5th Gen 5th Gen Pokemon of the Week #7: Snivy

Snivy is a pure grass type Pokémon who is one of the main starter Pokémon you can get from Professor Juniper! This Pokémon usually shows a calm and collected personality, relying on it's speed in battle. It sort of resembles a small snake-like creature.

Moves via Level up:

--- Tackle
4 Leer
7 Vine Whip
10 Wrap
13 Growth
16 Leaf Tornado
19 Leech Seed
22 Mega Drain
25 Slam
28 Leaf Blade
31 Coil
34 Giga Drain
37 Wring Out
40 Gastro Acid
43 Leaf Storm

So for some discussion questions: What do you think of Snivy? Did you enjoy it as a starter grass type pokemon? Did you enjoy it's evolution line? What do you think were the advantages and disadvantages of using a Snivy and it's evolution line in battle? As always, feel free to share any thoughts!

I'm an Oshawott person mainly, but that's not to say I like the other two starters any more less than the otter. Snivy's design is mainly what I like about it, even if its stats aren't well up to my playstyle. A notable lack of movepool diversity and lacking offensive power are mainly what holds it back, but B2/W2 Move Tutors and finally gaining Contrary come the ORAS Unova starter events finally helped buff the grassy snake in quite a way.

So, it definitely has its positives, but also has negatives balancing it.

Hikamaru said:

I'm an Oshawott person mainly, but that's not to say I like the other two starters any more less than the otter. Snivy's design is mainly what I like about it, even if its stats aren't well up to my playstyle. A notable lack of movepool diversity and lacking offensive power are mainly what holds it back, but B2/W2 Move Tutors and finally gaining Contrary come the ORAS Unova starter events finally helped buff the grassy snake in quite a way.

So, it definitely has its positives, but also has negatives balancing it.

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Mmm, Grass types are pretty shaky in general, yeah. But, they do complement some nice team options though! For instance, The Snivy family can soak up water damage for pokemon like Semisage and Chandulre, while covering for the Snivy family's fire and ice weakness, etc.

I don't use Snivy that much personally, but yeah, I think Contrary is a great ability for it... have you used it with it's HA before? o:

I never got my hands on any HA starters, but I did have a Contrary Serperior experience during my Showdown! days. It was quite a destructive force.

Snivy was the first 5th gen starter I have ever picked, and I really enjoyed playing with it. I thought it also had a cool attitude in the anime, for a while. The attitude got old after a while, but I still think Snivy is a pretty cool Pokemon, as is Servine and Serperior.

Hikamaru said:

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Otamajakushi said:

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How would you guys say it stacks up against the other grass starters like Bulbasaur, Chikorita, etc? I think Contrary really steps it up as a class on it's own in that regard, but the problem is it has the lowest base stats out of all of them, I think.

Treecko can get Unburden I think, and Bulbasaur gets Chlorophyll, so I think Snivy will definitely miss out in the speed department. :x

Hmmm, if I had to rank the grass starters in order of my favorites, I'd have to go with:

Treecko> Snivy > Chespin > Bulbasaur > Turtwig > Chikorita



It's not that I dislike Bulbasaur, Turtwig, and Chikorita, but I guess I just don't prefer them. As far as its competitive stats go, I'm not really sure.

Otamajakushi said:

Hmmm, if I had to rank the grass starters in order of my favorites, I'd have to go with:

Treecko> Snivy > Chespin > Bulbasaur > Turtwig > Chikorita



It's not that I dislike Bulbasaur, Turtwig, and Chikorita, but I guess I just don't prefer them. As far as its competitive stats go, I'm not really sure.

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That's fair! I'd put it like:

Bulbasaur > Chikorita > Snivy > Treecko > Chespin > Turtwig

Just for my tastes, really. I think Snivy is good in like middle ground, but yeah.

I remembered when BW was announced, there was so much hype for Snivy (then called Smugleaf by many many fans) since it was the one who looked the best out of the three starters. Sadly, there were also many who thought Serperior was a waste of an evolution. But, it doesn't change the fact that Snivy's design is awesome and certainly a refreshing change from DP's designs on Pokemon.

It's simple and it works.

Ah Snivy... While I will always be annoyed that it wasn't Grass/Poison, Contrary Serperior is a force to be reckoned with. And as such it deserved respect. Infact, I'd go as far as too say it is (battle wise) the best of the Unova starters. However Its design really falls flat for me, Where did Servines arms go? did it just eat them or something? To be fair, Samurotts design also annoys me, being to far from its orignal design, but Oshawott was cute enough to get a pass from me. Snivy sadly isn't.

One thing about Snivy, and Oshawott too, that I found peculiar was that they didn't evolve into dual-type Pokemon. While this is fine, I kind of expected them to pick up another type later in their lines. It kind of reminded me of Gen 2.

Dragon said:

How would you guys say it stacks up against the other grass starters like Bulbasaur, Chikorita, etc? I think Contrary really steps it up as a class on it's own in that regard, but the problem is it has the lowest base stats out of all of them, I think.

Treecko can get Unburden I think, and Bulbasaur gets Chlorophyll, so I think Snivy will definitely miss out in the speed department. :x

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I feel like both those starters weren't used much, but then again most starters were never seen outside of lower tiers. Unburden does make Sceptile nigh impossible to outrun, but a switch out and it gets ruined. Venusaur had to rely on sun to be able to use Chlorophyll, and this generation was a huge weather war, and Water-types were pretty much too good to use. In the newest generation, both those starters now rely on Mega Evolution, making those abilities even less worth using.

Thankfully, Serperior did get some spotlight with the OR/AS event that made HA Unova starters legal, and that's why it ended up outclassing the other two. However, Emboar's HA is still good as well since it does learn some recoil moves. It was mainly Samurott who got the short end of the stick there.

Serperior's cool and very good competitively. With Contrary and STAB Leaf Storm it has the ability to cast snowball sweeps despite its low special attack and bad movepool.

you like dragons, do druddigon for #8

KorpiklaaniVodka said:

Serperior's cool and very good competitively. With Contrary and STAB Leaf Storm it has the ability to cast snowball sweeps despite its low special attack and bad movepool.

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Serperior can do a lot of different things. Contrary makes it able to spam Leaf Storm and boost its power even further with no drawbacks, and then if you're not using Contrary there's always a Coil set to utilise its physical moves like Leaf Blade, or you could use it as a Dual Screener to help your team sponge some hits. There's a lot you can do with the snake even with the shallow movepool.

Why Snivy is the best starter: High Speed, Defenses and Growth/Coil. Boost your stats, heal, then sweep the fuck out of everything.
You should probably evolve it first, though.

Hikamaru said:

There's a lot you can do with the snake even with the shallow movepool.

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I agree with this. While Serperior has nothing outside the classical Grass-type movesets, it has enough to warrant usage, especially when HA was released. If you think Serperior's shallow moveset is hindering it, you haven't battled a Contrary Serperior yet. All it needs is Leaf Storm.

I love Snivy so much! My favorite Unovan starter, my second favorite grass starter and third or fourth overall as favorite starter. It's design is cool, it's got decent competitive potential and snakes are cool! I would love a Snivy if I got it in the real life. I always choose Snivy in the fifth gen games.

TL;DR: Snivy is the best!

As someone who played with both Oshawott and Snivy; I really enjoyed my adventure with Snivy. It's a dependable pokemon! I was pleasantly surprised to find that the game itself wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it might be when I made my playthrough with the Grass Starter instead of a Water Starter. Early game did require some training, but it turned out to be a very reliable pokemon that I still play with to this day! <3

Snivy is a solid starter with a nice design and the little lizard impressively managed to solo Roxie's Gym in my Unova Grass Monotype.

However once he reached the Serperior Stage he fell behind Lilligant and Breloom in the team pecking order.

Contrary is a nice Hidden Ability but was inaccessible for me in Gen 5.

Starter order

Treecko
Turtwig
Bulbasaur
Chespin
Chikorita
Snivy

The above list is based on design on design and how much fun I have had when using them.

CharmedGardy said:

Snivy is a solid starter with a nice design and the little lizard impressively managed to solo Roxie's Gym in my Unova Grass Monotype.

However once he reached the Serperior Stage he fell behind Lilligant and Breloom in the team pecking order.

Contrary is a nice Hidden Ability but was inaccessible for me in Gen 5.

Starter order

Treecko
Turtwig
Bulbasaur
Chespin
Chikorita
Snivy

The above list is based on design on design and how much fun I have had when using them.

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I assume that's most to least favorite? That's pretty cool actually.

I felt kind of similar. I ran into a situation in Black were I was 20 levels under going into the E4 and I felt like Serperior was a bit on the weak side. At that point, I had to grind, a lot, and it was tedious but ended up being well worth it.