Nov 15, 2014, 11:48 AM
The problem in using Mega Beedrill is it's lack of priority counters. The dramatic decrease in defenses means pretty much any priority attack can make it suffer a KO. A Life Orb boosted Fake Out from Ambipom does a minimum of 80% to Mega Beedrill and a Mega Scizor has a chance of scoring an OHKO on it with a turn 1 Bullet Punch. Mega Kangaskhan also has enough power to shut Mega Beedrill down with a Fake Out + Sucker Punch. If switched in after an Azumarill has used Belly Drum you can also expect to see an Aqua Jet tear Mega Beedrill's pride away.
Now all of that is just a small, short rundown on Mega Beedrill's glaring weakness but a quick look at standard Beedrill reveals similar weaknesses. As shown, priority will completely shut you down. As a non-mega Beedrill has lower speed and attack, to reach usable levels in competitive play I would equip Beedrill with a Focus Sash. His 75 base Speed stat isn't going to give it much of an advantage without a boost so running Agility on a maxed Attack/Speed Beedrill seems like a plausible idea. This leaves an Adamant Beedrill with a modest 156 Attack at level 50. This is aided by a Swarm boosted X-Scissor, stab Poison Jab, and Drill Run for utility purposes. Again we see that Beedrill is at the mercy of any sort of priority from an opponent so I would suggest that if this set were used in competitive play that it should be used in single battles once the opponent's priority users have been dealt with. Outside of this setting I do not see Beedrill having much success just the same as Mega Beedrill.
In summary, both Beedrill and Mega Beedrill will be outmatched at the first sign of priority. Play around this fact and take out any priority the enemy team has before switching in Beedrill. For a Beedrill that is not planning to take advantage of its mega evolution, equip a Focus Sash and use Agility on the first turn while you wait for your HP to drop activating Swarm. Pretty much all of this has been said by the OP but this post is simply my own analysis of Beedrill and it finds similar conclusions to what was said in the first post.
Now all of that is just a small, short rundown on Mega Beedrill's glaring weakness but a quick look at standard Beedrill reveals similar weaknesses. As shown, priority will completely shut you down. As a non-mega Beedrill has lower speed and attack, to reach usable levels in competitive play I would equip Beedrill with a Focus Sash. His 75 base Speed stat isn't going to give it much of an advantage without a boost so running Agility on a maxed Attack/Speed Beedrill seems like a plausible idea. This leaves an Adamant Beedrill with a modest 156 Attack at level 50. This is aided by a Swarm boosted X-Scissor, stab Poison Jab, and Drill Run for utility purposes. Again we see that Beedrill is at the mercy of any sort of priority from an opponent so I would suggest that if this set were used in competitive play that it should be used in single battles once the opponent's priority users have been dealt with. Outside of this setting I do not see Beedrill having much success just the same as Mega Beedrill.
In summary, both Beedrill and Mega Beedrill will be outmatched at the first sign of priority. Play around this fact and take out any priority the enemy team has before switching in Beedrill. For a Beedrill that is not planning to take advantage of its mega evolution, equip a Focus Sash and use Agility on the first turn while you wait for your HP to drop activating Swarm. Pretty much all of this has been said by the OP but this post is simply my own analysis of Beedrill and it finds similar conclusions to what was said in the first post.
