Horrible gym leaders

[Sam89]

What gym leaders/elite 4 are the worst from each region by the design or dificulty (easy counts too *coughRamoscough*)

Kanto
1. Giovanni, looks like a scam artist.
2. Sabrina, trashes your whole team with her high Sp. Attack and Speed, you don't even get to land a move.
Johto
1. Bugsy, how does an 8 year old become a gym leader.
2. Claire, need I explain?
Hoenn
1. Sidney, I just never liked him.
2. No complaints here.
Sinnoh
1. Crasher Wake is fat and old.
2. Bertha, rock moves to take out Staraptor, ground and water for the remainders.
Unova
1. Elesa in B/W2 that hair looked better blonde and her coat is too ugly, did she shave her Flaafy when it was a Mareep?
2. Marshall, mother of god I hate him. Stone Edge on anything and it dies. I had Magnezone, Zoroark and Lucario, not a very good combination for a fighting elite 4.
Kalos
1. Valerie, I like her but those eyes...
2. No one, I crushed them all.

 

[moon]

Falkner is awesome in most ways, but it was such a pity they put him up first and only gave him weak Pidgey and Pidgeotto :( Winona in Hoenn showed how great (and difficult) a flying type gym leader can be if done correctly. So it's a pity Falkner was too easy. He could at least have gotten a Farfetch'd and a low level Noctowl or something cool instead of the very first pokémon you can catch in the game.

But apart from that gaming aspect, I would not call Falkner horrible.

 

[King Koop]

I love Brock, but I think he deserves a mention for (in both the anime and ETOP manga) straight up abandoning his gym to go on a road trip with Ash.

 

[Aeroblast]

By difficulty, Whitney, especially her Miltank.

Whitney's Miltank has four moves that are calculated just right to crush the bottom of the souls of unprepared trainers. First is Stomp to pump huge holes in your team, flinching you at the same time almost at will, second is Rollout to accumulate huge damage to Ghosts, third is Attract to render half of your Pokemon basically useless (I've never had any luck with being immobilized). If that wasn't enough, its last move, Milk Drink, will extinguish your faintly remaining hopes of chipping down Miltank's HP.

 

[CelticsPhan]

Easiest Gym Leaders:

Erika: if her Pokes don't put a status on you, she is easy pickings.
Jasmine: Avoid Steelix's Iron Tail and you'll easy knock out her Pokemon.
Falkner: Sand Attack misses are key, his Piddey and -otto can't do much outside Gust. HGSS did a great job buffing him by giving his Pidgeotto Roost.

Blaine: Absolutely hilarious to defeat in Gen 1, he Super Potions when his Pokemon are at full health! Not to mention that Fire Blast is the only harmful move his Pokemon have, and is not used commonly enough to be a threat. If you have Surf, you already won.

Roxanne: Despite being my avi, her Rocks are easily dismantled by Special attacks.

Hardest Gym Leaders:

Whitney, Miltank, Attract, you get the idea.
Norman: His Slaking tears down every unprepared or unevolved Pokemon with little threat. Simply said, evolve your Pokemon or forget it.

Fantina: I find her to be very difficult because of her annoying Ghost types. I'd prefer to face her than the above two.

Juan/Wallace: I do not like that Rest Kingdra. A bulky Dragon that can handle Ice attacks is a pain in the neck.

Also, if you have no evolved Pokemon, Chuck's Poliwrath is difficult.

 

[Hiatus]

Have to agree with 루기아; in terms of difficulty, Whitney was pretty hard. All her Pokémon were tough, but her Milktank was even tougher. It was nearly impossible to bring it down to low health, and whenever I did, it'd always recover itself with Milk Drink. It was very, very frustrating. Aside from her, Clair was quite difficult as well. She had a Kingdra, which was able to wipe out almost all members of your team with Hyper Beam. To finally have it beaten when playing Pokémon Silver, I had to go through a lot of trouble. :p

 

[Brendino]

I'm not basing it off of anything in particular, but Juan is a pretty bad Gym Leader. He's just kind of thrown back into the mix once Wallace becomes the Hoenn Champion, and doesn't do much outside of being the leader (from what I remember at least). A lot of the early Gym Leaders fall under the category of being non-existant outside their gyms though, with Brawly, Falkner, Bugsy, Winona and Lt. Surge all coming to mind right away.

 

[Miracle Seed]

Claire, just because of her overall attitude. The same with Whitney. You cry because you got beat in the challange you wanted, and withhold the badge?! NOPE

 

[TheRestlessSoul]

I love Brock, but I think he deserves a mention for (in both the anime and ETOP manga) straight up abandoning his gym to go on a road trip with Ash.

To add to this, if you started with a Charmander, Brock was a pain to beat..

 

[curiousnathan]

1. Sidney, I just never liked him.

iirc Sydney is an Elite Four member not Gym Leader XD; and I quite like him! Mainly due to the fact that he's a dark type specialist haha.

Kanto
-

Johto
- Chuck: I've never really liked him. I've always found him a bit too of a loud character for me. Plus he was a pain in the butt to beat at times haha.
- Pryce: Mainly because he's pretty boring both in the anime and in the games.

Hoenn
- Juan/Wallace: Yeah, I don't really like them, despite them being the 'original Seibolds'. XD
- Watson: Much like Chuck. His gym in-game was pretty small and boring as well. :(

Sinnoh
- Crasher Wake: repeat of Chuck and Watson haha.

Unova
- All of them except for Burgh, Cheren, Roxie and Marlon.

Kalos
- All of them except maybe Ramos.

 

[Driskull]

Kanto (Design):

None that I know of.

Kanto (Difficulty):

Sabrina is a PITA if you don't have any Ghost or Dark moves (Gen III).

Johto (Design):

Bugsy. Need I say more?

Johto (Difficulty):

Whitney. Again, need I say more?

Hoenn (Design):

Tate and Liza are extremely boring.

Hoenn (Difficulty):

Roxanne's Nosepass is pretty tough even if you choose the Grass starter.

Sinnoh (Design):

Nearly all of them in D/P due to the fact that most Leaders have extremely random Pokemon on their teams that do not coincide with the gym theme. Thankfully, this was (mostly) fixed in Platinum.

Sinnoh (Diffficulty):

Sinnoh was pretty easy, IIRC.

Unova (Design):

Cilan, Chilly, and Cress. Oh boy. Absolutely boring. Same goes for Lenora, Brycen, and Burgh.

Unova (Difficulty):

None at all.

 

[SaniOKh]

Kanto
Worst difficulty: Obviously, Sabrina. The Psychic type had an unfair advantage back in Gen 1.
Worst design: To me, Erika. The blandest Gym leader ever. Blaine is a close second in that regard.

Johto
Worst difficulty: What, no hate for Morty on this thread? I never had much trouble with Whitney, but Morty most often was the one to give me the first "game over".
Worst design: The old fat Chuck is so full of himself, it's... OK, a little funny at the beginning, but not for long.

Hoenn
Worst difficulty: Tate & Liza gave me more trouble than the others, but not much...
Worst design: I don't know why, but I always found Flannery to be kinda bland.

Sinnoh
Worst difficulty: I can't think of any.
Worst design: Crasher Wake is basically Chuck in a mask.

Unova
Worst difficulty: The one who immediately comes to mind is Cheren. His Pokémon love the move Work Up, just love it, and use it multiple times before even striking the first blow, which then OHKOs your Pokémon. And the only Fight-type around is Riolu, with Counter as the only fighting move, which can't do a single thing when the opponent uses Work Up.
Worst design: It's more a characterization that I don't like, but I just can't stand Marlon: "You're telling me those guys are evil? That's what you're telling me, and besides, who knows, maybe they're not that bad. But I have no time for this, I gotta go live in the moment, I have to go swim, KTHXBYE". I expected him to start singing "Under the sea" at any moment.

Kalos
Worst difficulty: Obviously, none :) . But, yeah, gotta agree with the OP, Ramos was the most pathetic of them all.
Worst design: Clemont. What's with the useless robotic limbs?