>>47746678>Outside of its aesthetic value, Gardevoir is a strong battler in the Pokémon universe. Gardevoir is regularly used in competitive play-Stopped here
No, anon, no it's not
Gardevoir is a complete fucking joke in competitive. It always was and always will be. Not even the mega form could help it. It has Thyplosion levels of snark in it's Gen 7 write-up. It an absolutely terrible Pokemon battle wise. It's OHKO'd by practically any physical attack coming it's way, and even with it's high sp.def it's 2HKO'd by most special attackers. It can't threaten many Pokemon, but it gets scared out all the time. It's stats are trash and actively hold it back; it suffers from the worst speed tier possible (too fast for trick room but too slow to reliably scarf or outspeed most threats) and garbage defense and hp. It's special stats aren't even good by the standards of it's own type.
It suffers from heavy 4MSS, but worse than that, it's just plain outclassed: anything Gardevoir can do, literally anything else does better. Want a powerhouse psychic/fairy? Use Tapu Lele. Want a bulky TR supporter or fat CM sweeper? Hatterene does it better. Wish Cleric? Florges, Clefable, and even Sylveon are significantly superior. Support? Togekiss, Tapu Koko, Bronzong, Rimbombee, Klefki, Grimmsnarl, just about any fairy or psychic type that's not NFE will do as well as if not outright better than Garde while still being able to fight back. Even fucking Galarian-God-Damn-RAPIDASH is better than Gardevoir. Because it can at least set up and go to town and has a fucking identity. It's not even an effective suicide lead. It's not even able to commit to anything, because trying to invest in any of it's stats leaves it with crippling weaknesses in any of it's sets. The only thing Garde has ever been used for is as a suicide trick-scarfer, and it sucks even at that. It was ok in Gen 3 but it fell hard with each passing gen and never recovered.
>"capable fighter"HA
