Purified Pokemon Still Kinda Suck

It’s been a long time since shadow Pokemon were buffed, but at the same time, purified Pokemon have remained as they are, with almost no changes. We’ve reached a point that purified Pokemon are pretty much forgotten. But are there any real redeeming qualities to purified Pokemon? Or should we leave our shadow Pokemon as they are?

The lowered stardust and candy costs are not that enticing

When you purify a Pokemon, it becomes cheaper to power up, both with candy and stardust. There’s also a reduced cost when it comes to evolving a purified Pokemon as well. This stacks with the Lucky effect, so a Lucky Purified Pokemon gets both the reduced candy costs AND a massively discounted stardust cost. Purified Pokemon also need less XL candy to evolve, while shadow Pokemon have to spend more for the same level.

There are actually a few Pokemon who really benefit, and that’s Magikarp and Wailmer. And probably Swablu when/if it ever becomes a shadow Pokemon. The reduced candy cost to evolve actually feels like a semi-decent amount. But for a lot of Pokemon, the purification cost is nearly the same as the savings for evolving a Pokemon.

They’ll never be as good as shadow Pokemon

Simply put, the flat 20% damage boost makes shadow Pokemon extremely strong. To the point that my 1* shadow Mewtwo is better than my perfect shiny 100% Mewtwo. The damage boost is so insanely strong that some shadow Pokemon are nearly as strong as their mega evolution forms! Clearly, we shouldn’t ever purify shadow Pokemon, you’re giving up too much, and the increased candy costs are worth the 20% extra damage. And to make matters worse, most purified Pokemon can’t really use the exclusive move Return. It’s only helpful on normal types as a STAB move, or on Sableye as a cover move. A buff to the move Return would be quite nice but it’s just not particularly useful.

I’ll be honest though, I do purify a lot of Pokemon. But most of the time, it’s because they’re close to 100% IVs. While a shadow Pokemon, even a 0% one, is still better than any Purified Pokemon, not every Shadow Pokemon at around 90-98% IVs is worth keeping. But the thing is, am I really going to keep a 3* shadow Cacturne or a 98% shadow Diglett? A 100% Pokemon that I’ll never use is more interesting and fun compared to a not-hundo shadow Pokemon.

Plus, there’s research tasks and medals to collect. For level 45, you need to purify 100 Pokemon anyway. So I might as well purify that Diglett.

At least we can use purified for mega evolutions

Thankfully, shadow Pokemon can’t mega evolve. And that’s a damn good thing, because a shadow mega Pokemon would be insanely strong. But purified Pokemon CAN mega evolve. So if you have some nice hundo purified Pokemon like I do, it’s worth using them. Sadly though they don’t get a reduced mega evolution cost, despite getting reductions elsewhere. Unfortunately, being able to mega evolve doesn’t make purified Pokemon any better, it’s just more convenient. Really, the only good thing about purified Pokemon is the +2 IVs to a Pokemon’s stats.

All of this means that purified Pokemon are still mostly pointless. They just need something to make them even half as good as shadow Pokemon…