>>43799577lava plume is supposed to be a weaker version of flamethrower with a higher chance to burn, and scald is just a water version of lava plume.
The problem is that the water flamethrower equivalent, surf, has no chance to burn or any secondary effect at all which means that even offensive mons will end up using scald. Also lava plume has a ridiculously small distribution even among fire types, while scald is learned by every non dual-ice water type and some random extras.
