Which Starter Pokemon Should I Choose? - Pokemon Diamond

As with any other Pokemon game, choosing your Starter Pokemon can always be a complicated process. We all wish that we could just choose all three of them, but, since we're only allowed to pick one, we're forced to decide which one will be the best. The choices will always be between a Grass, Water, or Fire type Pokemon. For Pokemon Diamond, your Starter Pokemon can either be Turtwig (Grass), Piplup (Water), or Chimchar (Fire).

TURTWIG Turtwig is a Grass-Type Pokemon. As a Grass-type, it has countless weaknesses. Flying, Poison, Bug (Ironically), Fire, and Ice attacks are all super effective against Turtwig. However, Turtwig is strong against Ground, Rock, and Water types, which you may find to be effective as there are plenty of Water Pokemon in the game. There aren't that many Grass-type Pokemon in the game though. There's Budew, Roselia, and Roserade, which have quite powerful Special Attacks such as Magical Leaf. There is also Snover and Abomasnow that are also part Ice-types.

Turtwig evolves into Grotle at Level 18 and into Torterra at Level 32. Torterra is a combination of Grass and Ground-types, so it'll be capable of using Earthquake. However, do keep in mind that, as Torterra, Ice attacks will now be 400% effective against it, but it is unaffected by Electric moves. Turtwig has a great Defense stat, which means that it'll be able to take more hits than others. Turtwig learns Absorb at Level 9, Razor Leaf at Level 13, and a powerful Leaf Storm at Level 45.

PIPLUP Piplup is a Water-type Pokemon, being weak to Grass and Electric Types but strong against Fire types. It's also resistant to Steel and Ice attacks. As a Water-type Pokemon, Piplup provides a well-balanced game, though it doesn't start the game off nicely since it doesn't learn any good attacks until much later. You'll find it especially useful for learning the HM Surf and also against the first gym. However, it because of this that you'll also find a wide range of good Water Pokemon throughout the game. Piplup evolves into Prinplup at Level 16 and Empoleon at Level 36. Once it evolves into Empoleon, it'll become part Steel-type, which will increase the types it's resistant to to almost everything. It'll only be weak to Fighting, Ground, and Electric attacks. It'll also be unaffected by Poison-type moves. As a result, it might be a good idea to choose Piplup simply because of its resistances to so many types as Empoleon.

Piplup learns Bubble at Level 8, but there aren't many good Water-type moves until after it learns Bubblebeam at Level 22. It learns Brine at Level 29, Whirlpool at Level 32, Drill Peck at Level 39, and Hydro Pump at Level 43. The nice thing about Piplup is that it also gets to learn a few Flying moves, which you'll find to be effective against Bug, Fighting, and Grass types.

CHIMCHAR Chimchar is a Fire-Type Pokemon, meaning that its weak against Water, Ground, and Rock but super effective against Steel, Grass, Bug, and Ice types. Chimchar is all about doing damage in the game. f you want a Fire Pokemon on your team, then Chimchar would be a good Starter because there aren't that many good Fire Pokemon in the game. I believe the only Fire Pokemon readily available is Ponyta, and those have a low chance of encountering in certain areas. Plus, evolving Ponyta takes an extremely long time as it evolves into Rapidash at Level 40 and doesn't have that many good Fire moves until after evolution.

Back to Chimchar...Chimchar learns a wide-variety of Physical-based attacks. Although you'll find it to have some difficulty against the first gym (Rock), it has a much better chance for the rest (except for Pastoria Gym which focuses on Water Pokemon). Chimchar evolves into Monferno at Level 14 and into Infernape at Level 36. Once it evolves, it'll also begin learning Fighting-type moves. However, as Monferno and Infernape, it'll now have a wider ranger of weaknesses, now being weak to also Flying and Psychic types, though its Fighting-type attacks will also be stronger against Dark and Ice types. As Chimchar, it'll learn Ember fairly early on in the game (Level 7) but it won't have any good moves until Flamethrower at Level 41. As Monferno, it'll learn some more powerful attacks such as Mach Punch at Level 14, Close Combat at Level 36, and Flare Blitz at Level 49.