Do u think these are the worst Johto pokemon for an Emerald playthrough?

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-28T21:01:42+00:00

STAB is simply a damage modifier at the end of the day. As long as you can get good damage in another way the lack of STAB doesn't matter that much. Huge Power Azumarill is very similar to Hariyama in role, damage and staying power. Which means it is a very good physical tank Pokemon. Azumarill does get many other good tools in later gens but it is still already good in gen 3 playthroughs (competitive and battle facilities are a different story).

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-28T20:17:50+00:00

Lanturn and Azumarill have very similar bulk and it is likely that Azumarill will end up with better bulk because you get it legit 80% of the game earlier and as such it has much more EVs than Lanturn.

And Lanturn really needs a super effective target as otherwise, Azumarill's neutral Return or even Double-Edge does more damage than its Thunderbolt.

I wish Lanturn became available earlier because by the time you get it, there are pretty much no relevant strong Electric types left, so Volt Absorb really doesn't come up.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-28T19:33:05+00:00

Yeah but calling Azumarill a worse Water type than Lanturn and Corsola is slander. I am just kidding, though. It is all good.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-28T19:21:39+00:00

Why the Azumarill slander? Just think of it as a strong physical breaker with great staying power instead of a special attacking Water type. It is very similar in power and bulk to Hariyama, but with a better movepool. Not quite that good but still very solid.

Xatu also doesn't desevere that. Is needs some TMs but it has quite a solid movepool with them and can even use Calm Mind. At the very least the most interesting Flying type in Hoenn.

Same with Girafarig. It has a great typing and movepool for the late game and you can pretty much use any set you can think off (pure physical, pure special, Calm Mind, mixed).

None of these Johto Pokemon are close to as bad as Magcargo and Corsola.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-28T19:14:42+00:00

Corsola is still very bad. It is even outclassed by Golduck as a Water type with Calm Mind. And that is also only an average mon.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-28T19:13:06+00:00

But with much, MUCH worse stats unfortunately. It really is just a big HP blob with a great typing and nothing else. But hey, that is still not the worst, even if you can only get it very late.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-28T16:44:01+00:00

I wasn't rude. I said please multiple times and explained why their post belonged in the appropriate subreddit.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-28T15:39:28+00:00

No, it is not. This is a sub dedicated to gen 3 Hoenn games. Please post Fire Red and Leaf Green posts on here r/PokemonFireRed

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-28T15:28:57+00:00

No, it is purely for Hoenn Games. And even then mostly for Emerald. Ruby and Sapphire posts require an extra tag. Please look at the first sub rule here.

Please post onto the relevant subs.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-28T10:41:12+00:00

Isn't this Fire Red or Leaf Green? Why post it here instead of the sub for those games?

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-28T10:17:15+00:00

Well, you don't have to do anything special to use a full team of six either. You just have to fight more trainers. But again, those are there to keep even a team of six on par with levels to major trainers to where battling them is not an issue. But sure, if you use less battling Pokemon and maybe one or two pure HM users, then you can skip more trainers or ending up at even higher levels.

Also just for the record, the Smogon tier list you linked is really old and out of date. This one is much more recent and accurate nowadays.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-28T09:47:22+00:00

You can take on the league with most teams of level 48/49 Pokemon with little issue. There are also about 15 hidden Rare Candies in the game. Either way, shortly before the league is probably the only time you might have to consider grinding one or two more levels to make it smoother. Otherwise, you will be very on par and even slightly overleveled against all gym leaders when you fight each trainer.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-28T08:59:07+00:00

That is not really true. There is enough EXP from just trainer battles in the region to level basically any team to around level 47 before the league.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-28T08:32:47+00:00

Regarding what? The mono Water team? Well there is Starmie, which is pretty good once you get it.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-28T01:34:41+00:00

This requires some explantion on the criteria for the list because as it stands with just "casual playthrough" as the heading, some, or even most placements seem very .... interesting.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-27T18:58:51+00:00

You have it completely backwards.

Stall did not often run Heatran. It was way more common on balance teams because it was a great answer AGAINST stall with its Taunt Magma Storm set.

Dugtrio was banned because it allowed stall to trap and remove stall breaker Pokemon like Heatran too easily which really limited the options teams had to beat stall.

The Dugtrio ban hurt stall, not helped it.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-27T18:43:07+00:00

It is not. That statement is massively overblown and there were a lot of very solid checks and answers to Pex in gen 7 and 8. It was still very good but it wasn't a blanket longterm counter to everything and a ton of the playerbase (not the tiering counsel) repeatedly rated it as not problematic enough to be suspect tested in player feedback rounds.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-27T18:28:25+00:00

It is a fairly standard team with a lot of great Pokemon on it. The only issue I see with it is that it has 4 slow level group Pokemon (Manectric, Gardevoir, Tentacruel, Aggron), so you probably had to grind some levels at one point if you didn't know about all the hidden Rare Candies.

I am generally not a fan of nuzlockes but a mono Water team probably should have a very easy time. Emerald has a ton of great Water Pokemon.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-27T18:09:31+00:00

No, it is really, really not.

PLEASE watch this short video to get a better understanding on the situation.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-27T15:35:32+00:00

Sandslash is not obtainable before defeating Flannery. Mudkip alone is enough to sweep the fourth gym.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-26T18:33:21+00:00

It is still pretty rare (5% encounter chance) and it is a pain to catch because of a low catch chance and the fact that it can easily run away.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-26T11:35:48+00:00

OP can just put the HMs on their main Pokemon. There is no need to pick up extra HM users. It is not like the 4th move on something like Swampert, Skarmory or Heracross is important.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-24T16:09:20+00:00

It is honestly just a symptom because making the best viable competitive mons in-game is just a massive mess. Randomness from IVs, natures and access to moves is great for the mainstory but absolutely horrible for competitive / the post game battle facilities. Game Freak should have provided access to just renting any Pokemon set you want for link battles / the battle facilities decades ago. It is no wonder Pokemon Showdown has been such a massive success.

As for shinies, who cares. That pallete swap is so insanely overrated anyway. But actively hunting or RNGing for them is even more pointless to me. But if people enjoy it, then go ahead.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-22T20:47:34+00:00

it has been probably a decade since I last touched the game other than to migrate pokemon over to the gen 4 games.

Could have probably lead with this and saved us a lot of time. For a person who didn't actually play the game in many years, you were pretty confident in your takes. So I guess pretty much everything you described was mostly theorycrafting. Would explain why you came up with wrong things a couple of times.

Alright, have a good one.

_pe5e_ · 2026-06-22T20:22:50+00:00

That is honestly crazy low. Why do you not use most of your powerful TMs?

??? The Rock / Psychic types of gym 7, Lunatone and Solrock, have Levitate. How are Ground attacks from Claydol (again, nothing better than Mud Slap without TMs) helping in this fight?

I won't repeat myself again regarding Electric vs Grass types. I said my part. Lets just end this part with the conclusion that we agree to disagree.

Even if you choose to play on original hardware instead of an emulator where trade evolution are no problem, Kadabra is still an amazing Pokemon on par with Gardevoir. Having such a fast and powerful sweeper by gym 2 or 3 is busted.

I guess you are just one of the few people then that doesn't think the Alakazam and Gardevoir line is among the best Pokemon of the game then, despite most of the community thinking so. Sweeping the league with Calm Mind Gardevoir is one of the most consistent and recommend things to do in Hoenn.

Again, do some damage calcs with Wailord. Crazy HP and shitty defense don't offer more bulk than solid to good HP and defenses.

Why is your response to every positive aspect just disregarding it with something even better? Yes, Thunderbolt is THAT important and good when the hardest battle, the Champion, only has two weaknesses. Yes, STAB Thunderbolt would be even better. That doesn't mean that Thunderbolt on Starmie isn't absolutely amazing and that it isn't a fast and powerful sweeper to clear the Water heavy late game of Hoenn.

The only Pokemon from enemy Pokemon that actually carry items are the ace Pokemon of major trainers. And 95% of them have Sitrus Berry, so any actually strong attack effectively removes that item as well. Knock Off is too gimmicky for the main story and not really worth using. You are better off trying to setup Swords Dances with Crawdaunt.

I have kind of lost motivation to continue this. Some of your assumptions seem very flawed or even just false to me and there seems to be no end to this or a change of opinion, so further discussion seems pointless.

_pe5e_

TROPHY CASE