What in the world happened to Focus Punch usage?

Question

Focus Punch was a popular move in Gen 3, but now I don't see it anywhere outside of a few Mega Mawile sets and SubSeed Poison Heal Breloom. I don't see ant nerfs that it got, Stealth Rock was introduced, and notable targets like Blissey and Skarmory remained.

Comments

Short answer, close combat and hjk. Gen five had that menace known as Terrakion who didn't need cc, I don't even think it gets fp but the point is, fighting types no longer needs fp. Hjk was also buffed and both these moves have far better drawbacks at least when compared to fp

That's my guess anyway

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Close Combat and High Jump Kick/Jump Kick are a lot more easily spammable as well

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You'll probably get a better answer by asking here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ask-a-simple-question-get-a-simple-answer-mark-ii-roa-edition.3468567/

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/ms4 fighting, bp>70:
Aura Sphere, Brick Break, Close Combat, Cross Chop, Dynamic Punch, Focus Blast, Focus Punch, Hammer Arm, High Jump Kick, Jump Kick, Sky Uppercut, Submission, Superpower
/ms3 fighting, bp > 70:
Brick Break, Cross Chop, Dynamic Punch, Focus Punch, High Jump Kick, Sky Uppercut, Submission, Superpower

 you can see the large different already,

/ms4 fighting, bp>90:
Close Combat, Cross Chop, Dynamic Punch, Focus Blast, Focus Punch, Hammer Arm, High Jump Kick, Superpower
/ms3 fighting, bp>90:
Cross Chop, Dynamic Punch, Focus Punch, Superpower

and with that you can see an even larger difference
The movepool for fighting types greatly expanded to a point where focus punch wasn't so great
of course, you could still smack blissey with it or read some ferrothorn, it just isn't as reliable as running cc or something else.

Answer 1

It's simple: It's not worth it anymore. To safely set up Focus Punch, you either have to read a switch or use Substitute against a mon that can't break it. The thing is, if you read wrong, you've pretty much just wasted a turn and taken damage. Moves such as Close Combat, High Jump Kick, Superpower, etc. are much better because you can click them and know you will actually get to do the move. Sure, Focus Punch is stronger than all of those moves (150 BP compared to CC/Superpower's 120 and HJK's 130), but it's not really worth it because of how reliant on predictions it is. It's not used because you can't just click it when you need a Fighting move. Imagine if your Fighting-type is in a 1v1 against, say, Corviknight, who is at low enough HP that CC will kill, but you have no other moves that can kill it, plus you know Brave Bird will obliterate you. Would you rather be running Focus Punch, in which case you lose because it will always fail, or CC, in which case you win? It's simple.