Current Events > FireRed/LeafGreen: Rank the starters

(+) Yeah! (+)

Taking into account their evolved form's stats, movepool, and the lack of the physical/special split.

Fuck Bulbasaur
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SSJ2GrimReaper posted...

Fuck Bulbasaur

thats it fam

Even though I almost always pick Fire starters, Water is just a strong typing overall and outside of Eirika and Surge, the Squirtle line has no trouble with any of the gyms

Wow, I didn't realize S > C > B was so favored. I voted for it too.

I really wanted to like Bulbasaur, since he's the first Pokemon I ever chose in Blue, but Venusaur looks like it just suuuuuucks in FR/LG. It's highest stats are Sp. Att. and Sp. Def., but it can only learn one type of special attack (grass).

Charizard seems to be in the same boat, with it only being able to learn fire moves to make use of its high Sp. Att., but it at least has the speed to help it.

In FR/LG Bulbasaur is pretty great for the first several gyms and is better than most of the grass types available until post game.

Charmander is solid but struggles early game. That said similar fire types are few and far between.

Squirtle has a weaker early game than Bulbasaur and faces considerable competition from Starmie and Gyrados. For most the game.
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Gheb posted...

In FR/LG Bulbasaur is pretty great for the first several gyms and is better than most of the grass types available until post game.

Charmander is solid but struggles early game. That said similar fire types are few and far between.

Squirtle has a weaker early game than Bulbasaur and faces considerable competition from Starmie and Gyrados. For most the game.

Blastoise has a big advantage against the last two gyms though, since they're fire and (mostly) ground types. That said, there are a lot of other water types available by then, so he's not necessary. He also has the advantage against Brock and can resist Misty's water type moves.

Squirtle also has the best foreign name translation of pretty much any Pokemon. It's "Schiggy" in Germany.

water starters tend to be my favorite, but charmander is pretty legit
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Charmander is trash. And its final evo gets a useless Flying type added on. It's easily the worst of the three.
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Results:

Bulbasaur as best = 5
Charmander as best = 5
Squirtle as best = 15

Bulbasaur as worst = 14
Charmander as worst = 8
Squirtle as worst = 3

Interesting. Kind of expected Charmander to be everyone's favorite, or at least about even with Squirtle. Charizard fared better in Gen 1 since his Attack and Special were even, making his movepool more viable.

Why all the hate for the bulb? He gets you through the first 2 gyms pretty fast and he has a great move set!
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Squirtle Da God


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Bulbasaur is the best, he's great for the first three gyms and while he's weaker after that besides the last gym, rock/ground and water remain decently common and his status moves are always good in a pinch or for capturing stuff. Squirtle is nice enough early and late, but struggles a bit in the middle and there's no lack of water types to choose from, several of whom can hit a lot harder than he does. Charmander is ass, besides stomping Viridian Forest (yay?) he's bad until very late due to not getting a better fire move than Ember for so long...and there's not much left weak to fire at that point since Lorelei is so water based and Lance's entire team resists it.
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Pokedex already did it for me. Option 1.
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jumi posted...

Charmander is trash. And its final evo gets a useless Flying type added on.

The one good thing about that is that it becomes immune to Ground type attacks. The trade-off is that it becomes weak to Lighting and gets a 4x weakness to Rock. The STAB for flying is kind of pointless, since that only goes off the Attack stat. So yeah, it kind of is trash in Gen 3.

Cheater87 posted...

Why all the hate for the bulb? He gets you through the first 2 gyms pretty fast and he has a great move set!

because:
Vertania posted...

It's highest stats are Sp. Att. and Sp. Def., but it can only learn one type of special attack (grass).

Vertania posted...

It's highest stats are Sp. Att. and Sp. Def., but it can only learn one type of special attack (grass).

Even then, Eggy is the only grass type that you would consider using over Venusaur, and its debatable depending on team needs. Meanwhile, Charizard and Blastoise get BTFO by other fire and water types.

Bulba is best for having a superior team in the long run
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Squirtle is best because speed runners use them. Charmander was the most recently used one in speed running but that was like, 2007 when the game was still being routed to figure out optional IV spreads and everything to scrape by and that's also why they ended up ending with squirtle as the best.
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gunplagirl posted...

Squirtle is best because speed runners use them

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Bloodychess posted...

gunplagirl posted...

Squirtle is best because speed runners use them

Incredible argument

I like using bulbasaur with the leech seed/poisonpowder/giga drain combo, that's pretty fun
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Bulbasaur, that's why he's #1 in the pokedex.
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Reis posted...

Bloodychess posted...

gunplagirl posted...

Squirtle is best because speed runners use them

Incredible argument

I mean I can go into detail about every reason why they use squirtle

But basically they have the strongest survivability, great move pool and offensive stats to back them up, and so on. And of course, there's the type advantages they have throughout the game that benefit them. Their hardest challenge is typically the trash cans in Lt. Surge's gym.
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Char because nostalgia.

Squirtle is the real answer no being blinded by nostalgia
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Bulbasaur is like objectively the best of the three:
-Most advantage over early gym leaders.
-Venusaur has been the best of the three in competitive play for most gens IIRC.
-Good water options are heavily abundant in gen 1, and theres at least a couple decent fire-types; only really decent grass-types besides
Venusaur are Victreebel & Exeggutor.
-Leech Seed is useful for Gym Leaders/Elite 4.
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this topic is making me want to replay the game
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I'm biased, of course, but I think Venusaur and Charizard each have strong cases.
Poor Blastoise is left in the cold, one of a billion bulky waters with mediocre offenses and no (good) recovery options. Plus, Gen 3 Kanto practically oozes with strong water types(Starmie, Slowbro, Tentacruel, Lapras, Vaporeon, and Poliwrath all bring plenty to the table.)
Meanwhile, the only fire-type that can hold a candle to Charizard is Arcanine/Ninetails(choose one, they're both worse). The only other competition is Magmar(moar liek Mehmar, m i rite?) and Flareon(lol).
And Gen 3 is a long way from the hey-day of the likes of Victreebell and Exeggcutor too. And a gen too soon for Tangela to be relevant. All while Venusaur was getting good.

ElatedVenusaur posted...

Poor Blastoise is left in the cold, one of a billion bulky waters with mediocre offenses and no (good) recovery options.

I'm pretty sure his movepool is better than Venusaur's and Charizard's though. Surf, Ice Beam, and Earthquake make him a powerhouse, able to cover his only two weaknesses (Electric and Grass).

Charmander >Bulbasaur >Squirtle
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Lol poor bulby :(
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Vertania posted...

Taking into account their evolved form's stats, movepool, and the lack of the physical/special split.

Blastoise is the only one that's still pretty viable in the Battle Tower/Frontier. Of course, there are lots of Water types that fight better, but not really a knock when you're just comparing with the other starters.

Charizard's stats are... questionable for post-game play, but still can be used somewhat. Can be used for low-win-streak runs in the BF, but don't dare go in with it once you get past 3 successful trips in succession.

Lmao pre-Gen 4 Venusaur.
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ElatedVenusaur posted...

I'm biased, of course, but I think Venusaur and Charizard each have strong cases.
Poor Blastoise is left in the cold, one of a billion bulky waters with mediocre offenses and no (good) recovery options. Plus, Gen 3 Kanto practically oozes with strong water types(Starmie, Slowbro, Tentacruel, Lapras, Vaporeon, and Poliwrath all bring plenty to the table.)
Meanwhile, the only fire-type that can hold a candle to Charizard is Arcanine/Ninetails(choose one, they're both worse). The only other competition is Magmar(moar liek Mehmar, m i rite?) and Flareon(lol).
And Gen 3 is a long way from the hey-day of the likes of Victreebell and Exeggcutor too. And a gen too soon for Tangela to be relevant. All while Venusaur was getting good.

You think Charizard is better than Arcanine? LOL. I literally cannot even.
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jumi posted...

You think Charizard is better than Arcanine? LOL. I literally cannot even.

I never realized how much of a beast Arcanine was before today. By Gen IV, he has the third highest stat total of any non-"legendary" Pokemon, behind Slaking and Dragonite.

gunplagirl posted...

Reis posted...

Bloodychess posted...

gunplagirl posted...

Squirtle is best because speed runners use them

Incredible argument

I mean I can go into detail about every reason why they use squirtle

But basically they have the strongest survivability, great move pool and offensive stats to back them up, and so on. And of course, there's the type advantages they have throughout the game that benefit them. Their hardest challenge is typically the trash cans in Lt. Surge's gym.

There are so many better water types to use, and its move pool is nowhere even close to great. And Blastoise has the worst offensive stats out of the three starters.
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Bulbasaur is most helpful in the two most annoying areas: caves and waterways. Maybe not as helpful in the gym battles.
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The biggest impact of a starter is early game where you have less variety of Pokemon available to use so you can build out a team. Ericka's gym is probably about the point where your starter choice no longer has a material impact on your difficulty as by that point the game has thrown plenty of flying options at you from early on to handle her Pokemon regardless of starter choice. With that being said Bulbasaur > Squirtle > Charmander for early game usefulness.

Once the starter is no longer directly impacting difficulty, then you have to look at other factors like utility and competition from other types. Bulbasaur easily wins utility as it has access to powders. Competition is a little trickier. Bulbasaur is probably your best grass type in FR/LG, but Belsprout is still pretty close. Oddish is also serviceable. Charmander's only real fire competition comes from Growlith who you don't have access to until late in the game and is version exclusive. Vulpix in LG can be gotten earlier, but isn't as good as Charmander. Squirtle struggles the most when it comes to competition. All versions have access to Magikarp fairly early in the game and Gyrados while not as as strong of a water attacker as Blastoise has Intimidate utility. LG also has Starmie and Slowpoke which outperform Squirtle in the offensive water and bulky water roles respectively. Though you need the Super Rod to get them.
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As a kid/teen the stats really didn't matter, the choice was based solely on how cool the starter looked
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SSJ2GrimReaper posted...

As a kid/teen the stats really didn't matter, the choice was based solely on how cool the starter looked

once you give a shit about stats you're too old for pokemon imo

YoungMakaiyum posted...

SSJ2GrimReaper posted...

As a kid/teen the stats really didn't matter, the choice was based solely on how cool the starter looked

once you give a shit about stats you're too old for pokemon imo

pretty much
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