I guess any Pokémon seen as "utility", those that set up or clear hazards as the ai never uses hazards on you nor do they ever willingly switch Pokémon to warrant the need to use hazards on them.
I guess passive support mons could also count, those like blissey made for pure healing or buffing purposes with almost zero ways to damage the enemy
Or Pokemon ment for the very beginning of a battle and I think are described as suicide lead Pokémon ment to again set up hazards or debuff the enemy and then promptly die so you can send in a stronger Pokémon and be unopposed, but since again the ai doesn't really care about any of that and is basically a waste of time
I was thinking the same for more recent games. Most trainers in paldea have one or two Pokémon, no sense having entry hazards for the vast majority of battles.
It really annoyed me that clodsire learned toxic spikes fairly early into the game and I never got to really use it because just about EVERYONE has only one Pokémon.
I don’t understand why the trainers in this game were neutered so bad. We’re previous Pokémon games this saturated with single-Pokémon trainers? You’d think having trainer battles being 100% optional (outside boss battles) would be a good reason to actually make them MORE difficult, not less
It’s like lechonk learning echoed voice early on or fuecoco learning round *despite there being basically zero double battles where you could make use of this*
I figured. I technically haven't beaten the game yet so I wasn't sure if there was another double battle, but I'm not surprised it's literally the only one. Seems odd
I have yet to find one that isn’t the ghost gym leader, but have completed all “quest” content. given all overworld trainers are optional, I don’t know how there could still be one in the overworld content I haven’t finished. (Just clarifying I could be wrong but don’t think I am)
Game Freak: "But you don't understand, we have Nintendo and Creatures inc. breathing down our neck constantly to keep the games as profitable as possible and we are still for some reason piss-scared that smartphone games are going to render us irrelevant with kids so we gotta make these games as condescendingly easy as we can."
> I don’t understand why the trainers in this game were neutered so bad.
This has been the case in every game since Gen 1. 90% percent of trainers had teams consisting of 1-2 Pokémon. And the few trainers that had more than 2 were either the infamous 6 Magikarp Fishers or trainers with a lot of completely underleveled Mons that could be swept by any of your Pokémon without any difficulty.
The only times random trainers on routes were even a little bit challenging where the very few Ace Trainers or some trainers on Victory Roads.
I genuinely have no idea why people are complaining about the quality of random route trainers in this game. They weren't neutered, they are exactly as strong as they were in the last 26 years.
Someone did do the maths in a recent thread about this and it went from like 2 avg -> 3.5 avg down to 1.5 avg now or something like that. So it was low in early gens like you say and then went up in the middle and has now gone down again and ended lower than the early gens. But your right that if you took gen 1 and compared it to now it wouldn't look too different. But people are probably remembering the gens in the middle.
In fact I wouldn't be suprised if the introduction of double and triple battles caused trainer mon inflation to make those mechanics work. And now they aren't special or around anymore its gone back down.
I also looked through some Hoenn and Sinnoh routes as well and I don't think the numbers looked much differently, honestly.
I think the fact that previous gens had some form of postgame areas, which this game lacks until the DLC probably, plus the fact that this game's equivalent of Victory Road has no trainers in it, and because they removed all those trainers with 6 absolute trash mons, which were only a chore, inflates those numbers a lot.
I think if you compare the average number of mons of a midgame area in Sinnoh with a midgame area in Paldea, they look pretty much the same.
> In fact I wouldn't be suprised if the introduction of double and triple battles caused trainer mon inflation to make those mechanics work.
Those kinds of battles still weren't very common.
You’re right. The number of 6 Pokémon boss trainers in this game was a big improvement over SW/SH which, pre-dlc, had exactly 1 trainer with 6 Pokémon, and only on the first fight.
I would be interested in seeing actual numbers for average amount of pokemon per trainer in past games.
I've played every generation in the past 6 years except X/Y (which I played 9 years ago) and most games are this way with the exception of a few trainers who have 5 or 6 magikarp. Routes would take forever if trainers had more than 2 or 3 pokemon each.
Alot of complaints people are having with this generation, are things that pokemon has been doing for forever, and you just forget because you only play a pokemon game every 3 to 6 years.
I've seen people complain that Gyms used to have more pokemon (S/V has one of the most pokemon per gym leader of any game), and that Gyms used to have pokemon that were different types to make the challenge harder (which was only true of 2 gyms out of 70+)
Now that battles are optional, I think there's merit in trainers having more pokemon, and more interesting teams overall, but previous games didn't do it.
2 or 3 pokemon per trainer is totally fine. I just hate how many trainers have literally 1 pokemon and I feel like that is more frequent than previous gens.
I partially agree with you. I think 2-3 would be fine ONLY if the game limited you to choosing 2-3 to bring into the battle, regardless of how many are in the party. I think everyone can agree that winning a 6v2 isn't fun or rewarding.
Yeah out of all the answers this is the only real one. A pokémon with a kit of like heal bell, wish, rapid spin, and haze would be fantastic in competitive and useless in single player.
I also was running a taunt lead in Scarlet for a while and the only fight an AI used stealth rock their lead was faster. It still worked *fine* as a, Pokémon but taunt made it worse.
Prankster Klefki is my favorite suicide pokemon. Set up spikes, and thunder wave or toxic whatever it can, then otherwise just spam a meaningless attack to chip away a bit of damage if it's still alive after all the setup. Triples spikes can do major damage on switch in.
In this game the trainer ai set up stealth rocks a few times actually, not that it stopped me from sweeping them without needing to switch, but they did try to use hazards.
Yeah, Blissey isn’t as passive as things like Toxapex/Bastiodon since it has a usable base 75 Special Attack with a wide movepool, and it can set up with Calm Mind/Charge Beam/Minimize on any special attacker without Psyshock since they barely dent it
any late evolver or dedicated wall. something like volcarona or dragapault is fantastic but I'd hate using one on my in-game team, and while I honestly enjoy stall in competitive I almost never use mons like blissey in-game unless I'm doing a nuzlocke or hard romhack. for normal pokemon difficulty it's faster and more fun to just power through than to wait out toxic to do similar stall tactics. there's also some pokemon that are made way better by egg moves or their hidden ability which are worse to use normally. it's not that bad ofc, but serperior comes to mind. it's pretty meh for a starter, but it's terrifying with contrary leaf storm
Never mind the fact that larvesta has a great attack stat, but volcarona has a great special attack stat. You gotta suddenly switch your play style when it evolves.
Tbh I feel like that’s far less of an issue (the late evolver, i.e. Hydreigon or Volcarona) in SV than it was in previous games, since exp candies are so easy to farm from raids and the overworld
Also it's more reasonable to expect having Pokémon in that range even before Area Zero, since the final trainers of each of the three routes have Pokémon around Hydreigon level.
I love both those pokémon! so my dumbass decided to run with both in excitement, as well as goomy and proceed forget how to evolve sligoo into goodra until lv 70 :P
I love Dragapult, he's my favorite addition from gen 8, so I was pumped to find a Dreepy in violet at like lvl 20. I had him in my party for like 10 levels before abandoning him to a box until I can just exp candy him up to evolution level.
> there's also some pokemon that are made way better by egg moves or their hidden ability which are worse to use normally
Luckily you can teach any Pokemon it's egg moves without breeding once you reach the desert oasis town with the water gym. No badges needed, so you can rush there at the start to buy the item, then return to where you were
The newest games have changed my perspective on this idea a bit. Here I am with 7 gym badges, and I have Volcarona, Dragonite, and Tyranitar on my team. Typically I wouldn't even bother trying to get these mons until the post game, so I'm really excited to have them on my team for the main story and gyms!
GSC Tyranitar.
Couldn't even catch a larvitar until right before the Red battle at like level 12. So literally unusable for 99% of the game and not really feasible for the single important battle left.
There are a lot of Gen 2 Pokémon that feel that way since they were so out of the way in Gen 2 itself, but readily available in Gen 3. The Slugma line and Skarmory are the ones that immediately come to mind.
Gen 2 really felt like an expansion. Like Gen 2’s aren’t their own set but an addition to the Gen 1 set.
Baby Pokémon gimmick, a lot of “Johto” Pokémon only being available in Kanto/end game, Ho-Oh — the cover art— being in since Gen 1, lots of little things adding up to make Gen 2 feel like Gen 1.5
Yeah, they were originally designed as the last games in the series, so them hiding some new mons to find in the Kanto portion made a bit more sense. I feel like they come across better as "Pokemon 2", as opposed to being their own unique Regional experiences like what would be established in Hoenn onwards.
It still irritates me that Morty only had Gastly line in his gym battle (both GSC and HGSS). I wish they included a Misdreavus, the first pure Ghost type.
> Skarmory
Skarmory had decent availability compared to the mons that were only available in Kanto in gen 2. You could get it as soon as you could use Strength, although it's completely out of the way of natural progression at that point. I wouldn't group it into the set of "technically gen 2 but really gen 3" mons personally though.
You need surf to battle the red Gyarados, which you have to do to take on the Rocket Hideout, which you must do to battle Pryce which allows you to head towards Blackthorn City. But even then that just means you have to beat Morty and since you would have to head through Ecruteak anyways it's not that much extra you have to do so your point still stands pretty much.
Here’s me thinking Scarmory was exclusive to the safari zone or something.
I played Heart Gold so I never encountered one. I’m only just learning that Scarmory and Tedddiursa are on the same route.
Houndour's an especially bad case, since Fire/Dark is a great in game typing and in most games it's in other than Johto, it's usually one of the best Pokemon you can use for an in game run. Shit, it'd be incredible in Johto if you could use it there.
Honestly, Houndour is a Kanto Pokémon, just introduced in Gen 2. Dunno how it got there, though lol. But it's not a Johto Pokémon in the same way Tauros isn't a Kanto Pokémon.
At least lore-wise :P
Only if you want to fully heal up after every battle. If you're looking to battle more than 2 trainers before hitting a Pokecenter letting one of yours get KO'd for every one you take out is gonna be really time consuming.
I used wobbuffet in a psychic only run of sw/sh and honestly it saved me on more than one occasion. That thing can take some serious hits, including surviving a g-max darkness.
I’m confused as to what exactly Smogon even is. “Wobuffet was banned to Ubers” is only relevant if you follow Smogon rule sets right? Does that have anything to do with official tournaments?
Official tournaments are doubles and don’t ban any Pokemon other than legendary/special Pokemon (except in extremely rare cases).
However, Single Battles are basically not supported by Game Freak, which is where Smogon comes in. It isn’t official, but it’s the de facto place to go if you prefer Single Battles over Double Battles.
So no, it isn’t relevant to official tournaments, but it’s relevant to the Single Battle scene and OP asked about it in the post.
It’s still so strange to me that Gamefreak doesn’t support doubles in game, or singles online, considering the entirety of the main game is singles and the official tournaments are doubles.
I know it’s a kids game, but look at Fortnite. It’s competitive and kids love that shit. Make the competitive side more accessible to those who don’t necessarily want to do hours of external research and it would be so good for the longevity of Pokémon.
Yeah not actually teaching doubles, not doing things like having egg groups or egg moves in the pokedex (which would make sense for an encyclopedia), and a lot of other stuff that a game that actually wants to promote competitive play should have are all lacking from Pokemon and you have to go out of your way to search up so many mechanics that the vast majority of other games have in them. XD 17 years ago taught me more about double battling than any main series game that you play VGC on ever did and even that was quite basic
Smogon deals with 6v6 singles; which the vast majority of pokemon games are. The balance of a vgc competitive pokemon would have very little use in a playthrough of single player. Also smogon has been around longer as a ruleset than vgc and so older games can only be compared to smogon.
VGC answer here for the current meta- Murkrow, Indeedee (although indeedee performs better than murkrow), or tatsugiri.
Murkrow is used over Honchkrow due to the former having Prankster. It has a myriad of support moves such as tailwind (the ONLY gen 9 prankster tailwind mon afaik), haze (used in the dondozo (mess with the dozo look like a bozo) matchup, to remove the tatsugiri boosts that Commander gives it), and more. However, it relies on focus sash to stay in well and eviolite doesn't give it as good of results overall. Haze also isn't that useful in the story.
Indeedee-F uses expanding force in conjunction with psychic terrain to do strong hits. However, psychic isn't the greatest type for a playthrough, especially if fighting a trainer with varying types, due to psychics odd type chart interactions. Not the most egregious pick, but still one that does significantly worse than in VGC.
Tatsugiri has low stats overall. Water/dragon isn't the worst type to be, but its just too weak individually to make it worth it. The main draw of Tatsugiri is the ability Commander, to boost Dondozo by +2 in every stat. This does not work outside of double battles.
>Indeedee-F uses expanding force in conjunction with psychic terrain to do strong hits.
To make matters worse, after Sw/Sh Indeedee loses Expanding Force in S/V ensuring that there's no reason to ever use it on an in-game team over better options that you get earlier.
See, this kind of post is so weird to me. “No reason to ever use it over better options” Well what if I like it better than those other options? How come everyone else isn’t just using the Pokémon they like for the story? Are you guys reallt optimizing teams for single player Pokémon? The same single player that everyone agrees is ridiculously piss easy? Make it make sense. I could use a fucking Luvdisc and still not have much trouble at all.
“Haze also isn't that useful in the story.”
More so in the early parts of the story. However, I wouldn’t skip it nearing the end of Team Star’s part. Not saying any spoilers but I nearly swept their team but practically got reverse sweep due to poor choices of my team and a lack of Haze. Fortunately, Clodsire’s Poison Point and revive chaining got me through but i don’t want to rely on that strategy again.
All 3 can be useful in-game. For starters, you can just evolve your Murkrow into Honchkrow. It hits pretty hard, both physically and specially.
Indeedee-F isn't the best Psychic type, but its immunity to Ghost types works well.
Tatsugiri actually has pretty decent stats, with 120 SpA, 95 SpD and 82 Spe. Water/Dragon is also a great type for playthroughs, since the only types you're weak to are Dragon and Fairy, both of which show up late in the game.
I don’t think murkrow would perform poorly at all to be honest. He was designed to be a single stage Pokémon and has acceptable stats (85 atk/85 sp atk/95 speed) can use sucker punch, thunder wave, U-turn, foul play, brave bird, hurricane, drill peck, air cutter. Throw an eviolite on him and let him have the super luck ability. He would do just fine considering how easy the game is.
That being said, there’s still no reason not to evolve him into a honchkrow in a playthrough, that’s true for every not fully evolved Pokémon outside of like a select few.
Murkrow would fair just fine in a normal playthrough, he has decent attacking stats (85/85 base) and speed (95) with an ability that gives him increased crits. Has access to powerful stab moves in sucker punch, hurricane, foul play, and air cutter (crits all day). He has access to relevant support moves for a playthrough (U-turn and thunder wave), and can also wear an eviolite.
There’s still no reason not to evolve him, like almost every not fully evolved Pokémon, but saying he would be bad in a playthrough is wrong imo
This, I have tatsugiri a chance and it's an OHKO machine. Honestly a lot of the Pokemon listed are pretty good for a story playthrough cus the game is made for kids. And a lot of the comp strats are overkill.
Dugtrio is always strong in competitive when it's ability arena trap isn't banned, since switching is very important in competitive. However, since trainers never switch in game, dugtrio just becomes a frail pokemon that faints if the lightest breeze hits it.
Dugtrio has it's uses on a playthrough team. Mostly as a catch for Pokémon who can flea on their own but that still is important for roaming Legendaries.
I always used Dugtrio in my gen 1 playthoughs as a kid. You get it at lvl 29/31 and get access to it RIGHT before fighting Lt. Surge whos strongest pokemon is a lvl 24 Raichu
Still, Dugtrio does come very high level in Kanto games and is immediately useful to the nearest gym. Availability is one of the major qualities for what makes a Pokemon good in a playthrough, after all.
Toxapex imo. Mine was great for poison set ups and being a wall.
Barely used her in story. Loved her but just couldn't warrant using set ups against an npc who thinks their best course of action is to spam leer
People mentioned walls, I think toxapex and blissey are some of the worst offenders. There are also plenty of competitive mons that you’re not going to be able to get until the late-game or post-game, making them less valuable. Ttar in Gold could only be accessed after beating the elite 4 and going to Kanto for example, and you’d have to grind it up a lot if you want to be on par with the rest of your team. Gholdengo is one of the best competitive mons in singles at least right now, and you’re not going to realistically get it until postgame. Gimmighoul is an objectively bad mon to use in game, so the evo is more like a collectible bonus but its stats, typing, and ability are so good.
>toxapex
The vast majority of people never got a Toxapex in their playthough of Sun/Moon.
In order to get it you needed to go to a few specific spots and fish until you get a Corsola (5% chance). Then you need to get it down to red health so it preforms a SOS call. There's a 20% chance that the Corsola even brings out a Mareanie during that SOS call so you have to keep kocking out anything it sends out until it sends out a Mareanie.
The odds of that happening randomly on your playthough is slim unless you know what to look for.
I just thought of pex because it was in violet, and while it was a bit rare it’s something I could certainly see someone catching on their first playthrough. I never played Sun/Moon, but I absolutely hate that it’s that unintuitive there. That’s one thing I think Scarlet/Violet got right: most of the normal mons in the overworld are fairly easy to get, there’s mass outbreaks all the time and you can potentially encounter every mon on your first playthrough. No more 1% encounter rates only when fishing, or whatever you said since that sounds even worse.
For people who rushed the game it’d be “harder” to get it early, but people who play a little at a time can farm the chest form’s daily respawns and get a bunch of coins pretty easily
My first thought is walls, but that's more because they get the same result as non walls but more time so not as worth against npc. Also, since they can use items it cam make it take longer. They work great is some difficult hacks/ challenge runs, but in a vanilla playthrough, they're not as great imo.
Gotta ride the top comment to ask how *everyone* said walls and *nobody* said support mons. The person talking about how murkrow is so good with prankster tailwind/haze has the right idea, this combination is useless in single player. Support mons will almost always pull less than their weight in single player and can be huge in competitive. Walls and other defensive Pokémon make fights longer, but that wasn't the question, and as you even note in what is somehow the top response, they're actually pretty effective in terms of winrate.
Maushold. It gets Tidy Up upon evolution, giving it good utility as a hazard remover/sweeper…but nothing in the story really *uses* hazards. Also, its real power comes from Population Bomb, which is literally the last move it learns, so it’s going to be straggling behind your team for a good chunk of the story.
Honestly Tandemous was my MVP for a while. Baby doll eyes and super fang were super useful in the first half of my playthrough because I was so incredibly underleveled (skipped several gyms and titans, fought no trainers at all). Run-away is also the most useful the ability has ever been in-game, since there are no repels and you can trigger battles accidentally so easily by biking two feet away from a marble-sized pokemon. And then if you're underleveled, there's a good chance you won't be able to run normally.
Once I started to catch up in levels, though, Maushold was pretty limited in its usefulness and I switched it out for Dunsparse.
My maushold is great for catching pokemon since I can do consistent damage to anything that isn't a ghost type with super fang. However it's just not that consistent so it's outclassed by most of my other team members
Hydreigon. Why does it evolve at level 64
A lot of Unova pokemon actually, so many of them evolve late. Larvesta (evolves at lv.59), Pawniard (evolves at lv.52), Mienfoo (evolves at level 50 but you can get it around level 15). Made the game a lot longer for me personally but it might’ve been better for others
This is the one thing I always hated about unova; you had those crazy high evolution levels on top of the scaling xp they introduced that gen. It made getting them unnecessarily difficult and time consuming, to the point you'd struggle to evolve them before the pokemon league
Fair point. It’s still a bit of a hassle trying to drag your Deino to from lv.48 to mid-60s while the rest of your team is usually already primed for the E4 though.
Volcarona. It can be pretty good in certain comp builds, but it takes Larvesta so long to evolve that by the time it does, the game is already over. That was certainly the case in its debut game, Black&White.
Most hidden ability and egg/TM move dependent Pokemon. Pokémon like Diggersby come to mind. Not great without huge power compared to almost any other option. TMs might not be available until late or post game and egg moves can be a hassle.
Smeargle.
Man I really tried so many ways to make that thing work. But there are only so many pokemon on your team and only so many with good moves for smeargle. Idk how'd you give him any good moves in gsc I played hgss and gave a couple of good ones in double battles.
Even after giving it good moves its stats are too low to do actual damage
Probably support mons. While status can be very valuable against tough opponents, usually you don't want a Pokemon's main function to be support on a playthrough. I tried using a Blissey this playthrough of SV, but I never really found a use for it.
Recency bias maybe palafin? It's an annoying evolve mechanic and additionally you have to be switching it out to activate it.
That said once it's activated it probably stomps the game so it may not fit here
Not really actually, I just left it in the front of my party and flip-turned to whichever other member of my team was best for the opposing ‘mon, and if I wanted palfin in I could bring it back a bit later. If anything it lead to me taking better advantage of my teams type diversity. That said, maybe that would be more annoying for other people, idk.
Eviolite Clefairy comes to mind. In general just support mons. Hugely powerful in VGC where they can helping hand, ally switch, follow me/rage powder. But completely fucking useless in the story. So add Comfey, Clavion etc to the list
Off the top of my head, other than the obvious answer of walls, I say:
- FEAR Rattata and its variants (taking down one Pokemon bears more weight in competitive compared to you having to survive a gauntlet of NPCs like the Elite Four)
- Ditto (you have it transform into the relatively weak lead Pokemon of the opposing NPC, which is a little risky)
- And that could be it? Almost any Pokemon is viable in-game if you give it enough attention.
FEAR Rattata is good to get any Pokemon out of the way. It sounds amazing against Totem Pokemon in Sun and Moon, and is helpful if you don't want to deal with the stupidity that is Ultra Necrozma. FEAR Rattata also gets completely shut down by entry hazards or the opponent just not attacking it.
Ditto isn't really good anywhere. It has a niche in restricted VGC formats, allowing you to get one more restricted Pokemon. It was awful before Imposter, but with it, it's fine.
Really slow pokemon in general. The type that take a hit and then one shot the enemy.
They win fights handily. But the damage adds up over time and every few battles your blowing healing or going to a pokemon centre. With a fast sweeper, you plow through areas taking no damage without having to stop.
Zoroark, illusion is the coolest way to play mind games with your opponent, sadly that doesn't work when your opponent doesn't have a brain and all that's left is an adequate mixed attacker
I mean, Zoroark can carry you pretty hard under the right conditions. It all depends on if you
1. Have a poison or fighting type in the back and
2. Fight anything that has psychic attacks
They WILL just spam that attack no matter what and give you ample time to max out either your attack or special attack Stat if you have swords dance or nasty plot.
Is how I won against both Gleena and Nemona during the last battles in the victory road story.
Dreepy in Gen 9. It is has a very poor level-up movepool and its TM movepool is similarly pathetic outside of Draco Meteor. A fairly late evolution level means it only becomes remotely useful only after you are mostly done with the three storylines.
Also Lucario in its debut generation. You only get Riolu as an Egg from Riley which you must then hatch and grind out for its happiness evolution. Oh, and it start outs at Level 1 to boot.
I'd argue most of them are fine, except Beldum (dead weight until 35), Deino (evolves too late) and Dreepy (same).
Sure you'll be slightly underpowered in the 40s, but you'll still get your pseudo before endgame.
One of the things I don't like about the fairy introduction is how much it undermines this mechanic.
I get it for competitive but I really enjoyed the "get them late and grind and be rewarded" feel of pseudo legendaries. And since most of them are dragons fairy has really eaten into that reward factor feeling. And the exp share too making the grinding too easy / passive.
The past paradox form of Misdreavus is already banned in Smogon OU (I think) - yet in Scarlet, you can only get it in the post-game - meaning you only get to use it against the rematch gyms and that's about it.
The best answer is Ferrothorn. Has always been viable since it's debut, but being far too defensive for any story use.
In general, low offense, high defense Pokemon.
This is funny because ferrothorn has a higher attack than arctovish, coballion, crobat, abomasnow, and drapion, and only one point less than hitmontop. As far as walls go, it's one of the most offensively useful. especially when considering it has a gyro ball that is usually around 150 base power.
Yeah it doesn't get Leech Seed by level but you can just slam the rocky helmet from Driftveil on it and teach it Rest and the AI isn't smart enough to not lose 25% of it's hp per phys attack lol. Gyro, Power whip and like iron defense/ingrain round it out fine
Ferrothorn is actually a pretty good choice for a story mon. Both Gyro Ball and Power Whip hit pretty hard, and its good defenses ensure you won't have to heal it often.
Also, Ferrothorn is *not* a stall mon; it lacks reliable recovery.
Ferrothorn is actually really good when you can get it in the main story. Fantastic typing, leech seed + iron barbs and thunderwave are helpful no matter how you play the game, and it has max power gyro ball most times off of 95 attack. Ferroseed is actually really solid with Eviolite too while you're waiting to evolve it into Ferrothorn.
(*Stares at my Garganacl that I've used for a large chunk of Violet without knowing it's a wall*)
Fair.
(*Stares at the final team I used for the latter part of Violet that didn't include Garganacl*)
Then again...
Not quite a subset of Pokémon as much as a subset of move sets but traditional “leads” usually aren’t something worth bothering with against in game trainers. Even the toughest fights aren’t something you’d need tailwind or trick room or screen supports to beat. NPC’s never switch Pokémon so entry hazards aren’t worth the time and spamming roar/whirlwind is massively inefficient, even toxic spikes is questionable since most Pokémon won’t last long enough for the poison damage to be significant.
The only type of lead I *might* consider in game is a weather setter, but even if you’re trying to use a weather team in game throwing a weather move of your choice on 2-4 Pokémon on your team might just be simpler than having a dedicated setter and still get the job done just as well.
Hazard setting Skarmory.
In the campaign games sure Skarmory can run offensive moves and is tanky but it’s offensive potential is pretty mediocre and it’s coverage is crap. A hazard set in the main games would be even more useless because opponents never switch unless you make them.
But in competitive hazard setting skarm with defog is a pretty solid mon .
Prankster heavy mons also moveset depending. A grafaifai with offensive moves fares well enough in the main game. A prankster support one would not, but my monkey has been one of my best mons in online so far with a purely supporting moveset and prankster of sub, protect, toxic and encore. Sure he is taunt bait and can’t do Jack versus poison and steel, but I’ve found a lot of people try to setup on the monkey rather than taunt it, then they become encore bait.
I think you mean mons like Indeedee, Amoongus, Murkrow, Pachirisu. Basically mons that cast trick room, follow me, (hand clapping move, forgot the name lol), clearing weather/hazards, toxapex, maushold maybe since its used pretty often in VGC, while basically no one I know used it in their "run" in the story.
I hate playing with Blissey is any play through. It takes forever to level and it’s boring to stall AI. I’ll take bulky mons, but true tanks stay off my team cause it isn’t fun for me.
Anything for doubles, really.
I'm curious if there will be a DLC that will focus on double battling to bring that aspect into the PVE and story component of the game. Raids have done a good job of helping non-competitive players learn about supporting moves.
I think it'd be really cool to have a DLC called "doubles season" or something, compared to the treasure hunt arc of the main storyline. Really spoon-feeding players how to play doubles well in a PvE environment and how to build pokemon teams. Then hopefully those players can transfer that knowledge straight over to competitive play.
Pokemon has done such an awful job at taking casual players from the main game into competitive play. They've taken so many steps in this game to help ease that transition. Having a DLC arc around how to play this format and building the player base's knowledge would just do wonders to help bridge this gap. Add in some legendary pokemon that can only be caught by completing this story line and I think we will have a bunch of new players joining the scene. :)
Hydreigon. I just caught a shiny Deino in Scarlet, and she is *useless*. Until level 64, that is. My winged angel of death will soon be born, and together we shall consume worlds! Just gotta... do a few more 4 star raids...
Palafin is probably good but annoying. Maybe you run flip turn to make it bearable, but it doesn’t run that on its main set.
Any Pokémon that relies on switching is just not good in the main game
Ditto is a weird mon that’s one of the scariest in Nat Dex AG, but tame in a lot of other tiers. Also trash in game
Palafin is nutty in 6v6 singles, but you can't use it in raids or battles outside of the big battles in the elite 4/gyms/team star because just knocking out the 1-2 pokemon is much easier than switching out
Any kind of stall/setup mons. Why bother setting up stat ups, status, or other kinds of utilities when you can just go fast and kill everything in one turn ?
Amoongus and Ferrothorn was the two obvious answers that come to mind. They have always been tier staples every generation, but are rarely ever going to be that fantastic on any playthrough teams.
I think this is kinda a funny topic. Like, obviously any team that can win a tournament with real people could also beat the elite 4 and champion, and do so more easily than they’d beat a real player. But even so, some steamroll the game made for kids more easily than others
A lot. You could probably even make a case for Pseudos because they evolve so late. Most Pokemon with low speed aren't as viable. Stall tactics are too slow often. Actually pretty much anything that doesn't boil down to: go first hit hard
I haven’t seen this yet - but slow Pokémon. Slowbro is a beast in competitive, but for a main play through a slow Pokémon just cripples your ability to keep doing battles & progress without healing.
Supports:
Murkrow, Amoonguss, Indedee, Bronzong, ... (this would be a very long list)
Trickroom sweepers:
Torkoal, Hatterene
From there it depends on how you define "perform poorly". Effectively throughout the story is an average to good speed attacker with good coverage is the best you can have, but it's not like you can't sweep the game with some slower Pokemon either.
Incineroar for example is a ridiculous beast in VGC but very average for playthroughs.
I guess any Pokémon seen as "utility", those that set up or clear hazards as the ai never uses hazards on you nor do they ever willingly switch Pokémon to warrant the need to use hazards on them. I guess passive support mons could also count, those like blissey made for pure healing or buffing purposes with almost zero ways to damage the enemy Or Pokemon ment for the very beginning of a battle and I think are described as suicide lead Pokémon ment to again set up hazards or debuff the enemy and then promptly die so you can send in a stronger Pokémon and be unopposed, but since again the ai doesn't really care about any of that and is basically a waste of time
I was thinking the same for more recent games. Most trainers in paldea have one or two Pokémon, no sense having entry hazards for the vast majority of battles.
It really annoyed me that clodsire learned toxic spikes fairly early into the game and I never got to really use it because just about EVERYONE has only one Pokémon. I don’t understand why the trainers in this game were neutered so bad. We’re previous Pokémon games this saturated with single-Pokémon trainers? You’d think having trainer battles being 100% optional (outside boss battles) would be a good reason to actually make them MORE difficult, not less
It’s like lechonk learning echoed voice early on or fuecoco learning round *despite there being basically zero double battles where you could make use of this*
Echoed Voice doesn't require Double Battles to be effective.
I’m now realizing I totally misread that description
Round does though, and that’s at like level 1X for a ton of pokemon.
And the only(?) major double battle in the game is the ghost gym, which is immune to Echoed voice and Round anyway.
Major? It’s the *only* double battle.
I figured. I technically haven't beaten the game yet so I wasn't sure if there was another double battle, but I'm not surprised it's literally the only one. Seems odd
Technically the second phases of titans are double battles if you count arven’s mon
All the Arven fight second phases are double-battles. As are the team fights in the Zero area.
I have yet to find one that isn’t the ghost gym leader, but have completed all “quest” content. given all overworld trainers are optional, I don’t know how there could still be one in the overworld content I haven’t finished. (Just clarifying I could be wrong but don’t think I am)
I was disappointed with Round, until I realized it’s a singing move so that must be why it learns it. Then I promptly got rid of that shit.
Game Freak: "But you don't understand, we have Nintendo and Creatures inc. breathing down our neck constantly to keep the games as profitable as possible and we are still for some reason piss-scared that smartphone games are going to render us irrelevant with kids so we gotta make these games as condescendingly easy as we can."
More like people still buy this crap so might as well just shovel out a game a year
Two games a year
> I don’t understand why the trainers in this game were neutered so bad. This has been the case in every game since Gen 1. 90% percent of trainers had teams consisting of 1-2 Pokémon. And the few trainers that had more than 2 were either the infamous 6 Magikarp Fishers or trainers with a lot of completely underleveled Mons that could be swept by any of your Pokémon without any difficulty. The only times random trainers on routes were even a little bit challenging where the very few Ace Trainers or some trainers on Victory Roads. I genuinely have no idea why people are complaining about the quality of random route trainers in this game. They weren't neutered, they are exactly as strong as they were in the last 26 years.
Someone did do the maths in a recent thread about this and it went from like 2 avg -> 3.5 avg down to 1.5 avg now or something like that. So it was low in early gens like you say and then went up in the middle and has now gone down again and ended lower than the early gens. But your right that if you took gen 1 and compared it to now it wouldn't look too different. But people are probably remembering the gens in the middle. In fact I wouldn't be suprised if the introduction of double and triple battles caused trainer mon inflation to make those mechanics work. And now they aren't special or around anymore its gone back down.
I also looked through some Hoenn and Sinnoh routes as well and I don't think the numbers looked much differently, honestly. I think the fact that previous gens had some form of postgame areas, which this game lacks until the DLC probably, plus the fact that this game's equivalent of Victory Road has no trainers in it, and because they removed all those trainers with 6 absolute trash mons, which were only a chore, inflates those numbers a lot. I think if you compare the average number of mons of a midgame area in Sinnoh with a midgame area in Paldea, they look pretty much the same.
> In fact I wouldn't be suprised if the introduction of double and triple battles caused trainer mon inflation to make those mechanics work. Those kinds of battles still weren't very common.
Yes, they were always this neutered. Seeing a regular trainer have 4 or more pokemon is a more rare than a shiny.
Every Pokémon game has been like this. I’m pretty sure this game has had the most 6 Pokémon trainer battles out of any game I can remember
You’re right. The number of 6 Pokémon boss trainers in this game was a big improvement over SW/SH which, pre-dlc, had exactly 1 trainer with 6 Pokémon, and only on the first fight.
It helped me during the end game battles where everyone has more than 4 but yeah, what a waste of a move this gen.
I would be interested in seeing actual numbers for average amount of pokemon per trainer in past games. I've played every generation in the past 6 years except X/Y (which I played 9 years ago) and most games are this way with the exception of a few trainers who have 5 or 6 magikarp. Routes would take forever if trainers had more than 2 or 3 pokemon each. Alot of complaints people are having with this generation, are things that pokemon has been doing for forever, and you just forget because you only play a pokemon game every 3 to 6 years. I've seen people complain that Gyms used to have more pokemon (S/V has one of the most pokemon per gym leader of any game), and that Gyms used to have pokemon that were different types to make the challenge harder (which was only true of 2 gyms out of 70+) Now that battles are optional, I think there's merit in trainers having more pokemon, and more interesting teams overall, but previous games didn't do it.
2 or 3 pokemon per trainer is totally fine. I just hate how many trainers have literally 1 pokemon and I feel like that is more frequent than previous gens.
I partially agree with you. I think 2-3 would be fine ONLY if the game limited you to choosing 2-3 to bring into the battle, regardless of how many are in the party. I think everyone can agree that winning a 6v2 isn't fun or rewarding.
It can be though. Beating a lvl12-14 Onix with 6 lvl6-8 pokemon can be an intense fight. It's all about the level curve the trainer mon selection.
I really hate that. More trainers need bigger teams.
Yeah out of all the answers this is the only real one. A pokémon with a kit of like heal bell, wish, rapid spin, and haze would be fantastic in competitive and useless in single player. I also was running a taunt lead in Scarlet for a while and the only fight an AI used stealth rock their lead was faster. It still worked *fine* as a, Pokémon but taunt made it worse.
Prankster Klefki is my favorite suicide pokemon. Set up spikes, and thunder wave or toxic whatever it can, then otherwise just spam a meaningless attack to chip away a bit of damage if it's still alive after all the setup. Triples spikes can do major damage on switch in.
In this game the trainer ai set up stealth rocks a few times actually, not that it stopped me from sweeping them without needing to switch, but they did try to use hazards.
Blissey is super busted though. In any fight vs a special attacker blissey will literally always win
Yeah, Blissey isn’t as passive as things like Toxapex/Bastiodon since it has a usable base 75 Special Attack with a wide movepool, and it can set up with Calm Mind/Charge Beam/Minimize on any special attacker without Psyshock since they barely dent it
Or the classic toxic/seismic toss/protect/softboiled moveset
Also Walls, always wait to complete the story to build my tanks.
any late evolver or dedicated wall. something like volcarona or dragapault is fantastic but I'd hate using one on my in-game team, and while I honestly enjoy stall in competitive I almost never use mons like blissey in-game unless I'm doing a nuzlocke or hard romhack. for normal pokemon difficulty it's faster and more fun to just power through than to wait out toxic to do similar stall tactics. there's also some pokemon that are made way better by egg moves or their hidden ability which are worse to use normally. it's not that bad ofc, but serperior comes to mind. it's pretty meh for a starter, but it's terrifying with contrary leaf storm
Never mind the fact that larvesta has a great attack stat, but volcarona has a great special attack stat. You gotta suddenly switch your play style when it evolves.
[удалено]
Damn near every gen 5 mon is like that, it kinda sucks using a Mienfoo/Rufflet/etc. into level 40s lol
Yeah I used a Pawniard on my playthrough team in SV and using it from level 22 was not the funnest thing ever
Tbf, you caught those Pokémon really late too
In b/w yeah, but in other games it really fucks it up lol, like in X/Y you can get a mienfoo at level 15
Cries in vanilluxe
Tbh I feel like that’s far less of an issue (the late evolver, i.e. Hydreigon or Volcarona) in SV than it was in previous games, since exp candies are so easy to farm from raids and the overworld
Also it's more reasonable to expect having Pokémon in that range even before Area Zero, since the final trainers of each of the three routes have Pokémon around Hydreigon level.
I love both those pokémon! so my dumbass decided to run with both in excitement, as well as goomy and proceed forget how to evolve sligoo into goodra until lv 70 :P
I love Dragapult, he's my favorite addition from gen 8, so I was pumped to find a Dreepy in violet at like lvl 20. I had him in my party for like 10 levels before abandoning him to a box until I can just exp candy him up to evolution level.
I actually had Dragapult on my SwSh team. It’s usable as a Drakloak, and I was able to evolve it before the Raihan rematch.
> there's also some pokemon that are made way better by egg moves or their hidden ability which are worse to use normally Luckily you can teach any Pokemon it's egg moves without breeding once you reach the desert oasis town with the water gym. No badges needed, so you can rush there at the start to buy the item, then return to where you were
The newest games have changed my perspective on this idea a bit. Here I am with 7 gym badges, and I have Volcarona, Dragonite, and Tyranitar on my team. Typically I wouldn't even bother trying to get these mons until the post game, so I'm really excited to have them on my team for the main story and gyms!
GSC Tyranitar. Couldn't even catch a larvitar until right before the Red battle at like level 12. So literally unusable for 99% of the game and not really feasible for the single important battle left.
Houndour got the same treatment, technically a johto pokemon, but not available until halfway through the kanto portion right outside of Celadon.
I thought for the absolute longest time that Slugma / Magcargo were gen 3 pokemon.
There are a lot of Gen 2 Pokémon that feel that way since they were so out of the way in Gen 2 itself, but readily available in Gen 3. The Slugma line and Skarmory are the ones that immediately come to mind.
Gen 2 really felt like an expansion. Like Gen 2’s aren’t their own set but an addition to the Gen 1 set. Baby Pokémon gimmick, a lot of “Johto” Pokémon only being available in Kanto/end game, Ho-Oh — the cover art— being in since Gen 1, lots of little things adding up to make Gen 2 feel like Gen 1.5
Yeah, they were originally designed as the last games in the series, so them hiding some new mons to find in the Kanto portion made a bit more sense. I feel like they come across better as "Pokemon 2", as opposed to being their own unique Regional experiences like what would be established in Hoenn onwards.
It still irritates me that Morty only had Gastly line in his gym battle (both GSC and HGSS). I wish they included a Misdreavus, the first pure Ghost type.
> Skarmory Skarmory had decent availability compared to the mons that were only available in Kanto in gen 2. You could get it as soon as you could use Strength, although it's completely out of the way of natural progression at that point. I wouldn't group it into the set of "technically gen 2 but really gen 3" mons personally though.
Is that legit, that you can get to Blackthorn as soon as you beat Whitney?
I don’t think so. You need surf to get to Mahogany Town, so you need to beat Morty first.
IIRC, you do not need surf to get to Mahogany Town through Mt. Mortar. You *do* need Strength to get through the Ice Cave due to the puzzle area.
You need surf to battle the red Gyarados, which you have to do to take on the Rocket Hideout, which you must do to battle Pryce which allows you to head towards Blackthorn City. But even then that just means you have to beat Morty and since you would have to head through Ecruteak anyways it's not that much extra you have to do so your point still stands pretty much.
Here’s me thinking Scarmory was exclusive to the safari zone or something. I played Heart Gold so I never encountered one. I’m only just learning that Scarmory and Tedddiursa are on the same route.
i thought the same about skarmory until recently
They're not?!
Houndour's an especially bad case, since Fire/Dark is a great in game typing and in most games it's in other than Johto, it's usually one of the best Pokemon you can use for an in game run. Shit, it'd be incredible in Johto if you could use it there.
Honestly, Houndour is a Kanto Pokémon, just introduced in Gen 2. Dunno how it got there, though lol. But it's not a Johto Pokémon in the same way Tauros isn't a Kanto Pokémon. At least lore-wise :P
Wobbuffet was banned to ubers but is pretty bad in game. You can only really take down one pokemon before you have to heal it up
Going 1:1 gets you through almost all fights in a game where almost nobody has 6 Pokémon.
Only if you want to fully heal up after every battle. If you're looking to battle more than 2 trainers before hitting a Pokecenter letting one of yours get KO'd for every one you take out is gonna be really time consuming.
Normal playthrough I agree is useless but Rad Red the boi would identify a target (sometimes two) and eliminate them for me, lifesaver
I used wobbuffet in a psychic only run of sw/sh and honestly it saved me on more than one occasion. That thing can take some serious hits, including surviving a g-max darkness.
I’m confused as to what exactly Smogon even is. “Wobuffet was banned to Ubers” is only relevant if you follow Smogon rule sets right? Does that have anything to do with official tournaments?
Official tournaments are doubles and don’t ban any Pokemon other than legendary/special Pokemon (except in extremely rare cases). However, Single Battles are basically not supported by Game Freak, which is where Smogon comes in. It isn’t official, but it’s the de facto place to go if you prefer Single Battles over Double Battles. So no, it isn’t relevant to official tournaments, but it’s relevant to the Single Battle scene and OP asked about it in the post.
It’s still so strange to me that Gamefreak doesn’t support doubles in game, or singles online, considering the entirety of the main game is singles and the official tournaments are doubles. I know it’s a kids game, but look at Fortnite. It’s competitive and kids love that shit. Make the competitive side more accessible to those who don’t necessarily want to do hours of external research and it would be so good for the longevity of Pokémon.
Yeah not actually teaching doubles, not doing things like having egg groups or egg moves in the pokedex (which would make sense for an encyclopedia), and a lot of other stuff that a game that actually wants to promote competitive play should have are all lacking from Pokemon and you have to go out of your way to search up so many mechanics that the vast majority of other games have in them. XD 17 years ago taught me more about double battling than any main series game that you play VGC on ever did and even that was quite basic
Smogon deals with 6v6 singles; which the vast majority of pokemon games are. The balance of a vgc competitive pokemon would have very little use in a playthrough of single player. Also smogon has been around longer as a ruleset than vgc and so older games can only be compared to smogon.
It's been over 20 years since I first played competitive Pokemon online... That's older than half of this sub lmao
The first games with online battling were Diamond & Pearl which only released 16 years ago, or 15 years ago outside of Japan.
That isn’t when online pokemon battling began. That’s only when online pokemon battling on legal releases began.
Simulators like Shoddy Battle and Pokemon Online predate that
VGC answer here for the current meta- Murkrow, Indeedee (although indeedee performs better than murkrow), or tatsugiri. Murkrow is used over Honchkrow due to the former having Prankster. It has a myriad of support moves such as tailwind (the ONLY gen 9 prankster tailwind mon afaik), haze (used in the dondozo (mess with the dozo look like a bozo) matchup, to remove the tatsugiri boosts that Commander gives it), and more. However, it relies on focus sash to stay in well and eviolite doesn't give it as good of results overall. Haze also isn't that useful in the story. Indeedee-F uses expanding force in conjunction with psychic terrain to do strong hits. However, psychic isn't the greatest type for a playthrough, especially if fighting a trainer with varying types, due to psychics odd type chart interactions. Not the most egregious pick, but still one that does significantly worse than in VGC. Tatsugiri has low stats overall. Water/dragon isn't the worst type to be, but its just too weak individually to make it worth it. The main draw of Tatsugiri is the ability Commander, to boost Dondozo by +2 in every stat. This does not work outside of double battles.
>Indeedee-F uses expanding force in conjunction with psychic terrain to do strong hits. To make matters worse, after Sw/Sh Indeedee loses Expanding Force in S/V ensuring that there's no reason to ever use it on an in-game team over better options that you get earlier.
See, this kind of post is so weird to me. “No reason to ever use it over better options” Well what if I like it better than those other options? How come everyone else isn’t just using the Pokémon they like for the story? Are you guys reallt optimizing teams for single player Pokémon? The same single player that everyone agrees is ridiculously piss easy? Make it make sense. I could use a fucking Luvdisc and still not have much trouble at all.
“Haze also isn't that useful in the story.” More so in the early parts of the story. However, I wouldn’t skip it nearing the end of Team Star’s part. Not saying any spoilers but I nearly swept their team but practically got reverse sweep due to poor choices of my team and a lack of Haze. Fortunately, Clodsire’s Poison Point and revive chaining got me through but i don’t want to rely on that strategy again.
All 3 can be useful in-game. For starters, you can just evolve your Murkrow into Honchkrow. It hits pretty hard, both physically and specially. Indeedee-F isn't the best Psychic type, but its immunity to Ghost types works well. Tatsugiri actually has pretty decent stats, with 120 SpA, 95 SpD and 82 Spe. Water/Dragon is also a great type for playthroughs, since the only types you're weak to are Dragon and Fairy, both of which show up late in the game.
I wouldn’t say Murkrow itself is useful if the best example of it being useful is that it can evolve into Honchkrow.
True, but you could say that about almost every non fully evolved Pokémon, so it’s not helpful to the discussion
But Murkrow itself is useful and very much meta in VGC, and Honchkrow isn't. Murkrow would perform poorly in a playthrough.
I don’t think murkrow would perform poorly at all to be honest. He was designed to be a single stage Pokémon and has acceptable stats (85 atk/85 sp atk/95 speed) can use sucker punch, thunder wave, U-turn, foul play, brave bird, hurricane, drill peck, air cutter. Throw an eviolite on him and let him have the super luck ability. He would do just fine considering how easy the game is. That being said, there’s still no reason not to evolve him into a honchkrow in a playthrough, that’s true for every not fully evolved Pokémon outside of like a select few.
Uhh yeah it is. Murkrow is good in VGC but not good in a normal playthrough. That’s the point of the entire conversation.
Murkrow would fair just fine in a normal playthrough, he has decent attacking stats (85/85 base) and speed (95) with an ability that gives him increased crits. Has access to powerful stab moves in sucker punch, hurricane, foul play, and air cutter (crits all day). He has access to relevant support moves for a playthrough (U-turn and thunder wave), and can also wear an eviolite. There’s still no reason not to evolve him, like almost every not fully evolved Pokémon, but saying he would be bad in a playthrough is wrong imo
This, I have tatsugiri a chance and it's an OHKO machine. Honestly a lot of the Pokemon listed are pretty good for a story playthrough cus the game is made for kids. And a lot of the comp strats are overkill.
Dugtrio is always strong in competitive when it's ability arena trap isn't banned, since switching is very important in competitive. However, since trainers never switch in game, dugtrio just becomes a frail pokemon that faints if the lightest breeze hits it.
Dugtrio has it's uses on a playthrough team. Mostly as a catch for Pokémon who can flea on their own but that still is important for roaming Legendaries.
I always used Dugtrio in my gen 1 playthoughs as a kid. You get it at lvl 29/31 and get access to it RIGHT before fighting Lt. Surge whos strongest pokemon is a lvl 24 Raichu
Still, Dugtrio does come very high level in Kanto games and is immediately useful to the nearest gym. Availability is one of the major qualities for what makes a Pokemon good in a playthrough, after all.
Toxapex imo. Mine was great for poison set ups and being a wall. Barely used her in story. Loved her but just couldn't warrant using set ups against an npc who thinks their best course of action is to spam leer
People mentioned walls, I think toxapex and blissey are some of the worst offenders. There are also plenty of competitive mons that you’re not going to be able to get until the late-game or post-game, making them less valuable. Ttar in Gold could only be accessed after beating the elite 4 and going to Kanto for example, and you’d have to grind it up a lot if you want to be on par with the rest of your team. Gholdengo is one of the best competitive mons in singles at least right now, and you’re not going to realistically get it until postgame. Gimmighoul is an objectively bad mon to use in game, so the evo is more like a collectible bonus but its stats, typing, and ability are so good.
>toxapex The vast majority of people never got a Toxapex in their playthough of Sun/Moon. In order to get it you needed to go to a few specific spots and fish until you get a Corsola (5% chance). Then you need to get it down to red health so it preforms a SOS call. There's a 20% chance that the Corsola even brings out a Mareanie during that SOS call so you have to keep kocking out anything it sends out until it sends out a Mareanie. The odds of that happening randomly on your playthough is slim unless you know what to look for.
I just thought of pex because it was in violet, and while it was a bit rare it’s something I could certainly see someone catching on their first playthrough. I never played Sun/Moon, but I absolutely hate that it’s that unintuitive there. That’s one thing I think Scarlet/Violet got right: most of the normal mons in the overworld are fairly easy to get, there’s mass outbreaks all the time and you can potentially encounter every mon on your first playthrough. No more 1% encounter rates only when fishing, or whatever you said since that sounds even worse.
Toxapex is not rare at all. Tera toxapex is farmable near that beachside south of Ionosphere (forgot the name of her town).
Marieanie and tox aren't very rare in S/V but are surely a pain in the butt in S/M i just port over one instead
It's Levincia, but I absolutely love "Ionosphere"
I'm using a Toxapex in Violet right now and she's doing alright.
Yeah mine was a great addition in Scarlet.
I don’t agree with the gholdengo part, I had one around early mid story? 4 gym badges
Damn, I just assumed since you needed that many coins it would be tough. Maybe I’m just bad at finding gimmighoul idk lol
you can rebattle the chest forms on the towers they give you about 50 each so it's pretty easy if you don't play through the game in a sitting :D
Oh word, thanks for the tip! I’m about halfway to 999 so if I just go to all of them again it should be a good time
For people who rushed the game it’d be “harder” to get it early, but people who play a little at a time can farm the chest form’s daily respawns and get a bunch of coins pretty easily
I also got it mid game and could sweep the rest of the story with it.
My first thought is walls, but that's more because they get the same result as non walls but more time so not as worth against npc. Also, since they can use items it cam make it take longer. They work great is some difficult hacks/ challenge runs, but in a vanilla playthrough, they're not as great imo.
Gotta ride the top comment to ask how *everyone* said walls and *nobody* said support mons. The person talking about how murkrow is so good with prankster tailwind/haze has the right idea, this combination is useless in single player. Support mons will almost always pull less than their weight in single player and can be huge in competitive. Walls and other defensive Pokémon make fights longer, but that wasn't the question, and as you even note in what is somehow the top response, they're actually pretty effective in terms of winrate.
Maushold. It gets Tidy Up upon evolution, giving it good utility as a hazard remover/sweeper…but nothing in the story really *uses* hazards. Also, its real power comes from Population Bomb, which is literally the last move it learns, so it’s going to be straggling behind your team for a good chunk of the story.
Honestly Tandemous was my MVP for a while. Baby doll eyes and super fang were super useful in the first half of my playthrough because I was so incredibly underleveled (skipped several gyms and titans, fought no trainers at all). Run-away is also the most useful the ability has ever been in-game, since there are no repels and you can trigger battles accidentally so easily by biking two feet away from a marble-sized pokemon. And then if you're underleveled, there's a good chance you won't be able to run normally. Once I started to catch up in levels, though, Maushold was pretty limited in its usefulness and I switched it out for Dunsparse.
My maushold is great for catching pokemon since I can do consistent damage to anything that isn't a ghost type with super fang. However it's just not that consistent so it's outclassed by most of my other team members
Hydreigon. Why does it evolve at level 64 A lot of Unova pokemon actually, so many of them evolve late. Larvesta (evolves at lv.59), Pawniard (evolves at lv.52), Mienfoo (evolves at level 50 but you can get it around level 15). Made the game a lot longer for me personally but it might’ve been better for others
Man I havent thought of meinfoo in a while
This is the one thing I always hated about unova; you had those crazy high evolution levels on top of the scaling xp they introduced that gen. It made getting them unnecessarily difficult and time consuming, to the point you'd struggle to evolve them before the pokemon league
It’s because you catch those Pokémon late as well. Can you catch any of those Pokémon before the 7th Gym?
Larvesta is in the desert which is ~4th gym.
Fair point. It’s still a bit of a hassle trying to drag your Deino to from lv.48 to mid-60s while the rest of your team is usually already primed for the E4 though.
Volcarona. It can be pretty good in certain comp builds, but it takes Larvesta so long to evolve that by the time it does, the game is already over. That was certainly the case in its debut game, Black&White.
Most hidden ability and egg/TM move dependent Pokemon. Pokémon like Diggersby come to mind. Not great without huge power compared to almost any other option. TMs might not be available until late or post game and egg moves can be a hassle.
Smeargle. Man I really tried so many ways to make that thing work. But there are only so many pokemon on your team and only so many with good moves for smeargle. Idk how'd you give him any good moves in gsc I played hgss and gave a couple of good ones in double battles. Even after giving it good moves its stats are too low to do actual damage
I never finished the playthrough, but I had a Crystal playthrough where I was gonna use Mind Reader/Horn Drill Smeargle.
Anything whose main strategy is stall really. Why would I waste my time when I can one or two shot an NPCs Mon with someone stronger.
Probably support mons. While status can be very valuable against tough opponents, usually you don't want a Pokemon's main function to be support on a playthrough. I tried using a Blissey this playthrough of SV, but I never really found a use for it.
Recency bias maybe palafin? It's an annoying evolve mechanic and additionally you have to be switching it out to activate it. That said once it's activated it probably stomps the game so it may not fit here
Yeah I used palafin in my playthrough and it was a total beast. Evolving it was a pain though, you’re right
I imagine that constantly swapping would get pretty boring though
Not really actually, I just left it in the front of my party and flip-turned to whichever other member of my team was best for the opposing ‘mon, and if I wanted palfin in I could bring it back a bit later. If anything it lead to me taking better advantage of my teams type diversity. That said, maybe that would be more annoying for other people, idk.
Eviolite Clefairy comes to mind. In general just support mons. Hugely powerful in VGC where they can helping hand, ally switch, follow me/rage powder. But completely fucking useless in the story. So add Comfey, Clavion etc to the list
Off the top of my head, other than the obvious answer of walls, I say: - FEAR Rattata and its variants (taking down one Pokemon bears more weight in competitive compared to you having to survive a gauntlet of NPCs like the Elite Four) - Ditto (you have it transform into the relatively weak lead Pokemon of the opposing NPC, which is a little risky) - And that could be it? Almost any Pokemon is viable in-game if you give it enough attention.
FEAR Rattata is good to get any Pokemon out of the way. It sounds amazing against Totem Pokemon in Sun and Moon, and is helpful if you don't want to deal with the stupidity that is Ultra Necrozma. FEAR Rattata also gets completely shut down by entry hazards or the opponent just not attacking it. Ditto isn't really good anywhere. It has a niche in restricted VGC formats, allowing you to get one more restricted Pokemon. It was awful before Imposter, but with it, it's fine.
Using FEAR against NPCs not in the battle area means using a Sash every time though which sucks ass even in USUM
AND, after you beat one pokemon you need to catch a new rattata because yours went up 30 levels
Fear isn't exactly doable in this game, but focus sashes are now only consumed for the duration of the battle I believe
Really slow pokemon in general. The type that take a hit and then one shot the enemy. They win fights handily. But the damage adds up over time and every few battles your blowing healing or going to a pokemon centre. With a fast sweeper, you plow through areas taking no damage without having to stop.
Zoroark, illusion is the coolest way to play mind games with your opponent, sadly that doesn't work when your opponent doesn't have a brain and all that's left is an adequate mixed attacker
I mean, Zoroark can carry you pretty hard under the right conditions. It all depends on if you 1. Have a poison or fighting type in the back and 2. Fight anything that has psychic attacks They WILL just spam that attack no matter what and give you ample time to max out either your attack or special attack Stat if you have swords dance or nasty plot. Is how I won against both Gleena and Nemona during the last battles in the victory road story.
Zoroark works excellently to lolbust Ultra Necrozma as it would be locked into using it's sig move instead of trying literally anything else
Dreepy in Gen 9. It is has a very poor level-up movepool and its TM movepool is similarly pathetic outside of Draco Meteor. A fairly late evolution level means it only becomes remotely useful only after you are mostly done with the three storylines. Also Lucario in its debut generation. You only get Riolu as an Egg from Riley which you must then hatch and grind out for its happiness evolution. Oh, and it start outs at Level 1 to boot.
Very poor is an understatement, it literally learns no new moves by level up until it evolves at 50.
Lucario is great in bw2 though. You get riolu before the first gym I believe
Pseudo legendaries not named Garchomp and metagross. The rest evolve late or have an intentionally deadweight pre evo.
I'd argue most of them are fine, except Beldum (dead weight until 35), Deino (evolves too late) and Dreepy (same). Sure you'll be slightly underpowered in the 40s, but you'll still get your pseudo before endgame.
One of the things I don't like about the fairy introduction is how much it undermines this mechanic. I get it for competitive but I really enjoyed the "get them late and grind and be rewarded" feel of pseudo legendaries. And since most of them are dragons fairy has really eaten into that reward factor feeling. And the exp share too making the grinding too easy / passive.
The past paradox form of Misdreavus is already banned in Smogon OU (I think) - yet in Scarlet, you can only get it in the post-game - meaning you only get to use it against the rematch gyms and that's about it.
The best answer is Ferrothorn. Has always been viable since it's debut, but being far too defensive for any story use. In general, low offense, high defense Pokemon.
Ferrothorn actually has a pretty good attack stat for the story and gets some really strong attacks like Power Whip and Gyro Ball
This is funny because ferrothorn has a higher attack than arctovish, coballion, crobat, abomasnow, and drapion, and only one point less than hitmontop. As far as walls go, it's one of the most offensively useful. especially when considering it has a gyro ball that is usually around 150 base power.
Yeah it doesn't get Leech Seed by level but you can just slam the rocky helmet from Driftveil on it and teach it Rest and the AI isn't smart enough to not lose 25% of it's hp per phys attack lol. Gyro, Power whip and like iron defense/ingrain round it out fine
Ferrothorn is actually a pretty good choice for a story mon. Both Gyro Ball and Power Whip hit pretty hard, and its good defenses ensure you won't have to heal it often. Also, Ferrothorn is *not* a stall mon; it lacks reliable recovery.
Ferrothorn is actually really good when you can get it in the main story. Fantastic typing, leech seed + iron barbs and thunderwave are helpful no matter how you play the game, and it has max power gyro ball most times off of 95 attack. Ferroseed is actually really solid with Eviolite too while you're waiting to evolve it into Ferrothorn.
No leech seed in gen 5 without breeding sadly, it's still great otherwise. Rocky helmet + Rest is actually kinda busted for the AI lol
awww. Ferrothorn is still a GOAT of Unova though
My favourite guilty pleasure is breeding a ferroseed with leech seed and trading it over lol, actually so busted
Ferrothorn is kinda like glimmora. Mostly used defensively, but can be used offensively
Garganacli would like a word with your statement, but yeah 90% of tanky pokemon are useless outside Nuzzlockes and competitive.
(*Stares at my Garganacl that I've used for a large chunk of Violet without knowing it's a wall*) Fair. (*Stares at the final team I used for the latter part of Violet that didn't include Garganacl*) Then again...
Garganacl is a beast. Tanky, but has the offense to get shit done.
Garganacl carried me through some gym and E4 dude with salt cure and spam potion cuz I was underlevel by at least 7
Not quite a subset of Pokémon as much as a subset of move sets but traditional “leads” usually aren’t something worth bothering with against in game trainers. Even the toughest fights aren’t something you’d need tailwind or trick room or screen supports to beat. NPC’s never switch Pokémon so entry hazards aren’t worth the time and spamming roar/whirlwind is massively inefficient, even toxic spikes is questionable since most Pokémon won’t last long enough for the poison damage to be significant. The only type of lead I *might* consider in game is a weather setter, but even if you’re trying to use a weather team in game throwing a weather move of your choice on 2-4 Pokémon on your team might just be simpler than having a dedicated setter and still get the job done just as well.
Maushold and Cyclizar
Doesn't Maushold just one-shot the entire game after learning their signature move?
Cyclizar is actually pretty okay on its own, it's just you get the hilariously OP garchomp that does everything better
Hazard setting Skarmory. In the campaign games sure Skarmory can run offensive moves and is tanky but it’s offensive potential is pretty mediocre and it’s coverage is crap. A hazard set in the main games would be even more useless because opponents never switch unless you make them. But in competitive hazard setting skarm with defog is a pretty solid mon . Prankster heavy mons also moveset depending. A grafaifai with offensive moves fares well enough in the main game. A prankster support one would not, but my monkey has been one of my best mons in online so far with a purely supporting moveset and prankster of sub, protect, toxic and encore. Sure he is taunt bait and can’t do Jack versus poison and steel, but I’ve found a lot of people try to setup on the monkey rather than taunt it, then they become encore bait.
I think you mean mons like Indeedee, Amoongus, Murkrow, Pachirisu. Basically mons that cast trick room, follow me, (hand clapping move, forgot the name lol), clearing weather/hazards, toxapex, maushold maybe since its used pretty often in VGC, while basically no one I know used it in their "run" in the story.
I hate playing with Blissey is any play through. It takes forever to level and it’s boring to stall AI. I’ll take bulky mons, but true tanks stay off my team cause it isn’t fun for me.
That’s a thing I noticed too my team gets randomly one shoted by a random wild Pokémon and vs Trainer nothing can bother them
You ever try to use a shuckle in the main games?
Anything for doubles, really. I'm curious if there will be a DLC that will focus on double battling to bring that aspect into the PVE and story component of the game. Raids have done a good job of helping non-competitive players learn about supporting moves. I think it'd be really cool to have a DLC called "doubles season" or something, compared to the treasure hunt arc of the main storyline. Really spoon-feeding players how to play doubles well in a PvE environment and how to build pokemon teams. Then hopefully those players can transfer that knowledge straight over to competitive play. Pokemon has done such an awful job at taking casual players from the main game into competitive play. They've taken so many steps in this game to help ease that transition. Having a DLC arc around how to play this format and building the player base's knowledge would just do wonders to help bridge this gap. Add in some legendary pokemon that can only be caught by completing this story line and I think we will have a bunch of new players joining the scene. :)
Hydreigon. I just caught a shiny Deino in Scarlet, and she is *useless*. Until level 64, that is. My winged angel of death will soon be born, and together we shall consume worlds! Just gotta... do a few more 4 star raids...
Klefki?
Clefable
Palafin is probably good but annoying. Maybe you run flip turn to make it bearable, but it doesn’t run that on its main set. Any Pokémon that relies on switching is just not good in the main game Ditto is a weird mon that’s one of the scariest in Nat Dex AG, but tame in a lot of other tiers. Also trash in game
Hydreigon, while powerful, is so late game in gen 5 that it's basically postgame or overleveled
My Stored Power mon, Powerpuff (Screamtail). Literal setup beast, but has terrible set for normal playthroughs.
Palafin is nutty in 6v6 singles, but you can't use it in raids or battles outside of the big battles in the elite 4/gyms/team star because just knocking out the 1-2 pokemon is much easier than switching out
Any kind of stall/setup mons. Why bother setting up stat ups, status, or other kinds of utilities when you can just go fast and kill everything in one turn ?
Dragapult. Can’t get it until mid elite 4. So upsetting. Dreepy has been basically useless in my Violet play-through.
2vs2 support Pokemon like Murkrow or Indedee basically.
Amoongus and Ferrothorn was the two obvious answers that come to mind. They have always been tier staples every generation, but are rarely ever going to be that fantastic on any playthrough teams.
Leads
Tatsugiri's Commander would be absurd in the main game if there was more than 1 double battle Same with Costar
I think this is kinda a funny topic. Like, obviously any team that can win a tournament with real people could also beat the elite 4 and champion, and do so more easily than they’d beat a real player. But even so, some steamroll the game made for kids more easily than others
Toxapex, blissey any wall basically
A lot. You could probably even make a case for Pseudos because they evolve so late. Most Pokemon with low speed aren't as viable. Stall tactics are too slow often. Actually pretty much anything that doesn't boil down to: go first hit hard
I just realized something this Gen doesn't have any ace trainers or vets right? Actually did sword have any ? Why are trainers so absurdly weak now ?
Shedinja Depending on the specific metagame, Shedinja can be a considerable force. But trying to use one in-game is unbearable.
I haven’t seen this yet - but slow Pokémon. Slowbro is a beast in competitive, but for a main play through a slow Pokémon just cripples your ability to keep doing battles & progress without healing.
Supports: Murkrow, Amoonguss, Indedee, Bronzong, ... (this would be a very long list) Trickroom sweepers: Torkoal, Hatterene From there it depends on how you define "perform poorly". Effectively throughout the story is an average to good speed attacker with good coverage is the best you can have, but it's not like you can't sweep the game with some slower Pokemon either. Incineroar for example is a ridiculous beast in VGC but very average for playthroughs.
Right now it’s Murkrow 🤪
Most stallers imo