Best Early Game Starters?

[Firebane]

Hello, with some research I've already came into conclusion which starters are regarded as the best, but after going through a run with 3 of them (blaziken, serperior, greninja), I noticed how they are reasonably underwhelming early game and only get OP later on.

 

So I wanted to know which starters are straight up amazing early on, even if they lose their shine later.

 

Reason for this is that I might attempt some mono runs soon so in case I go with a type like Bug, I want a starter to get me as quickly as possible to the first available mon of the mono type I'm running.

[Paperblade]

Torchic should be fine early, although the real power spike is when it gets Bulk Up/evolves. Fire is the best starter type looking solely at early game, since Water is bad vs. Fern/first two gyms/Tangrowths and Grass isn't much better + is bad vs. Cain/Corey, and the other Fire types don't really have a huge advantage over Torchic early game imo (I say this having used every fire starter but Tepig so far)

 

That said, for super early (pre-Shelly I guess?), Fennekin and Charmander are probably the best. Fennekin line gets Psychic coverage on top of its Fire STAB which makes it good vs. victoria/cain/corey and fire is just good everywhere else. Charmander's Dragon Rage OHKOs everything but Julia's electrode. However, after Julia most stuff has more than 40HP so it's not as great since most other fire types have good STABs at this point that let them 2HKO stuff.

Edited December 1, 2017 by Paperblade

[mde2001]

Charmander is definitely the best in the early game because of dragon rage. Due to its fixed damage, you'll be able to knock out pretty much everything in the first part of the game with that move alone. Then it has some nice STAB moves to destroy Flobot with.  

[Whitelight]

37 minutes ago, Firebane said:

Reason for this is that I might attempt some mono runs soon so in case I go with a type like Bug, I want a starter to get me as quickly as possible to the first available mon of the mono type I'm running.

if you wanna mono run I would suggest maybe getting someone to trade you in the first available mon in exchange for your starter asap. or if you dont feel like doing that you could just spam wondertrade until one of your type pops up and roll from there. (both have their advantages and disadvantages, but imo they both beat running through the game until you find your type)

 

[WildRoad]

Like mde2001 said Charmander is the best option, lvl 16 dragon rage and you good to go, and on top of that charmander learns all of the early HM, Just grab one charmander and stomp the early game all you want. 

Edited December 1, 2017 by WildRoad
>.<

[Firebane]

1 hour ago, Whitelight said:

if you wanna mono run I would suggest maybe getting someone to trade you in the first available mon in exchange for your starter asap. or if you dont feel like doing that you could just spam wondertrade until one of your type pops up and roll from there. (both have their advantages and disadvantages, but imo they both beat running through the game until you find your type)

 

Yeah I know about that option but generally I wanna keep it singleplayer only mostly cuz that's how I do in the original games too.

 

I'll prob go with Charmander then, lv 16 dragon rage sounds really OP indeed o.o. Thank you!

[Damien]

Monferno is a good choice. With its Mach Punch and fire moves it can pretty much sweep Florina as long as you hope to god you don't get toxicated.

[Pluto]

2 hours ago, WildRoad said:

Like mde2001 said Charmander is the best option, lvl 16 dragon rage and you good to go, and on top of that charmander learns all of the early HM, Just grab one charmander and stomp the early game all you want. 

when did charmander get dragon rage at lv 16? is this reborn exclusive cause i definitely remember it being metal claw at lv 16

[Firebane]

1 minute ago, Pluto said:

when did charmander get dragon rage at lv 16? is this reborn exclusive cause i definitely remember it being metal claw at lv 16

Reborn uses gen 6 learnset iirc and it does learn it at lv 16 right after smokescreen at lv 10.

[Jess]

If you do a monorun of a type like Bug or Poison, you'll have no issue because you can find your first legit team members right outside the Grand Hall.

If you do something like Ice or Dragon, you'll have to get some traded to you, because you won't find many (if any) of them early game (or even in the entire game, in the Dragon case).

 

You can also pick a starter to breed a certain move on your team members later. e.g. In my Bug mono, I picked Squirtle only to breed Hydro Pump to my Masquerain, since Bugs had no Water coverage until Gen VII's Araquanid and Golisopod came.