Insane movepools and sucky movepools

[Zeostar]

Movepools can make or break some pokemon.

What are some examples of pokemon will absurd movepools and lackluster ones?

Octillery comes to mind first for silly movepool because it learns an insane amount of moves. (Psychic, Energy Ball, Octazooka, Fire Blast, etc).

Lilligant comes to mind first for lackluster. I associate it with Quiver Dance, Sleep Power, and insert grass move.

Of course you can talk about a specific generation too.

 

[Devalue]

Amazing:
- Hawlucha: Learns all the elemental punches, Poison Jab, U-turn, Iron Head, Zen Headbutt, Throat Chop, and Rock Slide on the offensive side. Supports that with a very fast Encore, Swords Dance, Baton Pass, Taunt, and Roost. Is always a fan of Feather Dance in playthroughs too.

- Slowking: Psychic + Psyshock, Surf/Scald, Flamethrower, Power Gem, Sludge Bomb, Shadow Ball, and Foul Play. Backs it up with Yawn, Trick Room, tons of boosting moves + Stored Power, and Slack Off.

- Rhyperior: Learns lots of physical moves as-is. Adds nonsense like Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Surf, and Thunderbolt. Cannot use them effectively, of course. Remains impressive nonetheless.

Lackluster:
- Jolteon, Espeon, and Glaceon. Learns their element + Shadow Ball. Sacrificed too much defense to make use of its support moves.
- Serperior and Sceptile.
- Zebstrika
- Vanilluxe.
- The obvious Magikarp, Combee, Dreepy, Snom, Appelin, and similar Pokemon with zero moveset when unevolved. (Why are there so many in Sword/Shield?)

 

[Zeostar]

Amazing:
- Hawlucha: Learns all the elemental punches, Poison Jab, U-turn, Iron Head, Zen Headbutt, Throat Chop, and Rock Slide on the offensive side. Supports that with a very fast Encore, Swords Dance, Baton Pass, Taunt, and Roost. Is always a fan of Feather Dance in playthroughs too.

- Slowking: Psychic + Psyshock, Surf/Scald, Flamethrower, Power Gem, Sludge Bomb, Shadow Ball, and Foul Play. Backs it up with Yawn, Trick Room, tons of boosting moves + Stored Power, and Slack Off.

- Rhyperior: Learns lots of physical moves as-is. Adds nonsense like Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Surf, and Thunderbolt. Cannot use them effectively, of course. Remains impressive nonetheless.

Lackluster:
- Jolteon, Espeon, and Glaceon. Learns their element + Shadow Ball. Sacrificed too much defense to make use of its support moves.
- Serperior and Sceptile.
- Zebstrika
- Vanilluxe.
- The obvious Magikarp, Combee, Dreepy, Snom, Appelin, and similar Pokemon with zero moveset when unevolved. (Why are there so many in Sword/Shield?)

I thought about the eevee family but forgot about it in my post. I completely agree. Leafeon in Platinum doesn't get Leaf Blade until level 71, and swords dance at 78.

 

[Nah]

Gen 3 Sharpedo had a pretty bad movepool. Water and Dark were both special types back then, SpA was the lesser of its 2 offensive stats (at an unimpressive 95), and it didn't learn enough physical attacks of note to give it something meaningful to use.

 

[Corveone]

Amazing:
Granbull, Clefable, Octillery, Nidoqueen/Nidoking, Lucario, Claydol, Infernape, Hawlucha, Drampa.
(Ignoring Pokémon with wide coverage options but that lack the stats to use it effectively, such as physical Normal types that can learn Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, Surf, etc. but have awful Sp. Attack so it's pointless.)

Underwhelming:
Cryogonal, Vanilluxe, Luxray, Pidgeot, Serperior, Comfey, Lilligant, Cherrim, Eldegoss.
(Ignoring Pokémon with fixed/limited move pools such as Wobbuffet)

 

[Sheep]

Lucario's range is amazing. I really loved using him and found his moves to be absolutely excellent. Fitting for such a popular mon! Also been very impressed with Slowking. Just super super good and varied movesets.

Meanwhile... Jolteon. Thunderbolt is great and so is Shadow Ball, but it hardly learns much else of importance and doesn't have much coverage as a result. Sucks since its Sp. Att stat is great!

 

[Amore]

Lilligant is definitely one that stings. I really like the design of both stages in the family, it gets one of the best boosting moves in existence...and that's it. It has Own Tempo which works well with Petal Dance, but then for coverage you have Hidden Power or Dream Eater. At least with Sleep Powder it has a pretty easy time using Dream Eater. Kinda made me miss the ever-present Grass/Poison typing. Obviously not every pokémon can have a great movepool to back up their stats, but it seemed surprising given it started so well.

In the same generation, Emboar's is particularly impressive. 11 different types of attack with Dark (Assurance, Fling) being the only one that doesn't offer any with consistently high power, including Poison and Water! On a Fire-type starter!

 

[Adam Levine]

It's kind of hilarious just how insane move distribution was in Gen I. Scyther only got Normal-type attacks and Wing Attack, while Raticate got moves like Bubble Beam, Ice Beam, and Thunderbolt.

 

[Gardevoir1]

Shiftry's move pool was beyond horrible in gen 3. It learned literally nothing useful, and among both it and its pre-evolutions, the best (and only attacking) dark type attack it learned was faint attack [Nuzleaf] while the only grass type move learned ever was synthesis [Seedot]. I cannot imagine how this passed QC

 

[Amore]

Luxray

God, Luxray was a disappointment in Gen IV. Felt like they were doubling down on the betrayal of Manectric (Electric + Dark, Crunch only as an Egg Move) from Gen III with these cool Electric designs with good stats but abysmal moves. I actually EV'd a mixed Luxray with perfect IVs and its underwhelming even in early Battle Frontier. Obliterates mainland Sinnoh though!

Another similarity with Manectric (and Flareon) in that they all eventually got better - Manectric got Flamethrower in Gen IV, Luxray improved through Gen IV with Superpower (Platinum) and surprisingly Night Slash? in HGSS before getting Wild Charge in Gen V...but Flareon, man my favourite Eeveelution got shafted:
Gen I-III - Special-type but with Atk as its strongest stat, giving it Normal and random other TMs (like Shadow Ball) for physical attacks
Gen IV - Now Fire-type attacks can be physical! AND there's a Fire-type Double-Edge to go with Flareon's Normal-type Double-Edge! nope, doesn't get it, not even through breeding
Gen V - Electric-types get their own weaker Double-Edge, hidden abilities grant Flareon one that turns it into a glass cannon...but still no Flare Blitz
Gen VI - gets Flare Blitz, but who cares because now Charizard is a black dragon with blue flames!

Shiftry's move pool was beyond horrible in gen 3. It learned literally nothing useful, and among both it and its pre-evolutions, the best (and only attacking) dark type attack it learned was faint attack [Nuzleaf] while the only grass type move learned ever was synthesis [Seedot]. I cannot imagine how this passed QC

All a long con to allow it to shock you with Extrasensory in the Elite Four!

 

[Sweet Serenity]

Yes, Flareon does indeed have one of the worst movepools ever. However, Flareon can still serve as a good wallbreaker, especially on a sun team. Flare Blitz while holding a Choice Band (in the sun) is all that is required for it to be effective. Not much is stopping that. Nonetheless, to answer the question, a Pokémon whose shallow moveset always disappointed me was Magnezone. It's one of my all-time favorites, and I put it on every secondary playthrough team, but outside of Electric moves and Flash Cannon, it doesn't learn anything else meaningful for good coverage. I can say that changes in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet left me really disappointed regarding movepools. Umbreon's inability to learn "Work Up" made it, in my opinion, a worse Baton Passer because it used to pass its boosts to both special and physical attackers. I enjoy using Contrary Lurantis a lot, but not being able to learn Superpower anymore is disappointing. To be honest, even though I adore Meowscarada, I was disappointed that it lacked a large movepool. I was also kind of disappointed with Palafin's movepool despite it being a really good Pokémon. It doesn't really learn many attacks outside of Water-type attacks and a few Fighting-type moves.