Unpopular opinions

Limited use TMs are not inherently a bad thing. I think it's more interesting from a game design perspective to force a player to commit to a choice than be able to slap Earthquake on everything. Too much player freedom can easily (and ironically) lead to homogeneity, as I've learned from playing Final Fantasy V.

TMs should still be unlimited use once you beat the champion, though.
 
Karxrida said:
Limited use TMs are not inherently a bad thing. I think it's more interesting from a game design perspective to force a player to commit to a choice than be able to slap Earthquake on everything. Too much player freedom can easily (and ironically) lead to homogeneity, as I've learned from playing Final Fantasy V.

TMs should still be unlimited use once you beat the champion, though.
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I think SV got it right tbh.

You can get them in the overworld, encouraging exploration, you can also get multiple of them by crafting as well.

I never really liked infinite use TMs. You either have things locked until way too late, or something slips through the cracks and utterly breaks the game (BW2's Return, and SM's Scald are easy examples of this.)

On the other hand, with limited TMs, you can get cool things like Platinum's early Earthquake TM, which is such an incredible move that actually makes you stop and think what is getting it.

Where the old games failed was making them infinitely available at some point, especially post-game.
 
maybe its the open world bad!! bias but i dont like sv's system, both because i dont like the material system - which feels like it only exists to artifically increase the "depth" of the open world without offering anything interesting - and that it ends up like mindless grinding/the ui is kinda ass. something where maybe theres a crafting tree where crafting/unlocking lower level tms is part of unlocking the high level ones. so the pace would be the players pace and how much they want to work towards certain moves, and maybe they could have tasks to be able to learn those moves by exploring, instead of just being another thing on a shop you buy. id keep them infinite use this way

Id say things more out of there but I think that'd just be wishlisting
 
Volt-Ikazuchi said:
I think SV got it right tbh.

You can get them in the overworld, encouraging exploration, you can also get multiple of them by crafting as well.

I never really liked infinite use TMs. You either have things locked until way too late, or something slips through the cracks and utterly breaks the game (BW2's Return, and SM's Scald are easy examples of this.)

On the other hand, with limited TMs, you can get cool things like Platinum's early Earthquake TM, which is such an incredible move that actually makes you stop and think what is getting it.

Where the old games failed was making them infinitely available at some point, especially post-game.
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Gen II made field move TMs available in the Dept Store for purchase after you found them in the wild. I was always shocked that never made a comeback for all TMs. Selling them Post-Game for BP would also make sense.

Problems and benefits with each system we've seen:
Limited use, 1 supply: Players have to seriously consider whether to use a TM, which is good for forcing decisions, but leads to a lot of players hoarding TMs during their playthroughs for fear of wasting them, and makes postgame/competitive stuff excessively awkward.
Infinite use: TMs have to be excessively expensive or hard to find due to how much of a power-boost they can be. This makes buying a Swords Dance or even Rock Tomb/Bulldoze TM a serious decision. But once the player has access to a TM, they have no reason NOT to use it on every mon they can if it's an improvement, which makes broken early TMs a serious balance problem and even generic good moves will show up on enough sets to make various mons all feel very samey. The high cost can severely mess with the in-game economy.
Limited use, crafted supply: The crafting system isn't very interesting and feels artificially limited in which mon drops apply to which items. The supply also isn't limited enough to really feel like it's forcing decisions even early playthrough. But it makes post-game reasonably smooth and it encourages using TMs early-game without the XY effect of every physical attacker on your team sharing 2-3 moves.

I like the crafting system most, but both reducing the different types of mon drops(just give us like 3 types of drop for each type) and then increasing the number required per TM might be the way to go.
 
Karxrida said:
Limited use TMs are not inherently a bad thing. I think it's more interesting from a game design perspective to force a player to commit to a choice than be able to slap Earthquake on everything. Too much player freedom can easily (and ironically) lead to homogeneity, as I've learned from playing Final Fantasy V.

TMs should still be unlimited use once you beat the champion, though.
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I mentioned this a while ago, but one of the things that really underscored how goofy TM-related balance can be was Toxic's distribution in earlier gens.

In a lot of the early games, a ton of Pokemon could be taught Toxic via TM regardless of how much thematic sense it did or did not make, but the Toxic TM was usually a true one-off: one found in the quest, with no way to buy or farm more. This makes a decent bit of game balance sense specifically for the quest: the player gets to choose only one party member to teach a pretty unique move to (lots of other moves can inflict other status conditions, but only Toxic inflicts its unique brand of poison), but he or she could choose pretty much any party member to be the recipient. There's a trade-off.

Later on, once TMs were infinite-use, something like Toxic suddenly looks completely out of place. Now that the supply was no longer limited, it really draws attention to the fact that pretty much everything could learn it and how little sense that makes.
 
Sixfortyfive said:
I mentioned this a while ago, but one of the things that really underscored how goofy TM-related balance can be was Toxic's distribution in earlier gens.

In a lot of the early games, a ton of Pokemon could be taught Toxic via TM regardless of how much thematic sense it did or did not make, but the Toxic TM was usually a true one-off: one found in the quest, with no way to buy or farm more. This makes a decent bit of game balance sense specifically for the quest: the player gets to choose only one party member to teach a pretty unique move to (lots of other moves can inflict other status conditions, but only Toxic inflicts its unique brand of poison), but he or she could choose pretty much any party member to be the recipient. There's a trade-off.

Later on, once TMs were infinite-use, something like Toxic suddenly looks completely out of place. Now that the supply was no longer limited, it really draws attention to the fact that pretty much everything could learn it and how little sense that makes.
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Toxic as a limited TM now is pretty nebulous in the fact that Umbreon can learn it in Scarlet/Violet (poisonous sweat) but not in BDSP.

Also on the topic of Toxic, I ran it on Sawsbuck during the January 2025 metagame of 35 Pokes because I nicknamed it after a character from Reverse: 1999, Jessica, that is also a deer like Sawsbuck, but has a huge poison theme and Toxic was basically the best move to make that nickname fitting. It was actually somewhat useful to put threats to my team in a Catch-22 situation I feel like: get the hell out of dodge, get Sawsbuck out of their face, or deal with the Toxic timer. Outside of that, there's no real justification for Deerling and Sawsbuck learning Toxic from their debut to USUM.
 
leafsaber47 said:
Toxic as a limited TM now is pretty nebulous in the fact that Umbreon can learn it in Scarlet/Violet (poisonous sweat) but not in BDSP.

Also on the topic of Toxic, I ran it on Sawsbuck during the January 2025 metagame of 35 Pokes because I nicknamed it after a character from Reverse: 1999, Jessica, that is also a deer like Sawsbuck, but has a huge poison theme and Toxic was basically the best move to make that nickname fitting. It was actually somewhat useful to put threats to my team in a Catch-22 situation I feel like: get the hell out of dodge, get Sawsbuck out of their face, or deal with the Toxic timer. Outside of that, there's no real justification for Deerling and Sawsbuck learning Toxic from their debut to USUM.
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I mostly consider that there doesn't need to be an additional justification because that example is sufficient: damage-over-time is important enough that it should be widely distributed, and we're a long way from every mon having their own bespoke style of it.
 
leafsaber47 said:
Toxic as a limited TM now is pretty nebulous in the fact that Umbreon can learn it in Scarlet/Violet (poisonous sweat) but not in BDSP.
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This kind of thing just happens all the time, Game Freak changing their mind on moves

I'd know since I'm still mad Sylveon has lost Mystical Fire in Gen 9 despite literally getting it in Gen 8 and a spinoff making that move part of its core identity lol
1742841783521.png
 
Bakugames said:
i feel like eevees should be very stiff and one note in their movesets: if they have coverage it needs to be ass, unless they can turn these good moves into stab like pixelate sylveon. so i think the change to remove mystical fire is good
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That's honestly wack tho.

It makes them feel super dated now that everything got dumb coverage while they're barely a step above Regieleki.

They should at least have enough to be functional and stand apart from each other.
 
Volt-Ikazuchi said:
That's honestly wack tho.

It makes them feel super dated now that everything got dumb coverage while they're barely a step above Regieleki.

They should at least have enough to be functional and stand apart from each other.
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I don't think the eevees will ever be Good anyway unless you buff them insanely, id rather do something fun with flavor and make them really embrace being elementals of a specific type
 
Bakugames said:
I don't think the eevees will ever be Good anyway unless you buff them insanely, id rather do something fun with flavor and make them really embrace being elementals of a specific type
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i feel like thats the least interesting way to handle them as there's already plenty of mons who moves consist of stab(s) + random mediocre coverage. it's like the main indicator of a forgettable throwaway mon
personally i always really liked the rom hack idea (i forget where it came from) of allowing the eeveelutions to devolve while keeping their moves. that doesnt just make them all individually better, it really adds something unique to the game and makes them feel more cohesive
 
If the eeveelutions have a bit more limited movesets, then I think that's fine. What's not fine though, is when they have absolutely no coverage at all. It took till this gen for them to all get a coverage move in alluring voice. I don't see why espeon can't get focus blast for example, most psychic types do. Or why glaceon doesn't get flash cannon as quite a few ice types have.
 
Dive Missile said:
personally i always really liked the rom hack idea (i forget where it came from) of allowing the eeveelutions to devolve while keeping their moves. that doesnt just make them all individually better, it really adds something unique to the game and makes them feel more cohesive
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it comes from the manga, and it'd never be implemented (ignoring the obvious series breaking non permanent evolutions, we already got megas for that) because that eevee was a mistreated rocket experiment and its good ending was to lose that ability and evolve normally into espeon
 
Heatranator said:
If the eeveelutions have a bit more limited movesets, then I think that's fine. What's not fine though, is when they have absolutely no coverage at all. It took till this gen for them to all get a coverage move in alluring voice. I don't see why espeon can't get focus blast for example, most psychic types do. Or why glaceon doesn't get flash cannon as quite a few ice types have.
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I am being absolutely serious when I say I think Espeon isn't allowed to have Focus Blast because it doesn't have hands.
 
Bakugames said:
i feel like eevees should be very stiff and one note in their movesets: if they have coverage it needs to be ass, unless they can turn these good moves into stab like pixelate sylveon. so i think the change to remove mystical fire is good
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Last time you talked about Eeveelutions you kinda just said they're boring and you hate them so I'm not surprised you have this take, but like here's a few counter-arguments:

1. I think Eeveelutions should be allowed to be good competitively because I believe more cute Pokemon should be allowed to be good competitively.

We play in a game where 90% of the good Pokemon are either ugly shitters or just Charizard. It's rare that Game Freak designs cute Pokemon that are good - especially in Doubles where the cute Mythicals are, of course, banned.

I believe every type of design should be at least somewhat represented in the competitive balance. That may sound dumb, but I think it's just better for the game, and it's something Unite does well. If you go to the competitive tier lists for Unite, scrimblos like Gengar, Psyduck, Absol, Aegislash, Zacian and Slowbro can all be top tier.

When you go down the list of usage stats on Pikalytics for this VGC season, number 8 slot is the first Pokemon I think you could argue for, Ogerpon-Hearthflame, which has a crucial flaw: when it Teras the mask hides like 80% of the design. In fact Ogerpon is cute but in any competitive sense its design is hidden behind the "Cool" masks that are supposed to designate the better forms. Before Tera, I would agree and say I like this one.

Next, 14 is Ogerpon-Cornerstone, then 17th Whimsicott. There will be no disputes there, Whimsicott is cute and I'm glad it's here. Indeedee is 19th, though I think that's a rarer mon to enjoy. 26 is Clefairy, 31 is Ogerpon-Wellspring, and that's all for top 40 usage.

So out of the 6 I listed, 3 are just different Ogerpon forms, and there is only one attacker here (which is just the Ogerpons.) Not a lot of variety on this front, and that's 1/10 Pokemon if we count base species.

This isn't a terrible thing or anything, this isn't a travesty. But I do think it's clear that it's the least represented category. Now you can disagree with this, but I think that for such an extremely broad category of Pokemon design it kinda sucks that it's mostly absent from competitive, and the Cute Mon Enjoyers have to latch on every time. Youtubers like Alpharad make Whimsicott their favorite Pokemon because he likes cute shit and it was the only one in the initial Gen 8 format to actually be good pretty much, setting up Fish.
2. Why Eeveelutions

I'm biased of course, but I'm going to give a very practical argument: I understand from prior conversation that you dislike the role Pokemon like Pikachu take in the series, being mostly mascot-fuel corporate PR plastered-plastic upon the walls of each and every corner of the IP. Pikachu appeals broadly to a way that can be almost annoying, its sole purpose is to get a baseline "That's cute" reply, or maybe a rare "That's cool" like its exclusive moves from the anime.

But that's just the thing, most of the "cute mon" archetypes we get in Pokemon media widely are pre-evolutions and obviously shit, Clefairy as an exception.

I'd argue there are 8 fully-evolved (or single stage, in the original Dex; ie. Chansey counts here) broadly understandable "Cute Pokemon" in the entire Kanto dex, and even then I think you could cut it. ie. if you believe Ninetales is more regal and "elegant" than cute, I'd not necessarily disagree. This includes shitters like Wigglytuff (also was meta in Unite btw, that's where I started to like the Pokemon when I mained it) and the three Eeveelutions included.

There simply aren't that many cute final evolutions in Pokemon, as anyone who broadly prefers Cute Pokemon would probably find trying to teambuild. And of those that exist, most of them are dogshit. Meganium, Furret, Ampharos, Azumarill, Quagsire, Espeon and Umbreon, Blissey. We got a few winners in here, mostly in singles - Blissey has not had much a career in VGC, and Azumarill has existed in short bursts. Quagsire is not needed in the official format whatsoever, and in singles it's still a Pokemon that goes all around. Ampharos is depressingly shit, Meganium is a Pokemon known for being bad unlike its two "cool" and "terrifying" cousin starters, Furret is probably one of the worst rats if not the worst rat in series history - while also being one of the cutest.

Delcatty is dogshit. Mawile is bad without its Mega. Flygon is vastly outclassed. Altaria without its mega is shit, and even with it its still a bit underwhelming at times. Milotic is good, if you count it, Absol is bad, Mega included. If you want some good Hoenn Pokemon though you can pop out with a Swampert, Metagross, Salamence, Pelipper, Blaziken, etc.

I don't dislike those Pokemon, but like there is a disparity.

So this doesn't really get at the question because you can easily say "Just make these Pokemon good instead" and I actually agree, but in a lot of these cases it just doesn't fit the Game Freak Buff Purview. Delcatty would need probably several-hundred BST increase, or just super optimized. Mawile they're not gonna buff again, Mega reliant for life, and it can't get an Evolution either. Hopefully Flygon gets its Mega, but I doubt it. Altaria hasn't been buffed outside of moves in a long time, and Milotic is fine. Absol would need a large BST increase and maybe even a second STAB, hopefully a Mega buff.

TLDR: Eeveelutions are actually in a pretty good place because most of them, with Flareon exceptions, only really need moves or abilities. Glaceon has Kyurem Special Attack but it's walled by NU because it has Water Pulse to hit Fire-Types and Mud Shot for Ground-Types, plus needs to make a prediction, and its abilities are ass.

Espeon is really not that far behind say, Alakazam or other Psychic contemporaries on the surface. 110 Speed is a classic speed tier that is still used for plenty of new viable Pokemon to this day, like Ogerpon. Magic Bounce is pretty good, though mismatched for its role, and 130 Special Attack is a doozy. But what it lacks with its single STAB is a reliable way to actually get past its checks. It has coverage on paper, like Glaceon actually, but it's all really low level versions of coverage that only really help enough with 4x weakness. Alakazam gets a lotta bullshit, probably the most notable being Focus Blast, obviously an amazing move for an Offensive Psychic that is frail to be able to use. Without it, it just gets walled by most Darks - Alluring Voice (new addition, before it had to rely on Draining Kiss) is not stopping Kingambit from switching in and absolutely dominating it.

When Hidden Power was around, Jolteon had the interesting niche in singles of its Speed with Hidden Power to mix up its coverage. With them gone, it has no real options. It's actually in a not terrible spot for its typing and build - Regieleki has proven that the solo-Electric screen setter with speed control can do it, and while it is obviously outclassed by Regieleki in every way right now, giving it some coverage would help it not be entirely unviable, and likely give it a niche in Doubles. And give it Reflect too while you're at it lol.

I'll go a step further than just the competitive scene.

Even in the context of the singleplayer games, the Eeveelutions are dogshit. Let alone the fact that all of the Cute Mons I've previously listed are support roles in Doubles or a Legendary Pokemon. Okay, you wanna use them in singleplayer - yeah, every Pokemon can technically do the job, sure.

But have you fucking seen Scarlet/Violet movepools? Playing Radical Red recently taught me how much random shit you get just by leveling up nowadays.

Floragato gets Seed Bomb at Level 20 (excellent STAB), U-Turn at Level 24 (EVEN IN SINGLEPLAYER VERY USEFUL), Play Rough at 42 or if you evolve it first you get that at Level 47. Then you get Knock Off at Level 52, which is still not even the endgame in Scarlet/Violet. Through TMs it gets basically fucking anything too.

Well, that's just a Starter, right? Think again lol look at Salazzle.

1742847371139.png


In Scarlet/Violet you can get this encounter near the early parts of the game. Now, ignoring the fact that this literally has *almost* a set for you, if you were to do a normal training of this mon... You level it up to 25 in a game with Exp. Share and it gets fucking Nasty Plot. 5 more levels and you get Incinerate. 7 more and you get Venoshock. Both mid sure I guess, but then they make up for it by giving you Dragon Pulse through Level Up soon after, and Flamethrower at 51 which finishes out your 4 moveslots for you.

Game Freak just hands you a sweeper competitive moveset that's basically finished lol.

You do have mid AF mons like Tsareena still nowadays, and Gen 7 being slow in general haha the meme. But uh, that's why they buffed it with good moves. Beyond that non-point, yes they should buff other non-Cute Pokemon too Yes,

Eeveelutions are lowkey dogshit look at this:

1742847194229.png


This is Sylveon's level-up movepool in Generation 9. This is the most viable competitive Eeveelution and it gets it sfirst STAB move at Level 30. It gets its second at Level 50.

It's not even good at showcasing the archetype of the type, which I'm sure will be an argument. "Eeveelutions have to embody their type so it's against the design to give them coverage" in a singleplayer context it's so bad that they don't even get their STABs.

1742847514725.png


As a counter-example, Vaporeon is better getting actual STAB moves and Haze is interesting, I do not have that many problems with this one especially since it still has the Ice Beam TM, it feels like a fairly solid bulky Water in the context of a singleplayer playthrough.

1742847594799.png


Here is the like 5th most Popular Pokemon as of TPC's official 2020 public poll. This shit's ass and frankly Umbreon doesn't even really function like most Dark-Type Pokemon, so I still don't agree with anything like "It needs to have the sanctity of its original purpose".

Its design isn't even for Dark-Type they made it for Poison anyways!

1742847677088.png


Even if you would say this is "ok" this is frankly dogshit with modern Pokemon, including Vaporeon.

1742847727678.png


Nowadays we have signature bullshit moves on every new Pokemon and they get half their coverage with zero TMs. Your Palafin is walled by a Grass-Type? No problem here is Acrobatics, plus one of the strongest Base Power physical Water moves. For TMs you get all the coverage under the sun.

"Palafin is hard to get and it has to switch out"

1742847856381.png


Here is Clawitzer, two-stage mon (where the first stage isn't useless) that just gives you all of the coverage for free.

1742847934481.png


Azumarill gets Bounce coverage (genuinely useful in PvE), Superpower, 90 BP physical move at level 21 (or Bubble Beam at Level 6, which matches Vaporeon's Water Pulse at like Level 25) and it has a second STAB + Huge Power.

What I'm trying to say is Eeveelutions are fucking washed and they need help. They barely even reflect their types because half of them have the wrong spreads and half of them are outclassed by Pokemon you get on the first route.

The time of Eeveelutions being pristine "solid" picks that round out a singleplayer team are long behind us. I wouldn't recommend literally any Eeveelution for a Singleplayer team outside of you just liking the Pokemon, because why pick Espeon when you can pick up Gardevoir and it's lowkey easier to train than Eevee -> Espeon.

You know what Fairy AND Psychic type gets Mystical Fire?!?!?!

1742848241346.png


Calm Mind Psychic Moonblasts Mystical Fire just from level up btw.

3. How I'd buff Eeveelutions

Frankly, most of them are lost causes even with buffs but I'd like Sylveon to get Mystical Fire back, Jolteon to get some coverage (not sure which), Espeon to get something that hits Tyranitar holy fuck its 2025, and I'd like just about all of them to get buffs to their movesets for singleplayer too.

Espeon should also get Mystical Fire to be fucking frank, they literally made merchandise of a Mismagius Outfitted Espeon.

1742848408046.png


It is genuinely harder to train most Eeveelutions than 3-Stagers with bad babies because most of them take forever to get "online".

Leafeon should be given at least a shot with Chlorophyll since its stats are solid, give it something like Weather Ball for a mixed attack or some other Fire Coverage, maybe give it Victory Dance or something. Anything! Ice Spinner??

Give Umbreon Knock Off for fucks sake, it already does 0 damage at least that's some interesting utility that also represents the Dark-Type better, and give it Nasty Plot. Not because it's probably even that good, but because that's more interesting for the mon and represents the type.

I'd like most Eeveelution secondary abilities to change if it fits. I've never felt that Umbreon's HA makes sense, Inner Focus does not seem to do anything for it or ever come up in its design. If you want to lean into the Poison origins, especially in 2025 companies love that kind of thing, give it Poison Point. Jolteon's first ability is significantly better than its HA and that's fine, but I feel like it should likely be given Static instead. etc. etc. etc.

4. Some Other Cute Pokemon I Want Buffed

-Give Ampharos its Part Dragon Type from the Mega, also give it a buff to SpA, and give it a bulk buff in both forms

-Can we please just make Altaria Dragon Fairy for realsies, maybe giving it Pixelate too. It's not like this invalidates the mega since it still has bad stats. It'd transition well with being an old Normal Type.

-If you're like me who thinks Ninetales is cute, can we give them some fucking Special Attack please. Using them in Singleplayer is genuinely dreadful, their movepool is hard to work with especially in the early days and they're generally immediately outclassed. I'm not a fan of Arcanine but that mon is just objectively better than Ninetales in every way in singleplayer, and honestly in competitive it still has a better history of success.

-Give Delcatty literally anything

-Why does Bellossom exist as it is

-I tried to use Pachirisu in BDSP with level caps and it was fucking atrocious. Please make at least some of the Pika clones not dogshit

-Can we give Furret a crumb of stats and ability

-Meowstic is genuinely awful in singleplayer while also not being good in competitive either. Please buff this mon


Also if we're gonna start giving out Mythicals like candy can we let them be in VGC now. Please ty
 
ant4456 said:
Last time you talked about Eeveelutions you kinda just said they're boring and you hate them so I'm not surprised you have this take, but like here's a few counter-arguments:

1. I think Eeveelutions should be allowed to be good competitively because I believe more cute Pokemon should be allowed to be good competitively.

We play in a game where 90% of the good Pokemon are either ugly shitters or just Charizard. It's rare that Game Freak designs cute Pokemon that are good - especially in Doubles where the cute Mythicals are, of course, banned.

I believe every type of design should be at least somewhat represented in the competitive balance. That may sound dumb, but I think it's just better for the game, and it's something Unite does well. If you go to the competitive tier lists for Unite, scrimblos like Gengar, Psyduck, Absol, Aegislash, Zacian and Slowbro can all be top tier.

When you go down the list of usage stats on Pikalytics for this VGC season, number 8 slot is the first Pokemon I think you could argue for, Ogerpon-Hearthflame, which has a crucial flaw: when it Teras the mask hides like 80% of the design. In fact Ogerpon is cute but in any competitive sense its design is hidden behind the "Cool" masks that are supposed to designate the better forms. Before Tera, I would agree and say I like this one.

Next, 14 is Ogerpon-Cornerstone, then 17th Whimsicott. There will be no disputes there, Whimsicott is cute and I'm glad it's here. Indeedee is 19th, though I think that's a rarer mon to enjoy. 26 is Clefairy, 31 is Ogerpon-Wellspring, and that's all for top 40 usage.

So out of the 6 I listed, 3 are just different Ogerpon forms, and there is only one attacker here (which is just the Ogerpons.) Not a lot of variety on this front, and that's 1/10 Pokemon if we count base species.

This isn't a terrible thing or anything, this isn't a travesty. But I do think it's clear that it's the least represented category. Now you can disagree with this, but I think that for such an extremely broad category of Pokemon design it kinda sucks that it's mostly absent from competitive, and the Cute Mon Enjoyers have to latch on every time. Youtubers like Alpharad make Whimsicott their favorite Pokemon because he likes cute shit and it was the only one in the initial Gen 8 format to actually be good pretty much, setting up Fish.
2. Why Eeveelutions

I'm biased of course, but I'm going to give a very practical argument: I understand from prior conversation that you dislike the role Pokemon like Pikachu take in the series, being mostly mascot-fuel corporate PR plastered-plastic upon the walls of each and every corner of the IP. Pikachu appeals broadly to a way that can be almost annoying, its sole purpose is to get a baseline "That's cute" reply, or maybe a rare "That's cool" like its exclusive moves from the anime.

But that's just the thing, most of the "cute mon" archetypes we get in Pokemon media widely are pre-evolutions and obviously shit, Clefairy as an exception.

I'd argue there are 8 fully-evolved (or single stage, in the original Dex; ie. Chansey counts here) broadly understandable "Cute Pokemon" in the entire Kanto dex, and even then I think you could cut it. ie. if you believe Ninetales is more regal and "elegant" than cute, I'd not necessarily disagree. This includes shitters like Wigglytuff (also was meta in Unite btw, that's where I started to like the Pokemon when I mained it) and the three Eeveelutions included.

There simply aren't that many cute final evolutions in Pokemon, as anyone who broadly prefers Cute Pokemon would probably find trying to teambuild. And of those that exist, most of them are dogshit. Meganium, Furret, Ampharos, Azumarill, Quagsire, Espeon and Umbreon, Blissey. We got a few winners in here, mostly in singles - Blissey has not had much a career in VGC, and Azumarill has existed in short bursts. Quagsire is not needed in the official format whatsoever, and in singles it's still a Pokemon that goes all around. Ampharos is depressingly shit, Meganium is a Pokemon known for being bad unlike its two "cool" and "terrifying" cousin starters, Furret is probably one of the worst rats if not the worst rat in series history - while also being one of the cutest.

Delcatty is dogshit. Mawile is bad without its Mega. Flygon is vastly outclassed. Altaria without its mega is shit, and even with it its still a bit underwhelming at times. Milotic is good, if you count it, Absol is bad, Mega included. If you want some good Hoenn Pokemon though you can pop out with a Swampert, Metagross, Salamence, Pelipper, Blaziken, etc.

I don't dislike those Pokemon, but like there is a disparity.

So this doesn't really get at the question because you can easily say "Just make these Pokemon good instead" and I actually agree, but in a lot of these cases it just doesn't fit the Game Freak Buff Purview. Delcatty would need probably several-hundred BST increase, or just super optimized. Mawile they're not gonna buff again, Mega reliant for life, and it can't get an Evolution either. Hopefully Flygon gets its Mega, but I doubt it. Altaria hasn't been buffed outside of moves in a long time, and Milotic is fine. Absol would need a large BST increase and maybe even a second STAB, hopefully a Mega buff.

TLDR: Eeveelutions are actually in a pretty good place because most of them, with Flareon exceptions, only really need moves or abilities. Glaceon has Kyurem Special Attack but it's walled by NU because it has Water Pulse to hit Fire-Types and Mud Shot for Ground-Types, plus needs to make a prediction, and its abilities are ass.

Espeon is really not that far behind say, Alakazam or other Psychic contemporaries on the surface. 110 Speed is a classic speed tier that is still used for plenty of new viable Pokemon to this day, like Ogerpon. Magic Bounce is pretty good, though mismatched for its role, and 130 Special Attack is a doozy. But what it lacks with its single STAB is a reliable way to actually get past its checks. It has coverage on paper, like Glaceon actually, but it's all really low level versions of coverage that only really help enough with 4x weakness. Alakazam gets a lotta bullshit, probably the most notable being Focus Blast, obviously an amazing move for an Offensive Psychic that is frail to be able to use. Without it, it just gets walled by most Darks - Alluring Voice (new addition, before it had to rely on Draining Kiss) is not stopping Kingambit from switching in and absolutely dominating it.

When Hidden Power was around, Jolteon had the interesting niche in singles of its Speed with Hidden Power to mix up its coverage. With them gone, it has no real options. It's actually in a not terrible spot for its typing and build - Regieleki has proven that the solo-Electric screen setter with speed control can do it, and while it is obviously outclassed by Regieleki in every way right now, giving it some coverage would help it not be entirely unviable, and likely give it a niche in Doubles. And give it Reflect too while you're at it lol.

I'll go a step further than just the competitive scene.

Even in the context of the singleplayer games, the Eeveelutions are dogshit. Let alone the fact that all of the Cute Mons I've previously listed are support roles in Doubles or a Legendary Pokemon. Okay, you wanna use them in singleplayer - yeah, every Pokemon can technically do the job, sure.

But have you fucking seen Scarlet/Violet movepools? Playing Radical Red recently taught me how much random shit you get just by leveling up nowadays.

Floragato gets Seed Bomb at Level 20 (excellent STAB), U-Turn at Level 24 (EVEN IN SINGLEPLAYER VERY USEFUL), Play Rough at 42 or if you evolve it first you get that at Level 47. Then you get Knock Off at Level 52, which is still not even the endgame in Scarlet/Violet. Through TMs it gets basically fucking anything too.

Well, that's just a Starter, right? Think again lol look at Salazzle.

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In Scarlet/Violet you can get this encounter near the early parts of the game. Now, ignoring the fact that this literally has *almost* a set for you, if you were to do a normal training of this mon... You level it up to 25 in a game with Exp. Share and it gets fucking Nasty Plot. 5 more levels and you get Incinerate. 7 more and you get Venoshock. Both mid sure I guess, but then they make up for it by giving you Dragon Pulse through Level Up soon after, and Flamethrower at 51 which finishes out your 4 moveslots for you.

Game Freak just hands you a sweeper competitive moveset that's basically finished lol.

You do have mid AF mons like Tsareena still nowadays, and Gen 7 being slow in general haha the meme. But uh, that's why they buffed it with good moves. Beyond that non-point, yes they should buff other non-Cute Pokemon too Yes,

Eeveelutions are lowkey dogshit look at this:

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This is Sylveon's level-up movepool in Generation 9. This is the most viable competitive Eeveelution and it gets it sfirst STAB move at Level 30. It gets its second at Level 50.

It's not even good at showcasing the archetype of the type, which I'm sure will be an argument. "Eeveelutions have to embody their type so it's against the design to give them coverage" in a singleplayer context it's so bad that they don't even get their STABs.

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As a counter-example, Vaporeon is better getting actual STAB moves and Haze is interesting, I do not have that many problems with this one especially since it still has the Ice Beam TM, it feels like a fairly solid bulky Water in the context of a singleplayer playthrough.

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Here is the like 5th most Popular Pokemon as of TPC's official 2020 public poll. This shit's ass and frankly Umbreon doesn't even really function like most Dark-Type Pokemon, so I still don't agree with anything like "It needs to have the sanctity of its original purpose".

Its design isn't even for Dark-Type they made it for Poison anyways!

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Even if you would say this is "ok" this is frankly dogshit with modern Pokemon, including Vaporeon.

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Nowadays we have signature bullshit moves on every new Pokemon and they get half their coverage with zero TMs. Your Palafin is walled by a Grass-Type? No problem here is Acrobatics, plus one of the strongest Base Power physical Water moves. For TMs you get all the coverage under the sun.

"Palafin is hard to get and it has to switch out"

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Here is Clawitzer, two-stage mon (where the first stage isn't useless) that just gives you all of the coverage for free.

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Azumarill gets Bounce coverage (genuinely useful in PvE), Superpower, 90 BP physical move at level 21 (or Bubble Beam at Level 6, which matches Vaporeon's Water Pulse at like Level 25) and it has a second STAB + Huge Power.

What I'm trying to say is Eeveelutions are fucking washed and they need help. They barely even reflect their types because half of them have the wrong spreads and half of them are outclassed by Pokemon you get on the first route.

The time of Eeveelutions being pristine "solid" picks that round out a singleplayer team are long behind us. I wouldn't recommend literally any Eeveelution for a Singleplayer team outside of you just liking the Pokemon, because why pick Espeon when you can pick up Gardevoir and it's lowkey easier to train than Eevee -> Espeon.

You know what Fairy AND Psychic type gets Mystical Fire?!?!?!

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Calm Mind Psychic Moonblasts Mystical Fire just from level up btw.

3. How I'd buff Eeveelutions

Frankly, most of them are lost causes even with buffs but I'd like Sylveon to get Mystical Fire back, Jolteon to get some coverage (not sure which), Espeon to get something that hits Tyranitar holy fuck its 2025, and I'd like just about all of them to get buffs to their movesets for singleplayer too.

Espeon should also get Mystical Fire to be fucking frank, they literally made merchandise of a Mismagius Outfitted Espeon.

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It is genuinely harder to train most Eeveelutions than 3-Stagers with bad babies because most of them take forever to get "online".

Leafeon should be given at least a shot with Chlorophyll since its stats are solid, give it something like Weather Ball for a mixed attack or some other Fire Coverage, maybe give it Victory Dance or something. Anything! Ice Spinner??

Give Umbreon Knock Off for fucks sake, it already does 0 damage at least that's some interesting utility that also represents the Dark-Type better, and give it Nasty Plot. Not because it's probably even that good, but because that's more interesting for the mon and represents the type.

I'd like most Eeveelution secondary abilities to change if it fits. I've never felt that Umbreon's HA makes sense, Inner Focus does not seem to do anything for it or ever come up in its design. If you want to lean into the Poison origins, especially in 2025 companies love that kind of thing, give it Poison Point. Jolteon's first ability is significantly better than its HA and that's fine, but I feel like it should likely be given Static instead. etc. etc. etc.

4. Some Other Cute Pokemon I Want Buffed

-Give Ampharos its Part Dragon Type from the Mega, also give it a buff to SpA, and give it a bulk buff in both forms

-Can we please just make Altaria Dragon Fairy for realsies, maybe giving it Pixelate too. It's not like this invalidates the mega since it still has bad stats. It'd transition well with being an old Normal Type.

-If you're like me who thinks Ninetales is cute, can we give them some fucking Special Attack please. Using them in Singleplayer is genuinely dreadful, their movepool is hard to work with especially in the early days and they're generally immediately outclassed. I'm not a fan of Arcanine but that mon is just objectively better than Ninetales in every way in singleplayer, and honestly in competitive it still has a better history of success.

-Give Delcatty literally anything

-Why does Bellossom exist as it is

-I tried to use Pachirisu in BDSP with level caps and it was fucking atrocious. Please make at least some of the Pika clones not dogshit

-Can we give Furret a crumb of stats and ability

-Meowstic is genuinely awful in singleplayer while also not being good in competitive either. Please buff this mon


Also if we're gonna start giving out Mythicals like candy can we let them be in VGC now. Please ty
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im going thru sickness rn so i cant reply to most things individually but i think to me its a mix of both things. "make new cute pokemon that stay cute if cute pokemon are struggling in meta relevancy" (since new pokemon are easier to balance than buffing old shitters that probably need +500 bst thousand arrows close combat and gen 1 amnesia to be relevant again), even though I think theres more cute pokemon than listed like bolt, chiyu, chienpao. amoonguss, terapagos and tatsugiri but thats my version of cuteness

but also like. if you give espeon/sylveon mystical fire it makes flareon redundant. The correct answer on who to give ice beam to is always vaporeon and never glaceon. i think eeveelutions should never step on the toes of another move wise. If my view is too radical I think eeveelutions can get good coverage, as long as its none of the types of another eeveelution. give them all close combat and earthquake idc
 
Bakugames said:
im going thru sickness rn so i cant reply to most things individually but i think to me its a mix of both things. "make new cute pokemon that stay cute if cute pokemon are struggling in meta relevancy" (since new pokemon are easier to balance than buffing old shitters that probably need +500 bst thousand arrows close combat and gen 1 amnesia to be relevant again), even though I think theres more cute pokemon than listed like bolt, chiyu, chienpao. amoonguss, terapagos and tatsugiri but thats my version of cuteness

but also like. if you give espeon/sylveon mystical fire it makes flareon redundant. The correct answer on who to give ice beam to is always vaporeon and never glaceon. i think eeveelutions should never step on the toes of another move wise. If my view is too radical I think eeveelutions can get good coverage, as long as its none of the types of another eeveelution. give them all close combat and earthquake idc
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With this in mind, I think giving them the physical type coverage that matches their stats would be cool

Flareon CC, Glaceon Sludge Bomb type shit. Would make for a neat theming while also never really stepping on each others toes
 
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