Special Attack & Special Defense

The concept of Special in one stat wasnt too mind blowing for me, but thats just because i played gen1, but the split of special attack and special defense helped nerf some Pokémon, mainly being mewtwo and snorlax, with thier amnesia Spams that lead to whole team sweeps, since amneisa in gen 1 is like a better calmmind, in which it would sharply raise special stat, meaning mewtwo, in one turn, can make it self take half damage, and deal twice as much damage.

Im glad the split occured for nerfing, aswell to match the whole Attack and defense moto, since having one stat for everything (i.e: Power/Special/Speed) would kind of make the game too boring if you think about it, and a bit unbalanced for setting up(imagine a dragondance from a mon that raised Speed,defense and attack!, its like salamence could use a pshycall sided quiverdance!)

If I had to choose to keep or split, id go for the split.

 

I'm definitely glad they separated the two. Imagine if there was just one stat for both attack and defense? It would certainly make Pokémon much more geared towards being all out in either attack and defense or special attack and special defense. With the stats being split, it allows for Pokémon to have more versatile stats while also nerfing Pokémon like Mewtwo that have ridiculously high stats (in the special department).

Imagine if a Pokémon like Shuckle was around before the split..... 230 for a Special stat would make it one of the most fearsome Pokémon ever...

 

My first game wasn't Gen 1 however, going back and playing Red and Blue for various challenges I found it very difficult to figure out what special really did. And going back and playing some more recent games I'm glad they made the split.

 

Though my first game was not Gen 1, I did go back and play other generations. I never really noticed since I am not really into stats but when I do look at moves I think it was for the better. It helped equal out the playing field, though it did kill a few fan favorites for battle since they were so weak now. There are some Pokémon that didn't get a good treatment with this, like Luxray, it looks like it would be fast and a heavy tanky attacker but instead it is a fragile, slow, Attack and Special Attacker. In general it did good but for some Pokémon it just needs tweaking.