What if... Pokemons had a fifth move slot as well as two equip slots?

[ElCabron]

Sometimes I wonder what if pokemons had a fifth move slot and a second equip slot, the latter with some limitations. It'd certainly widen the possibilities of strategy. Like finally getting that perfect move and NOT having to get rid of another move!
Or having some mixed strategy and giving players some time to think what this player might be using as items! Provided said items don't clash though, like Life Orb and Leftovers, two Choice items, Focus Sash thingy, etc.
However, how would you and how do you think others would accept? Would it be wise or would it cause too much problems, you think?

 

[ProfChaos]

Sometimes I wonder what if pokemons had a fifth move slot and a second equip slot, the latter with some limitations. It'd certainly widen the possibilities of strategy. Like finally getting that perfect move and NOT having to get rid of another move!
Or having some mixed strategy and giving players some time to think what this player might be using as items! Provided said items don't clash though, like Life Orb and Leftovers, two Choice items, Focus Sash thingy, etc.
However, how would you and how do you think others would accept? Would it be wise or would it cause too much problems, you think?

i;ve often had this thought, but then if we got another slot, it wouldnt be long before we are wanting a 6th and a 10th lol.. but in all seriousness it might make the game much harder. Particularly online for meta. the 5th slot might not do too much dmg, but the dual items might be overkill.

 

[Thunderflare]

That would be an awful idea. Let's take Greninja for example. It has caused enough rage already. However, people have pointed out that it has only four move slots, which limits its coverage (let's not talk about how people respond to this counter-argument). Greninja would be able to land super effective hits on just about everything with even five move slots. And it would have protean and possibly life orb. Yeah, that's horrid.

Greninja isn't the only Pokemon where this is the case, just the most obvious example. Aurorus and Dragonite have pretty crazy coverage already with four move slots. They'd be completely broken with more.

 

[Megan]

My own thought process was actually quite similar to your idea, the differense being:
A Pokemon gets six moveslots, but only for of them can be used in battles. You obviously choose the moves you want to use, however that has to happen even before team preview is displayed (when you're in the status menu). That idea stems from back when I was wondering how HM moves could be used without taking away that precious moveslot that you'd rather like to use for a different move.

That way you could just put unwanted HM moves into one of the passive 5th and 6th slots making them usable in the field while not limiting movespaces during battles.

 

[noa]

I think it would be very entertaining. It would turn the competitive world over on it's head. I'd love to see the countless new possibilities!
But yeah, it would definitely make a lot more Pokemon super broken and possibly create one or two more tiers...
Either way, it would be chaos.

 

[Blueredemption]

I really like this idea, but I don't think it would fit well with the current players. Like mentioned above, it would make the game much harder than it already can be.

A way to get around that is to implement it like BW2's challenge mode. Once you beat the game on it's normal settings you should have an opportunity to play it on a harder difficulty, but instead of just having an increase in levels you get extra move and item slots. I feel that this would make Pokemon a much more involving type of game for those who want it to be, but not hard for those who want the normal experience.

 

[Phigo]

I always liked to think, that the "only 4-move" thing is a rule, laid out by the Pokemon League to not overwhelm the Trainers and somewhat regulate the possibilities. Like in Boxing, where kicks and elbows are not allowed, rather than Muay Thai, which allows them as well.

And when it says "Pokemon forgot xy", it does not actually forget the move, it just refrains from using it, to not violate the rules. (I mean, how can a crocodile or dog forget to bite someone, biting is mandatory for many animals...)

Of course, in reality, "bad guys" like Team Rocket would not play after those rules, but it's a game, after all...

Anyways, I don't support the idea of more than 4 moves. I think it is a well balanced amount of moves and if you want to mix it up a bit, you can just go to a relearner and "relearn" older moves. Or simply have more than 1 of the same species with different movesets.

 

[Sopheria]

I don't think that would be such a bad thing. I would add another layer of strategy to the games, as it wouldn't be as easy to predict what moveset the opponent has. With an extra hold item, you'd be able to coordinate the two of them to complement one another (e.g. have Leftovers with to lessen the deteriorating effect of Life Orb). At the same time, it'd turn the entire metagame upside down, which could be a bad or a good thing. It would be a big change but if it were to happen, I'm sure we'd all adapt to it, given some time c:

 

[CeruleanSpirit]

Not a bad idea. One of the problem is that so many pokemons could do almost anything with 1 or 2 more slots, it would change the world of competitive play. But that would give more in battle strategy and more depth to each pokemon as more build-up types would be possible. Maybe there could be a mode where each pokemons could have 6 but for tournament you would have to chose only 4 of them. But I really like the idea of 2 item slots, like rings or accessories in most RPG, you can get max 2. I don't think only wearing 1 item is enough.

 

[ShinySquirtleSquad]

I think it would be enjoyable as a metagame on pokemon showdown or something similar, however I don't really think it would happen in the main game.

 

[ElCabron]

That would be an awful idea. Let's take Greninja for example. It has caused enough rage already. However, people have pointed out that it has only four move slots, which limits its coverage (let's not talk about how people respond to this counter-argument). Greninja would be able to land super effective hits on just about everything with even five move slots. And it would have protean and possibly life orb. Yeah, that's horrid.

Greninja isn't the only Pokemon where this is the case, just the most obvious example. Aurorus and Dragonite have pretty crazy coverage already with four move slots. They'd be completely broken with more.

But then others pokemon could benefit from it. I understand some ppokemon would get broken, however with the presence of mega pokemons in OU and how the PvP battles are going, I really can't say it'll hurt the game any more. Besides, I hardly doubt 1 move slot would break the game THAT much. If anything only a few would, and those are already broken by default, to a point in which you need to make a team based on counter it. Like, I have no problems with the game per se, not even Greninja, but when a pokemon like Mega Loppuny comes in, totally destroy 6 members of my team (my win/lose ratio is not even bad tbh), and I only have a chance IF I have a certain pokemon is... Already bad. And the worse, it's common. And most mega's are like that. Isn't that pretty bad too? You can't avoid it. Every single change, either hurts the game or makes it much better. In my opinion it'd just give us one more option. What I think it'd be troublesome is pokemon having two items, that would totally break the game. Woud love to see Choice Specs/Band + Scarf! Or some other crazy combos.

For me it'd make the game more fun. Though it would be chaos the first few months.

 

[Pave Low]

I think a 4 move limit has some cons, but there are pros that far outweigh the cons. I think 4 is a good amount because, if you take into account TMs as well, you could have a Pokemon that could literally deal with most, if not all, of it's weaknesses and be able to hit any Pokemon hard. There wouldn't be as much need for more Pokemon in your roster. One of the few cons of the 4 move limit is that you will want to use a HM slave to prevent wasting a move slot on a Pokemon but that isn't reason enough to remove the limit. Especially since HMs like Surf are actually quite good. Realistically, it would make the game less of a challenge than it already is and require less strategy. I know there are very young people that play the game but it's better to engage them rather than just make it require less care. As for the extra item slot, well, there would be some pretty ridiculous combos that would a lot of Pokemon much stronger and I'm sure that there are combos that would be able to be coupled with certain abilities that would be stupidly amazing. This could make the games more fun, but there would more than likely be some Pokemon that cannot be competed with.

 

[Hiatus]

I would support them on putting-together a fifth move slot, but only if they were to limit this to HMs and outside-use (not in-battle). If they were to make this slot behave like any other, it'd wind up disrupting the competitive scene hugely, I imagine, and even though battlers would be able to adapt to it, it'd likely take them a good amount of time.