This is a rough mathematical and objective analysis of which Generation of Pokémon brought the best set of these little monsters.
There have been 6 generation of Pokémon so far and with ORAS now set to come out for the global audience, it seems like there is no stopping the franchise. As of generation 6 (XYZ), there are 719 Pokemon (Excluding Kyurem B and W, Volcanion and Mega Evolutions), these are spread over 18 different types. Different generations of the games were set in different regions and so, brought various combinations of types, abilities and stat spreads. Given that a Pokémon can have any of 188 abilities, 18 types, 17 secondary types and virtually infinite number of stat spreads, the number of Pokémon we can expect is mind-blowingly high. Let’s just hope that the franchise leaders realize that after a while, it just becomes tedious and boring. It is important to note that my assessment is based entirely on the competitive battling scene. Not in-game and so, things like sleep mechanics et all have been disregarded.
So, forth with the analysis: ever since the introduction of Gen 2, there has always been debate about which generation is the best, most people who started their interest into the games as kids believe that the 1st generation is the best. This is more nostalgia than anything else but maybe there is virtue in their argument. Or maybe, ironically, the best generation is the 6th? Ask anyone any question about this and they’ll give you answers based on their own preference, I – for one- believe that best generation is the 3rd. After all, it has the most number of pseudo legendaries, the best Pokémon Champion (Cynthia’s good and hot but she’s not Steven), the third best generic bird, the best starter, the best legendary trio! But, being a student of science, I have taught myself well to not be bound by personal preferences when it comes to objective analyses and so, this one will also be just that. As you will see from the brief explanations that go with every table, the main purpose of this article was to make a fair assessment of terms. The 6 generations each contributed different number of Pokémon and if we were to judge each generation based on these conglomeration of Pokémon, it’d been unfair on generations like 6 and 2 which produced the least number. At the same time, it was going to be really difficult to get this done without taking into account popular opinion, usage statistics and general power of each Pokémon.
Pokémon Showdown and Smogon’s usage stats and tier differentiation fulfill all those criteria I set. This is why I have used their statistics and assigned values to each tier; and these values aren’t arbitrarily set based on things like how popular the tier is, how difficult it is for me, number of bans in each, etc. Instead, the values I assigned are based on how difficult and rare it is for a Pokémon to be in that tier. This assignment removes the possibility of discrimination based on taste and chauvinistic ideals (by which I look at players who look down on RU and PU). How many tiers were going to be? Would I include LC Ubers, BL, BL2? No. Instead, all Pokémon in those tiers have been rounded down. Now, I expect a lot of stick for this, so I’d like to clear that, in my 3 generations of competitive battling (I started when we used to run defensive Gyarados and DD T-tars back in DPP-OU), I have noticed that everytime a Pokémon is sent into bans like BL, BL2 and LC ubers, the tier which they leave, become that much stall-ier. For the best example, look at the case of Weavile, it has great attack and speed stats but dismal defense. It does absolute wonder in UU and keeps walls like Blissey, Florges, Chesnaught, etc in check. But it can’t seem to find a niche in OU and worse, after it’s promotion, UU became more stall-y than ever. So, this is the single assumption, if any in this article: that BL, BL2 and LC Ubers make their respective lower tiers more stall. (Now this isn’t a view that stall is a boring form of battle, I am a regular user of stall and believe that any battle style is okay).
Table 1 lists the ratio of Pokémon in a particular tier from a particular generation. This gives a ratio which helps us in determining how strongly a generation invested in every generation.
Gen 1 (151)
Gen 2 (100)
Gen 3 (135)
Gen 4 (107)
Gen 5 (156)
Gen 6 (70)
Ubers
1 (0.662%)
2
(2%)
5 (3.703%)
5 (4.673%)
3 (1.923%)
3 (4.285%)
OU
11 (7.248%)
5
(5%)
8 (5.926%)
6 (5.667%)
10 (6.41%)
3 (4.285%)
UU
13 (8.609%)
16
(16%)
9
(6.667%)
13 (12.149%)
11 (7.05%)
10 (14.28%)
RU
8 (5.298%)
5
(5%)
6
(4.44%)
14 (13.084%)
18 (11.53%)
7
(10%)
NU
8 (5.298%)
7
(7%)
10 (7.407%)
7 (6.542%)
15 (9.615%)
6 (8.571%)
PU
32 (21.192%)
22
(22%)
35 (25.93%)
23 (21.49%)
26 (16.67%)
10 (14.28%)
NFE
20 (13.245%)
9
(9%)
16 (11.851%)
6
(5.60%)
19 (12.179%)
5 (7.14%)
LC
58 (38.41%)
34
(34%)
46
(34.074%)
33 (30.84%)
54 (34.611%)
26 (37.143%)
(Table 1. Investment of every generation in singular tiers set, as of 2/11/2014)
Use this table to see which tier your favorite generation invests the most in.
Now, take the ratio from this table 1 (as P) and input that into the following formula. This formula is set to objectively place values on each tier based on the rarity of that tier based on the total of Pokémon. This factor is F.
Score, S = F*P
Where F =
| x = number of Pokémon in the given tier
P is the % from table for that generation for that tier.
As an example, for Gen 1 Ubers,
F = 1 -
P = .662% or .00662
Therefore, S = .00662*.9728571
= 0.00644
On placing these functions, the following table is obtained.
Note that the value obtained at the end ∑ ranges from 0-1
Gen 1
Gen 2
Gen 3
Gen 4
Gen 5
Gen 6
Ubers
0.00644
0.01946
0.036025
0.045462
0.018708
0.04168693
OU
0.06787
0.0468195
0.05490
0.052503
0.06002
0.04124
UU
0.07651
0.14219
0.059277
0.10797
0.062655
0.12691
RU
0.04833
0.045613
0.040504
0.11936
0.105183
0.091225
NU
0.048764
0.06443
0.068176
0.060214
0.084984
0.078889
PU
0.15699
0.162977
0.192091
0.159199
0.1234923
0.105787
NFE
0.117025
0.079519
0.1047084
0.049478
0.1076064
0.063085
LC
0.178098
0.15765
0.157993
0.142997
0.160478
0.1722229
∑
0.700027
0.718659
0.7136744
0.737183
0.723126
0.72104583
Table 2 Valuation of Generation based on tier investment
Tier Investment gives us a clear picture of which Generation produced the best Pokémon competitively. The reason this analyses works is because most of the work has already been done by Showdown and Smogon in differentiating between the tiers. Here, factors such as abilities, stats and nature are looked at! Also, it is important to note that the number of Pokémon introduced by each generation does not play a part in determining which is the best. If this wasn’t done, then Gen 5 will have had 0.217 chances to be the best compared to .210 for gen 1, .13908 for gen 2, .18776 for gen 3, .148817 for gen 4, .09357 for gen 6.
Also, as an added bonus for sticking by me for 3 pages, here are two more pages for general trivia
Gen 1
Gen 2
Gen 3
Gen 4
Gen 5
Gen 6
Ubers
1
(5.26%)
2 (10.53%)
5
(26.3%)
5
(26.3%)
3
(15.79%)
3
(15.79%)
OU
11
(25.58%)
5
(11.63%)
8
(18.6%)
6
(12.5%)
10
(10.34%)
3
(18.86%)
UU
13
(18.05%)
16
(22.22%)
9
(12.5%)
13
(18.05%)
11
(15.3%)
10
(13.9%)
RU
8
(13.79%)
5
(8.62%)
6
(10.34%)
14
(24.13%)
18
(31.63%)
7
(12.07%)
NU
8
(15.09%)
7
(13.2%)
10
(18.86%0
7
(13.2%)
15
(28.3%)
6
(11.32%)
PU
32 (21.62%)
22
(14.86%)
35
(23.64%)
23
(15.54%)
26
(17.56%)
10
(6.76%)
NFE
20
26.66%)
9
(12%)
16
(21.33%)
6
(8%)
19
(25.33%)
5
(6.67%)
LC
58
(23.1%)
34
(13.54%)
46
(18.32%)
33
(13.14%)
54
(21.51%)
26
(10.35%)
Table 3
If table 1 gave you the ratio of investment in each tier from every generation, table 3 gives you data to understand which generation reigns supreme in each tier.
So this is the simplest mathematical and objective analysis I can come up with to measure which generation is the BEST! However, this is a purely rigid answer and even I do not stand by it. We all have our favorites and while it may seem that my analysis is unbiased and fundamentally complete, I would argue that this is incomplete. There are two more complete possible analyses that I can do on the topic. The first one will constitute of emotional attachments placed by Trainers on each Pokémon and therefore every generation. This, while seemingly impossible, is the way to go. Should this approach be unavailable, the next best procedure would be to allow for extremely free movement of Pokémon between every tier. The one that I have done assumes what Smogon and Showdown already assume in the discrimination: that some Pokémon are more powerful than others and that this basis is enough to determine the best models of the tier. However, in doing this, we are ignoring other trainer mindsets like attachment to Pokémon, and one of my OU teams consist of a Seviper because I love using it. While Smogon’s usage stats account for this, it is ultimately left out in determination of tiers. The model that I suggest for a complete analysis uses Free Market Economic theories to determine which Pokémon singularly has more over others, which type is best, which tier and which generation. But this is a topic of conversation for another day.
There have been 6 generation of Pokémon so far and with ORAS now set to come out for the global audience, it seems like there is no stopping the franchise. As of generation 6 (XYZ), there are 719 Pokemon (Excluding Kyurem B and W, Volcanion and Mega Evolutions), these are spread over 18 different types. Different generations of the games were set in different regions and so, brought various combinations of types, abilities and stat spreads. Given that a Pokémon can have any of 188 abilities, 18 types, 17 secondary types and virtually infinite number of stat spreads, the number of Pokémon we can expect is mind-blowingly high. Let’s just hope that the franchise leaders realize that after a while, it just becomes tedious and boring. It is important to note that my assessment is based entirely on the competitive battling scene. Not in-game and so, things like sleep mechanics et all have been disregarded.
So, forth with the analysis: ever since the introduction of Gen 2, there has always been debate about which generation is the best, most people who started their interest into the games as kids believe that the 1st generation is the best. This is more nostalgia than anything else but maybe there is virtue in their argument. Or maybe, ironically, the best generation is the 6th? Ask anyone any question about this and they’ll give you answers based on their own preference, I – for one- believe that best generation is the 3rd. After all, it has the most number of pseudo legendaries, the best Pokémon Champion (Cynthia’s good and hot but she’s not Steven), the third best generic bird, the best starter, the best legendary trio! But, being a student of science, I have taught myself well to not be bound by personal preferences when it comes to objective analyses and so, this one will also be just that. As you will see from the brief explanations that go with every table, the main purpose of this article was to make a fair assessment of terms. The 6 generations each contributed different number of Pokémon and if we were to judge each generation based on these conglomeration of Pokémon, it’d been unfair on generations like 6 and 2 which produced the least number. At the same time, it was going to be really difficult to get this done without taking into account popular opinion, usage statistics and general power of each Pokémon.
Pokémon Showdown and Smogon’s usage stats and tier differentiation fulfill all those criteria I set. This is why I have used their statistics and assigned values to each tier; and these values aren’t arbitrarily set based on things like how popular the tier is, how difficult it is for me, number of bans in each, etc. Instead, the values I assigned are based on how difficult and rare it is for a Pokémon to be in that tier. This assignment removes the possibility of discrimination based on taste and chauvinistic ideals (by which I look at players who look down on RU and PU). How many tiers were going to be? Would I include LC Ubers, BL, BL2? No. Instead, all Pokémon in those tiers have been rounded down. Now, I expect a lot of stick for this, so I’d like to clear that, in my 3 generations of competitive battling (I started when we used to run defensive Gyarados and DD T-tars back in DPP-OU), I have noticed that everytime a Pokémon is sent into bans like BL, BL2 and LC ubers, the tier which they leave, become that much stall-ier. For the best example, look at the case of Weavile, it has great attack and speed stats but dismal defense. It does absolute wonder in UU and keeps walls like Blissey, Florges, Chesnaught, etc in check. But it can’t seem to find a niche in OU and worse, after it’s promotion, UU became more stall-y than ever. So, this is the single assumption, if any in this article: that BL, BL2 and LC Ubers make their respective lower tiers more stall. (Now this isn’t a view that stall is a boring form of battle, I am a regular user of stall and believe that any battle style is okay).
Table 1 lists the ratio of Pokémon in a particular tier from a particular generation. This gives a ratio which helps us in determining how strongly a generation invested in every generation.
Gen 1 (151)
Gen 2 (100)
Gen 3 (135)
Gen 4 (107)
Gen 5 (156)
Gen 6 (70)
Ubers
1 (0.662%)
2
(2%)
5 (3.703%)
5 (4.673%)
3 (1.923%)
3 (4.285%)
OU
11 (7.248%)
5
(5%)
8 (5.926%)
6 (5.667%)
10 (6.41%)
3 (4.285%)
UU
13 (8.609%)
16
(16%)
9
(6.667%)
13 (12.149%)
11 (7.05%)
10 (14.28%)
RU
8 (5.298%)
5
(5%)
6
(4.44%)
14 (13.084%)
18 (11.53%)
7
(10%)
NU
8 (5.298%)
7
(7%)
10 (7.407%)
7 (6.542%)
15 (9.615%)
6 (8.571%)
PU
32 (21.192%)
22
(22%)
35 (25.93%)
23 (21.49%)
26 (16.67%)
10 (14.28%)
NFE
20 (13.245%)
9
(9%)
16 (11.851%)
6
(5.60%)
19 (12.179%)
5 (7.14%)
LC
58 (38.41%)
34
(34%)
46
(34.074%)
33 (30.84%)
54 (34.611%)
26 (37.143%)
(Table 1. Investment of every generation in singular tiers set, as of 2/11/2014)
Use this table to see which tier your favorite generation invests the most in.
Now, take the ratio from this table 1 (as P) and input that into the following formula. This formula is set to objectively place values on each tier based on the rarity of that tier based on the total of Pokémon. This factor is F.
Score, S = F*P
Where F =
P is the % from table for that generation for that tier.
As an example, for Gen 1 Ubers,
F = 1 -
P = .662% or .00662
Therefore, S = .00662*.9728571
= 0.00644
On placing these functions, the following table is obtained.
Note that the value obtained at the end ∑ ranges from 0-1
Gen 1
Gen 2
Gen 3
Gen 4
Gen 5
Gen 6
Ubers
0.00644
0.01946
0.036025
0.045462
0.018708
0.04168693
OU
0.06787
0.0468195
0.05490
0.052503
0.06002
0.04124
UU
0.07651
0.14219
0.059277
0.10797
0.062655
0.12691
RU
0.04833
0.045613
0.040504
0.11936
0.105183
0.091225
NU
0.048764
0.06443
0.068176
0.060214
0.084984
0.078889
PU
0.15699
0.162977
0.192091
0.159199
0.1234923
0.105787
NFE
0.117025
0.079519
0.1047084
0.049478
0.1076064
0.063085
LC
0.178098
0.15765
0.157993
0.142997
0.160478
0.1722229
∑
0.700027
0.718659
0.7136744
0.737183
0.723126
0.72104583
Table 2 Valuation of Generation based on tier investment
Tier Investment gives us a clear picture of which Generation produced the best Pokémon competitively. The reason this analyses works is because most of the work has already been done by Showdown and Smogon in differentiating between the tiers. Here, factors such as abilities, stats and nature are looked at! Also, it is important to note that the number of Pokémon introduced by each generation does not play a part in determining which is the best. If this wasn’t done, then Gen 5 will have had 0.217 chances to be the best compared to .210 for gen 1, .13908 for gen 2, .18776 for gen 3, .148817 for gen 4, .09357 for gen 6.
Also, as an added bonus for sticking by me for 3 pages, here are two more pages for general trivia
Gen 1
Gen 2
Gen 3
Gen 4
Gen 5
Gen 6
Ubers
1
(5.26%)
2 (10.53%)
5
(26.3%)
5
(26.3%)
3
(15.79%)
3
(15.79%)
OU
11
(25.58%)
5
(11.63%)
8
(18.6%)
6
(12.5%)
10
(10.34%)
3
(18.86%)
UU
13
(18.05%)
16
(22.22%)
9
(12.5%)
13
(18.05%)
11
(15.3%)
10
(13.9%)
RU
8
(13.79%)
5
(8.62%)
6
(10.34%)
14
(24.13%)
18
(31.63%)
7
(12.07%)
NU
8
(15.09%)
7
(13.2%)
10
(18.86%0
7
(13.2%)
15
(28.3%)
6
(11.32%)
PU
32 (21.62%)
22
(14.86%)
35
(23.64%)
23
(15.54%)
26
(17.56%)
10
(6.76%)
NFE
20
26.66%)
9
(12%)
16
(21.33%)
6
(8%)
19
(25.33%)
5
(6.67%)
LC
58
(23.1%)
34
(13.54%)
46
(18.32%)
33
(13.14%)
54
(21.51%)
26
(10.35%)
Table 3
If table 1 gave you the ratio of investment in each tier from every generation, table 3 gives you data to understand which generation reigns supreme in each tier.
So this is the simplest mathematical and objective analysis I can come up with to measure which generation is the BEST! However, this is a purely rigid answer and even I do not stand by it. We all have our favorites and while it may seem that my analysis is unbiased and fundamentally complete, I would argue that this is incomplete. There are two more complete possible analyses that I can do on the topic. The first one will constitute of emotional attachments placed by Trainers on each Pokémon and therefore every generation. This, while seemingly impossible, is the way to go. Should this approach be unavailable, the next best procedure would be to allow for extremely free movement of Pokémon between every tier. The one that I have done assumes what Smogon and Showdown already assume in the discrimination: that some Pokémon are more powerful than others and that this basis is enough to determine the best models of the tier. However, in doing this, we are ignoring other trainer mindsets like attachment to Pokémon, and one of my OU teams consist of a Seviper because I love using it. While Smogon’s usage stats account for this, it is ultimately left out in determination of tiers. The model that I suggest for a complete analysis uses Free Market Economic theories to determine which Pokémon singularly has more over others, which type is best, which tier and which generation. But this is a topic of conversation for another day.
