5th Gen What up with Gym Leaders?

Fighting the Flying gym in White, I one-shotted every single Pokemon in the gym with my Zebstrika. Now, ik being electric type gives an advantage, but surely most gyms ought to have a slight balance? Like Palpitoad for example in the Ground gym, meaning you can't sweep the whole thing with water types. I know Pokemon isn't meant to be that difficult, but I was just disappointed.

Anyone else have any disappointments with the Gym Leaders' difficulty level?

I also found the electric gym in BW and BW2 to be easy. The only reason I ever had trouble with it was because I was way under leveled to first time.

I thought most of the gyms were pretty balanced. Most of them had 1-2 type advantages, like Elesa when rock/ground types were the only types you could use to defeat her, and grass for Clay.

In Black and White, yeah it was really hard to get too involved with a Gym match. They had a balance for sure, personally, but it didn't mean they weren't weak.

Black 2 and White 2, however, I definitely had some serious issues with. Imo, they really cranked it up another notch with how strong the Leaders were. I mean they weren't impossible, but they really needed those two years to train. :P

Out of both games, though, I think Elesa was always the easiest for me. Her two Emolgas in B/W were annoying, but never really threatening, and then her Zebstrika was kind of a joke. Clay was decent enough, but he can be swept really easily by any Grass or Water type, regardless of having an Excadrill who's neutral against Grass, and Palpitoad neutral against Water.

Axeliira said:

I thought most of the gyms were pretty balanced. Most of them had 1-2 type advantages, like Elesa when rock/ground types were the only types you could use to defeat her, and grass for Clay.

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I agree with Megan here, Unova was probably the first case of Gym Leaders using a Pokemon that could counter their type's main weakness, Elesa's Emolga being a notable example. Only weak to Ice and Ground, but the main problem was the fact you can't access Ice attacks at that point while Rock was only available in the form of the Rock Tomb TM that can be obtained in the Desert Resort.

However, some other Gyms could easily be maimed by one single type, such as Skyla having all her team weak to Electric, and Brycen having just pure-Ice Pokemon which leaves him easily defeated by all of Ice's common weaknesses. Even Marlon can be easily handled by Electric and Grass-types.

I secretly think Elesa was way harder in the first games compared to B2/W2. That was because she had two Emolgas back then, which was more annoying than having only one in the sequels.

^ Doesn't help that in BW2 that Emolga doesn't have any Flying-type moves to its name.

Admittedly, I don't remember much about the Gym Leaders the first time I played through White, but in my later playthroughs of Black they were mostly pretty easy (except Lenora, ugh). White 2 however I had so few Pokémon early on, so other than the first two Gyms, yeah that turned over a bit better than it should.

Challenge Mode however does make them a bit more interesting, particularly Elesa since she gets a Joltik that can use Energy Ball against Ground-types, and that Emolga gets Aerial Ace back.

If you look at it, all the gym leaders are the same difficulty, only with different pokemon.

The Gym Leaders in pokemon games are coded like this:
Out of the four moves, it draws randomly and uses the move. The first move they draw however has it's chance doubled.

When one of thier pokemon gets low on health, it uses some sort of potion.

I don't know, I think both Drayden and Brycen's Pokémon give kind of a reasonable challenge. But I think the gyms are not really much the central focus in Black and White; it's more the story: the legendary part, N, and Team Plasma's mission.

Ever since HGSS, the gym leaders have been obnoxiously easy. I mean, they're supposed to be Gym Leaders, so I'd expect at least a bit of a challenge. But nope, they were terribly easy to defeat. :c

(I kinda wish they put in a few more Whitney-ish and Clair-ish gym leaders to make the game a bit more challenging.)

curiousnathan said:

(I kinda wish they put in a few more Whitney-ish and Clair-ish gym leaders to make the game a bit more challenging.)

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^This. Those are the only two gym battles that actually seem like they made an effort to make them a challenge. All the rest of the gyms are just like "herp derp, fight a marathon of ____-type Pokemon."

I kinda wish they put in a few more Whitney-ish and Clair-ish gym leaders to make the game a bit more challenging.

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I don't know, when I faced Whitney in HG, she wasn't as different as her Gen. 2 counterpart. You can't let down your guard with her Miltank.

I agree. Most of the Gyms in B2 and W2 were a little easy, but it was still normally challenging for the most part but that Milktank though

I actually thought the first Gym trio was the most challenging. You're giving the right monkey for the job, but they're still very under-levelled and quite difficult to train in the circumstances and limited areas you have at that point.


Burgh and Brycen are hilariously easy if you chose Tepig at the beginning, as is Lenora. Elesa I used to have real trouble with, but mainly because her Emolga's incessant double-teaming.


Clay posed a real challenge even with a decent Water-type Pokémon. His team was nicely balanced with ground/dark/steel and water. At that point the only good Water-type Pokémon you could have were Dewott, Tirtouga or Palpitoad. And his Excadrill was a beast.


I always found Skyla easy because every time I'm in the Chargestone Cave I search for a Tynamo and train it up. Brycen I never had any trouble with at all. Drayen and Iris, however, are a real challenge without a decent Ice-type Pokémon and without Haxorus. I plan on taking them down with either a Druddigon or mere brute force, considering I have neither of those things on my team this time round.


So I do think it largely depends on your team, though I never had any trouble with Skyla or Brycen. Clay had the best balance I think.

The first 2 Gym Leaders were slightly difficult, in my opinion. The rest were horribly easy to defeat. I thought it was because I was overleveling, but I had the same experience in my second playthough without overleveling. I don't know if it was just the Pokemon I chose, but I didn't find them too difficult.

It would be nice if there was a Pokemon Game with the difficulty of Shin Megami Tensai, the other japanese monster colloecting game.

SMT is hard as nuts and even spamming super-effective attacks and over-leveloing will get you nowhere. You have to stratigize and make zero mistakes.

Pokemon isn't that kind of game, but there could be spin offs....

zomgitscathy said:

^This. Those are the only two gym battles that actually seem like they made an effort to make them a challenge. All the rest of the gyms are just like "herp derp, fight a marathon of ____-type Pokemon."

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Clair? You mean the gym that's only hard because they spiked the level curve and gave her lv.40's when the only way you can grind was against lv.20's? Effort? Lol.

Gen 2 is the damn worse with gym leaders. The balance is so awful. I'll take easy over artificial difficulty that gen 2 has any day. Except even gen 2 isn't hard even without grinding if you actually use items, which take out any "difficulty".

EDIT: ^SMT actually isn't hard if you're familiar with how the systems work but that's what makes it so damn good. It throws away simple strategies like "just overlevel" or "use the attacks the enemy is weak to" and expects you to be smarter than that. You don't even need to grind, the games make sure the player learns from their mistakes and losses. Pokemon should take cues.

I am one of those who thought that the hardest Gym Leaders were the first ones: the Trio because of the type advantage, and Cheren because of the move Work Up that basically means "if you don't OHKO them, they will OHKO you", and both because of the inability to trade before gaining the first badge.

In terms of being disappointed in the difficulty, one Gym Leader in particular comes to mind: Marlon. Not because of the levels, mind you, but because neither Marlon, nor anyone else in that gym thought of countering a major weakness of Water types: the guy at the entrance warns you about Water/Ground types, well guess how many Water/Ground double type Pokémon are there in the gym? NONE.

I had this experience in pwt once, chili, cilan and cress madd it to semifinals, i was against cilan and won. But somehow chili beat cress. Idk how but ai logic doesnt work

BW was much harder than BW2 due to how underleveled you are in BW for almost everything

They weren't too hard, but they weren't that easy either; they were in-between. For me, one of the more difficult leaders would be Skyla. When I first battled her in Pokémon Black, my entire team were swept by her Unfezant extremely quick. Along with that, her Swanna was pretty tough as well. I wouldn't have had much trouble if I had an electric- or rock-type on my team, but unfortunately, I didn't. I did have a Pikachu in one of my PC boxes, but it just wasn't trained enough to go up against her. d:

It was pretty easy for me while battling the castelliya gym, i am forgetting the leader's name. I just crushed all the bugs with my pignite. And battling lenoure was the toughest challenge for me in the whole game.

Nymphadora said:

They weren't too hard, but they weren't that easy either; they were in-between. For me, one of the more difficult leaders would be Skyla. When I first battled her in Pokémon Black, my entire team were swept by her Unfezant extremely quick. Along with that, her Swanna was pretty tough as well. I wouldn't have had much trouble if I had an electric- or rock-type on my team, but unfortunately, I didn't. I did have a Pikachu in one of my PC boxes, but it just wasn't trained enough to go up against her. d:

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Where did you caught the pikachu in pokemon black? I always wanted to catch one.