Unpopular opinions

Not to mention that in-game, at least, Double Team Spam can be beaten with perfect accuracy moves. There's no beating the almighty Quick Claw, however, since it supersedes even priority.
Quick Claw only lets you move first if you're in the same priority bracket.

Quote: "... Quick Claw never let a move with a lower priority beat a higher priority (so a Quick Claw activated Deoxys-S using Counter always goes after Macho Brace paralyzed Shuckle using Bug Bite). "
Source: http://www.smogon.com/bw/articles/priority

EDIT: Ninja-ed
 
Oh, thank God. Still doesn't make it that much less annoying--surely somebody's had a Maison streak or something ruined by this thing, yes?
 

Codraroll

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Oh, thank God. Still doesn't make it that much less annoying--surely somebody's had a Maison streak or something ruined by this thing, yes?
I've heard tales of Walrein4 Quick-Clawing its way through your team while hitting with Sheer Cold and Fissure thrice in a row. Not much you can do against that.
 
I've heard tales of Walrein4 Quick-Clawing its way through your team while hitting with Sheer Cold and Fissure thrice in a row. Not much you can do against that.
That's Donphan (and one of the sets in Gen V?) This round's Walrein4 is rocking Bright Powder and RestTalk. It's even worse.
 

Xen

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Did this happen to you then?
You'd be surprised how Band-happy that thing is. It's one of a couple of reasons why I ended up replacing Dragon Claw with Substitute on my Latios, for frontier purposes.

To be fair, Skill Link King's Rock IS a real strategy since it's a relatively high percentage of flinch. It's on Smogon's Analysis even!
It wasn't a legit strategy until Skill Link came along. Although that was technically Gen IV, it didn't catch on until SS Cloyster and Cinccino made it a thing in Gen V. For the duration of Gen II and III, it was basically there for the sake of evolving Slowpoke/Poliwhirl, and for Tower/Frontier NPCs to annoy you with.
 
It wasn't a legit strategy until Skill Link came along. Although that was technically Gen IV, it didn't catch on until SS Cloyster and Cinccino made it a thing in Gen V. For the duration of Gen II and III, it was basically there for the sake of evolving Slowpoke/Poliwhirl, and for Tower/Frontier NPCs to annoy you with.
I used to use it for battles with friends in Gen IV if ONLY because we didn't allow repeat items. At some point you can't figure out what item to put on your Pokemon so some of those items turn "useful"
 
Item Clause has a way of inspiring a certain creativity in teambuilding. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes...not so much.
My issue with item clause is that it's almost too easy to get around for a generic case. Between the plates + Type items, all the random berries, overall lack of role overlap the "regular" game tends to lead to anyway, and things like Black Sludge v Leftovers. Choice Items and maybe Life Orb are the only items I find issue trying to assign when playing bu that clause.

One thing that I personally dislike are additions that only benefit Double Battles, like Florges only having abilities that would help partners, or Mega Audino getting an ability that is useless for it. I don't mind when they're optional additions like Helping Hand, one of multiple abilities, or Plusle and Minun just being Electric types, but I hate when a Pokemon is pretty much designed to be Doubles at the expense of its Singles potential. Audino's probably only getting one Mega, so barring a change to Healer (among other things) the Mega ultimately means nothing to the 50+% of the playerbase that mainly plays Single Battles.

I know VGC does Doubles since it goes faster by virtue of encouraging offensive play, but I still hate a Pokemon's play in Singles, the main battle style the game is evidently built around, is neglected or even hurt by building it to do well in Doubles (sometimes not even managing that)
 
I strongly dislike all the fans who go out of their way to call just about any, and every player who disagrees with popular opinion a "genwunner". This happens a lot on youtube. A couple of examples: "Somebody disliked this video, must be a bunch of genwunners." "I cannot stand mega evolution!" "Looks like we've got a genwunner over here folks!"

It's so unbelievably obnoxious seeing these hateful comments at just about every corner of the internet involving pokemon. I don't think we should come up with any names to call these people either. We will just end up creating a copy of the same problem. Why can't we all just get along instead?

Oh, and did I mention I strongly dislike over-the-top-money-gimmicks mega-evolution? It's so over-rated, that one of my friends in real life only likes rayquaza (one of my favorite legendaries ever) for his mega form! How can you like a pokemon not even for the pokemon itself!??
 
Mega Evolution is fine and fun in my opinion, it added a lot to evaluate into team building composition, and Mega Rayquaza is the ultimate badass, stronger than its original form with a beast impossible to dislike design and extremely effective in wathever way you feel like using him, so technically winning with him makes you like using it as well. Heck Rayquaza normal design was meish to me, but mega Rayquaza is impossible to hate it's just pure awesomeness. I'm with your friend screw the regular form mega is just too good on every aspect to even compare it with the original.
 
I strongly dislike all the fans who go out of their way to call just about any, and every player who disagrees with popular opinion a "genwunner". This happens a lot on youtube. A couple of examples: "Somebody disliked this video, must be a bunch of genwunners." "I cannot stand mega evolution!" "Looks like we've got a genwunner over here folks!"

It's so unbelievably obnoxious seeing these hateful comments at just about every corner of the internet involving pokemon. I don't think we should come up with any names to call these people either. We will just end up creating a copy of the same problem. Why can't we all just get along instead?

Oh, and did I mention I strongly dislike over-the-top-money-gimmicks mega-evolution? It's so over-rated, that one of my friends in real life only likes rayquaza (one of my favorite legendaries ever) for his mega form! How can you like a pokemon not even for the pokemon itself!??
What a genwunner!

I digress. I understand what you're saying. Not every hate on the franchise is because someone is stuck in the past and won't move on. I usually refer to genwunners pretty much to those with the explicit nostalgia with an explicit dislike of anything that comes afterwards. Those that make the claim that "There are ONLY 150/151 Pokemon" and that Kanto is the undeniable best with no good reason why the others suck, then THOSE are genwunners.
 
Mega Evolution is fine and fun in my opinion, it added a lot to evaluate into team building composition, and Mega Rayquaza is the ultimate badass, stronger than its original form with a beast impossible to dislike design and extremely effective in whatever way you feel like using him, so technically winning with him makes you like using it as well. Heck Rayquaza normal design was meh-ish to me, but mega Rayquaza is impossible to hate it's just pure awesomeness. I'm with your friend screw the regular form mega is just too good on every aspect to even compare it with the original.
I VERY strongly disagree! Yes it's true that megas added to the competitive scene, but thats about it. If you play pokemon to collect the ones you think look the coolest, then mega evolution is... Blech...

While mega quaza's design does have some likable qualities, overall his design is, you guessed it, over the top... I'm gonna go ahead and prove your point wrong by saying that I, do in fact, dislike mega rayquaza's design, so that argument is invalid right off the bat there.

The reason he's effective in every way he's used is because he is so obscenely overpowered, that it is nearly impossible to lose with him. He even got a tier of his own and even has a higher BST than arceus. He is so absurdly powerful, that he is even stronger than literally god itself.

Yes you could argue that megaquaza is awesome, but that is simply your opinion. I personally dislike mega rayquaza. If you like mega rayquaza, then good for you, but don't start throwing around insults about my favorite legendary. People on the internet aren't exactly going to like you for doing that, or take you seriously, and I certainly don't either.

How would you feel if you had a legendary pokemon that was your number one favorite for years, then suddenly got a mega evolution you despised? That that mega sort of ruined the actual pokemon for you, but you still liked the actual pokemon? But none of your friends gave a shit about the actual pokemon, devoted all of their attention towards it's mega evolution instead, and even resorted to bashing the non-mega form when you disagreed?
 
I VERY strongly disagree! Yes it's true that megas added to the competitive scene, but thats about it. If you play pokemon to collect the ones you think look the coolest, then mega evolution is... Blech...

While mega quaza's design does have some likable qualities, overall his design is, you guessed it, over the top... I'm gonna go ahead and prove your point wrong by saying that I, do in fact, dislike mega rayquaza's design, so that argument is invalid right off the bat there.

The reason he's effective in every way he's used is because he is so obscenely overpowered, that it is nearly impossible to lose with him. He even got a tier of his own and even has a higher BST than arceus. He is so absurdly powerful, that he is even stronger than literally god itself.

Yes you could argue that megaquaza is awesome, but that is simply your opinion. I personally dislike mega rayquaza. If you like mega rayquaza, then good for you, but don't start throwing around insults about my favorite legendary. People on the internet aren't exactly going to like you for doing that, or take you seriously, and I certainly don't either.

How would you feel if you had a legendary pokemon that was your number one favorite for years, then suddenly got a mega evolution you despised? That that mega sort of ruined the actual pokemon for you, but you still liked the actual pokemon? But none of your friends gave a shit about the actual pokemon, devoted all of their attention towards it's mega evolution instead, and even resorted to bashing the non-mega form when you disagreed?
How did I insulted rocket green worm with stubby arms? Honestly it seemed inferior to roadkill red iguana and keiko on tang in my opinion. Megaquaza brought the Asian motif and Greek alphabet design efficiently, he is over the top but functional, completely overshadowing everything else even it's versatile origin form. People like him better than the previous form, big deal.

My favorite legend as one might say is still mewtwo you know the Cat fetus gone wrong, Diancie was close to dethrone it tough. Both got great megas both competitively and in design, stretchy arms mewtwo with role hybridization, and majin mewtwo with double brain support tubes are nice eye candies, I can't dislike them. Mewtwo however remained strong and versatile in competive unlike quaza wich if you where able to run his mega there is absolutely no reason not to wich made the origin form just a crutch to its potential. Diancie role and potential got better with Mega, and our little Rock bug princess fairy thingy became quite a sigth to behold.

So yep my favorites became even better, How can I hate mega evolution or their design, outside Lucario spiky design or mega ttar (till you notice the pre evo being put into his design) most aren't obnoxious and offer rather unique stuff aside the stat buff and ability change.

All I'm saying is that Rayquaza deserves it's bash and their opinion is completely valid as hell, it's normal form is just the drag to the Godlike form in every meta he is allowed, if anything you should drop the bias and admit they have valid reasons to call the basic form inferior, as design wise(Stated by the creators themselves in how they carefully designed this guy) and battle prowress wise it's inferior to its megaform.

I know this is unpopular opinions, but I have to agree that the mass perception that Megaquaza > quaza is a well based opinion given the traits in its transition.
 
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The Eevee line is a very good concept; one I absolutely love, but also one that is rather poorly executed battle-wise.
Appearance-wise I don't... really have a problem with them. Even the one that gets the most hate - which isn't saying much; most people love all of 'em - Sylveon, is my actual favourite of them.
Unfortunately, Sylveon is arguably the only one that's executed particularly well. It's a bulky special attacker which is rather uncommon in fairy-types aside from legendaries and megas. However, the rest find themselves either outclassed or without that little something to make them special. Vaporeon is a bulky water. Great. What significant thing does it have to make it special? ... uhm... well, it got Hydration in Gen 5??? Admittedly it's mostly the later ones that have this problem bar Sylveon; Jolteon having the best niche for the longest time as one of the fastest electric types with some power, but Flareon and Leafeon are really bad physical attackers with little coverage and even little physical STAB - and unfortunately both are really slow - Umbreon just sort of... sits there and does nothing; really could have used an ability, Glaceon is yet another slow, frail ice-type (thanks for messing up with this again GF), and Espeon... arguably not bad, but it's basically a worse Alakazam for the most part, only having a few moments of fame when Alakazam wasn't available (BW2), when Magic Bounce was a good ability (parts of gen 5 competitively) and then of course the baton pass teams that are nothing but irritating and trolly.
Honestly they suffer a lot from either having small movepools, badly distributed stats or having abilities so downright useless you have to wonder if GF even cared at all with the hidden ability system. It's a real shame because whenever I'm thinking about breeding Eevees I start thinking of the potential and options I have... but then I sigh, remember Sylveon is really the only particularly good one and just breed an Eevee ready to become yet another fairy.
I know this is largely from a competitive standpoint because even in-game there are better options half the time. Flareon is a really shit fire-type let's be frank, Espeon is harder to get most the time than Alakazam who completely outclasses it, walls aren't good in-game really so that's Umbreon out, there is certainly no hard task to find a good water-type replacement for Vaporeon, there are also plenty of good electric-type special attackers to replace Jolteon, fragile slow ice-types have never been appealing so goodbye Glaceon, and Leafeon... is just bad. Hell, a lot of the time you have to go through a lot of trouble to get them! Aside from Gen 1 it's surprisingly hard to find Fire/Electric/Water stones; being very scarce and requiring you to scour the region for them, friendship is always a hassle, and as for the gen 4 eeveelutions the ice rock comes late game in XY and DPPt, not to mention they're aftergame in BW2 and completely absent in HGSS! Again, Sylveon becomes the only good one to use - and it is a good one - but there's also Florges which is arguably easier to get along with Gardevoir.
At the end of the day, Eeveelutions either tend to fill a generic, outclassed role for their type or when they try to do something different for their type (leafeon, flareon) it is done extremely poorly and there was obviously a lot better that could have been done. I love the concept and the designs but aside from Sylveon and RBGYFRLG Eeveelutions, they just don't cut it on the battlefield.
 
I actually agree with Kurona in regards to the lack of competitive value of the Eeveelutions in the first four gens, even though Sylveon is a beast, and our eighth, as well as most recent, is actually adorable.
 
My issue with the Eeveelutions is that they seem to be based too heavily on a theoretical advantage of availability than on their actual performance in battle once you have them. Like, the Eeveelutions in Gen 1 were pretty easy to obtain, since Eevee was in the same town that sold the stones. So they weren't horrible if you wanted them early and easy enough to raise.

The problem is they balance this by having harder to obtain mons that are better, but then forget to consider that the Pokemon aren't harder enough to obtain to make the Eeveelutions worth picking over them most of the time, when they ARE easy to get. And that's even in-game, to say nothing of competitive, where the importance is solely how it performs once you have it, regardless of difficulty obtaining.
 
I don't see what people's beef with Umbreon is... as far as I'm concerned GameFreak got that one right, with a movepool (Wish, Heal Bell, Foul Play, Taunt etc) that perfectly complements its stat distribution.
 

Karxrida

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I don't see what people's beef with Umbreon is... as far as I'm concerned GameFreak got that one right, with a movepool (Wish, Heal Bell, Foul Play, Taunt etc) that perfectly complements its stat distribution.
Walls are bad for in-game because they take too long to kill things, plus it hasn't been competitively viable for years.
 
I don't see what people's beef with Umbreon is... as far as I'm concerned GameFreak got that one right, with a movepool (Wish, Heal Bell, Foul Play, Taunt etc) that perfectly complements its stat distribution.
They got the movepool right but the type wrong. Pure Dark type just doesn't cut it defensively, it absolutely needs a secondary typing to give it that extra resists and maybe canceling some weaknesses.
 
Walls are bad for in-game because they take too long to kill things, plus it hasn't been competitively viable for years.
The second part is the thing. Gamefreak doesn't have the ability to look into the future so they were unable to see how unviable it has become. In the GSC metagame it was very usable. Even now being UU is still decent.

The two they really got wrong were Glaceon and Leafeon - both because of their horrid movepools. Leafeon being a fast physical attacking grass type is fine but its only coverage consists of Iron Tail, Knock Off, X-Scissor, Return, Rock Smash (lol), Aerial Ace (lol), and Dig (lol). Glaceon also lacks in the coverage department as well as being too slow to really be much. Gamefreak again loves the idea of a physically defensive ice type when ice types are TERRIBLE physically defensive Pokemon. However, if Glaceon HAD good coverage other than just Shadow Ball it would be usable. It has Water Pulse...if it got something more powerful in the same type I would use it more.

Vaporeon was good because at the time and even for a while there were no other good bulky waters (at least non legendary). Jolteon was a really great Choice Specs user but it too suffered from a bad movepool. Espeon is fine where it is; they did it justice with it's HA. Flareon was shafted with the Special split (in addition to being a fire type with low speed) and then people just didn't look back on it.

Now I'm just waiting to see how they end up shafting Sylveon in later generations...
 
To be fair, Mamoswine, Weavile and Kyurem-White are about the only three Ice type concepts that Game Freak got right, and one of them only retroactively. With Mamoswine, they kept insisting on the bulky attacker concept, but at least they gave the right tools to him to capitalize of this(beefy HP, a Ground type that awesomely complements offensively and somewhat fixes the defensive disaster by removing the Rock weakness and adding an Electric immunity, a powerful priority and a base speed that isn't at least that of a molasses, and later an extra neutrality and resist with Thick Fat). Weavile is pretty much the only istance where they realized that an Ice type doesn't care for bulk and only wants speed and power to be effective. Even then, they forgot the power when they first created it(Ice Punch was its strongest move), but at least they fixed it in XY by adding Knock Off and Icicle Crash to its movepool. Kyurem-W simply has ridiculous stats and a great ability, you can't mess up with those. Oh wait, you can. Look at Kyurem-Black; it was meant to be the second most powerful Pokemon in the world when it was first created, yet he sits among ordinary OU pokemon since its inception. Probably the most evident failed concept in the whole Pokemon history. Even a kid would've thought of adequately expanding its physical movepool...
 
Even though it might not have made sense for some Pokémon to have it, I really enjoyed the fact that all fully evolved starters from gens 1-4 could learn Earthquake and was a little disappointed to not see that continue in Gen 5 (only Chesnaught and Emboar get it out of the gen 5-6 starters). I mean sure something like Greninja using Earthquake doesn't make sense but fuck man, Mankey can learn it. Ekans can learn it.
 

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