With Gen 8 mons eventually coming to PMU, with it will bring a plethora of new moves. With new moves, there can potentially be more options for strategies when dungeon running. However, fixing some old moves could also provide some more options and strategies for mons previously unseen (think about how agility and rock polish’s buffs made the moves go from useless to incredibly useful). For this topic, I’m dividing my move suggestions into new moves introduced in gen 8 and moves already in the game.
Gen 8 Move Suggestions:
Life Dew - Heal the active mon and the user’s team by 25%. In the main series, Life Dew is a move which heals the user and its ally by 25%, making it an interesting tool due to how unique it is. I’d love to adapt this unique move to PMU by allowing it heal the user’s team, as no healing move does that currently. There are moves like Moonlight which heals the user and other players in their party, but none which can heal the user’s own team. Making Life Dew heal the user’s own team would bring a new type of support mon to dungeoning and also give use to some 100s which may not have utility such as healing.
False Surrender - 4-tile arc (Psychic range). False Surrender plays around with Morgrem and Grimmsnarl’s long hair as a weapon. Ingame, Morgrem and Grimmsnarl are shown having incredible reach using their hair, so adapting it into a fairly long and wide reach would be an interesting way to adapt the move. Additionally, to my knowledge, there are no dark-type moves with a Psychic-like arc. Having False Surrender have this range would make it unique to train a Morgrem or Grimmsnarl. The move never misses, which could be hard to adapt to an arc, but maybe it could apply at close range?
Strange Steam - 7-tile AOE (Discharge range). Strange Steam is the signature move of Galarian Weezing in which the user attacks using a strange steam. Steam in general can easily travel a wide range, creating a cloaking effect. Making Strange Steam have this range would make it very unique, as the largest fairy AOE move to my knowledge is Dazzling Gleam. The confusion aspect could cause issues, but other large AOEs (Discharge, Heat Wave, Blizzard) also have chances to cause status effects, so I think it balances out. Like Morgrem and Grimmsnarl, giving Galarian Weezing a good, signature move would give players incentive to train it.
Body Press - 2-tile spray (Scald range). Fighting types have notoriously limited range, especially on the physical side. As it stands, the only 2-tile spray moves are Low Sweep, which is somewhat weak and Cross Chop, which has a limited distribution, shaky accuracy, and only 12 PP. Making Body Press a 2-tile spray would give viable fighting coverage to the mons that learn it and give a fighting-type move with a bit of range for mons which don’t learn either Low Sweep or Cross Chop (looking at you, Kommo-o). As it stands, a lot of Fighting-type moves aren’t used due to their pitiful range, so adding more moves with a bit of range or spread would make the type a lot more viable.
Existing Move Changes:
Ominous Wind/Silver Wind - Buff PP by 3-5 - Ominous Wind and Silver Wind give options to types without other big AOEs, being Ghost and Bug. These moves have a fairly low base power and low PP, being only 15. One may argue that this is due to stat buffs, but this occurs so rarely (only 10% of the time) to where its not a big issue in my opinion. Other stronger AOEs with strong side effects (such as paralysis on Discharge) have more PP, with moves like Discharge having 25 compared to Ominous Wind’s and Silver Wind’s 15. Buffing the PP on these moves would make them more desirable to use.
Close Combat - Increase range to a 2-tile spray or 2-tile AOE. Close Combat has the potential to be a strong move, but fair move with its strong power but low PP. However, like many fighting type moves, it struggles with range. The solution to these would be increasing it to a 2-tile spray, like Low Sweep or giving Fighting types a completely new STAB range option with a 2-tile AOE. As it stands, Close Combat is a 1-tile AOE, which is meh. But increasing its range even by one-tile would be amazing for Fighting types and other Pokemon such as Staraptor which get it as coverage. After a while, it gets to be a drag having to run Rock Slide as your only form of range on a Fighting-type, so making Close Combat a 2-tile spray or especially a 2-tile AOE would open a whole new world of possibilities for Fighting types.