Raticate-Line Solo Challenge - Pokemon FireRed 

Honestly it feels like there's a TON of room for optimization here. Guts is a really easy ability to abuse if you don't heal a status condition that was inflicted on you, and heal up with potions instead. There were a lot of points in the run where you ran into trouble with status like Toxic and Sleep, but being inflicted with a different status gives a pseudo immunity to them. Out of the different status conditions, burn is the best one to be inflicted with when you have guts, since you take the minimum damage each turn (1/16, compared to poison's 1/8 and toxic's increasing damage), and you don't have to deal with the poison damage ticks in the overworld. Consistently being inflicted with this can be tricky but you ended up getting it a few times throughout the run. Using standard poison early on may have been a good way to deal with Onix quickly (easily induced by the many Weedle found in Viridian Forest). You can also find wild Growlithe on route 7 to induce burn via ember, but if you were playing Leafgreen instead you'd be able to use Vulpix instead, who knows will-o-wisp at level 17. Apart from that, there's a couple trainers on the S. S. Anne, a trainer on route 11, and a trainer on route 6 with a full team of fire types, which would be a much more reliable way of getting the status. These are pretty easy to get to before surge. You also didn't really make much use of dig or thief throughout the run apart from using dig against surge. Perhaps replacing them afterwards would help a lot? You mentioned substitute a lot but there's other good options you could use too. Quick Attack became pretty irrelevant too since you outspeed everything with your level advantage. It only really came out when you were paralyzed and needed to secure a kill. Since abusing the damage buff from guts means you wouldn't get paralyzed, you'd be able to fit other more useful stuff in its place. A set of Return, Shadow Ball. Blizzard/Ice Beam and Hyper Beam would work well once you can get your hands on them. - Return is just reliable for everything. No sense in not using it. - Shadow Ball gets boosted by Guts and helps knock out psychic types reliably. It's also a perfect option for Agatha's ghost types. - Blizzard/Ice Beam is important for Rhydon at the end since it has a normal resist and a huge defense stat. - Hyper Beam works great for finishing off the Ace of Gym Leaders and your rivals, since the extra 75 base power compared to return is often enough to secure a KO when you're burned/poisoned. (recharge turn is irrelevant if the opponent's whole team is finished) I could also see a reality in which you make use of Iron Tail for its use against Lorelei's whole team, but the lower accuracy makes me feel it's not worth it (especially since you're already spending lots of money on rocket TMs)

There are so many times throughout the run where going into battles pre-statused would have made things so much faster. I think Raticate can clear the game much faster than it did; I'm really curious to see how a potential redo would go using Guts to its full potential.

DO NOT look too closely into the list of times Scott provides at 36:22 unless you want the results of multiple future videos spoiled. (He doesn't spoil anything in the audio, so you could listen). Skip instead to 36:38 to see it's current ranking in the tierlist.

Raticate after gen3 is a BEAST, Guts+Facade is a crazy combo 99% of my non-thematic nuzlockes have a Raticate pre poisoned for this

You could not fathom how much I enjoy having your videos running on the side while playing something other screen. A bliss.

I know there's the damage over time consideration, but would Ratatta be able to beat Brock at a lower level if it went into the battle while poisoned?

Yay Raticate on Thanksgiving! Happy Thanksgiving from Florida love your vids man!

I think taking full advantage of guts is key to optimization. If you're able to pre-poison Raticate before the League and other major fights, it would fly through this whole play-through

A very slept on pokemon that people are finally starting to wise up to a little bit. I think it'll do pretty dang good Dang.

I know its a bit of a broken record probably, but Substitute would have massively changed the texture of the entire Champion fight. It blocks the Pidgeot's Featherdance, it blocks the Rhydon's Scary Face, it blocks Exeggutor's Sleep Powder, and it blocks Gyarados' Intimidate. That with Blizzard and honestly probably Double-Edge would likely give you the power to get through the rest of the fight without much difficulty. You only need to keep your Substitute alive and your HP well enough for Charizard after all. I think I've said this before though, but wow is FRLG just brutal for physical Pokemon. Gen I feels arguably super biased towards physical Pokemon thanks to Swords Dance being a TM as well as strong physical moves but FRLG swings so far in the other direction, especially when compared to Emerald.

hell yeah, second favorite pokemon from gen 1! didn't know you started doing Fire Red, looking forward to the potential Farfetch'd run!

Love your content, as always Scott!

I'd like to mention that you can get more berries to spawn in Berry Forest on FireRed/LeafGreen, after taking 1,500 steps. Unfortunately, that locks getting extra berries down to a later point in your playthrough.

RAT POWER

These fire red videos are so incredible. Probably my favorite series from you now.

Wow, I did not expect to get slapped by my memory. When I was a kid I thought Rattata was "Rattatat" 😂

Ratata is one of my fav mons, I always felt bad for it because everyone else hated it 😂

I've never properly used the chunky speedster myself (aside from a Nuzlocke run wherein the poor Raticate didn't last long) but he is one of my younger brother's favourites. He has quite a move-pool to play around with, an good speed plus attack is a nifty enough combination for me to expect good results here. 0:34 - Oooh, that is true; Fire Red might prove a different story. On the plus side, a naturally learned Dark type attack and the option of a physical hitting Ghost move (Shadow Ball TM) means Psychic types should be far less of a threat. 2:51 - Hilarious picturing the little purple rat that is Rattata just chomping down on the hard Geodude... and winning the outcome. Still weird that Rattata didn't learn Bite naturally back in Gen 1, 2 and 3. 5:35 - Yeah, unsurprised that Hyper Fang was the best option. I did wonder if the the Dark type Thief would be better for a second but a quick look showed that Starmie has just as much Special Defence as it does Physical Defence. 8:27 - Happy to hear that Dudley overcame his self-destructive ways. We were all worried about him, and he seems to have some shakes of significant magnitude as an after-effect but the recovery he has made is incredible. Good on you Hiker Dudley. 11:20 - An even worse for Erika, her Pokémon's Effect Spore boosted your Rattatat's Attack stat thanks to Guts. 16:52 - The CPU sure love getting all five hits of their 2-5 multi-hit moves. Shame us players rarely get such fortune. Nice to see Rattatat hang in there and win though. 18:52 - Blaine shall be bested by your soggy rat! 23:00 - Your rival had a solid strategy here... too bad it backfired for them horribly. 25:02 - That unfortunately seems to be a consistent story for Rattatat here. You keep getting situations where you are just barely not knocking them out. 28:02 - I feel sorry for this Gengar at this point. He's not had a single unfrozen moment in this fight. It'd probably take too much time to try and get the Shadow Ball TM from the Game Corner, but I wonder if said physical oriented move might overall be better than having Ice Beam on your move-set. 29:30 - Never mind; the Ice Beam certainly made it's pricey purchase worthy with the swift demolition of Lance's team. 35:36 - If you were going to opt for the low accuracy Blizzard in your move-set, why didn't you go with your already available Ice Beam and Thunder TM? It feels like it would give you similar benefits whilst also saving you the time spent trying to get the money for the Game Corner.

My man scott i knew you was going to a Raticate video i cant wait to see how it does i made this comment before i started the video I know I'm in for a treat😊

Against Rival Six™ , you mention that Charizard "resists" Ice Beam. It doesn't, but rather it's neutral to it. You were at -3 in Attack, so surely Ice Beam would have done more damage than Return in that fight.

Impressive that u recorded this runtrough on februar 2016 i hope u keep the Dedication Up

I called it!! I knew Raticate was coming after Pidgeot and now after this Butterfree & Beedrill will probably be next

Some optimization possibilities for Agatha (Shadow Ball!) and generally (Thunderbolt). Lots of money, yes, but I wonder if Shadow Ball would make Agatha more consistent - I agree with your comments on how lucky it was, but a win is a win :) Great series, I love FRLG and have been really loving these videos

Super nostalgic seeing the old layouts throughout these public uploads.

Happy to see my favorite rat getting some limelight in the gen where it's at its strongest. If you took another crack at it, shadow ball gives you a fantastic option against agatha and the late game psychic types. Thunderbolt (or thunder) could also take the place of ice beam to help with the pigeot and Lorelei. I'd strongly argue that super fang actually has a lot of potential. Return was a two hit against a lot of key pokemon, but using super fang turn 1 would keep them out of healing range, and paired with a special move gives you a good option for cconsistent damage when you've been featherdanced. Also, just wanted to mention it for fun toxic+super fang+protect+1 turn of waiting with dig is a guaranteed 4 hit on anything :)

Wait, wouldn't Ice Beam be neutral on the Zard because it gained flying? Either way, surprised by how bad the damage range on Beam was, but I guess that's why return spam is the meta :D

We appreciate the content Scott ❤

Been waiting days for this to drop

Nice video as always! Like other people mentioned I feel like the room for improvement is huge for Raticate. Abusing guts more would be the obvious choice but I wonder how useful the rain dance thunder combo could be for the elite four and champion

I CAN NOT believe that facade is blocked by the post game. I was really hoping to see some RAT POWER (tm)

like 7/10 whenever i play a ROM, i'm catching one of these boys cause FlygonHD has taught me that RAT POWER can be scary with how good it is

HE'S BACK AGAIN. ITS MY BOI!

Kanto is a weird place. The pokemon don't lay eggs, berries can't grow. I suppose it is designed on a polluted city, so it makes sense actually.

Havent finished the video, but guts facade could go crazy here. Interested to see how you play it!

i hope that whoever finds this video enjoys 30 minutes of *RAT POWER!*

Noticed you named your rival Terry. Thats my name! Pretty cool 😎

While it restricts you a whole moveslot for the League, what about using Substitute? For the Champion, it gives you an immunity to Feather Dance, Intimidate, Scary Face and Sleep Powder. It also gives you completely free setup against Agatha's first Gengar (its only offensive move is Shadow Punch, so it can't touch you with a Substitute up), replacing Dig which you really didn't need.

Rattata/Raticate has Disk 1 Nuke status in Kanto for a reason.

The notorious Sweeper Strikes again !!

The reason Giovanni has two Rhyhorns instead of Rhydons is because, I imagine, the Champion has his own Rhydon and they wanted his team to seem more impressive?

4:45 An unevolved pokemon gets boosted experience if it is beyond its evolution level, so it would actually level up faster. It does stay the same growth rate, though.

Ratatta is one of those pokémon that's incredibly difficult to use in game due to being guts-reliant. While Facade isn't a main-game move, Boosting Return and Shadow Ball by 50% allows the rat to ignore the issues of low attack.

"Mistviecher" (crappy beasts) -my reaction whenever i encounter a rat in Dark Souls

Has always been my favorite pokemon line.

Glad to see Ratty again

You could do a video on Pokémon Emerald with only weather moves, it could be fun 😁

Raticate is the AK47 of Pokémon. No I will not elaborate.

Against Surge you can see the Guts Boost. 99% with 120 Power Dig, 80% with Guts boosted 60 Power Quick Attack

i know its not useful at this point but I think quick attack would've knocked out the onix on your first brock attempt. Just a reminder that priority moves are useful!

Ah, Raticate, I get it's a Normal Type and thus it 'has the moves', but looking at everything it does get, including Egg Moves even though they're not relevant here, it gets... Wild what it can learn.

dudley should be the magnitude hiker.

In regards to your question about Giovanni's team having an ace Rhyhorn, I can only guess that they thought he was too difficult in Gen I and wanted to weaken his Pokemon, but didn't think either of the Nidos should loose their final forms since it would make one look too weak and the other too strong.

10:18 Because most trainers use common non-threatening mons like rats and birds, which are suitable for low-tier/less experienced trainers. They tend to be fast little critters. There aren't many intimidating (high ATK) pokemon yet. Also, there are lots of hikers with mons made of rock (high DEF) in caves. Fat-looking "cute" or blob-like (high HP) pokemon are also seen often (Caterpie, Grimer etc). 19:02 Rain Dance's original name is Rain Prayer or something AFAIK, so it makes sense it's intelligent enough to learn it. 24:02 IKR, electric types suck here with all the ground types.

Love the content as always but please redo this and abuse guts as its broken. Im not sure if sleeptalk is available as a tm but its worth looking into. Regardless, there's numerous quick ways to poison or burn raticate throughout the run. Then you just use hp restoring items to maintain the status. Pp restoring items need to be managed efficiently too as visits to the pokemon centre mean you have to waste time getting statused vs a wild Pokémon again 😅. Thank scotty for the content 😊

Favorite rodent! Endeavor quick attack was also fun 🤔

Before 1K team!!! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Thank you Scott for pronouncing Rattata properly.

🎵Rattatat, rattatat, went the drummers three🎵 :)

HAHHAHA love the FRLG Raticate sprite It's so goofy looking and ppffffffftttt

Are you using the vs seeker for training in gen 3 🤔 good work anyway

The next baby Pokémon - Raticate

I wondwr if there are any routes where it's worth going to the sevii islands? Perhaps there are some useful items over there.

I'm here for a display of RAT POWER!

would it be possible to have moves show their base power while outside of battle? i find myself wondering base power sometimes but there isnt an indicator

I ran the numbers, and it looks like the IVs are good in this video, so the optimization for the Rattata-line would be to use Guts optimally. Maybe Substitube should be on the moveset as well. Looking forward to the follow-up.

Spoiler warning! If you want to avoid spoilers, do not look at the leaderboard shown after Raticate clocks in with its final time!

There can only be one don on Giovanni's team, Don Giovanni.

From the footage shown it felt like Rest wasn't explored thoroughly enough again the Champion, the Gyarados seemed to be doing low enough damage that healing there could be viable. Sorry if it was tried out more extensively in unused footage. ^_^"

I think a Sitrus Berry really would have helped against Blaine. Bulbapedia says you can grab one on Route 6. In the two losses you had before picking Rain Dance, that extra bit of healing would've helped to either counteract the burn damage or counter the damage you took from Fire Blast.

What if you grabbed the leftovers item and combined it with burn. I'm pretty sure you can get it from the snorlax or with the item finder where the snorlax is

I learnt recently that crimes were committed against ratticate in that huperfang was removed from its learnset smh

I agree, they should've gave Giovanni Rhydon. Final gym leader is supposed to be tough after all

You could have waited for that gyrados to hit itself in confusion with thrash

If youre doing more training in the late game, the sevii islands might be a good place to go!

I know the smart thing to do with Guts is to pre load with a status and have the bonus + status immunity for a whole fight, but I do love moments where it is just organically an Uno Reverse Trap Card.

Go go chunkyboi

I'm only here to comment for the algorithm as I've seen it before! Glad other people have got to watch and I liked reading though their comments actually

I don't hate how you went about this run as a first run, but you will do a lot better when you start using the Guts ability to the fullest. It doesn't have all the tools it gets in emerald (eg - facade and silk scarf) but guts stab Return should see you through a lot of the game, especially as Raticate is quite fast.

It would be incredible to just see Scott's folder with all the unreleased videos in it

primeape gets amazing coverage in gen 3 with access to rock slide and EQ plus decent fighting stab like brick break and cross chop. even karate chop early game gives you a reliable option that wasn't there in gen 1.

"Charizard resists ice beam" he said...

Raticate is actually a weather god. Thunderbolt, Thunder, Rain Dance, Blizzard… true power in giant rat form

Hey Scott, you think to do with The Next GUTS pokémon, Burn him with a wild flame body, or try to dodge the stat Drop with FOCUS ENERGY?

As for why Giovanni has the Rhyhorn as his Ace, I think I know the reason. Back in the day most developer teams were very small and there weren't dedicated specialists. Meaning no one did much playtesting, it wasn't common back in those days and most of the game design decisions were made sort of on the spot and left there once implemented, without thinking about it's place in the wider game. This is why the games balance and design in Pokemon was so bad until Gen 4. Most of the time they had less than 10 people actually working on the game for a year or two until release. So, little is actually thought through and many things that would nowadays be caught during the Alpha stage are left inside. This includes weird Pokemon choices during bossfights or how many Pokemon that you could only get later in the game are way too weak for their placements or how nothing had a good movepool, all while like a fith of all moves were exclusives. This is why Giovanni has two Ryhorns instead of Rydons. They likely planned his team once and then never looked back or checked if it fit with the overall balance

I'm looking forward to you finally trying a decent fighting type in a generation where they aren't terrible. I hope you change your mind on them. If for no other reason, your sanity. Three rough runs in a row, yikes. I mean you did these months ago but

You mention the growth rates not changing. However, in later generations, there is a boost if a Pokémon is unevolved pass the level it should have evolved.

This should be interesting.

What was that freeze luck?! :)

As a kid me and all my friends thought it was called Ratta-tatta, not just Ratta-ta.

Why didn't you let a weedle poison you to get a guts boost?

You should watch how Nuzlocke contact creators use guys Raticate. It seems almost broken. I can totally see how a solo challenge run is different or even spending the time trying to get statuses may be bad but I still think worth checking

In all my years playing any pokemon game ive never played with radicate lol

I bet Raticate could have done a lot better with guts strats and substitute. If you could find a way to inflict poison on Raticate during the playthrough, a lot of its two hits would probably become one hits. The league might be tricky, but if you bought the TM for shadow ball from the celadon game corner, then enter the league either poisoned or burned, you'd probably have a way to one shot most of agatha's pokemon while simultaneously keeping your status throughout the league to the champion. For the champion, you might be able to get a sub up to avoid intimidate, use the blizzard tm for rhydon, and maybe have rest to finish up the fight? Basically, with pre-planning poison or burn, and a moveset of return/shadow ball/substitute/blizzard (maybe replacing shadow ball with rest for the champion?), I bet Raticate's time and level could be improved a ton! Would definitely take a lot of planning to figure out the route, but I bet its workable here. Facade might be a good option over return too if you enter most of your battles statused. Good luck!

I love Raticate

I wonder if using Protect against the Rhydon would discourage it from using Scary Face in the same way it seems to discourage the Pidgeot from Featherdancing.

RAT POWER❤

RAT POWER!!!!

Disregarding stats and move pools. Are single stage pokemon faster than multi stage pokemon by nature? What I mean by that the multistage pokemon have a evolution screen that you need to press b to cancel which adds time vs pokemon that don't evolve.

Wait, were Mewtwo, Nidoking, Hypnosis, Mew, Primeape, and Rhydon supposed to be on that final tier list?

There’s no Substitute for this Gutsy boy… though, perhaps, it should have been.