Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield have released officially today, so my next posts will be all about them. Since we were not revealed all that much about these games before they came out, I will have plenty of them, trying to make a new post every day. For now though, I will talk about the starters.
We’ve known the names of the starters for quite a while. The Grass starter is named Grookey, and it evolves into Thwackey at level 16, and at level 35, it evolves into Rillaboom. This line stays pure Grass type; the other starters stay pure types as well. This has not been the case since Johto, although Unova came close, with just Emboar not being a pure Fire type. Although there is not much else to say about this Pokemon, it’s important to note that all of the final evolved forms of the starters have a unique move. Rillaboom’s is called Drum Beating. It is a 80 base power move, and in addition to dealing Grass damage, it also lowers the opponent’s speed by one stage. Its hidden ability is Grassy Surge, which was an ability unique to Tapu Bulu. This sets up Grassy Terrain for 5 turns upon being switched in.
Scorbunny also evolves at level 16 into Raboot, and again at level 35 into Cinderace. Cinderace actually has two unique moves. The first one is called Pyro Ball, which can deal Fire damage and leave the opponent with a burn. The burn chance is 10%, and this move has a 120 base power. Unfortunately, it has a 90% base accuracy, which means you’ll miss about every 1 in 10 times. The other move is called Court Change, which swaps effects on the field. Its hidden ability is Libero, which is the exact same as the ability called Protean; it changes your typing to the move you last used.
Again, Sobble evolves at level 16 into Drizzile, and at level 35 into Intelleon. Intellon’s unique move is called Snipe Shot. It doesn’t have a secondary effect, but it ignores abilities and moves that draw in moves. This means it would ignore abilities like Storm Drain and moves like Follow Me. It has a 80 base power and is Water type. Its hidden ability is Sniper. Normally, critical hits deal 1.5 times as much damage as it would had it not been a critical hit (ignoring stat changes), but Sniper raises that bonus to 2 times as much damage.
Who’s your favorite starter for these games?
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