(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

I'd argue the lack of a secondary typing and being a physical attacker makes Cinderace straight up worse than Blaziken or Infernape for an in-game playthrough. Libero is a non-factor for most of the game (unless you get lucky with wonder trades) and you barely get any strong moves besides Pyro Ball, which imo is a fairly mid move for an in-game run due to its low PP. High Jump Kick isn't an easy move to get due to the breeding requirement and Gunk Shot requires grinding for raids or getting lucky with TR salesman in the wild area, so most players will be stuck running weak moves like Double Kick, U-Turn, etc. for most of the game. You at least get Acrobatics in Ballonlea as another strong move, but frankly, its not gonna be too good vs Cinderace's worst match-ups like against Rock-Types.

Yeah speaking in terms of in-game playthroughs Cinderace is actually my least favorite of the Galar starters to use in-game in SwSh. Its in-game movepool is pretty shallow, as aside from Pyro Ball which has low PP the best things it's got are stuff like Bounce and Double-Edge, which are lame, and a lot of the physical moves it learns by TR/TM and level-up are either not impressive or don't do much to supplement Cinderace in terms of coverage. It's a very one-trick pony in-game as its best use is really spamming Pyro Ball, which is fine, but not all that fun.

Despite Cinderace having the edge competitively, in-game I find Rillaboom and Inteleon a lot more fun to use. Rillaboom has a weaker signature move in a vacuum but it also has a high BP physical STAB to abuse in Wood Hammer (which also has more BP) as well as colorful coverage that compliments its Grass STAB very well, such as Ground coverage moves like High Horsepower or Earthquake, Acrobatics, Knock Off, and whatnot, and it also has some good boosting moves in Bulk Up or Swords Dance to help it, so with those tools it is quite fun. Inteleon doesn't really get good until it becomes Inteleon, but it has a good STAB and it also has a pretty colorful set of coverage with Ice Beam, Shadow Ball/Dark Pulse, Air Slash, Mud Shot, and so on. Both of them have more enjoyable movepools for an in-game run and are far more fun to use than Cinderace in-game imo.

Funny thing is, Charizard and Greninja despite being the most shilled members of the Kanto and Kalos trios, respectively, are really also not that much more impressive than the other members of their trios in their respective games for in-game playthroughs. Charizard in RBY is hilariously bad as it's stuck with Ember for a long time and has to wait until it gets Flamethrower at Level 46, and is forced to rely on physical coverage with Dig and Slash for a while, meanwhile Venusaur has a great early start, gets a strong crit move with Razor Leaf, and is a defensive behemoth in the late game and Blastoise is consistently good thanks to consistently having good STAB for various points of the game and having the most consistent overall performance in-game. With XY, Greninja actually isn't all that impressive without Protean as it's basically a fast Water-type with good STAB and a good second type in Dark combined with a decent coverage movepool, which makes it a good fast attacker, but its in-game performance in its own game isn't any better than, say, Feraligatr, Empoleon or Samurott in their own games. Certainly not on the level of Swampert or Primarina who are powerhouses in their regions. Delphox is actually more impressive in-game than Greninja because Fire/Psychic STAB is great, and it has Calm Mind and good special firepower and bulk to make it a murdering machine late game, meanwhile Chesnaught is reliable with good bulk, a good offensive movepool and boosting moves, and some defensive tricks if you want to use it as a tank/staller, making it fairly interesting and versatile in-game.

Like yeah the likes of Charizard, Greninja, and Cinderace have tools that make them shine more competitively but in-game none of them actually stand out that much in their own respective regions, they're not really any better than their counterparts in any notable way.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Ursaluna is extremely minmaxed.

To my knowledge, Ursaluna is the only Pokemon that does this. The only thing I can think of that's comparable is Mega Beedrill, and in that case they were working with a strict +100 boost and Beedrill's stats are so pitifully low that they needed all the points they could spare.

To be fair, Ursaluna was only working with a 50+ BST. As Cobalt Empoleon said, the likely reason for the min-maxing was them deciding to make it a physical tank to compensate for its now numerous weaknesses. That's sadly usually a problem with Normal-type, the Fighting-type weakness is a glaring one and, with only providing an immunity to Ghost as compensation, a Normal-type Duel-type either needs to be a Type that resists Fighting making it neutral (Flying, Psychic, Fairy), has issue with Ghost-type (Ghost itself funny enough, Psychic, Bug, Poison, Fighting) or has a gimmick with Normal-type has (such as being a sound-based Pokemon); otherwise Normal is a handicap and any Normal duel-Type might as well be a mono of its other Type (Bibarel, Deerling family, Diggersby, Drampa, Alolan Rattata family, Galarian Zigzagoon family, Litleo family, Helioptile family; and now the same fate may befall Smoliv and Cyclizar). Due to what Ursaluna is based on (the Ainu god of bears and mountains, Kim-un-kamuy), it should have became mono Ground.

Fun Fact: Naganadel's Speed not being a prime number was likely done for balance.

Naganadel has 30 less BST than the other Ultra Beasts and 121 + 30 = 151 which is a prime number.

73/73/73/127/73/121, BST 540
79/79/79/127/79/127, BST 570
73/67/73/127/73/127, BST 540

Now, maybe outspeeding Darkrai would break the game, I don't Ubers, but it does seem like they could have made it work.

Prime above 121: 71/73/71/127/71/127//540
By only increasing Poipole's 67 HP/defenses to 71 instead of 73, if left enough points to have both Special Attack and Speed be 127. I left Attack at 73 as that's what Poipole's Attack was and don't want to go below Poipole's numbers.

Prime before 121: 71/83/73/127/73/113//540
You'd think going down to 113 would give enough extra points, 8, to increase one or two stats. But NOPE! The next prime number after 73 is 79, a 6 point increase leaving 2 points leftover which could not fit into anywhere. So the next prime after 79 is 83, which is 2 points above the extra points we have. HOWEVER, the prime before 73 is 71, so by lowering one of the 73 we get the points needed to raise another to 83. So, the question now become where to place them. The choice I ultimately went with more mirrors Poipole's original distribution with having a higher Attack, keeping the defenses at 73, and ultimately lowering HP to 71. Though if I wasn't following by strict rules I would have swapped the Atk and SpD, afterall Nagandel did become more Special leaning so would make sense to have a slightly higher Special Defense.

Stats more mirroring Poilpole's:
67/113/67/113/67/113
71/109/71/109/71/109
73/107/73/107/73/107
79/101/79/101/79/101
83/ 97/ 83/ 97/ 83/ 97//540

It's a very one-trick pony in-game as its best use is really spamming Pyro Ball, which is fine, but not all that fun.

I don't know, knocking out Gigantamax Pokemon with on or two Pyro Balls was pretty funny.

"BEHOLD MY POKEMON IS NOW HUGE AND ALL-POWERFUL"
Uh-huh, look my furrybait wererabbit soccer football player is just gonna kick fire balls into its face until it explodes and faints.

 

[Sonikku A]

I don't know, knocking out Gigantamax Pokemon with on or two Pyro Balls was pretty funny.

"BEHOLD MY POKEMON IS NOW HUGE AND ALL-POWERFUL"
Uh-huh, look my furrybait wererabbit soccer football player is just gonna kick fire balls into its face until it explodes and faints.

Eh, I prefer the evil Moldbreaker Electrify VGC combo

 

[Bakugames]

The thumbnails of these videos are designed to give me a migraine

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

Yes they are! Congratulations, you have grasped the concept of 'deliberately obnoxious clickbait' :)

Can't believe I've never brought this up before but the littlest thing that annoys me the most is that Empoleon got Defiant as a hidden ability instead of Competitive

 

[AztecCroc]

Yes they are! Congratulations, you have grasped the concept of 'deliberately obnoxious clickbait' :)

Can't believe I've never brought this up before but the littlest thing that annoys me the most is that Empoleon got Defiant as a hidden ability instead of Competitive

Competitive didn't exist in Gen 5.

 

[Worldie]

Competitive didn't exist in Gen 5.

Just because it didn't exist it doesn't mean it couldn't have existed. Not like it's a particularly complicate ability either, since it basically works same as Defiant but for special attack.

So the complaint isn't wrong, would have been very possible for it to get "Competitive" if they had that idea at the time.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

I checked their Japanese names to see if there was some flavor reason why Defiant was kept over Competitive, and learned that Defiant is "Competitive Spirit" while Competitive is "Determined Spirit".

Determined Spirit seems more fitting for a Pokemon based on someone who kept finding his way back to Europe after being abandoned on multiple islands. Empoleon probably swam back.

Also it's interesting that both abilities are called Competitive, depending on the language.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Just because it didn't exist it doesn't mean it couldn't have existed. Not like it's a particularly complicate ability either, since it basically works same as Defiant but for special attack.

So the complaint isn't wrong, would have been very possible for it to get "Competitive" if they had that idea at the time.

There's a noticeable delay for Special counterparts throughout the series.

-Swagger was introduced in Gen II; Flatter was introduced in Gen III
-Choice Band was introduced in Gen III; Choice Specs (and Scarf) was introduced in Gen IV
-Swords Dance was introduced in Gen I and had Amnesia as a counterpart, but when Amnesia was changed to only boost Special Defence Nasty Plot wasn't introduced until Gen IV (Tail Glow is too limited to count as a true counterpart)
-And as discussed, Defiant was introduced in Gen V while Competitive was introduced in Gen VII

And there's a lot of reasonably widespread moves and abilities which feel commonplace enough to have Special counterparts, but don't:

-Foul Play has no Special equivalent
-Hyper Cutter and Big Pecks have no Special equivalent
-Huge Power has Defence and Special Defence counterparts but no Special Attack counterpart
-There is no "raise a stat when hit by a certain move" ability (think Rattled or Justified) for Special Attack
-Moxie has no Special equivalent; Grim Neigh is a signature ability and thus not a true counterpart


Not saying that any of these moves or abilities necessarily need Special counterparts (there are some Special Attack-centred moves and abilities without physical counterparts, after all - Berserk, for instance) but it's interesting nonetheless. Most likely it's a balance consideration, but I'm not plugged into that side of things enough to be certain.

 

[pika pal]

I checked their Japanese names to see if there was some flavor reason why Defiant was kept over Competitive, and learned that Defiant is "Competitive Spirit" while Competitive is "Determined Spirit".

Determined Spirit seems more fitting for a Pokemon based on someone who kept finding his way back to Europe after being abandoned on multiple islands. Empoleon probably swam back.

Also it's interesting that both abilities are called Competitive, depending on the language.

Are Emperor Penguins particularly competitive creatures in nature, whether with each other or with other animals? Things like food, mates, or territory seem limited enough in (Ant)Arctic environments. Maybe they picked the ability and name based more on the Emperor Penguin aspect than the Napoleon reference (and this is without be contorting to say how the guy who sold the entire Louisiana territory to the US just to beat the rest of Europe could be called "competitive" if you chose)

 

[KalosianPorygon]

I don't know, knocking out Gigantamax Pokemon with one or two Pyro Balls was pretty funny.

"BEHOLD MY POKEMON IS NOW HUGE AND ALL-POWERFUL"
Uh-huh, look my furrybait wererabbit soccer football player is just gonna kick fire balls into its face until it explodes and faints.

It gets better.
I saw a clip of Inteleon's Snipe Shot OHKOing G-Coalossal. To this day, I still don't know if this is badass or ridiculous.

• 116 Atk / 65 SpA / 119 Spe

Fun fact: Inteleon has a Base Speed of 120, one point more than Cinderace.
And because of this, I called Cinderace's Speed stat inconvenient.

Can't believe I've never brought this up before but the littlest thing that annoys me the most is that Empoleon got Defiant as a hidden ability instead of Competitive

I wonder if someone tried to make Defiant Power Trip Empoleon work (bonus points if there's no Baton Pass). Fo some reason the cute penguin is one of the few Pokémon to learn this move.

-And as discussed, Defiant was introduced in Gen V while Competitive was introduced in Gen VII

Correction: Competitive was introduced in Gen VI.

And while we are on the subject of minmaxed stats, I am still waiting for more Rock-type Pokémon with pitiful Def but a great Sp. Def stat.

 

[Dusk Mage Necrozma]

And while we are on the subject of minmaxed stats, I am still waiting for more Rock-type Pokémon with pitiful Def but a great Sp. Def stat.

Similarly, we have too many Pokemon where Atk/Def and SpA/SpD are linked. I want more Pokemon with high Atk and SpD but lower SpA and Def, and more Pokemon with high Def and SpA but lower Atk/SpD. Some examples of the latter are Cofagrigus Turtonator, Omastar, and Magcargo. As for the former there’s Araquanid, Gallade, Hitmonlee, and to a lesser extent stuff like Flareon.

 

[pika pal]

I want more Pokemon with high Atk and SpD but lower SpA and Def... for the former there’s Araquanid, Gallade, Hitmonlee, and to a lesser extent stuff like Flareon.

How did you forget big boi ? Bear ran 2 gens of OU thanks to that spread and still ain't doing bad for himself in the lower tiers.

Speaking of minmaxing/power creep...

It's annoying how absurdly optimized this Pokemon is:

• 116 Atk / 65 SpA / 119 Spe stat spread, which is significantly more optimized than most starters (though to be fair all Gen 8 starters are similar in this regard).
• Getting a signature move which is purely meant to be a top-tier STAB with minimal drawback. The most offensive part is how boring Pyro Ball is compared to the other starter signatures; at least those try to do something interesting.
• Getting a signature clone of a powerful ability because the flavor of the original doesn't match. And unlike Greninja, which has to split its stats with good moves in both attacking categories, it gets basically everything it wants on the Physical side (high BP coverage, pivot move, strong priority).

Sure, we've had designated favorites in Charizard and Greninja, but at least those weren't given the designated favorite tools in their debut generation.

It's funny, one post I made a week or two back was in the "Things you like" thread about how I enjoyed Cinderace just having a strong no-gimmick Signature move.

A big annoyance I have with the Signature moves/abilities is that so many of them are gimmicky to the point they might give up other aspects like power output, or they simply don't mesh with the rest of the mon's playstyle. For two examples: Decidueye's Spirit Shackle traps things, but he lacks things like Taunt to punish defensive opponents or the bulk to set up on offensive ones, even assuming he traps the right one; Emboar's Heat Crash is typically going to struggle to break the 60 BP it needs to outdo Flame Charge because of how badly it scales to relative weights at each stage of the Evo line.

Inevitably you replace those moves or the mon because the gimmick doesn't contribute to their playability as either an asset or an option. Some mons fare a bit better in-game thanks to the move's availability for a while, but Swampert for example would have Surf before any real use came of Muddy Water, and very few have reason to be run in PVP or Post-Game (not even strictly competitive, just when you're building to play against other humans).

I like if the Signature traits are allowed to be simple and effective if it means keeping something flavorful to the Pokemon viable on it when used. Some cases like Protean (probably to reflect Frogs changing color for camouflage) do come out overly strong in practice (compared to Water Shuriken which lacked a use case until the even-more-signature Ash-Greninja), but their usage means they are still part of the Pokemon's identity, something GF seems to want to encourage with the more "character" like design they approach them with of late.

 

[Samtendo09]

Getting a signature move which is purely meant to be a top-tier STAB with minimal drawback. The most offensive part is how boring Pyro Ball is compared to the other starter signatures; at least those try to do something interesting.

A better example of boring strong minimal drawback signature moves would be lots of Legendary / Mythical exclusive moves, but the biggest culprits being Melmetal’s Double Iron Bash (granted, a powerful two-hit move is a rarity), Calyrex’s Astral Barrage if Shadow Rider or Glacier Lance if Ice Rider, Reshiram’s Blue Flare (just harder hitting Fire Blast), Zacian, Zamazenta and Eternatus’ signature move that inflict double damage on Dynamaxed Pokémon but have no actual downside, etc.

It's funny, one post I made a week or two back was in the "Things you like" thread about how I enjoyed Cinderace just having a strong no-gimmick Signature move.

A big annoyance I have with the Signature moves/abilities is that so many of them are gimmicky to the point they might give up other aspects like power output, or they simply don't mesh with the rest of the mon's playstyle. For two examples: Decidueye's Spirit Shackle traps things, but he lacks things like Taunt to punish defensive opponents or the bulk to set up on offensive ones, even assuming he traps the right one; Emboar's Heat Crash is typically going to struggle to break the 60 BP it needs to outdo Flame Charge because of how badly it scales to relative weights at each stage of the Evo line.

Inevitably you replace those moves or the mon because the gimmick doesn't contribute to their playability as either an asset or an option. Some mons fare a bit better in-game thanks to the move's availability for a while, but Swampert for example would have Surf before any real use came of Muddy Water, and very few have reason to be run in PVP or Post-Game (not even strictly competitive, just when you're building to play against other humans).

I like if the Signature traits are allowed to be simple and effective if it means keeping something flavorful to the Pokemon viable on it when used. Some cases like Protean (probably to reflect Frogs changing color for camouflage) do come out overly strong in practice (compared to Water Shuriken which lacked a use case until the even-more-signature Ash-Greninja), but their usage means they are still part of the Pokemon's identity, something GF seems to want to encourage with the more "character" like design they approach them with of late.

It’s almost like most of the time, GF don’t even know what are they doing and slap a signature in hope for it to be popular among fans, only for them left scratching their head wondering why such signatures weren’t even used, or why such Pokémon ended up being actively avoided by many fans.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

Another benefit of no-gimmick signature moves is that they avoid a big problem that's been plaguing movepools in recent generations (and which has already been discussed here) where seemingly every Pokemon gets access to the most generically strong attack for their given type regardless of how well it fits their design. Obviously it makes little difference from a competitive standpoint whether a Pokemon gets Megahorn or a similarly powerful vanilla Bug move that's more anatomically appropriate, but it makes things less homogenous from a flavour standpoint.

 

[R_N]

A better example of boring strong minimal drawback signature moves would be lots of Legendary / Mythical exclusive moves, but the biggest culprits being Melmetal’s Double Iron Bash (granted, a powerful two-hit move is a rarity), Calyrex’s Astral Barrage if Shadow Rider or Glacier Lance if Ice Rider, Reshiram’s Blue Flare (just harder hitting Fire Blast), Zacian, Zamazenta and Eternatus’ signature move that inflict double damage on Dynamaxed Pokémon but have no actual downside, etc.

It’s almost like most of the time, GF don’t even know what are they doing and slap a signature in hope for it to be popular among fans, only for them left scratching their head wondering why such signatures weren’t even used, or why such Pokémon ended up being actively avoided by many fans.

Or they just think "This move would be a fun idea, let's give it to them". I imagine most of them are made knowing they'll be used for niche things if at all

 

[Bakugames]

Gamefreak will make a funny move for a pokemon because it matches their lore and pokemon fans immediately go "what did they want to achieve?"

Anyways my guess would normally be PLA moves are locked to the legend series like wide slash is locked in PMD, but considering some are signature moves, I'd say they might get adapted just so these mons dont lose their sig move

 

[R_N]

Gamefreak will make a funny move for a pokemon because it matches their lore and pokemon fans immediately go "what did they want to achieve?"

Anyways my guess would normally be PLA moves are locked to the legend series like wide slash is locked in PMD, but considering some are signature moves, I'd say they might get adapted just so these mons dont lose their sig move

I think the only LA moves that don't make it over are Power Shift (since it seems to just be a Power Trick replacement (for some reason)), Take Heart (replacement for Heart Swap so it meshed with PLA mechancis more), and Lunar Blessing (so i guess they didnt want Cresselia killing itself for pokedex purposes)

All the others only need minor tweaks to move over to main series (choose a stat to lower/raise, replace the frostbite on tornadus', average out the base powers, etc) , and most are signatures so I don't see them dropping. I think some of that leg work has already been done internally, even.

 

[Nokocchi]

I think the only LA moves that don't make it over are Power Shift (since it seems to just be a Power Trick replacement (for some reason))

Considering that most moves in LA that increase, decrease. or swap stats effect both physical and special stats equally even if they only boosted/lowered one of them in the normal titles, if Game Freak REALLY wanted it in Scarlet and Violet but also for it to not be redundant they could just use different stats(Swapping Attack for Special Defense, Special Attack for Defense, or Special Attack for Special Defense)

Especially considering that, unlike the other new moves, this was a tutor move rather then being a signature or near-signature move like all the rest of them. Specifically a tutor move that no Pokemon can learn naturally

So if anyone besides me crazy enough to complete their Move-dex in the mobile version of home(which includes all non-Z/Max/Let's Go Partner moves, even the ones dexited in Sword and Shield), remember to teach a Pokemon Power Shift and deposit it.

 

[Hugin]

Dynamax mons get a bunch of immunities, but the immunity to weight-based moves stands out. It's not like Heavy Slam is known for being broken, after all. And if they're blaming it on Dynamax mons being overly large, then why don't they just make them take max damage from Low Kick/Grass Knot? Nope, just give them a blanket immunity.

 

[pika pal]

Dynamax mons get a bunch of immunities, but the immunity to weight-based moves stands out. It's not like Heavy Slam is known for being broken, after all. And if they're blaming it on Dynamax mons being overly large, then why don't they just make them take max damage from Low Kick/Grass Knot? Nope, just give them a blanket immunity.

You see that would introduce a potential shortcoming to the shiny new trailer gimmick, and we can't have that balancing out our E-Sports attempt or anything.

Seriously you'd think if Gamefreak wanted to make VGC less centralized around old stuff they'd Dexit a few things like Fake-Out instead of just making the Big Beatstick mechanic immune to literally 80% of the game mechanics.

 

[Dusk Mage Necrozma]

80% is a pretty big exaggeration. There's an alternate universe somewhere where Dynamax is immune to statuses and stat drops.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

Obviously Dynamax was very poorly balanced, but we would be relentlessly making fun of Game Freak, even more so than we do now, if they'd just deleted any potential cheese moves instead or left Dynamaxed mons completely unprotected.

If stuff like Fake Out and Entrainment had been poofed out of existence we'd (rightly) be criticising the devs for not being creative enough to design a gimmick balanced around their existing mechanics. If you could just completely blank your opponent's one Dynamax with Scarf Togekiss or a Red Card activation or Disable then we'd (rightly) be complaining about how GF made a pathetic and pointlessly weak mechanic.

I don't have much of a point haha, but it feels like Dmax was just inevitably flawed from its conception, and you either see that as a reason it should have been scrapped or you're happy enough with the specific role it played in-game and in VGC despite its foundational issues.

 

[Sonikku A]

The thumbnails of these videos are designed to give me a migraine

Be glad this wasn't the suggestive one

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Dynamax really strikes me as something that was heavily inspired by Pokemon GO, in particular the Raid Battle feature, and they really didn't put much thought into it outside of it being a feature to turn Pokemon into Raid Bosses that you would face in a four-on-one battle.

Basically, Dynamax as a mechanic is "we want Raid Battles in this game" and everything about it, from the aesthetic of it to the way it works in battle, is designed for multiplayer, 4v1 raid battles since Max Raid Battles were one of SwSh's big multiplayer features that they wanted to do. They clearly designed it to attract the POGO audience in mind with such a feature being made to draw them into buying Sword and Shield.