Noivern Guide: A Modern Dragon Pokemon Worth Catching

Noivern, the sound wave Pokémon, is a dual Flying/Dragon-type Pokémon introduced in Gen 6. It is the evolution of Noibat. Noivern is mostly based on the Plecotus bat species, and in the Wyvern, a bipedal dragon with two wings. TheThe Wyvern’s cultural origin comes from the medieval age of Europe. That’s why it has its dual Flying/Dragon-type. 

Noivern is a bipedal Pokémon. It is dragon-like Pokémon with two big black and purple wings, and the membranes on its wings are turquoise. It also has three small red claws at the top of its wings, resembling its hands. In addition, it has two big ears with a turquoise membrane inside of them, and it has a big red V-shaped growth in its face. 

Its eyes are yellow, and its jaw is purple. In addition, it has white fur covering its neck, and its body is purple while its legs are black with red claws on its feet. Finally, it has a small black tail. 

Noivern uses its ears to navigate in the darkness, and it is also capable of using them to attack; the soundwaves it sends are capable of destroying big boulders. Noivern is mostly an anxious Pokémon, but as a great bat, it loves eating berries; they help calm it.  

Noivern’s name comes from the union of Noise and Wyvern. 

Noivern Summary of Appearances in Pokémon Versions and Media (Games, Anime, Movies)

In the games, you can find Noivern in the following places: 

• Gen 6: Noivern is only obtainable by evolving Noibat. Noibat can be found in the Terminus Cave, in the Victory Road, and in a Dragon-type Friend Safari.
• Gen 7: Noivern doesn’t appear in Sun and Moon, but it can appear in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon in the Resolution Cave.
• Gen 8: Noivern can be found in the Lake of Outrage, in the Bridge Field as a Wanderer, and in Axew’s Eye in a Max Raid Battle. In the expansions, Noivern can be found in the Ballimere Lake, and in the Lakeside Cave. 

Noivern made its debut in the anime in Celebrating the Hero’s Comet! under the ownership of Alexa. Noivern is a Gen 6 Pokémon, but it made its debut in a Gen 5 episode; Noivern is an advanced Pokémon. Alexa’s Noivern also appeared in various episodes through the starting of the Gen 6 era. 

Noivern is also pretty well known in the anime because Ash owns one. It was hatched from an egg that contained Noibat, and it evolved in An Electrifying Rage! When it was battling against Zapdos.  Noivern also appeared in Pokémon Generations as a wild Pokémon that attacks Red and his Pikachu in the Terminus Cave. 

In the manga, Noivern only appeared in PS549, when X was having a flashback of when he used his Kangaskhan to defeat an unknown trainer’s Noivern to win the Kalos Junior Tournament. 

Noivern also has a lot of cards in the TCG. It has a Rare Holo in Furious Fists, and four rare ones in BREAKthrough, Forbidden Light, and in Unified Minds. It also got a Rare BREAK in the BREAKthrough set.  Noivern has 4 GX cards too; an Ultra Rare-Rare one, a Rare Ultra and a Secret Rare in Burning Shadows, and a Shiny Rare one (where it is in its Shiny version) in the Hidden Fates set. 

Noivern Evolution Line: When Does Noivern Evolve?

Noibat can evolve into Noivern at level 48. But Noivern can’t evolve. 

Noivern Stats

Noivern, as the typical dragon of its Gen, is really powerful, but it isn’t enough to highlight in the highest tiers of the competitive system. However, it can be used in UU and RU (Under Used and Rarely Used, respectively). This doesn’t mean Noivern isn’t bad since it is one of the highest threats in those tiers. 

The problem with Noivern in those tiers is that there’s another good Flying/Dragon-type in this tier: Salamence. It is stronger, and it’s better as a wall breaker than Noivern. But if you want to attack first in every single turn, your option has to be Noivern. 

Stats

As you can see, It has one of the highest base Speeds of the game, and it is capable of outspeeding every Pokémon in UU and RU. Now, with good EVs, Noivern is unstoppable. In addition, Noivern is a great Special Attacker, and with its Speed, the only viable way to use it is as a Sweeper or as a Wall Breaker. 

Anyway, Noivern is pretty balanced, and its HP, Defense, and Special Defense aren’t bad at all, and that’s something good because we don’t have to divert EVs, objects, or nature only to try to protect it. 

Let’s check out Noivern’s abilities since they are all really useful! 

Abilities 

• Frisk: Noivern can know the held item of the foe’s Pokémon.
• Infiltrator: Noivern’s attacks will bypass the following protections: Reflect, Light Screen, Safeguard, Mist, Aurora Veil, and Substitute.
• Telepathy (As its hidden ability): Noivern will always avoid the damaging moves from its allies. 

Let’s start with Frisk. This ability can be pretty useful but only in certain circumstances. The problem with it is that knowing which objects a Pokémon can have can be obvious when competing because you should know what suits them best to every Pokémon. Sometimes, a Pokémon can hold a strange item, but this doesn’t happen often. 

Infiltrator is such a great ability to have in a Sweeper Pokémon like Noivern because the protections are common in the competitive game. Therefore, a Reflect setter or a Light Screen setter will be useless against Noivern. This lets us avoid the needing to have Brick Break or an attack that can bypass protections.

Lastly, Telepathy is very useful, but only in double or triple battles. Many attacks can hit your team’s Pokémon, too, like Surf or Muddy Water (Earthquake too, but in this case, it doesn’t matter since Noivern has the Flying-type is immune to it), and Telepathy comes in handy for those moments. 

Natures

To be a good Sweeper or a Wall Breaker, a Pokémon needs to be fast and strong. Then, we need Noivern to be excellent in Attack (in its case, Special Attack) or in Speed. We will buff the Speed with nature because it’s preferable for Noivern to be faster. After all, if Noivern is in trouble, it has to use a U-turn. 

• Timid (Increases Speed, reduces Attack) 
• Hasty (Increases Speed, reduces Defense) 
• Jolly (Increases Speed, reduces Special Attack) 
• Naive (Increases Speed, reduces Special Defense)

For this build, we are going to use Timid since we will not have any Physical move. We need to protect Noivern the most, so Hasty and Naive aren’t good options, and Jolly will decrease Noivern’s Special Attack, and it will be our main tool, so this isn’t a good option either. 

Moves per Level (Gen 8)

Let’s check what can Noivern learn: 

We have access to a lot of great attacks here like Boomburst, or Dragon Pulse, but most of the attacks we are going to use are in the Move list per TM/TR. let’s check out that one too: 

Moves per TM/TR (Gen 8)

Noivern has a lot of moves here to use, and plenty of great options too. Anyway, it’s better if you choose a good Special Attack, and if you want a balanced Noivern you have attacks like Dark Pulse, Hyper Voice, Shadow Ball or Psychic.

Noivern Strengths

Noivern is a dual Flying/Dragon-type Pokémon. This means that it can resist the following types: 

• It only gets ½ of the damage against Water-type.
• It only gets ½ of the damage against Bug-type.
• It only gets ½ of the damage against Fire-type.
• It only gets ½ of the damage against Fighting-type.
• It only gets 1/4 of the damage against Grass-type.

Also, its Dragon and Flying attacks will do a lot of damage to the following types: 

• With Dragon-type attacks: Dragon-type. 
• With Flying-type attacks: Bug, Grass and Fighting-type. 

Noivern can cover itself from a lot of types, and that’s good. Fortunately, this makes Fire-type Pokémon like Chandelure, Incineroar, Marowak, Darmanitan, or Volcanion pretty useless. Water-types can’t do much against Noivern either, and Grass-types are really useless here too. 

Roserade, Dhelmise, Politoed, Tsareena, or Vileplume are bad options against Noivern, which will sweep all of those with a single Hurricane. 

Resuming the capability of Noivern to cover Fire, Grass and Water-types is such a great advantage since these types are the ones with the most Pokémon in the game, so it’s common to find those in this tier too. Bug-types struggle against Noivern too, and fortunately, they are common in the RU and UU tiers. 

Regarding the Fighting-type, it isn’t common in this tier, nor the Dragon-type. 

Noivern Weaknesses

Noivern’s dual type makes it vulnerable to the following types: 

• It takes x4 damage against Ice-type.
• It takes x2 damage against Dragon-type.
• It takes x2 damage against Fairy-type.
• It takes x2 damage against Rock-type.

Also, its Dragon and Flying-type attack will not do much against the following types: 

• Flying-type attacks: Steel, Electric and Rock-type. 
• Dragon-type attacks: Steel-type. Also, Fairy-type is immune to the Dragon-type. 

Ice-type Pokémon aren’t common in the RU and UU tiers, but they are always a menace. And mostly if Noivern is in front of an attacker that can learn an Ice-type attack. This is the only flaw Noivern has, but you can try to cover it by teaching Flamethrower to Noivern. If you are in front of an Ice-type Pokémon, you’ll probably attack first; if this happens, don’t hesitate and burn that thing down. 

As we said earlier, Dragon-types aren’t very common, and that’s good. But Tyrantrum exists and has access to Dragon and Rock-type attacks. At least Noivern is faster than it, and a good Draco Meteor will get it down.  The big issue here is the Fairy-type. Gardevoir, Mimikyu, the Galarian Weezing, and Togekiss are big menaces that we have to avoid. 

Noivern Best Moveset

Noivern can work with have the following set: 

• Draco Meteor
• Roost 
• U-turn/Defog
• Flamethrower

With Infiltrator as its ability, Heavy-Duty Boots as its item, and Timid as its Nature. 

EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD (or whatever you want except for Atk) / 252 Spe 

Let’s start with its Moveset. Draco Meteor is the strongest Dragon-type attack Noivern can learn, and it will help us get rid of a lot of Pokémon in this tier. The only problem is that it can decrease Noivern’s Special Attack by an x2 every time we use it, so be careful and only use it if necessary. 

Roost will heal Noivern. You can use it if you are sure Noivern will not fall with an attack from the foe’s Pokémon or if you think the foe will switch Pokémon. 

U-turn will help us get Noivern out of the field when it is at a disadvantage while inflicting some damage. But if you don’t like the idea, you can use this move slot to have Defog. This move is pretty useful if you want to get rid of Stealth Rocks, Sticky Webs or Spikes (Noivern doesn’t have any problem with them if it has the Heavy-Duty Boots, but you can help your other Pokémon with Defog). 

Defog can also get rid of the weather, and this is pretty useful because you can mess some strategies up with it. The Sunny Day + Solar Beam users will hate your Noivern. 

Flamethrower is our option to the last move slot since it will help Noivern protect itself from the Ice-type Pokémon. The problem will be when an Ice-type attacker (a Pokémon with an Ice-type attack but without being an Ice-type Pokémon) uses Blizzard on Noivern. 

You can also use Hurricane, but it only has 70% of accuracy. Nevertheless, it is a great move, and you can use it instead of U-turn/Defog but be aware that Noivern will likely miss a lot with it. 

Heavy-Duty Boots are such a great item for Noivern. Fortunately, it doesn’t need a Choice Scarf or some Choice Specs to be better in the field; that’s why Heavy-Duty Boots are pretty useful. They can make Noivern ignore the damage from the hazards in the field, like Sticky Webs, Stealth Rocks, or Spikes. 

The EVs are pretty straightforward; we only need to buff its Special Attack and its Speed. The last 4 points can be used in Defense or Special Defense, or even HP. 

There’s a good thing about Noivern; it doesn’t need coverage from teammates. We mean, it doesn’t need a Sticky Web setter because it is the fastest Pokémon in its tier, and it doesn’t need any hazard of any kind to start inflicting loads of damage. 

Anyway, it will need some coverage to protect itself from the Fairy-type; a good option has to be Metagross, Steelix, or Stakataka. 

Noivern In a Video

In this video we can see a great team where a Noivern can perfectly fit. 

And in this video, we can see how Noivern is perfect to be useful in the OU (Over Used) tier. It only needs some good company and everything will go perfectly. 

FAQs

Noivern Guide: Conclusion

If you are doubting using Salamence or Noivern for a team, stop thinking and use Noivern. Noivern is one of the strongest Pokémon of its tier, and it can also be useful in the highest tiers of the game, like Uber. Good luck using it! 

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Jesus Cruz, Lifelong Pokémon Fan

It all started in 2010 when Jesus was 10 years old. His dad gifted him a Nintendo DS and let him choose a game for it. A weird, enormous, and grey serpent caught my attention on the box art for Pokémon Platinum, and since that moment he's been hooked! He can only thank his 10 years old self for choosing the game that he loves the most in the series

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