"Worst Pokémon Ever"

This is one of my favorite shitposts on this entire website.

While I'm here, I might as well nominate a Pokémon myself.
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Has anyone ever actually tried to use this thing? Its Speed is okay and it has great Special Defense for some reason, but all of its other stats are complete ass. Its attacks are basically slapping your opponent with a piece of wet tissue paper, it has low enough HP that any super-effective attack will almost certainly take it out in one blow, and its Defense allows anything with a half-decent physical attack to absolutely shred it. It can't even make good use of its Special Defense, the one good stat it has, because of how many weaknesses it has and how vulnerable it is to physical damage from literally anything.

So, it sucks ass in battle, but that's kind of expected with early-game Bug types. The thing that makes it one of the worst ever for me is the design. It's obviously based on a ladybug, but they didn't do anything cool or unique with that. It has gloved hands, so what? Every other early-route Bug is either cooler or cuter.

Ledian has nothing to make it worth using. It's not even a meme like Luvdisc because of how forgettable it is.
The perfect example of Johto design incompetence.

I don't expect every Pokemon to be viable in competition but good grief, 99% of Pokemon (borrowing the extreme gimmick Pokemon) should be useable for in-game campaigns. Ledian has a killer design but the typing is generic and doesn't fit the theme and then it is just not useful. Sure, Butterfree is nothing special but it has a niche for in-game play. Ledian is an anchor.

As the old football saying goes: "Looks like Tarzan, plays like Jane." Sorry, the whole situation bugs me.
 
Phione nuff said thx
HEY, I like Phione

also is actually pretty nice for in game, it has the same stats as Glailie which is fully evolved and perfectively usable and a much better typing, sure it needs TMs to function but that's not really an issue after gen 4, and frankly all you need is an ice move to be fine as a water type
 
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ScraftyIsTheBest

On to new Horizons!
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What makes Ledian, and by extension Ariados, even worse is their evolution levels. Ledyba evolves at Level 18. Spinarak evolves at Level 22. This is quite late for early game Bug-types, and in the context of the Johto games, you will be at least 3-4 gyms in, and Whitney and Morty are already very strong by then, so they will still absolutely wreck Ledian or Ariados and they are already severely behind. What this means is that you can't even get a quick leg-up on your opponents with a stronger Pokemon compared to theirs like you can with other early game Bugs like Butterfree/Beedrill, Beautifly/Dustox, Kricketune, and Vivillon.

Which essentially means that Ledian and Ariados fail even as an early Bug-type. With the other ones I mentioned, they not only are obtained early, they evolve all the way extremely early on at ~Level 10, usually around the time of the first gym. And most of them have the gimmick of serving as the ideal introductory Pokémon because they not only evolve early, they do it in a way that's intuitive to a kid and teaches them the concept of Pokémon evolution clearly through the insect metamorphosis phase, larva->pupa->imago, which helps a new player clearly understand said concept, while in doing so they become very strong Pokémon early on for the point where they do, getting the quick power advantage early on as even though their stats don't cut it in the long term, they will be strong allies for the point where they fully evolve, being very good and powerful for that point and will nicely take hits from and other weak Pokémon you see in the early-mid game and hit back hard, effectively acting as an early-game crutch and powerhouse to help against opponents your other Pokémon might have trouble with in their weakest stage.

Yes, in the long term, they will inevitably fall behind as eventually when you get to the mid-game and late-game their stats just don't cut it anymore and they will become more of a burden than an asset, and you will inevitably replace them as the power level of the game goes up and your available options increase, presumably with a stronger mon who shows up mid-game and especially in the late game. But Ledian and Ariados fail even in that regard because they evolve 3-4 gyms into the Johto games which means they already struggle to reach their full potential, and by that point their 380ish BST isn't even that impressive to begin with when they do finally evolve. At least the other early Bugs can get a quick leg up where they end up being strong for an early point of the game: even Beautifly/Dustox has a good gym in Brawly which is extremely early in the Hoenn games and both effectively trivialize him, but Ledian and Ariados can't even get that.

It's just utterly confounding on every level, really.
 

The Mind Electric

Calming if you look at it right.
What makes Ledian, and by extension Ariados, even worse is their evolution levels. Ledyba evolves at Level 18. Spinarak evolves at Level 22. This is quite late for early game Bug-types, and in the context of the Johto games, you will be at least 3-4 gyms in, and Whitney and Morty are already very strong by then, so they will still absolutely wreck Ledian or Ariados and they are already severely behind. What this means is that you can't even get a quick leg-up on your opponents with a stronger Pokemon compared to theirs like you can with other early game Bugs like Butterfree/Beedrill, Beautifly/Dustox, Kricketune, and Vivillon.

Which essentially means that Ledian and Ariados fail even as an early Bug-type. With the other ones I mentioned, they not only are obtained early, they evolve all the way extremely early on at ~Level 10, usually around the time of the first gym. And most of them have the gimmick of serving as the ideal introductory Pokémon because they not only evolve early, they do it in a way that's intuitive to a kid and teaches them the concept of Pokémon evolution clearly through the insect metamorphosis phase, larva->pupa->imago, which helps a new player clearly understand said concept, while in doing so they become very strong Pokémon early on for the point where they do, getting the quick power advantage early on as even though their stats don't cut it in the long term, they will be strong allies for the point where they fully evolve, being very good and powerful for that point and will nicely take hits from and other weak Pokémon you see in the early-mid game and hit back hard, effectively acting as an early-game crutch and powerhouse to help against opponents your other Pokémon might have trouble with in their weakest stage.

Yes, in the long term, they will inevitably fall behind as eventually when you get to the mid-game and late-game their stats just don't cut it anymore and they will become more of a burden than an asset, and you will inevitably replace them as the power level of the game goes up and your available options increase, presumably with a stronger mon who shows up mid-game and especially in the late game. But Ledian and Ariados fail even in that regard because they evolve 3-4 gyms into the Johto games which means they already struggle to reach their full potential, and by that point their 380ish BST isn't even that impressive to begin with when they do finally evolve. At least the other early Bugs can get a quick leg up where they end up being strong for an early point of the game: even Beautifly/Dustox has a good gym in Brawly which is extremely early in the Hoenn games and both effectively trivialize him, but Ledian and Ariados can't even get that.

It's just utterly confounding on every level, really.
Even Butterfree has a niche in HG/SS because it has Compound Eyes and a bunch of status moves. You can get a quick sleep off with better accuracy and switch to something that's actually good to start setting up. The best thing Ledian can do is Baton Pass speed or attack to something else, and there are way better Pokémon for doing that. Ariados is actually worse than Ledian in terms of moveset, the only interesting thing it has is its signature move Spider Web which is literally just Mean Look. It can actually do well against Morty with Shadow Sneak and Sucker Punch, but after that there's not much of a reason to use it for anything.
 
Competitively, the worst pokemon is Unown. Once your opponent knows what hidden power you have, its begging to get set up upon. At least Magikarp grows into something, and Sunkern can use moves like endeavour and leech seed.


In terms of preference.
Worst Pokemon is Garbodor. Its quite rare for pokemon from the middle generations to get stuff like mega evolution, alolan form, unique Z-Move or G-Max. Even though there are many that could do with a redesign.
.In Garboror fact its literally the only G-Max from a generation other than 1 or 8 to get a G-Max form, besides Melmetal. But they give a Gigantamax form to a literal pile of garbage.

It wasn't a Pokémon that anyone liked in the first place. It has never been all that interesting competitively, given that we already have a lot of average-stat pure poison types. With its only gimmick being the use of weak armour to get off another layer or spikes or t-spikes.
Its just a gross pile of trash with googly-eyes with a pre-evolution makes a fart noise in its cry.
 
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CTNC

Doesn't know how to attack
Worst Pokemon is Garbodor. Its quite rare for pokemon from the middle generations to get stuff like mega evolution, alolan form, unique Z-Move or G-Max. Even though there are many that could do with a redesign.
.In Garboror fact its literally the only G-Max from a generation other than 1 or 8 to get a G-Max form, besides Melmetal. But they give a Gigantamax form to a literal pile of garbage.

It wasn't a Pokémon that anyone liked in the first place. It has never been all that interesting competitively, given that we already have a lot of average-stat pure poison types. With its only gimmick being the use of weak armour to get off another layer or spikes or t-spikes.
Its just a gross pile of trash with googly-eyes with a pre-evolution makes a fart noise in its cry.
But I like Garbodor... Okay, I admit I'm biased because it was the only available Toxic Spikes user for my Black playthrough, but Trubbish's garbage arms are kind of cute. I'd say it's one of the cutest Poison types, but that isn't saying much... I think it's funny that the Gigantamax took the burst garbage bag idea to the extreme, but the toys in it being obviously toys instead of looking like actual skyscrapers and planes makes it hard to defend too.

The only other thing I can say in its defense brings me to something that I'm not sure how it hasn't been mentioned yet. You call Trubbish's cry a fart? Listen to Stunky, or even worse, Skuntank.
 
What makes Ledian, and by extension Ariados, even worse is their evolution levels. Ledyba evolves at Level 18. Spinarak evolves at Level 22. This is quite late for early game Bug-types, and in the context of the Johto games, you will be at least 3-4 gyms in, and Whitney and Morty are already very strong by then, so they will still absolutely wreck Ledian or Ariados and they are already severely behind. What this means is that you can't even get a quick leg-up on your opponents with a stronger Pokemon compared to theirs like you can with other early game Bugs like Butterfree/Beedrill, Beautifly/Dustox, Kricketune, and Vivillon.
Doesn't help that an actual strong Bug Pokémon is available fairly early (at least, before Ledyba and Spinarak evolve) in Heracross. That leaves them all the more outclassed as Bug-types, as Heracross actually has some pretty nice type advantages in HGSS (Thinking of Whitney, Chuck (due to resisting the STABs), Jasmine and Pryce, as well as Will and Karen for the E4). And even then it sucks in the og games due to having virtually no Fighting-type STAB available (Rock Smash is pitifiully weak), but as I said in HGSS it's a nice Pokémon to have that outclasses the two other bugs by a fair lot.
 
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Doesn't help that an actual strong Bug Pokémon is available fairly early (at least, before Ledyba and Spinarak evolve) in Heracross. That leaves them all the more outclassed as Bug-types, as Heracross actually has some pretty nice type advantages in HGSS (Thinking of Whitney, Chuck (due to resisting the STABs), Jasmine and Pryce, as well as Will and Karen for the E4). And even then it sucks in the og games due to having virtually no Fighting-type STAB available (Rock Smash is pitifiully weak), but as I said in HGSS it's a nice Pokémon to have that outclasses the two other bugs by a fair lot.
Not just Heracross. Spinarak/Ledian should evolve around Whitney. That's also when you hit the Bug-Catching Contest. Pinsir, Scyther, Butterfree, and Beedrill are all there. Not to mention Paras and Venonat. There's so many easily-available bug options, all with different uses, that I struggle to see a reason to go with one of the actual Johto bugs.
 
Not just Heracross. Spinarak/Ledian should evolve around Whitney. That's also when you hit the Bug-Catching Contest. Pinsir, Scyther, Butterfree, and Beedrill are all there. Not to mention Paras and Venonat. There's so many easily-available bug options, all with different uses, that I struggle to see a reason to go with one of the actual Johto bugs.
Yeah, fair, I forgot about Scyther. I wonder why since it's a solid mon. Other ones are also pretty solid, true. There's just no way you're using Ledyba and Spinarak. Even Pineco looks better due to it being able to stack hazards up, having Explosion and get a handy Steel-typing upon evolving.

iirc finding a Heracross is kind of a pain even if it's technically available. I think only certain trees can spawn Heracross but they vary game to game.
It's worth the cost in HGSS imo.
 
Cool thread, not the worst one to be revived. Time to analyze what the worst Mon of each type is from the Competitive and in-game (more Nuzzlocke than 10 old people playing, which is what in-game VRs look like are for here ) perspective.

Grass: Lots of rubbish to choose from. Grass-Bug is a terrible combination, yet the Mons are somehow saved from being the single worst: Parasect has Dry Skin and Spore, Leavanny has passable Speed and SD or Sticky Web. Wormadam-Grass would have been the "winner" of this type, but in SM it got Quiver Dance. Grass-Dark has many weaknesses too, but all of Cacturne, Shiftry and Zarude are really strong offensively (the later 2 fast as well, the former has Sucker Punch and extra immunity), so they can't be the worst either. Grass Dragon it's another terrible defensively combination, but the gimmicks of all of Alolan Egg, Flapple and Appletun give them enough of a niche both in Competitive and in-game. It would have been funny to have a Legendary like Calyrex be the worst Grass Mon, but he also isn't weak enough for that. So, the worst Grass Mon won't be the one with the most weaknesses, but a pure Grass instead, which still gives a lot of options. Cherrim has a cool gimmick for Double Battles, Lurantis has Contrary, Maractus some cool abilities + Spikes, Leafeon has SD and Wish with decent Stats, Tsareena has the ugliest design but surely isn't the worst Mon, Meganium is amazing for Nuzzlockes and isn't useless in Competitive. Which is the worst, then? Among the miriad of physical Grass type Attackers there is one that is both slow and not bulky, while not being terribly strong either. I am looking at you, Carnivine. It's literal Moveset consists in 4 out of SD, Sleep Powder, Synthesis, Power Whip and Knock Off, which doesn't look too bad until you look at the Stars. Why does it have a decent Special Attack and no Movepool there? In the anime it doesn't look so slow, why in the game a f***ing Hippowdon outruns this shit. The ability makes sense, yet is one that doesn't benefit Carnivine except for a Spikes immunity. Poison Heal would improve Carnivine so much and it does make sense on a carnivorous plant (which use several acids to dissolve the insects they catch). From the Competitive point of view, this is for me the worst Grass Mon. Yet, in-game Nuzzlockes I have been able to make this work. What I don't see anyone working is in-game is Sunflora. Another slow and frail Mon with shallow Movepool. Sure, you can use some weird Sun + Trick Room team, especially in a Double Battle. However, in-game you need the following for that:
-Sun Stone.
-Drought Mon. In some games you have an early Torkoal, but Vulpix/Ninetales have the ability as Hidden.
-A good Hidden Power on the useless flower, ideally Fire or Ice.
-Earth Power Move Tutor.
-Trick Room TM, a Mon to learn it and have that Mon with good sinergy with Sunflora and the Drought Mon.
So, it's almost impossible to make Sunflora work in-game and it's clearly the worst Grass Mon there.

Fire: A type in which fast glass cannons and medium speed all-rounders (see Heatran or Arcanine) succeed. So, what we will be looking for is again a slow Mon with low bulk. Flareon and Magcargo certainly are slow and not entirely Bulky, yet they both have Recovery moves and are able to wall and outlast some threats. Both of them even have sweeping potential with Guts Toxic Orb + Flame Charge and Shell Smash respectively. Coallosal doesn't have recovery, but has even more Bulk along with good hazard support. There are also Alolan Marowak and Emboar, but despite their bulk not being the highest, the damage they do is insane. What is left? BW introduced many Fire types, so it is natural that the worst one would be there. Heatmor does hit hard and actually has some coverage (Superpower, Thunder Punch, Giga Drain, some Dark moves), but that is where the positives end. Like Sunflora and Carnivine, it's slow and frail. Ant-Eaters in real life are strong and bulky, sometimes they fight vs jaguars and sometimes they even win against them! Why the Mon is so frail then? I can understand the Speed part, but instead of maximizing both offensive Stars, Heatmor should have higher defenses. Abilities make sense, but better ones are needed to make Heatmor different from other Fire Mons. Originally Heatmor didn't learn Overheat, but nowadays it does, so Contrary would improve this Mon a lot, since it also learns Superpower. In-game, particularly in BW it would certainly help that a Mon with these Stats would appear somewhere earlier than VICTORY ROAD. Seriously, what were the game designers thinking? At least Braviary, Durant, Mandibuzz and Bisharp justify appearing so late by being good Mons, Heatmor should have been present in Lostlorn Forest or somewhere close to there.

Water: For a type with so many Mons, this one is surprisingly easy. I doubt they will ever make a Mon as bad as Luvdisc is. No Stats, no movepool, no unique ability and Lumineon of a things fully outclasses it. In Midele Emerald Hack we made the obvious thing: make Heart Scale double all Stats when held. It became a very strong Mon, but still limited by low HP, shallow Movepool and vulnerability to Knock Off and Trick. Probably in Competitive this would be UU or UUBL Mon. This is what the Pokemon Company should have done if not in 3rd Gen, at least in 6th one, when they started improving some Mons.

Bug: Before BW, this type was designed to have the weakest Mons, after that the philosophy changed and every single Bug Mon created had some useful niche or gimmick. So, the worst Bug has to be somewhere in the first 4 Gens. Illumise could be a good candidate, but it has 2 recovery Moves and can support with Prankster weathers or Thunder Wave. Pure Bug is actually an uncommon typing, way less common in fully evolved Mons than the million of Bug Flyings that... just exist. Yanmega is clearly (with the 6th Gen's Vivillon permission) the best of them, by being powerful with Speed Boost and especially Tinted Lens. A discount Yanmega with lower Stats but Quiver Dance is Mothim. A discount Mothim is Butterfree. A discount Butterfree and the worst of the 2 options Wurmple evolves into is Beautifly. There is no discount Beautifly but there are still Bug Flying Mons. Ninjask influenced some BP Bans in Adv OU and even in later Gens when BP became banned, it still hits hard with Acrobatics and U-Turn, while outspeeding everything. Vespiquen never had such success, but at least it has bulk and some exclusive fun moves. Which brings us to the actual worst Bug, Ledian. Like Luvdisc, it has no Stats at all. The Movepool is very wide, but without Stats or some useful (see:Huge Power) ability, this thing is irredeemable. Sure, it has Dual Screens... like half of the Pokedex. It also has Batton Pass, but apart from not having the bulk to use it, the move has become a TM with a wide distribution. In Midele Emerald this Mon was improved too with Lucky Punch, which doubled the offensive Stats for it. In real games this of course won't be possible (Lucky Punch is a Chansey item), so the only options left are improving the Stats a lot or giving a broken ability like Huge Power or Wonder Guard.

Normal: In first 4 Gens, Ditto is clearly the worst, but then it gained Imposter. Fortunately, there are still a billion of outclassed pure Normals to choose from. Early game rodent would be a good candidate for worst normal and of those, Watchog is by far the worst. However, it doesn't have terrible Stats and the Movepool is quite wide even having SD + coverage for Mons that resist Normal. Castform gets some use in Double Battles with weather teams. Farfetch'd would be another "strong" candidate, but in recent Gens it has been gaining moves, improving Stats and crits now happen more often with Stick. The Mon that never improved since appearing is Delcatty. Terrible Stats across the board dont save the wide Movepool it has. It does have an exclusive ability, but Normalize makes it walled by Ghost. If it gave Scrappy effects too and Delcatty had higher Stats, it could be saved, but right now it's a completely irrelevant Mon that in-game is also very easy to miss, since it appears in very few places.

Poison: Strong and underrated type since the beginning of Pokemon saga. Finding worst Mon here is pretty hard, though it would easily be Beedrill if it didn't gain a Mega. Swalot, despite being outclassed by Muk is still a very bulky Mon with wide movepool. Gardobor has Hazards and wide movepool too. Seviper has SD, Coil and Special wallbreaking potential, with even Trick, Glare and Final Gambit to support the team. Similarly, Arbok has low Stats but useful Movepool and 2 good abilities in Shed Skin . Victreebel is a strong Mon in Sun, while his counterpart Vileplume has good bulk and many support options, even Strength Sap. Maybe we should return to Beedrill... and Mons with the same typing. Scolipede certainly isn't even close to being the worst. Venomoth has Quiver Dance + Tinted Lens, while Dustox has also good bulk and Iron Defense + Roost to boost everything, along with immunity to Freeze. This leaves Ariados, who avoided being the worst Bug, but the bar of not being the worst Poison is much higher. Ariados has Sticky Web, Toxic Spikes, SD and priority moves to combine with the STABs. Yet it's not enough, since those Stats suck, though not as much as Ledian's. It's for sure usable in-game but don't expect it to carry your team, since it's always getting hit before being able to move and it won't take many hits. Higher Stats would be a solution, like for every bad Mon. Another typing such as Bug-Dark, would also help. In-game, Shadow Tag wouldn't improve it much (except when facing it), but in Competitive, Shadow Tag Ariados would be very good... when not banned.

Electric: The curse of being the worst electric certainly belongs to the pikaclones, after all, they were designed to be bad. Yet, not all of them are equally bad. Pachirisu managed to win the VGC 2014 World Tournament due to its support abilities, which gave big inspiration to all the gimmick Mons users like me. Togedemaru has the very solid Steel typing and good movepool and abilities. Morpeko has OU level power with Aura Wheel, the rest of its traits are underwhelming, but it at least does hit hard. Emolga is not that strong, but it's fast and has 2 immunities. From the Competitive point of view, Plusle and Minun are the worst Electric Mons. They are not entirely bad, but very outclassed by Raichu, their only good strategy, Baton Pass, was banned due to better Mons with the move. Things could have been different if Plus and Minus worked in Single Battles too, as this would give more than 400 Special Attack before any boost. Of course, more offensive movepool would still be needed and the restriction of running the 2 of them (unless you had Plus/Minus Ampharos, Manectric or Klinklang too) is not comfy. In-game, Plusle and Minun are much better, since they learn one of the best moves: Encore. Therefore, in-game the worst Electric has to be the remaining Pikaclone: Dedenne. Not entirely bad Mon either and Cheek Pouch is a fun ability. It only really needs one move to be usable: Moonblast. Why doesn't it learn Moonblast?

Ground: Somehow Grass Wormadam avoided being the worst Grass and the worst Bug. However, Ground Wormadam is not that lucky, unique typing and Quiver Dance isn't enough to compensate all the negative aspects about it, mainly bad Stats and Movepool. I don't really know how to improve this one besides giving more Stats and Movepool.

Fight: Why are there so many similar Fight Mons? Who is worse, Throh or Sawk? Lots of boring Mons here, probably this will be between the above 2, Grapploct and Hitmonchan, which I think is the actual worst (at least Grapploct gets an exclusive trapping move).

Psychic: Easy "win" for Unown. Even if Legends of Arceus buffed Hidden Power, it's still it's only Move and Stats are still bad. Maybe each Unown should learn all moves that Start with its letter. That raises the question about what to do with "?" and "!" Unowns. Give them Midele Power, maybe?

Rock: Ah, yes, the other type with 5 weakness, lots of trash here. Corsola could be the choosen one, but it got Regenerator and enough bulk to use it. Magcargo and Coallosal also avoid being the absolute worst for the same reasons they did in Fire type. Bastiodon has 0 offensive power, but huge bulk and Steel typing. Carbink is entirely outclassed by Diancie, but on its own merits is solid enough, I have actually used this Mon in-game. The one Rock that has almost nothing going for it is Sudowoodo. Sure, it doesn't have Movepool problems and the abilities Sturdy and Rock Head ( with Head Smash, Wood Hammer and Double Edge) are great, but those Stats suck ass. It doesn't hit hard enough for the low bulk and terrible speed it has. It surely needs much more Speed and Grass typing to hit harder with the Wood Hammer.

Ghost: This one is hard, Ghosts are actually good in general. Even the ones that were the worst (Misdreavus and Banette) ended up (Mega)evolving. As weird as it sounds, the worst Ghost has been invented in 8th Gen and has good offensive Stats and wide Movepool: the name is Cursola. Same problem that many of the worst Mons have, low bulk and low Speed. Even Weak Armor isn't enough to outspeed most things, Perish Body meanwhile forces it to switch out. One way to improve Cursola would have been to make Perish Body trap the opponent too. Combined with Protect, this would help to achieve some fun KOs and frustrate the opponent.

Ice: Again, many of the bad Mons here have been improving in recent years: Glalie got Mega, Vanilluxe Snow Warning, Beartic Slush Rush. Dewgong didn't improve much, but bad as it is, the bulk is enough to use Encore both in-game and Double Battles. Delibird on the other hand did get lots of Movepool additions, including Spikes, Destiny Bond and Brave Bird. Stats remain the same, though, so I have to put it as the worst Flying Mon. The most infuriating thing is the fact that it gets Vital Spirit and Insomnia, which are essentially the same ability. If Stats are this bad, why not replace one of those abilities for Huge Power or Wonder Guard? Another option would be to make Present an Ice Move with 250 power.

Dragon: Oh, fuck, this type has been designed to be one of the best, how can I identify the worst one? Turtonator has Shell Smash, Noivern has crazy Speed, Drampa good bulk and Movepool. Altaria could have been the worst, until it got a Mega. Maybe we should look for the one with the worst defensive typing? That has to be Grass Dragon. Of these, Appletun improves the typing with Thick Fat, while Alolan Exeggutor has great power and coverage, along with Harvest, which is always ab plus. This leaves Flapple as the worst. With Hustle, Flapple hits hard, but the problem is (apart from being blind) the lack of coverage, so Steel types wall it entirely. A solution would be giving Flamethrower to Flapple, which would allow it to use the decent Special attack it has.

Steel: Another typing designed to be the best. Fortunately, just like Ground, it has a Steel Wormadam to be a literal piece of trash.

Dark: Yet another strong type. As legends go, Guzzlord is one of the worst, but it's far from being the worst Dark type, that HP is huge. Absol could have been the worst, but even with a wasted opportunity to get the Fairy typing, it at least got a Mega. Mightyena is probably the worst competitively, those Stats are way too low and the offensive moves have low power. Strong Jaw as ability would help it a lot. In-game Mightyena has one of the best abilities in Intimidate, which makes it a good team player. I was about to say Liepard is the worst in-game Dark, but then I remembered it has Prankster + Encore. So, it has to be Thievul. I didn't play SwSh, but from the Stats and movepool perspective, it has few things going for it, every other Dark looks better. Maybe an ability such as Trace would improve it, with more Stats too.

Flying: Technically either Ledian or Delibird are the worst here, but in order to not repeat myself, the next worst has to be Beautifly, outclassed by every single Quiver Dancer.

Fairy: Finally, the end of the list. Dedenne has already been mentioned, so I will spare it here. Slurpuff has Belly Drum and Sticky Web + Unburden, while Aromatisse has Trick Room + huge Wishes. Really, Fairy types are generally by just using Moonblast or Play Rough alone, it's hard to make a choice. Comfey doesn't have Moonblast though and Draining Kiss needs boosts to do actual damage. The bulk leaves a lot to be desired and I don't think Triage is enough, so this will be the worst Fairy.

The period between second and fourth generations looks to be the one in which more lackuster Mons has been introduced. Mons from Kanto have been vastly improved in recent generations, while Mons from BW and afterwards had more work put into them from the very beginning. There are exceptions of course, poor Heatmor is still waiting to be better than his prey Durant.
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming

If you put me on the spot and asked me to quickly nominate one Pokemon that's in desperate need of a new form, evolution or at the very least a serious stat buff my mind would likely gravitate to Fearow. I don't know if it's at the top of the list, but it's up there.

The thing is, it didn't used to be THAT bad. In fact, it's surprisingly good in Johto playthroughs, specifically Kenya the in-game trade Spearow who gets that spicy EXP boost. But alas, as far as I am aware that's its all-time peak essentially. From a casual standpoint its ills are two-pronged. For one it's the awkward middle child of the Kanto Normal/Flyings, not having the iconic simplicity of Pidgeot, the goofiness of Farfetch'd or the "actually decently cool and strong" factor of Dodrio. Then there's the issue of it barely being given the light of day in regional Pokedexes. It isn't quite as bad as the likes of Purugly, but post-Kanjoh it's only appeared in Kalos and Alola. That sounds ok until you realize that it might as well not even be in the former since for some utterly inscrutable reason it has been locked away to Victory Road as its sole encounter spot in the whole game.

If that wasn't bad enough, its competitive record is several factors bleaker. I haven't even come across it being particularly notable in niche old gen lower tier formats other than RBY NU. If that's as good as it gets, then yeah, bad bad bad. See, in more recent generations Game Freak tried to give it a cute little "gimmick" if you will where it relies on the dual combo of Drill moves in Drill Peck and Drill Run. The problem is that even setting aside its dogwater stat block this combo is just an inherently worse version of stuff like Staraptor's famous Brave Bird + Close Combat combo or Talonflame's partially priority dual STAB. You would think that maybe at the very least being a Gen 1 mon would give it one or two wacky coverage options, but even that's too good for it apparently.

So yeah, that's the tea with this guy. I don't mortally despise him, he just sucks in a series of really unfortunate ways. At least Sunflora and Dunsparce aren't supposed to be taken that seriously from the onset which makes their in-game weakness a bit more palatable in a jokey sense. Fearow is just mid incarnate.
 

Celever

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If you put me on the spot and asked me to quickly nominate one Pokemon that's in desperate need of a new form, evolution or at the very least a serious stat buff my mind would likely gravitate to Fearow. I don't know if it's at the top of the list, but it's up there.

The thing is, it didn't used to be THAT bad. In fact, it's surprisingly good in Johto playthroughs, specifically Kenya the in-game trade Spearow who gets that spicy EXP boost. But alas, as far as I am aware that's its all-time peak essentially. From a casual standpoint its ills are two-pronged. For one it's the awkward middle child of the Kanto Normal/Flyings, not having the iconic simplicity of Pidgeot, the goofiness of Farfetch'd or the "actually decently cool and strong" factor of Dodrio. Then there's the issue of it barely being given the light of day in regional Pokedexes. It isn't quite as bad as the likes of Purugly, but post-Kanjoh it's only appeared in Kalos and Alola. That sounds ok until you realize that it might as well not even be in the former since for some utterly inscrutable reason it has been locked away to Victory Road as its sole encounter spot in the whole game.

If that wasn't bad enough, its competitive record is several factors bleaker. I haven't even come across it being particularly notable in niche old gen lower tier formats other than RBY NU. If that's as good as it gets, then yeah, bad bad bad. See, in more recent generations Game Freak tried to give it a cute little "gimmick" if you will where it relies on the dual combo of Drill moves in Drill Peck and Drill Run. The problem is that even setting aside its dogwater stat block this combo is just an inherently worse version of stuff like Staraptor's famous Brave Bird + Close Combat combo or Talonflame's partially priority dual STAB. You would think that maybe at the very least being a Gen 1 mon would give it one or two wacky coverage options, but even that's too good for it apparently.

So yeah, that's the tea with this guy. I don't mortally despise him, he just sucks in a series of really unfortunate ways. At least Sunflora and Dunsparce aren't supposed to be taken that seriously from the onset which makes their in-game weakness a bit more palatable in a jokey sense. Fearow is just mid incarnate.
The thing that's always irked me the most about Fearow, which you alluded to in this post, is that they created the guy outclassed. In Gen I. They had to make both Fearow and Dodrio, give them similar stat spreads and movepools except make Dodrio's better in every way, and then say "yeah that seems good, these are two valuable Pokémon!" which is fairly baffling. If you look at the movepools of Dodrio and Fearow, they are genuinely almost identical, except Dodrio learns Body Slam (one of the best attacks in Gen I) and Fearow learns Swift instead. The only more reasonable tradeoff is that Fearow learns Mirror Move where Dodrio learns Reflect, both being alright moves in Gen I.

Since then, Fearow has been completely ignored. Fearow had precisely two things to set itself apart from Dodrio, 65HP vs 60HP, and 61 Special vs 60 Special. Every other stat was lower, most notably Fearow having 90 Attack vs Dodrio's 110. So in Gen II, with the Special stat being split up, it seemed like a great opportunity to give Fearow a bit of a niche. Maybe give it a buff to its Special Defence, that would be pretty cool especially once Pursuit was introduced, as Pursuit is mostly used for special biased types! Well nope, GF gave Fearow 61 SpAtk and SpDef. They didn't even bother making one higher than the other, they just gave it the same Special stats in both categories. Now that happened to many mons, Dodrio being one of them in fact, but it's quite stark with Fearow since it was already one of the most forgettable, pointless and overshadowed mons. It's such an organic way to give it a buff, and they took the opportunity with loads of other mons to do that, but not with Fearow ig.

Well, at least in Gens 6 and 7 they started giving stat buffs to a few older Pokémon. They don't tend to be that useful, but a buff to attack or even speed might be nice for Fearow, put it in a bit of a better position in the lower tiers, right? Well GF agreed that at this point a lot of Gen I's mons were getting outpaced and started handing speed buffs out. Pidgeot went from 91 Speed to 101 Speed, pretty nice. Dodrio even went from 100 Speed to 110 Speed! And Fearow was... ignored. Yeah, no buffs whatsoever. That's honestly striking, it seems like they gave it Drill Run, saw it was still bad, and have basically given up for good.

It's kinda wild that Drill Peck wasn't a signature move in Gen I, just because it's such a specific design concept. It requires a long, sharp beak, and most birdmons don't have that. Gen I to this day introduced the most mons that can learn the move, with Zapdos, the Dodrio line, and the Fearow line (albeit actually tied with Gen II which also introduced 5 discounting Smeargle), but I think that it almost speaks volumes about Fearow's problems that even from its introduction a niche so small as "80BP Flying-Type attack that uses a very specific design attribute that most Flying-Type Pokémon don't have" was shared to its competition. I'd argue Drill Peck is still most associated with Fearow out of any mon on a cultural level, but even that was never really a niche for Fearow.

So yeah I agree that Fearow has been starkly mismanaged for generations, including in its introductory one, which is all the more striking since it's the first one of Pokémon in general.
 

Yung Dramps

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The thing that's always irked me the most about Fearow, which you alluded to in this post, is that they created the guy outclassed. In Gen I. They had to make both Fearow and Dodrio, give them similar stat spreads and movepools except make Dodrio's better in every way, and then say "yeah that seems good, these are two valuable Pokémon!" which is fairly baffling. If you look at the movepools of Dodrio and Fearow, they are genuinely almost identical, except Dodrio learns Body Slam (one of the best attacks in Gen I) and Fearow learns Swift instead. The only more reasonable tradeoff is that Fearow learns Mirror Move where Dodrio learns Reflect, both being alright moves in Gen I.
It isn't as baffling as you think when you remember that, being the debut game, RBY was going off a lot of standard JRPG design conventions of the time. And what is one of those conventions? Why, replacing your old, outdated gear for better ones, of course! Make no mistake, Dodrio being Fearow but strictly better isn't a careless accident, it's their deliberate translation of this principle to Pokemon's environment. It manifests in other ways with other Pokemon, too. Remember Blue's Raticate? Its shifting out was meant to convey to the player "Psst, now's the time to replace some of those early-routers with stronger mons!". Of course, as time went on and more games were made this old-fashioned idea quickly could no longer jive with the "Every Pokemon is your unique and special buddy" principle all the marketing was enforcing, so cases like these would be phased out.

Well GF agreed that at this point a lot of Gen I's mons were getting outpaced and started handing speed buffs out. Pidgeot went from 91 Speed to 101 Speed, pretty nice. Dodrio even went from 100 Speed to 110 Speed! And Fearow was... ignored.
What makes this even more hilariously sad is that Fearow is the only one of those 3 that's actually IN the Alola dex! God damn man, they really hate this bird's guts, don't they?
 

If you put me on the spot and asked me to quickly nominate one Pokemon that's in desperate need of a new form, evolution or at the very least a serious stat buff my mind would likely gravitate to Fearow. I don't know if it's at the top of the list, but it's up there.

The thing is, it didn't used to be THAT bad. In fact, it's surprisingly good in Johto playthroughs, specifically Kenya the in-game trade Spearow who gets that spicy EXP boost. But alas, as far as I am aware that's its all-time peak essentially. From a casual standpoint its ills are two-pronged. For one it's the awkward middle child of the Kanto Normal/Flyings, not having the iconic simplicity of Pidgeot, the goofiness of Farfetch'd or the "actually decently cool and strong" factor of Dodrio. Then there's the issue of it barely being given the light of day in regional Pokedexes. It isn't quite as bad as the likes of Purugly, but post-Kanjoh it's only appeared in Kalos and Alola. That sounds ok until you realize that it might as well not even be in the former since for some utterly inscrutable reason it has been locked away to Victory Road as its sole encounter spot in the whole game.

If that wasn't bad enough, its competitive record is several factors bleaker. I haven't even come across it being particularly notable in niche old gen lower tier formats other than RBY NU. If that's as good as it gets, then yeah, bad bad bad. See, in more recent generations Game Freak tried to give it a cute little "gimmick" if you will where it relies on the dual combo of Drill moves in Drill Peck and Drill Run. The problem is that even setting aside its dogwater stat block this combo is just an inherently worse version of stuff like Staraptor's famous Brave Bird + Close Combat combo or Talonflame's partially priority dual STAB. You would think that maybe at the very least being a Gen 1 mon would give it one or two wacky coverage options, but even that's too good for it apparently.

So yeah, that's the tea with this guy. I don't mortally despise him, he just sucks in a series of really unfortunate ways. At least Sunflora and Dunsparce aren't supposed to be taken that seriously from the onset which makes their in-game weakness a bit more palatable in a jokey sense. Fearow is just mid incarnate.
Oh the irony...

Fearow at least sets itself apart by usually being available much, much earlier than Dodrio, to the point it's actually a better in-game choice in the Johto games.

Meanwhile, there's a very popular mon that gets thoroughly outclassed by Fearow, who is usually available on the very next route at worst.

Pidgeot is straight up punked by Fearow from RBY to HGSS, no questions asked. Pidgeot evolves much later and lacks Drill Peck, so it's often the worse option both movepool and stats-wise.
 

ScraftyIsTheBest

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Meanwhile, there's a very popular mon that gets thoroughly outclassed by Fearow, who is usually available on the very next route at worst.

Pidgeot is straight up punked by Fearow from RBY to HGSS, no questions asked. Pidgeot evolves much later and lacks Drill Peck, so it's often the worse option both movepool and stats-wise.
The sad part is that unlike the Fearow+Dodrio dichotomy where Fearow is an earlier bird who gets outclassed by Dodrio later and is intended to eventually be replaced by the latter once your Doduo evolves and learns Drill Peck, that's really not the case with Pidgeot.

Pidgeot is a three-stage mon who evolves with the level curve, at Level 18 and at Level 36, and was very likely intended to be a Pokemon that grows with you over the course of the adventure alongside your starter. Unlike your other early game options who fall off and get replaced, Pidgeot feels like one of those mons who is intended to be carried to the finish line. Its evo levels are on par with the starters, it's available on the first route, and it gains power jumps with the curve. The fact that your rival keeps it all the way to the end of the game up to the final boss fight further reinforces the notion that it's basically supposed to be an honorary second starter and as such is supposed to be a good and reliable Pokemon.

Peak Gen 1 incompetent design right there. The result ends up the opposite of the intention. At least Pidgeot's successors, such as Staraptor, Talonflame, and Corviknight do a much better job at fulfilling Pidgeot's in-game defined role in their respective debut games than Pidgeot did in Kanto. Staraptor in particular got the role down perfectly, as it's a bona fide excellent team pick in the Sinnoh games and a strong Pokemon all the way through, there's a reason you see Starly on just about every Sinnoh in-game team.
 
:ss/banette::ss/banette-mega:
If you had to ask me what would be the worst Ghost-type pokemon, Banette and its mega would be the first nomination for that award and they would win the moment they were nominated.

Banette [base]:
Design:

It's unremarkable. It's literally a cursed fucking doll. Nothing cool to make itself look actually appealing. Admittedly it does the "cursed doll" thing in execution but other than that it's so unremarkable I have nothing left to say about it. It's not Luvdisc-levels of bland nor is it Bruxish-levels of "bad" but Banette's design is simply not notable enough for me to want to like it.
Stats:
Where Banette goes from "oh yeah unremarkable" to god fucking awful. Sure, it has 115 attack, which is great for hitting hard, but literally, everything else about its stat spread is simply unredeemable. 64/65/63 defenses are complete shit - you die to like 99% of attacks directed at you.

Now you might ask, "War, why do pokemon like Deoxys-A, Alakazam, or Marshadow see use, then?"

It's simple: they have the speed to go first and fire off attacks. This means that even if they die the same turn they're sent in to attack you've already gotten some value out of them [in this case, raw damage, which let you pick off that threat later]. Given, the reasons they see use are much more than "hey they can hit hard and hit first", but my point still stands - you need good speed and good power if you want to make up for bad bulk.

And what does Banette have to show for godawful defenses? A speed tier of 65. So what I'm being told is that in addition to having the defenses of wet tissue paper, I can't even go first to use my 115 attack?! Now, given, Trick Room patches this up, but even then you're running a completely useless Pokemon in the hope that you can use Trick Room [which is generally pretty niche as a playstyle] - at that point why not run something like Hatterene that has better bulk and actual competitive use? The worst part is, Banette has 83 special attack it can't even fucking use [at least not after Gen 3] because its special movepool is godawful!
Abilities:
So Banette has completely shit stats. Surely it's abilities will make up for it... right? [ok maybe not by much]

right?

HAHAHAHA no.

This Pokemon's abilities are complete and utter dogshit. Insomnia is bad because it's not even living against the majority of sleep spreaders, Frisk is I guess useful for scouting but no one will unironically run Frisk [ok maybe except Orbeetle], and Cursed Body is extremely situational and only useful against Choice-locked pokemon. Moving on...
Moves:
Yeah, uh, no. This guy's movepool is bad. Given, it's better than all the other aspects of this pokemon, but that says basically nothing. Sure, I suppose it has good moves like Sucker Punch or Will-o-Wisp but other than that in the moves department it has nothing to show for its bad stats.
Competitive Value:
Use literally any other Ghost-type over this worthless piece of garbage. That's literally it.

moving on...
Mega Banette:
Design:

This is literally the only thing I like about this Mega Evolution. It carries the creepy vibe well and is perfectly serviceable as a Mega Evolution in terms of design.

Shame because this Mega Evolution is such a waste of a great design.
Stats:
Sure, having 165 attack is great, especially with Poltergeist and such, but really outside of it Mega Banette still somehow has nothing to show. Its bulk is still not good enough since it dies to strong attacks and its mediocre speed makes it unable to really use that attack well.
Competitive Value:
To me, the fundamental problem with Mega Banette competitively can be summed up here:
Mega Banette is flawed at the conceptual level in that it does not help you win, but only makes you lose slower.

Prankster Destiny Bond is its only saving grace, and frankly only real use in the competitive department. Even then, it's a flawed concept that forces you to essentially sack one of your Pokemon in the chance that you can take out one of your opponent's important mons. Unlike stuff like Memento, it's not reliable; on higher levels of your game, players aren't going to have their important mons take the bait and die from it - they will switch out into something less important which, congrats, fucks over your game plan. Usually, mons with it either kill off unimportant parts of the player's team [i.e: mons that have expended their purpose] or do nothing [quite literally pinging your opponent's team] as their gameplan completely fails. Every once in a while it might net the player's win-con and propel you in the right direction, but that almost never happens and when it does it comes at such an expense to the point where it's not rewarding.

So what I'm getting at here is that if you run Prankster Destiny Bond you're practically fighting a losing battle. It's not a reliable strategy and fails to accomplish anything in a high-level game.

Now, how does this relate to Mega Banette, you may be asking?

Simple: it's a Mega Evolution.

A Mega Evolution is already taking up an entire team & item slot - you need that Mega Evolution to be able to make up for the tempo lost by not having a sixth mon and free item slot. In other words, Mega Evolutions HAVE to contribute to your team in a way that will justify running them over the base or a different mon with a free item slot. You can't be running unreliable strategies on a Mega Evolution; you lose a huge amount of tempo if you do so since that mon can't reliably help you win the game.

So in addition to already bad stats for a Mega Evolution, Mega Banette is stuck with a bad strategy that is unable to accomplish much in a game [seriously, it's so one-dimensional you'd likely know what it's running just from seeing it on team preview]. Running this is basically the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot - literally every other Mega Evolution is infinitely better than this - even Mega Audino.

Even if Mega Banette was a regular Pokemon with the same niche it would still not be good [ok maybe it'd be viable b/c you could at least run an item slot and potentially other niches]. That flawed concept is really a massive letdown, but at least as a regular mon the tempo loss is not as extreme.

I truly hate this pokemon and its Mega Evolution. Both are poorly designed [in the competitive field, not actual design ok] and their execution of that design is even worse.

[no I am not a competitive player so take my words here with a grain of salt but I guess I'd say I know enough to definitively say Mega Banette is bad]
 
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RE: Fearow and Banette

I actually think Banette's design is kinda cool. Its not as 'epheral' as its Ghost-type relatives in Hoenn like Sableye or Dusclops, but I find simple but effective. Mega the same way. I used one in a playthrough and it was usable even though it had like 0 defensive utility by the time you get it. Banette suffers a ton from its stat distribution though. Slow wallbreaker with relatively frail defenses is often a recipe for disaster. Crawdaunt at least got Adaptability and great STAB options later on to make up for being this in Gen 3. Banette's strongest Ghost STAB that doesn't take two turns is the pitifully weak Shadow Claw. This makes even the Mega not have as much firepower as the base stats suggest. I feel like it was designed for when Ghost was considered a physical type, when Shadow Ball was relatively useful STAB.

People say Dusclops and by extension Dusknoir have similar issues with firepower, and they definitely do, but at least those two have far more bulk and good coverage options like Earthquake. (Though Pokemon like Cofagrigus do its role of 'tanky Ghost with low HP' far better) Let me put it this way: for as competitively lackluster the Dusks were, they've always been considered better Pokemon than regular Banette, because they at least have had a role beyond "mediocre mixed attacker with nothing else going for it". I think if Dusclops and Dusknoir had some form of reliable recovery, I think they'd be actually kinda okay. Banette is just far more inherently flawed and fixing it is not as simple as giving it good STAB/utility options. It'd need a stat buff and maybe a new ability. Granted they did that for Masquerain and it still blows ass in competitive so maybe it'd take even more than that. In certain ROM hacks/fan-games, I've seen Mega Banette retconned to be a Ghost/Normal-type with Tough Claws, and IMO this would give it a far better niche than using your Mega slot on a Pokemon that's only real purpose is as a suicide button. (Put it this way that REGULAR Sableye is a better Prankster user than it and doesn't take up your Mega slot; And at least Mega Glalie could do things semi-decently without having to explode)

Fearow is a case of just falling by the wayside really quickly and getting ignored. Fearow got Drill Run and Sniper so maybe you can do CritDra esque shenanigans with it, but IMO it can't fully make use of that cause its STAB isn't strong enough and its too frail to even try doing that. Regular Pidgeot at least got a Mega with the cool perk of always accurate Hurricanes, and Dodrio got a stat buff and great coverage in Jump Kick. Fearow is a solid choice in the Kanto games despite getting outclassed there, and same goes for Alola. I think if it were to return they'd need to give it a good buff.
 
Full rant coming soon:


"Corporate needs you to find the difference between this picture and this picture.
- They're the same picture.
- Well actually, Silcoon evolves into Beautifly whereas Cascoon...
- THEY .ARE .THE. SAME."
Silcoon and Cascoon exist so you know what final evo you're getting earlier. (Also, you can get them in Petalburg Forest, but that's not really an advantage.)
 

Pikachu315111

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Silcoon and Cascoon exist so you know what final evo you're getting earlier. (Also, you can get them in Petalburg Forest, but that's not really an advantage.)
They didn't need two species to do that, just give Silcascoon two forms ("Light Casing" and "Pale Casing", just to keep things confusing)

Light Casing would be Silcoon because it's not only the lightest color, white, but also weighs the less between them. Also Beautifly is associated with the sun.
Pale Casing would be Cascoon because it's a pale purple. Also Dustox is associated with the moon, which famously has it's light been called "pale".
 
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