RAWR

The title of this post is RAWR because that was the noise I made when I got completely and utterly HOSED last night by none other than Cynthia, the Sinnoh region champion. (Sidenote: I'm playing through Diamond version which is WONDERFUL.) Now, for starters, I can't complain too much about my defeat because of the following reasons:
Cynthia is the Champion. She's suppossed to be really tough. I am only using a team of 5 Pokemon (plus Dialga who doesn't really count because I don't use it unless I need to use Revives or something... :D ) that are woefully underleveled for the Elite Four because I got impatient with training.

My team consists of the following: Luxray, Staraptor, Empoleon, Lucario and Garchomp. Pretty much fantastic, right? HOWEVER, one of many reasons as to why I lost is because my highest leveled Pokemon at the time was only 54. Cynthia's Garchomp is level 66. The WEAKEST Pokemon in the entire Elite Four is Aaron's Dustox which I think is level 53... 52? 54? WHATEVER. Still as strong as my strongest. Regardless, type advantages and an unfair amount of items will do the trick!

WELL, both the Ground trainer lady (whose name is Bertha I believe??? BERTHA? Who names their child Bertha? Furthermore, I swear she looks like a clone of Agatha from Generation 1. Look it up. FACT.) and the Psychic dude (whose name is Lucian I believe?) are particularly tough to beat with my assembled team of assemblage... Yes. However, I won regardless. On to the pressing matter of me yelling RAWR after my tussle with Cynthia. (Sidenote: I'm all for female Champions. Cynthia is the first. She looks and acts like a boss. Her team is amazing and I respect her estrogen. Spelling??? WHATEVER. You get the point. Hoo ra women's rights! And Pokemon! Yay Pokemon!)

First, I defeated Cynthia's pesky Spiritomb no problem with Dialga (I swear this is the only time I actually use it to fight things whatsoever. Spiritomb is stupid and annoying and has no weaknesses and yeah). Next she used Garchomp which I found rather interesting that she would use her strongest Pokemon second... Whatever. I threw out Staraptor to activate Intimidate to make it not bend me over completely. Weakened it a bit with Brave Bird until Staraptor died/fainted/whatever. Then threw out my Garchomp to finish the job no problemo. Then came Lucario which I killed very easily with a Dig by Garchomp (after using Potions and the like). Sounds good thus far, right? Half done, only one Pokemon dead, havn't been bent over yet. All is right with the Pokemon universe. Then came Milotic. Although gloriously pretty, VERY difficult to murder. HERE COMES THE START OF MY UTTER FRUSTRATION. I choose to engage in battle with Empoleon as Milotic's moveset is Surf, Ice Beam, Aqua Ring, and Mirror Coat. Smart enough not to use Surf, I used Drill Peck repeatedly (after using X Attack which I NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER use ever. Seriously. I think battle items are a wild waste of money and time and I never use them ever. Except for right now. Quite possibly the only time I've ever used a battle item like that.) Anyways, I'm doin fine until Milotic decides to hit me with Surf for a critical hit. Sigh. OK, Empoleon can take another hit without dying, no problem. UNLESS IT'S ANOTHER CRITICAL. LIKE THAT. OK. CRAP. EMPOLEON DIED. No matter! I'll use a Thunder Fang from Luxray! He can take a hit no problem! UNLESS IT'S A THIRD CRITICAL HIT IN A ROW. WHAT THE HECK!?!?!?!? THREE!?!?!?!? IN A ROW!?!?!?!?!?? (This is not where the RAWR comes in. That comes later). SO, I'm down to three Pokemon very quickly. My Lucario does a bit of damage to Milotic but can't get the job done. Down to two left. Shoot! Out goes Dialga to use Revives and such. Back comes Staraptor with half of it's health in tact. Brave Bird........ and Milotic dies a glorious death :D YAY! 2 on 2 now. This is exciting. Out comes Gastrodon. Hmm... I'll weaken it with a few more Brave Birds. Then Staraptor dies but Gastrodon is nearly dead. Go Garchomp! I take a few Muddy Waters to the face... AND BOTH ARE CRITICAL HITS SO I'M AT 12 HEALTH. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. (still no RAWR yet!). I use revive, back comes Staraptor with half of it's health, Garchomp dies. (Sidenote: at this point, I still have no idea what Cynthia's last Pokemon is. I didn't cheat to look it up. I promise. Seriously. Had no idea). Brave Bird, Gastrodon dies a glorious death (Sidenote: in this battle, Cynthia is out of Full Restores. I couldn't remember when she used them but she used them all up! WOOT). Staraptor has maybe a quarter of it's health left... Out comes Cynthia's last Pokemon... and it's... ROSERADE! HA! WIN! IT'S A GRASS TYPE! I'LL WIN FOR SURE!!! BUT, just to be safe, I'll use a Hyper Potion so I'll have enough health to take a hit, use Brave Bird, not die and be entered into the Hall of Fame... Hyper Potion GO! SHOOOOOOOP! (That's the health bar getting refilled, no need to worry). Full health now! Roserade uses Sludge Bomb. Whatever. I can take a hit! ....................................................................... NOPE. Staraptor dies. One hit. I lose. WHAT THE HECK!?!?!?!?!? RAWR!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWR!!!!! WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY?!??!?!?!?!??!? I HAD THE TYPE ADVANTAGE! NO NEED TO USE REVIVES ON OTHER POKEMON WHEN I SHOULD WIN WITH RELATIVE EASE!

I look up why I lose after the battle in my heated frustration. Staraptor's Special Defense is ATROCIOUSLY low. Like in the 60s. Yikes. Roserade's Special Attack is off the charts, and it gets a STAB bonus for the attack. Fair enough. I should have used Aerial Ace when I had the chance. I lose. I cry.

I go back to train more. I shall battle again later. Today. Once my Pokemon are off the charts strong... And/or in the mid 50s so I'm not as woefully underleveled. I'm alright though. My team is good enough to win. AND I still havn't taught Luxray Disharge, Empoleon Hydro Pump, Garchomp Earthquake OR Dragon Rush, or Lucario Extremespeed. And I guess I could replace Staraptor's Aerial Ace with Fly if I wanted to... nah. I'll stick to a move that can't ever miss. SO yeah. Pretty good excuse to yell RAWR at 1 in the morning. Good day my fellow Pokemon is my Pot followers! I hope you never have to yell RAWR unless needed. If you do happen to yell such blasphemous things, post why in a comment below. Tally ho! (Sidenote: Tally ho? REALLY? Whatever)

So who else was totally thinking this?

Gotta say. I was one trusting little kid to go ahead and jump.

Starters

In my opinion here's how the starters rank (from worst to best)

Fire: Typhlosion, Emboar, Blaziken, Infernape, Charizard

Typhlosion is just horrible. Stats are good but no moveset at all. Best move set? Eruption, Flamethrower, Double Edge, and Rollout??? Emboar is simply a third attempt at the same freakin' move set, looks like an obese piglet and is just another sad excuse for a starter. Overdone. PLEASE, Pokemon, start a new combo!!! Blaziken has terrible defense and Infernape just has a better moveset. Sorry. Charizard kicks some serious @$$ with it's moveset and is immune to a big weakness, Ground due to its Flying duel type. Also can't go wrong with learning Dragon type moves, Hyper Beam, Giga Impact, Earthquake and very strong Fire type moves either... and he just looks awesome :P. Don't pick Typlosion unless you REALLY REALLY need a fire type. Choose Infernape over Blaziken and Emboar if possible and always always always go Charizard if you have the option.

Grass: Sceptile, Servine, Meganium, Venusaur, Torterra

This was a close one. Not that I think any of these are bad choices, I just think based on statistics and the second type is several situations gave Torterra and Venusaur advantages. I picked Servine and Sceptile as the worst because of not so impressive moveset. Sceptile is a bit worse because it has no defense whatsoever. Not gonna lie, Meganium's isn't much better. But, Meganium has the advantage based on defense alone. Venusaur's moveset is decent and it doesn't have as many weaknesses as Meganium and Sceptile do due to it's dual Poison type. Torterra is the clear winner because it's part Ground and can slay everything with Earthquake. Clear winner here. My only knock on Torterra is that it gets PWND by Ice types. Oh well. Grass types aren't good on them anyways. Unless they're part water also... Anyways, go with the ground type.

Water: Samurott, Feraligatr, Blastoise, Swampert, Empoleon (barely)

So I give the edge to Empoleon because it resists like EVERYTHING. With the exception of Fire and Grass and whatever can actually hurt it (hardly anything). Despite Feraligatr and Blastoise being much faster than my first and second place peeps, they lack a very solid moveset and both don't abuse their type advantage (low special attack). Swampert and Empoleon are much too effective defensively to not be picked for first and second. Swampert however came in second because of it's type split. Although the duel type is WONDERFUL, it splits the attack power in half (between special attack and regular attack power). Empoleon doesn't do that which makes it a very useful water type. My only knock on Empoleon is that it like never learns a Steel type move... that can hurt things. I mean really? Metal Claw??? If you gave it a TM then your'e cookin but still. All except Feraligatr and Samurott are solid choices. Blastoise's defense makes it good enough to be passable as a single type starter, but Feraligatr and Samurott aren't very impressive. Although the Gen 5 movesets are better, still not particularly wonderful.

Starters make me happy. They don't take a whole lot of training and are typically strong Pokemon overall. Dual types are preferibble to single typed (IMO). Still, I decided to rank them becuase I can. Agree to disagree or disagree to agree. These rankings are my opinions. Deal with it.