Gardevoir, Pokemon Unite's First New Character, Is An Elegant Glass Cannon

Pokemon Unite came stocked with a roster of 20 playable pocket monsters. But like many MOBAs, we knew from the start that more Pokemon would be added post-launch. The first one, Gardevoir, fulfills a familiar combat role, but also shows how the game plans to differentiate between similar characters. Gardevoir is another Ranged Attacker class, but it plays like no one else.

In short, Gardevoir is what might be described as a glass cannon: extremely high damage potential while also being extremely fragile. You can see this right away in her power chart ratings compared to fellow Ranged Attackers Cramorant and Cinderace. All the Ranged Attackers generally have low endurance ratings since they're meant to keep their distance, but Gardevoir is especially vulnerable even by those standards. It has a lower endurance rating than Cramorant. Its endurance matches Cinderace, but it also has lower mobility and so it's less able to escape from sticky situations.

The trade-off for Gardevoir's fragility comes with extremely high damage potential. In fact, Gardevoir is tied for the highest Offense rating with Pikachu and Venusaur. That makes it the highest DPS Ranged Attacker, which tend to be strong but not too strong or else the game balance would be thrown off by them wrecking shop from afar.

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Gardevoir's difficulty rating is Intermediate, while Cinderace is rated as Novice and Cramorant is rated as Expert. The rating for Cinderace makes sense--the high mobility means you can play it more-or-less like another standard attacker, even if it's ideal to keep your distance. Cramorant is rated as Expert because its higher-level moves focus on zone control, dishing out damage as you pull enemies closer with Surf or setting up an auto-turret with its Unite move.

Gardevoir should arguably be rated an Expert-level as well. It's likely that some players will get frustrated as they're brought down so quickly they can barely react. But it does make some sense that its basic attack strategy--keep your distance and dish out heavy damage--is easier to grasp than Cramorant's battlefield control. And the vulnerability means Gardevoir is even more reliant than average on sticking with a teammate who can draw aggro.

Gardevoir starts as Ralts and evolves into Kirlia before its final form, and the earlier stages are strong but not overwhelmingly so. Your strongest initial move is Confusion, a ranged blast with a short cooldown. Ralts also starts with Teleport, a quick dash to get away before the offensive moves get much stronger.

At level 6 you'll evolve into Kirlia and get the option of the set-it-and-forget-it Psyshock and the more nuanced Future Sight. Both deal heavy damage in the high hundreds, but Future Sight is a delayed-release explosion for players who want a slightly more zone control build. Each also reduces cooldown the more times it hits an enemy, so you're encouraged to mix it up. The final set of regular moves comes at level 8, where you can learn the classic Pokemon mainstay Psychic or Moonblast. Again, Psychic is the choice for very high damage potential, while Moonblast adds a confusion effect for zone control.

Finally, Gardevoir's Unite move is Fairy Singularity, a portal that pulls in opposing Pokemon and then shoves them away for massive damage. This might be the highest risk-reward move in the arsenal. Gardevoir will generally want to stay out of large scrums of enemies, but the Fairy Singularity will be most effective if you can trigger it in the middle of a big rowdy brawl.

On the whole Gardevoir gives a taste of how flexible Pokemon Unite is to create unique new roles within familiar class combinations. That means players may find themselves leaning towards characters with increasingly subtle differences, and focusing on hard and soft counters to Pokemon that are reigning in the meta. We already know that another post-launch character, Blastoise, will be a Defender class, so we'll have to see how it continues to iterate on existing Defender options like Snorlax and Slowbro.

For more, check out all of our Pokemon Unite guides, including the best starter for MOBA newcomers and how to claim your free Zeraora.