How to Find All 4 Paldean Legendaries

Learn how to find all four Ruinous Legendary Pokémon in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Discover their locations, types, and how to break the seals on their shrines.

As with all Pokémon games, Legendary hunting is one of the most exciting activities you can undertake. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are no different there, and there are four Legendary Pokémon you can work on as soon as you gain full access to the open world.

Each of the four Legendary Pokémon are known as Ruin Pokémon in the Pokédex and appears to have ties to Chinese myths. All four are Level 60, and have dual Types, all of which are Dark, and then an additional one. You can find out more in the table below.

Each of the four Legendary Pokémon also have an exclusive move which fits the theme as Ruinous Pokémon. Ting-Lu’s Vessel of Ruin lowers the Sp. Attack of all Pokémon other than itself. Chien-Pao’s Sword of Ruin is the same but for Defense, Chi-Yu’s Beads of Ruin impacts the Sp. Defense stat, and Wo-Chien’s Tablets of Ruin affects Attack.

Unlike past Pokémon games, where you usually have to defeat the Elite Four before going on the Legendary hunt but that is not the case here. You can start finding the Black Stakes as soon as you can explore the world (although you will need a few travel abilities for some of them).

You can even catch them at this point too, although you may wish to wait on when you can purchase Ultra Balls as it will be a painful experience trying to catch one with a Great Ball (as we learned the hard way). If you’re lower level and wish to attempt to catch one, you can try and Poison them (which all are susceptible to) and then try and toss Ultra Balls while you look to survive (we caught Chi-Yu with a Level 33 Arcanine ).

As mentioned above, all four of these Ruinous Legendary Pokémon are part of the Black Stake quest which has no indicators. You will find four Shrines in the corners of Paldea, each with their own color and you must remove eight stakes of the same color to break the seal. Once broken, you can examine the seal and a battle with respective Pokémon will begin.

If you wish to track down every stake, look no further than our pages below:

• All Orange Stake Locations
• All Green Stake Locations
• All Blue Stake Locations
• All Purple Stake Locations

Note: If you accidentally knock out a Legendary Pokémon, you can re-try it again later after a major story event or a certain amount of in-game time has passed.