BW2 In-Game Tier List Discussion [Updated 7/24]

Status
Not open for further replies.

breh

強いだね
The traded Petlil: Mid, at least on my team. Probably high in other teams though. I did however not get round to teaching it Quiver Dance or whatever it has.

Volcarona: Has no decent attacks for ages, they either have low power or miss.
/facepalm

Lilligant is literally made for Quiver Dance and you didn't tutor Volcarona Signal Beam with the free 10 shards.
 
/facepalm

Lilligant is literally made for Quiver Dance and you didn't tutor Volcarona Signal Beam with the free 10 shards.
Stuff like this is why I'm still skeptical on having the tier list be based on an "average" of everyone's experience. There's just no way we can assume everyone is using every Pokemon optimally, which will skew the rankings.
 
/facepalm

Lilligant is literally made for Quiver Dance and you didn't tutor Volcarona Signal Beam with the free 10 shards.
Cut me some slack here, no one plays the game perfectly. I just never used Lilligant enough to bother. And as for Volcarona, 1, it's the Fire type move my team needed; 2, those shards went to Lucario for Ice Punch, which was worth my while.
And note that I even added a caveat for my ranking. I will edit out the Petlil section in my post, since it doesn't really say much.

So since I never taught Quiver Dance to Lilligant, does that mean all my rankings will be ignored? I can understand the Petlil bit being ignored though, don't know why I posted that.
 
It's not like Quiver Dance is even that hard to obtain: if you missed the level somehow you can use one of the gazillion Heart Scales you found up to that point (there's like a crapton if you use Dowsing MCHN) for her.

As for Volcarona, iirc his ranking generally assumes that the player has tutored Signal Beam onto him. It definitely makes him 1hko everything (i used Struggle Bug Volcarona and it barely 2hkos stuff, now imagine something with more than double the power, yeah). Fly is also useful.

Also jeez what's with the EBall hate? Galvantula is so fast Electro Ball has like at least 80 BP every time. You don't need to be L54 for Discharge because Marlon is piss easy, and Compoundeyes Thunder rapes. (Getting one with Compoundeyes isn't hard either since Unnerve doesn't activate)
 
And Electroweb is pretty cool too if needed reducing Speed ! And he should keep Thunderwawe too.

thelaytonmobile > Playing Sandile without Moxie is a bit ... strange.

Volcarona > I've didn't test Volcarona in my 2 runs, but playing without Signal Beam with a Pokemon with a slow Experience Growth is kinda mad :D
 
Why? Intimidate is equally good ability if not better as most of the trainers have 1-2 Pokemon - Moxie is completely useless quite often and Sandile family is very frail without Intimidate. Moxie is significantly better for "boss" battles though.

The only problem with Joltik is that you'll have to rely on Electro Ball for your Electric STAB until late in the game. This is normally okay as he's a speedy little critter, but it does give you unreliable power. There's also Volt Switch but then of course you gotta switch out.
Heresy. Galvantula without Compundeyes+Thunder is like Blaziken without HJK.

Excadrill is monster, will write more after finishing the game.
 
Why? Intimidate is equally good ability if not better as most of the trainers have 1-2 Pokemon - Moxie is completely useless quite often and Sandile family is very frail without Intimidate. Moxie is significantly better for "boss" battles though.
Intimidate is really good, I agree with you. For every gym and "big" trainers Moxie is better => theses battle are important for the tier list, not the single battle ...
 
Normal battles are important too, afaik tier list isn't based on gyms & league alone. Also, bosses have better AI, so after you kill X they'll probably switch in Y that has more chance against Sandile (e.g. Scrafty with Brick Break) - sometimes you'd rather switch out and come in later making use of Intimidate one more time, it's still one of better abilities. Moxie fares better in important fights but Intimidate is easier to train. Both are great.
 
With all the discussion on petlill/lilligant, I personally feel that roselia deserves a mention. You get roselia before elesa in lostlorn forest. And it already comes with magical leaf leech seed and grasswhistle. It learns giga drain at level 25 which means if you catch it in normal grass, in 1~2 levels it learns giga drain, in double grass it already has giga drain. You can tm it rest, which is great with natural cure because you can rest on a random wild pokemon if health low, and run to be cured of sleep and recovered. But definitely teach it venoshock which is amazing with poison point, but even without that ability, it learns toxic spikes at level 28 right after giga drain. If you want more power it can learn pedal dance at level 37. You can easily give it evolite to beef up those defences....but 100 base special attack is pretty amazing this early with effectively 87.5 def and 120 special def with evolite is pretty amazing this early. Even if you think poison and grass stab has bad coverage, it get shadow ball right after skyla in the haunted house outside rebirth mountain. Sure steel types are a problem, but that's what darmanitan is there for. And whats even better is that you can evolve it if you want before clay in the house before chargestone cave where you get a shiny stone for free. Later on you can thief a black sludge from a garbador (50% chance) for leftovers recovery before marlon. I found roselia to be one of the best grass types if not the best in the game, and personally prefer it over petlil.... I don't like one move coverage even with quiver dance, leech seed and sleep powder...I mean if you have black 2 you pretty much get them both before elesa. I want to nominate it for high tier...because its slightly difficult to find at 15% encounter rate.
 
Regarding Sandile's abilities, they're probably both good. I did a lot of switching around in this game though, since even despite being able to read Katakana (slowly), I don't know any Pokemon names in Japanese, so I often sent out the wrong Pokemon, leading to lots of Intimidate where it wouldn't be used normally. For boss battles however, Moxie would be better. I would have had a much easier time on the 2 E4 members it's super effective vs if I'd had Moxie - the fact that most of them use special moves makes Intimidate useless. But in normal trainer battles, particularly when I don't know what will be sent out, some added defences on the Physical side are good.
 
There's a translation patch that has all the pokemon, items, moves, and abilities in english...
Unless you imported a copy of course
 
There's a translation patch that has all the pokemon, items, moves, and abilities in english...
Unless you imported a copy of course
Yes I did import it. Though whether I should let my difficulties in knowing which Pokemon has which name colour my opinions may be more important. There's still plenty of switching vs non-bosses though.
 
Has anyone else tried Grimer yet? I already voted on him, but was wondering if anyone had more success (read: any) with him than I did.

Also stellar, are you going to notify us each time the spread sheet is updated?
 

Chou Toshio

Over9000
is an Artist Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
It seems like no one has talked about Virizion, so I'd like to leave my comments.

Virizion (Mid)
Virizion's definitely not a bad poke, but it has its issues too. It appears late in the game, but comes at a good level of 45. It was about 2-3 levels behind where my team was at the time. In previous games, this high level (without training) would be a big deal, but in B2W2, all the Wild Pokemon are always just a handful of levels behind your main party, making capturing a level 45 Legendary a lot less relevant to team construction.

Virizion comes with Giga Drain and Sacred Sword, and you'll likely be teaching it Work Up and possibly a Normal-type move to fill in its coverage. Neither of its attacks hit particularly hard, and Work Up is definitely no Calm Mind (but you have no Focus Blast, not to mention Focus Blast sucks in-game, so no point in complaining). Virizion gets the nice boost of being available right before the Water gym. It will plow through the Dark-types used by team Plasma, but struggle with all the Poison types, and be careful because there are quite a few random Pokemon with Flying moves (Dark E4 guy uses Aerial Ace on his Liepard...). Where Virizion really shined for me was abusing its Speed + double screens, or just one screen. If you remember the E4/champion's teams, you can find a good place to come in, set up the right screen (teaching Virizion the appropriate Screen before each battle since the TMs are unlimited), and proceed to set up all over their team. Of course, setting up against in-game enemies is gay, but it's the best way to secure a win, especially when you got a bag full of potions.

Basically, if you have stuff packing SD, Calm Mind, Bulk Up, DD, Quiver Dance (good luck with Volc, I used it), Viriz basically says "GG" to any "tough" opponent. If you don't, Virizion's just a mediocre bulky attacker with bad coverage and weak power. If you do have Virizion + Quiver Dance Volc (I actually raised the thing to get Signal Beam / Fire Blast / Roost / Quiver Dance), the champ is basically a joke because Light Screen + Quiver Dance sets up on Hydreigon as long as you don't get critted
 

Mario With Lasers

Self-proclaimed NERFED king
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnus
Yeah, I'm using an offensive Virizion and I can vouch for its mediocrity. I'm keeping it, though, because it has the weird habit of not dying to special moves, even super effective ones, so I find some time to set up a SD or two and THEN cause quite the damage.

Maybe I wouldn't even have kept it if I tried Roselia/Petitil before, but
 

breh

強いだね
Ok, a few more mons:

Mareep: Ok, I have no goddamn clue how you guys ranked this high. I thought to myself that maybe I was incorrect; maybe Ampharos was a really good mon that I wasn't giving enough credit. However, having played with it, I really can't understand how people can rank it high; hell, I have difficulty ranking it mid. Throughout the game, it gets nothing but Electric-type moves, Power Gem, and (later on or early if you tutor it) Signal Beam. Outside of those types, it has nothing, meaning that every single move it has until the end of Victory Road is not over 90 BP. Throughout the game, I was often kind of astounded how weak it could be; Thundershock didn't 2HKO things and then it got Electro Ball, which soon stopped KOing things... and then there's this simply massive period of time where it doesn't get anything but Discharge, stuck with a measly 60 BP move it can't abuse well at all. Its utility moves are nice, sure, but I can't feel that Ampahros is very strong. It's not overwhelmingly bulky, either. I dropped it after the 8th gym. Low, Mid at best.

Clefable: Clefable may not seem like an overwhelmingly strong mon - and it isn't - but it is one of the few Pokemon capable of so easily cheesing most of the game's boss fights. Catch one outside of Giant Chasm (at level 50-52, sheesh) that has Magic Guard and it can sweep Ghetsis, Shauntal, and Iris (it sets up on Hydreigon and Lapras!) with Cosmic Power / Stored Power (obviously, use Body Slam to take out Dark-types). For some reason, Gamefreak enjoyed dumping mons that make the Elite Four easymode in Giant Chasm and Clefable is simply one of those mons. Mid.

Vespiquen: Frankly, I really wanted to like this thing. However, it's not easy. Vespiquen is laden with weaknesses. See a Pokemon you might take out with Acrobatics? Nope, it outspeeds you (this happened frequently with Gurdurr...) and has a super-effective Rock-type move. At times I was impressed by its bulk (living +1 Drilbur Rock Slide in Clay's Gym) and at others less so. It was never particularly strong; for example, it couldn't 2HKO wild Zebstrika with X-scissor when at the same level as they were. Acrobatics is a perk for Vespiquen, but one that it lacks for a good portion of the game; without it, its best STAB is Signal Beam, which is kind of silly. Otherwise, Gamefreak clearly doesn't want players to use Vespiquen at all - the chance of finding a female Combee is about 1.25%. I got lucky finding mine (it only took 20 minutes!) but others may not be equally so. Low, possibly Bottom.

Pidove: Although it was total crap last game, it's very respectable in this one. A set of Return/Fly/Roost/Quick Attack served me very well throughout the game and I was always pretty happy with Unfezant's strength. Quick Attack has a surprisingly great utility, for some reason, and Fly/Return has oddly good coverage, although, obviously, is lacking. It 2HKOes most things, which is respectable. Mid.

Excadrill: Speaking of cheesing most fights, one can do the same with Excadrill. Excadrill has one of (if not the) strongest STAB move you're going to use ingame at level 36. Before that, it has the slightly weaker Dig. Basically, Excadrill sweeps through most things that it touches; once it gets +2, it is a veritable killing machine. Otherwise, I am of firm belief that the Iron Head tutor is made solely for Excadrill and nothing else. It has wonderful Attack, passable Speed, Steel-typing... what's not to love? Top.

Camerupt: Although Camerupt is not the strongest Pokemon, it does have nice mixed offenses and hits quite hard when you need it to. Fire Blast is a great move on any Pokemon that can use it with STAB and Camerupt is no exception. It wishes it was faster; although it does learn Rock Polish, it's inherently very slow. In any case, it's a pretty good Pokemon and not one without its redeeming qualities. Mid.

Spheal: I caught my Spheal at the rather high level of 39, but that isn't overwhelmingly unlikely to occur. Although an Ice-typing is a terrible thing in competitive play, it's a huge benefit for Spheal, which sweeps Drayden's gym with it if you're willing to overlevel it. Although it doesn't get Ice Beam for a while, Aurora Beam does out a sufficient amount of damage until you upgrade. Even though it has little other than its STAB moves - Ice Beam and Surf - those moves carry it through the game pretty well. Ice Beam obviously helps against Iris, too. Mid

Tangela: Although I had a Tangela with Regenerator due to some luck with Hidden Hollows, I don't feel that Regenerator affected my play too much. Tangrowth is a mixed bag, to be frank. On one hand, it has a strong Giga Drain, even as a Tangela. Late in the game, it gets Power Whip, which hits very hard given its base power. It has fantastic physical bulk, too. However, it really lacks moves. Outside of Grass-type moves and Ancientpower, it lacks offense, unless you want to teach it Bulldoze. Leech Seed isn't available and Sleep Powder is inaccurate at times. At times, I felt like I was really running little but a slower Lilligant that always had to take a hit. Low, but an argument could be made for Mid due to its nice bulk and power.
 
On Mareep: Never really saw it anywhere near high, although mostly due to Magnemite. Its only real advantage is having immediate thunder wave, then Magnemite gets thunder wave almost immediately (its only L15 and chances are Magnemite is going to get fed all of Roxie's EXP anyway because there really is nothing else that absolutely destroys her). Mareep's utility is kind of redundant after that (and the only reason why i didn't bother with twave mag was because of mareep, kind of dumb yeah ><)
 

Stellar

of the Distant Past
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Researcher Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis an Administrator Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
Tier lists have been updated. Here is how they currently stand:

Top Tier
  • Darumaka
  • Drilbur
  • Magnemite
  • Scraggy
High Tier
  • Axew
  • Joltik
  • Oshawott
  • Petilil
  • Riolu
  • Roselia
  • Sandile
  • Sigilyph
  • Zorua
Mid Tier
  • Azurill
  • Ducklett
  • Growlithe
  • Mandibuzz
  • Mareep
  • Sewaddle
  • Snivy
  • Tepig
  • Trapinch
  • Volcarona
Low Tier
  • Flareon
  • Psyduck

I changed the formula from FLOOR to ROUND. Doing so gives the Pokemon a more generous rating that I think better fits the opinions of the thread. Full statistics can be found in the first post like last time.
 
Just curious on the stance on Volcarona because afaik ppl (including me) were generally rating it mid until it turned out that it can basically get signal beam for free and ppl started to rate it high. Do the old votes count since they were made on faulty/outdated assumptions? (that being Volcarona lacking access to decent attacks until Fire Blast)
 

Stellar

of the Distant Past
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Researcher Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis an Administrator Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
I am keeping both votes because it is safe to assume that people will play the game both ways: tutoring Volcarona Signal Beam or using those shards for something else. In the former case, Volcarona would be High, in the latter case, Volcarona would be Low. I think it averages out pretty well.
 
just started a new run. got oshawott tepig and pidove for now, didn't realize the potential of pidove's early game frustration till now. STAB frustration + quick attack is baws this early. Prolly should go in mid as Breh said.
 
First, good job Stellar

Tier lists have been updated. Here is how they currently stand:
Mid Tier
  • Azurill
  • Ducklett
  • Growlithe
  • Mandibuzz
  • Mareep
  • Sewaddle
  • Snivy
  • Tepig
  • Trapinch
  • Volcarona
Now, I think Mid tier is really weird. How Tepig & Mandibuzz could be in the same tier ? Mandibuzz just suckk. How Mareep is so low ? I know Magnemite is better but Mareep is also good.
 
Mandibuzz is mid-tier because you can catch it at Route 4 and it does an acceptable job in battle, while Mareep is generally thought to be inferior to Magnemite in the long run.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 1)

Top