#165 - #166: Ledyba & Ledian

Two Ledyba and a Ledian accompanied by a Yanma.

When I was a kid, ladybugs were the only species of insects that weren't scary or annoying to me. I thoroughly hate most kinds of insects, to be honest, and although I have to admit some species serve as the inspiration for awesome Pokémon, I really don't have to like the real-life variants. Today, ladybugs are still the exception; my country (the Netherlands) has even adopted this little critter as a symbol against senseless violence, and more often than not the Dutch Foundation Against Senseless Violence places a street tile with this symbol on the sites of deadly crimes. Nintendo and Game Freak saw the ladybug as an inspiration for something more fun, however, and created Ledyba and Ledian. And I have to say that I actually kinda like their designs, even though they're nothing special. Ledyba suffers from an extreme form of anxiety: it is afraid or even unable to move when it is alone. It is a gregarious Pokémon and would rather want to stick with others of its species, which it communicates with by secreting an aromatic fluid from where the legs join its body and altering the scent when it wants to convey its feelings. When winter comes, they gather from everywhere and cluster to keep each other warm. Ledian, on the other hand, curls up inside a big leaf to drift off when it gets too warm during daytime. It is a nocturnal Pokémon that uses starlight as energy, and the star patterns on its back (which are just normal ladybug spots in its back sprites in the games) grow larger or smaller depending on the number of stars in the night sky.

Cute fan art of Ledian roaming around in the middle of the night. 

Though competitively, Ledian is absolute garbage. I don't like calling Ledian garbage, because I'm quite fond of this Pokémon, but Ledian is absolutely NOT a good competitive Pokémon. Heck, even in-game it's a terrible Pokémon: its attack and special attack are way too low for it to be useful, and its defenses are ass. Well, its special defense is a solid base 110, but it has no HP to back that up, so you'll be lucky if Ledian can survive two strong hits. I ever used one in a HeartGold playthrough, but I boxed it mid-game because it was such an underwhelming Pokémon. And that's an understatement. Let's put it this way: if Iron Fist was one of its two normal abilities instead of its hidden ability, Game Freak had switched Ledian's base 35 attack with its base 55 special attack, and the Choice Band was a regular item that could be found randomly during a playthrough, Ledian would still only be an OK Pokémon to use. I mean, what are you supposed to do with it, anyway? It has terrible offensive stats, which completely nullifies its extensive offensive movepool. And it has such a shallow support movepool that it renders it useless in that regard. Your best bet would be a Light Screen/Reflect set with Light Clay, but Ledian is outclassed by Pokémon who can do a far better job setting up or making opponents see stars.

Sigh. Game Freak, for heaven's sake, please find a way to make Ledian better than it is now, because it's such a shame to keep such a nice Pokémon so incredibly useless. At least make it so that Ledian can be used in a regular playthrough. I really, really like Ledian, but in order for it to get a perfect rating it'll have to become a lot better first.

Rating: 4/5