Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

I ATTAC

8 (15.4%)

I PROTECC

6 (11.5%)

Waiting on the third one

2 (3.8%)

Waiting on the third AND fourth one

1 (1.9%)

GET WELL SOON ZYGARDE

5 (9.6%)

I am a concientous objector and abstain from taking up arms

30 (57.7%)

Total Members Voted: 51

[Reudh]

Ah, good old Gyarados. Such a reliable pokemon. So good.

Its tier placings throughout the years:

RBY: UU, only because thunderbolt was ubiquitous.
GSC: UU, only because at this stage Dragonite outcompetes it for what it can currently do. Also, it lost its 100 spatk, which was dropped to 60. Combos extremely well with Steelix.
RSE: OU, easily. This was still pre physical/special split, but Intimidate breathed a fair whack of bulk and threat into Gyarados. Its movepool also improved considerably at this time. Hated Zapdos, but most pokemon of this era struggled with Zapdos.
DPPt: OU, easily. Gained even more effective power with the physical/special split, as well as a fair amount of new moves to play with and items to benefit from.
BW: OU, easily. Practically unchanged. It's now got Moxie, so it can function as a wincondition against a weakened team even better than it did before, though it gives up effective physical bulk to do so.
XY: UU, with its mega being BL (or, banned from UU but not used in OU). A couple more counters emerged against it, and like in DPPt onwards, stealth rock ubiquity hurt it, but it was still a pretty damn top tier pokemon in UU, and often saw usage in OU anyway. Like Steelix, its partner in GSC, Gyarados appreciated Lightningrod ground types like Rhyperior or Marowak. XY was a period where prankster and priority ran riot, and Gyarados often struggled with priority attacks. Mercifully, there remains no priority electric quick attack variant. Gyarados was still a gargantuan threat in UU and at least a good threat in OU.
SuMo: bumped up to BL / OU again! Gyarados remained far too strong for UU. Its mega presumably got a bit more traction as more powerful poison types began to start to press the Fairy threat away, and its excellent bulk in mega form. It's bulky enough to take hits from high usage OU members like Protean Greninja or Mega Swampert. Like was mentioned by Umiman, the Mega form can even do quite well in Ubers, with Mold Breaker letting it break past stally teams, while also have pretty decent bulk and a nice typing to boot. It even checks Primal Groudon, with its 155 attack powered waterfalls!

[Akura]

How exactly does Waterfall hit Primal Groudon? Mold Breaker only bypasses Abilities, not weather effects.

[Reudh]

How exactly does Waterfall hit Primal Groudon? Mold Breaker only bypasses Abilities, not weather effects.

My mistake. Gyarados-M runs Earthquake if it wants to check Primal Groudon, otherwise it runs Waterfall.

[umiman]

Also now M-Gyarados is immune to Prankster hue hue hue.

[pikachu17]

Don't forget Gyardos can use Z-splash. Admittedly I have no idea how Z-moves work, so I have no idea if that is worth it, but he can use it.

[Akura]

Z-Splash raises the users Attack by 3 stages. So yeah, that can actually be pretty scary, though it's mutually exclusive to Mega-Evolution.

[Rolan7]

If anyone here's playing Pokemon GO still, be aware that there's a special event tomorrow!  It's 2-5PM EST in NA, but the times vary by region: https://pokemongolive.com/en/events/community-day/americas/

If you don't have a dragonite (perhaps, like me, you've only ever found one dratini despite playing pretty regularly) then this is your chance!  During the time period, dratini will be much more common...  And if you can evolve (or catch??) a dragonite, it will have an event-exclusive move "Draco Meteor".

Heh, I'm going with a couple of friends, and also a couple (Ingress-main, but GO-playing) family members.  To meet with a bunch of local players we've been raiding with, at a paved public park.  Probably going to be about 20 of us, running between gyms, throwing lures and incense everywhere.  (It'll be the first time my dad actually meets my best friend...)

Ingress-lite aside over!

I love reading about the *real* Pokemon experience in this thread.  I still need to finish my first run, GBC Silver, started last year heh.  Stuck grinding before the Elite four.
Lvl 49 Golbat (no idea how much friendship I still need for Crobat...)
Lvl 48 Graveller (can't trade, so no golem)
Lvl 43 Meganium
Lvl 35 Gyarados
Lvl 30 Persian (Luki)
Lvl 23 Pidgeotto (fly)

I haven't actually challenged the Elite Four seriously, I really want to level up my weaker team members first.  But doing so on Victory Road is soooo slow, especially with the Golbats using Confuse Ray.
Maybe I should go back to a place with fighting types, so my Persian and Pidgeotto can get OHKOs with their normal moves?  My instinct was to level them like magikarp, having them face high-level stuff and switch out for my Graveller or Meganium.  (Golbat is sorta bad despite level).  But I don't know where to find higher-level stuff than Victory Road.

[Akura]

At Lv.49, you probably ought to have enough friendship to evolve Crobat already, depending on when you caught it. If you grabbed it during Victory Road, then you might have a ways to go. If you've had it since the beginning and it hasn't evolved yet, something is up. Best bet is to let it get hurt(not KO'd, that's counterproductive), and shove Potions or even Berries if you have enough down its throat(do not use herbal medicines, also counterproductive). Also do the hairstylist thing in Goldenrod's underground when you can.

[umiman]

I really love Crobat, simply because it was my first shiny. It's also pretty nice to have in a fight as everyone underestimates it. Has a useful and varied movepool and is a great lead in u-turn and taunt alongside defog. It's just so frigging fast.

[Reudh]

Yeah, I love Crobat too. Design, stats, typing. I also have fond memories of it as it was my first level 100 that wasn't part of the core party. I caught this Crobat as a Zubat in 2003 in Pokemon Sapphire. It has an Adamant Nature, as well as 31 Attack, and like mid 20s speed. It's not the fastest crobat out there, and it can't do mixed very effectively because of Adamant, but it's always a go-to of mine when I need a fast taunter or suicide brave birder. Helps support my Dragon types too.

I actually still use this same Crobat today. It's a pokemon that's approaching 15 years old. That alone I find cool as shit, I love the idea of data migration between games, and being able to take it from my childhood up to the current day is super cool

[DeKaFu]

Another big Crobat fan here. In Pokémon Go I have one with 98% IVs that I like to leave on top of gyms. Not because it's a particularly good defender, just because I want everyone to see my cool bat.

Really looking forward to more bats making it into Go but I guess I'll be waiting a while.

If anyone here's playing Pokemon GO still, be aware that there's a special event tomorrow!  It's 2-5PM EST in NA, but the times vary by region: https://pokemongolive.com/en/events/community-day/americas/

I went out for this today. Spent all 3 hours walking around a park in a nearby city. Saw lots of other players there too, though I went by myself.

I hope it went as well for you as it did for me! I walked away with 71 new Dratinis, 7 of which were shiny. I evolved the strongest shiny one into a Dragonite with Draco Meteor before time ran out, too. Threw Pinaps at almost everything and kept a star piece running, so I ended up with 350+ Dratini candies and 130k more stardust.

I had one Dragonite before this, but it was the one I caught the week I started playing and walked 333km for candy to evolve. First dibs on this candy and stardust is probably going to her.

[Rolan7]

Congrats on 7 shinies, wow!  I heard the rate was 5-10% during the event, though I only got 2 shinies (out of 63 catches).  My friends were luckier, heh.  So I now have a 2992 and shiny 2597, with my strongest pokemon being ~2000-2400 previously.  Stupid Rayquaza is only 2106, heh.

I kinda feel bad for you and this local player who have had Dragonites for a while.  They're very proud of theirs, *always* showing it off in our local gym.  It was an impressive accomplishment, and now most people have a few heh.  However, the event didn't seem to give any top-tier IVs, so both of mine are second-tier!  (I had only ever seen one dragonite before yesterday, and it had poor IVs).

I'm really kicking myself for not using one of my star pieces.  They're so underwhelming normally that I forgot about them, but would have been nice here.  I still got a ton of stardust, but I could have got a ton and a half! *doh*

I do love how much the game encourages walking.  I had to walk my magikarp quite a bit after they nearly disappeared, and I love how pokemon from eggs tend to have top-tier IV.  I'm finally working on a blissey now, since they're such tanks in gyms.

[DeKaFu]

It doesn't really bother me. There's a lot of hardcore players in this area who had several high-IV Dragonites already due to using scanners, etc, so mine was never super impressive to anyone but me.

My first Dragonite (named Challenger, after the Challenger Deep) is 98% perfect, since I caught her before the Pokédex IV bug was fixed near release. I just think it's nice that a lot of kids and other players finally got a shot at their own, since I remember how impossible it seemed when I was first starting.

My new shiny one is 75% IVs (by far the highest out of the ones I caught) and I named her Pickle.

[tnc]

What are you guys' favorite water pokemon?

[Rolan7]

Probably Gyarados.  It took a while to acquire in Pokemon GO, walking adorable magikarp around.  And in Silver I'm using it for 3 HMs, yet it's still a heavy hitter!  Probably because it gets STAB with them (Surf, Whirlpool, Waterfall).

The fact that it's not dragon-type is so silly that I almost like it now.  Though if they insist on it being flying, why can't it learn fly ):<

I kinda like Eevees but Vaporeon got spammed so much in early GO, and they're kinda glass cannons.  And for whatever reason they even destroy Jolteons, which is just wrong.

Tentacruel is really cool looking but poison is annoying for everyone involved, so I never trained one up in Silver.  In GO it's just not great.

I finally got a Blastoise in GO but I prefer grass-type starters.  Grass-type pokemon remind me of Green decks in Magic, I guess.  Fish are icky like bugs

Edit:  Slowpoke meme here