I have never thought of the Elite 4 as "End Game," just as I never though of hitting level 60 (and later 70, 80, 85) as "End Game" in WoW. Rather it was just another stepping stone. Because of this attitude, I optimized very differently.
First, I found that 3 Pokemon was about the sweet spot for training at a time. Usually this entailed 1 or 2 (xp share, or swapping) I was focusing on, and a third for backup (someone beefy enough to roll whatever area I was in).
Next, I specifically targeted Pokemon whose EVs I could easily raise. There are a couple areas where you can guarantee which EV you'll get, but usually I lead with a Pokemon whose EVs I didn't care about, and then swapped according to what I ran into (in the case of trainers I could set this up more intelligently). As a result, I was usually targeting only 1 or 2 for actual EV leveling. This process would recur every time I got a Pokemon whom I wanted to level (I usually decide these at game start).
Once a Pokemon had been EV leveled, I could then use it as a clean up for other Pokemon's EV leveling. From a pure XP perspective, having a "clean up" Pokemon (sometimes initiator) means that that Pokemon will be receiving more than its fair share of experience. The end result is that usually the Pokemon that I EV train first end up being my strongest (not just because of EVs).
Finally, as I originally stated my end goal is not the Elite Four; rather I'm eventually targeting competitive play. However, EV training other Pokemon doesn't max out my first couple, so ultimately I end up doing runs on the Elite Four to power level them fast. Usually, by the time I hit my first run I have 4-5 beefy Pokemon fully EV trained, so it's not a major challenge. However, sometimes I haven't spent enough time and that usually means I need to take the time to EV train up a couple more Pokemon so they hit that sweet spot where they start firing on all cylinders.
I realize this may not be exactly your use case, but I think it is something to keep in mind.
False Swipe leaves an opponent with at least one health. In Leaf Green, the following Pokemon learn it by levelling up. Entries in bold are Pokemon which can be caught in Leaf Green; others can be acquired by trading:
- Cubone (level 33) (Sevault Canyon, Pokémon Tower floors 3-7)
- Farfetch'd (level 46) (Trade a Spearow to a girl in Vermillion City)
- Grovyle (level 53)
- Marowak (level 39) (Sevault Canyon, Victory Road floors 1-3)
- Nincada (level 25)
- Sceptile (level 59)
- Scizor (level 16)
- Scyther (level 16)
- Zangoose (level 55)
The following Pokemon can hatch with it as an egg, if their father had the move:
- Heracross
- Mawile
- Paras
- Pinsir
- Seedot
- Shroomish
- Spearow
Best Answer
Well Future Sight does damage your opponent, just two turns later. In fact, unlike many status-inflicting attacks, Future Sight isn't quite "wasting" an attack either; two turns later Future Sight will inflict damage in addition to whatever move you make, so it's still possible to attack 3 times inside 3 turns with Future Sight, provided the battle lasts until Future Sight activates.
One of the benefits of Future Sight (from Bulbapedia) is:
A potential setup against a defensive pokemon is to use Future Sight when you expect them to use Protect/etc to save up your attack for later or to hit through a future Protect status attack.
But it's still not that great, since it requires your opponent to be defending either when the move hits or when you cast it. When it's a move with an unusual use that Smogon can't find a use for it's often not all that great of a move (if there's some amazing, broken use for a move, Smogon will find it. Then they will ban it).
An additional use was that prior to Gen 5 it did not take type into account, always dealing a 1x type based multiplier. As of Gen 5 it's a proper Psychic move though, so it's useless as a type-ignoring move. It does however have 100 power in Gen 5 (it used to be 80), making it one of the stronger Psychic attacks (albeit with an annoying handicap). Psychic is only 10% weaker but has zero set up required.