R/S/E In-Game Tier List Discussion

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Gym Matchups
Roxanne: As with Charmander v. Brock it struggles, but with if you are persistent you'll prevail.
Brawly: Good.
Wattson: Good.
Flannery: Have to rely on Fighting STAB, note that Slugma (R/S) carries Rock Slide and Numel (E) carries Magnitude.
Norman: Fighting STAB proves its worth.
Winona: Although her Pokemon have Aerial Ace, it can hurt Skarmory and Tropius (E) with its Fire STAB.
Tate+Liza: It doesn't do all that well, most of its TM moves are resisted or negated
Wallace/Juan(E): It doesn't like water, but its fighting STAB can be used against Sealeo and Crawdaunt (R/S)

E4 Matchup
Sidney: It's super effective!
Phoebe: If you stick to your Fire STAB you should be fine.
Glacia: It's super effective!
Drake: Not good here
Steven (R/S): It is effective against many of Steven's mons, but must be wary as everything except Skarmory carries either Ancientpower or Earthquake
Wallace (E): Blaziken doesn't like water
Just wanted to point out:

01. Its possible to have Combusken by Gym 1, so you got the type advantage there.
02. Sluga may have Rock Slide, but Combusken is neutral to that.
03. He may be SE against the Ice E4 member, but her Pokemon pack Surf.
 
@JSND: I suppose where Treecko will be tiered depends on how people feel about Shroomish - it can be caught in Petulburg Woods, learns Stun Spore and Leech Seed, and recieves powerful fighting STAB at evolution. It can be taught Bulk Up, Sludge Bomb and make good use of the usual normal-type TMs. I suppose both fill different functions, and you could even use them together - but Treecko is just too reliant on important TMs if it wants to be an attacker, and its support moves are TMs too. I guess I agree with you that Treecko isn't as good as other High Tier mons, but it is better than many of the mons in Mid Tier...

On the discussion of Makuhita, I'd say it is a waste to teach it Earthquake as it is rather redundant with its fighting STAB. As for the 'hitting ghosts' argument, a few of the Ghosts and even Lunatone/Solrock have Levitate. You're better off using the Rock Tomb TM on it so it can hit Flying-types, which is what I did with Mankey in my recent LeafGreen run.
On the subject of in-game trades, the Slakoth-for-Makuhita trade at Rustboro in R/S isn't as good as it sounds - it is locked into a Hardy nature with 5/5/4/4/4/4 IVs. I suppose that is the price for getting it earlier and at a time when it is immediately useful... nonetheless, it still has the same performance issues in the late-game. Sticking with Mid Tier on this guy.

@RedMeowth: Sounds about right for Tentacool.

@Hemp Man: You're right... oversights on my part.
 
Shroomish is seriously one of the slowest level gaining Pokemon I've used, and this is coming from someone who has used every pseudo legendary in game.
 
@ Hemp In my experience Blaziken Blazes(see what i did thar ? get it ? Blaze ?) through the whole game(RS) except for Drake. The first E4 gets Double Kick(i didnt teach it Brick Break at the time), the Ghost E4 is a conventinal Fire Attack spamming battle, and Glacia cant stand against DK/Uppercuts. Drake is the only one thats hard mostly because of Salamence(from Fly ironically). As for Steven, lets just say that hes a joke fight and leave it at that
 
@ Hemp In my experience Blaziken Blazes(see what i did thar ? get it ? Blaze ?) through the whole game(RS) except for Drake. The first E4 gets Double Kick(i didnt teach it Brick Break at the time), the Ghost E4 is a conventinal Fire Attack spamming battle, and Glacia cant stand against DK/Uppercuts. Drake is the only one thats hard mostly because of Salamence(from Fly ironically). As for Steven, lets just say that hes a joke fight and leave it at that
I wasn't trying to oppose Blaziken, in fact, 2 out of 3 of my remarks were defending him.

That being said, how did you blaze through Wallace with Blaziken? Luvdisc and Seaking aside.
 
It's been a while, but I think bumping this is an okay thing to do, maybe. I just played through Emerald again, and I'd like to give some input on my team members. (Note that I didn't use an HM slave, so my Pokemon were around the same level as the bosses at the various parts of the game, and not overlevelled ever really)

Torchic: Pretty undoubtedly great ingame, but it didn't really "blaze" through the game for me like it did for JSND, for example. Some matchups can be tough (Brawly's Meditite hits you with Confusion, Wattson has tons of paralysis, Norman is tough to set up against and Slaking has little problem taking unboosted Double Kick for example), although sometimes I wonder if I wasn't really using it right (i.e. didn't have Blaziken by Winona, therefore best Fire STAB was lolEmber because I didn't get Fthrower). Regardless, I found it was pretty hard to get exp. in the later parts of the game with all the Tentas and Wingull/Pelipper around, as well as Tate/Liza and Juan kicking its ass. It's pretty decent against the E4, though, since lolSydney, Phoebe doesn't like powerful Fire moves, Glacia's Glalie are free exp. and you can set up Bulk Up on the Hail, and Drake's Shelgon lets you Bulk Up so much that Flygon's EQ doesn't even 2HKO after a while. Have something else for Wallace, basically. My final moveset was Blaze Kick|Double Kick|Slash|Bulk Up (I also got a Hasty one :D), and it didn't eat up any TMs which is a plus. If it's Top, then it's probably low-Top. In my experience it was closer to High, but it's probably better-used in a smaller team than mine.

Lotad: Why the hell does the article list this thing as High? For the entire first half of the game, your best STAB is Bullet Seed, and that's unspeakably bad. Once you get Surf you can do some major upgrades in the form of Giga Drain and the Abandoned Ship Ice Beam, but Lombre's stats really drag it down fairly soon after that. The super-late Water Stone is really unfortunate, but once you get it, it really gets rather good to take on most Water types, both offensively and defensively. My major qualm is the length of time you have to baby this thing for: until the fifth gym, my moveset was Bullet Seed|Absorb|Nature Power|Astonish. Sure, it was eventually double-Water HM with Giga Drain|Ice Beam, but meh. Something to note is that the things you'll really want to Ice Beam can usually hit you pretty hard (Altaria, Salamence, etc.). It's a decent way to get a Grass move on the team to kill Whiscash without resorting to Treecko, though. For early-to-midgame sucking, I'd put it at Mid, because it redeemed itself somewhat eventually.

Electrike: Aside from the initial grind to get any STAB at all (which isn't too bad if you find a lot of Illumise), it pulled its weight pretty well. Thunder Wave is nice to have for reasons, and Spark/Tbolt hit most things, with the remainder being either easily covered by other team members or a coverage move of your own. Mine wound up with Tbolt|Bite|Strength|Twave, and it didn't miss Strength's moveslot at all. It actually helped me hit a Nuzleaf or two at one point, actually. All those Water- and Flying-types were his bitches regardless. For a solid overall performance with few lapses, it gets a High from me.

Abra: I happened upon one on my way to get Peeko in Rusturf Tunnel, so I tossed a lucky Great Ball at it. Granite Cave isn't the earliest place to get Abra after all. The extra time to bait and switch helped me evolve it shortly after arriving in Dewford, so it was essentially immediately useful in the regard that Abra basically isn't a team member. I tossed Flash on it since I didn't foresee needing much more than a STAB and Shock Wave (which I really didn't). It immediately started OHKOing nearly everything, and got cool coverage after the next Gym. Long story short, final moveset of Psychic|Shock Wave|Recover|Flash as an unevolved Kadabra did pretty damn well, and I can only imagine how Alakazam would've done (with CM or Thief over Flash, I guess). Shock Wave is pretty weak against most things, and Psychic is only an okay STAB, so it's pretty solid High (without trade evo) instead of contending for Top.

Skarmory: The team was around lv. 26 when I got one at lv. 16, but it caught up really quickly actually, since it's really easy to train in Meteor Falls. Steel Wing immediately is great, Swift is actually useful to hit Sandshrew in the desert or Double Teamers, and Peck is at least enough to get by until it gets Fly. Mine had Steel Wing|Fly|Swift|Rock Smash, and Rock Smash was a lot more useful than people give it credit for. It lowers Defense to KO things before an HP restoration item is used, mostly, which is useful against bulky boss Pokemon that you wall, which are plentiful by the way. Skarmory can sit in front of nearly every physical attacker and not give a shit unless it's status-boosted Facade from a Slaking, which came close to 2HKOing mine. The typing is great for walling Golbat, Crobat, most Normal types, most Ground types (all, unless Drake's Flygon has a Fire move, which I don't remember), and the Altaria that you encounter. It's cool and worked well for me without even having a really good moveset, so that's solid High for me.

Trapinch: Oh my god this thing is tough to use when you first get it. It's limited to Faint Attack to reliably hit all the Sand Veil stuff I tried to train off of. It was rough going at first, even with the Dig TM, and it's the only team member I Rare Candied at all (just the last level until each evolution). It sucks as Trapinch, but Vibrava has the right combination of stuff to be useful until it evolves. Those sweet resistances and Levitate make up for the meh defenses, letting it destroy most of the Magma Cavern singlehandedly with Dig and Dragonbreath to holla holla get levels and become Flygon before Tate & Liza even, who both get destroyed by Flygon. I'm pretty sure the Claydol will only ever use EQ, and Crunch does a ton to everything, so focus on everything else and be winning. By Juan you could have EQ if you want, which is plenty strong enough to do some damage to him if necessary (but really, only if necessary because Ice moves). A SE move against Kingdra could help if you can keep the evasion crap down and force it to non-Chesto Rest, but that's pretty much impossible, so yeah. Dragonbreath isn't going to OHKO Kingdra, but it kills a weakened one efficiently if it can hit it. Dragon/Ground/Dark coverage is pretty decent against the E4 I guess. Mine had Dragon Claw|Earthquake|Crunch|Faint Attack because Fire coverage wouldn't have helped much for me, and fuck Double Teamers. It probably works just fine with Dragonbreath and Dig if you don't want to use up some cool unique TMs, although maybe I'm overlooking how weaksauce 60 BP STAB moves are sometimes, but it's also ingame. I'd put it in Mid for horrifying experiences with Trapinch being kinda worth it in the end sort of.

Another thing: the existing article makes me cringe in some places. Chinchou in High seems weird for something only available after the 7th gym with "passable stats," Lotad in High because its "dual STABs have great coverage without need for TMs" when its non-TM Grass STAB is lolAbsorb and the earliest Water STAB is Surf, etc. I haven't used Chinchou at all, so it's just theory, but it stuck out to me, especially since earlier things have their lateness listed as hindrances.
 
Seconding all of the above nominations. It should be noted that Abra is only found at that point in Emerald, though, Granite Cave is the earliest you can find it in RS.

Since you mentioned Chinchou, I'll go ahead and rate it.

Chinchou: It has a very late availability and requires significant babying to catch up to the rest of the team. Although Water/Electric dual STAB is great, it is only really useful for the last gym, and maybe Glacia. Low tier for Chinchou.
 
Seconding all of the above nominations. It should be noted that Abra is only found at that point in Emerald, though, Granite Cave is the earliest you can find it in RS.

Since you mentioned Chinchou, I'll go ahead and rate it.

Chinchou: It has a very late availability and requires significant babying to catch up to the rest of the team. Although Water/Electric dual STAB is great, it is only really useful for the last gym, and maybe Glacia. Low tier for Chinchou.
 
OK, I restarted Ruby and picked Treecko.

It does well against the first two gyms, but after that, declines.

Wattson - You resist electric, but Magnetons are part Steel.
Flannery - Fire beats Grass
Norman - No type disadvantage, but Slaking hits HARD

After Norman you get Surf, where you can find trainer in the sea (Brawleys City to Slateport). I beat all the trainers there and finally learned Leaf Blade. However.

Wionana - Flying beats Grass.

Then later, more Water trainers to grind against.

Tate & Liza - Good as long as you kill Solrock ASAP, as Sunny Day Flamethrowers hurt.
Wallace - You can train in just gym easily. This gym is also easy due to your speed and Leaf Blade, although Milotic is Bulky and Ice Beam does hurt.
 
For Wattson, Grovyle can learn Rock Smash so it's not pretty bad for him imo (defense drop hax is often and works in grovyle's favour). It's not like Sceptile needs all 4 slots anyway (Leaf Blade/EQ/Dragon Claw is enough imo usually, unless you like Giga Drain or something).

Also for Norman, I feel that you should at least be at L31 or so before you challenge him: Slaking will destroy anything that is lower levelled than it is, not to mention it's a bitch to kill without a fighting-type. The fact that Grovyle doesn't even have Leaf Blade by Norman means that he's underlevelled for that point, meaning you didn't really make the best out of him. honestly they should just make protect tm available before then

Treecko's still fine for Ruby imo but he really wants EQ and Dragon Claw, especially the former. You want Leaf Blade ASAP so it can finally get a decent STAB (roflabsorb) and it's not like you don't have a crapton of cash to spam on potions/herbs to make up for the lack of Absorb.
 
You can get Bullet Seed straight away. Not the best move, but better than Absorb imo. Rock Smash has like 20 base power.

As far as Norman, you are right, I was underleveled. Mainly because I couldn't really train the dude in Flannerys gym, so I had to rely more on Hariyama and Peppiler. But after Norman, I battled the Water trainers in the sea to get at the same level as the rest of my team.

I agree on giving him EQ and Dragon Claw, I'd probably add Aerial Ace on there as well.
 
You can get Bullet Seed straight away. Not the best move, but better than Absorb imo. Rock Smash has like 20 base power.

As far as Norman, you are right, I was underleveled. Mainly because I couldn't really train the dude in Flannerys gym, so I had to rely more on Hariyama and Peppiler. But after Norman, I battled the Water trainers in the sea to get at the same level as the rest of my team.

I agree on giving him EQ and Dragon Claw, I'd probably add Aerial Ace on there as well.
It's really a tossup on Bullet Seed or Absorb earlier: both are not effective long-term choices but it's mostly a matter of power vs survivability. Rock Smash is still a decent choice because regardless it's Grovyle's strongest move against Magneton and the only other choice for Grovyle to win is to spam Screech + Quick Attack (which admittedly is a better choice now in hindsight). The problem is Magneton using TWave + Supersonic to pad its bulk and Sonicboom 3HKOs.

For the Norman thing, you should have EXP share by now so you can dump it onto Grovyle for Flannery.
 
I was going to post the same of Grovyle with Rock Smash against Wattson that I discovered in a Nuzlocke, but I was on a hurry.

The thing I didn't remember was Rock Smash is 20 base power in RSE..

Anyways since Rock Smash sucks for almost the game, it can go with it until arriving to the Move Deleter.

I think one of the worst things Treecko line has against is the "late" availability of Leaf Blade until lv 29 while its most powerful attack is Pound.
 
Hmm, I think the best part of Treecko is that there is a lot of Water in Hoenn, and lots of Water Trainers to battle. The only Water types that are neutral to Grass, that I encounterd, were Gyarados and Tentacruel. The former doesn't have Hidden Power Flying in-game so its beatable, while the latter doesn't enjoy Earthquake.
 
Why isn't Slaking top tier? This isn't competitive, the game asks if you want to switch after you kill stuff so you can just use Hyper Beam on whatever you like with no consequence, not to mention nothing ingame is really going to be killing Slaking anytime soon with that bulk. Slakoth can be a bit awkward to raise but after that Vigoroth/Slaking easily become MVPs no matter what you use. Not to mention it can also relieve the weight on HM slaves with its access to Strength, Rock Smash and Cut.

Also, the Ralts line is definitely high tier. It can be a bit of a pain initially but it learns Calm Mind and Psychic naturally, which saves you 2 very valuable TMs, and it makes good use of Shock Wave/Thunderbolt.

An interesting one I'd like to put forward is Torkoal. When you initially get it, Torkoal is VERY strong. It also has access to a good double boosting combo in Curse + Amnesia, which can singlehandedly muscle through pretty much any icky scenario you find yourself in (I speak from experience), and between Body Slam and Flamethrower (also moves it learns by levelup) you can cover most things for neutral. The downsides are its slow as hell, which is annoying sometimes, and its kinda hard to make use of at the surfing portion of the game. I say mid tier.

Finally, I'd like to point out Clamperl. The site currently has it at bottom tier, which I feel is a little harsh. DeepSeaTooth will easily make it your hardest hitting mon, and it can make good use of Rain Dance (lets face it, Surf and Ice Beam is literally its whole offensive movepool). Its not completely vulnerable either, I've used it on several occasions to go toe to toe with the E4 and come off the better(Its kinda useless on Glacia/Wallace but for the most part its capable of OHKOing a lot of them). It can take physical attacks fairly well and resists Water and Ice, so for the most part it can handle what is thrown at it, and OHKO back. I feel it isn't exactly necessary to use over other Waters, and its still comparatively frail, not to mention you only get it late game, which is why I'd nominate it for low tier. Still, its hella fun to use.
 
slaking isn't top iirc because slakoth is really a major ass to train and the first 2 gyms are not very forgiving against normal-types: zigzagoon only escapes this because he possesses other utility in the form of pickup, but considering petalburg's forest is the only place you can get Slakoth it's kinda gay to train it, considering it's ability. compared to Abra, another pokemon who needs babying, slakoth kinds of needs more effort due to more EXP.

then there's also the issue of whether you want to use it as Vigoroth or Slaking... Vigoroth is basically a lesser Zangoose but Slaking gets back Truant so it really depends on what you want. Slaking does get to abuse shift mode hyper beam, but it's pretty much the only thing it has going for it. it's probably mid imo

ralts similarly has grinding issues and also grows slower than Abra, while it has offense and bulk so terrible confusion might as well not exist. ralts is bad for its existence as ralts, outclassed by kadabra as kirlia, and only wins abra as gardevoir... without trades. >.> all that aside, i think it is also deserving of high tier

lolclamperl
lol 32 speed
lol 35/55 special bulk
amazing how it survives in E4 when almost everything is smashing at it's weaker side and is outrun by just about everything in the universe
rain dance will never fix its issues because it doesn't even have Swift Swim
it's offense is okayish at best but honestly with that speed and bulk i'd rather use luvdisc
 
slaking isn't top iirc because slakoth is really a major ass to train and the first 2 gyms are not very forgiving against normal-types: zigzagoon only escapes this because he possesses other utility in the form of pickup, but considering petalburg's forest is the only place you can get Slakoth it's kinda gay to train it, considering it's ability. compared to Abra, another pokemon who needs babying, slakoth kinds of needs more effort due to more EXP.
I think the effort is well worth the payoff.

then there's also the issue of whether you want to use it as Vigoroth or Slaking... Vigoroth is basically a lesser Zangoose but Slaking gets back Truant so it really depends on what you want. Slaking does get to abuse shift mode hyper beam, but it's pretty much the only thing it has going for it. it's probably mid imo
Even without Hyper Beam, Slaking has 160 Attack with easily accessible STAB and diverse movepool, plus more bulk than pretty much any other poke you can pick up in the game. People forget he can use Special attacks fairly effectively as well. Truant isn't even a problem.

ralts similarly has grinding issues and also grows slower than Abra, while it has offense and bulk so terrible confusion might as well not exist. ralts is bad for its existence as ralts, outclassed by kadabra as kirlia, and only wins abra as gardevoir... without trades. >.> all that aside, i think it is also deserving of high tier
Abra only knows Teleport when you catch it and is just as frail, its not significantly better than Ralts to train. Even with trades I'd rather have Gard as she's bulkier, with a batter movepool, and the Speed difference is really irrelevant since you'll outpace practically everything anyway.

lolclamperl
lol 32 speed
lol 35/55 special bulk
amazing how it survives in E4 when almost everything is smashing at it's weaker side and is outrun by just about everything in the universe
rain dance will never fix its issues because it doesn't even have Swift Swim
it's offense is okayish at best but honestly with that speed and bulk i'd rather use luvdisc
Have you even used it? I'm not saying its the best thing in the universe but its certainly better than, say, Pikachu (who I also tried)

Also the vast majority of special attacks in the E4 are Ice type
 
I don't think Feebas should be Mid Tier. Takes too much effort to capture and evolve it imo.
Should be Bottom Tier, the probability of finding it fishing randomly without using cheats is almost 0. Not worth of it using 3 hours, to say something, to find a mon.

Envolving really is "easy" if knowing how to do it simply picking decent berries.
 
Have you even used it? I'm not saying its the best thing in the universe but its certainly better than, say, Pikachu (who I also tried)

Also the vast majority of special attacks in the E4 are Ice type
I'd rather take Pikachu over Clamperl, over the fact that the former actually outspeeds stuff and hits hard with Light Ball Thunder.

Also, how is Ice a majority in special attacks in E4? There's only a Dusclops, half of Wallace in Emerald and Glacia's team. It's definitely not a majority, and Pikachu is actually somewhat useful in Emerald because it can outrun Wailord and Milotic and make them a lot easier. In comparison, Clamperl's speed issues make it a very big liability for E4.

on another note, the main point about Abra VS Ralts is that Gardevoir is basically just a slightly superior Alakazam, but the former requires a lot less training because he's in a faster EXP group and evolves sooner. i'd rather take Kadabra, who is slightly inferior but is also less of a headache to use early on because after the Abra stage it becomes very useful, while Ralts continues to suck until 30.
 
Kirlia can CM against Flannery and sweep her hole team, but CHs
CM isn't really a very efficient way to sweep Flannery, and it's not like you don't have a million water types up to that point (Barboach? Azumarill? Tentacool? They all cheese Flannery pretty easily.)
 
Flannery uses Sunny Day and Light Screen though, or can those guys OHKO her Pokemon before that? I;ve never used those 3.
 
R/S: Barboach has Magnitude while Azumarill can Huge Power Rollout. Tentacool can tank everything her lead Slugma has...if it doesn't die to a bubblebeam yet.

Emerald: Her lead is 4x weak to water, camerupt is 4x weak to water, then we have a slugma, lol. torkoal is the only one that poses a decent threat, and mostly because Azumarill can't easily accumulate Rollout from Flannery's other Pokemon.

besides, i'm now actually wondering how is Kirlia able to CM sweep against Flannery. It's probably possible to pull it off in RS because her lead sucks, but it's a lot harder in Emerald because Numel can Take Down/Magnitude.
 

Diana

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I feel like I should note that you can't get Barboach until after you beat Norman because you don't have access to the Good Rod until you get Surf. The other two still work though.

I'm completely on the fence with Treecko myself. There are moments I remember really hating using it and others that it just tore through things and I'm not sure where on the scale it deserves. I'd say I'd do another run but I think I've already committed myself to too many of those so it'll have to wait for a while, I'm still only up to the National Park for my testing on the GSC thread...
 
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