I'm severely against that.
Chuck tops at Lv. 30. Pryce at Lv. 33. Jasmine at 35.
Quilava evolves at 36.
Overleveling when evaluating a mon is just something I cannot agree with because honestly, what's the point? Pretty much anything can put in work with 7 levels' worth of candy backing it up to shoot past leaders levels.
Also, blatant favoritism and resource cost. Definitely wouldn't raise a tier based on that.
Just to clarify because I said I'd test out Vaporeon soon, I'll be rolling with a team of 6, but I'll grind if necessary to be on par with Leaders levels.
Can confirm. You'll be fine up to Ecruteak, but when the route splits, you'll be starved for Exp because of the level curve going bananas.
1. how is it overleveling if quilava massively benefits from the rare candies relative to other pokemon? it's not like furret or starmie would significantly improve with six rare candies, whereas this is a
literal game-changer for quilava users. the option should at least be considered.
2.
name another pokemon that can ''put in work with 7 levels' worth of candy backing it up'' like typhlosion...from the a tier. most of your a-tier normal types, ursaring and miltank included, will have issues against chuck and jasmine. the nidoran line has no safe matchups outside of jasmine and team rocket around this point in the game, and typhlosion would be far more efficient against both as well as chuck and pryce (pryce can't hit you super effectively at all, and chuck takes more damage from a typhlo t-punch than from a king t-punch). red gyarados might have issues with jasmine's magnemites and have issues breaking through chuck and pryce while also bogging your team down with a slow exp pokemon. the geodudes too have issues with jasmine, chuck, and pryce - they're flat out not great at this point in the game with few exceptions.
not only does typhlosion outdo all of those a-tier mons around this specific part of the game, typhlosion also has advantages in the early game (sprout tower to bugsy) and the late game (has solid matches against will, koga, karen, and even lance and does nicely in kanto). cyndaquil, being your starter, will likely be in your team the entire time and will be soaking up experience like a sponge, compared to those other pokemon who will very likely need some initial training to be ready for prime time. yes, that includes teddiursa, who catching alone is a bit of a hurdle.
only a handful of current a-tier pokemon can rival cyndaquil in this aspect, such as mareep, the legendary pokemon in the tier, abra (no trade - should be in s anyway imho), and psyduck. my point is, cyndaquil's only ''weak point'' in the game can be rectified by rare candies,
allowing cyndaquil to shine from beginning to end. this is
not an advantage most other pokemon can claim to possess, most of whom either appear a lot later than quil does to be of as much use or suck up exp (legendary birds, normals, and red gyarados - doesn't help these are largely slow exp growth pokemon) or who simply aren't as good at gym matchups around that time (geodude, nidoran, and normals).
in fact, given that the normals are
worse than a rare candied cyndaquil...perhaps that alone is an argument for cyndaquil rising or them falling.
Want to second this. Rare Candy favoritism generally shouldn't be considered for these lists, especially not an insane 6 Rare Candies. At that point the overcompensation speaks for itself.
I'm not familiar with GSC, but Quilava sounds like a huge damper on Cyndaquil's viabilty. And really, even once you get Typhlosion, it then only beats like...Koga and maybe a couple Fire weak mons lategame? Dunno if Gyarados may live Thunderpunch or no (remember it has 100 Special Defense and you are likely underleveled).
1. why not? if some pokemon benefit a lot more from the rare candy use, why should that
not be considered? rare candies transform quilava from a meh pokemon into a powerhouse (typhlosion) in merely
6 levels (could even be 5). few other pokemon have this thing going on, with slowpoke to slowbro being the next best exception. think of it as a way to patch up for quilava's weak point in the game.
also, are you
not overcompensating every time you take in a relatively low level, slow exp growth pokemon like tauros or miltank - one that hits almost no gyms for no super effective damage on its stab attack or strongest stat (short of x accuracy iron tail strats) - and then
training them to the point they're level with the rest of your team? at the cost of sacrificing lots of exp points you could've dedicated to other pokemon, and hence preventing a more efficient in-game run? cyndaquil is actually useful against sprout tower, can beat falkner, and beats bugsy. tauros is flat out worthless against morty, subpar against jasmine, okay against pryce, and - depending on rng - not too good against chuck.
2. typhlosion doesn't just beat koga. he can beat will by thunderpunching the xatus and slowbro as well as fire punching the exeggutor and jynx. he can beat karen's vileplume with fire punch, murkrow with thunderpunch, and gengar goes down easy to fire punches too. he can indeed beat gyarados with thunderpunch (it will take two but in my experience gyarados has never stopped me from doing that, even underleveled) and beat lance's charizard with thunderpunch. in other words, typhlosion can hit like 3/5 of the elite five for super effective damage, more or less.
