Looking at overpowered Pokémon

[Glen-i]

Awwww yeah! Nerdy Pokémon thread time!

The mainline Pokémon games have a thriving competitive scene. The official one, the VGC (Video Game Championships) is the one you likely have heard of. It uses Doubles format (Each player brings 6 Pokémon, they choose 4, and send them out 2 at a time) and doesn't really have restrictions for most Pokémon. Legendaries are sometimes banned, but not always. You can make the argument for a few Pokémon being really overpowered there, but there's no official consensus on what those Pokémon are.

For the sake of this thread, I'm going to Smogon.
What the hell is Smogon? Fair question.
Smogon is the de facto unofficial competitive Pokémon scene. Unlike VGC, they focus primarily on Singles format where each player uses all 6 Pokémon. They dabble in Doubles, but Singles is what they usually focus on.

These days, the attempted balancing of Pokémon that Game Freak does is focused on the Doubles format. It's weird to think about because the casual player won't see many Double battles in-game. If you ever thought a Pokémon game is too easy, that's probably why. Doubles format is a lot more complex, it's my preferred format. However, this has had the side effect of inflicting Smogon with various Pokémon over the years that are way too good for Singles. Whenever this happens, the Smogon community get together and debate on whether that Pokémon should be banned to the "Ubers" tier.

What the hell is Ubers? Another fair question.
Smogon has numerous tiers that Pokémon are sorted into. The Ubers tier is the tier that allows almost all Pokémon in them. If a Pokémon is banned to Ubers, it's because they're such a dominating force in lower tiers that they make almost every other Pokémon non-viable. The majority of Pokémon that can only be used in Ubers are Legendary Pokémon, like Mewtwo. But those Pokémon aren't very interesting to look at because legendary Pokémon are designed to be overpowered.

What I'm doing is looking at the much rarer case when a more common Pokémon, for whatever reason, is or was overpowered at some point. Some of these are quite unexpected, some are hilarious, and some were definitely a mistake. Our first example is all three! 

Oh no! It's Wobbuffet! And also Wynaut. Wobbuffet is most well known for being one of the Pokémon Team Rocket had in the anime. Funnily enough, it barely ever battled, it just kept escaping it's Poké Ball to shout its name at people.
That's a far cry from it's competitive career. This thing is scary! I mean, even the unevolved form of Wobbuffet was so broken that it had to be banned. Here are their base stats:

Those stats on paper are absolutely dreadful, but these two Pokémon are weird in that they have no way of doing direct damage to the opponent. Instead, Wobbuffet and Wynaut primarily use Counter and Mirror Coat to inflict double the damage of the attack they just took back on the opponent. When Wobbuffet was first introduced in Gen 2 (Gold/Silver), it was not a threat. It's easy to predict, just switch something else in and start using stat boosting moves like Swords Dance, and knock it out in one shot.

Instead, these two Pokémon are banned to Ubers specifically in Gen 3 (Ruby/Sapphire), and Gen 4 (Diamond/Pearl), and that's because of the introduction of Abilities. Abilities are passive effects every Pokémon has, and these two have the Shadow Tag ability.

Shadow Tag: The opponent cannot run nor switch while this Pokémon is in play. The opponent may still switch by using Baton Pass.

That ability make these two Pokémon amazing trappers. Send them in against an offensive threat, and use basic knowledge of what the opposing Pokémon will do to force them to effectively knock themselves out. There's nothing the opponent can do against a decent player sending this out at the opportune time, and with that monstrous HP stat, you won't be knocking out Wobbuffet in one turn. Wobbuffet is basically a delete button. Hell, it's more likely then not that it'll KO two Pokemon before finally fainting.

So why bother with Wynaut? Well, you're not allowed to use two Pokémon with the same Pokédex number on the same team. Discount Wobbuffet is still a great trapper Pokémon, so you can effectively have two of the buggers!

By the way, in Gen 4, if you give Wobbuffet or Wynaut the Leftovers item (At the end of every turn, the holder regains 1/16th of their maximum HP), and send it out against another Wobbuffet/Wynaut with Leftovers, the match will never end because the recoil damage from the eventual Struggle (An attack a Pokémon that runs out of PP will use) attacks is less then the recovered health from Leftovers. For this reason, you're not allowed to give these Pokémon Leftovers in Smogon.

So why aren't these Pokémon in Ubers anymore? General power creep, really. They haven't changed much from Gen 5 onwards, but there are a lot more options to switch out, even with Shadow Tag. Pivoting moves like U-Turn, the Shed Tail item, or the change so that Ghost types aren't affected by trapping strategies make Wobbuffet less universally effective. It can still blindside an unprepared player, but there are better options these days.

At the end of these sections, I'm gonna talk about whether these ridiculous competitive strategies can be applied to the kind of gameplay most of you normies will see in Pokémon games; a normal playthrough of the games.

Does that mean it's good in casual play?

Nah, not really. CPU trainers are a lot harder to predict, so you can't really use knowledge to make reliable plays with Wobbuffet. Don't use Wobbuffet.

Edited February 8 by Glen-i

[Jonnas]

This is going to be a fun thread I dabbled a bit in competitive Pokémon back in the RSE era, but only a bit. Just enough to understand some basic terminology, at least the one that was used at the time (nowadays I see terms like "RU", and I rarely remember where that tier is)

I suppose the only Gen 1 and Gen 2 Pokémon to qualify for this thread would be Legendaries like Mewtwo (and maybe Gen 2 Snorlax?), so this is all going to be stuff I'm only barely aware of. I know about Garchomp, at least.

[Glen-i]

1 hour ago, Jonnas said:

I suppose the only Gen 1 and Gen 2 Pokémon to qualify for this thread would be Legendaries like Mewtwo (and maybe Gen 2 Snorlax?), so this is all going to be stuff I'm only barely aware of. I know about Garchomp, at least.

There's a key difference between Pokémon that are banned to Ubers, and Pokémon that have viable strategies for Ubers. So Gen 2 Snorlax has a use for that tier, but it's not so powerful that it can't be used in a lower tier. (In this case, Snorlax can be used in the next lower tier, OU, or OverUsed, but none of the lower ones then that)

1 hour ago, Jonnas said:

(nowadays I see terms like "RU", and I rarely remember where that tier is)

Can't be certain if you're serious here, because through possible sheer coincidence, you nailed it. RU stands for RarelyUsed.
EDIT: Wait, hang on, reading comprehension fail. You typed "where that tier is", not "what that tier is". You totally typed rarely on purpose.
But yeah, if I overlook a term, and you, or anyone else need clarification, do ask me.

Edited February 8 by Glen-i

[BowserBasher]

I understood some of those words 

I was never into the competitive side of it so most of my teams in game where just later mons I caught. So my knowledge comes down to this:

Obviously the most overpowered Pokèmon is Ash’s Pikachu. That thing must have had like a 99% winning record. 

[Glen-i]

21 minutes ago, BowserBasher said:

Obviously the most overpowered Pokèmon is Ash’s Pikachu. That thing must have had like a 99% winning record. 

Nope, not even close! Although it is above 50%.

Of all things, his Mankey from the first series has the only perfect win rate. And he ditched it!

[BowserBasher]

Well I never knew that. I guess when he just uses one Pikachu all the time it’s bound to have a lower win rate. 

[Glen-i]

34 minutes ago, BowserBasher said:

Well I never knew that. I guess when he just uses one Pikachu all the time it’s bound to have a lower win rate. 

I mean, that and the writers have to provide drama, and let other Pokémon get the spotlight now and again. Part of the point of the anime is that it's advertising the new games.

[Ashley]

What does smogon mean. Is it a portmanteau between... Smoking and Porygon?

[Glen-i]

10 minutes ago, Ashley said:

What does smogon mean.

It's the German name for Koffing. Originally, it was group of enthusiasts on a forum board organising battles with each other (2004, I believe, that was), but as more people started taking part, the people who started it decided that they should branch out and make a dedicated site for that kind of battling. They wanted a mascot Pokémon, so they went with some kind of edgy in-joke about taking the mick out of Nazis. They've gone on record saying that they find that kind of embarrassing at this point, but the name has been grandfathered in at this point.

Edited February 8 by Glen-i

[bob]

Oh, i actually thought Smogon was a Pokemon, and the most powerful competitive one at that. Seems nobody is doing good reading comprehension in this thread.

 

Edit: I mean, Smogon is a Pokemon, but i thought it was a different one from Koffing

Edited February 8 by bob

[Ashley]

58 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Originally, it was group of enthusiasts on a forum board organising battles with each other (2004, I believe, that was)

Imagine having been on a forum for that long...

[Julius]

Always enjoy these threads @Glen-i, thanks for doing them! Looking forward to seeing what turns up 

The one and only time I tried to get into competitive Pokémon, back in Gen VI, the Gen IV Destroyer of Worlds finally revealed itself:

Still one of my favourite pieces of Pokémon fan art 

[Glen-i]

51 minutes ago, Julius said:

The one and only time I tried to get into competitive Pokémon, back in Gen VI, the Gen IV Destroyer of Worlds finally revealed itself:

Oh man, Se Jun Park's Pachirisu was glorious. That Pokémon unfortunately won't be showing up here, because it can't do nearly as well in Singles.

You know what though? Just last year, he brought it back for VGC! Seriously, the crowd went berserk when he sent it out! Didn't clinch him the win this time, Gen 9 is a brutal scene.

Which goes to prove why Doubles is so much more interesting. The sheer amount of options and strategies it opens up means that some genius player can discover something that everyone else has discounted, and use it to utterly bewilder their opponents. Se Jun leveraged an advantage in 2014, because his opponent had no clue how to deal with it

[Dcubed]

7 hours ago, Julius said:

Always enjoy these threads @Glen-i, thanks for doing them! Looking forward to seeing what turns up 

The one and only time I tried to get into competitive Pokémon, back in Gen VI, the Gen IV Destroyer of Worlds finally revealed itself:

Still one of my favourite pieces of Pokémon fan art 

As amazing as that moment was? I think the single best Worlds upset moment was in the Seniors 2019 Final where Ko Tsukide busted out his legendary Togedamaru…

That Eject Button play!! The stuff of legends!

[RedShell]

On 2/8/2025 at 3:01 PM, BowserBasher said:

Obviously the most overpowered Pokèmon is Ash’s Pikachu.

Just Pikachu in general, correct.

 

 

[Glen-i]

Right, I wasn't around last week, so already behind a week more then I would've liked.
Huh? Oh no, you're not getting two posts now. Don't be stupid.

There's only one non-legendary Pokémon that was banned to Ubers in Gen 3 (Ruby/Sapphire), so we're moving to Gen 4 (Diamond/Pearl) now.

Wobbuffet/Wynaut is a weird case of a Pokémon most people wouldn't expect to be good enough to be banned to Ubers actually getting there. This time, anyone with even a basic knowledge of how strong Pokémon can be can tell you this next one is good. In fact, @Jonnas already did.

Garchomp is a Ground/Dragon Pokémon introduced in the Gen 4 games. It's our first example of what is officially called a "Powerhouse Pokémon". Powerhouse Pokémon all have a BST (Base Stat Total, the total of a Pokémon's base stats) of 600. The Powerhouse Pokémon most of you know of is Dragonite. So they're designed to be strong, but not quite as strong as Legendary Pokémon... In theory, anyway.

Garchomp is a land shark, it's also a jet, apparently. Yeah, the thing can fly, somehow. It's most famous for being the signature Pokémon of the Gen 4 champion, Cynthia, probably one of the most difficult battles in the mainline games (there have been harder since). She has a lot of very good Pokémon, and Garchomp is only one of them. Here are it's base stats.

See? They add up to 600. That's why the BST is 600.

That's a really nice stat spread. Special Attack is not important for Garchomp, so that being the lowest stat is no problem.
What makes Garchomp so much better then it's other Powerhouse counterparts of the time? Well, multiple things, but the main thing is it's speed stat.

The speed stat in Pokémon determines the turn order in battles. In normal circumstances, the Pokémon with the higher speed stat will go first. It doesn't matter if you have 1 more speed, or 100 more. So ideally, you want your Pokémon to have just enough speed to outspeed your opponent, anything more then that is kind of a waste. Funnily enough, that clip @RedShell posted above is a good example of this, doesn't matter how big and strong you are, if someone goes first and ends the fight, you don't get to do a thing.

A lot of good Pokémon in competitive battles have a base Speed stat of 100, this means that Garchomp outspeeds most Pokémon with minimal stats invested into it's Speed. That kind of min-maxing made it an absolute menace. As well as that, Garchomp's diverse movepool means it can fulfill a good variety of roles, which means your opponent needs to guess at what you plan to do with Garchomp. If they guess wrong, or aren't able to counter your plan, then you get an immense amount of momentum, and there's a real chance that you will procced to destroy the opponent.

Oh, but that's not all. Because Garchomp has an absolutely killer ability in Gen 4 in the form of Sand Veil.

Sand Veil: Raises the Pokémon’s evasion during a sandstorm by one level.

So let me tell you something about the Smogon community. They absolutely loathe anything that affects evasion. If a Pokémon has any method of changing this, Smogon will go out of it's way to ban it in some way. This is why Bidoof was once banned to Ubers, BTW. Unfortunately, that's no longer the case, so you won't be seeing that Pokémon here.

But you know what the most surprising thing about Garchomp is? It's only in Gen 4 that Garchomp is actually banned to Ubers! One of the most famous examples of what this thread is about is actually only relevant in one generation. After that, it got an alternative ability that's nowhere near as good as Sand Veil, so Smogon only allows Garchomp to have that not-as-good ability. For almost every other generation, it's actually in OU (OverUsed).

Well, except Gen 9 (Scarlet/Violet). It's actually fallen lower there! It's now in UU (UnderUsed). The power creep has not been kind to ol' Garcho.

Now, I know what some of you thinking, didn't Garchomp get a Mega Evolution? Well yeah, it did. But unlike every other Mega Evolution ever, Mega Garchomp is actually worse then the regular one! For reasons I can only imagine as balancing attempts, Garchomp's base speed goes down by 10 when it Mega Evolves, which if you've been paying attention, puts it below the ideal 100 speed threshold. Which means that most people just used their Mega Evolution on a different Pokémon instead.

Does that mean it's good in casual play?

Oh boy, is it ever! To be fair, most Powerhouse Pokémon are good. The big downside is that like all Powerhouse Pokémon, they're hard to find, take a while to train, and tend to evolve quite late. Put in the effort though, and you've got a ridiculously good Pokémon. You can't go wrong with Garchomp here.
And remember, casual playthroughs don't have to follow Smogon's rules, so feel free to be an utter degenerate and use Sand Veil.

Edited 6 hours ago by Glen-i

[Ashley]

6 hours ago, Glen-i said:

This is why Bidoof was once banned to Ubers, BTW. Unfortunately, that's no longer the case, so you won't be seeing that Pokémon here