99% of Pokemon in Pokemon GO are pointless

The other day, aabicus and I were discussing our recent catches in various Pokemon games. I was lamenting on how an XXL shiny Darumaka had fled on me, while he was showing off his shiny Azumaril, which had Stellar as its Tera type. As we chatted, we both came to an agreement that, well, 99% of the Pokemon we catch in Pokemon GO were pointless.

In a normal Pokemon game, you generally catch what you like, you become friends with these Pokemon and you take them all the way to the Elite Four. Of course, plenty of Pokemon end up in your PC, but your PC has a lot of space in it. The Pokemon you defeat as you work your way through a region will faint and give XP to your team, but you can also run away from a lot of them, allowing them to continue with their lives. If you catch a Pokemon, you still get XP, and you can use it on your team or keep it in your PC to be used or released later. Any Pokemon you catch though, all you need is time to level them up. Okay, sure, you can also use rare candies, since they are a lot more common in newer games,

In Pokemon GO, these Pokemon just stand there, blankly staring at you and occasionally attacking air. They’ll do so for half an hour and then vanish if you don’t catch them. But rather than rewarding experience when you catch them, they reward candy, which you then feed to other Pokemon. However, evolving and leveling up a Pokemon requires a lot more resources. Just to evolve, say, a Larvitar, you need 125 candy, plus stardust to power it up to a reasonable level. Level 30 is generally your best bet.

Sure, IVs aren’t the be-all-and-end-all of everything, but at the same time, you don’t really want to waste resources on something when there’s a high chance of getting a better one later. Not just better IVs, but perhaps shiny too. However, 99% of wild Pokemon and a good 50% of Pokemon from raids, eggs and research will have mediocre IVs.

It’s made worse with shadow Pokemon. With their 20% attack buff, there’s no point using a normal Machamp for example when you could be using a shadow Machamp. So why bother wasting hard-to-get resources on powering up some normal Pokemon when you can just wait for a shadow Pokemon to come out? I have a 100%, maxed out Rhyperior, but he’s now technically useless because shadow Rhyperior now exists. Well, theoretically. I’ve only seen 2 shadow Rhyhorns so far, and I don’t really want to waste 300+ candy powering up a 0* shadow Rhyhorn.

Now, sure, you do have the same thing in normal Pokemon games. After all, you can easily find a Pokemon with better IVs. After I spent a long time leveling up a Gabite into a Garchomp, I randomly stumbled into a wild Garchomp that had the Tera type water, was level 65 and had way better stats. But it only cost me time to level up that Garchomp, and it didn’t cost me any major resources to change its moves. I just happen to have two Garchomps now. I also have a LOT more storage, so having two Garchomps simply isn’t a problem.

But more importantly, time is on your side. If you do find a better Pokemon than one you already have, you can just spend some time and level it up again. But at the same time, combat is also much more… relaxing. Everything in Pokemon GO is on a timer, whether it’s an event timer, a raid timer or a GBL timer. In a normal Pokemon game, you have all the time in the world, since you’re on your own path. And the Pokemon you don’t want? You can just release them back into the wild, rather than catching them en-mass and grinding them up for candy…