What is a good ghost or dark type Pokemon for emerald?

Question

My other Pokemon will be
-Blaziken, the firey starter
-Manectric, a quick eletric type
-Flygon, the spirit of the desert
-Walrein, the ice breaker
-and Gardevoir- to keep me and my other Pokemon company until we get a metagross

Answer 1

Since there are relatively few Dark/ Ghost Pokemon in Gen III, you don't have that much of a choice.

Main candidates for support would be Umbreon and Sableye; Houndoom is another (offensive) possibility, but since you have Blaziken I would suggest the first two instead.

Umbreon will be able to Baton Pass Mean Look (since this trick still works in Gen III), while Sableye will provide a few useful immunities, though it's lacking in any offensive power. Sableye is not a very good in-game Pokemon unless its bred moves such as Recover.

Offensive Dark Pokemon would be Tyranitar and Crawdaunt. While you have a water type already, I would suggest Crawdaunt. It has less weaknesses that Tyranitar, and you already have Blaziken to resist grass and Manectric to resist Electric.

As for Ghost types, either Gengar or Dusclops. Mismagius doesn't come in until Gen IV, so Gengar for offensive and Dusclops for defensive.

Comments

Shiftry or cacturne are good options, as they're both powerful offensive grass/dark types who most notably resist ground and hit it supereffectively, useful considering with metagross you'll have three ground weaknesses.

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Shiftry = only good in competitive sun with Chlorophyll
Cacturne = too slow to do much damage before KO'd

Both have a x4 Bug weakness, and a huge list of other common weaknesses too.

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Better than crawdaunt. With the awful special attack he can't use his stabs well. Also, except for the occasional heracross or the rare in game scizor, what puny bug types even come close to being an issue. Not beuatifly (especially with that blaziken) and in game hidden power bug isn't a threat also, a grass type would really help in beating that swampert the rival has..

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Um, Waterfall, Crabhammer & Crunch. Crawduant doesn't need special moves.

Even with few Bug Pokemon around, Shiftry and Cacturne have so many weaknesses that they're not worth using in game.

What do they even resist? Ghost, Psychic & Dark - covered by Crawdaunt. Water - covered by Walrein. Grass - covered by Blaziken. Ground - covered by Flygon. Electric - covered by Manectric.

Grass is super-effective against Ground, Rock and Water. First two are covered by Walrein, the last covered by Manectric.

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This is gen 3 where all water and dark moves are special

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Oh I forgot about that. Gen III seemed so long ago... :/

I still maintain that the Dark/ Grass combination is really rubbish. Shiftry only gets any use because of Chlorophyll.

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Eh whatever works for weatherman but ill still go with grass/dark
And sharpedo and crawdaunt only see the limelight due to speed boost and adaptability (in gen V)

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Thanks! I decided on using a shiftry with this move set:giga drain, faint attack, rock tomb, extracensory

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No prob. Hey if you got the tm it might be nice to have brick break on shiftry to deal with steel types and get great coverage with his dark stab but whatever works

Answer 2

I think Absol is the best dark Pokemon in the game and better than all ghost Pokemon. It has 130 base physical attack and learns swords dance by level up. Many gym leaders and Elite 4 members have a weak Pokemon that just lets Absol use swords dance, so Absol can easily solo the last 3 gym leaders and first 2 Elite 4 members. This is the moveset that I recommend.

Absol @ soothe bell/silk scarf
EVs: 100 Spe
- strength -> return
- shadow ball
- taunt
- swords dance