Personally I think they should've had similarly early-game three-stage Fire/Water and Fire/Grass Pokemon, because Lotad + Torchic gives you a full triangle super easily and somewhat undermines the other two starters as a result.
@@RoninCatholic Only on paper, honestly. Sceptile and Swampert have more than enough unique attributes to make them stand out as excellent choices. That said, the lack of Fire types in Hoenn does make it difficult to replace Torchic, but it's not like Fire types are a necessity on every team.
@@RichardBlaziken Honestly I think the only generation with _really good_ and broad Fire type options was gen 1. It spoiled us with so many Fire Pokemon that they seem to just kinda not have had as many ideas per generation in any later batch. The Fire starter is always a solid choice, of course, but also usually my least favorite starter anyway? I tend to build my teams around the aesthetics of the Pokemon involved rather than their types or raw usefulness.
@@RichardBlaziken Frankly, I'm not convinced you ever really WANT a Fire type for Hoenn. Like, really, you get the defensive resist on Flannery, and then you get two Glalie and a Skarmory. Team Magma almost always has some ground moves mixed in, Steven's Metagross can probably tank any Fire attack, then counter with Earthquake, and even worse if you're playing Emerald. Torchic is by far the best fire type you get, but I'm not sure it's ever really worth it. Most of Torchic's upsides come from it being Fighting type... but it's not great as a fighting type, since it either needs Brick Break, or relies on Double Kick/Sky Uppercut. It's still a starter and does well enough as a whole, but honestly, Torchic has very nearly Chikorita levels of bad matchup for Hoenn.
I feel that Mudkip should be in an SS tier of it's own. There are only two Pokemon trainers that have a threatening grass type: Cool Trainer Brook who has a Roselia, and your rival. Other than that every trainer fight Swampert can contribute without being completely blown away. Decent bulk. Decent attack. He's the bestest of team players.
Maybe...Mudkip is for sure the best pokemon on the list, but I don't think he's quite on the Gen 1 Nidoking or Gen 4 Infernape level where it steamrolls absolutely everything. It'll sometimes get outspeed and take a hit, sometimes not quite have the coverage and strength to OHKO. Still S, just not it's own god tier.
Yeah, usually I don't pick the water starter because there are much better water types later on, but even in 7.8/10 Too Much Water Hoenn, most of the water types besides Kyogre are a massive step down. Swampert is just THAT good.
i'm pretty sure there is a lot more trainers that use grass types than two. Also Norman absolutely wrecks Marshtoomp, unless you're very overleveled. Ironically, Dustox is great against Norman since it naturally learns protect and you can get toxic right after the fire gym. And Tate and LIza also are a difficult fight because Swampert low special attack and their strategy of setting up sunny day coupled with solar beam and levitate, and calm mind makes the fight even worse for Swampert.
Fun fact: the items that you get from Pickup only start being based on your level in Emerald. So in Ruby and Sapphire, Pickup has a chance to give you rare candies, nuggets and vitamins right from the start. Whenever I do a Ruby or Sapphire playthrough (which admittedly isn't often anymore), I always just catch five Zigazoon at the start of the game and replace them one-by-one when I catch mons I actually want to use. With enough luck, you have have a decent stockpile of items by the midgame. Enough rare candies can really cut down on late-game grinding, and sellable items can be used to get game corner coins for TMs there.
To be fair, the booklet for Ruby/Sapphire contained a brail translation guide in the back of the booklet. But yeah, the Regis were such a let down for so much work.
It had a brail translation in the booklet!!!?!? Wow. That argument holds very little water now. I thought they offered nothing to help with that. Now I won't accept that as a talking point against the regis. It still sucks to get em though
As a Mexican I've never met another Mexican who doesn't love Ludicolo (Ludiloco pa los compas). Also I didn't even think there was a possibility of it being offensive to anyone as a kid until I saw people from the US saying it lol.
Honestly I always thought the little dude was a great tribute because I saw Ludicolo as portraying Latino culture as happy and celebratory with just a general joy around being alive. I used to work in a Mexican restaurant for about three years and seeing proper fiestas was awesome and he just has *that* energy.
@@hqef616 It's because of the culture of suing people. So they're overly cautious in a lot of regards, and then it extrapolates to the point of obnoxiousness.
Gulpin is wayyyyy better than the D tier crew. Sludge and Yawn are really good early on and the Sludge Bomb TM is also really solid in it. I'd put mid B in this listing. Shroomish being ranked so low is hilarious, bias aside. Set aside any illusions of Spore grandeur and it is a Top 10 ingame mon easily.
In Absol's defense, Absol carried my team by leveraging Shadow Ball and Swords Dance to annihilate most threats. Even if Ghost type isn't STAB, you can hit pretty much the same types for super effective damage as Dark.
As someone who recently went through Ruby with a team of mons I've never used before (Masquerein/Roselia/Volbeat/Nosepass/Zangoose/Chimecho) Nosepass is so much worse than pretty much anything else you get even reasonably early. It never does any damage and its HP is so pitiful it can't even wall that well. And you dont even get it that early, after Volbeat/Illumise actually because you need Rock Smash. Volbeat was infinitley more useful with a decent Atk/Spd stats and good phys movepool (Signal Beam, Brick Break/FP, Shadow Ball, etc.). Even Masquerein had intimidate, good resistances/immunities, and coverage even if it did no damage. Zangoose and Chimecho were definitely the MVPs though. Just had to call out the fact that Nosepass was considered better than anything.
Gligar in Colosseum (even with Earthquake), Delcatty in XD, and Shedinja in Emerald are the 3 worst mons I've finished a serious in game team with. Got me wondering how Nosepass compares to those 3
I considered Ludicolo to be B as well until I used it recently. Turns out that not only does it struggle with STABs (Dependent on mediocre grass tms and completely lacking a water move until you get surf), you also don’t get a water stone until right before the 7th gym. I personally think it’s C myself.
Technically it can learn a water move through breeding with a marill which can be caught on the route with the Daycare, but that’s to much effort for a playthrough. It should be right above Seedot in C.
Very late reply, but yeah Lombre is an absolute anchor between the Roxanne fight, and when you finally Surf. In my experience it's really good for the late game, but getting there is a chore and a half. You're better off putting it in the day care between the Wattson and Norman battles than you are with gaining experience
The fact Lotad was next to Taillow is an absolute joke. Try using the two for the first 5 gyms and see which ends up lvl 30 and always contributing and which ends up getting KO by underleveled wild pokemon, boxed, then put in daycare
Well but guide implies you needed to look something up online or buy the official guide, but the manual came with the game so its available to everybody who plays it legally
@@janieboy ohhh right. I only had the cartridges themselves I could never buy the boxes since they were already expensive as heck by the time I was a kid so I never noticed that
@@ImportedCheese I know that in general we should use less stereotypes in design, and I don't have the faintest idea of why a kappa evolves into a Mexican mariachi-looking thing, but I'm Mexican and I really like it, I don't know of any Mexican that doesn't like this thing, we love it.
I remember getting Ruby version as an 11 year old and just being like "Oh how cute a fish." Then ABSOLUTELY DUMPSTERING the entire game lol Swampert is a beast.
I remember using Mawile in an emerald trashlocke and having a tanky steel type with intimidate is very useful there. It has stuff that lets it play tank/debuff but vanilla Pokemon isn't challenging enough to warrant that type of playstyle
Love the content, been binging it all since last night, but I do have a question/concern about Treeko and your argument about availability. You had mentioned that availability is a key factor, and don't get me wrong, Treeko is the definition of available being a starter, however I do think that the same regard for availability should extend to a Pokemon's movepool. In your supposed Sceptile set, you had mentioned it having Leaf Blade, Earthquake, and Brick Break, but not only are the last two nonreusable TMs that might have conflicting party slots who also might want them (especially EQ), but they're both only available at, or after, the 8th gym. While Brick Break is definitely useful for Sydney and Glacia, what is EQ supposed to be hitting exactly? Treeko is forced to play a huge chunk of the game with Bullet Seed, Pursuit, and Quick Attack as its best moves. It does exceptional against Roxanne, and decent against Brawly, but it's not going to be doing much of anything against Wattson, Flannery, or Norman when Leaf Blade isn't available until Level 29. This is also assuming you picked Sapphire, as Grovyle has an even harder time with all the Magma grunts. A lot of Grovyle's midgame on random fights is poor too, since there's an abundance of Aroma Girls and Guitarists. I can agree with it being A tier due to it being a fast starter, but I see it more as a high B tier Pokemon due to its abysmal mid game. I can't see how it could have a place in S. Other than that though, I love your content! Keep up the good work [:
Fun video as always, I really enjoy these ranking videos and you have some really funny things to say about some Pokemon, which is always entertaining. That said, something I think you should maybe take into consideration a bit more is the exp group of a Pokemon. Being able to level up faster can be a _huge_ benefit for certain Pokemon. Azumarill, for example, I feel like can be ranked a bit higher despite its glaring flaws since it's available early and is in the fast exp group. It evolves super early too, and even a bad fully evolved Pokemon is still pretty great for the early game. By the time you need it to actually start being good, you'll be able to get the dig and return TMs which let Azumarill consistently make use of its monstrous attack. While being slow and having bad special attack would normally be pretty debilitating, it honestly isn't that bad when you consider how fast it levels up. Pokemon in the fast EXP group take a little less than 2/3 of the experience to level up compared to one in the slow EXP group, which can make an enormous difference. By the sheer power of being overlevelled, Azumarill can outspeed more Pokemon than you'd might expect, and it will knock out things more easily than you'd might expect as well. Now don't get me wrong, Azumarill isn't _good_ by any means, but I think it could probably eke out a low B tier. On the other hand, there's also Pokemon like Aron that are severely hampered by being in the slow EXP group. It takes way too long to evolve, and being in the slow EXP group only makes it that much worse. Until then it just can't really hold its own super well, so I personally think it should be high B at best.
Great points, I'll try to keep XP groups in mind. I think I myself mentioned them in the last video with regards to Magikarp, but they sort of slip my mind. I'm gonna need some more N O T E S. Our boy Azumarill is gonna be A and above from now on, so hopefully he won't be too upset at me for ranking him poorly this time >.>
I know other commenters mentioned this, but the Regi puzzles were basically shown how to do in the manual due to an inserted braille chart. It was an excellent inclusion imo. since part of what made Pokémon great was exploration and mystery. The reaction to these kinds of puzzles meant that GF never does them anymore. Which is sad. I did it as an 11 year old with my best friend over a few days, it was very clear what you were supposed to do after seeing the braille and doing some basic thinking. I think it's the penultimate memory of my childhood. Loved the video btw. Just wanted to mention it.
Only gamefreak is dumb enough to completely scrap a feature after it gets bad reception instead of tone it down. And they’re also dumb enough to not reintroduce those kind of things even though the internet means all secrets are spoiled day 1 Still got Inkay tho
I agree with you on Ralts, considering you can get Abra not too long after it and can have it fully evolved at Lv. 16 whereas Ralts/Kirlia is sucky until level 30.
True but Gardevoir has better coverage with Thunderbolt and whilst you can give Alakazam shock wave with just 60 BP it's kinda underwhelming and shadow ball is physical in gen 3.
A couple things First, breloom should be A. At level 22 (1 level before evolving) it learns headbutt to deal respectable damage unlike other grasses like bellsprout or oddish who are stuck with bad stab. Upon evolution it learns mach punch and it can sweep wattson (hard gym) thanks to being super effective against mag. Sky uppercut is also just a good stab, blaziken also has that as its best fighting stab. Breloom is also faster than makuhita and machop lines, with stun spore for catching pokemon (and also leech seed if you’re into that). Not a bad choice for your fighting type. Slakoth seems awful to me. You penalize ralts (actually, you wanted* to penalize but you get the idea) for its slow start when slakoth is even worse at first. Slaking literally can’t sweep for shit thanks to its ability. Ralts otoh learns both calm mind and psychic unusually early and has thunderbolt for coverage. Sounds way better than slakoth.
Leech seed, poison, mach punch and any 4th move is so good as a torchic main. Granted I played ruby so I didn't get ludicolo but there are plenty of water types to go around and ludicolo is more defensive than offensive. There are even two water ground types if you don't pick mudkip.
Played both Ruby and sapphire as a kid. Using an overleveled Blaziken, I couldn’t beat the Elite four after 3 tries and raged. As a 7 year old I came back with an underleveled swampert and beat it on my first try. Swampert might be the most insane starter they have ever made
To my surprise, I remember solving the Regi puzzle as a kid with a regular dictionary! There were braille alphabets in there with the translation and everything. I had an adult tell me that the signs in the game looked like braille signs.
Speakong of Shedinja, another bad factor is that they gave Pursuit to like literally EVERYONE in this game and Ghost/Bug has quite a few weaknesses to begin with. Pursuit is awful but that doesn't matter when you have literally 1 MaxHP
Just finished a run of Emerald with a Shedinja, and fun fact there is a level 33 Ludicolo west of Pacifidlog and a level 42 Wailord in Victory Road that both know Astonish. It had some clear uses but omfg it was the most frustrating mon I've ever had on a HoF team
very cool and well researched list! i'll definitely have to check out your other lists too, hour long videos about pokemon are like my favorite genre of content lol. i really appreciate that you take into account the availability of pokemon, there's so many interesting pokemon i've wanted to use in playthroughs only to be disappointed to find that they only show up in the later portions of the game, which makes it a lot harder to rationalize incorporating them into a team.
The other great thing about Mudkip is that it is the ONLY usable ground type you can get before Watson (Nincada doesn't learn any good ground moves until lv. 45) except for Geodude. If you have Mudkip you can basically annihilate like half the gyms in the game with it.
I'd defend Sabeleye in C tier because Brawley can do literally nothing against you in Emerald if you pick it up in Granite Cave. That's a small benefit, but it's some role that it excels in.
That's a niche I did not know about! This list is only based on Ruby and Sapphire, but if I were to include Emerald, maybe Sableye could find pre-Gen 6 redemption.
When you factor in remakes, do you think things would shift super drastically? Like say Firered/Leafgreen would look a LOT different than RBY's in-game tier list?
I think you massively underrated linoone. Linoone with substitute, belly drum and stab headbutt is ridiculously powerful, especially when you consider gen 3 AI doesn't understand how substitute works. It's so powerful it's insane.
That's because Cheese didn't consider Emerald, I guess. I think this tierlist would be widely different, for a few reasons like Rayquaza being available before the E4, Spheal being one of the first pokemon you meet, and Norman's Linoone showing you how even a route 1 normal type can Belly Drum - Slash your life away.
Great video again! Very interesting stuff. To give my two cents: -Another reason why availability is so important is EVs, even if you get a Mon like Spheal late on which isn't too many levels behind, it won't be able to compete with the strength of your early Mon due to lack of EVs -I tried to use Tentacool once in a Sapphire Nuzlocke (picked one up in Dewford) and it was basically unusable until Level 25 when it gets Bubblebeam, before that all it has are Poison Sting, Constrict and Acid, its attack is pretty low, and poison is a pretty uselss offensive type (and there are very few grass types in the stretch of the game where this is a problem) so I'd knock it down a tier -I've never used Gulpin in RSE so maybe take this with a pinch of salt but I'm using a Swalot atm in Pokemon XD and its pretty good (for a slow poison type), its utility function and ability to tank a bit definitely make it more useful in double battles than in normal gameplay, and I'm not saying its the best thing in the world, but I think it deserves C at least -Something which makes a big difference which you haven't really spoken about is Experience Type, some of the Pokemon you've spoken about not being good until later evolutions, like Ralts, Aron and Anorith, are made significantly worse by having Slow or Erratic (which is this slowest type on average until around the level 40 mark) experience types, taking so much longer to get there. Also, even when they are evolved, it can be a bit of a pain to train them up as they require significantly more battles to train, eating up potential levels for the rest of your team -Pretty minor point but Xatu is definitely better than Chimecho, and maybe the other Psychic types above it too, faster, better attack, second type, easier to catch (Chimecho is 2% encounter), also it only spends one level as a Natu before it evolves -Don't know if you knew this but the manual you got the game with had a Braile cipher
Thanks, as always, for your support! -Good point about late-game pokemon being unable to fill out their EVs, I'll bring that up in Gen 4 - Bruh, Constrict is the most powerful move of all time, what are you on about? ...You could maybe put it in B. - I did wrestle with Swalot in D or C, but I think he is D in this gen. He seems to be made to show off the Stockpile / Swallow / Spit Up moves, which are...bad. -Other commenters also mentioned experience type, I'll definitely make more mention of it moving forward. - I did Xatu kinda dirty in Gen 2 as well, maybe I have some hidden bias against it o_O -I should have read the manual...but that would be admitting that I don't know anything, so let's just say it's GameFreak's fault.
All 3 starters are in S, and honestly this is the gen where i would pick any starter and not complain. treecko is my favorite but mudkip and torchic are great too also worth noting that if you play your cards right, lineoone can solo the elite four while not overlevelling or using items because of it learning belly drum
@@OGRadion Yeah, especially in Yellow, where it's double kick attack learned at level 12 is critical for beating Brock's rock types easily. Classic Jaegens, helping in the early part of the game
I think a point could be made about Zubat being an A Tier Pokémon. I am not 100% sure this is how it works is Ruby/Sapphire, but at least in Emerald you can: 1) Get it right before Brawly, where it's 4 times resistance to Fighting + access to Wing Attack is very helpful 2) Get a Soothe Bell in Slateport to MASSIVELY speed up it's evolution process (seriously, I've had a Crobat before Watson even due to this) 3) Get the SLUDGE. BOMB. TM. I don't know if it's just me, but I always see Sludge Bomb as the interisting but very meh move to teach to my Pokémon. Poison type attacks were a really poor coverage choice before Fairy types were a thing, so you wouldn't really use one if you are not a Poison type to benefit from STAB. That being said, before the physical/special split, Sludge Bomb is a 90 BP physical Poison type attack move you get IMMEDIATELY after the Normal type gym. You just grab it on Dewford Town via surfing there. Crobat really loves this move in Gen 3, and it's VERY EASY accessibility combined with the all of the other good points for Crobat, really cements this Pokémon's Emerald itteration (specifically) one of it's best appearences in the entire roster of main series games.
Lotad learns no Water moves until the Surf HM, learns no Grass moves better than Absorb, and can't evolve until you get a Water Stone after the 7th gym. It's really awful, and I would put it below Dustox and Beautifly (Which can at least effortlessly solo Brawly). In contrast, Shroomish is amazing. Forget about Spore, it evolves early and gets Mach Punch, Leech Seed, Mega Drain, Stun Spore, and Sky Uppercut all by level up. It's also a perfect Pokemon to use the Bulk Up TM on and sweep with STAB Mach Punch.
Even if you put Gardevoir lower, I wouldn't be angry. She's my waifu and I always have her in my team even if Kadabra is an option. A man has to be loyal uwu
I knew it!! As soon as you started talking about the outlines of your rules I thought to myself, damn that sounds pretty fire emblem tier listy. Then the way you talked about how availability and talking about "its not about whos best its about who makes the game easiest" I could smell the Mekkkkah
Mekkah is definitely one of my inspirations! I might dabble in Fire Emblem content here (especially FE6, the Japanese-only release with our boi Roy) but that's a big maybe lol
As much as I love the seedot line, I gotta agree with the C-tier placing, it takes some serious work to get a decent move set, and you gotta teach it the bullet seed, and thief tms to give it psuedo level up moves, but once it gets to shiftry, it's fun as hell to use
Gen 4 coming S O O N (TM), not sure when exactly. I am thinking of "redoing" older tier lists by doing a tier list for their remakes, probably after I get a better than potato webcam.
Loved the video. Personally, i would put tailow on s tier because of guts + stab facade. Facade becomes a stab 140 base power attack with a constant 50% damage bonus, you can even slap a silk scarf that you get pretty early on swellow for some extra damage. Out of all the pokemon that can use this combo (raticate, ursaring, zangoose, etc) swellow is in my opinion the best because its so damn fast, fast enough to outspeed most enemy pokemon and not be bothered by the constant burn/poison damage. Ive nuzlocked pokemon emerald many times and swellow is always a carry, in fact, ive used swellow in pokemon inclement emerald and it completely carried my team and OHKOd anything that didnt resist it, especially after i got a choice band. I just cannot overstate how broken guts + stab facade is, even if its somewhat gimmicky to set up.
31:45 I'd put Whismur in B. It evolves exactly in level 40 (I remembered 43 but no) and it has good attack and special attack, so it's kind of a jack of all trades, which works well with its move pool. It learns a lot of moves from both physical and special types also. And while it's slowish, it's still faster than Hariyama.
It's garbage early mid game when not overleveled. Pretty much once you get to facing high teens to mid 20s pokemon with loudred it is very useless. My dumbass had loudred, lombre, mightyena and volbeat. Volbeat was by far the best of those with moonlight, double team confuse ray stall strats until it got signal beam and TM thunder
1:27:29 No idea, but Kyogre is an orca and Groudon is literally Behemoth. The spiked tail perhaps comes from the description "He makes his tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are knit together."
@@uandresbrito5685 No. Leviathan is me :P But Kyogre's patterns are just like the ones of an Orca so perhaps it's an Orca based Leviathan? Rayquaza looks like FFV archeoavis to me, so perhaps a quetzalcoatl?
actually that makes sense. if kyogre is leviathan and groudon is behemoth, that would make rayquaza ziz, and ziz's role is basically to quell the clashing of leviathan and behemoth, and shield humanity from its destructive influence... which is exactly what rayquaza's role is in the pokéon universe
Zigzagoon is also a great HM mule and its stab Strength isn't too bad (plus water normal has great coverage with strength surf). In normal playthroughs I always use it like that at this point.
Small correction about pickup in ruby and sapphire it is not based on level but in emerald I think it is so its better In ruby/sapphire to just keep it low level in your party while you grind so it picks up rare candies. Great video tho
Treecko is my favorite Hoenn starter, but I don't think it's S tier. A tier yes. The only reason for this is because it's actually pretty weak in the early game, where your starter matters the most. It's stuck with Absorb as a Grass move until the high 20s, and Absorb SUCKS. In my experience, it really struggles to keep up with Nosepass, since Nosepass is specially bulky and Rock Tomb hits hard. I'm also not totally sold on Torchic being S tier because the last 3 gyms are supereffective against Blaziken. I actually think that Electrike should be S tier. It's probably the best Electric type in the game. It doesn't really need much coverage because of all the water lol, and you can get Thunderbolt decently early. It often make it kind of a pseudo HM user with Tbolt, Strength, and Rock Smash. It gets Bite later on (which isn't amazing, but is alright and has a good flinch chance) and you might luck out with a good Hidden Power. It's too bad it doesn't get Flamethrower in this gen. Still solid S tier imo purely because of its typing. Doesn't need a wide movepool. It also works well with each starter. Milotic is great. It's arguably slightly better than Gyarados in this gen because it can use its special moves effectively. And it takes hits well. Gyara beats Milotic easily in every other gen, but in this one, Milotic is better. I'd argue it should be C. Yes, its availability is bad, but if you can get it, the payoff is great. Gorebyss is a bit better than Huntail imo. Its Special Attack is actually incredible, I had no idea it was that good, and it gets Psychic naturally. Huntail gets Crunch naturally, so it definitely still has its uses. It has better Attack than Sp Attack, but with nothing to really utilize that better stat. Also, look up Gorebyss's Pokedex entries, yikes. I like the Regi puzzles. They're weird af, but memorable. Kyogre is clearly S tier. You get it before Wallace, you can give it Thunder easily to complement Drizzle... nuff said. It also has Ice Beam when you get it. It's by far THE best Water type in the whole game. It's TOO good. I agree with A placement for Groudon, Other than that, I agree with these rankings. Seems pretty solid.
Pickup getting different things as you level up only started in Emerald. In Ruby/Sapphire and FireRed/LeafGreen it had a static list that never changed whether the pokemon was level 1 or level 100. This actually makes Zigzagoon in R/S better in those games in my eyes, since if you're going to raise up new pokemon as you get further into the game or EV train, you can slap them in solo in your party, and fill the rest out with Zigzagoons, and get a bunch of items while you train up that pokemon, without having to put any effort into those Zigzagoons beyond obtaining them. Early game this can be especially good, because it gives you access to things like ultra balls, rare candies, and nuggets *super* early, which can completely invalidate any early game concerns for money at the cost of a few pokeballs. Especially if you were going to train up a team of six early anyway, since leveling a team of six fairly early implies some level of grind, and also implies that you'll probably sub out members frequently as you gain access to genuinely better mons as you progress, which means more time spent EV training if that's something you do. Like, you could absolutely play the game without ever using pickup once, but leveraging it in the early game makes the early game *so* much easier. I've played a good number of gen 3 pokemon hacks, and those tend to be much more difficult than the base gen 3 games, so a pickup squad is something I've learned to love in those games.
@@ImportedCheese Beats me, but if I had to guess, probably because it was too good. Right off the bat in R/S, you had a 10% chance of an ultra ball, full heal, full restore, nugget, revive, or rare candy, respectively. A 5% chance of a protein, a 4% chance of a PP up, and a 1% chance of a king's rock. The remaining 30% was a super potion. That's pretty ridiculous if you ask me, esp. when you figure you don't have to put any work into the mon in question.
I think you sold Sableye pretty short. Its stats are bad, yeah, and it gets worse as the game goes on, but Dark/Ghost is still a great typing. Not for having no weaknesses, but for its three common immunities, which the AI can often struggle to deal with. It's got niche matchups against Brawly, Norman, Tate & Liza, Phoebe; it gets STAB Shadow Ball and Faint Attack (for evasion spammers); Confuse Ray can help in a pinch. I think the generally low power level of the Hoenn dex helps it tread water throughout the game, as long as you've got harder hitters. Still not really worth using, but absolutely usable, and a step above the trash in D.
The one thing Beautifly is good for is matching up very well against Brawly. STAB Gust is good enough to take him down for that stage of the game. Of course, Tailow, Ralts/Kirlia, Alakazam, Zubat, Wingull and even Dustox can all do this at least as well, and if you're playing Sapphire you can just catch a Sableye nearby and destroy the entire gym effortlessly. So it's not really worth it given the other Pokémon I mentioned are more useful later in the game.
You're sleeping on Azumarill really hard. It's the best non-mudkip water pokemon before you get surf. Mostly because it learns bubblebeam early so it can actually solo flannery (unlike lotad & goldeen) Also cacturne is lowkey fantastic for the late game because it takes out gyms 7, 8 and large portions of the elite 4. There's so few dark types with good special attack
Hot take (hehe puns). Fire/Rock is not a bad type...on the offense. You hit quite a lot for neutral and plenty for super-effective. But you need to be a fast hard-hitting pokemon for the type to work. Defensive fire/rock is just...well Slugma is down there for a reason.
Please do this for more games. Great videos to watch, specialy if you want to replay older games. I agree with the list. Hope you can do X/Y, Su/Mo and HG SS someday. Any of those for your next one would be incredible.
LMAOOOOO I had guessed that you had watched Mekkah after watching your vids for gen 1 and 2 and hearing the way you talked about availability, glad to see I was right Love your stuff, this series is so much fun
About the braille thing, the instruction manual actually had the chart for braille in it in all the gen 3 games. Since its 1:1 to English letters its not really deciphering a language, its just a cryptography puzzle where you have the key. Totally possible, easy even! So long as you read the manual and have the patience to slowly write down the translation. In fact the hardest part I remember was finding a relicanth. I'm just curious how this went down in Japan. Was it still braille translating to English?
Imported cheese is a Mekkah watcher? Pog. I'd be interested if you're down to chat with Pokemon Challenges since he does Nuzlockes and has also tiered Pokemon.
I got into the Mudkip bandwagon a little late. I used to think that Torchic was the best one out of the 3, but that wasn't the case until gen 5,where it was stupidly good. Back in gen 3, I chose it mainly due the amazing and then new Fire/fighting combo. Blaziken could just trample over any obstacle ingame. But then.... Swampert became one of my favourite pokemon ever, because I needed more raw power to muscle through the battle frontier in gen IV, and heard marvelous things about him. Bred and transferred one from my Emerald version and Holy shit. Not only is Water/Ground an even more amazing combo, but he is a fucking tank. Waterfall for Stab and flinching. Earthquake for even more stab and destroy everything that doesn't resist it. Ice Punch to destroy Gliscor, the dragons and his grass counters. And stealth rock, to weaken everything that doesn't resist it. Give it a leftovers, and the thing will rarely die. SS tier pokemon for me.
I disagree with Treeko in S. It is way to weak until you get leafblade, you are using Absorb most of your run and most common Water Types you will encounter aren't even weak to Grass. So getting past Tentacool, Wingull and Pelippers are a pain. Worst are the trainers with Gyarados who have intimidate to make your Normal Type moves worthless. I would personally put it 1 rank lower, even in ORAS. I personally would also put Torchic to A rank. The two just aren't on Mudkip level. The gab is a little to big. I think even Abra is better than them and S tier when trading is allowed. poor Seedot. At least in XD its sick. You can quickly evolve it because you don't want to grind for Feint Attack. Ironically XD made a lot of Pokemon really viable like Ariados and Flareon thanks to move availability. I remember having a great experience using Zubat the last time I played Saphire. And that's the moment it learns Wing Attack. That move is insane. If you are also willing to spend some money, you can get an early shadow ball to deal with annoying Psychic Types. You can catch Dodrio in the Safari Zone as well if you have the Machbike. I didn't quite understand why Huntail is higher ranked than Gorebyss considering Gorebyss has higher special and learns Psychic per TM. You only miss out on Crunch and a higher attack stat with which you are only missing out of high powered returns. Also getting the trade item is way too much work. the irony that the Regi puzzle exist but the azure flute wasn't distributed because according to Masuda it's hard to figure out for kids... Kyogre should be S. I don't think the opportunity cost really applies here. You buy the Thunder TM and then spam BoltBeam coverage from 150 base Special attack and never miss. I don't think there is a single Pokemon in the Elite 4 that can wall Kyogre or take more than 2 hits. Even if you didn't level it up earlier. Groudon I can tolerate since Solar Beam and Fire Blast are from his weaker stat. Earthquake hits like a truck but not everything will fall to it. So high A tier is fine. But bottom A tier is disappointing. Kyogre is significantly more useful than a fully trained Sceptile.
Regarding the Regis I thought they’re puzzles were very cool and approachable. It would be insanely more difficult to translate Japanese text - how would you even get started translating it? Braille was a smart choice because it has a simple analog between the Braille character and your native alphabet character. By the way the back of the guide book in the game case has the Braille alphabet. Also you’re leaving out the fact that video game guides were extremely popular back then. I have the official Ruby/Sapphire game book guide that helps you with the puzzles if needed.
Breloom is such an offensive powerhouse with poison (which makes sleep irrelevant) and stun spore early (not as good as sleep but also permanent) mach punch and leech seed/absorb/mega drain for health.
Swellow and Dustox are being mad underrated. Guts is absolutely broken, especially with stab facade and Dustox is crazy early game and even cheeses the 5th gym due to getting Protect by level up
1:28:06 I'd agree mostly, main differences being on 1. Crobat which I think barely reaches A because Sludge Bomb, 2. Exploud should be on B, because it has a lot of moves and stats to support them... I mean it has type coverage and can hit hard, 3. I think Hariyama should also be on B, because it's TOO slow. 4. Glalie should be top C, 80 to everything is enough to outspeed and one-shot stuff without being particularly over-leveled. 5. Feebas should be at least in C. It's not that it's not available or you won't get it. It's just tedious to get it and evolve it. And once you get one you can fish a few more in the same tile until you get a good nature for evolving it. All the work is mostly tedious but as a reward you get a really good water type (at the level of tentacruel).
Honestly loved the Mekkah shout out, I've been watching his content for years. Didn't know he liked pokemon, I've only seen him do FE content or guest appear in FE content.
I was like 13 and on vacation with absolutely no internet there - I figured out the braille text (I may have had the booklet?) and the Dig part, but I had no clue where the hell to get a Relicanth. Tbh I think I was more excited about finally being able to catch the Relicanth after I could look it up back home than actually catching the Regis lol Also still everytime I replay gen3 I have awesome kinda déjà-vus of playing it the first time on that vacation as a kid Absolutely love your content btw, you're awesome dude ❤️
I got a dictionary from my elementary school with a braille dictionary in the back, I scribbled the translations for the puzzles on that page and managed it all myself.
When he was ranting about how "impossible" the Regis puzzle was, I just had to smirk a little. I've played some of the old Sierra adventure games from the 80s and 90s (I mean I've played them recently, not at release, I hadn't even been born back then), and those games are BRUTAL in their difficulty, they have puzzles that make the Regis puzzle look trivial (like requiring you to go to a specific location at a specific in-game time, which you get no hints for, and that's required to beat the game) And yes, they were viewed as "kids' games" back in the day. Video games were considered a hobby for kids and adults that played them were considered weird, so even the toughest games were considered possible to beat by children
Great list, really enjoyed listening to your reasoning. I agree with most placements, but here are some Pokemon I would place differently: Taillow B -> A: Taillow learns Wing Attack very early and gains exp very quickly. That makes it extremely efficient to use against most trainers early, it even gets Steel Wing from Steven to deal with rock types. It is very bad against the elite 4, but still usable up to then. Magicarp B -> A: I think you are underselling Gyarados a bit. It gets Intimidate, arguably the best ability in the game, and Dragon Dance, which is still broken even without stab moves. Return and Earthquake are good enough to sweep most teams. Sableye D -> C: Sableye learns a lot of good utility moves and has great matchups against certain trainers that rely on normal and fighting type moves, Norman in particular. That alone makes it better than the other Pokemon in D. Treeko S -> A: Treeko is not that good until it gets Leafblade, it has to get by with Absorb and Bullet Seed until then. It also doesn't get the best coverage outside of grass, which makes it mediocre if the opponents resists grass. It still has perfect availabilty and is by far the best grass type, so A seems appropriate. Skitty C -> D: I think Skitty is bad enough to warrant puting it in the lowest tier. You mentioned the moon stone evolution, but the first moon stone is available at Meteor Falls. By then, you could have already evolved Zigzagoon and Whismur to Loudred, both of which are at least on par with Delcaty, while having other redeaming qualities later in the game. It also doesn't get a better move than Tackle by level until Double Edge at level 39, which you even miss out on if you evolve it before that. Koffing C -> B: Koffing might be a pet Pokemon of mine, so you can take this with a grain of salt. Wheezing learns a suprising number of good moves, including Thunderbolt and Flamethrower, while also having a decent special attack stat to use those moves. With levitate, it also only has one weakness. The worst thing about it is the somewhat late evolution, though it still evolves earlier than Grimer. Skarmory B -> A: Skarmory is close to unkillable by anything that uses physical attacks. It's attack stat is just good enough to not be a super passive pokemon.
Hey, thanks for watching! I could definitely see Tailow in A, especially considering how sparse A tier ended up being. If you manipulate Guts correctly, it's probably worthy of being A. Intimidate is a great point in Magikarp's favor, and Gyarados's special is also "good enough" to use water moves with. Dragon Dance is only available at level 50, which is quite late, but you're right Return/Earthquake would cover almost everything. I could see Gyarados in A - Magikarp is always hotly contested, but once we get to Gen 4 I imagine no one will argue with his perpetual placement in S. Sableye I might be sleeping on because I mainly played Ruby - I could see it in C for utility purposes, but it's never going to be dishing out the big DPS, or even the medium DPS. They really did Sableye dirty, why is it so weak? I debated with myself for a long time about whether or not to put Treecko in A or S - I think it mostly came down to this being "7.8/10 too much water" Gen 3 where there oodles of Leaf Blade victims once you actually get the move. It can make use of the Earthquake and Brick Break TMs, but those are both late game - I think Treecko would also be fine in A. Yeah Skitty is pretty horrendous, I might have been blinded by the cuteness. Is it D tier bad? Quite possibly, although I try to reserve D for pokemon that are truly beyond redemption. I could certainly see moving Skitty to the border with D, though. I loved using special Wheezing sets back when I used to play competitive, and I especially loved the way Wheezing's model would scrunch up when using Thunderbolt in the Stadium games. What would make me hesitant to move Wheezing up to B would be the opportunity cost for giving your incredibly valuable Flamethrower and Thunderbolt TMs to Wheezing. Unless you're James himself, you'd probably give them to a pokemon that could make better use of them xD I think A for Skarmory is a bit of a stretch - even if it is invincible, having only Aerial Ace / Fly / Steel Wing as viable offensive options I think leaves him a bit short of A.
Grass types are actually useless unless you're partial to them. They have advantages of ground/rock/water. An electric type, and water type and you've got those types covered.
You’re forgetting Whiscash. Also leaf blade stab is amazing. And Sceptile has insanely good stats compared to the likes of Manectric and vastly more speed than Magneton. Sceptile suffers a lot but it isn’t in anyway “useless”
I was just thinking about how your weighting of availability in your tier lists reminds me of Mekkah, and then seconds later you drop his name hahah, nice.
shroomish was a good choice at the start of the game for stun spore and low stats making it fantastic for catching other Pokemon not a long term investment but I found it had a niche
What I enjoy about shroomish is that it acts like a wall/tank with typical Grass-type stall strats to beat bulkier things like Gym Leader ace mons, but once you evolve you get this world-slaying 130 Atk powerhouse as early as level 23.
I love Absol since I first saw it, I even taught it my precious boltbeam as a kid because you know, I didn't know how Atk and SpA work. But yea, it's pretty bad, its strongest move is Shadow ball. [edit] I didn't expect you to be that kind with Chimecho though, a feeble 2% spawn mon.
45:55 Volbeat actually does get tail glow in emerald, and considering it gets crazy good speacial moves by TM + baton pass (maybe a transfer exclusive so may not count) it should at least be above illumise who actually cant do anything. Also awesome video bro.
Piping hot take, but while Volbeat sucks compared to most everything else, it’s WAY better than you give it credit for. Its stats aren’t great, but it’s fairly quick at base 85, and has a somewhat usable attack stat of 73. What truly sets it apart is the second strongest Bug move in the entire game, Signal Beam (second to Heracross’s monstrous Megahorn). Though not super effective on many important trainers, it’s also seldom resisted. It also learns it fairly early at level 25, while Heracross may never learn its own Bug STAB due to learning it at level 53. That’s not all it has, though; Tail Glow patches up its awful Special Attack to somewhat usable levels after a turn of setup, after which you can teach it Shock Wave or even Thunderbolt, something unique to Bug types. I’ve taken it to Emerald’s endgame, and while it falls off in the lategame, a spammable Bug move is really nice in the midgame. It’s a very niche pick, but it’s niche, something that Illumise absolutely cannot say. It deserves to be higher than trash like Delcatty.
i honestly completely agree, gen 3 is definitely the one i’m most knowledgeable and experienced with and my only strifes are thinking plusle and minun should’ve been C tier i think, seviper moves up a bit in B tier, and treecko steps down to top of A tier because as much as i adore treecko, i don’t think it’s quite on the same power level as mudkip and torchic. other than that, my list would’ve been identical i reckon! (except trapinch would’ve been moved to S+ tier but i’ll let you off for that) super excited to join the discord!!
I'd be down to hate more on Plusle and Minun, but they get carried pretty hard by being Electric types. I didn't expect so many people to be against S tier Treecko...I was afraid of backlack for putting him in A, but maybe I should have just done that lol. If Trapinch were available earlier (and if Vibrava wasn't such poop) Flygon would probably be S, although I think you're memeing with this point lol. See you in the discord!
@@ImportedCheese yeah i think it would be perfect placement to have trapinch available on the route next to the desert, instead of requiring four badges to finally catch a level ~20 pokemon that won’t evolve until level 35, and then not again until 45. it definitely gets draining but it would feel wrong to play through hoenn without flygon by my side
Poor Poochyena had to wait until the remakes for a chance to shine, but might be a strong candidate for most improved. Still available just as early as ever, but now with not only physical dark STAB, but also thanks to DexNav it can have an elemental bite for coverage as well as the Moxie ability to boost its attack during trainer battles. It's lack luster stats still cause it to fall off in second half of the game, but it is a force to be reconned with in first half.
One thing that I think would help express availability is to make a timeline of events (mainly gym leaders, e4, rival battles and evil team battles) and the level of their highest Pokémon. It will show how far through the game you are expected to be at the point you encounter a Pokémon. Another helpful data point is the max level you encounter a Pokémon. A Pokémon evolving at level 40 doesn't mean much without knowing what level you get them at. If they are found at level 38, low opportunity cost. If they are found at level 5, ridiculously high opportunity cost.
@@ImportedCheese true. I wonder if there is a resource out there already for that. I think serebii has Pokémon by route per game. Either way, great content!
I would put slakoth higher tbh. Yeah there’s a bit of opportunity cost involved in getting a slaking, but slaking is the best mon in single player and it’s not remotely close. Get two of them with hyper beam, faint attack, brick break, and whatever fourth move you want and you can beat the game effortlessly. Hyper beam everything, switching between them after every kill. Faint attack if they’re a ghost. Brick break if they resist normal. Probably use return or strength for the last slots to conserve hyper beam PP.
Love the video and your analysis. I cringed a bit when you said "whim-sir" though. It's spelt W-H-I-S-M-U-R with the S before the M so I believe it's pronounced like whisper with an M instead of a P which also relates to its description being a sound based pokemon. It evolves onto exploud which is a play on loud explosion. Once again, love the content.
If you choose Torchic and play Sapphire, Lotad is a must-have Pokemon. The core they form is excellent.
I'll take any excuse to use the happy fiesta duck.
Personally I think they should've had similarly early-game three-stage Fire/Water and Fire/Grass Pokemon, because Lotad + Torchic gives you a full triangle super easily and somewhat undermines the other two starters as a result.
@@RoninCatholic Only on paper, honestly. Sceptile and Swampert have more than enough unique attributes to make them stand out as excellent choices. That said, the lack of Fire types in Hoenn does make it difficult to replace Torchic, but it's not like Fire types are a necessity on every team.
@@RichardBlaziken Honestly I think the only generation with _really good_ and broad Fire type options was gen 1. It spoiled us with so many Fire Pokemon that they seem to just kinda not have had as many ideas per generation in any later batch. The Fire starter is always a solid choice, of course, but also usually my least favorite starter anyway?
I tend to build my teams around the aesthetics of the Pokemon involved rather than their types or raw usefulness.
@@RichardBlaziken
Frankly, I'm not convinced you ever really WANT a Fire type for Hoenn. Like, really, you get the defensive resist on Flannery, and then you get two Glalie and a Skarmory. Team Magma almost always has some ground moves mixed in, Steven's Metagross can probably tank any Fire attack, then counter with Earthquake, and even worse if you're playing Emerald. Torchic is by far the best fire type you get, but I'm not sure it's ever really worth it.
Most of Torchic's upsides come from it being Fighting type... but it's not great as a fighting type, since it either needs Brick Break, or relies on Double Kick/Sky Uppercut.
It's still a starter and does well enough as a whole, but honestly, Torchic has very nearly Chikorita levels of bad matchup for Hoenn.
I feel that Mudkip should be in an SS tier of it's own.
There are only two Pokemon trainers that have a threatening grass type: Cool Trainer Brook who has a Roselia, and your rival. Other than that every trainer fight Swampert can contribute without being completely blown away. Decent bulk. Decent attack. He's the bestest of team players.
Maybe...Mudkip is for sure the best pokemon on the list, but I don't think he's quite on the Gen 1 Nidoking or Gen 4 Infernape level where it steamrolls absolutely everything.
It'll sometimes get outspeed and take a hit, sometimes not quite have the coverage and strength to OHKO.
Still S, just not it's own god tier.
everyone lieks mudkip too
Yeah, usually I don't pick the water starter because there are much better water types later on, but even in 7.8/10 Too Much Water Hoenn, most of the water types besides Kyogre are a massive step down. Swampert is just THAT good.
i'm pretty sure there is a lot more trainers that use grass types than two. Also Norman absolutely wrecks Marshtoomp, unless you're very overleveled. Ironically, Dustox is great against Norman since it naturally learns protect and you can get toxic right after the fire gym.
And Tate and LIza also are a difficult fight because Swampert low special attack and their strategy of setting up sunny day coupled with solar beam and levitate, and calm mind makes the fight even worse for Swampert.
There is another Cooltrainer with a Ludicolo, which Wallace also has.
Norman is faster than you with all his mons which is bad.
Fun fact: the items that you get from Pickup only start being based on your level in Emerald. So in Ruby and Sapphire, Pickup has a chance to give you rare candies, nuggets and vitamins right from the start. Whenever I do a Ruby or Sapphire playthrough (which admittedly isn't often anymore), I always just catch five Zigazoon at the start of the game and replace them one-by-one when I catch mons I actually want to use.
With enough luck, you have have a decent stockpile of items by the midgame. Enough rare candies can really cut down on late-game grinding, and sellable items can be used to get game corner coins for TMs there.
This is why I personally think Zigzagoon is S tier in RS. It's really good
@@mjdxp5688zigzagoon is the gigachad of gen 3
To be fair, the booklet for Ruby/Sapphire contained a brail translation guide in the back of the booklet. But yeah, the Regis were such a let down for so much work.
i love regirock in the modern gens with Assault Vest. it's bulky and gets strong with power up punch boosts.
Did it really?? Imma have to check that when I get home, I still have the complete box with the manual
It had a brail translation in the booklet!!!?!? Wow. That argument holds very little water now. I thought they offered nothing to help with that. Now I won't accept that as a talking point against the regis. It still sucks to get em though
@@thebigbean8783 there was also a room that has the whole Braille alphabet in order
I was about to comment this
As a Mexican I've never met another Mexican who doesn't love Ludicolo (Ludiloco pa los compas). Also I didn't even think there was a possibility of it being offensive to anyone as a kid until I saw people from the US saying it lol.
Honestly I always thought the little dude was a great tribute because I saw Ludicolo as portraying Latino culture as happy and celebratory with just a general joy around being alive. I used to work in a Mexican restaurant for about three years and seeing proper fiestas was awesome and he just has *that* energy.
Americans are the ones making everything offensive
Current day Americans are overly concerned with offending.
@@hqef616 It's because of the culture of suing people. So they're overly cautious in a lot of regards, and then it extrapolates to the point of obnoxiousness.
i'd say ludicolo is pretty flattering if you actually read its pokedex entries
Gulpin is wayyyyy better than the D tier crew. Sludge and Yawn are really good early on and the Sludge Bomb TM is also really solid in it. I'd put mid B in this listing.
Shroomish being ranked so low is hilarious, bias aside. Set aside any illusions of Spore grandeur and it is a Top 10 ingame mon easily.
In Absol's defense, Absol carried my team by leveraging Shadow Ball and Swords Dance to annihilate most threats. Even if Ghost type isn't STAB, you can hit pretty much the same types for super effective damage as Dark.
As someone who recently went through Ruby with a team of mons I've never used before (Masquerein/Roselia/Volbeat/Nosepass/Zangoose/Chimecho) Nosepass is so much worse than pretty much anything else you get even reasonably early. It never does any damage and its HP is so pitiful it can't even wall that well. And you dont even get it that early, after Volbeat/Illumise actually because you need Rock Smash. Volbeat was infinitley more useful with a decent Atk/Spd stats and good phys movepool (Signal Beam, Brick Break/FP, Shadow Ball, etc.). Even Masquerein had intimidate, good resistances/immunities, and coverage even if it did no damage. Zangoose and Chimecho were definitely the MVPs though. Just had to call out the fact that Nosepass was considered better than anything.
having to get both surskit AND chimecho sounds like a pain in the ass holy fuck
Gligar in Colosseum (even with Earthquake), Delcatty in XD, and Shedinja in Emerald are the 3 worst mons I've finished a serious in game team with. Got me wondering how Nosepass compares to those 3
I considered Ludicolo to be B as well until I used it recently. Turns out that not only does it struggle with STABs (Dependent on mediocre grass tms and completely lacking a water move until you get surf), you also don’t get a water stone until right before the 7th gym. I personally think it’s C myself.
Yeah, ludicolo is great! For the 2 hours you have it :( had the same problem in Shield recently too.
Technically it can learn a water move through breeding with a marill which can be caught on the route with the Daycare, but that’s to much effort for a playthrough. It should be right above Seedot in C.
@@jerelgayle3625 the moment you said breed it goes straight to D. No one is breeding in a normal run of the game
Very late reply, but yeah Lombre is an absolute anchor between the Roxanne fight, and when you finally Surf. In my experience it's really good for the late game, but getting there is a chore and a half. You're better off putting it in the day care between the Wattson and Norman battles than you are with gaining experience
The fact Lotad was next to Taillow is an absolute joke. Try using the two for the first 5 gyms and see which ends up lvl 30 and always contributing and which ends up getting KO by underleveled wild pokemon, boxed, then put in daycare
I know it's a bit late and somebody might've allready said it but the translation for the braille was in the manual of the games
I hev boogle me use regi man
Didn’t he clarify you needed the guide to catch them?
Well but guide implies you needed to look something up online or buy the official guide, but the manual came with the game so its available to everybody who plays it legally
@@janieboy ohhh right. I only had the cartridges themselves I could never buy the boxes since they were already expensive as heck by the time I was a kid so I never noticed that
OG antipiracy
That Ludicolo backstory is glorious, such a wonderfully strange Pokemon.
I still can't believe they greenlit his design. Even as a kid I remember thinking to myself, "Wait...you can't do this...!"
@@ImportedCheese I appreciate the Miror B music during Lotad
@@ImportedCheese I’m glad they did, I fuckin love him
@@ImportedCheese I know that in general we should use less stereotypes in design, and I don't have the faintest idea of why a kappa evolves into a Mexican mariachi-looking thing, but I'm Mexican and I really like it, I don't know of any Mexican that doesn't like this thing, we love it.
@@ImportedCheese why not
I remember getting Ruby version as an 11 year old and just being like "Oh how cute a fish." Then ABSOLUTELY DUMPSTERING the entire game lol Swampert is a beast.
Torchic and treecko are F tier because your not taking Mudkip.
Hearing the fact that slaking’s name pretty much means “the king of not wor-king” made me...kek
In other words, it's the slacker king. Lol
Duel me outside Orgrimmar
@@ImportedCheese >horde player
Sweet! I found your past tier lists entertaining, informative and interesting. Definitely looking forward to watching this and any future ones.
Ah, thank you! Mudkip won't be in the thumbnail for the next one, but I hope you still give it a watch :)
You were talking about availability and all I was thinking of was Mekkah's tierlists and then you went with the plug. Absolutely based
I remember using Mawile in an emerald trashlocke and having a tanky steel type with intimidate is very useful there. It has stuff that lets it play tank/debuff but vanilla Pokemon isn't challenging enough to warrant that type of playstyle
Love the content, been binging it all since last night, but I do have a question/concern about Treeko and your argument about availability. You had mentioned that availability is a key factor, and don't get me wrong, Treeko is the definition of available being a starter, however I do think that the same regard for availability should extend to a Pokemon's movepool. In your supposed Sceptile set, you had mentioned it having Leaf Blade, Earthquake, and Brick Break, but not only are the last two nonreusable TMs that might have conflicting party slots who also might want them (especially EQ), but they're both only available at, or after, the 8th gym. While Brick Break is definitely useful for Sydney and Glacia, what is EQ supposed to be hitting exactly?
Treeko is forced to play a huge chunk of the game with Bullet Seed, Pursuit, and Quick Attack as its best moves. It does exceptional against Roxanne, and decent against Brawly, but it's not going to be doing much of anything against Wattson, Flannery, or Norman when Leaf Blade isn't available until Level 29. This is also assuming you picked Sapphire, as Grovyle has an even harder time with all the Magma grunts. A lot of Grovyle's midgame on random fights is poor too, since there's an abundance of Aroma Girls and Guitarists.
I can agree with it being A tier due to it being a fast starter, but I see it more as a high B tier Pokemon due to its abysmal mid game. I can't see how it could have a place in S.
Other than that though, I love your content! Keep up the good work [:
Fun video as always, I really enjoy these ranking videos and you have some really funny things to say about some Pokemon, which is always entertaining. That said, something I think you should maybe take into consideration a bit more is the exp group of a Pokemon. Being able to level up faster can be a _huge_ benefit for certain Pokemon. Azumarill, for example, I feel like can be ranked a bit higher despite its glaring flaws since it's available early and is in the fast exp group. It evolves super early too, and even a bad fully evolved Pokemon is still pretty great for the early game. By the time you need it to actually start being good, you'll be able to get the dig and return TMs which let Azumarill consistently make use of its monstrous attack. While being slow and having bad special attack would normally be pretty debilitating, it honestly isn't that bad when you consider how fast it levels up. Pokemon in the fast EXP group take a little less than 2/3 of the experience to level up compared to one in the slow EXP group, which can make an enormous difference. By the sheer power of being overlevelled, Azumarill can outspeed more Pokemon than you'd might expect, and it will knock out things more easily than you'd might expect as well. Now don't get me wrong, Azumarill isn't _good_ by any means, but I think it could probably eke out a low B tier. On the other hand, there's also Pokemon like Aron that are severely hampered by being in the slow EXP group. It takes way too long to evolve, and being in the slow EXP group only makes it that much worse. Until then it just can't really hold its own super well, so I personally think it should be high B at best.
Great points, I'll try to keep XP groups in mind. I think I myself mentioned them in the last video with regards to Magikarp, but they sort of slip my mind. I'm gonna need some more N O T E S.
Our boy Azumarill is gonna be A and above from now on, so hopefully he won't be too upset at me for ranking him poorly this time >.>
I know other commenters mentioned this, but the Regi puzzles were basically shown how to do in the manual due to an inserted braille chart. It was an excellent inclusion imo. since part of what made Pokémon great was exploration and mystery. The reaction to these kinds of puzzles meant that GF never does them anymore. Which is sad. I did it as an 11 year old with my best friend over a few days, it was very clear what you were supposed to do after seeing the braille and doing some basic thinking. I think it's the penultimate memory of my childhood.
Loved the video btw. Just wanted to mention it.
Yup and that's why we can't catch god in gen4 cause using a flute would be too complicated after what we got with the Regis in gen3.
Only gamefreak is dumb enough to completely scrap a feature after it gets bad reception instead of tone it down.
And they’re also dumb enough to not reintroduce those kind of things even though the internet means all secrets are spoiled day 1
Still got Inkay tho
I agree with you on Ralts, considering you can get Abra not too long after it and can have it fully evolved at Lv. 16 whereas Ralts/Kirlia is sucky until level 30.
True but Gardevoir has better coverage with Thunderbolt and whilst you can give Alakazam shock wave with just 60 BP it's kinda underwhelming and shadow ball is physical in gen 3.
@@JStamatoactually no you are not stuck with shock wave, you can get all the elemental punches which are special attack in gen 3.
@@Onetwothreegotosleep not until postgame you cant
3 minutes in and you talk about availability and mention Mekkkkkkkkkah; Im invested for life.
A couple things
First, breloom should be A. At level 22 (1 level before evolving) it learns headbutt to deal respectable damage unlike other grasses like bellsprout or oddish who are stuck with bad stab. Upon evolution it learns mach punch and it can sweep wattson (hard gym) thanks to being super effective against mag. Sky uppercut is also just a good stab, blaziken also has that as its best fighting stab. Breloom is also faster than makuhita and machop lines, with stun spore for catching pokemon (and also leech seed if you’re into that). Not a bad choice for your fighting type.
Slakoth seems awful to me. You penalize ralts (actually, you wanted* to penalize but you get the idea) for its slow start when slakoth is even worse at first. Slaking literally can’t sweep for shit thanks to its ability. Ralts otoh learns both calm mind and psychic unusually early and has thunderbolt for coverage. Sounds way better than slakoth.
Leech seed, poison, mach punch and any 4th move is so good as a torchic main. Granted I played ruby so I didn't get ludicolo but there are plenty of water types to go around and ludicolo is more defensive than offensive. There are even two water ground types if you don't pick mudkip.
Played both Ruby and sapphire as a kid. Using an overleveled Blaziken, I couldn’t beat the Elite four after 3 tries and raged. As a 7 year old I came back with an underleveled swampert and beat it on my first try. Swampert might be the most insane starter they have ever made
well it's invincible which is great for new trainers
To my surprise, I remember solving the Regi puzzle as a kid with a regular dictionary! There were braille alphabets in there with the translation and everything. I had an adult tell me that the signs in the game looked like braille signs.
I solved the regi puzzle with my blind mom. I typed out the messages and had her read it. Times before early internet were insane.
38:37 It does have sludge bomb which in gen 3 is a physical move.
Speakong of Shedinja, another bad factor is that they gave Pursuit to like literally EVERYONE in this game and Ghost/Bug has quite a few weaknesses to begin with.
Pursuit is awful but that doesn't matter when you have literally 1 MaxHP
Pursuit is actually very good!
…in competitive singles. Ingame it sucks.
Just finished a run of Emerald with a Shedinja, and fun fact there is a level 33 Ludicolo west of Pacifidlog and a level 42 Wailord in Victory Road that both know Astonish. It had some clear uses but omfg it was the most frustrating mon I've ever had on a HoF team
very cool and well researched list! i'll definitely have to check out your other lists too, hour long videos about pokemon are like my favorite genre of content lol. i really appreciate that you take into account the availability of pokemon, there's so many interesting pokemon i've wanted to use in playthroughs only to be disappointed to find that they only show up in the later portions of the game, which makes it a lot harder to rationalize incorporating them into a team.
Hey, thanks for watching! I'll probably put out the Gen 4 list after they announce the remakes, stay tuned m(___)m
The other great thing about Mudkip is that it is the ONLY usable ground type you can get before Watson (Nincada doesn't learn any good ground moves until lv. 45) except for Geodude. If you have Mudkip you can basically annihilate like half the gyms in the game with it.
I'd defend Sabeleye in C tier because Brawley can do literally nothing against you in Emerald if you pick it up in Granite Cave. That's a small benefit, but it's some role that it excels in.
That's a niche I did not know about! This list is only based on Ruby and Sapphire, but if I were to include Emerald, maybe Sableye could find pre-Gen 6 redemption.
Even in ruby sapphire his makuhita has 20 power knockoff and that's literally the only thing that can touch u lol
you can get Sableye there in Sapphire too no?
@@ainsbass Yes, but Brawly can still technically hit you (although only with a 20 BP knock off, so you still win)
@@egosumv3112 Thanks, I've only just learned his team is different in Emerald!
Imported Cheese in-game tierlist are amazing. Not only are completely true, also are pretty funny and SO informative.
Yes, they are 100% true!! I am never wrong!
Pickup wasn't influenced by levels in RS, that was only starting in Emerald, making Pickup even more broken
Just here to stan for Crobat again. My mans deserves A tier especially with EV training being more optimized in this game.
When you factor in remakes, do you think things would shift super drastically? Like say Firered/Leafgreen would look a LOT different than RBY's in-game tier list?
I'm planning to do FR/LG soon as an "easy" video and while there are definitely some changes, for the most part trash will still be trash >.>
I think you massively underrated linoone. Linoone with substitute, belly drum and stab headbutt is ridiculously powerful, especially when you consider gen 3 AI doesn't understand how substitute works. It's so powerful it's insane.
Thats true, except it's only really a relevant strat for the late game, specifically the e4. The rest of the game linoone kinda just remains average
That's because Cheese didn't consider Emerald, I guess. I think this tierlist would be widely different, for a few reasons like Rayquaza being available before the E4, Spheal being one of the first pokemon you meet, and Norman's Linoone showing you how even a route 1 normal type can Belly Drum - Slash your life away.
@@LordRemiem "Spheal is one of the first Pokemon you meet" bro when
@@Alex-mq6qi Emerald, in Norman's town which is covered in snow. You find Delibird there too
@@LordRemiem are you high
Great video again! Very interesting stuff.
To give my two cents:
-Another reason why availability is so important is EVs, even if you get a Mon like Spheal late on which isn't too many levels behind, it won't be able to compete with the strength of your early Mon due to lack of EVs
-I tried to use Tentacool once in a Sapphire Nuzlocke (picked one up in Dewford) and it was basically unusable until Level 25 when it gets Bubblebeam, before that all it has are Poison Sting, Constrict and Acid, its attack is pretty low, and poison is a pretty uselss offensive type (and there are very few grass types in the stretch of the game where this is a problem) so I'd knock it down a tier
-I've never used Gulpin in RSE so maybe take this with a pinch of salt but I'm using a Swalot atm in Pokemon XD and its pretty good (for a slow poison type), its utility function and ability to tank a bit definitely make it more useful in double battles than in normal gameplay, and I'm not saying its the best thing in the world, but I think it deserves C at least
-Something which makes a big difference which you haven't really spoken about is Experience Type, some of the Pokemon you've spoken about not being good until later evolutions, like Ralts, Aron and Anorith, are made significantly worse by having Slow or Erratic (which is this slowest type on average until around the level 40 mark) experience types, taking so much longer to get there. Also, even when they are evolved, it can be a bit of a pain to train them up as they require significantly more battles to train, eating up potential levels for the rest of your team
-Pretty minor point but Xatu is definitely better than Chimecho, and maybe the other Psychic types above it too, faster, better attack, second type, easier to catch (Chimecho is 2% encounter), also it only spends one level as a Natu before it evolves
-Don't know if you knew this but the manual you got the game with had a Braile cipher
Thanks, as always, for your support!
-Good point about late-game pokemon being unable to fill out their EVs, I'll bring that up in Gen 4
- Bruh, Constrict is the most powerful move of all time, what are you on about? ...You could maybe put it in B.
- I did wrestle with Swalot in D or C, but I think he is D in this gen. He seems to be made to show off the Stockpile / Swallow / Spit Up moves, which are...bad.
-Other commenters also mentioned experience type, I'll definitely make more mention of it moving forward.
- I did Xatu kinda dirty in Gen 2 as well, maybe I have some hidden bias against it o_O
-I should have read the manual...but that would be admitting that I don't know anything, so let's just say it's GameFreak's fault.
All 3 starters are in S, and honestly this is the gen where i would pick any starter and not complain. treecko is my favorite but mudkip and torchic are great too
also worth noting that if you play your cards right, lineoone can solo the elite four while not overlevelling or using items because of it learning belly drum
12:25 Clearly this man hasn't seen FlygonHG's Zigzagoon video.
you forgot that shedinja has the objectively funniest move for itself, final gambit
It's about sending a message
@@ImportedCheese pokemon survives due to sturdy
Shedinja: oh yeah, it's all coming together
Breaking sashes taken to a whole new level
I knew i was getting strong Mekkah vibes even before you said it
We need to talk about A V A I L A B I L I T Y!
Mudkip is the Paladin class of this game.
@@ImportedCheese Gen 1 Nidoking was basically a Jagen
@@OGRadion Yeah, especially in Yellow, where it's double kick attack learned at level 12 is critical for beating Brock's rock types easily. Classic Jaegens, helping in the early part of the game
I think a point could be made about Zubat being an A Tier Pokémon. I am not 100% sure this is how it works is Ruby/Sapphire, but at least in Emerald you can:
1) Get it right before Brawly, where it's 4 times resistance to Fighting + access to Wing Attack is very helpful
2) Get a Soothe Bell in Slateport to MASSIVELY speed up it's evolution process (seriously, I've had a Crobat before Watson even due to this)
3) Get the SLUDGE. BOMB. TM. I don't know if it's just me, but I always see Sludge Bomb as the interisting but very meh move to teach to my Pokémon. Poison type attacks were a really poor coverage choice before Fairy types were a thing, so you wouldn't really use one if you are not a Poison type to benefit from STAB. That being said, before the physical/special split, Sludge Bomb is a 90 BP physical Poison type attack move you get IMMEDIATELY after the Normal type gym. You just grab it on Dewford Town via surfing there. Crobat really loves this move in Gen 3, and it's VERY EASY accessibility combined with the all of the other good points for Crobat, really cements this Pokémon's Emerald itteration (specifically) one of it's best appearences in the entire roster of main series games.
Isn't wing attack at lvl 21?
@@Dusti91 21!? 💀 Ah, fuck that. Astonish better be putting in work.
Lotad learns no Water moves until the Surf HM, learns no Grass moves better than Absorb, and can't evolve until you get a Water Stone after the 7th gym. It's really awful, and I would put it below Dustox and Beautifly (Which can at least effortlessly solo Brawly).
In contrast, Shroomish is amazing. Forget about Spore, it evolves early and gets Mach Punch, Leech Seed, Mega Drain, Stun Spore, and Sky Uppercut all by level up. It's also a perfect Pokemon to use the Bulk Up TM on and sweep with STAB Mach Punch.
Even if you put Gardevoir lower, I wouldn't be angry. She's my waifu and I always have her in my team even if Kadabra is an option. A man has to be loyal uwu
@Andrew Clarke Hatterene, Lopunny, Lucario, Mega Banette, Sylveon, Renamon, and many others, are also my waifus. I can't help it being a furry uwu
Gimme five 🤟
Weirdo, makes me ashamed to like Gardevoir for innocent reasons...
I was NOT expecting to see Mekkah mentioned here wow haha.
Groudon cuts through the earth, some hair can be woven as hard as iron wire. Kyogre uses it’s tail to comb the seas
or whatever
I knew it!! As soon as you started talking about the outlines of your rules I thought to myself, damn that sounds pretty fire emblem tier listy. Then the way you talked about how availability and talking about "its not about whos best its about who makes the game easiest" I could smell the Mekkkkah
Mekkah is definitely one of my inspirations! I might dabble in Fire Emblem content here (especially FE6, the Japanese-only release with our boi Roy) but that's a big maybe lol
@@ImportedCheese i would definitely be here for some FE content from you
I remember defeating Flannery using only Ninjask with dig. It's a good strategy if you haven't found any good water types (with good water moves) yet.
As much as I love the seedot line, I gotta agree with the C-tier placing, it takes some serious work to get a decent move set, and you gotta teach it the bullet seed, and thief tms to give it psuedo level up moves, but once it gets to shiftry, it's fun as hell to use
I really love the Tengu aesthetic of Shiftry, I just wish Seedot wasn't such trash >.>
Loved the video! I can’t wait for the Gen IV list. Is there any chance you’ll revisit your old tier lists and adjust them for the remakes?
Gen 4 coming S O O N (TM), not sure when exactly. I am thinking of "redoing" older tier lists by doing a tier list for their remakes, probably after I get a better than potato webcam.
Loved the video. Personally, i would put tailow on s tier because of guts + stab facade. Facade becomes a stab 140 base power attack with a constant 50% damage bonus, you can even slap a silk scarf that you get pretty early on swellow for some extra damage. Out of all the pokemon that can use this combo (raticate, ursaring, zangoose, etc) swellow is in my opinion the best because its so damn fast, fast enough to outspeed most enemy pokemon and not be bothered by the constant burn/poison damage. Ive nuzlocked pokemon emerald many times and swellow is always a carry, in fact, ive used swellow in pokemon inclement emerald and it completely carried my team and OHKOd anything that didnt resist it, especially after i got a choice band. I just cannot overstate how broken guts + stab facade is, even if its somewhat gimmicky to set up.
I'd agree except it's too difficult to get a status condition, burn is rare and poison still hurts outside of combat
31:45 I'd put Whismur in B. It evolves exactly in level 40 (I remembered 43 but no) and it has good attack and special attack, so it's kind of a jack of all trades, which works well with its move pool. It learns a lot of moves from both physical and special types also.
And while it's slowish, it's still faster than Hariyama.
It's garbage early mid game when not overleveled. Pretty much once you get to facing high teens to mid 20s pokemon with loudred it is very useless. My dumbass had loudred, lombre, mightyena and volbeat. Volbeat was by far the best of those with moonlight, double team confuse ray stall strats until it got signal beam and TM thunder
1:27:29 No idea, but Kyogre is an orca and Groudon is literally Behemoth. The spiked tail perhaps comes from the description
"He makes his tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are knit together."
Kyogre is supposed to be Leviathan to counterpart Behemot. And Rayquaza is... Something.
@@uandresbrito5685 No. Leviathan is me :P
But Kyogre's patterns are just like the ones of an Orca so perhaps it's an Orca based Leviathan?
Rayquaza looks like FFV archeoavis to me, so perhaps a quetzalcoatl?
actually that makes sense. if kyogre is leviathan and groudon is behemoth, that would make rayquaza ziz, and ziz's role is basically to quell the clashing of leviathan and behemoth, and shield humanity from its destructive influence... which is exactly what rayquaza's role is in the pokéon universe
@@hnglbanana So isn't Rayquaza straight out based on this creature?
@@TheLeviathan1293 Quetzal is a different mythology, I doubt it.
I had to look it up after you said “Whimsur” so many times. Was worried I was pronouncing one of my favorites wrong XD
Whimsur, the whimsical sir.
As someone whose profile pic is Mudkip and used Mudkip in gen 3, I agree with this placement
I put as many Mudkip in the thumbnail as I could, I hope you're happy.
As a true follower of the Mudkip... i absolutly agree
For similar reasons I agreed a lot with my pfp's A rank 👍
Zigzagoon is also a great HM mule and its stab Strength isn't too bad (plus water normal has great coverage with strength surf). In normal playthroughs I always use it like that at this point.
Small correction about pickup in ruby and sapphire it is not based on level but in emerald I think it is so its better In ruby/sapphire to just keep it low level in your party while you grind so it picks up rare candies. Great video tho
In Emerald you get Rayquaza before the elite 4... so it is technically tierable
And it's vastly overlevelled, so probably tier S++ :))
Yeah you can take on the whole elite 4 with it, get a good fire type move and thunder bolt or thunder on it and you can wipe them
I dont think he is considering emerald as the small changes can make big waves in terms of viability
Treecko is my favorite Hoenn starter, but I don't think it's S tier. A tier yes. The only reason for this is because it's actually pretty weak in the early game, where your starter matters the most. It's stuck with Absorb as a Grass move until the high 20s, and Absorb SUCKS. In my experience, it really struggles to keep up with Nosepass, since Nosepass is specially bulky and Rock Tomb hits hard. I'm also not totally sold on Torchic being S tier because the last 3 gyms are supereffective against Blaziken.
I actually think that Electrike should be S tier. It's probably the best Electric type in the game. It doesn't really need much coverage because of all the water lol, and you can get Thunderbolt decently early. It often make it kind of a pseudo HM user with Tbolt, Strength, and Rock Smash. It gets Bite later on (which isn't amazing, but is alright and has a good flinch chance) and you might luck out with a good Hidden Power. It's too bad it doesn't get Flamethrower in this gen. Still solid S tier imo purely because of its typing. Doesn't need a wide movepool. It also works well with each starter.
Milotic is great. It's arguably slightly better than Gyarados in this gen because it can use its special moves effectively. And it takes hits well. Gyara beats Milotic easily in every other gen, but in this one, Milotic is better. I'd argue it should be C. Yes, its availability is bad, but if you can get it, the payoff is great.
Gorebyss is a bit better than Huntail imo. Its Special Attack is actually incredible, I had no idea it was that good, and it gets Psychic naturally. Huntail gets Crunch naturally, so it definitely still has its uses. It has better Attack than Sp Attack, but with nothing to really utilize that better stat. Also, look up Gorebyss's Pokedex entries, yikes.
I like the Regi puzzles. They're weird af, but memorable.
Kyogre is clearly S tier. You get it before Wallace, you can give it Thunder easily to complement Drizzle... nuff said. It also has Ice Beam when you get it. It's by far THE best Water type in the whole game. It's TOO good. I agree with A placement for Groudon,
Other than that, I agree with these rankings. Seems pretty solid.
Pickup getting different things as you level up only started in Emerald. In Ruby/Sapphire and FireRed/LeafGreen it had a static list that never changed whether the pokemon was level 1 or level 100. This actually makes Zigzagoon in R/S better in those games in my eyes, since if you're going to raise up new pokemon as you get further into the game or EV train, you can slap them in solo in your party, and fill the rest out with Zigzagoons, and get a bunch of items while you train up that pokemon, without having to put any effort into those Zigzagoons beyond obtaining them. Early game this can be especially good, because it gives you access to things like ultra balls, rare candies, and nuggets *super* early, which can completely invalidate any early game concerns for money at the cost of a few pokeballs. Especially if you were going to train up a team of six early anyway, since leveling a team of six fairly early implies some level of grind, and also implies that you'll probably sub out members frequently as you gain access to genuinely better mons as you progress, which means more time spent EV training if that's something you do.
Like, you could absolutely play the game without ever using pickup once, but leveraging it in the early game makes the early game *so* much easier. I've played a good number of gen 3 pokemon hacks, and those tend to be much more difficult than the base gen 3 games, so a pickup squad is something I've learned to love in those games.
Why did they rework pickup
@@ImportedCheese Beats me, but if I had to guess, probably because it was too good. Right off the bat in R/S, you had a 10% chance of an ultra ball, full heal, full restore, nugget, revive, or rare candy, respectively. A 5% chance of a protein, a 4% chance of a PP up, and a 1% chance of a king's rock. The remaining 30% was a super potion. That's pretty ridiculous if you ask me, esp. when you figure you don't have to put any work into the mon in question.
I think you sold Sableye pretty short. Its stats are bad, yeah, and it gets worse as the game goes on, but Dark/Ghost is still a great typing. Not for having no weaknesses, but for its three common immunities, which the AI can often struggle to deal with.
It's got niche matchups against Brawly, Norman, Tate & Liza, Phoebe; it gets STAB Shadow Ball and Faint Attack (for evasion spammers); Confuse Ray can help in a pinch.
I think the generally low power level of the Hoenn dex helps it tread water throughout the game, as long as you've got harder hitters.
Still not really worth using, but absolutely usable, and a step above the trash in D.
The one thing Beautifly is good for is matching up very well against Brawly. STAB Gust is good enough to take him down for that stage of the game. Of course, Tailow, Ralts/Kirlia, Alakazam, Zubat, Wingull and even Dustox can all do this at least as well, and if you're playing Sapphire you can just catch a Sableye nearby and destroy the entire gym effortlessly. So it's not really worth it given the other Pokémon I mentioned are more useful later in the game.
slacking is OP, the hyper beam recharges during turant so you get to use hyper beam at full power with no downsides
it's so bad, bro
you can't switch during the recharge turn, so it's still waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay worse than the truant downside
You're sleeping on Azumarill really hard. It's the best non-mudkip water pokemon before you get surf. Mostly because it learns bubblebeam early so it can actually solo flannery (unlike lotad & goldeen)
Also cacturne is lowkey fantastic for the late game because it takes out gyms 7, 8 and large portions of the elite 4. There's so few dark types with good special attack
Azumarill is reaaaaaaaaaaaaally bad without physical water stab. Also it's really slow
Cacturne is also really slow
Hot take (hehe puns). Fire/Rock is not a bad type...on the offense. You hit quite a lot for neutral and plenty for super-effective. But you need to be a fast hard-hitting pokemon for the type to work. Defensive fire/rock is just...well Slugma is down there for a reason.
Is that really a hot take?
Please do this for more games. Great videos to watch, specialy if you want to replay older games.
I agree with the list.
Hope you can do X/Y, Su/Mo and HG SS someday. Any of those for your next one would be incredible.
HGSS is next!
To answer your thing about Groudon and Kyogre's designs, I think it might be tectonic plates and ocean waves/currents?
LMAOOOOO I had guessed that you had watched Mekkah after watching your vids for gen 1 and 2 and hearing the way you talked about availability, glad to see I was right
Love your stuff, this series is so much fun
About the braille thing, the instruction manual actually had the chart for braille in it in all the gen 3 games. Since its 1:1 to English letters its not really deciphering a language, its just a cryptography puzzle where you have the key. Totally possible, easy even! So long as you read the manual and have the patience to slowly write down the translation. In fact the hardest part I remember was finding a relicanth. I'm just curious how this went down in Japan. Was it still braille translating to English?
I should have read the manual, then >.>
Not sure about how it worked in OG Japanese, I'll look into it!
@@ImportedCheesehave you looked into it yet
Imported cheese is a Mekkah watcher? Pog.
I'd be interested if you're down to chat with Pokemon Challenges since he does Nuzlockes and has also tiered Pokemon.
I love Mekkah's tier lists!
I'd love to chat with Pokemon Challenges, don't know if he'd be down to talk to a small fry like myself xD
I got into the Mudkip bandwagon a little late. I used to think that Torchic was the best one out of the 3, but that wasn't the case until gen 5,where it was stupidly good. Back in gen 3, I chose it mainly due the amazing and then new Fire/fighting combo. Blaziken could just trample over any obstacle ingame.
But then.... Swampert became one of my favourite pokemon ever, because I needed more raw power to muscle through the battle frontier in gen IV, and heard marvelous things about him. Bred and transferred one from my Emerald version and Holy shit.
Not only is Water/Ground an even more amazing combo, but he is a fucking tank. Waterfall for Stab and flinching. Earthquake for even more stab and destroy everything that doesn't resist it. Ice Punch to destroy Gliscor, the dragons and his grass counters. And stealth rock, to weaken everything that doesn't resist it. Give it a leftovers, and the thing will rarely die. SS tier pokemon for me.
I think that you should check lotad's evolution line lvl up moveset in gen 3. it is quite the surprise
it's so sad
I disagree with Treeko in S. It is way to weak until you get leafblade, you are using Absorb most of your run and most common Water Types you will encounter aren't even weak to Grass. So getting past Tentacool, Wingull and Pelippers are a pain. Worst are the trainers with Gyarados who have intimidate to make your Normal Type moves worthless.
I would personally put it 1 rank lower, even in ORAS.
I personally would also put Torchic to A rank. The two just aren't on Mudkip level. The gab is a little to big. I think even Abra is better than them and S tier when trading is allowed.
poor Seedot. At least in XD its sick. You can quickly evolve it because you don't want to grind for Feint Attack. Ironically XD made a lot of Pokemon really viable like Ariados and Flareon thanks to move availability.
I remember having a great experience using Zubat the last time I played Saphire. And that's the moment it learns Wing Attack. That move is insane. If you are also willing to spend some money, you can get an early shadow ball to deal with annoying Psychic Types.
You can catch Dodrio in the Safari Zone as well if you have the Machbike.
I didn't quite understand why Huntail is higher ranked than Gorebyss considering Gorebyss has higher special and learns Psychic per TM. You only miss out on Crunch and a higher attack stat with which you are only missing out of high powered returns. Also getting the trade item is way too much work.
the irony that the Regi puzzle exist but the azure flute wasn't distributed because according to Masuda it's hard to figure out for kids...
Kyogre should be S. I don't think the opportunity cost really applies here. You buy the Thunder TM and then spam BoltBeam coverage from 150 base Special attack and never miss. I don't think there is a single Pokemon in the Elite 4 that can wall Kyogre or take more than 2 hits. Even if you didn't level it up earlier.
Groudon I can tolerate since Solar Beam and Fire Blast are from his weaker stat. Earthquake hits like a truck but not everything will fall to it. So high A tier is fine. But bottom A tier is disappointing. Kyogre is significantly more useful than a fully trained Sceptile.
I think this one might be a candidate for a Charizard review.
You were EXTREMELY generous with some of this roster!
time to lower treecko
@@ImportedCheese I always really liked Treecko! I just wish Grass-type was better. At least it's more useful in Hoenn.
Regarding the Regis I thought they’re puzzles were very cool and approachable. It would be insanely more difficult to translate Japanese text - how would you even get started translating it? Braille was a smart choice because it has a simple analog between the Braille character and your native alphabet character.
By the way the back of the guide book in the game case has the Braille alphabet. Also you’re leaving out the fact that video game guides were extremely popular back then. I have the official Ruby/Sapphire game book guide that helps you with the puzzles if needed.
Breloom is such an offensive powerhouse with poison (which makes sleep irrelevant) and stun spore early (not as good as sleep but also permanent) mach punch and leech seed/absorb/mega drain for health.
All of those moves are uh...bad for ingame. Too weak!
Swellow and Dustox are being mad underrated. Guts is absolutely broken, especially with stab facade and Dustox is crazy early game and even cheeses the 5th gym due to getting Protect by level up
Guts is pretty good if you activate it...not worth getting it active and maintaining it
Dustox just sucks
1:28:06 I'd agree mostly, main differences being on 1. Crobat which I think barely reaches A because Sludge Bomb, 2. Exploud should be on B, because it has a lot of moves and stats to support them... I mean it has type coverage and can hit hard, 3. I think Hariyama should also be on B, because it's TOO slow. 4. Glalie should be top C, 80 to everything is enough to outspeed and one-shot stuff without being particularly over-leveled. 5. Feebas should be at least in C. It's not that it's not available or you won't get it. It's just tedious to get it and evolve it. And once you get one you can fish a few more in the same tile until you get a good nature for evolving it. All the work is mostly tedious but as a reward you get a really good water type (at the level of tentacruel).
Honestly loved the Mekkah shout out, I've been watching his content for years. Didn't know he liked pokemon, I've only seen him do FE content or guest appear in FE content.
One day Mekkah senpai will notice me...
I was like 13 and on vacation with absolutely no internet there - I figured out the braille text (I may have had the booklet?) and the Dig part, but I had no clue where the hell to get a Relicanth.
Tbh I think I was more excited about finally being able to catch the Relicanth after I could look it up back home than actually catching the Regis lol
Also still everytime I replay gen3 I have awesome kinda déjà-vus of playing it the first time on that vacation as a kid
Absolutely love your content btw, you're awesome dude ❤️
Woah, didn’t expect to see Mekkkah referenced, awesome vid!
I got a dictionary from my elementary school with a braille dictionary in the back, I scribbled the translations for the puzzles on that page and managed it all myself.
Even gamefreak noticed how dirty they did tropius cause it's gen 4 moveset its way better
But...the stats, Gamefreak, the stats! Please!
When he was ranting about how "impossible" the Regis puzzle was, I just had to smirk a little.
I've played some of the old Sierra adventure games from the 80s and 90s (I mean I've played them recently, not at release, I hadn't even been born back then), and those games are BRUTAL in their difficulty, they have puzzles that make the Regis puzzle look trivial (like requiring you to go to a specific location at a specific in-game time, which you get no hints for, and that's required to beat the game)
And yes, they were viewed as "kids' games" back in the day. Video games were considered a hobby for kids and adults that played them were considered weird, so even the toughest games were considered possible to beat by children
Great list, really enjoyed listening to your reasoning. I agree with most placements, but here are some Pokemon I would place differently:
Taillow B -> A: Taillow learns Wing Attack very early and gains exp very quickly. That makes it extremely efficient to use against most trainers early, it even gets Steel Wing from Steven to deal with rock types. It is very bad against the elite 4, but still usable up to then.
Magicarp B -> A: I think you are underselling Gyarados a bit. It gets Intimidate, arguably the best ability in the game, and Dragon Dance, which is still broken even without stab moves. Return and Earthquake are good enough to sweep most teams.
Sableye D -> C: Sableye learns a lot of good utility moves and has great matchups against certain trainers that rely on normal and fighting type moves, Norman in particular. That alone makes it better than the other Pokemon in D.
Treeko S -> A: Treeko is not that good until it gets Leafblade, it has to get by with Absorb and Bullet Seed until then. It also doesn't get the best coverage outside of grass, which makes it mediocre if the opponents resists grass. It still has perfect availabilty and is by far the best grass type, so A seems appropriate.
Skitty C -> D: I think Skitty is bad enough to warrant puting it in the lowest tier. You mentioned the moon stone evolution, but the first moon stone is available at Meteor Falls. By then, you could have already evolved Zigzagoon and Whismur to Loudred, both of which are at least on par with Delcaty, while having other redeaming qualities later in the game. It also doesn't get a better move than Tackle by level until Double Edge at level 39, which you even miss out on if you evolve it before that.
Koffing C -> B: Koffing might be a pet Pokemon of mine, so you can take this with a grain of salt. Wheezing learns a suprising number of good moves, including Thunderbolt and Flamethrower, while also having a decent special attack stat to use those moves. With levitate, it also only has one weakness. The worst thing about it is the somewhat late evolution, though it still evolves earlier than Grimer.
Skarmory B -> A: Skarmory is close to unkillable by anything that uses physical attacks. It's attack stat is just good enough to not be a super passive pokemon.
Hey, thanks for watching!
I could definitely see Tailow in A, especially considering how sparse A tier ended up being. If you manipulate Guts correctly, it's probably worthy of being A.
Intimidate is a great point in Magikarp's favor, and Gyarados's special is also "good enough" to use water moves with. Dragon Dance is only available at level 50, which is quite late, but you're right Return/Earthquake would cover almost everything. I could see Gyarados in A - Magikarp is always hotly contested, but once we get to Gen 4 I imagine no one will argue with his perpetual placement in S.
Sableye I might be sleeping on because I mainly played Ruby - I could see it in C for utility purposes, but it's never going to be dishing out the big DPS, or even the medium DPS. They really did Sableye dirty, why is it so weak?
I debated with myself for a long time about whether or not to put Treecko in A or S - I think it mostly came down to this being "7.8/10 too much water" Gen 3 where there oodles of Leaf Blade victims once you actually get the move. It can make use of the Earthquake and Brick Break TMs, but those are both late game - I think Treecko would also be fine in A.
Yeah Skitty is pretty horrendous, I might have been blinded by the cuteness. Is it D tier bad? Quite possibly, although I try to reserve D for pokemon that are truly beyond redemption. I could certainly see moving Skitty to the border with D, though.
I loved using special Wheezing sets back when I used to play competitive, and I especially loved the way Wheezing's model would scrunch up when using Thunderbolt in the Stadium games. What would make me hesitant to move Wheezing up to B would be the opportunity cost for giving your incredibly valuable Flamethrower and Thunderbolt TMs to Wheezing. Unless you're James himself, you'd probably give them to a pokemon that could make better use of them xD
I think A for Skarmory is a bit of a stretch - even if it is invincible, having only Aerial Ace / Fly / Steel Wing as viable offensive options I think leaves him a bit short of A.
Grass types are actually useless unless you're partial to them. They have advantages of ground/rock/water. An electric type, and water type and you've got those types covered.
You’re forgetting Whiscash. Also leaf blade stab is amazing. And Sceptile has insanely good stats compared to the likes of Manectric and vastly more speed than Magneton.
Sceptile suffers a lot but it isn’t in anyway “useless”
I was just thinking about how your weighting of availability in your tier lists reminds me of Mekkah, and then seconds later you drop his name hahah, nice.
I am mexican and love ludicolo. one of my favorites
Otro hermano mexicano que sigue éste canal? A huevo. Ludicolo me cagaba al principio, pero al ver lo bueno y versátil que es.... Wow.
shroomish was a good choice at the start of the game for stun spore and low stats making it fantastic for catching other Pokemon not a long term investment but I found it had a niche
What I enjoy about shroomish is that it acts like a wall/tank with typical Grass-type stall strats to beat bulkier things like Gym Leader ace mons, but once you evolve you get this world-slaying 130 Atk powerhouse as early as level 23.
Bro I love mekkah glad you used it as a way to tier pokemon because ppl oft ignore that
I love Absol since I first saw it, I even taught it my precious boltbeam as a kid because you know, I didn't know how Atk and SpA work. But yea, it's pretty bad, its strongest move is Shadow ball.
[edit] I didn't expect you to be that kind with Chimecho though, a feeble 2% spawn mon.
45:55 Volbeat actually does get tail glow in emerald, and considering it gets crazy good speacial moves by TM + baton pass (maybe a transfer exclusive so may not count) it should at least be above illumise who actually cant do anything. Also awesome video bro.
straight to OU!
Piping hot take, but while Volbeat sucks compared to most everything else, it’s WAY better than you give it credit for. Its stats aren’t great, but it’s fairly quick at base 85, and has a somewhat usable attack stat of 73. What truly sets it apart is the second strongest Bug move in the entire game, Signal Beam (second to Heracross’s monstrous Megahorn). Though not super effective on many important trainers, it’s also seldom resisted. It also learns it fairly early at level 25, while Heracross may never learn its own Bug STAB due to learning it at level 53. That’s not all it has, though; Tail Glow patches up its awful Special Attack to somewhat usable levels after a turn of setup, after which you can teach it Shock Wave or even Thunderbolt, something unique to Bug types. I’ve taken it to Emerald’s endgame, and while it falls off in the lategame, a spammable Bug move is really nice in the midgame. It’s a very niche pick, but it’s niche, something that Illumise absolutely cannot say. It deserves to be higher than trash like Delcatty.
i honestly completely agree, gen 3 is definitely the one i’m most knowledgeable and experienced with and my only strifes are thinking plusle and minun should’ve been C tier i think, seviper moves up a bit in B tier, and treecko steps down to top of A tier because as much as i adore treecko, i don’t think it’s quite on the same power level as mudkip and torchic. other than that, my list would’ve been identical i reckon! (except trapinch would’ve been moved to S+ tier but i’ll let you off for that)
super excited to join the discord!!
I'd be down to hate more on Plusle and Minun, but they get carried pretty hard by being Electric types.
I didn't expect so many people to be against S tier Treecko...I was afraid of backlack for putting him in A, but maybe I should have just done that lol.
If Trapinch were available earlier (and if Vibrava wasn't such poop) Flygon would probably be S, although I think you're memeing with this point lol.
See you in the discord!
@@ImportedCheese yeah i think it would be perfect placement to have trapinch available on the route next to the desert, instead of requiring four badges to finally catch a level ~20 pokemon that won’t evolve until level 35, and then not again until 45. it definitely gets draining but it would feel wrong to play through hoenn without flygon by my side
Poor Poochyena had to wait until the remakes for a chance to shine, but might be a strong candidate for most improved. Still available just as early as ever, but now with not only physical dark STAB, but also thanks to DexNav it can have an elemental bite for coverage as well as the Moxie ability to boost its attack during trainer battles.
It's lack luster stats still cause it to fall off in second half of the game, but it is a force to be reconned with in first half.
Mightyena's role is to be on the enemy team and Intimidate you, that's about it
One thing that I think would help express availability is to make a timeline of events (mainly gym leaders, e4, rival battles and evil team battles) and the level of their highest Pokémon. It will show how far through the game you are expected to be at the point you encounter a Pokémon.
Another helpful data point is the max level you encounter a Pokémon. A Pokémon evolving at level 40 doesn't mean much without knowing what level you get them at. If they are found at level 38, low opportunity cost. If they are found at level 5, ridiculously high opportunity cost.
Sounds like a lot of work...
@@ImportedCheese true. I wonder if there is a resource out there already for that. I think serebii has Pokémon by route per game.
Either way, great content!
I would put slakoth higher tbh. Yeah there’s a bit of opportunity cost involved in getting a slaking, but slaking is the best mon in single player and it’s not remotely close. Get two of them with hyper beam, faint attack, brick break, and whatever fourth move you want and you can beat the game effortlessly. Hyper beam everything, switching between them after every kill. Faint attack if they’re a ghost. Brick break if they resist normal. Probably use return or strength for the last slots to conserve hyper beam PP.
My absolute favourite gen and games. The trumpets just hits different.
7.8/10 just enough trumpets
Having no weaknesses makes Swampert so good that Gamefreak nerfed it by making it 4x weak to the best type in the game: Freeze Dry
Weaknesses are OVERRATED
Love the video and your analysis. I cringed a bit when you said "whim-sir" though. It's spelt W-H-I-S-M-U-R with the S before the M so I believe it's pronounced like whisper with an M instead of a P which also relates to its description being a sound based pokemon. It evolves onto exploud which is a play on loud explosion.
Once again, love the content.
You'll hate how I say Croagunk!!!
Legend has it , these type of videos help him get better at work 😳
I gotta set up infinite Zoom calls, so kinda hahaha
I need to get a better webcam lol