"Worst Pokémon Ever"

Codraroll

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I think Luxray gets some of its high appeal factor from its design and typing (that is, it's an early elemental type that is not FWG) more so than from its actual battling prowess. I mean, sure it can pull its weight, but it's not sweeping the game like BW2 Magnemite. But it's a cute thing evolving into a cool thing in three stages, it can use elemental attacks, and it's found very early. Like a cool-looking GSC Mareep, if you want.
 
I'd nominate Dewgong but me and my friends have an inside joke about it, so I can't bring myself to hate it.

I have to go with Wormadam.

Design: I kinda understand what it's supposed to be, but I still really dislike it, all of its formes. They're pretty weird and ugly.
Competitive use: PU. Both of its abilities are bad, but it DOES have some moves I consider useful. I don't really know what to think.

I just dislike it. It's my only reason for naming it the worst pokémon ever.
 
While I understand the sentiment for B2W2 or Kalos or Alola, what exactly is so OP about early game Gen4?

Sure there's Staraptor and the starters, but that's really it. Diamond and Pearl were notorious for a weak Pokedex (only two fire types) and while Platinum balanced this a bit it didn't cure it. And you certainly can't be talking about HG/SS.

I know Shinx is popular, but it wasn't a gamebreaker (slow and no physical electric moves). Gible is mid-game (in Platinum, late game for D/P), and Budew is just okay.

So who are you talking about?
Buizel/Floatzel. While not extremely early (unless you want to start with Budew), Roselia/Roserade as well. Also with the Shinx line, Intimidate helps so much with it. Sure Staraptor has it too but it's a great ability.
 
Buizel/Floatzel. While not extremely early (unless you want to start with Budew), Roselia/Roserade as well. Also with the Shinx line, Intimidate helps so much with it. Sure Staraptor has it too but it's a great ability.
Speaking of which, main reason I used Shinx line. Intimidate + Charge makes the line pretty bulky and alleviates its in-game usage pretty well. It might not set any records, but I do think it is better in-game than Flareon.
 
I think this just comes down to personal opinion but I still don't really see it. Statistically anyway.

Buizel/Floatzel is serviceable but needs a lot of babying to work, especially since most of their best moves will have to be taught. Your only decent STAB will be Aqua Jet for 70% of the game (Surf comes after the mid point and runs off the lower Sp. Atk., and Waterfall is near end-game). It's fast but that's really all that's going for it. Ice Fang requires Move Tutor, so for a good chunk of the game your strongest move is Crunch?

The Budew line has similar problems, as the only decent grass STAB outside of breeding is Magical Leaf (60 BP), and will have to be taught Sludge Bomb for a decent poison STAB (which is in the Team Galactic warehouse). Roserade is a great pokemon, but almost all it's best moves require breeding.

And I remain firm on Shinx: it is pretty much Flareon. Intimidate is nice but won't cure that STAB issue and it barely has a movepool relying on Spark, Crunch, Return and that's it. All other Elemental Fangs are egg moves.

I can definitely see how these pokemon are appealing (heck, I'd use Shinx just because the line looks cool, same with Roserade) but as far as in-game goes they're all just "okay." "Passable." So I really don't see how Sinnoh has way too many strong early game options like B2/W2, Kalos, or Alola. But I would say it has a lot of aesthetically pleasing options really early.

I guess I set my "oh so broken" bar at B2/W2 Magnemite and that's what I'm comparing everything to.
 
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I think this just comes down to personal opinion but I still don't really see it. Statistically anyway.

Buizel/Floatzel is serviceable but needs a lot of babying to work, especially since most of their best moves will have to be taught. Your only decent STAB will be Aqua Jet for 70% of the game (Surf comes after the mid point and runs off the lower Sp. Atk., and Waterfall is near end-game). It's fast but that's really all that's going for it. Ice Fang requires Move Tutor, so for a good chunk of the game your strongest move is Crunch?

The Budew line has similar problems, as the only decent grass STAB outside of breeding is Magical Leaf (60 BP), and will have to be taught Sludge Bomb for a decent poison STAB (which is in the Team Galactic warehouse). Roserade is a great pokemon, but almost all it's best moves require breeding.

And I remain firm on Shinx: it is pretty much Flareon. Intimidate is nice but won't cure that STAB issue and it barely has a movepool relying on Spark, Crunch, Return and that's it. All other Elemental Fangs are egg moves.

I can definitely see how these pokemon are appealing (heck, I'd use Shinx just because the line looks cool, same with Roserade) but as far as in-game goes they're all just "okay." "Passable." So I really don't see how Sinnoh has way too many strong early game options like B2/W2, Kalos, or Alola. But I would say it has a lot of aesthetically pleasing options really early.

I guess I set my "oh so broken" bar at B2/W2 Magnemite and that's what I'm comparing everything to.
Honestly, I think close to like 80% of pokemon can be used in-game and be pretty fun just because of how easy the games are. If we're talking about Platinum, then Floatzel is pretty good because of how good its stats are. For Budew, 60 BP is pretty good for a while (and TMs are there to be used imo). Same goes for Luxray who gets 65 BP Spark at level 13. I've never felt like any pokemon has been bad for an in-game run (except Probopass, but that's another story lol)
 
I think this just comes down to personal opinion but I still don't really see it. Statistically anyway.

Buizel/Floatzel is serviceable but needs a lot of babying to work, especially since most of their best moves will have to be taught. Your only decent STAB will be Aqua Jet for 70% of the game (Surf comes after the mid point and runs off the lower Sp. Atk., and Waterfall is near end-game). It's fast but that's really all that's going for it. Ice Fang requires Move Tutor, so for a good chunk of the game your strongest move is Crunch?
Psht, I used Buizel in-game and aside from its frailty, it worked out just fine. Surf does satisfactory damage and its SpA isn't too bad for in-game. Crunch is nice, I believe you get Ice Fang, but don't quote me on that- and I used Ice Beam as coverage. True, most of your STABs are Aqua Jet and Water Gun, but Buizel is still pretty good nonetheless.
 
Psht, I used Buizel in-game and aside from its frailty, it worked out just fine. Surf does satisfactory damage and its SpA isn't too bad for in-game. Crunch is nice, I believe you get Ice Fang, but don't quote me on that- and I used Ice Beam as coverage. True, most of your STABs are Aqua Jet and Water Gun, but Buizel is still pretty good nonetheless.
Ice Fang is via the Move Reminder, in Pastoria City.

And despite the thread's topic, this conversation spawned from the Yunsen 's notion that the early game Sinnoh pokemon are too powerful, keeping players from trying out the later pokemon. Similar to Codraroll 's feelings on Kalos, Alola, or B2/W2. So I wasn't trying to say that Budew, Buizel, or Shinx are "the worst pokemon ever", because they aren't. They are actually quite serviceable in-game.

But I disagree that they are so powerful they make later options redundant. In Sinnoh, Starly and the starters may qualify, but Shinx, Budew, and Buizel do not. They are fine but not "OMG HAX CLOSE COMBAT 4 TEH WIN."

However, we have gotten really off topic and I'll admit most of that is my fault. To re-rail and continue my tirade of Gamefreak making cool sea creatures boring:

I don't really hate Octillery, but there's just something lazy about the design. Maybe it's the obvious color palate, maybe because it looks like a rejected Zelda octorok, maybe it's the fact that due to it's battle sprites for the longest time I thought it only had four legs (seriously, why design an octopus if you hide 6 of the legs from the camera?!). Or maybe I think it's lazy because it has lazy eyes.

Not even going to touch the fish to cephalopod issue (I get it, it's a gun-pun in Japanese). But when real world octopi can look like this:
upload_2017-5-3_21-13-56.png
upload_2017-5-3_21-14-24.png
upload_2017-5-3_21-16-10.png


...it's hard not to feel a little cheated.

Guess I shouldn't hate on a Gameboy Color design too much though, and to Gamefreak's credit we did get Inkay and Malamar, even if they are squids.

For now I'll just stare longingly at this sprite of Volkraken, wishing it could be real.

Le sigh.
 
Ice Fang is via the Move Reminder, in Pastoria City.

And despite the thread's topic, this conversation spawned from the Yunsen 's notion that the early game Sinnoh pokemon are too powerful, keeping players from trying out the later pokemon. Similar to Codraroll 's feelings on Kalos, Alola, or B2/W2. So I wasn't trying to say that Budew, Buizel, or Shinx are "the worst pokemon ever", because they aren't. They are actually quite serviceable in-game.

But I disagree that they are so powerful they make later options redundant. In Sinnoh, Starly and the starters may qualify, but Shinx, Budew, and Buizel do not. They are fine but not "OMG HAX CLOSE COMBAT 4 TEH WIN."

However, we have gotten really off topic and I'll admit most of that is my fault. To re-rail and continue my tirade of Gamefreak making cool sea creatures boring:

I don't really hate Octillery, but there's just something lazy about the design. Maybe it's the obvious color palate, maybe because it looks like a rejected Zelda octorok, maybe it's the fact that due to it's battle sprites for the longest time I thought it only had four legs (seriously, why design an octopus if you hide 6 of the legs from the camera?!). Or maybe I think it's lazy because it has lazy eyes.

Not even going to touch the fish to cephalopod issue (I get it, it's a gun-pun in Japanese). But when real world octopi can look like this:


...it's hard not to feel a little cheated.

Guess I shouldn't hate on a Gameboy Color design too much though, and to Gamefreak's credit we did get Inkay and Malamar, even if they are squids.

For now I'll just stare longingly at this sprite of Volkraken, wishing it could be real.

Le sigh.
Although I agree with you that Octillery was never the most interesting of designs, it is one of those mons that definitely did not benefit from a transition to 3d models.
 
I've tried using Octillery and wanted to love it because of its movepool but it's just too frail and slow.

With the Sinnoh talk, I was only comparing it to just Black/White. No other games. In my White playthrough, there was a point in the mid 20's where I had to do a refresh on most of my team. Lillipup/Herdier, Audino and Munna/Musharna were fine early, but Herdier's typing, Audino's lack of power and Musharna's speed started to hold me back. Around the 8th gym I ended up replacing Zebstrika as well because of its horrible physical movepool and meh special attack. I get why people would hate this, but in my one and only playthrough of White, I loved it.
 
nomming alolan persian

ok so competitively this thing isn't garbage with decent speed and fur coat, but holy fuck this thing's design is trash. like i get the whole fat cat thing but come on, normal persian looks fine. when alolan meowth came out i was like "huh i might actually use this thing" then the evolved form came out and i noped myself the fuck away from it.
 

earl

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nomming alolan persian

ok so competitively this thing isn't garbage with decent speed and fur coat, but holy fuck this thing's design is trash. like i get the whole fat cat thing but come on, normal persian looks fine. when alolan meowth came out i was like "huh i might actually use this thing" then the evolved form came out and i noped myself the fuck away from it.
Honestly original Persian's 3D sprite has got to be the worst looking in the game. It's head is just so abnormally small.

It is for this reason that I prefer Alolan Persian, that and Garfield
 
Honestly original Persian's 3D sprite has got to be the worst looking in the game. It's head is just so abnormally small.

It is for this reason that I prefer Alolan Persian, that and Garfield
Alola Persian may be derp-tastic but I agree that Persian has had issues for ages.

While some of the sprites have been okay:


Others sprites, the models, and even official artwork have been just awkward:


Like what you said, there's something weird going on with that head and neck. In some cases the neck is way too long, and in the models the neck just disappeared and the head looks minuscule on those shoulders.

That and Gamefreak keeps making its coat lighter, giving it this weird fleshy look when it used to be more creamy-yellow:


I think Gamefreak might have something against cats in general. Persian got derpy (both versions), Skitty has to deal with the power-up-letdown of Normalize, Purugly exists, Purrloin has weird legs, and Espurr is scarred for life.
upload_2017-5-10_18-56-51.png


Well that and it has ear brains, that's kinda messed up. Investigation concluded: Gamefreak is a dog person.

More like fennec fox person, but who isn't?
 
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I nominate Chikorita

Design: Horrible and Ugly. It looks like a deformed transgender potato.

Stats: Meganium highest stat is def and sp. def, yeah, because bulk is something I want in the usually offensive starter.

Movepool: Half of the moves Meganium learns are Status

Gold/Silevr: Chickorita is basically the worst starter for Johto. The only gym leaders it's good against are Misty, Brock, and maybe Chuck. It's even weak against the Elite Four member Koga and 4x weak to his first 3 Pokemon!

I just don't understand how the Alola Starters get so much flack but people are like: "Yeah, Chikorita is fine because Nostalgia (I actually like the Johto games tho).".
 
I nominate Chikorita

Design: Horrible and Ugly. It looks like a deformed transgender potato.

Stats: Meganium highest stat is def and sp. def, yeah, because bulk is something I want in the usually offensive starter.

Movepool: Half of the moves Meganium learns are Status

Gold/Silevr: Chickorita is basically the worst starter for Johto. The only gym leaders it's good against are Misty, Brock, and maybe Chuck. It's even weak against the Elite Four member Koga and 4x weak to his first 3 Pokemon!

I just don't understand how the Alola Starters get so much flack but people are like: "Yeah, Chikorita is fine because Nostalgia (I actually like the Johto games tho).".
Meganium isn't 4x weak to anything, nor are Typhlosion or Feraligatr. They don't have a secondary typing, and are the only starter trio to remain so right up to and including their final forms. (unless they get Mega Evolutions that change this in a future game, which doesn't seem very likely) And what flack about the Alola starters are you talking about? I thought most everyone loved Incineroar, Primarina, and especially Decidueye?
 
Meganium isn't 4x weak to anything, nor are Typhlosion or Feraligatr. They don't have a secondary typing, and are the only starter trio to remain so right up to and including their final forms. (unless they get Mega Evolutions that change this in a future game, which doesn't seem very likely) And what flack about the Alola starters are you talking about? I thought most everyone loved Incineroar, Primarina, and especially Decidueye?
Oh pffft, brain fart, I thought for some reason Koga's Pokemon had a Bug/Poison type move for some reason. But I still stand by my point on Alolan starters. Primarina was hated (but now praised for being hated). inceniroar is called a bad typing because it's not dark because appariently people want more Fire/Fighting types, and it's also bashed for being "ugly" (even though I know you'd shit your pants if you saw it coming at you). and Decidueye is somewhere in the middle. (just to clarify, I like the Alolan starters).
 

earl

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Oh pffft, brain fart, I thought for some reason Koga's Pokemon had a Bug/Poison type move for some reason. But I still stand by my point on Alolan starters. Primarina was hated (but now praised for being hated). inceniroar is called a bad typing because it's not dark because appariently people want more Fire/Fighting types, and it's also bashed for being "ugly" (even though I know you'd shit your pants if you saw it coming at you). and Decidueye is somewhere in the middle. (just to clarify, I like the Alolan starters).
Primarina was mostly loved, the only one that got a large amount of hate was incineroar. Maybe check out the reveal trailer's comments if you want examples.
 

Codraroll

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I think the biggest issue people had with Incineroar was that it was so much like a Fire/Fighting starter, even though it had a different typing. Despite evolving from a regular house cat, it's humanoid and martial. Just like the previous four Fire starters. Well, Delphox was humanoid and magical, but still humanoid. It's like they did the smallest possible amount of deviation from the norm with Delphox, then jumped right back into it with Incineroar, figuring that "It's Dark, not Fighting! Even though it fights a lot!" thing would satisfy the critics who said all Fire-type starters tended to look and behave exactly the same.
 
I feel like people would have liked Incineroar a lot better if it were a standalone Pokemon. A lot of people were hoping for Litten to evolve into some sort of quadrapedal fire tiger or something (I was one of those people), and turning into yet another bipedal humanoid thing (like every fire starter except maybe Typhlosion, and even its official art invariably depicts it standing upright) was kind of a letdown.
 
Incineroar also has the tiny legs and big meaty claws, making it really cartoony.

But I actually like Incineroar a lot, and I think one of the reinforcing factors as to why people are put off by the design is that Incineroar comes to life in his animations, not his still images. So people look at things like this:

And are put off because the design looks both overused and awkwardly proportioned.

But when animated all of Incineroar's cartoony designs pay off making him more expressive and giving him more personality:

"I just stole your heart, baby!"

"Pft, whatever."

"Show me your moves."

"JOHN CENA!


In order to make these motions work on the 3DS, then the design had to be exaggerated. Can you imagine Charizard or Typholsion doing these poses with their tiny hands? It would barely show up.

But nobody can pick up on any of this from a still image, so Incineroar's reputation takes a hit.

It's an ongoing complaint I've had since the switch to models, a lot of people argue they lack the life of the sprites but that's only because you're comparing with the still standby pose. If you ignore the animations then of course they look dull, you're skipping 70% of the design!
 
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I have to admit that Incineroar, while currently bad in competitive above NU, actually served me well in-game, even after it lost the Speed it had as Torracat. It wasn't as great as Mudsdale, but I still appreciated its Dark coverage during the story. Nothing is immune to that type, after all.
 
It's an ongoing complaint I've had since the switch to models, a lot of people argue they lack the life of the sprites but that's only because you're comparing with the still standby pose. If you ignore the animations then of course they look dull, you're skipping 70% of the design!
I don't think the same for Gen VI, but in Gen VII, at least with the starters, it's very obvious Game Freak put more details on the animations, on their personalities, than on their models. That's where they shine. Well, except for Torracat which is incredibly dull, but it's just one exception.
 

Codraroll

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I don't think the same for Gen VI, but in Gen VII, at least with the starters, it's very obvious Game Freak put more details on the animations, on their personalities, than on their models. That's where they shine. Well, except for Torracat which is incredibly dull, but it's just one exception.
To elaborate on this, it appears that Game Freak wanted to create starters that could convey human-like personalities through animation - and therefore decided to make them all human-like in their final forms. Being strictly quadrupedal with no human-like appendages, no wonder why Torracat is the dullest of this gen's starter families. Rowlet and Dartrix are bipedal with appendages that could pass for arms. Popplio and Brionne could be stylized humans from the waist up. Litten is - as the name alludes - a kitten, and the Internet is chock-full of videos proving that humans can view kittens as sapient to some degree. But Torracat is renminiscient of a lynx, and people generally don't project "personalities" onto lynxes - or think much about them at all. It's hard to make a lynx convey a personality through animation, without making it too much like a cat or a human. Or a dog, I guess, but come on...
 

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