Strongest & Weakest In-Game Pokémon Ever

SgtWoodsy

SgtWoodsy

So this discussion popped up in #oi and I thought it would make for an interesting topic of discussion. From what I can tell the two frontrunners are GSC Abra and BW Archen so I'll do a quick write-up. While "strongest" is a bit of a vague category it probably doesn't mean stuff like the box legendaries who usually come too late to be of any significant use.

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Abra
Abra's most notable downside is that it's difficult to catch and comes with no moves for a few levels (as is standard for Abra throughout the series). However, as Goldenrod has both the Coin Case (which means you can just buy an Abra if you can't catch one) and has the elemental punches as TMs, this is an extremely trivial downside.
Abra evolves at Lv. 16, giving you a Pokémon with base 120 Sp. Atk, 105 Speed and extremely good coverage. It does require trading to fully evolve but if trading is not an option Kadabra is extremely powerful as is.

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Archen
Archen's downsides are that it involves backtracking to obtain (Relic Castle -> Nacrene City, which isn't terrible as you will have the bike by this point) and its ability which cuts its offenses in half when it's at half HP. As you will have both plenty of healing items and money by this stage this is another trivial downside (especially as Archen OHKOs damn near everything anyway so it probably won't get hit). Archen also has a good movepool.
Anything that Archen didn't OHKO before, Archeops will. It is amazingly powerful (base 140 Attack, 112 Sp. Atk and 110 Speed) and the worst thing that can be said about it is that it looks really stupid in 3D.

There are other extremely powerful Pokémon that I haven't covered here, such as BW2 Magnemite and XY Riolu/Lucario. As DHR will chew me out if I don't mention this I highly recommend looking at the in-game tier lists as they'll usually be a good place to start, along with your own personal experiences.
 
I think you can add Mudkip in RSE (Especially in Ruby with more Fire/Ground types), which destroys everything ... There is a lot of grass but weak Pokemon around gym 5/6.
 
Inverting the question, I wonder what would be the poorest in-game Pokémon of all time? Must be something with weak stats that appears horribly late at a far too low level, in a location you won't be likely to visit or with such a low encounter/catch rate that finding it would be a chore even if you try to seek it out.

The champion of in-game uselessness has to be Unown-! in FRLG, no questions asked. It is a post-game Pokémon, meaning you have to defeat the Elite Four to capture it and thus it can't be tiered, but it still has all the listed qualities in spades. You find it at the very end of Seven Island (the last location you'll visit if you explore the postgame islands in numerical order), after battling your way through Sevault Canyon, solving the Tanoby Key, and surfing to the middle of nowhere. Unown-! is found at level 25 (for reference: trainers in the area use Pokémon around level 55) in the westernmost chamber (which happens to be the one furthest away from the entrance to the area), as an 1 % encounter in the same room as Unown-Z (and literally nothing else). After sifting through hordes of Unown-Z to find your Unown-!, you can then use its marvellous base 72 offenses and base 48 defenses (and Speed) to complete the game, that is, challenge the Elite Four to a rematch and capture Mewtwo, if you haven't already. Either challenge would pit your level 25 Unown against Pokémon at or around level 70, so you better do some grinding. Also, it can only use Hidden Power, a move whose typing and power you can neither control nor change. There's a 50 % chance that your only move's Base Power will be 50 or lower, and a 93.75 % chance you won't get STAB on it. And, of course, there are Natures and possibly IVs to worry about. Those are the numbers you have to work with, or you can go aaaaaaaaall the way back to the Tanoby Chambers and catch another one. But remember the 1 % encounter rate.


For actual pre-E4 Pokémon, I'm going to make a case for BW1 Larvesta. If you for some reason backtrack all the way back to Nuvema Town after getting Surf (just before the seventh Gym), you can go to Route 17. With some further patience, you can maneuver your way around the currents to reach Route 18, where a man will give you a Larvesta egg. Larvesta will then hatch, at level 1. It requires babying all the way to level 59 in order to evolve into Volcarona. The next big battle in the game is against Brycen and his level 37-39 Pokémon, meaning you'll have to train Larvesta for a minimum of thirty-five levels or so for it to pull its weight. At least it will have a type advantage...
 
Well for Larvesta, I use one in my in-game team ... And it wasn't "so" bad ... You've got to remember that the exp was different at that time. In 5 min, you go from level 1 to 35 using Stadium + Lucky Egg and the fact that in Gen V, the exp formula wasn't flat but scaled.

Larvesta has decent Attack (85) and speed (60 but Flame Charge helps) and Fire/Bug has decent coverage (Bug Bite and Flame Charge), and you can add some TM (Acrobatics is meh, but Wild Charge can help in Victory Road, but U-Turn, Flame Charge and Return are useful)

The only problem is that you can't (without grinding) evolve Larvesta before E4 ... Or you abuse a lot Stadium and others re battleable characters.

And after evolving ? You add to change your entire movepool because Volcarona is Special oriented :D

The weakest in game if we excluse gimmick pokemon is probably Onix for me ... especially because I couldn't trade in the first games
 
It might be interesting to dedicate this thread to both the absolute best and the absolute worst if Sgt. Woodsy is interesting in expanding the discussion. The absolute best is quite an interesting question though, for sure.

BW Darmanitan stands out as another absolutely bonkers Pokemon. You have to stomach hustle accuracy as a Darumaka, but its knocking out just about whatever it touches with Fire Punch. Once you get a Flare Blitzing Darmanitan, it's just outright insanity. I've only played through B2W2 once and skipped out on Darmanitan there, so I can't comment on how it stacks up in that game (I'd assume slightly worse).

Pokemon that jump out at me as each game's best contenders:

RBY: Nidoran-m? Zapdos?
GSC: Abra
RSE: Mudkip
FRLG: Zapdos?
DPP: Chimchar
HGSS: Heracross?
BW: Archen, Darumaka
B2W2: Magnemite, Darumaka?
XY: Charizard, Aegislash
ORAS: Nothing stuck out but Mudkip again maybe?

Some of these Pokemon are obviously not on the same level as GSC Abra, they're just the best I could think of from that game.

As for a "most consecutively good" award, I think Gyarados wins hands down. In basically every game it appears in, it's well worth the time training Magikarp for it and seems to carry teams from that point onward.
 
I'd probably have to go back through the games to jog my memory. The game I've been playing most recently is AS, so that's the one that's most fresh in my mind. Gotta agree with everyone on Mudkip.
TheMantyke said:
ORAS: Nothing stuck out but Mudkip again maybe?
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Definitely. In fact, Swampert's mega evolution just makes it better.

I also wanna throw Gardevoir out there for ORAS. I'm currently using it in my ORAS run, where it's Psychic/Fairy typing has done wonders for it. Gardevior has been consistently good in my experience, namely in taking on grunts and the large amount of fighting types in this game. Not to mention the fact that it has a mega evolution. It's easily one of my most reliable teammates.
 
Oddish. said:
I'd probably have to go back through the games to jog my memory. The game I've been playing most recently is AS, so that's the one that's most fresh in my mind. Gotta agree with everyone on Mudkip.

Definitely. In fact, Swampert's mega evolution just makes it better.

I also wanna throw Gardevoir out there for ORAS. I'm currently using it in my ORAS run, where it's Psychic/Fairy typing has done wonders for it. Gardevior has been consistently good in my experience, namely in taking on grunts and the large amount of fighting types in this game. Not to mention the fact that it has a mega evolution. It's easily one of my most reliable teammates.
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No. We went over this time and again in the ORAS tiering thread. The phase where you are Ralts and Kirlia counts heavily against Gardevoir. To the point it drops its rank significantly. Kirlia is just awful. It's not even Top Tier in its threads (which can be found here: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/oras-tier-list-v2-0.3532211/ and http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/oras-in-game-tier-list-read-post-324.3523089/). That's how bad Kirlia is. So, unfortunately it can't be considered here.

I'm definitely going to vouch for BW Archen because it is simply insanity. Its definitely worth the backtrack to get, comes level appropriate with insane power. It carried me easily through the rest of the game against other power houses in BW. Never felt weak at any point after Elesa.

IMO it only comes down to GSC Abra and BW Archen. Those two are so far ahead of anything else the games gives you in terms of matchups and ease of use that they should be at the top of any listing like this. RSE Mudkip gets a good shout because it's one of the few Pokemon who has 0 bad matchups against any principle trainers in the whole game.
 
If we're looking for the overall best in-game Pokemon among all games, I agree with GSC Abra. In fact, I think Abra is overall the best and most consistent Pokemon among in-game play; it's a god-tier Pokemon in GSC with or without its evolution, but Abra has always been a good choice in pretty much every game it's been catchable in. DPPt also deserve a shout out for having Abra as an in-game trade Pokemon, which makes it easy to catch and grants double exp, and it even has HP Ice as an added bonus. BW Archen is a definite close second though.

As for each individual game, there are plenty to choose from, although most don't really compare to Abra and Archen in the grand scheme of things. These are also debatable since these are my personal thoughts on the best mons from each game.

-RBY: Think the title goes to Diglett here; it's super-easy to catch (possibly as a high lv Dugtrio), comes at a perfect time in the game, and it learns high-powered moves like Earthquake, Dig, and Slash via level up. It really doesn't need any TMs at all to smash the game, which is great if you're not abusing the Missingno cloning glitch. Nidoking/queen is a close second, since you can evolve it really early, and it carries a vast movepool. I also give an honorable mention to Jynx; although it's not as good as Dugtrio and the Nidos, the double exp and STAB on the two best offense types in the game is a big plus. Using an Ice TM on it isn't necessary either.

-GSC: Abra has already been covered by me and pretty much everyone else, but bringing up the best in-game mons and ignoring GSC Totodile would be a huge disservice. Totodile's movepool options are wide (most of which come from easily replaceable TMs), it gets its best moves early on through Ice Punch and Surf, and it dominates nearly every major battle in the game.

-RSE: Agreeing with Mudkip here. Typing is great, stats are great, movepool is great, and its strong in nearly all the major battles in the game. If you're a Ruby player, Zangoose gets an honorable mention too. Speed and Atk are great, it has great coverage options in its movepool, and it comes pre-packaged with Swords Dance when you catch it (and Slash a few levels later).

-FRLG: Basically everything that was decent in RBY works here as well. Can't really think of any major differences in viable Pokemon from RBY to FRLG since the major game mechanic changes, like the physical/special split, weren't applied yet. Chansey got hit hard with the Special stat split I guess, but Chansey was hardly viable in RBY anyway due to it being a major pain to catch, so eh.

-DPPt: Chimchar definitely; great mixed stats, great movepool with high-powered STABs, you can't go wrong with it. Gible is also worth mentioning for Platinum, since it comes early along with the Earthquake TM right beside it.

-HGSS: Totodile overtakes Abra here. Totodile is still a monster in Johto, and the physical/special move split helped it out quite a bit. The elemental punches are now physical and no longer TMs, which hurts Abra, but Totodile learns Ice Fang via level up, so it still has a good Ice move to use. Scyther also is worth mentioning as the most improved Pokemon since Gen II. Technician and Wing Attack (along with other coverage options) grant it a huge boost in power that allows it to manhandle a good portion of the game, especially if you choose to farm Metal Coats from Magnemite and evolve it prior to the post-game.

-BW: Archen definitely. The detour to pick up the fossil isn't bad, and Archen's insane stats and movepool (including a high-powered Acrobatics) allow it to solo pretty much every trainer in the game. Defeatist seems bad on paper, but its actually pretty trivial in-game with healing items available and whatnot. Hell, you can even temporarily scratch off the ability during the battle with Shauntal.

-B2W2: Magnemite. Available early and easy to obtain, and it trivializes the game by virtue of its typing alone.

-XYZ: Bit of a tossup between Charmander and Riolu/Lucario. The game hands both of them to you on a silver platter, along with their mega stones, and both megas absolutely break the game in half with their raw power.

-ORAS: Not too different from RSE really. Mudkip is still king in this game.
 
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Nexus had a great idea in the #OI chat earlier: Could we possibly boil this down to a top 10 best and worst in-game Pokémon? Finding the top 10 in every category shouldn't be too hard, and with many people chipping in, ranking them should be doable as well. In the end, it would make a really nice article for the Flying Press.

Another Pokémon to nominate for the poorest ever: Wobbuffet. I'm struggling to determine which game it performs the poorest in, though I suspect HGSS is a contender. You catch it post Gym 7, in the Blackthorn City side of Dark Cave (which is an optional area, though you can also get it in the Safari Zone). This being after the Physical-Special split, you can't determine which counter move to use based on the foe's typing alone, which gets you pretty far in previous games. It has no way of earning experience on its own without taking damage. The stronger it gets, the longer it takes to defeat weak opponents, since it takes less damage from every move (which it relies on to do damage back). At least you get it on a pretty par level compared to other wild Pokémon in the area (20-25), although it needs a lot of babying before it can take on Clair's Pokémon, levelled 38-41.
 
I've never played Archen in BW, but wow, I really miss that thing !

And I think Magnemite in BW2 is the best overall with Abra GSC
 
I would nominate Gyarados
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Gyarados is by no means the top pokemon in any given game, and in fact in gen 2 and 3 is arguably one of the most disappointing mons on roster due to the dissonance between its base stats and movepool. What makes Gyarados notable is its distribution, being available relatively early in almost every game in the series. RBY/FRLG, GSC/HGSS, RSE/ORAS, DPP, and XY all give you opportunity to acquire your very own Magikarp early in the game. What other pokemon can claim comparable distribution? Of those, how many match the power of Gyarados?

Gyarados' biggest attraction, besides availability, is that marvellous base stat distribution. Good bulk, decent speed, and a whopping 125 base Atk is phenomenal. In generation 4 and onwards it has a beautiful movepool, and is one of the most reliable ways to get Dragon Dance. With Intimidate and its good defensive typing it can easily find setup opportunities in story-mode. This is a pokemon that can demolish even the most powerful teams with ease if used effectively. With random Rock and Electric coverage being rather rare with NPC trainers in story-mode, Gyarados can easily avoid unfavorable matchups while exploiting favorable ones.

However, power is only part of what Gyarados offers. It also is an excellent HM slave, learning Waterfall, Surf, Whirlpool, Dive, Strength, and Rock Smash. Notably Waterfall is Gyarados best STAB move and gets used competitively so it hardly even counts, while Strength is a reasonable attacking move coming off of its 125 base Atk. This allows Gyarados to be perfectly serviceable even when used as a HM slave while still being a fully-contributing member of the party. It hardly even feels the loss of moveslots. How many 4-slot HM slaves can claim to be fully contributing party members? Gyarados is largely in a class of its own here.

Gyarados plays substantially differently in generation 1, 2, and 3 from later generations. In generation 1, before the SpA/SpD split Gyarados had a 100 special, meaning it was a great special attacker. STAB Surf and Boltbeam coverage was all you needed for moves, leaving the 4th slot open for whatever you want. However, Gyarados was one of the biggest losers in the generation 2 stat split and its SpA plummeted to 60. With a paltry physical movepool that left Hidden Power Flying as its best STAB (if Hidden Power is your best STAB move, you have way too much in common with Unown!), Gyarados wasn't nearly as good. Even at its worst in gen 2, Gyarados is still a top-notch HM slave; 125 base Atk makes Strength a reasonable move, while STAB makes Surf and/or Waterfall usable in spite of its pathetic SpA. Good bulk and typing really rounds out the package.

Even in terms of raising your Magikarp, matters aren't nearly as bad as they look. In many games Magikarp can be caught as high as 15 in early areas (often being substantially higher level than other wild pokemon in nearby areas). The daycare is also a great option, since Magikarp can just be thrown in there and in many games the level curve works out so that you can withdraw him when he hits level 19 and he's within catchup range of the rest of the party. The Exp Share from generation 6 makes matters even more convenient, not that switch training is too difficult in earlier generations anyways.

While Gyarados might not take top spot in any game in the series, its consistent relevance in almost every game deserves serious consideration.
 
Has anyone mentioned Honedge yet? It's an underrated powerhouse that has an insane typing for that point in the game, remains solid up to evolving into Doublade and becomes even more powerful when evolving into Aegislash. Its unique ability allows you to go physical, special or even defensive as you like, it has a favorable matchup against virtually everything and can even hold its own when at type disadvantage thanks to its absurd bulk, power and access to King's Shield. Only thing holding it back is the low speed and that you need to well when to use King's Shield.

Also, Codraroll, there is a worse Pokémon in GSC: You have to backtrack to Mt. Mortar after collecting 8 badges to get it (the two routes in Kanto and Victory Road are not that big) through a stupidly complicated cave system with only 5 Pokémon, then beat the Karate Master for a Level 10 Tyrogue. Its only Level-Up move is Tackle, it has base 35 all around and you need to tamper with its stats for a proper level-up. Not to mention that the only good matchup for the Fighting-Types at this point is a few mons on Karen and Bruno and possibly Koga's Forretress. But how good are the three Hitmons you can get from it? Hitmonlee is actually somewhat competent if you bother to grind it up since it get Hi Jump Kick at Level 26, which is a very respectable STAB and actually the best Fighting move you can get aside from Cross Chop. Hitmonchan's punching moves are gimped by its crappy Special Attack, but at least it has something to work with. Hitmontop is the weakest and the hardest to set up, as keeping the stats even is -very- hard to do in Gen 2 due to stat exp. being much harder to keep track of. Its only Level-Up moves you'll get when getting it ready for the Elite Four are Rapid Spin, Counter and Agility (after that come Detect and Triple Kick). And unlike the other Hitmons, Hitmontop doesn't even get Dynamicpunch via TM, which means that the only reliable STAB option you have is Rock Smash.

Thus, Hitmontop is the worst Pokémon in GSC.
 
LightningLord2 said:
Has anyone mentioned Honedge yet? It's an underrated powerhouse that has an insane typing for that point in the game, remains solid up to evolving into Doublade and becomes even more powerful when evolving into Aegislash. Its unique ability allows you to go physical, special or even defensive as you like, it has a favorable matchup against virtually everything and can even hold its own when at type disadvantage thanks to its absurd bulk, power and access to King's Shield. Only thing holding it back is the low speed and that you need to well when to use King's Shield.

Also, Codraroll, there is a worse Pokémon in GSC: You have to backtrack to Mt. Mortar after collecting 8 badges to get it (the two routes in Kanto and Victory Road are not that big) through a stupidly complicated cave system with only 5 Pokémon, then beat the Karate Master for a Level 10 Tyrogue. Its only Level-Up move is Tackle, it has base 35 all around and you need to tamper with its stats for a proper level-up. Not to mention that the only good matchup for the Fighting-Types at this point is a few mons on Karen and Bruno and possibly Koga's Forretress. But how good are the three Hitmons you can get from it? Hitmonlee is actually somewhat competent if you bother to grind it up since it get Hi Jump Kick at Level 26, which is a very respectable STAB and actually the best Fighting move you can get aside from Cross Chop. Hitmonchan's punching moves are gimped by its crappy Special Attack, but at least it has something to work with. Hitmontop is the weakest and the hardest to set up, as keeping the stats even is -very- hard to do in Gen 2 due to stat exp. being much harder to keep track of. Its only Level-Up moves you'll get when getting it ready for the Elite Four are Rapid Spin, Counter and Agility (after that come Detect and Triple Kick). And unlike the other Hitmons, Hitmontop doesn't even get Dynamicpunch via TM, which means that the only reliable STAB option you have is Rock Smash.

Thus, Hitmontop is the worst Pokémon in GSC.
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I agree that Tyrogue/Hitmontop are really bad in GSC, but I don't think it's necessarily worse than Wobbuffet. For one, it can actually attack on its own without guessing what move the opponent will attack with and substaining the damage first. There's also Tyrogue's weird evolution; unless you go out of your way to check IVs, use vitamins, and moderate the Pokemon it battles, you basically have a 2 in 3 chance of it evolving into one of the more useful Hitmons.

As for Wobbuffet, for it to function, you basically have to play a guessing game with the AI. The AI in Gen II is not as smart as the AI in newer games, which makes their movement more erratic and harder to guess, and you don't have Encore to help out since Wynaut doesn't exist in GSC.

Wobbuffet also has the dubious honor of being a Pokemon that actually gets worse the higher its level is. A higher level Wobb = less damage taken = less damage output from Counter/Mirror Coat.

Anyway, as for ranking the best & worst Pokemon, are we ranking by their best performance in an individual game (like GSC Abra and BW Archen), or by their overall consistency among all games?
 
Xen said:
Anyway, as for ranking the best & worst Pokemon, are we ranking by their best performance in an individual game (like GSC Abra and BW Archen), or by their overall consistency among all games?
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Probably individual performance but since I didn't really think this would spawn an article you can use whatever criteria you like.
 
I want to nominate Natu as one of the worst ingame Pokemon for GSC and HGSS. You have to Surf and Strength through Union Cave to access the grass patch it's found at in Ruins of Alph. When you catch it it's at level 18-24. It knows Peck and Night Shade for offensive moves, which is terrible. It picks up the equally pathetic Future Sight as it's only other offensive option until it learns Psychic at the high 40's if unevolved, or at 59 or 62 as Xatu depending on what game you're playing. I cannot fathom why they didn't fix this guy's options in HGSS.

On a side note, what's keeping RB Abra from consideration?
 
If we're doing Top 10 or something, DPPt should definitely give a nod to Starly:

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Starly:
It learns Quick Attack (outruns other common QAs) and Wing Attack (reliable grinding STAB) early evolves into Staravia at L14 which gives in Intimidate to ease a lot of encounters, and when it evolves into Staraptor at Lv34 it immediately learns Close Combat, the envy of every other early game bird. Staraptor hits hard, has a great ability, and great natural coverage. It's a must pick for a good in-game team.
 
Heracr055 said:
On a side note, what's keeping RB Abra from consideration?
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Squirtle and Nidoran-M are pretty much on a higher plane than Abra in RB imo. Nidoran-M in particular who can evolve early (though it's not great against Brock before Yellow came around), and has a massive movepool which it can use to rip through any encounter. Horn Drill in particular is absurd when you take into account that X-Accuracy makes it 100% accurate and OHKO moves are Speed-based in RBY, allowing Nidoking to easily muscle through any potentially "bad" matchups from Celadon onwards.

Squirtle has a great earlygame and never relents, especially with Ice Beam and friends meaning it doesn't have a super bad matchup, and even gets Fissure in time for the Pokémon League for similar shenanigans with Nidoking and Horn Drill.

I'm not saying that Abra pales in comparison and it's still a great Pokémon, it's just that Squirtle/Nidoran-M coming much earlier and being just as great in battle means that I'd personally give it to those two.

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As for my contribution, one possible candidate for worst Pokémon of all time is Ditto. It should be self explanatory. It has terrible stats until it transforms (and even then it's likely to take a hit) and after that, it's only as good as the opponent, and forces you into speed tie central, making it unreliable on the top of the fact that it only gets 5 PP of each move and depending on the opponent, Ditto can find itself completely walled. It might be useful in the occasional battle, especially if you get really lucky and find one with a powder item, but more often than not, it will tend to fail.

Discounting complete gimmick Pokémon, RB Porygon could be another contender for a worst Pokémon list, maybe not #1 but close. Basically the definition of a junk rare. It has a decent movepool, but it's held back by fairly poor stats, especially Speed. Not to mention the amount of grinding you need to do just to get the coins to buy one; it's sad when the fastest way to get a Porygon is to constantly die to a Team Rocket Member at the end of the Nugget Bridge up to 40 times a fair bit of time away before you can even get your hands on one.
 
As far as weakest ever, GSC Wobbuffett as mentioned above easily takes the cake. It appears so late in the game, and it's harder to Level-Up even if you *wanted* to use it than Magikarp of all things because you're relying on opponent AI to damage you with an attack you're capable of countering. Heck, the most irritating thing about Wobbuffet is that if you try to weaken it to capture, it's *your* mon that might get KO'd in the process. At least in the later gens you can try to get the Wynaut on Mirage Island so at least Wobb can Encore. In GSC? Not even that.
 
I got a few Pokemon that haven't been mentioned yet:

Geodude in HGSS is good since it can pretty much solo the first three gyms in the game. It gets both Rock Throw and Magnitude at level 11 and 15 respectively. It also gets both Earthquake and Stone Edge through level up meaning you don't even need to spend TM's on it. Geodude also serves well as an HM slave in these games, since it gets Rock Smash, Rock Climb and Strenght. I'm not sure if it's top 10 worthy though since it has too many downsides for it to be top tier in HGSS. Main things being that it's slow and that you need to trade it to fully evolve. Also, another thing to note is that it's available in almost every Pokedex aside from Unova. It has never really been 'bad' in any of those games, so it will always be useful to some degree. I don't know if the final part is of any importance though.

Sawk in B/W comes early in the game and comes right before the Normal gym to help it grind up. It's amazing in the first part of the game and doesn't have to be sacked at the end. It's level-up movepool is lacking but it doesn't really matter in this case. Fighting STAB is useful in B/W and since TM's are reusable, you could slap things like Rock Tomb and Bulldoze on it without wasting the TM. Because Sawk comes early and has no evolution, it starts off with ridiculously good stats. It's not Archen levels of good but it's a good Pokemon to slap onto any team.

Aside from those two, I could see: XY Aerodactyl, B/W Drilbur, Pt Scyther, Pt Rotom, colloseum Suicune (if we even count the Gamecube games ), Torchic and ORAS Lati@s as possible candidates. As for worst Pokemon:

Smeargle is absolutely awful in both Jotho and Kalos. First of all, it has poor offensive and defensive stats, with only it's semi-decent speed to save it. It's main gimmick, copying moves, is just a hassle to use in-game. Copying moves is rather difficult, let alone moves you want. Most worthwhile moves it could get (as in, most of the 100+ base power attacking moves) are hard to come by and not available for most of the game, if not until the post game. Even if you somehow get a Boomburst Smeargle or something similar, it would still not be as strong as any other Pokemon with any other regular attack. I guess you could use Smeargle as a utility Pokemon but that would just mean it would be a sitting duck all the time. I'd personally say that it's the worst in HGSS, since it at least comes early in XY. In HGSS you need both Surf and Strenght to get it, similar to Natu. You need to backtrack for this Pokemon and it has bad stats + shitty gimmick that ruins any in game use it would've had, how much worse could you get.

Shuckle is also borderline awful in any Pokemon game to date. It's a nice tank but it's offensive and speed stats are a joke and offense is arguably more important than defense in game. Even if you want a tank in your playthrough for some reason, then it's still pathetic. The only useful moves it gets through level up are Rest, Encore and maybe Wrap, but that's really pushing it. It gets nice attacks through level up, but it's not like those will do any damage with base 5 offensive stats. It's only saving grace would be using a Toxic TM on it, but that's only an option in BW, where the Toxic TM is in the same cave as Shuckle appears ( yay, I guess ). In GS, the Toxic TM is only available after beating Fuschia city's gym, which is only available when you've already done like 95% of the entire game. In HGSS, it's even worse since the Toxic TM is only available in the Battle Frontier. Have fun grinding those 32 BP just to make your Shuckle suck a tiny bit less.

Also, since Natu was brought up, I'd just like to say that it's not as bad as things like Ditto or Shuckle. I used one in HGSS and it at least had some positive attributes. You could teach it Fly as a STAB attack and Shadow Ball as coverage. Confuse Ray is also nice to use in game, so you have at least something worthwhile out of it's level up movepool. I'm not saying that it's a wonderful Pokemon in-game, or even usable. It's not the absolute worst Pokemon in the game though, since it at least has some merit to it.
 
Might as well do Top 5's for each game:

R/B/Y: Starter / Nidoran M / Geodude / Magikarp / Abra
Late Game: Zapdos, Articuno

These have all basically been covered, but basically these mons will routinely have a level advantage, power advantage, or don't need TMs to be effective on your team. They require minimal grinding in the case of ones that need to evolve, and can last the whole game. Do to RBY mechanics, the Starters are basically interchangable. Charmander is weak early game but dominates late game, and anything with Slash is good. Razor Leaf is broke in RBY. Blastoise actually stands out the least, but it's so solid in all areas it makes up for it.

In the lategame, Zapdos and Articuno are both extremely useful against the E4, and you catch them at a level where you don't have to grind them much.


G/S/C: Totodile / Geodude / Gastly / Mareep / [Tauros/Miltank]

Abra isn't as strong here because Dark and Steel types exist, so it has to deal with its frailty more often. In any case, unlike RBY where Starters are intechangable, Chiorita has exactly 1 Gym leader it doesn't hate (Chuck), and Quilava is just a huge timesink, especially when you can catch a Magmar midgame. Totodile stands head and shoulders above the other two for in-game movepool and usability. Geodude is back for not having to use TMs. Gastly can be caught insanely early (Sprout Tower at Night) and its high speed, special attack, and immunities carry it through the game. Mareep is slow, but its great offensive prowess and the fact Fire Punch is special in GSC makes Ampharos a great power player. Last slot goes to Tauros/Miltank, which you can catch after Sudowoodo. They hit hard, they are fast, and they have decent bulk too. Miltank is tankier and can heal the team with Milk Drink, Tauros is a straight powerhouse.

R/S/E: Starter / Taillow / Geodude / Makuhita / Skarmory

Most people would probably give Mudkip the nod as the most useful of the 3, but I think you can rate all three as solid. Merely evolving Torchic lets you walk all over Roxanne, two kicks at a time. Treecko is an actually good offensive grass type, and gets several chances to shine. For the rest, you have the incredibly fast Swellow which you can engineer to have absurdly strong Facades. Makuhita is similar to Magikarp in that it requires some investment, but once you get Hariyama it just rolls through opponents. Mid-game you can run into Skarmory, which walls almost everything you normally encounter, and you can use it as an HM Slave of sorts too.

I'll do more later.
 
Deck Knight said:
R/B/Y: Starter / Nidoran M / Geodude / Magikarp / Abra
Late Game: Zapdos, Articuno

These have all basically been covered, but basically these mons will routinely have a level advantage, power advantage, or don't need TMs to be effective on your team. They require minimal grinding in the case of ones that need to evolve, and can last the whole game. Do to RBY mechanics, the Starters are basically interchangable. Charmander is weak early game but dominates late game, and anything with Slash is good. Razor Leaf is broke in RBY. Blastoise actually stands out the least, but it's so solid in all areas it makes up for it.
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I'm not sure I would consider Magikarp to be a Pokemon that requires "minimal grinding".

Any reason why you prefer Geodude over Dugtrio or even Sandslash? I feel Geodude's Speed and 4x weaknesses hurt its performance at times and the other 2 tend to perform better overall in my opinion.

Deck Knight said:
G/S/C: Totodile / Geodude / Gastly / Mareep / [Tauros/Miltank]

Abra isn't as strong here because Dark and Steel types exist, so it has to deal with its frailty more often. In any case, unlike RBY where Starters are intechangable, Chiorita has exactly 1 Gym leader it doesn't hate (Chuck), and Quilava is just a huge timesink, especially when you can catch a Magmar midgame. Totodile stands head and shoulders above the other two for in-game movepool and usability. Geodude is back for not having to use TMs. Gastly can be caught insanely early (Sprout Tower at Night) and its high speed, special attack, and immunities carry it through the game. Mareep is slow, but its great offensive prowess and the fact Fire Punch is special in GSC makes Ampharos a great power player. Last slot goes to Tauros/Miltank, which you can catch after Sudowoodo. They hit hard, they are fast, and they have decent bulk too. Miltank is tankier and can heal the team with Milk Drink, Tauros is a straight powerhouse.
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Just keep in mind that Gastly is really only amazing if you can trade for Gengar. Haunter is unable to learn the elemental punches in GSC so its offensive move pool is limited to Shadow Ball (a one time TM that runs off of Haunter's 50 Attack, although I personally don't think there's a lot of competition for that TM so that's fine), Thunder (an expensive TM that also has accuracy issues) and Dream Eater (learned at level 39 and a bit unreliable since you have to land a 60 accuracy Hypnosis first) (EDIT: Only considering pre-Elite 4 here, obviously Psychic is an option post-game). Even then, using Gastly is a bit of pain until it gets to Gengar since its early level-up learn set is limited to Lick, Night Shade and Curse for damage, so you certainly aren't going to be tearing through early routes with Gastly. It's too bad because Gastly defensive typing is crazy good early-game - it walls most of the common Pokemon you'll fight at that point.

And I don't agree with your arguments regarding Abra. The Fire Punch TM covers Steel, and Dark Pokemon aren't really that common and some of them (Silver's Sneasel, Karen/Rocket Executive's Murkrow) will die to an elemental punch anyway. Kadabra and Alakazam (it doesn't matter which you end up using since both are strong enough and learn the essential moves) will sweep through routes just fine without having to deal with their frailty, and after you get past Whitney they have favourable match-ups against pretty much every Gym Leader and Elite 4 Pokemon (Karen's Umbreon/Houndoom and Clair's Kingdra are the only Pokemon I would want to keep Abra away from).

Xen said:
-FRLG: Basically everything that was decent in RBY works here as well. Can't really think of any major differences in viable Pokemon from RBY to FRLG since the major game mechanic changes, like the physical/special split, weren't applied yet.
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I would agree with this to an extent but I would also say that Diglett is significantly worse in FRLG than it is in RBY. Dig is noticeably weaker (100 -> 60) and Earthquake arrives later so it can't be used to replace Dig for much of the game. Magnitude can replace it to an extent but the variable power can get pretty annoying at times. The altered critical hit mechanics also nerfed Slash's power as well as robbed Dugtrio of its naturally hit crit rate. It also didn't appreciate the introduction of abilities - Koffing/Weezing and Gastly/Haunter/Gengar gained Levitate and (less important but still annoying) Ekans/Arbok gained Intimidate - which had a negative impact on its performance against trainers that were previously free for Dugtrio, such as many of the Team Rocket grunts, the trainers in Pokemon Tower, the numerous Koffing and Weezing on Cycling Road, and the Koga and Agatha fights. The introduction of the 510 EV limit also makes Dugtrio's mediocre stats more apparent, although its Speed is still great and I think its Attack would still be good enough if it had stronger attacks. In exchange, all it got for buffs were Aerial Ace and a slightly earlier Rock Slide.

How much of an impact all that has is a bit debatable though since you can still catch a level 31 Dugtrio in the wild which would help make up for its flaws (at least initially before the opponent's levels start to match your team's).
 
atsync said:
I would agree with this to an extent but I would also say that Diglett is significantly worse in FRLG than it is in RBY. Dig is noticeably weaker (100 -> 60) and Earthquake arrives later so it can't be used to replace Dig for much of the game. Magnitude can replace it to an extent but the variable power can get pretty annoying at times. The altered critical hit mechanics also nerfed Slash's power as well as robbed Dugtrio of its naturally hit crit rate. It also didn't appreciate the introduction of abilities - Koffing/Weezing and Gastly/Haunter/Gengar gained Levitate and (less important but still annoying) Ekans/Arbok gained Intimidate - which had a negative impact on its performance against trainers that were previously free for Dugtrio, such as many of the Team Rocket grunts, the trainers in Pokemon Tower, the numerous Koffing and Weezing on Cycling Road, and the Koga and Agatha fights. The introduction of the 510 EV limit also makes Dugtrio's mediocre stats more apparent, although its Speed is still great and I think its Attack would still be good enough if it had stronger attacks. In exchange, all it got for buffs were Aerial Ace and a slightly earlier Rock Slide.

How much of an impact all that has is a bit debatable though since you can still catch a level 31 Dugtrio in the wild which would help make up for its flaws (at least initially before the opponent's levels start to match your team's).
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Diglett is worse in FRLG, yeah (the critical hit nerf especially hurts), but the nerfs aren't severe enough to cause a hard fall from grace either; it stll stands as one of the best available Ground types in the game alongside the Nidos. The natural Ground STABs are still good, and Dig is still decent enough to work with despite the drop in power, and you have Magnitude to help in situations where Dig may not cut it. It still has a natural Earthquake for later in the game too.

Which reminds me of one Pokemon I forgot about that did get a decent buff in FRLG. You could make a case for Cubone, which gained Thick Club in these games. The boost in power is pretty significant, and it does get some cool gems in its level up movepool, but it's still arguably worse than Dugtrio and especially the Nidos; good luck finding the Thick Club off an already rare Pokemon, in a game where Compound-eyes won't help your chances.
 
I played Black version earlier this summer, and I used the Petilil from the in-game trade in Nacrene City. It's actually ridiculously powerful once it evolves, learning Quiver Dace at Level 28 as a Lilligant. It can be evolved as soon as you get a Sun Stone and it has a Modest nature and good IVs. Once you get a few QDs under your belt, this thing can sweep pretty much any team. My Lilligant swept both N and Ghetsis at the end of Black. It also helps that the traded Petilil gets boosted EXP. With a combo of Archeops and Petilil, Black version gets demolished.

I know that there's a trade like that in Black 2 also, but I haven't used Lilligant in Black 2, so idk if it's better or worse.
 
When considering the strongest ingame Pokemon, are we considering availability and the time it takes to train or capture it? I mean this because if we are then its probably somewhere along the lines of RBY Nidoran-m vs DPPt Chimchar / Starly vs RSE Mudkip because you get them so early, they are pretty easy to find, capture and are all in really good EXP groups. This is the problem with Gyarados and Gible who sponge a ton of EXP. When I think what is the Strongest Ingame Pokemon, I think of whatever is the easiest to use and has the best matchups throughout the game. That is RS Mudkip imo, largely because most of the Grass-type moves in Gen III are terrible so you virtually have no weaknesses aside from Grovyle and the odd Mega Drain, you get it immediately, and it is so consistently strong throughout the game.

Seconding worst Pokemon as GSC Wobbuffet, with honorable mentions going to any Smeargle, Unown or Shuckle, GSC Marill / Yanma (swarm Pokemon are a pain in the ass to find and they are complete trash) and BW Deino / Larvesta (come too late and take too much training to ever be useful).

Not counting external factors aside from whether or not you get it before the Elite Four, because imo post game doesn't really matter, best ingame Pokemon is probably Pearl Palkia, that thing is a monster and learns a million moves but who cares all you really need is Surf and Spacial Rend, enjoy winning the rest of your game

Wooden Spoon Award goes to DPPt Bibarel for being the best HM Slave and the true best ingame Pokemon for it
 
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