New kids on the block, steelix

The new evolve to onix, steelix, sports a rather low HP bulk but tries to make up for it with the second highest defence stat in the game.

It's another 2400 ish max CP pokemon, forcing it to be placed together with other relatively low CP quality defenders.


It's a steel / ground type pokemon with no legacy attacks.


For primary attacks we have Dragon Tail and Iron Tail. They're basically identical, slow attacks, with Dragon Tail giving you a little more energy to fire off that charge attack faster and Iron Tail awarding you the STAB bonus.

Both attacks are good, with Iron Tail coming out ahead. The reason I don't see it as a no-brainer is that Iron Tail is ineffective against water, and since water attacks are supereffective against ground you're likely to see vaporeon attacking into a steelix.

Charge attacks are Crunch, Earthquake and Heavy Slam. Since Crunch is both slow and lacks STAB it's a no-go here. Both Earthquake and Heavy Slam benefits from the STAB bonus, but since Earthquake is stupidly slow Heavy Slam, a comparatively fast, two bar attack, is preferred.

Your steelix should have Iron Tail and Heavy Slam. Dragon Tail is also servicable.


Steelix' main problem is that both flareon and vaporeon are supereffective against it. While that is true for other pokemon as well, they're not as commonly available, and they're usually not locked to one attack type only.


Steelix loves the company of lapras, slowbro and slowking in a gym. At these CP-levels you should tage advantage of the opportunity to mix types.