I used Luxray and it always felt important to my team even if that was just in generic fights or catching utility
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Pokemon that disappointed you in-game despite looking good initially?
- Thread starter DrumstickGaming
- Start date
I probably was sleeping on a lot of them, but a handful of those are choices I wouldn’t be using for a playthrough. I scrapped Luxray at one point in favor of my own Magnezone so I could get a Steel-Type, Thundurus is a Legendary, and one thing I’d also like to mention is that I didn’t use move tutors once throughout the whole game because the extra time to get stuff to pay for it could just be spent catching other Pokémon who don’t have this issue as badly.
You see, that was your mistake. Relying solely on level-up movesets limits your options for dealing with certain story threats as well as any wild mons that you are forced to battle. The path of Solitude for some mons is also impossible without the right moves (I had to get Power Shift on my Sneasler solely for its Path of Solitude). Plus, simply paying Zisu to teach your existing mons some moves is far less time-consuming than catching a new mon and grinding it up to the level you want (most of the time).
Not saying you're playing the game wrong, but you're certainly making it way harder on yourself.
I went to Zisu a few times but honestly the game doesn't really need it at all. It was really hard for me to feel like most Pokemon were necessarily lacking over others, outside of things where oh this move is just stupid or they have enough base stats to throw around,. battles are so few in comparison to normal and the ones that are there are going to be weird revenge kills 90% of the time anyway so everyone just kind of meshed together into an interchangable blob unless they were just like wow this pokemon is bad
The Path of Solitude stuff feels like where all this actually matters, which is funny.
The Path of Solitude stuff feels like where all this actually matters, which is funny.
Ice Ball is really good on it because, due to how damage is calculated in Legends, Attacking stats barely factor into the damage formula. In fact any Pokemon in that game can go mixed with no issues of damage output from either side damage catagory. Use the elemental punches on Alakazam, use Dark Pulse on Overqwil, their low offenses don't matter much.
I used Entei in my Pokemon Crystal run hoping it to put some work. Not sure if it was because awful ivs, but it couldn't even 1HKO an Ivysaur with a coal boosted Ember. Always getting a status condition or almost died. I ended up turning it into a Cut Slave while Crobat swept Erika instead.
Jellicent, in BW2 specifically. What happened here? In the first game, Jellicent was a late, but serviceable option. You beat Brycen, can burn Marshal's Fighters at the League and stall them out with Recover, and hit a few other niche targets. I posted recently about my experiences with Jellicent in-game in BW2 and it was the embodiment of a disappointing lategame Water type that BW2 already has tons of (Wailord, Octillery, even according to some of my friends Starmie isn't that fantastic). Oh, Jellicent has Will-O-Wisp and Hex? It's kinda slow and there's so many weaknesses preying on it. Oh, it has Surf, Shadow Ball, Psychic and Energy Ball pretty quickly? It lacks the good firepower to make use of it. The Water / Ghost typing really doesn't help it all that much in terms of the remaining matchups and the only things Jellicent does semi-okay in BW2 are sweeping Skyla sllllllllllllllllowly and being okay for Iris. But that's literally it. It's a shame because I think Jellicent is a good Pokemon, it just can't use its toolkit properly in-game. Just another high evolution level Unova Pokemon that isn't all that worth it.
I used Entei in my Pokemon Crystal run hoping it to put some work. Not sure if it was because awful ivs, but it couldn't even 1HKO an Ivysaur with a coal boosted Ember. Always getting a status condition or almost died. I ended up turning it into a Cut Slave while Crobat swept Erika instead.
That is so sad, lol. Earlier Pokemon games had awful movepools.
nah the latter games have problems too, see: Gen 4 Drapion
Level 49 for Crunch??? Really?
Meditite, also Gen 4 movepool specifically
You get this thing like 15 levels away from Force Palm at the earliest. Have fun.
While BDSP straight up fixed Meditite’s issues, Drapion is somehow both better and worse; worse in that Crunch doesn’t come until Lv. 54 now, but better in that it at least has Night Slash or the buffed Knock Off before then.
I finally got my Wii working on my new TV meaning I can replay Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness. Thinking about what Pokemon I didn't use and which I will use, I recall using Larvitar and how painful it was. Not sure if I mentioned it ever.
Like the appeal of Larvitar on the surface is great:
- Trade EXP-Boost
- Rock Slide at lv22 (you get it at lv20)
- Egg moves in Dragon Dance, Outrage
- Guts -> Shed Skin -> Sandstorm
But at further inspection, damn its awful. First you need to get it to Pupitar and setting up and doing something with Pupitar is a nightmare. You remember you are in Double Battles. Even a STAB Rockslide doesn't do significant damage from the pathetic stats of Larvitar and Pupitar at that point in the game. You can teach them the TM for Earthquake to get a quick STAB move but do you want to?
And finally the thing that annoyed me the most:
yes, Ttar is the worst part of using Larvitar. Sandstorm slows down the already slow battles into snails pace. And for someone who likes to catch all the Shadow Pokemon... it probably isn't a good idea to use this of all things. Yes, it is strong and could win battles. But it makes the game really boring since turns feel like an eternity. It won't be too bad since final fights have bosses that change weather themselves but you rely on stuff your opponent does to make your experience a bit better.
Hey, at least they learn strong moves at relatively reasonable levels or in okay ways. Hi Jump Kick at L32? Elemental Fangs through Move Relearners? Not like in GSC where Typhlosion needs TMs just to have a Fire-type move above base 60 (65?) in base power even in the L40s, lol, or where Heracross needs to be in the L40s just to finally learn his first direct damaging Fighting-type attack (Reversal) or L50s for the Bug-type move (Megahorn).
Crobat in Platinum. I kinda like the Zubat line and i've used this in my 3 different Platinum run: casual-playthrough, doing test logs for personal experience (though i got really trash ivs in this particular run), and hardcore nuzlocke. At first glance, i thought Zubat would shine in this game because a Level 10 Golbat is obtainable at Oreburgh Mine, which had Screech to compensate for its low damage and its shortly getting Bite then Pluck TM afterwards, and there's an early Soothe Bell around Eterna, which means early Crobat (I got mine evolved right on time for Gym 4). And then i find out its worse than i initially thought as the game progresses. I mean L10 Golbat is quite solid in the early-game, and as Crobat, i actually appreciated its 130 base Speed in this game a lot than in GSC, which was an overkill in there, but what makes me disappointed to it? It falls off so early (around mid-game) largely because its offenses is mediocre. As a Crobat, the strongest STAB move it get is... lol Fly, and the other one is Cross Poison, which i think its marginally better because its only 10 BP higher than Wing Attack/Pluck. Crobat is stuck with 60/70 BP STABs for a long time whereas other mons on my team are already rocking with their reliable 90+ BP STABs. I didn't teach it Cross Poison sooner when doing personal logs on it, and man, i regret not teaching it much earlier. Due to that and possibly my trash IVs, I had to used Fly as my best offensive move, because I was only 3HKOing some stuff like Barry's Floatzel in Canalave, and Cyrus' and Candice's Sneasel using Pluck. It couldn't even 1HKO the Grunt's Stunkys at Galactic HQ/Mr. Coronet part with Pluck. I even tried out Razor Claw Cross Poison combo, but i don't crit a lot on routes. I was completely underwhelmed by this.
Yeah, after it got buffed to 90BP, I found it a very serviceable option with a built-in Protect turn. It's not even that slow either despite the extra dialogue box.
Sometimes I actually roll with it and Brave Bird on mons like Plat Staraptor to have a Flying option without recoil on the 4th slot.
nah i also used platinum crobat, fly is fine as a move but the bigger issue in my experience was just its mediocre attack and lack of good coverage or boosting moves. like you bring in the bat and click fly, which will at least usually connect because it’s very fast, but then most late game guys will absorb your attack (even if hit super effectively often) and 2 shot you in return with their stab. you can play around with toxic and confuse ray but when you’re seriously relying on those in the late game on a mon that can’t take hits you know something has gone wrong.
Now that I finished Pokemon XD for the billions time, I wanted to share my experience with Spearow and its evolution Fearow. Surprisingly Spearow did really well and with False Swipe it helped catching several Shadow Pokemon. After evolving through EXP Share and learning Drill Peck, I had high hopes for some late game shadow pokemon. Sadly even in combination with Shadow Hitmonlee's defense lowering move it never managed to stick around. Maybe I expected more than you can expect from a Pokemon that was meant to be early route fodder. It didn't really help out that much either but guaranteeing low half on certain Pokemon.
I did a personal test run on Kadabra in Platinum, and i want to see how it fares in that game, because the Abra line is great in old gens from what i read, (and i also like Abra, especially GSC Abra). And ugh, Kadabra is... awful (worse than some C-tier mon if you asked me), and its a lot worse than how it performs in like RSE or HGSS. Kadabra has 2 things that IGTL would probably value; high speed and strong power, but god its super frail. Sure, it has this weakness in other old games too, but at the very least in those games, its amazing offensive prowess greatly outweighted that weakness. In Platinum, however, that wasn't the case, its extreme frailty is much more noticeable (especially in the late game), and its offensive power are not enough to compensate for its frailty, like Psychic STAB alone doesn't carry you a lot in Platinum unlike in other games. That frailty truly affected its performance a lot, its only matchup that it consistently sweep is only Saturn (with Shadow Ball) and several Barry fights (if you picked Turtwig) and that's pretty much it ( Maylene is luck-back because Kadabra loses almost half of its HP to a Meditite Fake Out, Jupiter requires weird strat in Sub + Disable + Miracle Eye, and Gardenia requires you to be Level 24, and that's too high at that point considering its really painful to grind a Level 4 Abra). It has few other matchup that are ok, and a bunch of mediocre matchups (especially Candice onwards, its so terrible), some even it outright loses because it easily dies in 1 hit against almost anyone. It potentially loses to Distortion Cyrus' Crobat or Bertha's Whiscash because of how frail it is. Kadabra just never shined elsewhere outside of Barry. This game had really taught me as a tester that 2HKOing stuff is not a good thing if you keep dying in 1 hit. I mean sure its a good thing that Kadabra can 2HKO Byron's Steelix with Specs Psychic, but its not THAT great when it gets one-shotted in return; it deals 0 damage if its dead (like if its not one-shotting any of Volkner's team, then it straight up loses in that fight), and Kadabra had multiple instances of doing like this in this game, to the point Kadabra just ends up being more of a liability than a great mon. If i disregard the happiness evo and possible 200K Gold, then Espeon is better than Kadabra because it doesn't die too easily, lack of Shock Wave doesn't matter because Kadabra isn't reliably beating Gyarados anyway (In fact, Psychic Espeon is more reliable at beating a boss' Gyarados than Shock Wave Kadabra because Espeon doesn't get one-shotted). Also, "Platinum is a hard game" is not an excuse so i could say Kadabra is great in this game.
tldr: Kadabra is only an okay mon, but
Shroodle / Grafaiai in Scarlet and Violet.
Okay so early on Shroodle is great. Normal / Poison is a good type, early Acid Spray is hilarious, Poison Touch is a good Ability (I got Unburden and didn’t know any better at the time as I was playing blind). It earns its way to the level 28 evolution mostly fine, and Grafaiai’s IIRC 95 Attack and 110 Speed keep it relevant a little while longer…
And then the lategame happens.
I was using a team of Meowscarada, Gyarados, Mudsdale, Tinkaton, and Tauros alongside Grafaiai, and all of the other 5 outperformed it easily. The STABs aren’t really that great, it’s not that strong anymore because Poison and Normal feels increasingly irrelevant as the game goes on (as is typical for Pokémon games) and mine devolved into a Poison Fang / U-Turn bot for catching.
I didn’t drop Grafaiai, but I definitely seriously considered it at one point. I wouldn’t say it is unusable, far from it, but it’s pretty mediocre. I also hate the name and the evolved form’s design doesn’t do much for me.
Okay so early on Shroodle is great. Normal / Poison is a good type, early Acid Spray is hilarious, Poison Touch is a good Ability (I got Unburden and didn’t know any better at the time as I was playing blind). It earns its way to the level 28 evolution mostly fine, and Grafaiai’s IIRC 95 Attack and 110 Speed keep it relevant a little while longer…
And then the lategame happens.
I was using a team of Meowscarada, Gyarados, Mudsdale, Tinkaton, and Tauros alongside Grafaiai, and all of the other 5 outperformed it easily. The STABs aren’t really that great, it’s not that strong anymore because Poison and Normal feels increasingly irrelevant as the game goes on (as is typical for Pokémon games) and mine devolved into a Poison Fang / U-Turn bot for catching.
I didn’t drop Grafaiai, but I definitely seriously considered it at one point. I wouldn’t say it is unusable, far from it, but it’s pretty mediocre. I also hate the name and the evolved form’s design doesn’t do much for me.
who in the HECK designed Flittle's stats????????
I'm doing a run with this thing right now and using it has been pretty awful. It did okay for Brassius with Calm Mind, but then flopped so badly against Iono and put such a repugnant taste in my mouth I overleveled for Kofu just to get it evolved as soon as possible. What level does this thing evolve into Espathra? Surely it has to be something reasonable like 20, or 25, MAYBE 30 like a baby Pokemon of old would...
L E V E L 3 5 E V O L U T I O N.
Are you freaking serious? Most trash fires in bulk not named Carvahna have the decency to evolve before or by level 20. But level 35? Are you HIGH? We aren't in Unova anymore!
I virtually never wanted to use it in the field because Psychic STAB is pretty awful, not as bad as Poison but still kinda wretched, and Flittle's literally Sunkern-equivalent bulk basically renders it incapable of fighting anything even remotely strong.
Not kidding you, Biblically accurate Flittle bulk:
Espathra is at least alright, haven't used it much yet but it swept Kofu so I guess that's something, but it's got a long way to go before it washes the bad taste of Flittle from my mouth. I mean with EXP Share anything can be shoved in the back of your party, but I don't like my mons being completely dead weight against any physical attacker before evolving. In competitive it might be feared, but in-game Flittle is a mostly a trash fire. Also fun fact, Flittle is also equivalent to Patrat and Charcadet in 255 BST.
Happy New Year in a Flittle over an hour I guess.
ba dum tiss
I'm doing a run with this thing right now and using it has been pretty awful. It did okay for Brassius with Calm Mind, but then flopped so badly against Iono and put such a repugnant taste in my mouth I overleveled for Kofu just to get it evolved as soon as possible. What level does this thing evolve into Espathra? Surely it has to be something reasonable like 20, or 25, MAYBE 30 like a baby Pokemon of old would...
L E V E L 3 5 E V O L U T I O N.
Are you freaking serious? Most trash fires in bulk not named Carvahna have the decency to evolve before or by level 20. But level 35? Are you HIGH? We aren't in Unova anymore!
I virtually never wanted to use it in the field because Psychic STAB is pretty awful, not as bad as Poison but still kinda wretched, and Flittle's literally Sunkern-equivalent bulk basically renders it incapable of fighting anything even remotely strong.
Not kidding you, Biblically accurate Flittle bulk:
Espathra is at least alright, haven't used it much yet but it swept Kofu so I guess that's something, but it's got a long way to go before it washes the bad taste of Flittle from my mouth. I mean with EXP Share anything can be shoved in the back of your party, but I don't like my mons being completely dead weight against any physical attacker before evolving. In competitive it might be feared, but in-game Flittle is a mostly a trash fire. Also fun fact, Flittle is also equivalent to Patrat and Charcadet in 255 BST.
Happy New Year in a Flittle over an hour I guess.
ba dum tiss
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A first time playthrough has pretty quickly showed off how weak Veluza was.
Assuming you don't skip anything and follow by levels, you would have beaten Klawf already meaning it's next good match up should me Mela, except no she has a Torkoal with drought, and for added measure is fried fish against Iono when you first catch it. From there it gets no good match ups, unless you can find Zen headbutt/Psycho Cut for Atticus, until Iron Treads and Great Tusk who both have Knock off, are tanky enough to survive multiple hits, and are significantly faster then Veluza. After that it gets basically nothing for match ups except for Nemonas Lycanrock, and against almost all of Rika’s team.
Then there's its stats, 102 Attack is great for a level 20 mon, shame it's got nothing else going for it once stronger mons start showing up and starters start evolving. 90/73/65 defenses are nothing to write home about, and it's speed stat is at 70, that's barely faster then Skeledirges 66. It basically has to rely on Fillet away to get anywhere, but by the time it gets a use out of it it probably already fainted because it can't survive for crud. Plus it's abilities are divided between the amazing Sharpness, boosting cutting moves by 50%, and Mold Breaker. Sharpness would have been great for it, but it's a Hidden ability meaning you probably won't get it without a lucky raid.
And it's in the same game as Tatsugiri, Aqua Tauros, Dondozo and Palafin, the latter two being some of the best Water types in the game right now and can do everything Veluza can do significantly better outside of having a Psychic STAB. And then they have it star on the champions team as well, like come on Geeta, you had better options for a Water type.
Assuming you don't skip anything and follow by levels, you would have beaten Klawf already meaning it's next good match up should me Mela, except no she has a Torkoal with drought, and for added measure is fried fish against Iono when you first catch it. From there it gets no good match ups, unless you can find Zen headbutt/Psycho Cut for Atticus, until Iron Treads and Great Tusk who both have Knock off, are tanky enough to survive multiple hits, and are significantly faster then Veluza. After that it gets basically nothing for match ups except for Nemonas Lycanrock, and against almost all of Rika’s team.
Then there's its stats, 102 Attack is great for a level 20 mon, shame it's got nothing else going for it once stronger mons start showing up and starters start evolving. 90/73/65 defenses are nothing to write home about, and it's speed stat is at 70, that's barely faster then Skeledirges 66. It basically has to rely on Fillet away to get anywhere, but by the time it gets a use out of it it probably already fainted because it can't survive for crud. Plus it's abilities are divided between the amazing Sharpness, boosting cutting moves by 50%, and Mold Breaker. Sharpness would have been great for it, but it's a Hidden ability meaning you probably won't get it without a lucky raid.
And it's in the same game as Tatsugiri, Aqua Tauros, Dondozo and Palafin, the latter two being some of the best Water types in the game right now and can do everything Veluza can do significantly better outside of having a Psychic STAB. And then they have it star on the champions team as well, like come on Geeta, you had better options for a Water type.
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I already stated it in another thread, but after using it in several playthrough teams I am a bit disappointed about Kilowattrel.
Now don't throw stones at me, I know it is a popular choice!
First, I want to say that it didn't perform bad in all of the playthroughs, in some of the playthroughs in which I had a strong team and did much exploring and catching, therefore had nice exp levels, it mostly did "okay" since it wasn't needed most the time and when it was needed, like for killing a water type it did what it was supposed to do. Like a standard electric-type.
But I also had a playthrough (which I didn't ended since I only wanted to test some pokémon and the used team felt not optimal overall) in which some of the flaws of Kilowattrel became apparent.
First, it is its defenses. While its typing is certainly great both in offense and in defense, its defensive stats are pretty bad, whch makes switching it in when a big hit is incoming pretty tough at times. Also, the Roost move is pretty much wasted on this pokémon since it isn't meant to be a tank.
Second, the movepool in general. While its available electric moves are generally good enough, the flying moves are not, in my opinion. Hurricane has bad accuracy and comes late, and the physical flying moves lean on its bad physical attack stat.
So overall, the only really useful moves are T-Bolt, Volt Switch and maybe Tail Wind.
And that's sad since it competes with several other good electric types.
Now don't throw stones at me, I know it is a popular choice!
First, I want to say that it didn't perform bad in all of the playthroughs, in some of the playthroughs in which I had a strong team and did much exploring and catching, therefore had nice exp levels, it mostly did "okay" since it wasn't needed most the time and when it was needed, like for killing a water type it did what it was supposed to do. Like a standard electric-type.
But I also had a playthrough (which I didn't ended since I only wanted to test some pokémon and the used team felt not optimal overall) in which some of the flaws of Kilowattrel became apparent.
First, it is its defenses. While its typing is certainly great both in offense and in defense, its defensive stats are pretty bad, whch makes switching it in when a big hit is incoming pretty tough at times. Also, the Roost move is pretty much wasted on this pokémon since it isn't meant to be a tank.
Second, the movepool in general. While its available electric moves are generally good enough, the flying moves are not, in my opinion. Hurricane has bad accuracy and comes late, and the physical flying moves lean on its bad physical attack stat.
So overall, the only really useful moves are T-Bolt, Volt Switch and maybe Tail Wind.
And that's sad since it competes with several other good electric types.
Spidops, full stop. I really like their design and web gimmick with the string but it really doesn't do that well. The pitiful speed, especially. I thought it'd be faster in battle but it isn't. Silk Trap's a good move, too, but it's stuck on a Pokémon who is already slow.
Back in the day it was Slaking. I looked at its insane stats and through it would be a game breaker. I didn't think it's ability would hinder it so much. The set up turns that it allowed pretty much always haunted me.