Pokémon BW2 In-game Tier List Mark II [See Post #840]

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I'd like to vote Zebstrika for Mid tier.

I used one in-game for fun in my last run-through. It comes right before Skyla, which is amazing because it can get great grinding against her team and gym. It can help a bit throughout the next part of the game, and even gets Flame Charge to help deal with the bountiful Grass types. It can also help substantially with Marlon's gym, and really just destroys any Flying-type or Water-type which you encounter.

Why Mid? It still only comes fairly late game, and it's attacking stats can be lacking. Additionally, most Ground moves just tear it apart.

EDIT: Also agreeing with above post - Panpour Mid, Pansage Low, and Pansear Low as well.
 

Celever

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Why is panpour a cut above the others? I used both panpour and pansear on one run-through, thinking "I have a darumaka to replace pansear and a tirtouga for panpour" and found that panpour lacked extremely whereas pansear, once it got flame burst, really wrecked. For some reason panpour and its surf/scald was really lack-luster.
No matter on my opinion though, is the simple fact that the 3 monkeys are practically the same thing, with similar move sets and stats. Basically they should all be one tier, or since pansage undoubtedly has the worst movepool and typing pansage could be low and panpour and pansear could be mid.

Oh, and I vote magnemite for high.
 
"Durable" goes only as far as its resists. If it doesn't resist it, it's activating Sturdy. I was disappointed, expecting something that would completely decimate the game on its own, hence the "Magnemite" tier people were talking about. It wasn't a game breaker, and I feel it was overhyped, because it /didn't/ decimate the game like everyone was saying.
Thankfully, Magnemite resists 10 types, and hits SE on one of the types it doesn't resist (Water). I agree that it's not Magnemite tier, but it is definitely a Top Pokemon imo.

As for facing a Bisharp, I'm taking Weezing over Magnezone. Weezing actually can hit Super Effective, and takes negilgable damage from Bisharp thanks to Wil-o-Wisp. It's not even a fair contest. Sure, it'll take slightly longer, but I'd rather be safe and know that I can just sit there and pass around potions to anyone who might need them while Bisharp kills itself. Hence...Walls are good. Saying how they're not good for in-game is a naive way of thinking.
Wait, are you implying Magnezone does not take neglible damage from a Bisharp? What's going to threaten it? That thing does not learn any Fighting or Ground moves naturally. Why would you prefer to go with Weezing, who doesn't resist Dark or Steel, and has a 75% accurate Will-o-Wisp?

I never said walls or being able to defend yourself were not good. ?_? I'm saying Magnezone is very good, amongst other reasons because it's so resilient.

In what way am I going "oh, I need to KO Pokemon, I'll take this instead of Darmanitan?" I create my party with certain ideals in mind. Hell, if I need something to kill a Ground type, why...I'm going to get a Grass or Water type! Or teach something a coverage move! This isn't 'rocket science', this is common sense. I don't mean to come off as rude, but...really. inanimate blob's arguement makes sense to me, and feels like the way I would see it. It's easy to use. It comes at a good point in the game. It is NOT, in any way, shape or form, the next coming of Jesus as people have been hyping it.

tl;dr Magnezone is good, but not "OMGAWESOME" as people have been saying.
My point is, you should take a good Pokemon because he's good. Not because it's a wall Pokemon and you don't have any of those yet, or because it is a statuser and you don't have any yet. Magnezone has several amazing qualities, ones you shouldn't pass up on just because something else might be able to "status better" or because something else is also a Special Attacker. Each Pokemon should be judged by its own merits.

Using economic terms, there is (to a certain extent) a demand for some of the things Magnezone can do. Now, theoretically, those things can be done by other Pokemon as well: you can Stun Spore with a Grass dude instead of using Thunder Wave, for example. But this is the case for every form of Pokemon utility ever. We don't penalize Darmanitan because he's not the only Pokemon that uses physical attacks, we don't penalize Starmie because other Pokemon also learn Surf, etc. etc.

All there is to it (imo) is that Magnezone has quite a few amazing qualities, and that together they put him in Top Tier because he has that many more compared to other Pokemon. This whole business of "it can X, but so can several other Pokemon" is an argument that either applies to all Pokemon, or none, but is definitely not just something you can use to argue Magnemite lower than Top.
 
I have another line of defense for Magnemite that may not have been considered, as it really doesn't apply to too many of us.

I have a friend up in Boston who lives in a neighborhood where no one plays Pokémon...and he's too stingy to go get a second DS (understandably). But, one very serious thing to consider about Magnemite is it's ability to function well, even without trading.

One of the top competition Magnemite faces, at least in White 2, is Elekid. It comes at the same time, and also functions well as an Electric-type with a wide berth of Special coverage. But, if you can't trade, there's one serious issue - Electabuzz is the highest form you can get. Magnezone is not as fast...but definitely stronger. Maybe considering this will help tip the scales more towards Top Tier for Magnemite.
 
Why is panpour a cut above the others? I used both panpour and pansear on one run-through, thinking "I have a darumaka to replace pansear and a tirtouga for panpour" and found that panpour lacked extremely whereas pansear, once it got flame burst, really wrecked. For some reason panpour and its surf/scald was really lack-luster.
No matter on my opinion though, is the simple fact that the 3 monkeys are practically the same thing, with similar move sets and stats. Basically they should all be one tier, or since pansage undoubtedly has the worst movepool and typing pansage could be low and panpour and pansear could be mid.

Oh, and I vote magnemite for high.
Out of the three Panpour has the best typing (doesn't have as many weaknesses) and Water + Ice coverage is pretty solid especially when compared to say, Grass. Ice is particularly important against Drayden/Iris. Out of Scald/Seed Bomb/Flame Burst that the monkeys learn, Scald is the most useful in terms of effects which can also support the team in case Panpour dies.

The disappointing about Simisear is Flame Burst is a weaker 70 base attack compared to Scald/Seed Bomb, it doesn't pack as much of a punch. When I eventually got Fire Blast, it did fail to fully OHKO some pokemon which was disappointing (with a Modest nature too). Using Simipour was a much better experience for me.
 
Name: Conkeldurr - High
Availability: Early (Castelia)
Stats: Great HP, awesome attack, decent defense, but very low speed, SpA, SpD.
Typing: Fighting
Movepool: Good coverage. Wake Up Slap sucks, but it can learn the elemental punches, learns Rock Slide and Superpower naturally, can learn Payback to hit Ghosts and Psychics, and Strength, which makes for a good fourth move throughout the game.
Major Battles: If you use Krookodile to boost with Bulk Up, you can sweep Clay using Wake Up Slap. Does well against the E4, thought you might want to keep it away from any special attackers that carry STAB moves.
Additional Comments: Can only be obtained via trade, which might limit its usefulness. Overall a great pokemon to use, especially if (like me) you aren't sold on Lucario or don't want to use another Steel type.
 
People are seriously underestimating Mag's steel coverage. Mag learns Flash Cannon right about the time the lack of a strong Electric STAB other than Electro Ball starts getting awkward, and it's only resisted by water (even a weaker Electro Ball should KO), fire (whom Mag shouldn't be staying in on anyway), electric (which Mag also resists), and other steels, which usually can't touch Mag anyway. Mag's SpA is more than enough to 1-2HKO most everything. The low PP was somewhat awkward, but my Mag really only was subpar right around Clay/Skyla (not counting soloing Skyla with ease.) And once you finally get Thunderbolt, you just get to start wrecking stuff.

Magnezone is an easy top in my book. Not quite "Magnemite tier," but easy top.
 
I have another line of defense for Magnemite that may not have been considered, as it really doesn't apply to too many of us.

I have a friend up in Boston who lives in a neighborhood where no one plays Pokémon...and he's too stingy to go get a second DS (understandably). But, one very serious thing to consider about Magnemite is it's ability to function well, even without trading.

One of the top competition Magnemite faces, at least in White 2, is Elekid. It comes at the same time, and also functions well as an Electric-type with a wide berth of Special coverage. But, if you can't trade, there's one serious issue - Electabuzz is the highest form you can get. Magnezone is not as fast...but definitely stronger. Maybe considering this will help tip the scales more towards Top Tier for Magnemite.
This isn't relevant for this tier list imo because of

I've decided that we are going to make seprate entries for Pokémon who evolve by trading if the tiering placement is different. For example, if Elekid that stops at Electabuzz is considered High Tier and Elekid that fully evolves into Electivire through trading is also considered High Tier, they will be combined into one entry. The opposite would apply to, for example, Shelmet and Accelgor. Accelgor is clearly better than Shelmet.
For example, let's for the sake of the argument say that Electivire is better than Magnezone, but Magnezone is better than Electabuzz (this isn't true, but bear with me). The list would reflect that by having them in the right order. Nothing else comes into play. Pokemon should be judged by their own merits, not through some weird competition-based cross reference.
 

Celever

i am town
is a Community Contributor
I have another line of defense for Magnemite that may not have been considered, as it really doesn't apply to too many of us.

I have a friend up in Boston who lives in a neighborhood where no one plays Pokémon...and he's too stingy to go get a second DS (understandably). But, one very serious thing to consider about Magnemite is it's ability to function well, even without trading.

One of the top competition Magnemite faces, at least in White 2, is Elekid. It comes at the same time, and also functions well as an Electric-type with a wide berth of Special coverage. But, if you can't trade, there's one serious issue - Electabuzz is the highest form you can get. Magnezone is not as fast...but definitely stronger. Maybe considering this will help tip the scales more towards Top Tier for Magnemite.
I thought the main competition was ampharos... at least thats what I ended up keeping while ditching magnezone because it ended up so bad.
 
I thought the main competition was ampharos... at least thats what I ended up keeping while ditching magnezone because it ended up so bad.
Ampharos is something I wasn't thinking about at the time, but yes, I guess it gives some competition.

However, you have to admit that Elekid's proximity compared to Magnemite gives it competition for a new teamslot, as opposed to Mareep who would have already become an important part of your team.
 
So I'm going to have to eat my own words today. I said that I didn't believe Magnezone deserved to be Top Tier because I felt it had too shallow a movepool and tended to have trouble taking repeated hits. I realized that my expectations were a bit too high.

Since I was the main supporter for Scrafty in Top, who got there thanks to two amazing abilities, HJK, Great Coverage options, great typing, and the ability to cheese the E4 with little trouble, I realized that Magnezone was very similar.

Magnezone has two amazing abilities, great typing, the ability to cheese most of the gym leaders, and great availability. Granted, they're not entirely the same, but if Scrafty can make it to Top, why can't Magnezone?

His coverage remains a concern, but Steel and Electric does do a good job of hitting neutrally most of the time off of Base 130 SpAtk.

So yes, I am going to change my vote.
 
Name: Raticate - Purrloin tier
Availability: Early (Castelia)
Stats: Good speed, decent attack, but poor stats otherwise.
Typing: Normal
Movepool: Bad coverage. Mostly normal type moves and dark type moves. Poor defenses and HP means that most neutral attacks will do significant amounts of damage to it. It does learn some decent TM moves, though, but really lacks the power to do any real damage.
Major Battles: Nothing significant. It evolves early so you could use it for Burgh.
Additional Comments: Severely outclassed by Stoutland and Cinccino stat and ability -wise. I would argue that Raticate is even worse than Watchog, because at least Watchog has a strategy behind it. Raticate's poor stats really hold it back from being a good member for your team. Honestly, just find something else, anything else is better than this.
 
What's the "strategy" behind Watchdog? Gambling with Confuse Ray and Hypnosis and wasting time with amazing moves like Bide and Sand-Attack? Raticate is faster, learns Swords Dance by relearner and gets an attack increase when status'd (so a Toxic Orb works wonders on it).

Also a superficial comparison to Top/High tier Pokemon don't say anything to us. Horsea is not nearly as good as Squirtle for example, and we all know that, but how good is it exactly?
 
Raticate isn't that good but it's not like it's unusable given that 81 Atk + STAB Hyper Fang actually has quite the fair bit of power. Raticate seems like at the very least low tier to me, but calling it as bad as Purrloin, now that's quite a far stretch.
 

Celever

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Raticate is by no means as bad as you were saying, it was pretty good in-game in gen 1 and it's not had any hard ships thrown at it since then. ,'_',
I would nominate it for mid tier. It has usable stats, can absorb some status in, say, the fight against marlon where he is using scald all the time. He also has a very wide movepool.
 
What's the "strategy" behind Watchdog? Gambling with Confuse Ray and Hypnosis and wasting time with amazing moves like Bide and Sand-Attack? Raticate is faster, learns Swords Dance by relearner and gets an attack increase when status'd (so a Toxic Orb works wonders on it).

Also a superficial comparison to Top/High tier Pokemon don't say anything to us. Horsea is not nearly as good as Squirtle for example, and we all know that, but how good is it exactly?
Lulz at Raticate in Purrloin tier. It's not that bad. Though why you'd be using Swords Dance with something as frail as Raticate...

Watchog has a lot of good coverage options, and Confuse Ray is actually really nice in-game. It gets Seed Bomb by Move Relearner (or Aqua Tail if you want *shrug*) natural Crunch really early, got STAB Return stupid early as well as Hyper Fang...I dumped my Herdier for it simply because it was doing a better job killing things than it.

I probably shouldn't say that Watchog outclasses Raticate...but he kinda does. Looking at Raticate's movepool right now I see...Swords Dance (too frail to really pull it off particularly well), Crunch, Iron Tail, and lots of Normal moves.

Watchog on the other hand, gets Confuse Ray, late Hyper Fang (doesn't matter because early Return for all Normals), Ice Punch, Thunderpunch, Seed Bomb, Aqua Tail, Gunk Shot, Iron Tail, and natural Low Kick.

Watchog also has better availability, slightly better attack offset by slightly lower Speed, better bulk...I'm failing to see why you wouldn't use Patrat unless you really didn't want to. At least in comparison to Raticate.

Raticate isn't terrible, I'm not saying that. He just has a hard time in the major battles because they're so long, and Raticate is made for killing things quickly. Watchog on the other hand has juuust enough bulk to get through most of the early to mid game battles. For example, a Watchog with Seed Bomb (six Red Shards) can solo Clay's entire gym. He also can go toe to toe with Elesa's team, and also can deal with Roxie's entire team.

Watchog also can (theoretically, I haven't taken mine that far yet) go toe to toe with Shauntal thanks to its immunity to her main STAB moves. Raticate can as well, so that's not exactly a huge thing, but Watchog has a better chance of avoiding being OHKO'd by the other moves Shauntal's critters have.

@TM13 Hyper Fang isn't that special anymore thanks to early Return/Frustration being so much more powerful. Hyper Fang has 80BP while full powered Return/Frustration has 102.
 
Watchdog beats Raticate in 5 base HP and 9 base defence... Not exactly a huge lead. I would say the ability to go first more often is more important when either mon's defences aren't a particularly big advantage (and they're not Alakazam or Jynx so they can take a physical hit).

I would say Swords Dance (and Guts to some extent) is a big boon in battles with more than one enemy or gym/elite fights where a turn of set-up can lead to a sweep.

And I fail to see how your Watchdog could beat, say, Excadrill. Low Kick is a tutor move that costs 8 Red Shards btw. The punches mostly help with 4x weak mons (rare) but STAB Return will be hitting things harder without the shard investment.

I'm not fond of the sophistry you use when comparing their bases. Watchdog has 5 more base attack at the expense of 20 base speed (and no Guts/setup opportunity outside of Work Up). That's a significant difference for this game (in RBYGSC it might as well be effectively the same) don't you think?

No disagreements about the availability though.
 
Watchdog beats Raticate in 5 base HP and 9 base defence... Not exactly a huge lead. I would say the ability to go first more often is more important when either mon's defences aren't a particularly big advantage (and they're not Alakazam or Jynx so they can take a physical hit).

I would say Swords Dance (and Guts to some extent) is a big boon in battles with more than one enemy or gym/elite fights where a turn of set-up can lead to a sweep.

And I fail to see how your Watchdog could beat, say, Excadrill. Low Kick is a tutor move that costs 8 Red Shards btw. The punches mostly help with 4x weak mons (rare) but STAB Return will be hitting things harder without the shard investment.

I'm not fond of the sophistry you use when comparing their bases. Watchdog has 5 more base attack at the expense of 20 base speed (and no Guts/setup opportunity outside of Work Up). That's a significant difference for this game (in RBYGSC it might as well be effectively the same) don't you think?

No disagreements about the availability though.
Low Kick is a relearner move. So if you really wanted it, it's there for you. Mind you, Watchog does just fine with Seed Bomb.

I fail to see how Swords Dance helps someone with paper defenses. Raticate should be hitting things before they attack, not setting up and hoping to dear god they don't strike its pitiful defenses. As for base speed, if 65 is fine for in-game (Sandslash, iirc), having 20 less than Raticate is also just fine.

I'm not saying at all that Raticate is bad. He's actually pretty decent. Free Silk Scarf just before you get him really helps. Maybe I'm underestimating his defenses, but...
 

Celever

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I think that both what I am thinking and Lucchini was saying is how you've been talking about Raticate and how his stats are trash while Watchog isn't much better.

Lucchini: Watchdog beats Raticate in 5 base HP and 9 base defence...

You: its pitiful defenses.

Me: So, basically, Raticate has pitiful defenses, Watchog is only slightly better in defense, with a slower speed and lower attack.

I just thought I would round it out like that, but none of what you two were talking about actually helps at all, since you're not meant to be comparing pokemon.
 
Raticate doesn't get fully powered Return when you first catch it, meaning that Hyper Fang is still pretty legit for an option. You can dump it after Burgh and go with Return instead, and Raticate's better offenses make it superior than Watchog...

Raticate's pretty useful, anyhow. He gets Dig for Elesa, and has Sucker Punch/Quick Attack for priority (good for Zebstrika, who runs 4 attacks and never uses Quick Attack outside of a finisher). Work Up is pretty ok for setup until you get to SD, and Raticate actually is a pretty legit user of it thanks to its priority attacks. It's no Extremekiller, but it's definitely not crap.
 
Raticate doesn't get fully powered Return when you first catch it, meaning that Hyper Fang is still pretty legit for an option. You can dump it after Burgh and go with Return instead, and Raticate's better offenses make it superior than Watchog...

Raticate's pretty useful, anyhow. He gets Dig for Elesa, and has Sucker Punch/Quick Attack for priority (good for Zebstrika, who runs 4 attacks and never uses Quick Attack outside of a finisher). Work Up is pretty ok for setup until you get to SD, and Raticate actually is a pretty legit user of it thanks to its priority attacks. It's no Extremekiller, but it's definitely not crap.
Does the presence of Mincinno in around the same time actually harm Rattata's usefulness? Guts, in-game at least, is overshadowed by Technician and Skill Link. The two also have fairly similar movepools, besides priority/multi-strike, and are both Normal-type. Does Ratata's priority warrant use over Mincinno? Maybe Mincinno's movepool and higher stats actually make it a lot better.
 
Minccino is definitely better than Rattata, that's a given. However, I don't see why we need to penalise Raticate because Cinccino is stupidly OP.
 
If Purrloin/Liepard are in their own tier, Raticate has a lower BST than Liepard. On top of that, Liepard has an alright SpA stat, so if you really wanted to give it some special moves, it would be fine. The only thing that really holds Liepard back is that it doesn't learn a lot of dark type moves and it's frail. That was really the reasoning behind my tier placement. In the long run, yes, Raticate is really not that good. It comes at a point where you should already have a normal type if you choose to use one (Herdier or Watchog), and it really is entirely too weak to stand up to two or more attacks. Saying "it can SD" or "it's good with Guts/Flame Orb" doesnt mean anything when it dies so easily.
 
Minccino actually loses in availability to Rattata, if you find that a point worth mentioning when blaming Raticate for its shortcomings.

Availability isn't "everything" though, despite us putting very available mons in Top tier for this game. The Swords of Justice or Gliscor/Sawk are good examples of late-joining Pokemon who perform very well.
 
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