How GOOD were Type Changing Moves ACTUALLY?

Pokemon could change type BEFORE Terastilization. Are they even good?

PATREON!

The Official False Swipe Gaming Twitter:

Directed & Narrated by Kellen

Thumbnail:

Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
2:20 - Roost
3:59 - Reflect Type
6:14 - The Conversions
7:54 - Camouflage
8:24 - Transform
9:03 - Relic Song
10:01 - Double Shock & Burn Up
13:41 - Soak
16:20 - Magic Powder
17:05 - Forest's Curse & Trick-or-Treat
18:28 - Outro

[MrCheeze]

One competitive use for Soak you didn't mention: It's used against ghost types on perish trap teams to prevent them from being able to switch out in Shadow Tag.

Also, something that doesn't actually get any use, but a fun interaction: Double Shock can be used every turn with tera electric, since tera overrides all other type changes. You even get the 2x STAB boost every time, provided that you tera'd before using it for the first time.

[Clearance]

Don't Self Destruct and Explosion turn the Pokémon into a Ghost Type?

[griled_chez]

This video has introduced me to so many moves I didn’t know existed. I don’t think I have ever seen reflect type be used in my entire life until now.

[chaosgallade]

Burn Up is in Scarlet/Violet's code, but the Pokemon who had it before (Arcanine, Moltres, Typhlosion) didn't get it back for some reason. Tera Fire Burn Up would have been legit.

Soak Octillery is also one of the rental Pokemon in one of the Pokestar Studios movies, where you have to bypass the Majin's Dark/Ghost + Wonder Guard combo.

[TheVengefulVadam]

Zygarde occasionally used Camouflage to remove its usual weaknesses and gave Extreme Speed STAB, but it was far from its best option, and would remove STAB from its Ground- and Dragon-type moves.

[Gotenhanku]

On the topic of soak Gen 9 introduced an amazing user of it in Belibolt who gets STAB powerful electric hits against it's newly soaked enemy. And Belibolt even has access to parabolic charge so it can heal while doing SE STAB hits.

[drakematsen]

The best application of Burn Up is probably that stupid strat where Shedinja Mimics Entrainment to pass Wonder Guard to Arcanie before it Burns Up in doubles. This makes it typeless and therefore immune to direct damage, but you'd never do that in a tournament.

[morningcoffee]

Hey, you forgot one little guy that did manage to make use of Soak, all the way up in OU! Pyukumuku! It was used to be able to deal with bulky steels and poison types while also making mons like Kartana and Koko less threatening if they switched into it.

[xeladas]

One thing about Double Shock that wasn't mentioned is that, if you Tera Electric, you don't lose your Electric Typing, so you have a 120BP STAB move that you can freely spam.
One other potential use for moves that change the target's type in doubles is targeting your partner instead of an enemy.

[emdal]

as a random nuzlock players, I can say that wonder guard conversion blastoise was the most terrifying thing I have ever faced

[thadgaioerdare]

Soak is a vital piece of my catching assistant smeargle with its spore and false swipe. It also boosts the catch rate of net balls, which is really funny (either that, or I have the craziest, most specific luck ever)

[Moon-nkco]

The fact that most of these are moves you likely never heard of is probably NOT a good sign for how good they are

[ryanharrelson]

Pyukumuku is probably the best user of soak in singles. It serves two roles:

1. Remove STAB from opposing Pokémon, making it easier to withstand their attacks.

2. Allow you to toxic poison Pokemon normally immune to it.

[hosni]

I feel they ditched Burn Up from Moltres in Gen 9 to prevent it from having a 100% accurate, 260 BP fire move with no drawbacks when going Tera Fire, without factoring in sun support, as when going tera, you don't lose your typing from Double Shock/Burn Up :(

[AIDcyt]

fun fact: Magic Powder is a powder move, so it can't affect grass types and Overcoat users

[georgecortes]

Here's an interesting one that would be banned to Anything Goes if applied outside of Legends Arceus: The move Judgement. Specifically, Judgement when used by Arceus with the Legends Plate. What the Legends Plate does is that Arceus starts the battle as a Normal-Type, but whenever it uses Judgement, it changes type to whatever is super-effective against the target, THEN uses Judgement to always hit for super-effective damage. So yeah, a Pokemon with 120 stats across the board only needing a 120-power STAB move to hit EVERYTHING for super-effective damage AND it also changes said Pokemon's type for potential defensive applications. Have fun taking that on!

[Andreecals]

Not that this changes the move's viability, but you didn't mention that camouflage changes the type to that of the terrain (fairy, psychic, grass or electric). I mean, it's the whole idea of it.

[AceAviations]

Outside of competitive Soak is apparently really good, while I haven't tested this myself it apparently makes the Net Ball really good as it makes even non-water or bug types effected by the boosted catch rate after being hit by Soak.

So for catching stuff in-game Soak is apparently incredible, making it actually good for something, even if you won't use it in a competitive singles environment.

[Flashc]

Some of these moves actually have some uses in the Mystery Dungeon games thanks to the teammate aspect of them. For example in SMD you can bring a Soak user such as Lumineon and then use it on Shedinja (who in the MD games can have more than 1 hp) to make it immune to bosses like Groudon, then have a Transform user like Ditto or Mew use it on them & then basically be unbeatable as the bosses won't have any moves to counter them & will be forced to run away the whole fight or attack until they use Struggle.

Speaking of Shedjina it's actually possible through lots of setup to get Shedjina to be typeless via Burn Up.

[rizachan]

There was a funny interaction with Trick-O'-Treat where you give Ghost type to a Curse set-up pokemon, mainly Steelix or Snorlax, and they end up chunking half their HP instead of getting a stat boost,
Niche, but funny when it works