ORAS In-game Tier List - Read Post #324

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In all honesty, Bagon sounds like an E. Training a Ralts (Gallade) is a much better idea.
It's probably D, but I'm sure it's not E.

Bagon is encountered in one of the fllors of Metror Falls (one small floor where you can get TM02 (Dragon Claw), the same as in RSE). Unlike in RSE, it's encountered between level 37 and level 40, which is similar to Victory's Road Pokemon. To get a level 40 Bagon, you can do the Repel trick with a level 39 Pokemon.

When Bagon is caught, he will had this moveset:
Bagon @ ???
-Focus Energy/Scary Face
-Crunch
-Dragon Claw
-Zen Headbutt

You can use Rock Slide or Fire Balst, moves that comes out from TM.
Bagon evolves to Shelgon t Lv 30 and Shelgon evolves to Salamence at Lv 50. For getting Shelgon, use a Rare Candy and you get a Pokemon with:
65 HP/90 Atk/100 Def/60 SpA/50 SpD/50 Spe

it's not the best, but with those stats is enought o work. it probably still has some Water routes and the entire victory Road to train, although you would have to grind if you want a Salamence for the Elite 4 (it evolves at level 50). I think that the team has to be at least level 50 to defeat the Elite 4 (and if not, you should the Exp- Share during the late battles)* but given how Salamence comes late and the slow ExP group could not be guarantee to be Level 50 during thew Elite 4 and it would require notable extra training.

Given how relatively inefficient it is, how weak Shelgon is (but Shelgon is mediocre it's late-game, it's usable until the Elite 4).

Because all of those details, I would say that at last it's D. E should only be reserved for the Pokemon that (even with Exp- Share) are nearly unusable in normal playthrough conditions.

Gallade should be E completely. Having to deal with a kirlia until level 45-50 (whose movepool doesn't work for Gallade) is useless. If Kirlia is already very few at level 25-30 you will know how weak it is when everything uses fully evolved (and strong) Pokemon.

And using Super Training is inefficient.
1) You have to fully EV one of your Pokemon.
2) You have to enter Super Training and pass all of levels until you have access to this level: "An Opening of Lighting-Quick Attacks!"
3) You havt o defeat that level and you will have a 1/5 chance (is really 1/5?) of getting the Dawn Stone

Too much time to simply get a Dawn Stone. You should stick with Gardevoir.
 
Bagon is in a shitty training group unlike Mawile or Spoink, comes late, and if you really want to rank something so late high, must I remind you that it can never, ever be higher in any way possible than the Main Story Legends, aka the breaker of this game?
 

Colonel M

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Getting to Level 5o is a pretty big challenge. The only way Bagon could escape E IMO is if you capture one from DexNav that is +10 levels higher.
 
Eviolite Shelgon may be good enough for D, even if Salamence isn't. That doesn't require any grinding really (though it's still out of the way), and may be Bagon's saving grace.
 

Colonel M

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Eviolite Shelgon may be good enough for D, even if Salamence isn't. That doesn't require any grinding really (though it's still out of the way), and may be Bagon's saving grace.
Not really. Shelgon really lacks an offensive presence in the Elite 4 (Dragon doesn't hit anything but Drake for SE coverage) and Eviolite only helps here and there. Like, Shelgon probably isn't contributing shit against Glacia and I doubt he's groundbreaking versus Steven. Sydney he suffers the issue of being so godawful slow that he's just going to take repeated hits and go nowhere.

Being Slow to level up does not help its case either.
 
Not really. Shelgon really lacks an offensive presence in the Elite 4 (Dragon doesn't hit anything but Drake for SE coverage) and Eviolite only helps here and there. Like, Shelgon probably isn't contributing shit against Glacia and I doubt he's groundbreaking versus Steven. Sydney he suffers the issue of being so godawful slow that he's just going to take repeated hits and go nowhere.

Being Slow to level up does not help its case either.
Everything you say is true, but I'm not convinced that it's enough to doom Bagon to E. The D tier includes pokemon that have a lot of flaws, but not to the extent that they're total dead weight. None of them are good, but they're not totally unusable either. This fits Shelgon pretty well, since it's far from optimal but can contribute somewhat. I just can't justify sticking Shelgon in a tier that basically only has joke pokemon or ones that require the rare Evo stones. If E tier gets expanded, I don't have a problem with Bagon in E. As it is right now, I think Shelgon is much closer in usefulness to the likes of Huntail (bad) than Luvdisk (completely unusable), and as such should stay in D.

Also, Shelgon gets both Shadow Claw and Brick Break, so while inefficient it can contribute against Phoebe and Sydney to an extent.
 
Shelgon is really bulky and did contribute surprisingly well against the first two Elite 4 trainers and minority contributed against Drake and Steven. I mentioned this, because most of you haven´t used it yet, so we only had theorymon up to now.
I stated that C is the highest Tier I can see it in(upper limit), but D is very well working.

Colonel M and Lucchini : Make a reason for why your theorymon is more sound than my in game experience :)
I didn't grind Shelgon after reaching like Lv. 44 as a Bagon, it was easy to get with only 10 minutes of detour before flying to Victory Road and reached the delayed evolution after the Fossil double fight right there, afterwards it did ok and was on 46 after Victory Road.
Mine did better(C) than anyones else, because I had all Rare Candies from the game left, so I gave two to it and with its high base defense+Eviolite it had no problem against Sydneys team, while being faster than Dusclops gave it a 3HKO with Crunch, where even STAB attacks aren´t a OHKO. Better than every E tier you can name.
 

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imo the late arrival and oppo cost of detouring to getting it and grinding it to a respectable level alone makes Bagon E Rank. Same argument can be applied to the Regis. But that depends on how much weight we are putting on this; No real weight on getting it and/or grinding could make it worth a D.
 
imo the late arrival and oppo cost of detouring to getting it and grinding it to a respectable level alone makes Bagon E Rank. Same argument can be applied to the Regis. But that depends on how much weight we are putting on this; No real weight on getting it and/or grinding could make it worth a D.
That´s exactly what I´m thinking about in the moment. We tend to be impressed by our own experiences when we start to tier, but with the time, things tend to settle down and our ratings improve. This is often true for the lower end as well, where we are sometimes too harsh, just for the sake of populating every tier.

I like to see the tiers like potential banlists: when you ban every S tier Pokemon from your run, it should be harder/ you should need longer to get through the game.

From such a perspective, the Regis are very well working in D and I might add that Regice has a surpring good typing opposed to the others. But the opportunity cost is hugh for them, as the catching procedure needs to be prepared and needs some time to complete.

Other things like soaring encounters and minor detours like Meteor Falls (I honestly had a look on my watch and needed exactly 10 minutes to fly there, catch Bagon and do three trainer battles, just to give an idea of the detour aspect) need less time investment, but have need more time to grind the Pokemon you get there. Definitely none of them are high tier material, I agree, but quite some of them perform well under those circumstances and for example soaring Swablu does even better than the regular encounter on Route 114.

Another thing I would like to bring up is to untier Froslass and Gallade altogether, because unless you get the Dawn Stone by SuperTraining or ... you will not delay the evolution of their "precursors" when they have alternate forms. They are very close to HGSS Magnezone for me, which means inexistent. I just think it gives a false impression to put them into F, I would feel better with not tiering them at all.

enough 2 cent coins I guess, sorry for the long posts
 

DHR-107

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Another thing I would like to bring up is to untier Froslass and Gallade altogether, because unless you get the Dawn Stone by SuperTraining or ... you will not delay the evolution of their "precursors" when they have alternate forms. They are very close to HGSS Magnezone for me, which means inexistent. I just think it gives a false impression to put them into F, I would feel better with not tiering them at all.

enough 2 cent coins I guess, sorry for the long posts
But they are existent. We did not not tier stuff that was found in the Abundant Shrine (which is after Waterfall/Gym 8) because it was that late in the game. They ARE available to use, just why anyone would, is the question. Yes, you could grind for the stone, but that involves getting a single mon to 508 EV's and then doing most of the super super secret trainings in order to have a TINY chance of getting the stone. That alone is enough to dump it down to E.

On my runs: I found out Norman's AI on his first Slaking is pretty dumb. If you have anything with Bulk Up (which is a TM you should have before then) and a few awakenings/chesto berries, he basically gets stuck in a loop of Yawn -> Encore. With Bulk up being encored, it doesn't matter because you're getting a defence buff too. When he DOES decide to attack, it usually doesn't do much. I used my Vigoroth against him (in hindsight not a great idea because he knows not to use Yawn on Vital Spirit). Slash is a god send on Vigoroth now, even so, at a level below at +5 he still only 2HKO'd :( He smashes through the other two with those boosts and sorted Norman out in short order though. I'd argue for C atm, Slakoth is a pain but the payoff is pretty good so far. I am a little worried about Slaking, but hopefully pure power will win out.

Crobat is pretty solid (got mine at Lv 26). It always surprises me just how bulky Crobat seems, which still having enough offence to make things hurt. He's my go to on a tougher enemy on a small amount of health, just because he's that fast. I'm going to do some calcs with Sludge Bomb vs Poison Fang and see which is the stronger move, Wing Attack is already really good. He's pretty solid so far, my go too against most fighting types. I'd agree with where he is atm.

Combuksen, well he's combusken. Kicking ass against every single target he faces. Like it's not even funny how strong he is. I can't wait for Blaziken. My other three on the team (Wailmer/Joltik/Torterra) can't really be tiered yet, I'm not far enough through the game to see how good Wailmer is compared to where it should be caught (I just picked up Latias) and the other two are non events (even though Torterra is fucking amazing).
 
hard:

Experience is indeed a valuable thing, but said experience should be presented in a convincing and realistic manner. It's also true that unless you replay the same battles for many times, you won't get a clear enough idea how every Pokemon in your team performs in it, and it's natural that by the end of the playthrough you'll only have part of the understanding of how good any one of your Pokemon did depending on where you chose to use it (for some mons, there's a lot of freedom, for others like Golem there are specific battles where you feel comfortable switching it in). "Theorycrafting" and discussion, as well as comparison to other things in the same tiers, can help us here.

An extreme example of this would be the poster who referred to his experience of Grass Pledge Grovyle 2HKOing Magneton. For me, the mention of Shelgon 3HKOing Dusclops with Crunch achieves the same reaction - I do believe it, but it's far from impressive. There appears to be no reason to catch Shelgon whatsoever, if it's not evolving at some point before some of the E4 opponents.

And if I were you, I wouldn't dismiss the arguments by Colonel M and others who disagreed with you - I mean, Colonel M's statement that Bagon needs to be caught with DexNav at +10 regular level is the only way to justify catching Bagon for in-game usage and the only worthwhile argument for Bagon being above E tier right now IMHO. So if you do insist on dividing people in this tier discussion into two opposing groups - one expressing an opinion in favour and one against (though I think it's the content of the discussion that causes all the appropriate changes in the tiering regardless of what side expressed it) - you should thank Colonel M because he contributed more to the argument you wanted to make.

My problem with adding the DexNav level bonus (and not only that; maybe somebody will also argue that Bagon needs to be caught with Dragon Dance known to utterly destroy some of the E4) and/or the Exp Share boost to experience is that if it's an option for somebody, it should be an option for everybody in the list. For instance, Slaking becomes an instant A-tier mon if we can just ignore Slakoth entirely until L18 on our journey, and that's his only (really, really) unimpressive phase.
 
But they are existent. We did not not tier stuff that was found in the Abundant Shrine (which is after Waterfall/Gym 8) because it was that late in the game. They ARE available to use, just why anyone would, is the question. Yes, you could grind for the stone, but that involves getting a single mon to 508 EV's and then doing most of the super super secret trainings in order to have a TINY chance of getting the stone. That alone is enough to dump it down to E.
You are right here, it just is such an obscure chance to get them, that it is just like trading Magneton to evolve it in another game. It´s not the same though and my idea is very much on the edge of usual tiering practise, I know that :)

Btw I do agree on Slakoth tiering proposals so far. Vigoroth is quite impressive and although it has some competition in OR from Zangoose, the bulk it has serves it quite well.

Lucchini: I´m fine with you and ColonelM having different opinions on Bagon, I just don´t agree ;)
I didn´t use DexNav and still ended up with a decently performing late game Pokemon in Shelgon. ColonelM is underestimating the bulk of Eviolite Shelgon in his post a bit, it´s the most impressive feature of this line tbh. I said C is the upper limit and do agree with D in general but E tier would be a strange placement.

Otherwise I still agree with you on separating anything regarding DaxNav abuse. I also am using DexNav to complete the PokeDex on this last test run as my new mainfile and I have to say it is a hugh timesink!
It might feel fast to get a good Pokemon with 1. searching and 2.chaining but both steps together are easily filling half an hour on a common DexNav mon.
Your best bet is still to get a random encounter with DexNav after you have already caught the Pokemon to start a chain.
 

Colonel M

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Ultimately here's the problem with Bagon, Regis, etc:

- The detour to get them is still time consuming

Even if you want to justify it as a short amount of time it still takes a bit of time to actually backtrack over to Meteor Falls and the like. The rewards are less than stellar. Now granted, Bagon has a slightly lower opportunity cost than Regis but still - Bagon still requires soaring towards Meteor Falls, then using Repels of course, until you find the highest level Bagon. So the Level 39 one, naturally. And don't forget the detour to grab Eviolite - something else that was missed too. Now here's where things get a little interesting.

- The training portion of Bagon (Shelgon) is still a climb

In Victory Road there aren't that many favorable match-ups for Shelgon and I highly doubt Shelgon will 2HKO a lot of them. Sigilyph and Rhyperior are in the first two trainers. So let's look at the first calculation assuming Shelgon is about Level 40:

0 Atk Shelgon Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Sigilyph: 56-68 (47 - 57.1%) -- 82% chance to 2HKO

0 SpA Sigilyph Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Shelgon: 58-70 (53.7 - 64.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Now naturally Sigilyph is faster so the Pokemon to possibly 2HKO first is likely Shelgon. I did not say for sure because, remember, trainer AI is pretty bad. Even so - 1/2 moves are attacking moves and even Air Slash has about a 70% chance to 2HKO.

For Rhyperior:

0 Atk Shelgon Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Rhyperior: 44-54 (27.8 - 34.1%) -- 1.2% chance to 3HKO
0 Atk Shelgon Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Solid Rock Rhyperior: 33-40 (20.8 - 25.3%) -- 0.1% chance to 4HKO

0 Atk Rhyperior Drill Run vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Shelgon: 40-48 (37 - 44.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 Atk Rhyperior Stone Edge vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Shelgon: 51-60 (47.2 - 55.5%) -- 70.7% chance to 2HKO
0 Atk Rhyperior Hammer Arm vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Shelgon: 34-40 (31.4 - 37%) -- 75.9% chance to 3HKO

Now granted Shelgon doesn't take much damage from Rhyperior but it is really short on a 3HKO and, even worse, could even fail to 4HKO if it's Solid Rock. Nevermind the possibility of Rhyperior having a pretty high chance to 2HKO (Critical Hit Drill Run is a 2HKO, Critical Hit Stone Edge really stings).


The next is a Level 47 Froslass. THE GOOD NEWS IS IT DOESN'T HAVE AN ICE-TYPE ATTACK? The bad news? Well there's the possibility of Confuse Ray. On the bright side Crunch is a 2HKO. So... uh...

Moving on. Mawile. Probably not the greatest choice but it can work. Mawile really isn't doing much to Shelgon, but Shelgon isn't doing much here either - especially if Intimidate is in play. You would need Hone Claws to really bypass this I think.

Shiftry is probably the only remote threat and even then Shelgon should be able to beat him. Eh.

I could go on all day about Shelgon here, but the truth of the matter is - it's below average performance against the average trainer. Sometimes Shelgon can get a leg up on some of them, but often if the opponent has some strong moves, especially Special, Shelgon really isn't surviving that well and it's missing 2HKOes on Pokemon not hit SE barring like maybe Shiftry / Houndoom.

The Elite 4... so. Let's get on this.

So my mistake for mispelling Sidney - it was not intended first off. Secondly, as an analysis Shelgon is probably about Level 45 - being somewhat generous for the Shelled friend. Let's see how he holds up against Sidney.

0 Atk Mightyena Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Shelgon: 33-39 (27.5 - 32.5%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
-1 0 Atk Shelgon Brick Break vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mightyena: 40-48 (28.1 - 33.8%) -- 0.3% chance to 3HKO

So for the most part - Shelgon could win. But there are two issues:

- Swagger could be used first. Though this makes KOing Mightyena a 2HKO it does delay time to unleash everything for Shelgon. Hitting yourself isn't too bad but it does delay things.
- Defensive drops from Crunch could be a problem - if only because it makes you vulnerable to the rest of Sidney's team.

For the most part it's rocky but it's a victory against one Pokemon. Now for Shiftry:

0 Atk Shiftry Feint Attack vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Shelgon: 27-33 (22.5 - 27.5%) -- 34.9% chance to 4HKO
0 Atk Shelgon Brick Break vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Shiftry: 66-78 (40.7 - 48.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

IIRC Shiftry should KO after 3 Feint Attacks and a Fake Out. So this actually could be a victory for Shiftry but Shelgon can likely muscle through it. I'm going to skip Cacturne because Spiky Shield is the only real annoying threat Cacturne has. Shelgon is slower than Cacturne, so Payback is doing very little damage.

0 Atk Sharpedo Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Shelgon: 42-49 (35 - 40.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 Atk Shelgon Brick Break vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Sharpedo: 90-106 (63.3 - 74.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Probably a victory for Shelgon.

0 Atk Absol Night Slash vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Shelgon: 40-48 (33.3 - 40%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 Atk Shelgon Brick Break vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Absol: 64-76 (45 - 53.5%) -- 32.8% chance to 2HKO

Absol will win this one so long as it just spams Night Slash.

So for the most part Shelgon will always 3HKO barring Sharpedo and Cacturne - but neither are being OHKOed by Brick Break either. So while Shelgon can, in theory, take about 3-4 hits from these guys it is 2-3HKOing them back.

For Phoebe there is truth to 3HKOing Dusclops with Crunch. There is a slight problem, though - Confuse Ray and Curse can really fuck up Shelgon. Shelgon is at least faster, but Confuse Ray can still really limit to what Shelgon is doing here. Even though Shadow Punch does a pitiful amount of damage it will add up with Curse in the possible works. We won't really bother with Future Sight since it is a 3 turn delay and there -is- a possibility of having Protect to stop that. For the Banettes they do sting really hard - 0 SpA Banette Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Shelgon: 54-64 (43.9 - 52%) -- 12.9% chance to 2HKO. Don't forget the potential SpD drop which could fuck over Shelgon too. Or the Will-O-Wisp neutering Shelgon's offense. I can see Shelgon winning versus Sableye but not really against Dusknoir who can just spam Ice Punch. Honestly, it does okay against 1-2 Pokemon but, again, 3HKOing and now 2HKOing Banettes is not really impressive.

We aren't even bothering with Glacia nor Drake. Glacia's only real loss might be her first Glalie having lolIceShard. Else, crushed. Drake's Pokemon are easily faster than Shelgon and usually hit on its weaker spectrum (Flygon Kingdra and Altaria have Dragon Pulse).

For Steven... I don't think I really want to assume too much more. It can maybe Earthquake Aggron and stand up here and there but its contributions are going to be absolutely minimal unless it hits Salamence. And even then that's pushing it.

=====

So for comparisons:

- Trapinch, though slow, does exist longer and at least hits like a truck once. What you could do is really delay its capture until after Winona and then attach the Eviolite to it. This at least makes its bulk a little better. Vibrava will have decent bulk at this point, but to be fair Vibrava is only really doing some things because it has STAB Earthquake and STAB Dragonbreath isn't too bad. Flygon is at least obtainable by about the Elite 4 and it can contribute here and there with STAB Earthquake denting much harder (and having a stronger Flamethrower for Shiftry / Cacturne). I wouldn't say that Trapinch really escapes E too easily, but it is a bit more flexible to use in comparison to Bagon who just arrives way too goddamn late.

- Both Anorith and Lileep, though again later in the game, at least can contribute offensively a bit better around their points in the game. STAB Ancientpower and Rock Romb should at least give them a little leverage against Winona. Lileep should dominate Tate / Liza and Wallace. Anorith isn't beating Wallace but it should do a bit better against the Magma / Aqua thugs barring their respective iconic Pokemon.

- Duskull is late but Eviolite Dusclops can be a real menace to face against. Only problem is it's slow and does lack offensive prowess. It should beat Tate / Liza without much effort at the least and can do some nasty things like Curse Milotic. It also has its moments in the Elite 4. Again, nothing spectacular but more time to work with.

- Huntail and Gorebyss are late... but they at least have something against Team Magma. Huntail has slightly better moves (Crunch, Ice Fang) since Gorebyss needs Ice Beam to really touch Drake. Dunno, this is pretty close to Bagon's situation.

- Also will have to say at least Bagon gets better than Chimecho eventually. Though Chimecho could do some odd shenanigans. I guess. It's pretty rubbish like Castform.

=====

General conclusion:

- In essence Bagon could escape D because at least by lategame it does something. But really let's be serious - 2-4HKOing the Elite 4 without any real ways of boosting your offense is really poor and, while the bulk is nice, it just masks the shittiness of Shelgon.
- Bagon does have two large opportunity costs - Eviolite and the backtracking to Meteor Falls. Eviolite is a must on Shelgon by the way - it cannot stand up without it.
- Bagon has poor performance versus Drake and Glacia while doing average against Sidney and mediocre-to-poor against Phoebe and Steven.

=====

Now. I decided to save this for last because there is one alternative to maybe salvaging Bagon in D aside from potential side-by-side comparisons with mons like Gorebyss and garbage.

Rare Candies.

Watching this video -
- shows at least 5 Rare Candies that can be obtained. Now I want to note that many of these Rare Candies are out of the player's way and barely are within the player's progress of an efficient quest line. Here is my conclusion: since we cannot buy a +10 Leveled Bagon, I feel another possibility for Bagon to escape E is through Rare Candies and some grinding. Even so I want to point out that, again, this has extreme opportunity costs associated with it.
 
Nice calculations, although I wouldn´t assume that anyone has 0 IV in the endgame (Victory Road ≥15 and E4 25 I somehow remember). Likewise I wouldn´t use a 0IV Pokemon just as much as I would search for a non hindering nature, nor do I want to calc how a level 45 Gardevoir would perform in the E4, might suck to see the grind being worth not a lot.
D Tier is mostly for being able to support your higher tier team members, which a bulky Pokemon can do better than a frail one.

To end the Bagon discussion where most of us agreed on D tier anyway, I would just come back to my idea of how tiers can be linked to an in game performance: Whenever you propose a Pokemon for a certain tier, imagine you would ban every higher tier from in game play, then your now highest tier proposal should support your performance the most. Likewise unbanning the next higher tier should give the Pokemon less chances to shine.
 

DHR-107

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Celever

If you are not going to update this thread, I am sure I can find someone willing to do it. Push comes to shove, I will do it myself. Considering how "early" you asked to run this thread, I would ask you pay it more attention. Several other people asked, and I am sure one of them will step up and get this thread moving again.
 

Celever

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Yeah, I'd just like to apologise for not having updated this for so long. It has been on my mind constantly, but a long chain of shit has happened irl for me so I haven't been able to do anything more than a short paragraph occasionally online for a few weeks (check my posts :p) so once again I'm sorry. Another thing has come up today, so the update won't be until later, but this will be done by the end of the day, so get excited everyone!

I was planning on updating it last weekend but my internet was dead at my Dad's house and my keyboard was dead at my Mum's. I tried to find a time slot to do it in during the week but there simply wasn't one, which brings us to today.
 
Great to see this thread in motion soon :)
We should be fine by just returning to those nice fixed 5-10 Pokemon slates to get the remaining Pokemon done. There shouldn´t be that many left undiscussed, right?
 

Celever

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OK guys, this is it! An update after about a month of waiting! Sorry everyone...

Changes Made:
Regice D --> E
Regirock D --> E
Registeel D --> E
Whismur A --> B
Staryu A --> B
Geodude (Golem) A --> B
Geodude (No Trade) B --> C
Abra (No Trade) A --> B
Barboach B --> C
Spheal B --> C
Snorunt B --> C
Zigzagoon B --> C
Poochyena (Elemental Fang) B --> C (merged with regular Poochyena)
Seviper B --> C


More Discussion Needed:

Oddish (Vileplume) C --> B
Wingull A --> B
Surskit C --> B
Beautifly B --> C
Sableye D --> C
Psyduck B --> C
Relicanth B --> C/D (discussion on which tier it should move to, not whether it should move or not)
Spoink B --> C
Tropius B --> C
Trapinch B --> C/D (discussion on which tier it should move to, not whether it should move or not)
Shuppet C --> B
Bagon D --> E
Nosepass C --> D
Shroomish A --> B
Heracross A --> S

OK, so before I get into the list, I just want to say that I've been playing a run (my first full run) with some of the more controversial Pokémon for this tier list as of when I started the run. Right now I'm at Norman's gym with a team of Beautifly, Manectric, Numel, Grovyle and Swablu. So far, my MVP has been Beautifly for sure, as its early game is absolutely superb, and its movepool early on is great too. I know that it will start lagging soon, because that's what early bugs do, but 100 base special attack so early is superb field-wise. Gust at level 10 (as soon as it evolves) is actually really great, since it's a 60 BP (with STAB) move which hits a lot of the bugs and grass types you find in the early-game super-effectively. I will elaborate more a bit later. Numel is a very solid A and one of 2 contenders for S if we wanted to which I can see. It has enough bulk to last the weak hits in ORAS, and it gets powerful attacks like Flame Burst and Magnitude when you get it, which are replaced by Lava Plume and then Dig --> Earth Power soon after, which are very strong for the 4th badge of the game. It's good in A for now though. Right now, I would put Treecko in B for sure, but I have high hopes for the late game with it. Otherwise I will be nominating it for B and will get a lot of shit for it. Swablu has been poor so far and is in an unfortunate experience group, so it could even be D, but I'm not sure yet. Manectric has been very good, and is pretty much what I imagine A to be.

Ok, time to go through things which I can actually talk about in More Discussion Needed (as well as make nominations for the last three on the list, which I just added):
Surskit vs Beautifly... Beautifly is a tier above this Masquerain for sure, actually. I've used both, and the early game is definitely enough to set them apart. I used Masquerain up until after Wattson which is when my first run ended because my 3DS broke, and then I used Beautifly the second time through, and Beautifly's matchup against Brawly and just on the field in general is actually amazing. Surskit wasn't like this at all. You're babying it up until after Wattson which is 3 gym badges of wasted experience, and I can't see the payout even being that good. It gets Air Cutter from there (like Beautifly) but has 20 less base special attack, which I can see being problematic in the long run. Basically, Masquerain has a slightly better movepool in regards to coverage, but in-game that's not as important as power, and they share the same main moves (except Beautifly gets the moves substantially earlier: 35 compared to 42 with Bug Buzz and 40 compared to 52 with Quiver Dance) so Beautifly is a lot better than Masquerain in almost every way. Note that this isn't why Beautifly is B and Masquerain is C, that's just how it works out. I have to compare them here to show everyone that they are in fact very different, since to me it looked like people just went "they're both shitty bug/flying types throw them in the same tier!" which is definitely not the case. Also Surskit is annoyingly rare, whereas Wurmple is annoyingly common :p. There is always the chance that the RNG screws you and gives you a bunch of Cascoon instead of Silcoon, so this isn't a main point, but it is noteworthy.

Nosepass C --> D I don't think anyone can really disagree with. You have to take a detour back to Granite Cave to get it (only a 30% chance and requires using Rock Smash) which is already an opportunity cost. Thereon it.... isn't really very good, lol. It has the cute side effect of also having Electric-Type moves, but that really isn't enough. Its stats as a Nosepass outside of defenses are utter shit which completely neutralises its actually good moves that it has for early on in the game. I'm not sure if you can evolve it in the entrance or whether you actually need to gain access to New Mauville to evolve it, but if you do need the access, it isn't going to evolve until incredibly late in the game and could actually be E in that case. What do you guys think?

Shroomish A --> B makes sense to me. It just doesn't look as good as the others in A (aside from Treecko :p), so IDK. It has a somewhat useful early game STAB in Mega Drain, and as such is great against Roxanne, but the rest of its moves aren't actually too great up until either 26 where it gets Giga Drain if you hold it back, or 28 where it gets Force Palm as a Breloom, and a considerable amount of stuff resists Mega Drain early on, which is when you'll be using it. It gets some powerful attacks as Breloom, but I just don't know if it's enough to be A-rank.

Heracross A --> S is just a thought I'd like to play with. It comes quite late (Safari Zone) but I can't see a time where it would actually lose steam thereon besides Phoebe and maybe Drake. It comes with a spammable Brick Break and Megahorn comes pretty soon afterwards. It's got a useful mega-evolution (probably one of the best for in-game runs?) and fantastic stats without it. I don't know if it's enough for S just because it does come pretty late, but Lati@s are there, but I'd like to entertain the idea.

Once again, if there's any nominations or whatever that I missed, just nominate them again!
 
I haven't used Relicanth, but considering what's left for it to face with how late it arrives and the lack of any clear advantage against those, (well I suppose Glacia to an extent, but I'd expect Hail/Snow Cloak shenanigans to troll its unreliable accuracy STAB Rock moves while being whittled down by hail) I'd see it likely settling in D tier. On the positive, it's not really out of the way to catch, and it has access to Rock Head, with Head Smash being a Heart Scale away. Swift Swim also helps its otherwise terrible Speed when it's raining, something slightly easier to abuse in Alpha Sapphire with Kyogre. (not P-Kyogre, its rain ends as soon as it switches out)

As much as I want to like Shroomish, its EXP gain is downright atrocious even if you hold back on evolving it and give it a Lucky Egg. (and the Amie boost, but we shouldn't be using that anyway) I recently raised one, albeit just to get Spore for my Smeargle to Sketch and not as part of a run, and it wasn't exactly a fun experience. B seems fine, for whatever my opinion counts for.
 
The changes made list is all spot-on and it was high time they were edited in, but I think a lot of your recentest suggestions are really tendentious.

I find the proposal to move Numel to S a bit absurd. It's slow, it doesn't take hits well and it's afraid to do anything in the water. It misses the main gym where it could be really useful (you also fight a ton of annoying electric types just before you can catch it) and doesn't get very good matchups later on. B is where it should stay IMHO.

Surskit isn't hard to catch since it's a fixed encounter and, while it doesn't evolve as early as Beautifly, it can actually fight for itself until then. Bubble and then L17 Bubblebeam make it just good enough for earlygame. When both of the bugs are fully evolved, Masquerain has considerably more bulk thanks to Intimidate, and - a very significant detail you failed to take into account - Masquerain gets Quiver Dance and Bug Buzz way earlier because of the post-Wattson move tutor. It also gets an update to Air Cutter, unlike Beautifly, and can be taught Ice Beam should you wish to take a quick detour. You keep claiming that you used both the bugs, but if you had actually played through the whole game with either fully optimised you wouldn't be saying any of this!

Nosepass can be evolved immediately after Norman, and Probopass has a great ingame typing, crazy bulk, and a decent enough 75 base sp. atk. It can effectively use STAB Power Gem, Discharge, Dazzling Gleam and Earth Power (no Flash Cannon sadly) to slowly overpower the foes that can't hurt it. No need to drop it, and Nosepass is even quite decent against gyms 4-5, maybe a bit against Wattson with Bulldoze. I did copy and paste how early each evolution can be acquired btw - why couldn't you keep the contents of that post in some visible place?

Heracross to S doesn't make any sense, especially considering we just discussed how it's very much comparable to Pinsir who is at least not worse than Hera, and how this would separate the two by two tiers. Groudon / Kyogre offer much more destruction with comparable availability and still reside in A tier, so if we look for ORAS equivalents for what Zapdos was in the RBY tier list we should probably start with those two.

I'll wait for your arguments for moving Treecko down to B, but I'm not sure if they'll be good, though you did acknowledge you haven't finished the game. With all due respect, since you have been managing the tier list very adequately until now after all, couldn't you place Colonel M/IAR/DHR in charge of the list since these folks at least constantly replay the game to look for potential changes to the list? We could reach the appropriate conclusions faster this way, it seems to me.
 

Celever

i am town
is a Community Contributor
The changes made list is all spot-on and it was high time they were edited in, but I think a lot of your recentest suggestions are really tendentious.

I find the proposal to move Numel to S a bit absurd. It's slow, it doesn't take hits well and it's afraid to do anything in the water. It misses the main gym where it could be really useful (you also fight a ton of annoying electric types just before you can catch it) and doesn't get very good matchups later on. B is where it should stay IMHO.

Surskit isn't hard to catch since it's a fixed encounter and, while it doesn't evolve as early as Beautifly, it can actually fight for itself until then. Bubble and then L17 Bubblebeam make it just good enough for earlygame. When both of the bugs are fully evolved, Masquerain has considerably more bulk thanks to Intimidate, and - a very significant detail you failed to take into account - Masquerain gets Quiver Dance and Bug Buzz way earlier because of the post-Wattson move tutor. It also gets an update to Air Cutter, unlike Beautifly, and can be taught Ice Beam should you wish to take a quick detour. You keep claiming that you used both the bugs, but if you had actually played through the whole game with either fully optimised you wouldn't be saying any of this!

Nosepass can be evolved immediately after Norman, and Probopass has a great ingame typing, crazy bulk, and a decent enough 75 base sp. atk. It can effectively use STAB Power Gem, Discharge, Dazzling Gleam and Earth Power (no Flash Cannon sadly) to slowly overpower the foes that can't hurt it. No need to drop it, and Nosepass is even quite decent against gyms 4-5, maybe a bit against Wattson with Bulldoze. I did copy and paste how early each evolution can be acquired btw - why couldn't you keep the contents of that post in some visible place?

Heracross to S doesn't make any sense, especially considering we just discussed how it's very much comparable to Pinsir who is at least not worse than Hera, and how this would separate the two by two tiers. Groudon / Kyogre offer much more destruction with comparable availability and still reside in A tier, so if we look for ORAS equivalents for what Zapdos was in the RBY tier list we should probably start with those two.

I'll wait for your arguments for moving Treecko down to B, but I'm not sure if they'll be good, though you did acknowledge you haven't finished the game. With all due respect, since you have been managing the tier list very adequately until now after all, couldn't you place Colonel M/IAR/DHR in charge of the list since these folks at least constantly replay the game to look for potential changes to the list? We could reach the appropriate conclusions faster this way, it seems to me.
I didn't actually propose Numel to S (i put all nominations in the Discussion Needed list) but I just wanted to note how I was feeling about it at this stage. Current contributions would put it in S, but I know that it will begin to lag soon as Hoenn speeds up and water appears. That's why I didn't propose it :x

I don't know what you mean about Surskit being a fixed encounter (if you mean DexNav, we're not using it for the core list) but I didn't realise that Masquerain can relearn the two moves with Heart Scales. That's enough for B then. Also, just as a note, Beautifly learns Air Cutter 2 levels earlier than Masquerain, so they both get the upgrade. However, Surskit still has a very poor early game, and I did use it to its fullest potential as a Surskit... I did note that I didn't finish a run with Masquerain (3DS died right after Wattson) so I was just talking about early game from experience and then hypothesising the rest. I also said that I'm currently at Norman's gym in my current run with Beautifly, just as a note. So I have used both bugs, but not the whole game...

You need Rock Smash to get Nosepass, so its not available to fight Wattson, but you do have a point. I didn't think to check the compendium you made (thanks for doing that btw, it's been added to the OP n_n) so the early evolution is pretty good for it. I'm still somewhat unsure on whether it should be C or D just because of its poor offenses, good movepool or otherwise, because it just fits D-tier better. Pokémon like Castform have a higher special attack and wider movepool than Probopass, which are also in D (and rightfully so) so it just depends on how useful the bulk is. IDK, it's open to discussion.

You get Kyogre and Groudon quite a bit later than Heracross. There's a considerable gap between badges 6 and 8, with the infiltration of the Magma/Aqua hideout in Lilycove, exploring the sea and then Tate & Liza. It's an idea, but if we were to expand S-Tier, probably all 3 would move up. That could do with some discussion, though, since I'm not sure how I feel about the idea.

Colonel M, IAR and DHR have been consistently contributing to this list by playing through the game over and over which we all really appreciate, but I'd prefer to stay in charge of the list. Just because I feel like if we change the project leader, there's going to be some radical changes in the tiering process. I'm playing through the game when I have time (which I have a lot more of now) so I'll know what the rest of the game is like anyway. The three you mentioned are still making fantastic proposals and posts pertaining to the list anyway! n_n
 
I didn't actually propose Numel to S (i put all nominations in the Discussion Needed list) but I just wanted to note how I was feeling about it at this stage. Current contributions would put it in S, but I know that it will begin to lag soon as Hoenn speeds up and water appears. That's why I didn't propose it :x

I don't know what you mean about Surskit being a fixed encounter (if you mean DexNav, we're not using it for the core list) but I didn't realise that Masquerain can relearn the two moves with Heart Scales. That's enough for B then. Also, just as a note, Beautifly learns Air Cutter 2 levels earlier than Masquerain, so they both get the upgrade. However, Surskit still has a very poor early game, and I did use it to its fullest potential as a Surskit... I did note that I didn't finish a run with Masquerain (3DS died right after Wattson) so I was just talking about early game from experience and then hypothesising the rest. I also said that I'm currently at Norman's gym in my current run with Beautifly, just as a note. So I have used both bugs, but not the whole game...

You need Rock Smash to get Nosepass, so its not available to fight Wattson, but you do have a point. I didn't think to check the compendium you made (thanks for doing that btw, it's been added to the OP n_n) so the early evolution is pretty good for it. I'm still somewhat unsure on whether it should be C or D just because of its poor offenses, good movepool or otherwise, because it just fits D-tier better. Pokémon like Castform have a higher special attack and wider movepool than Probopass, which are also in D (and rightfully so) so it just depends on how useful the bulk is. IDK, it's open to discussion.

You get Kyogre and Groudon quite a bit later than Heracross. There's a considerable gap between badges 6 and 8, with the infiltration of the Magma/Aqua hideout in Lilycove, exploring the sea and then Tate & Liza. It's an idea, but if we were to expand S-Tier, probably all 3 would move up. That could do with some discussion, though, since I'm not sure how I feel about the idea.

Colonel M, IAR and DHR have been consistently contributing to this list by playing through the game over and over which we all really appreciate, but I'd prefer to stay in charge of the list. Just because I feel like if we change the project leader, there's going to be some radical changes in the tiering process. I'm playing through the game when I have time (which I have a lot more of now) so I'll know what the rest of the game is like anyway. The three you mentioned are still making fantastic proposals and posts pertaining to the list anyway! n_n
It turns out that the elemental fang Poochyena isn't the only set DexNav encounter. There are a couple others that are triggered to pop up after it, including Fel Stinger Surskit, (which is what I believe Luchini is referring to) and Beat Up Seedot/Teeter Dance Lotad. (I think that's the move)
 
I fully agree with Tropius to C. It's slow and weak (68 base Attack, 72 Sp.A 51 Spe), it comes pretty late, and its typing is piss poor for most of the important fights. It has bad matchups with Winona Team Magma, Glacia, Drake, and Steven, with its only truly good matchup being Wallace (and even there you need to watch for Ice Beam) For most of the game, it's going to be spamming Leaf Tornado and Air Slash, which are both OK but nothing incredible. It's best move, Leaf Storm, can be move tutored but its Special Attack drop and low PP make it inefficient for an in-game run. I honestly have no idea how this thing hit B to begin with. Maybe in AS it's better because of the extra water types (I have OR), but when I used Tropius it didn't pull its weight. I wouldn't mind talking about D for it, to be honest.
 
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