Goddamned Bats/Pokémon

• In every installment of the Pokémon games to date, you will have different Random Encounters in different areas of the map. Pokémon that are numerous in one place are often unknown in another... except for the bats. Zubat, that is. Each and every cave is filled with them. Unlike the great outdoors, where you would usually be able to avoid random encounters by staying away from the tall grass, when you're in a cave everywhere is a danger zone and you find yourself traversing vast underground mazes laden with complex rock-smashing and rock-pushing puzzles while every third step you take, the screen flashes and you find yourself fighting yet another Goddamned (Zu)bat. These things are very fond of using a move called "Supersonic" to confuse your Pokémon into attacking itself half the time. Later in the game, they learn "Confuse Ray," which is like Supersonic but 100% accurate, and even gain the power to prevent you from running away, or even switching Pokémon, with the move "Mean Look." (They're hard to run away from even when they don't use Mean Look, because running is determined partially by speed, and the bats have pretty darn good speed stats.) To exacerbate things further, they happen to be unusually popular among whatever evil cult you're foiling. Popular enough to warrant carrying three or four of them. In generations three and four, they (logically, but frustratingly) even appear when you're swimming in water.
  • Taken from a report on Mount Moon in a FireRed Let's Play Thread by RedChocobo:

Report: ...I'd like to make an aside and say this: Mount Moon has made be hate Zubat with no end. Zubat Zubat Zubat. Endless swarms of damnnable Zubat. I was breathing Zubat with every breath. I couldn't move my arm without hitting a dozen Zubat into about a hundred other Zubat, causing them to all get pissed off and start divebombing me... (it goes on and it continues about 3/4 down this page).

• • Zubat example expressed neatly in song form
  • In later games, Zubat's evolved form, Golbat, is even worse: gets Poison Fang at high levels, which has a decent chance of inflicting high-strength poison on its target. If you didn't stock up on Antidotes and don't have the extremely rare "Aromatherapy" or "Heal Bell" moves, you'll either have to leave the cave to visit the Pokémon Center and start the dungeon over again or just watch as your monster slowly faints (with annoying screen flashes to indicate HP loss every few steps). Golbat also gets Air Slash and Bite, which have a 30% chance of making the target "flinch", essentially forcing it to skip a turn. Bear in mind that Zubat and Golbat do not learn too many moves while levelling up, so they can still be expected to have Confuse Ray and Mean Look at those levels. With all those Textbook Annoyer moves, it's almost like Zubat was designed to be such a fucking pest. The saving graces are that it isn't ridiculously fast (Base 90 Speed), will more than likely be a lower level than the Pokémon in your team, the flinch moves can only trigger the secondary effect if the user is faster, has poor defenses (75/70/70), and shitty typing.
    • In Unova, Crobat can now be found in the wild (post-National Dex). The encounter is rare, however.
  • Zubat now has Unova brethren. Pokémon Black and White Versions introduce the Expies of the Zubat line: Woobat and Swoobat, who are rare encounters in the wild. There's varied wildlife in Unova (thankfully)... except on water (See below).
• There is also the equally frequent Geodude and its evolution, Graveler (often at the same caves, at that). While they tend to go down quicker, they have an inexplicable tendency to use the insanely powerful "suicide" moves "Self Destruct" and "Explosion" before you manage to land the final blow on them. This usually screws you out of experience points and a usable Pokémon. Lovely.
  • Not to mention their fondness of the move Defense Curl, which increases their already-high Defense stat and powers up Rollout (a STAB snowballing move). They're slow enough that you can generally easily run away from a fight with one in the wild though.
• Another example is the Tentacool and Tentacruel in watery areas. Aside from also learning Supersonic, they learn a move called Poison Sting, which come with a possibility of poisoning your Pokémon and eating its HP every turn while battling, and every step while moving about the world. The fact that the screen does this flashy-glitchy thing every other second to remind you adds to the irritation.
  • For even more fun, Tentacool often know Wrap, which can prevent you from fleeing/switching, causes damage at the same time, and lasts 2-5 turns. This was even worse in the first generation of games, as Wrap prevented the target from doing anything.
• Also in watery areas (starting from the third generation) are Wingull, who can learn Supersonic, like Zubat, but fortunately can't naturally learn Confuse Ray or other status moves. They are also fast. Fortunately, due to their typing, they are extremely weak to Electric attacks -- meaning that strong Electric Pokémon can engage in Wingull massacres.
  • Wingull's evolution, Pelipper, isn't much better, as it's going to use Roost repeatedly and restore whatever HP your mon takes form it. You're in for a long fight if you can't OHKO it or at least knock it down into the red.
• Continuing the trend in the fourth generation, there is Bronzor. A Steel/Psychic type whose only weaknesses are Fire and Ground, and both of its abilities can cancel out one of the two weaknesses, meaning that each time you fight one, you have no idea which it's weak to. In addition to that, they also come with the move Hypnosis that can send a Pokémon to sleep, and have some of the greatest defense stats in the game. And there's only two Fire-type Pokémon (not counting their evolutions) in the game, pre-National Dex. Luckily, they're rather slow, so you can get away.
• Fearow in the later areas of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl is another pain in the rear, because more often than not, you can't get away from them even when you hit the run button.
• Diglett in FireRed and LeafGreen. Diglett's cave is full of them, they're fast, and there's a 50/50 chance of them having an ability that prevents you from switching or running way. Add in Sand Attack to lower accuracy and possibly Dig to avoid nearly all attacks for a turn and they get to be a pain.
  • Diglett and Dugtrio were even worse in Generation I. Not only did they have good physical sweeper stats (high speed and attack) and powerful attacks, but the game mechanics at the time based critical hit rate off of speed. Diglett's moves crit 18.6% of the time and Dugtrio crits 23.4% of the time with regular moves. If they have slash, a crit is almost guaranteed. If you didn't level up your bird, these guys become Demonic Spiders.
  • In Generation III and beyond, they are blessed with the abilities: Sand Veil (increasing evasion by 20% in a sandstorm) and Arena Trap (grounded enemies cannot leave). As if they were not annoying enough.
• And then there's the inevitable power station levels, in which the Magnemite are customarily flying so thick it's amazing your character can actually walk through them. This would be merely annoying if you lead with a Ground type, which is immune to their Electric attacks... if they didn't have one move that does a flat 20 damage with no resistances (SonicBoom) and a confusion move (Supersonic). Did we mention that the Geodude family, the easiest Ground types to locate (seriously, they're everywhere), has a fairly low HP stat because it depends mainly on a good Defence and Resistance to normal damage?
  • Well at least they weren't given a move in Gen IV that makes them completely immune to ground attacks, because that would be stupid - Oh, hello, Magnet Rise.
• And now the fifth generation has Roggenrola and Boldore, commonly found in caves. A Rock-type with good attack and defense, accuracy-reducing attacks, SELF-DESTRUCT, EXPLOSION, and the ability Sturdy. However, Sturdy has been buffed into giving the Pokémon a Last Chance Hit Point if it was hit with lethal damage when its health was full. Yes, that would mean that you would take at least two turns to kill one unless you had some form of multi-hitting move or the ability Mold Breaker, and if you're unlucky, it blows up in your face on that first turn.
  • Here's the clincher-- in the Challenger's Cave, accessible after the Elite Four, you can find Boldore and Graveler together. Both have Sturdy, and Graveler still has its insane tendency to explode at the tiniest provocation. Enjoy your stay.
    • Thankfully Selfdestruct and Explosion have been nerfed and no longer halve your defense when it hits you. It still does massive damage, but at least now anything less than 20 levels above the user can survive it.
    • Gamefreak did attempt to balance this out by giving players numerous ways around the new Sturdy. Both Version Mascots, Reshiram and Zekrom, have glorified versions of Mold Breaker, as well as the extremely powerful Haxorus and its pre-evolutions, who have the actual Mold Breaker, allowing those three mons to bypass Sturdy. In addition, quite a few respectable mons know multi-hit moves that Boldore and Graveler are weak to, such as Cinccino's Bullet Seed, Vanilluxe's Icicle Spear, Sawk's Double Kick, and Emboar's Arm Thrust. While these moves aren't the best, they're good to have around if only to get around Sturdy.
    • And if you caught a Sandile or a Roggenrola of your own, giving it Rock Slide lets you deprive the Goddamned Rocks of an attack despite Sturdy 30% of the time. It's like Flinch's way of apologizing for Zubat and Golbat.
    • Of course, then they HAD to give Sturdy to a Sawk belonging to the Elite Four. Elite Four members have Full Restores, so you'll be activating that Sturdy over and over and over again...
• If that Patrat uses Detect one more goddamned time...
  • Its evolution, Watchog, can learn Hypnosis (puts your Pokémon to sleep), Confuse Ray (see Zubat examples), AND Super Fang (slashes your Pokémon's HP down to half). Have fun.
• Looking for Pokémon in Unova's lakes, rivers, oceans, etc.? Hope you like Basculin! Trying to get rare/strong Pokémon from the special fishing/surfing spots in the same areas? Hope you like a slightly different Basculin
  • Oh, and were you planning to simply run away from said Basculin, especially if your lead Pokémon has anything but top-shelf Speed? Hope you like being trapped while that Basculin pounds the crap out of you -- the stupid little fish have surprisingly good Attack and pack a number of strong moves, like Aqua Tail and Double-Edge.
    • Don't forget Final Gambit, if you happen to run into one above Level 51.
• Durants. Oh my god, the Durants. 40% Chance of seeing them in all floors of Victory Road, and trust me, you will be seeing a lot of them. The little jerks pack a punch with their 112 base Attack, and have a nice 109 base Speed to strike first with. They have some strong moves in Iron Head and Crunch when you find them, and trust me, they hurt. Woe to those who don't bring it's one weakness, or catch a Heatmor along the way, because the little bugger has nine resistances, and an immunity to Poison. The only good thing about them? Base 48 Special Defense means your Emboar or other special Fire attacker will take it down in no time flat. Base 58 HP doesn't help either, on that...
  • Gamefreak compensated for this one too. Half of the Durants get Hustle, which makes their attack significantly less accurate albeit significantly more powerful. And really usable Fire-types are found in abundance in Unova that are great for destroying Durants by the dozen. Who will YOU use to subvert Durant? Will it be Simisear, Darmanitan, Volcarona, Heatmor, Chandelure, Emboar, or if you're playing Pokemon Black, Reshiram? Not only do all of these mons take half damage from both of Durant's STABs, the Chandelure and Emboar take it a step farther and take only a quarter damage from its Bug attacks!
  • And heck, 48 base special defense means almost any special attacker could take it down fairly quickly, not just a special Fire attacker.