Subspace Dimension Zone

Hi, and welcome to the next installment of... A Gamers Review of the Bug Type

It's been a couple of days cause I have been busy but here it is, and this time we'll start looking at the 2nd gen Bug Pokemon, namely the Ledian & Ariados families plus Pineco and Forretress.

So lets get into it, enjoy.

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After my last review of the Bug type I got a comment from winstein saying that I forgot to elaborate on Pinsir's ability Mold Breaker. This is true so I'll quickly talk about it before the actual review.
Mold Breaker is a great ability and what essentualy happens is that it disables the other Pokemon's ability if it affects your attacks, e.g. Earthquake will hit a Levitating Pokemon or a Fire move will hit a Pokemon with Flash Fire.
WARNING this does not affect typing, a Normal move will still not be able to hit a Ghost Pokemon. Pinsir's other ability is Clear Body which stops enemies from lowering your attack stat. While still a good ability go with Mold Breaker.
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#165-Ledyba #166-Ledian #167-Spinarak #168-Ariados



First off is Ledyba and Ledian. Ledyba is the Five Star Pokemon named due to the five black spots on his back that don't look like stars...? Anyway Ledyba and Ledian are both part Bug/Flying having a massive x4 weakness to Stealth Rock and Rock moves in general. This is something a lot of Bug's have to bear with but it gets worse, oh so much worse. Ledian is... a defensive Pokemon, a Bug Flying defensive Pokemon, what were GameFreak thinking?!

Ledian's attack stat with a positive nature caps at 185, and his Special attacks not that much better. The only redeeming factors is his massive 110 base stat Special Defense stat and the fact he gets Baton Pass.
He does have a lot of moves to B.Pass though; Agility, Sword Dance, he can set up Light Screen and Reflect and can disrupt with Knock Off and the ever present Toxic with Safeguard and Encore being intresting options. He aslo has Roost but Rest might be better coupled with the Early Bird ability. I won't recommend B.Passing Substitutes with Ledian though, due to his low HP stat which only caps out at 314 with max Iv's and Ev's.

Although certainly an intresting option (supported by the fact Stealth Rock isn't as common in UU & NU) Ledian is a bit predictable and can be set up on while gaining the stat-ups for Baton Pass. I like Ledian and I just realised how f-BEEP-ing cute Ledyba is but I just wish it had

A) A more defensive typing.
B) More HP to pass bulky Substitutes, a bit more speed, as it now only has an 85 base stat, and a better attack stat so it can do some damage.

Really what Ledian needs is an evolution, one that has all the things above, e.g.

Name: Ledatreda, Stats: 95/85/80/55/115/100, Type: Bug/Superman!
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Itsy bitsy Spinarak went up the waterspout, a popular rhyme in the Johto region. Anyway Spinarak is the String Spit Pokemon, probably refencing its ability to learnthe move String Shot. It and it's evolution were the only Pokemon that got the move Spider Web, one of the handiest moves, until Gen V's Denchura. Spinarak evolves into Ariados at a lowely Lv22, pretty good eh? and the pair are a game opposite to Ledyba and Ledian, the former being in Gold whilst the latter is in Silver. While I don't like spiders Ariados is one of my favorite Pokemon?

While I don't think Ledian is all that good I do quite like Ariados which has a better typing and stat distribution, having decent HP and a very respectable Attack stat. The only problem is its awful Speed, but that can become an advantage on a Trick Room team. Ariados also gets some good moves, learning priority moves Shadow Sneak and Sucker Punch, Baton Pass (which pairs great with Spider Web), Agility to increase Speed, Poison Jab (Good STAB), Toxic Spikes (again works nicely with Spider Web, letting you set up) and also Pursuit which is handy for those faster Poke's.

I think Ariados is really handy and its potential on a Trick Room team is amazing, but just cause somethings good on paper doesn't mean it will be in practise. Still it gets a lot of good moves and its ability to Trap, Setup and Switch is extremely good, plus Spider Web looks cool. Its weakness to Stealth Rock might be a bit annoying but it's not as bad as it is for Ledian. I don't really see it going any higher Tier-wise due to its only ok stats but I like it better in NU/UU, no-one expects it.

So to all you brave Ariados users out there I commend you, and please VM telling me about your Ariados.
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#204-Pineco #205-Forretress



Hopefully you like the little background I made on PAINT, and later I'll show you something of Pineco but now with the review. Pineco and Forretress are both the Bagworm Pokemon with Pineco beiing based on both a Pinecone and a hand grenade, explaining their tendency to explode. Pineco evolves at Lv31 which while for ingame players might sound appealing shouldn't be as Forretress is a very defensive Pokemon possesing a defensive of a whopping 140 base stat. It's attacks ok too but the lack of a recovery move outside of Rest hurts it competetively forcing it to always opt for Explode, which is still the most powerful move in the game; sadly it is not so good in Gen V due to GameFreak taking away the Defense cut possibly hurting Forretress' usability.

Forretress is also known for its ability to set up Spikes, Toxic Spikes and Stealth Rock, something no other Pokemon (barring Smeargle) can do. While this is great it even gets better due to Forretress ability to learn Rapid Spin, spinning away the opponents entry hazards while setting up your own. Forretress is quite predictable though and due to this many "spin-blockers" have appeared most notably in the 4th gen Rotom H (not a problem in gen V due to new type change). Because of this many people now have Payback on Forretress to smash the Ghost's that het in the way. (Not taking any chances this time winstein)

In gen V Forretress' ability Sturdy got an improvement now being effectively a Focus Sash without the item, this is very useful as letting Forretress get out a Spikes or Toxic Spikes before it dies means it effectively has an extra turn to switch or other when it otherwise would be dead. Its Dream World Dustproof is also good, negating damage done by Hail and Sandstorm(which its already immune too), I'd stick with Sturdy though.

Forretress is a good OU now but I think with the new generation and the advent of all these new Fire Pokemon and harder hitting Pokemon in general, Forretress will fall into UU were Spikes and Toxic Spikes are much more popular leaving him with more usabilty. I like Forretress and I especially like the concept of a Steel Bagworm with Cannons sticking out of its body; but much like Pokemon like Umbreon & Snorlax, Forretress hasn't changed enough to keep up with the new metagame were defensive Pokemon have to have a big niche, were heavy hitters like Tyranitar and Scizor run rampant, and were you have to be able to take a Status and not be overly crippled. Forretress certainly isn't a bad Pokemon but neither are a lot of the defensive pokemon drifting towards UU and beyond to NU; and in a new metagame where Fire types could very easily be dominant you have to be able to take a hit and survive.

Thanks for reading please respond.
Oh and do you see the similarity?