Pokémon Black and White/Species Strategies (Gen II Families)

This page contains information on every Pokémon family first introduced in Generation II, including stats, 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.

Unown
Unown will never be anywhere near as powerful in the games as they were in Spell of the Unown. The only reason they were so strong in the movie is because there were so many of them. In battle it is useless because the only move it can learn is Hidden Power.

Smeargle
Thanks to Sketch, Smeargle can learn any move apart from Chatter. Unfortunately its only good stat is its Speed so it is outclassed in pretty much anything it does. Nonetheless since Smeargle has a movepool that puts even Mew to shame, it can be a worthy Pokemon if used correctly.

Smeargle's Special Abilities can be either Own Tempo, which prevents confusion, or Technician, which slightly increases the power of weak attacks. Its Hidden Ability is Moody which is unpredictable and therefore unreliable because at the end of each turn it will raise one of Smeargle's stats by two levels, whilst simultaniously lowering another stat by two levels. Overall Own Tempo is the best ability, since Technician's usefulness depends on Smeargle's moveset.

Moveset 1

 * Spore
 * Dream Eater
 * Seismic Toss
 * Shadow Force

Moveset 2

 * Sacred Fire
 * Aeroblast
 * Leech Seed
 * Recover

Moveset 3

 * Spore
 * Stealth Rock
 * Spikes
 * Roar

Moveset 4

 * Lock On
 * Sheer Cold
 * Destiny Bond
 * Safeguard

Larvitar, Pupitar and Tyranitar
Larvitar and Pupitar both have Special Abilities that are activated by status conditions; Larvitar gains more Attack through Guts and Pupitar can shrug off any status besides confusion with Shed Skin. Pupitar doesn't have a Hidden Ability for some reason but Larvitar's Hidden Ability is Sand Veil, making it harder to hit in a Sandstorm. Larvitar evolves into Pupitar at level 30 and Pupitar evolves into Tyranitar at level 55.

Tyranitar is a Pseudo-Legendary and therefore very powerful possessing a formidable Attack stat, but like all Pseudo-Legendaries, apart from Metagross and Hydriegon, it has a double weakness, in this case Fighting types. It is also very slow and although it has high Defense, being a Dark and Rock type severely weakens its defensive capabilities and thus it is better suited to using raw power to defeat its foes. It's Special Defense is raised by its Special Ability, Sand Stream, which also summons a permanent Sandstorm when it's summoned into battle. Tyranitar's Hidden Ability is the almost useless Unnerve.

An absurd thing about Tyranitar is that despite its massive size it's capable of using Aerial Ace. While this is ridiculous for such a large Pokémon it is undoubtedly useful since it covers Tyranitar's greatest weakness, Fighting types. Tyranitar is also the only Pokémon besides Aerodactyle that can learn both Hyper Beam and Giga Impact via level up.

Moveset 1

 * Stone Edge
 * Crunch
 * Earthquake
 * Giga Impact

Moveset 2

 * Rock Slide
 * Dark Pulse
 * Earthquake
 * Hyper Beam

Moveset 3

 * Stone Edge
 * Payback
 * Dragon Claw
 * Aerial Ace