If you’d like to check out more vids ive done similar to this - Pokemon Movesets make no sense: m.ua-cam.com/video/sVO4qz8SOh4/v-deo.html Clefable is Broken: m.ua-cam.com/video/tD8_GROnB_o/v-deo.html
Yes good point! There's also a bunch of abilities that really help physical attackers, like huge/pure power, guts, moxie, though claws, iron fist. And technician and no guard are typically used by physical mons. But there's a lot of great abilities for special attackers too ofc.
-sword dance being far more common than nasty plot -dragon dance generally being on usable mons while quiver dance is mostly on shitmons. -hugh bp moves are balanced by drawback instead of by accuracy. You can play around close combat or fire blitz, you have to pray that focus blast and fire blast don't miss. -no phisical assault vest -phisical blissey is an ice type -more abilities that boost phisical or contact mives. Personally, i'd say ohisical and special are fairly balanced. Phisical has more common annoyances tho.
I am surprised they haven't created an intimidate for special attackers yet. Or a status for lowering special attackers. Flame body, burn and intimidate among others really hurt physical attackers.
thing is that burn nerf indirectly buffed special attackers. Like Latios eating a burn in gen 5 means it's basically useless trying to switch into keldeo anymore. Stuff like starmie or keldeo eating a burn in gen 6 means that bisharp or mega metagross gonna mess you up lategame. But then gen 7 came around and the burn nerf basically meant that special attackers would no longer lose health with lefties and that everything had better longevity. Hot take, without burn nerf pex would be A- at best in OU because it would be forced to spam recover instead of eating every hit due to the constant 12% chip.
They nerfed I-Beam, T-bolt and F-thrower from 95 to 90 at the same time Moonblast came out. Should have given that 90 PP too... (I get that the Fairy typing had to be hyped etc. etc.)
some specially oriented intimidate version of ability would be nie as well, give it to some new mons plus some older less relevant ones to make them more relevant
I honestly hope they'll leave it at a scald like attack at most. just imagine the power creep required for special (hyper-)offense to play around this. Blissey already walls them hard with this it'll just become balance/stall meta.
@LeNigtvanNugt Bruh i know you watched Freezai and although hes one of the GOATS, hes completely wrong about the special physical balance Having to deal with Blissey is NOT enough. We need more ways to deal with special attackers other than being forced to use a freakin Blissey
Yeah and just remove Freeze. That thing is so blatantly noncompetitive that it hurts. I agree with @LeNigtvanNugt to some extent though, if there was a move that cuts SpA in half like Will-o does for Atk, it should be very sparsely distributed. Maybe make it exclusive to Ice types like Freeze-Dry and Aurora Veil are (well, Mew got the latter in gen 7 but you get my point), the type could still use some buffs. Especially as the Freeze status would be removed from their stabs. However, I don't think it should be a rare move because of Blissey, but because of the design philosophy that the two attack stats seem to have. Physical Attack is the more volatile by design, having more things that can shut them down like Burn, Intimidate, etc. but also having more opportunities for boosting or outright massive damage from the get-go, like Guts, Huge Power, and moves that have recoil or some other negative effect in return for big base power being more common for Physical attackers. Swords Dance being more widely available than Nasty Plot could also be argued to be a part of that. Lessening this volatility for Physical side or increasing it for Special side too much would just make the two stats feel too similar in what they do and how to deal with them, which would overall make having two of them feel a bit redundant and the combat would just feel less varied.
@@samsungrefrigeratorcondens4354 Or replace/power up things like Ice Punch/Beam and Blizzard, replace the 10% for freeze to be 30% for frostbite... Though adding a status move would still be good. As well as the ability. And maybe make something like a Tinfoil Hat (be a little snarky with the item!) that reduces special damage taken, or inflicts recoil like Rocky Helmet.
There's one thing you neglected to mention that's a pretty big advantage for physical attackers; almost every priority move is physical. Extreme speed, bullet punch, aqua jet, grassy glide, ice shard, mach punch, they're all staples on many physical attackers and a big part of what makes them so threatening.
still much easier to check and counter than many specially offensive option. it is not only that, physical attacker are generally easier to hinder, rough skin/iron barbs, rocky helmeth, intimidate... those are all items/elements that should have special counterpart. the only thing worth mentioning where special side has worse than physical is existence of av, but eventhat is too restrictive to be useful on most mons (tangrowth and slowking galar being the only 2 that are definitive strong users while most mons lose too much by restricting themselves with it)
@@nbassasin8092 I know all that, I watched the video and I'm not disagreeing with any of his points. Priority moves are just a notable thing that wasn't talked about.
One thing that is better about physcial attackers is that many of them have a reliable way boost both physical attack and speed in one set via Dragon Dance. Unless you're using a select few bug-types via Quiver Dance, you won't be able to reliably boost both special attack and speed in one set.
@@mr.swizzle9534 Swords dance is MUCH more available than nasty plot, and calm mind sucks as an offensive option. Nasty plot and Quiver dance are the only good special boosting moves, and very few strong poke,mon have them.
@@megselv6633 yes but i still dont think that swords dance and dragon dance are enough to counter the advantage sp atk have over physical attacks in current competitive play.
I think it would’ve been worth mentioning something about knock off. The ability for the move to be used to cover any switch and fit any playstyle is too overpowered
We really need Mega Stones and Z-Crystals back to check knock-off. The time Zamazenta-C fell to OU really made me happy to have an actual counter to knock-off spam.
Physical has better set up moves and overall less draw back to it's high power moves. Close combat lowers defense and special defense which doesn't cripple the main point of your attacker aka outspeed and kill. Alot of physical attackers have either dragon dance or swords dance + a priority move negating the speed weakness. Special attackers usually only get calm mind or nasty plot which aren't bad but without priority leaves them vulnerable if they can't outspeed. The best special boosting move quiver dance brought volcarona which has a pretty bad typing to be useable. If volcarona didn't have that move it would probably be in a similar tier to Moltres.
Yeah, I was surprised he didn't talk about physical attackers having an easier time sweeping. Sure Special has a lot of high BP moves, but most of them either drop Sp. Atk after (Draco, Overheat, ect.) or have low Accuracy (Fire Blast, Hurricane, ect.). Physical gets high BP moves that are reliable like CC and Earthquake, better set-up options, and priority to deal with scarves giving them the chance to destroy a whole team, while Special Attackers are more likely to just get a kill and run away.
@@duckymomo7935 yeh that's why most other special attackers are one trick ponies aka choice specs/scarf or dependent on terrain/weather. Good example being drifbloom it can gain all the stat buffs of a quiver dance thanks to calm mind and unburden it just needs a seed to do it. Kingdra has specs and swift swim and Venusaur has growth and chlorophyll. Without weather/ terrain these mons wouldn't be used as much.
This video feels like a massive improvement over the previous 'Pokemon movesets make no sense'. It feels much more focused, and much, MUCH easier to consume when the energy is turned down from '150%-ADHD' to 'semi-relaxing'. The editing in general is still not really my cup of tea with illustrations from showdown/videogames/anime/website/homemade Photoshop being mixed and used side by side, I generally like it when there's as few as possible different styles in one video. But that's my personal preference im airing out loud, I'm really happy the changes. Great video :) !
Personally I disagree about the editing. I typically only watch videos while doing something else like working or playing some games, so they're more like a podcast to me anyhow, but it's still nice being able to look over and visualize what I'm hearing. When it's not random memes and whatnot (which these types of videos from Doctor Joseph don't really have often), it feels like it complements what he's saying pretty well.
I believe I‘ve never read such a well-advised critique on the internet before. Regardless of someone agreeing with this or not, it makes sense and aims to improve the channel. As a language-teacher, I am proud
It's crazy that in spite of all these nerfs (I'd personally add the somewhat worse move pool on the physical side), special attackers are just slightly superior.
Things I would add: -even with nasty plot distribution in gen 8, it's still much easier to setup with physical attackers -physical attackers have almost all the priority (shard, jet, bp, grassy glide) -kartana has base 181 attack and is never restricted in OU or VGC -there are a few prominent physical utility moves that even out the status-causing special moves (knock, u-turn, spin) as well as body press which requires no attack investment -chansey/blissey can't be dismissed so readily, there's no pokemon on the physical side that can shut down so many potential sweepers on its own I would personally rephrase this title as "special attacks are more spammable" since physical moves often have big upsides and downsides
@@lordradiance2530 all of your examples are good walls but none of them even compare to bliss imo, simply for the fact that any physical fire move on an offensive Mon will straight up obliterate ferro, and most good fighting attacks will do like 40-60%, while slowbro and tangroth are both weak to bug, so upturn from lando still does like 30-40%. Bliss on the other hand simply does not care about any special attack whatsoever, bot even focus blast lol.
@@lordradiance2530 All 4 of the mons you listed are used for defensive cores, they're still vulnerable to type advantage. Meanwhile, blissey soaks up all special hits by itself. Literally, only lele and keldeo break it with direct damage alone.
Special attackers are also *generally* weaker to physical attacks though. And while special has a wide library of coverage, the moves themselves are generally weaker. The consistent versions of moves have lower base power (80-95), while the post Gen-6 powerful versions of certain types (the 110 BPs) suffer from abysmal accuracies. Compare this to physical mainstays, like Close Combat, Brave Bird, Megahorn, Earthquake, Power Whip, Stone Edge, Poltergeist, Meteor Mash, Gunk Shot, Double Edge, etc. which are not perfect moves by any means, but you can tell they are statistically a bit better than their special analogues (if similar power, usually better accuracy, and if not just more power). And, I think a lot of the reasons you list for physical attack being inferior is actually because of the opposite case being true; burns, rocky helmet, intimindate, all of that exists *because* physical attack is the premier method of offense. It's a balancing choice, if physical wasn't better than special then they wouldn't exist without special versions by now. And the way the generations of Pokemon have ended up also supports a trend towards very strong physical attackers getting strong STAB options, unlike the most appealing special attackers (usually being a type known for high SpA) getting stuck with lower bp STABs like Psychic, Shadow Ball, Sludge Bomb, or purposely opting for something like Thunderbolt or Ice Beam because the stronger options are too painful to even consider. Last bit here, special moves do have good status utility on their side, like Scald, Lava Plume, Discharge as you mentioned spreading status well with respectable damage. But, physical has the priority market almost entirely cornered! Vacuum Wave vs, what, Quick Attack/Extremespeed, Mach Punch, Aqua Jet, Sucker Punch, Shadow Sneak, Accelerock, Grassy Glide, etc.? That combined with the wide distribution of Swords Dance compared to Nasty Plot/Tail Glow (and even the distribution of Dragon Dance compared to Quiver Dance) necessitates the balancing of burn, intimidate, contact effects, and so on
"It's a balancing choice, if physical wasn't better than special then they wouldn't exist without special versions by now." I'd like for you to take a moment on how good Game Freak is at balancing after they released S/V and at least 6 of the new gen mons got quickbanned to Ubers within a couple of weeks.
The thing is, without all those balancing drawbacks, physical attackers would be even more dominant, right know the viability is kind of evened out but physical attackers usually get much better access to coverage like Earthquake, a non stopable U-Turn, SD (Nasty Plot isn’t even close in terms of distribution) Like where is any 100+ BP Special Move that can’t miss? Ofc CC, Flare Blitz and Brave Bird have Drawbacks but those are way better to deal with than the miss chances of Hurricane, Fire Blast or Focus Blast This video is not good since it seems to leave out a lot of points that would contradict your point
@@duckymomo7935 but that’s VGC, physical gets better because their sheer strength is good when it doesn’t matter if one pokemon walls when they can attack another. And the examples are good for more reasons than being physical. Zacian has insane speed offence, the best typing in the game, coverage, +1 attack at the start of battle, and has a 100/100 move that deals double damage against dynamax, if you convert everything physical to special it would still be the best. Incin has intimidate fake out, parting shot, and can attack either with flare blitz and darkest lariet, or snarl and flamethrower. Lando-T has intimidate stab max airstream plenty of versatility in attacking moves and a decent typing that can fit into any team. Grass monkey has grassy surge, fake out, strong priority stab in grassy terrain, knock off, easy to have in a core (types that cover each other, ex: fire water grass, or steel fairy fighting) VGC overall always seems to have a more balanced meta because of the nature of doubles and it’s even more polarizing the difference of physical and special because of moves like fake out that are stables and boost physical pokemon significantly, and abilities like intimidate that nerf physical pokemon significantly. Edit: I just realized how much I wrote I’m sorry for that. And if you don’t want to read it all, it’s more complex than just physical pokemon strong because big physical moves, and there’s alot that makes a good pokemon good.
I think it's a bit more complicated than that. The difference between ATK and SPATK has been getting deeper because of a vicious circle. Early on, ATK had better power-up tools. Swords Dance since gen 1, Curse as a TM in gen 2. Only in gen 3 we got Calm Mind - which isn't as widespread as Curse was - and the very limited Tail Glow, but then we also got Dragon Dance. Also, I believe the tools against contact moves even exist because they usually have a greater utility: the vast majority of priority moves, U-Turn (which is much more accessible than Volt Switch), Rapid Spin, Knock Off, among others (like Pursuit you mentioned). Even Choice Band was created 1 gen earlier than Specs and Scarf. The comparison about powerful moves is also a bit skewed. Close Combat and even the recoil moves seem to be bad, but their negative effects balance the fact they are powerful moves with 100% accuracy, unlike Thunder, Fire Blast, etc. Even the SPATK drop moves still have 90% accuracy, so while physical attackers won't get much effects, they at least are more reliable. And with that we can justify Earthquake, the only move with such a massive 100 base power with 100% accuracy and no drawbacks, and even very accessible on so many species. That's why I think GF felt the need to create so many countermeasures to physical attackers and contact moves, it was just easier to play with them. Only after so many of those we got Nasty Plot and Quiver Dance to even the field a bit for SPATK. Finally, we have more abilities that boost ATK than SPATK: besides the ones that boost both and are counterparts, physical have Guts, Huge/Pure Power, Anger Point, Moxie and Justified while special have Berserk and Solar Power - much more limited gameplay. Also, Sap Sipper has more utility than Storm Drain and Lightning Rod since Grass has many more disruptive moves (Spore, Powders, Leech Seed, etc.) than Water and Electric (basically just Scald and Thunder Wave/Nuzzle + Volt Switch). So yeah, it's still a balance issue, but more like a degenerated arms race than a preferred side.
Love that you branched out and are doing videos like this more, but some constructive criticism would be to maybe talk a little slower or split your argument up into sections so the viewer can follow it easier, maybe it was just be but it was hard to process some info since you moved by it so quickly, all in all it was a fun video
@@paulsmith9786 lol no he just jumped from point to point so quickly without any transition or break, I’m not saying it was impossible to understand, just harder than it could have been
I thought it flowed rather nicely to be honest, but I get what you mean. Right now, it feels more like him just talking a lot of info in a rather natural manner, rather than a structured essay, which might make it hard to process. But since he didn't jump around in a chaotic manner, I think it's fine. Plus, with videos like these, holding a viewer's attention is important, so the faster pace makes sense in that regard too. Otherwise, this could have been a 15 to 20 minute video too, which is less clickable.
I agree with everything in this video, the only thing I'd mention somewhat in favor of physical attackers is that stronger special attacks like fire blast, focus blast, hurricane, etc tend to have lower accuracy as their "downside" while most strong physical attacks rarely have this issue. Still doesn't really balance out imo, but it's worth noting. I will say tho, I'm very glad that tera blast has the photon geyser damage calculations, hidden power being pure special after gen 4 was definitely an unfortunate blow to some mons in the generational shift
To balance that out a ton of physical moves have non 100% acc or other drawbacks for absolutely no reason, for example aqua tail 90bp and 90 acc and no effect, a special attacker can also use a 90bp move in surf with no such drawback. Moves like moonblast tbolt ice beam and flamethrower have no physical equals with 100% acc and a positive effect, moonblast is 95bp while playrough is 90 and has 90% acc. Tbolt is 90bp and a 10% chance to para while wild charge cannot paralyze has a super low distribution and on top of that deals 25% recoil.
The physical side does get some help in priority moves being mostly physical as well as raw power, many main stab physical moves like eq and cc have high base power, 100% accuracy and no offensive drops where special moves generally don't have all three
true but still, it is much easier to deal with physical setup mon that has plus 2-3 than with special one, in terms of walls, abilities like intimidate or iron barbs, items like rocky helmeth, and generally more checks and counters. that in itself shows the difference nicely
@@nbassasin8092 Thing is the special mons that are able to setup are not too fast and die if you accidentally breath on them so you can easily revenge kill them.
@@RuneKillerz109 sorry but not really true, you are right they are one of those two things but not both Fini is super bulky and decently fast Volc can be ran both bulky and fast, you need to pick your poison outbof thise two flaws but there is no perfect mon those who are get banned. And give me physical counterpart to quiver dance, ill wait, best setup move in the game. Magearna has been banned for a reason as well, speed and bulk. Moltres is both bulky and fast after agility, and has great stab options. You could make same argument for physical attackers, why are they different in your eyes in terms of bulk and speed, for every fast physical attacker they make one special and also for every bulky. And they arent both ever But my point still stands, there are numerous ways to deal with physical ones without ever touching them, intimidate ruins their boost, if you know how to switch you can deal with them without any casualties, rocky helmeth and ferro/chomp can literally make some physical attackers kill themselves before they kill them, while any physically defensive regeberator user can come in, make them hurt and then go back out to recover all of that no punishment Zapdos can hinder their speed with one switch in if you are not careful, while moltres (and heatran if you about that life) can nuke their attacking stat the same way. Baneful bunker is anither contact move that can lose you mon if you are not careful (im not mentioning kings and spiky shield even though they also come in play they aint too competitively viable) And then you jave special attacker... who does not have to worry about aaaaaany of these things since they dont have any equivalent to them So even if you disagree after all of this, you atleast have ti admit it is much more brainless and penalty free to use special attacking mons that it is physical ones The only thing physical atrackers have better, in terms of oppobents hinderance not your own boost since that is another topic, is existance of assault vest, and if you want to be that guy sandstorm boost, although that is only meaningful on tyranitar. Also chancey and blissey are a thing, there is no physically defensive mon as fat as them. But they are easy to deal with if you know what you are doing Edit: when I was talking about moltres forgot to say that even switching in with physical attacker can be scary since scald scorsching sands and willowisp are all existing moves. Ive seen to many tines players losing to bulky cores since they cant break them after they got burned by pex. Again, no worries for special attacjers since they cant get cucked like physical ones
@NBA ssasin Dude @LeNigtvanNugt is waving the banner for physical attackers and it makes no sense Pokemon fans do that and i have no idea why. They really just find a random and wrong stance to die on a hill for. Like with Solgaleo, they will argue till blue in the face that a Sun God who eats the sun should be weak to fire. Of all three types it can have (Fire, Steel, Psych), psychic literally makes the keast amount of sense and they defend that till death. They wont wont even give it Flash Fire instead of clear body which makes absolutely no sense. Poke fans have no logic
I think (in a vacuum) physical hits harder, and I want to say more accurately, flair blitz 100% acc 120 base Vs 85% acc 110 fireblast . I think special is more coverage and utility with the loss of power or accuracy where is physically is all out power . Physical also as access to most the priority moves in the game bar vacuum wave and water shurikin . I feel a specs latios can nuke anything really well, where as a banded darmanitan can nuke everything really well. All that being said I think special definitely has the advantage
This is why I love gen 3 ou. Physical hidden powers and introduction of choice band (no specs yet) made physical and special feel more balanced despite physical dealing with burn, intimidate, and generally weaker base power moves.
God gen 3 didn't have the physical special split that ruins the gen for me it's a complete garbage fire for a lot of mons because gamefreak didn't design certain mons to work at all.
@@scottkaczmarski5238 gen 3 ou is actually one of the most diverse metagames around. Physical hidden power gives a lot of mons coverage they normally wouldn’t have, and things like the elemental punches being special gives a lot of special attackers fantastic coverage as well. Gengar may not have stabs, but it does hit a majority of your opponents team for super effective damage which is debatably just as good. Gyarados may not have stab waterfall but it does get stab hp flying, etc.
I think even Gamefreak agrees with this, as they dropped the power of nearly all of the high powered Special moves (Overheat variants, Fire Blast variants, Flamethrower variants, Magma Storm, etc)
@@gregorymirabella1423 My alot actually a bp of 10 maxs the special element beam barely out dmg the elemenetal punches, so it more to balance them out to completely nerf them.
Theres also the fact that, at least back in the day, Pokemon generally got given lower spatk stats than atk. The difference isnt as pronounced as it used to be, but mons with 400+ spatk stats especially used to be very rare compared to their physical counterparts.
Physical Attack is also cursed by Recoil moves. Flare Blitz, Double Edge, Wild Charge, Brave Bird. All these moves hurt the user a lot. In fact, Wild Charge is an awful move. It's just Electric Take Down. Besides that, one thing I think might have a slightly influence in Special Attacks being stronger is because of the in-game. What's funnier, specially if you're a kid: shooting lighting bolts and beams made of ice, or just a regular kick? They're more attractive, specially in a super casual environment. Even if it's waaaaay weaker, a Hyper Beam coming from a Stoutland, for instance, sounds and looks way more cool than it just using Return, Double Edge or maybe Strength. All the starters types were special pre gen 4 (fire, water and grass) as well as some types people often associate with being cool, as well as their moves: Dragon, Ice, Electric. Again, what sounds and looks cooler, specially if you're a little kid. The special moves. I belive some of these happens without competitive in mind, but rather, the devs make them so that casuals, which is the vast majority of the playerbase (which includes kids), have fun with their cool looking moves.
It's for a special intimidate or burn to NOT exist. Many people mistake SYMMETRIC with BALANCE and more importantly, FUN. If anything, true balance and fun comes with how small disparities end up canceling each other. That said: please GF, bring back pursuit!
I'm really hoping freeze into frostbite is here to stay, but I have feeling that frostbite is exclusive to PLA. Hopefully I'm wrong. Frostbite is a perfect counterpart to burn, and freeze is just a bad status effect, period.
i feel like in gen 3, game freak made intimidate out of fear that physical attackers would run choice band and roll over everything due to lack of EV’s. however, gen 4 came out with choice specs and they didn’t add a special version of intimidate
Love this new type of content from you Joey, refreshing and it's very insightful. As some constructive critique, it maybe easier for other people to follow if you split up the video into categories of things you're explaining and perhaps talk slower etc. I didn't have a problem with it at all, though I think it'll be helpful down the road. Keep up the good work and I hope you reach 300k! Been following you for years, you definitely deserve it!
One thing you didn't mention is the fact that special attacks are generally balanced through poor accuracy compared to physical counterparts who are more guaranteed damage but with drawbacks (stat drops, recoil, etc). The only exceptions I can really think of are rock type moves (stone edge and rock slide), likely due to how common rock weaknesses have always been (since flying and bug types are so common in the actual game, even if not as much competitively), and the elemental fangs which seem to bring along just a little bit of that special attacker drawback in favor of the coverage. An exception on the other side are moves like Overheat, Leaf Storm, and Draco Meteor, which have super high base power and only a 10% chance to miss (compared to 70-85 for most high bp special moves), but come with the more traditional physical move drawback of higher accuracy with self stat drops.
I always thought physical moves were better excluding all the anti contact stuff and Intimidate because they tend to have moves with both high power AND accuracy. Special moves usually pick one or the other. Take Close Combat as an example, vs Aura Sphere and Focus Blast.
The one physical/special thing I was thinking about lately was *confusion,* most notably *Swagger vs. Flatter.* Both moves confuse the opponent (unless it has Own Tempo of course) and raise its attack by two stages (Swagger) or special attack by one stage (Flatter.) Since confusion damage is calculated using the physical attack stat, physical attackers will do *more damage* to themselves if they hit themselves in confusion. Raising the opponent's attack with Swagger is always risky, but the point remains that physical attackers are more of a risk to themselves when confused than special attackers. Flatter essentially gives special attackers a free Sp.Atk boost with no immediate drawbacks; making it less useful compared to Swagger. *Funny story:* Slowflake, a now retired LPer, said he once saw a confused Carvanha knock itself out in two hits from full HP. On another note, Swagger & Flatter are excellent moves to use on Own Tempo partners in doubles.
I've been saying since gen 6 that physical dragon types are at a disadvantage because of fairy types. Outrage used to be too good, but is now unuseable because of how common fairy types are (looking at ya'll Tapus). I've really wanted a good replacement for Outrage since gen 6. Special attacker dragon types never stopped being able to drop draco meteors, but physical attacking dragons have to use..... dragon claw? There's a reason a lot of physical dragon types stopped carrying dragon STAB gen 7 and onward.
i used to run mixed salamence with hone claws and dragon rush/fire blast in Gen 6. Needless to say, it was pretty terrible. also a shame it couldn't get hurricane back then, and dragonite is even worse witout DD
@@driftwisp2797 It's cool, but it's not a powerful physical move, it's a physical move with good upside. Maybe Scale shot + the new loaded dice item coming in gen 9??? :D
I feel like physical attackers just have more brute power behind them, tons of priority moves, most physical mons have at least 1 physical boosting move: sword dance, dragon dance, bulk up, hone claws, curse, and belly drum, swords dance in particular is absurdly widespread/accessible, so they have tons of ways to boost their offense, and become a setup sweeper, when by contrast, Nasty plot/calm mind/Quiver dance is FAR RARER, it's incredibly valuable on mons who have it, but not many actually do have it at all, so physical mons get more accessible setup options. Physical mons just have far better distribution on their powerful moves. In addition to that, there are physical boosting abilities like huge/pure power, and guts to really get the physical attack stat up, it goes to only a few mons, but those few mons become stupidly powerful as a result of them, and puts them in a really good place competitively...meanwhile there are VERY FEW ABILITIES that boost special attackers, and benefit them, and only one that boosts them exclusively, plus/minus, which is unreliable, there are just far more abilities that buff physical/contact moves than special moves. There's also accuracy issues with special attacks, and most of the 120 power moves actually go to physical attacks as well that are more widely distributed, in addition to everyone having a 102 power physical move in return, giving them plenty of options, sure there are side effects like recoil, there's more counterplay, and they're less consistent, but they are generally more powerful, meanwhile a lot of the most powerful special moves lower the mons special attack, otherwise, many get stuck with 80 or 90 power moves to counteract them having no side effects, so physical attacks often have greater damage capabilities and more powerful moves with better accuracy, to contrast special attacks having additional effects like status effects and having no drawbacks with their moves. I think what also tips the scale is that in general, we just have a lot more variety of incredibly powerful and oppressive physical sweepers and they come in a far larger variety, many of the physical mons are just more powerful than special mons in addition to having more powerful attacks, and because of the sheer variety of their boosting moves, and that most physical mons have at least one of the boosting moves, far more options as well. We do get examples of oppressive special attackers in the past like Iron Bundle, Gengar, Dragapult, and Xerneas, but there are just so many more oppressive/powerful physical sweepers, in addition to Blissey being such a great special wall, there are more physical walls, but NONE are as great as Blissey would be as a special wall, though Blissey got heavily neutered in gen 9. If you look at the mons statistically, and in Smogon's OU/Ubers it's just incredibly skewed towards physical attackers in general, and they're incredibly dominant, and far more prominent, with OU being incredibly physical heavy, they even had to ban a few physical attackers like Dracovish, and Zacian, meanwhile outside iron bundle, I can't remember many special attackers being banned. I think it's more of a high risk high reward VS reliability issue, physical attackers in general are just more powerful, with far more tools at their disposal power wise, but there are more ways to counter physical attackers, status effects, abilities that screw over ones who attack on contact(though there are abilities that BENEFIT on contact moves,) intimidate, items, body press. Plus, while physical moves in general are more powerful, with most of the 120 ones belonging to the physical side, there are drawbacks like recoil, and special attackers are more reliable/consistent, with their less powerful moves having no side effects. In a vacuum, special attack does look better, but that's because there's just so many incredibly powerful physical sweepers with absurd physical attack compared to special ones with absurd special attack, and GF needs some way to balance that out. Do I feel like special attackers get a better deal than physical ones? Actually, yes, but sadly if there's also a status effect that halves someone's special attack, or if the penalty for physical attackers gets lessened...the trillions of physical sweepers would just run roughshod over the entire metagame, so until there's a solution to this problem, trying to do anything like that would just create a bigger problem. If there's a good idea to balance it, I'm welcome to hear it, but for now, there's at least a pretty good balance in the metagame in terms of representation between physical and special attackers in terms of who the top pokemon in competitive play are for the time being, despite how much worse physical mon look on paper. But hey, GF did realize that special mons have gotten too powerful...so they nerfed a lot of the special moves in previous generations.
I have always said that in order to balance comp mons, you need to balance the phys and special debuffs. Spec intim, frostbite in legends arkoos, abilities that give frostbite, etc.
I would love a special version of power up punch, intimidate, and more physical fire and electric move remove freeze and bring in frostbite and drowsy,.
@@majesticgothitelle1802 for sure. As for intimidate, that would be great as well, I just chose iron barbs because I’ve seen less people point it out. As for P-UP, just unnerfing Charge Beam would be nice. And frostbite will hopefully be in SV.
On the other hand, most powerful setup sweepers have been physical attackers. There is no special Dragon Dance. There is Quiver Dance, but almost nothing gets QD. And Swords Dance is vastly superior to Nasty Plot when you consider the distribution of priority moves. Then there is Calm Mind, which is just special Bulk Up (the least impressive of the three main atk-boosting moves) but which has nonetheless been the main enabler of special sweeps because the special side lacks better options.
The most simple answer to the title is because Pokemon is originally an RPG game, and they didn’t really adjust much with the concept of magic should be stronger than melee
I really wish they'd make a half sp at status, make a reverse to confusion based on sp. Attack (call it psychosis or something) and give an Intimidate to sp.atk.
Surprised you didn't mention priority moves being a physical attacker exclusive (besides vacuum wave but I'm talking about actual moves) but I agree the versatility and raw power from special users outweighs that benefit for sure.
Special attackers get easily accessible coverage in Hidden Power, which required specific IVs but Bottle Caps allowing for effectively maximum IVs has removed this downside. Physical attackers get lol Natural Gift, which not only requires a specific berry for your item slot but is also single-use. Oh, and not every physical attacker even gets this move either, unlike special attackers with Hidden Power
Confusion is a downside to physical attackers as when a pokemon hits themself in confusing, it uses their physical attack and defence in the damage, it's why swagger is so much more powerful that flatter
I personally love the asymmetry, physical attackers have a lot of powerful tools but there are also a lot of tools to deal with them. I’d love to see more tools both ways, but I like the differences, it’s what makes Pokémon fun.
I kinda agree, n its got me a bit torn on the frostbite vs freeze comparison. Cuz on the one hand, I dont think anyone likes the frozen status effect. Its unreliable, entirely luck based and once it hits that Pokemon often may as well be dead if it doesnt know a thawing move. On the other, frostbite really would just be "burn but opposite" and that would make status effects as a whole less varied, more samey, and more boring.
I feel like the generally higher base power of physical moves (and better accuracy of those high base power moves compared to higher powered special moves.) Are a pretty big ommision from the big picture here.
While I agree with what you said for the most part, physical attackers have one main advantage that wasn’t discussed-set up sweeping. Physical attackers tend to have next to no special attack and then dump the points into defenses and speed too so when they go for a Dragon Dance or Sword’s Dance-they don’t immediately die unless hit by a 4x weak attack. Think Gyarados, Dragonite, Haxorus, Tyranitar, and to a lesser extent-Weavile. By contrast Special Sweepers are either incredibly slow or frail. Past Gen 1 despite Alakazam having multiple moves to boost its special attack and speed, it often doesn’t run it because he’s so frail he’ll either die or be forced to switch before he can get the ball rolling. A good example of one being to slow is Slowbro who while his defenses a good, they aren’t take a bunch of thunderbolts or thunders that you can potentially get paralyzed by while setting up good. The only main Special Sweeper I can think of can get around this issue easy is Clefable who has a good enough ability that it can be immediately threatening with, ignores passive damage, has recovery options and defensive boosts with offensive ones to ensure it can stick around, and has a move pool deeper than the Grand Canyon to hit the opponent with. Many players won’t be as interested in Clefable when it takes 3-4 turns of set up and recovery that could then sweep the whole team than the Gyarados that uses Dragon Dance once or twice and can just decimate at least a couple of mons on the enemy team.
I think something to mention is the consistency and utility physical attackers get. By that I mean the little to no drawback moves with ridoculous power like earthquake, cc, and triple axel, and for utility I mean knock off, uturn, and basically every priority move.
yes but all those moves have big drawbacks and you can play around them : earthquake cant hit flying/levitate/baloon holders. CC lowers your def making you easy to revenge kill etc...only common sp attack with a drawback i can think of the top of my head is Draco meteor
@@Dd5yr5g the drawbacks are minor compared to the consistency of the damage and their spamability. Obv many special attacks are spammable too but they arent nearly as strong in base power. Only comparable one is like, moonblast.
Also better overall setup, if they don't have dragon dance then all they need is swords dance + a priority move. While special attackers only get calm mind and nasty plot which don't boost speed. Their main saving grace would be psyshock but that can easily be blocked by any dark type. A good example being Alakazam and Gengar. They have high speed and special attack , if they set up they can get hit and survive with a focus sash but that leads them vulnerable to sucker punch. If they don't set up then depending on who they match up against they can land a hit, not kill get hit in return and be vulnerable to a priority move. few ways they can combat this is a. Being a trapper like mega Gengar or C. Terrain and weather. Weather teams and terrain teams is where you'll see the most special attackers.
Special attack has a great middle ground with its 80/90 BP moves (Flamethrower/Thunderbolt/Ice Beam/Scald). The strongest special attacking moves are inaccurate (Hydro Pump, Hurricane, Blizzard, Focus Blast). The strongest physical attacking moves are more accurate, just with added disadvantages (Close Combat, Flare Blitz, Brave Bird). This isn't the case for every type though (Stone Edge, Iron Tail). Physical attack's middle ground seems to be worse than special attack's. A lot of attack 90 BP physical moves are inaccurate (Meteor Mash, Play Rough, Zen Headbutt, Aqua Tail). Physical attackers have to deal with burn, intimidate, contact penalty (Iron Barbs, Rocky Helmet, King's Shield) Special attackers have to deal with assault vest and is walled quite easily by a few key Pokemon (Blissey, Chansey, Goodra). Attack boosts are much easier to stop but has more potential power. A special attack boost is harder to stop and more reliable. Swords dance is more common than nasty plot. In general, special attackers offer more reliable damage and sweeps. Physical attack has higher raw damage output potential, but are easier to stop.
Special intimidate and a status the lowers special attack like burn are sorely needed. Also physical moves need more variety in power and move types. The only real advantage physical attacker’s have is the more numerous abilities that combine with physical attacks. Huge and Pure Power, Tough Claws, Strong Jaws, Iron Fist, Guts, Technician, and Defiant being the best examples.
@@ShotgunHunter97 I know, but how many special moves are at 60 power to maximize Technician, and how many Pokémon who have Technician are special attackers after Gen 4?
So before watching the video and seeing your reasoning, I will give my assessment. Overall, I think physical attacks and attack mons are stronger. There are abilities that boost physical attack; Guts, Huge/Pure Power, Hustle, Moxie, Defiant, and in niche situations Anger Point. For the special side you have Competitive and I think that's it unless I'm forgetting one. When it comes to powerful moves I have to give the advantage to physical attackers again. While moves like Overheat, and Leaf Storm and Draco will do more damage, you can't use them multiple times and get the same damage output like you can with Close Combat, V-Create, and Dragon Ascent. Moves like Flare Blitz and Head Smash are powerful with draw backs that don't hinder the damage they do. And while yes, you can burn a pokemon to hurt the damage they do, I feel like it was needed because of how strong physical attackers were. But Facade is a move that doubles the power of burned. Special attacks don't have anything like that but specially defensive pokemon or just pokemon with good HP and okay specifical defense can run an Assault Vest and mitigate a good chunk of the damage from those attacks. There's not like that for physical attackers to deal with. So overall I think physical attacks and attackers are more potent.
You are forgetting one special attack boosting ability but it's really bad. Plus and Minus. The only situation where it is useful is on Entrainment Dedenne. Edit: Oh yeah and Grim Neigh, but that's a signature ability.
@@samsungrefrigeratorcondens4354 I didn't count the ponies because Chilling Neigh boosts attack so they kind of cancel out and Plus and Minus are never going to be useful in anything outside of niche doubles scenarios. Insanely hard to pull it off in singles.
Special Attackers have to worry about: Blissey Physical Attackers have to worry about: Intimidate, Rocky Helmet, Iron Barbs, Poison Point/Static/Flame Body, foul play, willo, confusion, strength sap, etc
When I was young I realised that attack debuffs are a lot more common than special attack ones, so my special attackers were more likely to maintain a barrage of full powered attacks. Nowadays I have to remind myself that physical attacks are worth picking up sometimes.
I love these videos where Joey sounds like he’s giving a class presentation. Not only are they incredibly insightful, but the way Joey talks you can literally hear the punctuations 😂
There's a trade up to all this and really it's just a coverage issue. Too many mons know too many moves. Like sure Gen 1's don't have the best stat distributions but they learn almost every move. It's not as bad in newer gens but it's still pretty bad like all the electric types almost all getting grass knot.
Sandstorm special defense boost and assault vest are some rough stuff that special attackers have to deal with, though sandstorm is only for rock types (which get blasted by the common strong sp atking types) and vest has a pretty significant requirement. Overall phys attackers get the shorter end of the stick still.
I'm curious as to why, if this is the case, gen 8 OU is dominated by physical attackers. Sure, you have monsters like Blacephalon and Tapu Lele, but just as commonly, you see Kartana, Melmetal, Urshifu, Weavile, and Garchomp. Even Dragapult, which has no good physical Ghost coverage, runs physical sets half the time.
Cuz one thing aim didn’t mention is that there isn’t really a reliable hard hitting special move. Moves like focus blast, draco, fire blast, hurricane, and hydro are all not accurate. Special attackers often have to use a lower dmg but more accurate move. For blacephalon case it’s flamethrower over fire blast or mind blown. For lele, both of its stab moves are below 100 base power, it can’t really pack a punch like urshifu cc, or surging strike which always crit to begin with. On the other hand, you never really need to worry about move accuracy on Pokémon you mentioned.
I think one thing to consider that different types benefit differently from being physical or not because the available moves. Ghost was meh physically until we got poletergeist. Electric notably lacks good physical moves. Fighting notably lacks good special moves with Lucaria usually being physical despite his bigger special attack and access to nasty plot
I feel like GF does to some degree agree that spatk is stronger than atk, and this is reflected in the difference between the highest atk and spatk stats. Though I do think the power creep of the last few gens has decreased this gap a fair bit.
Asymmetries like this are good; it makes the use of any given mon more deliberate. Everyone loves the physical/special split for making Gyarados awesome for like 3 gens in a row, but there's also something to the dual relationship of type advantage + stat advantage. I wish GF would revisit that in some way e.g. with bespoke moves that work something like Psyshock.
Love the explanatory content like this. I knew intimidate and burn were advantages of being special, but everything else never occurred to me, really insightful!
There is one other advantage that Physical has over Special: Priority moves. I cannot think of a single priority special attack, but physical has a few. Sure, they aren't that strong, but they aren't that bad in the right setup. An example, in what I think was gen 5, I had a team of 5 setup physical sweepers, with Terrakion as a stealth rocks lead. Of the 5 sweepers, Scizzor and Breloom with their technician boosted priority punches, and Dragonite with Dragon Dance Dragonite with Extreme Speed made for a great team. I'd force a switch after Terrakion died, dance on their switch, and start wall breaking. Rinse repeat after any pokemon gets wiped. Maybe not top tier, but it still shows that priority is something that Physical has in their name. Also, multi-hitting moves either for sub breaking, sash breaking, sturdy breaking or paired with Skill Link for damage. Also not top tier, but it's something else that Special attacks don't have, at least to my knowledge. Does that make them even with even with special attackers? Hell no, but they do have some things that special attackers don't have, and I just wanted to mention that.
loved the topic on this vid, but i think your narration could've been better. it sounded as if you were just directly reading from the script with poor pacing and little pauses for the listener to cosume what you've just said. just something i thought you could improve on.
When it comes to special attackers, you do not even have to worry about the consequences of making direct physical contact because of abilities like Rough Skin and Poison Point.
This is why I really hope of the things that carry over from Legends Arceus to Gen 9, I think Frostbite should supplant Freeze. Having a special counterpart to Burn nerfs at least begins to level the playing field.
Great vídeo, I think you really should do more stuff like this. Also, I think that if you talked a little slower, just a tiny bit would just do It for me
I think Freezai put it well when he said "Physical attackers have to deal with things like intimidate and burns, special attackers have to deal with Blissey." Makes sense how in tiers without that special attackers would be preferred Edit: And Aim put it the same, good vid
If you’d like to check out more vids ive done similar to this -
Pokemon Movesets make no sense: m.ua-cam.com/video/sVO4qz8SOh4/v-deo.html
Clefable is Broken: m.ua-cam.com/video/tD8_GROnB_o/v-deo.html
make a playlist or something pls
@@train9419 ye just did ty
What do you use to make your videos?
@@thaheartbreaker obs adobe premier pro
@@pokeaimMD thanks🤍 that’s an app?
The only other advantage physical attackers have that I can think of that Joey didn't mention is priority. Almost all priority moves are physical.
Yes good point! There's also a bunch of abilities that really help physical attackers, like huge/pure power, guts, moxie, though claws, iron fist. And technician and no guard are typically used by physical mons. But there's a lot of great abilities for special attackers too ofc.
@@odompiano no guard mega Pidgeot tho
Vacuum Wave is on like 6 Pokémon and any major usage of it was on a Toxicroak probably so no one remembers it
@@creativename7021 Do you know what "typically" means tho? One exception that doesn't even exist anymore means nothing.
-sword dance being far more common than nasty plot
-dragon dance generally being on usable mons while quiver dance is mostly on shitmons.
-hugh bp moves are balanced by drawback instead of by accuracy. You can play around close combat or fire blitz, you have to pray that focus blast and fire blast don't miss.
-no phisical assault vest
-phisical blissey is an ice type
-more abilities that boost phisical or contact mives.
Personally, i'd say ohisical and special are fairly balanced. Phisical has more common annoyances tho.
J my name is Joey battles what I go about. Miltank the mascot swerve when I rollout...
I am surprised they haven't created an intimidate for special attackers yet. Or a status for lowering special attackers. Flame body, burn and intimidate among others really hurt physical attackers.
There is a status that lowers special attack yet it's still only in legends arceus and I believe it was called frostbite
Frostbite was the burn to special attackers. I hope that gets brought to gen 9 over the regular freeze
thing is that burn nerf indirectly buffed special attackers. Like Latios eating a burn in gen 5 means it's basically useless trying to switch into keldeo anymore. Stuff like starmie or keldeo eating a burn in gen 6 means that bisharp or mega metagross gonna mess you up lategame. But then gen 7 came around and the burn nerf basically meant that special attackers would no longer lose health with lefties and that everything had better longevity. Hot take, without burn nerf pex would be A- at best in OU because it would be forced to spam recover instead of eating every hit due to the constant 12% chip.
If Frostbite does not return, they should change it where being poison drops the special attack stat
@@Rodolphin no it will bring even more toxic in competitive
Moonblast with 24 pp, 95 damage, and 30% chance to lower sp attack is another reason why sp attacks are so potent
True but not everyone has that move and as of now no way to teach it
pp, 24 pp
Beam Attacks In DBZ LSW Are Better Too!The Beam Deck Is Better Than The Damage Deck!
@@chimuoma390 k
They nerfed I-Beam, T-bolt and F-thrower from 95 to 90 at the same time Moonblast came out. Should have given that 90 PP too... (I get that the Fairy typing had to be hyped etc. etc.)
I really hope gen 9 implements frostbite and makes a will o wisp clone for it to help bridge the gap
some specially oriented intimidate version of ability would be nie as well, give it to some new mons plus some older less relevant ones to make them more relevant
I honestly hope they'll leave it at a scald like attack at most. just imagine the power creep required for special (hyper-)offense to play around this. Blissey already walls them hard with this it'll just become balance/stall meta.
@LeNigtvanNugt
Bruh i know you watched Freezai and although hes one of the GOATS, hes completely wrong about the special physical balance
Having to deal with Blissey is NOT enough. We need more ways to deal with special attackers other than being forced to use a freakin Blissey
Yeah and just remove Freeze. That thing is so blatantly noncompetitive that it hurts.
I agree with @LeNigtvanNugt to some extent though, if there was a move that cuts SpA in half like Will-o does for Atk, it should be very sparsely distributed. Maybe make it exclusive to Ice types like Freeze-Dry and Aurora Veil are (well, Mew got the latter in gen 7 but you get my point), the type could still use some buffs. Especially as the Freeze status would be removed from their stabs.
However, I don't think it should be a rare move because of Blissey, but because of the design philosophy that the two attack stats seem to have. Physical Attack is the more volatile by design, having more things that can shut them down like Burn, Intimidate, etc. but also having more opportunities for boosting or outright massive damage from the get-go, like Guts, Huge Power, and moves that have recoil or some other negative effect in return for big base power being more common for Physical attackers. Swords Dance being more widely available than Nasty Plot could also be argued to be a part of that. Lessening this volatility for Physical side or increasing it for Special side too much would just make the two stats feel too similar in what they do and how to deal with them, which would overall make having two of them feel a bit redundant and the combat would just feel less varied.
@@wombat4191 why would freeze be removed from stabs? It would just be replaced with the new thing, frostbite
This is why I really want Frostbite back in SV.
I second this, balanced must be restored to the world of Pokemon.
@Harley Quinn © bro wtf that shit was sad
Yes. Also add a move that inflicts it like Will-o-Wisp.
Same.
@@samsungrefrigeratorcondens4354 Or replace/power up things like Ice Punch/Beam and Blizzard, replace the 10% for freeze to be 30% for frostbite... Though adding a status move would still be good. As well as the ability. And maybe make something like a Tinfoil Hat (be a little snarky with the item!) that reduces special damage taken, or inflicts recoil like Rocky Helmet.
There's one thing you neglected to mention that's a pretty big advantage for physical attackers; almost every priority move is physical. Extreme speed, bullet punch, aqua jet, grassy glide, ice shard, mach punch, they're all staples on many physical attackers and a big part of what makes them so threatening.
still much easier to check and counter than many specially offensive option. it is not only that, physical attacker are generally easier to hinder, rough skin/iron barbs, rocky helmeth, intimidate... those are all items/elements that should have special counterpart. the only thing worth mentioning where special side has worse than physical is existence of av, but eventhat is too restrictive to be useful on most mons (tangrowth and slowking galar being the only 2 that are definitive strong users while most mons lose too much by restricting themselves with it)
@@nbassasin8092 I know all that, I watched the video and I'm not disagreeing with any of his points. Priority moves are just a notable thing that wasn't talked about.
Barely any Special Priority attacking moves. Only one I can think of is Vacuum Wave
Only thing I think I want to add is that rock types have 1.5 spdef in sandstorm, but the only rock type sand setters are tyranitar and gigalith
This goes for Ground and Steel too, or is it exclusive to Rock?
@@MedicalBillz nah, only rock types get the 1.5 sp.def boost in sandstorm, ground and steel types just dont get chip dmg by sandstorm
@@MedicalBillz ground and steel don't take damage, but don't get the spdef buff.
@@dakyuu8519 My knowledge has been busted all this time, I like using Hippowdon as a main sand setter too.
I like using gigalith to block certain special attacks thanks to that boost. It be surviving focus blasts alot of the time
One thing that is better about physcial attackers is that many of them have a reliable way boost both physical attack and speed in one set via Dragon Dance. Unless you're using a select few bug-types via Quiver Dance, you won't be able to reliably boost both special attack and speed in one set.
Exactly. Swords Dance and Dragon Dance are, by themselves, balancing out almost all the advantages special moves have over physical moves.
@@megselv6633 not really tbh, sp attackers still have nasty plot and calm mind + the mentioned advantages
@@mr.swizzle9534 exactly. The same. I would personally take a move that ups speed and attack, but other than that, sp. Attack have the same boost.
@@mr.swizzle9534 Swords dance is MUCH more available than nasty plot, and calm mind sucks as an offensive option. Nasty plot and Quiver dance are the only good special boosting moves, and very few strong poke,mon have them.
@@megselv6633 yes but i still dont think that swords dance and dragon dance are enough to counter the advantage sp atk have over physical attacks in current competitive play.
I think it would’ve been worth mentioning something about knock off. The ability for the move to be used to cover any switch and fit any playstyle is too overpowered
I think knockoff only working until switching out is fair answer
We really need Mega Stones and Z-Crystals back to check knock-off. The time Zamazenta-C fell to OU really made me happy to have an actual counter to knock-off spam.
Physical has better set up moves and overall less draw back to it's high power moves. Close combat lowers defense and special defense which doesn't cripple the main point of your attacker aka outspeed and kill. Alot of physical attackers have either dragon dance or swords dance + a priority move negating the speed weakness. Special attackers usually only get calm mind or nasty plot which aren't bad but without priority leaves them vulnerable if they can't outspeed. The best special boosting move quiver dance brought volcarona which has a pretty bad typing to be useable. If volcarona didn't have that move it would probably be in a similar tier to Moltres.
Yeah, I was surprised he didn't talk about physical attackers having an easier time sweeping. Sure Special has a lot of high BP moves, but most of them either drop Sp. Atk after (Draco, Overheat, ect.) or have low Accuracy (Fire Blast, Hurricane, ect.). Physical gets high BP moves that are reliable like CC and Earthquake, better set-up options, and priority to deal with scarves giving them the chance to destroy a whole team, while Special Attackers are more likely to just get a kill and run away.
Nasty plot and calm mind has bad distribution
A special fire type cannot set up sweep
@@duckymomo7935 yeh that's why most other special attackers are one trick ponies aka choice specs/scarf or dependent on terrain/weather. Good example being drifbloom it can gain all the stat buffs of a quiver dance thanks to calm mind and unburden it just needs a seed to do it. Kingdra has specs and swift swim and Venusaur has growth and chlorophyll. Without weather/ terrain these mons wouldn't be used as much.
@@duckymomo7935 Z-celebrate Victini
@@duckymomo7935 Volcarona but yeah
This video feels like a massive improvement over the previous 'Pokemon movesets make no sense'. It feels much more focused, and much, MUCH easier to consume when the energy is turned down from '150%-ADHD' to 'semi-relaxing'.
The editing in general is still not really my cup of tea with illustrations from showdown/videogames/anime/website/homemade Photoshop being mixed and used side by side, I generally like it when there's as few as possible different styles in one video. But that's my personal preference im airing out loud, I'm really happy the changes.
Great video :) !
Personally I disagree about the editing. I typically only watch videos while doing something else like working or playing some games, so they're more like a podcast to me anyhow, but it's still nice being able to look over and visualize what I'm hearing. When it's not random memes and whatnot (which these types of videos from Doctor Joseph don't really have often), it feels like it complements what he's saying pretty well.
I believe I‘ve never read such a well-advised critique on the internet before. Regardless of someone agreeing with this or not, it makes sense and aims to improve the channel. As a language-teacher, I am proud
Intimidate, Rocky Helmet, Rough Skin, Iron Barbs, Flame Body, and Static are all things only physical attackers need to worry about.
It's crazy that in spite of all these nerfs (I'd personally add the somewhat worse move pool on the physical side), special attackers are just slightly superior.
Strength sap
And think about all the things special attackers have to contend with. Chansey.... and yeah. But that's enough
Say that to my grass knot belossom
@@bfc9467 The single biggest obstacle for special attackers is AV but that's hardly as bad as some of the physical nerfs.
Things I would add:
-even with nasty plot distribution in gen 8, it's still much easier to setup with physical attackers
-physical attackers have almost all the priority (shard, jet, bp, grassy glide)
-kartana has base 181 attack and is never restricted in OU or VGC
-there are a few prominent physical utility moves that even out the status-causing special moves (knock, u-turn, spin) as well as body press which requires no attack investment
-chansey/blissey can't be dismissed so readily, there's no pokemon on the physical side that can shut down so many potential sweepers on its own
I would personally rephrase this title as "special attacks are more spammable" since physical moves often have big upsides and downsides
i feel like ferrothorn tangrowth slowbro and rough skin mons do a pretty good job at shutting down physical sweepers
@@lordradiance2530 all of your examples are good walls but none of them even compare to bliss imo, simply for the fact that any physical fire move on an offensive Mon will straight up obliterate ferro, and most good fighting attacks will do like 40-60%, while slowbro and tangroth are both weak to bug, so upturn from lando still does like 30-40%. Bliss on the other hand simply does not care about any special attack whatsoever, bot even focus blast lol.
@@lordradiance2530 All 4 of the mons you listed are used for defensive cores, they're still vulnerable to type advantage. Meanwhile, blissey soaks up all special hits by itself. Literally, only lele and keldeo break it with direct damage alone.
sorry what is bp here
@@kcorn3215 depends on the bliss set cuz most people run max def+
Special attackers are also *generally* weaker to physical attacks though. And while special has a wide library of coverage, the moves themselves are generally weaker. The consistent versions of moves have lower base power (80-95), while the post Gen-6 powerful versions of certain types (the 110 BPs) suffer from abysmal accuracies. Compare this to physical mainstays, like Close Combat, Brave Bird, Megahorn, Earthquake, Power Whip, Stone Edge, Poltergeist, Meteor Mash, Gunk Shot, Double Edge, etc. which are not perfect moves by any means, but you can tell they are statistically a bit better than their special analogues (if similar power, usually better accuracy, and if not just more power).
And, I think a lot of the reasons you list for physical attack being inferior is actually because of the opposite case being true; burns, rocky helmet, intimindate, all of that exists *because* physical attack is the premier method of offense. It's a balancing choice, if physical wasn't better than special then they wouldn't exist without special versions by now. And the way the generations of Pokemon have ended up also supports a trend towards very strong physical attackers getting strong STAB options, unlike the most appealing special attackers (usually being a type known for high SpA) getting stuck with lower bp STABs like Psychic, Shadow Ball, Sludge Bomb, or purposely opting for something like Thunderbolt or Ice Beam because the stronger options are too painful to even consider.
Last bit here, special moves do have good status utility on their side, like Scald, Lava Plume, Discharge as you mentioned spreading status well with respectable damage.
But, physical has the priority market almost entirely cornered! Vacuum Wave vs, what, Quick Attack/Extremespeed, Mach Punch, Aqua Jet, Sucker Punch, Shadow Sneak, Accelerock, Grassy Glide, etc.? That combined with the wide distribution of Swords Dance compared to Nasty Plot/Tail Glow (and even the distribution of Dragon Dance compared to Quiver Dance) necessitates the balancing of burn, intimidate, contact effects, and so on
"It's a balancing choice, if physical wasn't better than special then they wouldn't exist without special versions by now."
I'd like for you to take a moment on how good Game Freak is at balancing after they released S/V and at least 6 of the new gen mons got quickbanned to Ubers within a couple of weeks.
One thing for physical attackers that was unmentioned was knock off which there’s no special counterpart to.
Corrosive gas but ye
@@pokeaimMD Incinerate as well to a degree
Mmmm incinerate would count no? Its not 1:1 but close enough
Just gonna say
Special intimidate is a bad idea
But frostbite is a great one
Am I the only one who finds the editing kinda heat
The thing is, without all those balancing drawbacks, physical attackers would be even more dominant, right know the viability is kind of evened out but physical attackers usually get much better access to coverage like Earthquake, a non stopable U-Turn, SD (Nasty Plot isn’t even close in terms of distribution)
Like where is any 100+ BP Special Move that can’t miss? Ofc CC, Flare Blitz and Brave Bird have Drawbacks but those are way better to deal with than the miss chances of Hurricane, Fire Blast or Focus Blast
This video is not good since it seems to leave out a lot of points that would contradict your point
The best Pokémon in the Danes right now are physical: zacian, rillaboom, incenroar and landorus
@@duckymomo7935 but that’s VGC, physical gets better because their sheer strength is good when it doesn’t matter if one pokemon walls when they can attack another. And the examples are good for more reasons than being physical. Zacian has insane speed offence, the best typing in the game, coverage, +1 attack at the start of battle, and has a 100/100 move that deals double damage against dynamax, if you convert everything physical to special it would still be the best. Incin has intimidate fake out, parting shot, and can attack either with flare blitz and darkest lariet, or snarl and flamethrower. Lando-T has intimidate stab max airstream plenty of versatility in attacking moves and a decent typing that can fit into any team. Grass monkey has grassy surge, fake out, strong priority stab in grassy terrain, knock off, easy to have in a core (types that cover each other, ex: fire water grass, or steel fairy fighting)
VGC overall always seems to have a more balanced meta because of the nature of doubles and it’s even more polarizing the difference of physical and special because of moves like fake out that are stables and boost physical pokemon significantly, and abilities like intimidate that nerf physical pokemon significantly.
Edit: I just realized how much I wrote I’m sorry for that. And if you don’t want to read it all, it’s more complex than just physical pokemon strong because big physical moves, and there’s alot that makes a good pokemon good.
Astral Barrage
@@xGatorchomp28x yea I’m sure that signature move to a top tier Ubers Pokemon changes everything
@@gigalodon14 It's the reason dark type Ubers are the most used right now... Because they resist it 😊
I think it's a bit more complicated than that. The difference between ATK and SPATK has been getting deeper because of a vicious circle.
Early on, ATK had better power-up tools. Swords Dance since gen 1, Curse as a TM in gen 2. Only in gen 3 we got Calm Mind - which isn't as widespread as Curse was - and the very limited Tail Glow, but then we also got Dragon Dance. Also, I believe the tools against contact moves even exist because they usually have a greater utility: the vast majority of priority moves, U-Turn (which is much more accessible than Volt Switch), Rapid Spin, Knock Off, among others (like Pursuit you mentioned). Even Choice Band was created 1 gen earlier than Specs and Scarf.
The comparison about powerful moves is also a bit skewed. Close Combat and even the recoil moves seem to be bad, but their negative effects balance the fact they are powerful moves with 100% accuracy, unlike Thunder, Fire Blast, etc. Even the SPATK drop moves still have 90% accuracy, so while physical attackers won't get much effects, they at least are more reliable. And with that we can justify Earthquake, the only move with such a massive 100 base power with 100% accuracy and no drawbacks, and even very accessible on so many species.
That's why I think GF felt the need to create so many countermeasures to physical attackers and contact moves, it was just easier to play with them. Only after so many of those we got Nasty Plot and Quiver Dance to even the field a bit for SPATK.
Finally, we have more abilities that boost ATK than SPATK: besides the ones that boost both and are counterparts, physical have Guts, Huge/Pure Power, Anger Point, Moxie and Justified while special have Berserk and Solar Power - much more limited gameplay. Also, Sap Sipper has more utility than Storm Drain and Lightning Rod since Grass has many more disruptive moves (Spore, Powders, Leech Seed, etc.) than Water and Electric (basically just Scald and Thunder Wave/Nuzzle + Volt Switch).
So yeah, it's still a balance issue, but more like a degenerated arms race than a preferred side.
Love that you branched out and are doing videos like this more, but some constructive criticism would be to maybe talk a little slower or split your argument up into sections so the viewer can follow it easier, maybe it was just be but it was hard to process some info since you moved by it so quickly, all in all it was a fun video
Agreed.
Dsagreed. Are you a non-native English speaker?
@@paulsmith9786 lol no he just jumped from point to point so quickly without any transition or break, I’m not saying it was impossible to understand, just harder than it could have been
I thought it flowed rather nicely to be honest, but I get what you mean. Right now, it feels more like him just talking a lot of info in a rather natural manner, rather than a structured essay, which might make it hard to process. But since he didn't jump around in a chaotic manner, I think it's fine. Plus, with videos like these, holding a viewer's attention is important, so the faster pace makes sense in that regard too. Otherwise, this could have been a 15 to 20 minute video too, which is less clickable.
That's tough as he's a new Yorker.
I agree with everything in this video, the only thing I'd mention somewhat in favor of physical attackers is that stronger special attacks like fire blast, focus blast, hurricane, etc tend to have lower accuracy as their "downside" while most strong physical attacks rarely have this issue. Still doesn't really balance out imo, but it's worth noting. I will say tho, I'm very glad that tera blast has the photon geyser damage calculations, hidden power being pure special after gen 4 was definitely an unfortunate blow to some mons in the generational shift
that can be said for a lot of strong physical moves too, like gunk shot, power whip, megahorn, and Stone edge.
@@theaegislash8249 yeah but 80% feels a lot better than 70%
To balance that out a ton of physical moves have non 100% acc or other drawbacks for absolutely no reason, for example aqua tail 90bp and 90 acc and no effect, a special attacker can also use a 90bp move in surf with no such drawback. Moves like moonblast tbolt ice beam and flamethrower have no physical equals with 100% acc and a positive effect, moonblast is 95bp while playrough is 90 and has 90% acc.
Tbolt is 90bp and a 10% chance to para while wild charge cannot paralyze has a super low distribution and on top of that deals 25% recoil.
The physical side does get some help in priority moves being mostly physical as well as raw power, many main stab physical moves like eq and cc have high base power, 100% accuracy and no offensive drops where special moves generally don't have all three
true but still, it is much easier to deal with physical setup mon that has plus 2-3 than with special one, in terms of walls, abilities like intimidate or iron barbs, items like rocky helmeth, and generally more checks and counters. that in itself shows the difference nicely
Also nasty plot compared to swords dance and dd users are a much smaller pool
@@nbassasin8092 Thing is the special mons that are able to setup are not too fast and die if you accidentally breath on them so you can easily revenge kill them.
@@RuneKillerz109 sorry but not really true, you are right they are one of those two things but not both
Fini is super bulky and decently fast
Volc can be ran both bulky and fast, you need to pick your poison outbof thise two flaws but there is no perfect mon those who are get banned. And give me physical counterpart to quiver dance, ill wait, best setup move in the game. Magearna has been banned for a reason as well, speed and bulk. Moltres is both bulky and fast after agility, and has great stab options. You could make same argument for physical attackers, why are they different in your eyes in terms of bulk and speed, for every fast physical attacker they make one special and also for every bulky. And they arent both ever
But my point still stands, there are numerous ways to deal with physical ones without ever touching them, intimidate ruins their boost, if you know how to switch you can deal with them without any casualties,
rocky helmeth and ferro/chomp can literally make some physical attackers kill themselves before they kill them, while any physically defensive regeberator user can come in, make them hurt and then go back out to recover all of that no punishment
Zapdos can hinder their speed with one switch in if you are not careful, while moltres (and heatran if you about that life) can nuke their attacking stat the same way. Baneful bunker is anither contact move that can lose you mon if you are not careful (im not mentioning kings and spiky shield even though they also come in play they aint too competitively viable)
And then you jave special attacker... who does not have to worry about aaaaaany of these things since they dont have any equivalent to them
So even if you disagree after all of this, you atleast have ti admit it is much more brainless and penalty free to use special attacking mons that it is physical ones
The only thing physical atrackers have better, in terms of oppobents hinderance not your own boost since that is another topic, is existance of assault vest, and if you want to be that guy sandstorm boost, although that is only meaningful on tyranitar. Also chancey and blissey are a thing, there is no physically defensive mon as fat as them. But they are easy to deal with if you know what you are doing
Edit: when I was talking about moltres forgot to say that even switching in with physical attacker can be scary since scald scorsching sands and willowisp are all existing moves. Ive seen to many tines players losing to bulky cores since they cant break them after they got burned by pex. Again, no worries for special attacjers since they cant get cucked like physical ones
@NBA ssasin
Dude @LeNigtvanNugt is waving the banner for physical attackers and it makes no sense
Pokemon fans do that and i have no idea why. They really just find a random and wrong stance to die on a hill for. Like with Solgaleo, they will argue till blue in the face that a Sun God who eats the sun should be weak to fire. Of all three types it can have (Fire, Steel, Psych), psychic literally makes the keast amount of sense and they defend that till death.
They wont wont even give it Flash Fire instead of clear body which makes absolutely no sense. Poke fans have no logic
I think (in a vacuum) physical hits harder, and I want to say more accurately, flair blitz 100% acc 120 base Vs 85% acc 110 fireblast . I think special is more coverage and utility with the loss of power or accuracy where is physically is all out power . Physical also as access to most the priority moves in the game bar vacuum wave and water shurikin . I feel a specs latios can nuke anything really well, where as a banded darmanitan can nuke everything really well. All that being said I think special definitely has the advantage
👍
This is why I love gen 3 ou. Physical hidden powers and introduction of choice band (no specs yet) made physical and special feel more balanced despite physical dealing with burn, intimidate, and generally weaker base power moves.
agreed, choice specs was a mistake.
God gen 3 didn't have the physical special split that ruins the gen for me it's a complete garbage fire for a lot of mons because gamefreak didn't design certain mons to work at all.
@@melvondrewhite2674 choice band is fine, but giving the same thing to special attackers is bullshit.
@@melvondrewhite2674 well then they switch out and get it back in to kill the next one and then the next one and then the next one.
@@scottkaczmarski5238 gen 3 ou is actually one of the most diverse metagames around. Physical hidden power gives a lot of mons coverage they normally wouldn’t have, and things like the elemental punches being special gives a lot of special attackers fantastic coverage as well. Gengar may not have stabs, but it does hit a majority of your opponents team for super effective damage which is debatably just as good. Gyarados may not have stab waterfall but it does get stab hp flying, etc.
"The divide has been there since the first day of Pokémon."
And this is why we love the physical/special split.
I think even Gamefreak agrees with this, as they dropped the power of nearly all of the high powered Special moves (Overheat variants, Fire Blast variants, Flamethrower variants, Magma Storm, etc)
not by much though.
@@gregorymirabella1423 My alot actually a bp of 10 maxs the special element beam barely out dmg the elemenetal punches, so it more to balance them out to completely nerf them.
Theres also the fact that, at least back in the day, Pokemon generally got given lower spatk stats than atk.
The difference isnt as pronounced as it used to be, but mons with 400+ spatk stats especially used to be very rare compared to their physical counterparts.
Great, and now they gave basically everything a 120 BP physical move for sweeping with 100% accuracy and pretty ignorable drawback with Close Combat.
@@melindamuller4466 close combat is the only move that fits that description.
Physical Attack is also cursed by Recoil moves. Flare Blitz, Double Edge, Wild Charge, Brave Bird. All these moves hurt the user a lot. In fact, Wild Charge is an awful move. It's just Electric Take Down.
Besides that, one thing I think might have a slightly influence in Special Attacks being stronger is because of the in-game. What's funnier, specially if you're a kid: shooting lighting bolts and beams made of ice, or just a regular kick? They're more attractive, specially in a super casual environment. Even if it's waaaaay weaker, a Hyper Beam coming from a Stoutland, for instance, sounds and looks way more cool than it just using Return, Double Edge or maybe Strength. All the starters types were special pre gen 4 (fire, water and grass) as well as some types people often associate with being cool, as well as their moves: Dragon, Ice, Electric. Again, what sounds and looks cooler, specially if you're a little kid. The special moves. I belive some of these happens without competitive in mind, but rather, the devs make them so that casuals, which is the vast majority of the playerbase (which includes kids), have fun with their cool looking moves.
Recoil is worth it
Electric wasn’t designed special in mind as rock wasn’t designed special in mind
Power Gem is laughably useless
I’m surprised you did not use nidoking as a example
Physical attackers have to deal with Burn and Intimidate, Special Attackers have to deal with Blissey. -Freezai
It's for a special intimidate or burn to NOT exist. Many people mistake SYMMETRIC with BALANCE and more importantly, FUN. If anything, true balance and fun comes with how small disparities end up canceling each other.
That said: please GF, bring back pursuit!
Ok but do special attackers have Close Combat?
No but we do have a 50% accurate Focus Blast!
@@Mrdonjuliothewicked not like cc doesn't also have mad drawbacks
I'm really hoping freeze into frostbite is here to stay, but I have feeling that frostbite is exclusive to PLA. Hopefully I'm wrong. Frostbite is a perfect counterpart to burn, and freeze is just a bad status effect, period.
😈
Intimidate and rocky helmet have been beating us down for years
Scald also
I could tell BKC helped a minute in without having even checked the description lmao
Good stuff
They don't have to worry about stuff like Flame Body or Rocky Helmet and Rough Skin, that's for sure ✌️
Who cares physical Pokémon are way cooler and physical attackers have priority moves
i feel like in gen 3, game freak made intimidate out of fear that physical attackers would run choice band and roll over everything due to lack of EV’s. however, gen 4 came out with choice specs and they didn’t add a special version of intimidate
Love this new type of content from you Joey, refreshing and it's very insightful. As some constructive critique, it maybe easier for other people to follow if you split up the video into categories of things you're explaining and perhaps talk slower etc. I didn't have a problem with it at all, though I think it'll be helpful down the road. Keep up the good work and I hope you reach 300k! Been following you for years, you definitely deserve it!
One thing you didn't mention is the fact that special attacks are generally balanced through poor accuracy compared to physical counterparts who are more guaranteed damage but with drawbacks (stat drops, recoil, etc). The only exceptions I can really think of are rock type moves (stone edge and rock slide), likely due to how common rock weaknesses have always been (since flying and bug types are so common in the actual game, even if not as much competitively), and the elemental fangs which seem to bring along just a little bit of that special attacker drawback in favor of the coverage. An exception on the other side are moves like Overheat, Leaf Storm, and Draco Meteor, which have super high base power and only a 10% chance to miss (compared to 70-85 for most high bp special moves), but come with the more traditional physical move drawback of higher accuracy with self stat drops.
Editing on this one was crisp. Loved the side by side comparison of moves and secondary effects. Great video essay Joe.
I always thought physical moves were better excluding all the anti contact stuff and Intimidate because they tend to have moves with both high power AND accuracy. Special moves usually pick one or the other. Take Close Combat as an example, vs Aura Sphere and Focus Blast.
The one physical/special thing I was thinking about lately was *confusion,* most notably *Swagger vs. Flatter.* Both moves confuse the opponent (unless it has Own Tempo of course) and raise its attack by two stages (Swagger) or special attack by one stage (Flatter.) Since confusion damage is calculated using the physical attack stat, physical attackers will do *more damage* to themselves if they hit themselves in confusion. Raising the opponent's attack with Swagger is always risky, but the point remains that physical attackers are more of a risk to themselves when confused than special attackers. Flatter essentially gives special attackers a free Sp.Atk boost with no immediate drawbacks; making it less useful compared to Swagger. *Funny story:* Slowflake, a now retired LPer, said he once saw a confused Carvanha knock itself out in two hits from full HP. On another note, Swagger & Flatter are excellent moves to use on Own Tempo partners in doubles.
I've been saying since gen 6 that physical dragon types are at a disadvantage because of fairy types. Outrage used to be too good, but is now unuseable because of how common fairy types are (looking at ya'll Tapus).
I've really wanted a good replacement for Outrage since gen 6. Special attacker dragon types never stopped being able to drop draco meteors, but physical attacking dragons have to use..... dragon claw? There's a reason a lot of physical dragon types stopped carrying dragon STAB gen 7 and onward.
I think Scale Shot was meant to be the new good physical dragon move, but kinda fell flat.
i used to run mixed salamence with hone claws and dragon rush/fire blast in Gen 6. Needless to say, it was pretty terrible. also a shame it couldn't get hurricane back then, and dragonite is even worse witout DD
@@driftwisp2797 It's cool, but it's not a powerful physical move, it's a physical move with good upside.
Maybe Scale shot + the new loaded dice item coming in gen 9??? :D
I feel like physical attackers just have more brute power behind them, tons of priority moves, most physical mons have at least 1 physical boosting move: sword dance, dragon dance, bulk up, hone claws, curse, and belly drum, swords dance in particular is absurdly widespread/accessible, so they have tons of ways to boost their offense, and become a setup sweeper, when by contrast, Nasty plot/calm mind/Quiver dance is FAR RARER, it's incredibly valuable on mons who have it, but not many actually do have it at all, so physical mons get more accessible setup options.
Physical mons just have far better distribution on their powerful moves. In addition to that, there are physical boosting abilities like huge/pure power, and guts to really get the physical attack stat up, it goes to only a few mons, but those few mons become stupidly powerful as a result of them, and puts them in a really good place competitively...meanwhile there are VERY FEW ABILITIES that boost special attackers, and benefit them, and only one that boosts them exclusively, plus/minus, which is unreliable, there are just far more abilities that buff physical/contact moves than special moves.
There's also accuracy issues with special attacks, and most of the 120 power moves actually go to physical attacks as well that are more widely distributed, in addition to everyone having a 102 power physical move in return, giving them plenty of options, sure there are side effects like recoil, there's more counterplay, and they're less consistent, but they are generally more powerful, meanwhile a lot of the most powerful special moves lower the mons special attack, otherwise, many get stuck with 80 or 90 power moves to counteract them having no side effects, so physical attacks often have greater damage capabilities and more powerful moves with better accuracy, to contrast special attacks having additional effects like status effects and having no drawbacks with their moves.
I think what also tips the scale is that in general, we just have a lot more variety of incredibly powerful and oppressive physical sweepers and they come in a far larger variety, many of the physical mons are just more powerful than special mons in addition to having more powerful attacks, and because of the sheer variety of their boosting moves, and that most physical mons have at least one of the boosting moves, far more options as well. We do get examples of oppressive special attackers in the past like Iron Bundle, Gengar, Dragapult, and Xerneas, but there are just so many more oppressive/powerful physical sweepers, in addition to Blissey being such a great special wall, there are more physical walls, but NONE are as great as Blissey would be as a special wall, though Blissey got heavily neutered in gen 9.
If you look at the mons statistically, and in Smogon's OU/Ubers it's just incredibly skewed towards physical attackers in general, and they're incredibly dominant, and far more prominent, with OU being incredibly physical heavy, they even had to ban a few physical attackers like Dracovish, and Zacian, meanwhile outside iron bundle, I can't remember many special attackers being banned. I think it's more of a high risk high reward VS reliability issue, physical attackers in general are just more powerful, with far more tools at their disposal power wise, but there are more ways to counter physical attackers, status effects, abilities that screw over ones who attack on contact(though there are abilities that BENEFIT on contact moves,) intimidate, items, body press.
Plus, while physical moves in general are more powerful, with most of the 120 ones belonging to the physical side, there are drawbacks like recoil, and special attackers are more reliable/consistent, with their less powerful moves having no side effects. In a vacuum, special attack does look better, but that's because there's just so many incredibly powerful physical sweepers with absurd physical attack compared to special ones with absurd special attack, and GF needs some way to balance that out.
Do I feel like special attackers get a better deal than physical ones? Actually, yes, but sadly if there's also a status effect that halves someone's special attack, or if the penalty for physical attackers gets lessened...the trillions of physical sweepers would just run roughshod over the entire metagame, so until there's a solution to this problem, trying to do anything like that would just create a bigger problem.
If there's a good idea to balance it, I'm welcome to hear it, but for now, there's at least a pretty good balance in the metagame in terms of representation between physical and special attackers in terms of who the top pokemon in competitive play are for the time being, despite how much worse physical mon look on paper. But hey, GF did realize that special mons have gotten too powerful...so they nerfed a lot of the special moves in previous generations.
I have always said that in order to balance comp mons, you need to balance the phys and special debuffs. Spec intim, frostbite in legends arkoos, abilities that give frostbite, etc.
Problem is what do you do against the pink blobs.
@@petelee2477 something ingenious. Use a Physical Attacker
7:04 you’re forgetting that shadow ball has the same base power as crunch
No one forgot that at all we literally said well special attackers have shadow ball so they have the same thing as a side by side comparison
I really want a special version of Iron Barbs, would be really good to slow down certain Pokémon.
I would love a special version of power up punch, intimidate, and more physical fire and electric move
remove freeze and bring in frostbite and drowsy,.
@@majesticgothitelle1802 for sure. As for intimidate, that would be great as well, I just chose iron barbs because I’ve seen less people point it out. As for P-UP, just unnerfing Charge Beam would be nice. And frostbite will hopefully be in SV.
On the other hand, most powerful setup sweepers have been physical attackers. There is no special Dragon Dance. There is Quiver Dance, but almost nothing gets QD. And Swords Dance is vastly superior to Nasty Plot when you consider the distribution of priority moves.
Then there is Calm Mind, which is just special Bulk Up (the least impressive of the three main atk-boosting moves) but which has nonetheless been the main enabler of special sweeps because the special side lacks better options.
7:35 also add in the special moves that go around substitute because theyre sound based
The most simple answer to the title is because Pokemon is originally an RPG game, and they didn’t really adjust much with the concept of magic should be stronger than melee
explain bird spam
Physical Attackers: Majority the Gen 9 OU metagame as of rn, Moxie, Pure Power, etc.
I really wish they'd make a half sp at status, make a reverse to confusion based on sp. Attack (call it psychosis or something) and give an Intimidate to sp.atk.
Yep i agree im tired of draco meteor hydreigon
Special attackers biggest advantages is confusion in my opinion. A Pokemon with high attack and low defense will take a ton of damage from confusion.
Surprised you didn't mention priority moves being a physical attacker exclusive (besides vacuum wave but I'm talking about actual moves) but I agree the versatility and raw power from special users outweighs that benefit for sure.
Water shuriken
@@tungstencrack3896 sheeeit, you right lol. There's still a lot more diversity among physical priority moves but I did forget water shuriken
@@tungstencrack3896 that's a signature
It's all fun and games for Special Attackers until the Eviolite Chansey comes out.
Special attackers get easily accessible coverage in Hidden Power, which required specific IVs but Bottle Caps allowing for effectively maximum IVs has removed this downside.
Physical attackers get lol Natural Gift, which not only requires a specific berry for your item slot but is also single-use. Oh, and not every physical attacker even gets this move either, unlike special attackers with Hidden Power
That is why I don't really like HP
I miss hidden power even though it's very understandable why people dislike it and probably the same reason GF thanos it out of existence.
I miss physical hidden powers in gen 3
@@vahahadziev I'm reminded of how much I need hidden power every time I miss a focus blast.
pokémon wack has a move called hidden force which is basically HP but physical
Confusion is a downside to physical attackers as when a pokemon hits themself in confusing, it uses their physical attack and defence in the damage, it's why swagger is so much more powerful that flatter
I personally love the asymmetry, physical attackers have a lot of powerful tools but there are also a lot of tools to deal with them.
I’d love to see more tools both ways, but I like the differences, it’s what makes Pokémon fun.
I kinda agree, n its got me a bit torn on the frostbite vs freeze comparison.
Cuz on the one hand, I dont think anyone likes the frozen status effect. Its unreliable, entirely luck based and once it hits that Pokemon often may as well be dead if it doesnt know a thawing move.
On the other, frostbite really would just be "burn but opposite" and that would make status effects as a whole less varied, more samey, and more boring.
I feel like the generally higher base power of physical moves (and better accuracy of those high base power moves compared to higher powered special moves.) Are a pretty big ommision from the big picture here.
Name a more overpowered attack than Earthquake or Outrage or even Explosion.
While I agree with what you said for the most part, physical attackers have one main advantage that wasn’t discussed-set up sweeping. Physical attackers tend to have next to no special attack and then dump the points into defenses and speed too so when they go for a Dragon Dance or Sword’s Dance-they don’t immediately die unless hit by a 4x weak attack. Think Gyarados, Dragonite, Haxorus, Tyranitar, and to a lesser extent-Weavile. By contrast Special Sweepers are either incredibly slow or frail. Past Gen 1 despite Alakazam having multiple moves to boost its special attack and speed, it often doesn’t run it because he’s so frail he’ll either die or be forced to switch before he can get the ball rolling. A good example of one being to slow is Slowbro who while his defenses a good, they aren’t take a bunch of thunderbolts or thunders that you can potentially get paralyzed by while setting up good. The only main Special Sweeper I can think of can get around this issue easy is Clefable who has a good enough ability that it can be immediately threatening with, ignores passive damage, has recovery options and defensive boosts with offensive ones to ensure it can stick around, and has a move pool deeper than the Grand Canyon to hit the opponent with. Many players won’t be as interested in Clefable when it takes 3-4 turns of set up and recovery that could then sweep the whole team than the Gyarados that uses Dragon Dance once or twice and can just decimate at least a couple of mons on the enemy team.
This is a cool comment tho latias, magearna, volc and torn-t are special set up sweepers that come to mind that most certainly run bulk/can afford to
Yeah calm mind was huge in all the older gens idk man doesn't seem very accurate.
I love the tags
Pokemon, that makes sense
CompetitivePokemon, Mmhm
*Charizard*
I think something to mention is the consistency and utility physical attackers get. By that I mean the little to no drawback moves with ridoculous power like earthquake, cc, and triple axel, and for utility I mean knock off, uturn, and basically every priority move.
yes but all those moves have big drawbacks and you can play around them : earthquake cant hit flying/levitate/baloon holders. CC lowers your def making you easy to revenge kill etc...only common sp attack with a drawback i can think of the top of my head is Draco meteor
@@Dd5yr5g well there's leaf storm as well. And a lot of the higher power special attacks have lower accuracy that the high power physical attacks.
@@Dd5yr5g the drawbacks are minor compared to the consistency of the damage and their spamability. Obv many special attacks are spammable too but they arent nearly as strong in base power. Only comparable one is like, moonblast.
Also better overall setup, if they don't have dragon dance then all they need is swords dance + a priority move. While special attackers only get calm mind and nasty plot which don't boost speed. Their main saving grace would be psyshock but that can easily be blocked by any dark type. A good example being Alakazam and Gengar. They have high speed and special attack , if they set up they can get hit and survive with a focus sash but that leads them vulnerable to sucker punch. If they don't set up then depending on who they match up against they can land a hit, not kill get hit in return and be vulnerable to a priority move. few ways they can combat this is a. Being a trapper like mega Gengar or C. Terrain and weather. Weather teams and terrain teams is where you'll see the most special attackers.
@@melvondrewhite2674 really no one? lando t /zapdos/corvinight are everywhere
Special attack has a great middle ground with its 80/90 BP moves (Flamethrower/Thunderbolt/Ice Beam/Scald). The strongest special attacking moves are inaccurate (Hydro Pump, Hurricane, Blizzard, Focus Blast). The strongest physical attacking moves are more accurate, just with added disadvantages (Close Combat, Flare Blitz, Brave Bird). This isn't the case for every type though (Stone Edge, Iron Tail). Physical attack's middle ground seems to be worse than special attack's. A lot of attack 90 BP physical moves are inaccurate (Meteor Mash, Play Rough, Zen Headbutt, Aqua Tail).
Physical attackers have to deal with burn, intimidate, contact penalty (Iron Barbs, Rocky Helmet, King's Shield) Special attackers have to deal with assault vest and is walled quite easily by a few key Pokemon (Blissey, Chansey, Goodra). Attack boosts are much easier to stop but has more potential power. A special attack boost is harder to stop and more reliable. Swords dance is more common than nasty plot.
In general, special attackers offer more reliable damage and sweeps. Physical attack has higher raw damage output potential, but are easier to stop.
This felt like a really convincing high school project/PowerPoint
Special intimidate and a status the lowers special attack like burn are sorely needed. Also physical moves need more variety in power and move types. The only real advantage physical attacker’s have is the more numerous abilities that combine with physical attacks. Huge and Pure Power, Tough Claws, Strong Jaws, Iron Fist, Guts, Technician, and Defiant being the best examples.
Technician also works with special moves
@@ShotgunHunter97 I know, but how many special moves are at 60 power to maximize Technician, and how many Pokémon who have Technician are special attackers after Gen 4?
So before watching the video and seeing your reasoning, I will give my assessment. Overall, I think physical attacks and attack mons are stronger. There are abilities that boost physical attack; Guts, Huge/Pure Power, Hustle, Moxie, Defiant, and in niche situations Anger Point. For the special side you have Competitive and I think that's it unless I'm forgetting one. When it comes to powerful moves I have to give the advantage to physical attackers again. While moves like Overheat, and Leaf Storm and Draco will do more damage, you can't use them multiple times and get the same damage output like you can with Close Combat, V-Create, and Dragon Ascent. Moves like Flare Blitz and Head Smash are powerful with draw backs that don't hinder the damage they do. And while yes, you can burn a pokemon to hurt the damage they do, I feel like it was needed because of how strong physical attackers were. But Facade is a move that doubles the power of burned. Special attacks don't have anything like that but specially defensive pokemon or just pokemon with good HP and okay specifical defense can run an Assault Vest and mitigate a good chunk of the damage from those attacks. There's not like that for physical attackers to deal with. So overall I think physical attacks and attackers are more potent.
You are forgetting one special attack boosting ability but it's really bad. Plus and Minus. The only situation where it is useful is on Entrainment Dedenne.
Edit: Oh yeah and Grim Neigh, but that's a signature ability.
@@samsungrefrigeratorcondens4354 I didn't count the ponies because Chilling Neigh boosts attack so they kind of cancel out and Plus and Minus are never going to be useful in anything outside of niche doubles scenarios. Insanely hard to pull it off in singles.
Special is the stronger one but Physical is easier to fit on a team
Special Attackers have to worry about: Blissey
Physical Attackers have to worry about:
Intimidate, Rocky Helmet, Iron Barbs, Poison Point/Static/Flame Body, foul play, willo, confusion, strength sap, etc
and frostbite
Day 3 of asking for Z trick or treat Gourgeist in ndou
When I was young I realised that attack debuffs are a lot more common than special attack ones, so my special attackers were more likely to maintain a barrage of full powered attacks. Nowadays I have to remind myself that physical attacks are worth picking up sometimes.
I really like this kind of video from someone as knowledgeable as you. Keep up the good work!
Day 28 of asking for sun and rain doubles Klefki.
On another note I want a defensive assault vest 🤣
I love these videos where Joey sounds like he’s giving a class presentation. Not only are they incredibly insightful, but the way Joey talks you can literally hear the punctuations 😂
There's a trade up to all this and really it's just a coverage issue. Too many mons know too many moves. Like sure Gen 1's don't have the best stat distributions but they learn almost every move. It's not as bad in newer gens but it's still pretty bad like all the electric types almost all getting grass knot.
Sandstorm special defense boost and assault vest are some rough stuff that special attackers have to deal with, though sandstorm is only for rock types (which get blasted by the common strong sp atking types) and vest has a pretty significant requirement. Overall phys attackers get the shorter end of the stick still.
The Blisseys: WE AGREE!!!
I'm curious as to why, if this is the case, gen 8 OU is dominated by physical attackers. Sure, you have monsters like Blacephalon and Tapu Lele, but just as commonly, you see Kartana, Melmetal, Urshifu, Weavile, and Garchomp. Even Dragapult, which has no good physical Ghost coverage, runs physical sets half the time.
Cuz one thing aim didn’t mention is that there isn’t really a reliable hard hitting special move. Moves like focus blast, draco, fire blast, hurricane, and hydro are all not accurate. Special attackers often have to use a lower dmg but more accurate move. For blacephalon case it’s flamethrower over fire blast or mind blown. For lele, both of its stab moves are below 100 base power, it can’t really pack a punch like urshifu cc, or surging strike which always crit to begin with.
On the other hand, you never really need to worry about move accuracy on Pokémon you mentioned.
Joey: “Special attackers are better than physical attackers.”
OU: “And I took that personally”
cinderance (now banned from OU), Urshifu-Single Strike (also now banned), Rillaboom, and Kartana are very scary
I think one thing to consider that different types benefit differently from being physical or not because the available moves. Ghost was meh physically until we got poletergeist. Electric notably lacks good physical moves. Fighting notably lacks good special moves with Lucaria usually being physical despite his bigger special attack and access to nasty plot
The Thunder __s are very underwhelming. Wild Charge is Ight, Volt Switch lowkey should’ve been physical.
Blissey has entered the chat
I feel like GF does to some degree agree that spatk is stronger than atk, and this is reflected in the difference between the highest atk and spatk stats.
Though I do think the power creep of the last few gens has decreased this gap a fair bit.
I always felt that this was the case.😤
Asymmetries like this are good; it makes the use of any given mon more deliberate.
Everyone loves the physical/special split for making Gyarados awesome for like 3 gens in a row, but there's also something to the dual relationship of type advantage + stat advantage. I wish GF would revisit that in some way e.g. with bespoke moves that work something like Psyshock.
Love the explanatory content like this. I knew intimidate and burn were advantages of being special, but everything else never occurred to me, really insightful!
No shit Sherlock
There is one other advantage that Physical has over Special: Priority moves. I cannot think of a single priority special attack, but physical has a few. Sure, they aren't that strong, but they aren't that bad in the right setup. An example, in what I think was gen 5, I had a team of 5 setup physical sweepers, with Terrakion as a stealth rocks lead. Of the 5 sweepers, Scizzor and Breloom with their technician boosted priority punches, and Dragonite with Dragon Dance Dragonite with Extreme Speed made for a great team. I'd force a switch after Terrakion died, dance on their switch, and start wall breaking. Rinse repeat after any pokemon gets wiped. Maybe not top tier, but it still shows that priority is something that Physical has in their name.
Also, multi-hitting moves either for sub breaking, sash breaking, sturdy breaking or paired with Skill Link for damage. Also not top tier, but it's something else that Special attacks don't have, at least to my knowledge. Does that make them even with even with special attackers? Hell no, but they do have some things that special attackers don't have, and I just wanted to mention that.
loved the topic on this vid, but i think your narration could've been better. it sounded as if you were just directly reading from the script with poor pacing and little pauses for the listener to cosume what you've just said. just something i thought you could improve on.
When it comes to special attackers, you do not even have to worry about the consequences of making direct physical contact because of abilities like Rough Skin and Poison Point.
I feel like physical attackers kind of need all of these nerfs, or they'd be too overpowered.
Love these informative type of videos. Keep up the great work Joey. 👍
Special attackers aslo have moonblast which is one of The best types ingame, has 95bp instead of elemental beams 90 and 30% effect chance vs 10%
This is why I really hope of the things that carry over from Legends Arceus to Gen 9, I think Frostbite should supplant Freeze. Having a special counterpart to Burn nerfs at least begins to level the playing field.
Great vídeo, I think you really should do more stuff like this.
Also, I think that if you talked a little slower, just a tiny bit would just do It for me
Special intimidate when?
Great video joey glad to have something different than a “Choice Specs Rapidash destroys OU” keep it up
I think Freezai put it well when he said "Physical attackers have to deal with things like intimidate and burns, special attackers have to deal with Blissey." Makes sense how in tiers without that special attackers would be preferred
Edit: And Aim put it the same, good vid