(Gen 1) Best Pokemon in RBY in OU

[Yai-Inn]

Originally Posted by Fat lars

I'm probably not worthy of posting in this thread because I never battled competitively online until Gen 4, but even as a 10 year old vying to be "cool" with the link cable battles, Snorlax and Tauros were pretty common (>.< rare candied of course)

Exeggutor was really good too.

I seem to remember hearing somewhere that a team of 6 Tauros (different coverage moves and maybe a lucky Mimic) would beat any other team.

This is strictly from memory but I believe it was a team of 6 Chansey that won the first ever world tournament in 1998 in Japan.
Each Chansey was basically a different type special users with a Counter Chansey on the physicals.
After this tournament the 1 species rule was implemented. As well as the Evasion ban... I could be off on this though.

A couple of points to add to this discussion:
1. The answers you will get will be by and large opinion as this is an opinion question. It's already been pointed out that the Pokemon that are vying for top spot play different roles in the metagame. Whichever role the poster values will by and large be ranked higher in that players mind. So whether or not someone thinks its Egg or Tauros probably comes down to whether or not that player values sweeping more than supporting.

2. From what I can tell this discussion is focused on "pure RBY" and is not considering tradebacks?

[BlankZero]

I don't know, I loved Jolteon personally, but pretty much anyone using the HaxPersian set was winning.

[Zacchaeus]

Every time I see one of these discussions on PO or PS, the consensus is always Tauros hands down. I disagree with that though. I would argue that the best OU Pokémon is Alakazam. It can sweep, spread status, and break walls all at the same time. Sadly it lacks a way to boost Special, but that would probably have pushed it to Ubers

[Crystal_]

Everything "can" sweep, but only few mons do it consistently. Alakazam is not one of them.

[Slobroking]

Snorlax. STAB Body Slam, Hyper Beam, and SelfDestruct, with that insane bulk and no weaknesses is insane.

Offtopic but where do you guys play RBY btw? Still on Netbattle?

[M Dragon]

If theres a tauros theres a way.
Snorlax is a very close second though.

Its also true that i have some teams w/out the bull, but lax is in literally 100% of my teams, its just so good

[Jorgen]

Originally Posted by Fat Slobroking

Snorlax. STAB Body Slam, Hyper Beam, and SelfDestruct, with that insane bulk and no weaknesses is insane.

Offtopic but where do you guys play RBY btw? Still on Netbattle?

NBS is dead for the most part. Pokemon Online (PO) is where people play it now outside of Smogon RBY tournaments (which can still use NBS).

[Lavos Spawn]

It's either Tauros or Snorlax, both are just unbelievably good in the RBY metagame.

Going with Tauros simply because it's on almost every single team and is the first Pokemon I think of when someone says "RBY OU".

[Borat]

Snorlax is a better pokemon than Tauros. But there's just no reason not to use Tauros.

If that makes any sense.

[Crystal_]

RBY features some glitches on PO (related to wrap moves most of them), so RBY "should" actually be played on NBS, but nobody does that... NBS has been dead for a while now.

[Omanyte]

I much prefer the format of NBS, but no-one plays on it anymore. :(

As for Tauros vs Snorlax, Snorlax is definitely more unique (and therefore harder to replace), but Tauros is the better pokemon. Snorlax can easily be screwed over by Reflect, which knocks it down a peg.

[waterwizard]

Exeggutor is the best.

[kd24]

Originally Posted by Fat Crystal_

Tauros
Chansey/Snorlax
Exeggutor
Starmie
Alakazam
Cloyster
Golem
Lapras
Dragonite
Rhydon
Jynx
Zapdos
Gengar
Persian
Jolteon

That's pretty much it

Is there a reason you didn't mention Slowbro? I've always thought he was the best mon on paper in RBY, but in practice he'll just get crit too often to make it worth it (or lose to crap like Lax regardless).

[Jorgen]

Pretty sure he just forgot. Also that post is like from a year ago, so his ranks have probably changed since, if only slightly.

[Deluks917]

I think its Tauros or Dragonite. Wrap is extremely strong in RBY.

[Crystal_]

Yeah, i'm pretty sure I forgot about Slowbro. At that time I would've ranked it between Rhydon and Jynx maybe. Anyway, my ranks haven't changed much since, but another thing to keep in mind that I didn't point out where the relevant gaps are.

My ranks now would look like this:

Tauros
(gap)
Snorlax
(gap)
Chansey
(big gap)
Exeggutor
(big gap)
Alakazam
(gap)
Starmie
(gap)
Golem
(small gap)
Lapras
(small gap)
Slowbro
Cloyster
Dragonite
Rhydon
Jynx
(gap)
Zapdos
Victreebel
Gengar
(small gap)
Persian
(small gap)
Jolteon
(small gap)
Articuno

Of course, things like that are always subjective, but it's a pretty accurate ranking I'd say!

[Borat]

datgap

[Lavos Spawn]

Crystal, there are a couple of things you might consider changing for the rankings. First, maybe I'm biased in this regard, but it seems to me that Snorlax holds a very small edge over Chansey in terms of overall usefulness. If I were you I'd add a (small gap) between Snorlax and Chansey to reflect this. Next, I don't understand why Golem and Rhydon are so far apart in ranking. To me they serve the same purpose but just play slightly differently, and neither one really outclasses the other. Golem's access to Explosion might push it slightly above Rhydon in terms of overall usefulness, but even so, I would suggest moving Rhydon up to the rank one below Golem. Finally, I'd shift Persian over Victreebel, simply because of the fact that Persian is so much faster and more versatile, even rivaling Tauros in usefulness at times, whereas Victreebel's only real purpose is to abuse the insanely high critical hit ratio of Razor Leaf.

Those are my nitpicks, take them with a grain of salt. Excellent list, thanks for compiling it.

[Dre89]

Victreebell is much better than persian if with wrap legal, and wrap is the standard so that should be assumed.

Also rhydon and golem don't play as similarly as people think. Golem's draw is obviously explosion, rhydon's draw is that he's got a guaranteed 2HKO on chansey, and less importantly has a good chance of KOing slowbro in a rest loop if he comes in on the rest.

If you're using golem, you're looking to catch something with explosion. If you're using rhydon, you have the luxury of just paralysing chansey and then sending rhydon in on anything other than icebeam.

[Lavos Spawn]

Originally Posted by Fat Dre89

Victreebell is much better than persian if with wrap legal, and wrap is the standard so that should be assumed.

Also rhydon and golem don't play as similarly as people think. Golem's draw is obviously explosion, rhydon's draw is that he's got a guaranteed 2HKO on chansey, and less importantly has a good chance of KOing slowbro in a rest loop if he comes in on the rest.

If you're using golem, you're looking to catch something with explosion. If you're using rhydon, you have the luxury of just paralysing chansey and then sending rhydon in on anything other than icebeam.

Scratch what I said about Persian, then. However, the fact remains that Rhydon and Golem are being used for the same general purpose and that they can each do things that the other cannot. I'd say the draw of being able to Explode is about equal to the draw of being able to 2hko Chansey and 3hko Slowbro most of the time, so why is there such a discrepancy in the rating of the two?

[Jorgen]

yeah gonna have to agree and say "why the hell are Golem and Rhydon so far apart?"

[Asterat]

i really like lead persian with substitute/slash/hyper bream/bubble beam

[Jorgen]

Substitute doesn't block status (unless it's poison), so you're not stopping Sleeper leads with that.

[Dre89]

Originally Posted by Fat Lavos Spawn

Scratch what I said about Persian, then. However, the fact remains that Rhydon and Golem are being used for the same general purpose and that they can each do things that the other cannot. I'd say the draw of being able to Explode is about equal to the draw of being able to 2hko Chansey and 3hko Slowbro most of the time, so why is there such a discrepancy in the rating of the two?

The way I look at it, paralysing chansey and then getting rhydon in on her is something you can pull off nearly every battle. So is getting rhydon in on slowbro's rest loop for all the battles with a slowbro. Whereas nailing something good with explosion is something you do only once every couple of battles.

That's why I prefer rhydon honestly.

[Crystal_]

Firstly, as I said, everyone has a different view of the metagame, and a ranking list is subjective.

As for Golem vs Rhydon, the first thing I have to say is that, despite being 4 pokemon between them, there is only a small gap. Once you go down, it is really difficult to place stuff because everything is so close in terms of overall usefulness imo. However, I do think that Golem is slightly above Rhydon. I think I explained this better somewhere else, but the thing is that what Golem generally does, unless it's walling a electric-type, is switch into snorlax 1 or 2 times, and explode on Starmie/Exeggutor/Tauros/Slowbro or even Snorlax if it stays in (often it is mainly a defensive Explosion as you see).

However, Rhydon can't do that. For this reason, when using Rhydon over Golem, it requires more "attention" from the user in order to capitalize off its advantages over Golem, which include 2hkoing Chansey, and sometimes Starmie, and hits harder in general. However, unless you focus your plays on putting Rhydon to work (kinda), Golem wouldve generally turned out more useful because Explosion is often the most rewarding thing about the rock-type (golem). That's only what I feel, and is just based on personal experience. Since Golem's Explosion is often used defensively, I'd say Golem is overall better defensively, and Rhydon is better offensively as long as you can let it make a difference.

As for Victreebel, it's actually pretty good! It's not only Razor Leaf, but also Wrap and Double Powder, in addition to Swords Dance and Hyper Beam unpredictability. Although it is shut down by Gengar, it can be a pretty effective and dangerous wrap user. If you can status Zam Starmie and Tauros and not get paralyzed back, Vict can be deadly, probably even better than Dnite! I used I triple-wrap team some months ago to lots of success (it was zam/tauros/lax/dnite/cloy/vict, sometimes I even used Chansey over Tauros mind you!), although that success came partly due to PO Wrap bugged mechanics.