Why Pokémon’s Third Starter Always Sucks

Comments · 2K

• SM

  @smithplayspokemon · 9 months ago · pinned

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• AU

  @AudreyYun · 7 months ago

  you look like someone tried to draw nicolas cage from memory

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• TA

  @Talguy21 · 8 months ago

  Making Serperior a fast bulky status setter who just whittles away at opponents with endurance... sounds a bit like a constrictor. Fitting! xD

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• TH

  @TheWaterMiners · 9 months ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceuy3dNVHtw&amp;t=154">2:34</a> To be fair, the broken AI in Gen 1 makes it so that most of the Pokémon in Erika&apos;a gym just spam Poison Powder against Ivysaur, so it&apos;s pretty much free

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• D3

  @d370ur · 9 months ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceuy3dNVHtw&amp;t=60">1:00</a> the books that come supplementary with the games actually describes Charmander as the hard mode

  195

• AM

  @AmneHex · 9 months ago

  One thing to also mention about the cyndaquil line, especially when it reaches Typhlosion, is that it gets access to Fire Punch and Thunder Punch, while the Totodile line gets access to Ice Punch, making the mid to late game a bit easier for them since they get coverage

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• TE

  @terraventusaqua123 · 9 months ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceuy3dNVHtw&amp;t=90">1:30</a> Squirtle learns the 40-power Water Gun at the same level that Bulbasaur learns the 35-power Vine Whip, so Bubble probably is only there so you can speed through Brock’s gym without reaching that level requirement.

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• HO

  @holschermarc · 9 months ago

  It kinda makes sense that Gen1 difficulty settinga where only done with the first 2 Gyms in mind since the game vastly opens up after Misty and u can basicly make a hand crafted Team to take apart most Opponents. So it would be hard to impossible to scale the difficulty on the starter past misty.

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• CY

  @CyberDrewan · 9 months ago

  One thing I’ve always been interested in is the thematic/flavor influences in starters’ movesets. I always wondered why Sceptile never got Razor Leaf; recently, I realized that this is because Razor Leaf is a long-ranged move, and GF was originally trying to design Sceptile to be a close-combat fighter. This also can explain why the only other grass moves it gets naturally are absorb, mega drain, and Giga drain, whose ranges are kind of nebulous but could be interpreted as having to touch the opponent in order to drain their energy.<br><br>This can also explain why Blaziken only learns Flamethrower if it delays Torchic’s evolution until 43. &nbsp;It only learns to shoot fire out from range if it hasn’t been learning to fight in hand-to-hand combat. Otherwise, it incorporates fire into its fighting style and instead learns Blaze Kick.<br><br>For Piplup, I think it was intentionally given moves that are more “tank-coded”, or have moves that focus on utilizing a special effect over pure power. Piplup doesn’t learn Water gun, which has no secondary effect, but instead learns bubble, which is weaker but has a chance to drop speed. It also learns things like Brine and Aqua jet, which can be used to knock out opponents after whittling them down. The exception to these are high-powered moves like Drill Peck and Hydro Pump, but these come at the very end of the learnset, and feel more like rewards than strategy picks. Obviously, Surf kind of screws this theme up, but GF wasn’t going to not let Empoleon not learn surf.<br><br>I’m not saying this is better than having a more balanced starter experiences, but it does make sense why some of the middle generations seemed to make seemingly weird choices regarding starter move sets. And I can at least appreciate the attempt, even if it doesn’t always pan out in practice.

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• BD

  @BDkirbo · 9 months ago

  Fun fact: the moment Venusaur learns razor leaf, you will land crits with that move all the time, based on the crit ratio formula with high crit rate moves, 64 base speed Pokémon onwards will always land critical hits with high crit ratio moves

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• SA

  @sabNavyA · 9 months ago (edited)

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceuy3dNVHtw&amp;t=1433">23:53</a> Ah yes, Grant, the classic Gen V gym leader

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• BR

  @Br0oham · 9 months ago

  Okay but to be fair, when Sceptile gets Leaf Blade, the others get their shittier versions of surf and flamethrower, so it balances it out. He gets the better move WAY earlier

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