Since the early days of Pokémania, the first Generation of games set out one of the ground rules: your first Pokémon will be a Fire-, Water- or Grass-type, buddy, whether you want it to be or not. Two decades later, that’s still very much the case.
This has always been a choice that requires a lot of thought, because there’s a lot more at stake than you might think. Your run through the main game can be much easier or harder, depending on your chosen starter. To illustrate this, let’s take a look at every Fire-type starter and rank then from easiest to hardest to raise.
8 Scorbunny
As you’ll surely know, the latest addition to the Fire starter stable is none other than Pokémon Sword & Shield’s Scorbunny. In terms of ease of use, this energetic little soul definitely ranks the highest for us.
The truth is, Scorbunny is a simple creature with simple tastes. Its only goal in life is to evolve into Cinderace, learn Pyro Ball and then spam it mercilessly until everyone and everything is reduced to a charred heap of ashes and broken dreams. Cinderace is a super speedy Pokémon (though not quite as much so as its counterpart Inteleon), which allows it to bypass its meager defenses and take out its foe first. It doesn’t want to take hits, granted, but it often won’t have to. Dynamax Cinderace (and soon Gigantamax Cinderace) is the answer to most problems you’ll face in Sword & Shield, even if it is sorely lacking in coverage without breeding.
7 Torchic
You’ll probably start to see a pattern forming here soon: Fire-type starters tend to be very offensively based, sometimes straight-up glass cannons. The Torchic line certainly follows that trend, with great mixed power and access to some very strong STAB moves.
On your first playthrough, you might not have access to its secret weapon, Speed Boost. That’s barely an issue, though, because this evolution line can plow through most main game opponents with its raw strength. It does lack a little in terms of learnset until it evolves, though.
6 Chimchar
There are a lot of parallels to be drawn between Chimchar and Torchic. Both have a lot of mixed power on both ends of the spectrum (in their fully-evolved forms, naturally), but are also very frail in return.
Chimchar also struggles in terms of its learnset, but once it evolves into Monferno and takes up its secondary Fighting typing, it becomes a real powerhouse. Quite early in the game, Close Combat will be available, and this humble little monkey will really be tearing things up. Competitive-wise, it has a lot of utility as well, making it a solid teammate there too.
5 Fennekin
Right from the very beginning of your Gen VI adventure, you probably had an inkling that Fennekin would be a speedy, tricky starter. Froakie would later prove to have that more than covered too, but the Fire/Psychic Delphox also had both traits in spades.
It learns a lot of strong moves of both types naturally, but there’ll be quite a wait for them. Additionally, the Psychic typing doesn’t come into play until the final evolution. Nonetheless, the Fennekin line offers a solid speedy sweeper, with a decent amount of support potential too. It’ll just take a little longer to reach its potential.
4 Litten
If you hadn’t seen Litten’s final evolution ahead of time, Incineroar probably came as one of the biggest curveballs in the history of starter Pokémon. In fact, it’s the only one ever to have one of its base stats lower than its pre-evolved forms: it’s slightly slower than Litten and 30 base points slower than Torracat!
We’ve put Litten in the middle slot because it’s quite tough to judge in that way. Incineroar is a strong physical attacker that will serve you well, but the whole Fire/Dark heel wrestler thing seemed to come out of nowhere and really affected its stats.
3 Tepig
The Tepig line has some major strong points, there’s no denying. As it’s trained, it gains access to some moves with fanastic base power, such as Flare Blitz and the devastating Head Smash. It has the strength to make use of them, too, with Emboar’s impressive base 123 Attack.
The problem, again, is that it’s a long time before it learns these moves, leaving it with a questionable moveset (outside of TMs). It’s also slow and has very low Defense and Special Defense, which isn’t really compensated for by its high HP. If your starter is slow, they’re going to be vulnerable to a lot.
2 Cyndaquil
Cyndaquil is one of few Fire-type starters to keep its pure Fire typing through both evolutions. The lack of an additional typing means a lack of additional weaknesses, but also of resistances. Having only one STAB is a real flaw too.
Whenever you see Typhlosion in competitive battles (which is almost never), you can bet that it’ll probably be firing off Choice Scarf Eruptions. That’s really its niche, as there’s not a whole lot else it can do. This also holds true for main game runs, in which its non-existent coverage will constantly hold it back.
1 Charmander
That’s right, friends. The final Fire-type starter we’re going to take a look at is none other than Gen I’s beloved Charmander. This thing has been a fan-favorite for over two decades, but there’s no doubt that it could make the early stages of an adventure through Kanto a good deal tougher.
It learned Ember quite late, and even then, it was of slim to zero use in early gym battles. Did Brock care about your Embers back in 1996? You’re darn right he didn’t. How about Misty? Nope. Of course, the whole point is to make a well-rounded team, but your starter is a key component of it and Charmander struggled to pull its weight early on. In a competitive sense, Charizard has long been held back by the ubiquitous Stealth Rock, which is absolutely not a good time at all for a Fire/Flying Pokémon. Mega Evolutions and Dynamax/Gigantamax forms aside, it’s struggled to perform for some time now.
NEXT: Pokémon: 10 Amazing Pieces Of Charizard Fan Art
