Items you consider useless?

[Sheep]

Some items are more useful than others, and I'm sure most of us have at least a few items we find to not have much worth in using. What are they for you?

 

[Explorer of Time]

Unless I'm running a very bulky Pokemon, such as one that sets up stat-boosts for a defensive stat, I think that most healing items that aren't Max Revives or Revival Herbs, or a Full Restore on something with a status condition, aren't worth it. The opportunity cost is too high compared to using a move and KOing the enemy faster, and Pokemon battles are too fast-paced for healing to be useful. If the opponent Pokemon can 1HKO or 2HKO yours, which most competent teams will be able to do to non-walls, a healing item is useless for anything except PP stalling.

 

[Nah]

Those bitter medicines. It'd be different if they provided some powerful and/or unique effects, but they're really just Hyper Potions and Revives and such with a downside, and you're hardly ever so strapped for healing items in the games that you might need to use one at some point.

 

[Corveone]

A lot of them. For example all of the items and berries that cure one specific status condition... unnecessary clutter, just have Full Heals and Lum Berries. Same goes for all the regional healing items like the Lava Cookie, which are just reskinned Full Heals.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Those bitter medicines. It'd be different if they provided some powerful and/or unique effects, but they're really just Hyper Potions and Revives and such with a downside, and you're hardly ever so strapped for healing items in the games that you might need to use one at some point.

Revival Herbs are actually reskinned Max Revives, only purchasable, and Friendship as a game mechanic is basically irrelevant unless you're trying to friendship evolve a Pokemon or you're running Return on its moveset. I'd say they're the single most useful healing item in the game. The others... yeah, they're basically just Full Heals, Super Potions, and Hyper Potions, only slightly cheaper and with a minor downside.

Same goes for all the regional healing items like the Lava Cookie, which are just reskinned Full Heals.

Lava Cookies, at least, have a use as you can buy them en masse for cheaper than Full Heals in the Hoenn games, Platinum, and the FRLG postgame. Especially in the latter two, where you can buy them all at once rather than one-by-one in Hoenn. Of course, this just makes Full Heals the obsolete item in those games.

 

[Devalue]

• Red Flute. Breaks Pokemon out of infatuation, which is so rare.
• Itemfinder. Never cares about invisible items on the ground, other than the Snorlax Leftovers.
• Dire Hit. Prefers just hitting harder with X Attack / X Special.
• Guard Spec. Set up against something else.
• Feathers. 1 EV per? Really? Would rather beat something up than spend the time getting this item.
• A lot of niche berries, like Micle (increases accuracy when at 25% hitpoints or less) or Rowap (deals 1/8 of the opponent's hitpoints when hit by a special move).
• Mail. Nice in concept. Has not used it since...Generation 2?
• Some specific on-hit hold items, like Absorb Bulb (+1 Special Attack stage when hit by a Water move). How often do you plan for that to happen, and do you have this item then?
• Binding Band. Extra damage on binding moves. Sounds like a dull strategy. Good luck on having this item AND a Pokemon using these moves.
• Negative hold items like Iron Ball. Just beat them up. Rarely receives this item before postgame too. Also needs to have a Pokemon with a Trick-like move, which is uncommon.
• Lucky Punch. Competes with Leftovers for Chansey. Plus, how often do you have Chansey?

 

[Megan]

Sticky Barb kinda feels that way. You use it on your Pokemon and it takes damage until the opponent makes contact. Then it switches to the opponent but only as long as you don't make contact.

Also minor shoutout to Hyper Potions. They used to be one of my all time essentials because of their relatively low price and high healing effect. But then GF did two things that just completely nerfed them into the ground:
1. they significantly reduced the amount of healing they provide
2. they changed how EXP works and as a result Pokemon grow quicker and thus reach higher levels with a lot more HP a lot earlier

 

[RadEmpoleon]

I never use any of the battle items (X Attack, Dire Hit, etc). I sell them every time I happen to get one. The same goes for the Rotom boosts in USUM. I have yet to use any of those (and don't intend on it). They just sit in my bag and collect dust.

Clamperl's Deep Sea Scale. Its SpDef stat is way too low to get any use from doubling it. It benefits much more from the SpAtk boost from the Deep Sea Tooth, but either way who's actually using Clamperl?

 

[Lucifer]

- X items, never use them
- Sticky Barb, it hurts everyone, so it has no business existing.
- Eject Button and all other items that swap the holder out. I don't like being swapped out against my will, including by moves.
- Gems and other one-use boost or status items. I use the gems occasionally but it's so easy to accidentally misuse them and then they're gone forever. I like these items better when fangames have the held item regenerator mechanic so that it is still one-use but respawns after each battle.
- Iron Ball and Lagging Tail. Is there a reason to prefer to be slower other than perhaps Trick Room? Well even so I don't use Trick Room.
- Flame Orb, I do get the reason it CAN be useful but it's not to me because I don't use Facade or Guts much. The same can be said of the Toxic Orb.

 

[Amras Anárion]

Since Gen 3, I've noticed that status-healing berries make modern status-healing medications redundant. The berries are superior in every way: automatic use if held item and cheaper to purchase. I wonder why Devon and Silph Corporations continue to manufacture Antidotes and Paralyze Heals?
In the redundancy register, all the treats that heal all statuses, and are sold 3 times cheaper than a Full Heal (in addition to increasing friendship).

The Micle Berry is one of the worst berries: why hardcode a 20% accuracy boost for a single turn, instead of increasing the Accuracy stat by one stage like the Liechi Berry?

And generally speaking, all single-use items (Focus Sash included) that disappear permanently after activation, with no way to farm them or reacquire them cheaply. (Gen 9 fixed this.)

I never use any of the battle items (X Attack, Dire Hit, etc). I sell them every time I happen to get one.

X Items are among the most powerful if you know how to manage them well. Just look at strategic PvP battles: very often, a Pokémon that has managed to set up (especially if it is at +6) ensures victory for its trainer, and the nerf of the critical hit rate in Gen 7 strengthens the balance of power of a set up Pokémon. This is how I managed to beat a level 56 trainer with a level 38 team in Scarlet and Violet. Yes, I accidentally aggroed an off-level taxi driver on the mini Victory Road of this game. It remained the most memorable fight of my adventure.

Sticky Barb kinda feels that way. You use it on your Pokemon and it takes damage until the opponent makes contact. Then it switches to the opponent but only as long as you don't make contact.

Also minor shoutout to Hyper Potions. They used to be one of my all time essentials because of their relatively low price and high healing effect. But then GF did two things that just completely nerfed them into the ground:
1. they significantly reduced the amount of healing they provide
2. they changed how EXP works and as a result Pokemon grow quicker and thus reach higher levels with a lot more HP a lot earlier

I agree with you. The nerf of the Hyper Potion (and the Energy Root) made them less profitable than Super Potions. We end up with a huge hole in the scaling of the healing power with no longer any healing item that heals more than 120 HP: the upper range is Max Potion, which heals 100% of HP.
The worst is that they nerfed it again in Scarlet/Violet by increasing its price from 1200 p$ to 1500 p$.

 

[ReKoil]

All the one time use stuff like Electric Seed, Red Card, Focus Sash etc.
I never use them simply because it's usually my only instance of the item.

 

[PoryKid575]

- Burn / Freeze heal, you barely encounter those statuses in-game and Full Heals are cheap enough to render them obsolete.
- Stationery, the interface was way too limited to say anything useful (even Gen 2 doesn't have enough characters available for much); and you can talk to the receiving trainer directly 99% of the time anyway.
- Items that cause a negative effect (eg: Flame Orb), they require precious move slots to be wasted so they can be forced onto the opponent, and I'd rather just have something that outright helps my Pokemon.

 

[Explorer of Time]

- Items that cause a negative effect (eg: Flame Orb), they require precious move slots to be wasted so they can be forced onto the opponent, and I'd rather just have something that outright helps my Pokemon.

These are quite useful on Pokemon with abilities like Guts, or Facade users, since they benefit from having a status condition. Using them just to item-switch is suboptimal, though, I agree on that part.