What's the deal with Gengar?

[baratron]

I am very confused. I traded a Haunter from LG to FR and it evolved into a Gengar. So far so good. But what are these stats? Attack 35, Sp Atk 65 (at level 21)?!

Haunter & Gengar are type Ghost/Poison - which both use the normal Attack stat. I checked out the movesets to see what kind of moves they learn, because I wondered if the Krabby syndrome might apply (Krabby is type Water but has high Attack and appalling Sp. Atk, and learns mostly Normal moves). But it seems Haunter & Gengar learn almost entirely Ghost attacks. Ghost moves use Attack, and it's just the Psychic combination Hypnosis + Dream Eater that use Special Attack. So, er, why is Gengar's Attack so low and Sp Atk so high? Do you think Gengar's Attack has been deliberately made low to stop it being too powerful? Or is it a bug because the original RBY didn't have a distinction between normal & Special attack?

More to the point, with the Gengar line being the only Ghost pkmn in FR/LG, I'm wondering how people normally use them - do you teach them a load of Special Attack TM moves (that'd be, er, the wonderful combination of Giga Drain, Psychic and Thief?!)? Or just go for all-out Attack EV training? Or ignore them altogether and go for Psychic pokemon?

 

[Linkachu]

While I'm only speculating, I think it may be partially because of the lack of Ghost-type attacks in the original games and the programming changes. Considering that Shadow Ball/Shadow Punch only surfaced in the last two generations, you could say that Ghost Pokemon were originally put in the games just to spice things up, not as a true Anti-Psychic weapon (as seen by Gengar's entire line having Poison traits). Since they didn't have any real advantages through normal Attacks they were given a high Special stat instead. That idea probably followed Gengar over into G/S, thus it was doomed to have a low Attack stat.

Piloswine suffers from the same treatment, tho. The majority of its level-up moves are Special-based, yet its Sp. Attack is quite a bit lower than its Attack stat. At least it is part Ground. It can actually benefit from its high Attack while Gengar has nothing direct to show for its high Special

 

[baratron]

Yeah - I think your theory might be right.

Ruby & Sapphire were the first Pokemon games I ever played - up until that point I thought they were games for little kiddies (I only bought Sapphire because I was addicted to a wap game called Dino Island which I realised was basically a Pokemon ripoff. After playing Sapphire for an hour I realised it was orders of magnitude more interesting and complicated (17 Pokemon types compared to only 6 Dino types), and never played Dino Island again!). So the FR and LG Pokemon that aren't in Ruby, Sapphire or Colosseum are completely new to me.

Something I've noticed with FR & LG is the number of Pokemon species that have a special attack unique to that species. Like Meowth with Pay Day, Chansey/Blissey with Softboiled (well, apart from the Softboiled move tutor) or Rattata/Raticate with Hyper Fang. In Ruby & Sapphire I don't think there are any unique moves, which is a shame because I think they add a certain amount of... meaning? to the whole "collect them all" thing. Having to collect all the pkmn because it's the only way you get all the moves & abilities somehow has a wider appeal than just collect them all - because you should .

In general, FR and LG seem to have a lot more ideas - things that got tried for the hell of it. Whereas Ruby & Sapphire seems to be quite... Pokemon design by numbers? I know if I see another Grass/Poison type pkmn I'm going to scream.

Piloswine suffers from the same treatment, tho. The majority of its level-up moves are Special-based, yet its Sp. Attack is quite a bit lower than its Attack stat.

Yup - the same thing but the other way round (!). Hadn't really noticed before because I play my Colosseum Piloswine as a Tank - just sitting there taking the hits while I use potions on my pkmn that actually have decent attack stats . But you're right. [/quote]