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Starmie was super common in Diamond and Pearl, at around 24 Percent. Now it is at only 0.06% for Gen 8 OU. Why is this the case? It is an excellent counter to landorus-t, 252 SpA Starmie Scald vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-Therian: 138-164 (84.1 - 100%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO, It is a great counter to toxapex, 252 SpA Starmie Psychic vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Toxapex: 96-114 (61.5 - 73%) -- guaranteed 2HKO, and is almost guaranteed to OHKO cinderace. 252 SpA Starmie Scald vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Cinderace: 144-170 (92.9 - 109.6%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO. Why has its popularity fallen?

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Mainly because slowbro exists and it has the same special Attack stat.
Starmie is insanly fast with rapid spin to take out hazards to also boost its speed. I feel like that might be more useful than slowbro.
It's not exactly that much bulky as Slowbro.
I know it isn't bulky, but it can fill a sweeper role very well with its large special attack and speed
So, aren't you counter arguing yourself? You told "Landorus-T" counter and now sweeper?
Well can't sweepers counter sweepers? I'm not good at terminology so take my terms with a grain of salt. However, It can be used as a h pump sweeper
Starmie is outclassed by some newer Pokemon, like Tapu Lele and rapid Urshifu. They check Landorus and Toxapex better than Starmie can.

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Best answer

For one thing, gen four was over a decade ago and times change. There are very few Pokemon who can claim to be ou in every single generation. Starmie just isn't one of them. Also, Starmie doesn't counter Landorus Therian. It only checks it. It just about dies to any attack Lando throws out if it recklessly comes in. Cinderace is also faster than it and can change type at will, effectively negating most of Starmie's damage output and soccer bunny is now banned from ou by the way

To put it simply, Starmie fell off because of power creep. With each generation, new threats come that are either faster, stronger or bulkier, forcing certain mons to adapt or be kicked out. Starmie's usage basically fell out since gen seven as the threats were too much with monster walls like Celesteela and the offensive threat to end all offensive threats, Ash Greninja, joined the game. Starmie just couldn't keep up

This was made a lot worse as generation eight introduced every water type's greatest nightmare, Rillaboom and its priority grassy glide. Starmie's high speed also isn't that special anymore with speedsters like Tornadus Therian, Zeraora and especially Dragapult roaming ou. It's rapid spinning isn't even that needed anymore as defog and boots are everywhere and most players would prefer to use a mon that matches up well against the rest of the metagame, even if that means having to concede your own hazards. It's also incredibly fragile especially on the physical side, meaning that ou's abundance of you turns severely hamper its viability

If you check the list of all ou viable Pokemon, you will see that Starmie doesn't matchup well against many of them. It gets destroyed by the aforementioned speedsters, walled by the Slow twins and Galarian Slowking and perhaps more importantly, absolutely hates knock off, which is everywhere in the game. Ou also has some sort of emphasis on switch moves and its vulnerability to the most common of them only makes it a bad pick

In short, it doesn't match up well against the rest of the ou meta game

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3 votes

Mainly because slowbro exists
commented 13 minutes ago by A typical glance

Starmie can threaten several OUs, but it has a very hard time switching in because of its base 60 HP and base 85 defenses. If you choose to run bulk, you're going to be outclassed even more by Slowbro. Slowbro has more physical bulk, higher HP, the same Special Attack stat, Future Sight to threaten Toxapex, and the incredible combination of Teleport + Regenerator. Starmie can Rapid Spin, but removing hazards is done much better by Tornadus-Therian, Corviknight, and Moltres.

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