Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire: The Dustox&Beautifly Solo Runs

Although Gen III has a lot of flaws and is still deemed the black sheep of the franchise by many a Pokefan, one thing it did right was to lavish some much-needed love on Bug 'Mons. Hoenn is home to some of the most inventive bugs ever to grace the Pokemon world, starting with Wurmple and its two random-yet-not-quite evolutions. This concept was a pure stroke of genius on GameFreak's part: you can feel the suspense grow until your Wurmple reaches lv.7, after which you know at long last if you landed your dream version of the bug. Because indeed, Dustox and Beautifly, while being pretty similar, are still different enough in terms of looks and stats to make sure that you'll set your sights on one of the two. Dustox wields powerful Psychic Moves and is backed up by solid defensive stats, while Beautifly has access to a whole range of draining Grass Moves and boasts great offensive stats. For the record, I was lucky enough to secure the version I wanted in both of my runs, which saved me considerable amounts of time and grinding.  

Dustox in Ruby: 

Dustox is my favourite of the pair when it comes to looks — although unfortunately, I didn't get to admire said looks as much as I would have liked, because the poor thing is nearly entirely buried behind the battle display. Come on GameFreak, what were you thinking? Dustox and his pretty wings deserved more love — and room — than that, seriously. But enough with the poison moth's looks; let's now talk about his stats and Move pool, which had me worried for a while. Dustox sure is a great defensive 'Mon, but he's a teeny-tiny bit weak on the offensive front; combine this with a tiny levelling-up learnset nearly entirely devoid of STAB — one Bug Move and no Poison Moves — and you'll understand why I was pretty much convinced that my Dustox Solo Run was going to be a bit of a pain in the behind. But lo and behold, the colourful moth surprised me by holding his own on the battlefield much better than I expected. Now, I won't lie and say that one-shooting was our bread and butter, because the truth is that my Dustox usually needed two turns to take down foes. This could have been an issue if not for the moth's excellent defensive stats, which allowed him to take a million hits comfortably while he did his thing.

Long story short, I had a great time roaming Hoenn with my Dustox. There were a couple of roadbloacks along the way, obviously — although funnily enough, said roadblocks weren't quite what I expected. For instance, I fully expected Rustboro's Rock Gym to be a handful; but thanks to my Dustox wielding Confusion at the time, it was mostly a cakewalk. The real roadblock was the Lavaridge Fire Gym — or, more precisely, Flannery's Torkoal. While my Dustox had neatly handled every single Trainer in the Gym, he was suddenly powerless in front of that damn turtle. Torkoal always used Overheat on the first turns, which pretty much meant one-shooting despite my Dustox' high defenses; as for one-shooting Torkoal before she could one-shoot me, it was pretty darn impossible.

I ultimately won that fight using a mix of luck and strategy: first, I spammed Silver Wind on the first turns while facing Flannery's Slugma, until my stats had been raised at least twice; I could then survive Overheat and use the subsequent lowering of Torkoal's Sp.Defense to destroy her with Confusion. After that, it was pretty much smooth sailing until the final showdown against the Champion, which proved to be the second real roadblock of my run; however, battle items and Silver Wind did the trick and gave my Dustox the offensive oomph it needed to win that ultimate fight. For the record, my final Move pool comprised Shadow Ball, Psychic, Aerial Ace and Silver Wind, a neatly balanced Physical/Special combination that allowed me to dispose of most of the Hoenn fauna comfortably.

Beautifly in Sapphire: 

Beautifly being the offensive half of the Wurmple evo duo, I fully expected to have an easy ride with him; and while he certainly one-shot foes on a much more regular basis than Dustox, my run was not exactly as smooth as I'd expected. Just like with Dustox, the Rock Gym was a walk in the park, and that was entirely due to my Beautifly wielding Absorb: the super-effectiveness of that Grass Move against Rock, combined with its draining ability, was enough to virtually erase Beautifly's double weakness to Rock. This was the first sign that draining Grass Moves were going to be an enormous asset for my Beautifly, allowing him to heal while hitting and thus compensating for his low defenses; and from that moment on, there was always such a Grass Move in my Move pool — first Absorb, then Mega Drain, and finally the awesome Giga Drain.

This time around, the biggest roadblock of them all was a Gym I hadn't even noticed when cruising with Dustox: the Mauville Electric Gym, i.e. the harbinger of doom. Getting rid of the Gym Trainers was easy enough; but then came Wattson and his Magneton, and the party was suddenly over. Not only did that floating piece of junk resisted all the Moves I wielded at the time, but my poor Beautifly, unlike his fellow Dustox, was weak to Electric. And with Magneton spamming Shock Wave and Thunder Wave, the fight was pretty much over before it started. Despite being faster than Magneton, Beautifly was not strong enough to one-shoot it; and once Magneton fired back, there was no way to survive the hit because of Beautifly's low defenses and his weakness to Electric. Since Electric was classified as Special in Gen III, my first reaction was to purchase a crap ton of X Sp.Defenses to survive Magneton's attacks; but to my utter horror, I discovered that X Sp.Defenses simply don't exist in Ruby&Sapphire. I could have rolled with X Attacks instead; however, with my defenses being as low as they were and Wattson's 'Mons all wielding Electric Moves, I was just totally doing to faint before I could gobble enough X Attacks to guarantee one-shooting. And thus, the only option left was to level-grind. I was already at lv.33 at that time, and wild 'Mons only yielded one pixel of XP; needless to say, I wasn't extatic at the prospect of grinding the half-dozen levels I deemed necessary to survive Magneton's hits.

I started grinding nonetheless; and as I reached lv.34, the tables were turned forever as my Beautifly learnt Silver Wind. Oh, the joy! Oh, the relief! With Silver Wind and a good dose of luck, I could gain that defensive boost I needed so terribly, along with a much-welcome offensive boost; with a handful of X-Attacks on top of that, surely I would be able to knock down Magneton while surviving his electric assaults, wouldn't I? I lunged back at Wattson with a vengeance; and sure enough, things unfolded exactly as written above. I was simply amazed at how a single Move could change my fighting fortunes so drastically, as I don't remember this ever happening before. After that, we were on a roll and things went smoothly until the fight against the Champion; just like Dustox, Beautifly needed a hefty dose of Battle Items to win that ultimate showdown. There was no Silver Wind spamming, though: my final Move pool comprised Aerial Ace, Return, Giga Drain and Shadow Ball, which amply proves that Dustox and Beautifly can end up with nicely different Move pools despite evolving from the same creature.

Long story short, cruising Hoenn with these two butterflies was delightful. I actually have a soft spot for Bug 'Mons: I see them as the purest embodiment of the whole Pokemon solo run experience, i.e. take a weak 'Mon and patiently mold it into a fighting powerhouse, sticking with it through thick and thin. Bug 'Mon are absurdly weak in their first evolutionary stage, while still not being as utterly useless or trolly as baby 'Mons or Magikarps; but at time and levels fly by, they become increasingly more powerful, until they can hold their ground against a region's whole fauna. I'm certainly not done with Hoenn's bugs: get ready to cruise with me, Ninjask and Shedinja! I'll see you later with more buzzy Bug 'Mon tidings, dear fellow gamers; and as usual, thanks for reading, and drop by anytime!