Interested in using legendary pokemon but the summoning system got you scratching your head on how to use it effectivly and whats the best legendary? then this guide will hopefully provide some help!
(opinion warning! this is from my experience and calculations, feel free to disagree with me if you don’t belive some of my takes are fair!)
First of all, let’s get clear and direct, legendarys SUCK, they are very often outclassed and suboptimal due to thier moves being temporary and chosen at random from a pre determinated list making them very unreliable, and thier stats growth being nerfed to be similar to normal pokemons.
so if are looking for a good pokemon to fill your team you should seek something else.
still here? then let’s first go over the basics:
"how do i get legendarys?"
first you will need master rank, then you will need to beat Tanren Chambers normal exit at floor99 to get the Mystery part after that you will need a Heart slate of your chosen legendary often dropped by the legnedary after beating them or sold in some holiday caves shops or players and finally you can head to the Southeastern Village in Archford, accessible after completing Boggy Wastes, there is an Alakazam named Merlin that combines Heart Slates with Mystery Parts for a bounch of pokè
"how do i use the Mystery part?"
mystery parts can be used in dungeons to summon a legendary from any heart slate you have fused in it, till you leave the dungeon then the legendary will leave your team, its level will be equal to the level of your highest level team member, the mystery part will exit your bag and go to the storage when used, but dont worry it has unlimited usages same for your fused slate!
not that you cannot use a mystery part if theres a legendary already in your team, you have more then one mystery part in your bag or your chosen legendary is already in use from another player in your party
"any cool tricks and strategy that this unique summoning mechanic brings?"
yes!, the unique summoning system allows for some fun tricks,
your mystery part dosen’t have to be used on the first floor, it can be used on any! (that aren’t rest points or boss rooms) so you can bring a full team of 4 pokemons and use your mystery part if any of them faint to replace them, like having a extra 5th member!
legendarys also do not retain any exp they gain so they can be used as effective exp allers without having to mess around with everstones or doom seeds saving you quite a bit of hassle!
just bring a lv90ish, your low level in need, summon your legendary and then send your high level home!
Now for the more interesting stuff, what are the good legendarys and why are they good?
down here i’ll list all the legendarys currently in the game as the making of this post and what makes good or bad in dex order!
Articuno
The ice bird may sound apealing to you, flying typing and ice typing? two of the best types in the game surely this means it will perform great right? wrong. the terrible random moves will often leave you fending off enemies with extremely inacurrate moves like sheer cold or hurricane making you realise why everyone hates any move that isnt 100% accurate.
luckily, articuno is a ice type and gets a garanteed blizzard. so it dosent actually need its other moves to beat a dungeon. but using a pokemon for pretty much only 1 good move most of the time isnt what i would call “good” but blizzard spam do be blizzard spam
Zapdos
The thunder bird with it’s unique typing may intrigue you, but do not be tempted! a electric type is a electric type and unfortunately its flying typing dosent fix its issues with a moveset comprised from 90% electric type moves and the garanteed move being thunder, which you will never use, you will more often then not left helpless against dungeons.
you simply can’t use a electric type pokemon with no covrage.
Even tho none of it’s crystals or gems benefit from it using it, rain can be pretty beneficial with zapdos, increasing the accuracy of hurricane and thunder, the increase in water damage dosen’t actually matter that much since you won’t be using zapdos in any water dungeon due to lighting rod being very prominent in them,
Moltres
The fire chicken seems to be the result of a bad joke. fire types are usually stuffed full of good moves but moltress dosent seem to carry many with them with a extremly unsynergistic set of moves. 90% of your gameplay time with moltress will be spent looking at the fainted sprite questioning with a move set of hurricane, burn up and sky attack if peraphs using soak and turning into a water type is a valid strategy.
if you run sun with moltress you will buff its fire moves and make solar beam one turn but it will nerf hurricane accuracy and make burn up removal of fire typing pretty terrible. run clear and now solar beam will be the dead draw. a really tricky situation.
MewTwo
they dreamed of creating the game’s strongest psychic Pokémon…and they succeeded.
Boasting stats so high you’ll swear they are calcualted differently, the best psychic move in the game in the form of its garanteed move psystrike a strong psychic aoe that makes any psychic type jealous, and a incredible pool of moves. this juggernaut will destroy most dungeons with ease,
unfornatly even mewtwo isnt immune to bad rng and sometimes you will just sit infront of a dark type with 3 psychic moves and recover wishing you rolled any of them differently, but using mewtwo is no bad shout at all and will often perform very well.
Mew
The purest example of unreliability, with a possible moveset soo high, diluted and unpredicatable it rolls back around to be being good, this slotmachine of a pokemon is hilarius to use, it even has metronome in it for maxium memeage!
if you wanna feel the gambler rush of getting a good set of moves against all odds, just wanna fool around, or wanna challenge yourself, mew will be more then happy to provide
Raikou
Raikou is a pure electric type, not good start, however differently from zapdos his moveset has a ton of covrage and you will never find yourself with a purely electric set, allowing you to always have a awser to whatever pokemon is blocking your way
Entei
The beast that makes vulcanos explode by barking posses a mostly fire type move pool but luckily, fire is a good typing but, the lack of covrage will hurt in dungeons with flash fire or ton of fire resists
Suicune
Pokèmon crystal’ mascot is a water type with blizzard as its garanteed move? a odd choice, but a interesting one, it can’t really utilize hail, but the moveset of ice and water is a excellent one and will perform a lot better then you may think
Lugia
the guardian of the seas excels at taking hits with its bulky stats and wonderscale ability, it shurgs off a lot of attacks, and its movepool isnt too shabby either, you can get a lot of usage out of them
Ho-Oh'
the great bird in the sky that so kindly hands flying hms to whoever they meets dosen’t seem much for combat as it lacks good moves and synergy with them, getting screwed over with a bad set fairly often,
perhaps they should go back to reviving life, the legendary dogs where pretty decent.
Celebi
The time traveler! celebi is a grass psychic type with the garanteed move being recover! …recover? a status move? does that mean you cannot be confident it will have a offensive move you’ll enjoy let alone stab? unfortunatly yes, due to only relying on random moves for offense all of them being rather wildely different in terms of ranges celebii will always feel competely different to use every run,
but still always having a recovery move isn’t anything to cry about, self healing moves are usually something you always wanna run on pokemon who get them and while using celebii you’re gonna find yourself using recover a lot!, always having recover also means celebii can be used effectevely as a mobile scarfer user as you’ll be able to use recover to heal the starving damage brings, altho it is kinda of a yikes moment using a pokemon with only 2x movement speed for mobile scarf running, but hey, playing second banana is kinda the thing with legendary’s!
Regirock
The stone titan is a rock type with earthquake as it’s garanteed move just like any good rock type, unfortunatly the rest of its movepool is just close range moves making him underperform,
but don’t underastimate that rock types resists two very common aoe types in fire and ice and gain a bonus 50% SpDef under sandstorm making them quite bulky and useful. (but don’t forget of the water and grass weakness!)
Regice
Ice type with garanteed blizzard and high special attack. is good.
but… unfortunatly the icy titan gets a wierdly high amount of physical moves despite it’s low attack, which really emphasises the random moveset problem,
that being said, i gotten a wierdly high amount of usage out him despite of this, one of my highest used legendarys,
guess it just speaks volumes about blizzard spam being blizzard spam or?
Registeel
Not much good to say about the steel titan,
not great offensive presence, defensive stats without a recovery move to make use of it and a fairly lackluster movepool, it’s not unusable but dosen’t really provide much reason to use him
Lati twins
Latios and latias, they have the same exact movepool, and thier stats are barely different, the only difference between them is thier garanteed move, mist ball and luster purge!
mist ball is a glide line move that will feel quite handy to use in combat while moving from one enemy to the other!
luster purge is a large aoe like psystrike from mewtwo, just with a lot less damage, does that mean latios is a worse mewtwo like deoxys? well… no, cause latios is a dragon! and if you are to ask me, i do think being one of the best types in the game pretty handly makes up for a having a weaker move version of a move!
latios and latias movepool is pretty great if a bit big, you may have a hard time getting your prefered moveset, but most moves they get are something that will work out regardless
great typing great stats and a great ability, they will serve you well if you give them the chance!
Kyogre
No suprise at all, but kyogre is extremly good. set up its own weather, got high stats with the move pool to back em up, kyogre will flood the dungeons you bring him in!
although is there is one drawback to the whale, it would be the limitation the eternal downpour that follows it everywhere brings while running with other people
Groudon
The continent pokemon is a ground type that sets up sun, which isn’t that great of a thing for him as he would much like prefer sandstorm, the sun reduction to water moves power is pretty irelevant as water is very uncommon in dungeons that arent water type and due to ground not resisting fire the buff to fire moves pretty much adds a weakness to fire to groudon limiting its uses fairly greatly, and buffing groudon commonish fire moves (but not garanteed to have) isn’t that meanful either as fire best uses are against the common grass and ice, which groudon is weak to. yikes.
still he can perform rather well in a poison or steel type dungeon. but unfortunatly it’s uses are pretty limited, whenever your using groudon be mindful to enter the stairs using another pokemon so that the sun dosent ruin your parade, prefererably a sandstream pokemon so that groudon can enjoy that sweet sandstorm
Rayquaza
The poor guy everyone always calls when the world is in danger has a quality that if you played pmu you know its very good, dragon flying and cloud nine? why, thats the dream!
unfortunately it has a rather funny problem in the fact that everyone already has one of the many dragon types that hard outclasses rayquaza if they are good enough players to get thier hands on a mystery part and heartslate, so rayquaza fills a niche that a good player would likely have already covered.
still, it has high stats good type and a nice movepool. so it can be decent substitude for one if it’s needed for a reason or another.
Jirachi
The wish maker, jirachis garanteed move is doom desire a large aoe that debuffs pokemons hit to take a huge amount of damage after the perform a move often resulting in a kill, although very powerful, the draw back of needing the target to trigger the effect themselfs after attacking makes it not quite as reliable and effective as normal large aoe.
the rest of jirachis movepool is quite nice and even the worse of its set could still hold it’s own in a fight.
if you wished jirachi to be good, well, your wish came true!
Deoxys
I thought we where dealing with a space virus not a ditto!
this mewtwo wannabe copyed psystrike with it’s garanteed move psycoboost and and didnt stop there, it also copyed most of mewtwo moveset with a few adjustments just so the teacher wouldn’t notice!
but if there’s something he didnt copy was mewtwos amazing stats, making it a shabby flimsy copy that has all none of the bulk that make the original so lovable.
but if crypitc chasam is treating you badly and the player stores are all closed you’ll just have to use mewtwo at home.
Lake Trio
As you could probably guess from the fact they are all grouped up they aren’t very interesting,
pure psychic with basically the same moveset with slight alterations and different stat allocations, they aren’t bad and they arent great, and they are pretty annoying to get.
Heatran
Heatran only knows one thing. and thats A.O.E.
making full use of fire types gigantic arsenal of aoe fire moves, heatran bring something to the table you can’t get enough off, Consistency, if you pick heatran you know what your gonna get: fire aoes with a side of line moves, this may sound bad but it’s extremely good to have consistency, it means you know what to expect when you summon him and can depend on him to do it, rielable and effective.
Giratina
The Ruler of the distorsion word himself!
he’s a ghost type without a reliable healing. yikes. even not being a slate summon this would automatically make him bad.
nice stats with a nice and semi consistent movepool. but. you just can’t be a ghost and not have healing. if your running giratina, your running trapped scarf, and being forced into held items is not nice when theres really powerful stuff that could be held instead.
it’s garanteed move is shadow force, a move that makes you temporarily invincicible, a great move to get out of dodge and reposition, maybe not very beffiting of “the lord of the distortion world” to essentially run away like a coward from comflict, but hey, you can’t argue with the results.
sometimes the best battle is the one that is not fought.
Cresselia
Sky’s most famous rev waster cresselia is a support focused legendary, which may make you assume thier bad, but you would be wrong! cresselia brings to the table something nobody else’s has; a aoe heal that restores pp in lunar dance, its signature garanteed move! with a cresselia on your side your friends playing with you won’t have to worry about running out of pp! unfortunately it only works on other players and not yourself, but it’s a strong pick whenever your playing with other people even above normal pokemons!
however, smeargle said “it’s smeargling time” and smeargled all over lunar dance so you’ll see people running smeargle with 4 lunar dances instead. but cresselia still has stats and can toss a offensive move or two to help in battle so it’s still a strong pick
Manaphy
The prince of the sea’s is a pure water type with solid stats and movepool, not much to say, its pretty good and reliable, i gotten a ton of good usage out of him.
Darkrai
The edge lord himself, darkrai, darkrai may be not be the best pokemon out there but he’s got something purely unique to him, the garanteed signature move dark void, a large aoe sleep move,
A LARGE AOE SLEEP MOVE?! thats right. a large aoe sleep move, it may have pretty bad accuracy, but does that matter when you can just safely spam it from far away?
unfortunately this isn’t mainline, so smeargle can right click - save image - upload and claim it as thier own! still, darkrai got stats smeargle dosen’t and can toss in a offensive move or two if neccesary which smeargle can’t,
keep your distance and clean up after all the wilds have fallen asleep, It’s highly effective in party runs!
Shaymin
Rember to always show your gratitude, as shaymin is a incredible pokemon, but not for legendarys summon standards, but for normal recruit standards!
shaymin has incredible type, a strong movepool, nice stats, and while in sky forms it gets a permanent boost to movement speed free of charge! what else could you possibly ask for?!
oh right. choosable moves.
still, shaymin is very good pokemon, if you get the chance to get the hands on one do so!
it got strong match ups against a ton of the game, you’ll be sure to get a ton of usage out of him
Victini
Much true to it’s lore victini brings victory to those around them, this is due to its ability, Victory star, it increases the accuracy of all moves used by allyed players by 10%! , a incredible ability that makes your party a lot stronger.
it’s moves may not the best, but the passive support it brings by simply existing is pretty big,
so much that people can’t really call you out for not helping in a party run even if you sit around all time ;)
Virizion
one of the swords of justice, it’s a master of close range combat, with good typing and a reliable solid move pool comprised of mostly close range moves with a few long range for safe far away chiping mixed in, it’s a surprisely solid pokemon, of corse long range moves are often better then short range ones, but if your experinced player that knows how to quickly dart around a dungeon using glide moves, then virizion is a pokemon that will perform greatly
Kyurem
The remnant of the great dragon of unova, is a dragon ice type, a great conbination of 2 of the greatest types in the game, high stats and excellent move pool kyrurem can easily dispacth of a dungeon with the power of ice moves, sadly blizzard isn’t it’s garanteed move so you can’t always utilize the power of 90 acc large aoe, but it can still permform greatly without it
Xerneas
The tree of life, a support legendary slate boasting the signature move geomancy a party wide move that gives +2 to all stats and doubles movement speed! a support capability no other pokemon can give, allowing your whole party to start zooming around the dungeon even if they don’t have crystals! while smeargle looming presence of being able to just copy such support niches, xerneas still has a few one ups over smeargle, it’s ability fairy aura, greatly boosting the fairy type moves used by it’s allys, and high stats to toss in a few moves to help your party clear the wild pokemons
Yveltal
Death himself, is sadly a bit unreliable, altough it’s typing and signature move are nice, it’s movepool is massive and with barely any stab in it, which causes him to underperform rather harshly.
i tryed to make use of them a bounch of times, but i never gotten them work.
Diancie
The Jewel princess, a interesting type with a fairly constistent movepool, rock moves aren’t the best and diance has a lot of them, but the consistency of them isn’t to underestimate,
she’s also in possetion of the best rock type move in the game in it’s garanteed signature move diamond storm, a large rock type aoe that makes diance perform rather well, it’s not a pokemon to write off, she’s always outperformed my expactations whenever i used her
Hoopa
the mischievous Genie dosen’t make the best of first impressions, it’s a ghost type without reliable recovery and a unreliable movepool? yikes, but he does a a little niche going for him, having it’s bottle allows you to swap between it’s two forms at will, allowing to turn it’s ghost typing on and off depending on your need, it’s a neat useful trait that give him some usages but it’s movepool really drags him down,
in all of my testing i just could never get a good set, it kepth underperforming.
Megearna
The machine with a soul. great typing, great ability and very consistent movepool!, magearna movepool is almost entirely made of line moves, so you always know to expect, and they are all special moves! so it makes great usage of it’s ability that boosts it’s special attack after every kill, despite being one of the most common heart slates, megearna puts up a lot of work.
i used them plenty of times and even greatly help me beat some of the end game dungeons.
i would note to be careful running sun with magearna, although it is incetivized by solar beam, fire aoes are rather common, and taking additional damage from a type your already weak to is pretty bad, it may be better at times to run sandstorm instead and just bite the bullet if you get solarbeam.
Marshadow
the marshwalker himself, it got good stats, good moves and a nice ability,
unfortunatly, it’s a ghost type without reliable recovery. you just can’t be a ghost without having a way to reliably heal the damage your going to be taking due to starving. and having to use a trapped scarfed isn’t really ideal as held items are very powerful and being one short really hydrances the effectiveness of your team. marshadow also has a higher then avrage movepool althought most of the moves are great, (thanks to techinican) it means it’s rather unpreditable.
lowering it’s average performance,
it’s still a usable pokemon, it deals a lot of damage, the fighting type is great for having crystal and gems effect without much trouble and it’s garanteed signature move Spectral Theif demolishes bosses by stealing thier very common stat boosts, Marshadow can perform rather well, but the problems of being a ghost type are there and cannot really be ignored.
i recommend summoning marshadow on the last floor of a dungeon right before the boss or keep him in the back of your team until the boss, so you can make full use of it’s strengths without having to deal with the drawbacks of ghost typing
Here’s a quick tierlist to quickly see my various opnions on the legendarys, if you want more info on a specific pokemon feel free to read what i wrote in the list up there!
hope you found it useful! 
