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

[TheGamer7777]

I've progressed to Mossdeep and defeated Tate and Liza, here is what I've found so far.
Shedinja fairs awfully against both Team Magma and Aqua, due to a large amount of dark types, alongside things like Zubat/Golbat. It also has poor gym match-ups, being unable to do much of anything against Winona since all 5 of her pokes pack aerial ace (Although it can switch into Tropius's Solarbeam if your desperate I guess). Against Tate and Liza only Claydol and Solrock can actually damage Shedinja, but since this is a double battle it's a lot harder to use Shedinja. However, Shedinja's Shadow Ball does do a lot of damage to their whole team, so if you can eliminate the threats to Shedinja with another Pokemon, it can contribute decently. But overall it doesn't perform too well. Lastly against May Shedinja fails to wall most of her team, but can wall Lombre in the 4th match (But not in the 5th), alongside Tropius in the 5th but that's about it (Unless May has Marshtomp, it can wall Marshtomp too). Against standard trainers Shedinja's match-up varies heavily (usually dependent upon which trainer class your facing), this gives it some matches where it solos because of Wonder Guard, and others where it just gets OHKO'd straight away.

 

[TheGamer7777]

Okay final update on Shedinja's performance.

Against Juan Shedinja can wall his entire team, the only threat to Shedinja is Luvdisc's Sweet Kiss, but this can be easily worked around. You can set up X Attacks at any point in the fight for free and then proceed to sweep, just using a full heal or persim berry can stop Luvdisc in its tracks anyways. Being able to handle dangerous pokemon such as Juan's Kingdra is also useful.

Against Sidney Shedinja struggles pretty hard since half of Sidney's team carries a move to hit Shedinja. Not only that but his A.I is smart enough to switch into one of those mons if you ever send in Shedinja making his contributions to this fight negligible. It can deal with Crawdaunt and Shiftry but that's about it.

Against Phoebe: Her whole team has Shadow Ball, Shedinja can't contribute anything to this fight.

Against Glacia: 4/5 of her mons have a way to deal with Shedinja, with the only exception being Walrein. While this would be notable, Glacia also has 3 mons with hail, and if they set hail Shedinja can't even come in without dying. This makes for a particularly awful fight as Shedinja doesn't even deal great damage.

Against Drake: 4 of Drakes mons have super-effective coverage on Shedinja, and his A.I is smart enough to switch into one of them should you try and set-up on his Kingdra. This means Shedinja's only real use is for forcing out a set-up Kingdra, and using the turn to heal. But it overall fails to do anything against Drake.

Against Wallace: Interestingly Wallace's A.I doesn't seem to be smart enough to switch out against Shedinja, and since his lead Wailord can't do any damage to you Shedinja can set-up for free with X Attacks and Speeds until you can sweep the rest of his team. Without X items Shedinja still hard walls half of Wallace's team (Gyarados, Whiscash, and Wailord), so it can still contribute without having X items.

Overall thoughts: When I first started this playthrough I thought maybe Shedinja could move up to D tier, because on the surface it should have decent match-ups against most the gyms. But after using Shedinja I do think it is an E tier mon. It has a terrible learn set (Though getting Shadow Ball naturally is nice) and you have to deal with awful base power moves for far too long. Nincada is terrible as well so even just getting Shedinja can be a pain. Throughout the game Shedinja would be OHKO'd randomly by random trainers, important trainers, and even wild pokemon due to his pitiful 1 HP stat. The only match-ups where Shedinja actually performed well were Brawly, Wattson, Juan, and Wallace. Even other battles where Shedinja SHOULD hold an advantage (Like Norman and Tate&Liza) he failed to perform, and being near useless against the Elite 4 is very disappointing. Also something I noticed is that Shedinja's speed stat is god awful, so even if you can get Shedinja in and set-up for free it can be difficult for Shedinja to actually sweep due to its naturally low speed, basically necessitating you to buy X Speeds. If you really wanted to use Shedinja you could, but even in favorable match-ups Shedinja brings nothing to the table really considering how much of a burden it can be in other situations. For these reasons I think Shedinja should maintain its E rank, its still got enough use I think to stay out of F tier, but its certainly not good enough for D tier.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Merritt any word on movements? I imagine sumwun and some others are anxious to continue writing up

 

[Merritt]

Barboach rises from C tier to B tier
Doduo rises from D tier to C tier
Poochyena rises from E tier to D tier
Oddish (Vileplume) rises from C tier to B tier
Oddish (Bellossom) rises from D tier to C tier

Seviper drops from D rank to E rank

Abra did not drop because what I got from your run Texas Cloverleaf was a comfortable A tier for the majority of the run, only really beginning to fall off at the league where it was largely relegated to hit and run tactics (bar its comfortable performance against Wallace) which I don't think really ding it enough to drop it - it's a weird inverse of most A ranks where it's damn good for the majority of midgame and earlygame and starts to fall off in endgame while stuff like Ralts have a poor early and fantastic endgame. Honestly the combination of Kadabra and one of the other Pokemon who pick up at lategame is likely the optimal way to use it.

The criticisms of Solrock ran hard and fast and I honestly don't feel your final ranking weighed the good you said about it equally with the bad, such as its good matchups against Flannery, Winona, and Tate&Liza. What I got a sense of from your thoughts throughout made it seem more D than E.

Mudkip will not be moving to SS.

Torchic for A was previously discussed, no new points aside from Combusken not being good at grinding wild Pokemon at specific points in the game were raised compared to last time.

Slakoth's strong points are why it is D rank at all instead of E or even F - its weak points are incredibly crippling.

-------

As of these changes, Doduo and Bellossom are now eligible for being written up.

 

[sumwun]

Oddish (Vileplume) rises from C tier to B tier
Oddish (Bellossom) rises from D tier to C tier

Why are they still different? Is STAB sludge bomb really worth a whole tier, even when offset by a worse Tate and Liza matchup?

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Why are they still different? Is STAB sludge bomb really worth a whole tier, even when offset by a worse Tate and Liza matchup?

My perspective would be that while both can perform similar roles as SunnyBeamers, Vileplume is also capable of achieving success as a bulky mixed attacked in a way that Bellossom can't quite measure up to.

 

[Punchshroom]

Why are they still different? Is STAB sludge bomb really worth a whole tier, even when offset by a worse Tate and Liza matchup?

while I would have liked Bellossom to be ranked equally to Vileplume, I can think of two notable differences that could justify them being ranked apart.

The first is that Bellossom misses out on the Team Hideout battles. Not to say that Gloom can't perform there, but I'd be much more comfortable taking on Sharpedos with Plume than with Gloom. This isn't as impactful in Ruby, but this is more significant in Sapphire and Emerald, the latter of which Plume can even attempt to take on Maxie's Camerupt.

Probably the bigger reason is that Sludge Bomb will be a wasted move on Bellossom, so it's not a move you'd want to teach Gloom. This slight lack of versatility could hold back Bellossom in that regard.

 

[Merritt]

To add on (because the points both Punchshroom and Texas Cloverleaf brought up are completely valid - the earlier evolution also means Vileplume can see use as backup even vs Winona due to the increased bulk as opposed to Gloom), Vileplume also has a minor Special Attack bump over Bellossom that does reduce the threshold it needs to hit for OHKOs and 2HKOs, something which is rather important both for Sleep Powder and Sunny Day to reduce the number of hits Vileplume has to take overall.

Poison typing is a mixed bag too - on the one hand it does mean the Tate&Liza matchup is a bit worse (though Vileplume itself isn't exactly terrible in there, just kind of averageish) but it also gives Vileplume a much better time clearing out routes due to Sludge Bomb being noticeably stronger against neutral targets than Bellossom's Magical Leaf, which in turn makes Vileplume a better lead and so gains levels more easily off trainer mons.

 

[sumwun]

First, one thing I forgot yesterday: What happened to Girafarig? Why didn't it go to C?

Second, I think the standards for A tier are a bit too high. Back when this thread was first posted, A was already a lot smaller than the other tiers. The B tier, which started bigger, gained at least 7 or 8 things since then, but Treecko was the only Pokemon/family that ever moved to A. RSE are relatively difficult games, so I think we can't define A the same way we do in games with elemental punch TMs or early earthquake and fire blast. Also, these tiers are supposed to help people. When I want to play an unfamiliar Pokemon game, I'd rather know the 6 to 9 best Pokemon so I can pick some of them and make a decent team. The A tier now looks like it has maybe 3 things that aren't starters or version exclusives, and people who want bigger teams would look at B and see 17 things that all seem equally good. But they're not equally good, and the player would have to randomly assemble a team, knowing that it's suboptimal and not knowing how to improve it.

To see whether the few A Pokemon are really a tier above all 17 B Pokemon, to see whether a small A tier really makes sense, I want to play another game of Emerald. Here's the team I've planned so far.

Sceptile (might change to Breloom)
Gyarados (might change to Azumarill)
Hariyama
Kadabra (might change to Gardevoir)
Absol
Tropius

I'll take suggestions this time. Are there any close-to-A Pokemon that you want to see me use? Are there any other changes you want in my team? Do you want me to post one big post at the end like Fireburn or small, frequent posts like Cloverleaf?

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

There's a few B tiers I wouldn't have a problem with being in A but they all come at Winona or later and folks are resistant to those that come so late being up there (Lanturn, Starmie, Absol, Magneton could each make a reasonable case)

 

[Merritt]

I don't think there's an issue with A being small or having high standards. Do not nominate Pokemon to move based on the number of Pokemon in the tier they're in/would move to.

Girafarig did not move because it is fairly late (post Winona which yes includes the Safari Zone are what I'd call more the start of lategame than midgame) and suffers from some power issues, which exacerbates its mediocre bulk. Taking a Psychic TM, while not devastating at that point in the game, is less than ideal as well, along with taking the rather useful Shadow Ball if it wants to contribute effectively against Tate&Liza. Thunderbolt is a neat trick, but all in all it's a middling mixed attacker that has decent speed but no particularly great matchups for the remainder of the game, just decent ones.

 

[Punchshroom]

Girafarig did not move because it is fairly late (post Winona which yes includes the Safari Zone are what I'd call more the start of lategame than midgame) and suffers from some power issues, which exacerbates its mediocre bulk. Taking a Psychic TM, while not devastating at that point in the game, is less than ideal as well, along with taking the rather useful Shadow Ball if it wants to contribute effectively against Tate&Liza. Thunderbolt is a neat trick, but all in all it's a middling mixed attacker that has decent speed but no particularly great matchups for the remainder of the game, just decent ones.

For the record, I for one would never have considered Shadow Ball on Girafarig since it's a pretty poor match against Tate&Liza even with the move, and it's pretty much deadweight anywhere else (lol Steven's Claydol). I'd rather just Thunderbolt the Xatu and call it a day, and proceed to focus on its actually great matchups, such as Wallace/Juan, arguably Glacia, and especially Phoebe, thanks to Thunderbolt access being huge in only necessitating like 2-3 Calm Minds at most to sweep and Giraf's typing allowing it to be relatively impervious to Phoebe's attacks while bulky boosting.

If Texas's describes Kadabra as faltering towards the lategame, my experiences with Girafarig were quite opposite, and it didn't even have a bad start or need for babying to begin with. Against any of the remaining bosses it could fight in the game (including Winona), I found its average bulk and power to only really show against Tate&Liza, Drake, and Steven, though I still managed to clean sweep Drake with Giraf because lol Shelgon, just with a bit more healing because fuk Crunch SpD drops lmao. Steven is a tough or at least exhaustive match against any Calm Minding Psychic-type so I wouldn't hold it against Giraf too much. Otherwise it handles Wallace about as well as Alakazam is expected to, trading lesser power (aka need more Calm Minds to OHKO Whiscash, the only real threat after CM stacking) for just a bit more reliability in setting up on his lead Wailord since Wailord would soon be spamming Double-Edge after u PP stall his Hydro Pumps.

If I were to draw another comparison here, I'd compare Girafarig to Gardevoir much like how I compared Whiscash to Swampert last time, due to their similar coverage & moves with Giraf having inferior but still very workable stats.

 

[sumwun]

I don't think there's an issue with A being small or having high standards. Do not nominate Pokemon to move based on the number of Pokemon in the tier they're in/would move to.

Why not? Do you think there's an issue with making A slightly bigger? Or do you not want to move a lot of B tier things?

 

[RWB]

I'd argue that Ralts should be moved down in terms of tier placing.

Efficient play would not be to powerlevel a weak mon for ages just so it can eventually be good, it would be to use a good mon instead(either a good early-game mon that fall off and you swap out, or a good early-game mon that stays good). Abra is as good as it is because getting it too Kadabra is so fast it's kinda silly, which is not at all the case for the Ralts line.

Ralts and Kirlia are both fairly terrible, only saved by Gardevoir being good once you have it, but the line is in one of the slowest experience groups and is stuck like that for ages. At least Magikarp only needs to reach Level 20 to get out of it's starting blocks, the Ralts line is stuck until level 30.

The Ralts line's slow leveling in general should be a strike against it, even after evolution. Sure, Gardevoir is strong, but any mon from another Experience group with the same investment is Level 33-35 by the time Gardevoir evolves.
Heck, if we go a bit later, by the time Gardevoir is Level 50, the Fast Group in particular is now at 58.
This group includes Spoink/Grumpig, who may show up later and a bit underleveled, but they take less work to get going(and quickly catch up in level) and could be argued to be better in the long run due to their fast leveling.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

I've actually been of the opinion that Torchic should move to A myself for a while, but it's also been ages since I used one so now seems like a good time to give it a go.

May as well run a Gardevoir while I'm at

And because this is entirely too many actually good Pokemon let's throw a Slaking in there for good measure

Let's get Magneton in there too since there's a chance it could stand up to A tier standards

And I guess Wingull too since I'm skeptical of it in B and it makes my team typings look pretty

And the thread can decide the sixth from among the desert options, Anorith, Lileep, or Sandshrew (I'm partial to Lileep)

 

[LeftyGreenMario]

K, I hope that my points on Torchic is good. I honestly don't think it's all that efficient if a Pokemon is reliant on Bulk Up to muscle through weaker enemies. Nice to see some initial validation, but we'll see if your opinion changes.

 

[Merritt]

You're liable to end up underleveled with 6 mons texas which always hurts viability, especially when you're taking 4 extremely early mons. Definitely see the first Game Corner TM being annoying to distribute if you go with Magneton since what you've got there wants a Flamethrower TM on Torchic and two Thunderbolts where only one is free.

K, I hope that my points on Torchic is good. I honestly don't think it's all that efficient if a Pokemon is reliant on Bulk Up to muscle through weaker enemies. Nice to see some initial validation, but we'll see if your opinion changes.

You misunderstood what sumwun was saying. He was saying that Bulk Up allows you to have Blaziken set up and beat Juan and Winona - the Flying and Water gyms. With the Fire/Fighting Pokemon. Bulk Up is absurd overkill to use against most Pokemon, especially weaker ones.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

You're liable to end up underleveled with 6 mons texas which always hurts viability, especially when you're taking 4 extremely early mons. Definitely see the first Game Corner TM being annoying to distribute if you go with Magneton since what you've got there wants a Flamethrower TM on Torchic and two Thunderbolts where only one is free.



You misunderstood what sumwun was saying. He was saying that Bulk Up allows you to have Blaziken set up and beat Juan and Winona - the Flying and Water gyms. With the Fire/Fighting Pokemon. Bulk Up is absurd overkill to use against most Pokemon, especially weaker ones.

I think that's a good thing though, I've been somewhat overlevelled early with my three months early game goes. I'm not too concerned about the game corner depending on timing, Torchic probably isn't too concerned with Flamethrower since it isn't using it for Flannery or Norman and you get Blaze Kick when you evolve so you can wait until Lilycove etc if you need.

I'll definitely make a mental note to keep my levels in mind when evaluating things, though of course strong performance at low levels is only a bonus (i.e. the expectation for Ralts vs Brawly)


Also any preference for the desert mons? Low key want to do Anorith

 

[sumwun]

I'd argue that Ralts should be moved down in terms of tier placing.

Efficient play would not be to powerlevel a weak mon for ages just so it can eventually be good, it would be to use a good mon instead(either a good early-game mon that fall off and you swap out, or a good early-game mon that stays good). Abra is as good as it is because getting it too Kadabra is so fast it's kinda silly, which is not at all the case for the Ralts line.

Ralts and Kirlia are both fairly terrible, only saved by Gardevoir being good once you have it, but the line is in one of the slowest experience groups and is stuck like that for ages. At least Magikarp only needs to reach Level 20 to get out of it's starting blocks, the Ralts line is stuck until level 30.

The Ralts line's slow leveling in general should be a strike against it, even after evolution. Sure, Gardevoir is strong, but any mon from another Experience group with the same investment is Level 33-35 by the time Gardevoir evolves.
Heck, if we go a bit later, by the time Gardevoir is Level 50, the Fast Group in particular is now at 58.
This group includes Spoink/Grumpig, who may show up later and a bit underleveled, but they take less work to get going(and quickly catch up in level) and could be argued to be better in the long run due to their fast leveling.

Ralts is available to catch before you've faced your first random trainer, though it is only a 4% encounter rate. This is not a huge deal though, as it's well worth the brief wait. It only took me about 15 minutes to find one, and it was female and positive natured. I nicknamed her Weeb Bait, which I felt was appropriate. Ralts learns Confusion at level 6, so it only requires a level of babying before it can fend for itself after being caught. Confusion is very strong for the early game and has great matchups against the second gym. Ralts and Kirlia have average stats, but stab Confusion and ability to learn tbolt as soon as you can afford it make them tolerable while you level up. Learning Psychic very early (lv26) is also a huge boon, and from there it's just a short few levels to reach your final evolution. Gardevoir was the star of my battle with Norman, able to withstand enough punishment from Slaking to successfully ko him. From there, Gardevoir runs basically unopposed through the rest of the game, facing no real bad matchups aside from the dark types of Team Aqua/Magma and the Psychic gym in Mossdeep. Psychic and Thunderbolt are all the coverage you really need, coming in handy on the water routes and against Juan. Sidney and Phoebe were rough on her of course, but that was the only time in the game she really struggled.

Also, the problem with comparing Gardevoir to fast leveling Pokemon is that most of those Pokemon, including Spoink, are significantly weaker than Gardevoir. Players can't use Spoink against Brawly, which is already a minus. (technically you can skip Brawly and fight him later with a Spoink, but anything can sweep Brawly at that point) Kirlia may have worse stats than Spoink, but it gets calm mind at level 21 and psychic at level 26. All Spoink can do in the early-mid-game is spam psybeam. When Kirlia evolves into Gardevoir, which can reasonably happen around Winona despite leveling rate, its special attack goes to 125, 35 points better than Grumpig's. Gardevoir also learns thunderbolt, making it significantly better against Glacia and Wallace.

K, I hope that my points on Torchic is good. I honestly don't think it's all that efficient if a Pokemon is reliant on Bulk Up to muscle through weaker enemies. Nice to see some initial validation, but we'll see if your opinion changes.

Torchic: I disagree with WaterBomb's assessment and I think keeping it S-Rank is fine. I found that using Brawly's Bulk Up TM immediately on Combusken made up for the mid-game issues he described, and I was actually able to use Combusken to solo Flannery and Norman with Bulk Up and a few potions. It does run into some Speed issues against Norman but iirc the Petalburg Mart sells X Speeds so that easily makes up for it. Blaziken's offense is fine on the water routes if given the Return TM from Cozmo, since by the time Lilycove is reached it should definitely have maxed out friendship and 102 BP Return off 120 base Attack is gonna shred Wingull/Tenta lines pretty easily, especially since the majority of the swimmers on the sea routes use NFEs iirc. The only fights I found Blaziken wasn't able to contribute were Tate and Liza, Drake, and Wallace - more or less everything else falls to it.

(Glacia is definitely a plus MU in practice fwiw - Blaziken can set up 1-2 Bulk Ups on her lead Glalie and then Brick Break should KO everything)

I would also argue that RS!Torchic definitely shouldn't drop, since unlike Wallace Blaziken has a great matchup against Steven. and Tate and Liza is much easier to defeat in RS as well.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Thanks for quoting that, probably worth noting that as I'm planning my team I don't have Return earmarked for Blaziken, the most efficient end game set looks like Flamethrower / Bulk Up / Earthquake / Brick Break. I have Return set aside for Slaking which does raise the issue of whether Blaziken can take Return when others might appreciate it more.

 

[sumwun]

Thanks for quoting that, probably worth noting that as I'm planning my team I don't have Return earmarked for Blaziken, the most efficient end game set looks like Flamethrower / Bulk Up / Earthquake / Brick Break. I have Return set aside for Slaking which does raise the issue of whether Blaziken can take Return when others might appreciate it more.

You can get a second return in Pacifidlog Town. Strength should work find until then. Also, are you sure flamethrower is better than overheat? Blaziken should usually spam physical attacks, so the special attack drop won't hurt much.

Oh, and while you're here, I want to ask a question about Absol. If I want to use ice beam or thunderbolt, but not both, which one would be better? What should its other 3 moves be? I was thinking return, shadow ball, swords dance, and ice beam or thunderbolt.

 

[Merritt]

Flamethrower is a better option than Overheat because Blaziken definitely spams Flamethrower more than Brick Break against neutral targets - the extra BP means it OHKOs more stuff. Can always take Overheat for midgame if wanted though.

Return is handy to give to Blaziken but not necessary. Means that it can take on the sea routes with relative ease though, otherwise the constant wingull spam of trainers makes it annoying to lead with. You've got not one but two excellent sea clearers though so it's aight, but if you don't give Blaziken Return then keep in mind that any sea route complaints are by your own choice.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Unrelated to anything but Shiny Wurmple!

Edit: Now a Shiny Cascoon!

 

[RWB]

Ralts is available to catch before you've faced your first random trainer, though it is only a 4% encounter rate. This is not a huge deal though, as it's well worth the brief wait. It only took me about 15 minutes to find one, and it was female and positive natured. I nicknamed her Weeb Bait, which I felt was appropriate. Ralts learns Confusion at level 6, so it only requires a level of babying before it can fend for itself after being caught. Confusion is very strong for the early game and has great matchups against the second gym. Ralts and Kirlia have average stats, but stab Confusion and ability to learn tbolt as soon as you can afford it make them tolerable while you level up. Learning Psychic very early (lv26) is also a huge boon

I don't really agree with this assessment on Ralts and Kirlia.
Confusion is not exactly strong coming from Ralts dreadful 45 SpA, and against anything it doesn't hit supereffectively, Ralts loses the head to head. Kirlia is slightly better against special-focused mons specifically due to Calm Mind, but is much the same in many ways. They are both underpowered and mostly something you just put up with so you can get Gardevoir.

Also: Ralts and Kirlia have average stats
No they don't. Ralts has bottom 10 stats among all pokemon, and Kirlia has stats far below any supposed "average" as well. You do need to baby both Ralts and Kirlia all the way to 30, more or less. They are not really self-sufficient.

Also, the problem with comparing Gardevoir to fast leveling Pokemon is that most of those Pokemon, including Spoink, are significantly weaker than Gardevoir.

Grumpig is significantly bulkier than Gardevoir even on equal levels due to better HP, just as fast, and with a level advantage the offensive edge Gardevoir has is not particularly big despite a superior special stat. Weaker overall or just weaker as an attacker? Which is it we are talking about?
Grumpig is gonna outlevel Gardevoir.

Players can't use Spoink against Brawly, which is already a minus. (technically you can skip Brawly and fight him later with a Spoink, but anything can sweep Brawly at that point)

Against Brawly, you are likely to have Ralts, not Kirlia, and Ralts can not OHKO any of his mons at Level 18, and can easily go down in two hits if it gets unlucky vs Machop. You are arguably better off just using a flier here anyhow.

Kirlia may have worse stats than Spoink, but it gets calm mind at level 21 and psychic at level 26. All Spoink can do in the early-mid-game is spam psybeam.

Neither Spoink or Kirlia impresses offensively, but Spoink has much superior natural bulk(and it's faster, as well).
Fair on the Calm Mind point, but Spoink has Confuse Ray to potentially cut down on the amount of punishment it takes.

As a sidenote, Grumpig actually reaches Psychic(L34) earlier than Kirlia evolves into Gardevoir, if we assume they were at the same level when Spoink was caught.

When Kirlia evolves into Gardevoir, which can reasonably happen around Winona despite leveling rate, its special attack goes to 125, 35 points better than Grumpig's. Gardevoir also learns thunderbolt, making it significantly better against Glacia and Wallace.

Thunderbolt is the biggest deal here, but I struggle to see how it's so much better than Grumpig's much superior bulk and speed, once we account for a level advantage.

My point here is not that I think Spoink should go above Ralts, or even be in the same tier, I just think Ralts being in A tier is strange when accounting for all it's drawbacks, using Spoink as a comparison.

Essentially, I feel like Ralts fits better in B than A.

B-Tier: Reserved for Pokémon whose efficiency in terms of completing the game is considered to be high. Pokémon in this tier are able to OHKO or 2HKO a fair chunk of opponents and may have a bit of item reliance to assist in sweeping opponents. These Pokémon are still very useful but either have several visible flaws holding them back or come fairly late.

 

[LeftyGreenMario]

Fair points. I'm not sure if requiring TM and bulk up support to patch flaws (as TMs are contested resources) still detracts from it, but if Blaziken can handle sea routes better than I expect, then fair game.

Thanks for quoting that, probably worth noting that as I'm planning my team I don't have Return earmarked for Blaziken, the most efficient end game set looks like Flamethrower / Bulk Up / Earthquake / Brick Break. I have Return set aside for Slaking which does raise the issue of whether Blaziken can take Return when others might appreciate it more.

Is there a better option than Earthquake though? I figure it's a good choice to eliminate the Tentacool line spam and static abusers, but I cant really find other utility for it as it heavily overlaps with fire/fighting coverage, makes Blaziken helpless against Pelipper, and it's such a valuable TM. Return probably is a better choice.