@ The list of PT reps: how many of them win tournaments? What's this, none?
I have played a good Squirtle thank you very much. Espy is oddly good at using PT as a low tier main. At least the last time I played him he was using PT for low tiers. I've also played against two other PTs IRL. I don't see A tier. Top of B tier maybe. He's Wario....but worse in every possible way except air release (barely better then Wario here), ground speed and gimping while being about tied overall in range. Maybe a slight edge in KOing ability I'd have to look at Wario's KOing move again.
Saying Squirtle would be A tier if he was on his own, without fatigue and without forced switching is as useful as saying Bowser would be A tier if his attacks came out twice as fast: nice theory crafting, but completely and utterly unimportant as that has no possibility of happening or anything close to happening. You can't use PT without all three characters. Better theory crafting would be to say "Where would PT be if all three of his pokemon were Squirtle, but they still had forced switching and fatigue". That is 'closer' to happening then the other theory crafting, and I can tell you right now he would be lower then the stand alone Squirtle. Probably mid to low B tier. Charizard I see as low C tier or top of D tier, and Ivysaur somewhere down in F tier below Yoshi.
sometimes PT doesn't care and will switch even if the opponent gets a free hit off. so you take 20% instead of losing another stock. big deal!
Have fun getting away with that against Ike/Ganondorf/Bowser/Snake/Any other heavy hitter. >_> LOL Fsmash by any of them = GG unless it's the very beginning of a stock.
Yes PT has a higher learning curve, so what? Snake has a high one, look where he is. Marth has a somewhat high learning curve look where he is. Diddy has a high learning curve, look where he is. Link has a high learning curve, look where he is. Learning Curve doesn't suddenly make you a better character, you mean you should go up or down. It has a slight effect on tournament results, thats it.