I'm confused by your nomination. You say way more negatives than positives (bad typing, reliance on TMs, poor matchups w/ E4, late availability), yet you still nom it for B tier. The way I see it, you can obtain it after the sixth gym from where it can pretty much solo for a while given that it has really great stats. It's a great user of TMs like Flamethrower as well. I know it's difficult to catch bc it's a legendary, but I see why it's currently A rank
Azelf (all three games)
Availability: Azelf can be caught at Lake Valor, but only after defeating Cyrus for the last time (pretty late), so the only notable opponents that Azelf can battle are Volkner, the rival (once), and the Pokemon League. Even if Azelf is strong in battle, it has fewer positive matchups than something like Gligar would simply because it's available so late. In addition to this, Azelf is hard to catch, having 1/255 unmodified catch chance and roughly 1/24 catch chance when it has 1 HP and dusk balls are used.
Evolution: (:
Stats: Its 125 in both attack stats is definitely pretty good, and its 115 base speed allows it to outspeed most things. Its 75/70/70 bulk means it doesn't need constant healing, but still leaves Azelf very vulnerable to super effective attacks.
Typing: For a late-game Pokemon, Azelf's pure psychic typing doesn't help much. Veilstone Gym's fighting Pokemon and Team Galactic's poison Pokemon will already be defeated long before Azelf can be caught. Further, two Elite Four members specialize in bug and psychic Pokemon, which obviously puts Azelf at type disadvantages. Azelf's three weaknesses are definitely not fatal, but they do sometimes cause Azelf to lose matches, especially when compounded with Azelf's low defenses.
Movepool: Azelf's level up movepool is definitely okay, already knowing nasty plot when caught and learning extrasensory immediately after. Unfortunately, extrasensory isn't super effective against many of the notable late-game opponents. Fortunately, Azelf can learn fire blast, and a TM for fire blast can be picked up at Lake Verity and replaced for only P5500. Azelf can't learn any HM moves, so it won't be very helpful in that aspect.
Major Battles: These are the notable opponents that Azelf can 1v1 without overleveling (except for, of course, opponents lower than level 50), using TMs, and using items in-battle.
Volkner: Raichu, Ambipom, Octillery, Jolteon, Electivire, Luxray
Barry: Rapidash, Roserade, Floatzel, Staraptor, Infernape
Aaron: Beautifly, Dustox
Bertha: Gliscor, Quagsire, Whiscash, Sudowoodo, Golem
Flint: Rapidash, Steelix, Lopunny, Infernape
Lucian: Gallade, Medicham
Cynthia: Togekiss, Lucario, Roserade, Gastrodon
Azelf's late availability restricts its usefulness to only seven major battles, four (DP) three (Pt) of which are positive matchups. While Azelf's stats are pretty good, the main reasons why Azelf has few good matchups (or at least requires TMs to have more) are its typing, which causes it to be weak to megahorns, crunches, and shadow balls used by the rival and many Elite Fours' Pokemon, and its shallow level-up movepool, which makes Azelf useless against most things that resist extrasensory.
Additional Comments: While Azelf may look strong at first glance, its bad offensive typing and reliance on TMs does hinder it. Possibly by a random coincidence, psychic Pokemon work especially poorly against the Elite Four, and Azelf's late availability prevents it from being used in many other battles. Mainly because of late availability, but also due to low defenses, below-average offensive typing, and reliance on TMs, I nominate Azelf for B tier in all three games.
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
Pokémon Diamond, Pearl & Platinum In-game Tier List Discussion
- Thread starter sin(pi)
- Start date
There's so little difference between Azelf and Alakazam's base Speed and Special Attack it's completely negligible. I can't think of a single opponent in the game that Alakazam could outspeed and/or KO that Azelf couldn't with the same tools.
Chiming in with some along-the-way experience from an ongoing (and so far, early - I'm just about to fight Gardenia) Platinum run:
- Magikarp's early-game period is awful. I don't think any performance as Gyarados justifies catching it at the earliest opportunity, so no matter how good it turns out from here on, it won't be S in my book. Firstly, capture: if I've understood the Veekun dex correctly, when fishing with the Old Rod, there are actually four possible encounters. All of them are Magikarp, but they belong do different "level groups": There's a ~30 % chance of getting group A, which has Magikarp from level 3-7, presumably evenly distributed. ~60 % chance of getting group B, levels 4-6. Then there's a ~7 % chance of group C, levels 5-10. And lastly, a 3 % chance of group D, which is level 5-15. Note that even if you're lucky and snag a Group D Magikarp, the chance of its level being above 10 is still lower than 50 %. So for all practical purposes, level 7 is the highest Magikarp level you can hope to capture. Secondly, the enormous amont of babying required. Ive led with Magikarp in every battle until I got the Exp. Share, and have it hold that ever since, and it has still been 2-3 levels behind the rest of my team - even though I'm feeding it almost half the XP I'm getting. This XP would be way better spent on my other team members. Thirdly, its power: Mine reached level 15 and learned Tackle just in time to face the Magikarp fisherman, who carries six Magikarps at levels 8, 10, 12, 12, 14, and 16. My Magikarp burned through all of Tackle's 35 PP battling that Trainer. It survived for that long, surprisingly, but at best it could 6HKO a Magikarp seven levels lower than itself. And it only gained half a level's worth of XP in the ordeal.
In short: Magikarp sucks, to the point where the S tier can't be saved by anything Gyarados could possibly do. Keep it out of S.
- On the other hand, Combe (Female) might not be an automatic F tier as is currently suggested. Combee is the most common Pokémon found in Honey trees, and one may SR for its gender. It took me a late-night slathering of two trees and ten soft-resets the following morning, so it's not a hassle-free encounter by any means, but overall I think I got it easily enough. Could have been way worse, as demonstrated by Heracross and (especially) Munchlax. Combee gets Bug Bite as a secondary STAB in Platinum, which is really handy against the Psychic-type trainers in Eterna Forest, and later on, Eterna Gym (a 4x Grass resist helps too, of course). It evolves quite early as well, level 21, and until then its base 30 offenses aren't deal-breakingly bad since everything else is NFE too at that point anyway. So I'm going to grind up a little and check how Vespiquen holds up against Gardenia. Such grinding might be against the spirit of this thread, but it would have taken a lot less grinding had I not insisted on trying to train Magikarp as fast as I can as well.
I'm not advocating for it to rise to A or anything, but I think E is certainly within its reach, maybe even D. Time will tell.
EDIT: Yeah, Vespiquen walks all over Gardenia. Bug Bite is a clean OHKO on her lead Turtwig, 2HKOs her two other Pokémon, and she takes like 4-5 HP damage from their STABs. To top if off, Bug Bite will steal the Sitrus Berry Roserade holds, and recover most of Vespiquen's HP as a final insult.
- Magikarp's early-game period is awful. I don't think any performance as Gyarados justifies catching it at the earliest opportunity, so no matter how good it turns out from here on, it won't be S in my book. Firstly, capture: if I've understood the Veekun dex correctly, when fishing with the Old Rod, there are actually four possible encounters. All of them are Magikarp, but they belong do different "level groups": There's a ~30 % chance of getting group A, which has Magikarp from level 3-7, presumably evenly distributed. ~60 % chance of getting group B, levels 4-6. Then there's a ~7 % chance of group C, levels 5-10. And lastly, a 3 % chance of group D, which is level 5-15. Note that even if you're lucky and snag a Group D Magikarp, the chance of its level being above 10 is still lower than 50 %. So for all practical purposes, level 7 is the highest Magikarp level you can hope to capture. Secondly, the enormous amont of babying required. Ive led with Magikarp in every battle until I got the Exp. Share, and have it hold that ever since, and it has still been 2-3 levels behind the rest of my team - even though I'm feeding it almost half the XP I'm getting. This XP would be way better spent on my other team members. Thirdly, its power: Mine reached level 15 and learned Tackle just in time to face the Magikarp fisherman, who carries six Magikarps at levels 8, 10, 12, 12, 14, and 16. My Magikarp burned through all of Tackle's 35 PP battling that Trainer. It survived for that long, surprisingly, but at best it could 6HKO a Magikarp seven levels lower than itself. And it only gained half a level's worth of XP in the ordeal.
In short: Magikarp sucks, to the point where the S tier can't be saved by anything Gyarados could possibly do. Keep it out of S.
- On the other hand, Combe (Female) might not be an automatic F tier as is currently suggested. Combee is the most common Pokémon found in Honey trees, and one may SR for its gender. It took me a late-night slathering of two trees and ten soft-resets the following morning, so it's not a hassle-free encounter by any means, but overall I think I got it easily enough. Could have been way worse, as demonstrated by Heracross and (especially) Munchlax. Combee gets Bug Bite as a secondary STAB in Platinum, which is really handy against the Psychic-type trainers in Eterna Forest, and later on, Eterna Gym (a 4x Grass resist helps too, of course). It evolves quite early as well, level 21, and until then its base 30 offenses aren't deal-breakingly bad since everything else is NFE too at that point anyway. So I'm going to grind up a little and check how Vespiquen holds up against Gardenia. Such grinding might be against the spirit of this thread, but it would have taken a lot less grinding had I not insisted on trying to train Magikarp as fast as I can as well.
I'm not advocating for it to rise to A or anything, but I think E is certainly within its reach, maybe even D. Time will tell.
EDIT: Yeah, Vespiquen walks all over Gardenia. Bug Bite is a clean OHKO on her lead Turtwig, 2HKOs her two other Pokémon, and she takes like 4-5 HP damage from their STABs. To top if off, Bug Bite will steal the Sitrus Berry Roserade holds, and recover most of Vespiquen's HP as a final insult.
Last edited:
I think the problem is that no Pokemon can be E tier if it takes 6 hours to encounter, even if you can be AFK (or away-from-buttons or whatever) during those 6 hours. Also, even if Combee is the most common Pokemon, it's still only 32% encounter chance for each attempt, and another Pokemon species can't change to Combee upon soft-resetting.
sin(pi)
lucky n bad
been super busy with irl + OMPL but I'll take a closer look at this after that!
I'm not opposed to giving Honey Tree mons another look, but there would have to be a fairly good case for them - Vespiquen, for example, sounds like it tails off somewhat after the 2nd gym (though it puts in work vs Maylene, I'd imagine). That said it doesn't sound too much worse than things like Zubat other than the awful speed, so I could be persuaded is what I'm saying I guess?
(obviously it's way worse in DP because no Bug Bite which means you're sweeping with Gust, woo!)
I'm not opposed to giving Honey Tree mons another look, but there would have to be a fairly good case for them - Vespiquen, for example, sounds like it tails off somewhat after the 2nd gym (though it puts in work vs Maylene, I'd imagine). That said it doesn't sound too much worse than things like Zubat other than the awful speed, so I could be persuaded is what I'm saying I guess?
(obviously it's way worse in DP because no Bug Bite which means you're sweeping with Gust, woo!)
I deposited it immediately after the Gardenia fight, and withdrew it after beating Fantina (Alter Ego style - using two alternating teams - is a very fun way to play!), and it walked all over the Barry fight on the way to Solaceon too. Power Gem takes care of Ponyta, and Bug Bite messed Grotle up badly. It might have looked very different if I had picked Turtwig as my starter, though...
I'll keep using Vespiquen for (in total, half of) the rest of the game. You get an extra examination of its pros and cons when it's constantly underlevelled. Then we'll see what the final verdict will be.
Yeah hell no to S Gyarados lol.
Magikarp has a slew of issues and is likely a Pokemon you have to invest fairly heavy on. Something that doesn't help is the reliance on babying for potentially 13 levels to hit Dragon Rage, and 10 of those are extremely deadweight. I would rather humor with having Thrash Gyarados through Good Rod, rare as it may be, since Dragon Rage only really helps against rather weak HP Pokemon or those that are super bulky. I think A Rank is a much better representation of Gyarados at best, though I probably could still drag it to B since the absence of good STAB until Level 35 outside of stuff like Surf and Water Pulse is really a pain in the ass.
Magikarp has a slew of issues and is likely a Pokemon you have to invest fairly heavy on. Something that doesn't help is the reliance on babying for potentially 13 levels to hit Dragon Rage, and 10 of those are extremely deadweight. I would rather humor with having Thrash Gyarados through Good Rod, rare as it may be, since Dragon Rage only really helps against rather weak HP Pokemon or those that are super bulky. I think A Rank is a much better representation of Gyarados at best, though I probably could still drag it to B since the absence of good STAB until Level 35 outside of stuff like Surf and Water Pulse is really a pain in the ass.
Deleted User 400951
Banned deucer.
I think Gyarados can fit in A perfectly. It requires some babying - 13 levels - but after that, people seem to really underestimate this thing's power. It doesn't get good stab for a while, I know, but it can get can work with Return. Once it gets that precious STAB - I'm gonna put this around the 4th gym - this thing begins to solo the game, almost. Outside of Volkner I don't see where this thing struggles. I think the pay-off of that many levels is worth A, but to say this is as good as Staraptor or Infernape - which come much earlier, don't require as much babying and still sweep the game - isn't exactly fair.
Slapping Return onto Gyarados honestly seems like a huge waste of a limited and important resource (seriously why would you teach it to anything not named Starly), especially since it becomes largely obsolete once STAB is obtained.
Giving Return to Gyarados to make it work also compounds and highlights its resource sink issues.
Giving Return to Gyarados to make it work also compounds and highlights its resource sink issues.
Furthermore the cost for Dive means investing in Shards, which not only require a detour, but also competition of other Pokemon that may want the tutor moves as well. I think outside of that Gyarados A is very believable since Good Rod Gyarados gets Thrash (aka tolerable when Dragon Rage is starting to miss 2HKOes) and it is rather impressive as the game progresses.
I'm also going to step in and disagree with A Cranidos. Unless I am missing something important it has a lot of critical flaws that require TMs and commitment to fix. It really is not that good straight out of the fossil (and requires a detour no less) and, due to its Erratic Levelup, has an awkward time leveling up as well. Take Down is basically the only move Cranidos has for a long time, and since it is not STAB and lacks super effective coverage there is a risk of being worn down very quickly. Being rather so-so in Speed sucks too.
Cranidos really has to either hog TMs or ve assisted often with Potions to stay healthy. Cranidos also has a very shitty gym matchup all around - Crasher Wake and Maylene all have Pokemon Cranidos hates. After that Rampardos has an "okay" performance against Fantina. Rampardos's matchup versus Byron isn't stupendous, kind of a super mixed bag versus Candice, and arguably bad again against Volkner. The Elite 4 Performance is also not that great - Rampardos does okay against Aaron and Flint I guess, but nothing to really write home about. It's terrible against Bertha and might be lucky to smash a hit in Lucian's team. It isn't that great against Cynthia either.
Tl;dr - I feel B Cranidos is more appropriate.
I'm also going to step in and disagree with A Cranidos. Unless I am missing something important it has a lot of critical flaws that require TMs and commitment to fix. It really is not that good straight out of the fossil (and requires a detour no less) and, due to its Erratic Levelup, has an awkward time leveling up as well. Take Down is basically the only move Cranidos has for a long time, and since it is not STAB and lacks super effective coverage there is a risk of being worn down very quickly. Being rather so-so in Speed sucks too.
Cranidos really has to either hog TMs or ve assisted often with Potions to stay healthy. Cranidos also has a very shitty gym matchup all around - Crasher Wake and Maylene all have Pokemon Cranidos hates. After that Rampardos has an "okay" performance against Fantina. Rampardos's matchup versus Byron isn't stupendous, kind of a super mixed bag versus Candice, and arguably bad again against Volkner. The Elite 4 Performance is also not that great - Rampardos does okay against Aaron and Flint I guess, but nothing to really write home about. It's terrible against Bertha and might be lucky to smash a hit in Lucian's team. It isn't that great against Cynthia either.
Tl;dr - I feel B Cranidos is more appropriate.
After finishing a Platinum playthough, I'm pretty sure Gallade should be A and definitely should not be in the same tier as Gardevoir. Gardevoir has an extremely shallow level up movepool with Psychic and Magical Leaf being the only notable moves it learns and requires TM's to be truly effective. Gallade is blessed with fighting stab which is amazing no matter what the game and easily puts it ahead of Gardevoir.
Ralts (Gallade) hits an immense powerspike once you get to Pastoria City. The Dawn Stone comes conveniently in the same city as the Move Relearner, giving Gallade Night Slash and Leaf Blade right in time for Crasher Wake. Also, Psycho Cut is learnt at level 31 which is the expected level for that point in the game. Top it off with the Brick Break/Drain Punch TM and Gallade is an absolute monster as soon as it evolves and can pretty much solo the game after Pastoria City
Its amazing typing and coverage gives it no negative matchups and it slices through Byron and Candice.
Gallade to A.
Ralts (Gallade) hits an immense powerspike once you get to Pastoria City. The Dawn Stone comes conveniently in the same city as the Move Relearner, giving Gallade Night Slash and Leaf Blade right in time for Crasher Wake. Also, Psycho Cut is learnt at level 31 which is the expected level for that point in the game. Top it off with the Brick Break/Drain Punch TM and Gallade is an absolute monster as soon as it evolves and can pretty much solo the game after Pastoria City
Its amazing typing and coverage gives it no negative matchups and it slices through Byron and Candice.
Gallade to A.
Is Cranidos bad even when taught rock tomb? It's found in Ravaged Path (earlier than Cranidos) and doesn't get any better users, so Cranidos doesn't exactly "hog" it. Also, Cranidos's physical attack is always either the best or very close to the best, so it can deal a lot of damage with a move like rock tomb.
I don't completely disagree with this, but I wanted to make sure you knew that A tier Pokemon almost always have to be good before evolving or evolve early. (except Budew. I honestly don't know why Budew is A, and I already tried to move it down) Ralts is held back by availability and the fact that it slows you down a little bit before you get a dawn stone. Also, all Pokemon are different, and of two Pokemon, one is almost always better, so "Gallade is better than Gardevoir" is not the best argument for having Gallade be a higher tier than Gardevoir.
Ralts doesn't come THAT late though. You can catch it right after defeating the 2nd Gym at level 17-18 meaning it only needs a couple of levels to evolve. It's obviously deadweight against Fatina but with the Exp.Share it takes significantly less effort to baby than say a Magikarp.
As a Kirlia, it holds it own against random trainers and puts in legit work against Maylene. Doesn't really slow you down imo. Heck, you could even grab the dawn stone BEFORE Maylene if you really wanted to, which further increases Gallade's availability. I guess soley comparing it to Gardevoir was wrong but even when compared to the rest of the B tier and even some of the A tier, Gallade outclasses them at the point you have access to it.
If availiblity is that much of a factor when tiering Gallade, then so be it. I just feel like its effectiveness is too great to warrant a b rank.
What about the one you get in Lost Tower? I guess it comes a bit later than you might want it, but shouldn't be nearly as contested as the one you get at the beginning.
Stealing one with the Thief TM would be much faster.
Deleted User 400951
Banned deucer.
It would be fast, yes, but it still on average take 20 or so bronzors to steal from. That's extremely long. And Steelix isn't really very good.
That being said, I don't think it'd be F rank right now. I'll try a run-through and see if it is but right now I don't know for sure if it would be.
That being said, I don't think it'd be F rank right now. I'll try a run-through and see if it is but right now I don't know for sure if it would be.
Im probably just dumb, but I have to ask: Why is Gible D in DP but A in Pt?
Isnt he almost the same in both games?
Isnt he almost the same in both games?
I have never, ever, ever needed a full team of six competent battlers in any Pokémon game. You only really need four to beat any given title, and I've gone through a couple with only three. You are also underselling the opportunity cost of a wasted moveslot, especially since some Pokemon like Chimchar love have STABs + coverage, and not being able to unlearn HMs on a whim is extremely annoying.
Bidoof's ability to learn a ton of HMs provides you with immense team-building flexibility, since you don't need to swap stuff out or catch specific mons to get anywhere in Sinnoh. And let's be honest, its battle potential isn't the reason why it's ranked.
Bidoof should stay S. Its utility is unparalleled.
Last edited:
I thought he was at Wayward cave as well?
That makes sense now
That makes sense now
I could see wanting more Pokemon being battle capable in some of the harder games, but in this game, the high end mons like Chimchar and Staraptor can smash so much of the game themselves that I don't think your team suffers for having an HM Slave, a role in which Bibarel is by far the best a game has had for its respective region. Considering Mt. Coronet in the late game can require as many as 6 HMs, an HM Slave is invaluable to let you keep 5 battle ready mons on hand. Bibarel is also a low investment mon for a fast run of the game, as its role as an HM slave means you don't even need to put much EXP into it beyond evolving it for full HM access. At the same time, it can pull its weight for quite a while thanks to early evolution stats and some HM's have pretty decent Base Power before the heavy hitters take over.
Let me put it simply: Even as a kid, where I took until Gen 4 to get out of basic pitfall habits like "train more than 2 Pokemon", I picked up on using Bibarel quickly and basically learned about HM slaves from him, and compressing things onto him got me to try other Pokemon with that freedom, whihc is how I found some good mons and some favorites in Starraptor and Toxicroak, respectively.
Let me put it simply: Even as a kid, where I took until Gen 4 to get out of basic pitfall habits like "train more than 2 Pokemon", I picked up on using Bibarel quickly and basically learned about HM slaves from him, and compressing things onto him got me to try other Pokemon with that freedom, whihc is how I found some good mons and some favorites in Starraptor and Toxicroak, respectively.
It is still in Wayward Cave, but in Platinum they removed the need for Strength to access the part of the cave where Gible can be found. This lets you get Gible when its level is more in line with where you are in the game (2 Gyms down and the Bike) and with Dragon Rage to do some work while leveling him up to 24 to evolve.