Nerfed Strategies in Competitive Pokémon (Gens 1 - 7)

Been a while but I'm back with another Pokémon video, this time looking at a variety of things that got hit with nerfs throughout the series. This one has a LOT of Gen 1 and 2 focus, but I hope you enjoy either way, I really enjoyed this one!
Patreon: / thebigyellow
Twitter: / veryspicyjoe
VGC Gen 6 clip is from: • Dark Void Madness! - V...
#Pokémon #Nerfs #Singles

[@LukeCorreia]

the strategy of using hydreigon outside of UU was nerfed by giving clefable a cool new type in gen 6

[@user-hr6mp2lj3p]

Gamefreak giveth and gamefreak taketh away

[@SongbirdOfficial]

It's been in and out of OU in gen 8

[@BigYellowSilly]

I'm still salty about Fairy they wanted to nerf the best type in the game so they added a new type to counter it but now THAT'S the best type in the game

[@bakes1324]

It’s gonna be funny when he comes back and dragapult becomes exclusively support

[@cesarcastillo7129]

@@BigYellowSilly dragon was never the best type in the game imo

[@Sean_Bird]

"This is basically a war crime shoved into a Game Boy Cartridge." That's a new favorite sentence of mine.

[@BigYellowSilly]

Gen 1 in a nutshell fr

[@MAYOFORCE]

"Nothing hits like guessing right in a children's game" is my favorite Big Yellow quote

[@saltyralts]

Fire Emblem 6/7/8 are war crimes shoved into Game Boy Advance cartridges.

[@Neogears1312]

That’s my description of Binding Blade.

[@lennartstockl5826]

*insert the "Are Wii gonna have a problem" script

[@LivTheKirby]

To me the whole concept of Smeargle ruining Dark Void just feels like the game version of Pikachu causing the Porygon line to be banned from appearing in the anime due to that one episode

[@fossfox]

1. be a balanced part of the Ubers metagame for several years, with a complementary ability and signature move 2. have your signature move plagiarized by a lower tier "artist" who spams it in tiers it never belonged in, resulting in the move universally being nerfed 3. languish in the limbo of being too strong for OU but not being able to fulfill your role in Ubers, thus never seeing any use 4. the November 2016 "Dark Void" Incident

[@gregorymirabella1423]

5. get deleted from existence by the masuda snap.

[@Dexuz]

It should be pointed out that Smeargle was still disgusting in VGC even without Dark Void, the reason? Moody, you know, the Gen 7 version of Moody, that could boost Evasion. In a form of poetic justice, not only GameFreak nerfed Moody so that it could not boost Evasion anymore, but they also outright removed Smeargle from the game.

[@gregorymirabella1423]

@@Dexuz it wasn't really a nerf, since moody can't reduce evasion either.

[@Dexuz]

@@gregorymirabella1423 Yes, but you don't really care about Moody reducing Evasion, as at worst you'll see moves like Rock Slide, with 90% accuracy. Conversely, a +2 in Evasion is a 3/5 accuracy reduction to all moves.

[@NeoBoneGirl]

Well it wasn't about singles at all tbh, tiers didn't matter. Smear glue was always a problematic Pokémon in VGC, because it has literally the most diverse move pool in the game, so unless you ran sleep immune Pokémon or Lum Berry, you could just lose a tournament to a turn one dark void putting half your team to sleep. The reason why Darkrai was nerfed is (probably) because Darkrai was never legal anyway, so it didn't matter and they wanted to be SURE this shit wouldn't happen again

[@tetzy5172]

*Darkrai getting severely punished because of other pokemon's fault* Porygon : "I know that feel"

[@androsp9105]

I've always wanted Porygon to get a signature move like 'flashing lights' or something.

[@waluigimourner8071]

@@androsp9105 In fairness, it's already got 2.

[@theapexsurvivor9538]

@@waluigimourner8071 then it needs at least a Z move to complete the set.

[@agentblackbird9435]

@@theapexsurvivor9538 Porygon-Z got banned from Gen 7 UU bc of it using a Z-Conversion set

[@AgsmaJustAgsma]

Porygon: it was the yellow rat's fault, not mine!

[@xavibun]

That Dark Void nerf makes me think that Gamefreak had 2 ideas to nerf it and accidentally implemented both of them at once.

[@BigYellowSilly]

Yeah same story as the Gems from Gen 5 to 6 really

[@shadowtitanx3962]

Tbf, Dark Void in even Ubers is pretty dumb from Darkrai, since there's barely any Sleep Immunities besides Mewtwo Y. And, not everyone runs Lum Berry. Either you sleep sac, Sleep Talk, or revenge kill with Scarfer.

[@kingnewgameplus6483]

@@shadowtitanx3962 there's a lot of dumb shit in ubers. P.don had like a 70% usage rate and 372819484 sets to run. Or specs kyogre water spout. Shaymin-sky is a walking war crime. So yeah an 80% sleep move is fine to me.

[@danb1809]

Fun fact, Dark Void has 100% accuracy under Gravity It'a strat that could try in singles ig but it's still an inexcusable nerf

[@Robin_Robout]

I always ran sleep talk on my Scarf Kyogre because of Darkrai, but I never really felt like I was losing out on TOO much because of it.

[@danielgloyd4529]

The stolen car analogy really hit home with me. Just the other day I stole someone's car and ran like 3 people over. I was only found cringe on 2 of the 3 counts though. The 3rd person apparently had it coming according to the prosecutor, so the cringe charge was dropped.

[@phoebe5114]

Also, shoutout to Thundurus for getting paralysis, confusion, Thunder Wave, Swagger, AND Prankster nerfed. What a champ.

[@champion1859]

Man the nerfing of like 5 things just cause of 1 mon like bro just restrict it if it's such a problem

[@daka_uri]

They nerfed everything he had... and he is still broken im gen 9 doubles

[@furiouscorgi6614]

​@champion1859 I'm thinking it's more so drawing attention.

[@lucianofrancesco4742]

​@@champion1859 Every morning, I pray to Thundurus, showing my infinite gratitude for getting those cringe things nerfed.

[@bvd_vlvd]

Zoroark getting nerfed with team preview before it was even conceptualized: the problem of being faster than light is that you can only live in darkness :(

[@DannehBoyNz]

Adding onto this, one notable nerf from Gen 7 to Gen 8 is Aegislash becoming the first ever pokemon to get its stats directly nerfed (aka, not a system change causing a stat nerf, like the Special split). The sword form lost 10 in attack and special attack, and Shield lost 10 in both Defense and Special Defense. This might not seem too bad, a 20 point drop isn't the end of the word, but since Aegislash can only attack in sword form, and you're always gonna want it in defense form to take a hit, it really lost the full 40. Which is a pretty massive nerf, but then again, Aegislash was a fucking problem in gen 6 and 7 LMAO

[@Rarest26]

And also the King's Shield nerf. Aegis just took L's all around. I don't even want to imagine where it would've ended up if Pursuit was still in the game.

[@plumebrisee6206]

His signature move too . In Gen 6 ,against a Tyranitar max attack ,he could not 2-KO (It's really close) you with Earthquake after the -2 Attack drop from his signature move . In Gen 7 ,he can .

[@2010Cortana]

in the otherhand, aegis got close combat wich compensates more than enough imo

[@Rarest26]

@@2010Cortana Not even close. In fact, you could even argue CC is WORSE than other moves like Sacred Sword. Part of what made Aegis so busted was Shield form's massive bulk, so why would you willingly nerf yourself in that aspect?

[@alejandropetit6573]

Sometimes I like to imagine a world where for some fucking reason aegislash exists in gen 5 and makes the entire meta his own

[@alfredosanchez170]

I'm pouring one out for Articuno. The special split, the nerf to blizzard, the nerf to the freeze status condition, the introduction of steel types, fire gaining resistance to ice, the introduction of stealth rock, and the fact it got Snow Cloak instead of Snow Warning...geez. It's Galarian Form showed us what might have been, had the stats been shuffled around differently and had it gotten a better ability.

[@connormackay7098]

It's a shame because articuno is one of my favourite pokemon designs but it's so completely awful and useless past gen 1 I can never find a reason to use it :(

[@CruelFire99]

@@connormackay7098 mind reader+sheer cold at least was pretty funny

[@tylerd1297]

I think even if it had 125 in special Attack and Sp Def it would still suck as an ice type

[@RazorusR3X777]

And then Galarcuno sucked ass because they gave it the WORST OFFENSIVE MOVEPOOL OF ANY PSYCHIC TYPE IN EXISTANCE!!!

[@ovbrook3057]

@@tylerd1297 it definitely needed more than it's special attack back to be good yeah. Ice as a type was way better in gen 1, with a more valuable STAB to spam that is resisted by less, and the types it was weak to were a lot less viable, fire and fighting mainly. Rock was better, but the rocks of OU would be crazy to switch in on an ice type

[@harrymanocha4533]

The removal of return is a hugely underrated nerf to normal types. It was basically the best, most consistent and most widely distributed normal STAB

[@waluigimourner8071]

Someone at GF really thinks Normal means bad

[@somedragonbastard]

Really annoyed me (as a casual player) when I found out it was removed. Like, I love Lopunny and always have my Lopunny have return, why did they remove it?

[@TheAuron32]

@@somedragonbastard BDSP, they claimed "an authentic and faithful remake" yet didnt bother to put that back... dont get me wrong, Staraptor is still an amazing pokemon but cant stand when they remove a move because of dumb reasons.

[@sreenaths6829]

@@TheAuron32 atleast Staraptor keeps Double Edge which it uses more anyways but yeah the removal of Return shot a lot of mons in the foot.

[@Slaking_]

It's even worse, cuz they removed it due to abilities like Aerielate and Refrigerater. But they could've just made Return not change types. There's other normal moves that stay unaffected by the -iate abilities, and they could've just made Return stay that way. But nope. Gotta remove the worst type's best STAB move

[@thomasdonahue2441]

Hyper beam and similar moves not needing to recharge could be turned into an awesome ability

[@willow7610]

I've personally thought that should be Regigigas's ability for a while Mostly because it spams hyper beam in the Anime

[@matchanavi]

Too bad there's only 10 moves that have that gimmick. Of which only 4 are not signature to Legendaries/Starters.

[@ed6077]

Inclement Emerald, a romhack, actually has this with the rampage ability

[@aigis0423]

@@ed6077 Didn't they also give Tauros its old special attack back as well lol

[@Lumix_Corrupt]

@@ed6077 It’s sort of in pokemon clover too, Sesquatch’s signature ability, it doesn’t stop moves with recharge like hyper beam but instead 2 turn moves like skull bash and shadow force

[@Celia_Dawn]

"There is a single Pokemon in OU with access to Spore" Smeargle: Am I a joke to you?

[@BigYellowSilly]

Goddamnit Smeargle fucked with Darkrai and now they're after me

[@NoodleMcDoodle69420]

Smeargle Age 4: Car Destroyer

[@Thebestlocosoco]

@@BigYellowSilly look out before he steals your car!!

[@nybethobdilord6912]

Yeah the only reason why Smeargle wasn't even OU in gen 2 was cuz everybody rocked Sleep Talk which made Spore kinda useless.

[@Walkerman379]

Slash, Razor Leaf, Karate Chop and Crab Hammer got big nerfs in gen 2 when they changed how critical hits worked. In gen 1, those were auto-crits from any pokemon with a base speed over 65 iirc.

[@NoodleMcDoodle69420]

Sad Tauros Persian Victreebel And Kingler Noises

[@theworstchannelever6196]

Crabhammer would have been insane in Gen 1 if it wasn't limited to a single pokemon that's a Physical attacker. 100 Base Power Water move AND it always crits

[@NoodleMcDoodle69420]

@@theworstchannelever6196 Yeah Kingler Probably Would've Been An Absolute Beast

[@MrCarrot14]

Another interesting user of Sleep Talk is Komala in Generation 7. Due to the ability Comatose, the pokemon is able to get the benefits of choice items while getting random access to 1-3 moves. The pokemon isn't great, but it's an interesting use nonetheless.

[@BigYellowSilly]

That's a really funny strat tbh, I kinda love that

[@WhimsicottFanatic]

It's also worth noting that, for the extra hahas, you can make its only other move be Last Resort alongside Sleep Talk Last Resort is usually only useable if you've used all other moves you have at least once before it [and it has a failsafe that you can't use it if it's your literal only move] And if Komala uses Sleep Talk, that, obviously, counts as using all other moves, and if Last Resort's its only other move, it's guaranteed to be picked and actually activate With Komala having 115 base Attack, and Last Resort having 210 power after STAB, it hits pretty hard all things considered Of course, it's also the truest definition of a meme set: It's very rarely effective, but it's a fun novelty for what it's worth

[@NoodleMcDoodle69420]

Yeah But Komala Sucks. And If You're Running a Scarf I Feel Sorry For You

[@mangosteak]

@@NoodleMcDoodle69420 There are worse mons.

[@pooppooper9033]

@@NoodleMcDoodle69420 Why do you capitalize every word?

[@bhizzle64]

One of the biggest nerfs I’ve seen is the change gale wings got from gen 6 -> 7. It went from enabling one of the biggest pokémon of the generation to being a nothing pokemon with the requirement to be at full hp to get the priority. They really just took talonflame out back and shot it.

[@DannehBoyNz]

It's crazy how good repeatable priority Brave Bird, so thank god for the nerf It 100% enabled the bird spam of gen 6, which was not a fun meta (at least for me)

[@ultrabyssal]

@@DannehBoyNz birdspam meta was a fucking nightmare, i rarely ever go back to gen 6 competitive because of it still (honestly i don’t know how much people abuse it nowadays but shit was ROUGH at the height of gen 6)

[@Fauxmale]

Absolutely insane to me how they did this and proceeded to make Rillaboom the very next gen

[@Substantial-hf1rm]

It's even funnier considering talonflame isn't even that good in current gen 6 ou and that lele would also become an ou staple in gen 7 and 8.

[@somethingwithultra7231]

I mean honestly the ability should either have been given to more than one mon anyway, or straight up be erased.

[@sketch-eee4165]

Darkrai's dark void nerf reminds me of how porygon was basically banned from appearing in the anime because of Pikachu causing the seizures in thay episode. Also how fittingly sad it is for darkrai to be treated as the badfiewhen he's just there doing his own business like everyone else.

[@baddragonite]

The decision of TPC to focus on doubles for their official competitive when the base games focus almost exclusively on singles is still so baffling to me.

[@easyaspi31415]

I want another doubles-only game like Colosseum and XD.

[@isenokami7810]

@@easyaspi31415 I always did, having actually played XD before the main games, but after my last go at XD I really want it now. XD had AI with actual strategies in mind, and plenty of room to come up with your own; it’s a solo campaign that preps you for VGC, basically. Mainline games still have me putting “four coverage attacks go brrr” movesets on my Pokémon because the trainers don’t challenge that playstyle and those sets are better for grinding. XD rewarded varied sets and made me fall in love with Dragon Dance.

[@AGASHBAALAH]

Don’t forget how Gyarados had its special stat nerfed too, which led to it losing the viability of its signature Hyper Beam. That move was literally mentioned in its pokedex entry. And they nerfed it to where that was useless.

[@autobotstarscream765]

The war on Hyper Beam Gyarados began all the way back in Pokémon Stadium.

[@TWLSpark]

GF: Okay, we learned the lesson - 30% freeze was a mistake, and we won't repeat something remotely similar in the future. Gen 5 Sleep: 👁️👅👁️ I bet both of these war crimes were made by the same developer.

[@mrblt1299]

I 100% agree that hyper beam should not recharge after a kill, the risk reward from it is one of my favorite parts of gen 1.

[@FraserSouris]

I disagree. I'd argue it should have been nerfed. The risk reward idea loses its lustre when you realise with its high power in conjuction with boosting moves like Swords Dance/Nasty Plot, it would do a crazy amount of damage to switches. Meaning unless you have multiple normal resists and/or immunities, it would be very easy to set up scenarios to snowball away with Boosted Hyper Beam KOs. I wouldn't be surprised if Smogon even had clauses banning it.

[@LuDogg805]

Imagine if you had to recharge if you missed.

[@matthewzakrzewski1797]

Idk how it would have fared across all gens, but by now, in the gen 7/8 era, the meta has evolved so much that rechargeable hyper beam would probably be irrelevant. 150 damage normal is not worth giving up a potentially valuable coverage slot only to get completely walled by ferrothorn or any other steel

[@gregorymirabella1423]

@@matthewzakrzewski1797 what about the hyper beam clones?

[@shadownite3378]

@@matthewzakrzewski1797 I ran some calcs on some special attacking oriented normal mons. Porygon Z for example ohko's Ferrothorn after a nasty plot with hyper beam even if the Ferrothorn is fully invested in Hp and special defense with a special defensive nature. Its not getting walled lmao and I know porygon z's sp attack is really good but still it proves the point that it would still be a threat in the metagame. Sure pokemon with lower specials arent ohkoing but that still doesn't mean it wont be threatening especially if your normal check is whittled down a bit.

[@Swagkage]

discovered this channel like 2 weeks ago and it rocks. keep up the good work dude. getting my competitive pokemon fix and fighting game fix from the same place is something i never knew i needed

[@chaos2inferno]

Same

[@shikhar2327]

Wtf its swagkage

[@kaedenparten9126]

Swagkage!

[@CrowFGC]

You a fighting game guy? :o

[@trappeach5866]

Yooo

[@NEET_DG201]

here's some gen 8 nerfs if any of y'all were curious: - Aegislash has his attacking stats lower by 10 points in his attack form and it's defensive stats lower by 10 points in it's defense form - King Shield lowers attack by one stage instead of two when activated - Moody now no longer applies to Accuracy or Evasiveness (still broken wtf gamefreak) - Disguise now causes 1/8 of it's max hp to be lost after the "disguise is busted" by an attack - Terrain's can now be removed by the move Defog and Steel Roller, before they were uncontested unless you change the terrain via respective terrain ability or respective terrain move, or after the terrain expired after the 5 or 8 turns it would of had naturally

[@Astromontana]

All of those nerfs were necessary except for Mimikyu's Disguse ability. Aegislah was stupidly broken in gen 6 that it was banned to ubers so in needed a nerf. Moody is just stupid and the terrains needed some sort of counterplay. However, Mimikyu did not needed its ability nerfed. It wasn't dominating Singles or VGC, it was just a free single use sub on a pokemon with mediocre stats. Don't know why they nerfed it.

[@NEET_DG201]

@@Astromontana most of modern Pokemon nerf's derived from vgc, sadly enough Pokemon only acknowledges this meta as "competitive Pokemon" everything else, to them, is just another fan rule set, Aegislash was very dominant on vgc, specifically XY vgc, so it got nerf, Moody Smergle was also very dominant and annoying in the XY VGC and Alolan Dex Only Vgc days if it manage to obtain a Evasiveness boost and it had Follow Me, and mimikyu was actually quite popular in the Alolan Dex Only Vgc days, it use to run focus sash + disguise effectively giving it two free turns regardless of what occur to it or what Pokemon you had out making it a very annoying Pokemon to get off the field this also made it a great(annoying) late game cleaner, and of course terrain was everywhere thanks to all the tapu's being very popular and good Pokemon in general so they gave it another nerf/a way to remove it (they also reduced the damage Increase from psychic terrain, electric terrain and grassy terrain to there respective types from a 50% boost to a 30% boost but I forgot to mention this)

[@anankos795]

I wonder if one of the reasons for Disguise's nerf (beyond balancing) was just because GameFreak potentially wanting Eiscue's Ice Face ability to be more unique, even though I think that Disguise was already more than different enough from Ice Face to not need changes anyways.

[@carlosmunozbastias4358]

Also they lowered the extra damage that a terrain boosted move does from 30% more to 20%

[@NEET_DG201]

@@carlosmunozbastias4358 it was a 50% boost actually down to a 30% boost now, and i mention it on my second comment, forgot to mention it

[@anusthing]

If they wanted to nerf dragons, they could have started with giving the ice type a resistance... They decided to make a brand new type which completely over centralized the meta so that each team needed a fairy type, with few viable mons that can actually kill fairies.

[@TheLaXandro]

The weather from abilities not being permanent is a completely justified nerf, but I think it should've been handled differently. Have the same 5-turn counter that ticks down every turn, but if the weather setter is on the field past that, the weather will remain too until they switch out. It's not as impactful for singles past keeping Kyogre ridiculous, but it could've been a very interesting thing for doubles.

[@NotSpecialDude]

Either that, or have the ability reactivate after 1 turn on the field with no weather.

[@leridecirunato9199]

Imo the nerf to weather setting abilities is fine however at that point weather setting MOVES should have been made permanent as those _(unlike abilities)_ are limited by PPs...VERY limited in fact. _(As an unrelated sidenote the buff to knock off was a gigantic mistake as it turned knock off from a useful, if used correctly, utility move that could not be taunted into a highly threatening, spammable AND _*_useful regardeless of...anything...utility AND damaging move that can not be taunted_*_ with no real downside)_ _(As another unrelated sidenote all the "toxic and its clones" moves should have toxic's conditional accuracy. Also toxic should deal the same dmg poison does as of right now while poison should be will'o wisp for spAtk in both dmg and effect. Also crits should not ignore stat amps)_ I can elaborate on any ofthe things I said if asked to, I promise there's a good reason for each :)

[@lucasgreer1736]

@@leridecirunato9199 I know this is a bit late but what's your rationale for toxic dealing poison damage and crits not ignoring stat buffs? toxic dealing poison damage would just be kind of useless as you're using a turn to deal not hugely threatening damage over time, generally people prefer freeze to be reworked into special burn rather than poison, and crits not ignoring stat boosts would remove a way of working around buffs

[@leridecirunato9199]

@@lucasgreer1736 Haven't played in a long while but I'll try to remember the gist of it: Toxic dealing poison damage means that it's more relevant for the first 2 turns and only drops off in effectivness after that. Meaning it's less powerful of a "click to remove wall" button but more powerful if supported with immediate damage. _(yes it was 100% intended to be a nerf to toxic)_ Freeze very rearely comes up so I didn't feel like it needed that large of a rework when you can give poison some level of identity beyond "worse toxic" On top of making very little sense, crits ignoring stat amps is only ever realistically relevant when facing inconceivably stupid ideas like my gen 8 anything goes "ingring" team that have far better counterplay anyway, any normal person boosts their offensive capabilities as well, meaning you're almost surely NOT bruteforcing your way out unless you get stupidly lucky _(in case you're wondering "ingring" is: ingrain, aqua ring, only boost speed, defenses and evasion, everyone has baton pass...and then you wait behind a substitute for the heat death of the universe to kill the opponent)_

[@EvanFarshadow]

A heavy nerf from the phys/spec split is to Medicham. It heavily relied on a physical Shadow Ball in gen 3

[@funkymachine]

In general physical attackers losing hp bug or hp ghost fucked them up

[@bulborb8756]

ik this pokemon is absolutely terrible, but the physical/special split in gen 4 actually caused Unown's atk stat of 72 to be rendered completely useless

[@platonismisoop2152]

I'd argue that, while Psychic had the most obvious nerfs from Gen I to II, it at least got some good buffs in the following gens. Plenty of solid psychic types introduced over the years, psyshock being brought in as a strong alternative to psychic for dealing with special walls, and even Alakazam getting an amazing ability in magic guard to help it keep up with power creep. Normal, on the other hand, has arguably only gotten more and more irrelevant with each passing gen. The type is usually relegated almost exclusively to weak early game mons or Pokemon that are just too gimmicky to really be viable, Fighting types got a massive boost as time went on (while also becoming more and more common as coverage on non-Fighting types), Steel and Ghost just becomes more and more prominent which makes Normal STAB less desirable. It's really telling that most of the really good normal types are from Gens I and II, the biggest non-Uber exception that comes to mind being maybe Porygon-Z. Also, as if to pour salt on the wound, Normal's most reliable physical STAB, Return, was cut in Gen VIII for no real reason. The funny thing is that there are some things that could potentially make Normal good. Boomburst is a phenomenal move and a hypothetical Normal type special attacker that had access to it would be a potential nightmare, and Extreme Speed is a fantastic physical move, but both moves just have really miserable distribution meaning they don't really help the type as a whole in spite of both being Normal moves. Regardless, while Psychic may have lost in the transition to Gen II, I think Normal lost in the long run. I don't even think it's a stretch to call Normal the worst type in the modern games (even if Ice, another type that arguably got hit hard in Gen II, gives it a run for its money).

[@Huuuuuuue]

Bug type is so bad you straight up forgot about it.

[@platonismisoop2152]

@@Huuuuuuue Bug types get quiver dance, sticky web and STAB u-turn. I didn't forget about them, people just seem to forget that the type is actually loaded with a bunch of really powerful Pokemon like Scizor and Volcarona. Bug just has access to too many things for it to be a truly bad typing, and too much synergy with certain types (Steel being the big one).

[@Huuuuuuue]

@platonismIsOOP Steel is the exception to the rule, and I can't think of any mons other than Scizor and Forretress that actually like being bug types. Volcarona is just so extremely strong that it makes up for being bug type. Even then, just because there exist strong bug type pokemon doesn't mean bug type is statistically good in a vacuum, since they could either be good because of their typing or so strong otherwise that they're good despite it. While it isn't as obviously bad as ice defensively, its only real strong resistance is ground, and all of its weaknesses are relevant, important attacking types. More importantly, its only real offensive asset is dark, while being resisted by many important types. Frankly, the sheer insanity of moves like quiver dance and sticky web and mons like scizor and volcarona goes to show just how much else a mon needs to have going for it to overcome the handicap of being bug type. Hell, look at mons like heracross, yanmega, and frosmoth. Mons with some great tools in their kits, even one of the most broken abilities in the game in frosmoth's case, and yet they're still largely competitively irrelevant because it's not enough to overcome the issues their typing brings. I think the argument between bug and ice is close, but ice's offensive niche edges it out and leaves bug the worst type. Normal is a statistically mid tier type with mostly poor mons. Normal is held back by the pokemon that have it. Bug and ice pokemon are held back by the types. These are fundamentally different.

[@ShouldOfStudiedForTheTest]

In the world of Knock Off and Pursuit, when did Ghost become relevenat? Lmao. Also the inmunity goes both ways.

[@Huuuuuuue]

@@ShouldOfStudiedForTheTest Normal isn't fantastic, so the immunity isn't that relevant, and only being resisted by dark makes ghost a very solid attack type for hitting the vast majority of mons neutrally. Fighting immunity is also very significant, considering how strong fighting has been offensively since around gen 4. Ghost also benefits from a monopoly on spinblocking, as well as a complete immunity to being trapped by arena trap, shadow tag, etc. It's also a solid defensive type when paired with another type that offers good resistances, since it's only weak to ghost and dark while having two immunities. It may not be a top tier type, but it's pretty much indisputably better than bug and ice.

[@user-hr6mp2lj3p]

13:46 well explosion was nerfed In gen 3 explosion ended the turn, so if you outsped your opponent and clicked explosion, it couldn't do anything From gen 4 onwards that stopped being the case And it does actually matter, like you could stop your opponent from setting up a dragon dance for instance

[@BigYellowSilly]

Oh yeah I forgot about that one, tbf I think that was super justified tho

[@user-hr6mp2lj3p]

Agreed, but it's kinda sad how explosion went from a mandatory move on every team to a niche move pretty much limited to suicide leads

[@josephhanicak7922]

It was a huge deal. Like it made Explosion a 500 base power U-Turn that negates the opponents turn if it goes first. Completely worth sacking a mon for that. The moment you click boom you get a safe switch no matter what

[@wronghouse5833]

I've thought about this , and perhaps explosion and self destruct were nerfed because sturdy was just buffed in gen 5. Sturdy explosion is a thing that might be a real pain if that ever happened

[@ultimaterecoil1136]

@@user-hr6mp2lj3p now a days explosion and self destruct are the worst suicide moves. Healing wish memento ect are all better. Healing wish is especially is great on hattereen. Sash to practically guarantee the trickroom then storing a healing wish then you get just a few free kos with melmetal then you store a full heal for later

[@BigYellowSilly]

Btw I'm really sorry the lighting changes like 4 times throughout this vid, I had to spread out the recording due to shenanigans but other than that I'm really happy with this vid, this was a very fun topic! ALSO small goof it was meant to stay as Normal Nerfs at 10:17

[@Magic_Ice]

You should be sorry, I can’t even watch the video now/s

[@NoodleMcDoodle69420]

How Do You Feel About The "Sleep Immunity" As I'll Call It. Basically It In Gen 1 2 And 6 With Grass Types And Sleep Powder Spore And I Guess Stun Spore

[@BigYellowSilly]

@@NoodleMcDoodle69420 Personally I really like it, would be cool if the games made more of an effort to teach you about it

[@NoodleMcDoodle69420]

@@BigYellowSilly I'm Generally Fine With It. It Can Make Some Pokemon Better And Worse. And Its Made Tangrowth One Of My Most Used Pokémon In Gen 6 And 7

[@TiagoODuelista]

I knew about Dark Void failing when used by Smeargle, but never realized they also murdered the actual move as well. Like, this seems that 2 different teams were making balance adjustments and each one got an idea to nerf Dark Void Smeargle for VGC. But instead of discussing which change to make they just went "fuck this, do both". In other note. Surprised you didn't mentioned Steel losing Dark and Ghost resistance in gen 6, or some type changes in gen 6-7 that gave then immunity to cetain things like Electric to paralize, Grass to Powder moves or Dark to Prankster (this was a interesting nerf to that busted ability). And some abilities got direct nerfs in gen 7 like Gale Wing needing full health and all "ate" abilities boosting x1.2 instead of x1.3.

[@hi-i-am-atan]

the prankster nerf always bugs me. like, i don't mind the concept of dark types countering prankster, but why does prankster actively become a _detrimental ability_ if your opponent sends out a dark type? is there a reason why dark types can't just nullify prankster if they're targeted by a status move, rather than suddenly becoming immune to status moves that would otherwise affect them? hell, i say it bugs me because it becomes detrimental, but even that's not quite accurate. if the nerf did something wacky like making it so that dark types _reversed_ prankster and made it give moves negative priority, i'd find that a bit heavy-handed but nonetheless pretty cool. but nope. an ability that gives your moves priority also causes your moves to not affect a certain type, even though that type ... doesn't interact with priority moves at all, much less has immunity to 'em

[@InfernoScorpion14]

It doesn't even make sense for Electric Pokemon because there are non-Electric ways to Paralyze, like Body Slam.

[@hobez64]

Yeah I also thought he would discuss how Gen 6 balanced types, specifically with Fairies nerfing several types, especially Dragon

[@melvinshine9841]

I love the Gale Wings nerf. Talonflame can kiss my ass. Speaking of nerfs, the Tapus kind of indirectly got hit in Gen 8. Grassy, Electric, and Psychic Terrain boost their respective moves by 30% instead of 50%, now, none of the Tapus got the moves that can only be used on the Terrains, Koko and Bulu didn't get Play Rough, but *Lulu* did for some reason, and Defog removes Terrains, now.

[@josephhanicak7922]

The Nightmare pokemon uses hypnosis over his signature sleep move lmao. Still funny to me. Dark Void needed a gutting, but Jesus did they do it in the worst possible way.

[@bruhification]

I love how your channel is now a pokemon channel. It's really enjoyable to watch your pokemon content

[@BigYellowSilly]

It'll never be just Pokémon, but I do really love that I can branch out with it (:

[@egon3705]

i like how rg blizzard was literally sheer cold except if it misses it slaps you with a very powerful ice move

[@SpearMKW]

nice work! here is some other nerfs not mentioned in the video (including VGC nerfs) for any curious people in the comments From Gen 6 to 7: -Mega-Kangaskhan which was the most popular Mega in Gen 6 VGC had its 2nd hit's strength lowered from 50% to 25%, and Power up Punch which it abused to gain +2 attack has not been learnable through TM in any Generation after 6 and VGC only allows pokemon caught in the current generation. Basicly killed the mon in VGC outside of a few small appearances. -"iate" abilities got nerfed from +30% to +20% due to Mega-Salamence and Sylveon being very common Hyper Voice users in VGC, which hits both targets in Doubles and i guess was deemed slightly too strong by TPCI. This of course also affected some pokemon in Singles. -Moves affected by the Prankster ability no longer work on Dark types. From Gen 7 to 8 -Pinch Berries, Super Sitrus Berries, or whatever you want to call them, which were actually buffed in Gen7 due to being useless in Gen6 and earlier, were reduced from 50% to 33% healing. This was mainly due to Snorlax being able to use the combination of the ability Gluttony and the move Recycle which was a fun set in casual Singles but broken in VGC, but they were also used on many other pokemon, having VGC teams consist half of pokemon holding those berries (there were 5 different ones so you could essentially dodge item clause), and were also used on bulky setup sets from Zygarde and Magearna and a defensive Landorus set in Smogon. -Intimidate was made to no longer affect pokemon that had one of a small pool of abilities. -the damage boost from Terrains was reduced from +50% to +30% because of the Tapus.

[@Kanta82]

The darkrai nerf makes sense if you remember that this is the same company that won't give Porygon another episode of the anime when Pikachu was the one who caused the seizures.

[@ciaranpatrick6859]

There are a few Pokémon I would argue the physical special split had a big impact on, those being special attackers that used elemental punches as coverage. Many of them still don’t have fire/ice coverage to this day.

[@petelee2477]

Most special attackers usually would use hidden power to fill in gaps in their move pool (or not be forced to rely on focus miss) at least they used to now I'm not sure what special attackers have for consistent (so not focus blast) coverage.

[@_lostglory]

@@petelee2477 they use Focus Blast. Its worth the risk when you have no other coverage options.

[@petelee2477]

@@_lostglory they have to which is why I'm not using these pokemon anymore

[@Dexuz]

*Sad Gengar noises.*

[@genuineangusbeef8697]

7:32 Tangela was gonna receive an evolution in GSC, so with that context, giving it lower stats works pretty well. And with Tangrowth for context, Tangela doesn't really look so bad.

[@BigYellowSilly]

Yeah Tangrowth is pretty cool at least for sure

[@elmaionesosexo]

so technically speaking, it wasn't a nerf but an adjustment

[@Rarest26]

And even then Growth's spdef is still ass

[@NoodleMcDoodle69420]

@@Rarest26 There's a Little Thing You May Not Know Called Assault Vest

[@Rarest26]

@@NoodleMcDoodle69420 And? That means nothing on a mons base stats.

[@foursix32]

This video brought back some age-old salt in me. Two other changes I was disappointed in when they dropped: 1. Sceptile's Leaf Blade having to go off its weaker Attack stat 2. Gen 8 removing a slew of fun moves, like Pursuit and Snatch

[@Lilybun]

My least favorite nerf is mimikyu's disguise being gutted from gen7->gen8. Its not like the pokemon was op or anything and i dont think the new version is unreasonable either. I hate it more due to the trifecta of having your ability nerfed, losing your signature Z move and missing out on poltergeist for reasons I can only assume to be balance related. They did my fave pikaclone dirty and killed the only semi viable ghost type curse user in the process which i think is a damn shame.

[@BigYellowSilly]

Idk what it is with Game Freak and going after the most 7/10 mons

[@BelugaTheHutt]

Mimikyu isn't amazing in normal 6v6 singles formats, but Game Freak cares more about their own formats than the formats that most of the players actually play. Mimikyu was EXTREMELY good in the fast-paced 3v3 metagame which is the only singles format that Game Freak seems to care about. It's still very good in that format, since being guaranteed of losing only 1/8th HP on one turn can completely change a 3v3 match in your favor, in a way which doesn't usually define the whole match in 6v6 formats. I have no defense for Game Freak for not giving it Poltergeist though. That's just weird.

[@grunkleg.3110]

I'd thought that Mimikyu got the nerf because it could set up Trick Room too easily. Disguise + Focus Sash theoretically gave Mimikyu at least 2 free turns, which is insane in VGC. But at the same time, they buffed the VGC superstar Incineroar by giving it Parting Shot in Gen 8, so who knows?

[@Lilybun]

@@grunkleg.3110 Mimikyu had minimal usage in gen7 vgc with less than half the usage of drifblim and fell into complete obscurity by USUM. Dont really see how this mon ever overperformed enough to warrant any nerfs in a world where lando T and incineroar exist

[@Neogears1312]

@@BigYellowSilly these are the guys who hide easy mode behind completion of a game and make sound settings an unlockable item. They’re pretty dumb a lot of the time

[@shieldlesscap6124]

I think Gale Wings was also worth talking about. In Gen 6 it gave the user priority on all flying moves and allowed Talonflame to spam priority Brave Bird all day. Gen 7 made it so you only got the effect if you were at full health, and since Brave Bird has recoil, that changed the ability from “Talonflame gets to mash Brave Bird until it knocks itself out”, to “Talonflame gets… one priority Brave Bird, assuming it didn’t switch into a hit/rocks, and knocks itself out in 3 turns either way”

[@jman2050]

What confuses me about the Explosion nerf is that the halving of defense isn’t some arbitrary quirk, it’s almost certainly a relic of old technical limitations. BP was a single byte in the old games so 255 was the highest it could go, so making a move like Explosion even stronger than that required some minor hackery. From this we can infer that Explosion being that strong was absolutely a deliberate choice, so much so that GF circumvented their own imposed limitations to do it. And yet when this behavior was “corrected” in gen 5, it seems like they just kinda forgot that the half defense thing wasn’t a mistake and assumed it was supposed to be 250 in the first place. That particular nerf just seems pointlessly arbitrary otherwise, as lowering a specific move’s BP is just something Game Freak never does. You have the mass nerfing/rebalancing of special moves in gen 6, sure, but that’s not really the same thing.

[@carucath97]

Then they added Moonblast, which is still 95 bp

[@1ND1G066]

I think the saddest part of the explosion nerf is that, before said nerf, the move was basically the perfect "high risk, high reward" type of move that could really leave its mark felt if timed correctly, or could totally go to waste if hitting a ghost type/substitute. And now with the power nerf, it just....doesn't feel the same way anymore. On the flipside though I did find the notion of even mons with low attack stats using the move on regular occasions to be just a bit silly, but also hilarious so yeah, that comedic value is gone now as well :( Also the dark void over-nerf does really sometimes feel like the devs attempt to overcompensate for overly centralizing things, often without considering the collateral damage. This can also be seen on smaller scale things like attempting to keep spore in check by not only making grass types immune to them but also introducing safety goggles, AND introducing abilities like sweet veil and misty surge all to make it fail as much as possible. And finally the hyper beam-like moves nerf is quite saddening as well, though as some comments have already pointed out, power creep has reached a point where those moves+choice items/damage boosting abilities/stat boosts could allow for easy cleanup under the proper instances; although the moves' limited distribution could've been enough of a balancing factor imo. Regardless, there should really be at least a held item, or even an ability, to stimulate that old feeling once again; the expense of your item/ability slot would definitely be enough of a balancing factor. And really, there's many item possibilities not yet explored that could shake up the battling formula as we know it forever.

[@ChillavaKirby]

Darkrai having to run Hypnosis basically summarizes my main disappointments with Pokémon game design in just a couple words

[@ChillavaKirby]

@@kirbycommon7570 ?

[@kirbycommon7570]

@@ChillavaKirby Nvm what i said i was being dumb

[@rumcodray2275]

"imagine being punished for something You didnt do" Basically Yugioh banlists

[@TheKingsPride]

My theory as to why Tangela got nerfed so hard is because Kevin Punt somehow got onto the balance team and had to make sure that Brian David Gilbert would never prize another Tangela again.

[@nixel1324]

Terry will never be forgotten.

[@SemiHypercube]

I feel like the nerf to Dark Void is made even worse by the fact that, at least in singles, _the signature move of a Mythical Pokemon_ is not only less accurate than Hypnosis, but is less accurate than Sing. A Mythical's signature move is worse than _Sing._

[@fums63]

“So you go to court, you plead not cringe, the judge finds you cringe, you go to jail. Fair enough, right?” yeah dude for sure

[@paleoscinkus542]

I’ve got mixed feelings on the hyper beam nerf because while I think the move not needing to recharge would be fine balancing for gens 1 and 2, I could see it becoming a huge problem in the later games with items such as choice band, scarf, life orb etc. I’d imagine it being very easy to abuse and clean up with a spammable 150 base power move with the added power from items. Explosion shouldn’t have been nerfed though, rip.

[@louc.6735]

I want to see it happen for one generation of scarf porygon Z being the scariest thing to hit the field.

[@MacZephyrZ]

On the flip side, normal types are rarely that good in modern pokemon games. Usually they only get usage if they have a specialized niche (Blissey), and normal-type coverage is basically nonexistant since it doesn't hit anything super effectively. STAB Hyper Beam / Giga Impact would help normal types find niches on teams where pokemon who provide better offensive / defensive typing would usually prevail. Heck we already see Expload abuse 140 bp Boomburst and it's not too powered. The only problem I can think of is Adaptability Porygon-Z probably being a bit too much. That thing would be really nutty with a scarf, probably comparable to Galarian Darmanitan.

[@lucasferro6050]

@@MacZephyrZ Exploud isn't too OP because it sucks, he relies quite a bit on both Boomburst and Scrappy. I don't care about Hyper Beam or Giga Impact, all I want back is Return, nothing more

[@lucasferro6050]

I think this change was due to the addition of the "ultimate moves" the Kanto starters gained in gen 3 and that later on became available for all starters + other variants like Rock Wrecker and Meteor Assault, which are all based on Hyper Beam. Explosion got what it deserved, Skarmory being able to die from a resisted physical attack is a crime

[@MacZephyrZ]

@@lucasferro6050 ^Most normal types pretty much suck. That's kind of my point.

[@publickip]

Sad the Thunder Wave + Swagger nerfs didn't make it in also would LOVE a Pokemon Buffs video

[@graphitetailgrace3870]

They nerfed Thunder Wave? God, how many more ways can they say that they wish the Electric type was never invented?

[@publickip]

@@graphitetailgrace3870 Ironically, I'm pretty sure Thunder Wave was hit because of mons like Klefki and Clefable

[@Rarest26]

From what I’ve heard, the reason for Twave and Prankster nerfs are both because of Thundurus’ VGC shenanigans. I’m assuming it also used swagger sometimes? And also, Klefki, obviously,

[@AlexaRobin21]

@@Rarest26 T-Wave + Swagger were infuriating to deal with in Gen VI. There were also shenanigans like Swaggering your own teammates to give them a boost.

[@Rarest26]

@@AlexaRobin21 Yea, I remember back in the day smogon banned swagger in gen 6 ou mainly cause of the keyring

[@ricardoludwig4787]

Other relevant nerfs that happened from gen 6 to 7 The alate abilities (aeriaelate, pixilate, glaciate) all went from a 1.3 times boost to a 1.2 Burn does 8% instead of 12, which means it only matches leftovers instead of outdamaging them Gale wings now sucks

[@SPZ-gv2on]

Burn is 6.25% but otherwise all good points. I hate the pixilate nerf to my beloved mega altaria.

[@kirbycommon7570]

@@SPZ-gv2on It was probably due to mega salamence. That scum of a mega that tried suck of Rayquaza's popularity.

[@SPZ-gv2on]

@@kirbycommon7570 Oh ofc it was mence, it was super common in vgc. I just hate how it trickled down to my favorite mon who was perfectly fine with it.

[@97MarioDude97]

The car joke with Brian really caught me all types of off guard. Good video! Un-nerf Hyper Beam!

[@MogFlintlock]

From the little I remember of comp pokemon at the time, I believe the theory was that Explosion/Self-destruct were nerfed because of doubles (and more specifically, due to strategies pairing it with ghost types). Given that doubles is the format Gamefreak pushes for the most part, it probably makes sense from that perspective.

[@sealeo5772]

I have never played competitive pokemon before, but I find these meta overview videos so fascinating. It's fun to just learn about something and it's similar to some other games like Magic: the Gathering where half the game is thinking about it outside the game.

[@maagic2031]

Competitive Pokemon really is just a card game disguised as a jrpg

[@Rezzo64]

Some gen 3 to gen 4 nerfs: - Recover PP was reduced from 20/24/28/32 to 10/12/14/16 - Self-KO moves no longer end the turn, e.g. if you use Memento on a Skarmory using Spikes, the turn doesn't prematurely end and Skarmory still lays spikes. This actually extends to self-KOing yourself against hazards by switching in ADV, you used to get a lot of momentum by sacrificing something low on health to deny the opponent from setting up - Hazardous weather happens at the end of the turn rather than within some limbo between turns (meaning that newly switched Pokémon never take weather damage at the start of the turn) - Quick Claw activation is announced - Pressure is announced (effectively always confirming an informed player as to which ability ANY Pokémon is running, since gen 4 Pokémon don't have more than 2 unique abilities)

[@BynineStudio]

these pokemon vids are very comfy. also, totally agree that explosion and hyper beam should keep their old upsides. they're iconic moves and its a shame that they're practically worthless. also normal is really bad these days so they could use the help?

[@KeshavKrishnan]

Normal is pretty string in VGC with mons like Porygon 2 and Z being rly solid picks. Plus hyper beam sees use on both which I think is pretty cool

[@JaredKelso123]

@@KeshavKrishnan Wasn't Hyper Beam's only relevant use in recent history to power up Breakneck Blitz?

[@GameGod77]

"This is a war crime shoved inside a game boy cartridge" Yeah this sense of humour is absolutely worth subscribing for!

[@KlldbyCuriosity]

I think the huge buff to fighting types (two new good types that it both resists and is super effective against and making psychic types significantly weaker) was the nerf to normal types. Psychic being such a strong type in gen 1 is what made normal so good because you couldn’t run a normal counter without fear of getting nuked by psychic unless you were a rock or ghost type, and with psychic’s only counters being only other psychics and normal types that raised the prominence of normal to the forefront because they nuked everything as well.

[@granitetheglitche1254]

The Tangela thing makes a little bit of sense actually. Tangela was going to be a mid stage Pokemon in gen 2 but it's pre evo and full evo got cut. (It's in the spaceworld demo leak) they probably just didn't readjust it's stats after it became a standalone again. I wonder if similar things happened with Pokemon like Qwilfish who also had a cut evo...

[@chieftoni1776]

Gengar losing levitate still hurts 😢

[@BigYellowSilly]

Yeah that was dumb

[@goldglovegrappler1382]

One day the two halves of this channel WILL combine for a video about Pokken or perhaps even Type Wild and I'm here for it.

[@ieatatsonic]

Rip my boy Gengar, losing Levitate makes running him feel just a little sad nowadays

[@lizzardthegizzardwizzard6739]

I was hoping this was the gen 6 nerf he was talking about. He's fine without it but it kneecaps some of his matchups when (IMO) he wasn't a super big issue to begin with

[@Gnarfledarf]

I'll just go ahead and blame Sky Battles for that, even though I have no evidence supporting my case.

[@Substantial-hf1rm]

I used to hate the change but i now find it funny, because you can technically justify it with how gengar is literally touching the ground.

[@Dexuz]

@@Substantial-hf1rm Magnezone is too, you just don't see it : ^)

[@travisteatime]

"You go to court. You plead 'Not Cringe'. Judge finds you 'Cringe'. You go to jail." Why is this the funniest fucking assortment of words to me, what happened to my brain that I cannot stop laughing at this

[@Dane_XOXO]

"you go to court, you plead not cringe, the judge finds you cringe, you go to jail" my speech will never recover from this godlike sentence

[@lucariouwu68]

I don't know if Hyper Beam specifically should skip the recharge after a KO, it doesn't really fit the concept of that last ditch, all out attack that I think they were going for. But I think it would be cool if the starter exclusive moves like Frenzy Plant did that, especially since starters aren't often competitively viable, and having that technique exclusive to them would make them more popular

[@RockmanX47]

When you began foreshadowing the Dark Void nerf, I at first thought of Gale Wings' nerf making it so the priority of the Flying move was only active when the Pokemon (Talonflame) was at full health, murdering the bird's viability afterwards since a lot of what made Talonflame a nasty critter was the fact that it could heal, attack, and support with priority so it got all these wacky sets that made the bird one of the more notorious Pokemon in Gen 6 OU. Also another notable nerf that happened in Gen 7 would be the fact that status moves using Prankster would simply no longer work on Dark types which would make using Pokemon with the ability harder to use. Which is honestly a nerf I am very mixed on. Sometimes you can now find yourself losing momentum by making a bad call and going for a status move like T-Wave or Will-O-Wisp on a predicted switch only to have the Dark type just soak the status move but at the same time I get the idea of nerfing Prankster because of how many Pokemon were defined in Gen 5 and 6 by that ability.

[@BigYellowSilly]

I'm in the same boat on the Prankster nerf, I think I'd like it more if status moves still worked vs Dark types and they just lost priority or had negative priority instead of failing outright

[@PKRockin7]

Normal didn't get overly nerfed at face value, but making steel resist them was pretty much the beginning of the end for that type Steel-types ended up being a centralizing force in singles, to the point where mono-Normal types were effectively barred from OU without a subtype or powerful niche (ie:Chansey/Blissey or Clefable in gen IV) Kinda sad to see

[@nowgoawayanddosomethinggoo8978]

"weak thinkers nerf, great ones do not" - sun tzu after playing marvel vs capcom 2

[@jolenecoda]

I feel like you are really hitting your stride with content. It is a joy to watch! Always click when I see a new one.

[@isidoreaerys8745]

I remember being decimated by lvl 12 Ekans and bellsprouts during my first playthroughs. wrap was an object of terror

[@lucymcelhone4332]

Loved the car analogy, I laughed through the entire part HAHA

[@danb1809]

Here's a random nerf: In gen 5 (might've been 4), Wonder Guard had a bug that caused it to be unable to bypass Fire Fang Doesn't matter at all since Shedinja was already weak to it and in Hackmons you'd just counter wonder guard with mold breaker anyway but it's so obscure and random that I love it nevertheless Also Showdown should make a format that allows for use of glitch Pokémon I want to style on people with MissingNo.

[@rjante2236]

Fire Fang? Why though lol

[@airayne5176]

Always excited to see what you can make a video out of next, love to see your spin on already discussed topics too.

[@creativeandfunnyname3744]

"You plead not cringe, the judge finds you cringe." Why is that so funny?

[@theiceman4494]

"hyper beam was fine" My choice specs adaptability Porygon-Z: *whistling nervously*

[@thecummonster.]

I've really been loving the variety of your videos lately

[@theboostedbaboon4586]

Great video! Informative and the time changes made me giggle when it cut to different times of the day

[@Firescizor]

I really like recharge moves like Hyper Beam. I think there is something of an inherently child-like and pure, raw bliss in using them. Just the sheer essence of IM FIRIN' MA LAZAR, put onto a Pokémon move. To this day, my most wanted ability in Pokémon is an ability that could be called "Energyzer". It's effect would simply be "The Pokémon doesn't have to recharge after using a recharge inducing move." The idea stemmed from me using Typhlosion in HGSS, where it has a shitty ass movepool, and you could essentially give it Hyper Beam and Blast Burn just for the heck of it and have a functional team member. I think this ability would be extremely fun on a starter Pokémon that would have the Electric type (and a new Electric Recharge move) by the last stage of evolution. Very broken, maybe? But oh so fun...

[@autobotstarscream765]

Thing is, Eruption blows both of those moves out of the water on Typhlosion in HGSS, so I rarely used Blast Burn and never used Hyper Beam. 😂

[@Firescizor]

@@autobotstarscream765 Eruption is absolutely GOATed but you get it only at lvl 57 which is HELLA LATE for HGSS standards 👀

[@Dexuz]

Reading "ima firin mah lazor" with that voice really made me feel old.

[@WarioLandIV]

Genuinely some of the best early series Pokémon content, the editing, commentary, music choice, format, presentation, humour it's all near perfect, if not perfect!

[@BigYellowSilly]

Thank you!

[@smokyprogg]

Reverend absolutely nailed the vibe of pre-nerf explosion by calling it "clicking the serotonin button." Such a lame nerf

[@alexs5814]

Great vid, i learned so much, once again, and i really like the format you are pushing here. Thanks.

[@lipika2841]

7:36 originally, Tangela was supposed to have Evolution & Pre-Evolution in GS games, but was scrapped later probably due to cartridge space. So Tangela was going to be treated like a Middle stage Pkmn.

[@HenryZhoupokemon]

I feel like even in gen 5, offense was still the primary way to play weather, plus introducing megas in the perma rain/sun mightve pushed the meta more towards offense Sure defense would’ve benefitted more from perma weather, but so would offense. I feel it’s kinda along the lines of saying “I only need Pot of Greed to get unbanned, then my gimmick/niche yugioh deck would be viable” Not really sure if this logic is exactly applicable, but if perma rain would make hydration goodra and dry skin heliolisk more viable, imagine how good it would make mega swampert or even smth like trace Zam

[@bricktastic-acular1298]

Man I really like your pokemon vids, very very entertaining to watch. Your channel has some nice diversity to it keep up the good work mate!

[@atmosdwagon4656]

The Breath of Fire 3 music for the background is a great choice. Very good for casual discussions like these.

[@DragonMasters525]

as a doubles player im learning so much about singles becuase of your vids im growing a big brian and ima about to decimate with my teams now ima be unstoppable

[@Pyrobaconstudios]

Explosion nerf still leaves me bitter to this day. before it had this awesome risk vs reward thing where you can sacrifice a mon to just obliterate problem mon for your team but with the inherent risk of the fact that you could just end up throwing away your mon for nothing if the opponent catches on to your plan. After the nerf it's pretty much never worth the high cost and has no real surprise potential anymore either since it's also made completely useless on any mon without high attack investment

[@BigYellowSilly]

I completely agree, I miss Explosion a lot.

[@GamecubeGalore]

Just found you channel, I've been bingeing your vids for like an hour. Keep up the good work! Your video format is very relaxing 😌

[@RaynmanPlays]

9:05 The delivery on this is perfection.

[@kaleidoslug7777]

I just wanna mention your editing has felt way sharper and better paced as of recent

[@RanserSSF4]

One big nerf was to the dragon and fighting typing in Gen 6. Similar to Gen 2 where they attempted to nerf the best types of the last gen by adding a new type to counter them, Gen 6 gave us Fairy types, which were immune to dragon moves and resisted fighting. This made sense because fighting and dragon were the best types in Gen 5 easily, like psychic and normal in gen 1. Good news though, is that certain dragon and fighting type mons still saw success in OU like Garchomp and Mega Lopunny, though some like Hydregon... not so much. Although Fairy type being added in and being one of the new best types also indirectly nerfed Ice type as being the best type to deal with dragons, which is sad. Another nerf was that steel no longer resisted dark, so dark mons that used them as stab could now leave a big dent on most steel-types, but this is more of a minor nerf. Adding fairy also indirectly buffed poison and fire types since they resisted fairy and they started to appear more as a result. Another big nerf was certain mons like Aerodactyl from gen 4 to 5, which was the addition of team preview, making his surprise lead no longer a viable option and thus, really easy to counter, massively hindering his viability, and like I said, there's many other mons that got nerfed hard because of this feature.

[@rjante2236]

Zoroark would have been so fucking good without team preview

[@vvlaze]

The craziest part is that one hit KO moves like Guillotine and Horn Drill have 30% accuracy, the same as pre-nerf Blizzard’s freeze chance. Which means that pre-nerf Blizzard was not only incredibly powerful, but also essentially had a one hit KO move baked into it as a *side effect*.

[@DarkAuraLord]

Lovin these kinds of uploads, cheers dude.

[@XNDL44]

I really liked the weather nerf since the weather wars were hell to deal with. Now, with the limited turns the weather setter must run their corresponding stone to extend it with and probably need an additional weather setter for a backup.

[@autobotstarscream765]

Except for Sand and Rain, weathers strong enough with setters strong enough that you can run multiple setters on each respective team for 0 cost as good Pokémon worth running anyway and just switch between them while you're already spending 90% of a battle switching and switching and switching, sometimes even freeing up their Item slots.

[@undercoverweeb]

"Every time you missed a focus blast" Well hot damn, EVERYTHING is frozen then.

[@artistwithouttalent]

22:09 "Your honor, we plead not cringe by reason of being lost in sauce." "Your honor, that justification is totes sussy baka." "Court agrees, prosecutor. This court finds you cringe."

[@carriersummoner]

22:03 'Dat's right, Meg, our dog Brian Griffin was nerfed from life!'

[@hppern3971]

The hidden Gen 3 Sleep Talk nerf feels especially weird because its late discovery means that some incredibly iconic sets on iconic ADV staples used to use RestTalk a ton. Suicune, Zapdos, Skarmory, etc. It feels weird that we will never see those sorts of sets again. Sometimes I just get nostalgic for what would happen if certain things were never fixed or the meta developed from a certain fixed point. For example, gen 5 was famously f****d and needs a ton of bans, but by the end of BW1 it had reached a really solid point before BW2 caused more mayhem. Or sometimes I get nostalgic for certain phases of particular tiers, especially when they let you use a.particular ability or Pokemon. Stoutland being the lower tier Excadrill was always fun, even if sand as a whole in lower tiers was too busted

[@riqua27]

Few Nerf I like to add. Galewing: In gen 6 it always work. In gen 7 it only work with full HO Meteor Mash: this move used to have 100 based power before nerf to 90 Steel type: Steel resist ghost and dark until gen 5. They no longer resist dark and ghost in Gen 6. Which mean Metagross and Bronzong have 4 weakness instead of 2.

[@OvermasterP]

Oh my god I love your content, I keep rewinding and rewatching it

[@basilemasingue2459]

The stolen car analogy made me laugh so hard 😭😭 well done, another Amazing video