Research A Look at a Survey of the Most/Least Used Pokemon for in-game playthroughs historically

[QuentinQuonce]

Pretty surprised not to see Smeargle make any of the least-used lists for Johto, Kalos, or Alola (though it does come very close for all three).

Even despite it's lacklustre stats, Smeargle in GSC/HGSS requires going far out of your way to one very small patch of grass where it's a 10% spawn (and Crystal further restricts it by making it time-dependent) while Kalos has so many Pokemon available it's quite plausible that you'll already have a full team of 6 by the time you come to the area it's in (and it's not a particularly common spawn there, either). Alola makes it available quite early on, but again it's only restricted to one area and it's not an especially common spawn there either.

All this aside, if you're a new player or just plain inexperienced it's very easy to mess up raising one. The first Smeargle I ever caught became useless when I Sketched Belly Drum off a Poliwag in Ecruteak City, so I boxed it forever. Unless you get a powerful move with a lot of utility (unlikely in the early-game) it requires a lot of babying to raise. I guess I'm just surprised to see things like Fearow or Venomoth - which can at least pull their weight to a degree - finish behind Smeargle.

 

[Worldie]

Pretty surprised not to see Smeargle make any of the least-used lists for Johto, Kalos, or Alola (though it does come very close for all three).

Even despite it's lacklustre stats, Smeargle in GSC/HGSS requires going far out of your way to one very small patch of grass where it's a 10% spawn (and Crystal further restricts it by making it time-dependent) while Kalos has so many Pokemon available it's quite plausible that you'll already have a full team of 6 by the time you come to the area it's in (and it's not a particularly common spawn there, either). Alola makes it available quite early on, but again it's only restricted to one area and it's not an especially common spawn there either.

All this aside, if you're a new player or just plain inexperienced it's very easy to mess up raising one. The first Smeargle I ever caught became useless when I Sketched Belly Drum off a Poliwag in Ecruteak City, so I boxed it forever. Unless you get a powerful move with a lot of utility (unlikely in the early-game) it requires a lot of babying to raise. I guess I'm just surprised to see things like Fearow or Venomoth - which can at least pull their weight to a degree - finish behind Smeargle.

Well if you use my point of view from previous post...

In a vacuum, with no knowledge of the game mechanics at all, a dog with a paintbrush who can copy any opponent move definitely looks more intriguing to play and mess with than... a generic bird and giant moth.

 

[Coronis]

It's interesting that there's no Galar Pokémon in the least used lists you got.

For me at least, on my first playthrough of each game I like to use Pokemon new to that generation. (except Silver but I didn’t own a Kanto game prior to that)

 

[Siggu]

For me at least, on my first playthrough of each game I like to use Pokemon new to that generation. (except Silver but I didn’t own a Kanto game prior to that)

So do I. It seems this approach is more popular than I thought.

 

[Worldie]

So do I. It seems this approach is more popular than I thought.

It's very popular on people who played multiple previous entries.
And it does make sense honestly, because there's a decent enough chance you already used or at least seen the pokes you had interest in before, and are mostly curious about what the *new* pokemon do.

 

[Coronis]

It's very popular on people who played multiple previous entries.
And it does make sense honestly, because there's a decent enough chance you already used or at least seen the pokes you had interest in before, and are mostly curious about what the *new* pokemon do.

Mhmm, thats why I like to remain as spoiler free as possible beyond initial trailers, so I can enjoy that first playthrough with all the new experiences as much as possible.

 

[Bakugames]

Galar trailers also revealed very little (not even starter evolutions! Which I have mixed feelings about), so people were more likely to stick around with early game galar mons to see what they turned into

 

[WinterArcanine]

I wonder if there's any surveys like this for USUM or SV?

If there's not, unfortunately I don't think I'd be able to do something like this and get enough responses, or I'd consider doing it myself. But it'd be interesting to see surveys for them as they're the only two mainline games (besides legends, but idk if most people even used a regular team for that game) to not have a survey on this thread.

 

[bdt2002]

I wonder if there's any surveys like this for USUM or SV?

If there's not, unfortunately I don't think I'd be able to do something like this and get enough responses, or I'd consider doing it myself. But it'd be interesting to see surveys for them as they're the only two mainline games (besides legends, but idk if most people even used a regular team for that game) to not have a survey on this thread.

I would imagine something like this exists for the Alola games (separate lists for each iteration) but not for Galar and Paldea. The thing about these regions is that not only are there a lot of Pokémon to poll, but the ability to do things as you please in the Wild Area and in Paldea’s entirety (level scaling not withstanding) add in so many variables of uncertainty. Which Paldea storyline is being studied? How much time is spent in which parts of the Wild Area? Things like that.

For Alola, on the other hand, I happen to know there’s a lot of Pokémon that were deemed popular especially by the time the Ultra games came out. Provided this is just based off of what I’ve seen from the community, Hawlucha and Zoroark were used on several teams, the latter likely rising in usage to its ability to cheese Ultra Necrozma.

 

[WinterArcanine]

I would imagine something like this exists for the Alola games (separate lists for each iteration) but not for Galar and Paldea. The thing about these regions is that not only are there a lot of Pokémon to poll, but the ability to do things as you please in the Wild Area and in Paldea’s entirety (level scaling not withstanding) add in so many variables of uncertainty. Which Paldea storyline is being studied? How much time is spent in which parts of the Wild Area? Things like that.

For Alola, on the other hand, I happen to know there’s a lot of Pokémon that were deemed popular especially by the time the Ultra games came out. Provided this is just based off of what I’ve seen from the community, Hawlucha and Zoroark were used on several teams, the latter likely rising in usage to its ability to cheese Ultra Necrozma.

Well, in the thread itself, there's one for galar but not one for usum

 

[bdt2002]

Well, in the thread itself, there's one for galar but not one for usum

Really? I was expecting the opposite to be true. Might have to take a look at the Galar list, then. Aside from the early-game monster that is Hone Claws Power Trip Rookidee, I’m not sure what else could have placed highly.

 

[Axelerater]

So what about Paldea?

 

[Thunderfang777]

The pictures aren't loading for any of the regions besides Kalos and Alola.

 

[WinterArcanine]

The pictures aren't loading for any of the regions besides Kalos and Alola.

Yeah, it seems they used emotes that got deleted at some point. The full data is linked in the post though:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...nWVephxYSQ/edit?gid=1002485060#gid=1002485060

 

[Thunderfang777]

Yeah, it seems they used emotes that got deleted at some point. The full data is linked in the post though:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...nWVephxYSQ/edit?gid=1002485060#gid=1002485060

I wish the posts would be edited so that the Pokemon images would actually be visible.

 

[Karxrida]

So since this was bumped recently imma make some of my own observations based largely on the counterpart data linked in the OP.

Scyther and Pinsir (Kanto)

The survey predates LGPE so I'm shocked there's even a huge discrepancy here. Neither Scyther or Pinsir are particular good in Gen 1 or Gen 3, and you could make a decently compelling argument that Pinsir is better in Gen 3 solely because it has coverage. I can only imagine this has to be due to people trying to get Scizor in FRLG and not realizing it's postgame only.

Omastar and Kabutops (Kanto)

Another frankly shocking discrepancy, but for an entirely different reason. Outside of Omastar being flat-out better than Kabutops in early gens, you'd think its meme popularity from Twitch Plays Pokémon would have moved the needle here to be more even.

Top 10 Johto Pokémon

I'm surprised Meganium made it this high considering how infamously bad it is and the complete absence of Lapras. Lapras is admittedly a time-sensitive encounter, but it is still one of the best answers to Clair and Lance and availability clearly isn't an issue for Tyranitar.

Tauros and Miltank

I love how Miltank breaks the "cool designs do better" rule presumably because the Whitney fight makes such an impression. If you see a Miltank in the wild you're probably catching it after that.

Zangoose and Seviper

Okay so Zangoose being more popular isn't surprising at a glance (it's probably better and looks cooler), but it's only available in Ruby and I just find it funny that it won even with probable Emerald bias.

Lunatone and Solrock

I was initially really shocked by this graph. While wouldn't call either of the Celestial Rocks super good Pokémon, I would easily argue in favor of Lunatone being much better of the two (it's underrated in Gale of Darkness) because its stats and movepool synergize much better than Solrock's do. But then I remembered Lunatone was not available in Emerald and it very much explains the discrepancy.

Eeveelutions in Sinnoh

The two big things for me here are how high Glaceon and Umbreon got. Glaceon has the worst availability out of all Eeveelutions in Sinnoh (basically right before the 7th Gym), which is a long time to lug an unevolved Eevee around. Leafeon's popularity can at least be explained by the Moss Rock being located in Eterna Forest, which is super early in the game. Umbreon being higher than Espeon is a super weird outliner considering it's behind on every other poll and generall very bad for story runs. I have no idea what pushed it over here.

Eeveelutions in Unova

Only comment here is that I find it funny Vaporeon is second place and it's almost certainly because Scald exists.

 

[Bice]

Small heads up, the images for Generation IV and V are broken

 

[Thunderfang777]

Small heads up, the images for Generation IV and V are broken

I mentioned that. It looks like the images for gens 1-5 don't work.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Wow this is active and relevant again after four years. I made this thread 4 years ago and I didn't think it would come back.

Yeah, it seems they used emotes that got deleted at some point. The full data is linked in the post though:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...nWVephxYSQ/edit?gid=1002485060#gid=1002485060

I wish the posts would be edited so that the Pokemon images would actually be visible.

Small heads up, the images for Generation IV and V are broken

I mentioned that. It looks like the images for gens 1-5 don't work.

Yeah I made the images in the original post using Smogon's Sprite index which they used to have back then. It seems they don't have it anymore and it's since been taken down and removed from existence which is why none of the images from Gens 1-5 worked anymore.

As a result I had to go through all of them and find the sprites from PokemonDB one by one for the first 5 gens which took me a long time (something I don't have as much of nowadays) but now I managed to do it tonight since I had some free time on my hands.

Everything should be fixed now.

---

Anyway, I also went ahead and edited my commentary on the regions one by one to make things more detailed and with a bit of perspective looking back.

I may do a new survey out there for Paldea in the near future if I have time, as well as Hisui (Legends: Arceus) and in about a year from now Lumiose City (Legends: Z-A), as well as maybe LGPE and USUM too. That said, for now before that happens, if I had to foster a guess, I imagine Meowscarada will be bar none the most used starter, while popular team picks will include Tinkaton (I 100% think Tinkaton will be #1), Armarouge and Ceruledge, Garganacl, Baxcalibur, Annihilape, and Kingambit. But if/when I do a survey on it we'll see how that rolls.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I'm surprised Meganium made it this high considering how infamously bad it is

Streisand effect. People call it out all the time as "the worst starter ever" and "totally terrible in-game" and so on, but in my experience that only makes people want to defend it and/or use it for the challenge aspect. And it is still a starter so inevitably it's going to make it onto the majority of teams for players that pick it. Sure some people box their starter but they're definitely in the minority.

Zangoose and Seviper
View attachment 732704
Okay so Zangoose being more popular isn't surprising at a glance (it's probably better and looks cooler), but it's only available in Ruby and I just find it funny that it won even with probable Emerald bias.

Oh lmao yeah I never actually played Ruby and still hugely prefer Zangoose. Think I used Seviper once...? I'm sure at some point I must have. It learns a surprisingly wide spread of moves but it just suuuuuucks.

 

[WinterArcanine]

Anyway, I also went ahead and edited my commentary on the regions one by one to make things more detailed and with a bit of perspective looking back.

I may do a new survey out there for Paldea in the near future if I have time, as well as Hisui (Legends: Arceus) and in about a year from now Lumiose City (Legends: Z-A), as well as maybe LGPE and USUM too. That said, for now before that happens, if I had to foster a guess, I imagine Meowscarada will be bar none the most used starter, while popular team picks will include Tinkaton (I 100% think Tinkaton will be #1), Armarouge and Ceruledge, Garganacl, Baxcalibur, Annihilape, and Kingambit. But if/when I do a survey on it we'll see how that rolls.

That would be awesome! I'd love to see that

 

[Basedwell]

So since this was bumped recently imma make some of my own observations based largely on the counterpart data linked in the OP.

Scyther and Pinsir (Kanto)
View attachment 732697
The survey predates LGPE so I'm shocked there's even a huge discrepancy here. Neither Scyther or Pinsir are particular good in Gen 1 or Gen 3, and you could make a decently compelling argument that Pinsir is better in Gen 3 solely because it has coverage. I can only imagine this has to due to people trying to get Scizor in FRLG and not realizing it's postgame only.

??? Scyther on its own is good in Gen 2. You don’t fight a lot of trainers with good rock or fire moves either. Pinsir’s moveset is a little meh, worse than Scyther’s from what I remember. Either way it’s not hard to envision ppl using it in Gen 3.

Omastar and Kabutops (Kanto)
View attachment 732698
Another frankly shocking discrepancy, but for an entirely different reason. Outside of Omastar being flat-out better than Kabutops in early gens, you'd think its meme popularity from Twitch Plays Pokémon would have moved the needle here to be more even.

Kabutops looks cooler

Top 10 Johto Pokémon
View attachment 732699
I'm surprised Meganium made it this high considering how infamously bad it is and the complete absence of Lapras. Lapras is admittedly a time-sensitive encounter, but it is still one of the best answers to Clair and Lance and availability clearly isn't an issue for Tyranitar.

Have to backtrack to get it, and waiting for the right day is more challenging in Gen 2. Also when most ppl formed their core memories they were children and were likely not aware of where it was.

Tauros and Miltank
View attachment 732701
I love how Miltank breaks the "cool designs do better" rule presumably because the Whitney fight makes such an impression. If you see a Miltank in the wild you're probably catching it after that.

Miltank honestly looks as cool as Tauros to me. Also Miltank is new in Gen 2…

Zangoose and Seviper
View attachment 732704
Okay so Zangoose being more popular isn't surprising at a glance (it's probably better and looks cooler), but it's only available in Ruby and I just find it funny that it won even with probable Emerald bias.

Lunatone and Solrock
View attachment 732703
I was initially really shocked by this graph. While wouldn't call either of the Celestial Rocks super good Pokémon, I would easily argue in favor of Lunatone being much better of the two (it's underrated in Gale of Darkness) because its stats and movepool synergize much better than Solrock's do. But then I remembered Lunatone was not available in Emerald and it very much explains the discrepancy.

Eeveelutions in Sinnoh
View attachment 732708
The two big things for me here are how high Glaceon and Umbreon got. Glaceon has the worst availability out of all Eeveelutions in Sinnoh (basically right before the 7th Gym), which is a long time to lug an unevolved Eevee around. Leafeon's popularity can at least be explained by the Moss Rock being located in Eterna Forest, which is super early in the game. Umbreon being higher than Espeon is a super weird outliner considering it's behind on every other poll and generall very bad for story runs. I have no idea what pushed it over here.

Glaceon was new. Also dark became a physical type which helps Umbreon

Eeveelutions in Unova
View attachment 732709
Only comment here is that I find it funny Vaporeon is second place and it's almost certainly because Scald exists.

Unova has few good water types early to mid game, you can’t get Leafeon and Glaceon until postgame.

 

[Karxrida]

??? Scyther on its own is good in Gen 2. You don’t fight a lot of trainers with good rock or fire moves either. Pinsir’s moveset is a little meh, worse than Scyther’s from what I remember. Either way it’s not hard to envision ppl using it in Gen 3.

The data was very specifically about usage in Gen 1/Gen 3 Kanto.

Funnily enough, the data for Johto shows that Steelix got more use than Scizor, but I chalked that down to Onix being super accessible compared to Scyther.

Have to backtrack to get it, and waiting for the right day is more challenging in Gen 2. Also when most ppl formed their core memories they were children and were likely not aware of where it was.

That still doesn't explain the major discrepancy compared to Tyranitar. You'd have to have some deeper level of knowledge to even realize Larvitar is the pseudo and want to baby it, especially since it's found in the literal last location of the game. Alternatively, the HGSS Safari Zone, which is way more BS to deal with than a Friday encounter you can still manipulate lmao.

 

[Thunderfang777]

You would think that Rapidash would be more popular, seeing as it's the only non-mutually exclusive Fire type in Diamond and Pearl.

 

[Thunderfang777]

I am a bit surprised that Pelliper is so low on the Alola list. You would think that giving Pelliper Drizzle would make it much more commonly used.