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Are there any major discussion points at the moment beyond Torchic and perhaps Electrike? I'm scrolling through the tiers and am struggling to find something which seems out of place or worthy of consideration.
I plan to play Emerald several times in the next few months. I might find something worth discussing then. I probably won't finish my first run for another 3-4 weeks, so in the mean time I might as well ask this question:
There's some Pokemon or evolution family A that completely relies on a one-time TM move in order to be useful, and several other Pokemon can use that TM a lot better. In which cases would you say, "A is bad because it relies on a popular TM move," and in which cases would you say, "A works great; just don't use it with one of those other Pokemon"?
Nearly done a Emerald playthrough recently with Mudkip/Ralts/Seviper/Voltorb. Plenty has been said about the first two, so I'll leave them (Ralts stage fucking sucks though, runs out of PP all the time and loses to all sorts of things I wish it didn't), but I'll add a bit about Seviper and Voltorb. TL;DR: agreed with D and C respectively
Seviper: This pokemon is useful as soon as you get it, no tedious grinding required, which is always a plus. Bite and Dig is decent coverage it gets right away, you can grab the Flamethrower TM once you return to Mauville, it learns Crunch fast (Level 28) and Sludge Bomb is just after the 5th gym. Its stats are good enough to sweep routes easily. Unfortunately, it struggles to be useful in gyms, lacking useful typing and its mediocre bulk and speed meaning it can usually only go 1-2 pokemon even against a neutral gym. With Toxic + Dig it can theoretically beat Norman's Slaking reliably, which I suppose is something, though you can almost certainly beat Slaking better other ways. Otherwise, the Flamethrower coverage is occasionally useful for things like Skarmory, and STAB Sludge Bomb will usually beat a neutral foe or two. XP growth is shit as well, after an initial fast period. D seems right, good route sweeper but never particularly useful in gyms.
Voltorb: Electric types joining just after the 5th gym have an awesome time in this game. Thunderbolt TM immediately available for free, water routes for easy XP, good matchup against 6th and 8th gym as well as Glacia and Wallace. Unfortunately, poor Electrode just doesn't quite match up to it's midgame competition, Manectric and Magneton. The extra speed of Electrode is useful for annoying Double Team Ninjask and almost nothing else compared with Manectric, while I'll occasionally notice Electrode just missing the OHKO on some bulkier foes with Thunderbolt (fuck Tentacruel) that Manectric or Magneton would have secured. In addition, Electrode's coverage is ass, Thief is the 'best' it has. Light Screen has its uses I guess, I used it against Tate and Liza. Haven't gotten to Wallace yet, but theorymon suggests its lack of power will not do it well there (though unlike Magneton it doesn't run the risk of being outsped - been a while since I've used Magneton so I don't know if this happens but seems possible). Overall, it's annoyingly worse than Manectric and Magneton, but the advantages of being an electric type in lategame Hoenn keep it out of the garbage tiers. Agree with C.
Spoink and Grumpig up (not sure where, just somewhere above D)
Spoink grows fast, so evolving it before battling Norman is not too ridiculous of a proposal. The combination of good defenses, rest, and blue flute lets Grumpig tank a lot of stuff and heal itself for free.
Spoink can have thick fat and comes with psybeam, making it immediately useful against the next gym (it can't 1v1 Torkoal, though). It can use psywave to beat steel types faster, and you can teach it shock wave from the TM if you want it to do better against Winona or Sidney. It learns psychic just as psybeam starts becoming unreliable. It otherwise gets no good coverage moves, but its stats let it get by with spamming psychic at everything except maybe Phoebe.
Grumpig levels up so easily and has stats that are really not that bad. I think Spoink deserves to be B tier and is C tier at worst.
Spoink and Grumpig up (not sure where, just somewhere above D)
Spoink grows fast, so evolving it before battling Norman is not too ridiculous of a proposal. The combination of good defenses, rest, and blue flute lets Grumpig tank a lot of stuff and heal itself for free.
Spoink can have thick fat and comes with psybeam, making it immediately useful against the next gym (it can't 1v1 Torkoal, though). It can use psywave to beat steel types faster, and you can teach it shock wave from the TM if you want it to do better against Winona or Sidney. It learns psychic just as psybeam starts becoming unreliable. It otherwise gets no good coverage moves, but its stats let it get by with spamming psychic at everything except maybe Phoebe.
Grumpig levels up so easily and has stats that are really not that bad. I think Spoink deserves to be B tier and is C tier at worst.
I wouldn't say Spoink has a good matchup against Flannery's Gym if it does squat to Torkoal (the only Pokémon that matters). Plus half the Pokémon there are Fire/Ground, so it's not like it's a hard Gym to power through via other methods.
While Grumpig has very good Special bulk, 80/65 physical bulk isn't much to write home about. Natural Rest also isn't much of an asset considering how late it comes, plus using it with the Blue Flute is super slow compared to throwing a Hyper Potion.
I'm actually not against a rise, but B seems a little high.
Doing a run now where I plan to use Spoink, Psyduck, and Machoke to do some compare and contrast, having Mudkip stomp everything until Wattson, should be done in the next couple days.
Blue Flute+Rest is definitely not a good strategy, since it's healing that takes two turns in which you could instead throw a Hyper Potion or even two at Grumpig to solve the issue instead without taking away a moveslot from Grumpig (granted it doesn't exactly use them all well but eh).
While Grumpig has very good Special bulk, 80/65 physical bulk isn't much to write home about. Natural Rest also isn't much of an asset considering how late it comes, plus using it with the Blue Flute is super slow compared to throwing a Hyper Potion.
I know 65 physical defense isn't that good, but it's somehow good enough to let Grumpig overpower some of the physical attackers used by Norman, Drake, or Steven. Also, the last 2 gyms, Wally, Sidney, Glacia, and Wallace use mostly special attackers, and the physical attackers used by other trainers (like Winona) aren't very strong. I mean, Gardevoir manages to be A tier despite having worse defensive stats and growth rate, so I don't think physical defense affects Grumpig's usefulness very much.
(yes I am aware that Gardevoir has better special attack and can learn thunderbolt, so I'm not trying to say Grumpig should be A tier)
When I made the previous post, I was thinking rest might save money on items, but now I guess that probably doesn't matter.
Like you're probably going to ditch Geodude eventually, but unlike everything else in E it actually has a good Gym matchup (Wattson) and still contributes decently during the early stages of the game.
Like you're probably going to ditch Geodude eventually, but unlike everything else in E it actually has a good Gym matchup (Wattson) and still contributes decently during the early stages of the game.
I agree. It can also put in work against Flannery, acting as a good backup option to bring in against Torkoal once Overheat’s been used once or twice. Other targets for Graveler include Norman’s Linoone in E, which iirc only has Normal attacks, and his ace Slaking in RS, since it’ll just spam Focus Punch.
Really, a Rock/Ground typing alongside high physical stats guarantees Graveler a small niche throughout the game, but as its movepool starts lagging behind and the game becomes less and less kind to it, it’s no longer worth the hassle of raising such a slow Pokémon with such glaring flaws. I think D makes a lot of sense.
Finished my Spoink run, should probably post about that. I did this in Emerald, for context. Sorry if this comes across as rambley, a lot of the earlier stuff is from notes and what I remember.
Aside from taking a few tries to actually get one with Thick Fat, Spoink wasn't the worst thing ever, but it certainly didn't impress. Obtained at level 21, Hardy nature, male, calculated its IVs at 17/26/8/19/20/11, so a bit below average Def and Spe, but better than average SpA and SpD.
Unfortunately I couldn't really throw Spoink immediately at Flannery like I hoped - her lead Numel would have taken out Spoink if I didn't use items and left Spoink at very low HP anyways. Slugma was a little better, but took a surprising amount of time to actually take down due to Light Screen messing with Psybeam's damage and Smog getting a poison immediately. Camerupt took advantage of sun still being up from Slugma and KOed Spoink even with around 3/4 of HP left. Not a particularly auspicious start honestly.
I reloaded the save afterwards to train Spoink up a few levels and see how it'd do against Torkoal, and that's a no go. Body Slam does far too much and Psybeam did way too little.
Norman also went fairly poorly. I definitely didn't have the patience to get Spoink up to level 32 to evolve for Norman, so I didn't even bother having him try to fight anything except Spinda (which Spoink barely won too), and just had Machoke take him out.
Rival 3 went alrightish for Spoink - took out Wailmer with Shock Wave but got crit by Numel and had to have Machoke take out the rest. Underwhelming at best.
Full disclosure - I skipped Winona for a while so I could grab Psyduck (Level 31, so decent luck there). This resulted in having a level 35 Grumpig for Winona, and because I only realized after evolution that I should have just gone for the level 34 Psychic as Spoink, so I game corner TMed it on. Shhhh don't tell nobody. I actually did Winona twice, once with my newly evolved Golduck and the second time with Grumpig. Golduck tore through Winona, Pelipper being the only vague roadbump, because Ice Beam/Surf is damn good. Threw Grumpig at it the second time and wasn't particularly impressed - Shock Wave/Psychic let Grumpig do well but aside from Pelipper and I think Swablu Grumpig didn't actually score any OHKOs. I had to heal or risk being KOed by Altaria, so that kind of sucked.
I tossed Grumpig the Shadow Ball TM because hey why not nobody else could use it and I certainly didn't want to throw Machoke at Tate&Liza. Maxie and Aqua Hideout were fine, Grumpig took out Crobat easily enough and took so much from Camerupt that I got spooked and Golducked it. I had no desire to sit through a bunch of turns Shock Waving a Mightyena so I thew Machoke at it, but I'm sure Grumpig could have beaten it.
Tate and Liza were annoying. Grumpig was 46, Golduck was 44, and Machoke was 43 at this point. Golduck got teamed up on and died the first turn first try around and Grumpig and Machoke didn't pull through even with an absolutely absurd number of healing items poured down Grumpig's throat. So yeah, Grumpig definitely doesn't have a good time vs Tate&Liza. (Second time I ground Golduck to 46 and didn't get hit by either Claydol or Xatu turn 1 and Golduck cleaned up)
Archie was easy like he so often is - Grumpig took a ton from Sharpedo but did manage to beat both it and Crobat while Machoke (who was really mediocre by now) took on Mightyena. Juan wasn't bad - I actually had to switch from Grumpig to Golduck to beat Luvdisc though because Attract messed Grumpig up good. Grumpig only took out Kingdra but that was mostly enough honestly, while Machoke took on Sealeo and Crawdaunt and Golduck pinch hit Luvdisc and took out Whiscash.
Victory Road was done, went into the Elite Four with a level 55 Grumpig, 58 Golduck, and 52 Machoke. Also Rayquaza because I didn't want to have to grind if I lost to Wallace.
Sidney was easy enough, although I didn't even bother Grumpigging. Had Machoke and Golduck carry me through.
Phoebe could have sucked a lot, but I cheesed it with a slow strategy. Grumpig barely took out lead Dusclops, and I didn't even try using him against the rest. Banette 2 was really bad - I went into it with the plan of setting up on Sableye with Golduck Calm Minds because Banette 2 had an SE move for everything except Ray. +6 Surf did the job fine.
Glacia I expected Grumpig to do better than it did - took out Sealeo 1 fine, had Machoke deal with the Glalie since they both had SE coverage, and spent 15 turns hacking through Attract on Sealeo 2. Definitely want a female Spoink. Walrein did an uncomfortable amount of damage with Surf but Grumpig pulled through there.
Grumpig took out Shelgon and Kingdra while Golduck did everything else with Ice Beam. Nothing really to say for Drake.
Wallace I nearly had to Rayquaza on, but the power of Full Restores and Calm Mind Golduck saved the day. Grumpig took out Wailord, Tentacruel, and did a ton of damage to Gyarados but got killed in the process, while Machoke finished it off along with Ludicolo (because Vital Throw doesn't miss), and Golduck CMed its way through Milotic with a half dozen Full Restores and some 30ish turns.
In the end, Psyduck was 100% the MVP of the run. Didn't do so well at route clearing in the ocean but everywhere else carried my team hard. If this thing weren't Safari Zone I'd almost say it borders on the edge of B, but it does so it's a very solid C mon.
Machoke was good early and fell off late, just like you'd expect. It never stopped contributing though, and I think it does sit on the edge of C and D. It's not amazing, but it's pretty solid for a bunch of the game.
I was pretty excited to try out Spoink, thought it'd end up being like a Gardevoir ultimately, but was really disappointed overall. It just lacked so much of the power that Gardevoir brings to the table, and a noticeably later Psychic doesn't help. Spoink was a little better than Kirlia probably, but not by much, and I found it harder to get to Grumpig than it usually is to get to Gardevoir.
But let's be fair and not try and compare Spoink to an A ranked Pokemon. Spoink was ok, it took a while to get going but it wasn't complete dead weight. It was a fine route clearer, and did alright vs the major battles. Psychic is still pretty strong, and Shock Wave is definitely useful to have an option for. I don't really think it was better than Machoke honestly, but it wasn't much worse in the end. It should probably be around the same rank since I found their contributions relatively equal, so I support bringing it up to C. It's not very good though, and definitely shouldn't be B considering how iffy I feel concluding that it's a C rank mon.
Honestly, based on that testimony I don't think Spoink should rise. It seemed to struggle and is clearly not on the level on Psyduck, who's already C and performed adequately for you.
I sincerely doubt it would have helped more than Shadow Ball, since an 80 Acc move that was doing between 23 and 69 damage is usually doing less damage than Shadow Ball was.
60+ Atk Grumpig Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Lunatone: 56-66 (45.5 - 53.6%) -- 39.5% chance to 2HKO
Possible damage amounts: (56, 56, 57, 58, 58, 59, 60, 60, 61, 62, 62, 63, 64, 64, 65, 66)
e: level 46 Grumpig, 26 atk IV (adamant nature to simulate badge boost) vs level 42 Lunatone, 30/30 IVs
I think I may have had even fewer EVs that that because I certainly don't remember bringing Lunatone down to yellow with the couple Shadow Balls I hit it with, but I didn't really write down exactly how much damage I was doing. Either way, after Machoke got killed by Psychic I wasn't going to win the 2v1.
60+ Atk Grumpig Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Lunatone: 56-66 (45.5 - 53.6%) -- 39.5% chance to 2HKO
I think I may have had even fewer EVs that that because I certainly don't remember bringing Lunatone down to yellow with the couple Shadow Balls I hit it with, but I didn't really write down exactly how much damage I was doing. Either way, after Machoke got killed by Psychic I wasn't going to win the 2v1.
Not entirely subtle jab aside, Claydol EQ was doing the majority of damage, while the occasional Hypnosis from Lunatone meant that I couldn't heal then attack freely, had to spend turns healing the sleep as well. I actually ran out of healing items because I had maybe 10ish hyper potions (didn't write that down so I don't know the exact number) and ended up being KOed by Solrock and Claydol after finally taking out Lunatone.
Merritt posted this earlier in the thread: “To summarize in ingame terms, Fluctuating is great through earlygame, but ... lategame Fluctuating is absolutely terrible.”
Fluctuating is one of the best experience groups in pokemon. The early levels are very valuable for fast leveling because that’s when you’re catching struggling pokemon. Fluctuating is only bad after level 45, which in R/S/E is about the level you’re at when you finish the game.
Gaining experience quickly is a huge advantage. Pokemon that level faster require fewer resources than their competitors. The discussion up to this point is undervaluing this.
Spoink D>C
90 Sp Atk + Psychic/ShockWave + decent availability is better than other pokemon in D. Fast exp group means babying it isn’t too bad.
Seviper D>B
Seviper has base 100 Atk and Sp. Atk. (These stats are super strong for pre-gym-4). It comes early with STAB poison tail and gets sludge bomb before long. It’s even in fluctuating.
Chimecho F>E
95 Sp Atk, Psychic STAB + Shock Wave. Fast Exp group. It’s far better than the rest of its tier (2% spawn rate is bad but not bad enough to be useless).
Swablu C>D
40 Atk / 40 Sp Atk and it’s only flying STAB is Peck until you get Fly/Aerial Ace around Gym 6. It doesn’t evolve until level 35 which is far too late, especially being in the erratic exp group which is absolutely awful.
Lileep D>E
Erratic exp group + Level 40 evolution is horrendous. 41 Atk means it can’t make use of anything but Giga drain for attacking (with 23 speed and 61 Sp atk).
Merritt posted this earlier in the thread: “To summarize in ingame terms, Fluctuating is great through earlygame, but ... lategame Fluctuating is absolutely terrible.”
Fluctuating is one of the best experience groups in pokemon. The early levels are very valuable for fast leveling because that’s when you’re catching struggling pokemon. Fluctuating is only bad after level 45, which in R/S/E is about the level you’re at when you finish the game.
Gaining experience quickly is a huge advantage. Pokemon that level faster require fewer resources than their competitors. The discussion up to this point is undervaluing this.
Seviper D>B
Seviper has base 100 Atk and Sp. Atk. (These stats are super strong for pre-gym-4). It comes early with STAB poison tail and gets sludge bomb before long. It’s even in fluctuating.
Not gonna comment on the rest of this right now, but there is no way Seviper is B rank material. You say it has strong pre-gym 4 stats but it comes right before Gym 4 so it doesn't even utilize them that well before they become less useful according to you. It doesn't really have any great matchups and the only good coverage it gets through level-up is Crunch (which is still kinda meh), which means you have to give it TMs like Earthquake, Flamethrower, Giga Drain, etc. The first two have competition (as in other pokes would love the one-off TM instead of Seviper) and Giga Drain only gets 8 max PP and 60 BP is pretty weak.
I used Seviper way back a long time ago and was kinda disappointed in it, so yeah D is probably fine for it (but definitely not B). I'm personally not a fan of all this math revolving around EXP groups bc it seems to invite in theorymoning rather than people speaking off of experience, but that's another ordeal.
Merritt posted this earlier in the thread: “To summarize in ingame terms, Fluctuating is great through earlygame, but ... lategame Fluctuating is absolutely terrible.”
Fluctuating is one of the best experience groups in pokemon. The early levels are very valuable for fast leveling because that’s when you’re catching struggling pokemon. Fluctuating is only bad after level 45, which in R/S/E is about the level you’re at when you finish the game.
Fast and medium slow growth rates may be that good, but fluctuating is not. It becomes worse than medium fast at level 38 and worse than erratic starting level 46. The game doesn't end until much closer to level 56.
Spoink D>C
90 Sp Atk + Psychic/ShockWave + decent availability is significantly better than other pokemon in D such as Phanpy and Lileep. Fast exp group means babying it isn’t too bad.
It was a fine route clearer, and did alright vs the major battles. Psychic is still pretty strong, and Shock Wave is definitely useful to have an option for. I don't really think it was better than Machoke honestly, but it wasn't much worse in the end. It should probably be around the same rank since I found their contributions relatively equal, so I support bringing it up to C. It's not very good though, and definitely shouldn't be B considering how iffy I feel concluding that it's a C rank mon.
By the way, can you also edit the OP to put Geodude in D tier?
Chimecho F>E
95 Sp Atk, Psychic STAB + Shock Wave. Fast Exp group. It’s far better than the rest of its tier (2% spawn rate is bad but not bad enough to be useless).
I think 2% is bad enough to be useless. Even if Chimecho can win battles faster than some of the other F Pokemon, the time it takes to find offsets a lot of that. RS Skitty is easier to get, grows even faster (from boosted experience), and has an even better movepool, so Chimecho shouldn't rise until Skitty does.
Swablu C>D
40 Atk / 40 Sp Atk and it’s only flying STAB is Peck until you get Fly/Aerial Ace around Gym 6. It doesn’t evolve until level 35 which is far too late, especially being in the erratic exp group which is absolutely awful.
I'm personally not a fan of all this math revolving around EXP groups bc it seems to invite in theorymoning rather than people speaking off of experience, but that's another ordeal.
there is no way Seviper is B rank material. You say it has strong pre-gym 4 stats but it comes right before Gym 4 so it doesn't even utilize them that well before they become less useful according to you.
I'm personally not a fan of all this math revolving around EXP groups bc it seems to invite in theorymoning rather than people speaking off of experience, but that's another ordeal.
Fast and medium slow growth rates may be that good, but fluctuating is not. It becomes worse than medium fast at level 38 and worse than erratic starting level 46. The game doesn't end until much closer to level 56
Grinding to level 56 is incredibly inefficient. 4 pokemon at level 45-48 are more than sufficient for beating the Emerald Elite 4. Earlier in this thread someone posted his 2 final teams, both of which were in the mid 40s, if you can’t take my word for it.
Grinding to level 56 is incredibly inefficient. 4 pokemon at level 45-48 are more than sufficient for beating the Emerald Elite 4. Earlier in this thread someone posted his 2 final teams, both of which were in the mid 40s, if you can’t take my word for it.
If you're referring to WaterBomb, his Pokemon were in the mid 40's when he got to the Pokemon League, not when he beat it. There is (almost) no way a team of level 48 Pokemon can beat Wallace, unless the player was spamming full restores or X sp. defs or something.
84 Atk (level 48) Swampert Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def (level 58) Milotic: 62-73 (31.6 - 37.2%) -- 82.3% chance to 3HKO
84 SpA (level 48) Sceptile Leaf Blade vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD (level 58) Milotic: 61-72 (31.1 - 36.7%) -- 67.9% chance to 3HKO
84 SpA (level 48) Kadabra Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD (level 58) Milotic: 41-49 (20.9 - 25%) -- 0% chance to 4HKO
If you're referring to WaterBomb, his Pokemon were in the mid 40's when he got to the Pokemon League, not when he beat it. There is (almost) no way a team of level 48 Pokemon can beat Wallace, unless the player was spamming full restores or X sp. defs or something.
84 Atk (level 48) Swampert Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def (level 58) Milotic: 62-73 (31.6 - 37.2%) -- 82.3% chance to 3HKO
84 SpA (level 48) Sceptile Leaf Blade vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD (level 58) Milotic: 61-72 (31.1 - 36.7%) -- 67.9% chance to 3HKO
84 SpA (level 48) Kadabra Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD (level 58) Milotic: 41-49 (20.9 - 25%) -- 0% chance to 4HKO
Using stat boosting items/moves is way faster than grinding your pokemon an extra 10 levels. Most of S/A tier has access to Bulk up and Calm mind... Are we not using in-battle stat boosters?
Merritt posted this earlier in the thread: “To summarize in ingame terms, Fluctuating is great through earlygame, but ... lategame Fluctuating is absolutely terrible.”
Fluctuating is one of the best experience groups in pokemon. The early levels are very valuable for fast leveling because that’s when you’re catching struggling pokemon. Fluctuating is only bad after level 45, which in R/S/E is about the level you’re at when you finish the game.
Gaining experience quickly is a huge advantage. Pokemon that level faster require fewer resources than their competitors. The discussion up to this point is undervaluing this.
Hey, always happy to discuss stuff like this! Let me elaborate in much more detail what I summarized earlier.
Let's set aside the assumption of level you finish the game for later, and just go with the "only bad after level 45" point. Let's actually run through the numbers.
So there's two objective metrics that you can judge an exp group on - total EXP necessary to reach that level from level 1, and exp to reach the next level. Let's start by comparing Fluctuating to the other 5 EXP groups, and when the total EXP to reach that level is less than Fluctuating.
Erratic - Level 46
Fast - Level 26 (exact tie)
Medium Fast - Level 36 (exact tie)
Medium Slow - Requires less total EXP to reach level 11, before taking more until level 21 (Medium Slow is extremely good for ingame)
Slow - Level 62
So from this it would seem that for most Pokemon, Fluctuating is better for a very large portion of the game. However, this definitely doesn't tell the whole story. Remember that this is for total EXP from level 1, and every level the Pokemon's caught at after that is free exp - which is more valuable to the Pokemon who need more EXP at those skipped lower levels than Fluctuating. In reality, other EXP groups catch up long before the levels listed there.
Let's look at the other metric: EXP to reach the next level. Same as before, I'll put the level where the other 5 EXP groups require less EXP to get to the next level.
Erratic - Level 32
Fast - Level 19
Medium Fast - Level 27
Medium Slow - Does a really goddamn weird dance with Fluctuating where they jump around each other until level 15 where it has an exact tie and from there on out requires less
Slow - Starting at level 37 Slow takes less EXP every other level, and outpaces it entirely starting at level 62
So let's actually talk about what this means. This means that if you catch two Pokemon, one in Fluctuating and one in one of the other EXP groups, if both Pokemon are at the level in the set above (for example, catching a level 28 Medium Slow and Level 28 Fluctuating) then Fluctuating loses completely. If it's caught earlier than that, Fluctuating is slower at some point between the level in the second set and the first set (generally leaning towards the first set).
Let's talk about a practical example to give it some context. Since you brought them up, we'll do Seviper and Swablu since they're found at the same level.
Both Seviper and Swablu can be found between level 15 and 17. At level 15 the Erratic Swablu has 5,737 EXP and the Fluctuating Seviper has 1,957 EXP.
In this scenario, Swablu takes more additional EXP to reach any level up to level 44, but in order to reach level 44 Swablu requires 89,669 more EXP while Seviper requires 90,041 more EXP.
Obviously this is a notable advantage for Fluctuating here, but Erratic is still one of the worst EXP groups to be in for ingame. Let's compare to a different EXP group found in the same area.
Lombre, being Medium Slow, obviously wins instantly at level 15, as mentioned earlier. However, what about Surskit in Medium Fast?
At level 15, Surskit has 3,375 EXP while Seviper still has 1,957 EXP. In this scenario, Surskit surpasses Seviper at level 35, as it takes 39,500 more EXP to reach it as opposed to Seviper's requirement of 40,060 more EXP.
These are also at relatively low levels - if we do a less specific scenario of a level 23 Medium Fast vs level 23 Fluctuating then Fluctuating loses after level 30.
Note: None of this is meant as an undermine of what you're saying, it's to provide context and hard facts and numbers behind the statement you didn't seem to like much.
I also definitely think you underestimate the level you're probably being by lategame for the context of this list. The list assumes a team of around 3-4 battlers, to maintain a healthy level advantage but to avoid being too close to solo territory. From my own experience I'm usually seeing low 50s going into the Elite 4 at that point without any wild Pokemon grinding - level 45 would be incredibly hard to beat the more than 10 levels higher champion without heavy item abuse.
I also definitely think you underestimate the level you're probably being by lategame for the context of this list. The list assumes a team of around 3-4 battlers, to maintain a healthy level advantage but to avoid being too close to solo territory. From my own experience I'm usually seeing low 50s going into the Elite 4 at that point - level 45 would be incredibly hard to beat the more than 10 levels higher champion without heavy item abuse.
I’ve done several speed run drafts of this game with my friends, and mid/late 40s is typical for finishing. A blaziken with bulk up or gardevoir with calm mind can sweep most of the elite 4 (not to mention rayquaza is already invalidating them anyway...)
I’ve done several speed run drafts of this game with my friends, and level 45 is typical for finishing. A blaziken with bulk up or gardevoir with calm mind can sweep most of the elite 4 (not to mention rayquaza is already invalidating the elite 4 anyway...)
This list not designed around speedruns, as stated in the OP. A speedrun list will always end up heavily weighted towards earlygame mons, soloing, and techniques you would not expect a player to understand and execute (for example, spinner manipulation). It's not particularly intuitive to most players to avoid as many trainers as possible, skip any and all items that aren't completely necessary, and muscle through every poor matchup with X items.
A speedrun tier list also would heavily rank down otherwise fine Pokemon for having some difficulties with certain types - Manectric for example would either require RNGing for an HP Grass one or not using the thing since it finds itself unable to beat Ground or even many Grass-types in any sort of efficient manner, which ends up ranking it down heavily since it requires a second Pokemon at a fairly high level to take out those Pokemon. And I think a list where Manectric is ranked E would require quite a lot of explaining to new players and give Texas Cloverleaf a conniption.
I also find mid 40s rather low for a speedrun - Emerald runs should hit 45 on Swampert by the time you replace it with Rayquaza. If you're not replacing it with Rayquaza I find it odd that you wouldn't hit 50 by the end since you've got Juan, Wally, Hope, Shannon, Julie, Edgar, and the Elite 4 itself to go. And this of course is a pure speedrun where you skip every trainer you possibly can.
Also I moved Geodude (no trade) and Spoink up a rank as discussed earlier.
