Ingame Unusable Pokemon

Yer I wanted to create a thread about unusable Pokemon.

Indeed, GameFreak gave us some arguably indecent Pokemon that no one wants to use because it's an insult training such poor things. And I don't speak about NFEs... Because NFEs improve by evolving so it's good.

So. These miserably weak creatures were thrown in the depths of oblivion. Which ones do you think this description fits? What should GameFreak have do to make these fellows more usable?

Here is my personal top 3, considering that I did not play Gens IV to VI.

- Corsola
I've compared its BS to all its Rock/Water type fellows and it's nonsense. Omastar, Kabutops, Carracosta, Barbaracle, Relicanth, all of them have way better DEF, and also slightly higher ATK and HP (except for Omastar cause it runs SPA). Overall low stats and low HP with decent defenses is a total no. Moreover, its movepool sucks and does not allow to boost the ridiculous attacking stats. This Pokemon was Psychic-oriented in Gen. II with recover and Mirror coat, maybe they should've give him more SPA and SPD and teach him some Psychic things, as they did for Golduck? However, this guy is pointless as it is.

- Dunsparce
Ok it has some correct HP. Ok the ATK BS may have been worse. But the movepool does not fit, the typing does not fit (a blind snake that lives in caves should be Rock or Ground typed or whatever), and whith that it has no speed. Who need this? At least GameFreak could have had this improved by boosting ATK or DEF...

- Farfetch'd
Yo I'm a bird I carry on onion and my overall BS are just low. I'm mediocrity incarned and I'm the shame of all my Flying-type fellows. What is the point to this thing? Was it just designed for fun or what? Overall BS value is 60, with no characteristic wanting to be better than one another. It sucks. If a single-evolution line Pokemon is designed it should be usable vs. evolved Pokemon, and the BS here tell us clearly the opposite. Why not give this poor bird some decent attacking power and better HP, and (if we don't want an abusive enhancement) letting its defenses where they are? This way we could have a decent Pokemon used for sweeping Flying power, among with Bug or Grass typed moves brought up by the onion.

Smeargle isn't precisely unusable in-game, but for most people, it could definitely be tough to utilize.

When battling competitively via simulators and such, we're given access to put-together its moveset without any limitation at all, making this Pokémon rather straightforward (same applies to more or less every other). In-game, however, things are much, much more different, since the only move it does know initially is Sketch. To teach it other things, we're required to go through other processes, which could be sort of rough.

Also, I definitely agree on Dunsparce! At some point in future, I'm hoping they're going to introduce some evolution for this Pokémon to us with stat boosts, access to more moves, and so forth; this way, I'm sure it'll be rising in ranks in terms of this.

I can't believe nobody mentioned poor little Delibird yet. Learns only one move naturally, has sucky stats, and its hidden ability does the same thing as one of its regular abilities. The one move it learns without the aid of TMs also has a chance of healing the opponent. This poor little thing just isn't meant for battling at all. And there's Quilfish, which I've never seen actually used by anybody. And Masquerain, which evolves from a Pokemon with unique typing into just another Bug/Flying type. It has Intimidate going for it... and that's it.

mew_nani said:

I can't believe nobody mentioned poor little Delibird yet. Learns only one move naturally, has sucky stats, and its hidden ability does the same thing as one of its regular abilities. The one move it learns without the aid of TMs also has a chance of healing the opponent. This poor little thing just isn't meant for battling at all. And there's Quilfish, which I've never seen actually used by anybody. And Masquerain, which evolves from a Pokemon with unique typing into just another Bug/Flying type. It has Intimidate going for it... and that's it.

Click to expand...

Yep that's right. Two other sucky things.

I want to hack them all to give them the credibility they lost (or never had). But before I improve those Pokemon I kind of need to know what GameFreak had in mind with creating them.

Aaaand it's true that I can't even imagine what does the move Present actually stand for, but decoration.
Actually I'm thinking of making Delibird pure Ice type and have it learning more suitable moves... With reasonable BS of course.

Things that succeed in competitive, yet fail in-game:
Things that succeed in-game, yet fail in competitive:
Things that fail everywhere:

BettyNewbie said:

2. Any "weak" Legendaries: You know, things like Articuno, Moltres, Entei, Regice, Regigigas, etc. Their high catch rates, late appearance, and (sometimes) tendency to flee from battle make them impractical for in-game use, but their poor typings, stat spreads, movepools, and Abilities also make them bad in competitive.​

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Moltres and Entei are actually quite decent in competitive play, especially Entei thanks to Sacret Fire and Extreme Speed (event move, though).

Pokemon that are terrible in at least competitive play:
- Phione (inferior Manaphi with a terrible movepool)
- Sunkern line (lowest base stats and terrible movepool)
- Unown (terrible stats, only one move)
- Chimecho (terrible stats, movepool)
- Luvdisk
- Ledian

Come to think of it I noticed nobody mentioned Beautifly or Dustox. Beautifly is like a more terrible Butterfree, lacking Compoundeyes and having weaker stats and a weaker movepool, and Dustox is a weaker Venomoth, lacking Venomoth's ability to learn Psychic type moves naturally. I've seen minor trainers in R/S/E with both Pokemon but I've never seen a player use either one. It sucks that both are for the most part outclassed by other Bug types, even Mothim which at least learns Psychic and has a better design.

Thank you all for your interesting accounts.

mew_nani : true that I did not think of these two creepy Bugs, I don't even like their designs and they suck.

I will focus the rest of this post in answer to BettyNewbie.
___

It's true that Ice-typed Pokemon have unpractical common weaknesses and are a bit rough to use. I once went with a Glalie on Emerald, it was a bit odd and unpredictable, yet fun to play with (with Spikes/Toxic/Earthquake/Ice beam moveset).

Also, the painful truth is that most games have Dragon Pokemon as "final bosses" and these Dragons (or pseudo-legendaries) are sensitive to :
1. Ice-type moves
2. Dragon moves.

So... Again we get to the questions "what is the point to all this" and "what did they have in mind" and "how could it be enhanced". In my opinion, story-mode suffers of more imbalance than competitive playing because of inefficient signature-moves or low-level move catastophies (Zubat, Kabuto, Tentacool, any anything that begins with Wrap or Constrict,...) among other things that just bug me. And that's a bit of unfair because competitive playing is quite a niche-y thing since many users won't even showup on the competitive scene, mostly because you need to be state-of-the-art and it costs some money and time.

I + or - understood that D/P battle network has been closed few monthes ago for instance, making it unavailable for late-players. Any ways, these non-competitive players stand to the game and eventually jump to a romhack and their dream is to catch and train and use very Pokemon line so they have the Dex Completed and a huge roster of lv. 100 full-efficience trained Pokemon (is it me I am talking about? yes. And I never got 100% of this aim because it's like utopy).

To me, the exploring/storytelling and the battling are very tied in the Pokemon game, and sometimes the combination of the two totally suck, I talk about big cave landscapes full of Zubats, repetitive wild Pokemon fights and grinding, 6-Pokemon team only, level-up straight game with no or few rematches and no possibility to build a new ingame team post-game or even mid-game (changing an, let's say, lv. 40 by a recently catched Pokemon, and grinding the newcomer afterwards, really is a hassle), doubtul Exp. gaining mechanics (that 1.5 bonus gave by trained Pokemon is stupid and would totally suck in RPGs such as FF)...

Fortunately, despite those negative points I listed, the game stays fascinating and fun to play, once you know what pleases you in story-mode. Some like to train their favourite Pokemon to the top no matter what their competitive value is, some feel like exploring, discovering secrets, some others like to breed... It's at least a very open game where you can do many things and that's good. My actual like has always been to beat the game super-effectively with Well-balanced type coverage teams.

Maybe in the future we will see a split between the classic story-mode games and a brand new battle-strategy-focused game (e.g. the more mature thread). It sure would be wise by my standards, but would it be well-marketed and then sold?

Actually an MMORPG that I know succeeds with that story/competitive-battling split, I'm talking of Dofus and Dofus Arena. It's the one example I know.

I'm not gonna say magikarp is useless as I saw it can take down elite four that isn't ghost and event magikarp may have potential. Now Delibird if you don't give it a TM/HM you probably stuck with his notrious present move, the move have a chance to heal an opponent and it's like rolling a dice to see you land a number 6 just to damage the foe and not healing it

R.F. said:

Entei thanks to Sacret Fire and Extreme Speed (event move, though).

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Entei only got Sacred Fire in the most recent Generation, and it's impossible to have one with both Sacred Fire and Extremespeed (as the latter was a Gen 4 event). And, Entei has neither in the games you're most likely to get one in (ie. GSC and HGSS), anyways.

R.F. said:

Pokemon that are terrible in at least competitive play:
- Phione (inferior Manaphi with a terrible movepool)
- Sunkern line (lowest base stats and terrible movepool)
- Unown (terrible stats, only one move)
- Chimecho (terrible stats, movepool)
- Luvdisk
- Ledian

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Those are all bad in-game, too. Manaphy/Phione are impossible to obtain in normal gameplay, and the rest all have horrible stats and movepools that make them near-impossible to use.

R.F. said:

It's true that Ice-typed Pokemon have unpractical common weaknesses and are a bit rough to use. I once went with a Glalie on Emerald, it was a bit odd and unpredictable, yet fun to play with (with Spikes/Toxic/Earthquake/Ice beam moveset).

Also, the painful truth is that most games have Dragon Pokemon as "final bosses" and these Dragons (or pseudo-legendaries) are sensitive to :
1. Ice-type moves
2. Dragon moves.

Click to expand...

The problem with Ice types is that they're too rare, they show up too late, and most of them don't bring enough to the table to justify using either in-game or in competitive. Way too many of them have average stats, at best, have very limited movepools (usually just STAB and Normal moves), and their many weaknesses are just everywhere.

What makes it even worse is the fact that you don't even need an Ice type to actually have Ice moves. Ice Beam has been a readily-available TM since Gen 1 (with the exception of Gen 2), and tons of non-Ice Pokémon can learn the move, including all but a few of the games' most common type. Why bother going through the trouble of raising up an Ice type to take on that final Dragon Gym Leader or E4 member when you can just slap Ice Beam on the Water type you probably already have (thanks to Surf) and have something that can do more than just hit dragons and die to their Fire attacks?

R.F. said:

So... Again we get to the questions "what is the point to all this" and "what did they have in mind" and "how could it be enhanced". In my opinion, story-mode suffers of more imbalance than competitive playing because of inefficient signature-moves or low-level move catastophies (Zubat, Kabuto, Tentacool, any anything that begins with Wrap or Constrict,...) among other things that just bug me. And that's a bit of unfair because competitive playing is quite a niche-y thing since many users won't even showup on the competitive scene, mostly because you need to be state-of-the-art and it costs some money and time.

I + or - understood that D/P battle network has been closed few monthes ago for instance, making it unavailable for late-players. Any ways, these non-competitive players stand to the game and eventually jump to a romhack and their dream is to catch and train and use very Pokemon line so they have the Dex Completed and a huge roster of lv. 100 full-efficience trained Pokemon (is it me I am talking about? yes. And I never got 100% of this aim because it's like utopy).

To me, the exploring/storytelling and the battling are very tied in the Pokemon game, and sometimes the combination of the two totally suck, I talk about big cave landscapes full of Zubats, repetitive wild Pokemon fights and grinding, 6-Pokemon team only, level-up straight game with no or few rematches and no possibility to build a new ingame team post-game or even mid-game (changing an, let's say, lv. 40 by a recently catched Pokemon, and grinding the newcomer afterwards, really is a hassle), doubtul Exp. gaining mechanics (that 1.5 bonus gave by trained Pokemon is stupid and would totally suck in RPGs such as FF)...

Fortunately, despite those negative points I listed, the game stays fascinating and fun to play, once you know what pleases you in story-mode. Some like to train their favourite Pokemon to the top no matter what their competitive value is, some feel like exploring, discovering secrets, some others like to breed... It's at least a very open game where you can do many things and that's good. My actual like has always been to beat the game super-effectively with Well-balanced type coverage teams.

Maybe in the future we will see a split between the classic story-mode games and a brand new battle-strategy-focused game (e.g. the more mature thread). It sure would be wise by my standards, but would it be well-marketed and then sold?

Click to expand...

The hard truth is that Story Mode just isn't important in GF's mind anymore. While competitive battling truly was an obscure niche during the first 2-3 Gens, it exploded in popularity during the DS era (mostly thanks to wi-fi), and the competitive crowd has now become one of the largest and most vocal parts of the fandom, for better or worse. As a result, GF now concentrates most of their efforts to catering to the "metagame," often at the expense of Story Mode.

Just look at XY, for example. The story is very watered-down and none of the major NPCs are terribly strong or memorable, so the game is very easy to button-mash through, especially with Exp. Share on. And, the postgame is pretty much limited to a battle facility, aka. a single-player version of competitive battling. And, most of the new features like Super Training, Friend Safari, the updated breeding mechanics, and even Mega Evolutions all have more value to competitive players than casual ones. The games basically entice you to drop your in-game team and get to work breeding/EV-ing up a new "perfect" one as soon as you beat the E4.

A part of me wishes that GF would just make their own battle simulator for competitive players, and let the main games be games again. Pokémon isn't supposed to be a glorified battle simulator with a story tacked on. IMO.

BettyNewbie said:

Entei only got Sacred Fire in the most recent Generation, and it's impossible to have one with both Sacred Fire and Extremespeed (as the latter was a Gen 4 event). And, Entei has neither in the games you're most likely to get one in (ie. GSC and HGSS), anyways.

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Sacred Fire and Extreme Speed are legal together on the event Entei in Gen VI. All Entei have Sacred Fire as a default Heart Scale move. It's simple really: you take the event Entei to the Move Reminder and have it relearn Sacred Fire.

And to add to a previous post of yours, Pokemon with high catch rates (200-255) are easy to catch; it's the ones with the low catch rates (3-45) that are hard to catch.

Anyway, to add to the above, Seedot in the Gen III games. Not only does it have pretty crummy stats in the base form, its evolved forms' STABs are on the special side, when their physical Attack is better. In-game, they must rely on Nature Power for damage until Nuzleaf learns Feint Attack or Extrasensory (the latter at a pretty high level of 49).

In GSC, Dunsparce was quite good, since you could max all his stats. But the poor yellow dragon got nerfed in Gen III and onwards (you just can't EV-train all it's stats). Farfetch'd was fun to use; Sweeping with Swords Dance + Critical Hits through Stick was hilarious. But then again, it got nerfed through the new EV-system. Corsola SUCKS though. The only good thing about it was Spike Cannon and Recover. Actually, I think it's rather fun to try out the more "unconventional" Pokèmons, however, I think Yanma is REALLY boring. Unown is stuck with one move, and Wobbuffet is frustrating to grind with.

In-game, probably Milotic. I love it to death, but it's extremely hard to get and is outclassed by other water-types such as Swampert and Sharpedo.

Then there's Delibird and Regigigas, which are completely useless.

In-game its hard to use any Pokémon which has a defensive combat style. It takes too long to build up a defense each time you are challenged by a trainer. It's much easier to outspeed the enemy Pokémon and kill them in one or two hits.

Oh hey it's me again.

I would like to add honorable mentions for the unusable Pokemon category. This mention is given to baby Pokemon.

Let's take a quick example : Pokemon GSC (official release). They have made so the only baby Pokemon we get in early-game is Togepi. Togepi is new so it's OK to try and train it and we can have + or - good results when getting a Togetic.

But now let's imagine a nightmare-ish thing!
What if Pikachu, Clefairy and Jigglypuff were obtainable ONLY by catching their baby form (aka Pichu, Cleffa, Igglytuff).

YES. We would be crying. These baby Pokemon, unlike their fellows Magby, Smoochum or Elekid, have poor movepools that don't even fit with normal-form Pokemon. Those movepools stop at lv. 14 by learning Sweet Kiss.

Meaning that, if you take, say, a lv. 2 Igglytuff in an early-game team, and you train it seriously (and by this I mean it will get its max happiness at roughly lv. 30) it will miss all moves that are normally learnt by a Jigglypuff. Serves right, huh?

Conclusion : Introducing these 3 Baby Pokemon in GSC was a fatal error because someone else is doing better job than them in early-game : their Base evolved form... Even for the 3 others, GameFreak has made available only Jynx, Magmar and Electabuzz. Baby Pokemon are just a Pokedex fill-in and a breeder's curiosity and also a fandom-ish feature. But they ain't serious in a game. Phew.

Any ways. While I'm struggling with these statements :
"each Pokemon MUST have its special use in a game" and
"Each Pokemon SHOULD worth battling with it at the rite time ingame",
I'm thinking of making these 3 Baby Pokemon available with correct movepools in my RomHack early-game (catchable at lv. 3).

Does it sound good to you? Or maybe their BS are way 2 prohibitive and I should just make their Base evolved form available instead? Or I just could make so the Babies BS equal the Evolved form BS.

d4rk said:

Oh hey it's me again.

I would like to add honorable mentions for the unusable Pokemon category. This mention is given to baby Pokemon.

Let's take a quick example : Pokemon GSC (official release). They have made so the only baby Pokemon we get in early-game is Togepi. Togepi is new so it's OK to try and train it and we can have + or - good results when getting a Togetic.

But now let's imagine a nightmare-ish thing!
What if Pikachu, Clefairy and Jigglypuff were obtainable ONLY by catching their baby form (aka Pichu, Cleffa, Igglytuff).

YES. We would be crying. These baby Pokemon, unlike their fellows Magby, Smoochum or Elekid, have poor movepools that don't even fit with normal-form Pokemon. Those movepools stop at lv. 14 by learning Sweet Kiss.

Meaning that, if you take, say, a lv. 2 Igglytuff in an early-game team, and you train it seriously (and by this I mean it will get its max happiness at roughly lv. 30) it will miss all moves that are normally learnt by a Jigglypuff. Serves right, huh?

Conclusion : Introducing these 3 Baby Pokemon in GSC was a fatal error because someone else is doing better job than them in early-game : their Base evolved form... Even for the 3 others, GameFreak has made available only Jynx, Magmar and Electabuzz. Baby Pokemon are just a Pokedex fill-in and a breeder's curiosity and also a fandom-ish feature. But they ain't serious in a game. Phew.

Any ways. While I'm struggling with these statements :
"each Pokemon MUST have its special use in a game" and
"Each Pokemon SHOULD worth battling with it at the rite time ingame",
I'm thinking of making these 3 Baby Pokemon available with correct movepools in my RomHack early-game (catchable at lv. 3).

Does it sound good to you? Or maybe their BS are way 2 prohibitive and I should just make their Base evolved form available instead? Or I just could make so the Babies BS equal the Evolved form BS.

Click to expand...

Uh... they're babies. Ain't not having a good movepool and having sucky stats the entire point? You wouldn't expect them to have good moves because their evolved forms are encountered at such low levels (Pikachu can be gotten at level 3, Jigglypuff at level 5 and Clefairy at level 7.) They grow up too quickly to really need a moveset, unlike Smoochum, Magby, and Elekid who's evolutions are encountered at much later levels (in the neighborhood of 30).

In the wild they evolve quickly enough to be unobtainable unless we specifically breed them ourselves, so I don't think they deserve to be honorable mentions. After all they're pre-evolutions, which you said didn't count because they evolve into better Pokemon, and we specifically have to breed them because you simply can't find them in the wild outside of spinoffs. It's like arguing about Azurill and Mantike; you specifically have to breed them, and they evolve into better Pokemon with enough love so in the end it doesn't make a difference.

(Also they learn moves their evolutions do not. Pichu learns Nasty Plot, Cleffa learns Copycat and Magical Leaf, and Igglybuff learns Copycat as well, so they aren't entirely worthless.)

I understand what you say. But I thought it was clear that my previous statement was made in a mind where pre-evolved forms are the only forms obtainable in the wild. Because IMO it's he only way you can have a balanced game.
For example you would not appreciate to find lv. 5 Weepinbels or lv. 3 Pidgeots in the beginning and you would totally dislike trainers using these evolved forms so soon.

I have to admit it, your arguing convinced me that my logic to consider baby Pokemon as Base Pokemon (they're at least at Stage -1 maybe) and to make them available as early-game catchable Pokemon is failed.

Consequently, they will remain Pokedex-fillers obtained by breeding. Still I don't catch the point when people tell me Baby Pokemon can be useful.


Edit :

I've just been through sorting Each Pokemon in Gen. II by Base Stat Totals. To this sorting I've added two parameters : Which Evolution Stage is it? And Does it actually evolve? And... Believe it or not but it's all about Unbalanced, stupid and unfair everywhere. I think this table I made will be useful to me when I will enhance the movepools (or the BS), hoping that overall Balance can be implemented to this excellent game Pokemon Gold is.

Here are some examples of what I've observed :

d4rk said:

I understand what you say. But I thought it was clear that my previous statement was made in a mind where pre-evolved forms are the only forms obtainable in the wild. Because IMO it's he only way you can have a balanced game.
For example you would not appreciate to find lv. 5 Weepinbels or lv. 3 Pidgeots in the beginning and you would totally dislike trainers using these evolved forms so soon.

I have to admit it, your arguing convinced me that my logic to consider baby Pokemon as Base Pokemon (they're at least at Stage -1 maybe) and to make them available as early-game catchable Pokemon is failed.

Consequently, they will remain Pokedex-fillers obtained by breeding. Still I don't catch the point when people tell me Baby Pokemon can be useful.


Edit :

I've just been through sorting Each Pokemon in Gen. II by Base Stat Totals. To this sorting I've added two parameters : Which Evolution Stage is it? And Does it actually evolve? And... Believe it or not but it's all about Unbalanced, stupid and unfair everywhere. I think this table I made will be useful to me when I will enhance the movepools (or the BS), hoping that overall Balance can be implemented to this excellent game Pokemon Gold is.

Here are some examples of what I've observed :

Spoiler:

- It's only 25 Difference of BS Total between Magby and Butterfree/Beedrill
- From all the Bug Pokemon, only Heracross, Pinsir, Scyther and Scizor have their BS Total > 480. Poor bugs :(
- Dugtrio, Togetic, Azumarill, Magcargo, Raticate, Furret, are FE Pokemons with their BS Total < 425
- Smeargle, Ditto, Delibird, Unown, Farfetch'd, Aipom, Corsola, Lickitung, Yanma, Murkrow, Wobbuffet, Sudowoodo, Dunsparce, are Non-evolving at all Pokemon with their BS Total < 425
- When you sort NFEs by their level of evolution compared to their BS Total you observe some abnormalities:
- Swinub and Slugma (250 BS Total) evolve at Lv. 33 and 38 respectively, while their fellows late-evolvers have their BS Total between 300-450. How Stupid??? It's just a hassle to train such things.
- Let's note that while 425 Total BS is a sorta viable-level, a Pokemon being below that when it accompanies you all your journey long is garbage.

Click to expand...

The evolved forms actually would depend a lot on how they evolve, at least for me. Evolution by level up isn't really allowed because even if you suppose that Pokemon in the wild are capable of evolving a few levels early or late (like that Pidgeotto in Viridian Forest), if they're too low leveled for even that to apply it would be blatant cheating. If it's a happiness evolution or a stone evolution in a place filled with them though, I would allow it. After all Pokemon aren't just friends with Trainers; they're friends with other Pokemon too, and if a place is full of a type of elemental stone of course they would evolve using them. Thus if Weepinbell happened to evolve via Leaf Stone instead of level up, it would be alright because with evolution stones you can evolve them even at lower levels. Come to think of it there used to be Raichu available at the Unknown Dungeon... I wonder why they vanished?

As for balance, keep in mind when the Johto Pokemon were made there were only 151 Pokemon in existence. Back then they were on par with the Gen 1 Pokemon, so the power creep seen in later generations didn't apply. As new Pokemon are made, they are often stronger than older Pokemon and end up outclassing them. And in general Pokemon I don't think was ever meant to be balanced. There were always Pokemon that were powerful and Pokemon that weren't, and considering real life animals tend to outclass each other it makes sense. You wouldn't expect a wasp or butterfly to be on par with a giant beetle, and a crow is gonna be outclassed by a falcon or owl. Why else would Pokemon like Ditto and Sudowoodo have defense mechanisms like transforming or mimicing a tree if they weren't very powerful? Besides a Pokemon's worth isn't just in its BST or movepool; Unown aren't powerful on their own but are very powerful together, and Delibird tends to share food with everyone and thus doesn't really specialize in fighting.

mew_nani said:

The evolved forms actually would depend a lot on how they evolve, at least for me. Evolution by level up isn't really allowed because even if you suppose that Pokemon in the wild are capable of evolving a few levels early or late (like that Pidgeotto in Viridian Forest), if they're too low leveled for even that to apply it would be blatant cheating. If it's a happiness evolution or a stone evolution in a place filled with them though, I would allow it. After all Pokemon aren't just friends with Trainers; they're friends with other Pokemon too, and if a place is full of a type of elemental stone of course they would evolve using them. Thus if Weepinbell happened to evolve via Leaf Stone instead of level up, it would be alright because with evolution stones you can evolve them even at lower levels. Come to think of it there used to be Raichu available at the Unknown Dungeon... I wonder why they vanished?

As for balance, keep in mind when the Johto Pokemon were made there were only 151 Pokemon in existence. Back then they were on par with the Gen 1 Pokemon, so the power creep seen in later generations didn't apply. As new Pokemon are made, they are often stronger than older Pokemon and end up outclassing them. And in general Pokemon I don't think was ever meant to be balanced. There were always Pokemon that were powerful and Pokemon that weren't, and considering real life animals tend to outclass each other it makes sense. You wouldn't expect a wasp or butterfly to be on par with a giant beetle, and a crow is gonna be outclassed by a falcon or owl. Why else would Pokemon like Ditto and Sudowoodo have defense mechanisms like transforming or mimicing a tree if they weren't very powerful? Besides a Pokemon's worth isn't just in its BST or movepool; Unown aren't powerful on their own but are very powerful together, and Delibird tends to share food with everyone and thus doesn't really specialize in fighting.

Click to expand...

Huuuunnnn mew_nani u so mean I'll tell my mommy T-T
*ahem*
Let's talk about Gold only if you please. It's the only game I sorta know by heart.

Besides thiese accusations I've made, I kinda guess there is a logic behind it. I HOPE there is a logic behind it.
I know that Swinub and Slugma are Pokemon that are designed to be encountered in the late-game or post-game so their sucky BS are no hassle.
I know it's stupid and overpowered to get lv. 10 Pokemon with 485 Total BS (Beedrill and Butterfree).
I know some Pokemon based off of actual animals will evidently have relative power balance.
It would be a total chaos to get only beasts like Tyranitar or Dragonite.
I know we should be aware of Pokemon's personalities and other qualities than battling etc...

But still my point is that you really can't use certain Pokemon in a late-game battle (or mid-game for certain) and that's too bad for people that actually like these Pokemon. What if Beedrill, Farfetch'd, Corsola, Dunsparce, Delibird and Unown were my fave ones? They sure have some nice design and interesting history behind them, and maybe they've done something nice in the anime or in the manga, and yeah I'd be rewarded for liking them with seeing them crushed in battle even if I battle against some obscure lame NPC. And I'd have to put them in a PC Box so they die there being useless. It'd hurt my feelings you know.

And what about their availability? Dunsparce, Marrill, Qwilfish, Yanma : these bullshitMon appear within a friggin' swarm! They suck AND they're scarce! Dunsparce being based off of a mythical cryptid (Source) making it scarce is a thing, Yanma being a dragonfly can eventually make it have a low-encounter rate, but the others have no excuse there. Plus, they are new Pokemon introduced in the games so why are them so hidden! Would it be wiser to make Pokemon that are too good at battling scarce? I think so. Because at least you would take the challenge up to catch the powerful Pokemon and then get satisfied with their strong power. Legendaries work very well this way.
Oh and game trades. Bellsprout for an Onix, seriously. Krabby for Voltorb? Gloom for Rapidash? These were failed moves actually.

And about this evolved form thing, I find it so unfair when I see a trainer having a Pokemon with move or evolution I can't obtain atm in the game. For instance Whitney has this Clefairy and Clefairy is hidden at Mt. Moon so how did the b*tch cross around the regions to get her fairy monster while Train service is interrupted. But... Maybe Gym Leaders have a freedom a 10-yo PC does not have so let's be OK about this eventually.
Nevertheless I give no excuse to Falkner with his lv. 9 Pidgeotto. First time, I thought to myself WHAT how did he get this thing while I have to train a friggin' Pidgey to lv. 18 for the same result? Maybe Falkner caught the lv. 9 Pidgeotto as a rare encounter in Viridian Forest in RB, meaning that Falkner can use the time-travel facility while he doesn't even know what Pokemon Red is... So it's nonsense.

Oh and It makes me laugh a bit to read "a stone evolution in a place filled with them". If that's GSC we're speaking of there, WRONG! No evolutionary Stones anywhere but Bill's Grandpa and Mt. Moon. And then a friggin' Pokemaniac at Lake of Rage has a Nidoking on its team! WTF!
Oh perdon, at least I can haz a Stone before post-game. The Sun-Stone that we can earn in a cheated Bug-Catching contest where a Kakuna is more worthy than a Schyther... All is ok. At least your Raichu in RB's Unknown Dungeon seems way more legit since you actually find Stone ItemBalls or HiddenItems within the game.

About happiness evolved forms I have not that much to react to except it would be more "challenging" to introduce happiness evolved forms encounters only in the post-game (except for the babies because they suck so much). You're right, having a Chansey and a Blissey in the same tall grass spot would not be shocking to me. But I'm not getting on my nerves when this does not happen, at least there's one thing I'm not angry for, isn't it?

That's all. I think our argument can become endless and that we cannot really convice each other since we have slightly different point of views. Mine is that every each Pokemon in the creation that's designed to battle (because in Pokemon games, a lot of time is spent battling and we all wanna be the very best) deserves a minimum of respect, as well as the player who chooses this Pokemon. It was good to read you though. And thank you for reading me if you did.
*Grumpy face*

Although some of these posts have mentioned a handful of them, there are a lot of Pokémon with gimmicky stats and you don't really get much of a chance to really do anything with them. But some, like Pachirisu, the early-game Normal-types (although those can be good anyway), and even the Bug-types, most of them do have things to play with, like Charm, status inducing moves, or even Quiver Dance in the case of the very latter. They obviously wanted to do something to make things like Beautifly and Dustox more usable in ORAS, so there.

And the term "unusable" is a bit of a stretch. Things like these are why you play Nuzlockes :P