Pok�mon of the Week

Escavalier, The Cavalry Pok�mon. They fly around at high speed, striking with their pointed spears. Even when in trouble, they face opponents bravely. These Pok�mon evolve by wearing the shell covering of a Shelmet. The steel armor protects their whole body.

Escavalier is one of my favourite Pok�mon from Black and White. Sure, in general, it's outclassed by Scizor, but it has some cool gear to play with. It's also got a rocking design and an awesome name. Huge base Attack and being generally bulkier make it, in my opinion, a better Choice user� unless you want revenge killing rather than DESTROYING anything that switches in.

Swarm: once you reach 30% health, your Bug attacks are powered up by 50%. HELLO MEGAHORN.
Shell Armor: a great ability that improves your survivability. You are immune to critical hits. This makes it so much safer to switch into stuff as it means you aren't ruined by a lucky crit.
Overcoat: a good ability� just not on Escavalier. You're immune to hail and sandstorm, which is alright� but there's no reason to use it over the other two.

- Megahorn
- Iron Head
- Pursuit
- Knock Off / Rock Smash / Reversal / X-Scissor / Double-edge
Item Attached: Choice Band
Ability: Swarm / Shell Armor
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk/ 4 SDef
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk) / Brave Nature (+Atk, -Spd)

Megahorn makes Escavalier. It's something Scizor doesn't have; a hugely powerful move. At 120 base power, STAB, and the possibility of Swarm, there's not much that can take a Megahorn well. Iron Head is your secondary STAB, and hits a few things that resist Bug. The flinch won't be handy except in Trick Room, but it's a good, standard attack. Pursuit allows you to catch stuff like Gengar off guard by switching into a resisted special attack, then mugging them when they flee. Knock Off wouldn't be used much, but it's a pretty cool attack that has some support benefits to it, as it removes the victim's item. Rock Smash is really weak, but the chance to -1 their Defence is awesome. Reversal is way stronger than Rock Smash after you lose a certain amount of HP, and can reach 200 base power if you somehow get down to 1 health. X-Scissor is a more accurate alternative to Megahorn. I haven't slashed it because Megahorn is literally one of the only reasons to use Escavalier. Double-edge is actually one of my favourite moves. Its main use here is that it can help get you into Swarm range whilst dealing huge damage.

- Swords Dance
- Megahorn
- Iron Head
- Rock Smash / Pursuit / Knock Off / X-Scissor / Rest
Item Attached: Leftovers / Life Orb
Ability: Swarm / Shell Armor
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk) / Brave Nature (+Atk, -Spd)

Swords Dance boosts your Attack to insane levels. We're talking 800+. Megahorn ruins everything it hits. Iron Head is a strong and reliable attack that gets its flinch on Ferrothorn and whilst under Trick Room, which is the only way to use SDEscavalier really. Rock Smash behind 800 attack hurts a lot, and the -1 Defence can really lay the smack down, especially considering the fact you can change attacks, unlike the Choice set. Pursuit is great, hits retreating Pok�mon, 10/10. Knock Off has that utility factor, but don't expect it to deal damage. X-Scissor is handy so you aren't ruined by Megahorn missing JUST when you need it to hit. Rest heals you to full HP at the cost of 2 turns sleeping.
Leftovers is best for a less drastic sweep, whereas Life Orb is catered towards the Trick Room DEVESATE ALL approach.

- Megahorn
- Iron Head
- Pursuit
- Knock Off / Protect
Item Attached: Leftovers
Ability: Shell Armor
EVs and Nature:
EVs: 252 HP / 8 Atk / 248 SDef
Sassy Nature (+SDef, -Atk)

Something Escavalier does better than Scizor! Well, sort of� Scizor has Roost and Light Screen� oh well. Megahorn hits like a truck, and hits what you want to wall hard. Latios, Latias, Reuniclus, that sort of thing. Iron Head is� one of your only other physical moves. Pursuit can catch them switching out (as well as other stuff), which is cute. Knock Off can cripple Skarmory and friends by smacking away their item. Protect can scout for random Hidden Power [Fire]s.

Escavalier
252 HP and 252 Attack is generally the way to go, unless you're going down the bulky route. 8 Attack is just enough to ruin Reinuniclus, Latios, all that jazz in two hits on the special tanking set.

Aerial Ace, Counter, Poison Jab, Substitute
Aerial Ace is garbage on anything not called Scyther, but it's a physical attack� Escavalier is sadly lacking in that department.
Counter can be used to smack a big hit on something, but you've hardly got a load of HP� not really enough to make this worth using. Stick to spamming Megahorn.
Poison Jab is in the same boat as Aerial Ace, except its useful on some stuff. Not on Escavalier, it just has no options.
Substitute I've never been a fan of, purely because you're so slow. Substitute is generally wanted to be set up before you get your face chewed off. It means you can use Swords Dance safely and get down to Swarm range, but you're SO slow, I don't feel it is worth using.

I can't see Escavalier doing well in doubles at all. Admittedly, I know nothing about doubles or triples, so I could be completely wrong. Trick Room doubles I guess could work, especially considering that normally you have to use up a turn switching to Escavalier. So� using it with a Trick Roomer then proceeding to smash the opponent is a plan. Escavalier has no multi targeting attacks so� stick with Megahorn. That's about all I can suggest, in all honesty. Rain can help it, but I'd stick to singles in this department. .

Like with any 4x weak Fire Pok�mon, running it alongside Flash Fire support is a great idea. In OU you have Heatran, in UU you have Arcanine, Houndoom, that sort of crowd. Another way of dealing with Fire types is through rain, be it Drizzle or Rain Dance. Magnezone or Magneton can both trap you and ruin you with their STAB moves or Hidden Power [Fire], so something that can ruin their day is important. Hell, Dugtrio maybe? Having said that, Megahorn deals HUGE damage to them. Speaking of the Mags, Skarmory and Steels in general have a field day with Escavalier, so running them can help deal with the Steel fiends. In terms of synergy, Latios and Latias work AMAZINGLY with Escavalier. They resist Fire (which is fairly needed, let's be honest), and Escavalier resists all of their weaknesses. Combined, they resist every type, except for Flying and Rock. Flygon also does well. Water/Flying/Fighting are the only types unresisted, but they only have 3 weaknesses combined. That's 10/10 in my books. Actually, Dragons in general do well. Salamence, Garchomp, Kingdra, whatever. Psychics do well too, considering Dark/Bug/Ghost are all resisted straight away. Oh, I forgot� TRICK ROOM. Trick Room makes Escavalier practically the fastest Pok�mon in the game. Combined with DAT MEGAHORN, there's not much that can stand up to Escavalier under Trick Room.

Straight away you'll want to jump into a Fire type to beat the lancer. Fire attacks work well, but you need to be careful switching into Megahorn. For example, Volcarona can easily KO and outspeed Escavalier. It takes like� 80% from Choice Band Megahorn. Even if you 2x resist Megahorn, there's a good chance you will take a HUGE amount of damage. Especially if you switch into a Fire type� Stealth Rock+hyper powered Megahorn is going to KILL. Anyway, actual counters� as I've said, Steel types do really well. They tend to have big Defence, they resist your STAB attacks (aka they resist Megahorn), and Escavalier really can't do much to them. Skarmory, the Mag family, Heatran, they all do well. Especially Skarmory. Escavalier can't touch Skarmory at all. Because of how slow Escavalier is, you can easily abuse its Speed to wear it down. For example, most Pok�mon outspeed Dusclops and Dusknoir. This is what makes them less than ideal switch ins to most things, as they tend to get ruined on the second hit. However, they outspeed Escavalier, meaning you can get a Will-O-Wisp off and ruin Escavalier for the rest of the battle. Intimidate can mess with Escavalier, especially one coming from Salamence, who already resists your Megahorn and can ruin you with a Flamethrower. As I've said, Escavalier is one of my favourite Pok�mon. I like it SO much more than Scizor. I'm not saying it's better at all, because except for Megahorn, it really isn't. Honestly, they are played completely differently. Escavalier's job is to SMASH anything that switches in, then either take a hit (which it most likely can take) or switch out. Scizor can fill a number of roles; revenge killing, scouting, switch in to certain types, but it doesn't have that power move that Escavalier has. In UU, there's not much that can do Escavalier's job. However, if you're using it in OU, make sure you are using it for the right reasons and not just because Scizor is too mainstream.

Locations in Games

Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald:
Not in game

FireRed/LeafGreen:
Not in game.

Colosseum/XD:

Not in game

Diamond/Pearl/Platinum:
Not in game.

HeartGold/SoulSilver:
Not in game.

Black/White:
Evolve Karrablast