Little Cup Viability Rankings

[Rowan]

I agree with you about Joltik, Drifloon and most of those you listed, but please stop double posting! Instead, just edit your original post. Also Trapinch has a small niche in trick room... I'm not saying it's great but maybe D not E.

 

[Nozzle]

Trick room is pretty much unheard of in LC and B2W2 in general.

 

[Gengan]

Trick Room is a dominating force in VGC, which is part of the BW2 metagame, so therefore it is indeed heard of. Also, please edit your post instead of posting multiple times.

Also, I'll take the last of the A Pokemon so we can speed this up.

Anorith - C Rank

Pretty much a physical version of Staryu, can spin but is weak to Stealth Rock. For a spinner, that's a pretty big issue. Plus, Staryu has Recover and can generally take hits better than Anorith ever could. It does have some merit with a Swords Dance set, but otherwise it's not really that good.

Aron - D Rank

Despite having Rock Head and STAB Head Smash, Aron is 4x weak to fighting. I'll stop there because that is literally all I need to say about Aron.

 

[macle]

Abra is like B-C. its got good offensive stats but its typing and defense fucks it over.

Dura and Cranidos are C to D. No way in hell are they B. Read the description of B.

Krabby might be a C. I haven't used it in forever.

Trapinch is a D mon. It has a very small niche. Its not totally shit, just mostly. All the other ones i agree with.

 

[Chieliee]

Excellent discussion guys. Anyways, I don't know if it's been brought up before, but Riolu is easily an A class mon, and is S in my opinion but I'll push it as an A. Basically, Riolu is one of the if not the best Pokemon in this fucking tier, easily. Prankster Copycat is the best thing ever, and gives Riolu the ability to do a ton of things. Dratini is fucking up your team with Outrage? Copycat for the OHKO. Scraggy set up? Live a +1 Drain Punch, and Copycat twice to revenge / get back to near full health. Drilbur's a jerk? Live a Life Orb Earthquake, and Drain Punch / Copycat your way to victory. Misdreavus at low health? Copycat Shadow Ball, or use Crunch / Copycat. The sheer amount of different win conditions that can arise from using Copycat are enormous, including the utility it brings. You can stall out Timburr by using Copycat on Bulk up, and then win the Drain Punch wars because you can choose when to hit first or last. You can copy U-Turn / Volt Switch if necessary to keep up the momentum. And...ROAR CAT <3. Every day he's shuffling, spamming Roar if he wants to, but he doesn't have to to be effective. Basically, Riolu can't be tamed, and really should be an easy A class. No one who has used Riolu has ever said anything less than "this thing is fantastic."

rofl i'm gone for one month and everyone is using cheap tactics like riolu

wtf bs

Edit: On the topic of Chingling, i say it's a D. It's a pretty decent wish passer shit. i remember using it when we had like a test 3 pokemon thing and see who gets the highest score on the ladder thingy.

but yeah it's really pretty good, good utility and stuff. I honestly don't remember which moves i ran apart from protect and wish

 

[Delver]

On a side note, is anyone else worrying that we're going to have a massive B tier compared to the other tiers?

I think we should tbh. Little cup has 212 pokemon in it. Of those, I can safely say 100+ of them are D-E teir or otherwise totally unusable (Frickin' sunkern). That means we have generously 100+ mons to work with. They cant all be winners, right? LC has a lot of mons that can do things, but look at it like this: when i have 212 choices, and only 6 slots to fill; and I see pokemon X who can perform a job for my team; what would compel me to use Pokemon X when Pokemon Y can do that job *better* or with more flexibility. Thats what the teiring system is for; to give you an idea of how viable a pokemon is in the current meta.

I will also agree with your point on Tirtouga, though I never tried the defensive set. The Shell Smash is surprisingly reliable.

Basically everything else said I will agree with, though the only i will touch on is abra because i think thats the only one that really needs an explination behind it: Lots of shit's faster or can tie with abra now a days. The hard part is breaking its sash. After that its really only a matter of time and player skill to see how long that Abra will last. Could it last forever and do a lot of damage in the right hands? of course. Could it just as easily sit on its ass and get rocked into oblivion by the hands (wings) (paws) of Murkrow houndour and the other residing sucker punchers? Yes. I see it on the ladder all the time. Abra is B specifically because of the words "Good in the current metagame" and "requires a bit more support to bring out their full potential"

 

[Good_Luck!]

Drifloon for high B rank or low A rank.

I would say A just for the mere fact that it can potentially take two pokemons in a match with Acrobatics + Destiny Bond when played correctly. It sure has a SR weakness but, hey! Murkrow does too! The things that resist Flying Gem Acrobatics are few and weak to Fighting. And the Fighting mons are easily scared by Drifloon or risk being Destiny Bonded... I would say A.

On another note... What would you say if I propose Nosepass to B? I foresee the regular "no, because of the common Fighting weakness" or even because of the Grass and Water weakness. But let me tell you that I've found it to be the best counter to almost all Murkrow's sets when carrying an specially offensive Bulky Attacker; It takes literally NOTHING from Brave Bird and Sucker Punch, if a Subroosting Murkrow tries to outstall, it will find that Power Gem's (near-)perfect accuracy can't be outstalled; it also resists Heat Wave and can hold its own against Specially Offensive variants under sandstorm. Nosepass can paralyze the common switch-ins or lay Rocks up. It has not-so-bad offenses as it can OHKO LO Murkrow and it HUGE Def means it can take weak SE earthquakes from Bronzor catching it off guard with HP Fire. It can't take the role of Steel-trapper because the other common steels (Ferro, Magnemite and Pawniard) have SE STAB moves (that's why I often use Sturdy over Magnet Pull) but as a bulky attacker and specially for being a reliable check to all forms of Murkrow I would say it deserves B tier.

 

[Nozzle]

I would say A just for the mere fact that it can potentially take two pokemons in a match with Acrobatics + Destiny Bond when played correctly. It sure has a SR weakness but, hey! Murkrow does too! The things that resist Flying Gem Acrobatics are few and weak to Fighting. And the Fighting mons are easily scared by Drifloon or risk being Destiny Bonded... I would say A.

On another note... What would you say if I propose Nosepass to B? I foresee the regular "no, because of the common Fighting weakness" or even because of the Grass and Water weakness. But let me tell you that I've found it to be the best counter to almost all Murkrow's sets when carrying an specially offensive Bulky Attacker; It takes literally NOTHING from Brave Bird and Sucker Punch, if a Subroosting Murkrow tries to outstall, it will find that Power Gem's (near-)perfect accuracy can't be outstalled; it also resists Heat Wave and can hold its own against Specially Offensive variants under sandstorm. Nosepass can paralyze the common switch-ins or lay Rocks up. It has not-so-bad offenses as it can OHKO LO Murkrow and it HUGE Def means it can take weak SE earthquakes from Bronzor catching it off guard with HP Fire. It can't take the role of Steel-trapper because the other common steels (Ferro, Magnemite and Pawniard) have SE STAB moves (that's why I often use Sturdy over Magnet Pull) but as a bulky attacker and specially for being a reliable check to all forms of Murkrow I would say it deserves B tier.

No no no NO!
Drifloon was my own suggestion but my opionion has changed. It finds itself hard walled by restalk chinchou (which i figured battling corkscrew) and is surely a B mon because its walled by chinchou and some steel types. Let your flying resist take the gem acrobatics and then take it out with status or priority. Nosepass is pretty useless outside of countering murkrow and houndour and larvesta to some extent. Should totally be a D mon.

 

[Nanoswine]

I'd put Drifloon in B tier. With Krow around, every team is packing a good flying resist, so if they predict your Acrobatics correctly then Drifloon becomes much less of a threat.

Nosepass is alright because it totally stomps a few individual threats, however most of the metagame can deal with it pretty easily. I'd go C tier.

Also since nobody has talked about it yet, I'd say Dratini for A or B tier. It finds lots of opportunities to set up, and with it's Resttalk Marvel Scale set it becomes quite bulky while being able to fire off Outrages without locking itself in. It sets up on pretty much any Pokemon whose STAB it resists, and once set up there isn't a whole lot that can stop it (and that which can is, for the most part, taken care of by SR and/or Magnemite). Altogether a solid mon.

 

[Superpowerdude]

I still cant really tell why the scraggy conversation is going on. It is a fearsome sweeper but the fact that 90% of viable teams run bulky mienfoo means pretty much every team has a Scraggy check. I am not lying you look in the lc rmt section and you will find that every single team with a high peak uses some sort of Mienfoo with most of them being the Evolite set. Murkrow is another top tier threat that was even up for banning a month ago, this powerful pokemon is able to stop Scraggy from setting up anyday with Brave Bird. Varaints without Zen Headbutt are walled by Croagunk anyday. Scraggy is capable of sweeping teams with his checks gone but thats the thing Scraggy has a lot of checks. Look in the rmt forum pretty much every LC team their except those mono normal ones have at least one Scraggy check. You honestly cant argue past A tier?

Edit: I know the scraggy arguement was a few pages back but i wanted to clarify some stuff. Also Corkscrew i mentioned Tirtouga and i nominated it for A tier if you guys want to see my reasons go to pg 2. What do you guys think of Tirtouga?

 

[kokoloko]

Well... HJK Scraggy beats the standard Impish Mienfoo since it 2HKOs through Drain Punch. I know since I did that a few times during the LC Open. People really underestimate Scraggy nowadays from what I've seen.

Also Murkrow is still broken as sin.

But anyway, I have only played LC for the Open since like 2011 so maybe I'm way off.

 

[Delver]

I fully intend to go back to the scraggy discussion, super power, I just wanted to get some of the *other* mons in the teir before we touched on it again. Its definitely the most controversial teiring and I think both arguments can go on forever.

I'm actually surprised that that nano was the first to bring up one of the baby Dragons. I would have done it but I have never used them enough to really have an experienced opinion. Bar dieno. I've used dieno a bunch back in the day and I can say that he's interesting. Hustle backs up an above average attack stat and he has a workable (albeit subpar) special attack for when you cant afford the miss. his biggest flaw is that he's slow; he hits 14 with a + nature, but thats really only good for walls and scarfers. While deino has decent defenses (52/50/50) for an offensive mon, those are *very* low for defensive mons. Couple that with its weakness to fighting and that the majority of the viable fighters either have priority or can simpley out speed him, and he's basically forced into running a scarf set. The biggest disapointment is his complete lack of boosting moves; ruining any chance Dieno had at being viable past a scarfer. All in all I'd say low C high D? Scarfers are plentiful in this teir, and its not exactly a hard to fill niche. dieno's unique in that he's dragon; and as such has basically an unresisted stab (Ferroseed, bronzor....aron? uhh.... magnemite... Beldum) and access to Fire fang to provide perfect neutral coverage, and an effective 24 ATK stat to back it up.

I find it really hard to justify any of the ghosts past B teir just because Misdreavus does everything they could do better. Drifloom has a nice niche with the Acroburden thing; but it requires superb timing to perform. The Unburdened boost doesnt stay, and Flying Gem is also a One shot wonder, making sweeping with the set less than optimal if you're forced out for whatever reason; and as a wall breaker: destiny bond is less reliable than people think, as toxic /burn / residual damage in general doesnt cause the opponent to die. LOTS of walls have Toxic as a mandatory move. I dont have any calcs to see if lileep could recover stall after flying gem has been blown, but quite frankly if you leave Drifloom in on a lileep you better have a damn good reason. Plus Misdreavus gets Destiny Bond (so do most of the other ghosts); so its not really something that only Drifloom can do.
additionally driflooms made of paper. and will die if anything neutral touches it. All in all its a powerful mon if used right i just think its faults keep it from the coveted A teir. I say B or C. Mostly B.

Nosepass is a silly pokemon, but on the whole I'd rather just run Magnemite for a steel trapper. While Mag has the scary 4x ground weakness, Ground is a lot easier to abuse as a weakness; ie free switch into missy / murkrow /archen / any levitator in the teir etc. I wont actually say a teir cause tbh i never used it, though if what you say is true I could see it reaching B if only as an Anti-murkrow mon. I would also like to take this time to petition a name change for his on-site set from "bulky attacker" (laaaame, boooorrriiinngg) to "Thou shall not nosepass" or something in a similar vein.

Edit At below: I meant to include a sentence in there saying something along the lines of "unless im missing the point." Why run Magnet pll over sturdy / (espeiclaly) sand force. I'm assuming with SF it cant get half the moves it wants

 

[Rowan]

Yes, Nosepass is a great counter to Murkrow, especially in sand as even HP Grass won't do much. It's also got some useful moves such as Stealth Rock and Thunder Wave, which can cripple Mienfoo switch ins. The main issue is lack of reliable recovery, pain split being the only real option. I haven't used it to any great extent but I'm going to C tier-It's decent enough but not amazing. (Also Delver, don't compare it to Magnemite; if you're putting it on your team, it shouldn't be to trap steels.)

I've found Drifloon to be a great partner to Murkrow as they have the same checks/counters so Drifloon can switch in, weaken them and give Murkrow an easier time sweeping late game. With destiny bond it can often take a counter to Murkrow out of the game. On it's own though, as Nozzle said, it's not hard to take down and I never really find it to be a threatening pokemon. Low B/high C.

Dratini is definitely high. RestTalk + Marvel scale is so good and it only really needs to fear Snover and Gyro Ball ferroseed. It can set up all day on non-gyro ball ferros and bronzor and with the defense boost from marvel scale it doesn't fear fighters that much. Probably A tier.

I haven't used Deino, but have played against it and to be honest, it's just... meh. In my opinion it's outclassed loads by Dratini and Axew. I'd probably put it in D tier.

On the subject of Axew, I'd like to put it in B tier. It's a good Dragon Dancer and thanks to BW2, it finally has a decent coverage move in the form of Superpower. Don't get me wrong, it's no Scraggy but it certainly is a sweeper which you have to watch out for.

 

[JacobNinja]

I use porygon to beat murkrow. As long as it isn't a fully offensive with super luck or insomnia, porygon can paralyze murkrow and then beat it with tri attack, and the abuse priority recover/thunderwave on the rest of the team

 

[Good_Luck!]

I use porygon to beat murkrow. As long as it isn't a fully offensive with super luck or insomnia, porygon can paralyze murkrow and then beat it with tri attack, and the abuse priority recover/thunderwave on the rest of the team

A rank:

Chinchou
Lileep
Porygon
Riolu
Scraggy
Snover
Staryu

Porygon is already A rank, Jacob ^^.

In the case of the Dragons, they all come down to two: Dratini and Axew, all the others are scratched off because of their reliance in luck (Deino and Gible) or are just hard to play (Bagon).

I have battled with Dratini and I'd say it's an A rank material just like Cork said; but Axew is just... not bad. Agreeing with the B tier.

All the rest can go in C; I suppose.

Also, I'd like to push this:

[quote="Good Luck!]And Vullaby to B rank. She has a good combination of bulk, typing and ability which would make her fit into most teams if it weren't for Murkrow. In any case, Vullaby has access to Taunt, Roost, Knock Off and can be either Specially with Nasty Plot or Physically with Brave Bird. She has a despicable weakness to Toxic but can switch into most Pokemon barring Magnemite and Chinchou. It has superior speed which allows her to taunt common Hazard setters like Lileep, Ferroseed and outstall Defensive Pokemon like Bronzor and Slowpoke who can't do nothing but weakly damage its special bulk. Sure it has MANY flaws like sub-par stats and shallow movepool, but, with proper support or because of the support she can give, I think she deserves B-rank.[/quote]

I just LOOOOOOVE Vullaby ^^.

Speaking of Slowpoke; even with the drop in usage I'd say it's a very good Poke in the right circunstances. I mean, it has power, movepool and durability. I find it's a really good physical wall and special attacker. Maybe B? I would push for A but with the advent of Missy and Murkrow I think that's overrating it a little.

Going for more C's:

+ Wailmer
+ Turtwig
+ Treecko
+ Shieldon
+ Rattata and most Normal-types.
+ Pidgey and ALL Flying/Normal except for Taillow
+ Mareep
+ Electrike
+ Blitzle
+ Gastly (like Corkscrew said)

And Koffing for B.

 

[Nozzle]

Shouldnt the OP be updated? It doesnt seem to change. Or are the pokemon not being ranked yet?

 

[Chieliee]

I haven't used Deino, but have played against it and to be honest, it's just... meh. In my opinion it's outclassed loads by Dratini and Axew. I'd probably put it in D tier.

you must've never been hit by a cb/LO hustle outrage

i know i'm sounding like a nub but deino is really cool early game to punch holes in the opposing team. Magnemite gets 2hko'd easily, and for the other steel types there's Fire Fang. It's not really fair to compare it to Axew or Dratini, who function more in the bulky sweeper role

 

[Delver]

... never been hit by a cb/LO hustle outrage

I wouldnt be surprised if it did never hit, haha! hustle has a habit of only not working when you need it to :P. But you raise a valid point that Dratini + Axew are bulky sweepers while dieno is a fairly decent wall breaker. I stand by my original ranking of C/high D.

Taking this time to vote in Totodile for B rank. It's essentially a water type Scraggy thats significantly less powerful / bulky. It's got priority STAB which Scraggy wishes it could have though; which could make him arguably a better late game sweeper. Water is a strong stab to have in LC as the most common resists (being Ferroseed, Chinchou, Staryu, and Lileep.) can mostly be set up on by fellow sweepers (especially Ferroseed). If they ever release Baby Sheer Force, Totodile will be arguably *the best* sweeper in the teir- though we were told to avoid theorymoning. Regardless, it has a good movepool though you'll often find a 3 moveslot syndrome. Waterfall / Aqua Jet / Return provides more or less neutral coverage, resisted by Ferroseed, lileep and completely walled by frillish. He gets crunch to deal with Frillish too so thats not always a safe switch in. Long story short i think totodile has the potential to be a scary Late game sweeper if only because of STAB priority and dragon dance. It'll require a lot of team support as a well played lileep is a bitch to kill, and the most common set is 100% walled by frillish, but it has the potential to work very well

Disclaimer: I kind of ripped Ferroseed a new one because i dont like it. I tried not to let that affect my rating though, so if you're like "damn Delver, be nice" and then see the TL:DR, A i thank you for reading my rants, and B this is why.

Next i'd like to touch on is Ferroseed. Ferroseed has great typing that is let down by basically every other part of the mon and meta. Starting with positives: Ferroseed has a really nice support move pool, with access to moves like thunderwave, stealth rock, spikes, leech seed, etc. his defensive stats (especially with an eviolite) are grossly high even without investment resting at a respectable 15 (22 with eviolite) *minimum*. Oh yeah, and its typing gives it upwards of what? 11 resists and an immunity (granted its to poison)? So you may be thinking "wheres the bad?" well its here: Ferroseed is (to my knowledge) the slowest user of thunderwave, the slowest spiker, and the slowest stealth rocker. In other words its support role is far less reliable than other faster mons, who have an actual chance of out running a taunt or something similar. Additionally, it's weak to Fighting, and though im not really one to say "fighting weakness, GG, D rank" it really lacks an effective way to deal with fighting switch ins bar a Thunder wave - a shaky answer to Shed Skin scraggy at best. Oh and you really should be running thunder wave (you can find that rant in the spoiler box further down - i felt it wasnt really something for discussion in this thread but wanted to explain my reasoning all the same). More over - it's Fire weak. And Hella Fire weak. Fire is a very "underdog" type. Most water type (chinchou, Staryu specifically) run HP fire to deal with Snover / Ferroseed almost specifically because they have such good coverage in their stabs they can afford to. Speaking from experience, Larvesta (whom i feel is a common enough appearance on teams to point out specifically) makes ferroseed it's bitch. Either you switch into a powerful Flare blitz or sac Ferro to it, let your opponent gain momentum switching into a U-turn, let larvesta heal, or switch into a Burn. It's a no win situation. The biggest downfall though is that Ferroseed's idea of recovery is Leech Seed and ingrain.

TL:DR Ferroseed suffers the same fate as bronzor. It's an awesome wall that lacks recovery to make it amazing. It's easy to set up on, though provides the team with a strong way to deal with the very "switchy" and "bulky attacker" metagame that LC has through unique access to hazards and status support. I'd say B.

Why I find Gyroball Useless

Gyroball can have at most a base damage of in LC is 87.5 (im not positive how the game handles decimals in the base damage, though im assuming it truncates like it always does). plus stab, puts it at 131.
Thats vs any 14 speed scarfer (ie a 21 speed vs 6 speed). a base 131 attack is nothing to scoff at; honestly. But take into account that its *steel* in type - meaning it essentially has the same coverage as a bikini and that base damage is *ONLY* versus scarfers and the like; and you can expect a damage much lower. For example, against the monstrously common 19 speed teir, is 118 (with stab). Ignorign the fact that 2 points of speed is the equivlent of ~13 base damage her are some calcs:

7 and 8 damage vs 0/0 Eviolite Missy~31-36%
8 and 9 damage vs 0/0 Eviolite Murkrow~36-40%
11 and 13 damage vs 0/0 LO Murkrow (who will out speed and OHKO with heatwave) ~50-60%
5 and 6 damage vs 0/0 LO Staryu. ~ 25%-30%

My calcs may be off - I'm never 100% sure on them feel free to look them up.

The forumla for Gyroball is as follows: Base Power = (Target's current Speed / User's current Speed) * 25
Credit goes to the page on site.

I know you're not really supposed to spam gyroball indiscriminately; but the most Neutral damage you'll be doing is about 11-12 ish. Against murkrow. Specifically it's mixkrow set. Gyroball just has terrible coverage and its base damage is not as reliable as a decent supprot move. sure It's helpful agaisnt boosting Dragon dancers and the odd agilitiy / Rockpolisher - but so is Thunderwave.

To avoid a double post I'm just going to edit this to make it Super long Delver Post (look i put pictures in!): I'm going to discuss the various fire types in the teir; as its my favorite type. To prevent it from being a long ass post that litterally takes up your entire screen i condensed it into spoiler boxes.

Starters and Growlithe

Every Single Fire starter for D rank. I honestly can not think of a single thing these guys do that Growlithe doesnt do better. Growlithe himself is outclassed by Ponyta, both of which i'll discuss further on, so that should say something. about just how little they do. Notable exceptions to that statement and why they hardly matter are explained in order of generation:

Charmander - has access to Dragon Dance, which remedies his barely on par speed and sub par attack stats to give him the ability to sweep. Kind of. Any other viable Dragon Dancer completely outspeeds and out damages it. oh you're also relying on Flare blitz to put out any notable damage output which means (especially with a LO - which is mandatory else you'll be tickling bulkier mons like) it'll ultimately kill itself before doing anything interesting. Mix all that with Stealth rock weakness and you basically have a sweeper that has a small possibility of sweeping in less situations with more dedicated support than other choices (going to be nice and not even bring up scraggy) like totodile.

Cyndaquil - Gets eruption, which would be cool if it wasnt so stealth rock weak and reliant on choice scarf to get the eruption off. Unlike his big brother, and especially in a teir full of eviolite, the damag boost of specs / LO is really wanted. Obviously LO counter productive too

Torchic - its niche is being the *only* fire type baton passer. Aside from baton passing being a relatively unused strategy, why you would want a typing weak to rock in a Baton chain is beyond me. especially since it doesn't provide any notable stat bonuses more reliable / durable passers provide

Chimchar - The only fire starter to have a decent, and unique move pool and its backed by incredibly medicore stats. Honestly. It gets Stealth rock, making it fairly unique in that aspect; and according to the site it makes a "great lead." And while that is a fairly good point, my response is why are you using a lead in gen 5? Ignoring that; It's ability as a mixed attacker is limited due to its sub par attacking stats. in order to do any real damage with it, you'll need to invest heavily in both stats, leaving you outsped by basically everything. Why do this to yourself? just run Ponyta.

Tepig - It gets superpower, wild bolt, and Head smash 3 very powerful moves, yeah. Growlithe gets close combat and Wild bolt - which cover Fire's two most common switch-ins (water and rock), and has the freedom to take an item thats not a choice scarf. oh and it has higher stats in everything except HP and Defense (where it ties and has intimidate to improve it). Ponyta also gets wild charge and has even higher stats than Growlith.

The fire starts are just bad. Like bad to the point where if i see them in team preview I look at it and say "thats a free kill." I never worry about thm and everything they can do is just completely outclassed by other mons. All get D teir imo. Onto mons I do like:

Aside from having 100% of the appeal of your first dog, growlithe is actually pretty decent. Unfortunetly it is pretty much outclassed by Ponyta. It does function very well as a wall breaker with its amazing coverage moves decent Atk stat. It also gets morning sun and Intimidate, making a bulky attacker variant with eviolite totally plausible. I feel its a solid C mon

ponyta

Ponyta is hands down the best mono-fire type in the teir. honestly. Lets all take a second to admire the highest BST mon in the teir. Done? good. lets continue. It hits the ideal 19 speed teir, and is the only fire type to do so without a scarf. It sports a monsterous attack stat and workable defenses. It's movepool is no slouch either, sporting awesome support moves and offensive moves. To name a few; morning sun, Will-o-wisp, Flare blitz, Wild charge. It even gets sunny day and flame charge, while the former can (maybe some how, probably not the most practicle thing) eliminate sand in favor of boosted fire moves the latter boosts ponyta's already monstrous speed to essentially out speed the entire non scarfed metagame; all while doing some damage. It has 2 amazing abilities in Flame Body (giving it the same burning niche as Larvesta, albiet without the fighting resist <--important) and Flash Fire. I've said it in an earlier post but fire is definitely the sleeper attacking type, and having that immunity (or at minimum resist) is definitely helpful on teams that need it. Examples would be teams that use snover to deal with sand. switch in snover, kill the sand, and when they switch in their larvesta or whatever, move ponyta into the attack and *bam* momentum shift. Try switching into a Flash Fire boosted Flare blitz. Speaking of snover, snover also covers Chinchou, who is arguably the biggest wall facing ponyta (resisting tis stab and immune to its coverage in wild charge). Putting ponyta any lower than B is a crime, imho

I'll update the list of non-teired mons when macle updates the OP.

 

[Good_Luck!]

I wouldn't tell Ferro is B but I find it hard to argue that is A... I mean, Delver made solid points, that weakness to Fighting and the fact is completely useless against Scraggy just spells trouble for it.

Totodile... I'm yet to see a good user of Totodile but I can see it as a formidable threat; maybe is not as good as Scraggy or Dratini but it's better than Charmander. Its access to priority sets him apart of Corphish or Barboach but I find it hard not compare to them. I mean, Barboach is not threatened by Chinchou and can hit it with SE STAB Earthquake while Corphish has much more power with Adaptability and Crabhammer. Totodile has Aqua Jet for it but I can't see it as more of a C rank until Sheer Force is released.

Unlike his big brother, and especially in a teir full of eviolite,

You forget Priority. Every single common Pokemon who you want to weaken with eruption has a Priority to put a halt to the move; most notably Fake Out.

I agree with the fact that every Fire-type starter should be D. If only one of them could run a special sweeper set...

Growlithe could be B if it weren't for Ponyta, really.

Putting ponyta any lower than B is a crime, imho

Yes, I agree completely.

 

[macle]

Updates:
Dratini and Timburr to A
Abra, Axew, and Diglet to B

i want more people's opinions on some pokemon mentioned, even if its an agree.

 

[Ray Jay]

Dratini and Timburr should both be A, as they are two of the bulkiest set up late game mons out there right now and both have a niche against certain teams.

Abra and Axew are both great candidates for B, as far as I'm concerned.

Diglett has really dropped off in my opinion. I can see its use merited alongside Scraggy with Memento, but I don't think the metagame today is offensive enough to merit consistent Diglett usage. IMO, C tier.

 

[danilo]

Dratini is the manifestation of mediocrity. It's certainly not a A-Rank Pokemon if Snover, Chinchou, and SCRAGGY are A-Rank.

Honestly, Dratini just doesn't do anything relevant in an actual game. Sure it checks Water and Grass-types early game but it's fairly easily forced out. ResTalk is only viable on Chinchou cause it gets Heal Bell, thus preventing it from being warned down too much. Dratini has to deal with hazards, residual damage, and weak attacks while it's sleeping if it even wants to have a chance at doing something in the lategame. It's too weak to sweep even after a Dance and it's walled easily by Steel-types. I don't have too much time to talk about how Dratini needs too much support like Magnemite for Steel-types and a Rapid Spin user for Spikes, but Dratini is just a huge disappointment of a Pokemon that is far from A-rank

 

[Rowan]

Honestly Sir, Dratini does not need anywhere near as much support as you make out. Steels don't even worry it half the time; Bronzor does absolutely nothing to Dratini- infact if the opponent leaves Bronzor in on Dratini, you can just set up a ton until it goes down. This is the same with Ferroseed that lack Gyro Ball (although leech seed can be a pain) and Magnemite is nowhere near as bulky as the other two, making it easier to take down. This isn't taking into account that Dratini is primarily a late game sweeper and the most common steel types do not have recovery meaning that they can be worn down throughout the match.
Spikes are a bit more of an issue, but that certainly isn't something that should send it down too much. Snover arguably is much more vulnerable to entry hazards and that's still an A-tier pokemon.
Really the main pokemon you have to watch out for is Snover, but again, that is easily worn down throughout a match due to entry hazard weakness and lack of any recovery.

As for Diglett, Ray Jay makes a good point for it being C tier. I can't remember if I've mentioned it before in this thread, but I've fought it a lot recently and it's nothing to rave about. The speed is great, but its frailty makes it vulnerable to so many priority attacks and its attack stat is extremely lackluster imo. The only thing it does is force you to play carefully when you have a Magnemite or a couple of other things that it threatens (which isn't a lot). It's niche is just too small to warrant a higher tier than C.

 

[JacobNinja]

Foongus for A minimum, maybe S. Walls every physical attacker short of fire types. It can take most special hits, and hit back with 100 accuracy sleep to shut down an attacker of your choice. It can use its bulk and resistances to clear smog away setup sweepers, ruining them.

Good teamates= Standard pivot mienfoo, porygon. Porygon can trace flash fire and take brave birds very well, and mienfoo gives foongus free switchins. If you try it, you will love it.

 

[Delver]

Though I've only recently started using Restini, saying rest talk on it isnt viable cause it lacks heal bell is like saying Resttalk Heracross wasnt the largest sweeper in UU for a long time. The difference being while Resttalk Heracross gets a guts boost, Restini gets Marvelscale boost. making it an *even more effective* bulky sweeper. It gets dragon dance to deal with its attack and speed stats making it very hard to revenge (as I'm pretty sure the only viable ice-sharder in the teir is Snover, though im sure a powerful sucker punch can do a chunk too. No calcs, might do them later if this escalates) kill. A set of Rest/Sleep Talk/DD/Outrage w/ eviolite provides you with AMAZING physical defense while under sleep, essentially an immunity to status and a powerful, nearly unresisted STAB to use without fear with sleeptalk (it doesnt lock you in Outrage, iirc). As a late game sweeper it has everything it wants, bar priority, and it even has that in Extreme Speed if you're willing to drop DD for it; though tbh i dont like running moves with common immunities (missy) on a rest talker, as it raises Sleep talk fail chance to 66% which is just too high. I'd have to play with it more but I definitely think its in the A teir with Snover and friends. Honestly, biology has been beating my butt lately and I recently joined a competitive Tribes team so I havent had much time to LC, i wish i could give examples of its use past papermoning.

Also putting a notion for All the resident Ice types, bar snover to D, maybe even E. I think *maybe* smoochum is like *kind of* viable? If you feel otherwise, feel free to say Delver you're an idiot, but I feel the universal consensus is that if its not Snover, and its Ice type, you dont use it.