Pokemon Platinum is renowned for its difficulty spike later on in the game. After battling through Victory Road and defeating your rival for the final time, it’s time to put everything you learned in Sinnoh to the test by defeating the Elite Four and the famously-difficult Pokemon League Champion Cynthia.
Her team has the only EV-trained Pokemon in the entire Sinnoh region, so you’ll almost definitely be needing these tips and tricks to defeat her. Let’s build the ultimate team and strategy and get your Pokemon into the Hall of Fame!
Updated January 19th, 2021 by Gene Cole: Many Pokemon fans are hoping for a return to Sinnoh through either a remake or rerelease of Pokemon Diamond, Pearl or Platinum. As a result, several experienced players are likely returning to take on Cynthia and her powerful friends, so there are plenty of other strategies if you want to survive these tough battles in your Nuzlockes and playthroughs.
15 Fill Up On Water-Types
Unlike many Elite 4 marathons, there’s a fairly common set of weaknesses between Sinnoh’s strongest trainers. Bertha, Flint, and even Cynthia are all quite vulnerable to Water-type Pokemon, meaning that having a team filled with Water-types can carry you to victory through most of these battles.
If you don’t have many, you’ll likely be able to find most Pokemon capable of learning Surf or Waterfall regardless of their type. Sticking to moves like these will give you some guaranteed damage against every opponent in your way.
14 Invest In Your Starter
One of the most classic strategies in all of Pokemon is to simply power-level your initial starter Pokemon, and it works better than ever in Pokemon Platinum. Infernape, Empoleon, and Torterra are all incredibly powerful competitive Pokemon, and each one is capable of defeating most Elite 4 members single-handedly.
Empoleon is likely the greatest in terms of offense thanks to its Water-type moveset, but is worth an additional mention for its high HP and Grass-type attacks to deal with both Bertha and Cynthia quite well. Infernape isn’t as great in terms of type advantage, but its high Speed and Attack stats can still surprise you often.
13 Find The Expert Belt
If you’re taking on a lot of trainers of different types, it’s important to focus all your energy on Super Effective attacks. Few held items can accomplish this easily, but one hiding in Route 221 called an Expert Belt will absolutely help you in this streak of fights.
This item raises the holder's damage by large margins whenever hitting with Super Effective moves, meaning it’s not as limited as the traditional type-boosting items that only boost a single kind of attack. Simply find this item and swap it to whoever you think will carry your team before each Elite 4 member.
12 Grab A Sacrificial Bidoof
Modern Pokemon games don’t typically have HM Slaves anymore, but it’s important to remember that the other great utility of theirs is to take the hits you can’t handle. They won’t be able to harm your opponents often, but a quick swap to them before a lethal hit can sometimes be the perfect saving grace in a dire situation.
Your Bidoofs, Starlys, and Goldeens make for a great switch-in if you need a quick turn to heal, so keep them in your team as you go into the Elite 4. It might be somewhat silly to have a Bidoof by your side in your Hall Of Fame portrait, but it’s worthwhile if it can carry some weight from your stronger fighters.
11 Leech Seed Stall
For a much less typical strategy to deal with these trainers, using defensive Pokemon and the move Leech Seed can be a great way to slowly drain out any foe over several battles. This will drain their health slowly each turn, letting you use other healing moves and stat-raising moves to maximize your stats while they fail to take you down.
These can be tough to use on Pokemon that aren’t competitively trained, but the ability to use items means you can grind money and have several things to keep you perked up constantly. So long as they don’t have a Super Effective attack, your Leech Seed staller could potentially win an entire battle without even dealing direct damage.
10 Type Match-Ups - Aaron
Aaron is your first opponent in the Elite Four. He's a powerful Bug-type Pokemon user who prioritizes speed over attack power. He starts the battle with his Yanmega, which is particularly dangerous due to its ability Speed Boost, which boosts speed after every turn. This means Yanmega can attack first, giving Aaron the advantage right at the start. Using moves like Trick Room to outsmart the opponent is a good strategy.
RELATED: The 10 Weakest Bug-Type Pokémon, Ranked
It’s important you defeat it as soon as possible with super effective, high power attacks like Thunder or Flamethrower. Bug-type Pokemon are also weak to Rock-type, Ice-type and Flying-type moves, so if you don’t have these moves you have other options. You might hit a stumbling block with his Drapion, which is a dual-type Poison/Dark Pokemon, but a powerful Ground-type move should help you get through it.
9 Type Match-Ups - Bertha
Bertha is a Ground-type expert and the second member of the Elite Four. Go in there with Grass-type, Ice-type and Water-type moves and a win is sure to be yours, as her Pokemon aren’t generally defensive enough to resist Super Effective attacks.
As a larger warning, though, her Golem and Rhyperior are a pair of even stronger Rock and Ground-type Pokemon. Fighting, Ground- and Steel-type moves can be helpful to inflict heavy damage on these two if you happen to lack the usual Ground-type counters.
8 Type Match-Ups - Flint
The third member of the Elite Four is Flint, a dear friend of Sunnyshore Gym Leader Volkner and a powerful Fire-type Trainer. All his Pokemon are Fire-types in this version, after the lack of Fire-types in Pokemon Diamond & Pearl led to him having a few difficult exceptions.
If you’ve got a strong Water or Ground-type Pokemon, this battle shouldn’t give you too much difficulty. Again, Surf and Earthquake prove invaluable.
7 Type Match-Ups - Lucian
The final member of the Elite Four is certainly the toughest. Lucian is a Psychic-type Trainer with a variety of Pokemon across his team. Ghost is a prominent weakness though so Shadow Ball is an excellent move to learn. He starts with his Mr. Mime and Espeon, which are best defeated using Bug, Ghost and Dark-type moves.
His Bronzong is out next, but a Flamethrower or equally-powerful Fire-type move takes it down. Back to Shadow Ball or another strong Ghost-type move to minimize the threat of Alakazam and its high Special Attack stat. Then it’s only Gallade left, who is weak to Flying and Ghost-type moves. With Lucian left crying on the ground, it’s on to the Pokemon Champion.
6 Type Match-Ups - Cynthia
Similar to other champions like Gary, Cynthia is an all-round Pokemon user, so your best bet is to try and match her strength. Her opening Pokemon, Spiritomb, has no weaknesses, meaning it can be extremely difficult to kill after you’ve spent so much time so far focused on Super Effective moves. Make sure you take it down as fast as possible, or it’ll slowly sweep your entire team.
Cynthia’s Garchomp is the stuff of legends and the other major threat. 12 years later, many Trainers say there’s not a harder fight. Ice and Dragon-type moves are your best bet. Finally, her Milotic will go down to strong Grass or Electric-type moves, but try to use Physical moves if you can as its high Special Defense can catch most of these Pokemon off guard.
5 Held Items
While the Expert Belt is especially helpful, nearly any Held Item can turn the tide of a battle in the blink of an eye. Whether you want HP-restoring items like Leftovers, or stat-boosting items like Quick Claw depends on your battle strategy.
All the members of the Elite Four and Pokemon Champion Cynthia have their last Pokemon hold a Sitrus berry, and if you have many of them it can be a great tool for yourself as well. The large boost of health will often catch them off-guard, and give you at least another turn to hit them before you faint.
4 Healing Items
Healing items are going to help during this run. It’s highly unlikely you’ll emerge from each battle unscathed, and even if you do you’ll still have taken PP hits to prevent you from using moves in later battles. It’s strongly suggested you get a fair pile of Elixirs and Revives to make sure you can heal up between each encounter.
More than anything else, Full Restores are worth the high price tag. When your Pokemon are low in health and afflicted with a status condition, you can give them one of these for them to be fully cured. It also saves you from worrying about the number of Antidotes, Berries or Burn Heals you have in your pockets.
3 In-Battle Boosts
You might not have had much experience with in-battle effect items before. There's a range of items you can equip and use to give your Pokemon the edge. HP-restoring berries like Oran and Sitrus can make the difference between a win and a loss.
Furthermore, stat-boosting items like X-Attack and X-Defense can give your Pokemon the edge it needs to beat a particularly tough opponent. If you’ve been holding onto them thinking they’re useless, it’s definitely worth taking a turn to boost a stat if you happen to lack Status Moves on your Pokemon.
2 IV/EV training
No NPC you find in Sinnoh is Individual Value (IV) or Effort Value (EV) trained, with the exception of the Pokemon League Champion Cynthia. If you want to be level with this fearsome Trainer, you’ll need to dedicate a lot of time to breeding your Pokemon for higher EVs to make sure their stats keep up with her.
EVs are points gained from battling wild Pokemon and Pokemon in Trainer battles. The type of Pokemon you defeat determines what set of EV’s are given out, with Pokemon with one high stats usually granting additional points of that stat when defeated. It’s quite complicated, but a great way to grind if you want an additional statistical edge.
1 Over-leveling
If you’ve tried everything this guide has to offer but are still struggling, there’s always the over-leveling strategy. The strongest Pokemon is Cynthia’s Level 62 Garchomp. By Level 80, you might have enough of a level-advantage to take her out. Victory Road is a good place to grind. Another option is trying to beat the Elite Four over and over.
No matter what you choose, make sure you also have your Pokemon hold a Lucky Egg while you grind, as it boosts the experience points you earn from a battle. The process still might take quite a while to complete, but it’s absolutely worth the time if you don’t feel up to Cynthia’s infuriatingly high levels.