I have been playing this tier for about a year now and for a good reason : it is quite heavily centralized (was already this way pre sub-pass ban, and has been re-enforced by it). I prefer centralized metagames as they give you limited ressources to deal and play with. Typing wise especially I found this tier super interesting : it is extremely unique with its four viable poison types, few good water types, and outside of these two types, pretty much one, sometimes two, viable mon for each type. It is not often you see a dark type as mightyena being used as the prime physical wall, usually because tiers have multiple fighting types. In adv pu there is only combusken. There are a lot of viable team styles, from hyper offense with pinch berries, to regular spikeless offense, to spikes offense, to more balanced stuff, to stall even. I feel like this tier has not been explored much as well since the sub+bp ban is quite recent.
One thing I can definitely say is that spikes is a BIG thing in this tier. How you set your own or handle them drastically affects how you build and play. It's one of the main reason some mons are way higher on the tierlist: simply because they handle spikes well, abuse them well or simply put pressure to prevent them from being up alltogether. And of course, at the center of this is pineco, the main (and pretty much only good) spiker and spinner.
Will talk about spiky boi in its own section. To close off general thoughts, I think this tier is honestly quite competitive as well, with pretty decent players playing it in every tour I have been in so far. I hope this continues to be so!! It is definitely more exciting when a metagame you like has a bunch of good players who build and play, especially when it is a more obscure old gen lower tier like this one.
Onto the viability ranking!
Minun is by far the number one pokémon in this tier, no possible contest what so ever, it is just too good at what it does, which is threaten everything that is not a special wall heavily, passing wish, being disruptive with thunder wave and encore, and generally being the fastest pokémon in the tier (outside of my goat yanma, but not everyone can reach that level of excellence). With spikes on 50%+ of the teams it can quickly become terryfing to check, especially if you let yourself be overwhelmed by early spikes. The fact that the next two pokémon are there largely because they check this guy should tell you a lot.
Swalot is the best poison to me, by far. It is so bulky that it is not only one of the best minun checks, but a check to pretty much everything that does not learn earthquake. Despite numerous pokemon learning it, there is more than a few that do not. And those also need to outspeed swalot. It has not been explored much, but swalot's decent speed of 55 (for this tier) allows it to outspeed adamant graveler with very little invest (and giga drain ohko). It can pretty reliably outspeed defensive marshtomp as well. All that while still being a really good special wall vs anything that is not seadra (hydro pump hurts). It is quite exceptionnal versus a few mons I put way lower, like grovyle and tangela who literally cannot do anything to it. Nothing really wants to switch into a sludge bomb and eat poison, and its options are really good. Yawn, fire punch, ice beam, giga drain are all amazing. And to top it off, it gets explosion, being one of the four pokémon that learns it (the others being pineco, graveler and gastly), which allows it to pretty much always trade one for one if not more. It is such a good glue that opens your builder, especially for trap weak pokémon like arbok, seviper, lickitung etc. Swalot chipping/killing trapinch makes your life so much easier in the builder. As a poison is pretty much an auto include in a team for me in this tier, swalot has been my auto include for pretty much every build in PUPL.
Also, I can share a small secret with you. Refer yourself to my PUPL teams posted above. As you can see, one of my swalot has acid armor, which beats any non banded trapinch. So killing trapinch is more than a pipe dream for swalot. Sludgy boi W
Dragonair is also a builder simplifier 101, but not in the same way as swalot is. Dragonair gives you essentially a free thunder wave at all times. Meaning something that absorbs thunder wave well needs to switch in. And then dragonair swoops in and clicks ice beam/hp grass on the ground type! Wait never mind it actually clicked dragon dance and ohko'd my pokemon after another dragon dance/2hko'd it straight up at +1. There you have why dragonair is so good for you and a absolute pain for the opponent, you can never tell what set it is running. Even calcs can fail you:
252 SpA 30 IVs Minun Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 84 SpD 30 IVs Dragonair: 64-76 (19.6 - 23.3%) -- possible 6HKO
252 SpA 30 IVs Minun Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 160+ SpD Dragonair: 53-63 (16.2 - 19.3%) -- possible 8HKO
What if you roll the 18.5-19.4% roll? Well, good luck guessing which dragonair it is. That and this mon can also be special if you really want it to be. It has some bad weaknesses though, namely any physical attacker. Seviper and combusken can both threaten to 2hko it. I wouldnt be surprised to see dragonair with decent amount of physdef (on any set, but in particular dd ones) in later tournaments. I recommend
chungler's really good post on the mon, my favourite ddnair set definitely being the one that outspeeds minun at +1, preventing it from encore shenanigans. Despite all its qualities, it is still tied to a 33% chance to full heal, which can quickly backfire if you get unlucky (you sometimes really need that one turn full heal). Most often though, dragonair is content to just waste its rest turns even if shed skin does not free it earlier. One important mechanic is that shed skin can happen at the end of any turn, meaning if you switch in dragonair after any ko, it can get a free chance to instantly wake up. Same if you send it to eat like a minun thunderbolt. Excellent mon with very few flaws.
Well, here is one of the flaws. Sealeo can wipe dragonair with ease, at the risk of being paralyzed by thunder wave. However versus the new, very popular dd sets, sealeo can come in and straight up just murder dragonair in broad daylight.
220+ SpA 30 IVs Sealeo Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD 30 IVs Dragonair: 307-362 (94.1 - 111%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
Really scary pokemon. Encore is one of its best moves to disrupt the slower mons like lickitung. I have found swalot to be the only reliable pokémon vs this thing (and I guess outplaying your opponent? When you get to that, you know shit is bad). One mistake vs sealeo and it kills 1 mon and mauls another. It has good counterplay in its really mediocre speed and weakness to thunderbolt (praise be minun). If you dont check that guy in the builder, you are bound to mega lose the moment you cross it. There is no soft way to handle this pokémon. It is also excellent with spikes as it forces switches.
This closes what I consider to be the big 3 below minun (if you wanna be a cringe reddit kid you can call it the b3bm). Anyway, one or more the b3bm (first and last time, promise) is required on every team imo. They are simply too good and too crucial to not be included.
El picotes. I love spikes in all tiers, this tier is no exception to the rule. Pineco is very interesting as it is the only (good) spiker, spinner and one of the only boomers, so it has this special position in which you cannot boom it too early, lest you lose your spikes and allow opponent's pineco to set theirs. But you also sometimes need to pull the trigger to get some momentum. Earthquake access makes it really excellent, capable of doing good damage to a large number of pokémon even without booming. Not much else to say, should be an auto include on most offensive structures and on most defensive structures. You need to justify not running it imo.
This closes off the S tier, which is most mons I cannot really build without handling one way or another. They are all very important to consider to not be stuck in game. Next in A tier we have a bunch of mons you need a few solutions versus, but are not as quintessential as the ones in S, most often because they have common checks or combi of pokémon you can use to check them.
Sealeo with speed and better stab (hydro pump ftw). Way worse bulk though, which is why it is here and not up there in S. Quite hard to bring in due to that poor bulk, but once its in, tough to check. Seadra is one the pokémon that utilizes spikes the best : you get a lot of rolls who were not killing rolls becoming some thanks to even just one spike, but with 3 spikes it is a demon, basically nothing checks it. It is one of the two mons that keep minun humble and forces it to be +speed (other than you know, the minun on the enemy team). Basically if your team needs a water attacker and speed, it will get the job done quite well.
I have always had mixed ideas about arbok. On paper it hits really hard (assuming you are not running the wet noodle +speed zero attack investment set) and is hard to check. In game you face a singular shuckle and it now deals a grand amount of zero damage, and will for the entirety of the game. Marshtomp pretty much same deal. It is outsped and beaten by seadra. It ties with gastly and takes a ridiculous chunk from psychic. It faces mightyena and cries. It gets trapped and dies. It lacks good recovery since you want intimidate. And despise all of what I just mentionned, its still amazing. You might have noticed, but it is the first pokémon that requires a physical wall to be checked. The main issue is said physical wall (shuckle, mightyena, or mawile) also check swalot, and other pokémon we will see below. Among all of these physical pokémon, arbok is by far the strongest. Bar shuckle, all of his checks can be beaten with screech. Glare is a bad move with 75% accuracy compared to regular thunder wave, but if you dont miss it it becomes a pretty okay move (paralysis is always good innit). Outside of the mons I mentionned above, arbok anihilates anything in its path while checking a lot of mons with its good speed, intimidate and access to sludge bomb+earthquake. With refresh it is more or less disregarding status. If your team isnt prepared well enough versus arbok, it can quickly become a pain to handle, but as mentionned before, your team should check swalot, and therefore should check arbok.
Insert Faker title. "Wtf google how do I beat this guy" -> "Have you tried super effective moves".
Well you better try those, because that is the only thing that will damage the monstrous wall that is togetic. Any non full specially invested mon will basically do peanuts to it, and even fully invested ones can just straight up fail to do anything:
252 SpA Charmeleon Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 16+ SpD Togetic: 122-144 (38.8 - 45.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
You need to crit fireblast (and hit all of them basically) to push through. What a demon. One of the easy solutions to togetic is status : as it wants soft boiled to heal, it is prone to eating thunder wave and toxic. It really wants a heal bell partner. Well, what if there a pokemon that could handle all physical threats and play cleric so that togetic would be even harder to kill, like mightyena! I found that togetic/mightyena/dragonair core to be truly disgusting to break. Lickitung also works fine in dragonair's stead if you want a mawile over mightyena. I need to try more offensive versions as it has a really nice special attack stat for this tier. Honestly really cool and underexplored mon. You need a solid plan versus it or you will simply lose (minun is not enough).
Trap is good. Trap cannot be used every game though because it extremely easy to play around in this tier specifically. Banded trapinch does not outspeed anything, even the slower mons, and gets one hit by most anything that carries an ice or water move, with the exception of swalot and dragonair. To add to the list, lickitung, seviper and arbok are also really vulnerable to trapinch. As it can also run more bulky sets with some special defense, it can even eat a hit from charmeleon and ko it with no worries. Trapinch's number one issue is, anything outside of the pokémon I mentionned above. It is easily abused by baton pass minun and the defensive set is limited in the sense that if you live a hit from a few, you miss ko on some others, like dragonair and swalot, and both have options versus trapinch like icebeam or acid armor. So despise trapping being usually a pretty cheap tool, I find it way harder to use in this tier. Take in account bulky trapinch also cannot take a hit from anything basically : switch into arbok/seviper/charmeleon and you are basically dead to the next hit on the bulky variant (the banded one does not live a hit from most anything anyway). This forces you to position really well with it, meaning it is at its best when it is coming to revenge kill any of the pokémon mentionned above. Which you know, includes you have already lost a pokémon. Coming on minun baton pass (as your opponent switches to their special wall) is the other option, but as mentionned this will only work if you are banded as you will fail to reliably ko dragonair and swalot if they run coverage for you. Lickitung is left as the one mon that can truly do nothing versus trapinch : it is the only mon slow enough to get outsped by banded fast trapinch and that cannot invest into speed, lest you lose too much bulk. Its ice beam will never do enough versus bulky trapinch, and wont do enough either versus 0 bulk banded (now you know why I spoke about trapinch keeping the lickitung stocks in check earlier). So yeah, very weird pokémon that when it gets the desired matchup, truly is a pain to face. But most often you can handle it just fine. It is a builder restriction I honestly really like as it basically forces minun, the best pokémon in the tier, to run sub/baton pass on every set to not get trapped. Keeping the best pokémon of a tier humble is a plus in my book. To some extent it also forces mawile to slot baton pass, but that mon is better with baton pass on anyway.
The prime fire type attacker is not so much in its prime. As you might realize with all I said, or simply the type chart, charmeleon loses to every single pokémon above it in the tierlist minus pineco (who can still threaten earthquake on switch for meaty damage). Charmeleon is what I would call an unfortunate victim of coincidence. Pokémon run earthquake for minun and the poisons. Well charmeleon happens to be weak to it too. Pokémon run status moves to cripple some important hard to break mons. Well charmeleon really hates status, once paralyzed it is basically worthless. In addition to all of that, its main stab is resisted by two of the S tier pokémon (sealeo's thick fat) and doesnt have a great spread overall, with seven pokémon out of the twenty, so roughly one third of what I call the PU main crew, B and above (if you include B- which is the cutoff it is 8/24, so about the same). It also struggles into the really bulky pokémon like lickitung, shuckle and togetic, not only needing to hit consecutive fireblast to stand a chance, but not even reaching 3hko on any of those pokémon (as togetic can soft boiled to avoid it). Due to all of this, which honestly has nothing to do with charmeleon, I choose to put it way below what it is currently ranked on the viability ranking. I hope my reasons were sufficient. Now is the moment I say that despise all of this, charmeleon is quite insane. Petaya sets in particular are extremely scary as they allow you to reach those 2/3hko ranges. Also, as usual I am citing what checks it, but count anything I have not cited as getting completely blown to smithereens by it. But well, as it checked by the common special walls and other common bulky high tier pokémon, you need to build around charmeleon, find a way to chip said mons into its range and facilitate its life. I still have not find a way to avoid running fireblast for flamethrower's reliability, which honestly really sucks. Maybe some time in the near future, especially with spikes being way more prevalent now.
Wow I have mentionned this fella a lot in some of the other pokémon talks. Well it is really good, minding you do not face a trapinch. Wish is great for a lot of teammates, notably mawile, arbok, marshtomp and so on. Heal bell is amazing as long as you know how to use it properly (usually implies you take some "risk" versus a status mon, trading a hit for para/sleep/toxic you will heal bell later for value). Knock off is also honestly really good for your other pokémon to reach their ranges (yes, you charmeleon). And of course, it gets the best damage move in this tier aka seismic toss, which is just amazing as most pokémon's base hp are low in this tier. Not much to add, great straightforward wall that is not too passive and helps your team around, with clear weakness to trapping and physical attackers in general.
Also suffers from the charmeleon syndrome I described above. Some pokémon run a grass move to hit sealeo, seadra and graveler. Well it also hits marshtomp super mega effectively. You run a physical wall to check arbok, seviper and furret. Well, with the exception of shuckle, they all check marshtomp (yes even mawile) as migtyena, tangela and mawile are all awful for marshtomp. Mightyena in particular you can basically do nothing versus (at least versus mawile your earthquake still chunks and tangela can eat an icebeam, no way around vs mightyena). Versus the rest of the tier, marshtomp given it lives the grass move can be devastating, but well it can be rough as even versus slower targets you might be fine, versus something like graveler you need speed to creep adamant versions, which forces you to forego some bulk. I think marshtomp needs to be heavily built around, and cannot be an easy fit on any team. If you can get it going, it is extremely scary. As much as everything pressures it with grass, nothing really checks it long term outside of mightyena and togetic. I think it is at its best running substitute and a really offensive set, whether physical, special or mixed.
Throughout the PUPL season, I found myself having a bit of trouble with charmeleon due to all the things I mentionned above. The only thing that made me prep with charmeleon over combusken was basically the speed. But at some point I ran into specific opponents like Parpar which had a bunch of mightyena, togetic, swalot and shuckle, and I was like, no way charmeleon is doing anything there. But I still want a fire type to pressure. So the charmeleon became combusken, and honestly it was a good decision. Combusken is deadly versus basically anything. The physical walls all struggle to check it well (besides shuckle, but that mon is thanos), and the special walls dont take brick break well. The only reliable pokémon vs combusken is swalot (another swalot W). Also one major point in charmeleon versus combusken is that while you have to build around charmeleon, you do not for combusken. It is a great everything support as it weakens both physical and special walls, forces waters to take damage, might force minun to check it at some point, and so on. Its speed tier is also deceptively incredible : faster than timid sealeo (so you essentially outspeed all of the slower pokémon). Add to that that combusken preys on those slower pokémon, often forcing a switch out allowing you to get a free sub up. And unlike the other strong attackers, combusken as mentionned above only has swalot as a direct check, everything else (minus togetic, but togetic does not like the physical variant at all) takes a ton of damage. If you make one mistake, you are losing a pokémon and are forced to revenge kill with something faster, which is easy to abuse.
Also, focus punch. I love focus punch. I have had it on mawile on almost every set to punish lickitung on defensive sets and on sub offensive sets. Well combusken gets that STAB on it with same base attack. Devastating. Everybody loves seviper when it is pretty similar (good mixed attacker) and sure, seviper outspeeds combusken, but it isnt really outspeeding anything else.
Maybe you understand why these two are in the same tier now. Outside of marshtomp, which in my opinion does not really count as one, they are the two only good mixed attackers in the tier. And holy, are they good at their job. You already know combusken now, well seviper is another world of hurt. There is nothing that checks seviper clicking the correct move. Nothing. Besides shuckle (thanos). The other best that come close is mightyena as flamethrower is your best coverage to hit it. But mightyena does peanuts back with crunch, it is essentially forced to roar you out. Sludge bomb is a great move. In a tier in which all your rolls are so tight, the poison can make a huge difference. And yeah, earthquake is a great move. With shed skin, seviper relies on the 33% luck to remove the status, but that also means that you can afford to play more proactively, and stay in the face of a status inducing pokémon and keep your momentum going. It is a win-win situation since as mentionned before, basically nothing checks seviper, so your opponent will most likely at some point be forced to brute force it with damage or cripple it with status. Issue is, seviper is way more bulky than you would expect. That thing eats a move from pretty much anything that does not have earthquake, so yes it dies to itself, wheoever wins the tie. Great pokémon, frees your builder like crazy as it is an incredible breaker and very good potential sweeper with substitute+salac berry. Main issue being it is a poison type and competes with the others for a slot, or so you would think. It is essentially only competing with arbok, and you can use both if you want to. You can even use the three main poison together if you want to, as the psychic threats in this tier are togetic (still not so popular) and abra (basically not played) so it is essentially just covering earthquake that is needed.
As we get into B tier territory, the mon quality drastically decreases. All of the pokémon in A and above are either really strong at the one thing they do, or decently flexible. The pokémon in B are usually good at the one thing they do, and that is it. Which is you know, better than being average at everything, or even bad at the one thing you do. These pokémon contain some of the flawed physical attackers and all of the physical walls, with both of the spinblockers as well. Let us get into it!
Earthquake. The rock that blasts or that slides. Could honestly just say that and it would be enough. Graveler is one of the more straightforward pokémon in this tier. You put 252 252 in both atk and speed, can tech jolly if you want to punish people that run adamant graveler speed creep, and that is it really. It just hopes you dont run mightyena or tangela (or you know, anything that outspeeds and straight up kills it) which are the only two real checks. But do you need to check a pokémon that you ohko with your water or grass moves. Dont think so. So it is here. It also checks nothing, so dont hope to switch into anything. It was better when you could baton pass up the substitute. Now its honestly really mediocre. Think of seviper, but instead of "if I click the wrong move I do slightly less dmg" it is "if I click the wrong move I do no damage what so ever" (cuz you know, there is more than a few ground immune as well as the physical walls) when you are also outsped by pretty much everything that is not slow as balls. It is also trap weak and dies in three hits to seismic toss. If you build around it (mostly para-spam) it can be fine, but do not expect it to get the job done as well as any of the offensive pokémon above.
Normal type graveler with speed. Except every single physical wall checks that guy. At least graveler owned mawile and shuckle. Every ghost as well for obvious reasons. The upside of furret : you can sub on a lot of pokémon since you are quite fast and then get more than a couple of try to crit return moments. The downside being that this speed is very deceptive : if you are jolly, you do peanuts damage unless banded (which is super easy to check, none of the physical wall take over 50% by any of furret's banded moves, besides focus punch, lol). If you are adamant, you are slower than gastly, charmeleon, seadra, arbok and therefore you suck really bad versus any of these once you have attacked once and they realise you are adamant. Needs to be built around, not an auto include at all to me on any build. You really need a way to pressure/remove the physical walls. Works well with spikes, but I think at this point I have talked about tight rolls enough that you understand most everything is better with spikes. You have to have a way to check these two by the way. Otherwise they actually steamroll you. But comparably to the monsters above, they are really straightforward and easy to check.
Thanos time. What if you could be weak to water, but actually screw that, I can stay in and click a move versus a water anyway because the physical attackers I check will not 2hko even after the major water chip.
252+ SpA 30 IVs Seadra Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 216+ SpD Shuckle: 137-162 (56.1 - 66.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Average shuckle calc. You probably understand the thanos talk in some of the sections above. This thing cant die and wont die. Unless you toss it. With its low base hp, it is extremely bad versus seismic toss. That is the only thing it is bad versus. Shuckle's main issue is its terrible offenses, meaning that unless you're running a full stall set, you need to pump up that attack to do relevant damage with earthquake. Not good, or great, damage. Relevant damage. It is also extremely passive, completely cutting your momentum whenever it comes on the field. But it has access to encore, one of the best disruptive moves in the game, so you can somewhat compensate for its passivity. Especially when nothing besides graveler, ddnair and waters come close to do any damage to it. If you need a defensive glue that checks all besides waters and the rock boi, shuckle can be excellent.
How mighty can a hyena be. Well in the wild they are some of the mightiest animals around, with advanced hunting and food acquiring tactics, as well as one of the strongest bites, period. Well this one hyena trades its signature strong bite for a mediocre one, gaining some thick furr in return. This thing checks every single physical pokémon in the meta (besides combusken). It has one enormous flaw though : the rusted jaw it is biting with. As mentionned before, crunch despite being STAB does pathetic damage, often ranging in the twenties percent. And so mightyena offers your opponent free momentum every time it comes in, as it is incapable of doing any relevant damage. So despise it carrying heal bell (great move), it struggles to use it without giving free turns to your opponent. However, what if you did not need momentum, because you had none in the first place? That is right, hop on the stall train, friend. In stall it is another beast entirely. It pairs really well with togetic and they are incredibly hard to break together. Mightyena softens them and roars them out, while togetic completely walls them, and gets heal bell'd by the hyena if needed. Outside of stall cores, really big momentum breaker. Up to you to see if you need a heal bell that bad and cannot use lickitung for some reason. Because next on the list is another intimidate which does not drop your momentum at all.
The sole steel of the tier. Mawile is great defensively, and acceptable offensively. Its offensive movepool is not too great, so it is stuck running hp steel and other similar crap boosted by swords dance. Defensively, it gets seismic toss (great move!) and that is really all it needs. Given its good attack stat, it is still capable of breaking through stuff with zero invest with moves like focus punch dealing a ton to non bulky targets. And of course, it gets baton pass. I think it was by far the best substitute passer (minun was close second as it usually needed other moves) as it preyed on the more defensive pokémon. Nowadays, you mostly use defensive sets and baton pass is your free momentum (also makes mawile great vs trapinch). Taunt is decent to disrupt stuff, mind that it is two turns only in ADV, so you essentially taunt and baton pass right after. Simple toxic seismic toss protect baton pass can be really hard to go through, and you have to watch out for the options I mentionned above as well. Not the most tech'able pokémon, but the few options it gets are nice to keep your opponent on their toes. It is also one of the best wish recipient, lovely when paired with wish minun.
First pokémon I have not build with at all this PUPL (furret I built around and ended up not using the team). In a meta filled with ice moves on every pokémon, three pokémon that completely wall its offensive variant (dragonair, swalot and togetic) and poison types running around, it is really hard to justify tangela on a team. It has good stats besides special defense is the only real argument. It checks graveler fine, unless it gets flinched down with spikes up, which is more likely than you would think. Tangela is a pokémon you can easily disrupt with encore, easily sub on one of its status moves, or just straight up kill it with some of the moves previously mentionned. Despite its great special attack stat, its offensive movepool is truly atrocious with basically nothing outside of hidden power, STAB giga drain and thief. Yes, thief. I think when we consider thief a move on a pokémon, you know the movepool is truly dire. Leech seed is a great move though. Maybe it is possible to build a spikes team with tangela forcing switches with leech and status. I just do not really see it ever doing anything (other than walling graveler). Definitely the most passive defensive wall on your team (yes it is more passive than shuckle) and its offensive variant is not so good. Sunny day sweeper requires you to get rid of togetic, swalot and dragonair, and that can be a little rough when togetic can be paired with either, but you can probably try to build a team around it and set it up. Will it be better than the actual special attackers? No. But it surely can work.
First "spin blocker". Same special attack as tangela, but with a movepool this time (a great one at that!). Namely, psychic, thunderbolt and giga drain are great offensive special options, nightshade is good neutral damage and it gets a lot of good utility moves in will'o wisp, perish song (+mean look, probably something you can work on with trapinch on the same team), taunt and of course, explosion. One of the four pokémon that gets explosion, and the one with the best speed! And the worst attack stat! However do not be fooled by its low attack, explosion will deal a whole lot to anything, even bulky stuff, as long as they are not immune or resist it. As the only pokémon you are really ever clicking it versus are the special walls (lickitung and dragonair in particular), you are quite fine doing 50%+ on explosion after you taunted them to prevent status/recovery. Gastly sits on pineco and can freely attack/status it. But the main issue is that you want to spinblock with spikes, obviously. And your pineco is as much as the spinner as the opponent's is. Meaning they get a free spike on your gastly entry trying to spinblock, or you did not spin off their spike before (and you are coming on a spin). Creating the ideal situation (no spike on your side and they click rapid spin on the gastly switch) is tough tbh. I mostly view gastly as a special attacker that can spinblock (and it is great at being a special attacker). Its main issue is tying charmeleon coupled with its completely unusable bulk on the special side (on the physical side, the bulk is not better, but it resists or is immune to most moves with its great triple normal fighting ground immunes and poison resist). It is not a pokémon you can field on every team, but it can be great at breaking and giving you momentum.
Somewhat unexplored pokémon. Deceptively bad bulk, high hp and low defense/special defense is always really bad as you are forced to invest into defenses to live hits. I think defense wish variants are basically a worse lickitung since it does not get heal bell, no real reason to use it. Its main traits are a great movepool with usable offensive stats. It clicks sub and then you cannot really precict what is gonna come your way. The main issue being you are always walled by something, whether it be a physical or special wall, mightyena, togetic and shuckle in particular is a pain for this pokémon. You need to bring it in fast and try to break through stuff before your opponent realises which pokémon walls wigglytuff. Issue is, bringing it in is hard, and pretty much all sets can be walled by the three mons above (do not calc focus punch vs mightyena, save yourself the trouble). I think special is where it is at its best, but it is a really awkward pokémon to build around and it forces you into tough decisions in game (do I sub right now? Do I just attack? I also need to figure out what kind of wall they have early on because this pokémon is slow and utterly worthless as the game progresses). Combination of slow and fake bulk does not help this guy at all, but on the right team it can still get stuff done.
Do you remember the stuff I was talking about in the gastly section? About the "ideal scenario". Well duskull really wants that because unlike gastly (which will force pineco out), duskull just sits there and let pineco spike up for free. Extremely passive, does not really check much, is forced to rest every now and then and it is extremely impractical to run a heal bell alongside it (mightyena fits the same role, lickitung makes your team so defensive you might as well run stall). I ended up using mightyena over it on numerous build as, even though it is also passive, it creates more space with intimidate+heal bell+roar being very good together. Crunch while being weak still does gives a small chunk on everything. Duskull on the other hand is utterly lost versus anything that subs in front of it or can punish its rest. Any special attacker can own it and it really cant afford to be specially defensive as it will not check the physical mons then, while not being a reliably special check either. You might think I am being a bit harsh on duskull, but it is below the "pokémon I would currently use on a team and I know are good" aka B. B- is mostly flawed mons who have some uses.
Swords dance bot that gets anihilated by everything and cannot switch into anything. If you manage to set up its swords dance it can get the job done with salac sets if you are not playing versus a physical wall. Its speed is a real issue as the special attacker (minus sealeo) all outspeed and will absolutely nuke it. It is a really awful teammate as well, as the stuff that check it is well, not much (physical walls basically) but you also cannot bring it in versus most anything since they outspeed and beat it down. It is even worse versus spikes teams. But if you can get it to work, the payoff is still 130 attack with swords dance (and a really, really bad movepool).
Now we enter the filth. These pokémon should see very few use, if any use at all. And I am being very serious here, C and D have mons that vary between completely atrocious and extreme fish, sometimes both. In C we have some of the pokémon I think are not complete dead slots. In D we have mons that cannot even do their own specific job properly. Proceed with caution.
Earthquake clicker that is immune to its own poison. That is a trait preventing it from being ranked below (aka it actually serves a unique purpose). Good enough attack stat to be relevant, good speed but falls short of the faster pokémon like arbok and charmeleon. It is however really bad into the physical walls and into all the waters that just one hit it with icebeam. Pretty honest pokémon, you bring it to click earthquake, you click earthquake. Compared to the trash below, it can do work in some matchups.
Leech seed bot that cannot take a hit from most anything. Think tangela but no bulk, no status and less special attack basically. Also no "sweeper" sunny day set. Its best set is substitute+endeavor to try to get something at 1hp. Then what? If you trade one for one (usually because grovyle is still behind the sub as you break it and they endeavor. And you ko next turn with any move), it is acceptable. If you dont, you traded a pokémon to get one of your opponent's pokémon to 1hp. Not the worst thing ever, and it gets leech seed, so its at the top of the filth pile. You can win with this, but you could also just slot a better pokémon.
Not sure which war this tortle is planning to fight in. Probably some ancient war in which taking hits does not matter and doing anything in game does not matter either. It camouflages as a physical wall (it cant handle furret or graveler reliably, nor arbok or anything physical at all really) while also pretending it can spin. As seen above in the gastly and duskull section, what applies to pineco applies to wartortle as well. Except you know, pineco getting a spike up as you go on your ghost is really annoying. Wartortle clicking surf on either is really whatever. I think wartortle's potential lies in being somewhat of a special wall, as it handles the waters and charmeleon just fine. The main issue being, it has longevity issues (you cant really use rest and even though it gets refresh it is pretty impractical). It is also a water type, meaning you either double on water types to use an offensive one or dont use one at all. And as it would be your special wall, you cannot really afford two on the same team, meaning you forego way better pokémon like dragonair or swalot. It would also really like wish, but minun only (since the other good wish is lickitung). And yeah, its weak to minun (although you take less than 50% on the specially defensive variant). I tried to build with it and it was extremely annoying. It has potential though, maybe someone else can find a team to make it work well on (I mean it would actually make the team better, obviously you can win with this stupid tortle as much as you can win with anything else tbh).
Last of the potential filthmon. Lots of good moves, has phazing, has psychic for the evil poisons, giga drain for marshtomp and graveler, some decent physical attacks and reversal, allowing it to run pinch berries sets. Speed boost is a good ability, allowing it to pump those attack and special attack values on mixed sets without losing the very crucial speed. I have tried to build with it and think it can work, yet to bring it to a game as far as I remember.
It was good when you could use substitute and baton pass. Now you cannot use that anymore and it sucks. Not much more to say about it, most everything outspeed and ohko/2hko it. It is quite bad versus spikes as it does not heal. Only stuff that gets outsped are special walls, specifically swalot and lickitung (assuming you run a lot of speed, which is the only set that is somewhat relevant) and sure you break through them fine. Other pokémon do the same thing while making your team better and are capable of switching into moves. If you can somehow read all of your opponent's moves, this pokémon can still be fine since it hits like four trucks. It is just really hard to bring in, and hard to keep it alive for more than one or two moves.
Does not even see the field, gets one hit by spikes. In the eventual quite unlikely reality your opponent does not run spikes for some reason and does not run anything that hit it (there are a couple of pokémon that run sets usually walled by shedinja), it can work. And I do mean, it can work, not that it is amazing at anything. Very few are the pokémon it can setup on and even when it does setup any fire attacker just one shots it. Maybe you can fish a matchup really hard and get it though.
What if your fire type could not outspeed anything, or damage anything. Welcome to houndour. Its main utility is trapping gastly and duskull, but it is not even great at that. Without good investment in hp and/or special defense, it can die to gastly after spikes. And obviously with atrocious bulk, one if not the worst bulk of the tier, it cannot take any attack from anything really. Use the other fires and save yourself the trouble.
And that is the end of the regular power ranking. I only ranked what I consider to be relevant in the meta. The more fun unexplored stuff I can talk about briefly, at least what I have tried to build with enough. None of this is ordered.
Think kingler but less attack and swapped physical bulk for better special bulk. Also, way better STAB since it is one it can actually use. It clicks swords dance and then subs up to salac range and tries to kill stuff. It has some good ranges on a couple of pokémon and unlike kingler, if needed it can take a hit from most special (non fire) attackers.
It hits stuff with STAB psychic that does a lot of damage. Very good speed, tying furret, and a lot of very cool options like encore and seismic toss (so its not stuck versus shuckle for instance). Kind of unexplored, I think when it gets the matchup it is amazing. If people are running clamperl still, surely they can run this guy instead since it is actually good and works well with spikes.
Rock head ddnair with better attack and physical bulk. Pretty decent for what you want it to do, aka click dragon dance and kill one or two pokémon. You can run it alongside dragonair or without it. I would say its better without though. Need to test this guy a bit more but the potential is there.
Honorable mentions of pokémon I have not build with, but seen other used and thought it was decently interesting.
Okay intimidate with similar physical bulk to mightyena but spikes immune and way, way worse utility as it does not get heal bell. Gets phazing with whirlwind though and a couple of good special moves with decent special attack, but suffers from its pretty terrible typing as most special attackers will just hit it for super effective damage compared to mightyena.
Status spreading recover bot. Is extremely bad vs status itself, especially sludge poison/toxic. I would rather use togetic. Full special defense porygon with the bonus nature has same special defense as togetic with very minimal investment. And as both really want a cleric and togetic has better physical bulk overall, I do not really see the point. Togetic's seismic toss is also a massive point in its favour.
90 special attack potential rain sweeper with spikes. You can do worse than that. Can probably have some use on a team. Would be way better if it had viable attack.
And I think that is gonna be it. Took me like a bit over a week to put this together, first making the viability ranking list and writing a bit every day. Hope the final product is fine, I am not rereading all of what I wrote (I lied and actually reread most of it since I dropped writing for a bit --). I hope everyone can have fun with this metagame, I find it (should not come as a big surprise seeing how I spent hours yapping about it) quite enjoyable and decently well balanced, for pokémon that is.
P.S.: I have edited some typos and added some stuff in some sections.
Cheers
B- to B
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