Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl: Cynthia Guide

Our Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl complete guide and walkthrough continues right after you beat Elite Four Lucian in the Pokemon League. It's finally time to face Champion Cynthia. The final obstacle standing between you and the illustrious Hall of Fame.

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After bumping into her so many times throughout the main story, it should come as no surprise that Cynthia is the Champion of the Sinnoh Pokemon League. To this day, she’s arguably one of the single greatest trainers in the history of Pokemon games – it’s no wonder Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl mark the fourth generation she’s appeared in.

Updated December 26, 2024, by Andrew Scariati: Defeating Cynthia in BDSP is no easy task, as you'll need to bring the right Pokemon to stand a chance against Cynthia's team. Use our recommended teams and strategies that we've updated below to defeat Cynthia in BDSP. We've also added a team example at the bottom to help you prepare.

Cynthia's Team In Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl

We’ll get to what makes Cynthia so great in a minute, but first, let’s take a quick peek at her party. Don’t get intimidated – we’re going to discuss exactly how to counter her in great detail, so by the end of this guide you should be a shoo-in for the newly crowned Champion of Sinnoh.

Cynthia’s Full Team

Pokemon	Level	Type(s)	Weaknesses
Spiritomb	61	Ghost/Dark	Fairy
Roserade	60	Grass/Poison	Fire Ice Flying Psychic
Gastrodon	60	Water/Ground	Grass (quadruple)
Lucario	63	Fighting/Steel	Fire Fighting Ground
Milotic	63	Water	Electric Grass
Garchomp	66	Dragon/Ground	Ice Dragon Fairy

How To Beat Cynthia's Spiritomb

Empoleon Togekiss Gyarados Tyranitar

Spiritomb might seem like a bit of a weird lead at first, but it’s an incredible pick for stalling you right out of the gate.

The only type it’s weak to is Fairy, and its massive Defense and Special Defense stats allow it to eat up the vast majority of non-STAB Fairy attacks as if they’re Tackles straight out of Route 201.

Its constant spamming of Shadow Ball and Dark Pulse will consistently lower your Pokemon’s Special Defense until they’re incapable of taking another hit, meaning that unless you’ve got a plan, Spiritomb is going to make it 1-0 to Cynthia before the fight even properly begins.

What you need, then, is a lead who resists Spiritomb’s attacks and can dish out decent damage without taking much itself.

Empoleon is great for this, although if you chose Chimchar or Turtwig, there are plenty of other Pokemon who also fit the bill.

Togekiss can use STAB Fairy attacks to quickly deal with Spiritomb while simultaneously walling it.

Any big hitters like Tyranitar, Gyarados, Dialga, Palkia, and so on will also be able to quickly whittle its health down with powerful STAB attacks, especially if you manage to pull off a buff move like Swords Dance or Dragon Dance.

How To Beat Cynthia's Roserade

Recommended Pokemon Empoleon Togekiss Gyarados Tyranitar Recommended Pokemon

Recommended Pokemon Infernape Houndoom Staraptor Garchomp Recommended Pokemon
Infernape	Houndoom
Staraptor	Garchomp

Roserade is much easier to take on. While it’s scary fast and can hit quite a lot of your Pokemon with STAB Sludge Bomb, it will also go down in one hit to any powerful Fire, Flying, Ice, or Ground move.

You can take it down with Infernape, Staraptor, or any Pokemon with STAB Earthquake, but beware of how much damage you will take if it outspeeds you.

You only need one hit, but you don’t want to be giving up three-quarters of a health bar this early in the fight either.

How To Beat Cynthia's Gastrodon

Recommended Pokemon Roserade Torterra Recommended Pokemon
Roserade	Torterra

Gastrodon is one of Cynthia’s Weakest Links.

The important thing to remember here is despite having the Sticky Hold ability in the original games, Cynthia’s Gastrodon has the Storm Drain ability now.

You may learn this the hard way if you get two Dragon Dances off with Gyarados.

If you hit Gastrodon with a Water-type move, it will be converted into a Special Attack buff.

Gastrodon hit us with Rock Tomb and brought us down to red HP.

Given that we couldn’t one-shot it with Crunch or Avalanche, we were forced to switch out or die to a second Rock Tomb.

If you can help it, you should really be running either Roserade or Torterra against Gastrodon, both of whom can OHKO it with STAB Grass attacks that are quadruple super-effective.

How To Beat Cynthia's Lucario

Recommended Pokemon
Houndoom	Scyther
Salamence	Infernape

Weirdly enough, Lucario isn’t too scary at all. Despite being a great Pokemon in general, it is the least annoying ‘mon on Cynthia’s team by a long shot.

It’s weak against Fighting, Fire, and Ground attacks and has a lower base Speed stat than: Infernape, Staraptor, Aerodactyl, Crobat, Rapidash, Scyther, Charizard, Nintetales, Salamence, Houndoom, and more.

All of these Pokemon have access to at least one powerful STAB move against it, and four of them have been consistent mainstays in our recommendations for the best Pokemon to bring to the Elite Four throughout this walkthrough.

Realistically speaking, it’s fairly likely that Lucario won’t even touch you.

How To Beat Cynthia's Milotic

Recommended Pokemon Luxray Magnezone Electevire Recommended Pokemon
Luxray	Magnezone
Electevire

Milotic is an extremely annoying stall Pokemon.

While it had no held item in the original games, it now has a Flame Orb.

While this might seem like a bad thing, it’s important to remember what was previously its signature ability: Marvel Scale.

For those unacquainted with this ability, it means that Milotic’s Defense increases by 50 percent when it has a status condition.

True, it may be taking slight damage every turn, but it’s also capable of swatting away your attacks as if you’re pelting it with wet tissues.

The best bet is to target it with Electric or Grass moves.

Given that Marvel Scale boosts its Defense, it doesn’t matter whether you opt for physical or special techniques – both will do roughly the same amount of damage.

Just remember that this Milotic knows Ice Beam and can easily shred Grass ‘mons.

Roserade with Giga Drain is a decent choice when it works due to your ability to regain health, but one crit and you’re out.

How To Beat Cythnia's Garchomp

Recommended Pokemon Mamoswine Togekiss Garchomp Weavile Recommended Pokemon
Mamoswine	Togekiss
Garchomp	Weavile

This brings us to Cynthia’s best and final Pokemon: Garchomp. Cynthia’s ‘Chomp is renowned among Pokemon fans as one of the most notoriously powerful Pokemon in any of the mainline games.

What makes matters worse is that this ‘Chomp is even better than the one in the original games because it has access to Swords Dance.

Garchomp has STAB Earthquake and Dragon Claw, meaning that if it gets a Swords Dance off, it’s able to one-shot almost anything you throw at it, regardless of effectiveness.

It’s also got monstrous Speed and Attack stats, meaning it will win a 1v1 against pretty much anything you have at your disposal during your first Elite Four run.

Weirdly enough, Garchomp is a great counter against Garchomp, provided your Garchomp is at a higher level than Cynthia’s.

Failing this, a Weavile can take it out in one hit with a STAB Avalanche if you’re slower than it and have a Focus Sash equipped.

Mamoswine can also swallow one hit, retaliate with Ice Fang or Avalanche, and get priority on the next turn with Ice Shard.

If you’d rather not go down the Ice route despite the fact it’s quadruple super-effective against Garchomp - admittedly, physical Ice moves aren’t the hardest-hitting attacks in the world.

The Togekiss that saved you from Spiritomb will also resist anything Garchomp throws at it while being able to bombard it with super-effective Moonblasts or Dazzling Gleams.

You have options here - you just need to consider them before you send out all five of your other Pokemon and watch them drop like flies.

At least if your counter dies, you can revive it by sacking someone else.

Pokemon Team To Go Against The Entire Elite Four

There you have it - the final guide of our complete Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl walkthrough with a full breakdown of how to counter Cynthia’s ridiculous team.

If you were to ask us now to narrow it down to six Pokemon for taking on the entire Elite Four, we’d probably go with a balanced mix of the following:

• Your fully evolved starter
• Togekiss
• Roserade
• Gyarados
• Staraptor
• Dialga
• Palkia
• Tyranitar
• Houndoom
• Garchomp
• Magnezone
• Luxray
• Salamence

If you have several of these Pokemon at your fingertips but are struggling to form them into a complementary team, here's an example for you to use:

1. Your Starter
2. Roserade
3. Togekiss
4. Garchomp
5. Houndoom
6. Staraptor

This team offers an excellent blend of attacking moves and powerful resistances so you can take down Cynthia in BDSP.

Now that you’ve successfully made it into the Hall of Fame check out our postgame guides, which will tell you everything you need to know about Legendary Pokemon, shiny hunting, competitive battling, breeding, and much more.

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