But if an evolution of Farfetch'd is used, Farfetch'd itself is still NU... or even worse, it'll be dropped to the NFE tier... bad news if Farfetch'd is your favourite, right? (I loved Rhydon, but now it's NFE due to Rhyperior...)..... but then AGAIN, that shouldn't stop you from using Farfetch'd, for:
The beauty is not in making Farfetch'd, individually, a competitively useful Pokemon, but rather the fact that you can train and spend your time with a Farfetch'd knowing that at the end of the training, it will finally be able to hold its own in battle, even if that happens to be after evolution. A person can love Farfetch'd and want to train one to be the best it can be, but when that person is all done training that Farfetch'd, it's going to be helpless and unhelpful in battle. You spent a lot of time and energy on a Pokemon you love, but then find you cannot use it and expect to see it succeed.
You would be displeased to train a Farfetch'd while your friend trained a Staraptor, and then watch as his Staraptor defeated Pokemon like Glalie and Medicham and Torterra while your Farfetch'd was evenly matched by, at best, Ponyta and Nosepass and Tangela, wouldn't you? At least if Farfetch'd evolved into a Pokemon that could merit the time spent training it, you would have some sense of security and goal achievement while training one.
Nope, I couldn't care less for competitive balance. For the most, a balance already exists, and Pokemon shouldn't be made for their competitive value. The imbalance is what makes it fun and diverse IMO, what's the point of having every Pokemon at roughly the same power level? Most Pokemon are viable anyway.
I have to disagree, Indragon. Imbalance in battle ability hinders diversity, if Smogon's tiering system is any indication. The most capable, threatening Pokemon, are reused over and over on many teams, in fact leading to the very name of the tier: Over Used. If only thirty out of a few hundred Pokemon are strong enough to match the rest of the group in battle, they will end up the only thirty being used among any group of people who enjoy winning more than losing. And this is, after all is said and done, a competitive franchise. Pokemon
battling is the foundation of it all. Battling, a term inherently competitive.
You're right in that Pokemon should not be made for their competitive value, but all Pokemon should
have at least some competitive value. A Pokemon rich in design creativity and in-universe lore could certainly forgo a place as equally coveted in terms of battle strength without being a cause for upset, but it should also be able to be sent into battle and actually have the ability to affect its opponent in a worthwhile way.
Unown makes a fine example of this concept. It is perhaps one of the most unique and richly storied of Pokemon, but its stats, typing, and movepool render it perfectly useless against the overwhelming majority of other Pokemon in battle. All it has at its disposal is Hidden Power, an attack ridiculously difficult to obtain at a useable strength and one that will never rise above a power of 70. Even attacking a foe with a weakness, Unown could still not hope to achieve much success with a mere 72 Sp. Attack stat.
Not really. The balance of power would end up being more monotonous, I think, and it doesn't have much to do with moveset diversity. In fact, even now, one's free to diversify a team, but most people choose not to do that
Essentially, it wouldn't make much of a difference.
If you wanted to choose a Steel type Pokemon for your team, under the banner of your team's need for a Pokemon who could safely switch into a Toxic attack
and fight back effectively, and whatever else the Steel type brought to your team was just extra, having fifteen useable Pokemon to choose from instead of seven would make your team much less predictable and much less monotonous, I'd think. The point of making Pokemon more competitively equal is the ideal of being able to choose from more than just one or two Pokemon who can withstand your opponents' attacks, or who can deal non-negligible damage to the opponent.
Maybe this largely comes down to design. The only reason we could ask for other Pokemon to be made competitively viable is because we want to battle with something that looks different from what everyone is always battling with, but
still be able to combat those others on a decently equal footing. Otherwise, it would be all about the numbers, and the fact that you were using Staraptor instead of Farfetch'd (or our hypothetical Farfetch'd evolution) wouldn't make any difference at all. If you want to use a Normal/ Flying Pokemon on your team, and be able to switch it into a possible powerful Surf without fear, it is very limiting to know that that Pokemon
has to be a Togekiss (just for the sake of example, since Togekiss is the most sturdy Normal/Flying type I can think of) or else you're just going to watch it faint. =/