Palkia is Pokémon Shining Pearl’s mascot and – in our opinion – the most well-designed Legendary Pokémon in the fourth generation. Unfortunately, our praises end there: while Palkia is rather strong in Singles, it can’t do all that much in Doubles and is generally rather outclassed. If you’re playing Shining Pearl and want to learn more about Legendary Pokémon, check out our corresponding guide. Otherwise, let’s jump right into today’s moveset guide!
Singles & Doubles
Our first setup is for Singles, and it prioritizes Sp. Attack and Speed. Palkia is actually ten points faster than Dialga, and so it reaches base 100 speed. For moves, you’ve got solid coverage all around — those plus a Life Orb equals lots of extra power. If you like, you can swap out Thunderbolt for Thunder or Flamethrower for Fire Blast. We personally prefer Thunderbolt and Flamethrower for their higher accuracy, but the choice is yours. Remember, you’ll need some BP in order to buy a Life Orb, so make sure you do a few games at the Battle Tower first.
Our Doubles set is the same general idea as the one above: attack a wide variety of opponents using three offensive moves of different types. Protect, as always, is there just in case you predict that your opponent is going to attack Palkia. Keep Palkia protected for a turn and then use your other Pokémon to attack! We run Lustrous Orb here to keep Palkia healthy and to increase the power of its Water- and Dragon-type attacks.
If you have any questions about the steps you need to take to make your Palkia battle-ready, feel free to join our Discord community! We can help you more there, or even trade you items as needed. If you’re playing Brilliant Diamond and want to look up a Dialga moveset, we’ve got a post right here you can refer to! In the meantime, we hope this was helpful to you. Happy training!
If you would like to read more Pokémon guides, please follow this link.
