Chu Xin watched Scyther battle fiercely on the battlefield, his expression grave. He knew Scyther very well. It was not an exceptionally powerful Pokémon; its current dominance came only from its advantage in base stats. Without needing to evolve, Scyther had very high base stats right from the start, allowing it to bully newcomers who had only just begun working with Pokémon.
Once that early stage passed, however, Scyther's true shortcomings began to show.
In the games, Scyther's roles revolved around Eviolite, pivoting, Knock Off, and setup. Its overall value in Pokémon games could only be described as underwhelming-not entirely useless, but hardly worth much.
Scyther actually had the same base stat total as its evolution, Scizor, yet their standing was worlds apart. At least that evolutionary relationship allowed Scyther to use Eviolite. Even so... it still did little to improve its prospects. Ultimately, its typing was to blame.
Among Bug/Flying-types, only Mega Pinsir could really be called popular. Yet I had no doubt that, with Pinsir's current movepool, replacing its Bug typing with Water or Normal, or even making it pure Flying or Flying/Fighting, would make it more popular than it already was. After all, Pinsir almost never ran Bug-type STAB moves. Its Bug typing made it four times weak to Stealth Rock-one of the main reasons Bug/Flying-types were unpopular. Even with Eviolite, making Scyther an Eviolite user with a base stat total of 500 and very solid defenses, switching into Stealth Rock still cost it half its health.
Its base Speed and Attack were outstanding, and Eviolite made both its defenses quite sturdy as well. It could even forgo Eviolite and pivot with a Choice Band. Overall, its base stats were perfectly usable. Technician was essentially the only ability worth choosing. Swarm rarely activated, because Scyther was not