Guys, guys, guys. I appreciate the input, but "Spearow > Pidgey, therefore Pidgey to Mid" makes no sense at all. What if Pidgey is still good enough for Top? All Spearow > Pidgey says is just that: Spearow > Pidgey. If Pidgey is still a good Pokemon throughout the game, better than the Mids and the Lows, then it is a good candidate for High.
I believe you can catch Moltres before beating the League. It's at One Island and you only need Strength and Rock Smash to get to the part where Moltres is.
Oh yeah, I forgot exactly how all that Island stuff worked.
@Peanut-Lover
Lapras - Yes, its late, but if you play your cards right, you can get it with plenty of room to level up. Surf, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Confuse Ray is excellent. I'm surprised noone said anything before.
"if you play your cards right" already indicates that you have to put a ton of effort in to make Lapras good. It comes at L15 at a point where a team of four could be at about L40. Ice Beam is learned naturally, but pretty late. If Lapras has to take the Thunderbolt TM to be good, it makes Electrics on your team pretty sucky, or anything that wants it, so her value is lowered by how much it costs the rest of the team.
Marowak - Bonemerang, Double Edge, False Swipe, Brick Break. All of these through level up or cheap tm. Bonemerang is essentially earthquake. Double edge is 120 bp without recoil (rock head). Can use rock tomb if you really want. Mid or upper.
Only looking at the end result isn't going to do you any good. Cubone comes at like L14 in Rock Tunnel. I estimate you'd be at about 20-25 by then? Next gym is Grass, and though it doesn't perform :horrible: against Team Rocket and Gastly, it's nothing to write home about either. Gastly outspeeds and annoys the shit out of him. Team Rocket uses Zubats which he can hardly touch, and Rattata that own him into the ground. Ekanses and Koffing are fine, I suppose.
Rhydon/Golem - STAB on EQ, and decent rock moves to boot. Brick Break, as mentioned. Then, your choice - explosion on golem, or meghorn on rhydon. Golem gets double edge through level up.
Again, don't just look at the end result man. Rhyhorn is only available in Safari Zone, which is late on its own. I'll give him performance in Koga's and Blane's gym, but Sabrina is pretty much all over him, and he's pretty abysmal in Pokemon League. Geodude I can see for Mid, but there's a lot of opponents he simply can't fight because they OHKO-2HKO them. You have to realize this is fairly retarded considering how overleveled your team usually will be. Graveler also can't evolve without trading, and I consider trading a non-factor.
Mr.Mime vs. Hypno
Mr. Mime gets Psychic, Thundebrolt, Magical Leaf. All through level up. Higher special attack and speed. Hypno doesn't get anything more than psychic - yes its defensive, but see my nidoqueen comment below.
It comes down to Mr. Mime's EXP bonus versus having to get an Abra and trade for it. Drowzee is just a decent Psychic that comes with Confusion, which does the trick.
Nidoran F - yes you get it early - but you get Nidoran M early as well. And nidoran m hits harder, faster. Nidoqueen takes hits, but its fast-paced in-game. Mid imo.
x > y, therefore y sucks is faulty logic. Either way, it may just be the case you encounter NidoranF first (I believe that in the originals, one gender is more common than the other depending on the game). Their stats are pretty identical, especially since most of the time the small gap won't matter (they usually OHKO, they hardly take damage, etc).
Zubat - please don't tell me its good - it sucks. golbat as well. once you get to crobat, its great, but golbat is still too frail.
You hardly backed this up at all. Golbat gets great natural STAB in Wing Attack and works very well against all the Grasses and Poisons you face. He's only frail if he's at a type disadvantage against something like a Gym Leader. Generic opponents suck.
Flareon - want a good fire type? Get rapidash, or arcanine, or ninetales. You'll do better in terms of speed and movepool.
Ponyta/Rapidash comes at Cinnabar, and I'd have to not spam Repels to get it, which I'd rather do. No thanks.
Vulpix/Growlithe are as behind as Cubone if not worse. They can be alright, but I've shown that "x and y > z, therefore z sucks" is incorrect.
Jolteon - Unless you bp an agility, you're better off with raichu for an electric - you get it early (to beat Misty if you don't have bulba), and it gets brick break off of a comparatively good attack stat (base 90 vs base 65). It gets shadow ball - big deal.
Same as above. Plus, Pikachu is very hard to find in Viridian, so you probably don't have him.
Vaporeon - Surf, Ice beam, acid armor, baton pass. Unless you baton pass an acid armor, its a mediocre water, imo. Better results with Golduck, Slowbro, etc.
Golduck and Slowbro are on Seafoam Islands. That's a huge detour on its own, and it's quite late too. I'm not even going to bother with this one.
Btw, you have both diglett and dugtrio mentioned.
I know. It's because Dugtrio is one of the very few early-catchable evolved Pokemon, and probably the only one worth mentioning.
Oh, and response to "abra is horrid, Kadabra is great" - great ball catches abra. However, having only Psychic, Psybeam, Recover, Calm Mind is still a bad choice (see Hypno).
Psybeam alone OHKOs nearly everything Kadabra finds. I don't think you even have Great Balls in Cerulean, and even if you do, it's not guarantee, and I may not want to use it to catch Abra.
@Kingdrom
Chansey should probably be placed to low. Stalling really makes for a boring time ingame, and is offensively retarded. Not to mention that he takes forever to catch in the Safari Zone, even longer to get a decent natured one. And if you don't EV train it, then he falls to nearly any physical attack. Not as good as he was in Red/Blue.
He's about as good as in R/B, I'd say. The reason Chansey is not in Low is because it saves your wallet by Softboiling other party members at the cost of its own massive HP. I do really see your point though - availability is really low and low chanced.
Machop, on the other hand, is nearly in the same boat as Mankey. He is obtainable in Rock Tunnel and has a host of good fighting moves to choose from. Machoke does learn Cross Chop level 46, but Guts is a decent ability to employ against enemies who like to status you. I think he should go in mid.
Even ignoring that L14 at Rock Tunnel is underleveled by a huge amount, Machop manages to have a type disadvantage for pretty much the entire midgame.
Team Rocket? Full of Poisons.
Celadon gym? 99% Grass/Poison, and some Exeggcute. The only thing he hits neutral is Tangela.
Pokemon Tower? Gastly is totally immune to them unless you Odor Sleuth every one of them or something.
Fushia gym? Poison resists Fighting.
More Team Rocket? More Poisons. Except this time they have more Golbats with Wing Attack.
Saffron gym? A total joke. He ties with the Fighting gym though.
He's simply not good against anything.
I agree with Magikarp's mid placement. Gyarados is such a useful HM slave.
Magikarp is like the epitome of Mid.
Really Vaporeon is the best of the Eevee evolutions, the rest should be moved to mid because they are outclassed by something that is found earlier. Plus, they have a shallow movepool. At least Vaporeon can make some use of it.
I don't mind outclassment at all, as I've outlined. Flareon and Jolteon are actually quite low-maintanance compared to most Fires and Electrics, barring Charmander and a Viridian Pikachu.
@Kindred
Zubat definetly for mild, out of top.
Base Stats: HP 40/Attack 45/Defense 35/Speed 55/Sp Att 30/Sp Def 40
Outclassed even by Pidgey, let alone Spearow, both of whom are available more early in the game.
It's first decent move is at lvl 16 - Bite. You won't be scoring any kills at all before, with Leech Life, Supersonic and Astonish, since you're (if you catch it as early as you can) travelling through Mt Moon, encountering only Geodudes and other Zubats and AFAIK trainers that hold nothing weak against Bug/Ghost type attacks. I see no reason at all to use Zubat, but for the eventual Crobat (that apparantly you can only get after the national dex, thus after 90% of the game).
Yeah, Zubat sucks in Mt. Moon, and will continue to suck until 16. From 23 and on he's good though...I guess Mid is doable.
@Peanut
Electabuzz > raichu. At the power plant, you'll get electabuzz at a decent level. And, not to mention no stone. Same movepool, and gets lightscreen through level up.
Power Plant, if I'm going there, is only there when I get Surf. That's Fushia City right there - Raichu has been helping me for 6 gyms long already. And then Electabuzz comes horribly underleveled. Light Screen is useless. And if I'm in Power Plant spending ages to get a rare Pokemon anyway, why am I not throwing Ultra Balls at Zapdos, instead of wasting even more time leveling up Electabuzz?
Oddish is mid - absorb is 20 base power, no usefulness. Doesn't get petal dance until at least the 30s, and even then, 2-3 turns with confusion. And for a cut slave, use farfetch'd. It gets Fly as well.
Oddish gets STAB on it, so it's really 30. And it has a draining effect. How about I reverse the logic on Farfetch'd? If I want a Cut slave, I'll use Oddish, it gets Flash as well. What makes Oddish good is damn early Sleep Powder.
If sandshrew is top, than all the more reason marowak should be.
Feel free to elaborate. Sandshrew is caught right after Mt. Moon at ~L9. Cubone is (very rarely seen) in Rock Tunnel, about 5 levels higher. If Sandshrew doesn't have the Dig TM by now, his level lead alone wins. If he does get the Dig TM, Cubone gets >>>>>>>>>>ed.