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I will just say venasaur is the best starter in kanto with the matchups it gets in other regions not so much Also I will say you shouldn't only look at weaknesses but also coverage and other things like for example grass being immune to all powder moves and leech seed unique abilities like that is also important
Aight, time to give our boi Chespin the Legends Evolution treatment. Make it a Grass/Rock speed sweeper knight with a hidden ability that boost the power and crit of all Slash/Cut/Blade moves. And it can learn all of them.
I'm not sure those categories really work that well. Base stat totals are less important than the spread of those stats. For example if a starter has a high special attack but doesn't have any good special attack moves then that's an example of a poor stat spread. I also think judging types isn't ideal as Grass will often come last due to it being a type with a lot of weaknesses. Here I think a better category would be to see how well that Pokémon matches up against the major gym, evil team and Elite 4 matches. Bulbasaur for example was the best pick in Gen 1 due to 3 of the gyms being weak to it. Chikorita was a bad pick in Gen 2 though due to it being weak to 3 of the gyms. Popularity is a fine category in principle, but you are on dodgy ground saying that popularity is "objective".
Charizard would lose in it's own region tbh. First is rock followed by water so maybe ability like one of the commenters said. Should of used popularity as a tie breaker because that's determines usually the meta sometimes till people learn about the pokemon at that time.
Tbh most grass pokemon share that horrible powder / poison / seed moveset and lack type coverage/ variety, most of the grass starters are either supports or tanks and that does them no favors. However, many grass starters are very good in a normal playthrough and some are even great in competitive pokemon (Venusaur and Serperior)
@@Fear910 almost all, if not, ALL of the grass types have incredibly strong move pools. Idk where you got the powder seed move pool being all they have? Especially considering Leech Seed is a broken ass move and so is sleep powder, so it isn't even bad. On top of the fact that overall the grass starters have been the best in competitive singles, being Rilla, Venu, and Serperior. All of which are known for their vast move pool lol. So no, you are just wrong
@@tristenfps They also have survivability despite the more weaknesses as Grass just tends to be tankier. With Fire more often or not being one shot-able. Especially with stage hazards being pretty much guaranteed.
Rilla, venu and serperior are good, I said that too. "incredible strong move pools" is something I kinda disagree with, Rilla has coverage and a good movepool, Venu has the tools he needs to succeed and no more than that (good stabs, weather ball, growth and earthpower) , and serperior has a terrible movepool but he's carried by glare and leaf storm... And then we've got ... meganium (normal and grass type moves basically), Torterra (Grass, ground and some rock...workable but his stats are downright bad), Sceptile (grass, dragon and some fighting, great mega form but not so great regular form), Chessnaught (use breloom instead) and Decidueye (why did gamefreak made it so slow?). Most grass starters have a hard time fitting into a competitive team too, Rilla is the only mon to REALLY stand out as a great starter pokemon...Veno is good in sun teams and serperior is carried by 2 moves. Most others starters have to compete with Ferro and kartana for a slot.
@@tristenfps The issue gets even worse if we go back and see how they performed during their debut gen, Venu had to fight for a spot with Victrebell and Contrary serperior wasn't released during B/W so he went straight to the lower tiers. I can think of bad starters but we have to agree that most of the time the grass guys drew the short end of the stick
True. The only way you can truly do a vid like this is look at their respective region, the type specialist advantage and disadvantage. Abilities is also problematic, as they didn't exist in gen 1 and gen 2.
@@nickdentoom1173 that wouldn't be objective either, Performance doesn't imply objectivity, but simply measurable. Because he simply said objectively "best" an undefinable criteria
I agree with you for sure. He should have looked how viable they are against the gym battels/island challnges from there home region instead in my opnion.
@@WearDatKingRat i understand that typing should be used but I feel the way it was used wasn’t fair towards grass types. Because grass types are just automatically the worst type. So there could’ve been a more balanced way to do it.
@@xsellepoch9954 You’re not wrong, but for the sake of objectivity outliers should be ignored. If a criteria is extremely biased toward one or another, then it’ll heavily skew results.
@@xsellepoch9954 grass is a suport type. And it also checks water and ground which are among the most common types in the game. Ice and bug are far worse
Looking at how viable they are against the gym/island challnges battles in there home region instead of the types would have been a bit more fair in my opnion 😅.
I agree. For instance, what if the grass starter has the most gym advantages in their region? It wouldn’t be right to say their typing is the worst in that case.
@@michaelnelson1127 True. Heck... if we look at type specialists, the grass starter is the best in 2 of the first four regions (With Torterra and Venusaur being the best in their respective regions).
@@wubbers662 The bulbasaur line is super effective against the first 2 and the last gym and resists 2 others meaning it’s only weak in the psychic and fire gym having a mutual resistance in the grass gym Squirtle is strong against the rock, fire and ground gyms being weak to the electric and grass gyms and having neutral interactions with 2 gyms and a mutual resistance in the water gym Charmander is only strong against the grass gym, weak to the first 2 gyms but is complicated with electric & ground due to gaining the fire typing but has no resistances other than a mutual resistance in the fire gym Since the bulbasaur line is tied for most gyms it’s super effective against and 1st for most gyms it resists it is the best to use for kanto gyms in general
Felt like you should’ve used starter strengths against the major boss fights such as the gyms to break the ties rather then abilities. And when you put that into consideration, Primarina practically dessimates Alola’s various Totem Pokemon and Kahuna battles; sporting a type advantage against all four Kahuna battles (Fighting, Rock, Dark, and Ground). Even if a player’s Popplio most likely won’t be fully evolved before fighting the first Kahuna, the fact remains that the other three will practically drop like flies.
RIGHT!? THATS WHAT IVE WAS THINKING 😂 I absolutely SWEEP with Popplio, and destroying other people’s incineroars is pretty easy as well. I feel like judging on typing is pretty much unfair as well, seeing that gyms and upcoming battles is really what matters the most when you get your future starter Pokémon.
How did this comment get so many likes on it? I know that having the Litten line in the running for overall worst starter wouldn’t change the end result all the same, but man I was apparently NOT the only one who thought that starter strengths against the major boss fights was a better solution over the abilities.
And it doesn't only work for Alola either. If we did that, it would instantly drop Greninja, Charizard and Sceptile in those categories to worse to use in their respective region.
In six of the eight regions, grass types are the worst because of the weaknesses grass types inherently have lol. Like of course they have the most weaknesses, why not use a metric of how they fare in some other way. Competitively, Rillaboom gets a lot of usage (from what I’ve seen), and in Hoenn, Sceptile could actually do pretty well against the gyms and Team Aqua.
Yeah, well it's not some people's cup of tea, I preferred the Torchic line for a long time before I started a sapphire playthrough with treecko, same for most regions I have a starter I preferred for a long time before trying a different one and finding I like it more.
I gotta defend Bulbasaur. You neglect the single greatest advantage of Bulbasaur: Poison typing. This gives it immunity to poisoning. That is huge in the early game, when your starter is all you really have to work with. Also, 3 of it's weaknesses; fire, ice, and flying, share a weakness. Rock. If you can get a rock type hidden power on Venusaur, you're golden.
Hell, you don’t even need that. By then you would probably have a good team(probably with a rock type in there) with good diversity to help cover venusaurs weaknesses
I honestly feel like something as Subjective as Populatity should have probably been left out of an Objective rank list, and something more objective like Movepool, probably should have been brought in as the Third Criteria. I know it would have been more work than Popularity, but it definitely would have been more Objective.
@@wolfiemuse it’s actually the opposite honestly. The least viable fully evolved Pokémon is rampardos, who also has the highest attack stat of any non legendary pokemon
@@moomosa2950 what’s the opposite? I misunderstood what OP was saying. Hoops was only looking at the BST instead of looking at the stat distribution within that BST
Venusaur was the main reason why so many grass Pokémon were outclassed and thrown into the lower tiers and it's still doing it's thing in the meta today. Rillaboom didn't start off great until it got its hidden ability but it definitely is very good to use now. They really did my boys dirty.
It’s the best at filling that super common niche. Which is pretty impressive. It’s not exactly great at chlorophyl but the substitute leach seed set is fucking absurd
Also, Bulbasaur is the best starter to choose for a Playthrough of the gen one games. I say this because with the gyms and E4, Venusaur has the best type matchups in it's home region.
He should have based on how they perform in their home region, like how Charmander gets bodied by the first two gyms, while Squirtle does well on the first, and Bulbasaur does amazingly in both first gyms. Besides, popularity shouldn't really define if a mon is bad or good, what can the pokemon learn? What are its abilities? Typing? Coverage moves?
Funny thing is that three of the popular mons (Charizard, Greninja and Sceptile are actually the worse in their respective home regions). Coverage moves is problematic for Grass either way as well... especially if it isn't a pure type (Just look at Serperior or Meganiums movesets, hardly any coverage).
@@nickdentoom1173 greninja and septile are actually really good in their region. Taking into consideration the types of the first two gym leaders, they actually don't do that bad, with greninja being nutual and then super effective due to not having the dark typing and being water type and septile being super effective and nutual due to his grass typing.
If you wanna talk objectivity, you’ve gotta have very specific criteria that don’t have any bias attached to them. The only things I can think of is ranking their base stat totals and possibly how useful they would be against the major bosses in their own games. Popularity is hella subjective, and shouldn’t be used for ‘objective’ research.
The objectively lost his sense when you talk about popularity and typing. The criteria would look better with this. 1. Base stat. 2. How they work in the region against big boss battle like (Gyms, Kahunas, Evil teams, etc...) 3. Use in competitive (Cuz the competitive scenario is a big deal when we see how a pokemon works in a team and strategy) Cuz it's not the same be in OU or Uber than be in NU for example
Competitive is also objective though... since then it depends on abilities and typings as well (Dual typings generall perform better in compettive than single typings). So if you can't use typings because then it isn't objective anymore, you can't use Competitive, which brings the typings into play.
@@nickdentoom1173 the thing with competitive is because you can use it even though the types. Just look Rillaboom, Venusaur and more. Even with the grass type they are good in VGC and other formats or are in the same level such as Empoleon, Swampert, etc...
@@nickdentoom1173 I don't think you understand competitive , do you ? .. because some mons are objectively better like Lando teri, Ttar , inciar and feroth... We judge how good a mon is by its frequency in winning and top teamns..
You should check effective stats instead of just the total stat. By example: If a Pokémon has 80 attack and 120 special attack, this is WAY worse than one that has 60 attack and 140 special attack. Because the off-stat attack stat is not used at all.
Right? Like yeah Decidueye has both higher special-attack than Incineroar and higher physical attack than Primarina, but it's not like he's gonna use both offensive stats in competitive, lol. So even though all 3 share the same stat-total Incineroar and Primarina are objectively better because their higher stats are not thrown into their weaker attacking stat respectively.
Primarina being "objectively" the worst in Alola is laughable when it's had a better competitive life than all of it's fellow region starters, if not most of the starters in the game.
Yeah it’s crazy that a type with so MUCH type coverage is being ignored because of what they’re weak to. (Even though Thick Fat was ignored for Venusaur)
I would think abilities play a much bigger role then popularity. You could even look at how they would fit into a play through of the game instead, looking at gyms and elite four teams and stuff.
I thought treecko’s evolution line was more popular. Because of grovile being an important character in the mystery dungeon games and it was ash’s Pokémon in the anime. I’m surprised But I’m seeing a lot of people comment how gym leaders in their region should be factored in and I agree although I think chickorita would still be one of the worst if not the worst because it is terrible against the first 2 gyms in its region and I think the first 2 are the ones that matter the most because after that you’ll have access to many more Pokémon to assist in battles At least chespin would be good against the 2nd gym in its region
Venusaur has also always been the strongest of all three Kanto starters in terms of competitive play....like by a lot. Charizard became garbage as soon as stealth rocks became a thing, at least until it got Mega Evolutions where it gained some ground back, but even regular Venusaur with Chlorophyll was used in high ranking competitive play all the way up until the current gen where its STILL used. Blastoise is the worst one by a country mile, no question.
I think instead of popularity you should judge it based on the opposition in the game along with the ability to cover for its weaknesses and use moves that can be effective against said opposition.
I think it's because Popplio and Brionne's designs are perceived as "too creepy", while Primarina is "too feminine" in the eyes of the majorly male fanbase of Pokemon. They think it's only designed for girls, which I really disagree with.
What's funny is that Rowlet is my least liked of the Alola Starters & I really like Primarina & Incineroar. Although I'm a girly girl so of course I'm going to choose either the cute cat or the mermaid seal. I never understood the popularity of Cyndaquil, it had the least personality of Ash's Gen 2 Pokemon in addition to having the blandest design.
Given the premises discussed in the beginning, yeah, the conclusion might really be sound... but, IMO, the premises lack nuance. In some cases, you took the abilities in consideration, but the learnset is equally important. In the usual formats of gameplay, the combination of typing, ability, and learnset lends to the Pokémon's tier placement in a given generation. Looking at the stat total alone is also lacking as 'mons with similar stat totals can totally perform differently based on how those stats are spread. Meta is another important factor to look at. For example, Charizard was the worst during the days of Stealth Rock supremacy (dropping to NU) while Venusaur was UU or OU. Now, if we're taking into account only the single player experience, a lot of factors must be considered as well, like advantage in major battles (gyms, E4, champion, evil team bosses), or the accessibility of other viable options for their respective type. Well, I guess it just wouldn't fit into a 20~ minute video and will take way more rigorous research if more nuance is taken into consideration. Could be a sequel to this video perhaps?
The reason grass is so underwhelming in typing is because lifesteal moves are insanely strong especially for novice players and first time players, moves like leech seed and absorb in the early game, to giga drain in late stage, when a playthrough of pokemon is largely a gauntlet from one pokecenter to the next, life steal keeps you in the fight for so much longer.
Genuinely, Chesnaught is my favorite starter still and is easily the strongest one I’ve had. My first playthrough I rarely ever used my other Pokémon, mainly Chesnaught just sweeping everything. I never understood the hate the Chespin like got, they’re some of coolest designed lads
After hearing “popularity” we took the “objectivity” and yeeted it out the window. For example, I pick scorbunny the most in shield, but I prefer inteleon. It would’ve been better to go off how different their shiny forms look. For example, shiny blaziken barely looks same, while shiny inteleon looks awesome. Hoops has gotta have something against grass starters.
Should've had viability in home region (how well they match up against the major trainers) instead of typing. Grass would always lose in weaknesses and stuff but might be good for a lot of the major fights.
Hoenn has the most loved starter trio that isn't Kanto. The Treecko Family is probably more popular than any of the Gen 5 Starter Families. I expect Grovyle & Sceptile to win a war against Cyndaquil's Family in terms of popularity. Speaking of which I never understood the popularity of Cyndaquil, I'm guessing Johto Anime had nothing to do with it otherwise Chikorita would be much more popular. I wonder if Chikorita is much more popular in Japan than it is in America?
@@bookmew1081 Chikorita is the least popular because it's incredibly awful in it's home Region. Cyndaquil is popular because it's cute. Same with Oshawott and Rowlett.
@@Nosretep Chikorita is way cuter than Cyndaquil by design alone. Yes it is awful when performing in Johto, while Cyndaquil burns through most challenges in Johto. Precious Pear Friend had such an enjoyable personality in the anime & it stays just as wholesome when fully evolved into Meganium.
As a grass and water starter enthusiast I knew what was about to happen but considering surperior is my favorite starter I’m just glad he wasn’t attacked 😂
1. you might want to diversify that list of sources it's far too small and also a bit narrow in inclusivity. 2. there's going to be 81 starter pokemon in gen 9...
Personally I feel as though examining how the starters fair overall against the gym leaders/élite 4 rather than popularity would have been better, popularity is pretty far from objective.
Tbh using the starter’s performance in it’s home region or their competitive use might’ve been a better metric than base stats since it really wasn’t fair for the grass types.
No way. That type is super deadly to everything except itself. Healing, combo effects, extra effects, and every status under the sun except freezing? No. They're fine being grass.
Popularity is the worst way to rank the Pokemon. Not to mention the absurdly small sample size. Most people who play Pokemon aren't going to interact with poketubers
Where in seven hells have you seen Treeko being the least popular? And in what world is Torterra less powerful than Impoleon. Importing is almost as hated as Meganium.
Mnm objectively is hard because what makes a starter good? In my opinion the inspirations behind the design, the design itself, it feeling like a companion/friend and the progression in the evolution.
Also the viability in each game and competitively is something to take in mind. Because for example, Bulbasaur, even being the least liked starter in Kanto, is still the better option for the game. First 2 gyms are easy and Giovanni specializes in ground types so that as well. Good for tanking in Electric gym and other things. Objectively the best is Bulbasaur in that case.
Design, feeling like a companion, and progression in its evolution are all subjective though. The only way to be objective is to look at their base stat total and movepool if you’re wanting to be talking about how GOOD is each Pokémon. When someone says “well how good is Mudkip?” they are asking how good it is in battle. Not how good it looks, how popular it is, etc.
Its moveset... Anyone with a brain knows Chestnaught is easily the worst starter because of this. Typhlosion is a close 2nd even though later games rectified having a move set so weak....Freaking flame wheel all the way.
You've done a few of these type of videos where you try to be "objective" and start delving into things like stats and unfortunately I don't think you have enough overall knowledge of that kind of thing to make this worthwhile. This area is not your forte. I was hoping to see abilities and movepools taken into account because those can make a big difference to how good a Pokémon is. Also as others have said the vague popularity category completely negates any objectivity that there may have been from anything else
I think instead of doing they type weakness/resistance you should have done how they match up with the gyms in their region. Grass was always going to be at a disadvantage how you did it and is regarded as "hard mode" but there are regions where the other starters are at a significant disadvantage with the gyms. Could have mixed things up a little more
Totally agreed. In Kanto, it makes Venusaur the best (Most advantages and neutralities (Is that a word), followed by Blastoise and then Charizard For Johto, it is actually reverse, with Typhlosion edging out Feraligatr, on the sheer technicality it has more advantages than Feraligatr, despite both having zero weaknesses against the type specialists and Meganium is the worst Hoenn brings in Swampert as the best mon (Literally no weakness against the type specialist.. Swampert is followed by Blaziken, then Sceptile Sinnoh is kinda funny in this regard... since many people considering Infernape the best starter to use due to the lack of Fire types in the game. However, despite this, Torterra is the best starter.. Infernape and Torterra tie for most advantages (5 each) and tie for most amount of weaknesses (3 each). However, due to Torterra having that immunity over Volkner and it being better all-round against Cynthia in Diamond and Pearl but also Platinum, its actually the better mon. Empoleon isn't bad either, but doesn't have as many advantages as the other 2, only being strong against 4, while also having 4 weaknesses. I use Cynthia here as the tie breaker... which doesn't need to happen in the other games. In Unova, i am not taking into account the first gym in BW, since the games are styled the way Chili, Cress and Cilan use the elemental monkey that is strong against your starter. So taking both games into consideration, this means the following line-up.. Emboar, Samurott, Serperior In Kalos, Greninja is generally seen as the best to use... while factually... its the worse to use, since its literally weak to five out of 8 gym leaders (Bug, Grass, Fighting, Fairy and Electric). Delphox is weak to only 1 (Rock) and Siebold in the Elite 4 (Water). Greninja has 3 advantages in the entirety of Kalos, with Psychic, Rock and Fire. Delphox is strong against Bug, Fighting, Grass, Ice and Steel with the Elite 4. Then we have Chesnaught, who is only weak against Fairy, Ice and Psychic during the gym run and against Malva (Fire) during the league. Chesnaught is strong against Rock, Ice and Steel. This means in terms of strenghts, Chesnaught and Greninja are tied.. but Chesnaught wins due to having less weaknesses. Gen 7 is easy... thats Primarina (It destroys every single Kahuna) + is only weak against 2 trial as well (Grass and Electric). Then we have Decidueye (Weak against Kiawe, Nanu and Mimikyu). Its strong against Hapu and Oliva and its immune to Hala. If we take into account the league, it means Kahili is another weakness (Totally it on 4). Now on to Galar we go... where its really funny depending on the version. For Sword...Inteleon and Rillaboom are the best to use (Both have 2 advantages and only 1 weakness), whereas Cinderace has 2 weaknesses (Water and Rock) and only advantage. In Shield however... Cinderace is the better mon... since it has 1 weakness (Fire) and 2 advantages (Grass and Ice). Inteleon is second, with 1 weakneass and 1 advantage.. Rillaboom is switched as well here... since it changes out its Rock advantages for an ice weakness (Bascially doing the reverse Cinderace here). So overall.. we have Inteleon being the best mon to use in Galar across the board, with Cinderace and Rillaboom being tied depending on the version.
@@nickdentoom1173 So basically if we actually did it based of how good they are in their regions, the list is turned on its head for the most part One thing about Vena line though, is that it's part Poison, and we all know how broken Gen 1 Psychic was, but it's not a huge knock against the line though
I personally feel like just looking at the type as far as it's defensive properties alone are concerned is a trap the A LOT of people on RUclips seem to fall into when looking at this category. While being strong defensively is indeed important, it's just as important to look at the offensive side as well, since you need to be able to deal damage effectively, which makes a huge difference. Another pitfall I think he fell into for this video was the base stat category, as that just looked at their base stat total, when it's more important to think about what stats they have good and bad in, since it's entirely possible for a Pokemon with a high base stat total to not be very good for a variety of reasons
@@matthewkuscienko4616 totally agree. They could have a large physical attack stat that brings up the totally but not have access to many physical moves. Or they could have a decent spread of attack and speed but one defense be super low
I would argue that both things should be taken into consideration. How good are they in their own games, and how good are they right now, maybe even on competitive scene
this isn't really an objective comparison since popularity is a category 💀 i definitely think that what should've been considered is how well each starter performs against the gym leaders and elite four etc. of their regions in terms of typing. that would've made this a much better objective comparison
You should compare types to required battles such as elite 4 and gym leaders. Popularity is subjective and you show no sources or show any numbers or reasoning for decisions. Total stats should not be the defining factor instead it should be stat spread and how useful stats are , an extra 10 points of special attack in a physical attacker isn’t really an advantage.
One of the problems with using typing as a criteria, Is that the way you determine what is considered good skews the results, For example you said that Torterra had the worst typing, But when you look at the matchup's between the starters, You notice that while Torterra takes neutral damage from all 4 STABs the others have, Empoleon is neutral against only 2 of the STABs, while it's weak to the other 2. Thus by my criteria Empoleon has very clearly the worst typing of the bunch. (Since infernape has 2 resistances to make up for the 2 weaknesses and both can only hit 1 of the others for super-effective damage)
@@dreamdevil666 don’t need to be condescending he could have been out of the room and didn’t hear that part or did you not pay attention in class and showing not to be a dick
@@dreamdevil666 Hey, yeah I saw that mentioned and have now had a look at truegreen7's video which is interesting. I was mostly just wondering if any other sources were used since it's still a pretty subjective source. I have now done my own additional research and there are some other really good statistics on popularity to be found in the results of the "2020 Pokemon of the Year". Which give lots of objective data on popularity by generation and also can be used to help determine overall unpopularity. I actually just posted a separate comment with those results broken down a little (because apparently I am that kind of nerd today 😅)
TrueGreen's Polls are notorious for not being announced, meaning only the people who check for them regularly get to vote in them & the reason he doesn't announce them is because he worries it will make people unsubscribe.
How can you rate them without including their abilities, movesets, competitive usage, etc. You can't objectively rate something while excluding half of what makes them up.
Should've based on the viability in their respective games and maybe in competitive. Judging by popularity is basically just opinions and loses all objectivity like someone said.
I love how he said objectively when he isn't taking in to account how well they do in competitive pokemon, which is arguably the easiest way to determine which one is the worst
I am really disappointed the choice was based on popularity again and not on battle capability. Primarina has always been a staple for my Alola teams due to its sheer strength , typing , bulk , versatility and simple but gorgeous design and seeing it be dismissed and discarded is painful. The only hope was that I thought this was a battle strength based judgement but alas!
Yeah 100% agree. As Primarina is also my favourite starter in general. It also kinda REALLY annoys me how he put Decidueye better in competitive than Primarina just because "lmao better hidden ability", when Primarina is ACTUALLY used both in 3v3-Singles and VGC Doubles, while Decidueye is... Like never lol.
@@VioletLunaChan absolutely with Liquid voice hyper voice + choice scarf/specs or even niche strats like round team up with accelgor , Primarina has been a solid choice in doubles and not to mention , In singles it's one of the best water starters to make a notable dent in its tier
I know I loved Primarina in my Ultra Alola Playthrough & it really isn't fair that the girlier Pokemon get cheated like that. Chikorita has a similar story with its wonderful pear design being dismissed for a bland mouse that is sometimes on fire.
@@bookmew1081 absolutely, Even my mother who isn't even into Pokemon loved chikorita. Not to belittle the others but according to my opinion if gamefreak played their cards right with the chikorita line , they could have been the most popular over a bland muscular croc and an even blander mouse on fire
It's ironic in the gen 5 portion. Serperior is often considered the 'weakest' of the 3 but was the only to see competitive use. Goes to show you higher stats and typing aren't the end all, move set plays a big part in how good a pokemon is.
@Pete White: The reason for this is because of the way people look at it based on in-game viability versus how good it is competitively. For the main game, it's usually considered to be the worst not just because it's a grass type, but primarily because it has low offensive stats and doesn't have much of a movepool that has good coverage options, either, which unfortunately kinda defeats the point of it being as fast as it is. But thanks to it's hidden ability, contrary, it's a completely different ballgame competitively, and is arguably the only reason why it's good to begin with given it's other qualities
In Gen 5, while there's plenty all three excel in, I think Serperior really is the worst option for one clear reason. Emboar can overpower most enemies in B&W due to how seemingly everything you face is a lightweight, so heat crash them all. And don't drop arm thrust so that you can get through caves extra fast. Bonus points for being able to learn scold. Game is a cake walk if you pair it with Zoroark. Samurot focuses on high critical rates. Even though it loses points to Emboar because of how frequently you fight pokemon with sturdy, whom cannot be KO'd in a single hit. Serperior's shtick revolves around stat boosting. To the casual kid who doesn't see the value of stat boosting moves, of course Serperior's going to look weak. But even for someone like myself who is aware and will take advantage of this knows, it's faster to heat crash and arm thrust everything with Emboar. Stat Boosting moves always take time. Even though Serperior is a straight up menace when its stats are boosted.
Going off just base stat total is useless, as having both a high physical and special attack doesn't do much for them, especially when their base stat total is only a few off. Typing by number of resists and weaknesses is also awful, Serperior is the only competitively viable of the Unova starters and is placed with tepig.
Pretty nice video and as much as I sorta agree with the final Pokémon, I’d personally say Megainium line is “objectively” the worst with hoops worst probably being barely better the Megainium line
I would really like to see a video that doesn’t factor popularity n look at it in a more competitive view. Like factoring in move pools to deal with both compensating it’s move weaknesses and also having moves with large coverage to types commonly used. And when factoring in its type, instead of simply looking at who covers the most resistances, look at who’s not gonna get double damage from most common competitive moves. Lastly, with stats, just because a mon has a larger base stat in general doesn’t mean it’s divided in an efficient way. Ps, love the list, not writing this as an objection to how you put this together.
@@LeonDeLlama i have noticed that too. Maybe if he did, he'd notice this annoying spam scammer that keeps popping up in the comments and stop my notifications from bringing them up every time I comment on one of his vids
Felt this video was pretty shallow and didnt make alot of progress towards finding the objectively worse starter. Popularity as a category is inherently subjective. And typing/BST alone aren't very good ways of ranking viability. Was way too subjective most of the time, using terms like "I feel" or "In my personal opinion" when measuring instead or pulling up some credible sources of data. I feel better ways of measuring their viability would have been things such as matchups within their respective regions, stat distributions, movepools, abilities, etc. All valid ways of ranking these pokemon without even getting into competitive.
Judging whether or not something is good based on popularity is using a logical fallacy. The fallacy is called the bandwagon fallacy. Just because something is popular, doesn't make it true or good. We used to be taught about this fallacy. My parents used to tell us "if your friends all jump of a cliff, does that mean it's a good idea?"
Should have taken the typing of gyms/E4 members for the generation the starters came from into consideration. If one starter has a bunch of weaknesses and another strengths against the gym challenge, wouldn't one be a better pick than the other 🤷♀️
The categories should have been Base Stat totals, Main story gameplay viability, moveset coverage. You lose credibility in objectivity when you bring popularity into the mix. Typing should have been the first tiebreaker, then abilities. Also if you don't want flack for your decisions, don't ask for our opinions in the comments right after. Not my intention to be rude. That's just objectively speaking
I think grass got the poop end of the stick in this cuz the typing alone isn't worth much if you're not looking at their move pools as well. Been watching enough solo challenge runs with hilariously bad grass types pulling off crazy stunts because of a highly adaptable range of moves they could use. I think Chespin winning the worst starter was probably the right choice but I think this video deserves another look considering move pools for the grass types at least, held items that can greatly make or break a Pokemon, how well they hold up in their home game playthroughs, and how they perform in the meta. Gonna go against the grain and say that I think design/aesthetic was a relevant category but probably shouldn't have played such a large role in their rankings.
This list isn’t accurate as many other factors aren’t counted for. -abilities (only a few got judged on that) -moveset -competitive results -how good they are in the games they’re in Also I think the hisuian starters should’ve been included in some way.
I love how you brought up Truegreen7's video to back up your perception of popularity, but ignore how the very same video does state the Piplup line as the least popular 😂
Lol, that's a really bad list in so many aspects. For example, just comparing the stat total is useless, having a higher stat total isn't useful if the repartition is trash or if the type, movepool and ability doesn't mesh well with the repartition. Also stats aren't all as "important" points in Sp.Atk are usually more valuable than in Atk. And the popularity measure seems really half-assed.
You should have looked at their abilities and movepools if you were basing their strengths since it isnt fair to just judge them by their typings or base stats alone since you ranked wrong pokemon as the worst. And popularity rankings automatically just drop the ball on this ranking list Like legit meganium should have been the worst since chesnaught is actually used defensively and its pretty good at what it does, while meganium struggles hard on its story playthrough and is even worse if its used competitively online, it has such a bad ability, movepool, and stat spread
With bulbasaur i beg to differ between still being very viable in competitive play and being super effective against the first 2 gyms definitely not the last in my opinion
Sad to see Venasaur and Sceptile in the list, they did by Grassy bois dirty. Thorw in a stealth Rock and see how your favourite fire starters dance on then.
I agree with Julio Hinkson. "Popularity" is rarely based on how good or bad something is objectively, and is purely subjective. With that as a category, the entire point of this became moot. Furthermore, as others have pointed out, judging based on typing puts grass at an unfair disadvantage against the others. In reality, there is one and only one way, to objectively determine which starters are the best and the worst, and that is by looking at how well they'd fair in a solo run in their own region based on the gyms, elite four, and champion. But, even that has problems, as some regions are set up in a way that puts more pressure on one type or another. Like Generation 1. Bulbasaur/Ivysaur/Venusaur actually has the easier time in Gen 1 against the gyms and elite four compared to say Charmander/Charmeleon/Charizard. This is due to the fact that only two gyms are super effective against it, while it is super effective in three gyms, and is resistant to the other three (unless normal attacks are used). Charizard is weak two two, resistant to 1, and super effective in 1. The other four are neutral gyms for it. So, it is actually hard to do this objectively, but, impossible when you add in popularity, as popularity is based on subjective feelings or like or dislike. Edit 1: In fact, due to how I have a habit of typing things out as I watch, I'm going to make a prediction before I finish this video. And that prediction is: A grass type will be the "objectively worst" starter. I will also go further and say that the grass starter will most likely be the "worst" starter in most of the generations in fact. Now to finish the video and see if my predictions hold. Edit 2: Oh joy, seems like my predictions are going to come true, as even HoopsandHipHop seems to see that becoming the case after Gen 2's "worst" starter choice. Edit 3: Yeah, beginning to think the title is click bait as there is nothing objective about this beyond looking at base stats (which don't actually matter in this case as they are so close to each other) and the typing, but, typing is unfair due to how the three base types are set up individually. Edit 4: From my understanding, Rowlet's hidden ability can be considered the better of the two, as it allows it to avoid certain types of hold items (sticky barb and rocky helmet for example), abilities (flame body and static for examples), and even defensive attacks (Baneful Bunker for example) as they all require the opponent to make direct contact with their users. Meanwhile, Primarina's hidden ability just means it turns Hyper Beam and other Normal type attacks into water type attacks. Which is less useful as Primarina has an excellent selection of water type attacks and can be detrimental if the target has a defensive ability against water type attacks (Water Absorb for example). Meanwhile, not making direct contact has no down sides. So, yeah, you did actually choose the overall better of the two abilities. Edit 5: For those that don't remember, Sticky Barb deals damage to it's holder every round. And, if the opponent makes physical contact with the holder, they take damage, and if they are not holding an item, the Stick Barb transfers to them. Not a great item in reality, but, it's effects are basically negated by Long Reach, as Rowlet will not be making physical contact with any of it's attacks. Edit 6: Before I watch the finals between the worse from each Gen, I want to look back at my predictions. I predicted that ultimately, a grass type will lose. I also predicted that most of the starters that are the "worst", will be grass types. I was right, with six grass types, one fire type, and one water type, in the finals, I was right about how grass would be unfairly singled out by the unfair system used. Edit 7: HoopsandHipHop even admits that the popularity thing is subjective. That really means it should not have been used. For something to be objective, there can be no subjectivity involved. Edit 8: Your defense is pointless for not getting flak is pointless. You choose bad categories for trying to make things "objective", even going so far as to include something that is 100% subjective and has no objectivity in it. Though, I do actually agree with poor Chespin being the worse. But, the reasons go further than you are thinking. And ultimately, my prediction from earlier was right. How not surprising. When you choose the categories you choose, it is VERY EASY to make such predictions. Ultimately, I feel this video was a failure as a whole, poor choices for categories (others have explained them over all, but, I will explain why using base stat totals is bad) and including subjectivity ruined the entire point of this being "objective". For something to be objective, there has to be 0% subjectivity in it. And popularity, is 100% subjective.
As I stated, the categories were bad, and in fact, two of them were more or less biased against grass types as a whole, as others have explained. But, I also stated that choosing base stat totals as a category is a bad move. Why? Well, because, ultimately, when base stats are so close to each other like that, they really don't show each other up. In other words, them being that close to each other does not give any of them a true advantage over the others. The ones with the highest BSTs do not actually have a true advantage over those with the lowest base stat totals (talking about the final evolutions of the starters here). That said, what categories could have been used that would be objective and not subjective? Let's explore some options and their pros and cons. First: Abilities. And by abilities, I mean their hidden abilities of course. Objectively speaking, some abilities are simply better than others. Such as Contrary vs Reckless, Contrary is simply vastly better than Reckless. So, you could have compared their abilities to see which ones would actually be better. For example, let's look at Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise. Venusaur has Chlorophyll, Chariard has Solar Power, and Blastoise has Rain Dish. All three are weather based abilities. With two requiring the sun to be out and one for it to be raining. Rain Dish, while useful, heals for such a small amount, it really is not that good overall compared to the other two. Chlorophyll is a double-edged sword as is Solar Power. Chlorophyll is a double-edged sword because while it doubles Venusaur's speed (which, is important in Pokemon as you typically want to go before your opponents in battle for potential one shots or setting up hazards and/or stat boosts), it requires the weather to be sunny, which means that Fire typed attacks will hit harder, possibly making it easy for an opposing fire type to one shot Venusaur if Venusaur is unable to one shot the fire type opponent. Solar Power is a double-edged sword because, while it boosts Charizards alreadh high special attack by 1.5 times, it also causes Charizad to lose HP every turn while it is sunny. Combine that with Life Orb for some REALLY big hits. As you can see, the low healing from Rain Dish is easily outclassed by a massive speed boost or a massive damage boost. But, the one Con is that objectively speaking, how good or bad an ability actually is overall, can be considered to be subjective to some people. As it does fall in line with opinion to some degree, and opinion is always subjective. For example, it could be seen that Rain Dish is not that great to me on a subjective level simply because I don't think it heals enough each turn. But, in competitive battles, speed boosts and damage boosts are almost always seen as a better option over tiny healing amounts. So, yeahs, it can be seen as objective or subjective, by different people as there is no true way to measure how useful abilities are overall. Second: Move Pool variety and coverage. Unlike Abilities, you can actually apply a more or less objective way of scoring each starters move pool. It's simple really, for each STAB attack the starter gets, the STAB attack scores 4 points. For every non-STAB attack that can cover a type that is strong against the starter, the move scores 3 points (example, Venusaur can learn Earthquake and Earth Power, both are good against Fire Types). For every coverage move that is not strong against a type that is strong against the Pokemon and is not normal type, 2 points (example, Charizard can learn Beat Up, which is effective against Psychic types and Ghost Types, neither which is strong against the Fire or Flying typing). And for every Normal typed damage dealing move, 1 point. You can even go further by assigning bonus points to moves that match the higher attack stat for each starter (example, Blastoise has a barely higher special attack, meaning that Hydro Pump would score 5 points while Aqua Tail would score 4 points). Splash and other moves that do literally nothing score 0 points. Utility moves all score 2 points (meaning moves that do not do direct damage, such as Toxic and Protect). The only two cons I can see here is that this would be time consuming and all starters have a different number of moves at their disposal, and some starters did not even make it to Gen 8, so, would be hard to judge this overall because of those reasons, but, would come up with an actual score. Though, obviously, this might come out as seen as biased in favor of Pokemon with huge move pools. Third: How well each starter stacks up against the Gyms in their own Generation. If they are super effective against the gym, 2 points. If they are resistant against the gym, but not super effective, 1 point. If they are neutral, 0 points. If they are weak to that gym, -1 point. Only real issue I see here is the seemingly randomness of the gym types. Fourth: How well each starter stacks up against the individual members of the Elite Four (if available). The real question is, do you do based on the individual Pokemon each Elite Four member has, or overall? As not all Elite Four members have only Pokemon of the type they use. (Lorelei has mostly ice types, except for Slowbro, which is not an ice type), for example). But, basically, regardless if you do it versus the individual Pokemon or the overall "Theme" of the Elite Four Member, you'd use the same score as you would on the Gyms. Fifth: How well does each starter stack up against the Champion's team. This would have to be by an individual comparison as Champions typically don't have a theme. Sixth: How well does each starter stacks up in ALL generation Gyms, Elite Four, and Champion (only should do this if you are doing all three categories from above). Obviously, if a starter shares a typing with other starters, they'd have the same results, so, can make things quicker for some starters). Almost all of the above is purely objective, which would result in a more accurate OBJECTIVE result, instead of using categories that are biased largely against one type or another. Objectively speaking, your video overall was not objective in how it was done, even though I do personally agree with the result. I also love the Chespin like you, but, even I can see it's flaws.
So what we learned from it is that gamefreak cant balance since decades. Grass should have been immune to fairy, since fairies are often linked to nature. Bug should be super effective instead of resisted and ice should be super effective and resisiting fairy
Putting my bias for chespin aside the inclusion of “popularity” an inherently subjective point and using typing as a criteria makes this as far from an objective list as it possibly could get, a better set of criteria would’ve been to look at how each fairs in its home region and its move pool as well as stat distribution as a tie breaker instead of hidden abilities, the fact this whole list could’ve been entirely grass outside of rowlett is proof of that I’d say
As much as i love chikorita, putting it in a game where the first 2 gyms are flying and bug, as well as having steel, ice and dragon gyms, and then a ice, poison, and dragon elite four members, just makes it not easy to use. Edit: i forgot lorelei wasnt in gen 2
Colosseum was the best thing to happen for Bayleaf with it being the Speedrunner's Starter of Choice in that game. The Johto Elite 4 didn't have an ice master with Will being Psychic, Bruno being Fighting, Koga being Poison & Bug, Karen being Dark, & Lance being Dragon. Chikorita really was cheated in its native region, despite having such a wonderful design & incredible anime personality.
I don't think the criteria here are very good -- there's a lot that's missed here. For one, since mixed attackers are extremely rare post gen3 and not every stat is useful for every pokemon, simply using the BST isn't enough. Something like Typhlosion, a fast strong attacker, doesn't use its defenses nearly as much as something like Meganium who with its access to screens and better bulk is somehow expected to tank while being mono-grass. For another, abilities are not taken into account at all except to break ties and not in any other spot that matters. Blaziken gets speed boost, meaning its base speed is almost irrelevant since if it can live even one turn it's going to outspeed nearly everything. Cinderace gets Libero which means it can effectively choose its typing, meaning it should never lose on that front. While the number or resistances and weaknesses are taken into account, the commonality of the types being resisted is not. Zard, for example, might very well lose to Blastoise in typing in any generation between gen4 and gen7 since stealth rock RUINS it. Alternate form, the variety of the movepool, and the options available to each mon are also avoided. Someone like Charizard with its two megas has way more options than someone like Typhlosion where you use eruption and hope for the best. What I'm trying to say is, the competitive viability of these mons needed to be taken into account aside of to break ties. The "popularity" criteria is also ill-defined. Since elements like BST, matchup, and movepool can affect popularity, a mon with more options in one area gets a boost here too. It's also worth noting that some mons are far more useful in-region than others. Any water starter in a game before gen7 is going to be a good user of the required Surf and Waterfall, for example, and Infernape is all but mandatory in Sinnoh where there are nearly no fire types. The video doesn't take base forms into account for every generation either -- Sobble's constant crying beat out the other two easily when gen8 was announced and I would be stunned if that has changed since. I don't even disagree with the conclusions drawn for the most part, but many steps were skipped and that's a shame.
I think in the type categoy you should have considered their coverage as well. Fighting is one of, if ot the best offensive typings, and I feel like there's no way that a fighting type starter could be the worst ever.
This is why you summon before Stealth Rocks (the original purpose of those was to stop switching & weaken choice teams) if you still want to switch into Charizard later you need a Rapid Spinner.
Wait isn’t Sceptile the most popular Hoenn starter? During the Pokémon of the year event for 2020, it was more popular then Blaziken. Plus the fact it was Ash’s during the Hoenn anime, it had a big role as a Grovyle in Mystery Dungeon, and it was a playable character alongside Blaziken in Pokken Tournament.
Using total stats not considering stats distribution... Using types based on total number of weaknesses and not how common are those specific weaknessess in the game. Not considering that an important part of the whole of a starter is filling gaps, so it should be considered, for example, that Arcanine is a great fire type in Gen 1, Lapras and Vaporeon are great water types, but Exeggutor is not as good as Venusaur, making Venusaur fill a possible type gap. Not considering movesets, game progressions (tough early gyms and if you have a good counter to it before then other than a possible starter), competitive scenario, etc etc. Overall the "objectively" part is purely "what I feel like is the best based on my preference". Which kinda defeats the purpose. I mean, there's nothing wrong in doing a personal favorites list, just be honest about it.
It is hard being a popplio fan. But no matter what I will stand and defend the line as it is a very nice Pokémon, especially Primarina as it will remain my favorite Pokémon of all time. And yeah Snivy and Scorbunny’s lines are cool as well ^^
Popplio is an excellent starter though isn't it? Haters are just dumb for not liking the mermaid it becomes. What's worse is being a fan of Chikorita even though the entire region was created so that it would have a hard time.
I feel whatever stat and power rankings you build out of this design fail to see how they play in the actual game they come from. Gen 1 for instance has gyrados, moltres and arkanine which outpace blastoise and charizard in power while there is no base grass type in gen 1 that outpaces ivysore
"So in my personal opinion..." Definition of OBJECTIVE: (of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
I think this man just hates grass types and wanted to tell us subtly, Grovyle is right up there in popularity with Blaziken and mudkip, but he acts like no one likes it.
I am Surprised that Pikachu and Eevee were not on the Kanto list. They are both Officially known as "Starter Pokemon". If you count the Let's Go games AND The Show!!
I think it's best that Pikachu and Eevee aren't on this list especially Pikachu he'll blow everyone on this list away it's not even a shocking resolution
Truegreen 7 did a poll a while ago and the most popular fully evolved starters are Charizard, Typhlosion, Sceptile, Torterra, Greninja, Decidueye and Cinderace. Oh my goodness he looked at it and didn’t pay nearly enough attention wow.
Popularity shouldn't have been here as it's subjective and hard to back up. For example most of the polls I've seen on Reddit put the bulbasaur line above the Blastoise, and Sceptile above Blaziken. All depends which groups you're following. And writing off basically every grass types for having more weakneses and resists doesn't take into account the amazing learnsets. Venusaur is by the far the most popular starter used in competitive with the exception of Mega charizard Y for a short time.
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I will just say venasaur is the best starter in kanto with the matchups it gets in other regions not so much
Also I will say you shouldn't only look at weaknesses but also coverage and other things like for example grass being immune to all powder moves and leech seed unique abilities like that is also important
Aight, time to give our boi Chespin the Legends Evolution treatment.
Make it a Grass/Rock speed sweeper knight with a hidden ability that boost the power and crit of all Slash/Cut/Blade moves.
And it can learn all of them.
Please think about how the Wile dojo looks, how Klara's poison gym looks and how Avery's psychic gym looks like.
I'm not sure those categories really work that well. Base stat totals are less important than the spread of those stats. For example if a starter has a high special attack but doesn't have any good special attack moves then that's an example of a poor stat spread.
I also think judging types isn't ideal as Grass will often come last due to it being a type with a lot of weaknesses. Here I think a better category would be to see how well that Pokémon matches up against the major gym, evil team and Elite 4 matches.
Bulbasaur for example was the best pick in Gen 1 due to 3 of the gyms being weak to it. Chikorita was a bad pick in Gen 2 though due to it being weak to 3 of the gyms.
Popularity is a fine category in principle, but you are on dodgy ground saying that popularity is "objective".
Bro you put septile as the least popular even though it was ash’s ace of Pokémon advanced. Change this please game wise.
I think Popularity should’ve been replaced with how good they are in a playthrough of their region
Like that just instally gives charizard the win like who cares how many 5 years olds know what a blastoise is
I agree. He’s trying to make an objective ranking, but popularity is almost completely subjective and rife with bias.
I 100% agree with you. This whole video was a popularity contest in my eyes.
I personally think a Hidden ability category would’ve been better as it was used for the Unova starters.
Charizard would lose in it's own region tbh. First is rock followed by water so maybe ability like one of the commenters said. Should of used popularity as a tie breaker because that's determines usually the meta sometimes till people learn about the pokemon at that time.
This is incredibly skewed since grass has more weaknesses and when most of grasses strength comes from its move pool
Tbh most grass pokemon share that horrible powder / poison / seed moveset and lack type coverage/ variety, most of the grass starters are either supports or tanks and that does them no favors.
However, many grass starters are very good in a normal playthrough and some are even great in competitive pokemon (Venusaur and Serperior)
@@Fear910 almost all, if not, ALL of the grass types have incredibly strong move pools. Idk where you got the powder seed move pool being all they have? Especially considering Leech Seed is a broken ass move and so is sleep powder, so it isn't even bad. On top of the fact that overall the grass starters have been the best in competitive singles, being Rilla, Venu, and Serperior. All of which are known for their vast move pool lol. So no, you are just wrong
@@tristenfps
They also have survivability despite the more weaknesses as Grass just tends to be tankier.
With Fire more often or not being one shot-able. Especially with stage hazards being pretty much guaranteed.
Rilla, venu and serperior are good, I said that too.
"incredible strong move pools" is something I kinda disagree with, Rilla has coverage and a good movepool, Venu has the tools he needs to succeed and no more than that (good stabs, weather ball, growth and earthpower) , and serperior has a terrible movepool but he's carried by glare and leaf storm...
And then we've got ... meganium (normal and grass type moves basically), Torterra (Grass, ground and some rock...workable but his stats are downright bad), Sceptile (grass, dragon and some fighting, great mega form but not so great regular form), Chessnaught (use breloom instead) and Decidueye (why did gamefreak made it so slow?).
Most grass starters have a hard time fitting into a competitive team too, Rilla is the only mon to REALLY stand out as a great starter pokemon...Veno is good in sun teams and serperior is carried by 2 moves. Most others starters have to compete with Ferro and kartana for a slot.
@@tristenfps The issue gets even worse if we go back and see how they performed during their debut gen, Venu had to fight for a spot with Victrebell and Contrary serperior wasn't released during B/W so he went straight to the lower tiers.
I can think of bad starters but we have to agree that most of the time the grass guys drew the short end of the stick
As soon as you said you were judging based on popularity this immediately lost its objectivity.
Preach 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
so true
True.
The only way you can truly do a vid like this is look at their respective region, the type specialist advantage and disadvantage. Abilities is also problematic, as they didn't exist in gen 1 and gen 2.
It can never be objective considering he'd be setting certain criteria, which would be his subjective standards
@@nickdentoom1173 that wouldn't be objective either, Performance doesn't imply objectivity, but simply measurable. Because he simply said objectively "best" an undefinable criteria
I feel like the "typing" category is rather unfair as it's almost always an immediate loss to the grass types
I agree with you for sure. He should have looked how viable they are against the gym battels/island challnges from there home region instead in my opnion.
Blame that on game freak. The whole point of the video is objectively the worst so typing has a huge impact on determining the list
It could have been replaced with how good it is on Smogon and in VGC.
@@WearDatKingRat i understand that typing should be used but I feel the way it was used wasn’t fair towards grass types. Because grass types are just automatically the worst type. So there could’ve been a more balanced way to do it.
So is the popularity category, as the cooler looking mons (Charizard, Sceptile, Infernape, Greninja always get 2 points in that category).
The fact that half of the grass starters ended up in the worst group is proof that the criteria itself is biased.
Facts
I mean, grass is just a really horrible type, to be honest :/
@@xsellepoch9954 You’re not wrong, but for the sake of objectivity outliers should be ignored. If a criteria is extremely biased toward one or another, then it’ll heavily skew results.
@@xsellepoch9954 grass is a suport type. And it also checks water and ground which are among the most common types in the game. Ice and bug are far worse
The video is a horrible example of why Pokémon fans are bad
Looking at how viable they are against the gym/island challnges battles in there home region instead of the types would have been a bit more fair in my opnion 😅.
I agree. For instance, what if the grass starter has the most gym advantages in their region? It wouldn’t be right to say their typing is the worst in that case.
@@michaelnelson1127 True.
Heck... if we look at type specialists, the grass starter is the best in 2 of the first four regions (With Torterra and Venusaur being the best in their respective regions).
@@nickdentoom1173 the Venasaur line is part poison though, if you remembered
Psychic is a monster in Gen 1
Then Venasaur would've won easily
@@wubbers662 The bulbasaur line is super effective against the first 2 and the last gym and resists 2 others meaning it’s only weak in the psychic and fire gym having a mutual resistance in the grass gym
Squirtle is strong against the rock, fire and ground gyms being weak to the electric and grass gyms and having neutral interactions with 2 gyms and a mutual resistance in the water gym
Charmander is only strong against the grass gym, weak to the first 2 gyms but is complicated with electric & ground due to gaining the fire typing but has no resistances other than a mutual resistance in the fire gym
Since the bulbasaur line is tied for most gyms it’s super effective against and 1st for most gyms it resists it is the best to use for kanto gyms in general
Felt like you should’ve used starter strengths against the major boss fights such as the gyms to break the ties rather then abilities. And when you put that into consideration, Primarina practically dessimates Alola’s various Totem Pokemon and Kahuna battles; sporting a type advantage against all four Kahuna battles (Fighting, Rock, Dark, and Ground). Even if a player’s Popplio most likely won’t be fully evolved before fighting the first Kahuna, the fact remains that the other three will practically drop like flies.
RIGHT!? THATS WHAT IVE WAS THINKING 😂
I absolutely SWEEP with Popplio, and destroying other people’s incineroars is pretty easy as well. I feel like judging on typing is pretty much unfair as well, seeing that gyms and upcoming battles is really what matters the most when you get your future starter Pokémon.
How did this comment get so many likes on it? I know that having the Litten line in the running for overall worst starter wouldn’t change the end result all the same, but man I was apparently NOT the only one who thought that starter strengths against the major boss fights was a better solution over the abilities.
also, all three alola starters are slow, but primarina is bulky enough to make up for that, unlike the other two
@@giraffy5748 RIGHT? That’s what I’m saying.
And it doesn't only work for Alola either. If we did that, it would instantly drop Greninja, Charizard and Sceptile in those categories to worse to use in their respective region.
In six of the eight regions, grass types are the worst because of the weaknesses grass types inherently have lol. Like of course they have the most weaknesses, why not use a metric of how they fare in some other way. Competitively, Rillaboom gets a lot of usage (from what I’ve seen), and in Hoenn, Sceptile could actually do pretty well against the gyms and Team Aqua.
Sceptile is the worst in Hoenn though and actually doesn't do well in the gyms (Its only strong against Rock and Water).
@@nickdentoom1173 I guess you could also count Psychic as their only Pokemon not weak to grass is Xatu in Emerald
Contrary Sceptile too
Sceptile is easily my favourite starter
I think this should be based on the starter's utility in the playthrough battles and general viability instead of typing or popularity
You’re not accounting for how popular Grovyle is? With both the anime and mystery dungeon pushing it, I’m surprised you didn’t mention them at all 🤔
Because he's not always the best researched.
Yeah, well it's not some people's cup of tea, I preferred the Torchic line for a long time before I started a sapphire playthrough with treecko, same for most regions I have a starter I preferred for a long time before trying a different one and finding I like it more.
I'd say in Hoenn, popularity is a three-way tie between Blaziken, Mudkip, and Grovyle
INDEED.
Yeah
I gotta defend Bulbasaur. You neglect the single greatest advantage of Bulbasaur: Poison typing. This gives it immunity to poisoning. That is huge in the early game, when your starter is all you really have to work with. Also, 3 of it's weaknesses; fire, ice, and flying, share a weakness. Rock. If you can get a rock type hidden power on Venusaur, you're golden.
Hell, you don’t even need that. By then you would probably have a good team(probably with a rock type in there) with good diversity to help cover venusaurs weaknesses
I honestly feel like something as Subjective as Populatity should have probably been left out of an Objective rank list, and something more objective like Movepool, probably should have been brought in as the Third Criteria. I know it would have been more work than Popularity, but it definitely would have been more Objective.
I think stats should be more on the distribution then the number. Distribution matters a lot more.
Agree
Distribution can matter but I think ultimately a high attack and low other stuff can end up much better than a well rounded Pokémon
Oh wait. I see what you’re saying now. He was literally only measuring the BST. not looking at the individual qualities of each stat
@@wolfiemuse it’s actually the opposite honestly. The least viable fully evolved Pokémon is rampardos, who also has the highest attack stat of any non legendary pokemon
@@moomosa2950 what’s the opposite? I misunderstood what OP was saying. Hoops was only looking at the BST instead of looking at the stat distribution within that BST
Venusaur and Rillaboom are actually really good and are used A LOT in the competitive scene. Not at all the worst of the bunch.
Yo they tryna scam u
Venusaur was the main reason why so many grass Pokémon were outclassed and thrown into the lower tiers and it's still doing it's thing in the meta today. Rillaboom didn't start off great until it got its hidden ability but it definitely is very good to use now. They really did my boys dirty.
It’s the best at filling that super common niche. Which is pretty impressive. It’s not exactly great at chlorophyl but the substitute leach seed set is fucking absurd
THATS WHAT IM SAYIN. Venusaur is a solid wall with super high defense when iv trained.
Also, Bulbasaur is the best starter to choose for a Playthrough of the gen one games. I say this because with the gyms and E4, Venusaur has the best type matchups in it's home region.
He should have based on how they perform in their home region, like how Charmander gets bodied by the first two gyms, while Squirtle does well on the first, and Bulbasaur does amazingly in both first gyms.
Besides, popularity shouldn't really define if a mon is bad or good, what can the pokemon learn? What are its abilities? Typing? Coverage moves?
Funny thing is that three of the popular mons (Charizard, Greninja and Sceptile are actually the worse in their respective home regions).
Coverage moves is problematic for Grass either way as well... especially if it isn't a pure type (Just look at Serperior or Meganiums movesets, hardly any coverage).
This is true!
@@nickdentoom1173 greninja and septile are actually really good in their region. Taking into consideration the types of the first two gym leaders, they actually don't do that bad, with greninja being nutual and then super effective due to not having the dark typing and being water type and septile being super effective and nutual due to his grass typing.
@@phantomnite Greninja is literally weak to all Gym leaders except for Ice, Psychic and Rock.
@@nickdentoom1173 literally like 3. Hes not a dark type when you fight viola, and hes most likely not evolved by the time you fight Korina
If you wanna talk objectivity, you’ve gotta have very specific criteria that don’t have any bias attached to them. The only things I can think of is ranking their base stat totals and possibly how useful they would be against the major bosses in their own games. Popularity is hella subjective, and shouldn’t be used for ‘objective’ research.
The objectively lost his sense when you talk about popularity and typing. The criteria would look better with this.
1. Base stat.
2. How they work in the region against big boss battle like (Gyms, Kahunas, Evil teams, etc...)
3. Use in competitive (Cuz the competitive scenario is a big deal when we see how a pokemon works in a team and strategy) Cuz it's not the same be in OU or Uber than be in NU for example
Competitive is also objective though... since then it depends on abilities and typings as well (Dual typings generall perform better in compettive than single typings). So if you can't use typings because then it isn't objective anymore, you can't use Competitive, which brings the typings into play.
@@nickdentoom1173 the thing with competitive is because you can use it even though the types. Just look Rillaboom, Venusaur and more. Even with the grass type they are good in VGC and other formats or are in the same level such as Empoleon, Swampert, etc...
@@nickdentoom1173 competitive is the ultimate test..
@@VeganSanatani Except it isn't... since competitive is subjective as well... since Pokemon aren't build for competive play.
@@nickdentoom1173 I don't think you understand competitive , do you ? .. because some mons are objectively better like Lando teri, Ttar , inciar and feroth... We judge how good a mon is by its frequency in winning and top teamns..
You should check effective stats instead of just the total stat.
By example: If a Pokémon has 80 attack and 120 special attack, this is WAY worse than one that has 60 attack and 140 special attack. Because the off-stat attack stat is not used at all.
Right?
Like yeah Decidueye has both higher special-attack than Incineroar and higher physical attack than Primarina, but it's not like he's gonna use both offensive stats in competitive, lol. So even though all 3 share the same stat-total Incineroar and Primarina are objectively better because their higher stats are not thrown into their weaker attacking stat respectively.
Primarina being "objectively" the worst in Alola is laughable when it's had a better competitive life than all of it's fellow region starters, if not most of the starters in the game.
Is Primarina is my favourite starter, I appriciate this.
I mean I wouldnt say better since incineroar ruled vgc, but its really good in singles and its certainly better than decidueye battle wise
Incineroar = VGC
Primarina = Singles
Decidueye = Horrible Stat Spread
@@Squirtle_Squad_SupremacyFACTS
Incineroar is waaaaay better in vgc
When you reviewed the criteria I said welp grass types are gonna be amongst “the worst”
Yeah it’s crazy that a type with so MUCH type coverage is being ignored because of what they’re weak to. (Even though Thick Fat was ignored for Venusaur)
Grass is one of the worst typings in the game along with rock and ice, so it makes sense.
I would think abilities play a much bigger role then popularity. You could even look at how they would fit into a play through of the game instead, looking at gyms and elite four teams and stuff.
I thought treecko’s evolution line was more popular. Because of grovile being an important character in the mystery dungeon games and it was ash’s Pokémon in the anime. I’m surprised
But I’m seeing a lot of people comment how gym leaders in their region should be factored in and I agree although I think chickorita would still be one of the worst if not the worst because it is terrible against the first 2 gyms in its region and I think the first 2 are the ones that matter the most because after that you’ll have access to many more Pokémon to assist in battles
At least chespin would be good against the 2nd gym in its region
It iss
Actually, type wise, Bulbasaur is the best for Gyms.
only in kanto that is . put him in johto and hes the worst
#JusticeForBulbasuar
@@WereWolfAD13 And a few more regions
@@WereWolfAD13 I mean, its only fair to it it in their introduction region anyways... since that is the region where they can shine.
Venusaur has also always been the strongest of all three Kanto starters in terms of competitive play....like by a lot. Charizard became garbage as soon as stealth rocks became a thing, at least until it got Mega Evolutions where it gained some ground back, but even regular Venusaur with Chlorophyll was used in high ranking competitive play all the way up until the current gen where its STILL used. Blastoise is the worst one by a country mile, no question.
I think instead of popularity you should judge it based on the opposition in the game along with the ability to cover for its weaknesses and use moves that can be effective against said opposition.
I don't understand why people don't like Poplio. It evolves into a water fairy! How could any pokemon be any more likeable than that?
And the fact it is cute and it literally destroys 90%.Of Alola lmao
I think it's because Popplio and Brionne's designs are perceived as "too creepy", while Primarina is "too feminine" in the eyes of the majorly male fanbase of Pokemon. They think it's only designed for girls, which I really disagree with.
@@nicholetheotter1957 Fragile masculinity of men-children breaking down at feminine designs, more news at 11 lol
What's funny is that Rowlet is my least liked of the Alola Starters & I really like Primarina & Incineroar. Although I'm a girly girl so of course I'm going to choose either the cute cat or the mermaid seal. I never understood the popularity of Cyndaquil, it had the least personality of Ash's Gen 2 Pokemon in addition to having the blandest design.
@@bookmew1081 i think the litten line is boring, the rowlet and popplio line look great imo
Given the premises discussed in the beginning, yeah, the conclusion might really be sound... but, IMO, the premises lack nuance. In some cases, you took the abilities in consideration, but the learnset is equally important. In the usual formats of gameplay, the combination of typing, ability, and learnset lends to the Pokémon's tier placement in a given generation. Looking at the stat total alone is also lacking as 'mons with similar stat totals can totally perform differently based on how those stats are spread. Meta is another important factor to look at. For example, Charizard was the worst during the days of Stealth Rock supremacy (dropping to NU) while Venusaur was UU or OU.
Now, if we're taking into account only the single player experience, a lot of factors must be considered as well, like advantage in major battles (gyms, E4, champion, evil team bosses), or the accessibility of other viable options for their respective type.
Well, I guess it just wouldn't fit into a 20~ minute video and will take way more rigorous research if more nuance is taken into consideration. Could be a sequel to this video perhaps?
and its not like the base stat total is a huge gap between them
I feel like Instead of popularity you should have looked at movepools and hidden abilities
Yeah cause ain't no way chestnaught woulda been the worse it's got alot coverage same goes for emboar
@@sovereignblastoise6767 Funny thing is that Greninja is actually the worse in Kalos.
The reason grass is so underwhelming in typing is because lifesteal moves are insanely strong especially for novice players and first time players, moves like leech seed and absorb in the early game, to giga drain in late stage, when a playthrough of pokemon is largely a gauntlet from one pokecenter to the next, life steal keeps you in the fight for so much longer.
Genuinely, Chesnaught is my favorite starter still and is easily the strongest one I’ve had. My first playthrough I rarely ever used my other Pokémon, mainly Chesnaught just sweeping everything. I never understood the hate the Chespin like got, they’re some of coolest designed lads
Preach!!
After hearing “popularity” we took the “objectivity” and yeeted it out the window. For example, I pick scorbunny the most in shield, but I prefer inteleon. It would’ve been better to go off how different their shiny forms look. For example, shiny blaziken barely looks same, while shiny inteleon looks awesome. Hoops has gotta have something against grass starters.
I’d do a category list
Like worse in attack, defense, the specials, and speed and then overall base stat. Like that would make for a better video
@@TsukiKageTora yeah.
Should've had viability in home region (how well they match up against the major trainers) instead of typing. Grass would always lose in weaknesses and stuff but might be good for a lot of the major fights.
HoopsandHipHop: Treecko is the worst Hoenn starter.
*MandJTV and Truegreen7 would like to know your location*
Grovyle outshadowing the other two stages has to mean something, like being a main character in PMD EoS and all, right?
My thoughts exactly
Yeah I was thinking that he made the line a lot more popular
Need to also think about competitive use, move variety… it’s hard to categorise
The sceptile line is far more loved than the blaziken line
It's not and you can thank Speed Boost.
Hoenn has the most loved starter trio that isn't Kanto. The Treecko Family is probably more popular than any of the Gen 5 Starter Families. I expect Grovyle & Sceptile to win a war against Cyndaquil's Family in terms of popularity. Speaking of which I never understood the popularity of Cyndaquil, I'm guessing Johto Anime had nothing to do with it otherwise Chikorita would be much more popular. I wonder if Chikorita is much more popular in Japan than it is in America?
@@bookmew1081 Chikorita is the least popular because it's incredibly awful in it's home Region. Cyndaquil is popular because it's cute. Same with Oshawott and Rowlett.
@@Nosretep Chikorita is way cuter than Cyndaquil by design alone. Yes it is awful when performing in Johto, while Cyndaquil burns through most challenges in Johto. Precious Pear Friend had such an enjoyable personality in the anime & it stays just as wholesome when fully evolved into Meganium.
@@bookmew1081 A Pokemon falling in love with a human is weird...
8:40 The fact that you said Treeko is the worst with a straight face… (I know you said objectively, but still)
As a grass and water starter enthusiast I knew what was about to happen but considering surperior is my favorite starter I’m just glad he wasn’t attacked 😂
She*
@@bestleefboi Well you say she cause of Ash’s sassy Snivy but i will admit i see Serperior more as a female cause of her. Best grass starter Ash had
1. you might want to diversify that list of sources it's far too small and also a bit narrow in inclusivity. 2. there's going to be 81 starter pokemon in gen 9...
Most of the sources are his opinions. 💀💀 "objectively" smh
Personally I feel as though examining how the starters fair overall against the gym leaders/élite 4 rather than popularity would have been better, popularity is pretty far from objective.
Tbh using the starter’s performance in it’s home region or their competitive use might’ve been a better metric than base stats since it really wasn’t fair for the grass types.
I think the grass typing needs some work in the weakness department
No way. That type is super deadly to everything except itself. Healing, combo effects, extra effects, and every status under the sun except freezing? No. They're fine being grass.
Popularity is the worst way to rank the Pokemon. Not to mention the absurdly small sample size. Most people who play Pokemon aren't going to interact with poketubers
Where in seven hells have you seen Treeko being the least popular? And in what world is Torterra less powerful than Impoleon. Importing is almost as hated as Meganium.
Mnm objectively is hard because what makes a starter good? In my opinion the inspirations behind the design, the design itself, it feeling like a companion/friend and the progression in the evolution.
Also the viability in each game and competitively is something to take in mind. Because for example, Bulbasaur, even being the least liked starter in Kanto, is still the better option for the game. First 2 gyms are easy and Giovanni specializes in ground types so that as well. Good for tanking in Electric gym and other things. Objectively the best is Bulbasaur in that case.
Design, feeling like a companion, and progression in its evolution are all subjective though. The only way to be objective is to look at their base stat total and movepool if you’re wanting to be talking about how GOOD is each Pokémon. When someone says “well how good is Mudkip?” they are asking how good it is in battle. Not how good it looks, how popular it is, etc.
Yeah fair and all but, charizard is literally dog shit, the first twi gyms it's completely weak to-
Its moveset...
Anyone with a brain knows Chestnaught is easily the worst starter because of this. Typhlosion is a close 2nd even though later games rectified having a move set so weak....Freaking flame wheel all the way.
You've done a few of these type of videos where you try to be "objective" and start delving into things like stats and unfortunately I don't think you have enough overall knowledge of that kind of thing to make this worthwhile. This area is not your forte. I was hoping to see abilities and movepools taken into account because those can make a big difference to how good a Pokémon is. Also as others have said the vague popularity category completely negates any objectivity that there may have been from anything else
Movepools are problematic as well.. especially for pure Grass and Fire types.
I think instead of doing they type weakness/resistance you should have done how they match up with the gyms in their region. Grass was always going to be at a disadvantage how you did it and is regarded as "hard mode" but there are regions where the other starters are at a significant disadvantage with the gyms. Could have mixed things up a little more
Totally agreed.
In Kanto, it makes Venusaur the best (Most advantages and neutralities (Is that a word), followed by Blastoise and then Charizard
For Johto, it is actually reverse, with Typhlosion edging out Feraligatr, on the sheer technicality it has more advantages than Feraligatr, despite both having zero weaknesses against the type specialists and Meganium is the worst
Hoenn brings in Swampert as the best mon (Literally no weakness against the type specialist.. Swampert is followed by Blaziken, then Sceptile
Sinnoh is kinda funny in this regard... since many people considering Infernape the best starter to use due to the lack of Fire types in the game. However, despite this, Torterra is the best starter.. Infernape and Torterra tie for most advantages (5 each) and tie for most amount of weaknesses (3 each). However, due to Torterra having that immunity over Volkner and it being better all-round against Cynthia in Diamond and Pearl but also Platinum, its actually the better mon. Empoleon isn't bad either, but doesn't have as many advantages as the other 2, only being strong against 4, while also having 4 weaknesses. I use Cynthia here as the tie breaker... which doesn't need to happen in the other games.
In Unova, i am not taking into account the first gym in BW, since the games are styled the way Chili, Cress and Cilan use the elemental monkey that is strong against your starter. So taking both games into consideration, this means the following line-up.. Emboar, Samurott, Serperior
In Kalos, Greninja is generally seen as the best to use... while factually... its the worse to use, since its literally weak to five out of 8 gym leaders (Bug, Grass, Fighting, Fairy and Electric). Delphox is weak to only 1 (Rock) and Siebold in the Elite 4 (Water). Greninja has 3 advantages in the entirety of Kalos, with Psychic, Rock and Fire. Delphox is strong against Bug, Fighting, Grass, Ice and Steel with the Elite 4. Then we have Chesnaught, who is only weak against Fairy, Ice and Psychic during the gym run and against Malva (Fire) during the league. Chesnaught is strong against Rock, Ice and Steel. This means in terms of strenghts, Chesnaught and Greninja are tied.. but Chesnaught wins due to having less weaknesses.
Gen 7 is easy... thats Primarina (It destroys every single Kahuna) + is only weak against 2 trial as well (Grass and Electric). Then we have Decidueye (Weak against Kiawe, Nanu and Mimikyu). Its strong against Hapu and Oliva and its immune to Hala. If we take into account the league, it means Kahili is another weakness (Totally it on 4).
Now on to Galar we go... where its really funny depending on the version.
For Sword...Inteleon and Rillaboom are the best to use (Both have 2 advantages and only 1 weakness), whereas Cinderace has 2 weaknesses (Water and Rock) and only advantage.
In Shield however... Cinderace is the better mon... since it has 1 weakness (Fire) and 2 advantages (Grass and Ice). Inteleon is second, with 1 weakneass and 1 advantage.. Rillaboom is switched as well here... since it changes out its Rock advantages for an ice weakness (Bascially doing the reverse Cinderace here).
So overall.. we have Inteleon being the best mon to use in Galar across the board, with Cinderace and Rillaboom being tied depending on the version.
@@nickdentoom1173 So basically if we actually did it based of how good they are in their regions, the list is turned on its head for the most part
One thing about Vena line though, is that it's part Poison, and we all know how broken Gen 1 Psychic was, but it's not a huge knock against the line though
I personally feel like just looking at the type as far as it's defensive properties alone are concerned is a trap the A LOT of people on RUclips seem to fall into when looking at this category. While being strong defensively is indeed important, it's just as important to look at the offensive side as well, since you need to be able to deal damage effectively, which makes a huge difference. Another pitfall I think he fell into for this video was the base stat category, as that just looked at their base stat total, when it's more important to think about what stats they have good and bad in, since it's entirely possible for a Pokemon with a high base stat total to not be very good for a variety of reasons
@@matthewkuscienko4616 totally agree. They could have a large physical attack stat that brings up the totally but not have access to many physical moves. Or they could have a decent spread of attack and speed but one defense be super low
I would argue that both things should be taken into consideration.
How good are they in their own games, and how good are they right now, maybe even on competitive scene
this isn't really an objective comparison since popularity is a category 💀 i definitely think that what should've been considered is how well each starter performs against the gym leaders and elite four etc. of their regions in terms of typing. that would've made this a much better objective comparison
You should compare types to required battles such as elite 4 and gym leaders.
Popularity is subjective and you show no sources or show any numbers or reasoning for decisions.
Total stats should not be the defining factor instead it should be stat spread and how useful stats are , an extra 10 points of special attack in a physical attacker isn’t really an advantage.
One of the problems with using typing as a criteria,
Is that the way you determine what is considered good skews the results,
For example you said that Torterra had the worst typing,
But when you look at the matchup's between the starters,
You notice that while Torterra takes neutral damage from all 4 STABs the others have,
Empoleon is neutral against only 2 of the STABs, while it's weak to the other 2.
Thus by my criteria Empoleon has very clearly the worst typing of the bunch.
(Since infernape has 2 resistances to make up for the 2 weaknesses and both can only hit 1 of the others for super-effective damage)
Instead of doing popularity, would’ve made more sense to do type matchups against gyms and e4 which is a lot less subjective
I'd be interested to see where these popularity rankings comes from. Are you using some sort of official list?
he got it from a video which I assume got it from poles
Truegreen7's Video On how the fanbase views each starter. did you pay attention??
@@dreamdevil666 don’t need to be condescending he could have been out of the room and didn’t hear that part or did you not pay attention in class and showing not to be a dick
@@dreamdevil666 Hey, yeah I saw that mentioned and have now had a look at truegreen7's video which is interesting. I was mostly just wondering if any other sources were used since it's still a pretty subjective source. I have now done my own additional research and there are some other really good statistics on popularity to be found in the results of the "2020 Pokemon of the Year". Which give lots of objective data on popularity by generation and also can be used to help determine overall unpopularity. I actually just posted a separate comment with those results broken down a little (because apparently I am that kind of nerd today 😅)
TrueGreen's Polls are notorious for not being announced, meaning only the people who check for them regularly get to vote in them & the reason he doesn't announce them is because he worries it will make people unsubscribe.
2:30 to SKIP the in-video ad.
I might say in Hoenn I'm pretty sure the Treecko line is the favorite one due to the anime or the mystery dungeon.
How can you rate them without including their abilities, movesets, competitive usage, etc. You can't objectively rate something while excluding half of what makes them up.
"I Hate Grass Type Starters - The Video"
I think Sceptile is quite liked
Imagine arguing a Pokemon is OBJECTIVELY the worst, and then factoring how POPULAR they are.
My brother, that is subjectivity at its finest.
Should've based on the viability in their respective games and maybe in competitive. Judging by popularity is basically just opinions and loses all objectivity like someone said.
I love how he said objectively when he isn't taking in to account how well they do in competitive pokemon, which is arguably the easiest way to determine which one is the worst
I think typing in general should have been replaced with effectiveness against that regions gym leaders that way grass didnt just lose every time
I am really disappointed the choice was based on popularity again and not on battle capability. Primarina has always been a staple for my Alola teams due to its sheer strength , typing , bulk , versatility and simple but gorgeous design and seeing it be dismissed and discarded is painful. The only hope was that I thought this was a battle strength based judgement but alas!
Yeah 100% agree. As Primarina is also my favourite starter in general.
It also kinda REALLY annoys me how he put Decidueye better in competitive than Primarina just because "lmao better hidden ability", when Primarina is ACTUALLY used both in 3v3-Singles and VGC Doubles, while Decidueye is... Like never lol.
@@VioletLunaChan absolutely with Liquid voice hyper voice + choice scarf/specs or even niche strats like round team up with accelgor , Primarina has been a solid choice in doubles and not to mention , In singles it's one of the best water starters to make a notable dent in its tier
I know I loved Primarina in my Ultra Alola Playthrough & it really isn't fair that the girlier Pokemon get cheated like that. Chikorita has a similar story with its wonderful pear design being dismissed for a bland mouse that is sometimes on fire.
@@bookmew1081 absolutely, Even my mother who isn't even into Pokemon loved chikorita. Not to belittle the others but according to my opinion if gamefreak played their cards right with the chikorita line , they could have been the most popular over a bland muscular croc and an even blander mouse on fire
It's ironic in the gen 5 portion. Serperior is often considered the 'weakest' of the 3 but was the only to see competitive use. Goes to show you higher stats and typing aren't the end all, move set plays a big part in how good a pokemon is.
@Pete White: The reason for this is because of the way people look at it based on in-game viability versus how good it is competitively. For the main game, it's usually considered to be the worst not just because it's a grass type, but primarily because it has low offensive stats and doesn't have much of a movepool that has good coverage options, either, which unfortunately kinda defeats the point of it being as fast as it is. But thanks to it's hidden ability, contrary, it's a completely different ballgame competitively, and is arguably the only reason why it's good to begin with given it's other qualities
In Gen 5, while there's plenty all three excel in, I think Serperior really is the worst option for one clear reason.
Emboar can overpower most enemies in B&W due to how seemingly everything you face is a lightweight, so heat crash them all. And don't drop arm thrust so that you can get through caves extra fast. Bonus points for being able to learn scold. Game is a cake walk if you pair it with Zoroark.
Samurot focuses on high critical rates. Even though it loses points to Emboar because of how frequently you fight pokemon with sturdy, whom cannot be KO'd in a single hit.
Serperior's shtick revolves around stat boosting. To the casual kid who doesn't see the value of stat boosting moves, of course Serperior's going to look weak. But even for someone like myself who is aware and will take advantage of this knows, it's faster to heat crash and arm thrust everything with Emboar. Stat Boosting moves always take time. Even though Serperior is a straight up menace when its stats are boosted.
Going off just base stat total is useless, as having both a high physical and special attack doesn't do much for them, especially when their base stat total is only a few off.
Typing by number of resists and weaknesses is also awful, Serperior is the only competitively viable of the Unova starters and is placed with tepig.
Pretty nice video and as much as I sorta agree with the final Pokémon, I’d personally say Megainium line is “objectively” the worst with hoops worst probably being barely better the Megainium line
"I'm gonna determine the objectively worst starter"
>uses popularity as a metric
>jumps at the opportunity to say "mmm grass bad"
I would really like to see a video that doesn’t factor popularity n look at it in a more competitive view. Like factoring in move pools to deal with both compensating it’s move weaknesses and also having moves with large coverage to types commonly used. And when factoring in its type, instead of simply looking at who covers the most resistances, look at who’s not gonna get double damage from most common competitive moves. Lastly, with stats, just because a mon has a larger base stat in general doesn’t mean it’s divided in an efficient way.
Ps, love the list, not writing this as an objection to how you put this together.
Why doesn’t hiphop respond to or heart comments? (This video just came out so maybe he just hasn’t looked yet)
@@LeonDeLlama i have noticed that too. Maybe if he did, he'd notice this annoying spam scammer that keeps popping up in the comments and stop my notifications from bringing them up every time I comment on one of his vids
@@Aka60thChip yeah idk
Felt this video was pretty shallow and didnt make alot of progress towards finding the objectively worse starter. Popularity as a category is inherently subjective. And typing/BST alone aren't very good ways of ranking viability. Was way too subjective most of the time, using terms like "I feel" or "In my personal opinion" when measuring instead or pulling up some credible sources of data. I feel better ways of measuring their viability would have been things such as matchups within their respective regions, stat distributions, movepools, abilities, etc. All valid ways of ranking these pokemon without even getting into competitive.
Judging whether or not something is good based on popularity is using a logical fallacy. The fallacy is called the bandwagon fallacy. Just because something is popular, doesn't make it true or good.
We used to be taught about this fallacy. My parents used to tell us "if your friends all jump of a cliff, does that mean it's a good idea?"
Should have taken the typing of gyms/E4 members for the generation the starters came from into consideration.
If one starter has a bunch of weaknesses and another strengths against the gym challenge, wouldn't one be a better pick than the other 🤷♀️
The categories should have been Base Stat totals, Main story gameplay viability, moveset coverage. You lose credibility in objectivity when you bring popularity into the mix. Typing should have been the first tiebreaker, then abilities.
Also if you don't want flack for your decisions, don't ask for our opinions in the comments right after. Not my intention to be rude. That's just objectively speaking
I think grass got the poop end of the stick in this cuz the typing alone isn't worth much if you're not looking at their move pools as well. Been watching enough solo challenge runs with hilariously bad grass types pulling off crazy stunts because of a highly adaptable range of moves they could use. I think Chespin winning the worst starter was probably the right choice but I think this video deserves another look considering move pools for the grass types at least, held items that can greatly make or break a Pokemon, how well they hold up in their home game playthroughs, and how they perform in the meta. Gonna go against the grain and say that I think design/aesthetic was a relevant category but probably shouldn't have played such a large role in their rankings.
This list isn’t accurate as many other factors aren’t counted for.
-abilities (only a few got judged on that)
-moveset
-competitive results
-how good they are in the games they’re in
Also I think the hisuian starters should’ve been included in some way.
I love how you brought up Truegreen7's video to back up your perception of popularity, but ignore how the very same video does state the Piplup line as the least popular 😂
Lol, that's a really bad list in so many aspects.
For example, just comparing the stat total is useless, having a higher stat total isn't useful if the repartition is trash or if the type, movepool and ability doesn't mesh well with the repartition. Also stats aren't all as "important" points in Sp.Atk are usually more valuable than in Atk.
And the popularity measure seems really half-assed.
As a fellow Chespin fan, I get it. :/
There are plenty of Pokémon that are definitely meant to be thrown a bone, underpowered starters or no.
You should have looked at their abilities and movepools if you were basing their strengths since it isnt fair to just judge them by their typings or base stats alone since you ranked wrong pokemon as the worst. And popularity rankings automatically just drop the ball on this ranking list
Like legit meganium should have been the worst since chesnaught is actually used defensively and its pretty good at what it does, while meganium struggles hard on its story playthrough and is even worse if its used competitively online, it has such a bad ability, movepool, and stat spread
With bulbasaur i beg to differ between still being very viable in competitive play and being super effective against the first 2 gyms definitely not the last in my opinion
Sad to see Venasaur and Sceptile in the list, they did by Grassy bois dirty. Thorw in a stealth Rock and see how your favourite fire starters dance on then.
I agree with Julio Hinkson. "Popularity" is rarely based on how good or bad something is objectively, and is purely subjective. With that as a category, the entire point of this became moot.
Furthermore, as others have pointed out, judging based on typing puts grass at an unfair disadvantage against the others.
In reality, there is one and only one way, to objectively determine which starters are the best and the worst, and that is by looking at how well they'd fair in a solo run in their own region based on the gyms, elite four, and champion. But, even that has problems, as some regions are set up in a way that puts more pressure on one type or another. Like Generation 1. Bulbasaur/Ivysaur/Venusaur actually has the easier time in Gen 1 against the gyms and elite four compared to say Charmander/Charmeleon/Charizard. This is due to the fact that only two gyms are super effective against it, while it is super effective in three gyms, and is resistant to the other three (unless normal attacks are used). Charizard is weak two two, resistant to 1, and super effective in 1. The other four are neutral gyms for it.
So, it is actually hard to do this objectively, but, impossible when you add in popularity, as popularity is based on subjective feelings or like or dislike.
Edit 1: In fact, due to how I have a habit of typing things out as I watch, I'm going to make a prediction before I finish this video. And that prediction is: A grass type will be the "objectively worst" starter. I will also go further and say that the grass starter will most likely be the "worst" starter in most of the generations in fact.
Now to finish the video and see if my predictions hold.
Edit 2: Oh joy, seems like my predictions are going to come true, as even HoopsandHipHop seems to see that becoming the case after Gen 2's "worst" starter choice.
Edit 3: Yeah, beginning to think the title is click bait as there is nothing objective about this beyond looking at base stats (which don't actually matter in this case as they are so close to each other) and the typing, but, typing is unfair due to how the three base types are set up individually.
Edit 4: From my understanding, Rowlet's hidden ability can be considered the better of the two, as it allows it to avoid certain types of hold items (sticky barb and rocky helmet for example), abilities (flame body and static for examples), and even defensive attacks (Baneful Bunker for example) as they all require the opponent to make direct contact with their users. Meanwhile, Primarina's hidden ability just means it turns Hyper Beam and other Normal type attacks into water type attacks. Which is less useful as Primarina has an excellent selection of water type attacks and can be detrimental if the target has a defensive ability against water type attacks (Water Absorb for example). Meanwhile, not making direct contact has no down sides. So, yeah, you did actually choose the overall better of the two abilities.
Edit 5: For those that don't remember, Sticky Barb deals damage to it's holder every round. And, if the opponent makes physical contact with the holder, they take damage, and if they are not holding an item, the Stick Barb transfers to them. Not a great item in reality, but, it's effects are basically negated by Long Reach, as Rowlet will not be making physical contact with any of it's attacks.
Edit 6: Before I watch the finals between the worse from each Gen, I want to look back at my predictions. I predicted that ultimately, a grass type will lose. I also predicted that most of the starters that are the "worst", will be grass types. I was right, with six grass types, one fire type, and one water type, in the finals, I was right about how grass would be unfairly singled out by the unfair system used.
Edit 7: HoopsandHipHop even admits that the popularity thing is subjective. That really means it should not have been used. For something to be objective, there can be no subjectivity involved.
Edit 8: Your defense is pointless for not getting flak is pointless. You choose bad categories for trying to make things "objective", even going so far as to include something that is 100% subjective and has no objectivity in it. Though, I do actually agree with poor Chespin being the worse. But, the reasons go further than you are thinking. And ultimately, my prediction from earlier was right. How not surprising. When you choose the categories you choose, it is VERY EASY to make such predictions.
Ultimately, I feel this video was a failure as a whole, poor choices for categories (others have explained them over all, but, I will explain why using base stat totals is bad) and including subjectivity ruined the entire point of this being "objective". For something to be objective, there has to be 0% subjectivity in it. And popularity, is 100% subjective.
As I stated, the categories were bad, and in fact, two of them were more or less biased against grass types as a whole, as others have explained.
But, I also stated that choosing base stat totals as a category is a bad move. Why? Well, because, ultimately, when base stats are so close to each other like that, they really don't show each other up. In other words, them being that close to each other does not give any of them a true advantage over the others. The ones with the highest BSTs do not actually have a true advantage over those with the lowest base stat totals (talking about the final evolutions of the starters here).
That said, what categories could have been used that would be objective and not subjective?
Let's explore some options and their pros and cons.
First: Abilities. And by abilities, I mean their hidden abilities of course. Objectively speaking, some abilities are simply better than others. Such as Contrary vs Reckless, Contrary is simply vastly better than Reckless. So, you could have compared their abilities to see which ones would actually be better. For example, let's look at Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise. Venusaur has Chlorophyll, Chariard has Solar Power, and Blastoise has Rain Dish. All three are weather based abilities. With two requiring the sun to be out and one for it to be raining. Rain Dish, while useful, heals for such a small amount, it really is not that good overall compared to the other two. Chlorophyll is a double-edged sword as is Solar Power. Chlorophyll is a double-edged sword because while it doubles Venusaur's speed (which, is important in Pokemon as you typically want to go before your opponents in battle for potential one shots or setting up hazards and/or stat boosts), it requires the weather to be sunny, which means that Fire typed attacks will hit harder, possibly making it easy for an opposing fire type to one shot Venusaur if Venusaur is unable to one shot the fire type opponent. Solar Power is a double-edged sword because, while it boosts Charizards alreadh high special attack by 1.5 times, it also causes Charizad to lose HP every turn while it is sunny. Combine that with Life Orb for some REALLY big hits. As you can see, the low healing from Rain Dish is easily outclassed by a massive speed boost or a massive damage boost. But, the one Con is that objectively speaking, how good or bad an ability actually is overall, can be considered to be subjective to some people. As it does fall in line with opinion to some degree, and opinion is always subjective. For example, it could be seen that Rain Dish is not that great to me on a subjective level simply because I don't think it heals enough each turn. But, in competitive battles, speed boosts and damage boosts are almost always seen as a better option over tiny healing amounts. So, yeahs, it can be seen as objective or subjective, by different people as there is no true way to measure how useful abilities are overall.
Second: Move Pool variety and coverage. Unlike Abilities, you can actually apply a more or less objective way of scoring each starters move pool. It's simple really, for each STAB attack the starter gets, the STAB attack scores 4 points. For every non-STAB attack that can cover a type that is strong against the starter, the move scores 3 points (example, Venusaur can learn Earthquake and Earth Power, both are good against Fire Types). For every coverage move that is not strong against a type that is strong against the Pokemon and is not normal type, 2 points (example, Charizard can learn Beat Up, which is effective against Psychic types and Ghost Types, neither which is strong against the Fire or Flying typing). And for every Normal typed damage dealing move, 1 point. You can even go further by assigning bonus points to moves that match the higher attack stat for each starter (example, Blastoise has a barely higher special attack, meaning that Hydro Pump would score 5 points while Aqua Tail would score 4 points). Splash and other moves that do literally nothing score 0 points. Utility moves all score 2 points (meaning moves that do not do direct damage, such as Toxic and Protect). The only two cons I can see here is that this would be time consuming and all starters have a different number of moves at their disposal, and some starters did not even make it to Gen 8, so, would be hard to judge this overall because of those reasons, but, would come up with an actual score. Though, obviously, this might come out as seen as biased in favor of Pokemon with huge move pools.
Third: How well each starter stacks up against the Gyms in their own Generation. If they are super effective against the gym, 2 points. If they are resistant against the gym, but not super effective, 1 point. If they are neutral, 0 points. If they are weak to that gym, -1 point. Only real issue I see here is the seemingly randomness of the gym types.
Fourth: How well each starter stacks up against the individual members of the Elite Four (if available). The real question is, do you do based on the individual Pokemon each Elite Four member has, or overall? As not all Elite Four members have only Pokemon of the type they use. (Lorelei has mostly ice types, except for Slowbro, which is not an ice type), for example). But, basically, regardless if you do it versus the individual Pokemon or the overall "Theme" of the Elite Four Member, you'd use the same score as you would on the Gyms.
Fifth: How well does each starter stack up against the Champion's team. This would have to be by an individual comparison as Champions typically don't have a theme.
Sixth: How well does each starter stacks up in ALL generation Gyms, Elite Four, and Champion (only should do this if you are doing all three categories from above). Obviously, if a starter shares a typing with other starters, they'd have the same results, so, can make things quicker for some starters).
Almost all of the above is purely objective, which would result in a more accurate OBJECTIVE result, instead of using categories that are biased largely against one type or another.
Objectively speaking, your video overall was not objective in how it was done, even though I do personally agree with the result. I also love the Chespin like you, but, even I can see it's flaws.
So what we learned from it is that gamefreak cant balance since decades. Grass should have been immune to fairy, since fairies are often linked to nature. Bug should be super effective instead of resisted and ice should be super effective and resisiting fairy
I like how Fairy is meant to balance Dragon, yet it ends up taking its place instead.
Putting my bias for chespin aside the inclusion of “popularity” an inherently subjective point and using typing as a criteria makes this as far from an objective list as it possibly could get, a better set of criteria would’ve been to look at how each fairs in its home region and its move pool as well as stat distribution as a tie breaker instead of hidden abilities, the fact this whole list could’ve been entirely grass outside of rowlett is proof of that I’d say
As much as i love chikorita, putting it in a game where the first 2 gyms are flying and bug, as well as having steel, ice and dragon gyms, and then a ice, poison, and dragon elite four members, just makes it not easy to use.
Edit: i forgot lorelei wasnt in gen 2
Colosseum was the best thing to happen for Bayleaf with it being the Speedrunner's Starter of Choice in that game. The Johto Elite 4 didn't have an ice master with Will being Psychic, Bruno being Fighting, Koga being Poison & Bug, Karen being Dark, & Lance being Dragon. Chikorita really was cheated in its native region, despite having such a wonderful design & incredible anime personality.
@@bookmew1081 i forgot lorelei wasnt in johto
I don't think the criteria here are very good -- there's a lot that's missed here.
For one, since mixed attackers are extremely rare post gen3 and not every stat is useful for every pokemon, simply using the BST isn't enough. Something like Typhlosion, a fast strong attacker, doesn't use its defenses nearly as much as something like Meganium who with its access to screens and better bulk is somehow expected to tank while being mono-grass.
For another, abilities are not taken into account at all except to break ties and not in any other spot that matters. Blaziken gets speed boost, meaning its base speed is almost irrelevant since if it can live even one turn it's going to outspeed nearly everything. Cinderace gets Libero which means it can effectively choose its typing, meaning it should never lose on that front.
While the number or resistances and weaknesses are taken into account, the commonality of the types being resisted is not. Zard, for example, might very well lose to Blastoise in typing in any generation between gen4 and gen7 since stealth rock RUINS it.
Alternate form, the variety of the movepool, and the options available to each mon are also avoided. Someone like Charizard with its two megas has way more options than someone like Typhlosion where you use eruption and hope for the best.
What I'm trying to say is, the competitive viability of these mons needed to be taken into account aside of to break ties.
The "popularity" criteria is also ill-defined. Since elements like BST, matchup, and movepool can affect popularity, a mon with more options in one area gets a boost here too. It's also worth noting that some mons are far more useful in-region than others. Any water starter in a game before gen7 is going to be a good user of the required Surf and Waterfall, for example, and Infernape is all but mandatory in Sinnoh where there are nearly no fire types.
The video doesn't take base forms into account for every generation either -- Sobble's constant crying beat out the other two easily when gen8 was announced and I would be stunned if that has changed since.
I don't even disagree with the conclusions drawn for the most part, but many steps were skipped and that's a shame.
I think in the type categoy you should have considered their coverage as well. Fighting is one of, if ot the best offensive typings, and I feel like there's no way that a fighting type starter could be the worst ever.
"Which starter is objectively the worst" *proceeds to have the most biased system of grading ever*
Typing and popularity shouldn't be there. I think move pool, ability and competitive viability would have been better category's
You forgot that Charizard is objectively the worst because it's an overhyped lizard that I can beat with a garden hose
Charizard, is actually unusable without G Max or megas because it dies to Stealth Rocks
This is why you summon before Stealth Rocks (the original purpose of those was to stop switching & weaken choice teams) if you still want to switch into Charizard later you need a Rapid Spinner.
Wait isn’t Sceptile the most popular Hoenn starter? During the Pokémon of the year event for 2020, it was more popular then Blaziken. Plus the fact it was Ash’s during the Hoenn anime, it had a big role as a Grovyle in Mystery Dungeon, and it was a playable character alongside Blaziken in Pokken Tournament.
I think the three categories should've been abilities, base stats, and type advantage/disadvantage against their gym leaders/in game bosses.
Using total stats not considering stats distribution...
Using types based on total number of weaknesses and not how common are those specific weaknessess in the game.
Not considering that an important part of the whole of a starter is filling gaps, so it should be considered, for example, that Arcanine is a great fire type in Gen 1, Lapras and Vaporeon are great water types, but Exeggutor is not as good as Venusaur, making Venusaur fill a possible type gap.
Not considering movesets, game progressions (tough early gyms and if you have a good counter to it before then other than a possible starter), competitive scenario, etc etc.
Overall the "objectively" part is purely "what I feel like is the best based on my preference". Which kinda defeats the purpose. I mean, there's nothing wrong in doing a personal favorites list, just be honest about it.
Being a fan of the Popplio line is hard...I love them no matter what anyone thinks, though. I love the Snivy and Scorbunny lines as well.
Me too.
My 2nd favorite starter is Chesnaught, feel you
It is hard being a popplio fan. But no matter what I will stand and defend the line as it is a very nice Pokémon, especially Primarina as it will remain my favorite Pokémon of all time. And yeah Snivy and Scorbunny’s lines are cool as well ^^
Popplio is an excellent starter though isn't it? Haters are just dumb for not liking the mermaid it becomes. What's worse is being a fan of Chikorita even though the entire region was created so that it would have a hard time.
I feel whatever stat and power rankings you build out of this design fail to see how they play in the actual game they come from. Gen 1 for instance has gyrados, moltres and arkanine which outpace blastoise and charizard in power while there is no base grass type in gen 1 that outpaces ivysore
"So in my personal opinion..."
Definition of OBJECTIVE: (of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
I think this man just hates grass types and wanted to tell us subtly, Grovyle is right up there in popularity with Blaziken and mudkip, but he acts like no one likes it.
I am Surprised that Pikachu and Eevee were not on the Kanto list. They are both Officially known as "Starter Pokemon". If you count the Let's Go games AND The Show!!
And pikachu is a starter in yellow
I think it's best that Pikachu and Eevee aren't on this list especially Pikachu he'll blow everyone on this list away it's not even a shocking resolution
Truegreen 7 did a poll a while ago and the most popular fully evolved starters are Charizard, Typhlosion, Sceptile, Torterra, Greninja, Decidueye and Cinderace.
Oh my goodness he looked at it and didn’t pay nearly enough attention wow.
Popularity shouldn't have been here as it's subjective and hard to back up. For example most of the polls I've seen on Reddit put the bulbasaur line above the Blastoise, and Sceptile above Blaziken. All depends which groups you're following. And writing off basically every grass types for having more weakneses and resists doesn't take into account the amazing learnsets. Venusaur is by the far the most popular starter used in competitive with the exception of Mega charizard Y for a short time.