>>34671109I picked Rowlet when SM first came out. Decidueye was my favorite of the three starters so I was hyped, and I knew I would have a good time with it even in spite of the datamine showing how bad its BST is. I was determined to press on and enjoy playing the game with Pokemon that I love.
But good lord, never before in all my years of playing Pokemon has my starter jobbed so hard in a casual in-game run. I've even used starters like Meganium and Serperior that were major team players in their respective playthroughs, but Rowlet and its evolutions did nothing but get outsped and die all throughout the entire game. The poor thing's best offensive moves up until level 44 are Razor Leaf and Pluck so it hardly left a dent on anything, and it was just pitifully frail not just in terms of stats, but type. Grass is already not a great defensive type, but ghost only made its life even harder with the abundance of dark types Alola has. It's the first time a starter has ever underperformed so hard for me, and one of the few times that a Pokemon's undeniable weakness has resulted in me liking it less over time.
