Pokémon X & Y In-game Tier List Discussion

[Banryu]

^ remember that pokemon are never compared to others in a tier list. one pokemon doing its job slightly better does not necessarily mean the other pokemon gets booted down a rank.

Right, I did forget that, my mistake.
Although, I do think that Bulbasaur is more of an A-ranker for the same reasons I mentioned (outside of the Budew comparison) : It's slowish and has a more supportish than offensive movepool. Its bulk and typing still let it do really well, and it gets enough moves to be consistently useful, but I feel it's definitely more of an A than an S.

 

[DHR-107]

Banryu It depends if your Pikachu comes with a Light Ball I guess ;) My friend used one (With Light Ball) and it was basically a disk one nuke the entire game.

Apart from that, I'm pretty happy with the other mons you've brought up looking at their stats and what I've heard from other people your inklings seem to be about on the money with what I expected. Remember, this tier list is likely going to be very very fat in the middle with so many Pokemon available.

In terms of the team I just did: Carbink/Golurk/Delphox/Heliolisk/Toxicroak and Barbaracle. Carbink was just a XP sucker upper. It was nice in longer battles for SR and breaking Sturdy, and its rock moves had OK power. When it got Dazzling Gleam it jumped in power and then again when it *finally* learnt Moonblast. But apart from that it didn't really feel like it did all that much and I felt like it got hit SE all the time. It has a huge amount of defence though and could love through most of those hits.

Golurk started off great, but lost power as the the game went on. Shadow Punch (Or Phantom Force from HS) is the best Ghost move it gets, paired with EQ and Fly as I did it could hit pretty much everything pretty hard. My 4th slot was Strength (as it was the only mon on my team who could learn it). (I derped). Probably D tier imo. Toxicroak was really weak for a lot of the game, but it came into its own a long side Heliolisk as a water counter. It didn't hit as hard as I expected either. Same D for Toxicroak. Heliolisk was strong in the right places but having low defence made it difficult to work with. Might be worth a shout at C purely because it can deal out lots of pain with Tbolt/Surf. Delphox felt more B, its was very strong as Braixen (felt a lot stronger than Frogadier) and even as Delphox it was fast/powerful enough to make short work of most people.

However, Barbaracle was the absolute star of the show. After a Shell Smash I never failed to OHKO an opponent at any point in the game. I had Rock Tomb on him all the way to the end and that still dealt crazy damage. I'd probably pop him right up to B with his only down side being Binacle is rare and you really need Tough Claws to but the hurt on things.

 

[GatoDelFuego]

- 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..

I can tell you straight up that axew is not D-tier. It is not up to par with its gen 5 self, sure, but it is still extremely powerful. It's also one of the easiest to raise, due to it getting dual chop (80 BP stab move) when it's caught at level 17. It also has dragon rage at that level, and gets dragon dance and dragon claw very early on a bit later. Few trainers use steel-types, and for at least until korrina axew can really just hit dual chop/dragon claw and OHKO stuff. If not, it can always dance up (though setup is not as good this gen due to nobody having too many pokemon). Unfortunately, faries really shut it down, but it can hit almost everything else in the game. I'd lean towards B for it.

I didn't really like hawlucha either; it gets inaccurate moves, its power drops off hard lategame beyond hi jump kick (which is inaccurate), is bad against poisons in team flare, and it doesn't have the bulk to set up that well. Really, it gets no moves outside of fly/flying press/hi jump kick/powerup punch aside from bad rock tomb or something like that. Hi jump kick is useful I guess but due to faries + poison fighting isn't ohko everything. Especially as a good fighting stab until hi jump kick and NOT flying press which suffers against rock is hard to come by.

 

[Colonel M]

Hawlucha seems okay simply for the next three gyms. Rock can at least be handled a bit with Karate Chop, though Amaura kind of craps on it. Other than that it does decently against the rest of the gym. It does get Roost, so its survival rate isn't too shabby. Flying Press should handle the Fighting-type gym. We don't really have to talk much about the Grass-type one. After that it loses a lot of its spunk until the 8th Gym and does "okay" against Team Flare Grunts.

For a utility-like Pokemon just to help clear 3 gyms until someone better arrives it's not bad. Fly, Cut, and Strength also can help delegate it to an HM slave that's kind of unique (add Rock Smash too). You don't want to make Charizard an HM slave. So I don't think it's too bad.

Also, if we really want to hammer tiers - I would like to ask to speak to Its_A_Random privately.

 

[I2edShift]

I can tell you straight up that axew is not D-tier. It is not up to par with its gen 5 self, sure, but it is still extremely powerful. It's also one of the easiest to raise, due to it getting dual chop (80 BP stab move) when it's caught at level 17. It also has dragon rage at that level, and gets dragon dance and dragon claw very early on a bit later. Few trainers use steel-types, and for at least until korrina axew can really just hit dual chop/dragon claw and OHKO stuff. If not, it can always dance up (though setup is not as good this gen due to nobody having too many pokemon). Unfortunately, faries really shut it down, but it can hit almost everything else in the game. I'd lean towards B for it..

I agree, it's not one of the best options out there, but a levl 48 Haxorus with Outrage seriously wrecks shit for 2-3 turns. Simply swap out once it gets confused.

 

[Kappaten]

Hawlucha seems okay simply for the next three gyms. Rock can at least be handled a bit with Karate Chop, though Amaura kind of craps on it. Other than that it does decently against the rest of the gym. It does get Roost, so its survival rate isn't too shabby. Flying Press should handle the Fighting-type gym. We don't really have to talk much about the Grass-type one. After that it loses a lot of its spunk until the 8th Gym and does "okay" against Team Flare Grunts.

For a utility-like Pokemon just to help clear 3 gyms until someone better arrives it's not bad. Fly, Cut, and Strength also can help delegate it to an HM slave that's kind of unique (add Rock Smash too). You don't want to make Charizard an HM slave. So I don't think it's too bad.

Also, if we really want to hammer tiers - I would like to ask to speak to Its_A_Random privately.

Agreed that Hawlucha was very little help late game. It got I think one whole KO past the 8th gym and it really felt like dead weight in my team during the E4 (though having aegislash on board probably was a partial cause of that).

 

[GatoDelFuego]

Agreed that Hawlucha was very little help late game. It got I think one whole KO past the 8th gym and it really felt like dead weight in my team during the E4 (though having aegislash on board probably was a partial cause of that).

Nah, that's also due to the fact that hawlucha can hit like 3-4 of the entire e4 & champ super effectively (probopass, barbaracle, itself (not a good matchup anyway), gourgeist, tyrantrum, and maybe aurorus). It really just can't do much beyond its initial utility, which is still kind of nice. I think C is perfect for it.

 

[Lucchini]

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.

Dragon Rage is huge until ~L25-30 or so, OHKOing things when you first get it and 2HKOing most threats until you pass well over the stated level range.

Fire moves in general are better than grass moves, resisted by 3 types less compared to grass and having offensive coverage about equal to grass/poison put together.

Let's not forget all those midgame TMs Charmeleon learns that Ivysaur does not:
- Rock Smash
- Rock Tomb
- Dig
- Shadow Claw
- (kinda redundant but) Aerial Ace
- Power-Up Punch

Ivysaur's only coverage moves are Bulldoze and the situational Nature Power. Leech Seed is a bad strat in efficiency play and Sleep Powder is too unreliable without Compoundeyes.

I definitely do think Charmeleon's midgame is as solid as anyone good mon's and stomps Ivysaur's.

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.

Which Pokemon with longterm use exceed (and I mean significantly exceed) this kind of offence at the same levels? Fire Fang comes at a point when Dragon Rage loses its power with the enemies' HP getting too high for constant 2HKOs and keeps Charmeleon strong. It's more powerful than Razor Leaf too.

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].

No need to linger on these 4 levels of superiority (which I do not deny by all means, but these are 4 levels). I call CharX's 130 base special attack a boost enough to fire-type moves, don't you? CharY's special attack is huge not even factoring in Drought's boost, but of course you conveniently leave that out. The fact you're comparing Flame Burst to Petal Dance speaks volumes to me because...

[efficiency is not affected by animation time but only turns in battle which fortunately seems to start becoming a prevailing attitude in this topic; please don't bring up this argument again as I don't buy it]

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.

CharY matches and surpasses Venusaur's power in Lavarre city with the help of the Fire Pledge tutor (70-> 80 BP). Around L40 or so, you get access to the move relearner and Charizard is able to learn any of Flare Blitz, Heat Wave and Dragon Claw. This allows either mega version of Zard to beat Venusaur in power and maintain the advantage for the rest of the game with superior coverage. Tough Claws provide an equally big boost to CharX's offence with contact moves.

Lategame, Zard has a far superior movepool to Venusaur:

Venusaur: Petal Dance, Sludge Bomb, Earthquake, Growth/Sleep Powder.
ZardX: Dragon Claw, Flare Blitz, Brick Break/Power-up Punch, Fly/Earthquake/special move of choice.
ZardY: Flamethrower, Solarbeam, Air Slash/Fly, Will-O-Wisp/Focus Blast/physical move of choice.

The movepool differences are massive; and the Lv 32 power spike Venusaur gets takes a very long time for Charizard to catch up with.

The 4 levels between L32-36 is the only period of time when Venusaur boasts any noticeable advantage over Charizard, or any of their two unevolved forms... Meanwhile, Charizard's advantage lategame is huge and he wins during any other period of time.

I feel you got some of Zard's gym matchups all wrong, so I'll address this in a moment.

 

[Lucchini]

And here we go:

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.

It cannot (you could've checked this you know), but Machoke can.

Lead Mienfoo has 45 base HP so Dragon Rage should be a 2HKO, and Charmeleon holding Eviolite is bulky enough to contribute to beating Machoke and Hawlucha (not soloing by any stretch).

Clemont - Poor; due to weakness to Electric. Charizard X fares better due to Dragon-typing; however.

So whatever happened to the immense power of Drought-boosted Flame Burst? 115 special defence is also a guarantee you can always take a Thunderbolt at full HP and survive for another turn.

Also, Dig is a contact move and therefore has a base power higher than Earthquake when used by ZardX. This therefore makes ZardX one of the best Pokemon to use in this gym.

Valerie - Charizard Y outperforms X here; but both are average at best due to movepool issues; despite resistance to Fairy.

ZardY even has Fire Pledge now; still only 'average'? Besides destroying Mawile, you're completely safe against Sylveon and Fire Pledge should outdamage Venusaur's SE Venoshock because of Drought/big gap in SpAtk. ZardX gets to tear Mr. Mime with Shadow Claw and targets the weakest of Sylveon's defensive stats. I call this solid gym performance.

Olympia - Average

Oh look, more sandbagging.

You've passed the move reminder by now and have access to Flare Blitz (ZardX) and Heat Wave (ZardY). Shadow Claw is there but isn't necessary. You should be going first and dealing enormous damage.

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.

I've covered the midgame movepools extensively by now, but just a correction here: Dig against poisons and Manectric, Power-up Punch against the darks. Air Slash / Fly on the fighters.

Malva - Poor; Charizard Y is an outright handicap.

Outspeeds Chandelure, ZardX likely OHKOing with Dig, might have Rock Slide for Talonflame and Dig for Pyroar. ZardX is likely to OHKO all three. Torkoal is too bulky and has Stone Edge so I wouldn't risk it.

Dransa - Charizard X gets killed. Charizard Y/Base can't do much

Dragon Claw has 320 super-effective base power coming from Tough Claws ZardX. Should be outspeeding everyone but Noivern and OHKOing. Should take a Dragon Pulse from Noivern and OHKO with Dragon Claw anyway. ZardY doesn't fear the attacks here much at all and has safe matchups in which he could spam Air Slash. It's not bad I guess depending on your team.

Seibold - Keep away from him. Charizard X may get some work done with Dragon Claws, however.

Why is that? Drought nerfs the water-type moves here, which is useful even should you switch ZardY out, and makes Solarbeam fire off instantaneously. ZardX can just try muscling through with sheer power. Both variants should stay away from Gyarados.

Honestly, this is about as close to soloing the game as it gets.

Encouraging to move Charizard to S-tier again.

 

[Its_A_Random]

I will be on #orangeislands as IAR in 2.5-4 hours time if anyone wants to talk to me about tiering. I will also be updating the tier lists at this time (I cannot do it now). But yeah I guess I have been a bit useless in terms of hammering out the tiers... I have been trying to look towards time efficiency assuming a party of at least three competent Pokémon, but time & turns are are kinda correlated; The less turns you take to win, the less time you tend to spend on the match. I would say that Mega Evolution does have some time impact (a few seconds is nothing if used efficiently, but if you are using it all the time...), but if used on the right opponents can result in more efficiency than not mega evolving. The tier list is going to assume that you are mega evolving when necessary, & in a necessary manner.

Ultimately the list is going to be more time based than turn based (That is not to say it is not turn based at all, since less time tends to translate to less turns overall), because something that outspeeds & OHKOs most opponents is generally going to be more efficient than something that is slower than most of the opposition & OHKOes, since you are still taking damage, & if damaged enough, you have to waste a turn/some time to heal up your Pokémon.

 

[Banryu]

Banryu It depends if your Pikachu comes with a Light Ball I guess ;) My friend used one (With Light Ball) and it was basically a disk one nuke the entire game.

Apart from that, I'm pretty happy with the other mons you've brought up looking at their stats and what I've heard from other people your inklings seem to be about on the money with what I expected. Remember, this tier list is likely going to be very very fat in the middle with so many Pokemon available.

Wow, lucky. You gotta keep in mind though that Light Ball has an insanely low percentage of appearing on wild Pikachu, which are already pretty rare as it is. Either way, I don't think it really helps Pikachu's tiering much, since you have to be either really dedicated or really lucky to get a LB Pikachu. I'm glad you like the other guys I brought up, though. x3

I can tell you straight up that axew is not D-tier. It is not up to par with its gen 5 self, sure, but it is still extremely powerful. It's also one of the easiest to raise, due to it getting dual chop (80 BP stab move) when it's caught at level 17. It also has dragon rage at that level, and gets dragon dance and dragon claw very early on a bit later. Few trainers use steel-types, and for at least until korrina axew can really just hit dual chop/dragon claw and OHKO stuff. If not, it can always dance up (though setup is not as good this gen due to nobody having too many pokemon). Unfortunately, faries really shut it down, but it can hit almost everything else in the game. I'd lean towards B for it.

Hmm. You make some good points. Like I said, I didn't use Axew in-game so... That grain of salt I mentioned... @__@

Although, Axew DOES get Poison Jab to deal with fairies, so they don't REALLY shut it down (although the SE STAB is obv still threatening). I guess my main issue with it was its reliance on Dragon Dance (which as stated isn't that good; if anybody has to rely on setup, I think it's better to have one with steeper boosts like SD). In its defense though, I did find Axew's whole family to be pretty bulky particularly on the physical side of things, and with its good elementally-defensive typing I can see it pulling its weight without Dragon Dance. B-tier sounds pretty good for it, agreed.

Regarding this ongoing discussion of Megasaur and the Megazards… I'll share my opinion on them one last time before letting the subject rest: I think both versions of Megazard are solidly S-tier, due mainly to the Megavolutions' massive offensive power mid- and late-game. Bulbasaur IMO deserves a firm A-tiering due to his great bulk, defensive typing, and consistent performance throughout. I don't think he quite fits in S-tier mainly due to his somewhat mediocre offensive stats that make it harder for him to just muscle his way through things. Faster, sweepier mons are generally more efficient than tanky ones, looking at the criteria on efficiency (although Bulbasaur IS pretty much a model tank for the majority of its lifespan). Don't get me wrong; I used Bulbasaur the whole way through and loved how it performed, and it's frankly fantastic, but it's just no supermon.

EDIT: No longer relevant.

 

[Its_A_Random]

Okay, I guess it is time to update the tiers... At my usual slow rate... -.-'

Bulbasaur: S-Tier -> A-Tier
Charmander [X]: Limbo (A/S-Tier) -> S-Tier
Charmander [Y]: Limbo (A/S-Tier) -> S-Tier
Fletchling: N/A -> B-Tier
Squirtle: N/A -> B-Tier
Tyrunt: N/A -> Limbo (A/B-Tier)

Like before, all tierings are provisional until this tier list is sent to C&C. If you disagree with the tiering of something in some tier, do not be afraid to speak up & say why something should be lower or higher; it will be considered. It also means you are still welcome to nominate something tiered for another tier or validate its tiering.

I can expand on any decisions if I need to, but most of my decisions have been primarily based on what you guys have been saying on here & on #orangeislands when I bring up tiering discussions. In short, Bulbasaur as pointed out does not have a crash hot movepool, etc., you guys pointed out the most. Squirtle is what you guys have pointed out. A bad early-game that improves later on, good enough for B. The two Charmander entries have been debated out over the last page or two. They both have S-Tier capabilities, but it was a matter of Mega Evolution reliance, which ultimately does not matter if you use it sparingly & in an efficient manner. Fletchling is a solid B after deliberation on IRC. It has movepool issues early on, but the fact that it can destroy four gyms & do very well against an E4 member kinda makes up for it. Tyrunt I still have not been fully sold on, but placed it in a limbo tier to get more discussion out of it. Its typing is kinda an issue, & its low special bulk as well as not having the world's best speed. It does have Rock Tomb & Bulldoze to deal with that early on, & has some very powerful moves for the lategame to help it destroy a lot of things... Yeah I am not -completely- convinced on its placing yet. Needs some more discussion.

Otherwise, keep up the good work folks.

Also Colonel M if you want to help hammer a few things out with the tiers, you are more than welcome to PM me here, or on IRC whenever I am on there.

 

[AlexArthur]

Panpour: - C Tier
Availability: Santalune Forest , relatively easy.
Stats: Panpours got very decent speed and good mixed attacking stats that only get better once you've got access to a Water Stone. I didn't evolve mine until near the end of the game but you have access to a Water Stone through secret training from the get go.
Typing: Panpours another bog standard water type competing with the likes of Froakie and Squirtle for a spot on the team.
Movepool: Panpours level up pool is rather limiting it'll only have Water Gun before it gets Scald at level 23 after that its only notable moves are acrobatics in the 30s and Crunch in the 40s, you really should evolve it before getting anywhere near the level you get Crunch. Waiting for acrobatics may be worth it however.
TM wise Simipour & Panpour both get loads of useful moves such as Ice Beam , Dig , Rock Tomb , Shadow Claw , Grass Knot and of course Surf and Waterfall. This gives a good amount of coverage.
Major Battles:

Gym 1 : Solid option for helping out but its movepool is too shallow at this stage and it doesn't possess any super effective moves.
Gym 2 : Has the type advantage here but Tyrant is neutral to your stab and you don't fair too much better against Amaura
Gym 3 : If you've leveled up enough you can have acrobatics to help out.
Gym 4 : You should be evolved and have learnt acrobatics by now, this really helps however Gogoat can survive a hit and Jumpluff will likely outspeed.
Gym 5 : Stay away, Simipour can help against Magneton if you've got Dig/Power-up Punch/Rock Smash but generally won't do much this fight.
Gym 6 : Not a power house here by any means but has some coverage options to help.
Gym 7 : If you've got Crunch on your moveset you can deal a lot of damage to this gym.
Gym 8 : If you have fighting coverage you can take out the snowman and the snowflake rather quickly.
E1 (Fire) : Can handle this easily with Surf.
E2 (Water) : Not much help here.
E3 (Steel) : Not much help here but with between Surf , Dig or Low Sweep you've got enough options to keep your self relevant.
E4 (Dragon) : You've got Ice Beam by now and can solo this one. Noivern is fast enough to outspeed you
Champion : Ice Beam hits 3/8 Super effectively. Surf or Low Sweep can hit Amaura. Against Gardveoir your not much use though Crunch & Surf will do a decent amount of damage.
Team Flare (General) : The fire types are easily disposed of. The Crogunk always seem to have anticipation so your free to spawn water moves against them. You can get Acrobatics to dispatch of Scraggy.
Team Flare (Boss) : Can handle yourself relatively well if you've got a set something like Acrobatics / Ice Beam / Surf / Low Sweep. Meinsho can outspeed and Gyardos can intimidate you reducing your effectiveness. Pyroar and Honkcrow are none issues.
AZ : Can slow this fight as long as you have Surf & either Crunch or Ice Beam.

Additional Comments: Levels up rather quickly but needs a little babying through mid-game. Once its learnt Acrobatics or you've got the TM for it you can evolve him without missing out on much.

 

[muggy8]

Although gardevoir has already been mentioned i feel like i should add to the observations. most notiably with gardevoir is her pre 30 state where she doesn't have much going for he. kirlia's stats are pretty mediocor but she does get teleport which can be useful for fleeing from the wiled and getting to a pokemon center pre-fly which you get quite late in this game. trace is also amazing when hunting for pokemon with a spicific ability which will often happen and synchronize is also very useful. fairy psychic is very strong and she can learn focus blast giving you an easy clear against the ice gym as well. her only downfall is her relatively uselessness pre 30 in battle (but hay she's still got teleport) and her slow leveling rate.

 

[TM13IceBeam]

It's funny because I happened to end up using Panpour (I might have mentioned somewhere about having to keep it unevolved until the 30s because I never realised the existence of a stone emporium -.-")

Anyway, Panpour can promote by Grant and the only thing it really needs pre-Simipour is Scald (which can be upgraded to Surf later on; I kept Scald for burn utility). Acrobatics can be obtained by Ramos (so you lose out on only Korrina, but I doubt Panpour will even be reaching L30+ by then). For Grant, the utility of scoring a burn on Tyrunt pretty much cancels out that it loses the super effectiveness on it. It's not a guarantee, but it's there. It beats Amaura one-on-one, especially if it's Simipour then. Simipour's real utility lies in the fact that it gets a good selection of TMs to be versatile enough to do almost anything (the only thing it can't really do is to poison jab fairies). That's just about where the good news ends.

Panpour has arguably one of the most painful ever starts for a water-type. Coming with literally just Scratch, it takes forever just for Panpour to kill something. Those 6 levels to Water Gun was actually pretty painful, and the other nail in the coffin was the removal of Work Up. Panpour was meh in BW1 but it could still do something by dumping Work Up onto it and hoping that you kill some things with +1 water gun. said option doesn't exist at all here (hilariously the gym leader still gives out TM83 but the move is now infestation). let's just not mention that panpour's movepool from water gun to scald consists of nothing but utter shit (fury swipes suck, who cares about water sport, bite is the only thing notable). Panpour was arguably LVP until scald (this thing is jesus double damage of water gun + burn chance fucking jesus i swear), but not many people would probably have the patience to camp 18 levels just for it.

so yes, gotta agree with C tier. the 18 levels to scald were just painful, but what really killed it was lack of work up. i'd rather give up a move worth of coverage for Work Up than to run 4 move simipour, which is the only way you can really get away with it.

 

[Banryu]

(I can't fathom why GF insists on keeping useless TMs like Frost Breath and Struggle Bug while getting rid of useful ones like Work Up. ~___~)

From what you guys say about Panpour, TBH it sounds like it's more of a D-ranker to me, particularly if you look at the only current C-tier resident (Chespin) as an example of C-tier quality. Granted, maybe C-tier is a little low for Chespin (TBH it seems more like a B in theory to me, but I didn't use it so IDK), but assuming that it's appropriate, I don't know that Panpour is of a similar level of caliber.

I know we're not necessarily supposed to compare, but I'm trying to get an approximate 'quality' reading for each of the tiers, so that's the only reason I draw that comparison.

Also, I completely agree with muggy's rather grammatically confused statements about Gardevoir. Gardevoir itself is fantastic, but Ralts and Kirlia need a LOT of babying, and don't really pull their weight that well until they evolve to Gardevoir. On the plus side, it's a relatively early final evolution (was the earliest to fully evolve in my party). B-tier seems pretty appropriate for it.

 

[AlexArthur]

I was considering D rank but while it does not excel it does come in useful it has the stats to use Waterfall & Surf without being stuck with a weak move (though it would be stuck with 2 Water moves). Outside of major battles it was one of my used pokemon and was more useful than my Chespin. So I went C rank though I would not object too much if it was placed in D rank.

 

[Eeyore]

Farfetch'd -- D-class. As an early flying type, it works very well, and it's access to Night Slash and Fly add for decent coverage through the game. Also allowing for Cut leaves it as a good HM slave, without being afraid of wasting a useful pokemon. Decent speed and pretty good attack also let it be useful when needed. Leave the EXP Share on and it levels quickly too.

Lapras -- B Class. Give it Rock Smash, Surf, Waterfall, and Strength and it's a strong, bulky HM slave. It can take hits, and dish them out, especially when given a nature benefiting Attack moves. It's given to you immediately after getting HM03 Surf, and also is the only surfer with a unique animation. That's just aesthetic, but hey, it's the little things.

 

[Banryu]

^ That Lapras Surfing animation is worth an S-tier all on its own. ~3~
Keep in mind though, my donkey friend, that we're not factoring Exp. Share into tiering. With that said, I wholeheartedly agree with your choice of tier for Farfetch'd. He can solo the first gym and makes a useful HM slave from that point onward.

 

[TM13IceBeam]

Despite the dumb grinding period C-tier seems reasonable. It gets good moves such as Surf, Ice Beam, Grass Knot, Acrobatics, Low Sweep and Bite/Crunch, and with the exception of the last two (which can be replaced by Shadow Claw) you can learn these at any time you want, making Simipour actually a lot more dynamic than it is.

Only thing I really disliked was lack of Work Up, really kills a lot imo. Otherwise, access to things like Acrobatics and Shadow Claw give Simipour its own niche.

 

[MobsterMurkrow]

Golett > Golurk
Golett: 59/74/50/35/50/35
Golurk: 89/124/80/55/80/55
High attack and good bulk make it a solid offensive threat. low speed can hold it back sometimes though.
Availability: Route 10
Comes very early game; after second badge. Comes at level 19-21
Typing: Ground/ Ghost
Very handy defensively being immune to electric, normal, and fighting, but needs to watch out for common water and grass type attacks.

Abilities: Klutz or Iron Fist
The obvious winner here is Iron Fist, and he even has the movepool to use it. Speaking of which...

Movepool: Holy hecky this pokemon gets some great moves. Knows Iron Defense, Rollout, Mega Punch, and STAB Shadow Punch right off the bat. Learns Magnitude for secondary STAB shortly after capture at level 25. Dynamic Punch at 30 is okay but not stellar. Evolution at 43 is a little late and much desired after working with a Golett for 20 levels, but if you hold out on evolving until 45 it learns Earthquake to take over magnitude. However even if you do evolve at 43, Golurk learns Earthquake at level 50, and Hammer Arm, boosted by Iron Fist, at level 60.
As for TMs, there aren't many notable ones. However, Golurk can be taught Fly, which fixes its weakness to grass types and obviously has field utility. Also gets Strength.

Major Battles:
Korrina: Has no problem sitting in front of fighting types that can't touch it.
Ramos: Weakness to grass types does not allow it to excel here.
Clemont: Again, immune to electric types and OHKOs with STAB ground moves.
Valerie: No significant advantages or disadvantages here. Decent Bulk is useful though.
Olympia: Super effective STAB ghost is very good here, but watch out for gym trainers with Exeggutor and Olympia's Slowking
Wulfric: Weakness to ice isn't good for Golurk

Team Flare: Does very well against the many poison types and beats fighting types with Fly if you opt to teach it that.

Malva: Super effective ground STAB and ghost for Chandelure if you want to save Earthquake PP.
Drasna: Destroys Dragalge with ground and handles all but Altaria fairly well.
Siebold: Loses to everything due to water weakness.
Wikstrom: Wrecks entire team with super effective ground STAB.

Diantha: Beats Hawlucha with bulk and immunity to fighting. Again, Fly is useful here. Super effective STAB Shadow Punch beats Gourgeist. Ground wrecks Tyrantrum and Aurorus. Loses to Goodra due to weakness to Muddy Water. Super effective Shadow Punch is okay for Gardevoir, but gets outsped so be aware of that.

Final Verdict: Golett/ Golurk is an A Rank pokemon due to its good typing, stats, movepool coverage, and utility against many major battles.

 

[goomy pls]

Fletchling: N/A -> B-Tier

Fletchling is too high. It can't deal with the first gym without significant grinding (no flying attack until level 10, and even then it takes several hits to kill surskit or vivillon), and gets no good moves until level 39/44. Since you disapprove of exp share for some reason, you will have to do a ton of bait-and-switch to level it to a usable level. Flare Blitz doesn't come until full evolution and access to Dendemille, and is a bad attack because the recoil will force you to constantly heal it.

Lapras levels extremely slowly, and is fairly bad offensively. However, it has good utility as a HM slave, and can tank a hit or two when you need to revive/heal someone.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Seconding the above, I argued Talonflame for C in my first post, even with exp. share on its power is underwhelming. To quote: "Its a bird, its not particularly strong. Mine did everything I asked it to but the problem was there wasn't a whole lot I could ask it to do without it potentially failing. It's very limited in movepool until the very late game and its power underwhelms at all stages. The definition of average."

It has a lot of movepool issues, a reliance on the tutor for its best attacks and mediocre power. Its good against the early gyms but struggles heavily with the majority of the late game.

B tier and up should be "these Pokemon have a notable reason to use them over others." With Talonflame it is completely average/medicore/meh and fits perfectly into C.


Anecdotally about its power, fighting Wulfric it KO'd the first two Pokemon with Flare Blitz taking the majoirty of its health in recoil. Avalugg Cursed on the Hyper Potion, took a Flare Blitz for 30% damage and OHKOd back with Avalanche. 30%. STAB SE 120 base power attack on a +1 Pokemon.

 

[Colonel M]

I'm in agreement with C Fletchling. It does "okay" overall but it doesn't really excel barring maybe the first, third, and fourth gyms. Even then it has points where it's really mediocre.

You know, speaking of Talonflame, if it wasn't for Gale Wings allowing it to go Adamant it would really suck lol.

Okay less off-topic.

Panpour looks D tier material in my opinion. When you have to fight to get to Water Gun it really blows, and it's not like Froakie who automatically gets STAB Bubble at Level 5 for example. And it's stuck with Lick... which is... awful.

 

[AlexArthur]

You get Shadow Claw not too far into the game which it learns, so Panpour isn't exactly stuck with lick.