Pokemon Scarlet & Violet - So You Chose Sprigatito?
Sprigatito is the incredibly cute Grass-type starter Pokemon for Scarlet and Violet. It's a great choice, but what other Pokemon would make useful teammates?
This will be a guide for how to build a good team around your starter choice for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet - Sprigatito.
Now first of all: Don’t panic, you’ve made a great choice. You can play through the game with absolutely any Pokemon you want and you will persevere and complete the game.
But, if you do want some advice on who would make an exceptionally strong teammate for your adorable grass cat Pokemon, you’ve come to the right place.
This guide will focus mostly on the early and middle sections of the game to avoid as many spoilers as possible, and by the time you have taken on all the gyms, titans, and Team Star bases, you probably have something good going on already. But of course, fair warning, there will be some spoilers ahead.
Strengths & Weaknesses
So the first things that need to be established are Sprigatito’s strengths and weaknesses. Overall, Sprigatito and its evolution’s best stat is speed. It also has great offenses, with a slight preference towards physical attack. On the other hand, its defenses certainly leave a little to be desired. But that’s ok, every Pokemon has strengths and weaknesses. No Pokemon is perfect. Well, except maybe Mewtwo. But Mewtwo isn’t in this game yet, so let’s work with what we have.
Now let’s also talk about typing. Until the final evolution, Sprigatito is a pure Grass-type. Grass is tied with rock for the most weaknesses of any type in the game, which is not necessarily a good thing. Those weaknesses are Fire, Bug, Flying, Poison, and Ice. Thankfully a few of these types aren’t very common (Fire and Ice) until later on in the game, when you will have had time to defend against those weaknesses. But it’s not all doom and gloom. The Grass type also has some key resistances in Grass, Water, Electric, and Ground which go a long way towards making up for those weaknesses.
Grass-types are also super effective against Water, Ground, and Rock, which are some of the most common types in the game, so having a Grass-type on the team will always be helpful. Unfortunately, a number of types resist Grass, including Grass, Fire, Flying, Bug, Poison, Dragon, and Steel, which means you might not be able to just keep clicking your strongest Grass-type move forever.
So, Sprigatito and the middle stage evolution, Floragato, both have some strengths and weaknesses. Before getting into the final evolution, let’s talk about which Pokemon would be strong partners early on in the game.
Early Game Partners
Early on in the game, your Grass-type starter will appreciate teammates that can switch into the more common Bug, Flying, and Poison-types. There may be a few Fire or Ice-types here and there, but they won’t be as common until later on in your playthrough. Taking a look at some of the Pokemon available on the first few routes, Paldean Wooper stands out as a strong partner. Because it is a Ground and Poison-type, it resists both Bug and Poison. Sprigatito will also cover two of Wooper’s weaknesses; Ground and Water, giving the partnership great balance.
But Wooper doesn’t help too much with Flying-type opponents. Flying is only resisted by three types: Rock, Electric, and Steel. Early on in the game, Steel types will be hard to come by, but a Rock or Electric type won’t be so difficult. A Rock-type like Nacli will offer stronger defenses to partner with Sprigatito’s strong offenses. While an Electric-type like Pawmi will generally be somewhat similar to Sprigatito by also having good speed and offensive stats.
Later on, perhaps after your Sprigatito has evolved into Floragato, you might need to think more about Fire and Ice-types, especially if early on you try to climb the huge mountain, Glaseado. Water-types are the perfect fix for this problem. They resist both Fire and Ice and are balanced by Floragato’s ability to resist both of their weaknesses: Grass and Electric. Something like Wugtrio could work if you want to try out a new Pokemon, but there are also returning Pokemon like Buizel, Marill, and Slowpoke and their evolutions that could fill a similar role.
Eventually, your Floragato will evolve into its final stage, Meowscarada, which adds a secondary typing into the mix: Dark.
Final Evolution: Dark
Dark is weak to Bug, Fighting, and Fairy. So this doubles up on the already existing Bug weakness and adds two more on top of what already existed. Thankfully, Dark provides a key resistance to Ghost, which is otherwise only covered by Normal-type’s immunity to it. Dark also provides an immunity to Psychic.
One of the best teammates for Meowscarada is Tinkaton. Fairy and Steel is an incredibly good defensive typing, sporting two immunities and nine resistances. Tinkaton can easily handle Bug and Fairy-types for Meowscarada, and is only neutral to Fighting-type attacks. On the other hand, Tinkaton is also weak to Fire, which means it will be important to have another teammate that can handle Fire-types.
This can be handled in a few different ways, bulky Water-types like Dondozo are great for this role, but you can also use a Fire-type as well. Ceruledge and Armarouge are particularly useful with their Flash Fire ability, not only making them immune to Fire-type attacks, but also boosting their own Fire-type attacks in return. Also, as Ghost and Psychic-types respectively, Ceruledge and Armarouge appreciate Meowscarada’s ability to handle threatening Ghost and Dark-types. Just keep in mind that Ceruledge is exclusive to Violet and Armarouge is exclusive to Scarlet.
If these new Pokemon aren’t your cup of tea, Scizor and Forretress also make great Steel-type partners for Meowscarada for similar reasons. Water-types like Slowbro, Slowking, and Gastrodon and Fire-types like Arcanine and Salazzle are great choices too for Water or Fire-types, respectively.
Other great Pokemon that are worth noting: Poison-types like Glimmora, Grafaiai, and Revaroom appreciate Meowscarada’s ability to handle their Ground and Psychic-type weaknesses. On the other hand, Meowscarada appreciates their ability to resist opposing Poison and Fairy-types.
So that’s that! Follow this guide and you should be well on your way to building a strong team around your adorable grass cat Pokemon. Though, if you don’t like these ideas, that’s fine too! There are a lot of strong Pokemon wandering around Paldea.
Pokemon Scarlet & Violet is out now exclusively for the Nintendo Switch. What is your team looking like? Leave a comment below letting us know!
