PokéBase - Pokémon Q&A
8 votes
35,472 views

I have alot of pokemon games. I have Red, Yellow, Emerald, Ruby, Leaf Green, Platinum, Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team, Heart Gold, and Soul Silver and yet, I'm still not sure what is the best starter.

by
edited by

2 Answers

6 votes
 
Best answer

I feel that you really need to look at the whole picture for your question, and much depends on your fighting style. Thus, I’ve provided a summary of all the beginners so far. I reference some moves for each, but remember, they learn other moves, just check their pages for more and their specifics.

Grass
Venesaur:
It is weak to 4 different types and strong to 4 different types when attacked. It’s HP, attack, defense, and speed base stats are all around 80-83. It’s Special Attack and Special Defense are both base 100. However, it has little selection in move types. To be honest, it defiantly would not be my pick.
Attack: Take Down, Double Edge, Earthquake, Giga Impact
Special Attack: Petal Dance, Hyper Beam, Giga Drain, Solar Beam, Sludge Bomb, Energy Ball

Meganium:
Type-wise, it has 5 weaknesses when attacked and 4 strengths. It ties for the lowest base stat out of all 16 beginners with Torterra, and not very many good moves it can learn. It is overall a defensive Pokémon; Its’ base stat for both is 100 whit all of it’s others are in the low 80s. Again, it would definitely not be my pick.
Attack: Earthquake and Steel Tail
Special Attack: Magical Leaf, Petal Dance, Solar Beam, Energy Ball

Sceptile:
Type-wise, it has 5 weaknesses when attacked and 4 strengths. It has a high speed, but a low defense and HP. Its’ special defense is decent. Its’ special attack is a good bit higher than its’ attack, but it can learn a good selection in both move fields.
Attack: Night Slash, Leaf blade, Dragon Claw, Iron Tail, Earthquake, Brick Break, Aerial Ace, Drain Punch, Giga Impact, Rock Slide, and X-Scissor
Special Attack: Leaf Storm, Hyper Beam, Giga Drain, Solar Beam, Focus Blast, Energy Ball, and Dragon Pulse

Torterra:
Type-wise, it’s not the best. It has 4 weaknesses including a x4 weakness to ice and only 3 strengths when attacked. It Ties with Meganium for the lowest base stat. It is astonishingly slow, but has high HP, Defense, and attack stats. It’s Special Attack is low. It has some good move options and variety, including enough diversity in move types to have four solid attack moves to gloss over the low special attack stat.
Attack: Crunch, Earthquake, Wood Hammer, Iron Tail, Stone Edge, and Rock Slide
Special Attack: Leaf Storm, Giga Drain, and Energy Ball

Fire:

Charzard:
Charzard really has to look out for rock moves as they are 4x super effective on it. It also is weak to 2 other types, although it is strong against 6. It’s stats favor the Special Attack stat although it has a greater variety of convenient attack moves. It also is fast, although it has low HP and Defense comparatively.
Special Attack: Flare Blitz, Flamethrower, Solar Beam, Focus Blast, and Dragon Pulse
Dragon claw, Fly, Earthquake, Iron Tail, Rock Slide, Shadow Claw, and Brick Break

Typlosion:
Its’ stat’s match Charzard’s exactly. Its’ main differences lie in their types. Although only 5 different types of moves are not very effective and it has 3 that it is weak two, it does not have a 4x weakness. Its’ moves also have a little variation, but overall the number of favorable moves is depleted.
Attack: Rock Slide, Shadow Claw, Earthquake, and Brick Break
Special Attack: Solar Beam, Flamethrower, Focus Blast, and Eruption

Blaziken:
Blaziken is weak to 4 types and strong against 6. It also offers move variation in stats. It has a very high attack and a high special attack, but in turn its’ defense and special defense are low. Although it can’t learn very many good Special Attack moves, there are enough, especially when paired with all of the physical attack options.
Attack: Sky Uppercut, Brave Bird, Blaze Kick, Rock Slide, Stone Edge, Giga Impact, Brick Break, Shadow Claw, Earthquake
Special Attack: Flare Blitz, Flamethrower, Solar beam

Infernape:
It’s weak to 4 types and strong against 6. It’s high speed and has high and equal attack and special attack stats. However, it has low defense, special defense, and HP. Although it can’t learn a ton of good Special Attack moves, there are enough. There also are loads of physical attack options.
Attack: Earthquake, Brick Break, Iron Tail, Shadow Claw, Stone Edge, Rock Slide, Poison Jab, U-Turn, Close Combat
Special Attack: Solar Beam, Flamethrower, Flare Blitz

Blastoise:
It only has two weaknesses and has four strengths when attacked. Although it’s Attack and Special Attack stats aren’t high, it makes up for it in its’ high Defense and Special Defense stats. It’s not the fastest Pokemon, but it isn’t Torterra slow or anything.
Attack: Hydro Pump, Water Pulse, Focus Blast, Ice Beam, Blizzard, and Surf
Special Attack: Aqua Tail, Skull Bash, Rock Slide, Avalanche, Earthquake, and Iron Tail

Feraligatr:
It also has 2 weaknesses and two strengths when attacked. It has a high attack, which it’s moves accommodate and a high defense too. Its’ base special attack and speed are on the lower end of the spectrum (high 70s). It’s HP and Special Defense are about average for the starters.
Attack: Rock Slide, Avalanche, Giga Impact, Shadow Claw, Superpower, Iron Tail, Earthquake, and Brick Break
Special Attack: Dragon Pulse, Focus Blast, Ice Beam, Surf, and Hydro Pump

Swampert:
Its’ only weakness is a whopper; x4 to Grass. However, 5 types are not very effective against it. With a high HP and Attack, as well as good Sp. Defense and Defense base stats, Sceptile is pretty well rounded. It isn’t the fastest, and it’s special attack isn’t as high as its’ other stats, but its’ still decent. By 1 it has the highest base stats of the beginners. It also has some good move choices, including a lot of strong attack moves.
Attack: Rock Slide, Avalanche, Earthquake, Stone Edge, Brick Break, Iron Tail, Hammer Arm, and Take Down
Special Attack: Focus Blast, Ice Beam, and Surf

Empoleon
Type-wise, it’s revolutionary for the beginners; 12 types aren’t very effective against it and only 3 are super effective. It is prominent in Sp. Attack and Defense. However, it can learn more physical attack moves than special attack. It doesn’t have as much variety in types as, say, Infernape, but there are enough unique move types to suffice. It’s not fast, but its’ HP, Defense, and Attack stats are all passable.
Attack: Shadow Claw, Aerial Ace, Earthquake, Steel Wing, Giga Impact
Special Attack: Surf, Flash Cannon, Hydro Pump

by
Actually, Flare blitz is a Physical attack, not Special. Also, with Blastoise, you switched around the attack and special attack moves. And one more thing, in Swampert's description, you called Sceptile "pretty well rounded" but otherwise, NICE JOB, Fritjof.
Ah well, I sliped up a bit (especialy with Flare Blitz).  I worked on it for two days, and towards the end when I was doing the water Pokemon, the end was near and I guess I rushed a little bit.
Eathquake is not a Physical Move.
yes earthquake is a phsycal move i should know my torterra uses it constantly to pwn people(No offense fritjof but it is iron tail not steel tail) and one more thing this is adressed to everyone stop knocking torterra he is awesome
SPEED FREAK IS CORRECT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! STOP SAYING TORTERRA SUCKS BECAUSE HE CAN HAVE LOW SPEED!!!!!!!! SOME TORTERRA'S ARE FAST! TORTERRA'S ARE 10X BETTER THAN INFENAPES AND AS GOOD AS, IF NOT BETTER THAN EMPOLEONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don't hate on Infernape.
1 vote

Well technically Swampert has the highest stat total at 535. But Charizard, Typhlosion, Infernape all have 534.

You have to look at the distribution of stats. Empoleon has the highest Special Attack and Blaziken has the highest Attack.

Personally I like Blatoise because of its good defenses, and Typhlosion because of its special attack and speed.

You can see stats here: http://pokemondb.net/pokedex/all

by
you can train torterra to have good speed i did and he is awsome pus torterra has one of the greatest move sets since the hoenn starters
Thats true but I would rather have super atack.