Starter inequality in RSE?

[judgeyrocks]

Um hey first thread so hopefully everything is right

but anyway... have you noticed with RSE that with the torchic line that it has a weakness to most of the gyms in the hoenn region

i mean:
1st gym is Rock both grass and water have advantage but fire doesnt
2nd (fighting) all equal
3rd (electric) marshtomp has immunity
4th (fire) marshtomp again with advantage
5th (normal) only gym where torchic line has advantage
6th (flying) all at a disavantage
7th (psychic) blaziken is now screwed
8th (water) Blasziken is now even more screwed
and the champion wallace is also a water type

5 gyms where torchic line is at a type disadvantage and only 1 advantage
treecko line has only 2 disadvantages and 3 advantages
mudkip line has only one direct disadvantage and(if you evolve to marshtomp before 3rd gym) has 3 advantages

to me just feels like poor little torchic ain't getting too much love in game :L

[Bolt the Cat]

That's nothing new, they typically design the gym (especially the early gyms), so that your choice of starter is an inherent difficulty setting. They've done the same thing since the beginning of the series. For instance, in RBY Bulbasaur will give you the best advantage for the first two gyms since it's super effective against Rock and Water, Squirtle will give you an advantage against Brock but not Misty, and Charmander is weak to both.

[Jacobthepokemonfreak]

What about team aqua/magma?
They have poochyena and carvahna galore! both of which are dark type.
Blazekien is almost built to take down both teams.

If you have a Combusken by the first gym you have an advantage as well.

[Cutty]

You can always use wild pokemon to help your Torchic.

[Champion Cynthia108]

What about team aqua/magma?
They have poochyena and carvahna galore! both of which are dark type.
Blazekien is almost built to take down both teams.

If you have a Combusken by the first gym you have an advantage as well.

^This

I ALWAYS evolve Torchic before the first Gym, and I make sure Combusken knows Peck for Brawly

[Dragon trainer]

Plus on the electric gym Combusken has a type as magnemite are part steel and double kick and the fire attacks make it pretty easy to battle Wattson.

I feel the pain 'cause I love the little Torchic as well.

[Agonist]

I honestly haven't ever had a problem soloing the game with just Blaziken, although that could've partially been due to how overlevelled it was (Lv. 78 by the time I was battling Wallace). Useful hint - teach it Bulk Up. When you're battling weak stuff like Juan's Luvdisc, or Winona's Swablu, it's very easy to set up multiple Bulk Ups.

[Mystical Jackal]

You can cover Torchic's disadvantage with a new ally, that's why trainers are allowed to walk with six Pokémons at a time.

And Nintendo didn't intend to harm Torchic while designing the gyms, this is pretty much a coincidence.

Also, Team Magma and Aqua has lots of Poochyena, then Torchic line will be in advantage against them.

[Cometstarlight]

The same could be said for Chikorita in the Johto region, but I don't see many people complaining about that. Me? I like Chikorita. It's cute and provides a challenge

[Arlo]

That's nothing new, they typically design the gym (especially the early gyms), so that your choice of starter is an inherent difficulty setting. They've done the same thing since the beginning of the series. For instance, in RBY Bulbasaur will give you the best advantage for the first two gyms since it's super effective against Rock and Water, Squirtle will give you an advantage against Brock but not Misty, and Charmander is weak to both.

This pretty much sums it up. The OP is right - Torchic is at a bit of a disadvantage - but that seems to be deliberate. I actually found gen 5 to be sort of weird and disconcerting, since it's set up so that no type has a starting advantage or disadvantage, by making the first gym leader whichever type your starter is weak to. After all this time, I just sort of automatically expect that the Grass starter has the easiest time with the early gyms, while the Fire starter has the hardest, and the Water is somewhere between the two, just because that's the way it had always been.

It's never really mattered all that much to me anyway, since I've always treated a starter as just that - a STARTER. It's not necessarily the pokemon I'm going to depend on the most - it's just the one I started out with. Pretty much the first thing I do is start looking for other pokemon to fill in the gaps, and more than once I've dropped the starter from my team entirely by the time I get to the E4.

[Mystical Jackal]

As the fire starter is usually the most favorite, they probably do that to force players to pick up the grass and water starter.

[Bulba the Great!]

Since the 2nd Gen, the fire starter has never TRULY been at a disadvantage. That's the whole reason they're been part fighting for the past three gens. Although Emboar really didn't need it.

[Ciccone]

Torchic was my first Starter Pokemon in Generation 3 and I also struggled a bit against some of the Gym Leaders, but that's mainly due to Torchic/Combusken/Blaziken being my main Pokemon while my other Pokemon were quite under-leveled. I had an easy time against Roxanne, but Brawly was a challenge for me. Wattson, Flannery and Norman were pretty easy to beat, but Winona and Liza & Tate were a nightmare. I don't even remember how I beat them; I just remember using a lot of healing items. Wallace wasn't much of a challenge for me, but that's because I used my newly-caught Kyogre's Drizzle/Thunder combo against his Pokemon. Strangely enough, I had an easier time against the Elite Four with Torchic's evolutionary line than I did against most Gym Leaders.

[Bolt the Cat]

Strangely enough, I had an easier time against the Elite Four with Torchic's evolutionary line than I did against most Gym Leaders.

That's not strange at all since Blaziken has a type advantage against Sidney, Glacia, and Steven.

[Thomas Elliot]

Type advantage/disadvantage is nothing new, it has always been an easy way for GF to set a certain level of difficulty in the game without directly having you select would you like to play on Easy, Normal or Hard.
Although I do wish that Fire/Fighting combination had started and ended with this Gen.
It's because of that constant combination that I have been willing to forgo my dislike of the way the Pokemon looks in order to avoid choosing another Fire/Fighting type in the subsequent Gens.

[Emeraldfan]

If one only looks at the gyms one encounters then you would, indeed, be inclined to think that the Torchic evolutionairy line is, in some way, subordinate to the Treecko and Mudkip lines.
However, I find that picking Torchic is the best choice. That is for the simple reason that Blaziken is one of the few good Fire types you can find in R/S/E. There aren't a lot of Fire types, and then still, a lot of them lack a movepool outside of Flamethrower/Fire Blast/Overheat or lack the stats to back up their movepool. One can easily acquire great Water types (e.g. Starmie) or decent Grass types (Ludicolo, possibly Shiftry, Vileplume). But there aren't a whole lot of fire types.

[the3rdH0kage]

Blaziken may have had a disadvantage, but that helped make the game fun (I have beaten RSE ssssssssoooooooo many times) I normally choose Torchic as my stater because it is my personal favorite of the 3. But anyway he is one of the best fire type you can get in the game (as stated by the above poster). You can get things to help cover his weaknesses against Psychic and Flying weaknesses. Or Blaziken has a couple move he can learn through breeding and other means to cover those (one of his egg moves is Rock Slide). But all 3 starters are awesome in my opinion. if there are any typos I'm up really late because of new years and I'm kinda tired. :3

[Dragontail]

There is no such thing as inequality. Blaziken and Swampert may beat Sceptile in several things, but Sceptile can have even better functions. Remember that it's the only one that can land a supereffective hit on Water and Ground types.

[dragonskull]

Your starter shouldn't be the only pokémon on your team :-) In my current play through platinum my torterra is evenly the least used pokémon on my team, however I tend to train them all well anyway. (All 6 pokémon are at level 55 with one being 57 evenly after the 8th gym)

[ansem the wise]

That's nothing new, they typically design the gym (especially the early gyms), so that your choice of starter is an inherent difficulty setting. They've done the same thing since the beginning of the series. For instance, in RBY Bulbasaur will give you the best advantage for the first two gyms since it's super effective against Rock and Water, Squirtle will give you an advantage against Brock but not Misty, and Charmander is weak to both.

this is what i was thinking.
the starters roughly gauge the difficulty of your journey, and if you want an easier playthrough, then pick the one that sets it to "easy", plain and simple.