I'd like to add that in terms of pure 1v1 potential Slaking can handle almost any Pokemon in the game due to his incredible stats and coverage most Pokemon would die for. Sure Shadow Ball and Return are the obvious ones, but Slaking also gets access to Tbolt, Flamethrower, Ice Beam, EQ, and Brick Break. While Return certainly steals the show because of Slaking's 160 base attack, Slaking also bolsters an impressive 95 special attack stat. I think viewing Slaking in terms of its sweeping potential is a little unfair because it obviously isn't made to sweep (Although it is entirely capable of clearing teams by itself, it just tends to take longer). I'm not trying to underplay the detriment of Truant though, as it is certainly a pain to deal with but Slaking's overall ability in combat are quite high, and thanks to its good bulk it isn't even really likely to get OHKO'd.
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Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald In-Game Tier List Discussion
- Thread starter Merritt
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Hey there!
It's been a while since I last posted, and a lot has happened between that time. mOst notably, my run of Mawile was deleted, though honestly i'm fine with where it is. Looking upon some of the nominations, i've decided to do a run of Emerald.
My planned team is
Swampert(so I can get past harder matchups)
Gardevoir(Interesting nomination by Cloverleaf made me think about it: Is it worthy of S)
Beautifly(I don't have a clear cut case if it's D or E, so I'll try it myself!)
Slaking(Because I caaaaannnnn)
Exploud(No one ever uses this pile of trash. I will)
6th Slot is up to choice, probably a flyer or something else.
Is there anything I should test for this run, or are we set to go?
It's been a while since I last posted, and a lot has happened between that time. mOst notably, my run of Mawile was deleted, though honestly i'm fine with where it is. Looking upon some of the nominations, i've decided to do a run of Emerald.
My planned team is
Swampert(so I can get past harder matchups)
Gardevoir(Interesting nomination by Cloverleaf made me think about it: Is it worthy of S)
Beautifly(I don't have a clear cut case if it's D or E, so I'll try it myself!)
Slaking(Because I caaaaannnnn)
Exploud(No one ever uses this pile of trash. I will)
6th Slot is up to choice, probably a flyer or something else.
Is there anything I should test for this run, or are we set to go?
I'm Planning on doing an Emerald run with a team of Mudkip, Slakoth, Ralts, Electrike, and Skarmory. What should my last member be? I was thinking of somthing like Vulpix, but I'm open to other ideas.
One of you should use Jigglypuff, the other Sandshrew
I don't need 3 goddamn normies on my team, Sandshrew it is!
The list still lists Cacnea in D. I thought it moved to E sometime last month.
Ralts is good, but I don't think it's on the same tier as Alakazam. From before gym 2 to around gym 6, Alakazam's special attack is 70 entire points higher than Kirlia's. While Kirlia is calm mind sweeping its opponents, Alakazam is instantly vaporizing them. Kirlia can evolve into Gardevoir, but its special attack, speed, and leveling rate remain worse than Alakazam's for the entire game.
Ralts is good, but I don't think it's on the same tier as Alakazam. From before gym 2 to around gym 6, Alakazam's special attack is 70 entire points higher than Kirlia's. While Kirlia is calm mind sweeping its opponents, Alakazam is instantly vaporizing them. Kirlia can evolve into Gardevoir, but its special attack, speed, and leveling rate remain worse than Alakazam's for the entire game.
I thought we were supposed to assume someone is going to use each thing and tier them based on how useful they'll be, not how easy it is to fill the remaining team slots. Isn't this kind of like saying we'll rank surf/ice beam users lower than thunderbolt users because "access to surf/ice beam isn't particularly difficult"? Or that we'll rank Breloom higher than Sceptile because "the ability to grab Swampert is huge and makes the game much easier"? If we don't lower things for being outclassed, should we also not raise things for having unique niches? I realize that fly and surf are like the 2 best moves in the whole game, but that shouldn't be a reason to make an exception. Also the highest level Wingull you can catch without surf is 12, so it'll need at least 13897 experience to evolve and learn surf. That's a significant amount by HM slave standards.
Slaking's physical attack is so high that special coverage is usually irrelevant. Unless the opponent has really high physical defense or is quadruple weak to a special attack, Slaking's strongest attack will be physical. Also, a super effective brick break is usually weaker than a STAB return.
Besides, Slaking has only 4 move slots, so it can't cover everything even if it had higher special attack. As far as I know, Slaking doesn't benefit from any attacks other than return, shadow ball, earthquake, and maybe hyper beam.
I'd say use a Tropius HM slave. Teams with more battlers tend to get underleveled really easily.
Flamethrower/Tbolt/Ice Beam all have niche uses against the Elite Four (In R/S more so than Emerald). Ice Beam is Slakings best option against Salamence, as well as against Flygon. Flamethrower has potential against Steven specifically its use would be against Skarmory, whose good defense leaves Slaking otherwise walled. This is also interchangeable with Tbolt though, so you could use either or. As for Brick Break it would mainly be used for things that resist your Normal Stab, such as Steel and Rock types (Although yes you can just teach EQ instead, EQ can be a valuable TM while Brick Break is usually less valuable). In particular having Brick Break lets Slaking handle Aggron more effectively. (EQ nullifies this of course)
You are correct in saying that Return, Shadow Ball, EQ, is most likely optimal but you can usually still fit a coverage move on Slaking even with those 3 and these moves do have specific uses, such as giving Slaking a better fight against Drake and Steven. They are by no means required but I think they are worth mentioning even if Slaking usually wouldn't be receiving some of these more precious TM's. Again I fully understand that Slaking's Physical Attack steals the show (It's the highest attack stat in the game for crying out loud), but my point was that Slaking does have other options that let it branch out if you want it to, heck even Tbolt can be used to just deal with all the Pelipper your bound to face. Furthermore while the obvious arguement is these moves are situational and only really let Slaking score particular OHKO's or 2HKO's my argument against that would be that the more turns you leave Slaking in the worse you are, so scoring more specific OHKO's isn't problematic unless you don't have the room (Which Slaking does I'd argue), or you need the TM's for someone else (Which is situational).
0 SpA Slaking Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Flygon: 136-160 (82.9 - 97.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 Atk Slaking Hyper Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Flygon: 120-142 (73.1 - 86.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
-1 0 Atk Slaking Hyper Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Salamence: 79-93 (42.4 - 50%) -- 0.4% chance to 2HKO
0 SpA Slaking Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Salamence: 129-152 (69.3 - 81.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Fixed Cacnea.
HM utility is a boost to a Pokemon's ranking. I want you to read over what you wrote and hopefully realize that what you're saying means that all Pokemon that can learn any mandatory HM should be given an equal boost, regardless of how many or which they learn.
HM usage is not like battling utility. HMs are something that must be learned by a member of the team in order to progress. There is a single, objectively correct way to approach HM gates. This is not true for battles. The cost of this is in the teamslots. An HM user that compresses multiple HMs into a single teamslot is more valuable than a Pokemon which learns only one HM and so it will get a higher boost.
This is a statement which I will admit is filling me with displeasure. "should we also not raise things for having unique niches?" This is a statement that when taken to its conclusion invalidates the concept of a tier list entirely. If you do not raise a Pokemon for its niche, for its ability to contribute, then what the fuck else would you raise it for.
In this specific context, of Pelipper's ability to compress both Surf and Fly to a single Pokemon, this is something that saves the player a teamslot. This is something intensely valuable. The part about Dive/Waterfall/Strength/Rock Smash being a fairly easy to obtain combination is to illustrate why this is valuable. A Pokemon can 100% be elevated for its unique and meaningful niches in a team, just as a Pokemon can be lowered for its unique and detrimental niches like being a needle in a river with regards to obtainability.
Do not ever attempt to inject an argument about opportunity cost into something that is not even remotely about opportunity cost.
Finally, what I was saying was not a statement about Wingull's utility as a pure HM slave for the entirety of the game as you are correct in that there are better options for completely untrained Surf slaves for the first body of water that requires Surf - though you could certainly catch a wild Pelipper immediately and achieve the results you seem confused about for the entire rest of the game - but rather that even after Pelipper starts to struggle to effectively contribute in battles (basically from Tate&Liza onward) it still aids the rest of the team through its HM compression.
I need to respond to this but I'm not happy about it.
HM utility is a boost to a Pokemon's ranking. I want you to read over what you wrote and hopefully realize that what you're saying means that all Pokemon that can learn any mandatory HM should be given an equal boost, regardless of how many or which they learn.
HM usage is not like battling utility. HMs are something that must be learned by a member of the team in order to progress. There is a single, objectively correct way to approach HM gates. This is not true for battles. The cost of this is in the teamslots. An HM user that compresses multiple HMs into a single teamslot is more valuable than a Pokemon which learns only one HM and so it will get a higher boost.
This is a statement which I will admit is filling me with displeasure. "should we also not raise things for having unique niches?" This is a statement that when taken to its conclusion invalidates the concept of a tier list entirely. If you do not raise a Pokemon for its niche, for its ability to contribute, then what the fuck else would you raise it for.
In this specific context, of Pelipper's ability to compress both Surf and Fly to a single Pokemon, this is something that saves the player a teamslot. This is something intensely valuable. The part about Dive/Waterfall/Strength/Rock Smash being a fairly easy to obtain combination is to illustrate why this is valuable. A Pokemon can 100% be elevated for its unique and meaningful niches in a team, just as a Pokemon can be lowered for its unique and detrimental niches like being a needle in a river with regards to obtainability.
Do not ever attempt to inject an argument about opportunity cost into something that is not even remotely about opportunity cost.
Finally, what I was saying was not a statement about Wingull's utility as a pure HM slave for the entirety of the game as you are correct in that there are better options for completely untrained Surf slaves for the first body of water that requires Surf - though you could certainly catch a wild Pelipper immediately and achieve the results you seem confused about for the entire rest of the game - but rather that even after Pelipper starts to struggle to effectively contribute in battles (basically from Tate&Liza onward) it still aids the rest of the team through its HM compression.
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Is there really much to say about this? It's a mid-game Normal-type that comes after Norman and has absolutely atrocious stats for in-game: low offenses, absymal Speed, high HP but poor bulk resulting in Potion sponging. It has pretty much no battling capability until it evolves, and sadly Body Slam is ~10 levels away after capture so there's a steep opportunity cost with letting Wigglytuff dawdle behind in order to learn one of its best STABs (Body Slam is also literally Wigglytuff's sole defining trait). Even after evolution it fails to impress, since its lack of any boosting option means it is almost always coming out worse when inevitably trading blows. Even Delcatty at least has Calm Mind going for it.
Sadly it comes after Flannery so it pretty much has losing Gym/E4 matchups across the board onward. It gets the Dig TM for temporary Ground STAB and can use it to cheese Norman for a bit, but otherwise it suffers from all the same lategame problems that plague the slow, low SpD Ground-types, AND it's outclassed by Donphan who's not in a great position itself.
Completely agree with Jiggy being trash. This thing has the bulk of a wet tissue paper(as Jigglypuff, Wigglytuff has comparable bulk to Blaziken or Medicham), lacks any good attacks unless you wait for Body Slam or waste valuable TM's on it just to do anything of note. Not to mention it's not very strong with no way to boost it's output. Although, there's no reason to wait for Body Slam as it's much faster to just slap on Strength and remove it once you get to Lilycove for Return: still shit btw.
Is there really much to say about this? It's a mid-game Normal-type that comes after Norman and has absolutely atrocious stats for in-game: low offenses, absymal Speed, high HP but poor bulk resulting in Potion sponging. It has pretty much no battling capability until it evolves, and sadly Body Slam is ~10 levels away after capture so there's a steep opportunity cost with letting Wigglytuff dawdle behind in order to learn one of its best STABs (Body Slam is also literally Wigglytuff's sole defining trait). Even after evolution it fails to impress, since its lack of any boosting option means it is almost always coming out worse when inevitably trading blows. Even Delcatty at least has Calm Mind going for it.
Sadly it comes after Flannery so it pretty much has losing Gym/E4 matchups across the board onward. It gets the Dig TM for temporary Ground STAB and can use it to cheese Norman for a bit, but otherwise it suffers from all the same lategame problems that plague the slow, low SpD Ground-types, AND it's outclassed by Donphan who's not in a great position itself.
Fortunately, Sandshrew can appear in Route 113, meaning it's able to fight Flannery and Maxie before the desert. With the Dig and Secret Power TM's readily available, it seems to be able to at lest get some route mileage. It's performance in Flannery and Norman's gym will decide if it drops though as other than that it's shit.
Note that this is only in Ruby and Sapphire.
well shit. not gonna get much milage then
Update time!
VS Roxanne
Ralts:
Can only beat Roxanne if it double teams, since Rock Tomb from any mon is a 2hko. Geodude is gelable, getting 3HKOed by Confusion. However, Roxanne will use potions after 2 confusions, so be use those turns to use potions yourself, or use double team again. Nosepas takes a while to take down, and more importantly, outspeeds after 1 rock tomb hitting (even if Ralts is timid, which mine is), so use something else here.
Verdict: Ralts' performance really comes down to how many double teams you can pull off without getting hit by 2 Rock Tombs (For me, I was able to pull off about 2 per try). If you get to +6 evasion, you should be fine to fight the Geodudes, but ai'd stay away from Nosepass, since its very bulky and is more powerful than the Geodudes
Mudkip:
OHKOs the Geodudes with Water Gun, and 2/3HKOs Nosepass. Roxanne's potion spamming will be annoying, but Just keep attacking it and you'll be fine.
Summary: S tier lol.
Slakoth:
God this takes forever. If you stock up on potions, and use X Defends and Attacks, you can do it. Just have a lot of patience, and use Items in between truant turns.
Summary: Honestly, not that bad. This is the pokemon battle equivalent of watching paint dry, but Slakoth is bulky enough to live multiple hits, and slowly whittles down opponents with Scratch.
Team:
Marshtomp: Level 16 / Impish nature
Ralts: Level 13 / Timid Nature
Slakoth: Level 13 / Timid nature
VS Roxanne
Ralts:
Can only beat Roxanne if it double teams, since Rock Tomb from any mon is a 2hko. Geodude is gelable, getting 3HKOed by Confusion. However, Roxanne will use potions after 2 confusions, so be use those turns to use potions yourself, or use double team again. Nosepas takes a while to take down, and more importantly, outspeeds after 1 rock tomb hitting (even if Ralts is timid, which mine is), so use something else here.
Verdict: Ralts' performance really comes down to how many double teams you can pull off without getting hit by 2 Rock Tombs (For me, I was able to pull off about 2 per try). If you get to +6 evasion, you should be fine to fight the Geodudes, but ai'd stay away from Nosepass, since its very bulky and is more powerful than the Geodudes
Mudkip:
OHKOs the Geodudes with Water Gun, and 2/3HKOs Nosepass. Roxanne's potion spamming will be annoying, but Just keep attacking it and you'll be fine.
Summary: S tier lol.
Slakoth:
God this takes forever. If you stock up on potions, and use X Defends and Attacks, you can do it. Just have a lot of patience, and use Items in between truant turns.
Summary: Honestly, not that bad. This is the pokemon battle equivalent of watching paint dry, but Slakoth is bulky enough to live multiple hits, and slowly whittles down opponents with Scratch.
Team:
Marshtomp: Level 16 / Impish nature
Ralts: Level 13 / Timid Nature
Slakoth: Level 13 / Timid nature
Roxanne: Everyone is Lvl 13
Beautifly: Absorb barely misses a OHKO from the Geodude’s, risking a OHKO from Rock Tomb. Nosepass shits on your face. F TIer
Ralts: Double Team and Growl allows you to take advantage of their inaccurate physical moves. Confusion averagly 2-3HKO’s the Geodudes, and 9HKO’s Nosepass. Luck-dependent, but still worthy of A Tier.
Whismur: No. You can’t do jack shit to anythung with Uproar or Pound and get bodied by any move. FFFFFF Tier.
Slakoth: A combination of Encore and Yawn allows you to slowly but surely beat any one of the Pokemon, but not more than that. D Tier i guess, it can do a thing.
Mudkip: lol S Tier.
Mudkip is what you expected
Ralts babying period is overrated: it's like 2 levels for Confusion and then Ralts can go to town on most things. It's tanky enough to spam things to death, and it's level-up movepool looks to be exciting. If it does well enough with Wattson, Flannery and Norman, it's easily S Tier in my eyes.
Slakoth sucks but once you get some levels it's fine. Until Vigorith comes in, I can't give a full ranking on this.
Whismur is shit. Frail, weak and doesn't get anything good until Strength. Even then, I'm gonna need a lot of TM's to fix it.
Probably E Tier in my eyes
Beautifly trucks route trainers early game, but the underwelming Roxanne performance scares me for what's up ahead for my gruesome bug. Can't give an opinon yet though.
Probably update after Wattson or Flannery. and rip sandshrewy dreams lol
Beautifly: Absorb barely misses a OHKO from the Geodude’s, risking a OHKO from Rock Tomb. Nosepass shits on your face. F TIer
Ralts: Double Team and Growl allows you to take advantage of their inaccurate physical moves. Confusion averagly 2-3HKO’s the Geodudes, and 9HKO’s Nosepass. Luck-dependent, but still worthy of A Tier.
Whismur: No. You can’t do jack shit to anythung with Uproar or Pound and get bodied by any move. FFFFFF Tier.
Slakoth: A combination of Encore and Yawn allows you to slowly but surely beat any one of the Pokemon, but not more than that. D Tier i guess, it can do a thing.
Mudkip: lol S Tier.
Mudkip is what you expected
Ralts babying period is overrated: it's like 2 levels for Confusion and then Ralts can go to town on most things. It's tanky enough to spam things to death, and it's level-up movepool looks to be exciting. If it does well enough with Wattson, Flannery and Norman, it's easily S Tier in my eyes.
Slakoth sucks but once you get some levels it's fine. Until Vigorith comes in, I can't give a full ranking on this.
Whismur is shit. Frail, weak and doesn't get anything good until Strength. Even then, I'm gonna need a lot of TM's to fix it.
Probably E Tier in my eyes
Beautifly trucks route trainers early game, but the underwelming Roxanne performance scares me for what's up ahead for my gruesome bug. Can't give an opinon yet though.
Probably update after Wattson or Flannery. and rip sandshrewy dreams lol
I fail to see how Beautifly barely missing an OHKO on Geodude gives it an F tier performance. Depending on which game your playing (Emerald or R/S) Roxanne either has 1-2 Geodudes, so in Emerald Beautifly manages to almost OHKO 2/3 of Roxanne's team and in Ruby manages to almost OHKO 1/2 her team. Depending on your nature or just having potentially low DV's there might even be a chance that you could have OHKO'd those Geodudes, and I'm sure absorb does at least decent damage to Nosepass. For an inherently awful match-up for Beautifly that is not a bad performance by any stretch of the imagination. If anything I'd say Beautifly's performance was closer to C, it can definitely contribute but has significant potential problems.
It can't kill a mon 1 level lower that has 25 SpDef with a 4x effective move. And it gets 1-Shoted.
That's F Tier in my eyes
Its a non stab base 20 power move. Lotad's absorb doesn't even OHKO a level 12 Geodude if your level 13. Yes Lotad doesn't get OHKO'd in return but my point stands, absorb is a bad move so it nearly OHKOing isn't bad, and again idk what nature you have or anything but your Beautifly could just have had bad stats.
Update 2
VS Brawly
Slakoth (level 16):
Can actually do a decent chunk to Machop, 3-4HKOing with Cut it and burn one of Brawly's potions if you use a potion yourself during Truant turns. Adtionaly, Slakoth can put Machop to sleep, allowing for another teammate to come in. Unfortunately, while the sloth is able to take 2 Hits, Machop will eventually KO it.
Summary: Use Slakoth to burn one of Brawly's potions and/or put something to sleep. Otherwise, stay away from this match. F-tier.
Ralts (Level 16):
2HKOs Machop, 3-4HKOs Meditie, and 3HKOs Makuhita with Confusion. Ralts can tank Machop's and Meditie's Hits, but Makuhita's Reversal is very threatening, and can KO easily.
Summary: Easily beats the 1st 2 'mons, but Makuhita is very challenging, especially if it uses reversal.
Marshtomp (Level 16):
3HKOs Machop and Meditite and 2HKOs Makuhita with Mud Shot. Additionally, Marshtomp is bulky enough to tank multiple hits. Just be wary of Bulk Up.
Summary: Probably the best out of these 3 to sweep Brawly; has the power to beat the gym, and enough bulk to tank multiple hits.
Team:
Marshtomp: Level 18 / Impish nature
Ralts: Level 16 / Timid Nature
Slakoth: Level 16 / Timid nature
On an unrelated note, I found a shiny Zubat! Should I use it instead of Skarmory?
VS Brawly
Slakoth (level 16):
Can actually do a decent chunk to Machop, 3-4HKOing with Cut it and burn one of Brawly's potions if you use a potion yourself during Truant turns. Adtionaly, Slakoth can put Machop to sleep, allowing for another teammate to come in. Unfortunately, while the sloth is able to take 2 Hits, Machop will eventually KO it.
Summary: Use Slakoth to burn one of Brawly's potions and/or put something to sleep. Otherwise, stay away from this match. F-tier.
Ralts (Level 16):
2HKOs Machop, 3-4HKOs Meditie, and 3HKOs Makuhita with Confusion. Ralts can tank Machop's and Meditie's Hits, but Makuhita's Reversal is very threatening, and can KO easily.
Summary: Easily beats the 1st 2 'mons, but Makuhita is very challenging, especially if it uses reversal.
Marshtomp (Level 16):
3HKOs Machop and Meditite and 2HKOs Makuhita with Mud Shot. Additionally, Marshtomp is bulky enough to tank multiple hits. Just be wary of Bulk Up.
Summary: Probably the best out of these 3 to sweep Brawly; has the power to beat the gym, and enough bulk to tank multiple hits.
Team:
Marshtomp: Level 18 / Impish nature
Ralts: Level 16 / Timid Nature
Slakoth: Level 16 / Timid nature
On an unrelated note, I found a shiny Zubat! Should I use it instead of Skarmory?
Keeping up at the moment, all of my mons except Whismur have been fantastic at route cleaning. Whismur is shit though and Slakoth is Slakoth, but otherwise no complaints other than I took a whopping 80% from a crit Surf from a Zigzagoon lol.
On the subject of Whismur, this pos has all types of problems that plauge it from the start. It's power is medicore even compared to anything else in the game, as Pound is a meh STAB and Uproar locks you in. 23/23 defenses are absolute shit, meaning you take a minimum of 40% from STAB moves. The good news that it grows fast and can become Loudred are mooted when you realize it doesn't evolve until Level 40 and 71/71 offenses can only go so far. This thing actually has a case for F Tier: although mid-late game matchups may change that.
(also btw it requires TM's to fix it's shit level-up moveset but nows not the time)
Brawly Time: Everyone is Lvl 16
Whismur: No. You can’t beat anything other than lolmeditite. I guess E Tier because you beat one Pokemon and can chip any mon with a Hasty/Naive Nature, but meh.
Ralts: You can 2HKO Machop, with Machop either using Bulk Up or attack and Brawly wastes a healing item. Lolmeditie and Makuhita is also 2HKO’d(3HKO after Berry). Even a +1 Vital Throw does less than ½ to Ralts.S Tier
Slakoth: nah T r u a n t
Marshtomp: Bide proves to be a godsend as Machop can’t kill you and dies to Bide. lolmeditite. Makuhita does ½ at +1, but sacking Amana to Potion up Marshy gets the job done. B Tier, if only because Makuhita is a dick and is buff.
Beautifly; Gust 2HKO’s Machop even after a Bulk Up. lol meditie. Gust 2HKO’s Makuhita and Vital Throw does butt for damage.
Getting off to Slateport, grinded Slakoth to 18 for evolution and holy shit Vigoroth is awesome. Takes nothing from anything, has reliable recovery and can just kill anything with Scratch at the moment. Bulk Up will be useful for Rival 2. Also got Ralts to Lvl 20 for Rival 2 and got a Kirlia. Haven't used it much but it's SpA and CM 1 level later sound neat.
Rival 2: Everyone is 19 except for my new Kirlia which is 20
Kirlia: Confusion 2HKO's Slugma while Ember does about 20% to you. Grovyle defaults to Pursuit(or QA when under 15HP) which can only 3HKO, while Confusion only does 25% to Grovyle: healing is required but Kirlia is slated to win pretty consistently. Wingull's Wing Attack does only 10 HP of damage while Confusion 2HKO's.
Results: Overall pretty medicore due to Grovyle's presence: one crit ends you, but the general consistency of this run merits a B Tier.
Vigoroth: This is unfair af. Slugma can't do anything with Ember, and Smog can be cured by easy-to find berries you can get at this time. You also have Encore to take advantage if it derps with Rock Throw. Set up to +2 to OHKO Slugma and Grovyle with a 3-hit Fury Swipe and Wingull dies to a 2-Hit.
Results: lel S Tier
Beautifly: You take like, 1/2 from a Rock Throw from Slugma but you do 2HKO it with Gust so there's that. Wingull can only 3HKO with WA so you easily win Gust spam, but it does outspeed requiring 2 uses of a Super Potion. Grovy is 2HKO'd while Pursuit does 20% of it's health.
Results: Decent luck and some Poitons are all that are required to sweep this girl. Easy A Tier if only because of the potion usage.
Whismur: My goodness this thing is shit. Pound doesn't even deal 25% and Ember does ~18 damage or 25%. Yawn puts you in the dirt, so you have to set-up with Howl in order to anything. Wingull does a lot of damage though, so you can't set up Howls on it( or it can just Supersonic and you hit yourself lel), but you can beat it 1v1. If you like spamming Potions, it can beat Grovyle, but even then a single high roll can end you.
Results: too much set-up and healing to be useful, F Tier.
Marshtomp: lolslugma. Wingull does butt damage while you 3HKO with Tackle. lolGrovyle
Results: You do jack all to Grovy but killing the other 2 makes it worthy of B Tier.
Current Team
Marshtomp, Naughty Lvl 20 58/44/38/33/32/30
Whismur, Hasty Lvl 19 56/26/14/29/18/22
Beautifly, Lonely Lvl 19 55/41/27/43/29/32
Kirlia, Modest Lvl 20 47/20/24/36/28/31
Vigoroth, Naughty Lvl 19 65/39/39/27/25/43
On the subject of Whismur, this pos has all types of problems that plauge it from the start. It's power is medicore even compared to anything else in the game, as Pound is a meh STAB and Uproar locks you in. 23/23 defenses are absolute shit, meaning you take a minimum of 40% from STAB moves. The good news that it grows fast and can become Loudred are mooted when you realize it doesn't evolve until Level 40 and 71/71 offenses can only go so far. This thing actually has a case for F Tier: although mid-late game matchups may change that.
(also btw it requires TM's to fix it's shit level-up moveset but nows not the time)
Brawly Time: Everyone is Lvl 16
Whismur: No. You can’t beat anything other than lolmeditite. I guess E Tier because you beat one Pokemon and can chip any mon with a Hasty/Naive Nature, but meh.
Ralts: You can 2HKO Machop, with Machop either using Bulk Up or attack and Brawly wastes a healing item. Lolmeditie and Makuhita is also 2HKO’d(3HKO after Berry). Even a +1 Vital Throw does less than ½ to Ralts.S Tier
Slakoth: nah T r u a n t
Marshtomp: Bide proves to be a godsend as Machop can’t kill you and dies to Bide. lolmeditite. Makuhita does ½ at +1, but sacking Amana to Potion up Marshy gets the job done. B Tier, if only because Makuhita is a dick and is buff.
Beautifly; Gust 2HKO’s Machop even after a Bulk Up. lol meditie. Gust 2HKO’s Makuhita and Vital Throw does butt for damage.
Getting off to Slateport, grinded Slakoth to 18 for evolution and holy shit Vigoroth is awesome. Takes nothing from anything, has reliable recovery and can just kill anything with Scratch at the moment. Bulk Up will be useful for Rival 2. Also got Ralts to Lvl 20 for Rival 2 and got a Kirlia. Haven't used it much but it's SpA and CM 1 level later sound neat.
Rival 2: Everyone is 19 except for my new Kirlia which is 20
Kirlia: Confusion 2HKO's Slugma while Ember does about 20% to you. Grovyle defaults to Pursuit(or QA when under 15HP) which can only 3HKO, while Confusion only does 25% to Grovyle: healing is required but Kirlia is slated to win pretty consistently. Wingull's Wing Attack does only 10 HP of damage while Confusion 2HKO's.
Results: Overall pretty medicore due to Grovyle's presence: one crit ends you, but the general consistency of this run merits a B Tier.
Vigoroth: This is unfair af. Slugma can't do anything with Ember, and Smog can be cured by easy-to find berries you can get at this time. You also have Encore to take advantage if it derps with Rock Throw. Set up to +2 to OHKO Slugma and Grovyle with a 3-hit Fury Swipe and Wingull dies to a 2-Hit.
Results: lel S Tier
Beautifly: You take like, 1/2 from a Rock Throw from Slugma but you do 2HKO it with Gust so there's that. Wingull can only 3HKO with WA so you easily win Gust spam, but it does outspeed requiring 2 uses of a Super Potion. Grovy is 2HKO'd while Pursuit does 20% of it's health.
Results: Decent luck and some Poitons are all that are required to sweep this girl. Easy A Tier if only because of the potion usage.
Whismur: My goodness this thing is shit. Pound doesn't even deal 25% and Ember does ~18 damage or 25%. Yawn puts you in the dirt, so you have to set-up with Howl in order to anything. Wingull does a lot of damage though, so you can't set up Howls on it( or it can just Supersonic and you hit yourself lel), but you can beat it 1v1. If you like spamming Potions, it can beat Grovyle, but even then a single high roll can end you.
Results: too much set-up and healing to be useful, F Tier.
Marshtomp: lolslugma. Wingull does butt damage while you 3HKO with Tackle. lolGrovyle
Results: You do jack all to Grovy but killing the other 2 makes it worthy of B Tier.
Current Team
Marshtomp, Naughty Lvl 20 58/44/38/33/32/30
Whismur, Hasty Lvl 19 56/26/14/29/18/22
Beautifly, Lonely Lvl 19 55/41/27/43/29/32
Kirlia, Modest Lvl 20 47/20/24/36/28/31
Vigoroth, Naughty Lvl 19 65/39/39/27/25/43
I definitely screwed something up in my previous post. Hopefully this one's better.
Okay, I get that Pelipper is better than a Pokemon that can learn only surf or only fly. One reason why I brought up "opportunity cost" was that I thought you were saying that rock smash/strength/dive/waterfall slaves are more common and interchangeable than Pelipper and therefore should be ranked lower, even if they come earlier or learn more HMs than Pelipper does. I want to end this confusion quickly. Is that what you really were saying?
This is not what I meant to say. I was trying to say that we shouldn't raise anything only because its niche is unique and it has less competition. So if a thunderbolt user is above a surf/ice beam user, then it means the thunderbolt user contributes more, not because it has less competition. You said it pretty well yourself with "A Pokemon can 100% be elevated for its unique and meaningful niches in a team, just as a Pokemon can be lowered for its unique and detrimental niches like being a needle in a river with regards to obtainability."
This is saying Pelipper starts as a battler and later becomes both a battler and an HM slave. Right? So it's ranked higher than it would be if it does only one of those two things.
Surf and Fly are not only the generally most important HMs to have on hand (being 'required' in many scenarios for Fly or being essential for literally every location after leaving Lilycove), but also cover 2 of the 6 mandatory HMs in a way that pairs well with a great number of other Pokemon to cover the remainder, essentially meaning that you can get by with 2 HM teammates rather than 3.
The Pokemon capable of this feat - pairing with a fairly large number of Pokemon to cover all 6 HMs in 2 teamslots - are Pelipper (Surf+Fly), Tropius, Vibrava, Flygon, and Salamence (Rock Smash/Strength+Fly), Altaria and Skarmory (Rock Smash+Fly), and Rayquaza (learns all 6 mandatory HMs). All of these Pokemon get credit for this in the rankings to some degree but for most of them not any more than the Pokemon that complete the set of HMs, except Tropius due to both its relative ease in obtainability and being open to even more Pokemon to finish off the set than all the others.
However, Pelipper is special in this regard due to Surf and Fly being the only generally mandatory HMs to have on hand for the majority of the endgame, with exactly two stretches that require Rock Smash/Strength/[Waterfall or Dive] in that period - Seafloor Cavern (with the brief jumps to register Sootopolis and Pacifilog in Emerald) and Victory Road (with the waterfall in front). This means that for every part of the endgame except those stretches, having something that covers Surf and Fly in a single slot is freeing up an extra teamslot, which is something Pelipper alone can do and so it gets an extra boost in terms of being an HM user.
Yes, if Pelipper was only an HM user who could do absolutely nothing in any major battles which is an exaggeration for illustration purposes it would likely be at best D, while if it was only good for its battling capabilities that's probably D as well.
So I recently completed a casual playthrough of Ruby and I wasn't planning on commenting about my team at all. However, during my run I decided to use Zangoose for the first time and it became apparent to me that Zangoose is an absolute monster. Access to Swords Dance and Silk Scarf boosted Strength right off the bat is incredible, and thanks to good overall speed it can often outspeed its foes too. Later on Shadow Ball and Brick Break make for the perfect coverage to let Zangoose destroy every important trainer in the game.
Now I'm sure what I'm stating is obvious to you guys, so I'm not going to bore you with any details unless you want them (Also I don't particularly remember them all that well), but rather I wanted to ask a question. So on the tier list Zangoose is obviously A ranked, however I think its overall battle performance would more than justify an S tier ranking. This brings me to my question which would be why is Zangoose only ranked in A, is it due to it being obtained during the mid-game, or is it because of its exclusiveness to Ruby (Or maybe a bit of both). I would be interested in knowing what the justification is because even despite Zangoose entering at a somewhat lower level its good stats and powerful stab let it easily catch up in my own playthrough, and by the end Zangoose solo'd the entire Elite 4 (Including Steven, although technically Zangoose couldn't quite OHKO Metagross). I do understand that a late arrival can mitigate an incredible performance (Such as with the weather trio), but I don't personally think Zangoose's arrival is too late for it to be considered that detrimental. These were just my thoughts though, I do want to mention that my Zangoose was had a Lonely nature, so it is possible my opinion is being swayed by this (As I said it's my first time ever using Zangoose). Also sorry if this topic has been discussed before, I don't want to make you guys repeat yourselves.
Basically to sum up my question simply it would be how late of an arrival is too late to be an S tier pokemon? Because by all other justifications it would seem to me after my first impression that Zangoose hits every other box required to be an S tier pokemon.
Now I'm sure what I'm stating is obvious to you guys, so I'm not going to bore you with any details unless you want them (Also I don't particularly remember them all that well), but rather I wanted to ask a question. So on the tier list Zangoose is obviously A ranked, however I think its overall battle performance would more than justify an S tier ranking. This brings me to my question which would be why is Zangoose only ranked in A, is it due to it being obtained during the mid-game, or is it because of its exclusiveness to Ruby (Or maybe a bit of both). I would be interested in knowing what the justification is because even despite Zangoose entering at a somewhat lower level its good stats and powerful stab let it easily catch up in my own playthrough, and by the end Zangoose solo'd the entire Elite 4 (Including Steven, although technically Zangoose couldn't quite OHKO Metagross). I do understand that a late arrival can mitigate an incredible performance (Such as with the weather trio), but I don't personally think Zangoose's arrival is too late for it to be considered that detrimental. These were just my thoughts though, I do want to mention that my Zangoose was had a Lonely nature, so it is possible my opinion is being swayed by this (As I said it's my first time ever using Zangoose). Also sorry if this topic has been discussed before, I don't want to make you guys repeat yourselves.
Basically to sum up my question simply it would be how late of an arrival is too late to be an S tier pokemon? Because by all other justifications it would seem to me after my first impression that Zangoose hits every other box required to be an S tier pokemon.
E: To make this clearer, this is specifically with regards to the quoted part. Zangoose, along with all other version exclusive Pokemon, is not ranked lower due to only appearing in Ruby.
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Didn't really answer the rest of the question though. I kinda figured it wasn't because of that but thought it was worth asking.
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