I'm using this guy to play through the game right now, and I gotta say he is pretty awesome. His stats and typing make me a bit weary in a competitive environment however. Psycho Shift is pretty amazing with Flame Orb. I saw people talking about Flame Orb re-activating, however I could have swore it breaks on use. Can anybody confirm or deny this?
With a lot of the listed sets, you're better off just using Clefable.
Shinbora: 72/58/80/103/80/97
Clefable: 95/70/73/85/90/60
The Clef has better defensive stats, access to Encore to ease set-up, Magic Coat to reflect taunt, four less weaknesses (lol), and MG Clef makes any ghost without focus blast pretty useless (Curse/Toxic/WoW null by MG, Shadow Ball/Sneak/Claw null by typing). And Magic Guard + Follow Me in doubles is pretty damn amazing.
That said, Shin has his own niche, particularly through Psycho shifting burns and switching into fighting moves with that 4x res. He's also faster and actually has sweep potential without CM and can pull off a little STAB flinch hax when it must. Without Psycho Shift, the Clef is just plain better though. Even with CM sweep set, Clef is going to last longer therefore being able to get more CMs in. His stab certainly isn't as useful, but gets fire moves to deal with steels and Psycho Shock to do Blissey in. I will say, Roost is a better heal option than Moonlight, but Clef's 95 base HP makes him a decent Wish passer and gets heal bell and/or aromatherapy (lol would work against you if you purposely burned yourself though) if you were going to just use him as a team cleric.
Alakazam supposedly gets Magic Guard through the DW. When that is released, I feel like Shin will get fall out of usage. Other than shifting burn (which if Flame Orb breaks after use, only has so much use) he'll just be a poor man's Alakazam or a poor man's Clefable.