Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald In-Game Tier List Discussion

[Merritt]

Is the combination of Psychic+Shock Wave really that potent that it can obliterate the entire game with very little issue?

Yes, and if you haven't used it you definitely should try it out.



To elaborate on the simple yes, Alakazam comes at a time in the game where its sheer level of power is just overkill against anything and everything that is a neutral target. Even with the relatively underwhelming power of Confusion (which is a move that's pretty much on par for Gym 2-3 BP), Alakazam makes up for it by sheer hole-punching ability of its special attack, and so finds it very easy to rack up a bunch of basically free levels - particularly so because Alakazam is in the absolute best EXP group in the game, medium slow. By the time you get to Wattson, who would be a potential stumbling block, Alakazam is on track to get Psybeam, a notable step up in power from Confusion, and tears apart his Emerald team and does well enough against his RS team as well. Zam's special bulk, while not exactly great especially long term, is still rather good for how early in the game this is. Adding in Shock Wave allows Alakazam to now hit opposing Psychic types, Dark type, and Steel types slightly harder, but Alakazam is still finding it relatively easy to muscle through virtually everything with Psybeam and in the process continue getting higher and higher leveled.

Mightyena on Chimney is a small annoyance for Alakazam but certainly not an undefeatable one, and Flannery goes down relatively easy. Norman can be tricky if you've been purposefully not leaning on Alakazam to give it EXP as Psybeam is finally beginning to be less than perfect, but realistically this is only an issue for Slaking, everything else goes down well enough.

Often I find myself with Alakazam around level 36 and Psychic for Winona, but if you're not there are worse investments than to dump money on a Psychic TM from the game corner. If you can afford it then it also lets you smash Norman much more easily. Psychic and Shock Wave take Winona for a wild ride and dismantle her team, with virtually no threat to Alakazam. Alakazam continues paving the way forward although it should consider taking a break against Tate and Liza - it's not dead weight because Psychic can still brute force its way through though it's certainly not ideal and Shock Wave is an unpleasant experience for Xatu. The game is finally catching up with Alakazam, 4 gyms after it started its rampage.

The game promptly obliges and rolls over for Alakazam with Sootopolis, since Alakazam cleans house handily. Alakazam's sheer usefulness virtually everywhere up to this point and its fantastic EXP group generally leave it with a sizeable advantage against virtually all opponents. The Elite Four are the biggest and arguably only roadbump in Alakazam's wild ride, with Sidney being annoying, although Zam can take out his water at least, and Phoebe being just as much so though Alakazam can generally take out a couple Pokemon since they're not immune to Psychic. Not Sableye of course.

Glacia and Drake are almost even matchups for Alakazam. Psychic is just as punchy as ever, although they throw high leveled and somewhat bulky opponents at you. I don't usually find Alakazam has too much trouble, but it's not as clean as things once were. The champion diverges wildly, as Wallace gleefully loses to Alakazam for the most part and Steven rejects Alakazam though Skarmory and Armaldo are targets for our psychic friend.

Overall Alakazam has one of, if not the, best earlygames in RSE by taking every neutral matchup and breaking them over its psychic knee. Steel-types that actually give Alakazam pause are fairly few and far between - the only particularly annoying ones are Steven and RS Wattson. Every other Steel-type Alakazam can break through due to its sheer power without too much difficulty. Dark types are also rather rare, and those that do exist are usually the very unthreatening Mightyena who Alakazam can power through with Shock Wave because Mightyena is terrible or are the Carvanha line who get punished by their electric weakness and very low bulk. Sidney is somewhat problematic, but is also the weakest E4 member so failing to break through isn't overly difficult to cover.

Alakazam really is potent enough that it is able to obliterate the vast majority of the game with little to no issue. The unimpressive Elite Four matchup and the brief period of Abra deadweight certainly weigh against Alakazam, but overall it still manages to be one of the absolute best Pokemon in RSE and deserve its S rank.

 

[MellowBusiness]

I never considered it's EXP group. That's a lot of valid points you've made. Thanks for the explanation.

 

[Punchshroom]

Time to talk about another garbage Pokemon:

E to F:

This thing. This goddamn pos. It's already bad enough to be the worst Fire-type in-game (albeit among a list of just four), but this mon is just so atrociously bad on its own merit. Let's look at its current stats when we first we get it as well as its future prospects. Right off the bat, Slugma has horrible stats, with the only respectable stat being its Special Attack, which isn't even particularly great by Fire-type standards (in fact it ends up as the worst). Its level-up movepool only starts looking up at level 36 where it gets Flamethrower, but until then it's stuck with Ember and unSTAB Rock Throw, the latter of which might as well not be there. Compared to fellow E Rank Torkoal, which already gets absurdly early power moves like level 20 Body Slam and level 30 Flamethrower, and it's really not looking up for Slugma. Even with Numel's reliance on Overheat, it can fall back on Magnitude and later Earthquake for an alternative source of damage. Once Slugma uses its Overheat, it's pretty much a sitting duck and thus makes its sweeping potential even poorer than it already is, and STAB Rock Slide as a Magcargo isn't doing a lot of good either with how weak it is. Speaking of Magcargo, it evolves at LEVEL 38. So you have to slog through way past mid-game with this pathetic mon, and what do you get out of it? Just an increase in bulk (which then gets ruined by its part Rock-typing) with barely any noticeable difference in its other stats. What an utter letdown.

Well surely Slugma has at least some decent matchups on its bumpy road to Magcargo right? Yeah, Slugma has no favorable matchups whatsoever. It does nothing but get outdamaged by nearly every single Gym leader's Pokemon, with the best it can hope for is getting off an Overheat against the weaker Pokemon and be a bench sitter for the rest of the fight. Its awful Speed, bad bulk, and poor neutral power outside of Overheat (before it gets Flamethrower) are horrendously bad for sweeping route trainers, meaning training it on the go is a nightmare and will invariably result in you spending healing items/taking trips to the Pokemon Center far more often than you'd like. Even at its absolute best, Magcargo is still going to underpeform at the Elite 4; it has to pick certain matchups to function well, and will rarely ever KO more than two opponents before it is forced to switch/heal. Its 4x weaknesses and horrid Speed really start to rear their ugly heads here (as if they haven't numerous times before); it doesn't even beat Steven properly as a whopping 5 of his Pokemon have an advantage over Magcargo due to Earthquake bodying it or Cradily just soaking up hits and firing back with Confuse Ray, Giga Drains, or SE Ancientpowers.

Tl;dr: Horrid stats both before and after evolution, absurdly late evolution level, pretty much no good favorable matchups that allow it to potentially clean sweep. All of these qualities make it an absolute pain to train and use. I daresay every single E Tier and even some F Tiers have more potential than this.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

Time to talk about another garbage Pokemon:

E to F:

This thing. This goddamn pos. It's already bad enough to be the worst Fire-type in-game (albeit among a list of just four), but this mon is just so atrociously bad on its own merit. Let's look at its current stats when we first we get it as well as its future prospects. Right off the bat, Slugma has horrible stats, with the only respectable stat being its Special Attack, which isn't even particularly great by Fire-type standards (in fact it ends up as the worst). Its level-up movepool only starts looking up at level 36 where it gets Flamethrower, but until then it's stuck with Ember and unSTAB Rock Throw, the latter of which might as well not be there. Compared to fellow E Rank Torkoal, which already gets absurdly early power moves like level 20 Body Slam and level 30 Flamethrower, and it's really not looking up for Slugma. Even with Numel's reliance on Overheat, it can fall back on Magnitude and later Earthquake for an alternative source of damage. Once Slugma uses its Overheat, it's pretty much a sitting duck and thus makes its sweeping potential even poorer than it already is, and STAB Rock Slide as a Magcargo isn't doing a lot of good either with how weak it is. Speaking of Magcargo, it evolves at LEVEL 38. So you have to slog through way past mid-game with this pathetic mon, and what do you get out of it? Just an increase in bulk (which then gets ruined by its part Rock-typing) with barely any noticeable difference in its other stats. What an utter letdown.

Well surely Slugma has at least some decent matchups on its bumpy road to Magcargo right? Yeah, Slugma has no favorable matchups whatsoever. It does nothing but get outdamaged by nearly every single Gym leader's Pokemon, with the best it can hope for is getting off an Overheat against the weaker Pokemon and be a bench sitter for the rest of the fight. Its awful Speed, bad bulk, and poor neutral power outside of Overheat (before it gets Flamethrower) are horrendously bad for sweeping route trainers, meaning training it on the go is a nightmare and will invariably result in you spending healing items/taking trips to the Pokemon Center far more often than you'd like. Even at its absolute best, Magcargo is still going to underpeform at the Elite 4; it has to pick certain matchups to function well, and will rarely ever KO more than two opponents before it is forced to switch/heal. Its 4x weaknesses and horrid Speed really start to rear their ugly heads here (as if they haven't numerous times before); it doesn't even beat Steven properly as a whopping 5 of his Pokemon have an advantage over Magcargo due to Earthquake bodying it or Cradily just soaking up hits and firing back with Confuse Ray, Giga Drains, or SE Ancientpowers.

Tl;dr: Horrid stats both before and after evolution, absurdly late evolution level, pretty much no good favorable matchups that allow it to potentially clean sweep. All of these qualities make it an absolute pain to train and use. I daresay every single E Tier and even some F Tiers have more potential than this.

Seconded. I once did a Fire-type run of Emerald and I know I had a team of all five Fire-types (Blaziken, Magcargo, Camerupt, Torkoal, Ninetales) but I can barely remember using Slugma/Magcargo, and the memories I do have mainly involve using it as sacrificial fodder to pivot something else in because I was playing on Set.

I can recall everything else performing at least ok, but even in a decidedly inefficient run, where you accept a lot of grinding as an inevitability, it was truly terrible.

 

[sumwun]

You know that Electrike run that (some of) you have been wanting to discuss for so long? It's finally here! Anyway, this is my entire team.

And this is my amazing all-grass HM team.

I probably don't know all the details about doing a "real efficient run", but I like to always have the exp. share on whichever Pokemon has the least experience. Especially on a test run like this one, I think it's unfair when a Pokemon just happens to sweep one route, get a few levels ahead from all the experience, and sort of take over from there.

Littleroot Town to Mauville City

I chose Treecko for this game. Unlike Torchic, it had a type advantage against Roxanne, and unlike Mudkip, it was able to learn cut. As my only Pokemon at the time, it grew overleveled and swept everything up to Dewford Town.

I did Route 109 before Dewford Gym so I could go to Route 110 and come back with an Electrike. It took a few soft resets to get a level 13 Electrike, but I got it eventually (brave). I taught it thief to slightly patch up its bad special movepool before heading back for Dewford Gym.

After some intense exp. share training, I got Electrike to level 15 for my battle against Brawly. As you may have guessed, it wasn't very helpful there.

Unfortunately, Electrike was level 18 when I met Brendan on Route 110, so it didn't know spark. It was still able to beat Brendan's Wingull and Lombre, but I had to use a lot of soda pops on it. Neither Electrike nor Grovyle could take on Combusken, so I had to first use thunder wave, switch to Grovyle to spam cut until it fainted, and then finish with Electrike's quick attack.

Wattson was even more annoying. His Magneton resisted all my attacks (except rock smash), and his Manectric's HP was somehow high enough to let it tank my attacks without resisting them. The worst part was that Electrike reached level 26 during the battle, so I might have been able to evolve it beforehand if I had only a few dozen more experience points. I must have used at least 11 soda pops in that battle.

Route 112 to Lavaridge Town

After reaching Route 112, the first thing I did was catch a level 16 Numel (bashful). Like Electrike, I put it in my first slot and gave it my exp. share.

Numel and Manectric were both level 28 when I battled Maxie. Mightyena and Zubat were easy, but Camerupt outsped Numel and one-shot both my Pokemon. So I went back to Route 117 to beat the trainers and raise Numel by 2 levels, and it still got outsped and one-shot by magnitude. I ended up soft-resetting for good magnitude rolls (from both him and me) because I didn't want to do more sidetracking.

I ended up settling for a level 20 Spoink (lonely) because apparently higher-level Spoinks were rarer. It had thick fat, of course. I gave it the exp. share and taught it shock wave.

Spoink and Numel were levels 24 and 30 when I first battled Flannery. I had trouble winning again, so I went up Mt. Chimney to beat optional trainers again. Spoink grew 2 levels from that. After trying the battle and soft-resetting a few times, I found that Spoink and Numel both did well against her first 3 Pokemon. I still had to rely on thief (to steal the white herb) and a few soda pops to beat her Torkoal. I taught the newly received overheat to Numel.

Mauville City to Route 119

At this point, I saved enough money to buy a TM29 psychic, so I bought a TM29 psychic. I also caught a Lotad because I needed to surf across Route 118 and I thought some cannon fodder might be nice.

When I first fought Norman, Spoink, Manectric, and Numel were levels 28, 28, and 31. I didn't even get to Slaking this time; Linoone's belly drum screwed my team over already. So I went to Route 111. After defeating everyone there, Spoink was level 31 and 2/3, so I really wanted to give it a little more experience and let it evolve. I did that on Route 115, and I also raised Manectric to level 29. The newly evolved Grumpig helped a lot. It was only a little stronger than Manectric, but the biggest benefit was never accidentally paralyzing my opponents and boosting their facade. To beat Slaking, I taught dig to Numel and made sure it was underground whenever Slaking attacked.

Surf opened up a lot of things, including ice beam, thunderbolt, Tropius, and Carvanha. My Carvanha was level 26 and bashful. Of course, all roads lead to Tropius (except maybe the ones that pass through Taillow). I caught myself a Tropius as my final HM slave.

Fortree City to Magma Hideout

I decided to defeat all the trainers on Route 120 before fighting Winona. When I got back to her, my Sharpedo, Grumpig, Manectric, and Camerupt were levels 34, 40, 34, and 37. Since I stopped using Grovyle, this was the first major battle where I didn't struggle on my first try, probably because my team was so overleveled. Sharpedo and Grumpig were each able to solo the battle with no bag items. Camerupt and Manectric unfortunately couldn't. I tried.

In preparation to catch Heracross, I made Pokeblocks from Leppa berries to increase the chance of getting a nature that raised physical attack. I then went to a Pokeblock feeder in Heracross's area, put in a Pokeblock, and used Tropius to spam sweet scent until a Heracross appeared. The one I got was level 27 (adamant). To abuse the Pokeblock glitch (which I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to abuse in "efficient runs"), I crept closer in the first turn and threw 2 Pokeblocks on the next 2 turns. I then threw safari balls until I caught it. The time, from when I saved at the entrance before going in to when I saved at the entrance with my newly caught Heracross, including the time I spent soft resetting for accidentally wasting Pokeblocks, was 7 minutes and 36 seconds. After leaving the Safari Zone, I taught bulk up and strength to Heracross.

When I returned to Lilycove City to fight Brendan, my Manectric, Heracross, Camerupt, Sharpedo, and Grumpig were levels 34, 27, 37, 35, and 40. He was pretty easy to beat.

When I went to Groudon's chamber and battled Maxie, my Heracross, Manectric, Sharpedo, Grumpig, and Camerupt were levels 34, 35, 35, 40, and 38. None of them were able to solo the fight, so I ended up using Grumpig against Crobat and Heracross against the other 2 Pokemon.

Mossdeep City

Before fighting Tate and Liza, I defeated all the trainers between Mossdeep and Pacifidlog and got Grumpig, Camerupt, Manectric, Heracross, and Sharpedo to levels 45, 41, 39, 38, and 38. I didn't want to use Sharpedo this time because I knew it would sweep their entire team and not give a chance to test my other Pokemon. I learned my lesson from Merritt's Spoink run to always attack Claydol first, so I led with Grumpig and Camerupt and used psywave and overheat. I was able to take it out in the first turn, only because Camerupt barely survived Claydol's earthquake. Camerupt fainted on the next turn. Manectric replaced Camerupt, and along with Grumpig, took out Xatu and Solrock. Lunatone finished off Manectric, and I had Heracross outspeed and finish off Lunatone. I had to soft-reset a few times for good psywave rolls, so I really can't say any of these except Sharpedo handled this fight "efficiently".

I also noticed that Claydol's earthquake was the only attack that ever hit Grumpig, so I'm guessing that Tate and Liza tends to target the opponent with the type disadvantage. Maybe we can recommend using protect in our writeups for fighting Pokemon.

I chose my level 39 Heracross, level 39 Manectric, and level 42 Camerupt to use against Maxie and Tabitha at the Space Center. Their Camerupts spammed amnesia and didn't do much else, so they were pretty easy to beat.

Seafloor Cavern to Pokemon League

When I battled Archie, my Camerupt, Manectric, Grumpig, Sharpedo, and Heracross were levels 42, 39, 45, 39, and 39. Camerupt, Manectric, and Grumpig were all able to solo this fight. Heracross got the TM26 earthquake, by the way.

Sharpedo, Camerupt, Heracross, Grumpig, and Manectric were levels 39, 43, 40, 46, and 40 when I started my last gym battle. Because Luvdisc was nice enough to sit there as I used calm mind or bulk up, the only Pokemon able to sweep Juan were Grumpig and Heracross.

At Victory Road, I noticed that my Pokemon were starting to get underleveled. Repels weren't always working, and I got slightly overwhelmed by regular trainers. When I reached the end, my Heracross, Camerupt, Manectric, Sharpedo, and Grumpig were levels 42, 45, 42, 42, and 48. Despite being underleveled, Sidney was very easy to beat as long as I had a super effective attack. (except for Absol, which outsped and one-shot Heracross) Camerupt was able to one-shot Absol with a regularly effective overheat, though.

Sharpedo unfortunately couldn't sweep Phoebe because it couldn't consistently OHKO (or even 2HKO) her Pokemon, and her Banette could one-shot Sharpedo with thunderbolt. Sableye and Dusclops were surprisingly durable. To win, I had to either use the rest of my team (and let some of them faint) or use a bunch of items.

Glacia easily fell to my combination of Manectric, Grumpig, and Heracross. However, I was never able to sweep with just one of them because one Glalie outsped Heracross and knew explosion.

Pokemon League

Drake's Flygon was capable of outspeeding and 2HKO-ing each of my Pokemon. I got to it on my first attempt, but I couldn't get past it until the fifth. On my fifth attempt, Shelgon's rock tomb put Sharpedo within Flygon's dragon breath's KO range, so it used that instead of the usual earthquake. A lucky damage roll left Sharpedo with 5 HP and a chance to use ice beam. On the seventh attempt, Heracross and Grumpig were able to 2HKO Flygon before it 2HKO'd both of them, though this left them easily swept by Salamence. On my eighth attempt, Grumpig's psychic landed a critical and one-shot Flygon. Salamence was actually easier than Flygon; I beat it with Grumpig after having Manectric use thunder wave and watching Camerupt's rock slide miss 3 times in a row.

Drake's Flygon was also apparently easier than Wallace's entire team. Manectric took out Wailord and Gyarados easily. Grumpig 2HKO'd Tentacruel. Heracross beat Whiscash and worked with Grumpig to beat Ludicolo. Manectric had to rely on thunder and some luck to outpace Milotic's recover, but it eventually won the 1v1.

So that was the run. I challenged the Pokemon League 8 times and beat the game in 18:13. My ending team was a level 49 Manectric, a level 52 Camerupt, a level 57 Grumpig, a level 49 Sharpedo, a level 48 Heracross, and a level 26 Tropius.

Below is the conclusion, which is of course too important to put in hide tags.

Grumpig was probably the best Pokemon on this team. Its offensive typing was bad, but its stats and defensive typing were good. It often relied on 2HKOs rather than OHKOs, but its 2HKOs were very reliable. It was exceptionally strong in a few battles, but it was generally helpful in almost all of them. Saving up for the TM29 psychic was annoying, but I didn't really know what else to do with the extra money. I guess I just had to take full advantage of its fast growth rate (and calm mind). Because it did so much better than my other B-tier and C-tier teammates, I want Grumpig to move to B. So do you guys think Merritt was underselling this, or did I just oversell it?

Sharpedo's movepool was good, and it had type advantages in a bunch of important battles. However, its growth rate and stats often left something to be desired. In particular, its (relatively) low special attack prevented it from one-shotting as many opponents as I wanted, and its low defenses punished it pretty badly whenever it didn't one-shot the opponent. (and it regretfully never outsped Drake's Flygon) Because of this, Sharpedo was pretty weak when it didn't have a type advantage. I think this puts Sharpedo on the lower part of B tier. I don't know if it's bad enough to be C.

The fact that Heracross was a Safari Zone Pokemon had surprisingly little effect on the required sidetracking. (Carvanha might have been worse; I hooked several level 12's before getting a good one) If anything, it made Heracross's nature easy to manipulate. Heracross was also notable for being the only one of those 5 that started pulling its own weight as soon as I got it. Heracross had a near ideal stat distribution and was better than Shapedo and Manectric at sweeping regular trainers. Unfortunately, its growth rate, movepool, and typing weren't great, making it slightly worse at fighting major opponents (yes pun intended). Still, the sheer number of regular trainers that Heracross one-shot might push it up to B.

Sharpedo and Heracross complemented each other almost exactly. Each did great against every gym and Elite 4 where the other had trouble. While Sharpedo did slightly better in gyms, Heracross was the better route cleaner. They were useful to almost the exact same extent, an extent that seemed to be below most of B and above most of C. I don't know how they compare to the other B Pokemon and C Pokemon, so I can't tell which way they lean. I'm requesting that they both be in the same tier. I don't know or care if they should both move to B or C, as long as they're together.

Manectric had the worst dead period of all of my Pokemon. I remember having to switch it out of Shroomishes and Roselias until it evolved. Even after it got spark and evolved, it was stuck with a slow growth rate and a lack of good attacks for the whole game. It's decent against regular trainers, but it suffered from the unlucky coincidence that every gym leader got earthquake the moment Manectric got thunderbolt. Its Elite 4 matchups were slightly better only because Glacia didn't have earthquake. Waterbomb was right; Manectric is in C tier.

Camerupt was probably the worst Pokemon on this team. It had a good movepool, but its stats were awful. Its low speed and defense stats meant it had to take a lot of damage before it was able to hit back. The water weakness didn't help very much. Because of this, I used a lot of potions and revives on it, and it was my worst route cleaner. Among major battles, Camerupt was only good against Flannery and Sidney. Otherwise, its role was limited to switching in, losing about 2/3 of its HP to one of the opponent's moves, and using overheat. Its defenses were so weak that it was usually only able to do this once. Overheat didn't even reliably one-shot the opponent. Camerupt really might have been better as an HM slave than as a battler, because HM slaves at least don't waste experience. Please move Camerupt to C.

Is Slugma going to move to F, by the way?
Edit: Wow the formatting and the hide tags worked on my first try.

 

[Punchshroom]

Manectric had the worst dead period of all of my Pokemon. I remember having to switch it out of Shroomishes and Roselias until it evolved. Even after it got spark and evolved, it was stuck with a slow growth rate and a lack of good attacks for the whole game. It's decent against regular trainers, but it suffered from the unlucky coincidence that every gym leader got earthquake the moment Manectric got thunderbolt. Its Elite 4 matchups were slightly better only because Glacia didn't have earthquake. Waterbomb was right; Manectric is in C tier.

Yeah this is about what I expected from Electrike's pre-Surf matchups; it has a very noticeable babying period and doesn't even contribute all that much in the important battles in between. That said, perhaps your perspective would shift a little if you picked up Electrike/Manectric in Route 118, where it has pretty much zero dead period in exchange for not coming with Thunder Wave, which admittedly is a significant reason of what makes Manectric good. Still, its route-clearing prowess is definitely up there, and it doesn't really have any important matchups (post-Surf) where it's truly deadweight by virtue of its strong and fast TBolts, and post-Surf Manectric can still try to paralyze opponents with Spark, so I'd greatly hesitate to nominate it to C myself.

Spoink's Psybeam is actually one of the stronger non-TM/-HM attacks you can access at that point of the game (though it still falls far behind its fellow Psychics in Kadabra and Kirlia), so in terms of damage, Spoink can stand on its own pretty well even without the use of the Shock Wave TM. What concerns me is Spoink's poor physical Defense and only average Speed hurting its route-cleaning ability and especially in important matchups like Flannery's camels + Body Slam Torkoal as well as Norman if unevolved, not to mention the road to Grumpig is quite a ways away. Spoink does learn Psychic via level-up, with it being more optimal to delay evolution until it gets Psychic at level 34. However,sumwun apparently had his early Psychic Grumpig pull some weight vs Norman, and I personally consider this somewhat of a downside if I need to spend a significant chunk of resources on a Pokemon just to get it to contribute in an important matchup, and I especially consider this wasteful since the mon gets the move just a bit later anyway. That said, Grumpig itself is a pretty solid Pokemon, and is one of the better Calm Mind users in the game. I for one view the Spoink stage to be a bit rough since it's so vulnerable to physical attacks and just throwing out raw (albeit decently strong) Psybeams isn't quite enough to make up for this, but at the same time, I see Grumpig to be considerably more respectable than most of the other C Ranks, so....maybe rise?? Probably leaning towards not though.

Heracross I also get behind why it's nommed for a rise. The method to obtain it doesn't seem to be a huge hassle, and the availability issue focuses more on how late it is. On one hand, Heracross is very powerful, coming with STAB Brick Break off an enormous Attack stat and requires no babying. On the other hand, it comes at a point in the game where spamming Fighting STAB 24/7 isn't something you can quite get away with, or at least as easily, anymore. Still, Heracross does boast being able to Bulk Up and just sweep through Wallace/Juan, Sidney, and Glacia (provided their first mon doesn't manage to screw you over with some hax), as well as set up on Steven's Claydol/Wallace's Whiscash. I can support Heracross for B.

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D to C

Talking about Heracross reminded me of another Fighting-type that resides nearby. Right off the bat, I just want to say that Meditite is an extremely TM-dependent Pokemon, with the only level-up move it'd care to keep being Hi Jump Kick, and even then you should replace that with the Brick Break TM later if you can. However, the end-product is a Fighting-type that can even (slightly) exceed Heracross in overall performance.

For starters, Meditite has fairly pitiful stats, having only below average Speed (for that point in the game) to leverage its Pure Power-boosted strength. It doesn't come with Hi Jump Kick, so it would have be taught the Shadow Ball TM (+ Spell Tag boost) nearby for offense. Fortunately, Medicham is one of the best Shadow Ball users in the game so it shouldn't have much competition for the TM, and Shadow Ball is very pivotal for Medicham's success. Bulk Up is to facilitate sweeps, though you probably won't be getting them as Meditite since it's so frail and not fast, and Hi Jump Kick helps but not by too much. Still, Meditite shouldn't have too much trouble picking off Team Magma/Aqua grunts, which there are a good supply of in Mt Pyre and in their hideout.

It's when you finally get to Medicham that the fun really starts. Right off the bat, Shadow Ball lets Medicham clean Tate & Liza's clocks, and Brick Break lets Medicham chunk through Wallace's team, especially if you Bulked Up in front of Sealeo/Whiscash. Medicham can also Bulk Up and wipe out Sidney, Glacia, and to an extent Steven the same way Heracross does; though it has a weaker matchup against Steven's Metagross in exchange of being able to start Bulking Up on his Aerial Ace Armaldo. Medicham has the added bonus of being able to blast Phoebe's Banettes with Shadow Ball, although the only way Medicham has a chance of clean sweeping Phoebe is if her lead Dusclops doesn't Curse/Confuse Ray on the first two turns that you Bulk Up.

Tl;dr: Pretty resource-intensive for a Fighting-type and has an annoying babying stage as a Meditite, but has much better late-to-endgame potential than anything else in D Rank.

 

[sumwun]

Spoink does learn Psychic via level-up, with it being more optimal to delay evolution until it gets Psychic at level 34. However,sumwun apparently had his early Psychic Grumpig pull some weight vs Norman, and I personally consider this somewhat of a downside if I need to spend a significant chunk of resources on a Pokemon just to get it to contribute in an important matchup, and I especially consider this wasteful since the mon gets the move just a bit later anyway.

I already had a lot of money and all the super repels I needed when I just beat Flannery. What else was I supposed to do with the extra money? I could have gotten thunderbolt for Manectric, but that was even more expensive, and I would have gotten that move a littler bit later anyway.
Because I'm arguing that Grumpig is better than Manectric, I think this calls for a comparison.

Availability: It should be pretty obvious that Electrike needs more babying than Spoink does. Electrike comes earlier, but it's not particularly useful before Spoink becomes obtainable, so I don't think this makes a difference.
Evolution: They both evolve by level up. While Manectric requires a lower level, Spoink comes at a higher level and levels up faster. I'd say Electrike is still easier to evolve, but not very much easier.
Stats: Manectric has more base special attack and speed, but the difference in growth rate offsets this by a lot and makes both about equally good at route clearing. Grumpig is left with much better defensive stats, so it requires less potions and sweeps opponents more easily. Grumpig is less bulky on the physical side, but its physical defense is still better than Manectric's.
Typing: Manectric seems to have a more situational type while Grumpig has a more consistent one. Electric is probably better than psychic simply because so many NPCs use water Pokemon and flying Pokemon.
Moves: Spoink comes already knowing psybeam and can learn shock wave any time, while Electrike is stuck with thief as its strongest move until it grows 7 levels and learns spark. Grumpig goes on to learn calm mind, which lets it do a whole bunch of things that Manectric can't.
Anything else: Spoink has a slightly better ability and a much better growth rate.

Brawly and Wattson: Spoink can't participate here, but at this point Electrike is so weak that its participation makes very little difference.
Flannery: I'd have to say Spoink is already better at this point. Neither Spoink nor Manectric can take on Torkoal, but Spoink does a lot better against Numel and Camerupt. I would think they perform about the same in RS, where Flannery uses no ground types.
Norman: Spoink needs to evolve in order to not be one-shot here, but what is so hard about evolving it? At this point in the game, fast growth rate is about 2 levels ahead of medium fast and 4 levels ahead of slow. If there's enough experience to get a level 28 Manectric, then there's enough experience to get a level 32 Grumpig. In addition to leveling up so easily, Grumpig won't accidentally paralyze any of Norman's Pokemon and power up their facade.
Winona: Manectric should have the type advantage here, but the fact that her Altaria isn't weak to electric and knows earthquake makes Grumpig better in this fight.
Tate and Liza: Manectric can hit pretty hard but also dies easily. Grumpig resists most of their attacks, but relies on psywave in order to hit back. I'd say neither are good in this fight.
Wallace or Juan: Manectric's thunderbolt can take out some of their Pokemon, but Grumpig can use its natural bulk and calm mind to solo this fight.
Wally: Grumpig takes out Magneton and Roselia more easily. Both have no problem with Altaria and Delcatty, and both struggle against Gardevoir's double dancing.
Sidney: All of his Pokemon are immune to Grumpig's psychic, but some of them don't know dark attacks. While this puts Grumpig at a slight disadvantage, Manectric isn't much better against Sidney's two grass Pokemon. Neither can take on Absol.
Phoebe: I think this is the only opponent in the whole game that puts Grumpig at a real type disadvantage and makes Grumpig clearly worse than Manectric.
Glacia: Manectric has the type advantage, but Grumpig's special bulk and calm mind makes it not care.
Drake: 2-3 of these Pokemon resist electric but none resist psychic, so Grumpig does better here. However, Manectric isn't that useless because thunder wave helps a lot against this particular trainer.
Steven: I don't play RS, but I can imagine that both have pretty bad type disadvantages against Steven.
Wallace: Manectric takes out Wailord and Gyarados very easily, but Grumpig's special bulk makes it better against Tentacruel, Ludicolo, and Whiscash. Both have a hard time against Milotic.

So this is why I think Grumpig is better than Manectric. Anyway, why are you guys so obsessed with Grumpig's low physical defense when Manectric's physical defense is even lower?

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

For the record I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect someone to be able to buy any given one of the game corner TMs, every playthrough I've ever had of RSE I've ended up with roughly 80k by that point in the mid game, or close enough that grinding money was trivial. Picking up one of Bolt/Beam/FT/Psychic should be considered a valid option for a mon.

 

[Punchshroom]

I already had a lot of money and all the super repels I needed when I just beat Flannery. What else was I supposed to do with the extra money? I could have gotten thunderbolt for Manectric, but that was even more expensive, and I would have gotten that move a littler bit later anyway.

Yeah this is precisely the reason I didn't even consider buying the Thunderbolt TM for Manectric. The thing about spending your resources is that while you could have spent 70,000 on the earlier Psychic/Thunderbolt TM, you could also be spending just -5,000 on the X items and healing items you need to breach that one important matchup before you get the move naturally/for free, which is why I consider it a waste. Obviously this would be a good investment if the Pokemon doesn't get that kind of power via cheaper/more efficient means/period, but ideally the Pokemon should be able to function without this large funding.

Availability: It should be pretty obvious that Electrike needs more babying than Spoink does. Electrike comes earlier, but it's not particularly useful before Spoink becomes obtainable, so I don't think this makes a difference.
Evolution: They both evolve by level up. While Manectric requires a lower level, Spoink comes at a higher level and levels up faster. I'd say Electrike is still easier to evolve, but not very much easier.
Moves: Spoink comes already knowing psybeam and can learn shock wave any time, while Electrike is stuck with thief as its strongest move until it grows 7 levels and learns spark. Grumpig goes on to learn calm mind, which lets it do a whole bunch of things that Manectric can't.
Anything else: Spoink has a slightly better ability and a much better growth rate.

Early Electrike is so weak that I almost feel it's less of a factor when judging its overall worth; early Electrike is starved for moves and power, while mid-game Electrike/Manectric comes out guns blazing from the get-go, making them almost entirely different beasts. And even if we were to bring early Electrike into this, while Electrike and Spoink require pretty similiar amounts of experience to evolve (with Spoink actually needing less), Electrike would have already been halfway there by the time you obtain Spoink, and you'd should already have a Manectric at around Norman while your Spoink isn't evolved yet. If you choose to hold off on evolution to get earlier Psychic, this disparity becomes even greater, especially since you'd have to be stuck with the increasingly weakening Spoink stage just a little longer. By the way, I don't know why but this is truly screwed up: in Ruby version the Spoinks (and Pokemon in general) you get in Jagged Pass can only be around levels 18-20, while they're levels 20-22 in Sapphire and Emerald.
¯\_( : / )_/¯

Norman: Spoink needs to evolve in order to not be one-shot here, but what is so hard about evolving it? At this point in the game, fast growth rate is about 2 levels ahead of medium fast and 4 levels ahead of slow. If there's enough experience to get a level 28 Manectric, then there's enough experience to get a level 32 Grumpig. In addition to leveling up so easily, Grumpig won't accidentally paralyze any of Norman's Pokemon and power up their facade.

While Manectric's matchup against Norman is indeed less than adequate, Manectric has one notable advantage over Spoink: it doesn't need to grind to contribute in the Gym. Spoink's advantage in its Fast growth rate is less of an advantage here since it cannot reliably solo Norman's Gym trainers without getting overpowered, so it is generally either forced to grind against wild mons just to contribute against Norman (which is pretty damn inefficient just for this matchup). Manectric should be able to take on the Gym trainers well enough, and it's arguably more efficient to just attack with Manectric and hope paralysis helps instead of backfires, instead of training up Spoink and only fare semi-adequately should you not purchase the Psychic TM. Not to mention that if you were willing to buy the Psychic TM for Grumpig to put in work here, you could have done the same for Thunderbolt Manectric (which also lessens the risk of paralysis since you're not forced to Spark) and potentially do a bit better since it can at least hope to outspeed the Slakings.

Winona: Manectric should have the type advantage here, but the fact that her Altaria isn't weak to electric and knows earthquake makes Grumpig better in this fight.

Efficiency is pretty subjective here; Manectric OHKOes her other three Pokemon while Grumpig only 2HKOes Swellow and Skarm, and Swellow may disrupt you with Endeavor shenanigans. All Manectric needs to comfortably solo this fight is an X Defend (survive +1 EQ, 2 X Defends if you want to be safe) and a X Sp.Atk (2HKO Altaria), and shouldn't need a single Hyper Potion in this fight. Of course, Grumpig can also solo the fight this way, but Manectric does it faster.

Sidney: All of his Pokemon are immune to Grumpig's psychic, but some of them don't know dark attacks. While this puts Grumpig at a slight disadvantage, Manectric isn't much better against Sidney's two grass Pokemon. Neither can take on Absol.

Manectric should be able to 2HKO Absol even through its Sitrus Berry. If not, Magnet boost should do it.

Glacia: Manectric has the type advantage, but Grumpig's special bulk and calm mind makes it not care.

Well one of her Glalie has Shadow Ball (also has Explosion in Emerald) while Walrein carries the threat of Sheer Cold, so maybe it should care a little bit should it fail to outspeed Glalie or KO Walrein.

Steven: I don't play RS, but I can imagine that both have pretty bad type disadvantages against Steven.
Wallace: Manectric takes out Wailord and Gyarados very easily, but Grumpig's special bulk makes it better against Tentacruel, Ludicolo, and Whiscash. Both have a hard time against Milotic.

I don't imagine Grumpig appreciates Earthquake nor Amnesia from Whiscash. And at least Manectric can do a large chunk (possibly even 2HKO) to Milotic while Grumpig has to deal with Toxic stall.

So this is why I think Grumpig is better than Manectric. Anyway, why are you guys so obsessed with Grumpig's low physical defense when Manectric's physical defense is even lower?

The reason for this is that Spoink is stuck with its poor physical bulk for quite some time at a point in the game where the game introduces stronger physical attacks, like Body Slam from Torkoal, Magnitude Numel (Emerald only), and most especially the Normal attacks in Norman's gym. Other Pokemon with similarly low physical bulk have some sort of offensive edge to at least make up for this (ex: Kadabra being stupid powerful, Grovyle has Leaf Blade, Kirlia has Calm Mind + Psychic, etc.), but Spoink is forced to unfavorably trade blows. While Spoink indeed outperforms early Electrike (not a hard achievement tbh), Spoink kinda suffers from generally not being able to contribute too much against Norman and Flannery (unless you have Thick Fat and her AI spams Overheat) and then only being 'solid' in all future matchups instead of being a potential cleaning machine like some of the other offensive B Ranks, which is primarily what is dissuading me from nomming it up atm.

 

[Fireburn]

For the record I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect someone to be able to buy any given one of the game corner TMs, every playthrough I've ever had of RSE I've ended up with roughly 80k by that point in the mid game, or close enough that grinding money was trivial. Picking up one of Bolt/Beam/FT/Psychic should be considered a valid option for a mon.

Can confirm this, if you fight every trainer and don't spend too much you should easily have $80Kish by the time you reach Lavaridge, so a midgame Game Corner TM is definitely a fair play.

I recently completed another run of Emerald so I could weigh in on the Spoink debate. My team was Grumpig/Hariyama/Aggron/Plusle/Tropius/Milotic.

Grumpig: Honestly? Grumpig ain't that bad. Dropped a Game Corner Psychic TM immediately on it (lbr you really do not need X Items to beat Brawly or Wattson, so you should have the money for this) and let it take out the Jagged Pass/Lavaridge Gym trainers + Desert trainers. That and a couple Rare Candies got me a Grumpig by Norman pretty smoothly. From there it performs about as well as you'd expect a Psychic type to in this game, it's a very good route sweeper though it is definitely worse than Gardevoir (worse power, no TBolt, no natural CM) and Abra (much worse raw power, Speed).

As for specific matchups, Early Psychic TM definitely improves its matchup against Flannery, though it still won't get OHKOes and will probably lose to Torkoal's Body Slam, though this time it was able to take out Camerupt. Sun boosted Overheats also still do a lot of damage even with Thick Fat. It also turns its matchup against Norman from poor to decent, being able to actually 2HKO his mons and put a dent in Slaking as Grumpig. Winona matchup is reasonable but saying its better than Manectric here is, to be frank, not accurate because Grumpig also loses to Altaria...does not 2HKO with Psychic while Altaria 2HKOes with +1 EQ, and my Grumpig was Bold too. Evil team matchup is fine except for Mightyenas. Sucks vs Tate and Liza, but after them you can teach Grumpig Calm Mind which allows it to solo Juan easily. Calm Mind also improves Grumpig's performance in the Elite Four a good amount, enabling to solo Glacia with some help from potions. Aside from Glacia though its Elite Four performance is lackluster, with the lack of raw power compared to its Psychic brethren definitely showing. I attempted to use it against Wallace, setting up on Wailord with the help of an X Defend, but Wailord eventually got a crit Double Edge and OHKOed Grumpig from full HP (again, despite Bold Grumpig) which was pretty depressing, so I had to finish the fight with the rest of the team.

I think Grumpig was partly undersold and partly oversold. Game Corner Psychic + Calm Mind TMs definitely make it better than what Merritt's run made it out to look like, but I think sumwun is overselling it when he claims it is better than Manectric. Electrike still has an availability advantage and can still contribute against Brawly/Wattson with Thunder Wave, Norman matchup is about even with a midgame Thunderbolt TM from Game Corner (assuming you're evolved, if not Manectric wins for sure), Winona matchup is honestly even because Altaria wins against them both 1v1 without X Defends. Manectric's performance against Tate and Liza is definitely better than Grumpig since it can kill Xatu and actually damage the rocks while Grumpig isn't really doing anything appreciable. Grumpig's main advantage against Gym 8 is being able to take out the Whiscash, but Manectric doesn't need set up to kill the other Pokemon on the team (Kingdra might get annoying but Milotic is fine). As for Elite Four performance, Manectric is definitely better than Grumpig against Sidney and Phoebe. Grumpig is probably better against Glacia because of Calm Mind but Manectric still does fine. Drake matchup is probably a slight edge for Manectric, Grumpig will get slowed if it tries to set up on Shelgon and will be overwhelmed by the strong physical attacks whereas Manectric can paralyze stuff and hit his biggest threats (Salamence, Kingdra) with a strong Thunderbolt. Steven is a nogo for Grumpig because Metagross and Claydol will thwart any sweeping attempts with Calm Mind, whereas Manectric can OHKO his Skarm lead and probably take out one other thing or spread paralysis before going out (aka Manectric does better). Manectric's speed and power also gives it the edge in the Wallace fight, dealing more efficiently with Wailord and Gyarados + about the same with Milotic and Tentacruel (Grumpig won't outspeed them and Manectric does more dmg) while Grumpig is only noticeably better against Whiscash and can only really set up on Ludicolo (have fun with Double Team + Leech Seed) or Milotic (doable but Toxic means you are going to have to chug some Full Restores). Overall I think Manectric is still somewhat better than Grumpig because Manectric has availability flexibility and its speed and power advantages are notable.

That said, I think a comparison between the two is pointless as I think Spoink is just good enough on its own merits to be promoted to B Rank. It's a borderline case to be fair, but after actually using it myself I'm somewhat leaning B more than C. I view it as a lesser version of Ralts - later Calm Mind and less raw power, but it still is adequate to get the job done in similar situations most of the time.

Hariyama: This Pokemon was the MVP of the run. I actually think it should rise to A rank. It is a bit slow but its very tanky and very strong and with Bulk Up it just absolutely trashes basically every major fight in the game except for Tate and Liza and Winona to an extent. Honestly isn't that reliant on Vital Throw, Strength + Arm Thrust is sufficient against the majority of opponents until Brick Break comes along with Vital Throw mostly being saved for major fights or evasion spammers. It will slurp a fair number of potions, but money isn't really tight in this game after Lavaridge (you can always use herbal meds if you're concerned) and the sheer volume of good matchups it has (this mon is fully capable of soloing Emerald E4, just need EQ TM so it can damage Phoebe and you're set) makes it worth it. Availability is fantastic too. I would say this mon can be A Rank if Taillow (better route sweeper but worse in major fights) and Shroomish (added weaknesses from Grass means it cant pull some of the crazy stunts Hariyama can) are A Rank.

Aggron: Aggron is honestly pretty bad. It's a pretty good route sweeper when you first get it, though it's worthless against Brawly and gets no Rock moves until you give it the Rock Tomb TM. It's strongest move (Iron Tail) also has accuracy problems, which means it's going to be relying on Metal Claw most of the time to get things done. Special bulk is pretty bad and leaves it unable to help much against Wattson/Flannery and using it on the ocean routes is incredibly risky. Its saving graces are punking Norman completely, wrecking the evil teams aside from Magnitude camels, and having a reasonably good Tate and Liza matchup once Claydol is eliminated. I think D Rank fits, its selling points are availability and situational use in fights that cant prey on its weaknesses.

Plusle: Plusle is F rank in Emerald because of a 2% encounter rate on top of poor stats. My friends made me use it to see if it was actually worthy of F rank. Its stats are just good enough (85 SpA/95 Spe) to be a Thunderbolt machine, though it is clearly worse than Electrike and Voltorb. It also has a similar dead zone to Electrike where it doesn't get STAB until level 19, except it has worse stats, not even Bite for coverage, and no option to bypass the dead zone by catching it post-Surf already evolved with the TBolt TM in hand. It does get Encore over the others but I never ended up clicking it once in the run. Overall it's a pretty good mid/lategame route sweeper with STAB Electric attacks but its stats are too poor to do too much in major battles and there is honestly no justification to endure its 2% encounter rate when you can just catch the far superior and much more common Electrike. F tier is probably ok for that reason.

Tropius: This Pokemon is well known for being a great HM slave, but I decided to do something different and actively use it in combat. As a combatant, it's mediocre. It's tanky and has better coverage than your standard Grass-type with STAB Fly and Body Slam, but its offensive stats are pretty underwhelming being slow and not overly strong. Its low Speed and typing weaknesses also make it somewhat hard to get value out of its good matchups, especially having a quad Ice weakness against Wallace and Juan. It does well in the ocean routes and can help against Gyms 7/8 and Emerald Champion but otherwise its mediocre. Still think C rank is fine just because of HM utility.

Feebas: One wonders if the time needed to actually get this Pokemon is worth it. In short: no. That said, if you do actually get your hands on one, it performs quite well. You can evolve it pretty safely as long as you get one with a +SpA nature (increases effectiveness of Beauty enhancing Poke Blocks) and dump Surf + Ice Beam TMs on it, and as Milotic it will lawnmower through Magma + Aqua hideouts to catch up to your team with ease. In terms of contributions it destroys Tate and Liza without breaking a sweat and is an excellent route sweeper, and it walls Wallace/Juan though it will likely have to resort to Toxic to beat them cleanly (which is safe but isnt rly efficient lol). Elite Four performance is solid, being particularly good against Drake. Despite Milotic being a good Pokemon, actually finding a Feebas just takes way too long to be worth serious consideration in an efficiency run, so it should rightfully rot in F rank.

tl;dr Move Hariyama to A, potentially move Spoink to B

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Am I the only one who sells every x-item ever and considers using them the literal least efficient thing ever possible to do in pokemon between wasting resources, wasting a turn, and eating a hit.

Not sure why they're part of any discussion for any Pokemon as an impact on merit

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

Am I the only one who sells every x-item ever and considers using them the literal least efficient thing ever possible to do in pokemon between wasting resources, wasting a turn, and eating a hit.

Not sure why they're part of any discussion for any Pokemon as an impact on merit

I sell my X-items too, but that’s just because I have an innate (but dumb) sense that they’re unfair, since most trainers in most games don’t use them.

They’re actually incredibly efficient. I know that for most purposes in these threads speedruns aren’t a good comparison, but if you watch any you’ll note that X-items allow a player to power through tough matchups even when their mons are severely underlevelled. This principle carries over into a more casual, but still ‘efficient’ run. Most significant trainers lead with less threatening Pokémon compared with their aces, making it easy to spam a few X-items without too much worry and then steamroll the rest of the team. It reduces the amount of grinding you have to do by a lot.

EDIT: There are a few different ways to use them, but typically it’s a matter of using one or two X Speeds to ensure that you’ll outspeed the rest of the team and boosting your offensive stat of choice as much as your opponent’s active Pokémon allows you to without threatening the KO.

You might be thinking “but isn’t using an X Attack the same as using Howl? Howl isn’t an efficient tactic.” The differences are that
1) Every Pokémon can use X-items
2) They don’t use up a valuable moveslot
3) They take priority over any action by an opponent

EDIT 2: I’m thinking about this more now and I’m worried that there are lots of people who aren’t aware of how helpful X-items can be. For anyone else who doesn’t see how they can be effective, it might pay to familiarise yourself with their use. For users who post noms based on runs where X-items have been used, it’d be good if they could be confident that everyone understood where they were coming from.

 

[Merritt]

Can confirm this, if you fight every trainer and don't spend too much you should easily have $80Kish by the time you reach Lavaridge, so a midgame Game Corner TM is definitely a fair play.

I decided to take a couple hours and check something related to this. I did a run where I fought every mandatory trainer (those that couldn't be skipped by a short grass detour or walking around them) and every spinner on the direct route through the game.

I did not buy or sell any items, all my money was starting seed cash or from trainer battles. I did not get to 80K by doing this by the time I reached Norman, unfortunately.

LARGE images

This money doesn't tell the whole story - I should have had $45188 at this point in time because when I fought Flannery I had 38544. Unfortunately gibmega the marshtomp, on top of having a Calm nature and terrible IVs (only SpD was higher than 10), got paralyzed by the first Body Slam, hit by a subsequent attract, and died a horrible death.

Basically, you need to round up an extra $30000 if you want to get a Psychic TM before Norman. This is certainly doable if you make sure to collect items and sell them em masse and fight quite literally every trainer but this is definitely not particularly fast. And remember, I bought no balls or potions throughout this whole deal, so it's even more than that.

I have no doubt that buying a Game Corner TM before Norman is possible, I just doubt its efficiency.

 

[Fireburn]

Gotcha, good to know. I should have specified you'll need to sell stuff. I think there is enough stuff to get it though. We got:

Nuggets: Route 112, hidden one on Route 113, hidden one in Fallabor Town ($5000 x 3)
Stardust: Route 106 (hidden) ($1000)
Vitamins: Route 116 (the lower exit from Verdanturf side), Route 115, hidden on Route 115 ($4900 x 3)
Other: unnecessary evolution stones can be sold for $1050, you can find a Moon Stone in Meteor Falls and a Fire Stone in Fiery Path for example. TMs you know you aren't going to use like Roar can be sold for a bit extra too.

This will get you to $30700, with a bit of wiggle room either way if you sell more things (there is a PP Up in Emerald you can sell but I doubt we're gonna be selling those). Now, whether or not this is efficient is a good point of debate. With that in mind I think Spoink's placement will depend on whether or not buying an early Psychic TM would be considered efficient. If not, then I don't think it should rise to B because without it Spoink's early period is quite mediocre.

I personally didn't have trouble because I tend to be pretty stingy with shopping (pretty much only bought basic Poke Balls and a few repels), though if we are assuming an average shopping quantity greater than "Scrooge McDuck" then the meeting the target number starts looking a bit questionable. It is honestly a compelling argument against Spoink rising to B if it needs a $70000 TM right out of the box just to get going...

 

[sumwun]

Early Electrike is so weak that I almost feel it's less of a factor when judging its overall worth; early Electrike is starved for moves and power, while mid-game Electrike/Manectric comes out guns blazing from the get-go, making them almost entirely different beasts. And even if we were to bring early Electrike into this, while Electrike and Spoink require pretty similiar amounts of experience to evolve (with Spoink actually needing less), Electrike would have already been halfway there by the time you obtain Spoink, and you'd should already have a Manectric at around Norman while your Spoink isn't evolved yet.

Using the Route 118 Manectric means completely missing Flannery and Norman, so Spoink still has some advantage either way. The Spoink I used reached level 32 before Norman using only the experience from trainer battles. I don't think it (or any of my Pokemon) beat a single wild Pokemon in the whole run. Even if Spoink evolved later, I would still think it's better than Electrike simply because Spoink is stronger than Electrike.

While Manectric's matchup against Norman is indeed less than adequate, Manectric has one notable advantage over Spoink: it doesn't need to grind to contribute in the Gym. Spoink's advantage in its Fast growth rate is less of an advantage here since it cannot reliably solo Norman's Gym trainers without getting overpowered, so it is generally either forced to grind against wild mons just to contribute against Norman (which is pretty damn inefficient just for this matchup). Manectric should be able to take on the Gym trainers well enough, and it's arguably more efficient to just attack with Manectric and hope paralysis helps instead of backfires, instead of training up Spoink and only fare semi-adequately should you not purchase the Psychic TM.

As I said above, I didn't need to grind against wild Pokemon to evolve it before Norman. And if a Grumpig with psybeam fares only semi-adequately, how does a Manectric with spark fare more adequately? Their offensive stats aren't that different.

Efficiency is pretty subjective here; Manectric OHKOes her other three Pokemon while Grumpig only 2HKOes Swellow and Skarm, and Swellow may disrupt you with Endeavor shenanigans. All Manectric needs to comfortably solo this fight is an X Defend (survive +1 EQ, 2 X Defends if you want to be safe) and a X Sp.Atk (2HKO Altaria), and shouldn't need a single Hyper Potion in this fight. Of course, Grumpig can also solo the fight this way, but Manectric does it faster.

I said Grumpig was better, because Grumpig was able to solo this fight with no items.

Manectric should be able to 2HKO Absol even through its Sitrus Berry. If not, Magnet boost should do it.

That's probably true. My Manectric was kind of underleveled when I first battled Sidney, and I never tried using it against Sidney since then.

Well one of her Glalie has Shadow Ball (also has Explosion in Emerald) while Walrein carries the threat of Sheer Cold, so maybe it should care a little bit should it fail to outspeed Glalie or KO Walrein.

Explosion is fatal to almost everything (including both Manectric and Grumpig), and Grumpig can afford to take a shadow ball because all of Glacia's other attacks are so weak. I don't know what to think of sheer cold because I've never been hit by it.

I don't imagine Grumpig appreciates Earthquake nor Amnesia from Whiscash. And at least Manectric can do a large chunk (possibly even 2HKO) to Milotic while Grumpig has to deal with Toxic stall.

Manectric needs to use thunder to 2HKO Milotic, and thunder is obviously less reliable than Grumpig's calm mind. Though I know that thunder is often much faster.

The reason for this is that Spoink is stuck with its poor physical bulk for quite some time at a point in the game where the game introduces stronger physical attacks, like Body Slam from Torkoal, Magnitude Numel (Emerald only), and most especially the Normal attacks in Norman's gym. Other Pokemon with similarly low physical bulk have some sort of offensive edge to at least make up for this (ex: Kadabra being stupid powerful, Grovyle has Leaf Blade, Kirlia has Calm Mind + Psychic, etc.), but Spoink is forced to unfavorably trade blows. While Spoink indeed outperforms early Electrike (not a hard achievement tbh), Spoink kinda suffers from generally not being able to contribute too much against Norman and Flannery (unless you have Thick Fat and her AI spams Overheat) and then only being 'solid' in all future matchups instead of being a potential cleaning machine like some of the other offensive B Ranks, which is primarily what is dissuading me from nomming it up atm.

Yes, Spoink is worse than stuff like Marshtomp and Zangoose. Those potential cleaning machines are in higher tiers for good reasons. While Spoink isn't great against Flannery and Norman, a bunch of B tier stuff is completely unobtainable at that point. Of the early-game B tier, the only ones that go on to become better "cleaning machines" compared to Grumpig are Gyarados, Hariyama, and Machamp. And the B tier things that come later aren't that much better than Grumpig. I'll use Sharpedo as an example because I used it alongside my Grumpig. Because Sharpedo's stats were so much worse than Grumpig's, Grumpig was the better route clearer and was better in every major fight except 3 of them, namely Tate and Liza, Sidney, and Phoebe. And you seem to think Heracross is better than Grumpig, which I also think isn't completely true because Heracross is also less useful in many major fights (namely all except Sidney and Phoebe).

As for specific matchups, Early Psychic TM definitely improves its matchup against Flannery, though it still won't get OHKOes and will probably lose to Torkoal's Body Slam, though this time it was able to take out Camerupt. Sun boosted Overheats also still do a lot of damage even with Thick Fat.

I didn't have psychic for Flannery, but I still think Spoink did okay with psybeam.

Winona matchup is reasonable but saying its better than Manectric here is, to be frank, not accurate because Grumpig also loses to Altaria...does not 2HKO with Psychic while Altaria 2HKOes with +1 EQ, and my Grumpig was Bold too. Evil team matchup is fine except for Mightyenas.

My Grumpig soloed Winona. What level was yours when you fought her? I went to Route 120 before fighting Winona, so my levels might have been higher.

Aside from Glacia though its Elite Four performance is lackluster, with the lack of raw power compared to its Psychic brethren definitely showing. I attempted to use it against Wallace, setting up on Wailord with the help of an X Defend, but Wailord eventually got a crit Double Edge and OHKOed Grumpig from full HP (again, despite Bold Grumpig) which was pretty depressing, so I had to finish the fight with the rest of the team.

When fighting Wallace, I used Grumpig against Tentacruel and Ludicolo rather than against Wailord. I think it's safer that way.

As for Elite Four performance, Manectric is definitely better than Grumpig against Sidney and Phoebe. Grumpig is probably better against Glacia because of Calm Mind but Manectric still does fine. Drake matchup is probably a slight edge for Manectric, Grumpig will get slowed if it tries to set up on Shelgon and will be overwhelmed by the strong physical attacks whereas Manectric can paralyze stuff and hit his biggest threats (Salamence, Kingdra) with a strong Thunderbolt.

The main reason why I think Grumpig is better against Drake is not that Grumpig can use calm mind. By spamming psychic, Grumpig can 1v1 any 1-2 of Drake's Pokemon. For me, it was the only Pokemon that survived the 2HKO from Flygon (despite lonely nature).

Steven is a nogo for Grumpig because Metagross and Claydol will thwart any sweeping attempts with Calm Mind, whereas Manectric can OHKO his Skarm lead and probably take out one other thing or spread paralysis before going out (aka Manectric does better).

Grumpig can also take out a few of Steven's Pokemon, like Skarmory and Cradily.

Manectric's speed and power also gives it the edge in the Wallace fight, dealing more efficiently with Wailord and Gyarados + about the same with Milotic and Tentacruel (Grumpig won't outspeed them and Manectric does more dmg) while Grumpig is only noticeably better against Whiscash and can only really set up on Ludicolo (have fun with Double Team + Leech Seed) or Milotic (doable but Toxic means you are going to have to chug some Full Restores). Overall I think Manectric is still somewhat better than Grumpig because Manectric has availability flexibility and its speed and power advantages are notable.

In RSE, Grumpig's 80 base speed already lets it outspeed almost everything. Any more speed than that makes no noticeable difference. And Manectric does have more special attack, but Grumpig's fast growth rate is enough to offset that. I think the only thing Manectric really has going for it is typing.

Aggron: Aggron is honestly pretty bad.

I think it's D tier more for HM slave purposes rather than battling purposes. Aron is definitely not a bad HM slave.

Tropius: This Pokemon is well known for being a great HM slave, but I decided to do something different and actively use it in combat. As a combatant, it's mediocre. It's tanky and has better coverage than your standard Grass-type with STAB Fly and Body Slam, but its offensive stats are pretty underwhelming being slow and not overly strong.

Why don't you use magical leaf? Isn't it stronger than body slam?

This will get you to $30700, with a bit of wiggle room either way if you sell more things (there is a PP Up in Emerald you can sell but I doubt we're gonna be selling those). Now, whether or not this is efficient is a good point of debate. With that in mind I think Spoink's placement will depend on whether or not buying an early Psychic TM would be considered efficient. If not, then I don't think it should rise to B because without it Spoink's early period is quite mediocre.

As I said somewhere else in this post, I think Spoink's late-game sweeping abilities are good enough to raise it even if it's bad until it evolves. (and it's not really that bad against Flannery)

 

[Punchshroom]

Using the Route 118 Manectric means completely missing Flannery and Norman, so Spoink still has some advantage either way. The Spoink I used reached level 32 before Norman using only the experience from trainer battles. I don't think it (or any of my Pokemon) beat a single wild Pokemon in the whole run. Even if Spoink evolved later, I would still think it's better than Electrike simply because Spoink is stronger than Electrike.

These are hardly notable losses since they're both rough matchups for Manectric either way, unless you can manage to squeeze on Thunderbolt on it for Norman though it's even more costly than Psychic. That said, Psychic requires very conscious resource management and grinding just to obtain, so already this seems like a setback if you're intending to use Psychic Grumpig against Norman. Personally I assess Manectric for its Route 118-onward worth, where it has nothing but decent to great matchups outside of Maxie (and even then it can fry his Crobat).

As I said above, I didn't need to grind against wild Pokemon to evolve it before Norman. And if a Grumpig with psybeam fares only semi-adequately, how does a Manectric with spark fare more adequately? Their offensive stats aren't that different. I said Grumpig was better, because Grumpig was able to solo this fight with no items.

I didn't have psychic for Flannery, but I still think Spoink did okay with psybeam. My Grumpig soloed Winona. What level was yours when you fought her? I went to Route 120 before fighting Winona, so my levels might have been higher.

The main reason why I think Grumpig is better against Drake is not that Grumpig can use calm mind. By spamming psychic, Grumpig can 1v1 any 1-2 of Drake's Pokemon. For me, it was the only Pokemon that survived the 2HKO from Flygon (despite lonely nature).

I suspect your Grumpig may be a bit overleveled for these fights considering the investment you've put into it, and I am absolutely certain it is the highest leveled member of your team. On another note, if your Grumpig was able to accomplish feats like soloing Winona without items and surviving a 2HKO from Flygon even with a -Def nature, perhaps I've been overestimating the IVs of the Gym Leader/E4's Pokemon this whole time. Perhaps Manectric can bring down Drake's Kingdra or (maybe even and) Salamence, or possibly even outspeed Winona's +1 Altaria.

In RSE, Grumpig's 80 base speed already lets it outspeed almost everything. Any more speed than that makes no noticeable difference. And Manectric does have more special attack, but Grumpig's fast growth rate is enough to offset that. I think the only thing Manectric really has going for it is typing.

Manectric offers a very nice blend of Speed and power between Magneton and Electrode, though I personally consider Magneton to be the most consistent of the three since it's not that slow and comes with Thunder Wave at a usable level (unlike Electrike). However, Manectric's Speed should still let it outrun a couple of things that Magneton may not, such as Golbats as well as Drake's Kingdra and Mence, giving it a significant edge against them.

As I said somewhere else in this post, I think Spoink's late-game sweeping abilities are good enough to raise it even if it's bad until it evolves. (and it's not really that bad against Flannery)

It can get pretty ugly if Torkoal starts Body Slamming your Spoink for what is likely a 2HKO, and even more so if it paralyzes. Personally I consider your decision to spend nearly all your resources to buy the Psychic TM instead of just grinding Spoink up to level 34 before evolving to be pretty inefficient on your part (especially when you kept praising its Fast growth rate), but either way both choices require significant out-of-the-way grinding; in fact I suspect your Spoink just happened to gain enough levels on your grinding quest to evolve (I assume you went and fought the Desert trainers) and you made the arguably hasty decision to dump your cash into the Psychic TM as opposed to grinding a bit longer. In any case, trying to make Spoink useable in the Norman matchup is a timesink I don't think I can get behind; I would rather just try my luck with Manectric's yellow magic at that point since that can be more useful than whatever an unevolved Spoink is expected to do at that stage, and I'd just take my losses and have Grumpig contribute in later matchups.

 

[Merritt]

I suspect your Grumpig may be a bit overleveled for these fights considering the investment you've put into it, and I am absolutely certain it is the highest leveled member of your team. On another note, if your Grumpig was able to accomplish feats like soloing Winona without items and surviving a 2HKO from Flygon even with a -Def nature, perhaps I've been overestimating the IVs of the Gym Leader/E4's Pokemon this whole time. Perhaps Manectric can bring down Drake's Kingdra or (maybe even and) Salamence, or possibly even outspeed Winona's +1 Altaria.

You probably aren't overestimating the IVs of the late Gym Leader and Elite Four pokemon.

Winona's Altaria has either a 255 or 250 value (seen both claimed). If it's 255 then she's got flat 31s across the board, if it's 250 then she's got 30s across the board. Drake's got 250 on everything except Salamence which is definitely 255.

Gym Leaders and Elite Four have really high IVs to make them more difficult.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

I suspect your Grumpig may be a bit overleveled for these fights considering the investment you've put into it, and I am absolutely certain it is the highest leveled member of your team.

sumwun did, to his credit, put the levels of his team in the write up of his playthrough. However, this just proves your point. Grumpig was level 40 going into Winona, thanks to grinding against every trainer on Route 120 beforehand.

Personally, I’m not sure how we should be ranking Pokémon where there’s potential for frontloading experience then backtracking, since lots of Pokémon become way more useful when they have seven levels on a Gym Leader’s ace. Winona and Brawly in particular present lots of opportunities for this because you can skip them entirely, at least to begin with.

It seems like a slippery slope, idk.

EDIT: if this has been discussed before and we’ve decided that training ahead is fair play then ignore me

 

[Karxrida]

Skipping Winona is totally not efficient. You don't get to use Fly and the game forces you to hop across the region a couple times after the point you should have fought her.

You can actually get away with skipping Brawly since all you get out of that is Flash usage and Bulk Up, and those are things you can theoretically afford to not have.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

It’s probably a moot point either way though right? A guide for a casual player probably shouldn’t be advising readers to skip a Gym Leader. Theoretically a bad Brawly matchup is irrelevant when it comes to beating the game because you can come back and curbstomp him later, but that’s just not how most people play Pokémon games.

 

[Fireburn]

I didn't have psychic for Flannery, but I still think Spoink did okay with psybeam.

The lack of power means Numel and Slugma are more likely to do things that will ruin Spoink's day (high roll Magnitude, Light Screen) and it has even less of a chance of beating Torkoal. That said it probably still beats Camerupt because Camerupt can only really fight back with Tackle after it uses Overheat (which still did >50% to Spoink despite Thick Fat). It still does okay yeah, but it'll have to chug more potions and is even less effective against Torkoal.

My Grumpig soloed Winona. What level was yours when you fought her? I went to Route 120 before fighting Winona, so my levels might have been higher.

I don't remember exactly, I think it was around 34-36. I fought Winona right after getting the Devon Scope and mine was the opposite nature of yours (Bold). It did pretty well against most of her team but it was not able to defeat Altaria due to being 2HKOed by +1 Earthquake while failing to 2HKO back with Psychic. Skarm is also likely to knock it into 2HKO range since Shock Wave is not going to OHKO that. It isn't bad against Winona by any means but saying it can solo her is an overstatement unless you are using X Items or are overleveled.

I'm not giving Grumpig credit soloing a gym with a 5 level advantage because lots of things can do that.

When fighting Wallace, I used Grumpig against Tentacruel and Ludicolo rather than against Wailord. I think it's safer that way.

It can probably set up on Ludicolo if you're willing to endure Leech Seed, however Tentacruel is a harder matchup since STAB Sludge Bomb will hurt a fair bit, it will almost definitely be faster, and it has good Special Defense so Grumpig is likely not taking it out in one shot. Manectric on the other hand likely won't OHKO Tentacruel either, but it will probably outspeed Tentacruel so I'm giving it the advantage there.

The main reason why I think Grumpig is better against Drake is not that Grumpig can use calm mind. By spamming psychic, Grumpig can 1v1 any 1-2 of Drake's Pokemon. For me, it was the only Pokemon that survived the 2HKO from Flygon (despite lonely nature).

0 Atk Flygon Earthquake vs. 85 HP / 85- Def Grumpig: 87-103 (53.3 - 63.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I understand calcs aren't the end all be all argument when it comes to ingame but it's still useful for a generalization in this case: this is a Level 52 Lonely Grumpig with assumed average statistics (85 all evs and 15 all ivs) vs a Level 52 neutral Flygon with 30 all ivs and no evs. Grumpig is definitely not surviving two Earthquakes from Drake's Flygon unless its +Def and/or overleveled.

I can see how Grumpig can 1v1 Shelgon but I don't see how it 1v1s the others since one has STAB Earthquake, two have Dragon Dance and (likely) enough bulk to stomach two Psychics, and one is a Salamence. Combined with the fact that your Grumpig OHKOed Flygon with one crit Psychic (which, if the same level, it can't do without +SpA and more than 85 SpA EVS/15 SpA IV), the only thing I'm guessing here is that your Grumpig was pretty overleveled for this fight, and even with fast growth I find it hard to believe it went from 48 to 57 from the start to the end of the E4 unless you wiped a few times - for comparison my Grumpig started the league at 46 and ended it at 48, and while it soloed Glacia it didn't really do anything else. My highest leveled Pokemon when I finished the game was a Level 50 Hariyama. Again, experience tends to count more than raw calcs for ingame discussion, but they're enough to make me seriously question your claims of Grumpig's performance here.

I also find it ironic that Grumpig needed Manectric's help to beat Salamence.

Grumpig can also take out a few of Steven's Pokemon, like Skarmory and Cradily.

Skarm is largely fine but it's usually better to OHKO it so it doesn't lay Spikes, which Grumpig can't do. Cradily is a slug match that Grumpig likely loses 1v1 unless you give it potions. Everything else will beat Grumpig. Manectric on the other hand will OHKO Skarm to prevent Spikes and will at least cripple one other thing with paralysis/damage before going down, so I consider it better than Grumpig in this fight.

In RSE, Grumpig's 80 base speed already lets it outspeed almost everything. Any more speed than that makes no noticeable difference. And Manectric does have more special attack, but Grumpig's fast growth rate is enough to offset that. I think the only thing Manectric really has going for it is typing.

The Speed difference does matter when lategame opponents (aka the pokemon league) start outleveling you. 80 is adequate for most purposes but it will still get outsped by fast Pokemon that likely will not get by Manectric. Grumpig does have a faster growth rate but looking over your level logs it seems the difference was inflated by favortism, particularly with the 70k early Psychic TM and grinding it against an extra entire route's worth of trainers before fighting Norman and Winona with it. I don't see even a fast growth rate Pokemon hitting 57 by the Hall of Fame with 4 other Pokemon vying for EXP and participating in combat - I used a full team and Grumpig was only 48 by hall of fame. The only conclusion I can draw from this is Spoink is needs a lot of favoritism to perform as well as it did in your run, and while clearly it can work I question the efficiency of that approach when the other B rank Pokemon don't need as much focus, backtracking, or costly resource investment as you gave to Spoink to perform well.

I think you underestimate how good STAB Electric is in the post-Norman part of the game. The Thunderbolt TM is free (no investment to give any Electric of your choice a powerful STAB attack) and there are a huge volume of Water and Flying mons to fry to rake in the XP. Support options like Thunder Wave keep Electrics relevant even in otherwise bad matchups, since they can help the mons with good matchups win more easily.

I think it's D tier more for HM slave purposes rather than battling purposes. Aron is definitely not a bad HM slave.

Yeah that's a fair point, I was mostly discussing how it fared as a battler and the answer is: not good. HM utility, availability, and stonewalling Norman let it earn its keep in D but otherwise it's pretty poor and I honestly thought Plusle (an F rank mon) was better than it post Norman Thunderbolt machines are so so good in the post Norman phase.

Why don't you use magical leaf? Isn't it stronger than body slam?

I did: Magical Leaf is STAB, not coverage. I used Magical Leaf and Fly as its main attacks supplemented with Body Slam, and lategame I turned it into a Sunnybeamer.

As I said somewhere else in this post, I think Spoink's late-game sweeping abilities are good enough to raise it even if it's bad until it evolves.

You're paying 70k (with a slightly tight window) to get a good route sweeper that has potential to solo two major fights (8th Gym and Glacia). It's good but not great and the favoritism it needs to get rolling detracts from the rest of your team. While I don;t necessarily mind Spoink going to B I think it's pretty difficult to argue for it because of how much you have to focus on it to get it to perform.

(slightly off topic I would support dropping Numel to C, it's highly overrated)

 

[OrangeGuru]

It’s probably a moot point either way though right? A guide for a casual player probably shouldn’t be advising readers to skip a Gym Leader. Theoretically a bad Brawly matchup is irrelevant when it comes to beating the game because you can come back and curbstomp him later, but that’s just not how most people play Pokémon games.

I think it depends on the extent to which you are skipping. I, for one, pretty much have always played pokemon games in the order they are intended mostly because I'm a sucker for order and consistency (tho I did experiment with skipping Lt. Surge in FRLG in a playthrough), but I can see perks in certain cases. If you are skipping Brawly to go pick up a pokemon on Route 110 like Electrike or something (and inevitably get some experience), then I'm not sure that's too much of an issue. Skipping Brawly until the E4 tho seems too much (and that's not even taking into account that any perk likely would even out due to being underleveled in the immediate aftermath of skipping a section).

Not sure if this is totally relevant to the discussion at hand, but I think it's a fair point to raise and firm up where these threads stand, and I wanted to throw my 2 cents in.

 

[Merritt]

Skipping Brawly until the E4

Clarification, you must fight Brawly before you can fight Norman. If you put Brawly off until Norman then it makes the backtrack slightly longer, but ultimately isn’t significant.

 

[OrangeGuru]

Clarification, you must fight Brawly before you can fight Norman. If you put Brawly off until Norman then it makes the backtrack slightly longer, but ultimately isn’t significant.

Ahh my bad. I did say I don't skip around so that Brawly example wasn't the best to use (tho I thought someone else said the same thing earlier). I don't want this to detract from the original point of how much skipping should be taken into account when tiering.

 

[sumwun]

Fast growth rate lets players overlevel the Pokemon without putting in extra experience. Is that not what it does? Fast and slow do get about 8 levels apart at the end of the game, right?

Personally I assess Manectric for its Route 118-onward worth, where it has nothing but decent to great matchups outside of Maxie (and even then it can fry his Crobat).

My point from that post was that Grumpig also has decent to great matchups Route 118 onward.

I suspect your Grumpig may be a bit overleveled for these fights considering the investment you've put into it, and I am absolutely certain it is the highest leveled member of your team. On another note, if your Grumpig was able to accomplish feats like soloing Winona without items and surviving a 2HKO from Flygon even with a -Def nature, perhaps I've been overestimating the IVs of the Gym Leader/E4's Pokemon this whole time. Perhaps Manectric can bring down Drake's Kingdra or (maybe even and) Salamence, or possibly even outspeed Winona's +1 Altaria.

Manectric can bring down Drake's Kingdra, though in my run it couldn't beat Salamence.

It can get pretty ugly if Torkoal starts Body Slamming your Spoink for what is likely a 2HKO, and even more so if it paralyzes.

I know that Spoink does nothing against Torkoal, but it still manages to take out 1-2 of Flannery's other Pokemon.

Personally I consider your decision to spend nearly all your resources to buy the Psychic TM instead of just grinding Spoink up to level 34 before evolving to be pretty inefficient on your part (especially when you kept praising its Fast growth rate), but either way both choices require significant out-of-the-way grinding; in fact I suspect your Spoink just happened to gain enough levels on your grinding quest to evolve (I assume you went and fought the Desert trainers) and you made the arguably hasty decision to dump your cash into the Psychic TM as opposed to grinding a bit longer. In any case, trying to make Spoink useable in the Norman matchup is a timesink I don't think I can get behind; I would rather just try my luck with Manectric's yellow magic at that point since that can be more useful than whatever an unevolved Spoink is expected to do at that stage, and I'd just take my losses and have Grumpig contribute in later matchups.

I did try fighting Norman without grinding. It didn't go very well, so I sidetracked.

Skipping Winona is totally not efficient. You don't get to use Fly and the game forces you to hop across the region a couple times after the point you should have fought her.

All I did was bike from Fortree City to Lilycove City and back, and flying that way would have only taken 1-2 minutes less.

The lack of power means Numel and Slugma are more likely to do things that will ruin Spoink's day (high roll Magnitude, Light Screen) and it has even less of a chance of beating Torkoal. That said it probably still beats Camerupt because Camerupt can only really fight back with Tackle after it uses Overheat (which still did >50% to Spoink despite Thick Fat). It still does okay yeah, but it'll have to chug more potions and is even less effective against Torkoal.

My Spoink pretty much did that. If that doesn't count as "doing okay", then oh well.

I don't remember exactly, I think it was around 34-36. I fought Winona right after getting the Devon Scope and mine was the opposite nature of yours (Bold). It did pretty well against most of her team but it was not able to defeat Altaria due to being 2HKOed by +1 Earthquake while failing to 2HKO back with Psychic. Skarm is also likely to knock it into 2HKO range since Shock Wave is not going to OHKO that. It isn't bad against Winona by any means but saying it can solo her is an overstatement unless you are using X Items or are overleveled.

I'm not giving Grumpig credit soloing a gym with a 5 level advantage because lots of things can do that.

Manectric and Camerupt couldn't do it. At least I know Grumpig is better than those 2 in this fight.

It can probably set up on Ludicolo if you're willing to endure Leech Seed, however Tentacruel is a harder matchup since STAB Sludge Bomb will hurt a fair bit, it will almost definitely be faster, and it has good Special Defense so Grumpig is likely not taking it out in one shot. Manectric on the other hand likely won't OHKO Tentacruel either, but it will probably outspeed Tentacruel so I'm giving it the advantage there.

Why would you want to set up when spamming psychic is safer in this situation. By the way, both Pokemon outspeed Tentacruel, so Grumpig would have the advantage in taking less damage from sludge bomb.

0 Atk Flygon Earthquake vs. 85 HP / 85- Def Grumpig: 87-103 (53.3 - 63.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I understand calcs aren't the end all be all argument when it comes to ingame but it's still useful for a generalization in this case: this is a Level 52 Lonely Grumpig with assumed average statistics (85 all evs and 15 all ivs) vs a Level 52 neutral Flygon with 30 all ivs and no evs. Grumpig is definitely not surviving two Earthquakes from Drake's Flygon unless its +Def and/or overleveled.

I can see how Grumpig can 1v1 Shelgon but I don't see how it 1v1s the others since one has STAB Earthquake, two have Dragon Dance and (likely) enough bulk to stomach two Psychics, and one is a Salamence. Combined with the fact that your Grumpig OHKOed Flygon with one crit Psychic (which, if the same level, it can't do without +SpA and more than 85 SpA EVS/15 SpA IV), the only thing I'm guessing here is that your Grumpig was pretty overleveled for this fight, and even with fast growth I find it hard to believe it went from 48 to 57 from the start to the end of the E4 unless you wiped a few times - for comparison my Grumpig started the league at 46 and ended it at 48, and while it soloed Glacia it didn't really do anything else. My highest leveled Pokemon when I finished the game was a Level 50 Hariyama. Again, experience tends to count more than raw calcs for ingame discussion, but they're enough to make me seriously question your claims of Grumpig's performance here.

I also find it ironic that Grumpig needed Manectric's help to beat Salamence.

Grumpig can 1v1 any 1 of Drake's Pokemon except Salamence. Sorry I misspoke in the previous post. As for levels, I think my Grumpig was either level 56 or 57 when I beat Drake for the first time. In that run, I decided to let myself lose 7 times instead of using revives, probably because I thought spending more time spamming attacks would be more fun than spamming revives.

The Speed difference does matter when lategame opponents (aka the pokemon league) start outleveling you. 80 is adequate for most purposes but it will still get outsped by fast Pokemon that likely will not get by Manectric. Grumpig does have a faster growth rate but looking over your level logs it seems the difference was inflated by favortism, particularly with the 70k early Psychic TM and grinding it against an extra entire route's worth of trainers before fighting Norman and Winona with it. I don't see even a fast growth rate Pokemon hitting 57 by the Hall of Fame with 4 other Pokemon vying for EXP and participating in combat - I used a full team and Grumpig was only 48 by hall of fame. The only conclusion I can draw from this is Spoink is needs a lot of favoritism to perform as well as it did in your run, and while clearly it can work I question the efficiency of that approach when the other B rank Pokemon don't need as much focus, backtracking, or costly resource investment as you gave to Spoink to perform well.

The level difference was inflated by this and only this.

I probably don't know all the details about doing a "real efficient run", but I like to always have the exp. share on whichever Pokemon has the least experience. Especially on a test run like this one, I think it's unfair when a Pokemon just happens to sweep one route, get a few levels ahead from all the experience, and sort of take over from there.

Every few minutes, I really did open up all 5 of my summaries, find the Pokemon with the least total experience, and move it up to the front of my party. As for psychic, I just had a bunch of extra money at that point in the game and didn't know what else to do with it. Was I really supposed to buy thunderbolt for Manectric, only to get the free thunderbolt TM even earlier than Spoink would have learned psychic naturally?
As for your run, why did Hariyama end up with around 54000 more experience than Grumpig did? Was that influenced by favoritism?

I think you underestimate how good STAB Electric is in the post-Norman part of the game. The Thunderbolt TM is free (no investment to give any Electric of your choice a powerful STAB attack) and there are a huge volume of Water and Flying mons to fry to rake in the XP. Support options like Thunder Wave keep Electrics relevant even in otherwise bad matchups, since they can help the mons with good matchups win more easily.

Almost all of those Pokemon are easy to one-shot with neutrally effective attacks. Though I guess thunder wave is always appreciated.

You're paying 70k (with a slightly tight window) to get a good route sweeper that has potential to solo two major fights (8th Gym and Glacia). It's good but not great and the favoritism it needs to get rolling detracts from the rest of your team. While I don;t necessarily mind Spoink going to B I think it's pretty difficult to argue for it because of how much you have to focus on it to get it to perform.

2 fights is already more than some other B tier Pokemon. Should those Pokemon drop to C? And it doesn't really cost 70k; it eventually becomes a good route cleaner even without the TM.

(slightly off topic I would support dropping Numel to C, it's highly overrated)

Yes, yes it is.