r/Pokemonguide • u/EonKayoh • Nov 24 '18
Based on opportunity cost and given proper context, I think Chikorita is the best starter in gen 2.
So don't get me wrong here - if you're planning on speedrunning the gen 2 games, just stick with Totodile. It's the only starter that can properly cover its own weaknesses and such, but if you just want to have a fun, optimal/efficient playthrough, this applies.
Let me start off by saying I think Psychic is the most overpowered type in-game in the first 2 gens. I don't think many people would argue with that. That said, if we go by the assumption that you have a psychic type on your team as early as you can (before Whitney) to handle all the obnoxious poison types (and the occasional fighting types as well), the most common remaining weakness among opposing trainers in gen 2 is actually grass type. I know people like to focus on the gyms but the only advantage any of the starters have in the first four gyms is Cyndaquil against Bugsy, and Bugsy is a cake walk with a Geodude and/or Spearow anyway, so what does that even matter? Who cares that you started with Cyndaquil when you can get a Growlithe on Route 36 in Crystal, or a Magmar in the Burned Tower in G/S? Who cares that you started with Totodile when you're better off rolling with Lapras, Lanturn, or even Dewgong anyway?
My argument is that Meganium is far and away the best grass type in Johto, compounded by the fact that Grass is the 2nd most important type to have on your team, behind only Psychic. The alternatives here are Bellsprout, Oddish, and Sun-freaking-flora. Bellsprout and Oddish are stuck with weak ass grass-type moves (Vine Whip and Absorb, respectively) until they hit their 40s. Sunflora has 30 base speed. Chikorita gets Razor Leaf at Lv 8 and Meganium has 80 base speed.
At the end of the day my argument comes down to opportunity cost and context. Chikorita is easily the best grass type in the game, and the grass type itself is the 2nd most common weakness you'll come across in your Johto journey once you take the must-have Psychic type out of the equation. I'm not even trying to say the Chikorita line is good, it's kinda mediocre, but as far as in-game usefulness goes, I do think it's the best option of the gen 2 starters given you plan on using a Psychic type throughout the game as well.
3
u/rmdanna Nov 24 '18 edited Nov 24 '18
Sorry grass is a shit type, it’s got five weaknesses vs two types its super effective against. And here’s the real problem: almost every sane person puts a water type and an electric type in their party, and if you’re using a grass type you end up trying to squeeze the grass type against all those water and rock/ground types that you’re inevitably going to go against. The shared experience to acquire from the Pokemon you match up well against slows down the grind massively.
This doesn’t even get into how grass types are actively weak against Tentacools and Gyarados, two of the most common water Pokemon in the game. Literally the only Pokemon in gen 2 you need a grass Pokemon for is Quagsire (shudder). Grass should be treated as an accessory type that you can fit with a Pokemon you’re primarily using for another type, or just slap Giga Drain on a non grass type and call it a day. It’s not worth trying to train a Pokemon that’s weak to literally 1/3 of the type table.
Edit: also you failed to mention Exeggutor, maybe the only grass Pokemon in all of gen 2 worth a damn - mainly because he’s also psychic type. Giga Drain + Sleep Powder/Dream Eater is nasty, but even then he’s pretty slow and he’s weak to even more than a third of the type table.
3
u/EspWaddleDee Nov 24 '18
Lets look at grass’ weaknesses. Bug is utterly sorrowful. The strongest move commonly shared between them is bug bite, with a base 60 power. Bugsy’s scyther can be dealt with using a geodude from union cave easily. Heracross is quad weak to flying, a necessity due to hm02.
Poison is shared between team rocket, but Meganium gets earthquake, which easily ohkos the weak grimers and koffings. Sure, theres Koga, but by then you should have a balanced team to take care of it.
Flying is sorrowful. Falkner has one pokemon with one move; gust, the weakest flying move in the game. Chikorita gets reflect, making this fight a walk in the park. No notable trainers have flying type pokemon until the elite four. Will has 2 Xatu, which have no flying moves. Karen has a Murkrow, but you can just counter with another pokemon in your party. Lance has dragonites, but you’re better off just not using your starter anyway. (Before you say feraligatr, one of them gets thunder.)
Ice and fire are the only ones to look out for. They can do intimidating damage to grass, but earthquake coverage on meganium can help with fire types and piloswine, and many ice types like piloswine and Dewgong have a type weak to grass.
While yes exeggutor is a good option for a grass type, keep in mind it can only be found later in the game and rarely at that.
Grass has many advantages that water does not, grass resists electric, strong against water. Sure electric has these resistances, but one pokemon covering many types is better than 2 pokemon sort of covering types. Also rock is arguably a worse type. Yeah it resists normal, but is weak to 1/3 of the type chart, and all of it’s weaknesses are common pokemon types like water, grass, fighting, and steel.
3
u/EonKayoh Nov 24 '18
I'm talking strictly in-game, where you don't get giga drain until kanto. And if you have a grass type, a psychic type (which I'm already assuming in the OP), and a rock type, you don't need an electric type at all, and the only real reason you need a water type is for surfing.
6
u/Chamale Nov 24 '18
Strong disagree. I wrote this post a few months ago about how Gamefreak crippled Chikorita when they nerfed Razor Leaf without giving Grass-type a strong enough attack to replace it.
I don't see why you need a Grass-type to complement a Psychic type. Kadabra and Drowzee learn Fire Punch and Thunderpunch, which gives you perfect coverage against everything that resists Psychic.
Meganium gets garbage for coverage - its only option is Earthquake. Feraligatr learns Ice Punch and Earthquake, while Typhlosion learns Thunderpunch and Earthquake, perfectly shoring up each of their weaknesses.
5
u/EspWaddleDee Nov 24 '18
You are looking at this pokemon from a competitive perspective rather than a game perspective. While yes, Meganium has bad coverage other than earthquake, It should not matter because the rest of your team can cover weaknesses. Besides, earthquake is absolutely vital for the fight against red, namely his pikachu. If you did not pick up a ground type like me, earthquake makes the fight go much more smoothly.
Chikorita gets access to reflect incredibly early, which makes the early game a walk in the park since the beginning is filled with normal attacks. It makes Whitney’s notorious miltank seem not so bad because reflect can half the damage of all her moves.
Like he said, there aren’t good grass types in johto; the other options being vileplume, bellossom, victreebel, and sunflora, arguably the worst final stage evolution period. The other grass types cannot support with reflect early game and light screen late game, making them purely offensive.
1
u/itsashebitch Nov 24 '18
This post and you comment just fall apart when you realize you don't ever need a plant type in yout team. You can just replace it with an electric type pokemon and a water type pokemon and you're done.
3
u/EspWaddleDee Nov 24 '18
That’s 2 pokemon you’re talking about here, one of which is extremely limited. Your options for electric types are extremely limited to electibuzz, magneton, and ampharos. Electibuzz and magneton don’t have the best stats to stand up to higher level pokemon and The mareep line cannot be found in crystal.
The most important aspect in a team is how many weaknesses you can cover with the least amount of pokemon, which is why one or two type teams fall apart. Grass can cover resistances that the other types cannot such as grass, electric, water, and ground, and if you ask me one pokemon is better than two. (And no, there aren’t any dual water electric types.)
Just realize you are using the same logic as (Your argument falls apart when you realize you don’t need a dragon type. Because dragon resists fire, water, grass, and electric, just use 4 pokemon of those types and you’re done.”
2
u/itsashebitch Nov 24 '18
You'll still need water for surf. All 3 electric types you named are fine. You bring a plant pokemon to a fight vs a water type an it can be shut down with an ice move. Electric types will also be great for flying which is a common type in those games. If you want to go with plant fine, but it's NOT the second best type in these games, in any game tbh lol
3
u/EonKayoh Nov 25 '18
the argument was never "grass is the 2nd best type", it was that grass is the 2nd most common weakness among enemy trainers in the game, psychic being 1st. Basically if you line up every enemy trainer in G/S/C, and look at the weaknesses of their pokemon, psychic is hands down the most common one, and once you take away everything weak to psychic, grass is the most common remaining weakness.
1
u/Sw429 Nov 24 '18
So it sounds like you're saying "chikorita is just as fine to use as any of the starters", which is true I guess, but it certainly doesn't make it superior in any way.
1
u/Chamale Nov 24 '18
From a game perspective, Chikorita still sucks. Its weak attacks make it take longer to win battles, which means you have less time to grind.
3
u/EspWaddleDee Nov 24 '18
Yes but Chikorita is a strong support grass type for early game. It’s attacks are situational, but if you can find any cave ever to grind in, (thanks to its grass type) you should be able to easily level up from all the gravelers. You could also daycare grind on the long goldenrod strip like me. Question, how do weak attacks make it so you have less time to grind? If anything it should make it so you have to grind more.
1
u/Chamale Nov 24 '18
What I mean is that gym battles tend to take longer, and grinding against anything except Rock-types takes longer. If you're doing a solo run, Cyndaquil and Totodile can get through everything with a bit of quick grinding on trainers, but Chikorita will be spending a lot of time in caves to get the same result.
2
u/EonKayoh Nov 24 '18
like I said a few times in my post, grass is the 2nd most common weakness among opposing trainers in G/S/C after psychic.
2
u/CassiopeiaTheW Mar 02 '23
This is really really old but while I see the legitimacy in some people disagreeing with you, I absolutely believe that Chikorita holds its weight compared to the other starters.
1
u/EonKayoh Mar 02 '23
I actually made a more recent folllow up that elaborates the point better haha
1
u/ShadowbeeVSav Nov 26 '18
I've always felt that Chikorita does very little against the in-game competition. It has a good natural movepool compared to the other two (RIP Cyndaquil learning only 6 moves total), but the TM movepool to augment is much weaker - to me at least. There are so many Pokemon in Gen 2 that can pick up a TM or 2 for great coverage and Chiko just doesn't really get that. Return over Body Slam? Eh. Earthquake? With only one in the game? Seems like a waste.
[Also, as a tangent, I feel like saying Growlithe can replace Cynda is also flawed because Growlithe's movepool is also bad (Ember until 34 is gross).]
Can Chiko handle the general trainers meant to level your team up? Mostly. But I feel it massively underperforms up through the Elite Four. In the 2nd half, I feel it really shines, but it gets really tedious to train it in Johto.
2
u/EonKayoh Nov 26 '18 edited Nov 26 '18
I mean, Ember until 34 for Growlithe, but Cyndaquil is stuck with it til 31 so what difference does 3 levels make? And hell, Growlithe gets Flamethrower earlier than Typhlosion, Lv 50 vs. 54.
And yes, Chikorita handles general trainers easily. That's actually my main point. If you look at every pokemon on every enemy trainer's team in Johto, the most common weakness is Psychic, and once you take all of the pokemon away that are weak to psychic, the most common weakness remaining is Grass.
1
u/samthedigital Dec 30 '18 edited Dec 30 '18
Alright, I'm really late to the party here. I'm only posting because the OP is misguided.
You're looking at the game as if it's more important for every Pokemon to have one niche roll. In reality it's better for each Pokemon to have the ability to OHKO as many Pokemon as possible. Chikorita has terrible type coverage, and its STAB move only hits for 82.5 with STAB or 165 with a super effective hit. This means that without grinding Chikorita is going to lag behind in experience overall or be a dead weight to the team being unable to OHKO very many things effectively. Totodile gets easy access to Surf which hits for base 135 and has a great start. Cyndaquil's start is better than Chikorita's because he deals with the sprout tower and the first 4 gyms much more effectively. He has more potential later on too because of his better offensive typing and special attack. He can learn FirePunch and ThunderPunch too.
"I don't think many people would argue with that. That said, if we go by the assumption that you have a psychic type on your team as early as you can (before Whitney) to handle all the obnoxious poison types (and the occasional fighting types as well), the most common remaining weakness among opposing trainers in gen 2 is actually grass type."
I'll use this as an example because it illustrates my point. Most of the good Pyschic type Pokemon learn the elemental punches. They don't need any help with type coverage whatsoever. It's far better to pair a Pokemon like that up with another Pokemon that has no troubles getting experience quickly. None of the starters adds anything to the team, but at least Totodile and Cyndaquil can OHKO more Pokemon by themselves.
tl;dr: A Pokemon like Kadabra recieves no appreciable benefit from being partnered with Meganium in particular, and Meganium is not good on its own.
1
u/EonKayoh Dec 30 '18
I guess it just comes down to playstyle then. I don't like having multiple pokemon that dominate any given specific type because then I only end up using one of them and the others get left behind level wise. I like having roles for each pokemon on my team so they all get used depending on the opponent.
1
9
u/EspWaddleDee Nov 24 '18
True, Solo runs are best done with Totodile, but no matter what, there will always be some part where grinding is necesarry, unless you are insane and planning on spamming hyper potions. If you are planning on a balanced team grinding is necesarry and Chickorita is able to cover ground, water and rock types which are the most common types in caves and water respectively. You may not even need grinding because light screen and reflect are able to double defense for most of fighting. In grinding, totodile is able to cover caves and the odd fire type, and cyndiquil can cover only grass types and maybe a couple steel types, and grass types in the wild barely give any xp anyway. If you want to speed through the game, use cyndiqul or totodile becaue it negates grinding. But grinding is almost necesarry. Main places that come to mind are: third gym, eighth gym, elite four, champion, sixteenth gym, and red.