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Bonus update! I watched a bit of an old stream of this game with the devs in chat, and they were talking about how some low level mons had cool movepools; between that and Doobeedoo playing the game and commenting on the movepools, I realized I haven't paid much heed to the moves of the mons we've been catching. So we're going to be going over some highlights of movepools that I felt like commenting on!
Cubone we get for free just by visiting Shrine of Silent Gods; It starts with Growl instead of False Swipe, but learns False Swipe at level 8 so literally any Shred of Hope will let you nab that, making it an invaluable catching tool. Swords Dance is a really good move, as it raises attack by two stages; +2 attack is 2x damage, +4 is 3x, and +6 is 4x. Bone Rush hits 2 to 5 times, so it's attack power unboosted varies from 50 to 125; if it hits and your attack is boosted (and optionally, you have the thick club), it will delete your opponent; the problem is it's unreliability both with the number of times it hits and it's imperfect 90% accuracy. Headbutt on the other hand is here to fill in the gap with a more reliable 70-damage move with perfect accuracy; it's about as good as a bone rush that hits only twice (because STAB applies to bone rush but not headbutt), but you can be sure it'll hit. Growl might be helpful for letting you set up and sweep, especially since it hits both opponents at once, but I'm not a growl user. A solid, if unimpressive beginner moveset.
Contrast that with Drakloak. At first glance, Infestation seems meh; it's a damage over time move and generally those are on the weaker side. However, there's a really mean trick you can pull here: Infestation prevents your target from switching out for it's 4-5 turn duration, which means it synergizes perfectly with Curse, a move that if used by a ghost type cuts your own HP in half but makes your opponent take 1/4 their health every turn until they switch out or faint. Infest, Curse, and your opponent is guaranteed dead. Pair that with Quick Attack if you quickly want something dead, and Bite for coverage, and you have a surprisingly nasty cocktail here. The major downside is that half-HP drop from Curse; you're only getting it off once realistically, Drakloak will be really squishy after pulling it off, and you'll need to heal it up post-battle if it survives (assuming it does survive). A very inspired moveset; Palossand does something similar with Sand Tomb and Curse but I like the Drakloak package a lot more.
Vulpix's initial movepool suggests it wants to deny the options of it's opponent. Follow Me ensures the opponent will target it unless they're using multitarget moves, disable lets you disable said multitarget moves if they come out, hypnosis shuts down a mon for a few turns if it hits, and quick attack to pick off easy pickings. Combined with Drought in an ability to shut down water types and a respectable special defense and speed, I could possibly see vulpix being an okay special tank/support with this set.
Rest and Snore! Rest is a full heal with the tradeoff of putting you to sleep; Snore is a move that can be used while asleep (50 power and has a chance to flinch). You're forced to use a move you don't get STAB on for the duration of the Rest, but you're still doing damage. Flame Charge also deals 50 damage, and boosts your speed when used, so you can be faster and get that flinch chance on snore. Heat Crash is the signature move of Tepig's line, dealing more damage the heavier the user is than the target. Tepig itself doesn't get the best use of it (although you'd be surprised by the mons who take the max damage from it from Tepig alone; the lake guardians for example), but it's evolutions on the other hand are heavier.
Outrage is an excellent move for if you just want something dead; the downside is that the user is forced into it for 2-3 turns, the target is chosen at random between the 2 opponents, and the user becomes confused afterwards. For 120 damage, at this low level? That's really fucking good. Very few things early on are gonna survive one of these, yet alone 2 or 3. Water Pulse with a chance to confuse, Protect to stall, and Facade for if you get status'd are just the icing on the cake. Sadly Facade does not gain a boost from confusion.
I think Overheat was something I taught Charmander and originally it had Ember there. Still, Dragon Breath is good coverage, but the real gem here is Belly Drum. Lose half your HP, but your attack instantly gets maxed to 4x damage. That's really scary to be on the other end of. Fire Fang is meh, but you get Fire Punch literally right outside the cave you catch Charmander in and it's just better. Combine that with Overheat also being on the way to said cavern if you dip into Dragon Cave to replace Ember, and you have a potential monster on your hands.
Oooh. Rock Slide is probably one of the best rock type moves; it hits both opponents and has a flinch chance. It's major downside is that it's accuracy isn't perfect. Stomping Tantrum, on the other hand, is a move that doubles in power if the last move used failed, missed, or was interupted by status. The gameplan for Pupitar seems to be Rock slide, and if it misses either of the opposing pokemon, massacre them wiht stomping tantrum. Sandstorm can be used to ensure residual damage and buff Pupitar's specia defense, and Crunch rounds things out with solid reliable coverage.
Look at that coverage! Aqua Jet is STAB priority, while Bite and Ice Fang have a flinch chance. All 3 are complemented by Dragon Dance, a move that buffs attack and speed (the former ensuring the moves hit harder, the latter ensuring you move first so you have a chance to flinch. That's really incredible for a wild grass encounter in the hub area (and not even a rare one at that!)
Another tank pokemon. Rage Powder is another Follow-Me type move, and both Mega Drain and the ability Regenerator can help keep Foongus alive. Growth boosts the power of Mega Drain, and Stun Spore can cripple your opponent. Not bad, not bad.
Galarian Corsola's gameplan seems to be to set up hail and be a tank. Calm Mind makes it more specially defensive, while strength sap allows it to simultaneously neuter the opponents attack stat while healing at the same time. Cursed body as an ability helps with tanking as well, with a 30% chance to disable any attacking move used against Corsola for 4 turns. The only weak link here is Astonish; it's an okay move, but Corsola has slightly more special attack, and Calm Mind boosts special attack even more; you're better off replacing it with a special ghost move like Hex or Shadow Ball.
Sucker Punch is a really good early move; it's a really strong priority move and it's only flaw is that it fails if the opponent doesn't use an attacking move. Otherwise, some decent coverage for baby trevenant.
Golett is another tank. Iron Defense to boost their defense, Mud Slap to lower opponent's accuracy, and Ally Switch to protect a weakened teammate if you suspect the opponent will target them. Fun fact: early versions of this game renamed "Astonish" to "Boo!" because of creator preference. They renamed it back but they left a hint of what it used to be called in the move description.
Bulbasaur likes sunlight. Set sunny day up, and now all 3 of the other moves get buffed; Growth buffs stats twice as much, Solar Beam goes off in a single turn (aka it becomes a 120 power move with no drawback), and Synthesis goes from healing half max hp to 2/3rd max hp. Give Bulbasaur a drought partner like Vulpix and they will cook.
Lots of bite moves. Focus Energy means either Crunch or Hyper Fang will have a 50% crit chance, while Super Fang halves the opponent's HP. Not bad, but not impressive either.
Stun Spore (paralyze) and Power Whip (120 damage) are both good moves, but unreliable due to their accuracy. How does Tangela fix this? Sweet Scent to lower the opponents evasion, of course. Mega drain is here to round things out. I appreciate the thought process here; "oh, Tangela has bad accuracy, how to we fix this?"
Water Spout is a 150 damage move that hits both opponents; it's only downside is that it gets weaker the lower your health. Thankfully, Squirtle has Aqua Ring to keep it's HP up by giving it passive healing effect, and Protect to stall out that healing effect. Rapid spin is also here to remove entry hazards and be a reliable move at lower health. Potentially terrifying, especially as Squirtle gains more bulk from leveling up and evolving.
Wooper is unfortunate. Light Screen boosts Wooper's weaker defense stat, and Rain Dance powers up it's water moves. The problem here it Water Gun; it's a Special move when Wooper is a physical attacker, and it does not benefit from the lowered defense caused by Tail Whip. A victim of not having a good physical water move; Marill also has this problem. Give them Waterfall or Aqua Tail, and they'd be cooking.
Clamperl's schtick seems to be wanting to stack both Whirlpool and Clamp on it's opponent. Both Whirlpool and Clamp have gotten buffs over the years, with them now doing 1/8th max hp damage on turn end. Stacking them both is effectively 1/4th health lost per turn, and the opponent can't escape. Very respectable! Iron Defense gives Clamperl more sustain, and Water Gun lets it pile on even more damage after you've applied both Whirlpool and Clamp.
Nothing much to say about Chinchou; Electro Ball makes nice use of it's okay speed. The main moveset change here is that it has confuse ray even at this low level instead of supersonic, so it doesn't have to deal with bad accuracy confusing.
jfc I still can't believe they just hand you a fucking kingda right at the start. Yawn is one of the best sleep moves in the game; it bypasses accuracy entirely at the cost of applying sleep a turn later, forcing opponents to switch or be stuck with a sleeping mon. Focus Energy is really nasty here; Kingdra gets Sniper as an ability, which powers up critical hits by 1.5x more. Give Kingdra a crit-increasing item, Focus Energy, and go ham. Dragon Breath and Bubble Beam are solid at this point even if you'll replace them later.
On one hand, it's cute that Castform gets 3 different elemental coverage moves. On the other hand... Why doesn't it have Weather Ball? That's the main reason you'd use Castform, and I'm unsure why Headbutt got preference over it.
Phanpy has a lot of tools at it's disposal. High Horsepower is the tamest of these, being a slightly less accurate single-power earthquake. Bulldoze is a weaker earthquake that slows down those hit by it, giving phanpy some momentum. The big synergy here is Head Smash and Flail; Head Smash deals massive damage (150!) but the user takes massive recoil (half the damage dealt); this pairs quite nicely with Flail, which gets more powerful the lower the user's HP.
See if you can spot the gimmick here. Tail Glow raises Special Attack by 3 stages; that's 2.5x damage with one use and 4x with two uses. Power Up Punch deals damage and raises Attack. Regardless of which one you buff, you can then Baton Pass it to another member who can more effectively make use of that power you just built up. Fake Out is the cherry on top, as it can steal momentum away from your opponent entirely by force-flinching them. You can get up to some shenanigans with this.
Shell Smash might seem like a weird move for Shuckle; why would you want to nerf it's one selling point? The big thing is that Shell Smash only lowers defense by one stage while it raises attack and speed by 2; ultimately a net gain, so you can even out Shuckles stats into a more middle of the road pokemon. The problem is that it's attack stats are abysmal and multiplying an attack stat of 9 by 4x isn't that impressive; ideally you'd want a white herb to reset the negative stat changes. Inversely, Shuckle can get Contrary as a hidden ability; you can buff up defense even more if you want atthe cost of nerfing attack (which might not seem bad, but it means you're relying entirely on Toxic and Wrap damage instead of doing Power Split Shenanigans). Rollout and Struggle Bug are good moves too; just not great without those shell smashes backing it up.
one of the devs talking about how Masquerains movepool went hard was the inspiration for this bonus update, and... Yeah. Tailwind to give your team a 3 turn speedboost. Bug Buzz as a really strong STAB move. Ominous Wind as coverage and a chance to buff all stats. And lastly, Quiver Dance to buff Speed and both Special Stats. Masquerain is here to sweep, and it was a solid earlygame member of my team on my first save file.
I'm a bit confused about Seedot. This looks like a crafted moveset, with 3 decent earlygame physical moves. And yet, Nasty Plot. Seedot is a physical attacker, and all 3 of it's attacking moves are physical; Nasty Plot does nothing for it. Was it meant to be Swords Dance? Apparently it has Grass Knot instead of Rollout if caught at a level lower than 12, so maybe that's why.
Priority STAB draining kiss (assuming you switch the ability to Triage). Give Comfey a Big Root and they'll be sustaining good. Other than that, Helping Hand lets them buff their teammates attack for that turn, Flower Shield gives grass pokemon a defense buff. Vine Whip for coverage and you have a solid support pokemon; Flower Shield or Helping Hand could be replaced with Floral Healing when Comfey learns it.
Graveler gets Rock Head as an ability. We've established that Head Smash is extremely powerful, but what if we take away one of it's two major drawbacks (the other is accuracy)? Rock Polish to increase speed, and both Bulldoze and Rock Tomb to lower speed, and it's clear what Graveler's gameplan is: Hit 'em Hard, Hit 'em Fast. It's effective!
Last, but not least, we have Rillaboom. Grassy Glide becomes a priority move on grassy terrain; Rillaboom has Grassy Terrain as a move, but they also have can an ability that lets them summon it on switchin which might be worth using an ability thing on. Drum Beating lowers the opponent's speed, and Razor Leaf hits both opposing pokemon with a chance to crit. Rillaboom was on my team for a long time on my first playthrough, and for good reason!
Not all of the movesets are modified; I don't even know if the ones I covered were the dev team's modifications or just Gamefreak cooking, but there definitely was some thought put into making any pokemon caught potentially worth using!
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