um...unevolved pokemon?

[mrmiatch]

not that im using this guy until the end or anything, i was just raising a swuirtle and evolved him to wartortle as the story goes and im thinking about keeping him as wartortle. i know blastoise is a tank and can destroy but i was just wondering what you all thought about unevolved pokemon and making them strong since theyre one of your favorites?

[Neo Android]

I have an unevolved eevee on my leaf green which is like at Lv100 and i have an eevee on Emerald that is Lv32 and im not eveloving that. I have however have all of eevees evolutions through breeding. I think some time a pokemon can become stronger when not evolving quicker. I just keep eevee as she is though cause its my fav Pokemon

[aragornbird]

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That’s not true, all evolved Pokemon are stronger than unevolved Pokemon no matter when you evolve them. But keep it a Wartortle if you want. Its your game so you get to do whatever you please.

Just don’t use Wartortle when battling against other people because it will get creamed. =(

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[enyce]

I love unevolved pokemon too

I never evolved my Grovyle =( ...But I have a Sceptile for actual battling

[Flamman]

i keep my torchic forever to be torchic, but i, as well, have a blaziken to do the fighhting.

[Smarties-chan]

I'm actually currently playing Ruby through without evolving any of my Pokémon (Apart from Torchic, which I'll keep as a Combusken and Tyrogue, because those two Pokémon just plain suck. =\). So far I have had no trouble at all. Roxanne gave me quite a hard time, though. The only Pokémon I had that could deal any real damage to her Pokémon was an Aipom with Iron Tail. n_n Snorunt and Torchic got their butts kicked right away, Tyrogue was just pathetic, Ralts isn't exactly the best choice against physical attackers and I haven't decided on my last party Pokémon yet.

So as you see, Aipom was my best choice against Roxanne. O.o

[Katakoe]

Un-evolved pokemon have the advantage of usually learning their moves earlier. But when they evolve they get more power {speed, attack]

[Ria]

Well, it depends on the pokemon, really, and of your definition of a fun game ^^; I mean, just about anyone can be a bigshot and waltz through the E4 with a pack of uber-powerful high-level pokemon roaring from behind his back, but if you prefer to use a bit of strategy, play the game longer and such, then go ahead and keep your wartortle. They're cool ^^; Personally, I prefer playing with unevolved, not-quite evolved or pokemon which don't evolve at all because I find it fun ^^; Plus, the unevolved pokemon are sooo cute! (there I said it :embarrass )

[Ultimate_Evil]

if you want your pokemon to be weaker go ahead. blastoise is just stronger.

[Jenvy]

True, the evolved Pokemon are stronger stat-wise, but there are a lot of moves you can only learn at certain evolutionary stages. Therefore, in some ways, unevolved Pokemon can be stronger.

[shanecdavis]

Please provide an example where a pre-evolution learns a more powerful move than a fully evolved Poke because I don't believe there is one. While pre-evolved forms can learn moves EARLIER than evolved forms and sometimes DIFFERENT moves, they don't more powerful moves. The closest examples I can think of to what you are talking about are Scyther/Scizor and Slowbro/Slowking. Both examples do fine on their own and Slowbro is even a better choice competitively, but all evolved Pokes are stronger.

If you like unevolved forms because they are cuter, then that is fine, that is your choice. The game isn't like cartoon though. Your Wartortle won't be taking on any good fully evolved Pokes and win any time soon. Well, unless you are playing in-game against the AI, of course. Then even Squirtle could end up being a good choice.

[Jenvy]

There are a few examples off the top of my head, like Treeko and Mega/Giga Drain, Torchic and Flamethrower, and Slakoth and Focus Punch.

All in all, you are correct. I was just saying how you can learn useful and powerful moves by not evolving. Of course, the best plan would be to evolve after you learn the move, to get strong stats too. It all depends on if the move is really worth waiting for. =)

[shanecdavis]

Treecko may learn Giga Drain naturally, but it cannot learn Leaf Blade, which is far and away the most powerful Grass-type move in the game, or Earthquake or even Dragon Claw, like Sceptile. Torchic may learn Flamethrower naturally, but it cannot learn Sky Uppercut or Bulk Up or Earthquake like Blaziken can. Slakoth doesn't learn Focus Punch naturally, that is Vigoroth. Slakoth also cannot learn Earthquake. Vigoroth is, however, another example of a pre-evolution that is still usable. Not as powerful as Slaking, but not hampered by Truant either.

You pretty much summed it up though, that pre-evolutions can learn certain move sooner than their evolved counterparts, but final evolutions are always stronger, more versatile, and have better movesets.

[Jenvy]

I accept my defeat in this argument. T_T
Ah, well... I won't join the debate team any time soon! ^.^

[Lord Mike]

It depends. Pikachu is awesome because of Light Ball. Clamperl is great too because at level 100 it can have as much as 270 Special Attack, which can be doubled by DeepSeaTooth to reach an amazing 540!

Scyther has better Speed than Scizor, while Scizor has better Defense.
Nincada has good Defense, while Ninjask has good Attack and truely incredible Speed. There is much to consider about evolution.

[shanecdavis]

Sigh. Pikachu and Clamperl have to hold special items in order to be effective. That has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. Scyther has already been covered. If you want to use Nincada over Ninjask, be my guest. There is no denying which is the better of the two though.

[Kraka-chan]

Hasn't anyone mentiond that there are some moves that an evolved Pokemon can learn that an unevolved one can't. Say Charizard, once it evolves from Charmeleon, it can learn Wing Attack. Xatu, once evolved from Natu, can be taught Fly.

Yeah, I like some of these Pokemon because they're cute as they are. It'd be great if they had the oppertunity to take on a real opponent like Mewtwo and win.

[Spencer]

Well I don't really like the pre evolutions. I like the last evolution usually. So I don't think I have ever stoped one of my pokemon from evolving.

[Toothache]

Not all pre-evolutions are bad. Chansey is perfectly useable, as is Scyther. Vigoroth, Shelgon, Kadabra, there are certain Pokemon that still have uses even without evolving.

[Kraka-chan]

And Vigoroth doesn't slack off on you all the time.
I also find Pikachu slightly better than Raichu (it could just be me though).

[aragornbird]

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Yeah, but Slaking can hit harder in one turn than Vigoroth can in two.
And Pikachu is only better than Raichu if it has both the Light Ball and Surf, and good luck getting those two.

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[Ratiasu-kun]

I thought you could only get surfing pikachu through an event.
I learned the hard way about how weak the 1st evolutions were when I kept my Treecko from evolving cause Sceptile was so ugly (to me). My lv.100 Treecko had similar stats to my Lv.60 Latias that I was training. :shocked:

[aragornbird]

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Well duh, that’s because your Treecko is 40 levels higher. That doesn’t make it good. If you trained your Latias to lv. 100, it would have much better stats than Treecko will ever have.

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[WEIRDBOY44]

pardon my never posting before, but I feel I need respond to this, although your pokemon will become stronger with evolution, does not mean it doesn't have the potential to have the strength that its evolution has, use items like protiens and calciums(but I guess you could do that with the evolutions too and make them stronger :P)

[shanecdavis]

That is a common misperception with new trainers. What you fail to realize is that while you can use vitamins to increase your pre-evolutions to make their stats higher, you can also do the same thing with fully evolved Pokes to widen the gap once again. I am not understanding how this thread keeps living. Let me throw out a comparison to you, using a Lv100 Treecko and a Lv100 Sceptile. Let's even cheat and give both Pokes 31 IVs in every stat. Both Pokes also have had no EV training and have neutral Natures. First, here are the stats for Treecko:

Lv100 Treecko
HP: 221
Atk: 126
Def: 106
SAtk: 166
SDef: 146
Spd: 176

Now, let's compare them to the stats of a Sceptile:

Lv100 Sceptile
HP: 281
Atk: 206
Def: 166
SAtk: 246
SDef: 206
Spd: 276

No comparison, whatsoever, Now, let's pump our Treecko full of steroids......errrrr I mean "vitamins". Remember that you can only feed vitamins to a Poke until that stat has 100 EV points and that it takes 4 EV points to increase a stat by 1 point. That said, keep in mind that a Poke can only have a total of 510 EV points added to their stats. That means 510/6=85 and 85/4=21.25. To sum up, you can increase one stat by 22, and the rest by 21. Here are Treecko's stats, with the average stats included:

Lv100 Treecko
HP: 242
Atk: 147
Def: 127
SAtk: 187
SDef: 167
Spd: 198

As you can see, you are still not even close to the base stats of a Sceptile and we haven't even EV trained the Sceptile yet either. So, since averaging out a stat doesn't work, let's focus our EVs on a particular stat. The limit you can increase EVs on a Poke is 255, which means we can make out 2 stats, which will increase the stat by 63. Let's focus on SAtk and Spd, since that is what the Sceptile family is good at. Here are Treecko's stats again.

Lv100 Treecko
HP: 221
Atk: 126
Def: 106
SAtk: 229
SDef: 146
Spd: 239

Even with the two stats maxed, they STILL aren't as high as our untouched Sceptile. Not to mention the fact that the other stats that weren't maxed are much lower. Okay, last example. Let's cheat again and max out every stat. This is illegal and can only be done by cheating, but this is for arguments sake. So every stat on our Treecko increases by 63:

Lv100 Treecko
HP: 284
Atk: 189
Def: 169
SAtk: 229
SDef: 209
Spd: 239

In case you have forgotten, here is our Lv100 Sceptile that has still not received any EV training:

Lv100 Sceptile
HP: 281
Atk: 206
Def: 166
SAtk: 246
SDef: 206
Spd: 276

End result, our illegal Treecko is only 3 points higher in HP, Def, and SDef, while it is still 17 points short in Atk and SAtk, and a whopping 37 points behind in Spd. You can even give your Poke a beneficial Nature, which will increase one stat by 22 points, but it will also reduce another by 22.

So, as you can clearly see, even a cheated Treecko cannot match up to an untouched Sceptile. You can battle with unevolved Pokes because they are cute or what not, but PLEASE don't fool yourself into thinking that a pre-evolution can in any way be as strong as its fully evolved version.

[Ratiasu-kun]

Well said! Now I'm training an unevolved Grovyle to make up for Treecko's shortcomings. :laugh:
'Cause I still dont like Sceptile!

[~*!*~Queen Boo~*!*~]

Well sometimes I don't evolve my Pokemon until they learn better moves.


:t093:~*!*~Queen Boo~*!*~

[FFX383]

well pre evolved forums learn better moves, like i ususally keep my torchic until i get to lvl 45 when it learns flamethrower becuase it is in most cases a better move then blaze kick, then i evolve fast 2 lvls later for the sky uppercut.

[shanecdavis]

Once again, that is incorrect. Pre-evolutions learn moves SOONER, but very rarely do they ever learn BETTER moves.

For your example, you have to evolve Torchic to even allow it to learn a Fighting move at all, let alone Sky Uppercut. Also, you can teach Combusken or Blaziken Flamethrower as soon as you can buy one, which can be sooner than Torchic can learn it naturally (at Lv45!!), if you know how to maximize your money intake.

Another example is Treecko. It cannot even learn Leaf Blade, which is easily the best Grass move in the game (no, it isn't Solarbeam). It also cannot learn Dragon Claw or Earthquake or even False Swipe (if you like that move) while Sceptile can. Mudkip cannot learn Hydro Pump or Earthquake. There are too many examples to continue.

Not evolving Pokes has nothing to do with anything other than personal preference. If you don't evolve your Pokes, that is your choice, and that is what makes this game what it is. That said, don't kid yourself by thinking that an unevolved Poke can in some way be more powerful than a fully evolved one. In my previous example, you really have to stack the deck (by borderline cheating) in order for that to be true.

[Ratiasu-kun]

Well, the Treeckos have like a branching moveset.

If you keep treecko, you get moves off of absorb, being megadrain and gigadrain.

But Grovyle and Sceptile get more physical moves such as leaf blade, fury cutter and dragon claw through TM

and Aerial Ace for all three stages always comes in handy for Blaziken.

[Arsibiyez]

I hate butting in so suddenly, but I want to point out that it is not always a good idea to evolve your Pokes too quickly. There are certain moves that only the unevolved form can learn. Good examples are Shroomish's Spore and Giga Drain, Staryu's Cosmic Power and Hydro Pump, Seedot's Synthesis (and Explosion -_-), Surskit's Bubblebeam, Agility, Mist, and Haze... There are lots to mention. Although, it's undeniable that evolved forms of these Pokes are much better stat-wise, but physical appeal may decrease (Whismur - Loudred - Exploud is a great example). I'm sure that when fighting with the game's AI, you'd probably do great even with unevolved Pokes, but if you plan on battling any actual people, only use fully evolved forms to get maximum potential. Otherwise, your opponent should also be using unevolved Pokes. Personally, I'd love to see that battle take place. It would probably be fun to watch. :D

[Flamman]

i oly have one thingto show:
base speed of anorith: 75
armaldo's: 45
there are others, but i'm to laizy to seek for them.

just depends on your strategy and your personal likes and don't likes.

[shanecdavis]

Well, while you showed only one thing with your comparison, here is the rest of the story:

Anorith Base HP: 45
Armaldo Base HP: 75

Anorith Base Attack: 95
Armaldo Base Attack: 125

Anorith Base Defense: 50
Armaldo Base Defense: 100

Anorith Base Sp. Attack: 40
Armaldo Base Sp. Attack: 70

Anorith Base Sp. Defense: 50
Armaldo Base Sp. Defense: 80

Anorith TOTAL Base: 355
Armaldo TOTAL Base: 500

Now I don't know about you, but a 25 point increase in Speed (75 isn't that great to begin with) isn't worth the 170 point drop in all the other areas, specifically Atk, HP, and the defenses.

The bottom line is that the only benefit an unevolved form has over a fully evolved form is learning some moves earlier, which can be fixed with proper breeding anyway. For example, breeding a male and female Shroomish that knows Spore will produce a baby that knows it too.

[Chibi-chan]

I never evolved my Skitty (because statistically Skitty> Evo) and actually, I kept a Magikarp up to level 48 in Blue Version because I heard that at 50 it turned to a Mew...one game I forgot and let it evolve D:

*wonders if it really would*

[jc_rcw]

Actually Chibi:

Hp
skitty: 50
delcatty: 70

atk
skitty: 45
delcatty: 65

def
skitty: 45
delcatty: 65

spd
skitty: 50
delcatty: 70

sp.atk
skitty: 35
delcatty: 55

sp.def
skitty: 35
delcatty: 55

So yeah it would be better to evolve it >_> although it isn't the best pokemon out there.

[shanecdavis]

Good point, jc. Here is how pathetic Skitty is. Its TOTAL Base stats are tied for the 36th WORST Poke in the game. Yes, that means there are 353 Pokemon in the game with better stats than Skitty. It doesn't get much better evolving it to Delcatty either. While it isn't the most pathetic fully evolved or evolution-less Normal-type (That goes to Aipom and Spinda), it is close. 20 points.

BTW - No, Magikarp doesn't evolve into Mew. Just another stupid rumor.

[FFX383]

man shanedavis no need to diss everyone in here, if he dosent want a delcatty he dosent want one, its depends on what you like not which is the best.

[shanecdavis]

Now I get to diss on you. LOL "I'm juss kidding". No, seriously, if you read Chibi's post again, they chose Skitty over Delcatty due to an ill-conceived notion that Skitty was better statistically. Then, jc came and corrected that assumption, and I was just emphasizing the fact that Skitty is one of the worst Pokes in the game, statistically.

I apologize if it seems I am dissing everyone, but people here are continually trying to justify their position with faulty reasoning. If Chibi said they prefer Skitty over Delcatty because it is cuter, that is fine. There is no argument as they are giving their opinion. I prefer evolved Pokes more because they look cooler. Neither opinion is wrong. Trying to suggest an unevolved Poke is stronger than a fully evolved Poke is, and that is why I have been repeating this over and over and over and over. Cuteness? Yes. Strength and statisticallly? NO.

[Eureka1]

i'd suggest keeping a vigoroth as it is :P the evolved version is great but only attacks every 2 moves

[Ratiasu-kun]

Yes, that is one of very few exceptions where the better choice is debatable, such as the ones that gain a type when evolving

[kohei]

The only real advantage of keeping a Pokemon unevolved will be if you are competing in the "Little League" thing where you are only allowed to use Pokemon within a certain height/weight...