What are some moves that are extremely rare in certain generations?

[Random Passerby]

Just thought of another couple of examples: Spikes. Despite being introduced in Gen II, only Pineco and Forretress learn it in GS, relatively late at 43 and 49 respectively. Nothing learns it by breeding; Cloyster gets it at Level 33, but only in Crystal. Qwilfish (which gets it at level 1 in Crystal, but not GS) can be caught at Level 15 during a Swarm, but still won't have it as Tackle, Poison Sting, Harden, and Minimize all come before Spikes in its moveset. The only opponent which has it is Koga's Forretress, so it's very easy to miss. Gen III made it somewhat more widespread, with Cacnea, Skarmory, and Deoxys-D all getting it, as well as Omanyte and Snorunt via breeding.

The second is Spark, which for ages I was convinced was introduced in Gen III instead of II. If you never used Raikou after catching it, you'll miss it; the only other Pokemon to get it are Chinchou or Lanturn, which no opponent uses and won't know the move when caught (Chinchou in Olivine City are caught at Level 20, while Lanturn can typically only be caught at Level 40 using the Super Rod; both Pokemon learn it at Level 25). Gen III makes it far more widespread; practically every Electric-type gets it as an early move at some point (you'll see it in Wattson and Surge's gyms). And Barboach gets it via breeding... an odd choice, unless there's some flavour-related reason I'm not aware of.

Spikes was on Koga's Forretress so if you don't OHKO it, then you will likely see it. (very possible considering the rarity of Fire Types in GSC)

I agree with you about Spark since the only reason I know it exists is because I use the Fishing Rod everywhere.

I was convinced that Mach Punch was introduced in Gen 3. Turns out it was a Gen 2 move learned by Hitmonchan. The only way to get Hitmonchan is through a tedious side quest for Tyrougue and is not reliable.

 

[Zowayix]

I was convinced that Mach Punch was introduced in Gen 3.

The second is Spark, which for ages I was convinced was introduced in Gen III instead of II.

*mind blown*

And here I thought I was clever for never falling for the "which Gen were Slugma and Skarmory introduced in" trick.

 

[Scorpio]

And here I thought I was clever for never falling for the "which Gen were Slugma and Skarmory introduced in" trick.

Maybe that’s why they were as prominent as they were in Hoenn?

 

[Aaronboyer]

Won the PU Fusion Tour way back when utilizing Flying Press Poliwrath, which was able to super effectively hit Ludicolo in a Rain vs Rain game of STABmons. Flying Press is only learned by Hawlucha, who pretty much only uses HJK, and Pikachu-Libre, who in ORAS ZU is outclassed by Pikachu-Belle. Trust me, I tried during ZUPL to make Libre work. It’s just not good...

 

[Nugget]

Here are some moves I would consider to be hilariously obscure:
Sharpen (don't know if anyone else mentioned this one but it's a classic gen I "oh yeah that exists")
Triple Kick/Rolling Kick
Bone Rush
Role Play (the skill swap Kadabra uses that you forgot about)
Miracle Eye (why does Kadabra get so many obscure moves)
Trump Card (without looking it up can you guess how this move works?)
Vacuum Wave (fighting type special priority, one of the oddest moves ever made)
Mirror Shot (not that rare in-game but notable for me because I was recently shocked that this move was actually not Flash Cannon)
Magic Room/Wonder Room (You probably know what these moves do but do you know which one is which?)
Quash (do you ever think about how this move was introduced as a TM in Black and White but when that game was released there were absolutely no Pokémon in the games that could learn it without transferring?)
Reflect Type
ION DELUGE (what the fuck is this this move is so fucking weird)
Eerie Impulse, Venom Drench, Hold Back, Floral Healing, Toxic Thread, Spotlight (dude gen 6 and 7 has the craziest fuckin moves)

sorry for the huge post of basically every weird move ever made but I am constantly thinking about how many just insane moves exist in these games

 

[R_N]

Here are some moves I would consider to be hilariously obscure:
Sharpen (don't know if anyone else mentioned this one but it's a classic gen I "oh yeah that exists")
Triple Kick/Rolling Kick
Bone Rush
Role Play (the skill swap Kadabra uses that you forgot about)
Miracle Eye (why does Kadabra get so many obscure moves)
Trump Card (without looking it up can you guess how this move works?)
Vacuum Wave (fighting type special priority, one of the oddest moves ever made)
Mirror Shot (not that rare in-game but notable for me because I was recently shocked that this move was actually not Flash Cannon)
Magic Room/Wonder Room (You probably know what these moves do but do you know which one is which?)
Quash (do you ever think about how this move was introduced as a TM in Black and White but when that game was released there were absolutely no Pokémon in the games that could learn it without transferring?)
Reflect Type
ION DELUGE (what the fuck is this this move is so fucking weird)
Eerie Impulse, Venom Drench, Hold Back, Floral Healing, Toxic Thread, Spotlight (dude gen 6 and 7 has the craziest fuckin moves)

sorry for the huge post of basically every weird move ever made but I am constantly thinking about how many just insane moves exist in these games

I actually do recognize several of these but I otherwise agree and lmao I completely forgot about Reflect Type. Checking bulabpedia:
-A grand total of 8 lines learn it
-3 of them by breeding only
-This move is inexplicably in SWSH
-For some reason Latias gets it???
For contrast, Role Play has a ton of innate users and has been a move tutor since gen 5 so despite being a move probably almost no one has used, it is surprisingly wide coverage

Your note about Quash isn't quite correct. The users are available normally in the post game. Murkrow, the only natural user of the move, was available at the Abundant Shrine for example, and Vespiquen is on Route 12.
HOWEVER, you are effectively correct in spirit because even in gen 8 there is not a single gen 5 Pokemon that can use it. Like, at all. None of them learn it normally, none of them have ever learned it by TM. For something that goes to such a wide variety of Pokemon, that's a pretty shocking and may even be a unique trait of it.

 

[Worldie]

For contrast, Role Play has a ton of innate users and has been a move tutor since gen 5 so despite being a move probably almost no one has used, it is surprisingly wide coverage

I'd actually say it's a very common move (or well, was) for HA hunting in gen 7 :P

 

[Nugget]

Your note about Quash isn't quite correct. The users are available normally in the post game. Murkrow, the only natural user of the move, was available at the Abundant Shrine for example, and Vespiquen is on Route 12.
HOWEVER, you are effectively correct in spirit because even in gen 8 there is not a single gen 5 Pokemon that can use it. Like, at all. None of them learn it normally, none of them have ever learned it by TM. For something that goes to such a wide variety of Pokemon, that's a pretty shocking and may even be a unique trait of it.

Ah I hadn't played B/W in a while I forgot that national dex stuff was available post game, I thought non Gen V stuff wasn't available until B2/W2 but I remember now that it's just that you have access to national dex mons in the main story of B2/W2

also fun note about Reflect Type: the effect of Conversion was changed in gen II but in gen I it works exactly like reflect type, effectively making original Conversion/Reflect Type the only move to be removed from the game and reintroduced in a later gen. (to my knowledge)

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Reflect Type I'd say is reasonably well known at least in the competitive community. Saw some niche play here and there across a couple generations as a spicy Latias tech to not be pursuit trapped

 

[Random Passerby]

This reminds me that I have never seen Snatch used in-game.
Only time I saw it was on a meme Snatch Blissey set several years ago.

 

[greentyphlosion]

This reminds me that I have never seen Snatch used in-game.
Only time I saw it was on a meme Snatch Blissey set several years ago.

That's a weird one. You get it in RSE on the SS Tidal after you've beaten the Elite 4 and are on the way to the Tower/Frontier, so unless you wanted to use it on one of your battlers you'd never see it. Only Shuppet and Banette get it via level up (and Deoxys but honestly who had one of those). FRLG is similar, it's post-game and nothing in-game learns it naturally.

Nothing else learns it in Gen IV naturally and it's another TM you obtain late in the game in both sets of games. Wonder why? It's exactly the sort of move that might actually be useful in the early/mid game.

 

[Nugget]

That's a weird one. You get it in RSE on the SS Tidal after you've beaten the Elite 4 and are on the way to the Tower/Frontier, so unless you wanted to use it on one of your battlers you'd never see it. Only Shuppet and Banette get it via level up (and Deoxys but honestly who had one of those). FRLG is similar, it's post-game and nothing in-game learns it naturally.

Nothing else learns it in Gen IV naturally and it's another TM you obtain late in the game in both sets of games. Wonder why? It's exactly the sort of move that might actually be useful in the early/mid game.

yeah snatch is also weird because it's also extremely rare to see the move work properly
if you're using it in-game it's really rare to actually catch an opponent using a boosting move (very few AIs do it reliably, some will use them randomly) and I think maybe I've seen Sydney's Absol use it or something but he sends it out last so if you were using boosting moves, you probably already boosted up. Definitely one of the most oddball moves in the series.

 

[R_N]

Snatch bveing such a "post game" move I think makes sense in theory. Like Nugget says, it's not really something you can take advantage of in-game just because of how trainers function.
But!
It makes a lot of sense as a move designed for PVP (& mayeb battle tower?), where buffing moves would be way more common and you could have some mind games around it. So you take this moe and just put it late or post game so you have a move for your next step in pokemon battling.


In theory, anyway.

 

[An Explosion]

Gen III Psycho Boost, anyone?

For those unaware, Psycho Boost is the signature move of Deoxys, an event-exclusive Pokemon until ORAS, which meant even HAVING the opportunity to see it was rare enough. In gen III, Deoxys learned Psycho Boost at level 45, which is pretty close to late game (Victory Road-Pokémon League,) and considering Deoxys is in the Slow experience group, possibly post-game.

However, we’re not here to talk about getting a Deoxys with this move. We’re here to talk about getting a LUGIA with this move via a singular method.

In order to get a Lugia with Psycho Boost, one must purify Shadow Lugia in Pokémon XD, whis is a very long & convoluted process, not to mention completely post-game. In a somewhat obscure game. Released on one console. That takes a long time to complete. On a Pokémon that will probably never be used in-game.

Yeah, gen III Psycho Boost was as rare as seeing Mirage Island.

 

[JHH]

Crabhammer is pretty rare like Waterfall gen 1

Guillotine is sweet

toxic + leech seed epic
burn + fire spin

obviously hypnosis dream eater

kinesis silly,
substitute, conversion + egg bomb meh,
Barrage cool

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Since someone necro-ed this old thread I posted in my previous incarnation (before regenerating into the much more handsome and accomplished green_typhlosion) I thought I'd add a couple more examples.

Sky Attack was consistently extremely rare from Gens I through VI, and virtually nonexistent in II. For a move hyped up as "the strongest Flying attack" it's much rarer than the likes of Fire Blast or Solarbeam, or even the various elemental Hyper Beams which it's more akin to.

In Gen I it has extremely limited distribution, being an elusive one-time TM - and the pool of things that can learn it is miniscule, so even if you do find it and teach it, it won't be seeing much use. No opponents ever use the move, and only Moltres gets it by levelling up. In Gen II, it's the signature move of... Moltres again, which cannot be caught in Gen II. So bad luck if you don't have a friend to trade with.

Despite being a TM in FRLG, it's not one of the tutor moves which replaced them. Altaria learns it at level 59 before Gen IV pushes it up to 70, but it's the only Pokemon in the Hoenn games to do so. All's not lost, though. Starting in Gen IV, Noctowl learns it at level 1 and Lugia and Ho-oh learn it at... level 99. Good luck with those. Unova gave it out to a few native bird families and SwSh has made it a starting move for various avian Pokemon. And of course it was a tutor move from XD through to USUM, though one-time-only in the former and a typically expensive, late-game option in future titles where there were an abundance of better Flying moves.

Similarly, Skull Bash has always been a highly rare move since its inception, and again pretty much nonexistent in Gen II since it's Blastoise's signature move. In Gen III, Sharpedo is the only Pokemon to acquire the move, at the high level of 48 - and the only Sharpedo of that level in-game is Sidney's, who doesn't know it. Because of this, it's extremely likely it'll be missed, even in FRLG if the player doesn't pick Squirtle - Blue's Blastoise only uses Skull Bash in the initial Champion battle. Gen IV and V don't do anything to improve its distribution, making it similarly hard to find.

In Gen I it's a TM, so has some widespread availability, but this is a game where (better) Normal-type moves are ten a penny and no opponent uses it except Blue in his penultimate fight if he's got Blastoise.

To avoid making this all about moves from Gen I, I have one final example: Power Trick. Since its debut in Gen IV, only eight Pokemon have ever learned it by levelling up - and seven of them share a relation with one of the others, for a total of only four evolutionary families: the Baltoy line, the Meditite line, the Honedge line, and Shuckle. Baltoy, Claydol, and Shuckle aren't Sinnoh-native Pokemon and Meditite and Medicham learn it too late for you to see it used in the wild. Then the reverse is true in B2W2 - Medicham is absent and Baltoy and Shuckle learn it too late for it to be a move wild ones will use. I don't think I've ever seen the move used in-game - it's one mostly used by gimmick teams in competitive play. Definitely feels like a move a lot more Pokemon should have access to.

 

[R_N]

To be fair to Power Trick it is very gimmicky and they did give it to 4 other lines through breeding: Abra (who I assume gets it purely as a joke), Machop, Pineco and Gligar (for...some reason?).
It's also not learned that late, really? You actually find Medicham in Victory Road who can use the move. Depending what random trainers use Medicham you'll probably see it on them too.

In BW2 Shuckle learns Power Trick at level 31 and you find it at level 41. So it actually comes with the combo of Power Trick and Shell Smash
Likewise Baltoy had the move moved to level 17, and the Baltoy you find will be level 27-30 so they all know the move.

So really as far as weird gimmick moves go you're pretty likely to run into it at some point.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

So really as far as weird gimmick moves go you're pretty likely to run into it at some point.

This is especially true because Power Trick (at least in older gens) seems to occupy the same space as moves like Follow Me, Charge, and Psych Up, where they're programmed as setup moves but the AI doesn't really seem to understand what they're meant to achieve. Since these moves can't 'fail', the AI just sorta spams them without any kind of end goal. In my experience opposing trainers love to waste two turns by using Power Trick twice in a row.

 

[Nokocchi]

Razor Wind is a move that has never been wide-spread, outside of Gen I where it was a TM, but it has a special place in Gen II as the only move that 100% cannot be learned among any of the 251 Pokemon via-level up, TM, or Tutor in the game. While Moltres, the sole learner of Sky Attack, has to be transferred, any Moltres can get it at level 73 within the Gen II games themselves. Razor Wind, however, needs to be taught to a Pokemon in Gen I via TM, and then transferred to Gen II. There are even a handful of Pokemon that can learn it via Breeding(not that it is any good), though the choices are pretty odd, since it includes two Starters, Bulbasaur and Totodile, the former of which could not learn the TM in Gen I and both have never had Razor Wind as an Egg move ever again despite there being parents that could pass it in Ruby and Sapphire.

As an extra bonus fact to that last bit, In Gen III, Absol and Nuzleaf can learn it via level-up, but among the Gen I and II Pokemon that could learn it originally the only ones that could still get Razor Wind were Scyther/Scizor and Gligar, who both got it via Egg Move in both Gen II and Gen III(similar to Bulbasaur, Scyther could not learn the Razor Wind TM in Gen I)