Why does Landorus learn only one Steel-type move?

Question

Landorus's ability literally increases the power of steel type moves, and there is plenty of justification for him being able to learn some moves like iron head, and bullet punch. But the only steel type move he learns is iron tail by move tutor, why nothing else?

Comments

I read through many different question suggestions and I m sure this 1 is original.

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In terms of competitive battling, Landorus is so much better with sheer force that almost nobody uses it with sand force. In terms of Game Freak Logic, I guess the developers just overlooked this.

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this is more of a double battle question, so I can activate sand stream with a gigalith. Also I disagree with that claim, Landorus's strongest moves don't have secondary effects and hammer arm isn't useful competitively given its typing.

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In doubles, most players prefer to use therian Landorus because it gets intimidate and has stronger physical attack. In singles, sheer force makes it so that stuff like earth power, sludge wave, and psychic become its strongest moves. Those moves also work better with life orb because they get the 1.3 multiplier without getting recoil.

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A case for Sand Force only exists in the context of a sand team; otherwise a broad claim like the one you’re making is completely false. Landorus-I is first of all a special attacker, so I’m not sure why Hammer Arm was brought up — but there are plenty of options that benefit from Sheer Force. Earth Power, Focus Blast, Sludge Wave and Rock Slide are among them, as is a Life Orb boost with no HP reduction. This got Landorus banned from Smogon OU.
And I’m not sure what you mean by Fighting being a bad competitive typing. Assuming you’re speaking broadly and not just about doubles (which I don’t know about), it’s generally perceived as one of the best offensive types, up there with Fire and Ice, since it’s one of few ways to beat Steel.

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but therian landorus is slower, and if it has life orb and moves last, its gonna take loads of damage, and most likely die because it isn't know for its defense

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also landorus can go both ways with its attack but its more of a physical attacker despite the fact that it gives special attacking evs

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I don’t think it’s a physical attacker. Sheer Force Earth Power is stronger than Earthquake, and special sets work well with moves like Calm Mind and Hidden Power. I have never come across a physical Landorus-I, but again your sand team is a different circumstance and does give the power edge to the physical side.
I still disagree with your broader claim about the Pokémon though. Its Attack stat is higher but this alone does not distinct which side the Pokémon takes normally. Nidoking is very much the same.

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I have never seen a special landorus, even with sheer force its earth power only has a base power of 120, and with its high attack stat earthquake would do the same amount of damage, also t only learns 3 special attacks naturally, but it learns attack increasing moves like swords dance naturally. Now it learns moves from TM and move tutors, but u no wat type of attacker its supposed to be by natural moves. Also I kind of disagree with nidoking, it can have a more useful ability and be able to deal the same amount of damage with stuff like thrash and mega horn, or an even greater amount of damage because its attack stat is a very great deal higher than special attack.

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I went and tested myself; the special side is stronger (you can do it yourself on https://pokemonshowdown.com/damagecalc/ ):
252 SpA Sheer Force Landorus Earth Power vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Arceus: 151-178 (39.6 - 46.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Landorus Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Arceus: 136-162 (35.6 - 42.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Earth Power does not have a base power of 120 when combined with Sheer Force, the calculation happens a bit differently. The page at https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Damage#Damage_calculation goes more in-depth on the process, which is too long-winded to describe here. Regardless, the above calcs show the 20 hypothetical base power points matter more than Landorus’s stats.
I don’t see how level up moves should limit what kind of attacker the Pokémon should be. The only thing that matters is which is more effective — as above, the special side is more effective. I’ve articulated before why I believe the special side has a better movepool also, chiefly due to Hidden Power.
Thrash is Normal-type and offers hardly any coverage for Nidoking and is thus subpar. Megahorn suffers for a similar reason, Bug isn’t a great offensive typing. Sheer Force is better on Nidoking’s special side, because it affects moves like Sludge Wave, Earth Power and Ice Beam, and does not affect Nidoking’s main physical attack Earthquake. The same calculator will show that Nidoking’s Earth Power is stronger than its Earthquake using the same fair 252 EV spreads.
I do not believe for a second that you have never seen a special Landorus-I. These stats collected by Smogon show that 99% of high-ranked players in doubles OU use Earth Power on Landorus-I, and 96% use Sheer Force. You can find the numbers with Ctrl+G, though it takes some time to find Incarnate form’s listing. http://www.smogon.com/stats/2017-10/moveset/gen7doublesou-1825.txt
This has turned into a mess so I’m not going to respond any further. I’ve presented my reasoning and I’ve given hard stats, I’m done now.

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This is also the case in Ubers singles, though the usage of earth power is only 93%. It's still pretty high. http://www.smogon.com/stats/2017-10/moveset/gen7ubers-1760.txt

Answer 1

Sand Force raises the power of Ground, Rock and Steel type moves by 30% during a sandstorm.

Landorus Incarnate can learn an assortment of Ground- and Rock-type moves in place of Steel-type moves. Its ability can power-up more than just Steel-type moves, you know.

As to why it only learns 1 move of the Steel-type, my answer is because GameFreak wanted it to have it that way.

Comments

I never said it didn't power up rock, and ground, I just decided to single out steel

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If you wanted a Steel-type move just to counteract its weakness to Ice, a Rock-type move works just as well for coverage.

If you wanted a Steel-type move to just kill Ice-, Rock-, and Fairy-type Pokémon, Ground-type moves can destroy Rock-types and Rock-type moves can destroy Ice-types. As for Fairies, you can either resort to the only Steel-type move it has in its moveset or use a Poison-type move.

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I didn't want to use a steel type move, I just wanted to know y it learns a very minimal amount of them

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GameFreak logic, bud.

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well, that is the answer to 99.99% of pokemon stuff

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How would you rather this be answered though? There is no other way to resolve this than to merely speculate.

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guess not.