To be fair, that might just be a side effect of Terrabite (and Kroookodile in general) being a borderline game-breaker, which it definitely is with Moxie combined with EQ.
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Pokemon that disappointed you in-game despite looking good initially?
- Thread starter DrumstickGaming
- Start date
I remember my Zebstrika performing well against Clay, by spamming Flame Charge on Krokorok (negating Bulldoze Speed drops) and then just spamming Return on Palpitoad. This was pretty notable for me, though I do realize that Blitzle isn't a game-breaker.
I used Blitzle the first time I played though and it was just...sorta there?
Really, Unova just has the unfortunate side effect of having virtually all the disc one nukes (evolved monkeys, Sawk/Throh, desert mons, fossils) overshadow all their contemporary competition which makes the lesser mons have an impossible standard to live up to. That's why I think BW1 and 2 are great games for newcomers - you basically have to try to be underpowered in them.
Also, DPPT Pachirisu is traumatizing. Now I set my bars low for Pikaclones, like, really low. But Pachirisu is an insult to even Plusle / Minun in Hoenn. Lategame you have such feats as failing to 2HKO Buneary with Discharge. Yeah, the offenses are THAT bad (45 each, ugh). Even if you don't want to use the standard stuff in Sinnoh, avoid Pachirisu like the plague, Vespiquen outclasses it in the "niche annoyer" category.
Really, Unova just has the unfortunate side effect of having virtually all the disc one nukes (evolved monkeys, Sawk/Throh, desert mons, fossils) overshadow all their contemporary competition which makes the lesser mons have an impossible standard to live up to. That's why I think BW1 and 2 are great games for newcomers - you basically have to try to be underpowered in them.
Also, DPPT Pachirisu is traumatizing. Now I set my bars low for Pikaclones, like, really low. But Pachirisu is an insult to even Plusle / Minun in Hoenn. Lategame you have such feats as failing to 2HKO Buneary with Discharge. Yeah, the offenses are THAT bad (45 each, ugh). Even if you don't want to use the standard stuff in Sinnoh, avoid Pachirisu like the plague, Vespiquen outclasses it in the "niche annoyer" category.
Does Pachirisu really qualify for this thread haha? You can’t be disappointed with its performance unless you genuinely expected it to be good when you decided to use it. I feel like most people know they’re in for a slog if they elect to take Pachi into lategame.
Falinks was a weird one for me. I really like its design and overall concept, but it was clear that its stats were balanced around its great signature move No Retreat, leaving it with decent Attack and Defense, but pretty poor overall bulk and Speed. It feels weird to say it disappointed me when it crushed most of Leon’s team, but it definitely needed No Retreat—>Dynamax to sweep major opponents and it often struggled to get through regular trainers without taking heavy damage or using that extra turn of setup every time. Also you have to pick what you set up on very carefully to avoid being KO’d before you can accomplish anything.
Add to that its awkward typing and coverage (you don’t come close to covering all Fighting resists with just two moveslots) and it just felt like a bit of a chore to use at times, despite its great potential in arena matches.
Still fun to omniboost and then use three Max Knuckles to get to +4/+1/+1/+1/+1 before obliterating the last mons on the opponent’s team tho
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I used Drapion in Shield; it was quite underwhelming as Skorupi but serviceable once it evolved. Its low Attack stat was unfortunate, but it has really good coverage (especially with the move relearner in every center), and I used the Scope Lens you get in game in tandem with Night Slash and Cross Poison to get really strong unboosted attacks from Sniper half the time.
Was disappointed with it barely doing half to Piers' Obstagoon with Brick Break, but it's also one of the only Pokémon in-game to have EVs, so that's at least justified.
Was disappointed with it barely doing half to Piers' Obstagoon with Brick Break, but it's also one of the only Pokémon in-game to have EVs, so that's at least justified.
Well granted Pacherisu does have Charm, and...
uhhh...
it has Charm and...
rofl touche
Super Fang? Tho that makes anything halfway decent.
The next Pokémon I want to talk about is one that only had a temporary fall from grace, but it was incredibly notable. That Pokémon is Swinub in Sword and Shield.
When I first started playing Sword, I saw that I could potentially nab an Ice-type early, which hasn’t really been a thing in previous games. I thought to myself, “I should go get myself an Ice-type, that’ll be an interesting experience. Oh hey I can get a Swinub, I haven’t had the opportunity to use that before. And besides, it’ll become the awesome Mamoswine, what could possibly go wrong?”
For a while Swinub was able to carry its weight on my fledgling team. Tackle was reasonably strong, and while Mud Slap and Icy Wind... weren’t, thanks to Swinub’s lower SpA, they were still STAB, and useful for utility. Things got better when Swinub got Ice Shard, letting it bypass its Speed issues and giving it a physical Ice move. With this it was able to help out in Turrfield despite the weakness to Grass.
...then by the time I got to Hulbury Swinub’s usefulness seemed to fall off a cliff. It started being too weak to KO much of anything, and too frail to take any sort of hits, not to mention that there seemed to be super-effective moves around every corner. Even Bulldoze was too little, too late by the time I got it (though I got it late - if you’re using Swinub do yourself a favor and get the TM for Bulldoze ASAP).
Fortunately things turned around once I got to Route 6, not only due to more favorable matchups, but it finally evolved. Now Piloswine is able to pull its own weight again on my team, and the best part is that if/when it drops off again the evolution to Mamoswine will be much more painless.
Re: Super Fang-yeah I agree but when that does more than STAB I have issues, and if a Mon’s SOLE NICHE is Super Fang, yeah it’s not very good lol
I can think of redeeming qualities for Emolga and especially Togedemaru but Pachirisu is just...bad.
I can think of redeeming qualities for Emolga and especially Togedemaru but Pachirisu is just...bad.
But at least it won for VGC
Yeah that’s why it’s disappointing, VGC made it look unstoppable
Ema Skye
Work!
RSE Lotad/Seedot
Let's start with Lotad. Catch it around Lv3. Movepool is Astonish and Growl. This immediately presents a problem: what can it fight in the early game? Most of the early mons resist it (Poochyena) or are immune (Zigzagoon, Whismur) to it. You pretty much need to fight it against the bugs (Wurmple and Nincada). New Problem: You're weak to their STAB (Poison Sting and Leech Life). And they actually do more damage than you because they have higher attack stats and STAB, so just FU. Fortunately, the Bullet Seed TM redeems this problem, but you're left with a 20-50 BP STAB move.
And you're going to be stuck with Bullet Seed for a while. You pick up Absorb at Lv7, which is weaker than Bullet Seed. Then Lotad learns its next STAB at LEVEL 43 for Mega Drain! So yeah, you're not doing that. So you take the evolution into Lombre without delay, get a minor stat boost (still only slightly stronger than your first stage starter - 340 BST). And new problem: Lombre doesn't learn a STAB until Hydro Pump at LEVEL 49! So yeah, that sucks.
Essentially, the midgame here boils down to carrying around Bullet Seed for the majority of the game as your BEST STAB attack until you pick up Giga Drain around Mt Pyre. And you never get to use your Water STAB until you pick up Surf. Like wtf? You're in the late game now and it's finally getting STAB?!
And basically, from Brawly onwards, you're carrying around this 340 BST Pokemon. How long are you carrying it around for? Well, until you get Dive. Your only sources of Water Stones are the Abandoned Ship and Blue Shards (wild Clamperl). Both require Dive to access the stone/shard. So you're carrying this thing around. You want to know what has a similar BST to this deadweight Lombre? Spoink (330), Aron (330), Tentacool (335), Cacnea (335), Koffing (340) and Rhyhorn (345). And you want to know the best part about all of these: Most of them have already evolved! But no, Lombre requires that you lug it around from, basically, Roxanne to Tate/Liza with its awful BST just so you can finally use Ludicolo.
And how's Ludicolo? Well, actually not bad. Still has an awful movepool, but Surf/Giga Drain is the best you're going to get anyways so might as well roll with it.
"But I played Ruby so I got Seedot!" I don't think you have anything to get excited about! Swap out Astonish for Bide and NEVER get an offensive stab move in your first form. You know things are going to get WILD when you need to rely on the Bullet Seed TM to even DEAL DAMAGE! And you're going to be relying on Nature Power too, and, at this point of the game, it's mostly Swift (indoors) and Stun Spore (Grass), with the occasional Shadow Ball (Cave).
So let's evolve this nut and see what happens. Well, you finally get Dark-STAB... at Level 31, and it's Faint Attack (which is okay I guess). That's still basically going to require you to go to Norman/Winona with Bullet Seed as your only STAB. Thankfully, you get access to Shiftry right around when you get Faint Attack, as the Leaf Stone is on Route 119 and only needs Surf. After that, you basically get a Pokemon now. But, like Ludicolo, Shiftry is going to need that Giga Drain TM if you want it to finally ditch Bullet Seed.
Ruby players get basically an equivalent end result between Shiftry and Ludicolo, but Ruby players basically get it 10 levels earlier. But, Seedot fans are also so lucky that Bullet Seed is a TM... I don't want to imagine using it without it.
Also, as a personal one, Glaceon in ANY game.
I know people like to rag on Flareon as the worst Eeveelution, but Glaceon's existance pretty much saves Flareon from this unfortunate award.
In-game, you get it so late:
I don't even really know how you'd fix it. You can't swap the Def and Spe to make it fast because then it's just 'Ice type Espeon'. You pretty much need to take it back to the drawing board to decide what the hell it's going to do.
I'm also really salty here because it's my second favorite Pokemon so it just hurts seeing it so useless.
Let's start with Lotad. Catch it around Lv3. Movepool is Astonish and Growl. This immediately presents a problem: what can it fight in the early game? Most of the early mons resist it (Poochyena) or are immune (Zigzagoon, Whismur) to it. You pretty much need to fight it against the bugs (Wurmple and Nincada). New Problem: You're weak to their STAB (Poison Sting and Leech Life). And they actually do more damage than you because they have higher attack stats and STAB, so just FU. Fortunately, the Bullet Seed TM redeems this problem, but you're left with a 20-50 BP STAB move.
And you're going to be stuck with Bullet Seed for a while. You pick up Absorb at Lv7, which is weaker than Bullet Seed. Then Lotad learns its next STAB at LEVEL 43 for Mega Drain! So yeah, you're not doing that. So you take the evolution into Lombre without delay, get a minor stat boost (still only slightly stronger than your first stage starter - 340 BST). And new problem: Lombre doesn't learn a STAB until Hydro Pump at LEVEL 49! So yeah, that sucks.
Essentially, the midgame here boils down to carrying around Bullet Seed for the majority of the game as your BEST STAB attack until you pick up Giga Drain around Mt Pyre. And you never get to use your Water STAB until you pick up Surf. Like wtf? You're in the late game now and it's finally getting STAB?!
And basically, from Brawly onwards, you're carrying around this 340 BST Pokemon. How long are you carrying it around for? Well, until you get Dive. Your only sources of Water Stones are the Abandoned Ship and Blue Shards (wild Clamperl). Both require Dive to access the stone/shard. So you're carrying this thing around. You want to know what has a similar BST to this deadweight Lombre? Spoink (330), Aron (330), Tentacool (335), Cacnea (335), Koffing (340) and Rhyhorn (345). And you want to know the best part about all of these: Most of them have already evolved! But no, Lombre requires that you lug it around from, basically, Roxanne to Tate/Liza with its awful BST just so you can finally use Ludicolo.
And how's Ludicolo? Well, actually not bad. Still has an awful movepool, but Surf/Giga Drain is the best you're going to get anyways so might as well roll with it.
"But I played Ruby so I got Seedot!" I don't think you have anything to get excited about! Swap out Astonish for Bide and NEVER get an offensive stab move in your first form. You know things are going to get WILD when you need to rely on the Bullet Seed TM to even DEAL DAMAGE! And you're going to be relying on Nature Power too, and, at this point of the game, it's mostly Swift (indoors) and Stun Spore (Grass), with the occasional Shadow Ball (Cave).
So let's evolve this nut and see what happens. Well, you finally get Dark-STAB... at Level 31, and it's Faint Attack (which is okay I guess). That's still basically going to require you to go to Norman/Winona with Bullet Seed as your only STAB. Thankfully, you get access to Shiftry right around when you get Faint Attack, as the Leaf Stone is on Route 119 and only needs Surf. After that, you basically get a Pokemon now. But, like Ludicolo, Shiftry is going to need that Giga Drain TM if you want it to finally ditch Bullet Seed.
Ruby players get basically an equivalent end result between Shiftry and Ludicolo, but Ruby players basically get it 10 levels earlier. But, Seedot fans are also so lucky that Bullet Seed is a TM... I don't want to imagine using it without it.
Also, as a personal one, Glaceon in ANY game.
I know people like to rag on Flareon as the worst Eeveelution, but Glaceon's existance pretty much saves Flareon from this unfortunate award.
In-game, you get it so late:
- Platinum: Right before Snowpoint
- BW2: POSTGAME YOU MFERS (still salty about this from my first BW2 run!)
- Sun/Moon: VICTORY ROAD LOL (also salty about this)
- USUM: Okay at least now it's at Tapu Village
- SwSh: Circhester (so Gym 6)
I don't even really know how you'd fix it. You can't swap the Def and Spe to make it fast because then it's just 'Ice type Espeon'. You pretty much need to take it back to the drawing board to decide what the hell it's going to do.
I'm also really salty here because it's my second favorite Pokemon so it just hurts seeing it so useless.
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To be fair, you could theoretically have the Digging Brothers give you one by chance if you have enough watts... Or if you have Crown Tundra DLC, you could trigger a raid at the Eevee Den and potentially get one there. Considering that you can catch Eevee at the beginning of the route before the 2nd gym, it is theoretically possible to obtain an ice stone through the use of those methods.
Yeah, if you need any stone besides the one Fire Stone outside Motostoke, you gonna have to gamble on the Digging Bros.
You can actually get Alolan Ninetales before setting foot in Motostoke that way if you have the DLC.
Actually... Glaceon too if you have the LGPE Save Bonus Eevee. Just take out the G-Max Factor after beating Klara/Avery 2...
I was always attracted to Lanturn's design and typing, but every time I've tried using it in-game, it ended up lacking that oomph that Starmie inherently had. Even Lapras and Vaporeon were more useful.
Using Skarmory in Silver was the first time I realised that defensive Pokemon are not so great in-game. The Armor Bird Pokémon looks so cool, its typing is amazing, it has decent enough stats, but its movepool is just bad.
Jellicent was also a bit of a disappointment after using it during my first White playthrough. New type combination, cool design and stats/movepool looked decent, but I found it to never be strong enough or bulky enough. It doesn't help that BW has a rather lackluster selection of Water types too.
Using Skarmory in Silver was the first time I realised that defensive Pokemon are not so great in-game. The Armor Bird Pokémon looks so cool, its typing is amazing, it has decent enough stats, but its movepool is just bad.
Jellicent was also a bit of a disappointment after using it during my first White playthrough. New type combination, cool design and stats/movepool looked decent, but I found it to never be strong enough or bulky enough. It doesn't help that BW has a rather lackluster selection of Water types too.
Quagsire I used in SoulSilver thinking it would be as badass as Swampert was in Emerald, way back before I even really knew why stats were important, but it was just bad.
Same with Skarmory, looked like a badass jet but it could never kill anything.
Uh I guess the only other Pokemon I was kinda sad with was Musharna. I should have known better than for a early game Psychic to be anything but meh, but like I was forced to use Munna for the longest time if I wanted to learn anything good, which was a horrible experience casually, and when I used Reuniclus in my second run, it just showed what I was missing.
Same with Skarmory, looked like a badass jet but it could never kill anything.
Uh I guess the only other Pokemon I was kinda sad with was Musharna. I should have known better than for a early game Psychic to be anything but meh, but like I was forced to use Munna for the longest time if I wanted to learn anything good, which was a horrible experience casually, and when I used Reuniclus in my second run, it just showed what I was missing.
honestly was thinking about FRLG Drowzee when I wrote that but u right those two are good*Looks at RBY/GSC Abra and RSE Ralts*
Say what now?
to be fair abra & ralts are bad until they evolve and ralts in particular needs to go to Gardevoir to become good.
I feel like Quagsire's problem in HGSS is that its typing really doesn't stack up too well against most of the gym leaders. Water/ground is an amazing typing of course, but Johto lacks electric, fire and rock type pokemon, especially during major fights. As a result, Quagsire has mostly neutral matchups, which isn't good enough considering its low stats.
Something similar happens to the Tepig line. In a vacuum, fire/fighting is a great typing. In the context of gen 5 though, it's pretty bad. That extra fighting typing gives it a weakness to flying and psychic, which are very common in Unova. Elesa and Skyla both use flying types, Caitlin has a full psychic team, and all of the E4 members have at least one Pokemon that hits Emboar super effectively. Emboar is also too slow and too frail to get around these weaknesses, which is why it's so bad in the late game. I think both Simisear and Darmanitan are a lot more successful in BW because they lack Emboar's common weaknesses.
tldr; even Pokemon with a 'good' typing can be very disappointing, probably because of their typing.
While Drowzee is meh in FRLG, it's incredibly good in RBY. Sure, it's like a worse Zam, but it's still great. It has a high Special and learns Psychic by level, so you can save the TM for something like Gengar or Clefable. And it's got Hypnosis too and sleep, as we all know, is broken in gen 1.
Tepig is unfortunate
cute mon
but unfortunate stats and type
and simply existing in the same games as the infamous Darmanitan
pretty much erases any impact it could have in-game ever, lol
an unwavering heart plays
cute mon
but unfortunate stats and type
and simply existing in the same games as the infamous Darmanitan
pretty much erases any impact it could have in-game ever, lol
an unwavering heart plays
Plague von Karma
Banned deucer.
I don't get it. Why is Bellsprout available in the early game in GSC when getting a Leaf Stone is so ludicrously difficult? It's so mind-boggling to me...
I was playing through Silver recently and it hit me like a truck. Like, I was in Goldenrod with my Weepinbell screaming "sprout gang" at the top of my lungs, only to realize there is no tooth fairy, there is no Santa, and there is no Leaf Stone.
So how does Game Freak expect you to make use of this Pokemon? By playing Crystal and praying Picnicker Gina decides to bless you with one. Or you can go to Bill's Sea College after you've cleared Johto and got an established team, I guess. You're stuck with the craptastic Weepinbell until either of these happen, bucko. At least it has fair offensive stats, I guess...
The only explanation I have is that the beta side-evolution to Weepinbell (Tsubomitto) was removed last-minute, and they forgot to remove Bellsprout...it's so odd...
Getting the Leaf Stone is really easy in the English version of the game. Delete all phone numbers on your phone outside of Gina, and then toggle Daylight Savings on and off by talking to your mom, which always triggers a phone call, until you get a call that they found an item they want to give you.
You can also do it without deleting all other phone numbers, it just takes a little longer.
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