Unfortunate Movepools in Competitive Pokémon (Gens 1 - 8) 

This is a reupload cause unfortunately increasing the volume of a video after it's been uploaded is too advanced for youtube, your very cool comments on the OG will be remembered ):

WHY DOESN’T WIGGLYTUFF LEARN MOONBLAST SHE LITERALLY EVOLVES WITH THE MOONSTONE

Keep in mind they did Regigigas even more dirty because in Legends Arceus, the game with no abilities, they BUILT IN SLOW START just for him!

□ king □ queen □ themperor (of utility) ☑ that thing you begrudgingly pick when hariyama just doesn't quite fit what your team has going on

Zacian’s most reliable counter being Quagsire will forever be the funniest thing ever.

One more thing that irks me about Zamazenta-Crowned is that Behemoth Bash, the move that has Zamazenta, the Shield Pokemon that is prominently defensive-oriented, ram into their opponent with their shield face, does not calculate damage based on the user's Defense stat. Zamazenta was done so dirty by Game Freak that I genuinely feel sorry for it. Cool design, but man is it more than useless when compared to Zacian.

One movepool I've always found disappointing is every offensive Eeveelution. Like, they get stab and shadow ball and that's essentially it, whereas the support based ones get so so much more it leaves even the supposedly offensive ones in supportive roles. Like Espeon and Jolteon could be real good offensively but they just get literally no coverage. And don't even mention flareon, the poor poor boy.

I feel like Slack Off needs to be much more common. Recover makes sense to be rarer, as it’s literally creating new cells. Slack Off is just it sitting down and relaxing a bit, which most anything can do.

Okay I love how the video replay traffic spikes just after the "this video is brought to you by gamefreak" presumably because of people skipping forwards thinking it was actually an ad

I am eternally mad that Ampharos does not get Tail Glow.

This isn't really an unfortunate moveset since I don't know how much it would effect the metagame, but I was really confused when SwSh released and Polteageist couldn't learn Scald. It's tea, it absolutely should.

Since you skipped gen 7, I'd like to mention aurora veil. It was a new move added in gen 7, and was even a TM. The funny thing was, Amaura and Aurorus couldn't learn it in gen 7. The pokemon based on and named after an aurora couldn't use the aurora move

Regigigas shouldn't have even gotten a diminishing ability. I can see how Slacking, a Mon that you can easily get at level 36 with Uber level stats would need an ability that weakens them (tho by today's standards, they probably wouldn't be too much without Truant). But Regigigas is a legendary that, in order to obtain them, you need to have caugh 3 other legendaries and transferred them from a whole other generation of games. And your reward is something less useful than a Tauros or even a Raticate. Heck, with slow start their attack stat is *literally* equivalent to a Rattata (exactly 56). Btw, love that Shredder's revenge music.

No Bulk Up, no King’s Shield,no recovery, no support moves, no Body Press, worse defensive typing than Zacian in both forms… Someone at Game Freak clearly hates Zamazenta Edit: I just found out that Zamazenta can’t even learn Roar. At this point I’m surprised Game Freak even let it have Howl.

My personal vote goes to Polteageist. Now it doesn't seem like a bad pokemon, it's currently in NU as a Shell Smasher. However, one big problem with this mon is coverage. It learns Shadow Ball, Dark Pulse, and...Giga Drain for its only really worthwhile special moves for its 134 Special Attack. Something fucking huge missing for flavor that I think would make the mon at least a little better is giving it Scald. For fuck's sake its a teapot pokemon, why CAN'T it learn Scald. Just a massive flavor fail

I want to bring up Rhyperior. Its movepool is almost perfect, but lacks two things. First, good recovery, oh well. Second, and the most infuriating, is that it has base 140 attack and reckless, but no head smash! It would have the strongest head smash in the game! On another note, Hitmonchan is the only hitmon that can't use sucker punch

I love how when you were talking about bastiodon, you threw in ugly, just to kinda kick him while he was down lmao.

It’s crazy to me that special electric types get thunderbolt. 95 base power 100 accuracy no drawbacks. Where physical electric types still have to rely on wild charge. 5 less base power and 1/3 recoil is ridiculous. And it didn’t even exist in gen 4 when Electivire and Luxray would have killed for decent physical stab. Any many other types have similar problems with physical/special moves. What’s with this! Increase power gem distribution! Buff wild charge! It’s been 5 generations since the physical/special split!

Another thing about Zamazenta, it would be sick if Behemoth Bash worked like body press and used defense in calculation, making it not really care about intimidate

Regigigas's movepool problems go deeper than just its lack of recovery and Protect. One can alternatively think of Regigigas as a Pokemon with 110/71/110/80/110/41 base stats and the ability "Effect of Atk/Spd EVs is halved. After 5 turns, get +2 Atk/Spd". That stat spread still looks pretty nice with its 110/110/110 defenses. The ability is kind of weird with the EV growth stuff, but it's not like such a defensive Pokemon was going to invest in Atk/Spd anyways. Would be nice to have something more useful, but at least you're not slacking off every other turn, right? Problem is, it just doesn't have anything to do. All three of the other Regis have great moves for defensive Pokemon like Stealth Rock, Curse, Seismic Toss, Counter, and Explosion that would work well with such a bulky stat spread. Regigigas has none of them. In fact, it has no reliable stat boosting moves at all, and its only notable support move is Knock Off. Trying to use its higher Sp.Atk is also a non-starter. You're working with Earth Power and Thunderbolt, or maybe Charge Beam if you want to do a really bad Cresselia impression. So its only role is "generically bulky Knock Off/status user that will need Wish support", which just isn't in high demand.

Fun fact: out of the four Tapus, the only two to get Play Rough are, for some godforsaken reason, Tapu Fini and Tapu Lele, the two special attackers. Now Koko doesn't really need it thanks to having an ok special attack and Dazzling Gleam, but Bulu not having any physical fairy moves is pretty sad. It does absolutely nothing over Rillaboom and just sits around in UU being just decent, whereas it would have probably been a really good OU Fairy had it gotten Play Rough (or Grassy Glide for that matter, Bulu really got screwed over).

I think my most hated movepool limitations are the amount of special attacking Rock-types that don't learn Power Gem. Aurorus, Coalossal, Magcargo, Cradily, Omastar, etc. would all love that move. I also think removing Hidden Power really exposed how many Pokemon have terrible special movepools to this day. They sorta tried to fix some of it with giving Fairies Mystical Fire, but your Jolteon can't learn Aurora Beam or Icy Wind or whatever Some other noteworthy ones: - The Eeveelutions have all been forced to primarily learn moves of their respective types, which means the ones geared around offense are forced to have really limited coverage. Jolteon's only decent special coverage at this point is are Weather Ball, Shadow Ball, and Hyper Voice. - For being a Pokemon introduced in Gen 8, Galarian Stunfisk has the moveset of like a Gen 1 Pokemon. Its best physical Steel STAB is fucking Metal Claw. Snap Trap is both super weak and Grass instead of Steel, when they could've done something like make it a Magma Storm clone. No Toxic, recovery, or Body Press either. - Specifically in BDSP, Zapdos is a sad story. No Hidden Power, Heat Wave, or even Hurricane / Air Slash. - I don't care how much this would break the meta, Snorlax needs Slack Off at this point. Relying on Rest doesn't really cut it anymore, and Snorlax slacks off all day anyway. - On the topic of Pidgeot, its only reliable special moves are Flying and Fire type. Not even Hyper Voice. Even with a Mega, Pidgeot can't catch a break. - Until Mega Evolutions, Pinsir was always outclassed by Heracross, and one of the reasons why is their difference in Bug STAB. The best Pinsir can presently manage is X-Scissor, while Heracross gets the stronger Megahorn, even though the things on Pinsir's head very much horns (the Dex calls them such multiple times). I can get wanting to make Heracross more special with its own signature move in GSC, but if in 2022, fucking Lapras and Virizion can learn Megahorn, why not Pinsir?

BDSP completely screwed over Zapdos, making it the worst it has ever been competitively. No Hurricane, no Hidden Power, and no Toxic. Has nothing it can do vs Ground-types and its best Flying STAB is...Drill Peck. Hoping this isn't permanent.

Maybe a move like "Refurbishment" could really help some bulky Pokemon without recovery out. Clone of Jungle Healing but Steel type, so 25% Health recovery and gets rid of status. Seems like it could be pretty helpful but not too overwhelming. Also please don't give it to Ferrothrorn dear god

Shoutout to every physical fire and dark type before generation 4. Looking at pokemon like Absol and Flareon makes me wonder sometimes if the people assigning their stats knew what game they were working on.

(Repost) Surprised Poor Klinklang isn't mentioned, I genuinely think if that thing got Edgequake or even Rockslide + High Horsepower that thing would be high tier as hell. But no it gets the terrible Wild Charge and Normal Attacks for Coverage. Half the time it doesn't even bother running coverage because of this.

Since you left out Gen 7, I thought I’d mention this, because this is pretty infamously stupid. Togedamaru, despite being an Electric Steel type, can only learn one singular steel move (through TM, not even through level up) in Gyro Ball. This is *awful* for Togedamaru with its base speed of 96, and the only way to get something like Iron Head on it is through the Move Tutor in USUM or TR’s in SWSH. Pretty sad if you ask me

What is even sadder for Zamazenta is SV's box legendaries. Miraidon is just as OP as Zacian, but Koraidon is amazing too. That plus Zamazenta getting nerfed because Zacian did... thing is taking Ls like no one's buisness.

I find it funny when looking at "illegal" moveset potential because some Pokémon similar to Armaldo being locked out of utility is sad but at the same time some mons are viable due to an event move that less than 1% of actual real world players would ever actually have. I remember in your Dragon video saying that Salamance could use Wish and I was really confused as I was like 99% sure it couldn't, then I looked it up and it turns out it's a move only given to a Japanese event Bagon that lasted a month way back in 2003. Showdown doesn't care for how realistic or easily accessible a mon is to have on your team so long as it's theoretically possible to own, even if it's for a limited event mon decades ago that hardly anyone would actually have on a physical game cart (even fewer having perfect IV's too). Wish Chansey is another one that is a staple of several formats despite being rare as fuck and I always wonder how the meta of smogon would change if they just banned a bunch of these absurdly rare variants of Pokémon. It might not change too much depending on the generation but it would be interesting to see. Just further rubs salt in the wound for those mons that do have illegal movesets for moves they 100% can learn or be egg moves just not at the same time.

Side note. As of right now Knock Off in advanced is not valued as heavily now as it was in 2019/ 2020. Do to the fact that Hariyama is a very unreliable Tyranitar switch in because it's not sand immune so it cannot recover off those hits its tasked to take. Breloom is ussually preferred as not only does it have a superior utility move in Spore but also has the option of using stab priority which is extremely rare in advanced. Infact many top players believe Armaldo is better for the simple fact that it is sand immune and rock types are the strongest offensive type in advanced over all. Sand Immunity goes a very long way.

I find it so weird that they decided to make Zacian the most broken thing ever, while at the same time making Zamazenta the laughing stock of ubers. It would be interesting to see how Zamazenta would do if it had access to some better utility moves and reliable recovery.

Surprised you didn't mention Vespiqueen having all of her exclusive signature moves removed in gen 8, completely nuking her from orbit

I think my personal favorite awful moveset is Galarian Stunfisk. It's an ostensibly defensive Pokemon that doesn't really have anything unique at all that helps it be defensive, like, it gets Rest and Substitute, but not Toxic or Body Press? Okay, well, at least it has Earthqake, but its best Steel type STAB is Flash Cannon from a 66 base special attack, and don't even get me started on type coverage outside of that. But the funniest part about it is that its signature move, Snap Trap, isn't even a fucking STAB move, it's a grass type move for some reason. You can make Stunfisk grass type with Mimickry, but if you do that, the grassy terrain is going to be healing your opponent so the DoT effect is completely nullified, and you're switching a ground/steel type defensive mon for a grass type defensive mon. All you're gaining out of it is trapping your opponent in against Galarian Stunfisk, so maybe you can win when they run out the clock after they tab over to message their friends about the idiot playing Galarian Stunfisk. Also this is less competitive viability, but I am still mad that Shiftry doesn't get Tailwind, it's a tengu dammit. It wouldn't fix a damn thing about him but it would be cute.

Funniest meme on this I’ve seen is that Kyurem-B doesn’t get Ice Punch, but Wooper does

Funny thing about Aerodactyl is I think it could be on this list in every single generation, because it's a physical Flying/Rock type with Rock Head, but doesn't get Brave Bird or Head Smash to use with them. I think if it had access to those two moves, it could be a serious threat even in the higher tiers. Mega Aerodactyl has the exact same problem, it has Tough Claws but the only STAB move it has that can make use of it is Sky Drop. Regigigas would actually be pretty good, if it got access to Skill Swap. As for gen 8, I would like to nominate... every single defensive Pokemon, because of Dynamax. One of the reasons Dynamax was banned was because of how heavily it favoured offense, with every offensive move effectively getting a free support move added onto it, and every support move becoming Protect. I think Dynamax would have been a lot more balanced if support pokemon could use max moves that combined two support moves, something like Rest+Heal Bell, or Stealth Rock+Whirlwind.

On the flipside of things, I do actually appreciate when they try to make moves to be more widely distributed. Like how Liquidation is meant to be given to basically every physical water type, or even just non-water type aquatic Pokemon. More recent new moves are good at this too, with Scorching Sands being a ground type move fire types can learn, or Burning Jealousy being a fire type move that dark and ghost types can learn. They should make more moves like that

Thanks for the update! Maybe a "Pokemon who suffered most from generation shifts"? Sceptile and Regice losing badly from physical special split. Skuntank losing Pursuit, etc.

One that got me, especially as Sceptile is my 2nd favorite Pokemon and favorite starter, is that its Mega Evolution's best special dragon stab is Dragon Pulse, and does not have access to Draco Meteor. You wanna know the reason? Draco Meteor can only be taught via tutor to dragon types, which makes sense, but completely fucks Sceptile over because it only gets the dragon typing thru Mega Evolution. I suppose same can be said for Mega Ampharos as well.

When you began to introduce Aerodactyl, I KNEW it was Aerodactyl. GameFreak lives to gut poor Aerodactyl, and it could really be the subject of the whole video. Took this thing eight generations to get an alternate Flying STAB to Fly and Sky Attack. But beyond that, it's had Rock Head since abilities were introduced, but the only moves it's ever been able to take advantage of with it are Double-Edge (from FRLG/Emerald or VC transfer only) and Take Down. Take Down. Aerodactyl has had an ability that for five generations lets it take advantage of a 90 power, inaccurate Normal-type move with no side effects. To be fair, it's not the only Rock Head Pokémon with absolutely dire options, but it's probably the worst of them. (Rhydon also only gets Take Down, most others at least get Double-Edge.)

16:22 "King/Queen/Themperor..." Big Yellow deserves all the subscribers in the world. There are so, so, SO MANY golden lines in these vids. Edit: Thinking about it, if Regigias had skill swap they would probably be an abomination to deal with, at least in theory. Sure, they would have trouble getting it off the first turn due to the low speed, but after that they're not only strong again but they've potentially crippled an opponent's key player. THAT would make them worthy of their legendary status. Also Tradebacks Gen 1 looks cool AF.

(Comment Reposted from the original video) Gen 8 Ubers player here. I know it was just a little text on the side, thank you for mentioning Zama-C's niche. For those still confused, here's a little bit of a more in depth explanation. With the rise of Yveltal, and Weavile, People have been clamoring for a way to switch into these beasts, Zamazenta's proved to be the best switch in to both of them. On top of that Zamazenta Crowned has come out as a decent soft check to Calyrex Shadow! By that I mean, it's able to take at least one hit from even Specs Calyrex, and scout out what move it locks into, even trick. Why's this important? Well, due to Zamazenta Crowned's need to run the Rusted Shield, it's actually immune to trick, a method Calyrex usually has to deal with Yveltal. Of course it should never be your ONLY answer to Calyrex, just a method to keep Yveltal's boots intact in a pinch. Because of this, Zamazenta Crowned has found its place on bulkier teams, as a short term stop to threats and give other teammates some breathing room. The short of it, Zamazenta Crowned soft checks a lotta threats. The long of it is, Zamazenta Crowned provides insurance against *breathe in* Eternatus Necrozma Dusk Mane Galarian Darmanitan Defensive Ho-Oh Zekrom Calyrex Ice Rayquaza Xerneas Calyrex Shadow Yveltal and Weavile of course Zama-C isn't reccomended to be your SOLE answer to any of them (besides maybe Yveltal and Weavile) But they greatly ease pressure in these matchups against extremely prominent Pokémon. For example, Zamazenta Crowned eases pressure on checking Xerneas, allowing Dusk Mane to run one of its deadliest sets in Bulky Swords Dance. On top of that, Yveltal appreciates Zamazenta's Ability to absorb knock off, trick, and status ailments with rest. Zamazenta's also blessed with the fact it's a steel type, not completely stone walled by Ferrothorn, making either one of the strongest wallbreakers in the entire tier, Kyogre, or one of the most potent Cleaners in the entire tier, Zekrom, stellar partners. I really like Zamazenta's design, so I'm very happy to see that it's at least found its place in the meta. If you wanna know more, check out its (WIP) Smogon Analysis page. www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zamazenta-crowned-qc-2-2-gp-1-2.3681968/

To repost this from the original upload (since it was long and I don't want all the effort wasted lmao): To give a gen 7 example, there's Lurantis. Funny little grass mantis, gets Contrary as an ability. And it's a physical attacker. So you'd think "oh huh, so it'll do the Malamar thing with Contrary-Superpower", which could be really good given that Lurantis has higher base attack than it (Lurantis even has decent physical coverage). But nope. In Sun-Moon, it only had Leaf Storm to use with Contrary. Now of course, this is what Serperior does. But Lurantis, while a physical attacker, actually has a higher Sp.A than Serp (80 on Lurantis, 75 on Serp). So you could also think "oh, so it's a better Serperior too"? Still nope. Serperior, famous for Contrary Leaf Storm and basically no coverage outside of Hidden Power & Dragon Pulse, somehow still has better coverage than it. Serp at least has a relatively neutral coverage move (DPulse). Lurantis? *Weather Ball*. That's it. All it gets. And on top of that, Serp is super fast. 113 base. Malamar? 73 base. Lurantis? Base *45*. So it's basically just a terrible hybrid of the two. Now, in the Ultra games, it did get Superpower, and Signal Beam (which is technically Special coverage), so it can actually be a halfway maybe okay physical attacker. But the best part? It isn't even used as an attacker primarily. It's a Defog support Pokémon in Gen 7. It's still not very good, only being decent in PU there, but the fact that it could barely even take advantage of Contrary in the base Sun & Moon is very mean.

Another good one I can think for specifically maingame play is Sneasel, who has always basically had all its good (or even just decent) physical STAB moves locked behind egg moves or tutors, which gets made worse by Sneasel often only being obtainable late in the game. So if you want to use Sneasel/Weavile in your playthroughs and have them be good, you have to trade for them already having the egg/tutor moves they really need, or go through the cumbersome process of breeding them those egg moves late in the game, which most people won't want to do. SWSH at least finally made Sneasel obtainable early and made Ice Punch a TM again, but in turn for some reason they made Sneasel not learn _any_ physical Ice and Dark moves by level up, so one that wasn't specifically bred to have those moves can't do anything until you get the aforementioned Ice Punch TM or evolve it. Far from the worst movepool problem, as it can at least get those moves through some means unlike much more unfortunate pokemon, but still annoyingly inconvenient for no good reason.

1:08 the funny thing is, you find the Earthquake TM in the same place as Gible I've always liked that, Earthquake so early in the adventure and you find it with a monster of a Pokémon

Kyurem black had such a glowup in gen 8. Not only did it get icicle spear and dd as you mentioned, but heavy duty boots was huge for it as well. The sub dd set was so hard to beat when it was in ou.

While not an example of a pokémon made bad by its movepool, it bugs me how gen 1 Alakazam has a super limited movepool. In gen 1 the most random of pokémon can learn moves like blizzard, fire blast, and thunderbolt, but Alakazam, despite being a very powerful special attacker that would greatly benefit from such moves, can't learn pretty much any other special move than psychic. I don't know, it would make more sense to me for a powerful psychic pokémon to be able to conjure fire or blizzards than for a random bull to lean those moves.

Flareon was always one of one of the most unfortunate pokemon imo. It's a physical fire type with very few decent physical moves. It's also a fire type stuck with guts, but it can't use a fire orb to activate it since it can't be burned. So you have to use a toxic orb to get any use out of it. It's trying its hardest but it just can't get there

I still think the Pokemon with the officially worst movepool is Ledian. It is ment to be able to "punch good" - Until you realize it's weakest stat is his phys. attack stat. Should it ever return it would be desperate for a change in stats, or a new evolution to actually give it something.

(GUESS I'LL POST THIS AGAIN) There is one kind of funny thing Regigigas did in Gen 8. In VGC. Because Regigigas is allowed there because lol imagine having slow start with two pokemon breathing down your neck. Gen 8 introduced a new form for Weezing called Bong Weezing I mean Galarian Weezing. G-Weez has a new ability called Neutralizing Gas that nullifies the abilities of all pokemon in battle. Including your allies in doubles. Needless to say, with this, Regigigas basically got to actually do stuff without any of the previous gimmicky, inconsistent garbage that people previously used like Worry Seed or Skill Swap. Add that with the fact it could Dynamax and suddenly Regigigas is, or at least was a noteworthy VGC threat. And that is so cool. I love it when weird tech introduced later on gives previously utterly useless pokemon some time to shine. Also I know apparently there was a niche with it back when Dark Void Smeargle was around but that's more of an indictment of how horrible DVSmeargle was than anything involving Regigigas' merits. You put both of your foes to sleep. That's basically a free two-kill no matter what you've got on your team unless you're using literal meme trash.

Big Yellow said "Unfortunately" so many times in this vid I thought I was watching False Swipe Gaming. :P Shoutout to all the physical Electric types who don't get a decent physical electric move.

I remember when Gen 8 first dropped and I found out Zamazenta didn't get body press, man I was furious. You'd think Gamefreak would have given the fighting type defensive boxart legendary the fighting defense scaling move that was introduced in the same generation as it.....but nope, that would make too much sense. Agree that Zamazenta looks cooler though, was the reason why I got Shield.

Man I wish Zamazenta had King’s shield, cus you know, he literally was the King’s shield

Gamefreak: Zamazenta, we're going to give you an ultimatum: We will give you Body Press Zamazenta: FUCKING FINALLY! Gamefreak: But we're gonna nerf you and Zacian. We're gonna nerf you to shit specifically. Zamazenta: ...a small price to pay for salvation.

For gen7 I'd say kommo-o lacking a reliable special fighting STAB really hurts. The only special fighting move it gets is focus blast which feels absolutely dreadful to use in conjunction with its signature dragon move that drops its defenses, you're already gambling by bringing a 4x fairy weak mon in and you have to gamble with your STAB. It didn't feel quite as bad before usum but after you couldn't even justify fighting Z crystal because you wanted your signature crystal. Another big loser in gen7 was guzzlord. An absolute unit of a mon with the classic "rest is your only recovery option haha xd" gimmick game freak loves. Araquanid arguably falls into the same category but at least it has access to the buffed STAB leech life, we can at least pretend that counts as reliable recovery.

Zamazenta not getting Body Press is a sin. In my opinion I prefer Zacian's design but why would they do a box legendary so dirty and only make one of them good (It's not even good, it's TOO good in fact, like Zacian is a free win most of the time. Which I would be fine with if zamazenta got a similar treatment at least.) Also mega aggron is my favourite mega design and nothing comes close except for mega rayquaza but who doesn't like mega rayquaza.

Did you know that Zamazenta represents one of the two ancient kings of Galar in SWSH? They're his companion Pokémon, so you can sort of think of them as the king's personal shield! Pretty neat!

Whiling Blastoise finally got Shell Smash in Gen 8, it was too little too late. Rain is no longer permanent, and megas are gone (funnily enough, Mega Blastoise is banned in NatDex on PokemonShowdown cause of Shell Smash) They also tried to give it (and other pokemon like Primarina, Hatterene, Goodra, Lapras and Gardevoir) reliable recovery in the form of a recent move Life Dew, but the problem is Life Dew doesn't heal shit in singles as it only heals 25% or 1/4 of HP regardless, and even in doubles/VGC the move saw very little play. So nothing fundamentally changed with Defensive Blastoise. Maybe if Life Dew heals 50% in singles whiling 33% in doubles/VGC, Blastoise and the other mentioned might've actually have reliable recovery.

Zamazenta makes me actively angry. like lmao jokes mad at kids game but holy shit, Zamazenta feels like it was designed to appeal to me specifically and then shot in the head as a direct prank. It's insane that Game Freak seems scared of any Pokemon surviving a hit or two and not giving any defensive Pokemon healing but they'll happily introduce fucking attacker after attacker that just melts your HP bar so it ends up feeling like you're throwing nukes at each other. Not getting Body Press feels like it was done on purpose. That move was clearly designed for Zamazenta, and then it just doesn't get it. How do you forget that? I can't believe that was ignorance, I can only assume malice. God, it makes me furious.

A lot of problems with physical rock types is that they're stuck with the unreliable stone edge. Lycanrock-Dusk is the biggest missed opportunity to me. It has access to one of the coolest priority moves boosted by one of the best abilities in tough claws with great attack and speed but because its stuck with stone edge its just unreliable as an attacker. Most of them are forced to run close combat as their main attack which is doesn't get STAB on. It doesn't even get the much more reliable rock blast. It didn't even get close combat in gen 7. Its so close to being goddamn amazing if it just got one good physical rock move especially if it was boosted by tough claws.

It's 2024, Zamacenta got Body press and it now completely outclasses Zacian in VGC. Being the most used restricted in the last regional, our boy is finally eating good.

I remember glitching the fuck out of RBY as a small baby child and doing the glitch where you encounter Level 1 pokemon by teleporting away from trainer encounters (y'know the one that gets you Mew? yeah that one) Point is, one of the trainers gives you a Scyther and I was so bummed his moveset was ass because his design was cool.

I legitimately forgot how bad heracross’ fighting movepool was in gen 2.

Jumpluff had no flying moves by level up until gen four where it got bounce of all things and also u turn which is interesting but thankfully in gen five it got acrobatics which is definitely it’s best flying move also it can get strength sap by breeding so that’s interesting

Klingklang not having high horsepower is sad, it really needs ground coverage, and high horsepower is a perfect pun for it

If Regigigas at least got the classic "variated special movepool" a lot of normal type Pokemon get, you could get a weird slow pivot with inmese bulk and mediocre special but usable enough on lower tiers. Or just give it teleport or volt switch and probably skyrocket as pivot

Regigigas' movepool is absolutely terrible outside of physical attacks. It doesn't have a single move that raises its stats, so it has to stall for five turns on a shallow movepool, and even if it survives that, you can lower its stats and it can't do anything about it, and on top of that it's a physical attacker which means it's affected by intimidate. Even if Regigigas survives those five turns, it's attack is probably lower than the effective 80 base it started with. Regigias' ability and status movepool is so shit that it honestly might be better (or at least more fun) to try to turn its 9 special attacks (which mainly consists of near universal moves and some bad moves like snore and focus blast) into a working moveset than actually try to use its physical movepool aside from body press

When Tyranitar moved from S+ to just S because it lost two stab moves, hilarious! Also "let's talk about movepools, first, gen 1"... oh no

In Sun and Moon, Togedemaru didn't get Steel STAB outside of Gyro Ball... on a Pokémon with Base 95 speed! Luckily it got Iron Head and Iron Tail in the Ultra Games but it was still weird to have a steel type with no steel stab for a while... Also, in Gen 8 Tapu Bulu gets outclassed by a starter pokemon Rillaboom as it didn't get access to Grassy Glide - a grass type move that gets extra priority in Grassy Terrain which both Rillaboom and Tapu Bulu being able to set up on switch in. It is argued that the Isle of Armour move tutor moves weren't given to the Tapu's because they would become insanely broken but they probably should have also checked Rillaboom off of that list too as it is arguably one of the best pokemon in VGC due to Grassy Glide whilst Bulu just watches and weeps for what could have been (also it doesn't get Play Rough as a physical Fairy type but Grass/Fairy is a bad type combo anyways due to the quad poison weakness so I don't think it still would have had a chance against Rillaboom)

The most disappointing thing I've ever felt was when I realized tentacruel can't learn something like recover. Tentacruel, based on jellyfish in which there's a type of jellyfish that can reverse its aging if it gets too old/sick/wounded doesn't learn recover

This isn't really an unfortunate movepool, but the fact that Hydreigon is basically the King of UU in Gens 6-8 and can STILL do well in OU shows how incredible its movepool is, especially in Gen 8. Nasty Plot is a MASSIVE threat, especially on Hydreigon

I remember using Muk alot in NU but always felt the lack of recovery let it down. I did like trying to get underpwered mons to perform. Then I realised it learns giga drain but it really should get drain punch (it does already get every other punching move). This was the best example of feeling personally let down by a pokemon not having a move.

I have an idea similar to this video where you could go over unfortunate stat spreads for pokemon. For example you got rampardos, decidueye, etc. I think it'd be an interesting video.

Replacing my original comment, but Seismetoad, despite having a higher Attack then Special Attack, has never gotten Waterfall for some reason, which is just bizarre. At least they got access to Liquidation later…

The funny thing in gen 7 was that until USUM there were no move tutors, so some new pokemon had really bad movepools. Tsareena’s best physical grass move was the 70bp Trop Kick, which lowered attack so there’s some utility, but Tsareena really wanted Power Whip, and it got a lot better when it did. Then there’s Kommo-O which had basically every setup move in the game but had like sky uppercut and clanging scales as its best STABs

The opposite of this is pretty interesting. What would otherwise be terrible Pokemon with amazing movesets. Slurpuff sticks out as a good example. It's basically the perfect SL because of access to moves like Stickywebs, Endeavor, Yawn, and Misty Explosion. On top of this, it also gets access to Belly Drum, which allows it to terrorize lower tiers as an Unburden sweeper. Definitely a case of a mon winning the movepool lottery.

Heracross' move pool got buffed considerably in later gens. It got Brick Break in gen 3 and Close Combat in gen 4. Sadly power creep killed whatever competitive prowess it may have had outside of gimmicks with its Guts ability or its mega.

yes gen 8 ZU slaps, can't wait to see the drops ironically that meta has a mon that's a good example for this - Pinsir. If Sawk can have his Close Combat why can't Pinsir have his Megahorn? the fuck are these contraptions on top of his head for?

24:22 I said this once before and I’ll say it again. A blast from the past seeing mega aggron with the name “the wall.” No one can outstall the wall.

Mega Aggroon discussion made me think of Primal Groudon. If it had recovery outside of rest, it's entirely possible it would be AG in Gen 6 and 7. I personally really like Gen 6 and 7 Ubers a lot, and I'm kind of glad PDon DOESN'T have recovery. The flaw of not being able to truly take hits forever makes it much more interesting to play around, as much of a mandatory auto include as it is.

I never understood why Cubone and Marowak aren’t able to learn swords dance in RBY despite literally having a bone sword as a weapon. They would still be forever outclassed but Sandslash if they had the move, but damn.

Aerodactyl always bothered me, usable type, and stats absolutely made for gen 1, and its movepool is hot garbage, absolute trash. And then, to add insult to injury, they give Lance's aerodactyl in gen 2 rock slide, the move aerodactyl has been dying to get, and it doesn't recieve it....its like gamefreak trolled us all. Well, at least it got EQ in gen 2.

I kind of wish the Eeveelutions could learn offensive moves of each others' types to spread out their coverage. Maybe make it so Eevee can learn all kinds of crazy moves because of its unstable genetics and can keep them upon evolving and through the move reminder. It would also just be funny seeing, say, a Vaporeon run around with Fire Blast. Also give Espeon Power Gem like all the other Pokemon with gems on their forehead.

Kind of a reverse case, a pokemon with a perfect move pool but fails, is Kricketune. In theory, it's a perfect webs setter. Taunt, webs, toxic, heal bell, and perish song make up a fantastic utility baseline. However, it's stats are so horrible that it will never be used ever. Even just 20 more speed or an evolution would make me use it all the time

While they clearly went overboard with the Zama weaknesses and Zacian buffs (as well as the lack of balancing well into the Gen through the various updates S&S received), I think a lot of people forget how difficult it is to properly design and balance good defensive Mons, and how weary GF likely is about introducing too many powerful ones or just keeping any potential ones in check. Generally speaking the ratio of great defensive Mons to their great offensive counterparts is low, we usually only see a handful every Gen (Skarm, Bliss, Ferro, Pex) and conversely the amount of complaints about those Mons is much higher, probably reaching GF themselves. I think even with every practical buff they could've given Zama in BP, KS, and recovery of some sort it still wouldn't nearly reach of heights of Zacian just due to it's slightly worse typing (Fighting/Steel is still very strong imo) and the less useful nature of its ability since it only covers half of its defensive profile while Zacian's covers all of its, but I at least understand why they didn't feel comfortable opening the pandora's box of walling tactics for it given its great speed and good attack (with stab fighting) that most great defensive Mons don't have either of.

I think the funniest example of a completely barren move pool is Spectrier. I remember when it was new and seemed so gimmicky with only Shadow Ball really to attack with but it was so broken otherwise that it didn't need anything else.

The Eveeloutions probably have it the roughest because they all learn so few moves overall. Especially Flareon who never got a great use for its stat distribution. It’s probably why sylveon is the best one; it’s got amazing stab some fire coverage and that’s all it needs so it having little else does nothing to make it worse.

Klinklang, the definition of unfortunate movepool, wtf were they thinking

The fact Gyrados doesn’t learn any flying move other than bounce is just sad because, you know… it’s a flying type.

Some of the movepool decisions from the folks at Game Freak will never cease to baffle me. I mean, some of the movepool limitations were kinda funny in Gen 1 because, well, Gen 1... but stuff like not giving Mega Aggron a recovery move outside Rest just feels bad, man. A defensive Pokemon without reliable recovery bothers me most of the time because it cuts into the thing that it's meant to do: sit there and take hits. It always confused me that Togekiss never got Moonblast once it got the Fairy typing. I guess it would still prefer the Flying type Air Slash as its primary STAB because of the flinch chance boosted by Serene Grace... but we have a special attacking Fairy mon without _the_ special attacking Fairy move! Legends Arceus fixed this, thankfully. The Eeveelutions' lack of coverage has been mentioned in a few other comments, but I wanted to reiterate it here because Espeon is my favourite Pokemon, but it's inferior to other Psychic attackers because of a worse movepool. Considering how popular Eevee and its evolutions are, you'd think the developers would give some cool and interesting additions to their movepools, but nope. 21:42 Plus, it's _Earthquake,_ one of the most widely distributed moves in the game! 25:35 Yoooo, I hear that Trails in the Sky OST!

zamazenta really is one of the saddest pokemon of all time. in gen 9, it did finally get body press (thank GOD) but due to them nerfing zacian, zamazenta also got the same treatment as their war criminal sibling. its attack and defense are slightly lower now which sucks but dauntless shield now only works the FIRST time they come in. due to this and power creep, this was enough for base form zamazenta to drop to ou in natdex, but im not sure how good it is there. i believe it was even uu at one point but im not entirely sure?? anyway i just think its really sad that an already dogshit mon became even worse due to something that they didn't even do

There’s something hypnotic about your content, I’ve always felt you’re so persuasive with your commentary that you suck me in and don’t let me go. I’ve always sat still and watched the entire 20-30 minute entirety of your videos all at once which is pretty rare for me for any RU-vid video. Also for the longest time i was wondering what that fucking wooden thing on the top of your shelf was, now I know. It’s a lamp.

instant sub for trails music. Klinklang is my favorite example of one of these. Gear grind is a good move, but wild charge being your only other physical attack blows. Give that thing coverage and it shoots up multiple tiers overnight, if only because shift gear is a ridiculous setup move.

I suppose I'll reiterate this for the new and improved video, while also elaborating on my thoughts a bit. Some of the biggest letdowns for me Moveset-wise are the lack of key Recoil Moves on certain Rock Head Pokémon. Aerodactyl and Tyrantrum stand out to me in particular since the former only has access to Take Down and Double-Edge, while the latter only gets access to Head Smash. It's especially strange to me since most Rock Head Pokémon get both sets of moves, but these two are the unfortunate exceptions. It makes using Rock Head on either Pokémon rather pointless, since you're only getting decent non-STAB Normal Moves for Aerodactyl, and you're passing up on the pseudo-STAB for key coverage moves provided by Strong Jaw with Tyrantrum. Beyond that, I feel like Aerodactyl could benefit from Brave Bird and Wild Charge, since at the moment it has fuck all to do basically anywhere.

I don’t think zekrom has ever been outright terrible, but has had pretty bad movepool problems for years, it got dragon dance in gen 8 and that was great it’s really good and all, but it really should’ve had it this whole time, and it’s lack of ground coverage meant primal groudon’s very existence nullified zekroms viability, if it had dragon dance, earth power, and earthquake it’s physical and mixed sets would’ve been able to threaten primal groudon after some chip damage (which is NOT HARD to get in gen 6 and gen 7 ubers because groudon is used to check so many threats) in gen 6 in particular zekrom probably would’ve been a hilariously dangerous pair with xerneas because groudon is practically the only uber pokemon that can even stand up to it so putting that much pressure on one pokemon is really dangerous and might even be unhealthy for the metagame

An example of this in Gen 9 is Meowscarada not having any physical dark stab stronger than Night Slash. However, this doesn’t hurt as much when you realize everything is stab for Meowscarada

Now you bring up Breloom not being able to learn Spore unless you smuggled it in from a level 54 Shroomish, and I'd love a discussion on Pokemon that get cucked for main game, such as literally anything that doesn't have arms in Gen 2 due to how exclusive Thunderbolt/Ice Beam/Flamethrower are compared to Fire/Thunder/Ice Punch, or how Deino only shows up at literal endgame and evolves so unworkably late in Gen 5, and also Pokemon that are complete garbage in competitive play but work wonders for main game and speedruns

this do be a gen 5 kyurem black moment edit: kyurem-B is also kinda slow so you cant revenge kill most of the base 100+ mons that run the tier (latios/keldeo/gengar) etc and even get crept by haxorus

I don't know why but i can't stop watching this video

Frosslass, known for freezing things solid, doesnt learn Freeze Dry, while Glailie does

Basically every physical-based Electric type that isn't special enough to have an exclusive move is screwed over, because GameFreak insists that Volt Tackle remains exclusive to the Pikachu line despite it just being electric Double Edge, and haven't bothered making any other decent physical Electric move that isn't exclusive, so the likes of Luxray and Zebstrika are stuck having to use Wild Charge or Spark as their only STAB move still as of Gen 8. Even Flareon, the poster child for pokemon being denied good STAB moves that actually fit their stat distribution, was eventually given Flare Blitz.