Pokemon Heartgold and Soulsilver In-Game Tier List (MkII)

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Semi-serious post about DA ROCK himself (no, NOT Dwayne Johnson)!
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See this Pokemon? He's named GEODUDE, and you will remember his name. It should be in S tier! This thing trivializes so much of the game it's not even funny.

Going off memory, he cleanly deals with the first three gyms fine. Rock Throw missing and Roost can be annoying, but it's minimal as Pidgeotto does like nothing to you (watch out from Sand-Attack from Pidgey tho, might need to use a starter for that). This is huge for the 'dude (or gal), as only Cyndaquil can boast comparable credentials with the early leaders (Onix is SCREECH CITY).

Next is Bugsy, where Scyther crumples from a swift glare from Geodude (if he doesn't U-Turn out). Geodude is also a fantastic counter to Whitney if you don't mind getting a female (not hard at all, 50/50 gender ratio). You can either wear her down gradually or just Selfdestruct to nuke the cow all over the Goldenrod Gym walls in udder destructiuon (might not OHKO but it will definitely hurt due to Gen 4 booms halving Defense).

Morty and Chuck are a little shaky, though you should definitely have Golem around this time, whose superior stats stomp pretty much all mooks easily. You can maybe take some of Morty out with Rollout, and you MIGHT be able to take Chuck's Primeape if you can 360 no scope past Double Team trolliness. You completely laugh at Jasmine as you eat her CLANG Pokemon for breakfast. At level 33 (or level 29 if you hold off Geodude from evolving 4 levels, which could be feasible considering just how weak Team Rocket HQ is) you get Earthquake. Now you have dat sexy 110 base Attack Earthquake which is amazing!

Pryce is annoying for Golem, but Earthquake should definitely sting, and luckily his mons do NOT have Water moves. Golem should at least dent Seel and Dewgong very well at the worst (insert GONG! cries from The First Movie here). Granted, you might not have Earthquake now if you go ahead and evolve at 25 (and because this list advises doing Pryce first) but Rollout could still maybe make some decent progress if you could pick off Seel at low health (watch out for Icy Wind - not a COOL PARTEH as Arnold Schwarzenegger would say).

Clair is annoying for Golem, but you can still roflstomp Dragonair with Earthquake (watch out for the one with Aqua Tail, unfortunately both are female so you can't quite tell easily). Also, Gyarados doesn't have a Water move, so if you soak the Intimidate elsewhere Golem could maybe do some work on it. The Kimono Girls lean average, but you can easily take Jolteon and Flareon (you know, the one who sucks in most games)

Now for the Elite 4, and here's where it gets fun. Rock Polish is pretty useful on some of the fights. You can probably pick off an Xatu or two on Will, and Koga is just fodder for Golem as long as you cross your fingers, place your hands on your Lucky Charms cereal that is magically delicious and get through his evasion chicanery of cheapness:

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Above: cancer (also watch out for Ariados Giga Drain rofl)

Next is Bruno, which might SEEM bad until you check his team.
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All you gotta do is wait for Hitmontop to derp with Dig, then EQ his face off (you can use Rock Polish to accomplish this turn 1, assuming he outpaces you, then CRUMBLE his face off turn 2). Golem definitely outmuscles Onix, and Chan likely won't have the firepower to break through Golem's Defense most likely (though Ice Punch can sting, it shouldn't OHKO you so you can get a decent hit off). You SHOULD fear Lee and Machamp though.

Next is Karen whose Umbreon is a travesty of game design, and Gengar has Focus Blast and Vileplume has Petal Dance so it's kinda shaky. On the other hand, you easily take Murkrow and as long as Houndoom goes for Nasty Plot or doesn't roll the 20% flinch chance of awful you should OHKO it (notable, as Houndoom is a pretty big threat, and seems to go for Nasty Plot turn 1).

Finally, DRACULA I mean Lance! Gyarados sucks, but if you can get in on Aerodactyl or Charizard, you can Rock Polish up, Rollout (or Rock Blast) and then hopefully use him as a footstool or a table to play Scrabble on and tie him up and beat him up and throw him out the Pokemon League (with some luck).
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above: Incompetent nincompoops that Golem eats alive with a side of rice balls

TLDR:
Geodude is amazing mon that should deserve S tier. While it's dominance gradually falls off after Whitney, it should never be completely useless in almost any regard and should be considered for every serious playthrough of HGSS. Without a trade, Graveler is definitely A, but Golem definitely has a shot at S.
 
Logs of my current run.

Geodude (12)
  • Geodude (Female, Adamant) caught at Lv. 3 in Route 30 Dark Cave
  • OHKO‘s Pidgey easily, even after I got Sand Attacked by Pidgey once.
  • Outsped and OHKO’d Pidgeotto. I got a crit on Rock Throw. I’m not sure if that made much of a difference.
Quilava (14)
  • Cyndaquil (Modest, Male) evolved into Quilava thanks to Sprout Tower. However, I did do some grinding to get Ember before the first Silver battle in New Bark.
  • 2HKO’d Pidgey - very close tho to OHKO
  • Ember failed to 2HKO or even 3HKO Pidgeotto - it roosted a few times
  • Managed to burn it and take it down after using Ember 3 or 4 times

Geodude (18)
  • Geodude ended up losing to Scyther’s U-Turn on my first attempt
  • Even at Lv. 18 with 2 Rock Polishes, I couldn’t outspeed it.
  • It did take out his Metapod & Kakuna easily
  • Round 2: This time, I used Defense Curl 6x and healed after Scyther switched out. Thankfully, he sent out Kakuna.
  • Got poisoned, but held on and Geodude KO’d his entire team. U-Turn still did a decent amt. of damage
Quilava (20)
  • 2HKO’d Scyther with Ember. He used Quick Attack instead of U-Turn, but I did manage to burn him w/ the 2nd Ember. Last turn, Scyther used Focus Energy instead of attacking
  • KO’d Metapod and Kakuna

Quilava (21)
  • Quil 2HKO’s Ghastly - luckily he used Spite on Ember instead of going for Curse or Lick
  • Croc is a tough matchup, but you can beat it w/ Leer+Quick Attack. For me, Quil needs to get off at least 4 Leers to lower its Def. enough to take it down. -3 left Croc w/ a sliver of HP left, so it did KO Quil
  • Zubat dies pretty easily to Ember
Geodude (18)
  • Watch out for Croc’s Water Gun and status from the other two. It nearly always OHKO's Geo and getting status'd can ruin a potential sweep.
  • I RP’d turn 1 then 2HKO’d Croc, but I got lucky after my first soft reset since he used Bite instead of Water Gun on me.

Quilava (24)
  • Taught it Headbutt in Ilex Forest. Pairs well w/ Leer, esp. because of its nature. Priority was nice, but I needed the higher BP for a coverage move. I also bought Fire Blast and gave it that; now holding a Charcoal too
  • Surprised me when he 2HKO’d Clefairy. All Clef did was use Mimic on Ember.
  • Destroyed Miltank w/ ease. First turn, I clicked Fire Blast and nearly 1HKO’d the cow. It had a little bit of HP, so she used a Super Potion on it.
  • I used Ember to fish for a burn because I expected this. However, I could have finished it with Fire Blast since the potion didn’t restore its HP to full.
  • Got even luckier when Attract failed to hax me. Fire Blast KO’d the cow right after.
  • Missing Fire Blast and not getting haxed definitely played a big part in this victory. She also never used Rollout once.
  • Levels might have played a role too. I outsped both of her Mons, but I think Ember/Fire Blast would have 2HKO’d Miltank regardless. Ember did quite a bit despite its low base power.
Geodude (20)
  • Turn 1, Geo set up Rock Polish. Clef was 2HKO’d easily. Geo is female, so Attract was never used by the AI
  • Miltank was more difficult compared to Quil for Geodude. Got a lot of 5, 6, & 7 Magnitudes, but they didn’t do enough to it.
  • Miltank was faster and managed to flinch me several times. However, it couldn’t 1HKO or 2HKO Geo. I got in a couple of Defense Curls then used Rock Polish once
  • Rock Throw barely made a scratch on the cow, but I got lucky with a crit in Magnitude 7. It was enough to knock it out
  • Disappointing performance for Geo, but I think it would have been a lot better if I waited till 22 to get Rollout. Keeping Self-Destruct might have helped too, but I prefer not to use those types of moves for in-game.
Kenya (21)
  • Picked this up once I got to Goldenrod. Leveled it up using Route Trainers outside National Park. Evolved into Fearow.
  • Turn 1, Aerial Ace’d Clef. Clefairy used Metronome (Attack Order, thankfully). Easy 2HKO.
  • Aerial Ace scratched Miltank at most. Stomp hits very hard. I tried to soften it up by using Leer (x3) and spamming Fresh Water to keep Kenya alive.
  • Aerial Ace almost KO’d, but left Miltank in the red. Used Leer again after it used Milk Drink.
  • Nearly got the KO, but Whitney healed it using a Super Potion. I 2HKO’d using Ace.
Summary:
  • Geodude has really strong early-game in major fights. Hasn’t let me down unless I’m not thinking when I click a move. Whitney is a hard match-up tho since Miltank outspeeds it and is bulky enough to take its STAB moves. Rollout+Defense Curl or Self-Destruct is probably needed to beat it. Solid S/A-tier performance so far. Route trainers can be annoying at times before you set up a Rock Polish since Geodude has really low speed and will usually need to take a hit before dealing damage.
  • Quil’s early game is pretty good as already noted in several other runs. Fire/Normal works well for this part of the game. Not S, but A seems reasonable.
  • Overall, about what I expected from a Fearow in its first major battle. It’s good at route cleaning, but practically any Mon can do that well. Tbh I don’t have high expectations for Kenya. I’m thinking D at best once I reach at least the mid to end-game areas.
  • I forgot to test Geo and Quil against Proton. Will have to wait till the Radio Tower to test the other Execs.
 
Currently running Rattata, Geodude (trade), Venonat and Chinchou

Rattata (12): My first attempt I crit ohko’d the pidgey with bite, avoiding any sand attack shenanigans, and 1v1’d Pidgeotto with repeated tail whips and potion usage. Going through it again the Pidgey got off a sand attack before getting 2hko’d with bite, causing to not land a single tail whip before getting crit killed by tackle. Matchup is unreliable but with item support and some luck is doable.

Geodude (11): Set up 2 rock polishes to outspeed Pidgeotto, got sand attack’d twice, but luckily landed all my rock throws anyways. It’d be most optimal to let something else kill Pidgey just so you don’t have to deal with (as many) misses against Pidgeotto and just set up the rock polishes on that. Strong matchup nonetheless.

Rattata (14): 2hkos Zubat with Bite, only concern is Supersonic. Koffing gets 4-5hko’d, so Tail Whips are necessary. Just two turned Bite into a 2hko. Will likely need item usage as poison + Tackles wear you down fast. Overall good matchup

Geodude (14): Sets up Rock Polish on Zubat, didn’t Supersonic for some reason but it’s a minor annoyance for Geodude anyways. Ohkos Zubat with Rock Throw and 4hko’s Koffing. Confusion and poison are annoying, but the mons themselves can’t actually touch Geodude so you can heal away as necessary and slug them out. Overall good matchup

Rattata (16): Scyther outspeeds and always goes for U-Turn, which kills due to my defense-lowering nature. 2hko’s the cocoons with Hyper Fang but that doesn’t say very much. Referencing other logs Rattata doesn’t beat Scyther anyways so I’m inclined to call this a bad matchup, as Rattata fails to beat the only threatening mon on Bugsy’s team.

Geodude (15): For some reason Scyther stays in to Leer turn 1 instead of U-Turning (maybe due to my defense-boosting nature idk) so it gets ko’d by Rock Throw. Cocoons are shat on. Impeccable matchup.

Rattata (16): Outspeeds and ohkos Gastly, Barely 2hko’s Zubat (p sure my rat has bad attack ivs monkaS), hit level 17. Hyper Fang 4hkos Bayleef, and between Razor Leaf, Poison Powder, and Reflect, you lose hard. Overall good matchup.

Geodude (17): Outspeed everything after a Rock Polish, barely miss the ohko on Gastly and ohko Zubat. Bayleef is sent in right after Gastly, but goes for Poison Powder turn 1 for some reason. Gets Razor Leaf’d turn 2 but a lucky crit with Rock Throw allows Rat to come in and get the ko (would’ve been stuck on this fight otherwise lol). Good matchup, can even kinda make progress against the worst starter to match up against.

Raticate (20): Hyper Fang puts Clefairy in range to waste a Super Potion, and 4hko’s Miltank. You fail to beat Miltank due to recovery + attract. Decent matchup

Geodude (18): Great matchup if ur Geodude’s a female. If it isn’t, you’ll have to be talked off a ledge. FUCK WHITNEY

(It is worth noting that you could obtain Venonat as early as the National Park bug contest and have it for this fight, but it wouldn’t have done shit for this fight besides spread poison so I didn’t bother)

Raticate (21): Ohkos Gastly and Zubat. Magnemite is ohko’d by Dig but if you prefer to save it for a different mon can still 3hko with Hyper Fang, will have to deal with confusion and para tho. Loses to Bayleef lol. Overall good matchup.

Geodude (21): 2hkos Gastly with Rock Throw, ohkos the other two. Loses to Bayleef lol. Good matchup.

Venonat (20): 2hkos Zubat and Gastly, though will have to deal with confusion hax. Stonewalls Bayleef and wins the war of attrition with poison and confusion (it’s worth noting that the AI once switched Bayleef out during testing, but it’s only happened the one time, most of the time it just sits there and takes the beating). Outhaxed by Magnemite. Impressively good matchup.

Chinchou (20): Ohkos Gastly and Zubat with magnet Thunder (Surf ohkos gastly after Curse), 2hkos Magnemite with Surf. Loses to Bayleef but at least you can Confuse Ray it, I guess. Good matchup.

Thoughts so far:

:Rattata: Pretty strong, Hyper Fang is a pretty good nuke for early game and Bite is solid coverage alongside it. It does well enough in major fights, however I find it lacking the power to stand up to many of the aces so far. Feeling B/A, will be decided based on whether its endgame is as good as others have claimed.

:Geodude: PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CAPTURE A FEMALE FUCKING GEODUDE JESUS CHRIST. With that aside, fantastic early-game as expected. Will hold off on evolving Geodude til it learns EQ just to see how the midgame treats him at his worst. That and Golem's endgame performance will tell me whether he's S or not.

:Venonat: It's, well, it's a Venonat, but defeating Bayleef by the death of a thousand cuts is a godsend considering that mon beats the rest of my team, whoops. Expecting it to put in at least some work vs Morty and the Rocket Warehouse thanks to Confusion, but its stats are just so shit I wouldn't be surprised if it let me down. I would currently place it at D but if Venomoth pulls its weight as hard as I'm hoping it will I don't think C is out of the question.

:Chinchou: Barely got to play with it yet but the good matchup against Silver made me feel good about doing that crazy detour to get it so early. I just wish it came with Thunder Wave but other than that it's serviceable. My previous experiences with Chinchou factored with the detour have me thinking it'll be at B, but Ryota's run with it gives me hope.
 
Sorry for double posting but I got more of my run done and wanted to post my thoughts

Venonat is 23, rest are 22.

Raticate: Bite ohkos Gastly, 2hkos Haunter, and 3hkos Gengar. Crunch would smack this gym around even harder but as it is this is a great matchup.

Geodude: Impossible to sweep. You need 3 rock polishes to outspeed Gengar and everything has Curse or status to fuck with you in the meantime. Bad matchup.

Venonat: Confusion 2hkos Gastly, 3hkos Haunter, and presumably 4hkos Gengar but any time I got it in vs Gengar it got ohko’d by Shadow Ball. Considering you get outsped by everything and have to deal with hax galore, I’m calling this a bad matchup. Venonat sucks.

Chinchou: Magnet Thunder ohkos Gastly, 2hkos Haunter, 3hkos Gengar. Surf ohkos Gastly, 2hkos Haunter, 3hkos Gengar. Gengar should beat you every time but I managed to crit para it with Thunder and then finish it off with Surf after Sitrus activated. I would not call this a good matchup due to its low speed and unreliability with Thunder, but that insidious stroke of luck was worth documenting.

Fucked up testing Petrel so I don't have logs :psycry:

Raticate (29): Outspeed and 2hko Primeape with Return. Crit Return allows me to 3hko through Sitrus on my first attempt but an unlucky Body Slam para caused me to lose lmao. I crit the Poliwrath AGAIN on my second try and won cuz he spammed Focus Punch the whole time. Third time around I didn’t crit but got para’d multiple times and had to sack to use a full restore. Prone to getting haxxed but I dare call this a good matchup? My luck is just extraordinary lmao.

Graveler/Golem (30): Decided to test both Graveler and Golem for this fight since I could. Graveler RPs on the Leer, outspeeds and 2hkos with EQ. Poliwrath is 4hko’d through Sitrus, sleeps me and ohkos with Focus Punch. Next attempt, Ape Double Teams instead of Leering, Double Teams again on the first EQ, Focus Punches as EQ misses and ohkos. Calling this a bad matchup for Graveler. Next attempt I used my newly evolved Golem. Primeape Rock Slide’d turn 1, for some reason, as I set up and EQ 2hko’d. Poliwrath now gets 3hkod but it went for Surf this time and Golem dropped. Next attempt Ape Double Teams twice and Chuck decides to Hyper Potion while Ape is in the yellow. My Golem DID survive a Focus Punch from Primeape, but I’ll owe that to my defense-boosting nature, and call this a bad matchup for Golem as well.

Venonat/Venomoth (30/31): Worth noting that Sludge Bomb is stronger than Psybeam in this fight thanks to the STAB boost. I tried Venonat for the meme, you 2hko Primeape with Sludge Bomb, surprisingly. Poliwrath is 4hkod raw but outspeeds and 2hkos you with Surf/Body Slam. As Venomoth, Primeape gets ohko’d with Sludge Bomb, and a crit on Poliwrath put it into the red as Surf 3hkos. Clean fucking sweep but a lucky one. Next attempt Ape is ohkod again and Poli is 3hkod through Sitrus. Poli sleeps me and Chuck uses his potion as I use an awakening. 2hko with a Sludge Bomb into crit. I’m calling this a good matchup.

Lanturn (29): Set up Rain turn 1 as Primeape Double Teams, 2hko with magnet Thunder. Poli puts me to sleep and I have to eat a Focus Punch as rain ends. Hit Thunder next turn and ohko. Repeat the same process next attempt and barely miss the ohko with MysticWater Surf (Ape decided to Rock Slide instead of Double Teaming turn 1), Charge Beam on the potion for the boost and ko next turn. Poli elects not to go for Hypnosis and dies to Thunder. Great matchup.

Raticate and Laturn are 29, Venomoth is 31, Golem 30

Raticate: Dig ohkos the Magnemites, walled and ohko’d by Lix. Decent matchup.

Golem: No Rock Polishes required, just just EQ everything. Steelix is 4hkod through Sitrus and 2hkos with Iron Tail, but given its inherent inaccuracy it’s winnable. Good matchup.

Venomoth: Psybeam 2hkos the Mags but they will paralyze you and you 2hko you with Tbolt so don’t get full para’d. , 5hkos Lix through Sitrus. Some luck against Lix gave me the win but Screech into Iron Tail kos otherwise. Winnable but not optimal

Lanturn: Specs Surf ohkos everything. Flawless matchup.

Raticate and Venomoth are 31, rest 30

Raticate: 2hkos Seel, 3hkos Dewgong, 4hko Piloswine. Rat can break through Dewgong’s rest talk shenanigans with potion usage but Piloswine does too much damage. Decent matchup.

Golem: Golem can throw around some 2hkos but takes too much damage from ice attacks + hail to sweep. Also Pilo fucks you. Bad matchup.

Venomoth: 2hko Seel and Dewgong who put you down to the yellow, 3hko Piloswine through Sitrus, who sets hail. Miss Sludge Bomb as he potions up from red and am forced to sack to heal Moth back up to full and finish the fight. Good matchup.

Lanturn: Setting up rain for this matchup can be difficult as Seel spams Hail and when it's up will click Icy Wind at full so it outspeeds you and sets it back up next turn. I got around this by clicking Charge Beam turn 1, which provoked Seel to Rest, giving me a free Hail opportunity. From there I ohko Seel and Piloswine. I miss out on the ohko on Dewgong, probably because I neglected to put Magnet on Lanturn, but you win regardless. Great matchup, even if it requires a little brainpower.

Lanturn is 31, everyone else 32

Raticate: 2hkos Koffings and 3hkos Weezing. Smokescreen spam makes this unreliable.

Golem: You’ll need multiple Rock Blasts to ko Koffings unless you get high rolls, which is unreliable due to accuracy drops. Rock Blast bounces off of Weezing. You can use Self-Destruct to ko Weezing but I think that’s the most value you’re getting out of him. Bad matchup.

Venomoth: Ohkos the Koffings and 2hkos Weezing. Great matchup.

Lanturn: Specs Surf ohkos Koffings and 2hkos Weezing. Great matchup.

Everyone is level 32

Raticate: 2hkos Golbat, ohkos Magnemite. 2hkod Meganium through a crit, would’ve 3hkod otherwise and lost due to Reflect. Meganium still set up Reflect though which kinda fucks over Rat. If you can stop Meganium from setting up Reflect (or choose a different starter lel) you ohko Haunter and can 2hko Sneasel although it outspeeds you. Just note it has Quick Attack in case you try to pick it off with Sucker Punch. Good matchup.

Golem: Set up a Rock Polish on Golbat as it Confuses Rays, kills with a three-hit Rock Blast. Still outsped by Sneasel but it doesn’t touch you so you can either set up another or just straight up attack. Forced to Self-Destruct to ohko Meganium. Silver seems to know I really want to test physical attackers against him cuz even when I have Venomoth in already he’ll send in Meganium and set up Reflect, which makes it really annoying to test. You obviously ohko Mag but the Haunter matchup could go either way. I’m inclined to label this a decent matchup.

Venomoth: 2hko everything with Sludge Bomb except for Mag, who you 2hko with Psybeam. Good matchup but missing out on the ohko on Meganium is kinda disappointing (weirdly enough Silver immediately sent his Meganium in on me despite having a Magnemite in the back and me being locked into Sludge Bomb. The AI in this game is wack lmfao).

Lanturn: Set up Rain Dance to ohko Golbat, immediately forced out by Meganium :( come back in with one turn of rain left to kill the rest of his team with Surf. Good matchup.

Raticate (34): 2hko Golbat, 3hko Weezing. Weezing comes close to koing but unless you get poisoned you’re good. Good matchup.

Golem (33): Rock Polish up, ko Golbat with 3 Rock Blast hits. Bites turn 1 but if you flinch it’ll COnfuse Ray turn 2. 2 Rock Blast hits 4hkos Weezing, so you’ll need some high rolls, which can get inconsistent with Smokescreens. If you’d rather not bother with all of that, Self-Destruct ohkos. Good matchup.

Venomoth (34): Ohko Golbat with specs Sludge Bomb, Weezing is a roll to ko. Flawless matchup.

Lanturn (33): Specs Thunder ohkos both. If you don’t wanna go for that set Rain Dance, you’ll barely miss the ohko on Weezing with Surf but it’s more reliable than hitting two Thunders in a row. Flawless matchup.

Lanturn is 33, everyone else 34

Raticate: At -1, you 2hko Murkrow and 3hko everything else, and if you’re as extremely lucky as I am and dodge literally every status move that’s thrown at you, you don’t even need Intimidate fodder (not that I really count that against a matchup with a lead Intimidater, but w/e). Should you use fodder, everything gets 2hkod. Potential for hax is annoying but otherwise a good matchup.

Golem: Use Intimidate fodder, set up a Rock Polish, ohko Arbok. Vileplume is 2hkod by EQ, and ohkos with Mega Drain, but my Golem was holding a King’s Rock and got a well-timed flinch :) Murkrow is outsped and ohkod. At -1, Arbok is a roll to ohko, Vileplume is 3hkod, and Murkrow needs 3 Rock Blast hits to be ohko’d. Unfortunately Ariana will always send out Vileplume after you ko Arbok, so you can’t clean sweep this team with Rock Polish (unless you’re as smart as me and use King’s Rock Golem) but even -1 Self-Destruct ohkos Plume, so you’re at least claiming 2 kills. Good matchup.

Venomoth: Ohko Murkrow and 2hko the rest. Status is annoying but neither status user is strong enough to meaningfully damage you. Great matchup.

Lanturn: Rain-boosted MW Surf barely misses the ohko on Arbok, 3hkos Vileplume, and ohkos Murkrow. You’re walled by Vileplume but beat the other two handily. Good matchup.

Levels are the same

Raticate: Outspeed and ohko Houndour. Houndoom outspeeds and 2hkos you with Fire Fang, but you don’t do enough damage to kill with Dig into Sucker Punch. 3hko Koffing with just a sliver of HP left, likely a roll but I didn’t test further; Koffing doesn’t do much back anyways. Good matchup.

Golem: Set up Rock Polish on Houndour with no trouble. Koffing eats a couple Rock Blasts and could make things annoying with poison or Smokescreen, but it can’t directly threaten you much at all. Everything else is ohko’d. Fantastic matchup.

Venomoth: Ohko Houndour and Koffing. Houndoom’s Fire Fang barely missed the ohko (this was likely a roll) but you don’t ohko back with Sludge Bomb. Good matchup.

Lanturn: Specs Surf ohkos everything. Flawless.

Thoughts:

:Raticate: - Feeling the same as before tbh. I'm appreciating the more powerful movepool and it has been getting good gym matchups but it still has the same problem as before with ace pokemon. Lategame will determine its fate. Something interesting of note for future testers is whether or not getting the Swords Dance TM from the game corner is worth it, as Rat has time to set up on several gym leader mons and it could decimate the aces that way, thereby fixing its main issue besides its atrocious bulk.

:Golem: - As I said I would previously, I kept Geodude unevolved til getting EQ at level 29. I would recommend this as having EQ early is a godsend and you don't really notice that you still have a Geodude at this point in the game. Only major fight I had with it was Petrel but it would've done just as well in that fight as if it were a Graveler. Geodude doesn't succeed on its stats as much as its typing. If it has the type advantage in any way it will generally win, but if its a neutral to losing type matchup things can get hairy fast. It can contribute in just about any matchup, but it doesn't outright sweep a lot of them. Definitely not S rank to me, but a solid A tier.

I'd like to see logs of those who decided to go with Rollout over Rock Blast as the rock move of choice. I went with Rock Blast as I didn't want to be locked into Rollout if I instead wanted to click EQ or boom during a sweep, but the raw power might make that a negligible concern. It certainly wouldn't miss as often as Rock Blast does. On the other hand though, Rock Blast + King's Rock is a funny combo.

:Venomoth: - Venonat is atrocious. By itself it's an E tier at best. Its stats would suck at any point of the game but for the point at which you get it just flounders even in matchups where it should win. Even worse than that, it sticks around. I gave it extra attention on my way to Chuck, beat all of his gym trainers that I could with it, and STILL had to grind in the ocean a bit to get Venomoth, which is just plain annoying.

But then I did get Venomoth, and it was incredible. Specs Tinted Lens Sludge Bomb is a killer, ripping through anything that isn't a steel type. One of the reasons I wanted to test Venomoth was for its Psychic coverage but honestly its unnecessary besides to conserve Sludge Bomb pp. It swept Chuck, Jasmine (which is unlikely but a possibility), Pryce, and everyone in Rocket Tower bar Archer's Houndoom. It is worth noting that it failed to ohko Silver's Meganium, which could be a sign of things to come as the lategame progresses and stats get beefier, but it was really close and I'd owe it to my middle of the road Sp.Att IVs and lack of a boosting nature. Inclined to give it a B, excited to see how it performs in the lategame.

:Lanturn: - Easy A. The only real downside I can give it is speed plus that epic detour you have to do (running back to New Bark while ALSO hitting up Cherrygrove and Slowpoke Well for Mystic Water and Rain Dance, respectively, which you really want for Lanturn), but aside from that it's spectacular. Has literally not had a bad matchup. If things continue to go this well for it I wouldn't even rule out S.
 
:Raticate: - Feeling the same as before tbh. I'm appreciating the more powerful movepool and it has been getting good gym matchups but it still has the same problem as before with ace pokemon. Lategame will determine its fate. Something interesting of note for future testers is whether or not getting the Swords Dance TM from the game corner is worth it, as Rat has time to set up on several gym leader mons and it could decimate the aces that way, thereby fixing its main issue besides its atrocious bulk.
Raticate gets Swords Dance via giving a Heart Scale to the Move Reminder at Blackthorn City.
 

Ryota Mitarai

Shrektimus Prime
is a Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributor
Only want to note for Golem is that if you evolve it for Morty, it can actually do well there, per experience. All you need to do is make sure Gastly doesn't click Curse. Once you've set up Rock Polish and Defense Curl, it's just a matter of whenever Rollout manages to hit without missing at any point. I generally have no problems reaching Morty with level 25s myself, although that might be due to how I stucture my teams and the fact I abuse the openess of gameplay (you can go up to Lake of Rage before Morty, if you wanted to, just not fight Red Gyarados as you need to beat Morty to use Surf) to do so, in most cases.

Something interesting of note for future testers is whether or not getting the Swords Dance TM from the game corner is worth it
Well, the GC TMs got blacklisted due to being time-consuming to obtain (the only one that ever claimed it was reasonably fast was Texas Cloverleaf, but I think a few others, including me, have experienced and stated the opposite), though the focus on that was mostly on the 10k ones, to my assumptions.

Raticate gets Swords Dance via giving a Heart Scale to the Move Reminder at Blackthorn City.
I think Ceal meant that it can use Swords Dance earlier if you decide to go that route.
 
Only want to note for Golem is that if you evolve it for Morty, it can actually do well there, per experience. All you need to do is make sure Gastly doesn't click Curse. Once you've set up Rock Polish and Defense Curl, it's just a matter of whenever Rollout manages to hit without missing at any point. I generally have no problems reaching Morty with level 25s myself, although that might be due to how I stucture my teams and the fact I abuse the openess of gameplay (you can go up to Lake of Rage before Morty, if you wanted to, just not fight Red Gyarados as you need to beat Morty to use Surf) to do so, in most cases.
I've always avoided the trainers on my way to Route 43 and taken care of them when I go back to do the Lake of Rage, but now that you've mentioned it I suppose there's no harm in challenging them at that point. I always am generally fine with being underleveled since A: you're typically underleveled vs boss fights anyways due to the game's atrocious level curve, and B: I feel like a pokemon's performance could be skewed by unnecessary grinding. If a pokemon can perform well in a fight I imagine it should do so even a few levels below the opponent's highest level. I guess you could say me grinding to evolve Venonat runs counter to this but I'm counting that point against Venonat anyways.

Well, the GC TMs got blacklisted due to being time-consuming to obtain (the only one that ever claimed it was reasonably fast was Texas Cloverleaf, but I think a few others, including me, have experienced and stated the opposite), though the focus on that was mostly on the 10k ones, to my assumptions.
Right, I totally forgot. Though if there is a chance the less expensive TMs could be allowed the only to know for sure would be to try and see how tedious it is to get 4000 coins. Next time I do a run with a mon that can learn Swords Dance (Totodile immediately springs to mind) I'll give it a whirl. I'm about to hit Blackthorn as it is or I'd try during my current run.
 
Right, I totally forgot. Though if there is a chance the less expensive TMs could be allowed the only to know for sure would be to try and see how tedious it is to get 4000 coins. Next time I do a run with a mon that can learn Swords Dance (Totodile immediately springs to mind) I'll give it a whirl. I'm about to hit Blackthorn as it is or I'd try during my current run.
While I've never tried it, Swords Dance Totodile really doesn't sound all that amazing. For one, you are still without Waterfall until Ice Path, and Water resists in the upcoming Clair fight + Intimidate from Gyarados AND Thunder Wave from Dragonair don't make it look very good on paper.

Will seems good due to the power of +2 Crunch, though Confuse Ray means this could backfire. Koga can get his hax going unfortunately, but he shouldn't threaten you. Bruno should be an easy sweep with SD most likely, tho Gatr and the Hitmons can get close in speed.

Karen I could see Gatr doing okay against at +2 if you can get past Umbreon, thanks to Ice Fang for Vileplume. Though I doubt you'd sweep everyone due to some of them having the Speed advantage. You could Agility but you really don't wanna let Umbreon setup.

As for Lance +2 Gatr can maybe work, but you'd probably need like...an Agility and Gyardos significantly weakened by a teammate before you try it (Aerodactyl has Thunder Fang, and Agility might also help you avoid chip from Zard).

All just speculation. SD might be helpful, but it's still ultimately an investment you don't really reap the benefits from fully until the League. You could maybe do SD Strength against Chuck I guess? Morty would probably just status Croc before it gets going.
 
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While I've never tried it, Swords Dance Totodile really doesn't sound all that amazing. For one, you are still without Waterfall until Ice Path, and Water resists in the upcoming Clair fight + Intimidate from Gyarados AND Thunder Wave from Dragonair don't make it look very good on paper.

Will seems good due to the power of +2 Crunch, though Confuse Ray means this could backfire. Koga can get his hax going unfortunately, but he shouldn't threaten you. Bruno should be an easy sweep with SD most likely, tho Gatr and the Hitmons can get close in speed.

Karen I could see Gatr doing okay against at +2 if you can get past Umbreon, thanks to Ice Fang for Vileplume. Though I doubt you'd sweep everyone due to some of them having the Speed advantage. You could Agility but you really don't wanna let Umbreon setup.

As for Lance +2 Gatr can maybe work, but you'd probably need like...an Agility and Gyardos significantly weakened by a teammate before you try it (Aerodactyl has Thunder Fang, and Agility might also help you avoid chip from Zard).

All just speculation. SD might be helpful, but it's still ultimately an investment you don't really reap the benefits from fully until the League. You could maybe do SD Strength against Chuck I guess? Morty would probably just status Croc before it gets going.
I initially envisioned a sorta discount Gyarados with SD and Agility, but the loss of a valuable coverage option makes it seem unappealing unless you'd go with the strong neutral coverage of Return. Gatr was probably not a very good example but there are plenty others who could benefit from it (Scyther, Heracross, Cubone, maybe Krabby?). Ultimately though it's theorymonning unless someone takes the plunge and tests it.
 
I initially envisioned a sorta discount Gyarados with SD and Agility, but the loss of a valuable coverage option makes it seem unappealing unless you'd go with the strong neutral coverage of Return. Gatr was probably not a very good example but there are plenty others who could benefit from it (Scyther, Heracross, Cubone, maybe Krabby?). Ultimately though it's theorymonning unless someone takes the plunge and tests it.
Heracross has some pretty big issues at the League that are hard to fix. Namely, it being resisted or hit SE everywhere it looks. I honestly doubt Swords Dance would change much of anything. A lot of things may get the jump on it like Xatu, Crobat, Katen’s Houndoom, and all of Lance just makes an SD sweep unviable because Heracross heavily relies on the sheer power of 120 BP STAB Close Combat. As Megahorn is out of the question at 55 that also doesn’t help.

Is Heracross still a great mon? Of course. It’s fantastic for the gyms. But the League as a whole is pretty terrible for it. The best thing it’s got for the League is being one of the best Umbreon killers (which are generally very rare, also aided by the fact you learn Aerial Ace naturally if you use something else for Umbreon and Double Team gets out of hand).

I can definitely see it being pretty good for the other three though!
 

TCTphantom

formerly MX42
Heracross has some pretty big issues at the League that are hard to fix. Namely, it being resisted or hit SE everywhere it looks. I honestly doubt Swords Dance would change much of anything. A lot of things may get the jump on it like Xatu, Crobat, Katen’s Houndoom, and all of Lance just makes an SD sweep unviable because Heracross heavily relies on the sheer power of 120 BP STAB Close Combat. As Megahorn is out of the question at 55 that also doesn’t help.

Is Heracross still a great mon? Of course. It’s fantastic for the gyms. But the League as a whole is pretty terrible for it. The best thing it’s got for the League is being one of the best Umbreon killers (which are generally very rare, also aided by the fact you learn Aerial Ace naturally if you use something else for Umbreon and Double Team gets out of hand).

I can definitely see it being pretty good for the other three though!
Seconding this. Hera just does not have a good E4 matchup aside from Bruno and Bruno is easy as heck. While you could beat Will if ya set up, that is a big if. Fact of the matter is he can outspeed and 2hko you most likely. Karen is not even a great matchup due to Houndoom and Murkrow wrecking your life if ya dont outspeed.

Hera is fantastic when it is resisting hits or going at things neutrally. I think it has a decent matchup against Karen for instance if ya get it in on one of the Dragonairs. It does well against basically every Gym, with its worst other matchup being Morty and Shadow Claw puts in a ton of work and Morty's Gengar is annoying to deal with anyway. Hera is a great mon, but the more I think of it if we are truly doing a thin S rank, Hera does not belong.

Screw Karen's Umbreon tho i hate that thing so much.

If I was hard pressed to make the most conservative S tier, it would be the following.

Red Gyarados
Abra (Trade)
Totodile


I plan on retesting Totodile in my Soul Silver and seeing if it deserves S tier. The only other mon I would actively consider is Gastly, but I want to test it first to see if it lives up to Ryota's hype.
 
Seconding this. Hera just does not have a good E4 matchup aside from Bruno and Bruno is easy as heck. While you could beat Will if ya set up, that is a big if. Fact of the matter is he can outspeed and 2hko you most likely. Karen is not even a great matchup due to Houndoom and Murkrow wrecking your life if ya dont outspeed.

Hera is fantastic when it is resisting hits or going at things neutrally. I think it has a decent matchup against Karen for instance if ya get it in on one of the Dragonairs. It does well against basically every Gym, with its worst other matchup being Morty and Shadow Claw puts in a ton of work and Morty's Gengar is annoying to deal with anyway. Hera is a great mon, but the more I think of it if we are truly doing a thin S rank, Hera does not belong.

Screw Karen's Umbreon tho i hate that thing so much.

If I was hard pressed to make the most conservative S tier, it would be the following.

Red Gyarados
Abra (Trade)
Totodile


I plan on retesting Totodile in my Soul Silver and seeing if it deserves S tier. The only other mon I would actively consider is Gastly, but I want to test it first to see if it lives up to Ryota's hype.
I just wanna say yeah, I totally agree with what you said on Heracross. It’s been a while since I’ve used it, but that endgame is just...yeah.

I think Totodile should stay in A.

Totodile, while it has been a bit since I’ve used it, never really stood out to me as an S tier. It has a lot of decidedly neutral matchups in my opinion. Unlike fellow A tier Quilava, it’s neutral for the first three gyms. Neutral is fine, but it’s not great.

Morty is okay for Croconaw, as it has Bite, but it’s gonna get worn down/statused and I doubt you are sweeping.

Chuck is eh. You have Surf and could be evolved but Primeape is RNG (not necessarily Gatr’s fault, but you wanna beat Primeape quickly) and I don’t see Feraligtr beating Poliwrath like ever (Body Slam paralysis, Hypnosis...idk I just don’t see you beating it).

While I haven’t tried Specs Surf Gatr yet, I’d imagine it beats Jasmine pretty handily.

Pryce is also meh matchup for Gatr. You can probably beat Piloswine and maybe Seel, but you are never beating Dewgong as it has rest and Gatr when something resists Water isn’t very good.

Clair is okay for Gatr, as you have Ice Fang. Gyarados you should avoid and you can’t really take on Kingdra much if you go against the Dragonair (Thunder Wave screws you over and I don’t think you’d OHKO Nair either).

Kimono Girls are average.

E4 is where I think Gatr pulls up the punch some and cements it as an A tier after some fairly tolerable gyms. You have mostly unresisted Waterfall, you have Crunch, Gatr is pretty decent all around, most notably for Will and Karen. Other two are average. Lance is fairly good but you’re not sweeping thanks to bulk and level advantage. Maybe Swords Dance could change this, but I don’t know: you’d still want an Agility probably.

Gatr mostly stands out to me as a solid pick, but in most matchups it can only take out half the team. It just doesn’t sweep as much as something with the S tier pedigree should, in my opinion.
 

Ryota Mitarai

Shrektimus Prime
is a Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributor
Been a while since I did HGSS runs, but had health issues and some irl stuff demotaving me, but now I am more motivated to continue.

Last time, I mentioned I am running with Steelix / Machoke / Farfetch'd / Mantine.

Onix is level 10 due to obedience

Onix: Rock Throw OHKOs Pidgey and 3HKOs Pidgeotto. Use Screech twice on Pidgeotto, which will turn Rock Throw in an OHKO


for Proton, Bugsy, and Silver #2, Onix is level 19

Onix beats Proton by spamming Rock Throw


Onix OHKOs Scyther with Rock Throw. Metapod and Kakuna are easy. Scyther's U-turn seems to be a 4HKO or something


Onix beats Zubat and Gastly kills itself with Curse after Rock Throw. Croconaw beats Onix. I'd assume Quilava is a good matchup


everything is level 19

Onix: Rock Throw spam gets past Clefairy easily. Miltank is not even 2HKOed by Rock Throw after 3 Screeches (might be rolls) and it being faster + Attract make Stomp annoying. So you rely on luck a bit.
Machop: Karate Chop puts Clefairy in red, while it doesn't do much. Miltank is 2HKOed by Karate Chop after one Leer, although Miltank 3HKOs with Stomp and is faster. I suggest Focus Energing against Clefairy, as Karate Chop crit will OHKO Miltank after Leer. You will likely need to heal at least once if you are not lucky enough. Not sure how Low Kick would fare, as it has 80 BP against Miltank, but I'd assume it will 2HKO without Leer, vastly improving the matchup (unboosted Karate Chop is a 3HKO, if my memory serves me right)


not gonna post current thoughts yet, as Machop participated in only one fight, while Onix is widely known how it operates up to that point.

IVs not posted, as I am sure Machop and Onix's are fixed (the trade ones)

e: I just realized I forgot to TM Onix Dig. This could surely make it a 2HKO, though, with Attract, the chances of it hitting are not very high
 
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Ryota Mitarai

Shrektimus Prime
is a Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributor
double post but I have new logs to share

everything is level 22

Steelix: Payback OHKOs Gastly, watch out for Curse/Confuse Ray. Croconaw is 2HKOed by Dig after Screech, while it spams Scary Face. Zubat is OHKOed by Payback after Screech (I removed Rock Throw). Magnemite is OHKOed by Dig, but watch out for confusion by Zubat prior that or by Magnemite.
Machop: Payback OHKOs Gastly, but it's outsped. Zubat is 2HKOed by Payback and it fails to 2HKO you with Wing Attack if you have not taken damage. If you faced Zubat, heal against Croconaw, as it spams Scary Face. Revenge, even unboosted, will 4HKO it. Magnemite is OHKOed by Karate Chop, just be careful of Supersonic
Farfetch'd: beats Gastly and Zubat with Aerial Ace/Return. Croconaw 2HKOs with Ice Fang, while Return is a pitiful 4HKO and Magnemite is obvious.


everything is level 25

Steelix: Payback OHKOs Gastly and you need it to not use Curse. Against Gengar, Payback will 2HKO it (putting it in red, which Sitrus Berry heals), though Hypnosis makes this matchup very annoying. Level 21 Haunter just Curses you while dying to Payback. Level 23 Haunter will finish you off with Night Shade if you are below 23 HP. So yeah, relies on Gastly derping to be good.
Machop: Payback OHKOs everything bar Gengar, which is a 2HKO, but also 2HKOs back. However, Gastly needs to not Curse, while level 21 Haunter must miss Hypnosis for Machop to be effective.
Farfetch'd: It's worth noting that it's slower than everything, thus making this matchup a lot harder. If it can set up a SD on Gastly without it Cursing, you can OHKO it with Aerial Ace. Level 21 Haunter is a luckfest due to Hypnosis, but is OHKOed. Against Gengar, just spam SD until it runs out of PP and then OHKO it with Aerial Ace. Level 23 Haunter is easily OHKOed by AAce and it goes for Curse. So, this matchup is all around good if you get a good start against Gastly.


Everything is level 28

Steelix: Payback 2HKOs and 3HKOs Zubat and Koffing, with Dig 2HKOing Raticate. Koffing goes for Smokescreen, but eventually booms.
Machoke: 2HKOs Zubat with Payback and OHKOs Raticate with Karate Chop. Koffing is 3HKOed by Payback, but goes for Smokescreen, so avoid it
Farfetch'd: Return OHKOs Zubat. Against Koffing, set up a SD and spam Return till you win. Raticate is faster, though, and can flinch with Hyper Fang, so keep that in mind.
Mantine: Specs Surf 2HKOs Raticate and OHKOs the rest. Hyper Fang deals laughable damage.


Everything is level 30

Steelix: Due to Double Team, whenever you beat Primeape is based on luck, which is against your odds. Poliwrath hits hard with Surf, so don't bother. Dig seems to be a 2HKO on Primeape, but might be rolls.
Machoke: really luck based. Primeape is 2HKOed by crit Karate Chop if you set up Focus Energy, however, Focus Punch 2HKOs and Double Team makes it hard to hit it. Poliwrath 3HKOs with Surf and Karate Chop deals laughable damage (like a 4HKO without minding Sitrus Berry). It's risky to set up a Focus Energy, as Focus Punch 2HKOs it. All in all, you need to be lucky and pray on AI derping with Focus Punch spam on Poliwrath
Farfetch'd: SD on Primeape (praying for it to click Double Team twice) and OHKO it with Aerial Ace. Poliwrath is faster, but, at full, Farfetch'd managed to barely eat two Surfs, while 2HKOing with Aerial Ace. It is worth mentioning that, at level 31, you will have Agility, which can help with outspeeding Primeape and Poliwrath, thus making the matchup more reliable.
Mantine: Specs Surf puts Primeape in red, although it's faster and sets up Double Team. If you take Rain Dance and MysticWater, Surf will turn into an OHKO. Poliwrath is not worth the matchup, as Wing Attack is a 4HKO without Sitrus Berry and Poliwrath packs Body Slam and Hypnosis (and outspeeds it)


everything is level 30

Steelix: Dig OHKOs Magnemite, along with Steelix after 4 Screeches. Only make sure that, after beating Steelix, you are above 20 HP so Sonic Boom doesn't kil lyou
Machoke: outspeeds and kills Magnemites with Karate Chop, however, Steelix is incredibly bulky and OHKOs with Iron Tail after a Screech, so you are unlikely to beat it.
Farfetch'd: *sad face*
Mantine: Specs Surf outspeeds and OHKOs everything


Steelix is level 32, rest is 31

Steelix: it can take down Piloswine by 2HKOing it with Iron Tail. However, it needs Piloswine to set up Hail and it also has Snow Cloak. You can beat Seel, if you want to, but you are not beating Piloswine reliably. Dewgong is out of question, unless you spam Screech and heal, as Aurora Beam is a 3-4HKO.
Machoke: spam Revenge to take out Seel and Dewgong. Piloswine's Blizzard deals around 60 damage out of 98, so you cannot sweep here. However, if you are at full, Revenge will OHKO Piloswine if Machoke is hit.
Farfetch'd: +2 Return OHKOs Seel. Set up an Agility, as after Icy Wind and Hail, you are still at +1. before OHKOing Seel Then hit Dewgong with Return, 2HKOing it, but losing to it due to Aurora Beam + Ice Shard. Piloswine OHKOs with Ice Fang, so if you try to set up on it, then yeah, not gonna happen.
Mantine: outspeeds and OHKOs Piloswine with Specs Surf. Specs Surf almost 3HKOs Seel, who then stalemates you with Rest, though if you use Rain Dance + MysticWater, you will be able to cleanly 3HKO at some point.


current thoughts on members so far:

Steelix
We all know Onix has one of the best early-games for HSGS (though I'd say it's not the best since Geodude beats it in that regard). Steelix is a bit weird, though; Morty is only situationally good, Chuck is outright bad, Jasmine is notorious matchup as Steelix beats everything there (and not just a partial sweep) and Pryce was rather underwhelming and unreliable. I am leaning towards B-tier myself, but I am open to changing my mind if it does well against Rocket and E4

Machoke
Machop, without evolving, never sweeps anything and seems to rely on chance for everything; Miltank has to not flinch you at any point, Morty's Gastly has to not Curse and Haunter to not hit Hypnosis, Chuck is entirely luck-based, Jasmine's Steelix beats it if it doesn't go on a missing spree, and Pryce is also not a sweep due to Piloswine. I realize that you don't have to sweep to be good, but I think there are some red flags when you never sweep anything. C or B, depending on next matchups. I can see B with current matchups, but C isn't out of question, knowing the end-game. Also C and B factor the boosted Exp. in.

Farfetch'd
Yeah, the issue I had raised about bulk + Speed + reliance on setting up was not a falsy memory. Farfetch'd is, all around, really mediocre, and I cannot see it higher than D. It's sad when a Normal-type isn't reliant for Morty, as you need Gastly to not click Curse (granted, Gastly is the easiest member to take out, so perhaps it can be reasonably skipped by beating it with another member, but still.

Mantine
This one is actually not that bad. I wouldn't call it a great Pokemon by any means, but it's been performing on an acceptable level. I do have an issue with how slowly it levels up and the low catch rate, though. D or C for now. It's just your typical Surf spammer that comes post-Surf.

farfetchd.jpg

mantine.jpg


I may be able to finish this run within tomorrow
 

TCTphantom

formerly MX42
Since we have consensus on Red Gyara, Cyndaquil, and Heracross, I figured I would toss together some write ups for them. Made a write up for Hera a while back for S and tweaked it a bit


Availability: Early game (slight detour back to Azalea Town, 30% when headbutting trees)
Stats: Amazing attack right off of the bat. Decent 85 speed. Solid 80/75/95 Bulk.
Typing: Bug Fighting does have its drawbacks, as flying types show up enough, but a fighting type in Johto has a lot of strong match ups.
Movepool: You start with Horn Attack that does decent neutral damage. At level 13 you get Aerial Ace which helps for coverage. At level 19 you get Brick Break which will basically 2hko at worst most pokemon you encounter. Close Combat comes at level 37. Unfortunately you do not get Megahorn until 55 which you likely wont be by the time you fight Lance.
Major battles: If you get Heracross to level 19 to get Brick Break, Whitney is an easy fight. Morty you Heracross can feasibly muscle its way through Chuck due to its fighting resistance and Aerial Ace. Jasmine and Pryce should also be easy pickings for Heracross. Archer should be easy enough so long as your Heracross is speedier than his Houndoom. Heracross' Pokemon League matchups are not great though, as it struggles against Will, Koga, and Lance and doing ok vs Karen.
Additional Comments: Guts is the preferred ability, as not only is it much more powerful and lets Heracross muscle through some fights it might struggle in, but Heracross does not get a bug STAB to abuse Swarm with until after you beat the game. Do note though it will be quite underleveled for a little bit (It's max level doing this is five!).


Availability: Mid Game (Available after obtaining the Fog Badge, guaranteed encounter at the Lake of Rage at level 30)
Stats: Gyarados has great 95/79/100 Bulk which when complimented with Intimidate makes it quite bulky. It has a decent 81 speed and a strong 125 Attack Stat.
Typing: Water Flying is a strong defensive type. There is a general lack of electric coverage moves to exploit its weakness. Water Stab hits most of the Elite 4 and gym mons from this point onward neutrally, while Gyarados coverage to hit all but Chuck's Poliwrath at least neutrally.
Movepool: Bite and Dragon Rage are decent starting moves. Ice Fang at 32 is great coverage. Aqua Tail at 35 is a strong STAB option, as is Waterfall via HM. Dragon Dance at 44 is exceptional in the late game.
Major battles: Gyarados can deal with Chuck, Jasmine, the rocket admins, and Pryce through its sheer power and Intimidate. Clair is a decent matchup aside from Kingdra. Against the Elite 4 and Lance, Dragon Dance Sweeps.
Additional Comments: Dragon Dance at 44 is essential for its League matchups, Gyarados can potentially be obtained earlier though the Old Rod, but it is advised to go for the Red Gyarados instead. While you do lose out on a decent option against Whitney and Morty, the high level of the Red Gyarados and not having to go through a Magikarp period makes it stronger overall.

Ryota Mitarai thoughts on the write ups?
 

Ryota Mitarai

Shrektimus Prime
is a Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributor
I think it's a bit too early to do write-ups. I think we should focus on those after most things have been tested (and preferably, I'd be happy if there was a separate thread instead for organization purposes). But maybe Turdterra has a different opinion?
 
Finished my run

Raticate 37, everyone else 36

Raticate: Sack Intimidate fodder, set up 2 Swords Dances and sweep. Level up to 38 allowing you to outspeed and ohko kingdra (it’s necessary you’re at +4 or higher to ohko Kingdra). Perfect matchup.

Golem: Sack Intimidate fodder, set up Rock Polish and ko Gyara with 5 Rock Blast hits. Kingdra comes in next, gets 3hkod by Soft Sand EQ and kos you back. Kingdra always comes in second, and Self-Destruct fails to ohko. Dragonair barely survives EQ, ohkos with Aqua Tail and 2hkos with Dragon Pulse. Poor matchup.

Venomoth:Outsped and get into a 3hko war with Gyara which you win with potion support. Outsped and 2hko’d by Kingdra. Outspeed and 2hko the Dragonairs but Thunder Wave and Fire Blast makes it tricky. Can make contributions but not a reliable sweep by any means. Decent matchup.

Lanturn: Set up Rain Dance as Gyara 4hkos. Dragonair 4hkos with Dragon Pulse as Nevermeltice Blizzard 2hkos and burns a potion. Kingdra 3hkos with Dragon Pulse as Magnet Thunder 3hkos (definitely superior to NeverMeltIce here). Good matchup.

Everyone is 39

Raticate: Destroy Sneasel but can’t set up on him due to Icy Wind. Set up +2 on Golbat and sweep. At +2 you fail to ohko Meganium. Double-Edge recoil will stack up and eventually kill you but if you can find the time to use potions it should be fine. Overall good matchup.

(After realizing how shit Double-Edge is I reset and kept Return. Raticate performed just as well, just without the caveat of killing itself).

Golem: Set up on Sneasel (for some reason he just doesn’t click Icy Wind until AFTER you get the Rock Polish up), kill it with 3 Rock Blast hits. Sends in Magneton next for some reason, gets ohkod after a Rock Polish. Meganium comes in next, it walls your STABs and you need a Rock Polish if you want to boom on it, however boom does ohko. If you choose to boom on Meganium you can eat a Shadow Ball from Haunter and kill it with 2 Rock Blasts after a Curse (likely needs 4 at full), ohkos the rest. Good matchup, even if Meganium prevents a clean sweep.

Venomoth: Sneasel, Golbat and Kadabra outspeed, you beat Sneasel but Kadabra kos you with Psybeam and Golbat 3hkos you with Air Cutter (not counting the high crit chance) and beats you provided you’re locked into Signal Beam. Between its two STABs it can beat everything except Kadabra but will have to switch around a lot to do so. Average matchup.

Lanturn: Set up rain on Sneasel and ko with MW Surf. Meganium comes out immediately and ohkos you with a Petal Dance, whereas Signal Beam is only a 4hko back. Everything else gets ohkod under rain. Great matchup.


Venomoth 43, everyone else 42

Raticate: Set up two SDs on Xatu to ohko everything on his team. The tricky part is getting the two SDs off, as Psychic 2hkos. My second attempt Xatu U-Turned into Jynx, and came back in after I ohkod it, allowing me a second Swords Dance as Psychic put me into the red. If he Confuse Rays, and you’re holding the Persim Berry you get from the Onix trade in Violet City, it’s a free turn. From there you ohko everything except Slowbro, which is a roll. Great matchup.

Golem: Lead and attempt to set up Rock Polish on Xatu, however it consistently switches into Slowbro, which forces you to boom or switch. Even if you were given the free setup Bro and Eggy stop your sweep cold. In theory you can beat three out of five mons with a Rock Polish up but this is an unlikely scenario and the majority of mons will threaten you. Poor matchup.

Venomoth: Lead vs Xatu, outspeed and 2hko with Sludge Bomb / Signal Beam, who 2hkos you back with Psychic. Second Xatu comes in which outspeeds you and kos with Psychic. You also fail to ohko Slowbro and Jynx, both of whom ohko you back. Bad matchup.

Lanturn: Set Rain vs Xatu, who will do basically anything he wants but most often will U-Turn around (safer to have Persim in this fight just in case). From there on you ohko the Xatus and Eggy, and 2hko Bro and Jynx with Thunder / Rain-boosted Surf, respectively. You’re slower than everything except Bro so you’re prone to getting slept / confused a lot, but otherwise good matchup.

Levels are the same

Raticate: Set up 2 SDs on Ariados, who Spider Webs and Poison Jabs you into yellow and start sweeping. Once Forretress comes out you can SD up again and heal off damage to 2hko with Dig into Return. Crobat can get tricky with Double team but other than that, great matchup.

Golem: Rock Polishing on anything is rather unreliable due to hax and, in the case of Ariados, the Rock Blast rolls necessary to avoid being 2hkod by Giga Drain, but if you can set it up (I got mine on Crobat after koing Ariados with Venomoth) it can sweep reasonably well provided the right Rock blast rolls. Overall good matchup.

Venomoth: 2hko Ariados, 3hkos Crobat through Sitrus and are 2hkod back by Wing Attack. 3hko Forretress and Muk through Black Sludge, 2hko Venomoth. Decent matchup, can sweep but will require luck and potion usage.

Lanturn: Set up Rain Dance, MW Surf puts Ariados into the red. Surf 2hkos Forretress, 3hkos Muk through Sitrus. Crobat barely lives Thunder. 2hko Venomoth in Rain. Overall good matchup, but poison makes it annoying.

Raticate and Golem are 42, rest 43.

Raticate: Set up two Swords Dances on Counter and then Dig, 2hko with Dig to avoid getting hit. At +4 you ohko everything except for Onix which is 2hkod by even Dig but it does too little damage to pose a threat. Heal up on Hitmonchan to avoid getting ko’d by Bullet Punch and finish the sweep. Great matchup.

Golem: Rock Polish on Dig, ohko with EQ while Top is still underground. Everyone is ohkod except for Hitmonchan and machamp, although Chan can’t do much in return. Champ is 3hkod through Sitrus, boom kos though. Guaranteed 4 kills, good matchup.

Venomoth: 2hko everything with Sludge Bomb but get kod back by everything except Top. Hitmonlee even outspeeds and kills with Blaze Kick. Poor matchup.

Lanturn: You 2hko everything under rain but almost everything outspeeds and 2hkos back. You can beat Top (3hkos with Dig), Chan (can’t touch you) and Onix (drops to Surf). Decent matchup.

Golem 42, everyone else 43

Raticate: Set up SD, 2hko Umbreon. Gengar comes out, misses Focus Blast, sucks to be him. Houndoom comes out next, Nasty Plots on my Dig, sucks to be him too. Murkrow outsped and ohkod. Vileplume Stun Spores but you can get another SD and heal off the para next turn as you eat any hit and proceed to ohko with Return. I got pretty lucky this attempt, so I’m inclined to call this a decent matchup, realistically you should struggle way more with Umbreon, Gengar and Houndoom.

Golem: Set up Rock Polish, 3hko Umbreon with EQ who only Double Teamed once and wasted a turn Confuse Raying me (Persim Berry is a top 5 item). Vileplume comes in next, I think we all know where this is going. Murkrow comes in on my Venomoth, time to set up boys! Kill it after a Rock Polish. At +2 Gengar outspeeds and clicks Focus Blast, dodge and go for the Rock Blast. You need at least 2 high rolls to kill Gar, which I didn’t get cuz it landed Focus Blast. Outspeed and ko Houndoom after an RP, if you’re at neutral speed you eat a hit granted it hasn’t set up a Nasty Plot. Decent matchup.

Venomoth: 2hko Umbreon, Gengar, and Vileplume with Signal Beam, Psybeam, and Sludge Bomb, respectively. Murkrow outspeeds and 2hkos you as you barely miss the ohko with Sludge Bomb, Houndoom outspeeds and ohkos. Due to the amount of switching around you have to do in order to use your best attacks against each mon, I’m calling this a bad matchup. Takes a lot of support to get kills that aren’t even necessarily free.

Lanturn: Rain Dance and “rain” Magnet Thunders on Umbreon to circumvent Double Team. It’s unfortunately a 3hko and with Confuse Ray the matchup is very difficult. I think you also know how it does vs Vileplume. However it can readily beat Murkrow, Houndoom, and Gengar under rain. I’d say this is overall positive.

Raticate (44): On its own Raticate can only get one SD off vs any member of his team which just isn’t enough to sweep. However, with the help of an Intimidate mon (such as the Red Gyarados), you can play the sack game and lower the Gyarados’s attack enough to get to +6. From there Lance sends out his Dragonites, apparently they all speed tie with you as I outsped the level 50 one but got outsped by the level 49 one. After killing two I level up to 45 and guaranteed outspeed the next one. Charizard drops and Aero comes out last, outspeeding you and 2hkoing you, however if you healed up on Gyara before you started killing things you’ll be good. On its own it’s helpless but with Intimidate support it can sweep the entire team, which is incredible (I don’t think Intimidate is asking for much since you are given the Red Gyara on a silver platter).

Golem (42): Absolutely cannot handle Gyarados. It’s hard pressed to get Rock Polishes on anything but Zard and Aero, HOWEVER after harassing Gyara with my Venomoth I baited Aero to switch in, which gave me the opportunity to set up, but he just switched his Gyara back in on it anyways. Golem handles Aero and Zard very well, and can potentially 1v1 the Dragonites that aren’t Blizzard, but can’t really sweep. Good matchup overall, I guess.

Venomoth (43): 3hkos everything and gets 2 or 1 hit kod back. Disappointingly bad matchup.

Lanturn (43): I’m fucking braindead and forgot to buy the Blizzard TM before fighting the E4. If you had that it’s a pretty cool matchup. WIthout Blizzard you still handily take on Gyara, Zard, and Aero, and can pressure the Dragonites a little with Thunders in rain. Good matchup.

And with that, my nominations:

Rattata to A. Lived up to the hype. Consistently performed at a good level throughout the game, failing against most ace pokemon but doing extraordinarily well against everything else. What sold me on A though was Swords Dance. Being able to sweep every Elite 4 battle (with support required in some matches) is an incredible feat for a lowly route 1 rat. I also managed to sweep Clair by outspeeding her Kingdra, which seems to be IV dependent (Unfortunately I wasn't able to calculate my Rat's speed IVs) but given that Magnus's also accomplished the same I think it's fair to include it as a positive, if inconsistent, matchup. Still, it had an incredibly solid endgame to compliment its solid early to midgame. A rank for me.

Geodude (Trade) to A. This, however, did not live up to the hype. Safely not S in my eyes, and I genuinely debated whether it was worth B, but I think A is a good place for it. Geodude possesses perhaps the greatest earlygame of any pokemon in Johto, readily handling the first three gyms (provided your Geodude is female, fuck Whitney), but it noticeably becomes inconsistent after this point. I won't comment on Morty, as Ryota claimed Geodude to have a path to victory against him that I didn't use, but it performs poorly against Chuck, great vs Jasmine, poorly vs Pryce, and then stays generally positive vs the Rockets, with a very strong matchup vs Archer. Then it eats shit vs Clair and bounces up and down with the E4. Golem can contribute in just about any matchup given its typing and the sheer utility of boom, but it never outright dominated/swept many matches, which to me is a sign that it isn't an S tier. Maybe it could've swept better with Rollout > Rock Blast, but honestly both are pretty shit moves to be forced to use anyways. However, given its excellent early-game provided with the fact that it manages to stay a strong member of your team afterwards makes it A to me. Given that, I'd also nominate Geodude (No trade) to B. Graveler does basically the same thing as Golem but the lower stats (attack, especially) makes me believe it's a rank below Golem.

Venonat to D. Venonat is a lot of work to get to a mon that does pretty well for one portion of the game and then just falls flat on its face by the end. Venomoth is incredible once you get it but by Clair its good but not great stats really start to show, as it lacks the power to effectively cut through mons and can often get fucked with via status or just really strong hits. By the E4 you're making singular contributions and aren't sweeping any fights whatsoever, even against fucking Bruno. It's a big value sink into Venomoth, having to give it a ton of xp as well as the Choice Specs and Sludge Bomb tm, and it only does particularly well in one portion of the game. Venomoth is like a B or a C but combined with the Venonat period puts it down to a D for me.

Chinchou to A. Fantastic pokemon. It never suffers a particularly negative matchup and can make progress in just about every one. Water and Electric are both fantastic STABs to have, and with Rain Dance it becomes surprisingly deadly. Contributes as Chinchou but once Lanturn enters the fray it rips shit up and hardly slows down. In terms of downsides, it suffers from an insane detour to get both it and all the tools you want for it, as well as being generally slow. I also came to believe its stats were beginning to wane in the face of the E4 but its typing carried it through with barely an issue. Easy A.
 

Ryota Mitarai

Shrektimus Prime
is a Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributor
I'd also nominate Geodude (No trade) to B.
fwiw I was planning on testing Graveler next run to see if it should be the same tier as Golem. While it doesn't have the same stats as Golem, if they have the same performance, I don't see why they shouldn't be bundled in the same tier

as for Rattata, if IVs determine whenever it breaks or is broken by the end-game, I think that's not something in its favor. It looks like with the correct IVs it can do some amazing things at the end-game or be rather bad. I think with ceal's run, it's now 2 Bs and 2 As, with my B and ceal's A even being based on using it as level 42/43. I may do some calculations to see how many IVs you need approximately, but I need to figure out E4 IVs and I am not able to read this table: http://web.archive.org/web/20180226...okemon-heartgold-and-soulsilver-trainers.html so if someone can explain if there is a way to figure out IVs from this (or knows the IVs), I would appreciate if I was informed about that.

I am glad someone saw Chinchou as A as well, as an off-topic
 
as for Rattata, if IVs determine whenever it breaks or is broken by the end-game, I think that's not something in its favor. It looks like with the correct IVs it can do some amazing things at the end-game or be rather bad. I think with ceal's run, it's now 2 Bs and 2 As, with my B and ceal's A even being based on using it as level 42/43. I may do some calculations to see how many IVs you need approximately, but I need to figure out E4 IVs and I am not able to read this table: http://web.archive.org/web/20180226...okemon-heartgold-and-soulsilver-trainers.html so if someone can explain if there is a way to figure out IVs from this (or knows the IVs), I would appreciate if I was informed about that.
After checking back at your logs for the E4, I think the only major endgame targets you need a speedy rat for are Clair's Kingdra, Bruno's Hitmonlee, and Lance's Dragonite. Which is fair against Lance (even my rat got outsped by his Thunder Dnite, but only that one for some reason) but you still beat the majority of Clair and Bruno, you just don't clean sweep them. I think that's still an acceptable performance for a hypothetical A tier pokemon. Also that other guy who nommed B didn't even use Swords Dance on his Raticate, which, I mean, you might as well not use a normal STAB at that point, you're just begging for it to perform sub-optimally (no offense to that guy).
 

Ryota Mitarai

Shrektimus Prime
is a Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributor
As a matter of fact, I'd have supported A per experience if I managed to beat Kingdra, as that thing is a huge tier boost. But I am planning on doing some research on how many IVs you need so if I start, I will report results once I am done

and here are final logs of my run:

Mantine is level 32, rest is 33

Steelix: Iron Tail 2HKOs Koffing, while Weezing uses Explosion at some point. They have nothing to hit you with, but Smokescreen means that you may easily run out of PP due to missing Iron Tails (unless you kept moves like Payback, but it'd take a lot of time to finish the fight with Payback). As a whole, secure matchup, but not the best.
Machoke: even with Guts activated, Payback is only a 3HKO on Koffing. With healing, you are likely taking out two at best.
Farfetch'd: +2 Return OHKOs everything but Weezing, which is 2HKOed. If you have Keen Eye, you pretty much win if Koffing #1 goes for Smokescreen
Mantine: Specs Surf OHKOs Koffing and 2HKOs Weeing. If Weezing goes for Sludge, you automatically win.


Everything is level 33.

Steelix: Iron Tail is a 2HKO on Golbat, which can confuse hax you but has nothing else. Feraligatr is to be avoided, as Water Gun is a 3HKO and Dig, even after Screech, is only a 2HKO. Magnemite and Sneasel are easily OHKOed by STABs and Haunter is OHKOed by Iron Tail, with its Shadow Ball not dealing much.
Machoke: Karate Chop kills Sneasel and Magnemite. Feraligatr can be beaten by 2HKOing it with crit Karate Chop (use Focus Energy), with Thrash 3HKOing, so you may need to heal. Haunter can also be defeated, as it Curses on you and you can hit it with Payback, however, it may affect your performance against the other things.
Farfetch'd: Farfetch'd requires at least two SDs and one Agility to do well. If it can avoid confusion hax or heal up enough to set those up, then Return will OHKO Golbat and Magnemite (otherwise, 2HKOs), Sneasel, and 2HKO Feraligatr. Haunter is OHKOed by Aerial Ace.
Mantine: Specs Surf 2HKOs Golbat and Sneasel, OHKOs Magnemite and Haunter and 4HKOs Feraligatr. You need to heal to beat Feraligatr and you have to deal with Golbat's confusion hax. Haunter is faster and you need it to use Shadow Ball and not Curse. Sneasel will also make Mantine need to heal against Haunter if Sneasel is not the last member you are facing.


Farfetch'd and Mantine are level 34, rest is 35

Steelix: Given they cannot hit it at all, Steelix can make it through the team with no problems, 2HKOing and 3HKOing Golbat and Weezing
Machoke: Payback 2HKOs Golbat, but Confuse Ray can screw the matchup. Weezing is not beatable
Farfetch'd: mostly luck based. +2 Return OHKOs Golbat and 2HKOs Weezing. However, Golbat has confusion hax and Weezing's Sludge 3HKOs, meaning you need to be lucky or pour in some healing items
Mantine: Specs Surf 2HKOs his team, but Golbat is faster and can confuse.


same levels

Steelix: Arbok and Vileplume have nothing to hit you with, so those can be dealt comfortably. -1 Iron Tail puts Murkrow in lower yellow, but it has Night Shade, so it's the only real threat.
Machoke: Payback is a 3HKO on Arbok, with Glare allowing you to deal more damage to it and other members. Revenge is an OHKO on Murkrow if hit by anything (without Intimdate debuffs). Neutral Payback is a 4HKO on Vileplume.
Farfetch'd: +1 Return fails to OHKO Arbok, which Glares you, so avoid it if you don't wanna spam healing items. +2 Return OHKOs Murkrow and +2 Aerial Ace OHKOs Vileplume. Set up on either one, just know that Murkrow is faster and 3HKOs with Wing Attack.
Mantine: Specs Surf 2HKOs Arbok and OHKOs Murkrow. Wing Attack 4HKOs Vileplume.


Mantine is level 34, rest is 35

Steelix: Dig OHKOs Houndour and 2HKOs Houndoom, though you need to heal after using one Dig against Houndoom. Koffing has Smokescreen, but cannot threaten you at all.
Machoke: Karate Chop and boosted Revenge OHKO Houndour and Houndoom, respectively, only watch out for Fire Fang's secondary chances.
Farfetch'd: +2 Return OHKOs Houndour and 2HKOs the rest. Generally speaking, you need to be lucky just to beat Koffing. After using Agility and SD and OHKOing Houndour, you need to heal against Koffing and hope it doesn't poison you at any point. Then Houndoom survives a Return and kills you with Fire Fang.
Mantine: Specs Surf OHKOs everything. Houndour and Houndoom are faster, but won't kill you.


Everything is level 37

Steelix: at most beats the non-Fire Blast Dragonair by 2HKOing it with Iron Tail.
Machoke: paralyzed Revenge OHKOs Dragonair after getting hit, with Dragon Pulse being a 3HKO.
Farfetch'd: shockingly bad. +3 Return fails to OHKO Gyarados, which consistently 3HKOs you. Thus, you need to heal constantly. If you can set up an Agility and SD up to +6, you will OHKO everythng, but be prepared to throw in at least 3 potions.
Mantine: Specs Blizzard puts Dragonair in red, so you need to be lucky just to take one down.


Mantine is level 40, rest is 39

Steelix: can set up two Curses, with EarthquakeOHKOing and 2HKOing Sneasel and Feraligatr. Switch out against Haunter as it Curses. Steelix handles Kadabra and Magneton easily, with Golbat only being annoying at best due to confusion.
Machoke: beats Sneasel, Haunter, and Magneton. Kadabra can be beaten with Payback, but you will need to heal offscreen. Boosted Revenge fails to 2HKO Feraligatr, so you should avoid it, unless you want to throw in potions.
Farfetch'd: terrible. Sneasel 3HKOs you and you need to heal to beat it while setting up SD and Agilty. Even then, Magneton comes after anyways. It is impossible to set up on Gatr and Golbat, the latter due to confusion. Kadabra 2HKOs with Psybeam, making set up even more unlikely. All in all, bad matchup
Mantine: you need Rain Dance and Swift Swim here.


Steelix is level 42, rest is 43

Steelix: Curse twice on Xatu #1, which will mostly spam Me First (you could do it 6 times, but I did it only twice). Payback will OHKO it, then 2HKO Slowbro (and muscle through it while it Curses), then OHKO Jynx, then 2HKO Eggy due to Reflect and OHKO Xatu #2 outside of Reflect. The only times you ever need to heal are if you get put to sleep or confusion hax.
Machoke: hahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahaha
Farfetch'd: it can use Slowbro as a set up fodder by spamming SD and uses one Agility. If you muscle through Slowbro, +6 Return will OHKO whatever is left. Still not super efficient, especially since Slowbro can decide not to derp and actually attack you.
Mantine: Specs Signal Beam OHKOs Exeggutor and 2HKOs Jynx and Slowbro. You should spam it against Xatu #1, which will often go Me First. It also makes Will use his Full Restore, allowing you to muscle through Slowbro if it goes for Amnesia. Surprisingly not bad matchup.


Steelix is level 44, rest is 42

Steelix: set up 2 Curses and use Earthquake or Iron Tail. +2 EQ OHKOs Muk, Ariados, and Venomoth and 2HKOs Forry, while +2 Iron Tail 2HKOs Crobat. Unless you get unlucky, you won't need to heal at all, though evasion hax may make you throw in an Ether or something.
Machoke: the only notable thing it does is OHKO Muk with Earthquake if it's poisoned (e.g. through Forry's Toxic Spikes). Other than taking out Ariados, nothing else.
Farfetch'd: 2HKOed by Ariados's Poison Jab. +2 Aerial Ace fails to OHKO it. Use Forretress as a setup fodder and set up SD to the max and (preferably) 2 Agilities. Then you 2HKO it with Aerial Ace and OHKO the rest with Return. Only hope for no Explosions.
Mantine: Specs Surf 2HKOs Venomoth, Ariados, and Forry. Crobat is 3HKOed due to Sitrus Berry, but can be annoying with evasion. Don't bother with Muk.


Mantine is level 43, rest is 44

Steelix: set up 3 Curses and Earthquake OHKOs everything, including Machamp. Great matchup
Machoke: beats Hitmontop and Onix by spamming Earthquake but struggles with the rest.
Farfetch'd: you can beat Hitmontop and Hitmonchan, but Onix always manages to end your sweep, as it survives a +6 Return and you cannot reset up on the other threats. Not a good matchup.
Mantine: Surf 2HKOs Hitmontop and Hitmonlee and OHKOs Onix, though requires offscreen healing. Lee also has Swagger.


same levels

Steelix: if you spam Curse, +4 EQ should be an OHKO (or at least put it in red). You can also beat Murkrow. The rest have special coverage that hits it hard.
Machoke: Wake Up Slap 2HKOs Umbreon. It can also hit Gengar with Payback. Houndoom is put in red with Earthquake and is OHKOed if you have Cross Chop, which I didn't.
Farfetch'd: set up an Agility and 3 SDs against Umbreon and 2HKO it with Aerial Ace. Then OHKO Murkrow and Houndoom with Return. Gengar survives an Aerial Ace and Farfetch'd should hope to avoid Focus Blast so it can beat it and Vileplume.
Mantine: you should use Rain Dance here. MW Surf in rain OHKOs Murkrow and Houndoom while outspeeding them and also deals with Gengar.


same levels

Steelix: If you set up 3 Curses against Aerodactyl or Charizard (which requires healings) after level 50 Dragonite has been taken down, you can 2HKO the Dragonites with Iron Tail or Payback. Also beats Aerodactyl and Charizard. Only note that you need to spam potions against Blizzard DNite, but it's a 2HKO and if it misses, you are good for one turn to attack.
Machoke: PFFFFTT
Farfetch'd: that thing barely managed to survive attacks from before the E4, what are you expecting
Mantine: Specs Blizzard OHKOs the non-Thunder Dragonite. Level 50 Dragonite OHKOs with Outrage. Zard is 2HKOed by Specs Surf, but can be annoying with Air Slash flinches.


nominations:

Steelix -> A-tier
Steelix has a great typing that makes a lot of matchups positive. It has a great early-game and boosted Exp. I do not know if I see it as S-tier, given it's rather slow into taking down enemies and also has to rely a lot on Iron Tail sometimes, but I do not see it as any tier below A.

Machop (No Trade) -> C
Boosted Exp. + fine performance before the E4, but absolute garbage at the E4. Please keep it at C, thank you

Farfetch'd -> D
I was thinking E, but circumstantial sweeps at the E4 convinced me otherwise. It has lots of issues, like setting up Agility and SD with that bulk, but if it does it, it works. Nothing higher than D, please

Mantine -> C, with a possible case for B
Mantine did a lot better than I imagined. It has Rain Dance + Swift Swim, is bulky and hits hard with Surf. Specs Surf held me for most parts, with Rain Dance being needed only occassionally. However, it has a bad Exp. and catch rate, which is why I am doubting B, but I don't think it's impossible.


I am planning on testing Graveler to see if it should be in the same tier as Golem. If there are other requests for mons that are pre-Rocket Tower, let me know.
 
Last edited:
Posting logs for my run with Bellsprout, Miltank, Magmar, and Slowpoke (Slowking). On mobile so apologies for any errors.

Bellsprout IVs.png

Miltank.png

Magmar.png

Slowpoke.png

lol

Bellsprout (15): With the magic of sleep you can very slowly whittle them down with Vine Whip but it takes forever and Growth doesn’t help. Bad matchup.

lol

Bellsprout (16): Doesn’t beat anything but Croconaw and you sure as fuck aren’t beating the other two starters. Bad matchup.

Bellsprout (19): Sleep Clefairy, Solarbeam and put it into the red, forcing a potion. Growth on the potion and ko with Solarbeam next turn. GL HF with Miltank. Decent matchup.

Weepinbell (21): Gastly will pretty much always Curse on you, which allows you to ko with Solarbeam. Hf with Zubat. Croconaw and Magnemite are defeated with Sleep Powder + Solarbeam. Decent matchup, can beat 3 out of 4 mons but one forces you to double around with Curse and Sleep Powder misses / sleep rolls can get annoying.

Miltank (20): Rollout into Curse kos Gastly. With a turn 2 Rollout you aren’t gonna beat Mag before Curse kills you. If he doesn’t Curse you, you kill Gastly and Mag with all five Rollouts, although the combo of paralysis and confusion makes this untenable. If you’re not locked into Rollout Mag is kod by Dig. Croconaw and Zubat are beaten by Rollout but Croconaw’s Scary Face means you get outsped and confused by Zubat. Decent matchup. If your Miltank is Scrappy it should more easily beat Gastly.

Victreebel is 23, rest are 24

Victreebel: Solarbeam ohkos Gastly, 3hkos Gengar, and 2hkos Haunter, so you can throw around some decent damage with Sleep Powder Solarbeam shenanigans. Everything outspeeds you though so you’ll likely get Cursed and put to sleep a lot to do it. Decent matchup, I guess, Solarbeam on Haunter at least baits a potion.

Miltank: Rollout rips through Gastly, burns a potion on Haunter, and ohkos Gengar on the fifth hit, which means you can kill three out of four mons provided you dodge every Hypnosis / don’t get Cursed. Scrappy would make this fight hella nice but without it it’s only decent.

Magmar: Faint Attack ohkos Gastly and Haunter, and 3hko Gar through Sitrus. Charcoal Fire Blast 2hkos raw. You outspeed everyone except for Gar so if you can dodge some sleeps, great matchup.

Victreebel (26): Sleep Zubat and Growth up on it, Wing Attack 3hkos so you can deal with it, although low sleep turns can get annoying. At +2, Acid 2hkos. Sleep Koffing (if you took some Wing Attacks now is a good turn to heal). 2hko Koffing with Acid. Rat outspeeds and does a fair chunk, but if you sleep it you ko it with Solarbeam. Good matchup, can get around the type disadvantage with a decent amount of setup.

Miltank (25): DCurl up and sweep with Rollout. Confuse Ray is annoying but with enough defense boosts the damage is minimal. 1 Rollout kos Zubat, 2 kill Koffing. Rat outspeeds but the next Rollout ohkos. Great matchup.

Magmar (26): Charcoal Ember barely misses the ohko on Zubat and Koffing, but neither does anything meaningful back besides Confuse Ray annoyance. Rat is outsped and ohko’d by Fire Blast. Great matchup.

Slowking (25): Ohko Zubat and Koffing with Specs Surf. Rat might be a roll. You’re super slow and get annoyed by the abundance of dark type attacks but otherwise good matchup.

Thoughts:

:Bellsprout: - one of the worst earlygames I have experienced for a mon thus far, barely contributes to the first 4 major matchups and its contribution to Whitney was kinda minor all things considered. Solarbeam is a welcome increase in power and with Sleep Powder Bellsprout can afford to use it, however it's not really an efficient combo, especially when it becomes your only grass STAB. Once you get to Victreebel you're pretty strong but your type matchups in the rocket warehouse are still pretty subpar. Feeling D rn.

To get Victreebel so early I took the route of grinding in the Pokeathalon Dome instead of waiting for Picknicker Gina to cough one up. I'd strongly recommend this for anyone looking for an evolutionary item as it's far quicker (about half an hour, in my experience) than hoping for good rng with phone calls or stealing items from wild pokemon. I'm still inclined to count it against Bellsprout and any similar cases, since it's a fair bit of grinding.

:Miltank: - 4% encounter rate is annoying but otherwise very solid. Stomp then Body Slam tears up any target that isn't a ghost type, Rollout is Rollout and it even has a bit of built-in sustain with Milk Drink (which has to have the weirdest out-of-battle effect, btw). B seems appropriate thus far but there's still more to come.

:Magmar: -very similar to Cyndaquil in concept and execution. It's stronger stat-wise than Qwilava would be at this point in the game but I'm not sure if it's getting any ohkos or 2hkos that Qwilava wouldn't. The mixed capabilities are very nice, with Faint Attack blowing Morty the fuck out, but aside from this encounter there really isn't a lot of use for it since Magmar doesn't have access to any physical moves it'd want to use like Brick Break or Thunderpunch (maybe you could teach it Return if you don't need it for anyone else). Could be B or A but considering it misses out on the great early game Cyndaquil has and is predicted to suffer the same awkward mid to lategame that Qwilava and Typhlosion do, I'm more inclined to B.

:Slowking: - Barely used it thus far but it is quite strong and has two really good STAB types, even if one will never graduate past 50 bp. Compared to Slowbro the lower phys def is noticable, I definitely felt the sting of Petrel's dark attacks more than I think Slowbro would, but Slowking still has good enough bulk to eat these hits anyhow. Looking forward to getting Nasty Plot on this thing and seeing how it does.
 

Ryota Mitarai

Shrektimus Prime
is a Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributor
Did a new run with Graveler / Staryu / Jolteon / Tentacruel. Tentacruel will be caught after obtaining Surf, as Tentacool doesn't seem to contribute much if you get it through Old Rod. I wanted to separate them in different posts, but I was unavailable to do so when I wanted to, so I ended up logging the whole run in one post.


Geodude is level 14

Geodude: spam Rock Throw and you win. If worried, you can take out Pidgey with something else, it's very easy to defeat by other members.


Geodude is level 17, I had to skip a lot of trainers.

Geodude: spam Rock Throw and you win. Koffing is 3HKOed.


Geodude is level 18

Geodude: beats Gastly and Zubat, but struggles with Croconaw. I guess if it's Quilava, the matchup is easier.


Geodude is level 18

Geodude: Rock Throw OHKOs Scyther, so it's an easy matchup.


Geodude is level 19

Geodude: You can use Clefairy to set up Defense Curls and Rock Polish, muscle through it with Magnitude and then spam it on Miltank. Miltank Milk Drinks, so it kind of stalemates. Realistically speaking, it's not hard to get Geodude to level 22 and have it use Rollout, but whenever that's acceptable is beyond my idea. I just wanted to see how it performs at an equal level. However, you can live multiple Stomps (while outspeeding due to Rock Polish) and win if you land the correct Magnitude numbers at the right times.


Jolteon is level 23, rest is 22

Geodude: if Silver has Quilava, you can set up a Rock Polish and Defense Curl and Rollout through his entire team, if Gastly doesn't Curse. Otherwise, your sweep is stopped, but you can still kill Magnemite and Zubat, along with Gastly, just not the starter.
Jolteon: 2HKOs Gastly and Croconaw with Thundershock, OHKOs Zubat with Thundershock, and OHKOs Magnemite with Thunder.
Starmie: OHKOs Croconaw with Thunder, if it hits, and OHKOs the rest with Surf.


Everythign is level 25

Graveler: Unfortunately, it cannot sweep here, as Gengar manages to live a Rollout and OHKOs it back with Shadow Ball. Haunters are annoying with status, but if you are lucky, you may be able to get past them
Jolteon: Thunder OHKOs anything it hits bar Gengar. However, Gengar is put in range to be KOed by Thundershock. Gastly is also 2HKOed by Thundershock and its Curse didn't prove problematic as long as I hit my Thunders.
Starmie: OHKOs everything bar Gengar with Surf. Gengar kills it.


Everything is level 27

Graveler: Rollout crushes this fight with no problems. If you want to, set up a Rock Polish and Defense Curl to make sure you OHKO Koffing and outspeed Raticate
Jolteon: Specs Thundershock 2HKOs Raticate and OHKOs the rest. You can also use ThunderDance to get past him too.
Starmie: spam Surf and you win.
Tentacruel: spam Surf and you win.


Everything is level 30

Graveler: Magnitude 8 or higher 2HKOs Primeape. Poliwrath is an easy loss.
Jolteon: set up Rain Dance and OHKO his Pokemon with Thunder. Poliwrath is rolls, however. Alternatively, Specs Charge Beam 2HKOs Primeape, with a +1 being enough to OHKO Poliwrath. Good matchup, overall.
Starmie: MW Surf OHKOs Primeape in rain, with Thunder being a 2HKO. Poliwrath is 2HKOed by Thunder, even with berry. Specs Surf also OHKOs Primeape, but you have to do some switching to beat Poliwrath.
Tentacruel: Specs Sludge Bomb 2HKOs and 3HKOs Primeape and Poliwrath, respectively. Specs Surf seems to be an OHKO on rolls. Alternatively, you can run a Rain Dance + Barrier set, with Barrier making any physical attack a joke. MW Surf in rain will OHKO Primeape and Sludge Bomb will muscle through Poliwrath. I did not keep Toxic Spikes, but they could be useful in taking down Poliwrath, as badly poisoning will eat it up.


Everything is level 30

Starmie and Tentacruel just spam Specs Surf, so not gonna bother with those

Graveler: kills Magnemite with Magnitude, but Steelix is pretty much unbeatable, as it 2HKOs with Iron Tail and can eat multiple Magnitudes, especially if they are not like level 9 or 10.
Jolteon: If you spam Charge Beam and get 4 SpA boosts, Shadow Ball will 3HKO Steelix, with berry removing it from potion range. You may need to heal once, depending on Supersonic luck.


Starmie is level 30, rest is 31

Graveler: Set up a Defense Curl and throw in some Rock Polishes and a Potion till you are at +3 after Seel attacks. Then Rollout and, if it doesn't miss, you will end up OHKOing Dewgong and Piloswine. This requires many potions, in most cases, as the only way to be at +3 by the time you start using Rollout is by capitalizing on the turns it wastes trying to set Hail or misses Icy Wind. So either really bad matchup or a really good one.
Jolteon: Specs Charge Beam gets easily past Seel and Dewgong. Piloswine manages to get 2HKOed by +2 Shadow Ball (if no Specs), but berry + Hail + Mud Bomb make this matchup a loss.
Starmie: use Thunder on Seel turn one, OHKOing it on rolls, then set up rain and spam Thunder and OHKO Piloswine with Surf.
Tentacruel: Sludge Bomb 2HKOs Seel on rolls and 3HKOs Dewgong. Surf in rain OHKOs Piloswine. Not a bad matchup


everything is level 32

Graveler: DCurl + Rollout can break his team if it hits, but with Smokescreens, that's a hard task.
Jolteon: set up rain and spam Thunder to ignore Smokescreen debuffs. Thunder 2HKOs Weezing and OHKOs the rest.
Starmie: Specs Surf 2HKOs Weezing and OHKOs the rest. Only make sure Sludge doesn't poison you.
Tentacruel: Specs Surf 2HKOs Weezing and OHKOs the rest. Shoutouts to Clear Body, which blocks Smokescreen.


Jolteon is level 33, rest is 32

Graveler: if you set up 2 Rock Polishes and one Defense Curl against Golbat, you can click Rollout and you will OHKO everything if you don't miss.
Jolteon: spam Specs Charge Beam and you will win at some point, especially if you are getting boosts.
Starmie: Specs Surf OHKOs Haunter and Magnemite
Tentacruel: MW Surf in rain 2HKOs Golbat and OHKOs the rest bar Feraligatr, which is 3HKOed by Sludge Bomb and requires a healing (feel free to use it as Amnesia setup fodder).


Everything is level 34, bar Tentacruel (33)

Graveler: set up a DCurl and Rock Polish and spam Rollout to win.
Jolteon: Specs Charge Beam runs through his team. If you are worried about Smokescreens from Weezing, you canjust employ ThunderDance here.
Starmie: Specs Surf OHKOs everything
Tentacruel: spam Specs Surf and you will win.


same levels

Graveler: beats Arbok and Murkrow easily, but struggles with Vileplume.
Jolteon: Charge Beam 3HKOs Arbok if you get boosts. Murkrow is OHKOed easily. Vileplume is OHKOed by +4 Shadow Ball and 2HKOed by +3 one. You need to heal off Glare before beating Arbok.
Starmie: MW Surf OHKOs Murkrow, along with Arbok in rain. Vileplume is put in red by Blizzard, if you hit it.
Tentacruel: MW Surf 2HKOs Arbok and OHKOs Murkrow, while Sludge Bomb 3HKOs Vileplume. Heal off paralysis after Arbok Glares you.


everything is level 34

Graveler: set up 2 Rock Polishes and a Defense Curl and click Rollout, only praying it doesn't miss. Alternatively, Earthquake OHKOs the Houndour line, but you need to switch out against Koffing, otherwise you get locked into Rollout again.
Jolteon: spam Specs Charge Beam. If you get 2 boosts against Houndour, you will beat Houndoom, as you outspeed it and it fails to kill you after you eat a Fire Fang from Houndour. Then Koffing dies. Alternatively, set up Rain Dance and spam Thunder, which is more effective.
Starmie: outspeeds and OHKOs everything with Specs Surf
Tentacruel: Specs Surf OHKOs everything, though Houndoom is faster.


Everything is level 36

Graveler: sucks completely
Jolteon: Specs Charge Beam OHKOs Gyarados. If you get 4 boosts by the time you beat Dragonair one, which will require one healing (Charge Beam with a boost every use is a 3HKO), Specs Charge Beam will 2HKO Kingdra, but it's very likely it will kill you with Hydro Pump.
Starmie: Specs Blizzard OHKOs Dragonair and Specs Thunder OHKOs Gyarados. Without Specs, Blizzard fails to kill Dragonair
Tentacruel: gets past Dragonairs easily, by 2HKOing them with Specs Sludge Bomb. However, the most important detail is that Tentacruel can beat Kingdra. Specs Sludge Bomb 3HKOs it on rolls, while it 3HKOs back. If it uses Smokescreen or Hyper Beam at any point, you are very likely to win, though you may need a potion. This is incredible.


Everything is level 39

Graveler: set up a Rock Polish, then a DCurl, then another Rock Polish to counter Icy Wind, as it uses it only when Sneasel detects it's outsped. Then click Rollout and hope for no misses. It will kill Sneasel, Magneton with two or three hits while it uselessly spams Magnet Bomb, and Feraligatr (with Haunter being a target if Magneton died in two hits). If Rollout ends at Haunter, switch out and heal. Then you can click Rock Polish against Kadabra, spam EQ on it and deal with Golbat. Alternatively, if Rollout ended at Kadabra, EQ will just OHKO it and Rollout can deal with Golbat.
Jolteon: set up rain against Sneasel, which Icy Winds you. Then OHKO it, Feraligatr, and Golbat with Thunder, with Gatr being outsped anyways. Switch out and heal against Haunter. Kadabra is OHKOed by Shadow Ball, while Magneton is 2HKOed by Thunder.
Starmie: set up rain and hope Sneasel doesn't click Icy Wind, as Starmie is faster. MW Surf OHKOs it, Haunter, and Magneton. Golbat is almost OHKOed, but it either goes for Bite and kilsl you or derps and goes for Air Cutter. Regardless, Feraligatr is not beatable unless there's a rain from before and you are at full. Then Kadabra is OHKOed easily.
Tentacruel: Speed ties Sneasel. Set up rain and OHKO it with MW Surfl. Then you OHKO Kadabra and Magneton (Golbat is 2HKOed). Against Feraligatr, use Barrier twice and heal up and 3HKO it with Sludge Bomb. Haunter is also OHKOed by MW Surf in rain, with its Curse not proving any problem.


Graveler is level 43, rest is 42

Graveler: it has a hard time getting through anything, as every special attack 2HKOs it at worst.
Jolteon: sweeps. Use Charge Beam to 2HKO Xatu #1 and gain two boosts. Then spam Shadow Ball on the rest, 2HKOing Slowbro and OHKOing the rest.
Starmie: Thunder in rain OHKOs Xatu #1 and 2HKOs Xatu #2 and Slowbro, though Xatu #1 has Confuse Ray to annoy you. Avoid Exeggutor so you can heal offscreen. Jynx is 2HKOed by Surf, only watch out for Lovely Kiss.
Tentacruel: Specs Sludge Bomb 2HKOs Xatu #1 and OHKOs Exeggutor. Xatu #2 is 2HKOed, but you need to heal offscreen to beat it. Everything 2HKOs you, so, at most, you take out three threats.


same levels, but Jolteon is level 43

Graveler: if you lure in Forry as early as possible, you crush whatever is left of his team. Set up a DCurl and Rock Polish to the max. Then weaken Forry with Earthquake. Use Rollout when the first hit would put it in potion range, with 3 Rollouts in total being needed to kill it. Then you kill Venomoth and Muk. Rollout will 2HKO Crobat and outspeed it while it Double Teams.
Jolteon: Specs Charge Beam 2HKOs Ariados. Switch out against Muk, as it will kill you with Gunk Shot. If you can lure in Forry, do so, as you can gain two boosts from it through Specs Charge Beam and OHKO the rest very easily.
Starmie: MW Surf in rain OHKOs Ariados and 2HKOs Forry, which Protect stalls the rain. Switch out against Muk. Set up rain against Venomoth or Crobat. Thunder 2HKOs Crobat, while MW Surf almost OHKOs Venomoth, who Toxices you. Crobat wastes time setting up Double Team.
Tentacruel: spam Barrier on Ariados and 2HKO it with Surf. Venomoth is also 2HKOed by Surf, with its Psychic failing to kill it. MW Surf 3HKOs Forry, set up rain after the first Surf (and potentially heal before that) to turn it into a 2HKO. Crobat is 3HKOed by Surf in rain and can Double Team. Muk is 2HKOed by MW Surf in rain, though Minimize can be annoying.


same levels

Graveler: set up two Rock Polishes and a Defense Curl or two against Hitmontop. Earthquake while it uses Dig is an OHKO on rolls. Hitmonlee is almost OHKOed by Earthquake, but Swaggers. Full Restore and eat a HJK with your +2 Defense and OHKO it and Hitmonchan. Machamp eats a +2 Earthquake but is dented hard by Earthquake.
Jolteon: if you get 3 Charge Beam boosts on Hitmontop, Thunder will OHKO Machamp. +2 Shadow Ball OHKOs Onix. +2 Thunder will OHKO everything else, if it hits.
Starmie: Specs Surf OHKOs Onix and 2HKOs the Hitmons. Machamp is 3HKOed and requires two potions to be defeated.
Tentacruel: spam Barrier on Hitmontop and 2HKO it with MW Surf. Then OHKO Onix. Hitmonchan is 2HKOed by MW Surf. Against Machamp, set up rain, use Surf, then Sludge Bomb, then Surf, and potentially heal at some point. Then Hitmonlee is an easy kill, being 2HKOed by MW Surf.


Starmie is level 42, rest is 43

Graveler: Earthquake 3HKOs Umbreon, so if you wanna gamble on that, you can. Lure in Murkrow as soon as possible and set up 2 Rock Polishes and a Rollout. Unless it Whirlwinds, Rollout will put Murkrow in red, triggering Full Restore, then Rollout will kill it. Then Graveler will outspeed and OHKO whatever is left.
Jolteon: Thunder 3HKOs Umbreon, with Rain Dance. Make sure to hit it with Charge Beam after one Thunder, so you can get a boost and to kill it without triggering a Full Restore. +1 Charge Beam will OHKO Murkrow and +2 Thunder will OHKO Houndoom if it hits. +1 Shadow Ball is enough to OHKO Gengar. Vileplume generally finishes it off.
Starmie: Specs Surf OHKOs Houndoom and Murkrow and 2HKOs Gengar, outspeeding all of them.
Tentacruel: unfortunately, it cannot beat Houndoom reliably, as it can live a Specs Surf (though it can be OHKOed on rolls) and 2HKOs with Crunch, while outspeeding. You beat Murkrow and Gengar, though, with Gengar Destiny Bonding. Specs Sludge Bomb is likely a 2HKO on Vileplume, but never tested it.


same levels, but Graveler is level 44

Graveler: set up 2 Rock Polishes and a Defense Curl on Aerodactyl, heal if necessary, and 2HKO it with Rollout. Then watch Rollout crush his three Dragonite. New Rollout OHKOs Zard on rolls.
Jolteon: Specs Thunder will OHKO Aerodactyl, Gyarados, and Zard, though Aero is faster and 2HKOs with Rock Slide. Find a way to set up Rain Dance with Specs, if possible
Starmie: Specs Blizzard OHKOs all Dragonites, while outspeeding them. If possible, use something to set up Hail.
Tentacruel: Specs Blizzard OHKOs DNites, however, level 49s outspeed (level 50 doesn't, for whatever reason). You can also beat Charizard with Specs Surf. Have a teammate set up Hail for you to beat level 50 Dragonite


nominations:

Geodude -> merge tiers, leaning towards S
I checked ceal's logs and noticed he never used Rollout at the E4, which I think is crucial for its success at the E4. Graveler managed to always crush almost every team by finding a setup fodder and doing its stuff. I haven't checked ceal's logs completely, but from experience, the only differences between Golem and Graveler is that Graveler sucks for Morty and sometimes requires two Rock Polishes instead of one. However, I do not believe this is enough to separate them, and I think both Geodudes should be merged into one tier. I may test Golem in the near future, just to be safe.

Jolteon -> B
Jolteon is a stone evolution, comes at level 5, and has to grind with the inaccurate Thunder, though it does provide power for the early stages. However, my biggest issue with it is that a lot of its incredibly good matchups are reliant on landing Charge Beam boosts in a row, which is generally not as likely as it seems, factoring its chance of missing. I think B is a very fitting tier for Jolteon.

Staryu -> B
Like Jolteon, it's an evolution stone (aka you gotta grind at the Pokeathlon Dome) and levels up rather slowly. However, it performs rather well consistently, so I am not gonna rule out A-tier, but I personally didn't get vibes from it as an A-tier

Tentacool (or, well, Tentacruel) -> B at worst, possible case for A
Tentacruel performs well consistently and is not hard to find and repel trick a level 25 one. One of its defining properties is its ability to majorly dent Clair's Kingdra or even beat it under likely-to-occur circumstances. It levels up slowly, just like Starmie, so that may cause some problems. It also has to spam Barriers at the E4 and felt somewhat slow in doing its job there. However, I firmly believe Tentacruel should be tiered B at worst, unless my IVs inflated its performance significally.


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for next run, I am planning on using the remaining Eeveelutions by hacking them in. Umbreon and Espeon, in my opinion, should be straight C-tiers at best, because happiness is a terrible mechanic in Generation 4 and Espeon, in particular, has to be obtained before level 15, otherwise you miss Confusion.
 
Last edited:

Ryota Mitarai

Shrektimus Prime
is a Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributor
double post, but I did a run with Umbreon / Espeon / Flareon / Vaporeon. All of them are the exact same Eevee, so they all have the same IVs:



Everything is level 22

Flareon: Charcoal Ember OHKOs Magnemite and 2HKOs the rest, with Fire Blast being able to OHKO them all. For this run, Silver's starter is Chikorita so I can get past him more easily.
Vaporeon: if his starter is Cyndaquil, then you can sweep him by spamming Surf, which OHKOs Zubat, Magnemite, and Gastly.
Espeon: OHKOs Gastly and Zubat with Confusion while outspeeding them. Bayleef is 3HKOed and shoots itself in the foot with Poisonpowder due to Synchronize. If it goes for Reflect or Magical Leaf after second Confusion, you win. Magnemite is 3HKOed by Confusion, you can also teach Dig if nothing on your team wants it.
Umbreon: Payback OHKOs Gastly, but it outspeeds Umbreon. Magnemite is OHKOed by Dig and Zubat is killed easily. Bayleef is annoying due to Reflect and Synthesis, but you can poison it with Synchronize when it Poisonpowders you. For the other starters, you can perhaps use Tail Whip + Payback to beat them, most notably Croconaw, who uses Scary Face constantly in my other runs/


everything is level 25 (god damn it, they took so long to grind, this happens when you get 4 stuff from the same location)

Flareon: Charcoal Fire Blast OHKOs everything bar Gengar, which is put in red. However, it's slower than everything, so you rely on luck. By far the worst Eevelution for Morty, along with Jolteon.
Vaporeon: Surf 2HKOs Gengar and OHKOs the rest, however, it's slower than everything. Gengar 4HKOs with Shadow Ball. As a whole ,you need some luck to sweep, given the amount of Curse and status.
Espeon: Gengar always beats it, as it's faster and survives a Confusion. However, the rest are outsped and OHKOed by Confusion.
Umbreon: Payback is boosted always, as everything outspeeds it. Gengar is almost OHKOed itself (which indicates it might be rolls) and the rest is OHKOed. If possible, get yourself paralyzed so you can avoid status.


Espeon is level 28, rest is 27

Flareon: Return OHKOs Zubat and 2HKOs Raticate, while Fire Blast will kill Koffing.
Vaporeon: Specs Surf OHKOs everything.
Espeon: Confusion OHKOs Koffing and Zubat and 2HKOs Raticate, which 3HKOs with Crunch.
Umbreon: Return 2HKOs Zubat and 3HKOs Koffing, which Smokescreens you. Payback 2HKOs Raticate, as you are slower, though watch out for Hyper Fang flinches.


everything is level 30

Flareon: Specs Fire Blast is an OHKO on Primeape (Charcoal is rolls). Poliwrath is not beatable under any circumstances.
Vaporeon: Specs Surf OHKOs Primeape, however, you are unable to fight Poliwrath afterwards. Specs Shadow Ball 2HKOs Primeape and 4HKOs Poliwrath, not minding berry.
Espeon: Specs Confusion OHKOs Prieamepe and 2HKOs Poliwrath while outspeeding them. Great matchup
Umbreon: 3HKOs Primeape with Return, but Double Team. Hf with Poliwrath


everything is level 30

Flareon: outspeeds and OHKOs Magnemite with Dig and Steelix with Charcoal Fire Blast
Vaporeon: Specs and MW Surf OHKO everything while outspeeding
Espeon: Dig OHKOs Magnemite. Bad against Steelix
Umbreon: Dig OHKOs Magnemite. Bad against Steelix


everything is level 31

Flareon: Return 2HKOs Seel and 3HKOs Dewgong. Piloswine is OHKOed by Charcoal Fire Blast. If Seel used Hail turn one and you didn't miss against Piloswine, you pretty much win without healing.
Vaporeon: Specs Surf 2HKOs Seel and OHKOs Piloswine. Dewgong is a stalemate, since it's 4HKOed.
Espeon: Specs Shadow Ball 2HKOs Seel and 3HKOs the rest. Piloswine can 2HKO you on rolls and Hail can make it hard to hit. You need to heal if you beat Piloswine in order to beat Dewgong.
Umbreon: Return is a 3HKO on Seel, with slower Payback being a 2HKO. Piloswine and Dewgong are bulky as hell, so they take a lot of time while weakening you, but can potentially disrupt them with Confuse Ray.


Umbreon and Vaporeon are level 33, Flareon is 32, Espeon is 31

Flareon: Charcoal Fire Blast OHKOs everything, but you need Ethers and such to sweep.
Vaporeon: outspeeds and OHKOs everything with Specs Surf
Espeon: Specs Confusion kills everything
Umbreon: Specs Shadow Ball 2HKOs Koffing and 3HKOs Weezing. Return 3HKOs Koffing and 5HKOs Weezing. Eh matchup


Espeon is level 32, rest is 33

Flareon: Return and Fire Blast 2HKO Golbat. Dig OHKOs Magnemite. Haunter is faster and can be annoying with Curse or Confuse Ray, but is OHKOed by Bite. Meganium and Sneasel are OHKOed by Fire Blast.
Vaporeon: Specs Surf OHKOs everything bar Meganium
Espeon: Specs Confusion OHKOs Haunter and Golbat. Magnemte and Meganum are 2HKOed and 3HKOed. Meganium loses, as soon as it sets up Reflect and uses Petal Dance
Umbreon: Return 3HKOs Golbat and Sneasel. Dig OHKOs Magnemite and Payback OHKOs Haunter but Haunter outspeeds. Avoid Meganium.


everything is level 34

Flareon: Charcoal Fire Blast OHKOs his Pokemon, with Golbat being faster, though.
Vaporeon: Specs Surf OHKOs his Pokemon, with Golbat outspeeding it.
Espeon: Specs Confusion OHKOs everything
Umbreon: slower Payback 2HKOs Golbat. Weezing generally beats it, as Shadow Ball deals laughable damage and Sludge + poison quickly wears it out


Espeon is level 35, rest is 34

Flareon: Specs Fire Blast OHKOs everything, with Charcoal FBlast missing an OHKO on Arbok.
Vaporeon: Specs Surf OHKOs Arbok and Murkrow
Espeon: Specs Confusion OHKOs Vileplume and Arbok. Struggles with Murkrow.
Umbreon: Dig 3HKOs Arbok with Intimiadte debuff and -1 Return 3HKOs and 4HKOs Murkrow and Vileplume. You need to heal while fighting Murkrow, though


same levels, but Flareon is level 35

Flareon: OHKOs Houndour with Dig, but takes a Faint Attack. Dig puts Houndoom in red, but Flareon is finished off by Faitn Attack. Koffing is an easy kill with Charcoal Fire Blast.
Vaporeon: Specs Surf OHKOs everything
Espeon: 2HKOs Houndour with Dig while eating a Faint Attack. Loses to Houndoom. Confusion OHKOs Koffing
Umbreon: Dig 2HKOs and 3HKOs Houndour and Houndoom, with healing being required to beat Houndoom. Koffing is 4HKOed by Shadow Ball and can be annoying with Sludge and poison.


Espeon and Vaporeon are level 37, rest is 36

Flareon: it can beat one Dragonair by taking a TWave and an Aqua Tail while 2HKOing with Return.
Vaporeon: Specs Aurora Beam puts Dragonair in red. You can easily beat both, with one potion, if needed
Espeon: beats Dragonairs by 2HKOing them with Specs Psybeam. They spam Slam, for whatever reason, and TWave when you are not paralyzed.
Umbreon: boosted Payback 3HKOs Dragonair. You need to heal to take down both. Use Faint Attack between your two Paybacks to not trigger potions.


Everything is level 39

Flareon: Charcoal Fire Blast OHKOs Sneasel and Meganium and puts Golbat in red. Magneton is OHKOed by Dig and Haunter and Kadabra are OHKOed by Bite, but Kadabra puts a Reflect. Keep in mind you need to heal at least once and that Haunter and Kadabra can finish you off if you are too weakened.
Vaporeon: Specs Surf OHKOs Sneasel, Magneton, Kadabra, and Haunter. Avoid Meganium. Golbat is 2HKOed.
Espeon: Psybeam OHKOs Haunter and Golbat while outspeeding them and 3HKOs Meganium, who loses as soon as it goes for Reflect and Petal Dance. Magneton is 2HKOed by Dig. Kadabra is OHKOed by Shadow Ball. Avoid Sneasel
Umbreon: Payback OHKOs Haunter and Kadabra. Return 3HKOs Sneasel. Dig 2HKOs Magneton


everything is level 42

Flareon: Charcoal Fire Blast puts Xatu in red and OHKOs if Xatu uses Me First and triggers Flash Fire. Jynx and Eggy are OHKOed regardless, but can be annoying with sleep. Slowbro is 2HKOed by Flash Fire Fire Blast after a Bite. Xatu #2 is also OHKOed if you have Flash Fire (otherwise put in red)
Vaporeon: Specs Shadow Ball OHKOs Xatu #1 and Exeggutor and 2HKOs the rest. Jynx is dangerous due to Lovely Kiss.
Espeon: spam Specs Shadow Ball and you will win, unless Jynx goes for Lovely Kiss and hits.
Umbreon: Spam Payback on everything bar Slowbro, which it cannot beat. Payback will generally 2HKO things without a Reflect up. Takes some time and you will need to heal. Disappointing, in all honesty.


Umbreon is level 43, rest is 42

Flareon: Charcoal Fire Blast OHKOs Ariados, Venomoth, and Forretress. Crobat is annoying with Double Team and Muk lives one and OHKOs with Gunk Shot.
Vaporeon: Specs Surf OHKOs Ariados and 2HKOs the rest (I crit the Forry so it became an OHKO, but it won't do much to Vapo anyways). May need a healing.
Espeon: Specs Psybeam OHKOs Venomoth, Ariados, and Crobat. Muk survives one and OHKOs with Gunk Shot.
Umbreon: terrible. It takes ages to beat anything, other than Venomoth, which is 3HKOed by boosted Payback, but still cripples it with Toxic. Don't use it here.


Umbreon and Vapo are level 43, rest is 42

Flareon: Charcoal Fire Blast 2HKOs the Hitmons. Lee will likely beat it, as it's faster and hits hard with HJK. Hitmontop alone forces Flareon to heal due to Dig and being faster.
Vaporeon: Specs Surf 2HKOs Hitmons and OHKOs Onix. Avoid Hitmonchan, as Thunder Punch hits it hard. Hitmonlee can also pose problems with a HJK. Machamp is a huge no.
Espeon: Specs Psybeam OHKOs Hitmontop and Onix. The rest are 2HKOed. It's better to switch out against Lee and heal offscreen so you can beat Hitmonchan without it finishing you off, unless you wanna gamble on Lee setting up Focus Energy.
Umbreon: absolutely terrible. Machamp and Hitmonlee are gonna hit it super effectively. The others simply take so much time that it's not worth it.


Flareon is level 42, rest is 43

Flareon: Fire Blast takes out Murkrow and Vileplume. Gengar is annoying due to Destiny Bond and Focus Blast.
Vaporeon: Specs Surf OHKOs Murkrow and Houndoom. Gengar is 2HKOed, but Destiny Bonds.
Espeon: beats the Poison-types
Umbreon: also terrible here. Other than Gengar, which threatens it with Focus Blast, you are not taking down anything within a reasonable timeframe, other than Murkrow.


Lance: Vaporeon is the only thing that does anything here. Specs Surf OHKOs Aerodactyl, along with Zard on rolls. Specs Aurora Beam puts level 49 DNites in red, as level 50 DNite OHKOs with Outrage. So if you switch and heal, you can use Vaporeon as your Lance killer.

nominations:

Flareon -> leaning towards C
Flareon is very similar to Growlithe in that they are stone evolutions and are physical attackers. Flareon has a vast coverage that can hit many Pokemon for super effective damage. It is very effective if you picked Totodile, as it will make Silver a lot easier. I think C is more fitting, but I don't think D is entirely out of question, especially if we throw Growlithe in there

Vaporeon -> B
I think, if I were to rank the eeveelutions, Vapo would be #1. It's by far the easiest eeveelution to train, as it likely has Surf by the time you obtain it. Even then, it mostly spams Surf and sometimes Shadow Ball, making it also the stone eeveelution that requires the least resources to be useful. Given that Water-types are incredibly good, I don't think any tier other than B is better for it, given it still requires to be grinded and an evolution stone.

Espeon -> C
As I have stated in my last post, happiness is a terrible mechanic in Generation 4. Furthermore, Espeon requires you to obtain it before level 15, as you otherwise miss Confusion, so abusing level ups is much harder in this case. Even then, it underperforms when compared to other Psychic-types like Girafarig and Kadabra, as it fails to take out key threats like Morty's Gengar. C is perfectly fine for it

Umbreon -> leaning towards E
Umbreon has only two matchups (Jasmine, imo, doesn't count, since anything with Dig does well there) and Will, in particular, isn't super fast and you will be spending some time actually beating him. In a lot of fights, its best achievements are 3HKOing things and even on the field, it often fails to 2HKO threats. I honestly think that its positive contributions are completely outshadowed by the fact it's borderline useless everywhere else. D is possible, but it'd be like D- at best if that existed, but I personally wouldn't mind an E-tier.

I may use both Kadabra and Alakazam next run. The latter was something I nominated to S and I'd like to bring relevant logs to support my nomination. I am also planning on using Wooper and Qwilfish next run.
 
Umbreon -> leaning towards E
I agree with this. I used Umbreon twice before and besides the fact that it is not very powerful, it also takes a while to get. You have to spend a lot of time with eevee and level it up with high friendship at night (typically you have to either wait or change the time, which hurts its efficiency even more). Though it is not F tier because this thing’s bulk is HUGE. It just never dies.
 

Ryota Mitarai

Shrektimus Prime
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Started a new run with Wooper / Kadabra / Alakazam / Qwilfish. Managed to speed through up to Pryce so I can post logs:

Wooper is level 11

Wooper: beats Pidgey but fails utterly against Pidgeotto.


Wooper is level 17

Wooper: Slam OHKOs Zubat and Water Gun muscles through Koffing


Wooepr is level 18

Wooper: Gastly Curses, so you have to switch out against Zubat. I picked Chikorita this run and Wooper 3HKOs Quilava with Mud Shot.


Wooper was tested as level 19 and 20

Wooper: sucks for Scyther, as it deals no damage at all.
Quagsire: Slam 3HKOs Scyther, though Slam has wonky accuracy and Leer + U-turn still hits hard.


Quagsire is level 20, rest is 19

Quagsire: It gets into a stalemate with Miltank, however, Mud Shot and Mud Bomb's secondary effects can cripple Miltank severely for another teammate to take advantage of. Make sure to get a female one, due to Attract. Quagsire can live multiple Stomps, so as long as it doesn't get flinched the first times, Mud Shot will make it a non-issue and Mud Bomb accuracy drops can start rolling in.
Kadabra: loses to Miltank very easily, as it lacks Focus Blast.
Alakazam: Focus Blast OHKOs Clefairy (Confusion is a 3HKO) and kills Miltank after it takes a Confusion, with Stomp being a 3HKO. Great matchup imo.


everything is level 22

Quagsire: Surf OHKOs Gastly, but Gastly is faster. Zubat and Quilava are 2HKOed, with the latter spamming Smokescreen. Magnemite is one shto by Mud Shot and Dig
Kadabra: Confusion kills Zubat and Gastly and 3HKOs the rest. Quilava, in particular, likes to spam Smokescreen. Alakazam faces the same issues, though it can one shot Magnemite and 2HKO Quilava with Focus Blast.
Qwilfish: Surf outspeeds and OHKOs Gastly. Against Magnemite, the best you can do is Minimize to avoid Supersonic and TWave and put it in red with Surf. After that, click Rollout and run through his team.


everything is level 25

Quagsire: it's outsped by everything, so the matchup is luck-reliant. Surf OHKOs Gastly, 2HKOs Haunter, and 3HKOs Gengar. If possible, set up Amnesia so you can eat multiple Shadow Balls from Gengar.
Kadabra: outspeeds and OHKOs everything with Psybeam.
Qwilfish: outspeeds everything bar Gengar. If you use Rollout, never miss, and Gastly doesn't go for Curse, you sweep. Gengar fails to kill it even after taking a crit Lick and can also go for Mean Look. Good matchup, but not 100% reliant.


everything is level 28

Quagsire: Specs Surf spam gets it an easy win.
Kadabra: Psybeam OHKOs Zubat and 2HKOs Raticate. Raticate uses Scary Face and then puts it in red with Hyper Fang, but dies. Koffing is still outsped and OHKOed by Psybeam. Zam has the option to nuke Raticate with Focus Blast.
Qwilfish:


everything is level 31

Quagsire: Surf 2HKOs Primeape on rolls, however, Double Team can cause problems, but you can cripple it with Yawn, as it doesn't check for accuracy. Poliwrath is 4HKOed (without berry) by Dig and can be crippled with Yawn, however, Hypnosis is faster and Focus Punch is a 2HKO. As a whole, I'd say 50/50
Kadabra: Psybeam OHKOs Primeape and 2HKOs Poliwrath (putting it just before berry range). Specs guarantees a 2HKO on Poliwrath even with berry.
Qwilfish: Specs Sludge Bomb 2HKOs Primeape without putting it in potion range, unless it poison. Not minding berry, it also 3HKOs Poliwrath, whose Surf 4HKOs. If it doesn't go for Hypnosis and you heal, you are likely to win. Poisoning also helps here.


same levels

Quagsire: Specs Surf 2HKOs everything. It only has to worry about Supersonic hax.
Kadabra: Specs Psybeam 2HKOs Magnemite, but you are likely beating only one.
Alakazam: Specs Focus Blast OHKOs everything, but a miss can be fatal here.
Qwilfish: beats Steelix with Specs Surf, but, given it cannot OHKO Magnemite, it fails to beat those, as they OHKO it with Thunderbolt. Use Minimize to avoid that and don't use Specs


everything is level 32

Quagsire: can win this, but rather slowly. Yawn Seel and set up 3 Amnesias (or less, but I tried with 3). Dig 2HKOs. Piloswine is 3HKOed by Surf due to berry and Ice Fang 3HKOs if there's hail. Dewgong takes a lot of time, unless you get lucky with sleep, as Dig is around a 3HKO.
Kadabra: Specs Psybeam 2HKOs Seel. Switch out against Piloswine, as it can easily one shot you with Ice Fang. Against Dewgong, Specs Charge Beam will be a 2HKO if you get a boost turn one. If no, you will almost 2HKO.
Alakazam: use Charge Beam to get a +1 boost against Seel, while 2HKOing it, then Focus Blast will OHKO the rest.
Qwilfish: You can only sweep if you use Minimize. Then you just spam Rollout and hope lady luck smiles at you.


current thoughts:

Wooper
Leaning towards C-tier. Wooper period is rather awful, in my honest opinion, and Quagsire is really slow in taking down threats. It does contribute heavily against Whitney's Miltank, however, there's also the fact Morty and Chuck are very luck-based, Jasmine being slower than most Water-types and Pryce being time-consuming. But let's see what the rest of the game will bring for it.

Kadabra
Leaning towards B. It's, in an essence, a better Girafarig, so maybe A could be possible? However, having no good matchup against Miltank hurts it greatly, unlike Zam

Alakazam
As I said, I believe it's S. Read my post on page one to learn more, I just test it for modern logs.

Qwilfish
Leaning towards C. It's a Water-type, so it's very solid, however, it is rather reliant on Minimize to do its job, which can prove unreliable. Rollout is fun, though.
 
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