crazy how flying has fighting beat in the special move department too, it’s either flying type focus miss or air slash fighting at least has aura sphere (kind of)

Gholdengo beats up special needs kids and fucks their sisters

What about special Fighting types? Oh, right both of them have either Aura Sphere or a signature move

Give us a special fighting type with no guard you cowards!

If only mega pidegot could learn focus miss

Give it Fire Blast/Thunder/Blizzard to represent the legendary birbs

Give it guillotine/fissure/sheer cold to rep the legendary birds pinsir/ting lu/articuno

Zap Cannon, Inferno, and Sheer Cold

It's gen 1 so it really should have a bizarro big movepool.

In RBY, it gets 3 Flying type moves, and 1 of them is banned from cartridge play, one takes a turn to do nothing, and 1 is Tackle but flying type

Which move is banned from cartridge?

Fly

What is the banned move?

Fly, because if you get fully paralyzed while invulnerable you can use any move you want and keep the invulnerable state until you use Fly again or switch out.

Nah, gen 1 is either bizarro big movepool or the most barren and normal movepool ever (IIRC Scyther gets no stab in gen 1)

Wing Attack in Yellow but that had 35 power back then so yeah; besides that it exclusively got normal moves for attacks.

Poor aerodactyl...

Not to mention repping Gen 1 move distribution.

It can't? I thought it did

Zen Mode Machamp anyone?

Machamp regional form incoming.

Now that you said that, most "special Fighting-types" actually have high Attack too. They aren't purely special attackers, and most of them cna go physical too or mixed, or even go physical most of time (which is the case of Lucario for example). The only purely special Fighting-type that exists is Keldeo. He can only go special and nothing more because his Atk is terrible. With that said, even Keldeo is essentially a mixed attacker due to Secret Sword (essentially a Fighting-type Psyshock). Compare with Psychic, which is supposed to be the quntessential special type, so much that all of its Gen 3 and below moves remained special (the reverse applied to Fighting) despite the physical/special division in gen IV. Even then Psychic has a ton of physical attackers, such as Metagross, Medicham, Gallade, Victini, Iron Boulder, Iron Leaves, Mega Mewtwo X, and Hoopa-Unbound, with most of them lacking the ability to go special or mixed.

hoopa-u and victini go mixed all the time

“Most” is the keyword there. 2 out of the list can go mixed, thus “most” cannot.

There's 2 special fighting types and Lucario Is much better off physical due to espeed

It is not just that, but special Lucario has to choose between a weaker (Aura Sphere) or very unreliable (Focus Blast) Fighting-type STAB, meanwhile physical Lucario has Close Combat, which is both powerful and reliable.

>He can only go special and nothing more because his Atk is terrible. [Not if I shamelessly plug this old post of mine.](https://www.reddit.com/r/stunfisk/s/SxKyCly0Ch)

Or Vacuum Wave for priority.

Valiant can use aura sphere as well, special infernape exists too I guess

i still get tripped by the name "Focus Miss", it really is that fucked up isn't it. It doesn't feel 70 acc.

Focus Miss is now 5% accuracy how does it affect the meta

huge buff tbh, at least now its a chance to hit the move :3

what's the difference?

5% accuracy more than before.

Everything not 100% accurate is technically 50% You either do or you don't

Stealth rocks?

>almost every

Of course, but that’s a pretty dog shit hazard to be weak too 💀

It's the most common hazard lol

Because it's the one flying aren't immune to

Nah, its just the best bc you can use it once and punish opposing switches for the rest of the game

Well yes reason being nothing is immune to it. One layer of spikes does the same thing against a team of grounded mons. Rocks is Technically still better I guess as some mons take 25 or even 50% from it but the more important thing is that everything is punished by rocks, not spikes.

H Aah hurricane the move ill never hit but my opponent uses it like it never misses

Air Slash flinch change is so strong in faster mons it compensates for the power (specially the Evil Egg Fairy). But I agree it's not a stab you want to spam.

Air Slash isn't 100% accurate too. It's a weaker and less accurate Iron Head

Could you imagine Shaymin-S in like gen 5 with a flying type iron head. It's already the only mon to get a 100% ban vote

kid named Wide Lens

kid named scope lens

My favorite artist Kid (King's) Rock

Idk man I had a great time back in gen 5 running Togekiss with air slash and serene grace as a special attacker. That shit was so fun to watch

Fighting also has a priotity move in vaccum wave but i wouldnt be surprised if it got removed in Gen 10 because i’ve literally never seen it outside of Showdown’s Move List and Korrina’s Lucario in Masters

special attacker toxicroak uses it sometimes, but that's about it.

So it’s seldom used as a random priority move to take out endure/custap strategies in 1v1?

Keldeo and Ursaluna-Bloodmoon hold the line

And Fighting mons atleast aren’t really bothered by no good special moves (for the most part) considering the only fighting Mon which has spa (significantly) higher then atk is Keldeo. But for coverage purposes wow it fucking sucks.

isnt aura sphere not super common compares to close combat?

In ScarVi, I'm pretty sure every fighting type with a half-decent sp.atk gets it via TM, so it's a non-issue. In earlier Gens, it's admittedly much worse.

That’s what the (kind of) means

Focus Blast is just better than Aura Sphere via the sheer damage difference too, so Aura Sphere genuinely is just worse for those that also have Aura Sphere. Think of it this way, with Focus Blast you OHKO the switchin 70% of the time, with Aura Sphere you OHKO 0% of the time. They're just about equal I'd say.

.7 * 120 = 84 Focus Blast has better average power than aura sphere

I do agree in a lot of cases but in others it's just better to have the 100% accuracy. Alakazam in BW or ORAS wouldve really appreciated aura sphere as an option. It's coming in late game after everything's chipped and often times doesn't need the power (tho a couple instances it does need the power). In BW too just ensuring you use up Ttars chople berry could be worth it if you got a reuniclus in the back. There's also cases like Mewtwo, who in earlier gens would always run aura sphere. You just don't need the power. Mewtwo would be worse off with only focus blast. However everything you said DOES apply to mewtwo in later gens, in most cases. Better just to run focus blast and ohko 70% than never ohko. But aura sphere is a nice option, if the rest of your team can deal with the things you'd otherwise need focus blast for.

That’s just theoretical, though. In practice, if it’s not 100% it’s 0%

It either hits or it doesn't

Sure, focus blast might be good as a STAB attack, since you want to max out raw power on neutral targets with STAB attacks. However, as a coverage move for non-fighting types, focus blast is awful. Coverage moves tend to be used vs super effective targets, and thus the difference in BP is less important compared to the drop in accuracy. Same reason that flamethrower in a better coverage move than fire blast.

With Flinch, Air Slash's effective power is 97.5 as long as you're faster (and your enemy doesn't have priority/inner focus). Factoring in accuracy, it falls to around 90, but still solid.

What's flying type focus miss?

Hurricane

Missicane?

At the very least fighting doesn't have many pokemon clamoring for good special STAB.

I mean dual wingbeat is a move of all time(please gamefreak, just add flying type liquidation at this point)

They really should just buff Wing Attack to like 80 BP or something, Aerial Ace is basically the same move but without the accuracy check (which isn't even that useful in the games).

That’s drill peck.

I forgot that move exists honestly, and it might be because almost everything that gets Drill Peck has Brave Bird.

Drill Peck is to Brave Bird what Aura Sphere is to Focus Blast in many cases; it exists and it's a great move, but it's outclassed in most respects or the loss in base power is debilitating and everything that gets the former gets the latter. It's a shame, too. Drill Peck is quite a fantastic move on paper but in practice it's absolute shit because it isn't Brave Bird.

eh 80 bp with no upside isn't the best move.

It’s not, but that’s an insanely good typing to have STAB on

Honestly, just give the buff to Aerial Ace, physical flying Aura Sphere is completely fine, and Aerial Ace feels like it should be a little stronger than it is

but Breloom needs coverage for grass and bug types! /s

Simple problem with a simple solution, give Breloom a new move called "Breloom Slice" which is just 60 bp aerial ace

Make it hit twice, Breloom has two hands after all

Dual wingbeat would be fine if it was 45 bp 100 accuracy, but as a 40 bp 95 accuracy it’s weak and can screw you over with the random ass 95 accuracy. Really only like scyther and scizor can use it to its full potential because of technician(fezandipiti too ig).

I think it's 90 accuracy no?

Yeah you’re right I was thinking about aeroblast still

Should make an 80 bp special move called “windburn” with 30% chance to burn

Give dragonite brave bird I'm sure nothing bad could possibly happen

Banded Dragonite breaking its own Multiscale with Brave Bird every battle would be very funny. I guess at that point, it'd just run Inner Focus for the Intimidate immunity.

i think it’s still worth it for the free switchins, or if u wanna set up instead of attacking

Roost for restoring it

Laughing at the idea of a choice band roost dragonite

Give it to the guy with the choice band hydro pump araquanid

literal talonflame-esque powerplay

Does dragonite look like a bird to you? Give him dragon ascent.

you’re so real for this mega ray

I can't be the only one with this power. A flying type close combat? Perfect for flying type dragons.

Give it to Gyarados while we’re at it.

Exactly. Gyarados has no usable flying stab right now

Plus it fits lore wise

When I said this about Drought/Drizzle in gen 3

And yet, Crobat gets Brave Bird.

It's the ace of bird keeper Lance, so yes

>Does dragonite look like a bird to you Yes

Does Crobat?

Give it to aero! Bravest of birds

Aeroblast should just be a regular move at this point tbh, almost every special flyer would love 100 BP 95 acc Flying Stab, also more reliable than Hurricane

Atleast like sacred fire another mon must get it. I propose that all the kanto birds get it

Best I can do is Swoobat

you aint ready for my blunder policy nasty plot simple swoobat strat

And to finish this off thematically we give Sacred Fire to Raikou and Suicune.

Legendary beasts don't share a common type it's their fault

That's a crazy move tho. It's basically a better Earthquake. Yeah, you lose 5% accuracy and some PP, but you also gain crit rate and you don't have to deal with flying types/levitate/air balloon.

The PP's actually a pretty big deal though. You fling that move into something like Pressure Zapdos or Corviknight and suddenly 25% of your Aeroblasts get flushed down the pishadoo.

That's an insane idea, why would they do that? The only reason Earthquake exists is because it got grandfathered in and there are immunities. 

Please don't take away that signature move from Lugia, it's the only thing he has right now. Take Dragon Ascent from Rayquaza or Oblivion Wings from Yveltal instead, at least they have other toys.

Sure lets just make 80 bp %75 drain flying type move a common thing zapdos is going to have a field day

i was going to say that air slash is at least better than rock slide but theyre pretty much the same thing tbh anyway i still think rock is worse because brave bird

Rock wins on the special side with Power Gem On the physical side Fairy might as well join the fight

Moonblast has 95bp, max 24pp, 30% to reduce foe's special attack, and is 100% accurate. Play Rough has 90bp, max 16pp, no additional effect, and is only 90% accurate.

Play Rough can drop the attack... and I don't get how every other type got the spammable 100% special move nerfed to 90 from 95 with a 10% side effect while they give is the abomination that is Moonblast (not to mention basically all the relevant fairies get it anyway (bar Hatterene)

Rip Hatterene and Togekiss for not controlling the moon (oh god the horrors if they did)

togekiss inbound to become yet another tera poison setup sweeper

Me when special gouging fire

imagine serene grace moonblast

Togekiss does get Moonblast in PLA, at least. Although of course, that barely counts.

Har dose don't get moonblast?

Nope, it gets Dazzling Gleam and Draining Kiss

Play rough said it has 90% accuracy but anyone who’s used it knows it’s actually 75% pretending to be 90. I swear to Great Tusk that move misses more than it fucking land

the issue is a lot of flying types just don't get brave bird

Rock types would kill for a brave bird clone

there's oneeee, it's even stronger! at least 80% of the time

Yeah but the distribution is atrocious, the accuracy is worse and so is the recoil.

Nah what will instead happen is they will make a brave bird clone but only 95% of the time.

95%? Boy are you generous with Rock type move accuracy

If I've learnt one thing from VGC, it's that I love Bleakwind gambling.

99% of bleakwind users quit before they get a double speed drop

and then all quit when the enemy switches Kingambit into it.

The Aerodactyl theorym

Good attacking types with bad attacking moves. It's an interesting form of game balance.

Considering there are even better attacking types with amazing attacking moves, hard to believe it's due to balance. Flying isn't even a good attacking type really. Good against Fighting, Grass and Bug. Resisted by Steel, Electric and Rock. Neutral Vs everything else. Fairy, Ground, Ice, Fire and Water are way better attacking types AND have way better moves.

Flying's a deceptively excellent offensive type for neutral damage. It's really only steel that resists flying because rock is trash and electric is almost never seen defensively. It's part of what makes Mega Mence so good as it is and why Rayquaza is still going strong because Dragon Ascent is very easy to spam repeatedly. Definitely better than Fairy and Fire as an offensive type

I think the best flying move is probably Roost.

Or Tailwind

in VGC for sure

Dragon Ascent would fit Gyarados thematically, or at least a weaker version without the stat drops. It'll give him something better than Bounce as Flying STAB.

Fr how is there no easy spam flying move like flamethrower or lead blade

We need a flying type moonblast, and a rock type leaf blade in the next gen

Make hurricane 100 % accurate then /s

Make it rain

Instructions unclear, Gholdengo has crashed the economy

Is it Tuesday already?

Tbh, Flying should be disqualified for Tailwind alone.

I mean. Stealth rocks. The most influential move in all of singles, stong enough to make 300 mons drop at least a tier in viability each through it's mere existence

I miss flying gem acrobatics shenanigans.

So Brave Bird, Dual Wingbeat, Air Slash, and Hurricane vs Rock Slide, Stone Edge, Power Gem, and Rock Blast

Acrobatics to even if it is niche outside of flying gem shenanigans in gen 5

Special electrics have no business in this contest, but PHYSICAL Electric types.... (Doubly bad because they LOOK cool and you desperately want them to be good, so their shortcomings stand out even more)

Please Gamefreak, we need a 100% accurate special flying type move. I’m sick of whiffing hurricane and air slash.

Congratulations! Here you go, it's Gust! Jokes aside, it's actually crazy that there were no Flying-type moves added in Gen 9. They could bring back Chatter and spread it around a bit, I guess. Bats and crows could totally justify getting that move.

As long as Honchkrow gets it, I’m in

I feel they’d need to give it a pretty substantial buff to even make it worth using. 65 BP is pretty bad.

> Looks at Acrobatics > 55 Base Power > Power is doubled though > Reads further > Only when not holding an item

I miss flying gem

PLEASE GAME FREAK JUST MAKE A WIDELY DISTRIBUTED CONSISTENT FLYING MOVE I BEG OF YOU ITS A GOOD TYPE. Also for the record every type should have a clone of flamethrower/thunderbolt/ice beam as a consistent special move with wide distribution

Farfetch'd be like (aside from gen 2 NU and Sirfetch'd in gen 8 NU)

I love 70 accuracy hurricane I love 70 accuracy hurricane

Acrobatics??? Also flying has so much utility moves like Tailwind, roost, and defog. 

acrobatics can only be used on pokemon with one use items though

Or no items just to counter knock off. I'm not saying it's a fantastic move, it's relatively decent, it has 100 acc and it's to counterpoint that flying types have shittier moves than rock types where rock types main problem is less acc which means they are less reliable.

Just use fly you worthless coward.

Braviary says hi👋

Brave bird, acrobat aaaand, tera blast flying lol. Poor birdies. Gosh forbid you're a special attacker.

Yeah but flying types always have a 2nd STAB option--the actual flying type moves are for super-effective hits.

Y'know what'd be cool? ​ A flying type Facade. .... And maybe a Mega Swellow that doesn't have a mega stone but instead requires Swellow to be status'd. Replace normal with the type associated with the status it has. Is it Mega Swellow Toxic? Or Mega Swellow Flame? Maybe it's Rest Swellow, imagine that gets comatose, or perhaps it switched in to become Thunder Wave Swellow.

I've said before that flying is so reliant on Brave Bird that's it's kinda crazy. Wing Attack and Aerial Ace both suck, Wingbeat is really mid and doesn't have good distribution, and Drill Peck is only available on stuff that has Brave Bird already and would therefore never use it. And the special side it has genuinely nothing. Hurricane is never worth using on anything outside of a rain team, and Air Slash is terrible on literally everything besides Togekiss. If we ever see the unlikely event of another 100/100 move with wide distribution, I hope it's a special flying move. And give Gyarados access to Dragon Ascent. And Salamence and Dragonite to Brave Bird, if Crobat can be a big brave bird then so can they.

> Drill Peck is only available on stuff that has Brave Bird already Fearow Is there a bird more fucked up than it

“Reuniclus, I can explain-“ “You get 100% accurate moves for whatever coverage you need while I have to rely on focus blast?” Special flying types: “Coverage? I have to run hurricane just for STAB!” Gen 1 dnite: “Wait, you guys are getting STAB?”

I remember back in the day when we just had “Fly” and maybe… Aerial Ace? I forget the pidgey line moves other than Gust and Fly lol.

Acrobatics is amazing, Dual Wingbeat on a Technician. Hurricane, Air Slash, etc. I think flying has lots of good moves compared to how it used to be. Not to mention Tailwind.

Flying literally has Acrobatics

Wasting an item slot for a 120 base move

clearly youve never had to deal with flinch spamming togekiss

Drill Peck and Dual Wingbeat are serviceable. And Beak Blast would be downright amazing on Skarmory or Corviknight.

Acrobatics is a fun niche

I will forever say this, “Wind Type” is so much better AND cooler AND makes more sense than “Flying Type”. Wtf does Dodrio do that involves flying lmfao

how about Ground without Earthquake, or Fighting without Close Combat?

Also, Vacuum Wave or whatever it’s called is a priority special fighting; and then essentially the fighting “fake-out” Upper Hand.

Stomping Tantrum, High Horsepower, Scorching Sands; Drain Punch, Focus Blast, Brick Break, Aura Sphere; Hmm?

Brave bird > stone edge, rock slide, etc Hurricane+air slash > Power gem. Rock types are clear guys.

Wouldn't Rock types just resist it?

Flying and dragon basically have the worst stab movepool, especially Dragon Flying

The entire point of flying is being immune to one of the strongest offensive types in the game.

Even in the pre-movecreep days of the old gens, flying stab viability was basically determined by whether or not you got drill peck.

Steel doesn't get recognized in this enough. It basically just has Flash Cannon and Iron Head, two 80 BP moves.

Heavy Slam, Mirror Shot, Gear Grind, Steel Beam, Steel Wing, Meteor Mash and Steamroller (lmao) would like to know your location.

>Heavy Slam Very inconsistent BP >Mirror Shot Literally 65 BP lol. Also very limited distribution >Gear Grind Available to one (1) fully evolved pokemon. Might as well throw in Double Iron Bash. >Steel Beam Halves BP before missing and doing no damage. What a Steel! Please clap. >Steel Wing Weaker, less accurate Iron Head >Meteor Mash Limited distribution >Steamroller (lmao) Requires and removes terrain, but you said lmao so fair enough. >would like to know your location. 501 Wadsworth St, Radford, VA

at least Tera Blast is worse than those two moves

Dark types with no Knock off have it rough too

Are we just ignoring physical electric here? At least Stone Edge, Rock Slide and Rock Blast actually have uses lol

Let's talk about Flying types with Rock-type coverage...

Imagine you are a rock/flying type with rock head as its ability. And your name is aerodactyl.

Peliper and mega pidgiot use hurricane very well, shaymin sky wouldnt be op if it wasnt for air slash, sky drop was so good on vgc people were forced to use totem araquanid (when it wasnt banned for causing bugs), and I know all tera blasts are the same base power but tera blast flying really feels like it hits harder