Unappreciated Moves

Someone suggested I should put my money where my mouth is, so here goes.

There's moves we're all intimately familiar with: Hydro Pump/Fire Blast/Blizzard/Thunder and Surf/Flamethrower/Ice Beam/Thunderbolt, Return/Waterfall/Earthquake/Stone Edge... these are our bread and butter as Pokémon players: strong and reliable. Nondamaging moves also have their champions - Thief and Covet, Light Screen and Reflect, Dragon Dance, Rock Polish...

But there's a lot of moves in the game, and some just don't cut the mustard. Here are some that so often don't get much love.

• Mega Punch - Physical Normal, 80 power, 85% accuracy
• Mega Kick - Physical Normal, 120 power, 75% accuracy
  There's no shortage of early-installment weirdness in Gen I - there was a TM that taught Water Gun - and these first entries all hail from those days. Return has all but invalidated most other Normal-type moves - Body Slam sees use on tanks who want it more for the good paralysis chance than the damage output, Strength doesn't get a look-in, and Mega Punch and Mega Kick are the redheaded stepchildren of the family.
  
  Mega Punch has absolutely no redeeming qualities - relatively poorly-distributed, weak even by the standards of Gen I, and outclassed by (of all things) Strength. Mega Kick seems to have been intended as the prototype for Megahorn and Power Whip, but it has to fight uphill to join that crowd as Normal doesn't offer much coverage; the accuracy being ten points below the others, only five points higher than Focus Blast, dooms it to obscurity.
  
  What to do with them? A Let's-Player on Youtube whose opinions I generally respect suggests making them Fighting-type - I'm not entirely comfortable with that, since the Fighting-type already has excellent moves in the form of Brick Break and Close Combat, but I don't have any other ideas.
  
  A Fighting-type Mega Kick is just about viable as is, though a boost in accuracy to 85% to completely match its Bug- and Grass-type friends wouldn't go amiss. Mega Punch, on the other hand, needs an accuracy improvement to 100% (in line with Strength, Seed Bomb, X-Scissor and Dragon Claw) to compete with the likes of Brick Break.
  
• Submission - Physical Fighting, 80 power, 80 accuracy, 33% recoil damage
  A lot of hay has been made about Psychic-type dominance in Gen I, but I'd argue it was entirely because of other types' inadequacies rather than because of any strengths it had - it benefited from the unified Special stat making Amnesia the best boosting move in the game, but to this day its best move is the 90-power Psychic because Deoxys is hogging Psycho Boost to itself.
  
  Submission is a great example - as much as Psychic may have been dominant, Fighting's complete uselessness allow for horrors like Tauros to sweep the field. 80/80 with recoil? Absurdity.
  
  What to do with it? I'm much more confident in my source's suggestion for this one: 120 power, 100% accuracy, so it's a Fighting-type clone of Double-Edge. It's supposed to be a recoil move, which is a hefty drawback; the damage output should be worth it. Fighting-types with a fair amount of HP like Hariyama will naturally prefer this over Close Combat.
  
• Comet Punch - Physical Normal, 18 power, 85% accuracy, hits 2-5 times
  Yet another Gen I weirdo, there's really no reason for this move to be Normal-type. Any multihit move that didn't get the magic-wand treatment in Gen V has some ground to cover, but Comet Punch has hung around for four generations before that being quietly overshadowed by other multihit moves due to poor distribution.
  
  What to do with it? Once again I agree with my source that Comet Punch is a great candidate for the Fighting-type; the only non-Fighting-types to learn it are Kangaskhan and Ledian. While you're looking at it in the move editor, give it the same buff given to Bullet Seed and Icicle Spear - 25 power, 100% accuracy.
  
• Barrage - Physical Normal, 15 power, 85% accuracy, hits 2-5 times
• Doubleslap - Physical Normal, 15 power, 85% accuracy, hits 2-5 times
• Fury Attack - Physical Normal, 15 power, 85% accuracy, hits 2-5 times
• Fury Swipes - Physical Normal, 18 power, 80% accuracy. hits 2-5 times
  These moves all got missed out when Gamefreak waved their magic wand over Rock Blast, Bullet Seed and Icicle Spear in Gen V, and it's a shame - they're all Normal-type, so they'll never hit for super-effective damage.
  
  What to do with them? 25 power and 90% accuracy will do nicely. Seeing as how Barrage is only learned by Exeggutor, why not make it Grass-type so it actually has a reason to use it?
  
• Bone Rush - Physical Ground, 25 power, 80% accuracy, hits 2-5 times
  Bone Rush is an open-and-shut case - it used to be in a family with Rock Blast, but missed the boat when that got a buff to 90% accuracy. Pin Missile is
  
  What to do with it? Give it at least the same boost its friend got. You might even consider going to 100%, considering its learnbase.
  
• Double Kick - Physical Fighting, 30 power, 100% accuracy, hits twice
• Double Hit - Physical Normal, 35 power, 90% accuracy, hits twice
• Dual Chop - Physical Dragon, 40 power, 90% accuracy, hits twice
  As written all these moves are just a little underpowered, and it's unclear why they're all so scattered around the 30-40 power mark.
  
  What to do with them? 40 power, 100% accuracy should make them worth considering.
  
• Bonemerang - Physical Ground, 50 power, 90% accuracy, hits twice
• Gear Grind - Physical Steel, 50 power, 85% accuracy, hits twice
• Triple Kick - Physical Fighting, 10 power, 90% accuracy, hits up to three times with damage increasing by 100% after each successful hit
  Gamefreak have a habit of making signature moves unviable, and these are good examples. At only 50 power Bonemerang loses out to Earthquake because the consistent damage output ends up being worth more than the ability to break Substitutes; even with a Technician boost Triple Kick is still overshadowed by Close Combat.
  
  What to do with them? For Bonemerang and Gear Grind, 60 power, 100% accuracy. For Triple Kick, 15 power and 100% accuracy, to raise the damage output from 54 (81 after Technician) to 90 (135).
  
• Twineedle - Physical Bug, 25 power, 100% accuracy, hits twice, 20% chance of poison (per hit, total 36%)
  25 power is too little, and making it hit 2-5 times so the power output matches Bullet Seed and Icicle Spear would make the poison chance too high. Therefore, the power output should match the two-hit moves rather than the multihit moves.
  
  What to do with it? 40 power.

That's all the moves I want to write up in full, but honorable mentions go to Head Smash/Head Charge, Crush Grip/Wring Out, Attack Order/Defend Order/Heal Order, Steamroller, Poisonpowder/Stun Spore, Charge Beam and Inferno, all of which have things making them undesirable choices for one reason or another.

Now it's your turn. What moves do you think need some attention to make players use them more often? Would you do anything differently to the moves I've listed?

I like your listing but just want to say that not all moves should be competetive viable, because ingame you also need bad and mediocre moves for the start of the game. something like double kick is maybe "weak" but can be learned way earlier than close combat.

Competitive play is just ingame play taken to the n^th power - I think people are too fast to draw a line between them without taking too close a look at their own endgame movesets or the movesets of others.

But this isn't about competitive viability. All of the moves I've listed are maligned to the point where the only reason to use them is because you have no other choice or because you feel like you should use a Pokémon's signature move(s) regardless of actual utility. Gamefreak buffed Tackle from 35/95 to 50/100 in Gen V - did that make it overpowered in the hands of Tepig or Lillipup? Why would making Fury Swipes a 112.5-power move instead of a 72-power one make it overpowered in the hands of Nidoran or Sentret?

I agree with most of your ideas. Moves with the term 'mega' in them should really be good, usable moves - it's silly that they're outclassed by so many TMs and are lacking any unique side effects. I also dislike the fact that so many signature moves outclassed by regular TMs - I agree it makes sense to buff them up to a point where they're at least even.

ThomasWinwood said:

Why would making Fury Swipes a 112.5-power move instead of a 72-power one make it overpowered in the hands of Nidoran or Sentret?

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I was looking in to this, on a damage calculator. Whilst it might not be a terrible idea, I found that a lv 15 Sentret (vs lv 15 Treecko, as an example) could OHKO with 4 hits (@25 power), guaranteed at 5 hits. To me this seems pretty dangerous, in an 'early routes' setting. There is then the factor of critical hits, which I believe this data misses - a 3-hit attack where at least one is a crit.hit could perhaps lead to the OHKO as well.

Stab+5hits+crits is actually a pretty strong move as it is, the power boost (^) might be overkill.

If you were changing moves to add more difficulty to the gain, this might be a good idea, but otherwise I think I would avoid editing common beginner moves. This isn't to say I like all 5hit moves to be 72-power, but for ones that are present so early it makes sense. If you'd like a more powerful 5hit physical normal move there could always be 'fury slash' or something? :)

Bear in mind five hits is the exception rather than the rule on anything that doesn't have Skill Link. The actual average damage output is the same as if it always hit three times - you're going to get 36 (50) or 54 (75) power more often than 72 (100) or 90 (125) power - so the average power is actually 43.2 vs 67.5.

Plus, consider that Gamefreak had no complaints with buffing Rock Blast (learned by Dwebble at level 3, Roggelrola at level 14, Nosepass at level 18 and Geodude at level 22) to 25 power and 90% accuracy, and Bullet Seed (learned by many Pokémon by TM in Gen III and Exeggcute at level 17) and Icicle Spear (learned by Vanillite at birth and Shellder at level 13) to 25 power and 100% accuracy when those can hit for supereffective damage, which is far worse in damage calculation terms than Sentret's hoping for critical hits.

ThomasWinwood said:

Plus, consider that Gamefreak had no complaints with buffing Rock Blast (learned by Dwebble at level 3, Roggelrola at level 14, Nosepass at level 18 and Geodude at level 22) to 25 power and 90% accuracy, and Bullet Seed (learned by many Pokémon by TM in Gen III and Exeggcute at level 17) and Icicle Spear (learned by Vanillite at birth and Shellder at level 13) to 25 power and 100% accuracy when those can hit for supereffective damage, which is far worse in damage calculation terms than Sentret's hoping for critical hits.

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Hmm, whilst some of those are facts are neither here nor there, due to many pokemon not being present around those levels in the wild/trainers, there are a few exceptions it seems. Rather shocked to be honest! Gamefreak are an odd bunch :P.

I suppose the key to this all is balance. Throw some low-level fighting moves/pokemon on your starting routes and then it wouldn't be a problem at all. That is probably how the rock pokemon got away with their power boost.


Anywho, speaking of normal-type moves that are way too basic - how about the immensely annoying HM01, Cut. Being an exact tackle clone but with less accuracy. What would people like to see happen to cut (either fo real, or in hacks)? Add a type? Increase in power? Secondary effect?

Magic said:

Anywho, speaking of normal-type moves that are way too basic - how about the immensely annoying HM01, Cut. Being an exact tackle clone but with less accuracy. What would people like to see happen to cut (either fo real, or in hacks)? Add a type? Increase in power? Secondary effect?

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It should have 100% accuracy, be slightly stronger and should also be super-effective against Grass-types, similar to how Freeze-Dry or Flying Press work, too, in my opinion.

Doesnt mentioned HMs in the post that convinced me to make this thread, and I quite like his suggestion of making it Steel-type with 60 power and 100% accuracy - acceptable in its own right, killer on Scizor. (I quite like his suggestions in general - I have two of his posts from that thread bookmarked.)

To be honest, I don't like editing moves, I like to keep it real like the originals. Most of these moves, players don't usually keep too far into the game, so in the beginning of the game they're actually pretty useful, at least in my opinion.

Dark Sneasel said:

To be honest, I don't like editing moves, I like to keep it real like the originals.

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In my opinion this is falling into the same trap that Doesnt complained about in the thread I linked earlier, of assuming that Gamefreak have some sort of master plan for game balance and making changes to "canon" mechanics negatively impacts it.

Dark Sneasel said:

Most of these moves, players don't usually keep too far into the game, so in the beginning of the game they're actually pretty useful, at least in my opinion.

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This only really applies to a few of the moves I've mentioned (Fury Swipes, Fury Attack, Double Kick), for which see my previous posts in this thread.

Submission and Mega Kick aren't earlygame moves* - the only natural learner of the latter is Hitmonlee, at level 46 in Gen III (level when-you-reach-the-move-relearner in Gen VI), whereas the former is learned at 26, 36 or when-you-reach-the-move-relearner depending on who you ask.

*FireRed has a move tutor for Mega Kick relatively early on because it's trying really hard to be a nostalgiamobile**, and Gen I had a Mega Kick TM. This isn't a regular feature, so it doesn't count.
**For me it failed miserably because of just how condescending the how-to-play stuff was. I can handle the usual hey-you-might-be-a-new-player-here's-the-ropes, but the Teachy TV promised insight and then treated me like a paraplegic infant.

Then there's the worst Gen I mutants: skull bash and razor wind. At least sky attack has a type to it.

I would like to see fury attack changed in a different way. Currently it gets stronger the more you use it, but I would like to introduce another mechanic to it (perhaps remove the power increase on fury cutter if it's OP).

Set fury cutter to 60 power and 90 accuracy. Then for each successful Fury Cutter, increase the crit chance of the move by 10%. The only problem in my opinion with this kind of mechanic, is that tank role Pokemon can abuse it by eventually having a 60 power move with 100% crit. However, a bug move can be resisted by a lot of Pokemon, so it doesn't really make it overpowered :D

About the only redeeming thing about Mega Kick, Mega Punch, and Submission was that in Gen 1 it was a purchasable TM usable by a somewhat larger range of Pokémon than other TMs.
They really dropped the ball when it came to TM access in the first games. Egg Bomb commonly available? Why?

If Stone Edge/Fire Blast/Hydro Pump/Focus Blast are reliable then I'm the Queen of England. Always misses more than it hits, just like Supersonic. XD

Anyway, I use Bonemerang over Earthquake when I can. Thing is that it's better with Substitutes and sometimes actually does more damage than EQ, given one hit crits. On that note, maybe a raised Critical chance?

I'm liking most of these. The thing with Bum Bone Rush however is that there's no one with Skill Link to use it. I'm not saying Marowak should have the ability as a hidden, but a Pokemon with both would rock that like nothing else.

Taking into account what you said about Barrage, would a Grass-Type Egg Bomb get it used more?

Poor Chansey and Blissey also learn it though for obvious reasons. (not like they can hurt anything with it)

Why not give it a nifty effect though? For instance, it could damage not just the Pokémon currently out but the ones in the party as well. At least then the 75% hit chance can be rationalized. If griefing splash damage is a little too OP it could deal part of the damage back to the user. Since both lines of pkmn are tanks that shouldn't be too big a deal.

Still think counter is a better choice on Chansey though.


Ditto hitting with Fire Blast, Hydro Pump, etc. Worst one is Blizzard. If I'm lucky I'll hit twice before running out of PP. Ice Beam is far more reliable.