Meanwhile Beautifly is only really an asset against Brawly and Rival 2, after which it does become a liabitlity in all matchups bar lol Sidney. Baltoy is a slog to train up but at the very least it has a noteworthy decent/good matchup against Drake and Steven.
Why would I ever use Beautifly beyond a certain point? I think you're grossly misreading what I am saying. Beautifly is there for earlygame shenanigans when the party lacks better options. If you start Torchic Beautifly is an okay middle ground for Roxanne and Brawly. It has okay enough matchups against some Geodudes and the like to at least be useful for a little while longer. I would say it should be boxed by Flannery
at the latest. I wouldn't teach a shit mon a valuable move like Psychic when I can teach it to something else. It's an option, but trying to make Beautifly useful by Flannery is bad.
My argument, however, is not even close to based on Beautifly throughout the entire game, but focuses on its performance earlygame that has a small enough opportunity cost to be worthwhile and can be benched later for better or more versatile Pokemon. Not sure why the meme of carrying Beautifly beyond Flannery even exists, but focusing on when it is at least performing positive contributions is where I am at.
For the portions I have mentioned Beautifly does fine for those. It has uses for taking on some of the more troubling types to get over for some trainers without being a major burden. Is it a burden beyond Flannery? Definitely. Does that mean D Rank is impossible for it? Absolutely not.
I find Swablu's performance to be pretty much on par with Beautifly for a good portion of the game; 40 base Attack with item-boosted 70 BP STAB is still plenty workable compared to whatever Beautifly is settling with before level 30+. The Return TM also helps and comes way sooner for Swablu than Beautifly's coveted attacks. Also now that I think about it, if you guys are willing to expend most of your cash to get the Psychic TM after the Norman fight, you could probably cough up a bit more for one of the elemental beams. Buying Ice Beam for Swablu would be very significant as it allows it to breeze through the tall grass routes and most importantly contribute against Winona, which is the kind of value I expect out of a TM that I have to burn through my resources to get, rather than simply giving Beautifly Psychic just to keep up. Not to mention Altaria can actually start doing things in the E4 while Beautifly can barely 1v1 anything there.
By the time you catch Swablu Beautifly is starting to show a lot of weaknesses. Being comparable to Beautifly offensively at that point isn't good. By the time Swablu joins there are a larger variety of options for trainers to choose, and some will choose wincons for certain gym matchups to make it easier to use their smaller team. Look at some of the C rank Pokemon at the moment. Geodude is easily outperforming Swablu by this point and won't slow down until after you face Winona, Machop at least can handle Norman to some extent, etc.
For Swablu to succeed:
- It needs to grind a lot harder than Beautifly who at least makes some net positive contributions.
- Has to reach Altaria with an ERRATIC growth rate - one of the worst growth rates in the game for in-game.
- Relies on STAB Secret Power to match Beautifly un-STAB Secret Power which is pathetic. Every fucking Normal-type easily outdamages Swablu and has access to other perks (Linoone, Zangoose, Tailow) While not being a detriment to the team.
- Even joking about putting Ice Beam on Altaria is awful. There are so many Water-types that can use Ice Beam much more effectively. Examples include - Starmie, Lanturn, Walrein, Swampert... The list goes on.
- Altaria is still really shit in the E4. Contrary to popular belief Altaria is not Gyarados in terms of bulk. Sydney's Mightyena, Iirc, has Roar. Already not setting up here, and there's almost no need if you have a good Fighting-type like Medicham. It's okay ish against Phoebe but Pressure is going to eat at your moves PP a bit. Don't get me started on Drake and Glacia. Unless you have Taunt you're going to have a rough time DDing the E4. Which it can't learn.
Nothing about Altaria impresses me and your arguments fail to sway me towards it. While STAB Secret Power makes its offense tolerable at best, it still makes it look awful when you can barely beat out a base 70 Atk Pokemon that's using your move un-STABbed.
But alright, let's say all your arguments about Beautifly rising to D somehow pay off (even though I don't think Beautifly even fits that description at all). In the event that happens, I have a couple of suggestions to go along with it (in addition to the prior recapped ones) to better reflect the rankings:This is just my stance regarding Beautifly's position amongst the D Ranks and E Ranks, though I'd be happy to offer more detailed explanations on each.
Even though this reeks of borderline strawman, I'll humor you:
- Gulpin has no real advantages throughout the game barring Poison-type moves and maybe Fire Blast. Comparing Gulpin to fucking Geodude is an insult to Geodude.
- Pikachu relies on Light Ball and only gains benefit from Thunderbolt. While it works against Wallace I guess, Aqua, and somewhat Glacia, it kind of needs some extra babying to get there. I would actually humor this one.
- Girafarig comes way too late, has no gym advantage, and can't get a high base powered Return until late in the game. Also has dicey moments against Magma and Aqua since there's Dark-types. I guess at least Carvanha is so frail it can maybe net a Ohko with Secret Power.
- Pinsir has nothing noteworthy to add to a team other than "it hits hard with non STAB". Are we even trying with these nominations? Swords Dance is way too late.
- Lunatone? Well it has two decent ish matchups. Doesn't really excel otherwise. Eh.
- Plusle/Minun at D is...hard. Spark is a bit later than I want it to be. Would say pass.
- Snorunt is only tolerable for Drake. Hell. No.
- Torkoal is way too fucking slow and lacks perks other Fire-types like Numel have. It doesn't even compare to Beautifly since Torkoal has literally 0 good gym matchups and even worse against Team Aqua Magma.
- No to Dustox. It has a worse match-up pool than Beautifly (a lot worse) and Toxic shenanigans are way too late to matter (if it learned Toxic at Lv 25 you could maybe make a shitty argument of being useful vs Norman. Or use a real Pokemon).