Pokémon Diamond and Pearl/The Elite Four

The Elite Four are the last bosses. After defeating them, you face the champion.

When you defeat the champion you are rewarded with the National Pokédex. With that trinket in hand you can visit 5 exclusive locations to capture 5 VERY rare Pokémon.

Also, a note before battle. Once you enter, you cannot leave until you have beaten all four of the Elite Four, plus the Champion. That being said, if you don't want to lose half of your money after losing to one of them, save before you enter, and if you lose, turn your DS off and start it up again. One more thing to be noted: you are not healed in between battles. Make sure to bring several items with you to heal your Pokémon in between battles. More on that later.

Now, there are three things you can do when you lose. The first is this: if you lose after the first or second fight (with heals in between), pull out and level up your Pokémon. More on leveling later. The second thing you can do if you lose by round four or five is fly to a different area (as the second part of Victory Road is added to your Fly spots, allowing you to Fly back to the Pokémon League building without having to go through Victory Road all over again) and get more items. Refer to the Items List on this page. Finally, the third thing you can do if you lose at any round is adjust the Pokémon in your party. This can make a huge difference in battles as the finishing blow is vital to prevent them from healing their Pokémon.

Level and Type Recommendations
Since the Elite Four's Pokémon are between level 55 and 66, the minimal level for your team is around mid-fifties. Even if you have a couple strong Pokémon at level 70, the Elite Four is going to be hard as there is a wide variation of types represented here. So try and balance the levels in your team. A full team of high fifties to low sixties Pokémon with varied types will almost certainly give you victory.

As far as types, if you vary them enough (about five to eight different types should be sufficient), you shouldn't have much trouble. However, there are also certain types that will do especially well. Some recommendations are:


 * Steel: immune to poison moves (handy for the first battle), and also are good defenders against Normal, Bug, Steel, Ice, Rock, Dark, Ghost, and Dragon attacks. The few drawbacks are weaknesses to Fighting, Ground, and Fire, which appear a lot battles to come.
 * Flying: immune to Ground type moves, and also good defenders against Fighting and Bug types, which show up a lot. They have many drawbacks, however, being vulnerable to Rock, Electric, and Ice, many of which appear in your opponent's roster.
 * Water: invaluable against the many Ground, Fire, and Rock type Pokémon you will encounter. And their weaknesses to Grass and Electric appear rarely.
 * Electric: good against the tough Water type Pokémon you will encounter here. Also good against Flying types. Don't use it against Ground or Water/Ground Pokémon, though, as those types are immune to Electric
 * Fire: a good Fire type will make the first battle go in a flash, and will help against the Champion's Roserade, though will be in danger of the reasonably well-numbered ground and water type Pokémon here.

Item Recommendations
Strong Pokémon aside, items are going to play a very essential role to your survival. Since you are not healed between battle, you will undoubtedly be burned out after one or two fights. Also remember that HP isn't everything. If you use powerful attacks a lot, you will find yourself out of PP in no time. So here's a list of good Items to bring with you. You will also want to give every Pokémon in your roster a Hold Item. Give Pokémon with specific types a that type-boosting item. If you want to bring a Pokémon weaker than the rest up to speed, then give it an EXP. Share. If you want more cash after defeating one of the Elite Four, then give a participating Pokémon an Amulet Coin. You can also give items to cause flinching, raise critical-hit chances, or give a berry to restore health automatically. But most berries don't give out that much health so you're better off with a Shell Bell or Leftovers. Black Glasses work very well with Bite as a move, the enemy flinches almost every time so that's a good item.
 * Hyper Potions: X60
 * Revives: X50
 * Any Ethers, Max Ethers, Elixers, or Max Elixers you have left from your adventure
 * Full Heals: X15
 * As many Leppa berries as possible (just in case you run out of PP restoring items)

Aaron (Diamond and Pearl)
Aaron is a master of Bug types. His first Pokémon is, who uses and  to annoy you and  to cause steadily increasing damage. His only attacking move is and his Special Ability is  meaning that side effects such as burning from moves like  or flinching from moves like  won't happen.

also has Bug Buzz and his other moves are all aggressive unlike his defensive counterpart. He has, and. Bug Buzz gets a boost if Beautifly has low HP thanks to his Ability.

Although he isn't as high leveled as Drapion, is the most dangerous of Aaron's Pokémon, since he has extremely high Attack power and all of his moves are Physical Attacks. Even Flying types are not safe from Heracross because of his powerful. Heracross also uses and, both of which are very powerful, although Megahorn lacks accuracy and Close Combat lowers Heracross' Defense and Special Defense. is basically only there to fill a moveslot, although if you're using a Ghost type you should watch out for it. Fortunately, this Heracross does not have the Ability so it is safe to use status conditions on him.

could be a fairly good defensive Pokémon and is designed to stall opponents and cause them to waste PP by using but unfortunately for Aaron, she is a Bug and Flying Pokémon which makes her extremely vulnerable to Rock type moves. Vespiquen is the only member of Aaron's team that is female because it is literally impossible to get a male Vespiquen. She has all three of her signature moves:, and , and she also uses.

is Aaron's highest level Pokémon and is also the only member of his team that is not a Bug type, although he does evolve from a Bug type,. Drapion's only weakness is Ground types but Aaron was smart enough to give him which is super effective on Ground types. Drapion also wields, and, presumably to make up for the fact that he actually isn't a Bug type,. Although Ground type moves are the only moves that are super effective against him, Drapion is basically helpless against Steel types since they are immune to Cross Poison and can resist all three of his other attacks. Aaron should have taught him or  to deal with Steel types but despite preparing Drapion for Ground types, he wasn't clever enough to prepare him for most Steel types. Any Steel type that's at a fairly high level, with the possible exceptions of, , and , who can be hurt a decent amount by X-Scissor for the two half Psychic types and Ice Fang for the half Ground and half Flying-type, can stall Drapion long enough to wear it down and knock it out. Drapion has pretty strong Defense and his makes him immune to Critical Hits.

Aaron (Platinum)
Like all members of the Elite 4 as well as the Champion, Aaron has different Pokémon in Platinum, replacing and  with  and. Yanmega is Aaron's first choice and likes to use to avoid attacks and  to escape if he's at a disadvantage. He also has and, both of which are very dangerous due to Yanmega's high Special Attack and their unpleasant side effects of sometimes lowering Special Defense or causing flinching. Rock-type moves are the best attacks to use on Yanmega. He also has, so if your Pokémon are faster than him, it is likely that they won't be faster for long since Yanmega constantly increases his speed after each turn.

Scizor is powerful and although he's not as fast as its pre-evolved form,, he has to allow him to strike first. Quick Attack gets a boost from his ability. Scizor also has, and. However, he is extremely vulnerable to Fire-type moves.

Aaron's, and  all have exactly the same movesets and abilities they had in Diamond and Pearl. The only difference is that they are at lower levels in the first battle and higher levels in all later battles.

Bertha (Diamond and Pearl)
Bertha is the second member of Elite Four and is a Ground-type expert, although she also has which is a pure Rock-type. Her first Pokémon is which is a defensive Pokémon, using  to cause damage on each turn and  and  to stall you. She also has as a stalling and damaging move. Quagsire is extremely weak against Grass-type moves. Some Quagsire are immune to Water type moves and restore damage when hit by them thanks to but this Quagsire's Ability is the fairly useless, which only prevents  or , which are not moves you're likely to be using anyway.

As mentioned above, Sudowoodo is a Rock type, but, presumably in an attempt to make it seem like a Ground-type, it uses and the only Rock type move it knows is. It also uses the powerful and the priority move  to make up for its appalling Speed. ,, and  won't work on Sudowoodo because of its  ability.

has the same weakness as Quagsire, but is a more aggressive fighter. She is immune to thanks to  and won't be in any danger of being affected by  either. Using is completely pointless, even if she didn't have Oblivious since she uses only Physical Attacks. Whiscash is notable for being the only Pokémon in the Pokémon League who uses an OHKO move, having learned Fissure, although this move is very inaccurate. She also has Earthquake, and.

is exceptionally vulnerable to both Water and Grass-type moves and therefore is probably the weakest member of Bertha's team. She uses, , Earthquake and Sandstorm. Using a fast Pokémon can be risky, unless they can knock out Golem in one blow, because Gyro Ball gains more power against swifter opponents. Brick Break will smash and.

Finally Bertha will use. Having so many of her other Pokémon use Sandstorm was pointless since Hippowdon will summon a sandstorm instantly using her ability and, unlike an ordinary Sandstorm, this will last until the battle has ended or you use a weather changing move or ability of your own. Hippowdon uses to increase her Attack and Defense stats and, since she is slow anyway, the loss of Speed doesn't make much of a difference. Hippowdon also has Earthquake, and, all of which will really hurt if she uses Curse too many times. A Water, Ice or Grass-type who specializes in Special Attacks is the best Pokémon to use, since Physical Attacks will get weaker each time Hippowdon uses Curse.

Bertha (Platinum)
Unlike all the other members of the Elite Four, Bertha has changed the movesets of the Pokémon that she previously had in Diamond and Pearl, which are, and. She has also replaced and  with  and, both of which are at higher levels than her former main Pokémon, Hippowdon.

Like in Diamond and Pearl, Bertha starts with a Water and Ground type although this time it's Whiscash instead of Quagsire. Whiscash no longer has, presumably because Fissure's accuracy is so unreliable and there are actually a lot of Pokémon that are immune to it, instead using and she has also replaced  with. She does still have and  however.

Golem still has Sandstorm and Earthquake but has replaced and  with  and. Since most Grass or Water-types have either enough Defense to endure these moves or enough Speed to strike before Golem can use them, it is still easy to defeat. Golem has which is completely pointless without, the only move Golem can learn that gives Rock Head any use. It should have instead.

Gliscor is probably Bertha's most dangerous Pokémon. She uses Earthquake and all three of the Elemental Fangs:, and. Thank your lucky stars that Gliscor does not have since you're likely to be having to deal with a Sandstorm throughout most of this battle and the last thing you need is for Gliscor to become harder to hit. However, prevents her Attack stat from being dropped, which is bad since she is a powerful Physical Attacker. Gliscor also has strong Defense but her Special Defense is nothing special and she has a massive weakness to Icet-type moves.

Hippowdon is almost exactly the same as she was in Diamond and Pearl, except that she has replaced with  and is no longer Bertha's highest level Pokémon, having been demoted to third highest leveled, after Gliscor and Rhyperior.

Speaking of Rhyperior, she is a very powerful Physical Attacker but, like Golem, extremely vulnerable to Water and Grass types. Rhyperior uses Earthquake,, and her signature move , which is the Rock-type version of. For some reason, this Rhyperior does not have. Instead, she has the completely useless, which is only useful in Double Battles. Oh well, it makes things easier for you.

Flint (Diamond and Pearl)
Despite claiming to be the ultimate authority on Fire types, Flint actually only has two Fire-types in Diamond and Pearl. However, all of his Pokémon have at least one Fire-type move. He starts with, who likes using to power up. He also has to deal with Water, Rock and Ground-types and, thanks to Sunny Day, he can fire it instantly. Rapidash's final move is which can cause paralysis. Rock or Ground-types are the best choices to use against Rapidash. One might expect Water types to be a good choice, but Sunny Day decreases the power of Water type-moves.

Flint also has a who, like Rapidash, knows Sunny Day. He also has which gets a boost from the bright sun. lowers your Pokémon's Defence by two levels and causes damage and lowers Speed. You can easily turn Steelix's Sunny Day against him by using a Fire type.

is the third and final Pokémon on Flint's team that knows Sunny Day and, like Rapidash and Steelix, he has a Fire-type move that gains a boost from it, in his case. Lopunny also has to lower your Pokémon's Attack by two levels and  to turn Special Attacks against you with double the power. He also has the annoying ability so use a male Pokémon or a Pokémon that has. A Fighting type can inflict super effective damage on Lopunny but it needs to be strong enough to win quickly. Otherwise, Lopunny can be very difficult to defeat.

only has one Fire type move. This causes a burn and also halves the Attack stat. Driflim can also increase his evasiveness with, although considering the fact that Drifblim can learn by level up, teaching it Double Team is pointless and a waste of a TM. The only move he has that causes direct damage is which has a very small chance of raising all his stats at once, except evasiveness and accuracy. is used to pass these stat changes on to another member of Flint's team. When battling Drifblim, it is wise to not use a Physical Attack to knock him out because his ability will cause damage if your Pokémon makes direct contact when it defeats it. Dark, Ice and Electric types are the best choices to use against Drifblim.

Finally Flint's is his main Pokémon and also the most dangerous. All of his moves are Physical Attacks and he has to deal with Water and Flying types,  to deal with Pokémon that are fond of using,  to cause severe damage at the cost of some of his own HP and  to strike first and finish off weakened opponents. When Infernape is tired he will activate so if Flare Blitz suddenly seems more powerful than normal, that means that it has gotten a boost thanks to Infernape's Ability. Fortunately, although Flare Blitz get's a boost from Blaze, this can actually work in your favor since the more damage Infernape causes to your Pokémon, the more recoil damage he will take from Flare Blitz.

Flint (Platinum)
In Pokémon Platinum, Flint has replaced, and  with ,  and , with Magmortar replacing  as his highest level Pokémon. Houndoom is up first using to increase the power of his  (note: none of Flint's Pokémon knew Flamethrower in Diamond and Pearl). Houndoom also uses and. He has a high Special Attack stat but lousy Defense so a Physical Attacker is a good choice to take him down.

Flareon has a high Attack stat and the powerful to prove it. He also has to finish weakened opponents,  to cause a burn and  to inflict a lot of damage although Overheat does sharply lower Flareon's Special Attack. A Special Attacker is a good choice since Will-O-Wisp halves the Attack stat. You could also use a Pokémon with, which prevents Will-O-Wisp from lowering your Pokémon's Attack and instead gives them more physical power.

and Infernape are both the same as they were in Diamond and Pearl, just at different levels. Magmortar is now Flint's main Pokémon and is a Special Attacker who uses Flamethrower,, and. Fortunately, Magmortar has to depend on Rapidash and Houndoom to allow him to power up Flamethrower and charge Solar Beam instantly, since he does not know Sunny Day so if Sunny Day wears off or you use or, Magmortar will be easier to defeat. Using Physical Attacks against Magmortar is dangerous because he can burn your Pokémon with. Magmortar can cover all of his weaknesses with Solar Beam and Thunderbolt, but if Sunny Day is not in effect, a Water, Rock or Ground-type should be able to knock him out before he can fire a Solar Beam. Ground is the best choice due to their immunity to Thunderbolt.

Lucian (Diamond and Pearl)
Lucian is the most dangerous member of the Elite 4 and a master of Psychic types. Unlike Aaron, Bertha and Flint, all five of Lucians' Pokémon belong to his signature type, although in Platinum, Bertha and Flint both replace their non-Ground and Fire-types with Pokémon that do belong to their signature type. Lucian starts with who is mainly used to set up  and, although he also has  and, for some reason,. smashes Reflect and Light Screen but won't hurt Mr Mime very much. The best strategy is to just hit it as hard as you can with a super effective move before he can use his defensive moves. makes Mr Mime immune to any sound based moves.

is the only member of Lucians team that is immune to Ghost type moves (although why Normal types are not affected by Ghost type moves is a mystery). He has and  to take down any Ghost type foolish enough to challenge him and also uses  and Psychic. Dark type Pokémon should be able to deal with him fairly easily. Girafarig is immune to flinching because of.

is a Psychic type but also a Fighting-type and does not know any Psychic type moves. All of his attacks are some kind of punch and get a boost from his Ability. allows him to cause damage and restore energy and he also has, and  allowing him to deal with a wide variety of Pokémon. Ghost types are the best choice, as long as they cannot be hit super effectively by any of the Elemental Punches.

is very fast and a devastating Special Attacker. However his Defense is appalling. Alakazam uses which will really hurt any Pokémon that doesn't resist or is not immune to it,  to deal with Dark and Steel types and  to restore half of his energy when he gets tired. Alakazam also has which does not cover any of his weaknesses but is super effective against Rock, Water and Ground types. Don't inflict status conditions on Alakazam because he can send them back at you with.

Lucian's main Pokémon is who is notable for being the only Pokémon in the Sinnoh Pokémon League who has no gender. It has very high Defence and Special Defence and the ability to boost both its Special Defence and Special Attack with. Fortunately, Psychic is its only Special Attack. Bronzong is very slow but allows it to turn its lousy Speed into an advantage. It also has. Bronzong is immune to Ground type moves because of meaning that only Fire type moves are super effective against it, and Earthquake is super effective on Fire types which can make it very hard to defeat.

Lucian (Platinum)
In Platinum, Lucian still uses, and  and all three of them have the same movesets and abilities. However he has replaced and  with  and.

Espeon has very high Special Attack and three moves that take advantage of this, namely, and. This also allows Espeon to cover his weaknesses to Ghost and Dark types so Bug types are the best choice. Espeon also has to strike first and finish exhausted opponents. His special ability is.

Gallade has replaced Bronzong as Lucian's most powerful Pokémon. He is a Physical fighter who knows, , and. Gallade also has as his Special Ability so if you make him flinch his Speed will increase. Ghost types are the best Pokémon to use.

Cynthia (Diamond and Pearl)
Cynthia is the first female league champion in the games. She uses a variety of different types and starts with, who has no weaknesses unless you use or  in which case she becomes weak to Fighting type moves. However Cynthia is not the Champion for nothing and she taught her Spiritomb to deal with Fighting types that can use Foresight. Spiritomb also has and. She also knows the very rare which prevents you or your Pokémon from using items for a few turns. The best strategy with Spiritomb is to just pound her with your strongest moves. Try to finish her as quickly as possible because will lower PP twice as quickly as normal.

In Diamond and Pearl, Cynthia uses two Water types and two Ground types. is both of these types and therefore is very vulnerable to Grass type moves, although she does have to counter this weakness. She also wields, and. Presumably Cynthia realized that was pointless against Grass types because although Gastrodon can learn the move by level up, Cynthia's Gastrodon doesn't know it.

is quite possibly Cynthia's second strongest Pokémon, since she is a powerful Special Attacker and knows, which is very difficult to teach to a Milotic. Although Milotic can use Recover, Cynthia chose to teach her instead, which restores energy but much more slowly. Milotic also has and. An Electric Pokémon who uses Physical Electric type moves is the best choice. Make sure you don't cause status conditions because, if you do, Milotic's will activate and raise her Defense.

is a dangerous opponent and can hit a variety of Pokémon super effectively. In Diamond and Pearl, Lucario is the only male member of Cynthia's team. He knows his species signature move which is powerful and never misses. He also knows, Psychic and Earthquake. Fortunately Lucario does not have very strong defences. Fighting and Fire types are super effective but it is safest to use Ground types since none of Lucario's attacks can hit them super effectively, unless they are also a Dragon, Rock or Steel type. Don't cause Lucario to flinch or his Speed will increase thanks to.

Cynthia also uses a, which should be a very familiar Pokémon by now. However, this Roserade is unique because she knows a move that she can only learn through Breeding. She also has, and  and all four of her moves are strong thanks to her high Special Attack. Shadow Ball covers Roserade's weakness to Psychic types but most are fast enough to deal with her anyway. Fire or/and Flying types should have a fairly easy victory. You could also use an Ice type but it is best to save Ice types for Cynthia's strongest Pokémon. Unless you're using, , , , , or , don't inflict status conditions on Roserade because if you do, Cynthia will recall Roserade causing her to activate , which will heal all of her status ailments.

is Cynthia's most powerful Pokémon and is a very strong Physical Attacker. Her only true weakness is Ice types and even Ice types are not safe because of. Garchomp has amazing endurance and can sometimes even take an from a  after it used  twice. Garchomp has, which is very powerful but inaccurate. She also knows Earthquake like Gastrodon and Lucario, and which forces her to recharge after using it. In addition to Ice types, Dragon types can cause super effective damage but this works both ways, and any Dragon type you use is in danger of being smashed into defeat by Dragon Rush. You're unlikely to be using in this battle but if you do, or have a Pokémon that knows, this will work in Garchomp's favor because  will make her harder to hit.

It is interesting to note that can bring down half of Cynthia's team by itself since Garchomp, Milotic and Lucario have no moves that can hurt it. Of course you'd have to have dealt with Roserade, Spiritomb and Gastrodon though.

Cynthia (Platinum)
In Platinum, Cynthia has replaced her with  and become even more powerful. She is also the only trainer in the Pokémon League who gives her Pokémon different movesets the second time you challenge her. no longer has, having replaced it with but all of her other moves are the same. In the rematch Spiritomb replaces Shadow Ball with giving her ten chances of raising all her stats at once since Ominous Wind can have the same side effect as.

is largely the same in the first challenge and exactly the same in the second apart from her level. In the first battle she uses instead of Shadow Ball.

Togekiss is the only member of Cynthia's team, apart from, that is male. He has high Special Attack and all of his moves take advantage of this. Like Lucario he has. He also wields, and. In the second battle he replaces Shock Wave with Psychic. You're very lucky that this Togekiss does not have because if he did, Air Slash, Psychic and Water Pulse would have a higher chance of causing flinching, loss of Special Defence or confusion. Strangely Cynthia has not taught Togekiss any Physical Attacks, despite the fact that increases his Attack power.

Lucario's moveset is very different from the one he had in Diamond and Pearl in the first battle but, like most of Cynthia's Pokémon, it becomes exactly the same in all of the later battles. In the first battle, Lucario still has Aura Sphere but has replaced, and  with Shadow Ball,  and.

is like Roserade and because she has only one different move from the ones she had in Diamond and Pearl in the first battle and exactly the same moves in later battles. Her different move is Dragon Pulse.

Finally Garchomp has instead of  in the first battle but relearns Brick Break before later battles.