What makes a good, effective Pokemon?

4 min readNov 10, 2015

1. Stats

If you’ve been playing Pokemon for a good while, you know stats aren’t distributed equally. Each Pokemon is unique in its own way.

Some Pokemon have low stats on average.
Some Pokemon have high stats on average.
Some are in between.
Some are a mixture of all three.

So the difference between an effective or ineffective Pokemon comes down to how adaptable it is to each battle and the Pokemon’s top stats, such as:

Speed.
Special Attack.
Defense.
Special Defense.
HP.
Attack.

2. Nature.

Each Pokemon from Pokemon Ruby and the newer games has it’s own unique nature depending on random luck. Nature can positively or negatively influence your Pokemon’s:

Speed.
Special attack.
Attack.
Defense.
Special Defense.
HP.

Nature plays a big part in the effectiveness of your Pokemon and your team.

3. Strengths.

Strengths is determined by the advantages your Pokemon has in each and every battle. For example, a dragon type Pokemon:

Can overwhelm bug types.
Fire types.
Grass types.
Are usually quite fast.
High attack power.

And on top of that, dragon type pokemon have pretty incredible stats. Even for the average dragon type pokemon. In comparison to say — the average Normal type Pokemon. Always play to your strengths and have a well prepared backup plan.

4. Learnable moveset.

An effective Pokemon can learn not just a wide range of moves, but the RIGHT range of moves that are best suited to the Pokemon using it. For example -

Dragon types can learn flame-thrower (good for ice types, their weakness)
Some water Pokemon can learn earthquake. (good against their weakness, electric)
Some grass types can use Aerial Ace (good against bug, etc)

And so on. It’s no good teaching a Pokemon with poor SP.Attack stats flamethrower if it’s not best suited to it. Especially when the opposing team has great special defense stats. Learnable moves are only good when it makes sense. Like teaching flamethrower to a Rayquaza for example.

5. Abilities.

Abilities is another defining factor for an effective Pokemon. For example -

Claydol has the ability — Levitate. (Can’t be hit by ground moves)
Ampharos has the ability — Static. (30% chance of Paralysis upon contact)

Using the right mix of abilities and having a strategy in double or triple battles can come in handy. Or even one on one battles. A pokemon’s ability alone can be the difference between winning and losing. Even against a Pokemon that may technically be stronger than your own.

6. Types

Last not but not least is types.

Some Pokemon are dual types. (Ground/water)
Some are just one type. (Fire

Lets use Swampert as an example.

Swampert is a water and ground type. That means

Electric types don’t stand a chance.

But on the other hand:

Swampert doesn’t stand a chance against Grass types, Like — Sceptile.

So depending on the type of Pokemon you’re using, whether it be dual type or single type, you’ll be able to use certain TM’s, HM’S, defeat certain Pokemon and come up with different strategies. Type is probably one of the most important points on this list for using good, effective Pokemon.

EV (effort value) Points.

Just to make one last point, EV training is also a contributor to having an effective Pokemon. For example, If you’re Pokemon’s best stat is SPEED:

Fighting similar Pokemon will increase your Pokemon’s speed stat beyond average.

If you trained two Pokemon with great speed stats, and one got EV training and the other didn’t, the difference would be noticeable.