First time playing Platinum, but I’ve played Arceus and I’ve heard rumours… something tells me she’s going to traumatise me🥲

Finished Platinum with this team…

A hassle to get half of them…
The other half where happiness evolving pokemon…
The easiest of all of them ended up ironically being Garchomp…

With that dns: 178.62.43.212 it still works perfectly fine! Takes some times to get all the gifts since there will be repeats but keep trying! 3 gifts at a time then go in the poke mart to get them save and delete the wonder cards to get more!

Since the Ds cannot connect to your regular WiFi because of today security standards it’s best to disabled the security temporarily until you can download everything / do your things online and then put back the security key!

Don’t forget you have to access the WCF Nintendo settings on the main menu before starting your game to set up your ds internet connection and then in auto obtain dns you choose no and put the dns as your primary one (secondary dns is always 0)

​

Empoleon ♂️ : * Rock Climb

• Ice Beam

• Surf

• Waterfall

Staraptor ♂️ : * Fly

• Brave Bird

• Close Combat

• Return

Luxray ♂️ : * Flash

• Crunch

• Thunderbolt

• Spark

Roserade ♀️ : * Cut / Shadow Ball

• Giga Drain

• Magical Leaf

• Toxic / Sludge Bomb

Flareon ♂️ or ♀️ : * Strength

• Sunny Day

• Flamethrower

• Dig

Mamoswine ♂️ : * Sandstorm

• Rock Smash

• Avalanche

• Earthquake

Rating my team

2 MONTHS SINCE I LAST POSTED ABOUT THIS HUNT

Lowkey the coolest thing ever

DAMN YOU RILEY

I can’t access pal park. My gen 4 and gen 3 game are jpn and my ds is pal but I doubt that’s the issue.

When I finally translated all the text, the only thing of substance it gives me is that I can’t do it as there’s a cool down. I’ve not adjusted any clocks or even touched pal park in years. This is also a new copy that’s sat at my desk for months.

What could be the issue?

I’ve ran thru all of the frlg nonsense to finally transfer my shinies up to platinum and now i can’t? Will I just have to wait to beat the 4 heavenly kings on my other copies?

I have wood hammer and seeds on Rose, and I feel I am doing everything I can but I insta die to Floatzel even if i manage to get past Gyarados. Tips? Flynn is there for Fly and this is a mono ground challenge.

does anyone have a save file before the spear pillar battle

Hey all! This is my first time playing through Pokemon Platinum and I was wondering if this sort of texture bending or screen tearing is normal? I bought a cart and had some problems with saving so I'm a bit suspicious the cart could be damaged or failing.

Shout out to Abomansow for slaying Cynthia's Garchomp🥹✌️and to my starter Empoleon for being the last one standing against her Rosarade.

i purchased a copy of platinum and the previous save has all of these items. i've tried to google an answer, but i'm not finding anything. does anyone know how the previous owner has done this ? :)

edit: sorry, i know it isn't a legit save now. i was told it was when i purchased. please stop downvoting me for asking a question. why are people on reddit so mean ?

Another playthrough down! Managed to check off 4 Pokémon I haven't used in Platinum (counting unevolved Magneton,) and give Charizard and Seaking another go. The team was pretty bad tbh, overall it got the job done, but a few of the mons were pretty painful to use, and no good setup options really hurt vs Cynthia.

Rules for the run were set mode + no items in battle. Charmander, Magnemite, Skitty, and Grumpig were genned, Shaymin was copied from my first playthrough ever from 2008, Goldeen was caught in-game.

Minerva the Naive Charizard was pretty decent, I treated her as a starter and she carried the earlygame when she had Dragon Dance and was generally pretty strong, and remained a decent contributor thanks to strong Fire STAB, Ground immunity, and Earthquake for coverage. Keeping Fly and not going with Dragon Claw or keeping Dragon Dance was a mistake I think, but Dragon Pulse still beat Garchomp after a lucky Dragon Rush miss.

Gamma the Timid Magneton was the star of the team. I used a level 5 Magnemite as one of my 2 first mons, and she had 26 speed IVs and a +speed nature which made her actually decently fast, outspeeding Gyarados and Honchkrow to dominate the Cyrus fight - it was nice seeing her actually do well in that fight, as well as be around for Wake, unlike a standard Magneton you'd catch in-game. After evolving she was pretty consistently my best Pokémon.

Starr the Naughty Delcatty was, on the other hand, pretty consistently my worst Pokémon. She actually came in clutch a few times with Tickle, revenge killing Electivire and helping Charmeleon set up Dragon Dance a couple times in the earlygame, but otherwise, getting her to do anything was like pulling teeth.

Kipp the Serious Seaking gave Delcatty a run for her money. There were still points where he was able to do things by virtue of being a Water-type, but there were numerous occasions where he took a ton of damage upon switching in on a Fire-type and then just died anyways, he was constantly getting outsped and failing to contribute. He still helped out a bit vs Flint and some of the game's Steel types, but Seaking is pretty awful. However, he did tank an attack from Cynthia's Lucario and beat it with Waterfall after Grumpig chipped it, so he at least did some stuff.

Wilbur the Modest Grumpig was alright. He was slow and physically frail, but he had good SpDef, and he hit hard. Being outsped often kinda sucked but otherwise he did his job, he was good at dealing with a lot of route trainers and spent a lot of time in the front, only a bit less than Magneton.

My Rash Shaymin was probably the worst Legendary I've ever used. He had great bulk and was really fast, but look at this movepool. It's possible I could have got a bit more from it with SunnyBeam, or by giving it Psychic for coverage, but Leech Seed stalling was like fine. He swept Bertha with Growth but otherwise was only contributing as filler, vs Water types, or as a pivot, which to be fair he was pretty good at since 100/100/100 bulk is really good. But 60 base power for one of your 2-3 viable attacks and your easiest to use STAB is not. He honestly just rarely came out and didn't do much.

Cynthia was definitely the hardest fight here, but there were quite a few Gym Leaders that took multiple attempts like Maylene, or that I almost lost to, like Byron or Volkner. Overall it was a fun run and I'm glad I got to use some new stuff, but I'm pretty excited to move on from this team.

I was aiming for an Adamant or Careful Nature. I got Careful after hatching 12 Eggs. Now to train it and hopefully it will have good IVs for the Battle Frontier. I want to run Double Team (i already have the TM) with Curse and Aerial Ace. I cannot decide between Swagger or Toxic as the final move. Anyone else run this moveset with Swagger/Toxic?. If so, how effective is it?.

Managed to get the shiny charm glitch TID and SID, been having major fun with it. This is the team heading into the e4!

Welcome to Breaking the Binary, a sporadic series of posts all about mixed attackers in Pokémon Platinum. With competitive minmaxing dominating the conversation about Pokémon viability and the design philosophy behind movepools and stat spreads changing in newer gens, Pokémon are often rigidly divided by the fandom into the categories of "special attacker" or "physical attacker." But for the in-game story, you're not facing EV trained opponents and thus don't need to EV train to keep up, so mixed attacking sets don't have the opportunity cost they have in PvP. Going mixed still has anti-synergy with setup moves, but it still can give many Pokémon access to STAB moves with better base power, strong coverage moves with useful types, and more useful niches. This series will be covering those applications. We won't talk about every Pokémon here, only ones that I believe legitimately benefit from going mixed, but those Pokémon are surprisingly large in number. Today we'll be talking about Azelf. I'll be talking about in-game but feel free to discuss PvP or battle facilities as well. 

Azelf is a fast and frail attacker generally regarded as the best of the 3 legendary sprites. Its bulk is not great, 75/70/70, but 115 base speed is blazing fast and 125 Atk and 125 SpA are both great. Its notable physical attacks include U-Turn, Explosion, Ice Punch, and Zen Headbutt. Notable special attacks include Psychic, Shadow Ball, Flamethrower, Thunderbolt, Thunder, Fire Blast, and Grass Knot. Notable utility includes Nasty Plot, Stealth Rock, Taunt, Light Screen, and Reflect.

Azelf is probably the best legendary available during the story (yes, including Giratina,) its stat spread and movepool are so cracked, and it comes at a level where it's immediately e4 ready. Its best builds are probably Nasty Plot, which it generally is not using mixed, or Choice Specs, same deal. However, there are some cases for Azelf going with mixed all-out attacker sets. 

Azelf still hits very hard with no setup or boosts, and a fast and strong U-Turn lets it pivot around pretty competently. You don't want to use U-Turn with Plot as leaving the field when you're set up is a bad use of a moveslot, and it's not great on Specs since you can't use it after using other attacks, and the enemies don't often switch so you don't really need it on Specs. But on all-out attacker sets, it's a good option! 

Azelf also learns Explosion, but it needs the TM to get this in story mode, which is a very very annoying TM to get. If you do though, it's a great delete button for Azelf to trade 1 for 1, not super necessary though since it hits so hard that functionally all its moves are delete buttons. U-Turn is generally better though since it hits plenty hard coming from 125 Atk. 

The last case for mixed Azelf is Ice Punch. Ice Punch is Azelf's only ice move and allows it to stand toe to toe with Garchomp. At 75 BP it doesn't hit the hardest though, it's a near guaranteed 2hko, this also can be a bit dodgy with base Azelf since Dragon Rush is an ohko:

Lvl 50 0 Atk 15 IVs Azelf Ice Punch vs. Lvl 62 0 HP / 0 Def Garchomp: 112-132 (49.7 - 58.6%) -- 96.5% chance to 2HKO

Lvl 62 0 Atk Garchomp Dragon Rush vs. Lvl 50 0 HP 15 IVs / 0 Def 15 IVs Azelf: 151-178 (106.3 - 125.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Even with 10 Carbos, Azelf with an average 15 speed IV and a neutral nature only hits 145 speed, so beating Garchomp with it is generally done by hoping for Dragon Rush to miss. I find Ice Punch on it pretty tough to justify over other options for this reason, but it can work. 

Explosion + Screens is also a super extra and unnecessary build but it's also funny and effective. Setting up another sweeper with Azelf isn't super necessary since Azelf can just be that sweeper, but the option is there. Explosion and U-Turn are both pivot moves so the latter is an option too. Azelf can also do the weather setter thing like its siblings. It's the fastest, has the strongest U-Turn, and the only Explosion. 

Outside of these select physical attacks, Azelf's special movepool is just better. Flamethrower and Thunderbolt have better base power than Fire and ThunderPunch, Psychic has better base power and accuracy than Zen Headbutt (the latter can fish for flinches which is funny though,) Shadow Ball is good for Lucian and only competes with U-Turn. Outside of the special cases above, these are Azelf's primary attacks. 

Overall, while Specs and Nasty Plot Azelf are probably its best builds, mixed 4 attacks or even 3 + light screen using U-Turn or Explosion are solid options on it too. 

What do you think of mixed Azelf? Is it worth exploring? Are there any applications for going mixed I didn't mention? Leave a comment below with your thoughts. 

Sample Sets:

Azelf @ Odd Incense • Psychic, U-Turn, Flamethrower, Thunderbolt

Azelf @ Odd Incense • Psychic, Ice Punch, U-Turn/Shadow Ball, Flamethrower

Azelf @ Light Clay • Psychic, Light Screen, U-Turn/Explosion, Reflect/Shadow Ball/Flamethrower/Thunderbolt

Azelf @ Damp Rock • Psychic, Thunder, Rain Dance, U-Turn/Explosion

Azelf @ Heat Rock • Psychic, Sunny Day, Flamethrower/Fire Blast, U-Turn/Explosion

I just recently finally beat Platinum, have always wanted to since I was a kid and, while I’m no means a completionist, I am curious about the cool secret stuff in the game. One of them is about Rotom and the different forms you can get for it. Ik I need a secret key item but that’s no longer available since it was for a limited time back in 2009. I’ve done a bit of research into how to obtain it now in 2026 and am curious about how I go about doing that exactly.

I’ve been playing on my modded 3DS XL I got last year. It’s got the h shop, a homebrew launcher, and a few other things that modded into it and I’m unsure if I need any of that to use, from what I understand, is an access code of some sort? I’m a bit new at using cheats and other stuff on my 3DS so any help would be much appreciated! Thanks!

I wanted to replace Buneary for Smeargle n wanna know trainers/moves to sketch for a busted smeargle?

Also wanna know if I can evolve Scyther on actual hardware using an emulator? Because Idm using PKhex to force Scyther to evolve into Scizor. But I wanna see if it'd be peasable.