Are there any Pokémon that you ever regret training?

[Sweet Serenity]

Have you ever been in a situation where you caught a Pokémon you were interested in, maybe even bred it for good IVs, EV trained (with vitamins), leveled it up all the way to 50 or 100, and sent it out to battle, only to learn that it didn't perform well enough?

 

[Amore]

Countless. Two that come to mind:

Calyrex-S. SR'd until I could catch it in my one Moon Ball, actually got a good set of IVs and Timid nature, EV'd it, but then found I could rarely get it into a game competitively (doubles). It did all right in the last Battle Stadium series once I got to the higher ranks, but performed better in singles. Two nights ago, I lost 8 straight in a row and I don't think Calyrex managed to KO a single Pokémon. Its just so vulnerable to opposition speed control (I feel like I was unlucky in that every team I encountered had Whimsicott).

Gorebyss. In my last Emerald save a few years ago, I had a team of 8 (5 + a rotating member because I couldn't evolve my Feebas until post-game). One of which was a Clamperl I caught that had a decent nature (Mild) and great IVs for a wild capture - everything relevant over 25. I used it, DeepSeaTooth meaning it could hit pretty hard, but had no way of evolving it. So when I found out Gorebyss got Shell Smash, I brought it forward to Gen V and used it in my PWT triple battles team. Like everything non-Trick Room in that facilitiy, I sucked with it. Could barely get SS in before it would get taken out, the problem being of course that every region has at least one Electric- or Grass-type specialist and when you give them the opportunity to double-team a Pokémon weak to them, they will. But even with a type advantage it was just too frail. I'll maybe give it a shot in single battles, but unlikely given how easily accessible Gen VIII competitive is. Doubt I'd do a battle facility again unless it was for weird battle types like triple.

 

[Squirtkipfan01]

This happened consistently throughout my shield playthrough. I just kept raising things, then being disappointed. Really ruined me come the fairy gym

 

[Orion☆]

I'm not a competitive player, so my examples will likely boil down to how useless they were to me in a main game playthrough or for other purposes.

-Empoleon, my starter in both Diamond and Platinum. I like Piplup, but I really should have stuck with Turtwig all the way instead of rejecting it over its horrible mid stage. Empoleon just can't take advantage of Earthquake as well as Torterra can, and it would have helped a lot during both of my Sinnoh playthroughs.
-Carnivine. I was excited over the rare find at the Great Marsh in Diamond, so I decided to add it to my team. Big mistake. Come Platinum, I remade my Diamond team to be exactly the same except I replaced Carnivine with Roserade.
-Minor Sinnoh examples: Luxray and Floatzel. I guess I must have liked them both very much back then, because I stuck with them on both Sinnoh playthroughs despite both being boring and having no coverage for their weaknesses. Froslass as well; I had one as a supplementary team member for some reason but she wasn't of much use (and creeps the hell out of me these days.)
-Serperior, in Black and Black 2. Unless it has its Hidden Ability, it's pretty much useless on a main game playthrough. I really regret not picking Oshawott especially now that I find it way cuter than Snivy, too. (How funny - in Sinnoh I picked Water when I should have picked Grass, and in Unova I picked Grass when I should have picked Water.)
-Golisopod in the Alola games. It's a hard-hitter and both of mine did well, but Emergency Exit is very, very risky for stuff like Shiny hunting. I wouldn't train one again.
-Palossand, Drifblim and Mismagius in my Ultra Sun Mono-Ghost run. Not up to par with what I expected. Shame Golett and Sensu Oricorio are available so late in the game, because they were my first choices for Ghost/Ground and Ghost/Flying-type too...
-Poliwrath in Crystal. I would have never considered using it if I hadn't needed a Fighting-type to get through Karen. It was a one-battle wonder, and then off it went.

There are other examples, but those boil more down to "I trained this Mon but I couldn't bond with it" (e.g. Feraligatr, Zoroark, Garchomp, Hydreigon, Cloyster, Obstagoon) rather than their actually being useless.

 

[edyedy]

I typically regret choosing the Water starters, because they sometimes take forever to win battles and they seem a bit weak compared to my other Pokemon. The only water starter in any generation that I actually liked was Swampert and that was only because it had a Ground type.

 

[Devalue]

For full training: Probably the team of Mimikyu, Drampa, Vikavolt, and Mudsdale for the Sun/Moon Battle Tree. Cannot remember the weak link for sure. Admittedly drew from a weaker pool of candidates, due to wanting to use different Pokemon. Suffered from a glaring team Ice weakness. Also misunderstood how Cloud Nine worked. (Suppresses the weather. Does not erase it.)

Remembers the other issue being just not hitting hard enough. Expected Earthquake + Discharge to do better.

For normal playthroughs:

• Liepard. Must have been -Attack nature or something.
• Wigglytuff. Bred this for Special Attack. Transferred it over to a new playthrough (along with others). Trusted it to knock out Lysandre's (normal) Gyarados in one Thunderbolt. Nope. (Probably did not get the Competitive boost.) Fainted to a bunch of Iron Head flinches and a critical.

 

[ReKoil]

Smeargle. I had to spend quite a bit of time training it just to survive the first trial with it as I was playing with a themed team of single stage mons in Sun.
Then later on I caught Spinda and it was just a straight up upgrade as it could actually do something without having to be over-leveled by a couple dozen levels.

I was interested in giving Smeargle a try, but it's so weak on offense that Spinda actually felt strong compared to it rofl. Smeargle potentially learning any move does not make up for that.
I do like to give weaker mons a shot, but Smeargle was just a pain to use.

 

[Sweet Serenity]

Smeargle. I had to spend quite a bit of time training it just to survive the first trial with it as I was playing with a themed team of single stage mons in Sun.
Then later on I caught Spinda and it was just a straight up upgrade as it could actually do something without having to be over-leveled by a couple dozen levels.

I was interested in giving Smeargle a try, but it's so weak on offense that Spinda actually felt strong compared to it rofl. Smeargle potentially learning any move does not make up for that.
I do like to give weaker mons a shot, but Smeargle was just a pain to use.

Smeargle is best used for support. In Brilliant Diamond, I raised my Smeargle to put opponents to sleep with Spore, boost its stats with its ability Moody and other stat boosting moves, and then Baton Pass. I also used Smeagle for this same purpose in the generation 2 games on the Virtual Console. I could never imagine using Smeargle as an attacker. lol

 

[colours]

sooooOOO this is gonna be quite the list. this is going to be based on the pokemon i've trained specifically for battle tower in BDSP, but anyway:

• aerodactyl - man, this is kind of a shame because i genuinely love aero, it's one of my favourite fossil pokemon (besides one other i'm going to get into in a moment), but it didn't really work out on my team as well as it should. in theory, it should function much like a glass cannon, and it sort of does... except it has zero set up moves whatsoever, so relying on its raw attack power, while very high, still isn't... perfectly ideal, if that makes sense. i realise in order to get maximum firepower out of it, i'd have to slap something like life orb on it which given that it's battle tower it's probably only going to last a turn or two. after realizing this inefficiency, i opted to replace it because it's just too much effort to make work with the rest of my team.
  
  
• armaldo - slow. very slow. this isn't an issue in and of itself, but for an offensive pokemon, i probably should've expected better. going with swords dance means putting up with its speed and hoping quick claw rng works, while going with rock polish sacrifices additional raw power for the sake of going first which, while useful, would probably prevent me from getting much needed KOs. much like aerodactyl, this would take way too much strategising to make work.
  
  
• kabutops (geez angie what is with these fossil pokemon you keep listing here lmao) - unlike with the above two, i don't think the regret comes from anything wrong with kabutops itself. it's moreso that i found better pokemon to suit the strategy that i'm going for in battle tower and kabutops simply didn't fit in that team synergy, so it ended up becoming a waste of time to train it. ah well.
  
  
• miltank - it pains me to include miltank here because i genuinely love it, and it's won me matches i probably would've lost otherwise had it not been for it, but once i found out clefable does its job but like... better, it was a no-brainer for me to replace it. rip miltank but you served me well in my team.
  
  
• venomoth - sooo. this one requires some context. i used to have venusaur as part of my bdsp team and i was like... "but what if venusaur, but sort of better, since i can make myself faster?" and that's where venomoth came in. unfortunately, what i neglected to consider was that despite their similar typings (so i didn't lose a whole lot by switching), the loss in bulk was still noteworthy, and i'm still unsure to this day whether venomoth even with quiver dance hits harder or as hard as growth venusaur (which is what i had at the time). dunno whether this was an option that i'd say was bad, but there were certain situations where i'd certainly miss venusaur's inclusion, so venomoth was kind of a short-lived team member. was a fun experiment to try out, though.

 

[Sweet Serenity]

sooooOOO this is gonna be quite the list. this is going to be based on the pokemon i've trained specifically for battle tower in BDSP, but anyway:

• aerodactyl - man, this is kind of a shame because i genuinely love aero, it's one of my favourite fossil pokemon (besides one other i'm going to get into in a moment), but it didn't really work out on my team as well as it should. in theory, it should function much like a glass cannon, and it sort of does... except it has zero set up moves whatsoever, so relying on its raw attack power, while very high, still isn't... perfectly ideal, if that makes sense. i realise in order to get maximum firepower out of it, i'd have to slap something like life orb on it which given that it's battle tower it's probably only going to last a turn or two. after realizing this inefficiency, i opted to replace it because it's just too much effort to make work with the rest of my team.
  
  
• armaldo - slow. very slow. this isn't an issue in and of itself, but for an offensive pokemon, i probably should've expected better. going with swords dance means putting up with its speed and hoping quick claw rng works, while going with rock polish sacrifices additional raw power for the sake of going first which, while useful, would probably prevent me from getting much needed KOs. much like aerodactyl, this would take way too much strategising to make work.
  
  
• kabutops (geez angie what is with these fossil pokemon you keep listing here lmao) - unlike with the above two, i don't think the regret comes from anything wrong with kabutops itself. it's moreso that i found better pokemon to suit the strategy that i'm going for in battle tower and kabutops simply didn't fit in that team synergy, so it ended up becoming a waste of time to train it. ah well.
  
  
• miltank - it pains me to include miltank here because i genuinely love it, and it's won me matches i probably would've lost otherwise had it not been for it, but once i found out clefable does its job but like... better, it was a no-brainer for me to replace it. rip miltank but you served me well in my team.
  
  
• venomoth - sooo. this one requires some context. i used to have venusaur as part of my bdsp team and i was like... "but what if venusaur, but sort of better, since i can make myself faster?" and that's where venomoth came in. unfortunately, what i neglected to consider was that despite their similar typings (so i didn't lose a whole lot by switching), the loss in bulk was still noteworthy, and i'm still unsure to this day whether venomoth even with quiver dance hits harder or as hard as growth venusaur (which is what i had at the time). dunno whether this was an option that i'd say was bad, but there were certain situations where i'd certainly miss venusaur's inclusion, so venomoth was kind of a short-lived team member. was a fun experiment to try out, though.

I agree, definitely quite the list and I really enjoyed reading your contribution to the thread.

Some responses:

Blaziken has good synergy with Aerodactyl. Blaziken has the ability to boost its Speed stat with Speed Boost, boost its Attack by two stages with Swords Dance, and use Baton Pass to pass those boosts to another Pokémon. Pass those boosts to Aerodactyl and watch it sweep. Their type combinations also work well together offensively. I used my own Ariel (Aerodactyl) in competitive Singles this way to great success.

If a Pokémon is very slow, put it on a Trick Room team. Also, make it bulkier by maxing its HP EVs instead of its Speed EVs.

I'm assuming that you went for a Weak Armor strategy with Kabutops? If so, it's just better to use a Pokémon that can learn Shell Smash.

I agree, Clefable is definitely a better option to Miltank for support.

Yeah, Venusaur is always the better choice. It's one of the best Pokémon ever in fact, as it's the best Pokémon to use in the Sun.

 

[ReKoil]

Smeargle is best used for support. In Brilliant Diamond, I raised my Smeargle to put opponents to sleep with Spore, boost its stats with its ability Moody and other stat boosting moves, and then Baton Pass. I also used Smeagle for this same purpose in the generation 2 games on the Virtual Console. I could never imagine using Smeargle as an attacker. lol

Sadly, because of the themed team, I was stuck with it until I could catch Oricorio in the Meadow later on. I could've picked up a Delibird along the way after the first trial, but that's a rare encounter and Oricorio is better anyway =P
Basically, I used my starter until I unlocked access to Route 2, which is the first opportunity to catch a single stage mon in Sun/Moon, which is Smeargle. Then boxed the starter and trained Smeargle. Before the first trial it was literally my only option D=

I kinda regret doing it in Sun and not Ultra Moon. You can catch a Furfrou in USUM in the 1st city, which would've been a far better option to bring to the first trial.

Anyway, I didn't want to ditch the theme so i had to suffer through that first stage of the game xD

 

[Corveone]

Gastly.

I chose to add it to my team on my first journey through Kanto, when I was new to the franchise and didn't know it needed trading to evolve (which wasn't an option for me back then). So, not only I ended up stuck with Haunter, but I also realized it wasn't even worth it. During the first three gens, this thing had its two STABS wasted because both were physical while the mon was clearly intended to be a Special glass cannon. It was also hard to train due to its awful level-up movepool.

Years later, however, I gave Gastly another chance in a Pokémon Platinum Nuzlocke. I taught it Shadow Ball, which was finally Special, and finally evolved it into my first Gengar, and soon after:

Spoiler:

Dude got one-shot by a Sucker Punch.

Umbreon (First Johto playthrough)

Stallers in-game are a waste of time. Especially when it couldn't even actually stall properly since Toxic was locked behind post-game, so the only thing it had to damage opponents were garbage offensive stats and Confuse Ray gambling.

Snivy (First Unova playthrough)

I regret choosing it as my starter in Black. Without its Hidden Ability (which didn't even exist back then) this Pokémon pretty much has nothing interesting to offer. Its movepool was super boring, and it couldn't even get Aqua Tail until BW2.

I gave it another chance not long ago in another game, with Contrary and a better moveset, and luckily this one did have a happy ending, it was way better.

 

[Sheep]

I knew what I was getting into with weaker Pokémon most of the time, but one of the worst cases for me was Delcatty. I really wanted to have one like in the Hoenn anime, where a character of the day used it with elemental moves like Blizzard and Solar Beam. Getting mine up and teaching it those moves resulted in a horrible mon that I could barely use. Didn't take long for me to box it, ugh.

 

[Gardevoir1]

Literally most of the Gen III dark types. I love dark types (kinda ironic given my name), but their movepools literally sucked so much back in Emerald it was the worst. Shiftry knew literally no moves. Like why?

This has been significantly better in newer gens.