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In-game tiers

For DP i would go with:

Good:
Chimchar
Turtwig
Piplup
Starly
Shinx
Dialga (or Palkia for Pearl)
Zubat
Murkrow
Budew
Drifloon
Cranidos

Okay:
Abra
Gastly
Misdreavus
Meditite
Bronzor

Bad:
Everything else, like Deck said

I took out Aipom/Heracross/Munchlax/ because they take too much luck to use. No Gible because they come at a low level. No Geodude because of the weaknesses.
 
Shellos deserves mention in DP, even though it gets recover late dual STAB is very helpful. It does very well against the first few gyms (obviously not the second one)

Really I blazed through the game with Infernape, Staraptor, Gastrodon, and Luxray, those four give you pretty much all the coverage you need.

Shellos also learns Hidden Power very early, if you get a good one you're in the money. Fire helped a lot for those pesky grass types, although yeah you usually won't get lucky.
 
For ingame DP, Shellos/Gastrodon is pretty darn good. It gets Water Pulse and Mud Bomb very early. Both moves have a high base power compared to other moves available at that time. It also has great defensive capability and the ability to learn Surf, Ice Beam, and other good TM's.

Meditite/Medicham is not being mentioned much. At the time you get Meditite, Confusion is a powerful move. Later, when it evolves, it gives you a great reason to use all the Heart Scales you've been digging up underground. Getting the elemental punches makes Medicham a one-stop-shop for all type-coverage needs. It can own everything after that.

Don't underestimate the ability Rivalry on Luxray ingame. My Luxray was female and it raped Cynthia's Milotic, with Spark and the Rivalry attack boost. Throughout the game, it was fun to pay attention to the gender of the opponent to see if I'd get an attack boost from my Luxray. Luxray's movepool is ass, but Spark and Crunch are helpful in lots of places, particularly against the E4.
 
the Lexx said:
Shellos deserves mention in DP, even though it gets recover late dual STAB is very helpful. It does very well against the first few gyms (obviously not the last one)

Really I blazed through the game with Infernape, Staraptor, Gastrodon, and Luxray, those four give you pretty much all the coverage you need.

Shellos also learns Hidden Power very early, if you get a good one you're in the money. Fire helped a lot for those pesky grass types, although yeah you usually won't get lucky.
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How is STAB Mud Bomb not helpful in the electric gym? .. o.O

I do agree that a simple Infernape, Gastrodon, Luxray combination could probably take down nearly anything in the game.
 
TaiwaneseDude said:
How is STAB Mud Bomb not helpful in the electric gym? .. o.O

I do agree that a simple Infernape, Gastrodon, Luxray combination could probably take down nearly anything in the game.
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whoops meant second gym
I just used Palkia exclusively as soon as I caught him, but yeah gastrodon would have helped a lot if I didn't
 
Bumping this because I just beat the Johto side of Gold with Typhlosion/Raticate/Jynx/Exeggcute/Haunter as my main members and there's two things that stuck out:
- Exeggcute is really useless around the last gym. It already had trouble keeping up due to being unevolved, but its defensive type is pretty lame and the entire league owns him. Confusion as best STAB no thanks. I ditched him after the 8th gym already because I knew all he'd bring is more fail, and it gave me room for more HM space.
- I really underestimated Jynx. I caught it later than recommend (after the Radio Tower quest) but nonetheless it's a good Pokemon. Took a while to catch (I found it by accident and it just wouldn't stay in the Great Balls) but a natural Ice Punch + 75% accurate sleep move is pretty wow. Obviously it has to do with Powder Snow and it needs a little resource, but it made Lance so incredibly easy. I just put Gyarados to sleep, got it some X-boosts (1 Speed, 1 Special and 2 Defense...the Defense mostly so it didn't die to Gyarados Hyper Beam) and then it just OHKOed everything but Gyarados and Charizard.
- Raticate does fade in comparison to others, but not enough to warrant it in a lower tier imo.
 
Dialga and palkia needs a mention for the DP list. They just blast the sunnyshore gym and e4 to pieces once you get them.
 
While they are good, most people try to get competitive once-only legends so unless you EV train them right afterwards, you're better off saving them.
 
I am bumping this because I loved this thread (go figure), and I'd love to see it continued. I also made a FRLG one that doesn't seem to get a lot of attention, probably because it's in Ever Grande.
 
As long as we're still going I want to bump Cranidos up to "Good."

You can get a Skull Fossil as soon as Eterna City, and when you Ressurect Cranidos it comes in at L20 with Headbutt and Pursuit. It might need Rock Slide to really destroy everything, but there isn't really a better candidate for RS. Golem and friends get progressively better Rock moves as you level them up.

You also have an extreme amount of control over Cranidos' stats due to soft-reset. At Level 20 its much easier to tell IVs too. Getting a Lonely, Adamant, or Naughty Cranidos isn't that hard (or alternatively a Hasty, Jolly, or Naive one.)

There's also the stats. Cranidos has 125 Base Attack. This is higher than everything else available ingame except Garchomp (and of course, Rampardos).

In other words, Cranidos comes ready to destroy out of the box, and requires 1 TM that isn't particularly powerful on anything else that might want it. It loses some points because it can't be used on the first gym (and is fodder for the second), but it can help immensely in the rest of the Gyms. Obamasnow? eat Rock Slide! You can get Cranidos pretty much at the same time you get Drifloon, so they should be in the same tier.
 
Didnt really like Starly ingame. Intimidate just took too much time even without the animation.

Still remember playing GSC on a computer emulator when you could speed up the game by holding space. Completed it in 1 day. Feraligator and Amphrados with Surf/IcePunch on Fera and Thunderbolt on Amphy easily cleared the whole game.

And another thing to note if you really want to speed clear the game, catching fast exp growth rates pokemon helps alot. Some pokemon can requires 1.5-2 times more exp than others to lvl up if im not correct.
 
Buizel-Floatzel is an amazing pokémon in-game. You get it early, it has great physical stats, and is the perfect candidate for the Waterfall HM. It can also learn very useful moves, like Crunch, Brick Break, and Ice Fang.
 
Gyarados is OU for every game. He is probably your first full evolved pokemon, and most of the time you can catch him as soon as you get a rod (whether you want to catch him as a gyarados or have the patience to deal with magikarp).

Anyway, I blitzed Diamond with Infernape, Gyarados, and Luxray. Gyarados probably took out 75% of the E4 by himself. Infernape hit hard with Flamethrower and Close Combat. Gyarados ran through Cynthia, and Luxray dealth with anything that needed a T-bolt or cruch.
 
Mekkah, given that you rank Matthew as top tier in FE7, I'm surprised to see that you initially ranked Tentacool so low. In GSC, your only other alternative for Waterfall is Gyarados (unless you want to use Goldeen or something), and I doubt you want to waste a moveslot teaching it that. Also keep in mind that before you get Gyarados, you need a Surfer to get to Gyarados. I don't know what else you'd use for the task if you didn't start with Totodile, unless you picked up a Miltank or something. Tentacool is available as soon as you get an old rod (which is right after the first gym in GSC) and is covering four HMs (three of which are awful moves that you definitely don't want to have taking up a moveslot on one of your combat Pokemon). It's pretty much a staple and definitely top tier material.


Yellow probably has the easiest to construct tier list. It ought to look something like this:

Top tier:
Nidoran (M)

High tier:
HM slaves

Low tier:
Pikachu

Bottom tier: everything else

This tier list is intended to be conclusive and leave little room for argument. Pikachu's placement is probably the only part that's even remotely debatable.

Pikachu gets high tier status because he's the best thing that you have until Nidoran reaches level 8 and learns Horn Attack. He's like Jeigan, except he becomes obsolete more quickly, which is why he's ranked as high as he is. After learning Horn Attack, Nidoran will clear the rest of Viridian forest. Nidoran learns Double Kick at level 12, and since Brock in Yellow is two levels lower than in RB, Nidoran should tear right through him. With Horn Attack and Double Kick, Nidoran should have no trouble making it to Mount Moon. Near the entrance to Mount Moon, you can pick up the Water Gun TM, allowing Nidoran to easily kill Geodudes and such until you hit level 16, when you can use a Moon Stone to evolve into Nidoking. Having a Nidoking before you're even halfway through Mount Moon makes the first half of the game a piece of cake, and Nidoking's movepool is versatile enough to make the second half as easy. Nidoking can easily make use of all kinds of excellent TMs like Bubblebeam, Dig, Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, Rock Slide, and Earthquake as the situation calls for them. Also keep in mind that Nidoking has a parabolic growth rate, and parabolic growth rates are the fastest for in-game purposes. Technically, Pokemon with a "fast" growth rate will reach level 100 first, but until level 70 or so it's better to have a parabolic growth rate. Nidoking, however, probably will be around level 70 by the time you reach the Elite Four, and from there you've got your choice of Thunderbolt, Fire Blast, Ice Beam, Surf, and Earthquake to take you through. Or, since this is in-game, try using Fissure and Horn Drill with X-accuracy. You'd be hard-pressed to find any circumstance in Yellow where Nidoking would not be the ideal Pokemon to use. Snorlax could conceivably be more useful in late-game due to STAB Body Slam and Hyper Beam and higher attack, but Snorlax has the slowest growth rate while Nidoking has the highest (for in-game purposes), and Nidoking doesn't have crap stats for special and speed.
 
Mekkah, given that you rank Matthew as top tier in FE7, I'm surprised to see that you initially ranked Tentacool so low. In GSC, your only other alternative for Waterfall is Gyarados (unless you want to use Goldeen or something), and I doubt you want to waste a moveslot teaching it that. Also keep in mind that before you get Gyarados, you need a Surfer to get to Gyarados. I don't know what else you'd use for the task if you didn't start with Totodile, unless you picked up a Miltank or something. Tentacool is available as soon as you get an old rod (which is right after the first gym in GSC) and is covering four HMs (three of which are awful moves that you definitely don't want to have taking up a moveslot on one of your combat Pokemon). It's pretty much a staple and definitely top tier material.
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I never really considered it like that because I do always put Waterfall on my Gyarados (I don't always incorporate him in my team, even though he's good). Or there's a random Dratini from Dragon's Den, or indeed a Goldeen from the Falls. G/S Tentacool isn't remotely close to FE7 Matthew. You need Waterfall like once, and when you do, there's plenty of options.

For Surf, there's Krabby encountered by Rock Smashing stuff as well as Tauros (mention the cow, mention the bull), and Krabby actually learns Cut and Whirlpool as well, so more points for him.

You seem to be under the impression that you are using one Pokemon for 99% of the game. This is not the case. You're using some kind of team that, while usually reasonably overleveled over most opponents, is not a L70 Pokemon by Elite Four that crushed everything in sight. Nidoking is still a monster in that design though.

I mean, by your logic, NidoranF deserves almost the same placement. Its stats are only slightly different, not enough to warrant being Bottom tier for sure. "NidoranM is simply superior" does not suffice.

For HM slaves being High tier simply for being so: no, I don't think so. They are usually not something unique, HMs are mostly there to give :some: kind of utility to crappy Pokemon. The utility of it is, in most cases, pretty much not possible to circumvent, and if it is it is very inconvenient, but all of them share it with a truckload of others. So like, the utility is 100% required, but there's 50 Pokemon available for doing the job, so it's more like 2% for each that can do it, assuming equal value for each.

There's problems with that approach, but in general I think it makes a fine demonstration of why HMs are there.

That said, even if your Yellow tier list held true, Pikachu isn't even required to train NidoranM. He can just run from every battle. Of course, without Pikachu you don't have a Pokemon, but that is kinda like "without Eliwood/Hector you would have Game Over".
 
God I hated my empoleon. Completely failed against the E4 infernape, and didnt beat garchomp b/c of earthquake.


In FR, I was able to beat the E4 incredibly underleveled with noth8ing but:

Venusaur
-Leech Seed
-Poison powder


and

Dewgong
-rest
-aurora beam
-surf

dewgong can TANK special hits, so I would switch him out when I needed to heal venusaur, and he really helped me against the last charizard who was like 20 levels higher than me. Leech seed also healed him, while poison continued to kill, and venus can tank decently too

I really think dewgong should be high tier, Special tank, Surf, learns aurora beam, is seafoam before blaine?
 
Heath sucks. Underleveled, and all the next chapters hate him.

"Special tank"? What? Lots of shit can "Special tank" given that most opponents won't even touch you since you OHKO them with higher Spd, and then usually you're not taking dangerous hits to your HP either. Dewgong comes way too late to be Top Tier for anything even if he was as good as Snorlax.
 
Mekkah said:
You seem to be under the impression that you are using one Pokemon for 99% of the game. This is not the case. You're using some kind of team that, while usually reasonably overleveled over most opponents, is not a L70 Pokemon by Elite Four that crushed everything in sight.
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I'm pretty sure that nearly every Pokemon playthrough that I've done since 1998 has focused almost exclusively on the starter. You get faster completion times that way. And since the only objective is to beat the game (there are no "ranks" that the game assigns), pretty much the only difference between different playthrough strategies is the amount of time they require you to invest. It has been empirically proven that sticking with one Pokemon throughout the game is the best strategy for fast completion, and if you'd like to prove otherwise you're welcome to try. Employing a level 50 Zapdos or Toxic Lapras doesn't count as diverging from this strategy.
 
More love for Craindos/Ramprados in Diamond (and Pearl if someone sends you the fossil), as long as you're willing to spend TMs:

- It's a good candidate for the ingame Earthquake TM, as it actually comes in earlier than Rock Slide - especially for Turtwig starters.

With Mold Breaker, all the Bronzor that the Galactic grunts throw at you go down to Earthquakes off base 160 Attack - and it likely kills the stupid Munchlax your rival is using in the double battle and gets his Staraptor out. The whole Galactic scenario at Spear Pillar pretty much dies to a good Rock attacker.

- Another great time to use Mold Breaker: The Ghost gym. All the levitating Ghosts can eat 80 power attacks off the aforementioned 160 base Attack with their low defenses. (Only problem is the attack is Dig...)

- Craindos levels slowly, but in my experience Ramprados grows faster than anyone (starting at about L35).
 
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