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

[breh]

It is a good question which endgame Pokemon deserve a spot in Mid (no higher I'd argue) because of the availability issues. I'd argue that Lapras, Starmie, Gliscor and Sawk are good for Mid. Not so sure about Clefable - no good STAB, slow, needs several turns to set up. Your risk of your set-up ending in a stray crit is very high. Whereas Gliscor and Sawk do not require much set up at all, and Starmie/Lapras help out with dragons and the 8th gym.

Clefairy comes at the nice level of 50, meaning that you almost do not have to train it at all if you so desire. Return comes free on Clefairy and if you want you can tutor Body Slam. Clefairy is not solely going to be setting up; it can dish out damage without having all 6 Cosmic Powers under its belt. Using vitamins will help increase the power of Return (if you choose to use it). Hell, if you're playing Black 2, you can even attach a Toxic Orb, which will let you get a free 140 BP attack, which is roughly equivalent to a 100 base Attack Pokemon using Return and comes with status immunity to boot. Clefable may be slow, but that doesn't mean it can't damage things sufficiently to be good.

 

[Lucchini]

It also comes at a "nice" time when you're done with every single gym in the game, leaving it with very little to contribute. Clefable's got decent bulk, which isn't a bad quality at all (we paid much attention to bulk when we discussed Scrafty for instance), but its offence is rather poor in spite of the coverage it gets. 70/85/60? Not impressing anyone endgame.

Compare its base attack (since normal specials are mostly a rarity) to some of the other normal-types out there:

Sawsbuck 100
Unfezant 105
Soutland 100
Cinccino 95
Zangoose 115

Most of them have several other advantages over Clefairy, such as better typing/coverage, better speed, existing for way longer, etc.

Even Buneary has a slight BP advantage and in spite of its availability and speed we put it into Low. Clefairy seems like a candidate for Low/Bottom Limbo to me. Really, what kind of team would want it in its ranks, what's its niche? Even if you want to Ice Beam dragons, you're in trouble switching in. I don't see how vitamins could help its case either - anybody could use those, and most function perfectly without them for a far longer period of time.

If I wanted a normal-type endgame, I'd rather catch a Bouffalant instead as it nukes things far better. Didn't we hesitate to put Gliscor into Mid too? Because Gliscor's utility blows whatever Clefable is capable of out of the water.

 

[TM13IceBeam]

I won't say Clefairy really belongs in Bottom, but after thinking through things, I think Low is a perfect fit for it. It's one of the more acceptable fillers, while it's not as good as one like Sawk or Bouffalant, Clefable does the job fine if you want something that can learn a good range of offenses. Fire Blast, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Facade, Assist Power; they're all acceptable options for Clefable. The wide TM movepool is enough to convince me that this guy isn't meant for Bottom, since it very obviously can do something (unlike say ditto).

To put it, Clefable is essentially a 'jack-of-all-trades, master of none'. It's capable of using quite the fair bit of things, but it lacks really legitimate firepower behind it compared to others. Return nuking? Zangoose and Bouffalant does it better. Boltbeam? Starmie is probably the guy to go to. Fire Blast? it's shit in elite four ;_;. It's versatile, yes, but it's not something that's very good for endgame. I'd probably disagree with Low at this point, and Clefable would be a perfect fit for any tier between Low and Bottom, but considering such a tier doesn't exist (limbo tiers aren't permanent) I'd say Low.

of course if we bring in stoutland and his elemental fangs/intimidate utility... :(

 

[JockeMS]

Ok, so I've been looking through the Pokémon yet to receive any ranking, and these six Pokémon are the next ones I want to bring up for immediate tier placement:

Hide

Seel for Low

Swablu for Low

Spoink for Middle

Numel for Low

Remoraid for Low

Cubchoo for Middle

As usual, you have the final say about, so speak up of you don't agree. If you agree, it's still encouraged for you to post to explain why you agree to give other users that are unsure a perspective. Of course I will bring up my justification for these proposed placements if you wish.

Typing, stats, availability, match-ups etc. are what is taken into account as always.

Also, I'm going to place Clefairy in Low Tier, as it seems this conclusion has been made.

 

[Celever]

I think you are being a bit mean there, In my opinion cubchoo, numel and seel should all be a tier higher. And I would also like to reserve the descriptions for these three pokemon, I have used all three before (suprisingly all on different play-throughs!)

Numel - Mid
Availability
They are all over the place in reversal mountain, and numel itself is extremely easy to encounter. Also, you can find Camerupt, the evolved form of Numel, in the wild as well in reversal mountain, and it's pretty much as common as numel, which is pretty darn common.
Stats
Defensively, Camerupt is not all that great; you wouldn't exactly call him frail though. However, just look at his attack stats! 100 physical 105 special, which is just awesome!
Movepool:
Well, Camerupt's movepool has it highs and lows - mainly highs. I mean, he comes with earth power, which is obviously amazing, but without help of a heart scale or move tutor it doesn't get it's first fire attack until level 55! If you have a heart scale, then I don't think there will be a more important thing for you to use it on than Camerupt's lava plume! Aside from that though, is yawn which can help in some important fights, rock slide (which you may as well have used a tm for if you wanted it) which is always great in double battles and for coverage, but also fissure right at the end, and with Camerupt's unfortunately terrible speed you can use the scope lense with for a 50/50 chance of a OHKO, which aren't that bad, let's be honest!
Major Battles:
Zinzolin - lacunosa town: Great! He only has pokemon weak to rock or fire (but you will have to use rock slide, unless you are level 55 :P)
Drayden: He can yawn here, but besides that...
Shadow triad: Earth power = gg
Marlon: Yeah.. uh... I think you know the answer to this... (if only he had mantine regular mode)
Plasma frigate, first visit: Yep, once again, brilliant! About 70% are ice or ground pokemon!
Plasma frigate, second visit: /\
Colress: Complete godsend, give it a lum berry or the berry that heals paralysis and it just wrecks the sturdy magnemite, and then past that you're all good except for beheeyem.
Kyurem-W: Rock slide is amazing on Kyurem, so yeah. ALso camerupt resists both of it's STABs!
Grimsley: Anything takes out Liepard, and he is pretty good on Scrafty, but really you should have better. Stay away from Krookodile, but Bisharp is so easy with Camerupt!
Shauntal: Great on Drifblim and Chandelure, and he could be handy against Cofagrigus because since it is fire type it absorbs the will-o-wisp that could otherwise cripple one of your pokemon until you heal it! Stay away from Golurk.
Caitlin: There is a brilliant strategy you can use with Caitlin; yawn HER musharna while she yawns you, then curse. Keep cursing until you fall asleep, wake yourself up with an item and then curse until musharna wakes up. It can only attack you with dream eater as his other attack is charge beam! Then go on and sweep the rest of her team with earthquake and then a rock slide/fire attack for her sigilyph! Works incredibly well, trust me, I did it.
Marshal: The only super-effective hit that marshal has on camerupt is throh's bulldoze - but it's not quite as simple as that! Conkeldurr is a complete powerhouse with it's hammer arm, and poor camerupt (to be fair, my skarmory couldn't even survive one! :P) can't do anything to survive a hammer arm! It's too slow too bring in after conkeldurr has used it a few times and deal a blow as well! So yeah, you might be able to take out the frail mienshao, but besides that this is a no-go.
Iris: EQ Aggron, it almost always autotomizes first turn it is in so it gives you a free turn to EQ. It can also be pretty good Archeops, but besides that, it's not all that great.
Additional comments:
Make sure you get solid rock camerupt.

 

[JockeMS]

I think you are being a bit mean there, In my opinion cubchoo, numel and seel should all be a tier higher.

Could you please elaborate on this? Just saying they should be one tier higher up isn't justification enough, sorry. If you bring up what makes them good enough for a higher tier, I will take it into account, but what you've said just now won't suffice.

 

[Celever]

My plan was to say where I was placing them, and then do the big write-ups later on talking about why they should be there. As you can see, numel is up already, but I will do seel later probably, and then cubchoo possibly tomorrow, maybe tonight.

 

[thesynchrohero]

Ok, so it's been some time since I put up those suggestions, and I think I got a pretty clear picture of what you guys want. Here is what I'm going to right now:

Add:

Skitty to Bottom Tier
Bunneary to Low Tier
Shelmet to Bottom Tier
Karrablast to Bottom Tier
Vullaby to Bottom Tier
Rufflet to Low Tier

I'm going to leave Clefairy in the open for a little while longer, as it seems the opinions are quite split on it. I will bring more Pokémon that fall into this case in a couple of days. A new preliminary tier list might also be posted soon.



Sorry, I was going to respond to this post, but so many things happened around me so I forgot.

I have absolutely no problems with what you posted. It's great that you share your thoughts and experiences. But what I'd like you to do, however, is to go a little bit more into detail on Zebstrika's and Leavanny's disadvantages (and a little more on the advantages as well). Also, you seem to have forgotten to actually give them a tier placement, so I can't really do much; if you do, I'll see to it that your opinion on these Pokémon will be taken into account.

Don't bother checking, I am not using them anymore

 

[JockeMS]

I was going to post this mon over and over again, but I always forgot and forgot. Now I'm doing it at last. It's a Pokémon without a ranking atm.

Name: Pawniard - Middle Tier
Availability: As late as Route 9. Not that late, but not early either. This is right before the 7th Gym and it has a nice encounter rate at 15%. Catching it in the "double grass" will shorten the leveling by 4 levels, which will speed up a somewhat needed evolution.
Stats: Pawniard, and later on Bisharp, is all about its Attack stat. Its Defense is good as well though. Its base 70 Speed stat can be a little lackluster sometimes, but it's not a huge issue with Bisharp. Rock Polish can help with the Speed if you think it's needed.
Typing: There is no denying that a Steel typing is great. Dark is also good, but not as good. Helps against Shauntal and Caitlin to say at least. Weaknesses to Ground and Fighting can become apparent; Fire not so much. Solid STAB.
Movepool: Good STAB moves. Iron Head and Night Slash are just simply good moves. It gets Night Slash first though, but it's generally all it needs at the time. If you haven't used the 10 free Red Shards, or just have 8 extra, then use those for Low Kick, which gives it perfect coverage. Brick Break is the other option, but getting BP is time consuming.
Major Battles: As a Pawniard, it's not going to last long against Drayden, so it's best to evolve if you plan on taking advantage of that Steel typing. The only issue from there is Flygon's super effective Earth Power. Team Plasma in general shouldn't present any huge issues due to its Steel typing, that Fighting-type move helps against opposing Pawniard/Bisharp, except Ghetsis' Seismitoad, Eelektross, and Toxicroak can become troublesome towards the end. Marlon is quite the easy task for Bisharp, as it can easily take down Wailord and Jellicent in one hit. Carracosta will be harder to crack, but two hits should do it. Especially with Low Kick. When it comes to the E4, Bisharp should stay away from Marshal entirely and Grimsley's Scrafty and Krookodile. The others should be easy pickings. Iris is a bit troublesome, as four of her Pokémon carry super effective moves. Aggron will go down in one hit if using Low Kick, but Hydreigon, Druddigon, and Haxorus are harder to take down.
Additional Comments: Late evolution is an issue, as it's really weak when unevolved.

 

[TM13IceBeam]

Wouldn't evolving Pawniard to take on Drayden/Marlon be counted as overlevelling? Drayden's team is ~45 in Normal Mode, Pawniard evolves at 52, so you will probably be able to beat Drayden without much problems anyway if you're 7 levels above him. Similarly, Bisharp has an innate level advantage over Marlon(52+ vs. ~50), so I'm not sure if that should count positively towards its ranking, especially when Bisharp's type matchup is neutral and it's actually pretty fucked up by the specialty of Humilau Gym (Scald burn). I can see it beating Jellicent without much problems, Carracosta might be ok if it decides not to Scald (which from experience, I'm pretty sure all Carra does is to smash on turn 1, and then still die after being outsped on turn 2)

The latter part post-Marlon seems ok to me imo.

 

[JockeMS]

Wouldn't evolving Pawniard to take on Drayden/Marlon be counted as overlevelling? Drayden's team is ~45 in Normal Mode, Pawniard evolves at 52, so you will probably be able to beat Drayden without much problems anyway if you're 7 levels above him. Similarly, Bisharp has an innate level advantage over Marlon(52+ vs. ~50), so I'm not sure if that should count positively towards its ranking, especially when Bisharp's type matchup is neutral and it's actually pretty fucked up by the specialty of Humilau Gym (Scald burn). I can see it beating Jellicent without much problems, Carracosta might be ok if it decides not to Scald (which from experience, I'm pretty sure all Carra does is to smash on turn 1, and then still die after being outsped on turn 2)

The latter part post-Marlon seems ok to me imo.

When did I say anything like that? All I said was that it needs to evolve to be effective. Trust me, I know. Also, since when is "overleveling" something that's consider a negative thing?

I'm also not sure if you think its rank should be higher or lower than Mid. None of which make sense for it; it's clearly a Middle Tier Pokémon.

Also, the levels are 46, 46, and 48.

 

[TM13IceBeam]

When did I say anything like that? All I said was that it needs to evolve to be effective. Trust me, I know.

Also, the levels are 46, 46, and 48.

Well, idk, it's just a personal quirk of mine that Pawniard needs to be at a higher level to function effectively against enemies, due to the high evolution level. I'm just on the fence as to whether this criteria would be good enough for Mid.

 

[Celever]

I'm with ice beam on this one. I was going to say this morning but had to go, but anyway...
Bisharp is basically Golurk in terms of how we are ranking the pokemon, which ended up low. Pawniward is good on drayden, except for flygon, obviously. However Pawniard is not going to be able to hit Drayden hard himself, and could be dragon tailed out of the battle. On marlon, like ice beam said, it is completely screwed my scald. This means that the next major battle(s) are thy elite four, and golurk actually has a better match-up on thy elite. I think low for sure, a high low, like golurk, but low nonetheless.

 

[JockeMS]

I'm with ice beam on this one. I was going to say this morning but had to go, but anyway...
Bisharp is basically Golurk in terms of how we are ranking the pokemon, which ended up low. Pawniward is good on drayden, except for flygon, obviously. However Pawniard is not going to be able to hit Drayden hard himself, and could be dragon tailed out of the battle. On marlon, like ice beam said, it is completely screwed my scald. This means that the next major battle(s) are thy elite four, and golurk actually has a better match-up on thy elite. I think low for sure, a high low, like golurk, but low nonetheless.

First of all, have you used Pawniard yourself? To me who has, it doesn't seem like it. Because comparing it to Golurk is completely wrong, and it's not hard or time consuming to evolve it.

Also, 30% burn ratio is not going to effect a Pokémon's placement. There are burn heals (among other things), and also the fact that it has to get burned in the first place. Bisharp also has a much better match-up against the E4 than Golurk has. And I'm not talking about Iris.

 

[Celever]

I don't think over-leveling a pokemon to make it useful should be an option in terms of rating. "I solo'd cheren with a level 100 magikarp, therefore it should be top". I know this sin't anywhere near the terms of where we are, but over-leveling 10 or something should still not be counted.

 

[inanimate blob]

I vote Clefairy for Mid. While coming late at Giant Chasm, it still has an amazing ability, a massive movepool, and usable stats. Can be effective against Marlon as a special tank, Shauntal as a Normal type fighting Ghosts, and even Iris with Ice Beam/Blizzard.

 

[Afti]

Send Spoink to Low.

I got the best situation possible with mine - caught it as a Grumpig. Its movepool is decent, but its typing is abysmal; pure Psychic does nothing lategame. Particularly given how much of Plasma is out and out immune to its STAB. Combine that with bad Speed and middling Special Attack - there is no compelling reason to use this thing. Having to put up with Spoink's horrific stats that late in the game would make it even worse.

 

[BdB4445]

What do others think of Absol in-game? It'll have Swords Dance + Night Slash by lv 41 (which the max lvl upon catching it is 41), can get Psycho Cut + Sucker Punch by 52, X-scissor by TM, Superpower with 10 shards, and can learn quick attack with a heart scale. Lastly, if you find yourself giving Absol a lot of SpA ev's, you can try fire blast.

I've never thought about using it until now, but I think it could wreak some havoc in-game. The cons I see are the need to set up each time (for clean OHKO's that is) and it would need some item support, such as ethers for Sucker Punch (E4 use). Cofagrigous will probably try to Wil-o-Wisp it, but Absol could hold a Rawst Berry and use SD in its face. Most AI's just want to attack you, so Sucker Punch seems like child's play.

Speaking all in theory, so I would currently give it lower-mid. It may not be as efficient as I think and it is already outclassed by Krookodile because it's faster, bulkier, comes earlier, and reliably strong with moxie. Absol only seems better if you want to sneak in a sucker punch on a Haxorus that's in the middle of rampaging your team.

Just some food for thought because I'm not sure there's been any discussion about it.

 

[JockeMS]

Ok, so this has been sitting here for a while now. I'm going to leave the last 6 suggested Pokémon (Seel, Swablu, Spoink, Numel, Remoraid, and Cubchoo; Numel might end up on a different road depending on what happens next) open for discussion for about 1-2 days, then I'll place them in the appropriate tier in the OP.

I'm also going to compile another preliminary tier list for you, so you can see where we are right now, in the meanwhile.

 

[inanimate blob]

I used a Seel in-game. Mid seems appropriate for it, based on it. While struggling with power, Seel actually helped my team a lot since it evolves as soon as you get it. Ice is a great coverage move, and can be a great replacement for Lapras if you don't feel like spending extra time having to get Lapras (like me).

 

[Alice in Strings]

Gosh, the last time I used Seel was back in Gen 3. Dewgong's got pretty good stats, and still grabs Signal Beam for heavy hits on Psychic types. I could see it being Mid tier.

Having used Altaria in the original B/W, I can say that Cotton Guard is cool, but it still has trouble hurting things. By the time you get a Swablu, you have access to Pidove, Zubat, Woobat, among others, who hit harder than Altaria. On the other hand, Altaria does get access to weird moves like Ice Beam, Bulldoze? Dragon Dance, Dragon Pulse and Dragon Claw, which sets it apart from other Flying types. The problem is, you only have four slots for moves, and DD is virtually required for Altaria to kill things in a reasonable timeframe. Swablu comes way too late and simply doesn't perform effectively enough to warrent waiting for it. LOW is fine for it.

I've tried using Spoink in past games, and I don't really see what makes it better to use than the other Psychic types we have. Swoobat's faster, Beeheeyum hits harder, Metagross is...Metagross, Gothitelle and Reunicles both outperform it in versitility and bulkiness, so...what's the point in using it over these guys? Thick Fat's kind of a useless ability in a game that lacks Fire types (unless you really plan to choose Snivy) and major Ice type villains worth worrying about. Gothitelle far bulkier on all grounds (compare 80/65/110 to 70/95/110) and she packs 5 more points in SpAtk. I just don't see the point in waiting for Spoink when you have plenty of options for Psychic types before even seeing Spoink. I'd say Low tier, because it's level up moveset and TM movepool is typical of Psychic types aside from Bounce and Power Gem, and it gets virtually nothing useful from the Move Tutor, AND its stats are outclassed by every other Psychic type not named Swoobat, not to mention it comes after all but one of them.

Numel's interesting. I've used them a lot, and they're pretty fun to use. They have a fantastic offensive combo of Fire/Ground, and in a game that has plenty of things to roast with Fire type moves, I could see it competing with Arcanine in Mid. I guess the only bad thing is that it comes after most of the other Fire types (Arc, Magmar, Emboar, Volcarona, Chandelure...), who also have good stats and good typings. He's unique in that he gets EQ by level up, which Emboar and Arcanine would kill for. Sadly, this doesn't mean I think he should go any higher than Low, because you have so many other things competing with him.

I've never used Cubchoo, but I know from battling them that they're pretty frail and slow. I guess I'm trying to figure out what Cubchoo can pull off that makes it valuble enough to be in Mid? I know that Ice type physical attackers are few and far between, but...what do you need one for? Is your Vanilluxe or Dewgong not good enough? I'd imagine Drayden would destroy Beartic, which is his only good Gym Battle, unless you count Marlon as a Gym. In this case, it's not that Beartic has things competing with him; it's that he doesn't really have anywhere he can shine. Unless you're really desperate for a physical Ice type (you could always grab a Mamoswine?)

 

[Celever]

Alice, since the main thing I care about is numel, I will just talk about him.
For one thing, chandelure is the same time as numel (practically, camerupt is a tiny bit after), only you have to evolve into chandelure to make it any good, which takes time. Numel is ready to evolve immediately. To evolve arcanine you have to use a precious fire stone, and unlike numel it gets practically no decent moves by level up late-game. Volcarona should not be used in-game, it gets no good moves by level up and few by tm, takes ages to level up and is under-leveled when caught. Magmar is version exclusive - the opposite version to the version numel is exclusive to, so he is clearly excluded from this. Emboar is the only one on your list that is worth using in-game arcanine I suppose can be used if you collect all of the tms around. Actually, I used a growlithe once and he was great. He died at Elesa ('twas a nuzlocke) but I suppose that puts in 4 good fire pokemon in the game, one being chandelure. So Numel is not out-classed at all, and is about as good if not a little better than arcanine, which is mid itself.

 

[Alice in Strings]

Alice, since the main thing I care about is numel, I will just talk about him.
For one thing, chandelure is the same time as numel (practically, camerupt is a tiny bit after), only you have to evolve into chandelure to make it any good, which takes time. Numel is ready to evolve immediately. To evolve arcanine you have to use a precious fire stone, and unlike numel it gets practically no decent moves by level up late-game. Volcarona should not be used in-game, it gets no good moves by level up and few by tm, takes ages to level up and is under-leveled when caught. Magmar is version exclusive - the opposite version to the version numel is exclusive to, so he is clearly excluded from this. Emboar is the only one on your list that is worth using in-game arcanine I suppose can be used if you collect all of the tms around. Actually, I used a growlithe once and he was great. He died at Elesa ('twas a nuzlocke) but I suppose that puts in 4 good fire pokemon in the game, one being chandelure. So Numel is not out-classed at all, and is about as good if not a little better than arcanine, which is mid itself.

Disagreeing with this; Fire Stones aren't hard to come by (you get one in the Desert Resort, for crying out loud), and I find it hard to believe that Arc gets no good moves by level up when it gets Crunch, Flamethrower, and Outrage, and it has a fairly wide TM and Tutor movepool consisting of Dragon Pulse, Bulldoze, Snarl, and Iron Head.

Don't want to wait for Flamethrower? Get Heat Wave, which has 5 more Base Power with a bit less accuracy. It also gets Thunder Fang by Move Relearner, if that means anything to you.

Camerupt on the other hand, is stuck with Fire, Ground, and Rock type attacks. It doesn't get anything good from Tutor (Unless you count Iron Head), has to deal with that atrocious Base 40 Speed coupled with a crippling 4x weakness to Water. You said that his Offenses were good, but he has to get hit in order to use those offenses. His defenses are only decent.

Camerupt has 100/105 Offenses, Arc has 100/110 Offenses. Arc has a big movepool to use, while Camerupt is stuck with three (admittedly good) types. You get Bulldoze automatically, it's not hard to get Snarl. If you want an argument, it'd be that Growlithe tends to really slow down before getting Crunch and Flamethrower.

I actually forgot about Darumaka, who blows Camerupt out of the water anyway, but that's beside the point.

 

[Celever]

Disagreeing with this; Fire Stones aren't hard to come by (you get one in the Desert Resort, for crying out loud), and I find it hard to believe that Arc gets no good moves by level up when it gets Crunch, Flamethrower, and Outrage, and it has a fairly wide TM and Tutor movepool consisting of Dragon Pulse, Bulldoze, Snarl, and Iron Head.

Don't want to wait for Flamethrower? Get Heat Wave, which has 5 more Base Power with a bit less accuracy. It also gets Thunder Fang by Move Relearner, if that means anything to you.

Camerupt on the other hand, is stuck with Fire, Ground, and Rock type attacks. It doesn't get anything good from Tutor (Unless you count Iron Head), has to deal with that atrocious Base 40 Speed coupled with a crippling 4x weakness to Water. You said that his Offenses were good, but he has to get hit in order to use those offenses. His defenses are only decent.

Camerupt has 100/105 Offenses, Arc has 100/110 Offenses. Arc has a big movepool to use, while Camerupt is stuck with three (admittedly good) types. You get Bulldoze automatically, it's not hard to get Snarl. If you want an argument, it'd be that Growlithe tends to really slow down before getting Crunch and Flamethrower.

I actually forgot about Darumaka, who blows Camerupt out of the water anyway, but that's beside the point.

I know that they are not hard to come by, but even if you decide to just use a fire stone you are then stuck with little moves. It gets most of the moves you mentioned, crunch, outrage, flamethrower, dragon pulse is at the same time as numel and iron head is all the way in nacrene I believe, meaning that there is little reason not to replace your arcanine with a camerupt which has far better moves at the point of reversal mountain.

Also I just have to say this out of your third paragraph (your second is basically the first one with an enter in the middle) "(Unless you count Iron Head)". You yourself counted iron head. Yeah, sure he is weak to water 4x, but he is not weak to rock, an extremely common type in-game for NPC trainers, unlike arcanine. He does have brilliant offensive stats, and has great defensive typing so the being hit first is not all that crippling.

Woohoo, 5 more base points on your highest base offense. Arcanine is so much better than camerupt clearly because of that! :P Arcanine has a good movepool, yes, you should be about done with it by freaking lacunosa town. Camerupt is ready immediately. Bulldoze? Why would you pick bulldoze over a STAB earthquake!? Great, you get snarl. Good for you. That is only better than flame wheel on jellicent, and flame wheel is not good by any means of the word.

Not everyone likes darumaka.

 

[Alice in Strings]

I know that they are not hard to come by, but even if you decide to just use a fire stone you are then stuck with little moves. It gets most of the moves you mentioned, crunch, outrage, flamethrower, dragon pulse is at the same time as numel and iron head is all the way in nacrene I believe, meaning that there is little reason not to replace your arcanine with a camerupt which has far better moves at the point of reversal mountain.

Also I just have to say this out of your third paragraph (your second is basically the first one with an enter in the middle) "(Unless you count Iron Head)". You yourself counted iron head. Yeah, sure he is weak to water 4x, but he is not weak to rock, an extremely common type in-game for NPC trainers, unlike arcanine. He does have brilliant offensive stats, and has great defensive typing so the being hit first is not all that crippling.

Woohoo, 5 more base points on your highest base offense. Arcanine is so much better than camerupt clearly because of that! :P Arcanine has a good movepool, yes, you should be about done with it by freaking lacunosa town. Camerupt is ready immediately. Bulldoze? Why would you pick bulldoze over a STAB earthquake!? Great, you get snarl. Good for you. That is only better than flame wheel on jellicent, and flame wheel is not good by any means of the word.

Not everyone likes darumaka.

Flame Wheel's good for mid-game, and you're implying that you use the Fire Stone immediately. Why would you do that? Yes, you have EQ...that's...yeah. That's really the only thing that Camerupt has that you can pick out. Fire/Ground isn't this super typing you're setting it up as; being neutral to Grass, 4x weak to Water, a Rock type will STILL HIT YOU because 90% of those rock types you fight have Sturdy, meaning that you still take hits off only decent defenses. And you're Neutral to Rock, instead of being resistant to it. I'm sorry, but isn't this the reason Magmar's in Low? Because he hits hard, but doesn't take hits nearly as well as Arc and is slow as balls? If your argument for Camerupt is "Spam EQ", than he DOES belong in Low because that's the only thing he has over Arcanine. You've been using this Growlithe the whole game, which means he's got some IV's built up already, meaning his STATS will probably be better than Camerupt's already. Save that Fire Stone until you get Crunch, and then evolve it.