How do I stop mindlessly using only attack moves?

[Shukawariosenpai]

I don't know what it is for me but it seems like I always gravitate towards using only attack moves. I feel like it's not really a strategy and that I'm wasting my potential as a trainer because of it. Anyway I can stop this?

 

[brantman19]

Mix in some moves that are designed to paralyze or poison. This is my strategy with a Bulbasaur: Leech seed, poisonpowder, then the attack moves. The majority of my attacks have some sort of extra effect... Giga drain does damage and it also gives me HP too. Just one example.

 

[esperance]

To be fair, you don't really need to focus on much beyond attacking moves in the games. All of the trainers are easily beaten without status moves.

If you want to "stop" this, an easy way to do so is creating teams on Pokémon Showdown and battling random people. You'll quickly realize that status moves are extremely important to any balanced team, and the experience will definitely help.

 

[HairyLoco]

Start by teaching Swords Dance to your physical attackers and Calm Mind (or Nasty Plot if they can) to your Special Attackers, and use them against Trainers that have more than one Pokémon and you wouldn't be able to one shot each Pokémon. Notice your PP usage going down and your battles getting easier.

 

[Megan]

If you want to use status moves (efficiently), then you have to ask yourself, why you actually need them. Fact is, when playing the games normally, you don't need status moves, because your Pokemon will be able to just plow through all the opponents, anyway. In order to make status moves more important, you'd need to change your own playstyle and have to understand, what your Pokemon are actually capable of. The more selfsufficient a Pokemon is, the easier it is, for it to overwhelm the opponent. Substantially weaker Pokemon, on the other hand, are going to have a harder time, solving a given battling problem.

My plan, when building an ingame team, usually consists of taking some random Pokemon nobody normally uses (like Jumpluff) and put in a couple stronger Pokemon, as well. I also like to restrict the amount of grinding in a game. The more you grind, the stronger your Pokemon become, so if you restrict that part, or get rid of it, completely, especially when using all team members as even as possible, you're sooner or later find yourself in a situation, where simply spamming attacks won't suffice.

That is pretty much the point, where you have to stop thinking of battles as filler gameplay and look at them as problems, that you need to solve, in order to progress in the game. It's also one of the few situations, where X items start to become more useful, although it's for everyone to decide, if and when they are going to use them, or not.

I can assure you, that those kinds of battles, can be fun, but at the same time, you have to understand, that medicating your underpowered Pokemon, severely slows the gameflow down, because you have to take all the battles more serious, especially when playing games from the newer generations.

 

[Sopheria]

Just do it :P That's the best advice I'd give. Give some non-damage-dealing moves a try and see which ones you like best. There are a lot of moves that can augment and improve on your usual strategy, such as stat boosting moves, moves that boost your critical hit rate (Focus Energy), etc. Or you might like to give some moves that boost your own evasion a try (Minimize, Double Team). If that doesn't work for you, then you can always just go back to pure-damage, nothing wrong with that~

Or like Lost Heart said, give competitive battling a try. You basically have no choice but to use non-damage dealing moves in that case--pure damage is never a viable strategy in competitives.

 

[Evening]

I don't think you can stop doing it in the main games, and that's because they're too easy and your main priority is to beat trainers to keep progressing through the game, you'd want to do that QUICK.
That's unless you plan on completely forcing yourself in using only other moves.

 

[Somewhere_]

In-game its fine to use only attack moves, but a sleep or paralysis-inducing move is always useful for capturing pokemon.

However, competitively, only attack moves isn't very good imo.

 

[Frozen Lotus]

It's a strategy, it just isn't a very good one. I tend to do this a lot for the actual in-game duration, but over the years I've become more and more fond of status moves. I almost always have Glare or Thunder Wave on my team now.

 

[Sydian]

Just mix in some stat-enhancing moves like Swords Dance, Quiver Dance, Hone Claws, etc. or some status-inducing moves like Toxic, Thunder Wave, etc. I think what would help is if you pick Pokemon that don't have the greatest move pools or learn a lot of the same types of attacks, like Lilligant for example. It learns a lot of Grass-type attack moves (exclusively, I believe). You could go with a fun set like Sleep Powder, Dream Eater, Giga Drain, and Quiver Dance. :) This is just an example, of course. I have a lot of fun using Lilligant and I'm someone that normally just has all attack moves. For in-game play, you can get by with all attacks pretty well. But that's my advice for if you want to veer from that path. Good luck!

 

[Megan]

I don't think you can stop doing it in the main games, and that's because they're too easy and your main priority is to beat trainers to keep progressing through the game, you'd want to do that QUICK.

You know, what's sad? The majority of players actually believing, that that's the case, when it isn't at all. The games are made in such a way, that you can play them the way you want. However, since nobody really knows any better, people start just spamming attacking moves and since it works, they don't care much for other ways.

I think, one major problem is, that the games don't present themselves that well, in this regard. They throw tutorials over tutorials towards you, but nobody actually cares about telling you about the pros of status moves. I also feel like, there should be incentives in the games, that reward you for trying out different strategies.

Then there's the problem with numbers. People like numbers and they like to see numbers going up. If you encounter someone with Pokemon that are on a higher level than yours, you pretty much feel the need to make up for that and the easiest way for people to do so is by grinding (increasing a number). Just to make things a little more clear: in most of your standard RPGs, bosses are going to be on a higher level, than your party, but since you can't see what level they have, you just assume he can be beaten with the party you have. If you fail, you just need to change your strategy and it usually works out.

 

[Sun]

To be fair, you don't really need to focus on much beyond attacking moves in the games. All of the trainers are easily beaten without status moves.

If you want to "stop" this, an easy way to do so is creating teams on Pokémon Showdown and battling random people. You'll quickly realize that status moves are extremely important to any balanced team, and the experience will definitely help.

Or try Battle Maison, in case the OP is playing Gen VI games. Not as great as Showdown but it can be handy when he's playing alone. :)

 

[Hiatus]

Status-based moves aren't required in-game, at least in my eyes, as the Pokémon opponents tend to use aren't usually strategic. To get through them, using plain attacks are way to go. When we try our hands on online matches, however, then things start to get more competitive, and it sort of becomes a necessity to utilize strategized movesets.