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Should You Pull? Sygna Suit Misty & Vaporeon

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TL;DR: Should You Pull?

What Does It Do?

Whoever is making these Sygna Suits must be making a fortune, because here comes yet another with even more on the near horizon! Misty, ⅓ of the trio that made up the game’s starting lineup, got a taste of dressing differently after teaming up with her Psyduck, and now has teamed up with her Vaporeon to try to give us a brand new experience with the tomboyish mermaid. So how does she fare with her new approach to battle and fashion? Let’s start our review by breaking down her kit.

When it comes to stats, Misty & Vaporeon are… lackluster. Their speed is okay, their Special Attack is solid enough, and their bulk is… not outstanding, tank-wise. They’re good enough to do a bit of tanking, but even the classic Misty & Starmie are bulkier overall. Attack-wise, Misty & Vaporeon only have one real option: Water gun. This humble 1-bar move pretty much lets us know that Misty & Vaporeon are not focused on damage, at least not from normal attacks. Following this are two moves that are Pokemon moves, but not attacks: Haze and Mist. We’ve seen Haze before on Brycen & Cryogonal, it returns all of the target’s buffed stats to normal. And while it doesn’t steal the stats like Snatch, it makes up for that fact by affecting all three opposing Sync Pairs at once. Mist, meanwhile, takes a page from Jasmine & Steelix by protecting the team from all Stat Reduction effects for a limited time once used. These two combined basically shut down all of the opposing team’s disadvantageous stat-changing capabilities with proper move management. Their trainer move, Go With the Flow!, has 2 uses and raises Vaporeon’s Defense by 2 stages, and the team’s Special Defense by 2 stages, making it nice for keeping Vaporeon alive while also helping the team a bit. Moving on to Skills, we have Charging Infliction 4, which restores the Move Gauge by 4 when Misty & Vaporeon use a status move; Mist and Haze. Shifty Striker 4 grants a 50% chance of raising Vaporeon’s Evasion by 1 stage every time that it uses Water Gun, which can snowball into some significant evasion odds after a while. Finally, Healthy Healing offers the Regeneration effect if Vaporeon hits the field with full HP, granting even more value to Water Gun’s ease of use. Finally, let’s talk about Misty & Vaporeon’s Sync Move. This move has a built-in Sync Nuke, can be empowered even further via their grid, can be taken even further with Tech’s EX effect, and can go beyond even that if the weather is rainy. The result is a very potent single-target Sync Nuke that ranks among the top echelon of Sync Nuke damage in the game. But… this isn’t quite as great as it sounds, as we’ll discuss soon enough.

So what exactly is good about Misty & Vaporeon? Well, aside from the obvious buff/debuff control and Sync Nuke, they’re kind of bulky, and can work in a tank capacity post-buffs, Though they’re generally better utilized in a 3rd slot for their Tech/Sync Nuke capabilities as their ability to deal with damage takes a bit of time to set up properly. In this role, they can build up their own bulk to act as a backup tank should the first tank drop, use their own potentially annoying Tech skills to the team’s advantage, and even act as a “gauge battery” of sorts, spending small bits of the Sync Gauge and then repaying it back, potentially even double in some cases, after using a move. This whole kit sounds fine-and-good, right? So what’s the catch? Well, it’s actually a bit hard to genuinely justify the use of Misty & Vaporeon when other Sync Pairs are overall more effective at doing similar jobs.

First up, let’s say that I want to use Misty & Vaporeon for their Sync Nuke capabilities. Okay, so first I need to buff them offensively because they are not self-sufficient on that front by any stretch of the imagination. So I’ve got Misty & Vaporeon and something capable of fully buffing them on the field, say Sabrina & Alakazam. I generally don’t want to use Misty & Vaporeon as my main damage, as they’re terrible outside of Sync Move damage, so I’m going to need a Striker… but then I am not getting Rain unless I use Archie & Kyogre or May & Swampert, the latter of which really appreciates getting one Sync Move off to get Mega Swampert on the field. And, just like that, I’m almost required to build my entire team around Misty & Vaporeon to make them genuinely effective. And even then, it’d probably be easier to just run a Dual Striker setup for the same or superior overall performance.

But how about as a tank? Well, again, they’re not very bulky, and take time to set up their survivability with buffs to Defense, Special Defense, and finally Evasion, which is a risky defensive tactic to rely on in-and-of itself. Then we have the fact that they give virtually no buffs to the team, so why would we use them over other tanks? Oh, right, their Sync Nuke. Well, repeat the above issue and we are back to square 1. But how about their Tech capabilities? Surely the combo of Mist and Haze is useful? Well, yes and no. While the combo is nice to have, it’s hard to justify using these two moves together as reason enough to give Misty & Vaporeon a slot on the team. While buffs and debuffs are commonly used by enemy teams, the degree that they’re used together is rarely enough to genuinely swing many battles, so it’s a bit over-kill for a strategy that generally only calls for one or the other to do the job. Sadly, it’s just not easy to justify the use of Misty & Vaporeon on a team if other options are available and/or the stage doesn’t specifically require their unique capabilities.

In short: while usable, Misty & Vaporeon just need too much support to do what they do best, and don’t provide enough of a return on investment to be worth considering over other options.

Champion’s Stadium: Master Mode

As a tank, Misty & Vaporeon are a bit risky here. Heavy hits are common, and most attacks used have high base accuracy, so our aquatic friends probably won’t last too long. They also don’t provide much real team help outside of Special Defense, so their best use is going to be ensuring that the opposing team has absolutely no influence on any stats and/or dropping a solid Sync Nuke to sweep the middle enemy along the way.

The Legendary Arena 

Since each stage of the Arena has a unique gimmick, Mity & Vaporeon can actually provide a bit of role-compression here to help future-proof against two different strategies, and can also take full advantage of the fact that their Sync Nuke only hits a single target, which works out perfectly on the majority of Legendary Arena stages. They’re not outstanding, but they are a gimmick option for a gimmick game-mode and can potentially apply to some of those very specific circumstances.

Extreme Battles

Usable, but they run into the same issue of being unreliable, which isn’t always a great trait when facing what is arguably one of the more difficult bits of content that we currently have available.

The Battle Villa

Misty & Vaporeon really don’t have anything spectacular to bring to the field here. Most of what they do effectively has limited MP, so it’s probably best to leave them at home.

How To Use It?

These are generally the most important tiles on Misty & Vaporeon’s grid:

  • Sync Nuke builds will want to aim for Sync Power Flux (⅗), Blind Spot (⅗) and Sync Move Power+25 (⅗) tiles for maximum damage output. Agile Entry 1 (⅖) and Water Gun: Shifty Striker 4 (⅗) are also recommended if Misty & Vaporeon don’t have any Evasion support.
  • Tank/Utility builds will appreciate Team Shielding Infliction 4 (⅗), Go With the Flow!: MP Refresh 2 (⅖), Mist: MP Refresh 2 (⅖), and Haze: MP Refresh 2 (⅖).
  • Haze: Propulsion 3 (⅗) and Mist: Propulsion 3 (⅗) have utility for teams that want to knock down the Sync Move counter as quickly as possible. This is especially true in what is arguably Misty & Vaporeon’s best mode, Legendary Arena, where they’re used to build up momentum against the opponent.

Next are the tiles that are nice to have, but are either niche or not generally worth going out of the way for:

  • Grand Entry 1 (⅖) and Team Smart Infliction 4 (⅗) can help a Sync Nuke build be a bit more self-reliant, but generally not enough to be worth losing other nodes for. Running a dedicated Support will be a better option.
  • Water Gun: Move Gauge 9 (⅖) is attractive, as it makes Misty & Vaporeon have literal negative net-gauge cost for use, but it’s also on a 1-bar move, which won’t hurt most teams to use each turn regardless.
  • Flameproof (⅕) and Fast Runner (⅕) have niche utility on stages that spam strategies that they stop, but aren’t worth getting for most builds.

Finally, these are the tiles that are probably best to ignore unless they somehow play into a bigger strategy in some way:

  • Bob and Weave (⅕) adds damage to Water Gun. Not likely to make a real impact on most stages.
  • Leg Up 1 (⅗) is basically worthless unless you need that Sync Move Counter drop for whatever reason, and don’t mind resetting a stage until the 20% chance rolls in your favor.

Lucky Skills

This is a bit of a split. If going for a Tank build, then Vigilance will be a necessity, as the majority of Vaporeon’s bulk comes from its buffs. If Sync Nuke is your playstyle of choice, then Critical Strike 2 is the way to go. It’s a real shame that we can’t have multiple Lucky Skills, or have “slots” that we can switch between at will.

Team Options

If going the tank route, then a bit of help with survivability can be invaluable. Sync pairs that can drop the opponent’s Accuracy such as Siebold & Octilery can definitely be useful, as it compounds the effectiveness of Vaporeon’s Evasion buffs. By that same token, dropping the opposing team’s offensive stats with Sync pairs like Champion Iris & Hydreigon or Ghetsis & Kyurem can extend their survivability substantially.

Using them for a Sync Nuke… is going to be a bit more demanding, for the reasons that were previously outlined.  Sabrina & Alakazam can handle the buffs, and Archie & Kyogre or May & Swampert can handle the rain while also providing very nice general damage, though it will still take a bit of time for them to fully set up.

Finally, if just using them as a side Sync pair for their unique skills and skills as a backup tank, they become quite a bit more flexible, though a bit less effective in general. Blue & Aerodactyl are self-sufficient and can max the team’s Critical Rate, which takes a bit of pressure off of the 3rd team member and helps to set Vaporeon up for a Sync Nuke. In general, it’s probably still best to simply run them alongside a strong Support/Striker core so that they can work on the sidelines and step up whenever their unique skills are needed.

Is It Worth Pulling?

Honestly, the only real reason to pull for Misty & Vaporeon is for love of the character and/or Pokemon, and even then it might be best to wait and hopefully pull them naturally on future banners. They honestly feel more like a Four Star unit by most metrics than a Five Star, as their entire kit is pretty niche in its utility and not even that interesting in practice. They’re definitely usable, but not worth any heavy investment in at all.

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About the Author(s)

Long-time Gamepress fan and writer for Pokemon Go and Pokemon Masters sub-site

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