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Pokémon that are great competitively but suck in-game (and vice versa)
- Thread starter Yami_Wheeler
- Start date
In the original RBY, all three Eeveelutions were generally very good choices for your team with extremely good stats - Flareon had a special stat of 110 back then iirc so it could still pull off flamethrowers well - that could easily fill the role of your Electric, Water or Fire. In FRLG I've also been able to use all three to great success - funnily enough all the coverage they really needed aside from their STABs was Bite.
This has probably been said before, but I feel Shedinja is a Pokemon that's good in-game, but bad competitively. If you know what's coming up, you can make several portions of the game nearly impossible to lose due to Wonder Guard since type coverage isn't the AI's number one priority. Competitively though, Shedinja get very little use. First off, human players will know to switch out against him and often carry a more divers moveset allowing them to kill Shedinja with ease. Also, hazards and weather instantly kill him, which is obviously more prevalent competitively.
Gust kills Makuhita faster than it can kill you, even factoring in Super Potion and Sitrus Berry. Dustox does even better because Psybeam ignores Bulk Up's boosts. Wurmple for Nuzlocke god!
Zubat doesn't get any moves and it's Zubat...I mean if you want to grind to lv. 20 or something for Wing Attack then okay...
Also Kadabra for Brawly requires extra grinding--Beautifly/Dustox can simply use the gym trainers for EXP and end up at lv. 16/17 anyways.
The main problem with Eevee is that before BW2, it came at a really low level compared to the rest of the game. In BW2 you could get it before Gym 3 around lv. 20. With only a couple extra minutes of biking (and in Castelia City it's really easy to grind out biking), you could get your Espeon which could sweep large portions of the game. The others are pretty good too--idr when you get the evolutionary stones but it's somewhat early.
I really never had any trouble with Brawly, but if Beautifly helped you through it I guess that's a point in her favor. But you gotta admit her use ends there, at least my other examples have more lasting utility.
I guess Eevee is subjective (which evolution is the dud and which is the stud varies game to game) but I take offense to late evolution. Happiness ain't that hard to get, and the first time you get and Eevee (Celadon) the stones are just right there!
For a great metagame poor in-game, gotta go with Breloom. Great metagame, but it's not bad but not really good in-game. Spore is out of the question unless you want to drag Shroomish along for the entire game, and you miss it's better abilities too (poison heal didn't exist in Gen3 and technician was DW only).
I guess Eevee is subjective (which evolution is the dud and which is the stud varies game to game) but I take offense to late evolution. Happiness ain't that hard to get, and the first time you get and Eevee (Celadon) the stones are just right there!
For a great metagame poor in-game, gotta go with Breloom. Great metagame, but it's not bad but not really good in-game. Spore is out of the question unless you want to drag Shroomish along for the entire game, and you miss it's better abilities too (poison heal didn't exist in Gen3 and technician was DW only).
I mostly use mons that are good in-game but not that bad competitively, however I have encountered one exeption.
And that is Abra. That's right, the prevo of the might Alakazam sucks. You have to bring it up to level 20 (i think) with teleport as it's only move. Yea good luck with that, since you probably don't have any HM's or TM's it can learn since you can only catch it very early in-game (before the first badge). After that, it gets this amazing STAB called psywave, which does random fixed damage, like an unreliable dragon rage. Yay.
Well admittedly it is way better when it learns psybeam however by then you're already level 25 and it's a kadabra. However leveling it as an abra is just not a fun experience.
And that is Abra. That's right, the prevo of the might Alakazam sucks. You have to bring it up to level 20 (i think) with teleport as it's only move. Yea good luck with that, since you probably don't have any HM's or TM's it can learn since you can only catch it very early in-game (before the first badge). After that, it gets this amazing STAB called psywave, which does random fixed damage, like an unreliable dragon rage. Yay.
Well admittedly it is way better when it learns psybeam however by then you're already level 25 and it's a kadabra. However leveling it as an abra is just not a fun experience.
Well it evolves at level 16 which is not as bad and can be done before the second gym most of the time. It also gets Confusion right after it evolves and with Kadabra's high special attack Confusion will be strong at that point in the game. Psybeam doesn't come that much later and Psychic is obtained around level 40 which means you don't have to waste the TM. Also you can evolve Kadabra into Alakazam either never or right when it gets to level 16 and at level 16 having an Alakazam is kind of really broken. Dark and Steel types are also rare which helps. Seriously though Alakazam is great both in game and in competitive play.
Wat my memory must have let my down.
Anyway Abra sucks and it's not that worth the trouble, especially since you wont have the exp. share that early :/
Lol Abra is totally worth the trouble. I mean you like catch it around level 10 so you will only need 6 levels at that point which isn't much. Training by switching out is annoying but for so few levels it is really not all that much. Also compared to leveling for around 6 levels to evolve it and having it on your team for like 50 levels it isn't all that much really. I mean compared to stuff like Volcarona and Dragonite who won't evolve until the elite 4's doorstep level 16 isn't all that much.
Smeargle: In the game it sucks. It can only Sketch a move once and that move will probably be from a wild Pokemon or Trainer Battle. Not to mention the horrible stats.
On the Competitive side, it is the jack-of-all trades and is annoying to face.
On the Competitive side, it is the jack-of-all trades and is annoying to face.
Actually, it's pretty decent in Ubers. I mean, it completely walls most Kyogre.
Its trash. Ubers spams statuts, hazards are common.
Not to derail the thread....
In dw i found wormadam-g was actually quite good, too bad it is trash even in pu. Eggexcuter was also very nice ingame, with sleep and nice stabs, but struggles competitively with 7 weaknesses
Overall most 4x stealth rock weak pokes are better in game ._.
Happiness is easy to get but Umbreon like most defensive Pokemon is bad in game. Espeon is better but its movepool sucks and it gets Psychic at level 64, In DP and BW the stones are harder to get
It relearns Sketch every ten levels (10, 20, 30, etc.) if it doesn't already know it. Stats are still atrocious.
I think I'm just reinforcing a bias for my favorite pokemon. Can you blame me? I still think they aren't really that bad in-game but this is all subjective and your opinions aren't wrong per say.
Early normals (like the bugs) are often really useful in-game for 1. HM Slave duties, 2. Huge movepools, 3. Easy/early, 4. Normal is a decent STAB with only one weakness. Some examples in order of Generation: Clefable, Furret, Exploud/Linoone, Bibarel, Stoutland, and... and...
Hmm, I guess Diggersby is a weird inverse, since it's an okay pick-up/HM slave but better in metagame due to Huge Power.
Honorable mention: Raticate is decent in the HG/SS remake but not the original G/S. With sucker punch, bite, the 'fangs, and ghost immunity it wrecks Morty. It does lose steam towards the end of the game, and isn't that great a HM slave.
I'll agree that Eevee sucks in Gen 4, but that's because you get it at lv. 5. Who cares if Espeon's movepool sucks when Psybeam is OHKOing/2HKOing everything not named Scraggy or Sigilyph at least until you beat Clay? Besides, Jolteon's movepool is even worse, and it's useful because it trolls Elesa and destroys Skyla. Clay can't even touch Vaporeon, and Vaporeon gets Aurora Beam early for great coverage. Maybe Umbreon and Flareon suck every game, but Eevee certainly does not.
With the accelerated level curve in XY the Eeveelutions get even better because now they can reach lv. 37 before Gym 5. Maybe even before Gym 4 due to how early the Lucky Egg is.
Eevee varies from game to game. Personally, I always use a Vaporeon in normal runthroughs of LeafGreen since:
A) I always pick Venusaur (great early game and there are plenty of good Fire and Water types later when needed)
B) It actually has a pretty good movepool. As AOPSUser said above, it gets Aurora Beam for coverage and also learns Bite, which was still Special in Gen III. Vaporeon is usually what I use to take Sabrina down thanks to that.
A) I always pick Venusaur (great early game and there are plenty of good Fire and Water types later when needed)
B) It actually has a pretty good movepool. As AOPSUser said above, it gets Aurora Beam for coverage and also learns Bite, which was still Special in Gen III. Vaporeon is usually what I use to take Sabrina down thanks to that.
RE Shedinja: Yeah I agree that competitively, it is garbage. Unless you are playing something like Balanced Hackmons—where Sturdy Shedinja is very much a legitimate threat—it is terrible and really should not be considered most of the time. In-game however—unlike what is suggested in earlier posts on this page—it is not that great at all. Sure the ability to wall entire teams at times is pretty cool but that is pretty much the only thing that keeps it barely above the lowest tier of in-game tier lists, if at all. It is bad. It is slow. It can be OHKOed at any time when you least expect it (Saying you can attempt to see ahead is cool and all but that requires you to know what you are coming up against and that is not always easy). Things like Toxic and Hail OHKO it. Its coverage is terrible. Base 90 Attack is okay in the early-game but in the late-game, it becomes bad. Not to mention its growth rate is horrible early on and what you have is a Pokémon that is really difficult and frustrating to grind. All these things add up and as a result, it is generally considered very inefficient for in-game runs.
I've used Shedinja on a few playthroughs and you'd be surprised how many random trainers have a super effective move against it. It really needs the exp share to make sure it keeps up with your team otherwise you pretty much carry it through the whole game like you would a pre-level 20 magikarp..
Zoroark makes use of illusion heaps better in-game as the AI doesn't figure out how to get passed it. Just put a fighting type at the back of your party and Caitlyn (or any psychic type user) is easily swept. He'd be way better in the metagame if it weren't for team preview..
Speaking of both these guys, I used to pair them up in BW in the subway and world tournament. Zoroark / filler (mine was Heatran) / Shedinja is pretty fun against the AI when it works
Zoroark makes use of illusion heaps better in-game as the AI doesn't figure out how to get passed it. Just put a fighting type at the back of your party and Caitlyn (or any psychic type user) is easily swept. He'd be way better in the metagame if it weren't for team preview..
Speaking of both these guys, I used to pair them up in BW in the subway and world tournament. Zoroark / filler (mine was Heatran) / Shedinja is pretty fun against the AI when it works
Yeah, I'm going to backtrack on Shedinja. I mostly said it since I honestly couldn't think of a decent in-game early bug type for Hoenn. It's funny when it works, that whole 5% of the time.
I'll stand by his use in catching legendaries though. Best thing to play wall while I chuck balls. But I guess that doesn't equate to useful for a whole run.
I'll stand by his use in catching legendaries though. Best thing to play wall while I chuck balls. But I guess that doesn't equate to useful for a whole run.
Catching Mewtwo in FRLG/HGSS with Sableye is so fun.
Time to talk about some mons that haven't been mentioned:
-RBY Nidoking: This thing sucks in RBY competitive due to its Psychic/Earthquake/Blizzard weakness, but it's an absolute god in-game. Thanks to early Moon Stone, you can get a third-stage Pokemon by Mt. Moon, and it has a variety of TMs it can use. You can even cheese it out late-game with X-Accuracy + OHKOs, since X-Accuracy makes all moves 100 (99.6%?) accurate in RBY.
-Ampharos: It's pretty much the only decent Electric you'll get in the Johto games unless you're lucky enough to get Raikou, and Electrics are always useful in-game since there's inevitably multiple sections that will spam Waters. Sucks competitively, though.
-RBY Lapras: Cool, you get this awesome, intelligent Pokemon...at level 15, right before you get the sixth badge. Its level was raised in FRLG, but it's still too underleveled.
-Amoonguss is a bitch in VGC, but in-game, it's not nearly as potent since it's painfully slow and has middling Special Attack. Rage Powder is also useless.
Finally, I've seen some comments about Garchomp sucking in-game. The Gible line's pretty decent in Platinum, since you can just give it the Earthquake TM and two-shot everything else with Dragon Rage early on, but its late evolution and painfully slow growth rate bring it down in the long run. I can't comment on XY since I got an internationally traded one through Wonder Trade.
-RBY Nidoking: This thing sucks in RBY competitive due to its Psychic/Earthquake/Blizzard weakness, but it's an absolute god in-game. Thanks to early Moon Stone, you can get a third-stage Pokemon by Mt. Moon, and it has a variety of TMs it can use. You can even cheese it out late-game with X-Accuracy + OHKOs, since X-Accuracy makes all moves 100 (99.6%?) accurate in RBY.
-Ampharos: It's pretty much the only decent Electric you'll get in the Johto games unless you're lucky enough to get Raikou, and Electrics are always useful in-game since there's inevitably multiple sections that will spam Waters. Sucks competitively, though.
-RBY Lapras: Cool, you get this awesome, intelligent Pokemon...at level 15, right before you get the sixth badge. Its level was raised in FRLG, but it's still too underleveled.
-Amoonguss is a bitch in VGC, but in-game, it's not nearly as potent since it's painfully slow and has middling Special Attack. Rage Powder is also useless.
Finally, I've seen some comments about Garchomp sucking in-game. The Gible line's pretty decent in Platinum, since you can just give it the Earthquake TM and two-shot everything else with Dragon Rage early on, but its late evolution and painfully slow growth rate bring it down in the long run. I can't comment on XY since I got an internationally traded one through Wonder Trade.
I had vivillon on my in-game team for y, and I really liked it. Compound eyes stun spore in the early game helped with catching new pokemon, it had 3 coverage moves with a decent enough BP by level 25, including draining kiss to heal back a bit, when you finally made it to the move re-learner you could pick up the superior sleep powder, and by level 50, your moveset was ready for the E4 with sleep powder, bug buzz, quiver dance, and hurricane. It fit well on my team. :)
I've used Slowbro and Slowking* plenty of times and didn't find them to be a bother. It obviously helps if you have Quick Claw to deal with their awful speed but they have good bulk so taking hits isn't that big a deal. They have decent SpA and pretty big movepools, too (Surf, Psychic, Thunder/bolt, Flamethrower/Blast, Ice Beam/Blizzard, etc). Not to mention in HGSS, Psychic-spam (with STAB) is helpful against Team Rocket's plethora of Poison types, and Slowbro is a good match-up against Bruno and Koga. Own Tempo also has some utility ingame. It also helps that Slowpoke is available really early on in HGSS, so it's not like he needs to do much catching up and can rack up levels as you progress through the game. On top of all that, IIRC, Slowbro is a rare encounter via surfing in the 2nd level of Slowpoke Well which you can get to with only Strength and Surf. Slowbro is not perfect, but it is hardly a poor option in game.
*Okay, Slowking is a bother since you need to get the King's Rock and trade.
X-Accuracy makes your moves ---% since it forces the game to bypass the accuracy check like with Swift.
Also Garchomp still sucks shit in Platinum. Not only is Platinum a super hard game overall but Gabite is super frail (not even mentioning Gible since it should evolve rather quickly). Dragon Rage is good early on but until Byron it has no good gym matchups. It can maybe beat Lucario, IDK, but that's a pretty strong maybe. Also it just seems like everything in-game has Ice Fang for coverage. Gyarados, Floatzel, even Bertha's Gliscor. The shitton of snow in the game doesn't exactly help. I barely had Garchomp in time for Volkner last time, and that was with a 3-mon run.
I had vivillon on my in-game team for y, and I really liked it. Compound eyes stun spore in the early game helped with catching new pokemon, it had 3 coverage moves with a decent enough BP by level 25, including draining kiss to heal back a bit, when you finally made it to the move re-learner you could pick up the superior sleep powder, and by level 50, your moveset was ready for the E4 with sleep powder, bug buzz, quiver dance, and hurricane. It fit well on my team. :)
Yeah Vivillon is pretty god-tier in-game. Struggle Bug, which you pick up in Lumiose City, chews through lots of opponents and even lowers their Special Attack to boot. There's just a little downtime between Struggle Bug and Hurricane but that time is occupied by Korrina and Ramos, so it's not even that bad.
Slowpoke is a huge bother and I really have no idea how you got through HGSS with it. It evolves at level 37, and with the leveling in HGSS that means it won't be evolved until you get to Clair. Also, Slowpoke's Special Attack is a godly Base 40, which means you'll be 3HKOing Golbats and Grimers. How very dominating. Add that to not being able to run away from wildmons. Oh, and Slowpoke has "good" 90/65/40 bulk. Really good, right? Combined with it typing which leaves it weak to Bug, Grass, Dark, Electric, AND Ghost, with three of those being extremely common early-game. It has Base 65 Attack but doesn't get any STAB off that Attack stat until level 32.
In XY yes they are pretty decent thanks to the highly inflated level curve and in RBY it had some use because Psychic-type. Definitely not in HGSS. Unless you have King's Rock+Trade.