Competitive Pokemon History- Arceus-Bug Quiz

Answer: Scizor

To be clear, Scizor does not straight up outclass Arceus-Bug. However, it can largely achieve the same things Arceus-Bug sets out to do, which can make expending a player's Arceus slot on the Bug forme rather questionable. Scizor definitely boasted more utility than Arceus-Bug, being able to employ the use of a strong Bullet Punch to revenge kill threats, U-Turn to pivot in teammates and exploit good matchups, Pursuit to trap and remove annoying threats, and one could even try their hand at a Baton Pass variant, for however gimmicky that would be.

Answer: Species Clause

The Species Clause prevents a trainer from using two or more Pokémon with the same National Pokedex number. This essentially means the player is restricted to only using one Arceus forme. Because Scizor competed with Arceus-Bug so heavily, it would often be a better idea to just use Scizor and then use a different Arceus forme to achieve something else, as to get the most value out of a limited teamslot and Arceus slot.

Answer: Its wide movepool

Arceus-Bug could do cool things, such as equip Stone Edge to lure in and demolish Ho-Oh. Scizor could never dream of doing anything like that. Arceus-Bug's stats were pretty good, not great, its typing generally held it back, and it certainly did have counters, but its good, wide movepool definitely kept it in consideration.

Answer: Giratina-Altered

What separates Giratina-A from its Origin forme is its vastly superior longevity, enabling it to continuously switch into Arceus-Bug over the course of a lengthy battle. Giratina-A's monstrous bulk means that even super effective attacks Arceus-Bug can throw at it such as Ice Beam or Dragon Claw will hardly dent it.

Giratina-O, on the other hand, can soft-counter physically offensive variants of Arceus-Bug, switching in on a weak Bug move or Swords Dance, and generally being able to outslug it from there. However, it is unreliable at doing this a second time, or if switching in to Dragon Claw, making it into a shaky counter.

Ho-Oh effortlessly counters specially offensive variants of Arceus Bug which have no room for Stone Edge. However, physically offensive variants outspeed and demolish Ho-Oh with this move, making it unreliable.

Mewtwo is easily 2HKOed by Judgment or X-Scissor, while it fails to OHKO Arceus-Bug with Fire Blast. Thus, it simply cannot counter it.

Other potential counters include Dialga, Reshiram, formes of Arceus with a type advantage and Heatran. Dialga and Heatran can be foiled by Earthquake, but this was a very rare move to see on Arceus-Bug. If Reshiram switches in on a Bug type move or Ice Beam, it will win. However, switching in on Swords Dance, Calm Mind, or a super effective coverage move will cause it to lose. Formes of Arceus with a type advantage are similar to Reshiram for the most part. If all else fails, Groudon can be a shaky counter, beating the physically offensive sets fairly simplistic enough, but just about always losing to specially offensive sets when switching in without a decent amount of luck. It also generally needs Fire Punch, a rather niche selection for a move, to pull this off.

Answer: Entry hazard support

Tailwind support was a gimmicky idea and generally unnecessary due to Arceus-Bug's decent 120 Speed.

Primal Groudon had no counters, so attempting to find any was a futile effort; it was best to just try and make good plays to chip away at its HP, as a healthy Primal Groudon would easily stop Arceus-Bug dead in the water very easily.

Arceus-Bug was both very weak to Stealth Rock, and a rather weak sweeper in general. Thus, it needed allies who could keep Stealth Rock off its own end of the field, and it needed copious amounts of support in laying down entry hazards on the opponent's side to make up for its lack of strength. While entry hazard control is a must for any decent team in general, Arceus-Bug's complete incapability to succeed without extremely tight, moreso than usual, units made it an inferior sweeper. Thus, it was generally undesirable for a teamslot in general and pretty unviable for the Uber tier.

Answer: X-Scissor

X-Scissor has a meager 80 Base Power, and does nothing apart from deal damage. Thus, it is lacking both in utility and in power, but it is the only option Arceus-Bug has to work with. This was largely why it was an underwhelming physical sweeper.

Answer: The existence of Ho-Oh

Ho-Oh totally and utterly decimated such a set without any sort of effort. Ho-Oh has consistently been ubiquitous since its second generation debut. The existence of Ho-Oh on the opposing team would make Calm Mind variants of Arceus-Bug totally useless. Even if the player got Stealth Rock up, Ho-Oh effortlessly destroyed this set all day long, and forced it to either stay in and get slaughtered, or attempt to trot a sacrificial lamb out to take the beating for it. Arceus-Bug would turn into such a massive liability if the opposing team had Ho-Oh, that the risk of it basically ruining its team was not worth the modest payout that the set could boast against teams lacking a Ho-Oh.

If Ho-Oh did not exist, the set would have some okay potential. Hitting Mewtwo and Darkrai super effectively, able to outgun either, sure would be nice. Judgment certainly is a strong attack, and Arceus-Bug could afford to equip coverage moves for what did resist it. Alternatively, while risky, in a theoretical Ho-Oh-less metagame, a mono attacking Calm Mind Arceus-Bug could potentially function. None of this matters, though, as the existence of Ho-Oh renders this idea totally unviable as it has for many, many years.

Answer: Gothitelle

Gothitelle's Shadow Tag ability prevented the opponent from switching out. Passive, defensive formes of Arceus would fail to ever KO Gothitelle, where it could then trap, PP stall, and remove them. With a critical part of a team's entry hazard core going down, this was a huge boon to the Gothitelle user.

However, Gothitelle is a Psychic type, thus rendering it susceptible to Arceus-Bug's super effective Judgments. Thus, Arceus-Bug could be used as a part of a team's entry hazard core, with its niche being that it could elude being trapped and removed by a Gothitelle.

Answer: Entry hazard removers

Pretty much anything that can learn Defog could effortlessly remove the Stealth Rock that Arceus-Bug had set. Without Gothitelle being around to trap and remove Defoggers, Arceus-Bug's efforts at maintaining Stealth Rock would pretty much always be futile. Gothitelle can trap and remove Defoggers, thus enabling their team to win the entry hazard war

Answer: Three

While only having three weaknesses seems decent enough, Arceus-Bug is weak to Stealth Rock, which is crippling. Additionally, its resistances to Ground, Fighting and Grass seem useful, but all three of those typings commonly carry coverage moves that hit it very hard.

For example, a resistance to Primal Groudon's Precipice Blades is nearly meaningless when P-Don can just destroy Arceus-Bug with a super effective Stone Edge or Fire Punch. Unfortunately, Arceus-Bug has had next to no defensive utility, and its offensive presence has been pretty meager. Without its niche of being able to escape Gothitelle, Arceus-Bug would have been 100% useless and unviable in seventh generation Ubers, a potential contender for the worst Pokémon in the entire tier.