Imagine how powerful Steelix would've been hadn't Onix been nerfed in Gen 1 for the sake of being a boss fight (which i'd say was unnecessary anyway since stats are hardly significant at lower levels)
You're the real one, GLM, I appreciate when you tell people to look at something small or specific as this is usually something I treat more like second monitor content or a podcast.
Nice. I never really think about some of the things but I try to imagine how I watch things so I want to call attention to it. Hell, not using curse at the end comes from how I used to watch runs and be like 'oh man, curse/rest/return on the learnset for Red. So exciting' lol.
Real one You deserve more subs, your videos are always fascinating to me with the amount of thought and effort put into each run, it's inspired me to pick up Pokémon again. Thanks for another great video Matt!
Appreciate that a lot. I’m hoping the next few weeks to start getting a short rules/setup rundown to elaborate on what goes into that part of the game. Outside of that I’m working on a more dynamic ranking system for gen 1. I really want an almost scientific letter grade and I’ve been in the lab cooking up some formulas.
The only time I’ve used Steelix is competitively in Gen 8. Body Press with a full Defense investment is really scary and it still only took ~20% from a super effective Earthquake. And that’s before Trick Room made that 30 Speed a huge asset. But without some good later Gen tools, Gen 2 Steelix just has its killer design going for it. I love Pokemon getting new evolutions and I’m glad they’re doing new ones again. Your thing about Hidden Power is why I like what they did with Tera Blast. Being able to pick the type and not having your entire team having perfect coverage are both godsends in SV.
The main thing I'd love to experiment with in gen 3 runs is trick room in a solo challenge. I don't think I've seen it be used and it just seems like such a cool strat in a solo playthrough. I do love the design here but unfortunately it just doesn't hit the mark and shows the outdated design philosophy in some areas.
@@GymLeaderMatt1987 trick room isn't used in gen 3 as it wasn't introduced until gen 4. plus most Pokemon who get it are actually quite quick (for solo runs at least), which really only makes it useful on a handful of Pokes
Holy crap what a heinous list of moves. As a child I always dreaded not having someone to trade and get a steelix though, looked cool as heck compared to other mons
I know it's not relevant for the run, but I always used breeding to get rock slide onto my steelix. Usually earthquake also to save the tm. As far as the run goes, hidden power is a great choice for a stab ground or steel move. Also, any physical HP does well for coverage, especially paired with screech.
Yea unfortunately it doesn’t get a ton of coverage and Red is just so much tougher than anything else earlier that unless you are grinding the entire game, it’s going to be tough.
30:00 A thought I had regarding the fight with Lance; you might be better off leading against Gyarados with Return (or Hidden Power, if Lance is prone to healing items - I forget), then following up with Rollout and KO'ing Gyarados on the first hit of the move. We see that even a worst case Surf+Flamethrower won't KO you, and using this strat you should still easily OHKO the Charizard and the Dragonites that follow it.
I think the problem was that a return into a 1 state rollout might not be enough. It takes a second rollout and you want to just not take damage. If you tank both moves it gets a little inconsistent. I did have a reset but it wasn’t likely. I tested it about 5 times and got the result at a very high rate but I can’t say I’ll ever go back and test it lol.
Real One here, I think your metrics of trying not to use curse and then using red as a tiebreaker makes the most sense for a tier list of gen 2 pokémon.
Yea the level disparity would just promote cheesy, predictable, and boring things like Curse or would cause you to overlevel more than you already do in a game where the main criticism is the leveling curve. This way I can tailor and focus on the game up to that point and then 'off the clock' test Red for a tangible, consistent strategy.
Not my favorite but a good one. I had to pick up a couple for the collection for sure. Yea, this was a middle of the road one which are my favorite to optimize.
I think everyone I see do gen 2 does the full game. Scott’s Thoughts, Squidgy, Hidden Jim, Speedrunner 0218. The different is that most people resort to using curse and I have a spin on it, as painful as it might be.
My Metal Coat went to making a Scizor, but I am curious about Steelix. I remember liking the crystal Onix from that one Orange Islands episode, and thought it was cool as a kid, so Steelix is a Pokemon I respect from afar for similar reasons. Holy crap, Defense through the roof. Seriously more crystal-themed Rock-type Pokemon and moves when; I cannot get enough but more of them help
Yea, Scizor is definitely the more popular choice. For a playthrough, it just does things better than this slow worm with average attack. There's not many times you need a ton defense but it is massive. I'm sure I'm forgetting some actual rock type Pokemon from gen 2 but there's only like 4 of them. Magcargo, Shuckle, Corsola, Sudowoodo. All fairly meh.
FYI for future runs, Matt: Sentret can learn Cut and Surf, and can be caught on Route 29. I point that out because surfing across route 42 is faster than fumbling through Mortar. You have no reason to go to Mahogany until you can get Surf and use it outside of battle, all of which happens in Ecruteak. Just alerting you about a timesave oh and another one: you can obtain the pink bow after completing the radio tower segment completes. head down 1 floor and talk to Mary to get it. (i believe you can get it before then but it requires card key + extra trainer battle before radio tower is done)
I’d probably rather get the Krabby/Bellsprout. I also wouldn’t say fumble through Mt. Motor as I’ve tested it and it’s roughly the same. It’s literally 10 seconds to go through the cave. I’ll keep it in mind but I don’t think using surf a couple of times is faster than going through two doors of the cave.
Love your challenges, gym leader Matt! By the way, Steelix really found a hurdle in red fight! What a difficulty! One of the highest levels I've ever seen to be facing red!
Sorry to comment so late but Steelix and Onix were always one of my favorites as a kid and for whatever reason I thought they were rock dragon types hahahaha good run! Real one.
As I’m typing this I can already hear people in the cheap seats shouting out “Chuck and Bruno!” which is something I strongly disagree with. I got a feeling that Steelix is really going to struggle with Lance and Blaine (due to super effective special moves).
I do have resets there but Kanto is also a minor speed bump. Lance took a little optimization and Blaine’s reset was because of poor planning. By that point you are so much stronger than the last 8 gyms for sure.
There’s another strategy that you can use to speed up beating red but it’s pretty highly RNG based. You can use the Bezerk Gene held item. It’s a one time item that increases your attack stat by 2 stages and then confuses you for the rest of the battle. A magikarp with Flail can beat Red with this item. A steelix should be able to as well with STAB earthquake and maybe Return for Charzard
A decent strat but involves a little too much luck for me. I just like to throw the time off the table and see what a consistent 95+% red fight looks like.
Come to think of it, Hoenn was (kind of) open-ended once you have the option to go to Dewford. I've never played Sinnoh, but as far as I know, I think the games started becoming a lot more linear come Unova onward. Makes me appreciate that Gen 1-3 gave you a lot more freedom in which order you decide to tackle gyms.
For sure. It's my favorite parts of the games. I've only played Gen 3 a handful of times since I started this video making journey and I always felt like I went in the same path but maybe there's some variation in there if I did more styles of Pokemon. Gen 1 does it the best I think but I do like the little options in gen 2 as well.
@@GymLeaderMatt1987 Oh yeah, after Wattson it's more or less the same path, but before then, you could skip Brawly and head straight to Wattson. Funnily enough, that probably would have been the play for Steelix in Emerald.
Steelix (with Onix’s speed) reminds me of what Game Freak tried to make Onix, but had to nerf because they were like “oh crap we need a second unevolved rock type for Brock”
I don’t think Onix was nerfed but it was just always designed for Brock. They also went all in on steel = slow early on so I can at least see the idea but it led to some odd stat choices. Steelix has a good vgc niche but overall gen 2 was not its generation lol.
The cyndaquil line has fire moves which are also super effective against it, which is funny because Jasmine's Steelix has Sunny Day to weaken water moves but that strenghtens his other weakness.
I really think they made so many pokémon in gen 2 slow because of how busted crit rates based on speed were in gen 1... but then went ahead and changed how crits work.
Steelix is definitely one of those Pokemon you expect to have more than 85 Attack. I guess it follows in Onix's footsteps in that it has way less offense than you'd expect from looking at it. Combine that with early gen Game Freak's absolute aversion to making decent level-up movesets, and the way this run turns out isn't too much of a surprise. At least the massive Defense stat helps you tank some stuff. Complete side note though, I really love Machamp's Gen 2 sprite; I think it's one of my favorite Machamp sprites! He just looks so ready to beat you to an absolute pulp 🙃
Yea, it sucks we don't use animations and can't see it punching a little bit lol. It's definitely a great sprite but Crystal has some of the best sprites in the whole series. That and Yellow take it for me on best sprites. The attack is an improvement but I guess the idea is steel = slow and I can't argue with that but damn, 30 base speed is miserable especially for Red.
Honestly, when I make my personal ROM hacks, I like to buff Onix and Steelix by giving them more HP and Atk. Onix gets 75 HP/85 Atk, while Steelix gets 105 HP/115 Atk - just to make them _actually threatening_ instead of mediocre. To prevent Steelix's BST from equaling pseudo-legends or something, I also take away some of its useless Sp. Atk and already-awful Speed (which, from Gen 4 on, would just improve Gyro Ball and potential Trick Room strats anyway).
Makes a lot of sense! I can only surmise that Onix was conceived as the ‘Brock lesson’ Pokémon so they gave it lower attack but in this and the gen 1 Onix run the attack felt so awful.
@@GymLeaderMatt1987 That does make sense, as the Rock-type is already resistant to Normal moves, which is more than likely the only type of move players would have at this point, unless they knew of Brock in advance and caught a Mankey (Low Kick, I believe) or Nidoran (early Double Kick in Yellow) specifically for this. Or leveled up their Bulbasaur/Squirtle until they gained STAB (RIP Gen 1 Charmander - no Metal Claw yet. At least Ember's special, though, I suppose). So making Onix pretty weak statistically was a way to 'balance' it more against the Rattata, Pidgey, Butterfree, Beedrill, Spearow, etc. the player was likely to throw at it, with all the Scratches, Tackles, Pecks, Poison Stings and so on low-level early Pokémon are likely to have. Still, this does make catching an Onix for yourself later on (Rock Tunnel, I believe) much less rewarding due to being weaker than it physically appears (especially in the ultra-famous anime) and than it felt like going up against it as Brock's ace. Steelix helped patch it up some, which was nice, but unfortunately didn't exactly fully fix it.
Steelix was a beast in gen 2 and its Steel typing was a real boon. Its only weakness was Fighting, Ground, & Fire. Its special defense was garbage yes but gen 2 was perfect for Steelix
Steelix was a unique problem for me like all trade evos were. As a kid, my was completely reliant on my parents for video game stuff. I couldn’t trade with my friends because none of our parents were willing to buy anything that would let us play video games even more. Alakazam, golem, scisor and steelix were all unavailable to me growing up.
For me, gen 1 I had people at school and what not to go for those things but by the time gen 2 came out, no one really played so I did without from then on out. I think it was pretty common to not get to use trade evolutions as a kid and that’s why the videos are cool because it lets me showcase something I didn’t use at all when I was a kid.
You were wrong in saying that totodile is the only super effective starter against steelix, cause cyndaquil is also super effecive against him with his fire type attack. But maybe you meant that totodile's water type isn't weak against any of steelix"s type combination... i dont know. Aside from that good video Matt
It’s a shame that Game Freak did Onix and Steelix so dirty with the stats and movepools after giving them their cool designs. Maybe there’s an alternate universe where they didn’t nerf Onix so that Brock wouldn’t be too difficult as a first gym leader
It's pretty solid now. There's some comments about using it in competitive with these cool strats and with trick room and makes the gen 2 Steelix jealous for sure.
Steelix and Octillery were main team members on my Legends:arceus party. They were highly valued with good specific uses. Steelix even did work on Volo with the move that swaps defense and attack. My pla steelix has over 500 defense at level 80 lmao, and enough attack to live some super effective moves after the swap. Honestly idk why, but Steelix has stuck with me since Gen2 came out. I am mainly a Bug/Ghost pokemon person, but that silly mineral snake family has always had a place in my heart. I am actually trying to get a shiny Onix on pokemon Go and PLA.
I got the shinies but for PoGo my thing is that I have a high pvp IV shadow Steelix I want to use for Ultra League but the investment is so steep. I don't play as much anymore so my dust just grows and grows but dropping like 600k+ on one Pokemon always feels...dirty especially when I have a UL Stunfisk already done.
@@GymLeaderMatt1987 oh yeah lol. I only play competitive until i get into pay barriers basically. I have like 12 really good great league pokemon, so i usually just hang out in there with my perfect 3 move electrode and their buddies 3 move Golbat, 3 move Aggron, and some others I cycle through. I have hit rank 16 in GL alone lol. My wife has almost hit rank 21 a few times, but she is a monster, lol. I keep trying to convince her to try out SV ranked with coaching, but she likes POGOs battling more.
@@GymLeaderMatt1987 also mega steelix is better for UL if you can find one in that window. I had one in GL that did pretty great, but I ended up powering her up because she was the first mega I had.
Yea I mean I’m a legend rank player so you always need those second moves. It’s mandatory. Megas also aren’t allowed in GBL outside of once a season in master league in a specific format. UL or GL will likely never have megas eligible.
It's blue split wasn't awful and I think we'll see more Pokemon be similar or worse. I think the Red split is to be expected and it's the reason I don't officially time it but it did middle of the road I think.
Yea but that’s the parts optimized. I always have a rough idea but I know deep in the 80s it wasn’t good so I just show the depths a Pokémon needs to go for that fight without curse without an incredible amount of time. I might just start figuring it out before hand and hack in rare candies since it’s not counted in the final time and resets.
I think you are correct. I think I mentioned it but you gotta deposit all of your other Pokemon because of whirlwind anyway. It was causing a lot of problems on Pidgeot so I'm glad it went for it.
I tried Steelix in FireRed and the early game was easy for the most part (Misty was tough) but late game, the rival and Loreli were brutal. Finished at level 80.
Yea I imagine the slow speed and more varied teams with better movesets make it more of a slog as you go on. The Red fight here personified ever getting wrong with it.
21:20 I’ve been playing this game since I was 5 or 6 years old and I never knew about this secret! Maybe I’m just a n00b lol I’m gonna check this area in my save file for Crystal Clear and see how shockslayer reduxed this spot
Even with the warning, I was NOT prepared for that jump in resets. It's a shame what they did to Steelix. I was so excited for it, but I didn't have friends so I didn't got one until much much later
Yea but that’s the format. Time ends at Blue and we get to just have fun, test, and narrow down what a consistent Red fight looks like. Red just ignores Steelix’s 200 defense and when you take that away, what are you really left with? Charm up front is an instant reset and with 30 base speed it always will be a threat then you have a reflect user that can lower your special defense as well followed by heavy neutral special damage with Sunny Day potential. Then all of that into two super effective special users. It’s not good. I had someone predict a level 75 Red finish and it’s like bruh, you’ve been watching too many people coast by with curse.
@@GymLeaderMatt1987 I'm really growing to like the new format of stopping the time at Blue. I didn't realize how tired I was of seeing Curse until I stopped seeing it And I don't mean what you did to it, I mean what they did to it with it's stats
It’s a more interesting take. I got some exciting work I’ve been doing for gen 1 rankings that’ll eventually make it over to gen 2 when I get enough data but let’s be real, I got a lot of improving to do and we’ll likely need to redo these runs in a year. The idea is a formula where I plug in the metrics and it spits out an accurate 0-100 number rather than an arbitrary ‘I think this is an A rank Pokémon’ like everyone does. It won’t be ready to go until August but it’ll give me a tangible number I’m happy with.
@@GymLeaderMatt1987 Oh. My. God. I do not have enough words to express how amazing that will be. Will there be decimal places in case we need tie breakers? I'm assuming there would be ties if we stick to whole numbers since there's 150 Pokemon and you're talking a 0-100 range.... But omg I'm soooo excited 😍😍😍
Oh yea, down to the hundredth place lol. In preliminary tests out of like 40 data points, there hasn’t been a tie yet. We have some Pokémon within .5 of each other but it’s pretty precise. The plan now is to start doing this ranking in August and have an unlisted video in the description that gives you and idea what the formula is and what the numbers mean but when I get to like 50 optimized and modern gen 1 runs, I’ll do a 3rd of the way tier list video lol. Essentially the numbers revolve around the fastest theoretical time for my personal runs so a Mewtwo redo video is inevitable.
Yea, but it's important to see the lengths you'd have to go to get a consistent Red fight. It's validation for ending the timer at Blue to avoid 'beating the clock' and resorting to curse strats. 71 mainly because I just organically found the solution. It wasn't tightly planned out since it didn't count against anything.
So I really LOVE Steelix, especially as a defensive tank in competitive draft leagues. I think in this run, though, Steelix is definitely going to be slow to start but then when you get to the elite four, it'll really come into its own (other than Lance).
Steelix should be pretty alright in my opinion. Far less weak to Water, neutral to Grass, and Fire is a weak point, too, but having okay Attack and far better Defense should make it a skip, jump, and a leap ahead of Onix is my opinion.
Martin said it right, being better than Onix isn't high praise. Onix only did a little better than Cubone in gen 1 solo runs and Cubone is like an hour slower than the next closest atm.
Steelix great design and idea unfortunately being super slow & power creep really, really hurt it. Imagine if the kid who trades u an Onix also had his Onix hold a metal coat
@@GymLeaderMatt1987 although now I realize Typhlosion would be weak to Earthquake so I guess it really isn’t much of an upgrade. i just went with what you said of water being the only starter type super effective against Steelix
Falkner is going to be a pain for Steelix with mud slap causing rolls on accuracy but it'll be smooth sailing until Clair and Lance. Reckon your time will be about 1:40 because going second each time is going to cost time Edit: not bad. I wonder if quick claw would have helped you against Red albeit it's still inconsistent
Yea, what is quick claw? 10%? The whole point of stopping the timer at Blue is to find that consistent Red strat and I think Quick Claw is antithetical to that. Relying on a 10% chance wouldn't be too much different than Curse/Rest/Return strats My head always hurts when you get to an end of a Crystal video and it's like 'oh great, curse/rest/return, wonder how this one will play out' lmao.
@@GymLeaderMatt1987 quick claw is 20% but your point still stands. For what it's worth I like your method of timing, ending the run at Blue is more interesting by far As you say the classic gen 2 strat of rest, sleep talk, return, and curse (holding leftovers) isn't fun
Well everyone can do as they wish but as a viewer myself it's like 'hey guys I know you've all been waiting for the ultimate challenge in the game but let me trivialize it with a boring meta build every Pokemon can learn because I'm obsessed with and bound to the final time and will make this worse to watch as a result'. Finding consistent strats against Red feels more rewarding and with a run like this, you can see how not using Curse but still timing Red would make some runs fall off a cliff.
It won't be as long as I stated in the video. I've been backlogging and the original plan was this fun little gen 7 themed summer but plans have changed. You'll see one way sooner. With the poor performance of my last couple of cross gen runs, it doesn't make sense to do like 8 or 9 in a row.
I just beat Pokemon Sword and I used Steelix as my big defense wall and got it to lv 80 something. Its a good solid pokemon to have. I have Iron tail to sweep the entire Ballonlea gym. and I have Body Press to get rid of heavy normal and rock, steel types which got pretty useful and using Stone Edge and Psychic Fangs. And Steelix pretty useful I use it as a wall for my team like if Hop manage to beat Steelix he get to face other of my team and I think Steelix is a fun and good upgrade of Onix. Its sad tho he is not as good in gen 2 coz he looks awesome. He should be the counterpart of Gyarados good on land but Gyarados seem to still be the superior over it.
@@GymLeaderMatt1987 I thought Body Press was more effective based on the weight and defense and for Steelix it would be great. Multiply the 200 defense and it would be a super hit and Hop has this snorlax which I One Hit with Steelix :) So its great.
99% of the problems is the attack and the fact Rock Slide is no longer a TM. I'm not sure what else could have really helped it. Poor learnset, poor TM selection, and extremely low speed makes Red an absolute slog and all but confirms why I decided to play the game I did by timing at Blue. Even if it took me 15 hours, level 100, and 500 resets, I'd still feel better about that than using Curse lol. It's just so droll and boring.
I like Steelix, but since it was a trade evolution I never used one up until Legends Arceus. I really think they should get rid of evolution methods that require outside help like trading or that stupid requirement for Palafin in Scarlet and Violet
