GSC In-game tiers

[NoUserName]

I think Misdreavus is the easiest and fastest way to defeat Red's Snorlax. Level 16 Gastly is good and takes around the same time to get it than Missy with Perish , but with Gastly takes time to Snorlax to die (however Spite helps against Rest's PP)

Catch a Missy on Mt. Silver at night, however is rare, raise it's level by 1, it learns Perish Song.

Perish Song + Mean Look. Snorlax dies easily. It's possible to let Misdreavus die on it's own Perish to avoid Snorlax to hit with Body Slam to another mon of your team while switching Missy to avoid Perish Song, anyways Misdreavus is not going to do nothing useful besides that, unless death fodder.

 

[CrazyCarl]

Geodude for first 3 gyms, Kadabra-> Alakazam with Psybeam + Fire Punch + Thunder Punch + Ice Punch to defeat the rest of the game.

He may need help with some of the dark pokemans in the E4, but should demolish everything else.

 

[CrazyCarl]

i don't think anyone here disagrees that GSC is easy. i do think you can make it more interesting by going straight from gym to gym and mostly avoiding trainers and wild encounters, so you'll have a fairly underleveled team by the time you get to the E4.

Well, your team is underlevelled anyways because of poor level design in the game.

But, dodging trainers in GSC is harder than in RBY. I ran a few tests through Goldenrod on trying to defeat this game as fast as possible (I believe I tried solo Geodude and also solo Totodile), and had problems with the trainers who spun around a lot forcing me into more battles than I wanted. More saves would be required than is desirable as these moves are not really predictable.

In RBY it was much easier to dodge the trainers, and you can easily beat the first 8 gyms with only Squirtle, use a Masterball on Zapdos, and destroy the Elite 4 in under 3 hours.

 

[JSND]

Heres the... basically relative blueprint for GSC

Gym 1-2 : Starter or Early Birds
*Whitney : Geodude, Pineco Trolling etc
*Morty : Scary Face, Thunder Wave at 60% chance
Gym 5 - 7: total joke
*Gym 8: Slight challenge, perhaps pretty difficult in general

*E4: Overlevelled SLIGHT challenge. Lance loses to Suicune anyway

Kanto:

Joke fights until moderately difficult *Blue

*Red:
Pikachu - lol
Espeon - Magnemite
Venusaur - Fearow
*Blastoise - Water + Toxic. Heck you can bait the Blizzards
*Charizard - Water
Snorlax - Ghost Curser or Rollout. Take your pick


* marks the problematic stuff


Thats assuming you are doing a quick run with a little amount of grinding. Its rather amusing how the earlier gen can be so easilly trivialized if you know your stuff, and in a much more hilarious extent than the next gens(beating Red's overlevelled team with 53 as your highest can be pretty satisfying)

 

[Alice in Strings]

Can't believe nobody has done this yet:

Delibird
Bottom Tier
Stats: Dear lord, Delibird, you have the stats of a NFE Pokemon. Base 65 SpAtk is only slightly better than Ariados' and Base 45 defenses is just pitiful. The only interesting thing is having 75 Base speed...as your best stat.
Movepool: Godawful, you are completely reliant on TMs to do anything at all, because your only Level up move has a CHANCE OF HEALING YOUR FOE! As for TMs, aside from Fly, Icy Wind and Blizzard, there is nothing at all interesting. As in, you have no other STAB, the only other attacking moves you get are Headbutt and Mud Slap (and obligatory Frustration/Return)...and that's it. Nothing good at all aside from Blizzard, which got nerfed considerably in Gen 2 (90% accuracy all the way down to 75% accuracy)
Matchups:
Clair: Nope, the dragons either roast you or just overpower you in general...even though you're supposed to be able to destroy them with Ice STAB?
Will: Uh...Blizzard can take out Exeggutor since you actually outspeed it, but I wouldn't count on it taking out anything else.
Koga: Theoretically you could take out Ariados and Venomoth. Theoretically, they also wouldn't be spamming Double Team while you're flying either. So yeah, no go here. Crobat's a crapshoot as well with inaccurate as hell Blizzard.
Bruno: Well, Onix trashes you if you miss with Blizzard, and the fighting types aside from Hitmonchan (who's complete trash with 3 elemental punches and Mach Punch) also destroy you.
Karen: Uh...maybe the Umbreon, since it lacks an actual attacking move outside of Bite? Vileplume maybe? Mind you, Umbreon has Sand Attack...
Lance: If Clair could beat Delibird's bum without a hassle, how would the battle against her big bro be any different? To be fair, you could TECHNICALLY beat the Blizzard 'nite...but that's a very big "TECHNICALLY".
Lt. Surge: Electric types. Next.
Erika: Not a bad matchup...FINALLY! If you haven't dumped the Santa bird by now, it can actually do well here. Just watch out for status and you should be fine.
Janine: By this time, even the trainers outside her gym are more of a threat. That's not to say Janine can't be a threat with her Weezing.
Misty: Water types...your only attack of any note is Blizzard. Next.
Blaine: Nope, he resists Blizzard and OHKOs with Fire (or Electric) attacks.
Sabrina: Her Pokemon will most likely outspeed and thrash Delibird. Blizzard isn't going to help here.
Brock: Well you could technically beat the Onix and the Golem with Blizzard, but that's assuming you're ok with being hit with 4x effective Rock Slide if you miss.
Blue: Nope, not doing anything here other than getting killed.
Red: It can't even kill Venusaur with Blizzard before it kills Venusaur back. If you want to be funny, you could just spam Fly and watch it miss with Solarbeam each time, but...

Additional Comments: Delibird has a cool sounding cry, and a unique design. It also just so happens to have a terrible movepool consisting of Fly, Blizzard, and Icy Wind. It is completely reliant on TMs to do anything aside from healing the enemy, and even then, it can't use any TMs to make it a decent Pokemon. It's stats are also on the line between terrible and godawful. It's literally worse than Gen 3 Luvdisc, because at least it could learn some moves and have Ice Beam! Avoid at all cost.

 

[Nyara]

I think we should just put the gyms were a Pokémon does well rather than other thing, and give tips (if necessary) of how make them good on that gym, in the case of Delibird, he doesn't have any good gym to do OK, so, we should just put "He can't do nothing against anyone at all, maybe giving a hand at some degree against Clair and Lance if Delibird happens to be overleved, you're lucky, and you teached him Blizzard, but otherwise, nope, don't even try it. It can also be of help against Erika with Fly, if that counts".

Oh, btw, I hate Delibird with all my soul, he's sooo bad, and its design is so non-cute that it just make me angry.

 

[TM13IceBeam]

Oh well, let's just make a simple one then

NOTE: I'm not sure what exactly are the mechanics behind Shuckle's little toy. I might go on a run of GSC soon enough to check how exactly Shuckle does his little trick. If it's useful enough I might consider changing the tier recommendation to Low.

Shuckle - Bottom Tier
Availability: Earliest you can get is after Sudowoodo, by getting the TM from the guy near it on Route 36 (don't worry about being limited, they also become available from Goldenrod), and going to Burned Tower to smash some rocks for a 10% chance of a L15 Shuckle. Otherwise, you can get one for free at Cianwood, which also gets boosted experience.
Stats: It has the best defenses in the game, but it also happens to be even slower than Slowpoke and has the offenses of a Magikarp.
Movepool: There isn't much to be said when your only STAB is Rollout. Shuckle learns a variety of utility moves (as well as Earthquake/Sludge Bomb, wasted on something with Shuckle's offenses), which makes him a status abuser, so to speak.
Gyms it's good at: Considering that his awesome defenses are countered badly by his bad HP, and that he has Magikarp-level offenses, he's not going to be useful anywhere soon other than being item fodder.
Other info: Shuckle may seem useless but still has one trick up his sleeve, legs, shell, whatever: he has the ability to make infinite Rare Candies. By attaching a Berry onto Shuckle and walking around, Shuckle will be able to turn your Berry into a Berry Juice and then a Rare Candy, providing the potential for infinite Rare Candies and a gamebreaker. Unfortunately, the time invested is contradictory to efficiency, placing it in Bottom.

 

[Antihaxxer]

Didn't know about that Berry -> Berry Juice -> Rare Candy !

 

[neilymon]

okay i promise i'll start testing out pokemon without entries after this post, but i really have to agree with CrazyCarl (and pretty much everyone else)...

If your only goal is to beat this game in as little time as possible:
1) grab a female Geodude on Route 46. use it exclusively, through the first two gyms.
2) in Goldenrod, grab the Coin Case and buy an Abra and the three elemental punch TMs. lead off with Abra until he evolves (other than Umbreon in Ecruteak).
3) use Geodude against Whitney. Gold Berry (comes attached to the Machop you can trade for) is a nice insurance policy in case Clefairy hits you with a nasty Metronome, so you don't die to Miltank.
4) when you get Kadabra, teach it the three TMs and give it Quick Claw. use it exclusively for the rest of the game.
5) the only trainer it may not OHKO is the final Rocket boss in the Radio Tower. TM punches still OHKOed for me, but Red Gyarados with Surf is a safer option.
6) the only other Pokemon it doesn't OHKO are Umbreon and Houndoom in the E4. you can 2HKO Umbreon with a TM punch, and Suicune can Surf out Houndoom.
7) obviously you can't OHKO Sabrina's team, but they can't really hurt you either. TM punch until they die.
8) when you get to Red, bring along a Gastly with Curse (or catch a Misdreavus at night and give it a Rare Candy to learn Perish Song) for Snorlax. Kadabra can handle the rest, but bring a couple of Max Potions for extra insurance.

the end.

if this isn't proof that Abra belongs in a tier all by itself, i don't know what is. okay, enough of that, i'll get back to testing some new Pokemon. most interested in Scyther and Pinsir right now.

 

[Alice in Strings]

Delibird
Bottom Tier
Stats: Dear lord, Delibird, you have the stats of a NFE Pokemon. Base 65 SpAtk is only slightly better than Ariados' and Base 45 defenses is just pitiful. The only interesting thing is having 75 Base speed...as your best stat.
Movepool: Godawful, you are completely reliant on TMs to do anything at all, because your only Level up move has a CHANCE OF HEALING YOUR FOE! As for TMs, aside from Fly, Icy Wind and Blizzard, there is nothing at all interesting. As in, you have no other STAB, the only other attacking moves you get are Headbutt and Mud Slap (and obligatory Frustration/Return)...and that's it. Nothing good at all aside from Blizzard, which got nerfed considerably in Gen 2 (90% accuracy all the way down to 70% accuracy)
Matchups: Delibird doesn't really excel anywhere thanks to its terribad stats and amazingly shallow movepool. The entire reason you'd want an Ice type is to take care of the six or so Dragons in the game, and Delibird can't even do that! He can contribute in some of the Kanto gyms if you didn't bother dumping it as soon as you could thanks to sheer level advantage, but even then, there are things that do its job way better in the same place that are far easier to find and capture.
Additional Comments: Delibird has a cool sounding cry, and a unique design. It also just so happens to have a terrible movepool consisting of Fly, Blizzard, and Icy Wind. It is completely reliant on TMs to do anything aside from healing the enemy, and even then, it can't use any TMs to make it a decent Pokemon. It's stats are also on the line between terrible and godawful. It's literally worse than Gen 3 Luvdisc, because at least it could learn some moves and have Ice Beam! Avoid at all cost.

 

[NoUserName]

Blizzard has 70% accuracy, not 75% in non-RBY games.

Blizzard costs around 100 000 Poke, so it's even worse give it to Delisucks.

 

[neilymon]

echoing x42bn6 here: (shortened)

Totodile - Top Tier
Availability: Starter
Stats: Above Average
Movepool: Above Average
Additional Comments: Rage is surprisingly effective against the early gyms, after which TMs (Ice Punch, Headbutt/Dig) and HMs (Surf) make it an incredibly versatile Pokemon with very well-rounded stats. Throw in the excellent Bite and it's easy to see how Totodile really doesn't need any teammates to beat the game.

 

[Satisfaction]

I think the shuckle mechanic stops at berry juice, you can also always just use the cloning glitch for infinite candies there really isn't any point for shuckle ingame

 

[neilymon]

I think the shuckle mechanic stops at berry juice, you can also always just use the cloning glitch for infinite candies there really isn't any point for shuckle ingame

Berry Juice will eventually become a Rare Candy if Shuckle holds it long enough. Not that it's a good use of time at all. Also, this only works in GSC.

Here's a question I asked over at the RBY thread. What's the best STAB Pokemon for each type? 3 rules: 1) It should have a decent STAB move early and a strong STAB move late 2) Penalties for high-demand TM reliance 3) No starters

Psychic: Abra (Confusion -> Psybeam -> Psychic)
Ground: Geodude (Magnitude -> Earthquake)
Flying: Spearow (Peck -> HM Fly -> Drill Peck)
Bug: Heracross (TM Fury Cutter -> Megahorn)
Fighting: Machop (Low Kick -> Vital Throw -> Cross Chop)
Fire: Magmar (Fire Punch -> Flamethrower -> Fire Blast)
Normal: Tauros (Horn Attack -> Thrash / TM Return)
Ice: Lapras (Ice Beam)
Electric: Mareep (ThunderShock -> Thunder)
Ghost: Gastly (Lick -> TM Shadow Ball)
Steel: Steelix (TM Iron Tail)
Water: Vaporeon? (Water Gun -> HM Surf +/- Hydro Pump)
Rock: Sudowoodo (Rock Throw -> Rock Slide)
Poison: Grimer (Sludge -> Sludge Bomb)
Grass: Bellsprout? (Vine Whip -> Razor Leaf +/- TM SolarBeam)
Dragon: Dratini (Twister -> Outrage)
Dark: Umbreon? (Pursuit -> Faint Attack)

Needless to say, Lugia's Aeroblast and Ho-Oh's Sacred Fire are the best moves of their type, but they come so late in the game. Water could be pretty much anyone, I went with the highest SpA.

The majority of these seem High Tier to me, with a few exceptions (the last 5). Any thoughts?

 

[TheKAM1993]

Shouldn't Mareep be Thundershock-> Thunderpunch-> Thunder? I mean it's possible that you could get Thunder before TPunch but that would put a lot of your money down the drain.

 

[Alice in Strings]

I dunno if I would be using Thunder in-game. It's terribly inaccurate (70% accuracy, less than 3 out of 4 hits will land) and I'd frankly just use T-Punch and not have to make up for misses. Plus Ampy gets T-Punch when it evolves anyway.

Steelix comes way too late/requires way too much work (either rob a Magnemite of its Metal Coat or wait until AFTER THE E4) to be High Tier. It also lacks a decent movepool (Curse is in Celadon City, so you're running EQ, Iron Tail, Rock Throw and...Dragonbreath?), I'd much prefer using my Metal Coat on Scyther anyway. Besides you can't get Steelix as per the rules of this Tier list, nor can you get Scizor.

Sudowoodo's not bad, actually. I used it in my first in-game run, and it ended up being fairly solid. He's nothing special, but I'd put him Low at worst.

Machop maxes out at Machoke thanks to the no-trade rule, and Fighting is still pretty terrible in this generation (though the introduction of Dark/Steel types help them a bit). It's nowhere near as bad as it was in Gen 1, but Gen 2 Fighting is still pretty meh.

Dratini is nowhere near High because you have to lug around its below average buddy Dragonair, who now lacks Ice Beam, T-Bolt, and Flamethrower to help its coverage. You probably won't even see your Dragonair become a Dragonite until Mt. Silver, for instance. It's best attack is probably Dragonbreath until it evolves. Y'know...that move that kinda sucks? Low as sin, in my opinion.

Gastly really shouldn't bother with Shadow Ball in this Gen, since it's Physical and all, with Haunter's (again, final stage for this tier list) pisspoor Base 50 Attack compared to 115 Special Attack.

 

[neilymon]

1) definitely right about ThunderPunch, it's just more reliable than Thunder. bad oversight on my part.

2) well, since you can't get Steelix or Scizor, i guess Skarmory (Steel Wing) wins by default. woo hoo! default: the two sweetest words in the English language.

3) i've never used Sudowoodo as anything but a HM slave out of laziness. now i know i have the game's best Rock STAB!

4) yeah, Dratini is super time-intensive in this game, and that's if you bother to get it via Pokewalker. almost certainly Low like you said - but if you're desperate to troll Lorelei and Lance with STAB Dragon, he's your only option.

5) ugh, i forgot Ghost moves were Physical (whose brilliant idea was that?!?). unfortunately, since Misdreavus and her 60 Atk show up on Mt. Silver, i guess Haunter wins this one by default too.

man, STAB Steel, Dragon, and Ghost really weren't viable in these games.

 

[Alice in Strings]

1) definitely right about ThunderPunch, it's just more reliable than Thunder. bad oversight on my part.

2) well, since you can't get Steelix or Scizor, i guess Skarmory (Steel Wing) wins by default. woo hoo! default: the two sweetest words in the English language.

3) i've never used Sudowoodo as anything but a HM slave out of laziness. now i know i have the game's best Rock STAB!

4) yeah, Dratini is super time-intensive in this game, and that's if you bother to get it via Pokewalker. almost certainly Low like you said - but if you're desperate to troll Lorelei and Lance with STAB Dragon, he's your only option.

5) ugh, i forgot Ghost moves were Physical (whose brilliant idea was that?!?). unfortunately, since Misdreavus and her 60 Atk show up on Mt. Silver, i guess Haunter wins this one by default too.

man, STAB Steel, Dragon, and Ghost really weren't viable in these games.

Pokewalker didn't exist in GSC, so that's a no-go there. Low as sin for sure.

 

[TM13IceBeam]

Ghost moves aren't useful for any form of coverage: you only hit fellow ghosts and psychics, neither of which are dangerous enough to require more than neutral hits. Gengar is better off using the e-punches anyway (although you'll need to trade for it).

Similarly, Steel isn't the best of attacking options either (it hits only ice and rock, neither of which are very common nor important). Skarmory doesn't exactly win by default over Steelix or Scizor, your offense is still somewhat questionable if it consists of only Swift and Fly for the most part: coming stupidly late doesn't help either especially when most things you face now are specially-based, including the nearby gym. Besides, I don't even know if this post is relevant any more.

Dratini's completely pointless when it doesn't come with instant Dragon Rage to 1-2HKO everything at that point, you're better off going for an ice type to deal with Lance, or if you're really a die-hard Dratini fanatic the Extremespeed one is probably better.

 

[neilymon]

yeah, it should be pretty obvious how to tier those guys:
Dratini - Low
Skarmory (SC) - Low (comes way too late for the E4, and not particularly amazing against Kanto or Red)
Scizor/Steelix - Low (incredibly annoying to get because you have to catch a Magnemite with a Metal Coat; otherwise, comes too late in the game)
Gastly (trade or no trade) - High (Haunter has a high enough SpA/Speed that he's still quite good with the right TMs)

anyone disagree? if not, i can write entries for Dratini, Skarmory, and Scizor/Steelix (or leave the latter out entirely).

 

[TM13IceBeam]

There's a major gap in performance between Haunter and Gengar: this is evident when the only special moves Haunter gets pre-Kanto are Thief, Thunder and Dream Eater. Two of them are utter crap, the last one requires way too many resources to obtain. Non-trade Gastly is really mediocre.

I don't know if having to catch a Magnemite with Metal Coat counts negatively towards a Pokemon's tiering. As far as it goes, I'm assuming that if the Pokemon is to be tiered, it'll be used regardless of how annoying it is to acquire. Steelix in itself isn't horrid, Scizor is somewhat questionable due to lacking strong STABs (although natural SD might fix it...).

 

[Alice in Strings]

There's a major gap in performance between Haunter and Gengar: this is evident when the only special moves Haunter gets pre-Kanto are Thief, Thunder and Dream Eater. Two of them are utter crap, the last one requires way too many resources to obtain. Non-trade Gastly is really mediocre.

I don't know if having to catch a Magnemite with Metal Coat counts negatively towards a Pokemon's tiering. As far as it goes, I'm assuming that if the Pokemon is to be tiered, it'll be used regardless of how annoying it is to acquire. Steelix in itself isn't horrid, Scizor is somewhat questionable due to lacking strong STABs (although natural SD might fix it...).

I remember reading a while ago that we weren't counting trade evolutions because nobody has the option of trading with someone else anymore. That's why people haven't been saying "Kadabra is top for sure" and stuff like that.

Getting a Metal Coat for your team is inefficient, and thus in my mind, affects the tiering for it regardless of Steelix being valid for this tierlist. He lacks a lot of things that made him great in Gen 4, namely Physical Crunch, Rock Slide/Stone Edge, non-post game !Curse!, having to wait till Victory Road for any notable Ground type move (Dig doesn't really count since Iron Tail often hits harder against things he's not afraid of), and having to rely on unreliable Iron Tail for damage...he's kinda plagued with issues.

On the plus side, dat Defense <3


On the plus side, he trounces Rocket Grunts?

EDIT: Agree with that Haunter eval, he does kinda suck. Haunter's main gimmick is that it gets Curse by level up, which means that stuff like Clair's Kingdra, Red's Snorlax, or Whitney's Miltank can be easily handled by just plopping a Haunter in front of them and hammering that nail in his head. Curse does more damage per turn than any other status ailment, so *shrug*

 

[TM13IceBeam]

Kadabra is still Top imo even without trade evolution simply by virtue of his ridiculous combination of SpA/Spe (most Pokemon would kill for 120/105 offensive combination) and relatively easy access to the e-punches giving him excellent coverage throughout the entire game. I fail to see how that isn't worthy of Top.

Again, OP has already stated in here that he still wants entries for trade evos, so Steelix/Scizor are game. Honestly, I think that the difficulty of earning Metal Coat for Steelix/Scizor shouldn't be counted, but hey, it's really up for debate.

 

[Dre89]

I'm currently tearing through the game at the moment with kadabra. It's easily the best pokemon in-game.

 

[neilymon]

holy crap, i just found out Haunter doesn't learn the TM Punches. seriously??? he's got freaking floating hands, his punches should be awesome.

Abra is Top Tier, with or without trade. Gastly (trade) is High, while Gastly (no trade) might even be Low; personally I'd put him in the Mid Tier because he has niche uses (as mentioned, Miltank and Snorlax, which are among the most annoying Pokemon in the game). Scizor and Steelix are Mid Tier only if you don't consider how annoying it is to get Metal Coat; if you just want to make a note of it under "Availability," I suppose they are considerably better than all the guys listed in the Low Tier.