3 years ago, I decided to open up a ratings thread for Pokemon Emerald since no one else was doing it, but also because Moogle Boss was doing a ratings thread for Pokemon Crystal and I wanted in on the action.
Anyway, the basic objective of these ratings are to rate each Pokemon's efficiency in a run done in a relatively quick timeframe (not a speedrun, but not lolly-bagging like an asshole), and the Pokemon will be rated based on such things as performance in or out of battle (with the former being given more weight), availability (difficulty of acquisition is given some weight, but only in extreme cases will something be heavily penalized for it), type match-ups against gyms/elites/bosses, resource requirement, stats, movepools, and overall coverage.
This rating assumes that the player doesn't exploit any bugs in the game, trains a team of 3-4 Pokemon, and does not do any unnecessary grinding (I'll put up ideal levels to be at). For the purposes of this rating, the game ends after your first induction in the Hall of Fame, which basically means that stuff that isn't in the Hoenn Pokedex will not be rated.
Also note that trade evolutions will be weighted, since this is meant to be a fair rating to each Pokemon, and denying trade evolutions their evolution would be blasphemy (though I will be giving a separate rating based on no trades).
Have a nice day.
Let us tee things off with the Hoenn starter trio.
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Treecko/Grovyle/Sceptile
Type: Grass
Ability(s): Overgrow
Treecko is a grass starter, which is certainly a lot better than in Johto, but is still pretty unimpressive in Hoenn until later on. While Treecko does have effectiveness in the first gym and learns his first STAB earlier than the other two do, Absorb is pretty fucking awful damage wise (only 20 damage, are you for real?), and he doesn't get a stronger STAB until Lv29 (which is not happening until after Lavaridge), unlike Torchic and Mudkip, who get some great STAB upon their first evolution. Until then, I suppose you could use Bullet Seed, which will usually dole out more damage than Absorb on average, but you would still need at least 4 hits in order to match or beat Ember/Water Gun's power, but that happens only 25% of the time.
As far as the rest of his learnset, he's shit out of luck until Lv29, when he learns Leaf Blade. Thankfully, Leaf Blade is a pretty good move, sporting 3.5 times as much muscle as Absorb and has a nifty crit bonus. As for his non-STAB, he's fucked. The best moves he has until lategame is Pursuit, perhaps Rock Tomb or Dig (but those last two have a lot of competition, but they are options) Sceptile can pick up Earthquake and Brick Break later on, which is somewhat wasted on an 85 attack, but can work since he needs the coverage, and he can also use Dragon Claw on Drake's dragons if he wants to (and he practically has dibs on it, unless you are using Trapinch or god forbid Bagon), but good luck taking hits from him.
Treecko, in a surprising change of pace from the last two grass starters, isn't very defensive oriented, instead sporting good offenses and great speed, but at the cost of being a total glass cannon (70/65/85 bulk with the amount of weaknesses grass has is not exactly what you want). Treecko doesn't get any status moves, but overall sports better offenses and coverage, which I say is a far better trade off.
As far as gym/elite compatibility goes, Treecko does ok in the first gym, about average in the second, then has to go through a long march full of gyms that are tailor made to kill grass types (he's resistant to Watson, but good luck killing his Pokemon before he kills Grovyle, and while Norman is a neutral match up for him, his Pokemon hit really hard). He also does great against Team Aqua, but rather poorly against Team Magma. Thankfully for Sceptile (and unlike Meganium), every route after Lilycove is basically a water route full of water types for him to mop up, and each of the last two gym leaders he can mop up with relative ease (Juan uses water types and three of the twins' Pokes have typing that renders them weak to grass.) Out of the elite's Pokemon, he gets Sid's Crawdaunt, 3/5 of Glacia's team (watch out for stray Ice Beams; those tend to be lethal), and most of Wallace's team (again, Wallace has ice moves on 3 of his mons, and he should avoid Tentacruel).
Availability? Treecko has pretty much the entire game to be useful, and while he is worse than the other two starters, he is still better than most things you'll find on your journey, and at least he is better than pretty much any grass type native to Hoenn (the only one that comes close to being as good as Treecko is Shroomish).
7/10
Torchic/Combusken/Blaziken
Type: Fire, Fire/Fighting (Combusken/Blaziken)
Ability(s): Blaze
The game's fire starter, and like most of them, Torchic is a fast, offensive Pokemon (though he isn't as fast as Charmander or Chimchar) who is sorely lacking in durability. Unlike Treecko, who gets his first STAB at the low, low level of 6, Torchic has to wait until Lv10 to pick up Ember. While this does mirror Chikorita vs Cyndaquil to some extent, remember that Treecko is stuck with the pathetic Absorb, so the wait is worth it. Being fire-typed is significantly worse than it was back in Johto, since none of the gyms use types that are weak to fire, and in fact, three gyms specialize in types that resist fire, though there are still things fire can mop up, like Winona's Tropius and Skarmory. Thankfully, he gets fighting typing upon evolution, along with a good STAB in Double Kick, which allows him to reliably deal with the first gym, and makes his Norman performance significantly better. The trade off is that he doesn't want anything to do with the psychic twins. He's also good against Aqua despite having being fire typed due to the stupid little piranhas being part dark (Magma has a bunch of Magnitude toting Numels that he detests).
His elite four performance is certainly a lot better than Charizard's, and arguably Typhlosion's as well. Blaziken can pretty much sweep Sid's entire party with his fighting STAB, and Glacia's Pokemon do not want to see either of Blaziken's STABs either, especially considering none of her Pokemon except Walrein pack any water moves. While Blaziken can kind of deal with Phoebe with his fire type moves, he doesn't want anything to do with Drake (lol dragons) or Wallace (lol water).
While this does make Torchic very interesting, he does have his shortcomings. The first is a lack of stronger STAB during mid and lategame. While Ember can be replaced with Blaze Kick at the relatively low level of 36 (around the time you face Winona) and the Flamethrower TM can be bought for 80K at the casino or even Fire Blast from the Lilycove shoppe, Blaziken doesn't learn Sky Uppercut until... Lv59. This is far too late, since 50 is around the limit you want to get your Pokemon to be battle ready to face the E4. There is the TM for Brick Break to consider, which offers around the same power as Sky Uppercut after factoring in accuracy, but even that shows up in Sootopolis. As for the rest of Torchic's level up movepool, he's about as fucked as Cyndaquil. While Bulk Up is useful, he gets most of his damaging moves too late for an efficient player's liking. As far as his TM game goes, I already mentioned BB, but Rock Tomb is another plausible option if you are willing to deal with the poor accuracy and the fact that a fuckton of other things want it. Later on, he doesn't get any noteworthy coverage other than EQ, which does not blend well with Fighting.
Another strike against him is that after Lilycove, everything and their mother starts packing water types, which is bad news tidings to Blaziken if he's unable to OHKO them, as they hit him fairly hard. As a result, it's almost as if Blaziken is Sceptile's opposite there... either that or I'm thinking way too deep.
Anyway, mostly good gym/elite performance + good offense = excellent in my books.
9/10
Mudkip/Marshtomp/Swampert
Type: Water, Water/Ground (Marshtomp/Swampert)
Ability(s): Torrent
I could go on and on about how the Mudkipz meme is overrated, but this isn't the time or the place. Keep that shit in FFtF.
Like any starter in any game, Mudkip has unparalleled availability, not to mention mostly balanced stats. While he has more of a physical bias than Blaziken, he does not have as much attack as him. Unlike Totodile, who had a similar physical bias but no physical STAB, Mudkip gets access to ground STAB, which helps out majorly against Watson, among other things. It helps that he gets Mud Shot instantly after his first evolution (and Mud Slap ten levels before), and gets access to Earthquake via level up later on. While his special attack pales in comparison to his attack, it's still high enough to badly hurt things with Surf. Also, unlike the other two starters, he has good durability, which is further compounded by having only one weakness, and that one weakness isn't very common in Hoenn (only the areas leading into and out of Fortree are grass heavy). He does pay for it with pretty bad speed, though.
Early on, Mudkip isn't so mighty, considering he needs until Lv10 to get Water Gun, but that's still an improvement over Totodile, and before that, can deal some good damage with Tackle. Don't worry about it, you'll definitely have Water Gun by the time you reach Rustboro, with Geodudes being rampant in the gym. While he does have a bit of a wait until he gets a stronger STAB through level up, chances are good that you'll get Surf before he hits Lv39, and Surf is superior to Muddy Water. His ground STAB, on the other hand... he has to wait until Lv52 for Earthquake, which is not happening until you reach the Elite Four.
As far as gym compatibility goes, Mudkip is extremely self sufficient, being effective against everybody except Brawly, Norman, and Juan gym wise (he gibs Winona's Pokes with Ice Beam and has moves that hit everybody on the twins' team super effective), and while Swampert doesn't have any advantageous match-ups against anyone in the Elite Four except Drake (again, Ice Beam) and Wallace's Tentacruel, he isn't really threatened by anyone except Sid's Cacturne and Wallace's Ludicolo.
I already mentioned that he benefits from Ice Beam, thanks to the presence of dragon types later on as well as the ability to smack around grass types, but I might also like to mention that he benefits from the Rock Tomb TM early on when your options are still limited, and if you really wanted to, he can function as an HM slave, considering he learns all the water based HMs plus Strength and Rock Smash, though why would you waste a really good Pokemon for that?
While there are plenty of water types that could potentially fill Mudkip's shoes should you not choose him, generally speaking the ones you can get earlygame are pretty bad in comparison (Magikarp needs around 15 levels worth of grinding, Tentacool's offense sucks until Lv25, and Wingull is quite bad as well, and let's not get started on Marill and Goldeen), and pretty much all the good water types are gotten after the fifth gym.
So what can I say? Great typing and offense + good bulk + great matchups + pretty much nothing of its type better than it = god. His only issue is his 60 speed as Swampert, but that's still enough for a perfect score, since he is the best thing you can get in this game.
10/10
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