Strong unevolved Pokemon?

[Ganieda]

Hi guys,
does anyone have expirience with training Pokemon to hight levels without evolving them?
I was wondering if, when training a skitty for example without giving it a moonstone, the little one could still keep up with the others on higher levels or if it will just fall behind sometimes.
Does anyone have advice?

 

[FliCe]

I wish i´d know, but i got the same question. Whats the point of not evolving pokemon?
except for maby waiting for a move

 

[Ganieda]

Hmmm... the point is that maybe you just love the pokemon and don't like it's evolution too much

 

[Azure Flame]

Hmmm... the point is that maybe you just love the pokemon and don't like it's evolution too much

Yeah, that's pretty much it. I remember I wanted to have a lvl 100 Turtwig. I named it Twiggy and got it to lvl 100. Then I checked how good it was compared to the parent Torterra, who was also lvl 100, and it was way off. Torterra was way stronger.

 

[ForeverFlame]

It would fall behind. Only a few Pokemon are actually decent without evolving. I think Scyther is one of them, but I'm not too sure. But it's better just to evolve them.

 

[Blazing Charmander]

It probably depends on how you like your team. If you like fully evolved monsters who you intend to use competitively, it'd probably be unwise to keep one of your Pokemon unevolved. In this case therefore, yes it would fall behind.

However, if you prefer to build your team around your favourites and use them to their full potential, then you may find it easier to keep them up with the rest. For example, I have started a FireRed scramble challenge where i'm not allowed to evolve my Ivysaur or Pikachu unless I fulfil certain circumstances (these circumstances are too difficult for me so i'm leaving them unevolved, which I honestly don't mind). At the moment, they are more than holding their own and are pretty much my main Pokemon.

So yeah, it depends on whether you're prepared to build your team around your favourites really. If not, then they'll obviously fall behind more than they would evolved.

 

[ArmorAndonomon]

My Wartortle's actually a great match for the rest of my team.
She's fully EV'd and everything, and she can keep up very well with the rest of my fully evolved/EV'd team. I just don't like Blastoise. xD

As said before, it just depends on your style and if you can work well with your favorites or not.

However, in competitive battling, some Unevolved Pokemon work much more differently than their evolutions, meaning they can function very well on their own, such as Pikachu and Scyther.

 

[Volteon]

For the Pokémon be useful as an unevolved Pokémon, it has to pack diferent things than the evolved forms obviously.

So Scyther's Flying type and greater speed, Pikachu's Light Ball, Trapinch's Arena Trap Ability, Shelgon's greater defense and no 4x weakness are few that comes in my mind.

And by far, the most useful unevolved Pokémon is Porygon2.

Unevolved Pokémon are also used in competitive battling when the evolved form is banned in the tier you want to use it in. Such as Cranidos in UU (same attack stat as Heracross is something to worry about), Chansey in... idk, Gabite in OU and etc.

 

[Mattyz]

My Wartortle's actually a great match for the rest of my team.
She's fully EV'd and everything, and she can keep up very well with the rest of my fully evolved/EV'd team. I just don't like Blastoise. xD

As said before, it just depends on your style and if you can work well with your favorites or not.

However, in competitive battling, some Unevolved Pokemon work much more differently than their evolutions, meaning they can function very well on their own, such as Pikachu and Scyther.

Cool I also love Wartortle! Yes all not evolved pokemons will pretty much fall off you need to train them extremely well to make them decent. For an extreme example look at the difference between the stats of a lvl 20 Magikarp and a lvl 20 Gyarados! Porygon2 and Scyther and Pikachu with Light Ball are nice though

 

[TurtwigFan1]

I have only ever tried that with a Turtwig, and it was used on an EV trained team that was fully evolved. Turtwig worked pretty well, although he obviously was a bit weaker than he would've been as a Torterra. But I did this because I just love Turtwig! But if you EV train your Pokémon well, them I'm sure they'll manage to scrape through whatever their evolution stage is.

 

[Jan Hella]

The only thing that sucks about training a Pokemon without evolving it, (excluding those who evolve by stones/trading) is having to cancel the evolution everytime they level up...

 

[Dark Tornadicus]

The only thing that sucks about training a Pokemon without evolving it, (excluding those who evolve by stones/trading) is having to cancel the evolution everytime they level up...

L 2 everstone?

 

[DarkLegend]

My Vigoroth's probably the only pokemon I did not evolve on my team
He's a beast... and has beaten the pulp out of some strong pokemon on it's own...
I dislike Slaking because he is a big, fat, ugly slob who picks his nose (Plat sprite) and has the ability truant...
Snorlax is cute however....

 

[I like Pokemon (...)]

Unless I'm fighting competitively, I generally don't care. Unless there's a good move that can be learned or I generally despise the evolution (or the sprite) I won't evolve it.

 

[Fire master of the east]

Um well back in the day when i thought pikachu was cool i had to have it at least 20 or a little bit more lvs higher than the others cuz of it getting ko by others...

 

[Sharks Shouldn't Fly]

As far as learning attacks go, most Pokemon that evolve with stones tend to be better before evolving. Eevee is probably the one exception.

 

[Rensch]

Well, some pokémon actually get higher forms in newer games. D/P introduced a lot of new evolutions. But does that make al the lower forms useless or just less useful? Electabuzz was a very usesable Pokémon in the third generation. In the fourth generation it can actually evolve, but does that make Electabuzz a bad pokémon? No, Electivire is just an even better pokémon. It just usually doesn't make sense not to evolve them.

 

[ohh its rg]

Some guys like Vulpix and Nidorano/a learn good moves before they evolve. But there two also use stones to evolve. So if you're talking about a lvl. 100 Piplup, I guess that means that guy really doesn't like Prinplup

 

[Seviper]

Not counting the ones like Electabuzz or Magmar who got their evos later, I have a Phanpy and a Mime Jr. at Lv. 100, I use Mime Jr. on my main PBR double-battle team and it works quite well as a supporter, which I think is the best thing an unevolved Pokémon can do competitively with the exception maybe of Clamperl or Pikachu.
But as long as it is well accompanied with a good strategy most unevolved Pokémon can keep up with the rest.

 

[Anima87]

The only time I really tried it was with Eevee and Vulpix. Eevee because I was just curious to see how strong it could be at Level 80, the same as the Umbreon I had. With that I just wanted to see how different they were with my own eyes. Vulpix on the other hand I just wanted strong before evolving it.

The only real reason I can see for raising an unevolved Pokemon for competitive battle is for support, like Mime Jr. Other then that it's to the users preference.