As soon as you begin your adventure in the world of Pokémon UNITE, you'll be tasked with choosing a starter Pokémon for free. Unlike the franchise's main series, you don't have three options to choose from, but rather five. Very generous if I may say so, since the options you are given are one Pokemon for each of the game's available roles.
What is the best starter Pokémon to choose in Pokémon UNITE
In order to be able to choose one of the free options that you have in front of you, you must first know what each Pokémon does. Below, we take a look at each individually:
Eldegoss
Supporter – Able to heal the party and keep everyone in top form.
Snorlax
Defender – A front line tank capable of withstanding a lot of punishment. Also has a small amount of CC abilities.
Pikachu
Attacker – Ranged fighter with lots of high damage attacks and able to cripple enemies.
Charizard
All-rounder – A jack-of-all-trades who is good at just about everything, without excelling at anything.
flame taunt
Speedster – High mobility, great roamer/jungler and able to score easily.
With all of our Pokemon listed, the question remains as to which of them is the best starter to choose and begin your adventure. Of course, this is a totally subjective question, but we have clear winners if you just want to race with the strongest of the bunch. These being two in fact, as they are not only excellent in their respective fields, but arguably some of the strongest Pokémon in the game overall.
Pikachu and Talonflame are easily the top picks here, not just for beginners, but for anyone who just wants to grab a strong Pokemon and start tearing down enemy teams. Based on the data gathered during the beta, Pikachu and Talonflame seem to be top picks and both are very powerful and easy to use attackers. Pikachu more so than Talonflame because its abilities are very simple and it has that extra paralysis disease it can cause, making it the overall best choice among all beginners. If you're experienced with the MOBA genre, Talonflame is great for lane-flanking and jungle-roaming. If that's your cup of tea, Talonflame is more than suggested as a starter.
Eldegoss and Snorlax are the next best picks you can pick as a starter, one being a great tank, albeit a bit slow, and Eldegoss being quite possibly the best supporter right now in Pokémon UNITE. You can't go wrong with any of these picks, but since they depend on helping your team out, they have more of a learning curve and are lower level than Pikachu and Talonflame.
Finally, we have fan favorite Charizard. Unfortunately, while the All-Rounder is great for teaching beginners the basics, it certainly lacks that "oomph" that the rest of the roster has. Charizard certainly isn't a bad Pokemon, but compared to the other choices out there, it's hands down the one that feels like something's missing. Things may change in the future, of course, after some balance changes, but right now Charizard is the worst choice out of the five starter Pokemon available.
Pokémon UNITE is coming to Nintendo Switch on July 21, 2022 and to mobile devices in September 2022. For more gameplay tips and information, be sure to check out the rest of our guides here.
