Update: since I completed my testing of this Pokemon, many of Showdown’s replays were lost (occurred Nov/Dec 2023). Consequently, some of the replays I used as a showcase may no longer work- apologies!
There are perhaps no Pokemon that demonstrate that Pokemon RBY was designed for a casual single player experience quite like the early game Bug types. They reach their final form quickly, which serves a purpose in a single player RPG of accessing relatively powerful Pokemon quickly before presumably phasing them out for better options, but that means nothing in a competitive setting. They can only be judged by their typing, movepool and stats, and in all 3 criteria they’re by far among the worst in the game.
I first looked at Butterfree, since like Magneton, I thought it would be impossible to find a niche for it. Unlike with Magneton though, I was correct in thinking it’s impossible. The only thing Butterfree has going for it is access to Sleep Powder and Stun Spore, but it faces a lot of competition in that realm, to the point where I contend that it’s impossible to justify using it. I mean, it technically has a unique typing, but for every resistance it has you can pick out another dual powder user that also has that resistance and is generally better. Meanwhile it’s the only dual powder user to be weak to Electric, and compounds that with an Ice weakness and terrible bulk, leading to calcs like this:
- Chansey Thunderbolt vs. Butterfree: 166-196 (51.3 – 60.6%) — guaranteed 2HKO
- Zapdos Thunderbolt vs. Butterfree: 280-330 (86.6 – 102.1%) — 15.4% chance to OHKO
- Jynx Blizzard vs. Butterfree: 292-344 (90.4 – 106.5%) — 41% chance to OHKO
It’s incredibly rare for Chansey to 2HKO anything, as well as for anything else to potentially OHKO without a crit or Explosion, so that’s a clear sign that Butterfree’s special bulk is terrible. Now, if you’re particularly astute, you’ll have picked up on the fact that Butterfree’s Special is its best stat. So yeah, it gets a whole lot worse.
Butterfree’s biggest issue is that its offenses are literally non-existent. Its Attack stat is too pathetic to use, especially since it doesn’t learn a single STAB move, so we again return to its Special stat of 80. That’s usable, but unambiguously poor, given that most top tier special attackers have Special stats of over 100, with Exeggutor, Alakazam and Zapdos all being 125 or greater. Unfortunately its special movepool is as barren as its physical movepool- it gets Mega Drain and Psychic, neither of which have STAB. And it’s at this point that I’ll let you in on a little secret that all top competitive players know, but many people on the ladder don’t…
… Non-STAB Psychic fucking sucks. Sure, it’s only resisted by itself, but with how many good Psychic types there are, its coverage is actually not great. Butterfree’s Psychic doesn’t even break Rhydon’s Substitutes, while despite a double weakness, Mega Drain only 3HKOs. Given that it’s OHKO’d by Rock Slide, this means it can’t even make use of its Ground immunity. All of this is to say that Butterfree is literally incapable of dealing substantial damage.
But that’s ok, it gets status right? WRONG. Once Butterfree puts something to sleep, the fact that it can’t deal damage means there’s nothing stopping the sleeping Pokemon from waking back up, other than the threat of you bringing in your Tauros. This means that you’re often the one forced to switch out, which means not spreading status. Further to this, Butterfree cannot function if you’ve spread any other status. Since it cannot deal damage, any paralysed Pokemon can block its sleep. This is incredibly restricting, meaning that you really need to get Butterfree in to sleep something asap before the rest of your team can start spreading paralysis or really doing anything.
So what does a team with Butterfree look like?
I first tried to find something in its movepool to differentiate it. The only thing I could find was String Shot, with reliable speed-lowering moves being mostly unique. The next question is why you’d use such a move in the first place when paralysis exists and its speed drop can be reapplied with any boosting move. The only possible answer is if you’re planning on being unable to paralyse, i.e. spreading burn or poison. If using Butterfree and spreading normally unviable status effects sounds like a bad idea to you, that’s because it is.
This means that the only option with Butterfree is getting it in asap, landing sleep and playing the rest of the game normally. Running another sleeper alongside Butterfree invalidates its one positive trait, so it’s forced to be a solo sleeper. It’s also not great as a lead, with how much it gets threatened by other leads- it’s slower than all common leads, and most threaten super effective damage.
I decided leading Jolteon would be the way to go, being able to deal decent damage to most leads without the need to spread status that would potentially block Butterfree’s sleep. If it forces in Chansey, it can easily force a Softboiled and thus give Butterfree an opening to enter play. Alakazam feels very limited if it can’t spread paralysis, while I valued Starmie too much outside the lead position
The rest of the team was generally very balanced. Chansey runs both Ice Beam and Seismic Toss, with the idea of being able to threaten freeze early in the game, as well as maximise damage against Jynx and Alakazam, with the latter potentially allowing Butterfree to come in on a Recover. Otherwise the team was very unremarkable. Tauros runs its standard set, I opted for EQ Reflect on Snorlax to provide defensive utility without being entirely walled, then my last slot was PsyBolt Starmie, which is a fantastic glue pokemon that helps against a broad array of threats.
“Performance”
This is the part where I post some replays showcasing the pokemon in question, but as I alluded to in the intro, Butterfree doesn’t do anything aside from click Sleep Powder. In fact of the replays I saved, I left notes for the majority of them that specifically stated that Butterfree did nothing besides clicking Sleep Powder:
- This match against a player with a reasonably high elo
- Another unremarkable match
- And another one. Worth noting that I was lucky my opponent didn’t wake, Butterfree gave plenty of opportunity for them to do so
It was so bad that Butterfree landing paralysis in addition to sleep doesn’t get lumped in with the above replays. But even then, Butterfree was so exploitable that this battle was an uphill struggle. The only other thing to note is this battle where I used Butterfree for some chain switching, but that’s not even something it does well, since the risk/reward involved is so heavily stacked against you.
Butterfree’s Psychic neutrality in conjunction with being fast enough to outpace slow Pokemon does give it some openings early in the game, but it cannot be stressed enough that it’s still unreliable. Sleep Powder only has 75% accuracy after all, and its bulk is so bad that even though it’s neutral to Psychic, it’s still in danger- any chip damage is enough to put it in range of a 2HKO from strong Psychic attackers, and a Special drop also ensures a 2HKO.
Not being able to spread early status is another huge constraint, and overall it just felt like by running Butterfree, I was making my team worse for absolutely no reason. Butterfree is just totally outclassed by other sleepers, and doesn’t provide anything else to a team. Even its typing, technically unique among sleep users, provides no advantage since it can’t really take advantage of those positives and for any single benefit there are multiple other sleep users that share it to an extent (e.g. It’s immune to Ground, but Exeggutor, Tangela and Parasect all resist it).
Overall, I found Butterfree to be the worst non-Ditto Pokemon I’d tested to this point. It has one singular positive trait and is literally useless otherwise, meanwhile other Pokemon that can spread sleep semi-reliably all clearly outclass this insect. Between its uselessness and being outclassed, you’re just making your team worse by running it.
The comparison with Golbat is an interesting one- where Butterfree is poor at one thing and literally useless otherwise, Golbat found a variety of different ways to make a marginal contribution, though none amounted to anything substantial. I valued the latter more than what Butterfree could provide, though I’ll admit they’re in the same ballpark and you could certainly argue that Bat is worse.
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