Starter Discussion & Thread

[J.J. Knight]

I never in my life considered boxing my starter. The game went through the effort of giving it to me to be my partner and to just practically throw it away because I don't like the final evolution of it seemed kinda shallow. Then again I'm one of the dummies that learns to love and appreciate all pokemon designs so there's not really one I hate or detest. Xp

100% agreed. I'm the same way. I love all Pokemon, flaws and all (except Magcargo and Torkoal. Screw those Pokemon lol jk)

 

[TyLogic]

So the secrets behind Rockruff's evolutions and the starters aren't necessarily the same? I see. Sorry for the confusion.

I see some people talking about boxing their starters. To be honest, I've never been interested in doing that.
It's not to say I believe that some starters don't have particularly appealing final evolutions, but they've never been so bad that I'd box them, personally.
Usually if I don't like a starter's design, I just don't choose it. Those starters, coincidentally enough, tend to be the ones with final evolutions whose designs I don't enjoy as much.

For that matter, while I've generally been avoiding the starter evolution leaks, I'd heard about how Litten's final evolution looks, and it sounds kind of uninteresting to me. Perhaps a bit ironic, seeing as Litten is my least favorite of the Alola starters. I still like all 3 of them, though.

I never box my starter either. And, well, no offense, but you can't really judge them if you haven't seen them. Maybe check them out one day before you get the game. It will still be new to you for about a week or so. But like I said, they aren't that bad in my opinion. Litten's just looks extremely basic. And the theme is kind of over-used. Some people don't like humanoid pokemon and all of the starters seem to be humanoid. It's a matter of opinion really. If a lot of people share a common opinion, it does not make it fact. Whether you like it or not is up to you.

 

[Charmander27]

I never in my life considered boxing my starter. The game went through the effort of giving it to me to be my partner and to just practically throw it away because I don't like the final evolution of it seemed kinda shallow. Then again I'm one of the dummies that learns to love and appreciate all pokemon designs so there's not really one I hate or detest. Xp

I am an extremely superficial Pokémon player, so my in-game team consists of me picking the most beautiful/cool looking Pokémon available, rather than any nostalgic reasoning. In most of the Pokémon games I box my starter (or trade in ones from the first three generations). Either I don't evolve them to "keep them beautiful" or I box them if they are ugly, it's as simple as that.

 

[TyLogic]

Question. How are starters competitively? Do people use the same starters they received in-game to battle competitively? They breed to get better abilities right? Are all starters good competitively or only a select few?

 

[glacialcat]

Question. How are starters competitively? Do people use the same starters they received in-game to battle competitively? They breed to get better abilities right? Are all starters good competitively or only a select few?

Starters are not universally good, nor universally bad. In most cases however the best ones rely upon Mega Evolution or Hidden Ability to be good. I know not everyone is a fan of Smogon, but here is a rough breakdown on starters in Smogon's tiers:

Ubers: Greninja, Blaziken, Mega Blaziken
OU: Mega Charizard X/Y. Serperior. Mega Venusaur.
UU: Mega Blastoise. Chesnaught. Empoleon. Infernape. Mega Sceptile. Swampert. Mega Swampert, Feraligatr.
RU: Delphox, Emboar, Venusaur, Blastoise, Sceptile
NU: Combusken (seriously), Torterra, Samurott, Charizard
PU: Meganium.

As you can see most of them cluster around the UU tier. All the starters above UU rely on either a Mega or a powerful ability (Protean, Speed Boost, Contrary).

I'm not as much into doubles (official VGC meta), so I don't know much about that. But I imagine Greninja and Blaziken would be good there since they wouldn't be banned.

 

[TyLogic]

Starters are not universally good, nor universally bad. In most cases however the best ones rely upon Mega Evolution or Hidden Ability to be good. I know not everyone is a fan of Smogon, but here is a rough breakdown on starters in Smogon's tiers:

Ubers: Greninja, Blaziken, Mega Blaziken
OU: Mega Charizard X/Y. Serperior. Mega Venusaur.
UU: Mega Blastoise. Chesnaught. Empoleon. Infernape. Mega Sceptile. Swampert. Mega Swampert, Feraligatr.
RU: Delphox, Emboar, Venusaur, Blastoise, Sceptile
NU: Combusken (seriously), Torterra, Samurott, Charizard
PU: Meganium.

As you can see most of them cluster around the UU tier. All the starters above UU rely on either a Mega or a powerful ability (Protean, Speed Boost, Contrary).

I'm not as much into doubles (official VGC meta), so I don't know much about that. But I imagine Greninja and Blaziken would be good there since they wouldn't be banned.

What's RU, NU and...all of them. What exactly do they mean?

 

[goodpeople25]

Never really considered boxing my starter either, (might in my next Y playthrough or the one after but that's cause I'm doing planned theme runs but then the theme is using all the starters ) and I'm also one of the people who can't really hate any pokemon.

 

[glacialcat]

What's RU, NU and...all of them. What exactly do they mean?

Ubers is the tier where all Pokemon are allowed (... except Mega Rayquasa, who was considered too strong and literally had to create a tier just to allow it called Anything Goes).

OU is the standard metagame. It stands for Overused. It bans legendaries such as Mewtwo, Lugia, etc, and any Pokemon deemed to be as strong as them (which the Smogon community votes on). This is where most Smogon players play, and its roughly around the same power level as the official VGC Championships since they usually ban legendaries.

UU is Underused, and its the next tier down. Anything in OU is banned from UU. And you continue. RU is below UU, anything in UU is banned from RU. NU is below RU, and PU is below NU.

This means that Blaziken and Greninja are considered significantly more powerful than standard Pokemon, because of their powerful Speed boost and Protean ability. Mega Charizard X/Y and Serperior are considered "strong," but not "overpowered." And you go down, Chesnaught and Swampert are UU, so you might call them "Good." Delphox is RU, so "Okay." And so on.

 

[TyLogic]

Ubers is the tier where all Pokemon are allowed (... except Mega Rayquasa, who was considered too strong and literally had to create a tier just to allow it called Anything Goes).

OU is the standard metagame. It stands for Overused. It bans legendaries such as Mewtwo, Lugia, etc, and any Pokemon deemed to be as strong as them (which the Smogon community votes on). This is where most Smogon players play, and its roughly around the same power level as the official VCG Championships since they usually ban legendaries.

UU is Underused, and its the next tier down. Anything in OU is banned from UU. And you continue. RU is below UU, anything in UU is banned from RU. NU is below RU, and PU is below NU.

So, Greninja and Mega Blaziken are in the Uber tier...And others are in the OU tier. So does that mean people use them often?

 

[glacialcat]

So, Greninja and Mega Blaziken are in the Uber tier...And others are in the OU tier. So does that mean people use them often?

Both Mega Charizards, Serperior, and Mega Venusaur find significant use in OU. While all the other starters are allowed to be used in OU, only a few have a strong enough niche that people actually use them. Chesnaught comes to mind as one that occasionally sees use in OU, even though its allowed to be used in UU as well. Basically if something was used enough in OU to match Serperior, it'd actually be considered OU.

If something is UU, you'll usually find it in UU battles. Essentially UU is just a tier people made so they could play with "worse" Pokemon than you'd usually find in OU.

 

[J.J. Knight]

What's RU, NU and...all of them. What exactly do they mean?

http://pokemon.neoseeker.com/wiki/Tier_listings

Here's where Pokemon fall in each tier.

 

[XXD17]

Question. How are starters competitively? Do people use the same starters they received in-game to battle competitively? They breed to get better abilities right? Are all starters good competitively or only a select few?

No...the starters you get at the beginning will be lackluster for sure. It's IV's will be bad, its ability will probably be bad and it has no egg moves...They are used to just play through the story. If you want competitively viable starters, you'll need to breed/build them later...usually after the story...

 

[Wryteous]

No...the starters you get at the beginning will be lackluster for sure. It's IV's will be bad, its ability will probably be bad and it has no egg moves...They are used to just play through the story. If you want competitively viable starters, you'll need to breed/build them later...usually after the story...

With hope. Hidden abilties and maybe even IV's ratios have been upped a bit for intitial starters. It only seems fair considering they are the first pokemon we recieve in the game. It would be nice to still be able to use an initial starter competitively...

 

[Grey Wind]

The thing is that while delphox is technically feminine, the whole concept of a witch is just something doesn't fall into the feminine category. Popplio being based on a mermaid/pop singer is extremely feminine, so that is something to point out.

How is a mer... person more explicitly feminine than a witch? Traditionally witches have always been female.

 

[clbgolden12]

Starters are not universally good, nor universally bad. In most cases however the best ones rely upon Mega Evolution or Hidden Ability to be good. I know not everyone is a fan of Smogon, but here is a rough breakdown on starters in Smogon's tiers:

Ubers: Greninja, Blaziken, Mega Blaziken
OU: Mega Charizard X/Y. Serperior. Mega Venusaur.
UU: Mega Blastoise. Chesnaught. Empoleon. Infernape. Mega Sceptile. Swampert. Mega Swampert, Feraligatr.
RU: Delphox, Emboar, Venusaur, Blastoise, Sceptile
NU: Combusken (seriously), Torterra, Samurott, Charizard
PU: Meganium.

As you can see most of them cluster around the UU tier. All the starters above UU rely on either a Mega or a powerful ability (Protean, Speed Boost, Contrary).

I'm not as much into doubles (official VGC meta), so I don't know much about that. But I imagine Greninja and Blaziken would be good there since they wouldn't be banned.

>Meganium is PU tier

D:

How is a mer... person more explicitly feminine than a witch? Traditionally witches have always been female.

Pop3 does appear to be more like a mermaid/siren, both of which or should I say "both of witch" ha ha funny joke are also always female.

 

[yuoke]

How is a mer... person more explicitly feminine than a witch? Traditionally witches have always been female.

Because witches aren't something that are considered feminine. When you think of witches, you think of like halloween, spooky stuff or even like harry potter. A mermaid on the other hand is something that is generally considered much more feminine in concept.

 

[future.newyorker]

Because witches aren't something that are considered feminine. When you think of witches, you think of like halloween, spooky stuff or even like harry potter. A mermaid on the other hand is something that is generally considered much more feminine in concept.

However; Witches are always female, wherein their male counterparts are called Wizards.

 

[DSDark]

If people are thinking of boxing their starter they should pick a different one. That or if that's how they play good for them. I box my starter in there post game because I play competitively and most starters as mentioned aren't good. I go use greninja but it wasn't my starter and it's breed to have protean and be flawless.

 

[Daemul]

I'm not as much into doubles (official VGC meta), so I don't know much about that. But I imagine Greninja and Blaziken would be good there since they wouldn't be banned.

Wew, if only this was true. The best starter in the VGC format is Charizard, or more specifically Mega Charizard-Y. Blaziken and lolGreninja are not that good in the doubles format at all, though mixed Blaziken does have his uses.

 

[future.newyorker]

The only region that I box my starter in is Hoenn, and that's because I pick my starter in Hoenn based on what starter I want my rival to have.