Underwhelming pokemon

[Zeostar]

Have you ever gotten a pokemon you were excited to use, then figured "this really isn't fun"?

I feel this way towards Aggron. In Hoenn, it usually takes around 8 badges to get the final evolution. The design is cool, but that's where the appeal stops for me. Rock/Steel is not a great combination, and it's home region does not help. Even worse in Emerald where the champion gets an advantage against it's typing. It takes the majority of the game to reach the final stage, and struggles in the final battle.

Glalie is another. It's an end game Pokemon you can't obtain until level 40. And every single base stat is an 80. (I still like it though).

 

[Devalue]

- Talonflame in the first X playthrough. Downgraded in appearance from Fletchinder. Probably had a negative Special Attack nature. Learns moves so slowly. Upgrades from Ember (level 17) to Flame Charge at level 39. Barely dented anything with base 81 Attack and 74 Special Attack.

- Glaceon in a Sword Ice monotype. Features a high Special Attack, but nothing else. Competed with Vanilluxe's better coverage + Snow Warning and Frosmoth's better coverage + Quiver Dance/Feather Dance. Opted not to bother hunting for a rare Eevee early game. Caught one for Leon at the Lake of Outrage as a back-up Work Up + Baton Pass strategy. Never saw a turn of battle.

- Serperior in the initial Black playthrough. Learns so many Grass-type moves, but little else. Did not appreciate boosting moves or Leech Seed then either. Essentially only knew Leaf Blade (and sort of Giga Drain, but given base 75 Special Attack...).

- Liepard in the initial Black playthrough. Dropped several pegs in aesthetics by evolving. Felt on-par offensively with other Pokemon of the same level, including unevolved ones. (Felt weaker defensively than other Pokemon of its level too.) Remembers why after looking at its level-up moves now. Upgrades from Pursuit to Assurance at 31 and Fury Swipes to Slash at 34. Waits until 43 for Night Slash. Relies on Technical/Hidden Machines any coverage outside that.

- Wigglytuff in a casual Y playthrough. Received a free digital copy of Y from some promotion. Bred up a full team of weaker, but interesting Pokemon. Wanted them to shine. (Sidenote: Remembers Glaceon and Mega Aggron on that team.) Geared Wigglytuff towards offense with Competitive, Modest nature, wide coverage, full affection (for personal satisfaction more than power), and likely full Special Attack Effort Values. Never seemed that powerful, even with the tsunami of advantages.

Failed to one-shot Lysandre's (normal) Gyarados with Thunderbolt. (Should have had the rare Competitive boost.) Fainted to a flurry of Iron Head flinches and an ill-timed critical. Defeated Lysandre easily, of course, thanks to the Experience Share and everything else. Lost all faith in Wigglytuff, though. Forced it in for the next two Gyarados fights to regain face. (Won those.)

 

[Palamon]

Sunflora.

I remember trying to use one in Diamond and it just was so weak I just had too hard a time to enjoy using it. It's no wonder, though, I guess, before Wishiwashi, Sunflora evolved from the Pokemon that has the lowest base stat total of any Pokemon, ever, and Sunflora isn't that much stronger, either.

 

[Corveone]

Pidgeot
Poor stat spread and bad Flying type even for Gen 1-3 standards. Best Flying move it could learn (besides HM Fly) was Wing Attack, which in Gen 1 had only 35 BP. Fearow and Dodrio completely outclassed Pidgeot with Drill Peck, and Fearow was available even earlier.

Gen 2 Umbreon
It was the first Eeveelution I intended to have on my team, and was hyped because it was the new Dark type. Turned out the battles became so boring as Umbreon because it's all about stalling, took too long to finish off anything, strongest STAB it could get was Bite/Feint Attack, and you couldn't even get Toxic in Johto to actually stall properly, because it's a post-game TM.

Gen 3 Manectric
Had high hopes on Elektrike, but Manectric was an uninspired speedy, special oriented, pure Electric type cliché with nothing interesting to offer back then. All its moveset was Electric/Normal moves and Bite, so it was like Jolteon but weaker and with less coverage. Fixed in Gen 4 onwards with the ability to learn Flamethrower and Overheat making it quite more interesting.

Gen 4 Luxray
Early game Electric type, awesome design, three evolution stages, great Ability, and it was the first physical Electric type we could get in the series. It looked so good and promising but disappoints in the late game, because it has to choose between either having a physical Electric move, or a good Electric move. Amazing Attack stat ruined by the fact that the strongest physical STAB it could get was Spark/Thunder Fang. Now it can at least get Wild Charge, but still, recoil on a 90 BP move is pretty lame when Flare Blitz, Wood Hammer, etc. have 120.

I'm surprised there are still no good physical Electric moves that aren't exclusive to legendaries, Pikachu or its clones.

Obviously these aren't the worst Pokémon or anything like that, I just happened to expect more from them and they failed to deliver.

 

[Sheep]

Umbreon. Granted as a kid I wasn't massively bothered since I accepted it was weak offensively but very good defensively, but using it was such a chore since it did so little damage. I wanted to like playing with it since it's a cool mon.

others include Liepard (so weak) and Noctowl (trying to use this thing in HeartGold was a nightmare :s).

 

[Palamon]

I just remembered how underwhelmed I felt over Thievul in gen 8, so I'm coming back in here to mention it. I remember being genuinely excited to use Nickit when I caught one in Sword, and evolved it into a Thievul. I thought another dark type fox Pokemon was cool! ...But then I quickly realized how weak Thievul was. I could barely even use it. It kept fainting, and while I never boxed my Thievul, I did end up using it a lot less because it was just so...bad.

Also, definitely the Unova starters as a whole, their final evolutions only, though. I love Oshawott and Dewott to death, but Samurott? get that out of here. The fact it's a pure Water type is just so underwhelming.

I can also say the same for the Kalos starters, sans Greninja. I thought Chespin was adorable, but then... Quilladin and Chesnaught happened, and I was just unhappy, same with Delphox. The designs were cool in concept, but poor in execution. Overall, I remember boxing my starter in Gen 6 because of the underwhelming designs of them.

 

[colours]

i'm sorry for feraligatr fans (i know because i like gatr too) but it sucks in gen 3.

i've recently did a playthrough of Pokemon Colosseum and in the beginning of that game, during your battle with some grunts, you're given a choice between the mid-evo versions of the gen 2 starters. i picked gatr because on paper it's good, but in practice... not so much. this is because gen 3 was before the physical/special split, and while gatr's special attack isn't terrible, it isn't exactly great either. so i had to almost entirely rely on its special attack for surf/ice beam/bite/filler and it was painful to use. @_@

really goes to show how much the physical/special split can drastically change some pokemon!

 

[TheClassyHerddIer]

Probably klefky I wanted to like it but I just couldn't

 

[Bellsprout]

I'm with the op, I've always found Aggron to be such a let down by the end of the game. I also remember Arbok, Meganium, Manectric, Luxray, Flygon, Lycanroc, Palossand, and any regional bird at this point, either sucking by the end or just being so boring to use.

 

[Inkwriter]

- Talonflame in the first X playthrough. Downgraded in appearance from Fletchinder. Probably had a negative Special Attack nature. Learns moves so slowly. Upgrades from Ember (level 17) to Flame Charge at level 39. Barely dented anything with base 81 Attack and 74 Special Attack.

- Glaceon in a Sword Ice monotype. Features a high Special Attack, but nothing else. Competed with Vanilluxe's better coverage + Snow Warning and Frosmoth's better coverage + Quiver Dance/Feather Dance. Opted not to bother hunting for a rare Eevee early game. Caught one for Leon at the Lake of Outrage as a back-up Work Up + Baton Pass strategy. Never saw a turn of battle.

- Serperior in the initial Black playthrough. Learns so many Grass-type moves, but little else. Did not appreciate boosting moves or Leech Seed then either. Essentially only knew Leaf Blade (and sort of Giga Drain, but given base 75 Special Attack...).

- Liepard in the initial Black playthrough. Dropped several pegs in aesthetics by evolving. Felt on-par offensively with other Pokemon of the same level, including unevolved ones. (Felt weaker defensively than other Pokemon of its level too.) Remembers why after looking at its level-up moves now. Upgrades from Pursuit to Assurance at 31 and Fury Swipes to Slash at 34. Waits until 43 for Night Slash. Relies on Technical/Hidden Machines any coverage outside that.

- Wigglytuff in a casual Y playthrough. Received a free digital copy of Y from some promotion. Bred up a full team of weaker, but interesting Pokemon. Wanted them to shine. (Sidenote: Remembers Glaceon and Mega Aggron on that team.) Geared Wigglytuff towards offense with Competitive, Modest nature, wide coverage, full affection (for personal satisfaction more than power), and likely full Special Attack Effort Values. Never seemed that powerful, even with the tsunami of advantages.

Failed to one-shot Lysandre's (normal) Gyarados with Thunderbolt. (Should have had the rare Competitive boost.) Fainted to a flurry of Iron Head flinches and an ill-timed critical. Defeated Lysandre easily, of course, thanks to the Experience Share and everything else. Lost all faith in Wigglytuff, though. Forced it in for the next two Gyarados fights to regain face. (Won those.)

Oh man, are you me? I very similar experiences except for Wigglytuff (the only pink fairy Moonstone-evo mon I ever used as a main party member was Clefable and I was very young back then). Oddly enough I remember using Talonflame quite a lot in my X playthrough, but I think it was a special IV bred one from Wonder Trade so that's kind of cheating.

It's been a while since I played a mainline Pokemon game but I remember being disappointed in Onix when I first caught it what, a decade or so ago? It was nightmarishly hard to catch for me back then, but its moveset was kind of disappointing and levelled up too slowly to be worth raising. Kid me had no patience for those slow growing mons lol.

 

[Ninetales]

Mightyena. This beautiful pokemon is quite defensively fragile. I absolutely adore its design and always have and it is a Pokémon in which I still do love. However, after utilizing one in ORAS I swiftly found that the more I progressed in the game, the more outclassed my beloved dark-type pokemon seemed in comparison to opposing pokemon. Mightyena certainly can deal significant damage, yet can't take any in return. It is notable that Mightyena was exceptional in the early game, however.

Moreover, Mightyena has a mediocre learnset and only has access to a limited number of TMs which it is able to use, which hinders its usability considerably.

 

[Sydian]

liepard was really disappointing. i mean ig we should have expected it since it's a first route pokemon but still, i think we all naturally have high hopes for the pokemon that have incredible designs like that. zebstrika is also a contender here, i remember it not getting a lot to work with in BW, or like its stats just didn't work well enough to pull off what it was clearly made to do. i'm not a big fan of zebstrika for many reasons tho so maybe i'm biased.

boltund is another that comes to mind, i think it was also just a case of people really loving yamper and then it evolves into boltund that has this kind of...silly dopey look and it quickly gets outclassed by better electric types you can find in the region. orbeetle too for that matter...maybe not in a matter of strength, but it's another one of those where the pre-evolution looks so good that nothing it evolved into would impress me lol. i ditched mine shortly after it evolved so i can't speak on the stats and stuff, i just thought dottler was an amazing design and orbeetle isn't bad, it's just. eh after dottler.

 

[Gardevoir1]

Vanilluxe looked just like an ice cream from the get go so I went in thinking mainly centered around ice, but seriously, that movepool sucks so much. With horrible stats in prior evolutions and extremely late evolution levels, it really couldve been handled a lot better.

 

[BoulderSmolder]

Lotad/Lombre/Ludicolo in Emerald.

You can't get a Water Stone until after defeating Tate and Liza. And Lombre suuuuuuucks. It doesn't learn any decent Water or Grass moves and has horrific stats. Lombre's completely useless until you get the Surf HM... And then still close to useless until it finally evolves. After the 7th gym.

Even once you get Ludicolo, it still doesn't learn any moves by level up. You have to waste the only Giga Drain TM in the entire game on it.

I went from being excited to see Lotad in my Nuzlockes to dreading it.

 

[sickanddullandplain]

- Serperior in the initial Black playthrough. Learns so many Grass-type moves, but little else. Did not appreciate boosting moves or Leech Seed then either. Essentially only knew Leaf Blade (and sort of Giga Drain, but given base 75 Special Attack...).

I would have to second Serperior. The only starter I ever ended up boxing. I didn't really want to, but it was just so poor (and BW1 has so many excellent mons available).

I found Vikavolt a little disappointing in Sun/Moon, too. It wasn't bad, but I thought that comically high attack stat would be more fun to play with. But it turns out 43 speed is just really slow, even in Alola.

 

[BoulderSmolder]

I found Vikavolt a little disappointing in Sun/Moon, too. It wasn't bad, but I thought that comically high attack stat would be more fun to play with. But it turns out 43 speed is just really slow, even in Alola.

You also can't evolve it until the final stretch of the game.

 

[Ninetales]

liepard was really disappointing. i mean ig we should have expected it since it's a first route pokemon but still, i think we all naturally have high hopes for the pokemon that have incredible designs like that. zebstrika is also a contender here, i remember it not getting a lot to work with in BW, or like its stats just didn't work well enough to pull off what it was clearly made to do. i'm not a big fan of zebstrika for many reasons tho so maybe i'm biased.

It's so interesting to see this perspective because in my experience, Liepard was incredibly useful. Its high speed and attack stats allow it to kill off opponents effortlessly, I found.

 

[Bellsprout]

Lotad/Lombre/Ludicolo in Emerald.

You can't get a Water Stone until after defeating Tate and Liza. And Lombre suuuuuuucks. It doesn't learn any decent Water or Grass moves and has horrific stats. Lombre's completely useless until you get the Surf HM... And then still close to useless until it finally evolves. After the 7th gym.

Even once you get Ludicolo, it still doesn't learn any moves by level up. You have to waste the only Giga Drain TM in the entire game on it.

I went from being excited to see Lotad in my Nuzlockes to dreading it.

I experienced this not too long ago! I made a heavy water team with Ludicolo as my rain dancer in Emerald. I didn't realize until late in the game he could only learn leech seed by egg moves and that I would have to teach him Giga Drain to give him a decent grass move. On top of that he doesn't even learn Rain Dance through level up when that's supposed to be part of his shtick. Dragging along Lombre sucked, but it was finally worth it going to the battle frontier with him.

 

[Palamon]

God, yeah Liepard... Liepard was a pretty disappointing Pokemon to use in battle. I definitely tried when I used one in I /think/ Gen Six?But it was so weak and constantly fainted that it just wasn't fun at all...

Also, while I'm in here again, many stone evolution Pokemon are definitely underwhelming in earlier generations because they don't learn any new moves. Like, I love Ninetales, I've used one multiple times, but the fact it cannot learn any new moves naturally once it evolves is very underwhelming for me. I think it's still like this for a lot of stone evolution Pokemon, too, so I try to always wait until a stone evolution Pokemon has learned all its good moves before evolving it since you know... it never will learn a new move through levelling up again?

 

[XDarkseidX]

Mine is Mightyena. Back in the day, catching a Dark type that early in the game was so exiting to me. Back then we only had Umbreon (which evolved through friendship and was some reason difficult for me to understand as a kid) and Houndour, Sneasel, or Tyranitar, Pokemon you could only get at the end of the game. Thank God for Absol.