Have anyone ever had trouble raising a particular Pokemon?

[henrymidfields]

Whether it is due to the Pokémon constantly getting KOed, or it's attack just doesn't connect, or something else?

Played Black 1, and had so much trouble raising Blitzle. It's attack is mediocre, and it's way too fragile. It doesn't matter just how many levels it is above, if an under-leveled wild Pokémon does a critical hit, then it's an instant KO. Type-resistance? Doesn't help at all, even with flying type moves; Blitzle will still lose at least 1/3 of its max HP. Gonna KO the other Pokémon first? That ain't happening with it's mediocre offense. I eventually ditched it for Emolga; at least the latter hits harder, and seem to have better movepools. Also had trouble with Darumaka, but at least that had decent offense to land a possible KO first.

Sadly, I also gave up raising Chikorita in GSC. As you all know, none of the gyms were weak against the Grass-type, and two at the start were advantaged against. It also didn't help that there weren't any fire-type non-starters around, either.

 

[Hex Maniac]

Hm. That's strange. Have you checked that pokémons stats? Maybe they have a ridiculously low defense or something. I've noticed that some pokémon are more fragile than others, it's happened to me in some of the game's battle that my pokémon were at the same level as the opponent and didn't have a type advantage but managed to KO them.

I had a Chikorita on one of the times I played Gold/Silver and never had a problem with it.

Have you tried Exp. Share? You could always also use that old trick of placing the pokémon you want to raise in the first slot of your party, then switching to a stronger pokémon immediately, so the initial one will still get some points when you defeat the rival pokémon. This should work well in GSC at least.

If you don't want to do that, you can always use TMs to give it more defensive moves and stalling moves like substitute and protect, coupled with some healing moves to keep restoring HP.

 

[henrymidfields]

Hm. That's strange. Have you checked that pokémons stats? Maybe they have a ridiculously low defense or something. I've noticed that some pokémon are more fragile than others, it's happened to me in some of the game's battle that my pokémon were at the same level as the opponent and didn't have a type advantage but managed to KO them. ... Have you tried Exp. Share? You could always also use that old trick of placing the pokémon you want to raise in the first slot of your party, then switching to a stronger pokémon immediately, so the initial one will still get some points when you defeat the rival pokémon.

I actually meant the Chikorita as a back in the ages when GSC first came out in 1999-2000. Back then, I didn't know how the battle system worked. If this was now, I would be a lot more gameplay-savvy.

As for Blitzle (that's within my current playthrough of Black), this was unusual because I haven't had any trouble training any of my other Pokémon, either in Black, Y, or even Silver in 2000. Even Pikachu/Raichu in XY was able to take a neutral hit, so I'm assuming that Blitzle just had really poor defense. And some other gamers in other forumns seem to have the same issue, so it looks like it's not just me.

 

[phoen1x309]

Pretty much anything that evolves from happiness upon your first playthrough of a game.
Pichu and Riolu in particular.

 

[CalamityRobin]

Until recently, I found it very difficult to raise Lileep. I couldn't stand its appearance, and the moves it had access to made it more of a pain to use than anything. Astonish and Constrict, two weak moves with no same-type bonus, Acid, still not a great move and with no bonus, and Ingrain, which I hate and just prolonged the amount of time I had to use Lileep, as well as keeping me from switching it out. I couldn't beat anything with it, and when I finally discovered what it evolved into back then, I shelved it and never looked back.

I'm very happy with the Cradily I have now, but that took a lot of one-use TMs.

 

[Paleo]

Rufflet
It is too frail to survive anything and too slow and not strong enough to OHKO things at a higher level
And then leveling it to 54...

 

[Greendot]

Pretty much any dragon type. They always make you wait until mid-to-late game to actually catch one, and I just don't have the patience to evolve them so they can be used.

 

[Osprey]

Pokemon you receive at a low level fairly late into the game. I never raised the fossil Pokemon of FR/LG for this reason; by then my whole team's at least lv. 40-ish, and I don't have the patience to raise a mediocre lv. 5 thing to lv. 40. Also, I had issues raising Budew's line, and Purrloin is the easily the frailest Dark-type around.

 

[Norzan]

Jellicent, the case where it's awesome in competitve battling but mediocre ingame.

 

[Solayoh]

I had the same problem with the above poster on razing Blitzle, Tranquil also posed a challenge.

 

[Dr. Buni]

Purrloin is fucking awful to train.

 

[Alola]

Oooh Pidgeotto for sure. It has horrible moves, a below decent BST and stat distribution and you have to slog through it until level 36...where it still doesn't get much better. Did I mention its moveset sucks balls?

Also, a majority of Dragon types that can evolve. Axew was really the only one I could raise and have no problem with, gameplay wise.

And anything friendship based before Gen 4 was a mega pain. I gave up trying to get Espeon in my Silver T____T
But it was ridiculously easy in Gen 4 and beyond.

 

[TFSpock]

I had some trouble with Bisharp in White 2. As a Pawniard it would always get OHKOed by any high-power attack, and since it didn't evolve until level 52 I was basically forced to have it leech Exp off of the others via Exp. Share.

 

[ocelotlrama jaguar]

I never have this issue post-Elite Four, but good Lord, PRE-Elite Four... *takes deep breath* who to bring up..

Probably the worst experience I had with raising a Pokemon was in the 5th Generation. Those damn elemental monkeys. Most Pokemon that are super weak and take forever to level up because they require a massive amount experience points at least evolve into potentially great Pokemon. The monkeys are super weak Pokemon that take a massive amount of experience points to level up yet they stay completely worthless. They are the worst, hands down. Butterfree is a million times more useful than those things.

I agree with Reila who mentioned Purrloin was also a pain to train. Still, she evolves into one of my favorite Pokemon, so I can easily forgive her awfulness. The elemental monkeys... ugh.

 

[Warrior of Fire]

I never have this issue post-Elite Four, but good Lord, PRE-Elite Four... *takes deep breath* who to bring up..

Probably the worst experience I had with raising a Pokemon was in the 5th Generation. Those damn elemental monkeys. Most Pokemon that are super weak and take forever to level up because they require a massive amount experience points at least evolve into potentially great Pokemon. The monkeys are super weak Pokemon that take a massive amount of experience points to level up yet they stay completely worthless. They are the worst, hands down. Butterfree is a million times more useful than those things.

I agree with Reila who mentioned Purrloin was also a pain to train. Still, she evolves into one of my favorite Pokemon, so I can easily forgive her awfulness. The elemental monkeys... ugh.

I'm not sure where I stand with the other two, but Panpour was a key member of my team in White 2. It was my team's water type and worked with my electric type, Thudurus, well (Thundurus laying down a Rain Dance for perfect accuracy Thunder, and Simipour packing Surf). I never found it hard to raise at all.

My problem Pokemon to raise are all of the low level ones I transferred from White 2 to X, and that's only because I'm also EV training them and not using the Exp. Share until I'm on the last one. Once they get to a high enough level to stand up to the wild Pokemon, the hard part just drops off. And except for special attack and special defense, it's always finding those low level wild Pokemon with the correct EV yield (special attack, I just go fishing with the Good Rod in Ambrette Town, while I just pack Sweet Scent in the yellow flowers on Route 7 for Hoppip hordes).

 

[Zkat]

I also had trouble raising Purrlion/Liepard. I ended up using Liepard until I beat the main story in Pokemon White, but then I replaced it with Crobat. I like Liepard, but it was just too frail. Considering that I actually used Blitzle/Zebstrika on my team and kept it, that's saying something. (I also used Simisear until I beat the main story and didn't think it was that bad.)

I had a similar problem with Swanna in White 2. I used it until I beat the champion, and then replaced it with Starmie. The deciding moment was when Swanna used ice beam on Iris's Druddigon that had about 1/4 of its health left and it still didn't KO. I don't even think its health went into the red. Seriously? :sweat:

 

[RainbowSylveon]

Purrloin is a royal pain in the ass to raise. I hate the thing. It's terribly frail and just in general pretty awful. I also have issues with raising Pikachu, but meh.

 

[GhostFingers]

Blitzle is frail as a species, Zebstrika's speed (and speed boosts from flame charge and motor drive) makes up for this. I haven't really used Zeb in battle since i defeated Elesa (abusing motor drive in her gym was funny). Tynamo was a HUGE pain in the ass to raise, but it was worth it because now i have a lv60 Eelektross that kills everything. Tynamo is the gen V Magikarp: crap stats and can't learn TMs or HMs.

I find Liepard is really frail too, which is a shame because it fits the Egyptian-themed team i'm building.

For a friendship-evolver i didn't have any problems with Woobat. Ironic, because in all previous gens, Zubat has terrible level up moves which makes it very hard to train until it becomes a Golbat. This is the reason i've never had the patience to train Tentacool or Goldeen either.

 

[LavenderTownGhost]

I had trouble raising Purrloin/Liepard. Which is a shame because I love it, but it just.....sucks.

 

[henrymidfields]

We seem to get a lot of answers from Gen 5. Are Gen 5's Pokémon really this poorly balanced? Or is it exacerbated by the lack of choices, particularly in Black 1 and White 1?

Hinokou: I'm surprised you mentioned Pigeotto. Was this in the earlier games or XY? I didn't really struggle in raising my Pidgey in XY.

Although finding out that Pidgey does miniscule damage with Twister was a letdown. At first I was like: A dragon-type move!!?? Oh my gosh this is gonna be awesom- only 1/6 damage of (insert opponent) HP??!! Are you #%$@ing serious!? Yeah, didn't know it was 40BP, and Pidgey didn't learn any other Dragon-type moves after.