Pokémon BW2 In-game Tier List Mark II [See Post #840]

[TM13IceBeam]

Ok, well, having just finished the game with my own Lucario, I have some issues with your thought process.

Granted, I went a MUCH different route than most with Luke, but I found him rather useful from start to finish. In fact, he was my MVP.

My Experiences with Luke:
1). Had a Lv10 Lucario before Cheren. The Quick attack spam was easy to handle as I disliked Counter. Yes, I ran for what felt like hours before Riolu was happy with me, but he was better than most of my other options.

2). I grinded in the Battlle Subway multi train to get 12BP. It was very easy as my partner had mons that outclasses most of the foe's mons. In about an hour, I had enough BP to but Brick Break.

3). I've found Special Luke to be not very good, in my honest opinion.


Disclaimer: I am not here to insult or fight because I can see that your expieriences and mine are opposites, but I just wanted to post my thoughts compared to yours in order to achieve a differnet perspective.

i know about the happiness evolution

i think i did remember saying sometime back a few months ago that Lucario had game-breaking potential because technically speaking you can get it as soon as L6, which utterly steamrolls earlygame because of ridiculously high offense, speed, bulk, etc.

brick break is useful as a stab but you can't use subway as an argument unfortunately. it's pretty annoying considering there are some pokemon who could make pretty decent use of BB early on (things like Electabuzz, Pignite and Darumaka), it just so happens that luke is one of the biggest benefactors of it. :/

@Brood: while in the past i'd probably agree with high volca, these days i'm leaning towards mid instead. signal beam is stupidly strong but it can't kill everything, that's not including just how many god damn types resist bug (six types urgh). this impression is somewhat skewed from using darm since darm's flare blitz is essentially disguised as the 'instantly win your opponent' button.

@cant say: how did you miss cobalion it's right on the way to lacunosa, all you need is to just detour back into his clearing o.O aside from that, cobalion is pretty good imo, he sees immediate use against drayden as a good physical tank and you can immediately dump work up (and maybe volt switch for lulz) onto him.

 

[Brood_Star]

In fact my Magmortar was the better of my two fire types since at least I had more bulk and could hit from both ends of the spectrum. One thing Volcarona does have going for him is he's probably the best postgame cleaner, but that's not really relevant to the tier list.

One argument for the Subway is that's it's not mindless grinding since you'll probably end up playing it at one point or another anyways and it's somewhat fun and challenging. Unfortunately, since you're so gimped (~lv30 and really Lucario is one of the only fully evolveds at that time, maybe Excadrill and Conkel) you have to rely completely on your partner's random Pokemon, but if he gets something like Excadrill or Haxorus for the last round you can easily breeze through it. I imagine Force Palm + Return coverage isn't that much worse anyways.

 

[diamondfan1910]

I've found that one of the absolute fastest ways to earn BP is PWT's Rental Rotation battles. You have to win 3 battles in a row, and you get 2 BP for doing so. That's twice as good as 1 BP for winning a Driftveil Tournament, and better than Subway's 3BP for 7 battles. Yes, Subway gives you 10BP if you beat the Subway Masters, but 21 consecutive wins is a pretty tall order if your team is full of NFEs. PWT Rental is different from the battle factory in that you don't get a win streak, so you can just keep re-entering the tournament until you get good Pokemon in your lineup (if you get Bouffalant, it's harder to lose than win). If you do lose the tournament, it's only three battles and you get a shard, whereas losing on the 6th or 7th Subway battle is devastating. The key to this tournament's brilliance is that the AI can't handle rotation battles at all; it makes ridiculous predictions and tends to just favour bringing in things with high health, meaning you can sit there spamming your most powerful attack and walk away with a victory about 75% of the time just from doing that (obviously with smart play that percentage goes up). Hand on heart, it took me less than an hour to get Brick Break. Just something to bear in mind.

In regard to shards, I don't think needing 10 or 12 shards for a move should be considered high shard cost. Not only do you find them everywhere like in Platinum, they're just SO easy to get with dust clouds. Invest in some Super Repels (the most cost effective repel) and ride the bike up and down that long upside down L-shaped strip in Relic Passage. You'll run into the odd Drilbur, but it takes no time at all to accumulate a lot of shards. Compare this to Platinum where you had to faff around in the underground for God knows how long. So yeah, whilst it's still a disadvantage I don't think needing move tutor moves is as anywhere near as debilitating as other gens.

 

[Rajaion]

Mienfoo might be good to review, it's a little frail but it is fast fighting type, has Regenerator plus U-turn and Fake Out, and gets STAB drain punch (through level up) to compensate. It evolves a little late but can easily grind Audino and once evolved has the highest speed of all fighting types other than the Muskateers and Conkeldurr and Terrakion are the only Fighting Types with higher Attack (Though Heracross and Sawk tie with it). Its usable movepool is pretty much limited Drain Punch, (Hi) Jump Kick, Fake Out, U-turn, Aerial Ace, Acrobatics, Bounce, Dig, Rock Slide, and Dual Chop and it comes later than every fighting type but the Muskateers, Sawk, and Throh. I'd say it will probably be Mid to High due to late evolution and coming later than most Fighting types while still being very powerful.

 

[R_N]

I've found that one of the absolute fastest ways to earn BP is PWT's Rental Rotation battles. Y

Nooooooooo way. The starting Rental battles are absolute trash. Even if you keep backing out of the selection of Pokemon until you get anything good, you're still dealing with maybe 3 good things and up to three maybe mediocre at best things.
I spent hours trying to beat Rentals at all, switching between Singles then Rotations then finally Triples. The computer's rentals, while not necessarily ALWAYS better than me, had a pretty high frequency of gettings things that trumped mine. If they get something like Bouffalant or a Stoutland you may as well just reset because they have so much power and bulk behind them that they just keep hold of momentum.
And god forbid you fall into a Trick Room trap....

you are right, however, that the AI isn't really set up to handle Rotations for the most part (except with Trick Room apparently!). The same also goes for Triple Battles (where at least you can nab all your options and use the weaker trash as fodder to bring in others safely or sabotage the other team), but they're smart enough to use flying type moves to hit across the area.

Really the possibly quicker way is to just do Triples Driftveil. You also get 2 BP here and you're pretty likely to be able to handle whatever it throws at you (depending on your team, point in the game, blah blah). And at least all teams will be consistent

 

[diamondfan1910]

Triples must suit you better than me then, I find them incredibly tedious and I'm often unlucky with the placement of my/the AI's mons. Plus I think using a full team of 6 is a bit over the top. Rotation just seems more straightforward and I find them quicker/easier to win. Have you tried Rotation Driftveil? I've only had the Trick Room thing happen once, the worst thing about rentals is probably that Double Teaming Amoonguss... I know what you mean about the computer's rentals though, they do seem to be of higher quality, but you can just keep resetting for a bulky Normal and power your way through. Thing is there's only like 4 actually good mons anyway (Bouffalant, Amoonguss, Crustle, maaaaaaybe SD Leavanny or special Galvantula but the AI won't use them properly) and they often waste them with stupid rotations.

For me rentals has an extra perk in that I was Nuzlocking, so using my own pokes in PWT outside the mandatory Driftveil is a huge no-no. I can see why you'd prefer Triples though which is great, because PWT gives you a few ways to get 2BP out of 3 battles - it's wonderfully un-time-consuming.

 

[Raikaria]

Just popping in to say I'm giving the Mandibuzz a run and so far it's not doing that badly. Snarl until Lentimas is gonna be a pain by the time I get to Skyla, however, I imagine, but as it stands now, nothing can stop Mandibuzz sticking on a Nasty Plot and going to town.

I imagine an endgame set of NP/Roost/Dark Pulse/Air Slash would be very useful at dealing with specially based foes [Weak Armor means you can't stall out contact-based physicals]

On note of stupidly tanky things, Leftovers Umbreon at Gym 3. DOES. NOT. DIE.

 

[TM13IceBeam]

Mienfoo might be good to review, it's a little frail but it is fast fighting type, has Regenerator plus U-turn and Fake Out, and gets STAB drain punch (through level up) to compensate. It evolves a little late but can easily grind Audino and once evolved has the highest speed of all fighting types other than the Muskateers and Conkeldurr and Terrakion are the only Fighting Types with higher Attack (Though Heracross and Sawk tie with it). Its usable movepool is pretty much limited Drain Punch, (Hi) Jump Kick, Fake Out, U-turn, Aerial Ace, Acrobatics, Bounce, Dig, Rock Slide, and Dual Chop and it comes later than every fighting type but the Muskateers, Sawk, and Throh. I'd say it will probably be Mid to High due to late evolution and coming later than most Fighting types while still being very powerful.

mienshao is actually pretty decent endgame filler and is probably one of the best filler pokemon on route 23 if you're still lacking pokemon for some reason, or you need to replace something that is just unsuitable for the E4. drain punch and regen u-turn means that it isn't exactly too frail, and if you play your cards right you can even learn HJK while in the middle of the E4 (level 56).

repel abuse is unreliable (there are over 20 items that can result from a dust cloud), so you're basically banking on less than 20% chance for a shard that may not even be the right color.

 

[Raikaria]

mienshao is actually pretty decent endgame filler and is probably one of the best filler pokemon on route 23 if you're still lacking pokemon for some reason, or you need to replace something that is just unsuitable for the E4. drain punch and regen u-turn means that it isn't exactly too frail, and if you play your cards right you can even learn HJK while in the middle of the E4 (level 56).

repel abuse is unreliable (there are over 20 items that can result from a dust cloud), so you're basically banking on less than 20% chance for a shard that may not even be the right color.

On the topic of Mienshao it's also one of the best answers for Hydregion in the game.

And you kiiiinda need an answer to that thing.

 

[Volmise]

I decided to use a Deerling in my run. If you snag one before 32, it'll need a tiny bit of babying until it gets Energy Ball, but combine that with Return and Jump Kick, and you have a really decent Pokémon on your team.

Horn Leech and using the Wild Charge TM later on kept it performing amazingly well throughout the later gyms and even post-game as well.

 

[TM13IceBeam]

I decided to use a Deerling in my run. If you snag one before 32, it'll need a tiny bit of babying until it gets Energy Ball, but combine that with Return and Jump Kick, and you have a really decent Pokémon on your team.

Horn Leech and using the Wild Charge TM later on kept it performing amazingly well throughout the later gyms and even post-game as well.

actually deerling can get seed bomb immediately from the move tutor and smash driftveil gym

@raik: fun story: my darmanitan survived hydreigon's surf while being 5 levels lower. granted, it had a sassy nature, but still i was somewhat shocked to see that it survived.

 

[Volmise]

actually deerling can get seed bomb immediately from the move tutor and smash driftveil gym

Had completely forgotten about the Tutor. Well then, Deerling is literally a 'catch it and wreck stuff' Pokémon.

 

[Stellar]

repel abuse is unreliable (there are over 20 items that can result from a dust cloud), so you're basically banking on less than 20% chance for a shard that may not even be the right color.

Certain caves such as Reverse Mountain/Relic Passage only spawn Pokemon/Shards. Other caves like Seaside Cave/Wellspring Cave/Relic Passage [Castelia side] spawn Pokemon/Gems/stones/etc.

 

[Brood_Star]

Shard grinding still is somewhat of a grind though. You get 10 free red shards and that's the biggest tutor, and the next one's rather useless but I had about ~5 shards in every color by the time I hit Humilau and it took about 20 minutes to farm another 5. If only you could choose what color shard you want you could do it in a few minutes

 

[Lucario_Guy]

Shard grinding still is somewhat of a grind though. You get 10 free red shards and that's the biggest tutor, and the next one's rather useless but I had about ~5 shards in every color by the time I hit Humilau and it took about 20 minutes to farm another 5. If only you could choose what color shard you want you could do it in a few minutes

It's no worse than Audino grinding, imo.

 

[JockeMS]

Ok, so I've taken the time to make a second preliminary tier list. Remember that this is still far from the finalized thing. The premise is the same as last time.

This is how things look now:

Top Tier

Darumaka

Drilbur

Magnemite

Minccino

Scraggy

Limbo 1

...

High Tier

Axew

Eevee - Espeon

Elekid

Frillish

Heracross [Black 2]

Eevee - Jolteon

Oshawott

Piloswine

Riolu

Roselia

Sandile

Sigilyph

Staryu

Zorua

Limbo 2

Litwick

Tepig

Eevee - Vaporeon

Middle Tier

Aron

Azurill

Buizel

Deerling

Ducklett

Dwebble

Gigalith

Growlithe

Joltik

Koffing

Magby [Black 2]

Mareep

Metang

Sewaddle

Snivy

Solrock

Tangela

Timburr

Trapinch

Venipede

Volcarona

Zubat

Limbo 3

Drifblim

Psyduck

Sandshrew

Low Tier

Elgyem

Golurk

Gothita

Lapras

Patrat

Roggenrola

Skorupi

Sunkern

Tynamo

Limbo 4

...

Bottom Tier

Dunsparce

Purrloin

Here's a list of the tier changes:

Hide

Litwick up to Limbo 2 from Middle Tier
Eevee - Vaporeon up to Limbo 2 from Middle Tier
Aron up to Middle Tier from Limbo 3
Magby down to Middle Tier from Limbo 2

And here's a list of all new additions:

Hide

Minccino to Top Tier
Axew to High Tier
Eevee - Espeon to High Tier
Elekid to High Tier
Frillish to High Tier
Eevee - Jolteon to High Tier
Deerling to Middle Tier
Gigalith to Middle Tier
Sewaddle to Middle Tier
Solrock to Middle Tier
Timburr to Middle Tier
Volcarona to Middle Tier
Golurk to Low Tier
Lapras to Low Tier
Patrat to Low Tier
Sunkern to Low Tier
Dunsparce to Bottom Tier

Not much movement, but a few additions. This time I'll add all Pokémon with a sufficient ammount of "votes" for one tier to the OP.

That's it from me this time, keep the discussion flowing guys.

 

[Arcanite]

Yeah, Minccino @ Skill link is deinitely top tier. Can catch before Elesa, and evolve before Clay. Tutor Bullet Seed/Rock Blast, and get tail slap by level, and destroy stuff. EXP gain is really easy, even after evolution, it leveled quicker than growlithe. It's also brutally fast.

 

[The Cicada]

y isnt seviper tiered, or even in limbo? off paper, seviper sounds like a mixed powerhouse

 

[JockeMS]

y isnt seviper tiered, or even in limbo? off paper, seviper sounds like a mixed powerhouse

The only reason Seviper isn't tiered yet is because no one has posted about it, saying what tier he or she thinks it should be in. When someone does, I'll add it.

There are several other Pokémon missing as well (there are almost 300 Pokémon to tier), but they will be added after time. No worries. :)

 

[The Cicada]

mm kay, im bout to start a playthrough and use it

 

[Zandock]

Is there a list of what hasn't been tiered yet? About to start a playthrough and might as well try to use one or two of them.

 

[Rajaion]

Vanillish: Bottom Tier
Availability: Giant Chasm aka very late but at least it's about to evolve when you find them.
Stats: Other than HP its defenses are better than Lapras and Vaporean, and it has the Highest Special Attack of all available Ice types as well as a usable attack stat. While it is slow surely those other stats can compensate.
Typing: Ice Type is a very bad choice defensively, ruining those decent defenses especially given the opposition at that point in the game. But at least Ice is an excellent type offensively, or it would be if all the Ice weak gyms hadn't been taken care of.
Movepool: Ice Beam and Signal Beam. Okay it does learn some other attacks but the only things worth considering are its other Ice attacks, Mirror Shot, Hyper Beam, and Toxic.
Major Battles:
Colress: If you have Signal Beam then it can handle Beheeyem, but it isn't the best choice, and Steel Types wall anything but Weather Ball and Hidden Power that it can learn.
Ghetsis: Maybe it could handle Drapion or Cofagrigus, but it will need support to be at all successful.
Hugh: Unfezent and Serperior are managable, and if you're feeling lucky Simisage too. If you chose Snivy he won't have a grass type.
Shauntal: Drifblim and if you can OHKO it Golurk.
Grimsley: Liepard is the only one you can safely challenge, but you can also KO Krookodile, but not without getting hurt.
Caitlin: With Signal Beam you can probably do pretty well against Caitlin but other than Sigilyph don't expect any OHKOs, and Reuniclus will probably be very troublesome.
Marshall: Don't even think about it.
Iris: Everyone except Haxorus and Druddigon either walls you or will outspeed you with a super effective attack. Even those two hit hard enough to be risky.
Additional Comments: Not only do you get Vanillish right after the part of the game where Ice types are useful, but Lapras, Starmie, and Vaporeon all outclass you with their significantly larger movepools and earlier availability.

 

[Xphieldz]

I feel like most of the comments on Trapinch seemed more negative than Mid Tier. I didn't use it in game, but based on theorymon, it belongs in Low Tier. Trapinch evolves late (comparable to final starter evos) and has awful stats, excluding Attack. The Vibrava stage isn't much better, with worse attack and no standout attacks. Flygon has usable stats, but relying on weak dragon moves and Earth Power isn't great considering the work you have to put into getting the Flygon in the first place.

I completely support the tiering of the Pokemon I used (Oshawott, Magnemite, Magby, Riolu, and Axew)

 

[Nomark]

I played with a team of azumarill, lucario, magnezone, darmanitan, zoroark, and cininno. I would rank all of them from high to top. Azumarill gets early-game aquatail; lucario is strong and WRECKS LATE-GAME with SD; magnezone is as magnezone does; darmanitan causes stuff to explode, zoroark was useful with its speed that let me beat +1 haxorus vs. drayden; cincinno is awesomely strong. My team was very weak to fighting, but even marshall was still easy (on normal mode).

 

[Katakiri]

Snivy - Mid Tier

Availability: Starter
Stats: Great Speed (Outspeeds anything you need to), Respectable Defenses, but low Offenses. Considering the move Coil, I like this stat distribution because he can boost his Atk and Def (and Acc) before the opponent attempts a physical move. Brace for impact, then swing right back. Plus, his speed means he can revenge kill.
Typing: Just grass. It comes with a few bad weaknesses (notably fire and flying) but it helps for neutral coverage. Also the home of Leech Seed and Giga Drain.
Movepool: Not huge, but enough. For a physical set, he has Coil (Great boosting move) and two strong, useful moves Leaf Blade and Return, that offer for great coverage. As for the last moveslot, He can opt for Leech Seed, Giga Drain, Dragon Tail, or Aqua Tail. Leech Seed helps ALOT early game and any of the rest can help late game. With Giga Drain, he can set up against the water type gym and gain hp back with giga drain.
Major Battles: He never really shines in any gym besides the water gym, but he can still put a good fight in a majority of the gyms (except maybe Flying). In earlier gyms, he tanked through a couple pokemon with leech seed (and other pokemon's help of course); and later gyms we went offensive.
Additional Comments: Not many people like serperior because he lacks raw power. I nominated Serperior for Medium because he became tedius to use late-game. He was always lagging behind and I chose to level him for the sake of leveling. Regardless, if you're willing to set up with coil each time, he can level pretty fast.

I had a completely different experience than you on my own challenge mode run and I see exactly why. I used a Special Serperior while you used a Physical or Mixed one.

Snivy - High Tier
Availability: Starter
Stats: One of the fastest families in the Dex with great bulk for something so fast. Attacking stats are average but balanced, allowing it to go mixed.
Typing: Grass. Common typing in Unova but only about 4 or 5 Pokemon families are particularly usable.
Movepool: Fairly Level-up average for a Grass-type; Giga Drain, Leaf Blade, Leech Seed, Wring Out (121 Base Power Special), and Growth giving it the earliest (Sp)Attack-boosting move out of the starters. Coil can replace Growth late-game giving Serperior more longevity in exchange for the SpA boost but special sets should stay away from it. What makes Snivy's family high-tier is it's tutor move Dragon Pulse, for the cost of 10 Blue Shards.
Major Battles: Great against Clay and fair against Elesa since even her SE attacks are low base power. Later on, if you take the time to get Dragon Pulse, Serperior becomes the best late-game starter Pokemon. You get a Draco Plate in Undella Bay so make sure to use that against Drayden so Beard-jaw will go down without a fight to Serperior's speed and a boosted Dragon Pulse. Serperior naturally destroys Marlon and its bulk lets it shrug off Ice Beams and Air Slashes if you're properly leveled, healing itself with Giga Drain. Kyurem is downed by 2 Dragon Pulses, Ghetsis doesn't appreciate the Dragon-Grass coverage combined with Leech Seed taking out 3 of his team members, Serperior doesn't have a major weakness against the Elite 4, and Iris just gets swept if Serperior gets a turn to set up with a Growth or an X Special.
Additional Comments: You will need to pump some SpA EVs via Calcium into Serperior to get the most out of it, specifically OHKOs on Drayden's Pokemon, but Serperior is quite the rival to Roserade for that Grass-type slot. Dragon Pulse completely changed how useful Serperior is especially in Challenge Mode where Fire Fang/Blast & X-Scissor are common on Dragons, making Dragon Tail a subpar option for dealing with them. As far as natures go, stick with Modest, you're still faster than almost every Gym Leader's Pokemon as a Serperior.

Barring Lucario, whom I believe is tiered correctly, the rest of my team was from Dream Radar and a Tepig via GTS trade, which I also agree with the placement of, so I don't have much else to say.