#69-71: Bellsprout, Weepinbell and Victreebell

With the number of evil, poison plants from generation one of Pokemon, someone there must have been a fan of Day of the Triffids. Especially since Bellsprout seems to be running...

Oh God, the sausages are burning!

Bellsprout has surprisingly good attack and special attack for an unevolved Pokemon (75 and 70 respectively). Both of these are serviceable, but the other stats really let it down: 50 HP, 35 defence, 30 special defence and only 40 speed... The main ability is chlorophyll, which doubles the speed in sunshine, but this is conditional AND maybe dangerous. The other ability is gluttony as a hidden ability, which means that HP restoring berries will be eaten earlier. You also get that oft seen typing of grass/poison...

By level up you get 7 damaging moves: vine whip (grass physical base 45), wrap (normal physical base 15 that wraps the foe up for a few turns), acid (poison special base 40 with 10% chance of lowering the foe's special defence), knock off (you know this one: dark physical base 65 which will remove an item if the foe has an item), razor leaf (grass special base 55 with nice critical chance), slam (normal physical base 80 but with only 75% accuracy) and wring out (normal special that hits harder the higher the foe's HP is (percentage wise)).

You get the powder moves (poison, sleep and stun SPORE if you want to be picky with the name). Growth boosts your special attack by one stage, though this is doubled in the sun. Sweet scent lowers the foe's evasion by two stages, but in the overworld this will initiate a wild encounter, and if hordes are available then it will be a horde battle. The last level up move is gastro acid is an atypical poison type move as it will still affect steel types, but it isn't damaging since what it does is suppress the foe's ability, which can be immensely useful.

I'm willing to bet you could guess half the TM list with no effort. Sunny day could be worth it, especially with solar beam AND chlorophyll. Since both attack stats are good then you can grab venoshock, solar beam, sludge bomb, energy ball and grass knot as special STAB moves, and you could also go for round, cut, secret power, infestation, thief, hidden power and facade. I find that cut is an odd one, however, since Bellsprout would then be cutting another plant down and oh never mind...

There are some decent breeding moves, like acid spray, belch, bullet seed, clear smog, giga drain (I like this move), leech life, magical leaf, power whip and weather ball (changes depending on the weather). If you visit the tutor then you can get seed bomb and bind.

The running plant will evolve into the mouth walking Weepinbell at level 21. To make up for not changing the movelists upon evolution, Weepinbell also doesn't change its abilities and every stat increases by 15, just to be really dull.

Oh my God! Why are you using me?

Since Weepinbell has nothing to talk about, you'll grab a leaf stone and evolve to Victreebell, which looks like a carnivorous plant-made dustbin... Guess what happens to the stats? Aside from the special defence, everything goes up by 15. Special defence goes up by 25... Typing and abilities also haven't changed since Bellsprout...

Anyone up for a game of Basket-Voltorb?

There are actually changes to the level-up learnset! Forget everything else, you now get stockpile (boosts defence and special defence and can stack three times), swallow (consumes the stockpiles, negating their effects, but granting healing, which heals more for more stockpiles), and spit up (again removes the effects of stockpile (you can build them again of course) as a special attack, with base of 100 for each stockpile, so up to 300, as a normal type attack with no added effects). You still get vine whip, sleep powder, sweet scent and razor leaf. The other new moves are leaf tornado (special grass base 65 with 90 accuracy and when it lands it has a 50% chance of lowering the foe's accuracy), leaf storm (base 130 grass special that lowers your special attack by two stages and is only 90 accuracy, basically don't use as a sustained attack) and leaf blade (a physical grass attack base 90 with good critical chance and 100 accuracy).

The usual suspects giga impact and hyper beam are added to the TM list, but nothing is really there from the tutor, no more than there was before.

All in all, this is a family that you could consider, but you shouldn't really pin your hopes on it. There's not much to talk about: it's good, but there are enough weakness problems to think that maybe it shouldn't be a centrepiece.

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