Do you use any non-damaging moves when playing the story?

I mainly use power-up moves like Calm Mind, which is helpful when I'm going through an area full of trainers (eg. Victory Road or Team hideouts and such).
OHKO'ing fodder Pokémon with a powered-up Flamethrower, for example, conserves PP, especially since powerful moves have 5-15 PP to start with.
 
Of course, many status moves are too good to ignore.

However, the reason I highly value them is because I ban using Bag items during battle in all of my playthroughs. For players who do use items a lot of Status moves become obsolete with how absurdly broken things like Full Restore and X Stat boosts are.
 
Absolutely. Adopted some habits from challenge runs. Avoids using bag items in-battle, much like Corveone, as well as Set mode. Heavily favors setup strategies.

Why? Will try to break it down. Do you know how fighting Gyarados with an Electric move is really strong? Imagine having an Electric move versus an entire team of Gyarados. Hits for x4 damage when at +6 Attack or Special Attack. Takes 3 Sword Dances or Nasty Plots to do that (or 3 X-Attacks/Specials in the newer games). One-shots entire teams like this, even with iffy Pokemon. Defeated Brilliant Diamond Cynthia's team with Rampardos at an even level, for example, by setting up on Spiritomb. Used zero bag items during the fight.

Sounds great, but what about those three turns (or more) of doing no damage? How many Pokemon can survive that? Not many...without support. Fainted all six of Cynthia's Pokemon with Rampardos, as mentioned above. Brought in Vespiquen and Pachirisu to weaken Spiritomb first, however. Enabled Rampardos to use Swords Dance and Rock Polish while Spiritomb struggled to bring Rampardos below 75% health.

(Did not always go so smoothly, however. Probably fainted from a critical in at least one gym battle while setting up. Is not without its pitfalls.)

A different example: Say you are fighting Poppy in the Paldean Elite Four. Leads with Copperajah. Hits pretty hard with 130 base Attack. Sports pretty good coverage, hitting only 11 Pokemon for not very effective damage or less (including unevolved Pokemon). Identifies one weakness: three physical moves and Stealth Rocks.

Exploits that weakness. Drops its Attack to -6 with Charm/Feather Dance and paralyzes it, ideally. Inflicts 1/4 of its normal damage at -6 Attack. For comparison: An Iron Head from Copperajah at -6 versus a Ditto: 26.5 - 31.5%. A Body Slam from a +0 Attack Zigzagoon versus the same Ditto: 28.2 - 33.3%. Are you afraid of Zigzagoons? Likely not. Slap on a Leftovers to stay healthy for the Sturdy Magnezone. (Beware criticals, also.)

Accomplishes good things with other, self-sufficient combinations too.
  • Garganacl: Iron Defense + Body Press. Quadruples its Defense and its Attack, in a sense, in three turns. Weathers blows easily. Used Garganacl with Recover, Salt Cure, Body Press, and Iron Defense in the first Paldea playthrough.
  • Rookidee: Power Trip + Hone Claws. Gives you this power duo by level 8. Fires off a 140 power Dark move at x2.5 damage after 3 turns of Hone Claws.
  • Hawlucha: Encore + Swords Dance. Do you have any idea how funny it is to lock a Pokemon into a dumb move, buff up, and then destroy everything?

Likely brings as many Pokemon with at least one status move than Pokemon with only offensive moves (if not more). Does not buff up for every fight, though. Reserves it for the major fights. Recognizes that not all fights for good for setup either. Dares not set up against a Pokemon with Toxic or Sand Attack, for example, barring some immunity.

One extra note: Used to only pack offensive moves, with the occasional Hypnosis or something. Ignored buffing moves. Blames early movesets for this mindset. Typically only handed out the weak buffing moves, like Sharpen or Growth (same for debuffing). Leaves you vulnerable to criticals for quite a while. Suffers some nasty damage when at a level disadvantage too.
 
It depends a lot on the game I'm playing, on easy games, like X and Y, I went full offense, On some harder games, for example Black and White (1&2), I tend to use more of a strategizing, and on extremely difficult ROM Hacks, like Radical Red, I tend to use a lot of status moves, because it's impossible to win otherwise.
 
I've been trying to get better at keeping more status moves. Cosmic Power on Solrock helped me IMMENSELY against Norman's Slaking in my Emerald nuzlocke. Probably would've lost to him otherwise. I have dual screens with Light Clay on my Mr. Mime on my Ultra Moon team. I don't use them too often, but the are very helpful when they are up. Also on that same team, I kept Focus Energy on my Hariyama and gave it a Scope Lens so every hit is a guaranteed critical hit. But honestly, most times I stick to the brute force method and keep 4 attacks.
 
Definitely starting in gen 5 since Serperior would learn coil naturally and I thought that was too good to pass up. The dual screen moves light screen and reflect are also too good to pass up against challenging foes. Then you have the badge boosting glitch in gen 1 where any stat boosting move would buff all your stats up by 1. Not to mention when beating Heart Gold the 2nd time around my Red Gyarados proceeded to sweep Lance's team from stacking dragon dance. Other examples would be poisoning Whitney's Miltank to nab a close victory or hit it with leer twice and then 1 fighting type move.
 
During the story, I focus on damaging moves with the exception of Thunder Wave or another move that causes paralysis so that I can catch Pokémon easier.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top