Featured Pokemon: Flareon

Certainly adds flair to any gym!

Greetings trainers!

Flareon was never very good in the video games because it lacked access to any good moves, and its poor speed held it back. In Pokemon GO, neither of these traits carry over, which gives Flareon a chance to finally become relevant! In everyone's search for Vaporeon, you're bound to come across a Flareon here or there. Is it good for anything? Well, here's the cold hard truth: it is! It's just not good for... the right reasons... While it has a fantastic Attack stat, it doesn't have the Defence or Stamina to back it up. This sounds like a problem, but it actually makes Flareon incredibly useful for one niche purpose. Let's go through why.

Recommended movesets

It looks like even Flareon knows
it isn't suited for this...

Attacking

Ember + Fire Blast

Flareon's best trait is its high Attack stat, which is backed up by solid attacking moves in Ember and Fire Blast. Unfortunately, its weak defences let it down big time, as Flareon can have a difficult time beating Pokemon like Venusaur, Exeggutor, Vileplume, and other strong grass types with non-grass moves. Simply put, these Pokemon have too high a Stamina stat; Stamina is effectively doubled when on defence, exaggerating the difference in defences between Flareon and these Pokemon.

However Flareon is often a fairly high-CP Pokemon for most people starting out, and still capable of taking a chunk out of anything weak to fire. Until you have a stronger Fire type, Flareon is an alright Pokemon to take on Lapras with, and it will handle the likes of Scyther and Pinsir just fine. Attacking Snorlax with Flareon isn't immediately advised, until you have confirmed that Snorlax does not have Earthquake.

For the above, I'm assuming if you're using Flareon to attack, you're still training up your final squad.

Defending

Ember + Flamethrower 

(or Heat Wave if using as a Prestige punching bag)

Flareon does make a useful defender however! Not because it's a good defender... but precisely because it's quite a poor defender! This strange logic works only because Flareon is a fantastic Pokemon to face when levelling up a gym. There are a number of strategies involving weak Pokemon that can level up gyms quickly, but this involves organizing large groups of people to make it worthwhile, and uses up one gym slot for something like a Horsea or Magikarp.

Flareon, on the other hand, has respectable CP, but can be handled incredibly easily by the likes of Vaporeon, and really, any water type. As such, it's quite possible to defeat a 1400 CP Flareon with a Vaporeon as weak as 1000 CP, and potentially weaker if you dodge well. This lets you level up the Gym's prestige by 700, or with good dodging, up to 1000 per battle.

Yes, it's sad that Flareon's best use is as a punching bag, but something has to be! For optimal gym construction, it's recommended to put a strong grass type after Flareon to take advantage of the likely water type being used to take on Flareon.

Base stats

Leaping into action! Only to be swatted down
by the purple streaks in the background...

Attack: 238

Defence: 178

Stamina: 130

Wholely unremarkable, Flareon's only good asset is its Attack in a world where Stamina is king. Also unfortunately, while Ember is fine, it isn't an attack that recharges fast enough to take advantage of Flareon's high Attack. Were it able to charge up a Fire Blast in a flurry, Flareon's opponents might fwoomp into flames. But when Ember's cooldown is 1.05s, compared with say... Water Gun's 0.50s, you can start to understand why Flareon falls short of greatness.

In Conclusion

It would be disingenuous to imply that Flareon deals well with popular Pokemon, or that Flareon requires specific checks and counters. Flareon simply isn't up to snuff in the current metagame, where many popular Pokemon resist fire attacks, and vastly outperform Flareon in the Stamina department. But Flareon does have its uses, even if only to serve as the fodder you leave in a gym so that others may level it up easier. At least, for that purpose, Flareon is one of the best Pokemon around.

Cheers,

Let's GO