Breloom or Manectric to fight Water-types in an Emerald playthrough?

Question

I’m doing and emerald play through and I’m trying to figure if I want Breloom or manectric (but he Pokemon doesn’t matter as much) and I’m wonder if I should have grass or ground as my water handler

Comments

Breloom is a very useful Pokemon in Emerald, just not as a grass attack user. All grass attacks are special and Breloom's special attack is pretty low. The best water counters in this game are arguably calm mind users, because most water Pokemon will just spam their special moves and let you set up however many calm minds you want. If you still want a thunderbolt user, some Pokemon you should consider are Gardevoir (learns calm mind), Magneton (higher special attack than Manectric), and Starmie (resists water and learns a bunch of other useful coverage moves).

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Also be aware that since this is prior to the physical/special split, Breloom mostly uses Fighting attacks in Emerald.

Answer 1

Breloom is a very useful Pokemon in Emerald, just as a bulk up/sky uppercut user and not a grass attack user. All grass attacks are special and Breloom's special attack is pretty low.

The best water counters in this game are arguably calm mind users, because most water Pokemon will just spam their special moves and let you set up however many calm minds you want. I think the best calm mind users are Gardevoir, Kadabra, and Golduck because they have the highest special attack. (Xatu also has good special attack but it has a bunch of common weaknesses)

If you still want a thunderbolt user, some Pokemon you should consider in addition to Manectric are Gardevoir (learns calm mind), Magneton (higher special attack than Manectric), and Starmie (resists water and learns a bunch of other useful coverage moves).

Because Gardevoir learns both calm mind and thunderbolt (and has very high special attack), it's probably the best option for you. Here's a moveset.

Gardevoir @ shell bell
Ability: it doesn't really matter, neither are all that great.
EVs: 100 Spe
- psychic
- calm mind
- thunderbolt
- reflect

Answer 2

Looking through the gym teams, grass is better for the first gym, but neither of Roxanne’s geodude get a ground move. Brawly’s Pokémon aren’t at an advantage or disadvantage against grass or electric types, however in terms of secondary typing, the only electric and flying type at the time, was zapdos, there were no electric psychic Pokémon and the fairy type didn’t exist. But for grass types you had tropius. For Watson you could do either as there are no grass ground or electric ground Pokemon at that time and the both resist electric (you’re best option is breloom for magneton), flannery you should have electric, breloom is best for Norman, electric is good for Winona but bring ice coverage with ice beam lanturn or something else and be weary about the earthquake on altaria. While grass is good for like 3/4ths of Tate and Liza’s team, electric is good for xatu, and electric or grass is good for Juan, and the champion but if you have electric be cautious of Wallace’s earthquake on whiscash and gyarodos, and if you bring grass, be cautious of Nilotic and tentacruel’s ice beam and wailords blizzard (gyarodos doesn’t have a flying move). Breloom is good for Sidney, shiftry is good for phoebe, breloom is good for glacia, and lanturn destroys drake with ice beam.

Comments

You can't catch Tropius before Brawly.
You can catch Lanturn before Winona only if you spend a long time walking back and forth across the whole region. It's much easier to defeat her without a type advantage.
Shiftry is not good for Phoebe because it has a lot of weaknesses and its strongest dark move is feint attack.
Lanturn doesn't destroy Drake because it's slow and weak to ground.

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Thank you Sumwun for clarifying up that, my answer was based only on knowing lanturn had ice beam and the type matchups. I haven’t played through emerald at all because my only 2 game consoles are an X-Box 1 and a Nintendo switch.