Battle & Pokemon move FAQ

[indigo_league]

What move sets do my Pokemon know? They change so much between generations!

Simply put, the movepools of Pokemon in Victory Road are cumulative across all officially published generations. If a Pokemon learned a move via TM in Gen I, that Pokemon can still learn that move by TM now. Similarly, if a Pokemon learned a move by level up in Gen VII but no longer learns that move in Gen VIII, you are free to assume your Pokemon can learn that move by level up in VR.

The only exception is Let's Go Eevee + Pikachu movepools. Please do not reference or include moves exclusive to those games.

What about moves that stopped existing after a certain Generation?

Great question! They still exist. Your Pokemon can still learn them.

What if I don't want a Pokemon to learn a move that's listed for it?

If you would like a Pokemon NOT to learn something (or multiple somethings) it might otherwise know for flavour reasons, you are free to exclude them! We are not going to tell you that a Pokemon has to learn a move. We are only here to ensure your Lapras does not learn to Fly or whatever.

This Pokemon has moves that are ‘available’ once it’s evolved, but aren’t learned upon evolving. (Think Hippowdon with Ice Fang.) Do I have to visit a Move Reminder for that?

Because there is no cap on how many moves a pokemon can learn in Victory Road, and every pokemon will remember all the moves it has learned over its entire lifetime, Move Reminders do not exist in this world.

Instead, moves like Hippowdon’s Ice Fang are learned at any time after evolution. If you want to have it take a while on the Pokemon’s part, feel free! Yes, even if you want it to be at level 100, go for it! And if you want it to be immediate, that’s fine too.

What happens if I don’t evolve a Pokemon before level 100? Does this mean they can never evolve?

In Victory Road, levels are just a way to measure how much of their potential a Pokemon has achieved, so there is no ‘cut off’ for when a Pokemon can evolve. If your Sandile has been level 100 for two years but now wants to evolve (maybe it just wants to be taller?), then it can happen!

Can a Pokemon’s Hidden Ability be obtained?

Yes. Ability Capsules can be used to change a Pokemon’s Ability either to its other ‘basic’ Ability OR its Hidden Ability. This means also that Hidden Ability Capsules don’t exist, because Ability Capsules already do that.

Can I catch a Pokemon with a Hidden Ability?

Outside of special, marked events, no. Hidden Abilities are called Hidden Abilities for a reason, silly!

There are Pokemon who don't have movesets released for the current generation... but datamining has found their movesets! Can we use those moves?

No. Because datamined movesets are difficult for us to verify and liable to be changed before release, they are not considered viable movepools for VR. The last thing anyone wants is to have to retcon a strategy or gym challenge, or worse: entire top levels (with all the corresponding threads!) Please just be patient and wait for Nintendo to give us the goods.

Do Z Moves exist?

Nope. This isn’t Alola, and the League here in Kanto and Johto has put a moratorium on the import of Z-Crystals, Z-Rings, and Z-Power Rings because they’d totally wreck the local battle scene.

What about Gigantamax Pokemon?

You’re in luck: Pokemon with Gigantamax forms are able to achieve those same forms (at a much smaller size) with specially crafted Mega Stones! These Mega Stones work exactly the same as the regular kind, and Pokemon will experience a similar stat boost.

Obviously, VR is not an exact stats sort of game, so we cannot give you specific numbers for each new Mega. Assume a general increase to a Pokemon’s stats corresponding to the kind seen in the games with other Mega forms.

And unlike true Gigantamax which is limited to certain members of a Pokemon’s species, these new mega-stones will work for all members of that Pokemon’s species. (In the case of Flapple and Appletun, the Mega Stone ‘Appleite’ works for both species, but this is because the Mega Form is the same for both. Kind of like Toxtricity!)

As Mega forms do not come with any changes to the moves a Pokemon knows, in VR, the concept of G-max moves (and max moves) will not be present. However, the Mega Pokemon based on Gigantamax Pokemon will now have their Hidden Ability instead of whatever Ability they would normally have (but only when they're in Mega form. Obviously.)

Wait, how did this happen?

Not a battle question, but okay.

After a DISASTER of a prom hosted by Sordward and Shielbert, the Elite Four confiscated a number of Dynamax Crystals from the pair and set to work unravelling the mystery of their 'regional magic.' Which turned out to draw on a similar kind of innate power as Mega Stones -- and the rest is history.

The TM I want isn’t in any stores!

TMs now rotate in and out of stock on a regular (four month) basis! If the TM you want to buy isn’t available right now, try checking back in a couple of months. (Team Rocket members are welcome to stage heists in an attempt to obtain those TMs illegally or as a reward from administration.)

Another alternative, though this is only available in December, is to hit up the Goldenrod Christmas Market, where characters can purchase all different TMs that have ever been created.

Are TMs reusable?

Generally speaking, TMs are single-use items. They teach one move to one pokemon, before becoming inactive. So please make sure you are absolutely certain to which pokemon you want to teach a certain TM. There is no way to undo the process and get back the TM if you change your mind.

There is one exception to this -- sometimes, TMs can be multi-use as well. However, these are generally only given out as special awards and cannot be purchased in stores, nor can they be found while exploring.

What about TRs? Do these exist?

We’ve chosen not to incorporate TRs as is into Victory Road to keep things from becoming incredibly unwieldy. TMs, HMs and TRs? That’s just too many lists to keep track of!

Instead, TRs just exist as TMs in Victory Road. Meaning the TR Psychic Fangs simply exists as a Psychic Fangs TM here in Victory Road.

The move I want a Pokemon to learn comes from a Move Tutor. How do I find one?

Move Tutors are strange people, and rarely stay in one place for terribly long. That being the case, you’re free to roleplay your character looking for a Move Tutor or even finding one whenever you wish. You can also handwave this. However, it’s difficult to track down a specific Move Tutor and they usually don’t like to teach more than one or two of a Trainer’s Pokemon a move at a time. They’re tutors, not vending machines! And really, they want to see a Trainer and a Pokemon work together to master the knowledge they’re passing on! That’s literally why they do what they do, and go where they go. And they know how to use social media, so if they catch you trying to game the system, they’ll tell other Move Tutors and then you won’t learn anything! You don’t want that, do you?

(....do you?)

From a mod perspective, though, as long as we don’t see a character’s Pokemon acquiring multiple moves from a tutor every week or month, we won’t police how that came about.

How do stats work? They still exist, right?

Sort of! The stats you find on sites like Bulbapedia and Serebii can be applied to Victory Road as loose guidelines: for example, you might logically assert that your character’s Chansey is slower than Misty’s Starmie because Starmie’s base Speed stat is higher than Chansey’s! And this statement might be useful to their Gym Challenge because they want Chansey to use Counter. Similarly, you can assume Giga Impact hits harder than Mega Punch because the power listed is a bigger number. However, we don’t “obey” stats in a hard and fast way. If your character wants to take on Misty’s Starmie with an Eevee of equal level, we’re totally willing to believe that Eevee can still hit Starmie for meaningful damage because of the Love and Trust between your character and their partner! Eevee’s seemingly pathetic base stats* aren’t a strict barrier to achieving victory.

*sorry, Eevee, we don’t mean it!

How should I approach writing a battle strategy for a gym challenge?

A good question, which might be best answered by knowing what we look for when judging a badge challenge.

With any challenge, we first start by taking a look at the Pokemon involved (how many pokemon are you bringing, what level they are, what held items they might have), then look at how the types match up (who is vulnerable to who, how effective will your Pokemon's move pool be against their opponent), and finally we look at the supplied battle strategy.

How in depth your battle strategy needs to be depends a lot on three factors:

What is the difference in power between your pokemon and those of the gym leader?

If your Pokemon's level is about the same or lower than that of the gym leader, we'll need more strategy than when your pokemon is 40 levels above that of the gym leader.

How well do the types match up?

The more pronounced the type advantage is between your pokemon and the gym leaders, the less strategy you need. For example, if the gym leader uses a Snover (a pokemon with a double weakness to Fire) and you bring a fire type to that match, we understand where you are going with this! On the other hand, if you are bringing, say, a normal type pokemon when the gym leader also uses normal types, we'll need a bit more information on what strategy you are going to use in battle.

How difficult is the challenge you are taking on?

In Victory Road, we essentially have three levels of difficulty when it comes to official challenges: 1) Taking on the Gym Leader's regular team; 2) Taking on the Gym Leader's Elite team; and 3) Taking on a member of the Elite four. Basically, the higher the level you are challenging, the more information we want on your strategy.

Of course, we all know this is just a roleplaying game! So we are certainly not looking for extensively written battle theses here (though some us are absolutely guilty of having written a few of those in our past). Just a few lines here and there to help us understand how you are planning on taking down the gym leader is enough for us. And if we feel your badge challenges might need to start requiring a bit more explanation in the future, then we will certainly let you know!

And if this is the first gym challenge you are writing up, we absolutely advise looking through some of the previous badge challenges people have written. That should give you a good indication of what we are looking for. There should be plenty of challenges available at every level (regular, elite, E4), so why not study the path of those who have come before you?

And remember, within Victory Road, all official gym battles are recorded and aired. Additionally, apart from the Elite Four, it's always possible for your character to visit a gym and only watch the battles there. So if your character is new to all of this and would like to take some time to study or look back on how some other people beat these gym leaders in the past, they can do that!

What about strategies like FEAR? Are they allowed?

FEAR and similar strategies do work in Victory Road. This strategy does not have any mechanically “luck” based outcome, save for the chance of your opponent recognising what you’re about to do and using Protect or something. As a ‘soft rule,’ we generally allow the use of a FEAR strategy against any opponent… once. After that, even if you manage to put that Pokemon back in the fight fully equipped to do it again…. your opponent will definitely recognise what you’re up to, and if you’re fighting a seasoned trainer like a Gym Leader or event boss, we’ll start ruling against your success.

That said, there are a lot of ways to use this kind of strategy in Victory Road, if you want to be spicy. The use of Stealth Rock+Focus Sash +Steam Powered+Self Destruct on Coalossal against a Water type, for example. Get creative!

Okay, what about beefing a Pokemon up with buffs until it’s unstoppable?

Basically that’s just not going to be possible at higher level fights. Even if you have a Mega Gyarados with six stacks of Dragon Dance and a Baton Passed three stacks of Iron Defence or whatever, you still won’t be allowed to “sweep” Bruno. Sorry! The goal of Victory Road is to allow ALL Pokemon to shine, and all kinds of players are allowed to succeed. If you want to experience the intoxicating rush of obliterating a team with one Pokemon, that’s what the actual video games are for!

What about luck based moves or moves with low accuracy?

As a general rule, we ask that the more a strategy relies on luck, the more a player should include about “what happens if it doesn’t work.” Even if that answer is “my character didn’t think that far ahead and his Pokemon gets KOed.” Making broad statements to the effect of “Scyther used Double Team twice, so sometimes the opponent’s move will miss and Scyther will take advantage of that to do X” doesn’t require backup plans. Even saying that a Gym Leader’s move will miss (for certain) once or twice at specific points because of the use of Double Team is allowed if you want to have a dramatic framing... but if Krabby is using Guillotine, or Pidgeot is using Hurricane repeatedly without Rain, you should expect us to look at the 50% accuracy and ask “what happens if that fails?”