The Most Facepalm Worthy Thing You Have Done in All of Pokémon

[dsm77773]

So I got bored of SOS-chaining to EV train my Skarmory. Went to Poni Wilds to get Samurott & a couple berries.
Then I tell myself "let's try again", so I bought a ton of Adrenaline Orbs, and started SOS-chaining Roggenrolas.
Once I get tired, I finish the battle and check if Skarmory has maxed out his Defense EVs through Share Exp.
But Skarmory wasn't actually in my team... had forgotten it in the PC. Wasted an hour of my life...

 

[PixelBeat]

In Pearl I got messed up by Fantina when my overleveled Infernape only know Normal and Fighting type moves. Thanks HMs.

 

[Pikachu315111]

In Pearl I got messed up by Fantina when my overleveled Infernape only know Normal and Fighting type moves. Thanks HMs.

Why did it not know a Fire-type move?

 

[PixelBeat]

Why did it not know a Fire-type move?

I was just a young kid and not quite as knowledgeable about the type chart, and poor at planning movepools.

 

[Siggu]

Well, it could be worse.

During all the road from RBY up to Platinum, I didn't know STAB existed.

 

[Spiky Turtle]

I didn't discover the physical special split until the sixth gym in Diamond.

 

[thdhted]

Let's face it, when we were new to Pokemon, we were ALL idiots. I've still got my ancient Alakazam with a moveset of Shock Wave, Focus Punch, Iron Tail, and Shadow Ball, all the way back from Ruby. I keep it around as a sort of reminder as to how I've improved since then.

 

[MK]

I think my Dusknoir in Platinum had Dark Pulse, Psychic, Charge Beam, and Will-o-Wisp ... yeah. Still swept a ton though, somehow.

 

[PixelBeat]

Luckily most of the trainers in Pokemon games are easily to beat, even for Pokemon with sub-optimal (in-game) movesets.

In the same save file where I had that Infernape, I had a Luxray with Spark, Thunder Fang, Thunder and Discharge.

 

[thdhted]

Luckily most of the trainers in Pokemon games are easily to beat, even for Pokemon with sub-optimal (in-game) movesets.

In the same save file where I had that Infernape, I had a Luxray with Spark, Thunder Fang, Thunder and Discharge.

Can't beat that quad electric coverage.

 

[Hourai]

Speaking of bad movesets, when I was younger, I had an Absol with Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, Flamethrower, and Shadow Ball. I had no idea what STAB was back then.

 

[Kanburi]

I had no idea what STAB was either when I was playing Red, I just figured that water-type Pokemon would hit harder with water-type moves (it just made sense to me), so I had Blastoise with Bubble, Water Gun, Bubble Beam, and Surf.

 

[Luna]

I did the opposite as the above. With my Blastoise, I'd only use Tackle, because I thought: "Well, Normal-type hits everything! Why I'd even use another move?"
I'd only use the others attacks when Tackle's PP was over...

There's this time where I tried to do a Rest strategy with an Insomnia Hypno. Also, when I first saw Absol I thought it was a legendary (???) and I was so excited... then my sister broke my dreams. Mhmm, to end, I used a Master Ball to get a Misdreavus. Yeah, I liked it THAT way. Had Pearl solely because of it...

 

[Gurren Swagann]

When I was a kid I used my Master Ball on Suicune in Colosseum because it was my favorite Pokemon back then. Not really sure if it's facepalm worthy but most people tend to save it for Tyranitar but I guess I REALLY wanted Suicune on my team.

 

[Darth Manaphy]

I tended to know what STAB was. The big thing for me was not knowing about whether moves were physical or special...resulting in me actually taking on the Battle Tower with a Sneasel and trying to win with its Ice Beam off of a Base 35 Special Attack.

 

[ThyMeme]

So, found my first shiny in Pokemon Platinum. It was a shiny machop, and I only had one premier ball on me. I watched it shake 3 times, then release. Only paced around my room for ten mins tops angry at myself and the game.

 

[Pikachu315111]

I tended to know what STAB was. The big thing for me was not knowing about whether moves were physical or special...resulting in me actually taking on the Battle Tower with a Sneasel and trying to win with its Ice Beam off of a Base 35 Special Attack.

Yeah, in that retrospective I think anyone who knew STAB (or just wanted a move their Pokemon to know a move that's there type) but not the way move Categories were handled can now raise their hand (to facepalm). Though I would say its a facepalm moment for GF too as they still made Pokemon who's stats focused on the opposite offense stat, like the aforementioned Sneasel (and Dark was considered Special before Gen IV even though when the split happened most of Dark-type moves became physical and they needed to make a strong Special Dark-type move, Dark Pulse, to compensate).

Thankfully we now have the Physical/Special split so Sneasel can now use its STABs, Night Slash and... and... *looks up Sneasel's moves* Ice Shard is its only physical Ice-type move? Well, outside of the Little Cup you probably would be using a Weavile and it gets... HUH? The only Ice-type move Weavile learns is Icy Wind?! (Okay, yes, they learn Icicle Crash via Breeding, but still if you want to use one for your in-game team as an Ice-type (if available early enough) because you like it well too bad. Also they lose out on Pursuit and Fake Out if they go for Icicle Crash).

 

[thdhted]

Yeah, in that retrospective I think anyone who knew STAB (or just wanted a move their Pokemon to know a move that's there type) but not the way move Categories were handled can now raise their hand (to facepalm). Though I would say its a facepalm moment for GF too as they still made Pokemon who's stats focused on the opposite offense stat, like the aforementioned Sneasel (and Dark was considered Special before Gen IV even though when the split happened most of Dark-type moves became physical and they needed to make a strong Special Dark-type move, Dark Pulse, to compensate).

Thankfully we now have the Physical/Special split so Sneasel can now use its STABs, Night Slash and... and... *looks up Sneasel's moves* Ice Shard is its only physical Ice-type move? Well, outside of the Little Cup you probably would be using a Weavile and it gets... HUH? The only Ice-type move Weavile learns is Icy Wind?! (Okay, yes, they learn Icicle Crash via Breeding, but still if you want to use one for your in-game team as an Ice-type (if available early enough) because you like it well too bad. Also they lose out on Pursuit and Fake Out if they go for Icicle Crash).

you can get Ice Punch on Sneasel in Platinum, assuming you have enough Shards. Or just any tutor.

 

[Denbacoe]

I traded away my shiny huge power azumarill for a shiny miltank

 

[Pikachu315111]

I traded away my shiny huge power azumarill for a shiny miltank

First off, welcome to Smogon!

I wouldn't really consider that a facepalm since you got another Shiny in return. Sure players would probably consider Huge Power Azumarill is more competitive than Miltank, but I'm assuming you did the trade because, at that moment at least, you liked Miltank more than Azumarill so there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[Darth Manaphy]

Though that DOES remind me of something stupid I did. I traded away a Shiny Delibird I got in a trade for a regular Parasect. I thought that Parasect was shiny, but they just made its colors in Gen 6+ completely different compared to its actual colors.

 

[cityscapes]

Mine was probably grinding on the E4 in Black and White with a Level ~80 Krookodile.
I was using Foul Play.

It seems that people didn't get this so I'll explain: Since Foul Play goes off the target's attack, I was doing like 60% to everything instead of just OHKO'ing them like I would with Crunch.

New one: Golisopod has been a beast on my BH team, so I decided to get one in-game. I deemed the best nature to be Brave (seeing as Attack is the only stat you want, and Brave opens up Trick Room options) so I went and caught one, but realized I'd forgotten my Synchronize Abra. So I got the Abra and after a long, long search, finally found a second Wimpod that was Brave. I placed the Abra back into the PC, moving the first Wimpod out of the Synchronize box.

The first Wimpod was Brave too.

Yeah...

 

[Atheon]

My first ever attempt at a Nuzlocke in Black was shut down in the first battle when Bianca got a crit.

 

[Karxrida]

Can't beat that quad electric coverage.

While quad is a definitely extreme, there's nothing wrong with running redundant STABs ingame since PP is limited and you don't have access to a good chunk of TMs until the postgame.

 

[Darth Manaphy]

While quad is a definitely extreme, there's nothing wrong with running redundant STABs ingame since PP is limited and you don't have access to a good chunk of TMs until the postgame.

And don't forget - all the good moves have very low PP. So, sometimes it's worth keeping both Discharge and Thunderbolt around just because you may want to get into a ton of battles before healing.