#10 - #12: Caterpie, Metapod and Butterfree

Now that the original starters are out of the way, things can be a bit more variable. One thing about the starters: they are always pretty good and always can be deserving of a spot on your team. Now we're at Caterpie, and this really doens't deserve a spot on a team...

Caterpie... base total of 195, meaning it is one of the weakest Pokemon overall... That said, you can't judge a Pokemon just by the base stats, you need to consider the movepool and stat distribution. What't the point of a Pokemon with amazing attack stats but no speed and no bulk? Also, what's the point in something with across the board 70s for total 420, when something with 180 speed and attack and then nothing elsewhere would be devastating...

Even through this picture you can tell it's poor...

Caterpie's spread is poor... It has base 45 speed and HP setting the way, but that leaves only 105 to be distributed between the other four areas, so it's pretty rubbish. 30 attack, 35 defence and 20 in the specials means it can't really take advantage of the speed it is sort of blessed with and with the dire defences it can't even use that reasonable HP which is actually better than Charmander's!

As far as a movepool goes: what movepool? Including the tutor moves, it only gets six moves, and since two of them are bug bite, well... It doesn't even get moves by breeding! Bug bite is an ok move since it's STAB with decent power and can eat the opponent's berry, but it does make contact, so if they have static (for example) as an ability, then you'll be shut down fast. Electro web is the other interesting move as it can hit multiple targets at base 55 power as a special move (it was the signature of Joltik and Galvantula until ORAS) and will drop those hit by one notch of speed.

Moving on to Metapod, and the only good things to be said so far are that it Caterpie levels fast and evolves early at only level 7. Metapod only stick around for 3 levels.

You may as well have an egg or an empty party space instead of this guy...

Upon evolving, you lose speed, AND attack damage, but gain some physical bulk and HP, as well as a tiny amount of special stats (+5 to both). AS far as move pool goes, you get harden by level up and iron defence by tutor... Hooray? At least you get a good ability in shield dust, where the attacker cannot apply added effects to you, so flamethrower may remove most of your HP, but at least you don't get burned (I say most in case you have focus sash equipped, because otherwise you are gone). The hidden ability, run away, is pretty much a waste of time unless you're wading through the tall grass back to a Pokemon centre, since all it allows is escape from wild Pokemon. Since it doesn't work in trainer battles, this is one of the worst abilities for competitive battles (other than things like slack off and slow start...).

Now to the final evolution, which comes about pretty fast (Ash went from Caterpie to Butterfree in about 8 seconds in the anime). Butterfree looks kind of dumb, and loses both the previously available abilities on evolving. Compound eyes has nice benefits: in battle it improves accuracy of moves by 30% (so now thunder's pitiful 70% becomes 91%), and in the field, it means wild Pokemon are more likely to carry items, so you can maybe farm life orbs off wild Absols. Tinted lens (the hidden ability) doubles the power of non-effective moves, which is fairly nice if you have no options. Neither of these abilities are bad, actually.

Dorky looking, but since it's totally different from Caterpie in every respect, a decent portrayal of metamorphosis...

Butterfree also gets a nice new thing of becoming a flying-type, yet that means it gets boosted killed by rock-types, and therefore it has the same problem as Charizard in that stealth rock will utterly kill it. Adding flying also brings in electric and ice weaknesses, adding to fire and flying.

As far as move pool goes, there is very little that has been brought forward, so speeding it up to level 10 and evolving as fast as possible is a good shout. Butterfree now gets confusion pretty much straight away, which now goes very well with the dramatic boost to the special attack (now 90). Poison and sleep powder now come along with stun spore, meaning that you can run as a catcher with this, and can also be used to mess with opponents, but for real moves if you have to use this competitively then you can get STAB special flying move gust, as well as psybeam, which is better than confusion, and either silver wind or bug buzz. There are a few reasonable status moves such as stat boosters or killers and whirlwind that is negative priority (so you need to survive a hit, better hope it's special since you now get base 80 special defence).

Moving away from level moves, you get a decent array of TM moves, so you can couple sunny day and solar beam if you are borderline suicidal. You can pick up venoshock to go with poison powder (or replace poison powder with toxic), and to go with sleep powder you can now get the very powerful dream eater, which is rather nice. There are in fact a few decent moves that you can pick up through TMs but no HMs, so no fly...

All in all, never even consider Caterpie and Metapod. Even with eviolite, there's no point to them since they have no moves. Butterfree actually gets an ok movepool (not great, but ok), and so can definitely be an option if you don't mind terrible physical stats and base 70 speed (maybe run tailwind?). All in all, could actually be ok in low tiers, but if everyone jumps on that bandwagon, then Smogon will kick it up a few notches and make it the worst Pokemon...

(All artwork presented by Ken Sugimori, taken from the Bulbapedia image archives)