2nd Gen Early game choices

Anyone raised a Onyx, geodude or sandshrew? Like early. They come in pretty low level in that cave before the second town.

Not sure if to raise one.

Also thoughts on gastly? It seems hard to train with lick as main attack!!

I've raised a Geodude since Violet City in one of my playthrough.
In my opinion is a quite good choice: it learn rock throw around lv11 (which is effective against Falkner) then he learn Magnitude at 16 (another good move).
On the other hand he evolves relatively late at 25, but I would still suggest it to you.

Out of all these options, Geodude makes the most useful choice. It gets better moves. If you can get Golem later it's a pretty solid rock/ground type. Wooper is also early on if you want electric immunity.

Gastly can be exceptionally valuable later on if you invest some training into it, and especially if you can trade in order to evolve it. Having a Haunter or Gengar against Morty would be pretty convenient, especially if you don't have anything else that has a super effective move to use against Ghost-types.

I'd say that's less true for Geodude or Sandshrew; they don't have much late-game utility. Steelix, however, can end up being amazing if you're able to trade for it - and even before that Onix is effective against all the first four Gym Leaders. It won't do well against Chuck, but it'll be fine going up against Jasmine if evolved.

You have to sort of think of them as an investment; Onix is good in the beginning and as a long-term team member if you can evolve it, as is Gastly despite the harder leveling. The others, not so much.

nice anyone have a list of good move set for my gastly/haunter?