Why would I ever use Beautifly beyond a certain point? I think you're grossly misreading what I am saying. Beautifly is there for earlygame shenanigans when the party lacks better options. If you start Torchic Beautifly is an okay middle ground for Roxanne and Brawly. It has okay enough matchups against some Geodudes and the like to at least be useful for a little while longer. I would say it should be boxed by Flannery at the latest. I wouldn't teach a shit mon a valuable move like Psychic when I can teach it to something else. It's an option, but trying to make Beautifly useful by Flannery is bad.
Oh so you're not one of those aforementioned people who thought it'd not be an asinine idea to take Beautifly all the way to the E4. Good to know.
My argument, however, is not even close to based on Beautifly throughout the entire game, but focuses on its performance earlygame that has a small enough opportunity cost to be worthwhile and can be benched later for better or more versatile Pokemon. Not sure why the meme of carrying Beautifly beyond Flannery even exists, but focusing on when it is at least performing positive contributions is where I am at.
For the portions I have mentioned Beautifly does fine for those. It has uses for taking on some of the more troubling types to get over for some trainers without being a major burden. Is it a burden beyond Flannery? Definitely. Does that mean D Rank is impossible for it? Absolutely not.
How is this D worthy at all? None of the early-game D Ranks nor the E Ranks experience a dropoff period
this hard. Beautifly is already a burden after the 2nd Rival battle, much less Flannery. Even Sableye and Dustox can still help against Norman.
By the time you catch Swablu Beautifly is starting to show a lot of weaknesses. Being comparable to Beautifly offensively at that point isn't good. By the time Swablu joins there are a larger variety of options for trainers to choose, and some will choose wincons for certain gym matchups to make it easier to use their smaller team. Look at some of the C rank Pokemon at the moment. Geodude is easily outperforming Swablu by this point and won't slow down until after you face Winona, Barboach can handily take down Flannery and has a good enough typing and move pool to continue on for a bit, Machop at least can handle Norman to some extent, etc.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Barboach is only obtainable after Surf since that's how you get the Good Rod, so yeah. Also Geodude's case is pretty much the opposite of Swablu's in that it's efficient early-game but drops off late-game (though Swablu can pick up late-mid with Ice Beam vs Winona), so I say it's a fair trade in that sense.
For Swablu to succeed:
- It needs to grind a lot harder than Beautifly who at least makes some net positive contributions.
- Has to reach Altaria with an ERRATIC growth rate - one of the worst growth rates in the game for in-game.
- Relies on STAB Secret Power to match Beautifly un-STAB Secret Power which is pathetic. Every fucking Normal-type easily outdamages Swablu and has access to other perks (Linoone, Zangoose, Tailow) While not being a detriment to the team.
- Even joking about putting Ice Beam on Altaria is awful. There are so many Water-types that can use Ice Beam much more effectively. Examples include - Starmie, Lanturn, Walrein, Swampert... The list goes on.
- Altaria is still really shit in the E4. Contrary to popular belief Altaria is not Gyarados in terms of bulk. Sydney's Mightyena, Iirc, has Roar. Already not setting up here, and there's almost no need if you have a good Fighting-type like Medicham. It's okay ish against Phoebe but Pressure is going to eat at your moves PP a bit. Don't get me started on Drake and Glacia. Unless you have Taunt you're going to have a rough time DDing the E4. Which it can't learn.
- Except Beautifly's positive contributions pretty much stop after Rival 2, and then it becomes nothing more than a route beater.
- I will admit this is a factor against Swablu and is a significant part of what makes it a chore to train, but whether this makes Swablu E Tier worthy is still debatable.
- Normal-types have some of the best attacking options in the early-mid game, especially with Silk Scarf; the fact that Swablu gets these respectable STAB moves is enough to supplement it despite its poor power. Not to mention that the argument of bringing up competition against Swablu already falls flat since, you know, Beautifly is outclassed by so many mons in general, AND it too wants Secret Power.
- By that logic, Psychic is made use of better by literally anything else on the team that gets it. If nothing else on the team learns it, then you'd be better off just buying an elemental beam anyway.
- Lol obviously don't set up on the Mightyena, which is one of the hardest things to set up on in the game thanks to Intimidate, Sand-Attack, and Roar; just set up on the fodder that are the Grass/Darks. Also, Drake actually has a harder time killing Altaria than you think, since the only attack on his team that can threaten to KO Altaria is his Mence's Dragon Claw. Aside from that, everything else is good for at least 1 DD, and you can use an X Sp.Atk for Ice Beam to kill things as well as an X Sp.Def to make those Dragonbreaths tickle (obviously mind the parahax).
Nothing about Altaria impresses me and your arguments fail to sway me towards it. While STAB Secret Power makes its offense tolerable at best, it still makes it look awful when you can barely beat out a base 70 Atk Pokemon that's using your move un-STABbed.
I mean this is how I feel about Beautifly's offense, which barely ever improves even as it gets its stronger attacks since things get way bulkier for its own good, while Altaria gets the moves to circumvent this eventually.
- Gulpin has no real advantages throughout the game barring Poison-type moves and maybe Fire Blast. Comparing Gulpin to fucking Geodude is an insult to Geodude.
- Pikachu relies on Light Ball and only gains benefit from Thunderbolt. While it works against Wallace I guess, Aqua, and somewhat Glacia, it kind of needs some extra babying to get there. I would actually humor this one.
- Girafarig comes way too late, has no gym advantage, and can't get a high base powered Return until late in the game. Also has dicey moments against Magma and Aqua since there's Dark-types. I guess at least Carvanha is so frail it can maybe net a Ohko with Secret Power.
- Pinsir has nothing noteworthy to add to a team other than "it hits hard with non STAB". Are we even trying with these nominations? Swords Dance is way too late.
- Lunatone? Well it has two decent ish matchups. Doesn't really excel otherwise. Eh.
- Plusle/Minun at D is...hard. Spark is a bit later than I want it to be. Would say pass.
- Snorunt is only tolerable for Drake. Hell. No.
- Torkoal is way too fucking slow and lacks perks other Fire-types like Numel have. It doesn't even compare to Beautifly since Torkoal has literally 0 good gym matchups and even worse against Team Aqua Magma.
- No to Dustox. It has a worse match-up pool than Beautifly (a lot worse) and Toxic shenanigans are way too late to matter (if it learned Toxic at Lv 25 you could maybe make a shitty argument of being useful vs Norman. Or use a real Pokemon).
- Imo, Gulpin is significantly better than the other Poisons, and is a decent enough mon in its own right to warrant the rise. Its access to Amnesia and Encore means it turns Flannery's Slugmas into complete setup fodder, and can beef itself up enough to take on Torkoal 1v1 (ideally Swalot should be female to avoid Attract). It can't lead off against Emerald Flannery due to her Magnitude Numel, but get past that and Swalot can do the same. Sludge Bomb / Ice Beam / Body Slam is solid enough coverage to get Swalot by for the rest of the game, and Amnesia allows Swalot to tank against Glacia and even Drake. Sure, Drake is tricky due to his Flygon(s), but only one of the RS Flygons has Dig which is super easy to respond to with switching or even an X Defend, while Emerald only has one Flygon to worry about
- Yeah I'd like you to scroll back up again and see what I had to say about Pikachu, such as how it's pretty much just a slightly later mid-game Electrike that trades slightly later availability for saving up the TBolt TM, and specifically how I chose to omit Light Ball for its consideration.
- Girafarig isn't a terrible Psychic-type, but it has a couple of niches that warrant mentioning. The first is its Normal-typing, which gives Normal STAB but that's not as important as giving Girafarig
a positive matchup against Phoebe. The other niche is that it's the only Psychic-type aside from Gardevoir that gets access to
Thunderbolt, which gives Girafarig a significant edge in the Juan/Wallace and Glacia fights. I'd say it's better than Natu in this regard.
- The reason I put Lunatone above Solrock is pretty much for one simple reason: Ice Beam access. This gives Lunatone just as much, if not greater matchups against most of the things Solrock wants to use Rock Slide against. The icing on the cake is that Lunatone gets Psychic by level-up, meaning it gets the best of both worlds in having a strong Calm Mind-boostable STAB that didn't require excessive cash spending, while being able to kill most of whatever Solrock can.
- Plusle and Minun, by virtue of being Electric-types, should arguably be D Tier at worst by default what with Thunderbolt access + Electric's good neutral matchup in nearly all important fights post-Surf. Certainly better than whatever Beautifly has to offer, meaning that being a tier lower than Beautifly would be a great disservice to them.
- Snorunt, like Swablu and Baltoy, are one of those mons with poor early periods that aim for a good matchup in ~2 of the E4 fights. Honestly I'd say Snorunt is better off compared to those two since it suffers relatively less dead period.
- For the record, Torkoal has Protect so that's one gym matchup (tied with Beautifly's one, and that's just Gym 2). The real reason I put Torkoal higher than E is having powerful attacking options with minimal TM dependence. It can also function as an actual tank (and no, not like Beautifly, you apologists out there), with Iron Defense giving it a terrific Steven matchup.
- Yes, Dustox's early movepool is so much worse than Beautifly's that this is the only nomination on this list that I'm not 100% willing to go through if the Beautifly rise happens. That said, Dustox's Sludge Bomb actually hits about as hard as Beautifly's Psychic, which is to say it's stronger than Beautifly's STABs. In any case, Dustox's ability to Toxic things contributes better in big matchups than whatever measly damage Beautifly is expected to put out.
