5th Gen The Elite Four

[skyluigi2]

Hi! I just made this thread to talk about Black/White's Elite Four.
Did you like them? Or could they have been better with different types?
Do you think more could have been done to give them more of a personality, like Flint in Platinum?
What are your views on Black and White's Elite Four?

 

[Cyclone]

A downside of the Elite Four is that you can use Dark types to easily vanquish two of them; that is, one single Pokémon could quickly wipe out eight enemies out of the sixteen scheduled. It might have been better if the fourth type was a unique weakness. Also, if each trainer had one unique Pokémon not the same type just to challenge the player.

Having only four Pokémon each in the first run is different. I think this was a compensation for the fact that you fight two 6-on-6 battles afterwards; 28 total Pokémon compared to, say, 26 in other first runs.

Cyclone

 

[Mr Cat Dog]

I really liked the Unovan Elite Four. They had a nice bit of symbiosis in that each of them could be defeated by one of the others (Dark beats Ghost; Ghost beats Psychic; Psychic beats Fighting; Fighting beats Dark). As well as that, I also appreciated that we could fight them in any order. When I battled the E4 for the first time, I kept getting my ass handed to me by Shauntal on the first go... up until I switched to Caitlin, and suddenly all of them became relatively simple. Maybe it was simply a case of forward momentum, but it goes back to the symbiosis mentioned above - there's less an element of progression and more one of equality, which I liked. And, it didn't hurt that I liked most of their teams to battle against; they all had a good degree of difficulty, and the second time around was even better in that regard!

So... yeah, in terms of E4s, I actually really like Unova's.

 

[FlareScizor]

Im not so sure I think the other games had better elite fours, with Red & Blue having the best in my opinion! Cant beat the originals! The second time you battle them is decent but the first time was a breeze and the only challenge was Ghetsis for me :/

 

[Ho-Oh]

A downside of the Elite Four is that you can use Dark types to easily vanquish two of them; that is, one single Pokémon could quickly wipe out eight enemies out of the sixteen scheduled. It might have been better if the fourth type was a unique weakness. Also, if each trainer had one unique Pokémon not the same type just to challenge the player.

Having only four Pokémon each in the first run is different. I think this was a compensation for the fact that you fight two 6-on-6 battles afterwards; 28 total Pokémon compared to, say, 26 in other first runs.

Cyclone

Scrafty. It can take out 3/4, which is better than any other dark type. I mean Caitlin has Metagross to throw it off but with Moxie it is unstoppable. Kinda a bit TOO easy imo.

 

[Hikamaru]

The Elite Four were pretty easy cos if you have certain types on your team they can be easily defeated.

A combination of Scrafty and a Psychic-type can easily sweep their teams, Scrafty can take out Shauntal, Grimsley and Caitlin easily while a Psychic-type can easily destroy Marshal's team.

I mean, they have too many weaknesses to exploit although Caitlin does get a Metagross and Bronzong in the rematch so it means you will need a Fire-type as well.

Marshal's team is basically a joke, even in the rematch cos he can easily be ripped apart by a Flying or Psychic-type.

 

[Cyclone]

Scrafty. It can take out 3/4, which is better than any other dark type. I mean Caitlin has Metagross to throw it off but with Moxie it is unstoppable. Kinda a bit TOO easy imo.

I wasn't going to bring him up, but that was one of the first Pokémon I started training intensively for Elite Four battle preparation. The double types of Dark/Fight make him an invaluable ally going against the Elite Four, and you just have to have a plan for the Fight type in a good Psychic (I probably will use Gothitelle).

The possible flaw using Scrafty is that move triangle: Psychic -> Fight -> Dark -> Psychic. Obviously I'm not pitting him against Fighting types. Against Psychics, to which he is strong with Dark, he is weak due to the Fighting type. So I plan to take a regular Dark with me (not Liepard, he sucks). I have plans in place to acquire a baby Zorua and train it before the E4 (which also gives me Zoroark). I also will likely take a regular Fight type (or just take my Lv.56 starter Emboar with a TM move), and will have a team prepped for the final battle against Ghetsis specifically waiting in my PC for after the E4 (I'll manage against N since I expect to have him overleveled and my Excadrill with Earthquake will be hanging around). I'm purposely breeding Tepigs with intense moves now for those who want them for the E4 later on; Superpower is attached to three Eggs and one hatched Tepig currently in my PC, but I'm not using that one as I have the E4 easily covered already once Zoroark is around. I may very well level the new Tepig up and eclipse my starter by the time I try to become Champion; I'll have to make sure to train for a while in Pinwheel Forest as I can cover a lot of leveling space in there. :D

So yes, very soon I will have a more concrete opinion on the difficulty of the first E4 matchup.

Cyclone

 

[Ho-Oh]

Actually, because of the dark type he isn't weak to psychic at all - they can't touch it n_n Legit it allows it to take out everything minus Marshal, so scary. tbh I'd rather use other Pokemon against Marshal than Psychic/Flying, idk why, I dislike training them these days I guess. But yeah I think it'd be easy if you just used Scrafty then your Psychic/Flying and went into it tbh. Like I raised mine to 60 or w/e and it defeated them easily, it was just Marshal that was the issue >__>

 

[Cyclone]

Actually, because of the dark type he isn't weak to psychic at all - they can't touch it n_n Legit it allows it to take out everything minus Marshal, so scary. tbh I'd rather use other Pokemon against Marshal than Psychic/Flying, idk why, I dislike training them these days I guess. But yeah I think it'd be easy if you just used Scrafty then your Psychic/Flying and went into it tbh. Like I raised mine to 60 or w/e and it defeated them easily, it was just Marshal that was the issue >__>

Currently I have him somewhere around 50-53 - high enough to have an advantage just by outleveling them severely. The only concern is speed, and not knowing the numbers for their Pokémon, one of the Psychic types being faster could mean a OHKO (scratch that, Psychic can't be used against him). I did recently have a Lv.49 Deino get knocked out in one blow by a Lv.36 Sawk's Karate Chop, so that is in the back of my mind going into the E4 and having backup is NEVER a bad idea. :)

EDIT: Maybe he would be able to do all three alone after all, but I don't want him outleveling everyone else. I do want others available for the later E4 + Champion, so I want to spread it around right now. Maybe I can do Zorua's bit later (I will see a Zoroark from Ghetsis I believe), but it's not going to stop me from getting one as I know I can't catch it myself. :)

Cyclone

 

[Ho-Oh]

tbh I found it's pretty fast if you level it enough and generally the ultimate weapon with Moxie / Crunch/Brick Break/HJK/I forgot. Besides you could always breed on DD if you're worried about speed since for Psychic at least, they're not faster. But yeah I understand that you want them kinda equal.

For me with the Elite Four I found it easier to just let Scrafty dominate so that the rest of the team worked as an actual team against Alder. His Volcarona is really strong imo but tends to make dumb decisions like Quiver Dance too many times, so that's a good thing at least lool.

 

[PlatinumDude]

I liked the Unova E4. They weren't too hard, though, since they're all the same levels and you could potentially overlevel any of them (by a little bit) during the first challenge against them.

 

[Zephele]

My favourite thing about them (outside of their awesome battle theme) is the relationship between their types; they're sort of like a slightly less balanced (at least regarding weaknesses to each other) Fire-Water-Grass. I also liked how you could choose what order to battle them in. I never really used it to my advantage, but it's nice to have the option regardless.

I did find them easier to defeat compared to previous Elite Four, though. I recall managing to beat them with relative ease the first time through, despite having a very under-levelled team. As has been mentioned, a good Dark-type can easily eliminate two of them, while Fighting and Bug types were plentiful in the game to defeat Grimsley. Marshal was never really a problem either; you just had to have someone bulky enough to take hits, or fast enough to take his Pokemon out before they hit.

 

[mac098]

They were the worst of the any of the elite four between all the gens. there was no challenge. for me it only became hard when i had to battle ghetsis. if we can include alder he was the easiest champion by far

 

[Meru]

Unova E4 were pretty easy since of the types they used.
But, I still liked the designs they had.
Especially Shauntal. I adored her look and found her to be pretty cute.

 

[Rivvon]

I only struggled with them because of my lack of training--I do wish the types had been a bit more varied in terms of their weaknesses. As for the characters themselves, I liked their designs, and Caitlin was my favorite gen 4 character--I was so excited to see her back and all grown up! The little remark she makes about why she didn't battle before was a nice attempt at a more detailed backstory, too.

 

[Dantethesaint7]

I used Scrafty to beat 3/4 of the Elite four members (Ghost, Dark, And physic) But i did change pokemon for double types (the flying and physic, Krokodile, Chandelure) and then i used a combination of all my team for the fighting guy. And for the second time through as long as you've traveled the other half of unova (which you should) then your pokemon should be high enough in level to beat them again.

 

[Katie the Friendly Ghost]

The pick and choose style and the 3 lv 40s + 1 lv 42 was pretty annoying, for me at least. In the past there was a lot more variety, more Pokemon, and I liked that there was an actual sequence to follow. Yeah Unova was easy, but it seemed less interesting imo.

 

[NeoPsychedelia]

In my opinion, the pick-any-order style killed the Pokémon League for me. It seemed to lack the difficulty that the previous titles had set.

 

[Cyclone]

With respect to others' opinions on the lack of assigned order killing the E4...may I remind you that the difficulty of each member increased as you went along? They clearly wanted Ghetsis as the final battle after the first E4 to complete the storyline full-circle, and with N battling first, I think they didn't want five advances in level (N is mostly 50, one 52, while Ghetsis is 52, one 54) because they would have seen people leveling up to be strong enough for Ghetsis and completely wiping out the first two or three of the quartet without a challenge. Therefore, they kept them together in level so they were of equal challenge. By doing this, it didn't matter to them having an order because there was no increase in difficulty between members. I kinda like the choice aspect; if you don't have advance knowledge, you don't know what room you're walking into and it's still a challenge adjusting your battle plan for that opponent. I found I hated being told what order to battle people in; for four of the best fighters in a region, I want to choose my fights and strategize the hardest fight for last.

For the second run, this opinion is still the same. The final battle would have been what it is now regardless. They could have put one member at Lv.60, another at 62, 65, and 68. The earlier battles would not be a challenge. Having all four at the same level is more of a challenge. If you have them over-leveled or nail their weaknesses, sorry, it won't be a challenge. It proves your skill as a trainer. That is about it.

Cyclone