Pokémon Diamond, Pearl & Platinum In-game Tier List Discussion

[Infernape2018]

OK why is Gible B Rank?

Unlike stuff such as Craindos and Geodude who have a specific point to be strong, Gible is good for the entire trip. EQ upon immediate capture gives it an insane spike in power and allows it to basically 2HKO everything that doesn't resist Ground. While it falls off by the mid-late game(Lake Valor to Snowpoint City Gym), the evolution into Garchomp gives it the power spike to murder everything it wants. Basically, it only requires 1 use of a TM, albeit a very contested TM to be great.

Fanita is unfourtunately a bad matchup overall due to everything being immune to Ground. Unless you have overleveled or have a Clefairy with Gravity, it can only deal with Duskull with Dragon Rage.

Maylene is a mixed bag for Gabite. Meditite dies to EQ, but Machoke is bulky and has Revenge to hit you hard. Lucario is basically playing chicken, you're risking massive damage with DP, but OHKO with EQ. Wake is just an awful matchup and should be avoided. Cyrus has a deadly Sneasel to run from, but nothing really stops you from taking out the rest. Bryon's Magneton and Bastiodon are a joke, but Steelix somehow has Ice Fang and 200 SpD. Doable if the Steelix is weakened, but only if it's weakened.

Saturn and Mars are almost identical with the Bronzor and Golbat, fame the Bronzor and claw the Golbat. Toxicroak dies to EQ, but Purugly is faster, packs a STAB that can crit, and is uglier than you, Avoid. Candice has Ice in her name, take a guess as why we don't do this By HQ Cyrus, Gabite will have evolved or will be very close to being evolved. Regardless, the Sneasel is best avoided and everything else dies to the right move.\

By Mt. Coronet, it is now evolved and has access to Crunch(Lvl 48 upon evolution) and Rock Slide(TM80- conveniently at the same place), making the double battle an easy feat for Garchomp. Cyrus now has a Weavile(NO) and a Gyarados with Ice Fang( only do this if you can OHKO). Giratana is far too bulky for most mon's, but Garchomp is Garchomp and can muscle through.

After a absolute joke of a fight with Volkner, we reach the Elite Four. Aaron dies to Fire Fang or Rock Slide barring Scizor, Heracross and Draipon. Scizor and Heracross die to Fire Fang, and the latter is weak to EQ. Garchomp can take on Bertha's Golem, Hippowdon and Whiscash with EQ, but Gliscor and Rhyperior have Ice Fang and Avalanche respectivley and Garchomp doesn't fancy those moves. Flint is a repeat of Volkner, laugh until you can't. Lucian is a cakewalk with Crunch, and even then a healthy dose of EQ and Fire Fang for Bronzong will do the job.

Cynthia is a much more challenging affair. Assuming a level of 55, 100 EV's, 15 IV's and a netural nature, EQ 2HKO's Spiritomb while it's Dark Pulse misses a 2HKO and 2HKO's Roserade with only a 3HKO coming from Energy Ball. EQ OHKO's Lucario, but it has a 5HKO with priority. Togekiss and Garchomp are locked in a 3HKO fest, but beware if Togekis outspeeds you: it has and will use Air Slash. Unfourtunately it has Hustle, meaning it only has a 30% flinch rate and 80% accuracy on Air Slask, so you will probably win. Milotic know Ice Beam and Dragon Pulse to overkill you. Garchomp's mirror match is one scary fest. The only way you could even OHKO is for it to miss and you crit with Dragon Rush. post-Game it has acess to Outrage, a very strong move for something like Garchomp.

In a nutshell, for the cost of one TM, you get a solid mon that does great in the begininng, mediocre in the middle and amazing at the end. With this i nominate Gible for A Tier.

 

[RAlexa21th]

I say Gible is 30% great beginning, 50% mediocre middle, and 20% amazing endgame.

 

[MarisaK]

Up until now I've just lurked in these sorts of threads because I like reading them, but I was wondering whether DP Sneasel might be better off in E Rank?

It can't evolve until Victory Road (the Razor Claw in the Galactic HQ is exclusive to Platinum), so you're stuck with Sneasel for a good portion of what's left of the game. Sneasel is certainly fast enough to get the first hit in most scenarios, but it's rather frail, and it doesn't get any really decent STAB options until it relearns Night Slash as a Weavile - Feint Attack is somewhat weak, Ice Shard comes at Level 49, and Avalanche seems a bit risky given Sneasel's poor defenses. It does at least learn some fairly decent TMs (Brick Break, Dig, Aerial Ace, Swords Dance, etc.) that might help it in the meantime. What made me question its ranking is how, in addition to availability/movepool issues, it doesn't seem to have many good matchups against any of the important Trainers left in the game. You could set up Swords Dance on Candice's Snover and go for a sweep with Brick Break/Aerial Ace, and Weavile could take out Lucian's Mr. Mime, Girafarig and Alakazam (assuming it doesn't get hit by Focus Blast first), but everyone aside from that seems fairly neutral (Saturn, Volkner, Barry, Aaron, Cynthia) or are poor matchups (Mars & Jupiter, Cyrus, Bertha, Flint).

Overall, Sneasel comes quite late, evolves even later, can't learn its best Dark attack (Night Slash) until it does evolve, can't learn its best Ice attack (Ice Punch) at all since there's no Move Tutor, and doesn't seem to have many good matchups against the remainder of the game. Not to get caught up on the wording of things, but I feel as though D Rank's description of "useful Pokémon that come very late" doesn't really describe Sneasel, because aside from potentially doing well against Candice if you dump some TMs onto it, Sneasel itself is quite bad until it evolves, at which point it it only has 6 iffy matchups left in the storyline. Because of this, I feel as though DP Sneasel might be more suited to E Rank.

That took a bit longer to write than I expected. Hopefully I didn't miss out anything important/obvious.

 

[Magnus0]

I just finished a run of platinum using a team of: Torterra, Rapidash, Gliscor, Gardevoir and Vaporeon.

The first pokemon I want to talk about is Turtwig. I really want to stress how ridiculously good it's gym matchups are. I managed to solo zeven out of the eight gyms with the turtwig line. You can guess the only gym that Torterra can't beat solo... Anyway, here is an overview of it's performance in the major battles. Note that I was not overleveled at any point of the game. Actually, I was quite underleveled throughout the entirety of the late game.

Roark: easy peasy. Spam razor leaf precisely three times and you win! No items required

Gardenia: her turtwig can't do anything to grotle so you are free to set up curse. After a couple of curses, grotles tackle can take out Gardenia's entire team. Roserade can try to be annoying with stun spore, but it ultimately can't touch grotle. Might need one super potion.

Fantina: this is definitely a tricky matchup for grotle. You can curse up on duskull, who can only threaten with wisp. This is very annoying and you have to get rid of the burn before facing mismagius. You also have to have slightly over half of HP to take a shadow ball from mismagius. If you can meet those requirements for facing mismagius, while fully set up, grotle can OHKO with bite. Haunter also dies to one bite. Annoying fight but still not too hard to solo. Definitely requires a burn heal and 1-2 super potions.

Maylene: meditite is easy to set up on. Once at plus six, grotle OHKO's both meditite and machoke with razor leaf. Lucario is 2HKO'd by razor leaf. Might need one super potion during setup again, especially if you get confused by meditite's confusion. Overall, easy fight.

Crasher wake: I purposefully decided not to evolve grotle until after the fight against wake, because the ground typing messes up setup opportunity against gyarados. Grotle can curse up against gyarados just fine. If you make sure to let gyarados waste its intimidate on your HM slave, you only need three curses to sweep with razor leaf. I needed two healing items during set up because of some ridiculously bad luck. Grotle flinched FOUR times in a row, no exaggeration. Without such bad luck, just one healing item is necessary to sweep.

Byron: super easy matchup. Magneton and bastiodon are both OHKO'd by earthquake. Steelix survives the first earthquake but fails to kill torterra with ice fang, so you can just kill steelix with a second earthquake. No items required.

Candice: I thought this would be Torterra's only atrocious matchup. However, even against Candice, torterra isn't dead weight. Sneasel fails to KO torterra with the weak ice shard and gets OHKO'd back by wood hammer. The recoil puts torterra in red. After that, torterra can go outspeed and suicide on piloswine with wood hammer. Definitely no sweep, but taking down two pokemon without any effort really isn't bad.

Volkner: jolteon is completely helpless against torterra, so you have enough time to set up. You only need to set up a rock polish though, and possibly an x attack. After this set up, torterra swept through Volkners entire team with earthquake. Easy matchup, only an x attack is needed depending on level.

Compare these results to chimchar's results, and you can see how crazy good the turtwig line is in platinum. This already looks impressive, but torterra is no slouch against the elite four either, absolutely destroying two elite four members.

Aaron: one of the hardest matchups in the game for torterra. Torterra can try to rock slide yanmega and vespiquen. It can also take one ice fang from drapion and deal massive damage back with earthquake, but it's not enough to OHKO. Bad matchup, items don't help much either.

Bertha: torterra beats everything with wood hammer except for Gliscor. Gliscor is also the only pokemon that can really deal damage back with ice fang. Great matchup overall if you have something else to deal with Gliscor. Might need some healing to deal with recoil damage.

Flint: torterra fucking did it. He soloed Flint. I gave torterra a couple of rare candies to close the level gap a bit (I was at level 48, which is still nine levels lower than Flints ace). I also gave it a sitrus berry as protection for flareons quick attack. So basically, houndoom used flamethrower, barely keeping torterra alive, while torterra used rock polish. After that, torterra just ran through Flints entire team with earthquake. Seriously, he has a better matchup than empoleon here. Overall, risky matchup that becomes very easy with rock polish. No healing items required, unless you count the sitrus berry.

Lucian: bad matchup against the lead (because of reflect) means that torterra often can't find an opportunity to set up. If you do find that opportunity, you can nail the frail alakazam and espeon with wood hammer or earthquake. Overall, it's not a great matchup for torterra, but it's not bad either.

Cynthia: good against lucario. If you get in on milotic with a rock polish up somehow, you can nail milotic with wood hammer. It can take a hit from garchomp if needed. Overall, very average matchup, but hey, what pokemon doesn't struggle against Cynthia?

The only other major matchups are against Barry, the team galactic generals and cyrus. It's quite good against Barry, Juniper and Saturn, but Cyrus is a horrible matchup. Easily the worst matchup in the game for torterra. Matchup against Mars is decent-ish, like against most of team galactic. Shit against zubat and bronzor, amazing against skunky and croagunk and whatever against glameow and purugly, that about sums up team galactic for torterra.

To me, all this is very impressive. I don't think any other pokemon in the game has better matchups against the major battles than the turtwig line, and it doesn't even need any exclusive TM's to do its job well. It only wants the fairly uncontested rock polish to sweep some of the later fights like Flint and Volkner. It also barely needs items to function, only requiring the occasional potion during set up and one instance of requiring an x item. Torterra is like a grass type swampert. The turtwig line was extremely effecient for me, so I'm going to nominate turtwig for S tier. I really think it's that good.

I also want to point out that ponyta is better than it seems. The main reason why I think ponyta is so great is because of its exceptional early game, which puts it on the same level as houndour imo. It's useless against Roark, but it quickly catches up after that on the route on the way to Floaroma town. It held its own against Mars and did amazing in Eterna Forest and especially the Eterna gym. It also has very few bad matchups, with Crasher Wake being the only real obvious exception. Late evolution is a shame, but when ponyta starts to lag behind (it was about level 35 when I felt this) you should be around Byron's or Candice's gyms, which ponyta has a great matchup against regardless of its quite lackluster stats at that point. I nominate ponyta for B tier.

I agree with the placement of gligar, vaporeon and gardevoir. All of them are good pokemon that rarely dissapointed me, so B seems fine.

 

[Infernape2018]

Ponyta is not anywhere near B tier, mate. Late evolution and a shallow movepool outside of STAB really kicks it down a notch, not to mention Houndoom outmatches it in every way.

Turtwig i can see raising to S Tier: Lvl 32 EQ is fantastic and it has great matchups for most gyms, but there has to be a good argument to be on the same level as Chimchar or Starly

 

[VagueKatti]

not to mention Houndoom outmatches it in every way.

Houndoom has nothing to do with Rapidash’s tier placement. Pokemon are tiered on comparison to other Pokemon; otherwise, for example, Nidoqueen, Clefable, and Wigglytuff would all be C or D tier due to the opportunity cost of using the Mt. Moon Moon Stone on them instead of Nidoking, for example.

With that said, I’m not particularly adamant on the issue, but just asking the question: why isn’t Turtwig S? Perfect availability, very strong stats, Earthquake at Level 32, consistently strong gym match-ups, deals with Team Galatic excellently from Grotle onwards, and while its Elite 4 game is somewhat weak, it has very few flaws that would warrant A tier. I’m not going to make an argument for it (not yet, at least), but I struggle to see why Turtwig is anything lower than S.

 

[Magnus0]

Ponyta is not anywhere near B tier, mate. Late evolution and a shallow movepool outside of STAB really kicks it down a notch, not to mention Houndoom outmatches it in every way.

Houndoom definitely doesn´t outmatch rapidash in every way.

As I said, ponyta´s main advantage over houndour is its availability. Ponyta has excellent stats throughout the entire early game and the majority of the mid game. 85/65/90 offenses are very respectable for that part of the game, better than monferno even. Having such good stats so early on means that it destroys many route trainers on the way to the Eterna gym, which ponyta also destroys. It continues to do well as a route sweeper up until about Pastoria, doing decently well against both Fantina and Maylene because of its great speed. Meanwhile, houndoom can't contribute against Gardenia and Fantina, and when it does come available it immediately has two bad matchups against Maylene and Craher Wake. In short, ponyta performs very well in the period from Oreburgh all the way to Veilstone, while houndour isn't even around for that entire period.

Something can also be said about houndours movepool. It might be much better later on, but at the moment of capture it is hot garbage. Smog, roar, bite and odor sleuth lol. You HAVE TO give it fire blast or it literally has no fire stab to use until flamethrower, while ponyta has a reliable fire stab in flamewheel to go alongside fire blast, which means that it will run into pp issues much less frequently.

Matchups against major battles even out. Houndoom is better against Lucian and some random dark types like Weavile or Cynthia's Spiritomb, while rapidash is better against Maylene and Aaron.

One more advantage that ponyta has over houndour is its medium fast exp growth compared to houndours slow growth rate.

I'm not saying houndour is bad, but I think ponyta isn't much worse in every way. Sure, ponyta's movepool is shit, but it performed well in spite of that. I really think ponyta is underrated. It's a solid B tier pokemon.

Turtwig i can see raising to S Tier: Lvl 32 EQ is fantastic and it has great matchups for most gyms, but there has to be a good argument to be on the same level as Chimchar or Starly

How is 'soloing 7 gyms with minimal effort' not a good argument for being at the same lavel as chimchar or starly? Hell, I would say turtwig is BETTER even, if not at least just as good.

 

[Infernape2018]

How is 'soloing 7 gyms with minimal effort' not a good argument for being at the same lavel as chimchar or starly? Hell, I would say turtwig is BETTER even, if not at least just as good.

What i mean is that you have to understand just how good these two are before you look at Turtwig for S. Let me break it down for you

Chimchar is obtained at the start of the game, has great mixed attacking stats, amazing speed, a wide movepool including Flare Blitz, Earthquake, Shadow Claw, Stone Edge, Grass Knot, Thunderpunch, Vaccum Wave and of course, Close Combat. Chimchar has no bad matchups barring Lucian, but even then that's at the end of the game and by them most players will have a Psychic -Counter(Crunch Garchomp, anyone?). Even then it can still participate by mudering the Bronzong and picking off weakened opponents.

Starly comes a bit later, but makes up for it by having a strong 65BP STAB in Wing Attack insanely early. Intimidate upon evolution gives it the artificial bulk it needs to live through most matchups, and the last evolution's amazing 120 Attack, decent 100 Speed and CC upon evolution makes it able to just about muscle through everything. As with Chimchar, it has not real bad matchups barring Volkner, although unlike Infernape it simply can't participate in that battle. It even can solo Candice, an Ice-type gym leader.

As you can see, Turtwig can go to S Tier, and i do want the little guy to go there. However, it will have to make a good case to be in the leauges of Infernape and Staraptor.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Personally I always found Infernape overrated, it wasn't really strong enough to be rolling through things without issue so you did run into occasional issues with its bulk when you couldn't OHKO

That's beside the point though, Turtwig shouldn't be penalized by comparison to Starly and Chimchar if it's own merits are strong enough to make a case for S.

For example if we're using a point scale equivalent where everything from 90-100 is S rank, if Chimchar is a 97 and Starly a 99 but Turtwig is only a 91, it still means Turtwig should be S

 

[Roseguardin]

Wow I forgot about this thread, but seeing as we're talking Turtwig I'm gonna have to say I'd be more comfortable with it in A for Platinum though I could certainly see it as S).

Stats (forgot this bit originally): classic tankmon, good defenses, terrible speed, but it actually has higher attack than son goku monkey.

Movepool: Great for the most part. It's not a lot beyond STABs and random Normal moves, but a couple of highlights are: early Razor Leaf and Absorb (SpAtk is nothing to write home about but passive healing is cool), Bite is super for Fantina given that there's not a ton of early-game strong Dark pokemon, that sexy sexy STAB EQ on evo (and you don't even have to waste the TM to boot), plus Wood Hammer once you reach the relearner and Leaf Storm for some late power (even off of Tort's pitiful 75 SpA that's gonna hurt things that don't resist it). Curse is an interesting option but I wouldn't classify it as efficient since Torterra will constantly be taking hits and healing. TM-wise there's not much, Bullet Seed is there but as this is pre-buff it won't be stronger than Razor Leaf anyways, Swords Dance is something to consider but Torterra doesn't really need the extra power. Rock Polish is very nice to overcome that speed but can only be gotten after Canalave Gym and needs a bit of backtracking. Rock Slide is probably the best of the bunch but again can't be gotten without Strength in this game. Torterra can also be a capable HM Slave if you want it to be.

Battles: Easy streets Roark, struggles vs. Gardenia (Reflect on Turtwig+Poison Sting Roserade), is definitely an option for Fantina with Bite (although Duskull has WoW), can tank through Maylene. Crasher Wake is interesting in a not fun way: Torterra cheeses Quagsire but Gyarados can slugfest with him (remember Water is now neutral) and Floatzel packs Ice Fang, which even for Torterra's defenses is not fun. Cyrus is hard for him--in fact, a lot of Team Galactic that aren't packing Croagunks kind of suck for Torterra since its either flyers or a Houndour. Gets points for matching with Jupiter's Skuntank and Saturn's Toxicroak though. Byron is a pushover, but Candice is far and away his worst matchup imo--only Piloswine is manageable and that's with Wood Hammer. Volkner is very easy with only Ice Fang from Luxray being concerning. Torterra kind of struggles vs. Aaron barring Drapion but can manage Bertha without too many problems. Flint is a no go and Lucian is about neutral. Vs. Cynthia, Torterra gets plus points for handling Lucario but everything else has something that can annoy or outright kill it.

TLDR: only issues I see with Turtwig are that his Grass movepool kind of dips midway through and that his 4x weakness becomes suddenly very exploitable late-game, along with his other ones. Additionally, recoil is annoying considering Torterra will be moving second a lot. Otherwise, don't have a lot of issues with Turtwig being A, potentially S, in Platinum.

 

[faint]

snip

Your post alone highlights many reasons why Turtwig is not and should not be S-tier.

 

[Magnus0]

What i mean is that you have to understand just how good these two are before you look at Turtwig for S.

As you can see, Turtwig can go to S Tier, and i do want the little guy to go there. However, it will have to make a good case to be in the leauges of Infernape and Staraptor.

Turtwigs placement should not be dependent on the merits of any different pokemon other than its own. Chimchar and starly are good pokemon, but that has nothing nothing to do with turtwig. I also broke down turtwigs ´good case´ in my original post, in GREAT detail, which you seemed to ignore completely.

Let me break it down for you

Chimchar is obtained at the start of the game, has great mixed attacking stats, amazing speed, a wide movepool including Flare Blitz, Earthquake, Shadow Claw, Stone Edge, Grass Knot, Thunderpunch, Vaccum Wave and of course, Close Combat. Chimchar has no bad matchups barring Lucian, but even then that's at the end of the game and by them most players will have a Psychic -Counter(Crunch Garchomp, anyone?). Even then it can still participate by mudering the Bronzong and picking off weakened opponents.

Starly comes a bit later, but makes up for it by having a strong 65BP STAB in Wing Attack insanely early. Intimidate upon evolution gives it the artificial bulk it needs to live through most matchups, and the last evolution's amazing 120 Attack, decent 100 Speed and CC upon evolution makes it able to just about muscle through everything. As with Chimchar, it has not real bad matchups barring Volkner, although unlike Infernape it simply can't participate in that battle. It even can solo Candice, an Ice-type gym leader.

This breakdown of chimchars and starly´s good points is quite pointless, because I said before, it has nothing to do with turtwigs placement. You are also being far too generous on their matchups. Chimchar has a bad matchup against roark unless you evolve it, which means that you have to feed it all available exp up to that point. It has a bad matchup against Fantina's mismagius because of psybeam, and duskull also has future sight. Matchup against Maylene is quite iffy because of meditite's confusion and lucario's bone rush. Machoke also has good enough bulk to survive monferna and hits back very hard. Crasher Wake is also iffy for obvious reasons. Monferno has thunderpunch for gyarodos and grass knot for quagsire, but these moves HAVE to OHKO or monferno is dead. Monferno also definitely loses to floatzel. Matchup against Cyrus is not too great for it because Cyrus uses three flying types, one of which is a gyarados. Infernape also struggles against Bertha a lot, relying heavily on grass knot. So yeah, Lucian isn't chimchars only bad matchup, it's not even its worst one.

I could do the same for starly but I think you get the point. By the way, crunch garchomp is the best psychic-counter you can think off?

Comparing matchups between chimchar/starly and turtwig actually works in turtwigs favour, because turtwig struggles a lot less against many important fights. I can't believe that that's not a good enough reason for turtwig being at the same level as chimchar and starly.

Your post alone highlights many reasons why Turtwig is not and should not be S-tier.

Roseguardins post also highlights many hints of sub-optimal play (no offense). The main complaint I have about his play is the neglect of curse. Curse is the main reason the grotle phase is so dominant in gyms. Without curse it can't sustain through Gardenia, Maylene and Wake while not being able to OHKO Fantina's mismagius, which is grotles only chance of defeating mismagius. It's such a vital move for grotle and one of its main selling points. The same thing happens later in the game where torterra really needs rock polish. This makes the matchup against Flint go from 'no go' to an easy sweep, that's how good and important rock polish is.

A more minor complaint I have is calling the matchup against Wake interesting in a not fun way while using torterra instead of grotle. Grotle can easily set up curse on gyarados, which later on mitigates ice fang damage to the point of not even being threatning anymore. Torterra has to tank stab waterfalls instead of non-stab bites and also takes more damage from ice fang. Keep your grotle at level 31 before Wake.

 

[Roseguardin]

Roseguardins post also highlights many hints of sub-optimal play (no offense). The main complaint I have about his play is the neglect of curse. Curse is the main reason the grotle phase is so dominant in gyms. Without curse it can't sustain through Gardenia, Maylene and Wake while not being able to OHKO Fantina's mismagius, which is grotles only chance of defeating mismagius. It's such a vital move for grotle and one of its main selling points. The same thing happens later in the game where torterra really needs rock polish. This makes the matchup against Flint go from 'no go' to an easy sweep, that's how good and important rock polish is.

A more minor complaint I have is calling the matchup against Wake interesting in a not fun way while using torterra instead of grotle. Grotle can easily set up curse on gyarados, which later on mitigates ice fang damage to the point of not even being threatning anymore. Torterra has to tank stab waterfalls instead of non-stab bites and also takes more damage from ice fang. Keep your grotle at level 31 before Wake.

I did mention Curse and also why I believe it shouldn't be as much of a factor into ranking Turtwig. Curse is a slower boosting move than the likes of Swords Dance and also makes a slow Pokemon slower, leading to Torterra taking more hits and consequently requiring more healing items. Not to mention that Razor Leaf is still not a strong STAB. It is not my judgment call on whether this is considered "efficient" play but this tier list is meant to tier things efficiently, so if someone can argue that Curse is efficient then I can concede that. And I did use Curse against Fantina, Wake, and Byron before ditching it for Rock Polish when I got that TM. I guess I can concede the Flint point, as I had safer options and didn't think to set up Rock Polish on a Fire-type Ellite Four.

I also question your recommendation of keeping Grotle for the Wake fight in Platinum, considering that a) you are keeping Grotle unevolved, with weaker stats, mainly for a resistance to a gym that Torterra does well against. I apologize if I made it sound like Torterra flat out loses to Wake, I only meant to dissuade people from thinking that just because they've got a grass starter that this gym is a cakewalk. My second point is that by keeping Grotle unevolved you are either leaving it way underleveled for basically every other fight en route to Pastoria or you're stalling evoution, requiring Torterra to go to Canalave just to get EQ which would normally be learned upon evolution.

Turtwig is a fine Pokemon and I agree that it shouldn't be ranked on the basis of other mons' performances. I don't see, however, that it is as game-breaking or as versatile as an S-ranked mon should be.

 

[Magnus0]

I did mention Curse and also why I believe it shouldn't be as much of a factor into ranking Turtwig. Curse is a slower boosting move than the likes of Swords Dance and also makes a slow Pokemon slower, leading to Torterra taking more hits and consequently requiring more healing items.

Curse isn't really a slower boosting move than sword dance because it raises two stats, rather than a raise of two to the same stat. It's still two boosts. The fact that it lowers speed has no effect on grotle whatsoever. You only use curse in four fights: Gardenia, Fantina, Maylene and Wake. The ace pokemon of all these four trainers outspeed grotle anyway, and the non-ace pokemon deal little after a couple of curses so the loss in speed simply doesn't matter.

Grotle does need some healing items when setting up, I give you that. However, I think that if one item allows grotle to sweep through the entire fight, that's definitely not ineffecient. Try giving infernape one healing item against a neutral fight like say Volkner, and see if that allows him to sweep. It probably doesn't. That's how good setup is, even if it requires some healing. I really can't stress this enough, but grotle SOLOES four fights thanks to curse.

On a side not, the turtwig line actually gets multiple healing moves in its level up movepool, including mega drain, leech seed and synthesis. So If you are really concerned about needing too many healing items, turtwig has that covered as well. Mega draining some poor random geodude or onix is a great way to save items. Not that you really need to because you get a shit load of money in platinum so buying healing items is no issue.

I also question your recommendation of keeping Grotle for the Wake fight in Platinum, considering that a) you are keeping Grotle unevolved, with weaker stats, mainly for a resistance to a gym that Torterra does well against. I apologize if I made it sound like Torterra flat out loses to Wake, I only meant to dissuade people from thinking that just because they've got a grass starter that this gym is a cakewalk. My second point is that by keeping Grotle unevolved you are either leaving it way underleveled for basically every other fight en route to Pastoria or you're stalling evoution, requiring Torterra to go to Canalave just to get EQ which would normally be learned upon evolution.

I don't see how weaker stats matter if those stats are still plenty strong enough to solo the gym anyway. Sure, torterra has better stats than grotle, but it still takes more damage from waterfall than from grotle does from bite. That's why grotle can set up against gyarados more easily. And with some curses up, grotle OHKO's floatzel which torterra has trouble doing (without curse). In my opinion, it is actually quite impressive that a purposefully underleveled still manages to solo a gym leader with minimal effort.

The second point is just not true. The pokemon trainers on the route to Pastoria use pokemon that range from level 24 to 30. Grotle will not be underleveled at all.

Also, yeah, definitely don't stall evolution with the b button, just keep grotle at level 31. You don't want to miss out on earthquake.

 

[Infernape2018]

Seeing as stuff like Turtwig can be nominated to S tier. I have a question to ask: what is Abra doing in S Tier?

Yes, Alakazam is strong, but it doesn't nearly have many good matchups as in other games. Psychic isn't a very useful typing both offensively as shown in the Eterna Mars fight, where it can't do jack crap to Skunktank. Defensively, it has 2 negligible resistances and 3 common weaknesses throughout the game. It's best coverage move barring Shadow Ball is the horibbly inaccurate Focus Blast and the weak Shock Wave(Signal Beam is postgame). On top of that, it faces competition from Gallade and Gardevo9r as a Psychic user, and they both do not require trading and have better covergae options(Tbolt from Gardevoir and CC for Gallade).


.Abra can probably be A Tier if it wants to, but I think S Tier is too high for it even with boosted experience

 

[Giratina93]

Seeing as stuff like Turtwig can be nominated to S tier. I have a question to ask: what is Abra doing in S Tier?

Yes, Alakazam is strong, but it doesn't nearly have many good matchups as in other games. Psychic isn't a very useful typing both offensively as shown in the Eterna Mars fight, where it can't do jack crap to Skunktank. Defensively, it has 2 negligible resistances and 3 common weaknesses throughout the game. It's best coverage move barring Shadow Ball is the horibbly inaccurate Focus Blast and the weak Shock Wave(Signal Beam is postgame). On top of that, it faces competition from Gallade and Gardevo9r as a Psychic user, and they both do not require trading and have better covergae options(Tbolt from Gardevoir and CC for Gallade).


.Abra can probably be A Tier if it wants to, but I think S Tier is too high for it even with boosted experience

The traded Abra is Quiet, so while it isn't the fastest thing ever, it's still going to be outspeeding the vast majority of the game, which lacks EV's and IV's, unlike say gen 7. Also, in no world is Gallade and Gardevoir enough competition for Alakazam to consider knocking it down a peg, because of one very crucial advantage: Kadabra is actually able to fight back, and reasonably partake in more than a few large battles that Ralts and Kirlia have no hopes in hell of aiding in, because Ralts and Kirlia are absolute garbage that are weak, slow, and fragile. Sure, you get an earlier Psychic, but being stuck with the very weak Confusion and Magical Leaf (and Shock Wave) as the fragile Kirlia until you finally evolve (and if you want to use Gallade, well, have fun going off your lackluster special attack then until you get actual physical moves) means Ralts and Kirlia have it FAAAR worse than the trade Abra, especially since it comes quite a bit later, around Hearthome.

TLDR, the trade Abra you can get performs very well even with one or two bad matchups in the game, and does so far better than the likes of Ralts and Kirlia, who need far more babying just to get online, compared to lv. 16 with Kadabra. Not that Ralts or Kirlia factors into this, because we're rating these mons in a vacuum, and not necessarily against each other.

 

[Kurona]

I'll also note that 'competition' in that direct sense has absolutely no bearing on a placement in a tier list. I'll also note that even if it did, that would only mean something for Pt; not DP.

 

[RunWithTheScizors]

Good day everybody! I am here to present a nomination of a Pokémon I recently used in a playthrough of Pokémon Diamond, which worked great for me:

Stunky!!!

E rank —> D rank (On DP viability list)

Availability: Contrary to what the DP in-game tiers say, Stunky is NOT found later in the game; you can find it on Route 206 in the grass. Stunky is found (requires cut, which you just used after the 2nd gym) at levels 14-16, with a reasonable 25% encounter rate.

Typing: Poison/Dark is quite possibly one of the best defensive typings because it is only weak to Ground.

Stats:
Stunky: 63 / 63 / 47 / 41 / 41 / 74
-Stunky has decent attack and speed to work with until it evolves.
Skuntank: 103 / 93 / 67 / 71 / 61 / 84
-Skuntank’s seemingly low defenses are offset by its big 103 HP. Its speed tier is unique, but it actually worked well in my playthrough of the game. 93 attack lets it 2HKO a decent amount of unresisted opponents.

Movepool: Stunky/Skuntank have a good movepool with some things you would never even expect. Its two big STABs are Night Slash (Lv31, a couple levels before evolution) and Poison Jab (Rainy part of Route 212 which requires Surf. You can get it after the 5th badge). Upon evolution (Lv34), Skuntank learns Flamethrower, which gives it a nice way to hit steel types. It has good HM compatibility, learning Cut, Rock Smash, Strength, and even Defog.

This part is important:
When you obtain Stunky, depending on the level, it only knows Focus Energy, Poison Gas, Screech, Fury Swipes, and/or Smokescreen. This might sound terrible for an efficient run, but there is an easy way to change this! Right next to the Galactic building in Eterna City is the technical machine for STAB thief (After using Cut, of course), and you get Stunky literally on the next route, after all of those bikers. I personally use Rock Smash on Stunky, and Bibarel can use the other 4 HMs needed to pass through Victory Road. Rock Smash gives it fighting coverage and the defense drop gives it an interesting way to beat opponents. Late game it worked as a “finisher” on occasion, should a STAB move fail to OHKO. Screech / Thief / Rock Smash / Poison Gas sounds and preforms SIGNIFICANTLY better than what the game provides you.

Major Battles
—For reference, Stunky comes after the Grass type gym, but it would of been redundant anyways because it does not learn Poison attacks by level up.
—Skuntank is one of the best Pokémon in the game to fight in the 5th gym; it resists pretty much everything and Night Slash makes quick work of the opponents there.
—It can actually fare decently against the 6th gym; Skuntank can beat Bronzor and Steelix using Flamethrower/Fire Blast (Note that the latter lacks ground moves!!). You can try to fight Bastiodon using Rock Smash if you taught Skuntank that, but Iron Defense can make the fight slower. You are generally better off using your starter in this gym anyways but those are examples of what Skuntank offers here.
—The 7th gym: Fire coverage can make the ice types suffer, and Rock Smash can be used on Sneasel since it’s frail. You should probably avoid Medicham though, since it has access to Bulk Up.
—In the 8th gym you can 2HKO Ambipom and maybe Octillery, but definitely switch to a ground type to deal with Raichu and Luxray.
—It can marginally help against Aaron’s bugs but a flying type should be doing most the work here.
—Skuntank is great vs. some of Lucian’s Pokémon, but there is two to watch out for; Fire Blast vs. Bronzong is a 3HKO assuming you are not overleveled, and it 2HKOs you with Earthquake. Medicham is Medicham.
—Against Cynthia, You can resist Roserade and Spiritomb’s moves, but everything else likely beats you, especially Garchomp. Lucario is a maybe though.

Other/Misc: For abilities, Stench has no in-battle use but you do get less wild encounters. Aftermath is the recommended ability since it damages foes landing the last hit (contact).

Stunky evolves at Lv.34, right in between Torterra (32) and Empoleon/Infernape (36). Just for reference, nothing to do with viability of the starters.

One more important piece: Stunky is only obtainable in Diamond version.

Conclusion: In my opinion, Stunky/Skuntank are pretty good for a run through Diamond version, because it is versatile and it even provides Fire attacks if you do not use Chimchar/Ponyta on your team. I will not make direct comparisons here but I just think it really stands out in the E rank and it can fit the description provided for D rank.


Thank you, and have a good day.

 

[Infernape2018]

working on finals so can't post much but i have some noms im working on:
Togepi to B(good movepool, can hold it's own fairly well till Canalave)
Craindos to B(strong, but frail and slow requiring potion support)
Kricketot to E/F(abysmal to train and basically not worth the effort)
Glaceon to F(Perhaps keeping a mon wit awful stats and an awful movepool to the 7th Gym just to be an Ice-Type isn't a good idea?)
I'd love to hear opinions on these, so if you have time, check these out

Also.....

ALL OF THESE MONS

 

[cityscapes]

Togepi to B(good movepool, can hold it's own fairly well till Canalave)

not sure about this, hustle return and fly are great but it only has base 40 attack to work with, and on the special side you only really have nonstab fire blast. if anything this mon gets a lot better at canalave because that's when you get the shiny stone

Glaceon to F(Perhaps keeping a mon wit awful stats and an awful movepool to the 7th Gym just to be an Ice-Type isn't a good idea?)

don't think of glaceon as a mon you just keep in your party as eevee, think of it the same way you would a mon that you get around that time (snover, snorunt, sneasel, which are e rank at worst). you can keep eevee in your pc box all the way until that point if you want, grinding isn't too big of an issue when you have the gym trainers and all the trainers on the route with vs seeker. glaceon takes a while to train up, but it's a pretty nice powerhouse with stab blizzard or ice beam by tm, and it does reasonably well vs a lot of galactic dudes. still a pretty bad mon but better than the likes of heracross and no trade onix.

efficiency wise no opinion on the other two but dont do my man kricketot like that :(

 

[RunWithTheScizors]

Craindos to B(strong, but frail and slow requiring potion support)

I can sort of agree with this. You can find it underground (Odd trainer ID), and this can take either 1 minute or 1 hour to find. Erratic makes leveling up pretty tough until its level 40’s, but late game it grinds very easily.

Like you said, it is frail and slow, but it is arguably the strongest Pokémon in the game; 125 Attack is literally as strong as Honchkrow and 165 is unrivaled, except by Deoxys-Attack, which is not even in the game.

Despite this, I think A rank is a bit too generous for Cranidos. I just think it does not fit in with stuff like Piplup and Turtwig but B works fine for it.

Kricketot to E/F(abysmal to train and basically not worth the effort)

Agree. Kricketot comes very early in the game (After Sandgem town, night only), and grinding it to Lv.10 takes a while, from personal experience. It has access to weak STABs after evolving and is bad against the first gym unless you overlevel. That is literally the definition of inefficient.

I have done a bit of research on this Pokémon and it may have some good Pokémon catching tools (Sing, False Swipe), but most people do not need that until the postgame. In Platinum it gets some more moves (Night Slash) but in Diamond/Pearl it cannot learn much.

It can work for some people from what I have heard but late game (both games) it really starts to fall apart.

 

[sumwun]

Craindos to B(strong, but frail and slow requiring potion support)

I can sort of agree with this. You can find it underground (Odd trainer ID), and this can take either 1 minute or 1 hour to find. Erratic makes leveling up pretty tough until its level 40’s, but late game it grinds very easily.

Like you said, it is frail and slow, but it is arguably the strongest Pokémon in the game; 125 Attack is literally as strong as Honchkrow and 165 is unrivaled, except by Deoxys-Attack, which is not even in the game.

Despite this, I think A rank is a bit too generous for Cranidos. I just think it does not fit in with stuff like Piplup and Turtwig but B works fine for it.

A bunch of people already agreed that Cranidos should be B. The actual tier list stopped updating a while ago, so it still says Cranidos is A.

 

[Infernape2018]

Now that finals are done( 3 A's, yay!), I can now make the nomination I really think should be heard.


Porygon(Trade) to A/B Tier.

This mon has been underrated for a long time, and i feel it's necessary to give it a rise. Right after getting it, you can immediately evolve it and get access to a very bulky mon with 105 Spa to use it's wide special movepool, 80 Atk to use Return and only one weakness to make it great. With access to BlizBolt instantly and it's other options, it makes for a great tank, attacker and support Pokemon all in one. Z on the other hand has a massive 135 SpA and a powerful STAB in Hyper Beam and Tri Attack to use it. 90 Speed is by no means bad, and with Adaptability, it becomes the single strongest special attacker in the game with the strongest special move in STAdaptability Hyper Beam. Combined with BoltBeam, Psychic, Shadow Ball, Signal Beam, and access to two amazing boosting options in Agility and Nasty Plot, it earns that title with flying colors.

Now i know what most people say about this "you can get Porygon-Z until Galactic HQ, meaning it only has a short time to be useful", and while that is true, there is one thing that makes this point bearable, Porygon-2 can hold itself as a solo Pokemon until then. With it's great bulk and decent Special Attack, Porygon-2 is more than capable of making it to the Dubious Disc with little to no problem. Heck, it could just never grab the disc and be unevolved for the rest of the game and be perfectly fine with no problem.

Essentially these Pokemon are capable of taking the roles of either a great tank that can hit decently hard, or a very strong attacker that punches holes like no other. These Pokemon are way better than anything in C Tier, and such they should be rised to one of the higher tiers.

 

[RunWithTheScizors]

Unless someone already made this post, we have our next untiered Pokémon:

Feebas: F-rank —> Untiered (DP, but not platinum)

In Diamond and Pearl version, Feebas can be obtained in the Mt. Coronet fog room but only using the Super Rod; the Super Rod cannot be obtained until the postgame (Fight Area). Thus, Feebas cannot be used for a playthrough of Diamond and Pearl.

In Platinum version, all three rods can be used to catch it, so it should stay as is on the list.

 

[RunWithTheScizors]

This Bulbapedia article says Feebas can be reeled with any rod in all 3 versions.

Interesting... I used this site.