NationalDex
butterfree
#012

Butterfree

Butterfly Pokémon

BugFlying

It loves the honey of flowers and can locate flower patches that have even tiny amounts of pollen.

Base Stats

HP 60
Attack 45
Defense 50
Sp. Atk 90
Sp. Def 80
Speed 70
Total 395

Type Effectiveness

Abilities

Held Items

Evolution Chain

metapod Metapod Lv. 7

Moves

Locations

Details

Category Butterfly Pokémon
Height 1.1 m
Weight 32.0 kg
Base Exp 178
Growth Rate Medium
Capture Rate 45
Base Happiness 70
Gender 50% ♂ / 50% ♀
Habitat Forest
Egg Groups Bug

Sprites

butterfree Front Front
butterfree Back Back
butterfree Front Shiny Front Shiny
butterfree Back Shiny Back Shiny
butterfree Front ♀ Front ♀
butterfree Back ♀ Back ♀
butterfree Front Shiny ♀ Front Shiny ♀
butterfree Back Shiny ♀ Back Shiny ♀
butterfree Official Art Official Art
butterfree Official Art (Shiny) Official Art (Shiny)

Competitive

uu
Choice Scarf Lead
Item
Choice Scarf
Nature
Timid
EVs
Def 4
SpA 252
Spe 252
Double Status Lead
Item
Focus Sash
Nature
Jolly
EVs
HP 248
Def 8
Spe 252

Strategy Overview

Butterfree, at a glance, is a terrible Pokemon. Horrible typing, bad stats overall, a shallow movepool, and a 4x Stealth Rock weakness undermine much of her remaining positive qualities. However, Butterfree does have one thing going for her: a 97.5% accurate Sleep Powder! Compound Eyes remedies Sleep Powder's otherwise problematic accuracy, which plagues other sleep-inducing leads such as Scarf Venusaur and Jumpluff. Having access to a 97.5% accurate Stun Spore is also pretty good, and with U-turn to scout for switch-ins, Butterfree starts to seem like a decent option. In the end, while these things certainly don't make up for Butterfree's large number of shortcomings, they at least help her to stand out as an interesting alternative status spreader.

Competitive data from Smogon University via data.pkmn.cc