Changes in Pokémon Sun & Moon: Game Mechanics

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Continuing with the whole idea of covering changes that have occurred in Pokemon Sun and Moon, I want to talk about more general things. There are a couple of changes I want to highlight and I hope you enjoy. Let's begin and I hope you enjoy it.

Parental Bond got Nerfed

So to start off, one of the most controversial and strongest Pokemon in VGC history, Mega Kangaskhan got its power levels dropped. The 2nd hit in Parental Bond was originally 50% of the first hit, but it got cut in half is now 25%. This is a huge thing as Kangaskhan is a very strong Pokemon because it essentially a free Choice Band with the ability to change moves at will. This won't be a major deal in VGC yet as Mega Evolution isn't allowed in the 2017 season, but in other metagame where it'll be allowed, it may have not as big of an impact as it did in the 6th Generation. It'll be interesting to see how it effects other formats in the future.


If what the dataminers are true when testing confusion using Supersonic, then the damage you'll take when you get hit in Confusion, the damage is now 33% instead of 50%. My initial reaction is yes. After the impact of Swagger from Thundurus-I mainly, this is something I'm really happy about as I don't half to worry about taking as much damage from a Confusion hit, which I hope only weakens the impact of Swagger. We've seen Swagger cause some major impact in someone's tournament run, like Aaron Zheng in the Top 4 of Worlds in 2013. I also think that it'll make Swagger as obvious of a gameplan idea as before, where knowing that they they'll take less damage from the Confusion hit as before, which will force people to think more about using Swagger, but it'll still be a problem, just not as big of a problem.


Paralysis also got a huge change in the new games. When paralyzed, the speed stat will be reduced by 50% instead of 75% like before. This means that when you inflict paralyze something, don't expect automatically outspeed them. Pokemon like Thundurus-I have made their mark being able to paralyze everything it can and then damage them while the partner tries to flinch them and potentially faint them without them being able to do anything. 
Side Note: Thunder Wave is now 90% accurate instead of 100% accurate. This will certainly impact Thunder Wave's usage as someone may say the 10% decrease in accuracy may deter someone from using the move and go to another form of speed control like Icy Wind or even Electroweb, but if Thunder Wave is the only option, it may be the only option, but just keep it in mind.


Introduced in the 6th Generation, the Terrains weren't really used throughout the 6th Generation because the viability and team synergy wasn't as easy to fit on a team. Moving onto the 7th Generation, the Guardian Deity Pokemon all have abilities that allow them to auto-summon the Terrain related to their primary typing. Tapu Koko is and Electric/Fairy type Pokemon that summons an Electric Terrain. Tapu Lele is a Psychic/Fairy type Pokemon that summons a new type of Terrain called Psychic Terrain. Tapu Bulu is a Grass/Fairy Pokemon that summons the Grassy Terrain. The final one, Tapu Fini, os a Water/Fairy type Pokemon that summons the Misty Terrain. I'll leave these pastebins I threw together to show the full effects of each terrain.
  1. Electric Terrain
  2. Misty Terrain
  3. Grassy Terrain
  4. Misty Terrain

Aurora Veil (Speculation)

This is pure speculation at the point of writing this article, but I still want to talk about it as it could be a good move. Essentially from reading this, it reduces the power of physical and special moves by 50% for the next 5 turns. This could be a cool move as depending on how long matches will last, you could essentially use this move at the right time and it'll still be in effect until the battle ends. We don't know which Pokemon can learn this move besides Smeargle naturally because of Sketch, but if a good Pokemon can learn it, then keep a sharp eye on it.

Hope you enjoyed this. I can't wait for Sun and Moon to come out as I have a ton of content I want to work on and when the new games are released, I can start working on it. Check out my older content if you want and I'll see you guys next time. Bye.


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