RBY Violet Version Viability Rankings

[Disaster Area]

Welcome to the Violet Version Viability Ranking Thread! 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.

It is playable on the Pokemon Perfect server. The full rule list can be found here.

S Rank

These are the best Pokemon in the tier. These Pokemon excel at their roles in the tier to such a point that they are dominating forces.

Aerodactyl - Analysis

Chansey

Gengar - Analysis

Moltres - Analysis

A Rank

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

A+

Butterfree - Analysis

Nidoqueen - Analysis

Snorlax

Starmie

A-

Exeggutor

Golem - Analysis

Gyarados

Ninetales - Analysis

Tangela - Analysis

Tauros - 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.

B+

Alakazam

Articuno

Charizard

Cloyster

Golduck

Hypno

Slowbro

Zapdos

B-

Dragonite

Dugtrio

Electabuzz

Electrode

Flareon

Jynx

Magmar

Magneton

Poliwrath - 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.

C+

Beedrill - Analysis

Kabutops

Machamp

Parasect

Pinsir

Primeape

Vileplume

C-

Arbok - Analysis

Golbat

Muk

Pidgeot

 

[Disaster Area]

Looking for a lot of opinions on this because it's still hard to determine a lot of the time, but I'll post my reasoning for stuff. I see a lot of possible changes.

Reasoning:
S Rank
It was really hard to decide which of these deserved this spot. Aero's fantastic and kinda hard to drop for teams relying on toxic (i.e. not on para) since it makes golem, kabutops, etc. much less effective answers to stuff like moltres/charizard. And it answers so much, softboiled is awesome as, and it's really threatening although golem/nidoqueen are great answers. It can be answered in more creative ways too - I've been trying electrode+poliwrath recently. Poli resists fire blast/rock slide and threatens back with stab surf [I quite like dream eater toxic surf karate chop as my set] and if it sky attacks you go electrode.

Chansey is still fucking chansey, even though a lot more preys on it, it's still scary and has room for versatility. Definitely not mandatory in this meta (nothing is even close) but it's still great, and covers a lot (including being the best gengar answer in the game, making it a bitch for toxic teams). Gengar gets the spot for the combination of huge versatility [hypnosis, psychic, toxic, dream eater, explosion, thunderbolt, mega drain, night shade all being viable move choices on it] - you can really run anything on it and it works - as well as large defensive value. Beating virtually every poison, fighting, and bug type with ease, as well as having high speed, special, and so much in the way of options. Also checks stuff like articuno and cloyster and gyarados and ... the list goes on and on. It's just so cool. Does push a lot of other poisons out of viability somewhat though (arbok golbat muk) especially when nidoqueen is so good too.

Moltres is probably the most dangerous offensive pokemon in the metagame, although quite a lot can take its attacks [any fire or dragon type, to a lesser extent stuff like water and flying types] but it's only really weak to one common attack type and the only stuff that likes to switch in can't do too much back straight away. Solarbeam and Fire Blast are all you need, and then Fire Spin, Agility, Reflect, Rest, Hyper Beam, and Double Edge each server to make it a little more deadly. Nidoqueen is the best Aero answer around quite possibly - it or Golem. Other than that, it's a great answer to Electrics as well as any of the things gengar answers pretty much outside of water/ice types. So softboiled and defensive compression make it so great. Whilst it doesn't do phenomenal stuff back it still has plenty of options to retaliate. Softboiled and Earthquake leave it room for 2 more moves; Poison Sting and Rock slide work great together, as do Thunderbolt and Blizzard, but options such as Body Slam, Toxic, and Fire Blast all work nicely. Whilst defensively quite a bit can prey on it, it hits hard enough that those things aren't too comfortable switching in usually.

A+
Basically the stuff that's still super good and super splashable. Lax, whilst not liking the versatility (or improvement of fire types) in the meta so much, as well as less para spam going around, and aero being a force, it's still very versatile and just pure good itself with its incredible combination of bulk and attack power. It's still pretty difficult to abuse, it just has a lot more issues being super threatening - either it's more threatening for specific teams, or it's the weaker generic lax of the meta [bslam eq blizz or ib? self-destruct]. It suffers a lot from the meta's general increased longevity too. Butterfree is so awesome, providing a ground resist, psychic resist, threatens opposing psychic types, great nidoqueen switch in, and dual stabs having virtually perfect coverage. The standard sleep/stun (or tox)/leech/psychic is awesome, although it does have mega drain/solarbeam/gust if it ever does want to change it up. It does one job but it does it very well. Starmie's interesting; it has great offensive coverage and answers a lot of the meta, and is a great way of punishing the opponent running fire types and attacks, as well as toxic, and it's really fast. Which makes it sound amazing. But in practice it never quite lives up to that and a lot is threatening to it (e.g. bug types in butterfree, doesn't resist attacks from most of the faster attackers, psychic types are still super common, and it has limited moveslots to do what it wants with). It's great but hard to really push to its limits.

A-
Gyarados and Tauros are offensive monsters, but both perfectly possible to switch into. I think they deserve A- for being so threatening. Tales has a really cool typing, as well as Disable and a decent movepool (although psychic+fire blast+disable should be on every set, bslam/toxic/rest fill out the last slot) and it's fast and good stats elsewhere. Not game-breaking but it's a good fit. Golem's like the best aero answer, a good lax answer, and pretty threatening, if slow. Also still boning electrics to hell and back (other than buzz). Tangela's proven to be an exceptional pivot with great bulk and a perfect movepool. Exeggutor is still exeggutor and the meta's only let it go more versatile, albeit lots more preys on it too (butterfree, ninetales, fires...)

B+
stuff that is generically good but rarely exceptional and may have a good niche [zard zam cloy duck], or pretty good with a few really good common answers [cuno zap maybe bro?] or really versatile but has a lot of competition [hypno]

B-
mostly like quite specific glue here usually with quite a bit of competition or only really good vs certain teams. Some are kinda hard to fit (like dnite), some are a bit frail (like duggy trode magmar and buzz), some have a lot of options but a low of flaws (wrath), some face lots of competition (trode mag flareon maybe jynx)

C+
everything I think isn't really outclassed but also is hard to put on a team. Vileplume is great but hard to fit imo, champ and ape and bee have little defensive utility making them really hard to fit. Parasect has huge stats and a lot of options but is hard to justify. Tops is good but just not very threatening, not quite fast enough, and just not that great a meta fit.

C-
stuff that has barely any niche over other stuff. Can work in practice but very hard to justify in the teambuilder.

edits:
moved nidoqueen to A+ kinda feel it's more right for it

Spoiler: Viability Rankings made by Anna Says Hi with input from myself and Kristoph

VV viability rankings:


S rank:
These are the best Pokemon in the tier. These Pokemon excel at their roles in the tier to such a point that they are dominating forces. Expect to find at least one of these on every team.

Aerodactyl
Chansey
Gengar
Moltres
Starmie


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

A
Butterfree
Nidoqueen
Snorlax

A-
Exeggutor
Golem
Gyarados
Ninetales
Tangela
Tauros


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.


B+
Articuno
Cloyster
Hypno
Zapdos


B
Alakazam
Charizard
Dugtrio
Jynx
Parasect?
Poliwrath
Slowbro

B-
Dragonite
Electabuzz
Electrode
Flareon
Golduck
Magmar
Magneton


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.

C+
Beedrill
Kabutops
Machamp
Parasect?
Pidgeot
Pinsir
Vileplume

C
Arbok
Golbat
Primeape


E rank:
These Pokemon are bad in the Violet Version metagame. They are almost always outclassed, either directly, or by something that can do their assigned role better. These are usually a bad choice for almost any team.

Muk

 

[CrapAtRBY]

S Rank

Chansey

C-

Golbat

 

[Disaster Area]

Still, Golbat is actually viable! And Chansey is not mandatory (though still great)

good meme tho

 

[lily]

i got nostalgic for this and searched, and it was nice to see that it hasn't been 100% forgotten about at least ^^;

looking back i'm still happy with how things turned out. i think the partial trapping experiment was a success (even though it turned people off from the game), and the healing move additions/changes gave things a really interesting feel. team preview also separates it from rby in a way that doesnt just feel like 'the same game but some different pokemon.' and of course there's butterfree <3

there's a lot that was never really explored because the game never took off with more than a couple rby players, but it was a fun time working on it and arguing with people over changes

anyway just wanted to pop in and reminisce a bit!

 

[Disaster Area]

i got nostalgic for this and searched, and it was nice to see that it hasn't been 100% forgotten about at least ^^;

looking back i'm still happy with how things turned out. i think the partial trapping experiment was a success (even though it turned people off from the game), and the healing move additions/changes gave things a really interesting feel. team preview also separates it from rby in a way that doesnt just feel like 'the same game but some different pokemon.' and of course there's butterfree <3

there's a lot that was never really explored because the game never took off with more than a couple rby players, but it was a fun time working on it and arguing with people over changes

anyway just wanted to pop in and reminisce a bit!

it's still playable on PP's server, come meet me on there and play some time

do u also use another name (looks like u might have forgot ur password on here and made a new account)?