In Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, Cynthia is a dreaded opponent for many players considering she has the most diverse arsenal. If you want to save yourself from constantly reloading the game and getting frustrated battle after battle, it’s important to carefully select your team if you want to fight and win against Cynthia.
Best Team to Fight Cynthia in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl
So, you’ve gotten through the Elite Four and it’s finally time to face down the champion Cynthia. She is certainly no walk in the park. She’s not just tough, but annoyingly so. It’s because even though the best bet is to use Pokémon that can attack her Pokémon’s weaknesses, it can work against you. Her Pokémon will counter once they catch onto what you’re doing.
If you want to get the best team to fight Cynthia in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, then you had best get some Pokémon that can exploit her weaknesses and do it quickly. To start, let’s look at her initial line-up. Cynthia uses six Pokémon, and here they are in order of Level:
- Roserade: Level 60 | Grass & Poison | Weakness to Ice, Psychic, Flying, & Fire
- Gastrodon: Level 60 | Water & Ground | Weakness to Grass
- Spiritomb: Level 61 | Ghost & Dark | Weakness to Fairy
- Lucario: Level 63 | Fighting & Steel | Weakness to Ground, Fire, & Fighting
- Milotic: Level 63 | Water | Weakness to Electric & Grass
- Garchomp: Level 66 | Dragon & Ground | Weakness to Dragon, Fairy, & Ice
As you can see, Cynthia is not the person to play around with.
Let’s look at repeating weaknesses: grass and fire. Four out of six of Cynthia’s Pokémon have one of those. For fire, you can try out Houndoom or Magby. Both can handle Lucario and Roserade well. Infernape can also work if you have evolved one of the starter Pokémon.
To handle Garchomp and Spiritomb, focus on Pokémon like Palkia, Dialga, Gengar, or your own Garchomp. However, Abomasnow is also a good choice if you focus on defense because it can stand firm against Garchomp’s frequent Earthquake moves. At the same time, it has ice moves so it can exploit Garchomp’s weakness and Roserade as well.
Another good team addition to fighting Cynthia in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl is Torterra for its grass powers. If you don’t have a strong ice or fire type to handle Roserade, you can always focus on a flying Pokémon like Staraptor to step in.
Togekiss is another great choice. This has both fairy and flying skills, so it can do well against heavy-hitters like Garachomp and chip away at Spiritomb’s only weakness.
You can always teach some of your Pokémon to use moves that don’t come naturally to them. Like teaching a strong Pokémon that isn’t an ice type some ice type moves to hold against Garchomp or having an ice type learn grass type moves for more versatility.
Encountering Cynthia in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl takes patience as she can be a tricky opponent. It pays to be flexible with your team line-up so that you can fight and win against her without having to bang your head against the wall 20 or 30 times. It may just take 10 instead.
Don’t forget your heals as you’ll need them.
Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl is available now on Nintendo.
