I disagree. Have you seen Vigoroth’s stats? Horrible. There is a reason Slaking got some use while Vigoroth never got any even in the lowest of tiers.
Edit: I now see the error of my ways. To repent I will use Vigoroth in OU for a day.
Ive used a bulky eviolite Vigoroth in doubles before, its actually not *horrible* (for the low tiers).
Vigoroth @ Eviolite
Ability: Vital Spirit
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Slash
- After You
- Slack Off
- Yawn
True. In gen 7 AG was one of the only metagames I played besides OU, and everyone felt very creative when they tried to baton pass evoboost + sub to banded mega rayquaza. Like all other baton pass strats it was decided by matchup.
Now that I think of it I definitely saw at least a couple of evoboosters in unranked battle spot singles on cartridge (the only cartridge meta I played because it was basically like playing low ladder ag which is always funny).
That was in the original question (without eviolite), but I wasn't responding to that detail. Turns out that vgc allows eviolite and I was quick brainstorming about pre-evos that are notable. You can take this as a win. I wish you the best
Vigoroth is worse than Slaking on the lower tiers. Both Chansey and Murkrow rely on eviolite to be better. However at least Murkrow still has the unique prankster+haze combination even if eviolite is not available for some reason.
I'm a huge fan of smogon. Without a doubt they have single formats, they also have doubles. They're very aware of murkrow and have even posted about its benefits with prankster (whether it was doubles or not)
When the evolved form has a shit ability, I guess.
Vigoroth is an obvious answer, but I’m sure Haunter would’ve been better than Gengar if Gengar lost Levitate back in Gen 3.
Dragonair is also sometimes better in RBY because it’s not 4* weak to Tentacruel’s Blizzard.
Not as good as it’s evolutions but will do. It has the same speed stat as poliwhirl along with the same movepool. Gen I could be one of those rare gems where the entire line of a Mon will occupy the same tier.
how do these older game formats work? it has moves and items from all newer games (belly drum, eviolite etc), physical/special split, but just restricts the available pokémon?
why did someone downvote me i’m just trying to learn..
All Smogon formats (except NatDex and special metagames) are cart accurate. So GSC formats only allow whatever can theoretically be obtained on a GSC cart, including events.
This gets weird with Arceus in DPPt, as the only legal way to get him is via event at level 100. Due to how EVs worked in Gen 4, that Arceus could only get 100 EVs per stat, instead of 252. You could glitch/hack to catch the one in game that isn't level 100, but as the item for that event was never distributed, it's not technically legal. There was a ruling a while back where I think they allowed that specific Arceus, but I could be wrong
No smogon strives to recreate the experience of playing on a cartridge as closesly as possible with only a few exceptions to make the experience more competitive like sleep clause. Ironically gen 1 is a generation with multiple of these exceptions since it has the unqiue freeze and desync clauses that prevent moves that would cause a desync from working and prevent more than one of your pokemon from being frozen at a time.
Immune to the most common attacking type in the game, and its Special stat is really good for not dying to Special hits. Remember, not a lot of good Flying, Bug, Rock, Ghost coverage OR STAB in RBY: Rock Slide and Drill Peck are good, but not exactly on everything that would want it, nor does everything with those moves actually make good use of it
something notable about the normal immunity is that it basically walls persian, the other normal type attackers in the tier at least have something to hit it with (kangaskhan has earthquake, dodrio has drill peck and outspeeds) but persian can only hit it with thunderbolt which barely does anything
Also all Bug types since Venomoth the only bug type that isn’t PU is NU.
Pinsir had very niche viability in OU and UU while Scyther has the worst movepool of all Pokémon ever.
Crazy how RBY meta game continues to evolve. Last time I followed it Golem went from top 10 of OU down to NU. Much like Poliwrath, Poliwhirl got this ban due to two moves alone. Amnesia and Hypnosis. It’s speed is insanely good, speed tying Moltres and venemoth and only being outsped my by Ninetails, Raticate, and Charizard, and all it needs is surf/hydro pump and psychic or blizzard to destroy low tiers. Poliwag is a viable option in NU now due to it having a similar stat spread along with the same speed as poliwhirl. This could be one of those rare gens where the whole evolutionary line will exist in the same tier.
Golem's main niche over rhydon is RBY OU is explosion, which let it OHKO snorlax and chansey
However, there was a snowfall effect that lead to this being less impactful. Originally, body slam was thought to be able to paralyse normal types, but it was later discovered that this wasn't the case
Because of this fact, chansey/snorlax would run reflect as a way of beating opposing chansey/snorlax (reflect was permanent until you switched in gen 1)
Since chansey and snorlax ran reflect now, Golem's explosion was less impactful (and unable to OHKO them) which lead it to be completely outclassed by rhydon and dropped out of OU
As for UU, Golem just wasn't good in the current meta, which lead to it dropping to NU
For OU, Rhydon has slightly better offense and bulk, and Snorlax and Chansey started to run Reflect enabling them to tank Golem's Explosion, as well as a Body Slam, more easily.
As for UU, Tentacruel is by far the best Pokemon in the tier and when you're taking 4x damage to it things aren't looking good to you.
Imagine having a move pool so good that even your middle evolution gets banned
i've heard people say that poliwhirl is actually better than poliwrath because of it's higher speed + not fighting type.
I'm curious, would this be the one time where a pre-evolution is arguably better than its evolved form without Eviolite?
Vigoroth says hi
I disagree. Have you seen Vigoroth’s stats? Horrible. There is a reason Slaking got some use while Vigoroth never got any even in the lowest of tiers. Edit: I now see the error of my ways. To repent I will use Vigoroth in OU for a day.
Hey it's in x and y PUBL while slaking is untiered
Slaking is untiered in gens 5 & 6, while vigoroth is a player in gen 5 NU and is banned in gen 6 PU. https://youtu.be/nYrhjmXxqQI
Ive used a bulky eviolite Vigoroth in doubles before, its actually not *horrible* (for the low tiers). Vigoroth @ Eviolite Ability: Vital Spirit Tera Type: Normal EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD Impish Nature - Slash - After You - Slack Off - Yawn
I remember eevee in gen 7 cartridge formats saw some play because of extreme evoboost and baton pass.
Not in any official smogon metas though. Baton pass was globally banned for all of gen 7.
AG
True. In gen 7 AG was one of the only metagames I played besides OU, and everyone felt very creative when they tried to baton pass evoboost + sub to banded mega rayquaza. Like all other baton pass strats it was decided by matchup. Now that I think of it I definitely saw at least a couple of evoboosters in unranked battle spot singles on cartridge (the only cartridge meta I played because it was basically like playing low ladder ag which is always funny).
Gen 5 Riolou
Although both were apparently bad in OU in Gen 5
They were terrible lol
Murkrow in VGC
Vigoroth, murkrow, chansey. It's rare as well as circumstantial but it's happened plenty of times
chansey is only better than blissey sometimes, and even then, it needs eviolite to justify using over blissey who has strictly better stats otherwise
Don't forget about P2
"It's rare as well as circumstantial"
it's rare and circumstantial when eviolite is allowed, and the original question said 'better without eviolite'.
That was in the original question (without eviolite), but I wasn't responding to that detail. Turns out that vgc allows eviolite and I was quick brainstorming about pre-evos that are notable. You can take this as a win. I wish you the best
Vigoroth is worse than Slaking on the lower tiers. Both Chansey and Murkrow rely on eviolite to be better. However at least Murkrow still has the unique prankster+haze combination even if eviolite is not available for some reason.
Have you seen murkrow usage in current gen?
I thought it was only used in Doubles?
Doubles is the primary format for competitive
For game freak, yes. Smogon formats in Showdown, however, are mostly singles.
I'm a huge fan of smogon. Without a doubt they have single formats, they also have doubles. They're very aware of murkrow and have even posted about its benefits with prankster (whether it was doubles or not)
P2 could be argued.
Im not sure its bulk will hold up in gen 5 and beyond without eviolite though since it doesn't really have a particularly good defensive type
But Z is trash and Trace is a niche counter for several things.
How did noone say dusclops in response to this?
bc dusclops isn't better when eviolite is out of the equation
When the evolved form has a shit ability, I guess. Vigoroth is an obvious answer, but I’m sure Haunter would’ve been better than Gengar if Gengar lost Levitate back in Gen 3. Dragonair is also sometimes better in RBY because it’s not 4* weak to Tentacruel’s Blizzard.
Murkrow in vgc
It’s 1st evolution may follow suit soon. Poliwag line is one of the most underrated in low tiers.
Poliwag: it’s waggin time
Isn't Poliwag really good in rby pu?
Kinda, it's kinda risky, but I still use it cause fast hypnosis + amnesia go brrrrrrrr
idk I don’t play RBY, I only know the general stuff that makes RBY unique and a few Big Yellow videos (good youtuber 👍)
its probably dropping to zu soon
Not as good as it’s evolutions but will do. It has the same speed stat as poliwhirl along with the same movepool. Gen I could be one of those rare gems where the entire line of a Mon will occupy the same tier.
The fact that an NFE is now rated higher than all fighting types besides its evolution (I think) is really sad.
Poliwhirl is better than Poliwrath cause not weak to psychic
And higher speed, right? This is both funny and sad.
Yeah, it's also faster, and I believe they have the same special, and pretty much the same movepool.
> I believe they have the same special Poliwrath has 70 special attack, while Poliwhirl has 50.
Yeah that's close enough by gen 1 standards I'd say
Similarly, poliwhirl is ranked higher than poliwrath in GSC uu because both of them are only viable with belly drum and poliwhirl is faster.
How does Politoed match up against them?
Doesn't exist in gen 1
They were talking about gsc
how do these older game formats work? it has moves and items from all newer games (belly drum, eviolite etc), physical/special split, but just restricts the available pokémon? why did someone downvote me i’m just trying to learn..
All Smogon formats (except NatDex and special metagames) are cart accurate. So GSC formats only allow whatever can theoretically be obtained on a GSC cart, including events. This gets weird with Arceus in DPPt, as the only legal way to get him is via event at level 100. Due to how EVs worked in Gen 4, that Arceus could only get 100 EVs per stat, instead of 252. You could glitch/hack to catch the one in game that isn't level 100, but as the item for that event was never distributed, it's not technically legal. There was a ruling a while back where I think they allowed that specific Arceus, but I could be wrong
No smogon strives to recreate the experience of playing on a cartridge as closesly as possible with only a few exceptions to make the experience more competitive like sleep clause. Ironically gen 1 is a generation with multiple of these exceptions since it has the unqiue freeze and desync clauses that prevent moves that would cause a desync from working and prevent more than one of your pokemon from being frozen at a time.
Just shows you how much fighting type sucks in RBY
kadabra and haunter are UU
I can see Kadabra, but haunter?
Immune to the most common attacking type in the game, and its Special stat is really good for not dying to Special hits. Remember, not a lot of good Flying, Bug, Rock, Ghost coverage OR STAB in RBY: Rock Slide and Drill Peck are good, but not exactly on everything that would want it, nor does everything with those moves actually make good use of it
normal immunity is good, same thing helps gengar out a lot
something notable about the normal immunity is that it basically walls persian, the other normal type attackers in the tier at least have something to hit it with (kangaskhan has earthquake, dodrio has drill peck and outspeeds) but persian can only hit it with thunderbolt which barely does anything
it turns out a type isn’t very good when it’s weak to one of the best types in the game and has literally 0 good stab moves
Also all Bug types since Venomoth the only bug type that isn’t PU is NU. Pinsir had very niche viability in OU and UU while Scyther has the worst movepool of all Pokémon ever.
Crazy to me that there are still tiering shifts in a game over two decades old.
That's what I was thinking. RBY came out a quarter century ago, what happened to make this change?
Pre gen 5 the only tiers that were really played were OU and UU. RBY NU only started as a playable tier in 2021.
Okay that makes a lot more sense. I figured RBY tiers would be pretty set by now but if it only started a couple years ago that makes way more sense
Jesus fuck. Reading quarter century ago made me physically hurt.
Always possible in a game with as many moving parts as Pokémon
I god poliwhirl confused with politoed and thought this was an early stinkpost lol
Doesn’t even compare to how Lucario was banned in RSE NU
yall think mewtwo is really good but feebas is banned in rby ubers
Crazy how RBY meta game continues to evolve. Last time I followed it Golem went from top 10 of OU down to NU. Much like Poliwrath, Poliwhirl got this ban due to two moves alone. Amnesia and Hypnosis. It’s speed is insanely good, speed tying Moltres and venemoth and only being outsped my by Ninetails, Raticate, and Charizard, and all it needs is surf/hydro pump and psychic or blizzard to destroy low tiers. Poliwag is a viable option in NU now due to it having a similar stat spread along with the same speed as poliwhirl. This could be one of those rare gens where the whole evolutionary line will exist in the same tier.
why did golem freefall?
Golem's main niche over rhydon is RBY OU is explosion, which let it OHKO snorlax and chansey However, there was a snowfall effect that lead to this being less impactful. Originally, body slam was thought to be able to paralyse normal types, but it was later discovered that this wasn't the case Because of this fact, chansey/snorlax would run reflect as a way of beating opposing chansey/snorlax (reflect was permanent until you switched in gen 1) Since chansey and snorlax ran reflect now, Golem's explosion was less impactful (and unable to OHKO them) which lead it to be completely outclassed by rhydon and dropped out of OU As for UU, Golem just wasn't good in the current meta, which lead to it dropping to NU
For OU, Rhydon has slightly better offense and bulk, and Snorlax and Chansey started to run Reflect enabling them to tank Golem's Explosion, as well as a Body Slam, more easily. As for UU, Tentacruel is by far the best Pokemon in the tier and when you're taking 4x damage to it things aren't looking good to you.
free my boy
Damn, all five players in that tier will be upset
For the record, the suspect test had a grand total of 22 voters. But yeah, I'm sure the pool of potential opponents is extremely shallow at all times.
All 7 UU players must consider putting poliwhirl on a team
free my boy
Imagine still unironically wanting to play the most broken Pokemon generation, and feeling the need to "balance" it.