>>44910292>Really weird considering many powerful Pokemon like Salamence or Gyarados were top tier OU in Gen 3 despite not having their STAB boosts.salamence was OU because it was a good dragon pokemon. dragons were kinda broken and overpowered in the meta until gen 6 hardchecked them with fairies and their dragon immunities. and gyarados only became more powerful after the split in gen 4 when he got STAB physical Waterfall.
>How did the split benefit the games again?reclassifying the attacks makes sense because some attacks would be more physically offensive (like fire punch) while others would be more special/magical (like flamethrower).
it also gives some pokemon a chance to be competitively good. the physically offensive cinderace has a low special attack stat. before the split, it would have never been a good competitive fire mon if its only STAB fire attacks were all special. but thanks to the split, it can wreck shit with a powerful STAB 120 physical Pyro Ball
