The best movesets for Shinx, Luxio and Luxray in Pokemon GO

Trainers looking for some strong Pokemon might consider picking up Luxray since its pre-evolution, Shinx, is a Tier 1 raid boss for September.

Anyone who’s done a nuzlocke of Pokemon Diamond, Pearl or Platinum definitely recognizes Shinx. It’s an early game Pokemon found right outside Sandgem Town in the Sinnoh region. Shinx evolves into Luxray, who is an Electric-type monster. In Pokemon GO, Luxray gets a 232 Attack stat and an excellent movepool.

Considering that Little Cup or other similar competitions often happen, though, it might be worthwhile to look at Shinx’s and Luxio’s ideal moveset as well as Luxray’s.

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Best move for Generation IV Pokemon's evolution line

Shinx will actually want to run the same fast move as its evolutions would want to run: Spark. This is an easier decision for Shinx since the only other option is Tackle. Spark is a move with excellent speed, though, and also charges a vital 12.5 EPS.

Shinx suffers from a lack of coverage with its charge moves, unfortunately. It only learns Electric-type moves and Swift which is, well, irrelevant. Therefore, it’s best to teach Shinx both Electric moves, or don’t bother giving it a second charge move.

The two Electric moves that Shinx can learn are Discharge and Thunderbolt. Fortunately, these moves work well together. Trainers can use Discharge to bait shields, allowing for Thunderbolt to be used once the opponent can’t shield anymore.

While Luxio and Luxray have slight differences in their movepools, they actually have the same optimal moveset. They both want to be running Wild Charge and Crunch.

Luxray is lucky that it gets access to Wild Charge, as this move is proving to be one of the best weapons that Electric-type Pokemon can have. Looking at the Electric Pokemon that typically rank well in raids (Raikou, Electivire, Magnezone), almost all of them have Wild Charge.

This is because, since Wild Charge only needs half of the energy bar filled up to use, Pokemon can use this move more times on average in battle. Other moves that need the entire bar to use, like Hurricane of Draco Meteor won’t be actually clicked more than once in many battles.

Crunch offers some nice coverage for Luxray, too. It can use this move to deal with some weaker Psychic and Ghost Pokemon. It’s still a frail Pokemon, though, so it probably isn’t beating out Mega Gengar or Mewtwo just because it has Crunch.