POKEMON DIAMOND, PEARL AND PLATINUM ATTACK CHANGES

By far, one of the most important differences in Generation IV's battle system from Generation III has to be the new distinction between Physical and Special attacks. In previous generations, the factor that determined whether an attack was Physical or Special was dependant on the attack's type. The types were organized into Physical and Special categories, and this became an equivalent to common sense in Pokemon. But now, that has changed.

Physical and Special moves are now determined based on their own literal selves. The idea is similar to how the anime portrays its own battles. Pikachu uses Thunder against ten Ground Pokemon and wins, and since Ground Pokemon are immune to Electric attacks in the games, it doesn't make sense when compared to the game. However, this new change can make sense if you look at it the right way; some moves don't really go along. For example, a common dispute that some people still go on about is how Dark moves would make more sense to be Physical and how Ghost moves should have been Special. But now, all of those moves have been sorted out into more proper places.

A few common examples: (For a complete list, refer to the end of this section)
- Fire Punch (Fire) is now Physical
- Waterfall (Water) is now Physical
- Shadow Ball (Ghost) is now Special
- Hyper Beam (Normal) is now Special

And of the many altered moves, another distinct one has to be Hidden Power, which was previously determined on the type it was, and is now completely Special. This hurts a lot of Physical Sweepers that used it as an extra move because their movepools were dismal. However, this can also help some Special Sweepers with little attack type variety, as they will no longer be limited to only Special-type attacks. Furthermore, some Mixed Sweepers may end up converting to one certain area because their best moves have changed on them.

Now, how can you tell whether a move is Physical or Special? Well, one easy way would be to just check the TechDex. In your own game, you can just select an attack from one of your Pokemon's move pages and check out the icon beside the description. A star represents Physical, a circle within a circle represents Special, and a half-filled, yin-yang-like circle represents a non-damaging move (Other).

A lot of Pokemon have also changed drastically by this new concept. For example, Alakazam was an excellent Special Sweeper in the Advanced Generation, but now that some of its key moves, Fire Punch, Ice Punch, and Thunderpunch, have become Physical, Alakazam may not be as popular as before. However, this doesn't mean that it can't do anything anymore. One new move that can help it out is Focus Blast, a Fighting move, and now that Shadow Ball is Special, it has that one, too. So, Alakazam really isn't too badly affected, but its moveset has definitely changed.

Another great example is Hitmonchan. Before Generation IV's new attack concept, it was considered a joke to have any of the elemental punches on it and was rarely even used in competitive battling. And now with the changes and new moves added to its repertoire, Hitmonchan may even become a common Physical Sweeper.

And to finish this off, here is a complete list of all the old moves that have changed in Generation IV:

Physical to Special

Special to Physical

Contributed by tiger10x