>>32664575Staraptor is a top 3 in game bird, tied with toucannon for first, with talonflame a bit behind Get one.
Don't use luxray unless you reeeeally like it, it's dead weight because all its moves have low BP. Decent as a flash slave.
Bibarel is a wonderful HM slave, but most people don't make it a permanent party member. Nice to have in reserve. Tropius is quite useful for similar reasons (trading water hms and rock climb for fly, defog, and flash), but it's like a 20% encounter rate in one area of the great marsh. Still attainable, but not nearly as common.
Kadabra, haunter, graveler, and machoke are good for a while, but aren't worth keeping long term if you can't evolve them.
Roserade is a fine grass type if you pick anything but turtwig.
Garchomp is garchomp, get one if you don't have turtwig, or get one if you do have turtwig, because garchomp is that good.
Psyduck is an ok water type to start with, as are buizel, quagsire, and gastrodon. One's frail but strong and the others is fat but weak. Golduck is an acceptable middle ground, but any pokemon that only has one weakness is worth considering.
Ponyta is a fine fire type, and the only one that's available in DP. In platinum you can get houndoom, who's a bit better.
Crobat's a good flying type if you hate staraptor.
Don't use duskull.
Lickitung is a 10% encounter on one route, but I think lickilicky's pretty useful. It's bulky, just powerful enough, and learns every tm imaginable.
Snover can be fun, but the typing is such a curse.
Mamoswine is great if you need a ground type, which you shouldn't by the time you can get one, but it's there.
Bronzong is just fat and stupid and doesn't die to anything. Feels like a wasted teamslot, but if you need a meatshield while you're healing your crew, it's there. Probopass is similar but worse.
That's all that immediately comes to mind. Been a bit since I've played platinum.
