5th Gen Cheren is the most difficult Gym Leader battle in the game. Discuss.

Before I get laughed at, please, hear me out here.

I generally find that the first Gym battle is the most difficult one. You have very limited Pokemon for a start. The nearby Pokemon are extremely weak so grinding becomes a major issue unless you have the patience of a saint. And more often than not, your Pokemon at that stage has no type advantage over the opponent so you have to make do with brute force.

I find Cheren in Black 2 & White 2 particularly challenging. Before you all scream at me, "USE RIOLU!", I am the type of player who chooses their team beforehand, catches those Pokemon and sticks with them throughout the entire game. So there usually comes a time where I do not want to use Lucario.

The point I'm making is that Cheren has that particularly annoying strategy of spamming Work Up before landing with a one-hit KO Tackle. By the time you've been chipping away at his Lillipup, he has already built up enough power to take you down in one go. Even my Level 14 Tepig is not immune to this sort of monstrosity.

I try weakening Lillipup's Defense by sending out my own Lillipup and spamming Leer, but that doesn't seem to work either.

Anyone else concur that this battle is a pain in the ****?

I totally get where you're coming from. Cheren thinks he's the greatest battler ever in these games tbh. Like you only started two years ago - you're no Alder. That's the vibe I get. At least. Battle wise I personally think that Lenora was a lot harder, simply for the fact that we didn't know much about Watchog when starting. We didn't know HOW hard it was. So that upped the challenge. Though with B2W2, it's true that Lillipup is pretty good in that battle. The unfortunate fact is early on you don't have many choices and it's either grind or get lucky. Raising your Tepig a few levels and evolving it would make life a bit easier but otherwise I feel you. The starting gym leaders are tough unless you use certain Pokémon. But hey you heat it at least, right??

Ohh yes i agree with you here Having a limited amount of pokemon and a level 10 or so starter when facing the First gym in BW 2 can be a real nightmare Why? his become can spam the move Work up which may not seem that troubling at first but after one of his pokemon has used it atleast 3-4 times they can knock out your pokemon very quickly I had the most trouble with this when i tried to speedrun/egg run my Black 2 I was stuck there for maybe 20 minutes before getting lucky and beat his final pokemon before He managed to spam Work up enough times to knock my last pokemon out Which was atleast level 11 at the time So yea i can see what you mean here even if it is the first gym and even if you use Riolu or not you are still going to have a rough time in cheren's gym of doom.

Mm, I don't know. I tend not to have too much trouble because grinding early game is usually pretty easy- Lenora was difficult because tanky, but Cheren and the triplets weren't, for me.

Hmm... I never had much of a problem with Cheren. Mainly because I typically use Tepig, and it's a Pignite by the time I get to Cheren. I didn't have too many problems facing him on my latest run with a Snivy instead, but I can see where people are coming from with him being difficult. If he can get two Work Ups on his Lillipup, you're pretty much toast.

I definitely understand what everyone said in this thread - I always remember Cheren as one of the hardest first Gyms in Pokemon history because of that somewhat OP Work Up Lillipup of his and while I didn't wipe to him during my first B2 playthrough (and even W2 which I started to replace my B2, which corrupted) I can understand how tough he is because Lillipup can often be faster than most of the options you have at this stage and after only 2 Work Ups he can sweep your entire team.

I agree with you opinion. Cheen is really tough and we sure had limited amount of Pokemon in the starting. His lillipup was tough (I think so). But for me the hardest one was Drayden.

I think all Normal-type experts (particularly early on) share that similar difficulty level. Due to the fact that Cheren is the very first Gym Leader, you're unlikely to have a well-established team at that stage and with Normal types only having one weakness with high defenses, it will be tough either way.

I can see the point made there. Even so, I feel it's more just a slightly long fight as your pokemon are most likely going to be neutral on him. Even so, my starter cleared through the gym relatively easily. He can be tough. There is also Riolu who gets force palm and can net you the win much easier if you are really struggling.

I see where you're coming from. Although I didn't have too much trouble with him, he did setup a few Work Ups and did a ton of damage along with STAB. I wasn't really expecting that. I think at one point I decided to give in and use the Riolu just to beat his gym and boxed it afterwards.

I didn't find him too difficult, I don't think from when I last played it if I remember correctly. He was a bit of a pain, but I still managed to get through it, even if it took me two or three times.

I overlevel in all my Pokemon games, but Cheren is the only Gym Leader I consistently lose to. The experience curve in gen 5 doesn't help at all. And I don't like Riolu, so chances are I'm not using one. It's that stupid Work Up spam. By the time I almost win, he OHKOs my entire team...

LyokoGirl5000 said:

I overlevel in all my Pokemon games, but Cheren is the only Gym Leader I consistently lose to. The experience curve in gen 5 doesn't help at all. And I don't like Riolu, so chances are I'm not using one. It's that stupid Work Up spam. By the time I almost win, he OHKOs my entire team...

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That sucks :( At least by the time you win the battle you know you've passed the hardest challenge of all!

I don't remember exactly if I had a hard time with Cheren or not (I don't even remember if I had caught my Riolu before or after his Gym battle), but I know a lot of people seemed to struggle with Lenora in BW, so I guess it makes sense if people also had a hard time with Cheren in B2W2.

I can actually relate to this. I remember when i played through BW2 a couple of years back and I didn;t use the Riolu either since I didn't want it to be part of the in-game team, and yes I also did choose my in-game pokemon beforehand. Relative to when you face him, Cheren is indeed a kick in the head. That Work up spam of his gets pretty annoying and given the rather limited resources you have relative to the time you face him, its quite the challenge in making sure you get that 100% clean playthrough done well. (When i mean 100% clean playthrough, you lose no battles whatsoever, or you basically just plow through every single trainer there is with no issues).

And yes we all remember Lenora from BW1 and that Retaliate strat. Oh boy.

Well I can assure that he definitely one of the harder or if not the hardest first leader. But hardest in the game? Not for me at least. Sure, its definitely troublesome to find a good counter for it(only 1 fighter before the first gym), but for me I simply just try to strengthen my starter/team and try to overpower the mons.

Of course, it could be possible that I'm remembering wrongly since I haven't touched BW2 for a long time. But still.