Is there a downside to Boomburst?

Question

Boomburst is 140 power, 100% accuracy, and even has 10 PP. In a generation where there seems to have been an effort to make the game a little less powerful (Fire Blast is now 110 power, Surf is 90 power, etc), it seems really odd that they would introduce a move with 140 power and no drawbacks.

The only potential drawback I can see is that the Pokemon with access to it (Exploud, Noivern, Swellow, and Chatot) are not really all that powerful themselves. However, Exploud has decently high Special Attack, gets STAB for using it, and has the ability Scrappy so it can even hit Ghosts with it. As such, it is a real threat with this move.

So am I missing something, or is this move ridiculously overpowered?

Answer 1

Nope, there are no huge drawbacks with the move itself. However, the limited distribution like you mentioned , could count, but that doesn't change the fact that it is an extremely OP move.

There are a few very minor drawbacks, such as Soundproof, but they are so little they barely matter at all.

Comments

thanks - I was seriously wondering what I was missing, as it seemed like there must be some reason not to use it.

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Yeah, that was my first reaction too; it's basically a Hyper Beam with no recharge and 10 PP.

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No STAB for Noivern though. It would be the only reason to use Chatot, if Exploud didn't get it. Also Boomburst gets a whopping max 16 PP.