History Gamebreaker / Pokemon

* The Event Rockruff for ''Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon''. If one can get around its inconvenient evolution requirements[[note]]It can only evolve into Dusk Forme between 5-6 PM in ''Ultra Sun'' and 5-6 AM in ''Ultra Moon''.[[/note]], the Lycanroc is a very powerful Pokémon. But that's not what it's here for. The event Rockruff comes with the move Happy Hour. Not only can this be combined with a Z-Move to boost all its stats by 1[[note]]Happy Hour is also a Normal-type move, and Normal is the first type you get a Z-Crystal for, meaning that this can be done very easily.[[/note]], it can also be combined with the Amulet Coin or the Rotom Power: Prize Money. Happy Hour and the Amulet Coin both double the amount of money earned after a trainer battle, and Rotom Prize Money triples it. And they stack '''multiplicatively.''' This results in the player earning [[https://78.media.tumblr.com/51dcdfd520d9ec439645dbc19484298f/tumblr_inline_p0k0uyBHdv1rmc4v2_1280.jpg some incredible numbers]].

** Deoxys-N is similar to the Attack forme, but with less offense and slightly more bulk, but not enough to matter. This causes it to be considered awful in games where Deo-A is allowed, but fills the same spot it would have in ones where it's not.

* Both Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre take the already extreme game breaker potential of their normal form and take this up to eleven with their Primal formes. Just like any Mega Evolution, they give 100 extra base stats to the Pokémon, giving them a whopping 770 base stats outrivaled only by Mega Mewtwo X and Y and Mega Rayquaza. What really takes them to new heights are their new abilities, Desolate Land and Primordial Sea. Not only do they bring back the dreaded permanent weather that was fixed in Gen VI after plaguing Gen V (though thankfully it goes away after they switch out or if the ability is surpressed by Gastro Acid), but they nullify entire types of moves (Water for Desolate Land and Fire for Primordial Sea) until they are switched out. Primal Groudon also picks up a secondary Fire typing: between this new typing and a stat boost, Fire-type moves on Groudon go from only usable to devastating[[note]]Groudon's Attack is much higher than its Special Attack; in Generations IV and V, this meant running either the base 75 power Fire Punch to use the high Attack or the higher (120) power but special Fire Blast[[/note]]. The added Fire doesn't really have any downsides either, since Desolate Land nullifies water attacks, one of Primal Groudon's only weaknesses[[note]]Which leaves Primal Groudon with a ''single'' weakness in Ground unless its weather is overridden by Primordial Sea or Delta Stream, something with Air Lock or Cloud Nine, or using Gastro Acid[[/note]], whereas Kyogre picks up an immunity to a type it already resisted. Granted, Primordial Sea ''does'' have significant tactical value in Doubles Battles with Pokémon that are weak to Fire-type, as well as serving to give it bonuses like 100%-accurate Thunders and large boosts to its already-devastating water attacks like Origin Pulse (which will now do so much damage that it's liable to 2HKO or OneHitKill things that ''resist it''). What's particularly absurd about the Primal versions of Groudon and Kyogre is that they don't ''technically'' count as Mega Evolutions. Whereas other Mega Evolutions can only be used one per team, necessitating hard choices for who you'll give the Mega Stone to, Groudon and Kyogre can be stacked. There's nothing keeping a player from using Primal Groudon, Primal Kyogre, and Mega Rayquaza all in the same match.

* Power Construct Zygarde. At 50% or less of its health, Zygarde with this ability transforms into its Complete Forme. Zygarde-Complete has ''incredible'' bulk on both sides of the spectrum due to the drastic increase in base HP. Sporting a massive 216 base HP alongside 121 Defense and 95 Special Defense, it can absorb even strong Ice-type attacks (which do 4x damage to it) with impunity, while using Coil to boost itself, put down massive-HP Substitutes which would trigger the forme pretty quickly, Rest to recover all of its status and health with Sleep Talk to boost itself, and it sports Thousand Arrows, a powerful Ground-type move that hits Flying types -- coupled with the attack boost from Coil, it will hurt a lot. Pretty much only Unaware Pokémon could stand a chance against a boosted Zygarde-C, and it would shrug off almost everything else while destroying them with impunity. It was just ''too'' good in OU, and the ability Power Construct was banned to Ubers within the first few days of play. It was later banned in Doubles OU as well for the exact same reason, only with Dragon Dance.

* Volcarona has always been a particularly polarizing 'mon, deemed the 'Matchup Moth' for its ability to either completely break a match wide open or flounder around helplessly, and while it has received changes that assisted it greatly in the past few generations, (Fairy-types to prey upon in Gen 6, Z-Moves to nuke with for Gen 7 only, Heavy-Duty Boots to ignore Stealth Rocks in Gen 8), ''nothing'' could have prepared players for the terror of a Volcarona that can use Terastalization. One would think that the returning Heatran would be a solid answer, as it has been for the past three generations, but Terastalization ruins that, as Volcarona can run Tera Ground or Tera Water to obliterate Heatran where it stands, while also slaughtering the similarly difficult Unaware Skeledirge. It could run Substitute for Sucker Punch, or even run Tera Ghost to blank Extreme Speed Dragonite. The average Choice Scarfers can't even reliably revenge kill it because they get outsped after Volcarona gets a Quiver Dance (which is very easy considering how many Pokémon Volcarona threatens now) it can essentially handpick its counterplay, similarly to Magearna, and as a result, in a very controversial move (many saw Zamazenta-Hero as a more pressing concern), Volcarona was banned from OU alongside Urshifu Rapid Strike. It would be unbanned after the release of the ''Indigo Disk'' DLC, however.

* The Psychic type in general isn't quite as overpowered as in generation 1, due to the addition of the Dark type and improvements to Bug and Ghost move pools. However, Alakazam is in some ways even more powerful, because you can purchase TMs for all of the elemental punches (Fire Punch, Ice Punch, Thunderpunch), and the physical/special split hadn't happened yet, so all of those punches run off its very high Special Attack stat, instead of its pathetic physical Attack. With STAB Psychic, Ice Punch, Thunderpunch, and Recover, a punching Alakazam can take on almost any foe, dealing at least neutral and usually super-effective damage, backed by very high stats. Trading it back to generation 1 (because the punches existed there, they just weren't available for purchase, so it's a legal trade) makes it nigh unstoppable.

* Last Respects is an ''insane'' move. For every fainted Pokémon you have, the power of Last Respects goes up by 50, up to a maximum of ''300 base power,'' and this isn't even taking STAB into account! On top of that, Houndstone, the premier user of the move, also has Sand Rush as an Ability, doubling its Speed in a sandstorm, ensuring it's going to sweep up the enemy team if it's the last Pokémon standing. A very common strategy with Houndstone is to bring five Pokémon to act as a suicide squad, with at least one Sandstorm setter, and then bring out Houndstone to destroy the enemy team. That strategy was so powerful, Houndstone received instant bans from competitive play. Upon Pokémon HOME's release, Basculegion, a new user of the move who had slightly better Attack [[note]]For the male, the female has a slightly lower Attack than Houndstone[[/note]] and Speed and a similar ability in Swift Swim was potentially able to do the same thing. As such, Last Respects was banned. [[note]]Due to Smogon policies, Houndstone was banned due to being the only user of Last Respects, but now that it was determined the move was the issue, Houndstone got unbanned.[[/note]] And even then, its power in Ubers as an easy to set up win condition is already giving it a suspect test in that tier as well.

* Playing the original monochrome games on a Platform/GameBoyColor is a game-breaker in that dark areas like caves suddenly becomes trivial to traverse. Likewise, hidden routes will suddenly become visible. This is largely due to how the Game Boy Color handles monochrome games made for it's predecessor and certain oversights in the choosing of the colors for it's 10 predefined palettes for those games did not account for games that relies on the monochrome screen to hide the hidden paths and/or mask the route.