#175-176, #468: Togepi, Togetic and Togekiss

You probably remember receiving Togepi at some point on your adventures through the games, but what you didn't know was that, with the introduction of Togekiss and eviolite, this actually gives two pretty decent Pokemon...

Togepi in itself has some pretty lacklustre stats, with 35 HP, 20 attack and speed, 40 special attack and 65 in both defences, which would be OK-ish if the HP wasn't so crummy... This adorable little fairy-type comes with two standard abilities as well as a hidden one. On the standard side of things, you can get hustle (physical attack power goes up 50% in power, but accuracy drops by 20%) and super luck (doubles the chance of added effects on moves, so a 10% chance of burn/freeze or whatever goes up to 20% and so forth). Moving to the hidden one, you can pick up super luck, which buffs the chance of critical hits.

Ah! So adorable! But why does Misty seem to breastfeed it?

Growl and charm are not really a good start since it stops you from actually attacking anything, instead lowering attack of the foe from both of them, which is really odd: why offer basically the same move twice, with the only differences being that charm is more effective (2 stages) yet has half the PP? Metronome is the first chance for possible damage, but that isn't really that encouraging, since it can do anything, like self-destruct, splash or flatter instead of that flamethrower you really, really need. Sweet kiss has 75 accuracy but when it connects then it will confuse the foe. Yawn will make the foe drowsy and slightly down the line it will put them to sleep, but it could take long enough for you to die in the meantime. Encore will make the foe use the same move again for three turns and can make the foe struggle. Follow me has two stages of priority and diverts incoming moves towards the user rather than the intended targets.

Bestow is an interesting move as it allows you to hand off an item onto the target (so long as they aren't holding anything), which can handicap them by potentially locking them into a choice item and getting stuck on a worthless move, or sticking them with a flame orb or something, or just ruining unburden and acrobatics. Wish is an interesting choice, which heals the Pokemon in play when it comes into effect by half the caster's HP, with it coming into effect at the end of the next turn, allowing swapping to heal an injured team mate, maybe by using volt switch or U-turn. Ancient power is the first guaranteed damaging move as a base 60 rock special that can boost all stats (works even better with serene grace), whilst safeguard prevents the team from getting affected by status conditions. Baton pass will swap out the user for a teammate, passing on all stat changes, whilst double edge and last resort are normal physical moves (base 120 and 140 respectively) that cause recoil damage, with the latter only being usable when all other moves are depleted of PP. Finally we get after you, which makes the target move next, which means you have to be faster than everything for this to be of any use.

Despite a fairly damage-lacking level set, there are a lot of options in the TM list. Forgoing describing the really common ones, we see psyshock, solar beam, psychic, shadow ball, flamethrower/fire blast, incinerate, dream eater, thunder wave, grass knot, rock smash and dazzling gleam, which are all pretty decent. Breeding can also give extrasensory, foresight (which can help overcome the accuracy loss of hustle), future sight (beware that you may die before this lands, it also allows the foe to switch out, but it is very powerful), lucky chant (boosts critical rates), mirror move allows you to bounce attacks back after they've been fired at you (and with more power), morning sun allows healing in the sunshine, nasty plot allows a two stage boost to special attack, peck is a weak flying move, present is a disaster of a move (wait for Delibird!), psycho shift allows you to dump your status problem on the foe, and stored power is ripe for abuse: stored power is a base 20 psychic move that is made stronger by every stat boost you have, including speed, attack, evasion and accuracy, not just special attack, which of course takes even more advantage due to it being a special move, so it can have massive base power with the addition of heavy special attack to back it up. Lastly, the tutor can give a lot of moves: after you, covet, endeavour, heal bell, hyper voice, last resort, magic coat, shockwave, signal beam, snore, trick, uproar, water pulse and zen headbutt, all of which we've seen a few times before.

You evolve by friendliness into Togetic, which got made a lot better with eviolite, which shores up the defences 50% each, which is good since they are pretty good, with 85 physical and 105 special, with the 55HP (which is still a bit lacking), 80 special attack is pretty decent, but 40 speed is still rather disastrous. You also get to add on the flying-type to the pre-existing fairy, but you keep the same abilities, which is pretty good, really, since serene grace is brilliant.

Why has it absorbed the egg shell into its body?

The level set adds in a few moves, with an early one being magical leaf, which is like a grass-type version of swift in that it is a base 60 special attack with no accuracy check. Fairy wind is the other move that pops up, a base 40 fairy special with no added effects. Brick break, aerial ace, hyper beam, steel wing, retaliate and giga impact, along with fly all come in on the TM side of life. The enormous list of tutor moves also gets padded with drain punch, focus punch, heat wave and tail wind.

Finally, if you get exposed to a shiny stone then you can evolve again into the newer Togekiss. 85HP is pretty nice now, with the decent defences (95 physical and 115 special), and now there's some speed (80) that can be supplemented if you get up tail wind, 50 attack remains poor, but 120 special attack is really good. Still fairy/flying with the same abilities, which is good, really. The issue is that there are virtually no new moves available when you evolve: from evolving you can grab after you, extreme speed (base 80 normal physical with a few stages of priority), sky attack (two turns, base 140 flying physical), aura sphere (a good shout, base 80 fighting special) and air slash (base 75 flying special that has a decent flinch chance). No new TMs and not much more added to the tutor that is worth considering.

Like a stealth bomber of light...

Togepi is adorable but a bit pathetic, yet both evolutions are worthwhile for using for one reason or another. This is a line that really got big boosts from Generations 4 onwards, including the switch to fairy-type, which is pretty awesome.

(All artwork presented by Ken Sugimori, taken from the Bulbapedia image archives)