Is sableye actually any good?

I’ve looked at his BST and it really doesn’t impress me. Even his mega doesn’t reach the big 500.I just want to know how people use him for ingame teams.

Pleaselog inorregisterto add a comment.

No, Sableye is not a viable option for an in-game playthrough. Its BST is a measly 380, which is lower than all the starters in their middle evolution stage. It’s almost always going to move last because of its low base speed of 50, and it’s mediocre attacking stats of 75/65 don’t help. It also doesn’t have a normal evolution, meaning you’re stuck with it until the very end of the game.

The only reason people use Sableye is for its mega evolution, which is equally bad as normal Sableye in-game because of its low speed and underwhelming offensive presense. It is viable in competitive battling thanks to its good supportive movepool, and fits well on stall teams (which isn’t really helpful in-game).

Not entirely true, X-Scizor.

In a select few games, Sableye is a goodtemporarychoice for your team.

In Sapphire, Emerald, and Alpha Sapphire (you can’t find it in Ruby or Omega Ruby, you get Mawile instead), Sableye can be found inGranite Cave. Now, granted, its base stats are no higher than 75, but at around level 10-12 when you catch it, that’s super nice. It comes with Night Shade, which at point of capture will do more damage than most (if not all) of your team’s other attacks.

But that’s not what makes it so sought after - it’s immune to everything in Brawly’s Fighting-type Gym in Dewford Town. That’s what makes you able to so easily walk over him and not break a single drop of sweat in that part of the game. Also, a lot of the moves in the early part of the game are just Normal-type, which it’s immune to. Even up to Lavaridge Town, all you have to do is run Flannery’s damn Torkoal out of Overheats and you can wall it to death because the only other move it gets is Body Slam. (This doesn’t work in AS, I think it knows Flame Burst or something.)

As you get past the fifth gym (Petalburg City, which has an easier time beating Sableye than you might expect), Sableye’s ingame viability starts to wane and I start to look for other options, mostly because of reasons X-Scizor already explained.