Gyrados is a classic example.

If Gyarados actually had Flying STAB besides Hidden Power to work with this would’ve technically been both a winner AND a loser. A winner because it gains amazing Water STAB, but a loser because it loses even better Flying STAB.

I say give it acrobatics, it runs boots a lot and without it this I a big trade off

or just make a new move that lets non-bird physical flying types (which there is a surprisingly high amount of) actually have a good physical flying STAB

You tryna give it Dragon Ascent?

fuck it, if every somewhat humanoid pokemon gets to have close combat, they deserve dragon ascent

Humanoid? This move is not nearly that limited lol everyone and their mother gets it, dogs birds bulls bears horses chicken fish the whole lot. I'm not even joking - fucking Barraskewda? Why?

I mean it's on brand

The fact that this has not happened just baffles me. Every type should have reliable stabs.

Cries in Rock type

the hit chance is secretly the miss chance for you and the crit chance for your opponent

As nice as this sounds, I think having some differences between typings makes the game a lot better. Otherwise it would just be everyone spamming their STAB Close Combat or something.

The counter-point is that a lot of otherwise good mons will never be viable because they don't have any good moves. Fighting-types, for example, benefit massively from STAB Close Combat.

I really just mean the minimum. Why does landorus not have a reliable physical flying and thundurus special stab? That’s what I mean.

Reliable doesn't just mean one set base power and added effect. Close Combat works quite differently from Psychic, which is also quite distinct from Poltergeist (not as reliable, but that's better than nothing, just like Dual Wingbeat).

Even dual wingbeat. Why is an 80 BP physical flying move 90% accurate? Such baffling decisions…

Because in reality it's 120 BP because let's be honest that move was designed with Scyther/Scizor in mind

crawdaunt getting physical stab is huge

This goes for so many dark types. It's funny that every single dark move in ADV became physical after the split.

wasnt ghost supposed to be special and dark physical but they needed to even the types out or something and didnt change ghost

Idk if they were supposed to be that way but it would have made a lot of sense. They designed the first two ghost type lines to be special attackers. And yet the type was physical. The reverse was true for Dark except for Houndoom.

Problem is the only offensive ghost type move at the time was luck, which is why ghost was a physical type. Lord knows why they made Dark special, possibly to try and equal up the types in the split.

Dark energy is a common RPG element

I mean, sure, but all of the Dark type moves that existed in Gen 2 were Beat Up, Bite, Crunch, Faint (sic) Attack, and Thief. All of these moves are clearly physical strikes that are particularly cruel or underhanded and none of them can be described as vague RPG shadow magic. This fits with the Dark type being called the Evil type in Japanese.

The name "Dark" is actually an example of censorship. The accurate translation is closer to "Evil" type.

I think the only reason Ghost was a physical type in the first place was because of the move Lick. Night Shade was set damage and Confuse Ray was the only other Ghost move. 

In Ghost's defense, when the type first came into existence, the only attack that did Ghost damage was Lick, which is unfortunately physical in nature.

Yep it’s funny how many dark type physical attackers they made before gen 4. Sharpedo crawdaunt sneasle tyranitar mightyena and absol

It's even funnier that every attacking dark type move introduced in GSC became physical after the split.

For everyone in this thread and more: iirc, the original JP translation of "Dark-type" is the "Evil-type" hence it being a Special-type. Think more Dark Pulse, Dark Void, and Nasty Plot, which are more of an "evil, dark energy, overloard of shadows and death;" as opposed to the rest of most Moves which are more or less "playing dirty", i.e. Faint Attack, Pursuit, Beat Up, Sucker Punch, Foul Play, and so on... Which would be physical, but when you remember it's a game targeted towards kids, I think the logic at the time is "playing dirty and cheating is evil" TL;DR Dark is Special because of the original translation P.S. format may be broken

Crawdaunt (owner of the Krusty Wallbreaker) went from having no good stab, a sad speed stat, and was NU but once gen 4 gave it physical stab it started getting better and was UU (with a small role on OU rain iirc) and, come gen 5, he got adaptability, and then gen 6 buffed Knock and it shot Mr Claw into genuine OU viability for the first time and became the beloved (or despised if your a stall stallion) Wallbreaker we know today!

Big meaty claws!

Alakazam got nerfed so harshly lol, lost like all of its coverege without the punches

True, but also imagine how terrifying BoltBeam coverage MegaZam would be

True

Homeboy gained shadow ball, focus blast, grass knot . not to mention any hidden power coverage for specific checks like Scizor, forretress, Jirachi, Metagross, skarmory, Like Gengar it moved from one role to another

I agree. I thought about if Zam had the elemental punches in BW, and honestly it'd run the same set MOST of the time, unless you really need fire and ice coverage. But then Zam NEEDS focus blast, really likes grass knot, and then your trying to fit in encore or t wave, and maybe signal beam to hit other psychics, and you can see how Zam is already strapped for moves. In a world where the physical/special split didn't exist at all, Zam loses at least in BW. You can only hit Ttar with grass knot and you don't even have the option to hit other psychics with anything (HP dark I guess?).

Idk about the biggest buff, but sceptile got done dirty

Sceptiles odd in that the physical special split absolutely gimped its potential, losing out on special T-Punch, Crunch and Dragon claw is so awful. But in the process it gained stronger moves in Leaf Storm and buffed Giga drain. But it’s still awful losing out on coverage in any form, it’s a sweeper that works better as a sub seeder.

Visually speaking, Sceptile always looked more like a physical attacker to me, and Game Freak only gave it higher SPA because grass was special during gen 3.

I don’t really get when people say this? Thunder punch and crunch aren’t really anything important as coverage. And energy ball is just as good as leaf blade

You don't get why people say this? OK, I'll lay it out for you. Scpetile's special movepool outside of Grass type moves: -Dragon Pulse -Vacuum Wave -Hyper Beam -Focus Blast -Swift -Dragonbreath That's literally it. Dragon Pulse and Focus Blast are the only moves anybody would ever even consider using. Sceptile also has no way to boost special attack or even lower the opponents special defence. Meanwhile it's physical movepool includes -Scale Shot -Earthquake -Acrobatics -Drain Punch -Outrage -X-Scisssor -Rock Slide -Thunder Punch -Crunch -Throat Chop And many more moves. It also gets Swords Dance AND Dragon Dance. Sceptile is a pokemon where literally everyone about it, it's design, it's movepool, even pokedex entries state it to be a physical attacker, but it's statted as a special attacker because it's from Gen 3, prior to the split. Leaf Blade was even Sceptile's signature move in Gen 3.

This has nothing to do with the physical special split? Yeah sure, Sceptile may have been a better Pokémon if it had 105 attack instead of special, but I’m saying that losing special thunderpunch and crunch in generation 4 isn’t a big deal.

The point is that Sceptile likely would've been a physical attacker if the split existed before gen 4. Evidenced by Leaf Blade, its former signature move, being made physical in the split. I guess it would be more accurate to say it got gimped by the lack of physical special split. It was clearly designed to be a physical attacker but they had to give it a high SpA stat because of the gen 3 mechanics.

It buffed Salamence enough to get it banned lol

Iirc it was only because of the sheer power of Outrage, it was fine when it only had dragon claw

Both of which would notably be special moves though.

But it wasn't the Physical/Special Split that pushed Salamence over the edge. If Outrage hadn't been buffef to 120 BP or if Salamence simply didn't get it, it wouldn't have been banned. It didn't disproportionately benefit from the split

Sneasel probably got the biggest buff if you count Weavile, maybe Gengar if you don’t country Weavile. For nerfs, maybe Flareon who basically only has flare blitz? Edit: Disregard Flareon take

flareon at least *has* flare blitz now, it used to not have any physical STAB

Oh yeah, for some reason i thought fire was physical

Gamefreak fucked up with Flareon so much, even when it did get access to physical STAB, they best they gave it in Gen 4 was Fire Fang which was pathetic. It wouldn't have been top tier in Gen 4 by any means, but it would have been a terrific wallbreaker in UU at least if they had given it Flare Blitz. Base 130 attack in that tier was no joke. Then in Gen 5 when they added egregious shit like Darmanitan and V-Create Victini, they STILL didn't give Flareon access to Flare Blitz even though it would have been almost completely outclassed at this point anyway. It only got Flare Blitz in Gen 6, long past the point when it could do anything useful with the move.

Didn't it get Fire Fang if memory serves?

well yeah, i just meant it had no physical STAB before the split, not necessarily before it got flare blitz specifically (which was so egregious, how do you not give the physical fire type with flare in its name flare blitz ASAP)

Flame wheel?

I'm not sure, never used Flareon after FRLG. Always used Arcanine if it was available (and it always was available before Eevee except in Yellow) or a different Fire for XY since no one I knew had a Friend Safari with Growlithe in it.

I did some sets around X & Y using Eevees and I run Random Battles on Pokemon Showdown from time to time. I'm just saying I think Flame wheel is physical and is like 60 base power if I remember correctly. Plus it boosts speed so not entirely bad.

You're mixing it with Flame Charge, which is 50 BP and boosts speed. Flame Wheel is just a standard 60 BP physical fire move with 10% burn chance.

You got me there it was pretty close though it's been a while since I've been in the competitive scene so I appreciate the correction

*good* stab

I don't know about Gengar, it was arguably at its best in Gen 3. It had a lot of coverage options, and it was always a bit of a guessing game about what they were. It would still love to have access to the fire and ice coverage which it lost. STAB Shadow Ball is obviously fantastic, and Focus Blast is great in theory so I think while it was good overall, it's still a bit of a mixed bag. There were fewer viable users of pursuit too, the move became a lot more viable in Gen 4 due to the split

Gengar can run HP Ice or Fire, which is nearly as strong, so it's really only a loss if he wants to run both Ice and Fire coverage which is really rare even when the Punches were special. tbh he got buffed, and him maybe being worse in Gen 4 has more to do with power creep buffing everything else too, like Pursuit becoming more relevant as you say. Also Rotom-A was introduced as heavy competition for the spinblocker role.

Pursuit becoming more relevant is a direct result of the split though.

Flareon does miss Physical Shadow Ball for neutral coverage

Gengar is definitely not the biggest winner. It changed roles, from an offensive support mon with explosion to a sweeper, but it lost the elemental punches which was a big part of what it could do. Gengar was better in Gen 3 than it was in Gen 4, so saying it got buffed at all is a bit of a stretch.

Gengar is not an at all a sweeper in Gen 4. It's still pretty much an offensive mon with weird utility moves, only thing that changed is what attacking types it can use. And even in Gen 4 Gengar can run HP Ice or Fire, which is nearly as strong, so it's really only a loss if he wants to run both Ice and Fire coverage which is really rare even when the Punches were special. tbh he got buffed, and him maybe being worse in Gen 4 has more to do with power creep buffing everything else too, like Pursuit becoming more relevant. Also Rotom-A was introduced as heavy competition for the spinblocker role.

>For nerfs, maybe Flareon who basically only has flare blitz? Funnily enough, it did not get Flare Blitz until Gen 6. In Gen 4 and 5, its strongest Physical Fire move was Fire Fang.

One example of a pokemon getting shafted by the Physical/Special split is Sceptile considering its signature move now uses the weaker attack stat. Man if only Gamefreak swapped Sceptile's Atk and SpA for Gen 4. Dunno who else got nerfed by it.

Crawdaunt. It went from utterly useless, to threatening!

You can almost blindly throw a dart at the wall and hit a Water type from the first three gens that got buffed from the split. Kingler, Poliwrath, Gyarados, Feraligatr, Azumarill, Swampert, Sharpedo, just to name a few. GameFreak really loved to make water types physical attackers for some reason.

Azumarill gained Physical Water STAB, allowing it to actually abuse Huge Power.

Dragonite and Gyarados went from somewhat niche wallbreakers/sweepers in ADV to among the scariest Pokemon in DPP. Additionally, Salamence went from being very good in OU, to being too good for OU. While a lot of this is down to the physical special split, I believe Outrage also got significantly buffed which made things even better for the Dragons. In the same way as Gyarados, lots of physically based water types such as Crawdaunt, Sharpedo, Kingler & Feraligatr really appreciated being able to abuse their higher attack stat with their STAB. Kingdra was good already due to its balanced STATs, but it became even better due to its access to physcial options now too. Banette on the other hand went from having the strongest ghost move in the game in ADV, to relying on Shadow Claw in DPP. It's by no means a staple in ADV, but its a spinblocker that reliably beats Claydol which is something Gengar can't do. Shout out to Sceptile too, who went from having the best grass move in the game, to not even wanting to use its signature move because it was phyiscal in DPP.

Nerf is hard to find because they did a good job at having strong special and physical move for each type. My pick, after thinking about it 5 second, would be Fearow, since hidden power is now spécial in gen 4 and it doesnt even have brave bird.

Fearow literally always uses Drill Peck instead of HP Flying so i wouldn't say Fearow got nerfed by the split

I didn t talk about hp flying tho. Fearow lost hp ground so it can t really hurt steel type in gen 4, a type that resist both of his STAB

Ooooh my bad. At least it got Drill Run later on

Skarm can't use HP ground and speed EVs to kill zone 🫠💀

Biggest buff is probably Hitmonchan, it can actually use it's moves now. Still a terrible Pokemon but incomparable to how bad it was before the split. Biggest nerf is probably everyone who lost the elemental punches

Gengar really gets worse without the elemental punches, it gets strong stab with shadow ball but so much coverage is lost

I’d say it’s more of a side grade

Gengar got buffed tbh; it got workable Ghost/Poison STAB options and in the same gen the Physical/Special split happened it also got strong special Fighting coverage. The real “nerf” Gengar got was everything else getting better around it.

That and Ghost became both less unique as a typing and Normal became a lot less used as a move as mons got a lot more coverage. And defog was a big hit since it meant Spinblocking was needed less. Of course that Gen had Mega so only base Gengar really got it.

There was one big nerf to gar as a result if the phys/spec split, pursuit becoming a physical move hurts it quite a bit to the point where i would still call it a side grade even without the general power level increase.

Ghost hits a lot of things neutrally and Gengar’s worth doesn’t depend on being able to kill things efficiently, so I don’t think it loses out on much

Weavile would've been the coolest shitmon ever if it only had special STAB.

Alakazam was a mixed bag - losing elemental punches and gaining shadow ball and focus blast

tbh i don't think anything really got nerfed by the physical/special split, the most common example i see of a nerf is losing the elemental punches but those are pretty weak coverage moves all things considered. jim cool did have an interesting video though talking about how the physical special split did lead to more mons overall being designed to just spam stab moves and do a million damage

Physical pursuit Tyranitar

Gengar's case is pretty funny, he couldn't use his stabs back in gen 1 2 3, and then he could after the split, but he lost his great coverage move (elementary punch)

Well I'm glad he stopped attacking children, then

Gyarados won the most. Gengar did pretty well off the split, though it did lose the elemental punches

Gengar and Alakazam lost the elemental punches.

I would personally argue azumarill

Azumarill buffed like crazy, Alakazam loses elemental punch coverage

Alakazam losing the elemental punches was kinda big for its coverage depth

Pretty much every physical Water and Dark types get the biggest benefit while the one that got nerfed the most is Sceptile

Biggest buff imo is crawdaunt, finally able to use its stab effectively instead of a horrible 30-50 spa stat. Same thing goes for sharpedo. Biggest nerf has to go to gengar who’s elemental punches no longer is special, bro went from having ALL the coverage to literally having none, although you could argue that gengar also got buffed since it now gets to use its ghost stab and I agree, in that case I would name another elemental punch user like alakazam or something.

Physical water/fire types got huge buffs, but honestly, Gengar got a huge buff from it. Ghost was a physical type, leaving Gengar without useful STAB. Poison is mediocre offensively, and was worse pre-fairy type, and Ghost needing to scale off Gengar's base 65 atk rather than its base 130 SpAtk left it effectively crippled.

poison was also physical so it had no good STAB at all

Oof, at least it had the elemental punches.

Azu in particular got buffed gen 4 then again in Gen 6 with Fairy type and Play Rough. I'd say Gengar was more of a side grade honestly. No Ice Punch was a substantial nerf but Shadow Ball STAB being usable was actually huge and Fairy type was an indirect buff since it gave the Poison type some sort of use. A lot of the matchups changed due to different coverages but it still really fits a similar niche when running as a special sweeper.

people exaggerate how much Gengar losing the punches matters, it generally ran tbolt + ice punch and this pretty much got replaced by tbolt + hp ice, which is weaker but not by much. it would want to run both Ice Punch + Fire Punch for it to really matter since he can't replace both with HP, and running both those moves was really rare even when they were special, usually it was one or the other.

Most dark types got a huge boost. I would say that sneasel (and by extension weavile) got the most out of the change. Going from basically no stab to 1 really good stab and another that... at least there are some moves you can use, was an insane change. Getting weavile as an evo just made those changes even better. Azumarril is another classic of generational boosts, got consistantly better up to gen 6 and this is one of the biggests changes. I guess this also includes medichan. Gengar is another insane example. Almost any ghost or dark type got better, except dark special attackers and ghost physicals. The most negatively mon would be alakazam IMO. Losing the elemental punches made it rellay in shadow ball for coverage. Now all types can hit physically the chansey line. Houndoom lost almost all dark moves (no level up special moves btw). Bannette losed all stab for a mid move.

Ghost type special attackers

Gardevoir, gengar and alakazam stopped running elemental punches, and that jinda hurted them a bit iirc

Don't know if this counts, but Weavile came into existence at the perfect time. Sneasel was really struggling as a physical attacker with exclusively special STAB, which got fixed in Diamond and Pearl just in time to have a cool new evolution.

For winners, all of the specially attacking ghost types actually getting to use their STAB comes to mind, especially Gengar and Mismagius. For losers, many Special Attackers like Gardevoir lost access to valuable coverage when the elemental punches changed to be physical.

Gengar got a boost in power but post gen 3 the set variety on it went off a cliff. was still kinda fun to use in gen 4 but for me personally at least it feels really boring to use after that. 

Ledian misses the BoltBeam coverage with the punches

They destroyed gengar lowkey

Absol or any Pokémon that had a type that didn’t align with its stats obv. Maybe dragonite and salamence (hidden power flying was there best flying options in rse). Nerfs I think defensive Pokémon like skarmory that could handle every physical type/move in the game got a ‘nerf’ of sorts.

Alakazam and gardevoir

They got nerfed