Hold Hands is the best move in the game

yo, these thumbnails DO NOT need to go this hard

If I'm being pinned into a corner with no way of recovering from a strong team, I know Tackle has got my back

5:39 Fun little story about Me First. I was recently fighting the Johto Elite 4 for the first time and noticed how Will's first Xatu spammed Me First. Unfortunately for Will, I had a Forretress who knew Spikes (a non damaging move Me First can't use) and Explosion. Watching that bird explode was pretty hilarious.

Pokémon should make a competitive game mode in witch all good moves are banned

If you liked this video, I really suggest the video *(Usually) Useless Moves* by Reverend, it's absolutely hilarious if you're into past gens and singles. Things like Mewtwo using Flash to PP stall other mewtwos in gen 1 and Mamoswine using Peck to send Breloom and Heracross to the shadow realm in gen 4. This was a really interesting video to watch as I really like VGC as well! Keep it up!

video starts at 0:00

“Strong moves. Weak moves. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled trainers should try to win with their favorites.” -Moxie Boosted, 2024

so what you're saying is: "Moves get better when they effect more than one Pokemon" gotcha.

Leer Roaring Moon in reg B and C was just the predecessor to the genies

4:30 encore is act very good in singles.. seeing use on iron bundle early on, indeedee, iron valiant, tinkaton, etc. it can be useful to screw over setup sweepers and bulky mons

Gotta love the dev that thought "You know which move needs a special Z-move? Splash. I'm gonna make that happen."

I still distinctly remember the time in BW2, where I had taught my Skarmory Cut because I needed _someone_ that knew the HM move. Cut was virtually useless in all my battles, _except_ in exactly one situation against a random trainer with an Umbreon, where Cut's high PP enabled my Skarmory to PP stall her opponent. I guess everything has at least one use case...

Don't think too much about the Thumbnail I'm out here inventing mandela effects

I think the Hustle + Ariel Ace combo is pretty cool too.

00:27 who was cooking with Tera fighting water urshifu and thought that’d be the play against Tera psychic expanding force hatterene??

I know the artist is in the description but I still gotta bring attention to the consistent banger thumbnails.

Funny enough, for me, Charm is iconic for how much of an offensive power house it is in Pokemon Go. There were basically no offensive fairy "fast moves" in Go, so they decided to break cannon and make it an attack. Ontop of that it's in a category of moves, like counter, that do the highest amount of damage in the shortest period of time. At the cost of taking longer to use your "charge moves".

So, funny thing about After You. It works with Focus Punch, meaning if your After You user is fast enough, you can spend a turn to ignore the downside of Focus Punch and just delete something.

I have a history with String Shot because I ran it with Unburden Slurpuff in Sword and Shield to great success! I realized that when paired with U-Turn Rillaboom I could make Slurpuff (With a Grassy Seed) into a physically bulky support mon that could enable slower Pokémon better than Tailwind could thanks to the fact that I could use it multiple times in a row; then swap in a Base 80 speed behemoth like Chandelure to clean up the game. I even made Top 500 on the ladder with that team once. Was it gimmicky? Yes. Was it fun? Absolutely.

Hittata can't hurt you Hittata:

One fun thing about Beat Up move. In Gen II if you had frozen pokemon and use beat up on different pokemon in your team, the frozen pokemon *didnt* count for beat up on your side but on the enemy it *did* . This cause desync on both sides and creates a glitch that is worse and worse the game goes on.

I love the venn diagram between moves often used in casual games, moves often used on competitive, and moves used in challenge runs of games/nuzlockes. Moves like Close Combat and flamethower are most often used in casual games, but competitive still uses those powerful moves plus the "useless" moves like reflect or howl. Nuzlockes will also use some of the "useless" moves but also uses unique moves very often like charm or stealth rocks, while also deeming the super-powerful moves like hydro-pump useless because of their unreliability that the other styles of play would love to use. That doesn't even cover abilities or the pokemon themselves! A casual might hate "useless" abilities like chlorophyll, competitive users might love it for specific teams, and Nuzlockers might find a niche use for it in difficult matchups. The ability to have multiple ways of playing with certain pokemon is what makes the game so special to me, I love all three+ variations of play.

5:40 Hey, Moxie, you do get STAB with any moves copied by Me First. It boosts them by 50%

Moxie is Prof. Kukui confirmed

I love the videos you make like these because it shows how really advanced this game is and how it’s not just a “kids” game. Advanced mechanics like this really made me appreciate the Pokémon games as an adult vs as when I was a kid when my thought process was “my Pokémon is a dinosaur so it’s cool”.

The thumbnail does indeed go hard

A funny interaction between 2 of these moves talked about in this video that wasn't mentioned is with gravity: an effect of the move that wasn't mentioned is that it can prevent certain moves from being used during it's duration. Hilariously enough, one such move that gravity prevented from being used was splash, of all possible things, and the funniest part is that in gen7, due to the +3 attack boost you can get from Z-splash, that might actually make this interaction somewhat useful

I sometimes wonder about baby doll eyes. It seems kind of like intimidate, but it uses a move to do it.

Shoutout to moves that don't really do anything but just exist so you can click them 48-64 times Gotta be one of my favourite genders

Prankster Encore-ing protect is the best play

I know very, very little about competitive Pokémon and how to set up a team outside of casual play. That being said, I really think this video is a good example of being accessible to even someone on my level. I doubt I would dabble in competitive play any time soon, but this gave me some ideas of how to start to rethink the games.

Honestly I’m really enjoying this new form of content. Each video feels more alive than just playing vgc in my opinion

I’m still waiting for the bubble urshifu tech to become meta.

the silence regarding persian running growl in rby ou is deafening

My favorite Usually Useless Move is Soak. Soak turns the target into a water type. Back in Gen 5, I used the move on Alomomola and other bulky waters alongside toxic to poison Poison and Steel types. It also had the secondary effect of removing STAB from the target until they switched out. The poison would remain on the Pokemon even if they swapped out. The only Pokemon who were immune to it at the time were Pokemon like Tentacruel with a secondary water typing. It wasn't the best of strategies, but it was amazing to see people rage at it and got me a lot of wins.

3:34 If you tell BKC or Jimothy Cool this, he’ll probably say something like how Beat Up is used sometimes in ADV OU by Dugtrio and Charizard to catch Blissey on the switch and/or ignore Counter. Beat Up is coded as a Dark type move, and all Dark moves were special back in Gen 3. Additionally, Beat Up did damage based on not only the user and its allies base Attack stats, but the opponent’s base Defense stat as well. So even though Blissey always invests heavily in physical bulk, her minuscule 10 Defense leaves her prone to annihilation from Beat Up, especially with healthy teammates.

These “useless” moves reminds me of how some moves are “useless” in main series but are actually quite handy in Pokemon Masters due to battles going from turn based with PP to real time strategy using gauge I.E. Leer lowers defence for 1 gauge (all moves being between 0 gauge to 4 gauge, 0 gauge moves usually having caveats like having a requirement or having PP (usually 3 PP or less)) so it provides debuff support whilst leaving gauge for a unit with a high damaging 3 or 4 gauge attack

9:23 Leer has always targeted both Pokemon ever since double battles were introduced

There should be a usually useless move format in Showdown

3:20 Beat Up can actually be run in Gen 3 OU because it's weird mechanics mean it 2 hit KO's every Blissey set.

i mean... technically me first would be stab since it naturally makes it 1.5x stronger

There was a move tutor in HGSS that taught string shot to a bunch of random stuff. I only know this because I brought String Shot Mega Venusaur to like 5 games in a draft league once. It was great

I critically enjoy these types of videos. Thank you for that!

I love vids like this. Def have a new fan

Fun ting about gravity: It also increases the power of Grav Apple from 80 to 120.

Just found your content last night and you’re severely underrated

A good to know fact about gravity's interaction with ground type attacks: it makes any targets that are dropped out of the air take 1× damage from ground type attacks regardless of the pokemon's type. So using gravity to get Thunderus out of the air for a ground type attack to hit it is just going to result in neutral damage. Same would go for like, Tropius or something.

I’m mad late, but I didn’t see Synchronoise on there. Now that move is the most useless move, if I’ve ever seen one.

This thumbnails go hard

Smogon Legend Spammers: "Mostly Useless Moves" Stall Players: "My Bread n Butter Moves"

As a Vanilluxe main (when I'm not using mono bug), Showdown puts Hail down as usually useless. I have hail because I use Ice Body Vanilluxe lol. Each move has its own use-case, which is why team-building is very fun!

the moves i personally find the most fascinating are the absolute bottom of the dumpster moves, ones that are so ridiculously niche and low distribution they're pretty much completely useless even in the context of a casual playthrough, garbage like purify (pyukumuku's signature move that heals your partner's status condition), ion deluge (turns all normal type moves used this turn into electric type, only learned by a couple of low tier electric types), worry seed (turns the opponent's ability into insomnia) and powder (a move only available in gens 6 and 7 exclusive to vivillon and ribombee, which covers the target in powder and if they try to use a fire type move that turn it fails and they take 25% damage)

I know this is a vgc video, but in GSC singles Miltank would use growl because it would let it survive attacks from Snorlax.

I like how they are slowly buffing the old stat based moves like leer and string shot. They’re still early game moves like ember or razor leaf, but they are able to be used in VGC now. Always nice to see more options.

1:58 this sound effect made me think someone invaded my home while I was watching it in the middle of the night

I have been a fan of a Screech and Metal Sound for decades, even in VGC sometimes. They can be so unexpected, especially when your team has the speed advantage.

Celebrate Vaporeon FTW

I love the move Celebrate and the fact that it's locked on exclusive event Pokemon, I love the fact that I can't get the move registered in Pokemon Home

Sableye gets prankster leer and it’s lowkey really good

This is intriguing. For example, the move Mud-Slap really has nothing going for it, in theory, at least. When equipped with a Groundium Z and the moveset of Calm Mind/Mud-Slap/Ice Beam or Thunder Wave/Origin Pulse, Kyogre can pull an uno reverse vs Primal Groudon by clicking Calm Mind as you force it in due to the threat of Choice Scarf Water Spout or Specs boosted attacks then nuking it with a +1 Tectonic Rage; thus, kissing the "Kyogre check" goodbye... lol. Just hilarious how it's under "Usually useless moves" Let's also not forget Scary Face Grimmsnarl back in SS

There was a 2 v 2 tourney in gen 8 where the catch was one of your Pokémon had to be magikarp. Everyone ran tackle, flail, hydro pump, and bounce except for Wolfley who opted for splash in place of one of those moves. This was so he could have max guard if magikarp needed to max.

Why are Encore and Disable here? Gengar is infamous for it's sub-disable sets in older generations, and Encore is a threatening utility move to this day.

Encore is so annoying, it’s so common in random battles and you can’t set up on prankster pokemon

With moves like soak I wanted to get your opinion on the other change Pokémon’s types moves. There’s apparently 13 of these moves so maybe you could make a video on these moves alone if your interested. What I interested in was your opinion on Trick or Treat (turns Pokémon into ghost type Learned by Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist) and Forest Curse (Turns Pokémon into grass type Learned by Phantump and Trevenant). I was wanting to make a team based around forest curse as it’s a very interesting move that could do a lot of damage to certain Pokémon cause grass is weak to a lot of types.

When i think about useless moves, i think about moves like mud sport, water sport, and powder… But i feel in the new generation they might actually have some use for some reason 🤔. 67% damage reduction sounds pretty good and powder does have some use against eruption users. (Fire moves in general)

1:59 bro that's horrific sound . I am drinking water Than that Sound hit .

The soak strategy reminds me of when I was fighting Piers, and I wanted to use Pumpkaboo because it had been in my team without much use, so I used trick or treat on Piers' Pokémon so they'd be weak to ghost and then knocked them out with ghost moves lol (Pumpkaboo didn't last long in that fight for obvious reasons, but I was happy my bullcrap strat worked)

Big props to whomever put the goggles on the Arcanine in the graphic. Made me giggle a lot

They’re called “usually useless” because they’re not “completely useless”

One of my favorites is when Dragonite used to run Fly in singles to keep it from getting hit for a turn, thus giving it more Leftovers healing and making it more likely to heal to full HP, which activates Multiscale.

You forgot the most usually useless move of all: whichever ones I have clicked 😔

Can you do most used or useful one next, I know it’ll be a lot harder but it would be cool to see what are the most common moves in general

I had a Alolan Persian with Charm as her signature move during my mono Dark run of Scarlet. That alongside Snarl made her the MVP of getting her teammates on the field safely to wreak havoc.

Remember be careful with anything electric as they could be harmful and or lethal to you and or other people and or start a fire along with causing other things.

Kinda late, but wanted to add a non-serious but still interesting use of splash. One during s/s pokemon ran a gimick online tournament where everyone had to bring magikarp. In a funny play, WolfeyVGC dynamaxed magikarp to use max guard to keep it alive. So, technically not splash, but magikarp actually did something outside gen 7 :0

What of Z-Nature Power + Prankster Whimsicott + Misty Terrain?

Beat up was a very viable option in gen 3 as a way to deal with blissey. Notable users such as Charizard and Dugtrio. Also in gen 8, Weavile is a good user of Beat-up with choice band in the ubers tier.

String shot was amazing for my smeargle only Ultra Moon run it made it easy to get the moves I wanted at any time

I've always wanted some of the useless "one stat +1" moves to be buffed to become "2 stats +1" specifically the combinations that don't exist yet: Meditate should be +1 Attack and +1 SpDef Withdraw should be +1 Defense and +1 SpAtk Defense Curl should be +1 Defense and +1 Speed Autotomize should be +1 SpAtk and +1 Speed instead of +2 Speed since Agility and Rock Polish already exist Charge should be +1 SpDef and +1 Speed

"Recently" like Leer hasn't hit both opponents since the debut of double battles themselves 😭

It would be interesting to see a competitive format with the rules being only usually useless moves to be used. May be aggravating, captivating, or just hilarious to watch

My guy forgot Z-Happy Hour (I check if it was banned in vgc and it isn’t)

watermelon

In Gen 4 I remember using Copy Cat to chain Explosion. Basically, one Pokémon would explode and the others would follow the next turn (if the opponent was slow enough).

Niche tech/fun fact but Stomp doubles in damage when targeting a pokemon that used minimize and ignores the evasion boost. Smeargle/musk-alola cores beware.

MEanwhile encore trickroom while the opposing mon is trapped.

11:49 actually it turns you into the type of move you used the previous turn. It defaults to the first move in your move slot if you were not on the field the previous turn.

I didn't know rattata was a saiyan. XD

not sure if its considered usually useless but I adore running whimsicott with fake tears and a blaze infernape with overheat u-turn and whatever filler moves you need

I've used Wonder Room on Primarina once or twice

Is worry seed bad? It sounds like it could be a pocket neutralizing gas on a regigigas team (which is not great i know) and help against amongus

6:34 k9 pure gold with that goggles

My first competitive VGC team that I made was a Murkrow/Quaquaval team. My Murkrow had Screech to lower my opponents' phys def allowing Quaquaval to pick off pokemon with Aqua Step giving him a pseudo Dragon Dance with Moxie. I know that Chien-pao essentially is Screech as an ability that affects all pokemon on the field, but when Murkrow was all the rage, I didn't see Screech being utilized in its first meta.

Anyone else hate when a video gives people tips that you knew but now everyone else just knows it now

Maybe the real useless moves were the friends we made along the way

THAT THUMBNAIL IS KILLING ME

Finally somebody recognizes my boy charjabug

i can only think of one useless move when i think of it (i dont consider stuff like splash as that was its purpose) gen 1 focus energy was worse than useless as it actively hindered you.

Do a "USEFUL" moves video next, a video about moves that on paper should see use. Bonus points for including non-signature moves.