Hoenn region tier list

[Espinosa]

That's what I tried to argue against it. Didn't seem to work. Also, there's an in-game trade for a Makuhita? Because I can't say I remember one.

Yep. Catch a Slakoth and trade him for MAKIT (or whatever) in the city of the first gym.

[Shadow Mir]

Yep. Catch a Slakoth and trade him for MAKIT (or whatever) in the city of the first gym.

Must be a Ruby/Sapphire thing, because in Emerald, the trade is trading a Ralts for a Seedot (a raw deal, IMHO).

[MacLovin]

Yep. Catch a Slakoth and trade him for MAKIT (or whatever) in the city of the first gym.

Zangoose requires a bunch of TMs to be good otherwise it just has SD, QA, and Return/slash

Makuhita does well agaist

Rock

Steel

Normal

Dark

All are kinda common early on

[a.f.k.a. Howard Hughes]

Also makuhita ohkos a lot with vital throw and post evolution 120 atk. Also vital throw makes it immune to sand attack and double team

[OrangeCrush980]

I guess high is a bit too high for Manectric. How about Upper Mid, between Ralts and Vulpix then? Vulpix spends most of its existence at a type disadvatage, due to the over-abundance of water, the twins using lots of ground & rock Pokemon, and Drake. It only has an advantage against two of Sidney's Pokemon, Glacia's Glalies, and Steven. Its Sp. Defense and status shenanigans help in neutral battles, but why bother when its faster to sweep through your opponents instead?

[MacLovin]

Electrike up

How about lowerig Zagoose.

its good but relies on TMS too much, like Staryu

[Espinosa]

Zangoose requires a bunch of TMs to be good otherwise it just has SD, QA, and Return/slash

Makuhita does well agaist

Rock

Steel

Normal

Dark

All are kinda common early on

Well, somebody has to make use of said TMs, so might as well pick their best user (namely for Shadow Ball and Return, perhaps Brick Break and Dig too).

Makuhita hitting Rock and Steel types is not a very solid argument at all, because those have an absurd phys defence stat most of the time. As for normal and dark types, those are faster than Makuhita, so he'll be taking a hit from all of them before dealing damage. Since it's got high HP but low defences and it takes hits constantly, it demands more resources than any of the faster Pokemon you could use. Like Zangoose, for example.

I'm also repulsed at how low Aron is (rock/steel typing is just too good), and how Magikarp is so much lower than Wingull. You don't even have to go fishing for a Magikarp and baby it in this game since it's captured as a ~lv. 40 Gyarados around the time you tackle the last gym. And soon enough it learns Dragon Dance with which it sweeps the whole E4 easily. Dragon Dance and Earthquake as Gyarados options make their first appearance in this gen. At least keep a separate entry for Gyarados, if you still want to stress that catching a Magikarp is inefficient (Top Tier material IMO).

[MacLovin]

Well, somebody has to make use of said TMs, so might as well pick their best user (namely for Shadow Ball and Return, perhaps Brick Break and Dig too).

Makuhita hitting Rock and Steel types is not a very solid argument at all, because those have an absurd phys defence stat most of the time. As for normal and dark types, those are faster than Makuhita, so he'll be taking a hit from all of them before dealing damage. Since it's got high HP but low defences and it takes hits constantly, it demands more resources than any of the faster Pokemon you could use. Like Zangoose, for example.

I'm also repulsed at how low Aron is (rock/steel typing is just too good), and how Magikarp is so much lower than Wingull. You don't even have to go fishing for a Magikarp and baby it in this game since it's captured as a ~lv. 40 Gyarados around the time you tackle the last gym. And soon enough it learns Dragon Dance with which it sweeps the whole E4 easily. Dragon Dance and Earthquake as Gyarados options make their first appearance in this gen. At least keep a separate entry for Gyarados, if you still want to stress that catching a Magikarp is inefficient (Top Tier material IMO).

What are you smoking and can I have some too?

Rock/Steels horrible in 3rd gen

And it's slow as fuck

and, by the time we can get a gyrados in wild, we'd have better users of EQ.

And, Makuhita doesn't worry too much

Vital throw ORKOes so much, its ot funny.

Dark types are annoying, but have crap for moves.

Unless it's Mightyyena ad *****ing take down or Shiftry ad ***ig NP in grass areas

[Espinosa]

Makuhita's not much faster than any of them. Makuhita also has less coverage (only fighting-type attacks are learnt naturally), and its defensive typing is far worse. I don't know where you're getting your information from, but steel is still the best defensive typing in the game boasting more resistances than any other type. Aron and its evolution line don't have to worry about being poisoned, they wall too many Pokemon and resist a large number of moves the opposition will throw at you. Aron learns Rock Tomb (and is possibly the best candidate for it) as soon as you catch it and it remains its best rock-type STAB for the rest of the game, and it can continue switching into poison, normal and flying types that you face. If you know well enough whom you're facing, you can switch Aron into earlygame water-types like Tentacool who haven't yet learnt a single water-type STAB and block them completely.

Geodude comes just in time to wall Wattson, who is quite problematic if you didn't pick Mudkip as your starter. It also helps against Flannery and Norman.

[MacLovin]

Makuhita's not much faster than any of them. Makuhita also has less coverage (only fighting-type attacks are learnt naturally), and its defensive typing is far worse. I don't know where you're getting your information from, but steel is still the best defensive typing in the game boasting more resistances than any other type. Aron and its evolution line don't have to worry about being poisoned, they wall too many Pokemon and resist a large number of moves the opposition will throw at you. Aron learns Rock Tomb (and is possibly the best candidate for it) as soon as you catch it and it remains its best rock-type STAB for the rest of the game, and it can continue switching into poison, normal and flying types that you face. If you know well enough whom you're facing, you can switch Aron into earlygame water-types like Tentacool who haven't yet learnt a single water-type STAB and block them completely.

Geodude comes just in time to wall Wattson, who is quite problematic if you didn't pick Mudkip as your starter. It also helps against Flannery and Norman.

Aron evolves a a high level.

Has little sp def

The only good thing here, is coming early.

but it needs a bit of babying, quite a bit..

And you're worried about poison types....

[-Cynthia-]

Sableye is pretty good at clearing Brawly and Norman easily (un STABed Faint Attacks don't hit very hard, even by Slaking). Of course this takes a pretty long time, so the list might not favor that.

You could also use it against Tate/Liza and Phoebe I guess. It is a decent Pokemon defensively, KOing stuff just takes a while.

[Shadow Mir]

I know I already brought this up, but whatever is Seviper doing in Upper Mid?

[a.f.k.a. Howard Hughes]

Seviper has very respectable Offence on both ends of spectrum in form of Poison Tail/Sludge Bomb, Bite/Crunch, Dig/EQ*smirk*, Flamethrower and Strenght/Return/Secret Power as well as some ok options in Glare and Screech while boasting 100 in both Sp. Atk and Atk

However its other stats fail to impress, its severly underleveled, Poison is not that good type, Tm whore syndrome also Gulpin/Koffing/Grimer exists and stuff.

I would move it right under Grimer and Koffing personally. While its Offence is superior, the duo has their own perks too. Also they come much earlier...

to answer your question, because you must be Sho.M to have authority here MKS

Edited February 11, 2012 by Sho.M.the.Pinkie.Pie

[dondon151]

Zangoose's primary problem is that he's not around for very long. He's very capable of sweeping entire teams even with just neutral coverage and is certainly one of the best Brick Break and Shadow Ball candidates. It's not like he needs anything else.

Seviper, on the other hand, lacks a good boosting move and is a lot slower.

By the way, Aron is pretty mediocre. It has absolutely horrendous offensive coverage (not exactly a good movepool either), doesn't evolve into Lairon until late, and is very slow. Its typing is also horrendous defensively.

Edited February 11, 2012 by dondon151

[grandjackal]

While I'm still laying down a sort of foundation for this sort of thing (since if this goes over like I think, I think things will be more problematic than people make it out to be as the game goes on), I would like to pipe in on the Sableye thing.

I'm going to test him in my current playthrough, but in my initial dry run I should note that he should get credit for being this thing you catch to instantly cheese Brawly. He has no answer for it, since Machop and Makuhita don't have Foresight and his Meditite has a Focus Punch problem. I bring this up mainly because of a few things.

Due to skipping fights you can avoid, I don't think Taillow will actually be that high a level by the time you have a run-in with Brawly, so if he can't just straight sweep them then chances are his fragile ass will just get handed to him. You also straight won't get him if you picked Torchic since then you'll have 3 mouths to feed (Torchic, Taillow and whoever you have to take care of Roxanne. Even if it's not a long-term thing, that's EXP not going to Torchic or Taillow). On the other hand, short term or long term, Sableye can regardless body Brawly for free so badly you can lead with another pokemon and switch in Sableye to allow your other mon to grow for when you eventually ditch Sableye. Long term, he gets a lot out of Brawly's gym.

While my scope is no further than that, I will bring up more about Sableye as it comes. However, I'm going to imagine that it's going to be a really crappy long term investment but time will tell. STAB Shadow Ball and all that.

[Espinosa]

One problem with stressing Sableye's supposed superiority in the second gym is that it by no means sweeps it - the best you get is an agonisingly long battle where you either use Leer and Scratch (Leer is a bad idea since those guys have Bulk Up) or Night Shade, which takes countless turns because Brawly uses Potions as well. Really, if you want to get done with the gym faster, you might as well bring in somebody who beats him quickly, and you might as well bring somebody who is worth raising - I would say Kadabra with Confusion, but a good-levelled Taillow works as well. It's easy to see that Swellow's prowess only declines after its evolution as the opposition grows stronger and it waits 25 levels just to learn Aerial Ace which has the same power as Wing Attack. Still, Swellow is a good Pokemon for Mudkip users, because it covers its evolution line's only weakness - to grass, and when your Marshtomp/Swampert is overlevelled enough to OHKO grass-types with Ice Beam, you might as well stop using Swellow. The downside to raising a Kadabra at that point is having to switch him out constantly, because it's a little while until you get your Exp Share from your first visit to Granite Cave.

Alternatively, bring a sleeper and try to beat Brawly with your starter. But that raises the question, which sleeper? Slakoth? Who's slow and gets OHKO'd? I need to think what other earlygame sleeping options you have available.

I don't think skipping avoidable battles is a good idea (I'm all for using Repels in grassy areas when you do not intend to catch anything, though). It will only result in longer gym leader battles because you failed to appropriately raise the relevant Pokemon.

And Sableye doesn't deserve a long-term investment, and I would argue needn't be captured at all. Plus, Ruby players can't even catch one so you need to think of separate Brawly strategies for that version (not an argument against Sableye in the versions where he is available by all means, but I've already said enough about that).

[a.f.k.a. Howard Hughes]

If we give penalties from not being in game X we might just as well drop zangoose by 3-4 tiers...

[MacLovin]

Sableyes got one good use, beatig Brawly.

Them, it slips down with it's movepool and stats.

[Espinosa]

Notice how I said "not an argument against Sableye in the versions where he is available by all means, but I've already said enough about that." Anyway, the purpose of that was to stress how you can't reject Taillow on the grounds that you're surely bringing a Sableye since Sableye isn't even available in every version (and when it is, it's not your best option for the gym either). Organising the tier list by lack of availability in specific versions is absurd and not something I suggested, much like it would be ridiculous to move down all the starter Pokemon because they're absent if you choose a different one.

[grandjackal]

One problem with stressing Sableye's supposed superiority in the second gym is that it by no means sweeps it - the best you get is an agonisingly long battle where you either use Leer and Scratch (Leer is a bad idea since those guys have Bulk Up) or Night Shade, which takes countless turns because Brawly uses Potions as well.

Countless is SUCH an overstatement. Sure when you're killing every trainer in possible existence before fighting Brawly you could have Taillow sweep, but why waste even MORE time fighting them when you could just catch a Sableye? Night Shade is like a 3HKO on Machop, Meditite is absolutely no problem. Makuhita is mostly the only problem, as it takes a few Night Shades, with maybe a scratch or two as a buffer so he won't use any potions.

Hell, I caught one and went straight to him. Int he red, only 12 night shades. Was dead the moment I threw Sableye in. No training, no nothing required.

Really, if you want to get done with the gym faster, you might as well bring in somebody who beats him quickly, and you might as well bring somebody who is worth raising - I would say Kadabra with Confusion, but a good-levelled Taillow works as well.

With what exp and why? If you NEED to kill unecessary trainers just to beat a gym when you don't have to, then why are you doing it? Let me also stress the fact that immediately after you catch a Taillow is a bunch of rock mons, and that unless you're grinding wild pokemon I highly doubt you will get Kadabra by Brawly.

It's easy to see that Swellow's prowess only declines after its evolution as the opposition grows stronger and it waits 25 levels just to learn Aerial Ace which has the same power as Wing Attack. Still, Swellow is a good Pokemon for Mudkip users, because it covers its evolution line's only weakness - to grass, and when your Marshtomp/Swampert is overlevelled enough to OHKO grass-types with Ice Beam, you might as well stop using Swellow. The downside to raising a Kadabra at that point is having to switch him out constantly, because it's a little while until you get your Exp Share from your first visit to Granite Cave.

See what I mean? You don't even think Kadabra is possible without a lot of trouble earlygame, and you think Swellow sucks anyways. Why bother when the only time either of them can contribute can be dealt with Sableye whom you can drop instantly form that point and forget about? Hell, you can even use Sableye effectively while giving exp to mons you think will actually last you rather than switching to Taillow in a fight or using a non-existent Kadabra.

Alternatively, bring a sleeper and try to beat Brawly with your starter. But that raises the question, which sleeper? Slakoth? Who's slow and gets OHKO'd? I need to think what other earlygame sleeping options you have available.

I think your only other options are Effect Spore on Shroomish (good luck) and some sort of spore from one of the Wurmple evos (all those earlygame rocks...)

I don't think skipping avoidable battles is a good idea (I'm all for using Repels in grassy areas when you do not intend to catch anything, though). It will only result in longer gym leader battles because you failed to appropriately raise the relevant Pokemon.

I just run from random encounters, but that's only because I'm a penny pincher.

Also, what makes wasting the same/more time killing every scrub on the road to glory any better idea than to just rush down and get what will just plain work? Wouldn't THOSE pokemon really be the relevant ones?

And Sableye doesn't deserve a long-term investment, and I would argue needn't be captured at all. Plus, Ruby players can't even catch one so you need to think of separate Brawly strategies for that version (not an argument against Sableye in the versions where he is available by all means, but I've already said enough about that).

True that he doesn't exist in Ruby and that sucks for Torchic users, but if you're talking about needn't be captured at all in a style where you kill all the scrubs, then why bother catching anything since that's how solos are easily done (unless you're Treecko)? Long term investment I don't doubt though, but he can still easily cheese Brawly while helping train up relevant pokemon who would otherwise get demolished by him. Then you can drop him knowing he was nothing but a pure positive at a point where you really lack options against a rather troublesome opponent (even you say you basically only have a "well leveled Taillow" )

Edited February 12, 2012 by grandjackal

[MacLovin]

Did you know, that if you jußt deliver the package to Stevan, you can skip Brawly?

And, come back later?

I dunno if this is relevant, but I do this often.

[grandjackal]

Did you know, that if you jußt deliver the package to Stevan, you can skip Brawly?

And, come back later?

I dunno if this is relevant, but I do this often.

But then you have to eventually run all the way back and sail there a second time, then sail back and run back to whatever you were doing because you eventually have to soon due to the restraints Norman has, and Norman is unskippable due to his badge being hte one that allows Surf.

Kind of a waste of time to skip him then just run back, especially since you don't have to.

While I'm posting: Make sure you catch a level 12 Sableye guys. turns out a level 10 one has some issues.

[Bluedoom]

But then you have to eventually run all the way back and sail there a second time, then sail back and run back to whatever you were doing because you eventually have to soon due to the restraints Norman has, and Norman is unskippable due to his badge being hte one that allows Surf.

Kind of a waste of time to skip him then just run back, especially since you don't have to.

While I'm posting: Make sure you catch a level 12 Sableye guys. turns out a level 10 one has some issues.

You can beat Brawly when you're returning to petalburg city. Honestly I see no reason why you should not skip Brawly when its optionaly(temporarily of course)

[grandjackal]

You can beat Brawly when you're returning to petalburg city. Honestly I see no reason why you should not skip Brawly when its optionaly(temporarily of course)

You still have to go back to Dewford and then back to Petalburg when you could just kick his ass on arrival. Why skip it at all?

[MacLovin]

if the standard is going to be relevent to being good with less experiance use, we could catch certain evolved pkmn in routes

Like Linoone, Manectric in the rain one

The stuff in victory road

Hariyama

Whishcash

Medicham

The ones at sea

Sharpedo

Gyrados

Wailord

Tentacruel

And in Emeralds, tower

Altaria

Dusclops

Banette

Claydol

and n he ltle cove where you get focus punch

Swelow