>>47562925Megas. While Z-moves and Dynamax have the advantage of buffing all pokemon, most signature Z-moves and G-Maxes weren't a very meaningful buff to their recipients. Furthermore, the universal buffs they provided often ended up just widening the gap by giving already good pokemon a new job to outclass other pokemon in. Even some of the best signature Z-moves like extreme evoboost required running a move like last resort and some pokemon like Drednaw have G-Max moves that go against their playstyle. Dynamax also loses points for making every status move protect, something Z-moves at least put the effort in to give us interesting stuff like Z-happy hour and Z-splash. The whole "copycat your partner's max guard to use their status move" strat redeems it a little, but not much.
However, regional variants are the best if they count. I feel like they're the best middle ground of buffing a pokemon. Megas often buffed pokemon too much like Mawile and Kangaskhan. Signature Z-moves hardly made a difference most of the time, such as Mimikyu and the Tapus forgoing their signature Z-moves. G-Max moves were a little more enticing across the board, but had their fair share of stinkers, too. I don't recall adding 10-20 points to a pokemon's BST between generations ever made a difference. Regional variants have the advantage of tweaking a pokemon's typing, stats, and abilities like megas to create a new playstyle while largely forgoing power creep. Even the most broken regional variants like G-Darm don't come close to the most broken megas. Regional variants are pokemon-specific, which means you can avoid buffing already good pokemon. Gen 8 also fixed the garbage of only giving gen 1 pokemon regional variants and made some pokemon with low BST like farfetch'd better by giving a regional crossgen evo to boost their BST. Though it's technically not generational since it's been around for 2 gens and it doesn't technically buff a pokemon, regional variants are the best buffs.
