Water

Bug Pokémon

Dragon

In general, Bug Pokémon have low HP and Defense and decent Attack and Speed scores.

Bug is weak to Fire, Flying, Poison and Rock, rarely used attacks. However, it's strong against relatively more common elements, Grass, Fighting and Ground.

Suggested attacks: Twineedle, Pin Missile, Swords Dance/Cut*, Double Team.
* - You'll have ditched him by the time Cut loses its usefulness

Twineedle. Bane of all Grass/Poison types. If your opponent likes to use sleep moves, hit him with this. Alakazam goes down to Twin Needle in two hits. All Pokémon with decent sleep moves (bar Poliwrath, but how many of them do you see around?) would fall foul to Beedrill if its stats weren't so damn horrible.

You'd think that it's Attack would exceed 300 just from looking at its performance in the early stages of the game, but it doesn't. Being part-Poison doesn't help it much either. Everything said about Butterfree is just as true for Beedrill. They're great until you get half-way through the game, at which point you'll be looking for something that won't die.

Beedrill has the worst Defense and Special of the bug types. Bad HP and bad Speed put the finishing touches on the worst Bug type around. Sticking to Weedle might be a better choice for the comedic value. Dugtrio has more staying power than this. If you're seriously thinking about taking this guy into a link battle, you're going to need to be damn good at getting Swords Dances and Double Teams off without biting it.

Beedrill's lack of anything resembling power won't stop me from using him. He's just so damn kewl. Beedrill's always been on my traditional teams.

Suggested attacks: Mega Drain, Psychic, Double Team, Sleep Powder.

Butterfree starts off immensely strong, being the first Pokémon accessible to learn Confusion. It appears to grow even more powerful with Sleep Powder, and perhaps the Mega Drain TM. However, once the final-stage evolutions come in, Butterfree pales in comparison. Its once-massive stats fade into mediocrity.

As strange as this may seem, Butterfree is the second slowest of the Bug types. Though a brilliant choice when starting out, and not a bad sleep-attack platform, Butterfree would have to be one of the worst of the Bug types. This is what happens when programmers try to make the game more balanced at the beginning, and end up with a useless piece of junk at the end, just like what happened to Beedrill, Onix and Farfetch'd.

Suggested attacks: Spore, Substitute, Leech Life, Swords Dance.
Alternate: Spore, Substitute, Rest, Slash.

Parasect appears at first to be a useless lump, even with equal second HP and Defense of the Bug types. On top of being immensely slow, (one of the slowest final-evolutions in the game), having the lowest HP and Speed of the Bug types, and being double-weak to Fire and Flying, he learns no decent moves aside from his one saving grace: Spore. Spore is the only Sleep move in the game with 255 accuracy, the highest obtainable. Spore can be a tool of mass destruction if used properly, especially in the manner described below.

Most people laugh at this setup when they first see it suggested as an almost perfect way of disposing of Mewtwo. Leech Life, even with three Swords Dances under the belt, is far too weak to cause any real damage to psykers. However, this setup can easily wreck the most common Mewtwo setup: Double Team, Psychic, Recover and Blizzard. Parasect can survive either of the two attacks (barely, and assuming that they do not critical hit), and put Mewtwo to sleep with Spore. Once Mewtwo is asleep, Swords Dance and Leech Life can be used to heal Parasect past 25% HP, where it uses Substitute. Once the player has a sleeping Mewtwo facing a Substitute-shielded Parasect, barring an act of Goddish, the Mewtwo's as good as dead.

The main problem with this setup is that you'll somehow need to catch the Mewtwo on its own in order to ensure that you won't be facing anything that could splat Parasect in one hit. Once the rest of the lineup is down this should be no problem, but Mewtwo is almost always the opening Pokémon. Switching in is not an option, Parasect will only be able to withstand one hit from either of the most common Mewtwo attacks.

Unless the Mewtwo manages to wake up before the Parasect has a chance to put up a Substitute, it will eventually fall to Leech Life and Swords Dance. This tactic can be attempted by the other, more surviveable Grass types, but to a lesser degree of success due to lack of Spore.

An alternate plan for Parasect has been formulated to deal with a broader spectrum of targets. Rest and Slash replace Leech Life and Swords Dance. Leech Life and Swords Dance require four turns to get enough health back to make a Substitute anyway, and Parasect won't die if he's at full health (unless the attack critical hits).

Suggested attacks: Hyper Beam, Guillotine, Submission/Seismic Toss, Swords Dance.

Though it may have the worst appearance of the Bug types, Pinsir is perhaps the strongest. Being the only viable pure-Bug type in the game, it has a lot less type weaknesses than Scyther and marginally better moves.

Yellow Pinsir learn Bind. A Swords Danced Bind could work well coupled with Pinsir's high Attack and Speed for a finishing move.

Though some may argue that Scyther learns Double Team and is therefore better, the majority of Pokémon battles played allow TMs to be used. There's nothing Scyther can do that Pinsir can't do just as well. Its attacks hit 30 points harder (and is high enough for two Swords Dances to be enough to reach the maximum), and its defense is 40 points better, the 10 HP difference in Scyther's favour means almost nothing. Scyther is faster, Pinsir hits harder, has more staying power and carries less weaknesses. The choice is obvious.

Submission is a popular choice on Pinsir, and keeps in-character due to Seismic Toss (a move he learns naturally) being a Fighting attack. Seismic Toss or Slash are great for backup if Pinsir has been fitted with attacks that have low PP or recoil, like Hyper Beam or Take Down. Guillotine isn't too bad as Pinsir is still faster than most, and can thus use one-hit KOs effectively.

Suggested attacks: Hyper Beam, Slash, Double Team, Swords Dance.

It's a toss up between Scyther and Pinsir for best Bug type. They have an equally-low Special. Scyther's HP is marginally better, and is a fair way faster than the stagbeetle Pokémon.

Scyther functions relatively well without TMs, being one of the few Pokémon to learn Double Team naturally. A TMless Scyther is better in Yellow where it learns Wing Attack, taking advantage of its part-flying type and and giving it something to Swords Dance with, though it is a horribly weak attack.

Its main problem is the massive string of weaknesses it carries. Scyther is weak to Fire, Electric, Ice, Poison (doesn't really count), Flying and Rock (dual effective). This is enough to put Scyther on the bench for most people, he can't live long enough to get a good SD or Double Team setup going, and his speed isn't that much of an asset anymore if he can only get one hit in before dying.

However, it's a ninja Pokémon. And has kick-ass scythes for arms. How could you pass it up?

Suggested attacks: Mega Drain, Psychic, Double Team, Sleep Powder.

Something fast that can use Sleep moves is always useful. Sleep Powder is Venomoth's main selling point, its weak psionics are more backup than anything else. They help it take out Grass types once asleep, and provide some degree of protection. Mega Drain isn't a bad choice either. Leech Life is weak, but there's nothing better for the fourth slot except maybe Double Team.

It's worth noting that Venonat's "higher" stats are its Attack and Defense, which would be quite a suprise to the new trainer who suddenly discovers that his newly-evolved Venomoth can now kick ass with its Psybeam.

There's not much else to be said for Venomoth. Jynx appears to be a much better choice however. Jynx is faster and can use psionics (if you have the Psychic TM left) more effectively.

Complete Type Listing
Pure Bug Type Pokémon Total: 3
Caterpie Metapod	Pinsir
Half Bug Type Pokémon Total: 9
Butterfree	Weedle Kakuna Beedrill	Paras Parasect	Venonat Venomoth
Scyther