Review Your 5th Gen Pokemon

[SergeiDragunov]

Hiya. This thread is for those who are not sure what Pokemon they should try to raise in the 5th gen games, and also as a general pile of knowledge for people who are raising certain Pokemon. So basically, talk about what Pokemon you've raised and how hard they are to raise, if they're worth the trouble, and ask questions about ones you haven't raised, so that selecting team members for a runthrough is a less complicated process.

Klinklang: A very worthwhile catch. He has a very shallow movepool, relying prettymuch exclusively on Gear Grind and the occasional Electric move, but his solid defenses and also decent offensive stats make up for it. Also, since Gear Grind hits twice, wild Boldore are a breeze to kill.

Vanilluxe: Who doesn't love ice cream? But seriously. Personally, I think Vanilluxe is worthwhile. He can be tough to level up at times, but to balance that out there are a ton of places where you can capitalize with the Ice type, like the Driftveil, Mistralton, and Opelucid Gyms. If you give it the Flash Cannon TM from Twist Mountain, he can even be an able contender against Brycen's gym.

Excadrill: If you get a Drilbur early on in the game, he makes for a great addition to any team. It might be tough to raise initially, not getting a STAB move until lv19, but after that it's all uphill. Getting Earthquake, Rock Slide naturally as well as some sweet stat moves like Hone Claws and Swords Dance make him an absolute terror to anything with low defenses.

Scrafty: I can honestly call Scrafty the most useful Pokemon in this generation in terms of in-game uses. Being Dark/Fighting means it's immune to Psychic, which means no more irritating Hypnosis-spamming Musharnas, and also whips Normal and Dark-types, which are fairly common this generation. If you choose to raise one, make sure you catch one with the Moxie ability. In battles where the opponent has a lot of Pokemon, a Scrafty can sweep everything in sight. He's great against Gym Leaders, and he made the E4 look like a joke when I used him, having Super-effective STAB moves against 3 of them.

Gothitelle: Really the only Pokemon I regret raising. I was under the impression that when it hit its final form it would be super-strong and hard to kill with its huge Special Defense. What I failed to overlook is that this game is heavy on Physical attackers and everything on the planet knows Crunch now. She's not a bad Pokemon, but there just aren't enough places in BW where I truly found her to be particularly useful.