Board 8 > Best Pokemon Generation by Type, Day 10: GRASS

(+) Yeah! (+)

Legitimately might be offended if Gen 3 doesn't take this easily

Gen IX has one of the largest collections of Grass-types, yet the Meowscarada line is the only good thing it has to offer. Iron Leaves is okay, but again, it's a paradox of the worst Musketeer. And I guess Hydrapple is second best for this generation, but it's such a weird, late-generation Pokemon to hold that distinction.

Gen II is somehow worse than Gen I, with six of its ten Pokemon being monotypes of a typing that tends to do poorly as a monotype. And one of the only other lines is the flimsy and feeble Hoppip line. Celebi and a general okay attitude towards the Chikorita line cannot save this one.

Gen IV is mediocre. I'd say the Turtwig line is my least favorite starter line overall, and then you get the SHIT that is Cherubi/Cherrim, an unncessary baby in Budew, awful Wormadam, annoying Carnivine, and Leafeon, while good, is one of my least favorite Eeveelutions. The only shining stars are Roserade and Leafeon still (because Eeveelutions are better than most), but that's it.

Gen VI's megas pull a lot of weight, because the Chespin line isn't great, and the two Ghost/Grass-types aren't AMAZING. Skiddo/Gogoat are cute, but they're not good enough to boost the entire rest of the generation.

Gen VII has a great started line, and Alolan Exeggutor is hilarious...but other than that, most of what's left is mediocre. Two monotype lines, two Grass/Fairy lines, and a Ghost/Grass which feels like it should be a different type combo entirely (especially since Decidueye is already Ghost/Grass).

Gen I is iconic, but when you look at the overall package, you've got three different three-stage Grass/Poison lines, and beyond that, OG Tangela isn't great, the Parasect line is notoriously weak, and that leaves only the Exeggcute/Exeggutor line to stand out. Bulbasaur's line is still great, but there are too many repeats here to truly be the best.

Gen VIII does really well on its Hisuian forms, a solid starter line, and an interesting introduction to Grass/Dragons, but Eldegoss sucks too much, and Zarude actively pisses me off.

Gen V is once again likely going to do well. The Serperior line is solid, as are the Sawsbuck, Lilligant, Leavanny, and Ferrothorn lines. But then you have the Simisage, Whimsicott and Amoonguss lines to balance that out, plus Maractus (inferior to Cacnea/Cacturne) and the worst of the Musketeer trio.

Gen III is almost perfect. Aside from Lileep/Cradily (and Seedot, who evolves early, thankfully), this is a diverse, interesting collection of Pokemon that manage to stand out across the board.

Hmm, leaning between V and IX here. VI and IV are also pretty good.

IX > V > VI > IV > VIII > VII > I > III > II

I either actively dislike or am indifferent to everything from III except the Cacnea line, which is pretty good, but still only enough to beat out Gen II (I kinda like Bayleef and Sunflora).

Oddish is my favorite Pokemon so I have to go Gen 1 but IX might be my second favorite lineup. Lots of good choices in every gen but I'm biased cause it's my favorite type.

Wow gen 3 has really solid grass types, I never knew. Gen 5 is probs second for me.

Yeah I can't even be mad about Gen V winning Ghost. It's pretty solid there.

Gonna go with good ol' Gen I for Grass, but III is very close.

A lot of classics here. But Gen 3 ultimately has the edge:

• Sceptile, who might be my favorite Pokemon.
• Ludicolo, who is Miror B's signature Pokemon and is some Mexican thing.
• Nuzleaf, who is half of the namesake of the Nuzlocke challenge.
• Shiftry, who is a great Pokemon for the Battle Arena in Emerald.
• Breloom is just a pro.
• Roselia is cute.
• An evil cactus.
• Tropius is cool even if he's kinda shit in battle.

So that just leaves the Cradily line that I'm neutral on.

I haven't been voting Gen 1 at all so far but I'm shocked it's losing here with lots of amazing lines and only Exeggcute that's not great. Gen 3 is good with the Cradily and Breloom lines, and Roselia, but the others are broadly meh.

Gen 3 and 1 are both killer. Hard to choose but I ended up voting gen 3.

Grass is one of those weird types where there's not a clear winner for me. Each generation has some good shit and some shit shit.

It's just that some have more good shit than shit shit, and vice-versa. 3 and 5 are really the only considerations for me. Like... 7 has just Exeggutor-A, Decidueye, and Tsareena (one of my favorite grass monotypes), while 2 just has Chikorita-Baeleef-Meganium, which is still one of my favorite-designed grass starter lines.

Yeah, Grass just isn't one of my favorite types. It's one of those types that needs another type to function properly, what with its weaknesses to Fire, Flying, Bug, and Ice. Three of those are bad to be weak to. The Grass/Poison types they insisted on in Gen 1 were even worse, with the additional weakness to Psychic in lieu of the one to Bug. Roserade is awesome despite that.

Gen III is a really good group. Im happy with all those Pokmon.

Gen VIII would be next.

illegal poll (grass is overall my favourite type (prob, it's between that, bug and ice)

venusaur is king, overall neutral on vileplume line (not into gloom unfort but the others are fine), love parasect line and i have to say i love how smooth legends arceus went using the alpha one as my main mon through the whole game (the rare combo of spore and false swipe is truly huge), victreebel line has long been a favourite of mine too, exeggutor line was automatically really fun in gen 1 for that psychic dual typing, and tangela is fine too. great starting gen

I get that it's not really cool to bash Meganium but it definitely is a weaker grass starter line to me than most on this list sadly. I like Bellossom though I'm not actually sure if I still like it more than Vileplume currently (it definitely used to be my favourite of the two). I love the Jumpluff line a ton of a ton. Sunkern and Sunflora are kind of just there to me (i have slight nostalgia from unironically trying to use Sunkern in Black 2 earlygame at least lol), and it's hard for me to not have a soft spot for Celebi tbh. Overall, mixed gen.

Sceptile line is plain ace even if it falls apart entirely in stat distribution outside of gen 3 (they really REALLY should've fixed these when introducing physical/special split and it's an active insult that gf would rather just take the gacha approach of making redundancies out of their classics these days). Ludicolo line is amazing (big fan of Lombre and Lotad's designs especially, but i love the mexican kappa theme of all of them in general), and I like Shiftry even more than them (Seedot is great too, though I'm neutral on Nuzleaf's design. Of course I do obviously appreciate it for its community significance though). Shroomish and Breloom are forever some of my favourite mons to use in pokemon history. Roselia is a great mon (though i do ultimately like Budew and Roserade more, it was an excellent standalone mon). Harley in the anime really sold me entirely on Cacturne, a legend of a mon with a truly fiendish niche. Cradily is my all time favourite fossil mon and Lileep is great in its own right. And Tropius... is that mon I think we all wish was actually good, but hey it is basically the definitive RSE HM Slave. Gen 3 is such a generation.

Torterra is at a bare minimum a top 3 starter period for me (usually my overall favourite). Turtwig is fine and Grotile is... well, it's ugly but still fine. I already covered Budew and Roserade, Plant Cloak Wormadam is... I guess my favourite Wormadam form though I wouldn't consider myself a fan of Wormadam to begin with. Cherubi and Cherrim are inexplicably some of my favourite mons and I love the batshit off-meta doubles strategies you can employ with the latter. I used to really like Carnivine though I wish it was better now... Abomasnow is... well, objectively I know it's no Mamoswine as far as gen 4 ice types go (... or Weavile, or Froslass...) but I still love it for its unique typing and movepool, and of course its (originally) signature ability. Functionally it feels like the Ice is the primary type on it but I more than appreciate what the grass side brings to the table for it. Leafeon is my favourite eeveelution as well as the only one I like enough to ever use on a team (overall, not a fan of how relatively overtuned they all are by early gen standards, though I honestly like that they made it and glaceon. And last up, I'm not the biggest fan of platinum additions, so I still don't like Rotom forms as much as base Rotom (the only one I even like the design of as much as base is Fan Rotom tbh), and I still feel betrayed by the addition of Sky Forme Shaymin... But base Shaymin is still a... probably like top 20 favourite mon and very much a top legendary to me. Gen 4 has a strong argument to be the best one to me but I feel it falls short ultimately.

Serperior is also an of all time starter and the third gen in a row where I actively reject how it actually gets hate as a grass starter final evo. (Snivy and Servine are both great in their own right though). I sympathise with the hate directed towards the elemental monkeys' "unoriginal" designs, but anyone who shows hate towards the grass bancho monkey specifically has to see to me personally, he alone is a godtier addition. Not exactly a big fan of the Leavanny or Whimsicott lines, but like most people I am fine with Lilligant, and Maractus is an underrated fun mon too who pairs oddly well with Cacturne even for fellow cacti mons. I even like the Sawsbuck line, especially that majestic winter form on Sawsbuck itself. Sadly that's the last of the praise I have to deliver to gen 5 since I just hate Amoonguss and Ferrothorn, and really don't appreciate the muscateer legendaries (especially since they're all practically knockoffs of sky form Shaymin tbh). So yeah, sadly another mixed gen and probably the weakest so far overall just because of how much I dislike two of those lines in particular.

Gen 6... The megas go hard (even if Mega Scep was a massive mistake that absolutely should not have received Dragon that of all generations, and I'm still not sure if Abomasnow receiving a mega was really a worthwhile tradeoff for having a signature ability). Chesnaught line is... well, it's about as mid as you can get. I also still haven't gotten over my mixed feelings about ride pokemon to this day so I wish I could bring myself to like the Gogoat line but I just can't. Trevenant line is great and I still love that it also got featured in a big way in Pokemon Unite, staying a meta relevant defender I loved using up until powercreep came crashing in over the past year or so. and the Gorgeist line is fine too, never cared for it that much though Pumpkaboo is still cute. Definitely my least favourite so far overall.

I know people really like Alolan Exeggutor and consider it a vast improvement to the original so rather than say more dismissive comments on the matter that can offend people I've decided I'll instead offend people by saying I really couldn't disagree more. I generally just dislike Decidueye (my opinion is mostly just "edgelord's fantasy" in a predictably not good way, the only gen 7 starter i can say I really... like, at all, is Primarina, and I still wish that didn't get Fairy type (well, I'd be fine with it if the type wasn't just a comprehensive mistake competitively) though I'm still fine with Rowlet/Dartrix. Lurantis line is more my speed. Shiinotic line is fine, so is Tsareena's tbh (granted it's hard carried by Steenee which is absolutely in the running for my favourite design ever). Dhelmise is refreshingly a mon that feels like it more than deserves its Ghost dual typing unlike Decidueye, but its lack of water type always catches me out. About the only thing I actually like about Tapu Bulu is its name and the fact that it has grass typing at all. And Kartana is kind of just the most forgettable UB to me. Despite Steenee being so high up for me it definitely doesn't help carry this gen lol

continuing from here on a second post because i realised i went over the character limit somewhere around here

Rillaboom is good but I just don't like Grookey or Thwackey that much. Eldegoss line is ok but I feel also overrated. I like Appletun but not the rest of the apple mons (spoilers). Zarude exists and so does Calyrex but I tend to prefer not thinking about their existence most of the time. Gen 8 mid.

I was firmly in the "would be extremely disappointed if they made Sprigatito final evos bipedal" camp. But, while my reactions to the final lines led to me being ultimately won over by the Quaquavel line, it was for a very different reason. I still think Meowscarada is great in its own right and ironically it's the non-biped of the generation that i was disappointed by. Arboliva line solid too. I like the Brambleghast line but don't think they mesh well with the designs of... really, many other pokemon at all. Don't exactly like the Toedscruel line nearly as much as the originals, also don't really like the Scovillain line, not a fan of paradox mons though Iron Leaves is at least ok. And not to mention Wo-Chien and Ogerpon singlehandedly redeem gen 9 legendaries to me. Plus Sinistcha line was a nice remix line and I do consider Hydrapple fun even if I'm disappointed by only dipplin getting an extra evo...)

overall gen 3 top

Live Wo-Chien reaction }: (wo-chien doesn't have a mouth)

I voted gen 9 because Capsakid and Toedscool and Arborlivia are great

I'm realizing that I'm... not a big fan of Grass-type Pokemon overall

9. Gen IV - Turtwig and Torterra are good, Cherrim is half-good (as in only Sunshine form), and Leafeon is alright but but probably one of my least favorite Eeveelutions. We didn't need Budew, Roserade, or Tangrowth and Abomasnow is an abomination.

8. Gen II - Mostly forgettable. The Meganium line has grown on me over the years, but nothing else really sticks out positively or negatively. Actually, I like Hoppip and Skiploom but not Jumpluff. Also Mythical tax

7. Gen VIII - Flapple rules but Appletun sucks, the Rillaboom line is kind of good, Eldegoss is okay, but that's about it. Zarude and Calyrex drag it down too. Also, all the Hisuian forms are downgrades.

6. Gen VII - Debated putting this lower because there's a lot of mid here, but the owls, Dhelmise, and Kartana are cool enough to beat out some of the weaker gens. I do like Bounsweet a bit too, but not so much it's evos.

5. Gen VI - I've covered a lot of these Pokemon before, but basically I like the tree and the pumpkin and Chesnaught is a disgrace. Who asked for Mega Abomasnow?

4. Gen III - My issue with this gen, which seems to be becoming a theme, is that I don't like most of the final evos. I like Grovyle, Shroomish, and Cacnea, but would rather they never evolve. This gen is heavily carried by my boi Ludicolo and Tropius is also neat. Don't like Shiftry or the Lileep line.

3. Gen IX - There's a lot of DLC stuff here, which means I way be swayed when I finally get around to that, but the main game stuff is pretty solid. Doesn't have many heavy hitters, but nothing to really drag it down. Meowscarda, Toedscruel, and Scovillain are the stars, although I do like Smolive a lot.

2. Gen I - Ivysaur is top tier, but I'm not a big fan of Venusaur. Victreebel and Vileplume are great and I like the Parasect and Exeggutor lines well enough. Heck, even Tangela is pretty decent.

1. Gen V - Whimsicott is fantastic. Sewaddle and Swadloon are excellent even if I don't like Leavanny as much. Lilligant is great. Simisage is the one good elemental monkey. Serperior line is solid. Sawsbuck is interesting. Don't care much for Maractus, Amoonguss, or Ferrothorn but they aren't terrible, and not bad enough to knock Gen V out of my top spot

Morning bump.

Still around 6-7 hours left. Low votals so far.

Bumping while Im at work.

This is gonna run a little long tonight.