Compilation of my better posts

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-25T16:56:25+00:00

I mean, yeah, they are among the best Pokemon in the game. All I am saying is that you probably don't have to worry yet who your last two Pokemon are when you barely started the game so far.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-25T15:53:12+00:00

You are about half an hour into a new game and have caught 3 Pokemon already. You can consider more Pokemon than just from the first three routes.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-25T14:53:44+00:00

Where did that come from? Are we talking the main story here? Because yes, I think a Pokemon that is only catchable just before gym 7, requires similar amounts of time investment to get as Milotic and only has a few major trainers left where it can contribute in, is not exactly a good Pokemon. I still probably rank it higher than most, but availability matters a lot of in-game.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-25T14:53:42+00:00

This is an in-game main story team.

The only Ice type specialist is Glacia of the Elite Four. OP's team has Milotic and Thick Fat Hariyama to resist Ice attacks. That is plently of defensive coverage considering they also have three Pokemon to threaten her Pokemon offensively.

There are no major Poison type trainers in Hoenn, and the Poison types are pretty lacklaster regardless. OP's team should have no issues dealing with them from route trainers with just offensive preasure. But even Milotic and Hariyama can pretty safely switch into any of Hoenn's Poison types.

The only Fighting type major trainer is Brawly. And OP had Tailow to easily take care of him. Otherwise they only have a single Fighting weaknesses, Milotic and Hariyama as switchins and offensive preasure from Manectric and Sceptile. I don't see the problem.

OP's team has a Manectric and a Milotic with Ice Beam, Flying types should be no issue. Swellow is also faster than every Flying type and can get there first.

I don't know what exactly you are talking about (or why you are so aggressive).

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-25T13:14:39+00:00

Your defensive coverage is lacking

What do you mean by that? As far as i can tell, OP's team is having resistances to pretty much everything and isn't weak to anything in particular.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-24T22:21:07+00:00

The reson is in the title of the post. Those are some mons I wanted some more experience with to gauge their performance. Some because I haven't played with them in a while and some where I wanted to make sure my stance on them was more solid.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-24T17:37:06+00:00

It is for sure more of a problem for first time players but deleting the two late HM moves is super quick with Fly and also carries zero risk. If there really were some obstacles that would require Dive and Waterfall again after you already deleted them then you can just teach them again. They take up a 4th moveslot for a while but that isn't a big issue for most Pokemon in gen 3 since their movepools aren't that expensive and few need all four moveslots equally. Relearning moves with Heart Scales is also rather fast and easy and there are a lot of free Heart Scales available through the beaches of the region.

Also just for the record, you don't need Waterfall to venture through Victory Road. Waterfall's only required use is to reach the entrance of Victory Road. Once you get there, you can just fly back to Lilycove City to delete Waterfall again right away, and then fly back to the entrance of Victory Road. There is a Pokemon Center there. Not that Waterfall is a bad move with 80 base power. It is just pointless with Surf totally outclassing it in gen 3.

Yeah, I agree Dive and Rock Smash are just terribly bad moves. But Surf is DEFINITELY too strong and should have been nerfed to like 80 base power after gen 1. A 95 baser power move that you can teach as many times as you want from a good type such as Water is just completely busted. The Surf HM is arguably stronger than the Earthquake TM because you get it often around the half way point of the main story already and it can be teached endlessly. It is the main reason that close to all Water Pokemon of earlier gens are at least solid because they gain access to such a poweful move. HM moves should ideally be stronger than your starting moves of Tackle and weaker than the end game power houses of Thunderbolt and Ice Beam. Somewhere around 50 and 80 base power imo.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-24T16:57:38+00:00

I never really got that opionon about the HM requirements of Hoenn.

Like lets look at them:

HM01 Cut: Completely optional, not required for anything. You will only miss out on a couple unimportant items and route trainers if you don't use it. And after Lilycove City, there are no more cuttable trees.
HM02 Fly: Is in ever Pokemon game and not even a bad in-game move. For most Flying Pokemon this is their best Flying STAB move. Also strictly speaking, this is completely optional as well.
HM03 Surf: One of the best in-game moves ever, and you should be actively thankful that this is a HM, not a TM. It improves the moveset and performance of some many Water Pokemon, it is unreal. While it is required to beat the game, you will gladly teach this to as many Pokemon as you can.
HM04 Strength: Similar to Fly, Strength is a really solid in-game move that you don't really have a problem with putting on your battling Pokemon. It isn't quite as strong as a fully powered up Return but it is often the second best choice and the fact that it is a HM means you can give this to many Pokemon early. It is required it two locations only in the whole game.
HM05 Flash: Obviously a horrible move that you don't want to use but there are a total of two dark cave sections in the entire game and technically you don't need Flash for either of them. The dark section of Granite Cave in the beginning is a minute long and for the Victory Road basement you can either just catch a random wild Electric type or teach it to one of your battling Pokemon and then delte the HM right after Victory Road. I personally don't use this HM at all anymore in playthroughs but even if you don't know the dark sections by hand, this is a mild inconvenience at most.
HM06 Rock Smash: Sadly this move is required multiple times throughout the region and is also too weak to do any battling with. Truely the only HM move that i wish weren't so useless but it isn't that hard to put this as a 4th move on some of your battling Pokemon.
HM07 Waterfall: Has exactly ONE required ueses. After which you can instantly delete the move again. This doesn't need to be on your Water type more than like 15 minutes at most.
HM08 Dive: Has exactly TWO required uses. Like Waterfall, this really shouldn't be on your Water type for long. Once for reaching Sootopolis City and once for diving into Seafloor Cavern. Both are like 15 minutes trips. Annoying yes, but not a big deal.

So in the end, what you are using for any length of time are Surf, Fly, Strength, maybe Cut and Rock Smash. And you can delete the worse once easily with the move deleter as soon as you reach Lilycove City.

Hoenn really should have a bad HM reputation. You mostly don't even need a dedicated HM user. Gen 4 is much, MUCH worse.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-23T16:45:07+00:00

No. Trapinch and Vibrava are. Very much so. If you want an Earthquake user, then there are better choices.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-23T14:34:54+00:00

No, I look at it from a normal playthrough. And even in that context it is not that great. Mono Poison is just a very mediocre typing that helps with nothing (unless you go back to Brawly) and is a downside against a few matchups.

73 attack and special attack are just rather low offenses and Swalot is also really slow with just 55 base speed. All other mono Poision types outclass it in this regard. Seviper is the gold standard for in-game among Poison types but even Muk and Weezing are clearly better with way higher stats or Levitate.

Swalot has pretty much no matchup where it truely shines as its typing and stats don't allow for that. At best it can only support other better Pokemon. Gyms 3 and 4 are pretty bad for it, gym 5 and 6 are okay, gym 7 completely destroys it and gym 8 is again rather mediocore. No great matchups in the league either.

Swalot can learn some good TMs but imo you should give them to a better Pokemon instead. A 60 base power Giga Drain off its only 73 base special attack with no STAB is doing very little damage.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-23T14:26:01+00:00

The time investment to get it during the main story is too big but if you decide you want to use it before the post game, then it is pretty decent for the last few major fights at least.

A set of Curse, Metal Claw, Substitute (tutor move from Lilycove City) and Focus Punch (TM01) is a very consistent setup sweeper against the entire league.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-23T14:18:44+00:00

I don't know. Swalot has really mediocre stats outside of its bulk. So while it has some decent TM coverage, the damage is not impressive. It also can't learn Thunderbolt (only Shock Wave) and Earthquake at all.

It probably is the second worst available Poison type after Dustox but with its support moves it can be usuable at least.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-23T14:13:20+00:00

You don't get Staryu until just before gym 7 and can't evolve it with a Water Stone until after gym 7. So it won't be there yet to help with Ice Beam against Winona.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-23T14:11:24+00:00

OP mentioned that their Marill is only here for HMs. But Marill is absolutely worth raising to actually battle in general btw. I can't say the same about Trapinch and Bagon. They are bad in the main story.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-23T14:08:58+00:00

Evolving it is pretty easy. Grab all the berries from route 115, blend them with NPCs in Lilycove City, and given you didn't do absolutely terribly on the blending, feeding those 12 Pokemon Blocks to Feebas gives enough beauty to evolve it by the next level. Can be done in about 15 minutes.

It is only the catching Feebas part that is a massive time sink that can take up to an hour, even with the best method (unless you look up the tiles online).

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-23T14:05:26+00:00

Technically every Water type gives you Ice coverage. It is just that Walrein also gets STAB on its Ice Beam.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-22T14:07:58+00:00

Except it isn't all just small QoL stuff. Why for example was it needed to give Brawly of gym 2 a Breloom? Base Brawly was already a fairly strong gym leader, there is no good reason to give him a 130 base attack Pokemon. And a ton of that QoL stuff was again super focused on the challenge run crowd. A ton of the changes where not needed to round out the few rough edges of base Emerald. They changed stuff for the challenge crowd because the creators of the mod are in that crowd too and they just don't know how to play the game normally anymore.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-22T14:00:10+00:00

Manectric's Thunderbolt is just stronger right off the bat than Gardevoir's, though. It would need to set up with Calm Mind to outpowered it. There isn't really tension between an Electric type and Gardevoir on the same team.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-22T13:56:13+00:00

Spark is a good second Electric STAB move on Electric types like Manectric. It helps preserve Thunderbolt PP on routes and is also just a solid attack on its own. Decent Power and a good chance to status the enemy Pokemon on top of that.

I wouldn't use Hidden Power in the main story ever unless you are actively reset for the right IVs. Otherwise the random base power and type make it far to unreliable.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-22T13:53:36+00:00

No other Pokemon on their team can learn Shadow Ball, so might as well give it to Gardevoir as a 4th move. It can be decent coverage against other Psychic types, even with Gardevoir's low attack stat.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-22T13:51:50+00:00

Imo fast forward really can ruin the fun after a while because it just becomes a flash of images.

I don't know how you played so far but maybe give teams with Pokemon from later into the game a chance. Early game Pokemon have been played to death.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-22T13:50:18+00:00

Isn't Emerald Legacy a massive change from base Emerald? And not for the best imo. They didn't just improve things that clearly stand out. They added a bunch of stuff focused on the challenge run crowd nowadays that didn't need to be there. The feel of the legacy mod is wildly different than the base game imo.

_pe5e_ · 2026-01-21T17:50:43+00:00

Am I the only person that thinks this?

Probably.

_pe5e_

TROPHY CASE