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What moves are most frequently marked as "usually useless" on Showdown?

4 votes
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On Showdown!. Maybe like the top 10.

Mod note: The question is asking for the moves flagged as 'usually useless' in the teambuilder on Pokemon Showdown. Any other answer, including this list of moves from thegamer.com that has been submitted multiple times, is not valid.

Mod note #2: This thread is not the place to discuss which moves are truly useless or whether the listings on Showdown are fair. The question is simply asking for which moves are most often marked as usually useless on Showdown. It does not require your personal interjection. Please keep this on topic, thanks.

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Probably attract. Almost evry pokemon seems to be able to learn it and it's marked as usually useless
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Opinion or low-class? Huh? No, I'm just referring to the usually useless moves section of the Showdown! teambuilder.
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Not an opinion. In showdown, under any pokemon, there is a list of "usually useless moves" and she's asking which move is marked as usually useless the most. As for low quality, I dunno lol
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I'm just curious, lol.

Plus, this question can be answered just using straight facts.
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Got it, Sorry for such a comment.
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Can a move that is considered useless for one Pokemon be in useful section for other? I have saw Meteor beam as useless for Dracovish and useful for Eternatus. Also, they in many cases give special moves to a physical attacker as 'useful' even though its Sp.atk os very less.
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I'm just asking for the moves that appear most on the usually useless list, I don't care at all about what Pokemon the move is actually used on.
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You should probably ask this on Smogon.
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I'm scared to post on smogon, lol
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The vast majority of people and posts on Smogon are nice. Just follow the rules and avoid viability ranking threads, policy review, any tournament that gives the winner a trophy, and political threads in Congregation of the Masses, and nothing bad should happen to you. This particular thread is for Showdown! questions: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ask-simple-questions-here-read-original-post-before-posting.3520646/ (yes it's one of the nicer threads)
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Moves like hold hands, splash, celebrate and constrict etc might be the most useless moves.
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This is definitely not a full answer.
@Charizard Do you want to put this question back on the unanswered list?
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Yes please.


Wait nvm forgot I could do that.
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Most moves do damage and status moves sometimes have good effects but here is the ones I found the most useless.

  **Splash**- Does nothing
   
   **Happy Hour**- Doubles money earned
   
   **Hold Hands**- Makes the user and an ally happy
   
   **Celebrate**- The user congratulates you on your special day
   
   **Present**- Either deals damage or heals.
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@Y is this for singles or doubles? The battle format matters because there are some moves that are marked "usually useless" in singles but are not marked as "usually useless" moves in double battles. (i.e Helping Hand, Muddy Water, Icy Wind, Wide Gaurd)
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Oops lol both singles and doubles, combined (so count them together).
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So umm..... do moves like Helping Hand count?

Also, I'm pretty sure two moves that are usually useless are Double Team and Minimize due to the Evasion Clause.
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Well, with Helping Hand's popularity in doubles, it would probably lack the numbers to make it into the top ten.
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I'm probably gonna answer this... Don't expect the answer soon. I plan on browsing through the moves, browse through the Pokemon that can learn the move, and count the times the move has been marked "usually useless" in both singles and doubles, and type the numbers into a word document.
(pulls up the Pokemon showdown moves dex, teambuilder, a word document, and grabs a calculator)
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Also, this is for Gen 8, right?
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yea it will... you arent helping at all especially with the all caps.
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Shoot I just remembered that Crown Tundra is going to be released on October 22nd. This means that when the Pokémon that are coming into Crown Tundra is released, it could affect the count of the moves that are "usually useless".
@sumwun do you plan on making any changes to your list of "usually useless moves when Crown Tundra comes out?
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rip sumwun
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It depends on whether Showdown! changes their list and whether anyone ever answers the question I posted on Smogon Forums.
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Any move that is gimmicky, hard to use, or has low attack power, is in the usually useless section.
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Wait! Who flagged this? For what!?
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I'd like to just say something to the people who flagged this, I'm not going to start an argument I promise XD



This question doesn't break any rules as far as I know, and it's not opinionated. Yes, it takes quite a lot of effort to answer, but it's answerable. I see why someone would flag this though so... XD just sayin'
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It's because this question is a duplicate of an old question with an outdated answer. The editors and moderators still can't agree on what to do with these.
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Okay I cleared the flags.
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Personally I think this is a fine question, but I don't have px and fizz powers so I'm not one to decide lol
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Just curious, why do you need to know this?
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Because Im curious myself :P
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@da viper
You could ask that about like all of sumwuns questions it's not that rare lol
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I know, but 1: sumwun says not to question his/her curiosity, and 2: I just want to know why someone would need a list of useless moves. It just seems weird to me. BTW, Y, you know you can go to showdown's team builder and go through the movesets of all 800 something pokemon, write/type the Useless moves, and do that for every single format. Then, rank the moves based on which ones appear the most. It's soooooo easy. I'm surprised someone didn't take the time to do all that :)
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What are you even talking about, lol. How many times has it been said that I'm talking about the showdown teambuilder which i can literally do nothing about?
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Dude its smogon's decision NOT mine.
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Usually useless moves are done per Pokemon. For example, on Spectrier, Stomping Tantrum is listed as a viable move. However, for Mew, it's listed as Usually Useless since Mew gets Earthquake but Spectrier doesn't.
It also varies on format. For OU Excadrill? Stomping Tantrum is usually useless. However, in Doubles OU where it has a niche for not hitting your ally, it's listed as a viable move.
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that makes it a move "flagged as 'usually useless' " then @serif
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if splash then also hold hands i believe.
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Not sure if this may place in the top 10, but Headbutt has a problem. Headbutt is usually useless for all Pokémon that don't use the ability Serene Grace, meaning Headbutt is "usually useless" for 336 Pokémon. However, with the ability Serene Grace, Headbutt isn't marked as "usually useless", cutting it down to 328 Pokémon. This may or may not affect the top 10 moves  that are marked as "usually useless".

@Y for Headbutt, do you want the number of Pokemon that has Headbutt marked as a "usually useless move" with or without the ability Serene Grace?

EDIT: Same case with Aerial Ace due to the ability Technician.
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Ok I think I have to explain this again because it's clearly very confusing.


The method I'm asking for is extremely time consuming, but it's most likely the only way to get an accurate answer. It's fairly simple though. You flip through every usually useless move for every Pokemon in every Gen 8 format and count how many times each move appears on the usually useless list. The moves with the highest numbers would be the answer.


 I guess you would have to flip through abilities for a few Pokemon if that's the case, just count the usually useless moves for Hustle/Super Luck on Togekiss (thats just one example) assuming that it flips categories depending on the ability.
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1 Answer

5 votes
 
Best answer

The following moves are the top 10 moves that are marked "usually useless" moves on Pokémon Showdown:

10: Hyper Beam: 374 Pokémon can learn this move
9: Giga Impact: 378 Pokemon can learn this move
8: Sunny Day: 396 Pokémon can learn this move
7: Rain Dance: 434 Pokémon can learn this move
6: Swagger: 577 Pokémon can learn this move
5: Attract/Captivate: 578 Pokémon can learn Attract and Captivate
4: Double Team: 580 Pokémon can learn this move
3: Round: 681 Pokémon can learn this move
2: Endure: 682 Pokémon can learn this move
1: Snore: The move most marked as "usually useless" on Pokémon Showdown. 684 Pokémon can learn this move.

Source: pm-ming myself on Showdown and using the command !ds [insert move here].

I went through the Gen 8 Formats and saw all of the moves above were still marked "usually useless".

Hope this helps.

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But have you taken into account formats? How do you know if these moves are always marked usually useless?
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Pz already has done so much, it’ll be sad if he has to do that too, y.
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I guess ill BA this. While Im not convinced that this is the correct answer i 1. dont want to fact check it and 2. dont care at this point.
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Most of these moves make sense. While all of these moves do something, they do nothing helpful.
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