I was the opposite. I would Super Rod for Sharpedo soon I got to Mossdeep so I had it for the double battle
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Pokemon that disappointed you in-game despite looking good initially?
- Thread starter DrumstickGaming
- Start date
NuttyRabbit
Banned deucer.
The problem with Crabominable isn't just that it's slow, but that you're stuck with Crabrawler for 95% of the game, and for the last 5% you have it, it doesn't even do anything because it matches up terribly against the last few trainers.
Never. Fucking. Again.
Yes, the dark typing helps for the gym there, but there are much more useful mons you can get earlier to get this gym done. There's even another dark/water type, Crawdaunt. And Crawdaunt actually has a very good moveset, whilst Sharpedo does not. It gets MUCH more physical moves (mainly from TM's), and while it's STAB moves ae almost entirely useless, it is still useful for the gym due to the dark typing. Even then, you could have a Shedinja by then, which can easily take down the Gym if you abuse the AI for the game. Even something as bad as Lombre is good for this gym because of it's STAB moves being good against 3 of the 4 pokemon, and unlike Sharpedo can survive a hit from these mons.
p0ip0le
it's a billion lions
thank god they fixed both crabrawler's and charjabug's painful evolution methods in USUM, with a patch of mt lanakila being accessible before going to poni island and a magnetic field being introduced on blush mountain
i can't speak for crabrawler but charjabug honestly wasn't that bad though
also fuck purrloin that thing is a piece of glass
i can't speak for crabrawler but charjabug honestly wasn't that bad though
also fuck purrloin that thing is a piece of glass
I tried Beartic in a Black 1 Set playthrough a while back I think. It’s a shame really. It has good moves like Icicle Crash and Superpower and Rock Slide, but it can never use them because the Ice typing is so horrible defensively.
Even if I was playing on Shift, I can’t think of many situations where you need to use it. Vanilluxe has Mirror Coat and good power, Cryogonal has screens, and Beartic has...slow diverse moves that it’ll never beat more than one foe with. Even if you like using offbeat Pokémon, I wouldn’t recommend Beartic.
Slow offensive pokemon never feel good to use in a playthrough. Octillery is another example that seems like it would be a ton of fun with its goofy movepool but is a chore to use. In a tough nuzlocke you really learn to value a slow defensive pokemon though.
It's interesting that you say that because when I used Sharpedo on Sapphire it was the MVP of my team thanks to its amazing typing and offensive stats (I also got pretty lucky with a Quiet nature). The biggest thing over Crawdaunt for me was an actual Dark STAB in Crunch and, most of all, the Speed stat. Crawdaunt seems pretty good with lategame Swords Dance but with its low Speed I imagine it struggles to sweep in the E4—something Sharpedo didn't have issues with. My set was Surf / Crunch / Ice Beam / filler (an HM for routes and Rain Dance for the E4). Its low bulk never mattered much when it could still set up or just outright kill stuff.
9-year-old girazard went the full monty and fished up two fresh Sharpedo in their mid-30s and swept Liza&Tate in Ruby without any grinding just by spamming Surf. Sure, it wouldn’t work QUITE so well in Emerald but at the time I’d never had such an easy gym fight.
I think the main reason I found him underwhelming is I almost always chose Mudkip, because just look at the good boy!
When I didn't have Swampert I had Blaziken, and I just had a much better set for Pelipper if I decided to abandon Swampert. And on the 1 run I tried to use Sharpedo was my Blaziken run and it just wasn't performing as well as Skarmory was on the Tate and Liza fight, and continuing forth still wasn't the best. The only major battle it could be used in effectively was Phoebe, who would probably get entirely murdered. Otherwise, it can do nothing to Sidney, it'll have some trouble against Glacia's bulkier Pokemon, can really only do good against Drake if it has Ice Beam or Blizzard, and will also lose to Wallace pretty hard due to all of them being bulkier and more specially tanky, and with Gen 3 Sharpedo being Specially oriented it loses to almost all of them. Perhaps even allowing Gyarados to Ddance once or twice, leaving you in a bad situation. Pelipper however can be useful during Sidney's fight, and while it can't much to Phoebe, it can make sure hail isn't set up during Glacia's fight while also being able to take some hits, and can also get Ice Beam so it can murder Drake, and then proceeds to perform well on the Wallace fight against Ludicolo, Whiscash, and Gyarados.
Just gonna add a little to this.
Slow, offensive mons.
If you're slow, you gotta be bulky. Otherwise, you just don't get to land the big hits you want. This is why a lot of Ice-types are just horrible, especially in-game with all kinds of jank like Double Team and Confusion.
As for my nomination for this post... Turtwig.
It's killing me on Pearl. You have the fantastic combination of bad typing, anemic offense, slow speed, and frailty. In theory, this shouldn't be happening, but in practice, the early game eats Turtwig and Grotle alive.
First of all, Turtwig takes forever to evolve. By the time you beat Roark, it's not bad, but you'll very likely be still rolling with Turtwig when you reach Mars unless you're overleveled.
Purugly just destroys Turtwig. You're probably getting knocked down to 50% before you even get a move off, and when you do, Razor Leaf ain't cutting it.
Then it evolves. Gardenia trips you up by hitting on the special side and making Curse's defense boosts moot, and Jupiter just mauls it. On both cases, you don't really have a lot to retaliate with. Tackle is unironically your best option against Roserade unless you got to Lv. 22 and got Bite. Curse still ain't enough to save it.
It's mindblowing to see a mon with base 89 Atk and Curse hitting like a wet noodle, but it's incredibly consistent when it comes to disappointing me.
It's gonna be a looooong road to Torterra...
As someone who had a crabominable on their team in USUM: I found it pretty fun to use, same with palossand. Maybe my team composition helped, but they never felt like they were bad pokémon. Honestly, the only time I noticed crabominable being too slow was with the final Hau battle, where it wasn't able to kill noivern and fainted instead.
I did use slowbro in one of my teams in Ultra sun, and I remember it being rather painful. It's been too long, so I can't remember a lot of it, but I do remember that it was tanky but never really useful in battle. Took too long to level up, pretty meh stab, and once it evolves you kinda miss out on all the good matchups for it, save for the elite 4.
I did use slowbro in one of my teams in Ultra sun, and I remember it being rather painful. It's been too long, so I can't remember a lot of it, but I do remember that it was tanky but never really useful in battle. Took too long to level up, pretty meh stab, and once it evolves you kinda miss out on all the good matchups for it, save for the elite 4.
TheReturnerOfJuly
Banned deucer.
During Let's Go Eevee, I had a machoke. I got it as a machop, evolved into a machoke, and then my 2 1/2 braincells ( I'm very proud of that number) realized that machamp was a trade evo. He also kinda sucked at everything. Like, Let's Go was a pitiful excuse in the difficulty, but it turned into dark souls with that machoke even though he was an equal level with all of my team (Not exactly, but close) and then I dropped him. Machamp was so cool, but he was only accesible through a trade evolution. I hate trade evos in this current day, since they don't really work like how they were intended to. No one brought the dumpster fire that was Let's Go, so I was stuck basically.
Plague von Karma
Banned deucer.
It's a meme in the RBY Community to talk about how bad Hitmonchan is, to the point that there's an unspoken rule that all RBY discussion must inevitably devolve into mutual outspoken derision towards it.
So why is this piece of shit so hated? Cus it sucks. Real fucking bad. Like, it's to the point that it can lose to a Nidoran-F one-on-one.
When you glance at Hitmonchan, it doesn't seem too bad. It's a Fighting-type with access to Agility, so it can beat up the Normal-types, right? Wrong! Not only does it only have access to Submission like half the roster, but it's frailer than a grandfather clock if you don't read the l. If it's paralyzed, it frequently loses to Snorlax because of the recoil it takes, which it can sustain against a Body Slam that chunks around half its health. But surely those elemental punches are good? Nope, 35 Special causes Submission and Body Slam to outdamage them even against 2x effective hits. Ice Punch is the only good one in hopes you get a freeze and maybe fight a Dragonite, which to be honest is the best thing it can do: hope for a 10.2% Freeze. Or maybe you want Fire Punch for that scary Parasect that stands over your bed at night. This thing doesn't even get Hyper Beam, putting it in the same boat as Farfetch'd. Fucking. Farfetch'd. Maybe it's a good thing that it only has Submission so it can get out of the game as soon as possible so you can use a better Pokemon. Not only is it an RBY Fighting-type, but it's also RBY Hitmonchan.
For a scale on how awful Hitmonchan is, it's basically a worse Machoke, since you aren't using the elemental punches for anything worthwhile. Machoke has QuakeSlide coverage, better overall bulk, as well as Low Kick if you avoid recoil like I avoid my responsibilities. Its better Special and Fire Blast access even takes away Hitmonchan's Fire Punch benefit. With Hitmonchan, your moveset is basically Body Slam / Submission / Agility / Counter or something stupid, did I ever tell you this thing literally cannot touch Ghosts without Seismic Toss or those punches? Wow. Hell, even in the Monotype metagame, some people have debated using Machop over Hitmonchan for their 6th just because Hitmonchan doesn't do anything worthwhile. In fact, like Machoke, it has a better version of Fire Punch thanks to having the same Special + Fire Blast. Can this poor boxer catch a fucking break?
This Pokemon is worse than Farfetch'd, Parasect, Beedrill, and quite a few NFEs. RBY Hitmonchan is easily the worst Fully Evolved Pokemon of all time, nothing even comes close.
yes, it's e-vire time.
During my third playthrough of Diamond, I decided to make a little interesting by transfering my EV trained 3*31 IV Jolly Elekid to the game with Thunderpunch, Cross Chop, Fire Punch and Ice Punch.
After beating Cancide shortly before battling Volkner, I decided to grind for that evolution item in Platinum and then evolve it to this thing. And how should I put it, it rarely kills anything.
It was about level 50 and can't kill a lower level Gyarados after intimidate. I don't get it. And even if we ignore this instance, I never see this thing OHKO a single Pokemon even Double Super Effective moves unless it's a random wild Pokemon.
This thing had the benefit of holding a Lucky Egg. Being trained to hit hard (31 Atk IV and 252 Atk EVs). Has 4 relatively powerful Super Effective Coverage. 123 base Attack. Boosted EXP from Trading. And it still doesn't beat anything that isn't something like Tentacruel.
My weaker Staraptor with 10 levels less does more damage with it's neutral coverage than E-Vire with his Super Effective one.
Maybe I should have breed an adamant one. But honestly, I had better experience with a Modest Staraptor than with this thing.
A very recent example of this from me: Persian in XD. On paper it looks great: fast, should hit hard enough, learns some neat coverage moves, and has Fake Out.
Except for one little thing: in gen 3, Persian learns Fake Out at level 59. So it ended up being relegated to the role of Squishy Attacker, and it wasn't even good at that - even at the same level, it had less that half the attacking stats of the other Pokemon I was using on the team.
Needless to say, it quickly got shoved into the box.
Except for one little thing: in gen 3, Persian learns Fake Out at level 59. So it ended up being relegated to the role of Squishy Attacker, and it wasn't even good at that - even at the same level, it had less that half the attacking stats of the other Pokemon I was using on the team.
Needless to say, it quickly got shoved into the box.
Slugma in Heartgold.
Aside from a prized position in the theoretical battle between Pokemon and Lions, Slugma has had it very rough. In terms of ingame appearances, it's unavailable until midway through Kanto in Gen 2, it's in Hoenn just before the game introduces a torrent of water types, it's in XY where power creep has rendered it next to irrelevant for anything, and I guess it's in Colosseum. It's not good in any of these games, but it is relatively unique, and after expectedly having a miserable time using it in Hoenn, I wanted to try using it somewhere else.
Enter Heartgold. Unlike GSC, it has Primo. He's this strange little mystery gift guy in Violet City that'll give you eggs for Wooper, Mareep, and Slugma should you use an online source to look up the correct codes to tell him based on your trainer ID. While Mareep is available for the Falkner Gym Battle and Wooper isn't available too far after, having access to Slugma this early in Johto is entirely unique, and I thought it'd be fun to maybe see how worthwhile it was.
It is Awful, and using it is a mistake.
To start, you have to hatch it. This is obviously made not fun by not having access to the bike, making it take a long time. There's a cruel irony of this pokemon's ability hatching eggs faster when, at least in this context, it's gonna hatch from the first egg you'll get in the playthrough. (I wonder if it makes hatching Togepi any faster?)
At level 1, Slugma foregoes the tradition of starting out with either a STAB move or a normal move, and instead sinks even lower. It's only attacking move at base is Smog, a 20 Base Power, 70% Accurate move. To put this in perspective, Tackle would be dealing far more damage than this move, and at a higher accuracy. I can't understate the tedium of having to switch train this thing up 7 levels, and the hilarity of the fact that what could be prime exp feeding for it, Bellsprout, is strong enough to beat it 1v1 until it gets Ember. Assuming you have the patience to not clear the place 10 times over before Slugma hatches.
As a milestone, at least here, Ember isn't so bad. 40 Base Power, STAB, coming off of a decent Special Attack stat, all good stuff. Hope you like holding on to it for the rest of Johto because aside from the Fire Blast TM, it will not be getting any new Fire STAB until Lava Plume at level 38.
Especially cruel considering it learns this at a later level than it did Flamethrower in Gen 3, and Fire Blast isn't even as good as the Overheat TM it learned there.
Then, as the advantage of it's very decent Special Attack starts abruptly fades, all the glaring issues it's had the whole time become unignorably abysmal.
What's worth highlighting about this is that Slugma's issues aren't solvable within the current framework of changes being made to buff weaker Pokemon. You aren't going to give it more moves. It's ingame movepool might've been an issue in Gen 4, but even with the far more robust level up moves it gets in ORAS and beyond, its' weaknesses are too overbearing. It's abilities are all staying. They are not only a part of its' identity as a Burn-spreading wall, but is also a part of its' secondary identity as a an Egg Incubator, and replacing Weak Armor makes little sense when flavor-wise it's one of the most sensible users of it. It's base stats likely won't change. It has already received an increase in its' base stats in Gen 7, but that kind of thrown rope came far too late for it to be relevant. I know it's not really the point of the thread to make suggestions outside those specific bounds, but I really want to just point out how much more worthwhile it'd be if Slugma evolved early. Because what all these changes have in common is that they can't actually let the Slugma line take advantage of the single thing that makes it worthwhile; its' unique typing. While it could potentially be improved by evolving at levels closer to its' original evolution level, for the sake of theory, I'll put it at the lowest reasonable point I think it could evolve at; Level 18.EK who? So, what happens?
I think this is a pretty unique case, almost every single other pokemon is much more easily balanced for ingame by tweaking the other available notches, but this case stood out to me in particular as being uniquely impossible within the allotted 'rules', so to speak. If nothing else, I do hope this could maybe spark discussion about these 'rules', and the limitations they create in relation to balancing pokemon compared to other technically changeable dials and knobs.
Aside from a prized position in the theoretical battle between Pokemon and Lions, Slugma has had it very rough. In terms of ingame appearances, it's unavailable until midway through Kanto in Gen 2, it's in Hoenn just before the game introduces a torrent of water types, it's in XY where power creep has rendered it next to irrelevant for anything, and I guess it's in Colosseum. It's not good in any of these games, but it is relatively unique, and after expectedly having a miserable time using it in Hoenn, I wanted to try using it somewhere else.
Enter Heartgold. Unlike GSC, it has Primo. He's this strange little mystery gift guy in Violet City that'll give you eggs for Wooper, Mareep, and Slugma should you use an online source to look up the correct codes to tell him based on your trainer ID. While Mareep is available for the Falkner Gym Battle and Wooper isn't available too far after, having access to Slugma this early in Johto is entirely unique, and I thought it'd be fun to maybe see how worthwhile it was.
It is Awful, and using it is a mistake.
To start, you have to hatch it. This is obviously made not fun by not having access to the bike, making it take a long time. There's a cruel irony of this pokemon's ability hatching eggs faster when, at least in this context, it's gonna hatch from the first egg you'll get in the playthrough. (I wonder if it makes hatching Togepi any faster?)
At level 1, Slugma foregoes the tradition of starting out with either a STAB move or a normal move, and instead sinks even lower. It's only attacking move at base is Smog, a 20 Base Power, 70% Accurate move. To put this in perspective, Tackle would be dealing far more damage than this move, and at a higher accuracy. I can't understate the tedium of having to switch train this thing up 7 levels, and the hilarity of the fact that what could be prime exp feeding for it, Bellsprout, is strong enough to beat it 1v1 until it gets Ember. Assuming you have the patience to not clear the place 10 times over before Slugma hatches.
As a milestone, at least here, Ember isn't so bad. 40 Base Power, STAB, coming off of a decent Special Attack stat, all good stuff. Hope you like holding on to it for the rest of Johto because aside from the Fire Blast TM, it will not be getting any new Fire STAB until Lava Plume at level 38.
Especially cruel considering it learns this at a later level than it did Flamethrower in Gen 3, and Fire Blast isn't even as good as the Overheat TM it learned there.
Then, as the advantage of it's very decent Special Attack starts abruptly fades, all the glaring issues it's had the whole time become unignorably abysmal.
- Slugma is SLOW. It is definitively a low-speed pokemon, a trait that is probably punished more in Johto than in any other region through the use of tons of Sand Attacks, Confuse Rays, Attracts, Poisons, and more.
- Slugma is MADE OF TISSUE PAPER. It's bulk is so pitifully bad that proccing Flame Body doesn't matter because it's rarely anything more than a parting blow.
- Slugma is NOT ACTUALLY THAT STRONG. I mean, at least on paper, Strength is supposed to be this thing's big selling point. And at least for a little bit, Fire Blasts coming from this thing do actually sting. The problem is that they don't usually OHKO, and the aforementioned issues combined with imperfect accuracy and low PP mean Slugma doesn't often get the chance to land 2 powerful attacks.
- Slugma is A SLUGMA. To be more exact, it is not a Magcargo. Magcargo's traits are such that it could actually be pretty damn valuable. It's got a great trio of assets between a Normal resistance, great Defense, and Flame Body, it's got slightly more offensive power, it gets STAB Ancient Power as very rare special rock coverage, and just the ability to exist for a few turns could make Recover very good on it. Problem is, it evolves at Level 38. An evolution timed incredibly conveniently for it to hit the closest thing possible to a stone wall in the form of a Dragon gym that doubles up as a pseudo-Water gym. It then proceeds to get smacked around by Will, Bruno, and Lance while making entirely replaceable contributions against Karen and taking the role of the obligatory Forretress slayer against Koga.
What's worth highlighting about this is that Slugma's issues aren't solvable within the current framework of changes being made to buff weaker Pokemon. You aren't going to give it more moves. It's ingame movepool might've been an issue in Gen 4, but even with the far more robust level up moves it gets in ORAS and beyond, its' weaknesses are too overbearing. It's abilities are all staying. They are not only a part of its' identity as a Burn-spreading wall, but is also a part of its' secondary identity as a an Egg Incubator, and replacing Weak Armor makes little sense when flavor-wise it's one of the most sensible users of it. It's base stats likely won't change. It has already received an increase in its' base stats in Gen 7, but that kind of thrown rope came far too late for it to be relevant. I know it's not really the point of the thread to make suggestions outside those specific bounds, but I really want to just point out how much more worthwhile it'd be if Slugma evolved early. Because what all these changes have in common is that they can't actually let the Slugma line take advantage of the single thing that makes it worthwhile; its' unique typing. While it could potentially be improved by evolving at levels closer to its' original evolution level, for the sake of theory, I'll put it at the lowest reasonable point I think it could evolve at; Level 18.
- GSC ; Slugma stays mostly the same, except I guess it can maybe take on Blaine at a lower level, instead of needing to wait until at least 38 to evolve. Still hardly a guaranteed win until Rock Slide at Level 43, and GSC Blaine is hardly a challenge to most teams anyway.
- RSE ; Slugma gets the closest it could possibly be to being overpowered. When caught in Firey Path, trained, and evolved into Magcargo, it becomes one of the best pokemon the player could bring vs Flannery, and is especially the best thing nearby. It's the single best answer to Torkoal overheat available at that point, and it walls Torkoal without the use of setup, only really fearing excessive paralysis and Attract half the time. In RS, the single thing it fears is Rock Slide from Flannery's second Slugma; In Emerald, it's Magnitude from a Numel. Only the latter of these is a serious threat, and you could make a case based on this that it'd be overpowered, but considering the rest of the game is... well... Hoenn, I don't think that's all to bad a balance to strike. Better than in Vanilla RSE, where it is deadweight in this fight AND in the rest of the game.
- ORAS ; Slugma is still very good vs Flannery. In vanilla ORAS, tweaks to Slugma's movepool make it actually able to take on Torkoal? Kind of? Due to access to Ancient Power. Magcargo with STAB Ancient Power might be too free here. It then does very well against Norman and then proceeds to fall off the same viability cliff as normal. But it at least does something BEFORE that point!
- HGSS ; Slugma is actually good. It goes from being foddered off to fish for Flame Body burns on Scyther to actually being able to beat it 1v1 and solo the gym, it does amazing vs Whitney's Gym even if it doesn't outright beat Miltank due to Rollout, it can use the extra defenses it gets being evolved to be usable against Jasmine and Pryce without folding to neutral or even Not-Very-Effective hits from everything. And after beating Gyms 2-6 with Magcargo, it'll still hit the same endgame wall, but at least it'll have contributed something interesting to fights before that point. Oh and I guess it still beats Blaine for freeish.
I think this is a pretty unique case, almost every single other pokemon is much more easily balanced for ingame by tweaking the other available notches, but this case stood out to me in particular as being uniquely impossible within the allotted 'rules', so to speak. If nothing else, I do hope this could maybe spark discussion about these 'rules', and the limitations they create in relation to balancing pokemon compared to other technically changeable dials and knobs.
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Now, this might be a very belated response... but Unfezant actually surprised me in that it's actually fairly nice in BW1.
It's true that it has tough competition as a Normal-type, its level up movepool sucks, and it has a bad early-game as a result, but once you get to Nimbasa City and purchase the Return TM, it's... actually a good cleaner. With a moveset of Return, Fly (it cannot learn Acrobatics for some reason), Roost and a filler move, and a Silk Scarf, it outspeeds pretty much everything, it can 2HKO a lot of neutral targets with Return and it can even tank some non-STAB Stone Edges (and then PP stall with Roost if that's your thing) like mine did against Ghetsis's Bisharp despite being 2 levels below.
Unfezant, to me, was more of "Pokémon that pulled their weight for you despite looking bad initially" - not a must have, but it was good in the second half of the game. Were it not for the fact I prefer to not use non-starters in playthroughs of multiple games, I'd totally try to use Pidove again in BW2 to see how that early Return works.
Definitely very belated, but I have not really picked up my pokemon Black run since I posted this (played through Pokemon Y instead during that time) So I can post what my team was around when I posted this. Right now I am in Mistralton City, Unfezant holding a Sharp Beak at level 33 with Quick Attack, Fly, Return, and Roost. The rest of my team is a little jank (Whimsicott, Musharna, Vanillite, Stoutland, Unfezant, and Dewott) but I honestly preferred using anything else on my team over Unfezant in battle. Part of it may be my assumption that the regional bird usually puts in a decent amount of work no matter what, but here I was not really feeling it. I had loads more fun using Farfetch'd in Pokemon Y than I ever had using Unfezant at any point in Black, even when I had to spend like two hours straight grinding to beat Grant.
I think the best way to sum my feelings up is that Unfezant is boring, sure it can KO stuff decently, but it is not that impressive even it its own region. I could be mashing attacks with Darmanitan and getting OHKO's, but instead I was getting 3-4HKO's with Unfezant. I can see how it is decent enough, and maybe it will come into it's own in the end of the game but after using it for 15 hours or so I'm disappointed with it.
Honestly the regional bird does always put in a decent amount of work, and Unfezant iself isn't an exception: if you use it, it will do pretty well.
It just stands out as *especially* boring in the context of Gen 5 in particular because Gen 5 went out of its way to make the vast majority of its Pokemon both powerful and unique, so Unfezant just comes off as incredibly bland in that regard. It's further compounded by it sticking to a pretty common archetype/stock design, the bird, whereas some of the other early route introductory Pokemon of Gen 5, such as the monkeys, Stoutland, Musharna, Zebstrika, and Excadrill are at least more unique in terms of the animals they derive from and their typings/in-battle capabilities being nice and unique for Pokemon you catch early on and ease you into the region. Them not being typical rodents/birds/bugs that imitate Kanto's Rattata, Pidgey, and Caterpie is very refreshing.
And then you have a bunch of mid/late game Pokemon who just stand out as extremely exceptional or unique, which makes Unfezant being a very typical regional bird stand out as jarringly bland. I could go down a list, for example
- Lilligant for example has Sleep Powder, can boost with Quiver Dance, then sweep through teams entirely with Petal Dance and Giga Drain, which is super fun.
- Krookodile and Scrafty have Moxie to boost their Attack each time they get a kill, and sweeping with them while they get stronger and stronger with every kill is so satisfying every time you get that sweet Moxie Attack boost.
- Sigilyph and Reuniclus are immune to passive damage and hit hard+have colorful movepools.
- Galvantula has Compound Eyes Thunder, and seeing that powerful Thunder hit gives a rush of excitement every time.
- Cinccino can use Technician or Skill Link (in BW2) in tandem with multi-hit moves to sweep: and watching those moves hit multiple times and *hard* is an awesome feeling that you can't really get from anything else.
- Stuff like Archeops, Darmanitan, Chandelure, and Haxorus (and Conkeldurr, if you can trade) hit so damn hard and nuke everything when you get them, which is fun. Wanna nuke stuff with raw power and destroy stuff in one blow? No prob, these 140+ offensive stats will let you destroy *everything*, plus Darmanitan with Sheer Force boosting its power more just sweetens the deal!
- Eelektross even has colorful coverage to hit so many things super effectively which is fun too.
- And even stuff like Ferrothorn can be fun because Curse+Gyro Ball off of low Speed is fun and powerful.
- Klinklang and Vanilluxe also have interesting strategies to use in spite of their shallow movepools. Shell Smash off of Crustle or Carracosta can also be entertaining to use too. There's probably even more I'm not thinking of.
I could go down the list, but you get the point. So many Pokemon in Gen 5 either have unique strategies or have stats that are so high that they nuke everything, or something among those lines that makes them interesting and fun to use, so Unfezant being as bland as it is just sticks out like a sore thumb. It won't be unusable, per se, but it's certainly not something that comes off as interesting, when Sigilyph and Archeops have much more potential, especially the latter who is a complete beast that destroys the game with Acrobatics. Even moreso when it's following a pretty overdone concept and for many, it was coming in hot off of Staraptor who was exceptional for an early route bird.
It just stands out as *especially* boring in the context of Gen 5 in particular because Gen 5 went out of its way to make the vast majority of its Pokemon both powerful and unique, so Unfezant just comes off as incredibly bland in that regard. It's further compounded by it sticking to a pretty common archetype/stock design, the bird, whereas some of the other early route introductory Pokemon of Gen 5, such as the monkeys, Stoutland, Musharna, Zebstrika, and Excadrill are at least more unique in terms of the animals they derive from and their typings/in-battle capabilities being nice and unique for Pokemon you catch early on and ease you into the region. Them not being typical rodents/birds/bugs that imitate Kanto's Rattata, Pidgey, and Caterpie is very refreshing.
And then you have a bunch of mid/late game Pokemon who just stand out as extremely exceptional or unique, which makes Unfezant being a very typical regional bird stand out as jarringly bland. I could go down a list, for example
- Lilligant for example has Sleep Powder, can boost with Quiver Dance, then sweep through teams entirely with Petal Dance and Giga Drain, which is super fun.
- Krookodile and Scrafty have Moxie to boost their Attack each time they get a kill, and sweeping with them while they get stronger and stronger with every kill is so satisfying every time you get that sweet Moxie Attack boost.
- Sigilyph and Reuniclus are immune to passive damage and hit hard+have colorful movepools.
- Galvantula has Compound Eyes Thunder, and seeing that powerful Thunder hit gives a rush of excitement every time.
- Cinccino can use Technician or Skill Link (in BW2) in tandem with multi-hit moves to sweep: and watching those moves hit multiple times and *hard* is an awesome feeling that you can't really get from anything else.
- Stuff like Archeops, Darmanitan, Chandelure, and Haxorus (and Conkeldurr, if you can trade) hit so damn hard and nuke everything when you get them, which is fun. Wanna nuke stuff with raw power and destroy stuff in one blow? No prob, these 140+ offensive stats will let you destroy *everything*, plus Darmanitan with Sheer Force boosting its power more just sweetens the deal!
- Eelektross even has colorful coverage to hit so many things super effectively which is fun too.
- And even stuff like Ferrothorn can be fun because Curse+Gyro Ball off of low Speed is fun and powerful.
- Klinklang and Vanilluxe also have interesting strategies to use in spite of their shallow movepools. Shell Smash off of Crustle or Carracosta can also be entertaining to use too. There's probably even more I'm not thinking of.
I could go down the list, but you get the point. So many Pokemon in Gen 5 either have unique strategies or have stats that are so high that they nuke everything, or something among those lines that makes them interesting and fun to use, so Unfezant being as bland as it is just sticks out like a sore thumb. It won't be unusable, per se, but it's certainly not something that comes off as interesting, when Sigilyph and Archeops have much more potential, especially the latter who is a complete beast that destroys the game with Acrobatics. Even moreso when it's following a pretty overdone concept and for many, it was coming in hot off of Staraptor who was exceptional for an early route bird.
Unfezant doesn't learn a better physical attacking move than Quick Attack until level 43. And it's a 70 power Facade.
Yes, you can pick up Return in Nimbasa. Yes, you get Fly after the fifth gym. That's still over half the game where your best move is still at 40 power. Pluck-which would be your best Flying move before Aerial Ace-is locked behind the Battle Subway. For insult to injury, Unfezant's only physical attacking Flying move by level up is, at an utter minimum, Sky Attack at 50. If you want to drag a Pidove that far. Otherwise it's 59 for Tranquil or 64 for Unfezant.
Is it a lot better when you can just slap Return on in Black 2? Yes. Unfezant is still really, really bad in the first game.
Yes, you can pick up Return in Nimbasa. Yes, you get Fly after the fifth gym. That's still over half the game where your best move is still at 40 power. Pluck-which would be your best Flying move before Aerial Ace-is locked behind the Battle Subway. For insult to injury, Unfezant's only physical attacking Flying move by level up is, at an utter minimum, Sky Attack at 50. If you want to drag a Pidove that far. Otherwise it's 59 for Tranquil or 64 for Unfezant.
Is it a lot better when you can just slap Return on in Black 2? Yes. Unfezant is still really, really bad in the first game.
Dragonair in Blue. Its statistics are average (61-84) but I expected it to fare well thanks to its wide movepool. Suffice to say, even with Thunderbolt/Surf/Ice Beam/Body Slam, it failed to consistently OHKO opponents.
Ludicolo in Sapphire. After weak Lombre period, I thought the final evolution would prove its worth. Despite above average Special Attack (90) and good movepool, I was surprised how little damage it dealt. Giga Drain has horrendous power in 3rd generation and water STABs are often resisted in late Hoenn.
Bibarel in Platinum. The combination of Simple and X items looked nice on paper but it had neither bulk nor speed to optimally use boosts. Victory Road was a bad segment for it.
Carracosta in White. Almost 500 BST, great physical bulk, good attack. After Shell Smash, its attack becomes monstrous and its speed tolerable. What's the problem? Waterfall and Rock Slide have too low base power. When Carracosta sits on the battlefield with defence debuff, it really needs to OHKO opponents fast.
Turtonator in Ultra Sun. After my experience with Carracosta my expectations were not high. Both Pokemon have similar damage output, bulk, speed and sweeping potential. The problem comes from Ultra's difficulty - these games are just harder than BW. Additionally, I did not expect Alola's weather to get in the way so often. I had pretty abysmal time with it.
Ludicolo in Sapphire. After weak Lombre period, I thought the final evolution would prove its worth. Despite above average Special Attack (90) and good movepool, I was surprised how little damage it dealt. Giga Drain has horrendous power in 3rd generation and water STABs are often resisted in late Hoenn.
Bibarel in Platinum. The combination of Simple and X items looked nice on paper but it had neither bulk nor speed to optimally use boosts. Victory Road was a bad segment for it.
Carracosta in White. Almost 500 BST, great physical bulk, good attack. After Shell Smash, its attack becomes monstrous and its speed tolerable. What's the problem? Waterfall and Rock Slide have too low base power. When Carracosta sits on the battlefield with defence debuff, it really needs to OHKO opponents fast.
Turtonator in Ultra Sun. After my experience with Carracosta my expectations were not high. Both Pokemon have similar damage output, bulk, speed and sweeping potential. The problem comes from Ultra's difficulty - these games are just harder than BW. Additionally, I did not expect Alola's weather to get in the way so often. I had pretty abysmal time with it.
Similar to the Bibarel thing I’ve having trouble effectively using Pancham/Pangoro in Ultra Sun.
Now on paper this thing looks amazing. Iron Fist Thunder Punch / Ice Punch sounds incredible, until you realize you have no Speed or bulk to take advantage of either, so you’re trading more often than you are sweeping. It’s a shame but it will always live in Scrafty’s shadow. You need good defenses with low Speed or a killer ability like Moxie to make a slow mon worth it, and Pangoro is just not all that good.
It also learns Crunch in the 40s. I think level 42 off the top of my head. So it can’t even be a Dark type for a while unless Payback sounds fun to you with how inconsistent it is. Even in okay matchups like Nanu, Intimidate Krokorok with Earthquake can still nuke poor Pangoro.
Hilariously you can live Guzma Masquerain’s Air Slash and OHKO it with Rock Slide sometimes. Maybe that’s something you’re into.
Oricorio in Moon. I like flying types, like form changes, it should be great. Nope. The stats aren't awful, early-game they're pretty good, but they fall off hard. And the movepool, the movepool sucks. You're running Air Cutter/Round/Hidden Power for most of the game. Even the support movepool is rough, being just Teeter Dance/Feather Dance/Roost. Without a good Hidden Power, there's just so little it can hit. The type changes just aren't useful. Flying/Electric is great, except you still run into plenty of rock types, which form switching doesn't help with. So until you reach lvl 40*, there's literally no reason to engage with the main mechanic of this very cool mon. I wanted to like this mon, but she just ended up being a drag.
*on a mon available at lvl TEN
*on a mon available at lvl TEN
More fun with not particularly good Normal types!
Being Fire/Normal in theory is a cool typing, but poor Litleo/Pyroar doesn't learn a better special attack than Ember for a very long time. You're looking at Flamethrower at 36 for an actual good STAB move, or 33 for Echoed Voice for your first Special Normal attack. Couldn't have given it Flame Burst, even?
Fletchling also doesn't have the easiest of times. Not learning Flame Charge until the 30s is straight up sad. I actually like both mons, but it's just tough to use them in their games of origin. And the irony, of course, is Talonflame was fantastic in X Y metagame thanks to Gale Wings being awesome.
Being Fire/Normal in theory is a cool typing, but poor Litleo/Pyroar doesn't learn a better special attack than Ember for a very long time. You're looking at Flamethrower at 36 for an actual good STAB move, or 33 for Echoed Voice for your first Special Normal attack. Couldn't have given it Flame Burst, even?
Fletchling also doesn't have the easiest of times. Not learning Flame Charge until the 30s is straight up sad. I actually like both mons, but it's just tough to use them in their games of origin. And the irony, of course, is Talonflame was fantastic in X Y metagame thanks to Gale Wings being awesome.