5th Gen Anyone else find the starters disappointing before they got HA?

I felt like the Unova starters were pretty disappointing stat-wise and I haven't felt that way since the Johto starters. At least before they got their Hidden Abilities of course.

Like Serperior was a fast defensive pokemon, okay great. His movepool was limited. Emboar hit like a truck but he's meant to be beefy with a typing that isn't supposed to be defensive. Samurott was painfully average stat-wise and his movepool was limited as well.

Their designs are cool but in terms of battling and what moves to give them (besides Emboar), there wasn't really much to offer back when we all played Black & White for the first time.

Crystal Berry said:

I never really thought about it much because almost every starter had a pretty underwhelming fully evolved form prior to this generation. Some people probably forget that Charizard was absolutely terrible before it got its mega evolutions, and most starters were honestly not much better with the exception of a few such as Infernape, Swampert, and Blaziken. Mega Evolutions and Hidden Abilities / DW Abilities really improved a lot of the starters.

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*Hides you from Genwunners for bringing up their incomparable Fire God!*

I agree the designs are great, yet most starters aren't that strong as Crystal Berry says. The only thing that makes them special are their status as starters. But yeah, any starters should be strong regardless the region of origin and typing, as they represent that region (and generation particularly if the generation's new).

I believe they are trying to experiment with Emboar, as most Fire-types are known to be all out attackers/glass cannons. Emboar had the potential to be a tank, but as the OP says its typing limited its great potential.

I think Serperior is primarily for annoying the opponents, while her Hidden Ability Contrary improves her offensive capability.

I'll wait for Nichole to answer about Samurott. As much as I love its epic design, I'm lose for words at this guy. He couldn't even learn Earthquake to protect itself and its Hidden Ability... Ugh.

I find it sad when people call these starters "disappointing" because the designs are at least great, but as we know thanks to Crystal pretty much every starter in existence sucks without their hidden abilities, except for maybe Delphox since its HA steals items and competitive players usually always stick held items on their Pokemon so that's one rare exception where the standard ability is better than the hidden ability.

Sun brought up the points about Serperior and Emboar, but as for Samurott it's a bit of a mixed bag because Shell Armor only blocks critical hits, although looking at it Smogon competitive sets it appears Torrent is preferred so it is another rare case of a starter (alongside Delphox) whose standard ability outclasses the hidden ability.

I was pretty disappointed when I first started doing competitive battling and Serperior wasn't all that viable. I thought for sure I was going to be the one to make it work, but it just never did. You have no idea how happy I am that I can now stick Serperior on an OU team and have it wreck, haha.

As for the other starters, I think the others above me have stated it better than I can. Gamefreak doesn't really care all that much about the competitive metagame, just as long as the starters are decent in-game. So many of the starters have to rely on their hidden ability for the extra power to make them viable. Blaziken and Greninja are the most notable examples. In fact, I don't think I can recall any starter that was in OU without its hidden ability besides Infernape.

I didn't use all of the starters, the only one I used was Oshawott and didn't fully evolve it. I can't explain why but I didn't like the design of its final form. Thought the grass snake does have a good design.

As much as I love 5th Gen, Unova's batch of starters are easily my least favorite of all of them, both aesthetically (this word is both a ***** to pronounce and spell) and in battle. They just don't really click with me for some reason.

Serperior's alright though, snakes are kinda cool and now it's a least viable competitively thanks to Contrary you just have to choose which of Talonflame, Heatran, or Scizor+Ferrothorn is going to **** it

All starters have it's pros and cons

Serperior have great defense and speed, but it's lacking on offensive power like how Meganium have good defense, bulky but slow despite the limited movepool it can give it a boost with coil which makes hitting enemy harder with leaf blade and can absorb physical attacker as well improve accuracy. Now, I'm not disappointed when it got Contrary because it could make leaf storm more deadly and fast sweeper on OU group with viable movepool

Emboar is bulky and strong offense, it's slow however. It can punish water, ground, flying and psychic pretty well because it can learn few coverage moves like Wild Charge for Flying and water, Solar Beam/Grass Knot against Water and Ground and finally Assurance against Psychic and Ghost-type. So it's not that bad because it have plenty of coverage options to choose from.

So to summarize all starter have their weakness/strength.

As the above poster said, everything has their flaws. And yes, that does include the starters because not everything in Pokemon can be perfect.

emboar: he was semi-usable even before getting his HA (on a troll team but was owning everything left and right in BW2/XY), being very hard to switch into due to his high 123 base attack, moves such as flare blitz and superpower, wild charge to get past bulky water-types and head smash to let him break ninetales and volcarona. he was extremely hard to use, but found his place on very, very select teams as a usable wallbreaker. the fact that he was able to go mixed also made him better than darmanitan imo (in XY), as he can save his life and spam fire blast and grass knot to dismantle stall cores. also, he has slightly more defensive prowess, as he isn't weak to SR and has better overall bulk (110/65/65 vs 105/55/55) which means he can take a hit if he needs to.

once he got his HA, he finally had a reason to be used on serious teams, as his flare blitz packs an extreme amount of power. the fact that he got sucker punch to smack psychics is also very much appreciated.

serperior: definitely the one that got insanely better with its HA. unlike emboar (which COULD be used on some teams if you feel like it), serp had no reason to be used at all, it was completely outclassed. it was meant to be used as a support pokemon in the lower tiers, and it did its job decently due to its decent bulk and excellent 113 speed. once it got contrary, people have realized this thing is good. spamming STAB leaf storm until hell freezes over, decent coverage in dragon pulse and a HP of choice (rock or fire) plus a move such as sub or glare or even giga drain makes this thing a terror against balance. though if you ask me, it's also a bit overrated. there are a few very hard stops to it, and people try to use it to clean at early-game when mons such as heatran or talonflame are still available.

samurott: this thing really should get shell smash one day. its HA is almost useless, it's meant for stuff like calm mind mega slowbro (and even that thing could have kept regenerator). it really should have been at least semiviable. screw you GF

As Korpiklaani said, both Serperior and Emboar had decent competitive use even before their hidden abilities became available. The former had good defensive capabilities and the movepool to compliment it while being in a fast speed tier also made not much able to stop it before it annoyed the opponent.

Emboar on the other hand, has strong offensive power and a diverse enough movepool to give it decent type coverage, and even though its high Attack was its selling point, its Special Attack was not too bad either, allowing it to run mixed movesets if needed. Oh, and did we mention it learns Scald too?

But as he correctly stated, Samurott was the one who got screwed up in the hidden ability department as far as the trio was concerned. There's nothing it gets that can easily take advantage of Shell Armor, and it's not a great ability in competitive play in general... unless if you're Mega Slowbro which sadly he isn't. Having a cool design was really the samurai otter's only selling point.

First pass through White version back in the day, I was thoroughly upset with my Serperior once I engaged the E4.

I haven't really looked at him again since :(

Yes, definitely yes. The Unova starters are the worst starters as far as battling goes. They have shallow movepools, disappointing stats, etc. Serperior got the best hidden ability, Contrary with access to Leaf Storm, and Samurott and Emboar definitely improved with their HAs too.

I honestly agree. I really found the gen 5 starters to be quite 'meh' compared to everyone else, even though that gen is one of my fav gens for mons.

I picked Samurott first. He was really tough to train in the beginning, anything could bring down his HP to red in a few shots. As soon as he got razor shell and evolved, he became much better.... Only to lag again at the 3rd gym. As a result I had to overlevel him so he could be somewhat useful. Soon I reached Samurott stage so he got another boost in usability, but again, became worthless after the ground gym so I boxed him. This is pretty much the first and only time I have ever boxed a starter in regular play. I geuss the main problem with Samu is that his level up movepool just isn't great. First off, water gun? That's cool, better than bubble. Wait, what's that? You mean the next attacking move is ANOTHER water attack? Yeah, there is nearly no diversity. Fury attack? A 20 BP move that requires time and luck to work. Revenge? Hey, this is better than the above, but it comes too late, to the point where a non-stab 60 power move is generally sucky, even for simple coverage. And that's all, everything else is Water, Normal, Status. I think it's TM pool is better somehow, but still. Not saying he's completely useless, he may have his pros, but in my experience, it's not as strong as the other water starters, so I can still see how people can have success with them. It's a shame, because Dewott is one of the cooler looking middle forms and I had a lot of potential in the line when I saw them get revealed.

The other starter from this gen I used is Emboar. Thankfully, he was much better, in a way actually usable. But I guess what brings it down: it's typing. It only gets arm thrust(a multi hit move with a measly 10BP, but thankfully there is stab) and I didn't know it gets hammer arm via heart scale until a few years after finishing the game. It also gives it more weaknesses, coupled with the fact it's not too fast. Of course, I found him more worth training than Samu.

I have yet to use a Serperior. I have a Servine in a run, so I have high hopes he will change the way I think of the Gen 5 starters as a while.

Hikari Takahashi said:

Yes, definitely yes. The Unova starters are the worst starters as far as battling goes. They have shallow movepools, disappointing stats, etc. Serperior got the best hidden ability, Contrary with access to Leaf Storm, and Samurott and Emboar definitely improved with their HAs too.

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The problem is, Samurott is the one who got the short end of the stick in regards to Hidden Abilities. Shell Armor really does nothing beneficial for it, and it's noticed easily because its best sets on Smogon recommend Torrent as the preferred ability. In fact, speaking of starters whose regular ability outclasses the hidden ability, the Kalos trio has one in Delphox, whose HA makes it steal items when it uses an attack and pretty much everything in competitive holds an item anyway to the point it's useless.

Both Serperior and Emboar got better with their HAs, but not Samurott.

Yes, I was really disappointed with this batch. The HAs help somewhat, especially Serperior, but I still don't really prefer them to, say, the Hoenn starters.

i never used emboar so i can't comment, but i def felt like samurott was very average and serperior was unusable for me. it just never hit hard enough and i soon tossed for another pokemon

I wasn't a huge fan of them per say, I like Samurott some, design wise and Serperior to an extent, but I hated Emboar with a passion and I felt that they all were a bit lacking, especially in hindsight seeing how effective Greninja, Chesnaught, Delphox were, etc.

I wasn't too thrilled with the Unova starters at first. It's when you compare them to past starters, they felt a bit weird. Serperior didn't have much going on for it besides excellent speed and good defence stats. Emboar would slowly be replaced by Darmanitan, despite the latter being a glass cannon. Samurott could either be an excellent attacker or special attacker.

Since their HAs were released, I definitely think they've improved. Serperior now becomes a great Leaf Storm spammer. Emboar now getting Sucker Punch gives it priority to abuse with Wild Charge and Flare Blitz with Reckless. Shell Armour isn't anywhere as good as Torrent, but a no critical hits can come in handy if you're playing through the main game with a Samurott on your team.

I wasn't too thrilled with the Unova starters at first. It's when you compare them to past starters, they felt a bit weird. Serperior didn't have much going on for it besides excellent speed and good defence stats. Emboar would slowly be replaced by Darmanitan, despite the latter being a glass cannon. Samurott could either be an excellent attacker or special attacker.

Since their HAs were released, I definitely think they've improved. Serperior now becomes a great Leaf Storm spammer. Emboar now getting Sucker Punch gives it priority to abuse with Wild Charge and Flare Blitz with Reckless. Shell Armour isn't anywhere as good as Torrent, but a no critical hits can come in handy if you're playing through the main game with a Samurott on your team.