Hello Fellas! This is Missin here, and today I would like to discuss some Pokémon that I believe that are unfortunate in PMU. I’m going to talk about Pokémon who have some great qualities going for them, but are ultimately held back by something else. It could be that they have a great ability, family item, moves, or weather synergy, but something else about them makes them difficult to use. I’m not going to be discussing Pokémon that are outright garbage, like Unown and some NFEs. These Pokémon actually have potential to be fantastic or at least somewhat decent. This list will be in order by the generations each Pokémon came in, starting with the good old Gen 1, and I will be picking one Pokémon from each generation. Without further to do, let’s get started!
I don’t own any of this artwork.
Generation 1
Snorlax:
We start this list off with the classic Pokémon that likes to sleep in the middle of 3-way intersections. Although the lazy Pokémon is capable of taking a good beating, the moves that it could dish out are quite the disappointment. While it is pretty cool that Snorlax could use Earthquake and restore health by eating food, it gets no STAB off of EQ, and its actual STAB attacks are really poor. It will mostly have to rely on the poorly-ranged moves Body Slam, Return, or Rock Climb. Giga Impact or Double Edge could be used for higher power, but the former has a long cooldown and can miss, while the latter has recoil which hurts especially when Snorlax has an empty belly. Thrash would be an excellent option for Snorlax… if only it was able to learn Thrash. Maybe in Scarlet and Violet. For now, Snorlax’s best set has no STAB moves. My recommended set would be Outrage, Earthquake, Gunk Shot, and Rest. These moves are great, but without STAB it won’t do a lot of damage.
Generation 2
Espeon:
Espeon is an Eeveelution with an interesting ability in magic bounce and some decent moves for a Psychic type runner. Combining a spectral spoon alongside Choice Specs could allow Espeon to deal a lot of damage. It also doesn’t have to worry about status moves like heal block or encore, even if you don’t have a gem for it. It even gets reliable recovery in the form of morning sun! However… there is one major problem with this. Morning Sun… and pure Psychic typing… do not go well together at all. Psychic types have their gems and crystals activated via foggy rock in clear weather. Morning Sun heals a whopping 5% of your max HP in foggy weather. This means that activating Espeon’s gems or crystals will also strip it of its reliable recovery. It would then have to use the underwhelming Rest via TM to restore HP. If Espeon wants reliable recovery, it would have to have the slow 1x running speed and safeguard setup. The same could be said for Umbreon with Moonlight. PMU was not kind to the Johto Eeveelutions. If only they had a movement speed boosting family item in Clear or Sunny weather like Sylveon does. It would still require safeguard setup in some dungeons, but at least they wouldn’t have to run like a snail.
Generation 3
Sableye:
Sableye has some amazing things going for it as a speedrunner in dungeons. Its dark/ghost typing not only gives it 4x speed in fog, but also the ability to pass through walls. On top of this, it even gets reliable recovery in the form of Recover! However, the magic for Sableye stops there. Getting your foggy rock to activate requires cloud nine most of the time, and Sableye could always be shot down to normal speed if a Pokémon like Ninetales spawns on the floor. Sableye does get a couple of small AoE moves, but coming off of pitiful stats they won’t do too much damage if Sableye is forced to fight. To make matters worse, Sableye also has a terrible ability exclusive to it known as stall. This prevents its attacking moves from going over 2 tiles in range. Even if you try using moves that have great range on Sableye, it will end up having as much range as say, Facade. This mostly forces Sableye to try disrupting moves to get close to some enemies, but with little attacks to use, you’re going to end up using a lot of max ethers. You could remove this restriction for Sableye by using a nullifying amulet, but that also means you won’t be able to have cloud nine support for it! Sableye is just too high maintenance to become a decent speedrunner, and even then, there are better options for ghosts.
Generation 4
Garchomp:
Dratini and Gible are one of the hardest non-event Pokémon to obtain in PMU. They both require a literal grind through a high-level dungeon to get them. The former evolves into Dragonite, a powerful speedrunner who enjoys the luxury of the Dragon/Flying typing as well as Outrage and Roost. The latter however, is a none other than a disappointment for all of your hard work in Dynamo Sands Labyrinth. You may think, that maybe Garchomp would have a family item that absorbs Ice due to its quad weakness to it, but no. It’s Dragon, which has a redundancy with the Dragon Globe! Garchomp isn’t alone on this problem, as Charizard’s family item blocks water instead of its quad weakness to rock. A weakness to ice is far more glaring than a weakness to rock, however. Garchomp will have to worry about getting sniped by an Ice Beam, or trying to avoid a Blizzard. For this reason, Garchomp gets totally outclassed by Flygon, who gets a family item that actually absorbs Ice, a nifty ground immunity thanks to levitate, and reliable recovery in Roost. Flygon may have worse stats, but it is more accessible and has a much more useful ability and family item than Garchomp does. Perhaps the two Ground/Dragon types should switch places in terms of accessibility…
Generation 5
Durant:
Things are not looking good at all for Kevin Durant here in PMU. Although he is a professional at basketball, he is a beginner at exploring dungeons. The combination of both Hustle and Truant is a disaster. Not only does Durant attack slowly, but his short-range physical attacks don’t have perfect accuracy ethier. Missing an attack could be a potential death sentence to this basketball player ant, and its very likely to happen. Fortunately for him, a nullifying amulet could remedy this problem. Being a bug also means that he won’t need cloud nine support as long as one of his team members are holding a clear rock. Even with this though, he is still an underwhelming player. The utter lack of AoE moves makes him anything but vulnerable to the crowds. While his family item helps give him no weaknesses, coaches are better off sending Scizor into the game, who doesn’t need to rely on a nullifying amulet, and can deal some decent damage with Brutal Swing thanks to technician. Poor Kevin Durant just isn’t meant to explore dungeons and is better off playing for the Brooklyn Nets.
Generation 6
Dedenne:
I already discussed how electric is the worst type in PMU in my PMU typing tier list, and now I’m here to talk about an Electric rodent that totally got screwed over. Dedenne gets an additional Fairy typing so it doesn’t have to rely on Cloudy Rock to activate its gems and crystals. It also gets Parabolic Charge which is an AoE that drains HP from nearby enemies. You may think that it could at least rely on fairy type moves in the common situations when electric moves are useless, but no. All it gets in fairy attacks is Play Rough! Yes, it could learn Dazzling Gleam too… but only in Sword and Shield. Gen 8 movesets are not yet in the game for pre-Gen 8 Pokemon, so it can’t learn the move at the moment. Moving Gen 1-7 Pokémon into Gen 8 movesets also isn’t going to be easy because of dexit. For now, all Dedenne has for coverage is Signal Beam which isn’t STAB, and Grass Knot which is a very inconsistent move in PMU. Many electric types do struggle in PMU, but it’s even more unfortunate for Dedenne due to its secondary typing, and not having any decent moves for that type.
Generation 7
Incineroar:
PMU was quite kind to Decidueye and Primarina. The former’s combination of Synthesis, Grass/Ghost typing, and decent moves to utilize makes Decidueye one of the best ghost types in the game. The latter has very spammy attacks in rain and absolutely zero weaknesses when all globes and family items are equipped! Incineroar though… is anything but a champion in PMU. It is already cursed with the fact that attack is its best stat for a fire type, and therefore will have to rely on its weaker Special Attack for a decent ranged attack. Heat Wave and Flamethrower aren’t bad, but Incineroar’s lower special attack than the other fire starters makes it not worth using just for that niche. Yes, I know that it also gets 4x speed in sun with family items, but so does Charizard, Typhlosion, and Blaziken. Having its signature move, Darkest Lariat could’ve been a gain, but it has terrible range and pp, making Brutal Swing the more considerable option. A decent attack stat means nothing when you have no good moves to support it. A buff to Darkest Lariat or any physical fire move that Incineroar gets would be greatly appreciated.
Generation 8
Dragapult:
Galar got screwed over big time when it comes to family items. While not every Galar Pokémon in is the game yet, what we have so far is quite disastrous. We have Pokémon like Drednaw and Centiskorch who have no way of defending themselves against their 4x weaknesses, completely useless family items like Eldegoss’ family item, and redundant family items like Sirfetch’d’s, since it already has scrappy. However, I mainly want to talk about Dragapult. Galar’s pseudo-legendary may be a fantastic Pokémon in the arena, but for exploring dungeons it is totally outclassed. Dragapult tries to make a living doing what Hydreigon does, but worse. Its family items consist of move seal prevention, boosted evasion in fog, and dragon move absorption. Both of number 1 and number 3 clash with items that you could get in the event token shop, while number 2 would be better if it was in clear instead of fog. On top of all that, Dragapult is part ghost type with rest as its only form of recovery. This makes it the only pseudo-legendary that mandates a trapped scarf if you ever wish to train it. Dragon Darts is a fantastic move, but not having reliable recovery or good family items is a big letdown. Please, Kirk, give Dragapult better family items, and hope that Scarlet ad Violet will give it Roost or Recover… a pseudo-legendary Pokémon should not be done this dirty.
And that is all the Pokémon I have to go over today! Like all Pokémon games including fangames like this, some Pokémon are just destined to be better than others. Some Pokémon could be great if something wasn’t holding them back. I do really hope that future Pokémon do not suffer the same fate as these Pokémon, and the current Pokémon I listed here do get a buff in some way in the future. What are some Pokémon that you believe are unfortunate in pmu? Leave a comment down below. Thanks for reading as always, and…
Missin out!
