Gyarados

Water/Flying · Intimidate · D tier · base 95/125/79/60/100/81 · the budget Dragon Dancer — a 125-Attack setup sweeper that walks in behind Intimidate, is immune to Ground, eats Ice neutrally instead of 4×, and overloads the same checks Double Dragon Dance offense already strains. Outclassed by Salamence on paper, but its defensive niche and clean +1 are real.

Format role

Gyarados is the D-tier Dragon Dance sweeper that exists because it does three things the A-tier Dragons can’t quite copy at once. First, Intimidate drops the opposing Attack a stage the instant it switches in, so unlike a cold-entry Tyranitar, Gyarados can pivot into a physical attacker, soften the hit, and then set up — the ability buys the free turn a slow-ish (base 81) Dragon Dancer needs. Second, its Water/Flying typing is immune to Ground (Flying) and only neutral to Ice, which matters enormously: Salamence is 4× Ice and dies to any chip + Ice Beam, but Gyarados shrugs off Ice Beam and laughs at Earthquake, so it answers Ground-heavy offense and the Dugtrio traps that catch grounded sweepers. Third, after one Dragon Dance its base 81 Speed (~391 Adamant) clears the unboosted tier through the base-115s — falling just short of base-130 Aerodactyl/Jolteon (394) unless it runs Jolly — while 125 Attack at +1 (×1.5) is a genuine win condition against a weakened team.

The honest framing — and the reason it sits at D, not A — is that everything Gyarados does, Salamence does harder. Salamence has 135 Attack, base 100 Speed, a 110-SpA mixed option that cracks SkarmBliss in one switch, and the same Intimidate. Gyarados has no Rock Head (so its Double-Edge recoils), a shallow physical movepool, and the same Electric weakness sitting at a fatal 4× instead of Salamence’s 2× Rock. It is a specialist: you run Gyarados when you specifically want the Ground immunity, the Ice-neutrality, and a second Intimidate body, and when you’re willing to trade raw power for them. For where it lands in the pecking order, see the viability tiers.

The site embeds a TypeProfile widget above this section showing the full Water/Flying resist/weakness spread.

Sets

Gyarados runs essentially one aggressive job: an Intimidate-enabled Dragon Dance sweeper. The movepool is shallow enough that the set below is the standard, with only the fourth-move and EV details up for debate.

Dragon Dance — the Intimidate sweeper

Gyarados @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
Adamant Nature
EVs: 68 HP / 252 Atk / 188 Spe
IVs: 30 SpA / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Dragon Dance
- Hidden Power Flying
- Earthquake
- Double-Edge

This is the standard Dragon Dance Gyarados. Hidden Power Flying is the chosen STAB — Gyarados has no Fly/Drill Peck worth running and HP Flying is the physical Flying STAB that actually matters, smashing the Fighting/Bug revenge-killer pool: it is 4× on Heracross (Bug/Fighting) and 4× on Breloom (Grass/Fighting), the exact priority/Megahorn threats that would otherwise revenge a setup sweeper. (The slash partner is Hidden Power Rock for the Flyer matchup; the set above takes the Fighting/Bug-killing Flying option.) Earthquake is the Steel-breaking coverage — 4× on Magneton (Electric/Steel), 2× on Metagross and Jirachi, and 2× on Tyranitar — and it’s the move that punishes the grounded Electrics (Jolteon, 2×) that try to revenge it. Double-Edge is the fourth-slot damage option — the Normal-type nuke for everything the STAB and EQ don’t cover: it hits the bulky Waters and neutral targets hard, at the cost of recoil, because Gyarados has no Rock Head to negate it (it chips itself toward its own Electric/Rock revenge range every time it clicks). The canonical alternatives in that slot are Taunt to lock down phazers/recovery and Thunder Wave to cripple a switch-in, but the all-out Double-Edge build is the one that threatens to end games. Leftovers is the standard item, restoring the recoil and sand chip Gyarados accrues so its Speed boost can stick across multiple turns; the ladder’s main alternative is a Liechi Berry on Substitute/Flail variants.

The spread is the canonical 68 HP / 252 Atk / 188 Spe, Adamant. The 188 Speed is the key benchmark — it lets a +1 Gyarados clear the relevant base-100s and base-115s of the unboosted field while max Attack keeps the payload at full and 68 HP buys a little extra bulk on a 95/79/100 body (already cushioned by Intimidate on the way in). Some pilots shift to the Jolly version of this same spread to guarantee creeping the +1 mirror and base-130 Aerodactyl benchmarks, but Adamant is preferred here because Gyarados is power-starved relative to Salamence and needs every point of Attack to justify the slot. There is also a bulkier Rest variant (216 HP / 16 Atk / 88 SpD / 188 Spe, Rest in the last slot) that trades the immediate fourth attack for longevity, but the EdgeQuake-style STAB + EQ + Double-Edge build is the aggressive default.

What it does for aggressive offense

Gyarados’s whole pitch on an aggressive team is a second Dragon Dance body that overloads the exact checks Double Dragon Dance offense already strains, while plugging the Ground/Ice hole Salamence leaves open. It is rarely the headline wincon — it’s the third or fourth piece on an offense that already has a Tyranitar or Salamence, added because it forces the opponent to keep yet another set of checks alive.

The defining synergy is Double Dragon Dance with Tyranitar. Pair DD Gyarados with DD Tyranitar and the opponent is in defensive-allocation hell: the bulky Waters that wall +1 Tyranitar’s Rock Slide/Earthquake are the same Waters Gyarados’s Double-Edge and EQ grind down, while Skarmory — Tyranitar’s phazing answer — eats a Gyarados Double-Edge (resisted, but chipping) and can’t switch into the boost forever. More importantly, their revenge killers barely overlap. Tyranitar is revenged by Fighting/Ground/Water; Gyarados is immune to Ground and only fears Electric/Rock. The Aerodactyl Rock Slide that revenges a +1 Tyranitar also revenges Gyarados — but the Swampert/Dugtrio Earthquake that hard-stops a chipped Tyranitar does nothing to Gyarados (Flying immunity). Keeping a clean answer to both setup sweepers alive, simultaneously, is nearly impossible — and that overload is the entire engine of Double Dragon Dance offense.

The Ground/Ice immunity-and-neutrality package is the real reason to pick Gyarados over a third generic breaker. A Ground-spam offense (Dugtrio + EdgeQuake attackers) that pressures most of your team gives Gyarados free switch-ins; it pivots in on the Earthquake, Intimidates the attacker, and starts setting up. And because Gyarados is only neutral to Ice — not 4× like the other Dragons — the bulky-Water Ice Beam that erases Salamence merely chips Gyarados, so it can muscle past a Suicune or Starmie that would cleanly revenge its Double-Dragon partner. Combined with Intimidate, Gyarados does defensive work (cushioning physical hits, answering Ground) and offensive work (the +1 sweep) from one slot — exactly the doubled-up value an aggressive team wants from a non-headline piece.

When you are building around it, Gyarados wants its two real checks — the Electric attackers and the bulky Waters — pressured before it commits. A Magneton traps and deletes Skarmory (the phazer that Roars the boost away) and chips the Steels; a Dugtrio traps and removes a weakened Zapdos or Jolteon (the 4× Electric revenge); a strong special breaker overloads the Waters that carry Surf/Ice Beam. Tyranitar sand is a double-edged partner: Gyarados is not Rock/Ground/Steel, so it does take 1/16 sand chip each turn — meaningful on a recoil-prone, Electric-4× body — but the sand simultaneously grinds the recovery-spamming Waters and Blisseys Gyarados is trying to break, and pressures opposing offense. On a fast-clicking team that’s usually a net positive; just respect that sand + Double-Edge recoil pushes Gyarados into revenge range fast. See building aggressive offense and common cores.

Load-bearing type matchups

Gyarados’s coverage is narrow but its STAB/EQ split hits the right revenge-killer and Steel pools. The numbers below — all verified against the Gen-3 chart — drive every prediction you make with it.

Three of these decide how you pilot it. HP Flying is resisted by every Flyer and Steel — 0.5× on Skarmory, Zapdos, and Tyranitar — so the STAB is a revenge-killer-punisher (Heracross/Breloom 4×) and a neutral-spam button, not a wallbreaker; you click Earthquake or Double-Edge on those. Earthquake is dead into the two Flyers that wall it — Skarmory and Zapdos are both immune (Flying negates Ground), which is why a healthy Skarmory phazes the DD set out and Zapdos pivots in for free to Thunderbolt. And Double-Edge does nothing to Gengar (Ghost is immune to Normal), so a Levitate Gengar — immune to your EQ and your Double-Edge — is a clean switch-in to two of your three attacks; you need HP Flying (neutral) or a teammate for it.

What threatens Gyarados

Gyarados’s offense is paid for in a defensive profile with one glaring hole. Water/Flying is 4× weak to Electric (Electric 2× on Water × 2× on Flying) and 2× weak to Rock — and with no Choice Scarf in Gen 3, almost every answer is “be faster than +1 and carry Electric or Rock,” or “be a bulky Water that lives the boosted hit.”

• Zapdos — the cleanest hard answer. Thunderbolt is 4× and OHKOs even the bulky DD spread; Zapdos outspeeds an unboosted Gyarados and is immune to its Earthquake (Flying) while resisting Hidden Power Flying (0.5×), so it pivots in for free and clicks the button — and even a +1 Gyarados, now faster, can’t break Zapdos before it fires back. There is no riskier matchup for a Gyarados pilot — never set up with a healthy Zapdos in the back.
• Jolteon and other Electrics — Jolteon outspeeds the field and Thunderbolt is 4× for a guaranteed revenge; Magneton’s Thunderbolt is the same 4×. Gyarados’s EQ is 2× on Jolteon and 4× on Magneton (Electric/Steel), so it trades — but you lose the race if you’re not already at +1, and a single Electric move ends the sweep.
• Bulky Waters — Suicune, Milotic, Starmie — these are the wall-side answer. Gyarados is only neutral to their Ice Beam (a real upgrade over Salamence’s 4×), but Surf is 0.5× on it so it can’t break them fast, and Suicune/Milotic recover off Double-Edge chip while threatening to chip or paralyze back. Starmie’s Thunderbolt is the 4× revenge and Suicune’s bulk simply outlasts an unboosted Gyarados. They check the unboosted mon; a +1 Gyarados off prior chip can muscle through Milotic, which is the whole point of bringing it.
• Aerodactyl — base 130 Speed outruns even a +1 Adamant Gyarados (391 vs 394) and Rock Slide is 2× for a clean revenge. The premier fast Rock answer to the entire Dragon-Dance archetype, Gyarados included.
• Skarmory — walls the set defensively: HP Flying and Double-Edge are both resisted (0.5×) and Earthquake is a Ground immunity via Flying, so Skarmory takes nothing meaningful and Roars the DD boost away before it snowballs. The standard counterplay is to trap it with Magneton first, exactly as you would for any physical Dragon.
• What it is NOT weak to — note Gyarados is immune to Ground (Earthquake does nothing) and cannot be trapped by Dugtrio; it takes Ice neutrally (not 4×), Water at 0.5×, and Fighting/Fire/Bug at 0.5×. So don’t expect EQ, Ice Beam, or Surf to revenge it the way they would Salamence — the answer to Gyarados specifically is Electric, Rock, or out-speeding it after chip.

The throughline for aggressive play: Gyarados is the Dragon you bring when the Ground/Ice answers in your opponent’s back pocket are what’s keeping your other sweepers checked. But its 4× Electric weakness is unforgiving — a single healthy Zapdos or Jolteon shuts the whole thing down — so you must either remove the Electric (Dugtrio/Magneton trapping) or be confident it’s already chipped before you commit and click Dragon Dance.

See also

• Tyranitar — the Double Dragon Dance partner; the bulky-Water/Skarmory checks they share get overloaded while their revenge killers barely overlap.
• Salamence — the A-tier Dragon Dancer Gyarados is measured against; pick Gyarados for the Ground immunity and Ice-neutrality, Salamence for raw power and the mixed SkarmBliss break.
• Magneton / Dugtrio — the trappers that remove the Skarmory and Electric/bulky-Water checks standing between Gyarados and a sweep.
• Zapdos / Jolteon — the 4× Electric revenge killers you must respect and pressure.
• Building aggressive offense · Common cores · Sample teams · Mechanics & calc reference