Is Charmander bad in FR/LG?

Question

I've picked Charmander a lot and it ends up being very helpful late game (correction: mid and late game). Edit: I might aswell explain everything I found that makes Charizard good in the kanto games. First off, Brock isn't even that hard with Charmander, in Red and Blue a Level 15 Charmander can easily beat him by just spamming Ember, unless Onix Bides then just use Growl. In the remakes you will need to evolve it, but the trainers plus Blue give the exp you need to do that. Misty is a fight where it is actually bad, but it could still take a few hits to heal others or lower Starmies stats, also you could catch a Pikachu or Oddish for her. When you get past Misty, things start going well for Chameleon, because you can teach it Dig. This move let's it deal with the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 8th gym, plus Agatha and Blue's Rydon and Archinine. Despite only having Ember if you don't grind Chameleon still easily beats the 4th gym, and here's the best part: Charizard is the BEST starter for the 6th gym due to getting Slash, and it has the speed to outspeed and 1 shot the Pokemon inside the gym. As fr the elite 4, Charizard can beat Jynx, Bruno's fighting types in the remakes (though it still resists them in the OG games) Agatha's posion types, and like I said before, 2/3s of Blue's team. And for people who say these Pokemon, I'll give some counter arguments. Squirtle: I would think Squirtle is better than Charmander, if Gyarados and Laprus didn't exist. Unlike Charmander Squirtle has some Pokemon that are just better than it, so it feels limiting to pick Squirtle. Bulbasaur: Despite the easy early game, it just becomes a support Pokemon most of the time after those 2 gyms. Dugtrio: can it learn Dig? Yes. Does it have Slash? Yes. But does it have Fire? No.
Edit 2: So people have made good points, but I just feel like it's unfair for people to call Charizard bad and the worst of the 3 considering everything it has going for it.

Comments

My bad if my answer came off as Charmander being the worst starter. I meant to say it's good, I just think Squirtle fairs a bit better and it's relatively equal, though maybe a bit better than Bulbasaur

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(not related to the other comments) In FR, charmander learns iron claw, or at least in the firered i played; i was able to beat brock by spamming iron claw

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In firered charmander can't learn iron claw

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It learns metal claw level 13

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Oh yeah mb

Answer 1

I don't think I can objectively say if Charmander (or I guess, Charmeleon/Charizard) is "bad" per se, since honestly you can get by with most decent Pokemon in playthrough, but I'll still break down notable mid/endgame matchups.

Certain Issues:

Gym 4: Erika
This is a matchup that taunts Charmander users in the face. Why? Because 1. It's still a Charmeleon when you battle her, and 2. The best Fire-type move you can use is EMBER unless you're investing 80,000 Pokedollars to buy Flamethrower from the Celadon Game Corner (or you overlevel, but what's the fun in that?) This is because Charmeleon gets Flamethrower at level 34 while Erika's strongest Pokemon are level 29. So, even though Charmeleon technically outperforms the other starters, it probably isn't doing much better than the Pidgeotto spamming Wing Attack.

Elite Four 1: Lorelei
Lorelei might as well be a Water-type specialist who also happens to like Jynx. Dewgong, Cloyster, Slowbro, and Lapras all carry STAB Water moves, and Jynx even has Attract to potentially hax you out of existence (remember the starter Charmander is 87.5% Male.)

Elite Four 2: Bruno
So fun fact: Bruno's lead Onix, Hitmonchan, and Machamp all carry Rock Tomb. If you don't KO Hitmonchan or Machamp with Fly, they may very well smack you with a Rock Tomb, and there goes your Charizard. Charizard can't even do much against both Onix, leaving the only good Charizard matchup to be Hitmonlee. This is a similar situation to Lorelei, where Charizard can really only put in work against one Pokemon.

The main problem with Charmeleon/Charizard is that they can't really use their STABs very effectively. There is no gym specialty that's weak to either Fire or Flying after Erika other than Lorelei's Ice, which is mostly Water, and Bruno's Fighting, which has two Onix and Rock Tomb users. This means oftentimes they are hitting with neutral STAB moves or nonSTAB coverage options, whereas the other starters have their respective battles that they shine in. I guess it isn't "bad" in this sense since it very much is usable, but that can be said with any Pokemon with decent stats and movepool.

So, no, it isn't bad, but as listed above, there are quite a few battles where it can't contribute much, and the other battles in the mid/lategame don't give its typing a lot of opportunities to shine.

If I didn't talk about what you thought was "bad", feel free to define the term further and I'll make my response more specific. I also didn't talk about the early game since I thought you wanted to this focus more on mid/lategame.

Answer 2

I'm going to throw my hat into the ring here, since there are certain things that I feel aren't mentioned or are objectively wrong. While Charmander isn't a bad Pokémon, as is the status quo for most starters, but it has some glaring issues that make it worse than some of its competition. Here are a few of them,

Poor Early-game

Charmander/Charmeleon is weak to Brock's Rock-types and Misty's Water-types. This results in either one of two things. Most commonly, you're forced to slap other Pokémon onto your team to deal with them, being Mankey or Double Kick Nidoran, and Pikachu or Oddish/Bellsprout. Either that, or you do what you went with and invest all your EXP into Charmander. This latter choice is worse, as just as you mentioned, you still need another Pokémon for Misty even with Charmeleon overleveled, which requires you to train up another Pokémon.

Overuse on Resources

As mentioned prior, Charmander needs to have evolved by the first gym for it to defeat Brock. This is a joke when the other starters, Nidoran, and Mankey could do the same at lower levels. Furthermore, Charmeleon/Charizard likes the use of the Earthquake and Rock Slide TM for coverage, but the same Pokémon listed prior prefer to use it themselves, as they can do so more effectively.

Mediocre Physical Stats

Charizard's only other Special move beyond its STAB Flamethrower would be Dragon Claw, which is a comical option for a coverage move. Otherwise, Charizard's Fly, Dig, Earthquake, Brick Break, Rock Slide, etc all work off its much lower Attack stat of 84, meaning it can't use its Special Attack as effectively as it should.

Elite Four

By the lategame, Charizard generally becomes more situational with its matchups. Despite what coverage it may have, Charizard struggles against the likes of Lorelei, Lance, and Blue's Blastoise.

So, while Charmander is not a bad playthrough Pokémon at all, it is outclassed by other Pokémon as being the best of the best. If you're willing to put down your biases for the three starters, I would recommend Squirtle more often than not. While I won't go into my reasoning fully here, Squirtle and its evolutions have the most consistent matchups throughout the Kanto region, only really challenged by other good Water-types for its spot, such as Starmie and Vaporeon.