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

This page contains information on every Pokémon family first introduced in Generation VI, 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.

Froakie, Frogadier and Greninja
Greninja is one of the most popular Pokémon introduced in Gen VI, and that's not just due to its cool design. Contrasting other Water-type starters in the past, which pack on bulk while compromising Speed, Greninja is a glass cannon. With an awesome 122 base Speed and strong offensive stats, Greninja is a fairly threatening attacker. Most importantly, Greninja gets the nearly exclusive Protean as its hidden ability, which is where much of its potency comes from. Protean automatically changes Greninja's type to the typing of its move used before it attacks. This gives Greninja STAB on all of its attacks and makes it very unpredictable, due to its ability to constantly change its resistances and weaknesses. Greninja's major flaw is its frailty, and it will often have trouble entering the field into an attack. This also somewhat diminishes the defensive advantage of Protean. Both of Greninja's attack stats, although above average, aren't excellent, so it might not be able to KO certain opponents before they can hit back with a lethal move.

While both of Greninja's attack stats are usable, most players prefer to focus on its special moves, given that its specially-based movepool is wider and that its Special Attack stat is plainly higher. Indeed, Greninja has a ton of moves to utilize Protean with. Hydro Pump is its main STAB move, boosting high power and decent accuracy, although Surf is a slightly more reliable alternative. Dark Pulse is a great secondary STAB that provides nice coverage alongside Hydro Pump, but is sometimes replaced by another move to deal with specific threats. Ice Beam is a vital coverage move to be used against Grass-types and Dragon-types which resist Hydro Pump. Extrasensory is another popular move that Greninja naturally learns, which let it break through some of its common threats, most notably Mega Venusaur. Finally, Greninja can be a speedy hazard setter with Spikes, while still being a capable offensive Pokémon.

Bunnelby and Diggersby
Bunnelby and Diggersby look like your average early-game rodent, with pretty terrible stats and nothing much going for them. However, Diggersby is one of the very few Pokémon that gets Huge Power, doubling its poor Attack stat into dangerously high levels. Its Huge Power boosted attacks are extremely hard-hitting, and its two STABs offer great neutral coverage, with Ground-type attacks able to break down the Rock and Steel types that resist Normal. However, it has some glaring flaws. It has poor Speed, which keeps it from being a powerful sweeper and means it must often sponge attacks before attacking back if it doesn't have a priority move. Both of its STABs also have common immunities, causing it to have trouble against Pokémon like Gengar, Drifblim, Skarmory and Bronzong, which have either partial or complete immunity to its main attacks. Despite that, Diggersby's sheer power lets it remain as a decently effective Pokémon for tearing through defensive teams.

If you want to use Diggersby, always have Huge Power as its ability, as it is a terrible Pokémon otherwise. Return is its strongest Normal-type attack without any drawbacks when at max happiness, and will be the attack of choice against Pokémon that don't resist it. Earthquake is Diggersby's strongest Ground-type move. While it has lower power than a maximized Return, it offers great coverage with Return as it is effective against Rock and Steel types that can tank a Return. Quick Attack gives it a strong priority attack to circumvent its subpar Speed. For coverage moves, either Stone Edge or Wild Charge can be used. Stone Edge has higher damage but lower accuracy, while Wild Charge does more damage to Steel-types that are immune to Earthquake, such as Skarmory and Bronzong, as well as offer some coverage, particularly against Water-types. Finally, U-Turn is an option to let you switch out while doing damage, useful when you find yourself up against a Pokémon that Diggersby has no hope of breaking through.

Fletchling, Fletchinder and Talonflame
Talonflame evolutionary family is the early bird Pokémon line of Kalos. Talonflame is quite unlike its predecessors not just in its type combination, but also its usefulness in battle. Talonflame's stats look uninteresting, with its only nice stat being its great Speed, but it also comes with the excellent Gale Wings ability, which increases the priority of every Flying-type move. This makes moves like Brave Bird, Roost or Tailwind move first, making Talonflame one of the best revenge killers and support Pokémon there is, and even a potential sweeper. Gale Wings also means that it can invest exclusively in Attack to maximize its power without worrying about getting outsped. While its high Speed may seem pointless with Gale Wings, it also means it will almost certainly move first against other priority users. While Talonflame is one of the most popular and useful Pokémon there is, it has some definite flaws. Its Fire/Flying type has several well-known weaknesses, including a terrible 4x weakness to Stealth Rock that limits its ability to switch in often. It also has poor bulk, made worse as it relies on recoil moves to do damage. Talonflame also lacks sheer power, as its 81 Attack means that sufficiently bulky Pokémon can take hits without fear.

Talonflame is decently flexible in the moves it can use. Brave Bird is its best Flying STAB, having great neutral coverage and getting Gale Wing's priority boost. Flare Blitz is a good secondary STAB move for Steel-types, and has equivalent power as Brave Bird. U-Turn is a good utility move for scouting out possible switches or to bail out of unfavorable matchups. Roost is a great healing move if it finds the space to use it, being boosted by Gale Wings and letting heal off damage taken from its recoil moves. Tailwind is another great priority move for supporting teammates instead, and it is even better in double or triple battles. Talonflame can run Will-o-Wisp as for supporting, useful for crippling its usual counters, which are usually physical attackers packing a Rock move. Taunt can be used if you fear its defensive counters instead, being able to shut down walls that rely on status moves. Finally, Talonflame gets a variety of boosting moves, from Hone Claws to Bulk Up to Swords Dance. Bulk Up is probably the best, as Talonflame is far too frail to setup with any other boosting move.

Honedge, Doublade and Aegislash
The Honedge family contains one of the top contenders in battle introduced in X/Y, Aegislash. Much of Aegislash's effectiveness stems from its unique Stance Change ability. By default, Aegislash is in its Shield Forme, giving it amazing defenses but poor attacking stats. The moment Aegislash uses a damaging move, it turns into its Blade Forme, swapping its defenses with its offenses to turn it into a deadly glass cannon. It can revert back to its Shield Forme by switching out or using King's Shield, and exclusive move that blocks attacks and even lowers the Attack of a foe that makes contact! This makes Aegislash extremely versatile and unpredictable, able to fill in a variety of roles depending on its moves. Additionally, it has a unique Steel/Ghost typing that gives it 3 immunities and 9 resistances, while leaving it with merely 4 weaknesses. Aegislash still has some minor flaws. It has lackluster Speed, which can be fixed by running a priority move. It is also very fragile during Blade Forme, and is weak to common attacking types like Dark and Ground, so it can still faint easily if used carelessly.

Aegislash is usually used as a purely offensive Pokémon, due to its sky-high attack stats in Blade Forme. Shadow Ball is an almost mandatory move for Aegislash, being its strongest Ghost-type move and hitting a wide range of Pokémon neutrally. King's Shield is another common move on many Aegislash, as it lets Aegislash neutralize an attack, regain the great defenses of its Shield Forme while possibly neutering opposing physical attackers. Flash Cannon is a secondary STAB, its main purpose being to take down Fairy-types. Shadow Sneak is a useful priority Ghost-type attack that circumvents Aegislash's terrible Speed, and can still hit fairly hard without any Attack stat investment due to Blade Forme Aegislash's great base Attack. Sacred Sword can be seen occasionally, and is mainly used for potentially threatening Dark-types or to break through special walls like Blissey. Pursuit is another uncommon move that takes advantage of Aegislash's tendency to force switches. Aegislash also gets Swords Dance, which can make it a powerful foe that can sweep with Shadow Sneak, with Shadow Claw and Iron Head to complement the Attack boost. Finally, Aegislash can run a fairly potent stalling set with Substitute, Toxic and King's Shield, using Substitute and King's Shield to stall turns out and increase Toxic damage. All in all, Aegislash has a ton of moves to choose from, making it one of the most flexible and unpredictable Pokémon to face.

Amaura and Aurorus
Aurorus has a pretty unique type combination as well as the exclusive Refrigerate ability, which increases the power of Normal-type moves while turning them into Ice-type moves. This gives it interesting options for STAB, with Nature Power and Return being the most common. The former summons a 104 base power Tri Attack in link battles with a chance to inflict status ailments, while the latter at max happiness is the strongest STAB attack it can have that lacks any drawbacks. While terribly impractical, an Ice-type Hyper Beam with a whopping effective 195 base power is a terrifying attack to take, and can be used as a surprising last resort. Rock STAB isn't really needed as Ice already achieves great coverage, other than hitting Fire-types super effectively. Freeze Dry is good against Water-types, while Reflect, Light Screen, Haze, Thunder Wave and Toxic can be good support moves.

Despite being the more defensive of the Kalos fossil Pokémon, Aurorus has possibly the worst defensive typing in the game. Rock and Ice give it a terrible quad weakness to common Steel and Fighting type attacks as well as four other standard weaknesses. Its offensive stats and speed are also quite mediocre, which really prevents it from playing an offensive style. Even with a unique ability and fairly good movepool, Aurorus' poor typing single-handedly prevents it from being usable against common encountered Pokémon.

Klefki
Being basically a living keychain, Klefki is certainly an oddity, and its stats are pretty unimpressive compared to its appearance. However, this key collector is notorious for being one of the most effective status-inducers in the game, mainly due to its ability Prankster, letting it use status moves first regardless of speed. It also has an above average Defense, letting it fare better against its main target, physical attackers, while its Steel/Fairy typing gives it a ton of helpful resistances, including an immunity to Dragon, while leaving it with only a Fire and Ground weakness. Klefki also has a great movepool full of support moves that take advantage of Prankster, but the primary ones are Swagger and Thunder Wave, both taught via TM. This lets Klefki pull off an effective parafusion strategy that can nearly shut down most physical attackers, turning their sheer power against themselves due to Swagger's Attack boost. Additionally, it learns Foul Play at level 27, which circumvents its average attack stats to hit Swaggered foes hard. With just these three moves, it can cripple its opponent, then knock them out with a strong Foul Play. Teach it Substitute, and it can Foul Play in safety as its opponents knock themselves out.

Outside of its most common parafusion strategy, Klefki has plenty of other status moves it can try out. It can set down Spikes, use Torment against move-locked opponents or set up Reflect and Light Screen. In doubles or triple battles, it also provides useful support with Safeguard, Magic Room, Fairy Lock or Crafty Shield. Fairy Lock and Crafty Shield in particular are two moves exclusive to Klefki. Fairy Lock is basically a single-turn Mean Look that affects every Pokémon in battle. Crafty Shield protects Klefki and its allies from status moves in a manner similar to Quick Guard and Wide Guard, though Prankster makes Safeguard a superior move despite Crafty Shield's own extra priority. In terms of attacks, Klefki doesn't have a lot of options, with Play Rough, Draining Kiss and Dazzling Gleam for Fairy STAB and Flash Cannon for Steel STAB. However, its poor attacking stats mean you're better off using Foul Play to do direct damage.