Which Johto starter is most useful for a Heart Gold playthrough?

Question

title says it all. Rest of the team is Ho-Oh, Luxray, and possibly electrode. I’m not sure about the rest.

Comments

It's not meganium for sure. Typhlosion is prolly better than Feraligatr

Answer 1

I would go for Feraligatr. Meganium is more a supporter, which isn't necessary in a game of hyper offense. Typhlosion works, but its movepool is quite shallow. Feraligatr can also learn various HMs that the other two cannot. For these reasons, I would say Feraligatr. Here's a moveset:

Feraligatr @ Mystic Water
Ability: Torrent
-Waterfall
-Crunch
-Earthquake
-Brick Break

This allows you to hit for tremendous neutral and super effective coverage. Feraligatr is a bit slow, but I still believe it's the best option. If you must use one of the other two, don't go for Meganium. There are far better Grass types. However, as Typhlosion is almost as good as Feraligatr, here's a set for it:

Typhlosion @ Charcoal
Ability: Blaze
-Flamethrower
-Swift / Focus Blast
-Quick Attack
-Earthquake

Typhlosion really doesn't have a good movepool, it's a bit trickier than Feraligatr to use.

Hope I helped!

Comments

Ok, thanks!

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You're welcome!

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The thing I don't like about Feraligatr is he is a very bad Sp. Attacker, so you have to use a HM slave for most of the time for Surf. Typhlosion moveset are indeed shallow, but this is in-game, and don't recommend Earthquake, Swift and Quick Attack. Quick Attack awful power, plus you are wasting Typhlosion's high Sp. Atk. I recommend, Flamethrower, Solar Beam, Sunny Day and Eruption.

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I disagree. Swift is one of the few special Normal attacks it gets, which can serve as nice neutral coverage. Earthquake coming off 84 base Attack is still pretty decent. If you don't like that, replace it with Dig so you can escape caves without hassle. Quick Attack isn't meant to have a huge amount of power; it's intended to be a priority finisher.

Flamethrower and Eruption are redundant. There's really no point in wasting a turn with Sunny Day in-game when most battles don't take long, so by extension Solar Beam is fairly useless. You could make the argument that Grass coverage is good, but it takes two turns to utilize no matter what. Chances are the OP could find a better Grass type instead.

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I found a Shiny Cyndaquil as my starter! Only 132 soft resets. I’ll use this typhlosion set

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Congrats!

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How are swift and quick attack not redundant? A not very effective STAB flamethrower is still stronger than a neutrally effective swift. You should replace one of them with focus blast.

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They're not redundant because one has more power, while the other has priority. Swift should be your main Normal type move, but Quick Attack sets itself apart by allowing Typhlosion to finish off faster opponents on a sliver of health. Focus Blast does work, though.

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Are there any situations where swift does more damage than both flamethrower and focus blast?
Also I think it's worth mentioning that Cyndaquil learns fire blast before Whitney, which is very early. Fire blast is an amazing move for the middle part of the game, even if you replace it with flamethrower later.

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Honestly probably not, but Swift is more reliable than Focus Blast.

That's a good point, Fire Blast can be tremendously useful.

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Why don't you just use flamethrower when you can't afford to let focus blast miss?

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That's what I originally said. Then you said Fire Blast could be useful, and I agreed. Now you're contradicting yourself. Are you saying that Fire Blast should only be used until you get Flamethrower?

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No I'm saying that swift is almost never worth using over flamethrower or focus blast.

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I suppose that's fair, yes.