It's not like you need more than 3 pokemon to easily get through the E4. Farfetch'd is S-tier to me because there's nothing else that can blaze through the early game quite as easily. The starters don't start to gain momentum until they evolve.
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Pokémon X & Y In-game Tier List Discussion
- Thread starter Its_A_Random
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Yeah I concede. Throwing both Charmander entries into Limbo (A/S-Tier). Mega Evolutions are definitely a grey area, & I certainly concede that in an efficient run, you are mega evolving when it is necessary (e.g. Charizard -> Mega Charizard Y vs. Siebold), & those few seconds can be easily made up by getting vital KO's, etc. After having conversations on IRC I guess, & I2edShift, I used Charizard Y myself, & I can definitely attest to its raw strength, but I guess I am being really conservative with this whole list... -.-'
When I used it, I felt like it was pretty weak without mega evolution (Probably because I got stuck with a Jolly-natured one), so I pretty much had to mega evolve virtually every time I used it, because it was pretty pathetic otherwise... :|
But yeah, I am going to open it up alongside Aegislash/Doublade until further notice as to what tier they really are. I understand the grey area that Mega Evolutions present. Let us discuss it more I guess.
When I used it, I felt like it was pretty weak without mega evolution (Probably because I got stuck with a Jolly-natured one), so I pretty much had to mega evolve virtually every time I used it, because it was pretty pathetic otherwise... :|
But yeah, I am going to open it up alongside Aegislash/Doublade until further notice as to what tier they really are. I understand the grey area that Mega Evolutions present. Let us discuss it more I guess.
The focus on Mega Evolutions taking a few seconds as a disqualifying factor seems very petty for me. The average player is not flying through every single battle at break neck pace. It takes a few seconds to figure out what the AI is most likely going to do. It takes a second or two to decide if you have to switch. In the grand scheme of things, the 2-3 seconds caused by Mega Evolution isn't that big a deal in exchange for the ability to just curbstomp the game. My Charizard was traded so I used it sparingly, but when I did, it laughed at the entire game. If it is even half decent early-mid game, S tier easily.
I think Charizard Y is a clear S-tier (and Charizard X probably too because of early Swords Dance / Power-up Punch) while Venusaur and Roserade need a bit more discussion and IMHO should be dropped to Limbo because of how dubious they are.
Sure, the period when Petal Dance is learned gives both one hell of a nuke, but their coverage is pretty poor (grass/poison, Roserade waiting for Shadow Ball and Dazzling Gleam, while Venusaur is pretty much stuck with Nature Power and maybe Bulldoze for a while). Venoshock is kinda weak (I believe my mega Venusaur couldn't 4HKO Florges with it), and Petal Dance is resisted by quite many types out there (often 4x), and the nature of the move means you cannot stay in and pick another one.
Sure, the period when Petal Dance is learned gives both one hell of a nuke, but their coverage is pretty poor (grass/poison, Roserade waiting for Shadow Ball and Dazzling Gleam, while Venusaur is pretty much stuck with Nature Power and maybe Bulldoze for a while). Venoshock is kinda weak (I believe my mega Venusaur couldn't 4HKO Florges with it), and Petal Dance is resisted by quite many types out there (often 4x), and the nature of the move means you cannot stay in and pick another one.
Honestly not trolling, but can someone explain how any Pokemon who needs set-up turns can make it into S or even A?
Anything that needs to increase it's offenses or speed with its first turn seriously bothers me. Every battle you do that you either take damage or status effects... Eventually having to go right back to the Pokemon Center or use items. Both are serious inconveniences (to me at least) and keep you from progressing forward with something that can just OHKO things on a continuous basis. I'm not specifically referring to what Lucchini said above me, but just in a general sense.
Anything that needs to increase it's offenses or speed with its first turn seriously bothers me. Every battle you do that you either take damage or status effects... Eventually having to go right back to the Pokemon Center or use items. Both are serious inconveniences (to me at least) and keep you from progressing forward with something that can just OHKO things on a continuous basis. I'm not specifically referring to what Lucchini said above me, but just in a general sense.
It kinda depends on the Pokémon, but it is certainly very rare that a Pokémon reliant on set-up sweeping ever reaches the top tier, if at all. Sometimes such Pokémon can reach something like A-Tier or even S-Tier if they are good enough (Like B2W2 Haxorus in High Tier for example who obliterated everything after one or two Dragon Dances, & had an already high Attack stat to work with, but that is another story), & you could treat set-up moves like Dragon Dance like Mega Evolutions in a way; you only want to use them when necessary, but they can make a massive difference & give you long term gains in terms of cleaning the battles faster.
For example, using B2W2 Haxorus vs. Ghetsis. Basically you can just attack, but not OHKOing everything & possibly losing it to something, or you can Dragon Dance, cure the poison from the incoming Toxic, Dragon Dance again, then OHKOing Ghetsis' entire team with Dragon Claw, & all you probably would have taken damage from is one round of Toxic & one Shadow Ball from Cofagrigus, which does not deal enough to 2HKO (Cofagrigus usually goes Toxic > Protect the first two rounds).
Basically the point is that stat boosters are not always inefficient, especially if they are used in the right circumstances. Think like Mega Evolutions, you give up efficiency in the short term with the hope of a long term solo, or long term efficiency if you prefer. If the Pokémon is already good without it, then of course it is going to rank higher whether it is reliant on stat boosters or not. You are not going to be using them in most regular match-ups of course, but if they are bad without boosting up, then they are not going to be ranked as high.
For example, using B2W2 Haxorus vs. Ghetsis. Basically you can just attack, but not OHKOing everything & possibly losing it to something, or you can Dragon Dance, cure the poison from the incoming Toxic, Dragon Dance again, then OHKOing Ghetsis' entire team with Dragon Claw, & all you probably would have taken damage from is one round of Toxic & one Shadow Ball from Cofagrigus, which does not deal enough to 2HKO (Cofagrigus usually goes Toxic > Protect the first two rounds).
Basically the point is that stat boosters are not always inefficient, especially if they are used in the right circumstances. Think like Mega Evolutions, you give up efficiency in the short term with the hope of a long term solo, or long term efficiency if you prefer. If the Pokémon is already good without it, then of course it is going to rank higher whether it is reliant on stat boosters or not. You are not going to be using them in most regular match-ups of course, but if they are bad without boosting up, then they are not going to be ranked as high.
Just been talking about this in IRC. And I brought up the point that mega Evos would be more worth it if there were more trainers with more than 3 Pokemon. Like, until the end of the game there are about 5 people with more than 3 Pokemon (Some of those are doubles matches). I mean even the Big Bad only has 4 Pokemon on their team! The single trainer with 5 is your Rival at Victory Road, and then the *only* people (as far as I am aware) with 6 Pokemon in their team is Diantha and the fucking Magikarp Man (Excluding the Rival Match in Kiloude which is Post E4).
If the game had more "big" battles in it (More trainers with 4+ Pokemon) the set up turns impact would be lessened. As the massive majority of the matches are short, set up mons and megas are probably not as effective as they could be. Which may mean they should be toned down a little.
Imo, S tier mons are mons which need barely any help, feel very strong and have movesets which the majority of their good moves come from their level up movepool or very early access. Look at Darumakka and Magnemite from BW2 as examples of that.
If the game had more "big" battles in it (More trainers with 4+ Pokemon) the set up turns impact would be lessened. As the massive majority of the matches are short, set up mons and megas are probably not as effective as they could be. Which may mean they should be toned down a little.
Imo, S tier mons are mons which need barely any help, feel very strong and have movesets which the majority of their good moves come from their level up movepool or very early access. Look at Darumakka and Magnemite from BW2 as examples of that.
Charizard Y is not S-Tier because:
Every time you use it you have the Mega Evo animation
Every time you use it you have the Drought Animation
Charmander and Charmelon are bad and have awful movepool issues; being stuck with Ember for far too long
Coverage doesn't exactly matter when you have a BP 120 STAB at Lv 32 coming off Base 100 Sp.Atk; possibly with an Overgrow boost backing it up. Venoshock is useful because of how good it is in comparison to other options at the time. Even without Poison it's still a Base 65 STAB at the time where Base 60 is high. [And by the time you're fighting Florges you should have TM Sludge Bomb anyway]
See Lilligant in B/W for an example of 'Coverage doesn't matter when you hit so hard only immunities matter'.
Also literally 4 trainers in the main game have more than 3 pokemon. Petal Dance's lock-in is hardly an issue. Especially since most trainers with multiple pokemon have type themes anyway. About the only times in the whole game the lock-in could be problematic is against the final rival battle's Altaria; and Dianthia's Goltergheist.
You might have noticed the widely expressed opinion that players do not mind watching the animation (which is shorter once you've done it the first time after turning the system on), and that both sides on the issue agree the mega evolution is not at all unlikely to save time in the end if we are so picky about it (and since we're using a full team and not soloing the game; we're not really). Full team and turns taken over time spent (irrelevant when not solo-speedrunning) has been the theme of the tier lists for a long while.
Charmeleon is bad how exactly? Ember makes use of a high offensive stat (compare to Bulbasaur's awful physical options early on). Charmeleon's movepool is much vaster than Bulbasaur's (Power-up Punch, Shadow Claw, Rock Tomb, Dig over subpar grass/poison coverage). Charmander even learns Dragon Rage before evolving, and that's OHKOing everything not a fairy immediately regardless of typing and 2HKOing everything for a long enough time. Charmeleon has the better offence by far.
Really, it's absurd we overhype the 4 levels for which Venusaur exists that Charizard does not (32 -> 36 period) while ignoring everything good about Charmeleon.
Neutral 120 STAB is equal to a super-effective move with 90 BP, which includes Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Surf and many other common lategame moves that don't lock you into the move followed by confusion and a forced switch-in, offering better coverage options that what grass/poison grants.
Base 100 Sp. Atk. is nothing special at all; and Venusaur's mega form focuses on augmenting his bulk instead of his offence (which could use some improvement).
Overgrow is highly situational and won't work well on Venusaur who isn't the fastest Pokemon around and whose grass-type moves will be ineffective against many common enemies no matter how much you power them up. You also lose it when you mega evolve.
And it's a poison-type move with awful coverage; you get stuck with it for way too long before Sludge Bomb, and Venusaur is so slow dealing with some of the fairy gym opponents (even spamming Petal Dance mega-evolved that you best just switch to the best of your physical attackers, and being a poison-type is supposed to be useful in that gym).
Lilligant is not among the best Pokemon in B/W due to its typing and coverage, to my knowledge.
'only immunities matter is where grass-types with limited coverage options suffer - grass-type moves are resisted by 7 out of 18 defensive types, and are resisted doubly by many Pokemon in any game you choose to play.
As previously mentioned, 100 base special attack is nothing amazing for somebody with unimpressive offensive options and when you fail to do your job in 2 hits, you're essentially forced to switch out. Trainers having type themes is not the best point to be made considering Venusaur is rather poor against many of such 'themes' and therefore is getting itself confused before it finishes the battle.
If you do not overlevel (no soloing / Exp Share / Lucky Egg), Venusaur will be getting itself confused a lot of the time, even in battles against generic trainers, and Petal Dance is really useless in 2vs2 battles.
Give me one good reason why you would not use Exp. Share in an efficiency-based speedrun.
How does soloing or not even matter when Exp. is never reduced?
Venusaur is simply too slow and not strong enough to be useful.
I don't see the need have so many different tiers. There really only needs to be 3 at most: Extremely Useful, Viable, and Inefficient.
B/B2 Lilligant was awesome mainly because it was traded so it grew quickly, was guaranteed a good nature and perfect SpA EV; got Sleep Powder, QD, Giga Drain, and Petal Dance so it could set up against almost anything and heal any damage it took (and wrecked almost everything after a QD); and had Own Tempo so it never confused itself. None of those really apply to Venusaur.
I was actually adamant against Lilligant being S Tier back in B/W, and if I was able to go back I would speak up about it again.
Lilligant has worse problems than threats such as Venusaur and Roserade. For one, Lilligant had no real coverage. Lilligant had to use Petal Dance for raw power and it had times where it was shaky in BW (Dragon-type gym?). Furthermore, it had to actually setup, and people used Sleep Powder then proceeded to set up 1 or 2 Quiver Dances. That's 3 fucking turns.
Darumakka and Magnemite are much better brackets for S. Sure, Darumakka had a small rut phase and it also experienced occasional misses, but at least you knew it could 1-2HKO most threats it faced. And Magnemite was at least fairly quick enough while carrying good offense and defenses.
Also, I do not have Y, but I am willing to do a re-analysis of Honedge wrt being A Tier. I actually want to see its damage output first before going too much further into questioning. For now, Limbo seems best for it. Though honestly, I think the Speed rut and relying on Shadow Sneak seems pretty sour. I guess at least Shadow Claw is early. Gyro Ball is a little later than I hoped for, though.
"Efficiency-based speedrun" is an oxymoron.
The first post provides guidelines that state Exp Share is not to be used so that the team is underlevelled enough for the individual qualities of Pokemon to matter (otherwise nearly everyone goes first and OHKOs).
Soloing actually trivialises the game more than Exp Share does, because instead of getting half of the exp in the battles a mon doesn't participate in he gets all the experience, growing even more overpowered.
Not sure if I agree on having fewer tiers; I think the differences in how the Pokemon perform are big enough to warrant more. I'd prefer the tiers to be called Top/High/and so on however; since it actually refers to how well they perform rather than a letter of the alphabet. I do think that if we factored Exp Share in like you suggest, we'd have three tiers - 1) solos the game, 2) has some trouble soloing the game but comes close enough, 3) is pretty far from soloing the game.
It was initially going to be Top/High/Upper Mid/Mid/Lower Mid/Low/Bottom/Basement as far as tier names were concerned when I PMed the OP to DHR & Stellar for approval, but I was asked to change it based on trying to get the tiers more in line with the Viability Ranking threads in the competitive forums. I am not going to argue further on that though, because arguments over how the tiers should be named (as well has how many tiers there should be minus temporary limbos) are like making a giant mountain out of a molehill hahaha.
Also yeah, Exp. Share is assumed to be turned off for objectivity reasons, to see how well each Pokémon performs assuming an equal footing with the opposition, something that is incredibly difficult to do with it turned on.
Also yeah, Exp. Share is assumed to be turned off for objectivity reasons, to see how well each Pokémon performs assuming an equal footing with the opposition, something that is incredibly difficult to do with it turned on.
That doesn't mean the phrase doesn't make sense. It actually is a very accurate descriptor.
There is one type of speedrun where you aim purely for speed, which requires you to take risks and make sacrifices that could screw you over if something goes wrong. This is the type that requires multiple attempts and meticulous planning, and results in a single record of completely the game extremely quickly, but takes far more real time for behind the scenes planning and practice.
A different type of speedrun aims to complete the game in as little real time as possible. If you fail for some reason and reset the game, you do not get back the time you lost on the failed run. This is very much in line with the purpose of this thread as stated in the first post.
Having a played a certain other game in the past, I am very familiar with the difference between these two types of runs.
This makes absolutely no sense. Perhaps you don't know that the EXP mechanics have changed this generation. A pokemon that participates in battle now gets the full share of experience, rather than splitting between every pokemon that participated.
and why is this a bad thing?
Look at it this way, if I were to ask you to clearly describe C tier in one sentence, could you do it? How about if I asked you to describe the difference between C and D? If you need to dive into a long-winded explanation and point out specific examples to get someone to understand the difference, I'd say the difference is negligible.
From my point of view, this compulsion to have everything divided into a complicated series of tiers is nothing more than a silly habit. It's not like you are using these tiers to define the rules for a specific metagame.
Yeah, I agree that we have more interesting things to discuss here.
And this wall of text has what to do with anything? Neither of the two is relevant to this thread. You're referring to the rules stated in the first post but at the same time conveniently leave out a keyword from the same source: to complete the game as quickly and as effortlessly as possible. Meticulousness is the opposite of the bolded word, and has little place in the tier list. You also seem reluctant to accept the other unstated rules that have been applied in Smogon's ingame tier lists all this time, though I did bring them up earlier. If you are simply unaware of said rules, consider lurking more.
Slow down and re-read the post you were quoting again. I understand you are in a rush to express your views but you'll have to read what others say if you want to have any meaningful exchange. Nowhere did I mention switching Pokemon out. A full team is overlevelled as a result of turning Exp Share on with all participants but the one fighting (not counting battles where you switch Pokemon out) while the soloist gets all the experience for himself and becomes even more overlevelled without any need for Exp Share (useless in soloing).
Tiering is not a precise science that is determined by some calculations or whatever. I'm sure the explanations won't be anywhere as long-winded, at least none are needed for most of us here, but I'm personally looking forward to having more discussion on the new games. I see no problem with finding a group of Pokemon in one tier qualitatively better than the ones in the tier below; we've been doing this for the last couple years quite productively.
You don't have to use this tier list. An interest to play the game, think about it and discuss with others is good motivation for the rest of us, and it could be helpful to players looking for advice on whom to use.
If this is your opinion please no longer post here if it bugs you that much. Other people very much enjoy these sorts of discussions.
I am mostly amazed at how well the BW2 Tiering list went compared to this one when they are almost identical. Please, go and read that discussion (Which is over 40 pages and can be found here: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/pokémon-bw2-in-game-tier-list-mark-ii-see-post-840.3473261/) and stop arguing over whether efficiency/effortlessness is equal to a speedrun. It's not. I view a speedrun as the outright fastest way to play the game.
Just to get back on track, I've been doing a little testing with the XP share with some mons which are slower to level overall. It makes a huge difference having 2 or 3 mons that level in the "Slow" or "Very Slow" catergory when it comes to the XP share. My X game with the XP share I was 6~8 levels above Wulfric's Gym (His Avalugg is Lv 59). In my Y game with the likes of Carbink, Toxicroak, Heliolisk, and my Starter they are sucking up Xp like no tomorrow and I am barely equal with Wulfric's team. It's just an interesting tidbit imo.
if you had read said wall of text, you would find that section where I mentioned meticulousness to be the one that I am saying this thread is NOT about.
Slowed down version:
You are saying that soloing with or without Exp Share makes the game easier than playing normally with the Exp Share on.
The "instead" indicates an either-or scenario. In this case, a team of several pokemon not participating, therefore getting half experience each
Situation 2: one pokemon participating, and getting full experience.
Because you presented this as an either-or scenario, I assumed that you did not realize that the two can both happen at once. All previous Pokemon games had exp split, so it could have been an honest mistake.
You say that if that pokemon was soloing, it would become "even more overpowered" compared to using a team. There is simply no way that can be true with the new mechanics.
In the example case of gaining 5000 exp from a battle:
Soloer: 5000 exp gained.
Team with Exp Share: Lead gets 5000 exp. Teammates get at least 2500 exp.
In this case the Soloer doesn't become "even more overpowered" - instead it levels up just as much as if it was leading a team. The team would actually benefit more, because there is backup incase the lead goes down.
but anyway, you say that you know how exp share works, so I'm not going to pursue this any further. I simply wanted to say that there's no downside to using exp share, which you SEEMED to be saying by saying soloing would be better.
As far as I know, tiering OU is largely a quantitative process: it's mostly based on usage statistics. In this tier list, there are no usage statistics to look at, so tiering shouldn't be as precise, and shouldn't need so many different levels.
I'm not interested in using the list for myself, but I would like to contribute from my own experiences playing through the game.
I am not against the idea of tiers itself. I am only against having a complicated tier system with many different levels.
Again, I am not talking about speedruns in the way that you describe it. The OP states the purpose of the list as "provide players with the information needed to complete the game as quickly and as effortlessly as possible. ....... gives them more immediate access to useful items, TMs, and HMs."
I interpreted that as quickly completing the game to gain access to postgame content or items as soon as possible. In my mind this is for if you want to stock up on said useful items to transfer to another file, or if you don't care about the story and want to rush past it to be able to start competitive battling. I read several of the replies to this thread before posting, and it seemed that speed was generally accepted to be important in this tier list.
If I interpreted that wrong and this is actually supposed to be a guide for casual players, then I will leave this thread immediately, because I have no interest in that.
Lucchini - I direct you to my previous post on the Charizards:
To compare:
Charmelon is stuck with Ember and Dragon Rage until Level 28. Dragon Rage is not that relevant at that point; and 40 BP STAB is laughable. Compare this to Ivysaur; who will have a Base 65 STAB [Venoshock] and a BP 55 STAB which mows down Hordes. So until Lv 28 Ivysaur is easily winning on power and coverage.
At Lv 28 you get Fire Fang. BP 65 and physical. Not exactly impressive; and Charmelon's base attack is only 2 points higher than Ivysaur's.
At Lv 32 you get Flame Burst. BP 70 STAB. At Lv 32 Ivysaur... you get Venusaur and Petal Dance. Yeah. That's not even comparable. Charizard X gets no boost to that at all; and even with Drought on Zard Y; it's still effectively 115 v 120; for sitting through two unskippable animations [Which is really bad for efficiency].
Charizard gets Flamethrower at Lv 47. [Which is about the levels you will be when the TM is available]. And even then he's behind by 30 BP.
The movepool differences are massive; and the Lv 32 power spike Venusaur gets takes a very long time for Charizard to catch up with.
Note: This one will focus mainly on why Charizard isn't S like people have suggested. If his Mega Forms were not so powerful; especially late; I'd even have suggested B. Also, remember this comes at the cost of Venusaur and Blastoise.
Charmander/Charmelon/Charizard/Charizard X: - A Tier
Charmander/Charmeleon/Charizard/Charizard Y: - A Tier
Availability: Gift from Professor Sycamore
Stats:
Charmander: 39/52/43/60/50/65
Charmeleon: 58/64/58/80/65/80
Charizard: 78/84/78/109/85/100
[Estimated]
MegaCharizard X: 78/130/111/130/85/100
MegaCharizard Y: 78/104/78/159/115/100
Charizard is a fast special attacker with acceptable bulk and physical attack. MegaCharizardX changes into a mixed attacker, with good physical bulk, while MegaCharizardY focuses more on the special side, both on offense and defense.
Typing: Pure Fire is a pretty good typing, both on the offense, and above average on defense with the addition of Fairy. Fire/Flying is actually somewhat redundant on the offense, only gaining coverage on Fighting-types, and some navigation around types Charizard shouldn't be fighting in the first place, and arguably is worse than pure fire on defense, due to Thunderbolts and random Rock moves being a lot more common than random ground attacks. Fire/Dragon is exceptional offensively; and solid on the defense, although being weak to Rock, Ground, Dragon and Fairy is pretty dangerous.
Movepool: By level-up, Charizard's movepool is pretty poor; bordering on awful. Until Lv 28, Charmeleon has to make do with Ember and Dragon Rage; which doesn't scratch fairies and quickly falls off, especially with evolved wilds. [Lv 17 is pushing it for OHKO'ing anything with Dragon Rage]. At Lv 28, it learns Fire Fang, which is not much better than Ember due to running off Charmeleon's lower Atk stat. It takes until Lv 32 for Charmeleon to learn an acceptable special STAB; in Flame Burst; at the same time Venusaur gets Petal Dance; and Blastoise would have Surf; making Charmeleon a lot weaker than his counterparts mid-game.
It takes until Lv 47 for Charizard to learn Flamethrower; after which there is nothing of note. However, Charizard has a good TM pool, and when reaching the move re-learner, has access to Flare Blitz; Heat Wave; Air Slash and Dragon Claw, a potential massive power spike for either Charizard lategame.
Major Battles:
Grant - Has minor use due to Dragon Rage.
Korrina - Poor. Hawlucha can use Rock Tomb [Although I'm not 100% if this one knows it; I recall several in-game which did], and Charmelon lacks any good attacks at this point, so gets out-muscled.
Ramos - Destroys the Gym.
Clemont - Poor; due to weakness to Electric. Charizard X fares better due to Dragon-typing; however.
Valerie - Charizard Y outperforms X here; but both are average at best due to movepool issues; despite resistance to Fairy.
Olympia - Average
Wulfric - Rips apart
Team Flare - Fairly bad; due to bad movepool most of the game, on top of coverage mainly being Shadow Claw and Fire/Normal until the final showdowns.
Rival - Acceptable. Great if they pack Chesnaught
Malva - Poor; Charizard Y is an outright handicap.
Wikstrom - Sweeps
Dransa - Charizard X gets killed. Charizard Y/Base can't do much
Seibold - Keep away from him. Charizard X may get some work done with Dragon Claws, however.
Diantha - Charizard Y can do major work here. Charizard X is weaker, however, and will get OHKO'ed by Mega Gardevoir.
Additional Comments: Taking Charizard likely means that you've not taken Fennekin; who is probobly the best Kalos starter. Charizard is very powerful lategame; but is awful in the midgame; and becomes heavily reliant on his Mega Evolution to keep up with what Blastoise and Venusaur can do with their much, much better STAB moves. Charizard realy shines in the lategame; however; when his movepool issues vanish thanks to the Move Re-learner. This is the main reason why Charizard is A Tier. It has a lot of power Mega-Evolved, but has to do so literally every battle; slowing things down a lot. Plus Y's Drought animation; and the fact X will mainly be using the 2-turn Fly or the weak Fire Fang for the Tough Claws bonus most of the game.
Honestly if you could skip Mega Evolution's animation, I might consider putting him at S simply for the sheer stats of the MegaEvos addressing movepool issues without slowing down combat; but that's not the case.
As a note; Charizard without his Mega Evolutions would be B-Tier. He is a lot better for them; as they address his midgame movepool. Seriously; his movepool is just awful in the midgame.
To compare:
Charmelon is stuck with Ember and Dragon Rage until Level 28. Dragon Rage is not that relevant at that point; and 40 BP STAB is laughable. Compare this to Ivysaur; who will have a Base 65 STAB [Venoshock] and a BP 55 STAB which mows down Hordes. So until Lv 28 Ivysaur is easily winning on power and coverage.
At Lv 28 you get Fire Fang. BP 65 and physical. Not exactly impressive; and Charmelon's base attack is only 2 points higher than Ivysaur's.
At Lv 32 you get Flame Burst. BP 70 STAB. At Lv 32 Ivysaur... you get Venusaur and Petal Dance. Yeah. That's not even comparable. Charizard X gets no boost to that at all; and even with Drought on Zard Y; it's still effectively 115 v 120; for sitting through two unskippable animations [Which is really bad for efficiency].
Charizard gets Flamethrower at Lv 47. [Which is about the levels you will be when the TM is available]. And even then he's behind by 30 BP.
The movepool differences are massive; and the Lv 32 power spike Venusaur gets takes a very long time for Charizard to catch up with.
Jesus christ there are WAY too many people getting mired in minutia in here right now. ___@ (I mean granted, not everyone, but… damn son)
And upon further thought, it's a bit of a mark against Doublade/Aegislash as well. However I would also like to point out that all forms of Honedge are very strong in Attack, and don't need much boosting to nab KOs anyway.
I suppose my question with the swordmons' placement (as well as Megazard and any other Pokemon whose S-rank tiering is in question) is this: If they're NOT S-rank, which Pokemon in the game are BETTER to provide a better example for S-rank strength? BW2 Magnemite as an example only gets us so far, I think we need to come up with an example of the ideal S-tier Pokemon in the XY ingame. Honedge and Megazard Y, for instance, might have their flaws (as almost anything is going to), but having flaws doesn't mean they're not still very good Pokemon for ingame runs. If we disallow Pokemon from being S-rank because of ANY flaws, does it mean that the tier is just going to be barren except for like Budew? Personally I think people need to lighten up a little in terms of how strictly some things are ranked.
I get that we're trying not to let TOO many things be super high tier and whatnot, but the thing is, I think the options being discussed are about all that could exist for the S-tier. Based on conversations so far, I can't imagine that anything other than Budew, Megazard X/Y, and Lucario/Riolu will be occupying S-tier in the long-term.
I guess the solution is just to post more write-ups for lower-tiered Pokemon to put the higher-tiered guys in perspective. So… I guess that's what I'll work on until I run out of things that I used in-game (I don't care to restart and don't have another copy to do other in-game runs on, unfortunately).
…um… so… for Mareep / Mega Ampharos, has anyone found it to be useful? I'm tempted to call it no higher than B-tier right off the bat due to the fact that I never encountered one (Mareep can only be found in hordes, which makes them doubly more tedious to catch due to having to KO all but one). I'm thinking that, regardless of how good it could be, it definitely loses some points for obtainability.
EDIT:
Pikachu: C Tier (maybe D?)
Availability: Available early on in Santalune forest, but very low encounter rate makes for a long and frustrating hunt… y'know, just like the good old days ~__~
Stats: Good speed and mediocre offenses. Can go mixed, but its relative lack of strength leaves a fair bit to be desired. Also sort of fragile.
Typing: Electric works well against most things early-game, but it doesn't get many strong moves to deal with resistors until later.
Movepool: Twave, Nuzzle, and Tbolt are good, although Pikachu starts to feel pretty weak before it can get Tbolt level-up and feel safe to evolve. Getting Grass Knot helps its coverage a lot particularly against rock/ground types. Outside of battle, it can be useful with Strength/Rock Smash. Also gets Brick Break and Dig which can be okay I suppose.
Major Battles: Both of Viola's Pokemon are hit SE so that's good, but Pikachu is probably too weak to take on Grant or Korrina, and Raichu doesn't fare particularly well against any of the other Gym Leaders type-wise-- except Clemont, since it resists Electric/Steel and can run Dig. It can be good for Team Flare's Golbats and whatnots.
Additional Comments: It just generally feels too weak to pull its weight for a while after the first gym. As soon as Eevee became available, I pretty much sacked Pikachu for Jolteon (who has no problems with evolving ASAP since it actually gets level-up moves). If you can tough it out as Pikachu and muscle through to level 29 and learn Tbolt, Raichu pulls its weight much better mid-game with Grass Knot for Rock-types plus Strength/Rock Smash/Dig out of battle.
Jolteon: C Tier (maybe D?)
These two play pretty similarly with only a few main differences. Pikachu is okay early-game but is outclassed by Jolteon once you get it, however, Jolteon doesn't get Grass Knot and has fewer good moves to use, despite better stats. Both pretty much don't have much use beyond filling SE coverage holes on Water and Flying while packing HM moves for your team, and that can be good enough in some situations. Since both can get Dig for Clemont, they pretty much play the same from that point onward with like Tbolt/Strength/Rock Smash or Dig/filler (albeit Raichu with Grass Knot).
Maybe they're more suited for D-tier though? I dunno. How useful/useless does something have to be to be demoted from C -> D?
This is a great point, I definitely noticed that boosting moves feel very tedious in-game.
And upon further thought, it's a bit of a mark against Doublade/Aegislash as well. However I would also like to point out that all forms of Honedge are very strong in Attack, and don't need much boosting to nab KOs anyway.
I suppose my question with the swordmons' placement (as well as Megazard and any other Pokemon whose S-rank tiering is in question) is this: If they're NOT S-rank, which Pokemon in the game are BETTER to provide a better example for S-rank strength? BW2 Magnemite as an example only gets us so far, I think we need to come up with an example of the ideal S-tier Pokemon in the XY ingame. Honedge and Megazard Y, for instance, might have their flaws (as almost anything is going to), but having flaws doesn't mean they're not still very good Pokemon for ingame runs. If we disallow Pokemon from being S-rank because of ANY flaws, does it mean that the tier is just going to be barren except for like Budew? Personally I think people need to lighten up a little in terms of how strictly some things are ranked.
I get that we're trying not to let TOO many things be super high tier and whatnot, but the thing is, I think the options being discussed are about all that could exist for the S-tier. Based on conversations so far, I can't imagine that anything other than Budew, Megazard X/Y, and Lucario/Riolu will be occupying S-tier in the long-term.
I guess the solution is just to post more write-ups for lower-tiered Pokemon to put the higher-tiered guys in perspective. So… I guess that's what I'll work on until I run out of things that I used in-game (I don't care to restart and don't have another copy to do other in-game runs on, unfortunately).
…um… so… for Mareep / Mega Ampharos, has anyone found it to be useful? I'm tempted to call it no higher than B-tier right off the bat due to the fact that I never encountered one (Mareep can only be found in hordes, which makes them doubly more tedious to catch due to having to KO all but one). I'm thinking that, regardless of how good it could be, it definitely loses some points for obtainability.
EDIT:
Pikachu: C Tier (maybe D?)
Availability: Available early on in Santalune forest, but very low encounter rate makes for a long and frustrating hunt… y'know, just like the good old days ~__~
Stats: Good speed and mediocre offenses. Can go mixed, but its relative lack of strength leaves a fair bit to be desired. Also sort of fragile.
Typing: Electric works well against most things early-game, but it doesn't get many strong moves to deal with resistors until later.
Movepool: Twave, Nuzzle, and Tbolt are good, although Pikachu starts to feel pretty weak before it can get Tbolt level-up and feel safe to evolve. Getting Grass Knot helps its coverage a lot particularly against rock/ground types. Outside of battle, it can be useful with Strength/Rock Smash. Also gets Brick Break and Dig which can be okay I suppose.
Major Battles: Both of Viola's Pokemon are hit SE so that's good, but Pikachu is probably too weak to take on Grant or Korrina, and Raichu doesn't fare particularly well against any of the other Gym Leaders type-wise-- except Clemont, since it resists Electric/Steel and can run Dig. It can be good for Team Flare's Golbats and whatnots.
Additional Comments: It just generally feels too weak to pull its weight for a while after the first gym. As soon as Eevee became available, I pretty much sacked Pikachu for Jolteon (who has no problems with evolving ASAP since it actually gets level-up moves). If you can tough it out as Pikachu and muscle through to level 29 and learn Tbolt, Raichu pulls its weight much better mid-game with Grass Knot for Rock-types plus Strength/Rock Smash/Dig out of battle.
Jolteon: C Tier (maybe D?)
Availability: Route 10 (the route after defeating Grant), not too hard to find. A Thunderstone can found on the same route.
Stats: Faster than Pika/Raichu and much better offensively. Even its Attack is passable for a while until you get access to better Special moves (which isn't for a LONG time).
Typing: Electric works well against most things early-game, but it doesn't get many strong moves to deal with resistors until later.
Movepool: Evolve it at level 20 and it gets Thunder Fang, which is suitable until it gets Tbolt from Clemont. Until then, it basically has to rely on physical moves like Return, Dig, and Pin Missile, which can sometimes be pretty weak. Shadow Ball doesn't come until late game so it basically has to rely on Tbolt and its weak physical moves for most of it, though TWave has its merits. Also gets Strength and Rock Smash, which you shouldn't have trouble finding room for.
Major Battles: Can outspeed and Thunder Fang Korrina's Hawlucha to death and run Dig against Clemont, but other than Team Flare's Golbats and such, it doesn't have that many favorable matchups in major battles.
Additional Comments: Does pretty well as an Electric-type to deal with Water/Flying-types combined with an HM slave, but doesn't have very many favorable matchups. If you've got a few other strong Pokemon and this is what your team needs, it can be useful to fill in some coverage holes while still being useful out of battle. Definitely not a frontline heavy hitter, though.
Stats: Faster than Pika/Raichu and much better offensively. Even its Attack is passable for a while until you get access to better Special moves (which isn't for a LONG time).
Typing: Electric works well against most things early-game, but it doesn't get many strong moves to deal with resistors until later.
Movepool: Evolve it at level 20 and it gets Thunder Fang, which is suitable until it gets Tbolt from Clemont. Until then, it basically has to rely on physical moves like Return, Dig, and Pin Missile, which can sometimes be pretty weak. Shadow Ball doesn't come until late game so it basically has to rely on Tbolt and its weak physical moves for most of it, though TWave has its merits. Also gets Strength and Rock Smash, which you shouldn't have trouble finding room for.
Major Battles: Can outspeed and Thunder Fang Korrina's Hawlucha to death and run Dig against Clemont, but other than Team Flare's Golbats and such, it doesn't have that many favorable matchups in major battles.
Additional Comments: Does pretty well as an Electric-type to deal with Water/Flying-types combined with an HM slave, but doesn't have very many favorable matchups. If you've got a few other strong Pokemon and this is what your team needs, it can be useful to fill in some coverage holes while still being useful out of battle. Definitely not a frontline heavy hitter, though.
Maybe they're more suited for D-tier though? I dunno. How useful/useless does something have to be to be demoted from C -> D?
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If you're not using exp-share, very few Pokemon can "just OHKO things on a continuous basis".
I'm running out of Pokemon that me and my GF used in our in-game runs, so I'm sort of resorting to other guys I'm raising post-game + theorymonning, so take all this with a grain of salt I suppose.
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- Axew seems pretty low-tier. I didn't use it in my ingame run, but raising it postgame even has been a bit of a chore. It's pretty weak on its own, it comes very early, it takes a LONG time to evolve to Fraxure, and it doesn't have any secondary STABs to supplement Dragon (which I think is good defensively but not so good offensively). On top of that it doesn't get many moves, and is pretty much restricted to Dig/Poison Jab and HMs for non-Dragon coverage for most of the game. Axew is probably like D-tier or so.
- Bagon is more or less in the same boat; it evolves to Shelgon sooner than Axew -> Fraxure, but evolves to Salamence later than Fraxure -> Haxorus. It DOES get slightly better coverage and Salamence enjoys Fly, but Bagon is a huge chore to raise. D-tierish?
- Solosis is pretty weak. Early Recover, CM, and Psychic STABs are nice, but its bulk feels pretty insubstantial and it has trouble killing things without CM (which isn't desirable for aforementioned reasons). Probably another D-tier.
- Skrelp and Clauncher both seem like pretty solid C-tiers (Or maybe D depending on obtainability details, which I don't recall much of as far as Good Rod and flying back to Cyllage go). Both get a lot of useful TMs and levelup moves, so they have good coverage and good utility with Surf, but their slowness hurts a lot.
- Hawlucha is pretty good from what I hear, and if BW was any indication, Sigilyph is probably also pretty great. Has anyone used either of them?
I think that's about all I got for now; I've pretty much posted stuff on every Pokemon I've raised both in-game and postgame so far. ~___~
Also, when can we expect more Pokemon to be tiered in the OP? There've been a lot over the last few pages and it hasn't been updated in a while. I hate to nag, but.....
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- Axew seems pretty low-tier. I didn't use it in my ingame run, but raising it postgame even has been a bit of a chore. It's pretty weak on its own, it comes very early, it takes a LONG time to evolve to Fraxure, and it doesn't have any secondary STABs to supplement Dragon (which I think is good defensively but not so good offensively). On top of that it doesn't get many moves, and is pretty much restricted to Dig/Poison Jab and HMs for non-Dragon coverage for most of the game. Axew is probably like D-tier or so.
- Bagon is more or less in the same boat; it evolves to Shelgon sooner than Axew -> Fraxure, but evolves to Salamence later than Fraxure -> Haxorus. It DOES get slightly better coverage and Salamence enjoys Fly, but Bagon is a huge chore to raise. D-tierish?
- Solosis is pretty weak. Early Recover, CM, and Psychic STABs are nice, but its bulk feels pretty insubstantial and it has trouble killing things without CM (which isn't desirable for aforementioned reasons). Probably another D-tier.
- Skrelp and Clauncher both seem like pretty solid C-tiers (Or maybe D depending on obtainability details, which I don't recall much of as far as Good Rod and flying back to Cyllage go). Both get a lot of useful TMs and levelup moves, so they have good coverage and good utility with Surf, but their slowness hurts a lot.
- Hawlucha is pretty good from what I hear, and if BW was any indication, Sigilyph is probably also pretty great. Has anyone used either of them?
I think that's about all I got for now; I've pretty much posted stuff on every Pokemon I've raised both in-game and postgame so far. ~___~
Also, when can we expect more Pokemon to be tiered in the OP? There've been a lot over the last few pages and it hasn't been updated in a while. I hate to nag, but.....
How about we use the criteria from the last tier list as a starting point and crank out some relatively robust definitions for each tier?
^ In my mind that pretty much describes to a 'T' everyone currently in limbo between S and A. Assuming we treat those are the main criteria, why is there even any debate as to the tiering of the current limbo residents, I have to wonder?
And while I think Bulbasaur is definitely very good, I don't think it's quite S-tier material like Budew/Honedge/Charmander/Lucario all are (IMO of course)... It sounds like it's basically a slower Roserade with less offensive coverage and more of a support movepool (which isn't as advantageous as straight-up offense for in-game runs most of the time). Shouldn't Bulbasaur be more like A-rank?
And while I think Bulbasaur is definitely very good, I don't think it's quite S-tier material like Budew/Honedge/Charmander/Lucario all are (IMO of course)... It sounds like it's basically a slower Roserade with less offensive coverage and more of a support movepool (which isn't as advantageous as straight-up offense for in-game runs most of the time). Shouldn't Bulbasaur be more like A-rank?
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