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

As a guy who used Ponyta for his run of Platinum: don't.

Yeah, it works against a couple of Gym Leaders, but its stats and natural movepool are absolutely pathetic until late game 40's and evolution. It can't clear trainers very well and is frail to boot, so it's going to at best eat healing items way too frequently for how much work it puts in in return. It's not really that fast, Flame Wheel is way too weak as a STAB, and Fire Blast/Flamethrower are coming off a pitiful offensive stat by the time you'd need the BP upgrade. TMs don't give it any other good coverage either. This thing is only particularly helpful for around 6 major battles, needs babying to evolve and become decent, and doesn't even do well at clearing out fodder trainers to minimize time spent grinding it.
 

Merritt

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Volkner, Flint, and Cynthia
what

With Volkner it's a neutral Pokemon who's not weak to the coverage moves but doesn't resist the STAB and also doesn't have SE attacks, so it's not really particularly helpful or particularly bad. It's just kinda there.

Flint - uh I need you to explain this to me. When your best option is non-STAB poison jab/strength or return (return being wanted by a half dozen other things) while literally every single one of his Pokemon except his own Rapidash have a higher BP move to hit you back with I don't understand how Rapidash is even remotely useful here.

For Cynthia I suppose you could take on Lucario and Roserade but Lucario in particular is kinda tricky because there's a not all that bad chance it's faster and has the SE stone edge to do massive damage and just generally ruin your day. I still wouldn't call it "particularly helpful" here although it can maybe take out one of Cynthia's mons.

Hell even Maylene is a little iffy on whether you can say it's particularly helpful - sure Ponyta's good for Lucario but since Bone Rush can do a ton you need a fairly high level so you can actually outspeed, but the other two are neutral at best.

Hilariously if we take out these two heavily debatable ones (seriously, saying that Rapidash is particularly helpful vs Flint is like trying to say that Prinplup is particularly helpful vs Maylene) and give half credit for Cynthia and Maylene then we end up with exactly 6 major battles.

e: also worth noting is that you said it learns Flare Blitz at 46 - while this is true it also means you're stuck with Ponyta for 6 levels after it could have evolved, making it just that much more painful considering how far in the game you probably are by then
 
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Merritt

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Volkner's Pokemon are relying on moves like thunder fang and thunder punch while Rapidash has flare blitz, so Rapidash wins despite lacking a type advantage.
As well as Roserade, Rapidash can pretty easily beat Cynthia's Spiritomb. Then, the player can choose one of Roserade or Togekiss to take on, so I'd say Rapidash is useful against Cynthia.
Level 47 Rapidash, 15 IVs for all of this.

80 Atk Rapidash Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Jolteon: 96-114 (73.8 - 87.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

We can moderately safely say that's about 33 recoil damage.

0 SpA Jolteon Charge Beam vs. 80 HP / 80 SpD Rapidash: 33-40 (24.6 - 29.8%) -- 100% chance to 4HKO

And considering how high the chance is for a special attack boost, here's the second one.

+1 0 SpA Jolteon Charge Beam vs. 80 HP / 80 SpD Rapidash: 49-58 (36.5 - 43.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Let's do the low mid rolls, aka 36 and 52. All together that's coming out to 121 damage, which leaves you with 13 HP left. So in other words, Rapidash can take on Volkner's lead and barely come out on top before needing to heal.

You do fortunately outspeed Raichu, although again you miss the OHKO with Flare Blitz, but at least this time you only take one Charge Beam or Focus Blast potentially followed up by Quick Attack.

80 Atk Rapidash Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Raichu: 103-123 (82.4 - 98.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Luxray's our next boy and he's pretty bulky, although not quite enough to take two Flare Blitzes, although certainly bulky enough to force you to use it twice unless you get a fairly high roll. Unfortunately the amount of recoil (49 damage total) and the damage from Thunder Fang restricts you from taking on Raichu and Luxray both.

Electivire is moderately similar to Luxray in that it requires two Flare Blitzes to KO, resulting in approximately 50 recoil damage - minimum of 27 first hit.

80 Atk Rapidash Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Electivire: 82-97 (54.6 - 64.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

This of course is followed up by two possible situations, both of which Rapidash doesn't exactly do great in. First, a Thunder Punch is the returning blow. Rapidash is at a maximum of 107 HP. (Minimum HP is 101)

0 Atk Electivire Thunder Punch vs. 80 HP / 80 Def Rapidash: 70-84 (52.2 - 62.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

This puts Rapidash at a maximum of 37 HP, enough to survive the second Flare Blitz recoil. (Minimum of 17, 23 if first Flare Blitz min rolled)

0 Atk Electivire Quick Attack vs. 80 HP / 80 Def Rapidash: 25-30 (18.6 - 22.3%) -- possible 5HKO

In a worst case scenario this flat out KOs Rapidash, in a good scenario this means Rapidash just kills itself with recoil as it takes out Electivire.

The other path is that instead of using Thunder Punch, Electivire instead just goes for Giga Impact turn 1. Remember that Rapidash takes a minimum of 27 damage from the first Flare Blitz, and a maximum of 32.

0 Atk Electivire Giga Impact vs. 80 HP / 80 Def Rapidash: 93-110 (69.4 - 82%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Well ow. Considering Rapidash's 107 HP maximum after the first Flare Blitz, that means there's 3 rolls that result in a dead Rapidash (18.8% chance). If you max rolled Flare Blitz that brings it up to 9 rolls that just instantly kill Rapidash (56.3% chance). Oh and even if you do live, you're probably going to have to KO yourself with Flare Blitz since even in the best scenario you're again in range of Quick Attack.

In short, Rapidash can 1v1 any of Volkner's pokemon except Electivire who's very shaky without items, but cannot take on any two of them without luck.


TL;DR Rapidash can take on any one of Volkner's pokemon with the exception of Electivire who stands a very good chance of mutual destruction but cannot take on two without using items to heal.

Incidentally, some interesting calcs for Flint and Cynthia to extrapolate from. Brought Rapidash up to level 53 - on par with Flint's own and 54 for Cynthia because it's not unlikely you'd have gotten a level between the two.

80 Atk Rapidash Poison Jab vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Flareon: 46-55 (30 - 35.9%) -- 38.6% chance to 3HKO
0 Atk Flareon Giga Impact vs. 80 HP / 80 Def Rapidash: 105-124 (70 - 82.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

80 Atk Rapidash Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Infernape: 46-54 (27.8 - 32.7%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
0 Atk Infernape Earthquake vs. 80 HP / 80 Def Rapidash: 116-138 (77.3 - 92%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

80 Atk Rapidash Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Magmortar: 46-54 (27 - 31.7%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
0 SpA Magmortar Thunderbolt vs. 80 HP / 80 SpD Rapidash: 60-71 (40 - 47.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Magmortar Hyper Beam vs. 80 HP / 80 SpD Rapidash: 95-112 (63.3 - 74.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

80 Atk Rapidash Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Spiritomb: 63-75 (44 - 52.4%) -- 16% chance to 2HKO
0 SpA Spiritomb Dark Pulse vs. 80 HP / 80 SpD Rapidash: 60-72 (39.2 - 47%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (Remember the recoil damage)

80 Atk Rapidash Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Togekiss: 67-81 (35.2 - 42.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Togekiss Water Pulse vs. 80 HP / 80 SpD Rapidash: 82-98 (53.5 - 64%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
 

Merritt

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You forgot that everyone except Cynthia has 0 IV.
No. This is false. Whoever told you this was lying.

Every single member of the Elite Four has 31 IVs. Every trainer in the game has 0 EVs (your Pokemon shouldn't though so I'm not sure what the hell is going on with sumwun's calcs) though.

Here's the level 56 Weavile vs Flareon calc sumwun, 15 IVs and 100 EVs because I could definitely see maxing out on protein for weavile.

100 Atk Weavile Dig vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Flareon: 122-144 (79.7 - 94.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
 

cityscapes

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Also, why is Azelf a whole tier above Platinum Sneasel when Azelf is available later, has weaker attack stats, and is more reliant on non-STAB attacks?
in a word: movepool.

azelf has a good stab move in extrasensory, which it learns one level after it is caught. it can use the fire blast tm (which is readily available in lake verity, and can also be bought in the veilstone department store if needed) to hit steel-types. nasty plot (by level up) helps it sweep by setting up on passive bois like bronzor.

now let's take a look at sneasel.

sneasel definitely has comparable stats to azelf, especially after it's evolved. using the razor claw from team galactic hq immediately also gives it access to night slash at level 36. dig from ruin maniac cave hits steels. not too bad at all. so what sets them apart?
  • unlike azelf, sneasel doesn't get any boosting moves naturally (besides lol nasty plot). it can use swords dance, but that sucks because you need to play slots to get it. this is relevant because most of the late game guys have teams instead of individual mons, so setting up can help you kill them all instead of 2hkoing one then needing to switch out and heal.
  • ice punch is pretty bad too because you need a bunch of shards to get it. outside of that your ice stab is either 40 bp or seems that way because of sneasel's low special attack. the part that sucks is that you really need ice punch, because your matchup vs a certain late game dragon and a member of the elite four depends on it.
  • the defensive typings. now i understand that defensive typing is kinda irrelevant on an offensive mon, but 125 attack is only going to be getting clean ohkos on super effective hits (so everything else can live a hit and hit back). azelf has three weaknesses while sneasel has five. because of this, dig doesn't actually help sneasel that much because man you might do like 60% to a steel but it's going to destroy you in return.
  • azelf can use the choice specs from celestic town. sneasel can't, no matter how appealing specs surf/ice beam/focus blast/dark pulse looks. specs azelf is truly incredible because you start actually killing frailer guys on neutral hits
sneasel isn't a bad mon at all with ice punch and swords dance, but the time investment you need to get those really holds it back. with azelf you can just give it a rare candy to get extrasensory (or grind one level if you're more patient) and just whale on the rest of the game.
 

Karxrida

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level 54 Azelf vs. Aaron
0 SpA Azelf Extrasensory vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Heracross: 128-152 (81 - 96.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 Atk Heracross Megahorn vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Azelf: 206-246 (127.9 - 152.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

0 SpA Azelf Flamethrower vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Drapion: 59-70 (38.5 - 45.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 Atk Drapion X-Scissor vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Azelf: 78-92 (48.4 - 57.1%) -- 87.1% chance to 2HKO

Level 56 Azelf vs. Flint
0 SpA Azelf Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Houndoom: 62-73 (39.7 - 46.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Houndoom Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Azelf: 122-146 (73 - 87.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

0 SpA Azelf Extrasensory vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Flareon: 57-67 (37.2 - 43.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Flareon Overheat vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Azelf: 109-129 (65.2 - 77.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 Atk Flareon Giga Impact vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Azelf: 102-120 (61 - 71.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

0 SpA Azelf Extrasensory vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Magmortar: 61-73 (35.8 - 42.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Magmortar Flamethrower vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Azelf: 97-115 (58 - 68.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Level 57 Azelf vs. Lucian
0 SpA Azelf Flamethrower vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Espeon: 51-61 (33.3 - 39.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Espeon Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Azelf: 108-128 (63.5 - 75.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Level 59 Azelf vs. Cynthia
0 SpA Azelf Grass Knot (100 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Milotic: 88-104 (44.8 - 53%) -- 25% chance to 2HKO
The Milotic knows mirror coat, which can OHKO Azelf after Milotic is hit by grass knot.

Besides, the TMs for flamethrower, thunderbolt, and grass knot will always be valuable and wanted by teammates.
I feel like a number of these calcs are cherrypicked and not really indicative of Azelf's performance, since you're purposefully throwing it against some terrible matchups it has no business fighting (a couple Dark-types and Flareon, which is known for its Special bulk) and it has no EVs. Plus Azelf gets Shadow Ball, which could probably let it beat Espeon.

I'd like to know how consistently Cynthia's AI will use Mirror Coat, because it's (maybe) not an auto-lose if it goes for Surf or Aqua Ring. Besides, it's not like Infernape -- which, let's be honest, is the only other viable user of GK -- is a whole lot better for Milotic.
 
  • unlike azelf, sneasel doesn't get any boosting moves naturally (besides lol nasty plot). it can use swords dance, but that sucks because you need to play slots to get it. this is relevant because most of the late game guys have teams instead of individual mons, so setting up can help you kill them all instead of 2hkoing one then needing to switch out and heal.
  • ice punch is pretty bad too because you need a bunch of shards to get it. outside of that your ice stab is either 40 bp or seems that way because of sneasel's low special attack. the part that sucks is that you really need ice punch, because your matchup vs a certain late game dragon and a member of the elite four depends on it.
  • the defensive typings. now i understand that defensive typing is kinda irrelevant on an offensive mon, but 125 attack is only going to be getting clean ohkos on super effective hits (so everything else can live a hit and hit back). azelf has three weaknesses while sneasel has five. because of this, dig doesn't actually help sneasel that much because man you might do like 60% to a steel but it's going to destroy you in return.
  • azelf can use the choice specs from celestic town. sneasel can't, no matter how appealing specs surf/ice beam/focus blast/dark pulse looks. specs azelf is truly incredible because you start actually killing frailer guys on neutral hits
sneasel isn't a bad mon at all with ice punch and swords dance, but the time investment you need to get those really holds it back. with azelf you can just give it a rare candy to get extrasensory (or grind one level if you're more patient) and just whale on the rest of the game.
By the time the player can find wild Sneasels, he/she would already have accumulated enough money for the swords dance TM (it only costs P80,000) and enough shards to teach ice punch. Azelf, on the other hand, is relying on grass knot to hit ground types, which comes from a TM that's only obtainable once.
I feel like a number of these calcs are cherrypicked and not really indicative of Azelf's performance, since you're purposefully throwing it against some terrible matchups it has no business fighting (a couple Dark-types and Flareon, which is known for its Special bulk) and it has no EVs. Plus Azelf gets Shadow Ball, which could probably let it beat Espeon.
They are cherrypicked. They were my response to "it destroys everything except Spiritomb."
 

cityscapes

Take care of yourself.
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By the time the player can find wild Sneasels, he/she would already have accumulated enough money for the swords dance TM (it only costs P80,000) and enough shards to teach ice punch. Azelf, on the other hand, is relying on grass knot to hit ground types, which comes from a TM that's only obtainable once.
ok i'll give you the swords dance point because while you're going to be spending some money on balls/potions, it's not unreasonable to assume you'll have enough to buy the tm. ice punch is a bit shakier because you need six blue shards to get it, and looking at their locations not only are some hidden (requiring constant dowsing/beforehand knowledge) but you also need to sidetrack to one of wayward cave/fuego ironworks/underground to get the six you need. but these things aren't too out of the way.

but what on earth does azelf need grass knot for? it beats most ground types already with levitate+extrasensory/fire blast coverage. i guess you could make a case for bertha's rock wrecker rhyperior in sand but man just buy x defense then
 
but what on earth does azelf need grass knot for? it beats most ground types already with levitate+extrasensory/fire blast coverage. i guess you could make a case for bertha's rock wrecker rhyperior in sand but man just buy x defense then
Her Hippowdon knows crunch in all three versions, and her Rhyperior knows megahorn. I guess you can use a whole bunch of x defends, but it's much easier to use a different Pokemon.
 
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Currently Gastly(trade) is rank A in pokemon platinum. I'm nominating it for rank B.

I've played through all the games quite a bit, and subsequently used Gastly as Gengar is one of my favorite mon's. However it isn't good enough to merit an A rating IMO. Gastly itself is awful early on, relying heavily on power-grinding or babying. Furthermore once fully evolved it is not effective enough to offset the cost of both obtaining, and running it.

-It does not have the power to blow past most pokemon that it comes in against, and its lack of defence means it is often trading hits leaving it on 30%~ health after nabbing a 2HKO.
-It's coverage options, while powerful, are situational and limited. Thunder is nice against Wake, but after this their only real use is to hit Cynthias Milotic and Togekiss, both of which will heavily dent gengar if it misses. Thunderbolt is not strong enough against these two to warrent mentioning. Focus Blast is nice against Candice, although Gengars frailty + Hail means a miss can be fatal. Can nab a KO on Cynthias Lucario but again a miss is GG. Same story against Cyrus. Icy Wind while nice against the Chomp will not KO. Also pretty weak in general although the speed drop can be nice to be fair if you dont mind sacking/ reviving. Sludge Bomb was an ehhhhh STAB move that hit some things harder than shadow-ball, but still doesn't grab any significant KO's- gengar will only 2HKO and receive a hit in return dropping it below half HP.

Gengars only real utility was against Lucian, and even then Bronzong was annoyingly bulky while doing massive damage back with Gyro/ Psychic. Mr.Mime was similar due to its high special defence.
Special mention for switching in on Rivals Snorlax and hitting back with a Focus Blast that won't KO but at least will do some damage.

Overall just a mon that looks great on paper but plays out very mediocre in-game.

Note that i was playing on battle mode [SET] and not [SWITCH], and if you play in SWITCH it may make gengar slighty more usable in a hit-and-run capacity. My nomination still stands, however.
 

Conni

katharsis
Currently Gastly(trade) is rank A in pokemon platinum. I'm nominating it for rank B.

I've played through all the games quite a bit, and subsequently used Gastly as Gengar is one of my favorite mon's. However it isn't good enough to merit an A rating IMO. Gastly itself is awful early on, relying heavily on power-grinding or babying. Furthermore once fully evolved it is not effective enough to offset the cost of both obtaining, and running it.

-It does not have the power to blow past most pokemon that it comes in against, and its lack of defence means it is often trading hits leaving it on 30%~ health after nabbing a 2HKO.
-It's coverage options, while powerful, are situational and limited. Thunder is nice against Wake, but after this their only real use is to hit Cynthias Milotic and Togekiss, both of which will heavily dent gengar if it misses. Thunderbolt is not strong enough against these two to warrent mentioning. Focus Blast is nice against Candice, although Gengars frailty + Hail means a miss can be fatal. Can nab a KO on Cynthias Lucario but again a miss is GG. Same story against Cyrus. Icy Wind while nice against the Chomp will not KO. Also pretty weak in general although the speed drop can be nice to be fair if you dont mind sacking/ reviving. Sludge Bomb was an ehhhhh STAB move that hit some things harder than shadow-ball, but still doesn't grab any significant KO's- gengar will only 2HKO and receive a hit in return dropping it below half HP.

Gengars only real utility was against Lucian, and even then Bronzong was annoyingly bulky while doing massive damage back with Gyro/ Psychic. Mr.Mime was similar due to its high special defence.
Special mention for switching in on Rivals Snorlax and hitting back with a Focus Blast that won't KO but at least will do some damage.

Overall just a mon that looks great on paper but plays out very mediocre in-game.

Note that i was playing on battle mode [SET] and not [SWITCH], and if you play in SWITCH it may make gengar slighty more usable in a hit-and-run capacity. My nomination still stands, however.
I too agree that Gastly isn't as good in-game as it is on paper. For the early-game there's not a lot of important uses for Gastly such as the gyms as it doesn't hit or tank a lot of mons early-game super effectively, even the Posion-types in the grass gym due to its frailness. Gastly also does horribly against the Commanders as Zubat's Bite already threatens it while Purugly is very bulky, resist Ghost-type moves, and also has Bite while Skuntank is a natural counter to Gastly and its evolutionary line. You'd think Haunter would do good in the Fighting-type gym but practically all the Machokes and Machops cary Foresight while going against Meditite is risky as some carry Confusion but some do not but Shadow Punch threatens it as well so its a basis of who can defeat each other first which isn't reliable.

As Haunter later on before it is traded, which the ideal time it should be around the 5th or 6th gym, it doesn't do as good because of that point in the game, there isn't a lot of things Haunter does well against. In Platinum, Haunter does well in the Ghost-type gym but has to be careful of faster Pokemon like Mismagius and higher leveled opposing Haunters but otherwise it does good. The emphasis on types Haunter is good at defeating is not really evident at the point where Haunter is present in the game (4th and 5th gym) therefore making it only useful against unsignificant route trainers that happen to carry Pokemon Haunter checks.

For Diamond and Pearl, a Gengar is needed for the Ghost-type gym if you don't have anything else to combat it, like in the case of Platinum and Haunter, your newly evolved Gengar should be higher leveled than the other Haunters and the Gengar to defeat them and be faster than the other Ghost-types and hopefully OHKO or else it could take severe super effective damage back and possibly not live due to its poor bulk. Again refrain from battling Drifblim and Mismagius, the former is rather bulky and can hit adequately hard while the other possibly KOs you easily but if you outspeed it you can take it out, as for the gym leader's Gengar, its up to who's faster. After the 6th gym Gengar's effectiveness starts to deteriorate as you get more involved with Team Galactic as they carry a lot of Pokemon that can take out Gengar pretty easily such as Stunky and Houndoom as Dark-types appear more late-game. Again, all the commanders can defeat Gengar with ease except for Bronsor and Kadabra (DP) which is practically Gengar bait. As for why Toxicroak beats you, Faint Attack. Cyrus is literally the worst thing to happen for Gengar carrying an array of Pokemon that carry Dark-type moves. There's not a lot of Pokemon Gengar can effectively target when you face your rival as its just an exchange of neutral attacks while the Normal-type Pokemon have powerful coverage while sadly the Poison typing of Gengar unluckily doesn't do super effective damage to Barry's two only Grass-types: Roserade and Torterra. As for the Elite Four, Gengar is really useful against the Psychic-type Elite Four as long as it can KO them without getting hit back as it can easily get revenge killed by them, as for the other elite four members, again, it is an exchange of neutral attacks. As for Cynthia, Gengar doesn't have any targets that are hit super effectively with STAB by it.

On the other hand, Gengar is a nice Pokemon to have coverage TMs on meaning it's movepool is vast and can be used as great backup Pokemon, but for its STAB moves, it needs to KO with it or else it will end up being the one KOed, furthermore it is an adequate special attacker in terms of neutral moves. Overall Gengar is a really good special attacker and one of the most efficient Ghost-types, but its just that if Gengar and a Pokemon it can take on in-game start on equal footing, Gengar's poor bulk will let it down unless it completely walls the opponent which means Gengar is a great Pokemon to clean up weakened Pokemon usually without fail making this its primary function if you choose to run it on your team. Sadly, Gengar isn't as good in-game as it is competitiveness and therefore I too agree with it being moved to B.

As always I'm always listening for ideas about the matter so if anyone objects or wants to question what I'm saying by all means do, if there is anything I've missed on Gengar for DPP then please tell me, as I may be missing out on somethings as I have much more personal experience with Platinum than Diamond and Pearl. I'd love to hear your opinion on Gengar to see any other reasonings for and against, or any other Pokemon really as always I love to see discussion on in game tier lists, especially a generation I knowingly love and grew up with!
 
This thread is pretty much dead, but I guess potential tier changes are interesting even if the OP isn't here to really do it. As for the subject of the tier change, if you're catching and using a Gastly as early as possible, then I think you're doing it wrong. Until either it reaches level 29 or you reach the Route 212 tutor, its best attack is night shade, so you'd want to get it right before one of those two events to minimize the exp. share training. This is the best way I know to use a Gastly (with trade, of course):
When you reach the Lost Tower, you can go inside and catch a level 21 Gastly.
When it reaches level 29, it learns shadow ball and can be evolved into Gengar. You can also teach it hypnosis, focus blast, or thunder around this time.
When you reach Celestic Town, pick up the choice specs.
When you reach the Galactic HQ, you can pick up a TM for sludge bomb.
Gastly itself is awful early on, relying heavily on power-grinding or babying. Furthermore once fully evolved it is not effective enough to offset the cost of both obtaining, and running it.
8 levels of uselessness is definitely pretty bad by A-tier standards, but I don't think it's deal-breaking.
-It does not have the power to blow past most pokemon that it comes in against, and its lack of defence means it is often trading hits leaving it on 30%~ health after nabbing a 2HKO.
Attack power isn't a big problem for Gengar. It can 2HKO quite a bit of stuff if give a choice specs and taught the right moves (and isn't underleveled). Its low defenses does mean it's taking a lot of damage as it's battling and it finds difficulty sweeping opponents, but a Pokemon doesn't need to sweep everything in order to be A tier. When I play Pokemon games with teams of 4-5 Pokemon, each Pokemon only needs to be able to 1v1 1-2 opposing Pokemon per battle in order to win those battles. I think an important quality that sets A Pokemon apart from B Pokemon is that A Pokemon are more adaptable and is more likely able to 1v1 a given opponent, while using several B Pokemon might leave some important opponents "unable to be 1v1'd". Gengar usually does have this flexibility, especially when it has choice specs.
-It's coverage options, while powerful, are situational and limited. Thunder is nice against Wake, but after this their only real use is to hit Cynthias Milotic and Togekiss, both of which will heavily dent gengar if it misses. Thunderbolt is not strong enough against these two to warrent mentioning. Focus Blast is nice against Candice, although Gengars frailty + Hail means a miss can be fatal. Can nab a KO on Cynthias Lucario but again a miss is GG. Same story against Cyrus. Icy Wind while nice against the Chomp will not KO. Also pretty weak in general although the speed drop can be nice to be fair if you dont mind sacking/ reviving. Sludge Bomb was an ehhhhh STAB move that hit some things harder than shadow-ball, but still doesn't grab any significant KO's- gengar will only 2HKO and receive a hit in return dropping it below half HP.
You might be underselling focus blast (or I'm overselling it; at this point I'm not sure anymore). When combined with shadow ball, they form one of the few completely unresisted 2-move combinations. In addition to Candice and Cynthia, focus blast helps a lot against the many normal Pokemon and rock Pokemon throughout the whole game, as well as let Gengar sweep the steel gym. The accuracy is relatively annoying, but still soft-resetting for focus blast isn't too hard.
Gengars only real utility was against Lucian, and even then Bronzong was annoyingly bulky while doing massive damage back with Gyro/ Psychic. Mr.Mime was similar due to its high special defence.
I think Lucian is one of the worse fights for Gengar. It just can't seem to get enough OHKO's to avoid the super effective psychic attacks. I definitely disagree with the "only", as Gengar can help a lot against Volkner, Aaron, and Bertha just by spamming neutrally effective STAB attacks, and the choice specs make it significantly better in the Pokemon League. It can also use hypnosis to contribute to just about any battle (though hypnosis also has bad accuracy).
I too agree that Gastly isn't as good in-game as it is on paper. For the early-game there's not a lot of important uses for Gastly such as the gyms as it doesn't hit or tank a lot of mons early-game super effectively, even the Posion-types in the grass gym due to its frailness. Gastly also does horribly against the Commanders as Zubat's Bite already threatens it while Purugly is very bulky, resist Ghost-type moves, and also has Bite while Skuntank is a natural counter to Gastly and its evolutionary line. You'd think Haunter would do good in the Fighting-type gym but practically all the Machokes and Machops cary Foresight while going against Meditite is risky as some carry Confusion but some do not but Shadow Punch threatens it as well so its a basis of who can defeat each other first which isn't reliable.
Yes, Gastly sucks against Gardenia, Jupiter, and Fantina, but why are you even trying to use a Gastly in those battles? Jolteon and Scizor can be A tier despite completely missing those battles, so you can use Gastly much less painfully if you let it miss them, too. Why are you so worried about foresight when Gengar resists fighting even after being hit by foresight? Gengar's shadow ball one-shots Meditite, so that shouldn't be a problem, either.
As Haunter later on before it is traded, which the ideal time it should be around the 5th or 6th gym, it doesn't do as good because of that point in the game, there isn't a lot of things Haunter does well against. In Platinum, Haunter does well in the Ghost-type gym but has to be careful of faster Pokemon like Mismagius and higher leveled opposing Haunters but otherwise it does good. The emphasis on types Haunter is good at defeating is not really evident at the point where Haunter is present in the game (4th and 5th gym) therefore making it only useful against unsignificant route trainers that happen to carry Pokemon Haunter checks.
Why do you not evolve Haunter into Gengar immediately after evolving Gastly to Haunter? Why do you need to wait until after the 5th gym?
For Diamond and Pearl, a Gengar is needed for the Ghost-type gym if you don't have anything else to combat it, like in the case of Platinum and Haunter, your newly evolved Gengar should be higher leveled than the other Haunters and the Gengar to defeat them and be faster than the other Ghost-types and hopefully OHKO or else it could take severe super effective damage back and possibly not live due to its poor bulk. Again refrain from battling Drifblim and Mismagius, the former is rather bulky and can hit adequately hard while the other possibly KOs you easily but if you outspeed it you can take it out, as for the gym leader's Gengar, its up to who's faster. After the 6th gym Gengar's effectiveness starts to deteriorate as you get more involved with Team Galactic as they carry a lot of Pokemon that can take out Gengar pretty easily such as Stunky and Houndoom as Dark-types appear more late-game. Again, all the commanders can defeat Gengar with ease except for Bronsor and Kadabra (DP) which is practically Gengar bait. As for why Toxicroak beats you, Faint Attack. Cyrus is literally the worst thing to happen for Gengar carrying an array of Pokemon that carry Dark-type moves.
Gengar is bad against a lot of Team Galactic, but the 6th and 7th gyms have Pokemon that are weak to focus blast, so that's where Gengar can make up for its shortcomings. Mars's Purugly is also weak to focus blast.
There's not a lot of Pokemon Gengar can effectively target when you face your rival as its just an exchange of neutral attacks while the Normal-type Pokemon have powerful coverage while sadly the Poison typing of Gengar unluckily doesn't do super effective damage to Barry's two only Grass-types: Roserade and Torterra. As for the Elite Four, Gengar is really useful against the Psychic-type Elite Four as long as it can KO them without getting hit back as it can easily get revenge killed by them, as for the other elite four members, again, it is an exchange of neutral attacks. As for Cynthia, Gengar doesn't have any targets that are hit super effectively with STAB by it.
As I said earlier, Gengar can hit pretty hard and 1v1 a lot of things (including the rival's and Elite Four's Pokemon) using only neutral attacks. Its base special attack is one of the best in the game, and you do get a free choice specs. Aaron's Drapion doesn't know any dark attacks, which is convenient for Gengar.
On the other hand, Gengar is a nice Pokemon to have coverage TMs on meaning it's movepool is vast and can be used as great backup Pokemon, but for its STAB moves, it needs to KO with it or else it will end up being the one KOed, furthermore it is an adequate special attacker in terms of neutral moves. Overall Gengar is a really good special attacker and one of the most efficient Ghost-types, but its just that if Gengar and a Pokemon it can take on in-game start on equal footing, Gengar's poor bulk will let it down unless it completely walls the opponent which means Gengar is a great Pokemon to clean up weakened Pokemon usually without fail making this its primary function if you choose to run it on your team. Sadly, Gengar isn't as good in-game as it is competitiveness and therefore I too agree with it being moved to B.
I don't think Gengar's poor bulk lets it down that often. It can 2HKO many opponents, so it often wins unless it gets OHKO'd (or outsped). Gengar is definitely not weak enough to get OHKO'd by everything.
 
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I definitely disagree with the "only", as Gengar can help a lot against Volkner, Aaron, and Bertha just by spamming neutrally effective STAB attacks, and the choice specs make it significantly better in the Pokemon League. It can also use hypnosis to contribute to just about any battle (though hypnosis also has bad accuracy).
Gengar does not provide enough damage output on it's neutral STABS to warrant special mention over any other neutral mons used against those trainers, it has less favorable match-ups due to its typing that it can take advantage of its super-effective attacks, and those match-ups themselves are not entirely favorable as demonstrated in the Galactic Boss/ Lucian Fights.

It was a real let down in-game considering the leveling put in, as well as the TM's and Move Tutor attacks used and felt significantly less useful than something else in the A rank like Gyarados or Garchomp.
 
I planned on using Gengar in my next run of Platinum, but decided against it when I saw how few positive matchups it had on pure STAB alone (meaning it would need to rely on TMs for positive matchups). Tbh, I was surprised to see it was A rank on this tier list bc yes it is fast and strong, but low defenses really are an issue for it if it can't OHKO opponents (for reference, I have used Gengar in Firered, so while the special/physical split is different, Gengar's low defenses remain the same). I also definitely agree with Vittorioso that you shouldn't consider neutral STAB vs neutral STAB as positive matchups.

As for a couple nitpicks of Sumwun's argument (which I guess was to keep it in A), I'm not sure where you get the idea that A tier pokemon don't have to be sweeping opponents. While this could be true for pokemon with better bulk, Gengar's low defenses really prevent it from being as efficient as an A tier pokemon should be in my opinion. Using Choice Specs on a pokemon like Gengar is really useful, but you may be forced into switching more often than you want, such as being locked into Thunder/bolt on water-types, but then facing a water/ground type. Little things like this may be uncommon, but they do detract from efficiency. And the bad accuracy of Focus Miss can be a real pain that again hurts efficiency because unlike other pokemon that learn Focus Blast, Gengar can't afford to take extra hits (which in turn causes you to use more healing items and lowers efficiency further). Also, I'm not really sure what Sumwun's point about "soft-resetting" for Focus Blast is. If you are referring to resetting the game if you miss in an important battle, then I think that really shows how inefficient Gengar can be. That's an honestly ridiculous proposition and shouldn't be considered in tiering (otherwise it opens a whole other can of worms and we can start using resetting for many things that are rng-based). If it wasn't obvious already, I support Gengar dropping to B.
 
Maybe you are starting to convince me that Gengar isn't an A tier Pokemon, but I still wanted to say that I don't see why soft-resetting in general is so ridiculous. Using focus blast as the example, if you need to use focus blast once in a battle, then there's a 70% chance you don't need to soft-reset at all. If you need to use it twice, then you'll need to soft-reset 51% of the time, which means statistically you'll be attempting that battle twice. Each soft-reset takes 1-3 minutes, which looks to me like no big deal. And usually there are even more battles where focus blast isn't needed at all. I don't see how this "opens a can of worms" as long as we consider the fact that some soft-resets take longer than others. Soft-resetting to turn a specific tile into a Feebas tile would be ridiculous, but the focus blast thing only takes 1-3 minutes per battle.
Again, 1-3 minutes adds up, especially if it takes more than 1 reset. Nobody wants to reset while playing pokemon for a basic playthrough and my point about the "can of worms" was that if we start being ok with resetting because of a miss (aka rng), then we could start resetting because of a freeze, or getting critted, etc. and I think that starts to defeat the purpose of the in-game tiering lists or at least defeats the purpose of using efficiency as a standard (you could use items X accuracy or whatever to fix these rng issues, but that doesn't require resetting - but still lowers efficiency).

You mention "statistically you'll be attempting that battle twice," well that's still just RNG - it could be more, could be less. But this goes back to my first point of this post; nobody wants to reset ever. Pokemon is easy enough (tho I admit D/P/Pt is harder than some of the other handheld games) that you shouldn't need to / want to reset - it interrupts the flow of playing to start and stop because of a miss or two.

Personally, I would take the miss in stride and still try to win the battle even if my miss leads to my mon being KO'd. However, again I think this shows inefficiency if a pokemon like Gengar is relying a move with poor accuracy to gain a couple more "positive" matchups on top of those poor defenses which are exploited by the aforementioned misses.
 

Karxrida

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Geodude (No Trade) is listed twice in the DP rankings: once in D and once in E. I assume it's just supposed to be E considering its placement for Platinum.

Though I'd argue it should be D. It's not total garbage during the beginning of the game and has a good matchup against Eternia Jupiter's Skuntank (don't lead though since her Zubat has Giga Drain).
 

Fireburn

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Necroing this thread because I recently completed a run of Platinum using a team some friends picked. The team I ended up using was Torterra/Rampardos/Whiscash/Houndoom/Gallade/Yanmega. I think the rankings are mostly accurate for these 6 (Barboach is probably fine in D Rank instead of E), except for Rampardos. I don't think Cranidos is deserving of A rank and it should be demoted.

Cranidos has a lot of issues. While it has good availability and a very large Attack stat, it can often find itself having issues contributing to even fights it has a good matchup against. The first issue is that it's slow and has pretty low bulk for its Speed, so it requires a lot of Potions to keep fighting and will often be outsped and maimed by random stuff unless you constantly flush X Speeds down its throat or at least give it the Rock Polish TM. This is compounded with inconsistent attacks: it will be relying on Rock Tomb (its only physical STAB move until Rock Slide TM at Mt. Coronet) and Take Down for a large portion of the game which are only 80/85 Accuracy respectively, so Cranidos will miss pretty often and when it does miss it will usually get seriously injured or killed. Furthermore, this effort is hardly worth it: while Cranidos is alright at beating mooks and Galactic Grunts (not stupendous because of its low Speed and bulk/accuracy issues), it is horrible against all the Gym Leaders and the majority of the Elite Four. It's only positive matchups for major battles are Cyrus, Aaron and Flint, and even then it's so slow and fragile it needs Rock Polish or an X Speed to actually contribute beyond killing one Pokemon and then dying. There's no guarantee even then it will sweep either since even those matchups have something that can cut short a Rampardos sweep (Cyrus has Intimidate, Aaron has a Scizor, Flint has Mach Punch Infernape).

In short, Cranidos does not fit the definition of A Rank. It should at minimum drop to B Rank, but imo it better fits the definition of C Rank as it is reliant on items to beat even good matchups and is definitely held back by its flaws in Speed, bulk, and consistency.
 

cityscapes

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F-Tier: Reserved for Pokémon who possess the worst efficiency of those available in Pokémon Platinum irrespective of their availability.
the "irrespective of their availability" part should probably be changed, because stuff like heracross and feebas would be good if they weren't really annoying to get

anyway i think that the more common honey tree mons (burmy, combee [you can reset in front of a shaking tree to get a female], maybe cherubi?) should be in a tier above f in platinum.

although you do have to wait a few hours for each encounter, getting the common mon you want isn't too much of a hassle in practice because you have access to multiple honey trees. there's 2 you have immediate access to (floaroma meadow, valley windworks) and another one on route 205 or whatever after you beat mars.

thanks to the new encounter tables in platinum (d/p honey trees usually give you wurmple or a cocoon so they suck), each tree has about a 30% chance to give you combee and a 24% chance to give you burmy. so assuming you beat mars (which you should, the honey tree mon likely won't help much in this matchup) and slather honey on all three trees, you have around a 2/3 chance to get combee and a 56% chance to get burmy. these are good enough odds that it's reasonable to get these mons in a playthrough.

as for their in-game viability, they have pretty bad typings (especially wormadam grass), but as someone who's used mothim, its stats and movepool are actually good enough that it can beat the things it wants to. i can see wormadam trash also doing well because of its steel typing. rise the bugs
 

Codraroll

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anyway i think that the more common honey tree mons (burmy, combee [you can reset in front of a shaking tree to get a female], maybe cherubi?) should be in a tier above f in platinum.

although you do have to wait a few hours for each encounter, getting the common mon you want isn't too much of a hassle in practice because you have access to multiple honey trees. there's 2 you have immediate access to (floaroma meadow, valley windworks) and another one on route 205 or whatever after you beat mars.

thanks to the new encounter tables in platinum (d/p honey trees usually give you wurmple or a cocoon so they suck), each tree has about a 30% chance to give you combee and a 24% chance to give you burmy. so assuming you beat mars (which you should, the honey tree mon likely won't help much in this matchup) and slather honey on all three trees, you have around a 2/3 chance to get combee and a 56% chance to get burmy. these are good enough odds that it's reasonable to get these mons in a playthrough.

as for their in-game viability, they have pretty bad typings (especially wormadam grass), but as someone who's used mothim, its stats and movepool are actually good enough that it can beat the things it wants to. i can see wormadam trash also doing well because of its steel typing. rise the bugs
I used Vespiquen in a Platinum playthrough I haven't yet completed, and I can definitely say that once you get it, it doesn't feel like an F-tier 'mon. If you somehow manage to evolve Combee before Gardenia, it will tear through her team like paper with STAB Bug Bite, and it gets Power Gem immediately upon evolution (BP 80, 100 % accuracy - even if it's not STAB, it'll probably be the strongest move in your team at that point). Later, the Order moves will be quite helpful too, with Heal Order being available from level 25 and Attack Order giving you a nice 90 BP STAB move as early as level 37. It even gets Toxic by leveling up.

However, actually finding it does require you to leave your DS for some time, and then do a few soft resets to find a female, so it's pretty antithetical to "an efficient playthrough". I mean, most players wouldn't play the game in one sitting, and if you play up to Floaroma Town in the evening and do the honey trees in the morning, you won't spend much play time, but if you plan to start the game and play for five hours straight you definitely don't want to go for early Vespiquen. That being said, it's easy to slather some honey around whenever you take a break, then come back to find Vespiquen later, because of Combee's high encounter rate in honey trees, so you can feasibly get it at a later point.

So I'm really torn on Vespiquen. Had it been an encounter in regular grass, the same it was in XY, it would easily be a C tier 'mon. But it will take at least six hours to find, which is a major drawback. Then again, you don't have to spend those six hours doing anything at all, or even have the game turned on for that matter, so it's not as clear-cut as that either. Overall, I think it could be bumped up from F, though.
 
IMO D/P Shellos is quite a bit better than the D rank it currently holds.

Availability: Valley Windworks; fairly early.
Typing: Water/Ground. Good dual-STAB for offense; ; unfortunately not quite as many resistances as mono-Water and an annoying x4-weakness to Grass.
Stats: Solid bulk, decent Special Attack. Horrendous Speed, which means it'll usually take a hit.
Movepool: Functional right out of the box thanks to Water Pulse, gets Mud Bomb not much later; gets by on these moves until HM Surf. Movepool without TMs: Surf/Mud Bomb/Body Slam/Recover(this comes very late though). Can learn Earthquake, Ice Beam and Stone Edge via TMs, doesn't really need them IMO. Can usually spare a slot for HM Waterfall, if needed.
Major Battles: Good answer to Hilda's Lucario, Bryon and Volkner; good contributor versus E4 Bertha and Flint. Do not use versus Gardenia and Candice; be very careful versus Fantinas Mismagius (Energy Ball). Otherwise it can usually be used, but other mons do a better job.
Additional Comments: Gastrodon can 1V1 very many mons thanks to good bulk, typing and movepool; it is hindered by moving literally at a snail's pace and being X4 weak to Grass.

I'd favor a placement in C, alongside Bronzor. Both Gastrodon and Bronzong play similarly in the endgame; Gastrodon has better availability and a more consistent source of damage (mainly thanks to STAB Surf and having a better offensive typing), Bronzong has more resistances and access to Hypnosis. Overall I think Bronzong is slightly better, but not by enough to separate Bronzor and Shellos by a whole tier.
 

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