A little moveset I've been tweaking with since Black 2 first came out. Tried this for a while, but never really bothered putting it on here. Anyway, here it is.
Flareon @ Leftovers
Ability: Guts / Flash Fire
EVs: 120 HP / 76 Atk / 40 Def / 156 SpA / 80 Spe / 36 SpD
Serious / Hardy / Bashful (Any Neutral Nature) For me. Feel free to use something else
- Flame Charge
- Baton Pass
- Work Up
- Stored Power
The plan here was to create a good blend of utility and... you know... making Flareon not suck quite so much. Anyways, in a fair few of my NU teams I noticed that I used a number of mixed and both physical and special sweepers, but with no good way to Baton Pass work up between them. I browsed around and came up with this, making Flareon slightly less awful in the process. I actually made this as an alternative to Speed Boost Combusken with Baton Pass being illegal in gen 5, but I digress.
Naturally, Work Up and Baton Pass are the main moves on this set. Flareon's main job is to survive long enough to net a couple boosts and either pass or sweep from there. Work Up has the nice bonus of boosting Flareon's SpA and Atk, both of which are fairly good, as well as broadening the amount of Pokemon it can pass it's boosts to. Baton pass needs no explanation.
The attacking moves are where it gets interesting, though. Flame charge may be weak, but the Speed Boost is very valuable on Flareon, allowing it to sweep or pass quickly, and with STAB and Flash Fire/ Guts taken into account with a Work Up boost or two, coming off of Flareon's meaty attack stat, does good damage without losing momentum for it's passes. It also get's more boosts, necessary for this Flareon's party piece, stored power. Stored power is an absolute godsend to Flareon, giving it good(ish) coverage, excellent power after some boosts (especially Work Up) and synchronizes with Baton Pass brilliantly. This move allows it to sweep very well if it has to, and after a couple Flame Charges and a Work Up, can take apart a lot.
The EV spread I came up with is designed to improve it's survivability as well as it's speed and power. The HP EVs come out at exactly 301 HP, to help against Night Shade and Seismic Toss users. Naturally, Leftovers are a must, as Flareon is (on the physical side at least) less sturdy than the cling film your copy of Black was wrapped in, and it would suck quite a bit as a setup sweeper and Baton Passer if it couldn't survive long enough to do either, let alone both.
The ability is entirely your preference. I'd use Flash Fire, myself, as Guts' main selling point (for me) is ignoring the Burn power drop, and Flareon can't be burned. That said, if you're expecting Toxic and Paralyze over fire attacks, it achieves the same boost to Flame Charge's power either way, so use whichever you're comfortable with. You know... if you even use this set at all (I won't hold my breath).
I reckon this just about sums it up. So far this set has done a good job of welding sweeper and baton passer together and does a good job in NU. I've tried it in OU... with predictable results (though being on the receiving end of a Specs Moltres' Hurricane after Stealth Rock damage had something to do with it). Suffice to say it's a balanced, powerful and useful set which has had it's uses several times, and makes Flareon more than just the squinting buck-toothed inbred rural cousin of the Eeveelutions that no-one likes to talk about. feel free to give it a shot. Post any comments if I didn't explain anything too well.
Also, I feel obliged to say that this is a purely competitive moveset for Gen 5 or the soon to be revealed Gen 6 NU. It is not an in-game moveset, though it works well enough as a sweeper in Black 2, at least.
