Heart Gold | Soul SIlver Tier List

[Blademaster!]

I believe that you can get pretty much any stone from coming in first place in the bug catching contest AND depending on the day, you can buy one type of elemental stone with pokethelon points at the pokethelon dome. The same trainers that give you stones in crystal also give you stones in these games too.

Pokethelon is available after the third gym.

[Dat Nick]

This isn't the GBC era. The "outside source" is only a problem if you live alone on a mountain and have a terribly godawful wi-fi connection. "Outside sources" are ten times easier and more convenient than they were in the GBC era, so there really is no reason to sandbag the trade evolutions out of an evo.

[BEST TRYNDAMERE PLAYER]

This isn't the GBC era. The "outside source" is only a problem if you live alone on a mountain and have a terribly godawful wi-fi connection. "Outside sources" are ten times easier and more convenient than they were in the GBC era, so there really is no reason to sandbag the trade evolutions out of an evo.

What about if you play on a ROM? Huuuh?

[The Divine Swordmaster]

Yeah Tentacool should move up despite being so damn common in the wild and annoying

And diglett is good imo its fast and has decent attack, but its lowish HP/defenses are a problem......

Also whats are the thoughts on using the pokewalker? you can get alot of pokemon earlier with it (before the first gym), namely Magby, Doduo and Oddish

[HongLei]

If u play on a rom u could probably evolve ur poke by hacking roms are illegal anyway

[dondon151]

You could put a separate entry in the list for stage 1 and stage 2 evolutions of trade evo Pokemon. I don't use them because I play on a ROM.

[Dat Nick]

What about if you play on a ROM? Huuuh?

Then nothing changes? It's called "flashcart", which is the only realistic way to take advantage of ROMs, because DS emulators run like shit.

[HongLei]

Also roms have advantages like saving anywhere for example that give them an advantage over carts but if u take advantages disadvantages like trading and such come with it so I consider it fair and even ground uping trade evos

[Rewjeo]

Is the pokewalker considered? If it is, you can grab Nidoran F (not sure about M) before the first gym leader. I doubt it is, since there's no way to know when you'd unlock which route... Also: http://www.serebii.net/heartgoldsoulsilver/hoennsinnoh.shtml Here are Hoenn/Sinnoh Pokemon available in HG/SS.

[Blademaster!]

This list is missing Lapras.

[TheEnd]

Then nothing changes? It's called "flashcart", which is the only realistic way to take advantage of ROMs, because DS emulators run like shit.

Spoiler: no they don't. No$GBA and Desmume are good.

[Colonel M]

I plan on getting HG tommorrow (well actually "today"). This should help trying to figure some stuff out, mainly the Pokewalker and possibly the Safari Zone info.

[HongLei]

I finally got hg

[Rewjeo]

Might I ask what makes Scyther<Mareep (don't want to bother with Heracross, since I have no experience with it)? My level 13 Scyther handled all of Morty's gym trainers, making leveling easy, and has proceeded (along w/ Slowking) to be indispensible. Now, admittedly my team is very underleveled (at this rate, it'll be stretch to get a Typhlosion by the elite four without grinding) so its huge offense is probably more useful, but still, I'm curious. Also, if you're willing to assume that Slowpoke can evolve to Slowking (as soon as you beat Whitney is possible) then I can see it climbing. Its speed doesn't become completely atrocious (it almost always goes first for me, and even though it has the quickclaw, I doubt that it would go first that often) and is insanely durable and hits hard.

Now, I don't know how level ups work in pokemon, if they use an RNG or if it's set, but if it's RNG, then this can mostly be dismissed as PEMN.

[riariadne]

It has nothing to do with RNG, I think.

I could easily see Togepi>Natu (as much as I hate to say it since Natu's one of my personal favorites). Togepi has this neat thing called "availability" for a while longer than Natu, and when it counts, too: you could probably evolve it by the time you get to Goldenrod and maybe even solo the Entire Ecruteak gym since the whole Gastly family is part poison type.

I also think the "Zagaro as Pokemon" tier should be renamed as "Sigurd with better caps as Pokemon" tier.

EDIT: Also, I don't see the Pichu/Pikachu on the list at all...?

Edited March 26, 2010 by Reinfleche

[General Spoon]

Might I ask what makes Scyther<Mareep (don't want to bother with Heracross, since I have no experience with it)? My level 13 Scyther handled all of Morty's gym trainers, making leveling easy, and has proceeded (along w/ Slowking) to be indispensible. Now, admittedly my team is very underleveled (at this rate, it'll be stretch to get a Typhlosion by the elite four without grinding) so its huge offense is probably more useful, but still, I'm curious. Also, if you're willing to assume that Slowpoke can evolve to Slowking (as soon as you beat Whitney is possible) then I can see it climbing. Its speed doesn't become completely atrocious (it almost always goes first for me, and even though it has the quickclaw, I doubt that it would go first that often) and is insanely durable and hits hard.

Now, I don't know how level ups work in pokemon, if they use an RNG or if it's set, but if it's RNG, then this can mostly be dismissed as PEMN.

Believe it or not, the level ups have absolutly nothing to do with the RNG. Its a combination of values that are determined when the pokemon is first encountered (IVs), a type of hidden points that you get from defeating different types of pokemon and using various vitamens (EVs), and the pokemon's nature. Beyond the IVs and pokemon's nature (which are set as soon as the pokemon is first encountered), the stats you get on level up have absolutly nothing to do with the RNG.

tl;dr version: Its complexish and the RNG is only involved the first time you encounter the pokemon.

[HongLei]

Mareep dominates on the way to the fighting gym and when u have to surf and is amazing.

[Fruitloop Multipuck]

Wouldn't Rattata be losing to most of High Tier as soon as they join?

Togepi in Lower-Mid is lol, but people have mentioned that already.

[Defeatist Elitist]

Wouldn't Rattata be losing to most of High Tier as soon as they join?

I can't speak for everyone, but Rattata/Raticate having fairly strong early game attacks, both Normal and Dark, can be rather useful. For example, Morty is lol if you have one with Bite or, dare I say, Crunch. They learn Crunch ridiculously early too.

Basically, they're pretty fragile, but for early game offense, other than your starter (and then only two of those really), there aren't many options that are better.

[Zkirsche]

Wow, is red gyarados that ridiculous in this game? I remember in the original S/G, The guy was weaker than a normal gyarados trained from a magikarp.

[Colonel M]

Oh yeah I still have to update this.

Red Gyarados is about High / Top Tier material. It's a pain in the ass to get to Level 44, but with Rare Candies it helps. Dragon Dancing Lance is worth it (and later on taking Gyms by force with it).

[_____]

Why is Swinub Upper Mid, let alone borderline High?

You can't get it until after Pryce, it is underleveled when you catch it, it is slow as molasses and weak, though admittedly it has a pretty nice movepool (Level 37 STAB Earthquake is pretty amazing), has 5 weaknesses to really common types, and takes super effective damage from pretty much everything in Blackthorn Gym, since all of those Dratini you face are packing Water attacks, which makes it useless there regardless of having Ice-type moves to use against them? I guess the mountain path underneath of Blackthorn has some Ground-types you can use against it, but there are also Selfdestructing Gravlers that Swinub can't run away from, which makes it even harder to train. Piloswine is pretty bad against all of Will's fast and hard-hitting Psychic types. He would be good against Koga if Koga didn't have 2 Poison/Bug types (one with Giga Drain), 1 Bug/Steel (which won't go down in one hit from anything and then proceeds to Explode), and 1 Poison/Flying type (which completetly negates Ground attacks. but takes 2x Ice damage, so I guess that works). Bruno laughs at Piloswine. Karen, bizarrely, has a Vileplume, which is bad news for Piloswine, and she has a Houndoom, which can rip Piloswine to shreds. Admittedly, Piloswine is pretty awesome against Lance's Pokemon, outside of Gyarados, but his poor performance everywhere else is pretty bad. I'm not sure if Kanto counts here, though.

I mean, Swinub surely can't be above Sandshrew, which can be caught right after Azalea Town, can it?

[Colonel M]

Wait wait wait.

Why were you using Piloswine? Didn't I tell you it becomes Mamoswine provided you have the Heart Scale and teach it AncientPower?

[_____]

Wait wait wait.

Why were you using Piloswine? Didn't I tell you it becomes Mamoswine provided you have the Heart Scale and teach it AncientPower?

Assuming you have one, you mean. They are only available on Wednesday and Sunday at the Pokelathon or by spending a ton of time smashing Rocks. It can get a Heart Scale and learn AncientPower, but you can't assume it does. Can you even get a Mamoswine before beating the Elite Four? I'm not sure you can.

[Colonel M]

Yeah, you can get a Mamoswine before the E4. Same reason why you can obtain Yanmega and Lolilicky.