Any Pokémon you were disappointed by in battle?

Steelix in Gen 4. I had a great time with it in Gen 2, but I tried using it in Gen 4 and it suffered horribly from the physical/special split. It's an excellent physical wall, which was great in Gen 2 when its 200 base Defense basically nullified two of its weaknesses, but its Special Defense is quite bad and its low speed gives it little defense against unresisted special sweepers, which are much more common in Gen 4 than Gen 2. Cynthia especially runs five special sweepers and Garchomp (which itself runs Flamethrower) in Platinum, which makes a dedicated physical wall nigh-useless in the final battle.

Also Staraptor. I've never liked it much, but was assigned one by Devalue in a challenge and she was still a letdown. She couldn't learn Acrobatics, and took so long to learn Brave Bird that she was being outcompeted for Flying-type damage by Pokemon that weren't even Flying-type.
 
I have a few:

1.) Pidgeot
This will always be a let down because I did use one in gen 1, but once I got Doduo I realized it had actual good moves like drill peck and not just wing attack. That is why I always resent Pidgeot even if it is an early bird mon. Especially because on another playthrough I would use Fearow and that is also much better.

2.) Unfezant
Not bad stat wise, but for a physical fighter it heavily relies on fly and aerial ace since none of its level up moves are good physical flying STABS. It cannot even learn acrobactics! What was Game Freak thinking!?

3.) Electivire.
It's not bad, but for a long time Electivire didn't have a good physical electric STAB outside of thunder punch. It may be a decent physical fighter, especially packing fighting coverage, but I believe it should have been electric/fighting. I still think that. Also Electivire is very frail physical wise and its abilities disappoint me. Motor drive isn't bad, but vital spirit? Why not no guard, guts, iron fist?

4.) Luxray
By far the biggest disappointed for me, despite still thinking it is a decent pokemon for Diamond and Pearl (not Platinum obviously). Take everything I said about Electivire, but make it worse. Luxray is so cool looking but it has less speed. This should have been electric/dark. Intimidate is its only saving grace as it is quite bulky, but at that point I'd use Ampharos. Ampharos has light screen. Plus Manectric is also a better Luxray with faster speed and special attack.
 
I didn't use to do research on stats and movesets in my early playthroughs, so yeah, I remember some disappointments here and there:

Pidgeot: Underwhelming moveset and stat spread. Wing Attack used to be its strongest Flying type move. Redeemed by Mega Pidgeot repurposing it as an amazing Special attacker with 100% accurate Hurricanes. But until then... basically just use Fearow (Drill Peck, higher Attack and evolves earlier).

Umbreon: Didn't know it was intended to be a staller the first time... too bad its best stalling tool (Toxic) was a TM that in Johto is locked behind the post-game. So yeah, have fun taking enemies down with Confuse Ray and Faint Attack / Bite as its strongest STAB moves.

Slaking: Yep, I raised Slakoth in my blind Hoenn playthrough, Vigoroth losing Truant made me happy that the Ability wasn't permanent. Well, I guess it's pretty obvious how that story ended.

Luxray: A physically oriented Electric Pokémon was something new when Gen 4 came out, and it had potential to be good at that, but crippled by Spark being its strongest move. Elemental fangs coverage was also an interesting niche, but it was outclassed on both areas by Electivire, which could do the same job but better with the elemental punches. Couldn't get a good physical Electric move until Gen 9...

Serperior: Lackluster movepool. It was my starter in Black, didn't have much to offer on a regular playthrough compared to the other starters or to other pure Grass types like Lilligant or Whimsicott. Very uninteresting without its hidden ability.
 
The noteworthy ones for me off the top of my head are Umbreon in Colosseum and Tinkaton in Scarlet/Violet.

In a mainline RPG, or in a spin-off RPG like Colosseum, you want to get through as many trainers as quickly and efficiently as you can from the start to the end of a route.
A stall Poké like Umbreon slows down your adventuring pacing drastically, especially since Colosseum's main thing is 2v2 matches.

Tinkaton in SV's main shtick is using Gigaton Hammer every other turn, and my main gripe is that it's completely walled by Corviknight, which, lorewise, it's supposed to be the natural predator of.

It's such a shame too, because these two Mons are some of my top Pokémon Unite mains.
 
Lilligant has a nice design, but it mostly revolves around setting up Quiver Dance in every battle.

I might or might not revisit using it.
 
The most recent ones would be Skeledirge, Pawmot and Tinkaton. Which was half my team in a playthrough in SV and they all were just unreliable and either kept dying (Pawmot is so dang squishy), or just dealt no significant damage to opposing Pokemon (Tinkaton), or did both those things (looking at you Skeledirge).
 
Sheep said:
I remember using Liepard in BW and then being so disappointed at how weak it was. :x Have you had any similar experiences with Pokémon?
Click to expand...
Sismetoad, underwhelmed by the move pool. No ice beam/waterfall is crazy. There's more examples than just those 2 moves.
The electabuzz line. I thought I would be a good special attacker with psychic/Thunderbolt but it couldn't take a hit at all so I evolved it and put thunder punch/brick break on it for more coverage. Still sucked, still fell to a physical hit almost automatically.
 
Guzzlord. I got a (probably hacked) shiny Guzzlord off of Wonder Trade and I tried taking it to the Battle Tree. Sure its HP stat is massive, but everything else is lackluster. It would often get outsped and couldn't take hits very well, despite the high HP.

Toxapex. I think its signature ability Merciless is really interesting, but it lacks the offensive stats to actually utilize it. Not sure why they'd give a defensive monster a more offense-oriented signature ability. At least it has Regenerator as its hidden ability.
 
The new Mega evolutions in ORAS. I can't remember how many of the new ones I used, but the fact most of them weren't viable in VGC at the time, felt kind of like a waste. Because there were some really cool Megas that were introduced in the game this time around, and I would of have loved to have seen people pick different Pokémon and show them off in battle.
 
I have an unwritten rule that if a cat Pokemon is available in-game, I use it. That has meant I've had to use woefully disappointing Pokemon like Delcatty (gen 3) and Liepard (gen 5).

Luxray in 4th gen also needed better Physical-based Electric moves. About the only benefit was that it didn't have to fear Mirror Coat from Cynthia's Milotic.

The starter Umbreon in Colosseum typically gets dropped fairly early on in my runs of the game.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top