Do you ever not evolve your Pokémon?

I always evolve instantly when it comes to level up, but I'm very apprehensive about evolving any other way. Even for the Pokedex, I worry that I'm going to lose access to good moves if I use the stones too early or whatever!

There have been quite a few instances in which I haven't fully evolved my Pokémon. I used an Aipom in my team on HG and chose not to evolve it into an Ambipom purely because I think Ambipom has a really ugly design. Sure, Aipom wasn't the strongest member of my team, but it held its weight fine. I did the same with Togetic back in Platinum - I think Togekiss is great, but I just wanted to keep it as a Togetic for no real reason that I can remember haha.

Most of the time I do fully evolve my Pokémon but there are those instances in which I don't, and when I don't it's because I value the Pokémon's design over the added strength it would gain from evolving.

Fun fact: You can evolve Porygon at level 1 and it's ok as it doesn't really lose any good moves doing so, so I have a level 1 Porygon-Z in my living dex.




I think Pokémon that have multi-generational evolutions can get away with not being evolved over Pokémon whose evolutions all appear in the same generation. Likewise it's safer to evolve them early.


For me the exception is pretty much all second and sixth generation evolutions or previous generation Pokémon including Steelix, Blissey, Espeon, Porygon2, Umbreon, Scizor and Sylveon.

I always evolve my Pokemon. I can't remember the last time I used a non-fully evolved Pokemon on my team!

I usually tend to fully-evolve all my Pokemon when possible. The only real exceptions are those that evolve with trade and I was unable to meet said trade requirement.

Sometimes, but only post game usually. Story-wise I know the Pokémon team I use will be boxed in favor of others that will be bred with better IVs/EV trained and the like so it doesn't bother me as much.. but there are some Pokémon whose early forms I just adore too much. In those cases, I'll breed them with good IVs/natures and EV train them properly without ever evolving.

There are two situations that come to mind. I either wait until I obtain all moves that I feel adaquate for Evolution Stone types and when I want to get Flamethrower for Torchic, or Pay Day for Persian in Alpha Sapphire.

I actually was a huge fan of treecko when I was a kid so my first runthrough on sapphire I kept my treecko a treecko even now I have a shiny treecko level 100

Oh I do this a lot. I sometimes just strongly prefer the unevolved version. To list a few I've kept unevolved:

- Sentret
- Azurill
- Aipom
- Fletchinder
- Joltik
- Dragonair
- Grovyle
- Igglybuff

I plan to keep my Morelull unevolved, too. I checked its stats and it's not even that bad (not like Sentret, Azurill or Igglybuff who have given me serious trouble {XD}).

It might be fun to do an NFE challenge at some point o: I pretty much ALWAYS evolve my pokemon because the game is easier that way.

I'm usually forced to hold off on evolving Pokemon if they evolve via a stone and become unable to learn moves through level up (like in Pokemon Gold, my Growlithe had bad moves until the 40s, where it learns Flamethrower), but never evolving something during the entire game? I've never been there, unfortunately. Never had the urge to - I have the mindset of everything being stronger as soon as they evolve, and that keeping it unevolved is making it intentionally weaker. :(

chimchar learns nasty plot, enough said.

tremble in fear against a infernape with Special Attack nature and nasty plot, sunny day, flamethrower, and solar beam.

The only time i did it was to keep my beautiful shiny eevee forever since i already have a shiny glaceon, sylveon and umbreon

I once did a play-through without evolving my starter, which was Squirtle at the time, and managed to level it up to 100 and eventually beating the Pokémon League. Good old times!

I'm debating whether or not I should evolve Crabrawler.

Sometimes, if I like the pre-evolved design or move pool.