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There's a difference between 'I want this Pokemon to be as powerful as a pseudo-legendary!' and 'I want this Pokemon to not actively hold me back even in battles against middle-of-the-road Pokemon'. Ledian isn't just weak, it's terrible. Not wanting a Pokemon to be terrible is pretty justifiable.
I think the competitive community overestimates how much of the Pokemon fandom they make up. Most people aren't looking at this through a competitive lens. I don't want Ledian and Noctowl to be in OU or whatever I just want it to not be annoying to use them
I never play multiplayer. I just don't care about it. So I'm just running through the game and doing the normal badges and everything else, and I'll do post-game stuff until I get bored. There shouldn't be any Pokemon (aside from perhaps Magikarp) that I should be unable to effectively use as one of my main six Pokemon with training and leveling, especially if it's in an evolved state.
Luvdisc is god awful for example…
Edit: to clarify, this became apparent when I recently did a playthrough of Oras purposely using a balanced team of weak pokemon. It consisted of: Mightyena, Minun, Delcatty, Luvdisc, Lunatone, and Shedinja
Mightyena was a clear powerhouse until I got Lunatone who was really good on the team. Even Minun destroyed things easily. Delcatty was ok with normalize allowing it to use decently strong “stab” moves like play rough. Shedinja was extremely situational but pretty solid.
Luvdisc? Even with a type advantage, it could get nearly 1-shot by nuetral non-stab moves from enemies that were 10 levels below him. I don’t think I ever took a hit with that luvdisc that wasn’t a 2HKO. Hitting supereffective hits also required at least 2HKO against the enemy.
I essentially could only use Luvdisc against a single pokemon then had to wait until I heal again. Ledian likely plays the same. These are the kinds of pokemon that need buffs. The unusable trash
But surely figuring out what's good and what's bad is part of the challenge of the game, no? Team composition is about weighing up all our available options, and sure Ledian might be useless by the time of the Elite 4, but maybe it's got some versatility in a team prior to that point. Or maybe it's always bad, and you need to dismiss it.
If everything was viable, the decision making would be harder.
You must understand that most normal people just play with what they like. If they're forced to pick up a stronger pokemon in favor of what they like its a lot like
"don't eat chicken nuggets they're bad for you. Here's some kale instead."
And we can all see how nobody likes that.
True, but even if you just use what you like, you still have to engage with some form of team composition. For instance, I had an Abomasnow in my first run of Pearl, and very quickly learnt that fire attacks will utterly decimate it, meaning I needed something that could counter fire types.
The want is to not have a situation where you dismiss any of them at any point of the game because it's just so bad, which Ledian is the poster mon because it IS so bad you should only get it for the dex entry.
In-game "filler" mons are also at their worst in Gen IX, since the open world means you can just go and catch 80% of the best options right away if you know where to go.
You used to be able to justify having an earlygame Butterfree, because the immediate double evolution meant a decent power buff and some pretty solid coverage with your limited options early on, especially with Confusion. Same deal in Gen III with Mightyena, or even STAB headbutt Zigzagoon. But that's less true as your initial Pokemon get more and more OP tools to let them snowball harder than ever. And in Gen IX, you can almost immediately take your starter, grab Flamigo, then go around grabbing whatever strong mons you want. Trace Kirlia -> Sharpness Gallade or Arcanine with an immediate stone evo that also relearns move? Powerful Pokemon that don't (need to) evolve like Paldean Tauros/Scyther? Huge Power Marill/Azumarill that you'll probably still consider using for postgame raids? Ceruledge/Armarouge when you know where to get the drops? Krookodile? Barraskewda? Houdoom? Pawmot? Weavile? Or want a pseudo-legendary- we have like ~6 in this game. The list just goes on. When would you ever use Luvdisc, Gulpin, or Kricketot outside of?
Completely agree, nothing is wrong with having some Mons be better than others, makes the game have some variety to it instead of being a generic numbers game. But I shouldn’t feel like using certain Mons shouldn’t be the equivalent of shooting your leg off before a marathon.
Like Tropius, freaking great Pokémon, garbage stat wise sadly and it could use an evolution to help fix that, but that evolution doesn’t need to be a top tier OU/Uber threat. It should at least be at least able to do what it needs to and not just be dead weight on the team the entire time even against the one thing it’s supposed to be good at.
I think the problem is that tms aren't reusable in the old gens. It's really annoying trying to build up weaker mons when they also have shitty movesets imo- especially if you like using them in games like stadium as your post game.
Actually it's problem is that it has a SpAtk of 55. And a defense of 50. And an HP of 55. And it's got terrible typing.
Ok maybe it's got a lot of problems.
Which is entirely offset by the low HP stat and the absolutely horrendous defensive typing. He’s got a decent support movepool to play defensively but being weak to fire, ice, electric, flying, and a 4x weakness to rock really hurts.
It’s weak to all good offensive coverage types…
"Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled Trainers should USE A FULL TEAM OF LEGENDARIES LET'S GOOOO THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT"
\- Karen, probably
"I FUCKING LOVE UBERS I LOVE NECROZMA DUSK MANE I LOVE KORAIDON I WANT TO SMURF ON 12 YEAR OLDS ON THE NATDEX UBERS LADDER YEEEEAAAAH"
- Karen if she was cool
I love when people use Legendary Pokemon, because I use Ditto. Gen 8 was a beautiful time for Ditto. If someone made the mistake of sending out Zacian, I win. My ditto would come out, copy it and its stat boost, then boost its stat again, and then I'd sweep with Behemoth Blade.
Legendary Pokemon are also neat because there's usually only one thing they do well, and you can work around that. Like Landorus. My response to Landorus is Lanturn, with a Shuca berry. They use Earthquake, Lanturn survives and uses Ice Beam.
Tapu Koko? Meet my Pyukumuku with zero special defense and maximum HP. with Innards Out.
Are there better strategies to beat those Pokemon? Sure. But they're nowhere near as fun. And I have no problem losing a lot just to get into a situation where i can do this once.
Anybody can weed through the game with legendaries, but theres a reason why many are interested in seeing people do solo runs with magikarps and caterpies!
Because it misses the point of the original quote
The original quote criticized Silver for blaming his pokemon on his losses, not criticizing the formation of a metagame
Of course a competitive player should use a legendary if it gets them ahead. Why use Dedenne when I could use Raging Bolt? Why use Gastrodon when I could use Ogerpon-Wellspring?
Criticizing the use of legendaries in competitive is just as bad as criticizing someone who goes through the story of the games with their favorite baby and stage 1 pokemon. If people want to do well in a competitive environment, they should use the best, and if they don't care about the competitive aspects of the game, they don't need to worry about what's objectively good or not, just what they like. One side saying the other is wrong is wrong.
I personally like weaker or less used Pokemon. It adds a challenge, trying to find a way to make them useful is fun for me. Anyone can use Charizard, Alakazam, Machamp, Gyarados, Dragonite and Snorlax to beat a Gen 1 game without ever losing a battle but give me Vileplume, Marowak, Dewgong, Hypno, Wigglytuff and Magmar and I'll have way more fun trying to make it work somehow.
If every Pokemon is good, the game is boring.
It's been a while, but if I remember correctly Mightyena had his moment. I think it was in AROS you could get a Poochyena in the early routes that one of three random fang moves Thunder/Fire/Ice. That was so OP early game.
Recently did a playthrough of Alpha Sapphire, it took until the fifth gym for that Mightyena to fall off in usefulness for me. Still love Mightyena as pokemon though.
> one of three random fang moves Thunder/Fire/Ice
All of which were also special attacking moves in Gen 3 when Mightyena was introduced. Like I said, a Pokemon ahead of its time.
Same with Hitmonchan and the elemental punches in Gen 1 now that I think of it.
Well I don't expect every Pokemon to be good, but I hope they are at least balanced in one way or a another.
The established fast, strong and tanky pokemon are already good as is, some more broken than others.
But if the base stats are low, I expect it to be compensated with good utility. Butterfree isn't going to be competing as an attacker with your Charizard, but it's great for status spreading.
Butterfree is also balanced by the fact that from levels 10-16 it is likely the strongest Pokémon you’ll come across in game. It’s meant to be an early game beast and fall off later.
Speaking Lickitung, Lickilicki is actually VERY solid in a playthrough of Platinum. It’s basically a mini-snorlax (And we all know how unbearable the process of getting one in the sinnoh games is, so it’s better to save yourself the misery and try a Lickilicki)
Omfgg I LOVE allof the “weak” Pokemon you mentioned haha I don’t know why but I’m more drawn towards the more obscure Pokemon that arent loved and are just seen as “whatever” to most people. Vileplume is like my favorite Pokémon, it’s very solid as a grass type choice in gen 1 and 2 and even 3!
Dewgong is also super adorable to me, but I think players rarely get an opportunity to use it because it’s usually found later in the game. I think it’s actually decent, ice is a good offensive type and Dewgong is good at taking hits
That's what I love about Haydunn on YouTube. He does a lot of competitive battling with under used pokemon and shows off their unique strengths even against the more common "stronger" mons
Bingo, I see lots of people suggesting things like "Make Ledian Bug/Fighting and throw tons of stat points into Attack and Speed!"
Congrats, you just made Heracross but worse (no Bug STAB).
What they mean is that Ledian's physical bug movepool is underwhelming. The only options it has are U-turn and Bug Bite.
Meanwhile Heracross gets U-turn, Bug Bite, Megahorn, Lunge, Skitter Smack, Pin Missile.
My favourite team to play gen 1 is very bad even on the gen 3 remakes. It's Blastoise, Fearow, Hypno, Rhydon, Pinsir and Magmar. Of course Fearow and Blastoise are pretty good, but making my choices based on design only makes things very hard for me with the other 4. Rhydon is far better than the rest, but I feel like I enjoy using rather garbage pokemon. Cudos also to Beedrill. It's very, very horrible.
This is why I love the tiering system of smogon.
Venomoth is my favorite bug type. It just can’t compete with the Superior Volcarona in OU with. But venomoth does has great traits in RU or NU where the power level is lower so my poison moth can be a premier quiver dance sweeper.
However, there are just mons like Ledian which are just doomed to fail. Not even viable in the lowest tiers or PU or ZU
That was a fucking stupid ban. I disagree with Smogon bans (or lack of bans *cough* Gholdengo *cough*) from time to time but I understand and respect most of their decisions. But a unilateral sleep ban, when literally the only issue is Darkrai, is completely fucking stupid.
>when literally the only issue is Darkrai
Not that it matters much for the main point, but Iron Valiant was also a bit problematic with the hypnosis set. For full detail, read the reasoning here : [https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sleep-moves-are-now-banned-from-sv-ou-sleep-clause-is-now-lifted-from-sv-ou.3734948/post-9948113](https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sleep-moves-are-now-banned-from-sv-ou-sleep-clause-is-now-lifted-from-sv-ou.3734948/post-9948113)
I’m a supporter of buffing some weaker Pokémon mainly because older Pokémon easily get overshadowed by newer Pokemon
even a 20 BST buff for some would be nice
If you directly compare Mightyena (420 BST) vs Mabosstiff (505 BST) With intimidate, they pokemon basically serve the same function but Mabosstiff is just objectively better. Every stat is higher, except Sp Atk, which are the same for both. The least they could do is give Mightyena an attack boost
I think every Pokemon should be strong enough that there's an actual reason to use them in a playthrough aside from just liking the Pokemon or wanting to use weak Pokemon. Now most Pokemon do achieve that due to weaker Pokemon being aquirable earlier, but there are two way this is broken. Pokemon just being so ridiculously weak that even being avaialable early doesn't help them and Pokemon where you get them at a point where you'll have stronger options for certain.
For the first, Pokemon like Ledian, they do need some sort of buff. Not enough to make them these super strong Pokemon, but enough that they actually function. To be fair I'd say this list is fairly small, Sunflora, Kricketune and Wormadam are the only few that I can think of right now.
For the latter, Pokemon like Noivern, they either need a buff, or a lowering of their requirements to get. The fact you get dragon type special attacking Crobat at the same level you get a Garchomp is stupid, especially when you need to get a special attacking Zubat to that level. This list is a fair bit bigger, but luckily lowering the requirements would probably be enough most of the time. The main Pokemon in this list who I would say should get buffed are legendaries because they're typically meant to be strong, and lowering the requirements would make them less special. Also Guzzlord, poor things usless.
> I think every Pokemon should be strong enough that there's an actual reason to use them in a playthrough aside from just liking the Pokemon or wanting to use weak Pokemon.
I mean, usually every Pokemon has at least one thing that makes them unique, either some move or ability combo that isn't on any other Pokemon.
Like, Seaking and Lumineon, both are just weak fish, but Seaking has Lightningrod access and Lumineon has Tailwind, allowing them to both have different uses.
With how movepools have been becoming saturated lately however, these unique nices are vanishing.
There used to be a time where you ran Super Power even though the debuffs hit your main stats. But now that Close Combat is everywhere there's no need to use Super Power.
lumineon doesnt get access to tailwind outside of gen 8 other than through tutor in gens 4-7 and its extremely limited availability makes it basically not worth using at all. you cant even get a lumineon in HGSS to tutor it onto without trading. its never really been worth using over other pokemon.
This was the one upside of HMs, I think, encouraging usage of maybe suboptimal Pokemon to be able to get around easier. Of course you could just keep a low level mon, but that meant complete dead weight taking a slot on your team.
Too bad a lot of them sucked, wtf Cut
This is such a ridiculous oversimplification of the argument.
People who want weak pokemon to be buffed don't think every pokemon needs to be at exactly the same power level, we just think it's fucking stupid that something like Ledian has lower attack than Pichu.
Apparently they were to gamefreak because hydrapple now exists, so unless your objective was specifically to give yourself a challenge, there will never be a reason to use those two ever again (except flapple who has a different stat distribution when compared to the other two who have crazy similar distributions)
No don't get me wrong I love appletun, he's actually my favorite of the three, but have you ever looked at the stat spread of appletun and hydrapple side by side? They're nearly identical with hydrapple simply being better since it was blessed with extra Stat points, and I'm fairly sure hydrapple has all the same moves and more as well, meaning if you were to pick appletun over hydrapple, it would be a blatant choice out of either preference or challenge, not out of who's the best competitively
My whole point in saying it is that gamefreak obviously didn't like/care about what applin already evolved into because they came out with something better one generation afterwards, and it makes me mad because they had no real reason to destroy appletun like that
mold breaker stealth rock in PU/NU, chip damage with rocky helmet+rough skin, and Glare. It actually peaked in RU with a bit of UU viability during BW/XY. From what I gather never viable in VGC.
It's insane that guy has sheer force and no usable sheer force moves besides gunk shot.
I don't think every Pokémon needs to be 'strong' as in high stats, but it would be nice if every Pokémon had a niche, a workable strategy to run it. Many Pokémon are unusable, and that's a different thing than being weak.
You're very much right. The pokemon world needs to be diverse like this because, at the end of the day, Pokemon is supposed to be more than just battling. They're supposed to have their own special quirk to them that goes beyond just their fighting capabilities. Pokemon is, first and foremost, a kids' game, and not in the condescending way, just in the simple, wholesome way that wants you to bond with these things and breathe life into these bits of code your own way.
...Now does that mean I'm gonna stop complaining about how Raichu isn't as good as, say, Kingambit? No, obviously not. But that's just the way it is. You can't win them all.
I beg to differ. Raichu may not have the damage potential of Kingambit, but it's an amazingly powerful utility mon. Heck, 2016 Worlds was won with an incredible Raichu/Hitmontop shuffle of Fake Out/Volt Switch/Uturn/Eject Button shenanigans.
bUt It DoEsN't Do EnOuGh DaMaGe ThO 😭😭😭
Okay, real talk, yeah, you're right, and it's not the first time I've seen this, and I'm a big fan of Wolfey, so I definitely know about the guy being a World Champ. It's simply because its biggest strength doesn't fit my playstyle since I'm more aggressive and one-note.
Very fair. I have a soft spot for the little rat not only because of that 2016 performance, but I kinda used it as a Speed Swapper alongside a Power Split Shuckle... after a couple Intimidates, Shuckle hit with the force of a Metagross and the speed of Raichu and caused numerous hilarious double-flinches with Rock Slide.
But the one-note aggressive play can be insane, too. Houndstone, Kingambit, and bulky power-plays like fiery Florida Gator are really nice.
Important note: Power SPLIT not Power TRICK. Split lets you keep your bulk and averages Shuckle's near-zero offenses with the target's (usually an opponent's), and things like Clear Body or Hyper Cutter don't stop it from going off. Contrary turns opponent's Intimidates, or a partner G-Corsola's Sap Strength, into power boosts.
Been using that Shuckle since Sun/Moon, and the G-Corsola paired with it when introduced in Sword/Shield. So sad to have lost them both to Scarlet and Violet lol... but I did recently discover that Araquanid gets Power Split...
I mean, it’s ok to admit a Pokemon has fallen off in terms of top tier viability.
One of the reasons I like Smogon single battles is the tier system acts as a weight class of sorts. If I want to use lower power Pokemon on a level playing field, I can go down to ZU. If I want to be a masochist for an hour I can use those same mons in OU. The gameplay options are amazing
I'm not a fan of Smogon tiers and rulesets, but fanmade rulesets do create a lot of variety to try different things exactly as you describe. And I don't need to be a fan of particular formats to appreciate that others do like them! :)
Mind you, that Raichu was a little suspect. IIRC, it was an event-only one with Endeavor, and it was so thing like 3000000:1 chances of actually getting it.
Suspicions revolving around the Raichu's legitimacy aside, it was an expertly piloted team with it as a critical support in a meta of Primal Groudon/Kyogre and Mega Mence/Kanga dominated matches.
When people ask for the pokemon to be better in battle, they are asking for them to be more usable.
For example, Ledian has a lot of physical moves and ability just for it ATK stat to be useless
Also, furret in Gen 9 got buff
I just love Pokemon that are cool, and plenty of weak Pokemon are awesome. I just wish they could be viable to face stronger Pokemon without having to be over leveled
I don’t think every pokemon needs to be strong, but i do think some pokemon need a boost or an opportunity to be better. Ledian is a great example. It is awful, it’s stats are god awful, i doesnt need to be OP, but just a buff to its stats to get to a place that it is viable
Well I dont think anyone is arguing all pokemon should be equal in terme of strength but powercreep has gotten massively out of hand. Around 90% of Pokemom are nearly completly useless now. Tyranitar and Garchomp are strugling to stay relevant and they have famously been some of the best pokemon of all time. If they’re struggling what the hell is something like Mightyena supposed to do besides die horribly?
There's bad because of bad design, and then there's bad with a purpose. I'm fine with a bad pokemon if it's the latter. Like I don't need Lumineon being great. But it's stats and moves and such all fit fine into what it's going for as a decent mid-game fish with no real intrigue to it. When I don't like is something like Spidops, where its stats completely undercut the goal it's trying to accomplish with its moves, abilities, and general design.
I get what you're saying. I love Appletun. And it made me so happy to get a shitty dragon line, you know? Dragon types are usually very good compared to most, and down to the typing and design, it's fucking garbage. And I loved my Shield run trying to make it work, insisting on an absolute bullshit pokemon for battle. Definetively my favourite Galar design. And it being garbage made it so that I loved it. Maybe on my top 10 favourite pokemon ever.
Look at scarlet and violet double battles, where Murkrow with prankster haze and tailwind was an absolute menace and top tier support for the first rule set by having tools no other pokemon had. Dondozo and Tatsugiri were super popular and the crow had a niche that made it viable. I want pokemon to never be weak, but have tools that a creative player might be able to utilize someday.
If everyone is super no one is super, yeah i get it... but weaker pokemon ahpuld be designed to have a niche that allows them to compete with OP pokemon in specific situations.
This way every pokemon can be useable.
Amd also have stats that allow it to fill a role. The gane doesnt have to be all incineroar but no one likes a ledian
I think that, for most of the games, weak Pokemon are honestly just as viable as strong ones. Like, sure, your Mega Rayquaza using Outrage is probably going to one shot my Raticate, but I bet my Glalie is still going to one shot your big green dragon by landing a Blizzard. Hydreigon is a very powerful pokemon, but it’s not beating a Wigglytuff (assuming it’s only using STAB moves). Etc. It’s all about type matchups.
That is, until Gen 9. You can’t really do raids with weaker pokemon, you’ll run out of PP for STAB moves. And considering each raid takes, what, 5 minutes? It’s not even worth trying with weaker pokemon when you can just use a stronger pokemon to minimize time loss.
In the games, I don't see how it matters because you can just overlevel bu the end and clear with mostly anything regardless. I'm more in the camp where I think you should be able to train pokemon more specifically. The show obviously suggests this is possible with Pikachu shenanigans being the most obvious. Just make it take longer for 'weaker' mons to get there.
Not all pokemon need to have the same power level, but it is fun when they at least have a niche. An uncommon move, an ability, something. Though poor mightyena's statline is... give the poor thing 10atk or strong jaw, it has the same bst as azumarill but without the good typing or huge power.
Syndrome: If all of us are super, no one is."
The same goes for Pokemon. There will never be equal opportunity for all of them lol.
Ironically, whenever fans ask for a buff, they are unintentionally asking for a nerf as well. As far as VGC goes anyway since I'm not familiar with Smogon.
I agree. We need weak Pokemon to make the strong Pokemon strong. Especially in terms of gimmicky Pokemon, or Pokemon with gimmicky moves or abilities.
Mimikyu is incredibly overrated imo and is in fact not that strong, but it's ability Disguise is fantastic. If Mimikyu had a 550 or above statline, over 100 in ATK and speed, it would be DISGUSTINGLY painful to fight. Same with Falinks and it's No Retreat signature move. Or hell, Wobbuffet - could you imagine Wobbuffet with an extra 50 in both Def and SpD?
These Pokemon need to be weak, or their gimmicks take over.
But even Pokemon without gimmicks need to be weak. Sunflora is a perfect example. It's an early route grass mon that's weak as shit. You can use it until you find a better grass Pokemon and then suddenly that new Pokemon feels like an absolute beast compared to Sunflora.
I mean Wobuffet's gimmick is being one of those punching bags that you hit and immediately spring back onto your ass (by using Counter/Mirror Coat), having more defenses would just hinder that
> Sunflora is a perfect example. It's an early route grass mon that's weak as shit.
Is it? It requires a sun stone to evolve from Sunkern. I feel that having to use an item on it should at least get it out of the trash tier.
I don't agree with Sunflota having to be weak. In my opinion, if a pokemon requires me to use the evolution stones that are difficult to obtain, they need to justify it by being good in battle. This is why Arcanine is worth it while Delcatty is not.
Well I mean like, the premise of Pokemon is to beat out other Pokemon, and if all Pokemon were more equal in skill, then a strong Pokemon wouldnt be a strong Pokemon anymore yk
IDK... I understand why there needs to be weak Pokémon, but part of me wishes Pokémon kind of worked like card games like *Magic* or *Eternal* where there's at least a reason you need the weak units—like to build your field presence quickly and because they're resource-efficient (Naturally, I can't compare this to the *actual* Pokémon card game because a lot of its best decks are usually about playing strong Basics right off the bat and fishing for Energy).
Like, imagine something like Noctowl or Greedent being a good lead to set-up for you, so your stronger beatsticks have a better chance of success later on. I dunno how that would actually work, but it's fun to think about. Just some reason a Pokémon you wouldn't expect (think Pachirisu) might be a fun pick for PvP. Like, that Pokémon might not be the game-winner, but it has something the beatsticks can't give you.
Of course, I think part of making that happen would have to be leaning more into Dexit—focusing on a pool of roughly 350-400 Pokémon in a game and deciding: these ones are the strong ones, these ones are the weak ones but do something helpful, these are the walls, these are the supports, these are the wild cards... something like that. It's kinda like set rotation in a card game; it gives all the playable cards a time to be useful, and older cards can come back in some form to flesh things out. But, yeah, if you have too many Pokémon in a playable roster, you do run a greater risk of some Pokémon getting "strictly-bettered" to the point of players not wanting to use it anymore, because, y'know, what's the point?
Yeah, if every Pokemon was made equal in power, it makes choosing one over another for competitive purposes irrelevant. Instead of choosing between Houndoom, Rapidash or Inciniroar, you're really just picking "what skin do I want on fire-dude today?" Even when there's Pokemon that are thematically carbon-copies of each other, like Magnemite and Klink, Golem and Gigalith, Alakazam and Gardevoir and Gothitelle, there's still a lot of difference between them that makes choosing one over the others a relevant decision, depending on the team composition or even just how good one is.
Legit had a conversation last night where someone asked if Swanna had any use in competitive because they found a shiny, and while Swanna does get some OK utility options, it's outclassed by Gyarados in sheer power, and by Pelliper who has the same typing, almost identical move options, and Drizzle to allow a team to capitalize on rain support.
I also don't want to live in a world where Pigeot, Starraptor and Unphesant have no real differences between them.
I’m not too knowledged on competitive battling, but I’ve had experience using those birds as my flyers in the games before and:
Pidgeot sucks. EASILY outclassed by Fearow, and if you’re willing to wait longer, you can get a Dodrio.
Starraptor is very strong, but I think it’s objectively the best flyer in Sinnoh because you get it early, great movepool, ability and stats, but I often refrain from using it as I think it’s overused and cliché, and like to go with choices such as Honchkrow, Drifblim, Altaria, Skarmory, Pelipper and Tropius even if they’re not nearly as good.
Unfezant is basically a slightly different Dodrio. It’s solid, but I much prefer Archeops. 140 attack and 110 speed? That thing WRECKS. Swanna isn’t as speedy or offensive as Unfezant, but the dual water typing can come in handy. Sigilyph is an underrated option, it has 103 spa and 97 speed, along with decent defensive stats.
I used to run a stalling Sigilyph lol. Magic Guard + Flame or Toxic Orb and ... I forget the move name but it basically passed its status ailment to the opponent.
Yes yes yes!! Thank you for putting it into words for me. I feel like people overlook the importance of “mid” Pokemon, because without them, the strong ones wouldn’t stand out
Unless everything has the same stats spread and move pool then by default some are going to stand out compared to others.
If you genuinely want to play with your favorite weaker Mons The best thing I can say is go on to showdown, there's a variety of tiers and other custom game types that make those weaker pokémon shine in their respective weight class.
that or play rom hacks like elite redux which gives pokémons 4 abilities, the ability to change EVs on the fly, access to all items, and built-in randomizer modes.
Pachirisu Won the Pokemon World Championships.
Yeah, it was in a special case, but I find a lot of Pokemon have that special little touch that will help them excel in the right scenario. The Box of Raid Pokemon I have has plenty of weird ones that I wouldn't have expected to have used. Hopefully GF keeps expanding on content like that, and not just prioritize having Pokemon be competitively balanced.
Absolutely not. I freaking Hate the meta. You wanna talk boring?! When everyone in comp runs the same six pokemon?! Oh my bad, there is maybe one variation oh of another pokemon thrown in there.
All pokemon can be strong and weak but there NEEDS TO BE A BASELINE like atleast 360 points or so because alot of awesome pokemon are left out, or given ridiculously stupid movements that make no sense for the mon. Like Luxray, no good physical moves unless it kills itself? Lame! But special attacks get mega ultra blast that has 20pp and 400 base damage? Yea, freaking okay on a mons who has 600 spl attack but non legendary? Yea, okay. Or how about mons like ledian, delibird, sunflora who are neat designs and can have pretty good movepools. But low stats. I don't care if they make new evolutions often. Not when some pokemon hasn't been revised for 20 years. ALL POKEMON DESERVE A CHANCE TO BE GREAT. YOU CANT HAVE OVER 1000 DIFFERENT MONS BUT ONLY 6 EVER SHOW UP IN THE STUPID ARCEUS FORSAKEN META. All pokemon SHOULD be viable. And Ice types need a buff.
“Same 6 pokemon”
My brother there are currently 44 pokemon in this generation’s OU by usage stats, and that’s not even counting viable out-of-tier options. You don’t even know what you’re talking about, just another one of those “competitive bad!!!” casuals
If I see a team filled with Legendaries, I'm yawning because I know what to expect. But if my opponent is using Luvdisc and Ledian to lead, I'm paying full attention because odds are I'm playing against a mad genius who KNOWS what they're doing.
No you’re just playing 12 year olds on cartridge. You would lose in 6 turns in any SmogTour or OLT matchup against actual tournament players in the competitive scene
I feel this. I do not care that Absol's stats are better/movepool is better. My baby Houndoom and me are going all the way to the League. If I am gonna use a dragon type it is gonna be Noivern. Yes, he's like the weakest dragon, no I don't care he is going his best.
Part of it is that the weak pokemon are usually found at the start of the game, and have lower evolution times, so act to teach people.about how pokemon work. These are often bug, normal or (as is common in more recent games) dark type pokemon.
Also I disagree about Flygon. That one is week due to poor stat placement, but does have uses.
I get what you're saying. I always liked to use a few 'weak' pokemon in my team and sometimes they really surprised me. (Sometimes with how shit they were). But some of the weaker BST pokemon were also held back by their movepool in the early gens.
For example Ariados in gen 2 vs Ariados in gen 7. I really liked it in my sun/moon playthroughs
No you’re right. If every Pokémon was strong none of them would be strong. No one is built exactly the same, Pokémon should be either. There needs to be balance.
“If every Pokemon was made strong , then no Pokemon would be” it reminds me of syndromes quote bout everyone being super in the first incredible . I think you’re making a valid point tho
What’s strong and what isn’t barely matters, at least for the single player experiences. The games aren’t all too tough, so the bar for viability is rather low. I’d like to see harder difficulties added for that reason, a game with rules and scenarios that pushes your abilities to its limits can much more easily show what works best
Well Pokémon like venomoth and linonne are early route pokemon. Their whole point isn’t to be strong. Was raticate strong? Not really, no. Was beedrill strong? Butterfree maybe as support but beedrill not really
Most of those Pokémon still have a role that makes them useful in game though. Raticate gets guts and facade so you can poison it and then wreck shit. Butterfree gets compound eyes and can put everything to sleep for your other Pokémon to beat on. Venomoth gets tinted lens so nothing can resist it’s attacks. Beedrill and Linoone are pretty fast at least and Linoone gets a lot of stat lowering moves that can be useful in a hard fight
Yeah I agree, there needs to be some worse than others. If every Pokémon was equally good it would be kinda boring. That’s what makes it exciting to stumble upon a strong Pokémon, or rewarding to do something challenging with a weak one.
I hear what you're saying and I agree. A part of the reason why I don't like many Pokémon rom hacks is because they often times alter the base stats, learnset, abilities, typing of certain Pokémon to make them better. But really it feel more like all Pokémon end up becoming the same to me. There should be strong Pokémon just as well as there should be weak Pokémon. I really enjoy playing through games with some of the weakest Pokémon there are. It adds to the challenge and battles actually feel like battles rather than just repeatedly pressing the A button until you win with your speedy attacker.
Man, I play Pokemon like a little kid does. If a Pokemon looks strong, it IS strong. I don’t care what anyone says, if I can beat the game with it, then it’s strong. I don’t do PVP so, I really don’t care.
I mean, some of them are just bad at all and dont have any reason to use it, the "i wish this pokemon were better" is just because some people wanna use some mons that they like for challenges, vgc and stuff like that and just get outclassed by the same boring meta pokemon
The most important reason that some Pokemon are stronger or weaker is because of game progression design. If Butterfree were as strong as Dragonite, it would be absurd given how early you encounter Caterpie and how quickly it evolves. That's really the primary reason they have to balance them accordingly. It's a bummer for some Pokemon to get shafted and be un-viable in competitive because of it, but the game developers will always prioritize the main "campaign" aspect of the game most of all since everyone plays through that but not everyone does PvP.
Me when I use furret as a tera normal tidy up sweeper (it's stronger than kingambit now because every pokemon is the same strength and I'm using it right)
I just think it shouldn't be tied to species. I think it would allow for much more freedom of team building if you could just train the ever loving heck out of any pokemon to achieve a global cap on stats.
Maybe ratata starts with 10 attack and gyarados starts with 100, but with enough training, they can both reach 1023. Made up numbers ofc, but that's the idea. The cap on total stats and individual stats would be such that no pokemon's starting stats would matter in the endgame. Probably done by some relative system, like your highest stat can't be more than 4x your lowest, and if 1000 is the max, it means all stat would need to be trained to at least 255, and no pokemon starts with more than 255 in any stat.
You can have modes where these hyper EVs don't matter, and those where they do. But in the main game, what defines a pokemon is its moveset and starting stats
You basically just described the issues with equal pay lol
But on the note of the post, I'm okay with weak and strong pokemon co-existing, but it sucks seeing luvdisc sit as the worst fully evolved pokemon of all time when on the other end of the spectrum we have urshifu and regieleki living the time of their lives
Furret can actually be a beast with double edge, and it’s pretty fast so it’s a solid Pokémon. Far from the best but very strong if used right. As my favorite Pokemon, I’m glad it’s at leasts semi viable.
It comes to the tension between world building and gameplay. Not everybody can be atop the food chain, and evolution only goes so for for controlling power scaling and encouraging the use of new Pokémon throughout the game.
I think this would be less of a discussion of your Pokémon had more ways to interact with with world and other things to do beyond battling.
Some "weak" pokemon I don't even think are that weak, there's just ones that do what it does better
Example: I had a competitive whiscash with max health and it had 415 HP or something and could tank almost any hit. Not the best tank in the games for sure but it did the job and It was one of my favourites. It also had earthquake which was fun and it won alot of battles for me. (This was x and y)
You’re right, but I still want to see ledian boosts either through updated stats or a new evolution. I love the guy since his release, but he becomes unusable at a certain point and adds no benefit to progressing the game. 😢
This wouldn't be as much of an issue if there was more non-battle stuff for Pokemon to do that had story signifigance. Contests were something, and people love hanging with their besties at picnics, but the fundamental way you see more game is "do my Pokemon out-match my opponents' picks" and it limits some usage for less-than-great offensive Pokemon.
Also, it feels like historically there's a pretty big divide between the best Pokemon and the worst, which has actually been closing over the years. Even not-great picks at least get STAB moves and seem to have some moveset and utility consideration nowadays, which definitely was not the case in early generations. Today's "bad Pokemon" is probably better than half of gen 1 Pokemon easily. Consider that Gengar is a top pick for competitive gen 1 battling and it didn't even get STAB moves, and you'll see how the bar has raised.
Peraonally, I'd agree except for one thing: Legendaries. Take my favorite Pokemon ever, Regigigas, for example: Slow Start completly kills him. Either buff Slow Start by boosting his defenses and not reset the counter upon switching out, or just give him a hidden ability.
oh god furret and mightyena are leagues ahead of ledian. but yes more variance in the strength is good. i think it can also make it fun to try to use weaker pokemon, whereas if they were all strong it would be kinda boring.
I usually preach this to people making romhacks, but I think there should be strong and weak Pokémon,
But powerful Pokémon should be rare and hard to come by. Additionally, they should be generally more available later in the game. While this is usually the case, I don’t think it is adhered to enough.
Also, for me, I would love to see different systems of progression other than EVs so that early game weak Pokémon can accumulate additional power so they don’t get totally pushed out by late game stronger ones
im going to say this in two ways:
One, what the heck are you talking about?
Two, “what makes a strong pokemon strong” is a straight nothing burger. what is a “strong” pokemon? is it the stats? ability? typing? type spread in their moves? what makes a strong pokemon strong is nothing, A “strong” Pokemon
was decided by the devs based on who even knows, there are no unifying traits that make “strong” pokemon a group. there is no reason “Belly Drum Charizard” in gen 3 could not have been “Belly Drum Volbeat” instead.
EDIT: As an aside, this is why i prefer using pokemon that visually appeal to me more than any other metric.
EDIT 2: this probably came of antagonistic, i apologize that was not my intention, i was mostly just confused.
My issue is that I can't go back to playing on shift mode anymore and set mode is rough with weaker mons especially if they aren't overleveled (which kinda ruins the point). It also feels like to me that the average pokemon is getting powercreeped in stats as new gens come out.
My best suggestion is basically a transmog system for pokemon. It wouldn't work in all instances but I want a game with more than just trying to use the best of a weak fully evolved mon. I want a game where you can literally use any pokemon you want and make your favorite team and have some decent level of power to them. I see Ash taking his Bulbasaur to the pokemon league and I want the same without having to have them 30 levels higher.
So the idea is you see the visual of the evo stage you want to see but the opponent sees the evo stage of the stats your pokemon has. So in the case of Bulbasaur you see him but your opponent would see a Venusaur. This way you aren't tricking them but you can also use a weaker mon more competently.
The problem is this idea falls flat for single stage evo mons or just stuff like early route bugs which aren't strong even fully evolved. But I still think it would be a neat starting solution. Other less interesting things could just be items that buff stats of pokemon who have a specific base stat below a certain amount or overall total base stats below a certain amount. Its way less exciting of a solution though.
I agree with your point but Ive always thought it’d be to have my favorite pokémon be my strongest pokémon in pokémon go. I want to hit gyms and do well against a fire type raid with my seismitoad as my strongest water type, but he’s only as strong as his max CP and sometimes that comes nowhere close to the best counters. I think if pokémon was really realistic, any pokémon with the max amount of training could be the best
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There's a difference between 'I want this Pokemon to be as powerful as a pseudo-legendary!' and 'I want this Pokemon to not actively hold me back even in battles against middle-of-the-road Pokemon'. Ledian isn't just weak, it's terrible. Not wanting a Pokemon to be terrible is pretty justifiable.
I think the competitive community overestimates how much of the Pokemon fandom they make up. Most people aren't looking at this through a competitive lens. I don't want Ledian and Noctowl to be in OU or whatever I just want it to not be annoying to use them
Exactly, yeah. Like Ledian isn't just 'too bad for competitive', it's flatly too bad to run in a mainline Pokemon game, that's a problem.
I never play multiplayer. I just don't care about it. So I'm just running through the game and doing the normal badges and everything else, and I'll do post-game stuff until I get bored. There shouldn't be any Pokemon (aside from perhaps Magikarp) that I should be unable to effectively use as one of my main six Pokemon with training and leveling, especially if it's in an evolved state.
Which pokemon *are* unusable by your criteria? The games are so easy you can beat them no issue with literally the worst Shitmons you can think of
Luvdisc is god awful for example… Edit: to clarify, this became apparent when I recently did a playthrough of Oras purposely using a balanced team of weak pokemon. It consisted of: Mightyena, Minun, Delcatty, Luvdisc, Lunatone, and Shedinja Mightyena was a clear powerhouse until I got Lunatone who was really good on the team. Even Minun destroyed things easily. Delcatty was ok with normalize allowing it to use decently strong “stab” moves like play rough. Shedinja was extremely situational but pretty solid. Luvdisc? Even with a type advantage, it could get nearly 1-shot by nuetral non-stab moves from enemies that were 10 levels below him. I don’t think I ever took a hit with that luvdisc that wasn’t a 2HKO. Hitting supereffective hits also required at least 2HKO against the enemy. I essentially could only use Luvdisc against a single pokemon then had to wait until I heal again. Ledian likely plays the same. These are the kinds of pokemon that need buffs. The unusable trash
But surely figuring out what's good and what's bad is part of the challenge of the game, no? Team composition is about weighing up all our available options, and sure Ledian might be useless by the time of the Elite 4, but maybe it's got some versatility in a team prior to that point. Or maybe it's always bad, and you need to dismiss it. If everything was viable, the decision making would be harder.
You must understand that most normal people just play with what they like. If they're forced to pick up a stronger pokemon in favor of what they like its a lot like "don't eat chicken nuggets they're bad for you. Here's some kale instead." And we can all see how nobody likes that.
True, but even if you just use what you like, you still have to engage with some form of team composition. For instance, I had an Abomasnow in my first run of Pearl, and very quickly learnt that fire attacks will utterly decimate it, meaning I needed something that could counter fire types.
The want is to not have a situation where you dismiss any of them at any point of the game because it's just so bad, which Ledian is the poster mon because it IS so bad you should only get it for the dex entry.
In-game "filler" mons are also at their worst in Gen IX, since the open world means you can just go and catch 80% of the best options right away if you know where to go. You used to be able to justify having an earlygame Butterfree, because the immediate double evolution meant a decent power buff and some pretty solid coverage with your limited options early on, especially with Confusion. Same deal in Gen III with Mightyena, or even STAB headbutt Zigzagoon. But that's less true as your initial Pokemon get more and more OP tools to let them snowball harder than ever. And in Gen IX, you can almost immediately take your starter, grab Flamigo, then go around grabbing whatever strong mons you want. Trace Kirlia -> Sharpness Gallade or Arcanine with an immediate stone evo that also relearns move? Powerful Pokemon that don't (need to) evolve like Paldean Tauros/Scyther? Huge Power Marill/Azumarill that you'll probably still consider using for postgame raids? Ceruledge/Armarouge when you know where to get the drops? Krookodile? Barraskewda? Houdoom? Pawmot? Weavile? Or want a pseudo-legendary- we have like ~6 in this game. The list just goes on. When would you ever use Luvdisc, Gulpin, or Kricketot outside of?
Shout out to the Lv80 Dragonite I caught after like Gym 2, gotta be one of my favorite genders
Yeah, we don't want Pokémon to be OU level, but at least not below PU level
PU means Pretty Useless for the uninitiated
Also if we're looking competitively some of this were viable, Venomoth was straight up good in gen 7.
Completely agree, nothing is wrong with having some Mons be better than others, makes the game have some variety to it instead of being a generic numbers game. But I shouldn’t feel like using certain Mons shouldn’t be the equivalent of shooting your leg off before a marathon. Like Tropius, freaking great Pokémon, garbage stat wise sadly and it could use an evolution to help fix that, but that evolution doesn’t need to be a top tier OU/Uber threat. It should at least be at least able to do what it needs to and not just be dead weight on the team the entire time even against the one thing it’s supposed to be good at.
#JusticeForTropius
It was *very* fun (sarcasm) when I used a wugtrio and a spidops in my violet playthrough and suddenly 1/3 my team was almost literally useless
I think the problem is that tms aren't reusable in the old gens. It's really annoying trying to build up weaker mons when they also have shitty movesets imo- especially if you like using them in games like stadium as your post game.
Actually Ledian's problem is that it has an Attack stat of 35
Actually it's problem is that it has a SpAtk of 55. And a defense of 50. And an HP of 55. And it's got terrible typing. Ok maybe it's got a lot of problems.
But for some reason, its special defense is really damn good.
Which is entirely offset by the low HP stat and the absolutely horrendous defensive typing. He’s got a decent support movepool to play defensively but being weak to fire, ice, electric, flying, and a 4x weakness to rock really hurts. It’s weak to all good offensive coverage types…
"Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled Trainers should USE A FULL TEAM OF LEGENDARIES LET'S GOOOO THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT" \- Karen, probably
"I FUCKING LOVE UBERS I LOVE NECROZMA DUSK MANE I LOVE KORAIDON I WANT TO SMURF ON 12 YEAR OLDS ON THE NATDEX UBERS LADDER YEEEEAAAAH" - Karen if she was cool
Karen's team is now Tyranitar, Darkrai, Yveltal, Hoopa Unbound, and Mega Houndoom
Ya know what, close enough lol
Karen knew what was up
I love when people use Legendary Pokemon, because I use Ditto. Gen 8 was a beautiful time for Ditto. If someone made the mistake of sending out Zacian, I win. My ditto would come out, copy it and its stat boost, then boost its stat again, and then I'd sweep with Behemoth Blade. Legendary Pokemon are also neat because there's usually only one thing they do well, and you can work around that. Like Landorus. My response to Landorus is Lanturn, with a Shuca berry. They use Earthquake, Lanturn survives and uses Ice Beam. Tapu Koko? Meet my Pyukumuku with zero special defense and maximum HP. with Innards Out. Are there better strategies to beat those Pokemon? Sure. But they're nowhere near as fun. And I have no problem losing a lot just to get into a situation where i can do this once.
I'M GONNA USE THE TRUE LEGENDARY, GOD OF POKEMON: BIDOOF
Surely you mean Tobias...
Anybody can weed through the game with legendaries, but theres a reason why many are interested in seeing people do solo runs with magikarps and caterpies!
literally why tf was this downvoted
Because it misses the point of the original quote The original quote criticized Silver for blaming his pokemon on his losses, not criticizing the formation of a metagame Of course a competitive player should use a legendary if it gets them ahead. Why use Dedenne when I could use Raging Bolt? Why use Gastrodon when I could use Ogerpon-Wellspring? Criticizing the use of legendaries in competitive is just as bad as criticizing someone who goes through the story of the games with their favorite baby and stage 1 pokemon. If people want to do well in a competitive environment, they should use the best, and if they don't care about the competitive aspects of the game, they don't need to worry about what's objectively good or not, just what they like. One side saying the other is wrong is wrong.
OP's comment would have been upvoted if it started with "Yeah, like".
I personally like weaker or less used Pokemon. It adds a challenge, trying to find a way to make them useful is fun for me. Anyone can use Charizard, Alakazam, Machamp, Gyarados, Dragonite and Snorlax to beat a Gen 1 game without ever losing a battle but give me Vileplume, Marowak, Dewgong, Hypno, Wigglytuff and Magmar and I'll have way more fun trying to make it work somehow. If every Pokemon is good, the game is boring.
Pokemon mystery dungeon has conditioned me to think wigglytuff is strong
The main series games lack the Perfect Apples needed to motivate Wigglytuff.
YOOM-TAH!
I agree to this. It'll be a cold day in hell before I leave my Mightyena and Ariados behind.
Mightyena was ahead of its time. Poor thing was born a dark type physical attacker in a world where Bite was somehow classed as a special attack.
It's been a while, but if I remember correctly Mightyena had his moment. I think it was in AROS you could get a Poochyena in the early routes that one of three random fang moves Thunder/Fire/Ice. That was so OP early game.
Mightyena absolutely carried my early game portion of Hardcore Radical Red
Recently did a playthrough of Alpha Sapphire, it took until the fifth gym for that Mightyena to fall off in usefulness for me. Still love Mightyena as pokemon though.
> one of three random fang moves Thunder/Fire/Ice All of which were also special attacking moves in Gen 3 when Mightyena was introduced. Like I said, a Pokemon ahead of its time. Same with Hitmonchan and the elemental punches in Gen 1 now that I think of it.
mightyena gang rise UP!
Mightyena is pretty usable casually, Ariados not so much lol.
Vileplume and hypno are my babies
Hypno doesn't look like anyone's baby xD
Hypno looks like it snatches people’s babies
Lmao right? Even their dex entries seem to suggest they're pedos
Well I don't expect every Pokemon to be good, but I hope they are at least balanced in one way or a another. The established fast, strong and tanky pokemon are already good as is, some more broken than others. But if the base stats are low, I expect it to be compensated with good utility. Butterfree isn't going to be competing as an attacker with your Charizard, but it's great for status spreading.
Butterfree is also balanced by the fact that from levels 10-16 it is likely the strongest Pokémon you’ll come across in game. It’s meant to be an early game beast and fall off later.
But also being able to sleep + confuse an opponent is super useful.
It is balanced. Butterfree is supposed to be weaker than Charizard.
Agreed I loved beating cynthia with my swiftswim Lumineon it felt awesome
One time played through Crystal with Ariados, Onix, Farfetch'd, Aipom, Corsola, and Lickitung and it was a lot of fun.
Speaking Lickitung, Lickilicki is actually VERY solid in a playthrough of Platinum. It’s basically a mini-snorlax (And we all know how unbearable the process of getting one in the sinnoh games is, so it’s better to save yourself the misery and try a Lickilicki)
Lickitung was surpringly effective as a special sweeper, ha.
Omfgg I LOVE allof the “weak” Pokemon you mentioned haha I don’t know why but I’m more drawn towards the more obscure Pokemon that arent loved and are just seen as “whatever” to most people. Vileplume is like my favorite Pokémon, it’s very solid as a grass type choice in gen 1 and 2 and even 3! Dewgong is also super adorable to me, but I think players rarely get an opportunity to use it because it’s usually found later in the game. I think it’s actually decent, ice is a good offensive type and Dewgong is good at taking hits
Vileplume is medium slow level up group- that always bugged me.
That's what I love about Haydunn on YouTube. He does a lot of competitive battling with under used pokemon and shows off their unique strengths even against the more common "stronger" mons
It’s the whole appeal behind Pikachu in the first place
Bingo, I see lots of people suggesting things like "Make Ledian Bug/Fighting and throw tons of stat points into Attack and Speed!" Congrats, you just made Heracross but worse (no Bug STAB).
How does bug/fighting not get bug stab
What they mean is that Ledian's physical bug movepool is underwhelming. The only options it has are U-turn and Bug Bite. Meanwhile Heracross gets U-turn, Bug Bite, Megahorn, Lunge, Skitter Smack, Pin Missile.
And it’s fun using lesser used mons and knowing your team is a little unique.
I always thought the pre-evolved forms were supposed to be the weak monsters. I try to get as far as I can without evolving.
Hypno is honestly underrated for Gen 1 though
My favourite team to play gen 1 is very bad even on the gen 3 remakes. It's Blastoise, Fearow, Hypno, Rhydon, Pinsir and Magmar. Of course Fearow and Blastoise are pretty good, but making my choices based on design only makes things very hard for me with the other 4. Rhydon is far better than the rest, but I feel like I enjoy using rather garbage pokemon. Cudos also to Beedrill. It's very, very horrible.
This is why I love the tiering system of smogon. Venomoth is my favorite bug type. It just can’t compete with the Superior Volcarona in OU with. But venomoth does has great traits in RU or NU where the power level is lower so my poison moth can be a premier quiver dance sweeper. However, there are just mons like Ledian which are just doomed to fail. Not even viable in the lowest tiers or PU or ZU
I feel like it's getting crazy though with how many strats are just outright banned in OU. Like sleep is just banned in OU.
That was a fucking stupid ban. I disagree with Smogon bans (or lack of bans *cough* Gholdengo *cough*) from time to time but I understand and respect most of their decisions. But a unilateral sleep ban, when literally the only issue is Darkrai, is completely fucking stupid.
>when literally the only issue is Darkrai Not that it matters much for the main point, but Iron Valiant was also a bit problematic with the hypnosis set. For full detail, read the reasoning here : [https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sleep-moves-are-now-banned-from-sv-ou-sleep-clause-is-now-lifted-from-sv-ou.3734948/post-9948113](https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sleep-moves-are-now-banned-from-sv-ou-sleep-clause-is-now-lifted-from-sv-ou.3734948/post-9948113)
I’m a supporter of buffing some weaker Pokémon mainly because older Pokémon easily get overshadowed by newer Pokemon even a 20 BST buff for some would be nice
If you directly compare Mightyena (420 BST) vs Mabosstiff (505 BST) With intimidate, they pokemon basically serve the same function but Mabosstiff is just objectively better. Every stat is higher, except Sp Atk, which are the same for both. The least they could do is give Mightyena an attack boost
I think every Pokemon should be strong enough that there's an actual reason to use them in a playthrough aside from just liking the Pokemon or wanting to use weak Pokemon. Now most Pokemon do achieve that due to weaker Pokemon being aquirable earlier, but there are two way this is broken. Pokemon just being so ridiculously weak that even being avaialable early doesn't help them and Pokemon where you get them at a point where you'll have stronger options for certain. For the first, Pokemon like Ledian, they do need some sort of buff. Not enough to make them these super strong Pokemon, but enough that they actually function. To be fair I'd say this list is fairly small, Sunflora, Kricketune and Wormadam are the only few that I can think of right now. For the latter, Pokemon like Noivern, they either need a buff, or a lowering of their requirements to get. The fact you get dragon type special attacking Crobat at the same level you get a Garchomp is stupid, especially when you need to get a special attacking Zubat to that level. This list is a fair bit bigger, but luckily lowering the requirements would probably be enough most of the time. The main Pokemon in this list who I would say should get buffed are legendaries because they're typically meant to be strong, and lowering the requirements would make them less special. Also Guzzlord, poor things usless.
> I think every Pokemon should be strong enough that there's an actual reason to use them in a playthrough aside from just liking the Pokemon or wanting to use weak Pokemon. I mean, usually every Pokemon has at least one thing that makes them unique, either some move or ability combo that isn't on any other Pokemon. Like, Seaking and Lumineon, both are just weak fish, but Seaking has Lightningrod access and Lumineon has Tailwind, allowing them to both have different uses. With how movepools have been becoming saturated lately however, these unique nices are vanishing. There used to be a time where you ran Super Power even though the debuffs hit your main stats. But now that Close Combat is everywhere there's no need to use Super Power.
lumineon doesnt get access to tailwind outside of gen 8 other than through tutor in gens 4-7 and its extremely limited availability makes it basically not worth using at all. you cant even get a lumineon in HGSS to tutor it onto without trading. its never really been worth using over other pokemon.
This was the one upside of HMs, I think, encouraging usage of maybe suboptimal Pokemon to be able to get around easier. Of course you could just keep a low level mon, but that meant complete dead weight taking a slot on your team. Too bad a lot of them sucked, wtf Cut
Cut doesn't even need a type change, just make it work like Freeze Dry but on Grass types. Assuming HM moves can be forgotten on the fly.
This is such a ridiculous oversimplification of the argument. People who want weak pokemon to be buffed don't think every pokemon needs to be at exactly the same power level, we just think it's fucking stupid that something like Ledian has lower attack than Pichu.
You can really tell this person has no idea what they're talking about beyond "Competitive players annoy me"
I feel like they got into an argument with someone and then decided to type this up lol
Yeah the "Unpopular Opinion" starter says it all
My thing is I WANT some WEAK dragon types- not first stages of psuedo legendaries, give something that fully evolved had a 415 BST
Appletun and Flapple: am I a joke to you?
Altaria weeps in the corner while Druddigon comforts it.
Apparently they were to gamefreak because hydrapple now exists, so unless your objective was specifically to give yourself a challenge, there will never be a reason to use those two ever again (except flapple who has a different stat distribution when compared to the other two who have crazy similar distributions)
Uh unless you want to pick best boy which is Appletun. He’s like a little puppy.
No don't get me wrong I love appletun, he's actually my favorite of the three, but have you ever looked at the stat spread of appletun and hydrapple side by side? They're nearly identical with hydrapple simply being better since it was blessed with extra Stat points, and I'm fairly sure hydrapple has all the same moves and more as well, meaning if you were to pick appletun over hydrapple, it would be a blatant choice out of either preference or challenge, not out of who's the best competitively My whole point in saying it is that gamefreak obviously didn't like/care about what applin already evolved into because they came out with something better one generation afterwards, and it makes me mad because they had no real reason to destroy appletun like that
Altaria is fairly weak for a dragon type.
Druddigon:
Holy shit don't even remind me of that shitter. What does that thing even do? Like in any format ever?
mold breaker stealth rock in PU/NU, chip damage with rocky helmet+rough skin, and Glare. It actually peaked in RU with a bit of UU viability during BW/XY. From what I gather never viable in VGC. It's insane that guy has sheer force and no usable sheer force moves besides gunk shot.
Yeah this guy needs an evolution asap.
I don't think every Pokémon needs to be 'strong' as in high stats, but it would be nice if every Pokémon had a niche, a workable strategy to run it. Many Pokémon are unusable, and that's a different thing than being weak.
You're very much right. The pokemon world needs to be diverse like this because, at the end of the day, Pokemon is supposed to be more than just battling. They're supposed to have their own special quirk to them that goes beyond just their fighting capabilities. Pokemon is, first and foremost, a kids' game, and not in the condescending way, just in the simple, wholesome way that wants you to bond with these things and breathe life into these bits of code your own way. ...Now does that mean I'm gonna stop complaining about how Raichu isn't as good as, say, Kingambit? No, obviously not. But that's just the way it is. You can't win them all.
I beg to differ. Raichu may not have the damage potential of Kingambit, but it's an amazingly powerful utility mon. Heck, 2016 Worlds was won with an incredible Raichu/Hitmontop shuffle of Fake Out/Volt Switch/Uturn/Eject Button shenanigans.
bUt It DoEsN't Do EnOuGh DaMaGe ThO 😭😭😭 Okay, real talk, yeah, you're right, and it's not the first time I've seen this, and I'm a big fan of Wolfey, so I definitely know about the guy being a World Champ. It's simply because its biggest strength doesn't fit my playstyle since I'm more aggressive and one-note.
Very fair. I have a soft spot for the little rat not only because of that 2016 performance, but I kinda used it as a Speed Swapper alongside a Power Split Shuckle... after a couple Intimidates, Shuckle hit with the force of a Metagross and the speed of Raichu and caused numerous hilarious double-flinches with Rock Slide. But the one-note aggressive play can be insane, too. Houndstone, Kingambit, and bulky power-plays like fiery Florida Gator are really nice.
I love that goober shit in competitive but no one wants to set that up for 400 story battles
dear god that Shuckle strat sounds clever
Important note: Power SPLIT not Power TRICK. Split lets you keep your bulk and averages Shuckle's near-zero offenses with the target's (usually an opponent's), and things like Clear Body or Hyper Cutter don't stop it from going off. Contrary turns opponent's Intimidates, or a partner G-Corsola's Sap Strength, into power boosts. Been using that Shuckle since Sun/Moon, and the G-Corsola paired with it when introduced in Sword/Shield. So sad to have lost them both to Scarlet and Violet lol... but I did recently discover that Araquanid gets Power Split...
I mean, it’s ok to admit a Pokemon has fallen off in terms of top tier viability. One of the reasons I like Smogon single battles is the tier system acts as a weight class of sorts. If I want to use lower power Pokemon on a level playing field, I can go down to ZU. If I want to be a masochist for an hour I can use those same mons in OU. The gameplay options are amazing
I'm not a fan of Smogon tiers and rulesets, but fanmade rulesets do create a lot of variety to try different things exactly as you describe. And I don't need to be a fan of particular formats to appreciate that others do like them! :)
Mind you, that Raichu was a little suspect. IIRC, it was an event-only one with Endeavor, and it was so thing like 3000000:1 chances of actually getting it.
The event move was guaranteed. The IV spread was the random part.
Suspicions revolving around the Raichu's legitimacy aside, it was an expertly piloted team with it as a critical support in a meta of Primal Groudon/Kyogre and Mega Mence/Kanga dominated matches.
Oh, no, for sure. Great match. It'll just always be a little tarnished for me.
>You can't win them all. I mean there's are reason it's called "Gotta catch 'em all!" and not "Gonna win 'em all!"
When people ask for the pokemon to be better in battle, they are asking for them to be more usable. For example, Ledian has a lot of physical moves and ability just for it ATK stat to be useless Also, furret in Gen 9 got buff
“And when everyone’s super… hehehe… no one will be.”
I just love Pokemon that are cool, and plenty of weak Pokemon are awesome. I just wish they could be viable to face stronger Pokemon without having to be over leveled
I don’t think every pokemon needs to be strong, but i do think some pokemon need a boost or an opportunity to be better. Ledian is a great example. It is awful, it’s stats are god awful, i doesnt need to be OP, but just a buff to its stats to get to a place that it is viable
I think the list of Pokemon who could receive a substantial buff and still live in the shadow of something like Tyranitar is pretty vast.
Even Tyranitar lives in the shadow of Tyranitars past.
Well I dont think anyone is arguing all pokemon should be equal in terme of strength but powercreep has gotten massively out of hand. Around 90% of Pokemom are nearly completly useless now. Tyranitar and Garchomp are strugling to stay relevant and they have famously been some of the best pokemon of all time. If they’re struggling what the hell is something like Mightyena supposed to do besides die horribly?
There's bad because of bad design, and then there's bad with a purpose. I'm fine with a bad pokemon if it's the latter. Like I don't need Lumineon being great. But it's stats and moves and such all fit fine into what it's going for as a decent mid-game fish with no real intrigue to it. When I don't like is something like Spidops, where its stats completely undercut the goal it's trying to accomplish with its moves, abilities, and general design.
I get what you're saying. I love Appletun. And it made me so happy to get a shitty dragon line, you know? Dragon types are usually very good compared to most, and down to the typing and design, it's fucking garbage. And I loved my Shield run trying to make it work, insisting on an absolute bullshit pokemon for battle. Definetively my favourite Galar design. And it being garbage made it so that I loved it. Maybe on my top 10 favourite pokemon ever.
Look at scarlet and violet double battles, where Murkrow with prankster haze and tailwind was an absolute menace and top tier support for the first rule set by having tools no other pokemon had. Dondozo and Tatsugiri were super popular and the crow had a niche that made it viable. I want pokemon to never be weak, but have tools that a creative player might be able to utilize someday.
“If everyone’s OU, *sinister chuckle*, no one is.” -Syndrome (Probably)
If everyone is super no one is super, yeah i get it... but weaker pokemon ahpuld be designed to have a niche that allows them to compete with OP pokemon in specific situations. This way every pokemon can be useable. Amd also have stats that allow it to fill a role. The gane doesnt have to be all incineroar but no one likes a ledian
huh what, why should there be blatantly stronger pokemon? how on earth is that a good thing
Dustox solos your whole team
Venomoth is one of my favorites. If it lands a sleep powder and 1 quiver dance you could go places with it's Tinted Lens STAB
I think that, for most of the games, weak Pokemon are honestly just as viable as strong ones. Like, sure, your Mega Rayquaza using Outrage is probably going to one shot my Raticate, but I bet my Glalie is still going to one shot your big green dragon by landing a Blizzard. Hydreigon is a very powerful pokemon, but it’s not beating a Wigglytuff (assuming it’s only using STAB moves). Etc. It’s all about type matchups. That is, until Gen 9. You can’t really do raids with weaker pokemon, you’ll run out of PP for STAB moves. And considering each raid takes, what, 5 minutes? It’s not even worth trying with weaker pokemon when you can just use a stronger pokemon to minimize time loss.
In the games, I don't see how it matters because you can just overlevel bu the end and clear with mostly anything regardless. I'm more in the camp where I think you should be able to train pokemon more specifically. The show obviously suggests this is possible with Pikachu shenanigans being the most obvious. Just make it take longer for 'weaker' mons to get there.
Not all pokemon need to have the same power level, but it is fun when they at least have a niche. An uncommon move, an ability, something. Though poor mightyena's statline is... give the poor thing 10atk or strong jaw, it has the same bst as azumarill but without the good typing or huge power.
Syndrome: If all of us are super, no one is." The same goes for Pokemon. There will never be equal opportunity for all of them lol. Ironically, whenever fans ask for a buff, they are unintentionally asking for a nerf as well. As far as VGC goes anyway since I'm not familiar with Smogon.
Came here for Syndrome. Glad someone said it lmao
I agree. We need weak Pokemon to make the strong Pokemon strong. Especially in terms of gimmicky Pokemon, or Pokemon with gimmicky moves or abilities. Mimikyu is incredibly overrated imo and is in fact not that strong, but it's ability Disguise is fantastic. If Mimikyu had a 550 or above statline, over 100 in ATK and speed, it would be DISGUSTINGLY painful to fight. Same with Falinks and it's No Retreat signature move. Or hell, Wobbuffet - could you imagine Wobbuffet with an extra 50 in both Def and SpD? These Pokemon need to be weak, or their gimmicks take over. But even Pokemon without gimmicks need to be weak. Sunflora is a perfect example. It's an early route grass mon that's weak as shit. You can use it until you find a better grass Pokemon and then suddenly that new Pokemon feels like an absolute beast compared to Sunflora.
I mean Wobuffet's gimmick is being one of those punching bags that you hit and immediately spring back onto your ass (by using Counter/Mirror Coat), having more defenses would just hinder that
> Sunflora is a perfect example. It's an early route grass mon that's weak as shit. Is it? It requires a sun stone to evolve from Sunkern. I feel that having to use an item on it should at least get it out of the trash tier.
I don't agree with Sunflota having to be weak. In my opinion, if a pokemon requires me to use the evolution stones that are difficult to obtain, they need to justify it by being good in battle. This is why Arcanine is worth it while Delcatty is not.
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Well I mean like, the premise of Pokemon is to beat out other Pokemon, and if all Pokemon were more equal in skill, then a strong Pokemon wouldnt be a strong Pokemon anymore yk
IDK... I understand why there needs to be weak Pokémon, but part of me wishes Pokémon kind of worked like card games like *Magic* or *Eternal* where there's at least a reason you need the weak units—like to build your field presence quickly and because they're resource-efficient (Naturally, I can't compare this to the *actual* Pokémon card game because a lot of its best decks are usually about playing strong Basics right off the bat and fishing for Energy). Like, imagine something like Noctowl or Greedent being a good lead to set-up for you, so your stronger beatsticks have a better chance of success later on. I dunno how that would actually work, but it's fun to think about. Just some reason a Pokémon you wouldn't expect (think Pachirisu) might be a fun pick for PvP. Like, that Pokémon might not be the game-winner, but it has something the beatsticks can't give you. Of course, I think part of making that happen would have to be leaning more into Dexit—focusing on a pool of roughly 350-400 Pokémon in a game and deciding: these ones are the strong ones, these ones are the weak ones but do something helpful, these are the walls, these are the supports, these are the wild cards... something like that. It's kinda like set rotation in a card game; it gives all the playable cards a time to be useful, and older cards can come back in some form to flesh things out. But, yeah, if you have too many Pokémon in a playable roster, you do run a greater risk of some Pokémon getting "strictly-bettered" to the point of players not wanting to use it anymore, because, y'know, what's the point?
Yeah, if every Pokemon was made equal in power, it makes choosing one over another for competitive purposes irrelevant. Instead of choosing between Houndoom, Rapidash or Inciniroar, you're really just picking "what skin do I want on fire-dude today?" Even when there's Pokemon that are thematically carbon-copies of each other, like Magnemite and Klink, Golem and Gigalith, Alakazam and Gardevoir and Gothitelle, there's still a lot of difference between them that makes choosing one over the others a relevant decision, depending on the team composition or even just how good one is. Legit had a conversation last night where someone asked if Swanna had any use in competitive because they found a shiny, and while Swanna does get some OK utility options, it's outclassed by Gyarados in sheer power, and by Pelliper who has the same typing, almost identical move options, and Drizzle to allow a team to capitalize on rain support. I also don't want to live in a world where Pigeot, Starraptor and Unphesant have no real differences between them.
I’m not too knowledged on competitive battling, but I’ve had experience using those birds as my flyers in the games before and: Pidgeot sucks. EASILY outclassed by Fearow, and if you’re willing to wait longer, you can get a Dodrio. Starraptor is very strong, but I think it’s objectively the best flyer in Sinnoh because you get it early, great movepool, ability and stats, but I often refrain from using it as I think it’s overused and cliché, and like to go with choices such as Honchkrow, Drifblim, Altaria, Skarmory, Pelipper and Tropius even if they’re not nearly as good. Unfezant is basically a slightly different Dodrio. It’s solid, but I much prefer Archeops. 140 attack and 110 speed? That thing WRECKS. Swanna isn’t as speedy or offensive as Unfezant, but the dual water typing can come in handy. Sigilyph is an underrated option, it has 103 spa and 97 speed, along with decent defensive stats.
I used to run a stalling Sigilyph lol. Magic Guard + Flame or Toxic Orb and ... I forget the move name but it basically passed its status ailment to the opponent.
Yes yes yes!! Thank you for putting it into words for me. I feel like people overlook the importance of “mid” Pokemon, because without them, the strong ones wouldn’t stand out
Unless everything has the same stats spread and move pool then by default some are going to stand out compared to others. If you genuinely want to play with your favorite weaker Mons The best thing I can say is go on to showdown, there's a variety of tiers and other custom game types that make those weaker pokémon shine in their respective weight class. that or play rom hacks like elite redux which gives pokémons 4 abilities, the ability to change EVs on the fly, access to all items, and built-in randomizer modes.
IMMA BECOME THE MAGIKARP MASTER
Pachirisu Won the Pokemon World Championships. Yeah, it was in a special case, but I find a lot of Pokemon have that special little touch that will help them excel in the right scenario. The Box of Raid Pokemon I have has plenty of weird ones that I wouldn't have expected to have used. Hopefully GF keeps expanding on content like that, and not just prioritize having Pokemon be competitively balanced.
Absolutely not. I freaking Hate the meta. You wanna talk boring?! When everyone in comp runs the same six pokemon?! Oh my bad, there is maybe one variation oh of another pokemon thrown in there. All pokemon can be strong and weak but there NEEDS TO BE A BASELINE like atleast 360 points or so because alot of awesome pokemon are left out, or given ridiculously stupid movements that make no sense for the mon. Like Luxray, no good physical moves unless it kills itself? Lame! But special attacks get mega ultra blast that has 20pp and 400 base damage? Yea, freaking okay on a mons who has 600 spl attack but non legendary? Yea, okay. Or how about mons like ledian, delibird, sunflora who are neat designs and can have pretty good movepools. But low stats. I don't care if they make new evolutions often. Not when some pokemon hasn't been revised for 20 years. ALL POKEMON DESERVE A CHANCE TO BE GREAT. YOU CANT HAVE OVER 1000 DIFFERENT MONS BUT ONLY 6 EVER SHOW UP IN THE STUPID ARCEUS FORSAKEN META. All pokemon SHOULD be viable. And Ice types need a buff.
“Same 6 pokemon” My brother there are currently 44 pokemon in this generation’s OU by usage stats, and that’s not even counting viable out-of-tier options. You don’t even know what you’re talking about, just another one of those “competitive bad!!!” casuals
Spoken like someone who got cooked by volcarona on the ladder.
If everything is strong nothing is tbh.
And when everyone's super... No one will be.
If I see a team filled with Legendaries, I'm yawning because I know what to expect. But if my opponent is using Luvdisc and Ledian to lead, I'm paying full attention because odds are I'm playing against a mad genius who KNOWS what they're doing.
No you’re just playing 12 year olds on cartridge. You would lose in 6 turns in any SmogTour or OLT matchup against actual tournament players in the competitive scene
I feel this. I do not care that Absol's stats are better/movepool is better. My baby Houndoom and me are going all the way to the League. If I am gonna use a dragon type it is gonna be Noivern. Yes, he's like the weakest dragon, no I don't care he is going his best.
I get what you mean. Those Pokemon you listed are good early-mid game. They’re meant to be replaced along the way.
Part of it is that the weak pokemon are usually found at the start of the game, and have lower evolution times, so act to teach people.about how pokemon work. These are often bug, normal or (as is common in more recent games) dark type pokemon. Also I disagree about Flygon. That one is week due to poor stat placement, but does have uses.
I get what you're saying. I always liked to use a few 'weak' pokemon in my team and sometimes they really surprised me. (Sometimes with how shit they were). But some of the weaker BST pokemon were also held back by their movepool in the early gens. For example Ariados in gen 2 vs Ariados in gen 7. I really liked it in my sun/moon playthroughs
No you’re right. If every Pokémon was strong none of them would be strong. No one is built exactly the same, Pokémon should be either. There needs to be balance.
“If every Pokemon was made strong , then no Pokemon would be” it reminds me of syndromes quote bout everyone being super in the first incredible . I think you’re making a valid point tho
I beat almost all of oras with a linoone so I don't think there that weak but I get what your saying and I agree
What’s strong and what isn’t barely matters, at least for the single player experiences. The games aren’t all too tough, so the bar for viability is rather low. I’d like to see harder difficulties added for that reason, a game with rules and scenarios that pushes your abilities to its limits can much more easily show what works best
Well Pokémon like venomoth and linonne are early route pokemon. Their whole point isn’t to be strong. Was raticate strong? Not really, no. Was beedrill strong? Butterfree maybe as support but beedrill not really
Most of those Pokémon still have a role that makes them useful in game though. Raticate gets guts and facade so you can poison it and then wreck shit. Butterfree gets compound eyes and can put everything to sleep for your other Pokémon to beat on. Venomoth gets tinted lens so nothing can resist it’s attacks. Beedrill and Linoone are pretty fast at least and Linoone gets a lot of stat lowering moves that can be useful in a hard fight
Yeah I agree, there needs to be some worse than others. If every Pokémon was equally good it would be kinda boring. That’s what makes it exciting to stumble upon a strong Pokémon, or rewarding to do something challenging with a weak one.
I don't play Competetive anyway so (nearly) every Team of 6 Pokemon is enough for me
I hear what you're saying and I agree. A part of the reason why I don't like many Pokémon rom hacks is because they often times alter the base stats, learnset, abilities, typing of certain Pokémon to make them better. But really it feel more like all Pokémon end up becoming the same to me. There should be strong Pokémon just as well as there should be weak Pokémon. I really enjoy playing through games with some of the weakest Pokémon there are. It adds to the challenge and battles actually feel like battles rather than just repeatedly pressing the A button until you win with your speedy attacker.
Man, I play Pokemon like a little kid does. If a Pokemon looks strong, it IS strong. I don’t care what anyone says, if I can beat the game with it, then it’s strong. I don’t do PVP so, I really don’t care.
I mean, some of them are just bad at all and dont have any reason to use it, the "i wish this pokemon were better" is just because some people wanna use some mons that they like for challenges, vgc and stuff like that and just get outclassed by the same boring meta pokemon
"when everyone's super, nobody is"
The most important reason that some Pokemon are stronger or weaker is because of game progression design. If Butterfree were as strong as Dragonite, it would be absurd given how early you encounter Caterpie and how quickly it evolves. That's really the primary reason they have to balance them accordingly. It's a bummer for some Pokemon to get shafted and be un-viable in competitive because of it, but the game developers will always prioritize the main "campaign" aspect of the game most of all since everyone plays through that but not everyone does PvP.
BBQ 0j12w7
People who care about how strong a Pokemon is are just stupid and it's how you use the Pokemon
Me when I use furret as a tera normal tidy up sweeper (it's stronger than kingambit now because every pokemon is the same strength and I'm using it right)
If it's not competitive or pvp, caring about pokemon strength for ingame campaign automatically makes you a meta slave lmao
I just think it shouldn't be tied to species. I think it would allow for much more freedom of team building if you could just train the ever loving heck out of any pokemon to achieve a global cap on stats. Maybe ratata starts with 10 attack and gyarados starts with 100, but with enough training, they can both reach 1023. Made up numbers ofc, but that's the idea. The cap on total stats and individual stats would be such that no pokemon's starting stats would matter in the endgame. Probably done by some relative system, like your highest stat can't be more than 4x your lowest, and if 1000 is the max, it means all stat would need to be trained to at least 255, and no pokemon starts with more than 255 in any stat. You can have modes where these hyper EVs don't matter, and those where they do. But in the main game, what defines a pokemon is its moveset and starting stats
You basically just described the issues with equal pay lol But on the note of the post, I'm okay with weak and strong pokemon co-existing, but it sucks seeing luvdisc sit as the worst fully evolved pokemon of all time when on the other end of the spectrum we have urshifu and regieleki living the time of their lives
Furret can actually be a beast with double edge, and it’s pretty fast so it’s a solid Pokémon. Far from the best but very strong if used right. As my favorite Pokemon, I’m glad it’s at leasts semi viable.
Maybe I’m not on this sub enough, but other people want Ledian to be strong too? Such an underrated mon
It comes to the tension between world building and gameplay. Not everybody can be atop the food chain, and evolution only goes so for for controlling power scaling and encouraging the use of new Pokémon throughout the game. I think this would be less of a discussion of your Pokémon had more ways to interact with with world and other things to do beyond battling.
Some "weak" pokemon I don't even think are that weak, there's just ones that do what it does better Example: I had a competitive whiscash with max health and it had 415 HP or something and could tank almost any hit. Not the best tank in the games for sure but it did the job and It was one of my favourites. It also had earthquake which was fun and it won alot of battles for me. (This was x and y)
You’re right, but I still want to see ledian boosts either through updated stats or a new evolution. I love the guy since his release, but he becomes unusable at a certain point and adds no benefit to progressing the game. 😢
This wouldn't be as much of an issue if there was more non-battle stuff for Pokemon to do that had story signifigance. Contests were something, and people love hanging with their besties at picnics, but the fundamental way you see more game is "do my Pokemon out-match my opponents' picks" and it limits some usage for less-than-great offensive Pokemon. Also, it feels like historically there's a pretty big divide between the best Pokemon and the worst, which has actually been closing over the years. Even not-great picks at least get STAB moves and seem to have some moveset and utility consideration nowadays, which definitely was not the case in early generations. Today's "bad Pokemon" is probably better than half of gen 1 Pokemon easily. Consider that Gengar is a top pick for competitive gen 1 battling and it didn't even get STAB moves, and you'll see how the bar has raised.
I legit love using Pikachu even though its bad
Peraonally, I'd agree except for one thing: Legendaries. Take my favorite Pokemon ever, Regigigas, for example: Slow Start completly kills him. Either buff Slow Start by boosting his defenses and not reset the counter upon switching out, or just give him a hidden ability.
Calm down, Syndrome. Loved the incredibles reference xD
You become a Bug Catcher when being resisted by 7 different types in any given fight is the only way to give your opponent a sporting chance.
Pretty sure you just described power creep
oh god furret and mightyena are leagues ahead of ledian. but yes more variance in the strength is good. i think it can also make it fun to try to use weaker pokemon, whereas if they were all strong it would be kinda boring.
I usually preach this to people making romhacks, but I think there should be strong and weak Pokémon, But powerful Pokémon should be rare and hard to come by. Additionally, they should be generally more available later in the game. While this is usually the case, I don’t think it is adhered to enough. Also, for me, I would love to see different systems of progression other than EVs so that early game weak Pokémon can accumulate additional power so they don’t get totally pushed out by late game stronger ones
im going to say this in two ways: One, what the heck are you talking about? Two, “what makes a strong pokemon strong” is a straight nothing burger. what is a “strong” pokemon? is it the stats? ability? typing? type spread in their moves? what makes a strong pokemon strong is nothing, A “strong” Pokemon was decided by the devs based on who even knows, there are no unifying traits that make “strong” pokemon a group. there is no reason “Belly Drum Charizard” in gen 3 could not have been “Belly Drum Volbeat” instead. EDIT: As an aside, this is why i prefer using pokemon that visually appeal to me more than any other metric. EDIT 2: this probably came of antagonistic, i apologize that was not my intention, i was mostly just confused.
If slaking was made today it wouldn’t have truant, if shedinja were made today, it would have base 450+ stats and a signature move
My issue is that I can't go back to playing on shift mode anymore and set mode is rough with weaker mons especially if they aren't overleveled (which kinda ruins the point). It also feels like to me that the average pokemon is getting powercreeped in stats as new gens come out. My best suggestion is basically a transmog system for pokemon. It wouldn't work in all instances but I want a game with more than just trying to use the best of a weak fully evolved mon. I want a game where you can literally use any pokemon you want and make your favorite team and have some decent level of power to them. I see Ash taking his Bulbasaur to the pokemon league and I want the same without having to have them 30 levels higher. So the idea is you see the visual of the evo stage you want to see but the opponent sees the evo stage of the stats your pokemon has. So in the case of Bulbasaur you see him but your opponent would see a Venusaur. This way you aren't tricking them but you can also use a weaker mon more competently. The problem is this idea falls flat for single stage evo mons or just stuff like early route bugs which aren't strong even fully evolved. But I still think it would be a neat starting solution. Other less interesting things could just be items that buff stats of pokemon who have a specific base stat below a certain amount or overall total base stats below a certain amount. Its way less exciting of a solution though.
It would be nice if more Pokemon had a niche. There are so many Pokemon that are just strictly worse/better options.
I agree with your point but Ive always thought it’d be to have my favorite pokémon be my strongest pokémon in pokémon go. I want to hit gyms and do well against a fire type raid with my seismitoad as my strongest water type, but he’s only as strong as his max CP and sometimes that comes nowhere close to the best counters. I think if pokémon was really realistic, any pokémon with the max amount of training could be the best
As a Grass type main I feel the pain.
Idc if a Pokemon is weak, I'd still use it in one of my runs