Whar are "Egg moves" exactly?

[red_nnnno]

How's that for a newbie question huh? Though there could be worst!

Seriously, I've not seen a definition of what they are anywhere, looking on this forum and googling around... Now the closest thing I found would be gamefaqs' pokemon breeding guide by Wyrlwind (though I did find some other sources also indicating similar statements):

Breeding for moves follows 3 rules after rule 0:
0) Moves that the baby normally learns from levels 1 to 5. They will be
born with these moves.
1) If the father knows a TM that the baby can use, then the baby will
be born with that move.
2) If the mother and the father know a move the baby can learn by
normal leveling-up, the baby will be born with the move.
3) If the father knows one of the baby's Egg moves, the baby will be
born with that move. Egg moves are the secret to getting a wide variety
of moves onto a Pokemon that would not have the move otherwise. As an
example, Zangoose can obliterate opponents using the Endure/Flail combo.
Flail is an egg move passed on from Dunsparce that Zangoose couldn't
otherwise learn.

Which still doesn't explain from whence the "Egg Move" list came from!

From simple deduction from the list above that the "Egg move" list are moves any moves which don't apply to the first three (0 to 2) rules which could be pretty much summed up with:

Any move which the pokemon cannot learn through normal evolution (rule 0 and 2), is not a TM/HM (rule 1) and can be learned by a pokemon with which it can breed.​

Is this correct, or wether it's really a smaller subset of those moves?

 

[Altair]

Well, at least you searched the forums, but anyway, egg moves are moves that "come" with the pokemon when it hatches form the egg, I believe by breeding with a parent that knows those moves and passed them on.

 

[red_nnnno]

Um, read more then the header...

Then again perhaps my topic should have been different and what's below should be it:

From whence the "Egg Move" list came from

 

[Blazeing man]

If the male parent has a move the pokemon that is hatching can learn,It will have that move.
IE,
I breed azuy(azumarill)
with morpher(ditto)
and azurill had no
moves azuy had.
Now I don't have
a gameboy.

TM and I think HM moves work, too, but only
if the PKMN in the egg can learn them.Darn,
no flying magikarp for you.

 

[red_nnnno]

Looking at rule:

1) If the father knows a TM that the baby can use, then the baby will
be born with that move.

This obviously means that TM moves which it CAN'T learn can't be "Egg moves". I'm assuming HM moves work the same way as it wouldn't make much sense otherwise.

 

[Virtual Headache]

I still don't get what exactly you want to know :/
Here is another site with some info: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Egg_Moves

And this isn't a thread about forum help, I think it's better to move it to General Discussion...

*moves*

 

[red_nnnno]

Ok, third try at formulating a mroe complex question than expected.

Serebii.net has a listing of "Egg Moves". Now what I'm wondering is what those moves are based... Did someone actually breed tons of pokemon to come up with this list? Or is it a deduction following some rules. Thanks for the URL but essentially it's one of the which I mentioned above that confirms the original "4 rule" I quoted. (Although it does add expcetions to the "rules")

Hence my question now becomes:
Is this affirmation correct?

Any move which the pokemon cannot learn through normal evolution (rule 0 and 2), is not a TM/HM (rule 1) and can be learned by a pokemon with which it can breed.​

(Those who pay attention might notice I ask the exact same question at the bottom of the initial post with different wording and with smaller sized letters...)

 

[ellie]

I still don't exactly get what you're saying, but what I think you're saying is, "What exactly makes an egg move an egg move?" If so, an egg move is a move that a Pokemon can learn only if it is hatched from an egg and its father knew the move. However, in Emerald Version, some people have reported catching Pokemon during a swarm that had egg moves; this would be an exception. If that was not what you wanted to know, please try to explain again, in less words. Btw, whoever made the egg move list for the site probably got it from the official Nintendo guide, as it lists all the egg moves there.

 

[red_nnnno]

In some way, indeed my question is "What makes an egg move what it is".

I think it could be phrased such as this:

Can any move which is not a TM/HM and not in the normal learning sequence of desired pokemon be bread into a matching pokemon given it's father knows it - notwithstanding exceptions".​

Still a lot of words but perhaps more concise?

 

[Cipher]

I've been under the impression that the list of "Egg Moves" consists of any or all moves that said Pokemon can learn ONLY through breeding.

As in, they can't use the TM or learn them by leveling up, but they can get them through breeding.

 

[ellie]

Can any move which is not a TM/HM, not in the normal learning sequence be bread into a matching pokemon given it's father knows it - notwithstanding exceptions".​

Yes, that is what an egg move is. Except, of course, you're forgetting Move Tutors, Learned moves (when a Pokemon evolves, it sometimes has the ability to learn a new move via the Move Re-learner that it didn't have before; examples are Kirlia and Charizard), and Special Moves (every Shadow Pokemon from Pokemon XD and every egg from Pokemon Box has a special move on it that cannot be bred and cannot be learned normally). I hope this clears things up.

 

[red_nnnno]

I'm not forgetting those, these are explicitly the ones I wanted to know about really... I wanted to know wether we could breed other moves (which would be provided by Tutors/XD Shadow/Pokebox) onto offspring.

As such is not the case, "Egg moves" are really programmed into the pokemon data (something I find a bit sad since it means only Gamefreak can "give out" special pokemon/move combinations). Typical Nintendo marketing though - not enough they force us with ticket run-abouts... It also means that these given pokemon cannot be "custmized" as much as bread ones can since you can reproduce it's special move. I might also mean that the extra pokemon they give out at special events *MIGHT* include specially moves. Given they do release special moves for special pokemones in such events, it makes it all the much harder to deduce wether a moveset is illegal or not for a specific pokemon (God knows how easy for people to screw their pokemon up!).

[edit]
I found an upside (well kinda) for the Egg Moves being set: Since they are set, this means that the Egg Moves CAN overlap TM/HMs, which in effect means that you can possibly shorten breeding chains.

This means that the "rule" I've stated above is totally wrong.

An Egg Move is simply a move preset in the game which the pokemon can inherit through breeding if and only if the father posesses it, regardless of how it acquired it (Though this assurdadly simplifies the definition over the one I gave - another upside?)

As an example of specific pokemon/move combinations which I feared Gamefreak/Nintendo would use was the one given in the Pokemon Rocks America tour [ thanks to pika2000 for the bulbapedia wiki link which highlited this, here's the link to the reference I found:
Demo Version Prizes ]