1. "Fly and Dig give you a free turn!" 



Wrong. Fly and Dig give the opponent a free switch. Fly and Dig both have low 
base attack powers (70 for Fly; 60 for Dig). 


You fly/dig. Your opponent attacks and misses. That is NOT a free turn. On the 
turn when you attack, your opponent can simply switch to a Pokemon that is 
resistant to your attack or attack your Pokemon that has just come down/up 
from Fly/Dig. While you do to them 60-70 damage per turn, they can do a 
bigger amount of damage to you. Or, they can just switch out. 



An example would be such: 

Dugtrio used Dig! Dugtrio went underground! 

Enemy Raichu used Surf! The attack missed! 

Trainer Joe withdrew with Raichu. Go Articuno! 

Dugtrio used Dig! Enemy Articuno is not affected! 
 
Enemy Articuno used Ice Beam! It's super effective! Dugtrio fainted! 



2. "All-out offence wins games!" 



No, unless you're battling your six-year-old cousin. Attacks like Reflect, 
Light Screen, Barrier and Amnesia are great for setting up defense. After 
one turn (two if you're slower than the opponent), Reflect has already paid 
for itself since it cuts physical damage in half. Same thing for Light 
Screen except for Special moves. After those 1-2 "wasted" turns, you now 
have 3-4 turns of free protection, even if you switch. How good is that? 
Barrier and Amnesia are good but mostly if your Pokemon have good 
Defense/Special Defense to start with because protection from Barrier and 
Amnesia are calculated based on your Pokemon's own Defense/Special Defense. 




Next, there's recovery moves like Recover, Moon Light, Morning Sun, 
Synthesis, Recover and Rest. Any Pokemon that can learn or breed for one of 
the previously mentioned moves (except Rest) should keep it. It's a 
blessing from Nintendo. There are a few exceptions though, where a Pokemon 
could go without one of those moves. Rest, however, is harder to use 
effectively. Since you sleep for two turns, it gives your opponent time to 
switch or attack freely. This is where the Mint Berry comes in. Equip your 
Pokemon with Mint Berry if it has Rest. If you don't, either make your 
Pokemon can take the hit or give it Sleep Talk. 



Lastly, attacks like Double Team and Minimize are downright abusive. Some 
trainers have even called it cheap. Ignore them. Evade modifiers are great. 
Use them only if you think your Pokemon can take the hits. Best if used 
with a Pokemon with a healing move and/or Baton Pass. 



3. "The best attack in the game is Hyper Beam!" 



No, it's not. There are many more Normal moves that are better than Hyper 
Beam. Some people see 150 base attack power and say, "Wow! That must be the 
highest attack ever!" The truth is, you have to factor in accuracy and 
recharge. Hyper Beam's actual base attack power is 71.25 (150/2*95%). Not 
including Explosion and Self Destruct, here are 10 Normal moves that have a 
higher base attack power: 



Body Slam: 85 (85*100%) + 30% paralysis rate 

Double-Edge: 90 (120*100%-120/4) 

Egg Bomb: 75 (100*75%) 

Extremespeed: 80 (80*100%) + first hit 

Frustration: 102 (102*100%) 

Hyper Fang: 72 (80*90%) + 10% flinch rate [thanks to Itsag] 

Mega Kick: 90 (120*75%) 

Return: 102 (102*100%) 

Strength: 80 (80*100%) 

Thrash: 90 (90*100%) 

Tri Attack: 80 (80*100%) + 10% burn/freeze/paralysis rate 



All those moves are better than Hyper Beam. There are a few exceptions in 
which Hyper Beam would be good but if you have Hyper Beam on every single 
one of your Pokemon, look at them again and see what other move could be 
put in Hyper Beam's place. 



4. "Fire Blast, Hydro Pump, Thunder and Blizzard are the best attacks of 
their type!" 



Sometimes, but hardly ever. Thunder is crappy without Rain Dance. See #5 
for explaination. Nintendo lowered Blizzard's accuracy in GSC so most 
people have replaced it with the trusty Ice Beam. Hydro Pump and Fire Blast 
are a bit different since they have an accuracy of 85%. Fire Blast is only 
better than Flamethrower when it is on a non-fire type Pokemon like 
Tyranitar. Hydro Pump isn't on any TMs so mainly Water-types use this 
attack. Being the 5 PP attack it is, Hydro Pump isn't as reliable as Surf. 



5. "Rain Dance and Thunder make me invincible!" 



Okay, this is at least more reasonable than the previous 4 assumptions. But 
no, it doesn't make you invincible. 

Turn 1: use Rain Dance 

Turn 2: attack with Thunder (1/2 or 50%) 

Turn 3: attack with Thunder (2/3 or 66.7%) 

Turn 4: attack with Thunder (3/4 or 75%) 

Turn 5: attack with Thunder (4/5 or 80%) 

Now, after 5 turns, assuming that you've used Thunder four times, Thunder 
has an accuracy of 80% because you used Rain Dance the first turn. The 80% 
is only if you use Thunder all four turns. Normally, Thunder's accuracy is 
70%. Only if your Pokemon also has a Water attack that Rain Dance can 
boost, the Rain Dance/Thunder combo isn't that great. 



6. "You should take advantage of STAB by giving your Charizard four Fire 
moves!" 


That assumption should be changed to "You should abuse your Charizard and 
destroy it by giving it four Fire moves!" There's plenty of logic here. If 
your Charizard with the following moves: Ember, Flamethrower, Fire Blast, Fire 
Spin, happens to run into an Omastar, it's screwed. However, if you 
had given your Charizard an Earthquake attack, it would have given 
Charizard a small fighting chance against the opponent Omastar. Something 
else to consider: Do you think you'll ever use that Ember attack you have 
on your Charizard??? Especially if you have a Flamethrower at your 
disposal... 



7. "HMs are great! You can use them over and over again!!!" 



Yes, you can use them over and over again. No, they are not great. With the 
exception of Surf, HM moves are useless: 



HM 1 - Cut: 50 base attack power, 95% accuracy. 

Comments: A slightly better version of Tackle... 

HM 2 - Fly: See #1. 

HM 3 - Surf: 95 base attack power, 100% accuracy. Comments: This is the 
only good HM move. 

HM 4 - Strength: 80 base attack power, 100% accuracy. 

Comments: There are plenty of better Normal moves to pick from (see #3). 
And because Normal moves are not Super Effective against any type, it may 
not be the best. 

HM 5 - Flash: reduces opponent's accuracy, 70% accuracy. 

Comments: Since this is used to reduce opponent accuracy, why it is so 
frigging inaccurate??? There are better accuracy decreasers like Mud-Slap 
and evade modifiers like Double Team. 

HM 6 - Whirlpool: 15 base attack power, 70% accuracy. 

Comments: This is only good if you want to trap the opponent. Otherwise, 
it's crappy. 

HM 7 - Waterfall: 80 base attack power, 100% accuracy. 

Comments: Surf is much better than Waterfall. Period. Facts prove it. 



Remember, there are ALWAYS exceptions in Pokemon. 



8. "Ooh! Hyper Potion recovers 200 HP! I'll equip it to my Blastoise!" 



Equipping Hyper Potion does squat for you Pokemon. It's only useful if you 
 (the trainer) use it on the Pokemon. Common equip items are: 



Scope Lens - Increases chance of critical hit by one level. 

Mint Berry - Used with Rest to instantly awaken a Pokemon using Rest. Also 
called Misty Rest. 

Miracle Berry - Erases any status change. 

Leftovers - Heals 1/16 of total HP every round. 

Kings Rock - Raises the flinching percentage. Won't increase the flinch 
percent of moves that already flinch (Bite, Crunch, Low Kick, Headbutt, 
etc.). Also keep in mind that if your Pokemon attacks second and flinches 
the opponent, you don't get a free turn. Make sure your Pokemon has the 
Speed for it. 

Bright Powder - Raises your evasion including moves such as Swift or Faint 
Attack. 

Quick Claw - 10% chance that you will get to attack first. 

Focus Band - May leave the Pokemon with 1 HP when it should normally be KOed. 



9. "Nobody in this word can beat me!" 



Think again. Unless you can prove to people that you can defeat everyone in 
the world who has a Pokemon game, you have no proof of that whatsoever. You 
may not want to be overconfident without proving your skills. It'd just 
make you seem childish and ignorant.