Yeah it's pretty hilarious Grass Knot owns Probopass
I used chimecho and ponyta there though
check out chimecho's meteoric rise here in my full 12 episode playthrough (starts being used in episode 3)
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Pokemon that disappointed you in-game despite looking good initially?
- Thread starter DrumstickGaming
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I used chimecho and ponyta there though
check out chimecho's meteoric rise here in my full 12 episode playthrough (starts being used in episode 3)
Bronzong is kinda what Probopass wishes it was in Platinum. Clear defensive identity across typing, ability and movepool. Even if about even statistically.
Thunder Wave utility and that Fantina matchup are great. But it falls off a cliff after that. Not that Bronzong is winning many awards either but still.
Shroomish in XD is frankly a disappointment. An exclusively Doubles environment is not suited to the same standards we hold to regular game campaigns, so Breloom being a Mach Punch vendor is not enough. This is especially true in Gen 3 where we don't have Technician and XD's TM availability means Breloom's coverage functionally is limited to Headbutt, so it has trouble securing KOs while also being unable to afford taking many hits. I cannot stress how frail this thing is, as it almost got OHKO'd by a random Gust from a Beautifly. The road to evolving Shroomish to Breloom is not very pleasant on top of that since Shroomish does basically no damage before it gets the aforementioned Headbutt... one level before evolution. (Especially if you got the ideal Adamant one like me oops now Grass STAB has gone from "mostly useless" to "totally useless".) You will legitimately get more damage out of Seedot and it even evolves immediately after purification.
Oh also the utility of False Swipe is supremely overrated. A lot Shadow Pokémon have a hidden level buffer to bolster their stats so it's easy to knock them into orange or even red, inflict them with status, and chuck balls until they're caught. This is especially true on NSO because you can super easily cheese the catch RNG with save states.
If you want a Fighting-type in this game then Makuhita is probably way better tbh.
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This POS is the most overrated Pokémon in Colosseum and I will never stop telling people it's a fraud. It constantly makes S or A on people's tier lists when it's B at best, and I'm being generous.
I went over some of its issues in the tier list thread, but to reiterate and expand on those:
- It is actually way weaker than you'd think. Consistently failed to nab super important OHKOs without assistance despite hitting targets weak to Fire, and Sunny Day is not always an option depending on the field state. The thing that broke me was a SPINARAK surviving a hit from Typhlosion.
- It is questionably usable upon capture before Miror B. and then totally worthless between Miror B. and Venus because of a ridiculous amount of Fire-type hate from enemy team comps. A Pokémon that is supposedly at least A-ranked being functionally benched for 3 bosses and (technically) a dungeon is insane, plus the boss match-ups do not ever really hit positive because of Ein.
- There is a significant opportunity cost since you're giving up Croconaw, who is significantly more usable during Quilava's weak period while being quite versatile and even thrives during Dakim's section. Fuck, I have been known to rag on GSC Chikorita but would legitimately take Bayleef over Quilava. It can tank hits and is also better into Dakim.
- Quilava evolves the latest out of the Johto starters and is likey the only one to not hit its evolution upon purification. This is awful in Colosseum because the overall level curve is messed up and purification is unlocked after Miror B. So still in the "Quilava is mega bad" period of the game where the stat bump is really really necessary.
- Quilava does not come fully online until after you capture Entei. Entei has slightly less SpA but is otherwise statistically equal or superior than Typhlosion (especially in bulk — my Entei survived a STAB Earthquake from Venus's Steelix when the move is unaffected by spread reduction in Gen 3) while also lacking any real opportunity cost or EXP investment. Entei does belong to a worse EXP group but it's a bigger stat stick with an easier time staying alive so who cares.
Trust me, I get it.
Hating on Fraudlosion is just an inevitable byproduct of testing it properly on any game.
Shoutouts to GSC!
I generally feel always divided on how effective the Johto Starters are in Colosseum. My opinion kinda keeps changing. I felt Gator was great due to having Surf, strong Normal Attacks and evolving incredibly early. But Surf gets halved (even with Mystic Water), physical attacks feel kinda underwhelming and its kinda slow. Typhosion seemed appealing because its fast, you can get Fire Blast pretty early and Fire is incredible. Also Dig is nice coverage as 80ish attack was ok for that game. But like you mentioned some of the major issues. It is still satisfying to SPAM Fire Blast but eh. Meganium evolves relatively early, you can pair it up with Entei to have a nice Grass Fire Sun Core and it has good utility for catching but then you realize you use Meganium and Razor Leaf also gets halved in doubles.
There seems to be no real Pokemon that alone is giving you the feel of an S rank Pokemon and thus really feeling each one is bad in its own way. No one really stands out. Even Espeon, which obviously is the best is stuck with Psychic type moves. If you use any other type for offense, its not even worth for 'catching utility'. But it has Helping Hand considering all of that.
I would probably pick Fire and Water starters over Meganium just to give their item to other Pokemon. But maybe even in that topic I might change my mind in a future run.
So... quite a bit to unpack here.
Croconaw was good because it was one of the few viable attackers you had at that point. Surf does get halved, yes, but it's also hitting two mons. That allows its partner to pick up KOs without committing to doubling. Rain Dance also set it up for full damage if it needed it. Rain Dance in general is stupid strong in this game with all the mons that benefit and enable it.
Bayleef is... quite possibly the worst Bayleef has ever gotten to be in this game. And that's before it got nerfed in HGSS.
Razor Leaf just does half of its regular damage, no frills about it. That means you'll need the Giga Drain TM, which is late, or set up Sunnybeam pretty much every battle, which is a chore of its own. It does have some upside with Body Slam and Screens, but that's not enough.
Quilava just plain old sucks.
Flame Wheel is nothing but pathetic, Fire Blast is after you get Entei, which begs the question of why not use Entei anyway. It takes the longest to evolve, Dig is NOT 80bp, it's 60, and lol Smokescreen.
Matter of fact, Typhlosion learns two moves on its own the entire game. Swift on Lv. 45, and Flamethrower on Lv. 60. Overheat is not available, Thunderpunch is not available, even goddamn Aerial Ace isn't available. The only coverage you get besides EQ is Brick Break, and you'd need to beat Lv. 54 mons for it because it's on rank 4 in Pyrite Colosseum. Also a TM btw, and there are better candidates for it.
Typhlosion genuinely does nothing but try to spam Fire Blast, and having to replenish PP in Colosseum is a problem because trainers reset if you leave dungeons.
As for your S-Tier point, Espeon is just RIDICULOUS in Colosseum. Even when it's not getting its own KOs, which it will get very, very often, it can handle Dark-types by simply clicking Helping Hand and letting its partner get rid of the problem. It also gets Reflect, which is very important against Shadow mons because it reduces Shadow Rush damage.
Btw, all that is from the jump. It starts off very strong and continues to dominate the entire game.
A lot of Pokémon are weak to Water, too. The Dakim 1 section of the game specifically has a ton of Geodude and Numel and whatnot that just die to being splashed on, with Dakim himself having a Golem and a Camerupt. And you can still Helping Hand your Feraligatr to secure KOs if needed.
And even if Suicune is a better Surf spammer you still get value out of Feraligatr being a super versatile mon with its movepool, especially as one of the better non-STAB Earthquake users.
In my Colosseum playthrough I chose Croconaw, and ended up dropping it for Quagsire almost immediately. If I had chosen Bayleaf I probably would have dropped it for Skiploom.
Quilava seems like the only one where a better replacement doesn't come right after (Slugma absolutely does not count). Especially if you're avoiding using the legendaries for whatever reason (my reason being in case I wanted to EV train them for the Frontier).
Quilava seems like the only one where a better replacement doesn't come right after (Slugma absolutely does not count). Especially if you're avoiding using the legendaries for whatever reason (my reason being in case I wanted to EV train them for the Frontier).
Quag doesn't hit as hard and isn't anywhere as fast as Croc. You can also just double on Water anyway.
It's actually a lot better as an EQ spammer late-game anyway.
With that said, Croc and Ampharos are straight up replaceable by the dogs, so I get your point.
new one, i'm doing a platinum nuzlocke right now and the next boss in front of me is gardenia. now i would not say that gardenia is a hard fight in the context of this game, but through various twists of fate, my team has been pretty poorly equipped to handle her ever since my staravia died unceremoniously to a crit at the first possible opportunity (a tradition at this point). my set of encounters includes mons like piplup (starter), psyduck (oreburgh gate), cherubi (floaroma meadow), chingling (route 211), and geodude (oreburgh mine)--not bad mons by any means, but this is clearly not their time to shine. so what i did was get my route 205 encounter on the north side, which includes most eterna forest encounters, rather than the south side, which is likely to give me shellos.
i catch cascoon in the forest proper and promptly evolve it. dustox is good! it has gust, is immune to poison status, and will soon get moonlight, making it a solid pick for the gym. in route 205, i look around and find silcoon. two bugs? perfect! i evolve that one into beautifly too.
there is a problem.
my silcoon was caught at level 14. when it evolves, it still has no attacks, having missed gust at level 13. i open up beautifly's level-up movepool on bulbapedia and am horrified. at level 17, beautifly will learn stun spore. not a bad move, but not an attack either. then at level 20, it'll get morning sun. still pretty good, but again not an attack. it's only at level 24 that beautifly really comes into its own, ferociously taking kills against all who oppose it, with the mighty...mega drain.
don't get me wrong, i still expect to handily win the gym fight, gust/moonlight dustox should do fine with stun spore to support it. but it's really funny how even an early-route bug, which is meant to be used for exactly this, is of almost no help in the fight.
i catch cascoon in the forest proper and promptly evolve it. dustox is good! it has gust, is immune to poison status, and will soon get moonlight, making it a solid pick for the gym. in route 205, i look around and find silcoon. two bugs? perfect! i evolve that one into beautifly too.
there is a problem.
my silcoon was caught at level 14. when it evolves, it still has no attacks, having missed gust at level 13. i open up beautifly's level-up movepool on bulbapedia and am horrified. at level 17, beautifly will learn stun spore. not a bad move, but not an attack either. then at level 20, it'll get morning sun. still pretty good, but again not an attack. it's only at level 24 that beautifly really comes into its own, ferociously taking kills against all who oppose it, with the mighty...mega drain.
don't get me wrong, i still expect to handily win the gym fight, gust/moonlight dustox should do fine with stun spore to support it. but it's really funny how even an early-route bug, which is meant to be used for exactly this, is of almost no help in the fight.
So I want to be very clear that, unlike Quilava in Colosseum, I believe Jolteon is a still good Pokémon in XD: Gale of Darkness. It can KO things consistently and is crazy fast. I just think it's a tad overhyped.
Jolteon has two problems. The first is its fragility. This admittedly isn't an issue for most of the game due to how the difficulty curve works (Jolteon's bulk is actually decent compared to everything else in the beginning), but you start to notice how much damage it takes by the latter half of Cipher Key Lair and especially Citadark Isle. Glass cannons don't work too well in XD's endgame unless they can hit a lot of Pokémon for super effective damage due to the doubles format, and Jolteon is a mono Electric with only Bite as coverage. It thus falls off kind of hard at the very end of the game because it can fail to OHKO things that aren't weak to its STAB and is in constant danger of fainting. You can use Thunder to close the power gap, but Jolteon either has to set Rain Dance itself, rely on a slower partner to do it, or raw dog those 70% accuracy checks at least once per fight and all options are awkward.
The second and more nitpicky issue is the potential need for a detour to grab Shock Wave's TM. Thundeshock's power starts noticeably wavering by the mid 20s (especially compared to some other options you have access to), so you kind of want that upgrade for the Snagem Hideout. This means doing the Mt. Battle fights to earn the TM and that's a decent waste of time. Then one dungeon after Snagem you go into Cipher Key Lair, where you can grab the Thunderbolt TM like. Immediately? The chest with the TM is in the basement, and the stairs to go down there are by the entrance. It just feels wrong to have to do the Mt. Battle rigmarole for a damage increase that gets mostly outdone soon afterward.
tl;dr still good for most of the game but falls off at the end, A rank mon instead of S
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I generally think the eeveelutions are for the most part not how they are expected to function in that game. Flareon is surprisingly good thanks to the moves it can learn in the game and when it can learn them. Sure, there is Houndoor but you still get it earlier. Espeon obviously is the obvious best choice. Vaporeon lacks Ice Beam and Surf that make it such a great value Pokemon.
The only Eeveelution I have not tried is Umbreon and I am not very hopeful even with immediate STAB Bite.
I dunno how well it translates to XD, but I found Umbreon quite good in Colosseum. Though it looks like in XD, Snatch doesn't come until pretty late, and Secret Power just isn't available at all.
Flareon barely has an availability lead over Houndour. Houndour can be like the 4th Shadow Pokémon you catch.
The Ice Beam TM is a freebie in the same room where you first fight Snattle. Vaporeon not having Surf does suck, but makes up for it in coverage and being super tanky.