Pokémon that exceeded your expectations in-game despite looking bad initially?

HGSS Rattata is also really good. It evolves quite early at level 20, and it has strong moves like STAB headbutt and hyper fang even in the early game. It has nearly perfect coverage with dig and crunch. Normal is a great typing in gen 2 as it is nearly unresisted, which means that Raticate can contribute to every gym fight, especially if you go out of your way to abuse guts. The best thing about it though, is that it gets swords dance. With some berry strats, Raticate can rather consistently sweep Will and Bruno, as well as Clair. It's your classic strong early game rodent, but it never falls off despite its mediocre stats. It's honestly among the best Pokemon available in HGSS.
 
:dp/bastiodon:
This guy in Pearl. I knew what I was in for when I got that Fossil restored: a slow, weak mon with 0 recovery outside Rest. And for quite some time, it was exactly that. But anyone who's been through Sinnoh will tell you the horrors that await after the 6th badge:
  • More Golbat than any sustainable ecosystem could ever support. And that's just Team Galactic.
  • Suicide-bombing Geodude and Graveler determined to blow your precious mons to bits with double-strength Self-Destruct and Explosion.
  • Often more HM slaves required than actual team members.
  • Everything about Candice, Snowpoint and the Medi-line infestation they've got going on.
  • More Team Galactic Golbats.
  • Some wild Golbat too, just to mix it up.
  • Cyrus.
Maybe it was just Byron's ace giving him the inspiration he needed, but throughout these horrors, Bastiodon was an utter UNIT. Chewed up Golbat by the billion and spat them back out. Tanked suicide moves all day every day. Took attacks on behalf of teammates I was training up. Cheesed Jump Kickers with Protect. Continued to eat Golbat for breakfast, lunch and dinner (and loads more for dessert). Tanked Brick Break from Cyrus's Weavile and sent it packing.
Then, when Palkia was in danger of blasting apart my entire half-team(plus HM slaves) with its insane power level, guess who stepped up to the plate? This UNIT PP stalled Spacial Rend and shut down the legendary.
He might have been expensive in terms of Potions required between battles, but DANG, he be carrying you up those mountain slopes and down again.
 
HGSS Rattata is also really good. It evolves quite early at level 20, and it has strong moves like STAB headbutt and hyper fang even in the early game. It has nearly perfect coverage with dig and crunch. Normal is a great typing in gen 2 as it is nearly unresisted, which means that Raticate can contribute to every gym fight, especially if you go out of your way to abuse guts. The best thing about it though, is that it gets swords dance. With some berry strats, Raticate can rather consistently sweep Will and Bruno, as well as Clair. It's your classic strong early game rodent, but it never falls off despite its mediocre stats. It's honestly among the best Pokemon available in HGSS.
Interesting. Where do you get Swords Dance?

I'm literally doing a Nuzlocke and although GSC is kinda unfortunate for female physical attacking Pokemon (they have lower end IVs in Attack), Raticate has erased my worries about such an issue entirely. She's been a real unit, helping take out Whitney's Miltank alongside Geodude, and has consistently hit hard and fast.

:dp/bastiodon:
This guy in Pearl. I knew what I was in for when I got that Fossil restored: a slow, weak mon with 0 recovery outside Rest. And for quite some time, it was exactly that. But anyone who's been through Sinnoh will tell you the horrors that await after the 6th badge:
  • More Golbat than any sustainable ecosystem could ever support. And that's just Team Galactic.
  • Suicide-bombing Geodude and Graveler determined to blow your precious mons to bits with double-strength Self-Destruct and Explosion.
  • Often more HM slaves required than actual team members.
  • Everything about Candice, Snowpoint and the Medi-line infestation they've got going on.
  • More Team Galactic Golbats.
  • Some wild Golbat too, just to mix it up.
  • Cyrus.
Maybe it was just Byron's ace giving him the inspiration he needed, but throughout these horrors, Bastiodon was an utter UNIT. Chewed up Golbat by the billion and spat them back out. Tanked suicide moves all day every day. Took attacks on behalf of teammates I was training up. Cheesed Jump Kickers with Protect. Continued to eat Golbat for breakfast, lunch and dinner (and loads more for dessert). Tanked Brick Break from Cyrus's Weavile and sent it packing.
Then, when Palkia was in danger of blasting apart my entire half-team(plus HM slaves) with its insane power level, guess who stepped up to the plate? This UNIT PP stalled Spacial Rend and shut down the legendary.
He might have been expensive in terms of Potions required between battles, but DANG, he be carrying you up those mountain slopes and down again.
Great to hear someone actually managed to make this big lug a champion!
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
is a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
Rattata. Surprisingly solid Pokemon for me in Crystal, even in spite of low Attack IVs. Normal types are really good in this game in general, but Rattata having natural Hyper Fang and a good movepool definitely make them that much better.
HGSS Rattata is also really good. It evolves quite early at level 20, and it has strong moves like STAB headbutt and hyper fang even in the early game. It has nearly perfect coverage with dig and crunch. Normal is a great typing in gen 2 as it is nearly unresisted, which means that Raticate can contribute to every gym fight, especially if you go out of your way to abuse guts. The best thing about it though, is that it gets swords dance. With some berry strats, Raticate can rather consistently sweep Will and Bruno, as well as Clair. It's your classic strong early game rodent, but it never falls off despite its mediocre stats. It's honestly among the best Pokemon available in HGSS.
 
I think I mentioned this in another thread, but I will do it here again.
Flamara

In Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness I used Flareon several times. And considering my opinion of it being the worst Eeveelution, I think the environment of Gale of Darkness it perfect for it. It has good offensive moves thus you can still take advantage of his rather limited movepool. What I recall is teaching it Shadow Ball during the run.
Bite also did wonders and Quick Attack made up for its underwhelming speed.
But the big selling point of Flareon over the other Eeveelution was for me definitively TM38 Fire Blast you can purchase right before the second boss fight. 120 base power STAB with 85% accuracy is nothing to laugh at. There is a huge satisfaction hearing the sound effects of the move alone hitting.
Also it has good synergy with my next picks.
Ariados

I only tried Ariados because it had Signal Beam. The nature I used was relaxed. I didn't softreset it or anything. It was useless as Spinarak, but Ariados is certainly a powerful Pokemon. The problem I faced is that it's other moves are useless. So you are only spamming Signal Beam and use the other moves to stall for time. But it can't be understated how many times it helped me through in my playthrough. It's STAB went through annoying Lombre like butter and put in work till the early endgame. I usually replace my team at the endgame regardless, so to me the performance at that point doesn't matter because I want to catch all Shadow Pokemon in the hopes I get some good iv ones in a run to transfer in later gen games.

Tengulist

Another XD pick. I don't know about you, but I think Seadot is an awful Pokemon in Gen 3 for in-game runs. But what XD does to bypass that are 3 things:
1. high enough level for an early evolution
2. Leaf Stone right before it can be purified
3. Decent movepool in Giga Drain, Refresh, Bullet Seed and Secret Power
Having a Pokemon with that amount of good stats this early on is definitively something. There is no payoff to wait until it learns Faint, don't bother since all you would need is to teach it Shadow Ball (which I don't think I taught). With Flareon and Ariados in your team, you can really focus on things that they can't hit Super Effectively or just pressure with Secret Power. I don't know if I taught it Brick Break, but it had Fake Out which is useful in a double battle focused game.

And if you think they don't synergize well, just think what you are fighting in XD
Flareon takes on Gloom-line, Foretress, Skarmory
Ariados takes on Lombre-line, Psychics
Tengulist takes on Graveler-line, some problematic Water/Ground types that appear out of random

I don't remember any of these Pokemon being fun to use in other runs. Ariados learns no good bug types per level up and Signal Beam is now Special. Flareon is a meme. Shiftry is Shiftry. By the time you find a Leaf Stone, you have better things to choose from.
 
mertyville Flareon is most certainly not a meme, my friend. Flareon was an excellent team member in my Crystal Nuzlocke, doing heavy damage with Headbutt (eventually Return), Bite/Shadow Ball, and (soon) Fire Blast to everything. He/she also had HP Ice, making them even more busted. Their special bulk and incredible 130 Attack, even in the absence of physical STABs, made them a very hard hitter and useful member of my team.

I'm doing another Nuzlocke with another Flareon on my team, and though poor decisions on my part have left him underleveled (and my team in general too), they've been stalwart allies and consistently useful against a range of opponents.
 
I remembered another pleasant surprise from my playthroughs.

:sm/arbok:

The sole reason I wanted to use Arbok in Ultra Sun is because I think it's cute and that I had never used it before. So, I didn't really have many expectations given its strange level up learnset (it gets NO physical Poison-type moves between Poison Sting, as an Ekans, and Gunk Shot at level 63) and below average stats.

What was the result? Well, turns out, Intimidate in a game infested with physical attackers means Arbok could pull off a lot of weight without using a single move. It almost singlehandedly (or none-handedly, because it's a snake) made Totem Alolan Marowak manageable.

It also has Haze, which allowed it to solo Totem Ribombee and erase all of Ultra Necrozma's boosts (at the cost of a Focus Sash) so that the rest could take it down.
 
So I am going to talk a bit about Nuzlocking GSC and HG/SS because despite the atrocious EXP curve in the games, they have the most ridiculous in-game power spikes outside of Gen VI's Mega Evolutions in any Pokemon game. When trying to play with as few deaths possible with limited items, going first and OHKOing as much as you can without needing to set-up is the most optimal strat, and both these games have tools that support this strategy while letting you use weird ass mons.

In Gen II, since the Zephyr badge grants 10% bonus Attack and the Plain Badge grants you a 12.5% boost to Normal-type moves, pretty much anything with a reasonable Attack stat is fantastic. The way Johto is designed is outside of Morty's Gym, Jasmine's Gym, and a few errant hikers and late-game Rocks (lmao Bruno's Onix), Ghosts, and Steel, you are pretty much free to spam Return. Nothing resists Return + Surf in Gen II, which is why Feraligatr is so obviously good. But there is also Furret, who is reasonably fast, has STAB Return, enough Attack to work with, Shadow Ball, and learns Surf for all those Geodude/Onix that get in your way. And Furret is the low end of the spectrum. You get a Tauros or a Miltank and OH MAN the game because so much easier, especially Miltank since it also gets Shadow Ball and recovery. Seriously the cow is amazing.
Agree on everything here (Raticate and Flareon both prove you correct), but I'd like to add one more detail.

In these games, I feel the standard team size should really be a 4 rather than a 6. 4 mons are generally perfectly enough to cover you for matchups and you can assign HM moves to the remaining mons - I consistently stayed on par with or even above the level curve in Crystal employing this strat. This is especially true in a Nuzlocke run, where trying to add new teammates can be...incredibly costly. IMHO.
 

The Mind Electric

Calming if you look at it right.
In these games, I feel the standard team size should really be a 4 rather than a 6. 4 mons are generally perfectly enough to cover you for matchups and you can assign HM moves to the remaining mons - I consistently stayed on par with or even above the level curve in Crystal employing this strat. This is especially true in a Nuzlocke run, where trying to add new teammates can be...incredibly costly. IMHO.
I'm currently trying this out, and it does work pretty well. I have yet to reach the point where the level curve really starts to spike, but I have yet to feel underprepared for something. I think it's kinda lame to play like this, but it's something.
 
I'm currently trying this out, and it does work pretty well. I have yet to reach the point where the level curve really starts to spike, but I have yet to feel underprepared for something. I think it's kinda lame to play like this, but it's something.
Yep! If you fight every trainer available to you (and some can be easy to miss, they're hiding in the Union Cave or Lake of Rage post-TR defeat for instance) and keep a 4-mon team, you should have little trouble meeting or even surpassing most bosses.

I honestly don't know about the ''lame'' part lol. While I like having a 6-mon team ideally speaking, it feels like 6 is a bit too big for me sometimes haha. Some regions can be difficult to build up a good 6-mon team in due to lack of choice - Johto in the older games is perhaps the best example as outside of cheating or trading, you're not gonna be able to get a lot of good Pokemon.
 

The Mind Electric

Calming if you look at it right.
I honestly don't know about the ''lame'' part lol. While I like having a 6-mon team ideally speaking, it feels like 6 is a bit too big for me sometimes haha. Some regions can be difficult to build up a good 6-mon team in due to lack of choice - Johto in the older games is perhaps the best example as outside of cheating or trading, you're not gonna be able to get a lot of good Pokemon.
I like using every slot available to me for something interesting, and I like having a lot of options in that regard. I consider it bad design when a Pokémon game doesn't do these things, because it makes playthroughs less unique and interesting. Johto is definitely best experienced without a full team, partially because you don't have many good options, but I think that is itself a big problem with how the game is designed.
 
I like using every slot available to me for something interesting, and I like having a lot of options in that regard. I consider it bad design when a Pokémon game doesn't do these things, because it makes playthroughs less unique and interesting. Johto is definitely best experienced without a full team, partially because you don't have many good options, but I think that is itself a big problem with how the game is designed.
Nah, I agree completely, m8. Johto - and Kanto - are not very friendly when it comes to building new teams.
 
Nah, I agree completely, m8. Johto - and Kanto - are not very friendly when it comes to building new teams.
I think Kanto is fine. Evolution stones being easily purchasable really opens things up.

Speaking of which, on the topic of this thread I've used both Ninetales and Raichu in LeafGreen and while they look mediocre, they actually do pretty well.

In the fairly difficult rematch against the Elite Four, Ninetales's Will-O-Wisp and Overheat along with its very good Speed made for some clutch plays.

And on paper, Raichu seems thoroughly outclassed by Jolteon but it has one noteworthy advantage: the ability to learn Light Screen. This along with Thunder Wave, equal Speed to Ninetales and decent enough Special Attack made it a solid team member as well.
 
I've crapped on Ninjask and Gen 3 Bugs in general in the past, but in playing Y and Omega Ruby, I've been pleasantly surprised. In Y specifically, X-Scissor gives Ninjask a great STAB way earlier than it should learn it and combined with an easily available Swords Dance and Dig, it's done some work. Even with a -Special Defense nature it managed to survive a Meowstic Psychic and rip through the rival's team outside Lumiose and do work against Valerie.

As for Omega Ruby, Dustox really surprised me with how good of an ability Shield Dust is. Let it take out Altaria 1v1 from what I remember.
 

ScraftyIsTheBest

On to new Horizons!
is a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus


Okay, I know what you're thinking. I know. Johto isn't kind to Chikorita at all, let alone Grass-types in general. Chikorita in general has a reputation for being the worst starter to use in GSC and HGSS and across the games in general as one of the worst. People give it flack for the fact that it cannot sweep through teams like Cyndaquil and Totodile can. You've heard it all. Chikorita and its evolutions in general have quite the bad reputation for in-game purposes.

Now granted, I'm a Cyndaquil loyalist to the max when it comes to Johto, and Typhlosion is my favorite of the Johto starters. But in a Gold playthrough I did a few months ago, I went out of my way to try using Chikorita for a playthrough. I used it knowing that I wasn't going to have the best or easiest time compared to using Cyndaquil or Totodile. But despite that? I didn't have a miserable experience with it at all. I used Chikorita knowing what it was designed to do, what its strengths according to its stats and movepool are, and I found it to be a pleasant surprise: yes, it's not the best Pokémon to use, but it proved itself to be a competent, and in many cases valuable member of my team, and a worthy starter Pokémon in its own right.

Meganium's whole schtick is that it's primarily defensively oriented. And it does that job quite well. Early on it gets access to Poison Powder, which it can use to poison opponents and slowly win out the battle through a war of attrition, combined with its good bulk. It also gets Reflect early. Even though it's disadvantaged against both Falkner and Bugsy, it can poison them and then switch out to a teammate like Geodude or something to win out, with the poison helping them.

It also gets the honor of having Reflect very early in the game. Between Poison Powder and Reflect, Bayleef was able to win out against Whitney's infamous Miltank, using passive damage and steady Razor Leafs combined with its bulk to outlive Miltank, and I also had some teammates iirc to help wear Miltank down and they benefit from Reflect to soften Miltank's blows. This proved itself to be extremely clutch.

Of course, it also does well against Chuck as it can use Reflect then win out through bulk and muscling through his Poliwrath. Despite Jasmine being a Steel specialist, Bayleef or Meganium can still perform against her Steelix since it has a neutral matchup there and can win out through Reflect and then wearing it down. Pryce is also a double-edged matchup, but not one Meganium is useless against since it can use its STAB to wear down all of his mons and has enough bulk to survive repeated super effective hits.

It also proved itself valuable against Clair's infamous Kingdra, as between Poison Powder and Razor Leaf, I gradually wore it down while Kingdra couldn't kill Meganium back in return. Against the Elite Four, it won out with Poison Powder against Karen's Umbreon, and even against the others, its utility/support proved valuable: it can set up Light Screen or Reflect, which is super clutch, while it can either spread poison or paralysis at your discretion, and both are super useful, especially if your team is underleveled. It's not gonna sweep Lance, but considering how overleveled he will be compared to you, Meganium's utility in Screens and status proves valuable in softening the Dragonites for a teammate, like Quagsire or Gyarados, to come in and finish them off.

Of course, contrary to its performance in Johto, Meganium does really well in Kanto. It does really well against all of Brock, Misty, and Lt. Surge and has some good uses against everyone else. I found its utility in Screens and status to be really useful against Red as well: in spite of my level disadvantage, those Screens helped the rest of my team stand their ground against his vastly overleveled team.

In general, play Meganium to its strengths, and it proves a surprisingly useful mon. It's not the mon that will plow through teams like Typhlosion, Feraligatr, or starters from other gens. It's more of a team player: the type who will win through war of attrition but mainly serves to provide utility and support, using its bulk and support movepool to provide utility that will help the rest of its teammates get the upper hand. In that sense, Meganium is quite competent at being the starter, but it has the starter feel in a way that's different from the rest: while the likes of Feraligatr or Typhlosion are the star of the show, the one who will wreck shit for you and be your main sweeping/nuking mon, Meganium is the backbone that holds your team together: the rest of your mons will sweep better if you have a well built team around Meganium, and the other mons are the stars, but Meganium hold everyone together so the team can shine better even against opponents they otherwise wouldn't do as well against.

Using Meganium in Gold was a very unique experience, and one I found to be quite fun. It's not the most efficient starter for sure, but it has a pretty different niche for a starter, and if you know how to use it and play to its strengths, it's surprisingly valuable. Just don't try to do a solo run with Meganium, because it's not meant for that: build a team around it, and Meganium's strengths will shine when it's with a team of Pokémon. I expected this mon to be a pain in the ass to use and a miserable experience, but on the contrary, I found Meganium to be very useful when played to its strengths and I thoroughly enjoyed playing through Gold with it.

I haven't used Meganium in HGSS, but I imagine it's probably a bit better there because it has better STAB in Petal Dance but overall I imagine its usefulness would be similar overall.
 
Some years ago, I did a GSC playthrough using only Dunsparce. It wasn't even planned. It was the first Pokémon that I encountered in the Dark Cave and I obviously took that as a signal from the heavens. The thing was a monster, altho I acumulated more than 50 videos on my phone trying to beat Jasmine by using Glare + Headbut (no heals). Hax was needed, but I triumphed.

After that, everything died to Defense Curl + Rollout.
 
Here's an interesting situation: a Pokemon that was bad initially... until I realized I was missing something.

That would be FRLG Chansey. Funnily enough, I had no problem actually catching it- I suppose it did come down to chance, and it came down in my favor >:)

But at the start, since I'd already used Toxic, it was just. Kinda not good. Even with Calm Mind, it struggled really hard, even on SE foes, even with a couple CMs up.

But then I remembered. Seismic Toss tutor.

CHANSYEET

(but seriously. it went from dead weight to pulling its weight. not much more but it became an actually very competent member of the team with seismic toss!)
 
:sm/Hariyama:

Hariyama in my Ultra Sun playthrough, I knew which ones I wanted. Incineroar, Lycanroc-D, Golispod, Salamence, and Alolan Raichu. Makuhita filled this last spot and he was frequently replaced with other options that I thought were better or more intriguing. But ultimately I reluctantly stayed with him since I didn't really have an idea on what I wanted to use instead of him and I just needed a 6th member. After he evolved into a Hariyama, however, he became an absolute unit. Once I got a Flame Orb (He had the Guts ability), Fake Out, and Facade, he became a wrecking ball. He frequently tanked hits that I didn't think he'd live and took down everything in his path. He'd even heal his burn from sheer determination just so he could take less damage from it (the Flame Orb would immediately burn him again but he wouldn't take damage). Went from a Pokemon I didn't really care for to one that I really like and respect. He was an integral part of my US team.
 
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