Pokemon Heartgold and Soulsilver In-Game Tier List (MkII)

[Ryota Mitarai]

did a run with Meganium / Onix (No Trade) / Cloyster / Seaking. Logs are below. Thoughts can be controversial, so read at your own discretion

logs

Meganium

Falkner(14): Tackle 3HKOs Pidgey. Cannot beat Pidgeotto, but can assist with Growl + Poisonpowder

Proton #1 (17): Tackle 2HKOs Zubat and MS Razor Leaf seems to 5HKO Koffing, which Smokecreens and poisons you

Silver #2 (18): MS Razor Leaf 2HKOs Gastly and Tackle 3HKOs Zubat. Quilava likely beats you, but Poisonpowder + MS Razor Leaf can wear it down

Bugsy(18): dies to U-turn after one Leer. At most can Poisonpowder it or set a Reflect, but Reflect is useless against crits

Whitney(20): MS RLeaf 2HKOs Clefairy. Miltank can be Poisonpowdered and Reflect can help here, though you are slower and do not do much in return.

Silver #3 (22): Headbutt 3HKOs Zubat, while MS Magical Leaf 3HKOs Gastly and Magnemite. The matchup is not very good, as a whole

Morty(25): MS Magical Leaf 2HKOs Gastly, but that's it. The rest are not good matchups

Petrel #1 (27): Headbutt 2HKOs Zubat. Specs Magical Leaf 2HKOs Raticate

Chuck(30): Specs Magical Leaf 2HKOs Primeape on rolls and 2HKOs (3HKO with berry) Poliwrath. Poliwrath is faster, but if it doesn't go for Hypnosis, you will be fine. If evolved, Specs Petal Dance OHKOs both on rolls and manages to speedtie Primeape and outspeed Poliwrath

Jasmine(32): Specs Petal Dance 2HKOs everything (even Steelix through berry). Magnemite do not threaten you, other than paralysis + Sonic Boom + confusion.

Pryce(32): outspeeds and OHKOs everything with Specs Petal Dance

Petrel #2 (33): Specs Petal Dance almost OHKOs Koffing, but even then, you are likely not gonna take out a lot due to self-confusion

Silver #4 (34): Specs Petal Dance 2HKOs Magnemite and Sneasel, avoid the rest

Proton(34): it and Weezing 3HKO each other, with poison turn one being fatal. You 3HKO with Specs Petal Dance

Ariana(34): Specs Petal Dance 3HKOs Arbok and 2HKOs Murkrow, though the former Glares you and the latter 3HKOs with Wing Attack (which turns into a 2HKO with crits)

Archer(34): Specs Petal Dance 2HKOs Houndour and Koffing. Cannot beat Houndoom

Clair(37): Specs Petal Dance normally 3HKOs Gyarados, but after two Dragon Rages (Gyara outspeeds), Overgrow can potentially turn it into a 2HKO. Kingdra is 3HKOed by Specs Petal Dance on rolls, but if it goes for two Dragon Pulses (3HKO), Overgrow can potentially allow the second Petal Dance to KO it (rolls). Note that Smokescreen can make this strategy unreliable and Clair has a tendency to switch it out for a Dragonair, which proceeds to beat Meganium. Nevertheless, Meganium has a higher chance of beating Kingdra than the majority of the dex

Silver #5 (40): EQ 2HKOs Sneasel, OHKOs Magneton, and almost OHKOs Kadabra. Only Sneasel outspeeds

Will(43): Specs Petal Dance OHKOs Slowbro and EQ 2HKOs Jynx, while it 3HKOs with Psychic (though LovelyKiss can be annoying)

Koga(43): EQ 2HKOs Muk, but it OHKOs with Gunk Shot. Venomoth is 3HKOed, but between Toxic, confusion, and healing, Meganium will likely faint really fast

Bruno(43): Specs Petal Dance seems to be a 2HKO on rolls on Hitmons and is an OHKO on Onix. You beat it and Top for sure

Karen(43): nope. Doesn't take out anything relevant

Lance(43): NOPE

Onix

Silver #3 (22): Rock Throw OHKOs Zubat and 2HKOs Gastly, while Dig 2HKOs Quilava and OHKOs Magnemite. Note that Gastly speedties and Quilava outspeeds and Smokescreens

Morty(25): outsped by Haunter and co. At most beats Gastly

Petrel #1 (27): Rock Throw 2HKOs Zubat and 4-5HKOs Koffing. Dig 3HKOs Raticate

Chuck(30): nope

Jasmine(31): OHKOs Magnemite with Dig, avoid Steelix

Pryce(32): nope. At most it can beat Seel, but even that is not guaranteed

Petrel #2 (33): nope

Silver #4 (33): Dig OHKOs Quilava after a Screech and Magnemite. Rock Throw 3HKOs Golbat. Sneasel murders it with Icy Wing and Haunter murders it with Shadow Ball

Proton #2 (35): Rock Throw almost 2HKOs Golbat and, after a Screech, 4-5HKOs Weezing...

Ariana(35): -1 Dig 3HKOs Arbok, which Glares you. Rock Throw 2HKOs Murkrow

Archer(35): Dig 2HKOs Houndour line and Rock Throw *7HKOs* Koffing

Clair(36): nope

Silver #5 (40): beats Golbat, Sneasel, and Magneton. Typh dies to EQ only if you have set up two Curses, otherwise, it will generally beat you

Will(43): nope

Koga(43): at most you can set up Curse to the max against Forry and spam appropriate move. Worth mentioning that even +6 Rock Throw doesn't OHKO Crobat...

Bruno(43): +6 EQ puts Machamp in red and OHKOs the rest. Watch out for crits. You need to invest in some healing as well

Karen(44): at most 2HKO Umbreon with +6 Curse and beat Murkrow, the rest are not good matchups

Lance(44): nope. If it tries to set up on Aero, Blizzard DNite comes in and murders it (even +6 Rock Throw doesn't OHKO anyways)

Cloyster

Silver #3 (22): Icicle Spear kills Gastly and Zubat, though the former is faster, and Surf OHKOs the rest

Chuck(30): Specs Surf puts Primeape in red

Jasmine(31): outspeeds and OHKOs everything with Specs Surf

Pryce(32): Specs Surf OHKOs Piloswine, avoid the rest, as they are not very efficient matchups (you could try Rain Dance + Surf, but they keep on setting up Hail)

Petrel #2 (33): Specs Surf 2HKOs Weezing and OHKOs the rest

Silver #4 (33): Specs Surf OHKOs Quilava and Magnemite and 2HKOs Golbat and Sneasel, with Haunter being faster and KOing with Shadow Ball

Proton #2 (34): MW Surf in rain OHKOs everything

Ariana(34): MW Surf rain OHKOs Arbok and Murkrow and Blizzard OHKOs Vileplume. Watch out for Glare, but you are faster, so you can heal it off.

Archer(35): Specs Surf KOs everything

Clair(37): Specs Blizzard OHKOs Dragonair while outspeeding. Nevermelt Ice Icicle Spear puts them in red and they paralyze. Dragon Pulse 2HKOs it.

Silver #5 (39): Specs Surf 2HKOs Sneasel and Golbat and OHKOs Magneton, Typhlosion, and Kadabra. Haunter outspeeds and KOs you with Shadow Ball as you are weakened, while Kadabra and Typhlosion outspeed and 2HKO it. Golbat outspeeds and 3HKOs with Air Cutter

Will(42): NMI Blizzard OHKOs Xatu and Eggy, though Xatu are faster and 2HKO with Psychic

Koga(42): Specs Surf 2HKOs Ariados and Forry. Venomoth generally finishes it off, as it's faster and you will have been weakened. Crobat is OHKOed by Specs Blizzard

Bruno(42): going off memory cause I forgot to write this up, but beats Top and Onix. Chan can also be beaten if healthy enough

Karen(42): NMI Blizzard OHKOs Plume and Murkrow. Houndoom outspeeds and OHKOs with Flamethrower

Lance(42): dies to any neutral special move, though NMI Blizzard OHKOs DNites

Seaking

Petrel #1 (27): Specs Surf 2HKOs Raticate and OHKOs the rest.

Chuck(30): Specs Surf 2HKOs Primeape. Cannot beat Poliwrath, at most damage it with Return

Jasmine(31): Specs Surf OHKOs everything, with Magnemite being on rolls

Pryce(32): Return 2HKOs Seel and MW Surf in rain OHKOs Piloswine

Petrel #2 (33): Specs Surf 2HKOs Weezing and OHKOs the rest

Silver #4 (34): MW Surf in rain outspeeds (with Swift Swim) and OHKOs Haunter, Magnemite, and Quilava, and 2HKOs the rest.

Proton #2 (34): MW Surf in rain OHKOs Golbat and puts Weezing in red

Ariana(34): Specs Surf 2HKOs Arbok and OHKOs Murkrow. The former is faster and can Glare you. You can 2HKO Vileplume with Blizzard, since it doesn't deal much even with Mega Drain

Archer(34): set up rain and spam MW Surf

Clair(36): Specs Blizzard puts Dragonair in red. However, it outspeeds and 3HKOs with Dragon Pulse

Silver #4 (39): MW Waterfall in rain OHKOs Haunter, Kadabra, Sneasel, and Typhlosion, while MW Surf in rain OHKOs Magneton. MW Waterfall in rain also 2HKOs Golbat. You outspeed all of them under rain

Will(42): MW Waterfall in rain OHKOs Jynx and 2HKOs Xatu, which 3HKO with Psychic.

Koga(42): MW Waterfall in rain 2HKOs Venomoth and Ariados and MW Surf in rain 2HKOs Forry

Bruno(43): MW Surf in rain 2HKOs Top (to avoid Counter), while Waterfall in same conditions OHKOs Lee and 2HKOs Chan. Comes close to OHKOing Machamp. Note that Chan, Lee, and Machamp hit you hard, so you need to be healthy to take on any of them

Karen(43): MW Waterfall in rain OHKOs Murkrow and Houndoom and 2HKOs Gengar

Lance(43): while Specs Blizzard doesn't OHKO DNites, MW Waterfall in rain is an OHKO on Zard and Aero and outspeeds both.

thoughts:

Meganium
This one is really hard for me to tier confidently. On one hand, it has a high chance of sweeping Pryce and can also potentially 1v1 Clair's Kingdra, while also possessing a not-so-bad matchup against Chuck and Jasmine's Steelix. It also comes as a starter, so it has the best possible availability. On the other hand, outside of those matchups, Meganium is very unworthy as a Pokemon. It often felt a lot more like a support Pokemon, if it even did anything (I personally don't value support as much, because support mons really only work on weaker teams). Meganium is particularly not very useful against Team Rocket and most of the E4. While I am not going to rule out B-tier as a possibility, I am gonna say that I am not really convinced with such a tier and I am leaning towards C-tier myself. B-tier would've been an easier tier for me if it always won the 1v1 vs Kingdra, but alas.

Onix (No Trade)
Yeah, keep this in D-tier. For the early-game, it feels like one of the most amazing things you've ever used in any game. After you get past Whitney, however, you start asking yourself why you even decided ot use it unevolved. Onix is incredibly bad after Whitney, being unable to deal any damage to most major bosses and thus needing Screech. While it can do things like sweep Koga with Curse to the max, I still do not consider this very efficient. I'd say at most C-tier if someone really stretches out its usefulness, but I think D-tier is perfect for it

Cloyster
D-tier. 3% + slow Exp. group + low Special bulk makes this all around bad, but it can pull its weight enough to not be E-tier. Note that Icicle Spear stopped being useful in the end. Ability was Skill Link

By the way, I realized Chinchou is 7% (which never matched my experience). Given its Slow exp. group, I think I may have to retract my nomination for A-tier and nominate it for B, but not gonna dive too much in

Goldeen
Leaning towards C-tier. I found it reasonably useful throughout my run. The only issue it's got is that you have to find a Seaking so you don't use Goldeen, but I think C-tier is perfect for it. Abiltiy was Swift Swim.

using currently Mareep / Pineco / Machamp (used it before, but I want a modern perspective) / Rhyhorn (I said I wouldn't use it, but I needed something to fill slots). Will post when I am done. After that run, I will start using some of the post-Tower mons, mostly the ones that I think will actually contribute anything.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Wanna say Goldeen is indeed garbo

I think it gets Water Pulse early-ish but I remember it also hits for nothing with it. I’ve used it as a Goldeen and yes, it is as bad as you’d think. Happy to see it’s C despite my bad experiences with it though.

 

[Magnus0]

I got a shiny Gastly! I had no way to damage it, but I caught it with my second to last pokeball. That was such a relief.

So anyway, the team I'm using is Gastly (no trade), Pinsir, Eevee (Espeon) and Swinub.

Gastly logs

Falkner (12): you can't touch Pidgey, but Pidgey can't touch you either, so you can safely take it out with curse. Curse is great against Pidgeotto, but you need a lot of potions to beat it solo. Decent matchup.

Bugsy (18): Scyther is really reluctant to use u-turn because Gastly has a 4x resistance against it, so it just spams leer most of the time. Night shade is a 4HKO (counting the sitrus berry), but it will trigger a super potion for a 7HKO in total. You can use hypnosis, but it's not really necessary. Gastly handles the cocoons without issue. Great matchup.

Whitney (21): Clefairy can't touch you as long as it doesn't pull a good move with metronome. You can't touch it either, but you can use curse to take it out. Miltank outspeeds and 2HKO's with stomp (it has scrappy). Curse is very useful against Miltank, though Gastly will kill itself using it. Decent-ish matchup.

Morty (25): it's useless unless you're either level 25 (shadow punch on Haunter) or level 29 (shadow ball on Gastly). At 29, Haunter can just sweep with shadow ball, but getting any Pokemon to level 29 at this point is really pushing it. A level 25 Haunter with shadow punch (or shadow claw) outspeeds and OHKO's Gastly and the Haunters, but Gengar outspeeds and OHKO with shadow ball. Overall, pretty good matchup I guess?

Pinsir logs

Whitney (18): unboosted revenge left Clefairy on 1HP, so this appears to be a range. You can also just 2HKO with headbutt so you don't have to deal with negative priority. Miltank uses stomp to boost revenge. A boosted revenge does about 75%, so enough for a second revenge to KO even if it isn't boosted. Pinsir has good physical bulk, so it can take quite a few stomps. Good matchup.

Morty (23): outspeeds and OHKO's Gastly with dig. Gengar outspeeds and barely survives a dig. If it wastes a turn on using mean look, you can safely 2HKO it, as Pinsir can take one shadow ball. It OHKO's both Haunters with dig, so beating them becomes a matter of luck. If they use mean look, you're fine, if they land a hypnosis, you will need healing items. A lum berry can only go so far. Either way, good matchup.

Eevee (Espeon) logs

Morty (22): outspeeds and OHKO's Gastly and the Haunters, but Gengar outspeeds and OHKO's back. Pretty good matchup.

Thoughts so far:

Gastly is much more managable than expected. It gets forced out by any normal type, but it can generally hold its own with night shade. Its defensive typing is amazing in the early game, given the many normal and poison types. It's gym matchups so far have been surprisingly good as well.

Pinsir is has great stats and a good movepool, but it's just as much of a nightmare to get as Scyther. You really want one with mold breaker so that it can hit levitating mons with dig, but that means it's basically a 2.5% encounter. It has been very good though, able to sweep both Withney and Morty so far. I think it's extremely similar to Heracross, and I'm not sure if the lesser availability of Pinsir is enough to put it a tier lower. Probably going to be A or B.

Espeon is also a nighmare to get. A happiness evolution isn't that bad per se, but the thing with Espeon is that you have to evolve it before level 15 or it will literally have no STAB to use until level 36. I messed with the system clock to repeatedly give Eevee haircuts, which works rather well, but it's annoying and it also costs money. It did absolutely destroy Morty's entire gym though, and it went from level 16 to level 22 in a span of like five minutes. If its great stats and typing are enough to carry it, I can see it end up in C, but probably not any higher.

IV's

at lv 3

at lv 10. Both speed and special attack seems to be below average, but I'm still going to use this Gastly because it's shiny

 

[Magnus0]

Part 2

Gastly logs

Chuck (31): outspeeds and OHKO's Primeape with specs shadow ball. Shadow ball is a 3HKO on Poliwrath (counting the sitrus berry), while Haunter barely survives two surfs. Sweep

Haunter (32): specs shadow ball is a 2HKO against the Magnemites. You'll get paralyzed and 2HKO'd by thunderbolt though. Curse and hypnosis are great against Steelix, but Haunter isn't strong or bulky enough to beat Steelix solo. Pretty bad matchup.

Pryce (33): specs shadow ball is a range on Seel. It 2HKO's Dewgong, being 3HKO'd in return by aurora beam. Specs Shadow ball is a 2HKO on Piloswine as well (counting the sitrus berry), while Haunter can take one blizzard. Decent matchup, but you can't take out all of Pryce's Pokemon without healing.

Clair (38): specs shadow ball fails to 2HKO Gyrados while bite 2HKO's back. The dragonairs are outsped and 2HKO'd, but you can't beat both of them without healing (dragon pulse 2HKO's). Kingdra outspeeds and OHKO's with hydro pump. Pretty bad matchup.

Will (40): specs shadow ball OHKO's everything, but both Jynx and the second Xatu outspeed and OHKO back with psychic. Still a decent matchup.

Koga (40): 2HKO's Ariados with specs shadow ball, while poison jab doesn't do much back. Venomoth is 2HKO'd but it KO's with psychic. Forretress is completely walled so you can safely take it out. Crobat outspeeds and OHKO's with wing attack (seems to be a range). Muk is 2HKO'd on a range, and because Haunter 4x resists poison, Muk usually doesn't even try attacking. Pretty good matchup.

Bruno (40): Completely walls Hitmontop and it OHKO's Onix with specs shadow ball. Hitmonlee outspeeds and uses swagger, so it's a bit annoying to take down. Himonchan 2HKO's, but it is slower. Both of them are 2HKO'd by shadow ball. Machamp is 3HKO'd by shadow ball, but it 2HKO's back. Decent matchup.

Karen (41): it can take out Vileplume and Gengar, but the dark types wall and OHKO it. Mediocre matchup.

Lance (41): literally everything kills you

Pinsir logs

Chuck (30): Primeape is an RNG-fest. You 2HKO with brick break, but Primeape 2HKO's with rock slide (this is a range though). You either beat it no problem or you get trolled by double team or flinching. Poliwrath is only 4HKO'd by headbutt or brick break, and that's not even counting the sitrus berry. Pinsir can take three body slams or two surfs. Very inconsistent matchup.

Chuck (31): outspeeds and OHKO's the Magnemites with dig or brick break. Steelix isn't even a 4HKO if you count the sitrus berry, so that's kind of disappointing. Pinsir can barely take two iron tails. Decent matchup overall.

Pryce (32): 2HKO's Seel and Dewgong with x-scizzor and brick break respectively. Piloswine can take another hit because of brick break. Seel's icy wind allows Dewgong and Piloswine to outspeed, and they both 3HKO. Neutral matchup.

Clair (38): Gyarados walls you if you run a set of x-scissor, dig, brick break and swords dance. You can safely set up a swords dance on Dragonair if you carry a cheri berry. From there, Pinsir outspeeds and OHKO's both Dragonairs. Kindra outspeeds and 2HKO's, but sometimes it uses smokescreen or it misses hydro pump, allowing Pinsir to 2HKO. Decent matchup.

Will (41): Jynx is the only mon on Will's team that outspeeds, so you can sweep with swords dance. Use a sitrus berry or shell bell in order to a psychic from both Xatu and Jynx.

Koga (41): Pinsir survives two poison jabs from Ariados, so you can set up swords dances with the help of some full restores. I got poisoned litterally SIX times in a row, ugh. Venomoth outspeeds and uses toxic, but it doesn't matter as long as you don't miss any attack. Forretress can't touch you. crobat is OHKO'd by rock tomb, but it does use double team, making this inconsistent. Muk is OHKO'd by dig or earthquake. Not fully conistent, but good matchup.

Bruno (41): you can safely set up swords dance on Hitmontop. You can OHKO all of Bruno's Pokemon with brick break or earthquake, but Hitmonlee outspeeds. You can easily survive a blaze kick if you carry an occa berry though, so great matchup.

Karen (41): It can't effectively sweep because Houndoom OHKO's it even with an occa berry. Even without a full sweep, it's still pretty good. It can OHKO Umbreon and Murkrow after a swords dance. Gengar can't do much damage, though watch out for destiny bond. X-scissor 2HKO's Vileplume on a range. Decent matchup.

Lance (41): Gyarados walls you and everything else kills you

Espeon logs

Chuck (30): outspeeds and OHKO's Primeape with specs confusion. Poliwrath is 2HKO'd by confusion while Espeon can survive two surfs. Sweep.

Jasmine (31): specs shadow ball 2HKO's the Magnemites. They use thunder wave, but Espeon can still outspeed them after being paralyzed thanks to synchronize. Specs shadow ball is a 4HKO on Steelix, not even counting the sitrus berry. Iron tail is 2HKO. Really mediocre matchup.

Pryce (32): specs shadow ball 2HKO's Seel and 3HKO's Dewgong and Piloswine. Seel´s icy wind allows Piloswine and Dewgong to outspeed and get more damage in. Neutral mathup, not great not terrible.

Clair (37): Espeon outspeeds everything. Gyarados barely survives 2 specs boosted psybeams and 2HKO's back with bite. The dragonairs are 2HKO'd and you can meme on them with synchronize. Kingdra is outsped and 3HKO'd (counting the sitrus berry). and Espeon can take one hit back. Pretty good for a Clair matchup.

Will (41): specs shadow ball sweeps. easy peasy.

Koga (41): outspeeds and OHKO's Ariados and Venomoth with specs psybeam. Muk barely survives a psybeam and OHKO's with gunk shot. Forretress is 4HKO'd but it can't do much damage back. Crobat uses double team and is OHKO'd by psybeam. Pretty good matchup.

Bruno (41): outspeeds and OHKO's everything but Machamp, but Espeon can take one hit from it. Sweep.

Karen (42): it can easily take out Gengar and Vileplume with specs psybeam, but the dark types completely wall it. Mediocre matchup.

Lance (42): doesn't even 2HKO anything and gets 2HKO'd back by everything.

Swinub logs

Clair (38): if you use intimidate fodder, you can 2HKO Gyarados with nevermeltice ice fang. Mamoswine outspeeds and OHKO's the dragonairs. Kindra outspeeds and OHKO's with hydro pump, so the best thing you can do against it is ice shard. Pretty good matchup.

Will (40): outspeeds and OHKO's the first Xatu. The second Xatu is also OHKO'd by nmi ice fang, but it does outspeed. Slowbro is 3HKO'd by earthquake and it never attacks because it just uses curse. Jynx outspeeds and uses lovely kiss or psychic, but it's OHKO'd by earthquake. Exeggutor is 2HKO'd by ice fang. Mamoswine can barely take 2 psychics from anything but Exeggutor. Pretty good matchup.

Koga (40): Ariados and Venomoth are both outsped and 2HKO'd by earthquake, and neither can do much damage. Forretress is Forretress, it's 3HKO'd by earthquake, but you can also fish for an ancientpower boost against it. Muk is outsped and OHKO'd by earthquake. Crobat is 2HKO'd by ice fang, and it usually double teams. Pretty good matchup. A sweep is possible, though you might need a full restore.

Bruno (41): you can safely take out Hitmontop because earthquake hits it even if it uses dig. Hitmonlee outspeeds and OHKO's with high jump kick. You can outspeed and 2HKO Onix. Hitmonchan is 2HKO'd by earthquake. Make sure to use ice shard to knock Hitmonchan out to outspeed its bullet punch. You can hit Machamp hard but Mamoswine is OHKO'd in return. Mediocre matchup, but not terrible.

Karen (41): Umbreon is 3HKO'd by earthquake, but you'll trigger a potion which is very annoying. Murkrow 3HKO's with sucker punch but is OHKO'd back by ice fang. Gengar and Houndoom both outspeed and OHKO with focus blast and flamethrower respectively. In Houndoom's case though, you can OHKO it with earthquake with an occa berry. Ice fang 2HKO's Vileplume, but Plume OHKO's back with petal dance. Pretty bad matchup, everything kills you.

Lance (42): 2HKO's Aerodactyl and the dragonites with ice shard, but it gets 2HKO'd back by everything. Not terrible for a lance matchup, but not great either.

Gastly (no trade) -> B

Pros: good availability, great typing, high special attack, great STAB options, useful in almost all major fights
Cons: non-existent bulk, questionable early game

Solid offensive mon with decent support options as well. Despite its low stats, it can contribute in almost all major fights and it's a great route sweeper once it gets shadow ball.


Pinsir -> A/B (not sure)

Pros: great stats, good movepool, natural swords dance, mold breaker, impressive E4 performance
Cons: rare encounter, sometimes inconsistent in gym fights, mediocre typing

It's basically Heracross, but rare. It's not as consistant in gym fights because it lacks STAB on brick break. On the flipside, it's much better against the E4 because it natually has swords dance. I think it deserves A tier for that reason, but if its bad availability is deemed too big a problem, B tier would be appropriate too. Again, I really don't think there is that much of a difference with Heracross though.


Eevee (Espeon) -> C/ maaaybe B, but that's pushing it

Pros: Amazing typing, great stats, good matchups, really useful against team rocket
Cons: nightmare to evolve, terrible movepool

I think its good enough to be worth the effort. Its special attack is so high that the relatively low base power of its STAB isn't that big of a problem. Its matchups are also quite impressive, including two sweeps at the E4. Honestely, psychic is just such a busted type in this game.


Swinub -> D, possibly E

Pros: good stats, amazing STAB combination, decent matchups
Cons: late availability + majorly underlevelled + slow exp. group + no good grinding spots is a terrible combination, requires 2 heart scales, not even that great against Lance, which is supposed to be a big selling point.

Absolutely not worth it in my opinion. Sure it's good once it is fully evolved, but it takes ages to get it there. If you want ice fang, you need a heart scale for that. You also need a heart scale for ancientpower of course. It's decent against the E4 thanks to its amazing offensive potential, but it's not particularly spectactular by any means. Extremely high effort, mediocre reward.

 

[Ryota Mitarai]

also done here

logs

Ampharos

Falkner(14): Thundershock OHKOs Pidgey and 2HKOs Pidgeotto

Proton #1 (17): Thundershock OHKOs Zubat and 2HKOs Koffing

Silver #2 (17): Thundershock KOs Gastly after a Curse and OHKOs Zubat. My starter was Totodile, so it's Bayleef here. I assume it will be able to take Croconaw down just fine

Bugsy(19): Thundershock 3HKOs Scyther, while Scyther 3HKOs with U-turn, though it seems it may be a 2HKO with worse Defense IVs or at lower level. Still, you could paralyze it and weaken it, which is pretty good

Whitney(20): Thunder 2HKOs both of her mons. Miltank is faster, but you can Cotton Spore it if you have the move and prevent flinches. Stomp is a 3HKO

Silver #2 (22): Thunder OHKOs Gastly and 2HKOs Magnemite, while Thundershock OHKOs Zubat. Gastly is faster, though

Morty(25): Thunder 2HKOs Gengar and OHKOs the rest. Matchup is not reliable due to Thunder's accuracy, but since you live Gengar's Shadow Ball, you can potentially paralyze it

Petrel #1 (27): Specs CBeam OHKOs Zubat and Koffing and 2HKOs Raticate

Chuck(30): Thunder in rain OHKOs everything, only hope that Primeape doesn't go for Focus Punch turn one

Jasmine(30): Specs Focus Blast OHKOs everything and outspeeds

Pryce(31): Specs Charge Beam OHKOs Seel and 2HKOs Dewgong. Focus Blast puts Piloswine in red, but Specs or +1 boost makes it an OHKO, though Pilo is faster

Petrel #2 (33): Thunder in rain puts Weezing in red and OHKOs the rest. Specs Charge Beam also OHKOs Koffing

Silver #4 (33): Thunder in rain OHKOs Golbat and 2HKOs Sneasel and Magnemite. Haunter dies to it after a Curse. Golbat is annoying, because of confusion + Bite flinches

Proton #2 (34): Thunder in rain OHKOs Golbat and almost OHKOs Weezing. Golbat, however, is faster and generally goes for Confuse Ray

Ariana(34): Specs Discharge OHKOs Murkrow and 2HKOs Arbok. You can also muscle through Plume as long as you avoid sleep, as it doesn't deal much with Mega Drain

Archer(34): Specs Discharge OHKOs Houndour and Koffing and 2HKOs Houndoom. Doom can only be beaten if it's paralyzed turn one, either through Static or Discharge

Clair(37): Specs Discharge OHKOs Gyarados and 3HKOs Kingdra. Kingdra 2HKOs with Hydro Pump, but if Discharge paralyzes it, it can assist your team greatly

Silver #5 (40): Specs Discharge OHKOs everything bar Meganium and Magneton (Mag is 2HKOed). All of them are faster and you may need to heal to beat all of them. Also note that Kadabra can Disable it

Will(43): Specs Discharge OHKOs Xatu and Slowbro and 2HKOs Jynx, which 3HKOs with Psychic. Xatu are faster, however.

Koga(43): Specs Discharge OHKOs Ariados and Crobat and 2HKOs the rest.

Bruno(44): Specs Discharge 2HKOs Hitmons. Lee 3HKOs with Blaze Kick, while Chan 4HKOs with Ice Punch

Karen(44): Specs Discharge OHKOs Murkrow and 2HKOs (3HKO due to berry) Houndoom and Gengar, whose Focus Blast is a 3HKO

Lance(44): Specs Discharge 2HKOs Zard and OHKOs Gyara and Aero, though you may need to heal offscreen to beat each

Forretress

Whitney(20): Bide after two Stomps 2HKOs Miltank. If you heal and go for another Bide and it doesn't go for Milk Drink, you KO it. Note that being female is essential here

Silver #3 (22): Payback OHKOs Gastly and Return 2HKOs Zubat. Dig likely OHKOs Magnemite, I didn't teach it that move. Bug Bite is around a 2HKO on Bayleef, but it's faster and trolls you with Poisonpowder + Synthesis

Morty(25): Payback OHKOs everything but Gengar, but you are outsped by everything, so you may get haxed.

Petrel #1 (27): Payback 2HKOs Zubat and 3HKOs the rest. Avoid Koffing due to Smokescreen

Chuck(31): if it takes one Focus Punch after a Leer, it can KO Primeape with Bide. Poliwrath often puts it to sleep

Jasmine(31): outspeeds and OHKOs Magnemite with Dig if you taught it that. Steelix can be damaged with Bide, but you need to heal to beat it

Pryce(32): Bug Bite 3HKOs Seel, while Mirror Shot 3HKOs Piloswine (Flash Cannon would likely be a 2HKO and Specs Mirror Shot too)

Petrel #2 (33): Specs Mirror Shot OHKOs Koffing on rolls and 2HKOs Weezing on rolls. Flash Cannon can help, if you have the TM. Weezing outspeeds

Silver #4 (34): Return 3HKOs Golbat and Dig OHKOs Magnemite if you have it. Bug Bite OHKOs Sneasel and 2HKOs Meganium, though it's faster and can troll with Synthesis. Payback OHKOs Haunter, which generally Curses

Proton #2 (34): Return 2HKOs Golbat, while Mirror Shot 3HKOs Weezing, which can only Smokescreen it

Ariana(34): Specs Mirror Shot 2HKOs Murkrow and 3HKOs the rest. Murkrow is the only one that deals any damage, while Plume is annoying with sleep

Archer(35): beats Koffing

Clair(37): can beat the non-Fire Blast. Bide can OHKO Kingdra if you take one Hydro Pump and nothing else. However, the chance of that is incredibly low (you need Smokescreen then HPump or HPump miss then hit (or vice versa)

Silver #5 (40): Bug Bite OHKOs Sneasel and can OHKO Kadabra even with Reflect. Payback OHKOs Haunter, which Curses. Bug Bite 2HKOs Meganium, Reflect turns it into a 4HKO. Dig OHKOs Magneton, if you taught the move

Will(43): Payback 2HKOs Xatu and OHKOs Jynx, while Bug Bite 2HKOs Eggy on rolls with Reflect. You may need to heal, as you are slow and susceptible to hax and wearing out

Koga(43): beats Ariados and possibly Venomoth. Muk and Crobat spam evasion and Forry takes too much time

Bruno(43): Return 3HKOs Top, though Counter will quickly wear you down. Mirror Shot 2HKOs Onix. The rest generally beat you 1v1

Karen (43): Bug Bite 3HKOs Umbreon and Murkrow and 4HKOs Plume. Payback 2HKOs Gengar, which 2HKOs with Focus Blast.

Lance(43): Aero 3HKOs with Rock Slide, but Specs Mirror Shot 2HKOs. Don't know how Bide would work here, as I had forgotten it in favor of an all-out attacker set

Machamp

Whitney(20): 4HKOed by Stomp, Karate Chop 3HKOs, with Leer turning it into a 2HKO. Avoid flinches and you win. If you are at level 22 (which is doable, given this is a traded mon), Revenge will likely do the job

Silver #2 (22): Payback OHKOs Gastly and Karate Chop OHKOs Magnemite. Zubat is put in red with Payback, but 3HKOs with Wing Attack. Bayleef's Reflect makes it a bad matchup

Morty(25): Payback 2HKOs Gengar and OHKOs the rest. They are all faster and Gengar OHKOs with Shadow Ball

Petrel #1 (28): Payback 2HKOs Zubat and 3HKOs Koffing. Vital Throw OHKOs Raticate

Chuck(30): Vital Throw 2HKOs Primeape and 3HKOs (4HKO with berry) Poliwrath. Only worry is Hypnosis, but other than that, it generally spams Focus Punch. Body Slam paralysis can also help to trigger Guts

Jasmine(31): outspeeds and OHKOs Magnemite with Dig. Revenge when boosted 2HKOs Steelix, Vital Throw 3HKOs (4HKOs with berry), whenever you win or no depends a lot on how often Steelix hits with Iron Tail

Pryce(31): boosted Revenge OHKOs everything. Piloswine is the only one that doesn't attack immediately, but for it, you can just spam Vital Throw to ignore Snow Cloak. You can easily take one Blizzard, one Aurora Beam, and one Icy Wind

Petrel #2 (33): not good. Vital Throw 3HKOs Koffing and you need poisoning to deal more damage

Silver #4 (33): (going off memory) kills Magnemite and Sneasel with no problems, OHKOs Haunter with Payback and 2HKOs Golbat with Payback

Proton #2 (34): Payback 2HKOs Golbat whose Wing Attack is a 3HKO

Ariana(34): if paralyzed by Glare, -1 Dig OHKOs Arbok and -1 Vital Throw OHKOs Murkrow. Plume is 2HKOed by -1 Payback due to paralysis, though Mega Drain turns it into a 3HKO.

Archer(34): Vital Throw OHKOs the Houndour line

Clair(37): boosted statused Revenge OHKOs Dragonair and puts Kingdra in red. Vital Throw this way also OHKOs Dragonair, but seems to be rolls

Silver #5 (39): Revenge kills Sneasel, while EQ OHKOs Magneton and Payback OHKOs Kababra and Haunter, both of which are faster. Meganium can be beaten at full health with Cross Chop spam if it goes for Poisonpowder.

Will(42): Payback OHKOs Xatu and Jynx with Jynx failing to OHKO with Psychic. If they derp, you could take down all of them (Me First, then Confuse Ray)

Koga(43): EQ 2HKOs Ariados and Muk and boosted Revenge 2HKOs Forry (for w/e reason it spams Swift). EQ also 2HKOs Venomoth, though it 2HKOs with Psychic.

Bruno(43): EQ almost OHKOs Top while it Digs. Boosted Revenge also OHKOs Onix and Hitmonchan. Lee generally Swaggers, but if you make it through, you are killing it

Karen(43): Cross Chop puts Umbreon in red and OHKOs Houndoom. Boosted Revenge OHKOs Murkrow. EQ 3HKOs Plume, but if it Stun Spores you, it becomes a 2HKO

Lance(45): boosted Revenge while paralyzed OHKOs Aero, but that's it

Rhydon

Petrel #1 (27): Rock Blast kills Zubat and Dig 2HKOs Raticate. You need around 6 Rock Blasts to KO Koffing

Chuck(30): nope

Jasmine(30): beats Magnemite

Pryce(31): nope

Petrel #2 (32): nope. Smokescreen + Rock Blast's inaccuracy make this fight a wheel of fortune

Silver #4 (32): beats Golbat, Sneasel, and Magnemite

Proton #2 (35): three Rock Blasts OHKO Golbat, while nine or ten are required to KO Weezing

Ariana(35): Rock Blast OHKOs Murkrow, while -1 Dig 2HKOs Arbok

Archer(35): beats Houndour and Houndoom

Clair(36): nope

Silver #5 (39): beats Sneasel, Golbat, and Magneton

Will(43): 3 Rock Blasts KO Xatu, which 2HKO with Psychic (the first one can derp and go for Me First). EQ OHKOs Jynx, though it 2HKOs with Psychic

Koga(43): three Rock Blasts KO Venomoth and Ariados and four (five with berry) KO Crobat. EQ OHKOs Muk and handles Forry. Venomoth is the only threat due to Psychic 3HKOing

Bruno(43): EQ 2HKOs Top and Chan and OHKOs Lee, though Tail Whip turns the former two into OHKOs. Machamp is OHKOed by EQ if you got a Swagger from Lee (you outspeed it as well). Onix dies to EQ as well

Karen(43): Hammer Arm OHKOs Umbreon after two Tail Whips. EQ OHKOs Houndoom while it sets up Nasty Plot. Also beats Murkrow

Lance(43): Rock Blast OHKOs Zard and around three are needed to beat Aero. 5 or 6 are needed to beat DNites, but they generally beat you anyways

(potentially controversial) thoughts:

Ampharos
This one is tricky to tier, so I will likely be detailed in my analysis.

Mareep is the earliest Electric Pokemon you can get and one of the Pokemon that easily beat Falkner. I think it's worth mentioning that Flaaffy doesn't really beat Scyther, but paralysis + Thundershock can make it a lot easier to handle for teammates. Speaking about Flaaffy, I definitely think this is its biggest flaw. The period is characterized by an overreliance on Thunder to actually deal damage to bosses and even with that, you are still not likely to win most of them. It gets a lot better once Ampharos gets Discharge; there's ThunderDance, but I think I used it like only twice. Once I got Charge Beam and then Discharge, I mostly spammed that. Discharge with Specs is incredibly powerful, as you can see in the E4 logs, as it achieves many OHKOs and 2HKOs.

It's hard to pinpoint an accurate tier on this thing. Ampharos, in my opinion, definitely has the power of an A-tier, it's just that the Flaaffy period makes it harder to say "A-tier" (but not impossible). Funnily, there's an analogical example in RBY for this case, which is Charmander. Charmander's Charmeleon period is rather bad, but once it evolves, it essentially performs like an A-tier., but was ultimately put in B Obviously, I am not saying "put it in B-tier cause RBY did that with Charmander", because those are different games with different people leading them. It does raise a good question, though: "is the Flaaffy period bad enough to prevent the line from being A-tier?" This one can probably be discussed more, because I don't feel comfortable laying out a tier just like this

tl;dr Ampharos performs like an A-tier, but the Flaaffy period may potentially push it down to B

Forretress
I think that, while not great, Pineco is somewhat better than what people give it credit for. Pineco phase isn't really that bad in terms of route cleaning, as catching it in Friend Ball and teaching it Return allows it to fare well against route trainers and keep up with your team. On the other hand, Pineco didn't really feel super useful in major fights (that's not to say it was useless, merely wasn't super impressive). Its low Speed is also heavily problematic, as the game is dominated by all sorts of hax elements and taking all of them is pretty much a death sentence. Bide can be useful for some bosses, like Clair, though it's not always reliable.

As for a tier, I don't think C is super out of question, but I am leaning more towards D-tier on the grounds that being vulnerable to hax + not being super impressive in most fights, especially at the E4, do not scream "C-tier" to me. But I am open to disagreements. C-tier could potentialyl be considered if you take into account the possibility of beating Clair's Kingdra, though that requires luck, basically.

Machamp
A-tier. One of the only Fighting-types for Whitney + traded Exp. is really nice, in my opinion. Machamp hits very hard with Revenge when boosted and Vital Throw is useful for Chuck's Primeape (and all sorts of opponents that spam evasion moves / accuracy-reducing moves). Machamp does have a bit of a rough time against Team Rocket's Poisons and some of the E4 mons, but I am also factoring in the free Macho Brace you get from the trade. This is because Machop will often spam a negative priority move or Payback, which either do not care about Macho Brace or actually combines well with it. I didn't use it in my run as to not skew my results too much, but you can definitely just leave it on Machop with little consequence.

I think it's worth mentioning that this thing almost OHKOed Clair's Kingdra with a neutral move, which is insane. While Macho Brace can make Machamp more vulnerable to hax, a lot of it is coming from Team Rocket, which I already established as not a good matchup in general.

Rhydon
The issues with Rhyhorn is Safari Zone availability + Slow exp. group + being useless for Gyms. Outside of that, it's useful for most of Team Rocket and Rhydon performs somewhat ok at the E4. If you care about Exp. groups, still E-tier, if no, D-tier, mostly because of TR + E4 matchups.


re: Pinsir, I used it for this thread and I think B is more appropriate than A. Pinsir's availability is a lot worse than Heracross's; for Heracross, all you need to do is find a tree that has it (Azalea has two different types of trees), wheres Pinsir is like finding a Scyther (at least you get to know if it has Mold Breaker or no). While Heracross is not the most consistent thing to use for the E4, from memory, it's not really that bad. I think Pinsir doesn't perform well enough from experience to warrant A-tier.

re: Espeon, I'd say C is better, I don't think it's that good enough to be B-tier. If you really need a Psychic, just use Girafarig or Kadabra, honestly.

if you are planning on doing another run, I'd be glad if you tested Kadabra, cause I felt like it could potentially be A-tier when I used it.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

I guess I'll say that while I haven't finished my current testing of Mareep, yeah I'll echo your thoughts Ryota. Flaaffy period can deal huge damage with Thunder but is just unreliable. I also don't remember Mareep or Flaaffy being all that hard hitting otherwise. It's a solid mon once it gets to Ampharos, but the question is basically: does a mon who gets notable after like 25 levels deserve A tier? I think I might lean no.

Also, the fair amount of "Thunder in rain" matchups in the midgame I'm not a huge fan of, though it's ultimately understandable when your alternatives until Discharge aren't much better.

So yeah, good mon, just not really a performing one for roughly half the game. Slowness also plays a role in me thinking it's more of a B tier, though the midgame leaders DO feel like an A performance.

 

[TCTphantom]

I was going to restart my Japanese Soul Silver, but found that it had my TRU Arceus in it and kind of just did a run messing around with how broken Giratina Origin was. Once I pick up a copy of SS or get a rom (which I am not as much of a fan of), I will do some runs. I forget what else I said I would be using outside of Gengar and Scizor. I was thinking of using Lanturn for sure since I wanted to test it out.

On Espeon: From my experience, Espeon is pretty alright but the investment to get it is annoying. I eventually said screw it and just rode my bike for a few hours last time while watching bad movies with my friends. I lean C myself, but I would not be opposed to giving this thing a better test with actual logs. I also think I neglected to use Specs from my memory, so that certainly had a negative impact.

TDLR, Gonna actually do a run soon now that I am done messing around, will likely use Gengar, Scizor, Chinchou, and Espeon since I want to give it a better test.

 

[sumwun]

Sneasel is unobtainable until after the player defeats Lance. Please add it to the list of untiered stuff.

If you surf on Route 43, then it's impossible to find a level 26 to 49 Magikarp, but it is possible to find one at level 50. Using a level 26 Pokemon (which should be reasonable easy to have given that the player just defeated Morty) and a bunch of super repels, I found 4 level 50 Magikarps in less than 12 minutes, so I don't think encounter chance is an issue here. Given the 20 level difference, I think this Magikarp mostly outclasses the shiny Gyarados and should be in S tier instead of Gyarados.

Why does the OP say that NidoranF, NidoranM, Scyther, Lugia, and Ho-Oh are in A and Sentret is in B? Nobody has ever used any of these Pokemon and then proposed putting it in that tier.

 

[ceal]

Why does the OP say that NidoranF, NidoranM, Scyther, Lugia, and Ho-Oh are in A and Sentret is in B? Nobody has ever used any of these Pokemon and then proposed putting it in that tier.

They're carryovers from the previous thread. Granted, I don't think anyone's gonna argue the box legends aren't A, but having used Nidoking myself, yeah I don't agree with its current placement, and you could probably say the same for the others. If you disagree with their ranks, testing them and making a nomination would be a good way of inspiring some change.

 

[Ryota Mitarai]

Ponyta and Sneasel are unobtainable until after the player defeats Lance. Please add them to the list of untiered stuff.

this is not true, they are obtainable before Lance. Both are in, I believe, Route 28. They are likely gonna be F-tier due to coming so late and underleveled, but that is besides the point.

 

[sumwun]

If you disagree with their ranks, testing them and making a nomination would be a good way of inspiring some change.

I want to use Ho-Oh at some point, but that might take a few months because I'm currently busy with other stuff.

Both are in, I believe, Route 28.

That route is blocked by a police person until after the player gets 16 badges.

 

[Ryota Mitarai]

I want to use Ho-Oh at some point, but that might take a few months because I'm currently busy with other stuff.
That route is blocked by a police person until after the player gets 16 badges.

typo, meant Route 27

though now that I am looking at it, Sneasel isn't there, despite my memories. But I am 100% sure Ponyta is there

 

[Blufyr3]

I think I can safely say that HGSS is my least favorite Pokemon game, besides USUM. The game just has a lot of weird design choices to it that makes it feel very clunky compared to Platinum, or even Diamond/Pearl. It is slightly more bearable with a stylus and adjusting a few things here and there. That aside, here are more logs of my run.

Silver (Burned Tower)

Nidoking (22)
I evolved Nidorino using a Moon Stone I picked up at the Pokeathlon. I also taught it Fire Blast and Focus Blast via TM along with Dig.
Nido out-speeds nad OHKO’s Gastly with Fire Blast
Nido uses Dig, out-speeds Quilava who misses Smokescreen. Dig OHKO’s Quil easily. Levels up to 23
Nido out-speeds and OHKO’s Zubat with Fire Blast
Nido dodges Magnemite’s Supersonic using Dig. OHKO’s Magnemite with Dig
Impressive first mu for Nidoking.

Raticate (23)
Now has Return via the Goldenrod Department Store TM lady
Rat out-speeds and OHKO’s Gastly with Bite
Magnemite tries to use Supersonic but misses and Rat 2HKO’s it with Return. Leveled up to 24 and replaced Bite with Crunch
Rat out-speeds and 2HKO’s Quil with Return + Quick Attack. Quil uses Flame Wheel and chips Rat for a bit of damage
Zubat gets OHKO’d by Return, cannot do anything back to Rat
Great mu again

Rocky (21)
Evolved Rocky into Steelix, using a Metal Coat. Also taught Rocky Dig via TM and deleted Rock Tomb.
Gastly out-speeds Rocky and traps it using Mean Look. Rock Throw 2HKO’s Gastly without Screech, but it offs itself using Curse. Leveled up to 22
Quilava out-speeds Rocky and uses Smokescreen (2). RT is a 2/3HKO, but it depends on a high roll without a Screech. Quil’s Ember is a 3HKO
Rocky gets confused by Supersonic from Zubat. RT fails to OHKO Zubat without a Screech, but it should never beat Rocky one-on-one unless it dies from Curse damage
Rocky out-speeds and OHKO’s Magnemite with Dig
Decent mu, but Rocky’s damage output isn’t very good without a debuff/boost it seems

Chinchou (20)
Picked up Chinchou upon arrival to Ecruteak City. Surprisingly, it took a while to find one with a decent nature and the ability Volt Absorb. I also taught Chinchou Thunder/Blizzard/Surf and gave it a Magnet.
Gastly out-speeds and confuses Chinchou with Confuse Ray. It then uses Curse, so Surf KO’s it
Chinchou out-speeds and 2HKO’s Magnemite with Surf.
Out-speeds and OHKO’s Zubat with Thunder. Leveled up to 21
Quilava out-speeds Chinchou and chips it with Flame Wheel. Surf 2HKO’s Quil
Decent mu, but Chinchou depends on Thunder/Blizzard hitting their targets. In particular, I don’t know if it could beat Bayleef with only one Blizzard

Morty

Raticate (25)
Rat out-speeds and OHKO’s Gastly and Haunter with Crunch
Out-speeds and 2HKO’s Gengar. Leveled up to 26
Haunter tries to use Sucker Punch and only chips Rat. Gets OHKO’d by Crunch easily
Great mu for Raticate

Rocky (21/25)
Attempt 1:
Without Screech, RT is a 3HKO on Gastly which out-speeds Rocky. It cannot do much damage, but Spite and Curse can be an annoyance. After a Screech, it becomes a 2HKO
Rocky uses Screech on Gengar which turns RT into a 3/4HKO. Gengar can 3HKO Rocky back with Shadow Ball, assuming it doesn’t get a crit or the SpD drop
Haunter (21) out-speeds Rocky and lands Hypnosis multiple times in a row. It also uses Curse/Nightmare to knock down Rocky’s HP, and RT kept missing
After a Screech, RT is a 2HKO
Haunter (23) out-speeds Rocky and uses Mean Look. I use Screech twice before using RT which is a 2HKO
Bad matchup without Payback

Attempt 2: Payback
Gastly still out-speeds Rocky but after a Screech, Payback OHKO’s it
Gengar out-speeds and puts Rocky to sleep with Hypnosis. Shadow Ball is now a 4HKO, but it can be a 3HKO with a high roll
Payback is a 2HKO after Sitrus Berry, even without Screech. Leveled up to 26
Haunter (21) comes out and lands Hypnosis. Payback OHKO’s it without Screech, but it can be tedious to achieve because of sleep/Curse damage
Haunter (23) is also OHKO’d by Payback
Meh to decent mu depending upon how much you get haxxed by Morty. Rocky’s speed makes it too slow to handle his entire team without a lot of item support

Chinchou (22/25)
Attempt 1:
Gets out-sped by Gastly who uses Mean Look. Surf OHKO’s it
Gengar comes out and uses Mean Look. Surf only manages to chip Gengar.
Gengar lands Hypnosis and puts Chinchou to sleep. Chin wakes up and uses Thunder (miss).
Sucker Punch from Gengar is a 3HKO it appears while Shadow Ball is an easy 2HKO
Bad mu

Attempt 2:
Surf OHKO’s Gastly again, Chin also out-speeds it now
Gengar’s Shadow Ball is still a guaranteed 2HKO. Chinchou’s Thunder is a 2HKO after Sitrus Berry if it hits
Thunder can OHKO his Haunter (21), but it can out-speed you and turn Chin into deadweight with sleep
Haunter (23) always seems to use Curse first, so Thunder can KO it
An okay mu, but Chinchou cannot defeat his ace

Nidoking (23/25)
Attempt 1
Now has Shadow Claw instead of Focus Blast
Gastly comes out and is out-sped and OHKO’d by Shadow Claw
Haunter (21) also gets OHKO’d by Claw and is out-sped by Nido. It did survive once with 1 HP, but I assume that was just a really low roll
Gengar comes out and 2HKO’s with Shadow Ball. Nidoking can 2HKO with Claw and mine speed-ties with his Gengar. The first time, I lost the tie, but the second time I did not.
Fire Blast is a 3/4HKO on Gengar

Attempt 2: Fire Blast
Nidoking now has Double Kick instead of Fire Blast.
Gastly, Haunter (21), and Haunter (23) are all OHKO’d with Claw and out-sped by Nido
Nido 2HKO’s Gengar with Claw, but it can still speed-tie with it. Leveled up to 26
Haunter (23) can chip Nido with Sucker Punch but otherwise can do nothing besides that.
Good matchup for Nidoking.

Petrel 1

Lanturn (28)
Now holding a Mystic Water. I also taught it Rain Dance via TM
Turn 1, Rain Dance while Zubat goes for Confuse Ray
Zubat and Koffing are OHKO’d by Surf
Raticate out-speeds Lanturn and misses Hyper Fang. Rain ends before Lanturn can click Surf again because of confusion damage.
Raticate swaps between Sucker Punch and Hyper Fang for a possible 4-5HKO. Without rain, Surf becomes a 2HKO
Good matchup

Rocky (28)
Rocky out-speeds Zubat and uses Screech. Rock Throw OHKO’s it
Koffing goes for Smokescreen (x3) while Rocky uses Screech. RT is a 2HKO after a Screech. After using Assurance a few times for chip damage, Koffing explodes with Self Destruct which barely dents Rocky
Raticate cannot touch Rocky, but it does out-speed it. After one Screech, Payback OHKO’s Raticate
Decent matchup.

Nidoking (28)
Shadow Ball 2HKO’s Zubat and Koffing
Double Kick misses Raticate twice who uses Scary Face but only manages to hit once.
Even at -2 Speed, Nidoking out-speeds Raticate and can 2HKO it with Dig
Unfortunately, Nido kept missing its moves after taking one Smokescreen from Koffing. Raticate ends up dying after getting poisoned by Nido’s ability since it somehow missed Double Kick three times in a row.
Decent matchup

Raticate (29)
Rat out-speeds and OHKO’s Zubat with Return
After one Tail Whip, Koffing gets OHKO’d by Return
Petrel’s Raticate barely avoids the OHKO from Rat; however, Quick Attack finishes it off
Great matchup

Chuck

Raticate (32)
Return 2HKO’s Primeape and Rat out-speeds Ape. Avoided any hax from Double Team thankfully
Poliwrath is 2HKO’d by a crit Return after Sitrus Berry. Without a crit, Return is a 3HKO at best. In the rain, Wrath’s Surf can 2HKO Rat from full HP.
Decent matchup, but Raticate can lose to Poliwrath if it gets status’d or switches into a strong STAB move.

Nidoking (30)
Attempt 1: Quick Claw
Taught Nidoking Sludge Bomb via TM
Nido out-speeds Ape and can 2HKO it with Sludge Bomb.
Nido out-speeds Wrath, but can only 4-5HKO it with Bomb or Dig. Unfortunately, Surf is an easy 2HKO from full HP on Nido
Meh matchup unless you’re carrying Thunder on Nidoking.

Attempt 2: Specs + Thunder
Sludge Bomb is still a 2HKO on Ape
Bomb now becomes a potential 3HKO on Wrath. I managed to poison it, and activate its Sitrus Berry.
If it hits, Thunder can 2HKO Wrath easily. However, if it misses, Nido can end up KO’d or status’d by Body Slam/Hypnosis.
Decent matchup thanks to Specs.

Rocky (30)
Primeape out-speeds Rocky and uses Leer. Rocky lands a Screech on Ape
Rock Slide barely dents Rocky who uses Dig. Ape goes for Double Team and gets OHKO’d by Dig. Rocky leveled up to 31
Wrath out-speeds Rocky and can easily 2HKO it with Surf. Rocky’s Screech misses, but Wrath goes for Slam instead of finishing him (no paralysis proc).
I heal Rocky back to full HP twice. It survives two Focus Punches just barely and avoids a third with Dig. Procs Wrath’s Berry since Dig is a 2HKO after Screech. Focus Punch narrowly 2HKO’s Rocky
Wrath again tries to finish Rocky with Body Slam, but only chips it down to 5 HP. Again, no paralysis
Both Mons back to full HP. Rocky goes for Dig and avoids a Focus Punch and Hypnosis
Rocky tanks a Surf like a champ, and finishes off Wrath with one last Dig
Because of the crazy amount of luck I had with Rocky, I consider this one of its few poor matchups. I also used 3-4 Hyper Potions to keep Rocky at full HP, something I normally wouldn’t do. But, Rocky surprised me when it survived that first Surf and even a Focus Punch from Wrath twice.
An overall poor matchup for Rocky b/c of the constant healing + inability to reliably beat Chuck’s ace.

Lanturn (30)
Turn 1, Lanturn sets up Rain Dance. Primeape out-speeds it and uses Double Team. Ape gets up to +4 Evasion, but Lanturn hits Surf and OHKO’s it in the rain (while holding Mystic Water).
With Magnet, Thunder 2HKO’s Ape.
Wrath out-speeds Lanturn and puts it to sleep with Hypnosis. The rain ends too, so I decide to wake up Lanturn with an item before resetting the weather
Wrath uses Focus Punch and OHKO’s Lanturn with a crit after I use the item tho. I sack a Mon before resetting the rain.
But, Wrath paralyzes Lanturn with Body Slam (4-5HKO at best). Thanks to paralysis, Focus Punch lands again. Without a crit, it’s an easy 2HKO
I Full Restore Lanturn and finally reset the rain. Yet again, Wrath paralyzes Lanturn with Body Slam…
Thunder is a 2HKO after the Sitrus Berry procs
A disappointingly average matchup for Lanturn, even with all the RNG. It seems that carrying Charge Beam can also affect Lanturn’s ability to beat Wrath, judging by ceal’s run. Either that or my Chinchou’s SpA IV is just that awful.

Jasmine

Raticate (32)
Swapped out Tail Whip for Dig via TM
Rat out-speeds and OHKO’s both Magnemites with Dig
Raticate can only chip Steelix with Dig at best. Iron Tail is a 2HKO, but it finished off mine with Rock Throw
An okay matchup since Raticate is useless against her Steelix. I don’t count the Magnemites for much since they’re so easy to KO with a SE move.

Nidoking (31)
Swapped out Double Kick for Fire Blast
Nido out-speeds and OHKO’s both Magnemites with Dig
Fire Blast is a solid 2HKO on Steelix after Sitrus Berry. Iron Tail is a 2HKO, but you should be able to tank it and finish Lix off.
Good matchup overall

Rocky (32)
Dig OHKO’s both Magnemites. Watch out for Supersonic tho
After two Screeches, Rocky OHKO’d her Steelix with one Dig. You can eat Iron Tails for days since none of her attacks can really touch Rocky.
Great matchup

Lanturn (30)
Lanturn out-speeds Magnemite and sets up Rain Dance. Magnemite goes for Thunder Wave (lol) and gets OHKO’d by Surf
Lanturn leveled up to 31. The second Magnemite also gets OHKO’d by Surf
Lanturn OHKO’s Steelix with a crit Surf in the rain. Without a crit, Surf still OHKO’s Lix in the rain.
Great matchup

Pryce

Lanturn (33)
Swapped Mystic Water for Magnet
Out-speeds Seel and sets up rain. Thunder OHKO’s Seel, but it does manage to set up Hail.
Without rain, Surf 2HKO’s Pilowsine after Sitrus Berry. Mud Bomb is a 3-4HKO. Thanks to Hail, Pilo can dodge your attacks because of its ability.
I reset the weather and dodge a Mud Bomb. Thankfully, my Lanturn out-speeds it and finishes it off with Surf
Dewgong out-speeds Lanturn and chips it with Aurora Beam. Gong gets OHKO’d by Thunder
Good matchup

Nidoking (31)
Attempt 1: Focus Miss
Gave Nidoking Specs again, and swapped Double Kick for Focus Blast
Nido out-speeds Seel and 2HKO’s it with Sludge Bomb. Seel lands an Icy Wind, but Nido still out-speeds it and finishes it off
After sacking a Mon, I switched Nido back into Dewgong. It out-speeds Gong and barely misses the OHKO with Focus Blast. Gong’s Aurora Beam is an easy 2HKO tho, so taking any prior damage heavily affects Nido’s ability to beat Dewgong reliably.
Pryce heals Gong and Focus Blast again fails to OHKO it. Nido avoids the KO from Ice Shard but misses Focus Blast twice. Gong Rests up to full HP.
Since I’m down to my last Focus Blast, I use an X-Accuracy and manage to crit Gong with Blast while it’s asleep. Leveled up to 32
Piloswine switches in on a sacked Mon and sets up Hail. Nido comes back in, but nothing in its moveset can beat it. Pilo’s Blizzard can OHKO Nido, but it is a roll

Attempt 2: Blastinus Maximus
Swapped out Dig for Fire Blast, Shadow Ball for Thunder, and Sludge Bomb for Blizzard
Nido lands Thunder and OHKO’s Seel
Thunder barely avoids the OHKO on Dewgong who gets paralyzed before it can finish Nido off with Ice Shard
Pryce heals Gong up to full. Thunder again fails to OHKO it, and Nido dies to Aurora Beam from Gong. After reviving Nido, I switch back in and KO Gong with Fire Blast
Fire Blast also fails to OHKO Piloswine. After another sack, Pilo dies to Blizzard (Misclick, but it landed thankfully)
As Ryota noted in his run, Nidoking absolutely needs SE, high-power coverage moves to beat Pryce along with Specs. Unfortunately, it cannot take any hits from Pryce’s team to achieve this feat.
Overall, below average matchup

Raticate (32)
Return 2HKO’s Seel, but takes an Icy Wind in the process
Rat uses Tail Whip twice to soften up Piloswine who sets up Hail. Blizzard 2HKO’s Rat and freezes it. Unfortunately, Rat only 2HKO’s Pilo at -2 Defense who gets healed by Sitrus Berry to about 2/3 HP.
Hail ends after sacking a Mon to revive Rat. Tail Whip once more and revenge kill Pilo with Return. Pilo resets Hail before it dies. Leveled up to 33
Dewgong can 3HKO Rat with Aurora Beam after Hail damage. It gets 2HKO’d by Return after a Tail Whip tho. I got lucky and critted it with Return, but I know it would’ve been a 2HKO based upon the damage Gong took without the Defense drop
Good matchup. Raticate can take a surprising amount of damage in this matchup from Dewgong which I didn’t expect. However, it is still very frail

Rocky (32)
Attempt 1: Rock Throw
Rocky out-speeds Seel and lands a Screech. Seel uses Icy Wind for a bit of chip damage
Seel now out-speeds Rocky and sets up Hail. Rock Throw is a 2HKO, and Seel heals itself to full using Rest
Rocky uses Screech again, but cannot attack thanks to Snore flinching it twice.
Seel wakes up and misses Snore as Rocky KO’s it with Dig. Hail ends as Piloswine switches in
Pilo sets up Hail while Rocky uses Screech. Mud Bomb and Blizzard can both 2HKO Rocky easily

Attempt 2: Iron Tail
Even without Screech, Rocky can 2HKO Seel with Dig or a boosted Payback. Icy Wind is unavoidable unless you get a lucky miss
You can bait Pryce into letting Rocky score an OHKO on Pilo with Iron Tail. However, Rocky needs to be at full HP and land a Screech on Piloswine. There also needs to be no Hail set up as Pilo switches in
Under the right circumstances, it is possible.
Before dying, Pilo reset Hail. Leveled up to 33
With Hail damage, Dewgong’s Aurora Beam is a 3HKO on Rocky. After a Screech, Rocky’s Dig can 2HKO Gong, but you need to heal to achieve this feat.
Unless you go for a really low roll on Gong’s next attack, or it uses Rest after the first Dig. I got very lucky because Gong decided to Rest instead of finishing Rocky off
Gong uses Sleep Talk and hits Rocky with Aurora Beam, but I healed just in case before it used Rest. I land another Screech and OHKO it with a Dig
A decent matchup, but highly dependent on luck

STATS

Note: IV’s listed as HP/Attack/Defense/Sp. Atk/Sp. Def/Speed.
Chinchou (Male)
Nature: Relaxed
Ability: Volt Absorb
IVs: 31/9/9/2/27/29 – Perfect HP IV and near-perfect SpD and Speed are better than I could ever ask for. Others are garbage, esp. its SpA IV.

Overall Thoughts

Raticate
Raticate has never let me down, but I am starting to find its power a little lacking. Much like Kenya, it relies heavily on STAB Return + its speed, but it cannot take strong attacks at all. On a side note, Guts has been barely worth having over Run Away. When it does work in my favor, it can be nice, but it's not essential to its performance for a standard playthrough. Still not sure if it's A or B tier.

Rocky (Trade)
Rocky relies heavily on Screech for increasing his below-average damage output along with his typing for the resistances/immunities it provides. In addition to this, Rocky fears bulky Water-types who can take any of its attacks and easily KO it. STAB Fighting-type moves can pierce through Rocky's tough defenses too, despite its absurdly high base Defense and passable HP stat. For these reasons, a lot of its major battles can be really good, or really bad depending on how well it walls the opponent's team. I'm not sure if I'd consider that an A-tier Mon, so Rocky will be B-tier for now.

Nidoran-M
I don’t consider Nidoran-M to be A-tier in its performance. However, Nidoking can be a total powerhouse with its insane movepool, good stats, and decent typing. It is a very good route cleaner too, but not as good as it was in FRLG. A solid B-tier Mon is what I think it will end up being.

Chinchou
Chinchou is really good, but it depends on Rain Dance to boost the power of Surf and increase the accuracy of Thunder. Even route trainers can give it difficulty without a Rain Dance up, unlike Starmie. While it is easier to get Chinchou, I still prefer Starmie as my go-to Water-type of choice.
I’ve never had a particularly good experience using Lanturn in any Pokemon game, but I’ve never really used it seriously. However, a lot of ppl. consider it A-tier in this game, so I may change my mind on it. For now, it’s B-tier in my eyes.

 

[Ryota Mitarai]

before I post my logs, I want to say that I tried verifying what sumwun said about that Magikarp.... and it seems to actually be true. I led with a level 37 mon, Max Repelled and found only level 50 Magikarps (from around 5, I found 5 level 50 ones). Gave it a Rare Candy and it evolved into a Gyarados.

I tried this after beating Team Rocket, so couldn't use it for mid-game Gyms, but I doubt it'd struggle there. The main issue this Gyarados has is that you won't have DD and Ice Fang, which the shiny one will learn naturally. While you can Heart Scale them, you only get one guaranteed in the whole Johto region, so if you want both (preferably, DD then Ice Fang), then you need to hunt for a bit. And its damage output was somewhat lacking (around 22 IVs in Attack) and couldn't OHKO some things with even +1. However, I had no EVs on it whatsoever, so I am going to use it again, but give it 10 Proteins or something (I believe there are around 4 that you can get from ground) just before you need them and use the same IVs. Here are logs from Clair and next fights below:

logs

level 51, no EVs, Surf / Strength / DD / Waterfall

Clair: set up DD twice and spam Strength. OHKOs Dragonair, 2HKOs the rest. Ended up at very low HP, but I also have no EVs on it whatsoever, you may wanna invest some vitamins in it.

Silver #5: DD on Sneasel and spam Waterfall. Spam Strength on Meganium, it should fall eventually.

Will: +1 Waterfall OHKOs Xatu and Jynx and +1 Strength 2HKOs the rest, though Reflect can be annoying.

Koga: with one DD, Waterfall OHKOs or 2HKOs everything

Bruno: one DD and spam Waterfall, gg

Karen: +1 Waterfall 2HKOs Umbreon and OHKOs the rest bar Vileplume, which is 2HKOed by +1 Strength, though it Stun Spores you

Lance: if you set up DD to the max, Strength OHKOs Gyarados and all DNites on rolls, with Outrage being a 2HKO if you are at full. Waterfall covers the rest

I will see if I can find someone to confirm that you can only obtain a level 50 Magikarp if you repel trick with lv. 26

===

did a run with Noctowl / Jumpluff / Jynx / Tangrowth:

logs

Noctowl

Falkner(12): Peck 3HKOs Pidgey and deals nothing to Pidgeotto. At most, you can put it to sleep and spam Growl on it.

Proton #1 (15): click Uproar and you win

Silver #2 (16): Peck 3HKOs Gastly and 3-4HKOs Zubat. Put them to sleep to be on the safer side. Bayleef takes too much time

Bugsy(17): Peck is around a 4-5HKO on Scyther, which can just overwhelm you with Focus Energy and Leer

Whitney(20): Hyper Beam OHKOs Clefairy and 2HKOs Miltank. However, Miltank is faster and can Attract if Noctowl is male and can Stomp flinch it to death, though Stomp is like 4HKO, I think.

Silver #3 (22): Confusion puts Gastly and Zubat in red. Hyper Beam OHKOs Bayleef after a Peck. Avoid Magnemite

Morty(25): Confusion OHKOs Gastly and 2HKOs Haunter. Gengar is easy cause Sucker Punch is the only thing that does anything. Only watch out for Curse from Haunter. Hypnosis helps greatly here.

Petrel #1 (28): spam Specs Confusion and you win

Chuck(30): Specs Confusion 2HKOs Primeape and 4HKOs Poliwrath while you outspeed Poliwrath. Specs Hyper Beam OHKOs Primeape

Jasmine(31): Specs HBeam puts Magnemite in red. Do not bother here

Pryce(32): at most beats Seel by OHKOing with Specs HB

Petrel #2 (33): Specs Confusion OHKOs Koffing and 2HKOs Weezing

Silver #4 (34): Specs Hyper Beam OHKOs Golbat. Specs Air Slash OHKOs Haunter and 2HKOs Sneasel and Meganium, though Sneasel is faster and 3HKOs with Faint Attack

Proton #2 (34): Specs Confusion 2HKOs everything while outspeeding

Ariana(35): Specs Air Slash 2HKOs Arbok and OHKOs the rest

Archer(36): Specs Hyper Beam almost OHKOs Doom and OHKOs the rest. Specs Air Slash OHKOs Houndour, almost OHKOs Koffing, and almost 2HKOs Houndoom. Houndoom 3HKOs with Fire Fang

Clair(37): Specs Hyper Beam puts Dragonair in red and also 2HKOs Gyarados. However, you are unlikely to take out more than one threat without intensive support.

Silver #5 (39): Specs HB OHKOs Sneasel. Specs Air Slash 2HKOs the rest bar Magneton. You will likely need to heal due to being slower or switch out due to Curse

Will(42): Specs Shadow Ball 2HKO everything. Eggy, Xatu #1, and Slowbro are easy targets. Jynx 2HKOs with Ice Punch. Xatu #2 can potentially beat you if you are weakened enough.

Koga(42): Specs Air Slash OHKOs Ariados and Venomoth and 2HKOs Forry, though Moth and Forry are rolls. Specs Air Slash 3HKOs Crobat while Specs Extrasensory fails to 2HKO Muk due to Black Sludge.

Bruno(43): Specs Air Slash 2HKOs Machamp and puts Top and Chan in red. Chan 2HKOs with Thunder Punch, while Machamp almost OHKOs with Cross Chop. Lee Swaggers and KOs with HJK

Karen(43): Specs Air Slash 2HKOs Murkrow and Plume and Specs Extrasensory 2HKOs Gengar, which 3HKOs with Focus Blast

Lance(43): meh

Jumpluff

Proton #1 (14): beats Zubat with Tackle spam, avoid Koffing

Bugsy(17): at most you can put it to sleep or Stun Spore it if it doesn't U-turn, which is a 2HKO. Didn't try Skiploom, but I doubt there's a huge difference

Whitney(19): 2HKOs Clefairy with MS Solar Beam. Miltank is faster and 3HKOs with Stomp, you need to be lucky to land two status moves in a row

Silver #3 (22): MS Solar Beam 2HKOs Gastly and Magnemite, put both of them to sleep. Headbutt 3HKOs Zubat.

Morty(24): nope. At most, Sleep Powder + Leech Seed can assist against Gengar

Petrel #1 (28): Headbutt 2HKOs Zubat, while MS Mega Drain 4HKOs the rest. Use Sleep Powder to prevent them from causing problems

Chuck(31): MS Mega Drain 5HKOs all of his mons. Sleep Powder is very needed here and probably multiple of them

Jasmine(31): NO

Pryce(32): Specs Mega Drain 3HKOs Seel (2HKO after Hail damage), the rest kill you easily

Petrel #2 (33): NO

Silver #4 (34): bad. At most, you can beat Sneasel by putting it to sleep and spamming Headbutt or MS Mega Drain. However, it's faster and 3HKOs with Icy Wind. The rest are simply inefficient matchups

Proton #2 (34): NO

Ariana(34): Headbutt 4HKOs Murkrow and 6HKOs Plume, so nope

Archer(34): can assist against Houndoom due to being faster, but is put in red by Fire Fang

Clair(37): Jumpluff outspeeds Kingdra, so it can put it to sleep, Leech Seed it, and wear it down with MS Solar Beam. However, it is 2HKOed by Dragon Pulse and Smokescreen can be problematic, just as much as misses.

Silver #5 (39): MS Solar Beam 2HKOs Kadabra and Sneasel, though the latter 3HKOs with Icy Wind and the former can Disable it, so you have to play around it. The rest need to be SleepSeeded, with sleep being multiple times

Will(42): 2HKOs Slowbro with MS Solar Beam. The rest need to be SleepSeeded, though one Xatu has Early Bird and Eggy is immune to Leech Seed

Koga(42): nope

Bruno(42): MS Solar Beam OHKOs Onix and 3HKOs Hitmontop. You can SleepSeed everything

Karen(42): SleepSeed is the only thing you can do at this point

Lance(42): you know the drill

Tangrowth

Clair(37): MS Solar Beam OHKOs Gyara at +3 (Growth). +1 Solar Beam puts Kingdra in red, OHKOs with +2, but you need to have those on the field before Kingdra comes in, since it can Smokescreen ya and make your matchup harder. If you throw in enough healing potions, you can set up Growth to the max against Gyara, set up Sunny Day and spam Solar Beam

Silver #5 (39): MS Solar Beam OHKOs Sneasel and Kadabra, while Ancient Power 2HKOs Golbat, which 2HKOs with Air Cutter. Sun helps outspeed all of them

Will(42): if you lure Slowbro in, you can set up three Growths, then Sunny Day then spam MS Solar Beam

Koga(43): Specs Ancient Power puts Ariados and Venomoth in red

Bruno(43): MS Solar Beam OHKOs everything after two Growths, while sun allows you to outspeed everything. If you set up Sun at the correct moment, you easily beat the Fighting-types without being threatened

Karen(44): MS Solar Beam OHKOs Umbreon after 3 Growths. Ancient Power after 3 Growths OHKOs Murkrow and almost OHKOs Houndoom, though you need sun to outspeed them

Lance(44): at most if you set up 3 Growths while healing, you can set up Sunny Day and OHKO Gyara with MS Solar Beam and Zard with Ancient Power. DNite lives even a +4 APower (I assume it wouldn't live +5) and OHKOs with Blizzard

Jynx

Clair(36): outspeeds and OHKOs Dragonair with Specs Blizzard. Specs Blizzard also 2HKOs Kingdra, though it's faster and 2HKOs with HPump

Silver #5 (39): Specs Blizzard OHKOs everything that doesn't resist it, though you take a lot of damage if you miss, in most cases

Will(42): Specs Shadow Ball puts Slowbro and Jynx in red and OHKOs the rest. Outspeeds all

Koga(42): Specs Blizzard OHKOs Ariados, Venomoth, and Crobat. Muk OHKOs with Gunk Shot.

Bruno(42): Specs Blizzard 2HKOs Hitmons and OHKOs Onix. You die to most physical attacks, however

Karen(42): Specs Blizzard OHKOs Plume and almost OHKOs Gengar. Gengar is faster and Spites or 2HKOs with Focus Blast.

Lance(42): outspeeds and OHKOs all Dragonites with Specs Blizzard

thoughts:

Noctowl
D or C. Hoothoot, per se, isn't really great, but at the same time, it's not really useless or bad either. It's certainly better than Pidgey, though. But yeah, C is possible, but so is D, considering Hoothoot's typing is somewhat eh for most matchups.

Jumpluff
Leaning towards D-tier. Jumpluff's offensive stats are incredibly bad and that affects its route cleaning too. For example, I needed around 8 MS Bullet Seeds to KO a Fisherman's Poliwag and, at level 34, it failed to OHKO a level 29 Kadabra with MS Solar Beam. It has SleepSeed, which allows it to provide support for teammates, but I personally don't value support as much. The only notable thing this does is potentially 1v1 Clair's Kingdra, but it is somewhat luck reliant and it's hard to justify using this when it's hard to keep up with your team's levels and is unable to do much outside of SleepSeed.

Of course, if support is super valued here, then C is possible, but I personally don't consider it as an inherent advantage for higher tiers.

Tangrowth
D-tier. It comes late and has to be grinded, but SunnyBeam + Chlorophyll + Growth to set up on the easier targets allow it to actually sweep or at least do well in some of the remaining fights. Setting up a lot isn't the most efficient thing, but at least Tangela can actually contribute something meaningful to most matchups. I found it hilarious that it can sweep Clair if you set up 6 Growths.

Jynx
Can be D, but also E. It comes down to how much you love relying on Blizzard. While inaccurate, Blizzard off Jynx with Specs is incredibly powerful and can deal lots of damage. It also sweeps Will with Shadow Ball. All in all, D if you are ok with inaccuracy, otherwise E. Worth mentioning that Jynx cannot handle physical attacks at all, so keep that in mind when using it.

next team: Lickitung (apparently this is also in Safari Zone, updated my little guide) / Remoraid / Teddiursa / Entei. Also gonna use the level 51 Gyarados again

 

[Ryota Mitarai]

double post, but given I had little to use, I managed to finish my run quickly

I used my lv 51 Gyarados again (same IVs), but gave it 10 Proteins before Clair. Its mid-game performance is amazing, just spam Surf or Strength and you dominate everything. The 10 Proteins do cause a major change; they make Strength have a much higher chance of OHKOing Lance's DNites. In particular:


+6 Lvl 51 100 Atk Gyarados Strength vs. Lvl 50 0 HP / 0 Def Dragonite: 162-191 (97.5 - 115%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO


+6 Lvl 51 100 Atk Gyarados Strength vs. Lvl 49 0 HP / 0 Def Dragonite: 166-196 (101.8 - 120.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

(note: DNites have 30 IVs in all stats)

give it another level and the level 50 one becomes a 93.8% to get OHKOed.

I think if this does anything, it just means we have to change "Gyarados" to "Magikarp" in the tier list. I believe we should mention both the red one and this one in the write-up. If needed, we can format it like "Magikarp / Gyarados" (I think the current GSS list on-site did something like this).

Tried to do more research on what the hell this Magikarp is and seems like it is truly only a level 50 one if you repel trick: NeoSeeker thread. OP there also got a level 50 Magikarp instantly with a Max Repel

===

done with Lickilicky / Octillery / Ursaring / Entei run:

logs

Lickilicky

Chuck(30): Strength 3HKOs Primeape, though it's faster. Do not bother against Poliwrath

Jasmine(30): Dig OHKOs Magnemite and they 3HKO with TBolt while outspeeding

Pryce(32): Strength 3HKOs Seel. Dewgong and Lickitung 4HKO each other, with Dewgong being faster. Avoid Piloswine

Petrel #2 (33): meh, Smokescreen + Sludge poisoning make consistent sweep hard

Silver #4 (34): DCurl, then click Rollout. With no misses, you kill Golbat, then Meganium, then Sneasel. Magnemite dies to Dig even with Reflect up. Haunter generally Curses on you. Own Tempo helps a lot here

Proton #2 (35): DCurl then click Rollout, no issues in general, you outspeed Weezing

Ariana (35): DCurl Rollout sweep is hard to pull off consistently, but if you do it, you should end the fight fast

Archer(36): DCurl then Rollout. Easy sweep if everything goes fine

Clair(37): all around meh, DCurl + Rollout takes too long to KO them before they KO it

Silver #5 (40): DCurl then Rollout. If everything goes fine, you kill Sneasel, Golbat, and Meganium. Strength OHKOs Kadabra if no Reflect and EQ OHKOs Magneton always. Haunter Curses

Will(43): DCurl on Xatu #1 then Rollout. Two Rollouts KO it. If everything goes fine, you beat Jynx and Eggy too. Xatu #2 is also not hard to beat in similar manner to Xatu #1. Note that Confuse Ray is not effective here and is a waste of turn, same deal with Me First.

Koga(44): DCurl on Ariados, then click Rollout. If everything goes fine, you KO Ariados, Forry, and Muk. Against Venomoth, you can do it again and OHKO Crobat when it comes in. It is possible to win this without ever healing, but this requires luck.

Bruno(44): can beat Top with careful play. Lee can Swagger it and allow you to OHKO it with Strength (remember, Own Tempo). Even then, Machamp will likely KO you even with DCurl boosts because +2 Strength doesn't 2HKO due to berry

Karen(44): EQ 2HKOs Houndoom, you can live a +2 Flamethrower. Strength 2HKOs Murkrow. If possible, try to Rollout so you can hit Plume hard, though you need to be healthy to pull it off

Lance(45): even with an X Speed, DNites are still faster. You can DCurl to the max on Gyara and set up with Rollout (use an Intimidate fodder). If everything goes fine, you KO Gyara and then the first DNite. The second one will finish you off if no move has missed

Octillery

Clair(37): Specs Blizzard OHKOs Dragonair, though they are faster and 3HKO with Dragon Pulse

Silver #5 (39): Specs Surf OHKOs Sneasel, Haunter, Kadabra, and Magneton, but all of them outspeed. Golbat is 2HKOed

Will(43): MW Surf in rain OHKOs Xatu and 2HKOs Jynx. It is outsped and 3HKOed by Psychic. Signal Beam can help against Eggy and Slowbro, if you have the move

Koga(43): MW Surf in rain OHKOs Ariados, Forry, and Venomoth, and 2HKOs Crobat. Crobat and Venomoth are faster, however, and can cause problems

Bruno(43): MW Surf in rain 2HKOs Chan and Top, though everything outspeeds it and, bar Top and Onix, KO it in some way

Karen(43): Specs Surf OHKOs Houndoom and Murkrow. Gengar is faster and can DBond or 2HKO with Focus Blast, but is 2HKOed as well

Lance(43): Specs Aurora Beam puts lv. 49 DNite in red. However, you get outsped by everything and the DNItes OHKO you in some way.

Ursaring

Clair(37): Return with Guts activated OHKOs Dragonair and 2HKOs Kingdra, though you get 2HKOed quite often

Silver #5 (40): Return OHKOs Sneasel and Kadabra (even through Reflect) and OHKOs Golbat on rolls. Shadow Claw OHKOs Haunter and EQ OHKOs Magneton (even through Reflect). Magneton is the only thing that you outspeed

Will(43): Return 2HKOs Xatu and Eggy and OHKOs Jynx. They are all faster, though. Slowbro is 3HKOed. Xatu #2 3HKOs with Psychic, while Eggy's 2HKOs.

Koga(43): outspeeds and 2HKOs Ariados with Return. If you poison yourself with Forry's TSpikes, EQ will OHKO Muk, while Return will OHKO Venomoth and 2HKO Crobat (OHKOed by Facade if you played the lottery for it)

Bruno(44): with Guts activated from last fight, Return OHKOs Top and Chan. EQ puts Onix in red. Machamp and Lee outspeed it and OHKO it with Fighting moves

Karen(44): boosted EQ OHKOs Houndoom and Return almost OHKOs Plume and OHKOs Murkrow

Lance(44): bad. Dies to most moves easily while being outsped

Entei

Silver #5 (43): spam Specs Flamethrower

Will(43): Specs Flamethrower 2HKOs Xatu and OHKOs Jynx and Eggy

Koga(43): Specs Flamethrower OHKOs the Bugs and 2HKOs Crobat. Muk is 2HKOed, but Black Sludge turns it into a 3HKO.

Bruno(43): Charcoal Fire Blast in sun 2HKOs Top and Chan and OHKOs Lee (which you outspeed, it seems). 2HKOs Machamp, which 2HKOs with Rock Slide, and also OHKOs Onix this way.

Karen(44): Specs Flamethrower OHKOs Murkrow and Plume and 2HKOs Gengar. Charcoal Fire Blast in sun 2HKOs Umbreon

Lance(44): nope

thoughts:

Lickilicky
Better Rollouter than Jigglypuff. If we keep Jigglypuff in D, then this should also be D. The reason they would both be D is that they are a lot more usable than most E-tiers. Obviously, they still have the terrible availability, but alas.

Octillery
I personally found Octillery very meh. It has a good SpA and interesting movepool, but it's so slow and not super bulky, it barely did anything. Leaning towards E-tier.

Ursaring
This one was slightly more useful than Remoraid, because it contributed more to my fights. Could be D-tier, but I don't mind E as well, you can just check logs and reach your own conclusions. Ability was Guts

Entei
I actually used Entei as soon as possible and ran in the mid-game with it (which explains the higher levels; I did not give it any Rare Candy). Entei steamrolls the entire mid-game with Flamethrower and Strength (EVs come from Gyms mostly, not route trainers). However, it sucks against Clair.

Anyways, I am going to consider only the parts after Clair, because getting any of the dogs before Master Ball is so hard, it's not even worth it (I believe that, even under the most optimal conditions by the time it starts roaming, the chance of catching it is around 9%). Entei is horribly outclassed by Magmar (and Cynda/Vulpix, though those are starter/exclusives) because Entei doesn't really do much that is different from it. Entei is also useless against Lance. While the fight is insanely hard and generally shouldn't be held against Pokemon, you have to admit that Entei has like 6 fights only if you catch it with Master Ball and so losing one reduces its usability significantly more than early-game stuff like Ledyba.

If we are gonna put Magmar in B-tier, then I am going to suggest C-tier for Entei. Very powerful for most of the end-game fights, but the amount of them is low, considering it is not super useful against Lance and its matchup against Bruno isn't super ideal either. This is not say "Entei is C cause Magmar outclasses it", but I still feel like it's hard to say B-tier for a Pokemon that is good for like four fights only, even if those are end-game ones.

next run: Dodrio (traded one) / Phanpy / Raikou / Lugia

 

[Ryota Mitarai]

did a run with Dodrio (traded one) / Phanpy / Raikou / Lugia. Also did another with Gligar and Ho-Oh

logs

Dodrio

Clair(38): outspeeds and OHKOs Dragonair with Giga Impact, which seem to 2HKO with Dragon Pulse

Silver #5 (40): forgot to do this, but given what I know from next fights, Giga Impact will likely OHKO Kadabra and Sneasel and Fly can be useful against Meganium. I doubt this can get past Magneton.

Will(43) Giga Impact OHKOs Xatu on rolls and OHKOs Jynx (Fly doesn't OHKO). Fly puts Eggy in red

Koga(44): Fly OHKOs Ariados and Venomoth, while GI 2HKOs Crobat and Muk, though you aren't beating those without luck

Bruno(44): Fly OHKOs all Hitmons, though Top looks like rolls. Machamp beats you cause it has No Guard and Onix also beats you.

Karen(44): Giga Impact OHKOs Murkrow and OHKOs Houndoom on rolls. Fly OHKOs Vileplume. Gengar is 2HKOed by Fly and is outsped. Worth mentioning that Doom is faster

Lance(44): nope

Donphan

Clair(37): at most beats Gyarados with DCurl + Rollout if you use an Intimidate fodder

Silver #5 (40): Rollout takes out Sneasel and Golbat, though the latter makes it harder due to Confuse Ray. Magneton dies to EQ and Kadabra is put in red with Reflect up. Assurance almost OHKOs Haunter, though it's faster

Will(43): bad. Gets 2HKOed by Psychic often and it cannot perform a Rollout sweep consistently due to confusion and sleep. At most beats Xatu #1 if it Me Firsts on Rollout

Koga(43): DCurl + Rollout will KO Ariados, Forry, and Venomoth if everything goes fine. Then you OHKO Muk with EQ while outspeeding. Heal against Crobat and try Rollout again (two in a row KO).

Bruno(44): EQ OHKOs Top while Digging. Also 2HKOs Hitmonchan and Onx, OHKOs Lee, and 2HKOs (3HKO with berry) Machamp. DCurl can make this matchup a lot better to take their hits better, though watch out for crits

Karen(44): EQ OHKOs Houndoom and Rollout runs through Murkrow

Lance(44): Can handle Aerodactyl with no problems, but DNites outspeed it even with an X Speed. You need at least two to pull off a Rollout sweep.

Raikou

Silver #5 (43): Thunder in rain OHKOs Sneasel and Golbat while outspeeding them and 2HKOs Magneton. Shadow Ball OHKOs Haunter and Kadabra while outspeeding. Meganium is 4HKOed by Shadow Ball. Charge Beam boosts can help muscle through the more difficult opponents

Will(43): Specs Shadow Ball 2HKOs Jynx and Slowbro and OHKOs the rest

Koga(43): Thunder puts Ariados in red, so use Charge Beam to get a small boost and perform better. +1 Thunder puts Muk in red and OHKOs the rest, though Muk can deal heavy damage with Gunk Shot

Bruno(43): best performs if you get two boosts from Charge Beam against Hitmontop (which 2HKOs with Dig), then set up Rain Dance while it's digging. Then +2 Shadow Ball OHKOs Onix and +2 Thunder OHKOs the rest. +1 Thunder fails to OHKO Machamp, which can KO it

Karen(44): Thunder 3HKOs Umbreon, use a Charge Beam or two to get boosts. +1 Thunder OHKOs Murkrow and puts Houndoom in red while outspeeding. Gengar outspeeds, but dies to Shadow Ball. Plume is 3HKOed by +1 Shadow Ball and can cripple you.

Lance(44): Thunder OHKOs Zard, Gyara, and Aerodactyl, but Aero is faster and 2HKOs with Rock Slide. Zard doesn't pose much trouble if healthy enough

Lugia

Silver #5 (45): MW Surf in rain almost OHKOs Sneasel and OHKOs Magneton. Extrasensory OHKOs Golbat and Haunter. Aeroblast OHKOs Kadabra and OHKOs Meganium on rolls. You outspeed everything

Will(46): Specs Aeroblast OHKOs Eggy and Xatu #1 and 2HKOs the. Throw in some PP Ups and prepare some Ethers. Could utilize Shadow Ball as well, but Lugia suffers a lot from 4MSS, especially if you teach Surf over Hydro Pump for accuracy

Koga(46): Specs Extrasensory OHKOs everything bar Forry (3HKO)

Bruno(46): Specs Extrasensory puts Machamp in red and OHKOs the rest. Outspeeds all

Karen(46): outspeeds and almost OHKOs Doom with MW Surf in rain. Aeroblast 2HKOs Plume and Murkrow and Extrasensory 2HKOs Gengar, though it outspeeds

Lance(46): with 74 SpA IVs, NMI Blizzard OHKOs all Dragonites (the lvl 50 one is not guaranteed normally, but Hail damage guarantees the OHKO). Furthermore, Lugia outspeeds all of them and can set up Hail on its own, considering Lugia is not dying to Outrage or something similar. All in all, Lugia is very useful here

Ho-Oh

Silver #5 (45): Charcoal Sacred Fire OHKOs everything, use BB here and there to preserve PP

Will(46): Charcoal Sacred Fire OHKOs everything bar Slowbro

Koga(46): BB OHKOs Ariados. Then set up Sun and OHKO everything with Charcoal Sacred Fire. You can also throw in a BB on Moth if you have no Sacred Fire PP

Bruno(46): BB OHKOs all Fighting-types, though Lee is faster and can KO you if too weakened

Karen(46): Charcoal Sacred Fire OHKOs Plume and Murkrow. BB OHKOs Gengar. Charcoal Sacred Fire in sun puts Umbreon in red

Lance(46): 2HKOs DNite with Brave Bird, tohugh lv. 50 becomes a 3HKO due to berry

Gligar

Clair(37): meh, even at +6, Dig fails to OHKO Kingdra. It does OHKO Dragonair this way, though

Silver #5 (40): EQ OHKOs Magneton. +2 Faint Attack OHKOs Haunter while outspeeding and +2 Slash OHKOs Kadabra while it Disables. +2 Slash also 2HKOs Golbat. Meganium is tough and Sneasel has Icy Wind

Will(43): has a hard time setting up and X-Scissor only 2HKOs Eggy and Jynx, with the latter beating you

Koga(43): +6 EQ OHKOs Ariados, Moth, and Muk, and 2HKOs Forry. +6 Slash 2HKOs (3HKO due to berry) Crobat, though you will have to heal against it.

Bruno(44): +6 EQ OHKOs everything. Only Lee outspeeds and it doesn't deal a lot of damage

Karen(44): +6 X-Scissor OHKOs Umbreon and +6 EQ OHKOs Doom. However, Doom is faster and can KO with Flamethrower. +6 EQ also OHKOs Plume. Gengar stops your sweep

Lance(44): nope

thoughts:

Dodrio
Biggest issue is obtaining it. You need to bring around a female Dragonair. Obtaining a Dratini itself is a bothersome task, as a run here proved it, and training it is even more of a burden. Dodrio mainly relies on hit-n-run strats by OHKOing things with Giga Impact then switching out. If you think those OHKOs are worth the hassle of obtaining it, D-tier. Otherwise, E-tier

Donphan
Useful for Koga and Bruno, but somewhat useless outside of that. D or E, depending on how much you value those two fights

Raikou
Raikou is worse than Entei in the mid-game, but we don't count pre-Clair due to the difficulty of obtaining them. Raikou is available reasonably only for 6 fights and is reliant on Charge Beam boosts or ThunderDance to perform well in those (bar Will, which is just Specs Shadow Ball spam). As I said in my previous post, I have never been a fan of putting non-broken legends into A-tier and I didn't find Raikou to be game-breaking, although it def was more useful than Entei. If I have to be honest, whenever it's B or A really depends on how much you value end-game contributions

And if Mareep ends up in B-tier, then Raikou def has no place in A-tier, imo.

Lugia
B-tier at worst, maybeee A-tier. Lugia is all around useful for the end-game, mainly because it can 1v1 Lance's Dragonite on its own. With 6 Calciums, its performance is all around consistent. It def deserves B-tier and I don't mind A-tier on this as much, mainly because of the Lance contribution. But yeah, def high-tier (high being B-S)

Ho-Oh
Leaning towards B-tier. While Magmar also outclasses this, for most parts, Ho-Oh is unique in that it OHKOs a lot of Pokemon in the League. While I did say that Entei lacked most of Magmar's characteristics to be B-tier, I realized the argument was bad and therefore removed it from my previous post. Regardless, Ho-Oh is what Entei wished to be, so I am leaning towards B-tier. Not sure about A, considering it's useless for Lance, but that, similarly to Raikou, depends on how much you value end-game contributions.

Gligar
Leaning towards E-tier. It can technically win few matchups, but you have to spam SD to the max in all of them and invest in healing items, so I am not sure how useful it truly is. But it can be D-tier as well, if that is not enough, ig.


This should be from me. I am not planning on testing for this list further, because there isn't really anything left for me to test. Anything I didn't test is either obviously bad or has gotten enough testing to the point my opinion isn't needed. I hope this list goes to write-ups at some point, as I personally think we have enough data to start them, but that depends on OP. At most we can try dealing with some of the noms where I was unsure (such as Chinchou, Slowbro, and Kadabra) and let other people finish their tests, but again, not my decision

If there is something you need me to test urgently, let me know and I will spare some time to fulfill the request

 

[Magnus0]

I'm currently doing a run with Quagsire, Kadabra, Magmar and Farfetch'd. I think I can finish it some time this week.

I agree with Ryota that we can probably go into the write-up stage once everyone has finished their current tests.

 

[Magnus0]

I have a new laptop so I can finally speed up the game properly without lag while still having the game look nice, yay.

Team: Wooper, Abra (no trade), Magmar and Tauros Farfeth'd

I wanted to use Tauros, but after like an hour I still couldn't find one with intimidate and a half-decent nature. It's also very hard to catch, so I even when I did find one, I couldn't catch it with a friend ball most of the time. Anyway...

Wooper logs

Falkner (10): water gun is a 4HKO on Pidgey. Wooper barely takes 2 hits from Pidgeotto from full HP. Water gun doesn't do any damage though, so the best thing you can do is use tail whip. It's also hard to grind Wooper up for this fight as it is completely useless in the Sprout Tower. Mediocre matchup.

Bugsy (17): slam is like a 7HKO on Scyther, counting the sitrus berry. Meanwhile, u-turn 2KHO's, or OHKO's after two leers. Even the cocoons are only 3HKO'd by slam, so if you get unlucky with misses and getting poisoned by Kakuna, you can straight up lose to them. Bad matchup.

Whitney (20): outspeeds and 2HKO's with Clefairy with headbutt or mud bomb. Stomp is a 5HKO, but Miltank outspeeds so it often gets a flinch. You can outspeed after two mud shots though. Mud bomb is a only a 4HKO, so you can't really break through milk drink spam. Pretty decent matchup overall.

Morty (25): OHKO's Gastly with surf, but Gastly is faster. The worst thing it can do is curse. Gengar outspeeds and 2HKO's with shadow ball, though you 3HKO back with surf. The haunters are both 2HKO'd by surf. The matchup against them just becomes an RNG fest with hypnosis. Mediocre.

Chuck (30): surf 2HKO's Primeape, but the AI is smart enough to switch to Poliwrath on turn 2. Dig is only a 5HKO on Poliwrath if you count the sitrus berry, while focus punch 2HKO's. Poliwrath is faster, so you can't really play around hypnosis either. Neutral matchup.

Jasmine (30): outspeeds and OHKO's the Magnemites with mud shot or dig. Outspeeds and 2HKO's Steelix with surf. Easy sweep, extremely consistent.

Pryce (31): 2HKO's Seel with dig, 3HKO Piloswine with surf and 4HKO's Dewgong with dig. You can OHKO Dewgong if you use focus punch while it rests. All of them outspeed and Dewgong and Piloswine both 3HKO. Neutral matchup.

Clair (36): Gyarados walls you, as even rock tomb doesn't 3HKO even when using an intimidate fodder. You can beat Kingdra somewhat reliably with yawn and earthquake. You 4HKO counting the sitrus berry, while Kingdra uses smokescreen twice before using hyper beam in all of my tests. The dragonairs outspeed and 3HKO with dragon pulse, while being 2HKO'd by earthquake. Decent matchup, but you need potions to beat more than one Pokemon at a time.

Will (39): gets outsped and 2HKO'd by everything. At most you can meme on the first Xatu with surf, because it likes to spam me first. Bad matchup.

Koga (40): Ariados of all things beats Quagsire with giga drain. You fail to 3HKO Forretress with surf, so you will actually take quite some damage from swift here. Quagsire 2HKO's Muk with earthquake, though Muk is faster. Venomoth barely misses a 2HKO with psychic, and is 2HKO'd by earthquake. Crobat 3HKO's with wing attack, but you can't do much damage back. Mediocre matchup.

Bruno (40): you can 2HKO Hitmontop with earthquake, even if it uses dig. Hitmonlee always uses swagger, so you can OHKO it consistently if you carry a persim berry. Machamp outspeeds and KO's with cross chop after Hitmontop's dig damage though. Onix is faster, but it's OHKO'd by surf. Quagsire can also beat Hitmontop one on one by 2HKO'ing with earthquake. Decent-ish matchup.

Karen (40): OHKO's Houndoom with earthquake while it uses nasty plot. Murkrow 4HKO's with pluck, but it's 2HKO'd by surf. The rest walls you, especially Vileplume. Mediocre matchup.

Lance (40): you can beat Charizard and Aerodactyl one on one, but that's it.

Abra (no trade) logs

Whitney (20): 2HKO's Clefairy with confusion. Outspeeds Miltank and 3HKO's, but Miltank 2HKO's with stomp. Disable is very useful because all of Miltank's moves can be devestating. Pretty good matchup.

Morty (25): outspeeds and OHKO's Gastly and the Haunters with psybeam, and gets outsped and OHKO'd back by Gengar. Decent matchup.

Chuck (29): outspeeds and OHKO's Primeape with specs psybeam. Poliwrath barely survives, but it fails to OHKO Kadabra with surf. Sweep.

Jamine (29): specs psybeam 2HKO's the Magnemites. You can meme on them with synchronize, which cancels out thunder wave. Kadabra can barely take one thunderbolt. Steelix walls you completely. Mediocre matchup.

Pryce (31): charge beam 2HKO's Seel, and it allows Kadabra to 2HKO Piloswine through the sitrus berry if you get two boosts. Kadabra can take one blizzard even after an icy wind, and it's also faster even after the icy wind speed drop. Dewgong can knock you out with ice shard after Kadabra has taken a blizzard, so you have to heal if you want to sweep. +2 charge beam OHKO's Dewgong. So it's possible to sweep, but it's very inconsistent. Decent matchup.

Clair (37): fails to OHKO Gyarados even with specs charge beam and Gyara OHKO's back with bite. Kingdra straight up outspeeds and OHKO's with hydro pump. This leaves the Dragonairs, which are outsped and 2HKO'd by specs psybeam. They also 2HKO back though. Synchronize can cancel out thunder wave, which is useful. Below average matchup overall.

Will (40): outspeeds everything and OHKO's all but Slowbro with specs shadow ball. It's a range on Jynx too, but neither Jynx or Slowbro can KO Kadabra back. Great matchup.

Koga (40): Muk, Ariados and Venomoth are all outsped and OHKO'd by specs psychic. Forretress is 3HKO'd, but it wastes time on toxic spikes and even when it does attack with swift, it doesn't deal much damage. Crobat outspeeds and OHKO's with wing attack. Good matchup.

Bruno (41): easy sweep with specs psychic.

Karen (41): Gengar outspeeds but the only thing it can really do is use destiny bond. It's OHKO'd by specs psychic. Vileplume is outsped and OHKO'd by specs. Useless against the dark types.

Lance (41): lolno

Magmar logs

Morty (24): outspeeds and OHKO's Gastly and the haunters with faint attack, though it's a range on the higher level Haunter. Fire blast always OHKO's the second Haunter, but it's a bit unreliable. Gengar outspeeds and 2HKO's with shadow ball. Charcoal fire blast gets Gengar in the red, and faint attack is a 2HKO on a range (not counting sitrus berry). Considering the fact that Gengar often uses mean look, there is a good chance Magmar can beat it. Great matchup.

Chuck (29): Primeape outspeeds, but specs fire blast OHKO's it. Primeape always uses focus punch on turn 1 for some reason, so you can take it out safely (if you don't miss at least). Fire blast is actually a 3HKO on Poliwrath, and it just doesn't use surf. In fact, Poliwrath only used focus punch or body slam in my tests, so you can sweep with some luck. Inconsistent matchup, but not terrible I guess.

Chuck's AI is just so weird and unpredictable.

Jasmine (29): outspeeds and OHKO's everything with fire blast. Good matchup.

Pryce (30): with focus punch, you can 2HKO Seel while it uses hail. Piloswine is outsped and OHKO'd by fire blast, but it's very inaccurate thanks to snow cloak. Dewgong can also be 2HKO'd by focus punch, or you can 3HKO it with spec fire blast. The only move on Pryce's team that can really hurt Magmar is mud bomb, but Piloswine almost never gets the chance to use it since it's outsped and OHKO'd. Pretty good matchup.

Clair (36): the whole gym walls you. You can spread burns and confuse with lava plume or confuse ray, but that's it.

Will (39): outspeeds and 2HKO's the Xatu's with specs lava plume, but you have to take a psychic in return, which does about half. You outspeed and OHKO Exeggutor. The matchup against Jynx is a bit awkward because you need specs to OHKO with lava plume, but you need a chesto berry to actually hit Jynx since it's faster and uses lovely kiss. I guess you can do chesto berry fire blast as well, but that's still not reliable. Slowbro walls you. Neutral matchup.

Koga (40): outspeeds and OHKO's all of the bugs with specs lava plume. Muk is only 3HKO'd and OHKO's back with gunk shot. Crobat is 3HKO'd and 2HKO's back, but between lava plume and flame body, there is a good chance that Crobat will get burned. Pretty good matchup.

Bruno (40): outspeeds everything and 2HKO's everything but Machamp with spec lava plume. Hitmontop uses counter and Onix uses sandstorm rather than attacking, so you can take them out relatively safely. Machamp OHKO's with rock slide, unless you burn it. Hitmonlee 2HKO's with high jump kick, though this seems to be a range. Hitmonchan 3HKO's with thunderpunch. Decent matchup.

Magmar (41): outspeeds and OHKO's vileplume with specs flamethrower. Murkrow and Gengar both outspeed and they are both 2HKO'd by specs flamethrower (you can use fire blast to OHKO Murkrow). Gengar 2HKO's while Murkrow 3HKO's. Umbreon and Houndoom kind of wall you, though you can try your luck with focus punch. Mediocre matchup.

Lance (41): lolno

Farfetch'd

Morty (I used rare candies to test lv 25 for swords dance): speed ties with Gastly and OHKO's with aerial ace after a swords dance. Gastly seems weirdly reluctant to use curse, so it's fairly safe to set up. Both of the Haunters outspeed and spam hypnosis and both are OHKO'd by +2 aerial ace. Farfetch'd completely walls Gengar, so you can easily set up to +6 and OHKO. You will need healing items, specifically awakenings, but a sweep is definitely possible. Good matchup.

Chuck (29): Primeape outspeeds, but it's usually a total idiot that neglects to use rock slide. If it uses double team and focus punch, you can actually take it out safely with two aerial aces. You can safely set up swords dance on Poliwrath if you equip a chesto berry. Then it's just a matter of praying the AI fucks up again and uses focus punch. You can 2HKO wrath with a +2 aerial ace. Inconsistent matchup, but a sweep is possible.

Jasmine (29): lolno

Pryce (31): you can set up one agility and one swords dance on Seel because it uses hail. You can't actually sweep though, because Dewgong has ice shard. So you beat Seel and nothing else. bad matchup.

Clair (35): Farfetch'd can take 2 bites or dragon rages, so you can set up two swords dances and agility with the help of a potion. At +4 attack (use a fodder mon against Gyarados) and +2 speed, Farfetch'd can sweep with return. Extemely impressive matchup for a mon with such terrible stats.

Will (39): Xatu always wastes a turn on me first while you set up agility. With a persim berry, you can waste another one of Xatu's turns and set up swords dance. Farfetch'd can tank one psychic and set up a second swords dance. At this point, you outspeed and OHKO Xatu, Exeggutor and Jynx. Slowbro stops the sweep by tanking a +4 return (unless you run night slash, which I didn't use). Actually pretty good matchup.

Koga (41): Ariados tends to use spider web on turn one, so you can safely take it out with swords dance into fly (Farfetch'd outspeeds). Koga sends out Muk after this, which is 2HKO'd by +2 return, but it also OHKO's back, stopping a full sweep. If you can lure in Forretress, you can set up on it and sweep from there. So in the best case scenario, you can take down four of Koga's Pokemon. Not bad.

Bruno (41): can easily set up on Hitmontop with a potion. At +4 attack, you outspeed and OHKO Hitmontop and Hitmonlee, but then Onix stops the sweep. It might be worth using natural gift here to allow a sweep, since you don't really need fly anyway. So sweep with natural gift, average matchup without.

Karen (41): with one agility and two swords dances, you can sweep. Setting this up isn't really the issue, especially with some item support, because unboosted payback is only a 3HKO. The 'hard' part is hitting Umbreon through double team twice. So possibly a full on sweep, but that's very inconsistent.

Lance (41): lolno

Wooper -> C tier

Pros: great typing, good movepool, evolves early
Cons: never very dominant, extremely slow, Wooper stage is terrible

It's not spectacular, but it's not bad either. The main issue is that its stats just aren't very good, especially its speed. It has a good typing, but it doesn't actually stack up all that well to the major matchups in this game. There is no fire, rock or electric gym to take advantage of for instance. It mostly has neutral type matchups, which isn't good enough for a Pokemon with such mediocre stats.


Abra (no trade) -> A tier, though I wouldn't disagree if it ended up in B

Pros: amazing typing, good offensive stats, actually gets psychic in its level-up movepool, amazing route cleaner
Cons: literally no bulk at all, some inconsistent matchups due to its average stats.

I wasn't convinced this is an A tier mon before the E4. It got a full sweep and two nearly full sweeps at the E4, which is why I do think Kadabra probably deserves A tier. Tough, I feel a bit bad about putting it 2 entire tiers above Espeon, who is functionally almost exactly the same, if not better. You can definitely notice the speed and bulk difference with Alakazam too, who has much more consistent matchups against opponents such as Clair and Morty.


Magmar -> B tier

Pros: good midgame (thanks to fire punch), good stats, can spread burns with flame body and lava plume.
Cons: lack of coverage moves, unspectacular E4 performance.

A solid fire type that actually isn't a huge hassle to use. You don't have to care about evolving it, and you don't have to rely on the inaccurate fire blast all that much because Magmar has access to fire punch. It's not very remarkable, but it gets the job done and it's generally a good, straighforward Pokemon.


Farfetch'd -> C tier

Pros: natural swords dance, good STAB options, some impressive matchups
Cons: terrible stats, very reliant on setup during major fights

I didn't expect much from Farfetch'd, but its contribution during major matchups can't be understated. The main reason I nominated it to C is because it has a consistent sweep against Clair. In the most optimal scenario, it can also sweep Will, most of Koga's team, Bruno and Karen, though none of these fights are fully consistent. It felt like an incredibly bootleg version of Raticate, which isn't really a bad thing. Definitely better than I thought.

IV's

I lost the image of Farfetch'd IV's.... oops

 

[Celeb]

The first post has 2 mistakes.

What are Tiers?
In this tier list we originally had 10 tiers. I am dropping this down to 6 including an Untiered. The list as follows:
S-Tier (Uber Tier)
A-Tier (Top Tier)
B-Tier (High Tier)
C-Tier (Upper and Mid Tier)
D-Tier (Lower Mid and Low Tier)
E-Tier (Bottom Tier and Basement)
Untiered

F tier isn't listed here despite it being present in the latter half of the post. This also means that there are 7 tiers, not 6.

Why is a Pokémon in a certain tier?

Pokemon are ranked under the following 5 factors:

The way it is worded, it looks like there are actually 6 factors described below quoted text (Path Divergence being the last one).

Additionally, there should be some explanation why Gamecorner TMs are blacklisted since it is very unusual to straight up forbid to talk about time sinks.

=================================================
I decided to write some of my thoughts about Pokemon I had used in my last playthrough (back in January-February of this year).
1. Slugma (E tier)
It is available very early, however it comes in the egg. This requires spending some time on actually hatching it. Starting with Smog and Yawn is pretty bad, however, after reaching 8th level, it gets Ember which helps against many grass and bug types on the way (including Azalea Gym). Yawn is not efficient but it helps a lot.
Slugma somewhat shines after getting to Goldenrod since it can acquire Fire Blast which packs quite a punch coming from 70 special attack. While its SpA is alright for midgame, the other statistics are simply crippling. 40/40/40 bulk combined with 20 speed is a recipe for disaster for something that evolves between 8th gym and E4. However, I want to underline that Johto's level curve lets Slugma score many OHKOs until it gets to Blackthorn. Additionally, Magcargo's physical bulk before E4 is noticeable ESPECIALLY if opponent gets burnt from Flame Body.
Pure fire typing means that you have to avoid swimmers and hikers but other trainers are alright. Magcargo's additional rock typing is beneficial because it adds more power to Ancientpower (that Slugma learns midgame) and I felt like its resistances were worth getting double weakness to water and ground. As for the other moves... there aren't many to choose from. Recover let's you save money on healing items but it requires Yawn (and luck with sleep RNG). I didn't bother with Amnesia since Slugma is too slow and frail. There is zero reason to look at physical moves since its attack is abysmal (hell, NVE Fire Blast does more damage to Graveler than SE Earthquake for example).

2. I've used physical Bellossom but it requires spending some time in Goldenrod to get Drain Punch and Swords Dance so I'll pass on this one. IIRC, it was D material since Leaf Blade comes too late and Swords Dancing every battle is not efficient (although very effective).

3. Pineco (D tier)
As a Pineco (so for the first half of the game), it is underwhelming due to low speed, bad special bulk and typing. Its efficiency depends heavily on what you teach it - Bug Bite (9lv) can be covered by Dig or Return (at least one is needed since bug type is often resisted). Upon evolving, Pineco becomes Forretress who is great. Nice bulk (75/140/60) coupled with steel typing makes it hard to faint. Mirror Shot (31lv) is a decent move which I swapped for Flash Cannon. The latter requires luck in Goldenrod's lottery so it's time consuming but it deals damage comparable to Bug Bite (despite coming from much worse special attack). There aren't many other moves you can teach it so its damage output is heavily reduced by low BP moves despite alright attack (90).
Bottom line, this one was weird to use since many battles became slapfests where nothing dies in one hit.

4. Snubbull (B tier)
Absolutely obnoxious to catch (especially considering that you want Intimidate one) but its performance is great. Upon capture, you can teach it Headbutt or Return which work great with starting Bite as a coverage (Ecruteak Gym can be solo'd with it). Charm is a great utility move as well - it helps in major battles (e.g. vs Jasmine's Steelix). Aside from this, it can learn Dig, Earthquake and elemental bites (although everything except for Dig is available in lategame). Despite learning great deal of special attacks, it can't use them very well due to low SpA. Overall bulk 90/75/60 is alright in-game (especially if you get that Intimidate) and 120 attack is fantastic. Speed (45) is pretty bad but it will outspeed some enemies so you won't have to heal it too often. Most of the time, it mauled everything with Return in my playthrough.

5. Marill (D tier)
Obnoxious encounter rate which is even worse when you consider that you NEED Huge Power for it to deal tolerable damage. There is no reason to bother writing anything about Marill since it evolves almost immediately after you catch it. Azumarill has 50/50 offences which are just painful later in the game. 100/80/80 bulk is great. 50 speed is bearable but definitely on a bad side. Surf does okay damage but lower than you would expect. Rollout takes advantage of Huge Power but it's more efficient to use Strength or Dig at this point (which deal more damage than Surf, lol). Sadly, it gets Waterfall late (but it makes great use of the move). Overall, it has no problems clearing routes but it's average for the majority of the game and you have to spend some time on actually finding it. I don't recall using it much in major battles due to many Pokemon resisting it.

6. Murkrow (E tier)
Comes late in the game. It has abysmal bulk (60/42/42) but its offences (85/85) proved to be pretty good (even for lategame). I was honestly surprised how much damage Fly does. Aside from flying STAB, it doesn't get much though. Assurance (25lv) and Faint Attack (35lv) are okay coverage but aside from them you can only pick between Return and Shadow Ball which are terrible choices. Dark Pulse from Victory Road would be useful if not for a fact that this guy is borderline useless against E4 (even Will). Murkrow can be evolved in the postgame. He redeems itself then but we are talking about the main game so... clear bottom tier.

P.S.: This team was slow as hell.

 

[Turdterra]

The first post has 2 mistakes.

F tier isn't listed here despite it being present in the latter half of the post. This also means that there are 7 tiers, not 6.

The way it is worded, it looks like there are actually 6 factors described below quoted text (Path Divergence being the last one).

Additionally, there should be some explanation why Gamecorner TMs are blacklisted since it is very unusual to straight up forbid to talk about time sinks.

=================================================
I decided to write some of my thoughts about Pokemon I had used in my last playthrough (back in January-February of this year).
1. Slugma (E tier)
It is available very early, however it comes in the egg. This requires spending some time on actually hatching it. Starting with Smog and Yawn is pretty bad, however, after reaching 8th level, it gets Ember which helps against many grass and bug types on the way (including Azalea Gym). Yawn is not efficient but it helps a lot.
Slugma somewhat shines after getting to Goldenrod since it can acquire Fire Blast which packs quite a punch coming from 70 special attack. While its SpA is alright for midgame, the other statistics are simply crippling. 40/40/40 bulk combined with 20 speed is a recipe for disaster for something that evolves between 8th gym and E4. However, I want to underline that Johto's level curve lets Slugma score many OHKOs until it gets to Blackthorn. Additionally, Magcargo's physical bulk before E4 is noticeable ESPECIALLY if opponent gets burnt from Flame Body.
Pure fire typing means that you have to avoid swimmers and hikers but other trainers are alright. Magcargo's additional rock typing is beneficial because it adds more power to Ancientpower (that Slugma learns midgame) and I felt like its resistances were worth getting double weakness to water and ground. As for the other moves... there aren't many to choose from. Recover let's you save money on healing items but it requires Yawn (and luck with sleep RNG). I didn't bother with Amnesia since Slugma is too slow and frail. There is zero reason to look at physical moves since its attack is abysmal (hell, NVE Fire Blast does more damage to Graveler than SE Earthquake for example).

2. I've used physical Bellossom but it requires spending some time in Goldenrod to get Drain Punch and Swords Dance so I'll pass on this one. IIRC, it was D material since Leaf Blade comes too late and Swords Dancing every battle is not efficient (although very effective).

3. Pineco (D tier)
As a Pineco (so for the first half of the game), it is underwhelming due to low speed, bad special bulk and typing. Its efficiency depends heavily on what you teach it - Bug Bite (9lv) can be covered by Dig or Return (at least one is needed since bug type is often resisted). Upon evolving, Pineco becomes Forretress who is great. Nice bulk (75/140/60) coupled with steel typing makes it hard to faint. Mirror Shot (31lv) is a decent move which I swapped for Flash Cannon. The latter requires luck in Goldenrod's lottery so it's time consuming but it deals damage comparable to Bug Bite (despite coming from much worse special attack). There aren't many other moves you can teach it so its damage output is heavily reduced by low BP moves despite alright attack (90).
Bottom line, this one was weird to use since many battles became slapfests where nothing dies in one hit.

4. Snubbull (B tier)
Absolutely obnoxious to catch (especially considering that you want Intimidate one) but its performance is great. Upon capture, you can teach it Headbutt or Return which work great with starting Bite as a coverage (Ecruteak Gym can be solo'd with it). Charm is a great utility move as well - it helps in major battles (e.g. vs Jasmine's Steelix). Aside from this, it can learn Dig, Earthquake and elemental bites (although everything except for Dig is available in lategame). Despite learning great deal of special attacks, it can't use them very well due to low SpA. Overall bulk 90/75/60 is alright in-game (especially if you get that Intimidate) and 120 attack is fantastic. Speed (45) is pretty bad but it will outspeed some enemies so you won't have to heal it too often. Most of the time, it mauled everything with Return in my playthrough.

5. Marill (D tier)
Obnoxious encounter rate which is even worse when you consider that you NEED Huge Power for it to deal tolerable damage. There is no reason to bother writing anything about Marill since it evolves almost immediately after you catch it. Azumarill has 50/50 offences which are just painful later in the game. 100/80/80 bulk is great. 50 speed is bearable but definitely on a bad side. Surf does okay damage but lower than you would expect. Rollout takes advantage of Huge Power but it's more efficient to use Strength or Dig at this point (which deal more damage than Surf, lol). Sadly, it gets Waterfall late (but it makes great use of the move). Overall, it has no problems clearing routes but it's average for the majority of the game and you have to spend some time on actually finding it. I don't recall using it much in major battles due to many Pokemon resisting it.

6. Murkrow (E tier)
Comes late in the game. It has abysmal bulk (60/42/42) but its offences (85/85) proved to be pretty good (even for lategame). I was honestly surprised how much damage Fly does. Aside from flying STAB, it doesn't get much though. Assurance (25lv) and Faint Attack (35lv) are okay coverage but aside from them you can only pick between Return and Shadow Ball which are terrible choices. Dark Pulse from Victory Road would be useful if not for a fact that this guy is borderline useless against E4 (even Will). Murkrow can be evolved in the postgame. He redeems itself then but we are talking about the main game so... clear bottom tier.

P.S.: This team was slow as hell.

TMs are blacklisted because of the time sink required. We had people claiming from anywhere to 30 minutes to hours. 30 minutes I would not mind if it was common enough but it's simply not. It's more common to spend hours trying to get the needed coins for the elemental moves. That is the primary reason they were blacklisted. Another reason was that in the OP prior (which has been updated to state they were blacklisted) they had already been stated to bog down the Mon in question who used it. This seemed to be ignored as we had noms come in on Pokemon who had these moves were grossly overrated (example would be Dratini).

I'm considering removing F tier and just combining the Pokemon there into E. F only has 3 Pokemon who really do nothing anyways.

Once again, apologies for leaving the thread for quite some time. My computer broke down and I lost everything I had typed up for this thread as a result. I lost many tests, logs, etc. I'm currently working in building back up and should have some placements and an updated OP by this week.

 

[Celeb]

I'm considering removing F tier and just combining the Pokemon there into E. F only has 3 Pokemon who really do nothing anyways.

May I suggest rethinking removal of F tier? I can think of at least one Pokemon who shouldn't even be in E tier and that would be Tyrogue. It is available very late into the game, requires going of the beaten path, needs babysitting due to low level and its evolution method can prove to be a nuisance when you want a particular Hitmon in your team. Speaking of evolutions - I can see why someone would want Tyrogue in E due to Lee and Chan but Top is honestly not worth it. Its best attack is Rolling Kick so it requires TM support.
There is also Ledyba who I did not test but it looks miserable on paper.

P.S.: I know the pains of losing files (mainly due to several HDD failures I had). I sympathize with you.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Just posting here to say I agree with most of the above placements by Celeb.

I wanna draw attention to Pineco though, because it is truly awful. At first you’re like “oh c’mon this can’t be that bad, it gets Bug Bite early” but no. That’s where the positives end for me. The evolution level of 31 feels like an eternity away. Whitney laughs at it aside of Selfdestruct, Morty resists it, the Tentacool on the ocean resist it...

And when it evolves, quelle surprise, it still sucks. You know how Bug is a terrible offensive typing? Yeah it still is, and Steel STAB doesn’t really help either. Combine this with a lack of good coverage aside from Payback and Forretress still blows. Oh it kinda walls some of Lance’s Dragonites? Wait, no it doesn’t matter because you’re Forretress and you’ll die anyway while inflicting no damage at all.

All of these traits combine to make a Pokémon that I can’t even recommend to somebody who wants a Bug type that they don’t have to pull out their hair to get. Bug typing is terrible in Johto and Pineco simply doesn’t have the tools to get over that hurdle like Scyther, Pinsir and Heracross do.

 

[Turdterra]

Just posting here to say I agree with most of the above placements by Celeb.

I wanna draw attention to Pineco though, because it is truly awful. At first you’re like “oh c’mon this can’t be that bad, it gets Bug Bite early” but no. That’s where the positives end for me. The evolution level of 31 feels like an eternity away. Whitney laughs at it aside of Selfdestruct, Morty resists it, the Tentacool on the ocean resist it...

And when it evolves, quelle surprise, it still sucks. You know how Bug is a terrible offensive typing? Yeah it still is, and Steel STAB doesn’t really help either. Combine this with a lack of good coverage aside from Payback and Forretress still blows. Oh it kinda walls some of Lance’s Dragonites? Wait, no it doesn’t matter because you’re Forretress and you’ll die anyway while inflicting no damage at all.

All of these traits combine to make a Pokémon that I can’t even recommend to somebody who wants a Bug type that they don’t have to pull out their hair to get. Bug typing is terrible in Johto and Pineco simply doesn’t have the tools to get over that hurdle like Scyther, Pinsir and Heracross do.

And where do you place it yourself?

May I suggest rethinking removal of F tier? I can think of at least one Pokemon who shouldn't even be in E tier and that would be Tyrogue. It is available very late into the game, requires going of the beaten path, needs babysitting due to low level and its evolution method can prove to be a nuisance when you want a particular Hitmon in your team. Speaking of evolutions - I can see why someone would want Tyrogue in E due to Lee and Chan but Top is honestly not worth it. Its best attack is Rolling Kick so it requires TM support.
There is also Ledyba who I did not test but it looks miserable on paper.

P.S.: I know the pains of losing files (mainly due to several HDD failures I had). I sympathize with you.

I will consider Tyrogue in F for the time being until I have some conclusive tests of my own on the Pokemon. I do know that Chan and Lee are alright and Top is horrendous of course, but I do need to refresh the personal experiences on them.

 

[sumwun]

I'm considering removing F tier and just combining the Pokemon there into E. F only has 3 Pokemon who really do nothing anyways.

I personally also like keeping the F tier. HGSS has about 120 things, and tiering them on a S through E scale would probably put about 50 of them in the E tier, which I think is not very informative and helpful. F tier with only 3 Pokemon is obviously worse, so we should probably stop saying stuff like "this might go in F, unless F is reserved for gimmicks" and just put the 20 to 28 worst things in there. This almost certainly includes Ledian, Unown, Ditto, Wobuffet, Hitmontop, Smeargle, Shuckle, Umbreon, Delibird, Skarmory, and maybe also Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan, Dewgong, or Gligar.

By the way, are you using Windows? You can change the backup settings to back up certain folders every day, so you lose at most one day of work when something breaks. (unless every drive in your computer breaks. if that happens, you should use cloud storage)

 

[Turdterra]

I personally also like keeping the F tier. HGSS has about 120 things, and tiering them on a S through E scale would probably put about 50 of them in the E tier, which I think is not very informative and helpful. A (non-S) tier with only 3 Pokemon is obviously worse, so we should probably stop saying stuff like "this might go in F, unless F is reserved for gimmicks" and just put the 20 to 28 worst things in there. This almost certainly includes Ledian, Unown, Ditto, Wobuffet, Hitmontop, Smeargle, Shuckle, Umbreon, Delibird, Skarmory, and maybe also Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan, Dewgong, or Gligar.

By the way, are you using Windows? You can change the backup settings to back up certain folders every day, so you lose at most one day of work when something breaks. (unless every drive in your computer breaks. if that happens, you should use cloud storage)

Hitmonlee and Chan respectively could be as high as E while Top could be F. Yes, Lee and Chan have a lot against them but their performance to that point do tend to make up for it but my memory is incredibly shaky on this. So I’m debating from putting those two in honestly, if we have any recent tests/logs that can be provided then we can have a consensus on placement. Not to mention getting Hitmontop is significantly harder as you have to keep Attack and Defense even at 20. Meaning you have to actively ensure you get that.

Yes I run Windows, but it doesn’t mean squat when the C:/ Drive repairs itself and deletes everything. I’ll just need to get an external drive and save it to those.