4th Gen The Lake Guardians

Bulbapedia said:

The lake guardians, or lake trio, is a term used to describe the Legendary trio residing in the three lakes of Sinnoh: Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf. They are meant to represent knowledge, emotion, and willpower, respectively. They are based on the Imperial Regalia of Japan: the Yata no Kagami (wisdom), Yasakani no Magatama (benevolence), and Kusanagi (valor). Parts of their names come from fantasy creatures: pixies, sprites and elves, respectively. The other parts of their names come from pronouns: you (Uxie), me (Mesprit), and us (Azelf).
Unlike previous trios, all three of the lake trio are of a single type, the Psychic-type, though like the others, they share an Ability: Levitate. According to legend, when Arceus created the universe it created Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf, and therefore is believed to be their master. According to one of Azelf's Pokédex entries, all three of them were born from the same Egg.

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Like most regions, Sinnoh had a legendary trio of Pokemon that you could battle and catch. What did you think about the Lake Trio? Did you catch and use them? Which was your favorite?

I caught all of them of course, but didn't really use them.
I can't remember which one was the one near Snowpoint but that one
was a bit trouble for me to get to it. Idk, was I missing a move or something? I think you needed rock climb, right? My fave is Mesprit. Because I like it's shiny pallete.

I caught them all, mesprit was hard in platinum >_>. Sometimes I use Azelf competitively, but I don't like uxie and mesperit.

Achromatic said:

I adore Azelf. It is a great Pokemon in competitive and just in general. I like blue too so it's great.

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I agree omg! Azelf is such a cool Pokemon and definitely my favorite of the trio. I still use it competitively a bit as well because it's an amazing support Pokemon. Uxie is my second favorite! :3

Achromatic said:

What set do you run on your Azelf? iirc mine is...

- Knock Off
- Explosion
- Stealth Rock
- Taunt

With a focus sash.

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Same one I run tbh. A fully offensive one is fun too though!

I found the lake trio one of the less interesting trios in the Pokémon world, because all three of the Pokémon share the same type and a big part of the moves they learn. Nevertheless I have caught Uxie and Azelf, but I'm not sure about Mesprit. I've only used Uxie a little in the game, but not much, as I don't really like to use legendary Pokémon.

Uxie is more me I feel but I like Azelf the most. It looks far less strange than the other two. Other than that though there is nothing else that really differentiates it from the rest of its kin so yeah, it's definitely aesthetic appeal that attracts me to it over the others.

I never caught any of them ingame but design-wise my fave of the three is Azelf, who is also a nice strong special attacker. I do like the other two as well, and all three do learn a lot of good moves, being Legendary and all.

I caught them all, but I pretty much just boxed them. I was never one to use legendaries, haha. The concept behind them has seemed really cool though.

These guys are so cute! Took me an insanely long time to capture and Dusk Balls were my very best friend here. I recall Uxie in particular taking at least 50 Dusk Balls if not more.. didn't really end up using them but I remember loving Mesprit since it had balanced stats and was pink. Azelf's my favorite now though, its blues go together really well and it's very useful in battle.

I liked the story behind the Lake Trio, a lot! It was pretty cool to have the 'sub-trio' to be central to the story for once; you could argue that the GSC legendary beasts had a role in the story, but it was largely optional and certainly didn't have a huge impact on the story.

It's cool that the trio are responsible for keeping the version mascot in-check. And the design of the lakes, forming a triangle, it's all very cool!

One thing I didn't like was the fact that they all share the same type. I can see why, sure - they're all meant to lock the version mascot in place, and it makes sense that each Elf needs to be of equal strength and whatnot, would be hard to put that across if each of them were of different type.
But with first and second, and to a lesser extent third gen, it was nice to have the variety between each member of the legendary trio.
I know each of the Lake Trio represents a different stat (sorta) but that's hardly an awesome feat in terms of the story. I mean comparatively, Suicune represents the northern wind and purifies all water it touches, Entei's roar makes volcanos erupt and Raikou... looks.. awesome.

I caught all of them but I only used Uxie which easily became my favourite as it helped me conquer the 4th gen battle towers. The choice scarf trick, thunder wave, flash, memento combo almost never fails against AI. ;)

I'm not sure if I caught Mesprit but I definitely captured Uxie and Azelf :) Uxie is by FAR my favourite of the three, I ended up using it in Cute contests when I caught it lol. Plus I love yellow and the way its eyes are always closed :)

Initially Mesprit was my favorite because I like chasing roaming legendary Pokemon. It had a larger role than just hiding away in a cave waiting for me to capture it. I did start warming up to Azelf and Uxie after catching them. I RNG abused Uxie as shiny because its shiny form is a solid gold. :D

To be real honest, I'm not a fan of their designs since their debut. Sadly that opinion hasn't change at all. If I were really forced to pick one of them, I think I might go with Azelf.

All three were a pain to catch for me, seemed they liked to knock theirsevlves out before going in to the ball. So a lot of soft resetting.

I like the idea and concept of them. they all have nice designs and great stats. I think I use Uxie the most competitively, but I usually mix up the name with Azelf haha.

I loved them Honestly they were a really cool idea and its fun that they each have a lake :D
My fav though is Mesprit probably cause its the most cute <3

I always catch legendary Pokemon, so I ended up catching them as well. Despite catching legendaries, I don't typically use them though, outside of challenges or certain events. However, I did find this particular trio to be quite interesting. Design-wise I really enjoyed all of them (Mesprit's was probably the best design), and of the three Uxie is by far my favorite, mostly because of what it represents, and it had a really nice move set for what it represents, as well as a good trading card.

I think that having the physical representation of the human spirit was a really unique idea, especially when linked with the creation trio. The fact that Arceus created these three immediately following it's creation of Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina, means that the human spirit was created before even humans were. Also, I feel like these three made me question a lot of aspects of the Pokemon world that I hadn't considered before, including the real relation of legendaries and what they have domain over. If Dialga ceased to exist, then would time stop? Or would there just be no longer a Pokemon able to control it? In the same regard, if these three ceased to exist, would humans lose their spirits?

Another thing I think would be interesting to note about this trio, is that in Platinum, Mespirit, the representation of human emotion, is a roaming pokemon. While Cyrus, the leader of the region's villainous team, shows that he is very knowledgeable (Uxie), and has a lot of willpower (Azelf), he lacks empathy (Mespirit). While this may not have been intentional, I think it's fantastic symbolism, and because of this Mespirit is the only roaming Pokemon that I'm comfortable with (since I think roaming Pokemon can be a bit annoying).

I caught them in all three games, except mespirit in platinum, which I killed due to being infuriated, but only used them In diamond, after realising they sucked and lost them to folkner and ended up migrating them to white and heart gold for pokedex reasons, where they sat in a box for eternity.