Pokemon RBY In-game Tiers - Mark II

[Hemp Man]

Originally Posted by Fat Chou Toshio

I was the one who wrote it, but it could definitely use a re-write. I wrote it near the beginning of the exercise; when we still weren't sure where everything would go. People were still writing mostly about the obviously top/high stuff, and Golem seemed pretty mediocore by comparison-- but it should probably get a more positive review.

Alright, will give Geodude a rewrite tomorrow. Yours was good but it just seems a bit oudated.

Alright here is the edit, kept a few things the same:

Geodude - Mid Tier
-Availability: Early! Comes after Mount Moon and is the first OU family you will meet. Evolves quickly, reaching Graveler (and immediately Golem by trade) at level 25.
-Stats: The Geoddude''s stats are kind of a mixed bag. While boasting great Attack and Defense stats, it also comes with a mediocre Special and Speed stat.
-Movepool: Geodude has access to Rock Slide and Dig/Earthquake TM's for STAB, and Rock/Ground coverage is unresisted in RBY. Those are the only two moves Geodude really needs, it can use the other 2 slots for filler (such as a HM04 Strength slave).
-Power: Thanks to a high Attack stat and fantastic coverage, Geodude can hit anything hard, provided they don't OHKO him before he attacks.
-Type: Much like his stats, his typing is a mixed bag. While Rock/Ground grants him a resistance to Normal, Flying, Poison, Fire, & Electric, it also makes him weak to Fighting, Ice, Water, Grass, and Ground.
-Match-ups:
--Misty: As Geodude is quadruply weak to Water moves and has low Special, even Staryu will be too much for Geodude to handle.
--Lt. Surge: Thanks to his immunity to Electric and resistance to Normal, Geodude walls this entire gym.
--Erika: Golem's quadruply weakness to Grass and low speed means Golem shouldn't even be fighting the trainers in this gym.
--Koga: Golem's Earthquake/Dig and resistances to Sludge and Explosion make it basically unstoppable here. In Yellow, this match is harder due to the omnipresence of Psychic moves hitting Golem on his low Special, but all of Koga's Pokemon in Yellow are weak to Rock Slide.
--Sabrina: Alakazam outspeeds and overwhelms Golem.
--Blaine: Golem resists Fire and his can destroys Blaine's Pokemon with Earthquake. However, Golem is also slower than Blaine's Pokemon and his Fire moves hit Golem on his lower Special. A Fire Blast burn can put Golem in a major predicament.
--Giovanni: In RB, Golem sweeps his entire team except for Dugtrio who can use Dig to dodge Earthquake (Gen I Dig is unaffected by Earthquake). In Yellow, Golem can beat the newly added Persian, but will have an overall harder time sweeping due to Ground moves being omnipresent in this match.
--Lorelei: All of her Pokemon outspeed Golem and can hit him with a Super Effective move.
--Bruno: Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan, and Machamp all hit you for super effective damage. In Yellow, the Onyx's can also hurt you with Dig / Earthquake. Although Golem's defense and Hitmonchan's low Special means Golem can contribute to this battle, it wont be able to sweep like a Water or Psychic type would.
--Agatha: You definitely have the advantage of typing, but the difference in Speed... be prepared for a long bout of annoyance by Confusion, Sleep, Paralysis and Poison if you try to defeat her with Golem. In Yellow, the first Gengar has Mega Drain (instant death) and the second has Psychic (close to instant death). Again, Golem can contribute, but can't sweep as well as a Psychic type would.
--Lance: In RB, Golem can trounce everything besides Hydro Pump Gyarados. In Yellow, not only does Gyarados still OHKO you, but now he has a Dragonair with Ice Beam and a Dragonite with Blizzard.
--Rival: Golem beats Pidgeot, Rhydon, Fire-types, Electric-types, and Exeggcutor. Don't bother with anything else.
-Additional Comments: In competitive RBY, Rock/Ground is essential, with Rhydon or Golem being on every team, and Rhyhorn appears horribly late in-game, making Golem your only real choice. However, while their ability to flat-out wall Zapdos and other opponents on the competitive scene is useful, Golem's horribly slow Speed and awful Special handicaps it against a good portion of opponents in-game, starting with Misty and Erika and becoming increasingly bad as more Water- and Ice-type users appear later. It's low Special means it's outright destroyed by Psychic-type users as well. Golem has great stats, moves, and completely destroys many opponents, but there are so many that also destroy it. Early game, it's no better than the Nidos (who appear early, are immune to Poison status and are useful throughout the game), and late game, it's outclassed by Water/Psychic types, who destroy the enemy Ground / Rock / Fire / Poison types more easily. If you real hate enemy Self Destruct / Explosion users though, it's a solid choice.

I kept most of your info in, just changed some stuff like when you mentioned Edge-Quake having awesome coverage, there is no Stone Edge in RBY lol.

[Chou Toshio]

EQ is not TM-- Golem learns it by level up. Also Rock Throw really should get a mention, as should Mega Punch. You can't throw out mention of the attacks it relies on earlier in the game.

Also, "quadruple", not quadruply (at least by the grammar you used here)

Otherwise, looks good. Nice improvement. We still have to choose between demoting Sandslash and promoting Golem (though it looks like a Sandslash demote is the overall consensus).

[Hemp Man]

Rock Throw has like 65% accuracy in RBY, so I'm not if I were to include that. But the EQ learn up and Mega Punch will be mentioned.

Will fix quadruple.

And I'd rather demote Sandslash to mid tier.

[Chou Toshio]

Even with 65% acc., it's still the earliest Rock attack you can get (of ANY poke), and Geodude has the defense to make use of it.

Generally Mega Punch is a better attack, but really, it should at least get a mention.

[atsync]

I've been going through all of my analyses to check for any changes that are needed. I've now gone through all of them and I'm happy with most of them.

I have some changes though:

Pikachu (RB)

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ThunderShock from the start is useful for the early game birds, and Thunder Wave is always useful, but otherwise Pikachu’s level-up movepool is nothing special. From TMs, Pikachu gets the powerful Thunderbolt, as well as Seismic Toss, Body Slam/Mega Punch, and the unnecessary Submission. It can achieve nice coverage but requires TMs to do so.

Pikachu (Y)

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Pikachu actually gained a larger level-up movepool in Yellow, but most of it isn’t particularly useful. What Pikachu did gain that was useful is Thunderbolt at level 26. This makes it the only Pokémon with Thunderbolt from level-up, which is useful because it allows you to save the TM for something else. Aside from Thunderbolt and Thunder Wave (which really helps out against faster opponents like Misty's Starmie), Pikachu’s movepool isn’t that great. It can use Body Slam/Mega Punch, Seismic Toss, and Submission, but other than that you’ll be using Thunderbolt most of the time.

Shellder

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Cloyster starts off with Surf/Bubblebeam and an Ice move, assuming you catch it at level 30 (which is required for Aurora Beam). In fact, having Aurora Beam this early allows you to avoid using one of the Ice TMs on it if required. However, Cloyster greatly appreciates Ice Beam/Blizzard. Beyond its STABs, all it gets are Normal attacks. Tri Attack is probably the pick of the lot because it has decent power with no drawbacks, and the fact that it is such an exclusive move means that it is very likely to be available to Cloyster.

Seel

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-Seel - Top Tier
-Availability: Seel is catchable in the Seafoam Islands, but the best way to obtain this is from the trade on Cinnabar Island. In RB, you trade Ponyta for Seel. In Yellow, you trade Growlithe for Dewgong. Cinnabar Island seems a bit late, since you need to at least beat Koga to get there. However, Seel/Dewgong is still great because it comes at the right place at the right time. The Pokémon you are trading away is found easily in the Pokémon Mansion nearby. It will generally be caught in the mid-30 level range. Once you trade for your Seel/Dewgong, you can teach it Surf and then head back to Pokémon Mansion. It will happily beat the Fire trainers here, gaining a ton of experience as a result. If you have Seel, it should evolve into Dewgong quite quickly. At the end of it you’ll have the Blizzard TM which you can use if you like (it isn’t necessary though). Once the Mansion is done, you can head straight to the Cinnabar gym and gather experience there. At the end of this, you should have a Dewgong that will have caught up to your team (and then some, should you choose to go overboard). You now have a powerful Water type obtained with little effort to assist you through the last trainers of the game (i.e. the Elite 4).
-Stats: The best way to describe Dewgong’s stats would be ‘good enough’. 95 Special gives it great power to abuse its nice STABs, and 90 HP and 80 Defence give it a good amount of bulk. 70 Speed is decent by in-game standards and you should be moving first most of the time.
-Movepool: Dewgong’s movepool is basically the default one for Water types but it has all it needs. Surf and Ice Beam/Blizzard provide plenty of coverage. Body Slam (or another Normal move) can be used to cover Water types if you want, although there are better choices for Body Slam than Dewgong. A thing to note about Dewgong is that it has Aurora Beam and Ice Beam by level up. This is useful because it allows Dewgong to run an Ice attack without using up a TM (so you can use them on something else). However, if you have it free then you should use it on Dewgong.
-Power: When you first get it, it has enough power to beat what it needs to beat: Fire types. Once you defeat them, you’ll gain a massive level/power boost, allowing you to contribute against everything else. Conveniently, Water/Ice is an excellent type combo late game so you’ll be powering through things easily regardless.
-Type: Again, Water/Ice is excellent at the point you get it in the game. It covers most of the Elite 4 by itself. From a defensive point of view Water/Ice is a bit shaky (weak to Rock, Fighting, Grass and Electric), although this isn't really that important against most regular trainers.
-Match-ups: Blaine – You can potentially sweep him with Surf. In Yellow it is a bit more difficult since Ninetales is stronger than Growlithe and Ponyta, but you’ll definitely contribute and even if you lose this particular battle you’ll still beat all of the other trainers.
Giovanni – Surf has perfect coverage against everything except Persian in Yellow, who you can still beat if you are in good shape. Just watch for Thunder and Rock Slide and you’ll be fine.
Lorelei – This is probably the worst match-up that Dewgong will likely face. You can’t do much to each other. If you have a Normal move like Body Slam it will help you out a bit, but there are better choices for Lorelei than Dewgong. Surf is fine for Jynx though.
Bruno – You beat Onix with Surf and you can even beat the others with powerful special attacks. Machamp is probably the most dangerous thing since it is the best prepared for surviving Surf, but at a good level (which isn’t unreasonable given the boosted experience) you’ll beat that too.
Agatha – Ice Beam/Blizzard hits Golbat and Surf is sufficient for Arbok. The Ghosts are trickier thanks to higher Specials and annoying status moves. It isn’t an auto-loss situation though.
Lance – Your STABs cover absolutely everything except Gyarados. Lance is a joke match-up in RB. In Yellow you also have to watch for Electric attacks, but you have the bulk to take at least one.
Blue – Your STABs cover Pidgeot, Rhydon, Exeggutor, Charizard, Arcanine, Sandslash, Ninetales and Flareon. The Water types can be taken on, although there are more efficient choices.
-Additional Comments: With the exception of RB Squirtle, Seel/Dewgong is the best Water type in the game. It just has a perfect combination of convenient availability, acceptable power and helpful match-ups, and the boosted experience it gets from being a traded Pokémon makes it a breeze to train and also saves some experience for its teammates to use. The only thing wrong with it is that it comes later than many other Pokémon, but Water types aren’t even necessary before then. It is the late game where Water types really shine, and the game has been designed so that Dewgong arrives just when it is needed. This is a Top tier Pokémon for sure, and is highly recommended.

For Pikachu, I added Seismic Toss. I think someone suggested it when I first submitted Pikachu's entries but I didn't include it because I hadn't used it before. I have since tested it and found it to be useful, particularly before those powerful moves it gets come along (which isn't actually that long after Seismic Toss but I still think they should get at reference).

For Shellder, I slashed Bubblebeam with Surf for the benefit of Yellow players since you'll probably be getting Shellder as soon as you get the Super Rod (i.e. before Surf). Cloyster doesn't actually need Bubblebeam because it starts with Aurora Beam, which has the same power and arguably better coverage for the routes to Fuschia, but it should still be mentioned I think.

Seel's entry wasn't really "improved" per say, but I was personally unhappy with... just the way it read, which didn't seem quite professional enough for me. This is just me though, and I only made very minor changes of wording to it anyway. Meh...

Other than that I'm done with them. I hope to test out Yellow Amnesia Poliwag soon, but I have other projects going on that may get in the way of this. Not really a priority though.

[atsync]

Post here if you want to discuss the tiers.