Why do you think there are terrible Pokemon?

[sutasafaia]

This question has bothered me for a long time. It's something I always thought about in the back of my head but I never really had anybody to talk to about it before, so...hello other people who like Pokemon!

Anyway, why do you think there are pokemon that are so bad they borderline useless? Why not make every pokemon at least competitive or useful in some way? There always seems to be a few pokemon in every generation that are just so terrible that there's basically no reason to ever have them on your team, or pokemon like the current pokemon of the week (Archeops) with an ability so bad that it basically ruins the entire pokemon.

I understand that they can't all be amazing, or even all be good, but you would think they could all be at least average enough that you could use them without feeling like you're harming your team. A great example of this is Luvdisc, why does it even exist? My fiance loves how it looks, she even used one for a while, but no matter how cute she just couldn't justify it's position on her team when basically any water pokemon out there was just flat out better.

So what's your opinion?

 

[Dew Watatsumi]

Eiter to make other pokémon look good or gamefreak is just lazy. Sure there would be good pokémon and some...not so great, but this is as far as I can put it

 

[PokemonTrainerKaden]

To balance out the game would be my guess. If you have all good Pokemon it wouldn't be as much fun.

500th post, yay!

 

[DarthVader]

They're just filler Pokemon.

 

[icebolt]

It's better that way. It drives players to find better Pokemon and not just beat the game with a team of six early game dex fillers. It's also more realistic. You'd expect a dragon to be super strong and a duck with a leek to be very weak and unusable in serious competitions.

 

[Scammel]

To promote diversity. I don't think they ever create a Poke to be outright bad from the off (apart from exceptions when they're clearly troll Pokemon, like Magikarp and Farfetch'd) and I like to think they always put in at least a degree of effort in terms of aesthetics and ensuring each Poke has a place in the world, but for whatever reason they simply decided long ago that there are some weak and some strong Pokes and I personally quite like it that way.

 

[Ditto B1tch]

Because of diversity. It's a huge world, you have every kind of Pokemon in it.

 

[AGGRON GUY]

they made them for more intresting game play. if everything like pokemon and stuff like that was great you would get used to it. also these pokemon are great for training and you always run into them so fainting one feels good.

 

[Laurelai]

It's better that way. It drives players to find better Pokemon and not just beat the game with a team of six early game dex fillers. It's also more realistic. You'd expect a dragon to be super strong and a duck with a leek to be very weak and unusable in serious competitions.

Awwww Farfetch'd gets no respect!

;131;

 

[deoxysdude94]

It's possible they were considered "very creative" or something of the sort, and as a result, they kept it. Regardless of it's stats.

Or, they could be similar to "album fillers" in music, which are songs that aren't very good, but are needed to fill up the album.

 

[gliscor&yanmega]

This question has bothered me for a long time. It's something I always thought about in the back of my head but I never really had anybody to talk to about it before, so...hello other people who like Pokemon!

Anyway, why do you think there are pokemon that are so bad they borderline useless? Why not make every pokemon at least competitive or useful in some way? There always seems to be a few pokemon in every generation that are just so terrible that there's basically no reason to ever have them on your team, or pokemon like the current pokemon of the week (Archeops) with an ability so bad that it basically ruins the entire pokemon.

I understand that they can't all be amazing, or even all be good, but you would think they could all be at least average enough that you could use them without feeling like you're harming your team. A great example of this is Luvdisc, why does it even exist? My fiance loves how it looks, she even used one for a while, but no matter how cute she just couldn't justify it's position on her team when basically any water pokemon out there was just flat out better.

So what's your opinion?

Every Pokemon is useful in some way, they might not all be great for competitive battling but I don't think Game Freak even had intentions of that. The fanbase is the one that created the competitive aspect I'm pretty sure, Game Freak just makes the Pokemon and the fans decide what to do with them. It just so happened that people decided to exploit Pokemon which resulted in taking full advantage of EVs and IVs and all that other stuff to improve on your Pokemon, even though I'm pretty sure those things main purpose was to create more uniqueness in Pokemon. With that being said, if a Pokemon isn't the best choice competitively, it doesn't mean it's terrible overall.

In-game you can use pretty much anything, some may be a bit more difficult to use then others, but that doesn't change anything, whether there are "better" options or not is also irrelevant. The games are suppose to be fun, using what you want and playing the way you want, so if someone want to use Luvdisc they can very well do so.

Every Pokemon has something about them that drags them down, some have it worse then others, but that doesn't make them terrible, Archeops' ability may be horrible but it only has it because it already has high Attack and Special Attack, it's still usable, just when it's Ability kicks in things get troubling.

The only Pokemon that might be terrible to use in battles of any kind is Unown, simply because it only has one move, you could still probably use it in-game but it would require a ton more effort then others I'd assume. However, despite this, Unown's purpose isn't to battle, it's to be collected, that's why there are 28 different kinds, for you to collect.

Personally, I don't consider any Pokemon "terrible", since there's many layers to Pokemon that everything can be used in some way, regardless if there is something "better" or not.

 

[Scammel]

Personally, I don't consider any Pokemon "terrible", since there's many layers to Pokemon that everything can be used in some way, regardless if there is something "better" or not.

Very much this. So diverse are the species they've created thus far that even in competitive enviornments you'll struggle to find anything without its' own, however tiny, unique niche.

 

[The Benmeister]

Terrible from a battling perspective? I just see it as a challenge.

 

[*PKMN Trainer Paddy*]

The way i see it is...
Look at a real life situation. Butterfree is a butterfly. They are small and weak (though butterfree isn't terribly small). Torterra (not a great example) is a turtle, a larger stronger animal.
See the logic, even though the butterfly would beat the turtle in terms of speed, the turtle is physically stronger.

 

[SharpedoX]

Because of diversity. It's a huge world, you have every kind of Pokemon in it.

Exactly. Quoted for truth.

Besides, they all serve their unique purposes. There isn't a single pokémon that isn't liked by a single person, so it all kind of fits together, if you get my drift!

 

[Celebii21]

Originally Posted by SharpedoX

Besides, they all serve their unique purposes. There isn't a single pokémon that isn't liked by a single person, so it all kind of fits together, if you get my drift!

Exactly! Also, if I'm not mistaken (I haven't played B&W yet, I'm ver prejudiced. Hopefully, that'll change!) a relatively constant number of Pokemon are added each game/region. But, they can't all be powerhouses, or else everyone would stop using the old ones. So, only a few are good, and the rest have to "balance" it out, so to speak. At least, that's my humble opinion.

 

[Thunderstrike18]

They are all different, like people. Someone could be good at baseball, another, football. Like Pokemon, one could be good at competitive battling, another, good at looking cute ( example: Eevee ). There not all meant to do one thing.

 

[Scrufox86]

Because not every pokemon can be brilliant. It is good to have "weaker" pokemon at the start of the game and then find "stronger" ones it makes the game more fun.

 

[Will-powered Spriter]

Some pokemon are bad on purpose.

Some, such as Butterfree and its ilk, are meant to be for the early game. Butterfree is likely to be fully evolved before the first gym, serving as a pokemon that gets a huge boost early on, likely making it the best in your team of basic pokemon, only to not improve much from there. For it to work in this role, it has to be worse then other mons later on. This is a contrast to pokemon like dratini, which are going to be worse then most of your team for the majority of the game, but are worth it for the huge power boost they gain at the end.

Pokemon aren't designed for the final meta game, when everything is at max potential and lvl 100, they're designed to fill a niche at their point in the story.

And then some are just filler, like luvdisc and things. But even these tend to get a second wind in things like Colosseum and PRR, where they often serve the same role for the various npc's teams.

 

[floodz66]

Honestly, like there are more faster, stronger and smarter humans, the same can be said for pokemon, and that's what we are seeing reflected in the stats.