I'm open to discussion. I didn't give it much serious thought.
Rowlet learned Brave Bird at the lowest evolution stage of the three. It also has access to Bloom Doom, with its best feat defeating Dartrix through a x4 Grass resistance.
Staraptor has a much better coverage move in Close Combat and used it to beat Paul's Honchkrow, which had previously defeated a Dragonite. This is probably the best feat between the three, although not a KO.
Talonflame has the most variety in its moves, and was able to use Flame Charge to defeat another Talonflame while it was a Fletchinder. I guess its most notable win was against Meowstic?
After breaking it down, Staraptor is better. Unless I'm missing something, I don't see anything Talonflame did that gives it a distinct edge.
Can't really say much if you really think that the jobber-bird Staraptor was better than Talonflame, who consistently contributed almost in each and every Gym battle.
What were Staraptor's big feats again? It was absolute fodder in the latter part of DP, especially in the all-important rivalry climax battle against Paul. Struggled against Gastrodon like hell (whom Buizel easily dispatched afterwards) without contributing jack, had to be recalled and then afterwards got destroyed by Paul's Drapion like an ant. That's all its contribution basically was in the SL Paul battle, being absolute and total jobber.
And don't bring up that weak Honchkrow feat here to prove that is had such an "amazing feat" or anything, because nothing Staraptor did there was enough to prove that it was stronger or matter of the fact, even on equal level with Honchkrow. It was a Pokeringer, not even an actual battle. Staraptor did
not KO Honchkrow or anything like that, it managed to just outsmart Honchkrow in that bout to steal the ring from Honchkrow's at the right time and win the Pokeringer for Ash. That's all. All that shows is that Staraptor is capable of giving trouble to Honchkrow (which it did), that's all, but not even once Staraptor was ever even close to KO'ing Honchkrow or anything like that, given Honchkrow was still going strong and looked it pretty good shape at the end as we saw.
And then again, Paul's Honchkrow is pretty overrated and nothing that much special either. Its biggest feats are beating a totally out-of-sync Maylene's Meditite and Machoke while having type advantage, defeating a below average Grotle 2 times which had several mobitlity and battling issues (not impressive at all) and OHKO'ing a pathetically weak Dragonite which was even much weaker than freaking Staravia (Staravia certainly did way better than Dragonite, tanking multiple attacks....while Dragonite went down in 1 direct hit). None of it's feats are all that impressive in the first place, so let's not act like as if it's some epic tier opponent.
While Talonflame made strong contributions in almost each and every official Gym battle Ash fought in (Viola, Korrina, Ramos, Valerie & that epic double battle with Olympia), and has feats like defeating Wulfric's beastly Avalugg (who basically swept Ash's team in the 1st battle with Wulfric), having a pretty amazing and epic sky battle with Alain's Unfezant which had stunning display of aerial flying speed and pretty intense move-clashes. It performed quite well in the League, both in the battles with Sawyer and Alain, unlike Staraptor, who was basically a flop in the League, being dead meat in the battle with Paul.
Still you're gonna say that the jobber-bird Staraptor is apparently somehow better that Talonflame, eh?
Dream Eater restores 50% of the damage dealt. There is no possible way that Dream Eater OHKO's while also restoring 80-100% health. That's not how the move works.
MCX lost to another Mega Pokemon (Blastoise) in 1v1 combat. It took the combined efforts of three Pokemon to defeat Darkrai, two of which were Ash's regional aces.
You do realize that said Mega Blastoise belonged to a freaking E4, a.k.a. it was an E4 Mega Evolved Pokemon, right? E4 members have curbstomped Ash from time to time, the biggest example being Flint's Infernape obliterating Ash's Infernape (his Sinnoh ace) in a single hit. They are completely on another level.
MCX took down 10 Mega Evolved Pokemon in a row, including and E4 Member Malva's Mega Evolved Ace in Mega Houndoom....beating an E4 Mega Evolved ace, despite being weakened and exhausted by battling & defeating 9 Megas beforehand. Which is far superior than anything Darkrai did.
