How can aqua jet fail?

Question

I used aqua jet on a Pokemon that used protect but rather than say "it protected itself" it said "azumaril used aqua jet but it failed" the next turn I used aqua jet again and it said "but it failed" again and the opponent didn't even use protect this time as far as I know a move can only "fail" if you, for example, use willow wisp on a poisoned Pokemon but this shouldn't apply to aqua jet the opposing Pokemon was a rotom wash with thunder bolt willow wisp hydro pump and protect

Comments

Was this in a double battle or single battle?

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It was in doubles he didn't use quick guard in case you were wondering

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Did you save a replay of this? If not, this could be very difficult to answer, especially considering that you have not described the other Pokemon on the field or any other circumstances that may have affected this.

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Unfortunately I did not save a replay, the pokemon I went up against was a smeargle which used transform to turn into my rotom wash which knows hydro pump, willow wisp, thunder bolt and protect it was a double battle but we were down to our last pokemon

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Also I had a similar experience with scissors bullet punch on a dusknoir using pain split both scenarios happened on pokemon showdown so it could be a problem with the website but I wanted to make sure before I jumped to any conclusions

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Next time it happens, save a replay.

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Can Rotom learn the move Torment?

Answer 1

There is no way for aqua jet to fail unless the opponent is holding an absorb bulb, which when hit by a water move, it raises the targets Special attack, or when the opponent has dry skin, or water absorb as its ability. soon there will be another way for aqua jet to fail, which is a new ability called Dazzling which disables the use of all priority moves like fake out, quick attack, sucker punch, aqua jet et cetera.

Comments

But the text box won't say, "But it failed." and it won't work for bullet punch.

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Thank you these moves only failed on pokemon showdown and I never saw the message on oras so it was probably a problem with pokemon showdown I just didn't want to make any assumptions before I knew for sure