Toxic or Curse for Gengar?

Question

I'm using a Gengar in firered with hypnosis, dream eater, shadow punch, and curse. I just beat the poison gym leader and got the tm for toxic. What are the pros and cons of toxic vs curse?

Comments

Teaching toxic to Gengar means being unable to teach it to a much better toxic user, like Skarmory. Learning curse won't do any harm, so just teach curse to Gengar.

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Gengar is a pretty fragile pokemon.   So, it can't stall anything out really and one of its best items is a focus sash having curse is basically toxic but with a price.  So, in this case, I would prefer toxic.  However, in reality, I would prefer neither.

Answer 1

I would keep Curse simply because it will have such a detrimental effect on the opponent due to Gengar's Ghost-type; while Toxic does make the opponent badly poisoned, your Gengar will probably have many opportunities to poison it's opponent through acquiring other moves that have poison as a side-effect. Furthermore, you already have Hypnosis, which can put your opponent to sleep. I feel that having two Status moves is more than enough for an in-game Pokemon, so I would just keep Curse.

Hope I helped. :)

Comments

I, on the other hand, rarely use status moves and think otherwise on your decision to pick either Curse or Toxic. I have a Haunter/Gengar that has Energy Ball, Sludge Bomb, Dazzling Gleam, and Shadow Ball, which, in my opinion, is a pretty good moveset for it.

Answer 2

Despite the surplus of answers to this question, they all neglect this is FireRed/LeafGreen, which is before the Physical/Special split, TMs are single use and most are only obtainable once, and Gengar's level-up movepool is atrocious. Either that, or they forgot this is for a playthrough, where defensive Pokémon and strategies involving stall are frowned upon, as offensive Pokémon can win battles more effectively and with fewer resources.

If we're solely comparing the two status moves, Curse is better than Toxic in most scenarios. Not only does it affect more Pokémon, as Poison-types are naturally immune to Toxic, but it also takes out a Pokémon in 4-5 turns, as opposed to Toxic's 6 turns, assuming you don't deal any further damage to the opponent. Though Curse does cut down half of Gengar's HP, it's likely not going to survive a hit when using either Status move, considering its low defensive stats. Curse being a volatile status condition isn't an issue either, as it's very rare for trainer AI to switch out their Pokémon during the main story in Generation 3, if at all. Refusing to teach Gengar Toxic also saves you the TM, allowing you to use it on a Pokémon that would benefit from it far more.

If we're comparing these moves in regards to the rest of Gengar's learnset, then Gengar benefits far more from other moves it can learn through TM, especially Psychic. As Shadow Punch/Ball are Physical in this generation, and it cannot learn Sludge Bomb until the postgame, Gengar only really uses its only STAB against physically frail Psychic-types. Meanwhile, Gengar essentially relies on using the Psychic TM and other such moves to reach its best performance, as it grants it a lot of milage off of its Sp. Atk stat. Assuming it already knows Giga Drain, Gengar could technically hang onto Hypnosis or Curse to help with a few scenarios where applicable, at least, until it learns Thunderbolt from the Game Corner to help with Lorelei and Lance in the Elite Four. If you have taught another Pokémon Giga Drain instead of Gengar however, it can hang onto Curse or Hypnosis, though mostly as filler moves rather than anything else.

Answer 3

Definitely roll with Toxic IMO.

Curse is a bit faster damage-wise, works if you've already put the opponent to sleep, and doesn't get walled by Steel-types, but Gengar is already fragile enough without the HP cost of Curse. You do have Dream Eater to help with that, but sleep isn't too reliable in my experience and you're talking about a lot of setup if you're relying on a Hypnosis -> Curse -> Dream Eater combo. Toxic is more flexible. Might just be my preferences though, I'm really impatient with relying on long setups in-game.

I'd also consider something like Thunderbolt or another special move instead of Shadow Punch. Maybe even run Giga Drain + Psychic rather than Dream Eater + Shadow Punch (if you have the TMs free). I realize Shadow Punch gets STAB, but Ghost is physical in gen 3 and Gengar doesn't have a great Attack stat. Feel free to keep it if it's working for you, but I think Gengar has stronger options.

Comments

It's interesting how you said you were impatient right after recommending toxic, which takes longer to take effect. While Genger's weak defensive stats do make it bad at using curse, they also make it bad at using toxic. By the way, the TMs for giga drain and psychic are both obtainable only once, so the person who asked the question might not want to use them for the playthough.

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My point with Toxic is that it's more flexible and easy to use, making it faster at the end of the day even if the damage takes a bit longer to ramp up within a single battle. Curse requires healing in some form. If they're relying on Hypnosis + Dream Eater, that's very slow to get going, rather than just Toxic -> switch to wall or keep attacking. If they're relying on items, that creates some tedium and the cost adds up in-game. If they're relying mostly on Pokemon Centers, that becomes very very slow grinding/progression.  

Agreed that Gengar isn't particularly suited for stall tactics like Curse/Toxic, it's definitely built to be a sweeper, but that wasn't OP's question so I figured I'd humor them. Yes, the TMs can be tricky with Gengar, but ultimately it's not that great in-game without some significant TM investment.

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First, you claim that toxic is faster than curse, which I don't understand because curse takes 4-5 turns to defeat something and toxic takes 6 turns. Second, since neither toxic nor curse is good on Gengar, why not just use the one that takes less TMs? It won't otherwise make much of a difference.

Answer 4

If you're not planning to do competitive battling then it won't matter that much what moveset you have. Prior gen 4 ghost moves were physical and Gengar has low attack also keep in mind that the foe can't be poisoned and asleep.
Imo use thunderbolt, will-o-wisps/ hypnosis, psychic/dream eater, night shade

Answer 5

I would suggest toxic because you would want gengar to be fast. Toxic also helps make bulky Pokemons faint. And I would suggest get shadow ball on gengar, because of its high special attack and low attack.

Comments

Note Curse has a different effect for Ghost-type Pokemon than it normally does, so there is no sacrifice to its Speed and the move will deal 25% of the opponent's health per turn. In that sense its damage output is better than Toxic in the short term, but the move also cuts Gengar's HP in half. So this trade-off is a bit different to the one in your answer.

Answer 6

You should get Toxic for Gengar and replace the move Curse. Toxic poisons the opponent and the damage dealt by the poison increases each turn quite a lot. Curse isn't that useful on Gengar, since it may not even survive before doing something after using the move. The move would probably work better on Pokemon with a lot of HP or defense.

Toxic is great for crippling teams. Combined with Whirlwind (Gengar doesn't learn it, but just saying), it can be pretty deadly and also annoying. The only problem are steel types, and that's where Gengar's other moves come in handy. Plus, Toxic isn't that predictable, so you won't have others spam Substitute or Protect/Detect instantly.

Comments

In-game opponents almost never switch, so curse is actually better for crippling teams than toxic is. Curse also can't be cured by full restores.