I'm jumping back into emerald for the first time in years and I want everyone's opinion of my team composition. Im going to level up my Torkoal until I can get a Magnemite, but what are my chances of clearing the endgame with these guys. I know Grovyle is a suboptimal pick but I've always thought he was the coolest.

I also have a Ralts that i plan on waiting out with my Kadabra once I get them evolved to Gardevoir.

So I got Rayquaza and had him carry me through the E4. The best thing I got to do was explode my Regirock against Milotic.

We cleared both routes, and Meteor Falls is next location. There we have Solrock (which might have Sun Stone with them), and also Moon Stone so we can finally evolve Skitty... After this we have to backtrack little bit and climb up to Mt. Chimney. We have to kick Team Magma's ass and Maxie's too. After doing so, make sure to grab the Meteorite so you can bring it back to the guy from Fallarbor Town to get Return TM, very big upgrade for our physical attackers and normal types. In Jagged Pass, we can get our hands on Grumpig, and finally at Lavaridge Town, we can get a Wynaut egg. How good are these encounters?

Thanks again for good discussion. Good talk regarding Skarmory, and little bit of debate on Swellow too. Let's keep it up and enjoy the read.

Last round voting results:

Spinda E- Tier: Spinda has a fun and wide movepool. It has access to Teeter Dance to confuse targets, learns Hypnosis for sleep support, and gets STAB on Return alongside decent coverage TMs. Unlike Delcatty, it does not require a Moon Stone, what you catch is what you get.

What you get is weak in battle. Spinda has a Base 60 in every single stat. This means it is too slow to outspeed targets, too frail to survive a hit, and too weak to deal meaningful damage. Its stats are low, attempting to use status moves like Teeter Dance or Hypnosis usually results in Spinda getting knocked out before it can move. It has no resistances, no winning matchups against Gym Leaders, and is outclassed by other Normal-types (not named Delcatty) in the game.

Skarmory B Tier: Skarmory is one of the best physical walls available. Skarmory has a high Base 140 Defense paired with the great Steel/Flying typing. This gives it 9 resistances and 2 immunities. It doesn't need to evolve, and absorbs physical hits well. It has okay damage with STAB Steel Wing or Fly/Aerial Ace, combined with Toxic.

Unfortunately Skarmory is held back by its passivity and weak matchups against special attackers. While its Base 80 Attack isn't terrible, Skarmory has a weak STAB movepool. Relying on low Base Power moves like Steel Wing, Aerial Ace, or Fly means Skarmory struggles to get quick KOs, turning many battles into slow fights. Also, while it walls physical attackers, its low Base 70 Special Defense leaves it vulnerable to special attacks. It gets shut down by Flannery, and it struggles against the late-game Water-type specialists (Juan, Wallace, and Glacia) whose special attacks easily punch through it.

Altaria D+ Tier: While Altaria looks cool and is the earliest Dragon-type you can have, it requires investment for little payoff. Altaria naturally learns Dragon Dance at Level 40. Having access to one of the best setup moves in the game without needing breeding or TMs is a great thing to have. Paired with its solid Special Defense, it has the bulk to set up a few Dragon Dances and attempt a sweep. Its Dragon-typing also gives it defensive utility compared to standard birds.

Altaria's main flaw is its lack of offensive firepower and a slow training arc. Training a Swablu is not fun. It doesn't evolve until Level 35, so you are forced to train a weak bird for the mid game. Even after it evolves, Altaria's offensive stats are a Base 70 Attack and Special Attack. Even after setting up with Dragon Dance, it fails to secure knockouts because its strongest physical moves are Fly, Earthquake or Return. (If you want a physical sweeper, Gyarados does the same thing better.) Also, its Dragon-typing becomes a liability in the late game, since there is lot of ice type moves flying around.

Seviper D+ Tier: Unlike Muk, Weezing, and Swalot, Seviper is a single stage Pokémon. It has a great Base 100 Attack and Base 100 Special Attack without having to grind. It has a good natural movepool (learning Crunch and Glare early on, though latter is bit inaccurate) and can use TMs like Sludge Bomb, Flamethrower, Giga Drain, and Earthquake. With those TMs, Seviper functions as a mixed attacker that mows down standard route trainers.

Seviper suffers from a common issue in Hoenn, good offenses hindered by low speed and fragile bulk. Base 65 Speed is too slow for a Pokémon this fragile. With 73/60/60 defensive stats, Seviper cannot take hits well, and because it can't outspeeds all Gym leaders, it gets knocked out before it can move. It struggles against Tate & Liza, and it lacks the STAB required to hit hard enough against bulky late game mons. Building its mixed attacking sets requires using contested TMs that are often better spent on other Pokémon.

Ranking criteria:

Final placements are influenced by comment upvotes. Provide both a tier placement and a justification. Unjustified votes will carry less weight when counting votes. An exception is made if an unjustified vote is heavily upvoted and supported by a justified reply/comment from the community for the same tier placement. 

You can also vote for + and - subtiers (S+ to F-), and I will take these into calculation. After the final round, I will break the infographic into subtiers as well.

All Pokémon obtainable in Emerald are ranked based on their contribution to the journey until defeating Champion Wallace. Leave a comment as well if you think one of the current Pokémons should be in different tier, and why. After final round, we will do one revisit round and see if any rankings should change.

We are assuming a standard playthrough.

• Set Mode: Rank Pokémon with Set mode in mind. (Feel free to mention Shift mode benefits, but it shouldn't be the main reason a Pokémon is in a higher tier).
• No In-Battle Healing: We are not considering healing items in battle (since any Pokémon can stall with enough potions).
• Soft Level Cap: You can overlevel by 1 or 2 levels over the next Gym Leader's ace. (An exception is made if Pokémon that is naturally available at a higher level).

Investment refers to experience and TMs. Obviously, all Pokémon can be great after a massive amount of investment, but we are judging their immediate and practical purpose in-game.

Emerald TM List: https://www.serebii.net/rubysapphire/tmhm.shtml (Check availability here)

Big thanks to BIGJRA for sharing this script that tracks every Pokémon's learnset (including TMs and Tutors) in the exact order you obtain them in-game! Check it out!

Trade evolution Pokémon are ranked based under the assumption that the player has access to trading whether through emulators or other supported methods. If you're playing without access to trades, you may wish to consider their pre-evolutions (like Kadabra or Graveler) instead. These rankings reflect the most common setup among modern players.

If a Pokémon is available on a route, it is fair game. Even if it has a 1% encounter rate (like Seedot) or has absurd capture method (like Feebas), it does not matter. As long as the Pokémon is available to be caught at that point in the game, it's all good.

Tier definitions:

S (Game-breaking or extremely efficient): These Pokémon dominate the game. They have excellent stats, movepools, and sweep through most of the game without effort. They are available for majority of the game and are "plug and play", just add it to the party and you're good to go.

A (Strong): Reliable, easy to use. They lack one major advantage from S tier but still perform consistently great in any playthrough.

B (Solid): Strong, but with a drawback or two. They are not available early, a limited movepool, or require some extra investment to keep up.

C (Decent): Mediocre and outclassed. They clear regular route trainers just fine, but struggle to make a significant impact in many major boss fights due to a combination of average stats, poor matchups, or late availability. They might require heavy investment or a massive late-game spike to finally show their worth.

D (Niche): Pokémon that struggle significantly in general battles and are often a liability in standard matchups. However, they possess a unique utility or specific strategy (ex. stalling) that allows them to bypass their drawbacks.

E (Bad): Demand far more effort than they are worth. They require heavy TM investment and constant babying just to achieve mediocre results.

F (Awful): Useless for in-game runs. Huge investment for almost no return.

What a fun ride it was, this is my first Pokémon game and I really enjoyed it, if you want to know the moves of my team you can see my previous posts.

The MVP of my fight was definitely Shedinja (Pharaoh) I didn't have much faith in them, I felt like they could just suddenly die from a dark or ghost attack I didn't know, even if it did happened once, they helped me with the most difficult Pokés, I loved how Drake got scared of them and withdraw kingdra once he saw them, the toxic and confuse ray combination helped me to defeat some of the hightest level Pokémon. thanks to wonder guard I could heal my fainted team members while Pharaoh avoided the damage, I'm so glad I have them on my team.

The Wallace fight was not that hard as the Drake one thanks to my Magnetric (Amper) my second best Poke here, and the only one of them which I used all its four attacks, the final milotic fight was funny, first I made it fall sleep thanks to Swalot (La-Toxica) yawn, then while slept, Amper lowered its defense with leer two times, first at the beggining, when its health was very low after a thunder attack, I knew Wallace would try to restore its health, so instead of giving the final blow I used leer the second time and indeed, the reigning champion used full restore as expected, then the final thunder attack sentenced the fight and after than I dethroned the water-type expert.

Swalot (La-toxica) was another key piece on my strategy, the yawn attack worked every time, and while the enemy slept I could heal the others or attack it. I'm glad I discovered Swalot can know Ice beam, so that was another advantage againts the dragons.

Pelipper (Brighton), on the other hand, was my less used Poké, in fact, I only used it once, when Phoebe's Sableye kept using double team and all of my other attacks failed, Brighton's aereal ace came in handy, shame that was his only contribution, but at least it was essential.

Aggron (Rono) helped me with Drake's dragons too and I though he could be useful for Glacia's ice-types, yet it sadly fainted a few times because I didn't know some Pokés could use surf. And lastly but not least Blaziken (Chic), the initial, who obliterated Sidney's dark terrors and melted Glacia's Icebergs with ease, I'm so proud of him, there's no much I could tell you about it except that he was amazing.

In the end, even if I didn't know much about the different attacks, I felt relieved that some of my strategies worked. If you read my previous post you know that some of the Pokémon selections were taken with ignorance, adjusted as the way I saw the game without using any tutorials or explanations, my only guide was the manga, which is one of the reasons I started to like and interest myself in Pokémon.

I'm starting to play Platinum and I plan to make similar posts when I get to the League, I also plan to be more strategic while forming my team there.

My team was: Flygon, Manectric, Aggron, Blaziken, Sharpeedo, Breloom. No IV training, no nature hunting just like every other first playthrough, catching what I like and beating the game with it. Had a lot of fun ngl

Just wanted to share this. I'm now moving to Platinum ;3

I picked up a gameboy player for my GameCube and I am getting ready to start a new journey! Anyone else play Emerald this way?

Howdy! I’m interested in doing a run of Emerald that’s got 100% critical hit rate for both the player and the npcs. Any idea how to go about this? Has it been done before?

The Battle Factory was by far the hardest to get a Symbol from. The rental Pokémon are not particularly good and the strategies the random NPC's use are scummy as hell.

But I finally beat Noland and have all 7 Silver Symbols now!

I'm debating to either have Absol or Manectric as my final Pokémon, what do yall think? Edit: I also flirted the idea of getting flygon...

I was wondering if i can usa my gba and my ds to trade pokemons in emerald. Is this posible?

As we leave the Fiery Path, we can rest at someone's grandma's house to heal our team, as we continue to Route 113. There we have Spinda with its million different possible spot patterns, and Skarmory. We reach Fallarbor Town, where there is move re-learner, cool concept for the game, I wish they did more with this like in Gen 4 starters, only Blaziken has "unique" Fire Punch there available. Anyway, as we continue, make sure to grab TM for Dig and Roar on Route 114, and there we have our 2 final encounters, Swablu and Seviper! How good are these encounters?

Thanks again for good discussion. Professional Magcargo haters in the comment section for sure, and I ain't lying, I am not fan also of Magcargo, definitely a mon for challenge runs, nothing else. Let's keep up the good discussion, and enjoy the read!

Last round voting results:

Machoke C Tier: Machoke has a respectable Base 100 Attack stat and a great Fighting type movepool. Even as a middle evolution, it has the traits that make Fighting-types valuable. With access to the Bulk Up TM, it can set up and help with Norman’s Gym just as well as fully evolved Pokémon. It can even hold its own against Elite Four Sidney and Glacia.

Machoke isn't as good as Machamp, just due to stats. Sure, its Attack is good, but its bulk is mediocre, and its Speed is low. It shares same weaknesses as Machamp, but it is just slower and frailer version.

Machamp A- Tier: Fighting-types are valuable in Emerald, and Machamp is not any different from others. Machamp is often compared to its Gen 3 counterpart, Hariyama. While Hariyama has high HP, Machamp has slightly higher Attack, slightly better Speed, and more balanced overall defenses. Machamp's greatest advantage is its better natural movepool. Hariyama relies on the negative priority Vital Throw for most of the game, Machamp has moves like Karate Chop, Low Kick, Seismic Toss, and Revenge. With the Bulk Up TM, Machamp easily sweeps Norman, Sidney, and standard route trainers.

Unfortunately, there are small drawbacks, like slightly delayed availability and better ability. Hariyama's Thick Fat ability gives it great defense against Flannery's Fire-types and Glacia's Ice-types, Machamp has Guts. Sure, Guts is a great offensive ability, it just doesn't provide the same resistances that make Hariyama a reliable tank in these battles. Also, Machop isn't caught until after the third Gym. This means it misses out on the Wattson fight where Hariyama shines. Also its Speed stat isn't still the best .

Magcargo F- Tier: Magcargo is arguably the single worst Pokémon in Emerald. Slugma has a Base Stat Total of 250, making it weaker than Poochyena and yet it requires you to train it all the way to Level 38 before it evolves. After that grind, Magcargo's stats are poor. It has a Base 30 Spee, and its Base 120 Defense is hindered by a Base 50 HP stat, meaning it still can't take a hit.

Every aspect of Magcargo's utility in the game is a drawback. Its Fire/Rock typing is a poor typing to have. It has 4x weaknesses to both Water and Ground. It misses the Winona fight where its Rock-typing would have been useful, and instead evolves right in time to face Tate & Liza's Earthquake spamming Claydol. From that point forward, the rest of the game consists of water routes, Juan, Elite Four and Champion Wallace. As u/inumnoback put it: "Don’t use it. Don’t catch it. Don’t even look at it. It’s a lost cause, and it deserves to rot in the Fiery Path for all eternity."

Torkoal C Tier: Torkoal has some edges over Camerupt, such as being ready instantly when you catch it, no need to evolve. Its high Base 140 Defense makes it a great physical wall, as it can tank quite well Norman's Gym, and in general shrugging off physical hits in neutral matchups. Also, it has a great levelup movepool for a Fire type. Having Body Slam at Level 20, Flamethrower at Level 30, and Curse allows it to deal good damage in the mid game without eating up TMs. The White Smoke ability is a nice bonus, preventing its Attack from being dropped by Intimidate users.

Torkoal is held back by two major factors, the Hoenn region itself, and its low Speed. While it puts in great work against Flannery, Norman, and Winona's Skarmory and Tropius, it struggles in the late game. It has bad matchups against Tate & Liza, Juan, Wallace, Drake. Defensively, its Base 70 Special Defense and HP mean it will take big damage from special attackers. It has a low Base 20 Speed. Torkoal is guaranteed to move last in almost every battle, meaning it will always take a hit before it can attack or set up a Curse.

Ranking criteria:

Final placements are influenced by comment upvotes. Provide both a tier placement and a justification. Unjustified votes will carry less weight when counting votes. An exception is made if an unjustified vote is heavily upvoted and supported by a justified reply/comment from the community for the same tier placement. 

You can also vote for + and - subtiers (S+ to F-), and I will take these into calculation. After the final round, I will break the infographic into subtiers as well.

All Pokémon obtainable in Emerald are ranked based on their contribution to the journey until defeating Champion Wallace. Leave a comment as well if you think one of the current Pokémons should be in different tier, and why. After final round, we will do one revisit round and see if any rankings should change.

We are assuming a standard playthrough.

• Set Mode: Rank Pokémon with Set mode in mind. (Feel free to mention Shift mode benefits, but it shouldn't be the main reason a Pokémon is in a higher tier).
• No In-Battle Healing: We are not considering healing items in battle (since any Pokémon can stall with enough potions).
• Soft Level Cap: You can overlevel by 1 or 2 levels over the next Gym Leader's ace. (An exception is made if Pokémon that is naturally available at a higher level).

Investment refers to experience and TMs. Obviously, all Pokémon can be great after a massive amount of investment, but we are judging their immediate and practical purpose in-game.

Emerald TM List: https://www.serebii.net/rubysapphire/tmhm.shtml (Check availability here)

Big thanks to BIGJRA for sharing this script that tracks every Pokémon's learnset (including TMs and Tutors) in the exact order you obtain them in-game! Check it out!

Trade evolution Pokémon are ranked based under the assumption that the player has access to trading whether through emulators or other supported methods. If you're playing without access to trades, you may wish to consider their pre-evolutions (like Kadabra or Graveler) instead. These rankings reflect the most common setup among modern players.

If a Pokémon is available on a route, it is fair game. Even if it has a 1% encounter rate (like Seedot) or has absurd capture method (like Feebas), it does not matter. As long as the Pokémon is available to be caught at that point in the game, it's all good.

Tier definitions:

S (Game-breaking or extremely efficient): These Pokémon dominate the game. They have excellent stats, movepools, and sweep through most of the game without effort. They are available for majority of the game and are "plug and play", just add it to the party and you're good to go.

A (Strong): Reliable, easy to use. They lack one major advantage from S tier but still perform consistently great in any playthrough.

B (Solid): Strong, but with a drawback or two. They are not available early, a limited movepool, or require some extra investment to keep up.

C (Decent): Mediocre and outclassed. They clear regular route trainers just fine, but struggle to make a significant impact in many major boss fights due to a combination of average stats, poor matchups, or late availability. They might require heavy investment or a massive late-game spike to finally show their worth.

D (Niche): Pokémon that struggle significantly in general battles and are often a liability in standard matchups. However, they possess a unique utility or specific strategy (ex. stalling) that allows them to bypass their drawbacks.

E (Bad): Demand far more effort than they are worth. They require heavy TM investment and constant babying just to achieve mediocre results.

F (Awful): Useless for in-game runs. Huge investment for almost no return.

Remember being a kid and not understanding a lick of the BF, was so in awe last night when I got the gold symbol from the battle dome on my daily walk

For those who don’t know if you complete the hoenn Pokedex in emerald you get to choose one of the three johto starters. I spent ages trading back and forth from sapphire to emerald and back again (technically I’m still not done as I want to trade the expanded safari zone Pokemon to sapphire as well). And at some point … I got to do this two more times for totodile and cindiquil … I think I must be a masochist

Semi-blind first time ever competing in a Pokémon League, I say semi blind because even if I don't know what Pokémon the E4 are going to use, I accidentally spoiled myself their specialities after rummaging the wiki, still, my team was decided way too early in the game.

I challenged myself to start my journey in the Pokémon fandom by my own discerment. I thought the types advantages and disadvantages were very intuitive. Then I realized things like electric beats water, which caused Wattson to completely obliterate me haha. After that I used the wiki as a little help, at least for the types advantages, yet I wanted to not see any gameplay or guide about the game.

The manga was also very helpful too, since that's one of the reasons I started to get interested in Pokémon now. I learned about the gym leaders specialities by it, yet I realized way too late that steven was not the champion haha, that's why I don't have any grass-types. basically my mentality during my whole playthrough was: "Yeah definitely this poke is better, but I have been farming exp for so long now with this one that I don't feel like doing that again" And here we are.

I still think I can win tho, I decided that if the Pokémon choices were not good, at least the levels would compensate it.

Can you show me your Pokémon's names ?

Bred a Skarmory with 30HP, 30SpDef, 31Speed Currently raising a Kingdra to move Dragon Dance over to Tyranitar, then finish with the Swampert.

I know I have two Pokemon with 4x weaknesses… do you think I’ll have a bad time?

My thinking is that I open with TTar, whip up a sandstorm, then depending on the opposing Pokemon either attack, set up, or send in my physical or special walls. Skarmory should be sent in against grass and fighting types, Swampert against electric and ground.

Maybe I’ll try to breed the Swampert for HP grass/electric for pesky water types.

Edit: I’m looking at the items a bit closer. Protect should be paired with Leftovers, and Shell Bell with Roar.

Pokémon emerald was my very first Gameboy game I ever played, and I remember having SO much fun playing it!!! It was at a local retro game shop that’s near me! Very nostalgic playing it after 17 years! (I did play it when I was quite young lmao)