Introduction:
Hiiiiiiii, friends. This is my second article on mechanical differences in RBY for the purposes of a rough guide for the Stunfisk Circuit Old Gens tournament... thing. People are going to play in some of my favourite tiers, so I have to write something to help them out. I already wrote one article on the overarching mechanical differences in RBY; this article, on the other hand, is focused on specific moves and what they do. Because RBY is a funky generation, and things are not always what you’d expect.
Moves discussed:
Hyper Beam
Amnesia
Blizzard
Wrap/Trapping
Reflect + Light Screen
Substitute
Roar + Whirlwind
Explosion + Self-Destruct
Counter
Disable + Mimic
Rock Slide
1. Hyper Beam
This is the first move to discuss, mainly but not at all totally because of Tauros. I’ll talk in-depth about Tauros in a later article, but in short it is an amazing Pokémon with high Attack and Speed. This means STAB Hyper Beam (a physical move because it’s Normal) can deal great damage and, because of Tauros’s speed, has a wicked critical hit chance ratio.
Also if you KO something you get to skip the recharge turn and get to pop off again.
That little tidbit turns Hyper Beam from a good nuke with a strong drawback into a Win More kind of move: If you’ve got something that’s out of Body Slam range but in Hyper Beam range, you can Beam it down and then keep running without missing a beat. It also can turn into a Help Me, Jesus! move: If you can crit-kill something with Hyper Beam (which is certainly a thing with Tauros), you can pull yourself out of a sticky situation and get back in the game.
You’ve got to keep an eye on your health and staying out of Tauros Hyper Beam spam range. If everything you have starts to get worn down... You might be in trouble.
To play around Hyper Beam, you can switch into something that can live a Hyper Beam, which gives you one free turn to strike back with almost no repercussions. A number of Pokémon can take a Hyper Beam, but again: Be careful of crits. Rhydon and Golem are the safest bets when it comes to switching into Hyper Beams because even crits will slide off easily.
(Also I pump up Tauros a lot here but HB also works well on Snorlax, Persian, etc. But Tauros is the god, and he needs his due credit here.)
2. Amnesia
If you thought Hyper Beam was wild with its no recharge bit, Amnesia is also up there in terms of being outlandish.
Amnesia, as it is today, raises you Sp. Def by +2. That’s all well and good. But, because the Special stats are fused in this gen, Amnesia is much more dangerous: You just double your whole Special stat. It’s basically two Calm Minds at once. And with no good way to drop Special outside of Psychic spam... Those boosts will stay until the mon gets forced to switch out.
I’m sure you can see how that might snowball quickly out of control.
Luckily, the pool of Pokémon who get the move is shallow. The most notable Pokémon to get Amnesia are: Mewtwo (which is why it is iconic for being broken in RBY), Snorlax, and Slowbro. Poliwrath and Golduck can also get Amnesia, but if you’re looking for a Water Amnesia user, you’re picking up Slowbro.
Snorlax and Slowbro are both very slow Pokémon, and this is an easy way to exploit their Amnesia set-up. Slowbro can Thunder Wave and Snorlax can still run Body Slam on a mixed set (Body Slam/Special move/Amnesia/Rest doesn’t sound too bad), so they can spread Paralysis, but if you can get enough hits on them to force them to Rest, you can stop the Amnesiacs.
3. Blizzard
Blizzard is only found today on Hail teams because of the accuracy buff in the snow. (Or on Rotom-Frost because it hasn’t got another Ice move.)
But in RBY it also has buffed accuracy! In this generation, Blizzard has an accuracy of 90. It’s even more accurate than Fire Blast.
And, as the status section in the first article discusses, if you get Frozen in RBY... You’re stuck. You can only thaw in RBY if you use an Ice Heal (which isn’t in online battles), or if the opponent uses Haze (because it clears status in this gen), or if the opponent hits you with a Fire move. In short, unless your opponent is really nice to you (and running non-standard moves to boot), a Freeze is practical death.
This is why spamming Blizzard or Ice Beam into Chansey isn’t necessarily a dumb idea: It’s an easy way to cheese a Pokémon into forced irrelevance. Ice has always been a strong offensive typing, and an accurate Blizzard, combined with freeze rates, is spooky.
4. Psychic
A minor note, but Psychic’s Special drop chance is up from 10% to a whole 30%. It’s a Scald burn for dropping Special stats. Like I said in the first article, this is how Psychics can basically just use Psychic as a battering ram to push their way through mons that otherwise check them. Special drop a Chansey or Exeggutor or Starmie enough and you’ll be able to inflict damage that escalates rather quickly.
5. Wrapping and Trapping
If you’ve ever played through RBY, you know that there is a subset of moves which are incredibly aggravating: Trapping moves.
Trapping moves in RBY can just be silly. By trapping moves, I refer to Wrap, Bind, Clamp, and Fire Spin. In GSC+, these moves prevent switching and do fixed damage during the end of turn phase. Not that bad, and really not that good either, to be honest.
But in RBY, trapping moves prevent a trapped Pokémon from attacking. You can switch, but you’re not going to attack that turn.
Common(...ish) trapping users are Dragonite (infamous for ParaWrap), Cloyster (Clamp), Moltres (Fire Spin), Vicreebel (Wrap), Charizard (Fire Spin), and (if you really want to go there) Tangela (Bind).
These Pokémon will almost always have their trapping moves. Dragonite is infamous for its ParaWrap set, where the team spreads Paralysis and Dragonite Wrap spams to outspeed and Wrap you before you can move.
This sounds a lot more overpowered in theory than in practice.
Note that none of these Pokémon besides Cloyster are even considered OU. (Dragonite bubbles depending on who exactly is making the list, but right now it’s not OU.)
Also: These moves have a low base power (15, or 35 for Clamp); they have shaky accuracy (75); and you can force the trapper to burn PP and reroll for accuracy by switching.
That last point is the best counterplay to trapping. You can’t attack, but you can switch. And you have to switch, in my opinion.
A trapping move will go 2-5 turns in a row on 1 PP if you just sit there. However, if the trapped Pokémon switches, the trapper has to burn another PP on the move, and, most importantly, they have to reroll that accuracy to see if the trap lands again. That’s the best counterplay, just forcing them to repeatedly reroll the PP/accuracy until they miss. You’ll get chipped up, but it’s better than sitting there and taking it. (Also if you have a Gengar, Wrap does check typing, so you’re immune, so if you pivot into Gengar, you’re not going to get hurt.)
The moves sound broken, but if you know what you’re doing, they’re not scary. Just an annoyance.
(Also these moves can definitely cheese a player who doesn’t know how to respond. I have had people just sit there and take five turns of one Fire Spin because they didn’t know.)
6. Reflect + Light Screen
Shielding moves work oddly in this gen. Reflect and Light Screen do not cover a team for a set amount of turns.
In RBY, Reflect and Light Screen still halve damage from physical and special attacks respectively, but they are personal and are attached to that Pokémon as long as it is in play.
Odd, no? Same basic effect, but with no time limit or team consideration.
The most viable users of Reflect are Chansey and Alakazam, both of whom can use it to boost their miserable Defense. A good number of viable Pokémon do get Reflect, but they don’t traditionally use it. Light Screen isn’t very well distributed, and I would only ever use it on like Zapdos to reduce Blizzard damage, but it can still be a Thing if you’re really invested in it.
7. Substitute
Substitute is Bad in this generation. Here is why: It does not stop status, and there is no consistent passive healing like Leftovers.
In a generation without Heal Bell and high amounts of Body Slam/Thunder Wave/Sleep Powder, you’re very liable to be hit with status, and most Pokémon have no way to recover the health dropped for the Substitute.
(This is changed in Pokémon Stadium, but that’s not what RBY is.)
8. Roar + Whirlwind
These moves have no competitive effect. They end wild encounters in-game, and... That’s about it. They don’t have their shuffling effects until GSC. Don’t be like me and walk into a game and think, Hey! I’ll use Whirlwind to reveal more mons on the opposing team!
Just... Don’t. They are useless moves. They’re just empty moves.
9. Explosion + Self-Destruct
In RBY through HGSS, Explosion and Self-Destruct halve the Defense of the target in damage calculation. This means that boom Pokémon such as Exeggutor and Snorlax will often just bring down anything that gets caught in their boom. It’s one of the best moves to clear the opposing team, especially if your boom Pokémon is already low on health anyway.
The easiest way to play around booms is to switch with the boom in mind. Gengar swallows the attacks because of its immunity, Golem/Rhydon resist the hits, and otherwise you just have to either sack strategically or keep an eye on your HP.
10. Counter
Counter, in modern generations, reflects any damage accrued from any physical hit back at double at double the damage. Not so in RBY.
In RBY, Counter inflicts double the amount of damage the user has taken from the last Normal or Fighting type attack back at the opponent, and Counter can repeatedly call the same damage if the opponent does not attack for any reason.
Two things: The attack has to be Normal or Fighting for Counter to pop off. Earthquake, Rock Slide, etc. do not trip Counter in this generation. (So if your opponent has a Counter Chansey, Earthquake with Tauros instead of Body Slamming it. It can’t Counter you then.)
Secondly, if you do not move, Counter can pop off a second time because the game still has the last hit from you stored in its data. Take the following scenario to illustrate:
Tauros used Body Slam! Chansey used Counter! (x2 Body Slam damage) Tauros fainted! Go, Snorlax!
Snorlax is paralysed! Chansey used Counter! (x2 Tauros Body Slam damage again) Snorlax fainted!
It can get pretty nutty.
11. Disable and Mimic
Disable does not disable the last move that the target used. Instead, it just disables a random move that the opponent has.
Mimic is similar in that it also takes a random move, rather than the last move used.
Because of how unpredictable they are, these moves do not figure into any common movesets.
12. Rock Slide
Golem and Rhydon do appear commonly enough in the tier that it’s worth pointing out that Rock Slide does not flinch. It is a purely damaging move in this generation. So if you get a Body Slam paralysis, you can’t just Rock Slide for a paraflinch move.
So! There you have it. Twelve points detailing how moves have strange or at least different effects in RBY. Despite all of this weirdness, I think the tier is charming, and I do intend to write a bit more about RBY for the Stunfisk Circuit before/as that happens :]