[Sety]

Half the problem though its Torkoal who is the one who needs Hard Rock, seriously hes a fire type wall with no recovery. That always turns out bad, they could've made him sturdier. Camerupt is slow as well...a rock and hits hard, but solid rock is pretty useless when your defenses are little to show for and your one 4x weak is the most common element in the game.

If we're talking in game though Torkoal is probably the more useful of the two as hes less likely to go down in a heap and learns flamethrower very early I recall. In proper battles though Camerupt dies even quicker and Torkoal just can't threaten nor wall terribly well.

On the Arcanine thing in game yeah if you're willing to use TM's hes all good but if you don't you'll need to wait till lv28 before evolving to get a worthwhile move. Problem is you miss out on Flare Blitz so you either end up having to use TM's, breed a good move, use Growlithe for almost the whole game or having to use a gimped Arcanine. For proper battles though Arcanine is spectacular ever since the addition of Morning Sun and Flare Blitz.

Still it says something when the most useful normally catchable fire type is one from the first gen.