Dark-type Pokémon are your best choice for dealing with Ghost and Psychic types. Luckily, there are many good S-Tier Dark-type Pokémon in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.

The game also has many Pokémon that might not have more than 570 total base stats but have important high stats and an Ability that makes them viable.

Besides, some combinations of types make for really interesting Pokémon. Find below the best Dark-type Pokémon in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.

Brute Bonnet Amoonguss

Brute Bonnet Amoonguss

Brute Bonnet Amoonguss is an Scalet Exclusive Paradox Pokémon. As the name suggests, it is a Paradox version of Amoonguss.

This is a reasonably powerful Pokémon with 570 total base stats, which puts it in the S-Tier. Its Type combination, Grass and Dark, makes Brute Bonnet Amoonguss weak to seven attack types and resistant to seven other types.

It takes twice as much damage from Flying, Poison, Fire, Ice, Fighting, and Fairy attacks. Be especially careful with Bug-type attacks.

Although Bug-types are not the most used Pokémon, be careful when someone throws a bug at you. Brute Bonnet Amoonguss takes four times as much damage from Bug attacks.

On the other hand, this pokémon takes only half as much damage from Rock, Water, Grass, Electric, Ghost, and Dark attacks. It is also immune to psychic attacks.

Having so many weaknesses and strengths make Brute Bonnet Amoonguss a high-risk, high-reward type of Pokémon.

This is even more significant when you consider the fact its highest IV stat is Attack, which can be up to 127 or higher if you have the Brave Nature.

Meowscarada

Meowscarada 2

Meowscarada is not an S-tier Pokemon, but it is nearly as good as one. It can have 530 total base stats and might come with either Overgrow, Swift Swim, or Protean as an ability.

Its highest IV stats are Speed, which can be up to 124, and Attack, which can be as high as 110.

Being that fast with a decent enough attack stat makes Meowscarada a very reliable Grass-type choice, but you must go mostly with physical attacks to make the most of his damage potential.

Since Meowscarada is also a Dark-type Pokemon, it is especially vulnerable to Bug-type attacks. Luckily, this is not the most popular type in the franchise. That said, it still takes double damage from Flying, Poison, Fire, Ice, Fighting, and Fairy attacks.

On the other hand, this Pokémon is immune to Psychic attacks and takes 50% less damage from Ground, Water, Grass, Electric, Ghost, and Dark attacks.

This pretty much means that Meowscarada is effective against half of Pokémon types and Weak against the other half.

Chi-Yu

Chi Yu Lesser

This is a weird fish since it’s not even a Water-type Pokémon. Chi-Yu is actually weak to Fire-type damage due to being a Fire-type Pokémon. You might want to check our guide on Pokémon’s strengths and weaknesses to understand it better.

Chi-Yu is a Fire- and Dark-type fish Pokémon. It can have Guard Dog, Beads of Ruin, or Beads of Ruin as an Ability.

Besides the good Abilities that might come with this Pokémon, It can also have a total base stats of 580, which makes it an S-Tier Pokémon.

Chi-Yu’s highest stat is Special Attack, going as high as 145, which gets even better with the right Nature. The Modest Nature grants your Pokémon +10% Special Attack, causing Chi-Yu to have an undeniably dangerous one-shot potential. 

Since Chi-Yu is a combined Fire- and Dark- Pokémon, it takes half damage from Ghost-, Dark-, Steel-, Grass-, and Ice-type moves.

On the other hand, it is immune to psychic-type attacks. Unfortunately, although it resists many attack types, it also takes double damage from Fighting-, Rock-, Water-, and Ground-type attacks.

Chien-Pao

Chien Pao

Chien-Pao is one of the coolest-looking S-Tier Pokémon. It is a Dark- and Ice-type Pokémon with a total base stat of 580 and has a chance of having Sword of Ruin or Guard Dog as an Ability.

Its Highest possible IV is 135 Speed, which is devastating combined with its high Attack of 130. With the Naive Nature, the Pokémon gains 10% more Speed and loses 10% Special Defense.

Chien-Pao’s greatest issue is its resistance and weaknesses. It takes twice as much damage from Bug-, Fairy-, Rock-, Steel-, and Fire-type moves. It also takes four times as much damage from Fighting-type moves.

As for its resistances, Chien-Pao is immune to Psychic-type attacks and takes half damage from Ghost-, Dark-, and Ice-type moves.

Some of the best attacks you can use with Chien-Pao are Blizzard and Giga Impact.

For some reason, the moves this Pokémon learns by leveling up are far from being the best in the game. You might want to check the best TMs in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet to solve this issue.

A number of Stakes and locked-away shrines may be found throughout the game in the Paldea Region.

You can visit a province’s sealed shrine and catch the Legendary Pokémon Chien-Pao there. In order to gain access to Chien-Pao, you must first remove all eight stakes in that province.

Wo-Chien

Wo Chien

Wo-Chien is undoubtedly an interesting S-Tier Pokémon. Although its damage is lower than Meowscarada’s, one of the best Grass-type Pokémon in Scarlet and Violet, it actually can have a total base stat of 580. Its ability can be Guard Dog and Tablets of Ruin.

With the Sassy Nature, Wo-Chien has +10% Special Defense, which is already his highest IV stat, being up to 135. Its Defense stat is 100, which is also pretty high.

Similarly to Meowscarada, Wo-Chien is a Dark- and Grass-type Pokémon, making it effective against half of the cast and not great against the other half.

That said, this Pokémon isn’t as capable of deleting others as the initial Grass-type Pokémon. Still, it might be able to take special attacks from an effective type due to its high special defense and surprise your opponent with a good tactical move right after.

As long as it is not dealing with one of the best Fire-type Pokémon in the game, Wo-Chien can probably surprise you with how much damage it can take.

Tablets of Ruin, one of this Pokemon’s most valuable characteristics, reduces the opponent’s Physical Attack stat by 25%.

This ability makes it much more challenging for enemy Pokémon to overcome Wo Chien’s outstanding defense.

Roaring Moon Salamence

Roaring Moon Salamance

The Paradox Pokémon Roaring Moon Salamence belongs to the Dragon and Dark types. Surprisingly, its combined stats, which may reach a maximum of 590, are not better than Salamence’s but are quite close to it.

When compared to Salamence’s initial form, Roaring Moon Salamence is clearly different.

For instance, there is a possibility that it will have Protosynthesis or Guard Dog as an Ability. It is also super vulnerable to Fairy-type attacks instead of Ice-type attacks.

The highest potential IV for Roaring Moon Salamence is Attack, which may reach a maximum of 139. Special Attack, which may be as high as 55, is the lowest one.

You ought to think about the Adamant Nature because of this. It decreases the Special Attack of Roaring Moon Salamence by 10% while raising its attack by 10%.

Fairy-type Pokémon may ruin this Pokemon’s day, as mentioned before. Roaring Moon Salamence is severely vulnerable to damage from Fairy-type attacks — they deal four times as much damage to this Pokémon.

Additionally, moves of the Ice, Dragon, Fighting, and Bug types do 200% damage against it.

On the other hand, it takes 50% of any Fire-, Water-, Grass-, Electric-, Ghost-, and Dark-type moves. It is also completely immune to Psychic attacks.

Regrettably, you don’t really have many excellent Dark-type moves that are better than the regular Normal and Dragon-type attacks available to Roaring Moon Salamence.

So, unless you really want to use a Dark-type attack with this Pokémon, go with the best Dragon-type attacks.

Hydreigon

Hydreigon

Hydreigon is an S-Tier Pokémon of the Brutal type. It seems that this Pokémon is somewhat based on King Ghidorah from Godzilla.

Hydreigon is a Pokémon Scarlet Exclusive Pokémon, although it isn’t a Paradox Type one.

This Pokémon has a total combined stat of 600, cementing its position in the tier list for now. Its highest IV stat is Special Attack.

Hydreigon starts out as a one-headed Dragon named Deino. Then, at level 50, it evolves to Zwilous and gains an extra head. Finally, Zweilous evolves to Hydreigon at level 64 and gains a third head.

It also has a Paradox Type form called Iron Jugulis Hydreigon, but I consider it a weaker form of this Pokémon. Besides, Iron Jugulis Hydreigon is a Dark- and Flying-type Pokémon, not a Dragon-type one.

This Pokémon is immune to Psychic-type attacks and takes half damage from Ghost-, Dark-, Fire-, Water-, Grass-, and Electric-type moves.

As for its weaknesses, Hydreigon takes twice as much damage from Fighting-, Bug-, Ice-, and Dragon-type moves.

Hydreigon will benefit, much like most Pokémon here, from Hyper Beam, Giga Impact, Draco Meteor, and Outrage.

However, it also has access to a Rock-type move called Head Smash. It has 150 Power and 80 Acc.

This attack is a bit suicidal, but it does get the job done. Hydreigon attacks the target with a hazardous full-power headbutt. This also damages Hydreigon terribly.

Iron Jugulis Hydreigon

Iron Jugulis Hydreigon

Iron Jugulis Hydreigon is a Dark- and Flying-type Paradox Pokémon exclusive to Pokémon Violet.

It has a maximum total base stats of 570 and has a chance of coming with Guard Dog or Quark Drive as an Ability.

Guard Dog prevents this Pokémon from being affected by Intimidate attacks, which can be the one thing that prevents you from being defeated when fighting Pokémon battles.

Iron Jugulis Hydreigon doesn’t have many resistances or weaknesses.

It takes twice as much damage from Fairy-, Rock-, Electric-, and Ice-type attacks and half damage from Ghost-, Dark-, and Grass-type attacks.

It is also completely immune to both Ground- and Psychic-type moves.

The best Dark-type attack Iron Jugulis Hydreigon can use is Crunch. It has 80 Power, 100 Accuracy, and 15 PP.

Although this isn’t a very powerful attack damage-wise, it does have a chance of reducing the target’s Defense stat. Iron Jugulis Hydreigon can also use Air Slash, a Flying-type attack with 75 Power, 15 PP, and 95 Accuracy that may make the target flinch.

Alternatively, Hurricane has 110 Power, 70 Accuracy, and 10PP and may confuse the target. If you want attacks with lots of Power, you might have to use Normal-type attacks such as Giga Impact and Hyper Beam.

Although this is a very decent Pokémon stat-wise, not having access to highly damaging attacks from types other than Normal is one of its greatest weaknesses.

What to Do Next

Once you’ve picked out some Dark type Pokemon for your team, make sure to pick out a quick leveling method that works for your play style and get started with bringing your new team member up to a good level.

Keep tabs on their Friendship level, too, as this can affect battle performance.

To make sure your team is prepared for anything, look at the best Bug, Fairy, and Fighting type Pokemon in the game. These types are super effective against Dark type Pokemon so it’s important to make sure your team can counter them.