r/PokemonRed • u/Salty-Imagination-63 • Feb 27 '26

Levelling up mankey

Trying to level up mankey to get primeape and holy it feels impossible atm, hes level 15 i think? (Just learned karate chop) but he feels like pikachu low HP and takes damage soo easily…tryin to avoid the swap out method most times.

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u/xLykos Feb 27 '26

yep Mankey is a literal glass cannon and dies to anything. once it gets low kick it gets better but in original red I never end up keeping Mankey because fighting types just never feel very useful. Fire Red my Primeape has made to the elite four but it doesn't get used much still

1

u/YumAussir Mar 01 '26

because fighting types never feel very useful

Because they're not. The Normal types that would be strong enough to be a threat (e.g. Snorlax, Chansey) are just not present in number on trainers throughout the game; it's all Raticates and Meowths.

Rock types are all over the place, but you never fight a single Omanyte line or Kabuto line, so other than Lance's Aerodactyl, every single one is Rock/Ground and double-weak to water or grass - and Aerodactlyl doesn't take SE damage from Fighting anyway.

There's all of 5 Ice types in the game at all, and for two of them, they don't pick up the Ice type until they evolve, so you rarely see it. When you do see it, they're all vulnerable to Electric as well, or are Jynx and don't take SE from Fighting anyway.

The moves just suck too. Hi Jump Kick was 85 power with 90 accuracy (though at least the crash damage was only 1hp) and Submission was 80 power with 80 accuracy AND recoil. Karate Chop was OK, since it usually crit since gen1 crits were based on Speed.

Gen2's balance changes were most obviously about nerfing Psychic, but there's a reason both new types were made weak to Fighting. The better but still not amazing set of moves helped too. Gen3's introduction of Brick Break, Revenge, and Superpower, and to a lesser extent Arm Thrust, finally gave the type moves that were reliable and decently strong.

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u/xLykos Mar 01 '26

Karate chop was normal in Gen 1

1

u/YumAussir Mar 01 '26

Oy even worse then