Second: How good do the starters do as Ultimates? Grand Tyrannos specifically, as I've grown rather attached to my starter (plus, he's a frickin' dragon).
Also, how good is the Meteor Volcano Dragon? Good enough to bring into late game? Since he's currently lacking an Ultimate in the english version and I've grown attached to him since, welp, HE JUST KINDA DROPPED ON MY LAP AS I WAS GETTING MY TEAM READY.
Well your first was already answered sooooooooo. :V
2) They're decent. Other options will probably have better stats (like, when I ultimate evolved my Vamp he was higher in all three stats than my Moondragon Lunar D'Spinas with an identical leader skill... at half the level), so if you have others the starter probably won't see a lot of use. (Emphasis on "probably", I somehow ended up with mostly Hermes friends instead of I&I ones so when I'm running my mono-blue I'm frequently leading with my Icedragon Depth Plesios even though I have an ulti Hermes myself.)
3) The ripper dragons all have okay stats and are easy to get; you're not likely to use them past the early late game (e.g. as resist leads for Hera, maybe Two Heroes, though resist teams for that are usually green/black/double blue so you're out of luck until we get the ultimates... which need trifruits which are way harder than Two Heroes. :V) They're worth having as long as you're not suuuuuuuuuuuper-hurting for box space, but the general opinion is not to level 'em past 30 or so.
Also both sets (starters and rippers) have not entirely horrible awakenings, so there is that. (Mostly the part where they both get Skill Boost as their third.)
