Generally, starters are difficult to come by. The gen 1 hatch from 2k eggs, which means that when you hatch one you get a low amount of candies, yet they require 3km per candy as a buddy. This makes aquiring candies for them pretty hard. For how much grinding it takes for them to reach the third tier at a high CP, there overall usefullness is quite underwhelming.
Gen 1
I want to get the best one out of the way. Venusaur is the most useful. He also used to be the highest rated at 9 but for some reason is now 8,5. A very solid vaporeon counter and has many movesets that are good for this. Only really a bad moveset if you roll sludge bomb. However, exeggutor is probably a better pick since he is more candy efficient, requiring only 50 to go from exeggcute to exeggutor, reaches a significantly higher max CP and doesn't even need a grass first move to be a good vaporeon counter. Also, the second matchup where venusaur shines is vs rhydon, but the much easier to get, higher CP, better stamina vaporeon is probably a better pick. Still though, venusaur is probably the most useful starter.
Charizard is another case. He has a lesser amount of useful movesets at his disposal. Dragon claw has no STAB, fireblast is a shittier overheat in every aspect and air slash generates the same amount of energy and deals the same amount of damage as fire spin, but is slightly slower and makes you unable to get a quick and charge move of the same type. This may be good for defending, but charizard is a lousy defender because of his low stamina and weaknesses ×1 to the ubiquitous vaporeon and ×2 to rock. Also, every moveset before the gen 2 update is no longer optimal. As an attacker, there are simply better options that cost way less. He is useful against grass and bug, as he is double resistant to both and deals STAB super effective damage with his fire moves and air slash as well. However, I feel like flareon and dragonite are simply better alternatives. The eeveelutions are generally easy to get and dratini hatches quite often from 10k now, generating plenty of candies. Flareon and arcanine also outclass him in the ice matchup with the rare lapras. I have recently acquired a great charizard with fire spin overheat that I am walking as a buddy, but I can't help but feel as though I am wasting those kilometers.
Now for the water starter. Poor blastoise. He really got the short end of the stick. First of all, he has only one "good" moveset. I have evolved five already and have yet to get one with water gun hydropump. So many wasted candies! His max CP is also surprisingly low. This makes him a bad defender because of it. He suffers from the same problem as charizard does, where an eeveelution does a better job than him. In his case however, vaporeon ends up with almost 1000 more CP on top of being easier to obtain. I feel like blastoise was designed to be solely a prestiger, but then again, any vaporeon can do the same job for a lesser investment.
Gen 2
Note: I have no fully evolved gen 2 starters. In fact, I have all first tier of them with 6-13 candies. This number is the result of pinap berries, which shows you how hard they are to come by. On top of that, they don't hatch from eggs, which makes gathering candies and good IV gen 2 starters that much more difficult.
The first one is meganium. Its CP is even worse than blastoise. Maybe some use as a prestiger? The only matchup I see where meganium is a better choice than venusaur is against rhydon since meganium resists mud slap. However, I'd probably still go with vaporeon, venusaur or tangela whose candies are easier to come by since they hatch from eggs.
Stat-wise, typhlosion is the same as charizard. Their main differences lie in movesets, where for their optimal moves, fire spin>ember, so charizard>typhlosion. Logically, since it has been said that flareon or dragonite>charizard, it can be deduced that typhlosion is never a more optimal pokemon choice. Typhlosion also suffers from the same problem charizard has, where he has only two STAB fire movesets and one is clearly superior to the other since he has both overheat and fireblast in his movepool.
Finally we get feraligatr. CP-wise, he is about halfway between blastoise and vaporeon, which makes him a better pick than blastoise, but gives you no reason not to pick vaporeon instead. Also, he suffers from the same moveset problem as blastoise, where water gun hydropump is his only STAB moveset. I consider him the most useful of the gen 2 starters, if you get that elusive moveset, but even then, he is never optimal and doesn't justify the candy-grinding required.
This was my analysis of the starters. I believe that a way to give them purpose other than looking cool is to make the better alternatives, especially the eeveelutions, harder to come by, or to nerf them to be at at the same level of power as the starters at most. Who knows, with the gym rework, maybe there will be a new formula for stats that will balance things out or make CP dissapear compeletly. But until then, the kilometers we spend walking starters would probably be better spent on blisseys or snorlaxes. Just my two cents.
Thank you for reading. Any feedback would be appreciated.
