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

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

Starly, Staravia and Staraptor
Despite being the early-game bird of the Sinnoh region, Staraptor separates itself from its counterparts with its sheer power. It has fairly high Attack and Speed stats, but what really makes Staraptor great is its excellent movepool. It has strong STAB options for both of its types, getting Brave Bird through leveling up and Double-Edge as an egg move. Combined with its hidden ability Reckless, and Staraptor's attacks will really hurt, at the cost of doing high recoil damage to itself as well. While two Reckless boosted recoil attacks are good enough, Staraptor also gets the wonderful Close Combat by leveling up, letting it punch holes in Rock and Steel types that resists its STAB move. Finally, it can learn Roost if it can find a turn to heal off its recoil damage, Quick Attack as an option against faster threats and U-turn for efficiently switching out when it encounters a foe it has difficulty with.

Staraptor's weakness, like any other fast attacker, is its poor survivability. Its defensive stats are average at best, its Normal/Flying is quite average defensively and it relies heavily on two attacks that deal recoil damage, as well as one that lowers it defenses. This means that Staraptor can lose a lot of its health quickly, most of which is dealt by itself, and will likely go down if it can't manage to defeat its foe quickly enough. Staraptor is also slower than a few common offensive threats like Garchomp, and its Speed doesn't matter at all against strong priority attackers, which can limit it can deal as it can't hit first. All in all, Staraptor is a strong but also almost suicidal Pokémon. Fainting is an inevitable fate for the bird with the mohawk, but it will most certainly take down a few of its opponents with it.

Riolu and Lucario
Lucario is a pretty popular Pokémon, and its stats are nothing to scoff at. With great offensive stats, good Speed, an awesome movepool and, in this generation, a devastating Mega Evolution. It has access to the coveted Extreme Speed, letting it get the first attack against just about any Pokémon, Swords Dance for sweeping, Close Combat as a deadly STAB option and useful coverage moves like Bullet Punch, Crunch and Ice Punch. If you want to use its rich special movepool, it has Aura Sphere as a main STAB option, Vacuum Wave as a substitute to Extreme Speed, Nasty Plot as a boosting move, and Dark Pulse, Dragon Pulse and Psychic for coverage. In double or triple battles, it has Quick Guard and Heal Pulse for added utility.

Defensively, its type combination gives it useful neutralities to Psychic, Flying and Fairy, along with a quad resistance to Bug and Rock, and an immunity to Poison. A resistance to Dark-type attacks helps it secure an Attack boost from Justified by switching into a predicted Dark-type attack. Watch out for other Fighting-types as well as Ground and Fire types, as they can easily break through Lucario's mediocre defenses. If you have a free mega slot on your team, Mega Lucario is an excellent choice, giving it a boost in its offensive stats as well as the ability Adaptability, which means an Aura Sphere or Close Combat will hit even harder. All in all, Lucario is an amazing sweeper, with the right typing and strong priority attacks to make it an extremely dangerous foe.