Pokémon Colosseum In-game Tier List

[Karxrida]

The way I see it, Entei doesn't even really need a Time Flute, seeing how it makes incredibly good use of Shadow Rush. Hyper Mode effectively gives it a near-guaranteed crit with Shadow Rush, allowing Entei to make excellent use of its high Attack stat.

You can then purify Entei around the time it needs to level up to keep up with everything else (doesn't happen until Realgam Tower, since Pokemon in Colosseum are so weak).

The preliminary write-up for Entei already mentions this fwiw.

It's also the weakest of the legendary beasts in terms of synergy with the rest of the mons you can get.

It only really has Fire Blast after purification, with all the PP issues that entails. Natural Flamethrower is nice, but that's Lv. 51.

Solarbeam is nice, and Entei shines best in a Sun-oriented team, but the rest of the options for a team like that are... pretty grim especially since you do get so many better options for Rain.

You can easily get away with just having Skiploom as the only Sun teammate. Skiploom is already one of the best support mons in the game, has an effectively free moveslot for Sunny Day to set up Sun for an Entei partner (better than having Entei do it itself imo), and you can fill the rest of your team with Espeon/Ampharos/Flygon/filler without any type conflicts. Plus if you're going to grab Solarbeam you're getting Sunny Day for Skiploom, too.

I'd argue that, assuming you're using these mons, of course, the Time Flutes should almost always go to Suicune, Raikou, and the last one is kind of a toss up. I'd personally consider Skarmory, but I can see people wanting to save it for Metagross or TTar.

Vibrava > Skarmory for the Time Flute. Vibrava needs access to evolution and Earthquake ASAP to be good, while Skarmory doesn't have to be purified to do its job of sitting there and eating hits.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Vibrava > Skarmory for the Time Flute. Vibrava needs access to evolution and Earthquake ASAP to be good, while Skarmory doesn't have to be purified to do its job of sitting there and eating hits.

Good point, I forgot about it.

Vibrava can be purified relatively quickly, even without the Flute. Skarm got a big shadow gauge, but it also needs levels either way, so a Mt. Battle detour seems kinda inevitable if you want to use it against Nascour and Evice.

Vibrava really gets a lot more mileage out of the Flute.

You can easily get away with just having Skiploom as the only Sun teammate.

Ehhhh, I guess Skiploom doesn't need that moveslot. Sleep Powder/Giga Drain/Sunny Day/Synthesis is about as good as it gets, I suppose.

It's not like you get a lot of great options either. Bayleef, Quilava, Slugma, and Sunflora are pretty grim options to build a core around lol.

Entei on its own is fine, even though it wants even a turn to set up Sun, or Jumpluff to do it instead. Otherwise, it's really just a Fire Blast bot.

Man I wish Colosseum had more interesting options

 

[Thunderfang777]

Good point, I forgot about it.

Vibrava can be purified relatively quickly, even without the Flute. Skarm got a big shadow gauge, but it also needs levels either way, so a Mt. Battle detour seems kinda inevitable if you want to use it against Nascour and Evice.

Vibrava really gets a lot more mileage out of the Flute.


Ehhhh, I guess Skiploom doesn't need that moveslot. Sleep Powder/Giga Drain/Sunny Day/Synthesis is about as good as it gets, I suppose.

It's not like you get a lot of great options either. Bayleef, Quilava, Slugma, and Sunflora are pretty grim options to build a core around lol.

Entei on its own is fine, even though it wants even a turn to set up Sun, or Jumpluff to do it instead. Otherwise, it's really just a Fire Blast bot.

Man I wish Colosseum had more interesting options

Yeah. It's very unfortunate how there were no good grass moves in gen 3. Razor Leaf somehow manages to be worse than in the main series games, due to its power splitting in half when hitting multiple foes.

I mean grass moves tend to be very situational anyway, and tend to only be good when you're trying to hit a specific target for super effective damage. Splitting it in 2 makes it so that the intended target is much more likely to survive the hit, since Razor Leaf effectively only has 27.5 base power against the target in question.

 

[Thunderfang777]

By the looks of it, the only thing Raikou really has over Ampharos is Speed. It has 10 more base Special Defense, but I can't imagine that making a significant difference. Ampharos even has a more reliable move in the form of Thunderbolt.

Though I guess that high Speed stat matters more near the end game. I remember Ampharos getting outsped a lot in the Realgam Tower.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

By the looks of it, the only thing Raikou really has over Ampharos is Speed. It has 10 more base Special Defense, but I can't imagine that making a significant difference. Ampharos even has a more reliable move in the form of Thunderbolt.

Though I guess that high Speed stat matters more near the end game. I remember Ampharos getting outsped a lot in the Realgam Tower.

The extra 60 base Speed (More than double!) makes Raikou almost a direct upgrade.

Rain Dance + Thunder runs this game, so TBolt is surprisingly not that important. The big selling point for Ampharos, after Raikou joins, winds up being TWave for snagging and speed control. Light Screen is nice too, and you can always go full rain with double electric + Gatr and Suicune.

But yeah, Amp is not bad at all, it's just kind of dunked on by Raikou.

 

[Thunderfang777]

The extra 60 base Speed (More than double!) makes Raikou almost a direct upgrade.

Rain Dance + Thunder runs this game, so TBolt is surprisingly not that important. The big selling point for Ampharos, after Raikou joins, winds up being TWave for snagging and speed control. Light Screen is nice too, and you can always go full rain with double electric + Gatr and Suicune.

But yeah, Amp is not bad at all, it's just kind of dunked on by Raikou.

And Thunder Wave isn't even necessary if you use the Pokeball glitch. You basically get a reusable Master Ball if you use the glitch.

Yeah. I'll admit that rain is much better in Colosseum than sun. I don't think there are even any grass types that get SolarBeam at an appropriate level in Colosseum. Meganium gets it on level 61, while your Pokemon likely won't even be on level 50 when you fight the final boss.

 

[Karxrida]

Was bored, so I decided to rewrite all the tier descriptions to de-emphasize the ability to OHKO/2HKO stuff. This is a Doubles game and we have some Pokémon that are ranked decently high for how they contribute without dealing damage, so I wanted the descriptions to reflect that.

 

[Karxrida]

Necro with a blessed run. No resets required lol.

Some quick observations.

• Modest Epseon is obviously absurd.
• Naive Quilava is barely missing out on KOs in early game with Hyper Mode Shadow Rush. Croconaw would probably pick those up, especially with Helping Hand boosts.
• Quagsire is actually OHKOing stuff in Hyper Mode lol.
• Makuhita is weak oh my god.

Edit: Qwilfish was able to OHKO Miror B.'s Level 31 Ludicolo (arguably the scariest one) with a Shadow Rush crit and Helping Hand. Mine had Poison Point instead of Swift Swim and still trivialized the fight. This thing is absolutely C tier.

 

[Karxrida]

Dakim update since Entei KO'd itself with recoil and I need a break.

Quilava is has been kind of disappointing and absolutely not S tier. It has awful matchups against the Miror B. and the Dakim sections (Dakim's mooks have a lot of Rocks or other Fire resists and better AI than Miror B.'s goons, plus Dakim spams Earthquake), and the highest level requirement for evolution of the three Johto starters means a big dead period post purification. By the time you can evolve it you're probably at Dakim and can immediately replace it with Entei, which is probably way better if only for strong Shadow Rushes. And I had to go do a big grind session to evolve into Typholsion. Croconaw would almost assuredly turn into a Feraligatr upon purification and be cleaning up the Dakim section because of all the Geodude and Numel lines that die to Surf. Plus Rain Dance and good physical bulk would help with keeping Entei contained while you chuck balls at it.

Threw the EXP Share onto Plusle and it caught up decently fast with mandatory fights. A grind session is still required to break the 30 barrier, but it's strong enough to land 2HKOs on neutral targets with Spark so not the worst waste of time. Being faster than Flaaffy and Ampharos helps. Probably not the most efficient way to distribute EXP (this game's level curve is fucked), but not D material so far.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Makuhita is weak

Can confirm. Unlike XD, Makuhita is Just Not Good in Colo. It faints allllllllll the time, and even when you get Hariyama, it is lame because Cross Chop is unreliable, Vital Throw is meh because Fighting gets resisted sometimes and you don't get many super effective opportunities. It's so bad

 

[Karxrida]

Can confirm. Unlike XD, Makuhita is Just Not Good in Colo. It faints allllllllll the time, and even when you get Hariyama, it is lame because Cross Chop is unreliable, Vital Throw is meh because Fighting gets resisted sometimes and you don't get many super effective opportunities. It's so bad

Once you evolve into Hariyama it's fine. Vital Throw does okay damage, and if you have Guts (I have Thick Fat) you can probably use T-Wave on Hari to compensate for the move's meh BP.

I got more use out of Hariyama during the Mt. Battle section than Quilava, at least.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Quilava is has been kind of disappointing and absolutely not S tier.

I'm pretty sure I used it the last time I played Colosseum.

I can't recommend it in good conscience. I'm not going to say it's the worst thing ever, but it can be put into bad situations pretty quickly because Fire isn't the best defensive typing out there. Worst movepool of the Johto starters and the worst evolution level of them too.

The one thing I've consistently said about it was: "A different mon would've helped me more here..."

I wonder how Bayleef does in this game. Razor Leaf getting nerfed to unusability is terrible, but its support options should be more useful than ever. Maybe I'll give it a shot next time I play Colosseum.

 

[Karxrida]

I wonder how Bayleef does in this game. Razor Leaf getting nerfed to unusability is terrible, but its support options should be more useful than ever. Maybe I'll give it a shot next time I play Colosseum.

There are actually a decent amount of Pokémon weak to Grass in the early game, with some being Water/Ground or Rock/Ground and just getting nuked by a x4 multiplier. Quagsire is able to consistently OHKO most members of the Geodude and Numel lines you see with its weak Surf (only failed against Dakim's Golem and Camerupt, which could probably be fixed by Rain Dance), so Bayleef and Meganium should be able to pull off a somewhat similar performance (swap Numel for Barboach or Wooper tho). If you can reasonably get SolarBeam later on you should be able to park Meganium next to Entei and have both abuse Sunny Day.

Only problem with running Bayleef is you probably don't want to double up on Grasses and use Skiploom, and Skiploom is one of the better supports you can run.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Once you evolve into Hariyama it's fine. Vital Throw does okay damage, and if you have Guts (I have Thick Fat) you can probably use T-Wave on Hari to compensate for the move's meh BP.

I got more use out of Hariyama during the Mt. Battle section than Quilava, at least.

Hariyama has okay bulk and is indeed fine, but the problem is that "fine" is not good enough for Pokemon Colosseum, a brutal game as is. Pokemon Colosseum borderline forces you to use top tier metagame BS by endgame because the bosses are so cracked

Skarmory is the rare case I'll stick up for an endgame Pokemon, simply because if you TM it Toxic you have a wincon for the insanely stupid final battle

In XD, "fine" C tier mons are acceptable, because it's still relatively rare to find a game breaker there, and the power level of bosses is significantly lower.

 

[Karxrida]

Typhlosion failed to OHKO a Spinarak with super effective STAB. To the box forever, you piece of garbage.

Maybe I just got IV screwed but I'm contemplating demoting it to B at this point.

Edit: Oh and I found out my Entei is Timid, but it's still better than Typhlosion because it can survive a STAB Earthquake and kill things.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Typhlosion failed to OHKO a Spinarak with super effective STAB. To the box forever, you piece of garbage.

Maybe I just got IV screwed but I'm contemplating demoting it to B at this point.

Edit: Oh and I found out my Entei is Timid, but it's still better than Typhlosion because it can survive a STAB Earthquake and kill things.

I'd definitely check it, that's hilariously sad.