As soon as you start your adventure in the world of Pokémon UNITE, you will be tasked with choosing one starter Pokémon for free. In contrast to the mainline series of the franchise, you are not given three options to choose from, but rather five. Very generous if I may say, since you the options you are provided with, are one Pokémon for each of the available roles of the game.
What is the best starter Pokémon to choose in Pokémon UNITE
In order to be able to pick any of the free options you have in front of you, you first need to know what each Pokémon does. Below, we are taking a look at each one individually:
Eldegoss
Supporter – Able to heal the party and keep everyone at top shape.
Snorlax
Defender – A frontline tank able to withstand a lot of punishment. Has a small amount of CC abilities as well.
Pikachu
Attacker – Ranged fighter with lots of big damage attacks and able to Paralyze foes.
Charizard
All-Rounder – Jack-of-all-trades who is good at pretty much everything, without excelling at anything.
Talonflame
Speedster – Huge mobility, great roamer/ jungler and able to score points easily.
With all of our Pokémon listed, the question still remains, which of these are the best starter to pick and begin your adventure. Of course, this is a totally subjective matter, but, we do have some clear winners if you just want to run with the strongest of the bunch. Those being two actually, as they are not just great at their respective fields, but arguably some of the strongest Pokémon in the game overall.
Pikachu and Talonflame are easily the best choices here, not only for beginners, but for everyone who just want to grab a strong Pokémon and start demolishing enemy teams. Based on gathered data from the beta, both Pikachu and Talonflame seem to be top tier picks and both of them are very strong attackers, and easy to use. Pikachu more than Talonflame, as its abilities are very simple and it does have that extra Paralyze ailment it can cause, making it the best pick overall, out of all starters. If you are experienced with the MOBA genre, Talonflame is great for flanking lanes and roaming the jungle. If that’s your cup of tea, Talonflame is more than suggested as your starter.
Eldegoss and Snorlax are the next best picks you can choose as your starter, one being a superb tank, although a bit slow, and Eldegoss very likely being the best Supporter right now, in Pokémon UNITE. You can’t go wrong with any of these choices too, but as they depend on helping your team, they do have more of a learning curve, and are of a lower tier than Pikachu and Talonflame.
Lastly, we have the fan-favorite Charizard. Unfortunately, while the All-Rounder is great for teaching beginners the basics, it is certainly lacking that ‘oomph’ that the rest of the roster has. Charizard is not a bad Pokémon by all means, but compared to the other available choices, it is by far the one that feels as something is missing. Things can change of course in the future, after some balance changes, but for the time being Charizard is the worst choice out of the five available starter Pokémon.
Pokémon UNITE is coming to Nintendo Switch on July 21, 2021 and to mobile devices in September 2021. For more related gameplay tips and info, feel free to check the rest of our guides right here.
