Hey all, it has been a while since I've posted on Smogon.
Among my group of friends, I usually have a mon or two per Pokemon game that I would call a "noob trap", or a mon that looks okay on paper but generally flops in practice. I play these games often so I have a few.
In BW1, that would most certainly be Tympole. On paper Tympole looks good, eventually evolving into a Water/Ground type and taking on Elesa and Clay pretty well. So what's the problem? It just...doesn't do anything at endgame as its power falls off. Even with Surf doing alright damage to mooks, it's best Ground move is Dig, compared to its Ground compatriots which all aside from Stunfisk get Earthquake naturally. It lacks the power to compete with the good Water types like Samurott, Simipour and Adaptability Basculin, and it lacks EQ to compete with the other Ground types.
In BW2 this is probably Koffing for me. Koffing on paper looks alright, you get Venoshock not long after you get it, decent physical bulk...but as almost anyone knows, Poison is a terrible offensive type pre-Gen 6 and BW2 has many threats that don't care about Koffing/Weezing (Clay's Excadrill, Skyla's Skarmory, most Poison types like the ones Ghetsis has, to an extent Colress's Steel types unless you use Fire Blast...) and it just isn't that strong when not hitting super-effectively, and about half of the E4/Champion lean toward being special-based. Plus evolving at level 35 and only getting Sludge Bomb at 34 doesn't help.
So, what mons disappointed you in-game?
Among my group of friends, I usually have a mon or two per Pokemon game that I would call a "noob trap", or a mon that looks okay on paper but generally flops in practice. I play these games often so I have a few.
In BW1, that would most certainly be Tympole. On paper Tympole looks good, eventually evolving into a Water/Ground type and taking on Elesa and Clay pretty well. So what's the problem? It just...doesn't do anything at endgame as its power falls off. Even with Surf doing alright damage to mooks, it's best Ground move is Dig, compared to its Ground compatriots which all aside from Stunfisk get Earthquake naturally. It lacks the power to compete with the good Water types like Samurott, Simipour and Adaptability Basculin, and it lacks EQ to compete with the other Ground types.
In BW2 this is probably Koffing for me. Koffing on paper looks alright, you get Venoshock not long after you get it, decent physical bulk...but as almost anyone knows, Poison is a terrible offensive type pre-Gen 6 and BW2 has many threats that don't care about Koffing/Weezing (Clay's Excadrill, Skyla's Skarmory, most Poison types like the ones Ghetsis has, to an extent Colress's Steel types unless you use Fire Blast...) and it just isn't that strong when not hitting super-effectively, and about half of the E4/Champion lean toward being special-based. Plus evolving at level 35 and only getting Sludge Bomb at 34 doesn't help.
So, what mons disappointed you in-game?
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