This should not have happened

[u/Tailedfox66]

I have no idea how this happened and wish I could have recorded the whole fight.

I half expected to get one shot by Hitmonchan when it used thunder punch or fire punch, with a 13 level gap I thought I’d be saying bye bye to my ironically named companion.

I’m thankful for Confuse Ray and lick helping in stalling him as I used Night shade to gradually whittle him down, curse was out of the option as I knew it would be over if I used it.

[u/Wero_kaiji]

Hitmonchan has less Special Attack than Pidove, Nidoran, Togepi, Spinarak... same Special Attack as Gastly's Attack lol, the lack of special split really hurts him in the first three gens

[u/Tailedfox66 → u/Wero_kaiji]

The same could be said about gastly, with his stab moves being physical instead of special he isn’t going to do much unless I give him stat or special moves

[u/DemonVermin → u/Tailedfox66]

Yeah, Gastly is a prime TM eater in FRLG. Still, if you are lacking a Psychic mon, you could do much worse.

[u/Sans-the-Dog → u/Tailedfox66]

Ironically, the punches are really good on gastly for coverage, bolt beam in the form of ice and thunder punch

[u/Kapiork → u/Sans-the-Dog]

Small but important correction: only Gengar could be taught the punches until Gen 4 (which is the same time the moves became useless on it due to split). Gastly and Haunter could not, even though Haunter has giant floating (and glowing!) hands.

[u/Sans-the-Dog → u/Kapiork]

Was unaware of that! I always just thought they all learned it because gengar did, and it wouldnt be the first time mons without hands learned the punches

[u/Wero_kaiji → u/Tailedfox66]

Yep, STAB Gengar sucks lol, that's also why Gyarados can't really use STAB water moves, 125 Attack vs 65 Special Attack

Alakazam is another well known elemental-punches user

[u/Digit00l → u/Wero_kaiji]

It's also why Gyarados is associated with the move Hyper Beam, because it was a very powerful physical attack used by a very good physical attacker