Pokémon X and Y/Species Strategies (Generation V Families)

This page contains information on every Pokémon family first introduced in Generation V, including stats, recommended movesets and evolutionary lines. All evolutionary lines are put together, even if an evolution or pre-evolution was not introduced in the same Generation as other members of its evolutionary family.

Victini
Victini is one of the few legendary Pokémon based off of Mew, possessing a completely balanced set of stats, being available only through events and being generally adorable. It has a pretty unique Psychic/Fire type, which gives it 7 resistances but also leaves it with six weaknesses. It has a pretty cool ability in Victory Star, which can make it a great teammate when paired up with users of low accuracy moves like Focus Blast and Stone Edge, but the ability itself is rather limited in single battles.

While these aforementioned traits are pretty decent but not excellent, what makes Victini outstanding is its amazing movepool, although most of its best moves are only obtainable through events. The most notable of these is V-Create, the strongest Fire-type move in the game at a ridiculous 180 Base Power, which can even tear through Pokémon that resist it when combined with Victini's great 100 Attack. While V-Create is its best STAB attack, its signature move, Searing Shot, is also a great move for double and triple battles, being the strongest Fire-type spread move there is. Other than these two STAB attacks, Victini can also learn Bolt Strike, Focus Blast, Dazzling Gleam, and Energy Ball for coverage, while it can use Psychic, Psyshock or Zen Headbutt for Psychic STAB.

Although Victini does have extreme power, V-Create comes at a cost. Every use of it will reduce Victini's defenses and Speed, so it will eventually have to switch out to avoid being outsped and OHKO'd. However, Victini can learn U-Turn to switch out more efficiently, and its coverage moves can take out an opponent's counter that switches in to early. Another of Victini's cons is its plethora of weaknesses, which are worryingly common attacking types, and while its defensive stats are above average, Victini can still be easily worn down, especially after some V-Creates. All in all, while Victini can't guarantee victories as it claims to do, its sheer power will certainly net you quite a few.

Drilbur and Excadrill
With a respectable 135 Attack and decent Speed for a Ground-type, Excadrill is one of the better Ground Pokémon in the game. It is one of the more well-known users of Rapid Spin, due to its double resistance to Stealth Rock and deadly offensive presence that can prevent attempts at spinblocking. It also works well as a straight up attacker due to its excellent selection of abilities, notably being the only Ground-type line to get Mold Breaker as well as becoming an almost unstoppable sandstorm sweeper with Sand Rush. Excadrill's unique Ground/Steel typing, while giving it a slew of resistances and two immunities, does leave it with some problematic weaknesses, with Fighting, Fire, Water and Ground moves all being pretty common. It is also disappointingly slow, so it must be wary of faster threats that can outspeed and knock it out.

Earthquake is the best Ground STAB without a doubt, and Excadrill can take advantage of Mold Breaker to ignore Levitate users like Bronzong and Rotom, scoring easy KOs these Pokémon that normally don't fear Ground attacks. Excadrill doesn't get many good Steel STAB moves, unless you go through the trouble of teaching one Iron Head via Move Tutor in B2W2, though it is a good option against fairly common Fairy-types. Rock Slide is a better coverage move as it can hit Flying-types and Bug-types that don't fear Earthquake, though its Base Power is pretty low. Rapid Spin is a great utility move for removing hazards, especially since most Pokémon that can block its effect fear Excadrill's powerful attacks. Excadrill can also set up Stealth Rock itself, but it must learn this move from a Gen V Move Tutor. Besides these moves, Excadrill also gets Sandstorm and Swords Dance for Sand Rush sweeping. It interestingly has two OHKO moves, Horn Drill and Fissure, but their poor accuracy means you're better off using more conventional attacks.

Minccino and Cinccino
At first glance, Cinccino looks like a generic Normal-type Pokémon with cute looks and not much else. However, Cincinno's strengths lie in its abilities, namely Technician and Skill Link, and a movepool that makes use of these two abilities quite well. It can learn Rock Blast, Bullet Seed and Tail Slap, all of which are excellent moves when used with Skill Link or Technician. Skill Link causes all multi-hit moves to always hit 5 times, which make these moves have an effective base power of 125, which can cause quite a bit of damage with Cinccino's base 95 Attack. If you're willing to trade reliability for power, Technician is a potentially stronger option, as it make all multi-hit moves have a minimum of 75 base power in total and does the equivalent of a 188 base power attack if all five hits land. With that much power and being decently fast as well, Cinccino is a surprisingly powerful threat.

As stated before, Tail Slap, Rock Blast and Bullet Seed are mandatory for Cinccino. Tail Slap gets STAB and is usually its most damaging option, while Bullet Seed can hit Rock-types that resist Tail Slap as well as any Ground and Water types. Rock Blast doesn't exactly cover any of its offensive weaknesses, but it enables it to hit common Flying and Fire types for super effective damage. All three moves are resisted by Steel-types however. For its remaining moveslot, Steel Tail and Aqua Tail are its strongest physical options that don't share a type with its main moves. Wake-Up Slap is also usable to dent Steel-types, while U-turn can simply let it switch out against a threat. Defensively, Cinccino is pretty frail, and a weakness to common Fighting-type moves doesn't help it stay alive, and there are plenty of other offensive Pokémon with similar or better stat distributions, so it faces a lot of competition. Regardless, Cinccino's powerful multi-hit moves makes it a legitimate threat, and opponents fooled by its innocent appearance will find themselves Tail Slapped and knocked out.

Gothita, Gothorita and Gothitelle
The Gothitelle line is one of three evolutionary lines that have the amazing Shadow Tag ability. As long as Gothitelle is on the field, this ability will keep enemies from switching out, unless they're Ghost-types. Wobuffet uses counterattacks to take down its targets, Mega Gengar overwhelms its trapped victims with immense power, but Gothitelle's form of trapping is more gradual and defensive. It has great defenses to help it keep foes trapped for longer, and it has a wide support movepool to let it wear down a variety of Pokemon, both offensive and defensive. Once it has defeated a key target, the rest of the team can perform their roles more freely. Common tactics to counter Shadow Tag work on Gothitelle as well. It fears Ghost-type and Dark-type attacks, and is prone to being trapped by Pursuit itself. Gothitelle's Speed is also quite poor, but it has effective ways to remedy this.

Gothitelle commonly use a combination of Trick and Choice Scarf. The speed boost from Choice Scarf helps it get the first move, and it can trick the Choice Scarf away to lock its foes into undesirable moves, which is especially devastating to opposing walls. Even if Gothitelle fails to successfully trap and discard of its target, the tricked Choice Scarf will still have lasting effects by limiting your opponent's tactics. For trapping more offensive Pokemon, Gothitelle also has Thunder Wave, which negates its target's speed advantage. Next, Gothitelle can use either Psychic or Psyshock to directly wear its foes down. Finally, Gothitelle can use Rest to prolong its survivability while stalling out a trapped Pokemon, which also has the additional benefit of dispelling status effects like Toxic. In doubles or triples, Gothitelle can both trap and support its teammates, due to learning moves like Trick Room, Heal Pulse and Helping Hand.