Pokémon that are great competitively but suck in-game (and vice versa)

Slowpoke is a huge bother and I really have no idea how you got through HGSS with it. It evolves at level 37, and with the leveling in HGSS that means it won't be evolved until you get to Clair. Also, Slowpoke's Special Attack is a godly Base 40, which means you'll be 3HKOing Golbats and Grimers. How very dominating. Add that to not being able to run away from wildmons. Oh, and Slowpoke has "good" 90/65/40 bulk. Really good, right? Combined with it typing which leaves it weak to Bug, Grass, Dark, Electric, AND Ghost, with three of those being extremely common early-game. It has Base 65 Attack but doesn't get any STAB off that Attack stat until level 32.

In XY yes they are pretty decent thanks to the highly inflated level curve and in RBY it had some use because Psychic-type. Definitely not in HGSS. Unless you have King's Rock+Trade.
Well when you put it that way. I guess I'm just biased because I really like the Slowpoke family and may be going out of my way to make it work -shrug- but I've never had much of an issue with them.

My point was that Slowbro, in my experience, isn't as bad in-game as Blissey.
 

Its_A_Random

A distant memory
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To be fair at least Slowpoke is easy to get as opposed to Chansey/Blissey who are a classic case of Pokémon who do well competitively but suck in-game.

Speaking of, this is why Chansey/Blissey fit the great competitively/suck ingame mould (Forgive me if it has already been gone over in this thread before). In competitive, Chansey (or her evolution in some cases) is pretty much a relevant competitive force ever since the first generation and has been present in one way or another, from holding stall together to other things in other generations. In-game however, they are textbook bad, as evidenced by the various in-game tier lists on-site listing it in the lowest tier for one reason or another. From being Nintendo Hard to catch in the Kanto games and not offering much otherwise to being simply a punching bag with next to no offensive presence in the Sinnoh games. The only upside to it is that it can take hits. That is pretty much it. Chansey would actually be quite useful in RBY if it was not such a pain in the arse to catch though since 105 Special is actually quite good, though it faces competition for TM's to actually make use of it offensively.
 
the funny thing about blissey was that i normally bring 2 of them into the E4 to serve as softboiled mules, conserving full restores

of course it's still horrible lol (a team of starter/staraptor/cover legend is strong enough to break the game anw)
 
I'm going to say Skarmory falls into the category of awesome competitively, (it has been OU since gen 2 and still going strong) but in-game it kind of sucks. The reason being how late in the game it usually becomes available. In gen 2, it's on Route 45 and by then you might only have Clair's gym left and then the Elite Four. D/P/Pt? Post game. Not in B/W, and in X/Y...Victory Road where it only matches up pretty nicely against Diantha and even then most of the other Steel types available have that same match up while being available earlier. R/S/E and B2/W2 are the only ones where its available early enough to be successful, though its still rather late in the latter.
 
I'm going to say Skarmory falls into the category of awesome competitively, (it has been OU since gen 2 and still going strong) but in-game it kind of sucks. The reason being how late in the game it usually becomes available. In gen 2, it's on Route 45 and by then you might only have Clair's gym left and then the Elite Four. D/P/Pt? Post game. Not in B/W, and in X/Y...Victory Road where it only matches up pretty nicely against Diantha and even then most of the other Steel types available have that same match up while being available earlier. R/S/E and B2/W2 are the only ones where its available early enough to be successful, though its still rather late in the latter.
I actually used Skarmory in HGSS and it wasn't that bad. I mean it walls just about anything you will face after that point making it rather useful. You can have the Fly HM to give him for a decently strong Flying type attack and base 70 attack while not that good is still usable. It also gets Night Slash a few levels after catching it and can learn the Steel Wing TM to give it a good Steel type STAB. It is rather easy to grind for levels since you have the super effective Steel Wing attack to grind on both route 45 and Ice Path letting it catch up to your team in just a few levels. It does really good against Clair and the elite 4 thanks to it's high defenses and typing which is pretty cool. You can also just throw Skarmory against almost any Pokemon to let it sponge some hits while you heal up your team to full. I won't say Skarmory is the best option for a Flying type since Pokemon like Fearow, Scyther and Crobat are usually better Flying types for in game but Skarmory is still rather solid. It also helps that it is one of the few Steel types you can get before Kanto since Forretres is the only other one who is honestly very similar to Skarmory but available earlier in the game while being difficult to train in return. Magneton can't evolve in HGSS which is Magneton's main problem even though it is still a solid Pokemon while Scizor and Steelix aren't obtainable before Kanto since you can only get the Metal Coat after beating the elite 4. Honestly defensive Pokemon aren't as bad as people say they are in game.
 
I'm going to say Skarmory falls into the category of awesome competitively, (it has been OU since gen 2 and still going strong) but in-game it kind of sucks. The reason being how late in the game it usually becomes available. In gen 2, it's on Route 45 and by then you might only have Clair's gym left and then the Elite Four. D/P/Pt? Post game. Not in B/W, and in X/Y...Victory Road where it only matches up pretty nicely against Diantha and even then most of the other Steel types available have that same match up while being available earlier. R/S/E and B2/W2 are the only ones where its available early enough to be successful, though its still rather late in the latter.
I wouldn't say it's amazing in-game by any stretch but it's not really bad - at least in the few games you can get it, heh. I used one in one of my Emerald runs and I remember it being pretty good - being fully evolved it has great stats to carry you through a part of the game where you are only likely to have first or mid stage Pokémon, it has a good unique typing and while it's never really oh-my-god-amazing, it never really felt like dead weight to me. She done well.
Just wish she could have kept her name of Penelope in XY, GOD
 
Braviary can be found after the third gym on Route 4 in White 2 on Mondays at Level 25 with Defiant as its ability. Getting something with base 125 Attack that early in a game is earth-shattering. It can use two HMs without diminishing its power (Strength and Fly, STAB on both, and the amount of Intimidate users you'll encounter in-game makes Defiant very worthwhile.

Competitively, it is for the most part outshined by every Flying type bar the crappy ones. It was useful in NU last gen, but it wasn't anything special.
While this is totally true, it becomes even greater ingame by the ability to catch it and only need to level up a little bit in B/W to evolve it, but Sheer Force makes it almost game-breakingin B/W - having Crush Claw/Shadow Claw/Rock Slide/etc... to meet Sheer force's boost, it is easily the best Flyer in Gen 5.

And Also, Girafarig. not particularly good stats anywhere mean it isn't too successful competitively, but it has a good base 90 Sp.Atk, and a pretty big special movepool, making it an ingame monster. Although, the issue is it hasn't been able to be caught online since 4th gen, but still...
 

dwarfstar

mindless philosopher
Vespiquen is a pretty good nominee for this list, I think. I started a Platinum Nuzlocke a little while back, and I ended up going to all the Honey Trees available instead of catching Pokemon from the grass because I was trying for a Heracross (I allowed myself to ignore already-caught Pokemon I encounter first for the sake of being able to do this, because my gimmick in-game is that I must always have a Bug-type on my team). I eventually gave up on the Heracross, but I was lucky enough to get a female Combee, and I decided to train her up in case I couldn't find a Scyther or a Yanma later. Vespiquen doesn't have a huge damage output, but base 80 offenses are respectable for something available so early, and I never remembered how TANKY Vespiquen is by story-mode standards. She can take all sorts of neutral hits (and even some SE ones), heal off the damage, and whittle the enemy down with Toxic (I'm so thankful this is in her level-up movepool) and offensive moves. In retrospect, I probably should have tried to EV her for physical instead of special attacking (was going for a max HP/offense spread, but forgot that she can't learn Bug Buzz for some reason), but she's still serving me well, despite the fact that her overall damage output is significantly lower than the rest of my team (for reference, that's Torterra/Alakazam/Gyarados/Staraptor/Raichu right before the sixth Gym).
 
Slaking. Okay, so you do need to use an Exp. Share for Slakoth to evolve, but Vigoroth is good enough. Slaking has a godlike attack stat, and just switches out for free if the enemy is KO'd. Terrible competitively because the battle style is set. The main problem is that most of its move pool in HG/SS (the latest version it is found in) is Move Tutor and TMs, but its attack makes even weak moves strong.
 
I'm surprised no one's said gyarados yet.

Prior to gen 4 it was absolute shit because of the physical/special split. And I loved how when you defeated a high-level opponent, your magikarp would jump from level 19 to 21 and thus when it evolved it wouldn't learn bite :(
 
I'm surprised no one's said gyarados yet.

Prior to gen 4 it was absolute shit because of the physical/special split. And I loved how when you defeated a high-level opponent, your magikarp would jump from level 19 to 21 and thus when it evolved it wouldn't learn bite :(
It was pretty damn good in Gen 1, where it's special was a great 100.
 
Hell, all the Unova starters. They're all pretty damn brilliant in-game, but competitively they're all badly outclassed
Until Serperior gets Contrary
Pls gf
 
Well, pretty much any starter is good in game but shite competitively (HAs don't count since you can't get them during the story) obvoius exceptions are the Kanto starters (Megas) Blaziken (Uber and Mega) and based god Typhlosion Swampert? Idk maybe Empoleon too XD

But I'm surprised no ones mentioned Lapras yet. Decent Movepool, bulky AF (for in game), good offensive stats, it basically carried me through Y... It made a good Surfer and came at the good level of 30 ^_^ (And Sheer Cold shenanigans! And Parafusion too :P)
Sucks that it's bad even in NU :/
 
Well, pretty much any starter is good in game but shite competitively (HAs don't count since you can't get them during the story) obvoius exceptions are the Kanto starters (Megas) Blaziken (Uber and Mega) and based god Typhlosion Swampert? Idk maybe Empoleon too XD
Infernape and Chesnaught are pretty rad.
Meanwhile Greninja says hi
 
Also Alakazam. Such a bitch to evolve abra ----> Kadabra ----> finally teach it psychic
I think you're vastly underestimating the power of early-game Kadabra's Psybeam. In most games, level 16 corresponds to before Gym 2, in a couple cases you'll get it shortly after (HGSS and RSE to an extent), at which point your opponents are still mostly unevolved early-game mons. The presence of Geodude and Machop around this time also benefits it. It doesn't even need to evolve until late-game and in games like RBY you don't even need to evolve it at all.

Also Level 40 for Psychic isn't that bad, especially compared to Jolteon, who doesn't get any usable STAB until level 37 (yeah good luck doing damage with Thunder Fang).
 
I think most pseudo-legendaries have the issue of being pretty bad in-game. Think of DNite: It evolves at Lv 55 which means it is stuck as a Dragonair for pretty much the whole game until the Elite 4. Hydreigon is even worse since it usually won't evolve until post-game. Good luck hitting something while you have the Hustle Ability. They also have pretty bad movepools outside of egg moves and TMs (which is a problem until Gen 5)

Slow pokemon are also pretty bad. The Slowbro family, Reuniculus , Conkeldurr, Musharna all pretty much have to eat a hit before killing an opponent.

However, Special mention must go to Ditto, Smeargle and the Chansey family.
 
I think most pseudo-legendaries have the issue of being pretty bad in-game.
There are fortunately quite a few exceptions. Garchomp is relatively easy to get to it's last stage in Platinum where it can absolutely wreck with earthquake and dragon rush. Metagross I've found to be a fantastic late-game Pokémon in BW2. And then there's... fucking everything in XY.
 

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