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Hoenn's Water gym has always been a poor fight for me. Water is a fine type for a final gym, but not in Hoenn's case. I've already gotten Surf and Waterfall, and my reward for beating this Gym is a TM for a move substantially worse than both. The fight is honestly bland, but the reward is so useless.
For what its worth this fight did get nicely upgraded in ORAS. The levels were boosted across the board and more importantly for your issue they made a pretty smart change in having Wallace give you the Waterfall HM as a reward rather than shitty-ass Bubblebeam. Also Emerald in particular's the worst version since Juan's Kingdra uses scumbag evasion spam
For what its worth this fight did get nicely upgraded in ORAS. The levels were boosted across the board and more importantly for your issue they made a pretty smart change in having Wallace give you the Waterfall HM as a reward rather than shitty-ass Bubblebeam. Also Emerald in particular's the worst version since Juan's Kingdra uses scumbag evasion spam
Minor correction: they give you the TM for Water Pulse in the originals. Yeah, same power as BubbleBeam, so still pretty useless. Though to be fair, friggin Misty gives you Water Pulse in the Johto games...in the postgame so it's even worse there.
water-types have the issue with tms that (pre-scald, anyway) their best moves were hms, so it was difficult to give an appropriate tm reward - unless hydro pump's ever been a tm, which afaik it hasn't.
Minor correction: they give you the TM for Water Pulse in the originals. Yeah, same power as BubbleBeam, so still pretty useless. Though to be fair, friggin Misty gives you Water Pulse in the Johto games...in the postgame so it's even worse there.
even more minor correction: Water Pulse is slightly weaker than Bubblebeam (60 vs 65)
the first battle against Misty in HGSS is kinda hilarious. Her Starmie will often prefer to use non-STAB Ice Beam over Water Pulse because it’s stronger when the type matchup’s the same (95 vs 60*1.5), so the battle doesn’t even showcase her signature TM unless you take her on with Fire/Ice/Steel/Rock Pokémon.
even more minor correction: Water Pulse is slightly weaker than Bubblebeam (60 vs 65)
the first battle against Misty in HGSS is kinda hilarious. Her Starmie will often prefer to use non-STAB Ice Beam over Water Pulse because it’s stronger when the type matchup’s the same (95 vs 60*1.5), so the battle doesn’t even showcase her signature TM unless you take her on with Fire/Ice/Steel/Rock Pokémon.
I guess Water Pulse was so forgettable I forgot its base power.
Doesn’t change the fact the only times they really did good with a Water Gym TM is BW2 Scald and Misty in all versions (Brine from Wake in DPPT doesn’t really matter when you get Surf in one town and 2HKO stuff with it).
Here's a unique one. Do you guys remember Cool Trainer Jennifer in Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire hanging around Route 120 (the rainy area after the 6th gym)? She's this random ass trainer who happens to have a level 31 MILOTIC who spams Recover and rain-boosted Water Pulses. No Physical/Special split also means only Sceptile and Manectric (assuming you have those) can deal good damage to her, and even then she tanks it quite well since your IVs, EVs and nature aren't optimized. A surprisingly difficult battle for a random ass NPC in the middle of nowhere. I kinda wish more random trainers are like this.
Here's a unique one. Do you guys remember Cool Trainer Jennifer in Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire hanging around Route 120 (the rainy area after the 6th gym)? She's this random ass trainer who happens to have a level 31 MILOTIC who spams Recover and rain-boosted Water Pulses. No Physical/Special split also means only Sceptile and Manectric (assuming you have those) can deal good damage to her, and even then she tanks it quite well since your IVs, EVs and nature aren't optimized. A surprisingly difficult battle for a random ass NPC in the middle of nowhere. I kinda wish more random trainers are like this.
Here's a unique one. Do you guys remember Cool Trainer Jennifer in Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire hanging around Route 120 (the rainy area after the 6th gym)? She's this random ass trainer who happens to have a level 31 MILOTIC who spams Recover and rain-boosted Water Pulses. No Physical/Special split also means only Sceptile and Manectric (assuming you have those) can deal good damage to her, and even then she tanks it quite well since your IVs, EVs and nature aren't optimized. A surprisingly difficult battle for a random ass NPC in the middle of nowhere. I kinda wish more random trainers are like this.
Jennifer... I remember her. My first playthrough on Sapphire I almost lost to her. The only Pokemon I remember having was Blaziken and Wobbuffet. She knocked out my Blaziken leaving me in a tough spot as that was my most powerful team member. I eventually had to use Wobbuffet to Destiny Bond her Milotic.
Years later I would get AlphaSapphire and, since I played through the original with Blaziken I decided to try something different. Now at the time I picked Treecko as I was going to face Team Aqua... but when I got closer to that route I remember her and that day I got my revenge, yes I did. I HOPED YOUR MILOTIC LIKED MY MEGA SCEPTILE'S GIGA DRAIN YOU B**** (why yes, I didn't evolve my Treecko until it learned Giga Drain)!
One thing to note is that you can technically get the Sunny Day TM from the Scorched Slab before facing her but, since (unless you go out of your way to avoid her and reach the Safari Zone) you won't have SolarBeam yet, it only works for softening her hits. She's definitely a real headache.
EDIT: And while we're at it, can we talk about DP Lucian? I'm honestly not sure if it should be in Best or Worst because he represents a real challenge (a significant upgrade from previous E4 members) but at the same time his team is so ugly. The first time I faced him I had what I consider a solid team, with Empoleon, Staraptor, Luxray, Roserade, Kadabra, and Garchomp but it was so hard to get kills. My inability to evolve Kadabra meant that even with Choice Specs I failed to OHKO stuff with Shadow Ball, and everything hit it really hard. And don't get me started on that Bronzong. I ended up winning after having to spam Revives with only Empoleon defeating it in Torrent range after I sacked Luxray to Intimidate it. Next time I changed my strat and won more easily, but it's still super annoying.
And Cynthia has been mentioned before, she's also super overleveled with that ridiculous Garchomp (which has terrible AI btw, so it was really hard to bait it to Giga Impact on Empoleon) and my team was just unable to 2HKO Spiritomb, which is dumb. Raptor's Brave Bird fell like 2 HP short and Specs Empoleon was a roll until Spiritomb used Embargo to screw me over so I just had to keep trying. My penguin prolly had terrible SpAtk IVs tho, because its Defense was actually higher (due to beating many a Graveler and Steelix) and it couldn't OHKO Chomper with Specs Ice Beam. It still wasn't as bad as Lucian, but it sucked that I'd repeatedly switch between Raptor and Luxray to weaken Chomper and then I couldn't defeat it.
If we assume "worst" can also mean "lame", "disappointing", and etc., I think I can give some shoutouts to Ace Trainer Brian in HGSS's Route 27. Why? Well, the dude has only one Pokemon, which is a level 35 Mareep. I always say to myself "Really, GF? I am at the end of the game and instead of giving me tough trainers, you are giving me THAT?" whenever I gotta fight him. And I am very curious as to how he obtained all 8 badges by using only one Mareep (and no, "he used other Pokemon as well" is not a valid answer >:(). I can see Whitney, Morty, Jasmine, and Clair obliterating him quite easily, so it raises even more questions. I think they should've made him a Youngster or something, because such "team" (if I can call it one ) is not acceptable for an "elite trainer", which he obviously is not.
(note: I haven't bothered searching for him in this thread, so sorry if it's been talked about)
Three trainers come to my mind when talking about hard random Pokemon battles, and are three random guys in the lowest floor of Union Cave in HGSS. They have respectively two Marowaks, both at level 24, one Kangaskhan at level 28 and a full team of Eevee and its Kanto evolutions at level 22-26. They may not sound hard, but since you can fight them as soon as you defeat Morty (whose strongest Pokemon is at level 25), they can become a real hassle. They are not obligatory fights, but if you want Lapras, you pretty much have to deal with them (I'm not sure they can be skipped even then though). On the other hand, HGSS has some ridicolous pre-League fights, with many of the trainers on the road to the League proudly showing unevolved Pokemon.
Three trainers come to my mind when talking about hard random Pokemon battles, and are three random guys in the lowest floor of Union Cave in HGSS. They have respectively two Marowaks, both at level 24, one Kangaskhan at level 28 and a full team of Eevee and its Kanto evolutions at level 22-26. They may not sound hard, but since you can fight them as soon as you defeat Morty (whose strongest Pokemon is at level 25), they can become a real hassle. They are not obligatory fights, but if you want Lapras, you pretty much have to deal with them (I'm not sure they can be skipped even then though). On the other hand, HGSS has some ridicolous pre-League fights, with many of the trainers on the road to the League proudly showing unevolved Pokemon.
Similarly, there’s a bonus boss trio of female Ace Trainers south of Goldenrod who can only be encountered by Surfing on Route 34. They all use Water-type evolution pairs, progressively increasing in level from 22/24->24/26->26/28. The first two battle you sequentially in GSC and simultaneously in HGSS.
They’re not that hard for a balanced team to handle and you get a break between the first two and the third one, but they can tear through unprepared teams, especially since post-Morty is an awkward time in the Johto level curve where lots of Pokémon are still likely to be unevolved or not have access to their best moves yet.
The first two have Goldeen/Seaking and Staryu/Starmie, which can deal some solid damage while tanking your attacks. Seaking’s Supersonic and Starmie’s Recover can make the first fight(s) particularly annoying.
The third trainer has a level 28 (!!) Cloyster with Aurora Beam. Very few Pokémon at this point in the game resist Ice while being able to deal good damage to Cloyster in return (the list is basically just Fire-types with Fire Blast and Magnemite). It’s especially threatening if you’ve gone exploring with Surf immediately after getting the Fog Badge and without progressing past Ecruteak first. It’s also made scarier if your team is mostly made up of physical attackers who can’t gat past Cloyster’s titanic Defense.
If you fully heal up before facing her you should win, but if you assume you’ll be fine (“it’s just one trainer instead of two this time!”) and go in with some chip damage, you can find yourself getting swept.
Here's an interesting Best/Worst: Battling Families.
The Best: The Riches
In Black & White, once you reach Undella Town, there's a fancy house, a villa, which belongs to a rich family of trainers. At first you can only challenge the youngest son, Draco, who sends out a single Buizel. However each day you can return and challenge another family member, each one having one more Pokemon than the previous, one level higher, and give out 200 more Pokedollars:
Draco (youngest son) had a Buizel at level 60. Gives out 12,000 P.
Susie (daughter) had a Teddiursa and Lopunny at level 61. Gives out 12,200 P.
Clairdonna (grandmother) had a Bronzor, Kangaskhan, and Golurk at level 62. Gives out 12,400 P.
Zillion (grandfather) had a Shuckle, Lickilicky, Krookodile, and Politoed at level 63. Gives out 12,600 P.
Trish (mother) had a Weavile, Excadrill, Heatmor, Vespiquen, & Kingdra at level 64. Gives out 12,800 P.
Miles (eldest son) had a Donphan, Bisharp, Lanturn, Tangrowth, Braviary, & Haxorus at Level 65. Gives out 13,000 P.
After you defeat each one they sit around the villa table where you can have a small chat with them but nothing major as I recall. The father you never battle, instead he is an Item Maniac who'll buy the treasure you find in the Abyssal Ruins for a lot of money. Sadly you can no longer battle them after defeating each family member, but starting around Clairdonna they start to appear to be above the cut of most normal trainers you've previously encountered (though I don't think Susie quite knows what she's doing looking at her Pokemon's moveset). They're also sadly gone in B2W2, their villa torn down to make way for the Marine Tube (though apparently in XY there's a trainer who is looking for Miles in Lumiose City)
The Worst: The Winstrates
Proving doing it first doesn't mean you did it the best, on Route 111 you meet the Winstrates. First you're asked by Victor if you'll like to challenge him and his entire family in a gauntlet battle. And this is where things kind of fall apart. Instead of having a building challenge, there team and levels are kind of all over the place (levels are slightly higher in ORAS):
Victor (father) has a Taillow and Zigzagoon as level 16/17.
Victoria (mother) only has a Roselia at level 17/20.
Vivi (daughter) has a Marill, Shroomish, and Numel at level 15/16.
Vicky (grandmother) only has a Meditite at level 18/22.
Though the interesting thing about The Winstrate Family is the mystery set up about the eldest son: Vito. You're told that Vito (or rather the "eldest son" as they never say his name) is a powerful trainer, the family joking he's probably the Champion by now, so in the back of your mind as you play through you may wonder if you'll encounter this eldest son and be in for a tough battle. Or not, by the time you reach Victory Road you having gone through the story you probably all but forgot about the Winstrates. But if you're paying attention and trying to battle all the trainers in Victory Road, you'll then stumble upon a trainer named Vito who'll mention that he trained with his family. His team of four (made three in ORAS) is alright and definitely higher level than his family, though by then you're more then capable of handling him. After losing to you he mentions this is his first time losing, losing his confidence and thinking about going back to his family. While many might not think much about it, considering how they sort of built up Vito as being this strong trainer he was being compared to the Champion, seeing he's then just a random trainer in Victory Road you easily beat kind of tells a sad tale about many of these strong trainers if you think about. Vito trained all his life with his family becoming the strongest among them, he defeated all the Gym Leaders and probably was training up his team in Victory Road to take on the Elite Four and Champion... and then this random kid comes in and sweeps him. In a few minutes what took him years that he trained his life up till now to do ends. And how many of these other Ace Trainers you barrel through in Victory Road have a similar circumstance, the best of the best of their family & peers, trained their lives to get where they are, and then swept aside.
Still, as a Trainer Family, they weren't that good. Maybe a bit unfair of a comparison as you fight the Winstrates early on and the Riches postgame, plus with the Winstrates they wanted to set up with kind of sad tale with Vito, but for players looking for a challenge the Riches provide it while the Winstrates don't and they had a chance to "fix" it in ORAS but chose not to.
When challenged on Route 111:
Victor: Taillow & Linoone @ Level 20 Victoria: Beautifly & Roselia @ Level 21 Vivi: Shroomish, Numel, & Azumarill @ Level 21 Vicky: Sableye, Mawile, & Meditite @ Level 22
I get not wanting to overwhelm the player at this point so instead I think the first two having two Pokemon and the last two having 3 Pokemon gives enough of a challenge at this point (also slightly halting the Level progression when you switch from two Pokemon to three Pokemon).
Vito on Victory Road: Manectric, Swalot, Darmanitan, Dodrio, Kadabra, & Shiftry
Come on, at least give Vito a full team. The player is still intended to beat him easily so the message is still there, heck, if not more notable as he would be one of a few trainers to raise an entire team of six.
Post game would then place Vito have with his family and they'd challenge the player again to tougher gauntlet, this time also including Vito's girlfriend, a woman training to become a Pokemon Nurse:
Vito's Girlfriend: Audino (Mega Evolves) @ Level 60 Victor: Swellow & Linoone @ Level 61 Victoria: Beautifly, Roselia & Shiftry @ Level 62 Vivi: Breloom, Camerupt, Azumarill, & Manectric (Mega Evolves) @ Level 63 Vicky: Sableye, Mawile, Swalot, Dodrio, & Medicham (Mega Evolves) @ Level 64 Vito: Darmanitan, Electrode, Ludicolo, Hariyama, Ninjask, & Alakazam (Mega Evolves) @ Level 65
I figured instead of giving each family member a new Pokemon that instead Vito would give some of his Pokemon to his family while get gets new ones. I also figured that I'd let a few of them Mega Evolve their Pokemon to give a little bit of a challenge.
Ok, surprised to see this one not mentioned. SM Totem Kommo-o
This is the last Totem fight in Sun/Moon, and the Totem is the regional psudeo-legendary Dragon. So why is this fight such a let-down?
1. Buildup: The two fights on the way to the Totem are literally 2 wild Pokemon. The 2 prevos, at a similar level to the wild Pokemon of the area. Absurdly easy. I can understand wanting a certain atmosphere with the place having no Captain, but that doesn't mean that it has to be totally easy... Oh and they give you TM Dragon Claw on a plate right there, just in case you had literally nothing for the fight lol.
2. Leveling: This is the big one. Immediately beforehand, there is a gauntlet of tough Trainers using multiple mid-40s Pokemon. Immediately after this is Ultra Space and Lusamine 2 with ~Level 50 mons, and the level 55 Legendary after that (Lunala came mighty close to kicking my butt lol). So Totem Kommo-o is.... Level 45. ie: the same level as your party, if not lower. And the allies it summons? Level 32?! Is this a joke?
Perhaps they might have been worried that omniboosted Kommo with ways to wipe most Ice and Fairy types off the map would be too stronk, and you needed a bit of a handicap, conveniently forgetting any Psychic or Flying type wipes the Totem off the face of the island. It was even more of a joke for me, having picked the Water/Fairy starter which outright OHKOed with Moonblast. It's comparable to the first trial in terms of how easy it is:
Weakness easy to hit and OHKO with? Check.
TM for supereffective win button right there in the Trial site? Check.
Not especially above the level curve? Check.
Lame build-up that will not challenge you in the slightest if you were even remotely prepared? Check.
So many of the Totem fights were great. Others were a bit of a let-down. This one however, stands out for being absurdly easy and not needing to be. It could have been an actual challenge if it was closer to Lusamine's party levels (reminder there is literally 0 fights between them unless you majorly backtrack) and summoned allies with a less than 10 level gap to its own. Nope. Instead, let's just get hit by a 4* effective move and roll over like it's Totem #1.
Whoever approved that team certainly wanted to troll the players. Another interesting thing is that in the Japanese version of GSC, the same trainer has a level 29 Seaking instead of Magikarp. The Western and Korean versions instead have a level 58 Magikarp and HGSS decided to buff it even more.
I kind of wish the other mons were higher leveled, though. It's not every day I see an NPC using interesting Pokemon.
Whoever approved that team certainly wanted to troll the players. Another interesting thing is that in the Japanese version of GSC, the same trainer has a level 29 Seaking instead of Magikarp. The Western and Korean versions instead have a level 58 Magikarp and HGSS decided to buff it even more.
I kind of wish the other mons were higher leveled, though. It's not every day I see an NPC using interesting Pokemon.
Correction, he has Seaking in the non-Japanese versions to go with the "king" theme. He has a Magikarp in the Japanese version because it's name is Koiking. HGSS simply just didn't bother changing the last Pokemon in the non-Japanese versions like GSC did(For similar reasons, HGSS has the Japanese distribution of Donphan being in Gold and Ursaring being in Silver). If you're wondering why the guy has a king theme in the first place, the maze on route 13 is where the Imperial Palace would be in IRL Japan.
Correction, he has Seaking in the non-Japanese versions to go with the "king" theme. He has a Magikarp in the Japenese version because it's name is Koiking. HGSS simply just didn't bother changing the last Pokemon in the non-Japanese versions like GSC did(For similar reasons, HGSS has the Japanese distribution of Donphan being in Gold and Ursaring being in Silver). If you're wondering why the guy has a king theme in the first place, the maze on route 13 is where the Imperial Palace would be in IRL Japan.
A bunch of people bought him up already, but I want to talk about Bruno a bit more.
Bruno is pathetic, but not everyone knows just how bad he actually is. He suffers in many respects.
The rest of the Elite Four are monotype, just not to the type specified; Water Lorelei, Poison Agatha, Flying Lance. Bruno deviates from this by having two congruent Onix. The only difference is Level, but they have the same moveset and die equally fast. To make matters worse, Primeape and Poliwrath are right there! What's going on?
His Hitmonchan is mediocre at best. It has, effectively, no STAB. They gave it Counter instead, which means against a Normal-type with non-Fighting coverage, it won't actually be able to hurt you. Also lol @ elemental punches.
While unintentional, Hitmonlee and Machamp have the glitched Focus Energy, which is partly what makes the battle so...meh. It appears they were intended to be heavy hitters. I don't think it would have worked out, though.
Pokemon Yellow actually improved the fight by addressing a bunch of the criticisms I've bought up here. The first Onix gets Dig while the second gets Earthquake, and Focus Energy is actually removed (Double Team Hitmonlee, Strength Machamp). The only one I'd say is worse is Hitmonchan, as they added another elemental punch over Mega Punch, then put Double Team over Counter. Regardless, it's still a really "meh" fight.
A bunch of people bought him up already, but I want to talk about Bruno a bit more.
View attachment 273832
Bruno is pathetic, but not everyone knows just how bad he actually is. He suffers in many respects.
The rest of the Elite Four are monotype, just not to the type specified; Water Lorelei, Poison Agatha, Flying Lance. Bruno deviates from this by having two congruent Onix. The only difference is Level, but they have the same moveset and die equally fast. To make matters worse, Primeape and Poliwrath are right there! What's going on?
His Hitmonchan is mediocre at best. It has, effectively, no STAB. They gave it Counter instead, which means against a Normal-type with non-Fighting coverage, it won't actually be able to hurt you. Also lol @ elemental punches.
While unintentional, Hitmonlee and Machamp have the glitched Focus Energy, which is partly what makes the battle so...meh. It appears they were intended to be heavy hitters. I don't think it would have worked out, though.
View attachment 273833
Pokemon Yellow actually improved the fight by addressing a bunch of the criticisms I've bought up here. The first Onix gets Dig while the second gets Earthquake, and Focus Energy is actually removed (Double Team Hitmonlee, Strength Machamp). The only one I'd say is worse is Hitmonchan, as they added another elemental punch over Mega Punch, then put Double Team over Counter. Regardless, it's still a really "meh" fight.
Now that you mention it, yeah this fight is horrible lol.
In RBY if you have any remotely decently special attacker Bruno crumples in a heartbeat. Machamp is the only one who will live a hit or two, but even then it tends to use Fissure which I have never seen Machamp actually hit me with.
Even in later games he’s not much better. In HGSS he has a Hitmontop that is easy setup fodder (Counter, Dig and lol Triple Kick as STAB) to the point where even a Golem can pose a fair threat to him.
Compare this to Lorelei (hardest member of the League imo with type diversity and bulky squad) Agatha (speed and status is annoying) Lance (Hyper Beam hurts from his stuff) and the Champion (who isn’t all that great in terms of moves) and yeah, Bruno is bad.
Now that you mention it, yeah this fight is horrible lol.
In RBY if you have any remotely decently special attacker Bruno crumples in a heartbeat. Machamp is the only one who will live a hit or two, but even then it tends to use Fissure which I have never seen Machamp actually hit me with.
I've wondered for a while whether it would be possible to theorycraft a hypothetical RBY in-game team that does at least decently against every other E4 member except Bruno which it happens to really really struggle against
I've wondered for a while whether it would be possible to theorycraft a hypothetical RBY in-game team that does at least decently against every other E4 member except Bruno which it happens to really really struggle against
zapdos + magneton (and scyther / moltres?)
zapdos + magneton wipes through lorelei with high special, only annoyed by agatha's status, takes lance with high special again, and blue is probably easy enough bar rhydon which is only 1 mon without stab
meanwhile onix hardwalls both and hits zapdos SE with rock throw and magneton is even worse with only normal atcks to hit
theoretically 2nd onix kos zapdos and magneton dies to the 3 fighters bc slow
to elaborate for HGSS Bruno, since it was mentioned, he has Triple Kick, but he almost never uses it. AI always considers Dig, Counter, and Quick Attack as better moves. This makes stuff like Gyarados incredibly broken for Bruno, as they can capitalize on Ground resistance and set up.
Loreli: She might as well be a Ice/Water specialist as she had just as many Water-types as she did Ice-types. Ice-types: Dewgong, Cloyster, Jynx, Lapras Water-types: Dewgong, Cloyster, Slowbro, Lapras
Lance: Like above, he has just as many Flying-types as he does Dragon, though should be noted two of his dragons aren't even fully evolved while all his Flying-types are. Dragon: Dragonair 1, Dragonair 2, Dragonite Flying: Gyarados, Aerodactyl, Dragonite
