Which gen 4 pokemon will Niantic screw up?
There's a few pokemon Niantic have screwed up with daft movesets. Kingler, Aerodactyl, Donphan, Ho-Oh, Metagross and to some extent Groudon spring to mind.
Which gen 4 pokemon will be cursed with bad movesets? Some possible candidates;
Rampardos. The rock version of Alakazam has the potential to shake up the raid meta, with many different legendaries weak to rock. It would even be a capable glass cannon generalist. But Niantic can totally screw this up by giving it Zen Headbutt and Iron Tail for it's quick moves.
Dialgo. Dragon and steel sounds awesome right? But Niantic could give this the Metagross treatment by giving it lacklusture steel moves, while not giving it the best dragon type moves. Dragon Breath and Dragon Pulse wouldn't allow it to reach it's potential. And please don't give it hyper beam.
Heatran. Has great potential as a fire attacker because it has double resistance to all types that fire is super effective against. So lets hope it doesn't get metal claw and some other random quick move like Zen Headbutt. Or a charge moveset of Iron Head, Fire blast and Stone Edge.
Togekiss. If they don't introduce a quick fairy move, Togekiss' good stats are a waste.
Magnezone. Magnezone could be a fair electric attacker. But it should have discharge as it's charge move, not zap cannon as Magneton has now.
Are you worried your favourite gen 4 mon will be screwed over?
Answers
One of the biggest pitfalls to speculation is people tend to over-speculate, see Last Resort as one of the most recent examples. Of the most likely candidates to get screwed over I'm betting Magnezone will. It would be too easy to give him Zap Cannon, Flash Cannon, and Hyper Beam because it fits thematically.
On the flip side, I'd be more surprised if Electivire didn't get Wild Charge. He's a freaking yeti and Wild Charge was its jam for a while in the main series.
Im counting on niantic making the gen IV pokemon better than their predecessors, given that Raids make niantic a boatloas of money, if they released new pokemon that take the crown of best attacker in type for almost every type, people would raid them nonstop to continue to maintain the best attackers. We've seen them making newer releases of pokemon (granted those are event pokemon)better then, or more able to compete with previous best attackers (Tyranitar, venasaur, Charizard, moltres) and its likely this will continue
I agree this would be Niantic's strategy to make money, but I doubt it will make Gen 4 pokemon that good that easy. I guess the normal release (non-legendarys, starters) would be "tailored" to be competitors to first 3 generations so that trainers can have more options for team build-up. But to ultimately get those better pokemon, Niantic would like to release them in a way that they can make more money. For example, raiding to get legendaries or CD days to make some non-legendaries really stand out (SD Ttar for rock role, FP Venusaur and BB Charizard).
Follow this thought and use rock type as an example, I doubt Gen 4 evolved-Rhydon would get a Rock combo that directly beats SD Ttar (could have a double ground combo that reigns Ground Kingdom before Groudon gets its signature, as for 3 generation long Ground Kingdom is so damn cursed). It could be possible later via a CD or something like that. The "Rock Gengar" might be tailored to be a real glass cannon with DPS slightly higher than SD Ttar or RT/SE Golem, but more less TDO. The same story could happen to many pokemon that we had high expectation, like Togekiss without fast Fairy move, Tangrowth without best Grass move and more.
Keep in mind Rhyperior requires an evolution item, as do many of the Gen 4 evolutions. My guess is they'll use this to curb immediate armies of some of them from showing up day 1.
Rampardos with Smack Down/Rock Slide has Rayquaza-tier DPS with less TDO. I can see them going the route of giving it SD/SE instead, which nerfs its DPS/TDO a fair bit while not making SD Tyranitar totally irrelevant.
Every single gen 4 pokemon that has the slightest bit of potential is in danger of getting screwed over by movesets. I guess Togekiss is a notable exception since its main use will be as a defender even if it gets a fairy quick move, it just needs a moveset that doesn't utterly suck on defense and it'll still be the best Machamp/Dragon wall in the game. As an attacker it'll never reach top level DPS against Dragon, Fighting or Dark.
I’m thinking that Niantic will initially give them lackluster moves with the intent of having event-exclusive moves in the future. So I don’t plan on evolving my good candidates (100% Togepi and Electabuzz) for a long while unless they surprise me with great moves out of the gate. And I certainly won’t pump dust into anything without taking a wait and see approach.
I actually hope Dialga does not get a double-Steel set, so the type can be ruled by a non-legendary (Metagross with Meteor Mash) that would be worth maxing out.
Even if Heatran gets mediocre Fire moves, as long as it has a set with enough DPS, it would be the ultimate bulky Blissey/Chansey counter, surpassing Mewtwo with Focus Blast.
