Pokémon that exceeded your expectations in-game despite looking bad initially?

Azumarill

Because easter I used Marill in my Sapphire run and evolved it. Luckily I got covered by Brave Nature Huge Power. I was expecting something decent. But to my surprise Azumarill OHKOed almost anything with Strength. I don't think I used any other move besides that and Rollout. Well, BubbleBeam did come in handy against random Geodude but not needed. Now it learned Double Edge. That bunny is a monster.
 
My first two times using this Pokémon both happened within the past year, one in Alpha Sapphire and one in Legends: Arceus;

:bw/walrein:

In both games it demonstrated why I like the Water/Ice typing so much, backed up by excellent natural bulk by Ice-Type standards. Unresisted STABs and the ability to hit aversive Grass-Types super effectively is always a great quality to have. I've historically compared Walrein to Kanto's residents Lapras and Dewgong (and I guess Cloyster to a much lesser extent), and I can't say for certain that any of them match Walrein's viability ceiling in practice. Lapras comes the closest by far, but it's only in certain games (hilariously, none of which have Walrein in the regional PokéDex as direct competition).

What about Walrein's moves, though? Out of these four, I'd say Walrein is either the first or second best physical attacker out of the group, while still having access to the strong special game of its Water/Ice competition. Probably my favorite part of the Walrein experience, though, is how freaking stupid Rest is now in Legends: Arceus. It hadn't even occurred to me that even a nerfed version of the move would be wildly better than usual with Drowsy status over traditional sleep. Walrein's easily one of the best users of this strategy in all of Hisui, able to take advantage of Agile Style Rest > regular Rest for free healing all the way back to 100% while still having the bulk to take hits on turns where Drowsy status does kick in, which given Rest's mechanics compared to other sleep moves, is almost never.
 
Sirya said:
Some years ago, I did a GSC playthrough using only Dunsparce. It wasn't even planned. It was the first Pokémon that I encountered in the Dark Cave and I obviously took that as a signal from the heavens. The thing was a monster, altho I acumulated more than 50 videos on my phone trying to beat Jasmine by using Glare + Headbut (no heals). Hax was needed, but I triumphed.

After that, everything died to Defense Curl + Rollout.
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Old post, but if you do a solo Dunsparce run, this is probably how it would go.
 
Zoroark

So I decided to use N's Zorua. At first my expectation were kinda high because it is a gift pokemon treated as a trade Pokemon, so you get more EXP. 30 ivs in every stat, Hidden Power Fighting with 70 Base Power? Sounds great. Hasty Nature guarantied? Sign me in.
But then you use it and it doesn't do much most of the game until it evolves where Night Slash starts to deal some damage. At that point I started to lose hope in Zoroark. But then there is a shining light at the end of the tunnel: Nasty Plot and TM30 Shadow Ball. Not very impressive but you can set up and break through problematic trainers.
However the real moment Zoroark became an MVP is when I found TM35 Flamethrower and leveled it up to 64 (which went surprisingly quick) where it finally learned Night Daze.
I swept 3 members of the elite 4 and almost beat Iris until her Haxorus showed it had Focus Sash and Dragon Dance where she turned the tables. In the post game Zoroark also helped a ton sweeping Cynthia and Alder.

The only thing that bothered me is that after Illusion is broken, the move cursor goes to the first move so you can't just spam A throughout the battle without worry once Zoroark shows its true form.
Sadly I never got to buy TM10 Hidden Power but found Focus Blast which I taught it. Was looking forward to try out Hidden Power Fighting for once in game. Oh well.
 
mertyville said:
Zoroark

So I decided to use N's Zorua. At first my expectation were kinda high because it is a gift pokemon treated as a trade Pokemon, so you get more EXP. 30 ivs in every stat, Hidden Power Fighting with 70 Base Power? Sounds great. Hasty Nature guarantied? Sign me in.
But then you use it and it doesn't do much most of the game until it evolves where Night Slash starts to deal some damage. At that point I started to lose hope in Zoroark. But then there is a shining light at the end of the tunnel: Nasty Plot and TM30 Shadow Ball. Not very impressive but you can set up and break through problematic trainers.
However the real moment Zoroark became an MVP is when I found TM35 Flamethrower and leveled it up to 64 (which went surprisingly quick) where it finally learned Night Daze.
I swept 3 members of the elite 4 and almost beat Iris until her Haxorus showed it had Focus Sash and Dragon Dance where she turned the tables. In the post game Zoroark also helped a ton sweeping Cynthia and Alder.

The only thing that bothered me is that after Illusion is broken, the move cursor goes to the first move so you can't just spam A throughout the battle without worry once Zoroark shows its true form.
Sadly I never got to buy TM10 Hidden Power but found Focus Blast which I taught it. Was looking forward to try out Hidden Power Fighting for once in game. Oh well.
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I've used N's Zoura in BW2 before and it mostly shines against things with Psychic attacks. Illusion just shits all over the AI if you disguise as a Fighting- or Poison-type in these cases, as the opponent will continue to spam ineffective moves because of some inability to comprehend the ability's existence.
 
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Furret. Kind of a rough start given their abysmal stats and moves at first as Sentret, but eventually turned out to be one of the best Pokemon I ever used in Pokemon Crystal. Helped beat Falkner and the Azalea Rival, literally crushed Whitney with a bit of aid from Bellsprout, soloed Morty, and crushed 4/6ths of Lance with some Sleep Powder aid for Gyarados from Victreebel; also helped take down Misty in Kanto. It took Red to put him down. Curlout is a brutal strategy, and Normal-type STAB is exceptionally powerful in GSC thanks to badge boosts giving you an effective 24% boost.

Technically, I tested Sentret/Furret first for the GSC Ingame Tier List, and it was there I realized how good they were...but if I had any remaining doubts, the Nuzlocke cleared them away. Dude was probably the single best player in my Hardcore Nuzlocke overall (pre-Red)...and that's saying a fair bit, IMO.
 
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To finish the game in a quicker way, I traded some Pokemon from SS to Diamond. One of them was Cacnea from Pokemon Emerald lv5 Timid Nature with Cut. Eventually I realized that Cacnea still hits hard despite the -atk nature. It came with its 60 base power grass signature move which was impressive early game and eventually learned Faint Attack. Once it evolved, pretty much anything got 2hkoed and I decided to teach it Focus Blast to take advantage of its Special Attack and before the league Dark Pulse. Obviously the trade bonus helps out here but I did not expect it to do this well.
 
definetly unfezant in swsh. found a shiny one in early game, used it a lot, won All games.
also toxtricity, friend from fairy gym(i had to find a breaker to that Type) till the end. My firsr ever lvl100 mon.
 
:bw/audino:

I tried audino on a whim in a recent playthrough of Pokemon Black just so I could mess around with the reusable tms more and it really suprised me. Being stuck with double slap at the start was annoying, but once it got secret power and later return it was doing pretty respectable damage. Unfortunately, most of the strong tms were postgame, but dig, thunderbolt, and shadow ball were usually enough. It definitely peaked midgame, where it swept elesa by abusing regenerator with a sandile in the back, but even if it wasn't amazing lategame, iit held it's own much better than I expected since it's usually just a punching bag for easy exp. I highly recommend it, it's movepool was fun even if I expected more and defensive abilities are very underrated in casual playthroughs.
 
Jumpluff in Violet. I caught a Hoppip in the first route and kept it around for the early Sleep Powder, but then it actually got some damage output with Acrobatics as a Skiploom. Later I realized it got screens and memento, which, combined with its amazing speed, made it incredible for trying to march straight up to the nearest overleveled badge and cheese through it. I beat the Iron Treads titan with a team in the 20s, for example, with intimidate switching+screens+sleep+screech etc. It was also a champion against the Elite 4 with the same set of options letting another teammate set up for a sweep. MVP.
 
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Scream Tail. I used it on the team I made for the Indigo Disk (named ID:009, full details here). The reason I went with it was that I needed a Fairy-type, and it was the only one from Gen 9 that was left. I had previously used Dachsbun, Tinkaton, Iron Valiant and Flutter Mane, I didn't want to use Fezandipiti since it is a legendary, and I didn't want to use a Pokémon from an older generation. Which left me with Ancient Jiggly as the only alternative.

Scream Tail is an odd Pokémon. It is fast and defensive with lower offenses, having base 65 in both Attack and Sp.att. Those stats made it feel unsuitable for in-game use. When I learned that the Indigo Disk would focus on Double battles, my expectations got even lower. But despite that, I decided to stick with Scream Tail, expecting it to be a burden and a disappointment that I wouldn't use in many serious battles.

To my own surprise, it became the MVP of the team. It could rarely OHKO opponents, but that didn't really matter since high Speed pretty much always allowed it to move first, and high defenses allowed it to live most hits, usually with more than 50% HP left, letting it attack again and again. It would also heal with Leftovers at the end of every turn, letting it live even longer. Dazzling Gleam is also a good move in Doubles since it damages both opponents. If it needed some extra firepower, it could use Calm Mind to boost (although I rarely used it, attacking right away was often the better option), or Terastal into a pure Fairy-type to power up Dazzling Gleam. I found that Scream Tail worked best if I didn't lead with it but kept it in the back, bringing it out when the battle had been going on for a while. This allowed it to take down the remains of the opposing team, or at least parts of it. It was amazing in my battles against Crispin, Lacey, Drayton, Kieran and Terapagos. Since I am playing Violet, my Scream Tail was traded, which meant that it got boosted Exp. It was usually a few levels above the rest of the team, and it was the first one to reach level 100.

After playing through the Indigo Disk, I can appreciate Scream Tail a lot more, and it is defintiely one of my (many!) favorites from Gen 9.
 
Dragoran

For my Ruby rerun I decided to trade over a lv55 Dragonite from Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness. Generally as a Fly slave and I was using it to trade over Masterballs for softresetting Regis and Groudon with good enough ivs and natures. I did not intend to use Dragonite to fight but mainly to stall due to his high level. I wanted Jirachi with Lax Nature (which I wanted to use in an in-game run for the first time) to be the Pokemon I have fun with. Then I accidentally made Jirachi forget Psychic and was kinda dumbfounded. So I decided to use Dragonite as the 'main' Pokemon of my team. Level advantage wise it only mattered really during the 8 gym where I first used it.
Dragonite had no evs and had Dragon Claw, Fly, Dragon Dance and Earthquake in his moveset. It had a neutral Nature and despite Dragonite being more of a physical attacker, I barely had to use anything besides Dragon Claw during the run. Main obsticals were Ice Type users mostly bulky waters but anything else dropped relatively fast. Even with the trade experience grow, I only reached lv60 with Dragonite so it kinda shocked me. Maybe I did have a little advantage because of Pokerus which literally any Pokemon get when I trade between games due to batteries drying making it impossible to disappear.
Generally, I think Dragonite could have been better if I had Flamethrower or Thunderbolt on it for Skarmory, Ice Types and Water Types.

Overall, I had fun using Dragonite in Ruby. Next time I might use Latios in the in-game run whenever it seems suitable to see the difference. From ORAS I was really underwhelmed by the Laties but who knows how it will play out in the old games.
 
Ironmage said:
This interestingly mirrors my experince with SM in which I did a mono-Bug run. There really wasn't much that hit on the fire or flying weakness Bug shares with Grass (or Bug's other weakness to Rock, for that matter). The mon I recall being most threatening was the occasional Magnezone, since my main access to anti-Steel coverage was from the Electric-weak Golisopod.

Speaking of that playthrough, the painfully late evolution on Vikavolt (somewhat addressed in USUM) meant that despite being my starter replacement it didn't end up in that prominent spot on the team. My go-to ended up being Ariados setting up Swords Dance under Ledian's screens.
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I thought this part was better suited to this thread instead

Namely: I actually used Charjabug quite a bit. While the late evolution was a drag, I found that Charjabug had just the right amount of stats (not-terrible bulk, workable attack) and attacks (leans into its physical attack, a string of pretty strong early game moves that'll lasta while; its worst thing is that it has to rely on Spark for electric stab which. Well what else is new right?) where it counted to be pretty solid. Exceptional perhaps not, but it was dependable and probably saw more overall use than Decidueye

IMO if you're going to keep doing this type of evolution where your'e dragging the NFE around for the majority of the game, Charjabug is the gold standard.
 
The Mind Electric said:
That explains a lot, actually. My memory's not super clear, but I think my Noctowl had a nature that lowers Special Attack. I'm not used to natures mattering much in casual Pokémon, so I didn't bother to get another one with a more optimal nature.
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My Quagsire in HGSS fell victim to this a bit where it had a bad nature/iv combo to where Surf was better than Waterfall: it kept slightly missing KOs when I got to the Elite 4 so as I has to grind for a bit, it started falling behind in level.
 
I feel like I have some good ones I’m not remembering, so I may update later.

I will also have a lot more here as I do Nuzlockes and am pushed outside my wheelhouse more.

Pidgey - everyone talks about how good Rattata can be in Nuzlockes, but Pidgey was a star of my team in fire-red until it had an untimely likely preventable death against Giovani in Silph or something :(

it stayed on as a zombie-flyer for awhile because my fine ass is NOT walking everywhere

Butterfree: same as Pidgey. The powder moves/compound eyes really came in handy. This thing literally lasted me until my friend (it was a Soullink not a Nuzlocke actually) did something dumb and it had to be sacrificed to his incompetence

idiot
 
Basedwell said:
I feel like I have some good ones I’m not remembering, so I may update later.

I will also have a lot more here as I do Nuzlockes and am pushed outside my wheelhouse more.

Pidgey - everyone talks about how good Rattata can be in Nuzlockes, but Pidgey was a star of my team in fire-red until it had an untimely likely preventable death against Giovani in Silph or something :(

it stayed on as a zombie-flyer for awhile because my fine ass is NOT walking everywhere

Butterfree: same as Pidgey. The powder moves/compound eyes really came in handy. This thing literally lasted me until my friend (it was a Soullink not a Nuzlocke actually) did something dumb and it had to be sacrificed to his incompetence

idiot
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Azumarill (in Emerald nuzlocke): died doing what he loved (rollout strats) but not after winning me huge chunks of the game. Azu is a top 5 water type

Samurott: everyone always hates on him, but I used him in White 2 and he was perfect. I didn’t him to do everything, but he could come in, take a hit, and send back supereffective surfs as needed. Worthy member of the team. Helped in every fight.

Mamoswine (in HGSS): I assumed it was gonna be one of those Glass cannon pokemon that was never truly useful bc it would take too much damage before getting KOs, but it actually came through and kicked ass consistently. A top tier Earthquake spammer

Pelliper in Emerald Nuzlocke: i played Emerald once when i was in HS but i swear i got Wingull as a gift Pokemon. Maybe an egg. Either way, I never saved the game and when my tablet I was emulating it on crashed, I gave up.

I come back to Pokemon in adulthood. I am excited by Wingull at first, but hate its final evolution, so it again falls to the wayside. Then, I play my Emerald Nuzlocke, and this thing comes in, and absolutely rules. Another top tier water Pokemon!!

Noticing a common theme with water Pokemon absolutely ruling.

Cacturne also worked in my Emerald Nuzlocke as a good sacrificial piece against Tate and Liza. It did some real damage but i was never gonna switch it out so it was doomed from the start.

Staraptor (in Platinum): so I almost need to spend more time saying why I didn’t trust it. I know it gets Close Combat and Intim. But I had this theory, that it secretly had bad stats, and one of the reasons everyone found the Platinum E4 so hard, was that they brought Pokemon like Staraptor and Luxray that didn’t have good matchups and had fallen off by that point in the game.

I also don’t like being basic.

Nope, the bird was worth it’s money in the Elite 4 and really fun to use the whole game. Saved me from wiping countless times.
 
Jirachi

On a Pokemon Ruby playthrough, I decided to use Jirachi as a 'starter' type Pokemon. It disobeyed, had a unbeneficial nature and Confusion was its only attack making it walled by Poochyana. Things you would expect and I took into account. Regardless, early game is gone smoothly especially with how fast the exp was gained due to be a gift Pokemon from Pokemon Channel. 100 base stats across the board is no joke. Literally anything died to Confusion and Swift. And once it learned Shock Wave and Psychic, I don't recall any Pokemon giving it trouble and moved it through to the 7th Gym where I retired using it after accidentally teaching it Double Edge over Psychic.
Probably would do still well if I were to continue using it. 120 base Normal Move for Gen 3 ingame is still pretty good. It was just not meant to be. I looked forward to teach it Water Pulse and do some Serene Grace nonsense, but whatever.
 
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I decided to replay Diamond to get a better Azelf for my competitive living dex and decided to try various Pokemon out by trading them over. One of them are Pidgey. Normally I put the gifs of the whole evolutionary line here but considering I put only Pidgeot, it should show that I only used it as a fly slave first and foremost and let Chimchar handle most the fights (man, Chimchar is so good). After it fully evolved I got to use it in some fights like just having Return and Arial Ace is pretty useful against the annoying fog hidden Pokemon and Aaron. Sure, Heracross OHKOed it but at that point it was just lv48.
Maybe I give it too much credit. Staraptor obviously outclasses that thing. If Fearow where in the game it would better too and so would Dodrio.
It's preevolutions probably would do worse. Sure, I almost swept the Fighting Type gym... but I don't think that's something to brag about.
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Next Pokemon I used in Diamond is Nidoran female. I got one with Rivalty and due to my poor match ups even after teaching it high base power moves when it fully evolved, it could not take out weak Pokemon. However, the reason I did not drop it is that she has ended up being a very useful HM slave to my team with its moveset of Rock Climp, Rock Smash, Strength and Cut. Also it was a good death fodder who soak up hits if I needed to heal someone in the Pokemon league. Highest lv it reached was 34.
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Last Pokemon I used in my Diamond run is a Slowpoke that I evolved the moment I traded it over. Basically its just Slowking. I didn't get to use it much at the start due to disobedience (lv18 from SS) and wanting to be a bit more fair due to having taught it surf (due to my lazyness) and Fire Blast. But most the game it was enough just to spam Water Gun, Water Pulse or that weird water move you get from the water gym. I taught it the Shadow Ball TM and later it learned Psychic. It went last often but whenever it hit, it was usually a 2HKO at worst.
At lv66 it swept Cynthia.
2hkoed Spiritomp with Surf
3hkoed Gastrodon with Surf -> Shadow Ball -> Surf
1hkoed Roserade with Psychic
1hkoed Lucario with Fire Blast
Garchomp missed the 3hko due to its berry but I got a lucky crit with 1 Psychic later to 2hko on my second try
Milotic was the only real struggle due to its high special defense and Mirror Coat threatening my Slowking with double the damage. I tried fishing for Special Drops with the weaker Shadow Ball. I didn't get it but I managed to take Milotic down with the remaining 3 psychics I had.
During the match, Slowking gained 2 more levels.

I wonder what Pokemon I should try to play Diamond with next. The selection of Pokemon there is so hallow, so having Pokemon I can trade over and try out gives it some flavor.
 
mertyville said:
View attachment 717179
I decided to replay Diamond to get a better Azelf for my competitive living dex and decided to try various Pokemon out by trading them over. One of them are Pidgey. Normally I put the gifs of the whole evolutionary line here but considering I put only Pidgeot, it should show that I only used it as a fly slave first and foremost and let Chimchar handle most the fights (man, Chimchar is so good). After it fully evolved I got to use it in some fights like just having Return and Arial Ace is pretty useful against the annoying fog hidden Pokemon and Aaron. Sure, Heracross OHKOed it but at that point it was just lv48.
Maybe I give it too much credit. Staraptor obviously outclasses that thing. If Fearow where in the game it would better too and so would Dodrio.
It's preevolutions probably would do worse. Sure, I almost swept the Fighting Type gym... but I don't think that's something to brag about.
View attachment 717180View attachment 717181View attachment 717182
Next Pokemon I used in Diamond is Nidoran female. I got one with Rivalty and due to my poor match ups even after teaching it high base power moves when it fully evolved, it could not take out weak Pokemon. However, the reason I did not drop it is that she has ended up being a very useful HM slave to my team with its moveset of Rock Climp, Rock Smash, Strength and Cut. Also it was a good death fodder who soak up hits if I needed to heal someone in the Pokemon league. Highest lv it reached was 34.
View attachment 717184
Last Pokemon I used in my Diamond run is a Slowpoke that I evolved the moment I traded it over. Basically its just Slowking. I didn't get to use it much at the start due to disobedience (lv18 from SS) and wanting to be a bit more fair due to having taught it surf (due to my lazyness) and Fire Blast. But most the game it was enough just to spam Water Gun, Water Pulse or that weird water move you get from the water gym. I taught it the Shadow Ball TM and later it learned Psychic. It went last often but whenever it hit, it was usually a 2HKO at worst.
At lv66 it swept Cynthia.
2hkoed Spiritomp with Surf
3hkoed Gastrodon with Surf -> Shadow Ball -> Surf
1hkoed Roserade with Psychic
1hkoed Lucario with Fire Blast
Garchomp missed the 3hko due to its berry but I got a lucky crit with 1 Psychic later to 2hko on my second try
Milotic was the only real struggle due to its high special defense and Mirror Coat threatening my Slowking with double the damage. I tried fishing for Special Drops with the weaker Shadow Ball. I didn't get it but I managed to take Milotic down with the remaining 3 psychics I had.
During the match, Slowking gained 2 more levels.

I wonder what Pokemon I should try to play Diamond with next. The selection of Pokemon there is so hallow, so having Pokemon I can trade over and try out gives it some flavor.
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I'm thinking about trading in a Hitmon, Scizor, and Murkrow for my next one with Platinum. If you're doing the DNS thing with mystery gifts u could use a Rotom form. Girafarig and Lickitung are also cool. Ive always wanted to use Mantine too, as well as giving Lanturn some more burn.
 
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