3rd Gen Hoenn Gym Leaders

I really liked Wallace. He had a cool gym that actually took me a while to figure out. xD Plus I liked his outfit. :3

I also loved Watson. He was by far the hardest gym leader imo. It took me a long time to beat him in my first playthrough of Sapphire. xD It was a nice challenge :3 His gym was also pretty cool.

Ah personal favourite would have to be Tate & Liza~!

I used to have a hard time going against them both. Well, that was only because when I was playing Pokémon Ruby for the first time, I only relied on my Blaziken to do all of the fighting. Granted, it wasn't too bad, but.. the type disadvantages really hurt. Tate and Liza made me realize this, since her Psychic pokemon was really tricky, ugh. Oh, but I do really like them as Gym Leaders! I liked that idea on having co Gym Leaders, and you'd have to beat them in a double battle. I wish more gym leaders were like those two!

Another Gym Leader that I liked on Pokémon R/S/E was Flannery. She's pretty awesome, and her character design was amazing! Love her hair, aaah. She was actually pretty fun to fight against too, because I love fighting fire pokemon in general to try and match their power, and her pokemon didn't disappoint! Her Torkoal was definitely a challenge to fight against because it had great defense and her Iron Defense helped that out, but, her spamming Overheat preeeetty much was her downfall. XD

Going with Flannery. She was a fair challenge, and had the best character design. I only wish that the AI would operate Torkoal a little better instead of spamming Overheat, like what Dragon said.

Hoenn had, like any other region in the main series, 8 gyms. Roxanne, Brawly, Wattson, Flannery, Norman, Winona, Tate and Liza, Wallace/Juan.

Who was your favorite, least favorite, hardest/easiest to beat? Did you like the type distribution?

My favorites are Roxanne and Flannery. Wattson was a pretty cool guy since he had some side-quests as well. I dont even remember Juan.
Norman was pretty cool too, being your dad and all. lol

I didnt find any of them hard to beat tbh.

I think my personal favorite was Brawly, as his character was dynamic and it fit the Fighting-type image well. But I don't remember which ones were hardest to beat when i've played the games before, although I remember Norman the first time being a total nuisance.

I kinda liked the unique looks of these Gym Leaders, and their attire usually fitted in with Hoenn's warm climate in general.

My faves of the bunch were Winona, Brawly and Wallace, and I may even count Juan here as well. I mainly liked their designs, plus Wallace and Juan use my fave type so yeah it's no surprise.

Least fave was probably Norman. He may be your dad but he's always hell when you fight him. Those darn Slakings ugh...

I did like the type distribution, although I do think Norman should have been faced much later, particularly with a nasty strategy like his. It was cool to see Tate & Liza do a double battle, which sadly was never carried over to other Gym Leaders since but it's unique because they're twins.

Of all Hoenn Gym Leaders we have, Wallace stands out to me most.

He's meant to be a water specialist, and personally, whenever I do look at him, his overall design does remind me of this particular type-group. Most of it would likely have to be because of his clothing, though, which is mainly blue and white.

Outside of appearance, he comes off as more of a challenge. Although we could take him down any time if we try, initially, it likely won't be an easy task for most of us. When I'd first faced off against him in Ruby, I thought I could defeat him without breaking any sweat, and was very much surprised to see myself being proven wrong.

Personally, i think that the Emerald versions of the Hoenn Gym Leaders were way better than the RS and sadly the ORAS (ehemcopypaste) versions of their lineups.

In Emerald, the hardest to beat, relative by the time the player had to face, was arguably Brawly. If a player didn't catch any good Flying types in their journey, Brawly's Leer Spamming Machop would make good way for Brawly's ace Makuhita to laugh at. It would use Bulk up when it had the chance and if your Leer'd pokemon still insisted on fighting it, he'd just go Vital Throw along with the Boosts it got from Bulk Up, and the shredded defense from the Machop's Leer. If the player didn't know that a Wingull with Wing Attack was the best choice to use against Brawly's team, there was high chances that someone would have gotten Swept by Makuhita's Bulk-Throw combo. Even a Tailow would get One shotted by a Bulk up Vital Throw because of the neutral damage it takes as a flying type to Fight type moves. Lets remember, Vital Throw has a BP of 60 + STAB, which is really high that early in the game when most of your mons have moves with the BP of 40 or less. The level spike between Roxanne and Brawly is really large as well.

As for Normal in Emerald, I found his revised lineup to be more enjoyable to take on against. Instead of his classic RS version of just using 2 Slackings and a Vigoroth, his Emerald team had a lot more variety on it. His Spinda has some really good moves such as status effects, his Lineoone is great at annoying leads, and of course his Slacking with its Facade was just as awesome as it would OHKO mons that didn't resist the boosted Facade damage.

Another of Emerald's awesome lineups was for Tate and Liza, which i've said previously, is my favorite gym battle to be ever introduced in the core series. As i also said previously, it was sad to not see the Emerald version of Tate and Liza's lineup in ORAS. Having the epic battle against the awesome synergy of Claydol and Xatu in 3d would have been an extremely good experience.

My favourite Gym Leader of the Hoenn League would have to be Norman! He's the coolest Gym Leader eve, at least in my opinion! First of all he's your Dad, so facing your Dad as a Gym Leader made the battle more special and enjoyable because it wasn't a random person that you hadn't met before.

Even though he was probably one of the annoying Gym Leaders. He has 2 Slaking. Even though they had the slack around ability they still could sweep you. Luckily there wasn't Retaliate in 3rd Gen, hah! Would've been like hell then, just like it is in OR/AS ;~;

The other Gym Leaders were actually pretty swell, but the one I hates the most was Juan, specifically his KINGDRA. All it'd do was set up 20 million Smokescreens, then it'd just max out it's Attack/Speed with Dragon Dance and sweep your team with Surf, I think. Didn't make sense really though. You had like a 10% chance to hit him, pfft!

My favorites to battle were Tate and Liza buttttt.....
I personally like Flannery
Mostly cause of her personality shes kinda unsure of herself but shes a powerful trainer and not to be messed with. I also like how her personality matches some of her fire types as well and how she seems to love them in the anime as well shes quite friendly as well. Although i love most of the gym leaders Juan and Wallace kinda disappointed me although ive grown to like Juan Wallace never did it in for me as a gym leader or a champion he wasnt that hard either for me i personally feel he should be more a contest star haha.

Juan is my fav hoenn gym leader. I will love him forever. Least favorite would either be Brawly or Norman. Imo two very boring gym leaders.

Depending on my team I would find Wattson, Flannery, and Tate&Liza somewhat a challenge.

In my first playthrough of the original Sapphire, I had a hard time with Winona because as a kid, I would normally spam Sceptile's Leaf Blade on everything. But my favorite would be Wallace because he was the gym leader that took me forever to get into his gym because I had no Idea how to unlock the gym. Aside from that, I love the puzzle in his gym. He was a pushover though because Leaf Blade.

Winona is gorgeous! Her design has only gotten more beautiful over time and she's definitely my favorite.. probably always will be, too. Also had a soft spot for Tate & Liza since they were adorable but also a huge pain in the behind to defeat. ;_; It was a bit difficult coordinating double battles for me at first so I usually lost a few times before finally getting everything down-pat and thinking of a better strategy.

Overall Hoenn probably had my least favorite gym leaders to date design-wise but Winona makes up for all of that (well, almost). Only few leaders I had remote difficulty with were the twins and occasionally Flannery if I went with Treecko as my starter.

In Hoenn, we get another cool bunch of Gym Leaders with their unique personalities and type specialties. As usual, they serve as our obstacles leading up to the Pokemon League, and one of them even happens to be our dad!

Who's your fave Hoenn Gym Leader and why?

Ok hard question lol
Id go with Flannery its not just cause her typing but shes cute and not as serious as some of the other ones.
Along with her fun personality shes got a nice design as well along with a name relating to fire type pokemon and family heritage in the gym business so she just earns my favorite :)

Norman and Tate & Liza.
Norman is challenging, but at the end, you manage to defeat your own father and imo that's one of the best moments in R/S/E. It's also kinda cute how proud he is of you beating him.
As for Tate & Liza, I'm a sucker for double battles so this is pretty much self-explanatory. Too bad this is such an easy fight in R/S... thankfully they gave their team an upgrade in Emerald.

Hoenn's Gym Leaders are diverse, it's not even ageist!

Winona was my favorite, then Flannery shared that place with her. Then Brawly from the anime is sooo... *smitten*



When OrAs came I loved those fellas more with the addition of Roxanne!

Man, I had a crush on flannery growing up. So probably her.

Roxanne, she's my favorite. I've always had a little crush on her because of her bookworm library girl look, tights and all.