Worst Starter

Sorry Sinnoh, I love you, and I love you Twiggs, but Torterra really drew the short end of the stick. It's 4x weak to ice, so it has that going against it. By that logic putting Chesnaught or Swampy would make sense, but those two have redeeming qualities in competitive play. Swampy has speed and power to back it up, Chesnaught has high defense and Spiky Shield. Torterra, it has... low SpDef and weakness policy, and seeing how most ice moves are Special, it dies to them. Now if Mega Torterra got thick fat...

My follow up would be Sceptile just because it's design and its stat spread cause more cognitive dissonance than Hydreigon's absurd speed stat. Again, Sceptile, I love you, but don't put blades on your arm and not specialize in Physical attacks.

 

Honestly I agree that poor Chikorita's line is the worst out of all the starters. The beautiful little bud just don't learn any good moves that make it stand out in battle. Its stats are too balanced as well, making it have no specific role in battle. It has a bit of bulk and access to giga drain, but plain grass as a typing is not good defensively. Meganium has a wonderful design, but sadly its just not anywhere near viable in comparison to all the other starters.

 

Lets have a quiet moment for people who played Gold and Silver with Chikorita........ done. Yeah i never liked Chikorita. Its not really good at anything. Like it CAN support, but other Pokémon do it better. Give the bastard a mega and give her a chance. Mega Meganium sucks as a name tho.

 

I can't diss the Chikorita line, they helped me to cream the normal gym. Them and my Geodude, made Whitney's Pokémon hoof it on out. Pikachu though, just a sad Pokémon, that at level 100, still couldn't do half the stuff it does in the show. I like them, but they pretty well suck in battle.

 

Oshawott... The one in the anime made me hate it a LOT. Same with Piplup, but I hated Oshawott more lol

 

Wow, so much dislike for the chikorita line, though I guess I can understand, I don't play competitively enough to care.

Generally speaking I dislike all the hoenn starters, but I chose Tepig, because it is the third fire fighting starter in a row. There is so much potential for cool fire Pokémon, and I feel that it's barely even tapped.

 

I was going to pick Chikorita, but you had Pikachu on the list. In Yellow, it couldn't do ANYTHING against Brock. You were forced to get a new Pokémon. Chikorita could at least put in some offense and is bulky enough to survive, if not only for a bit. Synthesis also helped.

 

Had to pick pikachu. I mean, even with a light ball the thing doesn't pack anywhere close to a good enough punch. Though with the possibility to have an endeavor+quick attack pikachu after the recent tournament, I guess it has one thing it can do to realiably kill now.

If that hadn't been on the list, I'd have to say tepig. I just don't like that line at all. It may not be the most useless, but it is the most annoying to me.

 

In terms of In-Game use? I'd say...

Chikorita. Yes, I know I'm hoping on the "Chikorita is garbage lol" bandwagon, but honestly, it kinda is. It has almost nothing going for it, and is only useful in, like, two gyms. One being Chuck's gym since his ace is Poliwrath. The other being Whitney... although this is very argueable. The others:

Falkner: Flying-type gym who's ace is a Pidgeotto. Nope.
Bugsy: Bug-type gym with a powerful U-turning Scyther. Nah.
Morty: Ghost-type gym, but all of them are members of the Gengar line. Uh-uh.
Jasmine: Steel-type gym... although it could be arguable. Meganium COULD win against Steelix... but useless against the rest of the gym.
Pryce: Ice-type gym. Yes, his ace is Piloswine who's weak to grass, but that doesn't matter because Blizzard.
Clair: Dragon-type gym. You MIGHT not have too much trouble defeating Kingdr- Wait, why does she have a Gyarados?

This game does not favor the Chikorita line at all. And it's pretty widely agreed that Meganium is the worst starter competitively as it not only has nothing to compete with it's fellow grass starters, but it has nothing to compete with other Grass-types in general. It's a sad life for Meganium.

 

My response is probably gonna be the odd one out haha

Cause I'm not picking Chikorita, or Pikachu or even Turtwig. Most of their issue is people looking on the negatives too much putting them in a bad light, but they can be worked with pretty well, and definitely have a place on my teams.

No, I think there's something worse here that I just can't stand using in-game, and that's

Torchic.

Hold on, wait, what? But it's a superb mon! It outclasses a lotpt, has a super powerful mega and stands out overall. Yes I know, and that's my issue. It's too good, and too hyped. It makes playing and fighting too easy, and thus boring.

I love using underused mons, mons that never get a spotlight so if you know me this response shouldn't come as a surprise, but I just can't bare Torchic. I work off a "if it initially doesn't work, make it work!" policy, but not only does Torchic have everything you need off the bat without need of much thought to make it better, but it's used everywhere as a result.

So, yeah, rant over XD just, keep that thing away from me, it receives so much attention the other, weaker starters don't get a spotlight.

 

I agree, although I never play Pokémon much. According to ABrandonToThePast, all gyms in johto simply rekt chikorita (besides chuck if you count poliwrath) I think it was intentional XD

 

How does that makes Chokorita a bad starter, or a bad Pokémon at all? Do me a favor and go compare Charizard's and Typhlosion's stats. I'll wait. Okay, in case you didn't feel like going through the boredom of looking through bulbapedia (I didn't), I'll do you a favor: Their stats are exactly the same and in the same order, not even mixed around at all. Just like Meganium to Venusaur, you could by the same approach justifiably say Typhlosion is simply Charizard without the Flying type or Belly Drum. It's even more guilty of the ripoff accusation by these standards.

I want to say Infernape or Emboar is worst for perpetuating the Fire-Fighting pattern that has persisted for half of Pokémon's entirety by this point, but I like both of their designs too much to pin them as the worst. I can't make this vote from experience, just speculation, but I'm going to say the Snivy line. While Serperior's good speed makes me want to use it as a sweeper, it doesn't have impressive attack in either offense stat, so I simply can't find a niche for it at all. I'll just use Sceptile instead if I need a speedy Grass type.

That's only because you can't activate the gym's sprinkler system in Yellow. If you could do that, Pikachu would be teh ultimorz pokeyman everzzzz!!!111one.

 

I'm sorry, but "copying" another Pokémon's stats does not make a bad Pokémon. I'll admit Chikorita's line isn't as useful as the others, but that's the same as saying the subsequent psuedo-legendaries are inferior to Dragonite because they copy it's stat total. Sure the stats are swapped around from Venusaur, but Dragonite and Garchomp are just as viable as each other. Meganium have its downfalls, but its stat toal being the same a Venusaur is not one of them.

 

I say Chikorita. I have tried out all the starters, and Chikorita was the only one who kept fainting. I thought its movepool was horrible, and it really gave me a hard time. I haven't had this experience with any other starter (I haven't played Yellow though).

 

As much as I love the Chikorita line design-wise, I have to say it's not as good as it should be. I've tried to use it, but it just doesn't work out for a person going all-out offense. Even it's defense capabilities are rather mediocre.

 

Since I'm not a competitive battler, I can't really pick one based off of stats, etc.. But design-wise, I don't really like Tepig's line as much as the other Unova starters; Tepig itself is pretty cute, but Emboar isn't a very attractive Pokémon to me, and seems more like something you'd find in the Legend of Zelda. And type-wise, the whole thing about Pignite and Emboar being the third Fire/Fighting starters in a row.

 

Never been too big on the Chikorita line. As much as I like its design, the poor thing is completely lacking as both as an attacking Pokémon and support Pokémon. I just am so disappointed at how terrible it is compared to other starters.