#167-168: Spinarak and Ariados

Yay! More bugs! These being counterparts to the previous Ledyba/Ledian due to version differences, and the day/night cycle.

Stats wise, Spinarak is to power what Forest Gump is to genius. 40HP, 60 attack, 40 defence and both special stats, and a mere 30 speed. At least you have different typing, swapping the flying for poison, so bug/poison now. Swarm is the same as before as it boosts bug moves by 1.5x when below 33% HP, and insomnia stops you from sleeping. The hidden ability of sniper boosts the power of critical hits by 1.5x (so now 2.25x the standard hit).

Two faces but only 6 legs? Not a very good spider...

Poison sting is a base 15 poison physical move that can poison the foe, whilst string shot can lower the foe's speed by two stages and hits all adjacent foes with 95 accuracy, but then you get scary face, which has quarter of the PP, the same effect, mono-targeting but better base accuracy at 100 so why you get both I really cannot understand. Constrict is a base 10 normal physical move that can again lower the foe's speed by a stage, and leech life is a base 20 bug physical move that heals you by up to 50% of the damage sustained by the target. Night shade is a ghost move that deals damage equal to the user's level (so very useful against Shuckle and for terrible Pokemon). Shadow sneak is like a ghost version of quick attack in that it is a base 40 ghost physical move with a one stage increase in priority. Fury swipes pops up at the same level where you can evolve (22), and is a base 18 normal physical move (80 accuracy) that can hit up to 5 times in a turn.

Sucker punch is a nice base 80 dark physical move that will only hit the foe if they are readying a damaging attack, with sucker punch having boosted priority to make it even more useful. Spider web prevents the foe from switching unless it has baton pass or U-turn etc. and doesn't affect ghosts anymore, and agility is a speed booster. Pin missile is very similar to fury swipes, but is bug-type, base 25 and 95 accuracy, so more powerful, more accurate and with STAB. Psychic is a psychic special move with base 90 power, and poison jab is a base 80 poison physical move with a 30% chance to poison the victim. Cross poison is base 70 poison physical with only 10% chance to poison the target but with a good critical chance. Sticky web is the last level move which acts as a speed reducing entry hazard that doesn't affect Pokemon that are not on the ground.

TMs, well, there's the standard set, with the additions of hone claws (boosts attack and accuracy), and venoshock, as well as solar beam, dig, psychic, sludge bomb, thief, round, struggle bug, X-scissor (base 80 bug physical with boosted critical chance), infestation, poison jab and substitute.

Baton pass an be bred on, along with disable, electroweb, megahorn, night slash, psybeam, pursuit, rage powder, signal beam, sonic boom, toxic spikes (so couple this with sticky web for an entry hazard setter), and then twineedle, which boosts power when used to kill the target. Tutoring can give the interesting bounce (basically a lower power fly at base 85 flying physical with 85 accuracy), bug bite (base 60 bug physical and eats held berries), electroweb (base 55 electric special), foul play (base 95 dark physical), giga drain (base 75 grass special that drains health from the foe), signal beam (base 75 bug special), and then snore (base 55 normal special that can only be used when sleeping).

Evolving time! Ariados is a little less pathetic: 70HP, 90 attack, 70 defence, 60 in both special and then 40 speed, which means you need either to be in trick room or using priority moves. No change to type or abilities, but venom drench pops up in the level list now, which only works on poisoned targets, working to lower both attack stats and speed by a stage. This is the only move that changes, no hyper beam or giga impact... Weird...

Not content with not having enough legs, two of them have now migrated to being utterly useless... Pretty telling...

Yeah, these Pokemon are nothing special again, but arguably better than the previous Ledyba and Ledian. Still, not really worth using at any juncture...

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

#165-166: Ledyba and Ledian

YAY! Now time for a generic bug! And this one is really odd...

Ok, so Ledyba has a claim to fame: in calculations, it can be the recipient of the highest damage move possible in the game thanks to a fifth stage of rollout from a defence curled, helping handed stat swapped Shuckle with the natures aligning leading to millions of HP as damage. 40 HP, 20 attack, 30 defence, 40 special attack, 80 special defence and 55 speed give cause to nightmares, as does the bug/flying-typing, which offers a lot of weaknesses. Swarm (boosts the power of bug moves 1.5x when HP is below 33% and increases wild encounter rate) and early bird (you wake faster from sleep) are the normal abilities and the hidden ability is rattled, which boosts speed when hit by bug, dark or ghost-type moves.

It looks like it needs glasses for some reason...

Tackle makes yet another appearance, supersonic can cause confusion on 55% accuracy, comet punch has base 18 power as a normal-type that hits 2-5 times with an accuracy of 85. Popping up at level 14 we get the following 3 moves: light screen (boosts special defence x2 for the party for 5 turns, can be broken by brick break), reflect (same as light screen but drop the word special) and safeguard (prevents the team from being affected by status afflictions for 5 turns), all these being good for setting screens, but the speed stat is not. Mach punch is the last move before you get chance to evolve, and it acts as a positive priority move, base 40 fighting physical power.

Evolution level time, and you can nab baton pass, which switches yourself out and replaces the user with a teammate, transferring all stat changes to the new entrant, so this can be used to magnificent effect if done well, transferring boosts to a sweeper that can then run riot. Silver wind is a base 60 bug special move that is much like ancient power in that it can boost your speed, attack, defence, special attack and special defence by a stage each (10% chance). Agility buffs speed, swift has no accuracy check as a base 60 normal special move, and double edge is a base 120 normal physical move with huge recoil. The final move is bug buzz: bug-type base 90 special which can lower the foe's special defence a stage.

Standard TMs apply, along with solar beam (and sunny day, but no rain dance), roost, dig (?), brick break, aerial ace, acrobatics (remember, base 55 flying physical that doubles in power when a held item has been lost), substitute (can combine with baton pass), U-turn (base 70 bug physical that allows you to swap out on the attack), struggle bug (base 50 bug special move that can lower the foe's special attack), infestation (base 20 bug special move that traps the foe for 5 turns and hurts them for 1/8th their HP for each turn) and power-up punch (base 40 fighting physical that boosts attack by a stage).

Bow-chick-a-wow-wow time! Bug bite (base 60 bug) allows you to eat the target's berry, dizzy punch (base 70 normal physical that has a chance to confuse the target), drain punch (base 75 fighting physical that heals the user based on the damage given), focus punch, encore, knock off, psybeam (base 65 psychic special), tail wind and screech. Now to the tutor, and they can give you focus punch, bug bite, drain punch, giga drain, ice punch, knock off, snore, tailwind, thunder punch and uproar.

Evolving time to Ledian, which changes hidden ability to iron fist, which boosts the power of punch moves. Changes to stats are a bit mediocre, with 55HP, 35 attack, 50 defence, 55 special attack, 110 special defence and 80 speed, which I suppose is ok for a lower tier fighter. You also retain that poor type combination.

It's trying to be a superhero, but failing so badly...

Hyper beam, focus blast and giga impact all pop in on the TM list, with the level list not changing. The only other change is that the punch moves have become more worthwhile owing to iron fist and its 20% boost.

There isn't too much to really do here unless you want a weak special wall or a baton passer, but there are better options for both. The typing and poor offensive stats hinder this Pokemon, which has a reasonable movepool, I suppose.

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

#127: Pinsir

We've seen evidence for bug Pokemon sucking (Venomoth, Caterpie and co.) and also for them being decent (Mega Beedrill and Scyther), so where does this fit in?

So we've already had the spoiler that this is a bug-type but we need more than that. You get base 85 speed, which is a little pokey, but it can outspeed some things, 65 HP and 70 special defence are a little underwhelming too, and it's a good job that the special attack is redundant as it only reaches base 55. The good comes in the form of the physical stats: 100 defence is nice and the 125 attack is pretty ace, especially for a bug. The ability hyper cutter prevents foes from lowering your attack, whereas mould breaker allows your attacks to skip past the foe's ability, like hitting a levitate-Pokemon with earthquake. The hidden ability on offer is moxie, which leads to your attack rising every time you faint a foe with directly inflicted damage. Looks decent so far...

Looks like it's asking a question on Question Time...

Focus energy remains as a rarely useful move to increase the rate of critical hits, but vice grip is a base 55 physical normal move, whilst bind is a normal physical move of base 15 power, but holds the foe in play for the duration (around 5 turns) and hurts them each turn. Seismic toss inflicts damage to a foe based on the level of the user, so you basically ignore the attack and defence stats, but as a normal move then you don't hurt ghosts. Harden gives a one stage boost to your defence, and revenge is a negative priority fighting physical base 60 move that will hit twice as hard if the foe damages you that turn. Vital throw is a base 70 physical fighting move that skips an accuracy check (so it hits unless the foe is in the middle of something like fly), and I've covered things like double hit (base 35 normal physical hitting twice) to death. Brick break is another one we've seen a lot, hitting as a base 75 fighting physical move that removes screens, whilst submission hits a little harder at base 80 physical fighting with lower accuracy (80) and carries recoil, which basically means you should never take submission ever unless you have reckless, and even then, no... Just no...

With no evolution, the break here is totally at random. X-scissor comes in as the STAB move by level: this is a very good bug physical move with base 80, 100 accuracy, 15PP (can max at 24) and no more or less. Storm throw is always a critical unless the foe has shell armour, but then if you have mould breaker then it still hits as a critical (storm throw is base 60 physical fighting). Swords dance gives a two stage attack boost, thrash remains a powerful normal physical move (base 120) that will lead to confusion after a few turns of use, and superpower is a fighting physical move of the same power but leads to a reduction in both physical stats with each use. The final move on the level list is guillotine: a highly inaccurate normal physical move (33 accuracy) which is a OHKO move (one hit kill).

There's no real point in taking things like hyper beam and hidden power, but you still have the standard array of TMs with some nice additions. Return is not a bad call here, especially when we come back to it later, whilst earthquake, smack down and dig are good examples of moves you could take. Facade could well be a good choice, too, rock tomb/slide, stone edge and bulldoze aren't bad, even strength could do well. The moves to ignore are the special ones, like struggle bug, and arguably even the physical giga impact, which may actually be about as useable as it could ever be here and on one or two other Pokemon. You can breed in bug bite, as well as close combat as a slightly more preferable option compared to superpower. Feint, feint attack and flail are all also available from breeding as decent options, and even quick attack can get good in a while. The tutor offers some moves we've seen (bind, bug bite, superpower), but you can also tutor stealth rock, knock off, snore (if you really want a rubbish special move), focus punch and iron defence.

Since generation 6 came out, Pinsir took a bigger step up in standing with the introduction of mega evolution, boosting the speed to 105, special defence to 90, physical defence to 120, attack to 155 (wow) and special attack to 65, with HP staying the same. You get a shiny new ability, aerilate, to go with the addition of flying-type. The new ability bestows a 30% boost in power to normal moves used by the Pokemon, changing them to the flying-type. The boost in power and change of type in their application can be amazing, but then losing all normal-typing can be a bit of a drag: you've lost a generically spammable coverage option.

"That wasn't an answer!!!"

People look down on bug Pokemon as a whole, but Pinsir and its mega, along with Scyther (and Scizor, I guess), Mega Beedrill and a few more we'll see down the line show that you have to look beyond the surface. I'm not saying that there are waves of good bug Pokemon and only the crap gets remembered, since we've barely scratched the surface of awful bug Pokemon, but hey, there's something there to use.

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

#123+ #212: Scyther and Scizor

Well, we've escaped the horror of Mr. Mime and find ourselves safe and what the hell is that? A giant mantis and his robot friend!!!

Just going to say this now: I like Scyther. Despite being bug/flying, there is a decent amount to like, starting with a reasonable 70 base HP, 80 in both defences, 105 speed and 110 attack, with the throw away special attack at 55. So what if you won't be a mixed attacker, you can hit pretty hard and fast with those stats. You also get the technician ability again (boost the power of moves base 60 or lower by 1.5x, moves affected denoted by *), along with swarm (ups the power of bug-type moves by 1.5x when your HP is below 1/3rd) and the hidden ability steadfast (boosts your already impressive speed by one stage when you get flinched). So what if two of the abilities may as well not be there? Steadfast isn't that common, and ability capsules exist.

Looks safer than the clown...

You start off with the special fighting move vacuum wave* (base 40) which is pretty forgettable since, y'know, it's special, but it does get priority, like, I dunno, quick attack* which you can also get, hitting as a base 40 physical normal with the same priority. Leer drops the defence of the foe, focus energy boosts critical changes, and pursuit (sorta *) hits as a base 40 dark move that can hit foes who are switching out for double damage, gaining priority only when the foe tries switching out. False swipe* is a normal physical base 40 attack that uses restraint and will leave the foe alive, agility boosts your speed, and wing attack* is your first STAB move as a base 60 physical flying move which can also hit any foe in a multi-battle. Fury cutter* comes hot on its heels as another STAB move, this time a base 40 physical bug move increasing in power with successive uses up to a maximum 160, which is pretty scary if you can keep on hitting with its 95 accuracy and lack of initial damage leaving you open to death. Slash is an ever serviceable base 70 normal physical move (just too high for technician) that has a decent critical ratio, whilst razor wind is a shade more powerful at 80, but is normal special move with a charging turn, which ruins the appeal of the high critical ratio.

Double-team boosts your evasiveness, which can be nice, whilst X-scissor is a nicely powerful bug physical move (base 80) and night slash is a good dark physical with base 70 and an increased critical hit ratio. Double hit* hits twice (wow!) with base 35 normal physical power on each hit within the turn, air slash is a base 75 flying special (STAB but wrong stat category) that has a decent flinch chance, swords dance boosts your attack by two stages and feint* hits base 30 normal physical as a priority move that also lifts the effects of the foe's protect, detect, spiky shield and whatnot.

In addition to all the scattered stuff you normally get from TMs (here, return could be great, by the way), you get hyper beam if you wan't to waste a move slot (the same being said for giga impact, but that at least is physical), brick break, aerial ace* (and STAB, too), thief*, steel wing (which gets STAB if you evolve), struggle bug* (but despite STAB is special), X-scissor (again), U-turn (bug physical and allows you to switch out when you hit, so potentially awesome), cut* and rock smash*. Why no fly? Especially when you get roost...

To go with things like swords dance and agility, you can breed in baton pass and pass these moves onto something even more horrifying (you can also get substitute from TMs of course), and you can also get counter. Bug buzz is special and so is less valuable than it could be, defog carries utility but it probably better on another Pokemon, reversal is decent, and the tutor can give knock off and bug bite, as well as snore and tail wind.

If you didn't use the metal coat on Onix (or you had a spare), then you can trade Scyther with it to get Scizor. Both Pokemon have the same base stat total, but here we have reassigned some of that wonderful speed to other areas, mainly the defence, which shoots up to 100, the attack gets an extra 20 as well, going to 130, with the speed now lagging behind at 65. You also trade out your flying-type to steel, making you more weak to fire, and since lots of fast fire-types hang around as special or mixed sweepers, this could be a poor call. Steadfast also makes way, granting light metal, which halves your weight.

Is Hugh Jackman motion controlling this?

Instead of vacuum wave, you get the much better bullet punch*, which is basically a steel equivalent to quick attack so you get STAB. The other two obligatory steel moves that pop up in the level list are metal claw*, a base 50 physical move that has a slight chance of raising your attack by a stage, and iron head, a base 80 physical move that carries a decent chance of flinching the foe. Fling and acrobatics are there on the TM list as a potential combo, as acrobatics starts as base 55* until you lose your item, at which point it doubles to 110. Flash cannon is normally a decent move, but not with 55 base special attack, strength may be more advisable. Iron defence, iron head and superpower are added by the tutor, with the latter hitting hard but reducing both of your physical stats by a stage for each use.

We're not quite done yet, as Scizor has been blessed by a mega evolution. Mega Scizor gets a much needed boost in stats and a really dumb design. 150 attack is great, so is 140 defence, even the 20 more to special defence is nice, but adding 10 to special attack and only adding the same to speed is really insulting: add 20 to speed, nothing to special attack, then maybe it could be good. You get technician as the sole ability, but the remaining lack of speed, the massive weakness to fire (in place of less significant weaknesses to ice and poison) are just baffling with the massive speed loss from the original Scyther.

What?

I'll finish wrapping up in the designated paragraph: I like Scyther a lot, but I don't really like Scizor that much. Scizor is just not fast enough to carry enough of a threat. Even with technician, the priority moves available aren't anything ground breaking, so to do real damage, you'll be attacking later. Sure, a STAB bullet punch with technician could save you, but it may not be enough to make me like this Pokemon as much as its original form.

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

#48 + #49: Venonat and Venomoth

No ATV jokes please as we introduce the little fuzzball and it's moth friend...

It must be said that Venonant looks a little silly. Cute, but silly... It also isn't very good. All of its stats are just meh, from its 60 base HP, 55 attack, 50 defence, 40 special attack, 55 special defence and only 45 speed. This is pretty poor, since it doesn't excel at ANYTHING. It's also bug/poison, so it has a lot to live up to in the previously visited Mega Beedrill.

It's like Gohan staring at the moon again...

The hidden ability is run away, and I've maligned that enough already. Instead you should go for compound eyes (30% accuracy boost and increases the chances of wild Pokemon carrying hold items) or tinted lenses (doubles damage on 'not very effective' moves).

One blessing of Venonat is that it evolves just by level up, though this is at 31, which is quite high. You start off with tackle, disable (stops the foe from using that move again) and foresight (allows normal and fighting moves to hit ghosts and negates evasion changes). You can get supersonic (causes confusion) and the psychic special attack confusion. You can get poison powder, leech life (20 base bug physical that drains health with STAB), stun spore, and then you can upgrade confusion to psybeam and then get sleep powder. At this point you could then just evolve before you get to signal beam (75 base bug special with a small chance of confusing your foe) and then zen headbutt (psychic physical with a chance to cause flinching), poison fang (STAB poison physical with base 50) and then psychic (base 90 psychic special).

The TM/HM spread is quite small, mainly with the standard fare. You can grab venoshock for STAB poison. You can also get sunny day/solar beam combo, psychic if you aren't high enough level, and then more specifically of focus you get struggle bug, sludge bomb and infestation all as special STAB moves. You can get substitute and double team, and these can both be passed on by baton pass, which you can get from breeding... Also from breeding you could consider giga drain, morning sun, toxic spikes and skill swap, which can be interesting. Skill swap allows you to swap abilities, so you could dump the awful run away for something good... You could circumnavigate the necessity of breeding for giga drain by tutoring it, and if you chose rest then you could pick up snore.

Now that you have Venomoth, you get some interesting stat increases. Rather than just across the board boosts (you do get small improvements to everything at the very least) you get specialisation, with an enormous boost in special attack to 90, which goes well with 90 speed. 70 HP, 60 defence and 75 special defence allow some survivability but 65 attack is probably best ignored.

This is a little impressive than Gohan's giant monkey form...

Typing stays the same, but you lose compound eyes for shield dust (already covered to death), you keep tinted lens and dump the pointless run away for wonder skin, which reduces all inbound status moves to just 50%.

Suddenly you get some good moves via level up, like signal beam, quiver dance (both special stats and speed go up one stage), bug buzz (90 base and can lower opponent special defence) and silver wind (60 damage and chance to raise all five of your main stats, that is attack, special attack, defence, special defence and speed). Add these and gust (a weak flying special) onto the Venonat list and done...

TMs wise you can get energy ball as a fairly powerful grass special attack, and things like hyper beam and giga impact remain utterly pointless. Aerial ace and acrobatics are decent flying moves for coverage, but lack bite due to their physical nature, and U-turn suffers the same fate, yet has utility as a switching move. The only addition from the tutor is tailwind.

Venonat is pretty useless if you don't plan on evolving it, but Venomoth is actually pretty good as a low tier special sweeper: it's fast and hits hard, but the main drawback is that it has a lack of coverage moves: you get psychic, bug and poison that hit hard, but basically nothing much else other than energy ball.

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

#46 + #47: Paras and Parasect

Seeing as I'm VERY allergic to mushrooms (much to my girlfriend's ire), Paras and Parasect are not great for me in terms of design, but does that make them bad Pokemon all round? I remember finding a level 49 Parasect in Mt. Silver whilst playing Crystal, and I threw a Pokeball at it on the first turn, and BAM! Mine, so I have that positive.

Before we really get going I'd like to point out that you get access to stun spore and sleep powder along with false swipe, which is great for catching wild Pokemon, so it could always have a use.

One thing to take into account is that Paras is slow... 25 base speed slow... Only on a trick room team slow... Both of your defences are reasonable at 55, but health is a bit crap at only 35, so you don't hit first and you may not survive much, especially since you're bug/grass and thus demolished by fire... If, by a miracle, you survive then you'll be using your physical attack (70) rather than special (45).

AAAAH! Kill it with fire (so long as I have a respirator)

You get three available abilities: effect spore (we've seen this before: contact has a 30% chance of inflicting a status condition on the opponent), dry skin (makes fire hurt you more, sunlight also inflicts damage to you, but water attacks and rain heal you) and damp (hidden ability which prevents self-destruct and explosion, and also negates the effect of aftermath).

From levelling, you gain access to a few decent moves. Early on you get scratch and the effect powders/spore. There's not too much to think about here, you know if you want them or not. You get access to leech life and fury cutter, which are both bug-type, so you get STAB, and they're both physical. Leech life is very low base power (20) but does give you some of their health, whilst fury cutter is a bit stronger (40). Slash is a good neutral move at 70 base power, and being normal it will hit most (not all) things as neutral but without STAB, yet with a fairly high critical chance. Growth boosts both attack stats by one stage unless you're in the sun, in which case it goes up two stages. Tragically, the poor special attack means that giga drain, which hits hard and heals well, is not that practical for you. Aromatherapy cures all status problems within the party and rage powder makes the Pokemon as a preferential target. X-scissor will probably be your primary STAB attack, since it has very good base power (80) with good accuracy (100) and decent PP (15) with no secondary effects.

You do get access to some decent TMs, so consider dig, since that can hurt the fire-types that will wreck you (if you can't switch out on them) along with brick break as a decent coverage attack. Special attacks are pretty much not worth it, like solar beam (since with dry skin you'll be losing HP when trying to support solar beam and a charging turn is basically suicide), and sludge bomb, hidden power and venoshock also don't play to your strengths. You could pick up aerial ace (not bad), facade (if you have a status problem then this would be really powerful), cut, rock smash and false swipe. False swipe, if you didn't know, will always leave 1HP, with 40 base power, so this is great for catching. Other special moves that are available but probably should be ignored: round, energy ball, grass knot and struggle bug. You also get the rest of the standard fare, like toxic and return and things like that (rest included).

Some decent moves can be bred in, such as cross poison, fell stinger, metal claw and bug bite. You can also get things like leech seed, flail, endure and counter. If you go to the tutor, you can get seed bomb (very decent physical grass-type attack) and knock off, with a few other moves that aren't necessarily worth it because they are special.

Evolving, you become Parasect, and get a nice few boosts to the stats. Your speed goes up to 30, so not a big jump but that's good for trick rooming things. Attack gets respectable at 95 (not great but decent), 80 in both defences with 60 HP, so there is some survivability, oh, and special attack now gets up to 60, so basically decent for an unevolved Pokemon. You don't really even get anything new from this evolution: no new typing, no new abilities, and no new level moves. You get one or two new TMs that aren't particularly worthwhile. All in all, you just get the boosts...

J-John Lennon????

This isn't an evolutionary line I really care for other than using one at a grossly high level in wild encounters to ensnare new Pokemon. This is probably the best use for them, but don't just ignore them: if you like them then use them...

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

#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)

#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)