Category: Pokémon Move/Ability Questions

Anonymous asks:

Someone commented on the weirdness of Burn Up on one of your posts. I think High Horsepower is more of a missed potential here. The attack animation uses the shape of a horseshoe so it’s implied to be a horse kick, right? That’s such a wonderful excuse to give it to Rapidash and Zebstrika! Those two could really use a good physical Ground move, and if Game Freak aren’t going to give them Earthquake then why not High Horsepower, right? (Girafarig should get it too, if only because it suits him).

Yeah, that would make a lot of sense, actually.  Plenty of room for a move tutor in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, or just outright giving the move to other horselike Pokémon in generation VIII, in case you’re listening, Game Freak!  Signature moves are great and all, and there’s something to be said for keeping them exclusive, but we’re not just handing it out so they can have a nice Ground attack; the point of High Horsepower is to say “this Pokémon is particularly horsey and has a nasty backwards kick,” so if there are other Pokémon this applies to, go ahead.

Anonymous asks:

You’ve been asked about the Pokémon that you think should be retyped. What about Pokémon that should be re….Abilitied? (???) Gens VI and especially VII have been switching up a lot of old Pokémon’s Abilities, so this seems a more feasible change to happen rather than retyping, no? So, with our hopes up, which Pokémon would YOU like to have one (or both) of their Abilities changed, and to what?

Well, honestly the possibility that leaps most immediately to mind for me is the one that’s probably least likely to happen – namely, giving all the starter Pokémon different abilities.  I understand as a design choice why we have Overgrow, Blaze and Torrent, because they’re abilities that, as a new player, you don’t have to think about very hard, if at all.  But gods they’re boring.  In the same vein, a lot of legendary Pokémon, particularly from the earlier generations, just have Pressure as a kind of default ability, which is actually really weird because, despite being an okay fit thematically, Pressure is a super-niche ability to actually use; most Pokémon don’t get very much out of having it.

Anonymous asks:

Finneon and Lumineon get Silver Wind via level up, being the only non-Bugs who do so. What?

Well, I think it’s because of their butterfly-wing fins.  Silver Wind is an attack associated not just with bugs but specifically with butterfly and moth Pokémon, all of whom have access to it aside from Vivillon, and they account for most of the Pokémon who learn it by levelling.  Lumineon is clearly meant to resemble a butterfly (for what reason I’m not sure, though Bulbapedia suggests a link to the freshwater butterflyfish).  The “wings” also net Lumineon access to Gust, for what it’s worth, and are perhaps responsible for her getting U-Turn as well.

Alex-Littleboots asks:

Assuming you’ve met every new pokemon of alola, what do you think of the addition of signature move/ability for each pokemon(evo line) ? I think it’s very cool since it’s a good way to make them more unique

I think I’ve met almost all of them now (I’m further through than my write-up suggests; I’ve actually finished the Elite Four now).  I hadn’t realised they all had something like that, but yeah, I like it – I’ve kinda always had a habit of wanting to give signature moves to everything, and I think there is a point at which you just plain run out of unique ideas.  One of my old mantras, though, is that Pokémon “should be good at the things they’re good at” – that is, if we’re told a Pokémon has a certain lifestyle and fighting strategy, then those things should actually be a part of what it can do, and do well, and signature moves/abilities are usually a good way of doing that.

Anonymous asks:

Any idea why Bug Bite doesn’t get a boost from Strong Jaw? Considering the multitude of real life bugs with devastating bites, it seems only natural that there should be Bug-types with Strong Jaw that uses Bug Bite as its primary attack… How cool would a Bug/Fire ant Pokémon with Strong Jaw-boosted Bug Bite and Fire Fang be?!

Well, I expect it’s for much the same reason as Sucker Punch isn’t boosted by Iron Fist – in Japanese the move’s name doesn’t literally refer to a bite.  Bulbapedia translates the move’s name – むしくい – as “Bug Bite,” but when I plug those characters into Google Translate it offers me either “Furious” or “Moth” so who knows.  What we call a bug “bite” in English is very often not a literal bite but more of a stinging or piercing action so I could very easily see this being one that doesn’t apply across languages (in French the move is called Piqûre – “Sting”).

EDIT: Of course it is true that the move’s effect (consuming an opponent’s berry) points to a literal “bite” of some description, but it would also be fair to note that a lot of insects don’t really have “jaws” in the vertebrate sense.

Anonymous asks:

Isn’t Corrosion such a neat ability?

It certainly is!  Odd that it belongs to Salandit and Salazzle, though; thematically it seems like it should go with a Pokémon like Grimer who has a toxic or corrosive body, whereas functionally it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense on a Pokémon like Salazzle who seems to be very much more offence than support, from what I can tell so far.