Top 30 Pokémon off ALL TIME (In-game only)

[Zukrad]

It was the fifth of December, 2011.
On that faithful day, the greatest thread on the entirety of serenes forest was created
​

The Top 30 Fire Emblem Characters of ALL TIME Countdown

by Mekkah​

And now, nearly seven years later, I'm going to do something similar, but with Pokémon.
Every day I can (hopefully every day until the sixth of October arrives), I'm going to post an entry to this top 30, until we get to the to what I think is the best Pokémon available in the franchise.
​

​

​

As a PSA: I'm no trying to force you into using only these Pokémon. You can use whatever Pokémon you want, that is the fun of Pokémon after all. This list is mostly a thought experiment on seeing which Pokémon are the ones that happen to perform the best in the game. Please don't take it personal, and also keep in mind that there are hundreds of Pokémon that are also really really good, just not quite good enough to warrant a spot in this list.​

Of course, to rank them, I'm going to have some rules, as well as explain some factors that make a Pokémon higher in the list than others:

Rules:​

1. Battle Style is toggled set, Exp Share (Gen 6 onwards) is turned off, and the game difficulty is set to hard if available. RNG abusing is not considered, but minor soft resetting is.
2. Pokémon are ranked according to their ingame viability, this is to say, from the moment the game starts until the credits roll for the first time. Of course, this means that things like design, personality and competitive viability are unimportant to this list
3. Pokémon are ranked according to how good the Pokémon is in the game they are available. If a Pokémon appears in several games, its best appearance will be the one that gets ranked (Example: lets say Zigzagoon in RSE is good enough to be 15th in this list, but Zigzagoon in XY is 10th. In this case, I'm putting Zigzagoon only in 10th place, and mention his performance in both XY and RSE)
4. The hypothetical player can only use Pokémon and items available in the game you are playing. It can only use trades to evolve Pokémon that require it. This also excludes event Pokémon.
5. Pokémon are ranked based on their performance, availability, efficiency and consistency. I will explain these things in a bit.
6. I can put different Pokémon in the same spot if I feel they are similar enough, this will get more common the higher I get into the list, as the competition gets tighter. This also allows me to talk about even more Pokémon, which is great!

For a short explanation on what the ranking factors are:

Spoiler: Performance

This is how good the Pokémon is in the game.
This is tied to its stats, typing, ability, growth, initial level, and matchup against relevant battles, and its counted from the moment they join in to the moment they stop being good (or the game ends)

Pokémon that are caught solely to cheese a single battle (Brawly vs Sableye in Saphire and Emerald, or Zoroark in the Necrozma battle) and are useless for the rest of the game will be ranked lower than a Pokémon that is more useful for more time. Of course, this hurts Pokémon that are bad all the time (Tangela in RBY is a good example)

Spoiler: Availability

This is for how long the Pokémon is available in the game.
Its tied to its first appearance in the game, and it affects its performance.

If Pokémon A and Pokémon B are equally as good, but Pokémon B is available only from the middle and onward, while Pokémon A is available from the second route, then Pokémon A will be ranked higher than Pokémon B.

Ah good example of bad availability are Reshiram and Zekrom in Black and White. Sure they are pretty good, but they join late... like really late. After catching them, you can only use them for a total of 2 battles before the credits roll. They aren't anything too special either. They don't really win both battles mindlessly, nor they are so good that you have to use them in said battles.

Spoiler: Efficiency

The higher the effort/reward ratio is, the more efficient a Pokémon is, and there are several ways to interpret this factor:
Lets take Pokémon A and Pokémon B again, Pokémon B can win a batlle, but only by burning the opposing Pokémon and then recovering every turn until the opponent slowly dies, meanwhile Pokémon A just kills the opponent in the first turn. In this case, Pokémon A is more efficient than Pokémon B

Efficiency also applies on how much time/resources a Pokemon consumes to get good. A Pokémon that needs Vitamins, Rarecandies and grinding to be useful while be less efficient than a Pokémon that is good from the get go. Pokémon found under leveled late in the game are going to be less efficient than Pokémon that are foun at a much higher level at the same point or earlier

A good example is Bagon in the Hoenn games. Bagon is available at level 25-35 when you are at the very end of the game. Sure having a Salamence would be a blessing at this points, but you would have to grind him at least 15 levels for it to begin to put weight in your team. This is very annoying, specially this late into the game, and you are better just using the Pokémon you already have rather than taking the effort of making this Pokémon usable.

Spoiler: Consistency

If you play the same game 100 times using Pokémon A, said Pokémon should be equally as good in at least 90 of those runs to be considered consistent.
What I'm trying to say is that Pokémon that rely too heavily in RNG (OHKO moves, critical hits, dodges sleep turns, etc) will be deemed inconsistent and it will hurt its ranking
Consistency also applies to catch rate and appearance rate, a Pokémon that takes too hard to find/catch, or even needing an item that can only be obtained by luck also hurts its consistency

A really good example is Salamence in SM. You can get a fully evolved Salamence right after the first trial iirc. This would be great, an option this strong this early would easily outrank nearly every Pokémon in this list. However, there is a catch: You first have to find a Bagon, which has a 10% chance of appearing. The you need to force him to call for help until Salamence appears, which gets called with a 1% chance... yeah, not very consistent, is it?

So, now that everything is cleared, the ranking will start soon. Feel free to discuss, argue and speculate about the rankings, and who do you think is going to be the best.
This project should take me an entire month assuming I post a new entry every day, so you have plenty of time to try to guess.

I would love to hear you opinions on the matter​

 

[Shiny]

#Eevee

 

[AricAttack]

#Raichu

 

[Dowhat?]

#samurott

 

[NATT44]

#Eevee

I second! #Eevee (and #Vaporeon)
ALSO #TURTWIG
(also recently I've been replaying Pokémon Diamond and OMG has Heracross been secretly awesome this whole time!? he FREAKIN DESTROYS everything guts+burn+facade is the most overpowered combination since overpowered sliced bread like wtf okay that's all bye now)

 

[Artisan]

#Mewtwo

 

[Zukrad]

#Mewtwo

No post game mons btw

I second! #Eevee (and #Vaporeon)
ALSO #TURTWIG
(also recently I've been replaying Pokémon Diamond and OMG has Heracross been secretly awesome this whole time!? he FREAKIN DESTROYS everything guts+burn+facade is the most overpowered combination since overpowered sliced bread like wtf okay that's all bye now)

A bit of a spoiler, but no eeveelution is in the ranking, tho Vaporeon and Espeon were very close to make it
Turwig was also seriously considered, but it ended up being not good enough

Probably all three would have made it if it was top 50

 

[Shiny]

 

[Zukrad]

Well then, lets start this thing
(Also, I only name Pokémon in their "catchable" form, so that's why I name Azurill and Marill in the title but not Azumarill, despite it being the inevitable result of both. I just wanted to make sure to mention this since I didn't do it in the OP)

30. Azurill/Marill (RSE/BW2/XY/ORAS)

Marill is a great example of an all around solid Pokémon. Great typing (Water in pre gen 6, Water/Fairy after), decent movepool and TM/HM access, very good bulk, it evolves really quickly (level 18), good availability anywhere not named from Johto and Sinnoh, and most importantly, its ability: Huge Power, which is the main reason why it is ranked at all.

Huge Power transforms Marill from a rather mediocre mon to an early game nuke. Not may enemies can withstand a Huge Power boosted attack and live to tell the tale. This gets increased if you are playing a game where you get Return early. It will evolve very quickly and cause even more destruction since Azumarill gets a decent attack boost, and every point of attack extra gets duplicated thanks to Huge Power!

The only thing that can stop a Return from Marill in the early game is a high defense rock type, and just happens that Marill is a Water type. In Gen 6 (Being XY the game where Marill performs the best) it gains a Fairy typing, which just makes Marill increase its presence in the battlefield by now having and advantage against Fighting, Dark and Bug Pokémon (and Dragon I guess), while only gaining a weakness against Poison types, which it can often OHKO. In gen 4 and onward, the physical-special split happened, and just made Marill better by having a wider number of moves to abuse, and finally being able to use STAB moves with Huge Power.

Of course, Marill is only 30 in this list, and that's for a number of good reasons. To begin with, the Huge Power hype is always doomed to die down. By the time you reach the 7th or 8th gym, Azumarill's damage output stops being as impressive, and several members of your team probably have a higher attack than your Huge Power Azumarill. Is at this point which another of its weak point starts to be more noticeable: Its lackluster speed. Early on the game Marill/Azumarill's speed is just good enough to outspeed certain threats while having enough bulk to take a hit from the enemies that do outspeed it, but in the late game everything outspeeds Azu and it can take every hit as easily as before. Another big drawback of Marill that is exclusive to BW2 and XY is its pre evolution: Azurill
In BW2 you can't catch a Marill directly, but you have to get it by evolving Azurill, and while being a bit stronger than Marill in the early game thanks to having STAB Return + Huge Power, it lacks the bulk, speed, typing and movepool Marill had. And is not too easy to evolve it thanks to requiring happiness for its evolution, which is one of the most annoying methods of evolution in the game, specially this early in the game, when resources are limited, and with Azurill's bad bulk, staying alive is harder than one would want, which hurts Azurill's friendship.
As a closing point, you need to catch a Huge Power Azurill/Marill for it to be effective in any way, which is only a 50% of happening since Marill has access to another ability, Thick Fat. Sure something this small doesn't seem to be too problematic, but when you are competing for THE BEST OF ALL TIME spot, every little thing counts.

 

[Shiny]

Azumarill is really good with the Belly Drum and Huge Power combined.

 

[Zukrad]

Azumarill is really good with the Belly Drum and Huge Power combined.

Yeah but that's an egv move exclusive which kind of defeats the whole point of using an efficient Pokémon

Belly Drum Aqua Jet Huge power is really good in competitive, but this is not a competitive list

 

[Mercedes-Benz]

ORAS #Mudkip
X/Y #Bulbasaur

Bulbasaur can be obtained later on in the game and can Mega Evolve once it is a Venusaur and is a good tank. It also has Thick Fat once it Mega Evolves, enabling it to tank more Fire and Ice Type attacks.

Mudkip and its final form Swampert has the Water/Ground Type, a great move pool, as well as gaining offensive and defensive pressure in both standard and Mega Evolved form. The only downside is the 4x weakness to grass and its mediocre Speed. However, Swampert can set up rain manually due to its access of Rain Dance as a TM, making its mediocre 70 Base Speed double to a 140 Base Speed behemoth.

Not sure if one or both of these guys could make it on the list, but if it came down to these two, I'd bank money on Mudkip and its Evolution line.

 

[Whovian#1]

#magneton. I would say magnezone but I like magneton's design so much better

 

[Zukrad]

So I haven't reached the 29th spot and I already missed one day two three four A WEEK without updating this thing... I'm sorry I'm just too lazy

Anyways

29. Gastly/Haunter (RBY/GSC/FRLG/DPPt/HGSS/XY/SM/USUM)

Woaw, that's a lot of games. Gastly is a relevant Pokémon in every single game it appears in, which is very impressive, and it manages to do so for a good amount of reasons.

To begin with, Gengar is really strong. 130 SpAtk and 110 Speed is fantastic for a Pokémon with the movepool like that: Shadow Ball, Sludge Bomb, Thunderbolt, Fire Punch(Gen II-III), Ice Punch(Gen II-III), Giga Drain, etc. With an ok special bulk (which is just better in Gen 1), Gengar will be doing some serious damage. Sure, you need to evolve him first from a Haunter... and now is when I talk about this mon's greatest attribute: Trade Evolution

For those who grew up with emulators, trade evolution always looked like an annoying requirement, but when you do have access to trading, a Pokémon that's obtained early into the game and gets its final form through trading almost always means that you will be getting a strong fully evolved Pokémon really early, that will MVP the early-to-mid game.

And Gengar fits that description perfectly. Gastly (and more often than not, Haunter as well, with a encounter chance high enough to be worth waiting for) joins in the first spooky zone of the game. Gastly has a rather poor combat thanks to its shallow movepool and bad bulk, but thankfully, is usually not too far away from evolving into Haunter, and if you have been paying attention, Haunter won't even see combat before immediately turn into Gengar and start wreaking havoc.

Gastly's biggest weakness is having a bunch of "buts" surrounding his usage in an efficient run

• In RBY it joins when you first arrive Lavender Town, which is a bit too late for a game where most of the Pokémon that break the game join either much earlier, or not too long after him, but with much better combat. It also lacks the amazing movepool it possesses in other games, but everyone in Gen 1 is not much different
• In GSC Gastly does well enough, but ironically enough, it joins way too early at around level 3-6, with awful combat at a point in the game where you don't have the resources to fix it. It eventually pays off, but you have to nanny him for nearly 20 levels before it starts to become good. Its Ghost typing will keep him safe against the horde of normal types, but in GSC, you are better off using Pokémon that have a good combat in the beginning (the hardest part of the game) and then stay relevant until the end, than a Pokémon that is awful in the beginning, but becomes really good by the mid-late game
• In DPPt Gastly joins just at the right moment, at around level 13 or level 16-17 depending if you catch it before or after the second gym. Being able to use Shadow Ball and Sludge Bomb with its Special Stat is fantastic, but Sinnoh happens to be a place with a lot of dark and poison types who wall Gengar. Is still fantastic against everything else tho, making these games the games he performs the best imo.
• XY is a whole different story, you can't catch Gastly at all, and Haunter joins very late, at around level 30 after the fifth gym. Being able to fully evolve as soon as possible isn't as impressive when you join at a point when half of your team is also fully evolved. Gengar will perform just ok for a while until you get the Gengarite where it just starts eating the game alive (aside from the dark and steel types that the XY trainer seem to love). Also, everything in the 7th gym kills Gengar if Gengar doesn't kill it in a single hit.
• In the Alola games, Gengar joins very early, kind of like in GSC, but having a better combat. Gengar will stay great, but will struggle against the numerous poison, dark and steel types on its way. However, once it gets access to the Ghost Z Move, nothing will stand on its way.

And that's Gengar, a good Pokémon that happens to inhabit in games where there happen to be better or more convenient options than him. Never a terrible choice, but nothing too impressive when being compared to THE BEST OF ALL TIME.

Hopefully I will get tomorrow's post ready before too late

 

[Zukrad]

Hey look, I only skipped one day this time! Yay!

28. Lucario (XY)

Despite being a fan favorite, Lucario doesn't have the cleanest record in the terms of ingame viability. In its debut generation, it is given to you as an egg very late into the game. Not only it takes quite some time to hatch, but after that, it needs to get around ~35 levels of grinding just to catch up to the rest of the party, that without taking into account the fact that it needs to evolve via happiness, not a cheap method of evolution. Even when it catches up, Lucario isn't anything to write home about. Is an ok Pokémon when the grind finishes, but that time you spent grinding Lucario to become usable could have been saved by just using something else, or you could have spent that time grinding one of you already strong Pokémon to make it even better. Lucario is a great example of why availability and joining level matters so much.

The availability problem is solved in BW2, where is available as a Riolu before the first gym, where it has a fantastic matchup against. And then is a dumpster fire, having mediocre to awful matchups against every gym leader until Drayden where the Dragon resistance kind of helps, then has an even matchup against Marlon, and then gets either walled or annihilated by 3/4 of the elite four. At least it has a good matchup against the Champion and some team plasma leaders, and I guess its good against generic NPCs(?). Imagine being a fighting type Pokémon that struggles in a Unova game! Fighting types always destroy Unova!! Also, Riolu has a pretty lackluster combat until it evolves, and is an early game friendship evolution... that's always fun...

However, in XY, things change. After the third gym battle (and then another battle in a tower) you will get a free Lucario, with a good moveset, decent level, already evolved(!) and more importantly, holding a Lucarionite.
Lucario will probably be the player's first mega evolution for a good period of time, giving Mega Lucario little opportunity cost. Lucario also happens to have a pretty good matchup against most of the important battles left in the game. Sure, Lyssandre's Pyroar seems intimidating at first, until you realize that is also a Normal type and is slower than Lucario.

In XY, Lucario doesn't have many flaws, the ones I can think of is that it joins a bit late (around mid game), is not very bulky (which his great Steel/Fighting typing helps mitigate), and that the Team Flare likes having Poison and Fire pokemon. The main reason why is so low in this list is that it exists in a game where there are many fantastic pokemon that are either stronger, join earlier, or both. These better pokemon also need a mega to perform well, and you can only have one mega per battle. And non mega Lucario isn't too special.

I have to mention that Riolu is also avaliable in XY, and much earlier, however there is no reason to get one when you will get Lucario for free. A wild Riolu wouldn't perform well until after the third gym anyways, and it needs both to be trained and evolved via happiness. You could use all that time and resources to get a different Pokémon, get Lucario anyways after the third gym and have to competent members in your party.

 

[Whovian#1]

Does anybody else think of the Morgan Freeman plays smash 4 vid whenever you see Lucario because of how it is mispronounced? No just me....... well then.

 

[Artisan]

Greninja tho.

 

[Whovian#1]

I know lol. GREENjina

 

[Zukrad]

Does anybody else think of the Morgan Freeman plays smash 4 vid whenever you see Lucario because of how it is mispronounced? No just me....... well then.

I have never heard of that video before, so I guess that's a no

Anyways

27. Minccino (BW2)

(I'm using the 5th gen sprite instead of 3D model [and I will probably keep using them for the rest of the list] because this one is so much more lively and fun to watch, unlike the soulless 3DS sprite... man, getting to the 3DS was the worst thing that ever happened to Pokémon)

Minccino is a bit of an unremarkable Pokémon. Its stats, abilities and moves are as "Pure Normal type Pokémon" as they can get. It probably would be a decent pick for a route 1 Pokémon in BW, but is only catchable a few gym leaders later, and is nothing too special at that point. BW2 doesn't change much the scenario for a usual wild Minccino... keep in mind the "usual" part of that sentence, because is time to introduce to a great mechanic that was born and died in Black and White 2: Hidden Grottos

In some routes, there a certain hidden paths where you can find rare or even unavailable Pokémon (always with their Hidden Ability), or rare an expensive items, all of these being completely random. This last part is important, the fact that they are random means they are both inefficient and unreliable, which means that nearly every Pokémon and item is not considered for this ranking. Sure, if you get a Hidden Grotto with a Vulpix with Drought you instantly win the game, but unless you are RNG abusing, good luck with even finding one. However Minccino is an exception to this rule; because Minccino is the tutorial Pokémon for the Hidden Grottos, which means that every player encounters the same Minccino no matter what, thus eliminating the unreliable factor that the rest of the Grotto gang suffers from!

The reason why is so important for Minccino to be in a Hidden Grotto is one and only one, its hidden ability: Skill Link. Remember all those "hits 2-5 times" moves? Well, this ability ensures they always hit 5 times, essential making them high pp 125 power moves, and every hit has their own chance of being a critical hit or flinching when holding a King's Rock. It joins at level 20-25, and at level 25 it learns Tail Slap, a move so powerful that transforms Minccino from a Pokémon that rarely can do a good job to an extremely potent party member.

After catching it in route 5, you go through the bridge, skip Driftveil City for now and go right to route 6 and get the Shiny Stone. Being able to evolve so early is another factor as to why this Minccino is so good. And there is no competition for the Shiny Stone either, Togepi is not available for most of the game and Roselia is kind of bad really, so Minccino has no competition for the Shiny Stone. A Cinccino gets access to both Bullet Seed and Rock Blast through Move Tutor, which happens to available south from Driftveil City. You need two Heart Scales to teach Cinccino both moves, but they aren't too hard to find, and there even is an NPC that gives you a Heart Scale every day if you show her a Pokémon with a random move from a TM/HM you already own. And even if you have trouble getting two Heart Scales, Cinccino can wait quite a while until you really need Rock Blast, since Bullet Seed helps against the Driftveil gym leader. The 4th move can be an utility based move like Sing and Encore, or Work Up to increase Cinccino's power even further, thanks to Cinccino's decent enough bulk to set up and being fast enough to not worry about being revenge killed.

Cinccino is not flawless however. Pretty much every Steel type and Ghost type walls it, specially the former. Fighting types are usually sturdy enough to take a hit from Cinccino and hit it back hard, tho both of these matchups can be solved with a King's Rock and enough luck, tho that starts reaching the unreliable side of the discussion. Finally, its late game is pretty average, specially against the elite 4, which is quite the contrast compared to its hilariously broken midgame. All in all, a very solid Pokémon, but still far from THE BEST OF ALL TIME

(also, I posted two days in a row, yay)

 

[Whovian#1]

@Zukrad that's why I posted it in the next comment, so you guys who have not seen it can watch it.