So who is the best Eeveelution now?
Vaporeon was considered the best Eeveelution for a long time, not because it has high DPS, but because it was the best water type attacker.
So now with Gyarados learning Waterfall and being a much better water attacker, who is the best Eeveelution now?
Answers
Still Vaporeon I think. Gyarados may be better but Vaporeon still has the advantage of being very easy to acquire and being almost as good, whereas the other Eeveelutions are outclassed by a bigger margin.
e.g. Jolteon by Zapdos + Raikou, and Flareon by Moltres and Entei, not sure about Ho-oh.
Espeon requires 10km of walking, and is roughly equivalent to Alakazam who can be acquired from raids and outclassed by Mewtwo. Even though very few people have one, the fact that the possibility of acquiring one in the future is probably putting many people off powering Espeon / Alakazam up since it'll become obsolete.
We don't talk about Umbreon.
I guess Vaporeon still has the saving grace of being noticeably bulkier than Gyarados, and being considerably easier to dodge with. Still respectable DPS at around 80% of Gyarados.
Jolteon and Flareon have no advantage over their legendary counterparts whatsoever. I guess you can have some novel combinations like TS/Discharge Jolteon and Ember/Flamethrower Flareon for dodging, but none of these are as practical as some advantages a WG/HP Vape has over Gyarados.
Do note Gyarados makes up for this 'less bulk' with the flying typing vs ground, but then lots of ground pokemon and bosses have rock moves.
Agreed. Flareon is essentially 100% outclassed by Moltres and is roughly on par with (or slightly outclassed by depending on your definition) Entei.
Vaporeon, on the other hand, boasts greater bulk, a faster, higher EPS quick move (to avoid fainting before usage), and accessibility than Gyarados. This isn't to say that Gyarados doesn't outclass Vaporeon, but the distance isn't so cut-and-dry.
Moltres only has 1 bar moves though, Flareon can learn Flamethrower.
Flareon also has a big accessibility advantage over the fire legendaries, and no stardust investment needed when you evolve a high level Eevee. Just like Vaporeon.
If Jolteon learns Wild Charge, things will be a bit more interesting. But not at the moment.
Vaporeon was originally considered the best because it was a powerful, tanky mon that was easy to obtain. It was the most important mon in the meta for a while, but as the game matured & trainers acquired the scarcer but more powerful mons, Vaporeon’s importance diminished.
Now, I’d say Espeon is the most important. It is powerful, meta relevant, and easy to obtain. Even Vaporeon is a lottery to obtain, but Espeon evolutions are guaranteed.
Also, while Alakazam can be obtained from raids, it is not an easy solo, and finding someone else to help isn’t necessarily easy either. Even relatively low-level players can obtain a decently strong Espeon without much difficulty, which makes Espeon sort of an equalizer, like Vaporeon used to be.
Jolteon was always my favourite. It's placed at the shadow of two legendary now, but I always used it more than vaporeon in the gym battle and raid systems. You may still argue that jolteon is the most useful of the eevoltions, closely followed by espeon. Vaporeon would only share the third place with flareon in metagame relevance.
There were only two reasons I ever used Vaporeon:
1. As a gym defender before Raikou and Zapdos existed.
2. It was the best-available Water attacker.
Both reasons have vaporized. I now have no reason to ever pull out Vaporeon again. But who will I use? Espeon in its effective raids.
If use the metric "what will get used" to determine what's "best," Espeon is the winner for me. If I'm hosting an intra-Eevee death match, Vape's bulk makes it the winner.
