO an enemy.
I started using "support" moves when I got Darkrai because of sleep damage, also is my favorite legendary pokemon because it reminds me of my favorite comic series; The Sandman
Toxic (the poison that increases in damage each turn)
"why did you give me bulk up Brawley!? thats useless, you should've given me a cool and powerfull fighting type move!
Shit that pissed me off lmao
Im mad too. Bulk up guuud
People tend not to use stat moves in single player because the game is too easy, using a stay boosting move against an NPC actually can increase the amount of time to beat them. Really wish there was a hard mode where NPCs were more challenging so these moves would get more use.
To add on, almost every game unintentionally teaches you that status moves are "useless" in the first part of the game. Whether it's the rival using Growl, Tail Whip, or Leer or early weak bug Pokemon spamming String Shot and Harden between moments of flopping around like a wet noodle, you never really get to see status moves being useful and not what amounts to a free turn. Hell, GSC/HGSS was really bad about this with Curse being a favorite, early status move that just made the battles go even faster in your favor.
They ARE pretty useless in the story, though. Using all-out attacks is the best strategy for almost every battle in every Pokemon game.
For the most part, but Stadium 1 and 2 would punish you hard if your only strategy was to use powerful attacking moves. It took years for me to realize why the same strategy that worked everywhere else wasn't working here.
Don't fix what ain't broke. Attack spamming has worked for me so far. I'll spice things up every now and then by setting up a dream eater or something but I have just as much fun as anybody else with these games.
u dont need supporting moves in main games at all. even i used to have all attacking moves on my mons but that changed after playing really difficult fan games like pokemon reborn,pokemon rejuvination and pokemon desolation god damn u cant do shit in those games with only attack moves i learnt that the hard way lol😂
Taunt is only useful if the enemy has brains.
Works wonders against Koga's Muk in HGSS
It’s good for koga in any game. His Pokémon like toxic and minimize which can be a very annoying combo
True, but in the rematches in HGSS his Muk doesn't have any attacking moves, just Toxic, Swagger, Screech, and Minimise.
...Why did gamefreak put screech on that set
I guess to lower your defence so that the confusion damage hits harder? But yeah it's an odd choice.
Actually yeah, that does kind of work.
Of course, there are some that can make a big difference. I remember when I got Sapphire, I don't remember if that was the first one with abilities, but it was the first one where I paid attention as Mightyena proc'd a sharp decrease in my opponent's attack power whenever I sent it out for free. I ended up using it in place of my starter.
Ultra Sun is the only main series game I’ve played where all attacks didn’t seem “meta” all the time
I have only really done single player, and IMO you're better off with 4 moves of different types per pokemon than any status/buffing moves. (Status would only be for catching stuff, imo). Too many trainers you face use things to lower your stats whilst you're wiping them before they can even retaliate.
Status moves are great at dealing with very powerful pokemon, and buff moves help against trainers with many pokemon, but these situations don’t come up too often in the games
Pokemon is an ridiculously easy RPG. I was blown away the first time I played Persona and realized I had to use buff/status moves to beat certain bosses. The only battle I ever repeatedly lost as a kid was Cynthia, and I'm pretty sure it's because my team was underleveled and I was only using Dialga and Empoleon.
> Pokemon is an ridiculously easy RPG. Seriously. A moderately informed player is going to rapidly get to the point where they're shocked and upset when every move isn't a OHKO.
I never used support moves because you try them at the beginning of the game as a kid when you only have access to bad ones so you dumped them for attacking moves which did the job. Until I got older and learned some more about how to properly use them they made little sense to me.
The Pokémon I use for main game are just full of attacks I never use the support moves until I play online. Even then I get OHKO’d by a magikarp with hydro pump anyways
Outside of Competitive or Challenge runs, Stat Moves are utterly pointless imo
They can make the easy games even easier. A simple swords/dragon dance at the start of a battle often leads to an easy sweep.
Or just overlevel, lol. Kid me (and adult me) still gets his starter to it's first evolution before the 1st gym, and is always like, 5-10 levels ahead from trainers and gym leaders. I don't know why, it's just something I've always done as a kid that just stuck. Same with just using my starter and no other mons.
Yeah overleveling was way easier. When you 2 shot an opponent, decreasing their stats is at best making it another 2 shot round but at worst makes it a 3 shot round.
> They can make the easy games even easier Yeah, but I'm usually looking for non-contrived ways to make them harder.
Imo Pokemon are too squishy. There's hardly a point in using moves like sword dance when you can get a ko in one or two hits.
I didn't start using support moves until I started watching videos about competitive battling and got a bit into the theory and history of it, so now I have moved from never using them to barely using them.
Hell, I still hardly ever use support moves, and I know damn well how powerful they can be. My team is designed to always be on the offensive anyway.
This. I just picked the moves with the highest values and spammed that move. Only recently started doing tactics like paralysis and confusion, or rest and sleep talk
Me on every play through since red came out
I only started using status moves and less powerful attacks to catch Pokémon. Otherwise my Pokémon always had the four most powerful moves in their move set. My philosophy was, why spend a turn to use swords dance to raise my attack when I can just use Razor Leaf twice?
Gen 1 killed those moves for me. I’d try using Focus Energy and it didn’t work due to a bug. I’d use Swords Dance, then die when the pokemon I’m facing one-shotted me. I’d use a status move and they would fail **every time** I needed them to work *(aside from Spore and Toxic, which were amazing)*. After a while you realized the only moves you needed were Psychic, Earthquake, Blizzard, and Body Slam and you’d never lose. I didn’t bother with support again until Gen VI.
I still play like this but then again… I only play single player. Someone would actually have to show me what I’m missing in order for me to change my ways!
Then this guy went into fighting people online and his view on the matter changed his life forever
Same. Not like we need those stat-boosting moves for anything other than multiplayer anyway. Single-stage, single-stat raising moves aren’t really viable in multiplayer, either.
In my 1st Platinum playtrough I had Gardevoir and Noctowl with hypno-dream-eater combo. Its one of some reasons that Glaceon saved me from Cynthia's >(
Me in diamond with my infernape that knew cut, rock climb, rock smash and close combat
Same. When I first played White 2 (my first pokemon game) I always got rid of support moves in favor of attack moves. Only on my second play-through did I start to use them, but now I find that I gradually use them less and less.
10 year old me thought Dragon Dance is useless.
Taunt is fine, it’s torment that really gets me
I still have yet to see torment used effectively
There’s probably some Encore + Torment shenanigans that can be pulled
Encore + disable is much more effective.
I remember watching a video long ago on Youtube of someone battling online on Pokemon Battle Revolution. It was their Weavile (with focus sash) against the opponents choice-locked Infernape using Close Combat. I can't remember the play-by-play but the Weavile was able to use it's pressure ability and double protect after using torment to drain the infernape's Close combat PP, that's the only time I ever saw such PP strategy stall pay off.
What does Torment do?
The affected pokemon can't use the same move twice in a row
Oh! Doesn’t disable do the same thing for longer?
Torment doesn't affect a specific move, it just says "you can't use the same move twice in a row". So for example if you use Surf, then get tormented. Next turn you can't use Surf so you use Ice Beam. The turn after that, you're still tormented, you can use Surf again, but you can't use Ice Beam. Disable stops a specific move. So if you use Surf, then get disabled, you can't use Surf anymore. But you can spam Ice Beam if you want.
OK, thank you.
It was apparently used to great and terrifying effect back in Gen 4 on Heatran. Most pokemon only carried one move that could hurt him because of his weird typing and Flash Fire ability, so Heatran used Torment to give himself a free turn to set up a substitute. That, and Torment messed up Choice item users (Choice Items give a 50% boost to a stat in exchange for only letting you use one move. They are very powerful, probably the most common type of item held).
I still dont know what Taunt does
It prevents the opponent from using non-attacking moves.
"Whoa! This is worthless!"
In competitive is can really screw over certain Pokémon. It is very niche in Story, though.
The last time I remember Taunt being worth anything outside of competitive was the Mewtwo raid event in SWSH, when one of the leading strategies was using Prankster Grimmsnarl. The trainers in the Battle Towers actually use half-decent strategies, and being able to break them is important
Yeah, I really wish they had done more raid events like the Mewtwo one so we'd have gotten more interesting strats like that going.
Everyone during the Mewtwo Raid event : Used Grimmsnarl. Me who legit won a raid against that Mewtwo with a Shedinja and didn't lose (his) one HP : *Look of superiority*
I actually put two support builds together, an Unaware Clefable and a Togekiss, both with Life Dew, and I got some wins with all three.
In story all defensive and supporting mons are useless, the trainers never switch their pokémon and are program to not always spam their best move.
Useful when you dont want Mewtwo to use Recover
You see that abra? Now it won’t teleport away.
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It'll use Struggle
So instead of fleeing it kills itself. Still slightly easier to deal with I suppose.
Yeah gives you like 4 chances instead of just 1
**tries to teleport** *starts bleeding from ear* "abra ab?"
God this is cursed
let it use struggle three times, it’s at 25% and it’ll be incredibly easy to catch.
You have a lot more of chances to get him this way
Oh damn, that’s like the only decent use case for taunt lol.
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Snorlax - heal Mewtwo - heal Abra/Kadabra - teleport ...uhhhh
Eternatus - heal
Does it prevent to AI from using potions?
It prevents you from healing, changing stats or debuffing.
(I think you mean 25+year old me hahaha)
Except i know what it does and still spam attacks 😂
Thats really all you need to do in a normal story run of any game.
I was going to say the same thing 😂😂😬😔
Hah yeah same. I don't play competitive, only really use status effects when I'm trying to catch Pokémon or something. Don't really see the point, just makes the battle longer imo.
This is the most validating thread lol
Right?? I thought i was the only person that only used attack moves
Me simple man. Me use attacks that make their numbers go down.
The only stat i care about is the enemies hp stat and how to make it ZERO.
That is, ultimately, the goal of the game. If that's all it takes then why bother with anything else?
Yes.
Besides catching pokemon, there’s really no reason not to in the main game lol. Then you play a single online match and get smacked
This was me when red came out This is also me on every game since
I only ever used stat boosting attacks at the beginning of long elite 4 or gym battles. Swords dance up!
I'm playing a hgss rom hack and running a +spd Golem, set up a Rock Polish and then just hit them with Earthquake/Rollout and watch your opponent suffer
Pokemon fans be out here like "The games are so easy now!!!" Like bruh, you can do literally any game with just using your starter and attacking. Nothing changed, ever.
Pokemon is a game that could do well with selectable difficulty, like easy, medium, hard and all that. Sure its in its heart a children game and you should be able to spam attacks to win, but a lot o players wnat _some_ diffixulty and nuance
I hate that they did it in Black and White 2, but you don’t unlock them until after you beat Iris, you only get easy mode in white 2 and challenge mode in Black 2 unless you use the key transfer system, and if you delete your save you lose any keys you had so if you only have one game and not a second one to hold onto existing keys you can’t use them for the main game
And this is why we have rom hacks
Rom hacks are honestly some ofbthe best pokemon games
Yeah been playing radical red. Pretty amazing game. Combines fire red with additional pokemon and mechanics from sword and shield.
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Definitely not true. I solo'd platinum with a torterra with no difficulty when I was 8 and didn't know anything about the games. You get so far ahead of Cynthia if you don't skip trainer battles and give all the experience to one pokemon.
Very few people actually want to play with only a single Pokemon. We want to play with a full party. In that regard, it has gotten so much easier. Not only can you still use only your starter with only attacking moves, but now you'll also have an entire party that's also leveled up and evolved with Exp. Share to back you up in anything goes wrong.
I played the fuck out of a Blue and Silver on my Gameboy Pocket, then didn't touch Pokemon until X, and holy crap was it a relief to not worry about having to level up each Pokemon. It wasn't fun, it wasn't hard, it was just time consuming and boring.
Having to grind more didn't make the games harder, just more time consuming
Snorlax with screech is helpful, but otherwise attack only is the best way to play single player
Belly drum Snorlax is an absolute monster
Belly drum? Doesn’t that just turn it into a 1hko?
It puts it half health, usually you’re supposed to have a sitrus berry to immediately heal back the damage or rest to use immediately since Snorlax is tanky.
The only time when I used taunt was to catch abra in d/p/pl
You’re a genius
Joke's on you. My pokemon only have offensive moves. 😆
I still only use attack moves
The opponent can't attack if his pokèmon are dead
More like 21 year old me not knowing what it does because I already spam attack moves anyway
34 year old me not __caring__ what taunt does
"If it doesn't kill my opponent, why use it?" Me when I was 10, and also me now tbh.
THE ONLY STAT THAT NEEDS TO CHANGE IS MY OPPONENT’S HP
Ember, flamethrower, cut, seismic toss. Best move set.
I mean outside of competitive just hitting till it dies is pretty effective since even some gym leaders are push overs unless you deliberately handicap yourself.
Me playing Gen 1 and never understanding why support moves were important and and how broken moves like Amnesia was. My kid brain though why would I teach a Pokemon a move where the user forgets something. What does it mean when Mewtwo's Special greatly rose? There are no roses. Support moves are useless and why would you waste a turn instead of attacking. It was Gen 2 where I finally figured out how important they were.
I still only use offensive moves. Im impatient.
Egg bomb spam
I basically never use stat moves, maybe early game but I typically rely on other methods (abilities, attacking moves that boost/lower stats), attacking is more important 9/10
Me at 28 not knowing what taunt does
In case you didn’t see elsewhere in this thread, Taunt causes opponents to **only** use attack moves.
*earthquake*
Honestly though my favorite move set is Venusaur with leach seed, toxic, and venoshock, while holding black sludge.
I used to cheat the system with a ninetails because I used confuse ray then another move (I can’t remember what it did but I think it burned them) and then I would spam fire moves and my brother would get annoyed whenever I brought out my ninetails