Every Apple Pokemon Explained: Only 3 of Applin’s 4 Evolutions Need an Item — Flapple, Appletun, Dipplin, and What Hydrapple Actually Requires

Search “Applin evolution items” and you’ll find guides confidently listing four items for four evolutions. That’s wrong. Applin has four evolutions — Flapple, Appletun, Dipplin, and Hydrapple — but only three of them come from feeding Applin an apple. The fourth, Hydrapple, evolves from Dipplin through a move you have to teach it first, not an item you buy or find. Miss that distinction and you’ll spend an afternoon checking Delibird Presents and sparkling spots in Kitakami for an item that doesn’t exist.

This guide breaks down exactly what each of the four forms actually needs, what each one is built for once you have it, and which branch is worth your time depending on whether you’re filling out a Pokedex or building a Pokemon Champions team.

Quick Start: The Applin Evolution Line at a Glance

Here’s the full line before the mechanism-level detail below. Applin itself doesn’t need anything special to obtain — catch or breed it, then choose a branch.

Only Flapple and Appletun exist in the base game. Dipplin and Hydrapple are locked behind The Teal Mask DLC — if you don’t own it, two of these four forms simply aren’t reachable yet.

How Applin Itself Works

Applin is a 260 base-stat-total Grass/Dragon type that spends its entire base form defensively — 80 Defense against 40 in every offensive stat, and 20 Speed.^[1] It’s not meant to be used as-is. Every stat point Game Freak gave it is a placeholder for what it becomes once you commit it to a branch, and the flavor text makes the mechanic explicit: Pokemon Shield’s Pokedex entry states Applin burrows into an apple at birth, and “the flavor of the fruit determines its Evolution.”^[1] Its available abilities — Ripen (doubles the effect of held Berries) or Gluttony (eats held Berries early) — barely matter, since almost nobody keeps Applin in that form long enough to trigger either.

Whichever branch you pick, the choice is permanent for that individual Applin. If you want more than one final form, you need more than one Applin — catch or breed additional copies before you start feeding apples to your only one.

Flapple — What the Tart Apple Actually Builds

A Tart Apple turns Applin into Flapple: 485 BST, and the only branch built around offense first.^[2] Its base stats lean into Attack (110) and Speed (70), a profile suited to setting up and swinging rather than sitting back. Flapple gets Grav Apple as an exclusive move — the only Pokemon that can learn it^[2] — a Grass-type physical attack, and it can also pick up Grassy Glide for priority damage.

Its ability pool is shared with Appletun (Ripen or Gluttony), with Hustle as the hidden option — Hustle adds 50% more Attack at the cost of physical-move accuracy, a high-risk, high-reward pick that suits Flapple’s aggressive stat spread if you can stomach the accuracy hit.

Buy a Tart Apple from any Delibird Presents branch — Mesagoza, Levincia, or Cascarrafa — once you’ve beaten three Gym Leaders. It costs ₽2,200 per apple, and each apple only evolves one Applin, so buy as many as the number of Flapple you want.^[8]

Appletun — What the Sweet Apple Actually Builds

A Sweet Apple produces Appletun: the same 485 BST as Flapple, but the stats point the opposite direction.^[3] Appletun’s 110 HP and 100 Special Attack, paired with 80/80 defenses and a sluggish 30 Speed, make it a slow special attacker built to take a hit and answer with Apple Acid — its exclusive move, which lowers the target’s Special Defense on contact, stacking extra damage onto whatever you throw at it next.

Appletun’s hidden ability, Thick Fat, halves damage from Fire- and Ice-type moves — exactly the two offensive types that would otherwise threaten a slow Grass/Dragon the hardest, since Ice is a steep weakness on that typing and Fire chips away at Grass’s other side.

Same purchase path as the Tart Apple: Delibird Presents in Mesagoza, Levincia, or Cascarrafa, ₽2,200, unlocked after 3 Gym Badges.^[9]

Dipplin — What the Syrupy Apple Actually Builds (and Why It’s Worth Keeping, Not Just Passing Through)

The Syrupy Apple evolves Applin into Dipplin, but you can’t buy one until you’ve reached Kitakami — this item is exclusive to The Teal Mask DLC.^[4] It’s sold from an unmanned stall in Mossfell Confluence, the orchard area in Kitakami’s southeast corner, for 500 Pokedollars each — cheaper than either base-game apple, and with no Gym Badge requirement.^[10]

Dipplin’s 485 BST skews defensive: 110 Defense, 95 Special Attack, but only 40 Speed.^[4] Most guides treat Dipplin purely as a stepping stone to Hydrapple, and for a straight power comparison, it is one — but that framing skips a real mechanical advantage. Dipplin is Not Fully Evolved, which makes it eligible to hold Eviolite, an item that raises Defense and Special Defense by 50% on any Pokemon that still has a further evolution available.^[12] Once you evolve Dipplin into Hydrapple, that eligibility disappears — Eviolite becomes dead weight the moment it’s holding a fully evolved Pokemon. If you want a genuinely tanky Grass/Dragon wall rather than the strongest possible one, a Dipplin running Eviolite is a real, if narrow, build — not just a Hydrapple in waiting.

Its abilities are Supersweet Syrup (lowers the evasion of every opposing Pokemon by one stage on switch-in, once per Pokemon) or Gluttony, with Sticky Hold as the hidden option, which stops its held item from being stolen or knocked off.^[4]

Hydrapple — The Evolution That Skips the Item Entirely

This is where every “four apple items” guide gets it wrong. Dipplin does not evolve into Hydrapple by eating another apple. It evolves by leveling up while it already knows the move Dragon Cheer — a move Dipplin can’t learn naturally through leveling, so you have to teach it TM226 first, then gain a level any way that counts, including a Rare Candy.^[5][6] Teaching Dragon Cheer alone does nothing; the level-up is the trigger, and the move just needs to already be known when it happens.

Once evolved, Hydrapple jumps to a 540 BST — the highest in the line — headlined by 120 Special Attack and 106 HP, with Defense holding at 110 from its Dipplin base.^[5] Its abilities carry over as Supersweet Syrup or Regenerator, which heals 33% of its max HP whenever it switches out, extending its usefulness across a full match instead of one engagement. Its hidden ability is Sticky Hold — not Regenerator, and not the vaguely similar-sounding “Cacophony” that shows up in some AI-summarized guides; Cacophony is a real Generation III ability, but it has never been assigned to any Pokemon in an official game, and Hydrapple doesn’t have it.^[6]

Hydrapple’s signature move, Fickle Beam, is an 80-power Special Dragon attack with a 30% chance to double to 160 power on any given use — a 104 average, with the visual tell being all of Hydrapple’s heads firing at once when the double lands.^[7] In Pokemon Champions’ VGC 2026 usage data, Hydrapple sits at roughly 1% usage, most often paired with Incineroar, Farigiraf, Archaludon, or Tyranitar, running Fickle Beam, Giga Drain, Protect, and Earth Power as its most common four moves, with its held item split between Life Orb, Leftovers, and Eject Button.^[11] That’s a niche pick, not a dominant one — but the ceiling is real: a bulky special attacker with a coinflip nuke and Regenerator-backed longevity is a genuinely different tool than anything else in the Applin line.

Which Apple Pokemon Should You Actually Build?

The four branches solve different problems, and the item — or lack of one — is the smallest part of the decision. Work through it in this order:

• Don’t own The Teal Mask DLC? Dipplin and Hydrapple aren’t reachable yet. Your choice is Flapple or Appletun only — pick based on the next two points.
• Want a physical attacker that sets up and swings? Flapple. 110 Attack, priority access through Grassy Glide, and Grav Apple as a move nothing else learns.
• Want a bulky special attacker that shrugs off Fire and Ice? Appletun. Thick Fat covers this line’s two worst defensive matchups, and 110 HP gives it room to use Apple Acid more than once.
• Want a genuinely tanky pivot rather than the strongest possible form? Stop at Dipplin and run Eviolite. You give up Hydrapple’s higher stats in exchange for a 50% Defense and Special Defense boost that Hydrapple can never legally hold.
• Want the strongest single Pokemon this line produces? Go straight for Hydrapple. Buy the Syrupy Apple, teach TM226 Dragon Cheer immediately, and level up as normal — there’s no reason to sit on Dipplin’s lower stats once you own the DLC and the TM.
• Filling out a full Pokedex or building a competitive box? All four are worth having, and none of them lock you out of the others — breed or catch a separate Applin for each branch you want.

Build Priority by Player Type

How the Apple Line Stacks Up Competitively

None of the four apple Pokemon come close to a pseudo-legendary’s raw stat total — even Hydrapple’s 540 BST sits well below the 600 BST floor that defines the 11 pseudo-legendary Pokemon, Dragonite and Garchomp among them. That’s not a knock on Hydrapple; it’s a different design tier entirely, and comparing them by stat total alone misses what makes Hydrapple worth building — a Regenerator-backed special attacker with a coinflip nuke is a role pseudo-legendaries don’t really fill.

Where Hydrapple does compete directly is inside Pokemon Champions’ own metagame, where team-building comes down to synergy and role coverage rather than raw stat totals — its Incineroar, Farigiraf, and Archaludon pairings above come straight from that format’s usage data.^[11] If you’re newer to Pokemon Champions and want the fundamentals before slotting in a niche pick like Hydrapple, the beginner’s guide covers team-building basics from scratch.

FAQ

Does teaching Dragon Cheer evolve Dipplin instantly?

No. Learning the move and leveling up are two separate steps, and both have to happen — teaching TM226 alone changes nothing. Dipplin needs to know Dragon Cheer at the moment it gains a level, whether that’s from battling, Rare Candy, or Exp. Candy. Teach the move and never level Dipplin again, and it stays a Dipplin indefinitely.^[5]

Can one Applin become more than one evolution?

No, and this trips up players trying to complete the line efficiently. Once an individual Applin evolves — into Flapple, Appletun, or Dipplin — that specific Pokemon is locked into that branch permanently, the same as any other Pokemon evolution. Wanting all four final forms means catching or breeding at least four separate Applin before feeding an apple to any of them.

Is Hydrapple actually worth building over just keeping Dipplin?

For raw power, yes — Hydrapple’s 540 BST beats Dipplin’s 485 across the board, including the Special Attack stat both share a defensive base with.^[4][5] The one thing you lose is Eviolite eligibility, since Hydrapple is fully evolved and Dipplin isn’t.^[12] If your goal is the tankiest possible wall, stopping at Dipplin is the correct call; if your goal is the strongest possible Pokemon this line produces, evolve it.

Why do so many guides list Hydrapple’s evolution as an item?

Most likely because three of the four branches genuinely are item-based, and it’s an easy pattern to assume continues. It doesn’t — Hydrapple is the outlier by design, the only member of the line that needs a Technical Machine instead of a consumable apple.^[5]

Version Note

Verified against Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, including The Teal Mask and Indigo Disk DLC, and Pokemon Champions VGC 2026 usage data as of July 2026. Apple item prices, Delibird Presents stock, and TM availability are all subject to change with future game updates — confirm current pricing and TM226’s availability in-game before committing an irreversible evolution.

Sources

1. Applin (Pokemon) — Bulbapedia
2. Flapple (Pokemon) — Bulbapedia
3. Appletun (Pokemon) — Bulbapedia
4. Dipplin (Pokemon) — Bulbapedia
5. Hydrapple (Pokemon) — Bulbapedia
6. Hydrapple — Serebii.net Pokedex
7. Fickle Beam (move) — Bulbapedia
8. Tart Apple Location and How to Get — Game8
9. Sweet Apple Location and How to Get — Game8
10. Syrupy Apple Location and How to Get — Game8
11. Hydrapple VGC 2026 Champions Preview — Pikalytics
12. Eviolite — Bulbapedia

Michael R.

I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.