While not needed for anything, flash is nice to have, dig is convenient (I have a probably irrational dislike for escape ropes in gen 2. Thus with the justification for those pokemon dropping off so rapidly, eventually I'd rather just have pokemon that can transition into useful slaves when the real fighters get up to snuff. Chuck's Poliwrath if you walk in underleveled and eat a hypnosis? Maybe one of Silver's Crocs? One of the Route 41 trainers has a Tentacruel, but I think it's really low level iirc. EDIT: Hmm forgot about Blue's Rhydon.Įven at quilava. Maybe I'm missing a few, but I don't think I remember anyone else that poses a serious threat to a Typhlosion run at that point. Pretty much the same discussion for Typhlosion with only Clair's Kingdra and Misty's Quagsire being "counters" (thankfully, none of Pryce's pokemon, nor Will's slowbro know any water moves). No discussion needs to be taken about his move-set, stab surf and ice punch being always great. Fer's return isn't that much weaker than Fearow's (and Gyarados's is within the same range). Why would I ever stop for a krabby when polywag and psyduck are both even more easily available and more useful as HM slaves, and as pokemon in general?īut the real issue is that once you get to Stage 3 Toto or Cynda, almost all the good justification for any other non-event (in-game) pokemon disappears. Or you could just use Furret/Radicate and easily dig your way to victory. Sure, technically speaking you can save Jasmine until much later, and blast through it over leveled. Even backtracking to pick up the gyarados doesn't help much there. Because tot+fearow both have serious issues with the gym if they aren't over-leveled or relying on accuracy cheese. That's what I mean compared to the issue with Jasmine.
Ignoring how trivial the gym is with Crystal's free Suicune. Better really since Gyarados is much faster, has higher defenses, and has resistance to surf. Particularily as mareep is primarily useful after 2nd evolution (well that isn't really true, but Flaffy doesn't have many if any signature slowbro's or bulky waters to contend with on-route), and then loses the vast majority of usefulness once Typhlosion comes into play (para strats? light screen?).Ĭlair's Kingdra is equivalently covered by the free Gyarados with strength/return (lol) as it is by Ampharos's TP (outside of Crystal for Thunderbolt tutor). No, I would distinctly say that covering water-types isn't very useful, when thunderpunch is a learned move for Typhlosion. depending on DV Fearow at level is still a 2hit KO range from Kingdra's surf (albeit a very low chance). Of the three Furret has the the best bulk (more due to it's strong health pool than its defenses), but none of them are particularly great in that.įunny enough. Furret and Radicate both have much better typing than Fearow does, not fearing the bolt/beam combo. As far as assuming they don't kill their target. Rattata/Radicate has marginally better stats (rattata being much better than sentret), a better early move pool, and most of the same realistic advantages that Furret has, just with the same 5 level slower evolution. And has access to a much stronger ground move in dig (thus notably better at both Morty and Jasmine). The instant Furret evolves it surpasses Spearow. Furret has literally only 10% worse attack than Fearow.