Brine or Water Pulse?

Question

I've been playing Pokemon Platinum and was wondering which move I should give my Floatzel:Brine or Water Pulse?

Both are strong special Water-type moves with their own advantages:
Brine gets stronger when you're below half-health
Water Pulse has a chance of confusing your enemies.

Tell me what move you think I should go with,including reasons why you think the move you chose is superior.

Comments

Brine has 65 power and 10 PP. Water Pulse has 60 power and 20 PP. Both have 100 accuracy and have 120 power as Hydro Vortex.

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I think he means in game.

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Putting this as a comment instead of an answer because it is an opinion and I do not know if it would be allowed to be an answer. If it can be then hopefully someone will edit/convert it.
In my mind you should go with Brine. You could potentially get a good combo out of Brine if you use Toxic too. You could teach Floatzel Toxic and give it Leftovers so that it is regaining health while the opponent is losing it, and as soon as the opponent loses half of their health to Toxic use Brine. If you want another Water-type move teach it Dive since Floatzel has better physical attack anyway, and can hide underwater to avoid damage while recovering with Leftovers as the opponent loses some of their own health due to poisoning. Water Pulse has lower power than Brine even if the opponent is above half-health, the 20% chance of causing confusion isn't that reliable and isn't worth it considering it is a volatile stat condition anyway.

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Yes. Dive is the best move until you get waterfall. However, toxic is not worth using because it's almost always easier to defeat opponents by simply spamming dive than using toxic. Not using toxic frees up space for more useful moves like surf, crunch, ice punch, or strength.

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True. I was just trying to come up with something creative since I'm pretty sure this is for in-game rather than competitive. Though there are certainly a ton of other Pokemon that can pull off Toxic better.

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You don't need to be creative for in-game. You only need an overleveled Infernape that can spam flame wheel.

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Also true. Being creative is fun though, at least for me. Anyway, the person who asked this question has gotten some good feedback from other people, so that's what matters. Hopefully they find use from it all.

Answer 1

Actually, Water Pulse is the better move. Yes, Brine does 5 more damage, and can even deal double damage in some situations, but the move only has 10 PP. This will be a quite annoying factor in-game, so you are better off with Water Pulse, which does enough damage. Think about it. Would you really sacrifice 10 PP for 5 more damage?

Once you get the chance, however, Surf, Dive, and Waterfall are both better moves, as well as HMs that will help you get through the game without an HM slave.

Hope I helped. :)

Comments

Dive isn't an HM in Platinum, though it's still very good.

Answer 2

If you mean in game (just for completing the main storyline) I think Surf would be the best option for the following reasons:
- Respectable 90 Base Power
- Perfect 100% accuracy
- A required HM move to progress
- 10 PP, much better than Hydro Pump’s terrible 5
If you can only chose from Water pulse and Brine, then I would chose Brine because:
- 5 more Base Power
- Brine only has 20% chance to confuse, and a 50% chance of making the opponent hit themselves, so you’re basically never going to have Water Pulse’s secondary effects
If you mean in competitive, then Hydro Pump for sure. That extra 30 Base Power over Surf makes plenty of Hydro Pump exclusive OHKOs.
Also, Floatzel’s attack is 30 higher than his special attack, so you might want to consider a physical water move like Waterfall, which is also an HM move required to progress in the main storyline.

Comments

Is surf better than dive though? Floatzel's physical attack is pretty good.

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Or waterfall?

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He can't get waterfall until after he beats Volkner. He'll have to use the next best move until then, which I'm pretty sure is dive.

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Oh i didnt know

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My Floatzel already knows Surf.

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Then why do you need another weaker water attack?

Answer 3

Brine is much better than water pulse

Comments

Really? A 10 PP move is better than a 20 PP move?

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sumwun thats like saying splash is better than V-Create because it has more pp

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I mean, when you're just playing through a game, sometimes splash is better...do you really like having to go back to a Pokemon center every time you run out of PP?

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I do. Im paranoid for my pokemon's HP. I bought about 50 hyper potions and about 40 revives so my pokemon wouldn't faint when i was beating the things you need to beat in the last city in pokemon

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Care to elaborate on why Brine is the superior move?