So you chose Chikorita? Building the perfect Pokémon Legends: Z-A team around your starter

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You picked Chikorita as your first Pokémon in Pokémon Legends: Z-A? Excellent! Chikorita is a cute Pokémon that’s been a fan favorite since the Gold and Silver games, and it’s wonderful to see it get some attention. Remember, there’s no bad choice when building your team, but if you’d like some advice on how to get the most out of your Chikorita start, this guide can help.

Which Pokémon should you add to your team to support your starter, Chikorita?

Please be aware that this guide might contain minor spoilers about the Pokémon you can encounter early and mid-game in Pokémon Legends: Z-A. If you want to avoid any surprises, read carefully. If you’re already making progress in the Z-A Royale or battling powerful Mega Evolutions, you likely have a decent team already. However, this guide can still give you useful tips on how to best help your favorite Pokémon succeed.

We also have team-building guides available if you’re interested in Tepig or Totodile.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Chikorita is a Grass-type Pokémon, which unfortunately means it’s quite vulnerable to many attacks. Grass-types are weak to Fire, Flying, Bug, Poison, and Ice – and you’ll encounter these types often early in the game. On the bright side, Chikorita is strong against Water, Ground, and Rock attacks, and resists Water, Grass, Ground, and Electric attacks. However, your attacks won’t be very effective against Grass, Fire, Flying, Poison, Bug, or Dragon types.

When building a team around Chikorita, a Grass-type Pokémon, it’s ideal to have partners that cover its weaknesses. The best choices are Fire and Water-type Pokémon. Chikorita struggles with several types early in the game, but a Water-type teammate can easily handle Fire-types, and later, Ice-types. Water-types benefit from having a Grass-type partner because Grass resists both Water’s weaknesses: Grass and Electric. Fire-types also make a great pairing. Chikorita can deal significant damage to types that Fire-types are weak to – Water, Ground, and Rock. Plus, Fire-types can handle Grass, Bug, and Ice types that might be challenging for Chikorita.

As Chikorita evolves into Bayleef and then Meganium, these ideas remain consistent – its evolutionary line always stays a pure Grass type. While it’s fun to speculate, let’s look at some good Pokémon to actually include on your team.

Early Game Partners

You can find a lot of helpful Pokémon early in the game. If you need a quick boost to your team, the elemental monkeys are a good choice. Watch for the Water-type Panpour and the Fire-type Pansear – they often appear in the trees at the beginning of your journey.

As you progress to Wild Zone 2, you’ll find more Water-type Pokémon like Magikarp, Staryu, and Binacle. While all are good choices, Binacle works especially well with Chikorita. Chikorita can protect Binacle from its weakness to Grass-type attacks, and Binacle’s Rock typing provides valuable resistance against Flying and Poison attacks that Chikorita might struggle with.

Okay, so Fire-types are a little harder to come by, but I’ve had luck finding Litleo in Wild Zone 3. Later on, in Wild Zone 6, I started running into Houndour. And don’t sleep on Fletchling! That little bird I found early on actually evolves into a Fire-type, Fletchinder, which is awesome.

Chikorita’s Final Evolution (Spoilers Ahead)

Fortunately, because Chikorita stays a Grass-type as it evolves, many of the strategies and team ideas we’ve talked about will be helpful throughout the middle and even the later parts of the game. However, we need to talk about something that might reveal some story details. Consider yourself warned!

In Pokémon Legends: Z-A, Meganium – the final evolution of Chikorita – gains a Mega Evolution. You’ll unlock this ability during the middle of the game. To use it, you’ll first need to evolve Chikorita into Bayleef, then into Meganium, and obtain the corresponding Mega Stone.

This update adds the Fairy type to the game. It’s considered a very strong type, significantly improving Mega Meganium by giving it resistance to Fighting and Dark attacks, removing its weakness to Bug, and making it immune to Dragon-type moves. The Fairy type does introduce a weakness to Steel and makes Mega Meganium even more vulnerable to Poison attacks.

This team composition is currently a placeholder, but it could become essential for handling difficult Mega Evolutions from opposing players and competitive Promotion Matches. With that in mind, what Pokémon would best complement your newly Mega Evolved Grass/Fairy-type Meganium?

As a big Meganium fan, I’ve been figuring out the best partners for its Mega Evolution, and Steel-types are seriously amazing! They completely shut down Poison-type attacks, which are a real threat, and give Meganium solid defense against Steel, Flying, Bug, and Ice moves – basically covering all its weaknesses, even in its Mega form. Plus, having Meganium on my team helps deal with those pesky Ground-types that Steel Pokémon struggle with. Good Steel-types aren’t super common, but I was able to find Honedge pretty early on in Wild Zone 4, though you’ll only spot it when it’s nighttime!

This Steel-type strategy has one weakness: it’s vulnerable to Fire-type attacks. That’s where having a Fire or Water-type Pokémon from your earlier selections comes in handy. If you kept and evolved Magikarp into Gyarados, or Staryu into Starmie, either of those would be excellent choices. Barbaracle, the evolved form of Binacle, remains a strong pick because its Rock typing gives it helpful defenses. It will also benefit from Mega Meganium’s new Fairy typing, which can protect it against Fighting-type moves.

Conclusion

Hopefully, the tips in this guide will help you build a strong team based on your chosen starter Pokémon. But remember, there’s no single ‘right’ way to play Pokémon Legends: Z-A. Feel free to pick your favorite Pokémon and enjoy the game – the Pokémon series is designed so that most team combinations can be successful!

Good luck climbing the ranks of the Z-A Royale!

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2025-10-25 02:36