In-Game Tier List Discussion

[spweasel]

If you are looking for neutral coverage (which should probably be specified separately than just "coverage") Poison Jab isn't nearly as good as Return, which is available to everything. There simply aren't enough Grass Types in-game to justify losing the extra power.

Frankly, if you are talking about "coverage" moves for Maractus, listing Aerial Ace makes more sense than listing Poison Jab.

Maractus also gets the very nice Water immunity, for what it's worth.

But honestly, how many Water attacks are you going to see in-game? There's no real Water gym this time around, and the only surfing areas are completely optional. The only particularly relevant Water types are some Duckletts and Swanna in the Flying Gym, Shauntal's Jellicent, N's Carracosta, and Ghetsis' Seismitoad.

Not to mention immunity isn't that big a deal when all in-game Grass-types resist it anyways.

 

[Roen]

IMO, grass types in Unova should be in this order, from top to bottom:

Petlil, Maractus, Pansage/Sewdaddle [Interchangeable, IMO, cases can be made for both], Snivy, Cottonee

Not counting Virizion because it's a late/mid game legend.

Where do you count Sawsbuck and Ferrothorn in that list?

 

[Virizion]

Where do you count Sawsbuck and Ferrothorn in that list?

I used a Sawsbuck in my playthrough, it was pretty good. It had decent coverage with Jump Kick + Take Down + Horn Leech (I believe it hits everything neutral, since JK hits the rare Steels) and it usually hit pretty hard. I kept Leech Seed on it so it'd heal me a bit (and do a bit of damage) while I use items to heal my other Pokes or Sawsbuck, though it's more of not having a better move to use.

 

[The Cicada]

On topic of Maractus: But you gotta search around forever for it, since its just as rare as Sigilyph and Dwebble (which are actually worth searching for). And when you find it, it's prob gonna have Chlorphyl.

 

[Virizion]

But you gotta search around forever for it, since its just as rare as Sigilyph and Dwebble (which are actually worth searching for). And when you find it, it's prob gonna have Chlorphyl.

I found quite a few in the grass near the laboratory, mine was Adamant with Sap Sipper as the first one I caught :P

Edit @ below: Oh, didn't notice.

 

[The Cicada]

I found quite a few in the grass near the laboratory, mine was Adamant with Sap Sipper as the first one I caught :P

I was talking bout Maractus



On topic of Sawsbuck: Sawsbuck was really good for me. Return+Horn Leech+Jump Kick+ Megahorn hit most everything for SE damage, and there really isnt much that team plasma grunnts use that arent hit SE from sawsbuck, except Trubbish.

 

[Roen]

Sawsbuck still has Megahorn, Double Kick (really handy against those annoying Sturdy pokes), Faint Attack and Nature Power as viable attacks. So he really has some sort of 4 moveslot syndrome.

@ Virizion: mine was Jolly with Sap Sipper. Too bad my team was full, because I really wanted to use it.

Ferrothorn could be useful too, but isn't recommended with those low PP moves it has.

 

[Sajak]

If you are looking for neutral coverage (which should probably be specified separately than just "coverage") Poison Jab isn't nearly as good as Return, which is available to everything. There simply aren't enough Grass Types in-game to justify losing the extra power.

Frankly, if you are talking about "coverage" moves for Maractus, listing Aerial Ace makes more sense than listing Poison Jab.

I'm just saying it isn't as bad as you make it out to be and in fact gives Maractus an attacking option against basically anything it's going to face, bar about 10 select Pokemon (that are all rare).

 

[spweasel]

in fact gives Maractus an attacking option against basically anything it's going to face

Except that it doesn't. Not when Return is stronger, available earlier, and doesn't require you to make a return trip to Route 6 once you get Surf. I guess you can call it an "option", if you really want, but it's a crappy one.

By the time you get Poison Jab, Maractus should be extremely close to having Petal Dance. The only way that Petal Dance could possibly be weaker than Poison Jab is if either the target double-resists Grass or resists Grass and is weak to Poison. The number of Pokemon in-game with either property is very small (only Grass Pokemon and Reshiram).

For Return, the only property necessary for it to be preferable to Petal Dance (ignoring the huge difference in Maractus' Atk and SpA) is that the enemy resists Grass (and isn't Steel, not that Poison Jab is preferable to Return in that case either).

So ultimately, the only thing Poison Jab offers Maractus is a 30% Poison chance and a somewhat better game against Grass Pokemon. That's hardly worth the damage lost on everything else.

 

[Sajak]

Except that it doesn't. Not when Return is stronger, available earlier, and doesn't require you to make a return trip to Route 6 once you get Surf. I guess you can call it an "option", if you really want, but it's a crappy one.

By the time you get Poison Jab, Maractus should be extremely close to having Petal Dance. The only way that Petal Dance could possibly be weaker than Poison Jab is if either the target double-resists Grass or resists Grass and is weak to Poison. The number of Pokemon in-game with either property is very small (only Grass Pokemon and Reshiram).

For Return, the only property necessary for it to be preferable to Petal Dance (ignoring the huge difference in Maractus' Atk and SpA) is that the enemy resists Grass (and isn't Steel, not that Poison Jab is preferable to Return in that case either).

So ultimately, the only thing Poison Jab offers Maractus is a 30% Poison chance and a somewhat better game against Grass Pokemon. That's hardly worth the damage lost on everything else.

I didn't say it was the best option, I'm just saying it is a perfectly viable option, and it is one that it should use.

 

[Snowfoot]

Has anybody used dwebble? was he any good? what moves did you use?

 

[spweasel]

I didn't say it was the best option, I'm just saying it is a perfectly viable option, and it is one that it should use.

Describe a serious situation against any non-Grass (and non-Reshiram) Pokemon where non-STAB Poison Jab is preferable to STAB Petal Dance. If it is preferable to just use a Pokemon's STAB instead of a coverage move in almost every situation, it is not a viable option.

I suppose that it is somewhat better than Giga Drain against things that resist Grass, and there might be a shortish period of time between picking up Poison Jab and learning Petal Dance. In that case, I suppose during that window of time Poison Jab isn't a completely blank moveslot.

Unfortunately, it's still outclassed by Return against everything but Grass types. But if your definition of "viable" includes moves that are outclassed 97% of the time by something gotten earlier and easier, then I suppose it is fine to call it viable.

Also, you say that Poison Jab is the Move Maractus "should" use, but never stated why. You need to explain this.

 

[breh]

Poison is a nice status, pure and simple. The ability to cause passive damage is nice.

I.E., one of the reasons Scald is used at all.

 

[TheSubwayMaster]

If arguing about Maractus's moveset helps by saying how much of a good movepool it has, then that's sort of ridiculous.

Petal Dance, Return, Aerial Ace, and filler status move. That's what you should have imo and Poison Jab is virtually unnecessary and actually bordering on wasting a moveslot. It is extremely poor and if having Poison Jab as a "viable" option for adding a bit to its poor coverage makes a difference, then you are using Maractus wrong. That's all I can say.

 

[0verl0rd14]

Snowfoot: You know, I once asked that myself somewhere on this thread; now after playing through White with him I can happily say he was pretty awesome. I started off with a moveset of dig/smack down/bug bite/stealth rock. Then, when holding the eviolite, he just laughs as Elesa's emolgas volt switch themselves to death, (just remember to have a couple of spare soda pops) then survives a STAB spark from zebstrika and kills it with dig.

Once you get rock slide, you can make quick work of skyla's gym. With lucky egg attatched, you should reach level 37 and get shell smash (don't evolve until then). Then, your gym battle with skyla should follow this simple formula:
Shell smash+Rock Slide=RAPE.

From there, you should be set for the rest of the game.

Dwebble is awesome.

 

[Kikuichimonji]

Poison is a nice status, pure and simple. The ability to cause passive damage is nice.

I think you may have missed the part where Petal Dance's base power, combined with the grass STAB, make it more than twice as powerful than Poison Jab, and that's before you factor in the fact that Maractus's base special attack is 20 points higher than its attack stat. Apart from typing, I cannot imagine any conceivable scenario when Poison Jab would even come close to Petal Dance in terms of damage output, even if it had a 100% poison rate. Doing less than half as much damage to have a 30% chance of inflicting a status that chips away 12.5% of the foe's HP every turn is just not worth it.

Pretty much all of the arguments regarding Petal Dance apply equally to Giga Drain; it's still going to be at least 50% more powerful than Poison Jab when you factor in STAB and the fact that it runs off a better attack stat. Also consider that Giga Drain heals 100% of the time, while Poison Jab poisons 30% of the time.

Shell smash+Rock Slide=RAPE.

This was discussed a few pages back, but when you're using Shell Smash, Rock Slide misses really hurt you, even against physical attackers. Dwebble has more weaknesses than resistances, leaving it pretty poorly equipped to take hits.

 

[sharkz]

Poison Jab is just for coverage, of course it will be weaker than Petal Dance.

The thing is, other than that, Return is the only decent attack its got...

If the reason for using Maractus is Poison Jab, then the only reason I can think of for that is to kill Grass types. Why bother though, when you have other grass types like Leavanny that can still take out grass types as well and generally is better?

 

[spweasel]

Poison Jab is just for coverage

It doesn't cover anything but Grass types, though (since it's weaker than a resisted Petal Dance), which makes it a poor coverage move. Even Aerial Ace is better as a coverage move since it hits noticeably harder than Petal Dance on most Bug types (which are more common than Grass types).

The original argument, though, was that Poison Jab somehow contributes to Maractus having better type coverage than Lilligant. This might be technically true, but it's such a negligible increase that it's not even worth mentioning at all, let alone using as a basis for an argument.

Now if the argument were "Lilligant's Atk is too low to make use of Return, and it doesn't get any good non-Grass Special Moves, therefore Maractus might have a slight advantage over Lilligant when damaging Grass-resistant foes", I could take the argument seriously. But Poison Jab notably isn't part of that argument.

As for Dwebble, I gave my opinion a page or two back. He's more fun than he is good, but he's certainly above average. He has great defenses, but weak offenses. After a Shell Smash, he has solid speed, good offenses, but weak defenses. Missing an attack kinda sucks, so Dwebble will have a harder time against Bug-resistant foes. I used:

X-Scissor
Rock Slide (a necessary evil)
Dig/Aerial Ace
Shell Smash

Dig is generally the better move choice, but Dwebble ended up playing the role of Marshal counter during my last run (since everything else I had at a good level was weak to Fighting due to poor planning), so Aerial Ace was used to clean house. It worked reasonably well, but I can't suggest it over a real counter.

 

[sharkz]

Well I do agree that Poison Jab is not too significant coverage, and seriously guys how hard is it to hit Grass types hard? They've got enough weaknesses as is that there are better types to hit them with that have more usefulness overall compared to Poison. Honestly I wouldn't use either of them though.

Dwebble....I personally think this thing is far better on paper than it actually is, although I might try it again just to see.

 

[PokéMontage]

I'll agree with what others have said in that Maractus isn't terrible, but it is right where it belongs. Maractus isn't low tier just because it is 90% outclassed by Lilligant, but because Speed is such an important factor in-game, especially when you lack bulk. Lilligant has significantly superior Speed and good special bulk thanks to Quiver Dance, not to mention the added power and speed the move provides, which is why she excels despite being a Grass-type with crappy coverage. Sleep Powder is also pretty important since a Grass-type without a support move is like having bread without butter. Maractus's stronger Return is nice, but it's nothing special, and it's not enough to save it from being sub-par.

 

[LeviLamprey]

Everyone is forgetting Maractus learns Sucker Punch...This also remedies the speed problem. I'll happily agree it isn't great, but it isn't that bad...I was surprised at how much trouble Lilligant had against some opponents, though she destroyed the entire league with Sleep Powder+Quiver Dance. Even her Hidden Power was Grass...

 

[PokéMontage]

Sucker Punch is cool I suppose, but it doesn't come that early (level 42) and has only 5 PP. It's not terribly strong either without STAB and only average Attack to back it up.

With Lilligant, I never had problems when I used her. She outsped tons of stuff and either put them to Sleep and QD'd or outright OHKO'ed.

 

[Sajak]

Describe a serious situation against any non-Grass (and non-Reshiram) Pokemon where non-STAB Poison Jab is preferable to STAB Petal Dance. If it is preferable to just use a Pokemon's STAB instead of a coverage move in almost every situation, it is not a viable option.

I suppose that it is somewhat better than Giga Drain against things that resist Grass, and there might be a shortish period of time between picking up Poison Jab and learning Petal Dance. In that case, I suppose during that window of time Poison Jab isn't a completely blank moveslot.

Unfortunately, it's still outclassed by Return against everything but Grass types. But if your definition of "viable" includes moves that are outclassed 97% of the time by something gotten earlier and easier, then I suppose it is fine to call it viable.

Also, you say that Poison Jab is the Move Maractus "should" use, but never stated why. You need to explain this.

It's better against anything that resists Grass and Return doesn't give any status.

Maractus should use Poison Jab because it gives coverage... how hard is that to get? The point is that it's better than any other moves it can get, and it's a not a bad attack.

 

[TM13IceBeam]

Poison Jab gives coverage...

on what?

Aerial Ace hits the same stuff and comes earlier than Poison Jab, lol. Sure, it's a matter of power, but Aerial Ace also hits stuff like Sawk and Scolipede.

 

[TheSubwayMaster]

I am disgusted. POISON JAB GIVES VIRTUALLY NO COVERAGE! Aerial Ace covers everything it gets and MORE! It should not be on a good Maractus set and if this helps its coverage, then Brick Break/Double Kick gives great coverage on Sawk. I'm not saying that combination of Sawk's is bad at the beginning, but it gives the same point as Aerial Ace/Poison Jab.