What it does on the ladder
Altaria appears on 0.42% of Regulation M-B teams, which
is 102nd of the 277 Pokémon with enough games to measure.
The move it almost always carries is Protect, on 87% of sets.
The item is usually Haban Berry at 34.9%.
The ability is split: Cloud Nine on 98.8% and Natural Cure on 1.2%.
Those are Smogon's published usage figures, not anything measured here, and they describe what
the ladder plays rather than what is strongest. The full set is in the panel above.
The Pokémon itself
Altaria is number 334 in the National Dex, a Hoenn Pokémon, Dragon and Flying
with a base stat total of 490 — 147th of the 234 Pokémon
legal in this regulation. Its best stat is Sp. Def at 105, 34th
in the format; its weakest is Sp. Atk at 70, 144th.
It can have Natural Cure and Cloud Nine.
The Champions module tiers it UU.
It sits in a 2-stage line: Swablu → Altaria.
Not all of that line is legal in this regulation — Swablu is not.
What gets through
As Dragon and Flying, 4 of the eighteen attacking types do extra damage to it, and Ice lands for quadruple. It
resists 5 and is immune to 1. The board above
has all of it. 2 other legal Pokémon share the same typing and the same board: Dragonite, Noivern.
What threatens it
Smogon publishes no head-to-head checks-and-counters data for doubles formats, so this list is
computed, not measured: the most-played Regulation M-B Pokémon carrying a damaging
move of a type Altaria takes extra damage from.
- Garchomp — Dragon Claw (Dragon, ×2), on 91.2% of its sets
- Whimsicott — Moonblast (Fairy, ×2), on 96.7% of its sets
- Floette-Mega — Dazzling Gleam (Fairy, ×2), on 97.8% of its sets
- Archaludon — Dragon Pulse (Dragon, ×2), on 83.4% of its sets
- Froslass-Mega — Blizzard (Ice, ×4), on 99.2% of its sets
- Aerodactyl-Mega — Rock Slide (Rock, ×2), on 99.4% of its sets
Speed and weight
At level 50 with a boosting nature and full investment, Altaria reaches
145 Speed; left uninvested with a neutral nature it sits at
100. Invested, it outruns 8 of the 20
most-used Pokémon in the regulation when they are invested too — which is the comparison that
decides who moves first.
It weighs 20.6 kg, so Grass Knot and Low Kick hit it for 40 base
power. That is a real consideration in a format where both are common.
Its move pool
Altaria learns 101 moves in the Champions data.
59 of them do damage, across 13 of the eighteen
types, and 18 share a type with it and so get the same-type bonus.
Its hardest-hitting same-type move is Sky Attack at 140 base power, though the biggest number in the pool is Giga Impact at 150.
It has no priority move, so it moves in Speed order every turn.
That pool is what the team builder reads from when you seat it, and the
damage calculator will take it as the attacker with
the form already chosen.
