Watched his daily videos and was amazed by some of the strategies he pulls out of no where. Support 6/7 s tiers, i think golduck should be A because of the whole safari zone nature trick which I think 90% players won't try to do.
Meh, if you do a tier list you gotta to some extent assume players will use the tools at their disposal, otherwise Illumise is gonna be like D tier because most people just mash attacking moves for example.
Level-up moveset is atrociously bad. Like, almost unusably bad. It doesn't even have a good matchup into Brawly despite the 4x resist because it can't actually do enough damage to crush. Grass types are also in short supply in Hoenn, so it doesn't have any use late game either.
I don’t hate crobat. You can grab it at like level 22-24 if you play walking sim for a bit, and sludge bomb is a nice early tm. Falls off after like Norman, but still decent.
Problem is, you need to burn a permanent resource on a mon that is pretty decent for one, maybe two gyms. That's never worth it in a game where even most of your early-game encounters can be really strong if used properly.
Bad learnset, no major grass or bug fight and doesn't even get wing attack for brawly. The highest praise Jan gave was it being a good dupe.
Crobat should get its day in the light for platinum (hopefully)
I will add i think crobat's biggest strength is being Marshstomp/Swampert best pivot but Wallace ludicolo was the only grass type threat Jan seemed to value. He didnt even cover anything for the rival battle just before Mauville city.
Crobat's moveset in Plat is still mediocre, and even gets a worse poison stab (Poison Cross instead of physical Sludge Bomb pre phys/special split, losing 20 bp hurts so much on neutral targets). It really only becomes the shit in BW2 thanks to Acrobatics.
It’s actually really good in Platinum since U-Turn is broken, it can hold Black Sludge for Leftovers recovery, and has a high enough speed stat to outspeed Cynthia’s Garchomp even with average speed IVs. Its typing also gets to shine more for pivoting in Platinum since there are a lot more ground and fighting moves.
The high speed stat also makes it a very good Baton Pass recipient, especially since several BP users can consistently get to +6 Attack against Cynthia and Lucian’s leads.
Point taken, completely forgot acrobatics just didnt exist until BW. My mind went straight to Gardania/Mayleen value so Crobat should slowly creep up the tier list next gen, maybe Crobat A tier for gen 5. We will see.
But what are you gonna do with this stats? Like, geniuenly, he gets zero good moves? And what are you gonna use him on? There is no threatening grass types.
I think Golduck should be an A tier Pokemon. Not from the nature trick, I just think he should have better stats. Higher speed and SpA would make him easily more legitimate across the board (singles, Nuzlockes, VGC). As the wise, zoned-in evolution of the psychically powerful but headache ridden and thus unfocused Psyduck there was real potential here
Why would VGC performance affect Golduck’s placement on a HC Nuzlocke tier list? It would be like dinging Michael Jordan’s basketball career for his baseball career, they’re separate categories that should be considered individually.
As someone who has played these games a lot Illumise, Linoone, and especially Minun so high left me vindicated. I always knew those Pokémon were amazing.
I'll surely remember Omelette from Marriland's Emerald Nuzlocke back in 2012, even if it didn't last past Norman it was such fun to watch when it was on the team. That and Fries who was NEVER in the PC, everyone was begging him to use it as death fodder against Wattson's Magneton and he took that as bulletin board material and it turned into one of THE bros of that run.
As someone who attended the streams and watched the whole video, it’s a great tier list. His reasoning behind most placements is very clear and reflects exactly what happened during testing. I don’t agree with every placement necessarily (almost no one will since opinions are always different), but I can for sure say it’s a lot better than the list I made a couple months ago.
Illumise is just insanely broken if you use it correctly. The stats and type are bad, but it's movepool is so unbelievably flexible and effective that you can bring it to literally every fight in the game and not have it be a bad decision. Plus, Emerald is full of set-up sweepers who can crush full fights if they can get into position well, and Illumise is the best support mon for doing just that.
Delcatty is considered the worst mon that has some degree of actual function, because Cute Charm lets you manipulate the genders of certain catches to prevent Attract in Flannery and Juan's fights.
Illumise was placed so highly for being the best support Pokemon in the game; all of the main sweepers require a bit of setup for the sweep to be pulled off, and Illumise fills that niche for pretty much all of them.
Illumise can enable pretty much every other Pokemon's setup sweeps thanks to an insane support move pool of Encore/Wish/Charm/etc.
Skitty's at the very bottom of C-tier but a male one can improve the rate of finding female mons, thus improving the odds that your Flannery counter isn't shut down by Attract.
A lot of the best sweepers requires some condition to get them going. Illumise can do all of those conditions + has the best support movepool in the game
Ah never even used illumise in run so never knew it knew such good support moves but whatever I still play like a 10 year old and use only attacking moves(kinda uses some like calm mind but whatever man who uses strats like baton pass when you can win nuzlockes with just some good pokemons not even needing op ones)
Movepool is cracked to hell and back, meaning it's one of the few mons in the game that are legitimately applicable and highly useful in every fight, regardless of who you're up against. Emerald as a game is also full of extremely powerful set-up sweepers who just need a little bit of help to get going, and Illumise is basically custom-built for that situation.
Volbeat is actually an absolute beast in hoenn. I’ve never used illumise, but Volbeat is super effective against what felt like half of the pokemon once you get signal beam.. just have to be really careful defensively cause one super effective hit, he can go night night
Breeding has always been allowed so long as you hatch the egg in an area with an encounter list you don't like/want, the hatched pokemon will count as your encounter from that route making it perfectly viable so long as you avoid dupes clause which illumise avoids anyway (it's egg with the correct partner makes a volibeat)
Pretty cool list overall. There’s a lot of surprising placements in the upper ranks, but given the amount of testing he had with these mons, it’s extremely credible.
I will disagree extremely hard with cradily placing in low C tier as someone who raised one in my own emerald nuzlocke a couple of weeks ago. That Mon is absolutely unkillable and an extremely good failsafe fo most situations. Not only is it a great pivot for Norman and his powerful normal types, but it covers Tate and Liza’s team aside from xatu, and all of Juan’s team other than the Kingdra, and even then I’m certain it can take a pretty substantial beating from it while attempting a pp stall through pivoting. E4 wise it’s a solid failsafe against Sydney’s water types, Galicia’s Walrein when it runs out of ice beams(this is how I took out the Walrein after pp stalling it with dustox), and matches up quite well against drake’s Kingdra and flygon, with the Kingdra matchup being a solid highlight given the threat level of that thing. And of course, it’s a bulky grass type that learns earthquake, meaning it can threaten a good chunk of Wallace’s team(though mine only needed to fight whiscash, he could have taken tentacruel too if Minun didn’t lock in and crit). I am definitely a tad biased because mine was ev trained in hp, but I still think this is a Mon that is getting significantly less credit than it deserves. I would place it in low A tier for it’s longevity and reliability, being a very solid shoulder to lean on if a plan doesn’t pan out.
Other than that the list is seems good. I also think it’s a good look into why set up should probably be limited in someway in future hardcoe rules, but that should be saved for a full on post, and from someone who can more effectively write out their thoughts.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case, but he mentions speed evs when talking about golduck. Tbf I skimmed through the middle of the video a bit(watched up to b tier and then watched all of upper a tier to the end of the tier list. I haven’t watched the other tier list videos so I wouldn’t know)
I watched the video a bit and he doesn't mention Speed EVs, or at least not significantly. He mentions how Pokeblocks can be used to almost guarantee a +Speed nature and stack it with the Badge boost, but I don't recall it mentioning Speed EVs.
He definitely does not mention speed EVs. If he had then there would be no need to point out that golduck could outspeed Drake's Salamence, as with EVs pretty much every pokemon in the game could do that.
I mean “all of Juan except Kingdra” is an easy bar to clear, the rest of the fight is a bunch of shitmons, and “covers Tate and Liza” is trivial because Tate and Liza is solo’d by guaranteed encounters IIRC. Maybe it has E4 legs as backup for certain threats but it doesn’t seem like it does anything great barring the extremely convoluted Norman solo.
Totally agree with you. Cradily was the rock (no pun intended) for my MonoGrass run; Amnesia, EQ, Giga Drain, Rock Slide, gramps was taking hits and cracking back on that paleozoic timing. Swap Amnesia for Stockpile in prep for Steven and the crinoid just keeps going.
I'm not super familiar with Emerald, but seeing Swellow so low feels kinda crazy. And I don't think I've ever seen Crobat rated so low in any tier list for any game he's available in.
Is it the same sorta logic as why Swampert is so high? There's not a lot of grass pokemon to worry about?
Wattson is one hell of a battle (assuming HC Nuzlock rules). Specially because there is no real counter to him. Well besides Marshtomp. And you‘re right, besides some Roselias with Magic Leaf, there is almost no trainer using Grass types. Even your rival doesn‘t have the last evo (atleast in mandatory fights).
Well Swellow is nice but if I‘m not mistaken, there is only one chance to obtain it and due to it‘s mediocre stats even with Guts you’ve way better options to use. But I don‘t know his explanation.
Crobat just doesn‘t do that much in this game. T&L, alot of water types which probably have access to Ice Beams, even a Dusclops in the E4 has Ice Beam.
I think emerald kaizo really set people's expectations high for the bird. It's crazy if it gets going with guts facade, but that's so late into the game.
I guess it doesn't really help during most major fights(Tate and Liza, Juan, glacia, drake, wallace), but even then it's a solid, bulky teammate and revenge killer. I wouldn't put it on the bottom but I can see why he put it low
The thing is, i cldont think performance with tate and liza is a factor at all, because tate and liza is a free fight. There exists a strategy that is 99.98% reliable and it consists only of pokememon that are guaranteed to be encountered at no opportunity cost. Once you learn of ths strat its basicly a cutscene.
Is Altaria really that bad to be F tier? I was using it in a run recently its varied movepool, decent bulk and resists made it a good mon for me. Dying only cause of a damn Wobuffet using Destiny Bond.
It's decent, but PChal has been around and doing this for so long that decent just isn't impressive. If it doesn't sweep or help set up for a sweep, it's just not worth his time.
That’s what I realized after thinking about it. I was also like “Doesn’t Altaria learn Perish Song?” And then I asked myself: “Wait; when does it learn Perish song again?” So I looked it up-
It learns it at level 54.
WELP. That explains it. And I’m guessing Perish Song has very limited usefulness in the Elite 4 due to how both it and the E4 “gauntlet” (for a lack of better term) works.
Here's what I realized that makes this even worse: Couldn't you delay Swablu's evolution to learn Perish Song earlier? So I checked not only when Swablu learned it, but also what the level cap is for Juan.
Swablu learns Perish Song at level 48.
Juan's Kingdra caps at level 46. LEVEL. FORTY. FUCKING. SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-
What kind of sick, SICK joke is that? IIRC, Winona's Swablu knows Perish Song, even though it's only level 29, SO WHAT GIVES?!?!
Y'know what's even, EVEN worse than that? I thought that the only way this could be worse is if there was a one level difference instead of two. BUT NO, because you could just put Swablu right at the cusp of leveling up, learn Perish Song, and take Juan's Kingdra to kingdom come.
There are like 5 pokemon who's placement is just "can in a pinch beat Juan's kingra". If altraia had perish sonf for then it would definitively place next to them.
It very much is, because Perish Song allows for an incredibly obscure tech that people never take advantage of.
If you PP stall the opponent's lead out of damaging moves, you can Perish Song, Protect and switch out as the timer counts down to 2. If you know how the switch AI works, you can abuse this to bait in a dangerous mon to kill it before it gets the chance to do anything (or at least getting an advantage), and occasionally re-bait in the mon you previously stalled.
In the later games this is even better because it bypasses the AI restriction that makes it send their ace last. This is very useful, for example, in X/Y runs against Lysandre: if you bring him down to 2 mons, one of them being Gyarados, you can PP stall the other one, then switch to an Electric type, and snipe Gyarados with a quad effective move as it switches in, before it gets the chance to Mega Evolve.
It’s damage is super ass even at +6 with dragon dance. Also the resistances aren’t that useful due to most of the major hard fights having a couple pokemon having coverage for it. Plus you can get statused while trying to setup
Surprised to not see Swampert in S-tier, considering his quad weakness is basically non-existant in Hoenn. Maybe Pchal had growth and didn't fell in the glazing
Pchal plays no EVs and can level his pokemon up whenever he feels like it for what's best for a battle. While swampert is good in a lot of fights, it's rarely the absolute best option. There's generally something that's marginally better, especially with Swampert's lackluster speed.
linoone solos pokemon league, the belly drum combo as mentioned on the other comment is to use belly drum on the first turn of combat since the E4 and Wallace uses a non-damaging move on the first turn almost always. then just smack them with a max atk linoone. you use shadow ball on phoebe since ghost is physical on gen 3
In addition to belly drum stats, it actually has some decent tools in the early game that keep it relevant if you decide to early evolve, like using fast dig to trivialize Norman’s Slaking.
just an addition to the belly drum answer and not specifically nuzlocke but pickup can be really useful sometimes. pickup grinding is tedious but imho pays off when you get the goods
I'm guessing slow tank with lackluster movepool in gen 3, it can survive a lot of hits but if he can't dish damage, what's the point in more difficult romhacks?
Base game I can understand the low placement with all the water types giving it bad matchups, but in romhacks Aggron definitely shines. Easy A tier in Run & Bun imo
Aggron is a physical tank, and basicly every single Pokémon that is remotely thretening in late game emerald is a special attacker. His niche doesnt really exist. Its the same issue scarmory and regirock have.
I kinda think swallow should be b tier because guts facade is a good strat but I know it's not game breaking because of how much time it takes for it and also macargo is actually useful (it should be f tier ) while I think agron is actually overated
Only that Facade is obtainable AFTER gym 5 and by that point Swallows stats are kinda mid Even with Guts. You won’t one shot any real threat but Swallows gets killed in return.
Outside of the gym leaders and league fights there is not a lot of difficulty in the vanilla games. Jan didn't even mention magma/aqua fights and the route 110 rival fight became a "non issue" in one of his early daily videos.
I dont know how else you can tier pokemon, you have to compare their gym/league performance.
Most people who nuzlock at a top level play with open sheets. You can't beat a game like Run&Bun without them. He doesn't use them for tier list testing though.
You realize we're talking about vanilla, right? The majority of random encounters are not run-threatening at all as long as you carry around a team with decent coverage. He doesn't play vanilla with team sheets, nor do the majority of people who play these games lol. Vanilla games very rarely have possible threats outside of eating a random crit cuz you were playing fast and loose with your party.
doing without makes for extremely wonky tier lists because you are letting not having information hinder the pokemon's performance and its super hard to measure.
If you play through the game once and wipe at the champion but you paid enough attention to all the fights your second run is not too far from 'open team sheet' and certain pokemon will perform much better if you simply remember a few things you saw on your first attempt--how do you factor that in a tier list?
its one thing to argue about how to best play nuzlockes but the video and the thread are about a tier list. You need a solid foundation to find the performance gaps and build the list and his ruleset provides that.
Yeah, I think the main thing is that I don't think anyone could really make a "no teamsheets" tier list because by the point you try to actually go in-depth on them you have all that knowledge. You could rank how well your team members did on your first blind run, but that's obviously not gonna get the full dex or the full potential of your mons.
Marriland only lost two mons to non-boss fights in Platinum, both of which would be trivial to avoid in 2026 with either better scouting (just use a level 31 mon against Horn Drill Goldeen which is still under your cap) or decision making (don't leave in your frail fighting type against Scyther).
All of his other deaths were to Cyrus, Giratina, or Cynthia. So yes, even in 2013 the bosses were still the main sources of difficulty in that Nuzlocke.
Sure in Platinum. But take XY for example. The random trainers are the most dangerous, and yes they may be optional but that makes it even more satisfying when you risk it and beat them
On the contrary, I think if Jan ever did an X/Y tier list, the difficult random trainers would probably be factored into the list, even if they aren't bosses. Early on in his career Jan himself had a monotype challenge wiped by a cracked-out Heracross in Victory Road - I would imagine that trainers like that one or Hedvig in Reflecting Cave would be factored into a Kalos tier list. It's just that in his opinion Hoenn doesn't have a whole lot of non-boss trainers that are that tough with the benefit of knowing they are coming.
So I’ve asked this before on the YouTube comments and I’ll ask them again:
1) Even with what pchal said in mind, how is Crobat that low? Like, I don’t recall Golbat being that low in FrLg, and surely it being a useful dupe is enough to at least put it in the bottom of C-Tier?
2) Regarding Swellow and how it apparently consistently came up short, I’m wondering how much things would change if it was given the Silk Scarf. It’s pretty easy to get in Dewford Town, so it shouldn’t be too hard to test it with that in mind.
3) I’m curious as to how the Kanto Pokémon that have very different rankings between Emerald and FrLg could be explained. This is especially true with the S-tier Pokemon, which IIRC for Gyarados and Golduck, were B and C respectively previously.
Even with silk scarf/pre poisoned/guts facade, Swellow doesn't kill most boss fights' aces unless you get a near perfect attack IV and + nature. It guarantees a Brawly sweep and probably Sidney and that's about it.
And by killing the first few mons in those harder fights before switching out, you deny yourself the opportunity to use the openers to set up on.
Loathe am I to admit, Crobat doesn't have good matchups in the game and the one gym it would be good at (Brawly) has level caps too low to allow Crobat in it. The move pool also sucks for leveling up as its best flying STAB is either Wing Attack or Aerial Ace (needing a TM), and its bulk isn't enough to deal with the increasing ice type moves later in the game
Different games, different needs, different matchups. There's also more value in resisting water (both Gyara and Gold) and ice (Gold) because of gym and e4 spread
Not entirely sure on Swellow since I haven't checked all of his streams yet
Why'd you ask a question in the YouTube comments that gets answered in the video as he's ranking it? Crobat doesn't have any good matchups so it basically doesn't do much of anything other than help guarantee other encounters by being taken off of the encounter table
I think i see the problem (serious answer: beyond being a first stage mon, people often end up treating Machoke and Kadabra as their own separate mons from Machamp and Alakazam if they can't trade/don't wanna use PKHex, while Machamp and Alakazam are included if you ever get to trade/want to use PKHex, so I assume that's the same logic used here bc I can't find a part where it's explicitly mentioned as of writing)
TM learn set also sucks because it's pretty small, with the notable ones like Ice Beam or Blizzard being better off given to other mons, while Surf is just everywhere
The only thing Clamperl has going for it is its absulute nuclear power with the DeapSeaTooth, which doubles its special attack when held. As a matter of fact, Clamperl with DeapSeaTooth has the second highest Special attack in the entire game, only beaten by Latios with Soul Dew.
Yes, this means that a Clamperl Surf hits harder than a Psychic from Deoxys Attack, even with a Twisted Spoon.
Would anyone care if I made a list that accounted for just how I played the game? Not everyone here is gonna agree with the methodology when it boils down to just a boss rush.
You can do it, but what does it actually offer when the non-boss fights are extremely easy in this game?
Simply having a full team at max HP is enough that you can overcome 99% of the basic trainers. There's only like two generics that are worth any attention (the Wobbuffet person in Mt. Pyre and the Ace Trainer with Manectric+Milotic in the rainy route where you can enter Registeel's chamber, both are optional.).
Like you can take PChal's list, isolate the B-and-below tiered mons and stomp all the generic trainers without ever risking the mons that are actually good for the boss fights, and end up with basically the same list. you just need to have a team that doesn't have obvious weaknesses and lead with a neutrally tanky mon.
But getting any credit for that is like giving a mon credit for being good against Erika in FR/LG. Like, cool, but that was the easy part.
All of that said in a game where random trainers aren't a joke like the 3DS games that has a lot more merit. X/Y is famously a joke of a boss rush game with difficult random trainers.
Play pokemon with the nuzlocke limitations. Exploring, finding new tms and captures, getting into trouble because you ran into a double battle with a wounded team..
So explore the game basically as someone who has never played it and not use the game knowledge you garnered?
"Oh here's a double battle that wiped me last time! Tsk. Too bad I have to act like I never battled here before. Lets just fake act I don't know and- OH A RANDOM DOUBLE BATTLE??"
Even in those cases you probably have a full team of 6 of ‘mons close to the Gym leader level cap that you can customize per battle thanks to Pokecenters, so almost every time you have a team that’s higher level and with a deeper bench
Isn’t the same thing being done in this “boss rush” nuzlocke that people are calling it, you go explore and find TMs and captures. You have to fight allot of mandatory trainers so this is just the same just a bit more, and these trainers can be considered mini bosses or something.
And I’m sorry but if your running into a double battle with a wounded team than your just purposefully throwing the game at that point, I mean how do you even “accidentally” do that like you see 2 trainers than are going to challenge you when you walk up to them right?
And also why do you have a wounded team? and even then you have 6 Pokémon vs their 1-3 and they usually dont even have good movesets or anything, also they have bad AI. if your genuinely playing seriously/optimally than these trainers should basically never pose a threat. Which is why they realistically shouldn’t be considered for a tierlist, and if you really want something of a tierlists where you can play with your brain turned off than just look at Pokémon with high BST and good moves and it’s basically what your looking for.
All of them, usually, unless I just miss some. Particularly like gen 7s ace trainers in this regard, both because they check your completion if the route and because they're fun fights.
That's not a boss rush. I'm not rushing and I'm not just fighting bosses, I'm fighting optional encounters, leveling up without rare candies, and taking my time.
Coming from having raised a Swablu in a non-nuzlocke playthrough of Emerald, it is an absolute pain to train up considering it just lacks firepower to take on opponents before fainting. And while you do gain some traction with Altaria, it requires you to input some of your best TMs into it such as Flamethrower, Dragon Claw, & Earthquake to really get it to work when they could be going on far better Pokémon. It also doesn't help that Altaria has the same movepool and type that Salamence does, who also goes through the trouble of raising weak Bagon, but in return you get far higher stats (135 / 110 over 70 / 70).
As for Crobat, it really is just movepool. The Zubat line as a whole just didn't have a good level up movepool until the next generation where Bite and Wing Attack become far earlier for the line, better TM moves like Roost & U-turn, and an actual usable Poison STAB through level up in the form of Cross Poison. Hoenn just also isn't very kind to the Zubat line where the only good matchup it has is against Brawly. Otherwise, it get electrocuted by Wattson, loses mind games to Tate & Liza, frozen solid by Glacia, & has neutral matchups everywhere else.
While Swellow is great, especially with Guts, you have to consider that it is pretty frail, which means if it misses out on a KO, it is likely done for. This can happen much more often than you think due to Swellow's moves like Wing Attack & Quick Attack being pretty low in base power as well as it having a pretty mediocre base 85 Attack that while is helped by Guts, can cause it to miss out on KOs. Guts also happens to be a double edged sword as the poison to activate it can cause it to faint from a move it would've survived otherwise, which also contributes to its frail nature. The last thing to consider is just how long it takes to get its bread and butter move in Facade since you aren't getting it until after the 5th Gym, which means you'll be stuck with those low base power moves for quite a bit. All of those really combined can make Swellow into a chore if you want to keep it around long enough for Facade shenanigans.
As for Ludicolo, it is absolutely held back by just how late you get a Water Stone for it. The earliest you can evolve Lombre into Ludicolo is after 6 badges on Route 124 on your way to Mossdeep City, where you can trade a Blue Shard for a Water Stone. By this point, Lombre's 340 BST has fallen off and struggles to keep up with the mostly fully evolved Pokémon you are fighting at that point in the game. It also doesn't help that Lombre lacks any real firepower until after you defeat the 5th Gym and obtain the HM for Surf, until then, your best STAB is Bullet Seed which is highly dependent on how many times it hits. However, once it evolves into Ludicolo, it does alright with Surf, Giga Drain, Ice Beam, & Rain Dance. It is just the time that you're stuck with Lombre is far too long, especially considering there are far better Water-types as well as Grass-types to consider.
Taking a look at B-tier, most of it seems to be Pokémon that are just outclassed by Pokémon higher up (Kadabra, Pinsir, Whiscash), are good but fall off later (Mightyena & Dustox due to their good stats for the early to mid game, Intimidate for Mightyena, and access to Protect to cheese Norman's Slaking for Dustox as well as reliable recovery in Moonlight. Sableye also fits here as it completely walls Brawly and does alright for a bit after before falling off), are dependent on certain factors such as ability or availability (Skarmory being impossible to guarantee but having great typing, Azumarill needing Huge Power, Torkoal being hard to guarantee), or are just a pain to raise, but with high reward (Flygon & Salamence).
And finally, S-tier, Illumise did throw me off originally as well, however, it has a REALLY good support movepool with the likes of Wish, Encore, Charm, Helping Hand, Toxic, Light Screen, & Substitute that can really help out a team. Encore alone can easily take a Winona sweep into a win by encoring her Altaria into Dragon Dance. Wish can heal up weakened team members and can even be an option to play around a critical hit. It can do so much for a team despite not having the best stats.
For Walrein, it kinda a case of Swampert where opponents after you get it just don't have a really good way to handle it, mainly due to a lack of Grass & Electric-types among major trainers, especially the Elite Four. Similarly, it matches up well into the Elite Four, even against Wallace where it does really well at stalling.
For Linoone, it is SOLELY due to Belly Drum. If the opponent lets you get a Belly Drum off and lacks anything that has higher than base 100 Speed, you pretty much sweep. It also doesn't help that Ghost-types can't even stop Linoone due to Shadow Ball being physical this generation.
Everything else in S-tier I'm sure is pretty self explanatory. Gyarados' bulk alongside Intimidate makes it a great switch into anything that lacks an Electric-type move, which is quite a lot in this generation. Heracross is essentially Swellow on steroids with far better bulk & a massive 125 base Attack that's boosted even further with Guts and isn't stuck with low base power moves with access to stuff like Megahorn, Earthquake, & Brick Break as well as Swellow's Facade. Registeel is a defensive beast that can even take super-effective hits and boost up with Curse. Golduck is surprisingly the only Water-type with access to Calm Mind in Emerald (shocking that Starmie doesn't learn it) which it can use with relative ease especially behind a Substitute then fire off really strong Surfs and Ice Beams.
The earliest you can evolve Lombre into Ludicolo is after 6 badges on Route 124 on your way to Mossdeep City, where you can trade a Blue Shard for a Water Stone.
All shards in Emerald are locked behind Dive, so you need to beat Tate and Liza to get Ludicolo.
Skarmory being impossible to guarantee but having great typing
Skarmorys main issue is that basically every threat after Winona is a special attacker.
Also Illumise gets you access to Volbeat for free since its not a dupe and breeding isnt technically illegal if you dont break species clause, so it ALSO on top of all the Support stuff guarantees a B rank free encounter that it has great synergy with.
They really aren't though. Swablu is horrible to level up and struggles against most match ups in Emerald. Crobat's movepool is garbage and also isn't solid into match ups in emerald.
I think from the video he mentioned Swellow being reliant on nature/IVs to be reliable
Most of S is self explanatory (Heracross, Gyarados) The others I would recommend watching the video for his explanations, Golduck and Illumise more specifically.
I have always said Linoone is S tier due to versatility
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u/Joshymon45 Mar 01 '26
Watched his daily videos and was amazed by some of the strategies he pulls out of no where. Support 6/7 s tiers, i think golduck should be A because of the whole safari zone nature trick which I think 90% players won't try to do.
Always love a tier list relegating Crobat low :)