"Worst Pokémon Ever"

[MegaFlareon]

I don't actually think it's the worst, and I actually like it, but I want to take a step back and analyze how Hitmonchan has been done dirty from birth.

First, its design. It's, other than Mr. Mime, probably the closest to full on humanoid in Gen 1 and still a disturbingly sterling example of humanoid mons over the years. Even Hitmonlee is a little less humanoid with its rounded head; Hitmonchan might have a ridged head, but it wears clothing.

Then, moveset and stats. Hitmonchan is clearly designed as a boxer, so it's slower and a little tankier than Hitmonlee, never a good sign. But it's a boxer, so the elemental punches make sense. Right? Right??! Well, have fun using them with its "sterling" 35 Special. Without it, it's limited to the usual Normal and Fighting moves of Gen 1, and it loses out bad to Hitmonlee, who gets access to moves like Double Kick, Jump Kick and High Jump Kick. Hitmonchan is stuck with Submission, which is all around worse than any of those three moves.

So Gen 2 has to save it with the special stat split, right? HAH! Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee both get access to a weirdly high 110 Special Defense and keep their godawful 35 Special Attack. Makes sense for Hitmonlee; less for Hitmonchan, which could've had a niche of a special attacking Fighting type. At least it can claim the priority Mach Punch and very strong Dynamicpunch... except Hitmonlee gets access to both Dynamicpunch AND Mind Reader. Oh, and all 3 of the Hitmons can get Mach Punch through egg moves. So that's another nail in the already nailed shut coffin.

Oh, but Gen 3 will save it with abilities, right? Hitmonlee's ability? Limber, meaning it can't get paralyzed. Hitmontop's ability? Intimidate, only one of the best abilities of all time. Hitmonchan? Keen Eye. Can't have accuracy lowered. Uh huh. At least it gets Sky Uppercut... except High Jump Kick is just as powerful and just as accurate and coming off a stronger attack stat.

Finally, Gen 4 rolls around, and finally, finally, Hitmonchan is sitting pretty. Iron Fist gives a boost to punching moves including the new Bullet Punch, the physical/special split means it can finally use the elemental punches like Arceus intended AND it gets Drain Punch and access to recovery. Smooth sailing now, right? Except even with Iron Fist 75 base power has long since lost its relevancy and Drain Punch is only 60 base power and has only 5 power points. Oh and Hitmonlee gets access to Reckless, boosting its High Jump Kick even further than the 100 base power it already has, Close Combat makes almost any other Fighting move pointless and Hitmontop gets access to Technician to boost itself as well.

Hitmonchan hasn't sniffed above RarelyUsed in its entire life, and that was effectively a meme. It's not Little Mac. It's not even Soda Popinski. It's Glass Joe. Someone throw in the damn towel.

Hitmonchan does have one saving grace though: Pokémon GO. It's actually viable in the Great and Ultra League metagames due to how great Power-Up Punch is in PvP. You could arguably say that Hitmonchan is the best hitmon in Pokémon GO since Hitmontop and Hitmonlee are stuck with Close Combat as their best STAB, which is an awful move in Pokémon GO (ironic, right?). Hitmontop (bulkier) and Hitmonlee (higher Attack) actually have better stats, but movepools matter A LOT in Pokémon GO so Hitmonchan wins here! Overall, it's still not that great in Pokémon GO since Machamp, one of the best and most popular in this game, outclasses it, but getting a win over its brothers counts.

 

[Mex]

Hitmonchan does have one saving grace though: Pokémon GO. It's actually viable in the Great and Ultra League metagames due to how great Power-Up Punch is in PvP. You could arguably say that Hitmonchan is the best hitmon in Pokémon GO since Hitmontop and Hitmonlee are stuck with Close Combat as their best STAB, which is an awful move in Pokémon GO (ironic, right?). Hitmontop (bulkier) and Hitmonlee (higher Attack) actually have better stats, but movepools matter A LOT in Pokémon GO so Hitmonchan wins here! Overall, it's still not that great in Pokémon GO since Machamp, one of the best and most popular in this game, outclasses it, but getting a win over its brothers counts.

I kinda have to disagree here, unfortunately. While Hitmonchan is certainly workable in Pokémon Go PvP, it's stuck with a relatively underwhelming moveset with the three elemental punches all being rather disappointing moves, only really doing significant damage after multiple Power-up Punch boosts, and Hitmontop actually also works rather well in PVP. Close Combat is only an underwhelming move in raids, while in PVP it is one of the most powerful moves you can find for the energy, the drawback being dropping your defenses significantly after usage, and Hitmontop is well equipped with an amazing fast move to use two in a row. Not to mention it getting Stone Edge so it can function in a similar role to Machamp with a bit more bulk to get through.

Hitmonlee just kinda sucks though, despite all the moveset updates it's gotten over the years

 

[Error404Unknown]

Wow this thread has been going on for a long time.

Time to throw in my two cents

*WARNING The following contains gen 9 spoilers and I don't know how to hide them yet*
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I nominate Dudunsparce.

Dunsparce is somewhat cute due to it looking like someone who was still sleepy and don't know what's going on (I think we could all relate to that), but that is no excuse to give it officially the laziest pokemon evolution ever given.

I mean seriously, not even Electrode, Muk, Garbodar, Klinklang, or - heck - even pawmo gets this lazy. Usually, it would score some points for being at least memorable, but... no. This is the worst excuse of a pokemon I've ever seen. Of all time. I don't think it even qualifies as a pokemon. It's just dunsparce but with a du.

And stat wise... dunsparce was never good in the first place, and dudunsparce barely changes that. Besides, dunsparce now has eviolite, so why would you even use this stupid du-dung-sparce?!

All in all, yes, I get that it's for comedic purposes and I get some people want this to continue on forever, but... do you really want a gen 23 with dudududududududududududududududunsparce?

 

[R_N]

Dudusnaprce is fantastic actually

 

[Fusion Flare]

im glad it didnt become a gyarados situation like every fan artist ever was anticipating, but uh

kinda lame tbh

 

[Just A Seaking]

Personally I totally get why people would be disappointed and/or upset with Dudunsparce being a joke ‘mon - if you proposed the idea to me just a few years ago, I’d probably scoff at it too. But I think it suits Dunsparce simply to be… more Dun. It’s been a joke ‘mon since it’s inception, and continuing the joke rather than lean into badassery is a fun and memorable way to handle its evolution, if you ask me.

The Gen 2 cross-evo I happen to object to is Farigarif on account of it being painfully bland. Girafarig is a charming, if not standout ‘mon, but its evo strips the charm away by turning it into a Tall Giraffe instead of leaning more into the separate head and tail. Wyrdeer is an awesome continuation of Stantler, Dudunsparce is a humorous continuation of Dunsparce, and Farigarif is just so painfully bland by comparison. It doesn’t even get Cud Chew or Armor Tail to itself!

 

[girazard]

All in all, yes, I get that it's for comedic purposes and I get some people want this to continue on forever, but... do you really want a gen 23 with dudududududududududududududududunsparce?

I can’t NOT want to see this now

 

[Pikachu315111]

Dudunsparce I feel conflicted about.

On one hand, I get Dunsparce was a joke Pokemon, and in that respect Dudunsparce is pretty funny. Dunsparce had nothing really going for it, so the only direction it could go with an evolution would be literally becoming twice what it is by doing what it does best: digging holes with its tail drill. And to add to the absurdity, there's a rare version that has three body segments... and that's it, it just has an extra body segment, doesn't affect it in anyway (which kind of makes me wish Maushold's two forms had some differences to emphasize the pointlessness of Dudunsparce getting two forms).

But on the other, want to know what other Pokemon was a joke? Farfetch'd. And yet when they decided to give it an evolution, granted for a Regional Variant of it, they instead made Sirfetch'd a more serious evolution. Yes, there are parts to Sirfetch'd that are ridiculous, but when you look at the other aspects of Sirfetch'd it shows they did put in effort to make it more viable and brings something more to the table than Farfetch'd previously did. Dudunsparce meanwhile is just a stronger Dunsparce, it does the exact same thing its prevo did except has some more Attack and bulk.

Now, I was originally going to suggest they should have done with Dunsparce what they did with Farfetch'd, if they wanted to keep the joke than make a Regional Variant with the "innovative" evolution. But, that would suggest GF wanted to make a more "innovative" evolution; and they didn't. I wouldn't be surprise if Dudunsparce was just a random joke a staffer made and they decided to do it; otherwise Dunsparce wouldn't have even been considered for an evolution. So, at the end of the day, it's either a joke you find funny, or one you shrug at and continue on with your day.

 

[LonelyGaruga]

But on the other, want to know what other Pokemon was a joke? Farfetch'd. And yet when they decided to give it an evolution, granted for a Regional Variant of it, they instead made Sirfetch'd a more serious evolution.

I feel it warrants mention that while Farfetch'd is a joke, Galarian Farfetch'd is not, so it's fairly natural Sirfetch'd would not be a joke either. Dudunsparce just increasing all of Dunsparce's stats is true of like 90-95% of evolutions, too, so I feel that bringing it up as a negative point in comparison to Sirfetch'd isn't very fair.

Absolutely a joke design, and that may very well be the only reason Dunsparce has an evolution, but I think the comparison made with Farfetch'd here is unfair.

 

[Pikachu315111]

I feel it warrants mention that while Farfetch'd is a joke, Galarian Farfetch'd is not, so it's fairly natural Sirfetch'd would not be a joke either. Dudunsparce just increasing all of Dunsparce's stats is true of like 90-95% of evolutions, too, so I feel that bringing it up as a negative point in comparison to Sirfetch'd isn't very fair.

Absolutely a joke design, and that may very well be the only reason Dunsparce has an evolution, but I think the comparison made with Farfetch'd here is unfair.

Well to counterpoint that, and going back to something I mentioned I was originally going to say, they could have made a Regional Variant Dunsparce which was taken more seriously and give that one an evolution, just like they did with Farfetch'd. Had they wanted to make a serious designed evolution that would probably be the better way to go.

Some people think GF first decided to give Dunsparce an evolution and then decided to make it a joke. I feel the joke came first cause otherwise, if the idea to give Dunsparce an evolution came first and then they decided to do a joke design, I would be further disappointed.

 

[R_N]

I can easily see the idea of evolution just naturally leading to "joke design"

Jokes can be earnest. They could have sketched out various ideas and just really liked the fun simplicity of Dudunsparce. And they were very right, because it's legitimately charming. The segments give a different feel from Dunsparce's body while retaining the roundness implied, I like the little marking on its belly, it's fun that it can apparently inflate its segments, the drill & head feel like natural evolutions and its cute how the number of stripes & wing feathers increase with each segment. The overall increase in stats aren't bad at all, it especially got blessed with a nice Attack and HP boost

Dudunsparce is a genuinely charming design and fun to use. Good evolution.

e: And also its lore is it transports small pokemon out of its nests like a bus. Wonderful.

 

[LonelyGaruga]

Well to counterpoint that, and going back to something I mentioned I was originally going to say, they could have made a Regional Variant Dunsparce which was taken more seriously and give that one an evolution, just like they did with Farfetch'd. Had they wanted to make a serious designed evolution that would probably be the better way to go.

I mean, that clearly isn't what they wanted to do, seeing how that isn't what happened and all, so I'm not sure what the purpose in bringing up this hypothetical as a counterpoint is, or what it's supposed to be a counterpoint for. Nothing really inherently bad in the direction Dudunsparce took Dunsparce's design is. You like it or don't, that goes for regular Dunsparce and most designs in general.

 

[SwampySwampert]

Wow this thread has been going on for a long time.

Time to throw in my two cents

*WARNING The following contains gen 9 spoilers and I don't know how to hide them yet*
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I nominate Dudunsparce.

Dunsparce is somewhat cute due to it looking like someone who was still sleepy and don't know what's going on (I think we could all relate to that), but that is no excuse to give it officially the laziest pokemon evolution ever given.

I mean seriously, not even Electrode, Muk, Garbodar, Klinklang, or - heck - even pawmo gets this lazy. Usually, it would score some points for being at least memorable, but... no. This is the worst excuse of a pokemon I've ever seen. Of all time. I don't think it even qualifies as a pokemon. It's just dunsparce but with a du.

And stat wise... dunsparce was never good in the first place, and dudunsparce barely changes that. Besides, dunsparce now has eviolite, so why would you even use this stupid du-dung-sparce?!

All in all, yes, I get that it's for comedic purposes and I get some people want this to continue on forever, but... do you really want a gen 23 with dudududududududududududududududunsparce?

I don’t really mind it. As others have said, the stupidest design of all time getting an intentionally bad evolution is just fitting.

 

[Oshawott11]

In my opinion of the new gen 9 Pokémon, (besides dudunsparce) I think Tinkaton is the worst.

Design-When you just take a look at Tinkaton you see Pokémon Kerby with a hammer. This is completely fine, the real awfulness starts when you take a look at its fingers. Tinkaton’s fingers look swollen and fat. They also are disproportionate with its hand! You can then take a look at the hammer and look at how bad the texture is on that hammer. Now think of all the Corviknight that died to make it.

Stats/Moves-Tinkaton only having a measly (according to the Pokémon database) attack stat of 75 is fine with me because holding a hammer doesn’t necessarily mean you can punch well. Yet, it gets this broken move with 160 bp that it cannot use well. It cannot become a sweeper without setting up several swords dances and stat buffs because of its stats. It does get light screen and reflect so that might have some play but then you remember it’s decent speed stat means nothing when Grimsnarl and Murkrow.

 

[Oshawott11]

In my opinion of the new gen 9 Pokémon, (besides dudunsparce) I think Tinkaton is the worst.

Design-When you just take a look at Tinkaton you see Pokémon Kerby with a hammer. This is completely fine, the real awfulness starts when you take a look at its fingers. Tinkaton’s fingers look swollen and fat. They also are disproportionate with its hand! You can then take a look at the hammer and look at how bad the texture is on it. Now think of all the Corviknight that died to make it.

Stats/Moves-Tinkaton only having a measly (according to the Pokémon database) attack stat of 75 is fine with me because holding a hammer doesn’t necessarily mean you can punch well. Yet, it gets this broken move with 160 bp that it struggled to use well. It cannot become a sweeper without setting up several swords dances and buffs because of its stats. It does get light screen and reflect so that might have some play but then you remember it’s decent speed stat means nothing when Grimsnarl and Murkrow.
(I did some editing)

 

[Fusion Flare]

I think its good that Tinkaton isn’t Zacian 2.0 with a sky high attack stat. If anything, the fact that its attack stat is low is because all of its power comes from the hammer. Besides, the real good part about Tinkaton is its incredible support movepool. It’s one of the best UU Pokemon as of now.

 

[WinterArcanine]

Honestly, I'd say the worst pokemon is Snom. There's two reasons for this.

First of all, the design. It's absolutely hideous. It looks like it has an ass for a face, and the black dots that are supposed to be its eyes are also ugly. The shape of it is kinda ugly too, and while a shell of ice spikes is cool conceptually, with everything being ugly about snom, it ends up looking ugly on it too. Admittedly I'm not the biggest fan of bugs to begin with, but a lot of bug type pokemon actually look cool, and some of them even look cute. They managed to make a tick adorable, so they could surely have made whatever this thing is based on a cute pokemon. But not only is it ugly, but no other bug types are anywhere near as ugly as this thing (except maybe Pheromosa). It's the second ugliest pokemon behind Medicham in my opinion.

But that's not the only reason it's the worst pokemon. It's also completely terrible in battle. Of course, it's an unevolved pokemon, but even for those standards, it's terrible. While I've never actually tried to use it in battle or in gameplay ever because of the design, it's pretty clear that it'd be one of the worst pokemon in the entire series to use. It has 185 BST, the fourth lowest in the whole series behind only solo form Wishiwashi, Sunkern, and Blipbug. It's best stat is a 45 special attack, and it has 30/35/30 bulk and 20 speed, all on a pokemon with one of the worst typings in the series. It has TWO 4x weaknesses to Fire and Rock, with additional 2x weaknesses to Flying and Steel. Since it's designed to be one of the worst pokemon in the series, it has an extremely limited movepool too; outside of tera blast, it only learns two moves by level up, Powder Snow (40 BP) and Struggle Bug (50 BP). Its only other ice attack it can learn is Icy Wind (55 BP without even 100% accuracy), and it has virtually no coverage whatsoever, with its only attacks outside of its typing being Fairy Wind (40 BP), and Facade (70 BP, but goes off of its 25 Attack). Its only decent move is Bug Buzz. Considering all this, you'd think this is an early route mon with a quick evolution, but nope. In SWSH, its earliest access is in the middle of the game, and in SV, its only in the northern section of the map, where all the badges are either mid game or late game level-wise, and its caught around the 40s (and therefore far too overleveled to be used for the earlier sections of the game). By this point, literally anything else is a better option than Snom. In SV's case, you can even just catch Frosmoth itself in the same exact places. Oh, and just to make things even worse.....it's a friendship evolution. Meaning you have to actually use this thing for quite a while (and also make sure it doesn't die at all during that time) to even evolve it. And it also only evolves at night, just to make it even more complicated. All of this for a pokemon that isn't even particularly good battle wise.

It doesn't really get any worse than this. One of the worst designs in the entire series, and pretty much unusable in battle, all while still being hard to evolve.

 

[Pikachu315111]

It doesn't really get any worse than this. One of the worst designs in the entire series, and pretty much unusable in battle, all while still being hard to evolve.

The Snom line is pretty much them taking the Larvesta line and making it worse.

 

[Just A Seaking]

It doesn't really get any worse than this. One of the worst designs in the entire series, and pretty much unusable in battle, all while still being hard to evolve.

Ok, so I adore the Snom line. They’re my favorite ‘mons of both Bug and Ice, and they’re probably both top 5 ‘mons for me overall. Buuuuut… I can’t entirely disagree with this, sadly

What’s cute is subjective, so I’ll just say that I think both Snom and Frosmoth walk the line of ugly and cute perfectly. But in terms of gameplay, yeah, they’re awfully designed. Who knows what they were thinking. Snom’s really just a victim of being an Ice type, honestly. Bad availability, slow as hell and not good enough defensively to justify it. Ice Scales is an amazing ability but just not enough to offset its myriad of flaws. The changes to Hail this gen, while appreciated, can only do so much.

Were I to go back and re-design the Snom line, I’d make them the secondary pseudo-legendary line of the generation. Slap a second evo between Snom and Frosmoth, and give Frosmoth a lot more Spd and Def to work with, and it becomes a lot stronger while still fighting an uphill battle against its own typing.

 

[STEELDRAGON]

I would say the worst pokemon ever created is Cosmog. It literally just splashes there or teleports out. Pretty shitty stats and can't really even do damage besides struggle.

 

[Pikachu315111]

I would say the worst pokemon ever created is Cosmog. It literally just splashes there or teleports out. Pretty shitty stats and can't really even do damage besides struggle.

Well what do you expect, it's a story McGuffin, it's lucky to even have stats, isn't that right Zygarde Cores & Cells?

 

[R_N]

Yeah Cosmog & Cosmoem are basically just "cameo" Pokemon, I guess. It helps they have very important place in the game and being evolutions lets them stretch their legs a little. If the Zyagrde Cores (the cells would REALLY make no sense to be playable) were more like that they'd probably have been playable too, but they didn't even get models and working them into the 10%/50%/100% paradigm while not impossible would be kind of awkward.

 

[STEELDRAGON]

Well what do you expect, it's a story McGuffin, it's lucky to even have stats, isn't that right Zygarde Cores & Cells?

At least it evolves into some of the strongest pokemon in the game though that's the one good thing about it

 

[Karxrida]

I hate this thing.

I'm a casual fan of trains, and have always wanted some kind of cool train Pokémon. Maybe it could be a Steel/Water steam engine idk. Anyway, Rolycoly and Carkoal seemed to be heading into that direction with their minecart aesthetic. I was kind of excited to see their final evolution even if was just some mine train. And then this fucking dude comes in, drops the minecart theming, and ruins it with its generic-ass rock monster shtick.

Coalossal isn't even the best-looking rock monster we have.

 

[CPU]

I would say the worst pokemon ever created is Cosmog. It literally just splashes there or teleports out. Pretty shitty stats and can't really even do damage besides struggle.

Counterpoint:

Pew!