MOTW: Swift

It’s been a while. I know. Thus is life and the holidays/tests/school in general. No excuses so let’s get into it. Normal type moves are interesting types to choose from. Their resistances are unlike any other and there are an interesting set of moves to choose from. One move has been around for quite some time is Swift. Swift is almost unique in the fact that it can hit an opponent in almost any situation, and we’re going to take a look at that in our MOTW today.

Accuracy. One thing that is pretty much a necessity in the field of battle. Almost all important move combinations and strategies rely on the move actually working. This is where accuracy plays a role. There are dedicated items to boosting and decreasing this stat, and every move has an accuracy involved with it. Pokemon is a rock, paper, scissors sort of play style, but it’s kind of hard for rock to beat scissors if it completely misses them.

Well, what happens when you throw accuracy out the window? You get the move Swift. A steadfast move since Gen I, Swift exists solely to be your go to. Not necessarily your bread and butter move, but more of a back bone to a team. When you can’t trust anything else, you can trust Swift to hit your target. Swift doesn’t have even have an accuracy rating. It’s more than 100% accurate. You can manipulate 100% to go + or -; with no rating it cannot change. It’s a constant, always hit, move.

So, how effective is a move that is always effective? Well as far as accuracy goes, it’s infinite, but you do sacrifice a couple of things having that ability. For one, it’s not the most powerful move in the pokeworld. 60 for a power rating isn’t awful, but it’s no great shakes. If you pair it with normal type Pokemans you can get a STAB with it bringing it up to 90 power, but, even then that’s still not great. We, Steve and I, have mentioned before how normal type moves can be underestimated, as they’re not super effective, but they also are almost never weak against an opponent. Swift is not the type of move you build your team around. It’s like the gravy with meat and potatoes. Not necessary, but it does kind of tie it all together.

Then why would you choose Swift? Well in the case of this move, just for the accuracy alone. You can’t underestimate the power of actually HITTING your opponent. I think we’ve all been there where you are in a battle and you just CANNOT land a move. It’s happened to me to many times. Now that I’m a lot smarter in building my team I choose almost all 100% accurate moves, but there are still people out there who really like to get under my skin with accuracy deducting moves, like sand attack and double team. (shuddering) I. HATE. those moves... The bright light in these situations is Swift actually hitting the pokemans that you have missed now 4 moves in a row finally landing a hit, giving you the opportunity to say, “SCREW YOU, YOU **** **** ****! TAKE THAT!”. I’ve had some frustrating situations obviously...

Downside Alert:

When you’re battling someone and they use Dig or Fly it won’t work. Lame I know. For how accurate and awesome of an ability Swift is, those two moves completely negate all of that. The reason this is even more lame is that in Gen I Swift WOULD hit under those circumstances. In Gen II and on they’ve gimped it.

Positivity Alert:

You know that thing where two Pokemon go head to head with two other Pokemon? Yea swift effects the entire field of battle without harming your own Pokemans. Now that Gen V is coming out this will also be the case when you have triple battles. Just a little bonus there and side strategy for you to think about.

That’s all she wrote folks. Just trying to put a light on actually hitting your opponent. I think we’ve all been there when it comes to being seriously aggravated at totally whiffing at an opponent. Swift is that bright light in dark times.

Tangent:

Again, Sorry about the lack of me and articles lately. My life has been redonkulous lately. I’m on a much needed break right now for the week so what else would I do? Of course I’d play and write about Pokemon. What kind of nerd do you think I am? You can expect me to be around a lot more now with the year coming to an end and also a semester of school ending. If you want to keep up with my boring and at the same time busy day to day life you can find it all at my personal website, aaronspriggs.com, or a more summarized version by following me on twitter, @aaronspriggs.

Thanks again for reading and being understanding!