The Top Ten Worst Pokémon Ever, #2: Luvdisc

My... my words... they are gone... left me for greener... green things.  I don’t even that I just accidentally the verb.

Luvdisc... just... what?

...today I have the distinct displeasure of talking about Luvdisc, the Rendezvous Pokémon, a tiny pink heart-shaped fish with no useful powers whatsoever.  Luvdisc’s flavour text... isn’t actually that bad.  Mostly it explains that Luvdisc, being a heart-shaped Pokémon, is the subject of a number of widespread customs and superstitions about love.  Giving a Luvdisc to a person is viewed as a gesture of affection, and tradition has it that a couple that meets a Luvdisc will be in love forever.  One assumes that Luvdisc is associated with love because of its heart-shaped body.  They’re also known for assembling in huge numbers at coral reefs during their mating season.  They don’t seem to do anything remarkable, though (they’re not even the only Pokémon with a heart motif; female Pikachu have heart-shaped tails and female Heracross have heart-shaped horns).  Couples who swim together in tropical oceans are often followed by Luvdisc, which could imply that they have an ability to sense emotion, I guess, and I’ve always privately assumed that Luvdisc mate for life and have unusually elaborate courtship rituals.  I remember an episode of the anime in which the Cerulean Gym, where Misty has now formally become the Gym Leader, acquires a pair of Luvdisc.  When they eventually get together, their love for each other proves to be contagious and a surge of affection rushes through all the spectators at the Gym’s famous water ballets, and this seems to be some power of Luvdisc’s rather than simply an effect of the inspirational performance.  Again, it’s not really bad; more underdeveloped, to the point that I’m left not really caring.

Luvdisc does not evolve into Alomomola.  I spent a perfectly good rant on this subject last year when I wrote about Alomomola herself, the sunfish Pokémon from Black and White, but the collective Pokémon fan-base was trolled so hard by it that I think it deserves another mention.  Alomomola certainly looks like she evolves from Luvdisc (and actually, her flavour has similarities too, but she’s more about platonic than romantic love), which was the conclusion everyone came to when she turned up in promotional material before Black and White were released.  Since Luvdisc’s reputation as one of the most terrible Pokémon in the game is nothing new, most of us were delighted at the prospect.  I still think Game Freak must have known what people would think when they saw Alomomola, which leaves me wondering why on earth they picked her... that’s probably best discussed another time, though.

Luvdisc is universally hailed as one of the weakest Pokémon ever.  He’s in the game for one reason alone: to provide a source of Heart Scales, an item which can be used to pay a move tutor to teach Pokémon moves they have forgotten (or, in some cases, moves they would never have learned on their own).  These scales can sometimes be taken from captured Luvdisc, and this apparently counted as Luvdisc’s fifteen minutes of fame, after which Game Freak forgot about him completely.  He has one great strength, which is that between his high base speed, Agility, and the Swift Swim trait, he can run away from just about everything.  This spectacularly fails to compensate for the fact that Luvdisc can’t actually do anything.  He learns Water and Ice attacks but they are irrelevant because his attack stats are, astonishingly, worse than Pachirisu’s.  He can use Attract and Sweet Kiss to disrupt his enemies but they are more annoying than effective (and many Pokémon can do that better than him, using the more accurate Confuse Ray).  He can ward away status effects and critical hits with Safeguard and Lucky Chant, but neither of those is even remotely necessary to defeat Luvdisc because his defences are appalling.  He can heal himself over time with Aqua Ring, but won’t live long enough for the healing to add up.  Luvdisc’s best hope will generally be to hit something with Toxic and then try to keep himself from dying for as long as possible using attraction and confusion, but since both of those conditions are wiped when a Pokémon switches out and Luvdisc’s only means of trapping a Pokémon in play is Whirlpool, from Heart Gold and Soul Silver’s HM05 (not to mention the fact that attraction isn’t effective against Pokémon of the same gender as the user), he’s unlikely to keep it up for long against a halfway competent opponent.  Most things that are weak to neither Water nor Ice can ignore Luvdisc quite safely and go about their own business, especially Pokémon that are also immune to Poison.  A Dream World Luvdisc has the Hydration ability rather than Swift Swim, and will cure himself of status problems at the end of each turn as long as it’s raining.  Aside from the obvious benefits, this makes it possible for Luvdisc to heal himself completely with Rest without having to worry about sleeping for two turns.  Sadly, Luvdisc has such underwhelming defensive stats that not even this will guarantee his long-term survival.  In order to be successful, Luvdisc is going to need more power, more toughness, more attacks, more support techniques and more useful abilities.

I just... look; Luvdisc evolves into Alomomola, okay?  There.  Luvdisc is fixed.

...okay, I know Alomomola isn’t strictly better than Luvdisc at everything, but she wouldn’t be the first or even the second Pokémon who actually gets slower when she evolves, and lots of unevolved Pokémon-

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ‘IT’S A COP-OUT’?

FINE!  You can have your Luvdisc evolution, but BY ALL THE GODS I AM GOING TO MAKE YOU REGRET IT!

The thing about a Pokémon who embodies love is that it’s not really an idea that lends itself to ass-kicking.  Maybe this idea occurred to Game Freak and they decided that it meant Luvdisc shouldn’t be good at fighting.  Well, I hate to break it to you, Game Freak, but this franchise is all about fighting, and it’s like that because you built it that way, so the message you’re sending here isn’t “some Pokémon are good at things other than fighting,” it’s “some Pokémon are worthless, including the one who’s a universal symbol of love.”  I hope I may be forgiven for not being totally okay with this.  Unfortunately, the most obvious solution – making Luvdisc a dedicated support Pokémon who spends every moment helping his friends – is already Alomomola’s niche, and she’s actually really good at it.  In terms of flavour as well, any evolution I could create for Luvdisc would come across so strongly as a reboot of Alomomola that there wouldn’t be much point in it; the fact that she even exists puts me in something of a bind.  I’ve discussed the problem at some length with my friend and proofreader, Jim, and this is what we’ve come up with.

Okay, I know I should just let it go, but I had to bring
this up: this is Molantine, a fake Luvdisc evolution
by JoshKH92 (http://joshkh92.deviantart.com/ ).
Notice how it looks exactly like Alomomola.  This was
uploaded to DeviantArt in September 2008 - more than
a year before Black and White were even announced.
They were trolling us.  No other explanation.

Luvdisc does indeed evolve into Alomomola; I’m not sure there’s any way to avoid doing that.  We’d probably give Alomomola herself some improvements, but she’s not important.  What’s important is that when Luvdisc evolves into Alomomola, he completely purges all his negative emotions: anger, spite, jealousy, sorrow and all the rest go... and they have to go somewhere.  The result is an evil version of Luvdisc, a Water/Ghost dual-type who looks more or less as you’d expect an evil Luvdisc to look: a jagged-edged broken heart, an ashen grey in colour (if that’s too bleak, maybe add some purple or dull red markings resembling lipstick).  Mechanically speaking, this evolution works the same way as Shedinja’s (he appears spontaneously from the shell left when Nincada evolves into Ninjask).  Dark Luvdisc lurk in the remains of coral reefs that have died off due to changing temperatures or tidal conditions, and sometimes in the darkness at the base of living reefs.  However, they are extremely difficult to find or drive from their nests since they can vanish from sight at will and pass through solid objects.  Dark Luvdisc is basically an evil spirit, and reviled as such in most places.  They retain Luvdisc’s powers over emotion and use them to toy with others, stirring up unwanted affections, dampening loving relationships, and generally tormenting people out of pure spite, all the while feeding off their negative emotions the way Luvdisc feeds off love and joy.  Is this too dark for Pokémon?  Well, not for a Ghost-type, we think – need we bring up Spiritomb?  In battle, dark Luvdisc use their ability to manipulate emotions to its fullest effect, creating false feelings of love in their opponents that are difficult to shake off: although they are genderless, like Shedinja, their Heartbreaker trait makes their Attract technique effective against all Pokémon, and causes any Pokémon under the influence of Attract to lose 1/8 of its health every turn, in the same way as Darkrai’s Bad Dreams ability affects sleeping Pokémon (I’m tempted to add that Attract has a 75% chance to prevent a Pokémon from acting instead of 50%, just for the first turn it’s in effect, but that’s getting to be a lot of effects for one ability).  Aside from the extra perks for Attract, this is mainly an offensive Pokémon; fast, like Luvdisc, but with high attack and special attack and comparatively poor defences.  Surf, Waterfall and Shadow Ball make up your primary options, with Ice Beam, Psychic and Night Slash for variety.  As a very fast Pokémon, dark Luvdisc could reasonably lay claim to U-Turn (a brilliant tactical asset, since you get to switch out for free after using it), and possibly Acrobatics although that might be pushing it.  I think I would make physical attack the higher of his offensive stats, but also give him access to Nasty Plot for boosting his special attack, as well as Foul Play (a physical Dark-type attack that uses the target’s attack stat, not the user’s, to determine damage).  Finally Destiny Bond, which takes your opponent down with you if you happen to be knocked out on the turn you use it, is well-suited to a very fast Pokémon, and also seems like a good fit for a Pokémon that makes its way by manipulating emotions.

Well, here we are again (it’s always such a pleasure).  There’s only one left on my list.  Who’s guessed what it is?  I have a feeling I know what you’re all thinking... but no; that’s not it.  That Pokémon will face judgement in due course, but it doesn’t belong at the top of this list, or even on the list at all.  There’s another one far, far worse, one that might not even have occurred to you at all...