Pokemon Legends: Z-A

Gyarados Movesets and Best Builds

Pokemon Legends: Z-A Walkthrough Team

Last updated on: November 21, 2025 12:05 AM

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This is a complete guide on how to build your Gyarados for Competitive and Ranked Matches in Pokemon Legends: Z-A! Read on for tips on the best Nature, EV spreads, Movesets, and Held Items to use with Gyarados, as well as its strengths and weaknesses.

Gyarados
Pokedex

Mega Gyarados

Alpha
Gyarados

Gyarados
Build

List of Contents

Base Stats, Type and Weaknesses
Best Builds
How to Use Effectively
Best Teams
Counters for Gyarados
Related Guides

Gyarados Base Stats, Type, and Weaknesses

Gyarados Battle Information

Gyarados

Mega Gyarados

Dex #33		Base Stats
Gyarados
		Stat	Value
		HP	95
		Atk	125
		Def	79
		Sp. Atk	60
		Sp. Def	100
		Speed	81
		Total	540
Type Effectiveness
Weak to:	(4x)
Weak to:	(2x)
Resists:	(0.5x)
Resists:
Immune to:	(0x)

Dex #33		Base Stats
Mega Gyarados
		Stat	Value
		HP	95
		Atk	155
		Def	109
		Sp. Atk	70
		Sp. Def	130
		Speed	81
		Total	640
Type Effectiveness
Weak to:
Weak to:	(2x)
Resists:	(0.5x)
Resists:
Immune to:	(0x)

What is Type Effectiveness?

Best Nature for Gyarados

Best Natures
Adamant （+Atk, -Sp.Atk）	Jolly （+Spe, -Sp.Atk）

What are Natures?

Best Builds for Gyarados

Build Name	Strengths and Weaknesses
Mega Gyarados Build ★★★★★	Strengths: • Strong offensive threat. • Great matchups against a lot of popular picks. • Amazing evasion moves like Bounce and Dragon Rush. Weaknesses: • Trades in its two weaknesses for a few more common ones. • Building an Alpha is absolutely not recommended due to its size making it an easy target.
Regular Gyarados Build ★★★☆☆	Strengths: • Has different options for items like Life Orb or King's Rock. • Amazing evasion moves like Bounce and Dragon Rush. Weaknesses: • Quad weakness to Electric really holds it back. • Building an Alpha is still not recommended due to its size making it an easy target.

Mega Gyarados Build

Mega Gyarados

Held Item

Nature

Gyaradosite

EV Spread

252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe

Moveset

Summary

Due to its size, it is not recommended to build an Alpha. This only makes it a huge target for everyone to attack.

Evade enemy moves with Bounce, but you can also slot-in other moves for coverage.

Take down grouped up opponents with Waterfall.

Mega Gyarados plays differently from regular Gyarados due to its change in typing. Bounce can already take care of the occasional Bug, Grass, and Fighting types, so all you need to worry about are Electric and Fairies.

Held Item

Item	Effect / Location
Gyaradosite	Effect: One of a variety of mysterious Mega Stones. A Gyarados holding this stone will be able to Mega Evolve during battle. Location(s): • Mega Shard Exchange at Quasartico Inc. for 240 Mega Shards

The item chosen for Gyarados for this build is its Mega Stone, Gyaradosite.

How to Get Gyaradosite Mega Stone

Moves Breakdown

Bounce	Used Defensively to evade moves. Still does a ton of damage after you land.
Waterfall	Use this move if you see your oppoents grouped up together for easy points. This move will also reposition Gyarados away from you, so make sure to use it before your other moves.
Iron Tail	Used to KO pesky Fairy-types like Gardevoir and Sylveon.
Earthquake	Use this move if you see your oppoents grouped up together for easy points. Also used to take care of Electric-types.

This set focuses on having Gyarados deal as much damage as possible to a wide variety of types. Bug, Grass, and Fighting types are already taken care of by Bounce, Iron Tail is for Fairies, and Earthquake for Electric-types.

Other Viable Moves

Crunch	A good alternative to Earthquake for the occasional Psychic types like Delphox or Alakazam.
Dragon Rush or Outrage	Bug, Grass, and Fighting types aren't really that popular in the meta. You can swap in Bounce for this for the more prevalent Dragon-types.

EV Spread and Nature

A full 252 EVs are put into Gyarados's Attack and HP to make it hit as hard and tank as much damage as possible. The extra 4 EVs are placed into Speed for quicker move cooldowns, but its negligible.

An Adamant nature is preferred to help further increase Gyarados's Attack stat.

Pokemon Natures Guide

Key Damage Calculations

Damage Dealt by Mega Gyarados
252 Atk｜252 HP Defensive EV Investment: 252 HP Item: Excadrite	Waterfall 204-242 (94 - 111.5%) 62.5% chance to OHKO
252 Atk｜252 HP Defensive EV Investment: 252 HP Item: Gardevoirite	Iron Tail 242-286 (138.2 - 163.4%) Guaranteed OHKO
Damage Received by Mega Gyarados
252 Sp. Atk Offensive EV Investment: 252 Atk (Modest) Item: Gardevoirite	Moonblast 156-186 (77.2 - 92%) Guaranteed 2HKO

Standard Gyarados Build

Gyarados

Held Item

Nature

Life Orb

EV Spread

252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe

Moveset

Summary

Does less damage than not going Mega, but can still hold its own.

Slots in more evasive moves due to a lot of Pokemmon having access to Thunderbolt.

Can further increase damage by not running any Mega, and just using Plus Moves.

This build focuses on Gyarados' just using a Life Orb and relying on Plus Moves. This build is mostly the same as the Mega Gyarados build, but requires more careful maneuvering due to the quad weakness to Electric-type moves.