Carnivine got paralyzed?

Question

The title refers to an encounter I had against my friend's Pikachu. I used wring out, a direct contact special move,and got paralyzed by static. My point is, ice beam makes direct physical contact to do damage to the receiver, and that's how it can possibly freeze the enemy. ice beam is required to make contact directly to an opponent directly to cause damage, yet it will not have a chance of activating static. So why is a move like wring out or final gambit any different, if the attack is special based then how does the move user make direct contact? Bite inflicting direct contact and possibly triggering static is understandable, but petal dance uses the special stat, grass knot does, wring out does, so how does it make direct contact is my full question.

Comments

Lol, Game Freak logic. There's your answer.

---

@DA830 lol then post is man

Answer 1

Have you ever seen Ice Beam being used?

They never make direct contact. They just shoot a beam of ice from their mouth/ hands and it attacks the foe.

Wring Out on the other hand?

>Lickilicky wraps its tongue around the opponent's body and squeezes it.

Wring Out

I.e. direct physical contact means attacked must touch opponent.

As for the others, if you want a (vaguely) plausible explanation.

Petal Dance - petals fly off said Pokemon, which are presumed to be generated by it/ part of itself.
Grass Knot - the Pokemon literally grows a knot of grass (which is presumed to be part of itself; doesn't really make sense when non-Grass Pokemon use this move).

Comments

So, then why Fondant do you think that wring out and petal dance are special, would it not make more sense to just make them physical? Otherwise solid answer, you'll likely get BA by tomorrow.

---

I would assume that moves like grass knot are a special move because of it being like a special ability. To give an example, techs in chrono trigger (slash, slurp cut, x-slash) all make physical contact, but they are still special talents learned by growth.

---

Wring Out is a weird one; I'd agree that it'd make sense as a physical move, but then again, so would Draining Kiss and that's also a special move.

With Petal Dance, I think it's because it was introduced in Gen 1 where the physical/ special split was based on moves. Come Gen IV, they introduced Power Whip and Wood Hammer, along with Leaf Storm, so I guess they wanted to evenly distribute the powerful Grass moves between Special & Physical.

---

Okay thanks Salamaster and Fondant it makes sense