Are Poison-types badly designed for in-game?

[mertyville]

For ingame runs, Poison-types are some of the 'worst' choices in the series. They have few Pokemon to hit with Super Effective moves and hardly any power behind it. There are exceptions to it like Pokemon that have a good secondary typing or evolve relatively quickly ingame such as Nidoking, Bulbasaur, Gastly etc.
But generally Poison-types are a drag to use like Gen 1 Zubat, Ekans or Gulpin.

However, I feel the design of Poison-types has its purpose especially when used by the enemy as means to ruin or slow down your progression. Poison-types have certain amount of staying power, can annoy you with Poison status (sadly nerfed in certain aspects) and have other means to waste your time.
When I say 'worst' in this case, I mean Poison-types are Pokemon that take a lot of time to get the job done. For certain challenge runs I do think they have their place like where you want your Pokemon to not be KOed and chip down health.
In normal runs I prefer not to use this type of playstyle because your opponent is not a real being, he won't get frustrated and often you add luck when there are often simpler methods to win than Attact, Flinch, Confusion strats.

So generally Poison-types are obsticals that suppose to test the patience of the player. We all have probably had our fair share of opinions on the endless Zubat and Tentacool encounters or being repeatedly poisoned by Poison Sting of the likes of Weedle.
Gen 6 tried to make Poison-types offensively more potent which competively had started to catch on but ingame I haven't felt this way (tho I only played Gen 6 and 7).

What do you think?

 

[Blanca Weiss]

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For ingame runs, Poison-types are some of the 'worst' choices in the series. They have few Pokemon to hit with Super Effective moves and hardly any power behind it. There are exceptions to it like Pokemon that have a good secondary typing or evolve relatively quickly ingame such as Nidoking, Bulbasaur, Gastly etc.
But generally Poison-types are a drag to use like Gen 1 Zubat, Ekans or Gulpin.

However, I feel the design of Poison-types has its purpose especially when used by the enemy as means to ruin or slow down your progression. Poison-types have certain amount of staying power, can annoy you with Poison status (sadly nerfed in certain aspects) and have other means to waste your time.
When I say 'worst' in this case, I mean Poison-types are Pokemon that take a lot of time to get the job done. For certain challenge runs I do think they have their place like where you want your Pokemon to not be KOed and chip down health.
In normal runs I prefer not to use this type of playstyle because your opponent is not a real being, he won't get frustrated and often you add luck when there are often simpler methods to win than Attact, Flinch, Confusion strats.

So generally Poison-types are obsticals that suppose to test the patience of the player. We all have probably had our fair share of opinions on the endless Zubat and Tentacool encounters or being repeatedly poisoned by Poison Sting of the likes of Weedle.
Gen 6 tried to make Poison-types offensively more potent which competively had started to catch on but ingame I haven't felt this way (tho I only played Gen 6 and 7).

What do you think?

Really i feel like the issue for poison is partly out of its type matchups and partly by how it was treated in gen 1 and how it affected its treatment in later gens. In terms of type matchups & how they played up, poison is more of a defensive style that wears down opponents via the poison status and being immune to it itself which is canceled out since most pokemon can learn toxic till gen 8 and steel being immune to both poison moves and status while being one of the best defensive types in the game. However in type matchups its resistances aren't particularly helpful and its weaknesses are crippling and offensively it took until gen 6 where it wasn't completely outclassed by another type to the point that in gens 2-5 some dual typed poison mons didn't even bother carry poison stab. Wearing down opponents isn't really practical ingame unlike in competitive since you can just use an overleveled mon with a type advantage and sweep. As stated in these posts poison was meant to be the "bad guy" type before having to share and eventually mostly overtaken by the dark type for that niche. Rocket, Aqua & Magma (oras), Galactic, Plasma (bw2), Flare and Skull grunts have poison as either their most or second most common types and all villanous team grunts used the Zubat line until gen 8. The grunts tend to be more comic relief rather than threatening unlike the higher ups and its reflected in their mons being mostly annoying and many not even evolved despite being at the level where theyre supposed to. I would say the reason why pure poison felt so weak is that most fully evolved poison types have a secondary type and the few pure poison types are held by back by mediocre stats, movepool and abilities.

 

[bdt2002]

Now we’re speaking my language. Poison’s arguably my favorite Type in the series, or at the very least right up there with Water and Psychic in the Top 3. I feel like Poison’s role as a Type in-game has shifted drastically over time in such ways that don’t necessarily reflect in-game viability in the traditional sense. Rather, Poison tends to follow in the footsteps of the other classic Types in representing classic jRPG elements in a way that’s accessible and easy for players to understand. As far back as the original Kanto games, Poison’s identity is made clear as a Type that represents impending danger- you have Weedle’s contrast with Caterpie being the introduction to the Poison status ailment, Team Rocket leading the way for Poison being one of the most common Types used by these teams alongside the Dark-Types introduced after Kanto, and Poison’s widespread status in Kanto as is and representation by powerful foes like Koga as well as Erika and Agatha to an extent.

Poison’s lack of offensive firepower has, of course, held the Type back for decades, but it would get its breakthrough moment in the Kalos region, where the Type could be seen as an accessible yet hidden gem against the new, widely advertised Fairy-Types. Though I still wouldn’t recommend them for Diantha’s Mega Gardevoir. Kalos was opportunistic enough to include both a Grass Gym and a Fairy Gym, and retains many of the stronger Poison-Type families for the sake of in-game team building.

On that note, if I had to give the title of Best, or Most Consistent, Poison-Type for in-game I would probably give this to Crobat, who from my experience and observations has really only gotten better over time. It can be somewhat underwhelming in Gen 2 with it being harder to raise friendship for the evolution back then for what can sometimes feel like a “Just okay” payoff, but as early as Gen 3 Hoenn (unfortunately FireRed & LeafGreen infamously block the evolution until the National ‘Dex… why did they do this again?) the Zubat family’s fortunes start to improve especially with the under-appreciated expansion of Sludge Bomb’s in-game access being available after the fifth Gym. Gen 4 gives a buff to the Fly HM and it pairs excellent with Black Sludge if you can find one, Gen 5 has re-teachable TMs which can be used to grind friendship much, much easier (and you get maximum power Return for your troubles!), Gen 6 added Fairy-Types and Gen 7 lets Crobat flex Haze against Totem battles and the Ultra games made Flyinium Z available earlier.

 

[Ironmage]

Maybe it's just me, but I've generally valued my Poison-types pretty highly for both casual and challenge playthroughs. My strategy for BDSP Cynthia for my first Nuzlocke hinging on Toxic Spikes feels like a standout example. There's a lot of actions you might want to be taking that aren't just attacking, and damage-over-time means you're still making progress when doing them. Crobat was mentioned as a pretty good mon that happens to be Poison, but I'll also shout out Roserade, Venusaur, Drapion, and Muk-Alola as mons I've enjoyed using for defensive or damage-over-time utility.

I always end up thinking of gen 7 as a major changing point in how Poison works with ingame challenges. That was when it became common for bosses to consist of a single mon with the objective to KO. The boss fights are supposed to be more drawn out than usual, so the mons are given boosts to their defenses against regular attacks. But because damage-over-time is based on percentage of a mon's HP, poison is 3-5 times more effective and beating the entire boss than in trainer fights. Suddenly Toxic's 6-turn clock is pretty close in DPR to throwing out attacks, but it also gives five free turns to do something else.

At some level, the devs knew that Poison would be a big deal in gen 7. Grimer's a part of the Trainer's school segment and several totems spend their item slots on mitigating status. I can't help but think that part of why Toxic became so limited after that is that they wanted to continue with single-mon bosses and all of their problems but that status being a great way to shut them down was incompatible with making Pokemon Sword and Shield rather than Pokemon Cloak and Dagger. So rather than Poison being badly deigned for ingame challenges, the ingame challenges are feeling increasingly badly designed for Poison.

 

[Castersvarog]

Poison is an ok type I find, Poison just has too few match ups beyond the early Grass and later Fairy types that the type itself sort of struggles to shine. It does have a lot of pretty good quality Mons like Scolipede, Revavroom, Roserade and Nidoking, but I find I get significantly more use out of their second type and their stats then them actually being poison type sans the inevitable Fairy Gym.

I think something that the Poison type does have going good for it is the Poison status. Most statuses aren't that notable early game, Paralysis isn’t the biggest game changer because a lot of opponents are already pretty slow early on and there's few Electric types, and Burn isn’t reliable because it’s only really available on the fire starter and Will-o-Wisp isn’t available until much later.
Poison though is very common, often being on the Grass starter and the early Butterfree equivalent via Poison Powder, and Poison Sting is basically a Coin flip on whether it poisons or not. Plus the Poison damage can help secure KOs you couldn’t before much easier when you don’t have the firepower you need.
Thanks to Venoshock, something that shows up very early more often than not, and you’ve got a genuinely powerful combo to use right out the gate when everything else is only dealing half as much damage at best.

 

[pika pal]

The primary issue I find with Poison, at least in early Gens, is that it does not work very well with the mons they design vs what the type chart inclines it to.

Offensively outside of Gen 1 (with the additional Bug match up) it only hits 1 (later 2) types for Super Effective damage while having quite a few relevant types resist it as a neutral attacker (Ground, Rock, Steel, and Ghost, the former two having moderate early game presence), so it's not particularly easy to train due to not often getting stronger moves than its contemporaries and lacking for the expected targets to train against. The Starters and their corresponding types will typically have the early game Forest for the Fire type (Bug and Grass), or cave rocks for Water/Grass (and usually some miscellaneous Water using trainers for the latter). Poison can benefit from the former but a lot of early Gen Grass targets were themselves part Poison so Gen 1 didn't help their prospects.

Defensively they have a pretty solid profile on paper, with Bug, Grass, and Fairy being decently-occurring types for early game encounters, but early game opponents are often still in the "Generic Normal/Coverage Move" stage of their level up pool, which means outside of Rock types and edge cases like "Rival took Grass, you have a Bird," you usually won't be playing to defensive resists so much as a slug fest with a few stat tweaking moves. And by later game when this comes more into play, you're also more likely to run into their two weaknesses (Ground and Psychic), which are consistently powerful in-game attacking types due to coverage or strong users respectively.

Poison I could argue is the type most colored by Pokemon's early design being more inclined towards a Single-Player RPG than the anticipated Creature Feature marketing machine. The Poison Type, and consequently a lot of its users, feel more designed as enemy mooks/bosses than player team members because of their lopsided dynamics: mooks should encourage strategic/knowledgeable players to be able to bulldoze through them if they know the basics, since in a dungeon crawl, a single enemy defeat is much less impactful than a single KO on your own team (and to a notable degree still is, seeing how the most intimidating bosses are often the sweepers instead of the Stone Walls).

 

[QuentinQuonce]

In the thread about the Ice-type I mentioned that Ice would be poorly suited for the extreme earlygame since it has no meaningful resistances. Poison is quite often seen at the start of the game for a similar reason: it's weak and easy to beat. Most of the early exposure to Poison is via Bug-types who use Poison Sting, which rarely does a lot of damage but can be destructive due to inflicting status (which is obviously educative to less experienced players).

After that, it's just not a strong offensive type. Steel is a difficult type to use in-game in Gen II and III (and sometimes later gens too, but to a lesser degree) because it's offensively very subpar - but it gets by mostly on being extremely defensively strong. Poison is in a pretty similar boat, only it doesn't resist quite as many types. It's one of those types that often doesn't have a lot of tremendously powerful moves available to it, at least not for an in-game run.

Poison in Gen I sort of reminds me of the Bird/Flying situation, wherein Bird seemed to be scrapped late in development and still persisted for a generation or two afterwards in terms of the design ethos - Hoppip was the first Flying-type not to be an animal of some sort, and it took until Gen VI to get a Pokemon that was Flying first, other type second. It took a while for it to carve out a more distinct identity because the impression seemed to be that Game Freak perhaps conceived Flying as an ancillary characteristic rather than a fully-fledged type of its own (even in Gen II, Falkner enthuses about "bird" Pokemon instead of Flying-type Pokemon) and Poison is a bit like this in Gen I too.

Obviously, there are a lot of Pokemon from that gen which are solely Poison, or Poison/second type. But Poison as a type is so bound up with the idea of poisoning the foe and doing passive damage rather than anything else (it's pretty much all NPCs mention when talking about it) that it kind of hollows it out conceptually - it's not until later generations that the type gets a bit more character than that. It's still broadly a "baddie" type like Dark, and Poison-type Pokemon are similarly typically classified as "creepy" or "wicked" by mechanisms like Dr Footstep or My Pokemon Ranch, often being used by edgy or punky characters; Plumeria and Roxie, for instance, both specialise in Poison-types but don't really talk much about their capabilities (as opposed to Koga, who explicitly likes them for the ability to poison foes).

So it's gotten easier to use Poison-types in later games since they've moved away somewhat from their sole trick being "can poison things". There's a lot more offensively capable Poison-types now than there were, even without taking Fairy's existence into account.

 

[Omastar68]

I really like poisons, but in game this is just a good point. No item clause, you can lefties all don't need b sludge. No real need to Inflict toxic, esp no need for no miss toxic usually. No real chance of needing to remove t spikes either! Or use for them ofc.

I can't comment before gen three anything. But I guess overall I wouldn't say they are bad for in game, obviously there's so many. A lot early, I think that's pretty universal. They can make decent hm slaves too uh. I'm game so weird compared to competitive. I guess a major point in favor of poisons is none of the worst of the worst mons seem poison type at first thought. Like those ones bring your minun/plusle, luvdisc, starter rodent, Spearow these days, etc

 

[Hugin]

I think poison is fine in-game for what it wants to do, it's that the game balance is wrong. A good chunk of the type are pretty bulky, it has 5 resists with only two weaknesses, and the mons often get both DOT moves and a variety of disabling options, including ones outside their main type. You can happily send a poison in against basically anything without an SE move and count on it sponging multiple hits while you use Toxic/Smokescreen, heal your sweeper, etc.

The problem is that most games do not have anything that requires you to sponge several attacks to improve your position. If you're doing a challenge run or similar, Poison helps a lot more, since it may be the only way you have to kill a particular superboss. The other problem is that EQ is common coverage, while Psychic is one of the designated "boss" types, so Poison sometimes can't help even in the perfect situation for it.

That said, I don't think Poison is ever bad. Nido, King of Gen 1, is the prime example, but plenty of the mons are useful in certain gens or playthroughs. There's plenty of added sweepers recently(Dragalge, Nagandel) which can do the job just fine, but anyone who complains about Venusaur or Tentacruel not being able to contribute has excessively high standards.

 

[CynicalGiant]

That said, I don't think Poison is ever bad. Nido, King of Gen 1, is the prime example, but plenty of the mons are useful in certain gens or playthroughs.

yeah a lot of poison mons in early gens are effectively normal types, they have good stats and wide movepools but you aren't really using them for their primary stab. Nidoking especially is just an insane pokemon.

but anyone who complains about Venusaur or Tentacruel not being able to contribute has excessively high standards.

I have seen people say stuff like this and it just blows my mind. Tentacruel is so tanky and has a very serviceable special attack stat for ingame, and in gen 1 especially its 120 which is nuts lol

 

[Punchshroom]

The more useful and/or memorable Poison-types are always dual-typed, as people fondly remember the likes of Venusaur, Nidoqueen/king, Tentacruel, Gengar, Crobat, Roserade, Salazzle, Alolan Muk, etc., and don't usually think of their partial Poison-typing as a detriment; heck, these Pokemon often use their Poison attributes (either for alternative STAB or the standard Poison disruption tactics) to make up for situations where their primary STAB doesn't get the job done or for situational defensive purposes. Poison isn't a great typing overall but it's a perfectly fine supplement to another serviceable type.

It is when the Poison typing has to do the majority of the legwork that the shortcomings of the type really start to stand out. The pure Poison-types especially suffer in this regard since Poison has a remarkably poor offensive profile; even when compared to Grass which can either drain health from opponents or outright disable them in some fashion to make up for their tendency to be resisted, Poison only really excels at slowly whittling down opponents but doesn't do enough to actually impede them outright. This becomes an issue when this is your primary method of offense, which the dual-typed Poisons do not suffer from since they always have a better means to taking down foes. The likes of Arbok, Weezing, Muk, Garbodor, Swalot, Seviper, etc., always make you feel like you could be using something better for what they're offering. The Bug/Poison-types arguably suffer from the same problems, but most of this is attributed to the generally low BST and poor level-up movepools than the combo itself; Scolipede alone manages to escape this downfall, but even that Pokemon just supplements its coverage around its STAB Megahorn and doesn't really need to bother with its weaker Poison STAB options.

 

[Blanca Weiss]

It is when the Poison typing has to do the majority of the legwork that the shortcomings of the type really start to stand out. The pure Poison-types especially suffer in this regard since Poison has a remarkably poor offensive profile; even when compared to Grass which can either drain health from opponents or outright disable them in some fashion to make up for their tendency to be resisted, Poison only really excels at slowly whittling down opponents but doesn't do enough to actually impede them outright. This becomes an issue when this is your primary method of offense, which the dual-typed Poisons do not suffer from since they always have a better means to taking down foes. The likes of Arbok, Weezing, Muk, Garbodor, Swalot, Seviper, etc., always make you feel like you could be using something better for what they're offering. The Bug/Poison-types arguably suffer from the same problems, but most of this is attributed to the generally low BST and poor level-up movepools than the combo itself; Scolipede alone manages to escape this downfall, but even that Pokemon just supplements its coverage around its STAB Megahorn and doesn't really need to bother with its weaker Poison STAB options.

The most successful pure poison is Weezing and Garbodor due to Levitate/Spikes respectively and both are mostly usable only in lower tiers. The rest tend to be stuck in the lowest tiers where even there they tend to be outclassed by other things.

 

[CynicalGiant]

The most successful pure poison is Weezing and Garbodor due to Levitate/Spikes respectively and both are mostly usable only in lower tiers.

regular Weezing is still used sometimes in VGC because of Neutralizing Gas, and its pure poison typing can be more useful since it has 1 less weakness

 

[Genuine_Angus_B33F]

Poison broadly suffers from inefficiency. Ingame Pokemon tends to reward the player for winning quickly, whether through using strong super effective attacks over and over or getting a setup sweeper. As a type, Poison has lots of issues offensively and Poison the status tends to redundantly win fights more slowly and with more risk than the strongest alternatives. Mono-Poison type Pokemon face the worst of this dilemma. Poison type attacks and the Poison status tend to run up against the same issues, and without a secondary offensive type the coverage moves meant to hit Poison resistant foes are often insufficiently powerful.

That being said, Mono-Poison pokemon have mostly been okay ingame despite this.

Arbok had an extremely strong design in Gen 1 thanks to abusing the synergy between Wrap, Bite flinches, and status from Poison Sting Poisons which are eventually replaced by Glare Paralysis. In gens after that though it's sort of a mess, leaning super hard on abstractly powerful things like early Sludge Bomb TM access and Intimidate. (They really wanted Mud Bomb to be a thing in Gen 4 and boy is it not a thing.) Eventually it got Coil in Gen 5 and just became a statistically mediocre physical sweeper which is overall fine, especially with the later buffs to Glare and Gunk Shot. I do still think Gunk Shot on Arbok is sort of bizarre flavorwise, but it really needs it.

Muk and Weezing in contrast are completely lost messes in Gen 1, but are fleshed out overtime. Weezing only became more bizarre over time, with Levitate and respectable physical bulk letting it live hits and it getting decent leverage from decent SpAtk combined with wide Gen 1 TM movepool options in Fire Blast / Flamethrower and Thunder / Thunderbolt. (Also Self-Destruct and Explosion prior to Gen 5 are always worth considering) Muk meanwhile is mostly terrible in all ingame situations until Gen 5, where it started getting extremely early Sludge Bomb access while being associated with Black Sludge by holding it 5% of the time - or 50% for Muk - even if Sticky Hold is sort of goofy as far as actually taking advantage of that.

A big part of why the above two are some mediocre is their late evolution levels, which is why Swalot is actually such a breath of fresh air. It's worse than both the above two once evolved, but it also evolves at level 26 compared to 35 and 38, which in practice ends up being a pretty big deal because it means access to the slightly above curve early game Sludge ends up actually makes it a top tier generic attacker for a small while, which none of the above mons are really able to say besides maybe Gen 1 Arbok. Swalot is also less strictly reliant on using Poison as it's main utility, as access to Yawn, Encore, and Body Slam on evolution to fish for paralysis give it a surprising amount of dimension to play with in fights where Poison doesn't work offensively.

Garbodor is kind of just Muk. I'd say it stole Muk's fit, but if we're real it's the opposite - Gen 5 was when the Muk line was really given a gameplay identity between super early Sludge / Sludge Bomb access and the whole Black Sludge thing, and those technically were done on Garbodor in BW before Muk in BW2. The biggest issue Garbodor has in that respect is that lacking Muk's bulk, still having pitiful damage options, and learning Gunk Shot *even later* than it (while not having access to what would be an extremely nice midgame power spike from the Poison Jab TM, obtainable just after Surf in BW1) means Garbodor is extremely reliant on Poison for damage. Non-Stab Take Down being the strongest available direct offensive move at level 50 prior to Gen 8 is pretty dire.

If you think I've maybe been charitable to the rest of these, that train stops cold with Seviper. Poison Tail and Poison Fang are meant to be Seviper's twin signature techniques, and frankly both are emblematic of disappointment. Poison Tail is practically Tackle+, the crit chance and poison chance sure do exist, but what they're actually doing is so minimal that it is hard to even track. Poison Fang as a lategame move meanwhile is truly dreadful, and it's impressive how badly it synergizes with Seviper's offense focused stat spread in particular. With that as the pinnacle of its Poison type level up offense, Seviper bricks incredibly hard in Gen 3 without the Sludge Bomb TM, much like Arbok. Speaking of which, It's most interesting quality among these is that it actually has a strong Special Attack stat, 100 compared to Weezing's otherwise leading 85 ahead of an average closer to 70, to use with Sludge Bomb and Flamethrower via TMs.* Nearly everything else it can do, from Coil to Glare to Rest + Shed Skin strats, can be matched by Arbok. I also want to shoutout Venom Drench, a move introduced in Generation 6 as a non-signature move to 4 families by level up initially, amongst them of course including Seviper. If you have never heard of this move, I hardly blame you, as it's riding extremely close to the asymptotic limit of how small a move's technically existent use cases could be while not literally being Splash or a clone thereof.

*(Also Giga Drain via TM... But only in Gen 3 or Gen 8??? I just associated this move with this mon because of random battles I had no idea the compatibility was this bizarre)

 

[Askeia]

Maybe it's just me, but I personally always have a Poison type on my team in every Gen naturally without thinking much about it. Bulbasaur/Nidoking in RBY/FRLG, Tentacruel and Crobat in GS/HGSS, Roserade in RSE/ORAS, Drapion/Skuntank/Roserade in DPPt etc...

I think one of the problems about Poison types in-game is that they tend to appear in the early game, but their early game move Poison STAB options are pretty bad, mostly stuck on Poison Sting and maybe Acid, so most mons just end up replacing them with non-Poison STAB options, or run out of patience to raise said mons entirely.

However, I feel like I always get a Poison type later on, just to have a user for the TM Sludge Bomb. It may sound strange, but in the earlier generations where mons tend to have a more shallow level-up learnset, a lot of power moves you get in a playthrough come from TMs. In the earlier games, TMs are consumable and so you have to manage who gets Psychic, who gets Earthquake, who gets Ice Beam and so on. And once the crème de la crème in terms of good TMs are all used up, there just naturally comes a point where Sludge Bomb becomes the next most reliable TM, and I find myself trying to get a user for it. In later gens where TMs become recyclable, I actually do find myself using Poison types less.

Please tell me I'm not the only weirdo who does this.

 

[Karxrida]

To examine how Poison-types are designed for PvE, I'd like to first go over some general trends in RPG game design.

It's very common for RPGs to make status conditions either not work on boss enemies or have their effects greatly diluted in some way (e.g. lasting less time). There's also a general asymmetry in terms of boss stats compared to player stats to compensate for how most fights tend to be an entire party of 3+ characters on the field against one dude (or one strong dude plus some disposable adds). Pokémon (mostly) breaks away from both of these conceits by making status immunity based on the type chart and/or abilities instead of saying "boss encounters have blanket immunity", and also having the vast majority of combat encounters be 1v1s with reasonable stat differences instead of massive asymmetry. Boss difficulty is often instead based on party size combined with relatively high stat Pokémon at high levels to match or only slightly exceed what the player probably has access to. While the type/ability based immunity system makes status infliction actually possible in most situations since something will stick – accuracy aside – the 1v1 nature of battles and lack of major stat asymmetry means it's usually just faster to exploit the system to cleanly sweep an opponent in less than 10 turns over waiting on the Poison DoT to slowly KO everything. This isn't even taking into account how boss NPCs often have access to a limited number of restorative items like the player, which makes stalling take even longer even if you can burn through them all.

This leaves Poison as a type in a very bizarre spot in terms of player use. The type is designed, on some level, to spread Poison status and wear opponents down, especially since it's lacking in super effective coverage. However, the system as-is doesn't really reward this sort of play even if it's relatively easy to actually Poison everything, because it's just too slow. There is also the consideration of PP management, as the games don't like to hand out PP restoratives and thus stalling things is actively detrimental since you're going to burn through your limited supply faster. This isn't a huge deal for most bosses since they're often static encounters that are typically signposted and near a Pokémon Center, but if you're out exploring a route and keep running into trainers it will come up.

It really does seem like Game Freak designed the type around the idea of it being used by the villain team exclusively, as Poison as a status is actually dangerous to a player. The out-of-battle effect of constant damage in Gens 1-3* is capable of taking out a Pokémon who hasn't been cured, especially on longer dungeon crawls with frequent trainer encounters. While Viridian Forest is a notable early example due to all the Weedle you fight, the Rocket Hideout and Silph Co. also come to mind with all the Rocket grunts. Also consider Gen 1's small bag creating a meta that forces you to pick and choose what to take with you for utility and healing while also leaving room for loot.

tl;dr this is a roundabout way of me saying pure Poison-type sucks.

*The out-of-battle effect still exists in Gen 4, but it can't KO a Pokémon in this generation and is thus a bit less threatening.

 

[Omastar68]

The most successful pure poison is Weezing and Garbodor due to Levitate/Spikes respectively and both are mostly usable only in lower tiers. The rest tend to be stuck in the lowest tiers where even there they tend to be outclassed by other things.

Oh I wanted to question this but then I read PURE poison uhh. Yeah, things like Seviper, even Swalot tbf, no bueno. I feel like fairly few things ARE pure poison though, so maybe that's fine. There are just so many strong PART poisons that I don't think one can say they are bad anymore.

:O Now I got it, the only good full poison is reg muk. Still suffers compared to g, but g notably lacks sticky hold to more than stop trick(forces the to switch.) That is a cool ability, good w/ any non choice item and b sludge esp too.

EDIT: Besides the aforementioned weezing and maybe garb.

 

[PokemonCrusader]

In a real life situation, a stalling, toxic strategy would win battles and be hugely successful.

But Pokémon games aren't real life. Brute force and hitting hard is the optimal strategy. This argument popped up in the old tier lists when a poster would argue how Venusaur could use status effects to great impact. He sure could but Blastoise hit faster. No player wants to waste time stalling or poisoning countless mooks.

It is the downside of type diversity.

Think of Madden or EA CFB. A run up the middle is boring in a video game. Throw the bomb. But in real life, if your team doesn't run, the defense will eventually level your QB.

There are some design flaws within the Poison Type but faulting them for NOT being a fast puncher is missing the mark.

 

[Codraroll]

I missed this thread earlier, but would still like to add my take on it.

I think Poison's problems are rooted in three major issues, all related to one overarching issue: that Poison was originally tuned to be an "enemy type".

First, Poison's tactic of using moves that inflict a HP-sapping status is inefficient, if effective. It will take a long time to win battles that way. This is a disadvantage when the player uses it, since the player needs to fight a lot of battles, winning fast is generally better than winning slow, and there are many good ways to win fast in these games. But Poison is deadly when used against the player, since the lingering effect will remain an obstacle in the gameplay after the battle is finished. So the Poison type's whole shtick is to inflict a status that isn't very helpful in doing what the player needs to do. It's primarily a tool for the game to use against the player, rather than the opposite.

Secondly, a matter Hugin put his finger on in the Dark-type thread, which very much applies to Poison too:

It's reasonably common for the games to include an early-route derp that's a Dark type, because they want something weak for the evil team to use.

"Early-route derps for the evil team to use" is a still a fitting description for many Poison-types, even if Dark has taken over the role in recent generations. But Poison also remains a common type for the evil team to use. Heck, some of them even serve their role primarily in the wild, like Weedle and Tentacool in RBY. Mooks whose strengths lie in repeat encounters rather than being challenging in each individual battle. Relatively weak 'mons for the game to put in the player's way, provide a chance to inflict poison, and be KO'd right afterwards. Better still if they are, even, because the player shouldn't be hindered *that* much, and mowing down mooks feels good.

This seems to have influenced the design philosophy for Poison-type Pokémon. I've only recently noticed, but the overwhelming majority of Poison-type Pokémon belong to two-stage evolutionary families. They seem to come in a "basic form" for general evil team grunts and wild encounters, and an "advanced form" for evil team admins and the occasional "boss encounter". Disregarding legendaries and sub-legendaries (Ultra Beasts and Paradox Pokémon), there are only two Poison-types that don't evolve at all: Qwilfish-Johtonian and Seviper. The former has a regional form that evolves, the latter has a counterpart in Zangoose.

Likewise, and this is relevant to Poison's prominence for in-game purposes, really few Poison-types evolve twice. We can all agree that three-stage evolution families are just more fun to use in general. Third-stage Pokémon tend to be stronger than second-stage ones. But post Gen I, only four third-stage Poison-types have ever been created: Crobat, Dustox, Roserade, and Scolipede. That's none in four generations at the moment, for those keeping count.

Because, and this is the third issue ... Game Freak went overboard with Poison-types in Gen I, and have been overcorrecting ever since. Of the original 151 Pokémon, 33 are Poison-type. It was the most common type back then, even more ubiquitous than Normal and Water. There were seven three-stage evolution families that were part Poison in Gen I. 13 families overall. It took until Gen VIII for non-Kanto Poison-types to outnumber the Kanto ones. This early abundance, and later reluctance, has given Poison relatively few opportunities to properly shine. There are relatively few new Poison-types released in each generation, and what few exist are generally relegated to being "evil team Grunt fodder".

So in general, Poison is a typing whose primary gimmick isn't very well suited for the player to use, whose Pokémon are often designated to be rather weak, and which doesn't get many new opportunities to create new fan favourites. That's not to say Poison-types are inherently bad, some have even done very well competitively, but they seem to lack the type of 'mons that can plow through battles quickly and clear a path through in-game runs. Or at least, those are quite rare.

 

[mertyville]

The overworld poison damage being removed kinda weakened the Poison-type as enemy types thinking about it.
I did not consider Dark-types, at least not originally, as villain types even if they are literally called 'Evil'. Moreso I thought their purpose were to balance out the Psychic-types and only appear at nights or caves. Basically a rare type due to being newly discovered.
RSE being a soft reboot kinda revamped everything and there cannot be too many rare types. I personally think Dragon should be the rarest followed by something like Steel that has massive amount of resistances.

 

[Karxrida]

I did not consider Dark-types, at least not originally, as villain types even if they are literally called 'Evil'. Moreso I thought their purpose were to balance out the Psychic-types and only appear at nights or caves. Basically a rare type due to being newly discovered.

As I alluded to in the thread for Dark-types, it's
probably because they were supremely scarce in Gen 2. Outside of your Rival's Sneasel, all you saw were the Kimono Sister with the Umbreon, the two Rocket Executives in the Radio Tower with Murkrow and Houndour/Houndoom, and Karen's team with repeats.

 

[CynicalGiant]

As I alluded to in the thread for Dark-types, it's
probably because they were supremely scarce in Gen 2. Outside of your Rival's Sneasel, all you saw were the Kimono Sister with the Umbreon, the two Rocket Executives in the Radio Tower with Murkrow and Houndour/Houndoom, and Karen's team with repeats.

also a lot of poison types from gen 1 would probably be dark types instead if the dark type existed

like the gastly and zubat lines especially

I did not consider Dark-types, at least not originally, as villain types even if they are literally called 'Evil'. Moreso I thought their purpose were to balance out the Psychic-types and only appear at nights or caves. Basically a rare type due to being newly discovered.

one of the interesting things about Ariados and Mightyena is just how similar their stats are. they had this general stat line idea for what the villainous grunts would be using.

 

[Blanca Weiss]

also a lot of poison types from gen 1 would probably be dark types instead if the dark type existed

like the gastly and zubat lines especially

one of the interesting things about Ariados and Mightyena is just how similar their stats are. they had this general stat line idea for what the villainous grunts would be using.

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Funnily enough team rocket never used the Spinarak line, it was only ever used by team skull and Ariados itself is only used by SM Guzma.

 

[igiveuponaname]

also a lot of poison types from gen 1 would probably be dark types instead if the dark type existed

like the gastly and zubat lines especially

one of the interesting things about Ariados and Mightyena is just how similar their stats are. they had this general stat line idea for what the villainous grunts would be using.

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What the fuck do you mean mightyena is just fast ariados

 

[mertyville]

Good thing Ariados got 10 more base special defense. Now its viable.