I don't like sand. It's course and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
This is a huge point that I think a lot of people gloss over. I've never really given much of a shit about something like say, Venusaur, but after so many years of being around it and having it win me so many competitive games it's odd how it slowly grows on you. It's kind of endearing to me now even though I don't care for the design much. I wonder if Smogon had a favorite Pokemon contest if it would differ in results from the more general favorite Pokemon quizzes on Reddit or wherever.
Speaking of Venusaur, I think it's the weakest Red / Blue starter. Worth mentioning is that R/B is easy and all the starters can easily solo the game but Venusaur is slightly the worst at it despite being considered "easy mode".
Venu only learns Vine Whip and Tackle until level 30 where it gets Razor Leaf. While Razor Lead is good this is effectively the only good move it learns period. The only TM it gets that actually matters is Body Slam which is good, but Venu has the worst attack of the three starters so it's weakest. There's also Mega Drain which is okay, but very weak and has terrible type coverage against most opponents. I guess that just means it can learn its only HM Cut with less of a moveslot penalty? Compare it to the other two...
Charizard gets Slash and Flamethrower via level up and Earthquake / Dig / Fire Blast / Fissure (X-Accuracy makes it 100%) via TM. It gets Cut / Strength via HM.
Blastoise has a pretty bad level up movepool but it does eventually get Hydro Pump. TMs make it work well as it gets Bubblebeam from Misty as well as Ice Beam, Blizzard, Submission, Earthquake, Dig, and Fissure. For HMs it gets Surf and Strength.
It's terrible against the majority of the bug / bird Pokemon in the early routes.
It's probably the worst against Brock. Squirtle solos him at level 8 with Bubble. Charmander does it around level 10-11 with Ember. Bulbasaur has to be 13 to get Vine Whip, unless you want to try it with Leech Seed + Tackle.
Cerulean City is arguably the hardest part in the game as you're hard walled between Misty and the Rival battle. Ivysaur does well against Misty but it's pretty awful against the Rival, only really being useful against Ratatta / Abra (everything is good against Abra). Charmander / Squirtle can usually solo the rival's first three, use the rest of the roster against his starter, then grind nugget bridge until you can push through Misty. Crushing Misty is easily Bulbasaur's highest point. Also worth mentioning is after the rival battle you can capture Oddish / Bellsprout both of whom learn Razor Leaf and have similar stats to Venusaur.
Vermilion City's Surge is soloed by catching a wild Diglett, or even by just using Dig a few times on your starter. Well except Ivysaur who has to grind through it with Vine Whip! The rival is on the SS Anne and once again matches up better against Ivysaur with Kadabra and Pidgeotto.
Assuming you don't skip it for later, the Lavender Tower Rival is pretty rough for Ivysaur. 4 of his 5 Pokemon resist grass and two hit you super effective. Wartortle and Charmeleon only have two bad type matchups.
Celadon city gives you Fly, allowing the Doduo you caught to solo Erika. Alternatively catch an Oddish / Bellsprout and teach it Cut as her shitty AI will spam Poisonpowder until you team wipe her. I guess Cut Ivysaur solos without issue. Venusaur gets Mega Drain here so that's something but also Blastoise gets Ice Beam. While Venusaur matches up typewise against Giovanni well he also has an Onix + Rhyhorn that ONLY KNOWS HORN ATTACK. It doesn't even matter what you use. His only "real" Pokemon is Kangaskhan who all starters take on the same.
The Ghost tower sucks balls for Venusaur. You might have Razor Leaf OHKO the Gastly here if you're high enough level but Char and Blast definitely one shot everything here.
At this point I usually go make a deal with the Missingno and become a god but assuming you're following the path next up is Saffron City. As per usual Venusaur matches up bad against the rival (he can't even hit Gary's water type Super Effective!), bad against the average poison type Rocket grunt, and is just total, incomparable trash against Sabrina. I guess Venusaur does decent against the fighting gym, but the Hitmons have 35 special lol so it's really not much of a fight for FWG STABs.
What's next? Cycling road or the route south of Lavender to go to Fuchsia? Cycling road has a lot of poison type bikers while the Lavender road has lots of bird trainers and cooltrainers which grass sometimes stumbles against but fire / water sweep.
Venusaur gobbles ass against Koga and his psychic-juggler buddies. Char / Blast both probably know Dig and easily handle Koga.
I think everyone usually flies to Pallet to take the easier route to Cinnabar but once you're there get ready for a fun time of poison / fire types in the mansion and getting just destroyed by Blaine. Char / Blast easily sweep. Also Missingno Sky Attack smashes Venusaur.
Lastly there's Giovanni. You'd think the grass type would be the best against the Ground type gym leader but... not really. Blastoise obviously 6-0s but Charizard is immune to ground and none of them have rock moves. Most of them have special stats hovering around 45~ so Charizard likely one shots the majority of his team. Venusaur also probably sweeps with Razor Leaf. It's just an easy fight in general.
On the way to Victory Road you fight your Rival. Squirtle matches up well against 5/6 of his Pokemon, Charizard matches against 5/6 Pokemon (Rhyhorn only knows Horn Attack), but Venusaur is only good against 3/6.
Victory Road is full of a variety of things but if you go after Moltres, oops! Venusaur is weak. Oh did you try to catch Zapdos? Drill Peck. Ooh, Articuno? Ice Beam.
Elite 4 Lorelei is on paper hard for Venusaur but probably easy if you can OHKO everything with Razor Leaf. Blastoise also does well but Charizard is worthless unless you use Fissure + X-accuracy.
Bruno loses to anything with a pulse.
Agatha only has poison types. 4 of her 5 Pokemon hit Venusaur super effective.
Lance gets soloed by anything with Ice Beam but if it comes down to it Venusaur doesn't really do much to dragons. I think Lance will spam Agility due to psychic type "super effective" so I guess Venusaur can spam Cut until you win. At least Charizard has Slash.
Rival gets pretty much soloed by Dig Charizard / Blastoise but Venusaur loses badly to Pidgeot, Alakazam, and Charizard.
Beat the game and go to the Cerulean cave to get your grass / poison ass blasted by Mewtwo. Or Master Ball it.
tl;dr Venusaur sucks against almost everything in R/B
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This is a very good point. People will argue over which starter is the best in any given game, but it really doesn't matter since you can catch other Pokémon to cover its weaknesses. So there really isn't a "worst starter" to begin with.
On the topic of starters, it always bugs me when people say Chikorita doesn't do good against any of the gyms in Johto. It struggles with Falkner, Bugsy and Morty, but it does fairly well against the rest. Other Pokémon you catch can take care of the gyms Chikorita struggles with.
Whitney- Bayleef is fairly bulky for that point in the game, and can solo Miltank; then again, so can the other starters.
Chuck- Meganium can tank Primape's hits, and Poliwrath is weak to Razor Leaf.
Jasmine- Her Magnemite can't do anything to Meganium, and Steelix has low Special Defense, which means it takes moderate damage from Razor Leaf.
Pryce- All of his Pokémon are weak to Grass. Meganium can KO Seel and Dewgong on Rest Turns, and is faster and not OHKO'd by Piloswine's Blizzard.
Clair- Her Dragonair take moderate damage from Body Slam & cannot do much back, but the reason I said Meganium was good here is because of her Kingdra. Meganium resists Surf, and is not OHKO'd by DragonBreath or Hyper Beam.
Chuck- Meganium can tank Primape's hits, and Poliwrath is weak to Razor Leaf.
Jasmine- Her Magnemite can't do anything to Meganium, and Steelix has low Special Defense, which means it takes moderate damage from Razor Leaf.
Pryce- All of his Pokémon are weak to Grass. Meganium can KO Seel and Dewgong on Rest Turns, and is faster and not OHKO'd by Piloswine's Blizzard.
Clair- Her Dragonair take moderate damage from Body Slam & cannot do much back, but the reason I said Meganium was good here is because of her Kingdra. Meganium resists Surf, and is not OHKO'd by DragonBreath or Hyper Beam.
Yes, venusaur isn't the best at pure offense, and as such is a poor choice for a solo run. That said, it's by far the most reliable status-inducer for the early- to mid- game, and status is how you get around high stats (such as by not grinding and attempting to have a large team) and, if you play that way, make the most of your ability to spam items. I think I was something like 20 levels lower than the Elite Four when I beat them, and leech seed was a big part of that. I would think part of the reason Bulbasaur is considered easier is because it's acutally capable of team support, making whatever non-starter you went with for the current situation better than they would be with the other two. (It also forces the rival into Charizard, in a game where rock-types are quite good due to everything lacking non-normal coverage)
Oddish and Bellsprout were obtainable before the 2nd Gym, so it’s not that early of a lead.
But they don't learn Leech Seed.
Yes there is, it's Venusaur. RB is a very easy game so I'm not saying picking Venu will make your play through more difficult by any means but it has the worst matchups and movepool through the entire game.
Also you can easily catch Oddish or Bellsprout before the second gym. They have basically the same stats and arguably even a better movepool (wrap + acid > RB Leech seed).
Wrap and Acid are good if you're staying in, but Leech Seed is better if you end up switching out (especially since it double-scales with Toxic once it becomes available). So I stand by it being a better pure support move.
The majority of opponents in R/B don't even have a STAB move. Two of Gary's Pokemon don't have STAB moves and Arcanine has Ember. Toxic + Leech Seed is neat but there's basically nothing strong enough to make it worth using. It's just a waste of time. Also Leech Seed only saps 6.25% in R/B so it's pretty much a dead move on its own. It does scale with Toxic but that requires multiple turns to kill and two moveslots. It's just a waste of time against basically every opponent that you could defeat just by clicking Razor Leaf, or whatever the other two starters have.
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Kinda curious about this
That said, Golduck is my fav due to it being what I went the furthest with in Blue Rescue Team. In terms of usage in the main games he's a heavy "meh". Though having a niche in stopping the Primal's weather is hilarious
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We both know that you can win any pokemon game by just overlevelling your starter and/or any other mon. I'm looking at the perspective of a more split team with minimal grinding, which is going to end up with being underlevelled. This is going to value more support-intensive strategies.
side note: from the perspective of a primarily fast offensive FWG core, Venusaur is statistically the best choice. There are better fast offensive Fire types than Charizard (moltres), there are fast better offensive Water-types (tentacurel), but there are not better offensive Grass-types (Victreebel has the same special, but is slower).
Yeah so you pick the starter with better moves and TMs that can win battles with less grinding, aka not Venusaur.
You catch Moltres at literally the end of the game and you can't catch Tentacool / Cruel until right before you face Koga, so basically after most of the game is already over. Also Victreebel and Vileplume have functionally the same stats. 100 special, 80ish defense / attack / HP with Victreebel trading about 20 def for 20 more attack. Venusaur is faster but not by enough for it to be relevant in most fights. So again, they're pretty much the same. The only difference is Venusaur requires huge opportunity cost in not getting a Blastoise or Charizard while the cost of getting a Victreebel / Vileplume is generally a Leaf Stone and a Pokeball.
Vileplume really doesn't have a better movepool than Venusaur. It gets Acid (lol) and Petal Dance, which only has 70 BP in Gen 1; far weaker than Venusaur's guranteed-crit Razor Leaf.
Victreebel only has Wrap over Venusaur, which isn't all that useful in-game. Victreebel also has lower stats than Venusaur except for Attack, and they share the same Special stat.
So, all I hear is that it really doesn't matter. Also, this is basically what I said about catching other Pokémon to cover its weaknesses, so I'm not sure what is the point of saying that.
I didn't see this when I replied to your first post, but this is a gross exaggeration (which... isn't true) that doesn't accurately reflect what you said in your post, so it's not really a "TL;DR".
Victreebel only has Wrap over Venusaur, which isn't all that useful in-game. Victreebel also has lower stats than Venusaur except for Attack, and they share the same Special stat.
But then-
So, all I hear is that it really doesn't matter. Also, this is basically what I said about catching other Pokémon to cover its weaknesses, so I'm not sure what is the point of saying that.
I didn't see this when I replied to your first post, but this is a gross exaggeration (which... isn't true) that doesn't accurately reflect what you said in your post, so it's not really a "TL;DR".
Venusaur may be a better team player, but since even the most well-oiled team will pretty much always be harder to use than a single Pokemon that can solo everything, I don't think Venusaur's support capabilities save it from being the worst starter.
It's been 8 years since Ga*efreak has released a great game 
Huh? ORAS and SM came out 6 and 4 years ago respectively :PIt's been 8 years since Ga*efreak has released a great game
I believe the jukebox musical you're replying to said a great game not a subpar gen 3 remake and the game that introduced dragons to liverspots.
You must not be very familiar with this crowd. Hell hath no fury like Yung Dramps defending Sun and Moon.
oh he knows dw ;]
Dora Winifred Read, go to your room and think of what you have said!
Naganadel is best Gen 7 Dragon. FITE ME!
All this talk about Venusaur ignores the fact that Misty's Starmie is the most difficult fight in the game. Like unless you want to fight Sabrina early for some reason where else do you need to grind in Red/Blue? If I pick Bulbasaur it's usually because I don't want to deal with that super slow early game.
Anyways, the worst starter is clearly
Anyways, the worst starter is clearly
Pikachu :D
Naganadel is the best thing about USUM and makes up for the fact that the combination of dragons and liver spots exists.
I still stand by this.
Honestly for as much as a lot of people blame TPC for being fucking idiots, and I'm not saying that those people are wrong, I feel as though a chunk of the damage done by the pokemon fandom is self inflicted. A lot of fans get hyped for something like gen 4 remakes and then get mad when Gamefreak doesn't say anything about them. Granted that MOBA looks fucking awful, keep in mind I hate MOBAs, but I wonder how many of the fans are angry at the horrible product they showed and how many are angry at the fact that there were no gen 4 remakes still.
Also at this point I'd feel better if they just ported Platinum that ran faster rather than a straight up remake using SS assests.
Also at this point I'd feel better if they just ported Platinum that ran faster rather than a straight up remake using SS assests.
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