GSC In-Game Tier List

[Tomy]

Besides this, Chikorita's performance considering what it costs to use and how it's built doesn't sound like B rank to me (which I consider to be "workhorse" at least, unexciting but fully usable). It has poor match ups against the majority of Gyms (Falkner, Bugsy, Morty, Jasmine, Pryce, Claire, Erika, Janine, Blaine), the majority of Team Rocket's Poison types (and even their secondaries are commonly Flying or the odd Fire type), the Elite Four (Lance, Koga, Karen packs a lot of Poisons, and Will has Xatus, Exeggutor, and Jynx), and doesn't add much for Red (loses to Charizard and Venusaur while only being advantageous against Blastoise). Major Battle viability is very bad for it on an offensive and defensive front with Pure Grass Typing.

Its movepool is downright terrible. It basically gets Grass and Normal coverage, with only the highly competed for EQ TM to give it another offensive option, and it's essentially unable to scratch the majority of Steel types, Flying types, or generally its STAB resistors because of this. Razor Leaf is also its only STAB move bar the only-slightly-stronger Giga Drain, which is a far cry from Feraligatr's Surf access, or even Typhlosion's Fire Blast/Fire Punch (depending on if you hit the Game Corner or just the Store) for even worse coverage. It's built more for utility and status effects in terms of stats and movepool, but this essentially comes at the cost of two higher ranked attackers and means it either wins by war of attrition or is best suited to catching other things, at which point you could just choose the other starters to have said efficient things from the outset. Typholsion can at least learn Thunderpunch to cover the odd Water type.

Pryce? Meganium is the only one that hits everything he has with STAB Super Effective damage. In return, the strongest move you'll take is Aurora Beam from a far underleveled Dewgong (which is not really a powerhouse). Meganium murders Pryce, not the other way around. It's perfectly workable with Jasmine also and Clair's Kingdra - one of the hardest battles of the game.
C'mon, the Rocket's Poison? They are always like 10 levels underleveled. The family learns Body Slam naturally, which is, if I must say, an amazing feature, moreso in this game.
Its stats are pretty good. It has decent offensive stats and amazing defenses, with a pretty decent Speed.
It is the worst of the 3 starters, there's no question about that. It has some poor match-ups, no doubts either. But it isn't a deadweight. And, once again, it's not how we rank it, but does it deserve to be ranked equally with the likes of Bellossom and Hoothoot? I don't think so.

 

[pika pal]

Pryce? Meganium is the only one that hits everything he has with STAB Super Effective damage. In return, the strongest move you'll take is Aurora Beam from a far underleveled Dewgong (which is not really a powerhouse). Meganium murders Pryce, not the other way around. It's perfectly workable with Jasmine also and Clair's Kingdra - one of the hardest battles of the game.
C'mon, the Rocket's Poison? They are always like 10 levels underleveled. The family learns Body Slam naturally, which is, if I must say, an amazing feature, moreso in this game.
Its stats are pretty good. It has decent offensive stats and amazing defenses, with a pretty decent Speed.
It is the worst of the 3 starters, there's no question about that. It has some poor match-ups, no doubts either. But it isn't a deadweight. And, once again, it's not how we rank it, but does it deserve to be ranked equally with the likes of Bellossom and Hoothoot? I don't think so.

For the record, while my primary comparisons are the other starts, these points generally apply to a lot of better competition and illustrate the point of reference.

"Workable" for Jasmine isn't exactly a selling point when numerous better/more easily available Pokemon flat out win against her, and it's only really for Steelix, since the Magnemite resist all 2 of its type options and turn the match into a contest of NVE hits and Sonic Booms to eat through your items if you insist on using Bayleef/Meganium. Claire's Kingdra is one match up in a battle with 4 members against whom Meganium is at best not-bad. Meganium is so weak that it doesn't even guarantee an OHKO on a SE hit, which undermines the Pryce match up unless you're overleveled, as it gives Piloswine the chance to smack it with Blizzard. Meanwhile Typhlosion and Feraligatr have resistances to said Ice moves and several available neutral options (or SE for Typhlosion with Thunderpunch) to let them stomach that hit.

I'm not even talking about the Rocket Grunts when I bring up Poison (though it's a slog getting through them with non-STAB moves), there's also one admin with Houndoom and another whose team is literally 5 Koffings and a Weezing, ergo Physically bulky that eat Body Slam and resist your weak Razor Leaf. Body Slam isn't that special in a game where so many things can get Headbutt as early as Ilex Forest, and while Normal option is good, it shouldn't be a dependence as it is for Meganium due to its absolutely abyssmal mono-STAB coverage.

Its offensive stats are not "decent' when both Typhlosion and Feraligatr are close-to-if-not-better than it on their OFF stat, much less their primary offense, and this gap is widened again by their better movepools. Meganium doesn't compress any roles, it doesn't have any boosting moves to let it tear through things after taking a hit, and it's not good enough at any role to justify a slot on a team. I've played this game through multiple times, and there has not been a single time where I did not regret taking Chikorita, much less tolerate or find merit in its use. Grass types in general are pretty garbage since almost none of them have anything resembling coverage, but what Chikorita is doing in B when it's just as bad as the others is beyond me.

 

[Tomy]

As I said, Pryce has extremely low-leveled Pokemons. So it's really easy to be overleveled (remember that Jasmine has actually higher levels) and beat Pryce without much trouble. And Mud Slap is 4x effective against the Magnemites, so it won't become a war of Sonic Booms.
Don't worry, I've played it multiple times also ;) That's why I'm defending it, it's not without flaws, it's the worst of the 3, but it isn't THAT bad.
But guess I'm in the minority here, so eh, whatever.

 

[Xen]

Chikorita is fine in B, albeit a lower-tier B choice. It's the best Grass mon available in the game hands-down, and its stats/movepool are a lot better than people make it out to be (especially early-game). The problem is these games shit on all Grass-types up to Kanto; if the match-up against the important trainers were better, Chikorita would easily fit as an A-tier choice.

Anyway, looking over the list, has anyone used Girafarig before? I know it's not exactly the best Pokemon out there, but on paper it seems like it could fit more in C than in D. Its stats aren't really all that bad, and being a Normal/Psychic type gives it a unique niche offensively thanks to a wide movepool combined with two of the best types in GSC, and defensively by being immune to Ghost (letting it walk all over Morty if you detour to Mahogany Town first, unless I'm remembering Mt. Mortar's layout wrong and you can't get there prior to Surf?). You could also fiddle with Baton Pass too if you want. Being stuck with Confusion and Psybeam for Psy STAB until Kanto is sad though.

Also I'm not sure if I would personally put Crystal Marill up in C just because it's easier to catch. You still have to deal with those awful offenses and Speed. Catching it prior to Mt. Mortar also doesn't do squat for it since you'll have to work with Water Gun until Surf becomes available.

 

[pika pal]

Chikorita is fine in B, albeit a lower-tier B choice. It's the best Grass mon available in the game hands-down, and its stats/movepool are a lot better than people make it out to be (especially early-game). The problem is these games shit on all Grass-types up to Kanto; if the match-up against the important trainers were better, Chikorita would easily fit as an A-tier choice.

Anyway, looking over the list, has anyone used Girafarig before? I know it's not exactly the best Pokemon out there, but on paper it seems like it could fit more in C than in D. Its stats aren't really all that bad, and being a Normal/Psychic type gives it a unique niche offensively thanks to a wide movepool combined with two of the best types in GSC, and defensively by being immune to Ghost (letting it walk all over Morty if you detour to Mahogany Town first, unless I'm remembering Mt. Mortar's layout wrong and you can't get there prior to Surf?). You could also fiddle with Baton Pass too if you want. Being stuck with Confusion and Psybeam for Psy STAB until Kanto is sad though.

Also I'm not sure if I would personally put Crystal Marill up in C just because it's easier to catch. You still have to deal with those awful offenses and Speed. Catching it prior to Mt. Mortar also doesn't do squat for it since you'll have to work with Water Gun until Surf becomes available.

Marill is actually weaker than Sunkern in terms of base offenses. Regardless of availability, Azumarill just doesn't hit very hard and still has the need for Surf, overall TM/HM dependence for an admittedly decent couple of moves. It just doesn't hit very hard and if you want to give it moves outside of a Water STAB it requires at least a minor detour for TMs.

I don't think being the best Grass-mon means much for Chikorita since, as you said, the game shits on the Grass Typing as a whole. It's like being the fastest Cyclist in a NASCAR race, the distinction doesn't really get you anywhere meaningful.

Just Colonel M I just want to get a verdict on this since it seems like a mentality that pops up in other Smogon viability rankings, but do we need to consider Pokemon purely in a vacuum, or is it fair game to consider others when evaluating a ranking? I obviously wouldn't suggest soemthing like "every Water type that's not Totodile is bad", but in the case of the above Marill, maybe mentioning Wooper, who is available earlier (albeit a bit trickier for rarity and fleeing) while having some strong points like natural Earthquake by level 35, which isn't "early" (misses Morty and can reasonably miss Jasmine), but might give it a point by the time the Radio Tower happens. I guess just the idea that poor availability weighs heavier on them to some extent when something comparable comes earlier than in a vacuum. If this was discussed earlier, this part can be disregarded.

 

[Colonel M]

Somewhat in a vacuum. A Pokemon should be ranked based on their individual contributions and then compared to Pokemon surrounding them. Example - Totodile vs Abra (Trade) acknowledges that Abra has a non-existent stage as Abra; however, there are moments where Alakazam can contribute better than Croconaw and Feraligatr.

As far as Girafarig - it is available prior to Surf, but it is a detour to get it. Its a pretty long detour to its location. This kind of leaves it okay for Chuck. On more thought process... going to say nah to it.

Also definitely need write-ups here.

 

[Karxrida]

I wrote up this entire thing on mobile, so sorry for the lack of an image.

Chikorita

Availability: Starter

Stats: Chikorita has overall decent stats. It has high Defense and Special Defense with passable Attack, Special Attack, and Speed.

Typing: Pure Grass-typing is a mixed bag for both defense and offense. While it provides resistances to 4 types and strong against 3, it is also weak to 5 and resisted by 7. The prevalence of Poison-type Pokémon in particular throughout the game make pure Grass-typing a major detriment.

Movepool: Chikorita's offensive movepool is horrendous. It has to rely on Razor Leaf for STAB until the marginally better Giga Drain is obtained from Eirika's Gym as the prize TM in Kanto, and the sole remotely passable coverage move it learns naturally is Body Slam. The only useful TMs it can learn for additional coverage are Headbutt, Return, and Earthquake, with the last probably better off being taught to something else due to its value. For support, Chikorita gets some decent options like Reflect (learned early at Level 12) and PosionPowder, though these are ultimately not too useful due to being less efficient than straight-up attacking.

Major Battles: Chikorita has poor matchups for most major battles due to its Grass-typing. In Johto, it is only useful against Chuck's Poliwrath and has mixed effectiveness against Pryce's Ice-types due to their secondary types giving them a Grass weakness. Chikorita is at a severe disadvantage for many other important fights, most notably the first two Gyms and the various Team Rocket admins. While it picks up in Kanto for Lt. Surge, Misty, and Brock, by that point you should have a team that is able to handle them.

Additional Comments: Any positive aspect that Chikorita brings to the table is hampered by its numerous flaws. It should only be picked as your starter if you are purposefully trying to handicap yourself or want to manipulate your Rival's team composition.

I still think it needs to drop to D.

 

[Champion Leon]

Will there be a separate tier list just for the battle tower? It's something only Crystal offers. I thought it would be interesting because it's only level 50, and unique strategies are tested that surpass the E4 and the champion, with Blissey and others that dominate in this separate battle option that you just don't see anywhere else.

 

[Karxrida]

Will there be a separate tier list just for the battle tower? It's something only Crystal offers. I thought it would be interesting because it's only level 50, and unique strategies are tested that surpass the E4 and the champion, with Blissey and others that dominate in this separate battle option that you just don't see anywhere else.

This thread is for ranking Pokémon based on their performance during the story. You can ask an Orange Islands mod if you can make a tier list for the Battle Tower in Crystal. I doubt they'd mind.

 

[Champion Leon]

This thread is for ranking Pokémon based on their performance during the story. You can ask an Orange Islands mod if you can make a tier list for the Battle Tower in Crystal. I doubt they'd mind.

Great! Maybe I will.

Also, for your Chikarita set, you might also want to mention that once you use up a TM it is gone, so you could argue that wasting the TM Giga Drain or especially Earthquake on a mediocre Pokémon is detrimental to improving the potential of other Pokémon you intend to use, as TMs are not reusable.

Sometimes people might forget without trades that if you use a TM on a Pokémon, you cannot hypothetically have another Pokémon with the same TM move that they cannot learn by level up.

 

[Xen]

These were quickly written up on mobile, so if I missed/messed up something obvious, feel free to leave me a scathing note. I'm also not entirely sure how to list Qwilfish's availability since it's swarm exclusive, which is fairly unreliable without the DST exploit.

Qwilfish

Name: Qwilfish

Availability: Early-Mid Game, Route 32, Old/Good Rod (Swarm)

Stats: Good Attack and Speed with decent Defense. The rest of its stats are mediocre.

Typing: Water/Poison is nice defensively against some of the game’s stronger trainers, and Electric/Ground moves are rare in Johto. It also grants good neutral coverage offensively.

Movepool: It gets Headbutt in Ilex Forest and/or Return in Goldenrod, Surf in Ecruteak City, and eventually Sludge Bomb around Mahogany Town. You will usually be sticking to Sludge Bomb and your Normal move of choice to deal heavy damage; Surf works off of Qwilfish’s weaker base 55 SpA, but it still gets the job done vs Pokémon that resist Water and Poison.

Major Battles: Defensively, Qwilfish does well against Bugsy, Chuck, Pryce, and Koga. Offensively, Qwilfish can take out Piloswine and Steelix (w/o Sunny Day) with Surf, and its strong STAB moves and good neutral coverage grants good utility in most major battles. Its typing is also a godsend against Team Rocket.

Additional Comments: Qwilfish’s biggest fault is its awkward availability; it requires an active swarm from Ralph in order to catch it prior to Kanto. If you use Qwilfish, it is also best to head east from Ecruteak to Mahogany prior to Olivine in order to obtain Sludge Bomb as soon as possible, as well as the Special stats boost from the Glacier Badge

Teddiursa (Crystal)

Name: Teddiursa (Crystal)

Availability: Early Game, Dark cave, 5% (Mornings) (Teddiursa) – Mid Game, Dark Cave, 15% (Day) (Ursaring)

Stats: High Attack and good HP complimented with decent Special stats. It’s fairly slow however.

Typing: Normal typing grants it solid neutral coverage with its STAB moves. Defensively it’s immune to Ghost, but is prone to Fighting types.

Movepool: It obtains Headbutt in Ilex Forest and later Return from Goldenrod. It picks up the elemental punches shortly after from purchasable TMs, and Dig/Earthquake later on to complement its strong STAB moves with solid coverage options.

Major Battles: If you catch it early, it’s average against the first two gyms and rather poor vs Whitney. Great vs Morty by virtue of its typing. It provides good utility in pretty much every other major battle due to its strong STAB moves and wide coverage options. Don’t bother bringing it against Chuck and Bruno however.

Additional Comments: You can either catch Teddiursa prior to Violet City during the morning hours, or as an Ursaring during the morning and day after picking up Surf and the Fog Badge. The latter is usually the better option since Ursaring is easier to catch and comes at a comparatively high level, and Teddiursa doesn’t provide much utility against the early gyms.

 

[Xen]

Sorry for the double-post, but I found out something interesting about the Crystal Odd Egg that I felt like I should share here.

Discord Log

[4:05 PM] Xen: So completely off topic, but you know the Odd Egg in Crystal?
[4:05 PM] Xen: Apparently unless you roll a shiny, the DVs of the Odd Egg are restricted to 0 across all stats
[4:05 PM] Xen: At least in the US version
[4:05 PM] Xen: I wanted an Elekid on my team, so I've been collecting the egg and checking it via PkHex so I wouldn't have to hatch several eggs via biking.
[4:05 PM] Xen: I checked and reloaded around 10 eggs before getting Elekid, and they all had hex 0 DVs.
[4:05 PM] Xen: I thought maybe they weren't set until it hatched, but my Elekid's DVs are still hex 0 when it hatches. :frowning:

I'm not sure if this is the case for any other international version (I'm going to guess that it is), but the locked DVs only further add to the issues the Odd Egg already faces when it comes to tiering. Not only do you have to hatch the egg (which will take a while if you're not going out of your way to hatch it), hope it's something worthwhile, and baby it from Lv 5 when the rest of your team is likely going to be 20+ at best, but the Pokemon will also have a pretty significant stat handicap unless you get lucky and roll that 14% chance of getting a Shiny Egg. I'm not sure if that would be severe enough to alter the placement of the Odd Egg Pokemon, but it's definitely worth noting.

 

[Colonel M]

Definitely noteworthy. Thanks for bringing it up to attention.

This probably would affect the egg mons a bit more negatively than before. Shame too, since Elekid is nice if babied. I don't think it would make a huge difference though considering they should be rather low anyway.

 

[Xen]

If I'm remembering things right, atsync mentioned a few days after that post that the Odd Egg mons also hatch with a lower than usual base happiness. I don't remember the specifics of that, but that's a further slap in the face for Pichu, Igglybuff, and Cleffa depending on how bad it is. (though why would you use the Odd Egg Igglybuff when you can catch Jigglypuff on the same route?)

 

[atsync]

That happiness thing was just something I read on Bulbapedia. I am no more informed about it than anyone else and sometimes Bulbapedia gets things wrong, although it wouldn't be that hard to test with some Rare Candies.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Odd_Egg

The Pokemon hatched from the Odd Egg allegedly starts with just 20 base friendship as opposed to the 120 base friendship normally seen with hatched Pokemon. This is unfortunate for Pichu/Cleffa/Igglybuff since they need 220 friendship to evolve. Ironically, these mons probably prefer to start at level 5, since more level grinding means more friendship gains!

I'm not sure how much the IV thing would affect the performance of the odd egg mons (would a 0/0/0/0 mon miss out on a lot of KOs that a 2/10/10/10 one could get?) but I still think Crystal Elekid/Smoochum/Magby/Tyrogue are too high and would recommend a drop to D tier. I would not be opposed to a drop to E tier for the others either.

As an aside, I'm planning on doing a LOT of testing of stuff when GS are released next month. I'm still interested in this project but currently don't feel as informed as I could be!

 

[Lolpanther]

Is Dratini in the D tier justified? I searched the entire thread but so far, Dratini hasn't even been discussed. If memory serves me right, you can get it fairly early in the Game Corner. Sure it costs many coins, but I once heard that you would win more than you lose with the card flip game in the long run. So assuming it wouldn't take that long to gather the necessary coins, shouldn't Dratini be C or B tier?

 

[Nelson Tangela]

Is Dratini in the D tier justified? I searched the entire thread but so far, Dratini hasn't even been discussed. If memory serves me right, you can get it fairly early in the Game Corner. Sure it costs many coins, but I once heard that you would win more than you lose with the card flip game in the long run. So assuming it wouldn't take that long to gather the necessary coins, shouldn't Dratini be C or B tier?

There is no Voltorb Flip in GSC.
This was back when Europe wasn't ridiculous about gambling laws and slot machines were in the games.

Dratini will never fully evolve in time for the Elite Four to face Lance's underleveled Dragonite.
You'll be stuck using the mediocre Dratini/Dragonair for a looong time, which will evolve shortly before you head into an Ice-type Gym where it won't provide much value.
The Gym after that is a Dragon-type Gym where your Dragonair won't be a big help either, since it won't have the Dragonbreath TM before beating it. Your best STAB move would be the weak Twister.
The Blizzard TM would be possible but that would require even more resources and time wasted in the Game Corner.

 

[Lolpanther]

There is no Voltorb Flip in GSC.
This was back when Europe wasn't ridiculous about gambling laws and slot machines were in the games.

Dratini will never fully evolve in time for the Elite Four to face Lance's underleveled Dragonite.
You'll be stuck using the mediocre Dratini/Dragonair for a looong time, which will evolve shortly before you head into an Ice-type Gym where it won't provide much value.
The Gym after that is a Dragon-type Gym where your Dragonair won't be a big help either, since it won't have the Dragonbreath TM before beating it. Your best STAB move would be the weak Twister.
The Blizzard TM would be possible but that would require even more resources and time wasted in the Game Corner.

Oh no, I'm not referring to Voltorb Flip, I mean this. But yeah, I can understand your other points.

 

[Hiddenfreezer]

Anyway, looking over the list, has anyone used Girafarig before? [..]

You asked this already once in this thread(memory loss?) and I posted a huge playthrough with a team with Girafarig in it. My conclusion was that it is a C Rank. It learns some good moves (Normal STAB on Strength/Return, usable Earthquake, Crunch, usable Shadow Ball) but ultimately it wasn't nearly as good as Tauros/Teddi/Alakazam.

 

[Xen]

You asked this already once in this thread(memory loss?) and I posted a huge playthrough with a team with Girafarig in it. My conclusion was that it is a C Rank. It learns some good moves (Normal STAB on Strength/Return, usable Earthquake, Crunch, usable Shadow Ball) but ultimately it wasn't nearly as good as Tauros/Teddi/Alakazam.

Err, no I didn't. At least I don't see anything via searching the thread for all my posts. Are you sure you're not mixing up Girafarig and Teddiursa (since I debated that a while back and you posted a bunch of screenshots of Teddi)?

 

[Hiddenfreezer]

Just having serious questions about this tier list, something I learned today/late:

- If Trade is allowed(e.g. Alakazam), shouldn't we allow Stone Evolutions to trades in the past too? Especially since getting Stones in RBY is super easy? Vaporeon is OP

- Did you guys know that Time Manipulation/Change is very easy in this game? With that in mind, getting a required time zone is very easy, bug catching is also easy too. The Apricot Balls also are easier to get, alongside, well... unlimited Returns and Haircuts. In other words, Return is even more broken than I imagined.

 

[atsync]

I think the difference between Alakazam and that Vaporeon example is that trading for an evolution stone assumes that the player has access to another save file which has made enough progress to obtain a Water Stone in the first place. In the case of Kadabra, evolving it simply requires a trade, and it doesn't matter if the save file it's being traded to is a completed file with access to the entire game or just a freshly started file in which the player has only reached the second town. Therefore, you can more easily assume that players will be able to evolve it if they can trade. In the case of Vaporeon, you would need to have played through the other save file enough to be able to obtain a Water Stone, which in the case of RBY would mean playing through until you reach Celadon. If you haven't done that yet, you won't be able to evolve Eevee and so you would have to spend more time playing through RBY until you had.

 

[Kurona]

Also, if we're assuming that another file has a water stone; we could assume anything. We could assume they have essential items like Mega Stones early in the case of later gens; we could assume they're far enough in the game where they could easily train your level 20s to level 50s in seconds; and we could assume that they could just trade over high-levelled extremely powerful 'mons. At the point you're allowing content from another game to leak over and effect your file, there's really no limits.

 

[Hiddenfreezer]

I think the difference between Alakazam and that Vaporeon example is that trading for an evolution stone assumes that the player has access to another save file which has made enough progress to obtain a Water Stone in the first place. In the case of Kadabra, evolving it simply requires a trade, and it doesn't matter if the save file it's being traded to is a completed file with access to the entire game or just a freshly started file in which the player has only reached the second town. Therefore, you can more easily assume that players will be able to evolve it if they can trade. In the case of Vaporeon, you would need to have played through the other save file enough to be able to obtain a Water Stone, which in the case of RBY would mean playing through until you reach Celadon. If you haven't done that yet, you won't be able to evolve Eevee and so you would have to spend more time playing through RBY until you had.

Would that mean Trade Item/Stone evolution are , as a whole, "banned" for this tier list?

Kurona slippery-slope, because allowing trade evolution is also "broken" if you allow it the instant your kadabra for example evolves. The Stone Evolution suggestion of mine was only to bring up that if trade is allowed and ranked lower how would "trade" evolution with items / stones be counted.

 

[Nelson Tangela]

Should badge boosts be considered for this list?