Competitive Pokemon History - Typhlosion Quiz

Answer: It was banned from UU

Over numerous generations, Typhlosion would be known as the poster child for Pokemon stuck in "Poke Purgatory"- an unfortunate state of being ineffective in one metagame, but being too strong to be allowed in the metagame right underneath that one. Such is life for Typhlosion, who is simply ineffective to the max in standard play while being a notch too strong for UU play.

Answer: Solar Beam

Sunny Day based sets were usually the best that the average Fire type could pull off, and they weren't all that bad thanks to their ability to turn the tables on would-be Water type counters and Rock type checks. Typhlosion, however, has to resort to the pitiful Hidden Power Grass due to its lack of access to Solar Beam, the chief ingredient behind Fire types overcoming Water and Rock types. HP Grass is entirely inferior and quite ineffective at fulfilling this purpose, and yet it's the best Typhlosion can do to flail at bulky Water types with.

Answer: Raikou

Snorlax and Dragonite take laughable damage from just about anything Typhlosion can reasonably run. Even a super effective Dynamic Punch will fail to seriously threaten Snorlax. As if Typhlosion didn't suck badly enough, being stupidly countered by the most dominant, most ubiquitous threat in franchise history just adds to the misery.

Dragonite, likewise, resists or takes pitiful damage from anything Typhlosion can run. It can effortlessly PP stall Typhlosion, or just KO it with some attacking move it happens to be running on its offensive or defensive sets.

Starmie outspeeds Typhlosion, isn't even seriously threatened by Thunder Punch or Hidden Power Grass, and can douse the puny embers of momentum Typhlosion may have had with some Water type attack it has.

Really, any Water type in the game could make that claim, perhaps minus the ability to outspeed Typhlosion.

Raikou, however, did have to be careful. Typhlosion's Earthquake needed small chip damage to 2HKO Raikou, and Raikou could only 2HKO back if running Thunder. This technically means Raikou can check Typhlosion, since it can outspeed and 2HKO first, but Thunder's iffy accuracy can ruin this line of thinking. That, and, why are you taking this type of risk with one of your most important Pokemon in the first place, when you can just brainlessly switch in half the tier on Typhlosion and take it out that way?

Answer: Blaze

Blaze is a generic Fire type starter ability, which boosts the user's Fire type attacks by one stage when they reach less than 25% of their health. It was plainly unspectacular on Typhlosion, and did little to boost its standing in the overall meta.

Answer: Eruption

Eruption finally let Typhlosion be somewhat threatening. If at full HP, especially if boosted by Choice Specs, this move was pretty powerful. It gave Typhlosion legitimate value in the game's lowest tier as a passable special wallbreaker. Newfound access to Focus Blast also gave it a respectable move to hit Rock types with, though Hidden Power Grass was still Typhlosion's only move to hit Water types with.

Answer: RarelyUsed

Typhlosion somehow did get the 3.41% usage needed to be natively RU. However, it was grossly outclassed as a team's Fire type by Moltres, Entei and Charizard. Typhlosion's unique access to Eruption might seem to give it a niche, but its weakness to Stealth Rock combined with the ubiquitous nature of bulky Water types Typhlosion could do little to meant that Eruption would peter out very quickly in a typical battle. Typhlosion was too strong for fifth generation's NeverUsed tier which, as previously mentioned, meant it would occupy an unfortunate place in Poke Purgatory - too strong for the tier right below it, too weak for the lowest tier it was available in.

Answer: Flash Fire

Flash Fire boosts the power of the user's Fire type attacks if it is targetted by a Fire type attack, while also nullifying the attack directed at the user. This does give Typhlosion a nifty immunity, and in theory would allow it to profit off of switching in to Fire type attacks and Will O Wisp. Sadly, Typhlosion's need to keep its HP high deters it from ever switching in to predicted Fire type attacks, though there is something to be said about the daunting power of a Choice Specs boosted, Flash Fire boosted, full HP Eruption.

Answer: Delphox

The other options were banned from RU; not like Typhlosion would be able to compete with them in the slightest anyway. Fellow Fire type starter Delphox was simply a lot more threatening and significantly less one dimensional. Typhlosion's access to Eruption is the only thing it has over other Fire types, which makes it easy to predict and play around.

The common nature of priority moves, bulky Water types and Stealth Rock meant Typhlosion could never really get much going in sixth generation RU. Its movepool was also still barren outside of Eruption, meaning it was easily stopped by anything which resisted the move as well.

Answer: Slowbro

Delphox could theoretically be defeated if it switched in on a full HP Typhlosion's Eruption, though the chances of Typhlosion actually being able to use this move while being at full HP were very slim, and if it wasn't at full HP, Eruption would be powered down enough where Delphox would be able to counter it. Houndoom could be easily picked off by Focus Blast, so it couldn't count Typhlosion. Slowbro, though, was many years of Typhlosion's biggest weaknesses wrapped up into one Pokemon; Typhlosion's Hidden Power Grass didn't do much to it, and Slowbro resisted Eruption and Focus Blast. Slack Off and Regenerator would let Slowbro keep up the act all game long, effectively preventing Typhlosion from being useful. Sadly, Slowbro was not even close to the only Pokemon who could negate Typhlosion entirely; Vaporeon, Druddigon and even Hariyama could generally achieve this as well.

Answer: It has always been outperformed by other, legal Fire types

Fourth generation Typhlosion actually didn't have any counters, thanks to its strong Eruptions and the tier's low overall power level. Stealth Rock didn't exist in the second or third generation, rendering that choice incorrect. Still, the Fire typing as a whole is not very good defensively and is iffy offensively; this means to be a good Pokemon while being a Fire type, the Pokemon in question has to have some really good, endearing traits which make up for this shortcoming.

The second generation generally failed to produce Pokemon like this which were standard play legal, though Houndoom and Charizard could overcome the typing decently. Beyond that, numerous Pokemon would be able to make use of, or at least overcome their Fire typings; Typhlosion has never been any such Pokemon, and has been left in the smoldering dust of its colleagues.