Under Construction: Long-Term Pokémon Upgrades
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Art by internet.
Introduction
Conjuring up the names of disappointing Pokémon in battle, be they completely useless, outclassed, dragged down by gaping flaws, or just underwhelming despite interesting tools is no difficult task. Unown, Electivire, Shedinja, and Bastiodon come to mind, respectively. Pokémon stuck in the basement now may not always be, though, and could even rise up in the very next generation! Game Freak may not always succeed in improving Pokémon over the long haul, but they have definitely found successes. These are among their best.
Porygon
First obtainable at the Celadon City Game Corner for a meager 9,999 coins in Generation 1, Porygon was little more than a rare novelty and a bragging rights reward for patience with the Game Corner's slot machines. Fantastic move options such as Recover, Thunder Wave, Blizzard, and its signature Attack-boosting move Sharpen would be monstrous on a vast array of Pokémon. A vast array of Pokémon better than Porygon. Without a single stat above its 75 Special, a stat it could not raise, it had no real niche. When Gen1 UU was a PS ladder near the start of 2018, it saw less use than even fellow novelties Lickitung and Ditto. That's Ditto before Choice Scarf and Imposter, mind you. Speaking of a ditto, though...
There's two of them now? The Up-Grade gave rise to Porygon2 in Gold and Silver, whose well-balanced stats finally backed up Porygon's unexploited versatility in moves. The generation's ubiquitous boosting move, Curse, also provided an upgrade to Sharpen that boosted Porygon2's Defense at the same time. As a Curse user, its access to reliable recovery in Recover and hard-hitting Ice Beams and Thunderbolts that punished common walls like Skarmory separated it from the pack. It could also serve as a paralyzing tank with its bulk and recovery. Despite its placement in the OU tier, though, no versatility could completely rescue it from Snorlax's (very) wide shadow as a broadly useful Normal-type and a Curse sweeper. Still, look who got the last laugh now, you other Normal blobs that were still novelties! In your sometimes amorphous faces!
Well, not the last laugh yet, since there were many more benefits to go. When Porygon-Z was released as an evolution to Porygon2 through the Dubious Disc in Diamond and Pearl, Porygon became the only Pokémon besides Eevee to be awarded multiple evolutionary advancements across separate future generations. Even if Porygon-Z didn't live up to its initial reputation of an unstoppable, Blissey-crushing special juggernaut, it still kept a niche as a special attacker worthy of fear. A base 135 Special Attack stat, then tied with Alakazam's as the absolute highest among non-Legendary Pokémon, was made still more dangerous by an Adaptability-boosted Tri Attack backed in coverage by Ice Beam, Dark Pulse, and the newly all-special Hidden Power. The new Choice Specs furthered its mighty breaking power, and Nasty Plot, Agility, and Trick served as dangerous tricks up its sleeve that let it dismantle almost any Pokémon, with even Blissey fearing the latter. These games also bestowed onto it the new move Trick Room, as its signature move by level-up no less, which proved a blessing for its still-useful pre-evolution.
It wasn't the only Normal cross-generational evolution here, but Porygon-Z is much cooler and better than that mountain of ugly Lickilicky and the dually ugly and weak Ambipom. Take that!
While the evolution train, sadly, never did give Porygon an unforeseen fourth evolution, all three members of the family continued to benefit from changes and prosper. The introduction of Eviolite in Generation 5 greatly improved Porygon's and Porygon2's already stiff defenses, giving the former an even more solid footing in LC and letting the latter even eclipse its evolution in the BW UU tier. Porygon-Z regained the advantage with Sun and Moon's introduction of Z-Moves, particularly with the Porygon line-exclusive Z-Conversion. While the move left an overwhelming Porygon kicked upstairs to LC Ubers, Porygon-Z is the move's most prominent user; it can simultaneously raise its Special Attack and Speed, pad its unimpressive bulk, and gain a new typing with both more defensive utility and a harder-to-wall move like Shadow Ball or Thunderbolt to use as STAB. It bears reminding that Porygon-Z still has base 135 Special Attack. And Adaptability. W-we forgive you for messing up Porygon to start with, Game Freak! We always appreciate the improvements, but we don't want you to feel bad or anything =(
Not to be forgotten, Porygon2 has compensated by staying a common pick on the Doubles scene, using its great bulk and Recover to absorb hits and set its ever-valued Trick Room on the field. Go duck go! =)
Clefable
While Clefable was definitely better than Porygon in the first generation and magnitudes easier to acquire, it was still a Normal-type with no exceptional stats in a metagame filled with more specialized (and usually better) versions of itself. Its movepool was similarly vast, including a STAB Body Slam to spread status as it attacked, but notably lacked instant recovery. Disabling opponents with Body Slam, Sing, or even Blizzard was still easy thanks to Clefable's bulk and lack of harmful weaknesses, but in supportive roles it stayed in the shadow of Chansey's HP, Special, and access to Soft-Boiled. While Clefable could add to its offensive presence through Hyper Beam and Thunderbolt, 70 Attack for its STAB and 85 Special for its coverage rendered its offensive potential too weak to sacrifice a team slot for. A jack of all trades, master of none—this model made Clefable poor in the restrictions of competitive teambuilding but a master of efficiency during in-game play; there, its great availability, quick evolution, balanced stats, and expansive move options (not overly reliant on the good TMs!) make it an excellent choice for Red, Blue, and Yellow runs.
Clefable's development took a radical turn in Gold and Silver; new access to Belly Drum and reliable recovery in Moonlight made it an immediate threat before the generation's bulky defenders and Curse users could adequately check it. A mighty +6 Return then shattered the OU bastions that would otherwise Rest back to health, while coverage like Fire Blast and supportive moves like Encore answered specific checks. The third generation then gave it Meteor Mash to nail Ghost- and Rock-types while nabbing occasional Attack boosts, Soft-Boiled to restore HP reliably in any weather and with more PP, and Cosmic Power to become unstoppable through raised defenses instead. In both generations, though, its low Speed and mediocre base stats all around were thorns in its side for any set. Its typing was as well; mono-Normal is much easier to pull off with Blissey's 255 HP, as it would learn.
Clefable certainly had generalistic traits in Generation 1, but the godsend of the Magic Guard ability in Generation 4 truly made it a glue Pokémon for good, and for once an OU mainstay. Now unbothered by hazards, damaging status, and other secondary damage, Clefable's sets ran the gamut from a Chansey-like full defense staller not forced out by Toxic, to a balanced bulky supporter or status spreader, to a Life Orb Calm Mind sweeper now unharmed by the item's recoil, to even a Double-Edge wallbreaker! But at the peak of its versatility in Generation 5, with Unaware as its hidden ability to counter setup sweepers, Clefable's pure Normal typing and mediocre stats kept it too indecisive to once more rise above the fringes of standard play.
Those worries were not left unanswered. After Clefable was blessed with the new Fairy typing, 10 more points in Special Attack, and the spammable special STAB attack of Moonblast in X and Y, it almost immediately rose from niche in standard play to ubiquitous, even eclipsing its long-time superiors Chansey and Blissey. The Fairy type finally gave it defensive resistances, including to its once-weakness in Fighting, and through Moonblast it freed up its moveslots by not requiring any special coverage. Its bulky Leftovers Calm Mind set, once a relative rarity, now ravaged XY OU. Clefable became among both the tier's best paralysis spreaders and its best Stealth Rock setters. Thanks to its new typing, it could now take much more advantage of the Unaware ability it had received in the fifth generation, walling set-up sweepers as high up as in the Anything Goes metagame created soon after the release of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. While it eventually dropped off in usage, particularly after Generation 7's nerf to Thunder Wave and many new strong attackers, it returned to the list of the tier's mainstays as the metagame developed and has seen both rises and falls in its fortunes since.
Scyther
After its release in the first generation, Scyther was set to be a quick and fearsome sweeper of teams, at least on paper. Attack and Speed above 100? Great. Access to Swords Dance to threaten to sweep? Better. Much better, given the move's rarity (with not one OU Pokémon given it) and Scyther's uniquely optimized stats among those that could learn it. In the end, though, uh... a movepool of non-STAB Normal moves, Agility (already fast), Rest (too frail), Toxic (not a good move yet), Wing Attack (35 Base Power), and nothing else? Not going to cut it, ironic pun unintended. While Agility could theoretically surprise speedsters like Jolteon, and the strength of its Hyper Beam backed by Swords Dance and its natural speed could have been dangerous in the right hands, Scyther was extremely one-dimensional and could not find notable success. Life is hard when you're countered by Geodude.
In addition to a merciful movepool expansion, Gold and Silver graced Scyther with its Bug / Steel type evolution Scizor, which uniquely has the same stat total as Scyther and only rearranges the points. As with Porygon2 and Porygon-Z, both Scyther and Scizor have remained independently usable in some Smogon tier, but Scyther has never eclipsed its evolution. In the second generation, both primarily used Swords Dance (but also occasionally Agility for Scizor) for the dual threat of attacking with the boosts and gifting them to an ally via the new Baton Pass. Scizor's superior bulk and typing gave it the edge in standard play, but it did suffer from the scattered prevalence of moves like Hidden Power Fire used to cover Steel-types as a whole.
Stuck with low-powered moves, both Scyther and Scizor suffered against many teams without substantial preparation until Diamond and Pearl; Scyther gained Technician Aerial Ace, Bug Bite, and Quick Attack alongside Brick Break, and Scizor rose to stardom with Technician Bullet Punch and Bug Bite, U-turn, Superpower, and more. Scyther now had the moves to make three-attack Swords Dance and four-attack Choice Band sets usable and was still able to Baton Pass Swords Dance boosts to keep its team dangerous. Scizor rocked the OU tier with Choice Band-boosted U-turn, Pursuit and Technician Bullet Punch as well as with other sets often buoyed by the new Roost.
Scizor's dominance of the OU tier has continued through its Mega Evolution, Mega Scizor, released in X and Y. Mega Scizor's excellent Attack and bulk backed by excellent typing and Roost have let it sweep, both with Swords Dance and with the recently discovered Curse, or fill balanced and defensive needs like Pursuit trapping or more rarely hazard clearing. Base Scizor notably had the usage to stay in OU despite having to compete with its Mega in Generation 6; even though this usage well overrepresented its actual viability, it was a true testament to its enduring utility. Although base Scizor fell in Generation 7, this merely "forced" it to become the best and most used Pokémon in UU. Although Scyther has suffered some from the ban of Baton Pass, it has continually remained a lower-tier threat with the combination of its Speed, Technician and Swords Dance for power, and Roost while holding Generation 5's Eviolite for longevity. More generally, Defog becoming a hazard clearing option in Generation 6 has indirectly helped perpetual victims of Stealth Rock like Scyther, giving teams more Pokémon to choose from that can clear them away.
Salamence
Surprised to see this pseudo-legendary behemoth here? Salamence is among the very few and the very lucky few Pokémon that rose to Uber in a generation after its introduction, with only Wobbuffet and Blaziken in its company. Unlike those two, Salamence immediately hit the ground running as a premier OU threat, and it wasn't brought from zero to hero by a fantastic ability like Shadow Tag or Speed Boost. Wait... "hit the ground"? "Running"? Perhaps it hit the air flying instead. In any event, when it first hit the competitive scene with the release of Ruby and Sapphire, its excellent stats, moves, and ability in Intimidate opened a vast array of sets: a clean-sweeping Dragon Dance set, a nearly unopposable Choice Band set, and others using moves from Wish to Hidden Power Grass left no Pokémon (besides perhaps a few pure Water-types) in standard play safe from its wrath.
As it turned out, though, this was only the beginning for our draconic emissary of destruction. In the fourth generation, Platinum unlocked its true murderous potential by lending it Outrage by tutor, and just as the move rose to 120 Base Power; it combined with Life Orb to make Dragon Dance sets extremely powerful from the get-go while retaining flexibility that Choice Band lacked, and Diamond and Pearl's Draco Meteor shattered physical walls that could oppose Dragon Dance sets. Locked away in Uber, Salamence used its newfound massive power to form Dragon spam cores with identically typed Rayquaza, using moves like Fire Blast, Draco Meteor, and even Hydro Pump in Kyogre's rain to eliminate Steel-types and other checks to the deadly duo.
Salamence was allowed back into OU in the fifth generation (although it still partnered with Rayquaza as before in Uber), where it wreaked havoc through its new hidden ability in Moxie. Holding a Choice Scarf and nabbing KOs, especially on revenge kills, eventually made it impossible to wall unless the opponent could forcibly stop its momentum through phazing or KOing it in return. Intimidate remained a strong option, however, especially on sets with special moves and Roost. As mighty as Salamence still was, it did face competition as a Dragon / Flying type with its pseudo-legendary rival Dragonite, which also landed a coveted hidden ability in Multiscale that gave it very broad utility that was easy to fit onto teams.
Mega Salamence quickly flew into Uber after its Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire release, vaulting above Dragonite and such brethren. As Dragon faded as a premier offensive type with the introduction of the Fairy type, Aerilate gave Mega Salamence the viable physical Flying-type STAB it had lacked since the considerably weaker Hidden Power Flying in Generation 3; it could choose between the now absurdly powerful Double-Edge, a balanced Return, a Facade letting it exploit statuses like otherwise crippling burn, and Body Slam to cripple opposing Pokémon itself. Whichever option it picked, the power and reliability of these moves and their good synergy with Earthquake let Salamence use its remaining moveslots on supportive or healing moves like Refresh, Defog, and Roost. Salamence's previous abilities remained far from irrelevant, though, with Intimidate helping its Mega forme set up on and pivot into foes like Primal Groudon. With all of these advantages, Salamence has secured a clear place as the second best Mega in Uber, behind only the unstoppable trapper that is Mega Gengar. Even without Aerilate, base Salamence has found useful Flying-type STAB and sweeping potential through the Z-Moves introduced in Generation 7, using Dragon Dance and Supersonic Skystrike via Fly to quickly force a KO and activate Moxie to then sweep through the opposing team. This set did lead to its ban from UU but could not establish it as a usable threat in an OU metagame greatly feeling the effects of power creep.
Honorable Mention: Gengar
Gengar has found itself with a massive slew of direct and indirect buffs since its Generation 1 introduction as the fastest sleep inducer and only fully evolved Ghost-type. Generation 2 greatly enhanced its versatility, bestowing Ice Punch for coverage, giving a stronger Explosion and Destiny Bond to take bulkier and healthier foes down with it, and even making it one of very few possible Perish trappers (and the fastest one to boot). Generation 3 turned its weakness to Ground-type moves like Earthquake into an immunity through Levitate, letting it switch in more often, and gave it Will-O-Wisp to further bother physical attackers. Generation 4 overhauled its attack options, providing actual special STAB attacks in Shadow Ball and Sludge Bomb thanks to the physical/special split and its best coverage move to date in Focus Blast, and introduced Choice Specs for it to take advantage of itself or Trick away. Generation 5 gave it Hex to pressure statused targets with, and Generations 6 and 7 saw the blossoming of the excellent Fairy type through threats like Clefable and the Tapu legendaries for Gengar's Poison-type STAB attacks to decimate. Pokémon X and Y also introduced Mega Gengar, whose dominating Shadow Tag ability combined with its blistering Special Attack and Speed nearly made it the first Pokémon banned from Ubers! Mega Gengar's Speed became even more dangerous in Sun and Moon, when the Mega Evolution mechanics change let it immediately start at base 130 Speed upon Mega Evolving without having to wait a turn.
It did not make the main list for two reasons, though. Already in OU out of the gate in the first generation, it had little room for long-term improvement and is now not as common (although not quite uncommon) as it once was in standard play. Its many buffs, also, have often been met with reverses or other disadvantages; Destiny Bond is now likely to fail when used consecutively, Levitate was replaced with the far less useful Cursed Body, Knock Off's improvement has made the move much more common as well as dangerous to Gengar, and outpacing the metagame with base 110 Speed (as greatly desired for sets like Choice Specs and Perish Song) is now considerably harder.
Honorable Mention: Skarmory
If this article had been made during the sixth generation, Skarmory may well have made the main list. Generation 3 gave it Spikes to further aid the team as it walled opposing Pokémon and provide meaningful offensive pressure. The creation of Roost in Generation 4 provided much more reliable recovery than Rest, particularly since Skarmory is already immune to Toxic poison that Rest could cure, and a powerful STAB move in Brave Bird that further made it less passive. It also could use the Shed Shell item to escape its new trapping nemesis Magnezone, and set the new hazard Stealth Rock as well as its Spikes. Generation 5 brought the Rocky Helmet, which Skarmory could use to chip users of U-turn and other physical attacks without having to land a move on them, and upgraded its Sturdy ability to survive any hit taken at full health instead of only nullifying one-hit KO moves. Defog becoming an option to clear hazards in Generation 6 gave Skarmory yet another way to support its team, and the generation's Fairy-types gave Steel-type Skarmory more targets to wall.
Unfortunately for Skarmory, while it stayed a prime pick in standard play across many generations as Gengar did, its niches have somewhat eroded in the current generation. The tasks of setting and removing hazards continue to fall to more specialized and less passive Pokémon, and it must strongly compete with Celesteela as a multipurpose bulky Steel-type immune to Ground; Celesteela boasts Leech Seed to recover as it deals chip damage to poison-immune types, much more offensive presence, and much better special bulk it can afford to invest in to actually check the Fairy-types its typing would suggest it can. Stall teams are also preferring sturdy Unaware users like Pyukumuku and Clefable as answers to set-up attackers.
Get out there!
These are only some of the most prominent and long-term examples of improved Pokémon; everything from Contrary Superpower Spinda to Sticky Web, Quiver Dance, and +20 Special Attack Masquerain shows Game Freak's care and kindness, fickle as these may be, to its seemingly less-loved creations. Well, Salamence wasn't exactly "less-loved"—no matter. Go spot some gifts to the once less fortunate and rise to glory with these aspiring titans!
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