Pokémon X & Y In-game Tier List Discussion

[Tomy]

Additional comments: Gets mega evo which really allows it to steamroll through many things, but the movepool(and lack of rock stab) are what keep it from S tier

Lack of Rock STAB? Right after the 2nd gym you have Rock Tomb. It's not over-powerful but 60 BP (without factoring STAB) isn't a joke. But I agree, overall: A tier seems fair.

 

[DesertSpirit]

Lack of Rock STAB? Right after the 2nd gym you have Rock Tomb. It's not over-powerful but 60 BP (without factoring STAB) isn't a joke. But I agree, overall: A tier seems fair.

Sorry, lack of strong rock stab. Stone edge is both inaccurate and late, not to mention it has 5 pp. Rock slide's tm is postgame, while aero doesn't get it by level up until level 73 which is not a level you're likely to reach even WITH exp share.

 

[Lucchini]

That is the gigantic problem right there which skewers your perspective of things. A team of 6 Pokemon; especially excluding Exp Share / Lucky Egg, will significantly lower your level output. With 4 you likely wouldn't even be 5 levels behind your opponents if ever. I mean I get the call out on researching against me (but ffs I seriously cannot remember everything every Pokemon learns and I don't have access to a database that has it... unless others do), but come on if we're playing the tier list game let's at least be consistent with the tier list goals (like using a reasonable amount of Pokemon in a team).

When Mekkah was in charge of the RBY tier list, people piloted theories arising out of discussions by playing through the game with 6 Pokemon, so I'm not making up anything new here. That was a much easier gen however.

Team size is just one of the many things affecting tiering. Exp Share makes your level advantage huge no matter the team size - we agree to discard it. Lucky Egg can be meticulously used on your lead every time and give you 1,5x experience after a certain point of the game.

There's another thing you could do to maximise exp gain which is to switch all of your 4-6 Pokemon in against every single enemy you encounter - they will all get the same sum of experience and the effect will be even bigger than from using Exp Share (the switching will take time though).

I think the tier list should account for a multitude of situations, including different team sizes (6 and not just 4 for example), exp groups (a full team of slow/erratic will be underlevelled no matter the team size) and peculiarities of capture (the hoard-only exclusives are terribly underlevelled sometimes and pull the rest of the team down in levels).

Should you have a worse nature / poorer IVs, a Pokemon that is expected to outspeed may fail to do so and get OHKO'd before managing to achieve the same, or one that's expected to OHKO may miss the KO and receive heavy damage back. As a rule, everything that's good at a higher level is also good at a lower level in relation to the same Pokemon, but if we were to include Exp Share into this (or had all the time in the world for full-team switch-in parties) something like Furfrou would be functionally equal to Roserade, or even better due to having more diverse coverage.

We simply need to account these instances.

Also conceding Gyarados to A. After thinking about Aqua Tail in Gym 6 and 7, the only issue is bypassing Slowking (unless Meowstic / Sigilyph have something like Charge Beam / Thunderbolt). It OHKOing / 2HKOing everything is doubtful to my knowledge once it is a Gyarados (well okay, 2HKOes definitely with Dragon Rage and OHKOes on squishymons). But at least past Clemont Gyarados should be doing alright. For what it's worth, Gyarados makes a decent HM Slave too with access to Waterfall / Surf / Strength / Rock Smash. This is pertaining to Gyarados caught via Super Rod, by the way, and not trained ones.

Trained Gyarados has more time to contribute and, as a result, gain EVs and perform better than a Gyarados caught late pre-evolved.

I really think we should tone down the focus on HM slaving, though. How about we only credit to Surf/Fly/Waterfall on phys-oriented water mons? Bend it to emphasise what these moves do in-battle.

Though I want to point out comparing Magikarp to Raven is an insult to Raven since Raven actually does, well you know, damage around that part of the game. The best comparison I can think of is if somehow FE7 was stretched a hell of a lot further and Nino only had access to Fire.

Nino would be great if she were "stretched out" with Fire, but who cares about E staved on promo anyway. Regardless, when I brought up old FE tiering I implied that XY tiering is completely different (so I'm intentionally not comparing anything or trying to find serious equivalents between this and say FE7).

There is also nothing wrong about being delegated as an HM slave. Again, it's why I actually could go with high C / low B Hawlucha. Hawlucha actually does decent up until the 6th gym and can be useful outside of battle after that point.

Hawlucha sounds worthy of B even if we forget it's a viable HM slave IMO.

Raising 4 mons is a lot better than lol6 anyway.

Raising just one Lucario is also a lot better than a team of 4; what's your point?

You keep picking on this point after I mentioned raising a team of 6 slow exp mons, but you haven't yet justified why you encourage to dump exp into an HM slave and drop them later on - how is this consistent with you motivating us to keep the teams small? Still waiting for that justification, even moreso after your recent post.

Sorry, lack of strong rock stab. Stone edge is both inaccurate and late, not to mention it has 5 pp. Rock slide's tm is postgame, while aero doesn't get it by level up until level 73 which is not a level you're likely to reach even WITH exp share.

Pretty sure you get Rock Slide as soon as you get access to Waterfall.

Still, I could perhaps make the argument that having to do research into what Shedinja can/can't survive against is a pretty heavy opportunity cost, though. The issue of grinding levels with Sheddy is still a huge issue (you pretty much have to check level moves for every Pokemon you run across, unless you're grinding on the same wild Pokemon for a long time), and having to check whether or not Shedinja is going to die instantly can be time-consuming IRL. (And that's even ignoring the fact that Shedinja is slow and has shit-all coverage when you get it.) So that said, I stand by my previous claim for F-tier on the basis that it's too much of a hassle just to raise Shedinja for long enough to fight Korrina even. (Nincada comes about the same time as Honedge, so there's a lot of grinding it has to do just as weak-as-shit Nincada before it evolves, and THEN all the careful grinding in the towns leading up to Shalour).

I think a good start would be playing through the game with Shedinja while checking/studying all the learnpools available (you have just 5 weaknesses to be concerned with). Maybe my belief in generic mons' movesets being set in stone to their level is one that doesn't match reality. Still, being limited in what he can switch into should limit him to D tier, I would suspect.

 

[DesertSpirit]

When Mekkah was in charge of the RBY tier list, people piloted theories arising out of discussions by playing through the game with 6 Pokemon, so I'm not making up anything new here. That was a much easier gen however.

Team size is just one of the many things affecting tiering. Exp Share makes your level advantage huge no matter the team size - we agree to discard it. Lucky Egg can be meticulously used on your lead every time and give you 1,5x experience after a certain point of the game.

There's another thing you could do to maximise exp gain which is to switch all of your 4-6 Pokemon in against every single enemy you encounter - they will all get the same sum of experience and the effect will be even bigger than from using Exp Share (the switching will take time though).

I think the tier list should account for a multitude of situations, including different team sizes (6 and not just 4 for example), exp groups (a full team of slow/erratic will be underlevelled no matter the team size) and peculiarities of capture (the hoard-only exclusives are terribly underlevelled sometimes and pull the rest of the team down in levels).

Should you have a worse nature / poorer IVs, a Pokemon that is expected to outspeed may fail to do so and get OHKO'd before managing to achieve the same, or one that's expected to OHKO may miss the KO and receive heavy damage back. As a rule, everything that's good at a higher level is also good at a lower level in relation to the same Pokemon, but if we were to include Exp Share into this (or had all the time in the world for full-team switch-in parties) something like Furfrou would be functionally equal to Roserade, or even better due to having more diverse coverage.

We simply need to account these instances.




Trained Gyarados has more time to contribute and, as a result, gain EVs and perform better than a Gyarados caught late pre-evolved.

I really think we should tone down the focus on HM slaving, though. How about we only credit to Surf/Fly/Waterfall on phys-oriented water mons? Bend it to emphasise what these moves do in-battle.



Nino would be great if she were "stretched out" with Fire, but who cares about E staved on promo anyway. Regardless, when I brought up old FE tiering I implied that XY tiering is completely different (so I'm intentionally not comparing anything or trying to find serious equivalents between this and say FE7).



Hawlucha sounds worthy of B even if we forget it's a viable HM slave IMO.



Raising just one Lucario is also a lot better than a team of 4; what's your point?

You keep picking on this point after I mentioned raising a team of 6 slow exp mons, but you haven't yet justified why you encourage to dump exp into an HM slave and drop them later on - how is this consistent with you motivating us to keep the teams small? Still waiting for that justification, even moreso after your recent post.



Pretty sure you get Rock Slide as soon as you get access to Waterfall.



I think a good start would be playing through the game with Shedinja while checking/studying all the learnpools available (you have just 5 weaknesses to be concerned with). Maybe my belief in generic mons' movesets being set in stone to their level is one that doesn't match reality. Still, being limited in what he can switch into should limit him to D tier, I would suspect.

I completely agree with accounting for 6 pokemon. I'm not running 4 pokemon for "effeciency", if I really cared about it that much I'd use my starter until lucario and then ditch everything....

Additionally, rock slide is in Couriway Town (postgame)

Stone edge is the one you're thinking about. It's found by using waterfall outside of frost cavern.

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't get rock slide in my playthrough and Couriway reminded me of gyradosite, which is post-game. Disregard this please.

 

[Lucchini]

Rock Slide is Couriway Town(postgame).

Bulbapedia says it's Rock Slide; is it wrong?
http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Couriway_Town

I haven't had anything to teach this move to on my first two runs so I have no clue (Aerodactyl will eat it on this one, assuming it exists).

Oh yeah, Colonel M, Bulbapedia and Serebii are two sources to consult when it comes to major battle movesets and wild Pokemon learnsets. I'm sure there's more, so it all boils down to which pages you're more comfortable with going through (I prefer doing the least clicks possible).

 

[DesertSpirit]

You are correct, rock slide is not post game, I just didn't get it.

 

[TakatoGuil]

Getting Rock Slide in Couriway Town with Waterfall still might not be that much of an improvement to getting it postgame, however. Literally all that's left is the Elite 4, two of whom aren't really the best match-up choices for Aerodactyl, and the champion.

 

[DesertSpirit]

Getting Rock Slide in Couriway Town with Waterfall still might not be that much of an improvement to getting it postgame, however. Literally all that's left is the Elite 4, two of whom aren't really the best match-up choices for Aerodactyl, and the champion.

Pretty much; getting rock slide shouldn't affect its tiering in my eyes.

On a side note, I'll do a couple more write ups for the teams I just used. I'm just in a very procrastinate-y mood right now.

 

[Spenstar]

Which Pokemon have a change in tier or overall standing when you decide you want 6 battling Pokemon instead of 3-4 like this guide assumes?

 

[Banryu]

I think the tier list should account for a multitude of situations, including different team sizes (6 and not just 4 for example), exp groups (a full team of slow/erratic will be underlevelled no matter the team size) and peculiarities of capture (the hoard-only exclusives are terribly underlevelled sometimes and pull the rest of the team down in levels).

I agree with this. It doesn't make sense to limit a player hoping to follow the tier list to a team of 4 for in-battle purposes when it should be up to his/her right to decide whatever. A player can just as easily go with 4 top-tier mons like Lucario/Zard/Roserade/Froakie or something and then 2 utility mons as 6 good-to-mediocre tier mons with the HMs spread around, and far be it for us to tell people which IMO.

Getting Rock Slide in Couriway Town with Waterfall still might not be that much of an improvement to getting it postgame, however. Literally all that's left is the Elite 4, two of whom aren't really the best match-up choices for Aerodactyl, and the champion.

Rock Slide wrecks Malva singlehandedly, that's something.

Which Pokemon have a change in tier or overall standing when you decide you want 6 battling Pokemon instead of 3-4 like this guide assumes?

I think the point we should be looking that is that ideally, none should. Some Pokemon (like Megazard and Lucario) can carry you through singlehandedly, but I don't think it necessarily makes others less strong than them worse by comparison.

 

[Spenstar]

I think the point we should be looking that is that ideally, none should. Some Pokemon (like Megazard and Lucario) can carry you through singlehandedly, but I don't think it necessarily makes others less strong than them worse by comparison.

I'm talking more about slow EXP Growth rates sapping exp from the other mons and making the leveling problem worse, the early game "Babying" factor maybe being lessened because you have more mons to use, movepools that can get the job done with three slots and thus can carry an HM move so we can use 6 mons without an HM slave, etc.

 

[orkid]

On Litleo
I didn't mean my argument abt litleo to be taken as 'its better than bunnelby so it can't be in the same tier' i'm sorry i phrased myself badly - i get that like lucario's better than charizard xy but they're still in S together. i still think litleo has to be so much better than bunnelby at beating the game and so should be marked as such. It has a fine early game, a middling middle game and pretty good late game. To me that's C. Is it really worse than chespin? I don't think so, I think its about as helpful as the other pokemon I raised in my playthrough that are C tier. bunnelby seems a little out of its league in comparison to Throh, or chespin, or litleo.

i really think aerodactyl is S tier material - with bulldoze from lumiose city + mege evo it can take out or at least heavily damage a lot of the gym leaders that desertspirit says it struggles against, including that mawile, clemont's pokes, and some of wikistrom's (stay far away from scizor). though olympia's slowking is kind of a problem. it never lags behind the rest of your team in terms of power because it gets so many good tms and the mega evo. it takes less than or equall to 10 minutes to rock smash an old amber in my experience which is really worth it for a pokemon that's always useful and never has to be babied. besides the slight annoyance of getting it it seems pretty similar in utility to the other s tier pokes. that annoyance isn't any more than getting huge power azumaril, and aerodactyl is easier to use than azumarril since its so fast and surprisingly bulky especially given its speed. also: rock slide matters because it gives you a good shot at taking out wulfric's first 2 pokes and at least damaging avulugg in a meaningful way, and it matters for malva, and is helpful for drasna's noivern and altaria. its also just a nice upgrade to your STAB, and its nice to not have to use Fly when you just want more power than a 60 base stab but don't want to bother with a 2 turn attack. it certainly only helps aero's late game. w/o the level advantage exp share gives powerful attacks are much more impt for the e4 than they would be if your level 75 when you get to them.

finally: As someone who's used these tier lists for a many more gens than i've posted on smogon i basically do it to know how much time the game will take/how likely i am to lose a key battle/how many potions i'll need to buy if i play with a particular pokemon. that's basically what 'effort' means in pokemon. I don't really think 'hm slave' is a good reason to put a pokemon in a higher tier than it belongs based on its ability to win important battles and clear routes for you - first becausein xy its pretty easy to get all the hms on your team w/o a dedicated slave and second because if i reserve a slot or two for a hm slave in my party its not like those slaves are really helping me in battles. as Lucchini said, anything is good death fodder. but hey its not a big deal to have an entry for bunnelby/bidoof under C tier that says 'decent early game, ok middle game, great hm slave'. probably bidoof's return + water attack makes it better than I'm giving it credit for in battles anyway.

 

[Lucchini]

Which Pokemon have a change in tier or overall standing when you decide you want 6 battling Pokemon instead of 3-4 like this guide assumes?

None I should think. It might seem like slower walls would benefit from it because some squishier glass cannons will occasionally fail at outspeeding and OHKOing and will receive severe punishment for their failure, but being underleveled makes walling less effective too, e.g. Snorlax no longer really walls Sylveon, requiring Hyper Potions to stay alive after every other attack and losing its own offence because of Sylveon's Charm.

Being underlevelled just generally means you have activated Hard Mode, but I should think that everything is still in the same relation in terms of tier positions.

It's descriptions of performance/battle specifics that change really.

 

[DesertSpirit]

On Litleo
I didn't mean my argument abt litleo to be taken as 'its better than bunnelby so it can't be in the same tier' i'm sorry i phrased myself badly - i get that like lucario's better than charizard xy but they're still in S together. i still think litleo has to be so much better than bunnelby at beating the game and so should be marked as such. It has a fine early game, a middling middle game and pretty good late game. To me that's C. Is it really worse than chespin? I don't think so, I think its about as helpful as the other pokemon I raised in my playthrough that are C tier. bunnelby seems a little out of its league in comparison to Throh, or chespin, or litleo.

i really think aerodactyl is S tier material - with bulldoze from lumiose city + mege evo it can take out or at least heavily damage a lot of the gym leaders that desertspirit says it struggles against, including that mawile, clemont's pokes, and some of wikistrom's (stay far away from scizor). though olympia's slowking is kind of a problem. it never lags behind the rest of your team in terms of power because it gets so many good tms and the mega evo. it takes less than or equall to 10 minutes to rock smash an old amber in my experience which is really worth it for a pokemon that's always useful and never has to be babied. besides the slight annoyance of getting it it seems pretty similar in utility to the other s tier pokes. that annoyance isn't any more than getting huge power azumaril, and aerodactyl is easier to use than azumarril since its so fast and surprisingly bulky especially given its speed. also: rock slide matters because it gives you a good shot at taking out wulfric's first 2 pokes and at least damaging avulugg in a meaningful way, and it matters for malva, and is helpful for drasna's noivern and altaria. its also just a nice upgrade to your STAB, and its nice to not have to use Fly when you just want more power than a 60 base stab but don't want to bother with a 2 turn attack. it certainly only helps aero's late game. w/o the level advantage exp share gives powerful attacks are much more impt for the e4 than they would be if your level 75 when you get to them.

finally: As someone who's used these tier lists for a many more gens than i've posted on smogon i basically do it to know how much time the game will take/how likely i am to lose a key battle/how many potions i'll need to buy if i play with a particular pokemon. that's basically what 'effort' means in pokemon. I don't really think 'hm slave' is a good reason to put a pokemon in a higher tier than it belongs based on its ability to win important battles and clear routes for you - first becausein xy its pretty easy to get all the hms on your team w/o a dedicated slave and second because if i reserve a slot or two for a hm slave in my party its not like those slaves are really helping me in battles. as Lucchini said, anything is good death fodder. but hey its not a big deal to have an entry for bunnelby/bidoof under C tier that says 'decent early game, ok middle game, great hm slave'. probably bidoof's return + water attack makes it better than I'm giving it credit for in battles anyway.

Ok, no. The time from when you get it to fly (which is just about 3 gym badges) is truly painful. Bulldoze is a 60 power move, and yes, I get that it can take on some more gym leader pokes, but even crunch is more powerful. The fact that your only meaningful stab for a longggg time is a 2 turn move, and the time it needs to be babied a bit is what keeps it from S. Rock tomb is great at all, but you don't have megaevo when you get it, and it really doesn't help against korrina and ramos.

I get where you're coming from, and an arguement could be made for S, but the long STAB issue keeps it from being one of those things that is the utmost best in the game.

Additionally, you say it gets a lot of tms, yes, it does, but they're all so... "filler". They're all in the 60 power range and certainly not something that will carry you to rock slide/move tutor in laverre.

One last thing, if you go up against avalugg with aero, you are mental. It can NOT "significantly damage" it, iron head is both not stab and against 184 base def.

 

[orkid]

hi desertspirit

tough claws crunch is 106.4 power - bulldoze is 120 power vs heliolisk and mawile (who i admit can hurt you back) and 240 vs magnezone, who will survive because of sturdy and usually set up electric field only to have a clemont use a bunch of hyperpotions on it for awhile until you 2hko it or break sturdy with a weak attack and then bulldoze. also bulldoze is nice against the team flare's poison pokes.

as for stab: rock tomb and aerial ace are both 60 bp stab at at time in the game when that's totally respectable. later on aerial ace is boosted by tough claws. they do fine til fly/rock slide hm/tm aerial ace is fine for ramos, resisting jumpluff's acrobatics is super cool too. aerial ace is also nice for korrinna, her pokemon aren't so amazing

i concede avalugg since i wasn't thinking abt the fact that it could set up on you as you do damage and wait for aero to die so you can finish it off. so its probably more than a 4hko you're right. in any case i don't think 1 poke matters much for tiering.

the tms aero gets are in its stabs when it needs them and bulldoze. that's pretty nice since its stabs are great and bulldoze covers what its stabs don't. yeah if aero had an amazing level up movepool it wouldn't matter but as it is it does matter and it makes aero very strong in game. i guess aero makes a fine user of return too but honestly i didn't use that cause its stabs were usually better

 

[Its_A_Random]

Litleo's problem is that it is shit until it evolves. For a primarily Special Attacker, It has: no coverage for a long time. Let me spell it out to you: How are you going to get by for a long time (Like ~Gym 5 with a 6-mon team) with just Ember as your lone Special Attacking move? You could say "no no, you can boost it with Work Up, or shove an Eviolite onto it", but that alone spells out how inefficient it is, because Litleo lacks the bulk to use it effectively, & Work Up is only useful as a long term investment, which it rarely gets to be because of the limited trainers with more than three Pokémon. You have to rely on Physical coverage for a while if Ember is doing jack shit for you (which it probably will), & that is coming off Base 50 Attack, which is unimpressive. STAB Return is okay, but that tapers off heavily after a while. It is okay early-game, but its mid-game is bad, & its late-game is pretty meh. Let me cycle through the key match-ups.

Your Rival: Meowstic belts you initially, but you get better against it after evolution. Absol will slaughter you with neutral STAB Physical Attacks. The starter depends, though you lose to Frogadier -> Greninja. Eeveelution depends, but it is not easy. Altaria, well...

The Gym Leaders:
Viola: Both Pokémon can be pretty annoying, but you should be able to win against at least one of the two.
Grant: You are not doing anything here.
Korrina: See above.
Ramos: Average. You are not hitting hard enough unless you evolved (Assume you have not), Jumpluff deals lots with Acrobatics, Weepinbell is ehh, Gogoat Bulldozes you.
Clemont: Average. You beat Magneton, Emolga is bleh, but Heliolisk will pose a problem.
Valerie: Decent. You beat Mawile, Mr. Mime & Sylveon tend to waste your time though, & Mr. Mime can deal a chunk with Psychic.
Olympia: Slowking kills you, but the other two are average.
Wulfric: You should win this easily.

Lysandre: Mienshao beats you, Gyarados beats you, Honchkrow is ehhh, The Pyroar Mirror depends on how fast you are.

The Pokémon League:
Wilkstrom: You win against Klefki & Scizor. Probopass gives you a lot of troubles with Power Gem, defences, & neutrality to Flamethrower. Aegislash survives a Flamethrower in Shield Forme (n.b. Anecdotal, but it survived a Lv. 66 Blackglasses Dark Pulse from Docile Hydreigon from when I played it), & possibly OHKO back with Sacred Sword.
Malva: You are just wasting your time here. Not that Pyroar will die fast, but it is not KOing stuff fast, not even with Hyper Voice.
Drasna: You are losing here. You are not OHKOing & her Pokémon are dealing lots back.
Siebold: Give me one good reason why Pyroar should not get slaughtered here.
Diantha: You win against Gourgeist, & you do very well against Aurorus, but you lose against the rest.
AZ: Win vs. Torkoal, Lose vs. Golurk unless you are confident that Dark Pulse OHKOes, Okay vs. Sigilyph.

This pretty much averages to a D-Tiering. You have a few good match-ups, but you have a lot of average/bad match-ups, & in terms of HM Utility, you get Strength & Rock Smash, which is okay. It also has a major rut with bad coverage until it evolves/gets Flamethrower, but yeah. It is bad, but it has its uses.

Also, do I really need to go on why Helioptile is D-Tier? In short, you have to wait until you get a decent STAB at Lv25 (Parabolic Charge), it is very frail until evolution, it only has one match-up it excels at (Siebold), its coverage is okay, but its frailty & such... I fail to see why it should be higher than D.

Also enough of the Bunny bashing, I get what you all are saying & will probably move it down. I am not sold on moving Bidoof down, however.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Honestly, I'm not really sure why Azurril is ranked below Honedge / Aegislash, nor even Charizard. The Gift Lucario I can understand, but definitely not any of these other Pokemon; Azurril is probably the single most ridiculous Pokemon in the game besides gift Lucario (who makes the entire game kind of a joke honestly-- why you would try any Mega besides Lucario is beyond me).

Charmander comes under-leveled, and honestly its performance is inferior to Fletchinder until you get it to Mega Evolve (and even then, Fletchinder's ability to abuse the AMAZING in-game Acrobatics, along with its insane and convenient level up movepool-- I'd say it's the more consistently good choice throughout the game).

I used Hone Edge on my most recent round, and it is pretty damn good too-- its typing is so good, but it needs some significant babying until it gets Shadow Claw and Shadow Sneak (at which point it could probably take the whole game on its own, especially after you get Eviolite).


All that said, Azurril is WAY more monstrous. First, consider that you get Return almost immediately after the point you get it. Even without it liking you that much, Huge Power STAB Return destroys any wild Pokemon and the weak-ass trainers at this point in the game. Also it has Bubble, and destroys wild Litleo, making for a few easy levels (Farfetch'd plus Exp Share gains tons of experience too). The only real trial with Azurril is getting it to like you before level 20 (to ensure you get Aqua Tail) but by the time you get to even level 15, you probably have enough happiness to get it to evolve just by walking back and forth for half an hour (go watch a TV show as you do it). Once you have Marril, it's pretty much GG as far as XY goes-- Marril evolves into Azumarril at level 18, you'll have it before you even get your second badge, and it gets Aqua Tail at level 20 (as Marril) or level 21 (as Azumarril, making the whole do-or-don't evolve question pretty silly).

Aqua Tail + Return + access to the early game Bull Doze is probably stupidly-good-enough already, but Azumarril gets Double Edge almost immediately, and Superpower and Rough Play both get learned at very convenient timing...

Almost nothing in game came survive Azumarril's Huge Power attacks, and pretty much nothing even scratches its 100 / 80 / 80 bulk and awesome defensive typing either. Azumarril's also fully capable of abusing many useful hold items in-game, such as Silk Scarf, and later Splash Plate (also appears pretty early) and is just silly with Leftovers or even Rocky Helmet.

To top this all off Azumarril grows at a FAST rate. With Experience Share, it's almost impossible to grow Azumarril along the same rate as the rest of the team if you have Slow or even Medium growth rate Pokemon. By the time they make it to the next level, Azumarril will have already grown 1, or even 2 levels just through Experience Share-- so unless you've got an entire team of fast rate mons, just expect that Azumarril will always be stupidly over-leveled compared to the rest of your team.

XY offers up a lot of Pokemon that re ridiculously good, but Azumarril is just silly-- definitely S Tier material. It definitely doesn't belong in the same class as Sawk or Bulbasaur... and it's definitely on a higher level than Charmander or Honedge.




Also, I would like to Nominate Gible for B-Tier (though honestly, it's much better than Tyrunt...)

-Availability: Sandy area in route 13, so mid-early, and it's pretty common-- you're pretty much guaranteed to run into multiple as you go through this route. When you meet it, it'll already be above the level needed to evolve, so it'll evolve into Gabite immediately!

-Typing: Dragon / Ground is awesome typing, and even better in-game. You get Gabite IMMEDIATELY before the Electric Gym, which is nifty. Even in the Fairy and Ice gyms, Gabite destroys Mawile and Mr.Mime, and Garchomp can easily OHKO everything on Wulfric's team with Dragon Claw + Fire Blast-- it's kind of sad. Ground is such a good and important typing-- both in-game and out; and I'd say this is probably the best Ground Pokemon to be found anywhere in this game.

-Stats: It's Garchomp. Do I need to say anything more?

-Movepool: Its movepool is stupidly good. It pretty much comes with Dragon Claw, and Bull Doze is a TM you likely have at this point-- not to mention the Dig TM (which it also learns naturally), but honestly Bull Doze is better. It also can use a number of other useful TMs you have at this point like Rock Tomb, Hone Claws, and Aerial Ace. Gible also tends to evolve and get Crunch around the same time you get to the Psychic gym... of course as soon as it evolves you can teach it Swords Dance. Fire Blast is another move you can teach it (though it's not really needed...) and Surf is actually useful for cave battles, as well as bringing utility if you don't have a special attacking water type (easy in this game, when there are so many really good physical attackers to choose from). Bulldoze carries very well until you get the Earthquake TM right before the Elite four.

-Major Battles: Gabite has a natural advantage against most of what Team Flare uses, and obvious stomps their boss flat (just watch out for Gyara's Outrage). Garchomp rips your rival to pieces, and manages to perform well even in the Fairy gym, it's worst gym. Of course, it does amazingly well in the Electric Gym (the one right after you get it) and smashes the Psychic gym with its new-found 130 base Attack and Crunch. Despite being at a type disadvantage, Garchomp sweeps the Ice Gym because Dragon Claw + Fire Blast OHKOs everything he has... of course, Garchomp can take on the entire Elite Four and Champion by itself if it wants to.

-Other: Aside from coming kind of late, and somewhat underleveled, Gible's only other flaw is that it's growth rate is disgustingly slow. Unless you don't care about a major gap in level between your teammates, expect to never ever use any of your fast growers for the rest of the game. Azumarril can sit on your bench and not do ANYTHING as you solo the game with Garchomp and STILL be at a higher level than Garchomp just because of Experience Share.

 

[GatoDelFuego]

-Other: Aside from coming kind of late, and somewhat underleveled, Gible's only other flaw is that it's growth rate is disgustingly slow. Unless you don't care about a major gap in level between your teammates, expect to never ever use any of your fast growers for the rest of the game. Azumarril can sit on your bench and not do ANYTHING as you solo the game with Garchomp and STILL be at a higher level than Garchomp just because of Experience Share.

I used basically an entire team of slow building mons except for one, did next to no grinding, turned the exp share on at exactly one point in time when I first caught gible to boost it up three levels, and my gible/chomp was never underleveled. Just because other things outpace it in levels doesn't mean that it's ever weak/below the opponents

chomp for A

 

[DesertSpirit]

hi desertspirit

tough claws crunch is 106.4 power - bulldoze is 120 power vs heliolisk and mawile (who i admit can hurt you back) and 240 vs magnezone, who will survive because of sturdy and usually set up electric field only to have a clemont use a bunch of hyperpotions on it for awhile until you 2hko it or break sturdy with a weak attack and then bulldoze. also bulldoze is nice against the team flare's poison pokes.

as for stab: rock tomb and aerial ace are both 60 bp stab at at time in the game when that's totally respectable. later on aerial ace is boosted by tough claws. they do fine til fly/rock slide hm/tm aerial ace is fine for ramos, resisting jumpluff's acrobatics is super cool too. aerial ace is also nice for korrinna, her pokemon aren't so amazing

i concede avalugg since i wasn't thinking abt the fact that it could set up on you as you do damage and wait for aero to die so you can finish it off. so its probably more than a 4hko you're right. in any case i don't think 1 poke matters much for tiering.

the tms aero gets are in its stabs when it needs them and bulldoze. that's pretty nice since its stabs are great and bulldoze covers what its stabs don't. yeah if aero had an amazing level up movepool it wouldn't matter but as it is it does matter and it makes aero very strong in game. i guess aero makes a fine user of return too but honestly i didn't use that cause its stabs were usually better

• That's the point- 60 bp is fine until clemont, then you begin to see its effects. Mega compensates somewhat, but the fact that until Waterfall(which is veryyyyyy late) you are stuck with your strongest move as a two turn(also, tough claws bulldoze is still only 72 bp). This lack of powerful attacks(except a two turn move) and the horrendous time from getting it to grant is what stop it from S. Lategame, however, it is one of the best in the game, but we're not tiering JUST late game.

 

[Chou Toshio]

I would be fine seeing Chomp in A (but then Azum REALLY needs to be in S-- or Azum + Lucario should be SSS lol).

There is no question at all that Gible could almost solo the game from the point in time you get it. It does need a tiny bit of babying at first, and it will always be under-leveled, but as mentioned, there will never be an opponent that isn't something of a joke in front of Gabite -> Garchomp, it gets all the tools it needs, and is without a doubt the best Ground type in XY in-game (where Ground is a type you almost always want to have.

 

[orkid]

litleo: i agree with most of your account of the experience of using litleo and its strengths and weaknesses Its_A_Random but i guess I have a different interpretation of them. First my experience was a little different in that litleo did a decent job against clemont since it was evolved by then and heliolisk has dry skin which means I OHKOed, I would guess that would be common unless your ivs are bad or something. Also I don't really agree with you saying its total shit til it evolves - even off its low attack, headbutt and return are nice and between them and ember/fire fang you're 2-3hkoing most things. by the time return is really getting old, the game gives you ramos' gym to train litleo up relatively easily in. even if you're not evolved (which i agree you won't be with a team of 6) by the time you actually battle ramos himself, you're doing decent damage agaisnt him (you need to heal after jumpluff to take on gogoat). Then you can battle a few easier team flare trainers in teh power plant, wait 1 level to evolve so you get flamethrower at 36, and you're really pretty golden. With 1 (or 2 if you get unlucky I guess) potions you also beat Viola. In general what you describe is what I expect of a C tier pokemon - beat 1 gym handily (Wulfric) and contribute in several other major battles. If a pokemon can solo 2 gyms without potions at all it starting to look like B tier to me. Litleo is nice because if you choose froakie or chespin, like i did, its a handy way to beat some of what they're weak to early game. Is it the best way, no. I also don't know why Litleo is just a waste of time against Malva, like yes there are better ways to beat Malva, but if you want to use Litleo on your team then it can at least help you against her pretty well, especially if you don't have a water or ground type poke, which i agree is not common, but which we also can't assume.

Finally, what C tier pokemon is doing much better than litleo when its on a 6 pokemon team? Here I'm theorizing but Throh and Snorlax, who are like high c tier, have lots of trouble soloing any gym or E4 battle without potions because they are slow. Most of the normal types (so definitely Furfrou but also better ones like Miltank and probably Tauros) have trouble in game becuase fighting is pretty common and they don't have SE stabs and there's no notable ghost type trainer. Being able to hit Valeria's mawile SE was very nice for me at least since it is immune to poison and not weak to steel, so you kinda need to take it on with a different poke than sylveon and mr. mime. Fletchingly is maybe the only one who seems like clearly better than litleo to me, but it is probably less useful or at least more risky late game. I dunno I could be overvaluing litleo cause it was my usually my best bet against steel and ice type pokes in game. At the same time I really don't see why your tone has to go to "let me spell it out for you" or "Siebold: Give me one good reason why Pyroar should not get slaughtered here." or why you're putting dumb arguments in my mouth (at the tips of my fingers?).When did I say omg my lileo had hp grass and it got 8 critical hits in a row with it after i used work up 10 times and so i beat siebold? I never talked abt eviolite or work up, which I didn't use on litleo since indeed they aren't very helpful for it. In the end we are disagreeing about 1 level of tier difference for 1 pokemon probably partly because I used that pokemon and found it helpful, and you're theorizing about it, which gives you more distance to judge but perhaps less specific information and probably partly because I expect a little less from C tier pokemon than you and have a different interpretation of litleo's value.

in my experience aerodactyl's slump was not as big of a deal for me as it sound like it was for you desertspirit. You say 'that's the point'- but I'm not sure what point you mean since my general claim was Aero is S tier. I think maybe you mean that it doesn't get its STABS by level up, but I don't really see the problem when it gets them by tm and learns bite, crunch and iron head by level up, which is just lovely with its stabs. Oh and one tm i forgot that's nifty for aero early on is rock smash but that's a small point in any case. i haven't used charmander but aero's slump seems comparable to the brief period of time in which Charmeleon's early attacks are weakening and it hasn't yet got its better attacks. its just strong enough to beat most things and if you need a boost you get toughclaws aerial ace, which is almost as strong as non-megaevo fly, which means the megaevo fixes most of aero's midgame issues. you get fly at Couramine, which is before Clemont, which is pretty early for a 90bp move even if it is 2 turns. in any case I think that the fact that its fully evolved at level 20 when you get it, and learns 2 stab moves by tm almost immediately after getting it is awesome. once aero gets a tiny bit less awesome it gets a megaevo whose aerial ace and then almost immediately after fly are very strong. it is also is so fast and has such a good offensive typing that aero functions as an incredibly good insurance policy - getting you out of many tough spots. To me that's S tier. bulldoze, btw doesn't get boosted by toughclaws cause it isn't a contact move so that's a point for you i guess. like i dunno no you don't get to enjoy aero's rock type stab that much in the late-middle of the game, and you mighthave to sometimes choose between using fly or megaevolving and using aerial ace i guess or megaevolving and using fly in like a dire situation which never happened to me or i can't remember if it did. the point is aero is solid when you get it, and then gets a nuke in fly at the 4th gym. its an annoying nuke, but its still a nuke. plus you have bulldoze for some juicy coverage. and then rock slide for the end. in my experience all that made aero the pokemon that made me know i'm not going black out in most big fights, when the lower tier pokes i was using were struggling

 

[DesertSpirit]

litleo: i agree with most of your account of the experience of using litleo and its strengths and weaknesses Its_A_Random but i guess I have a different interpretation of them. First my experience was a little different in that litleo did a decent job against clemont since it was evolved by then and heliolisk has dry skin which means I OHKOed, I would guess that would be common unless your ivs are bad or something. Also I don't really agree with you saying its total shit til it evolves - even off its low attack, headbutt and return are nice and between them and ember/fire fang you're 2-3hkoing most things. by the time return is really getting old, the game gives you ramos' gym to train litleo up relatively easily in. even if you're not evolved (which i agree you won't be with a team of 6) by the time you actually battle ramos himself, you're doing decent damage agaisnt him (you need to heal after jumpluff to take on gogoat). Then you can battle a few easier team flare trainers in teh power plant, wait 1 level to evolve so you get flamethrower at 36, and you're really pretty golden. With 1 (or 2 if you get unlucky I guess) potions you also beat Viola. In general what you describe is what I expect of a C tier pokemon - beat 1 gym handily (Wulfric) and contribute in several other major battles. If a pokemon can solo 2 gyms without potions at all it starting to look like B tier to me. Litleo is nice because if you choose froakie or chespin, like i did, its a handy way to beat some of what they're weak to early game. Is it the best way, no. I also don't know why Litleo is just a waste of time against Malva, like yes there are better ways to beat Malva, but if you want to use Litleo on your team then it can at least help you against her pretty well, especially if you don't have a water or ground type poke, which i agree is not common, but which we also can't assume.

Finally, what C tier pokemon is doing much better than litleo when its on a 6 pokemon team? Here I'm theorizing but Throh and Snorlax, who are like high c tier, have lots of trouble soloing any gym or E4 battle without potions because they are slow. Most of the normal types (so definitely Furfrou but also better ones like Miltank and probably Tauros) have trouble in game becuase fighting is pretty common and they don't have SE stabs and there's no notable ghost type trainer. Being able to hit Valeria's mawile SE was very nice for me at least since it is immune to poison and not weak to steel, so you kinda need to take it on with a different poke than sylveon and mr. mime. Fletchingly is maybe the only one who seems like clearly better than litleo to me, but it is probably less useful or at least more risky late game. I dunno I could be overvaluing litleo cause it was my usually my best bet against steel and ice type pokes in game. At the same time I really don't see why your tone has to go to "let me spell it out for you" or "Siebold: Give me one good reason why Pyroar should not get slaughtered here." or why you're putting dumb arguments in my mouth (at the tips of my fingers?).When did I say omg my lileo had hp grass and it got 8 critical hits in a row with it after i used work up 10 times and so i beat siebold? I never talked abt eviolite or work up, which I didn't use on litleo since indeed they aren't very helpful for it. In the end we are disagreeing about 1 level of tier difference for 1 pokemon probably partly because I used that pokemon and found it helpful, and you're theorizing about it, which gives you more distance to judge but perhaps less specific information and probably partly because I expect a little less from C tier pokemon than you and have a different interpretation of litleo's value.

in my experience aerodactyl's slump was not as big of a deal for me as it sound like it was for you desertspirit. You say 'that's the point'- but I'm not sure what point you mean since my general claim was Aero is S tier. I think maybe you mean that it doesn't get its STABS by level up, but I don't really see the problem when it gets them by tm and learns bite, crunch and iron head by level up, which is just lovely with its stabs. Oh and one tm i forgot that's nifty for aero early on is rock smash but that's a small point in any case. i haven't used charmander but aero's slump seems comparable to the brief period of time in which Charmeleon's early attacks are weakening and it hasn't yet got its better attacks. its just strong enough to beat most things and if you need a boost you get toughclaws aerial ace, which is almost as strong as non-megaevo fly, which means the megaevo fixes most of aero's midgame issues. you get fly at Couramine, which is before Clemont, which is pretty early for a 90bp move even if it is 2 turns. in any case I think that the fact that its fully evolved at level 20 when you get it, and learns 2 stab moves by tm almost immediately after getting it is awesome. once aero gets a tiny bit less awesome it gets a megaevo whose aerial ace and then almost immediately after fly are very strong. it is also is so fast and has such a good offensive typing that aero functions as an incredibly good insurance policy - getting you out of many tough spots. To me that's S tier. bulldoze, btw doesn't get boosted by toughclaws cause it isn't a contact move so that's a point for you i guess. like i dunno no you don't get to enjoy aero's rock type stab that much in the late-middle of the game, and you mighthave to sometimes choose between using fly or megaevolving and using aerial ace i guess or megaevolving and using fly in like a dire situation which never happened to me or i can't remember if it did. the point is aero is solid when you get it, and then gets a nuke in fly at the 4th gym. its an annoying nuke, but its still a nuke. plus you have bulldoze for some juicy coverage. and then rock slide for the end. in my experience all that made aero the pokemon that made me know i'm not going black out in most big fights, when the lower tier pokes i was using were struggling

Iron head is move relearner which is just before rock slide. Bite AND crunch should be JUST crunch, because, well, crunch is just a slightly better bite. Aerial Ace is your strongest one turn option, and is only 90 bp WITH stab. Compare this with other S tiers like Charmander, that get a very powerful ONE TURN stab option (flame burst) that aerodactyl will have to wait until waterfall to (additionally, charmander gets flamethrower before aerodactyl will be at the level it'll be at whem you get rock slide)

Also, you say excellent offensive typing; honestly it's decent offensive one and two bad defensive types until you get rock slide.

Tough Claws crunch is 96 power. I don't have any idea where you got 106.4 from.

Lastly, you said lower tier pokes were struggling; well they're lower tier for a reason! That doesn't make sense, I could argue "Charmander is S because it did better than litleo". Not a valid argument.

 

[DesertSpirit]

I'm not sure if I'm willing to argue this much more. Aerodactyl is A tier.

 

[DesertSpirit]

On an unrelated note, It's_A_Random, can you take a look at my post on helioptile?

 

[Lucchini]

80 x 1,33 = 106,4