The Elite Four kicks off with Aaron, a Bug-type enthusiast, who won't be easy to crush underfoot.
Note: This guide is for your first match with him. His team and levels change during rematches.
His team
Aaron has five Bug Pokémon that hop around to throw at you:
- Dust – Level 53
- Moves: Toxic, Bug Buzz, Moonlight, Light Screen
- Ability: Shield Dust
- Item: Black Mud
- Beautiful – Level 53
- Moves: Bug Buzz, Shadow Ball, Psychic, Quiver Dance
- Ability: Swarm
- Item: Wise Glasses
- Vespicen – Level 54
- Moves: Acrobatics, Attack Order, Air Ace, Defense Order
- Ability: enrage
- Item: Citrus Berries
- Heracross – Level 54
- Movements: earthquake, landslide, facade, broken brick
- Ability: Guts
- Item: Flame Orb
- Flag - Level 57
- Mouvements : Cross Poison, Night Slash, Earthquake, X-scissor
- Ability: Sharpshooter
- Item: Scope Lens
Related: How to beat Volkner in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl
Strategy
Dustox is a threat. His plan is to set up a light screen, use Toxic, and then use Moonlight as needed to heal while your Pokemon's HP drops. He even has a Black Sludge to heal himself at the end of each round. Build muscle fast with fire, flight, rock, or psychic moves fast.
Beautifly takes the opposite approach to that of Dustox. He wants to settle in with Quiver Dance to become a special attack monster and sweep through your team with his diverse moveset. His wise glasses also help him for this purpose. It's pretty squishy, so a solid fire, flight, electricity, or ice move or two should knock it out, while a single four times effective rock move should definitely bring it down.
Vespiquen wants to use Uphold Order until he hits yellow HP and eats his Sitrus Berry, then uses empowered acrobatics to do high damage. Its damage is limited to Flying and Bug, however, so a Rock or Steel-type Pokemon will completely shut Vespiquen down.
Heracross is terrifying. He has a huge attack stat that only gets stronger after the first round is over, he is burned by Flame Orb and the burn activates his Guts ability. Add in its killer repertoire of moves and almost no Pokemon is safe. Knock him out as quickly as possible with a Flight-type move, but be careful that it doesn't hit you first with Rock Slide.
Drapion can fail pathetically or destroy everything. Drapion's entire kit (aside from Earthquake) is all about getting critical hits. Night Slash, Cross Poison, and X-Scissor all have increased crit ratios, Scope Lens increases Drapion's crit chance, and his Sniper ability causes crits to deal increased damage.
Your best bet for taking on Drapion is to either rush it via a fast Pokemon with a Ground-type move (its only weakness) or try to resist its hits with a tank.
If you want to create your own monstrous Heracross, check out Best Nature for Heracross in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl on Tipsforallgames!
