Damage Dealer Tier List

Lear and Hoopa have one of the strongest Sync Move in the game against a neutral target, a very high DPS, and great self buffs, which by itself already is a recipe for a top tier Damage Dealer. What sets Lear apart, however, is the fact that he's the single best Sync accelerator in the game, guaranteeing an early sync within the first cycle just with his Trainer Move and Head Start 2, and with Adrenaline 2, he can get another early Sync with a single Propulsion activation, all by himself! Lear can also get a little defensive bonus with his trainer move giving the regeneration effect to everyone in the team, making him a unit that could easily be argued for even the highest spot in the tier list.

Sygna Suit Red, simply put, has everything you would want on a striker. Extremely high DPS, one of the best AoE Sync Nukes in the entire game (if not the best), very good gauge, and good self buffs - and even its high HP means it can take hits better than most strikers provided you can deal with his self defense debuffs. While Red doesn't do as many things as some other units can, he just does what he's supposed to do extremely well, earning him a spot at the top of the list.

Diantha & Keldeo have a lot going for them: a good weatherless DPS, a trainer move that gives her +4 SpA and +3 critical hit and ready to attack on turn 2, a sync nuke that can reach comparable damage to Iris (Champion) & Hydreigon, and one of her main selling points: for every successful attack against an opponent, she drains one stage of Defense, Special Defense, and Speed to herself, making herself bulkier and faster on the proccess while the opponent keeps getting more vulnerable. Fantastic stats all around finish this kit, with none of them being truly lacking, especially considering her self buffs, putting her very high on our list.

Similar to May & Swampert, Sygna Suit Erika is another damage dealer with hybrid-like qualities, providing sun over rain this time. Although Erika is not as tanky as May, she does stand out by being even more impressive offensively: Solar Blade is an incredible move that gets 200 BP (higher than Steel Beam!) for only 3 gauges and having its drawback negated with sunny weather itself, but on top of that, Erika has a good single target sync move and a spectacular Trainer Move that gives her +2 Attack and +1 Critical Hit rate - if that wasn't enough, using it while the sunny weather is active transforms it into a whooping +4 Attack and +2 Critical Hit rate with Gradual Healing on top of it. Overall, SS Erika feels like a mix between Brendan and May that creates one more top tier unit.

Archie & Kyogre have an unbelievably good kit overall. Origin Pulse is one of the highest BP moves in the entire game that can be further boosted by rain, which Kyogre not only summons on entry, but also extends its duration every time it is summoned to almost double its time. Shower Surge 3 also means that Kyogre's damage is further boosted on rain and makes its gauge considerably faster. Hoenn Spirit is an amazing Master Passive that boosts the entire team's special moves by 20% by default and can be further boosted to a whooping 50% with 2 more Hoenn units, which is not really hard to do considering Kyogre's self sufficiency and the general quality of the Hoenn units, like May, Roxanne, and Zinnia, with it also providing a reduction to special damage taken. Finally, Kyogre's Trainer Move gives it +3 critical hit rate, +2 Special Attack, and +2 accuracy to make Origin Pulse fully accurate, and gradual healing all in a single turn at the cost of -2 to both defenses, which can be a bit harsh due to Kyogre's natural frailty, but is more than compensated by the advantages. Although Kyogre does lack a strong Sync Nuke, the combined offensive and utility capabilities it offers to the team is unmatched by almost everyone except very few select units in the entire game.

Blue & Aerodactyl come to shake up things as a striker that offers team support with Dire Hit All +, both hastening the setup speed for its partners and working as a legitimate support for units like May & Lopunny. Being another Hyper Beam user, Blue also provides very solid damage per turn, and despite being a mixed unit with its main move being special but its sync being physical, Bonjour! makes it so he has no problem self buffing. A very high Speed stat and a strong Sync Move (especially notable due to Aerodactyl being a Pokémon with a Mega Evolution) closes off the kit. Overall, despite not having field effect multipliers like most top damage dealers do, Blue & Aerodatyl show as the best weatherless strikers in the game with a solid supportive option with crit buffs for the team, earning it a very solid spot on Tier 1.

Emmet & Archeops appears as a high damaging unit that excels on the sandstorm weather, which offers them a respectable Sync Nuke too. Capable of getting +6 Attack and +2 accuracy (which already maxes out Stone Edge's accuracy against an opponent that hasn't raised their evasion) in a single turn, Emmet is a monster in terms of buffing fast. High Speed and dual MGR3 also makes him a unit that won't have many problems with gauge. As a bonus, Emmet also is not as dependent on sandstorm as most other weather strikers are, retaining his good damage and self sufficiency on a variety of teams.

At first glance, Sygna Suit Leon may look like he has everything going for him: he's fast, has a good Sync Move multiplier, he can buff all of his relevant stats, has a 4 gauge move, a Max Move, and an incredible debuffing passive with Lucky Seven 4. However, upon a closer look, SS Leon does reveal some flaws: his low SpA combined with Dynamax Cannon's low BP for a 4 gauge move means that neither his nuke or his DPS are achieving any new levels of damage, and while his self buffs means he can choose what type of supports he'll want to bring, completely self buffing is not very realistic due to the time it takes. Eternatus' main claim to fame is the burst damage it can make between a AoE Sync Nuke followed by a Max Move, dishing out a great amount of damage in a short span of time, but this damage decays considerably after that up to the point where the opponent gets a Sync buff, where his DPS gets to a respectable level again.

With one of the best AoE moves in the game, a strong Sync Move, decent self buffs, good gauge during the rain weather, and access to the move Rain Dance, May shows herself as a great damage dealer that can also make her Water-type partners stronger. Being a Hoenn unit also grants her a superb synergy with Archie & Kyogre, both activating Theme Skills and boosting Hoenn Spirit. May has a good enough bulk to also work as a tank in a pinch, and is only held back a bit due to a lack of a stronger single target option, which is not enough to take her out from the highest tier.

While it's classified as a Dragon-type Sync Pair due to its Sync Move, Cyrus & Palkia only show their true potential while using Hydro Pump. Being one of the premier choices for rain teams, Cyrus matches the damage of the high-end damage dealers like Red & Mega Charizard X, Emmet & Archeops, and Lear & Hoopa despite using only three gauges instead of four! An excellent trainer move that boosts both Special Attack and Speed by three stages with a drawback that can easily be offset by its (multiple) regeneration options also makes Cyrus very good and fast at setting up granted it has critical hit rate support. Cyrus also notably is arguably the best striker to pair with Professor Sycamore on the Battle Villa, getting critical hit rate buffs without using MP via Spacial Rend: Critical Focus 2 and Healthy Healing maintaing its HP high. All in all, if you need a unit with high DPS that sets up fast, Cyrus might be your guy.

Raihan is the most powerful Steel-type in the game, having an extremely high output for a type often bemoaned for its poor move BP due to his four-bar Steel Beam. His combination of high Special Attack, high BP complemented by scaling, as well as extremely robust entry passives make him very explosive early on in battles. When paired with Ingo and Excadrill, he becomes the single fastest sync pair in the game in terms of dishing out full damage, being able to dish out maximized damage immediately with Burst In builds, and his unprecedentedly generous sync grid gives him a variety of options to choose from, ranging from entry passives to steroids of choice. Raihan’s more pronounced flaws that prevent him from sitting on the higher tiers include an unimpressive sync move and rather questionable gauge without the aid of specific passives or support.

Leon & Charizard is a pretty polarizing Sync Pair: on one hand, they have the single highest realistic damage per turn, with Inferno on sun already matching behemoths like Mega Charizard X and Palkia, while Burn Synergy 3 puts him on a level of his own. On the other hand, Leon is pretty reliant on his teammates to excel, needing gauge support alongside Special Attack and crit buffs, with sunny weather allowing him to reach his max potential. Leon also offers a Sync Move that does good damage, and despite the set up being based on the opponent status rather than his own, Inferno makes it easy to reach the condition at least for the main target. MP Rekindle also makes Leon superb in Battle Villa by being capable of refreshing his trainer moves at any time. Although Leon lacks the versatility common to the other top tier damage dealers and often sees hard competition with other strong sun sync pairs, his sheer damage output gives him a spot at the lower end of Tier 1.

Marnie & Morpeko are another versatile Damage Dealer on Tier 2. Power Trip provides good damage by an extremely cheap cost at two gauges while being easy to cap in damage. Marnie also doesn't ask for much support, seeing as the standard Speed buffs that most teams have today allows Marnie to max her Attack by herself, while some smaller self crit buffs too. One thing that Marnie excels at is her Sync Move: rivaling even Palentine Serena as a Sync Nuker, Marnie gets an easy to setup nuke that can even one shot Master Mode centers with no prior damage and neutral damage. Although Marnie's output can be a bit inconsistent due to Hunger Switch, she still earns a spot at the higher end of Tier 2.

A plethora of recent buffs from a rather generous sync grid to being the first Legendary free-to-play sync pair with both EX and a Mega Evolution has in recent times won the hearts of many fans of the original villain and the original popular Legendary Pokemon. Despite the overall lack of consistent Special Defense debuffers that can pair with Giovanni due to his reliance Psychic Terrain and Special Attack support, Critical Strike 3 alone is enough to put Giovanni’s output to near N and Zekrom’s levels with his sync move, which lacks the BP penalty that other Mega pairs typically possess. Smarty-Pants makes his nuke even more devastating, though it requires Palentine’s Dawn to reliably be maxed out, and faces competition with compositions that prefer to raise Bianca’s critical-hit-rate for more overall value. Despite these newfound qualities, Giovanni retains the flaw of being reliant on an outside source to maximize his Special Attack despite having an extremely robust innate stat himself, making his compositions very stunted in comparison to the more flexible nature of the sync pairs in higher tiers.

One of the few precedents of powercreep in the normal scout pool, Hala and Crabominable are a luxury Ice-type pair defined by a combination of excellent Trainer Moves, access to decent DPS, a sync nuke, and uniquely for a Striker, unusually high bulk and access to First Aid 6 and the Enduring effect. While often eschewed over Ghetsis and Kyurem due to their increased accessibility, Hala’s access to Super Preparation Haymaker often results in an easier lights out for Ice-weak content over the Legendary Sync Pair, while he also possesses strong, single-target Ice Hammers to whack away at the opposition with. Hala does struggle with gauge due to low Speed and Ice Hammer lowering it even further to activate Slow Windup, and recent pairs have also made his DPS and, to a lesser extent, his nuke comparatively substandard.