Pokémon Scarlet & Violet: How to Get Iron Valiant

There are some Pokémon that only become accessible after you beat the Pokémon League in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet. To get Iron Valiant—the future form of Gardevoir and Gallade—you must delve deep into a late-game area.

How to Find Iron Valiant

Iron Valiant is a version-exclusive Pokémon that only appears in Pokémon Violet. If you have Pokémon Scarlet, you need to trade with another player to get Iron Valiant or join a group where the host is playing Pokémon Violet.

With that said, Pokémon Violet players can locate an Iron Valiant by heading into Area Zero. Start from Research Station #3. When you exit the building, you see a large cave entrance to the right and a grassy path to the left. Take the left path.

Keep going until you reach the tree that is below the stone archway. Then, turn slightly left and look at the nearby rock formation. It doesn’t look like it from afar, but there is a small path that leads into a cave here.

Once you find the way into this tiny path, the area will open up a bit more. Here, you can see the mouth that leads into the cavern.

Once inside the cave, your path will be linear and you can’t really make a wrong turn unless you go back the way you came. Keep heading deeper into the cave until you see a waterfall.

At this point, it should not take you long to find an Iron Valiant within this cave. It can spawn among other Pokémon, such as Chansey, Iron Jugulis, Midnight Form Lycanroc, and more.

Like other Pokémon in Area Zero, Iron Valiant can spawn around level 55. Now, all you have to do is catch it! Though, that’s easier said than done. Iron Valiant has a catch rate of 10, which, put simply, means that there is about a 4% chance to catch one at full HP with an ordinary Poké Ball.

Tips for Catching Iron Valiant

As usual, you want to decrease its HP and inflict it with a status ailment to increase your capture chances. It’s recommended to put it to sleep, as that will prevent it from fighting back and won’t accidentally knock it out with damage-over-time effects. Also, be sure to use an Ultra Ball or another Poké Ball with a better catch rate modifier than a standard Poké Ball.

Is Iron Valiant Any Good?

Yes, Iron Valiant can be a great sweeper due to its high offensive stats and Speed. Also, it has almost equal potential as either a special attacker or a physical attacker. With that said, as usual, it’s better to pick one path to specialize in rather than trying to be good at two things.

In terms of appearance, Iron Valiant seems to be the future form of both Gardevoir and Gallade. It has both the dress-like body of Gardevoir and the blade-like arms of Gallade. On top of that, its head possesses the visual qualities of both the aforementioned Pokémon. This is a novel and interesting design for a “Paradox Pokémon” and can be seen as some sort of hybrid robot.

Iron Valiant’s Typing

This Pokémon is Fairy and Fighting-type. As such, it takes the secondary typing of both Gardevoir and Gallade while ditching the primary Psychic-type. While thematically appropriate, this leaves Iron Valiant with decent offensive typing at the expense of making it rather vulnerable.

Iron Valiant has one immunity (Dragon) and four resistances (Fighting, Rock, Bug, and Dark). Conversely, it has five weaknesses (Flying, Poison, Steel, Psychic, and Fairy), which means it won’t have very good type matchups overall.

For this reason, you want to hit opponents fast and hard with Iron Valiant so that you have better chances of knocking out foes during every turn and preventing counterattacks.

Iron Valiant’s Stats

Here are Iron Valiant’s base stats:

• HP – 74
• Attack  – 130
• Defense – 90
• Special Attack – 120
• Special Defense – 60
• Speed – 116

With both offensive base stats being over 100, it’s clear that Iron Valiant is meant to dish out a ton of damage of whatever variety you want. It’s geared a bit more toward physical attacks, however, you won’t lose out very much if you choose to make it a special attacker.

Despite having a decent Defense stat, Iron Valiant’s Special Defense and HP stats aren’t very good. This results in it becoming somewhat of a glass cannon. Don’t expect your Iron Valiant to stay standing after getting hit by a super-effective move—particularly if it’s a special attack.

You want to move first during as many turns as possible. Moreover, you want to try and knock out one foe each turn to avoid getting hit yourself. Due to Iron Valiant’s high Speed stat, you can potentially do this against the majority of enemies.

Iron Valiant’s Ability

Iron Valiant’s ability is Quark Drive, which is a new one introduced in Generation IX. If it is holding a Booster Energy-held item, or if Electric Terrain is active, Quark Drive will automatically boost Iron Valiant’s highest stat by 30% (except Speed, which gets a 50% boost instead).

For example, if your Iron Valiant’s highest stat is Speed at 200 and you activate Quark Drive, its Speed gets increased to 300. As another example, if your Iron Valiant’s highest stat is Attack at 200, and you activate Quark Drive, its Attack gets increased to 260.

Additionally, stat boosts that exist prior to Quark Drive being activated will be considered when the ability’s stat increase is applied. For instance, you can increase Iron Valiant’s Speed by using Agility to get its Speed higher than an offensive stat before triggering Quark Drive by using Electric Terrain. This would let you get the 50% Speed boost from the ability even though your Iron Valiant’s original stats had higher offensive stats than Speed.

Most of the time, increasing Iron Valiant’s Speed is more useful, as it will perform better by moving first during any given turn. As such, you will likely have to EV train or use consumable items on your Iron Valiant to get its Speed higher than its offensive stats.

Iron Valiant’s Moveset

Another important factor that makes Iron Valiant a great Pokémon is its massive movepool. It can learn tons of great physical, special, and status moves. This is true both through leveling up and using TMs on it. As such, Iron Valiant has excellent type coverage and STAB (same type attack bonus) options.

Here are some of the best moves for a physical Iron Valiant:

• Psycho Cut (learned at level 35)
• Night Slash (learned at level 42)
• Leaf Blade (learned at level 49)
• Close Combat (learned at level 63)
• Knock Off (learned at level 70)
• Spirit Break (learned at level 91)
• Shadow Claw (learned from TM061)
• Fire Punch (learned from TM067)
• Thunder Punch (learned from TM068)
• Ice Punch (learned from TM069)
• Poison Jab (learned from TM083)
• Sword Dance (learned from TM088)
• X-Scissor (learned from TM105)
• Liquidation (learned from TM110)

And here are some of the best moves for a special Iron Valiant:

• Moonblast (learned at level 56)
• Psyshock (learned from TM054)
• Grass Knot (learned from TM081)
• Aura Sphere (learned from TM112)
• Shadow Ball (learned from TM114)
• Energy Ball (learned from TM119)
• Psychic (learned from TM120)
• Thunderbolt (learned from TM126)
• Calm Mind (learned from TM129)
• Focus Blast (learned from TM158)

Among the wealth of great attacks and offensive-stat-related status moves, there are some solid general ones that would do well on any Iron Valiant set:

• Destiny Bond (learned at level 77)
• Agility (learned from TM004)
• Substitute (learned from TM103)
• Electric Terrain (can be remembered or learned from TM136)
• Tera Blast (learned from TM171)