Heart Gold | Soul Silver In-Game Tier List

[PK Gaming]

Chikorita is way to high. I just started playing HG/SS this Friday and it's a joke early on. Johto has waaaaaay to many grass resists, and it's only other reliable attack up until a decent level is Tackle (Cut).

Seriously, your running through troubles early on when you NEED to rely on other pokemon.

Gym 1: Rocky (Onix) is mandatory or a high level secondary poke (Sentret/Ratatta w/e)

Gym 2: A nightmare. You really need to grind as Bayleef (assuming you have it) is utterly useless here. Your main STAB attack is 4X resisted. I need to grind my spearow to a respectable level here.

Gym 3: Yay, you finally do better than Cynaduil.

Gym 4: A nightmare. The ghosts's are part poison and so your grass type attacks are resisted. Gengar is especially hard here.

Gym 5: Also good. Poliwrath gets punked. Still~average vs rest of teamates/subbordinate trainers

Gym 6: Pretty bad except against Steelix.

Gym 7: ANOTHER bad matchup. Part grounds get owned but that's it.

Gym 8: Also incredibly awful. You do better than Feraligatr/Typhlosion here (especially against Kingdra)


In short Chikorita should be in mid tier. It's terrible vs gyms and trainers in general.

 

[connoisseur]

I agree with moving geodude up to high. He can crush Whitney in addition to the things everyone else has mentioned, and unless you overleveled your starter you should know what a pain Whitney was to defeat.

Sentret needs to be top, it is an amazing HM slave.

Tentacool needs to be top because it is very very easily obtainable and can learn all three water HMs, surf, waterfall, and whirlpool as well as cut if needed.

 

[DDRMaster]

I'm going to petition for Staryu in the High tier for a few reasons.
1) Its not that uncommon and fairly easy to get
2) It is a great Water Poke that can learn Surf and uses it well
3) It has the ability to be quickly evolved with the addition of a Water Stone
4) Its movepool is amazing. In fact you can almost sweep the entire Elite 4 at the end of the game with a moveset of Surf / Thunderbolt / Ice Beam / Psychic

The problem with teaching Staryu/Starmie Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, and Psychic is that you have to wait until Kanto to get them. You can get Thunderbolt and Ice Beam in the Game Corner in Goldenrod but it will take you 4-6 hours to get enough coins for each TM since you can't buy the coins. Thunder and Blizzard are alternatives, I suppose, if you're alright with the shaky accuracy.

Edit: @ connoisseur: Every Water-type but Magikarp and Surskit learns Surf and Whirlpool and all of them but those two, Krabby, Kingler, and Corsola learn Waterfall. Do you even need Cut past Ilex Forrest? I think the only reason Geodude isn't High is because you have to trade to get Graveller to evolve but can't you just us the GTS glitch or ask someone on smogon to trade you anyway? On Geodude, I'd like to mention that Rock Smash completely shuts down any hope Miltank has of using Milk Drink even if you are underlevelled.

Edit2: It seems Slowpoke, Slowbro, Slowking, Shelder, Cloyster, Wingull, Pelliper, Lotad, Shellos, and Palkia can't learn Waterfall either.

 

[Kikuichimonji]

I think that maybe the "lower mid" tier needs to be split up to form a separate "low" tier. "Lower mid" should be the cutoff for "barely usable," there needs to be a low tier that denotes Pokemon that are "practically unusable" without being "lol ditto." Umbreon is actually somewhat practical for a conventional playthrough, Tyrogue is right out, they don't belong in the same tier.

Wobbuffet belongs in bottom tier, hands down worst Pokemon in the game.

 

[Sceats]

Gym 8: Also incredibly awful. You do better than Feraligatr/Typhlosion here (especially against Kingdra)

? Meganium is amazing here due to all the seadra and it can single handedly take out kingdra with lightscreen+flash.

Though yeah it probably doesent deserve to be top, but it should move to high, not mid.

 

[Age of Kings]

Also, I'm going to propose that Sentret be moved up to High with Rattata. Furret has similar stat distribution to Raticate, sacrificing a bit of Attack and Speed for quite a bit more physical bulk, but comes five levels earlier and is an even better HM slave once it dwindles. Whirlpool only pollutes Feraligatr or Gyarados; use Furret up until you get the red Gyarados and transform it into a nice HM slave akin to Bibarel with Cut/Strength/Rock Smash/Whirlpool. Its only problem is that its Sucker Punch is a fair bit later than Raticate's, and it'll typically have started HM slave duties before it gets it.

Backing this up. Furret is probably the most reliable HM slave you can get early on in the game, and Sentret evolves relatively quickly.


Why is Scyther so high? iirc the earliest you can get it is at the national park at ~lv 14, and you're stuck with Pursuit until you get Wing Attack at lv 21. After that, you're stuck with a set like Pursuit / Wing Attack / Headbutt until lv 41, which is a good portion of Johto, and its coverage isn't too great. Since most of its good TMs are pretty hard to come by, and it is on the frail side late game, I don't think it should be placed so high.

 

[DDRMaster]

Why is Scyther so high? iirc the earliest you can get it is at the national park at ~lv 14, and you're stuck with Pursuit until you get Wing Attack at lv 21. After that, you're stuck with a set like Pursuit / Wing Attack / Headbutt until lv 41, which is a good portion of Johto, and its coverage isn't too great. Since most of its good TMs are pretty hard to come by, and it is on the frail side late game, I don't think it should be placed so high.

It's because Wing Attack gets a Technician boost so you really don't need a better STAB than that. Also, you can give it Rock Smash to give it another move boosted by Technician that has great synergy with Wing Attack and you can teach it U-turn if you need another STAB move. If you think about it, two STABs with 90 and 70 Base power with two 60 Base Power coverage moves is rather good for in game and it gets them early as well. Still, Scyther is rare so you can't guarantee that you'll find one quickly, let alone one with Technician.

 

[PK Gaming]

? Meganium is amazing here due to all the seadra and it can single handedly take out kingdra with lightscreen+flash.

Though yeah it probably doesent deserve to be top, but it should move to high, not mid.

Flash is terrible and thats ONE gym I outlined. The other gyms [ALL of Johto too] aren't kind to pokemon witth ONLY grass type attacks.

Low mid for sure.

 

[Age of Kings]

It's because Wing Attack gets a Technician boost so you really don't need a better STAB than that. Also, you can give it Rock Smash to give it another move boosted by Technician that has great synergy with Wing Attack and you can teach it U-turn if you need another STAB move. If you think about it, two STABs with 90 and 70 Base power with two 60 Base Power coverage moves is rather good for in game and it gets them early as well. Still, Scyther is rare so you can't guarantee that you'll find one quickly, let alone one with Technician.

Exactly, getting a usable one is hard to get ahold of. That's not too efficient, now is it? The other two bugs up there also do better than 70 and 60 BP, at still lower levels (Heracross even gets better STAB right off the bat, Pinsir gets X-Scissor, SD and Brick Break by level up). I'm also unconvinced of its effectiveness late game, especially against the last three gym leaders (Jasmine, Pryce, and Clair). Rock Smash will not save it against the former two as they run high defense Pokemon and is unlikely to OHKO them with Rock Smash, and it overall lacks the durability it needs to succeed late game.

Scyther is upper mid at best, but imo is mid.

 

[Kikuichimonji]

On the topic of efficiency, I feel like encounter rate is something that is kind of hard to factor into tiering decisions. I think one of the best examples would be legendaries like Suicune and Raikou. On one hand, they are practically impossible to obtain, and going out of your way to find one would be a crazy. On the other hand, if one happens to show up, and if you happen to catch it just by lobbing a Fast Ball at it, it instantly becomes one of the best members of your team. A less extreme example would be Ralts in RS: I'll take one if happen to encounter it along the way, but I won't spend too long looking for one if I don't. I think you could make a case for making one or two tries at the bug-catching contest to try and get Pinsir or Scyther. Pinsir is the one you'd probably be aiming for (learning Revenge at level 18 before you face Whitney is awesome), but Scyther could also qualify as "good enough" during one of these excursions. I'd never go out of my way to get Scyther, but I would pick it up if I happened to find it while looking for Pinsir. And the existence of Scyther also makes the search for Pinsir more worthwhile, because I know that I have the contingency of being able to settle for something that, while not as good, is still going to be an asset to my party.

 

[KurashiDragon]

Ok, I'm not a big fan of posting. Window Shopping is my thing. I like checking the news and not responding to it. (Don't ask why I just am) but I gotta put a petition for Chinchou into a higher tier.

I've got Heartgold last friday and I've been playing it straight sense. I've just gotten all 16 badges and caught Suicune. (I got lucky with the 26 Sp. Atk 28 Sp. Def and Unlucky with the 3 HP.) However, WAY back in olivine city, I breed chinchou and got a pretty good nature and meh IV's. When I finally managed to evolve it the thing got me through the majority of the game.

I can't really speak well for its movepoll when it comes to TM's. It's capable of using the boltbeam combo in the form of both Thunder/blizzard and T-bolt/Ice beam, the parafusion combo in the form of T-wave/Confuse Ray...... Well whadda ya know I CAN. The parafusion combo got me throught the majority of the game. When I actually got it I had surf and it just went awol on the majority of opponents it faced. At lv 40 it learned discharge and sense I couldn't obtain T-bolt very easily I decided with that. The 30% in conjunction with the actual special attack electric move was just beautiful. It got me through the elete 4 and went on to become the MVP of that same elete 4. (I thought I was gonna use Ho-Oh against the elete 4 but when I actually got in I didn't need it.) Sense then it has been a major gear in my most major battles including Lt. Surge, Misty, Sabrina, Brock, Blane, and Blue. It helped me capture Ho-Oh and suicune and has so far weakened and paralised Entei and Raikou.

Pros:

1. The combos it can use which include parafusion and boltbeam
2. It's got a fair Movepool outside of its combo's. Learning all powerful electric and Water type moves With stab on both of them. It also has Ice type moves.
3. It's a major help in the gyms it can enter including Cianwood, Olivine, Mahogany, (Don't go against Piloswine you'll regret it.) Vermillion, Cerulean, Saffron, Pewter, Seafoam Islands, and Viridian.
4. Volt Absorb. If not for this ability some major battles would be off limits.
5. It's a major help against most of the elete 4 and it helps against all of the elete 4 in general.
6. It's Parafusion combo works with all the legendary. Most do but Lanturn has good defensive stats which helps.

Cons:
1. When you actually capture it the training is exessive
2. Not matter what you do, if you want to capture it right way, you'll get it at lv 20. Just high enough so that it learns spark which in turn makes it lose Thunder wave. This can be remedied by breeding but this adds to #1. This cannot be remedied by the tm Thunder wave as the only way you can get it is through the battle frontier which takes up the majority if not the whole of the game.
3. Even as a Lanturn its got meh stats overall. This is compensated by its high HP which makes it function well as a stall/wall. This also helps the parafusion combo.
4. I guess you can consider this a sub catagory. It's got meh Pokeatholon stats.

Overall I'd say that if your willing to work with it a little bit Lanturn will help against the majority of the in game. I want it to be brought up 1 Tier however I secretly want it up 2 Tiers.

I hope I've made my point clear. I'm going back to my "Window Shopping" ways unless I manage to get in an fight regarding this topic.




Lower the level of Dratini.

WAH WAH WAH WAH. Why do good things have to be bad at others. Yea Dragonite is my favorite pokemon big whoop wanna fight about it?

Anyway I saw the level of Dratini and my very first thought is why?

Dratini is a powerful pokemon capable of taking out many pokemon on its own. It's truely a sight to behold...... I hope you know I'm talking about dragonite. Until then just don't.

Pros:
1. It's got an extremely great movepool.
2. It's got good stats.
3. You may find use in the following gyms. Lt. Surge, Erika, Brock, Blane, and mabye blue. However in doing so you have to fill its movepool with a majority of moves it'll find no use for otherwise to get a SE non-stab hit.

Cons:
1. You get it so late in the game that it's a butt and a half to train up to a good level.
2. When you actually get it to said level you see that it's actually a Dragonair which will be outclassed by the majority of your party.
3. Even.... EVEN as a Dragonite it's not useful against much of any of the remaining major battles you'll come to face. I bolded remaining because when I finally got my Dragonite (Mind you I actually had to find a chansey with a lucky egg to get it that far in a short amount of time. If I didn't I wouldn't have even bothered training it until I could) I didn't use it against very many of the gyms. I think I used it for sabrina's gym but that was late in the battle against the gym leader herself.

It's got good sweeping potential but in order to get that far you have to put so much time into training it to a good level where it can utilise all that power. Once you do your good but if you've already got something working good for you don't bother.

Once again, WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH! WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY! It's such a great pokemon so WHY!?!?

 

[Sceats]

Flash is terrible and thats ONE gym I outlined. The other gyms [ALL of Johto too] aren't kind to pokemon witth ONLY grass type attacks.

Low mid for sure.

Dude whats wrong with a 100% accurate accuracy lowering move off of something bulky? Also It can use headbut so not all of its moves are grass typed. 3/8 gyms and all of the cave and water areas meganium is a mofo at, aswell as its doing great facing up to the kanto gyms so dont just assume its useless.

 

[Diana]

In response to Dratini, I disagree about lowering it. You don't get it that late: It's 2400 coins (I think) in Goldenrod at level 15 or so. (The reason I took so long in that game were the TM's, the Dratini was pretty quick.) Dragon Rage for a good portion of the game is amazing, and I don't think you'll be using your Dragon Pulse TM on anything else once you beat Clair. For those worried about not being able to get more for something competitive, you can get more in the frontier later, so don't worry. I think Dratini's just fine where it is.
Don't forget its access to Waterfall and Fire Blast for coverage either, and Fire Blast is quite easily buyable.

Edit: I really have used it myself so I'm talking from experience, and the only difference was I spent time to get flamethrower. I rarely needed the extra PP...

 

[DDRMaster]

You can get Dratini at the Goldenrod Game Corner for 2100 coins which only takes about an hour at most if you're good. It starts out at Lv. 15 which means it starts with Dragon Rage and Thunder Wave. Dragon Rage can OHKO most of the Pokemon around Goldenrod and should be able to 2HKO most Pokemon until late in the game. I can't say much more for it than that because I haven't used it myself.

Edit: Also, Lanturn is a good Pokemon (and is the only reason I beat Clair and the Kimono Girls without power leveling/using X items/using Raikou) but it still seems like it should stay about where it is. I've heard many great things about Quagsire and they're in the same teir.

Also, on Meganium, one of the arguements against it is that it only gets STAB moves and Normal moves by level up but can't the same thing be said about Cyndaquil? Even looking through its TMs, it seems the only good coverage move to teach it is Dig (since only Tyflosion can learn moves like Earthquake and Solarbeam and you can only get Aerial Ace from the Battle Frontier). Is Fire Blast really the only reason it's that high?

Edit2: @ Kikuichimonji: Yeah I guess you're right. An hour didn't really seem too bad for me since I tend to take forever catching Pokemon and whatnot. (For example, I just beat the Kimono girls and I already have 50 hours.)

 

[Kikuichimonji]

You can get Dratini at the Goldenrod Game Corner for 2100 coins which only takes about an hour at most if you're good.

A typical playthrough should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-10 hours. Spending 10% of a playthrough simply obtaining a Pokemon seems like a tremendous waste of time to me. Pretty much any Pokemon can become good if you dump an hour of grinding into it.

 

[Diana]

2400 coins doesn't really take an hour, you win a few games in a row and you're suddenly getting 300, 500 coins per play. Always go for the win and you'll get coins fast.

Cyndaquil basically has good matchups against the gyms and any random bugs and grasses. That alone is enough in this game.

@KurashiDragon: Maybe it's just me that got lucky but when it tells how many voltorb and the total of the numbers in the row it seems okay to me. I guess it works for some and not for others.
And I wouldn't be worrying about one gym anyway, you carry other team members and Dragonair holds its own in most of the others anyway. But I'll let the ones running the thread decide on Dratini for now.

 

[KurashiDragon]

I'm actually not good at that game. I get 1-10 at my best. (I have my own form of luck hax. It's called "In what ways can fate screw Kurashi in the ass.") For those with bad luck It'll be difficult.

P.S: I had actually forgotten that you can get Dratini in this way. I got it by the Dragon's den if you had guessed by that rant. Hey it was a good one at least. Just to bad it didn't help in in the slightest. I'm still gonna go with the majority of that rant though. It's late evolution to its final Stage is a major hamper in its playability. Even if I did get it early in the game it would've only been useful for the early game. Also before you get into Clairs gym you gotta remember that they not only use dragonairs but Clair uses a Kingdra. Better hope you have a Choice Scarf and Draco Meteor.

 

[Kikuichimonji]

Also, on Meganium, one of the arguements against it is that it only gets STAB moves and Normal moves by level up but can't the same thing be said about Cyndaquil?

Not all types are created equally. Grass is resisted by flying, poison, grass, and bug, which are all common, as well as fire, dragon and steel. Fire is resisted by fire, water, rock, and dragon. Fire is resisted by fewer things and the things that resist it are rarer. Water is really only seen for one leg of the game. I'm not sure if this is a fair assessment, but it also seemed to me like most of the water trainers were the easiest to skip. A lot of Fisherman won't battle unless you talk to them, and I didn't run into too many swimmers on the way to Cianwood just by hugging the left side and upper side on the way there.

Meganium also suffers from another problem: poor attack stats. Meganium is 82/83, Typhlosion is 84/109. Meganium is only slightly ahead of Croconaw and Quilava in terms of attack stats. Typhlosion's high special can allow it to overcome rock types simply by blasting them with a high-powered special STAB. Meganium is better at tanking hits, but ideally you won't be taking very many of these in the first place, and Typhlosion is hardly fragile enough for it to matter anyway.

 

[Kikuichimonji]

Actually, Game corner could become economical with abuse.

Okay! I made that Voltorb Flip helper! Unfortunately it's Windows only, I could certainly look into a multiplatform or web-based app if there's demand.

Voltorb Flip Helper v1

Open it up, fill in your numbers, and press Go! You should get something like this:

Green means it's probably not a Voltorb, red means it probably is. The closer to bright green or red, the more safe/dangerous. Gold is the safest cell on the board. Touch it on your DS.

In this case, I had a 2 on that cell. Right click the gold cell and tell it it was a 2.

Cells you've marked off are then labeled in blue. For each cell you mark, the number of possibilities will go down until it reaches a small number. Repeat the process for each gold cell until the puzzle is solved! (Or you get a Voltorb. It's not perfect, sorry.) You can use the Prev/Next buttons to cycle through all the remaining possible boards. If you put in bad data, I'm not responsible for what it does.

Requires the .NET 2.0 framework. PM me if you find any major bugs, I may or may not keep working on this to make it more efficient.

I'm not sure if the ban on glitch abuse would extend to this. It's taking advantage of the way the game is coded, but it isn't really abusing a "glitch" any more than using an EV checker would be. I actually have not touched the Game Corner (I'll look at it the next time I play the game) but it seems like the game is to some degree skill-based and this tool is just an accelerator, at the very least it's good as a learning tool.

 

[jumpluff]

Haha, I was considering making one of those, but looks like someone was beating me. Anyway, I think 5-10 hours is quite short. I'd put a little leeway into it (since the game is quite big and allows for a lot exploration) and say like... 15 max to finish Johto. Kikuichimonji is absolutely right, though. Spending an hour to obtain one single Pokémon is ridiculous, though it doesn't actually take that long.

 

[Jumpman16]

Actually, Game corner could become economical with abuse.

I'm not sure if the ban on glitch abuse would extend to this. It's taking advantage of the way the game is coded, but it isn't really abusing a "glitch" any more than using an EV checker would be. I actually have not touched the Game Corner (I'll look at it the next time I play the game) but it seems like the game is to some degree skill-based and this tool is just an accelerator, at the very least it's good as a learning tool.

Thanks for linking to this. I agree that's it's more if an accelerator than anything, especially given that the flip game is honestly the most skill-driven thing in Pokemon besides actual Tower/Frontier battles (since you can be massively overleveled with a Fire Blast/Flamethrower/Fire Spin/Cut Charizard and still power through the Elite 4). There's literally no "glitch" to speak of in this, it's a completely logical game and anything the program derives is a result of actual logic.

 

[Diana]

Thanks for linking to this. I agree that's it's more if an accelerator than anything, especially given that the flip game is honestly the most skill-driven thing in Pokemon besides actual Tower/Frontier battles (since you can be massively overleveled with a Fire Blast/Flamethrower/Fire Spin/Cut Charizard and still power through the Elite 4). There's literally no "glitch" to speak of in this, it's a completely logical game and anything the program derives is a result of actual logic.

That's basically what I thought... The game is actually mostly about skill, though there is some luck involved. Honestly after playing for a while in there it's probably not worth typing it out on there to get an answer as you learn where the least risk is.

By the way I played last night to see how long it would take me to get to that 2100 coin mark and it took maybe 15-20 minutes. Since Dragon Rage Dratini can save you time later I figure it's worth it.

 

[Colonel M]

Made some of the changes.

Pinsir vs. Scyther: Keep in mind Scyther with Technician is pretty solid, though if we go by the 50/50 Ability factor, then I guess Scyther could just go under Pinsir for sure.

Eevee [Espeon]: Not sure where to exactly put him. Under Larvitar even seems weird and keep in mind Confusion is coming off of a skyhigh SpA stat.

Slowpoke: Er... now where to put him?

Meowth: Same

Caterpie and Chikorita: I put Caterpie over Wooper (who is Upper Mid) and am willing to lower Chikorita. I think that's the better solution is to meet down the middle.

Gastly (and Abra): When you think about it, Gastly is easier to train than Abra. Consider Abra not having anything until it evolves while Gastly has, while shitty, a movepool. It's easy to train in the Sprout Tower thanks to Hypnosis and x4 resisting Vine Whip. Not to mention that it can switch out if you feel its Atk not worthy enough as it almost allows a free switch. Night Shade at Level 15, and consider that it probably comes close to 2HKOing most Pokemon that don't resist it (and Normal-types are iffy in common rates at this point). Speaking of that, Gastly's resistances and immunities really help this guy out. I dunno how good Haunter is with Shadow Punch, but it has access to both Shadow Ball and Sludge Bomb TM, the latter which I'd argue has less competition for it. Both should lower a bit probably, but I think Gastly > Abra is possible, but I guess Confusion at 16 really hurts Haunter.

Togepi: I think over Natu is fine, but it really should be over more of those Pokemon. I was confused where to put it myself.

Nidoking: I'm going to test this myself. He at least gets STAB on Dig, so despite the competition he climbs higher in the list of getting it, perse. I'd rather test this than to go off the backhand of myself (and your assertion helps with me wanting to test it). It probably can lower a little though.

I'd consider encounter rates not a big deal. They're too difficult to tier and it just makes arguments follow the same boat. If we consider their 50/50 abilities, then I might fly with it. Still, I dunno about Scyther under Pinsir just yet. I'll go with the flow for now, but I think STAB Flying > STAB Bug.

 

[Kikuichimonji]

I propose re-naming the tiers, and possibly doing a bit of re-organization. Right now the "mid" tier is not actually the middle tier; there are five tiers above it and four tiers below it (three if you exclude Kanto). I actually think that the Kanto Pokemon could be put into other tiers, so my recommendation would be to make the follow name changes:

upper mid -> upper mid
upper mid -> mid
lower mid -> low

Also possibly rename Electivire and Garchomp to "bottom" and "uber" respectively to reduce the chance of confusion.

Question about Nidoking: when do you get the Moon Stone? It doesn't seem like Nidoking is fully reliant on disposable TMs. Surf, Fire Blast, and Thunder are all decent enough attacks that he could do without Dig.

Pinsir vs. Scyther: Keep in mind Scyther with Technician is pretty solid, though if we go by the 50/50 Ability factor, then I guess Scyther could just go under Pinsir for sure.

I think that Technician Scyther might actually be slightly better than Pinsir. A STAB Technician Wing Attack actually hits Witney's Normal types for only 10% less than a super effective Brick Break, and the boosted Wing Attack is better than Brick Break in a lot of other places. However, Swarm Scyther is incredibly lackluster. Ordinarily, the 50/50 thing wouldn't be a huge deal, but for something as rare as Scyther you don't really have the ability to pick and choose your abilities. Perhaps Scyther should get two separate entries? It's kind of a weird case.

I think that Butterfree (caught during Bug Catching contest) should be a separate entry, ranked a tier below HG Caterpie. SS Caterpie should probably be bottom tier. In SS, low-level Caterpie fails for being strictly worse than a higher-level Butterfree (which can be obtained with ease at that point), and high-level Caterpie fails for not getting Confusion (and the powders) upon evolution.

Slowpoke is really bad. I don't think it's possible to argue otherwise for a Pokemon with base 40 special attack until level 37. I'd consider putting it in the bottom tier. At best, it's one tier above the bottom.

Meowth is basically free items, so any free party spots should go to him as soon as he becomes available. I'm not really sure how you'd tier this. It's definitely somewhere above mid.

Eevee [Espeon]: Not sure where to exactly put him. Under Larvitar even seems weird and keep in mind Confusion is coming off of a skyhigh SpA stat.

I don't think you can get Espeon to learn Confusion, since it would learn it at level 15 (which is earlier than it evolves). I'd put Espeon around the level of Flareon or lower. Flareon gets to start with Fire Blast, while Espeon has no STAB until level 36, which is pretty late into the game. Flareon's Fire Fang comes after Espeon's Psybeam, but it is slightly better and Flareon still has special Fire Attacks until then. (Flareon actually has rather high special attack in addition to its incredibly high attack stat, so it's not like it's struggling before Fire Fang, unlike Espeon who very much dislikes having to rely on physical attacks.) Flareon's Strength is also better than Espeon's Swift.

Gastly (and Abra): When you think about it, Gastly is easier to train than Abra. Consider Abra not having anything until it evolves while Gastly has, while shitty, a movepool. It's easy to train in the Sprout Tower thanks to Hypnosis and x4 resisting Vine Whip. Not to mention that it can switch out if you feel its Atk not worthy enough as it almost allows a free switch.

Abra comes at level 10, Gastly comes at level 3, so it needs less training. It comes after Ilex Forest instead of Sprout Tower. I think that having a Pokemon that doesn't exist for the earlier part of the game is better than a Pokemon that does exist for the earlier part of the game. Gastly actually worse than useless until it learns Night Shade, since it requires time to raise, and it also soaks up "easy experience" that could have gone to something better. Putting something to sleep with Hypnosis and then switching out to kill it seems a lot less efficient than just switching the first turn, especially since Hypnosis can miss.

Gastly's Lick is almost the worst attack in the game. The only move I can think of that is worse than Gastly's Lick is Weedle's Poison Sting, which is 25% weaker and runs off the same attack stat. Having Lick as your only attack until level 15 is just insane, by the time you're around level 10 it will probably be completely unusable. It's also worth mentioning that during the part of the game when Lick can actually kill things, a large portion of your foes are Normal. Sprout Tower is a very small portion of the game.

Night Shade at Level 15, and consider that it probably comes close to 2HKOing most Pokemon that don't resist it (and Normal-types are iffy in common rates at this point).

Abra gets Confusion a level after Gastly gets Night Shade. I think Abra wins there.

Abra joins at level 10 and "gets good" at level 16. Gastly joins at level 3, becomes usable at level 15, and "gets good" at level 33 or until you use the Shadow Ball TM on it. Raising it 12 levels just to "break even" (get something that isn't completely useless) and another 18 levels after that to start seeing a return on your investment seems pretty lousy. If you intend to use the Shadow Ball TM on it, I'd say that Kadabra is actually a better choice for the TM. It doesn't get the STAB, but having a psychic STAB from early on beats having a poison STAB later into the game.

 

[jumpluff]

Made some of the changes.

Pinsir vs. Scyther: Keep in mind Scyther with Technician is pretty solid, though if we go by the 50/50 Ability factor, then I guess Scyther could just go under Pinsir for sure.

Eevee [Espeon]: Not sure where to exactly put him. Under Larvitar even seems weird and keep in mind Confusion is coming off of a skyhigh SpA stat.

Slowpoke: Er... now where to put him?

Meowth: Same

Caterpie and Chikorita: I put Caterpie over Wooper (who is Upper Mid) and am willing to lower Chikorita. I think that's the better solution is to meet down the middle.

Gastly (and Abra): When you think about it, Gastly is easier to train than Abra. Consider Abra not having anything until it evolves while Gastly has, while shitty, a movepool. It's easy to train in the Sprout Tower thanks to Hypnosis and x4 resisting Vine Whip. Not to mention that it can switch out if you feel its Atk not worthy enough as it almost allows a free switch. Night Shade at Level 15, and consider that it probably comes close to 2HKOing most Pokemon that don't resist it (and Normal-types are iffy in common rates at this point). Speaking of that, Gastly's resistances and immunities really help this guy out. I dunno how good Haunter is with Shadow Punch, but it has access to both Shadow Ball and Sludge Bomb TM, the latter which I'd argue has less competition for it. Both should lower a bit probably, but I think Gastly > Abra is possible, but I guess Confusion at 16 really hurts Haunter.

Togepi: I think over Natu is fine, but it really should be over more of those Pokemon. I was confused where to put it myself.

Nidoking: I'm going to test this myself. He at least gets STAB on Dig, so despite the competition he climbs higher in the list of getting it, perse. I'd rather test this than to go off the backhand of myself (and your assertion helps with me wanting to test it). It probably can lower a little though.

I'd consider encounter rates not a big deal. They're too difficult to tier and it just makes arguments follow the same boat. If we consider their 50/50 abilities, then I might fly with it. Still, I dunno about Scyther under Pinsir just yet. I'll go with the flow for now, but I think STAB Flying > STAB Bug.

I agree with Togepi, it just looked like a pain arguing it up. I don't believe it's really 'low', so let's just stick it under Meowth for now maybe? Like I (and now Kikiichimonji) said, we should probably have some extra tiers ;) (NVM, good change <3)

I think encounter rates are a pretty big deal, because it slows you down significantly to keep looking for Pokémon with, say, 1% encounter rates, especially if they do only have one good ability (e.g. Marill). There's always the possibility you'll get lucky, but we don't take RNG blessing into account in FE debates, though to be fair we have averages there.

P.S. Put Kanto under the Johto tiers imo, just a minor organisational suggestion.