Feel like normal really should have been protect, it’s just unbelievably versatile. Even in singles it’s a great scouting move or a great stall move to recover with left overs or build up toxic damage. Even outside of VGC, protect and its clones are beyond useful.
Pivot moves and momentum shifting moves can be substituted easier over protect in singles than the faster doubles metagame not to say protect isn’t a great scouting and survival option in singles
Feel like Aurora Veil should have been considered for the best ice move(know its not that wide spread as freeze-dry etc. but on those who get it(with snow warning) its pretty good
distribution is shit though(only pika clones, boltund and toxtricity have it) while thunder wave is omnipresent and can be learned by non electric types). if we're gonna base off practically signature moves then the best fire type move should've been v create
We really need a better widely distributed physical ghost type move, poltergeist is fine but having to rely on your opponent having an item on top of the 10% chance to miss is annoying On top of having to wait for dlc for mons to get access to it
Yeah, and the anti-synergy with staple move Knock Off is EXTRA annoying. Though Shadow Claw is a thing, it's 70 BP so a bit underwhelming as would-be staples go.
My list would be this: Bug: a tie between U-turn and Quiver Dance Dark: Knock Off Dragon: a tie bewteen Draco meteor and Dragon Dance Electric: a tie between Thunderbolt, Volt Switch and Thunder Wave Fairy: Moonblast Fighting: Close Combat Fire: a tie bewteen Blare Blitz and Will-o-Wisp Flying: Brave Bird Ghost: Shadow Ball Grass: Spore Ground: a tie between Earthquake and Headlong Rush Ice: a tie bewteen Ice Beam and Freeze Dry Normal: a tie between Swords Dance and Shell Smash Poison: Toxic Psychic: ironically Psychic Rock: Stealth Rock Steel: Iron Head Water: Scald
@@buttnuggetsauce7666Not that many mons get it where as thunderwave is far more distributed. And even the mons that get nuzzle most aren’t the greatest.
@@buttnuggetsauce7666But then again some of the ones that were on here that won are also not distributed between a lot of mons (like spore and shift gear). But I feel like the mons that get access to spore and shift gear most are better then most of em that get nuzzle.
Fun video. I had fun guessing the move beforehand and predicted and agree with virtually all of these takes, except a minor few: Fire: Id argue that Flare Blitz's 120BP makes it more useful more of the time than flamethrower despite the recoil. Its also seen alot more often on teams, which i think reflects this. The difference between 90BP and 120BP may not seem huge, but when running calcs the number of things 120BP can OHKO while 90BP has to 2HKO makes it a non-trivial differential. Electric: I'd still argue that volt switch is by far the best electric type move. So much so that ive seen electric mons run volt switch that never touch twave or tbolt at all, but only much more rarely do i see a mon who has access to volt switch forego that move in favor of tbolt or twave. Ground: EQ is so bad in doubles its essentially never ran at all, with either High Horsepower or Stomping Tantrum being used exclusively despite their seeming flaws-which says alot about how bad EQ is in doubles. I'm not sure that these are necessarily "better" ground type moves, but it certainly does complicate the question so I thought it was worth bringing up.
Eq died because of grassy terrain for the most part. A lot of people ran eq back then with leviate or flying types (some being the genies so even more reasons to run eq) but yeah eq has a legacy
I gotta say I was expecting Expanding Force for psychic. Every single psychic type gets it, you can tera psychic to make Flying types land and benefit from the Terrain buff, (not levitators tho) and 120 power to both foes (+30% from terrain and then -30% for being a spread move) is just insane. The only drawback is needing to run Indeedee or Tapu Lele, both of whom have really strong options on their own. You mention Trick Room being entirely it's own archetype which is fair, but Expanding Force isn't too different
Why Thunder Wave over Nuzzle though? Nuzzle is better accuracy paralysis, AND it does damage. Not a lot of damage, sure, but enough to make a Focus Sash no longer viable.
Nah it’s called building around getting rid of them with moves like heal bell or aromatherapy. And think about how much that would suck for guts, marvel scale, quick feet, and toxic boost mons.
@@davidstratton696 Guts/toxic boost would be fine, most of them would just use toxic orb regardless. But sleep really should be changed to the Legends equivalent to make it more balanced.
@@sinteleon It would still mess up the mons with guts, quick feet, marvel scale, toxic boost, flare boost. Not all would use an orb either. Think of a mon like Gurdurr who likes to hold eviolite. It’s just lame to make it a few turns (it makes heal bell and aromatherapy nowhere near as useful). And sleep is fine. Idk how it is in Arceus but it’s fine in the regular games. No the only one that needs to be changed is freeze. Either change it or just get rid of it.
@@davidstratton696 Sleep was changed to drowsy, making the opponent randomly skip turns similar to paralysis, with added phys damage taken instead of a speed drop. Perhaps freeze could be changed to something similar, but with opponent taking added damage from spec damage?
@@sinteleon That sounds absolutely horrendous why tf would anyone want that? Sleep is fine the way it is especially if that crap is the alternative. U want to do something when your sleeping then use sleep talk and also what about yawn? Is that just tossed out because yawn adds the drowsy status and that causes them to fall asleep next turn unless they switch out. That is far better of a drowsy condition. It’s far too complicated and is just honestly dumb to add. It’s even more frustrating to deal with this drowsy condition then it is how sleep is in the regular games. Like way more frustrating. With freeze that’s definitely an improvement but really anything is better then how freeze is. I know they had frostbite as a condition in Arceus which is the special burn and that is so much better and balances the game a lot (like y is their only 1 for physical attackers that’s dumb). Honestly they should just toss out freeze and replace it with frostbite.
I love using Metronome because it’s just silly. I was messing around in a double battle, and I was like “ha wouldn’t it be funny if Annihilape randomly self-destructed” And then it used Explosion, and I cried
I love that you use Mewmore music. Right away, I was like "oh my god, is that Mewmore???" even though I haven't heard their remixes in years! They have such a distinct style and it has me bopping my head while I watch the video. XD You have incredible taste.
Getting excited when I guessed the move right ahead of time 🤣 As a VGC player rock was rock slide for me, but I completely understood stealth rock from a singles perspective. Same with ground. As a doubles player definitely earth power. But EQ makes more sense from a singles perspective. Its so interesting how similar, yet different singles and doubles is. For bug, id say its QD regardless of the format. But u-turn is definitely debatable. For normal, I'd say protect for sure. Everytime else I agreed with 100%. Another amazing video. Phenomenal content brother. You earned a sub.
Im so glad you mentioned shift gear. I have looked at different numbers and matchups and things and if that move was given to a wider pool of mons it seriously would cause so many especially mid tier speed to become viable. It is probably my favorite buffing move hopefully someday we will see a bit wider useage.
my list would be Grass: spore Fire: flare blitz Water: flip turn Electric: volt switch Ice: freeze dry Ground: EQ, Headlong or spikes Rock: stealth rock Flying: defog or tailwind Bug: u turn Poison: toxic Ghost: last respects Normal: protect or fake out or tidy up or rapid spin Fairy: Play rough or moonblast Dragon: Scale shot Steel: flash cannon or iron head Fighting: close combat Dark: knock off Psychic: trick room idk
Personally, Helping Hand and Rock Slide are my choices for Normal and Rock types respectively. I'm a Doubles guy who just really likes Tyranitar, so I guess I'm a bit biased.
I would have chosen sword dance for best normal move, because while it is mostly outclassed by shell smash. Sword dance is destributed to hundreds of pokemon, while shell smash is only learned by a dozen or so mons.
I think that curse could have probably replaced Shadow Ball here. Curse has been and will continue to be one the the games best set-up moves and has even shaped formats in the past (Im looking at you Snorlax). Im a little shocked it didnt even get a mention tbh
I'll second Curse. Shadow Ball is a fine move, and the best attack Ghost has, but it's nothing special compared to other type's best attacking moves. Curse is a Bulk Up that cuts your speed, which is either a stat that matters for you, or is a stat that doesn't matter at all. If you're already slow, it's not like you were outspeeding anyway, so Curse doesn't have a drawback and is good for the same reasons as Bulk Up
Ignoring status/boosting moves for normal because there's so many (and because type mostly doesn't matter for a move like swords dance), I feel like Boomburst deserves a shoutout. It's one of the strongest moves in the game without a drawback (at least in singles), it has decent PP too (10 instead of 5), it's special which, all else equal, is usually a little better than being physical because of intimidate, and it hits both opponents in doubles. Even hitting neutrally it's as strong as some SE coverage moves that see use.
I often use Shadow Ball at first but I always switch it to Hex as soon as I can, this is because my strategy usually falls around using some other move that has a chance to inflict a status condition, and just keep using that move until it inflicts it's status condition, and then I use Hex and almost nothing survives. This is especially good with the Gengar line, as they learn Hypnosis naturally, a move that has a 100% chance to inflict Sleep if it hits. Shadow Ball is cool early-game, but late-game, I always have Legendaries with crazy signature moves like Moongeist Beam or Shadow Force, and regular ol' Shadow Ball has a hard time being a top pick. I could also campaign for Curse to be the best Ghost Type move because even though it uses up half of your Pokémon's max health, it is a great last-resort move. For example: a level 100 Pokémon that keeps using Rest every time I get it low and regens all of it's health. I can use Curse and then I just have to hold out 4 or 5 turns until it inevitably faints, spamming Hypnosis in the meantime. The reason why I would still choose Curse over Nightmare is because for whatever reason, I have terrible luck getting Sleep to last 4 turns.
Love the idea of the video, I really do...is just...I hope this helps you: I believe you tried to take too much of a scope .. maybe define it in different videos.. "best moves per type for singles" "VGC"...etc.. just those 2 would redirect your overall decisions better. Also, be careful, you define Spore for grass(really low distribution). And then, right away discarded other moves for the same reason(or chose them for the opposite reason)
Since i started playing Kyurem White i have been gaslighted thinking moonblast had 100% chance of lowering my spatk. It has ALWAYS, literally ALWAYS, dropped It in the last 48 games
Guessing what they were before you revealed them was fun! I was able to successfully guess the best moves for Fire, Water, Ice, Ground, Bug, Ghost, Fairy, Dragon, Fighting, and Dark. I eas pretty close with normal tho, I guessed Swords Dance
I'm surprised that no one in the comments has mentioned Triple Axel yet, especially since a bunch of mons rose a tier solely by virtue of having it. Freeze Dry is obviously very strong on its own right and you could definitely make a case for it being stronger than Triple Axel, but it's definitely better than Ice Beam or Ice Shard, which ended up as the honorable mentions.
I wish you would put a caption on the screen that says the move you've chosen and leave it there throughout the entire segment. I kept having to rewind because I wasn't sure what you said.
I agree with most of these, but for Poison I'd choose Coil simply because: 1) It's a great setup move, being one of the only moves that boost accuracy 2) Not a fan of stall teams
I don’t like stall teams, either, but there’s really no contest. On one hand, you have coil. It’s bulk up with an accuracy boost, and it’s limited to 9 pokemon this gen. Only two mons that learn it see competitive use, and neither of them use it because they’re special attackers. On the other hand, you have toxic. Toxic has always been one of the most powerful moves a defensive pokemon can have, and it is given to a _lot_ of defensive pokemon.
@@Joker-fq6yx the thing is, toxic is also used to break stall, cause of the evergrowing poison ticks making it impossible to outlast if you manage to get it off
1:39 on that breloom set I would actually go for spore over sub since it’s easily broken and breloom has 4x weakness to flying making it frail. Sleep guarentees one focus punch going through
Grass : Spore (so strength sap shutting down every physical attacker that doesnt have swords dance) Fire : Flamethrower (so Wisp) Water : Scald Electric : Volt Switch Ice : Freeze Dry Ground : hot take but High Horsepower (both ou and vgc, the two most popular tiers, Rillaboom is very common, and especially vgc / doubles you dont have to build around ground immunity and protect, still eq is og, more widespread, so not a wrong answer) Rock : Stealh Rock Flying : Roost Bug : U-Turn (so Sticky Web) Poison : Toxic Ghost : Shadow Ball Normal : Protect (so E Speed, SD, Sub, theres so many good options lol) Fairy : Moonblast Dragon : Dragon Dance (so Draco) Steel : uhhhhhh shiiiii idk, just throw Iron Head here Fighting : Close Combat (so Body Press) Dark : Knock Off Psychic : Psyshock or TR. Idk, psychic type overall is underwhelming. Rest too although not as good anymore.
The ONLY one I have a question about is Psychic maybe being Stored Power, since it single handedly carries so many mediocre mon into unbridled levels of ignorance, but that could be recency bias since this is perhaps the best Stored Power has ever looked thanks to Terastalization. Trick Room was absolutely a good pick otherwise. This was a great list! I guessed 12 of them, and the 5 I didn't I oiked yours way more. I completely forgot about Shell Smash being Normal-type and not Water-type. I didn't think of Shift Gear or Spore because of distribution, but Spore has enough representation in various tiers. Thinking of it now, I want Shift Gear Metagross so bad. It would be so broken
This is purely doubles bias but here are my corrects imo Fire = Overheat. 120 bp is insane for a stab fire move and on mons that get it like torkoal, it can make 50/50's for things like gholdengo. its just an insane move and especially on mixed attackers i think is better than FT Water = Rain Dance. Scalds coverage got reduced drastically and i dont know anything scarier than a prankster rain dance mon (Tornadus) with either a partner with swift swim or even just any strong water type. groudon doesent fear kyogre. it fears the air genie Electric = Thunder. Rain is so common and weather is so important. and mons like kyogre getting access to it. groudon and koraidon are the only consistent sun setters while tornadus makes rain super easy and it helps its own signature move. its just better more often imo Rock. as a doubles player. rock slide woild still not be my pick. stealth rocks are way to good in singles for me to have any form of Doubles Bias. will edit when i have othee opinion Normal = protect just like how stealth rocks is the metagame for singles. protect is the metagame for doubles. both move define thier competitive types and are easily the 2 best moves in pokemon. And flying is Tailwind because speed go brrrrr
I'd say Quiver Dance deserves the spot as best Bug move as it's the only setup move banned in BH on Showdown, which goes to show how powerful it really is. As far as best ice type move goes Aurora Veil has my vote.
Ok i was gonna let you off the hook for not using Baton Pass nor Protect for the normal move but including TRICK ROOM makes me question everything Protect is the backbone of VGC moreso than trick room. Protect is also more useful in Singles than Trick Room and Baton Pass gets banned from singles every gen. Clearly being elite in both formats isnt a prerequisite so there is no reason to have Shell Smash over these two.
Arguably the best fighting move can be victory dance, but only 1pokemon knows it and it isn't really good. If victory dance was given to other fighting types it would have easily been the best fighting move.
Imo Protect is by so far the best Normal that it's not even funny. Like the competitive scene is so centered around Protect that half of Urshifu's power comes from the fact that it ignores it, and it's also the reason why all status moves just became a better Protect when the Pokémon is dynamaxed.
Everyone talks about Draco meteor but no one talks about a boosted dragon pulse in gen 9 even though its more strategically useful especially in doubles (especially using throat spray on a hyper voice hydragon with steel tera)
Metronome or Shell Smash? Even if you wanna say Roost is better than all other recovery moves, Recover was the first and it's existence has shaped metas. Protect needs no introduction. I would say the single best Normal move is Body Slam, the best generation to be a Normal type was Gen 1 and it's because Body Slam was right there on every good mon
fire - flare blitz (i see it more commonly), or eruption (it commands respect). flamethrower is a good ol-reliable tho =). normal - it depends on which generation lol. Body Slam/Hyper beam for gen 1, rest for gen 2, then belly drum, baton pass teams were so strong, self destruct/explosion were great through gen 4, fake out is good in doubles, etc lol. your choices were good tho.
Flare Blitz is common, but I feel like that's in part because it's the only Fire physical move in town. If you're a special attacker who wants a Fire move, you have Fire Blast (imo the best one), Flamethrower, Overheat, Heat Wave, maybe Lava Plume or Eruption... Meanwhile, Flare Blitz is the only good attack physical Fire mons have. It's a good one, to be sure, but it also has no competition.
Why pick Thunder Wave over Nuzzle? Nuzzle is just better TWave with distribution that's still about as good as Spore. Also I understand picking Trick Room since it's an entire team type. But I still want to give a shout out to Psyshock. A move so good almost all Psychics would trade the 10 base power for the physical coverage
@@Asm0d3u5 As opposed to taunt shutting down thunder wave, and taunt is WAY more common. Yes, distribution might not be there, but that doesn't make it bad, like how spore also has shit distribution cause of how OP it is.
Sorry, there is NO way thunder wave is better than nuzzle. 100% accuracy para with 20 damage on top. It's thunderwave but better in every aspect, can't be taunted, not stopped by gholdengo, what's not to love. (also yes nuzzle is the best elec move)
While salt cure is great, it's in contention with mighty cleave, the move that turns iron bolder from meh to OP (but yes these two are the best rock signatures by far)
Why can't fighting type get a reliable and strong special attacking move. Why can't poison type get a reliable and strong physical move? Yes, there is poison jab, but poison type, other than hitting fairy, is a mediocre offensive type, should have had something stronger imo. Why is sludge bomb special, when about every other "bomb" move in the game is physical?
Flamethrower and Wilowisp Thunderbolt and Thunderwave Bullet seed and spore Freeze Dry and Aurora Veil Moonblast and Decorate Sludge Bomb and Toxic Facade and Swords Dance Iron Head and Metal Sound Earthquake and Sand Attack Scald and Surf Drain punch and Close Combat Knock Off and Parting Shot Psychic and Calm Mind Shadow Ball and Curse Dragon Claw and Dragon Dance Stone edge and stealth rocks Bug buzz and Quiver Dance Brave Bird and tailwind This is my opinion of moves status or otherwise
