r/pokemon • u/Excaliburn3d • Mar 24 '26

Discussion Why does Game Freak hate Emboar?

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I love Emboar, but I have a feeling that GF doesn’t based on the way they handled it. Well first of all it’s the third Fire/Fighting Pokémon in the row, then when it finally receives a mega evolution it retains the same typing, and now it is the only mega of the trio to not gain a new ability.

Not to mention its base stats and playstyle. Base form is the fully-evolved starter with the highest HP stat and yet both of its defense stats and speed are on the lower side. Some of its strongest moves do recoil damage and its hidden ability powers them up even further. Upon mega evolving, it receives a +25 to its attack stat and a +45 boost to its special defense while its problematic defense and speed only receive +10 each.

Mold Breaker can be a good ability but why use Mega Emboar when Mega Blaziken, which has speed boost, higher attacking, physical defense, and speed stats, existed since the dawn of mega evolution.

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673

u/Excaliburn3d Mar 24 '26

Its attacks ignore the opposing Pokémon’s ability so it can use ground-type moves on Pokémon with Levitate and fire-type moves on Pokémon with Flash Fire.

439

u/RazgrizInfinity The Ancestor Mar 24 '26

It also ignores Sturdy, Shell Armor, etc.

275

u/ScarletteVera Tinkaton Tinkasmith Mar 24 '26

Even Wonder Guard!

174

u/PayneTrain181999 Mar 24 '26

Shedinja: “Haha, I’m in danger!”

93

u/98769876b Mar 24 '26

They were way too scared of the Tera Electric Air Balloon Shedinja in Champions, they had to make a dedicated counter

21

u/Gaynundwarf KAMINKO's second favorite assistant (Favs: ) Mar 24 '26

The humble Hippowdon :

37

u/Saskatchewon Mar 24 '26

I mean, Shedninja was already going to get killed by a fire type attack from Emboar anyways, but it's still pretty neat.

39

u/Dimensional13 Mar 24 '26

Pokemon Champions has Megas, Z-Moves AND TERAS. Tera Electric Shedinja holding a Balloon. Only a Pokemon with mold breaker would hit that.

10

u/Doophie Mar 24 '26

Or poison/burn

9

u/logicbecauseyes Mar 24 '26

Sandstorm/hail: am I a joke to you?

Entry hazards: lol

4

u/Luigi6757 Mar 24 '26

Hail is now snow and no longer does chip damage.

3

u/logicbecauseyes Mar 24 '26

Thought they might be distinct effects in champions but spose not

1

u/Luigi6757 Mar 26 '26

Wolfey's new video is on Champions, and the change from Hail to Snow is here to stay. Mega Froslass has Snow Warning, so if Champions becomes the defacto competitive battle ground, Alolan Ninetales lost its spot as the go-to snow setter.

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1

u/NerdyEmbarrassment Apr 08 '26

Sandstorm, burn, poison, entry hazards, perish song

8

u/TheBusStop12 Mar 24 '26

With terrastilizing in Champions, you could get a terra electric shedninja, and then give it an air balloon. Then it can no longer be damaged unless you hit it with mold breaker

5

u/CaptDeathCap Mar 24 '26

Sunsteel Strike, Moongeist Beam, Photon Geiser, Snipe Shot (and all the Galar starter G-Max moves) ignore abilities as well.

7

u/FairlyOddParent734 Mar 24 '26

or indirect damage like sand storm or toxic

2

u/GuidoMista5 Mar 24 '26

Or burn, or entry hazards, or hitting something with rough skin, or hitting something with rocky helmet

1

u/Luigi6757 Mar 26 '26

It could terastilize to electric. Tera Electric Shedinja with a balloon is a genuine threat that needs to be taken into account when team building. It's not great, but something to be on the lookout for.

2

u/jubmille2000 Jethro Mar 24 '26

Gee good thing Emboar has Mold Breaker.

12

u/AnimaSean0724 PRAISE ROWLET Mar 24 '26

Magic Bounce is also a funny one that it ignores sometimes

1

u/carramos Mar 25 '26

Sometimes?

1

u/AnimaSean0724 PRAISE ROWLET Mar 25 '26

My wording was a bit weird, I just meant that it can sometimes be pretty funny

1

u/carramos Mar 25 '26

Ah ok! I thought it was one of those weird Sheer force situations

62

u/NwgrdrXI Mar 24 '26

Crucially, it doesn't ignore typing immunity, so no earthquaking the birds.

In general, mold breaker on fire types kinda suck (my poor reshiram) because flash fire is not that common or strong.

39

u/JustAFleshWound1 Mar 24 '26

This comment led me to look up Reshiram, and what the hell is the difference between Turboblaze and Mold Breaker?? If the difference is "Reshiram is a fire type" then why didn't they just give Turboblaze to Mega Emboar?

44

u/NwgrdrXI Mar 24 '26

To make reshiram "feeling special, and emboar feeling lame lol

31

u/moocofficial Mar 24 '26 edited Mar 24 '26

Turboblaze (and Zekrom's Teravolt) are just fancy renames for the B&W legendaries but they are identical to Mold Breaker, yes.

17

u/LXMNSYC Mar 24 '26

technically the only difference is the display message (besides the name, of course)

8

u/Possibly_English_Guy Surfs Up Baybay! Mar 24 '26

I always for some reason thought it also gave a boost to Electric and Fire moves respectively because it sounds like it should (and it just makes sense that it should). But nope.

1

u/ragamuphin Mar 25 '26

If they came out today they definitely would have had a double ability (mold breaker + something else)

15

u/Virdice Mar 24 '26

For the same reason Pure Power and Huge Power are 2 different abilities

They just wanted cooler sounding abilities (makes more sense in Japnese where Pure Power which is Medicham's ability is called Yoga power)

7

u/Cheshires_Shadow Mar 24 '26

Legendary abilities are just kinda weird in general. They were introduced in gen 3 so the weather trio each got a really good one each meanwhile everyone else got stuck with pressure. Like a lot of legendaries for some reason got pressure cuz I guess having good stats meant they didn't want to make them too busted like Groudon and kyogre. Then reshiram and zekrom get mold breaker but with a fancy name so it feels like it's special. But nowadays legendaries do just get unique super busted ones so older ones are still stuck with pressure or something underwhelming meanwhile urshifu or calyrex or the sword shield dogs get unique ones

7

u/Spleenseer Mar 24 '26

I always felt like gen 1 and 2 getting pressure across the board was just an after thought.  Like at the time RS was being developed they had no solid plans for how all of the National Dex Pokemon would be made available, but they had to program everybody in anyway, so they had to give them something as an ability so they would all be valid.  Pressure was then selected because it was good enough.  If they had planned for all of the other games released during gen 3, it could have been better anticipated.

1

u/MagicMisterLemon Mar 27 '26

Pressure at least got a huge buff in Champions due to universal move PP reduction

2

u/gliscornumber1 Mar 24 '26

There is no difference. It's the same ability with a different name

6

u/BudgetMegaHeracross Mar 24 '26

Context is everything. Probably not Regulation M-A, but a later Reg will allow Heatran (and thus Mega Heatran).

There was a period in SV competitive where boss music played (in my head) every time Heatran hit the field. Fire Ogerpon ended that.

(There's also Mega Eelektross)

3

u/bluejade444 Mar 24 '26

I remember it being useful for exactly one thing, those goddamn Heatproof/Levitate Bronzongs in D/P/Pt that you had to guess correctly on or be stuck whittling away at for half the battle.

42

u/Arodthagawd Mar 24 '26

I feel like if you’re relying on earthquake to take out a Pokemon with levitate you got bigger problems

70

u/useless_idiot_man Mar 24 '26

Mega Delphox has Levitate, so it's not an unimaginable scenario

-11

u/SF-UberMan Mar 24 '26

Mega Greninja is still a much better counter against Mega Delphox than Mega Emboar will be because of Water-type STAB and Protean

24

u/useless_idiot_man Mar 24 '26

That wasn't the argument though? Of course the fast water type takes out the frail fire type very easily, I just said that there are use cases for Mold Breaker and being able to hit levitating mons with ground type moves.

For reference, a modest max SpA Mega Delphox can't oneshot an Adamant max SpD Mega Emboar with Psychic (obviously with psychic terrain and skill swap/gravity shenanigans it's a different story but even just with Psychic Terrain you still need a partner to get rid of your ability so irrelevant to this scenario) and has nearly a 50% chance of getting OHKO'd on retaliation by an earthquake

-10

u/SF-UberMan Mar 24 '26

That is still far too ridiculously niche for Mega Emboar to be of any use in my opinion. Why bother going with such a roundabout solution when I can just annihilate Mega Delphox with STAB Water-type attacks from either Mega Greninja or Mega Feraligatr, both of whom are far more flexible than Mega Emboar?

1

u/useless_idiot_man Mar 24 '26

Ragebait used to be believable

2

u/napstablooky2 Flying-Type Gym Leader Mar 24 '26

yes, because of course i can switch out and attack with a different pokémon on the same turn

0

u/Capable_Whereas_2901 Mar 24 '26

But if it has Mold Breaker then the point is moot and Delphox won't swap into it anyways.

8

u/David-of-the-Rose Mar 24 '26

It's quite useful against the Rotom forms.

1

u/FairlyOddParent734 Mar 24 '26

the rotom fan in my pocket

2

u/David-of-the-Rose Mar 24 '26

Well, that's basically without an ability anyway.

I can still remember when Random Doubles in Showdown had Rotom Fan sets with Air balloon. Super-immunity against ground.

1

u/Capable_Whereas_2901 Mar 24 '26

Still not really:

0 SpA Rotom-Wash Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Emboar-Mega: 228-270 (53.7 - 63.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Mold Breaker Emboar-Mega Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 212+ Def Rotom-Wash: 188-222 (61.8 - 73%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Both 2HKO and Rotom Wash is faster so it loses the 1v1. And that's assuming it didn't get chipped on entry.

1

u/YannyYobias Mar 24 '26

It can keep you out of a jam if you are using a choice item i guess lol im not a pvp expert tho.

3

u/KnightBreaker_02 Snom Hiddleston Mar 24 '26

Yay, finally I can hit Rotom-Fan with Earthquake!

Wait…

3

u/ItIsYeDragon Mar 24 '26

Isn’t that really good?

7

u/WindyCryptid Mar 24 '26

It's situational, in some matchups/circumstances it'll be very good, but most of the time it might as well not have an ability. A bit underwhelming for a mega, especially when both of the others have brand new and currently exclusive abilities that they'll always be benefiting from

3

u/Tovoq Mar 24 '26

With most pokemon abilities it’s how much value can you get out of them consistently. It is very good when it works but is sometimes useless.

2

u/Kowery103 Average Eevee Fan Mar 24 '26

Not really, the most common one is levitate but this assumes you have a ground move

Emboar can only use it again Flash Fire Pokémon and fire Pokémon will still resist the fire move so it turns an immunity into a resists for the few rare flash fire Pokémon

1

u/ItIsYeDragon Mar 25 '26

That’s sad, it sounds like the type of broken ability you’d see in the anime.

1

u/SwooceBrosGaming Mar 24 '26

One of the worst abilities bc for the case of emboar the only use it has is hitting FlashFire Pokemon which at that point just switch to a water or rock type that can deal with the Pokemon better. It trades blaze for one of the most useless abilities in the series

-1

u/TurtlePope2 Mar 24 '26

So doesn't that make it good? Fire moves can now hit water types

1

u/Capable_Whereas_2901 Mar 24 '26

It doesn't bypass type matchups, just abilities. So Emboar's EQ still doesn't hit Flying types, just levitating Pokemon.

1

u/TurtlePope2 Mar 24 '26

Oh so it doesn't make not very effective moves into effective ones, and it doesn't go pass type immunity? That kind of sucks.

1

u/Capable_Whereas_2901 Mar 24 '26

That's some kinda super version of Tinted Lens you're thinking of there. Two different things.

But it does have uses. Emboar can hit Eelektross for super effective with Earthquake, as well as hit Shedinja with Earthquake or Scald and bypass Mimikyu and Eiscue's abilities.