Why did they change Shadow Ball? Physical & Special?

Question

In quite sure that Shadow ball was I Physical move in my firered game.
Why did they change it?

Here are some pictures

Gen 3

Gen 5

I saw that the same thing happened with Faint Attack

Answer 1

Because in Gen 3 and before physical and special moves were determined by what type the move was. For example, all ghost moves were physical, not just Shadow Ball. And all Dragon moves were special, that;s just how it was. After Gen 3 this was changed to the current mechanics and Shadow Ball became a special attack.

Comments

Ok Thanks a lot Ben :) Upvote to ♪Girl On Fire♪

Answer 2

Physical and Special moves worked differently in Gen III. In Gen IV things changed. In Gen III all ghost type moves were physical and all dark moves were special. As of now most moves are by appearance. Giga Impact looks like its hitting something so it does physical damage, while psychic is not touching the opponent but rather a special kind of force so it does special damage.

If that doesn't answer your question they made it easier to cope with.

Answer 3

Yes, that's right. The reason why is because in the early generations, Physical attacks were any moves of the types Normal, Fighting, Poison, Ground, Flying, Bug, Rock, Ghost or Steel, but Special attacks were those having the Fire, Water, Electric, Grass, Ice, Psychic, Dragon or Dark type.

And starting from Diamond and Pearl, every attacking move is categorised individually: moves of any type can be Physical or Special. So now we have some Fighting moves in the Special category, Psychic moves in the Physical category and so on. This has led to much more interesting and diverse movesets to take advantage of a Pokemon's stat strengths.

More info here: http://pokemondb.net/move