Cocrogue

**Cocrogue (Japanese: カミギリー / Kamigirii)** is a dual-type Dark/Bug Pokémon, and is one of the original Fakemon created for Pokémon Altair, Sirius, Vega, Procyon, and Deneb.

It evolves from Toxroach starting at level 25.

## Overview

Cocrogue was another case of unfortunate mechanics and being underpowered back in its debut game: Altair and Sirius. While all Bug moves were Physical, all Dark moves were Special. Using Dark STAB on Cocrogue is pretty bad, as it had 40 Special Attack to work with, which is less than half of its 90 Attack stat. This ultimately left it to run Shadow Ball as its "Dark" move alongside Brick Break and Hidden Power Rock or Ground for needed coverage against Flying and Fire types and other Steel types that shrug off Brick Break. Unfortunately, even though it did get Swords Dance via Move Tutor in the postgame, its stats are nothing special. 90 HP and 75 in both Defenses are ok, but 60 Speed is not great, even when invested. Even with a Swords Dance up, it doesn't clean teams easily with its meager Speed. And, if it really needs the Speed, it can run Agility and Swords Dance in the same moveset, but that constrains its moveset a lot. Bug offensively is not great other than Bug Buzz and its wonky side effect of dropping Special Defense. Brick Break and Shadow Ball gives it the best neutral coverage, but Hantama does the Ghost and Fighting offense far better with much better concentrated Stat spread than Cocrogue. Its Abilities are decent, but pretty outclassed by other Pokemon at its time. Snorlax has Immunity and the famous Curse set. Nostratos, Gyarados, Pteriarch, and Hantama are better users of Intimidate that bring much more to the table.

In Vega, Cocrogue can now use Physical Dark moves, but unfortunately, the stats do leave it to be desired a lot. Especially when it cannot learn Swords Dance in Vega. In addition, it does not have helpful Fighting coverage anymore, as it lost Brick Break in the game shift. It did gained Raid as a strong Bug type move that's leagues stronger than X-Scissor and even pre-Physical Special Split Bug Buzz and Devastate as a much stronger Dark move than Physical Night Slash, it does not hit as hard as it wants and isn't fast in a given team, even with Intimidate.

However, in Procyon and Deneb, Cocrogue got massively buffed. It gained +20 Attack and +10 Speed, jumping up to 110 Attack and 70 Speed. 110 Attack is now something it can make headway with STAB Raid and Devastate. While 70 Speed isn't too great, having a bump in Speed does help let it get the jump on slower targets better. Steel types no longer resist Dark, allowing Cocrogue to hit Steel types decently strong. It gained U-turn, one of the best pivoting moves that complements Intimidate well. It is the 2nd strongest U-turn in all of Signet, with Ledybulk having the strongest one by 10 more Attack than Cocrogue. Sucker Punch is a great move to get around its awkward 70 Speed it has, even with Sucker Punch's power dropping to 70 since Gen 7. Power-up Punch is pretty decent in letting it get Attack boosts, albeit at a slow pace. Immunity becomes Poison Heal, which is a much better Ability in letting be a Status absorber while Poisoned. In addition, Roost and Poison Heal allow it to recover off so much HP.

Even with all of these buffs, Cocrogue still has issues. In addition to the previous weaknesses of Fire, Rock, Flying, and even Bug moves, it has a Fairy weakness, which is pretty awful. Especially against Jawile, who completely walls Cocrogue without going rogue with Plague by changing Jawile's type to Bug. For non-Jawiles, they are rekted by the various Poison moves Cocrogue has in its arsenal. In addition, even with the stat buffs, it still struggles to stand out from the cast of new threats in Procyon and Deneb.

Despite having a rough life in the first two games, Cocrogue finally hit its stride in the third game thanks to new tools, direct buffs, and mechanics that benefits Cocrogue. Side note, Cocrogue's front sprite looks a lot cooler than its old sprite.

## Base Stats

 * Minimum stats are calculated with 0 EVs, IVs of 0, and a hindering nature, if applicable.
* Maximum stats are calculated with 252 EVs, IVs of 31, and a helpful nature, if applicable.

## Trivia

### Name Origin

Cocrogue is a combination of *"cockroach"* and *"rogue"*.