PokeBonk tier list: every League family ranked

The S tier of this PokeBonk tier list is Mewtwo, Chansey, Articuno, Machop, Lapras, Mr. Mime, Nidoran♀ and Grimer, in that order. We scored all 79 League families from the code of game version 0.8.25: each final form gets five part scores (crowd damage, boss damage, Ultimate, survival and speed), the parts are combined by weight into one total that is rescaled so the top family scores 100, and the rank sets the tier. Nothing was tested in play, so read it as what the game’s numbers say. Four of the eight S families (Machop, Mr. Mime, Nidoran♀ and Grimer) need only a normal challenge, so you can reach them early.

Early picks on the PokeBonk tier list

You start with Bulbasaur, Charmander or Squirtle. Charmander ranks highest of the three at #17 in A tier: its Ultimate score is 93, second only to Mew, and its boss damage is 85. The catch is survival. Charizard scores 8, 58th of 79. Bulbasaur sits at #20, also A tier, with less damage but survival 38 (7th of 79), helped by the regen and healing from its passive. Squirtle is #63 in C tier; the player section below explains the gap.

The “Strong and easy to get” list above shows every S and A family that needs only a normal challenge. The ones to chase first:

• Machop (#4, S): boss damage 100, the highest of all 79, and crowd 86. Survival is 12, so keep Machamp moving.
• Mr. Mime (#6, S): crowd damage 100, the highest in the game, with survival 0, the lowest.
• Nidoran♀ (#7, S): the sturdiest early pick. Nidoqueen’s survival of 49 is second only to Chansey.
• Grimer (#8, S): crowd 83 and boss 78, a balanced damage dealer.
• Slowpoke (#10, A): crowd 91, second in the game, but speed 0, the slowest.

You add each of them to your League only after you finish its challenge and catch it in a run; the unlock guide has the steps. The other four S families take longer. Mewtwo, Chansey, Articuno and Lapras have late challenges: each either has a challenge that needs a League of 25 or more members, or has three or more challenges to finish. Mewtwo needs 60 League members, Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres, and a Rocky Desert win on Hard.

How to read the PokeBonk tier list

Every family is scored in its final form at level 44 or higher. The five parts and their weights:

• Crowd, 35%. Damage per second into a group of enemies, using each move’s real hit shape. Most of a run is spent clearing waves, so it weighs most.
• Boss, 20%. Damage per second on one enemy 3 m in front of you. Every map has a boss.
• Ultimate, 15%. We run each family’s Ultimate code in a sandbox and score it 60% on crowd damage and 40% on boss damage. Base damage and charge rate are the same for every family (only Clefairy’s passive charges faster), so the gaps come from the attack’s shape. It is a burst about every 29 seconds if you keep getting KOs, not steady damage.
• Survival, 20%. Damage you can take over 30 seconds, counting HP, shields, regen, Ultimate heals, armor, dodge and passive damage reduction. Dying ends the run, but staying alive shouldn’t count for more than clearing enemies, so survival gets the same 20% as boss damage.
• Speed, 10%. Move speed of the final form. Families differ only a little here.

Each part is a relative score against all 79 families (damage, survival and Ultimate on a log scale). The weighted parts make the total, which is then rescaled so the top family is 100 and the last is 0. The part columns on the board are each rescaled from 0 to 100 on their own (100 is the highest among the 79, not a maxed stat), so adding them up with the weights does not give the total. Tiers are cut by rank, not score: S is the first 8, A the next 16, B the next 24, C the next 20 and D the last 11.

What happens if the weights change

Change any one weight by half, up or down, and between 6 and 20 families change tier, each by one tier only. Crowd damage is the weight that shifts the rankings most. Halving or doubling the enemy density never moves a family by more than one tier. The biggest assumption is Ultimate charging. If Ultimates charged on a timer alone, once every 95 seconds, six families would change tier. Nidoran♀ would drop to A, while Chansey would stay second, because its lead comes from raw HP more than from its Ultimate heal.

Where players disagree with the PokeBonk tier list

Eight families on the board carry a “Player opinion” mark, a short summary of what a player said in a video; it does not change any score. Three agree with the code (Machop, Mew and Bulbasaur), Krabby partly agrees, and four disagree. All four come from Season 1 videos, recorded before 22 October 2026, so the player view may be out of date. Here are both views.

Bellsprout. A player ranked it among the strongest, while noting that few people use it. Here it ranks #79, last of all. The main reason is its Ultimate. At the highest Ultimate tier, which Victreebel reaches, the code drops the 10 vines that the first two tiers fire. All that is left is one big bite and a poison patch. That gives it an Ultimate score of 4, the second lowest of the 79. Its passive, Hungry Maw, gives Strikes and Spins +15% damage and a 20% chance to root; that bonus sits inside the damage code, and our model does not count it. We can’t say why players rate it so highly until someone tests it in play.

Gastly. Players called it very strong and praised Gengar’s Ultimate. On a single boss they are right: no other family’s Ultimate hits one boss harder. It still lands at #64, because its kit moves lean toward single targets, so crowd damage is 8, second lowest, and crowd carries 35% of the score. The model also skips status combos. In the game’s damage code, sleeping enemies take extra damage and Ghost and Dark hits on them get a further bonus, so a Gengar run that puts enemies to sleep does extra damage that this list doesn’t count.

Nidoran♂. A player called it their favourite and extremely strong. It is #61 in C tier. The setup in that video leaned on items and on a move outside Nidoran♂'s four kit moves, and the model counts neither.

Squirtle. A player said clearing every map with it was easy. The model counts its passive (+15 armor and +20 shield), which gives Blastoise survival 31, but that tank setup also used items, luck and regen picked up in a run, and the passive’s +40% damage below 40% HP is not counted. Clearing every map comfortably and scoring high on these numbers are different questions.

What the PokeBonk tier list leaves out

• No play testing. Every score comes from reading the game files and simulating them.
• Three kit moves. Only the 3 strongest of each family’s 4 kit moves count, at move level 1, because you start with 3 move slots. A real run offers other moves too, so families that rely on them, such as Eevee and Nidoran♂, score lower than they play.
• No items or skill. Items, vitamins, Lab upgrades, aiming and dodging are outside the model, and so are the item setups in the builds guide.
• A simple battlefield. Enemies stand still at an even density, type matchups are neutral, and there is no weather. Status effects such as sleep, freeze and curse are not counted, and neither are boss shields or phases.
• Passives in part. 65 of the 79 families have some passive effect left out, such as low-HP bonuses, timed auras or on-hit effects. Each family’s page lists its full passive, and the Pokédex covers all 151 Pokémon.

When PokeBonk gets an update, we rerun our scoring script on the new game files and refresh the rankings. The board above names the game version the scores come from.