Gen 1's Rock Wars: A Complete History | RBY Bytes
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- Опубліковано 31 лип 2024
- Rhydon and Golem's brawl for supremacy is one of RBY's most well-known fixtures. However, in recent years, it's largely subsided. Let's go through a deep dive into how, why, and when Golem dropped. It's more interesting than you think!
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Player mentions are not endorsements; they are mere acknowledgements of notable players in RBY history. Some players mentioned absolutely have done some reprehensible things in the past, and I do not condone them - in some cases, I was the one to cast them out.
SOURCES
www.smogon.com/articles/rby-g...
game-life-plus.com/category14...
pisker.hatenablog.com/entry/2...
pisker.hatenablog.com/entry/2...
pokemon.s20.xrea.com/1st/1997/
pokemon.s20.xrea.com/historia-...
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/... lots of things
www.pokemonperfect.com/forums... - the legendary golem thread
www.pokemonperfect.com/forums...
www.pokemonperfect.com/forums...
www.smogon.com/rb/articles/rb...
www.smogon.com/forums/threads...
www.pokemonperfect.com/forums...
www.pokemonperfect.com/forums...
rby2k10.proboards.com/thread/... - old golem analysis, % damage issue noted
rby2k10.proboards.com/thread/... defensiveness list
rby2k10.proboards.com/thread/... an old but very important debate
www.smogon.com/forums/threads... - 2007 Chansey analysis
web.archive.org/web/200712141... - 2012 Chansey analysis, note SToss is seen as “gimmicky”
www.pokemonperfect.com/forums... - this dropped rhydon and jolteon
www.pokemonperfect.com/forums... - literally the only rhydon discussion prior to it dropping??
web.archive.org/web/202102271... PO usage stats
web.archive.org/web/201302172... Snorlax set usage (2013)
web.archive.org/web/201302172... chansey set usage (2013)
rby2k10.proboards.com/thread/... old battle where Crystal_ used Rhydon (2011)
web.archive.org/web/201302172... egg usage (2013)
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/... rby uu tier timeline
www.pokemonperfect.com/forums... ggfan winning pp 2uwc
www.pokemonperfect.com/forums... pp 2uwc usage
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/... pp 2uwc usage sheet
www.pokemonperfect.com/forums... old rhydon analysis for 2u
www.pokemonperfect.com/forums... old 2u with rhydon
www.pokemonperfect.com/forums... ggfan’s 2u teams
pokepast.es/12798a5d9db9c1c6 tos legacy 2002
pokepast.es/27e8f318e520f4be the spirit of rby 2009
pokepast.es/0fa758203aa6aa1e Crystal_’s Rhydon team (2011, reconstructed)
pokepast.es/e599e0aea051451a RaishSey c.2012
pokepast.es/85297415da71f97b do you like eggs 2013
pokepast.es/3a2c47fed919db69 2013-2014 old standard
pokepast.es/ccb122d6310bcf39 the molt team
pokepast.es/3ccd37b034aba58a the toxic stall team
CREDITS
- Shellnuts
- 大吟醸 (Daiginjo)
- Frrf
- Sabelette
- Enigami
- Amaranth
- marcoasd
- WaterWizard
- Isa
- Ortheore
- Unowndragon
- Molk
- Adeleine - Ігри
This video took a VERY long time to make, thank you all for supporting RBY Bytes!
Corrections & Additional Information:
- At 18:00, Rhydon's calculated Special should be 188, not 118!
- At 20:00, Rhydon and Golem's critical hit rates are the wrong way around.
- Around the time of the Paraslam Changes, Isa was an early adopter of Golem's damage being a problem. He'd recently took over the PO forums at the time.
but how will this affect Onix's legacy
You'll find out~
More importantly how will this affect Gyaoon’s legacy?
Very little
Ahhhhnix!
The AAAHNIX!! Market will never recover
Ground is better than Rock as a type and Rhydon is Ground/Rock while Golem is Rock/Ground, Rhydon RULES and Golem SUCKS
This is the analysis everyone needs!
Definitely seen a lot of takes on how the types truly functioned in RBY-namely Normal being THE big attacking type throughout the whole game with most others there to get around physical defenses and such-but with Rock that true function seems to carry over to later gens. Better moves let it fill that role a bit better, but it still fills that role rather than being a weakness clicker like a lot of other types. That role being strong but inaccurate moves; sort of funny, considering there are moves of pretty much every type like that, but Rock offensive moves are built on this principle to the point so much that the weaknesses it hits feel secondary. Interesting for sure, but weakness clicking just matters more in campaign runs, which is why Rock types rarely if ever make the cut on my teams (that, and often actual Rock type Pokémon don’t come with STAB or learn any for a while).
I think you mean Golem DROOLS.
5:00 I know this is about Rhydon and Golem but I love that Tauros set.
Tauros set in 1997: Slam beam blizzard quake.
Tauros set in 2024: Slam beam blizzard quake.
Made my way here while Reverend is day drinking in the teacher's lounge. Got my listening ears ready and I'm loving this! Cool to learn the shifts in the meta as formats changed and more knowledge was learned about the weird quirks of gen 1.
I used to think Electric had no effect on Rock due to how many Rock/Ground types exist in Gen 1, but actually the fossils are all weak to electric.
Yeah, lances areodactyl taught me that, lol.
Having fully finished the video here's hoping one day Golem can find a tier where it's Kenough. Regardless, if Golem ever feels bad about all this all they have to do is look in a mirror and see how not-Onix they are, that usually cheers one up.
He is actually moving up in gen 2 OU so that's a good thing
@@mandalorianhunter1 yeah they're like rank 7 there iirc
The joke answer: Golem's home is Johto, certainly nowhere in Kanto
The real answer: I firmly believe that every pokemon will eventually find a tier where it can thrive (or at least have some kind of consistent, valuable niche), RBY Golem is no exception. If things won't shake out in NU, I'm positive it'll be good in PU, thanks to all the fires and poisons running around
Last I checked, in GSC, Rhydon and Golem are still fundamentally different Pokemon in use-cases, only Golem actually has a strong draw in Rapid Spin.
idk, it isn't looking good for hypno
Boom is alot better on gsc compared to rby so yea like it got a massive bp buff
@@egon3705I'd say Hypno's home is Gen 1 tradebacks format (Gen 1 Amnesia + the Elemental Punches).
every Pokémon except arcanine ☹️
This was like a movie. The difference between OU and NU seems so vast, it's baffling that a Pokemon that was OU for most of RBY's history suddenly dropped to NU. Such an event needs a lot of explanation. Great job providing us the history lesson we needed!
Watching this video makes it really clear just how insanely long the timeline is.
By the time Lutra was running Gengar + Persian it had been **over ten years** since Nishimura ran Golem in Spaceworld 97. And that's not even halfway through the video.
It's just, genuinely mindboggling to think about how they'd (likely) already refer to the Spaceworld stuff as "ancient RBY history" even back then.
Yep, it's very scary to think about. It was equally scary gathering all the required information to make this...
Both an insanely long history for a game’s scene to have and an incredibly short amount of time to consider something ancient history
was revisiting this and i just need to point out the auto captions at 8:23
"electrode is more than willing to explode because of rhydon's turd"
don't mind me im just well into my 20s and still cackling at accidental toilet humor
That intro wonderfully captures how Golem fell off hard. But at least it can still explode. And the little bubbles are symbolic of Rhydon learning Bubblebeam.
53 minutes ago, if you asked me which side I'm on, it's Golem all the way. The ability to beat Zapdos plus Explode on something slower means it can take out two things at the price of one. Now with 20+ years of research and analysis, I'd rather just go with Rhydon's consistency. That said, I'm happy we're in an era where we are trying to find Golem's true niche in basically all on RBY. This is an exciting time for the meta!
Unless your a golem fan and have had to watch him fall
To be fair, Golem fans can just play GSC if they want an OU tier where it's a highly respected threat.
Boom: I sleep ✋️
Spin _then_ boom: the real stuff 👍
@@autobotstarscream765 Spin, Boom, Roar, "answers" Snorlax about as good as something in GSC can.
It's funny how the whole jack of all trades role compression thing it was trying to do in RBY both continued and was massively improved in GSC.
Finding out Golem didn’t even stay thriving in NU and is going to tumble down even harder is certainly the fitting end for Golem as of now
Edit: We back to UU
Golem is such a fascinating topic, I can't think of any other pokemon that plummeted from OU to NU (and maybe eventually PU) within one generation, it's really cool to watch and really showcases how different tiers are completely different formats, rather than just a ranking of how generically good a pokemon is
Have you ever heard the tragedy of Quagsire?
It's kinda funny that the best argument for playing Golem is it's good at offing itself,kinda
Yeah that's basically it. Yeesh.
long format pokemon videos is like a warm hug from someone you used to like
as always, the intro gag is perfect and on point
This is the rare occasion I did the opening meme last! Usually, I do them first, but I had major idea block...
I feel like making it after the rest of the video kind of makes sense since it would mean being able to have more ideas to work with from a 'statement summarizing the central thesis of the video' standpoint. It definitely worked here
The fact Articuno was ever used competitively is hilarious in hindsight.
It's an all-around great Pokemon in Gen 1. What killed it was the Special Stat Split giving it 95 SpA. Otherwise, it would probably still be a fine Pokemon even today. Its early, explosive competitive success murdered its long-term viability, being nerfed directly after the SpaceWorld National Tournament.
Honestly if it still had 125 gen 2 and onward it’d likely have niches in OU up until gen 4 just due to being so explosively powerful since ice is such a good STAB. And with Boots in gen 8 I’m sure lower some lower tier would like it, kinda like how Moltres worked out
Its pretty funny how Articuno went from a terrifying special attacker to a wall with decent offense
It’s usable in gens 1-3 tbh
I mean in gen 1 articuno’s blizzard is stronger than 6:20 an unboosted mewtwo’s psychic
There's a problem I have when I stare at a Pokémon for too long. I learned that Pelipper had blue feet which was a strange but welcome revelation.
Staring at Rhydon's Gen 1 backsprite has my eyes shifting trying to figure out a face that doesn't look like a mess or a nightmare. And don't get me started on figuring out the separation between his tail and back (spikes?) that come down from his head.
Huh, I had no idea that an understanding of body slam's paralysis mechanic was so recent.
I sort of assumed that people figured it out right away.
So technically, Earl's Pokemon Academy mentions it, and speedrunners discovered it early, but it just blindsided the competitive community for years.
It's funny to see how the Crystal Paraslam discovery initially reduce the amount of paralyzed Pokemon leading to Rhydon being dropped to 2U, but the lack of Tentacruel usage in 2U preventing a further drop. Then the rise of unparalyzed normals with Reflect and increased Thunder Wave usage led to increased Rhydon usage and the realization that Rhydon was just a better Pokemon than Golem, but by this time Tentacruel was top tier in UU, leading to Golem's drop to NU. Crystal's discovery had so many unexpected consequences that are fun to learn about as someone who only started playing way after the discovery.
Yep! By the time Golem dropped, Rhydon's party would have already been over...
This is why I love these videos. I have no intention of entering this scene myself, but these meta shifts, all the interlocking factors that make one change cascade and effect so much viability, is something I could get lost in for days.
So Rhydon could have ended up in NU if Tentacruel rose a little quicker?
Poor Golem just happened to be the right shape to roll down the cliff. While Rhydon is just too fat
Crow lady talks about rocks for an hour. Yes please
Excuse you! She's a Papua Bird of Paradise!!!!!!!! hehe
Yay! Time to learn all about lord AHHHNIX and nothung else im sure
i could see Golem winding up in PUBL if the NU meta proves unfavorable. It'd completely mutilate PU, a tier mainly composed of physical attackers and fire or poison types.
Kind of an unfortunate end for it if that happens, to wind up in a limbo of a niche OU mon with no place in any lower tier.
18:26 The Shuckle Theorem: Why defense means nothing if you don't have the HP to back it up 😔
Something everyone can learn from!
:((
But of course this is all setup for Rock War 2: Rock vs. Stone. E
Both of them get outclassed by Boulder
@@ultimapower6950I think OP means Rock Slide vs. Stone Edge.
@@autobotstarscream765 No. I just mean between the words "Rock" and "Stone" as a joke.
THE ROCK WARS ARE FINALLY HERE, IT'S TIME TO REWATCH THIS FOR MONTHS!
It's funny coming back to this video after golem is now back up to UU. Gotta love seeing golem doing well for itself
It is impossible to overstate how egregious 90% acc/30% freeze on a 110 BP move is.
It would still be the best move in the game to this day. Gobsmackingly cracked.
Fantastic analysis and editing as usual ❤. Golem shall always be remembered as the legend he was. Long love the mighty boulder!
The Rock Wars, a time where rocks were on Pokemon and then thrown instead of being invisible and flooding in the air after gen 4
This predation of the weather wars has been intriguing. When Rock was the greatest weapon of all and even Mewtwo feared it
Here from Reverend's video. I'm SO happy to find more peeps talking about Gen 1! Gonna be binging the rest of your vids after this
Obligatory PvK E :3
What if you actually can paralyze a normal type with body slam, we just never have yet?
pffff
I think that's what everyone actually thought until the data mine. 😂
E, you fools, post the E!
e
E
E
E
E
There is one perfect, foolproof way to make Golem work in OU:
Switch to GSC!
Rapid Spin Gaming!
Your videos are so concise and informative - while still getting into the meat of meta discourse! So much love and hard work clearly went into this and it shows
After mulling it over for some time. I have come to the decision to not use either Body Slam or Bubble Beam on Rhydon. Fire Blast Rhydon anti meta. It can burn the opponent's Tauros and Rhydon, crippling their offense. It also does more damage to Exeggutor than Body Slam or Bubble Beam, not letting them in as safely. Fire Blast is flames. With this tech I'm sure to climb the ladder now!
Why must u subject my eyes to this
@@PlaguevonKarma When my Rhydon 4HKOs Exeggutor with Fire Blast you'll see...
@@EmbodimentOfEvilYou are indeed the Embodiment of Evil
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 Absolutely :))
Okay, but hear me out.
Bubble Beam Rhydon in the Rhydon mirror... 🫧
Really fun video! I appreciate the insight & style, you do a great job of laying things out and presenting them in an interesting way. I’m very happy to have come across the channel.
Hugely underrated channel
Better that than being too popular!
I’m loving the new production quality, keep it up!
I would love having a video for each of the u-tiers like they deserve. So interesting to hear those analysises and histories of the non-OU tierings
i absolutely love that the clip of chansey getting ohko'd is then revealed to be followed by zapdos coming out
This is a powerful video.
I feel your enthusiasm.
I cared very much about making this video - I had to redeem the old one.
Well at least Onix is a formidable force in Little Cup
Onix 🤜 Finding their place in Gen 2 🤛 Golem
One thing I find very fascinating is how much the history of RBY somewhat -- not perfectly, mind you -- reflects the history of other games, particularly real-time strategy. Every new RTS that comes out starts off with a very aggressive metagame, and over time it stabilizes into a bulkier metagame with longer games, more bases taken, etc. The consistency of cutting as many corners as possible to get more bases (thus more resources) than your opponent vs. a fast rush or all-in to kneecap them as fast as possible, but if you fuck up, you're just dead. That *seems* to be also true for many fighting games, where playing "lame" with pokes ends up being the most optimal in the very-long run; e.g. Smash Brothers Ultimate, though that is also a debatable case b/c of implemented DLC.
Regardless, I hope the observation is not lost on anyone else in how the long-term potential of Rhydon sub strat vs. Golem's boom strat in RBY followed a similar arc to the above!
It is far easier to grasp an aggressive playstyle compared to a defensive one. One is the intended action - Point A, to Point B. The other inherently involves not doing the objective to increase your chances of getting there. It shouldn't work, but there's two players, so it does. It's very interesting.
Learn about secondary effects from 'Stadium 2 in 2000: I sleep
Learn about secondary effects from decompiling Red/Blue in 2015: Real shit
Rock wars?
But this doesn't seem to be about the controversy caused by the British folk rock band Jethro Tull beating AC/DC and Metallica to win the first Grammy for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance, which resulted in the relase of a PR statement noting that the flute is a (heavy) metal instrument.
Nevertheless, I will persevere...
paaaah, it was a REFERENCEEEEEEE to that
YES! FINALLY THE FUNNI ROKS ARE HERE!
I’m so glad rev featured you in the RBY OU video, this is so damn good! You explain this game so clearly, this is so well written and paced.
This was very fun. I love rock types and pokemon history. Thanks so much for compiling this!
I’ve been watching the whole thing expecting at the end that Kabutops comes in out of nowhere as the superior rock type. Good video
Considering Explosion is "only" 340 power in RBY, say hypothetically that it was instead 500, a la GSC-DPPt; would that have saved Golem at all, or was 340-boom already powerful enough that the extra one-hundred-sixty would've been wasted and the bomb-rock's other flaws would stand out regardless?
Golem Explosion was basically always killing the stuff it needed to kill anyway, so I highly doubt the buff would've done much to help
Honestly if explosion was that strong onix might be the one rising not golem. Golem’s explosions are fine on power but onix can fail to ko. If onix’s explosions reached that level of power the addition of bind in cost for stats may have seemed a lot more favorable if you could always guarantee a 1 for 1 especially when factoring it onix is a faster boom user. Now how far it rising 🤷♂️ but it’d probably be a bit
Oh my gosh, they were Ball-mates!
pretty cool. i liked the part of the movie where golem uses explosion.
been looking forward to this! love all your content c:
9:36 You can arguably make a whole video on Japanese Blizzard, a war crime so egregious that even in a game as janky as gen 1 Pokemon Game Freak was like “hold up, maybe we went a bit too far here…”
53 minutes of info on a gen I don't play even casually? Sign me the hell up
Honey wake up, Plague Von Karma put out a new RBY video
This video rocks! I hope it blows up in the algorithm!
From a largely outside perspective (I've watched a lot of videos about comp RBY but have never played any gen 1 meta aside from random battles), this is a lot of information to take in but really interesting and informative nonetheless. Very much an example of metagames being a social phenomenon as much as the result of optimization. Out of curiousity, in a world where reflect normals didn't rise to prominence but the fundamental difference between rhydon and golem came to be understood, do you think golem would have still fallen off? I understand that it probably wouldn't have happened that way regardless, but I guess I'm curious if golem was in retrospect the more optimal pick for that past meta, or if this is a case like lapras where further optimization revealed fundamental flaws. From what I'm understanding it seems like the latter, but I'm not sure.
Ubers is an example of a format where Reflect Normal-types didn't happen, and Golem is pretty decent. It's not great and still fundamentally its own Pokemon - but it does see competitive usage semi-regularly.
As a fellow outsider, the start of this perfectly reflects my own perspective. I have no interest in actually getting into competitive Pokémon, but getting looks into the nuances of its tiers through Plague and Big Yellow is endlessly fascinating to me.
I always love the silly intro gags you do. They’re such a charming way to open all you videos
Thank you! They're often very hard to make, it's difficult to find ideas. Join my Discord server if you ever want to submit ideas!
Her: Hey babe come over let's watch a movie
Me: Which movie
Her: You choose ^-^
Me:
d'aww, thanks
Great video! Had a blast watching
Actual excellent video. Such a treat for competitive RBY fans like myself.
I’ve heard rumblings that Golem has the potential to rise in UU recently (a very volatile tier from what I can tell). And just judging off the current NU viability rankings, Golem seems to be doing great, being the 6th best. Maybe things are looking up for the rock after all? I hope so, as Golem is a personal favorite of mine.
But again, great video!
Thanks for all your hard work, as usual.
Oh my goshhhh thank you
Thank you for your service plague =)
I guess Golem had a RockE turnabout.
as always absolutely lovely video, plague.
That was an amazing deep dive into RBY
More like RBY Meals this time
I used Rhydon in the whopping 3 matches of RBY OU that I’ve played (and the first opponent was a lead Charizard lol), but this has been one of my favorite UA-cam series to watch!
It's incredible to think that Body Slam used to be the Scald of the 1st gen meta
It absolutely is, and I'd argue it's stronger than Scald in terms of power relative to generation. By far the best move in the game. At the same time, I'd say it also saved the game's bacon - the quality of spammable moves outside of it was terrible.
an excellent video to make and eat breakfast to, it's a dream come true
haven't played in months and months now but i still love your content
Ayoo, glad to see you're still around. You should join my Discord, we could catch up!
@@PlaguevonKarma im in the discord, im just asocial so i dont interact with people very often :D
There is a tiny, itty-bitty error - a nitpick over the pixel of dust on the needle I found in this haystack of a video - at 18:00: while I can definitely see how Golem can have 208 special with a base stat of 45...how could Rhydon, with a base stat of 40, have 118 special..?
118 should be 188!
That unforgivable sin of the gravest degree (/s) aside, this is quite possibly one of the best videos you've ever made! I love the edits, the information, the history, the theorizing - it just goes to show how much Pokémon has meant and still means for so many people!
Thank you for noticing! Added it to the corrections comment 🥰
More than a bite, this one feels like a full course meal. XD
thank you!! i don't have anything more significant to say but i know comments are good for the algorithm so that's why i keep commenting hehe. thank you nice video i learned a lot!! ^^
if you ever feel like a failure, just remember: you're not rby golem
Golem is not a failure! Onix on the other hand...
@@a1vash well on the bright side AHHHNIX will get his chance in Gen 2
well worth the wait! super interesting topic, and very easy to follow even as only a casual pokemon enjoyer 😊
golem is now in UU! hooray!
good timing too since other related tiering changes have led to the reintroduction of golduck, poliwrath, and poliwhirl into NU
It would simultaneously be very tragic and very funny if the viabilities of Golem and Machamp became intertwined. Great video, although it is a shame to see a former OU Pokemon fall from grace so hard while understanding it has little purpose in OU anymore.
I’ve been looking forward to this!
X: Attack
O: Relent
Amazing video such great research
History time!
Thank you Ms. Von Karma!
and thank you, too!!
Awesome vid
Rock was good defensively in Gen 1. It took until Gen 9 with Garganacl that we saw a good defensive Rock.
Cool video sir, keep up the good work
Ma'am! ❤️
These mons were truly groundbreaking.
commenting before I watch for the algo, but very excited for this!!
Thank youuuu 🙏
@@raulguy i very specifically don't hack pokemon, and my pronouns are they/them
@@imablisy oh sorry for the mistake, btw love your vids
This was just what I needed to listen to while cleaning heheh
Hell yeah! This video rocks!
rock and stonE!
rock gang for life
Hello there, did you know that uhhhh
E
holy shit
well there goes my plans for the afternoon lol
i'd love to see a video explaining alakazam in gen 1. i feel like most videos dont explain what makes it different from starmie.
Unsure when I'd do this, but I can explain a few things.
Not having a Thunderbolt weakness is really big for Alakazam, and allows it to serve not only an offensive role, but a defensive one too. Alakazam isn't necessarily just a special attacker - look at how much is taken in return. That allows it to sit on Chansey incredibly easily; not only that, it can also blow past it with a mix of Special drops from Psychic, full paralysis, and critical hits. This is largely what differentiates it from Starmie - Alakazam is sort of a Swiss Army knife, the limits being solely your creativity.
@@PlaguevonKarma thank you for the enlightment, Karma.