#155-157: Cyndaquil, Quilava and Typhlosion

Ok, so last time we saw what was pretty much the worst starter to date, so now we'll visit the one mentioned last time with the best of the base stat totals for the generation. Remember, base stat totals don't make for a better Pokemon.

Cyndaquil was my first ever Pokemon. My view of it may be a little rose-tinted, and I always try to get it into rotation for my teams these days.What you see from the stats here is more a setup for a sweeper, with 65 speed, 52 attack and 60 special attack, these masking 50 special defence, 39 HP and 43 defence. If only physical stats were swapped. Further to this you get the standard starter ability that boosts STAB moves by 1.5x when at 1/3rd HP, in this case it's blaze and fire-type moves (with you being a fire-type starter). You also get a hidden ability of flash fire, which makes you immune to fire-type moves and when first hit by one boosts your fire attacks by 1.5x (again with that).

Cute, but don't pet the back...

As with significant numbers of Pokemon, you start with tackle (base 50 physical normal), with this being joined by leer (drops adjacent foes' defence stat by a stage). After this you get smokescreen to drop the target's accuracy by a stage. After this, you get ember (base 40 fire special with a slight chance of a burn) and quick attack (base 40 physical normal with a one stage boost to priority). At this point you can evolve (level 14) before the next move comes in at level 19. This wasn't a lot of moves, so I may as well go on a bit before the traditional break. Level 19 sees the introduction of flame wheel (base 60 fire physical that will thaw you if you are frozen and can also burn the target, so talk about revenge). After this you can nab defence curl to boost your defence, and thereafter you get flame charge (base 50 fire physical that boosts your speed one stage when used).

Ok, so here's the break, and we resume with swift, which is a base 60 normal special move that avoids the accuracy check. You then get three consecutive fire special moves: lava plume (base 80, 15PP, 100 accuracy, hits all adjacent foes with a decent burn chance), flamethrower (base 90, 15PP, 100 accuracy and a slight chance to burn), inferno (base 100, 5PP, 50 accuracy (ouch) but guarantees a burn). After this comes rollout (base 30 rock physical with 90 accuracy and gains in power whilst it attacks for 5 turns (unless disrupted) and doubles in power if combined with rollout). After this comes double edge (base 120 physical normal that recoils on you quite heavily), and finally you get eruption (100 accuracy, 5 PP fire special move with variable power, hitting harder the more HP you have left, so at 100% HP you hit at base 150, which is amazing).

From levelling you can get some very nice moves, but not much coverage. Well, hello TM list! Standard ones apply, so hidden power/return etc. could be very useful. You get fire blast and overheat available as well, plus dig and aerial ace (for some reason), wild charge (base 90 electric physical with recoil and thus not really worth it), incinerate and will-o-wisp. I'm actually disappointed with the lack here, since it's still just fire, electric, ground, normal and the coverage is physical...

If you want to breed, you can grab another host of normal moves like crush claw and covet, but then you can get double kick (base 30 physical fighting, so at least something different), but the one you REALLY want is extrasensory (base 80 psychic special that can cause flinching, which you can get from breeding with Vulpix/Ninetales). The aforementioned Vulpix/Ninetales, as well as things like Camerupt, Heatmore and Pansear can lead to flame burst (base 70 fire special that can cause a burn and also burn other foes on either side due to splash damage). You can also breed flare blitz from a variety of partners, but all this is is a fire version of double-edge, and so is physical and not adding any coverage. You can get some more reasonable physical moves, but why bother? You can also go to the tutor and get covet (again), snore and then heat wave (base 95, 90 accuracy fire special move, 10% chance of burning and hits all adjacent foes), as well as fire pledge (base 80 fire special that can combo with the other pledge moves to double in power, as well as setup field effects: with water pledge you get it coming out as water pledge and creates a rainbow, lasting four turns and boosting the chance of additional effects of moves like burns and whatnot, whilst we've covered grass pledge, which basically creates a field of fire that hurts the foes for 1/8th damage per turn). If you use two pledge moves in the same turn but one cannot be used (say paralysis or skydrop, or death or something) then neither move with work.

Evolving at level 14 is pretty early, and you become Quilava. With this change, you get a nice boost to your stats: 58HP, 64 attack, 58 defence and 65 special defence, with 80 for both special attack and speed. Same abilities, same mono-fire-typing.

Just going through a teenage punk phase...

Brick break and strength are added to the TM/HM list, whilst focus punch is added to the tutor list (you do have substitute in the TM list).

From here you evolve again level 36 into Typhlosion. You get a boost of 20 to all stats other than special attack, which gets 29, leaving 78HP, 84 attack, 78 defence, 109 special attack, 85 special defence and 100 speed, which isn't that bad, really. Same abilities and typing.

I can't tell if it wants cuddles or your face... ripped off and bleeding...

For some unknown reason you can get gyro ball on the level list now, which makes no sense since 100 speed is pretty fast and you can easily boost it with flame charge. You also now get hyper beam, solar beam, focus blast, rock tomb/slide, bulldoze, giga impact, shadow claw and power-up punch. The tutor now also gives some much needed coverage. Low kick comes in with variable power as a fighting move, whilst thunder punch (and fire punch) comes in to hit the water-types or whatever that you couldn't really hurt before. Finally, blast burn is a base 150, 90 accuracy move that is only for fire starters, and needs recharge, so it's sort of like a fire version of hyper beam (as it's special, not physical like giga impact).

(All artwork presented by Ken Sugimori, taken from the Bulbapedia image archives)