Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Every Starter From Kanto to Unova: How Good Are They?




When you start your journey on any Pokemon adventure what do you need? An annoying so called scientist or professor telling you how to play, though you've done it a hundred times? A rival or a few rivals? Pokeballs? No...what you need is a starter Pokemon.  For many people a starter Pokemon isn't just a virtual creature that you tell what to do.  It's more of a friend.  Everyone has a very special place for at least one starter Pokemon somewhere in their heart.  It could be because it was their first Pokemon ever or just because they are absolutely bad ass.  Whatever the case maybe, starter Pokemon for most are special and it changes lives (not really). Lets start from the beginning....the world of Kanto.

Everyone adores the starters from the Kanto region.  They are the very first starters ever created and all three of them are very good.


SQUIRTLE: The blue turtle on the left side of that picture above.  Squirtle evolves into Wartortle on Lv.16 and then Blastoise on Lv.36.  Squirtle is a pure water type throughout all three of his evolutions, which makes him weak against electric type attacks and also grass.  He is also resistant against Fire, Ice, Steel, and Water. His moveset (used from Black and White) are pretty good.  He learns mostly water based moves with a few others mixed in there like Bite, Skull Bash, and Rapid Spin.  Most of the water moves he learns are pretty powerful once you get towards the end of training him.  He learns moves like Water Pulse, Aqua Tail, and Hydro Pump.  In addition he learns quite a few of TM/HM's as well.  A few of those being like Ice Beam, Brick Break, Focus Blast, Earthquake, Strength, and all three of the water HM moves like Surf, Waterfall, and Dive.  His stats are also pretty balanced.  With high Special Defense and Defense have fun trying to defeat one.  His Attack and Special Attack are decent, nothing too bad.  But he lacks in Speed and HP.  Overall analysis: Squirtle is a very good choice for any trainer.

BULBASAUR: The green dog thing with a flower on its back and in the center of the picture above.  In my opinion, Bulbasaur is very underrated.  I really like Bulbasaur and most people are too scared to try him out and they end up falling for Blastoise's two cannons coming out of his shell or Charizard's badassery.  I really enjoy training a Bulbasaur and I believe he is one of the best starters.  He is a grass/poison type Pokemon.  Evolving into Ivysaur at Lv.16 and Venusaur at Lv.32.  He is weak against Fire, Flying, Ice, and Psychic.  He's resistant against electric, fighting, grass, and water types.  His moveset isn't the best until you evolve him into Venusaur.  He learns moves like Razor Leaf, Petal Dance, Solarbeam, and it's a good idea to teach him Synthesis as well because it heals him.  One combination I loved doing with him was teaching him leech seed and poison powder and use them both on an opponent.  Each turn that goes by, your opponent loses health from leech seed, which gives you some health as well, then they lose more health from poisonpowder.  I found this combo to be very effective most of the time. As far as his stats goes, just like Blastoise, they are actually pretty balanced.  His Speed is pretty low, but still better than Blastoise.  He has high Special Attack and Special Defense.

CHARMANDER: The orange creature on the far right in the picture above.  He evolves into Charmeleon at Lv.16 and then Charizard at Lv.36.  A pure fire type being weak against rock, ground, and water. And resistant against bug, fire, and grass.  However, when he evolves into Charizard, he becomes a fire/flying type making him weak against water, electric, and doubly against rock.  And is resistant against bug, fighting, fire, and grass, and steel.  He learns powerful fire attacks such as flamethrower, inferno, heat wave, and flare blitz.  Though he is sort of lacking in HP and Defense stats, his Special Attack is impressive.

Well that's it for the Kanto starters.  Now lets move on to Johto...


TOTODILE: The blue alligator on the far right in the picture above.  Totodile is a pure water type Pokemon being weak against electric and grass.  His resistances are fire, ice, steel, and water.  He evolves into Croconaw at Lv.18 and Feraligatr at Lv.30.  Totodile learns only a few water moves.  Those being water gun, aqua tail, and hydro pump.  In his final form, he can learn Superpower, a very powerful fighting type move.  Overall, his moveset pool is decent.  However, you could teach him quite a few TM/HM's such as blizzard, scald, dive, waterfall, earthquake, and even shadowclaw, just to name a few.  He has very high Attack and Defense.  His Special Attack and Speed however is lacking.

CHIKORITA: The green thing with a leaf coming out of its head on the far left in the picture above.  Chikorita is a pure grass type making him weak against bug, fire, flying, ice, and poison.  He is resistant against electric, grass, ground, and water.  He evolves into Bayleef at Lv.16 and Meganium at Lv.32.  The moves that Chikorita learns aren't very good at all.  The strongest grass move is Solarbeam and then the second strongest is Magical Leaf, which is kind of sad. If you evolve him into Meganium he also learns Petal Dance though, which is a strong grass move. However, he also learns Body Slam, which in term of power, is a decent move. Make sure he learns Aromatherapy, which heals all status problems in your party.  Even the TM/HM's that Chikorita learns aren't very good.  So if you want a starter with good moves, do not go with Chikorita.  Meganium's stats are pretty balanced with pretty good Defense and Special Defense.

CYNDAQUIL: The fire dog thing in the center of the picture above.  Cyndaquil is one of my favorite starters in all of the games!  He is a pure fire type being weak against rock, ground, and water.  Resistant against bug, fire, grass, ice, and steel.  He evolves into Quilava at Lv.14 and Typhlosion at Lv.36.  He learns a bunch of fire type moves, all of which are just decent on the power scale.  The strongest move being inferno.  However, he can learn TM's like fire blast and overheat. He has very high Special Attack and pretty high Speed stats.  However, his HP and Defense are kind of lacking.  

That's it for Johto...Now Hoenn starters.

  

MUDKIP: The blue thing on the far right in the picture above.  Mudkip is a pure water type making him weak against grass, and electric and resistant against fire, ice, steel, and water.  However, when he evolves into Marshtomp at Lv. 16, he turns into a water/ground type making him weak only against grass type, but it's doubly effective.  Marshtomp is resistant against fire, poison, rock, and steel.  He is immune against electric based attacks.  Marshtomp evolves into Swampert at Lv.36.  He learns more ground type moves than he does water moves.  The only water moves he learns is water gun and muddy water.  He does, however, learn earthquake and hammer arm, a powerful fighting type move.  He does learn all three water HM moves like surf, waterfall, and dive, and can learn ice moves as well.  His stats are very balanced and some of the best of the starters in all of the games.  The only bad stat he has is Speed, making him one of the slowest starters.

TREECKO:  The green lizard in the center in the picture above.  Treecko evolves into Grovyle at Lv.16 and then at Lv.36 evolves into Sceptile.  Treecko is a pure grass type throughout all of its evolutions.  He is weak against bug, fire, flying, ice, and poison types and is resistant against electric, grass, ground, and water.  Sceptile only learns three grass type moves including absorb, leaf blade, and leaf storm, which isn't too bad considering that only one of those three isn't powerful, being absorb.  He also learns x-scissor, which is a decent bug type move.  You can also teach him solarbeam with a TM.  He is extremely quick, making him the highest Speed stat out of all the starters.  His other stats are decent, however having poor HP and even lower Defense stats.

TORCHIC: The orange chicken on the far left in the picture above.  A pure fire type being weak against ground, rock, and water.  His resistances are bug, fire, grass, ice, and steel.  However, when he evolves into Combusken at Lv.16 he turns into a fire/fighting type.  That change makes him weak against flying, ground, psychic, and water and resistant against bug, dark, fire, grass, ice, and steel.  Blaziken learns only a few good fire type moves, which are blaze kick and flare blitz.  The strongest fighting type move he learns is sky uppercut.  He also learns brave bird, which is a very powerful flying type move but unfortunately does damage to itself as well.  He has very high Attack stats and is lacking in Defense and Special Defense.

More than half way there. Time for Sinnoh starters.

 

PIPLUP: The blue penguin on the far right in the picture above.  Piplup is a pure water type being weak against electric, and grass.  And is resistant against fire, ice, steel, and water.  Piplup evolves at Lv.16 into a Prinplup. However, upon evolving once more at Lv. 36, he becomes the water/steel type Empoleon. When this happens he is weak against electric, fighting, and ground.  He is resistant against bug, dark, dragon, flying, ghost, ice, normal, psychic, rock, steel, and water.  He is also immune to poison type moves.  He learns a pretty good amount of water moves, unfortunately the only one that is good is hydropump.  In addition to that, the only steel move he learns is metal claw, though flash cannon may be taught via TM.  So overall, is moves are not very good.  However, he can learn all three water HM moves, which includes surf, waterfall, and dive.  As far as his stats go, he is pretty balanced with his Special Attack being very high and his speed being very low.

TURTWIG: The turtle with the leaf on its head on the far left in the picture above.  Turtwig is a pure grass type until he evolves into Grotle at Lv.18, in which he becomes a ground type as well.  Grotle evolves into Torterra at Lv.32 and is weak against bug, fire, flying, ice, and poison.  He is resistant against ground and rock and is completely immune to electric.  He learns mostly all grass type moves, strongest being Leaf Storm.  He also learns earthquake by himself.  He has high Attack and Defense stats.  However, low Special Attack and very low speed.

CHIMCHAR: The red monkey in the center in the picture above.  Chimchar is a pure fire type being weak against ground, rock, and water.  When he evolves into Monferno at Lv.14 he turns into a fire/fighting type being weak against flying, water, ground, and psychic and resistant against bug, dark, fire, grass, ice, and steel.  Chimchar's final evolution, Infernape at Lv.36, only learns one good fire attack worth mentioning.  That being flare blitz.  If it wasn't for close combat, Infernape only would learn one good move.  Although, you could teach him TM/HM's like earthquake, stone edge, poison jab, strength, and rock climb.  At least what he lacks in moves, he makes up for in his stats.  Having high Attack, Special Attack, and Speed.  His other stats are average.

One more region to go...Unova.

 

OSHAWOTT:  The blue otter on the far right side of the picture above.  Oshawott is a pure water type throughout all of its evolutions.  This makes him weak against electric and grass and resistant against fire, ice, steel, and water types.  Oshawott evolves into Dewott at Lv.17 and Samurott at Lv.36.  He learns decent water moves along with Aqua Tail and Hydropump being strong water moves.  The only other moderately strong move he learns is slash.  However, he can learn quite a few of useful TM/Hm's move such as surf, waterfall, dive, and scald.  He has very high Special Attack and pretty high Attack stats.  Although, his Speed and Special Defense are not very good at all.

SNIVY: The green snake thing on the far left in the picture above.  Snivy is a pure grass type throughout all of its evolutions.  He is weak against bug, fire, flying, ice, and poison.  He is resistant against electric, grass, ground, and water.  Snivy evolves into Servine at Lv.17 and then at Lv.36 into Serperior.  Serperior learns decent grass type moves.  Like Leaf Blade and Giga Drain and he learns a powerful grass type move being Leaf Storm.  His stats are balanced for the most part.  Having high Speed stat but low HP and Attack stats.

TEPIG: The red pig in the center in the picture above.  A pure fire type until he evolves into Pignite at Lv.17.  That makes him weak against flying, ground, psychic, and water.  He is also resistant against bug, dark, fire, grass, ice, and steel.  In his final form, Emboar at Lv.36, He learns only two good fire attacks, which are Flamethrower and Flare Blitz.  And for being a fighting type, he only learns one and it's Arm Thrust, which isn't very good.  Though he could learn more with TM/HM's like Fire Blast and Overheat and he can even learn Wild Charge, a powerful electric attack.  His stats are not very spectacular either.  Having very low Defense, Special Defense, and Speed.  However, he makes up for it with having very high Attack and pretty high Hp and Special Attack.

Okay, now that I explained each starter Pokemon, lets rank them.  15 being the weakest and 1 being the strongest.  The ranking is based on their overall base stats and the moves they learn on their own.  DISCLAIMER:THE FOLLOWING ARE OPINION BASED ONLY.  DO NOT GO BY MY CHOICES IF YOU ARE BEING HELD AT GUN POINT.

15 EMBOAR
14. VENUSAUR
13. MEGANIUM
12. TORTERRA
11. SERPERIOR
10. SAMUROTT
9. EMPOLEON
8. INFERNAPE
7. FERALIGATR
6. SCEPTILE
5. BLASTOISE
4. BLAZIKEN
3. SWAMPERT
2. TYPHLOSION
1. CHARIZARD

By: Shawn

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