Pokemon Legends Z-A: Which Starter Should You Choose

If you are wondering which starter to choose in Pokemon Legends Z-A, this article will help you decide with detailed overview of each option.

Pokemon Legends Z-A: Which Starter Should You Choose.
Choosing the best starter is a tough endeavor (Image via TPC)

Pokemon Legends Z-A takes you back to Lumiose City, and this time your starter choices are spread over Pokemon from different generations. You get to choose from Tepig, Chikorita, and Totodile, giving you the option to choose from one of the three major types. Moreover, there are multiple leaks suggesting their final forms also have Mega Evolutions. As such, you might wonder which is the best starter Pokemon that you should actually choose.

Tepig might be the best starter to choose in Pokemon Legends Z-A, and this is considering its type-effectiveness and stats. Starter choices are often very personal decisions, and various factors affect this. Personal favoritism is a very big factor for starter choice, since endgame teams often do not have your starters at all.

As such, there is no correct answer to which one you should choose, but if you want to make an educated choice based on stats and types, this article will explain everything in details.

Which Is The Best Starter in Pokemon Legends Z-A

Tepig is the best starter in Pokemon Legends Z-A based on type-effectiveness and overall statistics. To justify this choice, let us look at the base stats and type effectiveness of all the three starter Pokemon:

Totodile as a Starter in Pokemon Legends Z-A

Totodile as a Starter in Pokemon Choice Legends Z-A.
Water-type Totodile can be a decent choice as a starter (Image via TPC)

Totodile has the following base stats and type effectiveness:

  • HP: 60
  • Attack: 65
  • Defense: 64
  • Sp. Attack: 44
  • Sp. Defense: 48
  • Speed: 43
  • Weaknesses: Electric, Grass
  • Resistances: Fire, Water, Ice, Steel
  • Effective against: Fire, Ground, Rock

Totodille is a decent starter choice in Pokemon Legends Z-A with high base stats for HP, Attack, and Defense. During the early game stages, it can work well as a physical attacker, but it falls off because of its type-effectiveness. Totodile is weak to Grass- and Electric-types, which are usually common during the early-game stages in most titles. If you face any of these types in the Wild Zones, Battle Zones, or ZA Royale Arena, you might be susceptible to an early faint.

If we take its final evolution, Feraligatr into account, the situation does not change a lot. The stats increase, but the spread is the same, and so are all the type-effectiveness. A monotype final evolution is not the strongest, and other options will easily outdo it. That said, Totodile is definitely the second best starter in Pokemon Legends Z-A if you are looking purely from a stats and type-based perspective.

Chikorita as a Starter in Pokemon Legends Z-A

Chikorita as a Starter in Pokemon Choice Legends Z-A.
Chikorita is defense-focused as a starter (Image via TPC)

Here are the stats and type-effectiveness of Chikorita:

  • HP: 45
  • Attack: 49
  • Defense: 65
  • Sp. Attack: 49
  • Sp. Defense: 65
  • Speed: 45
  • Weaknesses: Fire, Ice, Poison, Flying, Bug
  • Resistances: Water, Electric, Ground, Grass
  • Effective against: Water, Ground, Rock

Chikorita is defense-focused as a starter in Pokemon Legends Z-A. It has high stats for both Physical and Special Defense, which enables it to tank decent damage. This can be very useful in the early-game stage of Legends Z-A where you will not have access to items that boost your stats further. That said, Chikorita falls off massively owing to its type-effectiveness.

The Grass-type Chikorita takes super-effective damage from four types, which can be quite the pain to deal with. Moreover, it has low attack stats, which makes it useful only against the particular types that are weak against it. In effect, you have to build a team entirely focused around Chikorita, which might be too much of an investment during the wee hours of Pokemon Legends Z-A. For its final form Meganium, the situation remains the same other than the stat increases.

Tepig as a Starter in Pokemon Legends Z-A

Tepig as a Starter in Pokemon Choice Legends Z-A.
The Fire-type Tepig might be the best starter to choose (Image via TPC)

Tepig has the following stats and type-effectiveness in Pokemon Legends Z-A:

  • HP: 65
  • Attack: 63
  • Defense: 45
  • Sp. Attack: 45
  • Sp. Defense: 45
  • Speed: 45
  • Weaknesses: Water, Ground, Rock
  • Resistances: Fire, Grass, Ice, Ground, Bug, Steel, Fairy
  • Effective against: Grass, Ice, Bug, Steel

As mentioned before, Tepig is the best starter choice in Pokemon Legends Z-A based on stats and type-effectiveness. Tepig has high stats for both HP and Attack, which can make it a good option during the early stages. However, what makes Tepig stronger is its six type-resistances. Moreover, Fire-type moves deal super-effective damage to four different types, making it even better.

On the other hand, Tepig is weak to three types, all of which are basic. However, since the Pokemon has so many resistances, it is easier to build a team that specifically tackle its weaknesses for swap-matchups. Finally, it’s final evolution, Emboar, gets a dual Fighting-type, which further spreads it type-effectiveness. Although this adds more weaknesses, its resistance-pool increases, making it a great option in competitive battles as well.

Which Starter Should You Choose in Pokemon Legends Z-A?

Totodile, Tepig, and Chikorita, the three starters of Pokemon Legends Z-A (Image via TPC)
Totodile, Tepig, and Chikorita as seen in the trailers (Image via TPC)

Although Tepig is the best starter choice overall in Pokemon Legends Z-A, the final decision rests on your playstyle and preferences. Pokemon selection, especially during the starter choice, is often driven by favoritism or nostalgia (or both.) The generation II Chikorita and Totodile are fan-favorites, and despite Tepig being better, you might be more inclined to select these.

If you do not care about statistics at all, you should go ahead and choose whichever starter appeals to you the most in Pokemon Legends Z-A. As you approach the end-game stages, it is very plausible that your starter might not even be on your battling team. That said, all of these starters are likely going to get Mega Evolutions according to the leaks. To that extent, the choice might be more difficult and only time can tell the final answer.


Pokemon Legends Z-A logo.

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