The 5 Worst Buddies in Pokemon GO

I’ve always enjoyed the buddy feature in Pokemon Go. It’s basically an overly simplified Tamagotchi. A small pet that you feed berries to and it occasionally helps you out. Getting a Pokemont to Best Buddies is a long commitment. It takes around a month to do if you take the time to walk a Pokemon 6km every day. The benefits are rather hit and miss, with random daily gifts, helping you catch Pokemon and, at best Buddies, gaining an extra level.

But not every Pokemon makes for a good buddy. Some Pokemon aren’t worth leveling up to Best Buddies at all. Meanwhile, others can be a hindrance. Today, we’ll discuss a bunch of Pokemon that can be a pain in the ass as a buddy.

Pokemon you plan to trade away later

Unlike most normal Pokemon, any Pokemon that is made your buddy is kept forever. Okay, not really, but all buddies now appear in your Buddy History, even if you delete them or trade them away. So if you are planning on trading a Pokemon or deleting it, maybe don’t make it your buddy. Otherwise you might end up with a permanent reminder that the crappy shiny 100CP Beldum you traded to someone is now 100%, Lucky and completely maxed out.

Pokemon at or around 1500CP or 2500CP

Funnily enough, walking a Pokemon meant for Great or Ultra League can be detrimental. When it hits Best Buddy, it’s very possible that the extra level you get will push that Pokemon over the maximum CPs of 1500CP for Great League and 2500CP for Ultra League. I actually have a Lucario with this exact problem: at lbest buddy level, it is 2CP too high to play in Great League, at 1502CP.

That being said, some Pokemon do need the extra level for PvP. Pokemon like Sableye don’t reach CPs quite high enough to be able to play in the bigger leagues, and have to be completely maxed out to even stand a chance. This actually creates some unique scenarios where middle evolutions or even basic Pokemon can compete in PvP, sometimes better than their fully evolved counterparts. Some Pokemon also do well in Master League with the extra level. But the only Pokemon who really benefits from level 41 is Dialga, which is omnipresence in the Master League meta.

Then again, the ability to go past level 40 is now kinda moot, what with XL Candy being available. At least for Great and Ultra League. Master League is still a bit up in the air right now, so the level 41 from best buddies is probably more useful there.

Flying Pokemon

Flying Pokemon are on this list simply because, well, you hardly see them. They just float up in the sky, out of the way, minding their own business. Okay, sure, they’re not getting in your way, but they’re also basically invisible unless you zoom out completely. Sure, some people might prefer this because they don’t want their buddy in the way. However most Pokemon aren’t a nuisance and tapping on wild Pokemon takes priority over tapping on your buddy.

There’s also a small, secondary downside: Flying Pokemon will push Team Rocket Balloons around. The worst offender here is Rayquaza, simply because it is so long and noodle-y. But any Flying Pokemon can push the balloons around, which is both annoying and amusing.

Meltan

Meltan’s not a great buddy for a single reason: it needs 400 candy to evolve. But walking a Meltan will only get you one candy every 20km. Normally, I’d say “yeah, sure, it’s a long project” for Meltan. But now that we have easy access to Mystery Boxes, Melmetal is more accessible than ever before. On top of that, even if you need XL Candy, Mystery Boxes are the way to go.

Simply put, the amount of effort needed to walk a Meltan for candy is insane. And they’re so small that they’re hard to see.

Kyogre

Kyogre is the last entry for this list, and it’s here for quite a few reasons. The first is actually similar to that of Meltan. Being a Legendary Pokemon, you only get one candy every 20km. Which is a lot of walking if you don’t walk regularly. So you end up with a very, very slow trickle of candy compared to other Pokemon. But the bigger issue is that Kyogre takes up pretty much all your screen space. In fact, unless you play completely zoomed out, it takes up ALL your screen space.

It’s actually quite odd that Kyogre floats the way it does, at ground level. Especially considering how other Pokemon do or don’t. Scyther doesn’t fly, Pidgey doesn’t fly, but Giratina does. Well, the origin form does. Altered Form Giratina walks around the same way Kyogre does.

But yeah, Kyogre is probably the most pain in the ass Pokemon to have as your buddy, by a mile.