Which starter is best in Dokimon Quest?

The short version

All three starters are three-stage families that finish with a second element. None of them is a trap pick, and the spread between the strongest and the weakest final form is 45 base stat total — about 8%.

What separates them is shape and timing. Burnsby's line is fast and magical and evolves earliest. Bulbapod's line starts weakest but owns the early routes on type matchups alone, then finishes as a physical attacker. Squibbly's line is a wall from the first minute to the last.

Final forms compared

Every stage, every evolution level

Burnsby → Felt → Braveheart (Fire)

Base stat totals of 324, 466 and 593. Evolves at level 14 and again at 38 — the earliest first evolution of the three, which matters more than it sounds in the opening hours.

Braveheart finishes as Fire/Fighting with 124 Mgk. Atk, 118 Attack and 108 Speed. It is the highest base stat total of any starter and the only one that is genuinely fast. The trade is bulk: 100 Health and 79 Defense are low, and 64 Mgk. Def is the weakest special bulk of the three finals.

The early game is Burnsby's rough patch, oddly enough: on the type chart Fire is super-effective only against Grass and Ice, and the most common early wild families are Light and Ghost, which take Fire neutrally. Dark — Quackfil's and Dartly's element, both on the first two routes — hits Fire for double.

Pick Burnsby if you like winning fights before they start, and don't mind the first routes being fought at neutral.

Braveheart, the strongest final form

Bulbapod → Scytherin → Slytharot (Grass)

Base stat totals of 273, 391 and 561. Evolves at level 15 and again at 34 — the earliest final evolution of the three.

Bulbapod is the weakest starting Dokimon in the game's starter set at 273, but the type chart carries it: Grass hits Water, Electric and Light super-effectively, and Light is the single most common element in the early wild pool — Furreal alone is 29.4% of Route 01 spawns, 27.3% of Route 02 and 26.1% of Route 03. No other starter gets that many favourable matchups before the first city.

The caution is Quackfil, 18.8% of Twindle Forest and common on the next two routes: its Dark/Flying typing means its Flying side hits Grass for double.

Slytharot finishes with 120 Attack — the highest raw Attack of the three finals — 90 Defense, 92 Mgk. Def and 92 Speed, and a Grass/Flying typing. Pick Bulbapod if you want the smoothest opening hours and a fast route to the final form.

Squibbly → Loctorus → Krakanchor (Water)

Base stat totals of 342, 433 and 548. Evolves at level 16 and again at 36 — the latest first evolution of the three.

Squibbly starts the strongest of the three at 342, with 79 Health and 80 Defense at stage one. On offense the early game is nearly all neutral: Water is super-effective only against Fire and Poison, and neither shows up in the early wild tables. Defensively only Grass and Electric hit it for double, and Carrotti — Twindle Forest's most common spawn at 43.8% — is the main early Grass threat.

Krakanchor ends with 122 Health, 115 Defense and 95 Mgk. Def, and a Water/Electric typing. It is slow — 68 Speed against Braveheart's 108 — and its 42 Mgk. Atk is the lowest stat of any starter final. One warning the typing hides: because Grass is super-effective against both Water and Electric, a Grass move hits Krakanchor for 4x.

Pick Squibbly for a first playthrough. It survives mistakes.

How each starter fares on the first routes

The level-45 moves

Each final form's learnset tops out at level 45 with a distinct heavy move: Braveheart gets Dragon Fire (Dragon element, 110 power, 85 accuracy), Slytharot gets Ecliptal Scythe (Ghost, 95 power, 100 accuracy), and Krakanchor gets Glacier Crush (Ice, 60 power, 100 accuracy).

Note the elements: none of the three matches its user's own typing, which makes them coverage moves rather than boosted staples. Dragon Fire is the biggest number of the three; Glacier Crush's 60 power is modest and its value depends on Ice's matchups — Ice is super-effective against Grass, Flying and Dragon.

Does the choice actually matter?

Less than it does in most games of this shape. You can catch a wild Dokimon in the very first forest, and 104 of the 144 Dokimon carry wild encounter data somewhere, so nothing about your starter locks you out of a team.

The three starters also form a clean triangle — Fire beats Grass, Grass beats Water, Water beats Fire — so whichever you pick, rival fights follow the classic pattern.

The practical answer is that the starter is your level lead for the first several hours, and whichever one you pick will be the Dokimon carrying you through the first two or three routes. Choose the one whose shape you enjoy playing, not the one with the largest number.

Every stage in the database

• Burnsby — Fire — evolves at Lv 14
• Felt — Fire — evolves at Lv 38
• Braveheart — Fire/Fighting final form, 593 BST
• Bulbapod — Grass — evolves at Lv 15
• Scytherin — Grass — evolves at Lv 34
• Slytharot — Grass/Flying final form, 561 BST
• Squibbly — Water — evolves at Lv 16
• Loctorus — Water — evolves at Lv 36
• Krakanchor — Water/Electric final form, 548 BST
• Type chart — All 13 elements, every multiplier

Starter questions, answered

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