Which Hoenn starter is best for Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald playthroughs?

Question

I'm not talking about Soulsilver or Heartgold, I'm talking about the proper Hoenn region, Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald. I just bought a Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP and Ruby, I'm gonna buy Sapphire and Emerald and the other gens later on in time.
So anyway, I was wondering which Hoenn starter is best?
I will probably end up choosing Treecko though since I love grass Pokemon.
But still, which one is best?

Answer 1

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Swampert

Overview:

Swampert is highly recognized as the "strongest" starter Pokemon for it's highest stat total out of any starter Pokemon, that being 535 while other starters usually have 530.

Stats:

Swampert's highest stat comes from it's base 110 attack stat which gives it the 5 stat point boost.

Typing:

Swampert's Water-Ground typing brings some benefits to it but downfalls as well. A half weakness to Fire because of the typing! It cancels out Water's usually electric weakness, which in my opinion is the biggest perk. Rock, steel and poison all are bad against Swampert for this reason, but it now has a four times weakness to grass, so if your rival uses his Sceptile against you, you'll be in trouble.

Moveset:

The main thing Swampert has to cover for is his grass weakness. A Good move to block this out is Ice Punch (Emerald Move Tutor).

Training:

Growth Rate
It's growth rate is Medium Slow, but not totally Slow. Some work put into it will work.

EVs
You definitely want to EV train it in Attack and Speed if you're EV training.

Ability

Torrent...

Comments

Swampert is supposed to be a wall

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No it's not, it's a tank. Who told you that??

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This is in-game, it can be a sweeper.

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@Victini Victory: Swampert is also a Special (Water) And Physical (Ground) type.

Yup, Blaziken also. Special (Fire) and Physical (Fighting).

But then again what will happen if a Pokemon with both Special and Physical types?

Will it be weakened or not? Weakened in what way exactly?

Or it has no effect to have both types on a pokemon?

Can someone test this?  

Thanks :)

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Would the 5 bonus points to attack matter much?

5 bonus points compared to the other starters is only 1 percent more.

The other starters have 530 stat total.

5/530×100%=0.94%  ~1%

Answer 2

Maybe you didn't know this, which is why I'd like to help you here. Skip to the end of the Q to cut to the chase and get your answer.

Since this is Gen III, types are determined differently.

Physical

Normal
Fighting
Flying
Ground
Rock
Bug
Ghost
Poison
Steel

Special

Water
Grass
Fire
Ice
Electric
Psychic
Dragon
Dark

Fire and Fighting offset categories, so Blaziken's out. Same with Swampert. Sceptile learns lots of Dragon Moves, and he's very powerful. Blaziken did work well, but Sceptile was even better. Your gut was right, IMO, go with Treecko. It learns Pursuit (Special, good against Ghost types) by level, Leaf Blade is special here (:O) and you can teach it Dragon Claw via TM. We done here? Awesome.

I hope I helped a lot!

Comments

I like this answer. +1.

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Blaziken can still be mixed. swampert can also be used as mixed in ingame

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oh id still choose blaziken. and it can learn dragon claw too :3

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But then again what will happen if a Pokemon with both Special and Physical types?

Will it be weakened or not? Weakened in what way exactly?

Or it has no effect to have both types on a pokemon?

Can someone test this?  

Thanks :)

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Just because Blaziken and Swampert have special STABs doesn't mean they need to use those special STABs. Physical Blaziken (120 base Atk, 75 BP brick break), special Blaziken (110 base SpA, 95 BP flamethrower), and physical Swampert (110 base Atk, 100 BP earthquake) are all stronger than special Sceptile (105 base SpA, 70 BP leaf blade).

@ZXC The biggest difference is that one kind of vitamin can't boost all of its STAB attacks. Still, all vitamins are less effective compared to battling more trainers and leveling up your Pokemon.

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sumwun, this answer is nearly seven years old... I preferred then, and still do now, to go with one unified attack method, but I even said back then that Blaziken was still an acceptable team option, even if it wasn't in my opinion the most effective starter of the three available.

I was not, however, aware that Leaf Blade was 70 BP.

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Why do you think a pure physical Swampert is worse than a pure special Sceptile? Or is someone forcing you to teach special attacks to all Swamperts?

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Damn you guys it has been 7 years now lol. Why is this thing coming up on my email xd

Answer 3

im gonna point out some fact that I seem to be the only one who see (or care about) :S

first I wanna point out that swamper is the strongest starter by just a little bit better stat and movepool but there is just too many better water type that you can get before the hall of fame that make it not worth working on swamper for my personal point of view ( just to name a few Pokemon who are better : gyarados ,milotic ,crawdaunt ,and I would even said sharpedo and wailord)

lets talk about sceptile now. first of all it is one of the strongest grass type in the III gen if not the strongest and hes worth training just for that reason but I'm gonna give a few other that could be interesting competitor : cacturne ,ludicolo ,breloom, and would say shiftry and bellosom

now I'm gonna talk about the tihrd one that everybody seems to think is the worst of them blaziken. well its true that blaziken is not the most well balanced of the III gen starter it still is one realy good sweeper and he dont even have that much weakness for a double typed fire type and he is for me the most whort to train cause before the hall of fame he dosent have any serious competitor for the best fire type and even after the hall of fame he is still a prety good one

so the strongest is swamper but is also the least worth to train

the weakess is blaziken but is also the most worth training

and in the middle of this we got sceptile

so its up to you to chose

Comments

upvote !

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good one but its sad that we are still confused

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The best fire Pokemon isn't automatically better than the second best water Pokemon. Fire itself is a bad type in Hoenn. There are no grass or bug specialists, and the ice and steel specialists only use 2 Pokemon that are really weak to fire. Several water attacks and earthquake are common in the late game. Blaziken also has serious competitors for the best fighting Pokemon, such as Breloom and Hariyama, and both of those are not weak to water.

I'm pretty sure Swampert is the best water in Hoenn, even if there is competition. (though it might be worse than Kyogre) As I mentioned earlier, opponents rarely use grass attacks, so Swampert has ZERO WEAKNESSES. Also Swampert's earthquake hits harder than attacks from any other water Pokemon (except maybe Gorebyss and Kyogre).

Answer 4

Blaziken

Pros: Blaziken has the ability to sweep the game with his greatly gifted offensive stats and comes in very handy against the Elite 4. He is a Fire/Fighting type duo with few weaknesses. Blaziken has great speed and can outspeed most of the ingame Pokemon.

Cons: Blaziken has horrible defensive stats and isn't bulky enough to tank out an occasional Earthquake or Earth Power from the opponent. It struggles near the start if not evolved into Combusken by the first Gym.

Sceptile

Pros: Sceptile has the best speed out of all three Hoenn starters and has to be one of the fastest Grass types still. It has decent offensive stats and learns some great moves with level up and TM. Its movepool provides amazing coverage throughout the game.

Cons: Sceptile's only cons are that all its good STAB's and coverage moves are learnt at higher levels in the game, and has to rely on Razor Leaf and Pursuit to carry it swiftly throughout the game. It is also a pretty frail Pokemon by Base Stats.

Swampert

Pros: Swampert's great typing and extensively large natural defences make it a great staller, even Ingame. It has decent HP and great Attack power to bore through the game. The moves it learns are also pretty nice.

Cons: Swampert's speed is its main downfall and stops it from becoming a five star sweeper with equally monstrous defences. It will outspeed many Pokemon ingame but will get outsped by many many more.

Overall

Blaziken: Pure attacking Power and sweeping.
Sceptile: Great Speed and decent offences.
Swampert: Great tanking and defences.

My experiences

I have chosen all three starters for RSE and have a full game experience of them all. My best game was with Blaziken and the Worst was Swampert. I failed completely with Swampert and couldn't even beat the Elite 4 no matter how hard I tried. Blaziken allowed me to sweep the game in one week. Sceptile was challenging and probably the most fun game but it wasn't like Swampert where I totally failed.

Comments

I'm pretty sure Sceptile can't learn Razor Leaf.

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so u say swapert as the good,sceptile as better and blaziken as the best??

Answer 5

First lets compare them.

Sceptile:

> Stats:HP 70 250 - 344 ATTACK 85 157 - 295 DEFENSE 65 121 - 251 SP. ATK 105 193 - 339 SP. DEF 85 157 - 295 SPEED 120 220 - 372
> TOTAL 530

Blaziken:

> Stats: HP 80 270 - 364 ATTACK 120 220 - 372 DEFENSE 70 130 - 262 SP. ATK 110 202 - 350 SP. DEF 70 130 - 262 SPEED 80 148 - 284
> TOTAL 530

Swampert:

> Stats:HP 100 310 - 404 ATTACK 110 202 - 350 DEFENSE 90 166 - 306 SP. ATK 85 157 - 295 SP. DEF 90 166 - 306 SPEED 60 112 - 240
> TOTAL 535

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For now,you can clearly see that swampert has the highest stats.

1)Swampert has a strong attack stat and can also take his with its great Defense,Special defense and Hp stat.

2)Blaziken,on the other hand,has a good attack stat but lacks in defense.

3)Sceptile has great speed and very good SpA,but it lacks in its defense stat.

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Conclusion:Swampert is way better because of its high stats and is also weak to only grass.So,swampert is way better.

Comments

Got stuck answering it too to find 2 answers? Well, I always fail with Swampert so well...yeah.

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All you did was compare by stats...

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OH MY GOD IT HAS 5 MORE BASE STAT WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE

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For sceptile in gen 3 it has a poor moveset until it learns leaf blade

Answer 6

That will depend on your preference
If you like water-ground type, choose swampert
If you like fire-fighting type, choose blaziken
If you like grass type, choose sceptile

I prefer sceptile as its speed is high, however its hp is lower than the other 2 starters. So have more hp-up for it!

Source- Experience

Comments

good one but very lame

Answer 7

It depends:
Sceptile has high special attack, decent attack and good speed, but he gets most of his best moves via move tutor and breeding (thunder punch and crunch), his best stab is leaf blade, which is somewhat weak compared to earthquake and fire blast which are stab of swampert and blaziken. Sceptile also need a good team built around him as he has no way to overpower wattson, flannery and winona. His offensive moves are leaf blade, aerial ace, earthquake, brick break and dragon claw.
Blaziken is decently fast and has high offensive stats making him a very good attacker, while he doesn't have the best offensive movepool, he makes up with his strong offenses and can also set up with bulk up. The chicken does have his flaws though, he has weak defences and he gets his best moves late. He only gets sky uppercut at level 59 and thus have to rely on tms for a long while. This could be a problem if you are planning to do the contests and the battle frontier. His best offensive moves are brick break, earthquake, fire blast and aerial ace.
Swampert is good all round. He has a mixture of good bulk and offensive power. A low amount of weakness basically make it a valuable teammate. He is somewhat flawed, as he is very slow compared to his competitors, and his only weakness is a huge one in form of grass. I recommend bringing up a Pokemon to counter it or teaching him ice beam. His best offensive moves are surf, ice beam and earthquake.
In my way, Swampert is the best starter if you are planning to conserve tms. Sceptile and Blaziken often get into "hit hard or die hard" situations, while Swampert can still play around opponents with weak moves thanks to his good bulk. If you don't care about the optional stuff, Sceptile and Blaziken are better, as they both could get rid of their opponents fast without taking unnecessary damage. Blaziken is slightly better than Sceptile in this regard.