Pokemon's Lost Moves EXPLAINED

Which deleted move do you miss the most?

Return hits the hardest for me. I get Frustation getting cut. It's requirements for power can be undone by walking. But why Return? It provided a great STAB option for non Guts Normal types. Now they have to rely on Double Edge's recoil, Body Slam which....isn't too bad I guess or (unfortunately for Stoutland) Facade which again is basically a handicap for anyone without Guts. In games where they force the Affection mechanic on you, why is the move who's power is based on how much your mon loves you not in them.

A lot of these losses stink because these moves are what Pokemon use before they get the big boy moves. Before Bug Buzz, you get Signal Beam. Before Flash Cannon you get Mirror Shot.

Revenge being lost is really unfortunate for already slow fighting types. Fighting types stay losing

Bubble beam isn't just "better bubble" Bubble hits both targets in double battles while bubble beam is single target only.

Assist is bad? Liepard has used it to: -Win in VGC with Priority Dark Void, and is part of why the move itself being limited to Darkrai -Become immortal, resulting in an extension in the ban list on moves it can call. -Raise the Dead, completely ruining Natdex AG, alongside Shedinja completely walling whatever the hell it wants. It’s by far one of the most broken moves in the game if you know what you’re doing with it.

I think something people tend to gloss over about a lot of bad moves is that the player isn't the only one using them. An advantage of some moves being bad is that the enemy AI might choose them and help an inexperienced player get out of a sticky situation. (I also think this is the reason so many movesets suck in particularly the first 3 gens. The opponent doesn't get to have strong moves, whereas the player does due to TM's)

R.I.P. Ash-Greninja 🥲

Assist has actually been used to help Skitty and Delcatty to win a tournament. It was a niche doubles format where players played in a pair with each player having 3 Pokemon, Prankster boosted Assist was used to call Dark Void from a Smeargle while the Cats' partner set up sun with Houndoom and used Sun boosted fire moves.

I would argue that Jump Kick being excluded is just as bad as the reason for Signal Beam. Yes both moves have a better move that can be used (Hi-Jump Kick and Bug Buzz), but not many non fighting types can learn Hi-Jump Kick. Whereas a lot of non fighting types can learn Jump Kick, such as Sawsbuck and Dodrio. And the latter really benefitted in Gen 7 singles because it finally had good coverage against rock and steel types, and a really good move at that. I hope it gets reintroduced somehow someday, this poor bird is probably stuck being walled by rock and steel types again when it comes back next month in the indigo disk

Performance jokes aside, Eternatus’ Eternabeam probably just wouldn’t work with SV having battles occur in the environment itself because there would be way too many variables that effect how the animation would play, especially in places like caves.

Pursuit and feint attack need to come back. Ghosts are dominant in competitive and playthroughs in general (Ryme killed 3 of my Pokemon in a nuzlocke btw) so I think it’d be nice to have these moves back.

I miss Silver Wind. Its animations were always so pretty.

I thought this thumbnail was a screenshot from the anime. It’s really good.

Honchkrow needs Pursuit back, it was my favorite ace crow pokemon with its moxie ability 😭😭

Power-up punch being removed is such a letdown with tera raids being a thing. Its a way to build attack and tera meter

A very strange move to miss the most for me. Is vespiquens heal order

Another thing worth noting about Hidden Power is that in BDSP & Legends Arceus the move works differently. In both those games Hidden Power changes it's type to be super affective agaisnt the Pokémon your fighting so for example if your battling a fairy type Hidden Power will be Poison or Steel type or if your fighting a Poison type Hidden Power will be Ground or Psychic type. Due to how broken and overpowered they made Hidden Power in those games that's probably why it's a move only Unown's can learn now. Plus Unown has horrible stats so giving it a broken move at least helps it a little bit.

4:00 if Gamefreak was completely oblivious to Singles, they wouldn't have reduced the Timer for regular 6v6 online battles. They know, that people love to play 6v6 singles, but since they don't like people having fun, they decided to give you only 20 Mins for a battle...

I really miss Assist for the gimmick squads - meowstic for example Pursuit going has led to ghost type really running rampant - I get it makes psychic a lot weaker Power up punch was super useful for some weaker pokemon