Shadow Beedrill


Fast
Charge
PvE Analysis
Beedrill lives up to its initial use in the original games flawlessly: an easily obtainable pokemon that's easy to raise and help bolster an early team. Sadly, its best role is nothing but a stepping stone to greater things in the game as any real collecting will yield better poison and bug types and leave Beedrill outclassed. On defense it's got a tiny bit of merit early on due to double-resisting Machamp's signature attacking set, but by that same token its entire moveset is hard-walled by Steel types.
Best PvE Offensive Moveset
Best | |
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Best |
- Bug Bite* and Infestation have roughly similar performance, with Infestation having better damage and Bug Bite better energy gain, though the legacy Bug Bite pulls ahead just slightly.
- Poison Jab with Sludge Bomb is actually Shadow Beedrill's strongest moveset by a fairly wide margin. Poison Sting falls behind.
- X-Scissor is fast and furious, giving Shadow Beedrill a bug type set.
- Aerial Ace is fairly slow, but if you've just started and are desperate for fighting-type counters, you can leverage Shadow Beedrill's double fighting-resistance and use this. However, even many neutral matchups can out-damage Shadow Beedrill on this metric.
- Fell Stinger looks like a clone of X-Scissor, but it's substantially slower which makes it weaker in practice.
- Beedrill is a bad Bug-type attacker. It's an even worse Ground-type. Leave Drill Run alone.
Best PvE Defensive Moveset
Best | |
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Great |
- Poison Sting is the best Fast Move option available for defense, followed by Infestation.
- Poison Jab and Bug Bite* are the above moves, but worse when it comes to defense.
- Drill Run generally stands as the best Charged Move option due to its outstanding coverage.
- Arial Ace is solid overall.
- X-Scissor and Sludge Bomb should only be paired with Fast Moves of the opposite type, though their coverage is pretty similar so it's not a HUGE deal if you want to use them.
PvP Analysis
Poison Jab or Bug Bite* + X-Scissor or Fell Stinger or Sludge Bomb and Drill Run |
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When looking at stats, Poison Jab is superior to legacy Bug Bite, though they're different typings and cover slightly different roles. Poison Jab has recently become a stronger choice than it once was thanks to the presence of Charm users such as Wigglytuff and Clefable. Infestation has the highest gains by a very small margin, but lacks raw damage output.
X-Scissor and Sludge Bomb gain STAB with Beedrill and solidify its role as a Bug/Poison type. The former costs very little energy to use and can be spammed to bait shields, while the latter packs a harder punch with a higher 1.6 DPE rating. Aerial Ace is an inferior move that doesn't get STAB even if it would offer coverage against Fighting-type Pokemon. The addition of Fell Stinger following the Dec 11, 2019 rebalance is interesting for Shadow Beedrill, but isn't very impactful if it doesn't bait a shield due to its pitiful damage output. Beedrill's Community Day move, Drill Run, gives it the much needed coverage against Steel-types that it's STAB moves lack. It's also quite a powerful move, with 1.78 DPE.
Great League | / 5 |
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Shadow Beedrill can use Drill Run to score wins against Registeel, while remaining a threat to the things it's supposed to beat, like Fairy, Grass, and Fighting-types. In the meta at large, Poison-type attacks are largely resisted, making this slightly Attack-weighted Pokemon still feel somewhat out of place. | |
Ultra League | / 5 |
With a max CP of 1846, Shadow Beedrill is limited to Great League. | |
Master League | / 5 |
Playing Shadow Beedrill is asking to get squashed. |