Why is Emboar considered bad for playthroughs?

Question

I know the whole "Emboar looks ugly!" (fight me), but he has some merits for playthroughs. He has the hitting power of Mike Tyson on steroids, decent HP, and a good STAB Combo, even if it is over used. I know he is slow, but when he can hit back harder, does this matter? So why is he considered (a least I have heard this opinion a lot) the worst unova starter?

Comments

I think its because that Emboar is outclassed by Darmanitan and Mienshao, which can hit harder and are much more faster than it. I think most of the starters are outclassed by the wild Pokemon in Gen 5, as Serperior has meh offensive stats, and there are better Water and Fire types than Samurott and Emboar in those games.

I haven't played Gen 5 before, so I may be totally wrong though.

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Ok thanks. Also I think that some of the people I heard that from just don't like Emboar.

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I edited my answer because I just realized you never specified whether this is for BW or BW2.

Answer 1

This is for the original BW.

Typing: The Fire/Fighting typing of Tepig's evolutions is a mixed bag, giving advantages for Lenora, Burgh, Brycen, Grimsley, N, and Ghetsis, but neutral to Marshal and the 8th Gym; bad elsewhere.
Stats: The Tepig line are mixed attackers with slightly slow Speed and decent bulk.
Movepool: Wide, with Pignite learning Flame Charge, Arm Thrust, and Rollout naturally and Rock Tomb, Bulldoze, Grass Knot, and SolarBeam via TMs. Later on, Emboar has access to the Scald, Rock Slide, Wild Charge, and Low Sweep TMs as well as Hammer Arm through the move relearner. Fire comes through Heat Crash at level 31 for Pignite and Flamethrower at 43.
Major Battles: The line loses to Clay, Skyla, Shauntal, and Caitlin. It takes on Elesa with Eviolite, Grimsley, N, and Ghetsis, but is shaky due to many weaknesses.
Additional Comments: Although Tepig starts off with very strong matchups, it eventually falls off due to the lack of powerful STAB moves without drawbacks.

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Emboar is significantly better in BW2, though.

Stats: Bulky. It has a huge HP stat and can take all sorts of hits well. Has an excellent base 123 Attack stat and an usable Special Attack at 100.
Typing: Fire and then Fire/Fighting. Great for offense, not so great on the defense. There is a large amount of Flying-types and you might be struggling against some of the birds.
Movepool: Gets what it needs. Flame Charge boosts its Speed, Flamethrower is usable, and it can get Return and Brick Break from TMs. It can also learn ThunderPunch and Strength.
Major Battles: Does pretty well against half the gyms, the other half it can have issues with. Elesa, Clay, Skyla, and Marlon all give it trouble. Caitlin can give Emboar problems in the Elite 4 as well, but the others will take a fair bit from his Fire-type moves.

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Answer 2

I started a new file on my Pokemon White cartridge and recently finished it. I picked Tepig as my starter. From my experience, I would say that Emboar is not as bad as people say. Emboar has an excellent Attack Stat at 123, followed by its also amazing HP and SpA stats, at 110 and 100 respectively, so it does pretty well as a Bulky mixed attacker. It's Defencive stats and Speed, all of them at 65, are not terrible in playthoughs, considering that you would most likely outspeed most opponents.

Now, let's get a look at Emboar's choices of moves. This thing gets Flame Charge, Rollout, Arm Thrust, Take Down, Heat Crash, Assurance, Flamethrower, Head Smash and Flare Blitz by Level Up, Toxic, Bulk Up, Taunt, Protect, Frustration, Solar Beam, Brick Break, Return, Smack Down, Earthquake, Flamethrower, Fire Blast, Facade, Rock Tomb, Low Sweep, Rest, Overheat, Focus Miss, Scald, Stone Edge, Gyro Ball, Rock Slide, Work Up, Buldoze, Grass Knot, Poison Jab, Substitute, Wild Charge Strength and Rock Smash by TMs/HMs, Body slam, Heavy Slam, Magnitude, Covet, Curse, Superpower, Thrash and Yawn by Breeding, while BW2 adds a MOVE TUTOR which allows Emboar to learn Fire and Thunder Punch, Iron Head, Iron Tail, Superpower, Heat Wave and Low Kick.

Looking at this list, it's safe to say that Emboar lacks a good fighting type move that isn't Brick Break or Focus Miss. Arm Thrust, being the only Fighting type move by level up is very weak and situational, Superpower is non-existent in casual plays in the OG BW games (but is added as a Tutor move in BW2), Hammer Arm is learnt at the Move relearner and it's not that good to have your speed lowered, Low sweep is a major improvement over Arm Thrust, but it is only obtainable once the Player has the Surf HM and a Flash TM and travel in the basement floor of Wellspring Cave, which leaves us to Brick Break (obtainable in Icirrus City, the 7th gym) being the safest option.

Emboar outclasses Serperior as a Starter choice (We all know that Serperior in regular playthroughs isn't impressive) and it is equally good as Samurott. However, it is, unfortunately, outclassed by Darmanitan, as a Fire-type option, which is able to learn a majority of Fire-type options including Fire Punch, Flare Blitz, Overheat, Flamethrower and has a impressive selection of coverage such as U-Turn, Rock Slide, Stone Edge, Brick Break, Smack Down, Grass Knot, Earthquake, Return, Dig while it also has a superior 140 base attack stat but quite an inferior 30 base SpA. As a Fighting-type, Emboar is outclassed by Mienshao (124 base attack, 105 base speed) and Conkeldurr (140 base attack)

Comments

Thanks for the answer! I can't decide whether your answer or sumwuns is better...

Answer 3

Where did you even hear that opinion? If we're looking at the matchups, Emboar's bad matchups aren't necessarily too bad. You should be more than ready to face Clay and whatever the name of that water type gym leader is. In fact, you could even argue that Emboar is ht ebest because it gets you thru the early stages of the game almost single handedly. The other starters are pretty meh compared to it

The reason that people say it is bad isn't because it is an objective opinion but because they are so god damned tired of the fire fighting line. Emboar just got the short end of the stick because two fire fighting starters in a row was getting old and gamefreak decided to add in a third one that unlike the chicken and the monkey, is more focused on power and bulk instead of speed and power

Comments

How is Emboar better than Samurott and better than other similar Pokemon, like Scrafty or Darmanitan?

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Because it has better movepool, mostly the level up ones. Samurott mostly has just water type level up learnset while Emboar does have some variation in fighting, rock, and the ability to boost speed with flame charge. And as mentioned, it gets you thru the early game easily and even if it falls off late into the game, so too do the other starters