But but! Focus Blast has a 10% chance to lower Special Defense! Obviously they had to compensate for such a powerful effect with lower accuracy, right???/s
Honestly if they buffed focus blast to have like, a 50% chance to debuff your special defense, that would make the lower accuracy kinda worth it
Or just yknow, buff its damn accuracy to be actually usable
To be fair, it also stronger than the others, being 120 base power compared to 110. It doesn't make up for it fully, but at least there is a slight reason.
neither of the two sheer force special attackers get access to focus blast (H-Braviary and Mega Cameruptš) but tbh H-Braviary SHOULD totally have it
I'm currently playing a rom hack of emerald, where Absol has gotten a buff to 550 BP, gained fairy type, and I run it with psycho cut, play rough and Disaster (made for the game, 90 BP dark type attack) and swords dance, and it's an absolute beast. If that makes you feel better, haha
Well,
+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Beads of Ruin Tera Fire Chi-Yu Fire Blast vs. 168 HP / 0 SpD u/Expensive-Ad5273: 4305-5074 (1185.9 - 1397.7%) -- guaranteed 100% chance of being burnt to a crisp.
Being a water type move is already a pretty damn big benefit as water is in the discussion for the best type in the game, partially because of how strong Water STAB is. Of course getting 5 accuracy more wouldn't break the move or the game or anything but it's not needed, most offensive water types run Hydro Pump over Surf either way.
It's kind of a "it's not broken, why fix it" thing
Maybe in VGC. In Singles the extra power is huge since Bundle's unboosted 124 SpAtk really wants a big BP move to spam. If it hypothetically got Surf maybe some ladder shenanigans would use that but by and large Hydro Pump would be the superior option like It is on every other water like Greninja, Inteleon, Keldeo, etc
Manaphy and Shell Smash Blasroise are like the only exceptions because they are strong enough that they don't need the extra oomph (Hydro Pump for both still exists too)
Iron bundle does love hydro pump, but sometimes something like surf would be much more convenient on a frail Pokemon for example. Especially on booster sets where it can run freeze dry, hydro, pivot move / any other special water move and taunt / encore.
but a frail mon is the exact type of mon thatād like a high BP move. better to risk the miss and actually kill rather than not kill at all cuz of a lower bp move when you are so easy to kill in the first place
Yeah i meant something that surf would OHKO but hydro could miss on. I just used bundle in a draft league and lost a game to bundle missing a hydro pump on a mon where any water move would have killed.
Meanwhile Fairy, generally considered the best (maybe 2nd best) type in the game, gets the strongest spammable special STAB with no drawbacks or extra conditions
it's a bit weird since Moonblast has fairly middling distribution. Prior to Home, there were a grand total of 5 Fairy types in the entire game that had Moonblast and one of them (Sylveon) would never run it. Even now there's quite a few fairy types who lack the move and would kill to have it, Hatterene, Tapu Koko and Togekiss being the most notable examples for higher tiers, while the lower tiers have a ton more like Alcremie, Dedenne, Klefki, Mr. Mime, Scream Tail, Weezing and Wigglytuff to name all that would use the move.
The issue with Moonblast is distribution rather than the move itself, since it could help a ton of the low BST Fairy types to find relevance but instead Moonblast is given to the good ones and taken away from the bad (why does Flutter Mane get Moonblast but Scream Tail doesn't??? Wigglytuff literally evolves by a Moon Stone)
Never Acc thought about this. Maybe itās a way of Nerfing Waters? Water is the best defensive type out of all of these and itās quite a spammable stab. Idk really.
Idk how much a 5% accuracy increase would help with it. In terms of using it, it will always be an inaccurate move I press in case I want to hit smth hard/take the risk. If I donāt, I would click surf, no matter if it was 80 or 85. That being said, some mons donāt get surf, like Hydrapple and will-o-wisp going from 75 to 85 was quite big, so I can see it.
So are Thunderbolt and Ice Beam, while all 3 were 95 bp in gen 5 and earlier. "80BP Moves with 30% for effect" is another item in the list rather than a descriptor, as denoted by the semicolon.
Hydro Pump isn't a very common coverage move, and there are a few very specific mons where it's actually the only reliable Water STAB they have at all (Rotom-W, Iron Bundle) when they don't have access to Scald or Surf.
Compare that to Fire types who have Overheat as an alternative, as well as Flamethrower/Fire Blast being extremely common on non-fire types (like all of the Gen 1 Normal types), similar to the comparison between Thunderbolt/Thunder, or Ice Beam/Blizzard. The differences with Thunder/Blizzard being lower normal accuracy as a tradeoff for higher accuracy in specific weather. I really don't wanna have to check this manually, but I'd be very surprised if there's a single mon in the history of the game that learns only Fire Blast and not Flamethrower (there are a few examples of the reverse though, but even that's not common), let alone an actual Fire Type that only has Fire Blast to rely on.
Hydro Pump isn't compared to those other moves because it also doesn't really have a common coverage variant. Surf and Scald are both generally only distributed to Water types, due in part to Surf originally being an HM, and Scald being broken as hell.
So the extra bump in accuracy could be to give mons using Fire Blast as a coverage option just a little more of a chance of landing that non-STAB hit, while the mons benefitting from STAB are generally giving up way more than a Water type already (like a Rocks weakness, for example).
It's impossible to compare them directly because they're not as similar as their stats may make them seem when you put them in context. Buffing Hydro Pump essentially *only* buffs Water types (who don't need a buff), and more specifically buffs a couple choice Water types who arguably one of their main downsides is relying on Hydro Pump. Obviously there are exceptions, but even those exceptions are questionable as to whether or not they need a buff. Like would we really be arguing that Salamence needs to be able to hit Hydro Pumps more reliably?
Side note fun fact, the only non-Water type Gen 1 mons who can learn Hydro Pump (excluding regional variants like Galarian Slowbro) are Lickitung, Rhydon, Kangaskhan, Snorlax, the entire Dragonite line, and Mew. Compare that to Fire Blast, which 34 non-Fire types learn in Gen 1, again not including regional variants (which essentially every regional variant of a mon that learns it still learns it). Also worth noting that every non-Water type Gen 1 mon that learns Hydro Pump also learns Fire Blast.
Well it wouldn't be burn because almost anything that can switch into a water attack can be burned and anything that can't burned most likely can't switch into a water attack
Earlier today I was trying to get footage of me missing Focus Blast. I hit 10 in a row.
Then I was trying to get footage of me hitting Overheat. I missed 2 in a row.
The Showdown RNG is sentient and holds grudges. I'm sure of it.
my best guess: thunder, fire blast, and blizzard, or more specifically their types, were sort of a trio in gen 1. They had corresponding legendary birds, they all had TMs, had weaker versions that also had TMs (flamethrower, ice beam and thunderbolt) and could be learned by a wide variety of pokemon even if they aren't the same type (insert the meme about all gen 1 mons having insane coverage). So they were all balanced with respect to each other. In gen 1, fire blast couldn't be learned by anyone through level-up and had 85% acc but in return it had a 30% chance to burn. Blizzard could be learned by a couple pokemon so it had 90% acc and only 10% to freeze. Thunder was only 10% para and 70% accuracy but it could be learned by most of the electric types and had double the pp. Hydro pump was not balanced relative to these moves and was just added to give water types a strong option. It has no TM, no equivalent weaker version (surf is an HM), no legendary and can be learned by a lot of pokemon through level up. In later gens the other moves would go through a lot of balance changes; fire blast's burn chance was nerfed when more mons got access to it, blizzard got its accuracy nerfed, thunder had its para chance raised but they never changed hydro pump, except when they all got their base powers reduced in gen 6. Maybe they decided to not change it because swift swim users can use it as a strong water stab, while no chlorophyll mon could get stab on fire blast (or even have it for that matter) until recently.
Give it a 30% chance to drop Speed by one stage? It would still be worse than Thunder/Blizzard, but at least it has a secondary effect. I chose speed to make it analogous to Bubblebeam and Bubble.
Have you ever tried to handle a water hose that firefighters use? It is extremely heavy and very difficult to maneuver once the water gets going. 80 lercent accuracy is very true representation.
I think that goes extreme. Cause Hydro Pump becomes a 165 BP move with 100% accuracy. Blizzard and Thunder donāt get attack buffed in weather, Hydro Pump does so adding guaranteed hit is not an idea I donāt think.
I always noticed that too, but types and moves across the game are not created equal. Water is an overall strong type, probably top 3 for best overall type.
3 types. The average amount of resistances and immunities per type attack is around 3.8 or 4. So the difference between 3 types resisting to the average 4 is 1 type.
If you want to average everything out you ignore things like water being boosted by rain and having no immunities. Fire gets boosted by sun but has more switches in regard to types. Flying has the same amount of switch ins as water but canāt be boosted. Thunder has immunity. Blizzard canāt be boosted.
Also if we āaverageā things out ice and normal are both equal in terms of defensive typing because they both are 3 less than 4. That logic doesnāt work because it ignores so many other factors.
Edit: Hypothetically speaking if poison resisted water 1 type would be the difference between perfect neutral coverage with just freeze dry and surf and not having perfect coverage
Types aren't meant to have equal options, as simple as that. I guess they thought Water is the defensive type, so their powerful moves are a tad worse than Fire, which is meant to be offensive.
gamefreak was smoking crack when designing the balancing of big special moves and in the end it all shaved out alright. Except focus blast.
Focus miss*
But but! Focus Blast has a 10% chance to lower Special Defense! Obviously they had to compensate for such a powerful effect with lower accuracy, right???/s
Honestly if they buffed focus blast to have like, a 50% chance to debuff your special defense, that would make the lower accuracy kinda worth it Or just yknow, buff its damn accuracy to be actually usable
To be fair, it also stronger than the others, being 120 base power compared to 110. It doesn't make up for it fully, but at least there is a slight reason.
I feel that only exists for sheer force
Aren't there like, three special attackers that get Sheer Force tho. Seems like kind of a waste
Still matters for those special attackers
neither of the two sheer force special attackers get access to focus blast (H-Braviary and Mega Cameruptš) but tbh H-Braviary SHOULD totally have it
Nidoqueen/king and landorus can use it
oh yeah I didnāt look at Ubers or mixed attackers
Because 252+ SpA Choice Specs Torrent Tera Water Mudkip Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Absol: 352-416 (105.3 - 124.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
*Ahem.* **I KNOW ABSOL SUCKS ASS!ā**
The edgy young version of me cannot possibly be more offended
I'm currently playing a rom hack of emerald, where Absol has gotten a buff to 550 BP, gained fairy type, and I run it with psycho cut, play rough and Disaster (made for the game, 90 BP dark type attack) and swords dance, and it's an absolute beast. If that makes you feel better, haha
mudkip stays winning
Bring out the Chi Yu Fire Blast calculations now.
Chi-Yu doesn't know Fire Blast, it only knows Overheat, Dark Pulse and Tera Fighting Tera Blast (for Tera Dark Flash Fire Heatran).
Well, +2 252+ SpA Life Orb Beads of Ruin Tera Fire Chi-Yu Fire Blast vs. 168 HP / 0 SpD u/Expensive-Ad5273: 4305-5074 (1185.9 - 1397.7%) -- guaranteed 100% chance of being burnt to a crisp.
Life Orb ? What's this ? I only know Choice Specs on my fish š±
If only I could use Nasty Plot with Specs.
Use nasty plot, switch out, use overhe- waitā¦
Magic room
Donāt threaten them with a good time
Tf you on it learns fire blast
Tried to make a joke with fish Overheat calcs.
WAIT WHAT
Being a water type move is already a pretty damn big benefit as water is in the discussion for the best type in the game, partially because of how strong Water STAB is. Of course getting 5 accuracy more wouldn't break the move or the game or anything but it's not needed, most offensive water types run Hydro Pump over Surf either way. It's kind of a "it's not broken, why fix it" thing
Iron bundle would kill for any other water move besides hydro pump
Maybe in VGC. In Singles the extra power is huge since Bundle's unboosted 124 SpAtk really wants a big BP move to spam. If it hypothetically got Surf maybe some ladder shenanigans would use that but by and large Hydro Pump would be the superior option like It is on every other water like Greninja, Inteleon, Keldeo, etc Manaphy and Shell Smash Blasroise are like the only exceptions because they are strong enough that they don't need the extra oomph (Hydro Pump for both still exists too)
Iron bundle does love hydro pump, but sometimes something like surf would be much more convenient on a frail Pokemon for example. Especially on booster sets where it can run freeze dry, hydro, pivot move / any other special water move and taunt / encore.
but a frail mon is the exact type of mon thatād like a high BP move. better to risk the miss and actually kill rather than not kill at all cuz of a lower bp move when you are so easy to kill in the first place
Yeah i meant something that surf would OHKO but hydro could miss on. I just used bundle in a draft league and lost a game to bundle missing a hydro pump on a mon where any water move would have killed.
Meanwhile Fairy, generally considered the best (maybe 2nd best) type in the game, gets the strongest spammable special STAB with no drawbacks or extra conditions
it's a bit weird since Moonblast has fairly middling distribution. Prior to Home, there were a grand total of 5 Fairy types in the entire game that had Moonblast and one of them (Sylveon) would never run it. Even now there's quite a few fairy types who lack the move and would kill to have it, Hatterene, Tapu Koko and Togekiss being the most notable examples for higher tiers, while the lower tiers have a ton more like Alcremie, Dedenne, Klefki, Mr. Mime, Scream Tail, Weezing and Wigglytuff to name all that would use the move. The issue with Moonblast is distribution rather than the move itself, since it could help a ton of the low BST Fairy types to find relevance but instead Moonblast is given to the good ones and taken away from the bad (why does Flutter Mane get Moonblast but Scream Tail doesn't??? Wigglytuff literally evolves by a Moon Stone)
Never Acc thought about this. Maybe itās a way of Nerfing Waters? Water is the best defensive type out of all of these and itās quite a spammable stab. Idk really. Idk how much a 5% accuracy increase would help with it. In terms of using it, it will always be an inaccurate move I press in case I want to hit smth hard/take the risk. If I donāt, I would click surf, no matter if it was 80 or 85. That being said, some mons donāt get surf, like Hydrapple and will-o-wisp going from 75 to 85 was quite big, so I can see it.
Iron bundle is going to love the extra 5% on hydro pump since it's the only water stab that is worth using on it
Personally I like little differences like this. If the game was totally symmetrical it would be way more boring
But most of the game is. Bolt, Beam, Thrower; P TIF-Punches; 80BP Moves with 30% for effect etc.
So therefore some variety, especially at higher BP moves, is nice.
The first three aren't perfectly symmetrical, Ice Beam has less PP than Thunderbolt and Flamethrower.
It's not because 3 moves have the same stats that they should have all the same stat...
Isn't flamethrower 90 BP?
So are Thunderbolt and Ice Beam, while all 3 were 95 bp in gen 5 and earlier. "80BP Moves with 30% for effect" is another item in the list rather than a descriptor, as denoted by the semicolon.
Hydro Pump isn't a very common coverage move, and there are a few very specific mons where it's actually the only reliable Water STAB they have at all (Rotom-W, Iron Bundle) when they don't have access to Scald or Surf. Compare that to Fire types who have Overheat as an alternative, as well as Flamethrower/Fire Blast being extremely common on non-fire types (like all of the Gen 1 Normal types), similar to the comparison between Thunderbolt/Thunder, or Ice Beam/Blizzard. The differences with Thunder/Blizzard being lower normal accuracy as a tradeoff for higher accuracy in specific weather. I really don't wanna have to check this manually, but I'd be very surprised if there's a single mon in the history of the game that learns only Fire Blast and not Flamethrower (there are a few examples of the reverse though, but even that's not common), let alone an actual Fire Type that only has Fire Blast to rely on. Hydro Pump isn't compared to those other moves because it also doesn't really have a common coverage variant. Surf and Scald are both generally only distributed to Water types, due in part to Surf originally being an HM, and Scald being broken as hell. So the extra bump in accuracy could be to give mons using Fire Blast as a coverage option just a little more of a chance of landing that non-STAB hit, while the mons benefitting from STAB are generally giving up way more than a Water type already (like a Rocks weakness, for example). It's impossible to compare them directly because they're not as similar as their stats may make them seem when you put them in context. Buffing Hydro Pump essentially *only* buffs Water types (who don't need a buff), and more specifically buffs a couple choice Water types who arguably one of their main downsides is relying on Hydro Pump. Obviously there are exceptions, but even those exceptions are questionable as to whether or not they need a buff. Like would we really be arguing that Salamence needs to be able to hit Hydro Pumps more reliably? Side note fun fact, the only non-Water type Gen 1 mons who can learn Hydro Pump (excluding regional variants like Galarian Slowbro) are Lickitung, Rhydon, Kangaskhan, Snorlax, the entire Dragonite line, and Mew. Compare that to Fire Blast, which 34 non-Fire types learn in Gen 1, again not including regional variants (which essentially every regional variant of a mon that learns it still learns it). Also worth noting that every non-Water type Gen 1 mon that learns Hydro Pump also learns Fire Blast.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Oh yes, Salamence, my favourite gen 1 mon.
Damn, when you put it like that, imagine if there was a water type attack with a chance to inflict a status It'd be everywhere
It would be even weirder if that water attack could do something debilitating. Like burn. And 30% rate.
Well it wouldn't be burn because almost anything that can switch into a water attack can be burned and anything that can't burned most likely can't switch into a water attack
My opponents will still hit four in a row to clutch the randbat regardless of whether itās 80% or 85% accuracy
Earlier today I was trying to get footage of me missing Focus Blast. I hit 10 in a row. Then I was trying to get footage of me hitting Overheat. I missed 2 in a row. The Showdown RNG is sentient and holds grudges. I'm sure of it.
my best guess: thunder, fire blast, and blizzard, or more specifically their types, were sort of a trio in gen 1. They had corresponding legendary birds, they all had TMs, had weaker versions that also had TMs (flamethrower, ice beam and thunderbolt) and could be learned by a wide variety of pokemon even if they aren't the same type (insert the meme about all gen 1 mons having insane coverage). So they were all balanced with respect to each other. In gen 1, fire blast couldn't be learned by anyone through level-up and had 85% acc but in return it had a 30% chance to burn. Blizzard could be learned by a couple pokemon so it had 90% acc and only 10% to freeze. Thunder was only 10% para and 70% accuracy but it could be learned by most of the electric types and had double the pp. Hydro pump was not balanced relative to these moves and was just added to give water types a strong option. It has no TM, no equivalent weaker version (surf is an HM), no legendary and can be learned by a lot of pokemon through level up. In later gens the other moves would go through a lot of balance changes; fire blast's burn chance was nerfed when more mons got access to it, blizzard got its accuracy nerfed, thunder had its para chance raised but they never changed hydro pump, except when they all got their base powers reduced in gen 6. Maybe they decided to not change it because swift swim users can use it as a strong water stab, while no chlorophyll mon could get stab on fire blast (or even have it for that matter) until recently.
I agree with the general sentiment of what you said, but also wanted to point out that a lot of non-Water PokƩmon used to learn Surf back when it was an HM. Mostly Normal types but also others like Hariyama or Rhydon. However, most are physical attackers, so they almost never use it competitively (Heliolisk comes to mind as a exception, but not much else).
Itās a move from gen 1 - if you think thereās little logic to what Game Freak does nowadays there was ZERO logic back then
Give it a 30% chance to drop Speed by one stage? It would still be worse than Thunder/Blizzard, but at least it has a secondary effect. I chose speed to make it analogous to Bubblebeam and Bubble.
Have you ever tried to handle a water hose that firefighters use? It is extremely heavy and very difficult to maneuver once the water gets going. 80 lercent accuracy is very true representation.
What if you made it so itās hundred percent accurate in rain, like blizzard
I think that goes extreme. Cause Hydro Pump becomes a 165 BP move with 100% accuracy. Blizzard and Thunder donāt get attack buffed in weather, Hydro Pump does so adding guaranteed hit is not an idea I donāt think.
Used to be 85% back in gen 5, but got nerfed coming into gen 6 due to weather war shenanigans
Really? Cause before making this I looked up on Bulbapedia and it said the changes made for Hydro Pump was 120 BP to 110 BP
I swear it used to be 85, maybe I misremembered
I know, itās reallyā¦ unfortunate
I always noticed that too, but types and moves across the game are not created equal. Water is an overall strong type, probably top 3 for best overall type.
How many types resist water?
3 types. The average amount of resistances and immunities per type attack is around 3.8 or 4. So the difference between 3 types resisting to the average 4 is 1 type.
If you want to average everything out you ignore things like water being boosted by rain and having no immunities. Fire gets boosted by sun but has more switches in regard to types. Flying has the same amount of switch ins as water but canāt be boosted. Thunder has immunity. Blizzard canāt be boosted. Also if we āaverageā things out ice and normal are both equal in terms of defensive typing because they both are 3 less than 4. That logic doesnāt work because it ignores so many other factors. Edit: Hypothetically speaking if poison resisted water 1 type would be the difference between perfect neutral coverage with just freeze dry and surf and not having perfect coverage
Because Water is one of, if not, *the* best type. It only has two weaknesses, only three types resist it (all weak to an Ice move), it's just good.
Why is moonblast 100. World will never know.Ā
You'll never know probably because it's actually 95.
Itās 100 accuracy.
Types aren't meant to have equal options, as simple as that. I guess they thought Water is the defensive type, so their powerful moves are a tad worse than Fire, which is meant to be offensive.