GSC In-Game Tier List Mk. IV

Status
Not open for further replies.
I'm thinking of testing some combination of these guys:

:gs/bellsprout: :gs/spearow: :gs/wooper::gs/scyther: :gs/growlithe: :gs/meowth: :gs/tauros: :gs/miltank: :gs/flareon: :gs/gyarados: :gs/zubat::gs/sandshrew::gs/chikorita:

Not sure which four to go with though :(

I'm thinking of going Chikorita, Flareon, Wooper, and Scyther.

I'm not sold on Chikorita being C or Flareon being D (or even C). Wooper and Scyther I want to test as Random Passerby brought them up.
 
Last edited:
I chose Chikorita but forgot to write down what happened to the 3rd Rival battle and actually can't remember.
I didn't give it Return or Dig to see how well it does without them. My theory was that it could move to A so I wanted to test it.
10 Rattata beats Falkner with just a Berry. This really impressed me because my last run I had a 9 Onix needing 2 potions and a Berry. I now see how much more important killing Falkner faster is than being able to tank hits better.
16 Rattata sweeps the rival
16 Rattata loses to Scyther taking it down to the red but leaving Scyther in the red doesn't matter when it's stacked Fury Cutters. Using an X Attack on
the Metapod lets you sweep. I don't really see the X Attack as much of a downside here if you plan to teach Rattata Return as it boosts Happiness.
20 Raticate loses to Miltank but beats Clefairy. I did give it Dig to test and it does win, but if you don't get hit by Attract. You're slower than Miltank
25 Raticate 5HKO's Gengar with Mud Slap or 2HKO's with Dig so with a Mint Berry either move should win. You outspeed so it's unlikely you'll be slept. With Dig you don't KO Haunter so you'll need to switch out if you get Cursed. With Mud Slap you get cursed by everything so you need to switch out against everything.
28 Raticate can Can either beat Seel and Dewgong or sometimes Piloswine. You 4HKO it and live Blizzard + another attack but not 2 Blizzard. You also live 3 non Blizzards.
30 Raticate beats Primape but needs 2 dodge 2 Dynamic Punches to beat Poliwrath. I actually had to test this twice because the first time I PP stalled all 5 Dynamic Punches.
30 Raticate 2HKO's Magnemite but if it gets paralyzed it only beats one. It loses to Steelix
32 Raticate sweeps the Rival if it has Dig and still beats Magnemite 1v1 if it doesn't but can no longer sweep everything
36 Raticate 2HKO's Dragonair who 4HKO's back, meaning it's possible to beat all 3 with a berry. Raticate Survives Hyper Beam
and 3HKO's back but will lose to another move then Hyper Beam.
40 Raticate 2HKO's the Xatus and 1HKO's the Jynx. It can't sweep all 3 of these as Xatus Psychic did more than half.
40 Raticate would have swept all except Forretress if it had Return, but it just misses the 2HKO on Crobat, which you now lose to because Koga heals it. You can force Forretress to explode if you really don't have any other pokemon that can handle it.
41 Raticate only beats Hitmontop.
41 Raticate beats everything except Houndoom with Strength. You can't sweep because you take too much chip. It looks like it beats Houndoom
with Return but I can't say for sure.
41 Raticate can beat 1 Gyarados or 47 D Nite

Rattata does great against: Falkner, Bugsy, Rival 2, Whitney if you're female with Dig, Morty, Rival 3, Koga with Return, Karen with Return
Rattata does okay against: Whitney without Dig or as a male, Pryce, Clair, Will, Koga without Return, Karen without Return
Rattata does poorly against: Chuck, Jasmine, Bruno, Lance

Rattata does really needs Return for Crobat and Houndoom and Dig for Miltank and Morty. I don't think it's unreasonable to catch a female pokemon if you want it to 1v1 Miltank and Dig isn't in high demand outside of these 2 gyms as using a 2 turn 60 bp move on routes isn't ideal. Return is very highly demanded and you don't even make use of it until late game because you don't get the Friend Ball Bonus. Rattata will outspeed almost everything, has relatively strong STABs throughout the game and reaches it's final stage at 20, making it a great route Pokemon.

I think Rattata should be A tier, but I think I value availability and how well it handles routes higher than most people. Beating the first 2 gyms with 1 berry and 1 x item is pretty good and it doesn't really fall off that much. Super Fang and Scary Face are great moves to have access to for the Elite 4, because there is nothing that outspeeds and 1HKO's Rattata so it can provide support to any Pokemon your team can't take down, even if it can't beat it 1v1.

16 Odish beats one of Croconaw or Ghastly but not both and loses to Zubat.
16 Odish can Stun Spore Scyther but fort Metapod you need to kill it with Poison Powder if it also wants to beat Kakuna as you need 19 absorbs for it. I realized now I don't know if you can get Cut before Bugsy but if you can you don't need to Poison Powder Metapod. Yes I think Cut is a viable move for Odish and this is the first of many times Odish can do something if you have the patience.
20 Odish beat Miltank from full 2/4 times. Both losses were due to Attract and in one win I used all 20 Absorbs and needed Cut to finish it off.
25 Bellossom loses to the 23 Haunter even if you're at full and not cursed. You'll lose to Gengar without awakenings because absorb took off the smallest amount of HP that can be displayed. You shouldn't evolve Bellossom this early, I only did to test the fight and reloaded the save. Bellossom can't learn Sludge Bomb.
28 Bellossom solos Pryce, you can even miss some Sleep Powders. You just barely survive 2 Blizzards. X accuracy would be great here.
30 Bellossom sweeps Chuck if you hit 3/5 Sleep Powders. Bitter Berry or X Accuracy help here. You're faster than Poliwrath but not Primape.
30 Bellossom can beat both Magnemites, because Absorb has 20 PP and they are 6HKO's It also beats Steelix if it doesn't screech or get a drop on you. Iron Tail doesn't 2HKO and after the Hyper Potion 17 Absorbs is all you need to take down Steelix. an X accuracy is highly reccomended.
32 Bellossom beats the Rivals Feraligatr and Sneasel well enough and very slowly takes down Golbat and Magnemite. You lose to Haunter even from full.
36 Bellossom can only take down 2 of the Dragonair thanks to it's speed. If it has full health it 9HKO's Kingdra while surviving 2 Hyper Potions but you sometimes miss too many Sleep Powders if it uses too many Smokescreens. I want to guess Bellossom is favored but I think it should be really close to 50%.
38 Bellossom needs Return to beat the Rivals Golbat but beats everything else 1v1. It doesn't sweep the rest because it's too slow and get worn down.

40 Bellossom can sweep everything except Jynx if you hit all your Sleep Powders. Realistically you should count on it taking down 2 or 3.
40 Bellossom needs Return to beat Venomoth and Ariados before it Baton Passes its evasion.
40 Bellossom sweeps all except Machamp if you don't miss, and Hitmontop only uses Quick Attack so it's easy to use an X Accuracy.
41 Bellossom can beat 1 of Murkrow, Gengar or Umbreon. I couldn't beat Vileplume but it was night time and I think I would have if Moon Light didn't heal it so much.
41 Bellossom can miss a Sleep Powder on Gyarados and still beat it but needs to hit the Sleep Powder to beat Aerodactyl. You can live a hit from the 47 Dragonites to Sleep Powder and have it sleep long enough to 4HKO but it's unreliable.

Bellossom does great against Whitney if you're female, Pryce, Chuck, Rival 5, Will, Machamp
Bellossom does okay against Jasmine, Rival 4, Clair
Bellossom does poorly against Bugsy, Rival 2, Whitney if you're male, Morty, Rival 3, Koga, Karen. Lance[/SPOILER]

Bellossom should move to D. Bellossom loses more major battles then it wins, which isn't too bad to be C rank but it's route performance is one of the worst in the game. It doesn't learn Swift or Headbutt so you either give it Return, which isn't even better than Cut for a while. Even after getting Sludge Bomb you'll face many pokemon who take more damage from Cut. With Base 50 speed you're slower than so many opponents and because it takes multiple attacks to take down anything not weak to Absorb you end up Sleep Powdering so many route trainers, slowing it down even more or else getting too chipped to fight many trainers.

It's not even clear that it's good to evolve Gloom before the Elite 4. You gain noticable bulk but 40 to 50 base speed doesn't help as much as you'd want it to. You gain 5 special attack and 15 attack but lose STAB on Sludge Bomb. Poison typing is also a benefit defensively which is very noticable against the Goldenrod Rockets.

25 Sudowoodo is slower than all of Morty's Pokemon, getting cursed making you switch out each time. Rock Throw doesn't even KO Ghastly but Dig 1HKO's the Haunters. Dig 2HKO's Gengar so with a Mint Berry you're favored.
28 Sudowoodo can either beat Seel and Dewgong. You just barely miss out on the 3HKO on Piloswine but another level or 2 should fix that. Even as a 3HKO you lose to 2 Blizzards or 1 Blizzard and 2 Icy Winds and are slower after an Icy Wind so it isn't reliable.
30 Sudowoodo beats Primape unless it crits 2 Karate Chops which happened to me. It surprised me by barely living a Surf but Strength is a 4HKO.
30 Sudowoodo beats both Magnemites with dig but with Low Kick if you're paralyzed you'll only beat 1. Loses to Steelix
32 Sudowoodo loses to the rivals Feralligatr but solos the rest.
36 Sudowoodo can beat both non Surf Dragonair with a PRZcure berry. The first one is the surf one so you don't have to worry about guessing the right one. Loses to Kingdra
38 Sudowoodo still loses to the rivals Feralligatr but solos the rest.

40 Sudowoodo can beat 1 Xatu or Jynx, taking over half from Psychic.
40 Sudowoodo beats all of Koga 1v1 but with how much status and chip you should only count on it beating 2-3.
41 Sudowoodo beats Hitmontop but needs full HP to beat Onix if it Earthquakes trice, which isn't common
41 Sudowoodo beats all of Karen 1v1 except Vileplume needing full health for Houndoom. It's only going to beat 2/3 that aren't Houndoom, taking too much chip to beat them all.
41 Sudowoodo can beat one of Charizard or Aerodactyl, taking too much damage to beat both.

Sudowoodo does great against: Rival 4. Rival 5, Koga, Karen
Sudowoodo does okay against: Morty, Pryce, Clair.
Sudowoodo does poorly against: Chuck, Jasmine, Will, Bruno, Lance

Sudowoodo should also move down to D. If it was just major battles I would say C but routes push it down to D. I admit I play on emulator and speed up so I don't use repels but Sudowoodo will often be too slow to run away from wild Pokemon. This means it's usally moving second even in route battles and with it's bad SpD takes a lot of damage on routes. You're also more prone to being statused, the worst example was my 32 Sudowoodo who was at full had to switch out against a level 23 Zubat who took me down to 25% with confusion and flinches. It really wants Dig for Morty and Jasmine's Magnemites, which can really hurt to not have against Whitney. It also really wants Earthquake which is a valuable tm to use on such a slow Pokemon.

36 Octillery can beat 2 Dragonair that don't have Thunderbolt or beat Kingdra with full health.
38 Octillery beats all of Rival 5, including Magneton. If someone else beats Magneton you'll sweep the others.
40 Octillery can beat all of Will's Pokemon except Jynx and Exeggutor, just barely missing the 1HKO on Jynx with return. Another level should fix that. It takes too much damage because it moves second to beat more than 1 thing though.
40 Octillery beats everything 1v1 and can often sweep all except Venomoth. It depends how the status and accuracy is.
41 Octillery beats all except Machamp 1v1 but won't beat more than 1 or 2 due to your speed.
41 Octillery beats 2 of Umbreon, Murkrow and Gengar, beating all 3 if you're lucky. It just barely doesn't KO Houndoom who 1HKO's back.
41 Octillery beats Aerodactyl, beats Blizzard Dragonite and Charizard and loses to othes. It can beat 2/3 without healing. With Blizzard it would beat any of the Dragonites

Remoraid does great against: Clair, Rival 5, Koga
Remoraid does okay against:Bruno, Karen, Lance
Remoraid does poorly against: Will

Remoraid should move down to D for the same reason as the others. It's speed. It only has 5 less base speed than Bellossom but because it's caught later it has 49 speed at 40 while Bellossom has 64. The only things it's faster than in the Elite 4 are Slowbro, Onix and Ariados, and it only beats 2 of those. It also really wants Return for coverage against water types because it doesn't learn Headbutt or Strength. It's better at routes than my other D rank nominations and has better matchups, but you don't get it until Clair.

Also, I know it probably looks bad for me to do a run with 4 Pokemon and want them all to move, especially because I'm new to the thread but I chose these 4 specifically because I wanted to make the nominations. I wanted to test them first and would have originally only nominated Sudowoodo to C but didn't realize how bad being so slow is.

Edit to not double post:

I'm thinking of testing some combination of these guys:

:gs/bellsprout: :gs/spearow: :gs/wooper::gs/scyther: :gs/growlithe: :gs/meowth: :gs/tauros: :gs/miltank: :gs/flareon: :gs/gyarados: :gs/zubat::gs/sandshrew::gs/chikorita:

Not sure which four to go with though :(

I'm thinking of going Chikorita, Flareon, Wooper, and Scyther.

I'm not sold on Chikorita being C or Flareon being D (or even C). Wooper and Scyther I want to test as Random Passerby brought them up.
If you're taking requests I'd like to see Scyther with Return, although obviously Flareon needs it more for this team.
 
Last edited:
If you're taking requests I'd like to see Scyther with Return, although obviously Flareon needs it more for this team.
Scyther, Typhlosion, Quagsire, and Raticate it is then!

I really didn't plan on testing Typhlosion again, I just wanted to make sure my team had good diversity and wanted to avoid overleveling early.
 
Last edited:
Scyther, Typhlosion, Quagsire, and Victreebel it is then!

I really didn't plan on testing Typhlosion again, I just wanted to make sure my team had good diversity and wanted to avoid overleveling early.
I'd rather you take Chikorita and leave Victrebeel to me. You must have had hundreds of Typhlosion tests by this point lol.

I'll be testing Meowth, Victrebeel, Gengar, and Raikou. (I imagine a painful Azalea Silver fight. Geodude will be used to cheese Falkner and Bugsy if necessary). I'll post the logs on Thursday or Friday. Busy week at school before the Chinese New Year.
 
Last edited:
I'd rather you take Chikorita and leave Victrebeel to me. You must have had hundreds of Typhlosion tests by this point lol.
Tbh I just want to test Scyther and Wooper as part of a balanced 4-mon team. Totodile would be repeating a Water-type and I would like to test Fury Cutter Chikorita, which would clash with Scyther whom I also want the move for. Cyndaquil and Raticate add diversity.

Victreebel's all yours - I think I'd like to test Chikorita later on, not really now.
 

atsync

Where the "intelligence" of TRAINERS is put to the test!
is a Pokemon Researcheris a Contributor to Smogon
I was going to respond to some of the stuff Random Passerby listed in this post, and I'm still going to, but before I do that I want to talk about some other stuff that I feel needs some significant adjustment with this list.

I want to talk about the current A-tier, and why I don't like it.

A Tier:
- Abra (No Trade)
- Gastly (Trade)
- Geodude (Trade)
- Geodude (No Trade)
- Gyarados (Red)
- Ho-oh (G)
- Lugia (S)
- Magmar (GS)
- Mareep (GS)
- Miltank
- Nidoran F
- Nidoran M
- Psyduck
- Suicune (C)
- Tauros
- Teddiursa (C)
- Wooper

So, as some of you might be aware, I was a pretty active "tester" during the previous thread for this list, to the point that I've basically used every single Johto Pokemon in Gold/Silver. I didn't test Ditto, Smeargle or Unown since I know that they are awful, and all of my testing was done in Gold and Silver so there are some things in Crystal like Cubone that I haven't really looked at. I don't mean to pretend that I know everything or that my opinion is the most important or whatever, but I think I was able to get a decent feel for which Pokemon are good and bad for in-game runs, and what niches certain things might be able to fill.

So when I look at the current A-tier and consider my own experiences with them from playing the game...A-tier just feels like a mess, and I don't think all of those Pokemon really belong together. I do think most of these Pokemon are technically "good", but I think there are a handful of Pokemon that stand out from the rest that aren't quite good enough for S-tier, but are good enough to belong in a tier above the rest, who probably belong more in B-tier or possibly lower. I personally think that A-tier needs to be much smaller and more exclusive that what is listed here at the moment.

To go through them one by one:

Abra (no trade)

I strongly disagree with this placement because as far as I'm concerned, Abra is S-tier regardless of whether you can evolve it or not. That's not to say that trade vs. no trade doesn't make a difference - in my experience there were a handful of times where Kadabra's slightly lower power or bulk came into play - but an untraded Abra is still far better than any other Pokemon in the game aside from Totodile and Alakazam itself, and enough so to place it in S-tier above the rest in my opinion.

Note that my personal philosophy re: distinguishing between trade vs. no trade is that it should only be done if either:
  • Trading for the final form is sufficient of an improvement to better its tier placement
  • Trading has a significant impact on how the Pokemon functions
Gastly would be a good example of such a Pokemon since the lack of elemental punches on Haunter makes it much worse and forces it to use different strategies (more reliance on the one-time Shadow Ball TM, Rain Dance + Thunder, etc.). But I don't think Abra really fits this description at all.

I propose that the Abra (no trade) listing be deleted, and the Abra (trade) entry be changed to just "Abra" to cover both. But if both entries MUST be included, move the untraded entry to S-tier alongside the trade one.

Gastly (trade)

I agree with dropping this down, probably to C-tier. Gengar is pretty strong but getting to that point in incredibly burdensome due to Gastly's lack of power. Gastly has some niche uses with Curse in some match-ups and Hypnosis is clutch sometimes, and Ghost/Poison is an excellent defensive typing early-game, but Lick is just too low in power and PP for Gastly to be especially helpful in getting you through the first half of Johto quickly and efficiently.

Geodude

I have flip-flopped on this one a few times but I currently feel that A-tier is a bit generous. Geodude is quite polarizing in its performance, and if you were ranking it only on its early-game performance then it would be a comfortable A-tier Pokemon (I think its match-ups during this time are technically positive although not exactly consistent in some cases). But once you get past Ecruteak, Geodude's performance is not really that impressive - it's slow, has troublesome weaknesses and match-ups, and frankly isn't really THAT powerful (Dig isn't really that strong in the long-run, especially for a 2-turn move, Magnitude is inconsistent, Rock Throw is weak and inaccurate, but I guess Strength is ok and Earthquake will eventually arrive?). Like, if Geodude wasn't available during the first half of the game it would be a C-tier a best (I mean at least it has all those Poison-types from Team Rocket to bully), so I feel that if you are assessing Geodude's contributions through-out the whole game and not just the parts where it's actually great I think B-tier is probably a better fit.

From my own testing I don't feel that strongly about splitting Geodude's entries by trade. Golem is a slight improvement but I don't think it really addresses Geodude's issues in the same way that Gengar addresses Gastly's faults. Due to its polarising typing, Geodude is a Pokemon that functions more on how its stats are distributed rather than what the actual numbers are. I would probably just combine them, just like Abra.

Red Gyarados

I support this staying in A-tier despite its "late" appearance. While its physical move pool is slightly narrow and its SpA is disappointing, I think its high catch level and overall stats, strong immediate move options and utility, and its status as a GUARANTEED encounter with high DVs push it above the other non-starter Water-type options like Lapras and co.. Note that while I normally have a bit of a distaste for ranking things highly purely on HM compatibility, Gyarados is able to learn all 3 Water HMs, and I think that I noteworthy simply because many of the other "decent/good" Waters actually can't learn Waterfall in gen 2, including Feraligatr, Lapras, Tentacruel, Slowbro/king and Quagsire. The fact that it provides this perk while still being a battle-worthy Pokemon that is a guaranteed encounter and that requires minimal investment is just a great niche and one I can't understate in its usefulness.

Ho-oh (G)/Lugia (S)/Suicune (C)

Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but...I don't think these Pokemon are good enough for A-tier, and this was before people started proposing that we exclude Kanto (which I agree with). For me, it's a matter of "too little too late". They miss out on so much of the game and do require a bit of a side-track (admittedly not a huge one in relation to what you might have to go through in later generations), and to be perfectly honest I don't think that the power they offer is all that much of an upgrade from what you might expect from a player's current team by the time they gain the ability to catch them. Generally the value they offer will increase if you are using a larger team with lower levels or a team of inferior Pokemon, but if you are using a "standard" team of something like Feraligatr/Kadabra/Fearow/Gyarados then the side-track mostly just feels wasteful.

I do think they are still good enough for B-tier since technically they ARE guaranteed to do something useful against the Elite 4 (or Clair, assuming you are comfortable trying to catch them without the Master Ball).

Magmar (GS)

More than happy for GS Magmar to stay in A-tier although it is maybe the most borderline of the Pokemon that I think should qualify. This is basically Cyndaquil on steroids, gaining all its good moves way faster and not having to bother with Rollout, Fury Cutter or other inconsistent gimmicks to pretend that its better in match-ups than it actually is like Cyndaquil has to. Gaining Flamethrower at level 41 is a massive boon too, and makes up for the lower SpA it had compared to Typhlosion most of the time. It does have a few troublesome match-ups though (although technically I think it has more positive than negative) and it will require a brief grind, although catching Magmar and getting it from level 16 is less time consuming that grinding a Tauros.

Mareep

Another Pokemon that I support staying in A-tier due to its early availability, fast growth rate and evolutions, good move pool and solid overall match-ups. Fire/Electric coverage is really good in this game and Mareep is one of the best options for providing it. Main issues are a lack of Speed and the brief Tackle period at the start.

Miltank/Tauros

Have already said my piece on these guys but basically I don't think they are enough going for them to be placed above the other Normal-types. I would drop both of them to B-tier for now.

Nidoran-F/Nidoran-M

I don't think these are quite good enough for A-tier either. They are decent, highly splash-able Pokemon due to their move pools and balanced stats, but the lack of strong STAB for most of the game (still no Dig for them), the annoying back-track for the Moon Stone, and the rather shaky Johto match-ups hurt them quite a bit (although massive shout-out to Double Kick as anti-Miltank tech).

Psyduck

Eh...this is a good Water-type mostly due to the convenience it offers over other Water-types (Waterfall access, lesser back-track, available fully evolved immediately, access to its complete move pool right away, etc.) but I don't think that it stands head and shoulders above stuff like Lapras and Tentacool, which offer different advantages. I think this should drop to B-tier with the other mid-game Waters.

Teddiursa (C)

Hard support for A-tier. Literally the only thing keeping it from S-tier is availability since it is a nightmare to catch early on and the only back-up is to catch Ursaring in Dark Cave after obtaining Surf. But otherwise, this thing is just broken, packing absurd power and coverage and being one of the most splash-able Pokemon in the game.

Wooper

I think this should drop to B-tier. While it is really great in the long-term, Wooper is really not very good. Union Cave does at least give it a bit of a head start and lets it support Cyndaquil decently through that part but it is very slow and just lacks power with only Water Gun, Mud-Slap and Slam/Headbutt for damage. It improves significantly when it evolves and gets Ice Punch and Surf though, but the Wooper phase is so bad that I do wonder if it would be preferable just to skip it and catch Quagsire after getting Surf. Even after this though it is relying a bit on Special moves coming from an off stat AND its very slow

I think dropping it to C-tier is a bit harsh because outside of its stats I think it is a good Water-type and decent match-ups, at least on par with Lapras and co. in B-tier. Earthquake as a level-up move is very rare too. It just takes too long to show its worth to qualify for A-tier.

To summarise:

Remove Abra (no trade) entirely, or move it up to S-tier
Merge Geodude's entries
Keep Red Gyarados, Magmar, Mareep and Teddiursa in A-tier
Drop Gastly (trade) to C-tier, and drop everything else to B-tier

Random Passerby I apologise if it feels like I'm stepping on your toes here since I know this would be a drastic change, and I'm not expecting everything proposed here to go through or anything, but I just felt like this was something that was worth opening up for discussion.

Anyway to comment on some of the stuff you wanted opinions on:

Cyndaquil-> B (remain)
Agree.

Snubbull (Crystal) -> B (rise)
I also agree with this, and I actually think you could make a case for A-tier. This is basically just Ursaring in function, with a better experience group and more convenient availability to make up for the minor drop in stats and lack of Dig.

I also think you could make a case for GS Snubbull for B-tier. The need for swarm manipulation (and the associated back-track) is inconvenient but once you get around that it is still a worthy battler with more power and versatility to offer than some of the other Normal-types available at that time, and it still has its Fast growth rate and early evolution.

Tauros -> B (drop)
Agreed as stated previously.

Spearow -> S (remain) or A(drop)
This is another thing I have changed my mind a lot on. I can sympathize with those who think it should drop since it obviously has issues with its move coverage and STAB options (even Pidgeotto's Wing Attack does more than Fearow's Peck) and it is lacking in positive match-ups against important trainers.

The one thing I love about Spearow is that it has Flying STAB as soon as you catch it, which is more than can be said for Pidgey and Hoothoot, the other early-route birds. Given that most of the trainers prior to Falkner are using bugs or Bellsprout, this is a massive advantage over pretty much all the other early-route Pokemon. They are realistically going to need to grind against wilds at least a bit to start being "good", but Spearow literally does not need this since it can just be thrown out against all the Caterpie and stuff for free experience while still making forward progress in the game. This is actually a significant head-start that realistically makes up for any issues it might run into regarding not being able to hit random Hiker #2's Geodude in my opinion.

Having said that, I still find its S-tier status to be slightly shaky, and given that we seem to be in the process of dropping other Pokemon down the list, perhaps dropping Spearow down to A-tier is ok (and maybe it makes more sense for it to be 1 tier above Rattata/Sentret/Tauros/Miltank/etc rather than 2 tiers - it's better than the rest but maybe not THAT much better).

1) Kingdra / Seadra -> Merge or separate? Which ranks? I'm leaning towards B or C.
Not really convinced that Seadra and Kingdra are that much different to be honest. While technically you can get Dragon Scale as soon as you get Seadra, realistically this isn't likely to happen without a ton of time wasting so most likely Kingdra is only going to be around for the last routes and the Elite 4, after the side-track into Mt. Mortar. Kingdra is also not a massive improvement over Seadra given that Seadra has identical SpA and Speed to Kindra, and Dragon isn't really a great offensive typing so getting STAB on Twister/Dragonbreath is not that important (like what relevant Pokemon takes more damage from that instead of Surf or Icy Wind?). Main advantage would be improved bulk and better defensive typing which will matter in some match-ups, but I still don't think it makes for enough of an improvement to bother with a separate entry unless you start doing sub-tiers or something.

I don't agree with B-tier mostly for availability reasons. The Horsea line is decent but its mostly just a generic Water that arrives later than a significant pool of the available Pokemon, and in an inconvenient location at that. I think it's more on par with other lower-tier Waters like Mantine and Goldeen overall.

2) Pinsir -> I am looking at C for this.
Scyther -> This seems similar to Pinsir except it can't use Strength. I think C or D would be fine.
Frankly I think Pinsir, Heracross and Scyther should all be in the same tier, wherever that is. Because of their thin move pools, they rely on Normal coverage more most of the game, which basically makes them Normal-types but without the STAB boost. The are still reasonably strong but even Aipom does more damage than them most of the time!

Scyther is slightly weaker than them stat-wise, but it at least has the ability to use STAB Wing Attack from level 30 onwards, which does comparable damage to Pinsir's Strength to neutral targets, although it's weaker than Return. Wing Attack can hit things super-effectively though so sometimes Scyther will be stronger.

Anyway I would say somewhere below B-tier is reasonable for all of these Bugs. C-tier is probably a good fit for now.

4) Wooper -> This really sucks more than I remember. Leaning towards C although I can be convinced to let it be B. Doesn't look like A at all.
As stated above I agree with Wooper dropping but lean toward B-tier.

5) Sandshrew -> From what I see, this seems like an inferior Geodude so far. It also demands the Dig and Rollout support so you can't use Cyndaquil, for example. Probably C because of Defense Curl + Rollout is cheap.
This is a decent Pokemon but it is heavily reliant on TMs to do much. C-tier for now.

8) Stantler -> This thing has a barren movepool and doesn't do much in Gyms. I am leaning towards C (drop) but can be persuaded to leave it at B.
Strongly disagree with this being in C-tier. As I've said before, Stantler is interchangeable overall with Tauros and co., just with its own advantages and disadvantages. Stantler's advantages is simply the higher convenience of its availability since it is much, MUCH more common than Miltank and Tauros combined. I would rank it in B-tier with the bull and cow.

9) Seel -> Not used this before so no comment.
This is just Lapras-lite. I view it as being more on par with Seadra/Kingdra and the other "average" Waters just for availability issues. Ice Beam as a level-up move is nice but it comes a bit late unless you delay evolution, which would leave you weakened against stuff like Steelix. So...wherever Mantine and stuff end up is where I'd put Seel, so C-tier for now I guess?

10) Zubat -> I would rather use the Friend Ball Mt. Mortar Golbat to get Crobat by Lv 21 lol. This does take time and resources as well as the Return TM so I can leave it at C.
Friend Ball strat is ok for this I guess, but keep in mind that you need Surf to get the required Friend Ball, which conflicts with going for Golbat in Mt. Mortar to take advantage of Bite against Morty. In any case, Crobat is basically Scyther but with more Speed, less Attack, and a different typing. If Scyther is in C-tier then Zubat fits there too I guess.

11) Gengar -> I forgot about this. Do people think this is A or what? I think it should be downgraded to B or C because it really is deadweight before Lv25. The "defensive prowess" doesn't really help that much.
Drop to C-tier as stated above.
 

Stellar

of the Distant Past
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Researcher Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis an Administrator Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
When tiering Psyduck, I think we should either split GS/C or very clearly talk about their differences in the write-up. GS Psyduck comes at a time when you have Surf already. C Psyduck comes pre-Bugsy and is stuck with Scratch until 16 (nine levels) when it gets Confusion. It picks up Ice Punch in Goldenrod, but does not get a Water move until you can pick up Surf pre-Morty. If we assume everyone is skipping Ilex grass-encounter Psyduck and picking it up after Surf, that needs to be made clear.
 
Geodude

I have flip-flopped on this one a few times but I currently feel that A-tier is a bit generous.
It's been a long time since I used Geodude, but I noticed you didn't mention Rollout.

Considering just how much that move has been redeeming Quilava's truly atrocious mid-game, I can't help but wonder if it helps Geodude too. Especially since it gets STAB and Defense Curl by level-up.

Also, EQ by level-up just in time for the E4? Sweet.

Golem has 120 base Attack. Even using Dig and Rock Throw, it'll still hit really hard.

I also can't ignore its early game performance, it's just absurd how Geodude steamrolls through that part of the game.

It's also a very reliable mon on routes, especially with all the Rocket Poison-types running around. It will run into the occasional mismatch, but Golem is a very solid mon.

I think it should stay at A.
 
When tiering Psyduck, I think we should either split GS/C or very clearly talk about their differences in the write-up. GS Psyduck comes at a time when you have Surf already. C Psyduck comes pre-Bugsy and is stuck with Scratch until 16 (nine levels) when it gets Confusion. It picks up Ice Punch in Goldenrod, but does not get a Water move until you can pick up Surf pre-Morty. If we assume everyone is skipping Ilex grass-encounter Psyduck and picking it up after Surf, that needs to be made clear.
I think Psyduck is better picked up after Surf since you can get Golduck already. Similar case with Slowpoke and Horsea / Seadra.

Also, atsync your contributions are always welcome.
About the Seadra / Kingdra comparison, the bulk actually mattered against Will and Karen's Houndoom (who can OHKO Seadra with Crunch ). It took me about 30 minutes to get the Dragon Scale by spamming Thief on Horsea. / Seadra. It is pretty easy to find Seadra in Lugia's chamber and it is only a short trip from Cianwood.

The rest I agree / no opinion on.
 

Texas Cloverleaf

This user has a custom title
is a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Quilava lv 30: 3HKOs Primeape with Headbutt, Leer+Katae Chop does about half back. Poliwrath is a no.

Poliwhirl lv 30: Surf just barely misses the 2HKO, you outspeed Primeape and have Hypnosis, his attacks back are mostly inconsequential. Headbutt is a 6HKO on Poliwrath, this is actually very winnable providing you hit Hypnosis, he gives you free turns while going for Mind Reader. You are able to live a Dynamicpunch as well if he tries to roll the dice, I coincidentally happened to have a Mint Berry equipped so confusion did not prevent my kill. Without Surf his Poliwrath is much less scary.

Gloom lv 30: Sleep Powder+Acid=gg Primeape, 4HKO. Sleep Powder+Absorb=gg Poliwrath, 6HKO.

Eevee lv 30: 2HKOs Primape with Headbutt, it consistently went for Leer+attack, and Eevee was able to live the Karate Chop with a small amount of health (multiple trials to confirm). Obv an Espeon would be a different story. Poliwrath is a no go.


Quilava lv 30: Dig or Flame Wheel (31) OHKO the Magnemite, Ember is a 3HKO on Steelix against a 2HKO from Rock Throw - Smokescreen possibly a viable strat here. Flame Wheel would be a 2HKO anyway if I had it for Steelix (31).

Poliwhirl lv 30: Surf does not OHKO the Magnemites, thus you must hit Hypnosis or Thunderbolt will kill. If you do, clean sweep with Surf, 2HKO on Steelix outside of Sun, 4HKO in, but she can only 4HKO you too.

Gloom lv 31: Losing, can beat a Magnemite but takes forever and you get paralyzed, can't beat both, Steelix hits too hard to outheal in the grind.

Eevee lv 30: Can beat one Magnemite with Mud-Slap, a 3HKO, but Thunderbolt is a 2HKO in return. Steetix is a non starter.


Eevee won't evolve .cri (checked my values, will evolve at 36)

Quilava lv 32: tfw you critflinch t1. Headbutt is a 3HKO on Seel assuming you don't crit flinch it lol. tfw you crit flinch Dewgong too o_O. Headbutt is a 5HKO to Dewgong, it seemingly can't do much in return. Flame Wheel is a 2HKO on Piloswine while it uses MIST? Re-ran Dewgong and got flinched by its own Headbutt every turn lol. Re-ran again and outsped Dewgong this time, clean sweep without issue.

Poliwhirl lv 33: Headbutt 3HKOs Seel and Hypnosis makes sure you don't eat Icy Winds. Same for Dewgong except 4HKO. Surf is a 2HKO hitting into red but Piloswine can't do anything back. Easy win.

Gloom lv 34: Outspeeds and sleep Seel, Sludge Bomb just misses the OHKO but it doesn't matter. Dewgong outspeeds however and 3HKOs with Aurora Beam and drops your attack so while you can win by hitting Sleep Powders this is unfavored. Winning vs Piloswine though, Blizzard does roughly two thirds while you outspeed with Sleep Powder, Absorb is a 4 to 5HKO but you can heal just enough back with Absorb to make up for an early wake up.

Eevee lv 35: Easy 2HKO on Seel, 3HKO on Dewgong while taking three Aurora Beams for about half in return, Headbutt 4HKOs Piloswing without potions, Blizzard will 2HKO from half/3HKO from full so you don't win due to his potions, but with your flinch chance you're putting in work. Level is clearly a big part of this performance, but STAB headbutt does good work nonetheless.

I should make a note here that my Eevee has been holding a Pink Bow this whole time which is evidently a very valuable power boost.


Went through Ice Path here to pick up Teddiursa early and take advantage of the Rocket experience, not much of a practical detour since I wasn't flying back to Goldenrod anyway.

Quilava lv 35: Flame Wheel is a 3HKO on Golbat, takingWing Attack/confusion damage in the process. OHKOs Sneasel and Magnemite, Feraligatr is a nope. 2HKOs Haunter but it kills itself without Curse sometimes anyway.

Poliwhirl lv 34: Ice Punch 2HKOs Golbat. Surf just misses the OHKO on Magnemite but you have Hypnosis. Surf 2HKOs Haunter (OHKO with Curse) and you have Hypnosis. Sneasel is a 2HKO with Surf. Feraligatr is a toss up, Body Slam is a 5HKO, it 4HKOs back with Bite but you have Hypnosis, need not back sleep luck.

Gloom lv 35: Golbat is a nope. Magnemite isn't worth the effort. Sneasel is cleanly 2HKOd by Sludge Bomb. Sludge Bomb 4HKOs Haunter so you need to be healthy due to Curse. Sleep Powder Feraligatr and Sludge Bomb barely misses a 4HKO.

Espeon lv 36: Psybeam one shots Golbat. Headbutt outspeeds and 3HKOs Sneasel, doesn't do much back. Psybeam 2HKos Feraligatr, crit Bite does less than half back. Magnemite is a 2HKO and Haunter an OHKO, Mag para'd and Espeon tanked a Thunderbolt and a Shadow Ball from a bit above half for the sweep.

Teddiursa lv 27: Too underleveled for this point.


Typhlosion lv 37: Not great. Iron Tail is a roll to 2HKO Dragonairs but you're getting paralyzed, taking heavy damage, and Kingdra exists.

Poliwhirl lv 37: Ice Punch is a 2-3HKO on the Dragonairs, Hypnosis to avoid paralysis. Can only take 2-3 hits depending on which Dragonair is out, paralysis is bad. Too much hax can go against you here preventing you from making it to Kingdra. If you do make it to Kingdra you can win, Body Slam is a 6HKO and Hyper Beam does only a bit more than half so a pair of longer sleeps is a free win.

Gloom lv 37: Shockingly, speed ties with the Dragonair and can sleep it, then 2HKO with Sludge Bomb, naturally Thunder Wave causes problems, as does the Ice Beam and Flamethrower Dragonairs, high rolly setup vs them but lv 38 would have no issues. Speed ites Kingdra shockingly too, Sludge Bomb is a 5HKO, you have Moonlight, Hyper Beam does more than half but not much more, pretty convincing advantage if you don't get Smokescreened.

Espeon lv 36: Pretty clean, Psybeam 2HKOs the Dragonairs and you're bulky enough on the special side to run through all three even when paralyzed. Psybeam 3HKOs Kingdra but its unclear who wins between Hyper Beam recahrges (50ish% damage) and Potion heals, Espeon comes clearly ahead if you match Claire's potion use when needed.

Ursaring lv 35: First Dragonair is OHKOed by a crit Return against a Thunder Wave. Second is 2HKOed against two Dragonbreaths for half. Third one we rest on and its crits us from half for a kill. Revive and keep going, same 2HKO against hald damage. Kingdra is no bueno, Surf is a 2HKO - Return does a third back.


Last rival and E4 in the next update. Early impressions leans Typhlosion towards A, the Quilava period is nowhere near as bad as memory serves when you're running a 4 mon party and not 6; Poliwhirl feels a clean A, you abuse the crap out of a fast sleep and you're generally very competent aside from that; Gloom feels at home in C, a little slow, a lot fat, an abusable sleep move, just generically reliable; Espeon is a bit too early to tell but initially I'd advocate a rise to B, Eevee period was surprisingly adequate, Espeon is immediately and offensive an specially defensive house; Ursaring I haven't had long but it hits like a truck, the C tier that its in atm looks fair.
 
I think Psyduck is better picked up after Surf since you can get Golduck already. Similar case with Slowpoke and Horsea / Seadra.

Also, atsync your contributions are always welcome.
About the Seadra / Kingdra comparison, the bulk actually mattered against Will and Karen's Houndoom (who can OHKO Seadra with Crunch ). It took me about 30 minutes to get the Dragon Scale by spamming Thief on Horsea. / Seadra. It is pretty easy to find Seadra in Lugia's chamber and it is only a short trip from Cianwood.

The rest I agree / no opinion on.
You can get a free Dragon Scale within Mt. Mortar (the Waterfall segment). Got one even last time, couldn't trade so unfortunately couldn't use it :(

The bulk def matters. Kingdra has 20 more HP points (55 to 75 IIRC) and WAY more special bulk (45 to 95, that's 50 points, absolutely wild!). Seadra was actually pretty strong, the lack of bulk however was annoying and weaknesses to stuff like Thunderbolt didn't help.
 
Quilava lv 30: 3HKOs Primeape with Headbutt, Leer+Katae Chop does about half back. Poliwrath is a no.

Poliwhirl lv 30: Surf just barely misses the 2HKO, you outspeed Primeape and have Hypnosis, his attacks back are mostly inconsequential. Headbutt is a 6HKO on Poliwrath, this is actually very winnable providing you hit Hypnosis, he gives you free turns while going for Mind Reader. You are able to live a Dynamicpunch as well if he tries to roll the dice, I coincidentally happened to have a Mint Berry equipped so confusion did not prevent my kill. Without Surf his Poliwrath is much less scary.

Gloom lv 30: Sleep Powder+Acid=gg Primeape, 4HKO. Sleep Powder+Absorb=gg Poliwrath, 6HKO.

Eevee lv 30: 2HKOs Primape with Headbutt, it consistently went for Leer+attack, and Eevee was able to live the Karate Chop with a small amount of health (multiple trials to confirm). Obv an Espeon would be a different story. Poliwrath is a no go.


Quilava lv 30: Dig or Flame Wheel (31) OHKO the Magnemite, Ember is a 3HKO on Steelix against a 2HKO from Rock Throw - Smokescreen possibly a viable strat here. Flame Wheel would be a 2HKO anyway if I had it for Steelix (31).

Poliwhirl lv 30: Surf does not OHKO the Magnemites, thus you must hit Hypnosis or Thunderbolt will kill. If you do, clean sweep with Surf, 2HKO on Steelix outside of Sun, 4HKO in, but she can only 4HKO you too.

Gloom lv 31: Losing, can beat a Magnemite but takes forever and you get paralyzed, can't beat both, Steelix hits too hard to outheal in the grind.

Eevee lv 30: Can beat one Magnemite with Mud-Slap, a 3HKO, but Thunderbolt is a 2HKO in return. Steetix is a non starter.


Eevee won't evolve .cri (checked my values, will evolve at 36)

Quilava lv 32: tfw you critflinch t1. Headbutt is a 3HKO on Seel assuming you don't crit flinch it lol. tfw you crit flinch Dewgong too o_O. Headbutt is a 5HKO to Dewgong, it seemingly can't do much in return. Flame Wheel is a 2HKO on Piloswine while it uses MIST? Re-ran Dewgong and got flinched by its own Headbutt every turn lol. Re-ran again and outsped Dewgong this time, clean sweep without issue.

Poliwhirl lv 33: Headbutt 3HKOs Seel and Hypnosis makes sure you don't eat Icy Winds. Same for Dewgong except 4HKO. Surf is a 2HKO hitting into red but Piloswine can't do anything back. Easy win.

Gloom lv 34: Outspeeds and sleep Seel, Sludge Bomb just misses the OHKO but it doesn't matter. Dewgong outspeeds however and 3HKOs with Aurora Beam and drops your attack so while you can win by hitting Sleep Powders this is unfavored. Winning vs Piloswine though, Blizzard does roughly two thirds while you outspeed with Sleep Powder, Absorb is a 4 to 5HKO but you can heal just enough back with Absorb to make up for an early wake up.

Eevee lv 35: Easy 2HKO on Seel, 3HKO on Dewgong while taking three Aurora Beams for about half in return, Headbutt 4HKOs Piloswing without potions, Blizzard will 2HKO from half/3HKO from full so you don't win due to his potions, but with your flinch chance you're putting in work. Level is clearly a big part of this performance, but STAB headbutt does good work nonetheless.

I should make a note here that my Eevee has been holding a Pink Bow this whole time which is evidently a very valuable power boost.


Went through Ice Path here to pick up Teddiursa early and take advantage of the Rocket experience, not much of a practical detour since I wasn't flying back to Goldenrod anyway.

Quilava lv 35: Flame Wheel is a 3HKO on Golbat, takingWing Attack/confusion damage in the process. OHKOs Sneasel and Magnemite, Feraligatr is a nope. 2HKOs Haunter but it kills itself without Curse sometimes anyway.

Poliwhirl lv 34: Ice Punch 2HKOs Golbat. Surf just misses the OHKO on Magnemite but you have Hypnosis. Surf 2HKOs Haunter (OHKO with Curse) and you have Hypnosis. Sneasel is a 2HKO with Surf. Feraligatr is a toss up, Body Slam is a 5HKO, it 4HKOs back with Bite but you have Hypnosis, need not back sleep luck.

Gloom lv 35: Golbat is a nope. Magnemite isn't worth the effort. Sneasel is cleanly 2HKOd by Sludge Bomb. Sludge Bomb 4HKOs Haunter so you need to be healthy due to Curse. Sleep Powder Feraligatr and Sludge Bomb barely misses a 4HKO.

Espeon lv 36: Psybeam one shots Golbat. Headbutt outspeeds and 3HKOs Sneasel, doesn't do much back. Psybeam 2HKos Feraligatr, crit Bite does less than half back. Magnemite is a 2HKO and Haunter an OHKO, Mag para'd and Espeon tanked a Thunderbolt and a Shadow Ball from a bit above half for the sweep.

Teddiursa lv 27: Too underleveled for this point.


Typhlosion lv 37: Not great. Iron Tail is a roll to 2HKO Dragonairs but you're getting paralyzed, taking heavy damage, and Kingdra exists.

Poliwhirl lv 37: Ice Punch is a 2-3HKO on the Dragonairs, Hypnosis to avoid paralysis. Can only take 2-3 hits depending on which Dragonair is out, paralysis is bad. Too much hax can go against you here preventing you from making it to Kingdra. If you do make it to Kingdra you can win, Body Slam is a 6HKO and Hyper Beam does only a bit more than half so a pair of longer sleeps is a free win.

Gloom lv 37: Shockingly, speed ties with the Dragonair and can sleep it, then 2HKO with Sludge Bomb, naturally Thunder Wave causes problems, as does the Ice Beam and Flamethrower Dragonairs, high rolly setup vs them but lv 38 would have no issues. Speed ites Kingdra shockingly too, Sludge Bomb is a 5HKO, you have Moonlight, Hyper Beam does more than half but not much more, pretty convincing advantage if you don't get Smokescreened.

Espeon lv 36: Pretty clean, Psybeam 2HKOs the Dragonairs and you're bulky enough on the special side to run through all three even when paralyzed. Psybeam 3HKOs Kingdra but its unclear who wins between Hyper Beam recahrges (50ish% damage) and Potion heals, Espeon comes clearly ahead if you match Claire's potion use when needed.

Ursaring lv 35: First Dragonair is OHKOed by a crit Return against a Thunder Wave. Second is 2HKOed against two Dragonbreaths for half. Third one we rest on and its crits us from half for a kill. Revive and keep going, same 2HKO against hald damage. Kingdra is no bueno, Surf is a 2HKO - Return does a third back.


Last rival and E4 in the next update. Early impressions leans Typhlosion towards A, the Quilava period is nowhere near as bad as memory serves when you're running a 4 mon party and not 6; Poliwhirl feels a clean A, you abuse the crap out of a fast sleep and you're generally very competent aside from that; Gloom feels at home in C, a little slow, a lot fat, an abusable sleep move, just generically reliable; Espeon is a bit too early to tell but initially I'd advocate a rise to B, Eevee period was surprisingly adequate, Espeon is immediately and offensive an specially defensive house; Ursaring I haven't had long but it hits like a truck, the C tier that its in atm looks fair.
Yeah, Quilava's actually not half bad. They can beat or at least perform well against every major and minor opponent except that lady with a Starmie near Goldenrod and Chuck's Poliwrath - the only coverage you ''need'' is either one of Fury Cutter or Rollout, Dig, and preferably Return. I know people here are intolerant of the idea that Quilava can and should rise higher even though one of these TMs alone massively fixes their midgame and even though Cyndaquil has consistently been in A even in the older iterations of this tier list.

Another thing I want to point out about Espeon is that the Eevee you get from Bill has a lower set happiness than one you may hatch from an Egg (get yourself a Ditto). While it would be time consuming to hatch a new Eevee from L5, the bonus is that they start with a higher max happiness and in Crystal, you can control where they are born as if a Pokemon levels up in the place you originally find them, they get happiness 2x as easily. This allows you to get a Psychic move on Espeon much earlier (believe around L15) and also Ember as well Thundershock onto Flareon and Jolteon (L15) respectively, making them far less TM reliant in the interim. Is it inefficient? Yep, but I do think it also maximizes utility.
 
Yeah, Quilava's actually not half bad. They can beat or at least perform well against every major and minor opponent except that lady with a Starmie near Goldenrod and Chuck's Poliwrath - the only coverage you ''need'' is either one of Fury Cutter or Rollout, Dig, and preferably Return. I know people here are intolerant of the idea that Quilava can and should rise higher even though one of these TMs alone massively fixes their midgame and even though Cyndaquil has consistently been in A even in the older iterations of this tier list.

Another thing I want to point out about Espeon is that the Eevee you get from Bill has a lower set happiness than one you may hatch from an Egg (get yourself a Ditto). While it would be time consuming to hatch a new Eevee from L5, the bonus is that they start with a higher max happiness and in Crystal, you can control where they are born as if a Pokemon levels up in the place you originally find them, they get happiness 2x as easily. This allows you to get a Psychic move on Espeon much earlier (believe around L15) and also Ember as well Thundershock onto Flareon and Jolteon (L15) respectively, making them far less TM reliant in the interim. Is it inefficient? Yep, but I do think it also maximizes utility.
I've never bred pokemon, but Bulbapedia says Eevee needs 9k steps to hatch, which is 4x what it says Togepi needs. Is that correct for GSC?
 
I've seen a few people wanting Genga


I've never bred pokemon, but Bulbapedia says Eevee needs 9k steps to hatch, which is 4x what it says Togepi needs. Is that correct for GSC?
I think so, yes.

The good news is that you have the Bicycle around this time and a pretty good biking spot in the National Park. All you realistically have to do is mindlessly cycle around while watching TV, reading a book, or what have you. I wonder if a trick like this could be leveraged?
 
This is enough steps to get Ghastly from level 6 to 24 and a Dratini from 10 to 21. I'd be okay with this if they were steps you take naturally but allowing mindlessly cycling feels like it belongs more in a run where you farm wild Pokemon than what people are using these tier lists for. Both farming wild Pokemon and using the daycare makes all the Pokemon much closer in viability and harder to differentiate.
 
I don’t see much of a problem with including breeding. Casual players are more aware of breeding than most things we do for these tier lists. Hatching the egg may be time consuming but like everyone keeps mentioning, these lists are for casual play. If someone wants to use their favourite Eeveelution, they’re going to use it. We already include the DST trick to get evolutionary stones so I don’t think hatching an egg is too difficult a caveat to understand for people who want to use Eeveelutions most effectively. I mean the backtrack for DST to get the stones would contribute to hatch steps for the eggs too.
 
This is enough steps to get Ghastly from level 6 to 24 and a Dratini from 10 to 21. I'd be okay with this if they were steps you take naturally but allowing mindlessly cycling feels like it belongs more in a run where you farm wild Pokemon than what people are using these tier lists for. Both farming wild Pokemon and using the daycare makes all the Pokemon much closer in viability and harder to differentiate.
And let's be honest, it's just straight up stupid.

Imagine tuning in on a stream and the streamer gets Bill's Eevee, catches a Ditto, tosses both on the Day-Care and start cycling back and forth through Goldenrod until it hatches and then starts farming haircuts so it evolves before getting Confusion...

To be quite blunt, this is a stupid-ass idea to even consider talking about in a thread like this. It's the opposite of efficiency.

I don’t see much of a problem with including breeding. Casual players are more aware of breeding than most things we do for these tier lists. Hatching the egg may be time consuming but like everyone keeps mentioning, these lists are for casual play. If someone wants to use their favourite Eeveelution, they’re going to use it. We already include the DST trick to get evolutionary stones so I don’t think hatching an egg is too difficult a caveat to understand for people who want to use Eeveelutions most effectively. I mean the backtrack for DST to get the stones would contribute to hatch steps for the eggs too.
Optimizing a horribly inefficient method is still inefficient.

I like Electabuzz a lot, especially in GSC, I could soft-reset for an Elekid Odd Egg, catch a Ditto and breed the thing for something with actual IVs.

What does that have to do with an efficient run though? If people want to do obtuse nonsense like that, real talk, hack an legal egg in at 1 cycle. Save your time.

People who want to do this kind of stuff will look up how to optimize their nonsense. If we're frowning upon exploring the bowels of Mt. Mortar for 1 or 2 extra trainers to grind on, why would people ever consider something as time-consuming as breeding, even if it's unoptimized, in a simple casual run?
 
And let's be honest, it's just straight up stupid.

Imagine tuning in on a stream and the streamer gets Bill's Eevee, catches a Ditto, tosses both on the Day-Care and start cycling back and forth through Goldenrod until it hatches and then starts farming haircuts so it evolves before getting Confusion...

To be quite blunt, this is a stupid-ass idea to even consider talking about in a thread like this. It's the opposite of efficiency.



Optimizing a horribly inefficient method is still inefficient.

I like Electabuzz a lot, especially in GSC, I could soft-reset for an Elekid Odd Egg, catch a Ditto and breed the thing for something with actual IVs.

What does that have to do with an efficient run though? If people want to do obtuse nonsense like that, real talk, hack an legal egg in at 1 cycle. Save your time.

People who want to do this kind of stuff will look up how to optimize their nonsense. If we're frowning upon exploring the bowels of Mt. Mortar for 1 or 2 extra trainers to grind on, why would people ever consider something as time-consuming as breeding, even if it's unoptimized, in a simple casual run?
Well are these lists for casual play or efficient play? Who are these lists for really?

Casual players aren’t speed runners. Casual players aren’t even likely to be looking up the most efficient Pokémon to use for their play through, they’ll just play the game. Nor will they be using a 4 Pokémon team limit, they’ll use 6.

Whoever we’re making these lists for, we trust them to understand all of our arbitrary rules so it really shouldn’t be too extreme to say a certain Pokémon is better off hatched from an egg, if that is indeed the case.
 
Well are these lists for casual play or efficient play? Who are these lists for really?

Casual players aren’t speed runners. Casual players aren’t even likely to be looking up the most efficient Pokémon to use for their play through, they’ll just play the game. Nor will they be using a 4 Pokémon team limit, they’ll use 6.

Whoever we’re making these lists for, we trust them to understand all of our arbitrary rules so it really shouldn’t be too extreme to say a certain Pokémon is better off hatched from an egg, if that is indeed the case.
i think the first post clearly states it's for an efficient playthrough

i don't think it's useless to a casual player, though. if i just want to go through the game, i can look up the list, see where my favorites land, and have more or less an idea of how difficult or easy it will be, or how much i need to grind. i can deliberately pick suboptimal pokémon if i want to give myself a challenge.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Random Passerby question on the overleveling rule: how does this apply to pokémon with outsider bonus? I get the impression that they end up overleveling unless you deliberately hold back, and if you do so, then they aren't that good. kenya for example doesn't seem as valuable once you deliberately set out to keep it on par with the team. this doesn't mean the ruleset should change or anything, I'm just thinking on how to test them for your list if I approach them
 
Random Passerby, when do you plan on catching Raikou? You could use the Master Ball to catch him unless you want to try your luck and catch him ''normally'' (although that's less ''efficient''), but given Raikou's naturally high level, you could likely use five mons in your team efficiently up till the E4. You could make the Geodude a permanent fixture in your team without costing anyone else their experience or even use someone else.

Breeding and the daycare is fine but I fail to see in what possible scenario it's more efficient than your other options.
Never actually said it was more efficient, but I'll bite:

1) You get to use an Eeveelution much earlier, if you're going the Espeon or Umbreon route. We have already broached the topic of earlier or later access to a Pokemon, and I think considering earlier access to a powerful Eeveelution shouldn't be easily discarded. Between the higher base happiness and the ability to control the place where they're born so you can just level up in that particular spot to double the happiness gains, you can get Espeon or Umbreon earlier and at a much lower level than you likely would in the main playthrough. I can test this out for you if I'm not convinced.

2) You get to optimize the Eeveelution in question, not unlike waiting for a Friend Ball to snag Tauros or Golbat instead of just using an Ultra Ball that ironically would be more time-efficient and what not. Espeon in particular has the advantage of destroying Morty and Chuck with ease and easily leveling up in Morty's own gym by taking advantage of Confusion (learned at L16), a move Bill's Eevee would not be able to learn due to already being way past the level for it. Flareon and Jolteon also get Ember and Thundershock this way so you don't have to wait till the super-expensive GC TMs to utilize their type advantages, allowing the two to perform better in certain gyms than they would otherwise.

3) It is financially much cheaper for you. Oh, and this time, I'm not telling anyone to make a singular Pokemon hog Rare Candies or any such nonsense (yes, I agree I was wrong then). I'm not even telling anyone to do anything technically and never did. The Egg itself comes literally for free, you don't need to spend money on giving Pokemon to the Daycare, obtaining the Egg, or hatching it. The place where you need money is actually babying Eevee until he/she is happy enough to evolve, and you will need LESS money there for X-Items or Vitamins than for Bill's Eevee.

Well are these lists for casual play or efficient play? Who are these lists for really?

Casual players aren’t speed runners. Casual players aren’t even likely to be looking up the most efficient Pokémon to use for their play through, they’ll just play the game. Nor will they be using a 4 Pokémon team limit, they’ll use 6.

Whoever we’re making these lists for, we trust them to understand all of our arbitrary rules so it really shouldn’t be too extreme to say a certain Pokémon is better off hatched from an egg, if that is indeed the case.
Yep, casual players aren't speed runners and likely don't give two shits about maximizing efficiency. That's for novice players who want to do well but also enjoy the game, the players whom we actually should be helping and keeping in mind, not speed runners or casuals, at least that's my opinion. Like why even make a tier list if it's not to inform people so they can make better choices in their gameplay? And who are we informing if not people who actually want or need it, such as people who want to actually know how to get through the game more easily?

Hatching eggs, grinding Pokemon, fighting trainers...that's all part of the experience.

This. Just mention it.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 1)

Top