Both Beautifly and Dustox are good Pokemon if used properly, but I Dustox very easily takes the cake for best final Wurmple form.Despite learning Absorb to help counter Roxanne's rock-types, it is worse (or equal to, depending on stats) than what Dustox can do. Absorb's base power is 20, whereas Confusion, the move Dustox learns, has a base power of 50. Even against rock-types Absorb only increases to a power of 40. So unless your Beautifly's Special Attack is significantly high, it's not that special of a move. It should also be noted that Beautifly is 4x week to rock-type moves, while Dustox only has a 2x weakness, letting it battle longer than its other.
In the second gym, they both fare pretty equally. They both have a 4x resistance to fighting-type moves and have moves that are super effective against fighting-types, letting them beat Brawly quite easily. In the third gym, Beautifly has a weakness to electric-type moves, where oppositely, Dustox has the ability Shield Dust, which means it won't get paralyzed unless one of his Pokemon use Thunder Wave. Both are horrible against Flannery, and Dustox is signigicantly better than Beautifuly against Norman. Because Dustox learns Protect early on, it can easily beat Slaking, a foe to be reckoned with. Both are pretty bad against Winona and Tate & Liza, and Beautifly is surprisingly better than Dustox in the eigth gym. Though I do wonder how many people have kept it around long enough to actually make use of it. :<
Speaking of abilities, Beautifly's ability, Swarm, will only activate if its health is below 1/3 of its maximum. But if it does activate, the only move it will help is Silver Wind. Pretty crappy, huh? On the other hand, Dustox's ability, Shield Dust, block any and all additional effects from attacks. This is helpful in virtually every battle!
It should also be noted that Beautifly's best same-type-attack moves are Aerial Ace and Silver Wind, hitting enemies with a base power of 60. Dustox's best same-type-attack move is Sludge Bomb with a base power of 90. Silver Wind is learned at level 34, but Sludge Bomb can be obtained after defeating the second gym. The funny thing is, both Aerial Ace and Silver Wind are are physical moves, so Beautifuly can not even take advantage of its good Special Attack! So despite having a worse special attack stat than Beautifly, Dustox certainly makes up for it with its powerful move-pool.
Going into subjective matters, I think both Pokemon are equally appealing. Beautifly is graceful, cute, and elegant, while Dustox is tough, smart, and cool. (Contest categories, anyone?) I think they both have really nice designs that help show off their differences between the other.
(((If it was not obviously already, I will clarify that I am looking at these Pokemon as they were first debuted in Gen III and how they were then. Now, Beautifly's special attack is higher and it has a better move-pool, if only by a little.)))
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