Similar to Rapid Spin, Hitmonchan actually did get Mach Punch in Gen 2, but didn't use it. This is because of a reason that I didn't bring up in the video but do want to at least mention somewhere: Stat XP. Being able to max bulk on every goddamn Pokemon made weaker priority moves do very little damage. It just didn't have the power to make this work.
I advocate for giving hitmomchan a special attack stat equal to its physical attack stat in every rom hack of an old Gen, it's only special moves are the elemental punches and pursuit which should have been physical anyways.
I'm Convinced Ledian was originally intended as a "fixed" Hitmonchan, it's high Special Attack intended to work with the Elemental Punchs. This horrifically backfired after the Physical/Special Split
@@jackferring6790 I'm convinced Ledian is some sick inside joke. Like, "Oh man, it'd be reaally funny if this BUG/FLYING type got a solid SP.DEF and only slightly above average speed" Like, even if it's special was good, all those punching moves and the freakin' IRON FIST ability do jack with that far below average attack.
@@ShenaniganBros1 Electrode does its job perfectly well. It outspeeds you, does Selfdestruct or Explosion, and KOs one of your Pokemon when you were expecting to get an item. Oh, competitive play? C'mon, you know full well Game Freak doesn't care about that.
@@usernametaken017 Wigglytuff is actually functional in game.... and does it's purpose... Hitmonchan on the other hand was MEANT to be an average well rounded fighting type.... it literally failed at being what it was supposed to....
TCG Hitmonchan fact: the original hitmonchan, in pokemon's base set, is one of the most busted cards of its era, attacking quickly and cheaply, as well as hitting one of the other strongest cards, Electabuzz, for weakness. Hitmonchan was part of the core of the Haymaker archetype, a deck that was wildly strong in early tournaments. However, every Hitmonchan card printed afterwards has been absolutely terrible, with (as far as i can tell) none of them ever seeing any competitive play. Kinda funny how this pokemon has seen almost an opposite history in the card game and the video games :)
It sucks that Hitmonchan lost its niche of having all three elemental punches in Gen 2, but the mental image of Abra and Hypno finding success by throwing hands is amazing. Glad to see a mon find their footing over the years rather than fall off though.
I think they should give Hitmonchan the other Signature Punch moves to compensate. Imagine Jet Punch/Plasma Fist/Rage Fist/Wicked Blow (or /Surging Strike) Hitmonchan. Double Iron Bash Hitmonchan ftw! Seriously though, the fact it can't learn Meteor Mash, but Clefairy can will never not be hilarious
Iron fist boosting by 20% while sharpness by 50% is kinda messed up considering slicing moves tends to have 70-90BP while most fist moves have 75BP or lower is kinda sad.
To be fair, we already know how terrifying a 50% boost on priority moves is from Technician Scizor. I'm sure something gets Technician and Drain Punch too, to give another scary example.
With the ways a good few Gen 1 and 2 Pokemon were created, I genuinely feel like Game Freak wanted to split physical and special moves from the start, but due to technical limitations or whatever other reason like limited development time or similar made it impossible until Gen 4.
Hitmonchan is another reason for which I believe the Gen 1/2/3 type split was never intended in the first place. That and the fact the type split is NEVER, EVER mentioned anywhere in a main series game (as far as I know, Pokemon Stadium and its sequel are the first games to teach you about the existence of the split, correct me if I'm wrong). I honestly think the way Gen4 did it was probably the way they wanted to do it since gen1, but the lack of memory available (game was working with a string and a paperclip) and other factors likely got in the way. It makes no sense to ace creating a complex type system with an inherent logic to it, and just completely fumble on the stat system just after, I believe no one on their right mind would have made Fire Punch a Special move if they COULD choose. And it's likely the same for the fused Special stat.
I don't think it's likely to be down to memory considerations - it could be a single bit per move to determine if a move was physical or special, the literal lowest amount of storage required, even in Gen 1 they easily had room for that. Probably just a very simplistic design decision that wasn't properly considered again until Gen 4.
So yeah, the mon which requires to have higher defense than attack to evolve has lower defense than the mon which requires both stats to be equal. (I do love the trio but they have pretty low stats(although surprisingly really min maxed for gen 1 standard))
Gen 1 is surprisingly minmaxxed sometimes. It feels like they really dropped that a bit on gens 2 (probably because of no phys spec split) and started it again later, especially in gen 5
My favorite iteration of Hitmonchan was in Inclement Emerald. My man gave it an ability that made every punch move Mach Punch, including Power up Punch and the elemental punches. Such a trooper, holy crap it's so nice. I almost wish that was a real game.
@@snes90 Inclement Emerald was cooking with gas so hard, man. They made a mega Flygon that had Quiver Dance and an ability that was like Liquid Voice from Primarina, but its ground type instead of water. BEHOLD! My 120 base spatk STAB Ground type Boomburst! After a Quiver, it's so freaking strong.
How hard is inclement Emerald? I tend to stay away from the romhacks that increase the difficulty cause I'm a very casual pokemon fan that sucks at pokemon :(
@@Wingsaber Much easier than things like Radical Red or Blaze Black 2. Still fairly hard, it IS a difficulty Rom-Hack, but not that bad. I'm frankly a complete dumbass at Pokémon (I never won a single nuzlocke attempt on any game for instance) and I was still able to beat the game with a mono ground type team and a bit of brute force. There's so many fun changes and, I'm not kidding when I say this, making competitive teams you'd see in VGC and such is not just fairly easy as early as by Slateport, it's FUN as hell. Love that game to death.
gen 8 i ran one named Thiccmonchan and maxed its hp and defenses as high as i could slapped a vest on it and outlasted all kinds of stuff. it won so many times because of "wait, WHAT?" effect.
I had in Battle Revolution a team mono fighting pit against an eeveelution team ... and Hitmonchan was the only one that doesn't get destroyed instantly by Espeon's Psychic (aside Gallade that Espeon can one shot with Shadow Ball and Lucario where it switched to Flareon ... where it could tank both a Dark Pulse and an Aurasphere before killing it with Flamethrower).
Gen 1 mons are either consistent staples that can hold their own or languished in the Low-Tier Trenches praying for the physical/special split and usable STAB.
Drain punch and iron fist has always been a a favorite combo of mine. I still prefer assault vest on mine but punching glove puts out some solid damage!
I think one of the secret ingredients to Hitmonchan's success is just how hilariously low the distribution of Mach Punch is. Even though the logic behind Mach Punch is just "the user punches, like, _really_ fast", it's still a pretty rare move. I think that lets Hitmonchan fulfill a lower tier role/niche as a Fighting type that actually has STAB priority (ignoring Vacuum Wave which sucks on most things that get it anyway).
It may be because Bullet Punch is virtually the same move (Lucario gets both, though?. Though funnily enough, a large number of Pokemon with Iron Fist also learns Mach Punch
Yeah, STAB Vacuum Wave is only a realistic option on Lucario, and who runs special Lucario? (Protip: base Lucario has 5 points more special attack than physical)
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 Bullet Punch actually also has a remarkably low distribution rate too. Only Lucario, Metagross and of course Scizor get to benefit from it as a STAB move though. But what's weird is that despite being virtually the same as Mach Punch in its description, Medicham learns BP but not MP.
@@HeraldOfOpera Special or mixed (Mega) Lucario was a pretty cool option back in the day, and a similar case could be made for Blaziken and Infernape. And as niche as it sounds, I've seen and used a bit of Nasty Plot Croagunk in the lower tiers and it does benefit from Vacuum Wave a bit. Vacuum Wave still isn't great because if its shit distribution but I have seen some viable sets that like to run it still.
@@janner2006 As does Machamp and Pangoro (who also has Iron Fist). That's kind of my point though. Since they're virtually the same move, the distribution gets split for some reason (I guess having Super Effective damage against Fairy is good, but it's not really hitting that hard, so idk) Also Vacuum Wave being one of the rare priority move that deals Special Damage (with Water Shuriken and Thunderclap) could have some uses
It’s absolutely ridiculous that Headlong Rush, a Close Combat variant, is a punching move and Close Combat, a move with visualized punches, isn’t. Also I agree with everyone else that iron fist should be a 1.5x boost, since sharpness and strong jaws are with their respective moves. Would that be OP? Maybe, but most of the iron fist Pokémon aren’t that great anymore and they could use the buff. Maybe spread around some of the signature punching moves while we’re at it. Ice Hammer, plasma fists, go nuts. Throw on punching gloves and go to town.
Punching glove still is generally a worse option than just a life orb, sadly. Almost always the utility of avoiding contact isn't strong enough to overcome the raw power of LO, even with LO's recoil.
My favorite fighting mon. I tend to use Lucario as it's more versatile and consistant but Hitmonchan with Drain Punch/Close Combat, Fire Punch, Ice Punch and Thunder Punch is quite a great mon in playthroughs.
Still hoping for a buff to Iron Fist some day. It’s craxy that Sharpness gives a 1.5x boost while Iron First is stuck at 1.2x. I think a 1.3x for both would be a nice middle ground
In gen 2 Hitmonchan’s job was breeding the elemental punches onto better Pokemon. At best this just saved time and money because you could buy all 3 as TMs.
I've always said that gen 1 pokemon either have absolutely zero moves or every single coverage option you could ask for. Hitmonchan said "just maybe, if I put my mind to it and believe hard enough, I can have both".
Gen 1 Hitmonchan is so awful that it's one of only 5 fully evolved mons to be allowed in one of the lowest tiers, that being 7U, an unofficial metagame based on the Pokemon Perfect tiering system. It's pretty good, but this is a tier where the undisputed best mon is Meowth.
I've never seen a channel better exemplify the idea that if you have an idea, just make it as best you can and people will come to it if it's good. I love the simple setup of your videos, they rule!
Ngl it's kinda crazy with how both of them performed in gen 1, both hitmonchan and tauros are now considered equally viable in gen 9 zu. Idk if that's a massive w for the former or a massive l for the latter.
ik this is usually outside of the scope of your vids but Hitmonchan is also one of my favorite mons in draft league. Its stats somehow perfectly let it be ev'd to live any hit and it can function as either a bulky and resilient spinner that's hard to switch into and block or an SD boosted priority spamming cleaner.
By the way, have you seen that there are channels that at least look like they are kind of using your format? I don't know what game it was for, but the title of the video was "A PowerPoint about Dieck." It seems like a stolen format, but I figured I would give you the heads up at least if you didn't know about it.
It’s so funny to me that the best users of fighting type moves (outside of the set damage stoss) is Mewtwo against chansey and submission’s large PP count, hypno against chansey preferably dying so she doesn’t get a turn and you can take her out with a different Pokémon, and machamp’s low kick on para flinch teams
Hitmonchan was always the people's champ. Hitmonchan never cared about his numbers. Hitmonchan hates math. That's why Hitmonchan became a boxer, instead of a nerd. Do *you* want to be a nerd? Didn't think so. Run Hitmonchan.
I wonder if Hitmonchan is the most mechanically buffed pokemon in existence. Hitmonchan was never good, but the heavy buff to special defense in gen 2, new and better fighting type moves in gen 3, and then physical special split in gen 4 are all exceptionally massive buffs. Although still bad, I dont think there is a larger glow up than that
Even all the way back in 3rd grade playing Pokemon Red I remember being pissed that Hitmonchan fucking sucked. I loved boxing as a kid and it was a major letdown.
The problem with Hitmoncham post gen4 is that all fighting type pokemon were buffed too and new powerful options were introduced so it's still very bad due to competition with other fighters
@@ElectricWindGirlFriend Understandable. Have a great day Tho me personally I consider any Mon to be below OU as bad, because by definition it needs better Pokémon removed to be good
@@GravityIsFalling That's arbitrary. Firstly, Why not Ubers for that line? OU pokemon "need" Ubers "Pokémon removed to be good" That's like saying that anyone who doesn't explicitly get first place is bad. With over 1000 pokemon, being useful in a subsetted format is still preferable to being actually useless anywhere. The equivalent to "D is still a passing grade."
Played hitmonchan right after, tried speedy bulk. Max speed with 300 sp.def + 200 def spread. After bulk up both are 300, zero attack investment since life orb, iron fist, +1 drain punch is enough
still wonder why Iron Fist couldn't be a more exclusive ability and be a 50% power boost like sharpness. Double Iron Bash would have to be axed from the list of Iron Fist moves and give Melmetal a worse ability lol. I can see a Conkeldurr being a problem too, not having to run Guts but that mon hasn't been good for centuries. just like, seeing how Sharpness is a huge part of why Samurott-H is viable and even Sharpness Gallade's breaking potential. there are so many middling Iron Fist mons. Maybe Iron Fist Ledian would be in OU and top 1 VGC threat with a 50% power boost on Comet Punch, Focus Punch, and Drain Punch. I just want to live in a world, if even for a second, where I could see the ramifications of such a change.
Defensive Hitmonchan sets? And there I thought giving it an evolution with 80 HP / ~ 140 Def / 120 SpD would help make Tyrogue’s method of evolution to Hitmonchan (Def > Atk) more sensible, or at least foreshadowing.
@@HeraldOfOpera I'm not sure being ranked C- in gen 5 RU and dropping every gen afterwards until it became unviable in ZU in gen 8 makes it a staple. I mean it was A- in gen 6 NU that's sorta cool I guess, officially as good as Ferroseed
Idk why I always like hitmonchan as a kid growing up when everyone made fun of him wearing a dress despite being male. Now as a trans woman it kinda makes sense hmm.
I'm sorry, Hitmonchan had to run Hi Jump Kick? The punching half of the punch-kick duo had to run a kicking move as its main Stab option? Really Gamefreak?
Not the point of this video but I can't not mention it, I hate it when people criticise modern pokémon designs for being too humanoid when hitmonchan is gen 1 and is literally just a man
It’s still so funny to me how terrible so many GEN1/2 are. You either have great stats but no moves, awesome moves but terrible stats, or a great moveset but half the attacks are the wrong offensive stat. Also, I still cannot believe a move with the word “punch” in the name was ever special, much less that 3 were
