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Is it safe to say Heracross and Donphan are Ash's strongest Johto Pokemon?

freedomrise

Well-Known Member
Bull! The very 1st gym in every region is always located somewhere near where beginning trainers get one of the 3 starter pokemon. They wouldn't have a gym nearby the town where you get your first pokemon, where all of the gym leaders pokemon are on extremely high levels. It wouldn't be fair to the beginning trainers at all. Therefore my point is still valid.

Before you say what someone else said is "bull", you should check whether the thing that person said is valid first. There are clearly other places located at various part of the region to distribute beginner pokemons. This was the case best illustrated in Hoenn, where Nurse Joy from a pokemon centre from a town where there are no research laboratories distributed the beginner pokemons. If I recall correctly that was when Ash has already obtained 2 badges.

Obviously some gym leaders are more powerful than others, but I think in the anime, it's more about their strategy and how they counter challengers rather than their pokemons actual levels. Also, talking about "unfair", it wouldn't be fair to have someone from Snowpoint City to travel all the way to Sandgem town to obtain their first pokemon.
 

gangsta_pigs

Well-Known Member
People. It's not quantity, but quality that counts. Why Pikachu, Charizard, Septile, Snorlake, and Inferape is consider to be Ash's top pokemon because of who they beat, not how many victories they have. Gible, I believe has reached what the Johto pokemon has accomplished just by beating Conway the way he did. Gible can easily move to that list of powerhouse if it defeat Darkrai and one other of Takuto's pokemon in the process.

Johto pokemon, what sort of victories have the accomplished? Gym battles, Random COTD, Random COTD in the leagues.

What I would consider to be accomplishment is beating major rival's pokemon, doing well in Drake's orange league and doing well in battle frontier.

I agree about quality not quantity. But what you said bout gym, battles COTD and COTDs in leagues. thats the majority of battles in the show. Ash had two major rivals gary and Paul. Only sinnoh battled paul so rule him out. for Gary only hercross and bayleef battled. Heracross had nothing to prove. For harrison. both totodile and bayleef won, Noctowl was at a pure disadvantage move and type-wise. Johto was before orangle leaugue so rule that out. For frontier only hercross and donphan where used. both did well.

Oh ya Torkoal was in one gym match and it beat the slaktoth pikachu couldnt. Torkoal doesnt have a losing streak, its just not used as much as the others.
 

Cuddy

Cyndaquil Master
Bull! The very 1st gym in every region is always located somewhere near where beginning trainers get one of the 3 starter pokemon. They wouldn't have a gym nearby the town where you get your first pokemon, where all of the gym leaders pokemon are on extremely high levels. It wouldn't be fair to the beginning trainers at all. Therefore my point is still valid.

I do have a question of your idea, what happen if you know Professor Oaks lab is in Pallet Town, but what if a trainer raise in a city like Fuchsia City. The trainer can not go to Pallet Town to get a Pokemon from the Professor, and what is show on the show already is that Nurse Joy can hand out starter Pokemon too. Then the kid can battle against Koga/Kanine first instead of Brock/Forest.
 

Adamo

Well-Known Member
Well Norman was a very strong gym leader ,and is the closet gym to where the starters are in the lab. Sure in game the first gym is easy but Roxanne and Roark and Falkner were shown to be very strong( heck charizard almost got owned ).

All gym leaders are considered strong in the anime, with one gym being notable as the strongest ( giovanni being a mafia leader , Clair a dragonmaster ,Juan a top coordinator, and Volkner a rival to an elite four). It is never stated that the first gyms are weaker.
 

Bedouin Pirate

Gypsy Punk
I do have a question of your idea, what happen if you know Professor Oaks lab is in Pallet Town, but what if a trainer raise in a city like Fuchsia City. The trainer can not go to Pallet Town to get a Pokemon from the Professor, and what is show on the show already is that Nurse Joy can hand out starter Pokemon too. Then the kid can battle against Koga/Kanine first instead of Brock/Forest.

We have to remember that the show isn't entirely truthful to the games mechanics. The anime can have much more leeway in how they determine things. Characters don't have to get their first Pokemon from professors, they can get them from siblings, befriend them, given to them from another authority figure etc. This can be exampled in how not everyone gets one of the 'starter' Pokemon in the anime (and they're usually reserved for the main characters, of which most, if not all of who will not be given them).

The same applies for gyms. Whilst in the games gyms go from beginner-level to difficult, in the anime, the gyms aren't only reliant more on tecnique, but there are many more of them, of which we don't see. So there may be 4 gyms in a region that are considered beginner-friendly, for example.
 

Adamo

Well-Known Member
Whether a gym is beginner friendly or not, A gym leader is considered strong in he anime and a "prodigy" or spciealist with the type they train. Roark was a great rock type trainer and Gardenia was very skilled ( If you just saw the batle you would not likly think of it as a second gym battle)
 

Adamo

Well-Known Member
Whether a gym is beginner friendly or not, A gym leader is considered strong in he anime and a "prodigy" or spciealist with the type they train. Roark was a great rock type trainer and Gardenia was very skilled ( If you just saw the batle you would not likly think of it as a second gym battle)
 

xex

Banned
SoulSilverMstr411,Who gives a damn about a nobody like you giving up on Bayleef and Totodile since these two have already proven themselves and it shows how stupid you really is,Bayleef and Totodile are are good strong battlers.


Anybody can see that the Johto team was always the strongest and the noobs here are stupid not to see that,Cyndaquil/Quilava were always a very strong Pokemon from the start,Noctowl wasn't weak to start with,Bayleef is a powerhouse that battles really well,Totodile is also strong aswell.
 
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WaterShuriken

"I..I..Iron Tail, Pikachu."
IMO from strongest to weakest

1. Heracross
2. Quilava
3. Donphan
4. Noctowl
5. Bayleef
6. Totodile
 

Shneak

this is a Nessa x Sonia stan account ✨
Strongest to Weakest:

Heracross>Donphan>Noctowl>Quilava>Bayeef>Totodile

So, yeah.
 

martinn94

Prepare For Trouble
Heracross- Did a lot of work in the Sinnoh League.
Donphan- Gained a lot of experience in Kanto.
Quilava- Has been proven to be an alright battler, best starter from Johto.
Noctowl- Helped out a lot. Learned good attacks.
Bayleef- Never learned many good attacks, don't remember a lot of her battles.
Totodile- Don't remember it doing anything but dancing.
 

TicoPokemonMaster

Well-Known Member
this is going to be the last time I answer a cyber cubed thread, nah never mind it helps my post count.

Like many have said Noctowl and quilava should be added to the list of strong pokemon.
 

firestar319

The Marauder
Heracross- Did a lot of work in the Sinnoh League.
Donphan- Gained a lot of experience in Kanto.
Quilava- Has been proven to be an alright battler, best starter from Johto.
Noctowl- Helped out a lot. Learned good attacks.
Bayleef- Never learned many good attacks, don't remember a lot of her battles.
Totodile- Don't remember it doing anything but dancing.

Pretty much everyone except poor totodile has shown how strong they are. The reason that people think Heracross and are stronger because they were seen more. What I mean by they were seen more is that we saw them both in battles in the BF, and for some reason, that makes them automatically better (not that they're weak or anything, they're pretty strong). The reality though, is that each pokemon has shown its strength. Cyndaquil had multiple gym victories, evolved into Quilava and learning 3 new moves. Bayleef defeated both of Chuck's pokemon alone and scored an impressive victory over Harrison's Houndoom. Noctowl owned Haunter and Gengar in the Ecruteak Gym and got some much needed redemption defeating Conway's Lickilicky while gaining 3 new moves. Sadly Totodile hasn't really done that much battle wise.
 

xex

Banned
FireStar319,you are so stupid,Totodile isn't poor are never was for that damn matter,Totodile had prove how strong he really is and a lot of don't think that Heracross is stronger then the others because he is seen more which is your stupid dumb *** opinions which are not facts at all,Cyndaquil evolving into Quilava wasn't because of the noobs here and him evolving never meant that he was ever weak to begin with damn your stupid *** and Noctowl wasn't in any need for redemption,shut up and deal with the fact that the Johto team is strong and always been.
 
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SoulSilverMstr411,Who gives a damn about a nobody like you giving up on Bayleef and Totodile since these two have already proven themselves and it shows how stupid you really is,Bayleef and Totodile are are good strong battlers.

How stupid I is? OK, you just lost what little right you had to judge this "Noob". Learn grammar, Dumbass!
 

ChaosMage

Izit cuz I is black?
Two words which render this whole topic redundant: PLOT POWER

The writers wanted the battle against Nando to introduce Heracross' Sleep Talk in preparation for the battle against Darkrai, so gave him Kricketune. Rather than have Kricketune unrealistically defeat Quilava (who they only evolved to create a bit more hype, if you ask me) they had it tie with Armaldo after an extremely brief match. And I don't know for sure why Staraptor was chosen to battle Roserade, but it makes sense type-wise and all three of Ash's birds got a battle or two.
The writers wanted the battle against Conway to primarily be Gible's big moment, and they wanted to showcase Noctowl, so they threw in Donphan as basically a fall-guy even though usually we'd consider him the strongest of the three.

And they didn't plan enough battles to accomodate Totodile and Bayleef
 

Cazak

When Wings Fly High
And they didn't plan enough battles to accomodate Totodile and Bayleef

They didn't plan, and didn't hve any time either, unless they replaced Bayleef and Totodile with other poke'mon who got a battle. I'd say they should've used Bayleef against Kriketune, and give it an impressive victory, but that is a tough job to think, and plan given the time constraints.
 
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