Samurott and especially Heatmor :(. At least Excadrill is ok. And Bisharp....is......*jumps off a bridge*
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Pokemon that disappointed you in-game despite looking good initially?
- Thread starter DrumstickGaming
- Start date
I love falinks, I use him in singles regularly, but god he sucks, even with no retreat, he's god awful, you get competent stats, but then you can't switch. The only thing that's remotely good about him is his speed and even then it's nothing to write home about. And don't get me started on his typing, fighting type is one of the worst types in the current metagame, with psychic, fairy, and flying weakness as well as having no stab option against ghost types. I just feel bad for the poor thing, he needs a buff
Dark/Steel was not a good Type combination in a generation that introduced a fair amount of strong Fighting-types...
I don't get why it isn't part Steel-type, you're telling me the helmet and shields the units have aren't made of metal? Probably could also use a better Ability than Battle Armor, like maybe Mirror Armor (if they're truly like the Spartan/Roman soldier they're based on their helmets & shield should be made of Bronze which when polished were used as mirrors *points to Bronzor* ) Moxie, or Stamina. I would have suggested Skill Link, but not really many multi-hit moves I can see it getting or get to make it worth having (like already would be a stretch for it to get Arm Thrust; guess could also get Double Slap, Pin Missile, and maybe Triple Axel).
Yeah Falinks is one of those Pokemon I so wanted to love but was just a bit too bad everywhere. Steel typing and a better ability would have gone a long way to fixing it I agree.
Personally, although it would have been nice, I don't think it really makes sense as a steel type. Yes it has armor, but that doesn't automatically make it a steel type (for example, Shelmet having armor and remaining pure bug). A secondary typing would've made it much better indeed, maybe Bug just to meme on the people who thought it was caterpillar in its reveal. At least it would have STAB first impression to nail psychics.
Bit of a late response here, but I was reading back through the thread and good lord, having used Growlithe in my first real playthrough of Crystal a year ago, it was agony
See the thing was that I hadn't really done a full playthrough of Gen 2 before, and on a whim I decided to pick up Growlithe, figuring it could be a fun pick since it was an early fire type and figured it could really shine when it became an Arcanine. Unfortunately for me, I didn't know that the elemental stones were a nightmare to get in this game and since I didn't know where to get them, I ended up beating the game and Red with a Growlithe.
Noctowl in HG. I saw some other people using it and it was the most readily-available Flying type for me early in my playthrough, so I decided to pick it up.
Then I saw the stats.
Wanting to persevere, I kept it until the E4 even though it was consistently the weak link of a team that was already weak due to my lack of planning/foresight. Watching my entire team get swept by Koga's Muk was what finally broke me. I traded Noctowl out for Ho-oh, and had a much easier time.
Also, Togekiss is cool, but if you don't wanna do the bug-catching contest then you're stuck with Togetic until Mount Silver. At least it did a decent job against Red's Snorlax for me.
Then I saw the stats.
Wanting to persevere, I kept it until the E4 even though it was consistently the weak link of a team that was already weak due to my lack of planning/foresight. Watching my entire team get swept by Koga's Muk was what finally broke me. I traded Noctowl out for Ho-oh, and had a much easier time.
Also, Togekiss is cool, but if you don't wanna do the bug-catching contest then you're stuck with Togetic until Mount Silver. At least it did a decent job against Red's Snorlax for me.
You could get the Shiny Stone through PokeAthlon.
Yeah, I should have also mentioned that. I knew it was an option, but I couldn't be bothered, and by the time you can get the stone through that method you can also get it through the bug-catching contest. For whatever reason, they really didn't like the idea of giving people access to Togekiss before the E4.
I mean, look at it's evil, soulless eyes. That tank would just flinch hax the E4 of Johto to submission
God, I wish. Koga's Muk is evil incarnate.
Better than FRLG, where you couldn’t any obtain of the cross Gens until the entire post game was completed, even through trades. At the very least, you could trade with the Sinnoh games to and evolve it there before trading it back to HGSS.
While FRLG (and by extension LGPE) was the worst about it, remakes are pretty oddly aversive to including a number of their new cross-gen evolutions for the Pokemon they have.
HGSS was generally very aversive to item-based evolutions in general. The only ones that are actually in Johto's Pokedex are the ones who evolve by some sort of level-up (Ambipom, Mamoswine, Tangrowth, Yanmega), and the rest are not available until post-game. Mismagius, Honchkrow, Rhyperior, etc. are all strictly post-game as well, in some cases post-post game in that you can't even get some of them until after 16 badges.
Even ORAS had a bit of this too. While Roserade was available for an in-game playthrough, Gallade, Dusknoir, and Froslass were flat out unavailable before the post-game because the means to evolve them was locked to the Battle Resort, which you can't unlock until after the Delta Episode. It's a pretty odd design choice.
(fortunately this isn't something to worry about if/when DP remakes happen because Gen 4's Pokemon haven't really been touched since that gen and none of Gen 8's new evolutions are from that gen from what I can tell).
HGSS was generally very aversive to item-based evolutions in general. The only ones that are actually in Johto's Pokedex are the ones who evolve by some sort of level-up (Ambipom, Mamoswine, Tangrowth, Yanmega), and the rest are not available until post-game. Mismagius, Honchkrow, Rhyperior, etc. are all strictly post-game as well, in some cases post-post game in that you can't even get some of them until after 16 badges.
Even ORAS had a bit of this too. While Roserade was available for an in-game playthrough, Gallade, Dusknoir, and Froslass were flat out unavailable before the post-game because the means to evolve them was locked to the Battle Resort, which you can't unlock until after the Delta Episode. It's a pretty odd design choice.
(fortunately this isn't something to worry about if/when DP remakes happen because Gen 4's Pokemon haven't really been touched since that gen and none of Gen 8's new evolutions are from that gen from what I can tell).
You can get the Dawn Stone in ORAS before the post-game but it requires a shit ton of Super Training grinding. I should know as that's what I did to get a Gallade in one playthrough I did of that game.
For DPP remakes if they do decide to go for the Platinum dex (it'd be fucking moronic if they went with base Diamond and Pearl dex), the only thing to really add is Sylveon.
Speaking of DPP...
I’m glad they gave a lot of Pokémon new evolutions to give some a new chance. Pokémon like Gallade, Weavile, Magnezone, etc. It’s really a great idea to breathe some life into previously mediocre Pokémon, and I look forward to things like these in the future.....
YOU DONT GET ACCESS TO THESE MOTHERFUCKERS UNTIL AFTER THE 7TH GYM. If you got the patience, It isn’t nearly as egregious, but it’s still a chore to carry glass..well, with those stats, they aren’t really cannons in the mid game now are they.
Oh, and don’t bother with Platinum. Even if they were in the game, you’d still have to look in a giant maze of a cave for an early Dusk Stone.
Way to shaft such cool mons.
I’m glad they gave a lot of Pokémon new evolutions to give some a new chance. Pokémon like Gallade, Weavile, Magnezone, etc. It’s really a great idea to breathe some life into previously mediocre Pokémon, and I look forward to things like these in the future.....
YOU DONT GET ACCESS TO THESE MOTHERFUCKERS UNTIL AFTER THE 7TH GYM. If you got the patience, It isn’t nearly as egregious, but it’s still a chore to carry glass..well, with those stats, they aren’t really cannons in the mid game now are they.
Oh, and don’t bother with Platinum. Even if they were in the game, you’d still have to look in a giant maze of a cave for an early Dusk Stone.
Way to shaft such cool mons.
Hey, if you don't mind using healing items in battles, they make great sacks while you revive Pokémon that can actually fight. That's something, I guess.Speaking of DPP...
I’m glad they gave a lot of Pokémon new evolutions to give some a new chance. Pokémon like Gallade, Weavile, Magnezone, etc. It’s really a great idea to breathe some life into previously mediocre Pokémon, and I look forward to things like these in the future.....
YOU DONT GET ACCESS TO THESE MOTHERFUCKERS UNTIL AFTER THE 7TH GYM. If you got the patience, It isn’t nearly as egregious, but it’s still a chore to carry glass..well, with those stats, they aren’t really cannons in the mid game now are they.
Oh, and don’t bother with Platinum. Even if they were in the game, you’d still have to look in a giant maze of a cave for an early Dusk Stone.
Way to shaft such cool mons.
Saw some people saying that they found Seismitoad disappointing in Black/White, and I've gotta say that after beating the game with one as my only Water type, I really don't see it. Yeah it doesn't get Earthquake which is annoying, but I found that I didn't really need it. What it does get is Rain Dance, which makes it a serious threat when combined with Swift Swim. I swept half of N's team by setting up Rain Dance with Seismitoad and plowing through them with a combination of Drain Punch and Surf. It was also able to run wild on Ghetsis after Hydreigon was out of the way. Not disappointing to me in the slightest.
Rivalry Luxray in Platinum. Oh my fucking god, Rivalry Luxray. When I first realized I didn't get a Shinx with Intimidate, rather than catching a new one I decided to soldier on, thinking "how bad could it be"? As it turns out, very bad. It already needs Intimidate to even be usable, but when you're stuck with Rivalry? Good god, it's UNBEARABLE. It's so weak, too frail (I needed a Shuca Berry for it to be able to beat Cyrus' Gyarados) and gets like, no moves (tfw best Electric STAB is Spark).
I will never, ever forget the tipping point tho. I was at Sunyshore, grinding the grass outside to face Volkner... and because of the Rivalry debuff, Luxray failed to OHKO a Floatzel with Thunder Fang. That was 4 levels lower. As soon as that battle was finished I went back to Sunyshore, boxed my Luxray, caught a Magneton and didn't look back for the rest of the game.
I will never, ever forget the tipping point tho. I was at Sunyshore, grinding the grass outside to face Volkner... and because of the Rivalry debuff, Luxray failed to OHKO a Floatzel with Thunder Fang. That was 4 levels lower. As soon as that battle was finished I went back to Sunyshore, boxed my Luxray, caught a Magneton and didn't look back for the rest of the game.
On the flipside, I evolved the free Eevee into a Jolteon on a whim because I needed an Electric type, and it was probably the best decision I made in that playthrough. Jolteon, as it turns out, is really strong. It was even doing work during the period when I was stuck with Shock Wave because I didn't want to deal with Thunder missing half the time. It gets overshadowed by Luxray for most people, but I would seriously encourage anyone doing a playthrough of Platinum to give it a try.
kinda ironic how a single ability can ruin an experience because I had a Rivalry Axew that swept the entire BW game. Yes, I had to grind a little bit but nothing significant. Now even fully evolved, I owned Iris despite her Pokemon not being male giving my Dragon a Attack decrease.
You can call me stupid for trying this, but yes, after being mildly satisfied with Spinarak in XD, I thought maybe Colosseum Ariados is the future. It has no Signal Beam, but it has Sludge Bomb. That's something, right?
Yes, I have to purify that thing to get something out of it.
This thing has sadly no other good moves and comes with the item that boosts... bug type moves by 10%. The only offensive Bug Move it gets in Gen 3 is Leech Life which has 20 base power, not counting breeding.
As you can imagine: its slow, it doesn't hit hard enough, is walled by almost everything it can outspeed.
Why does it come with Spiderweb? What I am gonna trap? And scary face? They couldn't even give it Dig.
You can call me stupid for trying this, but yes, after being mildly satisfied with Spinarak in XD, I thought maybe Colosseum Ariados is the future. It has no Signal Beam, but it has Sludge Bomb. That's something, right?
Yes, I have to purify that thing to get something out of it.
This thing has sadly no other good moves and comes with the item that boosts... bug type moves by 10%. The only offensive Bug Move it gets in Gen 3 is Leech Life which has 20 base power, not counting breeding.
As you can imagine: its slow, it doesn't hit hard enough, is walled by almost everything it can outspeed.
Why does it come with Spiderweb? What I am gonna trap? And scary face? They couldn't even give it Dig.
Heatmor is weird. You can obtain it on Victory Road in BW at ~L40, but it's inaccessible prior to the Pokemon League in BW2 due to being moved to Twist Mountain. Say what you will about BW designs, but I think the Heatmor-Durant dynamic was among the best ideas Game Freak has ever had, and these kinships are what distinguish Pokemon from other monster-collecting franchises. Also, Fire Lash is a cool as hell move and it's nice to see that Game Freak thought to buff it, in spite of Heatmor not being obtainable until Pokemon Bank's release.
However, cool lore does not translate into viability, and this very much shows with our anteater friend here. Heatmor fucking sucks, really bad. It suffers from what I call "Flareon Syndrome": a slow Fire-type with decent bulk which, due to the typing, ends up being extremely frail. Considering the design and Durant's existence, I assume it used to be Fire/Steel at some point in development and they removed it in fear of balancing issues. This would make sense, and if it's the case, then great god, were we robbed blind.
Heatmor has a distinct lack of direction in its stats and movepool. Similar to Seismitoad and a few other BW Pokemon, they really wanted it to do everything. The level-up learnset implies a special attacker, but it also gets a bunch of physical moves when you get it, including Slash within a couple of levels. When you dig into the TMs and such, you end up seeing that its special movepool is decidedly mediocre, with only Focus Blast...and it gets a ton of physical coverage. It wasn't until BW2 - where they fixed this - that it would improve and start getting stuff like Giga Drain.
So with this in mind, Heatmor is a bulky physical Fire-type, yeah? Hell, Fire Lash, a move it gets in SM, is designed to help this, and it even gets Hone Claws in BW. Surely they tried to fix the Flareon concept of old! Well, no. Its Atk is 97, and its SpA is 105. There's a clear special bias here...and very poorly distributed stats.
I can't make heads or tails of what they wanted Heatmor to be. It's a shame, the shiny sprite is really cool.
Also, Durant just kinda beats it one on one anyway? It doesn't even need an item...
252 Atk Hustle Durant Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Heatmor: 306-360 (98.3 - 115.7%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
The hunter becomes the hunted.
Edit: Call it the Anteater-Eater
So this isn't a one-liner, I'll share a story. Way back when, I got a Sun Stone from the bug catching contest in GS. Excited, I decided to catch one of the pokemon that could evolve using that Stone, Sunkern (I remember leaving my Gameboy SP on for hours to advance the clock, timing it so that when I came back from school it would be the correct time to catch Sunkern). And to no one's surprise, this grass-type struggled a lot in gen2 games, especially when opposing BSTs finally catch up to you. Good looking attacking stats are undercut when your movepool basically consists of Razor Leaf (though in hindsight Sunny Day + Solarbeam would probably be solid alongside
Personally I don't think slow Pokemon are necessarily bad or not fun on an in-game playthrough, and in some cases they can still be very fun to use if they're built correctly to utilize how slow they are. Snorlax for instance is quite good in the games it's in despite being obscenely slow because it's so bulky and has a great movepool to utilize so it not only is pretty difficult to kill, but it hits hard back in return and has a fun movepool. Ferrothorn in the Gen 5 games is also great fun even with its horrible Speed because its typing and bulk are so good, and it's nigh unbreakable except against Fire-type Pokemon, and with Curse it can boost and set up then sweep with Power Whip, Gyro Ball, and Payback, which is incredibly fun to do in-game in BW1 and BW2. Even in the context of SM itself, Mudsdale is one of the most popular and best team picks because it's so bulky and Stamina boosts its bulk up even further while it has a strong movepool and hits hard back, making it a fun Pokemon that just tanks hits and hits back hard. You see the trend here? These Pokemon may be slow, but they are tanks. They take hits like a boss and can dish out a lot in return. And they have decent defensive typings (Snorlax not necessarily, but while it doesn't resist anything, it's only weak to one type and has sheer bulk).
Crabominable is a case where it just doesn't have anything to make up for its lack of speed. It's not really that bulky and it has a horrible defensive typing, which means its slow Speed actively works against it and it's just too easy to kill more often than not so it almost never contributes, and even if it does survive a hit it will often need to be given a stream of Potions to constantly heal it to stay healthy. Something like Snorlax, Ferrothorn, or Mudsdale can use strong bulk and a boosting move like Curse or something related like Stamina to boost their bulk and power and you can just sweep stuff while your opponent never breaks past them, but Crabominable can't even do that. Slow mons can be fun to use in-game and good, but only if they have the tools to make up for the fact that they're practically always moving last.
Another example of a slow Pokemon similarly as bad as Crabominable in-game is Beartic in BW1, who I found to be absolutely horrible when I used it a long time ago. It was always moving last and was never bulky enough to take repeated hits, and always went down before it could get a kill in many situations. Only decent bulk combined with a bad defensive typing made it a truly miserable Pokemon when I attempted to use it, and I found myself having far greater results with Cryogonal and Vanilluxe. Like Crabominable, it's not only slow, but it can't endure hits well enough or have any resistances or a good enough movepool and power to compensate. It's those kinds of cases where being slow hurts more.
Crabominable is a case where it just doesn't have anything to make up for its lack of speed. It's not really that bulky and it has a horrible defensive typing, which means its slow Speed actively works against it and it's just too easy to kill more often than not so it almost never contributes, and even if it does survive a hit it will often need to be given a stream of Potions to constantly heal it to stay healthy. Something like Snorlax, Ferrothorn, or Mudsdale can use strong bulk and a boosting move like Curse or something related like Stamina to boost their bulk and power and you can just sweep stuff while your opponent never breaks past them, but Crabominable can't even do that. Slow mons can be fun to use in-game and good, but only if they have the tools to make up for the fact that they're practically always moving last.
Another example of a slow Pokemon similarly as bad as Crabominable in-game is Beartic in BW1, who I found to be absolutely horrible when I used it a long time ago. It was always moving last and was never bulky enough to take repeated hits, and always went down before it could get a kill in many situations. Only decent bulk combined with a bad defensive typing made it a truly miserable Pokemon when I attempted to use it, and I found myself having far greater results with Cryogonal and Vanilluxe. Like Crabominable, it's not only slow, but it can't endure hits well enough or have any resistances or a good enough movepool and power to compensate. It's those kinds of cases where being slow hurts more.
So I was thinking back to the only gen I have played the games for, being RSE and FRLG. I was semi-old at this point, and for years prior had read the Essential Pokemon Guidebook or whatever it was called and collected cards. One pokemon I had liked at the time was Sharpedo, because it looked cool and was a shark, a torpedo, and had decent attack. So I play through Emerald, and I used pokemondb.net for all of my information, and I looked at where Sharpedo is found because it is cool. I then looked at where Carvanha is found, and promptly decided I am not going to use Sharpedo.
Couple playthroughs later, it still seemed just underwhelming when using it. At the time you can catch Carvanha, it is already past Norman. At that point, you are probably going to have around level 30 Pokemon, and Carvanha evolves at level 30. So it already might be underleveled when you want to catch it. Somewhere between level 10 and 30, and with a growth rate of slow. If you catch one at level 10, you have a VERY long way to go. And even then, at that point you could have so many other water types. Possibly working towards a Swampert, easily a Pelipper, Lombre into Ludicolo eventually, Gyarados easily, Azumarill easier, so on so forth.
It really is just too late game to be off use, and even then is outclassed by other water types that are easier to get, easier to evolve, have better movesets, and can get STAB moves for their higher attack stat. Sharpedo does not naturally learn a water move, only learns 4 physical moves naturally, 2 being terrible, the other 2 not amazing. Even with TMs and HMs it gets... 4 damaging water moves and 10 physical moves. Even to this day, it does not have the stats to use it's now okay-ish movepool. It makes me sad.
gen 3 moveset is just so sad. Also link for this page if you can't read that.
Couple playthroughs later, it still seemed just underwhelming when using it. At the time you can catch Carvanha, it is already past Norman. At that point, you are probably going to have around level 30 Pokemon, and Carvanha evolves at level 30. So it already might be underleveled when you want to catch it. Somewhere between level 10 and 30, and with a growth rate of slow. If you catch one at level 10, you have a VERY long way to go. And even then, at that point you could have so many other water types. Possibly working towards a Swampert, easily a Pelipper, Lombre into Ludicolo eventually, Gyarados easily, Azumarill easier, so on so forth.
It really is just too late game to be off use, and even then is outclassed by other water types that are easier to get, easier to evolve, have better movesets, and can get STAB moves for their higher attack stat. Sharpedo does not naturally learn a water move, only learns 4 physical moves naturally, 2 being terrible, the other 2 not amazing. Even with TMs and HMs it gets... 4 damaging water moves and 10 physical moves. Even to this day, it does not have the stats to use it's now okay-ish movepool. It makes me sad.
gen 3 moveset is just so sad. Also link for this page if you can't read that.