5th Gen Why are the Gym Leaders in Gen5 so easy...

[MyUglyOne]

I am playing Gen 5 for the first time ever, and I have to say I'm quite disappointed in the Gym Leaders. I have 7 badges so far, and none of the leaders have given me a hard time at all. What gives?

On a positive note though, I love the design of the Gym leaders and of the Gyms themselves. All the Gyms and the leaders in this Generation really stand out to me, which is better than some earlier Generations where a lot of the Gyms and their leaders were easily forgotten.

 

[Hikamaru]

If any generation had to have the easiest Gyms, it was Kalos in 6th Gen.

I kinda disagree with what you say about Unova Gyms being easy, because some of them are actually very tough. B/W has Lenora who has a high-powered Retaliate coming from her Watchog that literally nothing except a Roggenrola is going to survive, Elesa has two Emolga that use Volt Switch and you're unlikely to have something that can easily handle them, and Clay's Excadrill is a very strong Pokemon at the point you battle him.

B2/W2's real tough Gym is the first one aka Cheren, who has a Patrat and Lillipup that set up offensive boosts with Work Up, and the Lillipup can sweep your team very easily if you go in unprepared. Roxie can also be tough if you aren't using a Magnemite, since her strategy revolves around Venoshock and that is attempting to poison you to boost Venoshock's power.

 

[MyUglyOne]

Meh maybe I just have a well rounded team and am properly leveled up. Still, usually there's a gym leader like Whitney with her Miltank or Jasmine and her steel Pokemon that cause at least some difficulty.

 

[Rivvon]

Ironically, I never found Whitney (or Jasmine) to be all that challenging...

I had a hard time with a few Gym Leaders in particular in gen 5 (the one who comes to mind first is Elesa in BW); I guess overall they weren't super hard for me, but they definitely weren't the easiest in the main series (I truly believe the Kalos Gym Leaders hold that title).

 

[Drayton]

Trust me, Unova gym leader is no cake walk.

• Beware off too much workout lilpup when facing cheren as gym leader, it's tough to boot
• If you can't swipe off lenora's pokemon, Retaliate do more harm than good with it's watchog
• You had a hard time taking down those volt switched emolgas and zebstrika though, the switching can be bothersome
• Taking down Iris/Dreden isn't easy if pick a water or grass starter unless samurot knows ice beam which is handy and taken down dragon danced haxorus isn't easy too and just forced you to switch.
• If your facing Roxie with Sninvy, you'll have to struggle harder and no matter if you don't have magnemite or any steel-type. Roxie can bring you down with VenoShock combo.
• Excadrill is tough too and only thing do more damage is just fighting, ground and water type. Just keep your eyes on your Emboar thought it gone down faster than you can say KO

You want easy, Go try take down Kalos gym leader is be like walk in the park expect the other trainers isn't cakewalk.

 

[Keira]

Personally, I don't feel like the Unova gym leaders need to be hard. Gen 5 was far more story driven than the rest of the main series games, and I think that Team Plasma was the main driving element of the game rather than your quest to become the champion or complete the pokédex.

I'd personally rate them a little above average. They're fairly simple to beat if you level your pokémon decently, and have pokémon that are matched well with those gyms, like in most games. Pokémon is heavily strategy driven, so the difficulty scales down the more prepared you are for the battle. Most likely it feels easier to you as you're making the right type matchups this playthrough.

 

[Hikamaru]

Taking down Iris/Dreden isn't easy if pick a water or grass starter unless samurot knows ice beam which is handy and taken down dragon danced haxorus isn't easy too and just forced you to switch.

The problem is, Ice Beam is available only after defeating Iris/Drayden in both games. In B/W it's post-game only, while in B2/W2 it's after 8th Gym. The TM for it is found in Giant Chasm in both cases, though you can have Blizzard available before Iris/Drayden.

 

[Desert Stream~]

B/W wasn't really that easy. It's all luck though, maybe you got a starter with great IVs, and maybe the opponents have low IVs.

I was recently playing through X/Y (The easiest games) and found the first 2 gyms quite tough.

 

[MyUglyOne]

I have not played X/Y yet but all this talk about how easy they are is disappointing.


it has been years since I've played a Pokemon game so maybe I am just making better choices in terms of match ups and in making a diverse team than I did when I was younger lol. I should go back to gen 2 and see if those woman (jasmine and Whitney) are tough to beat for me as they used to be.

 

[Altairis]

I lost when facing the Striaton Gym but I didn't have that much trouble with the rest of the gyms. I wish that they had more Pokemon, as 3v6 is no challenge at all, really. I think they really limited themselves by only having Unova Pokemon in Black and White, because there aren't more than 4 for some types.

 

[MyUglyOne]

I lost when facing the Striaton Gym but I didn't have that much trouble with the rest of the gyms. I wish that they had more Pokemon, as 3v6 is no challenge at all, really. I think they really limited themselves by only having Unova Pokemon in Black and White, because there aren't more than 4 for some types.

Agreed. I wish the gym leaders would have a minimum of 4 Pokemon, and 5-6 would even be fine for some of the later gym leaders, just to make them a little more challenging. I also agree that there should be some Pokemon from Generations 1-4 in the earlier stages of Gen 5.

 

[Sirfetch’d]

If any generation had to have the easiest Gyms, it was Kalos in 6th Gen.

I kinda disagree with what you say about Unova Gyms being easy, because some of them are actually very tough. B/W has Lenora who has a high-powered Retaliate coming from her Watchog that literally nothing except a Roggenrola is going to survive, Elesa has two Emolga that use Volt Switch and you're unlikely to have something that can easily handle them, and Clay's Excadrill is a very strong Pokemon at the point you battle him.

B2/W2's real tough Gym is the first one aka Cheren, who has a Patrat and Lillipup that set up offensive boosts with Work Up, and the Lillipup can sweep your team very easily if you go in unprepared. Roxie can also be tough if you aren't using a Magnemite, since her strategy revolves around Venoshock and that is attempting to poison you to boost Venoshock's power.

I completely agree. Unova had very difficult gyms IMO. I remember having a really hard time taking down Elesa and her Emolgas. Clay wasn't too bad since I started with Oshawott but I can see where people would struggle with him.

 

[MyUglyOne]

So I know this thread started with me complaining about how easy I found the Gym leaders of Unova, but now I have a different complaint:

Why the hell does this game go from easy/mediocre pre-elite 4 and then hyper jump to extreme difficulty post-elite 4?

Seriously. I beat the elite 4 and the subsequent leaders and what-not afterward relatively easily, but all the trainers and even the wild Pokemon are insanely leveled up. It went from elite 4 being at Lv 48-50 to random wild Pokemon ranging from 48-60 and trainers with Pokemon anywhere from 55-65. It's crazy. I mean it's also nice for levering up quick, but it results in way more pokecentre trips than I'm used to.

 

[Itcheeee]

I've thought the same thing, myself. Love the leaders, the gym's designs, and all. But I wish there was a hard-mode to start the game with, I never had any trouble fighting a leader in BW or the sequels at all. I never even had to train :/

 

[Lunar]

Lenora is pretty tough and Elesa is a frustrating and difficult opponent to face considering volt switch is actually a pretty powerful move at that point in the game. Kalos has some seriously easy gyms though, in fact the whole game is easy but that's been covered enough before.

The gyms in Unova do look really good and have some great mechanics to them, also, the gym leaders do seem to have a bigger part in the story and appear more outside their gyms which previous Pokemon games have not done enough imo.

 

[Sirius Black]

I can say B/W and B/W2 where a bit easy, but that's also where Drayano was a godsend in creating his difficulty patches, because he kept the games true to what they were while making it way more rounded and challenging.

Regardless; this isn't about ROM hacks, I found that Black and White and their predecessors where definitely more challenging to me as a kid than today. They're moderately difficult if you don't know about types/natures/IVs and EVs. Black and White weren't my first, but they were the ones I learned everything in.

 

[Altairis]

So I know this thread started with me complaining about how easy I found the Gym leaders of Unova, but now I have a different complaint:

Why the hell does this game go from easy/mediocre pre-elite 4 and then hyper jump to extreme difficulty post-elite 4?

Seriously. I beat the elite 4 and the subsequent leaders and what-not afterward relatively easily, but all the trainers and even the wild Pokemon are insanely leveled up. It went from elite 4 being at Lv 48-50 to random wild Pokemon ranging from 48-60 and trainers with Pokemon anywhere from 55-65. It's crazy. I mean it's also nice for levering up quick, but it results in way more pokecentre trips than I'm used to.

I thought this was quite odd as well. Like there's no slow rise to level 60+ but instead BAM all of a sudden the trainers are super high leveled and you're supposed to be able to win against them consistently? I mean, at least it was a little challenging haha.

 

[Melody]

I certainly didn't struggle too hard but I definitely felt like the level curves in these games was a lot steeper than I was used to. So I did actually struggle a bit with Gym Leaders individually at times and had to prepare for each specifically.