Why is Starmie neverused in competitive play?

Question

First, I DON'T CARE ABOUT SMOGON! Sorry about the all caps but had to get that across, so, why is Starmie never used? I can sweep a whole team of super legends with one. They can learn 3 great moves in: Recover, Substitute and Minimize then you just use scald for a chance to burn and take out your foe. Why am I the only one who does this? I have beaten some very high ranked players this way and don't understand why nobody else does it? Am I missing something other than water absorb?

Comments

Assault Vest bro

---

U don't have to actually carry an infinite accuracy move, golurks no guard takes care of that.
EDIT: just checked, golurks doesn't have better physical ghost moves.

---

Ok, first of, , **Starmie is only UU by Smogon standards**. There are other tiers , but they aren't as big and I don't know where these place Starmie. Since Smogon tiers isn't enforced by Nintendo, GameFreak or the games themselves, **Starmie isn't officially in any tier, since there are no official tiers.**

Smogon base their tiers on usage, and since people aren't using it anymore, it have dropped in tier as well.
So asking wherever something is in a certain tier by Smogon standards but "not caring about Smogon"  is redundant. If you don't care about Smogon tiers, don't worry, you don't have to play by their rules, since they are unofficial.

---

I'm just saying in all my battles Starmie is rarely used and almost never like this.

---

Because it was used as a Spinner. Now many pokemon got defog / rapid spin like Mandibuzz, Latias, Latios, Zapdos etc.

Answer 1

First off, Starmie is UnderUsed. This is a huge difference from NeverUsed.

The main reasons for its drop from OU to UU are as follows:

• Plenty of Pokemon can check/counter it in OU.
• You cannot use moves raising evasion, meaning you can't abuse Minimize.
• Blissey and Eviolite Chansey wall it immensly.
• It has coverage, but no Dark / Electric / Ghost coverage for its weaknesses or Fairy coverage hinder it. The only move it has to cover these types are Hidden Power (and Flash Cannon for Fairy, but lol flash cannon on Starmie)

Comments

Why can't you use moves raising evasion?

---

Evasion Clause. Smogon bans it because it's REALLY cheap.

---

What's wrong with Flash Cannon Starmie? :P

---

I would also like to add the Knock Off buff which cased many psyhcic pokemon to drop in usage. starmies main niche in OU was also spinning and the defog buff made spinners like donphan fortress and starmie to all drop down to UU