What is Swellow was in RBY?
(This is part of a weekly series. See [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/stunfisk/comments/1hhy8d2/ksyons_rby_port_ideas_masterpost/) for information on my general methodology, links to previous entries, and a list of pokemon I plan to cover in the future. If you want to make suggestions for other pokemon you want me to cover, please make those suggestions on that post.)
**Swellow**
*Normal/Flying type*
* HP: 60 * Attack: 85 * Defense: 60 * Speed: 125 * Special: 50
Moves:
* Peck * Growl * Focus Energy * Quick Attack * Wing Attack * Double Team * Agility * Razor Wind * Whirlwind * Toxic * Take Down * Double-Edge * Hyper Beam * Rage * Mimic * Bide * Swift * Sky Attack * Rest * Substitute * Fly
Now *this* is the good stuff. There's nothing quite like a resoundingly shit pokemon with one (1) genuinely good trait that's absolutely not enough to save it, but keeps you up at night wondering "but what if I *could* make it work, somehow?" This was suggested to me on Discord by fucking *Enigami*, by the way.
The immediate comparisons to make when looking at Swellow are Fearow and Pidgeot. This is not good. Both of these pokemon are completely outclassed by Dodrio, who is not exactly making huge waves in RBY OU itself. Fearow and Pidgeot don't even learn Body Slam, and Swellow somehow manages to have an even worse movepool than that, with no Drill Peck, Mirror Move, or Sand Attack, and nothing to really make up for it other than Focus Energy (which might be worth something if you're playing on *Pokemon Stadium*, but is less than useless in cartridge play due to Focus Energy being bugged). Swellow would also have the worst bulk out of all of the birds, being at the bottom of the pack in HP, Defense, *and* Special. Swellow literally gets OHKOd by *Jolteon's* Thunderbolt, to say nothing of Zapdos, or any STAB Blizzard.
The only thing Swellow has that even has a chance of making up for this is its *speed*. 125 base speed in RBY is, to be fair, *very* good, allowing Swellow to outspeed everything in OU except for Jolteon and giving it a 24.4% crit chance to boot. And even off of only 85 base attack, STAB normal moves are still STAB normal moves. A crit Hyper Beam will OHKO Starmie and Chansey, though this is a hugely risky play and you'll most likely be going for Double-Edge most of the time instead. Double-Edge at least has a chance to OHKO Alakazam on a crit, and will almost always 2HKO Zam even without one, with Swellow being faster.
Double-Edge, Hyper Beam, and Agility are all pretty much a given - even if Swellow's already faster than almost everything, Agility is useful for negating the speed drop if Swellow gets paralyzed, and Swellow really doesn't have anything better to run. Swellow's best option for its fourth move might literally be *Growl*, specifically for the purpose of bothering Snorlaxes that lack ice coverage. With immunity to Body Slam para and Snorlax doing less and less damage with each successive turn, Swellow can actually get a couple of Growls off, enough to pretty much neutralize Snorlax and force it to switch out, and even if Swellow loses most of its HP in the process it will still pretty much always be able to come in and fire off at least one attack later in the game thanks to its speed. Growl is also the only thing Swellow can do that's of any consequence to Rhydon, and can be a good way to scout for a Rhydon switch-in.
I looked at Ortheore's articles on [Pidgeot](https://ortheore.com/index.php/2024/01/pidgeot-what-else-would-you-expect-from-an-early-game-pokemon/) and [Fearow](https://ortheore.com/index.php/2025/08/fearow-struggling-in-a-competitive-environment/) to get some inspiration, but both of those articles were big on the use of Mirror Move (and Sand Attack for Pidgeot) as the only way for these pokemon to have any justification for using them over Dodrio, who is otherwise better in every way that matters. Swellow, however, would play a bit differently, since it doesn't learn Mirror Move or Sand Attack, but instead can carve out a niche compared to Dodrio by leveraging its speed. The overall conclusion would probably be similar, though - even if you really want to use a normal/flying type in RBY OU for some reason, you're better off using Dodrio nine times out of ten.
In tiers low enough for Dodrio to be out of the picture, I think Swellow would be fairly even with Fearow in viability. Pidgeot falls behind Fearow due to a lack of Drill Peck giving it both less coverage and no reliable no-drawback STAB, and Swellow would have the same problem, but can compensate for that with its speed. Fearow has historically been a strong pokemon in RBY NU, and while that may be changing with the recent addition of Golem to the tier, Fearow still seems like it's pretty decent, and Swellow would have the advantage of outspeeding Kadabra while still being able to OHKO with Hyper Beam most of the time, meaning that Swellow would be great at revenge killing Kadabra even if Kadabra isn't paralyzed.