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Anyone here NOT like using "HM Slaves"?

Do you use "HM Slaves"?

  • YES, I teach all HM's to 2 Pokemon.

    Votes: 13 16.3%

  • NO, I split HM's up amongst my team.

    Votes: 38 47.5%

  • I keep Pokemon with HM's in the PC until needed.

    Votes: 29 36.3%
  • Total voters
    80
lets look at the moves (gen1 to gen5):
Cut
u get it early game and it seem decent as a normal type move but it get outclassed by almost every other moves not called tackle or scratch

Fly
pretty good move actually ingame, especially in later gens when its power is buffed

Surf
very good water move

Strength
better than cut but by this point in the game there are stronger moves like return

Flash
waste of a slot really.

waterfall
very good water move as well

whirlpool
zzz

rock climb
quite good at least power wise its better than rock slide

defog
competitive move (gen6 actually) not for ingame

hence not many hm moves are good and the slot it occupies could be used for something better easily. hence the reason slaves are used. for me i don't train a full party so i always have slots available for hm slaves
 
I don't like having slaves on my team during the story. Particularly because I usually have more than six pokemon I'm interested in using on my team so it would feel like a massive waste. Team space is already reserved for the "privileged" few. I usually only have surf on my team because it's a good move.

I often have hm slaves during the post game though when I'm going back over what I missed.
 
Sabrewulf238 said:
I don't like having slaves on my team during the story. Particularly because I usually have more than six pokemon I'm interested in using on my team so it would feel like a massive waste. Team space is already reserved for the "privileged" few. I usually only have surf on my team because it's a good move.

I often have hm slaves during the post game though when I'm going back over what I missed.
Click to expand...

Sabrewulf I agree with you entirely. I don't see the point of wasting one or two spaces for an hm slave(s). That and even if you teach your pokemon hms you can easily makes them forget those moves with the move deleter.
 
not sure what you mean...
i run a pickup team in-game, and i have the HMs divided amongst them...which is the point.
they're a team for exploring, gathering resources, and using the fun moves that are usually discarded (like metronome). so kinda i view them as HM slaves, but that isn't their sole purpose...
 
In Y I got a pancham that I taught Rocksmash, Strength, Cut and False Swipe. I used her to catch weaker pokemon. I dont really think of her as a HM slave.
 
When I play through a game regularly I do not like to have HM slaves. Normally I will distribute the HMs evenly among my team. That way I build a team from the start and work my way up using the HMs.

However, when I am simply doing a quick run through or trying to be quick for a challenge I will use one or two HM slaves. I prefer them then because I can focus on three or four powerhouse pokemon and speed through the challenge.
 
Poor Pancham is now doomed to be my HM slave. Not only can he learn Cut, Surf, and Strength, but he's also able to learn Rock Smash and Dig. I usually catch one useless water type to cover Surf and Waterfall (there are so many of them). I'm perfectly cool with Pokemon in my party knowing Fly. That attack is awesome.
 
I have two Pokemon that I will always consider HM slaves and they are Bibarel and Golduck and thats because all of their moves consists of HM's only. But when it comes to my Pokemon team, I always have at least one Pokemon that knows one of the following HM's: Surf, Fly and Strength. I dont have a problem putting HM moves on my inteam because I dont use them for competitve battling.


:t354:TG
 
I've always wanted to make a ROM Hack, and one of my top priorities is to do away with HMs so they don't take up a move slot.

Just because your Wailord doesn't have "Surf" in its movset shouldn't mean that it suddenly went full retard and forgot how to swim.
 
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I hate HM slaves and never use them. However, sometimes it's really annoying that some of the HMs aren't very good in battle (Cut, Flash etc.). I still have a small spark of hope that in future Pokemon games, the HM moves will become useful in battle :P
 
When I just started playing pokemon games, I don't think HMs differed to normal moves in my eyes and I probably didn't even know what a HM slave is, so my Charizard knew rock smash and strength. (I believe)
But after that I soon realized that most HMs were useless in battle so I stopped giving them to my party. I didn't designate one HM slave, but I passed them around throughout my PC.
Although for my X playthrough I decided to just have one HM slave and to try it out. And yes, it is veeeeery useful.
But with all that said, some HMs are actually useful in battle. My flying pokemon ALWAYS knows Fly and my water type sometimes knows Surf, because I think both moves have around 90 base power. Even Strength has a good solid 80.
 
I used to use HM slaves but now I try to spread HMs out into my team. No matter what you're wasting something whether it be a pokemon or a move slot, I find that it works better to have all my pokemon battle-ready even if they only have 3 non-HM moves than it does to have only 5 battle-ready pokemon. It seems like as long as the other 3 moves are carefully chosen it doesn't matter if one of the moves is an HM.
 
I don't like to be mean to my Pokemon, but one of them has to server as my HM slave haha. It's either I catch a HM slave or incorporate HMs into the movesets of my party and I'm not fond of the latter except for Surf and maybe Fly. :p
 
While I certainly hate the idea of using a HM slave, I view it as a necessary evil. I rather it be that all HMs were actually items (I.E. Hedge clippers to substitute for cut) so I didn't have to waste a Pokemon's potential to give it all HM moves, however, I consider it worse to actually give HMs to the Pokemon I was planning to use on my team in the first place since most of them (Fly, Waterfall, and Surf excluded to varying degrees) are pretty terrible moves overall. Now with tackle being an even more reliable and overall better move than cut I have to question why they're still around at all outside of annoyance factor.
 
i wish they make HM's a key item and pokemons who can use the HM move can access the move from the field without touching its original moves.
 
HMs are a pain to get rid of (well, at the beginning of a game, anyhow), but honestly, they're pretty decent moves - a few of them better than most of the TMs (namely Surf and Fly). I never find the need to use HM slaves, and if I do need to use HMs, I usually split them up amongst my team (as I almost ALWAYS have a Surfing Pokemon, a Rock Smash/Strength Pokemon, a Flying Pokemon (for convenience), and any miscellaneous HMs learned by my team, if necessary) Sure, HMs annoying to be on your team until near the end of the game, but they provide a slightly more difficult experience to the game (which itself has gotten significantly easier since previous generations, let's be honest...) I believe I've even had to resort to using an HM slave once during one of my challenges... it irked me to the end.

tl;dr - No, I don't like using HM Slaves. I'm not an opponent of using HM slaves, but I don't advocate or support such usage unless absolutely necessary.
 
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