#13 - #15: Weedle, Kakuna and Beedrill

Ever since I was a little kid, before I had ever really known anything about Pokemon, had ever played the game, seen the anime or found a card lying on the street, I knew one thing: Weedle sucked. It was the punchline to so many primary school jokes, and rightly so...

Weedle is pathetic, let me say that bluntly. It hits as hard as Caterpie (so basically like a feather landing on concrete) but slightly faster (finishing the 100m in 10 minutes rather than 10 minutes 30 seconds), yet it is less capable of taking hits.

It's almost cute in its patheticness, but you just know you'll catch something...

As dual type bug/poison it has some nice weaknesses, but a surprising list of resistances, proudly having great 4x resistance to both fighting and grass, and carrying resistance to the new fairy-type, which isn't bad at all. Then you see it is weak to rock (and stealth rock!), fire, flying and psychic, which are all reasonably common... And never forget that using poison, you cannot hit steel-type either.

Similar to Caterpie, its movepool is shallower than a Kardashian, yet this time, if you take out the repeat of bug bite from tutoring, it stands at an abysmal four moves, and since one of them is string shot, may as well say it's three: electro web from the tutor an then bug bite and poison sting from levelling.

The mercy of Weedle is that it levels rapidly to level 7, whereupon it will evolve to the less than impressive Kakuna (or in Japan, Cocoon...). Upon evolution, you lose either the decent ability of shield dust (like Caterpie) or the rather pathetic ability run away (like Caterpie) to gain shed skin (like Metapod)... Really original, so far.

It even looks like it's plotting or biding its time...

Shed skin has a 30% chance to heal status ailments at the end of any turn, taking effect before either burn or poison damage hits you. Sounds ok, unless you're running astonish, but on Kakuna, you'll likely be dead before this heals you, since very few people will run things like will-o-wisp on you rather than just hit you with any damaging move and go for the OHKO. Also, as a poison-type, you can't be poisoned, so unless you're skill swapping, it's a waste of time.

Considering the woeful stats (reduced attack and speed but slight increases elsewhere), and no new level up moves other than harden, and iron defence from the tutor, it's a mercy that the gap to level 10 is small (especially on something which gains experience rapidly). Keep it as a Weedle to level 9, then evolve again at level 10 to Beedrill (you get harden when you evolve, and as far as I'm aware even at level 90 or whatever).

So to Beedrill, which I admit looks pretty cool. Maintaining the bug/poison typing, and as such is frail to stealth rock teams, this is a physical attacking partner to the special Butterfree, packing slightly higher HP and speed at the cost of physical defence. 80 special defence and 90 attack are nothing to be ashamed of, but the other stats are, really... 75 speed is nowhere near good enough to allow for any utility, and the lack of HP and defence means that even choice-ing this (to patch up the poor speed or make the attack more worthwhile) isn't good enough. There's only one item it should hold, and I'll get to that later.

Opponent seeing this: Ha, nice try but I've got you...

As far as abilities go, swarm is basically like the starter abilities in that it boosts primary type (bug) moves by 1.5x when down to the last 3rd of your health, which you may well be in before you attack (if you survive). Sniper boosts that damage from critical hit moves 1.5x, so now hits for 2.25x overall. Sadly, this was a much better ability in the old days when critical hits hit harder (2x) instead of the measly 1.5x they hit for now. Unless you're confident of either tanking a hit or two or getting crits regularly, neither is great here.

Moves for Beedrill are actually rather plentiful if you scour the TMs, as there aren't too many by level, but a few nice ones nonetheless... One move to consider would be fell stinger, which is pretty poor in terms of damage output, but if you've say broken sturdy of focus sash, or at least they are at death's door, then finishing them with fell stinger grants not only the KO, but a +2 boost to attack, which makes Beedrill a little scary.

Further to this, you get the ever rubbish rage, fury attack (seriously, there are better multi-hitters out there), focus energy, and in this case endeavour, as you get no priority moves, and so you'll just die anyway after using it, giving them a chance to heal or switch out. You do get twineedle, which has a decent chance to poison (20% on both hits) and can be used as a sash breaker, but it doesn't hit too hard (30 base for a double hit). You also get access to toxic spikes, which is kinda cool.

From the TM list you gain access to one of my favourite moves (venoshock), but it's utterly worthless here due to the dreadful special attack, which also rules out solar beam (and of course sunny day, unless you want to get OHKO'd, which would probably happen anyway), sludge bomb, hidden power, round, hyper beam (generally not worth it anyway), and struggle bug. Infestation still remains somewhat valid due to timed damage rather than the initial hit. You should really go for stuff like brick break (to kill the rock weakness), aerial ace (though this doesn't cover any weakness), maybe thief (or tutor knock off or assurance from levelling) to punish the psychic weakness, poison jab and X-scissor as powerful STAB moves (this gets better) and probably drill run to mess up those resisting steel types.

I would have dismissed Beedrill as pathetic had it not been for the recent developments in ORAS, and that is MEGA BEEDRILL! Taking a poor generation one Pokemon and breathing new life into it, and it working. Give Beedrill the mega stone, mega evolve it, and watch your opponent shudder (if you get the switch in right). The special attack stat falls through the floor and it's still barely capable of being coughed towards, but with basically double speed and a hefty boost to attack (145 and 150 respectively) you'll be hitting very hard and very fast. Couple this with the new ability (adaptability: increases STAB from 1.5x to 2x (I said it got better)) and you can kill things off very fast! Except Skarmory...

Opponent on seeing this: Why is my team dead?

If Butterfree got a mega soon, bug-type would be less laughable, but here is mega Beedrill, representing the little ones who so often tried and spectacularly failed in the past. My overall verdict: probably something to seriously consider using. As I write this, I'm actually training one right now. And as a bonus, any nature which has negative special attack could be worthwhile: buff your already alarming speed or attack, or just add a little bulk that could just give you one more turn to kill.

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