Most Overrated 4th Gen Pokemon in OU?

[MazeL]

With the 4th Generation winding down, who do you think was the most overrated pokemon for this generation. Whether it was because your team had no trouble with it, or you just found it was very easy to play around. My vote definitely goes to Vaporeon.

Vaporeon was most certainly the most overrated pokemon in 4th Gen OU. I feel he was outclassed as a bulky water by Suicune, Swampert or even Gyarados. As for a WishPasser, Jirachi does the job much better, and gave you arguably better typing so you could have a different bulky water. Suicune outclasses it because it has the ability to boost its stats, is overall more bulky, and can run an effective Calm Mind Restalk set. Suicune also is a superior Phaser, but Swampert outclasses in that aspect as well.

Although Vaporeon is hitting off a base 110 Special Attack, it is not hitting any where as hard as it should be with that stat. Suicune arguably hits harder off a 90 Base Stat because she usually hits off +1 or +2 on her SpA stat. Swampert hits on the Physical spectrum, which neither of these pokemon do. All in all, in my opinion of course, i feel Vaporeon is the most Overrated Gen 4 OU Pokemon.

 

[EonADS]

^ Um... no. Vaporeon was probably one of the best WishPassers in Gen 4. Jirachi was a target for Heatran, while Vaporeon used it as setup fodder. It's an excellent Gyarados counter, it supports its team more than Suicune, and it worked extremely well with stall teams and entry hazzards. It was arguably harder to beat than Suicune because it usually required setup in order to take attacks like Rapid Spin Starmie's Thunderbolt, wheras Vaporeon didn't.

Overrated... probably Scizor. I mean yeah, STAB Tech'd Bullet Punch is good, but it's also 4x resisted by three OUs. It's great when used properly and not overestimated, but I think that people put way too much stock in its abilities. Also, so many people have no idea how to use an SD Scizor.

 

[Galladiator]

I don't know, MazeL; I used a Vapo on my team at one point--still use it in Gen 5--and it kicked ass. It was the only OU Pokemon to get Water Absorb in G4, and it completely ruined some teams when it switched into a Suicune Surf. I had to get rid of it after a few matches--it didn't really mesh that well with the rest of my offensively-based team--but when used right, Vaporeon was sensational.

Now, you take Weavile or Electivire, they were overrated. Weavile had an amazing 120 base Attack coupled with a blistering base 125 Speed, but Stealth Rock, a 4x weakness to Fighting, and Scizor gaining Bullet Punch pretty much screwed it. As for 'Vire, well, it had an insane movepool variety, but it lacked strong STAB (let's face it, ThunderPunch isn't exactly a stellar option), and other, faster sweepers outclassed it so badly that the electric Sasquatch fell to low OU, just barely keeping its head (antennae?) above water.

 

[MazeL]

I understand what you guys are saying about Vaporeon, but my team runs a Taunt Gyarados and. This allows me to severely weaken Vaporeons, and one's without HP Electric are free Dragon Dances. I guess I am just being biased.

 

[aditya8081]

While I agree that Weavile and Electivire are not too good, I vote Blissey for sure. Other than straight stall teams, how many teams don't carry a physical attacker? The two pokemon above could take Blissey with their shortcomings. It is a great pokemon to have for SR and wish passing to an extent, but 10 defense isn't going to get anywhere in OU.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

SWAMPERT SWAMPERT SWAMPERT

Swampert was fucking terrible in Generation 4, fuck everyone that disagrees. The lack of reliable healing was horrendous, and it just didn't hit hard enough with the standard "mixpert" set. Protect was kinda cute, but it had horrible, horrible 4 moveslot syndrome, and was worn down too easily. The only reason to run it would be for either Curse or Choice Band in my opinion, but even then it's not THAT good.

 

[Bogmire]

Gyarados. I just never saw the appeal of using it. It's speed is average at best, its weak to SR, and Waterfall is only 80 bp. Why am I using this instead of Salamence again? BP resistance? psshhh... Oh, well it didn't it much better when mence got banned because hard textbook counters for gyarados are on every team appearing left and right (Rotom, Vaporeon, Jirachi, Porygon2, Suicune, Celebi, Flygon, Jolteon, Shaymin, a bazillion more). Sure, you could use Jolly to make it outspeed Jolteon but then it would just be even WEAKER than it already is. It was really good in early DP but it inevitably turned into a predictable one trick pony. Restalk gyara was better, but I never understood why people continued to use DD. Only noobs get sweeped by gyara.

I'd also like to add Dusknoir as another overrated pokemon. It's funny how noobs continued to use it for years and it's OU ranking stayed pretty much constant for those years. You'd think people would just come to their senses and realize how bad it sucks/is not doing their team any favors and quit using it already. I sometimes wondered if there was some kind of secret community of players purposely spamming Evire, ninjask, and dusknoir on their teams just for the sake of keeping them standard. The fact that such sucky Pokemon remained consistently OU for years in a row baffles me.

edit: I mostly agree with what SDS said about Swampert, but I sometimes found it to be really annoying to take down when it was part of a full stall team with wish support.

 

[marilli]

While I agree that Weavile and Electivire are not too good, I vote Blissey for sure. Other than straight stall teams, how many teams don't carry a physical attacker? The two pokemon above could take Blissey with their shortcomings. It is a great pokemon to have for SR and wish passing to an extent, but 10 defense isn't going to get anywhere in OU.

First, with Bold nature and 252 Def EVs, Blissey can take most unboosted physical attacks, except for Fighting-type physical attacks. I think Weavile Night Slash might not even 2HKO off the bat (hell, she can take Tar Crunches), so 1 vs 1 Blissey can paralyse Weavile and switch if you so desperately wanted to show how Blissey can take on Weavile. But probably in real life, I would just switch into stuff like Forretress and lol at Weavile.

In short, Blissey's obvious weakness is a weird form of blessing. It is so obvious that most mindless people just send in a physical attacker thinking they can kill Blissey (and they keep their physical attackers out and keep on attacking the physical wall just sent out as the staller facepalms) But from the teambuilder's point of view, it's also pretty damn obvious. So, anyone using Blissey has a backup for Physical Attackers, and if you do have such backup, Blissey is best at what it does: Special sponging and status spreading.

To add to the Topic, Swampert was so weak in every way concievable and had no recovery whatsoever. All it did was set up stealth rock, and even then it wasn't guaranteed rocks up. Hell, I think even Azelf leads have more midgame use. If it survives to midgame that is.

I say Breloom is friggin overrated as well. Keep an offensive tempo and it will never get a chance. If you're running stall, then you have restalk gyara / restalk rotom to duke it out.

EDIT: FUUUUUU so slow

Double EDIT: wait, people don't use Blissey for status platforms? I thought even the noobiest noobs that ever noobed carried a status move on their Blissey cuz of smogon strategydex. They just had to click it... it's almost there.... allllmost... damn!

But joking aside, yeah, part of stall is about figuring out the opponent's sets so that you can take a proper measure without losing a poke. Yeah obviously all those things are important. If you wall things without thought while the opponent is thinking, you'll lose for sure.

 

[EonADS]

^ Actually, I found that people generally suck at using Blissey (and Skarmory/Foretress for that matter), because they use them as walls and ONLY walls. They don't use them to gain information about their opponent's sets, they don't use them for team support, and they don't use them as status platforms. If you want an example of this, check out my warstory Turn XIII. Blissey is somewhat misplayed in that battle by me as well, but I do use it to figure out several holes in my opponent's defenses and ultimately win the match.

 

[SJCrew]

Swampert didn't need recovery. Even if he had it, he'd have to take something off of one of his moveslots, despite needing every single one, and possibly get set up on. He was a very reliable SR supporter, he checked a lot of Pokemon, and he was a mainstay on many teams for the entirety of the previous generation. Personal prejudices aside, it was not hard to see why everyone and their mother was using him.

I have a few, but Gengar is at the top of my list. Gengar was always touted as not having counters every time a discussion regarding a controversial Pokemon came up. And it was wrong every single time. If I wanted a Gengar counter, I gave my Blissey an attack besides Seismic Toss. I used Sp. Def Zapdos or Togekiss. And that's only if I really wanted a Gengar counter. I can just as easily wait until he gets his little revenge kill then Pursuit him with Weavile or TTar.

The fact that he had to be behind a sub all the time at every waking opportunity to do his job worked against him the late stages of 4th gen OU and was the primary reason he was never a mainstay on my team. He was effective, but he also had very solid counters and Pursuit was on almost every team waiting for him to mess up. Not the business.

 

[Kid Kadabra]

I agree that Breloom is overrated; it definitely was not as good as people believed. If you know that there's a pokemon with 80 base speed and a 100% accurate sleep inducing move, you had better fucking prepare for it, which people didn't. As a result, Breloom was easily able to destroy plenty of teams, leading people to believe it was great. Essentially, Breloom was good because battlers made him look good.

 

[RedMeowth]

Electivire: He could hit a lot of Pokemon for super-effective damage, but the attacks Electivire used were weak individually (Ice Punch / HP Ice) or rather unreliable (Cross Chop). There were much better Pokemon that could wall break or physically attack (like Infernape) and better ones to take electric attacks (Flygon or Jolteon).

Weavile: Though Weavile is fast and strong, she's also extremely frail. Like Electivire, she also suffered from not having strong STAB attacks. Weavile had to rely on Night Slash and Ice Punch for power. She DID have more interesting attacks than Electivire with Pursuit and Ice Shard, but again, they aren't strong moves. Not without Technician (which Scizor had).

Lead Swampert: I've used Swampert as a lead before and honestly didn't like it. He's meant to be able to set up Stealth Rock and take hits. If you use him from the start, though, he's going to either be taunted by the opponent's lead or take a nice chunk of damage. He's a good choice for setting up Stealth Rock, but it seems like he would work better after the opponent's lead goes down. Taunt seems less common outside the lead spot unless the foe uses someone like BulkyDos.

 

[Xing]

Breloom has base 70 speed.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Oh, hai!

Okay, I'll probably get a lot of shit for this, but I said then and I'll say it now. During his stay in OU, Mence was the most overrated mon in OU at the time of his banning. He gets both sides of the coin; he was still a legitimate threat, but more containable than his critics would have you believe. maybe facing a mence is what separates the men from the boys.

From my experience, Weavile, electivire (and their unmentioned compatriot at the bottom of OU, Ninjask) are a bit of a joke on smogon. In my opinion, Weavile is the best of those three. Unlike the other two, she was a legitimate contended. Its just platinum gave scizor bullet punch.

Two contenders I'd like to put forward are Flygon and Gliscor, who never seemed to be helpful on any of the teams I put them on. Their damage output and speed were disappointing when running offensive sets, and all bulky waters seemed to be able to take their STAB attacks and hit them with Ice beams. maybe I just suck at predicting around bulky waters.

 

[giggity69]

My vote goes to flygon. It honestly only became popular because we banned pretty much every other somewhat fast dragon, and yeah, he had kind of cool resistances to play with and a fast u-turn, but he never really hurt anything.

 

[guanlong]

Electivire. Nuff said. The only thing it had going for itself was massive coverage (95 speed on a mixed wallbreaker?) and the boost it would receive from Electric-type attacks. Gyaravire shmyaravire, I wonder why the hell it was even used in OU.

Another one of the overrated Pokemon was Weavile. People tend to go WOW FAST AND HITS HARD and then use it. However, Weavile is an ICE-TYPE. Speed means nothing when you're frail and weak to the most common priority move in the game, not to mention that Weavile also had a SR weak (unlike the infinitely superior Mamoswine) and a 4X Fighting weak to add Machamp/SpecsCario to the list of Weavile counters.

In my opinion the above two were incredibly overrated as OUs with common weaks/being outclassed by other Pokemon. Electivire is outclassed by Infernape as a mixed attacker (hell even Flygon can do that; Draco Meteor = mixed attacker).

Weavile is outclassed by Mamoswine in spite of being faster (Mamoswine has no SR weak and is far bulkier, not to mention that it has superior secondary STAB. Dark is cool but STAB EQ is awesome. The only thing Weavile had over Mamoswine was superior speed, and a better physical Ice-type attack. Do note that in Gen V this point no longer applies due to Icicle Drop).

Also, I'd say that Loom was FAR from overrated. 100% accurate sleep is pretty OP and the fact that it actually has awesome Attack kinda adds to its pro-ness. The only thing that stood between it and Ubers was its shitty 70 base speed.

EDIT: Hm, I forgot about Ninjask. The only thing it could actually do was Baton Pass +speed and +attack to its teammates and priority bypasses that to an extent. The only time I have actually seen it being used to great effect was in Ubers where a certain TM13Icebeam BP-ed many boosts to a Groudon which proceeded to sweep another team 6-0.

Flygon was in a way overrated. The insect dragon didn't really come to fame by its own awesomeness and power; in fact, it was completely outclassed by all the other Uber Dragons due to their higher stats and superior bulk. Instead, Flygon sort of rode on the banning of Mence/Chomp/Latias to become the fastest Dragon-type revenge-killer in the game, thus giving it a niche as a dangerous OU threat. It was a rather mediocre attacker and its speed wasn't the best; it was just OU because of the power vacuum following Mence's banning to Ubers.

 

[SJCrew]

My vote goes to flygon. It honestly only became popular because we banned pretty much every other somewhat fast dragon, and yeah, he had kind of cool resistances to play with and a fast u-turn, but he never really hurt anything.

Completely forgot about this guy (that's how unimportant he is). I've seen many players use him, even the really good ones, and while he does check some key sweepers, his offense is just pathetic. I was very surprised to see him miss a KO on my Weavile with Outrage once. And by a good 10-20% too.

Weavile is outclassed by Mamoswine in spite of being faster (Mamoswine has no SR weak and is far bulkier, not to mention that it has superior secondary STAB. Dark is cool but STAB EQ is awesome. The only thing Weavile had over Mamoswine was superior speed, and a better physical Ice-type attack. Do note that in Gen V this point no longer applies due to Icicle Drop).

That is the single dumbest post in this thread, really. -_- You forgot entirely about Pursuit, STAB Dark in general, and the ability to check key threats with Ice Punch that Mamoswine never could with Ice Shard. He's not even better in Gen 5; no Pursuit, same things are faster than and kill him, and no Thick Fat to make him a decent supporter (I use him quite a bit in on PO's latter because of Thick Fat, actually).

So you basically just went "oh two ice types Mamoswine is better!!!", ignoring their secondary type, their main functions, and the reason anyone uses either of them to begin with. Weavile has no Stealth Rock or STAB EQ, Mamoswine has no Pursuit, STAB Dark, 125 FUCKING BASE SPEED, or decent physical Ice attack. They're not in the same league at all.

 

[Tomahawk]

I'm surprised noone mentioned these yet:

Rampardos (

) - Low speed ánd extreme frailty. You needed a Focus Sash to ensure Rock Polish, and with Stealth Rock common, you need a Spinner as well.
Spiritomb (

) - No good resistances, average defenses. I mean, it's as bulky as Dunsparce.
Yanmega (

) - SR weakness + needing Life Orb or Choice Specs sucks.
Cresselia (

) - Its typing sucks. Its weak to U-Turn and Pursuit. Its only useful resist is Close Combat. It can't use its STAB, and non-STAB 0 EV Ice Beam is weak. Most importantly, Moonlight isn't good in a Sandstorm metagame.

 

[jrp]

None of those are OU. Either BL or NU/uu.

Thats why no one mentioned them
I'd say heatran or scizor. Both are easy to counter.

Magnezone for scizor, porygon2 for heatran.

 

[bubbly]

Tomahawk, no one thought those 4 you posted were good :)

I'm gonna agree with SDS and say Swampert. IMO he was outclassed as a bulky water by both Gyarados and Vaporeon in different ways. If you needed a SR user who resisted Rock and Fire and Electric he was your guy, otherwise, he simply always dies quickly. Btw, if I thought that anyone good used Electivire he'd get my vote.

I also wouldn't say Flygon is overrated. Its offenses are rubbish, yeah (although running Adamant on the Scarfer should the primary option). But, it's good because of its incredible, synergistic typing (e.g. most other top contenders in OU get good synergy with Flygon, AND it takes no damage from any hazard), U-turn, and pretty good coverage. Adamant Scarf Outrage is also pretty capable of cleaning up weakened teams late game.

 

[BKC]

Gengar

I have always worried about this thing when making a team, then when I'm actually playing against it, I find it incredibly underwhelming. Same goes for using it.


Also, Mence is my second option. I agree with this post:

During his stay in OU, Mence was the most overrated mon in OU at the time of his banning. He gets both sides of the coin; he was still a legitimate threat, but more containable than his critics would have you believe. maybe facing a mence is what separates the men from the boys.

 

[Tomahawk]

@those who commented regarding me They were all popular back in early Gen 4.

 

[TLK]

Swampert wasn't overrated. It could counter an absolute shit tonne of popular Pokemon, like Tyranitar, Heatran, CM Jirachi, Flygon, physical Infernape, Metagross, Dragonite, some Zapdos etc. The only of those that could beat Swampert are if they carry grass moves (e.g. Zapdos and Heatran carrying HP Grass) or Toxic. And you know why they'd carry a grass move? Because they needed a way to kill Swampert.

How are Weaville and Electivire overrated? Anyone that's opinion actually matters knows that they suck (although Weaville does have it's uses if you hate Gengar and Starmie).

I do agree with Flygon though. It's just not powerful enough for me. It's typing is awesome and U-Turn is great, but bleh.

 

[Coldcut]

Are we referring to most overrated at the beginning or the end?

If it's the beginning, wouldn't that be Rhyperior? I wasn't really around when Gen IV came out so I'm not really sure, but I've heard there was quite a bit of hype about something with 115 base HP, 140 base Atk, 130 base Def and STAB EdgeQuake. As we all know, it came to basically nothing in OU because of its poor speed and common weaknesses, but it was still expected to shine.

As for the end, I would vote Lucario. It just never impressed me, despite its reputation as a nearly unstoppable sweeper. A resistance to Stealth Rock gets you nowhere if you are KO'd by weak neutral attacks anyway, especially since its most common attack drops its defenses. I always thought it was outclassed by Infernape because it had a usable secondary STAB and much better Speed.

 

[EonADS]

At the beginning, I'd say Rhyperior as well. I forget where, but somebody had a quote in their sig about somebody saying that Rhyperior would never become UU, and if it did, it'd be broken. I read it now and lol.

At the middle... Electivire. As much as I found myself able to use him (although I won't deny his weak points were extremely frusturating at times and that using him required heavy prediction), he just never worked to the degree that people thought he would acchieve. If he was stronger, bulkier, or faster, he would've been a great Pokemon. As it is, he was simply mediocre.

At the end, Flygon. It's annoying as fuck, but doesn't do much besides that and checking key threats like DD Nite. Weak, priority bait, and unable to set up. The only reason it even made OU is because it had such great typing and could annoy opponents to death.

Overall, I'd say probably Scizor. I'll cite my first post in this thread, and add a bit more. Bullet Punch, which Scizor didn't get 'till mid-Gen 4, made him powerful. Early on, he was doomed by a crappy movepool. Platnium gave him Bullet Punch and Superpower, which he definitely needed, but even then, he wasn't "the ultimate check" for setup sweepers/faster Pokemon. Also, nobody seemed to have any notion as to how to use SD Scizor. Everyone fucked it up massively. He was a powerful Pokemon, but people just seemed to hail him as some sort of broken supergod with Bullet Punch, and it just wasn't the case.