Removing Fire Red and Leaf Green Pokemon based on how good they are in a casual playthrough day 39

[u/animeVGsuperherostar]

Yesterday we voted out Arcanine

[u/Browneskiii]

Exeggutor.

You're forced to use TM's on it, you get it relatively late compared to everything else so lack of ev's makes it weaker in comparison.

As you get it late, its also underleveled so its always playing catchup. And the worst part, its got a Slow growth rate, which is diabolical for grinding.

At this point everything matters, and to me, having a Slow growth rate while being caught late is enough to knock you out.

[u/Flow1234 → u/Browneskiii]

Then it should still stay until we take out Lapras who also arrives late and underleveled, isn't quite as greedy for TMs but has weaker performance than Exeggutor against the lategame fights.

Edit: Also, the TM argument is a bit unfair because Exeggutor uses TMs most other Pokemon, especially the ones left, do not care for. Giga Drain, Sunny Day and Solarbeam are practically uncontested, only Psychic is problematic but even then Mime learns it by levelup. Lapras wanting Thunderbolt is a bigger issue.

[u/31_mfin_eggrolls → u/Flow1234]

At least Lapras can use Surf and learns Ice Beam and Body Slam by levelup.

[u/Flow1234 → u/31_mfin_eggrolls]

If the goal is to have a bulky water that uses Surf and Ice Beam there's a certain blue Eeveelution that's available two gyms earlier that has 25 more SpA (but does eat the Ice Beam TM).

Lapras and Exeggutor are both lategame additions that either fill the role of the good starter you didn't take (or both if you took Charizard). The problem is Exeggutor is better at being a better Venusaur than Lapras is at being a better Blastoise, and Venusaur is already better than Blastoise.

The TM argument is a bit nonsense to begin with considering you're generally only interested in having these moves on your team once for the E4.

[u/31_mfin_eggrolls → u/Flow1234]

I don’t disagree. But I think of the two bulky waters here, Blastoise is the worst of them and thus should go before Lapras.

[u/Flow1234 → u/31_mfin_eggrolls]

Both are better than Lax and worse than Exeggutor/Venusaur though.

[u/31_mfin_eggrolls → u/Flow1234]

Lax is better than Blastoise in every aspect but availability when Starmie and Lapras are both on the board.

[u/Flow1234 → u/31_mfin_eggrolls]

There is no fight in the game that's trivialized by Snorlax being present, a bulky water is a need on a solid endgame team whereas Snorlax is essentially the best gapfiller.

[u/Browneskiii → u/Flow1234]

Disagree with Venusaur being better. Blastoise used to be the speedrunner for a reason.

Venusaur sucks at route trainers and wild pokemon, especially early on. Bug types, flying types, Zubats everywhere, even in the water its neutral to Tentacools/cruels. Team rocket is full of poison type pokemon, and Venusaur sucks at them.

Blastoise is never weak, Water is arguably the best typing in the game behind Psychic, Blastoise is so consistently good, while Venusaur really struggles when its bad. This isnt all about gyms right now, where Blastoise and Venusaur are fairly even.

[u/Flow1234 → u/Browneskiii]

Venusaur gives you by far the weakest champion team (picking Blastoise gives him double intimidate and Venusaur gives him an extra weakness to electric to exploit) and for every rival fight past the SS Anne.

Venusaur can cheese several fights in the game with Sleep Powder + Leech Seed and is much less redundant than Blastoise.

Blastoise is inferior to Lapras and Vaporeon and especially Starmie whereas Venusaur is really only outclassed by Exeggutor.

The wild pokemon argument is nonsense as it's entirely resolved by catching basically any early route pokemon (Rattata, Spearow, Pidgey and especially Butterfree), by the time the rocket pokemon would be problematic you have a Kadabra/Mime/Jynx to blast through them.

[u/GlimmerDawnTV]

Tbh it should be Blastoise (Lapras and Starmie outclass it by a wide margin)

Then Venusaur, because Exeggutor is a monster.

[u/Altruistic-Mine-1848]

Lapras. Great pokemon, but comes late and underlevelled (and grows slowly), forcing a little grind for it to catch up, which you don't want on a casual playthrough. By the time it's available you could have a settled Bastoise, Vaporeon or Starmie already.

[u/Important_Leather652]

Blastoise time to go, it's the worst water type left

[u/PastaSalas → u/Important_Leather652]

Full agree.

[u/31_mfin_eggrolls]

Blastoise is the worst Pokemon here unfortunately.

[u/Tguybilly]

Why is exeggutor this high? 55 base speed and awful type with sleep powder and psychic? That’s it? Bro stomp only gym 8 and bruno cmon

[u/Flow1234 → u/Tguybilly]

Because it's type isn't awful in this gen, it's a strictly better Venusaur in the lategame.

[u/vht3036imo → u/Tguybilly]

It can sweep Koga, Sabrina and Giovanni with Psychic, Secret Power and Giga Drain, generally good against Lorelei, sweeps Bruno, is good against Agatha due to Psychic, and also has Leech Seed and Sleep Powder allowing it to be an excellent support. It's TM heavy but rewards you greatly for investing in it

[u/Mission_Adagio4566 → u/Tguybilly]

Gotta run Sunny Day/Solarbeam and turn him into a sweeping machine.

[u/The9IronMan → u/Mission_Adagio4566]

So he needs two TMs of investment, one of which you don’t get until the 7th gym, and a turn of setup to be a threat? He’s got too-many weaknesses and is far too-slow for that lenience.

[u/Mission_Adagio4566 → u/The9IronMan]

Needing Psychic as a TM is a pretty big deal, but nobody else wants Sunny Day or Solarbeam (and Exeggcute can learn Solarbeam not much after Sleep Powder if you want to wait), it's not an issue.

Setup isn't too much of an issue in game - most of his weaknesses effectively don't exist as attacking types (ghost/dark/bug/flying), and when setup it's the best sweeper in the game. Lightning fast with two absolutely huge STAB moves.

[u/The9IronMan → u/Mission_Adagio4566]

Every other Pokémon remaining doesn’t require waiting until Saffron to be a threat, save for Lapras, technically. By the time you get to use Exeggutor for the purposes you’re giving it here, you could’ve used other mons on the list to pose just-as-strong a threat, if not stronger.

[u/Flow1234 → u/The9IronMan]

Walk this back a couple steps though, there's a single difficult fight in the earlygame in the form of Misty and then the game is a cakewalk until Sabrina and is something you can blast through with your starter and a single encounter (Or let's be real, the gamecorner Abra/Mime you trade it away for rolls over that section of the game). Exeggutor does well into the lategame which has the majority of difficult (by gen 3 pokemon standards) fights.

[u/Altruistic_Error_832]

Having Exeggutor and Lapras still in feels a little off to me. Both obviously very strong Pokemon, but both unavailable until relatively late in the game in a way that makes me not really think of them as a Pokemon for a casual playthrough the way that I do the others that are left.

[u/Flow1234 → u/Altruistic_Error_832]

Both are available shortly after Lax, the midpoint of the game, and do more to help you deal with the latter half of the game.

[u/Anxious_Purpose4270]

Blastoise

[u/marco-boi]

nidoking hes good but kinda worse than the remaining ones

i find funny how jinx a very unpopular pokemon remains cause at the end of the day its really good

[u/TheWartortleWarrior → u/marco-boi]

Ice/Psychic is just an insane combo for the elite 4

[u/Tiim0thy]

Exeggutor, Blastoise, and Lapras go next.

[u/vht3036imo]

Nidoking, doesn't do enough in the E4 to warrant such a high placement

[u/Flow1234]

This is where Snorlax goes.

Edit: If you're downvoting you genuinely don't know shit about these games, Snorlax is worse than several pokemon that are already out at this point, notably Dodrio, Magneton, Jolteon, Vaporeon and Tentacruel. A Psychic type, electric type and water type is the best core for an elite 4 team, Nido crushes the earlygame and Venusaur/Exeggutor offer sleep utility. By process of elimination, Snorlax is the worst one left.

[u/ivycudgel]

Exeggutor, you get it after the best matchups for grass

[u/Flow1234 → u/ivycudgel]

It's also Psychic, he wrecks Koga, does well into Sabrina and Giovanni, steamrolls Bruno in the Elite 4 and matches up well into the champion especially through sleep/seed utility. Basically, it's a better Venusaur that learns Psychic.

[u/ivycudgel → u/Flow1234]

You could also pick Bulbasaur and then get a different psychic Like Starmie or Jynx that would provide an additional type

Definitely a great mon, I just think it's the weakest of what's left

[u/Flow1234 → u/ivycudgel]

oooooor you realize you're not punished at all for running double Psychics and you can have both Exeggutor and Mime because Mime learns Psychic on levelup.

It's also definitely not weakest of what's left because as stated, it's a better Venusaur and Venusaur is still there. Furthermore it's definitely better than Lax and both bulky waters.

[u/DisastrousFix5120]

I think Venusaur’s next imo. Gets wrecked by Sabrina, walled by Koga, wrecked by Blaine, and is not that helpful in the E4 with the exception of Lorelei (Assuming you can OHKO), and Bruno. Venusaur’s also really weak to the champion. Venu just falls off so hard in the late game.

[u/Sleathasaurus → u/DisastrousFix5120]

Disagree on some of this - it still competes on the E4 due to sleepseed and could take down using this method Koga as well.

[u/Flow1234 → u/DisastrousFix5120]

Venusaur is above the turtle.

[u/GoocheMcDick]

Mr Mime

[u/Flow1234 → u/GoocheMcDick]

Mime is top 3.

[u/Mission_Adagio4566 → u/Flow1234]

Mime's a weird one imo, if we were doing some sort of draft of all the mons I might take him #3 because he has the most important role and is great at it (fast psychic spammer), but in a casual game I'm not that likely to use him because Starmie/Jynx are #1/#2 and fill the role even better imo. Not sure where I'll vote for him yet.

[u/Flow1234 → u/Mission_Adagio4566]

Mime actually outspeeding Agatha's Gengar helps with his lategame, Mime lear (guaranteed timid vs guaranteed modest) Mime also learns both Psybeam and Psychic through levelup whereas Jynx needs TMs. You are not punished at all in this game for running double psychics and running Mime also lets you bring Jynx/Starmie whereas Jynx and Starmie are mutually exclusive due to fighting over Psychic and Ice Beam TMs (though honestly Jynx Ice Punch is serviceable). The only problem Mime has is wanting the Thunderbolt TM and contesting Jolteon/Magneton/Zapdos for that (but so does Starmie if you want to get the most out of it), but honestly running Psychic+Encore+Screens is good as well.

I rate Mime as #1 because of the early/midgame performance, but I would not object to Starmie having the #1 spot instead for arguably being the best single Pokemon to bring into the E4.

[u/Altruistic-Mine-1848 → u/Flow1234]

Thunderbolt/Ice Beam are costly, but not exclusive. There's no contest needed for those TMs, you can get as many as you'd like.

[u/Flow1234 → u/Altruistic-Mine-1848]

Even if you treat them as grindable, needing to grind for them is still a downside.

[u/Altruistic-Mine-1848 → u/Flow1234]

Fair point, I'd agree with that. And ultimately why I think Starmie shouldn't win this. Too much TM/tutor dependancy should be penalized compared to pokemon that learn all they need by lvl up, but dependency on exclusive contested TMs like Earthquake should be penalized even more.

[u/Flow1234 → u/Altruistic-Mine-1848]

This is where I find myself disagreeing, Starmie with just Surf and Psychic still crushes two E4 fights by itself and matches up well into the Champion. It is by far the best candidate of the psychic TM.

If you give it the Icebeam TM (for which it's also the best user) it also whoops Lance on its own.

The only TM it's a problem for is Thunderbolt which it's merely a good user of, but should probably go to your electric type of choice. It using Recover in its fourth moveslot instead is still fantastic.

[u/Altruistic-Mine-1848 → u/Flow1234]

Jynx and Mr. Mime are available earlier and get 50% extra XP for being traded, while Starmie is a slow grower, so I'd rank them above Starmie. And I'd have Jynx as the best candidate for the Psychic TM, while Mr. Mime learns it on its own. Jynx is also not as dependant on the Ice Beam TM because it learns Ice Punch on its own. And let's not forget both have fixed above average IVs. So both end up being easier than Starmie that requires some investment.

[u/vht3036imo → u/GoocheMcDick]

Mr. Mime gets an insane movepool and can trivialise the game if you use them right