Finally people realize Chikorita is awful in 2017 and I'm not the only one.
atsync okay so looking through this I'll post my comments:
Bellsprout has a lot of issues that prevent it from being a great Pokemon, the main ones being its poor typing, thin move pool and limited usefulness in important match-ups, although it must be said that Weepinbell actually has slightly higher offensive stats than Meganium (90/85 vs. 82/83), as well as STAB Sludge Bomb eventually. Initially though it is fairly weak. Having Vine Whip as its Grass STAB for practically all of Johto, with its middling power and 10 PP, is pretty bad, and until Acid and Sludge Bomb come along it doesn't have a lot else it can use. Early access to options like Growth and Sleep Powder help it out a bit but these strategies aren't ideal for an "efficient" run where you are looking to beat things as quickly as possible rather than setting up and crippling.
There are two main things that I can say that are positive about Bellsprout. Firstly, Bellsprout is extremely easy to add to a team. It comes very early in the game, and it grinds very quickly. Just take it to Dark Cave and kill lots of Geodude (60% encounter rate plus high experience yield). It took me well under 10 minutes to get Bellsprout to match my team, which is faster than most of the other early route Pokemon.
Secondly, it happens to be a good partner for Cyndaquil because of its ability to counter Rock- and Water-types. Route 32 in particular has several Pokemon of these types and Bellsprout can cover these if you picked Cyndaquil. There are other occasions where Grass excels too, and of course the rival will have picked Totodile if you picked Cyndaquil, so there's another target.
Still, even if you did pick Cyndaquil, carrying Bellsprout on your team is a bit of a burden because there are many other parts of the game where it just sucks. Bellsprout may very well be the best Grass-type to pick if you didn't go for Chikorita, but that's a low bar considering how poor Grass is as a type in GSC.
Yeah, probably my same sentiments. Bellsprout is a slightly better Grass-type, but realistically not saying much.
This has been discussed to death. I have previously been among the first to defend it because "it's a starter", but as I've used it more and more I find myself liking it less and less!
Much of what I've just said about Bellsprout also applies here, and in the long run it could be argued that Bellsprout has the edge because of STAB Sludge Bomb. Bellsprout also evolves to Weepinbell long before Bayleef evolves to Meganium which exacerbates the differences in attacking stats (but this is negated by Bellsprout's poorer move pool), and Bellsprout is compatible with all the starters and not just itself. Chikorita does have the edge earlier on though thanks to its access to Headbutt as a back-up option for the many times where its Grass STAB isn't appropriate, and of course Razor Leaf is a far superior move to Vine Whip. Pick your poison, I guess. Or just don't pick either!
Thank Christ. Alright, let's get that drop down going.
Another Pokemon that's been discussed quite a bit, and I really don't think I can say anything else about it. It's a starter with good typing and stats, but it has a bad move pool during the Quilava stage which has a significant impact on its power during mid-Johto.
I haven't tried the "Fire Blast ASAP" strategy on it yet and will try it in another run. I found it mediocre on Growlithe but Quilava is a bit stronger so we'll see.
Probably worthwhile, but the main flaw with "Fire Blast ASAP" is that not only is there the accuracy issue, but there's the PP issue which is a big deal. This doesn't matter as much in big battles, and I'd argue it to be a buff in some of them since it gives Cyndaquil more immediate power, but it can hurt out in the fields as it's something you want to use sparingly against things like Team Rocket and the like. I think it's good and probably doesn't shake up Cyndaquil much - worth adding to the notes if you're doing the Game Corner.
Why am I discussing these together? Because there's an in-game trade for a Rhydon in Blackthorn City that possibly represents the "best" way to use the Rhyhorn line, but to use it requires a female Dragonair to trade it for. The only way in which you could reasonably have a female Dragonair at that moment would be to obtain it as a Dratini from the game corner and then use it on your team until you reach Blackthorn, by which time it will have evolved and will be available to trade away.
Dratini requires 42000 Pokedollars to purchase without gambling and I can tell you that having this much money upon arriving in Goldenrod is pretty much impossible, although you can come close (as stated previously I had around 35000 at this point when actively saving money). You may opt to battle some more trainers post-Goldenrod for more money, or you can try play Card Flip for the rest – it took me about 30 minutes to gain 600 coins with Card Flip to give a general idea of the kind of time investment required. Dratini comes at level 10 and you'll need to grind for something either way.
As far as its performance is concerned, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting, although I started with low expectations anyway. Dratini doesn't have the greatest stats and Dragonair is just a modest improvement (Dragonite is pretty much out of reach until the very end of the game) so it'll need some support. It kind of plays like a Water-type without the STAB. You can teach it Headbutt right away and it'll get Surf and Icy Wind later too. Fire Blast, etc., are options too but that's more money invested on top of buying Dratini in the first place. I thought it was kind of neat that it's one of the few non-Water-types to get Waterfall too – this allows players to avoid stacking their actual Water-type with all the Water HMs without having a dedicated slave, if they so desire.
I found its access to Thunder Wave at least useful as a support option for Whitney's Miltank, which is way easier to deal with when it's slowed down. Otherwise you can expect its match-ups to be slightly inferior versions of those a Water-type could manage.
As for Rhydon, it isn't that great. It's just a late-game Geodude. I think there has been plenty of discussion about how Geodude tends to be less useful during the second half of Johto, so you can imagine how Rhydon performs, boosted experience or not. Rhydon does have a large move pool but that doesn't necessarily translate to a good one. It's lacking in good STAB options until the Earthquake TM comes along, and if I have to be honest…Earthquake is actually not that amazing of a move for the Elite 4. It has a few targets, but Lance, for example, doesn't care about it at all.
If you obtain Rhydon at the earliest moment you'll find it will be useful for the Goldenrod Rocket grunts and maybe some of Route 45, and this is why I think the in-game trade Rhydon is the best way to use it despite the hassle requires to obtain it in the first place. But it sucks against Clair's gym and there are plenty of Water- and Grass-types along the routes leading up to the Pokemon League that will make it think twice.
I think with that being said I can make a separate listing for the in-game trade since it's "slightly" better than the Rhyhorn you get oh so late, but honestly I don't think it's saying much because the detour is uh... really awful and the cost is super high. It's probably the same rank as Rhyhorn, honestly. Just decent enough to separate it.
My experiences with Silver are based on those in Silver – in Gold, it is obtained under different circumstances.
It's just a fairly mediocre Poison-type that is burdened by the ridiculous among of time required to grind it. Ekans only has Wrap initially and it doesn't get anything remotely "decent" until Bite at level 15 so grinding it is a drag even with wild Hoppip providing what is essentially free experience. Ekans does learn a couple of usable moves for the first half of Johto, but even with Bite, Dig and Headbutt, its performance really isn't that great. Arbok doesn't really take off until Sludge Bomb arrives and at that point its performance is ok. STAB Sludge Bomb is a fairly reliable attack against stuff that doesn't resist it at least, so Arbok can be a handy choice for routes.
As for match-ups, it must be said that Ekans is quite poor for Bugsy's Scyther despite the Bug resistance. Ekans can't do much damage and I found that Scyther was able to use Ekans as an opportunity to start generating powerful Fury Cutters (although Bugsy's AI is a bit unpredictable in my experience). It can use Dig in some match-ups; paired with its Poison resistance, it's decent for Team Rocket grunts too. Overall though, I think the time investment that you must put into it is too much for Ekans to be a good choice for a decent run.
Yeah for sure. Ekans is best left in lower ranks. Mono-Poison is pretty plagued in earlier gens IMO, and this one is no exception. There isn't a Grass-gym early on to abuse its one advantage, and it only has a defensive advantage against 2 gyms and one of them it still can get trucked by (Chuck's Poliwrath has Hypnosis + Surf).
Geodude is an oddity because its performance varies so greatly from battle to battle. As stated by others, it is at its best during the start of the game and is among the best choices at that point. During early routes Geodude will often find itself walling Pokemon completely with its high Defence and useful resistances, although it will need assistance with the odd Water- and Grass-type that appears. It's also well served for STAB options early-game and it can contribute to varying degrees against the first 4 gyms. It is less useful for the second half, although it still has moments where it can shine, such as against Team Rocket and Jasmine to an extent. It's hurt by having no real upgrades to its move set after its early game options. Rock Throw and Rollout are all it gets for Rock STAB, and it'll be stuck with Dig and Magnitude until Earthquake comes along (it gets Earthquake at level 41 – this is around the same time or possibly after the TM will be obtained anyway, but it does allow for the TM to be used by something else). It's also slow as hell :(
At some point I intend on doing a run with Golem instead of Graveler. When using Graveler, I found I was hitting stuff and falling just short of a OHKO that Golem would have achieved, and on top of that Golem is a bit faster. This may help in match-ups in particular. For example, I found Graveler was unable to reliably beat Jasmine's Steelix (needs favourable rolls from Magnitude, Iron Tail 2HKOed in response), and I also found I need to use 2 X-Speeds on Graveler to ensure that it out-sped Morty's Gengar and avoided Hypnosis, where Golem might do it with one. Watch this space.
I'll keep an eye on that whenever you get a chance. If for some reason they aren't a tier different, they may be worthy of a split.
Growlithe more or less plays like a slightly worse Quilava that will never evolve pre-Elite 4 but has some extra moves to pick from (although Bite is the only one with any real use). Growlithe can be obtained before Whitney in Gold/Silver by heading north from Goldenrod City and up to where Sudowoodo is. There's a patch of grass there with wild level 13 Growlithe. Grinding it to match my team took roughly 20 minutes (animations on) which isn't as bad as I thought it would be. The usefulness of getting it this early is hurt by its poor match-up against Miltank but it would have taken more time had I waited and any time saved is a plus. Unfortunately, Growlithe itself happens to be in the Slow experience group and therefore requires large amounts of experience to level up in the long run. This was burdensome not just for itself but also for its team mates.
Like Quilava, it's burdened by a move pool containing mostly weak moves. It only has Ember for STAB from level up until level 34 when it gets Flame Wheel, and it only has Bite, Headbutt and Dig for alternatives. When using Growlithe, I decided to go out of my way and invest in the Fire Blast TM. I found the power to be very good, but I didn't like that Growlithe was relying so much on it. The strategy might have worked if Fire Blast was only required occasionally and Ember was doing the heavy lifting, but there are too many opponents where I felt compelled to use Fire Blast which inevitably missed at annoying times, and it has just 5 PP. I also found Growlithe to be a bit slow at times.
Growlithe is still ok for some under-levelled route stuff and it does have some good match-ups like Jasmine, so despite its flaws it still has some use, but mostly it isn't worth the effort and is not a good choice for an efficient run.
Yeah honestly Growlithe is just missing its evolution, but man it's so meh as a Growlithe for so long. I'd honestly drop it after Jasmine if I'm being honest at the latest.
If Dratini is like a Water-type without the STAB boost, it could also be said that Heracross is like a Normal-type without STAB.
Normally Heracross would be let down by the difficulty in finding a tree that generates wild Heracross, but since this isn't actually "random" and can be
calculated, finding the right tree is trivial.
I found Heracross to be pretty good. Its move pool is unfortunately limited by its lack of good STAB moves for pretty much all of Johto (aside from Reversal possibly, but that comes late and needs to be set up properly), with only Normal moves and eventually Earthquake to pick from, but Heracross' Attack is so high that it'll often tear through trainers quite easily, especially early game where its base stats far exceed most of the other Pokemon that appear at that point.
Heracross is not as useful in important match-ups and is downright useless in a few of them (hi Morty), so Heracross' role is mostly limited to routes, but it's so good at doing that that it is a pretty good choice overall. It also comes at a pretty decent level upon capture and so doesn't require much time investment to get it going. I found that it started to lag just a bit towards the end of Johto when route Pokemon start to evolve and can more easily tank neutral hits though.
Nothing really to add, though definitely cool that someone used Heracross seriously in a run-through.
This is underrated in my opinion. It is one of the most accessible Pokemon in the game and while it doesn't come flying out of the blocks upon capture, it gets a strong STAB really early, good coverage options to hit resistances (Shadow Ball for Rival's Haunter/Gengar; Dig for his Magnemite/Magneton) and stats that are distributed well (on par with Miltank in power and speed, but worse in bulk).
Having said that, Rattata tends to contribute more on routes than in match-ups. Normal doesn't really "counter" anything and in later match-ups in particular Raticate will do little more than take a nice chuck out of an opponent and then eat a big hit in response. On routes though, it's in its element – it'll happily tear through stuff with its high base power STAB and good Speed. It hits a particular peak just after it evolves to Raticate, but stays useful for the rest of way through the game.
This doesn't totally surprise me since Rattata also gets to leech the advantage of the Attack boost from the badges early on and it has solid options early on for attacking (Hyper Fang, Dig, etc). If it's ranked too low, I'm definitely down to raising it a bit.
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I'm going to look over some of the stuff later on (dammit I need a secretary sometimes holy fuck), but yes we definitely need to update this as
DHR-107 mentioned. I'm going to look at this right now and update what I think is fair and what probably should drop. I will say that I will add the Rhydon (In-game trade) since, as noted, it is physically possible to obtain and it has a somewhat small advantage over Rhyhorn.
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Okay quick glance outside of adding Rhydon, these are the changes I made so far:
Rises
Rattata C -> B
Mareep (GS) B -> A
Aipom D -> C
Rattata was honestly overdue. It's pretty solid throughout a good portion of the game and has ways to keep itself gimping around for quite a while. I wouldn't advise using it all game and I could argue that Spearow is a better investment, but if you're not using Shadow Ball on anyone else Rattata is a solid choice for it.
Mareep is a Pokemon I really felt needed to rise since it's one of the better Electric-types and has a solid field advantage. It does okay in some of the gym fights later on, and then has some presence all throughout the game. Flaaffy and Ampharos are pretty solid evolutions. Mareep is only really held back by bad Speed, but honestly it's durable and it has enough perks to be useful throughout the entire game in my opinion.
Aipom is better than I gave it credit for. Not by a lot, mind, but enough to where "if you want to use it for a while, why the fuck not?"
Drops
Chikorita B -> C
Jigglypuff C -> D
Elekid (C) C -> E
Smoochum (C) C -> E
Magby (C) C -> E
Igglybuff (C) D -> E
Cleffa (C) D -> E
Tentacool B -> C
Chikorita, as many including myself have advertised, is
godawful. I'm not bothering with a psycho analysis. If you think Chikorita is good, you probably
visit this site often.
Jigglypuff has a really bad training curve for a mediocre-at-best output. Really not worthwhile in the sea of Normal-types.
Crystal Eggs dropped to E due to something that was supposed to happen months ago.
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I'll keep Espeon as a potential discussion point since I think it's a mon that in spite of its rather... limiting cost has a nice perk of being a pretty powerful Psychic-type. I'm also open to dropping Stantler as well as maybe re-arranging some of the Pokemon in general. So keep the discussion flowing while I try to work out the finalized list.
I'm also going to potentially look around for people who are willing to help (that are tier list enthusiasts) with finalizing the list. In the meantime, I will see what I can do to pretty the tier list and maybe get some descriptions rolling.