5th Gen Which gym leader was toughest?

Clay can be a huge bother even if you have Dewott, that's ho tough he is. Lenora, you can pretty much neutralize with a good Fighting type, but Clay will most always be a challenge.

I only had trouble with Lenora in White. The first time around I came in with my Pansear and Dewott not knowing what to expect and got my butt handed to me easily with Retaliate and Take Down.. was tougher than I expected. But the second time around the match was a whole lot easier and I had no trouble with the other Unova gym leaders since. Whoo!

Lenora was a beast to beat for me. That Herdier's Take Down was a monsterous hit to take at that point in the game, and then Watchog's immediate Retaliate was just even worse. The triplets also gave me a tiny bit of problems only because of where they were at level wise and at how early it was for them to be that level.

Elesa was a pain. I had to battle her 5 times just to beat her.

Elesa for me also. Emolga may be the most annoying pokemon.

Elesa was a trouble for my Pokémon Party, seeing as I had no Ground Types on my team at the time.

That Damn Elesa It took me over 5 tries to beat her. She was so annoying with her volt switch and emolga that was resistant to grass type moves.

Elesa and Lenora are the only gym leaders ever to defeat me. Drayden's come close with Haxorus. I do believe this current playthrough is the only time I've not been defeated by a gym leader though, and definitely the first time I beat Elesa without a Ground-type pokémon, and she still chased me down to 1hp on my Snivy (who was my last pokémon).
That all the starters and two out of three of the elemental monkeys are weak to Emolga is definitely part of the reason for Elesa being so tough - Volt Switch barely bothers me compared to the damage flying-type moves can usually deal out to my pokémon.

And in my recent Red Mono-Color on White, i'd say the hardest Gym was between Cress, Elesa and Skyla. The former because I only had Tepig (I had to level up to 15 to get Flame Charge, and even then it still took three tries after that). Elesa because over half my team was weak to Flying, and in the end it came down to my Sandile with less than half its health being my last Pokémon and I got Zebstrika to -3 Attack, and I was using Rest throughout the match. It was my last Pokémon, but I still won first try. And Skyla because, again, my team was horribly weak to Flying and I really had to strategize.

Clay gave me a really hard time. But I had a pretty imbalanced team with nothing strong against Ground. So I had to go level myself up a Roselia, that did the trick.

LEEEENNNNNNOOOORA, and her dim-damn Watchog with Retaliate. I lost to her, a collective total of 5000 times(actually just 10). Elesa was a problem, but not as much, since I had a Sandile, which was immune to her Volt Switches, and made it 3 times easier, even with the Flying immunity check. I had Bite. That's all I needed.

Cheren and Lenora are tied in my opinion. I never knew Normal types could be so annoying. Work Up and Retaliate respectively anger me to the core, while Watchog hits a lot harder than I usually expect. In Black 2, I could never catch a Riolu, and when I did, I couldn't rely on Counter alone, while in my White, the Timburr I caught had a horrible nature.

I don't know why but Elesa was a game for me. I had no ground types or attacks and I managed to beat her with my Arcanine only who was lv.27

As or my part, Drayden, yes Drayden was the hardest of the 8. Althought I beat him he was a good challenge. Well I wodner why he didn't stayed 8th gym leader. The water guy was mcuh easier.

Burgh was actually the toughest for me :) I started off with Snivy and his team just ploughed straight through me, particularly his Leavanny which I lost to time and again lol.


The first two gyms I struggled with until I finally gave in and grabbed the elemental monkey to help me beat the Striaton Gym, and Lenora was essentially the Whitney of Unova lol until I discovered I could catch a Sawk fairly nearby and after that she was no problem :)


Elesa was no problem as I had both a Dwebble and a Sandile lol and Skyla and Brycen were pretty easy as well. Clay and Drayden were more challenging, the latter especially lol although I dunno if that's cause I kept getting lost in his gym haha xD

I remember in one of my playthroughs Elesa was quite annoying to face. She kept volt switching too much. :c

Ik this is toughest but I have to say Skyla was by far the easiest gym leader of all time, just... idek how she could not even get a worthy team :| Oh and... Iris/Drayden were kinda tough too because DRAGONS, and they were kind of overpowered and yeaaaah.

Really, if I had to pick one, it would probably be Drayden, because being the eighth Gym Leader, dragons are always the toughest to defeat because they have both stunning attack and defense.

I had no problem with Elesa. To be honest, Elesa, is not that tough, you just need to have a good strategy to defeat her Emolga.