What natures are useless for Pokemon to have in Competitive Battling?

Question

Besides the nuetral natures, (Hardy, Quirky, etc) what natures are useless in Competitive Battling?

Comments

What format/rules are you playing with?

Answer 1

As all Natures have a purpose on some Pokemon, I would say that no Natures are useless. Even the Natures that lower a Pokemon's Defense or Special Defense see use on mixed attackers that can't afford to lower a different stat (Kyurem-B in Gen V, Iron Valiant in Gen IX, etc). While niche, they serve a purpose -- so by definition they cannot be useless.

Even the neutral Natures see marginal amounts of use. For example, the mixed attacker Vullaby variant in Gen VII LC needs both its attacking stats and Speed configured to hit certain ranges. It also can't afford to drop its defenses, otherwise it won't live hits it needs to. Therefore, it's required to run a neutral Nature -- it needs every stat equally.

Obviously the neutral and defence-lowering Natures are extraordinarily niche in competitive play, but they can't be called useless when some Pokemon viably run them.

Hope I helped!

Comments

I find the natures that decrease Defense or Sp. Defense useless

---

natures like naive or hasty can be used on mixed attackers effectively

---

I think the +/- Defense and +/- Sp. Defense are useless as well.  I can't think of a single Pokémon that would run either of these as a first or secondary nature.  Can you think of any though?  I am curious.

---

Just a guess, but I figured Shedinja. Seems like it could make use of one of them, as it doesn't make any impact at all.

---

But there are much better natures, so it is really useless.  Why would you run a Lax Shedinja when you can run Jolly or Adamant?  Also, it doesn't affect Shedinja, so by definition, it is useless.  Albeit, it isn't detrimental, but it is far from beneficial.

---

Fair point.

---

Then I believe it is fair to say that those natures are indeed useless.