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Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald In-Game Tier List Discussion
- Thread starter Merritt
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I don't remember exactly, but I'm about 80% sure I was 45 across the board when I faced the first of the e4 members.
Fireburn see, in your own post you described some of the reasons I felt emerald Torchic should drop to A. Needing X items and potions to contribute to some important battles is not something I'd expect from an S Rank Pokemon. Additionally, being completely useless against 40% of the Elite 5 (and struggling against EQ Dusclops and Walrein) is a pretty big deal. S Rank, to me, should be reserved for the rare few Pokemon that can handle every trainer in the game with almost no exceptions. Almost half the e5 is too many exceptions for my taste. As I stated in my post, I believe it is more than worthy of A Rank, which is still great.
Fireburn see, in your own post you described some of the reasons I felt emerald Torchic should drop to A. Needing X items and potions to contribute to some important battles is not something I'd expect from an S Rank Pokemon. Additionally, being completely useless against 40% of the Elite 5 (and struggling against EQ Dusclops and Walrein) is a pretty big deal. S Rank, to me, should be reserved for the rare few Pokemon that can handle every trainer in the game with almost no exceptions. Almost half the e5 is too many exceptions for my taste. As I stated in my post, I believe it is more than worthy of A Rank, which is still great.
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For the purpose of this post, I think I can reasonably assume that WaterBomb got Torchic and Ralts at level 5, Oddish and Electrike at level 13, and Staryu at level 30. Torchic and Oddish grow medium slowly, and the other three grow slowly. Based on this information,
Torchic was given around 83200 experience.
Ralts was given around 112940 experience.
Oddish was given around 82074 experience.
Electrike was given around 110350 experience.
Staryu was given around 79346 experience.
If WaterBomb's party was around level 35 when he/she/it caught Staryu, then while WaterBomb had Staryu, Torchic and Oddish gained about 46900 experience, and Ralts and Electrike gained about 60313 experience. This means Torchic and Oddish were given about 3/4 of the experience that Ralts and Electrike got. Additionally, while WaterBomb had Staryu, the medium slow Pokemon got only 3/5 of the experience that Staryu got. I wouldn't call it a fair test when the Pokemon were given such different amounts of investment.
Ok, I'll try to explain parts of this beyond the intuitive usual play that a lot of people do when going for a balanced team - namely that there's a urge for a lot of people to lead with the lower leveled member of the party on routes so that they "catch up" to the rest of the team. This hopefully helps explain why Staryu got a lot of experience after it joined - in an effort to have it not fall behind the rest of the team and because it was useful it ended up leading and getting a lot of the exp.
So let's look at what's left of the game after Staryu joins between then and the E4. This is right before Tate&Liza, so there's Tate&Liza, Magma@Space Center, the multitude of sea routes and trainers, Seafloor Cavern, Juan, and the Victory Road trainers. Of those, Victory Road and arguably Team Aqua underwater is a good matchup overall for Blaziken, so I can't really say I blame Torchic not getting much exp. Something else of note is that a lot of what's around at that point is weak to electric or water, which is perfect for the Thunderbolt carrying Manectric, Gardevoir, and Staryu/mie. Vileplume, while it does have a good matchup against water, is kind of slow and so not ideal vs a lot of route trainers, so it probably ended up in the back and used for favorable matchups much like Blaziken.
I doubt that WaterBomb went out of his way to favor Pokemon specifically in order to make a flawed nomination post, and his nominations don't reflect that anyways - while he did nominate Torchic down he certainly didn't do the same for Oddish, and despite giving Electrike 'more' investment he still felt that it should go down and Ralts shouldn't.
I appreciate your concern for making sure that nominations are done well, but in this case I don't think it's needed.
In general, when a slow-growing Pokemon takes the experience that could have gone to its teammates, shouldn't it count against the slow-growing Pokemon? And vice versa, when a fast-growing Pokemon can become overleveled just using its fair share of experience, should it count toward the fast-growing Pokemon?
Also, the two growth rate groups would have ended up about 4 levels apart if WaterBomb distributed the experience more evenly. This might not have been a significant factor in this specific playthrough, but it might affect the assessment and tiering of some other Pokemon in later runs.
I don't really get this part. If Seafloor Cavern and Victory Road had mostly stuff that Blaziken can sweep, then why didn't Blaziken gain some extra experience from these two areas?
Also, the two growth rate groups would have ended up about 4 levels apart if WaterBomb distributed the experience more evenly. This might not have been a significant factor in this specific playthrough, but it might affect the assessment and tiering of some other Pokemon in later runs.
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Having just used one in an Emerald playthrough, Magneton has absolutely zero business being in D and how it got there in the first place I can scarcely imagine.
Let's get the elephant or two in the room out of the way first. Yes, it requires a detour to get. And yes, outside of Thunderbolt it has basically no movepool. As much as I can teach it Facade for some semblance of coverage or argue for the merits of Thunder Wave, these are absolutely true.
The first is a complete non-issue. From the moment I stepped into New Mauville to the moment I got back to Wattson, 2 minutes had elapsed. Granted I got lucky finding one at the highest level, but Magnemite/Magneton is a 50% encounter between levels 22 and 26. If we're seriously considering that a 'detour' so time-consuming as to be considered a flaw in an efficient casual playthrough, I really think we need to re-evaluate our standards. This is not worth any serious consideration at all imo; this is for stuff like 4% ralts or Meteor Falls Dragon Claw TM.
As for movepool issues... this is true to an extent. But here's a funny little thing I found out about Magneton while using it: Thunderbolt (as well as Spark to save PP on route trainers and Thunder Wave for certain opponents like Juan's Kingdra) is all it needs.
Post-Norman, a strong STAB Thunderbolt is utterly fantastic. It has so many good matchups (Winona, Juan, Team Aqua, basically every water route trainer, Glacia) and is hugely useful against neutral opponents (Sidney, Phoebe). This is helped heavily by the fact that Magnemite comes at a fairly decent level and with Thunderbolt; requiring essentially no babying and is able to get going very quickly against, say, the bug/flying types that plague the beginning of uhhhh I forget the route number; the one with the weather institute. You'll find the power middling for a wee bit but as soon as it evolved into Magneton it decimates anything it doesn't have a bad matchup against; surviving so much shit thanks to its great resistance pool.
The only things pre-elite 4 I found it had huge problem with were Winona's Altaria and Tate/Liza's Claydol but, like, two opponents in all of Hoenn it's bad against? That's a pretty damn good deal. And from there it's useful in basically every fight but Drake.
tl;dr -- really powerful pokemon with lots of good matchups that requires nigh-zero investment to be incredible despite some obvious flaws against it. B at worst. Probably the best electric in hoenn
Let's get the elephant or two in the room out of the way first. Yes, it requires a detour to get. And yes, outside of Thunderbolt it has basically no movepool. As much as I can teach it Facade for some semblance of coverage or argue for the merits of Thunder Wave, these are absolutely true.
The first is a complete non-issue. From the moment I stepped into New Mauville to the moment I got back to Wattson, 2 minutes had elapsed. Granted I got lucky finding one at the highest level, but Magnemite/Magneton is a 50% encounter between levels 22 and 26. If we're seriously considering that a 'detour' so time-consuming as to be considered a flaw in an efficient casual playthrough, I really think we need to re-evaluate our standards. This is not worth any serious consideration at all imo; this is for stuff like 4% ralts or Meteor Falls Dragon Claw TM.
As for movepool issues... this is true to an extent. But here's a funny little thing I found out about Magneton while using it: Thunderbolt (as well as Spark to save PP on route trainers and Thunder Wave for certain opponents like Juan's Kingdra) is all it needs.
Post-Norman, a strong STAB Thunderbolt is utterly fantastic. It has so many good matchups (Winona, Juan, Team Aqua, basically every water route trainer, Glacia) and is hugely useful against neutral opponents (Sidney, Phoebe). This is helped heavily by the fact that Magnemite comes at a fairly decent level and with Thunderbolt; requiring essentially no babying and is able to get going very quickly against, say, the bug/flying types that plague the beginning of uhhhh I forget the route number; the one with the weather institute. You'll find the power middling for a wee bit but as soon as it evolved into Magneton it decimates anything it doesn't have a bad matchup against; surviving so much shit thanks to its great resistance pool.
The only things pre-elite 4 I found it had huge problem with were Winona's Altaria and Tate/Liza's Claydol but, like, two opponents in all of Hoenn it's bad against? That's a pretty damn good deal. And from there it's useful in basically every fight but Drake.
tl;dr -- really powerful pokemon with lots of good matchups that requires nigh-zero investment to be incredible despite some obvious flaws against it. B at worst. Probably the best electric in hoenn
The above is true across all the Gen 3 games, magneton is just a really really solid Mon and the steel typing carries it well
Also the commentary about electric stab being all it needs are 100% also applicable to manectric
Also the commentary about electric stab being all it needs are 100% also applicable to manectric
Not gonna lie, I didn't even know Magnemite was placed that low.
I talked about how Electrike's important matchups pre-Surf aren't all that great, and that it may be better to just scoop up Electrike/Manectric at the period where it can actually start putting in work without it having to be babied and consuming the team's EXP. However, Magnemite can be obtained at that period as well, and unlike the Route 118 Electrike/Manectric, Magnemite actually comes with Thunder Wave (and Spark at max level, and at worst it's still just 4 levels away and you can just use Thunderbolt in the meantime). Coupled with its Steel-typing giving it safer matchups (ex: Magnemite can sweep the entire route leading to Fortree barring the Breloom trainer/Team Magma Grunts with Numel) and its Speed being fairly sufficient in-game to not be at a heavy disadvantage to Manectric, and all these factors make Magnemite just sound like a more sound investment than Manectric overall. I support the rise to B Rank as well.
I talked about how Electrike's important matchups pre-Surf aren't all that great, and that it may be better to just scoop up Electrike/Manectric at the period where it can actually start putting in work without it having to be babied and consuming the team's EXP. However, Magnemite can be obtained at that period as well, and unlike the Route 118 Electrike/Manectric, Magnemite actually comes with Thunder Wave (and Spark at max level, and at worst it's still just 4 levels away and you can just use Thunderbolt in the meantime). Coupled with its Steel-typing giving it safer matchups (ex: Magnemite can sweep the entire route leading to Fortree barring the Breloom trainer/Team Magma Grunts with Numel) and its Speed being fairly sufficient in-game to not be at a heavy disadvantage to Manectric, and all these factors make Magnemite just sound like a more sound investment than Manectric overall. I support the rise to B Rank as well.
I more or less just wanted to show my support for Magnemite, but I should really have shared my thoughts on the other two non-starters I used - Zubat and Makuhita - as when I asked what Pokémon needed more opinions I was told that those two were among them.
I think they're both perfectly fine where they are in C.
I found Zubat's grind to Level 21 to be not quite as bad as expected due to the Steel Wing TM; it's surprising how many battles you can scrape past with that thing -- though that only really elevates it from hellish to between tolerable and decently useable so it's not exactly a great claim to fame; just something I wanted to get out there. It doesn't get a lot of good matchups but I found myself getting a lot of use out of it as soon as it learned Sludge Bomb as a decent neutral attacker -- to me that's perfect for C. Not as good as Magnemite or Carvanha, but certainly not in the realms of Aron or Kecleon.
Makuhita is a Pokémon that gets an extremely strong start thanks to a very early Vital Throw and an extremely good Exp gain group in Fluctuating, allowing it to effortlessly offset any fight it's not useful by making almost double the exp any of your other team members are early game. This combined with evolving right as it's starting to feel a little weak contribute to a solid performance mid-game, but it slowly starts to show problems -- it is a slow Pokémon, and that is not helped that its best STAB and hence the move you are using the most until Brick Break (ie until after gym 7 at the earliest) is one that makes you go last every turn. This is offset to a great extent by a very strong Fake Out and a lot of survivability, but unfortunately it just ends up being a decent, reliable Pokémon with no particularly good matchups outside of Norman. C is a very good place for it.
I think they're both perfectly fine where they are in C.
I found Zubat's grind to Level 21 to be not quite as bad as expected due to the Steel Wing TM; it's surprising how many battles you can scrape past with that thing -- though that only really elevates it from hellish to between tolerable and decently useable so it's not exactly a great claim to fame; just something I wanted to get out there. It doesn't get a lot of good matchups but I found myself getting a lot of use out of it as soon as it learned Sludge Bomb as a decent neutral attacker -- to me that's perfect for C. Not as good as Magnemite or Carvanha, but certainly not in the realms of Aron or Kecleon.
Makuhita is a Pokémon that gets an extremely strong start thanks to a very early Vital Throw and an extremely good Exp gain group in Fluctuating, allowing it to effortlessly offset any fight it's not useful by making almost double the exp any of your other team members are early game. This combined with evolving right as it's starting to feel a little weak contribute to a solid performance mid-game, but it slowly starts to show problems -- it is a slow Pokémon, and that is not helped that its best STAB and hence the move you are using the most until Brick Break (ie until after gym 7 at the earliest) is one that makes you go last every turn. This is offset to a great extent by a very strong Fake Out and a lot of survivability, but unfortunately it just ends up being a decent, reliable Pokémon with no particularly good matchups outside of Norman. C is a very good place for it.
I don't think Magnemite fits nicely in B tier. Everything that's currently B tier makes itself useful either by being available early (like Wingull) or by getting a bunch of coverage moves that let them 1v1 anything (like Carvanha). Magnemite can do neither, so I'm leaning toward arguing that Magnemite should be C tier.
How is it only decent when every major opponent (except maybe the antagonist leaders, Tate and Liza, and Phoebe) has setup fodder that lets Makuhita use a bunch of bulk ups and sweep?
I have to argue here that coverage in the long run really doesn't matter that much even if you only have one move, as long as that move is really really good. Magneton's STAB 120 SpA Thunderbolt very happily falls into that latter category when a huge majority of opponents after Norman including multiple major battles have Pokémon that are either weak to or take neutral damage from this very powerful move. Coverage is definitely a problem for Magneton, but I would say that is what makes it B rather than A -- if it got Ice Beam or Crunch it would definitely be a lot better, but even with just Thunderbolt (and weaker thunderbolt Spark for PP conservation) it does a lot of work and as noted above it even comes with great defensive and support utility in its typing and immediate access to Thunder Wave. Being that limited may seem bad on paper, but I implore you to use it for yourself. It has no business being below B.
I admit I just didn't use Bulk Up on Hariyama -- I didn't mention this but it was the Pokémon I found most stressed for extra moveslots. Vital Throw, Fake Out and Secret Power were all simply too important for me to give up so I just didn't go for it. If it was the smarter move then, yeah, that's totally on me; Bulk Up just wasn't something I'd considered. It seems like it wouldn't be very useful against more opponents than you mentioned, though -- Drake and Winona still have a huge advantage over you while I can't see a particularly decent opening in Wallace's team. You also don't have Bulk Up before Brawly while Flannery's Torkoal certainly seems like it could break through you with Overheat. Still; it certainly seems effective for Wattson, Norman, Juan, Sidney and Glacia so you have me there at least.
I admit I just didn't use Bulk Up on Hariyama -- I didn't mention this but it was the Pokémon I found most stressed for extra moveslots. Vital Throw, Fake Out and Secret Power were all simply too important for me to give up so I just didn't go for it. If it was the smarter move then, yeah, that's totally on me; Bulk Up just wasn't something I'd considered. It seems like it wouldn't be very useful against more opponents than you mentioned, though -- Drake and Winona still have a huge advantage over you while I can't see a particularly decent opening in Wallace's team. You also don't have Bulk Up before Brawly while Flannery's Torkoal certainly seems like it could break through you with Overheat. Still; it certainly seems effective for Wattson, Norman, Juan, Sidney and Glacia so you have me there at least.
Set up moves in general are horrifically overrated, they both waste time and encourage item consumption
0 SpA (level 29) Torkoal Overheat vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Thick Fat (level 28) Hariyama: 33-39 (25.9 - 30.7%)
So Flannery is absolutely no problem for Hariyama if it has thick fat. If you want to use Hariyama against Drake, then you can try to set up on his Shelgon.
Shelgon is absolutely set-up bait, I just meant the rest of his team is powerful enough to not care about Hariyama no matter how much it set up.
Hariyama gets the 2HKO on everything except his Salamence after using bulk up twice. His Flygons and Altaria are pretty reliant on physical attacks, so the physical defense boost from bulk up also helps there.
While true, Hariyama should still get credit for opponents it's able to defeat. It's also 100% more efficient to grab Rayquaza in Emerald and sweep the rest of the game than to use literally anything else, but you wouldn't take away Sceptile's positive matchup against Juan because of this for example.
My point is that using Hariyama against Drake is just a waste of time since Drake has 2 Flying-types. This means you need to use Rock Tomb and nab a bunch of buffs since RT is weak, and you're taking Dragon STAB attacks from most everything against an unbuffed SpD while also being way slower. At that point I question how much of an efficient matchup this actually is and whether it's worth noting at all.
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I felt the item usage (which wasn't excessive, I only needed a couple potions for Flannery and a couple pots + 1 X Speed for Norman) was fine given that having a setup move is a rather nice advantage for major fights, but I will concede that struggling with the last 3 gyms + a good chunk of the Elite Four is a legitimate problem for an S Rank Pokemon, so moving Torchic down to A isn't really that big a deal. The main things I disagreed with were midgame boss performance and general water route performance, which are both greatly eased by using Bulk Up + Return TMs, but the lategame boss performance is definitely lacking.
I can vouch for Magneton being pretty good, it has sufficient Speed for ingame and its nuclear Thunderbolts rip through most things you'll face post New Mauville, though it can struggle a bit against the Elite Four when they start throwing Earthquakes around. I'd prob move it to C with Voltorb. I could see the argument for B but it does have some problems vs lategame major fights (not super great vs Steven, Emerald!Tate&Liza leads EQ Claydol) and Electrike still beats it considerably in availability so I'm not 100% sure.
Some really minor but cool things that Mag has that could bump it to B.
- Typing gives it an easier time against Glacia.
- Genderless, so it dodges Attract (this comes up in a couple fights).
- Emerald Wallace matchup is a bit better than its contemps due to higher power. A couple of the bulkier Pokémon also have Toxic for stalling, but Mag DGAF.
- Movepool's shit and you're probably running Shock Wave, which actually deals damage for Mag and is nice to bypass the occasional Double Team (*cough* Juan *cough*).
- Metal Sound is a nice tech option.
Totally get the Claydol and Steven part (though I can't comment on the latter since I played Emerald), but I don't understand how Electrike beats it in availability at all. If we're talking percentages, both Pokémon are common in the areas they're caught.
I assume, though, that you are talking more about how Electrike can be caught much much earlier, which... stumps me. There are no major battles between Electrike's first capture and Magnemite's capture in which Manectric could be considered a great asset aside from Archie's Mt. Chimney battle in Sapphire. It can't do much of anything against Wattson, it's neutral at best against Flannery and Norman (though both have incredibly strong main Pokémon which can easily OHKO you), and the big thing of note in the route 110 Rival battle is their starter; none of which Manectric has a good advantage against. It of course only gets worse in Ruby and Emerald where Maxie replaces Archie on Mt. Chimney. Its performance only goes up at the same time you would get Magnemite due to greater matchups in Winona and the wealth of water-types and, of course, the addition of the Thunderbolt TM.
As I have no experience with Manectric I can't comment on if it is better or worse than Magneton -- the slightly lower power for much greater speed does seem like a good payoff however, as is the addition of bite. I could maybe see these two being similarly ranked, but not because of availability. Magnemite arguably trumps Manectric in that area entirely.
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Stick them both in B holy f
The steel typing alone is enough to push it up from that garbage C suggestion
The steel typing alone is enough to push it up from that garbage C suggestion
Electrike can't 1v1 much of anything, but having a thunder wave user on the team is usually nice.
This is true, I won't deny that support element; but it's not exactly helping a whole lot outside of that.
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