Beedrill2001 Presents : Let's Talk Pokémon

#332 - Cacturne

Now I'm probably gonna get some push back on this, but in my opinion, Cacturne is the best grass type to use in the gen 3 Hoenn games if you didn't pick Treecko as your starter.

Before I get into my reasoning for this claim, I'll talk about Cacturne itself.

I love Cacturne's design because it is both cool and a little creepy, which is quite fitting for a dark type.

Cacturne shares its grass/dark typing with fellow Hoenn pokémon Shiftry.

While I like Shiftry a lot, Cacturne is the better of the two both utility wise and design wise to me.

Much like Houndoom (whom I talked about in a previous chapter and that you should check out), Cacturne is a strong mixed attacker with a base 115 in both.

Also, both of its defenses are a base 60, which is neither good nor bad....just extremely mediocre.

Cacturne's speed is easily its worst stat, being at a base 55 with no way to boost it unlike other slow grass types.

For the first time in one of these chapters, Cacturne has a single natural ability....that being Sand Veil.

I talked about Sand Veil when I went over Golem (again, please go and read that chapter after this as well), and much of what I said then still holds true.

In summation, Sand Veil is a good enough ability which pairs well with Cacturne's meh defenses by making it harder to hit, but the rest of your team would have to deal with potential sandstorm damage if they aren't rock, steel, or ground.

I should also note that just like Stoutland with Sand Rush, a Cacturne with Sand Veil doesn't take any damage from sandstorm.

Cacturne's hidden ability is Water Absorb, which heals up to a quarter of Cacturne's HP when it's hit by a water move.

I love this ability because it is very thematic for a pokémon based on a cactus to have, and much like with Houndoom's Flash Fire, it can lead to some pro gamer moves by switching out a pokémon weak to water for Cacturne, thus healing any damage it might've taken at some point previously in the battle without needing a healing item.

Now, allow me to explain why I said Cacturne is the best grass type pokémon to use on your team in Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald if you don't have Sceptile.

Here's all the grass types available during the main story of the Generation 3 Hoenn games (besides Sceptile and Cacturne of course) :

Ludicolo (Sapphire or Emerald)

Shiftry (Ruby or Emerald)

Breloom

Vileplume/Bellossom

Roselia

Cradily

Tropius

Allow me to go over each one by one.

Ludicolo and Shiftry are both good pokémon, but have terrible level up movesets that even but Generation 4 Xatu to shame, and require leaf stones to fully evolve, which are not easy to get in Hoenn.

Breloom has a bad base 60 special attack stat in a game where all grass moves are special.

(Seriously, Breloom was incredibly thankful for the physical/special split introduced in Diamond and Pearl.)

Being weak to psychic is also a huge problem considering the threat of gym leaders Tate and Liza, who are ridiculously hard in Emerald.

Vileplume's only problem is the same as Breloom....that being weak to psychic.

Same goes for Roselia, along with this taking place before the existence of Roserade, making it the inferior grass/poison type to Vileplume.

As for Bellossom, I'll be transparent and say I have no idea where you get a Sun Stone in these games, but even then Sceptile is the better mono grass type.

Cradily isn't really meant to deal damage despite its ok 81 attacking stats (nor does it get many options to in gen 3), rather it's supposed to stall your opponents with moves like Confuse Ray and Ingrain.

Tropius makes me sad.

It has such a cool design, but its stats are the definition of mediocre...except for speed because it's a horrible base 51.

All that said, here's why Cacturne is the best.

Being part dark makes it immune to psychic moves.

It gets the amazing move Leech Seed, which the only other grass pokémon to learn it is Breloom.

Grass attacks have horrendous PP except Petal Dance and Leaf Blade (seriously, Giga Drain is 60 base power in gen 3 and only has 5 base PP...the same as moves like Blizzard, Fire Blast, and Hyper Beam. What the hell Game Freak?!), but Cacturne luckily doesn't have a problem with that because it has Needle Arm, which has the same power as Giga Drain along with a generous 15 PP.

The only big problem with Cacturne besides its speed is being 4x weak to bug moves, which honestly isn't that much of an issue because good bug moves are practically nonexistent in Generation 3.

As a bug type lover....I know that all too well.

Thank God for X-Scissor and Bug Buzz in gen 4.

Getting back to Cacturne though, I'll end things off by saying it's a very useful grass and dark type, and I hope I've convinced everyone reading this that the creepy cactus pokémon is the best non-starter grass type for Ruby and Sapphire....and also Emerald.