I think xatu serves a better role with magic bounce, although weak to ice and electric which can be nullified by using roost, it's part flying type gives it better switch in options to set up wizards. It threatens ferro etc even scizor better with heatwave, keeps breloom in double check with access to psyshock/chic, provides u turn support to volt-turn cores, can baton pass too, wish pass, list is endless almost and can provide this all with a better bulk/typing than espeon can. Scizor/genesect/lando t won't ohko xatu with u turn which they're all capable of doing to espeon, the only thing xatu fears from scizor is pursuit but so does espeon, base 95 speed isn't terrible and you can get away with not investing in it too deeply to counter sub/toxic defensive gliscor as xatu doesn't fear earthquake.
Xatu
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 132 HP / 188 Def / 140 SAtk / 48 Spd
Timid Nature
- Heat Wave
- Psyshock
- Roost
- Hidden Power [Ice]
I use this build and it performs much better than espeon imo with scarf genesect running around, 48 speed and timid means it can outspeed jolly scizor albeit not common but being kept in check by such little ev investment doesn't hurt, it also out speeds defensive gliscor. 188 def gives it more than sufficient defensive bulk to survive stabs from set up walls and breloom/scizor, 132hp hits a leftovers % and by not investing in sp def means genesect gets a sp atk boost against it rather than a physical one which eases pressure on the rest of the team by not having to worry about +1 u turns which are arguably worse. 140 sp atk investment means you can run expert belt and get a guaranteed ohko on specially defensive sword dance scizor. Heatwave is obvious to check all the common steel walls and bulky amoonguss, psyshock is a 2nd win condition against amoonguss since it's stab and also keeps breloom in check. Roost to keep xatu in the game more. Now the 4th move is filler and in gen6 can be your best friend too, since xatu gets access to the much sought after defog meaning if u mis-predict and ur opponent gets rocks up xatu can be your pseudo spinner too, hp ice is an offensive filler and can dent many pokemon on the switch as well as gliscor 1v1. Toxic can also be used to play stall games with chansey etc, u turn to give volturn support. There's so much more viable, can use trick with choice specs/scarf to further cripple everything it already checks or could even outspeed mega gengar that may try to revenge kill it thinking it can trap and outspeed. Xatu also takes about half dmg from specially defensive heatran meaning it can stall it with roost if it comes in on the switch, or if heatran switches in and has hp ice, roost up to nullify its ice weakness.
So yeh, gen 6 ou xatu analysis please :P