What is the point of Mind Reader and Lock On?

[ThePokeCorral]

Am I missing something, or are Mind Reader and Lock On essentially useless?

My basic issue is this: So long as the attack you are attempting to use has an accuracy of greater than 50%, you are statistically better off just using that move twice in a row. And, even if the attack has an accuracy of exactly 50%, like Dynamic Punch or Zap Cannon, Mind Reader still doesn't help you, it only makes the two strategies equal. This also applies to situations where the opponent has boosted their Evasion or lowered your Accuracy; for an attack that starts out with 100% accuracy, the opponent needs to have boosted their Evasion or lowered your Accuracy by at least four stages in order for using Mind Reader to be better than attacking twice - otherwise, the attack's chance of hitting is still at least 50%.

While you might say that it's okay for a move to be useful only in a very specific situation, a more precise version of my question is: Under what circumstances does it make any sense to give Mind Reader or Lock On to an NPC opponent, instead of using that move slot for something else?

The reason this bugs me so much is because I'm trying to design a Psychic type Gym Leader (the 7th) who has a theme of "I can read your mind." I want to have at least one of her Pokemon use Mind Reader, but I am very much struggling to find a way of doing that that doesn't seem like a terrible strategy; I want this move to be good, but I think it isn't. Currently, I'm resorting to creating a held item that changes how Mind Reader works, to make it no longer be bad.

To illustrate, at one point I planned on having her use a Hypno that had both Hypnosis and Mind Reader, with Mind Reader compensating for Hypnosis' low accuracy. But, while Hypnosis has very low accuracy as moves go, it's still greater than 50%; so, again, it seems to me than using Mind Reader followed by Hypnosis is in fact worse than just spamming Hypnosis; you will land a hit statistically more often, and with fewer misses first, in the latter scenario. And the vast majority of moves have a higher accuracy than Hypnosis, so the problem only gets worse from there.

Now, I've since switched to giving this Gym Leader a Mega Hypno that has an ability which makes eye-based moves like Hypnosis never miss, so that particular dilemma is now moot. The other way in which I've been trying to get Mind Reader to work is by giving her a Medicham that has Mind Reader and Dynamic Punch - a strategy which Chuck's Poliwrath also used. But, again, using Mind Reader followed by Dynamic Punch merely hits an equal number of times on average to just spamming Dynamic Punch, so what is the justification for not replacing Mind Reader with another move?

Again, the vast majority of moves have a higher accuracy than Hypnosis and Dynamic Punch. The only moves that actually have an accuracy lower than 50% are OHKO moves; is that all that Mind Reader and Lock On are good for? What am I missing??

 

[Explorer of Time]

Mind Reader is good for hitting with big, battle-changing moves that you absolutely want to predictably hit with at least once, usually on a Pokemon tough enough to take a hit or two. If you, for example, attack with Dynamic Punch twice, you have 25% chance of missing on both attacks. If you Mind Reader before your second turn Dynamic Punch, you have a 0% chance of missing and will definitely hit and confuse your opponent on your second turn.

Also, like you said, it's a counter for evasion/accuracy stat changes, especially when using moves that aren't 100% accurate in the first place.

 

[Mobile Tsk]

If you need to be absolutely sure to hit the move one of the two turns then it would still make sense to use Lock-On/Mind Reader. Using a 50% ACC move twice means you have a 75% chance of hitting at least once. Using LO/MR means you have a 100% chance, but only on the second turn.

They're still bad moves because they take up valuable moveslots and game turns. And a smart opponent can easily play around them.

 

[Corveone]

We probably need to take the context into account. When Mind Reader and Lock On were introduced (Gen 2) Double Team / Minimize garbage were probably fairly popular strategies, especially annoying with Pokémon like Umbreon or Snorlax, and the addition of the Leftovers item.

Mind Reader / Lock On were an alternative to counter that, as even if you wasted a turn, you could disrupt Evasive Pokémon strategies and make their turns spent on Double Team / Minimize go to waste as well. Powerful moves were rarer than in modern games too, so a 100 BP move that was guaranteed to cause Confusion or Paralysis (whose effects were also more dangerous back then, as both Status conditions were nerfed in Gen 7) was pretty spooky too.

Also keep in mind the low PP of those moves. If you happen to have only 2 PP left for Dynamic Punch, there's a high probabilty that you'll miss one, or even the two of them in a row (especially if there are Evasion/Accuracy modifiers), but with Mind Reader you can at least ensure that both Dynamic Punches will hit, even if it takes four attack turns.

And there was also the combo (although very limited) with Mind Reader + Fissure, or Articuno's Sheer Cold in Gen 3. Very niche stuff but could work in certain situations.

These days it's hard to imagine anyone using that kind of stuff because we've got a much higher variety of powerful moves with additional effects and more reliable tools to cripple and break stallers. Like imagine if moves like Lumina Crash or Torch Song existed in Gen 2, they would have been considered hyper broken.

 

[Mobile Tsk]

We probably need to take the context into account. When Mind Reader and Lock On were introduced (Gen 2) Double Team / Minimize garbage were probably fairly popular strategies, especially annoying with Pokémon like Umbreon or Snorlax, and the addition of the Leftovers item.

Mind Reader / Lock On were an alternative to counter that, as even if you wasted a turn, you could disrupt Evasive Pokémon strategies and make their turns spent on Double Team / Minimize go to waste as well. Powerful moves were rarer than in modern games too, so a 100 BP move that was guaranteed to cause Confusion or Paralysis (whose effects were also more dangerous back then, as both Status conditions were nerfed in Gen 7) was pretty spooky too.

Also keep in mind the low PP of those moves. If you happen to have only 2 PP left for Dynamic Punch, there's a high probabilty that you'll miss one, or even the two of them in a row (especially if there are Evasion/Accuracy modifiers), but with Mind Reader you can at least ensure that both Dynamic Punches will hit, even if it takes four attack turns.

And there was also the combo (although very limited) with Mind Reader + Fissure, or Articuno's Sheer Cold in Gen 3. Very niche stuff but could work in certain situations.

These days it's hard to imagine anyone using that kind of stuff because we've got a much higher variety of powerful moves with additional effects and more reliable tools to cripple and break stallers. Like imagine if moves like Lumina Crash or Torch Song existed in Gen 2, they would have been considered hyper broken.

The Evasion strategy is also a great point. It was even prevalent in game with things like Koga/Karen in GSC.

 

[ThePokeCorral]

If you, for example, attack with Dynamic Punch twice, you have 25% chance of missing on both attacks. If you Mind Reader before your second turn Dynamic Punch, you have a 0% chance of missing and will definitely hit and confuse your opponent on your second turn.

usually on a Pokemon tough enough to take a hit or two

Using a 50% ACC move twice means you have a 75% chance of hitting at least once. Using LO/MR means you have a 100% chance, but only on the second turn.

You're not taking into account the 25% chance that you will hit twice if you attack twice; dealing twice as much damage to this bulky Pokemon in two turns than you would have with Mind Reader. Also, this way you have a 50% chance of confusing them on the first hit, and thus a 25% chance that they will hurt themselves in confusion on their second turn (or their first, if you're faster) and not attack.

You're also not really answering my main point. If you use Mind Reader + Dynamic Punch, you will hit 1 time in 2 turns. If you use Dynamic Punch twice, you will still hit 1 time on average in 2 turns, and you have an extra move slot. How is the former not the worse strategy? Assuming that that extra move slot could be used for something important, such as a STAB move of a type you wouldn't otherwise have, or a coverage move for a weakness that you wouldn't otherwise be covering.

We probably need to take the context into account. [etc]

That makes sense, but that just changes my question to, what are these moves good for today? Again, I'm trying to find a way of making good use of Mind Reader in a boss battle.

Also keep in mind the low PP of those moves. If you happen to have only 2 PP left for Dynamic Punch, there's a high probabilty that you'll miss one, or even the two of them in a row (especially if there are Evasion/Accuracy modifiers), but with Mind Reader you can at least ensure that both Dynamic Punches will hit, even if it takes four attack turns.

Granted, but I'm not sure if that makes it worth the extra move slot.



I reiterate that I'm thinking of this in terms of an NPC's moveset. If the player knows that they will be facing, say, a bulky Pokemon that spams Sand Attack (I don't say Double Team because Foresight can take care of that) and can heal itself, then sure, they can use Mind Reader for that one battle and then replace it afterwards. That's fine, and maybe that's reason enough for the moves to exist. But for an NPC, the chances of that being relevant are extremely low, and they would almost certainly be better off using that move slot for something else.

Let's take a look at that Medicham in the Psychic type 7th Gym. In addition to Mind Reader and Dynamic Punch, there are 3 other moves that I feel it wants:

-Zen Headbutt, as a STAB move.

-High Jump Kick, or another strong Fighting type move, as a STAB move and to reliably cover Dark types. I say High Jump Kick because that combos somewhat with Mind Reader and Foresight.

-Foresight, to deal with Ghost types; particularly the threat of a Ghost/Dark or Ghost/Steel type Pokemon that would be immune to or resist Zen Headbutt, but would be weak to Fighting under Foresight.

Taking into account the fact that you can deal the same amount of damage per turn on average by using Dynamic Punch twice as by using Mind Reader followed by Dynamic Punch, it seems as though of these 5 moves, Mind Reader is the least useful by a wide margin. Am I wrong?

Furthermore, if the NPC uses Mind Reader followed by Dynamic Punch, the player knows what turn they're going to attack on, and so can switch in a Ghost type on that turn; and since this is a Psychic type Gym, the chance that the player has at least one Ghost type on their team is high. Whereas if they use Dynamic Punch repeatedly, they are as likely to attack with a Fighting move (as opposed to Zen Headbutt) on one turn as on any other turn, so switching in a Ghost type is a much less effective move.

Again, am I wrong that Mind Reader is definitively the least useful of these 5 move options?

 

[Corveone]

That makes sense, but that just changes my question to, what are these moves good for today? Again, I'm trying to find a way of making good use of Mind Reader in a boss battle.

Today? Pretty much for nothing. As I said, those moves might have had a niche as an Evasive/PP stalling-counter strat back in the day, but they have been simply outclassed by many alternatives and more effective options introduced later on.

You probably won't find any good use for Mind Reader on an NPC boss battle, especially if you don't have the tools to improve the trainer AI. You could try stuff like Smeargle with Mind Reader + Sheer Cold... but that has nothing to do with a Psychic gym theme either. Maybe your best bet would be finding a bulky Psychic type Pokémon that can combo Mind Reader with any of the existing OHKO moves and give it Def/Sp.Def/HP Evs, but such Pokémon probably doesn't even exist.

That said, there are ways to make it work, simply because it is your game. I mean, you've mentioned giving the gym leader a Mega Hypno, so if you can do something as big as adding custom megas, you could:

-Edit move sets. E.g. Claydol that knows Mind Reader, Hypnosis, and Fissure.
-Improve Mind Reader, by changing/adding something else on top of its existing functionality.
-Create a new Psychic move with very low accuracy but very nasty effects to work around this particular gimmick.
-Add field effects or something to the battle (E.g. Fog weather) that could raise the move's usefulness.

 

[ThePokeCorral]

You probably won't find any good use for Mind Reader on an NPC boss battle

That said, there are ways to make it work, simply because it is your game.

Okay, so, I mentioned that my current solution was to create a held item that changed how the move works. Here's what I came up with.

The item is called a Seer's Stone, and is given by the Gym Leader after defeating her along with her TM. It affects the moves Foresight, Miracle Eye, and Mind Reader (not Oder Sleuth or Lock On). The effect on Foresight and Miracle Eye isn't relevant here so I'll skip it. For Mind Reader it makes the following changes:

-It makes the effect last for two turns instead of one. This is the main part that solves the "it's statistically better to just attack twice" problem.

-It increases the critical hit ratio of affected attacks. (By how much, I'm not sure. Notably, most moves with an "increased crit rate" have +1 to their crit rate, but Focus Energy gives +2.)

-If the target uses a protection move on an affected turn, the user instead forgoes their move that turn and uses the selected attack the following turn, still with the effect active. (I'm not sure whether this should apply recursively, but I'm guessing not.)

What do you think about that? Do you think that any of these changes should just be implemented to Mind Reader and Lock On all the time?


I also created a couple of moves that are similar to Mind Reader but also deal damage, under the premise that this is okay because Mind Reader sucks. Both are signature moves.

The first is a signature move of a new Psychic/Dark wolf Pokemon that hunts using precognition and mind reading. (A Dex tidbit is that this has caused its sense of smell to almost completely atrophy.) The move is called Psycho Scent, it's a 40 base power Psychic type special attack, and it permanently (or maybe just for 5 turns) causes the user's moves against the target to never miss.

The other, called Sonic Spear, is a new signature move of Noivern. It's a 60 base power Dragon type special attack, that also has the effect of Mind Reader, and is super effective against Rock types. This is based on Noivern's Pokedex entries that say that it locates its opponents in the dark with sonic waves before swooping in the finish them off, and also its numerous entries that stated that its sonic waves can crush stone. Fitting the flavor of locating the opponent with sonar, it can also hit opponents that are using Fly, Dive, and Dig.

The former move might appear to be the stronger one, since its effect lasts for much longer while only dealing 1/3 less damage. However, I don't intend for this wolf Pokemon to learn any "outrageously strong if it hits but with very low accuracy" moves like Dynamic Punch - so it just affects "regular" lower accuracy moves and negates moves like Sand Attack or Double Team - whereas Noivern gets Hurricane.

Given what you said about Mind Reader and Lock On being good for basically nothing nowadays, do you think that either of these moves would be overpowered?

 

[Corveone]

I think that creating a held item to enhance a specific move is a kind of unnecessarily convoluted solution. Why not simply make the move better by default? Depending on an item for this would also interfere with Mega evolution and Pokémon that could benefit from using other held items.

It's better if you can keep things simple. Look for example what the Gen 8 games did to Rapid Spin. You can make the move better by adding something on top of its existing effect. If it was up to me, I would consider something like:

Bypasses Protect/Detect
Prevents Switching (or makes next move hit before switching, as if using Pursuit)
Gives Priority to the next attacking move (or raises user Speed, if the former is too hard to program)
Protects user from priority moves
Raises user's Defense and Special Defense until the next move hits (similar to Stockpile)

But of course, I'd just pick one or two added effects at most. Adding too much could make the move overpowered.

 

[ThePokeCorral]

I think that creating a held item to enhance a specific move is a kind of unnecessarily convoluted solution. Why not simply make the move better by default?

If you think adding some of these effects by default isn't too audacious, then great.

Combining your suggestions with mine, I'm thinking:
-What I said about holding the attack until the next turn if the target uses a protection move.
-Hits before switching as if using Pursuit.
-Gives priority to the affected move.

If that's too powerful, the third effect could be replaced with reducing incoming priority moves up to +2 back to 0. Actually blocking priority moves doesn't seem to make flavor sense; sure reading your opponent's mind can let you block or evade their attack, but why only priority moves? Giving your own moves priority seems to make more sense.

That said, the problem with scrapping the held item entirely is that, as I mentioned, I also wanted it to enhance Foresight and Miracle Eye. My plan for those moves was that it would give both moves the effect of the other that it lacks - that is, both moves will remove Ghost's immunity to Normal/Fighting and Dark's immunity to Psychic - and it also makes the effect persist if the target switches out. Apart from wanting to make good use of Foresight due to the theme of the Gym, the reason for this was that her team uses a lot of Psychic moves (obviously) and Fighting moves to counter Dark types, both types that have a type that is immune to them. For her ace in particular, a Ghost/Dark type that is immune to both would be nearly untouchable, and it itself doesn't have room for Foresight. So the ability to make a Pokemon lose both immunities for the rest of the battle with a single move would be very helpful.

Perhaps, in addition to these effects on Foresight and Miracle Eye, the item could add one other buff to Mind Reader on top of the effects above.

 

[PoryKid575]

They were introduced to counter double-team/minimize spammers by 100% guaranteeing you'll get a hit every other turn (unless you're confused, faint, etc). They're also useful if you prefer a low risk, low reward play style. Using your Dynamic Punch example, you should hit around every other turn over a long enough time span; but you'll have plenty of situations where you hit twice in 2 turns or miss twice. Lock-On and Mind-Reader allow you to give up the possibility of hitting twice in a row to ensure you'll hit at least once.

 

[Sweet Serenity]

The purpose of Mind Reader/Lock-On is simply to ensure that the next move you uses hits. However, whether or not the strategy is viable, especially these days, is debatable. Mind Reader/Lock-On is very useful for ensuring that one-hit-KO attacks land. For instance, Articuno is known for being able to learn both Mind Reader and Sheer Cold. In the past, the strategy was viable with certain Pokémon. For instance, the Magnemite line benefitted heavily from having Lock-On and using a move like Zap Cannon. In addition, if the opposing Pokémon was Steel-type, its Ability could prevent the opponent from switching too. However, nowdays, better options typically exist. If you want to use high powered low accuracy moves, it is simply better to teach them to a Pokémon with the Ability No Guard.