In-Game Tier List Discussion

[AriadosPerson]

Wait, whut?

Sigilyph doesn't care about its weaknesses because it can actually take a hit and OHKO or 2HKO whatever is targetting them (except maybe Emolga, but that's a whole other megillah with Double Team and getting outrun). Most of the game's Crunches are unSTABbed and those that are should not be fought off with Sigilyph. Sigilyph may not have the widest of movepools, but it really doesn't matter - Psybeam/Psychic and Air Cutter/Air Slash are all it needs to take out the things that it can feasibly take out. You have five other party spaces to handle things such as the Sandile and Scraggy lines or the Roggenrola line.

 

[EEVEE3]

Escavalier is a great pokemon. I've been using him, and he's got great defenses on both sides, and Fire attacks are easily seen coming. Although he does lack in coverage, he can easily get through the game with Iron Head, X-Scissor, and Return. He also served me well against Caitlin and Grimsley.
I move for him to be in at least Mid Tier maybe High Mid.

 

[kay-tay]

Wait, whut?

Sigilyph doesn't care about its weaknesses because it can actually take a hit and OHKO or 2HKO whatever is targetting them (except maybe Emolga, but that's a whole other megillah with Double Team and getting outrun). Most of the game's Crunches are unSTABbed and those that are should not be fought off with Sigilyph. Sigilyph may not have the widest of movepools, but it really doesn't matter - Psybeam/Psychic and Air Cutter/Air Slash are all it needs to take out the things that it can feasibly take out. You have five other party spaces to handle things such as the Sandile and Scraggy lines or the Roggenrola line.

If Sigilyph can take a hit with 72/80/80 , Beheemyem can take a few hits at 75/75/95 also and has less weaknesses. Psychic and Flying have redundant coverage on fighting types and both get walled by steel, which Beheemyem can get at least a neutral hit on. The logic "well you'll have such and such pokemon to deal with dark and steel types" could be applied to anything.

If you pick Sigilyph, you trade Special Attack, Defenses, and movepool in for 57 points of extra speed, but you get an (arguably) better ability and (arguably) worse typing with STAB flying.

 

[Afti]

Magic Guard is not "arguably" better than Telepathy/Synchronize. It IS better.

Sigilyph also has a utility role the other Psychic-types (beyond lol Woobat) can't hope to match: as a Flying-type, it gets Fly. Psychic/Air Slash/Shadow Ball is good coverage, so it can afford to spare that slot.

Elgyem can't begin to compete with Sigilyph until evolving (lol 55/55/55 defenses) and makes that evolution at the ridiculous level of 42. Its movepool only becomes worth it close to that evolution, as well.

Sigilyph comes earlier, hits harder right off the bat, and doesn't need to wait for evolution to be able to take a hit. Oh, and it actually has a shot at outspeeding something one of these days!

Elgyem sucks, period. It's totally outclassed by any Psychic not named Woobat.

 

[TheSubwayMaster]

^ It is probably better than Gothitelle though. Though I agree with your point.

 

[Noctis Orgy]

Just finished my first play-through; will be doing two more for each starter.

Oshawott/Dewott/Samurott: Kick-Ass amazing! Very reliable in tight spots, Razor Shell was awesome and almost always lowered defense ( I think its a 30% chance) For some reason my Samurott had a higher Attack stat b4 the Elite 4 so my movepool included Aqua tail and Aqua jet instead of Surf. You can also heartscale a Megahorn for more coverage but it's up to you. High-Tier

Timburr/Gurdurr/Conkeldurr: I had access to Conkeldurr so this thing eventually became a beast. Needs a bit of leveling after you catch it around the 2nd gym, but after that it just sweeps Lenora clean. At Gurdurr (if you can) you can just trade to get Conkeldurr because their move-pools are the same. After that, it was just hella fun OHKOing pokes with Wake-up slap before Hammer Arm. With access to Conkeldurr: High-Tier

Venipede/Whirlipede/Scolipede: Pretty decent imo. Venipede was slightly difficult to raise but held its own until Hiun City where it evolved. Whirlipede takes hits like a champ, and with Iron defense even more so. The leveling gap isn't too huge between Whirlipede and Scolipede (22-30) and I eveolved mine around the 4th Gym. Once you get it though, it's a complete powerhouse until the 6th Gym where it starts to dwindle a bit. Very fast and strong (TEACH IT MEGAHORN w/ a heartscale!) but got knocked out a little too easy later on. Mid-Tier

Sandile/Krokorok/Krookodile: This thing was an absolute beast. Coupled with Moxie, it just swept late game and completely raped the Elite 4. Easy access to Crunch and Dig as soon as you get it makes Sandile pretty easy to raise if you have a Attack/Speed+ nature. It evolved to Krokorok after the 4th Gym and to Krookodile in Twist Mountain. The only problem was taking hits, but with an Eviolite early on, it wasn't too bad. High Tier

Litwick/Lampent/Chandelure: Comes pretty late (before 6th gym), but with a lucky egg it isn't too hard to raise if you have the time. The Celestial tower it comes in is filled with Psychic Trainers, not to mention wild Litwick you can train on. You can easily get it to Lampent at the Ice Gym with a Lucky Egg and grab the dusk Stone around the 8th Gym to get Chandelure, that 145 Sp.Attack monster. Some bad Things were it's lack of a good Fire-move until after The Elite-4 and Lampent's frail defences, but teach it Shadow Ball (found in Relic Castle) and it completely sweeps Caitlin and Shauntal. Since we're tiering on efficiency, Mid-Tier

Deino/Zweilous/Hydreigon: Comes REALLY late, after the 8th Gym in Victory Road. If you can Lucky Egg+Audino Farm on Route 10 like I did, then raising it to match your team shouldn't take more than 45 minutes (I got it to lvl50 for Zweilous). If you're not willing to level it then it's a pretty big burden (Hustle was often unreliable), plus its bad-ass final form evolves at a ridiculous level (64) that will often only be achieved after the Elite-4. Very Strong, but time consuming. Low-Tier

 

[kay-tay]

Magic Guard is not "arguably" better than Telepathy/Synchronize. It IS better.

Sigilyph also has a utility role the other Psychic-types (beyond lol Woobat) can't hope to match: as a Flying-type, it gets Fly. Psychic/Air Slash/Shadow Ball is good coverage, so it can afford to spare that slot.

Elgyem can't begin to compete with Sigilyph until evolving (lol 55/55/55 defenses) and makes that evolution at the ridiculous level of 42. Its movepool only becomes worth it close to that evolution, as well.

Sigilyph comes earlier, hits harder right off the bat, and doesn't need to wait for evolution to be able to take a hit. Oh, and it actually has a shot at outspeeding something one of these days!

Elgyem sucks, period. It's totally outclassed by any Psychic not named Woobat.

Magic Guard isn't as great as you make it out to be. There are no entry hazards, barley any toxic or burn, and Hail/Sandstorm is only in two or three areas combined (needs to be winter for Hail) Meanwhile Telepathy is much more useful for Earthquake and Surf users in Double / Triple Battles which are more common than the conditions protected by magic guard.

Fly is an advantage, but it's not that big because it can't use it in battle at all, Calm Mind, Thunderbolt, Simple Beam, and even Wonder room to an extent all more than compensate for fly. Besides, I'd rather put fly once again on something that can actually use it and do pretty good damage with than Sigilyph.

Hitting harder off the bat is pretty moot point because Elgyem has higher Special attack when it evolves at 42 (the same level pretty much as solosis line) Even when it hasn't evloved, it learns psychic sooner than Sigilyph and before it reaches 42. Sigilyph depends on Air Cutter for about 20 levels until it gets Air Slash, and 26 levels until it gets psychic. It is stuck with Psybeam and Air cutter for a long time.

Have you even tried Elgyem? I've tried both and I say that Elgyem is not outclassed at all. It's pretty much as good as or better than Sigilyph in game.

 

[Son_of_Shadoo]

^ It is probably better than Gothitelle though. Though I agree with your point.

What's wrong with Gothitelle, exactly?

 

[Lou Cypher]

Have you even tried Elgyem? I've tried both and I say that Elgyem is not outclassed at all. It's pretty much as good as or better than Sigilyph in game.

Elgyem comes a whopping 3 gyms later and is a bucketload slower. This means that Elgyem is gimped in the fact that it always takes an attack before striking first. Sigilyph has enough speed to outpace enough stuff. He also serves utility in flying if needed.

 

[AriadosPerson]

Magic Guard isn't as great as you make it out to be. There are no entry hazards, barley any toxic or burn, and Hail/Sandstorm is only in two or three areas combined (needs to be winter for Hail) Meanwhile Telepathy is much more useful for Earthquake and Surf users in Double / Triple Battles which are more common than the conditions protected by magic guard.

Uh, no, Doubles/Triples are very rare, actually (moreso in Black because they're all Rotations), and Earthquake is only available post-E4, so evading Surfs in the three or so/seven or so Doubles/Triples is only a problem if you're running something with the move without something that resists it. Both abilities are fairly useless (though at least Sigilyph's makes it easier to catch).

Fly is an advantage, but it's not that big because it can't use it in battle at all, Calm Mind, Thunderbolt, Simple Beam, and even Wonder room to an extent all more than compensate for fly. Besides, I'd rather put fly once again on something that can actually use it and do pretty good damage with than Sigilyph.

Sigilyph doesn't care about the fact it can't use Fly, all it needs are its STABs. Why are you using Simple Beam and Wonder Room, anyway?

Hitting harder off the bat is pretty moot point because Elgyem has higher Special attack when it evolves at 42 (the same level pretty much as solosis line) Even when it hasn't evloved, it learns psychic sooner than Sigilyph and before it reaches 42. Sigilyph depends on Air Cutter for about 20 levels until it gets Air Slash, and 26 levels until it gets psychic. It is stuck with Psybeam and Air cutter for a long time.

When Elgyem evolves, the game is almost done. Unless you're overlevelled, Elgyem will be evolving somewhere around Route 9. You get the supposed awesomeness of Beheeyem for maybe a Gym, a Route, a cave, and the E4. Psybeam is not a weak move by any means - it is perfectly usable Psychic is learned.

Have you even tried Elgyem? I've tried both and I say that Elgyem is not outclassed at all. It's pretty much as good as or better than Sigilyph in game.

Under what conditions were you trying Sigilyph? I used it from the Desert Resort to the credits, and it tore things up throughout the whole game.

 

[voodoo pimp]

As I've said to a few other people, please don't put your responses inside the quote tags. It makes it really hard for other people to reply to you. I agree with your points in general, though.

 

[Lucindril]

Agh, Litwick was absolutely horrible to train. It took me at least an hour, because shaking spots didn't seem to appear very often, and when they did, half of them were Emolga that used Pursuit whenever I tried to switch out so I could actually run away from them. It also seemed that nearly every Audino I found was male and used Attract on the first turn, and whenever I ran into something else like a Deerling, it used Faint Attack. Total torture. T_T At least it's a heck of a lot stronger now it's evolved. Just need that Dusk stone now...

Oh, and I'm also trying out Tynamo. It wasn't as hard as Litwick to train, but still pretty annoying. Evolved it into Eelektross as soon as it evolved into its second form, and I've yet to experience its full potential. The fact that it's hard to train, only has an 8% max encounter rate (bottom floor of Chargestone Cave) and is extremely weak to start off with is a huge put-off, though.

 

[Yuggles]

A few questions I have about this list:

How much weight is given to the amount of time a pokemon is available?
How much weight is given to how much exp a pokemon needs to grow?
How much of the game is considered for this list? Just up until beating the elite 4?

Also, I think there should be a mention of 'must-haves' for certain pokemon. Like, if it's really important for x pokemon to have access to a certain TM, that fact should be noted so that anyone who uses the list doesn't accidentally miss a crucial aspect of a high-tier pokemon.

 

[Lucindril]

I'm not sure about your first two questions, but I'm pretty sure that the list only considers the game up until the Elite Four, because otherwise Volcarona and Kyurem would be pretty high.

 

[asianaussie]

If it hasn't been mentioned, I'm making a case for Ferroseed. He was my MVP in a team with Archeops, Darumitan, Excadrill, Sigliyph and Samurott. He comes early-ish, you don't have to go out of your way to get him and you get the Lucky Egg at the same time, so exp is no longer a huge issue. Though I did get an Impish one by chance, it had awful IVs, which sort of balanced it out.

It doesn't matter that you take hits. With his defences and ability, it's almost better to do so. Curse 2 or 3 times and use Gyro Ball to power through a lot of things. It requires very little support, gets all its necessary moves by levelling up (Gyro Ball/Power Whip/Ingrain/Curse). Iron Barbs + Rocky Helmet by itself is a 5HKO or something, which is wonderful against the E4. If necessary you can spam Super Potions to heal him up. The only times it fell were when I had used Ingrain and didn't think a Fire-type was coming in, and against Zoroark disguised as Klinklang in one of the last battles.

 

[Lucindril]

^ Completely agreed. I loved my Ferrothorn. It was a pain to train and evolve, but I did try and evolve it before I battled Skyla so that might be why. I think mine had pretty low defense IVs too, because they were only a little bit higher than my Serperior's. I didn't use it at all against the Elite Four, it wasn't really necessary, but it was a huge help against the next two battles.

 

[Lou Cypher]

> Pansear
> Incinerate
> Flame Burst vs Scald/Seed Bomb

Yeah, thats kinda the real issue here.

 

[Andren]

If it hasn't been mentioned, I'm making a case for Ferroseed. He was my MVP in a team with Archeops, Darumitan, Excadrill, Sigliyph and Samurott. He comes early-ish, you don't have to go out of your way to get him and you get the Lucky Egg at the same time, so exp is no longer a huge issue. Though I did get an Impish one by chance, it had awful IVs, which sort of balanced it out.

It doesn't matter that you take hits. With his defences and ability, it's almost better to do so. Curse 2 or 3 times and use Gyro Ball to power through a lot of things. It requires very little support, gets all its necessary moves by levelling up (Gyro Ball/Power Whip/Ingrain/Curse). Iron Barbs + Rocky Helmet by itself is a 5HKO or something, which is wonderful against the E4. If necessary you can spam Super Potions to heal him up. The only times it fell were when I had used Ingrain and didn't think a Fire-type was coming in, and against Zoroark disguised as Klinklang in one of the last battles.

I'm not sure if this guideline is still in effect, but there was a point early on in the thread where even if one Pokemon was as effective as another, there was some weight given to set-up. Because of this, Pokemon like Petilil were bumped down because they needed Quiver Dance to effectively combat some threats. As you said, Ferroseed/thorn would need time to Curse up, making it less effective, as the High Tier is for Pokemon who are able to most efficiently go through the game (the most power or practicality with the least set-up).

Again, I'm not sure if this is still in effect, as Petilil is in a high tier, and I can't refute or support your position because I haven't used Ferroseed personally in-game.

 

[Showsni]

Hm, if I had any worries about Ferroseed it would be the PP; Gyro Ball doesn't let you get many hits in before you need to return to the Pokémon Centre and replenish the PP, especially if you don't have PP Ups/Max. This probably depends on your playstyle; but for in game usage, I think PP should be a consideration.

 

[Recoil]

Agh, Litwick was absolutely horrible to train. It took me at least an hour, because shaking spots didn't seem to appear very often, and when they did, half of them were Emolga that used Pursuit whenever I tried to switch out so I could actually run away from them. It also seemed that nearly every Audino I found was male and used Attract on the first turn, and whenever I ran into something else like a Deerling, it used Faint Attack. Total torture. T_T At least it's a heck of a lot stronger now it's evolved. Just need that Dusk stone now...

You know, nearly everything (if not everything) in Chargestone Cave can be OHKOed by a Flame Burst from the candle guy. The things down there don't give much base EXP, but that free Lucky Egg kind of helps on that point.
...although Audinos are probably just as good of an option, but it was raining for me when I got to that route so I didn't really have many options.

As for Tynamo, how did you train it? I simply have no idea of how to go with that guy, so I just left him at the Day Care.

 

[flashkickass]

with my tynamo i gave it the eviolite and went to fight the 6th gym. it one hits most things in there and takes almost nothing from them. came out in the mid 30s. then I just ran around righting audinos(did the same with wow litwick) till it evolved.
I want to also say that escavalier is amazing. it is incredibly bulky and hits really hard. got one and absolutely love it. easily one of my best guys from as soon as i got it. high tier
I have to say also though that darumaka was really dissapointing for me. hustle just gets so many misses he isn't reliable at all. i would say he is mid-tier

 

[R_N]

I've used Elgyem and I can tell you that this is not the case at all. Elgyem is good by itself but when it evolves (pretty much the same as Gothorita and Duosion evolves) It becomes really useful.

Elgyem / Beheeyem has a better movepool than all three of those pokemon combined. It gets Calm Mind by level up, neither of which Sigilyph, the Gothorita line, nor the Solosis line acquire. And considering you get Calm Mind TM after you beat the game, this is a big advantage. Thunderbolt is another advantage, which the other three can only dream of having in it's movepool. It even gets Simple Beam by level.

Why is Simple Beam a pro, here?

There's only a handful of doubles/triples trainers in the game and, honestly, it doesn't seem that useful in wild battles or singles either. I can't think of many trainers who had Pokemon where I'd rather them have Simple instead of whatever.

 

[Green Thunder]

....I guess I'm the only person who thought sigilyph was a piece of crap...she literally did nothing!!! Wasn't useful in any gym and by the time I got to the elite 4 I put her in the computer and replaced by archeops.

Rufflet...isn't even worthy of learning super power due to the fact that it can't do shit without being knoked out...

 

[voodoo pimp]

Archeops is pretty much god tier, so that really isn't a fair comparison.

 

[Ondore]

The only time Simple Beam is useful ingame is when Audino in the postgame use it on your Deino so he'll stop missing with Crunch.

Hm, if I had any worries about Ferroseed it would be the PP; Gyro Ball doesn't let you get many hits in before you need to return to the Pokémon Centre and replenish the PP, especially if you don't have PP Ups/Max. This probably depends on your playstyle; but for in game usage, I think PP should be a consideration.

This, especially when PP Up are quite rare ingame. Sure, he has Metal Claw for PP, but that's Metal Claw.

I used Sigilyph again ingame, and I'll support it being High still. It really doesn't need anything beyond special Psychic move/special Flying move, though I honestly got more use out of Charge Beam than Shadow Ball and you get CB earlier.

Mine tended to die more, but it was Quiet-natured so things that normally would outrun it were going first and randomly critting it.