Gym Leader/E4 Lineups & Type Diversity

[Pinkie-Dawn]

In the early generations of Pokémon, the Gym Leader/E4 lineups suffered from lack of type diversity, in which Gym Leaders and Elite Four members had to use 2-3 Pokémon from the same family line, Pokémon not associated with their type, and Pokémon who already someone else's ace Pokémon. The remakes, which may include the upcoming ORAS titles, failed to fix these issues and only changed them for post-game purposes, which irritates me, because I wanted their lineups changed to be more diverse. Type diversity is an important feature for me, and a good type diversel lineup can either make or break the game. Now that we 721 Pokémon, my latest concern is Gym Leaders and Elite Four members using Pokémon who are already someone else's ace Pokémon. Korrina, for example, is a Fighting specialist who has a Lucario in her lineup, when it's suppose to be Maylene's ace Pokémon. Because of it, it only makes Maylene less special as a Fighting specialist. We want to make sure that all the ace Pokémon will stay exclusive to their respective Gym Leaders, Elite Four members, rivals, and villains. It's also important their ace Pokémon must also be Pokémon from their respective regions, excluding cross-gen evos.


These are the following Pokémon type specialists and other key important characters cannot use in their lineups due to being used as ace Pokémon:

Spoiler:

Kanto Starters, Onix, Starmie, Raichu, Bellossom, Weezing, Alakazam, Rapidash, Rhyperior, Lapras, Machamp, Gengar, Dragonite, Johto starters, Noctowl, Scizor, Miltank, Mismagius, Hitmontop, Forretress, Mamoswine, Kingdra, Slowking, Crobat, Tyranitar, Hoenn starters, Probopass, Hariyama, Manetric, Torkoal, Slaking, Altaria, Lunatone, Solrock, Camerupt, Sharpedo, Milotic, Crawdaunt, Gardevoir, Absol, Dusknoir, Walrein, Salamence, Metagross, Sinnoh starters, Rampardos, Roserade, Lucario, Floatzel, Drifblim, Bastiodon, Froslass, Weavile, Electivire, Drapion, Hippowdon, Magmortar, Gallade, Garchomp, Unova starters, the Simis, Watchog, Levanny, Zebstrika, Excadrill, Swanna, Beartic, Haxorus, Stoutland, Scolipede, Jellicent, Chandelure, Bisharp, Gothitelle, Conkeldurr, Reshiram/Zekrom, Hydreigon, Volcarona, Kalos starters, Vivillion, Tyrantrum, Hawlucha, Gogoat, Heliolisk, Sylveon, Meowstic, Pyroar, Avalugg, Talonflame, Aegislash, Barbaricle, Noivern, Goodra

I've gone through some various emotional breakdowns, even to the point where I feel like shedding a tear, whenever I try to convince people how important type diversity is and why we need more new Pokémon for certain types to prevent these problems, but they never seem to respond because they think it's not a problem, when it should be. Do you like the idea of type diversity in general, do you simply agree with the others who think it's not a big deal?

 

[BakingBluePotatoe]

I guess the issue with the type diversity not being fixed in the remakes is wanting to be "faithful" to the original games.

I could see why using mismatching Pokemon in a gym/e4's lineup would be annoying... I know that Platinum fixed a lot of the wierdness from DP, since they then expanded the Pokedex.

 

[Hikamaru]

I guess the issue with the type diversity not being fixed in the remakes is wanting to be "faithful" to the original games.

Yeah, I believe what they like to do with the remakes "curse" is to make the game look just like the original but with updated mechanics. They don't even bother to expand the regional Dex but they at least did a few in HG/SS's Johto Dex by adding Lickilicky, Yanmega, Mamoswine, Tangrowth and Ambipom. The FR/LG Kanto Dex even locked out all the 2nd Gen evos/pre-evos of the Kanto Pokemon to the point you couldn't even evolve them into it until post-game.

As for type diversity in regional Dexes in general, the most blatant one would have to be D/P's Sinnoh Dex which only included 2 Fire-type evolution lines - the Chimchar and Ponyta lines. Which means if you were playing a Sinnoh game that wasn't Platinum you only had access to Ponyta as a Fire-type choice if your starter wasn't Chimchar. That issue always made me pick Chimchar as my Sinnoh starter because I found it way better than Ponyta. And even some Gym Leaders and Elite Four didn't have teams entirely made of their own type specialty (yes Flint, Candice and Volkner I'm looking at you) so I was happy the expansion in Platinum fixed that.

The Unova Dex in B/W also only had three non-Legendary Ice-type lines (Cubchoo and Vanillite lines along with Cryogonal) available during the main story. I'm not counting Kyurem cos it's only caught in the post-game. Even the Hoenn Dex had a significant lacking of certain types, most notable ones being Ghost and Ice which meant Glacia and Phoebe of the Hoenn Elite Four had to double up on things like Glalie, Sealeo, Banette and Dusclops. They would have to be the worst examples among Elite Four members.

While I have a feeling Game Freak will try to "stay true to the originals" once again with the OR/AS Hoenn Dex, this was a good topic to bring up cos it does get me kinda annoyed seeing important characters with redundant teams caused by lack of type diversity.

 

[Dr. Silver]

I'm hoping that Gen VII attempts to become a lot more creative with new Pokemon typings, Gen VI did a good job with some Pokemon (Hawlucha and Dragalge being two notable examples), but I feel that they were just mainly focusing on the fairy type this generation. Which was a shame, because outside of changing previous Pokemon typings, Fairy types as a whole were very lacking.

Bug types somehow got it the worst in this generation, with only 3 Bug type Pokemon being introduced...and rather than follow Gen V's example of making extremely useful Bug types, they gave us Vivilion...a true favourite of mine that just suffers from the same problems that Butterfree, Dustox, Beedrill and Beautifly all suffer.

 

[Hikamaru]

Bug types somehow got it the worst in this generation, with only 3 Bug type Pokemon being introduced...and rather than follow Gen V's example of making extremely useful Bug types, they gave us Vivilion...a true favourite of mine that just suffers from the same problems that Butterfree, Dustox, Beedrill and Beautifly all suffer.

It's not that Bug that somehow got screwed when it came to the new Pokemon in Kalos. There were only two new Ground-types introduced here, one being the common early rodent (Diggersby) and a Legendary (Zygarde) while Poison only had the Skrelp line.

I'd imagine what it would have looked like if Kalos had a Ground-type Gym Leader, he/she'd would only have Diggersby for an "ace" Pokemon since the Gym Leaders' "ace" Pokemon are usually always from the generation the Gym Leader is from (with the exception of Juan's Kingdra, which isn't a 3rd Gen Pokemon).

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

It's not that Bug that somehow got screwed when it came to the new Pokemon in Kalos. There were only two new Ground-types introduced here, one being the common early rodent (Diggersby) and a Legendary (Zygarde) while Poison only had the Skrelp line.

I'd imagine what it would have looked like if Kalos had a Ground-type Gym Leader, he/she'd would only have Diggersby for an "ace" Pokemon since the Gym Leaders' "ace" Pokemon are usually always from the generation the Gym Leader is from (with the exception of Juan's Kingdra, which isn't a 3rd Gen Pokemon).

Let's not forget Lysandre's Gyarados and Diantha's Gardevoir, which aren't even a 6th Gen Pokémon regardless of their Mega Evolutions. Not to mention Gardevoir is suppose to be Wally's "ace" Pokémon, which is why I suggest Goodra being Diantha's ace Pokémon, while Pyroar should've been Lysandre's ace Pokémon (come on, his overall appearance could've been more obvious).

 

[Hikamaru]

Let's not forget Lysandre's Gyarados and Diantha's Gardevoir, which aren't even a 6th Gen Pokémon regardless of their Mega Evolutions. Not to mention Gardevoir is suppose to be Wally's "ace" Pokémon, which is why I suggest Goodra being Diantha's ace Pokémon, while Pyroar should've been Lysandre's ace Pokémon (come on, his overall appearance could've been more obvious).

I get your point here, but I guess what Game Freak wanted to do in this case was make the Mega Evolution act as the strongest member of the team, but yeah I'd imagine Pyroar and Goodra would have been Lysandre and Diantha's aces had they not had their respective Megas with them.

 

[Noir]

The remakes, which may include the upcoming ORAS titles, failed to fix these issues and only changed them for post-game purposes, which irritates me, because I wanted their lineups changed to be more diverse

That's a fault of the regional dexes for those games, but it's understandable; as a tool for nostalgia and also to introduce younger fans who may not have played those games the first time around they want to keep the pokemon choices as similar to the original as possible. When the national dex comes out, then they usually remedy these problems anyway and the diversity doesn't become much of a problem. I just think the types of the pokemon put into said regional dexes needs to be selected without a ton of bias either way to one type; a huge portion of the Hoenn dex was watermons while, as Hikari mentioned already, you were locked into Ponyta as your only fire pokemon if you didn't pick Chimchar. Then you had to face Flint and his mishmash E4 team (lopunny/driftblim/steelx have what relevance to fire pokemon?) I think a basic rule is that there should be enough of each type that you can form a monotype

Now that we 721 Pokémon, my latest concern is Gym Leaders and Elite Four members using Pokémon who are already someone else's ace Pokémon. Korrina, for example, is a Fighting specialist who has a Lucario in her lineup, when it's suppose to be Maylene's ace Pokémon. Because of it, it only makes Maylene less special as a Fighting specialist. We want to make sure that all the ace Pokémon will stay exclusive to their respective Gym Leaders, Elite Four members, rivals, and villains. It's also important their ace Pokémon must also be Pokémon from their respective regions, excluding cross-gen evos.

Maylene isn't the only one with a Lucario; Bruno and Marshall also make room for it in their round 2 teams too. Conversely, if you take Bruno's ace to be Machamp then every.single.fighting.specialist that has followed has taken his 'ace' for their teams in some iteration apart from Korrina, yet neither of these facts devalue Maylene or Bruno as fighting specialists. I always say Korrina's ace as equal parts Hawlucha and Lucario, as Hawlucha was the one she used in your gym battle and Lucario was there to show how good MEvos were.

How would you determine which Pokemon is the ace of an "important trainer" though? Agatha's ace is regarded to be Gengar, but so is Morty's. If you simply went "gengar is gen 1 so morty can't have it" that seems horribly unfair to those representing types with not a lot of options: imagine being Morty in Gen 2, and being told "as the ghost leader you're only allowed to run Mismagius and Gastly/Haunter since Agatha took Gengar and Haunter, sorry about that!" With that, I'm a fan of the way the PWT handles the Gym leader lineups at least: give the leader every fully evolved mon of that type from that particular region, then fill it up with goodmons or some that reflect their personality. I would argue that the ace pokemon of a person should have a greater importance on how it fits with their personality/image and less on just diversity. Gardevoir fits the picture of a glamorous movie star actress such as Diantha much better than say, Goodra would. Gardevoir also fits Wally because it was his first pokemon and they can sense emotion, so to see Wally become strong enough to try and jump you at victory road with a fresh Gardevoir symbolises his growth.

but I feel that they were just mainly focusing on the fairy type this generation. Which was a shame, because outside of changing previous Pokemon typings, Fairy types as a whole were very lacking.

Bug types somehow got it the worst in this generation, with only 3 Bug type Pokemon being introduced...and rather than follow Gen V's example of making extremely useful Bug types, they gave us Vivilion...a true favourite of mine that just suffers from the same problems that Butterfree, Dustox, Beedrill and Beautifly all suffer.

That's what I felt happened with X/Y, that more fairy types were introduced to 'catch them up' to other types and show the players how cool and awesome they were because they can beat dragons. The last time they introduced new types, Steel and Dark both got 5 additions (magemite line, steelix, forry, scizor, skarm/houndoom, murkrow, umbreon, sneasel, tyranitar) but it felt more noticeable here because of how small the list of new Kalonian pokemon was.

Vivilion is still amazing though, maybe not for the more competitive tiers but compoundeyes Hurricane + Quiver Dance + Sleep Powder + Bug Buzz + Roost immediately outlcasses every other early game bug ever o:

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

That's a fault of the regional dexes for those games, but it's understandable; as a tool for nostalgia and also to introduce younger fans who may not have played those games the first time around they want to keep the pokemon choices as similar to the original as possible. When the national dex comes out, then they usually remedy these problems anyway and the diversity doesn't become much of a problem.

That's my problem, I want their teams to be fixed before obtaining the national dex, but it seems like it's only possible if they updated the regional dex. Besides, Claire originally had 3 Dragonairs, but one of them was replaced by a Gyarados in HG/SS (not to mention Whitney's Miltank having her level decreased by 1).

Maylene isn't the only one with a Lucario; Bruno and Marshall also make room for it in their round 2 teams too. Conversely, if you take Bruno's ace to be Machamp then every.single.fighting.specialist that has followed has taken his 'ace' for their teams in some iteration apart from Korrina, yet neither of these facts devalue Maylene or Bruno as fighting specialists. I always say Korrina's ace as equal parts Hawlucha and Lucario, as Hawlucha was the one she used in your gym battle and Lucario was there to show how good MEvos were.

I was using Korrina and Maylene as examples; I am fully aware about key-important type specialists using other key-important type specialists' ace Pokémon on their team.

How would you determine which Pokemon is the ace of an "important trainer" though? Agatha's ace is regarded to be Gengar, but so is Morty's. If you simply went "gengar is gen 1 so morty can't have it" that seems horribly unfair to those representing types with not a lot of options: imagine being Morty in Gen 2, and being told "as the ghost leader you're only allowed to run Mismagius and Gastly/Haunter since Agatha took Gengar and Haunter, sorry about that!" With that, I'm a fan of the way the PWT handles the Gym leader lineups at least: give the leader every fully evolved mon of that type from that particular region, then fill it up with goodmons or some that reflect their personality. I would argue that the ace pokemon of a person should have a greater importance on how it fits with their personality/image and less on just diversity.

That's what I'm getting at. Morty shouldn't be using a Gengar because it's Agatha's ace Pokémon, as well as not being a Gen 2 Pokémon, or at least a cross gen evo of a Gen 2 Pokemon. As Hikamaru said, a Gym Leaders' ace Pokemon are usually always from the generation the Gym Leader is from, and that also includes Elite Four members, champions, rivals, and villains. Restricting certain Pokémon to be exclusive only to one type specialist should encourage GF to create a more Pokémon of certain types to create diverse teams. Dragon currently has the worst diversity in the series, because the only Dragon types who are safe to use in a Dragon specialist's team, because they aren't anyone else's ace Pokémon, are Flygon, Druddigon, and Dragalge. The last half of the team would only be made up of Dragon types who are already ace Pokémon to other Dragon specialists. Fire has the second worst diversity, as there only 6 Fire types who are used as ace Pokémon yet (Ninetales, Flareon, Magcargo, Houndoom, Darmanitan, and Heatmor), and one of them would have to be left out to leave a 6th slot for a Fire specialist's ace Pokémon, meaning Blaine, Flannery, Flint, Chili, and Malva would have almost the exact same monotype team, but with their ace Pokémon (Rapidash, Torkoal, Magmortar, Simisear, and Talonflame) taking the 6th slot. The Fire starters, Arcanine, Camerupt, Chandelure, Volcarona, and Pyroar are already taken as ace Pokémon to the main protagonists, Blue, Maxie, Shauntel, Alder, and Lysandre respectively.

 

[Hikamaru]

That's what I'm getting at. Morty shouldn't be using a Gengar because it's Agatha's ace Pokémon, as well as not being a Gen 2 Pokémon, or at least a cross gen evo of a Gen 2 Pokemon. As Hikamaru said, a Gym Leaders' ace Pokemon are usually always from the generation the Gym Leader is from, and that also includes Elite Four members, champions, rivals, and villains. Restricting certain Pokémon to be exclusive only to one type specialist should encourage GF to create a more Pokémon of certain types to create diverse teams. Dragon currently has the worst diversity in the series, because the only Dragon types who are safe to use in a Dragon specialist's team, because they aren't anyone else's ace Pokémon, are Flygon, Druddigon, and Dragalge. The last half of the team would only be made up of Dragon types who are already ace Pokémon to other Dragon specialists. Fire has the second worst diversity, as there only 6 Fire types who are used as ace Pokémon yet (Ninetales, Flareon, Magcargo, Houndoom, Darmanitan, and Heatmor), and one of them would have to be left out to leave a 6th slot for a Fire specialist's ace Pokémon, meaning Blaine, Flannery, Flint, Chili, and Malva would have almost the exact same monotype team, but with their ace Pokémon (Rapidash, Torkoal, Magmortar, Simisear, and Talonflame) taking the 6th slot. The Fire starters, Arcanine, Camerupt, Chandelure, Volcarona, and Pyroar are already taken as ace Pokémon to the main protagonists, Blue, Maxie, Shauntel, Alder, and Lysandre respectively.

You know, after reading this here's some notable teams of important characters that have someone else's ace Pokemon included in it but not in the ace role.

Spoiler:

- Tierno using Talonflame and Roserade
- Trevor using Raichu (Trevor's own ace is a Florges, which was surprisingly not mentioned in the OP)
- Ghetsis using Bisharp
- Cheren using Watchog (B2/W2) and Haxorus (B/W)
- Bianca and Malva using Chandelure (the former's case for B/W only)
- Shauntal using Drifblim
- Calem/Serena using Meowstic, Altaria and Absol (the latter was their team's Mega)
- Barry using Floatzel, Roserade and Rapidash (he substitutes one of the three for his Sinnoh starter)
- Cheren and Bianca using one of the Simis (B/W only, Cheren uses the one of the same type as player's starter while Bianca uses the one with the type advantage against player's starter)
- Diantha using Tyrantrum and Hawlucha
- Iris using Hydreigon (B2/W2 only)
- Gardenia using Torterra (this only applies if player's starter was Piplup, since that makes Barry's ace Pokemon a Torterra)
- Volkner using Raichu
- Flint using Drifblim and Steelix (D/P only)
- Wikstrom using Scizor
- Siebold using Starmie
- Flint using Infernape (it was his ace in D/P, but in Platinum this would apply if the player's starter is Turtwig since that gives Infernape as Barry's ace)
- Wulfric using Abomasnow (Candice's ace in D/P)

So yeah, quite a few examples seen here.

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

- Tierno using Talonflame and Roserade
- Trevor using Raichu (Trevor's own ace is a Florges, which was surprisingly not mentioned in the OP)

To be fair, both Tierno and Trevor weren't all that memorable due to fighting them twice. At least Shauna uses one of the starters you didn't pick to make her more memorable despite also fighting her twice.

- Shauntal using Drifblim

And Jellicent in BW before it became Marlon's ace Pokémon

You've also forgot to mention Alder using a Conkeldurr in both his B2/W2 team and his PWT team, which also had a Chandelure.

 

[OliveCopper]

I'm sorry, but who's ace is Talonflame? I can't seem to recall any major Trainers.

 

[Pendraflare]

I'm sorry, but who's ace is Talonflame? I can't seem to recall any major Trainers.

That would be Malva of the Elite Four.

But for an unrelated matter, a Veteran in Victory Road uses a lone one at Level 61.

 

[Hikamaru]

To be fair, both Tierno and Trevor weren't all that memorable due to fighting them twice. At least Shauna uses one of the starters you didn't pick to make her more memorable despite also fighting her twice.

I know many would have found those two forgettable but I paid damn good attention to their teams to notice it. Given the large regional Dex in Kalos I was hoping they'd go with something different, especially Tierno.

And Jellicent in BW before it became Marlon's ace Pokémon

Yeah, that was probably the reason why Shauntal replaced her Jellicent with a Drifblim. In fact hers and Marlon's Jellicent were both opposite genders too, and they even had the same ability (Cursed Body).

You've also forgot to mention Alder using a Conkeldurr in both his B2/W2 team and his PWT team, which also had a Chandelure.

Yeah Alder seems to be a terrible example here for a Champion given two of his team there had two ace Pokemon of two Unova Elite Four members. Sometimes I can blame these problems on the lack of options in the regional Dex, which really shows with Glacia, Phoebe and D/P Flint.

 

[Pendraflare]

Yeah Alder seems to be a terrible example here for a Champion given two of his team there had two ace Pokemon of two Unova Elite Four members. Sometimes I can blame these problems on the lack of options in the regional Dex, which really shows with Glacia, Phoebe and D/P Flint.

Not sure if you've looked it up, but on Bulbapedia, it's said that Alder's PWT team is supposed to represent the Unova Elite Four, which is why he has Chandelure, Krookodile, Reuniclus and Conkeldurr. (Although he has Conkeldurr in his initial battle team, anyway.)

But was Drifblim the ace of any important battle? I don't recall it being such...

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

Not sure if you've looked it up, but on Bulbapedia, it's said that Alder's PWT team is supposed to represent the Unova Elite Four, which is why he has Chandelure, Krookodile, Reuniclus and Conkeldurr. (Although he has Conkeldurr in his initial battle team, anyway.)

But was Drifblim the ace of any important battle? I don't recall it being such...

Except for the fact that Reniculus and Krookodile weren't Caitlin and Grimsley's ace Pokémon respectively, they were Gothitelle and Bisharp. This would mean Alder could've used Cofagrigus and Meinshao instead of Chandelure and Conkeldurr.


Drifblim is Fantina's ace Pokémon.

 

[Pendraflare]

Except for the fact that Reniculus and Krookodile weren't Caitlin and Grimsley's ace Pokémon respectively, they were Gothitelle and Bisharp. This would mean Alder could've used Cofagrigus and Meinshao instead of Chandelure and Conkeldurr.


Drifblim is Fantina's ace Pokémon.

Actually, Fantina's is Mismagius.

And while Metagross is Caitlin's ace in BW2's Challenge Mode and the rematches in both games, one, that's not a Unova Pokémon and I think for Alder they wanted to be all Unova, and two, that's Steven's ace also, anyway.

 

[Pepperton]

For me, it's understandable that notable trainers have shared ace Pokemon over the years. There are a lot of Pokemon, but not all of them qualify to be the leading force of a team. That role derives from a much smaller pool of candidates. Therefore, it's only logical that more than one person in the games uses certain Pokemon as their ace - I definitely don't mind it. As long as they pose a challenge and continue to make the battles enjoyable, I'm fine with the repetitiveness.