How to fix the slashing steel emperor napoleon penguin? Lean fully into the motif! 1. Swap sp.atk and atk further move points from sp. Atk to defence or atk 2. Keep defiant (defiant proud penguin) and torrent because it is a starter 3. Add either mirror armor, clear body, filter(weakens super effective moves like rhyperior) or supreme overlord(fellow defiant king). And now give it a better unique move. Leaning into steel bird with steel feathers. Give it a move let's call it kingly roost(better name pending) but with 5 PP or just a little more or even less. It does the following. 1. Like roost it restores health. 2. Steel feather roost? Make it lose steel typing for a turn just like roost sheds flying type for a turn 3. Unlike roost it is a very weak attacking move and not a status move that does like 30 base damage to both opponents 4. can also give it a small chance to lay spikes if you want it to be broken You now have a mon that leans into proud napoleon slashing steel penguin with unique niches. 1. Good offensive or positioning ability. 2. Unique recovery move that cant be taunted that also sheds steel type and its resists. Offering a good defensive play but also makes it a juicy target. 4. Can be fully defensive, tanky, stall, setup sweeper, trick room, wall breaker, choice user and finally an assault vest user. Is it a little broken? Yes! is it archaludon broken ? Nope. Does it fit the design and targeted idea? Absolutely IMO
For 2 gens in a row GameFreak decided to design 3 physical starters and then decide that one of them had to be a special attacker, leading the one unlucky enough to get chosen to just be worse for it
100% agreed. Visually and lore wise they should be physical attackers. But because their only good offensive stat is Sp. Atk, instead of nerfing them and increase their physical atk stat, they just force them to be special attackers.
Right? They should've just given it Blaziken's stats. Let people run him the way they want. And at that point, just give it Slush Rush or Swift Swim, instead of Blaziken's Speed Boost.
Swampert needed regenerator, but got damp instead. The greatesthidden ability injustice to date. Imagine regenerator swampert with access to recover. It's a mudskipper axolotl hybrid, let the man regenerate. I want to see him yawning opponents and getting all his HP back. The man would be a bulky menace.
Same as close combat. It makes thematically sense to give empoleon SD. Said so, why doesnt every physical attacker get close combat. That is afterall what they all do
Empoleon and Samurott were both done so dirty. Empoleon gets a vast physical movepool and bad physical stats. Samurott gets a good physical movepool, but no secondary type to help it like the thematically appropriate fighting type, and still have a higher special attack for some reason. It stinks, since they're absolutely two of the coolest starters out there
Thank god Hisuian Samurott exists to fix all the problems that Regular Samurott have battle-wise (sounds more like replacing it but that's what good regional forms do)
@@starstorm1267 ....Why ISN'T Samurott a Water/Fighting? It's in the same generation that has Cobalion, Terrakion, Virizion and Keldeo! Emboar could have just stayed as a mono fire type, or if they insisted on having it be a duel type it could have been a Fire/Dark because visually it would look the part.
Samurott should just get Sharpness as an HA like its Hisuian variant. That way, it gets boosted Aqua Cutter/Razor Shell to make better use of its currently mediocre 100 base Attack and also gets pseudo-STAB from moves like Sacred Sword without needing to actually change its type and type matchups. And if they want to make it more distinct from its Hisuian counterpart instead of having it be pretty much a weaker variant, they can give it Bulk Up and maybe Slack Off (Skeledirge and Infernape get it, so why not?) to focus in on its better bulk and defensive typing. Or they can introduce better special moves that pair with Sharpness, so it can then benefit with more moves than just Air Slash.
@starstorm1267 You made me think of something. What if Gamefreak made Emboar into a Fire/Ground type instead Fire/Fighting type? You know, since pigs love to wallow in the mud?
Don’t forget Empoleon won Worlds once, making it one of the only starters do to so, along with Rillaboom and Incineroar, and it being the first starter to do so. In addition to this, Empoleon was part of the first 6 pokemon to ever win worlds, along with Toxicroak, Metagross, Ludicolo, Salamence, and Snorlax.
@leandrocesar5207 basically everything lost scald, it makes sense for Empoleon to not learn it anyway since it's a penguin and no Water/Ice mons learn Scald, while Empoleon isn't Ice it's still an arctic animal
Two thing I find stupid, is, the •lose of transfer moves... • a pokemon not being to learn a move that was to learn in previous gen. It's a Professional swimmer over 20 years after not swiming forgets how to swim, and can't learn how to swim again even though he/she more than Capable too.
Empoleon for sure. Revolves around napoleon bonaparte who was an overlord. Always depicted as commanding over underling pokemon as well. I dont thinl samurai is a good pick tho cause they arwnt typically ruling over others, they are normally an independent or allied faction to others.
@@hanswnjohnson2536 not even slightly. Both have middling attacking stats (one has arguably BAD physical attacking stats) and the boost only gets up to 1.5x damage on Pokemon with low speed, decent defence to bad defences and weak priority. It wouldnt even be better than competitive empoleon
@@Trixster009My comment will either age like milk or wine but mark my words; Regional Chikorita as a starter in Legends ZA, possibly being a fairy type and the trio having fairy/steel/dragon "perfect" secondary typings.
Diamond was the first pokemon game I ever owned and played front to back, and I chose Piplup as my starter because I thought Empoleon looked SICK AF when I was a kid, but I very specifically remember all of his moves being just bad. I even got the Diamond and Pearl Guide Book from my local library and found that he didnt learn anything special, and especially not Ice Type moves, which I thought was completely backwards given that he's literally a Penguin Pokemon!!!! For that, I was like "I'm going to make Empoleon have the moves God intended!!!" And hunted down the TMs for Blizzard and Ice Beam, and then also give him Surf and Cut, and then I had my ultimate build Empoleon. I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one that thought Empoleon's move set was ass 😂😂😂
A steel-coated penguin emperor will never not be the most badass thing ever, and the fact he's actually extra tanky on top of that is just the cherry on top. Easily my favorite water starter alongside Primarina. 💪
Empoleon was still pretty good though. In Singles at least it dropped from OU to UU in Gen 5 and stayed there doing a good job until Gen 9 came along with its huge powercreep pushing it down to RU
being ranked in ru is definitely not a bad thing in sv, sv has seen the craziest powercreep, it’s still doing better than torterra & infernape (both nu)
@@Brandon.thebabytbh infernape can still work in higher tiers too the problem is its hidden ability isn’t that good ether and it being a mixed attacker isn’t doing much for it kinda wish it got a new ability too because iron fist is just a meh ability but infernape used to be insane in gen 4 and 5 ou next generation is gonna have a lot of pokemon nerfs anyways to make up for the substantial power creep
@@christianftt3136 infernape can still do stuff, it’s just empoleon will always be more useful. having an INSANE typing, solid bulk & a crazy utility movepool will always trumph a frail/ powercrept attacker
@@Brandon.thebaby I completely agree but I do think infernape can definitely carve out a niche easier then empoleon sometimes but empoleon typing is just so good that it helps him tremendously really wish the sinnoh starters had gotten megas wouldve helped them a lot cause power creep is just too significant currently would’ve loved to see mega blaziken 2.0 and a mega empoleon
@@christianftt3136 yeah, powercreep is CRAZY these days, but i heard lots of speculations that piplup was gonna be one of the starters in legends za, so maybe mega empoleon will be a thing? we’ll see 🤝🏼
Empoleon deserves better. Even with the gen 9 buffs he’s not doing well because of what it lost. It deserves justice. I don’t think it should change type because it’s the only water/steel type and that would take away something unique to it but it definitely should get scald back at least.
@@cabrondemente1theirs so many questionable decisions in this franchise fella. Applying arbitrary limitations to it just because it “doesn’t make sense” is silly.
except, it would need Physically Defensive investment to live Chomp's EQ - and even then is never living a +2 EQ and is a death roll from LO Earthquake from unboosted Chomp. You would need a shuca berry for that and still you'd rather have something else for Chomp. All the while, Emp is better as a special defensive mon so you'd be tailoring it to do something it doesn't want to do.
I will never forget empoleon’s gen IV strat of sub, agility, surf, grass knot/ice beam/flash cannon with a liechi berry. Sweeping with this strategy is a memory forever engrained in my brain so I can never be disappointed with empoleon for it.
Empoleon's buffs may be confusing, but at least it has good stats and was viable for longer. Sceptile on the other hand never stood a chance. Sceptile does no one thing right. It's a walking identity crisis. What's that? You want a Hidden ability? Let's make it one that boosts your already crazy-high speed that you can't use properly. High special attack stat? Let's make your only useful moves physical. Acrobatics can combo with Unburden? Too bad, it's also a physical move. Like... how the hell are you supposed to use this thing..? It's like they threw darts at a board and called it a day.
GameFreak just be pulling hidden abilities and stats out of hats for these starters. I think every starter should be viable in competitive and not just the furries. Incin, Cinder, Meow are all viable in comp, but thats it
They probably made it a special attacker because Torterra and Infernape are both already physical attackers. It feels like a last minute correction with little actual effort made to justify it.
Too bad the best moves are physical and Empoleon has terrible physical stats. The fact that most fire starters are fighting type means he drops to a single close combat.
Steel/Water is good typing but he's not entirely wrong. Mono Water in it's own right is already solid defensive typing, and in pretty much every gen Empoleon faces stiff competition from mono water mons and water types that cover more important offensive types - Slowbro/Slowking resisting Fighting, Fire, and having a Ground neutral. Alomomola/Dondozo/Past gens Vaporeon showing how dominant pure water can be, water poisons like Tenta/Toxapex in OU in most recent gens, and Water/Grounds like Swampert/Gastro/Quag always having viability in top tiers.
Its only worse when you're looking at weaknesses. It has a whopping 10 resistances (2 of which are 4x resistances), and an immunity to poison. It gets rid of water's grass weakness, and steel's fire weakness, but gets the fighting and ground weaknesses from steel. Pure water type only has 4 resistances. Empoleon gains 1 weakness to gain 6 resistances and an immunity (not to mention the bonus steel stab bonus, which is really good against Fairy types). All this to say, _you_ have no idea what you're talking about.
@@lasercraft32 Not all types contribute the same offensively. Which is part of why, as I said, Empoleon has been outcompeted in past gens -and even in current gen despite getting roost - by pure water types and water types with fewer resists and more weaknesses. I don't think anyone in this chain has said that Water/Steel is worse than pure Water. Rather, the tradeoff of gaining 6 weaknesses and an immunity for 1 weakness isn't actually worth it for alot of teams when it means Empoleon's 3 weaknesses are 3 of the best and most common offensive types in the game. In alot of ways, it has alot of amazing resistances, but also adapts a bit of the worst of both worlds for steel and water types. If you go and look at what pokemon such as Slowking have been used for through the generations, a massive part of it's role is to counter or check fire types, fighting types, and ground types. On the flip side if you look at a bulky steel like Registeel, Registeel's role through the generations has largely included mons like Roserade, Meloetta, Xurkitree, and Shaymin. Empoleon is of course a phenomenal mon with solid defensive typing in it's own right, but saying Steel/Water is better is not exactly the case. It would for most gens be easier to fit a different bulky water and instead have your steel fit into a different part of your FWG core such as with Ferrothorn or Heatran, or use a Water type + Bulky steel like Slowking/Steelix in older gen lower tiers together for these reasons.
Torterra threatens both of its fellow starters with ground type moves. Infernape threatens both its fellow starters with fire type for torterra and fighting for empoleon. Empoleon threatens both its fellow starters with water moves for empoleon, and… well it’s not STAB, but it can make use of torterra’s 4x weakness to ice types.
@themister.s-1st empoleon should have gotten sturdy when hit by close combat he at least would have survived then a water move. Similarly hit by earthquake from torterra would have survived then a strong icebeam.
A german youtuber who won a lot of competitive pokemon tournaments here used Empoleon alot, its typing is nice and its is versatile, Walling fairys with assault vest or wrecking havoc with choice specs. You never know
1:57 I tried to make a Mist team once! I theorycrafted this whole thing with a bunch of pokemon that knew moves like Shell Smash and Draco Meteor and abilities like Weak Armor so I could negate the stat drops under Mist and spam them with impunity. I had at least a couple of them bred before I found out that Mist doesn’t affect self-inflicted stat drops. Nobody uses Mist.
Back when I played my first ever Pokémon game Diamond as a wee lad, I mostly brute forced through the whole game with an over levelled HM slave Empoleon named Pip. He’s been my favourite ever since, so you can imagine I was pretty shocked and happy that he was put into Pokken. The real shock lied in one of Empoleon’s gameplay mechanics. Not his ability to freeze the ground for funny momentum shenanigans, no, it was his ability to follow up Aqua Jet, Drill Peck and Defog with 4 specific moves. - Rock Smash - Cut - Surf - Waterfall Pip’s exact moveset. They didn’t just put any Empoleon in the game. They put *MY* Empoleon in the game. Pip still going strong over a decade later. Not only my favourite Pokémon, but now also one of my favourite fighting game characters.
Since gen5 Empoleon is UU, and dropped to RU only in gen9. This is impressive, considering the progressive power creep included in every new gen. This makes Empoleon one of the best water type starters, after Samurott-H, Primarina, Greninja, and arguably Quaquaval and Blastoise
11:51 literally none of these are signature moves, even in Legends Arceus. Ursaluna can learn Headlong Rush, Hisuian Arcanine can learn Raging Fury, and Basculin+Basculegion can learn Wave Crash. In fact, in order to beat the game, you NEED to battle against a Hisuian Arcanine with Raging Fury AND make your own Basculin repeatedly use Wave Crash to take recoil damage in order to evolve it. You've disproven this claim yourself
I think he means that they are the ones associated with the moves the most as they all seem to be referencing the sinnoh starters with the moves, raging fury sounds like infernaoe, wave crash sounds like empoleon and headlong rush sounds like Torterra
@@kingkmtso5107 they literally aren't, the associations with Arcanine and Basculegion are much much more heavily enforced. Basculin evolves specifically by taking tons of recoil damage, you NEED to use Wave Crash on it several times. A Hisuian Arcanine with Raging Fury is not only a boss but the boss that started ramping up the difficulty of the noble battles. The Sinnoh starters are just off in the middle of nowhere and you can just catch them and store them away forever, you aren't even gonna know they CAN learn it unless you either A: used them on your team or B: looked it up
They're still off signature moves by only one. Each one of the other mons that can learn them were new arrivals to the series at the time, and were the _only_ other mons that could learn those moves (as in, each move could only be learned by 2 evo lines at that point). It's clear that they were all new 120 bp moves made at least partially to give the Sinnoh starter trio stronger STAB options, and are even learned at level 57 by both Empoleon and Torterra (with Infernape's level 57 move being its classic 120 bp STAB in Close Combat instead). So while I disagree with the video due to it outright being wrong - the Sinnoh starters _aren't_ the only ones to learn it by level up in P:LA - I also disagree with ignoring the clear ties they have to the Sinnoh starter trio.
My first Nuzlocke was with Pearl and Piplup as my starter. Long story short, while training in Victory Road, half my team died and I ran into the Elite Four out of frustration, intending to let the run die. Empoleon with swords dance and physical moves cleaved through them with many close calls, totally succeeding where I expected to fail. If you ask me, best penguin far and wide.
For ingame play of its debut generation, the Piplup line is really funny because you spend like the first half of the game with it being pretty awful. Packing a miserable 20 power STAB for the first two gyms as well as some low-power physical coverage moves off of its worse offenses. Then you get around Canalave and suddenly you have a fantastic typing, STAB Surf and Flash Cannon, great bulk and damage output, and a still usable attack stat in case you want to use coverage Drill Peck or priority Aqua Jet for niche applications. Compared to the early-peaking Torterra line or the borderline broken Infernape line, Empoleon is a really slow burn
Not even from the angle of long-term competitive play - Empoleon was the biggest lemon of a starter I’d ever invested in (on the first-time playthrough when the game just came out). Here me and my friend were, in my childhood bedroom unwrapping our copies of D&P. It was day 1 and so all we had to go on were the starters’ base form names and appearances to go off when choosing. We were coming off the Gen 3 lineup which gave us some really cool starter dual-type combos, so I was like, “for sure, 100%, this PENGUIN pokémon is going to be the first Water/Ice starter and that’s gonna be really fun!” So I pick that and my bestie picks Turtwig. Fast forward to level 16, neither of us got a second type but the kid from across the street is positively shitting on the entire concept of the single player experience with yet-another Fire/Fighting that came online before the second gym. Whatever, I think, I’ve got faith that if I just keep dragging my mediocre water pokemon around I will get my payoff. My bestie hit 36 a day or two before me so I saw him get Grass/Ground, which of course was unique at the time and such a fun and useful type combo. My anticipation couldn’t have been higher and made the road to Empoleon feel like it took an eternity. Only for it to finally evolve, and I opened the status screen to see not Ice, but… Steel? Disappointed, I started looking for ways to even add a Steel type move to it, only to be hit with the Metal Claw situation. It was… devastating. If I could have thrown that pokémon away any harder, I would have. What a piece of shit experience that was for a first playthrough. (Happy ending: the first honey tree I ever used back at the beginning of the game just happened to spit out a female Combee, so I was the only person I knew with a Vespiquen and she hard carried me through the entire game and schoolyard pvp)
Empoleon was okay for its featured region as it’s typing allowed many resistances but it’s movepool was generally ass (doesn’t learn a decent water type move until prinplup’s late 20’s) and even then it’s level up moves went against its generic sp.atk build with PHYSICAL moves! This could be improved by having it learn moves such as gust,flash cannon and air slash (WHICH IS AN ILLEGAL MOVE FOR SOME REASON!). Sneaking in aurora beam would help too
Nintendo: "So, we gonna fix every single Water type learning the equivalent the best Fire, Electric, and Ice TMs in the game?" "What if we just made the Water starter confusing and contradictory?" "...Brilliant."
Piplup is the cutest out there, slightly cuter than Torchic even. And it's the Club Penguin evolution line, I love them so much. Also in the Diamond & Pearl anime when Dawn's Piplup learnt to use Hydro Pump, it was the cutest and also scariest thing ever because unlike bigger mons, Piplup can't open its tiny baby beak to shoot a beam of water so it literally created a void/vortex in front of its mouth which then shot the massive hydro beam. It felt as if this little baby penguin just summoned a beam of water from a different dimension itself 😭
As someone whose knowledge of Empoleon's... suckiness was just "it gains another weakness to its grass-type foe and becomes weak to its fire-type foe", I learned that Gamefreak probably just forget that they were they were giving a physical sweep build to a Pokemon with decent attack and penguin speed.
It was definitely supposed to be Water/Ice, based on the weakness triangles that were made with Torterra and Infernape. That said, Water/Steel stays a bomb typing.
The ability people and the stat people at Gamefreak don’t seem to like talking to each other. Just look at Ledian. Base Attack stat of 35… and it gets an ability that increases the damage of punch moves.
being weak to the most common offensive types is the drawback of ALL steel types. It's also the reason those types are the most common offensive types. Resisting more than half the game is absolutely worth 3 weaknesses, the steel type is stellar. Empoleon also has the strongest competitive history of gen 4 starters, it's never been a bad pokemon. Infernape hit NU and empoleon has never even touched that tier
0:12 I like that wally was used to show casual players when in actuality he has one of the most stacked teams in the games and sits in the in universe competitive league for hoenn making his team better with every loss
empoleon might be my favorite starter pokemon. I think its in part due to the character development of dawn's piplup in the show, but I love that 5'7 chicken
yeah Gamefreak had a little streak with messing up water type starters for a while. Empoleon needing the flash cannon TM, Samurott being setup as a SAMURAI, yet having more special attack and a bad physical movepool, which they had to fix over time (Its pretty okay rn, especially with the hidden ability). Then they created Greninja, a pretty good special attacker with a nice movepool that had his signature move be physical in his debut gen, Gamefreak come ON.
I have been having a lot of success recently with empoleon in draft leagues. I used the gen 4 sub agility petaya torrent set (which was an actual competitive set back then) and it still works even in gen 9 with all the crazy new mons. I've gotten off 6-0 sweeps even in the semifinals of a league with it 😀 Funnily though, the main reason it did so well was because i also drafted chi yu that season, which baited in spdef walls. Because of this i could use ruination or spam specs fire blast on bulky water types which are the main check to empoleon trying to sweep with +1 torrent boosted surf and ice beam By the time empoleon came out, there was nothing left that wouldn't get ohko'd and most people think of it as a defensive piece so it doesn't struggle to find the time to click agility, especially because it's typing and bulk lets it switch in pretty easily.
Do you know what would have worked? Flipping the offensive stats. Let it use defiant and the moves GF were so desperate to bestow upon it. And being a starter built around the wrong stat pre split could have celebrated the milestone nicely
Yes but what you havve to consider is that surf is a base 90 100% accurate special water move you are FORCED to have at least one of your mons learn. You also get the flash cannon TM after one of the gyms which is also a powerful special steel move that you get. So its not like you get NO options, its just based on different mechanics to level up. Being that special defensive mons are much more rare than normal defensive... and are not affected by things like burn and intimate, even though the base power is lower, they hit just as hard. The problem is more a lack of special steel moves in general.
They should also give it King’s Shield! It would be the best counter to incineroar. Competitive to counter intimidate And king’s shield to counter fake out.
They should've switched Empoleon's Atk/SpA and made a move specifically for it like they kind of did with the other two starters (Wood Hammer/Close Combat), they could've made something like a 100BP steel type attack and called it "Steel Bade".
i think it makes perfect sense why empoleon has a really weird build. I would need to be fact checked because it’s rooted in speculation, but i believe the starter trio for DPP was almost going to be psychic dark and fighting / some other triangle. I think back in 2007 GF was starting to lose inspiration for the starters as they already had 9 starters that each had to have “unique” stats and characteristics (minus typh and charizard.. lol). I think they were trying their best to differentiate him from the other water types but kind of failed. I wonder if this stems from them not really having big inspiration to recreate a fire grass water trio
because keep in mind this was before pokemon started to force personalities upon their starters. & the next generation soft reset the series and so the complete lack of pre-existing pokemon in the dex made any repeats / lack of innovation would be made null because every pokemon was brand new. By then making the 7 8 and 9 gen starters essentially people the choice between stats and typing becomes less important and thus innovation surrounding the builds and type combos kinda goes out the window. now the starters are just about how cool they seem or how broken their abilities can be lol
Empoleon is my favorite pokémon since forever and this video talks to my soul. I never understood why defiant, and why all the physical moves, meanwhile he barely got anything new on the special side since DP. They gave him Scald, just to remove it a few generations later... Being an Empoleon fan is true pain
I know it's not just me but when I first got introduced to the Gen 4 Empoleon was the starter that caught my eye and ever since then I love the penguin
How did you make a 14 minute video and not mention Agility, sand immunity, or Rocks resist. The movepool thing is probably just a way to balance a pokemon that takes half damage from everything for half of the game.
i dont think the YTer plays competitive, it seems like he’s really only talking about play throughs? bc support/ utility empoleon has been historically AMAZING in competitive
@@Brandon.thebaby it's more of the fact that being a water type having super effective attacks against ground is now meaningless if your slower than said ground type. And Empoleon is normally speed tied with most ground types. Plus you know most fire starters are fighting and faster as well... And Empoleon isn't physically bulky enough. It's just unfortunate
@@poppyfrancis7338 He'd probably come up with the most batshit insane lie you've ever heard to try and say it is. He was dead certain that mega evolution was in scarlet and violet when he played it and called the pokemon company's own website wrong while also insulting smogon in the same sentance
Hope you enjoyed! :) ^^ Are there any other Pokemon you'd like me to make videos like this on?
How to fix the slashing steel emperor napoleon penguin? Lean fully into the motif!
1. Swap sp.atk and atk further move points from sp. Atk to defence or atk
2. Keep defiant (defiant proud penguin) and torrent because it is a starter
3. Add either mirror armor, clear body, filter(weakens super effective moves like rhyperior) or supreme overlord(fellow defiant king).
And now give it a better unique move. Leaning into steel bird with steel feathers. Give it a move let's call it kingly roost(better name pending) but with 5 PP or just a little more or even less. It does the following.
1. Like roost it restores health.
2. Steel feather roost? Make it lose steel typing for a turn just like roost sheds flying type for a turn
3. Unlike roost it is a very weak attacking move and not a status move that does like 30 base damage to both opponents
4. can also give it a small chance to lay spikes if you want it to be broken
You now have a mon that leans into proud napoleon slashing steel penguin with unique niches.
1. Good offensive or positioning ability.
2. Unique recovery move that cant be taunted that also sheds steel type and its resists. Offering a good defensive play but also makes it a juicy target.
4. Can be fully defensive, tanky, stall, setup sweeper, trick room, wall breaker, choice user and finally an assault vest user.
Is it a little broken? Yes! is it archaludon broken ? Nope. Does it fit the design and targeted idea? Absolutely IMO
How Zamezentq went from one of the worst competitive Pokémon to winning a tournament by WolfeVGC but in your style
Empoleon best starter fight me
The rise of Regigigas.
Make one on Sceptile and how badly it should be Physical? Also how all the Hoenn Starters *lost* their Signature Moves please and thank you. 🙂
Sheesh. With all of these physical moves, GameFreak basically treated Empoleon the same way they did with Sceptile.
For 2 gens in a row GameFreak decided to design 3 physical starters and then decide that one of them had to be a special attacker, leading the one unlucky enough to get chosen to just be worse for it
100% agreed. Visually and lore wise they should be physical attackers. But because their only good offensive stat is Sp. Atk, instead of nerfing them and increase their physical atk stat, they just force them to be special attackers.
But Empoleon gets Swords Dance without even needing a tm for it.
Right?
They should've just given it Blaziken's stats. Let people run him the way they want.
And at that point, just give it Slush Rush or Swift Swim, instead of Blaziken's Speed Boost.
@@GameBreaker1055I'm pretty sure Infernape can be ran as special.
Let's not forget that Empoleon, which has STEEL WINGS cannot learn **S T E E L W I N G*.
He can’t, he’s too shy 🙈 👉🏻👈🏻
It could learn steel wing in previous gens. But for some reason Game Freak took it from him, like why???
Turns out the whole time, game freak was mistakenly sending the buffs intended for Swampert to Empoleon
Yeah that's insane, they both need buffs
Not the first time. Namcos also mistakingly sent a Pokken invitational letter to Emplemon that was supposed to be for Swampert.
Imagine Mega Swampert in NatDex with Wave Crash
@@goGothitaLOL that be insane
Swampert needed regenerator, but got damp instead. The greatesthidden ability injustice to date.
Imagine regenerator swampert with access to recover. It's a mudskipper axolotl hybrid, let the man regenerate.
I want to see him yawning opponents and getting all his HP back. The man would be a bulky menace.
never knew it struggled this much, poor club penguin 😔
How is this released 1 day ago when the video was released 35 minutes ago
@@GuaseVerse-o3x patreon
@@GuaseVerse-o3x Membership
@@GuaseVerse-o3xit's a MEMBER of this channel dude
Torterra: "hi!"
game freak: *introduces flash cannon*
*does not give it naturally to lucario or Empoleon*
Obviously they gave Empoleon swords dance to pair with hydro pump during contests (only combo you really need to win every contest in gen 4).
Same as close combat. It makes thematically sense to give empoleon SD.
Said so, why doesnt every physical attacker get close combat. That is afterall what they all do
@@ItsJustKayafar combat, mid combat
combat combat
Given that Piplup was Dawn's chosen starter in the anime, that honestly kinda makes sense.
Empoleon and Samurott were both done so dirty. Empoleon gets a vast physical movepool and bad physical stats. Samurott gets a good physical movepool, but no secondary type to help it like the thematically appropriate fighting type, and still have a higher special attack for some reason.
It stinks, since they're absolutely two of the coolest starters out there
Thank god Hisuian Samurott exists to fix all the problems that Regular Samurott have battle-wise (sounds more like replacing it but that's what good regional forms do)
Emboar stole Samurott’s Fighting type to become the third Fire/Fighting starter in a row. And that’s why he’s my least favorite Gen5 starter
@@starstorm1267 ....Why ISN'T Samurott a Water/Fighting? It's in the same generation that has Cobalion, Terrakion, Virizion and Keldeo! Emboar could have just stayed as a mono fire type, or if they insisted on having it be a duel type it could have been a Fire/Dark because visually it would look the part.
Samurott should just get Sharpness as an HA like its Hisuian variant. That way, it gets boosted Aqua Cutter/Razor Shell to make better use of its currently mediocre 100 base Attack and also gets pseudo-STAB from moves like Sacred Sword without needing to actually change its type and type matchups.
And if they want to make it more distinct from its Hisuian counterpart instead of having it be pretty much a weaker variant, they can give it Bulk Up and maybe Slack Off (Skeledirge and Infernape get it, so why not?) to focus in on its better bulk and defensive typing. Or they can introduce better special moves that pair with Sharpness, so it can then benefit with more moves than just Air Slash.
@starstorm1267 You made me think of something. What if Gamefreak made Emboar into a Fire/Ground type instead Fire/Fighting type? You know, since pigs love to wallow in the mud?
Amazing how Empoleon is STILL the only water/steel type.
And my favourite Pokémon 😂
I'm still waiting for a physical water/steel pokemon. I thought maybe clawitzer could be that, but nah.
@@gigastrike2 Honedge should get a water/steel convergent based on a swordfish
@@gigastrike2 gamefreak thinks you already got it
The fact that Empoleon looks like he's got freaking BLADES AND SPIKES FOR ARMS and can't even use it
Don’t forget Empoleon won Worlds once, making it one of the only starters do to so, along with Rillaboom and Incineroar, and it being the first starter to do so.
In addition to this, Empoleon was part of the first 6 pokemon to ever win worlds, along with Toxicroak, Metagross, Ludicolo, Salamence, and Snorlax.
Blastoise won Worlds as well. Look up Kosaku Miyamoto
@ That’s the Juniors division. I’m talking about the Masters division because that’s the one people care about the most.
Fun fact in pokken Tournament Empoleon is an hm slave:
Cut, Rock Smash, Surf, & Waterfall are it's moves. In animation it's even shown using deodg
While using Aqua Jet
@Sonario648 as it's only non hm move😂
;_; my boy can't have shit
And then it lost Scald because of equivalent exchange
@leandrocesar5207 basically everything lost scald, it makes sense for Empoleon to not learn it anyway since it's a penguin and no Water/Ice mons learn Scald, while Empoleon isn't Ice it's still an arctic animal
Agreed, thematically it doesn't make sense for a penguin to learn a move that can brew your tea
Can we bring it back or is it some kind of taboo to not do that?
I mean Emboar out of all thing learns scald n vaporeon also does so taking it away from other water pokemon is just stupid imo
Two thing I find stupid, is, the •lose of transfer moves...
• a pokemon not being to learn a move that was to learn in previous gen.
It's a Professional swimmer over 20 years after not swiming forgets how to swim, and can't learn how to swim again even though he/she more than Capable too.
my god even its height is a reference to Napoleon
We stan our short kings 🙌🏼
He was average height for his time
Sceptile being a SP ATk with its signature move being leaf blade is a literal crime. Poor Geico
That's okay, Leafeon took over Leaf Blade and gave it purpose 💚
Gamefreak kinda enjoys tormenting people who pick the incorrect starter.
At least Sceptile was introduced in a generation that didn't have the split.
Imagine Samurout and Empoleon having the hidden ability Supreme Overlord, to match the whole "Samurai" and "Emperor" titles.
Yesssss that would be sick
Empoleon for sure. Revolves around napoleon bonaparte who was an overlord. Always depicted as commanding over underling pokemon as well. I dont thinl samurai is a good pick tho cause they arwnt typically ruling over others, they are normally an independent or allied faction to others.
Dreaming of a Mega Empoleon with that
Dude that would be so Broken
@@hanswnjohnson2536 not even slightly. Both have middling attacking stats (one has arguably BAD physical attacking stats) and the boost only gets up to 1.5x damage on Pokemon with low speed, decent defence to bad defences and weak priority. It wouldnt even be better than competitive empoleon
That Empoleon now has Competitive as Hidden Ability gives me hope that one day Meganium will have Triage
Yay a meganium fan ❤❤❤
For those who don't know, like me, Triage is an ability that's grants priority to healing moves, like Draining Kiss, Giga Drain or Synthesis.
@@Trixster009 meganium genuinely should be able to learn training kisss
@@markmushyguy Meganium was meant for that Fairy typing tbh. Maybe in a regional variant, we'll get it.
@@Trixster009My comment will either age like milk or wine but mark my words;
Regional Chikorita as a starter in Legends ZA, possibly being a fairy type and the trio having fairy/steel/dragon "perfect" secondary typings.
the whirlpool thing is so true that move has 15 base power in the game and 150 in the show
Yeah Dawn's piplup's whirlpool seemed so powerful and was always treated as such.
That blaziken meme was too funny because gamefreak literally was like hey another son goku
I don’t care, I’m still picking Empoleon.
facts
Napoleon the Empoleon, that was what I named him.
Based
My fave starter 💛
Same. The best starter by far.
Empoleon’s identity would fit Nasty Plot so well. Literally based on Napoleon. Talk about a nasty plotter
I didn’t know I needed to see empoleon hitting the club penguin dance
i scrolled for this comment because more people need to talk about this
Diamond was the first pokemon game I ever owned and played front to back, and I chose Piplup as my starter because I thought Empoleon looked SICK AF when I was a kid, but I very specifically remember all of his moves being just bad. I even got the Diamond and Pearl Guide Book from my local library and found that he didnt learn anything special, and especially not Ice Type moves, which I thought was completely backwards given that he's literally a Penguin Pokemon!!!! For that, I was like "I'm going to make Empoleon have the moves God intended!!!" And hunted down the TMs for Blizzard and Ice Beam, and then also give him Surf and Cut, and then I had my ultimate build Empoleon.
I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one that thought Empoleon's move set was ass 😂😂😂
A steel-coated penguin emperor will never not be the most badass thing ever, and the fact he's actually extra tanky on top of that is just the cherry on top. Easily my favorite water starter alongside Primarina. 💪
Never got into competitive battling in Pokémon but Empoleon is my favourite starter so this got me interested.
Empoleon was still pretty good though. In Singles at least it dropped from OU to UU in Gen 5 and stayed there doing a good job until Gen 9 came along with its huge powercreep pushing it down to RU
being ranked in ru is definitely not a bad thing in sv, sv has seen the craziest powercreep, it’s still doing better than torterra & infernape (both nu)
@@Brandon.thebabytbh infernape can still work in higher tiers too the problem is its hidden ability isn’t that good ether and it being a mixed attacker isn’t doing much for it kinda wish it got a new ability too because iron fist is just a meh ability but infernape used to be insane in gen 4 and 5 ou next generation is gonna have a lot of pokemon nerfs anyways to make up for the substantial power creep
@@christianftt3136 infernape can still do stuff, it’s just empoleon will always be more useful. having an INSANE typing, solid bulk & a crazy utility movepool will always trumph a frail/ powercrept attacker
@@Brandon.thebaby I completely agree but I do think infernape can definitely carve out a niche easier then empoleon sometimes but empoleon typing is just so good that it helps him tremendously really wish the sinnoh starters had gotten megas wouldve helped them a lot cause power creep is just too significant currently would’ve loved to see mega blaziken 2.0 and a mega empoleon
@@christianftt3136 yeah, powercreep is CRAZY these days, but i heard lots of speculations that piplup was gonna be one of the starters in legends za, so maybe mega empoleon will be a thing? we’ll see 🤝🏼
empoleon has always been the most unique special wall, always imo its best role throughout every tier it’s been in (my fave pokemon)
I have witnessed empoleon doing Club penguin and I can say that I had lived life
Empoleon deserves better. Even with the gen 9 buffs he’s not doing well because of what it lost.
It deserves justice.
I don’t think it should change type because it’s the only water/steel type and that would take away something unique to it but it definitely should get scald back at least.
It doesn't make sense for an emperor penguin to produce hot water.
How does vaporeon learn it then, alolamola too
@@cabrondemente1theirs so many questionable decisions in this franchise fella. Applying arbitrary limitations to it just because it “doesn’t make sense” is silly.
@@cabrondemente1but it makes sense for it to learn grass knot????
id argue that he’s actually been really good in uu & ru, an ou niche is really difficult for any pokemon in this crazy power crept gen
In the competitive, empoleon was a very solid choice. It has stealth rock and was able to tank and kill the garchomp that was in everybody's team
except, it would need Physically Defensive investment to live Chomp's EQ - and even then is never living a +2 EQ and is a death roll from LO Earthquake from unboosted Chomp. You would need a shuca berry for that and still you'd rather have something else for Chomp. All the while, Emp is better as a special defensive mon so you'd be tailoring it to do something it doesn't want to do.
I will never forget empoleon’s gen IV strat of sub, agility, surf, grass knot/ice beam/flash cannon with a liechi berry. Sweeping with this strategy is a memory forever engrained in my brain so I can never be disappointed with empoleon for it.
0:11 Have you seen Battle Mansion Wally's team? That is the opposite of being casual. Red's more casual that him.
Empoleon's buffs may be confusing, but at least it has good stats and was viable for longer. Sceptile on the other hand never stood a chance.
Sceptile does no one thing right. It's a walking identity crisis. What's that? You want a Hidden ability? Let's make it one that boosts your already crazy-high speed that you can't use properly. High special attack stat? Let's make your only useful moves physical. Acrobatics can combo with Unburden? Too bad, it's also a physical move.
Like... how the hell are you supposed to use this thing..?
It's like they threw darts at a board and called it a day.
competitive players understand & appreciate empoleon’s build 💯
Dont forget it’s only grass type too and it’s not Serperior who is superior
08:52 "since apparently pixies can't handle steel beings"
Hey now, Maleficent (live action) made this canon in the first movie!
9:40 empoleon being like tf totally going to be a whatsapp sticker
"Ah yes, lets give the SPECIAL ATTACKER Defiant."
Like, imagine if they gave Bisharp Competitive rather than Defiant.
0:47 My Boy Blaziken said dont play wit me🤣🤣🤣
GameFreak just be pulling hidden abilities and stats out of hats for these starters. I think every starter should be viable in competitive and not just the furries. Incin, Cinder, Meow are all viable in comp, but thats it
Rillaboom
They probably made it a special attacker because Torterra and Infernape are both already physical attackers. It feels like a last minute correction with little actual effort made to justify it.
Steel / Water is some of the best typing in the game. Considering it worse than mono water shows you have no idea what you're talking about.
Too bad the best moves are physical and Empoleon has terrible physical stats. The fact that most fire starters are fighting type means he drops to a single close combat.
Steel/Water is good typing but he's not entirely wrong. Mono Water in it's own right is already solid defensive typing, and in pretty much every gen Empoleon faces stiff competition from mono water mons and water types that cover more important offensive types - Slowbro/Slowking resisting Fighting, Fire, and having a Ground neutral. Alomomola/Dondozo/Past gens Vaporeon showing how dominant pure water can be, water poisons like Tenta/Toxapex in OU in most recent gens, and Water/Grounds like Swampert/Gastro/Quag always having viability in top tiers.
Its only worse when you're looking at weaknesses. It has a whopping 10 resistances (2 of which are 4x resistances), and an immunity to poison. It gets rid of water's grass weakness, and steel's fire weakness, but gets the fighting and ground weaknesses from steel.
Pure water type only has 4 resistances. Empoleon gains 1 weakness to gain 6 resistances and an immunity (not to mention the bonus steel stab bonus, which is really good against Fairy types).
All this to say, _you_ have no idea what you're talking about.
@@lasercraft32 Not all types contribute the same offensively. Which is part of why, as I said, Empoleon has been outcompeted in past gens -and even in current gen despite getting roost - by pure water types and water types with fewer resists and more weaknesses. I don't think anyone in this chain has said that Water/Steel is worse than pure Water. Rather, the tradeoff of gaining 6 weaknesses and an immunity for 1 weakness isn't actually worth it for alot of teams when it means Empoleon's 3 weaknesses are 3 of the best and most common offensive types in the game. In alot of ways, it has alot of amazing resistances, but also adapts a bit of the worst of both worlds for steel and water types. If you go and look at what pokemon such as Slowking have been used for through the generations, a massive part of it's role is to counter or check fire types, fighting types, and ground types. On the flip side if you look at a bulky steel like Registeel, Registeel's role through the generations has largely included mons like Roserade, Meloetta, Xurkitree, and Shaymin. Empoleon is of course a phenomenal mon with solid defensive typing in it's own right, but saying Steel/Water is better is not exactly the case. It would for most gens be easier to fit a different bulky water and instead have your steel fit into a different part of your FWG core such as with Ferrothorn or Heatran, or use a Water type + Bulky steel like Slowking/Steelix in older gen lower tiers together for these reasons.
The Emperor is vulnerable to Torterra (Earthquake) as well as Infernape (Close Combat).
This is….a thing, a disappointing thing.
Torterra threatens both of its fellow starters with ground type moves.
Infernape threatens both its fellow starters with fire type for torterra and fighting for empoleon.
Empoleon threatens both its fellow starters with water moves for empoleon, and… well it’s not STAB, but it can make use of torterra’s 4x weakness to ice types.
Two words...drill peck.
@themister.s-1st empoleon should have gotten sturdy when hit by close combat he at least would have survived then a water move. Similarly hit by earthquake from torterra would have survived then a strong icebeam.
@RePorpoised empoleon is slow, bro he can't hit infernape at all. A close combat, he is dead.
@@RePorpoisedunfortunately empoleom probably dies first
A german youtuber who won a lot of competitive pokemon tournaments here used Empoleon alot, its typing is nice and its is versatile, Walling fairys with assault vest or wrecking havoc with choice specs. You never know
The thumbnail is arguably the funniest thing I’ve ever seen
It's absolutely -devious- diabolical lmao
No shot. He's a handsome boy!! Gen 4 is best Gen of Trios.
I think their whole idea was "Well, Water/Steel is just overpowered so lets give it mediocre BST distribution and weird moves and call it a day".
Such perfect timing, currently doing a Nuzlocke of “Pokemon Following Platinum” and I love my Empoleon
1:57 I tried to make a Mist team once! I theorycrafted this whole thing with a bunch of pokemon that knew moves like Shell Smash and Draco Meteor and abilities like Weak Armor so I could negate the stat drops under Mist and spam them with impunity. I had at least a couple of them bred before I found out that Mist doesn’t affect self-inflicted stat drops. Nobody uses Mist.
Minor correction. The ability Competitive wasn't actually a thing until Gen 6; the generation _after_ Empoleon got its hidden ability.
Back when I played my first ever Pokémon game Diamond as a wee lad, I mostly brute forced through the whole game with an over levelled HM slave Empoleon named Pip. He’s been my favourite ever since, so you can imagine I was pretty shocked and happy that he was put into Pokken.
The real shock lied in one of Empoleon’s gameplay mechanics. Not his ability to freeze the ground for funny momentum shenanigans, no, it was his ability to follow up Aqua Jet, Drill Peck and Defog with 4 specific moves.
- Rock Smash
- Cut
- Surf
- Waterfall
Pip’s exact moveset. They didn’t just put any Empoleon in the game. They put *MY* Empoleon in the game. Pip still going strong over a decade later. Not only my favourite Pokémon, but now also one of my favourite fighting game characters.
thanks for sharing that was fun to read i'm happy Pip gets to be a star
empoleon was the first starter that could get 3x damaged by both the other starters, and somehow he still was usable
A special attacker who keeps getting physical support?
*looks at Pyroar*.
That sounds about right
Since gen5 Empoleon is UU, and dropped to RU only in gen9. This is impressive, considering the progressive power creep included in every new gen. This makes Empoleon one of the best water type starters, after Samurott-H, Primarina, Greninja, and arguably Quaquaval and Blastoise
not to mention, it’s usually a top utility mon in whatever tier it lands in
I don't care how badly Game Freak treats my icebreaker penguin; he'll still be my favorite pokemon
11:51 literally none of these are signature moves, even in Legends Arceus. Ursaluna can learn Headlong Rush, Hisuian Arcanine can learn Raging Fury, and Basculin+Basculegion can learn Wave Crash. In fact, in order to beat the game, you NEED to battle against a Hisuian Arcanine with Raging Fury AND make your own Basculin repeatedly use Wave Crash to take recoil damage in order to evolve it. You've disproven this claim yourself
I think he means that they are the ones associated with the moves the most as they all seem to be referencing the sinnoh starters with the moves, raging fury sounds like infernaoe, wave crash sounds like empoleon and headlong rush sounds like Torterra
@@kingkmtso5107 they literally aren't, the associations with Arcanine and Basculegion are much much more heavily enforced. Basculin evolves specifically by taking tons of recoil damage, you NEED to use Wave Crash on it several times. A Hisuian Arcanine with Raging Fury is not only a boss but the boss that started ramping up the difficulty of the noble battles. The Sinnoh starters are just off in the middle of nowhere and you can just catch them and store them away forever, you aren't even gonna know they CAN learn it unless you either A: used them on your team or B: looked it up
Just one small thing. You don't need to evolve Basculin to beat the game. They just straight up give up a Ride Basculegion.
It also doesn’t help that Infernape doesn’t even use Raging Fury because locking it into a move is catastrophic for it
They're still off signature moves by only one. Each one of the other mons that can learn them were new arrivals to the series at the time, and were the _only_ other mons that could learn those moves (as in, each move could only be learned by 2 evo lines at that point).
It's clear that they were all new 120 bp moves made at least partially to give the Sinnoh starter trio stronger STAB options, and are even learned at level 57 by both Empoleon and Torterra (with Infernape's level 57 move being its classic 120 bp STAB in Close Combat instead).
So while I disagree with the video due to it outright being wrong - the Sinnoh starters _aren't_ the only ones to learn it by level up in P:LA - I also disagree with ignoring the clear ties they have to the Sinnoh starter trio.
My first Nuzlocke was with Pearl and Piplup as my starter. Long story short, while training in Victory Road, half my team died and I ran into the Elite Four out of frustration, intending to let the run die. Empoleon with swords dance and physical moves cleaved through them with many close calls, totally succeeding where I expected to fail. If you ask me, best penguin far and wide.
My problem with Empoleon has always been that, although it's typing is awesome, it's a defensive starter in games that are slow as molasses.
For ingame play of its debut generation, the Piplup line is really funny because you spend like the first half of the game with it being pretty awful. Packing a miserable 20 power STAB for the first two gyms as well as some low-power physical coverage moves off of its worse offenses. Then you get around Canalave and suddenly you have a fantastic typing, STAB Surf and Flash Cannon, great bulk and damage output, and a still usable attack stat in case you want to use coverage Drill Peck or priority Aqua Jet for niche applications.
Compared to the early-peaking Torterra line or the borderline broken Infernape line, Empoleon is a really slow burn
Not even from the angle of long-term competitive play - Empoleon was the biggest lemon of a starter I’d ever invested in (on the first-time playthrough when the game just came out).
Here me and my friend were, in my childhood bedroom unwrapping our copies of D&P. It was day 1 and so all we had to go on were the starters’ base form names and appearances to go off when choosing. We were coming off the Gen 3 lineup which gave us some really cool starter dual-type combos, so I was like, “for sure, 100%, this PENGUIN pokémon is going to be the first Water/Ice starter and that’s gonna be really fun!” So I pick that and my bestie picks Turtwig.
Fast forward to level 16, neither of us got a second type but the kid from across the street is positively shitting on the entire concept of the single player experience with yet-another Fire/Fighting that came online before the second gym. Whatever, I think, I’ve got faith that if I just keep dragging my mediocre water pokemon around I will get my payoff.
My bestie hit 36 a day or two before me so I saw him get Grass/Ground, which of course was unique at the time and such a fun and useful type combo. My anticipation couldn’t have been higher and made the road to Empoleon feel like it took an eternity. Only for it to finally evolve, and I opened the status screen to see not Ice, but… Steel?
Disappointed, I started looking for ways to even add a Steel type move to it, only to be hit with the Metal Claw situation. It was… devastating. If I could have thrown that pokémon away any harder, I would have. What a piece of shit experience that was for a first playthrough.
(Happy ending: the first honey tree I ever used back at the beginning of the game just happened to spit out a female Combee, so I was the only person I knew with a Vespiquen and she hard carried me through the entire game and schoolyard pvp)
Empoleon was okay for its featured region as it’s typing allowed many resistances but it’s movepool was generally ass (doesn’t learn a decent water type move until prinplup’s late 20’s) and even then it’s level up moves went against its generic sp.atk build with PHYSICAL moves! This could be improved by having it learn moves such as gust,flash cannon and air slash (WHICH IS AN ILLEGAL MOVE FOR SOME REASON!). Sneaking in aurora beam would help too
I Can still hear your inner child’s frustration with whirlpool with that fart haha
Fun Fact: to yhis day Emploeon is STILL the only Water/Steel type!
Also lol @0:50! 😂
Dhelmise should been one instead of another grass/ghost
Nintendo: "So, we gonna fix every single Water type learning the equivalent the best Fire, Electric, and Ice TMs in the game?" "What if we just made the Water starter confusing and contradictory?" "...Brilliant."
Piplup is the cutest out there, slightly cuter than Torchic even. And it's the Club Penguin evolution line, I love them so much. Also in the Diamond & Pearl anime when Dawn's Piplup learnt to use Hydro Pump, it was the cutest and also scariest thing ever because unlike bigger mons, Piplup can't open its tiny baby beak to shoot a beam of water so it literally created a void/vortex in front of its mouth which then shot the massive hydro beam. It felt as if this little baby penguin just summoned a beam of water from a different dimension itself 😭
As someone whose knowledge of Empoleon's... suckiness was just "it gains another weakness to its grass-type foe and becomes weak to its fire-type foe", I learned that Gamefreak probably just forget that they were they were giving a physical sweep build to a Pokemon with decent attack and penguin speed.
"86 attack isn't bad"
bro YES IT IS
It was definitely supposed to be Water/Ice, based on the weakness triangles that were made with Torterra and Infernape. That said, Water/Steel stays a bomb typing.
You wanna talk about wasted atk stats, just look at luxray
The ability people and the stat people at Gamefreak don’t seem to like talking to each other. Just look at Ledian. Base Attack stat of 35… and it gets an ability that increases the damage of punch moves.
being weak to the most common offensive types is the drawback of ALL steel types. It's also the reason those types are the most common offensive types. Resisting more than half the game is absolutely worth 3 weaknesses, the steel type is stellar. Empoleon also has the strongest competitive history of gen 4 starters, it's never been a bad pokemon. Infernape hit NU and empoleon has never even touched that tier
The only starter I ever use🔥 Roost empoleon went hard in Legends Arceus
0:12 I like that wally was used to show casual players when in actuality he has one of the most stacked teams in the games and sits in the in universe competitive league for hoenn making his team better with every loss
empoleon might be my favorite starter pokemon. I think its in part due to the character development of dawn's piplup in the show, but I love that 5'7 chicken
Man I loved working on this video.
Imagine Empoleon with Lightning Rod ability.. And a moveset of Drill Run, Smart Strike, Icicle Spear, and Liquidation gonna be a banger
yeah Gamefreak had a little streak with messing up water type starters for a while. Empoleon needing the flash cannon TM, Samurott being setup as a SAMURAI, yet having more special attack and a bad physical movepool, which they had to fix over time (Its pretty okay rn, especially with the hidden ability). Then they created Greninja, a pretty good special attacker with a nice movepool that had his signature move be physical in his debut gen, Gamefreak come ON.
H-Sam doesn't do U-Sam any favors, U-Sam still has Shell Armor as its HA
I have been having a lot of success recently with empoleon in draft leagues. I used the gen 4 sub agility petaya torrent set (which was an actual competitive set back then) and it still works even in gen 9 with all the crazy new mons. I've gotten off 6-0 sweeps even in the semifinals of a league with it 😀
Funnily though, the main reason it did so well was because i also drafted chi yu that season, which baited in spdef walls. Because of this i could use ruination or spam specs fire blast on bulky water types which are the main check to empoleon trying to sweep with +1 torrent boosted surf and ice beam
By the time empoleon came out, there was nothing left that wouldn't get ohko'd and most people think of it as a defensive piece so it doesn't struggle to find the time to click agility, especially because it's typing and bulk lets it switch in pretty easily.
Do you know what would have worked? Flipping the offensive stats.
Let it use defiant and the moves GF were so desperate to bestow upon it. And being a starter built around the wrong stat pre split could have celebrated the milestone nicely
Remember when the physical/special move split happened, and suddenly all of Venusaur's grass moves became physical besides solar beam?
Yes but what you havve to consider is that surf is a base 90 100% accurate special water move you are FORCED to have at least one of your mons learn. You also get the flash cannon TM after one of the gyms which is also a powerful special steel move that you get. So its not like you get NO options, its just based on different mechanics to level up. Being that special defensive mons are much more rare than normal defensive... and are not affected by things like burn and intimate, even though the base power is lower, they hit just as hard. The problem is more a lack of special steel moves in general.
i still like empoleon for the many resistances it gains with its steel secondary typing. especially in gen iv, it could be surprisingly tanky!
in my opinion, it’s the most useful special wall (second to blissey)
They should also give it King’s Shield! It would be the best counter to incineroar. Competitive to counter intimidate And king’s shield to counter fake out.
They should've switched Empoleon's Atk/SpA and made a move specifically for it like they kind of did with the other two starters (Wood Hammer/Close Combat), they could've made something like a 100BP steel type attack and called it "Steel Bade".
It can learn steel wing
I saw this video in my recommended, and I knew exactly what it was going to be.
But the thumbnail was too good, so I had to watch it anyway.
i think it makes perfect sense why empoleon has a really weird build.
I would need to be fact checked because it’s rooted in speculation, but i believe the starter trio for DPP was almost going to be psychic dark and fighting / some other triangle.
I think back in 2007 GF was starting to lose inspiration for the starters as they already had 9 starters that each had to have “unique” stats and characteristics (minus typh and charizard.. lol).
I think they were trying their best to differentiate him from the other water types but kind of failed. I wonder if this stems from them not really having big inspiration to recreate a fire grass water trio
because keep in mind this was before pokemon started to force personalities upon their starters. & the next generation soft reset the series and so the complete lack of pre-existing pokemon in the dex made any repeats / lack of innovation would be made null because every pokemon was brand new.
By then making the 7 8 and 9 gen starters essentially people the choice between stats and typing becomes less important and thus innovation surrounding the builds and type combos kinda goes out the window.
now the starters are just about how cool they seem or how broken their abilities can be lol
Empoleon is my favorite pokémon since forever and this video talks to my soul. I never understood why defiant, and why all the physical moves, meanwhile he barely got anything new on the special side since DP. They gave him Scald, just to remove it a few generations later... Being an Empoleon fan is true pain
At least empoleon is french so fantina could have it
Bruh why doesn't it have steel wing
I know it's not just me but when I first got introduced to the Gen 4 Empoleon was the starter that caught my eye and ever since then I love the penguin
I say that the first gen Pokemons like Venasaur, Blastoise, Charizard, meganium, etc need signature moves
"No useful move from lvl 24 to 51"
Brine: Am i a fucking joke to u?
The superman thumbnail is peak work 🤌
mega Empoleon:
water ice type
ability:steel worker
I think Slush Rush might be better
@@ΝικόλαςΚαλατούδης i want him to gain stab from steel ice and water
Thumbnail looking like Yamcha 😭
How did you make a 14 minute video and not mention Agility, sand immunity, or Rocks resist. The movepool thing is probably just a way to balance a pokemon that takes half damage from everything for half of the game.
Someone gets it
i dont think the YTer plays competitive, it seems like he’s really only talking about play throughs? bc support/ utility empoleon has been historically AMAZING in competitive
One close combat or earthquake and it's all over.
@@natebug1976 that goes with any pokemon weak to fighting or ground tho (which are most steel types) so its not really fair to say that
@@Brandon.thebaby it's more of the fact that being a water type having super effective attacks against ground is now meaningless if your slower than said ground type. And Empoleon is normally speed tied with most ground types. Plus you know most fire starters are fighting and faster as well... And Empoleon isn't physically bulky enough. It's just unfortunate
When I was a kid, my older brother would always insist Empoleon was the best starter pokemon ever, way better than my favorite at the time, incineroar
I wonder how your brother feels about its presence in VGC
Wolfey, is that you?
@@cxncxrtmxstxr Nah, my favorite at the moment is Eevee
@@poppyfrancis7338 He'd probably come up with the most batshit insane lie you've ever heard to try and say it is. He was dead certain that mega evolution was in scarlet and violet when he played it and called the pokemon company's own website wrong while also insulting smogon in the same sentance
@@cxncxrtmxstxrTechnically, Incin is Wolfey’s least favourite
00:21 um actually it's a penguin not a chicken 🤓
A penguin is just an arctic chicken
@anarchond no they are not
@anarchond they are birds but they are not chickens
@@cjpisdeadinternallyit’s a chicken mate 🤓
@@malcxm54 empoleon is definitely a penguin g
I swear almost every trainer had earthquake and kept nuking my empoleon
Bro got a little confused with the resistances and even forgot 4 times resistance ro ice and steel
Theorically
This Pokémon is based on Napoléon
So
He's French
To this day, I still wished Empoleon should've been a Water-Electric type.