Edit: I just found out my donation text to speech was muted😭😭😭😭😭 Hey guys!! I'm really sorry for not running over the Steven/Wallace discussion at the end like I promised! My partner Liv was having some sads, so I called it to go comfort her! We will discuss it soon though, i promise!!

Blaziken is a puncher, kicker and jumper even according to its Pokédex entries. Ruby says “In battle, BLAZIKEN blows out intense flames from its wrists and attacks foes courageously. The stronger the foe, the more intensely this POKéMON's wrists burn.” Sapphire Says, “BLAZIKEN has incredibly strong legs - it can easily clear a 30-story building in one leap. This POKéMON's blazing punches leave its foes scorched and blackened.” Emerald Says, “It learns martial arts that use punches and kicks. Every several years, its old feathers burn off, and new, supple feathers grow back in their place.” Fire Red and Leaf Green Say, “When facing a tough foe, it looses flames from its wrists. Its powerful legs let it jump clear over buildings.” With that said, I think it’s important to keep Sky Uppercut on it and with that said Brick Break actually is still thematic as it kicks, punches and jumps. I mean you could even give it Bounce and it would still work. If it gets Jump Kick then it needs High Jump Kick as it jumps over 30 story buildings.

Someone below mentioned repurposing some bad moves as excellent contest moves. I'd add on that by suggesting giving access to good TMs earlier by giving them as rewards for contests.

I'd recommend bumping the the power of all 3 signature moves to 90. Weaker than the standard power of Surf and Flamethrower, but with additional abilities that give them options.

All this talk about Surf and the rest of the water moves could be solved by making Surf the midgame water move and all the Waterfall, Water Pulse, Crabhammer, Muddy Water and the like be different flavours of top-end water move. Helps differentiate the insane number of water pokemon in the game since they'll each have a curated access to a specific top-end water attack, instead all of them surfing from lvl 30 to 100.

Needle arm is a punching move, give him 75 power like other elemental punches and 20% flinch

Another suggestion. Since some moves are designed to just be good in the early or mid game, how about some moves be good in contests? Perhaps the moves that we can't figure out how to make good, we just boost their contest effect? Like mud sport, water sport, razor wind, blaze kick, etc? That way when people complain a move is bad, we can at least say it's good for contests.

I'm 100% for making Sky Uppercut super effective against Flying types. Hear me out- The only Pokemon that get the move are Hitmonchan, Breloom, and Blaziken. Hitmonchan's not in the game. Swap Breloom's Lv. 54 Dynamic punch with its Lv. 36 Sky Uppercut. That balances the move for Breloom, and Blaziken gets a buff that gives it utility against both Winona and Drake. Perfect solution, and it retains the original flavor of the move.

Constrict should be the same, but with a 100% speed drop. Like mud Slap. That would give it more of a niche end game, and usable early game, but not broken at any point

A couple suggestions I have. One would be to make the elemental punches more distributed on Pokemon since they are restricted to the Battle Frontier. I would aay limit them to specific mons via move tutors, while keeping other BF exclusive tutors to the late game. The reason is that I believe this will help is mons like Blaziken and Scpetile would have coverage moves, and others like Gardevoir too. Even Grumpig as a compensation could be given all three, while other stronger mons only get one to balance what type of mons get the move. In the long run I also think making Blaze Kick a damaging Will O Wisp (only with like 30% burn) would help because it would give it something to consider over Flamthrower and justify having the same power, but a different niche and helps aid Blaziken's frailty. I would also make the suggestion on how to handle Wallace and Juan too. I would say make Steven the Champion in the main story, the postgame could have Steven give that position up to Wallace with the made story foreshadowing Wallace's eventual upgrade to Champion, and elevate Steven to his postgame superboss as a result. This way the player fights a revamped Elite four team with a different champion. While Juan takes over as the new 8th gym leader since Gyms can be rematched taking place of Wallace. With Juan I think making him based around contests would be a good idea, since his weaker team would justify their choices, he's a contest guy who took a break from being a gym leader sometime after mentoring Wallace, then takes back the gym postgame upon Wallace's promotion. Once the player reaches Master class in Contests Juan would be their final opponent using each of his Pokemon depending on which contest hall you're in. It would even encourage the player to not only do contests, but even use mons specifically built around them like Delcatty or Luvdisc. I would even make the player have a double battle fight with Wallace against Archie and Shelly, the same way the player does with Steven in the Mossdeep Space center against Maxie and Tabitha. It would create a land vs sea contrast, with Steven's mons being land based and Wallace being sea based. It would also build into foreshadowing Wallace's eventually champion upgrade postgame and get players hyped for the 8th gym fight. Not sure what you or others would think of this though.

I think giving blaze kick with 90 base power, 95 accuracy and 25% chance for burn. This is might give Blaziken glass cannon stat more survival in battle

Meteor Mash: 100 power, 100 accuracy, 100% chance to lower defense. It is THE final surprise in the game (assuming Steven is a final trainer) and should absolutely scare players. It being a defense drop over an attack boost lets players play around it in the moment.

54:49 Sceptile wants the attack! All of its best moves outside grass are attack. Leafblade and its design screams attack much more than special attack. It should lose sp atk., gain attack, buff leaf blade to compensate, and yes give it rock slide! It gets access to rock tomb in this gen and rockslide in gen4 on. Everything with sceptile can be solved conceptually as a physical attacker with a buffed leaf blade! Imagine how great a 115-125 atk sceptile would feel with focus energy, leaf blade, cut, and either earthquake or rock slide. It also has access to iron tail and crush claw for lowering defenses further. A physical sceptile, especially with a crit build, is just perfect for sceptile. I apologize if my messages have come across as aggressive at all. I just really love the changes youve done to the other legacy games and am really passionate abouy sceptile since he's my favorite grass starter and got robbed in the physical special split of gen 4 by mot being updated to use his own signature move well.

Thinking on it more, Muddy Water might be better off if it were simply a Ground type move. Swampert ordinarily doesn't get Earthquake until level 50, so having Muddy Water be an upgrade of Mud Shot for the midgame could give it a better niche. Then it doesn't need to worry about competing with Surf. It would end up giving Swampert a boost towards the midgame, but if the goal is to make the signature move feel more valuable, then having it just be a worse Earthquake until you get Earthquake should be sufficient.

Imagine muddy water being like hawluchas’s flying press, which functions as both flying and fighting Muddy water could function as both ground and water

@ 42:36 Beat-Up does typeless physical damage in gen 3 even though its a dark type move, therefore no Pokémon has gets a stab buff on the move! That would be something to fix XD

You say you rather not add water types but I feel like Mantine really fits the tropical theme, it looks like it would live in Hoenn

I think a lot of Gen 3 design fits a physical/special split. Breloom, Crawdaunt, Sharpedo, Medicham, Azumarill (Huge Power). etc. Or at least there could be some moves that do damage by the opposite stat.

So if heatwave is fire surf, then there should be a grass surf. Maybe petal dance? Or it would make sense thematically to make leaf blade hit 2 opponents like a wide cutting move.

Honestly the mixed attacker set for Sceptile can indeed work. But Gen III and prior had Grass types focus more on subterfuge and less on offense which is why Sceptile regardless of his STAB Grass movepool still tends to fall short. Which is why Sceptile needed a second STAB and natural access to moves that increase its longevity like Substitute, Leech Seed, and Baton Pass. Like if you want to go the Grass/Dragon route for Sceptile give it natural access to both Dragon Claw and Outrage and it might be one of the most effective Dragon killers in the game.

Please leave muddy water with the accuracy debuf. I loved that as a kid, and i feel it's an integral part of the move. I ran muddy water and surf as a kid because i would fish for the accuracy debuf and then spam the higher accuracy surf. I love the idea of 95% acc and 30% chance acc debuf. That 0.075% chance of miss you calculated is only for the first move the opponent taked. The accuracy debuf is for potentially many turns, not just one. Love the work and im so keen for this. I grew up a Gen 3 kid ❤

I feel like a much better change for water pulse would just be to make it so the TM is available much earlier on in the game. The move is completely fine IMO, the problem is that you get it waaaay too late. Having it available as a middle ground before you get surf would give the move a good niece, and fix a lot of these water types that don't get any good water moves till surf (lombre, wingull, marshtomp, gyarados, etc)

You could fix mud sport and water sport by creating a 5-turn field effect (like in gen6). So you can switch pokemon after and have those be protected by it. Basically turning it into a narrower light screen. Perhaps additionally stop paralysis/burn effects from electric/fire moves by mud/water sport respectively. You could also increase the effect to 67% (like in Gen4), or even 75%. In ORAS, I've been using Mud Sport Linoone against Watson, which kinda sorta works a bit. It'd be pretty great if mud sport becomes a go-to to beat Watson without Swampert, like Muscle the Machop being the go-to to beat Whitney.

Please boost Sharpedo speed. 95 for a shark torpedo is way too low. It's slower than Voltorb.

The thing about Steel Wing is that it's coverage exclusively for Birds against one of their main counters in Rock types (who tend to be slower, thus would risk getting one-shot before doing anything; though if you buff Sturdy to Gen V, maybe it's more fine). I'm not sure it needs an accuracy buff, since the only STAB user I can think of is Skarmory, who, yeah would like it at 95-100% accuracy, but I worry it would be too much for Pokemon like Swellow or Crobat.

Regarding Sceptile, I’d at least want it to be on par with Starmie in terms of speed. I do like the idea of giving each of the other starters 5 extra stat points to work with (looking at you, Swampert), so here is my proposed stat spread for it: HP: 75 Atk: 80 Def: 65 SpAtk: 115 SpDef: 85 Speed: 115 Hope this reaches you well, I hope Liv is feeling better!

Triple Kick on Blaziken might also work? Granted it only has two legs, but if it can jump higher than a thirty story building then I can imagine it managing to kick three times in a row before landing

Delcatty needs a huge overhaul to make it even worth using.

I love the ideia of making Sceptile a pure grass sweeper! My honest sugestions to make this happen are as follow: 1 - Give it + 5 Special Attack so it matches swampert base total. 2 - like you suggested, remove a bit of it's speed and allocate this to either of it's offenses. 3 - Perhaps the most important of my sugestions, but if you are against giving it more than 535 Base Stat Total, remove 20 out of its spdef so it matches its 65 defense and allocate it to a bit of Special Attack and more to it's Physical Attack. Yeah, you heard me! It gets LOTS of nice coverage physical moves like earthquake, brick break, iron tail, buffed aerial ace and even physical legacy crunch! Why the hell would a fast sweeper has the same base spdef as it's already mediocre secondary offensive stat is beyond me (game freak pleeeeease). Sceptile REALLY wants to be a mixed sweeper like infernape, it just doesnt have their great dual typing nor great stat distribution. If you are going to leave it as a pure grass type, as I think you should, then it will need all the help it can get, especially since a lot of opponents take neutral from it's stab (tentacruel, wingull, aggron, ludicolo, etc).

Leaf blade could just have a chance of a "swords dance" effect. A 20% chance for a special attack boost would be sweet, or for something a little spicier, make it a 12% chance for plus two. Or even better, make it 60 base power and a 30% chance to plus two.

Besides just getting Razor Leaf as a Nuzleaf Shiftry needs more wind based moves. Gust, Whirlwind, Air Cutter, Aeroblast? (? As it’s arguably Lugia’s signature move).

I think a super limited pool of moves that cross the physical/special divide is a great idea. Shadow Punch and Blaze Kick are perfect examples. Though I would only do maybe 5-8 of these moves at most and include it in their description. Also, Bounce being a 1 turn move with like 80% accuracy is a great idea, loved that comment.

That discussion about Aerial Ace was interesting, I’ve tinkered with move base powers with modern games in mind, and I left Aerial Ace completely untouched while buffing Wing Attack to 80 BP. My own argument was that Aerial Ace (or Pluck) could just be used to place of pre-buff Wing Attack, whereas Wing Attack has some late game anomalies like Dragonite, who learns it upon evolution at 55. But you actually consider the whole playthrough of a game, and how the TM moves should be balanced based around how you get them, which I can respect. EDIT 1 of ?: I feel like the idea of making Barrage a Grass-type move would just make it redundant with Bullet Seed. You'd have to stretch the imagination a bit, but I'd argue Barrage as being a Psychic-type move, as the Exeggcute or Exeggutor could be using its telekinetic power to pelt its opponent with those little barrage balls. Edit 2 of ?: Swampert being the only starter with a BST of 535 has always annoyed me. I've made a point to establish that "Swampert Rule", where every starter Pokémon should be buffed to a BST of 535 to match Swampert. I prefer the idea of all starters being created equal. Edit 3 of ?: Razor Wind is a move that I'd just make a 1-turn move in Gen 4 onward, maybe bump it up to 90 BP so it's like a Special Normal-type variant of Leaf Blade. Gen 3 and prior though, I wouldn't know what to do with it. I guess maybe the same thing, make it a 1 turn move, and instead of it being a Normal-type move, make it a Flying-type move because wind? (Also give it back its Crit rate since it had it in Gen 2, lost it in Gen 3, only to get it back in Gen 4). Edit 4 of ?: As far as the Petal Dance discourse goes, I'd go no higher than 90 BP on Petal Dance. Grass-types hit way more super effectively than Dragon does, especially in Hoenn, and Petal Dance would still end up being the strongest non-Solar Beam Grass-type move, but it'd still have the locking and confusion drawbacks to keep it a bit more in line. I feel like even 100 BP would be too powerful.

Something that might be interesting is keeping Rock Smash 20 Power or only slightly increasing its power but make it always reduce defense. I think it always reducing defense would be the better option regardless of its power.

Cut becomes a Steel Type move at 55 BP /95 acc with a high crit rate (Doesn't need to be bug. Just make Vice Grip and Horn Attack level up bug moves. Only other type that makes sense for Cut is grass.) Flash becomes a Fire type move that lowers acc with a 30% chance to burn Rock Smash either needs BP raised to 50 or 60 and stay a fighting move, OR needs to be a rock move with the same 50/60 BP and 95/100 acc. The rock type change would invalidate Rock Tomb as a necessary move, so if that change is picked then rock tomb would need to change to a new move. (What if Roxanne gave Rollout as a TM instead?) Strength can have two options: you can make it Bug type Brick Break, same stats and effect. Or you can replace it with Body Slam (just make Body Slam HM4 and give it strength's field effect with Body Slam power/acc/effect) Surf stays unchanged. I'm a fan of making Fly, Dive, Bounce and Dig all 90 BP/95 acc and then giving their punshing moves (Thunder, Twister, Gust, Surf, EQ, and Magnitude) to more opponents so you will think before abusing them. Waterfall needs to have type changed. Having 3 water type HMs(FMs) feels useless even in Hoenn. Fighting type 70 or 80 power with 30% flinch and give the move to physically strong water and fighting types and maybe give poliwrath via level up "Charge at the foe with the speed to climb waterfalls"

More streams like this, Pat! Love seeing the behind the scenes. Thanks for doing this for the community.

I searched for something special my legendaries could do with their attacks. So thanks to whoever said that shadowpunch should have a curse chance. I am going to steal that idea without an ounce of shame.

I think making Shadow Punch a priority move is the way to go. Both Dusclops and Banette will only benefit after feeling nerfed by switching ghost to special. Also Benette in particular is slow and frail so letting it get stab damage seems fair.

I'll give both Thunder Punch and Fire Punch to Sceptile's move pool since both makes sense (Sceptile is a fast hitting Pokémon, and speed = attrition). Also, I think that some Atk stat points can be put into Def, HP and SpA.

“I don’t think about PP too much”

Instead of shadow punch having the chance to curse , (Cool idea but overtuned), it should have a chance to disable the last attack the opponent used for a few turns. This would be a great move for Muk and Dusclops since they can take hits while Gengar can't take hits. Gengar would rather run Shadow ball once Ghost becomes special.

Some thoughts and ideas: Shadow Punch could have a health drain effect. Dusclops would especially appreciate the recovery and Banette might also consider using it over Shadow Ball if it also got a decent damage buff. 75 BP would be appropriate, matching both the elemental punches and Giga Drain. I like Steel type Spike Cannon but instead of being 30 BP maybe it could instead be a slightly weaker 25 BP but with a heightened crit chance to give it some extra oomph. Could be a little more interesting and high crit synergizes pretty well with multi hit moves. Rock Smash should keep the high defense drop chance imo. I feel like that's the move's whole identity. Honestly 40BP 100% def drop chance would be cool. It'd be quite literally twice as good as the original move, though 50BP 50% def drop would be fine too. I'm for nerfing Surf, personally. It's just too good for an infinite use move and you get it so early too. Giving it the nerfs it got in later games (5 less power, hits allies in doubles) seems pretty reasonable to me. It would also make Muddy Water more desirable since it still does 95 and doesn't wash away your ally.

I would say, if you dont get into it, considering nuzelocks/single mon runs. In these, reliability is very important, so if you are on the fence about move balance to err on the side of reliability

Heres a few ideas: Waterfall buff - its the last water HM/TM you get and its basically useless so making it a 100 BPM that only physical water types learn could be good. Muddy Water - 95BP 100ACC and 30% Spd drop is absolutley insane. I agree that it should drop speed but thats the single best move in the game with that. Speed control is incredible hence why icy wind with 40BP is still amazing. Drop it to 70BP 100ACC 30% SPD drop. Blaze Kick - 75BP 100ACC 50% Burn. Giving blaziken more burn control for its bad defences could be cool. might be a little over powered 30% might be enough. Leaf Blade - 95BP 100ACC High Crit Rate. Leafblade is still the worst here. Sunny day and Rainy dance both boost the other starters special moves whereas Sceptile cant do that. Sharpen - I agree to giving this to the rock and steel types. Hence, raise all the moves to 100% accuracy. Giving the rock and steel types sharpen makes the pokemon that learn the rock and steel type moves by TM not so busted.

Probably not gonna see this but for Blaze Kick I was thinking instead of the immediate crit, it gives a secondary effect of Focus Energy. That way it feels kinda like a kick combo monk where the next attack has a higher crit ratio.

The one thing I think you may be a bit too hard line on is the number of moves that deal physical/special damage regardless of type. I don't think you need a bunch of them, but I do think a good 3-4, chosen largely with specific users in mind, could do a lot, similarly to how there are 3-4 priority moves and 3-4 perfect accuracy moves. My votes go to crabhammer, shadow punch, MAYBE blaze kick (but of course I know you have lots of suggestions for that one), and maybe dragon claw.

Helping hand can also double the power of your partner's turn, instead of a 50% boost. 50% is so low that your partner would have to do half the damage or less to even be worth it. By that point you might as well just attack with both pokemon. But if your partner is stronger than it, then having your partner basically attack for both their turns would be good. But it's not busted since secondary effects don't double. So both plusle and minun using Thunderbolt may have a niche for double the chance of paralysis instead of simply using helping hand to use the stronger plusle's Thunderbolt twice.

I think the idea of having some moves deal damage opposite to the type (like waterfall doing physical damage) has merit, but if Gyarados has access to a physical waterfall, 100% accurate bounce, EQ, dragon dance, AND intimidate, that pokemon is a war criminal.

If a type change happens, I like the idea of having Sceptile store Electricity in its seed pods. Design wise it looks Tesla Coil inspired, and Grass/Electric is more offensive than defensive, fitting the vibe. It also makes sense with the meta thought of Mega Sceptile becoming Dragon type but having Lightning Rod for its Ability. Though that's less worthwhile to implement than considering Pokemon like Masquerain keeping the typing of its pre-evo. I can get behind Blaze Kick being high Burn chance instead of crit (or any other non-crit secondary), since currently you've given Leaf Blade the crit niche, and Muddy Water given slow chance or was originally accuracy reduction. I like Super Sonic being inaccurate since Confuse Ray isn't, and they can have a lot of overlap on learn sets. Basically, the early game variation for wild encounters and weaker trainers. I do find it funny the tendency of trying to avoid any move being exactly 60 Base Power in the context of Technician not existing yet. So many moves raised or lowered to avoid that 60 number this stream. P.S. I love Fire Emblem. The Lyn comparison really hit. It's very sad how much the community sleeps on Lyn Mode, even in the context of re-balance hacks. Even when the hack includes map changes and such, they'd rather ignore Lyn's story than fix it. P.P.S. It's okay you didn't make it to the Steven/Wallace conversation. Real Life is a priority move.

Have not seen the vid yet, but really excited to play Emerald Legacy, i quite liked playing both Yellow and Crystal legacy, keep going, thx for the content

I almost feel like blaze kick should be a fighting type move with chance to burn

When you mentioned it maybe being bad for muddy water to be strictly better surf because you need surf anyways to navigate the world, why not make it compete with EQ instead? Keep the accuracy buff and the chance to drop speed, but make it a ground type move. That way Swampert can run both Surf and Muddy Water, and it’ll still accomplish the same thing. Perhaps power shouldn’t be 95 with the speed drop chance, but just an idea.

I think either muddy water or mud shot should lower accuracy rather than speed. I don't think swampert needs 2 moves that do the same thing like that. It gives less of a reason to run both.

Crazy idea that hit me while you were discussing buffing grass stuff. I never used any grass Pokémon besides Sceptile because he was my starter. I didn't realize Breloom was so powerful. So I'm formulating a challenge run team for Emerald Legacy consisting of Sceptile, Ludicolo, Breloom, Cacturn, Cradily, and Tropius. I still think it would be difficult even with the buffs, but I think it could be pretty entertaining.

Sceptile is one of my favorite mon and i used it more as a physical attacker. Anyhow i can see the stats adjusted this way HP: 70 Attack: 95 Defense: 65 Sp. Atk: 110 Sp. Def: 85 Speed: 105 Total: 530, And have it learn other moves with critical hit and Growth.

51:33 maybe consider making Sceptile grass/flying and give him access to flying cutting moves. This way he's more like Gyarados (flavor wise) where it hints that he could be a dragon

I think Leaf Blade could potentially be a draining move, think a slightly stronger Giga Drain. 70 base power for Aerial Ace, isn't too strong as a coverage move. I see Sceptile possibly being Grass/Flying, due to its Acrobatic movements.

Just gonna throw more suggestions on this comment as I listen to more of the VOD. These suggestions can be completely ignored but I think it’s better to hear ideas and dismiss them than never hear them at all. -waterfall: not a strong idea for an effect, but I like the idea of giving it the sky uppercut effect, allowing it to hit Pokémon in the middle of fly/bounce, to represent the user climbing up a waterfall. Again, I know this is niche and doesn’t make it a good move but it’s an idea to play with. -have you considered upping the chance of self buffs on moves like metal claw? It’s such a rare effect it seems pointless. -Needle Arm: could this be maybe given a chance to boost user’s attack maybe? I know grass isn’t physical but Cacturne’s dark type will now be, no? Just a janky idea.

Leaf Blade to 95 (100% acc) raising crit change instead of having a raised crit chance was the most genious suggestion. It could really give some meaning to the move and promote it's use, and at the same time create incentive for Sceptile to use moves with increased crit chance like Slash, that fit thematically.

The problem with moves, is this. The no physical/special split, the movesets, and the stats. Example being this. Water is special pre gen 4. Some, like Gyarados, have terrible special attack in gens 2 and 3, whereas Kyogre or Kingdra have good or decent special attack, but bad attack. If that makes sense?

I'm early in the video and I find myself agreeing with the Blaze Kick point. I Nuzlocked Emerald not too long ago and missed Blaze Kick about four times in four battles, after which I immediately went to the Game Corner, bought TM35, and used Flamethrower for the rest of the game.

Blaze kick should have more raw damage instead of 30% burn. Making it Lava plume at home doesnt feel like blaziken. I think it goes against the lore of a fighting type, opting for a more defensive style of play instead. Imo 100-110 bsp without crit chance is balanced enough. 10% burn chance is just standard. Just make it better flamethrower essentially

1:04:23 I would argue the 80 base power for dragon claw is enough if you make it has high critic chance

I liked the idea for Priority Dive. It can be Gen 3 Aqua Jet but with higher power in exchange for the dodge and lost turn. It can be learnt by the more fish-like pokemon and serve as an option for avoiding attacks. Though the HM does come late...

Giving Hyper voice a 20% confuse rate would be good, its the signature move of exploud, i always include him in my team and i always end up giving him strength or return and sadly he learns hyper voice only at level 63😔

You are buffing too many moves to 100% accuracy and, to a lesser degree, changing the power of moves to 90. Basically Making everything feel like "insert type here" surf. You should play around with those "levers" more and go towards more 90% and 95% and having small increases in power as a trade off. For example, heat wave effectively being the same as flamethrower outside of double battles feels redundant, while having heat wave be 100 power and 95% accurate makes it feel different while mostly doing the same thing. Keep up the great work!

Just to add another troll idea to Blaze Kick: 100 Acc 100 Power, but reduces the users speed stat by one stage, because they kicked so hard that now their leg hurts

These moves are weird. Moves like blaze kick and muddy water feel balanced compared to our standards, since we don't want it strictly being better than flamethrower and surf. But no one ever plays it so it does need something. I think we just have to accept that they will either never be used, or strictly be better. You can't get it early to be a mid game move since you don't get your final starter until after you get access to surf and flamethrower, so you have to consider late game. Unless you make it early like leaf blade, in which it might be ok with the balances we considered

Chance to Curse is such a good idea for a ghost move… unfortunately it’s a good idea for gen 10 not 3 😂

Sceptile absolutely needs leech seed. It will boost his utility so much. Focus energy would be pretty good too. I'm down with growth too, but I can see that being less likely. If it has Swords dance, I don't think you need a very high attack, but he absolutely needs a usable one for his coverage. Leaf Blade having a secondary effect other than crit could be cool, but idk what

I still think Growth should also raise Attack like it does from gen 5 onward. It could be very helpful since the majority of Grass types in Hoenn have a mixed special/physical typing or rely on a lot of physical coverage. The gen 3 games introduced a bunch of fantastic setup moves like Calm Mind and Dragon Dance so I think it's fair to make Growth more competitive. Especially since Grass types could always use some help. Also, if possible, Howl could maybe get the fun gen 8 buff where it raises your ally's attack as well. Probably not that useful most of the time tbh. It'd just be kinda neat.

Before we get to really rebalancing the Pokemon themselves - and hopefully I can catch the next stream to talk about this - I want to throw out an idea for Sceptile. Oddly enough, I think the Legacy games have thus far moved *away* from this design space if anything, but what if Sceptile was an inverse gen 1/2 Gengar? That is to say, what if rather than making Sceptile a better Special Attacker to take advantage of its grass STAB, we instead buff its Attack and give it strong physical coverage (maybe throw in some extra support options for good measure)? Gen 3 competitive Gengar is well known for being quite strong despite not typically running STAB since Ghost is physical.

Giving blaziken access to thunderpunch via move tutor or level 1 move would be an excellent cover for water and flying type

Since blaze kick is keeping both its crit chance and burn chance. Leaf blade could keep its crit chance and have an added flinch chance. Which is fitting for a fast frail pokemon. Actually, the flinch chance alone may be enough for this move. But the moves definitely have to have the same power of 90 or 95.

I feel like Mud Sport, Water Sport and a few others are intentionally given to Pokemon who already resist for the sake of using them in double battles (head cannon)

Another idea for water pulse is the move the TM to earlier in the game, and have Juan give a different TM. You could make him a rain-themed team and have him give out the rain dance TM instead. This would help boost his challenge rating and give him a bit of a unique approach at a trainer.

Regarding sceptile, forget type changes, I think it really wants an earthquake in its learnset. It fits thematically (being a dinosaur), and allows it to harass the millions of tentacruel you encounter. I've always felt like having so many tentacruel was a dick move to grass types.

This isn’t really move related, but it would be really awesome if you could some kind of feature (maybe like a new game + almost) that allowed you to choose your own starter. I feel like that would give the game SO much replayability, and could allow some of the buffed Pokémon even more space to shine

I've been toying around with modding Fire Red and I'd like to compare notes on major changes. They are different games with different mission statements so not all will be good fits. Mud/Water Sport: I made Mud Sport a move that lowers the opponents speed and Water Sport a move that raises the users Sp Def. Beat Up: I actually made it a multi hit move to give dark types more move variety. Razor Wind: I made it effectively flying type Solar Beam, which works because I also made... Sky Attack: Basically Brave Bird. Flash: I kept it at 70% accuracy with 100% accuracy drop but made it a base 50 power steel move. My goal was to heavily buff the bad HMs so let's just get those out of the way. Strength: Gave it a 30% chance to raise Atk. Rock Smash: Base 50 power and guaranteed Def drop. Waterfall and Dive: Both are actually what you had. Octazooka: Since it's a signature move for Octillery, I made it 100 power and 90% accurate while still keeping the same accuracy drop. Poison Tail: I only boosted it to 70 power, but I did give it to far more pokemon. Iron Tail: I made it 120 power and 75% accurate to make it a high risk power move for many steel pokemon. There are PLENTY of other changes to moves that are either too minor to bother mentioning or are complete reworks that make them unrecognizable as their original.

I think a way to improve the use case of the other water moves without heavily impacting surf is to make it hit all other pokemon including your side in double battles. It would enable a fringe case nerf that, would make other moves more viable for a general playthrough, without feeling like an overly large nerf.

I love the Fire Emblem 7 Lyn reference for Sceptile. I would wait with so much anticipation for a FE7 Legecy 😭

Since Swampert’s BST is 535, why not make Blaziken and Sceptile match. Dropping Sceptile’s Speed by 5 points to 115 in order to add 10 points to its Special Attack to also 115 feels like a nice boost to its special without compromising its speed too much. Then for Blaziken dropping its HP, Def and SpDef by 5 points and adding it all into its Speed so it’s at 100 would help to cement it as the second best starter and a fairly quick mixed attacker

I think distribution of popular TMs should go through Contests. It will be a inconvenient way to fix a mistake of teaching a TM to the wrong Pokémon during a playthrough and you can limit what TMs you get by how many gyms are necessary before that particular contest hall. Perhaps each type of contest gives relevant moves to that type. Remember the Normal rank contest is in Fallarbor town.

You could consider making muddy water a ground type. Swampert learns EQ pretty late and I don’t think that needs to be changed, I would just change muddy water type to ground that way he still has a pretty powerful ground type until post game

I would love for blazekick to be similar to the move flying press. So it is a fire and fighting move at the same time.

Idk of you see this days after the stream, but is it possible in emerald's code to make blaze kick a fire/fighting move like Hawlucha's flying press? That would make it pretty special for Blaziken, imo. Probably out of scope, though...

i think the thing to consider with Arial Ace, is that it goes on alot of pokemon tha coundt use flying otherwise. i would not compare it to a flying move like fly- Fly goes on flying typs but. arial ace goes on non flying types as coverage. so i think its a good move as is. maybe a bit late is all.

Hot takes on emerald : just implemant reusable TMs and implemant physical / special split for a really easily improved game Steven as leader, swap electric arena and flying so u get encounter options for both, bit of teambuilding for gym leaders and evil teams and u got THE game

Since Rock Blast already has so much RNG in its power, I think 20 to 24 per hit at 100 accuracy would be good. Having a random amount of power *and* a chance to miss entirely feels really bad. Edit: A chance to curse is such a great idea... That is so cool.

I think when it comes to “signature” moves, you need to think about surf and how to give the fire and leaf pokemon something at least comparable to surf. For Blazakin I would get rid of quick attack and move slash into that slot, and put blaze kick as his level 42 move, and make it 100% 90pwr with the same effects so it can then replace slash as the crit move. I would also change sky uppercut so that instead of 90% it’s 85% but with 120 power almost like a fighting time fire blast.

The thing about accuracy in all the games I've ever played, is that 95% feels pretty good, it doesn't seem to miss all that often, but somehow, whenever accuracy goes down to 90%, those moves ALWAYS miss when you don't want them to. Somehow, the impact of that 5% feels much larger than it should. It feels about the same accuracy as 85%, which is Fire Blast tier. So a 95% accuracy isn't a bad thing, in my opinion, for moves that have a slight inaccuracy to them (like Steel Wing, for example), but it isn't as inaccurate as Rock types. Perhaps 95% accuracy be a common standard for types like Fighting and Steel. P.S. Curse chance on Shadow Punch might be a pretty big jump stylistically (and awesome), but having that change for a single move, on two Ghost families (Gengar line learns it) and breedable to Muk, I don't feel would be out of hand. Big changes like that aren't as obvious when you barely encounter the move in the original gameplay (does any trainer have a Dusclops with it outside of the single one on Phoebe's team?). Also, few people used it themselves when you had better options in Shadow Ball, Curse/Toxic, etc.

About the steel moves; to me meteor mash should be stronger than iron tail, the latter is a basically a strong tail swap, while the former evokes a literal meteor smashing into something, so I would do something like: - Metal Claw 60 bp, 100 acc, 20% atk boost - Iron Tail 85 bp, 100 acc, 10% def reduction, the idea is that iron tail is also a good coverage move for other mons, expecially normal types, so 85 bp shouldn't feel extremely strong for them but still good with stab - Meteor Mash 120bp, 95 acc, recoil. Meteor Mash users would be Mawile, which is slow, Aggron, which is slow but can have rock head, Metagross, which is stronger and faster, but will be damaged by the recoil, and Registeel, which again is not that offensively strong. This way stell type can have a "ultimate" move that doesn't really feel like a nuke. Or maybe 120bp, 85 acc, 30% atk boost, kinda like a steel type blizzard. Steel Wing is fine, and Vicegrip as a steel move to give mawile early stab is a good idea. What do you think?

Would you be able to do like a and/or effect like give the specials 30% for crit OR 5% for the secondary like burn/poision/lower stats etc.

I think when it comes to Blaze Kick, you should lean hard into the strengths and flavor it already has. Keep the accuracy 90 or 95 so it's a little inaccurate, but bump up the crit chance way up to 30% or even 40%. That way it becomes a sort of midway between flamethrower and fireblast where the miss chance is offset by the increased crit chance.

This might be a bit out there, but what if we change Razor Wind (or some other usless move) to clear up the weather? Make it like a Defog but for weather instead of Hazards.

You know how Rollout has a hidden mechanic where it gets 1.2x more powerful if you use Defense Curl the turn right before it? Why not implement something similar for Makuhita, where after using "Bulk Up" the turn before, Arm Thrust next turn gives it an extra 1.2x Power boost. Figure it'd be a cool little thing. But could be a pain in the ass to implement via coding.

If you want sceptile to be an offensive special attacker swapping physical pursuit for the buffed special astonish thematically still works feeling similar as ghost and dark are similar offensively

I got that fire emblem reference. I absolutely love fire emblem 7!

Weird thoughts - I think Fly, Dive, and Dig should let you stay hidden for one OR two turns. I also think charging moves should let you switch out (not recharge moves tho). Maybe Razor Wind could be an offensive Whirlwind, during the charging turn it could buff your evasion/debuff opponent's accuracy, then force a switch when it hits. Also, maybe Sky Attack could straight up absorb special attacks during the charge up turn? Dunno, weird thoughts 😂

For blaxze kick because I do MMA I would consider dropping burn to 20 percent and maybe add a possible flinch? When we take kicks most everyone tenses up or so. That and getting kicked with fire would def make me flinch lol