RBY OU Viability Rankings

[Enigami]

Welcome to the RBY 1U Viability Ranking Thread! This is for Standard RBY. There is no wrap clause. In case you're not familiar with the concept, we place Pokémon in certain ranks here, based on their impact on the tier as well as their general viability in the tier. How This is an excellent help while teambuilding and it serves as a general outline of the tier.

If you feel that a Pokémon is misplaced, feel free to make a post about it - that's what this thread is for. As long as you are reasonably sensible and courteous this thread should run smoothly.

Pokémon are sorted into the respective categories based on how well they perform their roles. Within each ranking Pokemon are listed alphabetically to avoid overcomplication.

Here is the list of PP's tiers.

S Rank

These are the top Pokemon of the tier, that you should put on nearly every serious team that you create. These Pokemon excel at their roles in the tier to such a point that they are dominating forces.

Chansey - Analysis

Exeggutor - Analysis 2 by Ortheore, Analysis 1 by Disaster Area

Snorlax - Analysis

Tauros - Analysis

A Rank

These Pokemon perform significant roles in the metagame, and perform them very well, however they are not the most dominating forces.

Alakazam - Analysis

Starmie - Analysis

B Rank

These Pokemon are strong choices in the metagame, but perform less important roles or are less consistent than Pokémon in the Rank above. They have larger flaws than Pokémon in above ranks, or face greater competition from similar Pokemon, reducing their usefulness.

Cloyster - Analysis

Lapras - Analysis

Rhydon - Analysis

Slowbro - Analysis

Zapdos - Analysis

C Rank

These Pokemon are more infrequent sights in the metagame, particularly in top level matches, but are nevertheless viable Pokemon. They are less effective in the metagame than Pokémon in above ranks, but are effective with proper support.

Gengar - Analysis

Golem - Analysis

Jolteon - Analysis

Jynx - Analysis

Victreebel - Analysis

D Rank

These Pokemon are very rare sights in top level matches, and suffer from more crippling flaws. They require a lot of support to be effective, and may have consistency issues.

Articuno - Analysis

Dragonite - Analysis 2 by Enigami, Analysis 1 by Disaster Area

Moltres - Analysis

Persian - Analysis

E Rank

These Pokemon are barely viable in the tier but require very specific support to make use of. They have flaws too crippling for them to be seen at all often in high level play, but nevertheless are still explorable options. They are generally considered gimmicks.

Spoiler

Clefable - Analysis

Dodrio - Analysis

Flareon - Analysis

Hypno - Analysis

Kabutops - Analysis

Kangaskhan - Analysis

Kingler - Analysis

Pinsir - Analysis

Porygon - Analysis

Raticate - Analysis

Sandslash - Analysis

Venusaur - Analysis

F Rank

These Pokemon have flaws too crippling to ever be serious contenders in the tier, and tend to suffer from being largely if not totally outclassed.

Spoiler

F+

Aerodactyl

Arbok

Charizard

Dugtrio

Electrode - Analysis

Golduck

Gyarados - Analysis

Hitmonlee - Analysis

Machamp

Nidoking - Analysis

Nidoqueen - Analysis

Ninetales

Omastar - Analysis

Onix - Analysis

Poliwrath

Raichu - Analysis

Rapidash

Tentacruel - Analysis

F

Arcanine

Beedrill - Analysis

Blastoise - Analysis

Butterfree - Analysis

Dewgong - Analysis

Ditto - Analysis

Electabuzz - Analysis

Farfetch'd - Analysis

Fearow - Analysis

Golbat - Analysis

Hitmonchan - Analysis

Lickitung

Magikarp - Analysis

Magmar - Analysis

Magneton - Analysis

Marowak - Analysis

Mr. Mime - Analysis

Muk

Parasect - Analysis

Pidgeot - Analysis

Pikachu - Analysis

Primeape - Analysis

Seadra - Analysis

Seaking - Analysis

Scyther - Analysis

Tangela

Vaporeon - Analysis

Venomoth - Analysis

Vileplume - Analysis

Weezing

Wigglytuff - Analysis

Tentative Lead Rankings

Spoiler

S Rank

• 
  Alakazam
• 
  Starmie

A Rank

• 
  Jynx

B Rank

• 
  Exeggutor
• 
  Gengar

C Rank

• 
  Jolteon

D Rank

• 
  Chansey

E Rank

• 
  Hypno
• 
  Snorlax

Current Discussion Points:
Lead Rankings
Ranking compression, moving all Pokemon D rank and below up one rank, and retiring the G rank to get A-F letter grade. Ranks C and below would be revised afterwards.

 

[Lutra]

I think you've rated Jynx too highly, it's great when luck/predictions are on your side, but it's frail and can make you work harder than you otherwise have to sometimes (it's not got the special downing power of Alakazam), similar to Gengar. It's sometimes popular, depending on what opponents use, but I think B is a better home.

Rhydon's attack power is pretty valuable, despite the lack of Explosion. I'd say it should tag along with Golem.

Lapras is a brilliant normal check and has a way of dealing with most things thanks to blizzard/bolt, sing, confuse ray, body slam, hyper beam (albeit it's not quite as good as Exeggutor at that). I think it deserves A.

Would be nice to see individual descriptions, along with why Mew and Mewtwo are banned.

 

[Disaster Area]

Implementing the suggested changes.

I'll work on individual descriptions.

What does gyara do? :x

 

[Mister Tim]

U should write that gengar is the fastest leading sleeper, coz it's main role in many of teams. Also it's will be useful to say that each Pokemon is good answer to another like victreebell is good check vs slowbro teams, which usually use golems/rhydon and slowbro in one team

 

[Disaster Area]

some good points will update

it's just meant 2 be a quick summary so a llot of the extra detail can be found in a mon's analysis intro.

bel>bro is important tho

 

[Ortheore]

hmm most of the relevant ranks look good, good stuff.

Normally I'd object to Persian being in D not C, but it makes sense.

In terms of E (warning, theorymon incoming), Drio seems a cut above all the rest, especially with Raticate floating around in D (maybe change Rat's description to wallbreaker as well, since that's what Super Fang does and SFang is literally its only niche).
m9m recently mentioned Kabutops as something to consider for OU. I personally have never thought about it, but it makes sense for similar rationale to listing Omastar.
When I was learning RBY and spending a lot of time looking through RBY2K10 threads I noticed that they argued Muk>Weezing on the grounds that Acid Armor + Mega Drain allows it to beat GolDon, so if you really wanna mention one of them probably Muk is the one to go with.
Poliwrath has enough things going for it to warrant a mention in E

 

[CrapAtRBY]

I'd put Raticate and Raichu in E, As soon as you've paralysed Raticate it may as well be dead, an anything faster than it with recover renders it's Super Fang a stalling tactic and Raichu's niche over the other 2 electrics is even less relevant now.

Dodrio and Clefable I would move to D. Gyarados is a suprisingly effective hit and run mon, you could probably make a case for it scraping D rank, but it's getting deprived of it's main switch in opportunities right now with Goldon falling in to disrepute.

I have never even heard of Weezing or Omastar in a competitive OU setting, Hitmonlee seems out of place too. Poliwrath and Golduck have amnesia, with the former having sleep and counter shenanigans at it's disposal aswell, and Tentacruel can swords dance, it depends how far down the rabbit hole you want to go, I would probably trim E down a bit.

 

[Disaster Area]

I've heard of use of Weezing but not Muk although both are clearly pretty poor.

Apart from gyara and the fire and fighting types I know of top players using all the E rank mons with some degree of success. Would anyone consider usin poli/duck or are there always directly better options?

 

[Disaster Area]

should raticate move down/anything like clefable move up?

I personally think we should have some discussion of Cloyster, Lapras, and Rhydon. I feel the former is possibly under-ranked and the latter 2 possibly over-ranked but I'm interested to hear opinions on these

 

[Ortheore]

I definitely think Dodrio>Rat, but like I said I've not got much experience with either

I definitely don't think Don and Lap are overrated.

Lap's midgame presence is really second to none, it pressures literally everything in the game and therefore generates a ton of free turns. That combined with the fact that it's a physical check mean it's really easy slotting this on a team.

Don is still good. Obviously it gets hurt by the metagame shifts more than Golem does. But it still preys upon paralysed, physically weak pokemon by smacking something really hard, and the support it requires is still the same, just a little harder to pull off because players aren't letting their blobs get paralysed all willy-nilly now. Basically I'm saying that yes it got worse and now Golem's boom gives it the clear edge, but its switch-in opportunities are still the same, it's still a potent attacker and it's not worse by so big a margin that it deserves to be ranked alongside stuff like Bel.

Cloy I'm fine with leaving in C. Explosion is literally all it has over Lapras- sure Clamp gives you free turns, but it's not as though Lapras can't create free turns effectively itself. I always feel underwhelmed when using Cloy- it comes in, takes a powerful hit (better than anything else can sure, but it's still getting worn down), it fires off a Blizzard or something as Chansey/Starmie/Lapras comes in, they take it easily it Clamps you out into something else. I guess when you consider this over a couple of cycles and the fact that Cloy can run HBeam and hence can threaten a KO while Lap has to drop CRay or BSlam in order to do the same, then Cloy is perhaps just as effective, maybe a little more so, at working around Chansey, but it's very much debatable. So this debatable point is then weighed up against the fact that Lapras and Starmie totally defecate on Cloyster, while neither enjoys switching into tbolt/paraslam.

You'll notice I don't really talk much about Golem/Cloy's explosions. Tbh I don't readily blow up my pokemon unless I am using Gengar- I value consistent mid-game contributions more than I value the high risk/reward of booming. That might be why I dislike Cloy and like Don. Then again, not using their boom effectively is probably a hole in my game *shrugs*

 

[Disaster Area]

I'd definitely like to hear some opinions on this, haha you do make it clear that it's a part of how you play that affects how you value them.

I had Raish feeling Kingler was as good as Rhydon currently so I'm sure there's potential for someone to call it over-rated. I'll see if I can get him to comment on the rankings I think the rhydon thing might well be quite prejudiced from our experience of paraslam metagame. I don't actually see much of a reason to describe it as anything other than a late game sweeper with the exception of it also walling zapdos and eating explosion (both of which Golem can do good enough) - the value of explosion in a defensive sense (sounds a bit peculiar lmao) makes golem much better at absorbing hyper beams and not being as bit a bait for tauros, or as worried about being walled by exeggutor. I think the defensive niche is the only thing that separates it from any other niche late-game sweeper, so I guess it sort of compresses that, but then again a lot of mons like kingler for example have an easier time actualyl sweeping (e.g. with kingler you don't need to spread as much paralysis and its speed tier helps it a lot)

 

[Ortheore]

In my mind it's always been competing with Golem and Snorlax for a spot on a team, something that can come in on paralysed special walls and smack something- either hitting said wall really hard, or wearing down opposing physical checks. I've never really viewed it as a late-game sweeper, more as a para'd Chansey response and supporter for an eventual Tauros sweep (I guess you'd call it a wallbreaker? Doesn't seem quite the right term for it).

 

[Disaster Area]

In my mind it's always been competing with Golem and Snorlax for a spot on a team, something that can come in on paralysed special walls and smack something- either hitting said wall really hard, or wearing down opposing physical checks. I've never really viewed it as a late-game sweeper, more as a para'd Chansey response and supporter for an eventual Tauros sweep (I guess you'd call it a wallbreaker? Doesn't seem quite the right term for it).

I think I can agree but I often run Rhydon alongside snorlax - I only really use it to pressure chansey when it's out of nesecity - if you take an ice beam you find it harder to absorb hyper beams/explosions, and tauros blizzard KOs without a critical hit/freeze needed. Bringing it in early's only really useful for trying to chip exeggutor - when you bring it in early you have to be conscious of how it's bound to switch out again very soon - so many pokemon can do it, exeggutor, starmie, lapras, even tauros. If it does KO something and then tauros is brought in you have a lot of issues, so you either have to save it for post-tauros and to absorb explosions (if you can), and maybe to wall electrics (pretty risky though especially since it's such an obvious lure, a double to tauros can be deadly), or you carry it alongside things that can switch into tauros a couple of times during the match [slowbro, rest stun egg, lapras, starmie, probably some other stuff] - i.e. you can't fit it on a more offensively oriented team without playing in the first way. A team packing just starmie lead, stun spore egg, and a rhydon is probably better off with golem in most circumstances since it has such an issue with the lack of defense offered by a team like that.

 

[marcoasd]

I think Slowbro and Zapdos could be moved to a rank between A and B (say A-), ad they are way more dangerous than the other B ranked. Dnite and Cloyster can be moved to B, Kangaskhan and Kingler to C.

 

[Ortheore]

Yeah, I probably shouldn't have said that they compete since they are viable alongside each other (but if I'm running both Lax and a Rock I actually prefer Golem anyways but that's w/e). I think chipping away at Egg is a pretty worthwhile goal in and of itself. It's pretty easy to avoid coming in on Chansey's Ice Beam imo, since if the worst comes to worst you can simply park something in front of it and bash away at it until the Softboiled becomes obvious (Zam, parafusion Lap, your own Chansey). I personally think that a Tauros vs. Rhydon matchup isn't that bad (relatively speaking, since this is Tauros we're talking about here) since it's unlikely to be using its Normal STAB which means it's a hell of a lot easier to switch into. Obviously there're prediction mindgames involved but it's overall not too bad.

Basically I view it chipping away at its switchins (or fishing for para if it's facing Starm) to be worth the risk associated with letting Egg/Starm/Lap in. Chansey generally neutralises Egg/Starm well enough, Lap is a bit more tricky but at the same time it gets worn down a lot faster than the other 2. I think it's clear we both play Rhydon quite differently though so idk.

Re Marco: I wouldn't argue with Zapdos moving up, it seriously kicks ass. Slowbro I just find too inconsistent though- it has games where it'll demolish/cripple half a team, but for every one of those there's a fair few where it just doesn't accomplish all that much.

Dnite moving up I think is fair, and I've already said my bit on Cloy. While I don't have a strong opinion on whether Khan/King move up, I don't feel comfortable putting them a whole rank above Persian, who is an equally effective lategame cleaner and a kickass revenge-killer against non-Gengar teams, especially because it revenges Tauros, which is just such a good trait in the wake of Crystal's mechanics.

 

[Lutra]

Lickitung has a tiny niche, 208 attack normal SDer with 158 speed (needs paralysis support). The STAB (putting its attack to 312) and fact it can't be paraslammed, along with wrap means it'll at least work in occasional situations.

Maybe you should also add an F Rank to distinguish the E rankers that have a realistic niche from an unrealistic one. Then G are all the worthless ones (the rest).

Edit: Lowered the image sizes in the OP.

 

[marcoasd]

While I don't have a strong opinion on whether Khan/King move up, I don't feel comfortable putting them a whole rank above Persian, who is an equally effective lategame cleaner and a kickass revenge-killer against non-Gengar teams, especially because it revenges Tauros, which is just such a good trait in the wake of Crystal's mechanics.

Actually, Persian might be the underrated one, and could be moved up as well. It was considered to be one of the original top 16 OU, and as you said it's now better than it was before. Still, suffering 2HKOs from everything is bad, and Kangaskhan can take a lot more on the physical side, learns Counter and can't be walled.
If Tauros was banned, we would've used it on almost every team.
I see the point about Kingler, that can be inconsistent.

Slowbro is really valuable as a team player with Thunder Wave: it will rarely sweep, but if you don't risk it against Thunderbolts, it will paralyze one or two things (paralyze Starmie and run) and/or will eventually draw an explosion. And that is a process where the Slowbro user is in a good position: boom can be predicted, blowing up Exeggutor or Snorlax could have bad side effects....

 

[Disaster Area]

I think Slowbro and Zapdos could be moved to a rank between A and B (say A-), ad they are way more dangerous than the other B ranked. Dnite and Cloyster can be moved to B, Kangaskhan and Kingler to C.

I'd like to hear some reasoning/more support before I make these. I'm okay with the idea of splitting a rank into two so long as this is done for every rank other than possibly S. Otherwise it looks non-sensical.

Yeah, I probably shouldn't have said that they compete since they are viable alongside each other (but if I'm running both Lax and a Rock I actually prefer Golem anyways but that's w/e). I think chipping away at Egg is a pretty worthwhile goal in and of itself. It's pretty easy to avoid coming in on Chansey's Ice Beam imo, since if the worst comes to worst you can simply park something in front of it and bash away at it until the Softboiled becomes obvious (Zam, parafusion Lap, your own Chansey). I personally think that a Tauros vs. Rhydon matchup isn't that bad (relatively speaking, since this is Tauros we're talking about here) since it's unlikely to be using its Normal STAB which means it's a hell of a lot easier to switch into. Obviously there're prediction mindgames involved but it's overall not too bad.

Basically I view it chipping away at its switchins (or fishing for para if it's facing Starm) to be worth the risk associated with letting Egg/Starm/Lap in. Chansey generally neutralises Egg/Starm well enough, Lap is a bit more tricky but at the same time it gets worn down a lot faster than the other 2. I think it's clear we both play Rhydon quite differently though so idk.

Re Marco: I wouldn't argue with Zapdos moving up, it seriously kicks ass. Slowbro I just find too inconsistent though- it has games where it'll demolish/cripple half a team, but for every one of those there's a fair few where it just doesn't accomplish all that much.

Dnite moving up I think is fair, and I've already said my bit on Cloy. While I don't have a strong opinion on whether Khan/King move up, I don't feel comfortable putting them a whole rank above Persian, who is an equally effective lategame cleaner and a kickass revenge-killer against non-Gengar teams, especially because it revenges Tauros, which is just such a good trait in the wake of Crystal's mechanics.

points about rhydon forcing a non-normal move is interesting and valid. Agreement on the comment about chipping switches too. I could possibly go with the move of persian not sure though ;-;

I think with zapdos whilst we feel it kicks ass I think we should probably wait out another couple of months to see how much equilibrium returns to zapdos/rocks dynamic, but some logical discussion of the case of why we feel zapdos is so good would be welcomed.

Lickitung has a tiny niche, 208 attack normal SDer with 158 speed (needs paralysis support). The STAB (putting its attack to 312) and fact it can't be paraslammed, along with wrap means it'll at least work in occasional situations.

Maybe you should also add an F Rank to distinguish the E rankers that have a realistic niche from an unrealistic one. Then G are all the worthless ones (the rest).

Edit: Lowered the image sizes in the OP.

Should Lickitung be E rank then?

I'll get to adding further lower ranks till every FE Pokemon is included as I might as well, but gimme a bit of time ;D

Actually, Persian might be the underrated one, and could be moved up as well. It was considered to be one of the original top 16 OU, and as you said it's now better than it was before. Still, suffering 2HKOs from everything is bad, and Kangaskhan can take a lot more on the physical side, learns Counter and can't be walled.
If Tauros was banned, we would've used it on almost every team.
I see the point about Kingler, that can be inconsistent.

Slowbro is really valuable as a team player with Thunder Wave: it will rarely sweep, but if you don't risk it against Thunderbolts, it will paralyze one or two things (paralyze Starmie and run) and/or will eventually draw an explosion. And that is a process where the Slowbro user is in a good position: boom can be predicted, blowing up Exeggutor or Snorlax could have bad side effects....

no more real comment to add on marco's post but more discussion please :] I need to get raish to post here lol

 

[Lutra]

yeah, lickitung for E, boltbeam also doesn't destroy it immediately.

 

[Disaster Area]

Some commentary of Raish's on the rankings, offer your thoughts?

I'd put Jynx, Gengar, and Zapdos at A because you require more aggressive support from specials in new meta. Starmie and Zam don't do enough on their own anymore unless you outplay your opponent now that the Normals can deal with aggression better. If you're going to have Rhydon at B, I'd put Kingler there too because Kingler is better than Rhydon right now outside of Rhydon's ability to wall Zapdos because it costs more to get paralysis and Kingler requires less Paralysis to sweep, he beats ReflectLax, and he's a better punishment against Jynx (especially when she's sleep bait or using rest and you get a free setup)

Also if you get into the situation where they are all paralyzed anyway, Kingler's Hbeam hits exactly as hard as Rhydon's EQ and is better vs unparalyzed Eggy but granted it's worse if you get punished for recharge.