If you’d like to check out more vids ive done similar to this - Pokemon Movesets make no sense: m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sVO4qz8SOh4.html Clefable is Broken: m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tD8_GROnB_o.html
Yes good point! There's also a bunch of abilities that really help physical attackers, like huge/pure power, guts, moxie, though claws, iron fist. And technician and no guard are typically used by physical mons. But there's a lot of great abilities for special attackers too ofc.
-sword dance being far more common than nasty plot -dragon dance generally being on usable mons while quiver dance is mostly on shitmons. -hugh bp moves are balanced by drawback instead of by accuracy. You can play around close combat or fire blitz, you have to pray that focus blast and fire blast don't miss. -no phisical assault vest -phisical blissey is an ice type -more abilities that boost phisical or contact mives. Personally, i'd say ohisical and special are fairly balanced. Phisical has more common annoyances tho.
I am surprised they haven't created an intimidate for special attackers yet. Or a status for lowering special attackers. Flame body, burn and intimidate among others really hurt physical attackers.
thing is that burn nerf indirectly buffed special attackers. Like Latios eating a burn in gen 5 means it's basically useless trying to switch into keldeo anymore. Stuff like starmie or keldeo eating a burn in gen 6 means that bisharp or mega metagross gonna mess you up lategame. But then gen 7 came around and the burn nerf basically meant that special attackers would no longer lose health with lefties and that everything had better longevity. Hot take, without burn nerf pex would be A- at best in OU because it would be forced to spam recover instead of eating every hit due to the constant 12% chip.
They nerfed I-Beam, T-bolt and F-thrower from 95 to 90 at the same time Moonblast came out. Should have given that 90 PP too... (I get that the Fairy typing had to be hyped etc. etc.)
@@samsungrefrigeratorcondens4354 Or replace/power up things like Ice Punch/Beam and Blizzard, replace the 10% for freeze to be 30% for frostbite... Though adding a status move would still be good. As well as the ability. And maybe make something like a Tinfoil Hat (be a little snarky with the item!) that reduces special damage taken, or inflicts recoil like Rocky Helmet.
There's one thing you neglected to mention that's a pretty big advantage for physical attackers; almost every priority move is physical. Extreme speed, bullet punch, aqua jet, grassy glide, ice shard, mach punch, they're all staples on many physical attackers and a big part of what makes them so threatening.
still much easier to check and counter than many specially offensive option. it is not only that, physical attacker are generally easier to hinder, rough skin/iron barbs, rocky helmeth, intimidate... those are all items/elements that should have special counterpart. the only thing worth mentioning where special side has worse than physical is existence of av, but eventhat is too restrictive to be useful on most mons (tangrowth and slowking galar being the only 2 that are definitive strong users while most mons lose too much by restricting themselves with it)
@@nbassasin8092 I know all that, I watched the video and I'm not disagreeing with any of his points. Priority moves are just a notable thing that wasn't talked about.
some specially oriented intimidate version of ability would be nie as well, give it to some new mons plus some older less relevant ones to make them more relevant
I honestly hope they'll leave it at a scald like attack at most. just imagine the power creep required for special (hyper-)offense to play around this. Blissey already walls them hard with this it'll just become balance/stall meta.
@LeNigtvanNugt Bruh i know you watched Freezai and although hes one of the GOATS, hes completely wrong about the special physical balance Having to deal with Blissey is NOT enough. We need more ways to deal with special attackers other than being forced to use a freakin Blissey
Yeah and just remove Freeze. That thing is so blatantly noncompetitive that it hurts. I agree with @LeNigtvanNugt to some extent though, if there was a move that cuts SpA in half like Will-o does for Atk, it should be very sparsely distributed. Maybe make it exclusive to Ice types like Freeze-Dry and Aurora Veil are (well, Mew got the latter in gen 7 but you get my point), the type could still use some buffs. Especially as the Freeze status would be removed from their stabs. However, I don't think it should be a rare move because of Blissey, but because of the design philosophy that the two attack stats seem to have. Physical Attack is the more volatile by design, having more things that can shut them down like Burn, Intimidate, etc. but also having more opportunities for boosting or outright massive damage from the get-go, like Guts, Huge Power, and moves that have recoil or some other negative effect in return for big base power being more common for Physical attackers. Swords Dance being more widely available than Nasty Plot could also be argued to be a part of that. Lessening this volatility for Physical side or increasing it for Special side too much would just make the two stats feel too similar in what they do and how to deal with them, which would overall make having two of them feel a bit redundant and the combat would just feel less varied.
One thing that is better about physcial attackers is that many of them have a reliable way boost both physical attack and speed in one set via Dragon Dance. Unless you're using a select few bug-types via Quiver Dance, you won't be able to reliably boost both special attack and speed in one set.
@@mr.swizzle9534 Swords dance is MUCH more available than nasty plot, and calm mind sucks as an offensive option. Nasty plot and Quiver dance are the only good special boosting moves, and very few strong poke,mon have them.
@@megselv6633 yes but i still dont think that swords dance and dragon dance are enough to counter the advantage sp atk have over physical attacks in current competitive play.
This video feels like a massive improvement over the previous 'Pokemon movesets make no sense'. It feels much more focused, and much, MUCH easier to consume when the energy is turned down from '150%-ADHD' to 'semi-relaxing'. The editing in general is still not really my cup of tea with illustrations from showdown/videogames/anime/website/homemade Photoshop being mixed and used side by side, I generally like it when there's as few as possible different styles in one video. But that's my personal preference im airing out loud, I'm really happy the changes. Great video :) !
Personally I disagree about the editing. I typically only watch videos while doing something else like working or playing some games, so they're more like a podcast to me anyhow, but it's still nice being able to look over and visualize what I'm hearing. When it's not random memes and whatnot (which these types of videos from Doctor Joseph don't really have often), it feels like it complements what he's saying pretty well.
I believe I‘ve never read such a well-advised critique on the internet before. Regardless of someone agreeing with this or not, it makes sense and aims to improve the channel. As a language-teacher, I am proud
Things I would add: -even with nasty plot distribution in gen 8, it's still much easier to setup with physical attackers -physical attackers have almost all the priority (shard, jet, bp, grassy glide) -kartana has base 181 attack and is never restricted in OU or VGC -there are a few prominent physical utility moves that even out the status-causing special moves (knock, u-turn, spin) as well as body press which requires no attack investment -chansey/blissey can't be dismissed so readily, there's no pokemon on the physical side that can shut down so many potential sweepers on its own I would personally rephrase this title as "special attacks are more spammable" since physical moves often have big upsides and downsides
@@lordradiance2530 all of your examples are good walls but none of them even compare to bliss imo, simply for the fact that any physical fire move on an offensive Mon will straight up obliterate ferro, and most good fighting attacks will do like 40-60%, while slowbro and tangroth are both weak to bug, so upturn from lando still does like 30-40%. Bliss on the other hand simply does not care about any special attack whatsoever, bot even focus blast lol.
@@lordradiance2530 All 4 of the mons you listed are used for defensive cores, they're still vulnerable to type advantage. Meanwhile, blissey soaks up all special hits by itself. Literally, only lele and keldeo break it with direct damage alone.
Physical has better set up moves and overall less draw back to it's high power moves. Close combat lowers defense and special defense which doesn't cripple the main point of your attacker aka outspeed and kill. Alot of physical attackers have either dragon dance or swords dance + a priority move negating the speed weakness. Special attackers usually only get calm mind or nasty plot which aren't bad but without priority leaves them vulnerable if they can't outspeed. The best special boosting move quiver dance brought volcarona which has a pretty bad typing to be useable. If volcarona didn't have that move it would probably be in a similar tier to Moltres.
Yeah, I was surprised he didn't talk about physical attackers having an easier time sweeping. Sure Special has a lot of high BP moves, but most of them either drop Sp. Atk after (Draco, Overheat, ect.) or have low Accuracy (Fire Blast, Hurricane, ect.). Physical gets high BP moves that are reliable like CC and Earthquake, better set-up options, and priority to deal with scarves giving them the chance to destroy a whole team, while Special Attackers are more likely to just get a kill and run away.
@@duckymomo7935 yeh that's why most other special attackers are one trick ponies aka choice specs/scarf or dependent on terrain/weather. Good example being drifbloom it can gain all the stat buffs of a quiver dance thanks to calm mind and unburden it just needs a seed to do it. Kingdra has specs and swift swim and Venusaur has growth and chlorophyll. Without weather/ terrain these mons wouldn't be used as much.
I think it would’ve been worth mentioning something about knock off. The ability for the move to be used to cover any switch and fit any playstyle is too overpowered
We really need Mega Stones and Z-Crystals back to check knock-off. The time Zamazenta-C fell to OU really made me happy to have an actual counter to knock-off spam.
It's crazy that in spite of all these nerfs (I'd personally add the somewhat worse move pool on the physical side), special attackers are just slightly superior.
I agree with everything in this video, the only thing I'd mention somewhat in favor of physical attackers is that stronger special attacks like fire blast, focus blast, hurricane, etc tend to have lower accuracy as their "downside" while most strong physical attacks rarely have this issue. Still doesn't really balance out imo, but it's worth noting. I will say tho, I'm very glad that tera blast has the photon geyser damage calculations, hidden power being pure special after gen 4 was definitely an unfortunate blow to some mons in the generational shift
To balance that out a ton of physical moves have non 100% acc or other drawbacks for absolutely no reason, for example aqua tail 90bp and 90 acc and no effect, a special attacker can also use a 90bp move in surf with no such drawback. Moves like moonblast tbolt ice beam and flamethrower have no physical equals with 100% acc and a positive effect, moonblast is 95bp while playrough is 90 and has 90% acc. Tbolt is 90bp and a 10% chance to para while wild charge cannot paralyze has a super low distribution and on top of that deals 25% recoil.
I think it's a bit more complicated than that. The difference between ATK and SPATK has been getting deeper because of a vicious circle. Early on, ATK had better power-up tools. Swords Dance since gen 1, Curse as a TM in gen 2. Only in gen 3 we got Calm Mind - which isn't as widespread as Curse was - and the very limited Tail Glow, but then we also got Dragon Dance. Also, I believe the tools against contact moves even exist because they usually have a greater utility: the vast majority of priority moves, U-Turn (which is much more accessible than Volt Switch), Rapid Spin, Knock Off, among others (like Pursuit you mentioned). Even Choice Band was created 1 gen earlier than Specs and Scarf. The comparison about powerful moves is also a bit skewed. Close Combat and even the recoil moves seem to be bad, but their negative effects balance the fact they are powerful moves with 100% accuracy, unlike Thunder, Fire Blast, etc. Even the SPATK drop moves still have 90% accuracy, so while physical attackers won't get much effects, they at least are more reliable. And with that we can justify Earthquake, the only move with such a massive 100 base power with 100% accuracy and no drawbacks, and even very accessible on so many species. That's why I think GF felt the need to create so many countermeasures to physical attackers and contact moves, it was just easier to play with them. Only after so many of those we got Nasty Plot and Quiver Dance to even the field a bit for SPATK. Finally, we have more abilities that boost ATK than SPATK: besides the ones that boost both and are counterparts, physical have Guts, Huge/Pure Power, Anger Point, Moxie and Justified while special have Berserk and Solar Power - much more limited gameplay. Also, Sap Sipper has more utility than Storm Drain and Lightning Rod since Grass has many more disruptive moves (Spore, Powders, Leech Seed, etc.) than Water and Electric (basically just Scald and Thunder Wave/Nuzzle + Volt Switch). So yeah, it's still a balance issue, but more like a degenerated arms race than a preferred side.
Love that you branched out and are doing videos like this more, but some constructive criticism would be to maybe talk a little slower or split your argument up into sections so the viewer can follow it easier, maybe it was just be but it was hard to process some info since you moved by it so quickly, all in all it was a fun video
@@paulsmith9786 lol no he just jumped from point to point so quickly without any transition or break, I’m not saying it was impossible to understand, just harder than it could have been
I thought it flowed rather nicely to be honest, but I get what you mean. Right now, it feels more like him just talking a lot of info in a rather natural manner, rather than a structured essay, which might make it hard to process. But since he didn't jump around in a chaotic manner, I think it's fine. Plus, with videos like these, holding a viewer's attention is important, so the faster pace makes sense in that regard too. Otherwise, this could have been a 15 to 20 minute video too, which is less clickable.
Special attackers are also *generally* weaker to physical attacks though. And while special has a wide library of coverage, the moves themselves are generally weaker. The consistent versions of moves have lower base power (80-95), while the post Gen-6 powerful versions of certain types (the 110 BPs) suffer from abysmal accuracies. Compare this to physical mainstays, like Close Combat, Brave Bird, Megahorn, Earthquake, Power Whip, Stone Edge, Poltergeist, Meteor Mash, Gunk Shot, Double Edge, etc. which are not perfect moves by any means, but you can tell they are statistically a bit better than their special analogues (if similar power, usually better accuracy, and if not just more power). And, I think a lot of the reasons you list for physical attack being inferior is actually because of the opposite case being true; burns, rocky helmet, intimindate, all of that exists *because* physical attack is the premier method of offense. It's a balancing choice, if physical wasn't better than special then they wouldn't exist without special versions by now. And the way the generations of Pokemon have ended up also supports a trend towards very strong physical attackers getting strong STAB options, unlike the most appealing special attackers (usually being a type known for high SpA) getting stuck with lower bp STABs like Psychic, Shadow Ball, Sludge Bomb, or purposely opting for something like Thunderbolt or Ice Beam because the stronger options are too painful to even consider. Last bit here, special moves do have good status utility on their side, like Scald, Lava Plume, Discharge as you mentioned spreading status well with respectable damage. But, physical has the priority market almost entirely cornered! Vacuum Wave vs, what, Quick Attack/Extremespeed, Mach Punch, Aqua Jet, Sucker Punch, Shadow Sneak, Accelerock, Grassy Glide, etc.? That combined with the wide distribution of Swords Dance compared to Nasty Plot/Tail Glow (and even the distribution of Dragon Dance compared to Quiver Dance) necessitates the balancing of burn, intimidate, contact effects, and so on
"It's a balancing choice, if physical wasn't better than special then they wouldn't exist without special versions by now." I'd like for you to take a moment on how good Game Freak is at balancing after they released S/V and at least 6 of the new gen mons got quickbanned to Ubers within a couple of weeks.
This is why I love gen 3 ou. Physical hidden powers and introduction of choice band (no specs yet) made physical and special feel more balanced despite physical dealing with burn, intimidate, and generally weaker base power moves.
God gen 3 didn't have the physical special split that ruins the gen for me it's a complete garbage fire for a lot of mons because gamefreak didn't design certain mons to work at all.
@@scottkaczmarski5238 gen 3 ou is actually one of the most diverse metagames around. Physical hidden power gives a lot of mons coverage they normally wouldn’t have, and things like the elemental punches being special gives a lot of special attackers fantastic coverage as well. Gengar may not have stabs, but it does hit a majority of your opponents team for super effective damage which is debatably just as good. Gyarados may not have stab waterfall but it does get stab hp flying, etc.
Love this new type of content from you Joey, refreshing and it's very insightful. As some constructive critique, it maybe easier for other people to follow if you split up the video into categories of things you're explaining and perhaps talk slower etc. I didn't have a problem with it at all, though I think it'll be helpful down the road. Keep up the good work and I hope you reach 300k! Been following you for years, you definitely deserve it!
The physical side does get some help in priority moves being mostly physical as well as raw power, many main stab physical moves like eq and cc have high base power, 100% accuracy and no offensive drops where special moves generally don't have all three
true but still, it is much easier to deal with physical setup mon that has plus 2-3 than with special one, in terms of walls, abilities like intimidate or iron barbs, items like rocky helmeth, and generally more checks and counters. that in itself shows the difference nicely
@@nbassasin8092 Thing is the special mons that are able to setup are not too fast and die if you accidentally breath on them so you can easily revenge kill them.
@@RuneKillerz109 sorry but not really true, you are right they are one of those two things but not both Fini is super bulky and decently fast Volc can be ran both bulky and fast, you need to pick your poison outbof thise two flaws but there is no perfect mon those who are get banned. And give me physical counterpart to quiver dance, ill wait, best setup move in the game. Magearna has been banned for a reason as well, speed and bulk. Moltres is both bulky and fast after agility, and has great stab options. You could make same argument for physical attackers, why are they different in your eyes in terms of bulk and speed, for every fast physical attacker they make one special and also for every bulky. And they arent both ever But my point still stands, there are numerous ways to deal with physical ones without ever touching them, intimidate ruins their boost, if you know how to switch you can deal with them without any casualties, rocky helmeth and ferro/chomp can literally make some physical attackers kill themselves before they kill them, while any physically defensive regeberator user can come in, make them hurt and then go back out to recover all of that no punishment Zapdos can hinder their speed with one switch in if you are not careful, while moltres (and heatran if you about that life) can nuke their attacking stat the same way. Baneful bunker is anither contact move that can lose you mon if you are not careful (im not mentioning kings and spiky shield even though they also come in play they aint too competitively viable) And then you jave special attacker... who does not have to worry about aaaaaany of these things since they dont have any equivalent to them So even if you disagree after all of this, you atleast have ti admit it is much more brainless and penalty free to use special attacking mons that it is physical ones The only thing physical atrackers have better, in terms of oppobents hinderance not your own boost since that is another topic, is existance of assault vest, and if you want to be that guy sandstorm boost, although that is only meaningful on tyranitar. Also chancey and blissey are a thing, there is no physically defensive mon as fat as them. But they are easy to deal with if you know what you are doing Edit: when I was talking about moltres forgot to say that even switching in with physical attacker can be scary since scald scorsching sands and willowisp are all existing moves. Ive seen to many tines players losing to bulky cores since they cant break them after they got burned by pex. Again, no worries for special attacjers since they cant get cucked like physical ones
@NBA ssasin Dude @LeNigtvanNugt is waving the banner for physical attackers and it makes no sense Pokemon fans do that and i have no idea why. They really just find a random and wrong stance to die on a hill for. Like with Solgaleo, they will argue till blue in the face that a Sun God who eats the sun should be weak to fire. Of all three types it can have (Fire, Steel, Psych), psychic literally makes the keast amount of sense and they defend that till death. They wont wont even give it Flash Fire instead of clear body which makes absolutely no sense. Poke fans have no logic
The thing is, without all those balancing drawbacks, physical attackers would be even more dominant, right know the viability is kind of evened out but physical attackers usually get much better access to coverage like Earthquake, a non stopable U-Turn, SD (Nasty Plot isn’t even close in terms of distribution) Like where is any 100+ BP Special Move that can’t miss? Ofc CC, Flare Blitz and Brave Bird have Drawbacks but those are way better to deal with than the miss chances of Hurricane, Fire Blast or Focus Blast This video is not good since it seems to leave out a lot of points that would contradict your point
@@duckymomo7935 but that’s VGC, physical gets better because their sheer strength is good when it doesn’t matter if one pokemon walls when they can attack another. And the examples are good for more reasons than being physical. Zacian has insane speed offence, the best typing in the game, coverage, +1 attack at the start of battle, and has a 100/100 move that deals double damage against dynamax, if you convert everything physical to special it would still be the best. Incin has intimidate fake out, parting shot, and can attack either with flare blitz and darkest lariet, or snarl and flamethrower. Lando-T has intimidate stab max airstream plenty of versatility in attacking moves and a decent typing that can fit into any team. Grass monkey has grassy surge, fake out, strong priority stab in grassy terrain, knock off, easy to have in a core (types that cover each other, ex: fire water grass, or steel fairy fighting) VGC overall always seems to have a more balanced meta because of the nature of doubles and it’s even more polarizing the difference of physical and special because of moves like fake out that are stables and boost physical pokemon significantly, and abilities like intimidate that nerf physical pokemon significantly. Edit: I just realized how much I wrote I’m sorry for that. And if you don’t want to read it all, it’s more complex than just physical pokemon strong because big physical moves, and there’s alot that makes a good pokemon good.
Love the explanatory content like this. I knew intimidate and burn were advantages of being special, but everything else never occurred to me, really insightful!
i feel like in gen 3, game freak made intimidate out of fear that physical attackers would run choice band and roll over everything due to lack of EV’s. however, gen 4 came out with choice specs and they didn’t add a special version of intimidate
I think (in a vacuum) physical hits harder, and I want to say more accurately, flair blitz 100% acc 120 base Vs 85% acc 110 fireblast . I think special is more coverage and utility with the loss of power or accuracy where is physically is all out power . Physical also as access to most the priority moves in the game bar vacuum wave and water shurikin . I feel a specs latios can nuke anything really well, where as a banded darmanitan can nuke everything really well. All that being said I think special definitely has the advantage
One thing you didn't mention is the fact that special attacks are generally balanced through poor accuracy compared to physical counterparts who are more guaranteed damage but with drawbacks (stat drops, recoil, etc). The only exceptions I can really think of are rock type moves (stone edge and rock slide), likely due to how common rock weaknesses have always been (since flying and bug types are so common in the actual game, even if not as much competitively), and the elemental fangs which seem to bring along just a little bit of that special attacker drawback in favor of the coverage. An exception on the other side are moves like Overheat, Leaf Storm, and Draco Meteor, which have super high base power and only a 10% chance to miss (compared to 70-85 for most high bp special moves), but come with the more traditional physical move drawback of higher accuracy with self stat drops.
I'm really hoping freeze into frostbite is here to stay, but I have feeling that frostbite is exclusive to PLA. Hopefully I'm wrong. Frostbite is a perfect counterpart to burn, and freeze is just a bad status effect, period.
I love these videos where Joey sounds like he’s giving a class presentation. Not only are they incredibly insightful, but the way Joey talks you can literally hear the punctuations 😂
I have always said that in order to balance comp mons, you need to balance the phys and special debuffs. Spec intim, frostbite in legends arkoos, abilities that give frostbite, etc.
I think even Gamefreak agrees with this, as they dropped the power of nearly all of the high powered Special moves (Overheat variants, Fire Blast variants, Flamethrower variants, Magma Storm, etc)
@@gregorymirabella1423 My alot actually a bp of 10 maxs the special element beam barely out dmg the elemenetal punches, so it more to balance them out to completely nerf them.
Theres also the fact that, at least back in the day, Pokemon generally got given lower spatk stats than atk. The difference isnt as pronounced as it used to be, but mons with 400+ spatk stats especially used to be very rare compared to their physical counterparts.
When I was young I realised that attack debuffs are a lot more common than special attack ones, so my special attackers were more likely to maintain a barrage of full powered attacks. Nowadays I have to remind myself that physical attacks are worth picking up sometimes.
The one physical/special thing I was thinking about lately was *confusion,* most notably *Swagger vs. Flatter.* Both moves confuse the opponent (unless it has Own Tempo of course) and raise its attack by two stages (Swagger) or special attack by one stage (Flatter.) Since confusion damage is calculated using the physical attack stat, physical attackers will do *more damage* to themselves if they hit themselves in confusion. Raising the opponent's attack with Swagger is always risky, but the point remains that physical attackers are more of a risk to themselves when confused than special attackers. Flatter essentially gives special attackers a free Sp.Atk boost with no immediate drawbacks; making it less useful compared to Swagger. *Funny story:* Slowflake, a now retired LPer, said he once saw a confused Carvanha knock itself out in two hits from full HP. On another note, Swagger & Flatter are excellent moves to use on Own Tempo partners in doubles.
I would love a special version of power up punch, intimidate, and more physical fire and electric move remove freeze and bring in frostbite and drowsy,.
@@majesticgothitelle1802 for sure. As for intimidate, that would be great as well, I just chose iron barbs because I’ve seen less people point it out. As for P-UP, just unnerfing Charge Beam would be nice. And frostbite will hopefully be in SV.
Physical Attack is also cursed by Recoil moves. Flare Blitz, Double Edge, Wild Charge, Brave Bird. All these moves hurt the user a lot. In fact, Wild Charge is an awful move. It's just Electric Take Down. Besides that, one thing I think might have a slightly influence in Special Attacks being stronger is because of the in-game. What's funnier, specially if you're a kid: shooting lighting bolts and beams made of ice, or just a regular kick? They're more attractive, specially in a super casual environment. Even if it's waaaaay weaker, a Hyper Beam coming from a Stoutland, for instance, sounds and looks way more cool than it just using Return, Double Edge or maybe Strength. All the starters types were special pre gen 4 (fire, water and grass) as well as some types people often associate with being cool, as well as their moves: Dragon, Ice, Electric. Again, what sounds and looks cooler, specially if you're a little kid. The special moves. I belive some of these happens without competitive in mind, but rather, the devs make them so that casuals, which is the vast majority of the playerbase (which includes kids), have fun with their cool looking moves.
I always thought physical moves were better excluding all the anti contact stuff and Intimidate because they tend to have moves with both high power AND accuracy. Special moves usually pick one or the other. Take Close Combat as an example, vs Aura Sphere and Focus Blast.
I really wish they'd make a half sp at status, make a reverse to confusion based on sp. Attack (call it psychosis or something) and give an Intimidate to sp.atk.
I've been saying since gen 6 that physical dragon types are at a disadvantage because of fairy types. Outrage used to be too good, but is now unuseable because of how common fairy types are (looking at ya'll Tapus). I've really wanted a good replacement for Outrage since gen 6. Special attacker dragon types never stopped being able to drop draco meteors, but physical attacking dragons have to use..... dragon claw? There's a reason a lot of physical dragon types stopped carrying dragon STAB gen 7 and onward.
i used to run mixed salamence with hone claws and dragon rush/fire blast in Gen 6. Needless to say, it was pretty terrible. also a shame it couldn't get hurricane back then, and dragonite is even worse witout DD
@@driftwisp2797 It's cool, but it's not a powerful physical move, it's a physical move with good upside. Maybe Scale shot + the new loaded dice item coming in gen 9??? :D
Surprised you didn't mention priority moves being a physical attacker exclusive (besides vacuum wave but I'm talking about actual moves) but I agree the versatility and raw power from special users outweighs that benefit for sure.
I think something to mention is the consistency and utility physical attackers get. By that I mean the little to no drawback moves with ridoculous power like earthquake, cc, and triple axel, and for utility I mean knock off, uturn, and basically every priority move.
yes but all those moves have big drawbacks and you can play around them : earthquake cant hit flying/levitate/baloon holders. CC lowers your def making you easy to revenge kill etc...only common sp attack with a drawback i can think of the top of my head is Draco meteor
@@Dd5yr5g the drawbacks are minor compared to the consistency of the damage and their spamability. Obv many special attacks are spammable too but they arent nearly as strong in base power. Only comparable one is like, moonblast.
Also better overall setup, if they don't have dragon dance then all they need is swords dance + a priority move. While special attackers only get calm mind and nasty plot which don't boost speed. Their main saving grace would be psyshock but that can easily be blocked by any dark type. A good example being Alakazam and Gengar. They have high speed and special attack , if they set up they can get hit and survive with a focus sash but that leads them vulnerable to sucker punch. If they don't set up then depending on who they match up against they can land a hit, not kill get hit in return and be vulnerable to a priority move. few ways they can combat this is a. Being a trapper like mega Gengar or C. Terrain and weather. Weather teams and terrain teams is where you'll see the most special attackers.
I personally love the asymmetry, physical attackers have a lot of powerful tools but there are also a lot of tools to deal with them. I’d love to see more tools both ways, but I like the differences, it’s what makes Pokémon fun.
I kinda agree, n its got me a bit torn on the frostbite vs freeze comparison. Cuz on the one hand, I dont think anyone likes the frozen status effect. Its unreliable, entirely luck based and once it hits that Pokemon often may as well be dead if it doesnt know a thawing move. On the other, frostbite really would just be "burn but opposite" and that would make status effects as a whole less varied, more samey, and more boring.
Special attackers get easily accessible coverage in Hidden Power, which required specific IVs but Bottle Caps allowing for effectively maximum IVs has removed this downside. Physical attackers get lol Natural Gift, which not only requires a specific berry for your item slot but is also single-use. Oh, and not every physical attacker even gets this move either, unlike special attackers with Hidden Power
Ngl i thought i knew some stuff about pokemon battles, but i learned so much more lol. Thanks Joey and great video btw i love the editing in this one, for sure looks like it took some time and thought into making it.
While I agree with what you said for the most part, physical attackers have one main advantage that wasn’t discussed-set up sweeping. Physical attackers tend to have next to no special attack and then dump the points into defenses and speed too so when they go for a Dragon Dance or Sword’s Dance-they don’t immediately die unless hit by a 4x weak attack. Think Gyarados, Dragonite, Haxorus, Tyranitar, and to a lesser extent-Weavile. By contrast Special Sweepers are either incredibly slow or frail. Past Gen 1 despite Alakazam having multiple moves to boost its special attack and speed, it often doesn’t run it because he’s so frail he’ll either die or be forced to switch before he can get the ball rolling. A good example of one being to slow is Slowbro who while his defenses a good, they aren’t take a bunch of thunderbolts or thunders that you can potentially get paralyzed by while setting up good. The only main Special Sweeper I can think of can get around this issue easy is Clefable who has a good enough ability that it can be immediately threatening with, ignores passive damage, has recovery options and defensive boosts with offensive ones to ensure it can stick around, and has a move pool deeper than the Grand Canyon to hit the opponent with. Many players won’t be as interested in Clefable when it takes 3-4 turns of set up and recovery that could then sweep the whole team than the Gyarados that uses Dragon Dance once or twice and can just decimate at least a couple of mons on the enemy team.
Luv these videos Joey. Keep it up! I find myself not watching showdown lives cuz they’re too long so these shorter ones talking about concepts are perfect
Asymmetries like this are good; it makes the use of any given mon more deliberate. Everyone loves the physical/special split for making Gyarados awesome for like 3 gens in a row, but there's also something to the dual relationship of type advantage + stat advantage. I wish GF would revisit that in some way e.g. with bespoke moves that work something like Psyshock.
Awesome video man. I know it's never been your style to do more scripted and highly edited content, but it's as good as I thought it would be. Can't wait to see more!
Sandstorm special defense boost and assault vest are some rough stuff that special attackers have to deal with, though sandstorm is only for rock types (which get blasted by the common strong sp atking types) and vest has a pretty significant requirement. Overall phys attackers get the shorter end of the stick still.
I feel like the generally higher base power of physical moves (and better accuracy of those high base power moves compared to higher powered special moves.) Are a pretty big ommision from the big picture here.
I agree with most of your points, but I think one understated aspect of how snowbally physical attackers can be (on top of your observations about counterplay to physical attackers being far less robust than pink blobs) is that Moxie compounds advantage quickly. The counterpart, Soul Heart, is on a single mon and Beast Boost depends on a case by case basis, but overall I think a combination of that and "big" physical moves tending to not drop the user's attacking stats like Draco Meteor/Overheat do (usually drop defenses in cases like Close Combat) contribute a lot in making physical sweeps more snowbally since they don't have to weaken themselves to get their picks. One other thing I think is worth mentioning is boosting move quality. Swords Dance and Dragon Dance are cream of the crop on the physical end with very widespread distribution and a single use can often facilitate a sweep/limit your opponent's counterplay options depending on mon and moveset. While Calm Mind is certainly good, it's not quite as restrictive to play against and Quiver Dance + Nasty Plot have far more limited distributions.... or at least NP did before Gen 8. Thanks Gamefreak, very cool. I think it's a testament to how good Swords/DD are when Bulk Up is often seen as almost a concession in comparison to them when it's by no means a bad move and a solid counterpart to Calm Mind.
This is why I really hope of the things that carry over from Legends Arceus to Gen 9, I think Frostbite should supplant Freeze. Having a special counterpart to Burn nerfs at least begins to level the playing field.
I think one thing to consider that different types benefit differently from being physical or not because the available moves. Ghost was meh physically until we got poletergeist. Electric notably lacks good physical moves. Fighting notably lacks good special moves with Lucaria usually being physical despite his bigger special attack and access to nasty plot
On the other hand, most powerful setup sweepers have been physical attackers. There is no special Dragon Dance. There is Quiver Dance, but almost nothing gets QD. And Swords Dance is vastly superior to Nasty Plot when you consider the distribution of priority moves. Then there is Calm Mind, which is just special Bulk Up (the least impressive of the three main atk-boosting moves) but which has nonetheless been the main enabler of special sweeps because the special side lacks better options.
This is pretty interesting because a lot of the best breakers in draft are actually physical attackers or at least mixed. Important to note I’m talking about 11 Mon Gen 8 Nat Dex Draft.
Special intimidate and a status the lowers special attack like burn are sorely needed. Also physical moves need more variety in power and move types. The only real advantage physical attacker’s have is the more numerous abilities that combine with physical attacks. Huge and Pure Power, Tough Claws, Strong Jaws, Iron Fist, Guts, Technician, and Defiant being the best examples.
@@ShotgunHunter97 I know, but how many special moves are at 60 power to maximize Technician, and how many Pokémon who have Technician are special attackers after Gen 4?
One other quite straightforward thing that Joey forgot to mention is the higher base power of commonplace physical moves. EQ being 100 base power 100% accurate and close combat/superpower being 120 BP and 100% accurate are the most prominent examples. The highest BP common special move is the dreaded focus blast. (Gunk Shot/Power Whip are also higher base power than hydro pump/fire blast)
