Recoil Moves

[Devalue]

Existed since the beginning. Offers a power boost, at the cost of your Pokemon's health. How do you feel about these moves? Which would you pick between Strength (80 power) and Double-Edge (120 power, suffers 1/3 of damage dealt as recoil)? Is there a certain threshold for picking one over the other?
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Generally avoids recoil moves. Relies on boosting moves for extra power, typically. Expects Pokemon to be in it for the long haul. Will not do that if they faint by attacking too much.

An alternative, simplified view of recoil: Start with Strength. Grants you a 50% power boost. Inflicts that extra damage to both you and your opponent. Prefers dealing 80 and taking 0 over dealing 120 and taking 40.

Recognizes some exceptions, though. Will likely take Brave Bird if the alternative is Aerial Ace AND either no access to something like Swords Dance or very bad defenses. Feels similarly about Flare Blitz because of the dearth of strong physical Fire moves. Looks for roughly double the power (assuming equal accuracy).

 

[Delta Crowned Sword]

Agree with you.

Some recoil moves are very good like Brave Bird and Flare Blitz, and personally speaking they are the only moves which offer acceptable trade-off.

Some abilities like Rock Head and Reckless are paired nice with them, especially the later case which receives 1.2x boost on those moves without any items.


But then some moves like Steel Beam and Head Smash are massively damaging, still some Pokémon use them.

Others like Submission, Take Down, etc. are bad and I don't use them as such.

If any Pokémon who had got high attack can go all out offense with these moves holding choice scarf/band, or the Pokémon who are bulky can use these moves with combo of Leftovers+recover/roost, to keep dealing huge STAB damage consistently. Corviknight is one such example.


I consider these moves according to the ideas explained, and if a Pokémon can make good use of it, then I do use it. But more or less they are either of Brave bird or Flare blitz.

 

[Zeostar]

It's situational for me. Recoil moves such as takedown are not worth it to me at the start. Not enough healing supplies and there's generally nothing I need to damage myself for.

On the other hand, I might take something like Double Edge towards the end as a 'hail mary' attack. If I hit a wall in the elite four and need something very powerful. I would also put hyper beam/giga impact in these category of moves.

Since Pokemon isn't an RPG that automatically heals your party after battle, I sometimes find recoil moves to be a liability.

 

[Rock_Salazar]

You will only see me using recoil moves as a last resort like flare blitz and double-edge, or if the pokemon has rock head to not take recoil damage.

 

[Corveone]

I use recoil moves as long as they aren't garbage like Take Down or Submission which have no reason to exist (well, Submission has been finally deleted, I'm surprised it took 8 gens to do that)

It depends on the Pokémon stats and what are the alternatives. I favor recoil moves on fast and offensive Pokémon, because I'd rather have those Pokémon one-shot with Flare Blitz or Brave Bird over taking even more damage due to their low defenses after the opponent survived a Drill Peck or Fire Punch. But on slower and more defensive Pokémon I find the alternatives usually better, I would prefer Seed Bomb on Torterra or Leech Horn on Trevenant over Wood Hammer.

 

[Explorer of Time]

I'll take Flare Blitz or Wild Charge over the elemental Punches if available and I'm not using an attack-boosting move on that Pokemon, and similarly for Brave Bird over Aerial Ace and Drill Peck. I'll also use Wood Hammer on Pokemon without access to Leaf Blade under the same circumstances. Wave Crash also looks good in Gen 9, but I've never played a Gen 9 game so I haven't had the opportunity for it yet.

Double-Edge, on the other hand, isn't worth it for me unless the Pokemon using it has Rock Head, since it's only a slight power boost over maxed-out Return. I'm also not personally a fan of Head Smash because of the low accuracy (plus Rock is my least favorite type), but it's theoretically useful in some situations. Take Down and Submission are just bad, but they have use cases in Gen 1 where they're purchasable TMs and most Pokemon have bad level-up learnsets, and I've run the latter on Charizard once. Finally, Chloroblast, Volt Tackle, and Head Charge are all signature moves for Pokemon I've never used and probably won't for a very long time.

 

[Sheep]

I absolutely avoid them when I could. Having to deal every few battles is tedious and not something I want to be doing. That and I feel I usually don't need such strong moves - especially with the modern Exp. Share giving your whole party exp, something with 80 power is often good enough since I end up overleveled. And even if it can't OHKO, 2 turns is still better for me usually than recoil lol.

 

[PoryKid575]

I don't mind using them, especially during the story since there isn't exactly a shortage of Pokemon Centers or healing items. They can be very helpful as wall breakers when an attack needs more punch then a Pokemon's "main" move can provide.

 

[ReKoil]

I rarely ever use them. Only way I'd use them is if the Pokemon has an ability like Rock Head that prevents taking recoil damage.

Would easily take Strength over Double Edge any day.