In Game Tiering Threads List

[DHR-107]

At this point I would prefer to complete the closest to being finished lists before we open any new ones. Especially with Gen 8 just around the corner.

Most specifically:

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...emerald-in-game-tier-list-discussion.3609130/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/pokémon-x-y-in-game-tier-list-discussion-mkii.3517128/
If we ever manage to complete the XY one it'll be a miracle, but IAR is finalizing placements and we're going pretty well. Merritt is doing a phenomenal job with the RSE one too! If anyone would like to contribute to those, please go ahead. Quicker they get done, the sooner we can look at revamping others.

 

[TheGamer7777]

Okay, that is more than fair. I might look into contributing for the Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald Tiers, but I don't have anywhere near the experience or desire to do so for Gen 6. Will also consider it for Gen 8 when that finally gets released. Specifically I was interested in FireRed because I have a lot of experience with it.

 

[bdt2002]

A few things I wanted to bring up despite the unfortunate inactivity of this thread (not an issue):

1. Still no sign of a FRLG revamp as far as I can see, unless I scrolled over something. Testing would give me a reason to play FireRed on my DS Lite, so that's a plus. I'm not sure how I could do this on my own, but I'd even go as far as putting myself in charge of the thread. Other games that I think need more attention include Let's Go, the GameCube saga, and maaaybe the original Gen 1 games. (To Be Edited Later)

2. This is more of a personal interest based idea than anything, but considering I've always had a bit of a hobby in comparing the various in-game metas anyway, I think it would be a cool idea for a thread to have all of each game's supposed top tiers compared to one another. Like, say, comparing RB Nidoran-M to DPP Starly and XY Riolu/Lucario, and things like that. Or maybe some lists could have special criteria for an "SS Tier". Or just...something among those lines to get discussions stirring. I remember being a part of a forgotten thread on OI regarding the best and worst in-game mons ever, and I think we could bring that idea back as a seperate, miscellaneous tier list somehow. I would love to try and make that.

 

[Turdterra]

A few things I wanted to bring up despite the unfortunate inactivity of this thread (not an issue):

1. Still no sign of a FRLG revamp as far as I can see, unless I scrolled over something. Testing would give me a reason to play FireRed on my DS Lite, so that's a plus. I'm not sure how I could do this on my own, but I'd even go as far as putting myself in charge of the thread. Other games that I think need more attention include Let's Go, the GameCube saga, and maaaybe the original Gen 1 games. (To Be Edited Later)

2. This is more of a personal interest based idea than anything, but considering I've always had a bit of a hobby in comparing the various in-game metas anyway, I think it would be a cool idea for a thread to have all of each game's supposed top tiers compared to one another. Like, say, comparing RB Nidoran-M to DPP Starly and XY Riolu/Lucario, and things like that. Or maybe some lists could have special criteria for an "SS Tier". Or just...something among those lines to get discussions stirring. I remember being a part of a forgotten thread on OI regarding the best and worst in-game mons ever, and I think we could bring that idea back as a seperate, miscellaneous tier list somehow. I would love to try and make that.

It's been established that DHR wants the ones he listed done first. Those being RSE and XY.

 

[Hiddenfreezer]

Do we have a viability ranking for Gen VIII (Sword/Shield) yet? Just want to call an early shot of Arcanine/Growlithe being the highest rank possible in SW/SH.

 

[Its_A_Random]

Do we have a viability ranking for Gen VIII (Sword/Shield) yet? Just want to call an early shot of Arcanine/Growlithe being the highest rank possible in SW/SH.

Not at the present moment. I will say though, that due to the addition of wild areas making so many available so early and raid catches, that Sword/Shield will almost certainly be a mess to tier. Are raids efficient? Are Technical Records efficient? Is watt grinding efficient? Will it be more efficient to do enough raids early on to stomp through the game or do you just play through the game and not bother? I don't have all the answers to this (I definitely would not consider raid catches to be inefficient however), but raids and the wild area open up a rather large can of worms that cannot be ignored when constructing such a list (even if it comes down to lots of Pokémon being tiered in the top two tiers).

 

[Worldie]

I think the biggest questionmark about raids is the fact that they're both relatively random (weather, luck, time of the day all change the spawn) AND can provide gamebreaking effects in candies/TRs.

Considering the time investment for t1 and 2 raids is very small... I think it's something that should be factored in.

 

[Arcanite]

Honestly, with all that randomness, maybe it would make sense to split the tier list in two? One for traditional encounters, and another for wild area encounters? The ln the latter can decide how/whether to factor availability or just performance if you manage to happen to spot it in the wild area?

 

[Worldie]

Honestly, with all that randomness, maybe it would make sense to split the tier list in two? One for traditional encounters, and another for wild area encounters? The ln the latter can decide how/whether to factor availability or just performance if you manage to happen to spot it in the wild area?

Well, the standard WA encounters are somewhat reliable as even in the very first area, there's a significant variety of grass + weather combos, with lot of shared spawns.

 

[Arcanite]

Well, the standard WA encounters are somewhat reliable as even in the very first area, there's a significant variety of grass + weather combos, with lot of shared spawns.

Ah ok, I haven't looked at the tables too closely yet, still finishing off the postgame and prioritizing raids.

 

[Worldie]

Ah ok, I haven't looked at the tables too closely yet, still finishing off the postgame and prioritizing raids.

Well i'm purely talking of the common spawns... from personal experience, it rarely takes more than one lap to at least run into the common vanillite, bunnelby, tyrogue, electrike, wingull, vulpix, etc...

Obviously certain other are harder/rarer to find due to requiring specific combos of area + weather + time of the day, but a significant amount of them is extremely common and would be easy to "tier" due to not requiring any time investment.

 

[Skore]

Well i'm purely talking of the common spawns... from personal experience, it rarely takes more than one lap to at least run into the common vanillite, bunnelby, tyrogue, electrike, wingull, vulpix, etc...

Obviously certain other are harder/rarer to find due to requiring specific combos of area + weather + time of the day, but a significant amount of them is extremely common and would be easy to "tier" due to not requiring any time investment.

Don't forget, changing the date on your switch is relatively quick and painless, allowing you to cycle through whatever weather you like.

 

[Worldie]

Don't forget, changing the date on your switch is relatively quick and painless, allowing you to cycle through whatever weather you like.

It is but I believe such methods of "RNG manipulation" aren't included in ingame-tierlists factors.

 

[Raikaria]

Not at the present moment. I will say though, that due to the addition of wild areas making so many available so early and raid catches, that Sword/Shield will almost certainly be a mess to tier. Are raids efficient? Are Technical Records efficient? Is watt grinding efficient? Will it be more efficient to do enough raids early on to stomp through the game or do you just play through the game and not bother? I don't have all the answers to this (I definitely would not consider raid catches to be inefficient however), but raids and the wild area open up a rather large can of worms that cannot be ignored when constructing such a list (even if it comes down to lots of Pokémon being tiered in the top two tiers).

I would say discount raid farming/Watt farming, since those take time. Basically; ignore TR's.

An In-Game tier list is usually related to an efficient playthrough after all, and farming raids to get Watts and TR's isn't really efficient when you can just grab a Growlithe; grab the Fire Stone and get an absurd relearn set.

 

[Kurona]

I would personally put it under a similar category as Island Scan. You can test them but they won't be on the official list, and at some point it just makes things a bit absurd since the amount of stuff you can get out of the dens (especially when you have access to all of the non-surf ones immediately) is insane. You could get anything from a Gastly to a Giga Butterfree.

 

[Worldie]

You could get anything from a Gastly to a Giga Butterfree.

Well, tecnically the tier 1 raids obtainable early on are just NFE mons. Still a huge variety, but gigamax and most fully evolved mons don't show up until tier 3 raids (which iirc start appearing after 6th gym?)

 

[Kurona]

Well, tecnically the tier 1 raids obtainable early on are just NFE mons. Still a huge variety, but gigamax and most fully evolved mons don't show up until tier 3 raids (which iirc start appearing after 6th gym?)

Fair, I didn't realise that. But I would still compare them to island scan imo

 

[Hugin]

I’d rate TRs as being roughly equivalent to Game Corner TMs. There’s reason to do a quick circuit or two of the dens(sellable items, maybe get a good mon, Watts for the dig duo/better bike/whatever), so you might get a good TR out of that. Failing that, grinding enough to buy the TR outright isn’t exactly hard.

However, it is an investment, and if it’s needed(Coalossal comes to mind, his learnset is awful midgame), that should be taken into account, but that doesn’t mean we should be assuming you’re trying to take a Flame Charge/Rock Blast/SR/Willo Coalossal through the 7th gym when it’s not that hard to get Fire Blast/Rock Blast/High Horsepower/Heavy Slam mostly before gym 4.

Raid mons I’d put at similar to 1% encounters in earlier games. Yes, let’s tier them, but they have to be DAMN good to be worth the trouble over the wide variety already available. (Unless it turns out raids are manipulable somehow, which doesn’t seem out of the question).

Also, when is someone starting the thread? This is really not the place for this discussion, but there’s nowhere else to have it.

 

[Worldie]

I’d rate TRs as being roughly equivalent to Game Corner TMs. There’s reason to do a quick circuit or two of the dens(sellable items, maybe get a good mon, Watts for the dig duo/better bike/whatever), so you might get a good TR out of that. Failing that, grinding enough to buy the TR outright isn’t exactly hard.

Problem is, in pre-postgame, not only you cannot gain enough Watts to really buy anything (i doubt a full lap is even enough to gather 3000 TR), but ALSO the TRs on vendors are randomized so you might not even have them.

I think the RNG factor in both raids and TR (drops as well as buyable) is too big to be rateable honestly.

Different is for Stone evos, as there's both a handful of evo stones available on ground, and dig bros are quite cheap even in pre-postgame.

 

[Kurona]

Evolution stones aren't even terribly hard to find without the Wild Area, either. There's a Leaf Stone directly before the first gym; relevant for Eevee, Gloom and Nuzleaf.

 

[Worldie]

Evolution stones aren't even terribly hard to find without the Wild Area, either. There's a Leaf Stone directly before the first gym; relevant for Eevee, Gloom and Nuzleaf.

I think there's (at least) 1 of each stone (including dusk/ice/dawn/shiny) *somewhere* in the game. I definitely had almost 1 of each before even learning of the existance of the Dig Bros.

 

[LunaStik]

I think there's (at least) 1 of each stone (including dusk/ice/dawn/shiny) *somewhere* in the game. I definitely had almost 1 of each before even learning of the existance of the Dig Bros.

I believe there is one of each in the WA (post gym 3 area, but easily accessible before gym 1), and the common ones all have a second stone on some route (leaf before gym 1, water on route two after water bike, etc).

 

[Lucchini]

I notice there still isn't an ingame tier list thread for Sword/Shield and the attempt to tier Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee also stopped very quickly and abruptly (lots of room to improve that one). Since the old gen threads are still running active, I take it most old-timers joined the protest against the new games and simply chose not to buy them?

 

[Worldie]

Since the old gen threads are still running active, I take it most old-timers joined the protest against the new games and simply chose not to buy them?

No, it's a different issue.

Due to the nature of the encounters in those games (on overworld, you can pick what to use, on top of candies in Let's go and raids in SwSh) it's much more difficult to make a "tierlist" due to the fact honestly everything is usable.

We had some chat about SwSh tierlist, and the biggest barrier to make one is the fact the Wild Area offers an *absurd* amount of pokemon right away, and that's not even factoring time manipulation or raid usage.
Part of the "tiering" system was due to the rarity and position of the pokemon (es, if a pokemon stomps the game but it's a 1% spawn in a backtrack area, say Salamence in USUM), it'd be low tier due to the time investment required. This is nearly nonexistant in SwSh, partly due to overworld encounters (allowing you to see the spawns so not requiring to waste time running in grass), and partly due to the insane amount of available pokemon early in the game, even in the first half of the wild area itself.

 

[Kurona]

Also just generally speaking, the older a game is the more experienced you'll be with it, the more you'll have played it and the more you'll be able to say about it. I can much more easily speak to the effectiveness of Zubat and Magnemite in Emerald than I can Electrike or Sizzlipede in Shield because Emerald has been out for 15 more years.

Personally a factor for me is that I have no idea how I'd approach tiering these recent games with so many factors like the exp share, the new mechanics, the wild area etc. I feel the games have gotten a lot more fluid and less objective -- which is ultimately a good thing, but I don't feel I'd be able to contribute to a tier list the way I enjoy playing the recent games and how these recent games operate.