Pokémon Colosseum In-game Tier List

In some of my earlier analysis, I rated a few Pokemon a bit too higher than deserved because of a few things. When ranking Pokemon, I never really liked rating or basing a Pokemon in a low tier, because it happens to be outclassed by another Pokemon of the same or similar typing, but considering how unique Colosseum is I can see how it matters in this game. I should consider that more often in my future analysis. The second thing with it was them being a shadow pokemon in the first place. I was only considering their viability once they were purified, and not while they were going through the purification. That was wrong of me and I will also consider it in future analysis when we get to that point.
But anyways, lets get to the rest of the Nominations.
Piloswine: F tier. I seriously tried to make this fat pig work but I just couldn't. Even though it can potentially be easily purified because there are a ton of electric and flying types in Shadow Pokemon Lab, it just doesn't do anything of value in any of the major battles. Thanks to EQ spam, it can't even reliable use dig either without taking severe damage or getting outright ko'd. Endure is literally useless for it and odor sleuth is laughable. It's not even worth teaching it EQ because there are far better pokemon that can utilize it than poor ol' Pilo.
Ledian: S tier. Ledian is obviously the greatest Pokemon of all time, especially in looks. That comet punch will OHKO any pokemon in its way. That amazing Bug/Flying typing is invaluable, and with its godlike movepool, you're missing out if you don't relegate a slot to this amazing mon... If you couldn't tell this was sarcasm, even over the Internet, I got bad news for you. It's fairly obvious where the Kamen Rider inspired Pokemon should go.
Gligar: E Tier. Gligar may have arguably the worst level up movepool in the game, it does get some decent TMs if you're willing to get them (too bad it misses out on Aerial Ace), and its unique and versatile typing does indeed give it good matchups in the major battles. With it have decent overall stats, but being extremely TM reliant, it just edges out of being a worthless choice, and Vibrava/Flygon overall do a better job even though they come a bit later and Vibrava at first is frail. It also doesn't shine like it potentially could until Tyranitar is caught, which is a postgame venture only.
Ariados: E tier (barely). Ariados's only saving grace from the dregs of F tier is that it comes with Sludge Bomb, so that you don't have to waste your own Sludge Bomb on it. Sludge Bomb from it does hit for good damage, but thats pretty much it.
Mantine:
D tier. Mantine is alright, at least in the beginning due to its massive special defense and two potentially good abilities. Has a useful typing that makes it good against both Miror B 1, Dakim 1, and Venus 1 but after that it starts to struggle, hard. It's low base power in its moves becomes very apparent after Venus, and the only thing it can really do again't Ein 1 is wall some of his waters, unless you teach it ice beam/blizzard. round 2 of the Admins are tougher for Mantine, but it does well against Gonzap, but you'd most likely have replaced it already.
Murkrow: F tier. Frail, thus making it hard to train. Gimmicky unreliable strats (like trying to Snatch Evice's stat boosts, night shade on a frail pokemon) . Low BP of moves and no real advantages in major battles.

Miltank through Togetic should be Unranked. Even though it's technically possible to use Miltank-Metagross in the final battle(s), no one is actually going to do it because thats just plain obnoxious. Tyranitar-Togetic are postgame so we couldnt even use them. Maybe when this is all cleaned up, I'll do an unofficial postgame analysis for Miltank-Tyranitar but I very much doubt it. Plus I feel that putting them in F tier as the same as trash like Delibird and Sunflora is just a complete disservice to them.


I think thats names all the catchable/usable Pokemon in a standard playthrough. Now we just gotta finalize the rankings for the A,B and C tier Pokemon. I still firmly believe that Meditite should be A tier and Swablu B tier but if Meditite remains in B, and Swablu goes wherever (as long as its not D or below), i'll be accepting of the decision.
 
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Karxrida

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I am not unranking anything between Miltank and Metagross since they are still technically usable before you get to the credits. I will, however, probably unrank T-tar since it's literally the last thing you fight and thus has no time to actually be usable.
 

Blitz

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I follow this thread fervently and I'm still annoyed that people just shit on Ledian.

You get it in The Under... immediately after you can purchase Reflect / Light Screen. It's in the fast level up group so it won't even lag behind leveling up wise, and it's not even underleveled. Once you purify it, Reflect / Light Screen will carry teams through the mid-end game very reliably. It's not doing any damage? Swap out with Baton Pass which it gets on purification. Even gets Agility later so the Baton Passes can be trailed to something slow that would love it (Granbull, Ursaring, Ampharos, etc.)

It is purely a support mon, but it is a damn good one at that and people are definitely underrating those. Probably a solid C Rank given this tier list; wouldn't be opposed to B but I get the counter arguments (pre purification is garbage, no attacking prowess whatsoever, just does Screens / Pass / Agility / Safeguard).
 
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Karxrida

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I follow this thread fervently and I'm still annoyed that people just shit on Ledian.

You get it in The Under... immediately after you can purchase Reflect / Light Screen. It's in the fast level up group so it won't even lag behind leveling up wise, and it's not even underleveled. Once you purify it, Reflect / Light Screen will carry teams through the mid-end game very reliably. It's not doing any damage? Swap out with Baton Pass which it gets on purification. Even gets Agility later so the Baton Passes can be trailed to something slow that would love it (Granbull, Ursaring, Ampharos, etc.)

It is purely a support mon, but it is a damn good one at that and people are definitely underrating those. Probably a solid C Rank given this tier list; wouldn't be opposed to B but I get the counter arguments (pre purification is garbage, no attacking prowess whatsoever, just does Screens / Pass / Agility / Safeguard).
Espeon already comes with Reflect, can be taught Light Screen, can actually deal damage, is faster, and has Helping Hand.

Ledian's more than likely going to be placed in F. Earthquake immunity is not enough to justify using it as a dedicated Screener when it does fuck all for damage and requires purifying.
 
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Blitz

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Espeon is S for a reason, with Dual Screens being one of the many things it can provide in addition to the offensive support that Ledian lacks.

But that's not really a counter argument to Ledian. Dual Screens is invaluable in this game, and Ledian is one of the few that can provide it. It is MUCH better than anything in the D-E-F ranks by virtue of this utility; its availability and fast level curve helps it as well. I know purifying it is balls, but this alone is definitely not enough to put it in F. Someone who's used Ledian could back me up.
 
Medicham can also set up dual screens and is only just slightly slower than Ledian while also being one of the hardest hitters in the game, and comes earlier. Even it's fairly unique niche in safeguard can be better utilized by Altaria, who has a far better typing. Even if you choose Bayleef over the two other Johto starters, it still is better efficient at setting up dual screens. Honestly, anything that outspeeds Medicham/Meganium is also going to outspeed Ledian. I can't see it being any higher than E tier, with it barely being in E like its spider counterpart and thats only because it can BP agility boosts and is better than Aipom in that regard. It may be one of the very few Pokemon in the game that can learn dual screens, but Colosseum does utilize the doubles format throughout the entire story mode, so any of the Pokemon that learn Reflect or Light Screen can be out at the same time, and actually contribute offensively without completely relying on abusing 4x weaknesses.
 

Karxrida

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I had a short discussion with OrangeGuru and we both agreed that Ledian should be F. Outside of the issues already mentioned, it doesn't even learn Agility until Level 51 so it barely gets a chance to act as an Agility Passer.

We've also decided to unrank Tyranitar due to how late it comes, making it borderline impossible to actually use before credits.
 

HotFuzzBall

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Re-echoing a post I made a while back about Misdreavus's rank

I don't think Misdreavus should be A tbh, it should be like C rank (maybe B, but even I think that's a large stretch). Misdreavus starts out really strong but, its usefulness does start to fade (to me Misdreavus started being a bit difficult around when you battle Venus/Ein since it can't really do anything other than use Confuse Ray). The only reason why I found success in using it was through investing coupons (T-bolt and Psychic) to it when I used Mt. Battle to purify Shadow mons. So yeah Misdreavus does need some investment and its stats are only slightly above average too but, it is still a pretty solid mon but, it definitely doesn't measure up to the rest of the mons in A or B tbh.

Also Noctowl falls perfectly into D rank imo (maybe C since it is quite useful in the early game). Noctowl is quite useful in the early game due to its access to Hypnosis (which makes snagging a lot easier) and Reflect to support its team. It also gets Fly as its 3rd move (or 4th slot move) which is pretty handy against Mirror B.'s Ludicolo spam despite its poor attack stat. Other than that, Noctowl's bulk is pretty decent (specifically on the special side) while it does have an immunity to Earthquake. However, Noctowl's becomes pretty useless after Skrub (that's when I benched it anyways), I mean in theory it could be useful against Dakim (both times) due to its immunity to Ground as well as access to Reflect to weaken Earthquake and other physical moves, and its special bulk is probably decent enough to take Sunny Day boosted Fire moves. I mean other than that, Noctowl is going to be pretty useless against the major battles against Venus, Ein, and Mirror B.'s 2nd battle (less Ludicolo's).
 
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Karxrida

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I've moved Misdreavus down to C due to its fall off in usefulness after early game.

Noctowl is D.

Slugma and Heracross are now E. Slugma isn't F because it gets Flamethrower upon purification and comes early enough that you could probably make it work. Heracross isn't F because you can abuse Guts to spam powerful Shadow Rushes in Hyper Mode.

Everything you catch after Skamory has been added to F. This means Absol, Miltank, Tropius, and Metagross.
 
So question, are there going to be separate rankings for Time-Flute and not-Flute mons on the obvious users? Obviously the Time-Flute is the most efficient, but how much impact does it have on the viability of their preferred users?
 
So question, are there going to be separate rankings for Time-Flute and not-Flute mons on the obvious users? Obviously the Time-Flute is the most efficient, but how much impact does it have on the viability of their preferred users?
Theres about three time flutes in the game. One you get directly after beating Dakim, the other one is about halfway through the Shadow Pokemon Lab if you nab the U-Disk and use it, and the last one is at the Summit of Mt. Battle, so you need to do all 99 battles and then open the chest before you face the Mt. Battlemaster. Typically not everyone will do the Mt. Battle challenge due to how long it is, it'd take someone at least 5 hours to complete it from the beginning if you do it straight after Dakim, so lets just say we have two to use. Raikou, Entei, Suicune, Metagross and Tyranitar are really the only ones actually worth using it Tyranitar is postgame, while Metagross only use is during the final battle if you ignore the postgame so we can scratch that off the list. So now we have 3 beasts, and 2 flutes. Because of this, I personally think its unnecessary to rank Pokemon on the usage of Time Flute because even then the beasts are still pretty useful even in their shadow forms due to them all hitting fairly hard with shadow rush, especially Entei. Even if you keep Entei as a shadow pokemon, it could easily stay in hyper mode for most of the game.
 
Theres about three time flutes in the game. One you get directly after beating Dakim, the other one is about halfway through the Shadow Pokemon Lab if you nab the U-Disk and use it, and the last one is at the Summit of Mt. Battle, so you need to do all 99 battles and then open the chest before you face the Mt. Battlemaster. Typically not everyone will do the Mt. Battle challenge due to how long it is, it'd take someone at least 5 hours to complete it from the beginning if you do it straight after Dakim, so lets just say we have two to use. Raikou, Entei, Suicune, Metagross and Tyranitar are really the only ones actually worth using it Tyranitar is postgame, while Metagross only use is during the final battle if you ignore the postgame so we can scratch that off the list. So now we have 3 beasts, and 2 flutes. Because of this, I personally think its unnecessary to rank Pokemon on the usage of Time Flute because even then the beasts are still pretty useful even in their shadow forms due to them all hitting fairly hard with shadow rush, especially Entei. Even if you keep Entei as a shadow pokemon, it could easily stay in hyper mode for most of the game.
Vibrava is also a very good candidate for a Time Flute because you are two levels away from evolving into Flygon after purifying and you should have access to 3 rare candies. The problem with organizing into Flute rankings and non-Flute rankings is that even after including Vibrava, you just don't have that many pokes that could utilize it effectively. I think the rankings would get too cluttered if we rank every mon by account of using a time flute and by not using a time flute. Maybe, a compromise where we pick the 4 or 5 good candidates (I would add Heracross as a pretty good candidate as well) and differentiate them? So for example, Entei (no flute) might be B, while Entei (Flute) is A or something like that, similar to how ranking trade pokes work in other threads.
 

Karxrida

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Yeah, I don't think we're doing separate rankings for everything since not a lot of Pokémon actually benefit from the Flutes. Realistically it'll be the Beasts and Vibrava.

So question, are there going to be separate rankings for Time-Flute and not-Flute mons on the obvious users? Obviously the Time-Flute is the most efficient, but how much impact does it have on the viability of their preferred users?
Vibrava absolutely needs the Flute to be usable because it relies on the Earthquake TM. Fluteless Vibrava would be D or lower.

Suiune and Raikou also have issues without a Flute because their main STABs are the last moves unlocked and they lack the Attack to rely on Shadow Rush. Raikou also comes really late.
 
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Karxrida

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So from what I can tell nobody has talked at all about Bayleaf. I also have yet to rank Mantine, Gligar, Piloswine, Murkrow, and Ariados.

I'm probably dumping Murkrow and Gligar to F, but I don't know what to do with Bayleaf and want some more opinions on Mantine, Piloswine, and Ariados.
 
So from what I can tell nobody has talked at all about Bayleaf. I also have yet to rank Mantine, Gligar, Piloswine, Murkrow, and Ariados.

I'm probably dumping Murkrow and Gligar to F, but I don't know what to do with Bayleaf and want some more opinions on Mantine, Piloswine, and Ariados.
No one has talked about Bayleef in-depth yet (I knew there was one poke I had experience with that I kept forgetting lol), so I'll add my two cents.

I know there's this perception that Bayleef is the worst of the Johto starters, yada yada, and that may very well be true even in this game, but I would argue that Bayleef has a lot of use in a doubles-centric game. Bayleef gets access to both screens and safeguard (who I believe is the only poke with this distinction besides Ledian - who we already agreed is pretty bad), as well as synthesis and Sunny Day support, plus Toxic if you're not using Umbreon or something. When I resumed my 9-year-old self's playthrough I was initially disappointed with my younger self's choice in Bayleef (even if I still loved the poke itself). Razor Leaf wasn't a strong enough STAB, especially given the spread damage reduction. However, since I was now an older and wiser player, I realized weather is a great doubles combo, especially in a Gen 3 game where there aren't many other "strategies," and taught it Solar Beam (with my Umbreon getting Sunny Day).

So what's my point? Solar Beam (especially with no charge turn needed) is an extremely powerful STAB option for Bayleef, which it can be taught with TM 22 obtainable after beating Phenac Colosseum 4 times (also by far the best user of Solarbeam for what it's worth - lol don't use Sunflora or Jumpluff). Phenac isn't too difficult (low level 40s), but it will be a little while that you'll be stuck with razor leaf, which hurts Bayleef. In sun, Synthesis also becomes an incredible self-healing option that removes need to use items on it outside of battle, increasing its efficiency. As I mentioned in my post about Umbreon, the AI tends to not target bulkier pokemon, which allows someone like Meganium with 80/100/100 bulk is good. I don't have an exact example of how this helps Bayleef, but I remember facing Nascour I believe and thinking I was going to lose until they let Bayleef set up a reflect and then fire off a Solarbeam unimpeded.

The last point I will bring up for why I think Bayleef should be B rank is an opportunity cost. Nobody will doubt the power of the 3 legendary dogs. The dogs have similarities to the 3 starters, except you can only get 1 starter in the main game unlike all 3 dogs. The thing with Croconaw and Quilava is that you can technically get a water- and fire-type legendary, but there is no grass-type legendary so Bayleef sort of stands alone which can help it (I can't remember exactly the policy I helped co-create on this lol, but it's something along the lines of we will tier based on being outclassed and Bayleef can't be directly outclassed by one of the 3 dogs because they don't share a type). And again, if you're incorporating Sunny Day into a team (like with Entei), then Bayleef is actually really good in late game.

And a small thing on Mantine: I haven't used it so take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt, but it is one of the few water-types that doesn't get access to Surf, so it should probably be below all those who do (Croconaw, Suicune, Quagsire and Qwilfish), so probably somewhere around D tier should work for it. (also Qwilfish in D seems a little low that I'm now seeing but idk)

TLDR: Bayleef for B tier (although I suppose C would be ok) because it is a fantastic weather abuser and the best SunnyBeam user with fairly good bulk that makes the AI not attack it sometimes for some reason. Plus it has nice utility options. Mantine for D because it doesn't get surf (aka the best water move in the game)

Ok small essay over lol :P
 
So from what I can tell nobody has talked at all about Bayleaf. I also have yet to rank Mantine, Gligar, Piloswine, Murkrow, and Ariados.

I'm probably dumping Murkrow and Gligar to F, but I don't know what to do with Bayleaf and want some more opinions on Mantine, Piloswine, and Ariados.
I'd say Bayleaf would end up in the lower part of B personally. For a bulky Pokemon it is fairly quick on its feet, has some good support options with Dual Screens, and Body Slam, comes with self-sustainability and hits hard enough on the offensive side to not be considered dead weight (its favoriable TMs like Giga Drain and Solarbeam are simple to get due to Phenac Colosseums general low level and being filled with NFE's). It's matchups in the major battles are favorable, though against some Pokemon, it would not like to be on the field for, such as Dakim 2's sunny day fires, Nascour's Blaziken and Evice's Salamence/Scizor, though it can typically survive a non-boosted SE hit from any of them. In most cases, it can even outspeed them and set up a screen which helps its (and your other Pokemon's) longevity. There are some issues with Bayleaf, like Razor Leaf being pretty weak due to the 25% cut double battles give multi-target moves. The biggest problem with Bayleaf isn't really in itself, its the fact that you're giving up arguably the best water and fire types in the game until postgame. Even if you decide to choose it, it's easily the best grass type you can get, and I feel it's strengths outweigh its flaws just enough that it can rest in B tier.
 

Karxrida

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Bayleef is B.

I decided to put Ariados and Mantine in E. They both have some merit to escape F.

Piloswine is going to be in D for now, but I'm not married to it. It's got a good Attack stat, pretty nice 100/80/60 bulk, and it benefits from the Earthquake TM if you're willing to waste that. You can also teach it Blizzard for okayish secondary STAB.

Gligar and Murkrow have been dumped into F.

Unless I'm missing something or you guys want to debate placements, we should be ready to do write-ups soon.
 
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Karxrida

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Noticed that I never ranked Swablu, so I put it in C.

Does A feel a little bloated to anyone else? I know this game has pretty lopsided viability, but A is kind of huge while B is really small.

Gonna hold off on write-ups for now due to some discussion on new formatting in the recently made policy discussion thread.
 

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I think Umbreon should be knocked down to B. It does not fit the definition of efficiency outlined:

A-Tier: Reserved for Pokémon whose efficiency in terms of completing the game is considered to be very high. Pokémon in this tier are able to OHKO or 2HKO a lot of opponents and are not very reliant on items to succeed, but either have some visible flaws that hurt their efficiency or have their usefulness counterbalanced by a late arrival.
Umbreon just isn't good at killing stuff. Its strongest move is Bite off base 65 offenses which falls off incredibly quickly. It's only placed this high due to its efficacy at being a meatshield for item usage or capture, but if you have a balanced team this will only comes into play against endgame bosses or Legendary Beast Snags, and significant item usage itself breaks this definition. I grant that it comes early and its bulk + Taunt (a lot of stuff naturally comes with weather moves in this game, let's get real) gives it unique supporting capabilities, but in most cases fielding a second Pokemon that can kill stuff quickly is just as effective. It is more comparable to Skiploom than anything in A-tier, where its bulk (Speed in Skiploom's case) and support give it a niche but its offense is too poor to be considered a truly efficient choice.

Everything else looks fine to me.
 
Noticed that I never ranked Swablu, so I put it in C.

Does A feel a little bloated to anyone else? I know this game has pretty lopsided viability, but A is kind of huge while B is really small.

Gonna hold off on write-ups for now due to some discussion on new formatting in the recently made policy discussion thread.
The only ones that I feel that could move down from A tier to B tier are Umbreon and Vibrava but I personally used both of them multiple times in multiple playthroughs and they've always held up well. Vibrava/Flygon is pretty TM reliant, but said TMs it wants are easy to come across and I feel they can stick around in the A tier unless some people come around and give some very strong arguments for lower placements.
As for the rest of the A tiers, I feel they warrant their placement due to a combination of being prime time flute candidates, come with good move combinations when they are purified and/or coming early within the game and not taking too long to purify. Then with how Colosseum is like, I personally feel there is a pretty sizable power gap between the S/A tiers and everyone else, which is why the lack of Pokemon in B tier doesn't bother me, since Colosseum does host a good amount of "bad" Pokemon.

I think Umbreon should be knocked down to B. It does not fit the definition of efficiency outlined:



Umbreon just isn't good at killing stuff. Its strongest move is Bite off base 65 offenses which falls off incredibly quickly. It's only placed this high due to its efficacy at being a meatshield for item usage or capture, but if you have a balanced team this will only comes into play against endgame bosses or Legendary Beast Snags, and significant item usage itself breaks this definition. I grant that it comes early and its bulk + Taunt (a lot of stuff naturally comes with weather moves in this game, let's get real) gives it unique supporting capabilities, but in most cases fielding a second Pokemon that can kill stuff quickly is just as effective. It is more comparable to Skiploom than anything in A-tier, where its bulk (Speed in Skiploom's case) and support give it a niche but its offense is too poor to be considered a truly efficient choice.

Everything else looks fine to me.
I'd like to argue for this one. I understand where you are coming from, but Colosseum and its sequel do have some radical differences between the mainline games that the usual statement for ingame tiering is more along a guideline to follow than something that should be taken as law. Because of Colosseum's very limited about of Pokemon, there isn't a huge amount of Pokemon that have reliable OHKO's on the majority of the battles. The only ones that really come to mind for me are Espeon, Medicham, Raikou/Ampharos, Entei/Typholsion, and Hariyama due to a combination of their high attacking stats and the high base power of their moves. If it came down to just OHKOs, then all of thse Pokemon with the exception of Raikou due to his late availablity would be S tier, but Espeon is the only one of the mentioned that is in S tier.
So now I want to bring it to Croconaw. Croconaw misses out on a fair amount of OHKOs and even 2HKOs (only reliably OHKOing Rock/Ground types) but it manages to get into S tier because of the many other things it brings to the table. Its bulky, its fast, it has a good movepool, an easily abused ability and a great showing in all of the major battles.
The other thing that makes Colosseum's rankings different than others is the shadow Pokemon mechanics. With all but 4 Pokemon in the entire game, you have to deal with said shadow mechanics. Umbreon is with you since the very beginning which is one advantage it holds compared to most other Pokemon, and typically one wants to catch the Shadow Pokemon since that is one of the main goals of the game. Espeon can OHKO a good chunk of them, but unless its a speedrun, it wants to avoid doing that, and Espeon isn't the bulkiest Pokemon in the game. Umbreon can easily tank any of the Shadow Pokemon's hits, even the super effective ones and has no trouble widdling them down, even if an untimely critical hit happens to bestow upon it. Don't forget that Umbreon also comes with Secret Power (the only one in the entire game) acts like a bit weaker Body Slam due to all but a few battle taking place in buildings or concrete which also is useful in capturing Pokemon.
Because of how Colosseum is played, the double battles, the very limited movepool and Pokemon selection its not all about the OHKOs and supporting your main attacker whether it's Espeon, Raikou or whoever can go a long way, especially if you don't offset grind in Mt. Battle or the Colosseums.
 
I'd like to argue for this one. I understand where you are coming from, but Colosseum and its sequel do have some radical differences between the mainline games that the usual statement for ingame tiering is more along a guideline to follow than something that should be taken as law. Because of Colosseum's very limited about of Pokemon, there isn't a huge amount of Pokemon that have reliable OHKO's on the majority of the battles. The only ones that really come to mind for me are Espeon, Medicham, Raikou/Ampharos, Entei/Typholsion, and Hariyama due to a combination of their high attacking stats and the high base power of their moves. If it came down to just OHKOs, then all of thse Pokemon with the exception of Raikou due to his late availablity would be S tier, but Espeon is the only one of the mentioned that is in S tier.
So now I want to bring it to Croconaw. Croconaw misses out on a fair amount of OHKOs and even 2HKOs (only reliably OHKOing Rock/Ground types) but it manages to get into S tier because of the many other things it brings to the table. Its bulky, its fast, it has a good movepool, an easily abused ability and a great showing in all of the major battles.
The other thing that makes Colosseum's rankings different than others is the shadow Pokemon mechanics. With all but 4 Pokemon in the entire game, you have to deal with said shadow mechanics. Umbreon is with you since the very beginning which is one advantage it holds compared to most other Pokemon, and typically one wants to catch the Shadow Pokemon since that is one of the main goals of the game. Espeon can OHKO a good chunk of them, but unless its a speedrun, it wants to avoid doing that, and Espeon isn't the bulkiest Pokemon in the game. Umbreon can easily tank any of the Shadow Pokemon's hits, even the super effective ones and has no trouble widdling them down, even if an untimely critical hit happens to bestow upon it. Don't forget that Umbreon also comes with Secret Power (the only one in the entire game) acts like a bit weaker Body Slam due to all but a few battle taking place in buildings or concrete which also is useful in capturing Pokemon.
Because of how Colosseum is played, the double battles, the very limited movepool and Pokemon selection its not all about the OHKOs and supporting your main attacker whether it's Espeon, Raikou or whoever can go a long way, especially if you don't offset grind in Mt. Battle or the Colosseums.
I would also argue to keep Umbreon in A. In a single player game, I agree Umbreon isn't efficient, but this is much less important in a double battle-centric game like Colosseum and as such we should probably think of tiering in a different way from other in-game tier lists. I've mentioned this a couple times already, but I'll say it again: Umbreon's extremely high bulk goes beyond "making it a meatshield," it makes the AI extremely unlikely to attack Umbreon at all. So yes, while it won't be doing that much damage directly, it also doesn't need to in a doubles battle-heavy game; Umbreon can throw out Toxics, Confuse Rays, etc while typically not taking damage or even set up weather for a teammate (who will be doing most of the attacking anyways, so Umbreon's missed/lower damage output isn't that big of a negative)
 

Karxrida

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Since we're waiting on the policy thread for write-up formatting, I thought I'd bring up a topic for discussion.

Dunspace F -> Rise (probably to E)

I think F might be underselling Dunsparce a little. Its stats aren't terribad (they're not good either, but w/e), it comes early, and it even has Glare and Yawn. It's not like Yanma, which has no STAB or any other utility, or any of the endgame Pokémon with little to no time to do anything.
 
Dunspace F -> Rise (probably to E)
Hmm. I realized I never gave my opinion on Dunsparce. Dunsparce is a rather interesting Pokemon. It has two abilites, tho one is literally useless in the GameCube games. Since Colosseum is based on the RS level up system, Dunsparce does miss out on a lot of moves like rollout, pursuit, and flail. Also with Colosseum having a pretty limited set of TMs, it does also miss out on TMs like water pulse and secret power which really does suck. Because of Serene Grace, Thunder and Iron Tail have a whopping 60% to paralyze/lower defense. Fire Blast/Blizzard have a 20% chance to Burn/Freeze. With its utility and wide movepool Dunsparce (right now) is probably the best Pokemon out of the F tier due to status abuse and being the 2nd earliest encounter out of the bunch and could warrant a bump up to E, but thats really all its got going for it. If you teach Return to another Pokemon, it ends up being heavily item reliant as well as TM reliant since Take Down is its only other STAB option.
 

Karxrida

Death to the Undying Savage
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
Okay, I think we're for really ready for write-ups now. I'm going to post an example of what to do.

[There should be an RS sprite here, but Serebii's Gen III sprites don't have transparent backgrounds]
Skiploom
Availability:
Skiploom is available very early in the game, being encountered in Pyrite Town. You can snag it from an optional fight against Rider Leba, who can be found in Pyrite Square.
Overview: While Skiploom's offenses are subpar, it has high Speed, good Special Defense, and a good defensive typing of Grass/Flying that makes it resistant to Surf and immune to Earthquake. Chlorophyll also doubles its Speed under Sunny Day, though Skiploom is generally fast enough to make this boost unnecessary. Access to Sleep Powder (which is the first move unlocked via Heart Gauge depletion) also gives Skiploom immense utility for helping snag Shadow Pokémon or shutting down your opponent before they can act, making up for its poor offensive prowess. It also starts with Synthesis for healing, which has situational use.
Additional Comments: Consider doing the Phenac Coliseum to earn the Giga Drain and/or SolarBeam TMs and teach them to Skiploom. Skiploom's only naturally-learned damaging move is Mega Drain, which has very low BP.


This example could probably do with improvement, you guys get the gist of it.
 

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