Luxio, Luxray (SM)

Do androids dream of electric lions?

Location: Route 8 (Island Scan on Tuesday)

Stats, Evolutions
Don't bother with Shinx. It's one of two Akalan Island Scan Pokémon that you catch evolved, the other is Marill.￼ Luxio has weird stats. It has quite a bit of attack, but its defensive stats are low and his speed is mediocre. From the moment you get it, it has two quick ways of making himself durable (more on that later), so its low defenses don't matter as much. His special attack is mediocre.

It evolves into Luxray relatively quickly, at level 30. Its stat distribution is quite similar. All of its stats increase, but it sacrifices a bit of HP and Speed to be more durable. Its attack is still as great as ever and it has a surprisingly good Special Attack stat so you can slap any move on it and make it work.

Moveset, Abilities, Typing
Its special move is Eerie Impulse. It decreases the opponent's special attack by two stages. Useful for making Luxio durable as well as for longer fights. Combine this with its ability Intimidate (reduces the opponent's physical attack) and Luxio is now very bulky. It also has Charge which powers up electric-type attacks and increases its special defense. It goes well with Eerie Impulse, but once you get the Electrium Z, Z-Eerie Impulse will have the same effect as Eerie Impulse + Charge and Z-Eerie Impulse will save you a moveslot and a turn. It also gets Bite and Spark. Bite has low power and should be replaced as soon as you get Crunch, which is a move with better power and it does a good job at Dark-type coverage. And Spark is a standard earlymiddle-game STAB move. It has just 65 power but it will hurt once you evolve it into Luxray, and that 30% chance of paralysis is nice. Before evolving, the last move worth of note is Swagger at 28. It confuses the opponent and increases their physical attack by two stages. It's much riskier to use this gen because of the confusion nerf, but it's still useful sometimes.

Luxray gets Thunder Fang at 35, but you already have Spark by this point. Go get Crunch at 42 instead to replace Bite. It has a chance of lowering the opponent's defense. Scary Face at 49 seriously decreases the opponent's speed. Before the League, it gets Discharge at 56, which is a powerful Electric type move (but it's special, and Luxray is mostly physical).

For TMs, it gets nothing that really worth it, just electric-type attacks. It also gets Snarl, whose extra effect of lowering the opponent's Special Attack goes well with Eerie Impulse. But... not much else. Maybe you can teach it Light Screen to make it more durable.

Its abilities are Intimidate (explained in the moves section) and Rivalry, which is a rather interesting ability. It increases its power if its target and it have the same gender and decreases if it's of the opposite gender. Considering its average bulk, Intimidate is the better one, but Rivalry can also be useful if you want it to hit hard.

Its type is Electric. It has just one weakness, and a few resistances.

Important Battles
The fact that you get it after Lana's trial hurts its usefulness, and the fact that you get it right before Lurantis even more so. If for some reason you have no one else to use, it's not bad against Olivia and Vikavolt despite not hitting the latter for effective damage. It will help you against Totem Mimikyu with Intimidate, and you can make Mimikyu hit itself with Swagger or paralyze-fish with Spark, although it's risky. It's not bad for Nanu, The Poni battles are no, and he does decently on the League.

Conclusion
It evolves quickly and becomes quite powerful when it does so. Luxray is like a weaker clone of fellow electric-type Electivire. Luxray has worse stats overall, but his advantage over Electivire is that you get it earlier. Despite having the stat spread of a Glass Cannon, its low defenses are redeemed by its type only having one weakness and having a plethora of ways to make itself more durable, while its low speed ￼is saved by Alola in general being even slower. The bad thing? Its movepool is poor, and you get it after a battle in which having an electric-type would make the most sense. It's no Lion King, but you can still use it if you want to.

Rating: 66%