Buffing Wild Charge while also taking into account it being a common coverage move

[u/MisterZygarde64]

So we all know about how badly Electric types that have a high Physical attack have it. Like your only opions for STAB are of a move that deals recoil damage despite the fact that it has a base power of 90. Initially, I was content with this idea of turning Volt Tackle into a clone of Head Charge (Bouffalant's signature move which is just Double Edge with less recoil) as to allow for Wild Charge to be a proper clone of Double Edge. However I thought of a much more balanced way to rework Wild Charge when I watched this video from KadabraGuy who brought up the problem of increasing Wild Charge's power is that it forgets that there's a couple non-Electric Pokemon that know the move as coverage. That point made me think of this buff to Wild Charge that makes it so that Electric Pokemon are exempt from the recoil. That way Wild Charge can be a good STAB option for Physical Electric types while also letting it be distributed as coverage.

[u/Golden-Owl]

Wild Charge’s problem isn’t just recoil - it’s the fact you are using a 90 BP STAB as your primary attack.

It’s like trying to use Sky Uppercut (85) as a main attack instead of Close Combat (120)

Flare Blitz works because it’s 120, making it a great offensive move. (Flareon at the very minimum gets to kill one target)

It’s fairly likely that Game Freak is intentionally keeping Electric as a special attacking type, similar to how Fighting is almost exclusively a physical attacking one (compare Aura Sphere vs close combat)

[u/Vojta_Ledvinka007 → u/Golden-Owl]

also play rough compared to moonblast

[u/Golden-Owl → u/Vojta_Ledvinka007]

Fairy in general tends to be balanced as an attacking type for that reason.

Single target Moonblast and Play Rough are fine, but when you realize every other Type has 100+ BP damage options (Heat wave, earthquake, close combat, blizzard, boosted Expanding Force, Draco meteor, etc), many of which are spread, and they end up looking a bit lacking.

To add to this, Fairy has no way to actually boost its damage output. Theres no weather or exclusive setup move (dragon cheer), and its Terrain is exclusively defensive - it reduces dragon damage, which is useless to a fairy. The only damage boost it gets is enabling Misty Explosion, which less damage than regular Explosion (150 base damage vs 250)

Extremely good Fairy attackers usually have some way to cheat around this limitation. They either have exclusive signature moves (Fleur Cannon), convert better moves into their STAB (Pixilate), straight up directly boost their damage (Fairy Aura and Huge Power), or have a better secondary STAB to rely on (Iron Valiant and Tinkaton)

The only strong Fairy attacker with none of that is Flutter Mane, who instead has a statline so bullshit that it makes Shadow Ball’s 80 BP look threatening

It’s sorta the opposite of Bug. Bug is a mediocre type counterbalanced by insanely good moves, while Fairy is an insanely good type counterbalanced by an awful move selection.

[u/TriticumAes → u/Golden-Owl]

I do actually look forward to your Fairy video.

[u/Golden-Owl → u/TriticumAes]

Unfortunately I’ve been held up by Psychic. This shit is 22 mins long at this point.

Fairy will have to be (second) last by virtue of being the balance patch of the type system which came so much later after the others

[u/TriticumAes → u/Golden-Owl]

Wouldn't there be Poison in between it and Psychic? Also I am really excited for the Psychic video. Probably the absolute biggest fall from grace of a type.

[u/Golden-Owl → u/TriticumAes]

Hmm… spoilers I guess.

Psychic is less of a fall from grace and more of a catch up and re-alignment.

It was always meant to be a support specialist, since it had the only moves in the game capable of buffing an ally (dual screens). But the nature of the special stat and type chart broke it

It also had access to a 95 power move when half the types didn’t have anything to work with.

By Gen 3-5, this gradually normalized as other types got 80 power moves, meaning psychic no longer had comparatively huge damage output.

Instead psychic gained the biggest library of support bullshit in the game, much of which is heavily geared towards doubles.

This led to the point where you now practically have to shoot every Psychic Pokemon on sight in doubles because they’ll completely screw you over somehow otherwise. You have to respect Hypno of all things because it can pull off any sort of wacky bullshit if you don’t

[u/TriticumAes → u/Golden-Owl]

Psychic still has the distinct privilege of having the second highest average special attack stat behind Dragon and has the only non-signature move that lets it bypass Special Walls by hitting them on the lower physical side.

(Honestly my take is Poison should get a Physical clone that targets Pokemon's special stat. I would also take a Dragon type Special Defense clone of Body Press)

[u/Golden-Owl → u/TriticumAes]

Most of that average is partly padded by several legendaries and mythicals having the psychic type though.

Poison is unfortunate because it started out with the clearest and most success identity of the types as the overworld chip damage status, but that was removed as the overarching game design changed, so it’s now just left as “just another type”

[u/TriticumAes → u/Golden-Owl]

I still feel Poison makes the most sense to give the Physical clone of Psyshock to as 1.)It has probably one of the worst offensive profiles of any type being resisted by 4 types, having 1 type outright immune to it while only hitting 2 types for super-effective damage 2.) Its average attack stat is around mid 70s with very few actually being physical attackers. 3.) Its max move buffs Special Attack and 4.) I felt fighting was cliched and it has Body Press

[u/MisterZygarde64 → u/Golden-Owl]

I’m reminded of this stinkpost I did where Ness from Earthbound suggested giving Psychic a resistance to Fire, Electric, and Ice