(warning: long post)
There's been a few bad/incorrect arguments being made about various things which I'm going to address here. I'll also address various points and nominations in (hopefully) a sensible order. Firstly though, I'd like to ask people to refrain on nominating things they haven't used unless they're obviously out of place - I'm not saying you have to have used a mon to debate other people's nominations, but you should have experience with whatever you're bringing up yourself. Also,
tier descriptors are just a guideline, they are not meant as laws to be strictly enforced. I've edited this into the OP.
Onto individual nominations:
Gallade:
Sold, moving it to A.
Croagunk:
I've never used this myself. The big things keeping it out of higher ranks are the late evolution, frailty, and slight 4MSS. After reading BPGXMG's nom I'm actually inclined to move it down to D rather than up to B.
Azelf:
Again, I've not used this (though I plan to on my next playthrough). Theory suggests that it should do well, between coming slightly overlevelled and the fact that NP + a bajillion coverage moves (including good physical options in Pt) allows you to beat pretty much anything (it can hit everything in the league with a 80BP+ super-effective attack except Drapion, Spiritomb (lol), the Fire-types, Lopunny, and Girafarig), though obviously a lot of those moves are competed-for or expensive TMs. It's obviously not S rank because it comes so late and requires TMs for success, but equally I can't see it lower than B given its power, speed and passable bulk (about the same as Infernape but with less weaknesses). Leaving it as is for now, but I invite further discussion on the mon.
Cranidos:
Colonel M said:
I'm also going to step in and disagree with A Cranidos. Unless I am missing something important it has a lot of critical flaws that require TMs and commitment to fix.
It does require TMs for a lot of its movepool, yes, but none of them are super contested other than maybe EQ (and you can go with Dig if need be).
It really is not that good straight out of the fossil (and requires a detour no less) and, due to its Erratic Levelup, has an awkward time leveling up as well. Take Down is basically the only move Cranidos has for a long time, and since it is not STAB and lacks super effective coverage there is a risk of being worn down very quickly. Being rather so-so in Speed sucks too.
There's no detour except the trek underground (is that what you meant?), as everything else you need is on the main journey path. Upon restoration, you immediately have the Rock Tomb TM from the Ravaged Path (only requires Rock Smash) which provides a strong STAB to tide you through the early-mid game (and in fact is plently strong almost up until Rock Slide). The slow speed is not apparent at first, but yeah it does start to show in the latter stages.
Cranidos also has a very shitty gym matchup all around - Crasher Wake and Maylene all have Pokemon Cranidos hates. After that Rampardos has an "okay" performance against Fantina. Rampardos's matchup versus Byron isn't stupendous, kind of a super mixed bag versus Candice, and arguably bad again against Volkner. The Elite 4 Performance is also not that great - Rampardos does okay against Aaron and Flint I guess, but nothing to really write home about. It's terrible against Bertha and might be lucky to smash a hit in Lucian's team. It isn't that great against Cynthia either.
Tl;dr - I feel B Cranidos is more appropriate.
It doesn't have excellent gym matchups, no - though it does perform fairly well against Volkner if it knows Dig/EQ, which it should - but it crushes most of the route trainers very quickly because it OHKOs most of their mons, and also performs very well against Galactic (most mons are weak to Rock/Ground/Psychic coverage), which cannot be ignored. It completely destroys Aaron too (everything literally crumbles to weakness), though the other E4 matchups aren't great (why doesn't Flint have more Fire types?). I'm sorta ambivalent on it, would appreciate 1/2 other points of view on this - slightly leaning towards A.
Gyarados:
OrangeGuru said:
Let's not let this continued Magikarp discussion derail the thread.
discussion of tier placement isn't derailing the ingame tiers thread ;)
This is never going to be S but I think we're past that discussion. Based on everything that's been discussed I think I will keep/move it to A in both games (not entirely sure why it was placed differently but hey). I think its excellent typing+bulk combined with Intimidate (which is really incredible especially if paired with other users) has been undersold, and while it has 2 weak/weakish spots (pre-Dragon Rage/Bite and post-Maylene through to Aqua Tail), it is very good for much of the rest of the game. Also this:
sumwun said:
By the time dragon rage's usefulness wears off, the move relearner is already accessible and ready to teach thrash, so I don't think it's necessary to use any TMs on Gyarados.
HMs (a precursor to Bibarel talk):
Before we talk about Bibarel's rank, I think we have to briefly touch upon the viabilities of the HMs as battling moves (and also their necessity in the field).
Surf and Fly are obviously good attacks, but Strength is also a pretty good STAB for the mid-game (and in DP you get it in the Lost Tower, just before Solaceon). Rock Climb is bad because you get it too late, Cut sucks, Rock Smash has marginal utility in smashing up Roark's, err, rocks, Waterfall is again nice but comes too late to be a primary attack on anything, and we don't talk about Defog.
Bibarel:
Bibarel has unparalleled utility, I think we can all agree on this. Being incredibly easy to find at no opportunity cost (looking at you, Piplup) and learning 6/8 HMs is really helpful, especially because it comes before said HMs (Tropius).
I will expand on this after I come back from holiday but I am sorta leaning towards dropping it - it realistically does close to nothing outside of the HM compression - sure, you can use it as a battler, but if we're ranking it based on its battling capabilities it's more on par with the likes of Geodude - and while that compression is
incredible, I'm on the fence as to whether it's worth keeping it in S. It's not mandatory by any means. Biggest reason to keep it in S for me is that, if we were to suggest the ultimate efficiency team for DP(Pt), it would be Chimchar, Starly, Bidoof, cover legend, plus 2-3 filler (Abra if you can trade?).
Side note - does anyone else catch a bidoof for early game, and a Bibarel for late game? I'd rather spend the P200 on a Pokeball than train up Bidoof to level 15, and you can even avoid that if you find one in the Marsh (necessary to get Defog in DP, which is always nice to have).
Piplup:
Should this be S? Looking at it strictly as a battler, the answer to me is no - it has a long stretch of mediocrity from around Oreburgh until level 25 (probably between Solaceon and Veilstone). As a utility mon, though, it does bring a lot - it can learn all HMs bar Fly (though you probably want to avoid most of them), and you only
need Surf to function (though Ice Beam or Flash Cannon is also advisable), meaning you have the moveslot space. Ultimately I don't think it should be S because you do appreciate the flexibility of moveslots early-mid game (things like Peck and Metal Claw can be useful) which means that the HM access isn't overly critical, and in my mind, S ranks should rarely (if ever) not be useful (Chimchar and Starly don't have any real stretches where they don't pull their weight, Abra only really has its time as an Abra but this can be alleviated by trading a level 15 Machop, which is really the best way to go about it). Piplup has that awful stretch before it learns Bubblebeam where your strongest STAB is 20BP Bubble, meaning you don't even sweep parts of route 217 despite the rain.
Writeups
I'd like to get started on a few of these, for mons in the top ranks on which we've come to a consensus. These are as follows (I've erred on the side of excess, so please do bring up any you disagree with):
DP:
S
Abra (Trade)
Chimchar
Starly
A
Abra (No trade)
Budew
Buizel
Dialga
Palkia
Piplup
Shinx
Turtwig
Zubat
Pt:
S
Abra (Trade)
Chimchar
Starly
A
Abra (No trade)
Budew
Buizel
Eevee (Jolteon)
Giratina
Piplup
Scyther (Trade)
Shinx
Turtwig
Zubat
The 3 S ranks listed are pretty much set in stone I think (not completely sure on Abra bc I've never been able to use trade mons, but I trust that it's good based on how good Kadabra was) so they can get writeups for sure.
Discussion Slate:
Finally, I want to direct the discussion a little better now. We're doing things a bit haphazardly, which was fine for the earlier stages; but now that we have a fairly good framework, I'd like to really nail down the tiers. So I'd like to focus on the current A ranks, plus Bidoof. If you think there's something which isn't in A (or S) but should be, bring that up too! One thing I do want to ask is whether the cover legends are fine in A, or if they should be lower/higher?
OP PROBABLY WON'T BE UPDATED UNTIL SEPTEMBER 7TH BECAUSE I'M GOING ON HOLIDAY. PESTER ME AFTER THAT BUT NOT BEFORE