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HM Moves That You Hate Most

Flash. I'm not a fan of moves that don't do any damage in the first place, and Flash is just annoying. It really seems to serve no obvious purpose.
 
I can tolerate most of them, but I really don't like two-turn moves like Fly, and being almost required to have it at all times is a pain. (I went through my recent Pearl playthrough without it, though, which was a lot worse.)
 
The only HM moves I like are the typical Surf and Waterfall. Strength and Fly are also helpful in-game.

While not the worst, the rest are pretty terrible. Cut is probably my least favorite, only for it to do so little damage yet have an accuracy of 95%.
 
Cut is awful, but because it's obtainable early-ish it can't be too powerful because that would unbalance the proceeding fights. A secondary effect might help.

Strength i dislike because it's normal-type (can't be super-effective) and has no secondary effect. Basically a more powerful version of Cut. The only use it has would be STAB.

Flash is as good as sand-attack. Annoying in battle but a viable strategy sometimes, i do not think it's quite as bad as others have said.

Rock Smash is crazy weak but remember in Gens 2&3 its BP was 20 not 40. And it has a chance of a secondary effect, so again not as bad as others have said.

Rock Climb would be perfect if it were a rock-type move. As it is it's just crap without STAB and an accuracy-enhancer.

Defog has exactly the same in-battle effect as Sweet Scent (strange being that they have in-field uses). Worse than Flash.

Whirlpool really bugged me in Johto. A total waste of a move-slot. I'd never use sand tomb or fire spin, so why do i have to use this?

though not a HM, teleport is so bad as an attack move, but useful in the field before fly can be used out of battle. Completely worthless after fly.

I don't mind 2-turn moves, they can surprise your opponent by becoming semi-invulnerable, so i really like dive, dig and fly. Fly is particularly good on Drifblim, since it has no other decent flying-type moves.

so worst to best:
Whirlpool, Defog, Flash, Cut, Rock Climb, Strength, Rock Smash, Waterfall, Surf, Dive/Dig, Fly

n.b. In Platinum i made my "free" Battle Revolution Pikachu my field move slave with surf, volt tackle, flash and dig; which makes for a good combination to move around easily in caves.

EDIT: Also bear in mind that i mean Waterfall now not before, as a physical move w/chance of flinch.
 
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I think a lot of you guys are looking at this at a very narrow point of view, mainly based on how useful they are in battle. Remember, HM moves aren't just battle moves, they also have field effects, so that factors into their usefulness as well. I think the worst HM moves are the ones that are useless in both aspects, Flash and Defog just affect accuracy in battle and are completely unnecessary in the field. Cut is a pretty mediocre attack and as I said in my last post, doesn't really have much use aside from clearing pointless obstacles that are just there for the sake of having an obstacle.

Now Whirpool, I agree that in battle it's pretty useless. In the field though, I'd argue that it has some potential that Game Freak isn't using. It could be very useful for water mazes, since they can design paths that cross over each other. Likewise, I think Waterfall is a good battle move but a horrible field move, waterfalls are usually just there to get in your way and nothing else. I think some of these random obstacles like Cut and Waterfall are probably better as TMs, that way we can still get the functionality without all of the restrictions that come with HMs. Maybe Whirlpool would be good as a TM as well.
 
I think we should actually assign HMs as non-Normal types just so that we can use them for super-effective damage. Some can also be tweaked in other ways to make them actually be useful in battle. I propose the following changes:

Cut: Steel-type (thus super-effective to Rock, Fairy, etc), 100% Accuracy.
Rock Climb: Rock type (super-effective to Fire/Flying), 90% Accuracy.
Strength: Fighting Type, and is either a) not affected by lowered Attack Stats; or b) 10% chance of opponent flinching
Flash: Lowers accuracy and, reduces opponents' speed to 3/4 for 3 turns.
 
Yeah, I never knew why the hell Strenght is a Normal Type, when it fits the Fighting Type more.
For Cut, I think it would be better as a Steel or Grass Type move. Could fit the Dragon Type too, since it's usually performed with claws, but I think that would be a bit OP for an early-game move...

As for Flash, it should be a Lighting Type move. But, since it deals no damage, it wouldn't make any difference.
 
Rock Smash, especially in RS. It has 20 power (mind you, in RS) making it useless even in early game, and worse? You need it when you're pretty darn close to the END OF THE GAME.

Defog, too, I guess, but not nearly as bad since you don't NEED it, there's always the wiki and all to navigate with. I don't include flash because it has it's niches sometimes, but it is still pretty freaking terrible.
 
You know after BW came out, with bridges, and boulders only restricting side paths, I had hoped they learned not to mandate HMs. XY walked right back into it, actually requiring Fly for the first time ever.

But if there's one that needs to be cut out, it's Cut itself. It's already completely optional in XY, and while the other HMs are oft justified and mostly battle-worthy, there are so many better slash attacks that could and should do the same thing.
 
Miar said:
You know after BW came out, with bridges, and boulders only restricting side paths, I had hoped they learned not to mandate HMs. XY walked right back into it, actually requiring Fly for the first time ever.
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Wait, what? When did you need to use Fly?
 
I think for story reasons Geosenge town is blocked off at a specific point although you might be able to get in through reflection cave, I never tried.
 
They need to bin the worst HMs and come up with interesting items that do the same job. They're frustrating and team-breaking.

Cut -> garden shears
Rock Smash -> hammer or mallet
Flash -> flashlight (seriously? no one thought of this?)

Strength, Fly, Surf, Dive, and Waterfall are good moves and don't really need to be changed. However, three water moves as HMs is very bad design. How about changing Surf to a Grass or Ice move that forms a platform such as a lily pad or glacier? Or Waterfall might be a Ground move that raises/lowers the earth below you.

The rest need a buff.

Defog -> reduces opponent's evasion by two stages
Whirlpool (15 power and 85% accuracy, really?) -> at least 50 power, 100% accuracy
Rock Climb -> increase accuracy to at least 95%.
 
Cut and Rock Smash are the questionable ones for me, since they are intentionally introducing an obstacle with a very specific requirement to pass (have the badge, the HM, and a pokemon that knows the move). But it's really only annoying in the post game, because there are many times when I end up trapped somewhere because my high level pokemon don't know those moves anymore. Then I end up capturing some wild pokemon in order to get to where I wanted to.

This slightly annoys me, and part of me wishes that trees/boulders would stay destroyed permanently.
But on the other hand, I like ending up with random pokemon. One of my all time favorites from Sapphire was a Numel/Camerupt named Rock Smash who I needed to get back into Mauville. I would have never captured him otherwise, and it's not the only time that's happened, because usually I feel like the new HM capture has gone on a journey with me and I become attached to it.

So I guess that's just making the best of a bad system, but it works!
 
I know it's bad, but... I got to the point that I rather use the Cross Walls AR, just to get trough those trees and boulders. Then, turn it off, and move on! :sweatlol:
 
I'm thankful X and Y cut down on the HMs but Cut still sucks. I've always hated Cut, it's a Normal type move that isn't very often used and terrible power! It could have at least have a high critical hit rate! Or just become like Rock Smash did in X and Y.
 
In my opinion, most of the HM moves only really exist to be used on the field and aren't really meant for battles. The only ones that are actually useful are Surf, Fly, Waterfall, and to a lesser extent Dive, which is just a water type version of fly. The rest are utterly useless, though it's possible that most of them are weak because virtually any Pokemon can learn them, and they don't want low-level Pokemon to have killer moves.

Granted in the later generations, Cut was only used to access optional areas, and strength boulders stay where they are permanently once they enter a hole, it's obvious that many of them are being made so that once you're done with them, you can have the Move Deleter take them off, but not like in Gen 1 where once you learn an HM move, you can NEVER get rid of it.
 
Pokepal148 said:
I think for story reasons Geosenge town is blocked off at a specific point although you might be able to get in through reflection cave, I never tried.
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Um, what? No clue what you're talking about, since Geosenge Town is visited before Reflection Cave, and there's no secret areas of Reflection Cave that lead anywhere besides Rt. 11 and Shalour City. Also, the only part of Geosenge that's blocked off is Team Flare HQ, and you don't need to go to Reflection Cave for that, you just go to the northwest corner of town.

PinkiePieFox said:
I'm thankful X and Y cut down on the HMs but Cut still sucks.
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*BW
 
I think cut is the worst tm. As a fighting move, it's not very good, but what I hate most about it is that it's so early in the game that I can't get it removed from my Pokemon until way late in the game.
 
Robo-Floatzel said:
In my opinion, most of the HM moves only really exist to be used on the field and aren't really meant for battles. The only ones that are actually useful are Surf, Fly, Waterfall, and to a lesser extent Dive, which is just a water type version of fly. The rest are utterly useless, though it's possible that most of them are weak because virtually any Pokemon can learn them, and they don't want low-level Pokemon to have killer moves.
Click to expand...

It would have been great if they could at least make all HMs as non-Normal types. At least then we can use them for super-effective damage. Imagine having Cut as a Steel/Grass-type, that will make Charmander more viable against Rock/Ground type Pokémon. Or Strength as a Fighting-type, which will enable Chansey to counter Rock/Steel types. Or Rock Climb being Rock/Ground type, so that Venusaur (who can learn via HM in Gen 4) has something to fight back against Fire types. Or having Rock Smash as a variant of Fury Cutter, and raise 20 BP each for every consecutive use.
 
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