GSC In-Game Tier List Mk. IV

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

tbh i actually agree with the sentiment towards tauros and miltank, but it has more to do that tauros|miltank should be lowered to b than typhlosion getting pushed to s

Maybe there is a strong argument for Tauros and Miltank for B. Maybe not.

They're the kind of mon that really need that "Eye Test" if you know what I mean.

Slow Exp. Group + rarity and low join level is a terrible combo tho. They gotta have a lot of power to move the needle to A. 80 Base Attack on Tank is hella suspect. Tauros at least got 100.

Anyone feels up to test these? I'm planning on testing Girafarig and Post-Surf Ursaring on my next runs, so I'm kind of out of Normal slots.

 

[atsync]

Haven't been invested in this lately due to being distracted by other ventures, but after having done my own testing and documenting it a while back, I ultimately came to the conclusion that, whichever tier they end up in, Tauros and Miltank (and Stantler too I guess) should really just be placed in whatever tier Rattata and Sentret are in, because as far as I'm concerned all of these Pokemon are mostly variations of the same thing efficiency-wise, with each having certain advantages and disadvantages relating to availability, overall stats and move pool that might sway individuals to use one over the other based on personal preference (like honestly I'd rather use Rattata over Tauros but maybe that's just me).

You could potentially throw Girafarig in that group as well.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

You could potentially throw Girafarig in that group as well.

Maybe not. Girafarig can put in a ton of work against Morty on both defense and offense. That at least fixes the initial catch up state. Confusion may not be much, but it's still Psychic STAB in Johto.

 

[aegon the unlikely]

The more you talk about Tauros/Miltank, the more I want to ask: "Do you have a problem with Miltank at A or are you pushing Typh to A?"

Ranks aren't relative. Each mons earns or fails to earn their respective rank on its own merits.

The "its own merits" being a key word. It's one thing to give them a couple TMs, but too many and they get penalized for needing too much support.

Imagine a mon that needs seven Rare Candies to pretend it's efficient.

Your argument was thoroughly shot down repeatedly by several people and you're still trying to make the same case without at least even trying to add anything to it.

Typhlosion is not A-Tier material. Dumping 7 rare candies on a mon mid-game to force an advantageous situation does not move the needle, these candies are better used to bridge either Lance or Red's level gaps, and Typhlosion doesn't really have advantageous matchups against critical major battles like Clair or Lance. Will is the weakest E4 member and Koga is a bonafide scrub. Bruno is a bad matchup and so is Lance.

So let me spell it out for you.

Make a better argument because you're making a fool out of yourself with this one.

1. i think y'all need to be consistent in your arguments, and yes, i do believe cyndaquil is worthy of a.

2. that makes no sense. what's the point of ranking pokemon if they don't have comparable performances?

3. rare candies aren't tms, and in fact, by giving quilava rare candies, you can spend more time grinding your teammates anyway while also having a nuke to throw at three gyms in case you need one. please find better arguments.

4. actually, 5 will do. never mind the fact that quilava with flame wheel can beat jasmine and contribute against pryce, typhlosion mops the floor with them however.

5. rare candies actually make your entire team more efficient at this point in the game. using the candies on quilava means that you can grind the other three mons and more enemy exp is available to them. my current team is typhlosion + fearow + magneton + poliwrath, i give quilava rare candies and watched him destroy chuck's pokemon with ease, two fire punches for primeape and two t-punches for his poliwrath. had that been any of my other pokemon, even at the same level (yes, even fearow, who needs to wait till l40 to pick up drill peck and won't get fly until after beating chuck), they would've done worse. at any rate, pretending that level imbalances are wrong all the time is super weird.

6. shows how little you know. typhlosion can do solid against karen (gengar and vileplume go down to fire punches, murkrow to thunderpunch) and thunderpunch two of lance's pokemon, charizard and gyarados.

7. ad hominem much?

Slow Exp. Group + rarity and low join level is a terrible combo tho. They gotta have a lot of power to move the needle to A. 80 Base Attack on Tank is hella suspect. Tauros at least got 100.

Anyone feels up to test these? I'm planning on testing Girafarig and Post-Surf Ursaring on my next runs, so I'm kind of out of Normal slots.

and now even you admit that the cows may not belong where they are lol. these guys don't even have cyndaquil's performance against gyms (even if we exclude rare candies) to justify their performance. they suck against chuck and jasmine. they suck against morty. they do better against pryce and clair but not enough to justify their use, given how much time it takes to bring them to speed. cyndaquil gets to bop falkner, bugsy, jasmine (get flame wheel, not hard to get at all), and pryce's piloswine even without the rare candy amp. with the rare candy amp, cynda bops them too, and getting cyndaquil to level 31 before the rare candies is far easier than doing the same for tauros/miltank.

you also ignored that a friend ball would be needed to optimize them and the fact they're hard to catch on top of that.

also, update for Random Passerby. after adding two more pokemon (trade-spearow and magnemite) to my then two-mon team (quilava and poliwag), i defeated morty, cleared the olivine lighthouse and the routes before it, cleared mt. mortar and the route after it, cleared the lake of rage, and cleared the team rocket base. i also took care of those three girl trainers in the daycare area route who can only be accessed by surf. i avoided fighting wild pokemon with quilava and my other team members - with the exception of red gyarados, who magnemite beat in spite of being one or two levels lower - and then cleared the team rocket base. this was enough training to get quilava to level 31, where the five rare candies kicked in and brought him up to level 36. after that, i immediately taught him fire punch + thunderpunch, took him to chuck, whom he destroyed.

primeape nearly died to one non-crit fire punch and hit me with weak ass fury swipes. i then delivered a thunderpunch (because why not lol) and kicked his butt. poliwrath came out next, was put in the yellow by a non-crit thunderpunch, and used hypnosis on me but missed. i then fired off a second thunderpunch and won, and during this time typhlosion was still well in the green of his health. i also honestly feel that my other teammates (magneton, my own poliwrath, and trade-fearow) would not have done quite as well even at the same level, magneton is weak to fighting and no very fast, poliwrath is kinda slow and lacks typhlo's power or a way to reliably beat enemy poliwrath, and trade-fearow only had peck as a flying-type attack. all of the other members at this point were at l32 or l33 from further training in the sea route, where typhlo did not participate.

at the very least, it's clear that the rare candy amp for quilava can be easily activated post-olivine lighthouse and team rocket base, provided you get quilava to level 31 - which for me happened after the olivine lighthouse, mt. mortar, lake of rage, and team rocket base, and in spite of little to no grinding in the wild. i cleared those areas before fighting chuck, pryce, or jasmine, and so far have only fought chuck. i didn't use quilava at all against the olivine-cianwood sea route or union cave 2f trainers at all and it's clear i didn't need to either.

oh, and the icing on the cake? bringing typhlosion up to level 36 with rare candies meant that i could spend more time grinding the other three pokemon on the sea routes, therefore allowing them to level up faster than if i shared their exp with quilava.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

1. i think y'all need to be consistent in your arguments

Cute. Quote the inconsistencies next time. I literally can't know what you're talking about.

what's the point of ranking pokemon if they don't have comparable performances?

Because the ranks are general indicators. For example, Chikorita is much more valuable against for its defensive prowess against than its route clearing potential. On the other hand, we have mons like say, Pidgey, who are much more straightforward offensive-based mons.

If we made direct comparisons, we'd have a lot of apple vs orange comparisons for mons that don't really play the same role.

3. rare candies aren't tms, and in fact, by giving quilava rare candies, you can spend more time grinding your teammates anyway while also having a nuke to throw at three gyms in case you need one. please find better arguments.

"In case you need one"? You dumped several Rare Candies on a mon with the specific purpose of boss routing. If you're not using it, wtf is the point?

4. actually, 5 will do. never mind the fact that quilava with flame wheel can beat jasmine and contribute against pryce, typhlosion mops the floor with them however.

Well, I would surely expect that the Fire-type Starter would be able to beat Jasmine's Sunny Day Steelix, otherwise we'd have RBY Charmeleon vs Erika levels of hilarious choking on otherwise advantageous matchups.

Also, no wonder Typhlosion can mop up Pryce with at least a 3 level advantage + evolution stats and a movepool increase. The whole argument was always that going this far is absurd favoritism and inefficient.

at any rate, pretending that level imbalances are wrong all the time is super weird.

Riiiight. So an artificial level advantage of no less than 6 whole levels should be seen as perfectly normal.

6. shows how little you know. typhlosion can do solid against karen and thunderpunch two of lance's pokemon, charizard and gyarados.

You mean the two weakest members of Lance's team that I made sure to point out?

Don't worry, ya boi got you covered. I already spit fire on Charizard without wings hotter than the Embers it has to spit on Jasmine's Steelix to pretend it got a good matchup against her.



Edit:



The odds of Gyara surviving are slim because of all the EVs, but even if it does, it probably ain't doing much. It'll either set up Rain Dance or try to get you with Surf. Typh can probably survive a Gyara Surf even underleveled.

To be fair, I overlooked the Charizard MU as well. Typh should win that free with Thunderpunch as well.

The DNites and Aero are still horrible matchups tho. So Typh can at least get Lance's weakest members out of the way for someone else to take on the big boys.

As for Karen... Her Umbreon by itself makes it hard to gauge that MU. Just a ton of RNG involved and no one really likes battling her. She's not much of a threat in terms of actual offense outside of her Houndoom, but a lot of that match boils down to "Will confusion hits buy her enough time to make my sweeper blind with Sand-Attack?"

Typhlosion can make short work of Murkrow (who has paper-maché defenses) and Vileplume (lol Grass). None of these are truly relevant, but it does pave the way for a mon to 1v1 Umbreon.

7. ad hominem much?

You wouldn't know what an ad hominem is if Julius Caesar pulled up to your driveway and whacked you upside the head with a copy of the Aeneid.

In no point I dismissed your paltry arguments as weak because you presented them.
I dismissed your subpar logic with superior, thorough arguments and so did several other people in this thread, some of them much more experienced in making these lists than both of us combined.
After that, I told you that your arguments made you look like you have vapor for brains. Consequence. Not cause.

and now even you admit that the cows may not belong where they are lol.

Oh the irony... You don't even see it, do you?

Re-read your arguments about the cows. They were actually sensible, and so is my current approach. There is reasonable doubt about whether or not they're worth the hassle.

Personally, I'd guess that Tauros might barely eke out a spot in A for its raw power allowing it to muscle through critical matchups like Clair's Kingdra, but Miltank won't be so lucky.

Guesses are hardly worth anything though. They need testing and props to you for making good points about their flaws.

you also ignored that a friend ball would be needed to optimize them and the fact they're hard to catch on top of that.

For absolute optimization, yes, but so it's giving them Strength because they don't really need that 4th slot anyway, so you can use that.

It is a fair point though.

also, update for Random Passerby.

Ooh, how petty. Love to see it.

You did put up logs though, so now we have something a bit more substantial to discuss.

So Lv. 32-33 with no Wild Grinding for the other mons and absolutely every other trainer available defeated, correct?

That means you're about even with Pryce and underleveled for Jasmine, even though Quilava was your best option against her anyway.

So far, nothing really out of what one would expect out of your strategy, though it's not really a good look to pump Rare Candies into one mon while claiming it'll help because Quilava's experience would be siphoned to the rest of the team and yet they're still underleveled.

I'll be waiting for those late-game logs before reaching any conclusion though, specifically Clair and Lance's.

 

[Turdterra]

You wouldn't know what an ad hominem is if Julius Caesar pulled up to your driveway and whacked you upside the head with a copy of the Aeneid.

This made me laugh harder than it should have. Loved it.

At this point though, nothing we say will change Aegon's opinion. It's a losing battle in this regard of trying to make him see that what he has accomplished is a biased nomination that has no business being A. For what it is worth, even Typh's performance in HGSS is not that hot either but it gets A due to having Specs Access and Early Game Fire Blast (which unfortunately is mandatory). Take away Specs and it functions like a B. This is pretty much what you can expect from GSC Typh too as Specs isn't in this game.

All you have proven to us Aegon is that Typh has no chance of being in A. It simply requires too much to function for an A tier and even then, Volt has said it best. The sheer level advantage and wider movepool that you should not have at this point in the game has caused a biased and bloated view of Typh. Even if you proved it had an A tier performance this way, there is very little chance it would have been accepted due to what you have posted and shown us.

Haven't been invested in this lately due to being distracted by other ventures, but after having done my own testing and documenting it a while back, I ultimately came to the conclusion that, whichever tier they end up in, Tauros and Miltank (and Stantler too I guess) should really just be placed in whatever tier Rattata and Sentret are in, because as far as I'm concerned all of these Pokemon are mostly variations of the same thing efficiency-wise, with each having certain advantages and disadvantages relating to availability, overall stats and move pool that might sway individuals to use one over the other based on personal preference (like honestly I'd rather use Rattata over Tauros but maybe that's just me).

I don't think that Tauros and Miltank need to be the same tier as Rattata or Sentret. That would be as low as C or even lower. Tauros can hit like a truck with Friend Ball + Return. (And if you have candies to give it, the level up bonus to friendship will help this even more albeit not as much, more getting it up to speed.) I don't know Miltank's level up movepool off the top of my head but is should still have DCurl and Rollout. If it doesn't have DCurl, then if it is TMable, it can be found in Mt. Mortar (not sure if requires any HMs to obtain).

 

[aegon the unlikely]

Cute. Quote the inconsistencies next time. I literally can't know what you're talking about.


Because the ranks are general indicators. For example, Chikorita is much more valuable against for its defensive prowess against than its route clearing potential. On the other hand, we have mons like say, Pidgey, who are much more straightforward offensive-based mons.

If we made direct comparisons, we'd have a lot of apple vs orange comparisons for mons that don't really play the same role.



"In case you need one"? You dumped several Rare Candies on a mon with the specific purpose of boss routing. If you're not using it, wtf is the point?



Well, I would surely expect that the Fire-type Starter would be able to beat Jasmine's Sunny Day Steelix, otherwise we'd have RBY Charmeleon vs Erika levels of hilarious choking on otherwise advantageous matchups.

Also, no wonder Typhlosion can mop up Pryce with at least a 3 level advantage + evolution stats and a movepool increase. The whole argument was always that going this far is absurd favoritism and inefficient.



Riiiight. So an artificial level advantage of no less than 6 whole levels should be seen as perfectly normal.



You mean the two weakest members of Lance's team that I made sure to point out?



As for Karen... Her Umbreon by itself makes it hard to gauge that MU. Just a ton of RNG involved and no one really likes battling her. She's not much of a threat in terms of actual offense outside of her Houndoom, but a lot of that match boils down to "Will confusion hits buy her enough time to make my sweeper blind with Sand-Attack?"

Typhlosion can make short work of Murkrow (who has paper-maché defenses) and Vileplume (lol Grass). None of these are truly relevant, but it does pave the way for a mon to 1v1 Umbreon.



You wouldn't know what an ad hominem is if Julius Caesar pulled up to your driveway and whacked you upside the head with a copy of the Aeneid.

In no point I dismissed your paltry arguments as weak because you presented them.
I dismissed your subpar logic with superior, thorough arguments and so did several other people in this thread, some of them much more experienced in making these lists than both of us combined.
After that, I told you that your arguments made you look like you have vapor for brains. Consequence. Not cause.



Oh the irony... You don't even see it, do you?

Re-read your arguments about the cows. They were actually sensible, and so is my current approach. There is reasonable doubt about whether or not they're worth the hassle.

Personally, I'd guess that Tauros might barely eke out a spot in A for its raw power allowing it to muscle through critical matchups like Clair's Kingdra, but Miltank won't be so lucky.

Guesses are hardly worth anything though. They need testing and props to you for making good points about their flaws.



For absolute optimization, yes, but so it's giving them Strength because they don't really need that 4th slot anyway, so you can use that.

It is a fair point though.


Ooh, how petty. Love to see it.

You did put up logs though, so now we have something a bit more substantial to discuss.

So Lv. 32-33 with no Wild Grinding for the other mons and absolutely every other trainer available defeated, correct?

That means you're about even with Pryce and underleveled for Jasmine, even though Quilava was your best option against her anyway.

So far, nothing really out of what one would expect out of your strategy, though it's not really a good look to pump Rare Candies into one mon while claiming it'll help because Quilava's experience would be siphoned to the rest of the team and yet they're still underleveled.

I'll be waiting for those late-game logs before reaching any conclusion though, specifically Clair and Lance's.

you seem amazingly hostile for someone discussing a video game tier list. calm the fuck down, you look ridiculous. even if i steelman you and accept that my arguments are ''biased'' or ''nonsense'' (and i'll admit even if have doubts i'm right, which is why i'm trying to discuss and test this myself through a playthrough instead of yapping my ass off), your attitude is not becoming at all. you don't even fully know the game you speak of, so you might want to try some humility. you don't have to agree with me on everything or even anything, but try being less of an ass about it.

also, me tagging random passerby wasn't ''petty'', lol at you actually being small-minded to think i was though. he's the dude whom i discussed doing this test with and told i'd be doing it, i'm just delivering on what i said i'd do. and yes, calling someone a fool and suggesting they have ''vapor for brains'' is ad hominem. anyway, i don't have all day to waste on bickering with some rando on the internet, so on to the imp. stuff...

after beating pryce and fighting in the union cave, i brought up the rest of my team to level 35. i should note that a single thunderpunch was enough for seel and a single fire punch for piloswine, while two thunderpunches did dewgong in. all of jasmine's mons fell to a fire punch each.

after beating pryce, jasmine, team rocket, the blackthorn trainers (haven't fought clair's gym at all yet), and ecruteak trio, my team is sitting at l40. all of them, from typhlosion to magneton, is at l40. but do tell me more about how giving quilava rare candies shortchanged his teammates.

looks like my rare candies did their trick, empower quilava without hurting the rest of the team.

 

[ASMRxism]

I think it's safe to say that if you go out of your way to collect and save 5 to 7 Rare Candies, any Pokemon will perform at a tier higher than normal, since everyone who doesn't save Candies feels that Cyndaquil is B and everyone who does feels it's A. Therefore, we should assume that saving Rare Candies is the optimal strat for every Pokemon. As a result, I propose we raise every Pokemon exactly one tier to reflect this change, introducing a new SS tier at the top for the original S tier. This way, Typhlosion can be correctly placed in A.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

you seem amazingly hostile for someone discussing a video game tier list.

Yeah, I'm a bit too harsh some times. Not that I'm actually being hostile, mind you, but I don't really pull my punches.

Sorry if I went overboard.

also, me tagging random passerby wasn't ''petty'', lol at you actually being small-minded to think i was though. he's the dude whom i discussed doing this test with and told i'd be doing it,

Yeah, but wasn't me the first one to actually call for a test? Besides, you're proposing something to the whole thread.

after beating pryce and fighting in the union cave, i brought up the rest of my team to level 35. i should note that a single thunderpunch was enough for seel and a single fire punch for piloswine, while two thunderpunches did dewgong in. all of jasmine's mons fell to a fire punch each.

after beating pryce, jasmine, team rocket, the blackthorn trainers (haven't fought clair's gym at all yet), and ecruteak trio, my team is sitting at l40. all of them, from typhlosion to magneton, is at l40. but do tell me more about how giving quilava rare candies shortchanged his teammates.

I agree. Enough bickering, let's focus on the important stuff.

Now that's interesting. It's still not really viable because of the excess favoritism (or morally correct. You're essentially benching a mon.) but you could make a case for it being efficient.
I wonder if two candies per mon in a 4 mon team on that timeframe would be enough to avoid any grind in Johto.

It speaks volumes about Johto's level curve that you essentially need to run 3 mons to keep your levels on par with the leaders.

Just to clarify, this was without any Wild grinding, yes?

 

[atsync]

Maybe not. Girafarig can put in a ton of work against Morty on both defense and offense. That at least fixes the initial catch up state. Confusion may not be much, but it's still Psychic STAB in Johto.

I feel like the good Morty match-up and Psychic STAB access falls under the whole "advantages and disadvantages relating to availability, overall stats and move pool" thing I mentioned in my last post. STAB Confusion is nice and I love Girafarig as much as the next guy but for most of Johto Girafarig is basically playing like any other STAB Normal spammer, except that it uses Confusion to take down Ghosts and Koffings instead of Dig (or Shadow Ball in the case of the former), so I don't necessarily see Girafarig as being distinctly different in usefulness when compared to the other mid-game Normals.

(For what it's worth I actually prefer Girafarig to Tauros since I think it requires less time and resource investment to achieve stuff and that makes up for any stat deficiencies it may have compared to the bull, just not convinced that the difference is enough to justify a tier distinction between them, which is why I tend to throw it in with the other Pokemon I mentioned).

I don't think that Tauros and Miltank need to be the same tier as Rattata or Sentret. That would be as low as C or even lower. Tauros can hit like a truck with Friend Ball + Return. (And if you have candies to give it, the level up bonus to friendship will help this even more albeit not as much, more getting it up to speed.) I don't know Miltank's level up movepool off the top of my head but is should still have DCurl and Rollout. If it doesn't have DCurl, then if it is TMable, it can be found in Mt. Mortar (not sure if requires any HMs to obtain).

Rattata and Sentret are better than you seem to be implying: they have good availability, well distributed stats, a good selection of STAB options and decent options for coverage against stuff that resists Normal. Rattata and Sentret are great choices for efficient runs and are easily superior to a good proportion of the available Pokemon in these games.

The Friend Ball strategy was brought up frequently in the old threads and I even tried it out myself for some things, but in the context of using it for Tauros you have to be aware of the following: a) Green Apricorns are only found on Route 42 and aren't obtainable until you gain the ability to use Surf, which forces you to obtain Tauros even later; b) you are unlikely to have more than 1 Friend Ball when going for Tauros unless you resort to cloning or time manipulation, or you are willing to wait it out in real time to get more Apricorns; and c) Friend Balls have the same catch chance as regular Pokeballs and you are going to be relying on your likely 1 Friend Ball against a Pokemon with a 4-5% encounter rate and an inherent catch rate of 45. I can tell you from experience that the risk you are taking in terms of your time is very great and ultimately not worth the reward considering you can just use Headbutt or Strength until you build up Return's power the "normal" way. Even if it was viable...you can just use that Friend Ball to catch a wild Raticate on the exact same route anyway which is far more common, comes at a higher level and has a better catch rate, which I think would be more time-efficient in a playthrough overall than grinding it out for a Tauros just to get a slight stat bonus.

I don't have much to say about Defense Curl/Rollout other than that I think early access to that combination isn't exactly an amazing selling point for a Pokemon given it's mostly limited in usefulness against particular match-ups and has its consistency hindered by frustrating accuracy. Furret can gain access to that combination sooner than Miltank can anyway.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

I feel like the good Morty match-up and Psychic STAB access falls under the whole "advantages and disadvantages relating to availability, overall stats and move pool" thing I mentioned in my last post.

I think that having an outright advantageous matchup that Tauros and Miltank can't even contribute to already sets it above those two. It also resists Psychic, so it also gets a positive matchup against Will as well and it's a Normal-type that can help against Bruno. (The Hitmons got too much Sp. Def for Psybeam to punch through easily, but maybe Machamp doesn't.)
Thunder is also an option when cash isn't a concern anymore and Electric is a pretty nice offensive type in Johto, though it is inaccurate.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I think they should fall to B. Miltank does have similar offensive prowess to Raticate and the main thing that would separate the two on that end, EQ, is really late. Tank does have a LOT more defensive impact though, but availability and Super Fang evens that out.

Tauros is by far the strongest one, but also one of the most troublesome. It's rare, it's on the slow exp. group, it really struggles with coverage for when you can't just click Strength/Return, and it comes under-leveled.

These are all very rough flaws that definitely undermine its potential.

I suppose that they could all be at B. Tauros and Girafarig need some testing. Miltank is really going to hit roughly as hard as Raticate and Furret, so it could be dropped to B right now.

Edit: I personally believe Friend Ball for Tauros is inefficient for the reasons you stated and it gets Strength almost immediately, so there's just no reason to deal with that trouble. Things that absolutely need it and are easier to catch like Golbat are a different story, but the Normals? That's really not necessary.

 

[Random Passerby]

Fwiw, I think there's enough attacking each other in a tier about a game 20 years ago lol.
I'll have a longer response and read through the thread tomorrow night since I have been busy with work lately.

 

[aegon the unlikely]

Fwiw, I think there's enough attacking each other in a tier about a game 20 years ago lol.
I'll have a longer response and read through the thread tomorrow night since I have been busy with work lately.

no worries! please take your time, love to get a detailed response from you.

one thing i'd like to emphasize for everyone in general is that the x6 rare candies come exactly at the right time, a time when keeping up with the gym leaders' pokemon level-wise is extremely difficult without lots of grinding in the wild. if you use all those rare candies on a single mon (quilava or tauros or what have you), your entire team is actually better off given that you have one less pokemon to worry about leveling up - and consequently far more experience from trainers gets divided among the others, making them more easy to level up. here's my experience, anyway.

when i fought chuck, all of my pokemon were at l31 (excepting typhlo) at least. chuck's poliwrath is at l30. when i fought pryce next - and this was after clearing union cave's surf-only areas - all of my pokemon were l33 at least, and all of them were level 35 sans typhlo when i fought jasmine.

with barely any wild grinding at all (and the 6 rare candies for typhlosion), my entire four-mon team consistently matched (or in typhlosion's case at least, surpassed) each gym leader's final pokemon level wise. of course, i did try to fight every trainer i could, and here's the order i did so. i believe maintaining this sequence and skipping none of it is a great way to ensure your pokemon level up properly. this is post-ecruteak.

johto route 34 -> olivine lighthouse -> mt. mortar (non-waterfall sections) -> lake of rage -> team rocket base -> olivine to cianwood sea route -> cianwood gym -> union cave (surf levels) -> mahogany gym -> olivine gym

following this pattern allowed my team to stay more or less on par with or ahead of the gym leader. while going to mt. mortar instead of clearing the sea route, olivine, and cianwood at once or going from cianwood to union and mahogany before olivine might be a weird choice, the former isn't difficult given how close mt. mortar is to olivine while the latter is hardly a problematic detour given that you will have fly at the time.

my entire team (including typhlo who is once again on par with his teammates) is sitting at l40 now - i have cleared the blackthorn route, beaten the rockets, and cleared the tin tower (three elders and suicune) in that order. i haven't even fought the blackthorn gym, which would raise my levels even higher.

limitations: it's honestly possible that the outsider spearow is distorting the growth pattern of the team (given how quickly they level up and by proxy increase the team's average level), so perhaps a team without spearow might be lower leveled overall even with the rare candy amp. i can try a second run without the spearow and perhaps a slow exp group pokemon in their stead, stantler for example. this is just to test whether spearow's presence had an extreme effect.

also, very random detail: although some websites say otherwise, you can go to blackthorn city before clearing the radio tower mission. you just need seven badges. while you can't actually fight clair until you defeat the rockets, you can go through ice cave and fight all the route 45 trainers as well as the trainers east of mahogany. this could make grinding pokemon from the ice cave (e.g. jynx, swinub, golbat, and sneasel) or route 45 (e.g. skarmory, donphan, or gligar) much easier if you want them in your team. this might increase the viability of such pokemon and the backtrack doesn't matter at this point given that you have access to fly at this point - you literally need to beat chuck to get this far lol.

Yeah, I'm a bit too harsh some times. Not that I'm actually being hostile, mind you, but I don't really pull my punches.

Sorry if I went overboard.




Yeah, but wasn't me the first one to actually call for a test? Besides, you're proposing something to the whole thread.




I agree. Enough bickering, let's focus on the important stuff.

Now that's interesting. It's still not really viable because of the excess favoritism (or morally correct. You're essentially benching a mon.) but you could make a case for it being efficient.
I wonder if two candies per mon in a 4 mon team on that timeframe would be enough to avoid any grind in Johto.

It speaks volumes about Johto's level curve that you essentially need to run 3 mons to keep your levels on par with the leaders.

Just to clarify, this was without any Wild grinding, yes?

1. water under the bridge, my man. now, on to the discussion at hand.

2. eh, pretty sure it was random passerby. i am proposing something to the whole thread though, that's true.

3. am i, though? you have to compare the time it takes for three pokemon to level up through trainer grinding (rare candying quilava means you only have to worry about grinding the others for the time being) vs the time it takes for four people to level up through trainer grinding.

i don't know about the two rare candies per mon in a 4 mon team, i honestly doubt it given that it gets harder to accumulate experience from npcs at progressively higher levels. but perhaps the biggest problem is that getting two candies per mon would be much harder given that you can only get like 5 rare candies naturally without challenging pryce - whirlpool yields access to a sixth rare candy in the whirl islands - or buena's password, which is rather time dependent given that you need to answer her questions correctly on three separate nights to get one rare candy. you could always pull some shenanigans with the internal clock to get yourself rare candies faster but that likely would be kind of cheating.

5 rare candies won't be super helpful to a 4 mon team as there are only 2 rare candies for 2 mons and one for a third, and a level increase from l31 to l32 or l33 isn't a game-changer for any pokemon i know of at this point in the game. even if you get those two rare candies, you only have seven at best. divide that by two and you get three and a half, which means two rare candies for three mons and only one for the fourth. this seems more beneficial but is also arguably inefficient given that a maybe l33 to l35 increase isn't moving the needle for any of your mons much either. it's l36 or l37 where the fun really begins, and that pretty much requires you to focus your rare candies - however much you get - on fewer mons.

the cool part about this is that you get multiple benefits in one:

1) a pokemon who can wreck gyms and important matchups with ease, and thus is a useful member of my team from start to finish. i don't think my other pokemon would've done so well against the chuck-pryce-jasmine trifecta - fearow would have a nightmare of a time versus jasmine, poliwrath would have issues getting through chuck's mirror match, and magneton would also suck against jasmine while having issues with pryce's piloswine. all of them were roughly on par with if not above the gym leaders' final pokemon but only one (typhlosion) could crush all three reliably.

2) a pokemon whom you don't need to worry about training at all for the time being, thus allowing you to train your other pokemon more, thus allowing you to keep up with the level curve. this means you effectively have only three pokemon to train in a lot of areas where it matters (the olivine to cianwood sea route, eusine, the cianwood gym, the mahogany gym, and the secret parts of union cave). all of these areas have some pretty high level pokemon and offer a lot of experience, experience that benefits fewer pokemon better than more.

now, you do make an interesting point about having rare candies before the elite four or fighting red. the thing there, though, is that red's pokemon will always be way ahead of you no matter how rare candies you use (sans cheating) and my rare candy strategy should keep most teams relative to the elite four level-wise, probably even higher than will and koga at least. lance and karen will outlevel you but that's about it, and you'd probably never reach their levels even if you used those rare candies later in the game anyway - certainly not if you used them on multiple mons.

the thing about beating red is that it's pretty much guaranteed to be a matter of matchups, you aren't going to outlevel the guy without like hours of grinding, no amount of rare candies you can legally obtain will matter unless you're doing a solo run or maybe a two-pokemon run. you can still beat red while severely underleveled however, whereas you'd actually have a harder time doing so against chuck, jasmine, or pryce. l20 pokemon would get massacred by any of those three (to say nothing of l10 pokemon lol) whereas even l50 teams can and often do beat red (whose pokemon are 20 levels above you or more). at that point in the game, level disadvantages are a lot less of a problem due to how exp is calculated.

also, to answer your question: mostly, yes. i avoided fighting wild pokemon 99.9% of the time, though i did fight suicune and lapras. also, earlier in the game, i did raise my cyndaquil and poliwag maybe one or two levels against hoppips and bellsprouts. given how little grinding that is, however (probably around three minutes tops), i don't think that's a serious draw against the strategy. the vast vast vast majority was trainer exp.

btw, if anyone has any other pokemon they want me to test out, i'm all ears.

I think it's safe to say that if you go out of your way to collect and save 5 to 7 Rare Candies, any Pokemon will perform at a tier higher than normal

no offense, but this is a pretty erroneous assumption. a lot of pokemon won't do notably better with that amp - a l36 fearow isn't going to ace jasmine and neither is a l30 fearow (you can replace fearow with tauros or miltank too), whereas lanturn can trash pryce regardless of whether he's at l30 or l36. a lot of matchups won't change regardless of the amp one way or another, and ain't no way is an unown, delibird, or anything like that gonna perform ''at a tier higher than normal'' with a rare candy amp - yes, i know these examples are extreme, but your assumption isn't really backed up by facts either and i have plenty of non-extreme examples too. quilava, slowpoke, and a few others are massive exceptions, and the thing you ignored is that the relative benefit a team gets from a l36 typhlosion versus another member at l36 won't be the same. here's an exaple.

it's like fighting misty with a l20 gyarados, l18 charmeleon, and l18 spearow versus fighting her with a l120 charmeleon, l18 magikarp, and l18 spearow in fr/lg or the original rby or even a l20 fearow, l18 charmeleon, and l18 magikarp. gyarados can decimate misty more or less with bite/secret power (depending on version) if you give the two rare candies you find around cerulean (one in mt. moon and one in cerulean proper) to magikarp, whereas l20 charmeleon gets crushed no different from l18 charmeleon and l20 fearow has a tricky time of it as well.

never mind the fact that even if i steelman you and accept your assumption (not even a theory) as fact, i also honestly believe the gsc ingame tier list should recommend trainers to get these 5 rare candies and use them on one mon - it makes the level curve much more tolerable and there won't be a better time to use or benefit from these rare candies (no, red doesn't count, he's still ahead of you by far level wise).

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

i honestly doubt it given that it gets harder to accumulate experience from npcs at progressively higher levels.

It actually doesn't, the scaling Exp got implemented in BW1. It really makes no difference.

l32 or l33 isn't a game-changer for any pokemon i know of at this point in the game.

Well, Bayleef sure appreciates the boost.

Iirc, Psyduck evolves at 33.

The thing about dumping candy in one mon is less overleveling and more that you won't actually get to use the mon as much as you should and it masks real issues.

For example, what are Tauros main issues?

Slow Exp. Group, lack of coverage for when Normal STAB is resisted, and that it comes severely underleveled.

If you dump 5/6 candies on it, the last issue is artificially masked by misuse of precious resources.

The favoritism, this masking of real issues and the fact that you don't get to use the mon you're training until the rest catch up (in your Typhlosion example) are what I take issue with.

Basically, what I'm saying, again, is that it's less Typhlosion putting in work and more the Rare Candies enabling an herculean performance.

Sure, in a team with Fearow, Poliwrath and Magneton, it might work.

But what if you use different mons that can actually do fairly well against these gyms like say... Gengar, the Trade Machop and Flareon? (Note that none of these mons are S. Iirc Chop (Trade) is A at best. Probably B)

Is it worth the trouble to dump all candy on one mon and deprive the rest of their good matchups? No.

If you don't use Typhlosion as your starter, it gets even worse.
Croconaw evolves at Lv. 30 and has no issues with any of those matchups.
Bayleef evolves at 32 and no amount of candy will make any difference for it. It beats Chuck's Poliwrath with Reflect and SE STAB Razor Leaf. Jasmine is trickier because it's a war of attrition, but if Meganium is your best option, it can win a scrap against any of her mons, it'll just take a while.
Pryce is the trickiest because Aurora Beam actually hurts Meganium. On the other hand, Razor Leaf is Super Effective, so you get to at least try to beat someone 1v1.

Your candy strategy is very niche, and potentially harmful to the rest of the team depending on matchups.

And even if it wasn't, dumping 5 or 6 candies on a mon is a big enough cost that it's treated as a penalty. So the performance boost is nullified. Typh is not going to get bumped to A for this.

 

[Revelation]

To be honest, as a lurker, all this Rare Candy discussion has done is convince me the arbitrary rules of when and who and how many are far too complicated for casual play and shouldn’t be used for tiering.

Keep it simple, either use Rare Candy however and tier accordingly or disqualify them from tiering procedure.

The back and forth is just getting annoying too, nothing is getting solved.

 

[Pokeron]

To be honest, as a lurker, all this Rare Candy discussion has done is convince me the arbitrary rules of when and who and how many are far too complicated for casual play and shouldn’t be used for tiering.

Keep it simple, either use Rare Candy however and tier accordingly or disqualify them from tiering procedure.

The back and forth is just getting annoying too, nothing is getting solved.

Well you are not speaking for everybody, I quite enjoyed the "newish" perspective of Rare Candy in the discussion. Basically his argument (not from a usage standpoint but a tier-list practicality one) is that Rare Candies should be treated as TM's. Nobody would bat an eye about using TM's in a casual playthrough.

Anyways I am going to say something immeadiately about Jotho Normals.
Please do not rank Tauros, Miltank, Raticate and Sentret together. The latter two, while easy to catch, are absolutely not bulky, that in a SET playthrough they always get weakened to much and can't withstand any attack. They are also weak aswell, atleast compared to Tauros.

Now I have to admit Miltank is suspect; While bulky, it DOES suffer from an inexcusable 80 base attack. If someone wants to try it out, please do so.

Anyways, 4 Rare Candies before Elite Four:

That's the power of the late game rare candy. I wanna see how it performs now. I'll report later

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Please do not rank Tauros, Miltank, Raticate and Sentret together. The latter two, while easy to catch, are absolutely not bulky, that in a SET playthrough they always get weakened to much and can't withstand any attack. They are also weak aswell, atleast compared to Tauros.

Wait, why is playing on Set being factored into a mon's viability? These lists are generally assuming you play on Switch to my knowledge.

To be honest, yes I have played on Set before, and a lot of mons suffer from having to switch in with Set battle style. However, I'm pretty sure most casuals hardly know the Set option even exists. And I don't think Set should be factored into a tier list at all. If we did factor it in, bulky boosters (like say Gigalith in BW1) would become the norm and fast offensive glass cannons would be comprimised.

Yes, Set is a playstyle too, but there's no way a mon should be penalized for it unless all the others are as well.

 

[Xator_Nova]

Random Passerby have you considered ommitting kanto like the hgss tier list?
also, would you like to have some Pokémon tested?

 

[Pokeron]

Wait, why is playing on Set being factored into a mon's viability? These lists are generally assuming you play on Switch to my knowledge.

To be honest, yes I have played on Set before, and a lot of mons suffer from having to switch in with Set battle style. However, I'm pretty sure most casuals hardly know the Set option even exists. And I don't think Set should be factored into a tier list at all. If we did factor it in, bulky boosters (like say Gigalith in BW1) would become the norm and fast offensive glass cannons would be comprimised.

Yes, Set is a playstyle too, but there's no way a mon should be penalized for it unless all the others are as well.

Oh. Wow, really? That's... good to know. Didn't know that. Explains a lot actually about the tier lists.

Anyways, is anyone surprised about the following pics? Tauros swept the complete Elite Four easily. It only needed healing during the final battle, one ether for return and that's it. Raticate would have never so easily survived the special moves and hyper beam from the dragonite(s). Machamp Cross Chop missed, so sadly I didn't get to test that one out.
everything was 2HKO with the exception of Forretress. Yes Umbreon and Level 50 Dragonite aswell

Tauros rampages through Elite Four

Half of Kanto. Kinda

Last Half of Kanto. The Final

Edit: I am certain that Tauros is above Raticate/Sentret/Miltank. I know we always say don't compare things, but seriously, you have a good time with Tauros. I rather have Tauros closer to Ursaring (who is OBVIOUSLY the creme de la creme of Normal Types), but not the same as Raticate, come on...

Edit2: Kanto Over. The bulk mattered. The power mattered. The Speed mattered. Hail Tauros, the Prince of Normals (with Ursaring as the rightful King)

 

[aegon the unlikely]

It actually doesn't, the scaling Exp got implemented in BW1. It really makes no difference.




Well, Bayleef sure appreciates the boost.

Iirc, Psyduck evolves at 33.

The thing about dumping candy in one mon is less overleveling and more that you won't actually get to use the mon as much as you should and it masks real issues.

For example, what are Tauros main issues?

Slow Exp. Group, lack of coverage for when Normal STAB is resisted, and that it comes severely underleveled.

If you dump 5/6 candies on it, the last issue is artificially masked by misuse of precious resources.

The favoritism, this masking of real issues and the fact that you don't get to use the mon you're training until the rest catch up (in your Typhlosion example) are what I take issue with.

Basically, what I'm saying, again, is that it's less Typhlosion putting in work and more the Rare Candies enabling an herculean performance.

Sure, in a team with Fearow, Poliwrath and Magneton, it might work.

But what if you use different mons that can actually do fairly well against these gyms like say... Gengar, the Trade Machop and Flareon? (Note that none of these mons are S. Iirc Chop (Trade) is A at best. Probably B)

Is it worth the trouble to dump all candy on one mon and deprive the rest of their good matchups? No.

If you don't use Typhlosion as your starter, it gets even worse.
Croconaw evolves at Lv. 30 and has no issues with any of those matchups.
Bayleef evolves at 32 and no amount of candy will make any difference for it. It beats Chuck's Poliwrath with Reflect and SE STAB Razor Leaf. Jasmine is trickier because it's a war of attrition, but if Meganium is your best option, it can win a scrap against any of her mons, it'll just take a while.
Pryce is the trickiest because Aurora Beam actually hurts Meganium. On the other hand, Razor Leaf is Super Effective, so you get to at least try to beat someone 1v1.

Your candy strategy is very niche, and potentially harmful to the rest of the team depending on matchups.

And even if it wasn't, dumping 5 or 6 candies on a mon is a big enough cost that it's treated as a penalty. So the performance boost is nullified. Typh is not going to get bumped to A for this.

1. it makes no difference? you do realize the amount of experience that you'd need to go from l5 to l6 wouldn't be enough to raise you from, say, l20 to l21, right? it absolutely gets harder to accumulate exp given that you need more exp to go a higher level than you did before.

2. bayleef and psyduck are like one or two levels away from evolving - quilava, five. a simple detour to some high level training spot earlier (e.g. the olivine-cianwood sea route or union cave's surf-only segments) could generate the exp for that, no rare candies necessary.

3. i do get to use typhlosion though? i'm using him against three major bosses and eventually when everyone else catches up (and they did so by the route 45 to radio tower part of the game), i use him again while also using the others. i even used him against a lot of the trainers on the way to the elite four as well as the elite four and lance, so i'm not sure why you're saying ''i don't get to use typhlosion'' is somehow a flaw.

4. i can't trade, so i'm not getting my hands on gengar (who himself can be tricky to train up from a gastly, quite different from cyndaquil to quilava in that regard) or trade machop any time soon. flareon needs the fire blast tm to put in massive work and that's expensive.

5. what makes you call using x5 rare candies a ''misuse of resources'' when you're using them in the most efficient way, which is my argument? it's one thing if you disagree and think another way would be more efficient and can back that up with evidence, but you haven't done so. you have not succeeded in showing that the opportunity cost of using these candies at a time when the level curve is at its worst (but unlike kanto red, salvageable). you're arbitrarily deciding it's a ''penalty'' even though it makes the entire team better off, you act like i'm just empowering quilava at everyone else's expense when literally no one would benefit from the candies as much and thereby benefit the team as much with those candies.

when the rest of my teammates can share more exp and jump levels faster, i think that's a good thing. you evidently do not. you consider it ''potentially harmful depending on matchups'', yet you have failed to show how that may be the case. i'd say my team being all at l40 before even fighting clair (and defeating the elite four, by the way, by which point they were easily relative to the e4's pokemon in levels) speaks for itself. you could argue that this strategy doesn't warrant quilava being a-tier and that's one thing - i disagree completely, of course - but arguing it's not a useful strategy in general to override the game's level curve seems very dodgy and honestly baseless.

6. i like how you even admitted bayleef won't really benefit from the rare candies lmao. that answers your own question above. totodile is already s class, i fully agree he > cyndaquil, so you aren't really making any new points by showing that he doesn't need the rare candies.

7. more for Random Passerby, take your time responding to this as we know you're busy...but i just beat the elite four! here's how typhlo did.

will: typhlo crushed xatu in a couple of thunderpunches (needed to cure confusion with a bitter berry though), beat slowbro with three thunderpunches (amnesia being the issue), and then i made the mistake of setting up sunny day against will's second xatu, which weakened my special defense with psychic while hitting pretty hard. i remember switching to magneton at this point to remove xatu from the field and heal typhlosion safely. i then brought typhlo back in to deal with exeggutor who magneton weakened a bit with thunder but couldn't 2hko, killing them with fire punch. jynx took a fire punch and got burned with almost zero hp left, lovely kissed my typhlosion to sleep, and then fainted from burns.

verdict: while typhlosion can do pretty well against will (the psychic sp. def boost has a 10% chance of happening so it shouldn't be counted against him), some healing items may be needed to make sure he can get out of confusion, sleep, or psychic damage. i'd say if i had the tm for fire blast, i could've reliably one-shotted the xatus and jynx, and if i set up sunny day without the sp. def loss, jynx would be one-shotted by fire punch.

the fire blast tm could make a difference here

koga: typhlosion soloed. set up sunny day against ariados, then fire punched my way to victory - well, apart from crobat (who got thunderpunched twice to death in spite of messing up my accuracy) and muk who got hit by earthquake twice to be knocked out through minimize.

verdict: easy battle for typhlosion, you can kill most members before they do anything to you and offense isn't their strong suit. even if you don't have earthquake, earlier runs have shown me that sunny day + fire blast (didn't have fire blast this time unfortunately) can clean house.

bruno: didn't use typhlosion here, used poliwrath instead with x-items.

verdict: probably a good idea not to use typhlo here.

karen: used poliwrath to get rid of umbreon with dynamicpunch (missed a few times but finally hit and weakened enough with confusion + damage to be koed by surf), then brought in typhlosion against vileplume. i fire punched vileplume twice (though stun spore got me in the end), earthquaked gengar twice (lick paralysis shenanigans were annoying), thunderpunched murkrow in one shot, and earthquaked the houndoom twice in spite of the level disadvantage. i think typhlosion did pretty well here, but again needed some healing items due to paralysis annoyance.

i was pleasantly surprised by typhlo being able to take out the houndoom so easily, though.

verdict: use typhlo here against everyone but umbreon. earthquake is great against houndoom and typhlo's speed allows him to strike first. sunny day + fire blast, like with will and koga, can tip the odds in typhlo's favor, and typhlo can pick up fire blast by this point easily.

lance: started with typhlosion and...one-shotted gyarados with thunderpunch. no, i'm serious - and it wasn't even a critical hit. aerodactyl came out, whom i disposed of using magneton, and then i dealt with the fire blast dragonite using magneton and poliwrath in conjunction. the thunder dragonite fell to magneton, and the blizzard dragonite was weakened by magneton's thunder wave as well as poliwrath. i then sent typhlosion back in to thunderpunch the dragonite to unconsciousness, albeit he was durable enough to somehow take two before fainting even at low health (my typhlosion also tanked a hyper beam in the mean time with hp in the green). used a full restore to heal typhlo during the recharge time. then came charizard, who typhlo not only outsped but outleveled and crushed with thunderpunches while tanking his hyper beam too.

tldr: cyndaquil can reliably beat sprout tower (enough to pick up ember alongside earlier route trainers), falkner, beats bugsy, and when transformed into typhlosion - wrecks the chuck-jasmine-pryce trio with fire punch and thunderpunch. after picking up tms sunny day and fire blast (more than possible after beating clair), can defeat will with little item support, destroy koga with no item support, and reliably best 3/5 of karen's team if not more, though you want earthquake to beat doom and a partner for umbreon. last but not least, typhlo can beat lance's gyarados and charizard both pretty easily, thunderpunch gg. a-tier for sure, no b-tier or below can claim this level of efficiency.

 

[ASMRxism]

so now not only does this supposedly A-tier mon need every rare candy you get, it also needs 5500 game corner coins to... do okay against the elite four?

 

[aegon the unlikely]

so now not only does this supposedly A-tier mon need every rare candy you get, it also needs 5500 game corner coins to... do okay against the elite four?

never said they ''need every rare candy you get'', that's a strawman and you know it. quilava doesn't even need the rare candies to beat jasmine and pryce's piloswine (quilava could likely stll beat seel and dewgong with rollout anyway) and neither does typhlosion need them to do well against the elite four. the rare candies, however, allow quilava to destroy pryce absolutely no problemo and also crush chuck as well. even with the late evolution i'd argue cyndaquil is a low a-tier mon, he can perform at least decently at all points in the game and he also happens to do really well against a good number of major opponents (rival, gym leaders in johto and kanto, 3/4 of elite four, lance and even red's venusaur as well as pikachu).

i'm also kind of dismayed by the idea that you've never heard of the fact that some pokemon can be great in spite of needing additional babying - magikarp literally needs a grueling amount of switch training to become gyarados in rby or frlg, yet gyarados is easily a powerhouse in at least rby and also a very solid teammate at least in frlg. cyndaquil doesn't even have that harsh an ''off'' period given the fact he can still beat jasmine and possibly pryce without the rare candies - the rare candies just allow him to peak earlier as well as allow your team to surge forward in levels that much faster.

also, typhlosion doesn't need the 5500 game corner coins to ''do okay against the elite four''. this is a ridiculous complaint and frankly, even a dishonest one. not sure how hitting 3/5 of the fucking elite four and lance super effectively super hard is ''doing okay'', pretty sure that's impressive. it can do just fine without 5500 game corner coins as i showed, never mind the fact that those coins aren't remotely a big deal at that point in the game (y'know, the late game, where you have literal shit tons of money even after buying 20 full restores and 10 full heals or so like i did).

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Okay I hate to be that guy, but this has gone on FAR longer than it has needed to and everything about this Typhlosion crap is just frustrating to read because it has been going on for an unholy THREE pages.

The dead horse has been been killed, beaten, mauled, given Krispy Kreme donuts and a party hat, and then had the revenant of its corpse also killed 50 times over with this dumb Rare Candy argument has gone on longer than the friggin Ben 10 franchise.

I’m all for accepting new members to these forums, but the parties at hand just need to PLEASE to stop talking about it and move onto another Pokémon already. I’m sick of this argument going on with no end in sight and if nothing happens soon the thread is going to be derailed faster than my attention span in a college class.

Sorry to aegon, but when like 4-5 people outwardly disagree with you, I doubt Typhlosion is going to A at all. It’s just not happening sadly. Hate to break it to you buddy.

Rare Candies are almost always saved until the Elite Four or some postgame super boss (Red) generally. I don’t know why we need to even be using them at midgame so just stop this nonsense.

TLDR: End this drawn-out argument before it becomes the Family Guy of in-game tier list threads FOR THE LOVE OF ARCEUS.

thanks for coming to my teddy bear talk, I’m done.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

End this drawn-out argument before it becomes the Family Guy of in-game tier list threads FOR THE LOVE OF ARCEUS.

Aw come on, nothing could end up that bad, can it?

But yes, I won't even read the last post because seriously, every possible argument for either side was made. Majority is for Typhlosion to not go to A and that's all she wrote.

Do we have a list of mons that need immediate testing?

Edit:

Oh. Wow, really? That's... good to know. Didn't know that. Explains a lot actually about the tier lists.

Anyways, is anyone surprised about the following pics? Tauros swept the complete Elite Four easily. It only needed healing during the final battle, one ether for return and that's it. Raticate would have never so easily survived the special moves and hyper beam from the dragonite(s). Machamp Cross Chop missed, so sadly I didn't get to test that one out.
everything was 2HKO with the exception of Forretress. Yes Umbreon and Level 50 Dragonite aswell

Tauros rampages through Elite Four

Half of Kanto. Kinda

Last Half of Kanto. The Final

Edit: I am certain that Tauros is above Raticate/Sentret/Miltank. I know we always say don't compare things, but seriously, you have a good time with Tauros. I rather have Tauros closer to Ursaring (who is OBVIOUSLY the creme de la creme of Normal Types), but not the same as Raticate, come on...

Edit2: Kanto Over. The bulk mattered. The power mattered. The Speed mattered. Hail Tauros, the Prince of Normals (with Ursaring as the rightful King)

This is what I meant about the Eye Test. Tauros does have a ton of flaws on paper and no clear advantages or strategy against major battles besides "Hit them really hard" but there's the thing. It just works.

More importantly though, because I don't think anyone ever doubted that Late-Game Tauros is an absolute monster, how was the Mid-Game? It's arguably Tauros' weakest point.

 

[aegon the unlikely]

Rare Candies are almost always saved until the Elite Four or some postgame super boss (Red) generally.

I don’t know why we need to even be using them at midgame so just stop this nonsense.

according to who? that's not even practical, rare candies won't remotely close the distance between your team and red's. using them in the mid-game will help your entire team catch up to and match the elite four level wise anyway as my playthrough showed while also making midgame battles much easier. like wtf is this shit, man? rare candies are an absolute joke against red - saving them is, anyway - unless you somehow manage to have 20-30 or so and good luck getting that many without cheating. there are like 12 you can naturally get anyway without buena's password. you'd also have to use like ten of them on one pokemon just to be ten levels behind any of red's (if not greater). the midgame is a much better investment.

as to the bolded, the fact you don't know why is proof you clearly have no idea what you're talking about, given that this is the exact time the level curve starts getting weird. you know what, i'm done talking about typhlosion using rare candies. however, as people working on an ingame tier list, y'all have a responsibility to show people ways they can make this playthrough more efficient, and that includes using those five rare candies on one of 4 mons then grinding the other 3 against trainers in the midgame routes and gyms to catch up with 4.

also, cyndaquil still deserves to be in a. dude has the best performance against sprout tower and will evolve into quilava off trainer battles alone, allowing him to kick falkner's butt. bugsy gets fried by quilava and can do little back with fury cutter before he dies. whitney might be circumvented by rollout, though this is something i want to personally test, and morty's pokemon don't like taking digs to their low physical defenses - in other words, even these otherwise not great to unfavorable matchups can be won with tm access, and penalizing cyndaquil for using tms is nuts when you'll likely have only 3 other pokemon anyway and thus less pressure to save the tms for someone else. jasmine eats flame wheels and pryce eats rollout for his ice-types and flame wheel for piloswine. in short, cynda can do quite well against at least 4/8 gyms, potentially 6/8. that's incredible.*

*also, smokescreen or fury cutter shenanigans can screw with whitney too.

and then there's the elite four, whom he beats 3/5 of, as well as kanto where he aces erika and janine, puts in work against brock and even some of misty's water types, can beat blaine and surge with earthquake, and can hit half of blue's team for super effective damage. again, a minimum of 5/8 kanto gyms where cyndaquil does solid, and with tm optimization is great against 7/8. then there's red with his venusaur and charizard...

if tm dependence is really cyndaquil's worst flaw, it's not nearly enough to keep him in b imho. this is a game where your team should be smaller than in any other, and with 4 mons it's a lot less reasonable to worry about teammates wanting dig/earthquake/rollout. geodude line has magnitude and learns eq naturally, wooper learns eq naturally too though admittedly wants dig. mons like sandshrew and nidoking should be penalized anyway for their lack of ground-type moves that don't come from tms just like cynda should be penalized for not having better fire moves without tms, that's their problem and not cynda's. never mind the fact that cynda dude's basically the fire-type version of rby squirtle (just trade higher defenses for higher sp. atk and speed), who is a tier rightfully in that game, and right behind totodile.