#183-184 and #298: Marill, Azumarill and Azurill

Oh, goody! Another baby Pokemon, and something which seems to be akin to a water version of Pikachu...

Azurill is rather pathetic... It's a baby version from a line that looks poor at first glance, and the stats back up this disaster: 50HP is the top stat, with 40 in both defences and 20 everywhere else, so both attacks and the speed. Normal/fairy is an ok-ish typing, thick fat helps resist fire and ice damage, and the hidden ability of sap sipper basically negates grass damage (more important with evolutions) and boosts the attack stat by a stage when hit by one. The other standard ability is the one that really stands out over two reasonably good abilities: huge power doubles your attack stat, so the devastatingly awful base 20 gets doubled with all additional things here. Also of note, Azurill is a pain to get since you need an incense to breed out.

It looks cute from afar, but this is just depressing... If it stops bouncing, it dies... It looks like it knows it... So sad...

Splash is pretty much the worst move ever since it does literally nothing other than act as another 40PP to expend to buffer you from struggling whilst a foe possibly struggles themselves to death, and I'm sure there are other possible strategic uses for this move. The first real move you get is water gun, which is a base 40 water special, tail whip decreases the target's defence, water sport reduces the damage of fire moves across the battlefield for 5 turns, and bubble is almost the same as water gun other than that it could potentially slow the target by a stage (10% chance). Really, why would you ever have water gun when you can have bubble in cases where they come the other way round (though why have either when you see what is coming later...)? Charm can tank the foe's attack by two stages, and bubble beam is a base 65 water special attack, and helping hand can help an ally boost their damage output for the turn. Slam is base 80 physical normal with poor accuracy, and finally bounce is a base 85 (and 85 accuracy) flying physical move that is basically fly other than the stats, jumping off the stage into the sky on the first turn and then smacking them the next.

The generic TM list takes on more of an icy feel, with the standards and then the additions of ice beam, blizzard and hail, along with scald, surf and round. It is a bit barebones for the moment, so let's see breeding (we'll come back to this again in a bit): body slam, fake tears, camouflage, copycat, encore, refresh, sing, muddy water (basically surf with less accuracy and the slight chance to lower the foe's accuracy), slam, soak, tickle, water sport, and more is available if you'd rather just breed for a Marill instead, which, as I suggested, will come shortly. Going to the tutor, we get bounce, covet, helping hand, hyper voice, icy wind, iron tail, knock off, snore, uproar and water pulse.

Marill is a better prospect than Azurill, partly because of the stats and all that, and partly because you don't need incenses to breed. The attack stats are still in the toilet at 20, the defences are now at 50, speed is up to 40 and the HP is decent at 70, the saving grace. You keep the same abilities, but you also change the normal part of the typing to water, so those water moves are suddenly worthwhile with STAB. You get to this point either being born this way or by being very friendly with the Azurill.

It's so happy that it isn't and Azurill...

Defence curl and rollout come in in the space previously occupied by charm as the first change, where defence curl boosts defence (as opposed to speed, obviously) and combos to boost the power of rollout, which hits for a few turns, starting as a base 30 rock physical move and getting stronger each turn, and aqua tail comes in shortly afterwards as a decently powered base 90, 90 accuracy water physical move. Play rough is a base 90, 90 accuracy fairy physical move with a slight chance to reduce the foe's attack, this move coming in at level 45 in X/Y or 23 in ORAS, but either way, you'll probably have evolved at the low level of 18...

Aqua ring is a chance to setup healing of your Pokemon (which can be baton passed by Pokemon that have baton pass) akin to leftovers, rain dance is still rain dance, double edge is a base 120 normal physical move with heavy recoil, superpower is also base 120 physical, this tie fighting and the downside being a drop of a stage to both physical stats. The last move is the slightly inaccuracy (80), reasonably powerful (110) water special hydro pump.

Dig, brick break, grass knot, rock smash, strength and power-up punch all add to the existing TM list, but now we get to the interesting bit (not that superpower or aqua ring weren't interesting): breeding. Amnesia can help shore up special defence, if you want, but aqua jet is the first one that grabs my attention, easily bred in from a Golduck, for example, as a base 40 water physical move with priority to get over the awful speed stat. Next up is belly drum, which halves your health but boosts attack 6 stages, that is 400%, which also has to account for huge power, and since the defences and HP are ok, this is worthwhile. A lot of other moves only come in if you were an Azurill, and the ones you can get are pretty worthless compared to the others. The tutor remains indifferent: aqua tail now comes in, as does focus punch, ice punch, icy wind and superpower to add to what was available before.

Azumarill keeps the same type and abilities, which is pretty good. 100HP is also very good, and the 80 in both defences cover things pretty well. 50 attack is poor, but with huge power, think of this as 100 and beyond (since you double IVs and EVs), so this is actually better than the base 60 special attack, with the 50 speed still being a bit disappointing, but hey, aqua jet!

An easter egg with ears... A deadly easter egg...

Bulldoze, hyper beam, focus blast and giga impact all come in on the TM list since there's nothing else added to the level list, and we're done here.

You may think this is pretty poor, but breed in aqua jet onto parent 1 Marill, and then breed belly drum from a Poliwag onto parent 2, then mate them and get both thanks to the breeding change in generation six, which has now made this Pokemon very viable. Have something like a sitrus berry for the HP recovery, leftovers for more continued recovery, or mystic water for the added water damage, and hey, you can absolutely dominate some opponents with the resultant massive damage output with 400% of the attack which has already got the equivalent of a base 100 with doubled investment and then go with a STAB move with admittedly low power... Hitting a Delphox with aqua jet after this setup will do 400% of its HP thereabouts.

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

(#133) #700: Sylveon (Eevee part four, including the summary)

So we're onto the last leg of this mini-voyage and we stumble across yet another Eeveelution wedged in to showcase something new in the game: this time it's less a mechanic, and more the introduction of the new fairy-type.

Straight off the bat, Sylveon gets plus points for being a fairy, since fairy hasn't really been balanced as yet, much like Psychic when Pokemon was first released. The immunity to dragons and the semi-uncommon weaknesses, plus good resistances makes fairy a little broken. The only issues with fairies: scarcity of Pokemon and scarcity of decent moves. Sylveon comes from a family you're used to, and actually gets some good moves. In addition to this, you get great special stats (110 special attack and 130 special defence) with 95 HP, making it a good special wall. The problems arise with an indifferent defence (65) and poor speed (60), the attack at 65 being too low to matter with regards to a mixer, and is thus utterly unimportant. Cute charm as the main ability means that contact with this Pokemon can cause the aggressor to become infatuated AND makes it more likely to encounter Pokemon if the opposite gender in the wild, whereas pixilate, the hidden ability, converts all normal-type moves to fairy-type and grants the associated STAB, as well as a 30% power-up. Sure, the loss of normal moves may be a little odd, since it can get rid of decent neutral coverage, but fairy hits most things fairly well, and so this isn't an awful trade off.

Just FABULOUS, darlings... It practically sneezes glitter...

If we skim over the level list for the final time in this enormous family, we see that we also get a new starting move: disarming voice (base 40 fairy special that isn't affected by evasion/accuracy modifiers). Fairy wind also finds itself inserted prior to quick attack (base 40 fairy special with no hidden features). Hereafter we find draining kiss (base 50 fairy special where 75% of the damage done is used to heal the user), skill swap (swaps abilities with the target, with certain exceptions, such as multi-type, stance change and wonder guard) and misty terrain (affects all Pokemon on the ground: status conditions no longer apply, halves the damage of dragon moves in play, nature/secret power become fairy-type, and camouflage makes the user a fairy). Light screen effectively raises the team's special defence for 5 turns (can be removed by brick break and defog), moonblast is a very good fairy special move (base 95, 30% chance of lowering the foe's special attack by a stage) and the move that fits after last resort is psych up (copies all of the foe's stat changes).

Down to TM time: err... Well, psyshock is something we know fairly well, it's a good psychic special move that hits the defence of the foe. Calm mind works to buff the special stats by a stage, dazzling gleam hits adjacent foes as a base 80 fairy special move, and the rest of the Eevee moves pop up again. Tutor-wise, you can nab skill swap (again) and magic coat.

Wrapping up Sylveon, it's not a bad special wall with some decent power output, but could work ok on a trick room team. You can also play a supporting role with moves like light screen, and you can annoy foes using things like misty terrain and whatnot. The biggest pain of this Pokemon is the method of evolution, which is to do with a new mechanic: you need two hearts in Pokemon amie, you need to have baby-doll eyes in the moveset and you need to level up. It's a bit of a pain to achieve this.

Now to the Eeveelutions as a whole: the majority of them are rather mundane and disappointing, but with the cases of Umbreon, Glaceon, and arguably Espeon and Sylveon you could find something decent. None of them are awful other than the base, Leafeon and Flareon... Wait, that's actually a fair number... Really, there's now too many to make a cutesy team and too many of them are surpassed by much more common Pokemon that the only real reason to ever evolve all of them is for Pokedex completion. Tracking down the evolutionary stones, fitting to time windows, grinding on Pokemon amie and looking for the correct locations to train is rather a pain in the buttocks, and I'm really not sure why people like this line so much. Sure, there's some good bits, but overall, just don't bother.

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