Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald In-Game Tier List Discussion

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Been busy to play too much lately but I'm at a point where I'm far enough to start providing input on mons through various stages of the game again. Today I surpassed Wattson who to this point has been the only real challenge and am just out the other end of Fiery Path. Reminder that my end game party will be Seaking / Muk / Banette (unless I end up ditching it again for Sableye :s) / Raichu / Rhydon / Xatu (Swellow)

Grimer - Careful, lv 17
Sludge / Pound / Disable / Rock Tomb

- Just acquired it so little input so far, but my early impression is favorable. Sludge right away at level 14 means it can pack an immediately usable punch with some of the preceding trainers offering useful points for it to start to catch up to speed (Machop, Nuzleaf, Lombre). Expecting good tanky things out of this.

Goldeen - Docile, lv 24
Horn Attack / Peck / Tail Whip / Flail

- It's been pretty alright tbh, nothing of any particular note about it but it's kept pace well enough. Peck was satisfactory for the early stages with Brawly's gym to feed off of and Horn Attack is always a valuable early attack for any mon at these levels. Expecting to start to see a drop off soon, but probably nothing notable until precisely when I hit Norman and then it will evolve soon after. Interestingly enough I haven't really missed the STAB, Water type isn't a particularly relevant attacking type up until the point where I am, though it will be now with Hikers and the Fire gym, but to this point Horn Attach has been fine. tl;dr, it's usable.

Swellow - Timid, lv 25
Wing Attack / Quick Attack / Focus Energy / Double Team

- It's Taillow / Swellow, it's the usual early game beatstick people know and love, though I still support it dropping to B for the severe drop off in prowess post-level 40. Interestingly enough having a -Atk nature has been very relevant, there's at least 3 notable moments I remember where I barely missed out on a Wing Attack OHKO vs a threatening enemy as a result of the nature hindrance.

Sableye - Rash, level 26
Night Shade / Shock Wave / Thief / Fake Out

- I've been reasonably impressed relative to the low expectations I had for it. Was expecting to have a gross time trying to catch it up but it turns out that having an entire gym that can't touch you makes for good training grounds. Not much in the way of OHKO power since it's been reliant on Night Shade to this point but obviously fine for route trainers. Managed to solo Wattson with difficulty, out of necessity given the rest of my time, but pulled it off nonetheless. Voltob and Electrike were minimal threats and it took down Magneton relatively easily, getting the level 26 bump from Magneton meant that it had juuust enough bulk to tank Manectric's Shock Waves (the Rash nature being the problem here naturally) without getting 2HKOed, and so with appropriate sequencing for healing and such it took him down. Probably will drop off too much soon and let me feel fine about going to Banette but who knows, it's been aight.

Azumarill - Naive, lv 19
Strength

- Evolved it and then stopped using it once I picked up Goldeen and Sableye. Pretty great early game mon, took on Nosepass 1v1 and Huge Power Tackles rolled through the rest of the early game. Now that it would have had Strength I'd have liked to see what it could do for the rest.

Torchic - Brave, lv 11
Cut / Rock Smash / Strength

- Best early game HM slave <3

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Oh I should probably also say that it wasn't too time consuming to find a Grimer, took maybe 5 minutes/20 encounters at whatever speed the android emulator runs at, probably 2x

tl;dr early impression is that goldeen and emerald grimer could probably fit in E instead of F

also Merritt update when

 

[Infernape2018]

Currently, i am doing a playthrough using the 3 Regis. I know it's unintuitive to use them, but just maybe, they might pull through. See you when i'm done with Regirock!

 

[Infernape2018]

FInished Regirock and...

Yeah he is F Tier. All day every day.

Not even counting the bizzare and cruel way to get him( Lvl 40 Wailord, a 5% Reclicanth and to get TM28), I was hoping he would pull through and at least beat up one major battle. He doesn't. He can lose to EVERY. SINGLE. MON' in the game and there is nothing you can do about it.

Here are some matchups

Steven double battle- Intimidate screws Regirock and with Camerupts around, he can't win.
Shelly- Sharpedo has no Water moves, but with your best option being Superpower, you have to switch after killing it, otherwise you end up a sitting duck for Mighthyena to kill you.
Archie- Rock Throw is so weak even Crobat can live just to Confuse Ray you to oblivion. Sharpedo can at least get Superpowered to death.
Rayquaza- "Rayquaza used Outrage." "A critical hit!" "REGIROCK fainted."
Juan- "Seaking used Horn Drill" "It's a one-hit KO"
Wally- Altaria can at least die to Ancientpwer. Everything else kills Regirock before he can attack
Sidney- Mighthyena has Intimidate and everything else hits you super effictivley.
Pheobe- Actually a decent matchup, since nothing other than EQ Dusclops can threaten you.
Glacia- HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA no.
Drake- Shelgon can die to SUPAPOWAH but Flygon, Salmeance, Altaria and Kingdra f*ck you ten times over.
Wallace- NO!

Movepool
When you catch Regirock, it has Rock Throw, Superpower, Curse and Ancientpower, a moveset that sucks. Other than that, his level up movepool is basically Zap Cannon. Iron Defense sucks and the other 2 moves are post-game. His TM movepool is pathetic, other than Thunderbolt and Brick Break(two heavily contested moves), he only has normal moves, Dig and Rock Smash to compensate. You can't even get Rock Slide unless you trade to Firered or wait until post-game. My moveset was Rock Throw for STAB, Zap Cannon to shoot for paralysis, Superpower for coverage and Curse because I had nothing else.

Competition
Everything.

Overall
this mon is garbage and i can,t believe i wasted 3 hours grinding him for the E4 only to fail miserably. He had 31 IV in Attack and yet he barely killed a Gyarados whittled to half with Rock Throw. F TIER NOW!

Registeel may be good.....

 

[Vengeance417]

Steven double battle- Intimidate screws Regirock and with Camerupts around, he can't win.

Sidney- Mighthyena has Intimidate and everything else hits you super effictivley.

How does Intimidate screw Regirock over when it has the Clear Body ability?

 

[Cherub Agent]

How does Intimidate screw Regirock over when it has the Clear Body ability?

Probably all theorymon lol

 

[Merritt]

Please be careful before accusing somebody of lying. As a side note, using Regirock without teaching it Earthquake is inadvisable at best because it's semi necessary for Regirock's decent matchups lategame. I'm surprised to hear that it underperformed so much.

On a different note, Texas Cloverleaf keep in mind that it sounds like you got incredibly lucky with your Grimer finding, as it's only got a 2% encounter rate in Ruby and Emerald which is a significant part of why it's ranked so low.

Also let's do that update shall we? These should all be implemented in the list, please let me know if I missed actually moving something.

Rises:
Chinchou rises from D tier to B tier
Heracross rises from C tier to B tier
Absol rises from D tier to C tier
Meditite rises from D tier to C tier
Baltoy rises from E tier to D tier
Pikachu rises from E tier to D tier
Torkoal rises from E tier to D tier

Drops:
Taillow drops from A tier to B tier
Numel drops from B tier to C tier
Swablu drops from C tier to D tier
Anorith drops from D tier to E tier
Natu drops from D tier to E tier
Vulpix drops from D tier to E tier
Slugma drops from E tier to F tier


Breloom did not rise because ultimately, especially with the drop of Swellow from A to B, it doesn't manage to stand head and shoulders above the rest of A rank. Everything in A rank is an outstanding Pokemon with few flaws and while Breloom is arguably the best among the A ranks (with notable competition from Rayquaza and Zangoose), it doesn't quite reach the level of dominance that would be expected from the S rank Pokemon.

Beautifly similarly did not move up because honestly its major battle performance just was completely unconvincing. It's got all of one and a half good matchups in the entire game and both are against some of the least impressive major opponents in the game, Brawly and first member of the Elite 4 Sidney. It can potentially contribute against many of the major battles, yes, but so can pretty much everything in E rank (else they'd be F rank). Route clearing is similarly not astoundingly impressive, especially when considering Beautifly's poor matchups against virtually all major battles as it means that its teammates who it relies on for the major battles are sapped of that experience.

Everything else is hopefully at least somewhat self explanatory. As always, feel free to inquire for more in depth reasoning about why something did or did not move.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Please be careful before accusing somebody of lying. As a side note, using Regirock without teaching it Earthquake is inadvisable at best because it's semi necessary for Regirock's decent matchups lategame. I'm surprised to hear that it underperformed so much.

On a different note, Texas Cloverleaf keep in mind that it sounds like you got incredibly lucky with your Grimer finding, as it's only got a 2% encounter rate in Ruby and Emerald which is a significant part of why it's ranked so low.

Also let's do that update shall we? These should all be implemented in the list, please let me know if I missed actually moving something.

Rises:
Chinchou rises from D tier to B tier
Heracross rises from C tier to B tier
Absol rises from D tier to C tier
Meditite rises from D tier to C tier
Baltoy rises from E tier to D tier
Pikachu rises from E tier to D tier
Torkoal rises from E tier to D tier

Drops:
Taillow drops from A tier to B tier
Numel drops from B tier to C tier
Swablu drops from C tier to D tier
Anorith drops from D tier to E tier
Natu drops from D tier to E tier
Vulpix drops from D tier to E tier
Slugma drops from E tier to F tier


Breloom did not rise because ultimately, especially with the drop of Swellow from A to B, it doesn't manage to stand head and shoulders above the rest of A rank. Everything in A rank is an outstanding Pokemon with few flaws and while Breloom is arguably the best among the A ranks (with notable competition from Rayquaza and Zangoose), it doesn't quite reach the level of dominance that would be expected from the S rank Pokemon.

Beautifly similarly did not move up because honestly its major battle performance just was completely unconvincing. It's got all of one and a half good matchups in the entire game and both are against some of the least impressive major opponents in the game, Brawly and first member of the Elite 4 Sidney. It can potentially contribute against many of the major battles, yes, but so can pretty much everything in E rank (else they'd be F rank). Route clearing is similarly not astoundingly impressive, especially when considering Beautifly's poor matchups against virtually all major battles as it means that its teammates who it relies on for the major battles are sapped of that experience.

Everything else is hopefully at least somewhat self explanatory. As always, feel free to inquire for more in depth reasoning about why something did or did not move.

That encounter rate looks spooky at a glance but with some slightly advanced statistics it's not really that big a deal. Taking my estimate of 20 encounters I had approximately a 33% chance of finding a Grimer within those 20 encounters. At 34 encounters it's a 50% chance that I will have found a Grimer, and 64% probability after 50 trials. There's always a chance of not finding a Grimer in a reasonable amount of time, but it's not excessively difficult to get. I would personally set 20 encounters as a reasonable limit of expectation for an average pokemon (it took roughly that many to find my 10% taillow...) and 35-40 seems reasonable when you're targeting a rare encounter.

Certainly it's encounter rate should be factored into it's ranking, but I would argue it as more appropriate a factor when determining which tier to place it in if undecided between two as opposed to, for example, dropping it a tier on encounter rate merit alone.

edit: also Absol should be B???

 

[sumwun]

Rises:
Chinchou rises from D tier to B tier
Heracross rises from C tier to B tier
Absol rises from D tier to C tier
Meditite rises from D tier to C tier
Baltoy rises from E tier to D tier
Pikachu rises from E tier to D tier
Torkoal rises from E tier to D tier

Drops:
Taillow drops from A tier to B tier
Numel drops from B tier to C tier
Swablu drops from C tier to D tier
Anorith drops from D tier to E tier
Natu drops from D tier to E tier
Vulpix drops from D tier to E tier
Slugma drops from E tier to F tier

Based on this list, these recent suggestions (along with Beautifly and Shroomish) were rejected.
Nincada (Ninjask) E to F
Makuhita B to A
Plusle E to D
Minun E to D
Gulpin D to C
Cacnea D to E
Baltoy D to E
Absol D to B
Duskull E to F
Spheal D to C
I don't remember seeing explanations for not moving Makuhita, Plusle, Minun, Gulpin, Absol, Duskull, and Spheal. If my memory is just bad, can someone please link to the posts explaining why they didn't move?

 

[Infernape2018]

oops sorry i forgot about Clear Body. Thought it only counted for stuff like Growl and Fake Tears

But yeah doing Registeel is AWFULly fine:)

 

[Infernape2018]

Registeel, oh god Registeel.
Note: For the Regirock run i taught EQ to Blaziken

I thought 75 offenses were not OK, that even if i thought it EQ and Thunderbolt that i would not be fine. I was... actually fine. While he has good matchups when you first get him(including walling a Lvl 70 Rayquaza), he fell at the E4.

Matchups

Steven Double Battle(Mossdeep City)- Camerupts say hi, Registeel says goodbye.
Shelly- Actually a good matchup thanks to Tbolt and Clear Body negating EQ drop.
Archie- Tbolt and Superpower GG
Rayquaza- Does a decent job at walling it, but at Lvl 70 even that can only go for so long.
Juan- Easy-Cheesy until Kingdra showed up. Double Team was a mistake.
Wally- This is where not having a good STAB blows. Delcatty, Gardevoir and Roselia are easy enough, but Magneton's Tbolt hurts like BRICKS even thought I OHKO'd with EQ, and DD Altaria somehow critted me to death.
Sidney- Wall all day, every day and Tbolt Crawdaunt for an easy matchup.
Pheobe- EQ Dusclops Registeel does not want. Other than that, wall.
Glacia- Not having a good STAB other than Metal Claw sucks because the Glalie's survive and set up hail and screens, which causes chip damage and lowers my overall damage output against the seals.
Drake- Everygoddarnthing other than Altaria and Shelgon hits you neutrally, and Flygon and Salmence hit you SE. No
Wallace- 150 BP Water Spout, Double Team+Leech Seed(WHY), DD EQ and STAB EQ and a very, very bulky Milotic. Tentacruel was easy, but Registeel failed to do anything of note.

Movepool
When you catch it, it starts with Metal Claw, Superpower, Curse and Ancientpower, a pretty bad moveset barring the first 2. I decided to teach it EQ and Tbolt over the last 2( yes i know i have Curse but that is inefficent) moves and got going. It has the same TMpool as Regirock barring Rain Dance.

Overall
Not worth the BULLS#IT it takes to get it, but suprisingly effective if it does get a chance to get in. It walls a lot of things, but only things that can't hit it SE or neutrally. It's damage output is low without a weakness, and even then with enough bulk(*cough* Milotic *cough*) you can wall it to.

If Registeel was more easily accesable a probable D or E Tier, but the trouble of getting it gives it F Tier.

Regice, you're next

 

[Punchshroom]

This is probably selfish of me, but I'm still in favor for bumping up the Electric rodents up their respective tiers. Pikachu should be considered to be at least on par with Voltorb; it comes insignificantly later and has a significant movepool advantage over all the other Electrics, such as saving up on the Thunderbolt TM, being one of the few that have Thunder Wave (tho Pikachu needs to be lower leveled/Heart Scaled for this), and has additional HM utility. It can even be taught the Brick Break TM, but I digress. Plusle and Minun on the other hand aren't particularly impressive, but they are still leagues ahead of everything else in E by virtue of being Electric-type alone (lol Thunderbolt TM), and their unique support moves still allow them to compete with their brethren.

Electric-type pecking order: Magneton > mid-game Manectric > Pikachu

Voltorb > Plusle/Minun > early-game Electrike

I'm fine/indifferent with most of the unexplained nominations that didn't move, except for two. Ninjask and Shedinja are just so godawful in terms of efficiency. For a mon with basically no offensive potential, Nincada evolves relatively late, and its Erratic Experience group actually plays a huge factor at making it even harder to reach level 20. However, while even Beautifly can start doing stuff once it evolves, Ninjask can't even claim that, and is basically devoid of attacking options until the Secret Power TM. It gets Swords Dance but its attacks are pretty much just Aerial Ace and Shadow Ball, both of which are rather late TMs and offer lackluster coverage, and even then Ninjask has no real room to even set up in boss matchups since it's so frail while its typing and average power don't do any favors either. Shedinja also has very few important matchups where it truly walls things, and unless you make the even more inefficient decision to delay Nincada's evolution until level 25, Shedinja doesn't have Swords Dance either, and it still has the same issue that Ninjask has of not being able to attack well, up until the Shadow Ball TM. Basically, both of these mons cannot be recommended for any sort of remotely efficient run.

Baltoy D to E

Actually it was indeed E to D; you probably misremembered/misread.

Absol D to B

Absol was nommed for both B and C; C won out in the end which I can agree with. Absol's lack of STAB does impact it in important matchups since it's less likely to secure OHKOes which is bad for it due to its paper bulk, reducing its sweeping potential.

 

[Merritt]

Somehow I'm unsurprised that I got asked about literally every unaddressed nomination.

Nincada (Ninjask) E to F
Duskull E to F

Moving something down to F tier is, while not quite as high a bar, close to as high a bar as moving something to A or S tier. It's essentially a statement of either "this pokemon is completely incompetent in the major battles of the game" or "this Pokemon has extremely poor availability/needs too much investment to make up for its level of competence in the major battles of the game." Pokemon like Illumise and Skitty are terrible to the point of being unusable - Skitty needs high investment to become competent and Illumise flat out doesn't become useful. The arguments presented for Ninjask and Duskull were fine if they were drops to E, as they're not really good Pokemon, but to F requires a bit more, as they did exaggerate the bad qualities of both and didn't go into what they actually can do. The Slugma nomination was a good example of an F rank nomination.

Makuhita B to A

#462
It honestly comes down mostly to the item investment in order to help Haryiama clean. It can set up and sweep, sure, but it's going to eat potions or other healing items to do so a significant amount of the time.

Plusle E to D
Minun E to D

I mostly want another opinion on these things - I think they're being overrated, particularly considering there wasn't a run done with them. Electric types are fairly good, especially in the later half, but the issue is that it's not like they can just be ignored until said later half when they can be given the Thunderbolt TM, due to their low wild level. They need that early investment for a mediocre payoff, with terrible bulk and not enough Special Attack to guarantee the OHKO on anything not weak to electric or even things that are weak to electric and are fairly bulky.

Gulpin D to C

This one is close so I'm open to moving it if people do feel strongly about it. It just seemed like the run with it had to give it a lot of extra experience to get it functional for more than one gym.

Cacnea D to E

See: original post back in April when it moved down to E and was objected to before moving back to D.

Baltoy D to E

I reject out of hand nominations for Pokemon to move from a tier that they're not in to the one they're currently in.

Absol D to B

You'll see that, for the most part, the nominations were for B/C rank. Both to err on the side of caution and to keep in mind the not non-existent investment Absol has, it went to C. It could move to B, but it's starting at C.

Spheal D to C

The nomination was somewhat flawed for this one - it focused too much on how Walrein can handle Drake but handling one Elite Four member incredibly well isn't exactly a ticket to C. The lateness of Spheal and the mediocrity of Sealeo (it's not bad but it's definitely not very good) that it is stuck at for a little while hold it back enough for D rank. It's not a bad Pokemon, but one thing that stands out to me is the weirdness of saying that Walrein is scoring OHKOs on Drake that Ice Beam waters aren't getting - unless we're talking about something with absolutely awful SpA like Seaking or about Shelgon, most appropriately leveled water types should still be OHKOing the 4x ice weak Pokemon (and I'd be beyond shocked if Walrein was OHKOing Kingdra at a similar level). It made a comparison to Corphish and Wailmer and I think those are apt comparisons, as Wailord and Crawdaunt are at a level very similar to Walrein in my experience considering the significant availability advantage both Corphish and Wailmer have over Spheal.

 

[Infernape2018]

This may be the post that gets me banned for life, but screw it I must. I know someone, someday may complain about this, so let's get this out of the way.

Why Swampert Rules( Or why we won't argue over Swampert's ranking)

Swampert is known for being one of, if not the best Pokemon to run in any game. It's got amazing stats, the highest of any starter, great typing and wide movepool. However, I know somebody will say "lolzu liek mudkip was never a good joke, move mudkip to a." so this post is here to stop that.

Stats


HP: 100

Attack: 110

Defense: 90

Sp.Atk: 85

Sp.Def: 90

Speed: 60

Total: 535 dem stats tho

A solid HP and defensive stats give Swampert the ability to wall many threats using the many resistances it has. 110 Attack is as high as Lucario and with STAB EQ(by level-up), all the mon's die. 85 Spa isn't too high, but STAB Surf makes up for it by tearing through Levitators. 60 Speed is slow, but Mud Shot 100% speed lovering nature and EVs and badge boosts make this non-existant.\

Movepool
STAB Surf and EQ are amazing, Mud Shot holds while you wait for Lvl 46, Rock Tomb snipes the many Wingulls arond and provide coverage, Return adds even more coverage and Ice Beam and Blizzard kill the Grass-types that might stand a chance. Oh yeah. it has Toxicstall, Attract, Subs, DynamicPunch, HM's and more to consider

Matchups( From the NuzlockeDex Wiki)

• Rival (Route 103): Tackle spam is all you need. Depending on your level, though, you may or may not be outsped and/or need a Potion to win the battle. Carry one just in case.
• Gym #1 - Roxanne (Rustboro City, Rock-type): Step 1: Spam Water Gun. Step 2: Win.
• Rival (Rustboro City, optional): Treecko shouldn't need explaining. Lotad has Absorb; don't do it.
• Gym #2 - Brawly (Dewford Town, Fighting-type): Marshtomp is generally bulky enough to go toe-to-toe with Machop, but Makuhita will Bulk Up and pull Arm Thrust when you've lowered its health enough. Start off with Mud Shot to lower its Speed, then tread lightly and potentially proceed with Water Gun, to avoid losing damage output due to Bulk Up. Use ONLY Water Gun on Meditite because it has Focus Punch, and you really don't want Mud Shot to miss.
• Rival (Route 110): Slugma is defeated easily by Water Gun or Mud Shot while Lombre and Grovyle shouldn't be attempted, for obvious reasons.
• Wally (Mauville City): Lol, he only has a Ralts. Mud Shot it.
• Gym #3 - Wattson (Mauville City, Electric-type): Just spam Mud Shot and watch everything die.
• Tabitha (Mt. Chimney): Again, spam Mud Shot against everything that isn't Zubat; use Water Gun for that. Marshtomp is not really threatened by this team.
• Maxie (Mt. Chimney): Mightyena's Intimidate is annoying but you could probably take it on with Water Gun. Zubat is easy, just watch out for its confusion shenanigans. Camerupt is 2HKO'd easily by Water Gun or Mud Shot.
• Gym #4 - Flannery (Lavaridge City, Fire-type): Marshtomp's Water Gun/Mud Shot spam will deal with Slugma, Numel, and Camerupt easily. Torkoal is another story because Attract (if your Marshtomp is male, which is most likely) will be annoying and paralysis from Body Slam will be annoying. Also, your Water Gun and Mud Shot won't be doing a ton of damage. It's not a bad idea but it's a difficult battle nonetheless. Bring a Red Flute from the glass shop if you're vulnerable to Attract, too, because you will need it.
• Gym #5 - Norman (Petalburg City, Normal-type): Marshtomp's bulk may be helpful here, but remember that no matter what you're going to be taking a lot of damage from Slaking while doing next-to-nothing in return. Stay away from it unless evolved, which requires a good deal of overgrinding. Spinda and Vigoroth are easy enough. Linoone is more difficult: it has Belly Drum and its Speed will put you in great danger, if you can't KO it fast enough. Use something more appropriate for it.
• Rival (Route 119): Same things as before, except now you have a new toy in the form of Surf.
• Gym #6 - Winona (Fortree City, Flying-type): If you went and picked up Ice Beam, this battle is so much easier. You should have a Swampert by now too, unless you're running with a level limit. Swablu is an absolute joke and will fall to Ice Beam. Tropius is doubly weak to Ice Beam but is very bulky and also has a Grass move to use against you, so beware. Skarmory will probably fall to two or three Surfs. Pelipper is a bit annoying and is probably too bulky without any weaknesses to any moves you could possibly have, barring the weak Rock Tomb, but Ice Beam still does decent damage. You have the Thunderbolt TM, use it. Altaria is really bulky but is doubly weak to Ice Beam so go right ahead, just watch out for Dragon Dance.
• Rival (Lilycove City): Same old, same old. Except there's a Tropius, which is of course to be avoided, unless you're certain you can outspeed and nuke it with Ice Beam.
• Tabitha (Jagged Pass Hideout): Surf goes a long way here. If Mightyena outspeeds you, Swagger may give you problems, but this shouldn't be the case.
• Maxie (Jagged Pass Hideout): Be very careful in this battle. Mightyena is at a much higher level, and may well outspeed Swampert now. Swagger is a very real problem and if you have something faster, you should probably use it. Swampert can chime back in to nuke Crobat with Ice Beam and Surf the Camerupt.
• Matt (Lilycove Hideout): Just spam your best move, which is probably Surf. Watch out for Mightyena's Swagger at any rate, it's never fun hitting yourself with that high an Attack, but you should outspeed anyway.
• Gym #7 - Tate and Liza (Mossdeep City, Psychic-type): Swampert excels in this battle thanks to Surf hitting everyone except Xatu super-effectively, and the bird can be handled with Ice Beam. If Sunny Day gets up, switch Swampert out of there because not only will Surf be significantly weaker, the Solrock has SolarBeam which Swampert is capable of surviving but shouldn't be attempted. Otherwise Surf spam is the key to victory.
• Maxie and Tabitha (Mossdeep Space Center, tag battle with Steven): Surf the Mightyenas and Camerupts. Golbat and Crobat are handled by Ice Beam. Again, be careful of Swagger.
• Shelly (Seafloor Cavern): You guess it: more Swagger play. Sharpedo is relatively harmless, though, unless it Screeches you and prepares the ground for Mightyena's Take Down to hit much harder than it otherwise would. Watch out for deadly combos, but otherwise not dangerous.
• Archie (Seafloor Cavern): Always the same. Just Surf Mightyena and then Ice Beam Crobat, use Mud Shot for Sharpedo, or Earthquake if you have it. Yet again, Mightyena's Swagger may be a problem if it outspeeds you, but you should be at a high enough level to avoid this.
• Gym #8 - Juan (Sootopolis City, Water-type): This is a rather difficult battle for Swampert because everything resists Surf and Ice Beam while being neutral to Earthquake. Probably not the best fight, but you can set up X items on Luvdisc if you wish, and then hammer down the rest. Even if you don't, Swampert's Earthquake is still good and you shouldn't meet many threatening enemies here, apart from Kingdra and its Double Team shenanigans, best handled with a perfect accuracy move or plenty of X Accuracy to spare.
• Wally (Victory Road): Altaria can be Ice Beamed. Magneton is ripped to shreds by Earthquake and Delcatty falls to either Surf or Earthquake. Roselia will destroy you and Gardevoir is powerful but will likely be 2HKO'd by Earthquake.
• Elite Four Sidney (Ever Grande City, Dark-type): Mightyena and Absol can be Surfed or Earthquaked and Crawdaunt falls to Earthquake. Don't attempt to fight Cacturne, even if you're packing Ice Beam (which you really should be). Shiftry has no Grass moves instead, so you can go ahead.
• Elite Four Phoebe (Ever Grande City, Ghost-type): You can probably 2HKO or 3HKO the Dusclopses with Surf or Earthquake, but remember that they have Pressure. Banettes and Sableyes will likely fall to Surf or Earthquake but beware of Grudge and Will-O-Wisp, as well as potential Curse damage from the first Dusclops.
• Elite Four Glacia (Ever Grande City, Ice-type): Sealeos can be Earthquaked while Glalies can be Surfed or Earthquaked. Walrein is too bulky and can stall you out using Hail damage and can even pull Sheer Cold, which you can only avoid by over-leveling it. Use something that hits it super-effectively if you can, otherwise be ready to heal.
• Elite Four Drake (Ever Grande City, Dragon-type): How to own Drake: spam Ice Beam. Maybe use something else for Kingdra, but even that can be Earthquaked.
• Champion Wallace (Ever Grande City, Water-type): Earthquake will kill everything (especially Tentacruel) except Gyarados (who has the annoying Intimidate) and Ludicolo (who hits you super-effectively). Do it if you'd like, except find something else for Gyarados and Ludicolo, because the former can spam strong moves and take little to no damage from yours, and the latter has STAB Giga Drain.

Overall

If you still think that Swampert should be any tier lower than A, then your probably clicked this thinking it was the HGSS tier list. Argue there, but Swampert is the best mon in the game. Even Smogon knows that, and they think Lord Nuptup is NU.

 

[Infernape2018]

Time to talk about another garbage Pokemon:

E to F:

This thing. This goddamn pos. It's already bad enough to be the worst Fire-type in-game (albeit among a list of just four), but this mon is just so atrociously bad on its own merit. Let's look at its current stats when we first we get it as well as its future prospects. Right off the bat, Slugma has horrible stats, with the only respectable stat being its Special Attack, which isn't even particularly great by Fire-type standards (in fact it ends up as the worst). Its level-up movepool only starts looking up at level 36 where it gets Flamethrower, but until then it's stuck with Ember and unSTAB Rock Throw, the latter of which might as well not be there. Compared to fellow E Rank Torkoal, which already gets absurdly early power moves like level 20 Body Slam and level 30 Flamethrower, and it's really not looking up for Slugma. Even with Numel's reliance on Overheat, it can fall back on Magnitude and later Earthquake for an alternative source of damage. Once Slugma uses its Overheat, it's pretty much a sitting duck and thus makes its sweeping potential even poorer than it already is, and STAB Rock Slide as a Magcargo isn't doing a lot of good either with how weak it is. Speaking of Magcargo, it evolves at LEVEL 38. So you have to slog through way past mid-game with this pathetic mon, and what do you get out of it? Just an increase in bulk (which then gets ruined by its part Rock-typing) with barely any noticeable difference in its other stats. What an utter letdown.

Well surely Slugma has at least some decent matchups on its bumpy road to Magcargo right? Yeah, Slugma has no favorable matchups whatsoever. It does nothing but get outdamaged by nearly every single Gym leader's Pokemon, with the best it can hope for is getting off an Overheat against the weaker Pokemon and be a bench sitter for the rest of the fight. Its awful Speed, bad bulk, and poor neutral power outside of Overheat (before it gets Flamethrower) are horrendously bad for sweeping route trainers, meaning training it on the go is a nightmare and will invariably result in you spending healing items/taking trips to the Pokemon Center far more often than you'd like. Even at its absolute best, Magcargo is still going to underpeform at the Elite 4; it has to pick certain matchups to function well, and will rarely ever KO more than two opponents before it is forced to switch/heal. Its 4x weaknesses and horrid Speed really start to rear their ugly heads here (as if they haven't numerous times before); it doesn't even beat Steven properly as a whopping 5 of his Pokemon have an advantage over Magcargo due to Earthquake bodying it or Cradily just soaking up hits and firing back with Confuse Ray, Giga Drains, or SE Ancientpowers.

Tl;dr: Horrid stats both before and after evolution, absurdly late evolution level, pretty much no good favorable matchups that allow it to potentially clean sweep. All of these qualities make it an absolute pain to train and use. I daresay every single E Tier and even some F Tiers have more potential than this.

Ivan Ooze would be proud

 

[Merritt]

I appreciate your enthusiasm Infernape2018 but there not really any need to defend Pokemon who haven't been nominated down, particularly Pokemon like Swampert who's almost universally agreed to be the best ingame Pokemon in RSE.

In addition, rather than double posting please edit your post with new things, particularly if it's been less than a day since you last post. It's just generally bad forum etiquette (in pretty much every forum on the internet) to double or more post.

 

[Punchshroom]

Moving something down to F tier is, while not quite as high a bar, close to as high a bar as moving something to A or S tier. It's essentially a statement of either "this pokemon is completely incompetent in the major battles of the game" or "this Pokemon has extremely poor availability/needs too much investment to make up for its level of competence in the major battles of the game." Pokemon like Illumise and Skitty are terrible to the point of being unusable - Skitty needs high investment to become competent and Illumise flat out doesn't become useful. The arguments presented for Ninjask and Duskull were fine if they were drops to E, as they're not really good Pokemon, but to F requires a bit more, as they did exaggerate the bad qualities of both and didn't go into what they actually can do. The Slugma nomination was a good example of an F rank nomination.

The bolded part definitely applies to Nincada. It's an abhorrent pain in the ass to train up (no thanks to its lack of offense and debilitating Experience group), and even when you evolve it you still has to invest further until it actually starts doing stuff, and by "doing stuff" I mean "Ninjask being able to efficiently beat route trainers" and "Shedinja actually being able to do efficient damage in the matchups that it hardwalls". They're prime examples of being poor returns of heavy investment.

This applies slightly less to Duskull, but holy shit it's so weak and evolves so late; thank lord it levels up rather quickly. Still, Ice Beam is pretty much the only argument saving it (technically you could Heart Scale Ice Punch onto Dusclops if you really need Ice Beam on something else, but then why bother with Ice Punch Dusclops :/ ), and it's not even a great user of it.

I mostly want another opinion on Plusle & Minun - I think they're being overrated, particularly considering there wasn't a run done with them. Electric types are fairly good, especially in the later half, but the issue is that it's not like they can just be ignored until said later half when they can be given the Thunderbolt TM, due to their low wild level. They need that early investment for a mediocre payoff, with terrible bulk and not enough Special Attack to guarantee the OHKO on anything not weak to electric or even things that are weak to electric and are fairly bulky.

Sure, their early track record is definitely bumpy, but keep in mind that Plusle & Minun's Sparks are one of the stronger attacks one can have before Wattson, rivaling the likes of Combusken's Double Kick, Marshtomp's Mud Shot, and Swellow's Wing Attack, so they can hold up for a good while before TBolt, plus their support moves can allow them to potentially contribute in the Gym fights that early Electrike/Manectric has little business participating in. I especially don't consider Plusle/Minun to be on par with E Ranks like Poochyena, Sandshrew, Anorith, etc., and I see Plusle/Minun even outperforming certain D Ranks like Seviper, Bellossom, and Wailmer.

Edited: I've yet to find a situation where Plusle & Minun actually fell short of KOes/2HKOes they needed to; the only instance that pops up enough is when fighting Maxie/Archie's Crobat.

Gulpin is close so I'm open to moving it if people do feel strongly about it. It just seemed like the run with it had to give it a lot of extra experience to get it functional for more than one gym.

If the extra experience is your only real concern against Gulpin's rise, then perish the thought. Gulpin doesn't need the Brawly fight to start contributing, as super early Yawn + STAB Sludge is more than enough to let Gulpin get the experience it needs, especially with the 'training ground routes' adjacent to Mauville City. Gulpin also takes very little time to evolve, as its Fluctuating Exp group means it reaches level 26 at the same rate as Fast.

 

[sumwun]

Somehow I'm unsurprised that I got asked about literally every unaddressed nomination.

Is there anything wrong with wanting to see explanations? Either way, thanks for addressing them.

Actually it was indeed E to D; you probably misremembered/misread.

You're the one who mis-remembered. It was your own nomination.

 

[Altissimo]

Is there anything wrong with wanting to see explanations?

I think it's more about asking for explanations for literally every one instead of using your own judgment for at least some

 

[sumwun]

I think it's more about asking for explanations for literally every one instead of using your own judgment for at least some

What would be the purpose in discussing things if everyone could simply use their own judgement for everything?

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Absol should still be B even with investing the three TMs. Frailty or not it runs through things super efficiently from the moment you get it and even most things (most things) with the bulk to take a hit won't be strong enough to significantly threaten Absol in return (I.e. dusclops, wailord are good things for Absol to fight, tentacruel and milotic are not)

 

[Infernape2018]

"if there is a 1% chance someones going to rag on Swampert, we have to treat it as an absolute certainty"

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

We really don't

 

[Its_A_Random]

I'm fine/indifferent with most of the unexplained nominations that didn't move, except for two. Ninjask and Shedinja are just so godawful in terms of efficiency. For a mon with basically no offensive potential, Nincada evolves relatively late, and its Erratic Experience group actually plays a huge factor at making it even harder to reach level 20. However, while even Beautifly can start doing stuff once it evolves, Ninjask can't even claim that, and is basically devoid of attacking options until the Secret Power TM. It gets Swords Dance but its attacks are pretty much just Aerial Ace and Shadow Ball, both of which are rather late TMs and offer lackluster coverage, and even then Ninjask has no real room to even set up in boss matchups since it's so frail while its typing and average power don't do any favors either. Shedinja also has very few important matchups where it truly walls things, and unless you make the even more inefficient decision to delay Nincada's evolution until level 25, Shedinja doesn't have Swords Dance either, and it still has the same issue that Ninjask has of not being able to attack well, up until the Shadow Ball TM. Basically, both of these mons cannot be recommended for any sort of remotely efficient run.

Can't say much on Ninjask but Shedinja is not F-Rank. It's an otherwise solid D-Rank Pokémon pushed down to E-Rank because Nincada is terrible to train (until you get Secret Power), which is a fair assessment.

Also delaying until Level 25 for Swords Dance is far more efficient for using Shedinja than evolving it right away as it saves you from using X-Attacks and allows for long term more efficient solos (even for just field trainers) due to being able to deal more damage (If a two mon trainer has mons that are two shot without SD and one shot with SD, I can save a turn by going for SD first then attacking). As for putting up with five more levels of Nincada? By that point you have Secret Power (unless you decide to use it on something else) and Nincada actually performs quite okay with it from my experience (though I got Lonely nature in my run which would have helped). Also Dig is kinda okay for coverage for Sheddy (though you generally are not one-shotting Flannery's Slugma with it...).

Basically Shedinja is alright in-game from my experience. Nothing amazing but it isn't some complete joke that makes it feel like you suffered through Nincada for Nincada 2.0.

EDIT: I guess Screech is a good substitute for Swords Dance if you don't want the extra five levels due to AI tendencies to Switch and what have you, but I personally prefer Swords Dance due to not needing to re-apply on each opponent, accuracy issues, and stuff like Clear Body.

 

[Punchshroom]

You're the one who mis-remembered. It was your own nomination.

Yes, I do remember that, and the nomination actually went through that time. I retracted that thought later down the line though, thinking that despite Baltoy's shortcomings, it didn't really fit it with the rest of E.