Well Hydreigon might be pretty useful against the E4 IF you happen to stumble upon it in shadowy spots in the outside portions of X/Y's Victory Road, and you can backtrack to the move tutor house on Route 21 to teach it Draco Meteor... Still, I don't think those spots are exactly very common, and it'll more likely be Fearow or perhaps Skarmory...
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Pokémon that are great competitively but suck in-game (and vice versa)
- Thread starter Yami_Wheeler
- Start date
I think it's the rarest encounter there. And although it might help you with Drasna, it won't be doing much against Wilkstrom and Diantha. It probably isn't worth the hassle, and there are other dragons that can be obtained with much less work, like Garchomp or Tyrantrum.
So, to generalize, it seems like the best pokemon for an in-game team are those with high immediate power, average speed, and reasonable bulk. Non-damaging moves are relatively useless, with the exception of healing moves (even then, there's potions). Pokemon should be easy to obtain and require little to no strategy outside of type matchups.
For a competitive team, as long as the pokemon is obtainable, it almost doesn't matter how hard it is to get. Early pokemon are typically (but not always) to be discarded in favor of later, more powerful pokemon that allow for more strategy and competitive team building.
I think that about sums up this entire discussion. Would anyone care to disagree?
For a competitive team, as long as the pokemon is obtainable, it almost doesn't matter how hard it is to get. Early pokemon are typically (but not always) to be discarded in favor of later, more powerful pokemon that allow for more strategy and competitive team building.
I think that about sums up this entire discussion. Would anyone care to disagree?
Staraptor would like to disagree.
I would disagree with the 'non-damaging moves' bit - the likes of Quiver Dance and Swords Dance can be pretty useful for certain Gym Leaders and E4, and for the aftergame Red.
Yeah and in game I also found surprisingly good use for Stealth Rock. Stealth Rock is pretty useful for trainer's with full party's like the evil boss leader of every generation, the champion, various gyms and elite 4 members and
And I also surprisingly found use for bulky Pokemon especially in the gamecube games. Having a big wall on your team like Forretres and Rhyperior can really be helpful in some situations. If your team is almost entirely down for example you can just switch in that Skarmory you have and wall everything while being able to use Potions and Full Restores on your own team which at times can save you some losses.
Oh? Hydreigon can learn Flamethrower/Fire Blast and Surf, so it can be very effective against Wikstrom, Malva, and Drasna. Siebold and Diantha are another story, however. I will agree that it's unlikely to be worth all the time trying to find it.
High level evolutions are just a common problem with Gen V as many Pokémon evolve into their final forms in the 40s.
I also have to agree with slower, bulky Pokémon unless you have them really high level (sorta like I did when I traded my Sandstorm team from Black to Black 2 immediately after I got the eighth badge). Some of them can be good and it can depend on the game, but they just are better at individual trainer battles where their bulk keeps them alive for a while as opposed to a long series of battles where they will be worn out. In those cases, you just need to sweep through them.
The best way to go in general are fast Pokémon that hit fairly hard, have good, easy to use movepools, are found at good times, and don't have overly difficult evolution methods.
Actually, while not a Pokémon, per say, but moves with major downsides, while powerful in competitive battles, are terrible in-game. This includes most recoil moves, unless you have something with Rock Head or Magic Guard (yeah, I just found out that Magic Guard prevents that too). Close Combat is excluded since you aren't planning that the opponent will hit you at all with that move.
I also have to agree with slower, bulky Pokémon unless you have them really high level (sorta like I did when I traded my Sandstorm team from Black to Black 2 immediately after I got the eighth badge). Some of them can be good and it can depend on the game, but they just are better at individual trainer battles where their bulk keeps them alive for a while as opposed to a long series of battles where they will be worn out. In those cases, you just need to sweep through them.
The best way to go in general are fast Pokémon that hit fairly hard, have good, easy to use movepools, are found at good times, and don't have overly difficult evolution methods.
Actually, while not a Pokémon, per say, but moves with major downsides, while powerful in competitive battles, are terrible in-game. This includes most recoil moves, unless you have something with Rock Head or Magic Guard (yeah, I just found out that Magic Guard prevents that too). Close Combat is excluded since you aren't planning that the opponent will hit you at all with that move.
I love you Chansey but good god you are complete shit in every single player you can get caught in
leveling that bastard is so frustratingly slow, not only are caves and wild grass loaded with Pokemon that are immune to Toxic but the trainers tend to be overloaded with physical sweepers that can blast Chansey to bits. Gen 5 was particularly nasty about this, where everyone and their uncle seemed to be sporting a fighting type coverage move
leveling that bastard is so frustratingly slow, not only are caves and wild grass loaded with Pokemon that are immune to Toxic but the trainers tend to be overloaded with physical sweepers that can blast Chansey to bits. Gen 5 was particularly nasty about this, where everyone and their uncle seemed to be sporting a fighting type coverage move
While not a bad Pokémon in-game by any means, I think Arcanine suffers from this. To utilize his stronger offensive stat, you're left with no choice but to run 2 coverage moves that damage you in return (Flare Blitz and Wild Charge). Without Flare Blitz, Arcanine has to deal with Fire Fang as its best physical STAB move. That being said, Arcanine does have other coverage options to replace Wild Charge, like Thunder Fang, Crunch and Close Combat, but another one of its selling points, Extremespeed, only has 5 PP which can make Return a better alternative in-game. Alternatively, you -could- run a specially-based Arcanine, with the more reliable Flamethrower, but apart from that, its options for special coverage are virtually non-existent.
Tauros is great for HGSS in-game, but sucks even for NU standards. Scyther, Florges, and even Pidgeot are good for in-game but suck for competitive playing
Scyther and Tauros are great in NU u kiddin me!
The most frustrating thing about ingame, imo is that if you're too slow the wildmons don't let you flee. Very annoying when your lv50 snorlax can't escape from a lv24 golbat.
It was pretty insane that earthquake was available before the 3rd gym in platinum tho! That alone made the gible line 100xtimes better!
It was pretty insane that earthquake was available before the 3rd gym in platinum tho! That alone made the gible line 100xtimes better!
R/B Chansey wasn't too bad due to it's amazing special stat (which counted for both SpA and SpD back in Gen 1), for what it's worth. But good luck finding and catching one.
Ursaring is a pretty "meh" pokemon competitively outside of NU, but I used the shadow Teddiursa in my latest playthrough of Pokemon XD, and holy crap did it wreck shit. Comes with STAB Return upon purification (which carries good power right off the bat), and gets Brick Break relatively early from Pyrite Colosseum. It also learns Rest, which isn't too bad in XD since it can be cured by using the "Call" option on it next turn.
Although I haven't used it, Teddiursa could theoretically be pretty decent in Crystal, since you can catch it in Dark Cave before the first gym and gets headbutt, elemental punches (which it can use to decent effect as Ursaring), and Dig early.
Tropius isn't the best competitively but is a crazy HM Slave.
Durant is pretty good but is generally outclassed as a Bug/Steel but in-game can abuse Entrainment Traunt.
Drapion is outclassed by most attackers/walls but can set up Acupressures easily in-game making it very strong.
Archeops, which activates Defiast too easily competitively, out speeds almost everything in-game and 1hko's with Acrobatics.
Durant is pretty good but is generally outclassed as a Bug/Steel but in-game can abuse Entrainment Traunt.
Drapion is outclassed by most attackers/walls but can set up Acupressures easily in-game making it very strong.
Archeops, which activates Defiast too easily competitively, out speeds almost everything in-game and 1hko's with Acrobatics.
Definetly agreed Durant is awesome. I mean even for a late game Pokemon it has a crazy amount of resistances for in game. Learn good STAB mvoes through level up and TM and useful against the later fights. It's also based lord in RU.
I know, hence why I said they could be used to decent effect. Ursaring has a base 75 SpA iirc, which isn't terrible as far as ingame purposes go. But yeah, there are better choices overall, and are only "usable" after evolution.
Oh hey, it does - guess I just had Pokémon with terrible special attack stats and great physical attack stats like Sawk in my mind. Well yeah in that case the elemental punches would be decent; especially Ice Punch for Lance. Annoys me that they're nowhere near as easily obtainable in HGSS, though...
Talking of Gen 2, how about that Smeargle? Yeah, that one rare, weird Pokémon in the Ruins of Alph? Alright, let's catch it. Tch, it only has one move... that lets it have ANY move? Woah, that's awesome! This'll be great for competitive and everything too, and it turns out it's OU!
... it's stats are awful though, meaning it... it can't really do anything well in-game... damn.
Golem is pretty mediocre for competitive playing, even on NU... However, anyone who's played HGSS knows how OP it is. Just with STAB SlideQuake it can hit super effectively the first, second, sixth, and seventh gym, while also being able to tank non-SE physical hits and even some weak Special ones. It's really useful throughout many Team Rocket fights and your rival if you chose Chikorita. Also it's available really early (just before the second gym lol) so you don't have to shape your already-made team just to fit it in.
It's available far before that. You can get Geodude on the second route available to you (Route 46).
Gliscor disagrees
The more I think about it, the more I want to use Teddiursa in my next Crystal playthrough. Fire Punch makes a nice weapon against Jasmine & Pryce too. Also iirc, you can get Return in the Goldenrod dept store in G2 on Sundays as well, which can be obtained easily if you know how to reset the game's clock.
Another good nominee for awesome ingame/sucky competitively is Slaking in R/S/E. Truant screws it over big time in a serious competitive match, but those stats from something you can catch & train before the 1st gym is godly if you don't mind babying Slakoth a bit. Truant isn't a big hindrance if you have your battle style option set on "switch" instead of "set", since pretty much everything will die with one smack from the slaking.
Hence why I said A lot.
But Gliscor's not even a good example. It would have at least made some sense if you said something like the Gible line isn't as good in-game because you have to spend time leveling it up.
A level 1 Gligar was one of the first things I got via Wonder Trade and it was still good enough to stay on my team for the entire run through Y despite the fact you can't get a Razor Fang until post-game. It was much better offensively than any Gliscor could hope to be in competitive play for the exact reason I mentioned - Ground and Flying types tend to get access to STAB moves like Fly, Acrobatics, and Dig at a point in the game when STAB for elemental types is limited to moves like Water Pulse and Razor Leaf. That gives them a temporary boost that goes away by the time everything has access to its best attacks.