Pokémon Scarlet & Violet: Which starter to pick?

JUST like in every Pokémon game, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet start your journey by choosing your partner.

Grass-, Fire-, and Water-type starters are still the pick of the day, but it can be difficult to choose between them.


Pokémon Scarlet & Violet: Which starter to pick?
Lechonk can be found early on in your journey.

We’ll be discussing the strengths and weaknesses of each of the three starter ‘mons to help you make this decision.

Here’s the lowdown on all three starters in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.

Spoiler Warning: We will be discussing final evolution types, as well as gym leader types here, so if you don’t want to know stop reading.

Sprigatito – The Grass-type starter

The gyms with the lowest level Pokémon are the Bug-, and Grass-type gyms which Sprigatito will struggle with at first.

If you pick weed cat, you’ll definitely need some backups to progress through the early game.

However, in the late game Sprigatito’s Grass/Dark-typing will help you clean up the stronger Ghost-, and Psychic-type gyms.

However, this dual typing is one of the worst in the games, with a 4x weakness and six 2x weaknesses, kitty might be in danger.

Fuecoco – The Fire-type starter

Fire is the most useful typing at the start of the game because of the above-mentioned gym leaders.

However, it will struggle in the mid-game with more Electric- and Water-types incoming.

Despite this, the final evolution is a Fire/Ghost-type which is both good in the end game and excellent overall.

If you decide to breed and manage to hatch the hidden ability Unaware, you will also get a huge buff as your croc ignores others’ buffs.

Quaxly – The Water-type starter

Despite his adorable appearance Quaxly is possibly the worst choice in terms of type matchups.

He doesn’t get the advantage anywhere in the game, and his final evolutions’ Water/Fighting type only really serves to make it weaker.

It’s weak to Electric-, Grass-, Flying-, Psychic-, and Fairy-types, all of which are common.

However, its hidden ability Moxie is extremely powerful if you get a hold of it, boosting attack every time you get a KO.

Written by Ryan Woodrow and Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.