I have a vague memory of actually doing that irl with the Victini gift way back in the day and as you might imagine it was rather strong
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Expanded Tier List - What If?
- Thread starter Altissimo
- Start date
Yeah I would expect most (pseudo-)Legendary or Mythical event Pokemon to rank highly for in-game purposes. I'm sure there's some obscure counterexample somewhere but for the most part the high stat totals, strong moves, or actually-decent gimmicks will overwhelm the computer. I recall the free Beldum with ORAS being ridiculously broken during my playthrough with it.
I've used lv5 event mew, Jirachi, and the egg Manaphy in platinum runs and they're all excellent, between specs being available and super strong early game performances. Manaphy also is your bulky water at the same time as a super strong special sweeper
I agree they shouldn't be in the main thread (mostly because of availability, there's no set point they're available) but I am definitely interested in discussion around tiering the dream radar mons, the non-legendary ones are very reasonable playthrough mons and some are certainly better than others. I've used several in playthroughs, i think they're especially notable because trading is locked behind the first badge in BW2, so they can serve as "alternative starter Pokémon" and are your only options for this, as compared to other games where you can trade eggs in and begin the game with whatever you like. Beldum, Rotom, and Spiritomb are particularly interesting
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We are not done with Post-Game Mons Nuzlocke theorymoning, next one is...
What if Houndour/Houndoom participated in a Nuzlocke of Pokemon Crystal but appeared on Route 31?
Nowadays, Houndoom is a decent Pokemon in Nuzlocke runs. Far from top-tier due to extreme frailty and only mid Speed, but at least it is powerful enough to compensate. Both Nasty Plot and Specs when available allow Houndoom to either sweep or blow holes to the opponent's teams. The typing gives Houndoom 7 resistances (2 of them immunties if we account for Flash Fire), which allows Houndoom to switch-in very often. Frailty is still there, so it does need to be used very carefully to succeed.
Back in GSC, Houndoom is an OU Mon in Competitive. However, in-game its cursed to appear in Kanto and also being extremely rare there and having Roar to avoid being caught. Therefore, if a Nuzlocke Tier list were made, Houndoom quickly falls to F Tier, due to coming underleveled in Kanto, with most of the game done.
This post will theorymon a run with Houndour appearing right before first Gym in Johto, the place fits for something like Houndour, since in Kanto it already appears quite close to big cities.
Vs Falkner: Not a good match-up for Houndour due to Mud Slap. Even Pidgey can be troublesome, since Ember doesn,t kill it fast enough. E rank performance.
Vs Bugsy: Easily beats both cocoons. Scyther is not a reliable match-up due to Houndour's frailty, but if for some reason Scyther doesn,t start using Fury Cutter, it can be won. B rank performance.
Vs Whitney: At level 20, Houndour learns Bite. This can help vs Clefairy and allow Houndour to have a chance to beat it undamaged. Only in this situation Houndour should be allowed to stay one turn vs Miltank and launch either a Leer or a Ember before switching out. Houndour is too weak to fight the broken cow. D rank performance.
Vs Morty: Congratulations, at level 25 (24 in fact) you already have a Mon that is OU worthy in GSC. Houndoom demolishes Morty with STAB Bite, S rank performance.
Vs Chuck: Don,t even try, you will be OHKOd. F rank performance.
Vs Jasmine: Unless you have gambled a lot at the Casino, your Fire STAB is still Ember, which is pretty sad. It is enough to kill the Magnemites, but Steelix will probably live 2 and deal damage with Rock Throw. You still have the advantage and if you gamble, you will have Flamethrower or Fire Blast and OHKO Steelix. A rank performance.
Vs Pryce: With Bite, Houndoom will beat Seel and since Piloswine doesn,t have Ground moves, it can also be beaten. Dewgong however is too bulky and has Rest, so gambling is needed here and still isn,t reliable enough. B rank performance.
Vs Claire: First Dragonair is the Surf one, so don,t fight it. Don,t fight Kingdra either. At most, Houndoom will be able to kill one Dragonair and that won,t be the lead one. E rank performance, like almost every Fire type in this Gym.
Vs rival at Victory Road: In this battle Houndoom is overleved and has Flamethrower already, which it learns at level 41. This means Houndoom sweeps everything, maybe having to switch out of Golbat's Confuse Ray. Only Feraligatr has a tiny chance to beat Houndoom, but Feraligatr means that your starter was Cyndaquil and you won,t likely have both Houndoom and Typhlosion on the same team, so this is an unlikely match-up which Houndoom isn,t even guaranted to lose. S rank performance.
Vs Will: Houndoom learns Crunch very late, at level 52. It will only be used in Kanto. However, Bite is still enough to sweep this battle, especially if you have a Berry to avoid confusion from Xatu. Only Slowbro (with Body Slam para) and second Xatu (with Confuse Ray after first Xatu consumed the Berry) can stop Houndoom, but more often that not, it will sweep. A rank performance.
Vs Koga: Ariados, Venomoth and Forretress (you can,t directly switch into this one due to Explosion though) are free wins. Crobat will be won more often that not too, but can hax with Double Team, since it,s faster. Muk is a lose. B rank performance.
Vs Bruno: Houndoom will live Dig + Quick Attack from Hitmontop and kill it with 2 Flamethrower. Don,t even try to face anything else though. D rank performance.
Vs Karen: As always, Umbreon is a haxy guy who is better to avoid unless you are Restalk Houndoom (not recommended to spend those 2 TMs on something as frail). Murkrow and Vileplume are beaten. Vs Gengar, use Flamethrower once and then Strength until it uses Curse. Don,t use Bite due to DestinyBond threat. There is a chance you can end up paralyzed and a little worn down by Lick, but Gengar will almost never beat Houndoom as long as you don,t use Dark moves or somehow crit with Flamethrower after it uses DestinyBond on turn 1. Houndoom beats opposing Houndoom with Strength. Its even easier with Return, but you shouldn,t spend Return on Houndoom. So, technically Houndoom can beat all of Karen's team, but its unlikely to do it unless it uses a suboptimal Restalk set. B rank performance.
Vs Lance: Houndoom loses to every single Mon. F rank performance. Typhlosion and Magmar are better in this match-up due to being able to use Thunder Punch vs Gyarados and maybe even beat Charizard too.
Vs Kanto Gym leaders not named Blue: Houndoom will beat some Surge's Mons but needs to be careful with the Electrodes, who explode. Sabrina, Erica and Janine are fully swept. Due to being overleveled, Houndoom can use Sunny Day vs Misty's Golduck and murder most of the team with Solar Beam. Due to being overleveled, Houndoom will OHKO Brock's Graveler and Rhyhorn, and will use Sunny Day vs either Kabutops or Omastar, sweeping with Solar Beam the rest of the team. Houndoom will either beat Blaine's Rock Slide Magcargo or the other 2 Mons, but unless AI chokes, its unlikely to sweep by itself. A rank performance.
Vs Blue: If Houndoom gets to use Sunny Day vs Pidgeot without being Whirlwinded, it will beat everything except Gyarados and Arcanine. Houndoom can also switch mid-game into Exeggutor (only if Pidgeot hasn,t damaged you too much, otherwise you can be Egg Bombed) and Alakazam, but not Rhydon (you should only face this one with Sunny Day). C rank performance.
Vs Red: Just like almost every Mon, Houndoom easily OHKOs Pikachu. Houndoom can 1vs1 Charizard, but not switch into it. Houndoom beats Espeon but could get Mud Slapped in the process, so you should switch out if that happens. Houndoom does switch into Venusaur for free and can even take advantage of its Sunny Day to severely damage Blastoise after beating Venusaur. Unless there is Sunny Day in play and you are willing to sack Houndoom (after all, its the last battle of the game, you don,t need to preserve all your team here), facing Snorlax is not wise. B rank performance, Houndoom can beat up to 4 Mons.
With an early availability, Houndour has a pretty rough (except for Bugsy) start up to the moment it evolves, when it murders Morty. After that, Houndoom suffers again for not having a good Fire STAB without grinding at the Casino but is still far from useless (except vs Chuck). At Elite Four Houndoom does very well vs 3 members but falls flat vs Lance, the frailty is always present in its story. Kanto performance is really good, however almost every Mon does well here. The last 2 battles of the game are also good showing for our demonic dog, especially Red. At no point of the game Houndoom is useless, but it always has to be used carefully due to being very frail. Houndoom learns it strongest moves late, but even with Bite and Ember it can survive for a while. One good advantage for Houndoom over other Fire Mons is almost no needing TMs to be useful, only Sunny Day and Solar Beam, which are not very valued. Therefore, I would rank Houndoom between B and C rank, which is a lot more than the original F one it would have. So far, this has been the best Mon analyzed, which was to be expected, after all, Houndoom is OU in GSC, while neither Qwilfish, Sneasel and Gligar are.
What if Houndour/Houndoom participated in a Nuzlocke of Pokemon Crystal but appeared on Route 31?
Nowadays, Houndoom is a decent Pokemon in Nuzlocke runs. Far from top-tier due to extreme frailty and only mid Speed, but at least it is powerful enough to compensate. Both Nasty Plot and Specs when available allow Houndoom to either sweep or blow holes to the opponent's teams. The typing gives Houndoom 7 resistances (2 of them immunties if we account for Flash Fire), which allows Houndoom to switch-in very often. Frailty is still there, so it does need to be used very carefully to succeed.
Back in GSC, Houndoom is an OU Mon in Competitive. However, in-game its cursed to appear in Kanto and also being extremely rare there and having Roar to avoid being caught. Therefore, if a Nuzlocke Tier list were made, Houndoom quickly falls to F Tier, due to coming underleveled in Kanto, with most of the game done.
This post will theorymon a run with Houndour appearing right before first Gym in Johto, the place fits for something like Houndour, since in Kanto it already appears quite close to big cities.
Vs Falkner: Not a good match-up for Houndour due to Mud Slap. Even Pidgey can be troublesome, since Ember doesn,t kill it fast enough. E rank performance.
Vs Bugsy: Easily beats both cocoons. Scyther is not a reliable match-up due to Houndour's frailty, but if for some reason Scyther doesn,t start using Fury Cutter, it can be won. B rank performance.
Vs Whitney: At level 20, Houndour learns Bite. This can help vs Clefairy and allow Houndour to have a chance to beat it undamaged. Only in this situation Houndour should be allowed to stay one turn vs Miltank and launch either a Leer or a Ember before switching out. Houndour is too weak to fight the broken cow. D rank performance.
Vs Morty: Congratulations, at level 25 (24 in fact) you already have a Mon that is OU worthy in GSC. Houndoom demolishes Morty with STAB Bite, S rank performance.
Vs Chuck: Don,t even try, you will be OHKOd. F rank performance.
Vs Jasmine: Unless you have gambled a lot at the Casino, your Fire STAB is still Ember, which is pretty sad. It is enough to kill the Magnemites, but Steelix will probably live 2 and deal damage with Rock Throw. You still have the advantage and if you gamble, you will have Flamethrower or Fire Blast and OHKO Steelix. A rank performance.
Vs Pryce: With Bite, Houndoom will beat Seel and since Piloswine doesn,t have Ground moves, it can also be beaten. Dewgong however is too bulky and has Rest, so gambling is needed here and still isn,t reliable enough. B rank performance.
Vs Claire: First Dragonair is the Surf one, so don,t fight it. Don,t fight Kingdra either. At most, Houndoom will be able to kill one Dragonair and that won,t be the lead one. E rank performance, like almost every Fire type in this Gym.
Vs rival at Victory Road: In this battle Houndoom is overleved and has Flamethrower already, which it learns at level 41. This means Houndoom sweeps everything, maybe having to switch out of Golbat's Confuse Ray. Only Feraligatr has a tiny chance to beat Houndoom, but Feraligatr means that your starter was Cyndaquil and you won,t likely have both Houndoom and Typhlosion on the same team, so this is an unlikely match-up which Houndoom isn,t even guaranted to lose. S rank performance.
Vs Will: Houndoom learns Crunch very late, at level 52. It will only be used in Kanto. However, Bite is still enough to sweep this battle, especially if you have a Berry to avoid confusion from Xatu. Only Slowbro (with Body Slam para) and second Xatu (with Confuse Ray after first Xatu consumed the Berry) can stop Houndoom, but more often that not, it will sweep. A rank performance.
Vs Koga: Ariados, Venomoth and Forretress (you can,t directly switch into this one due to Explosion though) are free wins. Crobat will be won more often that not too, but can hax with Double Team, since it,s faster. Muk is a lose. B rank performance.
Vs Bruno: Houndoom will live Dig + Quick Attack from Hitmontop and kill it with 2 Flamethrower. Don,t even try to face anything else though. D rank performance.
Vs Karen: As always, Umbreon is a haxy guy who is better to avoid unless you are Restalk Houndoom (not recommended to spend those 2 TMs on something as frail). Murkrow and Vileplume are beaten. Vs Gengar, use Flamethrower once and then Strength until it uses Curse. Don,t use Bite due to DestinyBond threat. There is a chance you can end up paralyzed and a little worn down by Lick, but Gengar will almost never beat Houndoom as long as you don,t use Dark moves or somehow crit with Flamethrower after it uses DestinyBond on turn 1. Houndoom beats opposing Houndoom with Strength. Its even easier with Return, but you shouldn,t spend Return on Houndoom. So, technically Houndoom can beat all of Karen's team, but its unlikely to do it unless it uses a suboptimal Restalk set. B rank performance.
Vs Lance: Houndoom loses to every single Mon. F rank performance. Typhlosion and Magmar are better in this match-up due to being able to use Thunder Punch vs Gyarados and maybe even beat Charizard too.
Vs Kanto Gym leaders not named Blue: Houndoom will beat some Surge's Mons but needs to be careful with the Electrodes, who explode. Sabrina, Erica and Janine are fully swept. Due to being overleveled, Houndoom can use Sunny Day vs Misty's Golduck and murder most of the team with Solar Beam. Due to being overleveled, Houndoom will OHKO Brock's Graveler and Rhyhorn, and will use Sunny Day vs either Kabutops or Omastar, sweeping with Solar Beam the rest of the team. Houndoom will either beat Blaine's Rock Slide Magcargo or the other 2 Mons, but unless AI chokes, its unlikely to sweep by itself. A rank performance.
Vs Blue: If Houndoom gets to use Sunny Day vs Pidgeot without being Whirlwinded, it will beat everything except Gyarados and Arcanine. Houndoom can also switch mid-game into Exeggutor (only if Pidgeot hasn,t damaged you too much, otherwise you can be Egg Bombed) and Alakazam, but not Rhydon (you should only face this one with Sunny Day). C rank performance.
Vs Red: Just like almost every Mon, Houndoom easily OHKOs Pikachu. Houndoom can 1vs1 Charizard, but not switch into it. Houndoom beats Espeon but could get Mud Slapped in the process, so you should switch out if that happens. Houndoom does switch into Venusaur for free and can even take advantage of its Sunny Day to severely damage Blastoise after beating Venusaur. Unless there is Sunny Day in play and you are willing to sack Houndoom (after all, its the last battle of the game, you don,t need to preserve all your team here), facing Snorlax is not wise. B rank performance, Houndoom can beat up to 4 Mons.
With an early availability, Houndour has a pretty rough (except for Bugsy) start up to the moment it evolves, when it murders Morty. After that, Houndoom suffers again for not having a good Fire STAB without grinding at the Casino but is still far from useless (except vs Chuck). At Elite Four Houndoom does very well vs 3 members but falls flat vs Lance, the frailty is always present in its story. Kanto performance is really good, however almost every Mon does well here. The last 2 battles of the game are also good showing for our demonic dog, especially Red. At no point of the game Houndoom is useless, but it always has to be used carefully due to being very frail. Houndoom learns it strongest moves late, but even with Bite and Ember it can survive for a while. One good advantage for Houndoom over other Fire Mons is almost no needing TMs to be useful, only Sunny Day and Solar Beam, which are not very valued. Therefore, I would rank Houndoom between B and C rank, which is a lot more than the original F one it would have. So far, this has been the best Mon analyzed, which was to be expected, after all, Houndoom is OU in GSC, while neither Qwilfish, Sneasel and Gligar are.
I want to put a word in for Leech Seed Lotad in Pokemon Emerald. Unlike many egg moves, you can get this as soon as you have access to the Day Care (with just a minimally-trained male Shroomish and any female Lotad) and it's a move that greatly improves Lombre's performance. Fake Out + Leech Seed destroys Slaking as long as you have a Facade switch-in somewhere on your team, and Lombre's movepool is utterly barren so it appreciates having access to something more impactful than the flaccid Bullet Seed it would be spamming before it gains access to Surf.
It's also early enough that training a lv5 Pokemon isn't asking for too much, considering that the wild Pokemon in this area are only lv13. The exp you have to sink into this Lotad is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount you'd be wasting by trying to use Ninjask in any capacity. Honestly, I think this is the best way to use Lotad in gen 3, and probably the best in-game egg move available before Wattson. I am definitely biased because I like messing around with defensive, suboptimal shit, but I really do think Leech Seed is great. In fact, on my current run, I caught and trained a throwaway Shroomish to use Leech Seed on Slaking's loafing turn because my team (Ninjask/Nuzleaf/Seviper/Sableye) was so bad that I had no other reliable way to beat it, and this was faster than backtracking for the Toxic TM.
It's also early enough that training a lv5 Pokemon isn't asking for too much, considering that the wild Pokemon in this area are only lv13. The exp you have to sink into this Lotad is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount you'd be wasting by trying to use Ninjask in any capacity. Honestly, I think this is the best way to use Lotad in gen 3, and probably the best in-game egg move available before Wattson. I am definitely biased because I like messing around with defensive, suboptimal shit, but I really do think Leech Seed is great. In fact, on my current run, I caught and trained a throwaway Shroomish to use Leech Seed on Slaking's loafing turn because my team (Ninjask/Nuzleaf/Seviper/Sableye) was so bad that I had no other reliable way to beat it, and this was faster than backtracking for the Toxic TM.
Even if the Day Care is very early in Emerald, trying to breed useful egg moves is still a huge time investment. A Lotad egg takes around 3750 steps to hatch and with just a 20% chance for an egg to appear every 256 steps, there is a good chance it will take over 4000 steps to get a level 5 Lotad with Leech Seed.
And I doubt that Leech Seed is going to move the needle much for Lombre. It is still useless in gyms 2, 3 and 4 in the early game. You could try to slowly stall out Slaking with Fake Out and Leech Seed but that is still much worse than just using the Toxic or Attract TMs since Norman has two Hyper Potions. And Lombre can't even use Dig to dodge Slaking's attacks every two turns. Which means you will have to switch other team members into Slaking's strong attacks every few turns. And with its huge attack stat, that is easier said than done. If you can manage that, then you probably don't need to go through the effort of breeding for Leech Seed.
And of course the big question is why you would not just use the Shroomish you caught for breeding in the first place. Breloom can make use of the same Leech Seed strat, and even has Stun Spore and Headbutt to make it more reliable. Even its bulk is basically the same as Lombre's.
Lombre is basically dead weight before Surf and I don't think Leech Seed is going to change that. But I am a certified Lombre hater (even though I love the design of the Lotad line) in Emerald, so keep that in mind.
One interesting thing to consider with the Day Care is breeding an Illumise in Emerald or Ruby, though. Putting it into the Day Care with any compatible Pokémon gives a 50% chance for a Volbeat. An interesting option if you just can't get that 1% encounter in those games. Still not very good, though.
As much as I love GSC, I despise how they located many of the new Johto Pokemon. Houndour is the poster boy of this. Because of its placement in these games this poor boy was relegated to always be late into the game and thus not often be worth considering to pick it up. It would be such a cool mon to use if it would just be available at a reasonable time.
Honestly, at this point, it'd be better to get a Lotad with an actual Water STAB instead of Leech Seed.
But Emerald is the game where they looked at people having Surf, Dive and Waterfall and said "Just give Juan the Water Pulse TM."
Holidays but with bad weather = another theorypost.
What if Porygon participated in a Nuzlocke run of Pokemon Crystal but was obtainable in Goldenrod Game Corner and had Upgrade available at Rocket Hideout?
Outside of fan-games, very few people have actually used a Porygon in-game not only in Nuzlocke runs, but in regular runs as well. In official games, this Pokemon appears in post-game in almost every game. Only in Kanto it can be obtained during a regular run... in a Game Corner, while also being one of the most expensive prizes. There is also an option to obtain in ORAS visiting a Mirage Island, but those are very random and Porygon is not even the only Mon that appears there. As a result, both Porygon-Z power and Porygon2 bulk is pretty unexplored in-game.
In Johto, just like many Johto Pokemon, it can,t be obtained. Porygon only appears as the most expensive prize in Celadon Game Corner, therefore gaining the F rank if a Nuzlocke Tier list was made. To be evolved, it also needs to be traded, which for many people is impossible at this point. This post will try to theorymon what would happen if Porygon was obtainable in Goldenrod Game Corner, while Upgrade was available earlier too. I thought whether Rocket Hideout or Radio Tower was the best location of Upgrade, but ultimately decided that the place with more scientists is a more suitable one, even if those scientists are evil. After all, being evil doesn,t prevent you from being smart. I also assume that the person who uses Porygon invests time to get enough coin to buy it, but doesn,t invest time to teach Thunderbolt and Ice Beam right away, the player would buy the first of those moves before 8th Gym and the second one before Elite Four.
Vs Whitney: Porygon at level 20 already has the most broken Move for a Nuzlocke run, Recover with 20 PPs (which by Elite Four would of course be 32). This allows Porygon to easily beat Clefairy with either Psybeam or Swift. Miltank however, is too strong. Its faster and has Stomp (which will flinch) and Milk Drink to heal all damage Porygon can do. Porygon can probably stay one turn to damage the cow, but no more. D rank performance.
Vs Morty: Porygon forces 3 of the Mons to (eventually) use Curse and KOs them with Psybeam. Hypnosis Haunter 1 and Hypnosis + Dream Eater + Mean Look Gengar in combination with those Curses prevent a full sweep, however. If Porygon is under Curse and with Mint Berry consumed, it will always have to switch out of Gengar. Still a very good match-up, A rank performance.
Since we want to get Porygon 2 as soon as possible, Pryce is challenged before Chuck.
Vs Pryce: The now evolved Porygon2 with Recover easily walls all of Pryce Pokemon. The problem comes in actually dealing damage to them. At level 31 Porygon's offensive moves are Psybeam, Hidden Power (lottery), Swift (probably spent on another Mon before second Gym) and Return (far from being at full power yet and not a good TM to spend on Porygon). Both Seel and Dewgong have Rest and are quite bulky. This means, Porygon2 will likely get outstalled. Seel can be beaten eventually with some crit or AI choke, but Dewgong almost certainly wins the war of attrition, since not only it has Rest, but also offensive moves with a lot of PPs. Piloswine will take a while to beat too (you are favorable vs this one at least) and can freeze hax with Blizzard. Therefore, C rank performance, having Recover is not everything, you need to actually hit defensive opponents too.
Vs Chuck: No, don,t use Porygon 2 here. Primeape's Karate Chop has high crit chance and Poliwrath straight up deletes the duck. F rank performance.
Vs Jasmine: Magnemites have Thunder Wave and are one of the hardest hitting NFEs, while resisting every Porygon's move. You can use Icy Wind vs Steelix, but Porygon won,t be killing the snake quick enough and will eventually collapse to Iron Tail + Screech. Another F rank performance, with a lot of luck you could beat a Magnemite, but RNG is not in your favour here.
Vs Claire: By this time, you have more than enough money to buy Ice Beam for Porygon2, allowing it to beat the 3 Dragonairs. They all have Thunder Wave, though, so Porygon2 won,t be able to beat Kingdra. If Porygon is used vs Kingdra, its also a bad match-up despite Recover, Kingdra hits hard with Surf and has Smokescreen. B rank performance.
Vs Rival at Victory Road: Porygon2 is overleveled and has Ice Beam, Psybeam, Tri Attack and Recover in this battle. Should be easy, right? Unfortunately, Porygon is slow. It will beat Sneasel, but could be Screeched. Golbat loses 1vs1 despite Confuse Ray, unless Porygon has been Screeched before (if this happens, switch out). Magneton is the worst match-up. It doesn,t have Thunderbolt, but still has Thunder Wave to cripple Porygon vs the rest of Rival's team, therefore better to avoid entire. Haunter is likely to be KOd by Psybeam, but could hax with Confuse Ray or use Curse (forcing a switch-out later). Kadabra is a win for Porygon. The starters are all beatable, but will be annoying with Smokescreen (Typhlosion), Rage + Slash (Feraligatr) and Poisonpowder (Meganium). C rank performance, Porygon probably kills 5 Mons here, but its not an easy battle.
Vs Will: Porygon should have Thunderbolt in this battle, replacing Psybeam. The Speed still curses it, though. Every opponent except Slowbro will be faster and will drop Porygon's Sdef with Psychic eventually, while resorting to Confuse Ray, Leech Seed or Lovely Kiss too. Porygon can 1vs1 every Mon except Jynx, but is unlikely to beat more than 2. D rank performance.
Vs Koga: Ariados has Spider Web + Baton Pass, avoid. Forretress has Explosion, avoid too. Muk is extremely bulky, has 2 boosting moves, Toxic and STAB Sludge Bomb, avoid as well. Porygon will beat Venomoth or Crobat 1 on 1, but due to Toxic, unlikely to beat both. E rank performance.
Vs Bruno: Not as bad as you would expect. Porygon beats Hitmontop and Onix easily. Hitmonchan has Mach Punch as STAB, meaning that with Recover, there is a high chance to beat it. Hitmonlee and Machamp should be avoided however. C rank performance.
Vs Karen: Even with Mean Look, Confuse Ray and Sand Attack, Porygon will outstall Umbreon with Recover, but it will be a long and painful battle. Better to not even begin it. Both Murkrow and Vileplume can be beaten. You should use either Thunderbolt or Ice Beam vs Gengar and then SPAM Tri Attack and Recover vs it to avoid Destiny Bond. You might need to switch-out if it uses Curse, however. Houndoom is beaten 1 on 1, but its hard to switch-into. B rank performance.
Vs Lance: Porygon OHKOs Gyarados with Thunderbolt and does the same (or close) with Dragonites using Ice Beam. You are unlikely to sweep, since everything hits too hard (and Aerodactyl can flinch hax you), but Porygon still will kill lots of opponents in this battle. A rank performance.
Vs Kanto Gym leaders not named Blue: Surge has Thunder Wave Raichu, 2 explosives and Double Team Magneton. Truly a bad match-up. After that, Porygon2 being overleveled means it will be walling and slowly but reliably killing all Kanto Gym leaders. B rank performance.
Vs Blue: Porygon2 beats every Mon 1 on 1, but since its still slow, unlikely to beat all of them, will be haxed by Psychic, burned by Flamethrower or Leech Seeded eventually. If played smartly, it still won,t be at risk of dying. B rank performance.
Vs Red: Similar situation happens here. Porygon beats everyone except Snorlax 1 on 1, but not fast enough to avoid getting haxed and preventing a full sweep. C rank performance.
Overall, early availability gives some life to Porygon, though its worse than I have expected despite having Recover (and therefore having a niche of being a defensive Mon in which you don,t have to spend Rest). Except in Kanto, there is not a single battle in which Porygon wins 100% reliably and there are 2 in which it literally can,t do anything. Being slow, means Porygon is prone to be haxed, though Recover still gives it a breathing air. The main perk of Porygon is being one of the best Anti-Lance Mons, hitting them all with BoltBeam, while resisting their hits. While Porygon often can,t win games on its own, it can PP Stall many strong opponents allowing a teammate to switch-in, boost and win the battle. Normal typing means Porygon only has 1 rare weakness, although it has no resistances (except the even rarer Ghost) either. I think that Goldenrod Porygon would be a C rank Mon in a Nuzlocke Tier list, it consumes money and isn,t a reliable game winner, but its also really hard to kill.
Have a nice Eeveening!
What if Porygon participated in a Nuzlocke run of Pokemon Crystal but was obtainable in Goldenrod Game Corner and had Upgrade available at Rocket Hideout?
Outside of fan-games, very few people have actually used a Porygon in-game not only in Nuzlocke runs, but in regular runs as well. In official games, this Pokemon appears in post-game in almost every game. Only in Kanto it can be obtained during a regular run... in a Game Corner, while also being one of the most expensive prizes. There is also an option to obtain in ORAS visiting a Mirage Island, but those are very random and Porygon is not even the only Mon that appears there. As a result, both Porygon-Z power and Porygon2 bulk is pretty unexplored in-game.
In Johto, just like many Johto Pokemon, it can,t be obtained. Porygon only appears as the most expensive prize in Celadon Game Corner, therefore gaining the F rank if a Nuzlocke Tier list was made. To be evolved, it also needs to be traded, which for many people is impossible at this point. This post will try to theorymon what would happen if Porygon was obtainable in Goldenrod Game Corner, while Upgrade was available earlier too. I thought whether Rocket Hideout or Radio Tower was the best location of Upgrade, but ultimately decided that the place with more scientists is a more suitable one, even if those scientists are evil. After all, being evil doesn,t prevent you from being smart. I also assume that the person who uses Porygon invests time to get enough coin to buy it, but doesn,t invest time to teach Thunderbolt and Ice Beam right away, the player would buy the first of those moves before 8th Gym and the second one before Elite Four.
Vs Whitney: Porygon at level 20 already has the most broken Move for a Nuzlocke run, Recover with 20 PPs (which by Elite Four would of course be 32). This allows Porygon to easily beat Clefairy with either Psybeam or Swift. Miltank however, is too strong. Its faster and has Stomp (which will flinch) and Milk Drink to heal all damage Porygon can do. Porygon can probably stay one turn to damage the cow, but no more. D rank performance.
Vs Morty: Porygon forces 3 of the Mons to (eventually) use Curse and KOs them with Psybeam. Hypnosis Haunter 1 and Hypnosis + Dream Eater + Mean Look Gengar in combination with those Curses prevent a full sweep, however. If Porygon is under Curse and with Mint Berry consumed, it will always have to switch out of Gengar. Still a very good match-up, A rank performance.
Since we want to get Porygon 2 as soon as possible, Pryce is challenged before Chuck.
Vs Pryce: The now evolved Porygon2 with Recover easily walls all of Pryce Pokemon. The problem comes in actually dealing damage to them. At level 31 Porygon's offensive moves are Psybeam, Hidden Power (lottery), Swift (probably spent on another Mon before second Gym) and Return (far from being at full power yet and not a good TM to spend on Porygon). Both Seel and Dewgong have Rest and are quite bulky. This means, Porygon2 will likely get outstalled. Seel can be beaten eventually with some crit or AI choke, but Dewgong almost certainly wins the war of attrition, since not only it has Rest, but also offensive moves with a lot of PPs. Piloswine will take a while to beat too (you are favorable vs this one at least) and can freeze hax with Blizzard. Therefore, C rank performance, having Recover is not everything, you need to actually hit defensive opponents too.
Vs Chuck: No, don,t use Porygon 2 here. Primeape's Karate Chop has high crit chance and Poliwrath straight up deletes the duck. F rank performance.
Vs Jasmine: Magnemites have Thunder Wave and are one of the hardest hitting NFEs, while resisting every Porygon's move. You can use Icy Wind vs Steelix, but Porygon won,t be killing the snake quick enough and will eventually collapse to Iron Tail + Screech. Another F rank performance, with a lot of luck you could beat a Magnemite, but RNG is not in your favour here.
Vs Claire: By this time, you have more than enough money to buy Ice Beam for Porygon2, allowing it to beat the 3 Dragonairs. They all have Thunder Wave, though, so Porygon2 won,t be able to beat Kingdra. If Porygon is used vs Kingdra, its also a bad match-up despite Recover, Kingdra hits hard with Surf and has Smokescreen. B rank performance.
Vs Rival at Victory Road: Porygon2 is overleveled and has Ice Beam, Psybeam, Tri Attack and Recover in this battle. Should be easy, right? Unfortunately, Porygon is slow. It will beat Sneasel, but could be Screeched. Golbat loses 1vs1 despite Confuse Ray, unless Porygon has been Screeched before (if this happens, switch out). Magneton is the worst match-up. It doesn,t have Thunderbolt, but still has Thunder Wave to cripple Porygon vs the rest of Rival's team, therefore better to avoid entire. Haunter is likely to be KOd by Psybeam, but could hax with Confuse Ray or use Curse (forcing a switch-out later). Kadabra is a win for Porygon. The starters are all beatable, but will be annoying with Smokescreen (Typhlosion), Rage + Slash (Feraligatr) and Poisonpowder (Meganium). C rank performance, Porygon probably kills 5 Mons here, but its not an easy battle.
Vs Will: Porygon should have Thunderbolt in this battle, replacing Psybeam. The Speed still curses it, though. Every opponent except Slowbro will be faster and will drop Porygon's Sdef with Psychic eventually, while resorting to Confuse Ray, Leech Seed or Lovely Kiss too. Porygon can 1vs1 every Mon except Jynx, but is unlikely to beat more than 2. D rank performance.
Vs Koga: Ariados has Spider Web + Baton Pass, avoid. Forretress has Explosion, avoid too. Muk is extremely bulky, has 2 boosting moves, Toxic and STAB Sludge Bomb, avoid as well. Porygon will beat Venomoth or Crobat 1 on 1, but due to Toxic, unlikely to beat both. E rank performance.
Vs Bruno: Not as bad as you would expect. Porygon beats Hitmontop and Onix easily. Hitmonchan has Mach Punch as STAB, meaning that with Recover, there is a high chance to beat it. Hitmonlee and Machamp should be avoided however. C rank performance.
Vs Karen: Even with Mean Look, Confuse Ray and Sand Attack, Porygon will outstall Umbreon with Recover, but it will be a long and painful battle. Better to not even begin it. Both Murkrow and Vileplume can be beaten. You should use either Thunderbolt or Ice Beam vs Gengar and then SPAM Tri Attack and Recover vs it to avoid Destiny Bond. You might need to switch-out if it uses Curse, however. Houndoom is beaten 1 on 1, but its hard to switch-into. B rank performance.
Vs Lance: Porygon OHKOs Gyarados with Thunderbolt and does the same (or close) with Dragonites using Ice Beam. You are unlikely to sweep, since everything hits too hard (and Aerodactyl can flinch hax you), but Porygon still will kill lots of opponents in this battle. A rank performance.
Vs Kanto Gym leaders not named Blue: Surge has Thunder Wave Raichu, 2 explosives and Double Team Magneton. Truly a bad match-up. After that, Porygon2 being overleveled means it will be walling and slowly but reliably killing all Kanto Gym leaders. B rank performance.
Vs Blue: Porygon2 beats every Mon 1 on 1, but since its still slow, unlikely to beat all of them, will be haxed by Psychic, burned by Flamethrower or Leech Seeded eventually. If played smartly, it still won,t be at risk of dying. B rank performance.
Vs Red: Similar situation happens here. Porygon beats everyone except Snorlax 1 on 1, but not fast enough to avoid getting haxed and preventing a full sweep. C rank performance.
Overall, early availability gives some life to Porygon, though its worse than I have expected despite having Recover (and therefore having a niche of being a defensive Mon in which you don,t have to spend Rest). Except in Kanto, there is not a single battle in which Porygon wins 100% reliably and there are 2 in which it literally can,t do anything. Being slow, means Porygon is prone to be haxed, though Recover still gives it a breathing air. The main perk of Porygon is being one of the best Anti-Lance Mons, hitting them all with BoltBeam, while resisting their hits. While Porygon often can,t win games on its own, it can PP Stall many strong opponents allowing a teammate to switch-in, boost and win the battle. Normal typing means Porygon only has 1 rare weakness, although it has no resistances (except the even rarer Ghost) either. I think that Goldenrod Porygon would be a C rank Mon in a Nuzlocke Tier list, it consumes money and isn,t a reliable game winner, but its also really hard to kill.
Have a nice Eeveening!
A maybe interesting thing I used to do was that each of my Pokemon had to go into different Pokeballs.
So typically the starter would be a normal Pokeball, you can get a Premium Ball for something early, but you'd have to wait for some other different ball / Great Ball for the 3rd Pokemon (and so on)
So typically the starter would be a normal Pokeball, you can get a Premium Ball for something early, but you'd have to wait for some other different ball / Great Ball for the 3rd Pokemon (and so on)
Another Unmon's theoretical performance is incoming.
What if Slugma/Magcargo participated in a Nuzlocke run of Pokemon Crystal but was given as an egg before the first Gym?
Yes, this is a Gen 2 Pokemon, not a Gen 3 one. In fact, there is a Gym Leader that uses it in... Kanto. Magcargo is another late appearance victim, in every single game it appears extremely late, except in Hoenn... the "too much water" region. The Pokemon has terrible Stats, terrible typing... and a decent movepool and ability in modern Generations. Shell Smash, Recover and Flame Body are all useful atributes to have in a Nuzlocke run, and Magcargo can contribute with either walling or sweeping some opponents, sometimes even the combination of both.
In GSC its clearly an F rank Mon. Not only it doesn,t have Recover, Shell Smash or an ability, but it also appears only in Kanto, being robbed of any posibility of being used in a Nuzlocke run. In HGSS however, it can be obtained prior to the first Gym, meaning that it can use its Recover capabilities in that game. But could Magcargo succeed without Recover in Crystal, if obtained in the same place? Lets find out.
Vs Falkner: Being slow and weak to Ground, Slugma has troubles even getting past Pidgey. E rank performance, bad beginning.
Vs Bugsy: Slugma sweeps the cocoons and with a Berry +Rock Throw has a good chance to beat Scyther as well. A rank performance.
Vs Whitney: It will take a while to beat Clefairy. Miltank obviously is a loss. E rank performance.
Vs Morty: At most will beat Gastly. E rank performance.
Vs Chuck: Won,t even beat Primeape. F rank performance.
Vs Jasmine: Steelix is at level 35. Slugma learns Flamethrower at 36, meaning it can,t use it here yet. Will beat a Magnemite at most and even that will be a risky operation. E rank performance vs a type it should have advantage against. Very sad.
Vs Pryce: Piloswine is the only Mon Slugma can do something against, but its unlikely to win. F rank performance, this is the lowest point of Slugma phase.
Vs Claire: You finally have a Magcargo. And for Magcargo to be useful, you need to spend Rest and Sleep Talk TMs. With this done, Magcargo will pretty reliably win vs Ice Beam Dragonair and has a shot vs Thunderbolt one. Surf one is the lead, so you always know you can,t lead Magcargo. D rank performance.
Vs rival at Victory Road: Restalk overleveled Magcargo has a good match-up vs everything except Kadabra and Feraligatr (which you won,t face, because you won,t be choosing Cyndaquil if you plan to use Magcargo). It will have to switch out due to some confusion and Screech hax a couple of times however. B rank performance.
Vs Will: Magcargo will beat either Exeggutor or Jynx, never both. Everything hits Magcargo way too hard in this battle. E rank performance.
Vs Koga: Finally, this is the reason of Magcargo's existance. It will take a while due to Evasion boosts, but with Restalk Magcargo will beat the whole Koga's team. Not a single Pokemon can damage Magcargo here, its one of the best Mons to deal with Koga. S rank performance.
Vs Bruno: Shitmonchan is the one beatable Mon, Mach Punch is very weak. E rank performance.
Vs Karen: At level 47, Magcargo has Flamethrower but not Rock Slide. This means that it will beat only Vileplume and Murkrow. Umbreon will be a long a painful battle, Gengar has DestinyBond and Houndoom can,t be damaged without Rock Slide, while hitting hard. D rank performance.
Vs Lance: Surprisingly, not terrible. Of course, avoid Gyarados, Aerodactyl and Outrage Dragonite. However, Twister is a weak move, meaning Blizzard Nite can,t threaten Magcargo. Charizard is walled even harder and Thunder Nite is doable too. C rank performance.
Vs Kanto Gym leaders not named Blue: Magcargo has a bad match-up vs Sabrina, but will probably win vs a Mon due to being overleveled. Misty and Brock are terrible match-ups, but the rest are good ones, mostly due to being overleveled. C rank performance.
Vs Blue: Magcargo fully walls Pidgeot and Arcanine. Will take a lot from Exeggutor's Solar Beam, but will OHKO back. The other 3 Mons are not to be fought. C rank performance.
Vs Red: Magcargo obviously wins vs Pikachu, but gets damaged in the process. The better play is the funniest thing ever. Kill Pikachu with another Mon, preferably using EQ. If Blastoise appears, kill it with another Mon too, Magcargo has no business fighting it. If Venusaur comes, switch Magcargo into Sunny Day, take Solar Beam and delete it with Flamethrower. Avoid fighting Espeon directly... but vs Charizard and Snorlax (both of which Magcargo fully walls), Magcargo can use Curse (removing Sleep Talk from the set) and sweep everything (including Espeon if it was still alive). This means, that at worst, Magcargo kills 2 Mons, but at best can win vs up to 4. C rank performance.
Now, despite having some good battles once it evolves, the Johto performance is atrocious. Slugma is smashed hard in 6 Gyms out of 7, and in the one its already evolved, it's still not great. Magcargo shines vs Koga and doesn,t perform bad from Lance onwards. However, most likely by the time you arrive to Pokemon League your Slugma is either at the PC or straight up dead. Requiring 2 best TMs (Restalk) to be marginally useful is another con and outside of those 2 TMs... Magcargo actually doesn,t learn anything. I would rank early Magcargo as E rank, only avoiding F for deleting Koga and performing well enough vs Lance and in Kanto. Don,t get me wrong, this is still one of the worst in-game Mons that exist, late evolution, terrible typing and terrible movepool mean that even obtaining it early isn,t worth it.
What if Slugma/Magcargo participated in a Nuzlocke run of Pokemon Crystal but was given as an egg before the first Gym?
Yes, this is a Gen 2 Pokemon, not a Gen 3 one. In fact, there is a Gym Leader that uses it in... Kanto. Magcargo is another late appearance victim, in every single game it appears extremely late, except in Hoenn... the "too much water" region. The Pokemon has terrible Stats, terrible typing... and a decent movepool and ability in modern Generations. Shell Smash, Recover and Flame Body are all useful atributes to have in a Nuzlocke run, and Magcargo can contribute with either walling or sweeping some opponents, sometimes even the combination of both.
In GSC its clearly an F rank Mon. Not only it doesn,t have Recover, Shell Smash or an ability, but it also appears only in Kanto, being robbed of any posibility of being used in a Nuzlocke run. In HGSS however, it can be obtained prior to the first Gym, meaning that it can use its Recover capabilities in that game. But could Magcargo succeed without Recover in Crystal, if obtained in the same place? Lets find out.
Vs Falkner: Being slow and weak to Ground, Slugma has troubles even getting past Pidgey. E rank performance, bad beginning.
Vs Bugsy: Slugma sweeps the cocoons and with a Berry +Rock Throw has a good chance to beat Scyther as well. A rank performance.
Vs Whitney: It will take a while to beat Clefairy. Miltank obviously is a loss. E rank performance.
Vs Morty: At most will beat Gastly. E rank performance.
Vs Chuck: Won,t even beat Primeape. F rank performance.
Vs Jasmine: Steelix is at level 35. Slugma learns Flamethrower at 36, meaning it can,t use it here yet. Will beat a Magnemite at most and even that will be a risky operation. E rank performance vs a type it should have advantage against. Very sad.
Vs Pryce: Piloswine is the only Mon Slugma can do something against, but its unlikely to win. F rank performance, this is the lowest point of Slugma phase.
Vs Claire: You finally have a Magcargo. And for Magcargo to be useful, you need to spend Rest and Sleep Talk TMs. With this done, Magcargo will pretty reliably win vs Ice Beam Dragonair and has a shot vs Thunderbolt one. Surf one is the lead, so you always know you can,t lead Magcargo. D rank performance.
Vs rival at Victory Road: Restalk overleveled Magcargo has a good match-up vs everything except Kadabra and Feraligatr (which you won,t face, because you won,t be choosing Cyndaquil if you plan to use Magcargo). It will have to switch out due to some confusion and Screech hax a couple of times however. B rank performance.
Vs Will: Magcargo will beat either Exeggutor or Jynx, never both. Everything hits Magcargo way too hard in this battle. E rank performance.
Vs Koga: Finally, this is the reason of Magcargo's existance. It will take a while due to Evasion boosts, but with Restalk Magcargo will beat the whole Koga's team. Not a single Pokemon can damage Magcargo here, its one of the best Mons to deal with Koga. S rank performance.
Vs Bruno: Shitmonchan is the one beatable Mon, Mach Punch is very weak. E rank performance.
Vs Karen: At level 47, Magcargo has Flamethrower but not Rock Slide. This means that it will beat only Vileplume and Murkrow. Umbreon will be a long a painful battle, Gengar has DestinyBond and Houndoom can,t be damaged without Rock Slide, while hitting hard. D rank performance.
Vs Lance: Surprisingly, not terrible. Of course, avoid Gyarados, Aerodactyl and Outrage Dragonite. However, Twister is a weak move, meaning Blizzard Nite can,t threaten Magcargo. Charizard is walled even harder and Thunder Nite is doable too. C rank performance.
Vs Kanto Gym leaders not named Blue: Magcargo has a bad match-up vs Sabrina, but will probably win vs a Mon due to being overleveled. Misty and Brock are terrible match-ups, but the rest are good ones, mostly due to being overleveled. C rank performance.
Vs Blue: Magcargo fully walls Pidgeot and Arcanine. Will take a lot from Exeggutor's Solar Beam, but will OHKO back. The other 3 Mons are not to be fought. C rank performance.
Vs Red: Magcargo obviously wins vs Pikachu, but gets damaged in the process. The better play is the funniest thing ever. Kill Pikachu with another Mon, preferably using EQ. If Blastoise appears, kill it with another Mon too, Magcargo has no business fighting it. If Venusaur comes, switch Magcargo into Sunny Day, take Solar Beam and delete it with Flamethrower. Avoid fighting Espeon directly... but vs Charizard and Snorlax (both of which Magcargo fully walls), Magcargo can use Curse (removing Sleep Talk from the set) and sweep everything (including Espeon if it was still alive). This means, that at worst, Magcargo kills 2 Mons, but at best can win vs up to 4. C rank performance.
Now, despite having some good battles once it evolves, the Johto performance is atrocious. Slugma is smashed hard in 6 Gyms out of 7, and in the one its already evolved, it's still not great. Magcargo shines vs Koga and doesn,t perform bad from Lance onwards. However, most likely by the time you arrive to Pokemon League your Slugma is either at the PC or straight up dead. Requiring 2 best TMs (Restalk) to be marginally useful is another con and outside of those 2 TMs... Magcargo actually doesn,t learn anything. I would rank early Magcargo as E rank, only avoiding F for deleting Koga and performing well enough vs Lance and in Kanto. Don,t get me wrong, this is still one of the worst in-game Mons that exist, late evolution, terrible typing and terrible movepool mean that even obtaining it early isn,t worth it.
not convinced you're accounting for EVs + badge boosts enough in some of these situations. early game, sure, it'll struggle as a Porygon at lv 20. but to say return isn't a good move on porygon2 seems silly. max 102 return + stab + plain badge + zephyr badge is something like a 190 power move. add on to that you'd have 20 levels of EVs, the Pryce badge for special boosts + ice boost and I don't see how you're not out speeding and ohkoing Claire's dragonairs with ice beam. I'd be shocked if Kingdra was not a 2hko with return.
there's also a big issue with regard to the AI here. Chuck is not guaranteed to click dynamicpunch. I agree Porygon should not be used in that fight but it's unfair to assume things like that as well as stuff like Steelix always going for screech + iron tail.
Of all the threads I could make a late-night post about my Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs bias, I have to admit, I was not expecting this to be one of them. The spinoff and side games could use a bit more attention on OI across the board in my personal opinion, so what better way to add some representation than by talking about Guardian Signs's wireless multiplayer side mode? Well... side mode, extra missions, postgame content that's not actually postgame content but most players myself included treated it as such... call it whatever you'd like, the important part is that I still want to talk about it here.
I'll spare you all the details of this game mode here since it's largely irrelevant, but what is relevant is how, much like a casual core series playthrough, you can invest time and resources into training up specific Pokémon during the course of the campaign. In this game mode, you have a single Partner Pokémon you can bring with you into Missions, and you can unlock new Pokémon to bring with you by collecting a certain item that these Pokémon have a chance of dropping when you successfully capture them. The Missions' various Boss Pokémon can also be unlocked through a different method, too. There are over 200 Pokémon in this game mode you can use as Partner Pokémon for these Missions, and as a really, really big fan of this game, I've thought about the idea of ranking these Partner Pokémon in an In-Game Tier List format like the ones we have on OI a lot more ever since this expansion thread opened up. Because here's the thing- these missions, save for a Wi-fi exclusive event Mission that's not readily available anymore, you can play through the entire storyline of this game mode in single player. Is it really freaking hard to do that? Surprisingly so? Oh, absolutely. 100 percent. I actually never reached the final boss growing up and still to this day have yet to put in the time and grind to beat the last Mission after all these years. But man, if this game mode isn'tnormally, one specific mission can rot for eternity arguably the most fun I've ever had with side content in any Pokémon game I've played.
Much like the core series games, there's a lot that will go into what makes a good Partner Pokémon for a playthrough of this game mode viable in practice. Speaking as someone who's played through Guardian Signs three times and both of the other Ranger games and has yet to complete the full mode in single player in any of these playthroughs (I'm not kidding- it's that challenging), how useful a Partner Pokémon is in assisting with the absolutely brutal level grinding and replaying of previous Missions is especially important to look at, on top of where you're spending the resources you gain and how quickly you can grind/farm for said resources. This is in addition to looking at the type matchup chart and especially what Poké Assist attack each Partner Pokémon can have. The good news is, due to the nature of this game mode, you wouldn't have to play through every single Mission with just one Partner Pokémon. There should be enough information on each available Partner Pokémon in practice to adequately and accurately rank them based on their performance in the Missions they are best suited towards. Because let's face it, that Piplup that's effectively your forced Starter Pokémon is not getting all the way through every single Mission unless you're max level and are using tool assist. The poor little guy can't even evolve since this is a Pokémon Ranger game.
I'll spare you all the details of this game mode here since it's largely irrelevant, but what is relevant is how, much like a casual core series playthrough, you can invest time and resources into training up specific Pokémon during the course of the campaign. In this game mode, you have a single Partner Pokémon you can bring with you into Missions, and you can unlock new Pokémon to bring with you by collecting a certain item that these Pokémon have a chance of dropping when you successfully capture them. The Missions' various Boss Pokémon can also be unlocked through a different method, too. There are over 200 Pokémon in this game mode you can use as Partner Pokémon for these Missions, and as a really, really big fan of this game, I've thought about the idea of ranking these Partner Pokémon in an In-Game Tier List format like the ones we have on OI a lot more ever since this expansion thread opened up. Because here's the thing- these missions, save for a Wi-fi exclusive event Mission that's not readily available anymore, you can play through the entire storyline of this game mode in single player. Is it really freaking hard to do that? Surprisingly so? Oh, absolutely. 100 percent. I actually never reached the final boss growing up and still to this day have yet to put in the time and grind to beat the last Mission after all these years. But man, if this game mode isn't
Much like the core series games, there's a lot that will go into what makes a good Partner Pokémon for a playthrough of this game mode viable in practice. Speaking as someone who's played through Guardian Signs three times and both of the other Ranger games and has yet to complete the full mode in single player in any of these playthroughs (I'm not kidding- it's that challenging), how useful a Partner Pokémon is in assisting with the absolutely brutal level grinding and replaying of previous Missions is especially important to look at, on top of where you're spending the resources you gain and how quickly you can grind/farm for said resources. This is in addition to looking at the type matchup chart and especially what Poké Assist attack each Partner Pokémon can have. The good news is, due to the nature of this game mode, you wouldn't have to play through every single Mission with just one Partner Pokémon. There should be enough information on each available Partner Pokémon in practice to adequately and accurately rank them based on their performance in the Missions they are best suited towards. Because let's face it, that Piplup that's effectively your forced Starter Pokémon is not getting all the way through every single Mission unless you're max level and are using tool assist. The poor little guy can't even evolve since this is a Pokémon Ranger game.
Return is a good move on Polygon just like it is on almost every Normal or physical Mon. However, Porygon learns Tri Attack by level-up, so it's better to use that and save Return TM for another Mon. If a Pokemon learns a good Normal STAB by level, it's always good to save Return for something else.
yeah but return is unlimited as I'm assuming most ppl are playing on a system where they can modify the time to make it Friday
Feels semi-cheating and tedious to do. Even gambling at the casino for an hour looks more fun, honestly.
While I agree with you that Return can be worth it for a mon that gets nothing between Tackle and Tri Attack at level 36 (seriously, why doesn't it learn Headbutt? As the Ukrainian guy from The Wire would say "Does it have a head? Can it move? Then it should get Headbutt") something to remember is that the elemental TMs are postgame move tutors in Crystal so your best bet is to use Thunder/Blizzard before that. Dunno if it'd impact the tiering much but it is annoying when IB would be so good against Clair.
On April Fouls Day, lets analyze a Mon that uses Foul Play in recent generations:
What if Murkrow participated in a Nuzlocke run of Pokemon Crystal but was obtainable before the first Gym?
In modern Generations, Murkrow has Prankster ability + Eviolite to be useful early on. Moreover, it has a big, violent evolution that Sucker Punches all opposition into oblivion. Honchkrow is slow but not criminally frail Wallbreaker that negates the slow Speed via Sucker Punch. It has several resistances and even 2 immunities, facilitating the job of coming in. While definetely not the best option in a Nuzlocke run, Honchkrow is more than usable with its high offensive power.
Before Honchkrow was a thing, Murkrow was essentially a post-game Mon in-game. In Fire Red its understandable, since all Johto Mons are post-game, but what happens in GSC is criminal:
So, are you telling me that I have to complete the game, go to Kanto in order to find a Mon with pretty bad Stats, underleveled and it will only learn 6 Mons by level only 2 of which are remotely good? What were they smoking when designing this Mon and its availability? Why IRL I see crows way more often than owls (outside of zoos I am yet to see a single one) and in GSC I can find Hoothoot and Noctowl in pretty much every Route while Murkrow is in post-game only? Why does it learn both Wing Attack and Drill Peck as Egg Moves? This is pure nonsense, a Mon with such a good design condemned to irrelevance. Ok, can it be at least saved with early availability? Lets find out.
Vs Falkner: Easily wins vs Pidgey but Pidgeotto is bulkier than our crow and will eventually win. D rank performance.
Vs Bugsy: With a Berry and Peck, this match-up is favorable to the crow, but its not a guaranted win, Scyther is both bulky and strong. A rank performance.
Vs Whitney: Murkrow will win vs Clefairy unless some weirdly strong move is triggered with Metronome. Murkrow can stay one turn vs Miltank and use Mud Slap, helping the rest of the team to win vs cow easier. C rank performance.
Vs Morty: Pursuit is strong enough to do good damage on the ghosts and Murkrow will live 3 Night Shades 99% of the time. However, Curse will force Murkrow to switch out once or twice, therefore preventing a full sweep. A rank performance.
Vs Chuck: With Fly or Drill Peck, this fight would have been good for Murkrow. However, Fly is given after defeating Chuck, while Drill Peck is an egg move. Therefore, Murkrow is much worse, but will still be able to damage Primeape hard with either Night Shade or Peck before switching out. Sometimes, will even manage to win. E rank performance, this is still terrible.
Vs Jasmine: Mud Slap does not OHKO Magnemites and Thunderbolt does OHKO Murkrow, its this frail. Murkrow is not completely useless though, it can use Mud Slap on Steelix and try its luck with Night Shade. However, the moment Steelix connects ANY move (this includes Screech), you should run. E rank performance.
Vs Pryce: You are likely to beat the weak Seel, but no more. E rank performance.
Vs Claire: You are lucky, the first Dragonair is the Surf one. Murkrow can 1vs1 it with Fly and a Berry to heal paralisis. D rank performance is fair here.
Vs Rival at Victory Road: Overleveled Murkrow will beat everything except Magneton and non Meganium starter. B rank performance.
Vs Will: Murkrow needs a Berry to heal confusion in this battle. With it, it will beat first Xatu and at least another non-Jynx Mon, maybe even 2. Jynx can be beaten if you somehow haven,t spent the Shadow Ball TM on another Mon (you likely had), Faint Attack won,t kill Jynx, but Shadow Ball will. Steel Wing is another move that can be used to kill Jynx, but a miss will mean Murkrow's demise. C rank performance.
Vs Koga: Here we have another instance of missing Drill Peck. With it, Murkrow would cleanly kill Ariados. Without it, its still favored, but what can happen is this:
Turn 1, Murkrow Flies and Ariados uses Double Team.
Turn 2, Murkrow misses and Ariados uses Mean Look.
Turn 3, Ariados uses Baton Pass.
It will rarely happen, but its an important concern. Venomoth is the only Mon Murkrow 100% reliably wins against. D rank performance.
Vs Bruno: Another instance of missing Drill Peck. Hitmontop has Quick Attack + Detect, meaning it can alternate those to avoid dying to Fly. Therefore, Murkrow shouldn,t fight vs it, even though it can 3HKO with Night Shade (Bruno will heal it). Instead, he can kill the other 2 Hitmons, with a likely funny moment of Hitmonlee crashing Hi Jump Kick in the middle of Murkrow's Fly. C rank performance.
Vs Karen: Here Murkrow actually does pretty well. It of course shouldn,t fight neither Umbreon, nor Houndoom, but easily beats Vileplume and opposing Murkrow (Karen doesn,t use Egg Moves either). To guarantee the win vs Gengar avoiding Destiny Bond and not waste many turns switching in the process, Murkrow can use a TM that usually no one uses in-game (therefore having a low opportunity cost for the rest of your team): Icy Wind. With the Speed drop, Murkrow can simply wait for a turn in which Gengar won,t use Destiny Bond and kill it the following turn. B rank performance, Murkrow gained the respect of the Dark type specialist.
Vs Lance: You have a very low chance to beat Gyarados, but its still risky. Icy Wind won,t save you vs the Nites. F rank performance.
Vs Kanto Gym leaders not named Blue: Of course, no use vs Surge or Brock. Will kill some Mons from Misty, Blaine and Janine and will sweep Sabrina and Erica. C rank performance.
Vs Blue: Wins vs Alakazam and Exeggutor. Can try its luck vs Pidgeot too, but then its risky to face Exeggutor. D rank performance.
Vs Red: At worst, beats either Venusaur or Espeon. At best, beats both. D rank performance.
So, first, the positives. Murkrow almost does not consume resources. You will spend 3 TMs at most on it and only 1 of those has an opportunity cost: Mud Slap, either Steel Wing or Shadow Ball (this is the important one) and Icy Wind. Even with 6 level-up moves, Murkrow will be resorting to STABs or Night Shade 90% of the time. Return has almost no use on Murkrow since STAB Fly is always more powerful except vs Electric types... which you shouldn,t fight anyway. The only time Return could be useful is vs Bruno's Hitmontop, but that Mon is a joke anyway and you can beat it with something else (or even Murkrow's Night Shades). Unlike other Flying Mons, Murkrow can be pretty good vs Will and be particularly useful vs Karen.
However, Murkrow is pretty bad everywhere else. Its bulk is terrible, its power is not optimal due to missing key STAB moves (not having Crunch makes sense, but Drill Peck being an egg move is madness). Only 2 Johto Gyms have what I consider a positive match-up for Murkrow and in Kanto is not particularly good either. Its still not Magcargo level bad, so I would rise an early Murkrow from F rank to D one, but its really close to be an unviable Mon. It really was a good decision to give this Pokemon an evolution.
What if Murkrow participated in a Nuzlocke run of Pokemon Crystal but was obtainable before the first Gym?
In modern Generations, Murkrow has Prankster ability + Eviolite to be useful early on. Moreover, it has a big, violent evolution that Sucker Punches all opposition into oblivion. Honchkrow is slow but not criminally frail Wallbreaker that negates the slow Speed via Sucker Punch. It has several resistances and even 2 immunities, facilitating the job of coming in. While definetely not the best option in a Nuzlocke run, Honchkrow is more than usable with its high offensive power.
Before Honchkrow was a thing, Murkrow was essentially a post-game Mon in-game. In Fire Red its understandable, since all Johto Mons are post-game, but what happens in GSC is criminal:
So, are you telling me that I have to complete the game, go to Kanto in order to find a Mon with pretty bad Stats, underleveled and it will only learn 6 Mons by level only 2 of which are remotely good? What were they smoking when designing this Mon and its availability? Why IRL I see crows way more often than owls (outside of zoos I am yet to see a single one) and in GSC I can find Hoothoot and Noctowl in pretty much every Route while Murkrow is in post-game only? Why does it learn both Wing Attack and Drill Peck as Egg Moves? This is pure nonsense, a Mon with such a good design condemned to irrelevance. Ok, can it be at least saved with early availability? Lets find out.
Vs Falkner: Easily wins vs Pidgey but Pidgeotto is bulkier than our crow and will eventually win. D rank performance.
Vs Bugsy: With a Berry and Peck, this match-up is favorable to the crow, but its not a guaranted win, Scyther is both bulky and strong. A rank performance.
Vs Whitney: Murkrow will win vs Clefairy unless some weirdly strong move is triggered with Metronome. Murkrow can stay one turn vs Miltank and use Mud Slap, helping the rest of the team to win vs cow easier. C rank performance.
Vs Morty: Pursuit is strong enough to do good damage on the ghosts and Murkrow will live 3 Night Shades 99% of the time. However, Curse will force Murkrow to switch out once or twice, therefore preventing a full sweep. A rank performance.
Vs Chuck: With Fly or Drill Peck, this fight would have been good for Murkrow. However, Fly is given after defeating Chuck, while Drill Peck is an egg move. Therefore, Murkrow is much worse, but will still be able to damage Primeape hard with either Night Shade or Peck before switching out. Sometimes, will even manage to win. E rank performance, this is still terrible.
Vs Jasmine: Mud Slap does not OHKO Magnemites and Thunderbolt does OHKO Murkrow, its this frail. Murkrow is not completely useless though, it can use Mud Slap on Steelix and try its luck with Night Shade. However, the moment Steelix connects ANY move (this includes Screech), you should run. E rank performance.
Vs Pryce: You are likely to beat the weak Seel, but no more. E rank performance.
Vs Claire: You are lucky, the first Dragonair is the Surf one. Murkrow can 1vs1 it with Fly and a Berry to heal paralisis. D rank performance is fair here.
Vs Rival at Victory Road: Overleveled Murkrow will beat everything except Magneton and non Meganium starter. B rank performance.
Vs Will: Murkrow needs a Berry to heal confusion in this battle. With it, it will beat first Xatu and at least another non-Jynx Mon, maybe even 2. Jynx can be beaten if you somehow haven,t spent the Shadow Ball TM on another Mon (you likely had), Faint Attack won,t kill Jynx, but Shadow Ball will. Steel Wing is another move that can be used to kill Jynx, but a miss will mean Murkrow's demise. C rank performance.
Vs Koga: Here we have another instance of missing Drill Peck. With it, Murkrow would cleanly kill Ariados. Without it, its still favored, but what can happen is this:
Turn 1, Murkrow Flies and Ariados uses Double Team.
Turn 2, Murkrow misses and Ariados uses Mean Look.
Turn 3, Ariados uses Baton Pass.
It will rarely happen, but its an important concern. Venomoth is the only Mon Murkrow 100% reliably wins against. D rank performance.
Vs Bruno: Another instance of missing Drill Peck. Hitmontop has Quick Attack + Detect, meaning it can alternate those to avoid dying to Fly. Therefore, Murkrow shouldn,t fight vs it, even though it can 3HKO with Night Shade (Bruno will heal it). Instead, he can kill the other 2 Hitmons, with a likely funny moment of Hitmonlee crashing Hi Jump Kick in the middle of Murkrow's Fly. C rank performance.
Vs Karen: Here Murkrow actually does pretty well. It of course shouldn,t fight neither Umbreon, nor Houndoom, but easily beats Vileplume and opposing Murkrow (Karen doesn,t use Egg Moves either). To guarantee the win vs Gengar avoiding Destiny Bond and not waste many turns switching in the process, Murkrow can use a TM that usually no one uses in-game (therefore having a low opportunity cost for the rest of your team): Icy Wind. With the Speed drop, Murkrow can simply wait for a turn in which Gengar won,t use Destiny Bond and kill it the following turn. B rank performance, Murkrow gained the respect of the Dark type specialist.
Vs Lance: You have a very low chance to beat Gyarados, but its still risky. Icy Wind won,t save you vs the Nites. F rank performance.
Vs Kanto Gym leaders not named Blue: Of course, no use vs Surge or Brock. Will kill some Mons from Misty, Blaine and Janine and will sweep Sabrina and Erica. C rank performance.
Vs Blue: Wins vs Alakazam and Exeggutor. Can try its luck vs Pidgeot too, but then its risky to face Exeggutor. D rank performance.
Vs Red: At worst, beats either Venusaur or Espeon. At best, beats both. D rank performance.
So, first, the positives. Murkrow almost does not consume resources. You will spend 3 TMs at most on it and only 1 of those has an opportunity cost: Mud Slap, either Steel Wing or Shadow Ball (this is the important one) and Icy Wind. Even with 6 level-up moves, Murkrow will be resorting to STABs or Night Shade 90% of the time. Return has almost no use on Murkrow since STAB Fly is always more powerful except vs Electric types... which you shouldn,t fight anyway. The only time Return could be useful is vs Bruno's Hitmontop, but that Mon is a joke anyway and you can beat it with something else (or even Murkrow's Night Shades). Unlike other Flying Mons, Murkrow can be pretty good vs Will and be particularly useful vs Karen.
However, Murkrow is pretty bad everywhere else. Its bulk is terrible, its power is not optimal due to missing key STAB moves (not having Crunch makes sense, but Drill Peck being an egg move is madness). Only 2 Johto Gyms have what I consider a positive match-up for Murkrow and in Kanto is not particularly good either. Its still not Magcargo level bad, so I would rise an early Murkrow from F rank to D one, but its really close to be an unviable Mon. It really was a good decision to give this Pokemon an evolution.
Attachments
I know the exact mission you're referring to; the Magnezone mission is absolute hell to play through on solo, and if the mission spawns Claydols instead of Bronzongs which you can dodge, it's downright impossible. FUCK this mission.
Edit:
It is actually possible to S Rank Magnezone, but you'd have to not only be extremely overleveled (I was able to reliably A Rank Arceus by the time S Rank Magnezone even seemed like a possibility), but the mission has to go flawlessly since you need to dodge every single Bronzong. Magnezone wasn't a walk in the park either, but flawless play with my Hippopotas assist let me burst it down in under 40 seconds iirc. Not impossible but very tedious and luck-reliant. Fuck those Claydols.
The progression for the Past missions is a bit weird because again, your partner pokemon can't evolve. However, you can level up your partner pokemon's move to be stronger/bigger/have less cooldown/etc., such that even if you pick up the evolved version of your partner later, it might already be lagging behind your invested partner. Piplup is a great example of this because it's probably going to be your best, if not only Water assist throughout the entirety of the Fire Temple, and by the time you complete the Fire temple, Water assists are no longer going to be as important anymore, so "not being able to evolve" isn't really a big deal. It's not like pre-evolved partners are even a strict downgrade either, because they tend to have less cooldowns on their assists than their evolved forms in exchange for less power, so even a Hippopotas partner can be just as valuable as a Hippowdon partner for example.
There are two bigger issues with ranking Past partner Pokemon imo. The first is you don't have that much control over what litographs will drop in each mission to give you what you want, but at the same time the grindy nature of the past missions means that while you could get the rare litograph you desire eventually with enough grinding, you still need a partner to actually get you through the grind. This results in a conundrum where the early-game is almost as important as the late-game, if not even more so. Even then, assists that are only good for one late-game boss stage are still useful because investing AP into them can let you grind that stage easier and get your AP back. This makes it pretty difficult for almost any partner to be rendered truly obsolete because nearly all assists can be useful in some stage, which may be enough justification to consider them for grinding. Even Normal assists, which cannot hit the boss super effectively, might still have some potential in crushing those annoying Pokemon that you need to catch to reach the boss in the first place, since they tend to hit harder than other assists.
The bigger issue lies in the cataloguing of what each assist does, because currently, there is pretty much ZERO documentation on what each Past assist does. For example, I recall the likes of Donphan, Hariyama, and Primeape having pretty lousy assists due to their long startup/cooldown animation despite the coverage they offer, but would anyone have known this without me telling them or not use the Pokemon themselves? I haven't even gotten into the AP investment costs for each Pokemon, and I definitely can't remember for the life of me what any of them are because I haven't touched this game in years. While the concept of ranking the Past partner Pokemon definitely intrigues me, there simply isn't enough detailed information on them, and trying to compile them sounds like a herculean mammoth of a task, especially with the grinding involved.
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Yep, that's the one. It's very obvious that the intended method is to get a second player so you can each take one of the split paths, but of course, if it's just you, you have to spend an agonizing amount of time going back and forth between the two. On average, that takes me about five minutes to do, and for context, your total mission time when accounting for all possible Time Extenders is around 11 minutes. Doing the math, that means you're left with only a single minute to complete the rest of the mission (the beginning segment plus the boss) outside of the split path segment if you want to get an S Rank in single player, which given the circumstances I'm starting to think is impossible without cheating.
You pretty much summed this up better than I could have about why it's likely completely impractical to test for this game mode. I'd like to think I have a pretty good grasp on what all of the different Assists do and the quote-on-quote "meta" for each of these missions, but given that Guardian Signs is
So... Would Murkrow/Stunky be able to deal with Plat Fantina or not? 
This is bordering on theorymonning, but I feel like Stunky would have a better shot than Murkrow would. At the level cap, Mismagius and Haunter probably both outspeed your average Murkrow, and even resisted Shadow Ball hits Murkrow hard. Stunky at least has better natural bulk and a better Haunter matchup, though it does worry a bit more about Duskull than Murkrow does.So... Would Murkrow/Stunky be able to deal with Plat Fantina or not?
So... Would Murkrow/Stunky be able to deal with Plat Fantina or not?
Stunky probably doesn't have the firepower even if it does have a good defensive matchup. Murkrow looks solid on paper.
Fantina really comes down to her Mismagius whose Confuse Ray throws a wrench in things on top of its already great coverage attacking moves wise. I would say Murkrow ranks behind Probopass, Umbreon, and Lopunny in that order as mons you could realistically get by that point, that have the best 1v1 matchup against that Mismagius. And I'm using "realistically" pretty loosely given two of those mons are friendship based evolutions.
63/47/41 vs. 60/42/42 only really matters on the physical side.
Mismagius chucking Shadow Balls like a 105 SpA turret gives both of them the same kind of problems.
I can see those doing some nasty damage despite the resist, which is what made me ask the question.
Both of them have Thief (TM) for STAB. (Murkrow can make do with Pursuit + Pluck)
It also works as to try and run some pseudo-Pluck shenanigans.
I'd give Murkrow the advantage because it can hit a lot harder than Stunky, but I'm not sure if either can clutch the 1v1 vs Mismagius, let alone sweep on their own.
Because I am now finished with my Emerald challenge of using every available Pokemon, I wanted to theorycraft about a couple of Pokemon and how they would fair if they had just a bit more options. May it be due to availability, additional moves or other surrounding factors.
To not make this boring, I will keep some rules, though.
The biggest problem with underperforming Pokemon is simply that their stats are too bad. But stat changes are too big of a change in my book, and the really desperate Pokemon need such big stat buffs to become viable that they wouldn't feel like the same Pokemon anymore. So I will not do stat changes.
I also won't cover things that only cover a small part of the game or don't change the viability of the Pokemon much. Mainly because there is so little to talk about. It is true that if Tentacool learned Water Gun, its early game would be significantly better. But in practise, all it means is that Tentacool now beats Brawly and has an easier time leveling up to BubbleBeam. And that change describtion is over in like a paragraph. Same with something like Nuzleaf getting better early game moves like Mega Drain. That won't change the fact that it still matchs up badly against the early game due.
I also want a change to feel natural. Like something that could have been in the game in this way. Nothing out of place or overdone.
With all that out of the way, I have several topics that I will cover over the coming weeks.
Starting with...
To give it a better availability and matchup field, I will examine how it would fare if Vulpix could be encountered on Route 112. It being the first route where you get access to Fire types like Numel.
What I also missed dearly during my playthrough with Vulpix was Solar Beam. The TM for the move is very close to where you catch Vulpix but unfortunately Ninetales is unable to learn the move until gen 4. Which is a shame because it would give it some much needed special coverage. So I will asume Ninetales can learn the move via TM like in gen 4. The TM itself won't move, though, and is still in the Safari Zone.
Changed Vulpix performance:
If we replace Numel with Vulpix on Route 112, then Vulpix would be available between levels 14 and 16 with a 75% encounter chance.
It would start out with a good early Fire STAB move in Ember, Quick Attack and it would also soon learn a useful status move in Will-O-Wisp.
The routes between the third and fourth gym are a good place for leveling up weaker Pokemon and Vulpix matches up well against the trainers there. So Vulpix would likely be able to level up to level 29, where it learns Flamethrower, before gym 4. The Dig TM can also be picked up to give Vulpix coverage. In Lavaridge Town, we can also get the Charcoal for boosting up its Fire moves.
Flannery:
Her first Pokemon Numel is problematic for Vulpix. It has bad physical bulk and is weak to Magnitude, which means Dig is not a good choice. Vulpix can take down Slugma with 2 Digs and Camerupt with 3 Digs since both don't threaten Vulpix, as it is immune to Overheat due to its Flash Fire ability, and Camerupt only has Tackle to hurt it. Torkoal is too much for Vulpix, though. Even though Body Slam is its only attack to hurt Vulpix, it is still a 2HKO while Flamethrower and Dig don't do enough damage.
Overall performance: C
After the 4th gym, we can use Strength outside battle and get the nearby Fire Stone in Fiery Path to evolve into Ninetales, which gives it a big stat buff. It is a stone evolutions, so no more level-up moves but Vulpix doesn't miss out on any important moves anyway. We can also give Vulpix the Overheat TM. Now it has a good moveset of Flamethrower, Dig, Overheat and Will-O-Wisp.
Norman:
Ninetales outspeeds and 2HKOs Spinda, Vigoroth and Linoone while their Normal attacks don't do much. If Ninetales is a bit overleveled, which is likely if you went into the desert and the Trick House on the way back to Petalburg City, then it is even a likely OHKO against Spinda and Vigoroth. Slaking is slower than Ninetales and only does around half to it with Facade, while Flamethrower + Overheat is a guaranteed 2HKO. You could also savely chip it down into Overheat range with Dig and dodge its moves.
Overall performance: A
Ninetales is not too much of a help in the Water routes surrounding the starter island but STAB Flamethrower is still doing a lot, even if it's resisted, and it can also kill some Water Pokemon with Dig. Due to its high special defense it won't take a lot from Water Guns. Against the trainers in the Abandoned Ship, on Route 115 and the Trick House, Ninetales is good. We will also stop by the Pretty Petal flower shop on Route 104 and talk to the girl inside by the door. Afterwards, the girl outside the shop will give us the White Herb, which we will need for gym 6. Ninetales matches up well against the Voltorbs of New Mauvile City and the trainers on Route 119 before Fortree City. We get the Devon Scope from Steven, and get the Sunny Day TM from inside the nearby Scorched Slab. We replace Dig with Sunny Day before heading back for the next gym.
Winona:
Swablu, Tropius and Skarmory are all toasted by Flamethrower, and even Pelipper poses no threat and is 3HKOed after Ninetales sets up Sunny Day. Altaria is the real threat. We have to be careful about our remaining sun turns when we kill Pelipper and also have at least 70% health remaining. Ninetales is faster than Altaria and can burn it with Will-O-Wisp before it can attack it. Even if it Dragon Dances instead of just attacking outright with Earthquake, a +1 Earthquake is not a 2HKO. If we equipped the White Herb on Ninetales before the fight, two sun-boosted Overheats + the burn damage kill Altaria over 3 turns on average.
Overall performance: B
Ninetales does not like the rain on Route 120 but matches up well against the trainers anyway, just like on Route 119. It is solid on Mt. Pyre and the surrounding routes and really appreciates having a lot more EVs by this point than normally. After we reach Lilycove City, we get the Pokeblock Case and do a quick trip into the Safari Zone to pick up the Solar Beam TM. In the Team Magma Hideout we can also pick up the PP Max and use it on Ninetales' Sunny Day that allow it do use Solar Beam in more fights. The Water routes before Mossdeep City aren't exactly good for it but with Sunny Day, Solar Beam and Ninetales' good special defense, it isn't exactly the worst either.
Tate & Liza:
Claydol's Earthquake is a problem for Ninetales. Even if it burns it, Earthquake is still doing a lot and it would rather set up Sunny Day as quickly as possible. It needs a partner that can take care of Claydol. Ninetals can provide around 40% chip damage on Claydol. Xatu is still 2HKOed by sun-boosted Flamethrower, even after a Calm Mind boost. Solrock and Lunatone are 2HKOed by Solar Beam, and their Psychics don't hurt too much but Lunatone can be annoying with Hypnosis or Light Screen.
Overall performance: B
Ninetales doesn't have too much of a use in the coming water routes. It can deal with some land trainers and the last Team Aqua fights, though.
Juan:
Sunny Beam and the Miracle Seed come in handy here. Ninetales easily takes care of Luvdisc, Sealeo and Crawdaunt. Kingdra is a pickle, though, as it often is. Ninetales can technically try to tangle with it with obscure techs like the Attract TM or the Rest TM + relearned Imprision, but it woul have to give up some important TM moves to attempt that, so it isn't really worth it. Another team member should take care of Kingdra.
Overall performance: B
Ninetales should be fine in Victory Road but its lower stats certainly could catch up to it more and more now.
Elite Four and Champion:
Sidney should be fine for Ninetales and Phoebe is probably also okay with Will-O-Wisp. It definitely will need Potion support, though. Glacia's Sealeos don't have Water moves and Ninetales matches up well against her Glalies as well. Walrein just runs over it, though. Drake and Wallace are just too powerful and a bad matchup for Ninetales.
Overall performance: C
In total, I would rank changed Vulpix in lower B rank. Two whole ranks higher than it currently is.
It is honestly crazy how much of a difference the change in location and only one additional move makes for it. It has far more options with both and can contribute well, even if its stats aren't the best. It does fall off a bit at the end, but it is far better off than Vanilla Vulpix. Having much more EVs also makes a big difference. It is also nice that I is rather self-sustaning. It learns Flamethrower naturally and only need two uncommon TMs in Sunny Day and Solar Beam. There is a good chance that Vulpix would end up as one of the best Fire types in Hoenn.
To not make this boring, I will keep some rules, though.
The biggest problem with underperforming Pokemon is simply that their stats are too bad. But stat changes are too big of a change in my book, and the really desperate Pokemon need such big stat buffs to become viable that they wouldn't feel like the same Pokemon anymore. So I will not do stat changes.
I also won't cover things that only cover a small part of the game or don't change the viability of the Pokemon much. Mainly because there is so little to talk about. It is true that if Tentacool learned Water Gun, its early game would be significantly better. But in practise, all it means is that Tentacool now beats Brawly and has an easier time leveling up to BubbleBeam. And that change describtion is over in like a paragraph. Same with something like Nuzleaf getting better early game moves like Mega Drain. That won't change the fact that it still matchs up badly against the early game due.
I also want a change to feel natural. Like something that could have been in the game in this way. Nothing out of place or overdone.
With all that out of the way, I have several topics that I will cover over the coming weeks.
Starting with...
What if Vulpix could be found on Route 112 and learned Solar Beam via TM in Emerald?
Vulpix does not fare very well in Emerald because it comes rather late in Mt. Pyre, its movepool is pretty much only Flamethrower, Ninetales' stat are just a bit mediore and it doesn't much up well against the remaining late game. I gave it a D rank rating in my tier list.To give it a better availability and matchup field, I will examine how it would fare if Vulpix could be encountered on Route 112. It being the first route where you get access to Fire types like Numel.
What I also missed dearly during my playthrough with Vulpix was Solar Beam. The TM for the move is very close to where you catch Vulpix but unfortunately Ninetales is unable to learn the move until gen 4. Which is a shame because it would give it some much needed special coverage. So I will asume Ninetales can learn the move via TM like in gen 4. The TM itself won't move, though, and is still in the Safari Zone.
Changed Vulpix performance:
If we replace Numel with Vulpix on Route 112, then Vulpix would be available between levels 14 and 16 with a 75% encounter chance.
It would start out with a good early Fire STAB move in Ember, Quick Attack and it would also soon learn a useful status move in Will-O-Wisp.
The routes between the third and fourth gym are a good place for leveling up weaker Pokemon and Vulpix matches up well against the trainers there. So Vulpix would likely be able to level up to level 29, where it learns Flamethrower, before gym 4. The Dig TM can also be picked up to give Vulpix coverage. In Lavaridge Town, we can also get the Charcoal for boosting up its Fire moves.
Flannery:
Her first Pokemon Numel is problematic for Vulpix. It has bad physical bulk and is weak to Magnitude, which means Dig is not a good choice. Vulpix can take down Slugma with 2 Digs and Camerupt with 3 Digs since both don't threaten Vulpix, as it is immune to Overheat due to its Flash Fire ability, and Camerupt only has Tackle to hurt it. Torkoal is too much for Vulpix, though. Even though Body Slam is its only attack to hurt Vulpix, it is still a 2HKO while Flamethrower and Dig don't do enough damage.
Overall performance: C
After the 4th gym, we can use Strength outside battle and get the nearby Fire Stone in Fiery Path to evolve into Ninetales, which gives it a big stat buff. It is a stone evolutions, so no more level-up moves but Vulpix doesn't miss out on any important moves anyway. We can also give Vulpix the Overheat TM. Now it has a good moveset of Flamethrower, Dig, Overheat and Will-O-Wisp.
Norman:
Ninetales outspeeds and 2HKOs Spinda, Vigoroth and Linoone while their Normal attacks don't do much. If Ninetales is a bit overleveled, which is likely if you went into the desert and the Trick House on the way back to Petalburg City, then it is even a likely OHKO against Spinda and Vigoroth. Slaking is slower than Ninetales and only does around half to it with Facade, while Flamethrower + Overheat is a guaranteed 2HKO. You could also savely chip it down into Overheat range with Dig and dodge its moves.
Overall performance: A
Ninetales is not too much of a help in the Water routes surrounding the starter island but STAB Flamethrower is still doing a lot, even if it's resisted, and it can also kill some Water Pokemon with Dig. Due to its high special defense it won't take a lot from Water Guns. Against the trainers in the Abandoned Ship, on Route 115 and the Trick House, Ninetales is good. We will also stop by the Pretty Petal flower shop on Route 104 and talk to the girl inside by the door. Afterwards, the girl outside the shop will give us the White Herb, which we will need for gym 6. Ninetales matches up well against the Voltorbs of New Mauvile City and the trainers on Route 119 before Fortree City. We get the Devon Scope from Steven, and get the Sunny Day TM from inside the nearby Scorched Slab. We replace Dig with Sunny Day before heading back for the next gym.
Winona:
Swablu, Tropius and Skarmory are all toasted by Flamethrower, and even Pelipper poses no threat and is 3HKOed after Ninetales sets up Sunny Day. Altaria is the real threat. We have to be careful about our remaining sun turns when we kill Pelipper and also have at least 70% health remaining. Ninetales is faster than Altaria and can burn it with Will-O-Wisp before it can attack it. Even if it Dragon Dances instead of just attacking outright with Earthquake, a +1 Earthquake is not a 2HKO. If we equipped the White Herb on Ninetales before the fight, two sun-boosted Overheats + the burn damage kill Altaria over 3 turns on average.
Overall performance: B
Ninetales does not like the rain on Route 120 but matches up well against the trainers anyway, just like on Route 119. It is solid on Mt. Pyre and the surrounding routes and really appreciates having a lot more EVs by this point than normally. After we reach Lilycove City, we get the Pokeblock Case and do a quick trip into the Safari Zone to pick up the Solar Beam TM. In the Team Magma Hideout we can also pick up the PP Max and use it on Ninetales' Sunny Day that allow it do use Solar Beam in more fights. The Water routes before Mossdeep City aren't exactly good for it but with Sunny Day, Solar Beam and Ninetales' good special defense, it isn't exactly the worst either.
Tate & Liza:
Claydol's Earthquake is a problem for Ninetales. Even if it burns it, Earthquake is still doing a lot and it would rather set up Sunny Day as quickly as possible. It needs a partner that can take care of Claydol. Ninetals can provide around 40% chip damage on Claydol. Xatu is still 2HKOed by sun-boosted Flamethrower, even after a Calm Mind boost. Solrock and Lunatone are 2HKOed by Solar Beam, and their Psychics don't hurt too much but Lunatone can be annoying with Hypnosis or Light Screen.
Overall performance: B
Ninetales doesn't have too much of a use in the coming water routes. It can deal with some land trainers and the last Team Aqua fights, though.
Juan:
Sunny Beam and the Miracle Seed come in handy here. Ninetales easily takes care of Luvdisc, Sealeo and Crawdaunt. Kingdra is a pickle, though, as it often is. Ninetales can technically try to tangle with it with obscure techs like the Attract TM or the Rest TM + relearned Imprision, but it woul have to give up some important TM moves to attempt that, so it isn't really worth it. Another team member should take care of Kingdra.
Overall performance: B
Ninetales should be fine in Victory Road but its lower stats certainly could catch up to it more and more now.
Elite Four and Champion:
Sidney should be fine for Ninetales and Phoebe is probably also okay with Will-O-Wisp. It definitely will need Potion support, though. Glacia's Sealeos don't have Water moves and Ninetales matches up well against her Glalies as well. Walrein just runs over it, though. Drake and Wallace are just too powerful and a bad matchup for Ninetales.
Overall performance: C
In total, I would rank changed Vulpix in lower B rank. Two whole ranks higher than it currently is.
It is honestly crazy how much of a difference the change in location and only one additional move makes for it. It has far more options with both and can contribute well, even if its stats aren't the best. It does fall off a bit at the end, but it is far better off than Vanilla Vulpix. Having much more EVs also makes a big difference. It is also nice that I is rather self-sustaning. It learns Flamethrower naturally and only need two uncommon TMs in Sunny Day and Solar Beam. There is a good chance that Vulpix would end up as one of the best Fire types in Hoenn.
A lot of mons in Emerald would change a lot from TM updates. Electrike is a completely different mon with the Fire coverage it gets in Gen 4.