Spotlight Pokemon: Scizor

Since the last two Spotlight Pokémon were Greninja and Goodra, I thought I’d add an older one with a mega evolution. Scizor has always been a favorite of mine, and in Pokémon XY, he gets a mega evolution. Scizor is a Bug/Steel type, so it takes four times the damage from Fire attacks. That is its only weakness, though. It takes half of the damage from Normal, Ice, Psychic, Bug, Dragon, Steel, and Fairy attacks. It takes 1/4 of the damage from Grass attacks and is immune to Poison attacks. All other types do normal damage.

One tough bug

As you can see from its Bug/Steel typing, it is pretty resilient. Scizor’s stats are also great, both before and after mega evolution. The right moveset, mixed with the Technician ability, makes Scizor a wonderful Physical Sweeper.The base stats are…

Normal

• HP: 70
• Attack: 130
• Defense: 100
• Special Attack: 55
• Special Defense: 80
• Speed: 65

It is normally red, but mine is Shiny.

Mega

• HP: 70
• Attack: 150
• Defense: 140
• Special Attack: 65
• Special Defense: 100
• Speed: 75

Scizor evolves from Scyther by trading Scyther while holding a Metal Coat. Scizor has two normal Abilities and a Hidden Ability. Its normal Abilities are Swarm and Technician.

Swarm increases the power of Bug moves by 1.5 times when its HP is below 1/3.

Technician increases the power of moves with a base power of 60 or below by 1.5 times. This is the preferred Ability for Scizor. His mega evolution will always have Technician, regardless of its normal Ability, but there may be times where you will not want to use the mega evolution.

Power up or just Bullet Punch

One of the things that makes Scizor so brutal is its signature move, Bullet Punch. It is a 40 base power Steel-type move, so it gets STAB from it. If it has the ability Technician, then it gets increased another 1.5 times, for a total of 90 base power. This is a priority move that will always attack first, unless the opponent also does a priority move.

If you want to use another Pokémon on your team with a mega evolution, you can still use Scizor. Have it hold a Life Orb instead of the Scizorite and it will still do just as much damage. The down side is that its defenses will be weaker and it will take damage every time it attacks, but it shouldn’t hurt that much.

I recommend maxing its Attack in Super Training and either maxing Defense or splitting the rest between HP and Defense. This will make Scizor pretty bulky, while maximizing its damage. Check out my Super Training guide if you need further explanation on how it works.

Adamant is the best Nature for Scizor because it raises Attack and lowers Special Attack. Speed is not as important since it has the priority Bullet Punch and it will be able to take multiple hits as long as they aren’t fire.

I recommend Bullet Punch, Swords Dance, X-Scissor, and Pursuit/Roost. Swords Dance works nicely with the suggested EV spread because it should be able to survive long enough to get one or two boosts before attacking. X-Scissor will give it a strong Bug attack because of STAB. The last slot depends on whether you want another strong attack or a healing move. Pursuit gets powered up from Technician and will hit Pokémon hard that are trying to switch out. Roost restores up to half of its max HP.

That’s it for this week’s Spotlight Pokémon. If you want any more suggestions of Scizor, or any of the previous Spotlight Pokémon, let me know in the comments.