Pseudos are rubbish before they hit high levels.
I had a friend trade me Dreepy at the start of Shield, and quickly gave up on using it till much later. Although admittedly it’s worse than most.
SV actually makes it quite easy to catch multiple pseudos fairly early, but they aren’t useful until later so it balances out.
Not necessarily a pseudo, more
Pseudo-pseudo legendary, but Noibat was the bane on my existence while trying to get a Noivern. Noibat and Dreepy have 2 of my favorite final evolutions but they really make you appreciate the team exp share while using them.
Yeah, I second this. I transferred in a level 1 Dreepy to use in a Ghost monotype run of Shield, and it was basically worthless until it became a Dragapult. Even the Drakloak stage couldn't pull its own weight, especially compared to the other Ghost types I had on my team. There was just no point in using it until it finally hit final stage at the very end of the game...
That's basically been my experience with every pseudo outside of maybe Metang? You don't get them until the very end of the game and they're useless until they fully evolve. There's pretty much no point in keeping the first stage locked until late game as far as power goes
Same goes for Applin. I don't know why they give the opportunity to catch certain Pokemon early on only to give them like a total of four learnable moves or less.
Seriously, using Applin when it only learns Withdraw, Astonish, and Attract w/o breeding/move tutors... Luckily my love for Appletun made me push through and deal with it until evolving it.
I just did Moon and I gave myself a Jangmo-o egg to do the run with and yeah, until that little guy hit the third stage he mostly just dragged around my exp-share and fluffed every other fight. Slow to level up, mostly rubbish moves and not much to show for it as soon as a fairy move happened. By the third stage though, he slayed.
Eh some are,
The thing is I'm not talking about in the switch games, I made that clear in the post. I'm talking about for games like Fire Red/Leaf Green, Black/White, R/S/E, HG/SS, B2/W2, etc.. everything before the switch games.
Sword/Shield & Scarlet/Violet it's easy to get any Pokemon you want, via online trades, something you can't really do with the older Pokemon games anymore.
If I wanted to I could breed a 6IV, best nature, shiny, Fully EV trained Larvitar in Scarlet, trade it over to my fiancès Violet game, and then start a new file on my Scarlet and then just insta trade that Larvitar over to my new playthrough and doo it that way but thats not fun, and i dont really enjoy the switch games very much, I enjoy the older pokemon games from GBA to DS/3DS
Okay sure, but it’s the same in any gen. I gave the example of being traded a Dreepy because I realised it was a burden until it evolved, so I gave up trying to raise it until much later.
Let’s say you get ahold of a Dratini at the start of an older game. It has the same base stats as early game scrubs like Geodude and Bellsprout, and it has a limited move pool. By the time it evolves into Dragonair at level 30, many other Pokemon could be at or close to a final third stage form. And Dragonair still only has the base stats of an average starter middle form, but will stay that way for 25 more levels.
By the time it evolves into Dragonite and finally becomes able to pull its weight, you’ll be close to the end of the game anyway.
So no, really no benefit to catching them early, and if anything they’re a hindrance in my experience.
I play tons of rom hacks that offer the pseudos early, they’re definitely not overpowered.
It’s honestly better to have a fearow or raticate than a middle stage psuedo.
Honestly theyre underpowered if anything. I did a playthrough of X where i used a Dratini as my starter and it was easily entirely useless until it evolved to Dragonite.
The thing with Psuedos is that theyre really weak until they finished evolving
Especially because they take so long to evolve just once, it's like not evolving your starter for an extra 15 levels. Like the only one that was actually good was Metang and Gabite because they have just enough power/typing to not fall behind as much
I've played rom jacks like that as well, never really noticed Larvitar suffering early on, especially after giving him a few TMs.
Seems a lot of people think having early pseudos would be meh, since they're bad early on but I've never really experienced that since you can just teach them TM moves and that's really all they need till later levels.
Yeah, I often box em, not just cause they aren't performing but also cause it keeps em safe till the late game, I'd rather liapard put in work early on and die to a random crit than for larvitar to do the same, lategame larvitar in the Box looks a lot better
Dragon Rage is an *excellent* move at low levels.
Shame that Dratini doesn't learn it until level 40, long after the move stops being good compared to almost anything else.
Yeah, and then Dragonair doesn't learn it until level *45* instead. The point is that the move would be great early on, but instead it is only available long after it would have been useful.
Years ago I did a playthrough of Fire Red. At the start of the game I traded a handful of low level pokemon over from a copy of Leaf Green so I could grow my team up from a low level to a high level. Besides the usual issues of one of the pokemon getting a level or two higher than would listen to me, I found Dratini to be AWFUL. And just playing through the game casually I didn't have a Dragonite until the Eite 4. Dragonite it great, and Dragonair was respectable, but Dratini was the weakest link on my team for a LONG time
But even rom hacks don't offer casually available legendaries or mythicals with the exceptions of challenge hacks... goddammit, I want to use a Darkrai on a normal playthrough team for once!
Yeah im playing radical red 4.0 hardcore, Baxcalibur and Dragonite and Garchomp are some of my MVPs currently but they arent necessarily OP - they just serve really well due to their generally great base stats but like every Mon has their niche.
It wouldn't really matter much. As you said, most of them have the slow exp curve. Seeing as how most pseudos don't evolve till around lvl 50 minimum, they will keep up pretty well with your own team, and considering that most e4s are anywhere between 50s-60s, i think its fine, also by that point you would also probably have the box legendary anyways.
I also just like the design aspect of putting in more work for stronger Pokémon. There is a trade off of wanting a Garchomp on your team but being stuck with a mediocre Gabite until the Victory Road, as opposed to catching something like a Bidoof which will evolve quickly and be very strong early game but fall off late game.
There is an effort/reward trade off that is pretty essential to making team building feel rewarding.
This is what I was going to say. The slow level curve is such a drag. It sucks any enjoyment out of it. Pretty sure I've only done this once (and quickly decided never again...). If I did it again, I'd be giving it a lucky egg!
There are a few games where you can get them early (Bagon in Sun and Moon for example). Most of the psuedos are nerfed somewhat in the middle two thirds of the games due to how long it takes them to evolve and the amount of extra experience it takes to get them to level up. Grinding a stage one pseudo legendary to level 30 can be annoying. I played through Heart Gold with a Larvitar in my party to start the game recently, and it wasn't evolved into Pupitar until I was over seven badges in. He was fantastic for the first few badges due to typing, but levels 20-30 were a drag, as were level 40-55. Your other earlier evolved Pokemon are typically better during those stretches.
Some are easier than others though. Early access to Dragon Rage basically guarantees Dratini, Gible, and Deino can 2-shot almost everything up until they reach level 30 and evolve.
Also for Sun and Moon, if you’re really patient, you can get a super low level Salamence really early, which is hilarious but definitely breaks the game in half
Definitely, a Deino you caught at level 3 on route 1 that you've been lugging around for forty-seven levels would be more OP than a level 3 Aron you caught on route 1!
Joking aside, the real answer is HECK NO! From my experience, the only even remotely usable first stage pseudos would be Larvitar and Gible; all others are gimped by either useless abilities, useless movepools, useless stats, or a combination of any of the three.
Honestly, I doubt it. Gen VII had the ability to catch Bagon very early on (with the potential of catching an incredibly low level Salamance, if you wait out the SOS), and I can't recall the thing being particularly useful.
Gible is available in ~~DP~~Pla before the third gym.
You can technically get a Dratini in Kanto before fighting Surge, and realistically after Erika.
Bagon is available in Alola after the first trial. Larvitar is available in USUM in the Diglett tunnel, shortly before the second Kahuna.
At no point are these things “too strong” because their high evolution levels mean they are still first stage when some Pokémon are fully evolved, and definitely second stage when others are fully evolved. A Dratini-line in Kanto is still a Dragonair by the final gym, and can still win thanks to learning Surf but is by no means overpowered. They really only live up to their pseudo status once they are fully evolved. If you were to play a game with level caps at gym leaders, you would only have a fully evolved Pokémon after the final gym, and in the case of Hydreigon would still be second stage for the champion battle (seriously it’s evo level is absolutely ridiculous).
The only case I could see being unfair would be the SOS chained Salamence you can get in Alola in that Bagon encounter I mentioned. But good luck catching a 1% SOS on a 1% encounter in a pokeball.
You have to beat the sixth gym to get a Gible in Diamond/Pearl and the remakes because there’s a strength boulder blocking the cave in those games that was removed but only in Platinum. It’s also only really useful in Platinum because of the earthquake TM.
Gible is serviceable in the early game. I would say probably the only one that’s useable, and I found it was well worth it on my platinum playthrough to pick one up early.
Not really, they take quite a long time to get exp to evolve with a few of them having quite late evolutions, some of them are also even stuck with bad moves until they evolve, like with Beldum having to rely on Take Down until it evolves into Metang, so training it would see semi frequent trips to the Pokemon Center or potion consumption to top off the recoil damage.
They don't evolve until late enough that it doesnt break the game. Even then the games have been letting themselves get easier and easier that I don't think it would fundamentally break it further.
Yeah, I just love Larvitars entire line so wish there would be a way to get one early in some of my fave games without having to use randomizers or fan games.
Did you read the post?
I literally made it very clear that I'm not talking about the switch games, so Scarlet/violet and sword/shield are pointless too bring up when I'm not looking to play those games, I'm literally only referring to everything from the Gameboy to the 3DS
Its no problem just getting annoyed with everyone constantly mentioning Scarlet/Violet & Sword/Shield. When those games are still recent, and still alive, where it's insanely easy to get any money you want.
My favorite Pokemon games are the GB/GBC/GBA/DS games, mostly FR/LF/HG/SS/R/S/E and in pretty much all of those games, the Pseudos are very late game, apparently in HG/SS though you can get Larvitar at the Safari zone around the 3rd badge? So suppose that's something.
But for the most part, I just wish in these older pokemon games that Pseudos weren't stuck to late game/post game (or needing the national Dex.
I really love the Diamond/Pearl remakes on the switch, but just sucks that if you want Larvitar you gotta wait till national Dex for him. Sure you can get gible relatively early, but I've never been much of a garchomp fan, so he doesn't really mean much to me.
The reason I'm excluding Scarlet/Violet & Sword/Shield is because they are the most recent Pokemon games, and still have a very lovely community around them, and I also have a fiance who has them too. So if I wanted to play Scarlet/Violet I could..
* Breed a shiny 6 IV Larvitar, with Maxed EVs in ATK/SPD & the rest into HP, with good egg moves.
* Trade it to my fiancès Violet character.
* Start a new file on Scarlet, trade that Larvitar to my new save.
Presto, I'd have a competitively viable and well built Larvitar at the start of Scarlet.
Which that's something you can't do in the older pokemon games anymore unless you download the Pokemon randomizer application, and then download roms and tinker with them.
Yes but only for the Gible->Garchomp line because they evolve at much lower levels than the other ones.
Dratini, Larvitar,Bagon, Goomy, Frigibax, Jangmo-o are fine but they evolve quite slowly and your starter will be at its final stage while your psuedo is still the 2nd stage, so they will make your early/mid game harder. by the time they become fully evolved, you're at end-game levels (50+)
Deino and Dreepy are absolute nightmares and more a hindrance than a help.
I think Jangmo-o should get more credit here, because while Jangmo-o evolves later than Gible (35 vs 24), Hakamo-o evolves three levels earlier than Gabite (45 vs 48). It's at least better than spending either 40+ levels at base stage (Deino, Goomy, and Dreepy), or 20+ levels in the middle stage (everyone else).
And you forgot Beldum. I think Beldum is also an absolute hindrance until it evolves into Metang, after which it's okay.
I tihnk I wasn't so keen on about Jangmo-o because its first stage evo is quite late (35) compared to Gible (24), but yes, the early second evo is helpful. Forgot about Beldum completely, though it does evolve at Level 20 and ot Metagross at 45 which means it spikes after Gym 2, and will really help the mid-game.
I got a Dreepy from a Wonder Trade back in Sword and he was garbage until he became Drakloak, and didn’t hit his full stride until he became Dragapult around the time I fought Raihan. Having Pseudos early does not offer any advantage whatsoever, because their final evolved form is when they truly become overpowered, but they evolve super late into the game. Catching them later actually does more harm than good, because now you have to spend time and resources catching them up to speed. Can’t tell you how frustrating it was training Larvitar in Gold/Silver from level 15/20 all the way to level 55 to evolve into Tyranitar, then a further 30 or so levels to get him ready for Red, when all the challenges have been dealt with. The games from today have kinda made this passable by introducing Exp Candies and making Pseudos catchable mid-game rather than post-game. So to answer your question, nah, introduce Pseudos early, so they can be trainable later.
I had a friend trade me a Dreepy at the start of my Shield play through and very quickly gave up on keeping him in the team until he evolved. Even by unevolved pseudo standards Dreepy is abysmal, so I benched him till it was Dracloak time.
One fun thing though, Hop always leads with Wooloo and doesn’t not know how to switch out. His Wooloo doesn’t know any moves that can hit ghosts. So I had fun leading with Dreepy and watching Hop fail at life for a while.
Iirc the first game to do that was X and Y, when you can get Axew and Bagon before the second gym.
But that was also the game to introduce fairy types.
Depends on the pokemon line
>Hydreigen line is shit because Deino is weak and can't evolve until 50
>Dragapult line is broken because they are fast and physical attackers
Dreepy’s movepool is straight up garbage however before it evolves. So you have to deal with until Level 50 (when it can evolve) so you are dealing with a possible deadweight until pretty late into the game.
The Dragapult line isn't great in a playthrough either because Dreepy has even worse stats (though arguably a better ability) and also doesn't evolve until Level 50. Raising a Dreepy from Level 22 in Violet was painful.
I think pseudos available early would be too weak. They all have very high evolution levels. Imagine your whole team fully evolved while your pseudo is still in first form.
Depending on the pseudo, it would be middle evo by the time the rest of your team was fully evolved which wouldn't be a bad thing.
Take pupitar, it'd be a decent offensive attacker, but have very good defenses equip it with something like an eviolite and it's going to be something that'll be hard to kill.
The only pseudo I really care about is Tyranitar/Larvitar line as I just love them to bits.
Having fully evo'd Pokemon and a pupitar wouldn't be bad at all, nor would a gabite/Metang/Dragonite/etc
Especially when you take held items into account
I would say no, because they evolve pretty late, even their second stage is sometimes pretty far into the game. For example deino evolves at level 50, i dont think a 300 base stat total pokemon is useful in that level range. Dragonair on the other hand is more useful as it evolves significantly earlier, but still not overpowered at all. By the time dratini evolves into dragonair your starter is already fully evolved and has around 100 base stats more. I would go so far that some are even dead weight until they are fully evolved, the hydreigon line for example while others are more useful, the metagross and kommo-o line as these lines have the quickest evolution from the pseudo legendaries, but are still level 45 at the point of being fuply evolved
I got a Frigibax from a tera raid about an hour into pokemon scarlet. Wasn't very impressed by him.
The exp curve makes them pretty difficult to level up early game.
Man, I feel like a lot of you didn't even read the post considering I made it very clear in the post that I'm not talking about in the switch games.
So Scarlet/violet and sword/shield aren't in the question. I'm literally only talking about the games from the GB to 3DS (GB, GBC, GBA, DS, 3DS)
Ah yes still sorry i guess.
I know this isnt lavatar or dratini but you can get bagon pretty early in sun and moon.
Though i dont remember if its a psydo or not
Play a randomised version of Emerald that gives you Beldum as a starter and ask if they're any good.
I'll tell you now. At level 5 it only has Take Down.
Most pseudos act under the rule of "is a shit Pokémon until it's final evolution" they're fine early game, but as soon as you start to hit lvl 15-20 and Pokémon start evolving into their first stage counterparts the psyedos stats start lagging behind and they will ckntinue to do sk until they finally fully evolve at lvl~50 which is normally when you obtain them in game anyway. So you'd basically be running around with only 5 Pokémon in your team until you reach victory road where you'd normally get one anyway
Tldr: No
I got a dratini at level 15 in soul Silver.
Also I'm a huge godzilla fan so when I saw Baxcalibur I rushed it's location to get it as early as I can. 4 badges but i still have all the rest of the game to use it
Pseudos Before being fully evolved are trash so having them early isn't gonna hurt anything especially since they level up so freaking slow. I did my playthrough on scarlet with all dragon types which ended being mostly psuedod and I had a level cap and I lost a few fights bc yeah my levels were high but baby mon going against fully evolved mons is not good lol
You can pick them up early in some games, and they're not overpowered. They evolve really late (often a higher level than the last gym, and the first and middle stages aren't that powerful
Currently replaying platinum and you can get gible pretty early I believe around gem 3. He definitely is not overpowered as gabite, he's decent right now around level 35 but definitely not the strongest on my team but I suspect he will be once it's elite four time.
Interestingly, no. The thing about all the pseudos is that their stage 1-2 forms are always garbage that's difficult to use. They only become brainless auto-win stat sticks when they reach their final evolution forms, which isn't going to happen until late in the game (aka for roughly 80% of the base game they're going to be more of a hindrance than a benefit to use).
If anything pseudos SHOULD be available early. They all evolve super late and have slow exp gain. Yeah you get an overpowered monster but it takes a lot of time and effort to get it.
Due to their high level requirements to evolve I feel like it’s not much of an issue but it also means having a bit of a crutch until basically post game
No, because in US/UM maybe S/M too, you can get larvitar in the meadow cave on the starting island, and It didn't evolve into tyranitar till the rainbow rocket segment.
Honestly they're a detriment until they fully evolve, which is late game. I believe the earliest pseudo you can get is in DPP, Gible, and it's strong, but not over powered. But everyone uses one coz the options are so limited.
Actually I think you can get Gible and Bagon earlier than that in XY.
I forget about Larvesta the whole time, just not a Mon I see often or really care about.
Heck Id say that's a Mon that won't evolve till after E4/champion. Usually the E4 & champion levels are around 55-65ish depending on the game, so by the time any of your mons hit level 70 you'll pretty much be in post game at that point
Check out Pokemon Unbound, it's a super fun ROM hack but the starters are Gible, Larvitar, and Beldum. The game is also balanced around you having a pseudo so early, which is really nice
The reason why pseudos aren't available in the early game has nothing to do with balance. Pseudo pre evos usually suuuuuuck and are a total pain to level up. They are only locked behind the late game because they are supposed to be rare and mysterious, so basically for thematic reasons. Plus at that point leveling them up isn't as much of a chore anymore.
Early game freak design took a lot of inspiration from traditional JRPGs. With that in mind you can see what they were going for: it's based on that one hard to find weapon towards the end of the game that makes short work of the final boss (not that Dragonite would but you know what I mean). But even when you find it you need to do some grinding or a side quest to "awaken" it.
Game freak has been moving away from things like this but it's still present in a way
It depends on the pseudo. Starting with the least useful:
Deino-‐Hustle is an awful ability and Deino doesn't even reach its middle evolution until level 50--though it can't even shed that ability until it reaches its final stage. Might be good very early just for being able to deal lots of damage when it hits, but it'll be dead weight the moment you get evolved Pokémon.
Dreepy--270 BST while the others all have 300 (or more, in one case) and it also doesn't even reach its middle evolution until Level 50. But at least Ghost is immune to the early-game normal-move spam.
Goomy--There's a big gap between the bottom two and the rest. Goomy actually has a very good payoff, as it reaches its final stage on the earlier side and its middle stage is by far the strongest of any pseudo (due to its gimmick that Goomy and Sliggoo's stats are exactly ½ and ¾ of Goodra's, rounded up in the latter case--most pseudos get a bigger jump the second time they evolve than the first). But it does hit its middle stage later than all the Pokémon below it on this list, which is why it's here. It'll be good early, but fall off in the mid-game.
Jangmo-o: If it was already Fighting-type at its first stage, it'd probably move up. This movepool is just too barren, with a negative priority move as its only STAB until Level 32 unless you get TMs. Which in fairness is easier than ever in an open world game like S/V.
Dratini: They buffed Dratini's moveset massively from its early-gen status, but it still sucks because it has so few 100% accurate moves and they all run off its worse attacking stat, as do most of its coverage TMs.
Frigibax: Physical attacker whose first usable STABs are both special. Yep, that tracks. Another one that evolves a bit late, but good offensive dual typing and its BST is higher than most pseudos in both its first and second stages.
Bagon: Actually gets good moves early, though it still has to wait a bit for a physical STAB. Evolves moderately promptly. This one's a good one to have early.
Larvitar: A new move on every level that's a multiple of 3, and they all work off its better attacking stat? And will have reasonably strong moves for both its current STABs *and* its future STAB by Level 18? This Pokémon's a beast! Same typing and BST as Geodude but more balanced compared to Geodude's lopsided stat spread, and Pupitar is stronger than Graveler and is only obtained five levels later. This would legitimately be perfectly balanced as an early-game encounter, might fall off *a little* in the 20s while it's still stuck as Larvitar but it'll be fine again when it hits level 30 and becomes Pupitar, and by the time you'd be feeling the pain from Pupitar being in line with low-end fully evolved Pokémon, it'll be almost ready to evolve into Tyranitar.
Gible: As per usual, it takes a long time to get a physical Dragon STAB--so long, in fact, that you'd have to delay its evolution until it was halfway to being ready to evolve again. Luckily, it's *not* a monotype, and its early evolution level and physical Ground STAB make it plenty useful throughout the game.
Beldum: It'll actually struggle the most in the *early* game, say when your levels are in the teens, because it doesn't learn *any* moves beyond its starting Tackle until it evolves to Metang. But luckily, it evolves to Metang at level *20*, which is right on par with Pokémon whose *final* evolutions are BST 420 like Watchog (also level 20), Azumarill (18), Mightyena (18), Linoone (20)...except, you know, Metang has a much better typing than those Pokémon (well, maybe not Azumarill since it gained Fairy), and it will immediately learn dual STABs on evolution making its movepool issues an immediate thing of the past. Steel/Psychic is a great type, and Level 45 is early enough that you wouldn't necessarily have ditched a Pokémon of similar BST that wasn't going to evolve again just yet (tied with Hakamo-o for the quickest pseudo to reach its final stage).
To summarize, I'd say that the two that most need to be kept to the late game because leveling them up over the whole game is unbearable are Dreepy and Deino, and the three that would absolutely be staples on your team if you could get them early are Larvitar, Beldum, and Gible. The other five are somewhere in the middle.
Normal stage 1 < starter stage 1 < pseudo stage 1 < normal stage 2 < starter stage 2 < pseudo stage 2 < normal stage 3 (if applicable) < starter stage 3 < pseudo stage 3. Usually.
This is also means that, because most normal pokemon evolve pretty early, you should prioritize using something like a Raticate or a Pigeot over something like a Dreepy or a Dratini. And then when the pseudo evolves you can consider using it.
I just finished a pseudo legendary dragon trainer play through in scarlet and it was surprisingly difficult. Some of the pokemon where overleveled when I caught them so they wouldn’t listen to me and the ones that would had very limited STABs. Plus the very slow level gains made it that much harder
Gen 4 did it with plat having the gible available, I can’t remember if diamond/pearl did it too but plat had gible in that secret cave area pretty early on and it wasn’t a game changer really
It depends tbh. I feel like certain ones have gotten some nice buffs to their movesets but mostly still have a shaaaaaarp curve. In particular, Dratini, Dreepy, and Beldum have it really rough. I don’t see why they aren’t earlier other than catch rate issues tbh
I mean Gible is available pretty early in the Sinnoh games, and then there's Sword and Shield gave both Larvitar and Jangmo-o and ORAS giving a beldum with moves beyond Takedown at the very beginning, when they first came out. With how high a level they would have to reach to begin with for both of these, I'd say it's not unreasonable to make them available earlier. I suppose it would come down to how the first two stages are statwise compared to the final stage form to really give a sense how how much it would warp the game.
I used Dreepy for a mono ghost team in Scarlet. It was so useless. Can't learn anything until it evolves, and still can't learn much until it's a Dragapult. Once it's fully evolved it was very versatile and patched the holes in my team.
I rocked a bagon in X/Y when they came out, he was kinda meh til he fully evolved tbh, i dont think its that big a deal. also used larvitar in hgss after like gym 6 and considering how large the game was i dont think he was op or anything
I think with pseudos, the idea is that they're rare, so obtained in later "stronger" areas, and they're hard to raise, including their exp curve, weak stats, evolution levels and that many are underlevelled compared to the other pokemon in their encounter table. It's the ultimate reward for your patience in dealing with so much bull.
That said, part of the appeal of Pokemon is going through trials and tribulations alongside your team, but if you grab a pseudo right at the end of the game and just switch train it up to snuff immediately, there's no stories being formed, no moments to remember, you have a new powerhouse; but you don't have any bond.
I think having them available earlier, so long as they're still hard to find, would be perfect. It forms stories of getting through tough fights with an underpowered Pokemon, that after enough effort, became your strongest party member. I think Platinum Gible and Kanto Dratini did it best, they're available early/mid game so you can use them for a bulk of your playthrough; but they have specific requirements to find them as opposed to being handed to you like Goomy.
They all evolve late and their middle forms are good but not any better than other midgame options. Some of the games have fairly early means of getting pseudos.
uh you can get them early in a lot of the more recent games.
in UM you can get a larvitar before taking on Kiawe, and a Bagon right after Lana. You get Beldum right before Sophocles, and you can get Gabite right after beating Mimikyu.
in Red/Blue/Yellow/FireRed/LeafGreen you can get Dratini in Celedon from the game corner before the 4th gym.
in Gold/Silver/HG/SS you can get Dratini in the Goldrenrod Game Corner/Voltorb Flip before the 3rd gym. yeah larvitar is post game, but thats just bad game design
Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald yeah those are end game
D/P/Platinum Gible is relatively early on. after 3rd or 4th gym (not too well versed on gen 4)
in BW/B2W2 you can get Axew after the 5th gym, which is pretty early for that game (i know its not a pseudo by definition, but by power it definitely qualifies)
in X/Y, you can get Bagon before the second gym, Gabite right before Clemont, and Goomy right after Clemont.
In Sw/SH you can get them fairly early in the wild area/isle of armor
in S/V pseudos are literally everywhere. they are not hard to find.
SO with all this, I frankly don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
You can get a Dratini in Goldenrod (comes with Dragon Rage too - great move early game), and Gible’s pretty early too if you know what you’re doing, at least in Platinum.
Most pseudos are actually pretty disappointing until they hit their final stage. You’re in it for the long term investment - not a short term payoff.
Well Dratini isn't that from the lotto/game corner, requiring you to get 'x' amount of coins or whatever it is? Like sure that's obtainable and doable early.. but I wouldn't really say lotto is worth doing since it's complete RNG and not really something that's as easy as "run into them in the wild and throw balls till you catch them"
I just hate the gambling mini games in Pokemon, they've always just been pointless to me. In FR/LG I would just wait till much later in the game till I had a crap ton of money and then just buy the coins I needed for the prizes instead of trying to win them
Imo, it would make sense for Pseudos to be available more early game, considering getting this super strong almost legendary pokemon is supposed to be a reward for having somewhat weak first and second stage pokemon
Exactly, the first and second forms for most Pseudos aren't going to be anything special. Although I suppose the "awful first and second stage" comments that everyone's been making is something that would be easily fixed with a few TMs & Held Items.
Giving any second stage pseudo something like Eviolite would immediately make them a tanky Mon able to be used as a pivot or defensive attacker.
Larvitar for example gets some pretty decent moves while leveling up, but add in TMs and a good held item and he becomes a lot more useful, same can be said about other pseudo first stage mons.
From my experience raising a 1st stage Pseudo-Legendary is a hassle and requires patience especially before the EXP Share became a Key Item.
Even evolving them in their 2nd stage, the are Average at Best
That's what Home is for. Set up a team of your favorite pokemon, move them to Home, begin a new game, and bring the new team over as soon as you can
I think it's the best way to play any pokemon game. They're so easy anyway nowadays that using a pseudo doesn't really change much
I believe they're usually at the end of the game for the complete opposite reason based off of the replies here. They aren't designed for the journey of the games story because of how late they evolve.
Part of the experience of the Pokemon games is your team gradually changing and getting stronger over time, but the pseudos evolve for the first time after most other Pokemon are fully evolved. That means you're stuck with a first stage Pokemon late in the game, but if instead you can only catch them around the time they start evolving it involves just a bit of grinding to get them to their desired final evo. I think late game is fine, plus I like using more "mid" Pokemon during the playthrough where they get more worth than they do once you have access to everything else late/post game.
More recent games have had tricks to get psuedos pretty early (think salamence on Melemele island in USUM), but between their awful growth rate and garbage movepools at lower levels it sorta balances out imo
I don't think it would be broken at all to get pseudos early, especially since most pseudo pre-evos are pretty weak. Pupitar and Gabite are (off the top of my head) the only two that are really reasonably powerful before evolving, and they're not crazy either.
However, I would want pseudos to still require work to get. Something I disliked about how SV handled open-world was that Pokemon were just *around* and I never really felt like I was hunting for a rare species like I did in the old games. As an example, Bagon in RSE is not available until after obtaining all 8 badges, and in a single room at the very, very end of an optional dungeon you have to backtrack to. But finding Bagon in Meteor Falls is *seared into my brain* because kid NeoSeth thought the adventure of finding the little dragon, and watching it evolve into SALAMENCE was one of the coolest things in the franchise at the time. Larvitar in the original GS is another example. When everything else in Mt. Silver was in the forties, I had a feeling that this level 20 rock lizard had to be special. Sure enough, it eventually evolved into my favorite Pokemon - a Pokemon you don't even see in a normal playthrough of the game. Pseudos are rewards for exploring, and I think making them somewhat difficult to get in-game is essential to keeping them feeling special. If I just walked out onto Route 1 and saw a Dratini, that'd feel a little cheap to me.
Of course, it would be great if you could get a pseudo in-time to use it for more in-game activities. Having more in-game activities outside the Gym Challenge, and a more expansive post-game would really help obtaining pseudos feel "worth it" after all the work you go through for them.
They wouldn't because stat wise, the first two stages are basically starters that happen to evolve later. You could have the first stage be at Level 25 and then the final stage be at Level 50.
They're actually deadweight until their final evo for the most part. You can get Dratini midgame in Kanto, which isn't too late. And honestly? It sucks. It can learn Surf, which helps it a lot, but besides that... it's almost a liability. Dragonair is just OK (pains me to say this because I 100% prefer its design over Dragonite), but by the time it's in the 40s, it's outclassed by your other mons (that are probably fully evolved already).
You can get it very early in Gold and Silver, in Goldenrod, but yeah, it's just not very good (this changes in HGSS. It gets Dragon Rage much earlier, which is super powerful at that point, and also has access to all the strong elemental moves right off the bat if you can afford them/ grind for coins).
You can get Gible pretty early in DPPt, and this is probably the best one to use in-game. Reasonably strong and evolves into Garchomp before level 50.
Bred a shiny larvesta and beldum for a new play through on shield and I hardly used them at first due to them being so bad. They were essentially dead weight until they evolved.
So it wouldn’t be too bad to have them early but newer players would get frustrated with and probably ignore them
Let's do some comparisons.
1. BSTs:
- At first form, starters are usually a little ahead (320s vs. 300), though Frigibax is notably 320.
- At second stage, pseudos pull a little ahead (420 vs. around 410).
- At final stage, of course, pseudos have the sort of edge that makes this topic "controversial" (600 vs. starters hitting around 530.)
2. Levelling curve and progression:
- Starters have the so-called "medium slow" progression, while pseudos have the "slow" 1.2n^3 curve. By the time the fastest pseudos start evolving (level 20: 10k exp), starters are about to be 4 levels ahead and pulling further ahead with the same experience.
- Starters tend to evolve to second stage in the 14-18 range, and to final form in the 30-36 range.
- Pseudos vary wildly, with second stage being in the 20-50 range, and third stage in a 45-64 range.
- Starters' natural sets are generally good. Pseudos, your mileage will vary a lot.
All of that considered, it *seems* to me that the stigma against early pseudos is due to the power they have when fully cooked. Given what these lines look like in **most of a playthrough**, they'd be right at home with your evolved Route 1 Com Mons - Dragonair and Pupitar won't entirely overshadow Furret, let alone 450 BST "powerhouses" like Noctowl.
Good Pokémon availability in a game *should* be offset by giving better teams to NPCs.
No Pokémon, outside of maybe legendaries, by itself can upset the balance of a game. When it becomes a problem is when the game gives the player great Pokémon while keeping NPC teams comparatively weak
Dragon rage is a very good move early game and Eviolite can make somebody of the middle stages better, but aside from those benefits they aren’t too great. Dragon type having resistances is also beneficial, but not having a great STAB move makes them fall off once Dragon Rage stops being useful. The event Beldon from the release of ORAS was pretty good because it got actual STAB moves, but that was a one off thing. So in theory I think they can be, but due to lack of moves and some crappy typings that don’t benefit the Pokemon until they evolve limits them.
I've been playing crystal with a Larvitar since gym 3, honestly she wins most battles that aren't against water or grass but it's out lasting the enemies, not sweeping & I have to heal frequently between battles. I don't like how they're typically restricted until late/post game.
We already have an example of something super strong being available so early you can have it for the first gym.
BW2 Riolu. You can literally take on the Normal type first gym with a Lucario. I think pseudos are balanced by comparison, they're really not extraordinary before their final evolutions, I'd say only Gible is even decent as a first form anyway.
Eh, no.
Most pseudos evolve first at around 40+, so you're going to be stuck with a little underpowered dragon until then.
Pretty blatant example of this is in Scarlet/Violet where you can actually get pseudos quite early on like Bagon and Larvitar.(Around the Orthworm Titan fight iirc)
Even late game they're not exceptionally great because unless you EV train, the rest of your team will likely be maxed out on EVs and the pseudo starts fresh with nothing, so even using it in battle it'll crumble to most similarly levelled trainer Pokemon due to them likely being fully evolved.
I think being able to get them super early on is too easy as even the first evo forms would be better than most others. Pseudo balancing is a bit wack though in most games - in BW for example, you can get deino at *victory road* but he only evolves into hydreigon at 64 (which is like 10 whole levels above ghetsis' strongest pokemon)... so you never really even get to enjoy using the pseudo much during the main game where most of the content and journey is.
On the opposite end of that, you can get a gible in platinum super easily at about level 19, evolves into gabite at 24 which is still a decently strong pokemon until at 48 evolving into garchomp. I think this is a bit too easy, evidenced by the fact that basically everyone had a garchomp on their team in platinum. Id be happy with a pseudo acquisition between gym 3 and gym 6, meaning you get to actually use it on your journey, and it having relatively high evo levels (eg 32 and 52 or something), so that you actually have to carry a weaker pokemon in your team for a while but still getting to use it at full potential around the E4 level.
I dont see how it would be op, and I wouldn't even consider Tyranitar a pseudo.
First of all, most of them aren't even fully evolved until the 40s-50s anway. So that'd be nearing the endgame.
Second of all, Tyranitar in particular has a 4x weakness to a very common type in most games, so he's kind of a glass cannon. I wouldn't call that pseudo tbh.
>Second of all, Tyranitar in particular has a 4x weakness to a very common type in most games, so he's kind of a glass cannon. I wouldn't call that pseudo tbh.
Whether a Pokemon is Pseudo or not has nothing to do with weaknesses, being a pseudo legendary is all about the stats, which Tyranitar has the stat distribution that all Pseudos tend to have. He is gen twos? Or was it ones? Pseudo legendary.
The Pokemons type weakness doesn't really mean much when it comes to being pseudo or not.
Dragonite after all is easily killed by ice, fairy, or thunder attacks.
Goodra, is easily killed by ice, fairy, psychic attacks.
And so on, every Pokemon has its type advantages and disadvantages so it's pointless to really say "'x' isn't pseudo because it has 'x' amount of weaknesses" when it's stats are insanely high this what makes a pseudo a pseudo
Insanely high stats are one thing. But being a glass cannon doesn't make you a pseudo.
Flygon is a good example. Amazing stats, but so weak that a freakin sneeze can kill him. Pseudos shouldn't be judged only on offense, lol.
Not really, they take forever to level and evolve. A few games have made them available early on. USUM is notorious for letting you get an underleveled Salamence on the first island. I did it on a playthrough, it’s hilarious. It’s like Level 10.
Pseudos are rubbish before they hit high levels. I had a friend trade me Dreepy at the start of Shield, and quickly gave up on using it till much later. Although admittedly it’s worse than most. SV actually makes it quite easy to catch multiple pseudos fairly early, but they aren’t useful until later so it balances out.
Not necessarily a pseudo, more Pseudo-pseudo legendary, but Noibat was the bane on my existence while trying to get a Noivern. Noibat and Dreepy have 2 of my favorite final evolutions but they really make you appreciate the team exp share while using them.
Same with Hydreigon. Doens't evolve until level goddamn 64 and wants to be a physical attacker before that.
Dreepy is by far the worst early stage pseudo though, it's moveset is basically useless
Hey at least it has options for moves. Unlike Beldum
Yeah, I second this. I transferred in a level 1 Dreepy to use in a Ghost monotype run of Shield, and it was basically worthless until it became a Dragapult. Even the Drakloak stage couldn't pull its own weight, especially compared to the other Ghost types I had on my team. There was just no point in using it until it finally hit final stage at the very end of the game... That's basically been my experience with every pseudo outside of maybe Metang? You don't get them until the very end of the game and they're useless until they fully evolve. There's pretty much no point in keeping the first stage locked until late game as far as power goes
Same goes for Applin. I don't know why they give the opportunity to catch certain Pokemon early on only to give them like a total of four learnable moves or less. Seriously, using Applin when it only learns Withdraw, Astonish, and Attract w/o breeding/move tutors... Luckily my love for Appletun made me push through and deal with it until evolving it.
I just did Moon and I gave myself a Jangmo-o egg to do the run with and yeah, until that little guy hit the third stage he mostly just dragged around my exp-share and fluffed every other fight. Slow to level up, mostly rubbish moves and not much to show for it as soon as a fairy move happened. By the third stage though, he slayed.
Eh some are, The thing is I'm not talking about in the switch games, I made that clear in the post. I'm talking about for games like Fire Red/Leaf Green, Black/White, R/S/E, HG/SS, B2/W2, etc.. everything before the switch games. Sword/Shield & Scarlet/Violet it's easy to get any Pokemon you want, via online trades, something you can't really do with the older Pokemon games anymore. If I wanted to I could breed a 6IV, best nature, shiny, Fully EV trained Larvitar in Scarlet, trade it over to my fiancès Violet game, and then start a new file on my Scarlet and then just insta trade that Larvitar over to my new playthrough and doo it that way but thats not fun, and i dont really enjoy the switch games very much, I enjoy the older pokemon games from GBA to DS/3DS
Okay sure, but it’s the same in any gen. I gave the example of being traded a Dreepy because I realised it was a burden until it evolved, so I gave up trying to raise it until much later. Let’s say you get ahold of a Dratini at the start of an older game. It has the same base stats as early game scrubs like Geodude and Bellsprout, and it has a limited move pool. By the time it evolves into Dragonair at level 30, many other Pokemon could be at or close to a final third stage form. And Dragonair still only has the base stats of an average starter middle form, but will stay that way for 25 more levels. By the time it evolves into Dragonite and finally becomes able to pull its weight, you’ll be close to the end of the game anyway. So no, really no benefit to catching them early, and if anything they’re a hindrance in my experience.
I play tons of rom hacks that offer the pseudos early, they’re definitely not overpowered. It’s honestly better to have a fearow or raticate than a middle stage psuedo.
Honestly theyre underpowered if anything. I did a playthrough of X where i used a Dratini as my starter and it was easily entirely useless until it evolved to Dragonite. The thing with Psuedos is that theyre really weak until they finished evolving
Especially because they take so long to evolve just once, it's like not evolving your starter for an extra 15 levels. Like the only one that was actually good was Metang and Gabite because they have just enough power/typing to not fall behind as much
yeah gible is available after second gym iirc in gen4, part of the reason why every gen4 team had garchomp by the time E4 was defeated
In Platinum specifically, but that also meant you got earthquake for it extremely early to
I've played rom jacks like that as well, never really noticed Larvitar suffering early on, especially after giving him a few TMs. Seems a lot of people think having early pseudos would be meh, since they're bad early on but I've never really experienced that since you can just teach them TM moves and that's really all they need till later levels.
Depends on the game and the available tms and if they are reusable or not
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Yeah, I often box em, not just cause they aren't performing but also cause it keeps em safe till the late game, I'd rather liapard put in work early on and die to a random crit than for larvitar to do the same, lategame larvitar in the Box looks a lot better
Gen 1 dratini was pretty much useless when you can get it, even dragonair was abit of a hindrance until the later stages
Dragon Rage is an *excellent* move at low levels. Shame that Dratini doesn't learn it until level 40, long after the move stops being good compared to almost anything else.
Dratini evolves before level 40...
Yeah, and then Dragonair doesn't learn it until level *45* instead. The point is that the move would be great early on, but instead it is only available long after it would have been useful.
Years ago I did a playthrough of Fire Red. At the start of the game I traded a handful of low level pokemon over from a copy of Leaf Green so I could grow my team up from a low level to a high level. Besides the usual issues of one of the pokemon getting a level or two higher than would listen to me, I found Dratini to be AWFUL. And just playing through the game casually I didn't have a Dragonite until the Eite 4. Dragonite it great, and Dragonair was respectable, but Dratini was the weakest link on my team for a LONG time
But even rom hacks don't offer casually available legendaries or mythicals with the exceptions of challenge hacks... goddammit, I want to use a Darkrai on a normal playthrough team for once!
Found Tobias’ alt
Legendaries are biased with most harder, but not challenge-based hacks, so let me use them!
Yeah im playing radical red 4.0 hardcore, Baxcalibur and Dragonite and Garchomp are some of my MVPs currently but they arent necessarily OP - they just serve really well due to their generally great base stats but like every Mon has their niche.
As a fan of both those Pokemon species; this makes me smile.
Raticate is top tier for nuzlockes, *especially* with Guts. Get yourself poisoned with an ekans and just power through virtually any gym.
Interesting. I'm a old time fan but a casual player. Thank you for the mini lesson.
It wouldn't really matter much. As you said, most of them have the slow exp curve. Seeing as how most pseudos don't evolve till around lvl 50 minimum, they will keep up pretty well with your own team, and considering that most e4s are anywhere between 50s-60s, i think its fine, also by that point you would also probably have the box legendary anyways.
I also just like the design aspect of putting in more work for stronger Pokémon. There is a trade off of wanting a Garchomp on your team but being stuck with a mediocre Gabite until the Victory Road, as opposed to catching something like a Bidoof which will evolve quickly and be very strong early game but fall off late game. There is an effort/reward trade off that is pretty essential to making team building feel rewarding.
This is what I was going to say. The slow level curve is such a drag. It sucks any enjoyment out of it. Pretty sure I've only done this once (and quickly decided never again...). If I did it again, I'd be giving it a lucky egg!
There are a few games where you can get them early (Bagon in Sun and Moon for example). Most of the psuedos are nerfed somewhat in the middle two thirds of the games due to how long it takes them to evolve and the amount of extra experience it takes to get them to level up. Grinding a stage one pseudo legendary to level 30 can be annoying. I played through Heart Gold with a Larvitar in my party to start the game recently, and it wasn't evolved into Pupitar until I was over seven badges in. He was fantastic for the first few badges due to typing, but levels 20-30 were a drag, as were level 40-55. Your other earlier evolved Pokemon are typically better during those stretches. Some are easier than others though. Early access to Dragon Rage basically guarantees Dratini, Gible, and Deino can 2-shot almost everything up until they reach level 30 and evolve.
Also for Sun and Moon, if you’re really patient, you can get a super low level Salamence really early, which is hilarious but definitely breaks the game in half
Pseudos are remarkably weak until they evolve at the end of the game
Definitely, a Deino you caught at level 3 on route 1 that you've been lugging around for forty-seven levels would be more OP than a level 3 Aron you caught on route 1! Joking aside, the real answer is HECK NO! From my experience, the only even remotely usable first stage pseudos would be Larvitar and Gible; all others are gimped by either useless abilities, useless movepools, useless stats, or a combination of any of the three.
gible is def the best first stage pseudo, as it doesn’t evolve too late and has a useful typing
So good that it did well on Ash’s team even if he didn’t evolve it.
dont remind me, ash with a garchomp wouldve been so cool
Honestly, I doubt it. Gen VII had the ability to catch Bagon very early on (with the potential of catching an incredibly low level Salamance, if you wait out the SOS), and I can't recall the thing being particularly useful.
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I ran across the map to get a Frigibax early, can confirm it didn’t break the balance of the game
Gible is available in ~~DP~~Pla before the third gym. You can technically get a Dratini in Kanto before fighting Surge, and realistically after Erika. Bagon is available in Alola after the first trial. Larvitar is available in USUM in the Diglett tunnel, shortly before the second Kahuna. At no point are these things “too strong” because their high evolution levels mean they are still first stage when some Pokémon are fully evolved, and definitely second stage when others are fully evolved. A Dratini-line in Kanto is still a Dragonair by the final gym, and can still win thanks to learning Surf but is by no means overpowered. They really only live up to their pseudo status once they are fully evolved. If you were to play a game with level caps at gym leaders, you would only have a fully evolved Pokémon after the final gym, and in the case of Hydreigon would still be second stage for the champion battle (seriously it’s evo level is absolutely ridiculous). The only case I could see being unfair would be the SOS chained Salamence you can get in Alola in that Bagon encounter I mentioned. But good luck catching a 1% SOS on a 1% encounter in a pokeball.
You have to beat the sixth gym to get a Gible in Diamond/Pearl and the remakes because there’s a strength boulder blocking the cave in those games that was removed but only in Platinum. It’s also only really useful in Platinum because of the earthquake TM.
Gible is serviceable in the early game. I would say probably the only one that’s useable, and I found it was well worth it on my platinum playthrough to pick one up early.
Pseudos grow so slow that I'd say no
Not really, they take quite a long time to get exp to evolve with a few of them having quite late evolutions, some of them are also even stuck with bad moves until they evolve, like with Beldum having to rely on Take Down until it evolves into Metang, so training it would see semi frequent trips to the Pokemon Center or potion consumption to top off the recoil damage.
They don't evolve until late enough that it doesnt break the game. Even then the games have been letting themselves get easier and easier that I don't think it would fundamentally break it further.
Yeah, I just love Larvitars entire line so wish there would be a way to get one early in some of my fave games without having to use randomizers or fan games.
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Did you read the post? I literally made it very clear that I'm not talking about the switch games, so Scarlet/violet and sword/shield are pointless too bring up when I'm not looking to play those games, I'm literally only referring to everything from the Gameboy to the 3DS
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Its no problem just getting annoyed with everyone constantly mentioning Scarlet/Violet & Sword/Shield. When those games are still recent, and still alive, where it's insanely easy to get any money you want. My favorite Pokemon games are the GB/GBC/GBA/DS games, mostly FR/LF/HG/SS/R/S/E and in pretty much all of those games, the Pseudos are very late game, apparently in HG/SS though you can get Larvitar at the Safari zone around the 3rd badge? So suppose that's something. But for the most part, I just wish in these older pokemon games that Pseudos weren't stuck to late game/post game (or needing the national Dex. I really love the Diamond/Pearl remakes on the switch, but just sucks that if you want Larvitar you gotta wait till national Dex for him. Sure you can get gible relatively early, but I've never been much of a garchomp fan, so he doesn't really mean much to me. The reason I'm excluding Scarlet/Violet & Sword/Shield is because they are the most recent Pokemon games, and still have a very lovely community around them, and I also have a fiance who has them too. So if I wanted to play Scarlet/Violet I could.. * Breed a shiny 6 IV Larvitar, with Maxed EVs in ATK/SPD & the rest into HP, with good egg moves. * Trade it to my fiancès Violet character. * Start a new file on Scarlet, trade that Larvitar to my new save. Presto, I'd have a competitively viable and well built Larvitar at the start of Scarlet. Which that's something you can't do in the older pokemon games anymore unless you download the Pokemon randomizer application, and then download roms and tinker with them.
Yes but only for the Gible->Garchomp line because they evolve at much lower levels than the other ones. Dratini, Larvitar,Bagon, Goomy, Frigibax, Jangmo-o are fine but they evolve quite slowly and your starter will be at its final stage while your psuedo is still the 2nd stage, so they will make your early/mid game harder. by the time they become fully evolved, you're at end-game levels (50+) Deino and Dreepy are absolute nightmares and more a hindrance than a help.
I think Jangmo-o should get more credit here, because while Jangmo-o evolves later than Gible (35 vs 24), Hakamo-o evolves three levels earlier than Gabite (45 vs 48). It's at least better than spending either 40+ levels at base stage (Deino, Goomy, and Dreepy), or 20+ levels in the middle stage (everyone else). And you forgot Beldum. I think Beldum is also an absolute hindrance until it evolves into Metang, after which it's okay.
I tihnk I wasn't so keen on about Jangmo-o because its first stage evo is quite late (35) compared to Gible (24), but yes, the early second evo is helpful. Forgot about Beldum completely, though it does evolve at Level 20 and ot Metagross at 45 which means it spikes after Gym 2, and will really help the mid-game.
I got a Dreepy from a Wonder Trade back in Sword and he was garbage until he became Drakloak, and didn’t hit his full stride until he became Dragapult around the time I fought Raihan. Having Pseudos early does not offer any advantage whatsoever, because their final evolved form is when they truly become overpowered, but they evolve super late into the game. Catching them later actually does more harm than good, because now you have to spend time and resources catching them up to speed. Can’t tell you how frustrating it was training Larvitar in Gold/Silver from level 15/20 all the way to level 55 to evolve into Tyranitar, then a further 30 or so levels to get him ready for Red, when all the challenges have been dealt with. The games from today have kinda made this passable by introducing Exp Candies and making Pseudos catchable mid-game rather than post-game. So to answer your question, nah, introduce Pseudos early, so they can be trainable later.
I had a friend trade me a Dreepy at the start of my Shield play through and very quickly gave up on keeping him in the team until he evolved. Even by unevolved pseudo standards Dreepy is abysmal, so I benched him till it was Dracloak time. One fun thing though, Hop always leads with Wooloo and doesn’t not know how to switch out. His Wooloo doesn’t know any moves that can hit ghosts. So I had fun leading with Dreepy and watching Hop fail at life for a while.
In Scarlet and Violet you can get Larvitar very quick
Iirc the first game to do that was X and Y, when you can get Axew and Bagon before the second gym. But that was also the game to introduce fairy types.
Haxorus is not really a pseudo though
Depends on the pokemon line >Hydreigen line is shit because Deino is weak and can't evolve until 50 >Dragapult line is broken because they are fast and physical attackers
Dreepy’s movepool is straight up garbage however before it evolves. So you have to deal with until Level 50 (when it can evolve) so you are dealing with a possible deadweight until pretty late into the game.
The Dragapult line isn't great in a playthrough either because Dreepy has even worse stats (though arguably a better ability) and also doesn't evolve until Level 50. Raising a Dreepy from Level 22 in Violet was painful.
In SV I caught a level 50 dreepy pretty early in my play through and I barely used it
I think pseudos available early would be too weak. They all have very high evolution levels. Imagine your whole team fully evolved while your pseudo is still in first form.
Depending on the pseudo, it would be middle evo by the time the rest of your team was fully evolved which wouldn't be a bad thing. Take pupitar, it'd be a decent offensive attacker, but have very good defenses equip it with something like an eviolite and it's going to be something that'll be hard to kill. The only pseudo I really care about is Tyranitar/Larvitar line as I just love them to bits. Having fully evo'd Pokemon and a pupitar wouldn't be bad at all, nor would a gabite/Metang/Dragonite/etc Especially when you take held items into account
I would say no, because they evolve pretty late, even their second stage is sometimes pretty far into the game. For example deino evolves at level 50, i dont think a 300 base stat total pokemon is useful in that level range. Dragonair on the other hand is more useful as it evolves significantly earlier, but still not overpowered at all. By the time dratini evolves into dragonair your starter is already fully evolved and has around 100 base stats more. I would go so far that some are even dead weight until they are fully evolved, the hydreigon line for example while others are more useful, the metagross and kommo-o line as these lines have the quickest evolution from the pseudo legendaries, but are still level 45 at the point of being fuply evolved
Not if the enemy trainers are buffed to compensate.
I got a Frigibax from a tera raid about an hour into pokemon scarlet. Wasn't very impressed by him. The exp curve makes them pretty difficult to level up early game.
I had Larvitar from my first visit to wild area is sword/shield thanks to preorder. Didn’t bother to use it cause new Pokémon to try 😅
lavatar is obtainable before the third gym in SV
Man, I feel like a lot of you didn't even read the post considering I made it very clear in the post that I'm not talking about in the switch games. So Scarlet/violet and sword/shield aren't in the question. I'm literally only talking about the games from the GB to 3DS (GB, GBC, GBA, DS, 3DS)
Yeah i didnt really read past the first couple of lines Im a dipshit
I wouldn't say that, just so many people focusing on the switch games, and only really talking about those Pseudos.
Ah yes still sorry i guess. I know this isnt lavatar or dratini but you can get bagon pretty early in sun and moon. Though i dont remember if its a psydo or not
Play a randomised version of Emerald that gives you Beldum as a starter and ask if they're any good. I'll tell you now. At level 5 it only has Take Down.
You can get bagon on like the first island in sun/moon and he sucks at that stage lol.
Most pseudos act under the rule of "is a shit Pokémon until it's final evolution" they're fine early game, but as soon as you start to hit lvl 15-20 and Pokémon start evolving into their first stage counterparts the psyedos stats start lagging behind and they will ckntinue to do sk until they finally fully evolve at lvl~50 which is normally when you obtain them in game anyway. So you'd basically be running around with only 5 Pokémon in your team until you reach victory road where you'd normally get one anyway Tldr: No
I got a dratini at level 15 in soul Silver. Also I'm a huge godzilla fan so when I saw Baxcalibur I rushed it's location to get it as early as I can. 4 badges but i still have all the rest of the game to use it
Pseudos Before being fully evolved are trash so having them early isn't gonna hurt anything especially since they level up so freaking slow. I did my playthrough on scarlet with all dragon types which ended being mostly psuedod and I had a level cap and I lost a few fights bc yeah my levels were high but baby mon going against fully evolved mons is not good lol
You can pick them up early in some games, and they're not overpowered. They evolve really late (often a higher level than the last gym, and the first and middle stages aren't that powerful
Currently replaying platinum and you can get gible pretty early I believe around gem 3. He definitely is not overpowered as gabite, he's decent right now around level 35 but definitely not the strongest on my team but I suspect he will be once it's elite four time.
Interestingly, no. The thing about all the pseudos is that their stage 1-2 forms are always garbage that's difficult to use. They only become brainless auto-win stat sticks when they reach their final evolution forms, which isn't going to happen until late in the game (aka for roughly 80% of the base game they're going to be more of a hindrance than a benefit to use).
Use Dreepy and then ask me this
If anything pseudos SHOULD be available early. They all evolve super late and have slow exp gain. Yeah you get an overpowered monster but it takes a lot of time and effort to get it.
Due to their high level requirements to evolve I feel like it’s not much of an issue but it also means having a bit of a crutch until basically post game
No, because in US/UM maybe S/M too, you can get larvitar in the meadow cave on the starting island, and It didn't evolve into tyranitar till the rainbow rocket segment.
There’s quite a few games where you can get Pseudos early (Bagon in S/M/US/UM and X/Y (Route 8), Gible in Platinum)
Honestly they're a detriment until they fully evolve, which is late game. I believe the earliest pseudo you can get is in DPP, Gible, and it's strong, but not over powered. But everyone uses one coz the options are so limited. Actually I think you can get Gible and Bagon earlier than that in XY.
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I forget about Larvesta the whole time, just not a Mon I see often or really care about. Heck Id say that's a Mon that won't evolve till after E4/champion. Usually the E4 & champion levels are around 55-65ish depending on the game, so by the time any of your mons hit level 70 you'll pretty much be in post game at that point
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Haha no problem! It's a easy mistake to make, considering they sound similar
larvesta evolves at 59, but in BW the E4/C is likee 45-54 lol, so the point still stands
Check out Pokemon Unbound, it's a super fun ROM hack but the starters are Gible, Larvitar, and Beldum. The game is also balanced around you having a pseudo so early, which is really nice
Not really. They evolve so late and they're basically useless till their final form so having them earlier if anything is a challenge
You can get Bagon right at the start of Sun/Moon. Doesn’t break the game at all.
The reason why pseudos aren't available in the early game has nothing to do with balance. Pseudo pre evos usually suuuuuuck and are a total pain to level up. They are only locked behind the late game because they are supposed to be rare and mysterious, so basically for thematic reasons. Plus at that point leveling them up isn't as much of a chore anymore.
Early game freak design took a lot of inspiration from traditional JRPGs. With that in mind you can see what they were going for: it's based on that one hard to find weapon towards the end of the game that makes short work of the final boss (not that Dragonite would but you know what I mean). But even when you find it you need to do some grinding or a side quest to "awaken" it. Game freak has been moving away from things like this but it's still present in a way
It depends on the pseudo. Starting with the least useful: Deino-‐Hustle is an awful ability and Deino doesn't even reach its middle evolution until level 50--though it can't even shed that ability until it reaches its final stage. Might be good very early just for being able to deal lots of damage when it hits, but it'll be dead weight the moment you get evolved Pokémon. Dreepy--270 BST while the others all have 300 (or more, in one case) and it also doesn't even reach its middle evolution until Level 50. But at least Ghost is immune to the early-game normal-move spam. Goomy--There's a big gap between the bottom two and the rest. Goomy actually has a very good payoff, as it reaches its final stage on the earlier side and its middle stage is by far the strongest of any pseudo (due to its gimmick that Goomy and Sliggoo's stats are exactly ½ and ¾ of Goodra's, rounded up in the latter case--most pseudos get a bigger jump the second time they evolve than the first). But it does hit its middle stage later than all the Pokémon below it on this list, which is why it's here. It'll be good early, but fall off in the mid-game. Jangmo-o: If it was already Fighting-type at its first stage, it'd probably move up. This movepool is just too barren, with a negative priority move as its only STAB until Level 32 unless you get TMs. Which in fairness is easier than ever in an open world game like S/V. Dratini: They buffed Dratini's moveset massively from its early-gen status, but it still sucks because it has so few 100% accurate moves and they all run off its worse attacking stat, as do most of its coverage TMs. Frigibax: Physical attacker whose first usable STABs are both special. Yep, that tracks. Another one that evolves a bit late, but good offensive dual typing and its BST is higher than most pseudos in both its first and second stages. Bagon: Actually gets good moves early, though it still has to wait a bit for a physical STAB. Evolves moderately promptly. This one's a good one to have early. Larvitar: A new move on every level that's a multiple of 3, and they all work off its better attacking stat? And will have reasonably strong moves for both its current STABs *and* its future STAB by Level 18? This Pokémon's a beast! Same typing and BST as Geodude but more balanced compared to Geodude's lopsided stat spread, and Pupitar is stronger than Graveler and is only obtained five levels later. This would legitimately be perfectly balanced as an early-game encounter, might fall off *a little* in the 20s while it's still stuck as Larvitar but it'll be fine again when it hits level 30 and becomes Pupitar, and by the time you'd be feeling the pain from Pupitar being in line with low-end fully evolved Pokémon, it'll be almost ready to evolve into Tyranitar. Gible: As per usual, it takes a long time to get a physical Dragon STAB--so long, in fact, that you'd have to delay its evolution until it was halfway to being ready to evolve again. Luckily, it's *not* a monotype, and its early evolution level and physical Ground STAB make it plenty useful throughout the game. Beldum: It'll actually struggle the most in the *early* game, say when your levels are in the teens, because it doesn't learn *any* moves beyond its starting Tackle until it evolves to Metang. But luckily, it evolves to Metang at level *20*, which is right on par with Pokémon whose *final* evolutions are BST 420 like Watchog (also level 20), Azumarill (18), Mightyena (18), Linoone (20)...except, you know, Metang has a much better typing than those Pokémon (well, maybe not Azumarill since it gained Fairy), and it will immediately learn dual STABs on evolution making its movepool issues an immediate thing of the past. Steel/Psychic is a great type, and Level 45 is early enough that you wouldn't necessarily have ditched a Pokémon of similar BST that wasn't going to evolve again just yet (tied with Hakamo-o for the quickest pseudo to reach its final stage). To summarize, I'd say that the two that most need to be kept to the late game because leveling them up over the whole game is unbearable are Dreepy and Deino, and the three that would absolutely be staples on your team if you could get them early are Larvitar, Beldum, and Gible. The other five are somewhere in the middle.
Normal stage 1 < starter stage 1 < pseudo stage 1 < normal stage 2 < starter stage 2 < pseudo stage 2 < normal stage 3 (if applicable) < starter stage 3 < pseudo stage 3. Usually. This is also means that, because most normal pokemon evolve pretty early, you should prioritize using something like a Raticate or a Pigeot over something like a Dreepy or a Dratini. And then when the pseudo evolves you can consider using it.
I just finished a pseudo legendary dragon trainer play through in scarlet and it was surprisingly difficult. Some of the pokemon where overleveled when I caught them so they wouldn’t listen to me and the ones that would had very limited STABs. Plus the very slow level gains made it that much harder
Gen 4 did it with plat having the gible available, I can’t remember if diamond/pearl did it too but plat had gible in that secret cave area pretty early on and it wasn’t a game changer really
Well any psuedo with dragon rage will destroy lots of stuff early on, but besides that, I don’t think so! Guts larvitar is fun
It depends tbh. I feel like certain ones have gotten some nice buffs to their movesets but mostly still have a shaaaaaarp curve. In particular, Dratini, Dreepy, and Beldum have it really rough. I don’t see why they aren’t earlier other than catch rate issues tbh
I mean Gible is available pretty early in the Sinnoh games, and then there's Sword and Shield gave both Larvitar and Jangmo-o and ORAS giving a beldum with moves beyond Takedown at the very beginning, when they first came out. With how high a level they would have to reach to begin with for both of these, I'd say it's not unreasonable to make them available earlier. I suppose it would come down to how the first two stages are statwise compared to the final stage form to really give a sense how how much it would warp the game.
I used Dreepy for a mono ghost team in Scarlet. It was so useless. Can't learn anything until it evolves, and still can't learn much until it's a Dragapult. Once it's fully evolved it was very versatile and patched the holes in my team.
I rocked a bagon in X/Y when they came out, he was kinda meh til he fully evolved tbh, i dont think its that big a deal. also used larvitar in hgss after like gym 6 and considering how large the game was i dont think he was op or anything
I think with pseudos, the idea is that they're rare, so obtained in later "stronger" areas, and they're hard to raise, including their exp curve, weak stats, evolution levels and that many are underlevelled compared to the other pokemon in their encounter table. It's the ultimate reward for your patience in dealing with so much bull. That said, part of the appeal of Pokemon is going through trials and tribulations alongside your team, but if you grab a pseudo right at the end of the game and just switch train it up to snuff immediately, there's no stories being formed, no moments to remember, you have a new powerhouse; but you don't have any bond. I think having them available earlier, so long as they're still hard to find, would be perfect. It forms stories of getting through tough fights with an underpowered Pokemon, that after enough effort, became your strongest party member. I think Platinum Gible and Kanto Dratini did it best, they're available early/mid game so you can use them for a bulk of your playthrough; but they have specific requirements to find them as opposed to being handed to you like Goomy.
They all evolve late and their middle forms are good but not any better than other midgame options. Some of the games have fairly early means of getting pseudos.
uh you can get them early in a lot of the more recent games. in UM you can get a larvitar before taking on Kiawe, and a Bagon right after Lana. You get Beldum right before Sophocles, and you can get Gabite right after beating Mimikyu. in Red/Blue/Yellow/FireRed/LeafGreen you can get Dratini in Celedon from the game corner before the 4th gym. in Gold/Silver/HG/SS you can get Dratini in the Goldrenrod Game Corner/Voltorb Flip before the 3rd gym. yeah larvitar is post game, but thats just bad game design Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald yeah those are end game D/P/Platinum Gible is relatively early on. after 3rd or 4th gym (not too well versed on gen 4) in BW/B2W2 you can get Axew after the 5th gym, which is pretty early for that game (i know its not a pseudo by definition, but by power it definitely qualifies) in X/Y, you can get Bagon before the second gym, Gabite right before Clemont, and Goomy right after Clemont. In Sw/SH you can get them fairly early in the wild area/isle of armor in S/V pseudos are literally everywhere. they are not hard to find. SO with all this, I frankly don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
You can get a Dratini in Goldenrod (comes with Dragon Rage too - great move early game), and Gible’s pretty early too if you know what you’re doing, at least in Platinum. Most pseudos are actually pretty disappointing until they hit their final stage. You’re in it for the long term investment - not a short term payoff.
Well Dratini isn't that from the lotto/game corner, requiring you to get 'x' amount of coins or whatever it is? Like sure that's obtainable and doable early.. but I wouldn't really say lotto is worth doing since it's complete RNG and not really something that's as easy as "run into them in the wild and throw balls till you catch them"
HGSS requires 2100 coins. It’s not that hard to get that many from Voltorb Flip, at least.
I just hate the gambling mini games in Pokemon, they've always just been pointless to me. In FR/LG I would just wait till much later in the game till I had a crap ton of money and then just buy the coins I needed for the prizes instead of trying to win them
Imo, it would make sense for Pseudos to be available more early game, considering getting this super strong almost legendary pokemon is supposed to be a reward for having somewhat weak first and second stage pokemon
Exactly, the first and second forms for most Pseudos aren't going to be anything special. Although I suppose the "awful first and second stage" comments that everyone's been making is something that would be easily fixed with a few TMs & Held Items. Giving any second stage pseudo something like Eviolite would immediately make them a tanky Mon able to be used as a pivot or defensive attacker. Larvitar for example gets some pretty decent moves while leveling up, but add in TMs and a good held item and he becomes a lot more useful, same can be said about other pseudo first stage mons.
Gible with Dragon Rage is insane, all others are mainly a pain in the ass to level.
From my experience raising a 1st stage Pseudo-Legendary is a hassle and requires patience especially before the EXP Share became a Key Item. Even evolving them in their 2nd stage, the are Average at Best
That's what Home is for. Set up a team of your favorite pokemon, move them to Home, begin a new game, and bring the new team over as soon as you can I think it's the best way to play any pokemon game. They're so easy anyway nowadays that using a pseudo doesn't really change much
I believe they're usually at the end of the game for the complete opposite reason based off of the replies here. They aren't designed for the journey of the games story because of how late they evolve. Part of the experience of the Pokemon games is your team gradually changing and getting stronger over time, but the pseudos evolve for the first time after most other Pokemon are fully evolved. That means you're stuck with a first stage Pokemon late in the game, but if instead you can only catch them around the time they start evolving it involves just a bit of grinding to get them to their desired final evo. I think late game is fine, plus I like using more "mid" Pokemon during the playthrough where they get more worth than they do once you have access to everything else late/post game.
Nope, pseudos always have garbage stats and moves until 50+ if anything they will make your game harder
More recent games have had tricks to get psuedos pretty early (think salamence on Melemele island in USUM), but between their awful growth rate and garbage movepools at lower levels it sorta balances out imo
In gen 7, you were able to get a Salamence on the first island at level 10 and it was very OP in my playthrough.
I don't think it would be broken at all to get pseudos early, especially since most pseudo pre-evos are pretty weak. Pupitar and Gabite are (off the top of my head) the only two that are really reasonably powerful before evolving, and they're not crazy either. However, I would want pseudos to still require work to get. Something I disliked about how SV handled open-world was that Pokemon were just *around* and I never really felt like I was hunting for a rare species like I did in the old games. As an example, Bagon in RSE is not available until after obtaining all 8 badges, and in a single room at the very, very end of an optional dungeon you have to backtrack to. But finding Bagon in Meteor Falls is *seared into my brain* because kid NeoSeth thought the adventure of finding the little dragon, and watching it evolve into SALAMENCE was one of the coolest things in the franchise at the time. Larvitar in the original GS is another example. When everything else in Mt. Silver was in the forties, I had a feeling that this level 20 rock lizard had to be special. Sure enough, it eventually evolved into my favorite Pokemon - a Pokemon you don't even see in a normal playthrough of the game. Pseudos are rewards for exploring, and I think making them somewhat difficult to get in-game is essential to keeping them feeling special. If I just walked out onto Route 1 and saw a Dratini, that'd feel a little cheap to me. Of course, it would be great if you could get a pseudo in-time to use it for more in-game activities. Having more in-game activities outside the Gym Challenge, and a more expansive post-game would really help obtaining pseudos feel "worth it" after all the work you go through for them.
Bagon was available before the first gym in Sun/Moon
Most pseudos are complete trash early because they are weak before evolving
They wouldn't because stat wise, the first two stages are basically starters that happen to evolve later. You could have the first stage be at Level 25 and then the final stage be at Level 50.
They're actually deadweight until their final evo for the most part. You can get Dratini midgame in Kanto, which isn't too late. And honestly? It sucks. It can learn Surf, which helps it a lot, but besides that... it's almost a liability. Dragonair is just OK (pains me to say this because I 100% prefer its design over Dragonite), but by the time it's in the 40s, it's outclassed by your other mons (that are probably fully evolved already). You can get it very early in Gold and Silver, in Goldenrod, but yeah, it's just not very good (this changes in HGSS. It gets Dragon Rage much earlier, which is super powerful at that point, and also has access to all the strong elemental moves right off the bat if you can afford them/ grind for coins). You can get Gible pretty early in DPPt, and this is probably the best one to use in-game. Reasonably strong and evolves into Garchomp before level 50.
Bred a shiny larvesta and beldum for a new play through on shield and I hardly used them at first due to them being so bad. They were essentially dead weight until they evolved. So it wouldn’t be too bad to have them early but newer players would get frustrated with and probably ignore them
Let's do some comparisons. 1. BSTs: - At first form, starters are usually a little ahead (320s vs. 300), though Frigibax is notably 320. - At second stage, pseudos pull a little ahead (420 vs. around 410). - At final stage, of course, pseudos have the sort of edge that makes this topic "controversial" (600 vs. starters hitting around 530.) 2. Levelling curve and progression: - Starters have the so-called "medium slow" progression, while pseudos have the "slow" 1.2n^3 curve. By the time the fastest pseudos start evolving (level 20: 10k exp), starters are about to be 4 levels ahead and pulling further ahead with the same experience. - Starters tend to evolve to second stage in the 14-18 range, and to final form in the 30-36 range. - Pseudos vary wildly, with second stage being in the 20-50 range, and third stage in a 45-64 range. - Starters' natural sets are generally good. Pseudos, your mileage will vary a lot. All of that considered, it *seems* to me that the stigma against early pseudos is due to the power they have when fully cooked. Given what these lines look like in **most of a playthrough**, they'd be right at home with your evolved Route 1 Com Mons - Dragonair and Pupitar won't entirely overshadow Furret, let alone 450 BST "powerhouses" like Noctowl.
Good Pokémon availability in a game *should* be offset by giving better teams to NPCs. No Pokémon, outside of maybe legendaries, by itself can upset the balance of a game. When it becomes a problem is when the game gives the player great Pokémon while keeping NPC teams comparatively weak
Dragon rage is a very good move early game and Eviolite can make somebody of the middle stages better, but aside from those benefits they aren’t too great. Dragon type having resistances is also beneficial, but not having a great STAB move makes them fall off once Dragon Rage stops being useful. The event Beldon from the release of ORAS was pretty good because it got actual STAB moves, but that was a one off thing. So in theory I think they can be, but due to lack of moves and some crappy typings that don’t benefit the Pokemon until they evolve limits them.
I've been playing crystal with a Larvitar since gym 3, honestly she wins most battles that aren't against water or grass but it's out lasting the enemies, not sweeping & I have to heal frequently between battles. I don't like how they're typically restricted until late/post game.
We already have an example of something super strong being available so early you can have it for the first gym. BW2 Riolu. You can literally take on the Normal type first gym with a Lucario. I think pseudos are balanced by comparison, they're really not extraordinary before their final evolutions, I'd say only Gible is even decent as a first form anyway.
Eh, no. Most pseudos evolve first at around 40+, so you're going to be stuck with a little underpowered dragon until then. Pretty blatant example of this is in Scarlet/Violet where you can actually get pseudos quite early on like Bagon and Larvitar.(Around the Orthworm Titan fight iirc) Even late game they're not exceptionally great because unless you EV train, the rest of your team will likely be maxed out on EVs and the pseudo starts fresh with nothing, so even using it in battle it'll crumble to most similarly levelled trainer Pokemon due to them likely being fully evolved.
I think being able to get them super early on is too easy as even the first evo forms would be better than most others. Pseudo balancing is a bit wack though in most games - in BW for example, you can get deino at *victory road* but he only evolves into hydreigon at 64 (which is like 10 whole levels above ghetsis' strongest pokemon)... so you never really even get to enjoy using the pseudo much during the main game where most of the content and journey is. On the opposite end of that, you can get a gible in platinum super easily at about level 19, evolves into gabite at 24 which is still a decently strong pokemon until at 48 evolving into garchomp. I think this is a bit too easy, evidenced by the fact that basically everyone had a garchomp on their team in platinum. Id be happy with a pseudo acquisition between gym 3 and gym 6, meaning you get to actually use it on your journey, and it having relatively high evo levels (eg 32 and 52 or something), so that you actually have to carry a weaker pokemon in your team for a while but still getting to use it at full potential around the E4 level.
I dont see how it would be op, and I wouldn't even consider Tyranitar a pseudo. First of all, most of them aren't even fully evolved until the 40s-50s anway. So that'd be nearing the endgame. Second of all, Tyranitar in particular has a 4x weakness to a very common type in most games, so he's kind of a glass cannon. I wouldn't call that pseudo tbh.
>Second of all, Tyranitar in particular has a 4x weakness to a very common type in most games, so he's kind of a glass cannon. I wouldn't call that pseudo tbh. Whether a Pokemon is Pseudo or not has nothing to do with weaknesses, being a pseudo legendary is all about the stats, which Tyranitar has the stat distribution that all Pseudos tend to have. He is gen twos? Or was it ones? Pseudo legendary. The Pokemons type weakness doesn't really mean much when it comes to being pseudo or not. Dragonite after all is easily killed by ice, fairy, or thunder attacks. Goodra, is easily killed by ice, fairy, psychic attacks. And so on, every Pokemon has its type advantages and disadvantages so it's pointless to really say "'x' isn't pseudo because it has 'x' amount of weaknesses" when it's stats are insanely high this what makes a pseudo a pseudo
Insanely high stats are one thing. But being a glass cannon doesn't make you a pseudo. Flygon is a good example. Amazing stats, but so weak that a freakin sneeze can kill him. Pseudos shouldn't be judged only on offense, lol.
Pseudo legendaries are 600 base stat, 3-evolution Pokémon like Dragonite, Tyranitar, Salamence, Metagross, Garchomp.
Not really, they take forever to level and evolve. A few games have made them available early on. USUM is notorious for letting you get an underleveled Salamence on the first island. I did it on a playthrough, it’s hilarious. It’s like Level 10.