Starter Pokemon Viability Tier(In Game)

[Jayhawk]

My Tier List for the overall efficiency and viability of the Starter Pokemon in Reborn(In Game)

 

The only controversial picks I could see here are

.Empoleon-This mon really really relies on TM's and Move Tutor moves to be good, which Reborn is very stingy with.

.Serp-Using this mon without Leaf Storm is such a drag, and you can't even abuse Coil on it if you have Contrary

[Scyl]

Serperior should be in hard F.

 

No memes, Serperior is actually worse than Meganium.

[Tuan]

Why Charizard is C tier? I'm not sure about others, but Charmander is one of the best early game carrier. Especially his DRAGON RAGE move that carry me through a lot of gyms.

[wcv]

IMO both Charizard and Typhlosion should be bumped up at least one tier. Charizard I'd actually move up two. Flame Burst from Charmeleon is amazing in the early forest fields that you fight in, since it completely negates the field and turns it against the opponent. And against Corey it lets you suicide attack any of his Pokemon should it be necessary on that path. And Dragon Rage on Charmander will be a powerful tool until at least Florinia. Typhlosion is less useful, but at least still has lava plume by the early 40s, letting it do similiar field based shenanigans. Though I could also see an argument for leaving it where it is.

 

Blastoise knocked down at least one. Though, Blastoise might honestly be worse than Meganium early game since at least Bayleef won't be one hit ko'd if any of Julia's Pokemon look at it funny, and resists Florinia as well. Wartortle has neither advantage.

 

And...Greninja needs to be bumped down too. Don't get me wrong, Greninja is good. Very good. I have one in my full playthrough of the last several episodes. But early game its not amazing like some of the others. Its level up movepool sucks until it is fully evolved, and the lack of TMs early game mean you can't abuse Protean enough to get major use out of it. IMO Infernape and Swampert are better than Greninja AS A STARTER. Solid B IMHO.

 

Serperior meanwhile is powerful, but until you get leaf storm to spam its meh, and its hidden ability can be downright bad you're not careful. Like Greninja its not very good as a starter IMO.

 

Feraligatr I'm unsure on. On the one hand it does have powerful physical moves to use in Crunch and Ice Fang. But it doesn't get a decent physical STAB move until well past the Circus, which again limits its viability as a starter, which as with Blastoise isn't helped by being weak to both Julia and Florinia. Though at least it will be able to hit Florinia's Pokemon with Ice Fang, so its not Squirtle levels of bad.

 

[WildRoad]

nature power sceptile should be A, instead of a great move pool you can span leaf storm mega drain and nature power and you are good, and some fields you get a lot for nature power that combined with unburden terrain seed its OP, and dont forget you can get mega sceptile before hardy gym fight.
 And plz dont forget the legendary mixed attack sceptile spammer of leaf storm and abuser of terrain, seriously you did dirty puting him on that rank.

[nhehvnukl]

Has

7 hours ago, wcv said:

IMO both Charizard and Typhlosion should be bumped up at least one tier. Charizard I'd actually move up two. Flame Burst from Charmeleon is amazing in the early forest fields that you fight in, since it completely negates the field and turns it against the opponent. And against Corey it lets you suicide attack any of his Pokemon should it be necessary on that path. And Dragon Rage on Charmander will be a powerful tool until at least Florinia. Typhlosion is less useful, but at least still has lava plume by the early 40s, letting it do similiar field based shenanigans. Though I could also see an argument for leaving it where it is.

 

Blastoise knocked down at least one. Though, Blastoise might honestly be worse than Meganium early game since at least Bayleef won't be one hit ko'd if any of Julia's Pokemon look at it funny, and resists Florinia as well. Wartortle has neither advantage.

 

And...Greninja needs to be bumped down too. Don't get me wrong, Greninja is good. Very good. I have one in my full playthrough of the last several episodes. But early game its not amazing like some of the others. Its level up movepool sucks until it is fully evolved, and the lack of TMs early game mean you can't abuse Protean enough to get major use out of it. IMO Infernape and Swampert are better than Greninja AS A STARTER. Solid B IMHO.

 

Serperior meanwhile is powerful, but until you get leaf storm to spam its meh, and its hidden ability can be downright bad you're not careful. Like Greninja its not very good as a starter IMO.

 

Feraligatr I'm unsure on. On the one hand it does have powerful physical moves to use in Crunch and Ice Fang. But it doesn't get a decent physical STAB move until well past the Circus, which again limits its viability as a starter, which as with Blastoise isn't helped by being weak to both Julia and Florinia. Though at least it will be able to hit Florinia's Pokemon with Ice Fang, so its not Squirtle levels of bad.

 

Typhlosion has Euroption, which is cool and you get it from a move reminder, which isn't terribly far into the game.

[Jayhawk]

10 hours ago, wcv said:

IMO both Charizard and Typhlosion should be bumped up at least one tier. Charizard I'd actually move up two. Flame Burst from Charmeleon is amazing in the early forest fields that you fight in, since it completely negates the field and turns it against the opponent. And against Corey it lets you suicide attack any of his Pokemon should it be necessary on that path. And Dragon Rage on Charmander will be a powerful tool until at least Florinia. Typhlosion is less useful, but at least still has lava plume by the early 40s, letting it do similiar field based shenanigans. Though I could also see an argument for leaving it where it is.

 

Blastoise knocked down at least one. Though, Blastoise might honestly be worse than Meganium early game since at least Bayleef won't be one hit ko'd if any of Julia's Pokemon look at it funny, and resists Florinia as well. Wartortle has neither advantage.

 

And...Greninja needs to be bumped down too. Don't get me wrong, Greninja is good. Very good. I have one in my full playthrough of the last several episodes. But early game its not amazing like some of the others. Its level up movepool sucks until it is fully evolved, and the lack of TMs early game mean you can't abuse Protean enough to get major use out of it. IMO Infernape and Swampert are better than Greninja AS A STARTER. Solid B IMHO.

 

Serperior meanwhile is powerful, but until you get leaf storm to spam its meh, and its hidden ability can be downright bad you're not careful. Like Greninja its not very good as a starter IMO.

 

Feraligatr I'm unsure on. On the one hand it does have powerful physical moves to use in Crunch and Ice Fang. But it doesn't get a decent physical STAB move until well past the Circus, which again limits its viability as a starter, which as with Blastoise isn't helped by being weak to both Julia and Florinia. Though at least it will be able to hit Florinia's Pokemon with Ice Fang, so its not Squirtle levels of bad.

 

Do you believe Greninja to be worse than both Incen and Prim?

[wcv]

15 minutes ago, Jayhawk said:

Do you believe Greninja to be worse than both Incen and Prim?

...hm...not sure. I've never used either one (I have a general thing about not using Pokemon my rivals use), so I don't know how good those two are. And I didn't comment on them due to that. Just considering the stats though, I doubt it. Especially Incineroar (though that might have something to do with me not liking physical fire types). Greninja does at least have great speed, while both Incineroar and Primarina have...basically no speed actually. And Greninja does at least have a good enough attack and special attack stat to let it be a mixed attacker. So maybe an A then. A bit worse than Charizard, but better than those two (at least in theory, since never used either).

[Amphibi]

I've used Greninja just about every playthrough of Reborn and while it's good it's not Blaziken good. It actually has a nice earlygame with Protean. A lot of Pokemon use normal type moves which it can avoid with lick. It really struggles midgame right after evolving into Greninja because none of its moves hit hard enough until it gets extrasensory. Then it gets hydro pump icy wind, dark pulse and a lot of other moves that make it the second best starter.

 

I think Serperior is the third best. Sure it sucks that it doesn't get leaf storm until a higher level but it's not all bad without it. It's reasonably bulky and fast so I like doing one of two things before learning leaf storm: coil set with leaf blade slam strength coil and leech seed or use a subseed set with giga drain substitute leech seed and hidden power. You need to not have contrary for the first one but that's fine, you can find an ability capsule right at the start and there's at least a couple more before you would get to the point of having to change it back for leaf storm. After it gets leaf storm its insane but we all know that.

 

So imo Gren can go down to A+ for its poor midgame, Serp can go to A+ for having a managable early and midgame while being one of the best lategame starters. I also think that Typlosion and Venusaur can go up a tier. I was going to suggest Feraligatr to move up but it gets its first physical water move at level 63 so yeah, just remembered why I don't use it. Other than that I think the tier list is pretty accurate.

[Scyl]

Quote

Do you believe Greninja to be worse than both Incen and Prim? 

Greninja doesn't start being good until you get the Surf HM.

 

Incineroar and Primarina get strong Stabs upon evolution. Incineroar is reasonably bulky and gets a wild variety of moves via Level Up. Primarina has the highest unmodified Special stats of any Pokemon and gets solid utility moves and offensive coverage,

Greninja doesn't get any good attacking moves except maybe like, Extrasensory, until you get Dark Pulse from Luna, which is way later compared to Incineroar/Primarina getting their strong stab moves potentially before Corey.

As for Serperior, it doesn't get Leaf Storm until based Level 64, or something like that, It's in the 60s. Serperior has no support movepool to speak of and its piss poor offenses mean it doesn't do any relevant damage to anything. It's just too awful for too long.

[Egzample]

I'd put Delphox one level up, or even two, and Charizard up two levels (Delphox has VERY useful typing in reborn, usefulness throughout the whole game, while Charmander destroys early like it's nothing, only slightly dropping off later when you get access to better fire types), Decidueye one level up (he's suprisingly decent for a very long time, and even later you can rely on him - he's constantly good, not perfect, but all time good in many situations and settings, you just dont need to try hard to get him rolling in reborn). Greninja is disappointing in reborn, as mentioned in many posts above, down two levels.

[Jayhawk]

1 hour ago, Scyl said:

Greninja doesn't start being good until you get the Surf HM.

 

Incineroar and Primarina get strong Stabs upon evolution. Incineroar is reasonably bulky and gets a wild variety of moves via Level Up. Primarina has the highest unmodified Special stats of any Pokemon and gets solid utility moves and offensive coverage,

Greninja doesn't get any good attacking moves except maybe like, Extrasensory, until you get Dark Pulse from Luna, which is way later compared to Incineroar/Primarina getting their strong stab moves potentially before Corey.

As for Serperior, it doesn't get Leaf Storm until based Level 64, or something like that, It's in the 60s. Serperior has no support movepool to speak of and its piss poor offenses mean it doesn't do any relevant damage to anything. It's just too awful for too long.

What hurts Serp the most behind level 62 Leaf Storm is honestly it being a starter mon, so it becomes a pain to breed it to get Glare.

[MegaMew]

Yeah, many people are saying to put Charizard up, and I agree. With access to Dragon Rage, you can easily get past a bit of the earlier game with not a whole lot of struggle.

[Des Teto]

I think more criterias should be added in this tier list definition.

 

First: avaibility. I mean. It's obvious Blaziken is the best starter. It has good early-game and has his best moveset once it has evolved (with Heart scales). For instance, Serperior needs level 60 for Leaf Storm and Gren needs Neo-Reborn for move tutors.

 

Second is double battles. Gren is very bad in double battles being very frail. Other pokemons such as Incineroar and Swampert are very good at them tho.

 

Last but not least, the way you play the game. Do you use items? Do you play on Set mode? I mean, there is nothing wrong with that. It just changes drastically the performance of the different pokemons. Bulky pokemons tends to perform better.

 

I think it's important because it allows situations that wouldn't occur otherwise. Every K.O gives you a free-switch on your Blaziken against a useless foe. Then you can have a free Bulk Up and sweep. You can even recover with Hyper Potions endlessly if you need to.

 

I insist on Set Mode because without it, it's like your opponent do nothing for 6 turns. He just waits casually for being killed by the adequate pokemon you sent during you free turn... while he would have striked you 6 times during your switches. In this case, it's important to be bulky. Pokemons in C and D tiers would be far more determinent in your runs (and Gren would be mid-tier imo).

 

[Steeldevil]

I've completed 4 runs of Reborn (and 4 runs of Rejuv) up to latest release so I think I'm experienced enough to make some arguments because I have a few gripes with this list. 

Greninja: As others have mentioned this thing is weak mid game since Extrasensory is it's only decent move. A tier IMO. (Could make a case for S tier in Rejuv since you get surf at level ~40)

Delphox: 100% up there with Infernape and Swampert in the A+ tier. Amazing move set with great STAB and utility in Mystical Fire, Will-o-wisp and Light screen.  Great SPA and SPE combo. 

Sceptile: Snubbed too. Best Nature Power user in the game and insane speed. Can sweep Serra and Noel. Pretty sure another mon (Chikorita?) was moved back in the game to prevent breeding Leech Seed and Grassy Terrain on Sceptile early. A tier. 

Incineroar: Good mon but I don't see why it justifies being picked over another starter since Arcanine does everything Incineroar does. Incineroar is slightly bulkier and hits a bit harder while Arcanine is faster. Tho you shouldn't evolve Growlithe til Flare Blitz at 45 so Incineroar is still relevant for Florinia, Shelly, and Shade?

Blastoise: This thing is worse than Meganium, theres a reason Squirtle can be caught before Aya, because it sucks.

Feraligatr and Serperior: Hard to rank due to their power spikes coming pretty late. I legit rage quit my Snivy run since that thing is total garbage for 57 levels until Leaf Storm. Feraligatr doesn't get to breed DD until Radomus and doesn't get good STAB until the circus

Charizard: On the fence about moving this guy up to B. Dragon Rage is really nice for early game but I feel that Start-Julia, Julia-Florinia, and Shelly-Shade are 3 of the easier sections in the game. Add on that Charizard is probably one of the worst final evolutions  (probably the worst fire starter final evolution). I feel the early game power spike is much less impact-full than mid and late game spikes. 

[Paperblade]

Seconding that Coil saves Serp's early-mid game.

 

You can tutor Pledge moves to starters in Lapis so any special attacking starter has an 80BP STAB after you beat Corey. This is mostly relevant for Greninja

 

Charizard isn't a bad starter but it's probably the worst Fire starter. Dragon Rage is cute but Fire starters already yeet the early game and go on to do bigger and better things. Charizard's power peak ends after the first gym, at least until we can utilize its mega evo

 

I'd probably do something like this, not ordered within tiers

 

S Blaziken

A Greninja, Infernape

B Venusaur with Vulpix from Mystery Egg/something to set Sun for it, Incineroar, Typhlosion, Serperior, Primarina, Swampert, Delphox

C Sceptile, Emboar, Charizard, Decidueye, Chesnaught, Torterra, Samurott, Feraligatr

D Meganium, Venusaur without Sun, Blastoise

E is for Empoleon

 

I'm mostly unsure about the B and C tiers. I've used every starter in a full playthrough, but 2/3 of them were done pre-gen7 and they were all done pre-episode 18 (which removed badge boosts so my idea of how much Speed is good enough is muddy)

[wcv]

1 hour ago, Steeldevil said:

I feel the early game power spike is much less impact-full than mid and late game spikes.  

I feel this is irrelevant, as is the ultimate late-game power, hence why I ranked Greninja so low and think Serperior shouldn't be high either.

 

What I mean is that this is fundamentally about starters, so IMO should focus on the early game, with some look at the mid-game. So no later than Aya. The Starter Pokemon is a beginning tool. Like Kricketune, which I'd straight up give A+ tier for its power in the early game even if its awful by Corey. Once you're getting out of the city the starter isn't needed to buff up your team anymore like its so useful for at first. So by the time there are vastly better options, well okay then. Pokemon lose relevance as you go forward in the game.

 

Should Charizard be on your team by the time you're at the Circus? Probably not if we're being honest. But at the start is incredibly useful.

 

Note: all of this is assuming a ranking on power, nothing more. You want to use Charizard the whole game (or Kricketune, or literally ANYTHING else) go right ahead, you do you.

[DontBoop]

I have played through reborn quite a number of times, and have used most of the starters. 

 

Something I have noticed about the starters in reborn is that the fire type starters fare much much better than the other types. This isn't just because of blaziken though, its just a general observation. Take from that what you will.

 

Blaziken is broken, Delphox has probably the best typing combination for reborn, Incineroar is great for double battles and Infernape is consistently great. Most people acknowledge how strong those four are, but I actually find Typhlosion to be super underrated and competitive with them. It has access to nature power as well as eruption on a good speed tier. It is actually my preferred fire starter just because of nature power access, although I acknowledge that it isn't the best. Charizard dominates the earlygame, I don't have much more to say about it really. Emboar is outshined by the rest, but its not like it is useless either.

 

The other types have some pokemon that stand out, but they aren't as consistently useful. Grass is probably the worst in that regard.

 

Sceptile is great for reasons mentioned in above posts, it really just has so much going for it.  I used decidueye in a mono-ghost run and it was the mvp. The unique typing and good level up movepool are huge boons. Additionally, Rowlet/Dartrix are the best baby stage starters. Torterra has an amazing movepool, and its bulk is very solid. I overall found Torterra to be slightly worse than decidueye and sceptile because it doesn't outspeed anything relevant (not that it really needs to, but meh). Outside of those three the grass starters are very lacking. Serperior and Meganium lack any kind of offensive presence in the earlygame. Serperior in particular can border on dead weight until it gets leaf storm. I haven't used chesnaught admittedly, but I can't imagine it would be great. I was tempted to move venesaur up, but its a bit niche. If you run a sun team however you can consider venesaur the best grass starter.

 

Water is still worse overall than fire, but it is much better off than grass. Swampert and Empoleon are both very useful bulky mons that don't need much support from their team. Empoleon has TM dependence, but it honestly walls so much stuff that its easy to overlook that. Greninja is a popular high-tier choice for players but I actually find it to be a bit overrated. Its best move for a long time is water pledge, it can't really abuse protean for a large portion of the game, and it has no good way to boost. That said, its base stats are good enough to keep it usable and once it gets going in the lategame its by far the most powerful water starter. Feraligatr and Primarina are both nice, I don't have any real complaints about them other than wishing they were a bit faster. Blastoise and Samurott both range from underwhelming to painfully average, but they aren't actively bad or anything.

[Lucifer Morningstar]

On 11/23/2019 at 8:14 PM, Tuan said:

Why Charizard is C tier? I'm not sure about others, but Charmander is one of the best early game carrier. Especially his DRAGON RAGE move that carry me through a lot of gyms.

I concur, my Charizard has been a rock throughout a lot of the game.

In the Charmeleon stage Dragon Rage kind of carried my team, then as a fully evolved Charizard it finished off Kiki's Metacham and it's flamethrower tore through Pokemon Gargantuan and PULSE Abra like butter which as is a commonality, was a saving grace as I'd gone into that event with a different plan I'd formed based on research which bombed pretty badly. 

I'd say it's a solid B at least if not an A-. 

Edited November 26, 2019 by Verge Of Chaos

[WildRoad]

12 hours ago, DontBoop said:

I have played through reborn quite a number of times, and have used most of the starters. 

 

Something I have noticed about the starters in reborn is that the fire type starters fare much much better than the other types. This isn't just because of blaziken though, its just a general observation. Take from that what you will.

 

Blaziken is broken, Delphox has probably the best typing combination for reborn, Incineroar is great for double battles and Infernape is consistently great. Most people acknowledge how strong those four are, but I actually find Typhlosion to be super underrated and competitive with them. It has access to nature power as well as eruption on a good speed tier. It is actually my preferred fire starter just because of nature power access, although I acknowledge that it isn't the best. Charizard dominates the earlygame, I don't have much more to say about it really. Emboar is outshined by the rest, but its not like it is useless either.

 

The other types have some pokemon that stand out, but they aren't as consistently useful. Grass is probably the worst in that regard.

 

Sceptile is great for reasons mentioned in above posts, it really just has so much going for it.  I used decidueye in a mono-ghost run and it was the mvp. The unique typing and good level up movepool are huge boons. Additionally, Rowlet/Dartrix are the best baby stage starters. Torterra has an amazing movepool, and its bulk is very solid. I overall found Torterra to be slightly worse than decidueye and sceptile because it doesn't outspeed anything relevant (not that it really needs to, but meh). Outside of those three the grass starters are very lacking. Serperior and Meganium lack any kind of offensive presence in the earlygame. Serperior in particular can border on dead weight until it gets leaf storm. I haven't used chesnaught admittedly, but I can't imagine it would be great. I was tempted to move venesaur up, but its a bit niche. If you run a sun team however you can consider venesaur the best grass starter.

 

Water is still worse overall than fire, but it is much better off than grass. Swampert and Empoleon are both very useful bulky mons that don't need much support from their team. Empoleon has TM dependence, but it honestly walls so much stuff that its easy to overlook that. Greninja is a popular high-tier choice for players but I actually find it to be a bit overrated. Its best move for a long time is water pledge, it can't really abuse protean for a large portion of the game, and it has no good way to boost. That said, its base stats are good enough to keep it usable and once it gets going in the lategame its by far the most powerful water starter. Feraligatr and Primarina are both nice, I don't have any real complaints about them other than wishing they were a bit faster. Blastoise and Samurott both range from underwhelming to painfully average, but they aren't actively bad or anything.

The only thing i would add here is a tier A+ for delphox, and let blaziken alone on the S tier cuzz this mon is stupid and you can use litte effort to win any battle with him.
And of course since we are talking bout a A+ tier we can move thing around like swampert and incineroar to A+ since they are little better than thyplosion infernape and sceptile, and to be clear i deen this rank on pokemon power alone, if we are looking on the entire team this rank would be a lot diferent ( but blaziken would still be S rank )

[Moto]

greninja > blaziken

 

hardest battles are all doubles and mat block makes double battles a joke

[Paperblade]

11 hours ago, advesha said:

greninja > blaziken

 

hardest battles are all doubles and mat block makes double battles a joke

Half of the hard double battles you have an AI partner so you can't abuse mat block to set up. With Blaziken you can build the rest of your team to help in the few fights it's bad in because it sweeps like 85 to 90% of them effortlessly. Gren doesn't even trivialize those few fights on its own, you need a setup mon that can hit both enemies to truly abuse it

[Silversixx]

I never liked the idea of using starter Pokémon, I prefer to have a unique team of Pokémon I caught myself, so every game I immediately box my starter at the first opportunity.  For Reborn I went outside the Grand Hall and a Meowth was the first thing to pop up, so I caught it and it became my starter.  My poor penguin is still sitting in my PC at level 6.  Meowth has been real good to me, Payday is the most useful move in the game.  Non Starter starters FTW

[Charon]

I would honestly put Chesnaught solidly in B Tier, maybe A if you wanna push it. He's been part of my team since the beginning and is still pulling his weight as part of my endgame lineup. Spiky Shield is a useful scouting move/Focus Sash and Sturdy breaker, he hits like a truck with Wood Hammer/Hammer Arm/Return, and is also a good Nature Power user. His weaknesses (the common Psychis & Fire and the devastating 4x Flying) are really the only thing keeping him mostly in B Tier, and he's great if you remember to keep his weaknesses in mind.

[sithlordnergal]

Personally, I'd raise Venasaur, Charizard, and Delphox up a tier, with Serperior going down a tier.

 

Charizard's explanation is fairly simple, its able to sweet through most of the early game, and by the time you really need to replace it you have access to better Fire Types like Arcanine. 

 

Delphox is similar to Charizard, in that it handles a lot of the early game pretty well, especially once you get into the forests. It also has the bonus of being a decent early game Psychic type, which allows it to remain useful even when you get Arcanine. The only other Psychic types you can get are Espurr and Lunatone until you reach the Underground Railnet, both of which suck compared to Delphox. So you an continue to use Delphox as your main psychic type up until you get Ralts.

 

Venasaur may seem like an odd pick, but hear me out. Since you can get hidden skills in your starters, you can get a Chlorophyll Bulbasaur. It makes a decent enough tank, and is pretty reliable throughout most of the game. I will admit its move pool is a bit poor, but it does its job well as a tank, status provider, and, once you have Sunny Day and a Heat Rock, sweeper thanks to Growth/Chlorophyll/Solar Beam