Current Events > Hitmonchan in Gen 1 is so funny

(+) Yeah! (+)

Has there ever been a more abysmal fully-evolved Pokemon in the history of Pokemon?

Ledian

Gen 2 Gyarados was pretty bad.

Gen 2 had a lot of stinkers in general that weren't fixed until gen 4 or later.

Prior to Gen 4, Alakazam is a better boxer than Hitmonchan is

Gen 1 in general just has a ton of garbage.

Pidgeot's only level up flying move is Wing Attack at lv 31 which only has 35 power in gen 1. Gust is a goddamn Normal type move because reasons. Ponyta doesn't ever learn a better fire move than Ember. The only Ghost type moves in the game are Lick at 20 power and Night Shade which does fixed damage depending on your level. Dragon also only has 1 move in Dragon Rage which always does 40 damage no matter what.

Idk wtf they were cooking back in the day.

DarthEnvoy posted...

Gen 1 in general just has a ton of garbage.

Pidgeot's only level up flying move is Wing Attack at lv 31 which only has 35 power in gen 1. Gust is a goddamn Normal type move because reasons. Ponyta doesn't ever learn a better fire move than Ember. The only Ghost type moves in the game are Lick at 20 power and Night Shade which does fixed damage depending on your level. Dragon also only has 1 move in Dragon Rage which always does 40 damage no matter what.

Idk wtf they were cooking back in the day.

Its also poorly programmed to the extent that psychics are invulnerable to the thing they are supposed to be weak to.

Remember that Onix has a ba of 45

Lickitung can't learn Lick

Charizard can't learn Fly (in Red/Blue at least)

DarthEnvoy posted...

Dragon also only has 1 move in Dragon Rage which always does 40 damage no matter what.

this is my favorite one, because Dragon had no resistances at the time

the only type with no resistances can't do non-fixed damage.

Back in gen 1 or Gen 2 I had a hitmonchan that had thunder punch, fire punch, ice punch, and mega punch and thought it would be a beast.

It was not.

Friendly reminder that Psyduck and Golduck STILL TO THIS DAY arent Psychic types and dont have any exclusive Psychic forms despite the psychic headache being Psyducks whole deal.

Can Drowzee / Hypno learn DreamEater by leveling up yet?

I think they temporarily could in the Lets Go games at least.

Looked it up, no they can't...
https://m.bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Drowzee_(Pok%C3%A9mon)
In the trivia bit:

Despite being heavily associated with Dream Eater, Drowzee and its Evolution, Hypno, cannot learn the move by leveling up outside of Pokmon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!.
Notably, as the move is not a TM in Pokmon Scarlet and Violet, Drowzee and Hypno cannot legally learn Dream Eater in these games, despite both them and the move itself being present.

DarthEnvoy posted...

Gen 1 in general just has a ton of garbage.

Pidgeot's only level up flying move is Wing Attack at lv 31 which only has 35 power in gen 1. Gust is a goddamn Normal type move because reasons. Ponyta doesn't ever learn a better fire move than Ember. The only Ghost type moves in the game are Lick at 20 power and Night Shade which does fixed damage depending on your level. Dragon also only has 1 move in Dragon Rage which always does 40 damage no matter what.

Idk wtf they were cooking back in the day.

I think it was mostly for PvE design. It would explain why the bug monsters are so garbage since you're be finding them in the hundreds and level up quickly just as a quick crutch that lose relevance at lvl 30 tops.

Yeah, PvP was actually a late addition to gen 1's design. Originally the only form of multiplayer was going to be trading. It was designed almost entirely with PvE in mind.

Kami_no_Kami posted...

Friendly reminder that Psyduck and Golduck STILL TO THIS DAY arent Psychic types and dont have any exclusive Psychic forms despite the psychic headache being Psyducks whole deal.

My headcanon is that Psyduck gets such a bad headache from its psychic powers because it isn't a Psychic-type

It's just a duck

Hitmonlee

thronedfire2 posted...

Hitmonlee

Jump kick was good. Hitmonchan didn't have anything good.

DarthEnvoy posted...

Gust is a goddamn Normal type move because reasons.

Gust being normal probolly wasn't a mistake. If it were flying then picking bulbasaur would have been miserable. They fixed this in gen 2 by not giving pidgy gust until a higher level and giving it tackle instead.

BlackScythe0 posted...

Jump kick was good. Hitmonchan didn't have anything good.

didnt he get all the elemental punches?

idk about actual fighting type moves in gen 1 though I guess

thronedfire2 posted...

didnt he get all the elemental punches?

idk about actual fighting type moves in gen 1 though I guess

Himonchan has a special of 35. I think it's best gen 1 move was mega punch or headbutt or something. It was awful.

BlackScythe0 posted...

Himonchan has a special of 35. I think it's best gen 1 move was mega punch or headbutt or something. It was awful.

yeah that sounds about right

I don't think I used any fighting types in pokemon games until I was forced to with the fire starter

thronedfire2 posted...

didnt he get all the elemental punches?

Hitmonchan in gen 1 has 35 special. Elemental punches aren't doing any damage from that bad a stat. Like at max level, it doesn't always 3HKO Dragonite with Ice Punch. It usually can't 2HKO a Caterpie with Fire Punch. It's bad.

thronedfire2 posted...

yeah that sounds about right

I don't think I used any fighting types in pokemon games until I was forced to with the fire starter

The first time I used a fighting type was in Gen 3 when they actually made them good. I think Hariyama was the first fighting type I used.

thronedfire2 posted...

idk about actual fighting type moves in gen 1 though I guess

The strongest one is submission. It has 80 power, does recoil damage and is not 100% accurate.

It's strong against normal and rock and ice, which are usually tanky pokemon, at least the ones used. Such paltry damage is not putting much of a dent, even super effectively, against the top tier rocks or ices.

And of course, fighting types get destroyed by psychics.

Everything in Gen 1 is kinda shitty so it all balances out.

The final boss of the game has fucking Ember still lmao

TMOG posted...

My headcanon is that Psyduck gets such a bad headache from its psychic powers because it isn't a Psychic-type

It's just a duck

I like this lol

Gen 1 really was a mess, but I still love those games

100 accuracy moves could miss
Speed determined crit rate so, for example, Persian always crit'd with Slash and Venusaur either always or very often crit'd with Razor Leaf, can't remember which
Focus Energy actually lowered crit rate

And a bunch of other things

Kim_Seong-a posted...

The final boss of the game has fucking Ember still lmao

To be fair, it wasn't until Gen 4 that the champion wasn't an embarrassment, and Gen VI for the normal gym leaders.

Ubergeneral3 posted...

Gust being normal probolly wasn't a mistake. If it were flying then picking bulbasaur would have been miserable. They fixed this in gen 2 by not giving pidgy gust until a higher level and giving it tackle instead.

Yeah, but it'd be an easy fix since Tackle already existed. Needing to wait until lv 31 for a flying move which is at 35 power only is miserable. Fucking Spearow comes with Peck right out of the gate which matches Wing Attack AND he learns Drill Peck late into the game lmao

ellis123 posted...

To be fair, it wasn't until Gen 4 that the champion wasn't an embarrassment,

absolutely fair

and Gen VI for the normal gym leaders.

Gen 5's Lenora kicked my fucking ass with that long gerbil thing >_>

Kim_Seong-a posted...

Gen 5's Lenora kicked my fucking ass with that long gerbil thing >_>

Emerald Tate and Liza were a menace too. A double battle gym leader able to just spam Earthquake with no friendly fire was lowkey cracked

Like 75% of the Pokemon sucked in Gen 1. It was wild. It's why things like Tauros were so insanely broken, because there were so few Pokemon with decent stats that also learned good same type moves.

Kim_Seong-a posted...

Gen 5's Lenora kicked my fucking ass with that long gerbil thing >_>

The long gerbil thing had two useless moves and an ability that increased encounter rate. Whether or not you got beat by it that's a pretty embarrassing gym leader ace.

Kim_Seong-a posted...

Gen 5's Lenora kicked my fucking ass with that long gerbil thing >_>

Retaliate hits like a truck after KOing her Herdier, plus STAB boosts it to base 210 power >_<

And it has Crunch in case you decide to send in a Rock type to tank it

ellis123 posted...

The long gerbil thing had two useless moves and an ability that increased encounter rate. Whether or not you got beat by it that's a pretty embarrassing gym leader ace.

You gotta consider the context, though. At the time you fight her, you don't have any great counters available. And since the gym leaders before her are pretty easy, there's nothing driving you to grind, so it kinda comes out of nowhere.

Also, Retaliate is great considering it's STAB and said gerbil thing is her second Pokemon, meaning you already beat one, powering it up more. Since you don't know it's coming, the chance is very high that it takes out your best Pokemon immediately.

Have rock types ever been considered decent? This topic has got me thinking and I don't know if I've ever used one seriously. I just played Violet recently and when I was trying to make a team of Pokemon I typically didn't use, I was looking at adding a rock type and got frustrated at how almost no rock moves have 100% accuracy (or if they did, they were often low power). I always saw them as awful in Gen 1, too, but I want to say most (if not all) of them were Ground/Rock type and super weak to Squirtle/Bulbasaur (not to mention they were slow).

HashtagSEP posted...

You gotta consider the context, though. At the time you fight her, you don't have any great counters available. And since the gym leaders before her are pretty easy, there's nothing driving you to grind, so it kinda comes out of nowhere.

Also, Retaliate is great considering it's STAB and said gerbil thing is her second Pokemon, meaning you already beat one, powering it up more. Since you don't know it's coming, the chance is very high that it takes out your best Pokemon immediately.

I was more referring to it just being somewhat poorly put together than anything about "counters." Even then Gen V was the generation that gave us Audino grinding, so literally every Pokemon you brought could count as a "great counter." They also didn't do anything to dissuade the traditional "duo the game with your starter + a second carry" strategy, so your starter could easily clean her up even without it.

And Retaliate wasn't one of the moves I was talking about being worthless.

Lazy_Haar posted...

Have rock types ever been considered decent? This topic has got me thinking and I don't know if I've ever used one seriously. I just played Violet recently and when I was trying to make a team of Pokemon I typically didn't use, I was looking at adding a rock type and got frustrated at how almost no rock moves have 100% accuracy (or if they did, they were often low power). I always saw them as awful in Gen 1, too, but I want to say most (if not all) of them were Ground/Rock type and super weak to Squirtle/Bulbasaur (not to mention they were slow).

As a whole, or just in a couple of cases? In most generations they have a presence (Gen 1 has Rhydon, Gen 3 has TTar, etc.) but a lot of the time there are just so many bleh rock types that they end up being mid as a whole and most of the rock moves you'll see are on non-rock Pokemon.

Lazy_Haar posted...

Have rock types ever been considered decent? This topic has got me thinking and I don't know if I've ever used one seriously. I just played Violet recently and when I was trying to make a team of Pokemon I typically didn't use, I was looking at adding a rock type and got frustrated at how almost no rock moves have 100% accuracy (or if they did, they were often low power). I always saw them as awful in Gen 1, too, but I want to say most (if not all) of them were Ground/Rock type and super weak to Squirtle/Bulbasaur (not to mention they were slow).

Yes, but a lot of them either have second typings or are very situational. There are a few, like Rampardos, who are good just because of their stat spread and movepool, but even they often require certain team setups.

Lazy_Haar posted...

Have rock types ever been considered decent? This topic has got me thinking and I don't know if I've ever used one seriously. I just played Violet recently and when I was trying to make a team of Pokemon I typically didn't use, I was looking at adding a rock type and got frustrated at how almost no rock moves have 100% accuracy (or if they did, they were often low power). I always saw them as awful in Gen 1, too, but I want to say most (if not all) of them were Ground/Rock type and super weak to Squirtle/Bulbasaur (not to mention they were slow).

Tyranitar is the obvious one, my fav was always Aerodactyl. Dude is lowkey a beast with his stats, but yeah. Rock types are usually pretty mid.

ellis123 posted...

I was more referring to it just being somewhat poorly put together than anything about "counters." Even then Gen V was the generation that gave us Audino grinding, so literally every Pokemon you brought could count as a "great counter." They also didn't do anything to dissuade the traditional "duo the game with your starter + a second carry" strategy, so your starter could easily clean her up even without it.

And Retaliate wasn't one of the moves I was talking about being worthless.

Well, my point is that since you don't expect it, it's easy to lose. A lot of people lead with their best Pokemon, and Retaliate has a very high chance of taking that Pokemon out, meaning you have less good Pokemon to face it beyond that. For what it is, it's actually a pretty good setup, since Herdier goes down pretty easily and you don't expect her to then just... Murder your Pokemon. Crunch is there for Rock types, and then Hypnosis is there to be annoying to your weaker Pokemon if you lost your best.

EDIT: Like, yeah, if you Audino grind, nothing is all that challenging, but people don't naturally Audino grind because, atleast up until that point, there's no reason to.

ellis123 posted...

To be fair, it wasn't until Gen 4 that the champion wasn't an embarrassment, and Gen VI for the normal gym leaders.

Eh, I would say Norman was a challenge enough for a normal gym leader in gen III.

HashtagSEP posted...

Well, my point is that since you don't expect it, it's easy to lose. A lot of people lead with their best Pokemon, and Retaliate has a very high chance of taking that Pokemon out, meaning you have less good Pokemon to face it beyond that. For what it is, it's actually a pretty good setup, since Herdier goes down pretty easily and you don't expect her to then just... Murder your Pokemon. Crunch is there for Rock types, and then Hypnosis is there to be annoying to your weaker Pokemon if you lost your best.

I will trust that people other than me had to go at her twice (or more) then. It, however, still hasn't changed a single part of my point: Crunch being useful against a type that you cannot have yet (without Wonder Trading... I think that was available at that point?) doesn't make it relevant, and a move that only exists to be mildly annoying (but it, at least, gets to count) doesn't inspire anything resembling a "good design" award.

012yArthur0 posted...

Eh, I would say Norman was a challenge enough for a normal gym leader in gen III.

I will also trust that you also took more than one attempt to beat him then. I, however, will continue to find an entire team of "Faint Attack + Facade" to be embarrassingly poorly put together even when you ignore that it has two Slakings in it.

Lazy_Haar posted...

Have rock types ever been considered decent? This topic has got me thinking and I don't know if I've ever used one seriously. I just played Violet recently and when I was trying to make a team of Pokemon I typically didn't use, I was looking at adding a rock type and got frustrated at how almost no rock moves have 100% accuracy (or if they did, they were often low power). I always saw them as awful in Gen 1, too, but I want to say most (if not all) of them were Ground/Rock type and super weak to Squirtle/Bulbasaur (not to mention they were slow).

Rock-types are solid in Gen 1 (competitive), because Normal resists are incredibly handy in a generation where Normal is one of the two best types (many would actually argue Normal is better than Psychic. I may agree.). Their only constantly relevant weakness is Ground which though bad is workable - everything Fighting-type in Gen 1 is terrible, Grass-type attacks in Gen 1 are largely terrible (the best Grass-type, Exeggutor, often doesn't run one at all), there aren't many common Pokemon that actually carry Water-type moves because Ice tends to hit everything you would want to hit something weak to Water just as hard (although Rhydon - the most common Rock-type - is also weak to Ice).

due to more outside changes than changes to Rock itself (Normal got way worse, Fighting and Grass got way better, Steel was invented), after Gen 2 (where due to the best Pokemon in the game being a Normal-type, being resistant to Normal is still very useful) being a Rock-type is mostly a bad thing.

it isn't completely absent from benefits - Rock is even more useful offensively in later gens due to Flying- and Fire-types being much more common, and they get nice sandstorm benefits like the special defense boost from Gen 4 - but it suffers from many of the same issues as Ice. Ice as a defensive type is ass, but the offense is amazing, so ideally Ice-type Pokemon shouldn't take hits and should just hit hard and fast, so they kill you before they get hit. Most Ice- and Rock-types are slow and hard to use as walls. Nearly every successful Pokemon of these types in later gens is offensively-minded.

ellis123 posted...

I will trust that people other than me had to go at her twice (or more) then. It, however, still hasn't changed a single part of my point: Crunch being useful against a type that you cannot have yet (without Wonder Trading... I think that was available at that point?) doesn't make it relevant, and a move that only exists to be mildly annoying (but it, at least, gets to count) doesn't inspire anything resembling a "good design" award.

You can get Roggenrola prior to Lenora. Wellspring Cave. It sounds like you tend to grind and so you don't see where people have issues without doing so.

HashtagSEP posted...

You can get Roggenrola prior to Lenora. Wellspring Cave. It sounds like you tend to grind and so you don't see where people have issues without doing so.

Oh shoot, you're right. For some reason I was thinking that was just after her.

And naw, I never grinded in the pre-"EXP All" era (ie. the modern games). I just solo'd everything with the starter, which meant that I was usually 4-5 levels above (at least) everything else even when only doing required battles. The games were trivial that way, and while Gen V was arguably GameFreaks' first real attempt at making anything even slightly challenging I can't say I found it different than the previous four.

ellis123 posted...

I will also trust that you also took more than one attempt to beat him then. I, however, will continue to find an entire team of "Faint Attack + Facade" to be embarrassingly poorly put together even when you ignore that it has two Slakings in it.

Gen III was somehow difficult for me because ngl I started getting lazy to grind, something in Gen III made me get especially annoyed at grinding at that game and I don't know exactly what. So generally I fought him underleveled and him and the flying gym turned out be more difficult than I expected than even the last Gym.

ellis123 posted...

Oh shoot, you're right. For some reason I was thinking that was just after her.

And naw, I never grinded in the pre-"EXP All" era (ie. the modern games). I just solo'd everything with the starter, which meant that I was usually 4-5 levels above (at least) everything else even when only doing required battles. The games were trivial that way, and while Gen V was arguably GameFreaks' first real attempt at making anything even slightly challenging I can't say I found it different than the previous four.

Fair enough. Lenora just sticks out because she was almost designed specifically to defeat the "Starter solo" strategy, via Retaliate, and it's why a lot of people had issues with her.

DarthEnvoy posted...

Gen 1 in general just has a ton of garbage.

Pidgeot's only level up flying move is Wing Attack at lv 31 which only has 35 power in gen 1. Gust is a goddamn Normal type move because reasons. Ponyta doesn't ever learn a better fire move than Ember. The only Ghost type moves in the game are Lick at 20 power and Night Shade which does fixed damage depending on your level. Dragon also only has 1 move in Dragon Rage which always does 40 damage no matter what.

Idk wtf they were cooking back in the day.

And of course the issue with some of this stuff is that the game didn't tell you about it

Here I am using Dragon Rage as a move thinking that since it's a dragon-type move and dragon-type moves have no weaknesses it should be kicking ass

it's crazy to look at voltorb's gen 1 learnset and just see 6 normal moves and 1 psychic move.

Lazy_Haar posted...

Have rock types ever been considered decent? This topic has got me thinking and I don't know if I've ever used one seriously. I just played Violet recently and when I was trying to make a team of Pokemon I typically didn't use, I was looking at adding a rock type and got frustrated at how almost no rock moves have 100% accuracy (or if they did, they were often low power). I always saw them as awful in Gen 1, too, but I want to say most (if not all) of them were Ground/Rock type and super weak to Squirtle/Bulbasaur (not to mention they were slow).

The big issue with rock types, imo anyways, is they tend to fall into the slow and physically bulky archetype. Slow isn't typically what you want in an in game play through, they also tend to be very weak on special defense which leaves them vulnerable to to even neutral special hits.