Fallenite

rather mediocre for a fire-type, but it's pretty much your best bet outside of maybe rapidash if you didn't choose charmander for a starter. starved for a good stab move, and fire is special anyway, so you're not hitting for as much damage as you would probably like. 5.5/10 is what i'd give it outside of bias, but arcanine has been a bro since red days, so 6.5 with bias??

decent doesn't make top tier though, even if it's "been there all game." zigzagoon is available all game, yet rating it above 5 is way overkill because it's the mediocre of mediocre, even after pickup and hm utility. rayquaza isn't actually all that good anyway, hardly trivializing the e4. beldum shouldn't even get a rate because it's not in-game :y

haha look at that a lame normal type. it's got pretty much zero going for it besides fun with assist, even though it will never have the power to go into it. you're better of using your moonstone on jiggly for a cool bulky normal, but even then you might want to rethink that. pretty much no support to your team, that pure normal typing doesn't help, lackluster stats, too rare to consider spending the time it'll take to search for it then train it. i'll give it half a point because, uh, well it's not worth a 0. .5/10 final answer

emerald e4's lowest is like 48 or 49, so you'll be getting to 50 no problem with your other guys. there are hardly any other uses for rare candies besides for guys that need to catch up and uh, not much else. guys you'd want to baby i guess. slakoth is out of the way because it is EASY to get it to 18 as i've pointed out (easier than 'dos). DD on gyarados, as i've pointed out, isn't really helping it because no stab moves besides special water, which coming off 60 special attack, or hp flying that's rather on the hard side to get, you won't be doing much with it outside hyper beam and EQ, which EQ has much better uses. gyarados also has a really mediocre earlygame, with only like bite and dragon rage until the underpowered hydro pump comes along

the point is that hariyama can actually pull off bd and hit back like a two-ton semi smack on the face. unless it's SE, nothing is going to do more than ~30% unless you're against a high powered special sweeper with a stab move, which puts to question the logic of using hariyama. and if training is going to be involved, it's easy as shit to train up guys even if you're only gaining 50%. slakoth isn't hard to get to 18 at all, and then it's a smooth ride to slaking, and it comes at a time when ohkos are rather easy to pull off. slaking's great at hitting and running back after recharge, so yeah. also, i see the point of a low ranked beldum because it comes postgame, but bagon is easy to get up to speed because level 50 honestly isn't hard to train to at all. salamence is probably really of deserving of top tier because of how awesome it is against the e4 and postgame steven with flamethrower

4% isn't exactly stellar, but it's heaps better than surskit or seedot's 1% (emerald wise). it's got better availability than seedot in emerald, but eh that's middle of the road. i agree they're both mediocre pokemon at best, but i'm just trying to give credit where credit is due.

statistically it isn't that bad, but the defenses just aren't worth it imo. he lacks speed, but i guess that can be covered with uh, that fire move that ups speed, flame charge iirc, but he doesn't have the defenses at all to back up the ton of weaknesses fire/fighting brings. offensively it can be a powerhouse, but it's just not tankish enough to be that slow.

all the starters are pretty forgettable and needless in bw

man this is fun. alright, unless you're going through a timed run or something, the extra time it takes to raise a pokemon doesn't actually matter at all. vigoroth can run strength, secret power, a potential brick breaker. you get strength rather early in this game, and a free 120 base move isn't hurting it at all. true, you can't rely on ohkos when they matter, but it's fucking powerful for what it brings to the table, that being a pure normal. also, why would you use a pure normal type against the ghost e4 trainer??? lotad can train on ralts, wurmples, etc. until it gets a better move, absorb, being a) stab (albeit weaker than a grandmother punching) and b) neutral to poochyena and ziggy. early evolution gives it a stat boost early on that can help power through roxanne's lackees, and even the rock queen herself. i was going off sapphire since it is its main game, and emerald has the same earlygame appearance rate anyway. i'm not saying ludicolo is competing for the water type of your team, but it's really versatile with basically a free leftovers in the rain or doubled speed plus a powerful surf, waterfall, etc. seedot and co have next to nothing to offer to the table, and free solarbeam is kind of a nice plus i guess i overlooked, but base 90 is kind of eh in the field of beam sweepers. there are better mons deserving of solarbeam imo. let's look at the physical moves azumarill gets: tackle (ahaha, no), rollout (who wants an unreliable locking move), double-edge (selling-point, yet no stab), focus punch (ai is hit it, hit it, hit it), hp (limited to a physical damaging type, and 70 power at that. hp fighting at 70 will take you -1 attack iv, so not really worth it), hyper beam (this is a joke right), frustration (aka the most useless move ever), iron tail (shaky 75% accuracy, much better on someone who can use it with the costs, i.e. an actual steel type), dig (best move ever clearly free escape rope utility and that's it), brick break (i wouldn't waste it on azumarill, but it's there i guess??), secret power (i guess since it's an infinite tm, it COULD be useful, but base 70 with no stab is kind of lame. paralysis hax is too risky even out of in-game), and then strength, which is kind of useful, and rock smash, which is pretty much field utility only. since it raises the ACTUAL stat and not the base, it's not gaining too much honestly with a base 50. outside of surf utility, i don't think it deserves above a 3, maybe 4. hariyama's tank-like qualities give it more of an advantage and a way to actually use what it has. it may be slow as balls, but it hits like a truck and can tank quite a bit. arm thrust and vital throw are by no means bad moves. having that hp stat makes belly drum that much better to use. the fact that it gets bd naturally gives it an edge over breloom. i don't get what you're trying to argue swellow in for, i agree it has a pretty awesome earlygame, but its typing and limited movepool lag it waaaay down mid-lategame. wasting AA on it is just going to fill you with regret and misery. facade is way too risky on frail swellow imo.

comments in bold

the joke is it's still terrible.

coins are rather cheap, and roulette is a fun way to get a lot of coins, besides money becomes less of a thing after amulet coin + fly due to unlimited reporter battles. (which i guess is about the time you'd have psychic anyway)

gen 5 and its awkward stat spreads. tepig has a somewhat okay earlygame, but he's never really played an important role in my team after that. usually chandelure and scrafty are all i need for fire/fighting coverage, and they also cover ghost/dark, which is a nice plus. until lure comes around, he can stomp around for a bit i guess, but really his stats are so awkward. he's some kind of bulky physical attacker, could go mixed, but mostly physical, except he lacks the defensive stats to back that hp up. i'll just give him a 3/10 with -1 bias because his design is fucking terrible.

ralts being in a much slower gaining exp group means a level 16 ralts will be contributing a lot less to the team than a level 16 kadabra (or alakazam). by the time you get to mauville you can pretty much get psychic if you really need it that early, but alakazam rocking psybeam will be more than enough off that special. shock wave is just a plus and for steels/darks, which i'd question using a psychic pokemon against anyway. overall alakazam will be able to keep up with a team a lot better than the ralts line will, i've tried a few runs with them and they hog the better amount of exp for a long time. very few things i see that voir gets over zam: earlier psychic/cm, technically earlier availabilty, better defensive stats, and tbolt access, while alakazam has; earlier final evolution, better psychic attack earlier (psybeam isn't as bad as relying on confusion for 20 levels), better sweeping potential (delicious base 125 special attack is always nice early on). set on the table, if you're going into a battle that will be drawn out, gardevoir is usually better, but zam kills things way more often than not in a single hit.

it's not so much like RPGs in general, more of a monster catcher/breeder. your pokemon do level up and gain stats, and there's some sense of a max stat, but it's really open in terms of how you train and what your natures and IVs are. it's really a fun series once you get the ball rolling, and it's insanely popular for a reason. it's open to pretty much any age of gamer, and still vastly fun. in reality pokemon games are really dumbed down because of the lower target audience, so really stats aren't as important in-game as other RPGs. you can get by just fine with just about any pokemon, which is also sort of unique if a few of your favorites happen to be not the best stat-wise.