Download Azelf Printable High-Res Infographic

Download Mesprit Printable High-Res Infographic

Download Uxie Printable High-Res Infographic

 

Interactive Azelf Counters Guide

Interactive Mesprit Counters Guide

Interactive Uxie Counters Guide

Azelf Mesprit and Uxie

Arceus’ Angels are here in raids! This trio of legendaries each represents something different. Azelf represents willpower, Mesprit represents emotion, and Uxie represents knowledge. They often get overlooked in favor of the more ravenous Dialga, Palkia and Giratina, and are often interpreted more like the mythicals like Mew and Celebi than Legendaries. Interestingly. all 3 of them have almost identical move pools in Pokemon Go in addition to typing, and therefore, have near identical counters. They may not shake up the meta too strongly, but they all also hold the distinction of the first legendaries released in the wild and will be encounterable even after this event ends. The lake trio, appropriately enough, is biased towards spawning around lakes. They are regional exclusives, however, both as wild spawns and in raids.

They will be available from Thursday, May 2, 2019, at 1 p.m. to Monday, May 27, 2019, at 1 p.m. PDT (GMT −7).

Uxie will be in the Asia-Pacific region, Mesprit will be in Europe / Africa / Middle East region, and Azelf will be in the Americas region.

It is very likely (though not confirmed) that they will rotate following the event, so don’t be too bummed if your favorite isn’t in your area yet!

Infographic Walkthrough

 

Utility

Psychic Attackers:

In terms of raw DPS, Azelf leads the pack of the trio as a Psychic attacker. Even so, it is still left trailing Mewtwo, and in a three-way tie with Alakazam and Espeon for second best. So still top tier, but not the best, and there are cheaper alternatives to fill its role.

Mesprit also has an interesting niche. While it trails a rung lower than Azelf in DPS, its respectable balance of bulk and damage means it remains viable as a psychic attacker when being hit super effectively! It survives Ghost moves from Gengar almost as well as your average dark type, and better than Azelf/Alakazam and Espeon.

Uxie really doesn’t compare, its bulk doesn’t even let it come ahead of Mesprit in terms of total damage output. It needs more firepower behind its Future Sight to be able to compete.

Differences Between Trio

Before we go over the differences, let’s summarize the similarities. These 3 Pokemon all share a typing (and thus, type weakness), both of their fast moves, and 2/3 of their charge moves.

Where they differ is in stat distribution, and the impact their 3rd charge move has on their counters. This makes them also serve as an excellent case study on how Pokemon with the same type/moveset can have different results based on if they are more defensive or offensive.

Ignoring their elemental moveset, the only difference between them is their stats, but this still has a massive impact. Azelf has high Attack and low defense, while Uxie has high Defense and low Attack. A Pokemon skewed towards defense lasts long but takes longer to KO you. A Pokemon skewed towards offense dies fast but KOs fast as well. This roughly equals out the number of deaths between the two of them. The difference is that Ukie’s defense means it will often take you TWICE as long to kill it with the same number of Pokemon. So for Uxie, it’s more important to have enough people so you don’t time out the clock. Conversely, with Azelf, it is more important that you have a strong team that can survive long enough to damage it significantly. High DPS glass cannons are more efficient against Uxie, as they are more likely to survive long enough to offset the time spent on dying/reviving.

Lake Trio’s Movesets

• Fire Blast[Azelf] –Fire Blast is going to be the toughest moveset overall due to hitting many top counters super effectively, and being fired by the member of the trio with the highest base attack. Namely, Weavile, Scizor, and Pinsir will not appreciate it.
• Future Sight -Outside Azelf, Future Sight is going to be the toughest moveset to face with its raw STAB damage from the trio. While an incredibly powerful attack, Dark types are ready to eat it up.
• Blizzard[Mesprit]  –Blizzard is the next hardest, hitting Giratina-O super effectively (as well as Honchkrow and Pinsir). 
• Swift -Swift is a blessing sent to Ghost-types who have double resistance and is a pretty easy moveset for any of the trio due to not hitting anything for super effective damage.
• Thunder[Uxie] –Thunder is the easiest elemental move to deal with, and it’s being fired by the softy of the trio. Even when it hits super effectively, it doesn’t necessarily hurt the Pokemon too bad.

General Azelf Counters

These bosses are one of the most vanilla Psychic type bosses ever. Gone are the monster Focus Blasts and Shadow Balls from Mewtwo and Alakazam! The Trio’s moveset is perfectly suited to be hard countered by the standard Dark and Ghost-type counters to Psychic. I

If you are against Future Sight, Dark types double resistance to Psychic and have amazing bulk. If you are against Swift, Ghost Types are rocking double resistance to Normal-type. Dark and Ghost-types, in general, are overall stronger than their Bug brethren, but these movesets just compound it. Bug types have to worry about Fire Blast as well which just adds a little bit of insult to injury.

The Lake Guardians take 1.6x damage from Bug / Ghost / Dark.

Azelf and Mesprit can be beaten by 2 players in optimal weather

Uxie can be beaten by 3 players in optimal weather.

Giratina – Origin

•⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Bulk
•⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Damage
•⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Accessibility

Giratina is sitting in a fantastic spot against these Pokemon. He is already the best Ghost Type attacker having swiped the title from Mewtwo, having both the Bulk and DPS to survive. But his ghost typing also gives him double resistance against Swift, and his dragon typing gives him resistance to both Fire Blast and Thunder! He is certainly your best choice against this trio. He does have a dip in performance against Mesprit’s Blizzard (given Dragon Ice weakness) but that isn’t even enough to dethrone him from his top spot. This leads to him on average having just about TWICE the survivability against any other top counter. If you have the option, go with the Floaty Centipede.

Mewtwo

Mewtwo is of course, also phenomenal. On average they are the strongest choice following Giratina-but his position isn’t as stable as it usually is. Dark and Ghost types have double resistances while Mewtwo only has a regular resistance, so depending on the moveset there are still arguments to use other Pokemon if you don’t have a floaty Giratina. Giratina itself is strictly superior to Mewtwo though, beating it in all metrics, even in Windy weather.

Tyranitar

•⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Bulk
•⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Damage
•⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Accessibility

Tyranitar has top tier bulk (even more so than Giratina-O) as well as having resistance to both Fire Blast and Blizzard. This makes him the best tank choice for attempting to two-man Azelf or Mesprit if you want to avoid rejoins. He, of course, has the best performance against Psychic movesets.

Gengar

•⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Bulk
•⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Damage
•⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Accessibility

Gengar manages to equal Giratina against Swift movesets, and actually jump ahead if you have legacy movesets. Notably being the only Pokemon capable of exceeding Giratina-O on moveset alone. His Poison duel typing, however, punishes him extra hard against psychic movesets, dropping him to being similar to Drifblim and Mismagius. So while he has a niche where he excels, just as often he suffers making him significantly less consistent in his positions. His overall fragility also means his performance is less reliable between the different bosses, being much more likely to be one hit KO’d against Azelf than Uxie.

Houndoom

•⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Bulk
•⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Damage
•⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Accessibility

Houndoom shares Tyranitar ambivalence to Fire Blast and Blizzard movesets, allowing him to reliably rise about Absol and even Honchkrow on average. Against Pure Psychic movesets, the other Dark-types reassert themselves, but Houndoom has the distinction of making it into the top 6 in a world with Giratina-O, Mewtwo, Tyranitar and Gengar.

Weavile Vs.

•⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Bulk
•⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Damage
•⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Accessibility

Weavile continues to top the Dark type charts, having the best non-Giratina performance against Psychic movesets on average. Weavile, however, is absolutely obliterated by Fire Blast (at which point, *Feraligar* becomes a better choice). But that is not to understate that is is usually the best Dark-type option for pure DPS.

Alternative Azelf Counters

Honchkrow Vs.

•⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Bulk
•⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Damage
•⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Accessibility

While Honchkrow has top tier attack power as a Dark type-he has some bad matchups here that diminish him. Thunder knocks him down a peg, but Blizzard absolutely knocks him out of the rankings, falling below Haunter even. So against Mesprit be careful. Uxie really doesn’t have the power to make Thunder too terrifying to him, however.

Absol

•⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Bulk
•⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Damage
•⭐⭐☆☆☆ Accessibility

Absols pure dark typing insulates them to both the benefits and disadvantages of odd elemental type matchups, which allows it to skirt into the top 10. But on average their lack of special resistances still lead them to have low survivability, even less than Weavile.

Raikou

•⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Bulk
•⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Damage
•⭐⭐☆☆☆ Accessibility

Yes, Raikou can learn Shadow Ball now. While bizarre, it does have pretty good tankiness against Thunder (similar to Mewtwo). But Thunder is probably the least important moveset to come prepared for (given it’s exclusive to the softy Uxie) and its lack of special resistances otherwise make it on the more frail side. Also, getting a Shadow Ball Raikou is a use of resources that is pretty hard to justify given Raikou’s utility as an Electric Type.

Deoxys – Attack Vs.

•⭐☆☆☆☆ Bulk
•⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Damage
•⭐☆☆☆☆ Accessibility

Deoxys jumps all over the place. It really just comes down to if it survives long enough to make use of its Dark Pulses. It has horrific survivability, is very difficult to acquire, and has inconsistency like no other, but, if you want to make use of it, you might get lucky. And hey, now that the dodge glitch is fixed, some assumptions we have about how useful it is might be disproven with enough skill! Its best use case is against Fire Blast Azelf or Swift Uxie.

Pinsir

•⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Bulk
•⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Damage
•⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Accessibility

Bug type sadly doesn’t get inherent resistances to Psychic-types, which means they will always be at a disadvantage against the competition. Pinsir, however, has pretty reliable performances against all movesets, with the exception of Fire Blast Azelf, which drops him down to similar performance to Banette. In terms of Bug types though, he reliably has more overall attack power than Scizor.

Sharpedo

•⭐⭐☆☆☆ Bulk
•⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Damage
•⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Accessibility

While not top tier, Sharpedo has respectable performance. It is probably the only Pokemon that is frail enough to really fear Uxie’s soggy Thunder attack hitting it for weakness.

Mismagius

On the more expensive side, Mismagius is able to survive psychic attacks somewhat better than Gengar at least.

Scizor

Scizor has almost identical performance to Pinsir, with higher bulk due to Steel typing giving them a resistance to psychic attacks. Beware of Fire Blast though. Fire may be Scizors only weakness, but it’s a double weakness and it will never survive one from Azelf. On the bright side, they were made incredibly accessible due to the recent bug event!

Salamence

Salamence also benefits from a huge increase in accessibility recently, as well as a handy resistances to Fire Blast.

Banette

Banette jumps all over the scale in performance, and while sometimes it shines as high as Gengar-it’s just so frail that its anyone’s guess how it will pan out.

Drifblim

Drifblim has an inverse problem to Banette, is it respectably tanky but with that durability, it often can’t do top tier damage. It also is difficult to get outside of its initial release, due to being largely a weather exclusive.

Crawdaunt

Ok, we’re getting pretty low on the list now but cut Crawdaunt some slack. No one ever talks about him but he can still pull his weight in a fight.

Yanmega

A decent bit below Scizor and Pinsir, Yanmega’s flying duel type does not do it any favors against Blizzard and Thunder.

Cacturne

Similar to Crawdaunt, Cacturne is not really that bad despite its lack of reputation. Won’t do too well against Fire Blast though.

Gyarados

Dark Gyarados has some notability when fighting Psychic Pokemon with Focus Blast-But against these bosses, being off type doesn’t serve much benefit.

Muk – Alola

Alolan Muk typing is excellent, only having a weakness to ground. But at the end of the day, it just doesn’t hit as hard. It’s rather colorful though, and if you wanna power it up, you can make use of it.

Spiritomb

Unless you were playing during Halloween you won’t be able to have one, and even if you do, that means you were playing when lots of better dark and ghost type Pokemon were available. But they are fun and if you want to make use of it they are decently tanky.

 

Closing Thoughts

This gentle trio from Sinnoh has finally come to raids! While there is no need to throw out your Mewtwo’s for them, they remain a welcome addition to our arsenal of diverse Psychic Type attackers.