Personally for X and Y, I feel like Grant, the second gym leader, is the most challenging. His Amorus is easy enough but if you don't fix the paralysis, he Tyrunt is a problem. Strong Jaw bite which has a 30% chance to flinch and you may still be paralysised from his previous pokemon. If you're not prepared, he can sweep your team. Ashamed to say I've been sweeped by him before
With x and y the random trainers from post gym one to pre gym three were the most and only challenging trainers in the game, especially the area in and around the cave before the third gym
The professor battle in base S/V really threw me for a loop. I guess my team wasn't built very well because the paradox pokemon got me. One of the very few battles in recent memory that I had to retry. Not a trainer battle, but finding an alpha shiny Walrein in Legends Arceus when I barely started the game made me sad. I just couldn't catch it.
Yea the professor was a really cool fight. Not only are all the paradox Pokemon just shy of pseudo in terms of bst, but for half of them you have to guess their types. Actually made me use my brain a little in my first run, which was nice.
The only right answer. Its part of the story and unless you went out of your way to over level your pokemon, its a legit tough fight. The dlc was released long after most people finished the game and got their good mons to level 100. You'd have to intentionally use lower leveled mons to make it challenging.
@@Semystic Maybe I just suck but Champion Kieran REALLY kept me on my toes even though I had a mostly maxed out lvl 100 team. Hydrapple was easy though.
Had to use all three entry hazards, and I hate those moves, so I normally don't use the TMs or let them learn those moves. I don't play competitive so I don't see their appeal. Just that fight made me have to use entry hazards on a well balanced team, my poor Clodshire, I had to make it tank a ton of damage just to set up three layers of spike, two layers of toxic spikes, and stealth rocks. and pray.
I've never liked the "just use machop or geodude" argument for whitney. Machop isn't going to be outspeeding miltank and will inevitably be taking a powerful stomp to the face. As for geodude, it does resist both stomp and rollout but even a resisted rollout from base 80 attack is still going to hurt once it gets going. That's all not to mention that everyone just totally sleeps on clefairy. An unlucky metronome, unlucky for the player that is, can lead into some sticky situations.
its not just machop or geodude, theres a lot of debuff/status moves you can use and you also get dig in national park to cancel her rollout chains. Ofc a lot of ppl playing casually wont consider those options tho, cause pokemon doesnt rly encourage strategy most of the time
Then don't let it get going with rollout. Set up on clefairy, wipe out miltank before it builds up. Or get dig and reset it. Its an absolute joke of a fight if you think even slightly.
I promise you as someone who very often uses Geodude vs Whitney, Rollout doesn't do shit and you will most of the time (Thanks Magnitude) kill the Miltank before Rollout starts to become a problem
You can sweep with Heracross with fury cutter. Just get the fury cutter going on with cleafairy and once you reach miltank you will be hitting her hard
The most difficult trainer in Kanto is obviusly the Fisherman on Route 21 with his 6 Magicarp on Lv 27. He is, next to the champion himself, the ONLY trainer who ever carried 6 Pokémon. That knowledge alone makes him superior!
But no joke here, he really strong. Very easy to get rage quit and W/O lose with him. Not gonna lie, once I did it... And i feel that shame... STILL! I think i must pay Game Freak 1 000 000 USD for this, if i dont wanna feel humiliated again!
if we're talking just base game paldea (sans the dlc) i think the hardest trainer in the region is eri by a landslide the only trainer in gen 9 to knock me flat on my ass not once but in two seperate playthroughs that's gotta be worth something. as for gen 6 i think the second gym leader grant at least deserves a mention having two fossil mons with good coverage that early in the game is definately a threat and and amaura having a functionally base 117 power ice move with stab is nothing to sneeze at.
I had no problem with Eri, should also mention I played blind (no guide, internet of any kind so no spoliers of what was to come - played on launch as well). Only fght I had some difficulty with was Hassell - elite 4 member no# 4. fighting that over glorified secretary after him was such a let down (yes i mean geeta). I dont like including DLC fights in these sorts of lists as they were made after the release so they should address things like difficulty - specially when they take place after main storyline when you are probs lvl 70-80 anyway and have access to everything you need to win. Sorta sad the PWT fights weren't mentioned but they are similar to battle frontier facilities so I understand. Also agree about Grant for Gen 6 hardest fight - the only gym leader to knock out a single 1 of my pokemon (got a crit against a paralyzed 'mon with tyrunt)
I also struggled against Eri, even more than against Hassel or Professor Sada. I would give an honorable mention to Iono who made me need to devise a strategy specifically to deal with her Mismagius with no weakness...
Lowkey, I think the hardest fight in Galar is versus Calyrex-Rider. Not because he’s hard to defeat - but because you have to survive his insane attacks while trying to catch him. If just one of your Pokemon goes down, he’ll steamroll you with Moxie Boosts.
I presume you mean either form of Calyrex-Rider, though I would argue Shadow Rider edges out due to having more moves that will be boosted by As One's ramping power, being ghost typed so no false swipe unless you have Scrappy, and being hideously frail. Zacian is arguably in a similar boat, due to it just straight up having Swords Dance.
Even tho I agree with Cynthia as the strongest sinnoh trainer. I feel like the double battle just before veilstone and the double battle on the foggy route (especially with fog) can kick your ass since you are not prepared for them like a gym or e4.
While I understand the argument, I do think Clair is a hardest fight in Johto mainly because of her Kingdra(the rest of team does suck). Compared to Whitney, the counters to Kingdra aren't as obvious as Miltank. It hits hard, isn't particulary weak in either defense, and in the remakes, stalling it is dangerous due to the sniper ability.
You (should) have a full team of six when facing Clair. If you struggle to win 6 v 1 (as you said, the rest of her team sucks)...I don't know what to say lol. Though there are ways to deal with Miltank, Whitney is miles clear of Clair in terms of difficulty.
@@willemdafoe6256 I don't ever remember having that hard of a time against Clair. By the time you challenge her, your team is usually complete and fully evolved, giving you more to work with than you would have against Whitney.
Going into the figth blind, Ultra Necrozma actually didn't give me trouble when I played the Ultra games (I know this was an uncommon experience). However, Alolan Marowak beat me like twice in a row when I first played Gen 7.
The main reason I handled that fight so well is because I had gone "I wanna start the game with one of my favorites" and had an Aegislash on my team. Necrozma struggled to break that thing.
Eri was definitely a major struggle for me in Gen 9, upon my first playthrough I used mostly physical Pokémon Meowscarada, Ceruledge, Palafin, Clodsire, Tinkaton and Baxcalibur so fighting the stamina Revavroom that kept boosting was unable to be statused, was level 56 and had super high HP was very challenging, this fight becomes a lot easier with Skeledirge, but it’s super difficult for the other 2 starters
Am I the only one who beat Whitney on the first try and had no idea until years later that people think she's hard to beat? I don't think I even had a fighting type in my team, I just used my starter for almost everything back when I first played Gold. Though the fact that I chose chikorita was probably a factor.
Me too, although I think my strategy was teaching Quilava Dig. The off turns meant Rollout would never get a chance to build power. Not that I understood that at the time, I just knew Dig was a strong move.
I'm going to have to disagree with Hoenn, and say Emerald Wattson or Emerald Flannery. Both of them have 4 pokemon, 2 of which are fully evolved. The Electric type only has 1 weakness, and the Ground-type is not readily avaliable in Hoenn at this point unless you picked Mudkip [Nincada isn't sweeping this gym, neither is Geodude taking the whole thing on with it's speed and Sonicbooms being thrown at it] And by your Whitney logic [which I'd actually say Claire otherwise] "use Geodude" or worse "You must use Mudkip" isn't enough to cross Wattson out. And Flannery is just raw power. She uses Sunny Day, and has STAB BP140 Overheats, and her Torkoal has a White Herb. Also; her pokemon have physical attacks to resort to post-Overheat. And you still can't get many Ground-types; and the only new one is weak to Ground, which Flannery has. And yes; good call on Kalos. Although I'd have said Battle Girl Hedvig; who is stronger Korrina but earlier. Her Hawlucha has almost perfect coverage; as opposed to Korrina who can't even hurt Ghosts. She's also deep in a cave, and has a Throh too; which is really strong for that point.
For sword and shield, I believe hop's rematch at glimwood tangle is the hardest battle, specially if you are playing shield. Firstly, your team can be severely underleveled to hop's team at this point. Secondly Zacian might outspeed everything and one to two hit ko everything. I had to intimidate switch gyarados repeatedly against snorlax, then dragon dance 6 times so that it could easily outspeed everything, and it had leftovers to recover from damage taken by snorlax. And this strategy took 2 tries, as 1st time Rillaboom survived my hit, and then crit hit me. No other Pokemon was able to deal with Zacian
For me, the hardest trainer in GSC and with HeartGold and SoulSilver, is undoubtedly Red. His team is level 81 in gen 2 and a whopping 88 in the remakes. In GSC, his team consists of Pikachu/Espeon/Venusaur/Charizard/Snorlax/Blastoise. In the remakes however, his team has changed to Pikachu/Lapras/Charizard/Venusaur/Blastoise/Snorlax. Red's team in gen 4 is a bit of a downgrade as now half of his team is weak to Electric. Therefore, Red is the hardest trainer in generation 2. In generation 4, that was taken by Cynthia
I agree that Red has the best team to take you on but exclusive to HGSS you can catch Mewtwo at lv 70, making the fight way less hard compared to Clair or Whitney
first ever Play Through running into red with a Team in the 60s and no answer for Snorlax. I´ve used a Level 17 Gastly with Curse and Nightmare, Red spamming Rest
I personally love the battle against hau as you arrive at ula ula island and malie city in the ultra games. He has a solid team of mid stage starter, an eeveelution, noibat, tauros and alolan raichu. its like the battle against gen 3 rival before mauville but even more intense
My list kanto- blue Johto- the Clair and Lance double battle with your rival. Hoenn-Norman Sinnoh- Cynthia Unova- the one verteran npc that exists in the depths of the cavern just past the daycare. Kalos- grant Alola- kukui/ultra necrosis Galar- base game Leon, dlc 100% zygarde Dynamax raid battle. Hisui- Volo Paldea- professor Turo (I played violet)
To me, I'd actually place Lorelei above Sabrina. Psychic's really busted, but Sabrina herself just has _awful_ movesets and doesn't take full advantage of it. And I love Venomoth, but it's just dead weight in Gen One, ESPECIALLY with two different powder moves at once. Lorelei presents a rather steep level-spike compared to Giovanni, with a whole herd of bulky water-types. She's still not _hard,_ I mean her Slowbro's only attacking move is Water Gun. But she's at least more challenging than the lady who'll die on the hill that Psywave isn't just move-slot-filler.
Shoutout to yellow version sabrina who actually remembered to teach psychic to alakazam and swept through my entire team. Earlier this year was my first time actually finishing a gen 1 game, as i started with gen 2 and never went backwards though i did play the other kanto games, and that is one moment that will stick with me. The main other thing is that gen 1 dewgong is amazing, as I used one, and it makes me so sad to see it fall from grace.
alola is not relatively easy, USUM is consider to this day the hardest game to nuzlock in the franchise, and no, its not cause of ultra necrozma, that adds too but all the totems are nightmares, 2 vs 1 battles with usually weather teams or nice strategies, araquanid and lutantis beeing very famous runkillers.
Hoenn has Winona, whose Altaria can buff itself with Dragon Dance, has Earthquake and you need to go out of your way to sequence break just to find an Ice type (that or hope Castform’s Powder Snow will get you through that), and Emerald’s Tate and Liza, who start with the Xatu/Claydol combination to really mess with your day before Lunatone and Solrock mop up what’s left of your team if you manage to knock out Xatu and/or Claydol.
Personally, I feel that it's hard to call May 2 the hardest in Gen 3 when Emerald's fights against Tate & Liza and Wallace exist. For T&L, you're gonna have a scary time without having two Dark types in the lead to invalidate the Xatu. And Wallace is just fucking brutal. Ludicolo with Double Team that makes me always want to bring an Aerial Ace mon to E4, Gyarados with a potentially scary setup in DDance, the Toxic-immune Tentacruel and that FUCKING MILOTIC, THAT DAMN DEMON FROM HELL. Imo, if Cynthia didn't exist then Emerald Wallace would def be the hardest fight in the series.
Winona with her Altaria is also a tough battle in Hoenn. You can't spam items because Dragon Dance invalidates that. Electric-type attacks aren't super effective because Altaria is part dragon-type. Also, Altaria has Earthquake. Rock-types have the same problem due to Earthquake. So what are your options? 1. Brute force it. Just use neutral moves while also tanking Altaria's attacks. 2. Use rock-type moves but not rock-type pokémon. You escape the weakness to Earthquake at the expense of not getting STAB. 3. Use ice-type moves. You normally have no access to ice-type pokémon at this point in the game (aside from Castform, I guess). And as far as I know, the only ice-type damaging moves you could learn at this stage in the game would be from TMs. And the repeatable one you have access to is Ice Beam in the Game Corner (meaning, grinding for it could be tedious). There's a free Ice Beam TM in the Abandoned Ship though. 4. Use dragon-types. Maybe have your own Altaria with Dragon Breath. Or maybe a Vibrava (unlikely that it would be a Flygon already).
The thing is Tate & Liza require Surf to get to them, while their team is 3/4ths weak to it and mostly pretty slow. Even if you don’t pick Swampert most Water types can fairly easily take on their team with support for Xatu.
Honestly, Hoenn has hardest battles in whole region from all regions by my vision. Because... Who is really easy there? Let's talk fast...: Roxanne, you dont get Combusken? Brawly and his Makuhita? Wattson, who destroy you if you not use double kick / Marshtomp properly? Defensive Torkoal and Flannery? Insane Norman with his Slaking(s)? Winona and her Altaria? Tate and Liz, one of hardest gym leaders? ¨(But here carefully, they hard in Emerald, but ez in Ruby/Sapphire and ORAS). Wallace, also hard, Juan, probably only one "easier" but also not complete suck. And then there's a league... With insane champions Wallace/Steven... Which region is that hard like Hoenn? Tell me... Oh, i honestly know, which. Unova, maybe. Because there was hard even Team Plasma.... (But i agree May is pretty easy, even Wally harder, and in ORAS, his last battle especially hard)
Fair picks. I 100% agree with some for sure and could totally agree with the others. Recently, I've been trying to play extremely chill to make them harder with no restrictions, but going unprepared, and some battles can get a bit annoying. I didn't evolve Piplup for BDSP and oh boy he was not ready for Cynthia even at lvl 78.
For me, the hardest battle in Kanto is Koga in Pokemon Yellow. His team comprises of 3 Venonats and a Venomoth. Sounds like an easy team on paper right? Nope. This team was hard due to 2 factors, the level jump and their movesets. Koga's team in Yellow comprises of a Level 44 Venonat, Level 46 Venonat, Level 48 Venonat, and a Level 50 Venomoth. Now compare this with Erika's team of the 4th Gym, whose levels are at 30-32, that's a whopping 12-20 level jump. Especially so when the trainers around are only starting to pack level 30ish Pokemon, Koga's team level wise is a very huge leap. Then, there's their moveset. All of them comes with Toxic and PSYCHIC. Yes, you read that right, PSYCHIC to counter other Poison types we might bring to cheese our way around Toxic. And if that isn't enough, 2 of his Venonats packed Sleep Powder if you heal your way out of Toxic, leaving you at the mercy of strong attacks like the aforementioned Psychic and Double Edge for one Venonat. The Venomoth packed Double Team, so it will make your attacks harder to land once it stacked enough evasion bonuses.The Venomoth also packed Leech Life seeming just to remind you of those pesky Zubats you encountered, and also to counter any Psychic types. I find even Yellow Sabrina easier than Yellow Koga. Cause Sabrina is just carried by the Psychic type, Koga combines power with status conditions. Yellow Koga changed how I play Kanto in future games. Heck, it changed how I approach future Pokemon games by necessitating the need to level grind my entire team to 20 before the 1st gym and 40 before the 3rd.
Yellow sabrina also only has one good pokemon. The lv 50 abra and kadabra do nothing, but the lv 50 alakazam is scary. Compared to koga's venomoth, koga surely wins
8:05 Nah. It's Cynthia again. You walk into her beach house and instantly get smoked. The first most people see her, they're exploring after the end game and suddenly come across her insane team while most players only have Pokémon in the mid to upper 60s. Sometimes they don't even go to the Pokémon Center yet, so their team could already be in dire straights when suddenly battling her.
I have another contender for Hoenn's most challenging, and that's Blackbelf Hideki from ORAS. The guy is insane, sure, he only has a level 13 Machop, but for some reason, his Machop has 30 IVs in every stats. That Machop has No Guard, so all of his attacks will land, he has Foresight so you can't rely on Ghost types, he Low Sweep which lowers your speed, he has Focus Energy so Low Sweep has a 50% chance to crit, and he has Karate Chop which also has 50% chance to crit or be a guaranteed if Focus Energy was used prior. As for reliable counters, you don't have any, Ralts/Kirlia have low defense so a crit Karate Chop is going to hurt a fair bit and you don't have access to Pokémon like Koffing who could theoratically survive a hit or Shell/Battle Armor users who are immune to crits. Evasion or defense spam is no good because No Guard and crits, and there are no mono Flying types with naturally high defense by that point in the game. The almost max IVs turn what would normally be a simple opponent into an absolute nightmare, even more so if you're doing a Nuzlocke with its even more limited selection of Pokémon or a speedrun where things have to go your way with very little margin for error.
Ok imma be That Person and point out that you don't fight Ultra Necrozma in Alola, nor do you fight the Kitakami Ogre Clan in Paldea. Hardest fight actually taking place in the Paldea region, especially if you don't know what to prepare for, has gotta be Terapagos. Even with support you'll be floundering until you figure out what to do. Even the battle against the security system/AI and the inability to properly prep for it unless you have prior knowledge can be sidestepped if you just power level your party. But Terapagos keeps coming back and brings with it a brand new typing.
I'd also say that the second rival fight in RBY/FRLG can be difficult too for beginners. Especially because there's really no good way to train for it once you reach Cerulean City, since you are unable to backtrack until you receive HM01.
Tbh if you battle Misty in r/b with a team of like 3 lvl 22 or below pokemon and didn't bring the type advantage there's a very good chance her Starmies gonna wipe you
For Kalos it's one of the sky battles, there's a lot of sky battles with pretty tough mons sometimes with SE moves against flying types, where you're restricted to only have a couple pokemon that are primarily going to be flying types unless for some reason you have a lot of levitate mons
PERSONALLY IT'S LIKE THIS FOR ME! Kanto - Misty (her starmie is so fast or its typing is too offensively good for me most times when I was a kid I almost quit pokemon because of that ONE fight lucky for me I beat it but still) Johto - Red ( yes whitney was a pain but you had options for it for example overleveling but once you get to red you had to actually plan that out EVEN ONE of his pokemon unchecked would cook me unlike whitney were it was just the milktank.) Hoenn - Wallace ( ignoring the battle fontier Honestly I thought steven was tough worthy champ but fair. and tate and liza were BULLSHIT but u usually had a way out. wallace on the other hand was consistent thanks to water being water weaknesses were covered just unfortunate ii like fire) Sinnoh - Cynthia (yeah yeah duh ofc It was her that milotic and garchomp crazy with a pokemon with no weaknesses crazy. Outside of that shoutout to bertha ground type elite four honestly just solid sand team.) Unova - Ghetsis ( honestly elsa was annoying but due to ground types being nearby not too much of an issue clay is another annoying one but doable, Ghetsis cheated I swear in both bw and sequels but yeah its him) Kalos - Diantha ( nobody here is that hard the victory road is hardest place but given my nuzlocke this one got me.) Aloha - Ultra Necorma ( u know why I know why. but shout out to guzma who somehow always catches me off guard.) Galar- Leon (duh no notes) Hisui- volo ( duh again but shout out to boss pokemon electrode) Paldea - our boy with doggo caught me off guard, but with dlc kerime (little guy last fight honestly he got tough a few times.)
Hardest fight in Kanto is that guy with the Raticate in Mt. Moon. It's a single Pokémon team so the developers gave it a higher level than everybody else in the area, and the Raticate -- in addition to the level advantage -- is fully evolved. Raticate obviously isn't all that powerful in the grand scheme, but the strongest Pokémon you might have stat-wise at this point are probably Butterfree or Beedrill, and this guy is plunked right in the middle of the dungeon. If you know what's coming he will absolutely cream you. He's easy to walk around, fortunately, but he was a major punch to the face when I was a kid.
For me in scarlet and violet I struggled a lot against Kofu I was following the guide someone posted online but his team is very good for when your meant to face him and not going to lie I did wipe out first time I faced him
The paldea one is a weird pick. If youre going purely by team strength, sure. But in a real playthrough, a level 80 kingambit isnt a threat when almost everyone playing the dlc has a team of lv100's...
If we're talking Paldea specifically, I'd say that honor goes to Mela. As you said, the difficulty of any battle largely depends on where the player is at the time, levels-wise. However, Mela's base is located in between the Artazon and Levincia Gyms, whose strongest Pokémon are at levels 17 and 24, respectively. Mela, meanwhile, has her strongest at level 26. In addition, she starts the battle with Drought Torkoal, so if you go into it with a Water type, she's effectively nullified your super-effective moves.
For me, in Paldea, Atticus was definitely the hardest boss. I looked up a list online so I would never be under or overleveled, so when I fought Atticus I was at a point where most of my members weren't yet fully evolved, but he had a team full of final stage mons making his battle the most difficult.
For Paldea, Drayton's gym challenge trainers because you HAVE to use pokemon caught in the academy. No tera raids, no Kitakami or Paldean mon, no Home transfers. Yes, you can still power level them and even change their tera types by the point, but competitive teams with actual strategy vs a limited roster (assuming you aren't going to breed a mon there) is kinda crazy
@Dark_Dusknoir I had no Pokemon that had enough power to really take down her Dragonairs and Kingdra quickly. Also my Pokemon were too underleveled for her 'mons but also too high to get meaningful exp from the surrounding wild Pokemon I definitely lost to Whitney several times but Clair was the more impactful.
I’d actually love to see this list if it were just common trainers within the regions. No rivals, Gym Leaders, E4/Champions, or enemy teams, just the trainers you encounter along the way, and probably only battle once.
bro i am playing my first nuzlocke ever and also in kalos and it’s been super easy EXCEPT THOSE TWO DOUBLE BATTLES. You hit the nail on the head im deaddddd
I got to say when I was a kid, i actually found morty and claire to be the hardest gym battles in gsc. Now I dont think they are, but when I didn't know as much they always gave me trouble.
When I first played many years ago original silver version I had no idea that you can trade for a machop to beat Whitney so it was very difficult to beat her!
Necrozma and Volo were definitely difficult for me. When I was battling Necrozma, I had to keep restarting the battle until my Magnazone could paralyze it with Discharge. As for Volo, I had to do extra training and give my pokemon a bunch of Grit to raise their effort, just so they could last longer in the battle.
Okay, look, before you laugh at me first off i was like 7 Ok now thats out the way In USUM ive been sweeped by totem araquinid and lost so much i couldnt pay the fine, after i won, i was finding it easy... Until ultranecrozma sweeped me so much not only did my older brother trade me his primarina to help me win, but when i DID win, my DS decided to crash. Also, for sword and shield it is 100% peony's first fight becausr unlike sword and shield, there is ni level scaling so it's just stuck at 70,so if your like me and started a new playtrough, he inky needs one pokemon
Thank you for addressing the Whitney counterpoints. Not only does your argument about time revealing our options down the road hold true, but it's important to note that people play Pokemon in a variety of ways and the route of just grabbing a Machop doesn't hold up. Machop might simply not be a Pokemon you want on your team, or you could be working on a Nuzlocke/challenge run. Pokemon having a counter doesn't suddenly undercut their difficulty.
the funny thing is that there's actually some amusing intended Game Freak design in the run of Gym Leaders from Falkner to Bugsy to Whitney. Those two give you Mud Slap and Fury Cutter. The former can be used to ruin Miltank's ability to stack up Rollouts, and the latter can maybe be built up on the Clefairy. in the unlikely event you have a Pokemon faster than Miltank, Headbutt exists for flinch chance. the Rollout and Dig TMs are also available. Whitney is meant to subtly teach the players about the uses of these TMs rather than simply coasting on super effective moves. but a lot of people didn't really learn that lesson because they tried brute force, just using their strongest STAB. and then even when Rollout didn't get them, the Stomp/Attract/Milk Drink shenanigans did them in.
@@dvillines26 In our defense, a lot of us were kids barely getting by in the first place - and that first impression became the foundation of Whitney's reputation. It's really cool to look back on it because you're absolutely right about us being given multiple tools (not just Machop) to strategize and deal with the threat, but on account of still being a little clueless most of us didn't put the pieces together until much later. I appreciate Whitney as a meme, but it frustrates me that people genuinely think there weren't options - or that Machop was the only way around it. There were a lot of clever options available, GameFreak just kind of overestimated us.
Lance gen 1 Red gen 2 Winona or liza/tate gen 3 Cynthia gen 4 The fighting type e4 gen 5 Lysandre gen 6 Mimikyu trial gen 7 The dragon gym gen 8 The ghost gym gen 9
@@Meloettadg2 I'm glad somebody gave Gen I Lance a shout out. I recently did a run of Yellow, and I actually had a harder time against Lance than I did against the champion Blue. His Dragonite is no joke.
The Hop battle in shield is definitely the hardest in that game. Leon's Charizard is strong, but only because of the dmax solarbeam. Once the Dynamax is over, you can easily take him down. Hop has the super busted Zacian that can take down your whole team without worrying about dynamax. He's the only time I wiped out in shield because I was not prepared for that monster.
I’m over 30 playing these games since gen 1 to now. Volo in legends gave me such a hard time that I’m embarrassed to think how long it took me to finally beat that guy.
For me, I would have to see Leon put in the Galar battle, not in the championship, as it’s pretty much endless mode in that facility is that he will match your level with yours and Charizard is will always be at least in both singles and double battles as those even more tougher because he can strategize and every time that he can pretty much buff, his speed with airstream or even G-max to basically make it effectively a fire spin, but as a very strong fire type g-max move.
For me Kabu was actually the by far the hardest battle of Sword and Shield. Even during my third playthrough, when I had the water starter and thought this might give me an advantage, I still struggled for some reason.
My biggest struggle was Lucian in diamond, i had to afk level up my ds for 3 days straight to get kricketune up to level 50 so i even had a chance. I beat cynthia first try without even losing half my team. I got wiped my lucian 8 times.
I certainly can see why Cynthia leads Sinnoh, especially since in BDSP she had a competitively-trained team. That being said, I never seem to see people consider the double battle with Barry against Mars and Jupiter to be one of the harder Sinnoh battles, especially if you don't pick Chimchar. It's a double battle, so you probably don't really have a lot of strategy to deal with doubles-specific battles (eg Protect, Follow Me, Fake Out, etc). The Bronzors are so annoying and provide a ton of screen support, and if you don't have Infernape (or Houndoom for Platinum players) you can't get rid of either of them quickly, and only Platinum users with Magmar can get rid of both of them quickly with Lava Plume. The Golbats are also super annoying. Purugly and Skuntank hit incredibly hard. The reason this battle is hard, however, is because Barry doesn't know what he's doing. His Munchlax is absolutely terrible, it's so egregious he doesn't have Close Combat on Staraptor, and while the rest of his team is pretty good, he always calls the wrong moves. I always end up losing at least a couple of Pokémon when I fight this battle. Also, I think Juan's battle in Emerald was harder than any battles with May, but maybe that's my confirmation bias from always catching a Taillow on my team whenever I had Mudkip. Juan's Mon's can mess you up in so many ways with Double Team and Water Pulse confusion, and his Kingdra does more damage with non-STAB Ice Beam than Clair's GSC one does with STAB Dragonbreath (also means you can't use Altaria or Flygon). I remember almost always having to resort to Swampert to get into an Ice Beam war with Kingdra whenever I play Emerald. Don't forget about Chesto Rest either. A lot of important battles in Black and White and Black and White 2 were hard: Lenora (of course), Ghetsis, Elesa, and surprisingly N despite you getting a Zekrom/Reshiram. I also thought in BW2 Iris and a couple of N's seasonal teams weren't easy. XY is so easy, but I did lose a Pokémon against Lysandre. This was a game when I was playing with a ton of constraints, but it's worth mentioning I didn't sweep every important battle in the middle and endgame.
Right? Barry's Munchlax sucks so much that even offical guides recommend taking him out as soon as possible. Brutal battle. The final battle with Cyrus in the Distortion World in Platinum is also brutally difficult, especially if you DON'T bring electric coverage. Even my Snorlax was getting absolutely washed by Gyarados' Waterfall.
I kind of have to disagree about the gen 1 Rival, Blue is absolutely PATHETIC in terms of movepolls, until the fourth fight ONLY Rattata and maybe his starter are contributing anything until the forth fight and all his Pokemon are struggling in the move department until LATE into FRLG! The Silph Co. fight you mentioned has a Pidgeot who’s strongest move is Wing Attack, two of a Gyarados with no physical moves or STAB, an unevolved Exeggcute with good status moves but bad STAB, an unevolved Growlithe with kind of bad non attacking moves and very mid attacking ones, then a passive Alakazam with good support moves but can’t even directly attack you, and his that will range from pulling its own weight with useful STAB and good status moves (Venusaur), to just having good STAB (Charizard), to not really doing anything well. (Blastoise) Keep in mind you are facing the much higher level Sabrina at around the same time and it’s no contest who’s harder. Additionally she doesn’t ACTUALLY get all that much worse in the remakes since her weaknesses are about as bad as they were previously since Ghost is still physical and the only Pokemon with STAB are special attackers weak to poison. The Bug types are still weak, half are weak to Psychic, and none get good STAB moves yet. And Dark types still don’t exist so you are stuck using coverage moves on their stronger special defense meaning she’s JUST as hard as in the originals!
Well, Kieran definitely isn’t the strongest anything. That honor goes to rematch Nemona in the BB Club. In X/Y, I think the toughest battle is actually a double battle on the route after the 8th gym with a Wailord and Vileplume. It caused me so many trials and heartache in my Nuzlocke, and almost TPK’d me. It cost me my Delphox AND my Xerneas, along with two other heavy hitters. It remains my waking nightmare.
My list is -Gen 1: Sabrina In gen 1 psychic types are a nightmare to deal with and even outside of that her team is very good -Gen 2: Whitney Her Miltank is stupidly broken for that early in the game -Gen 3: Steven same as the last one -Gen 4: Cynthia What else was I going to say? (If we’re counting hisui than it’s Volo) Gen 5: Getsis Gen 6: Diana Gen 7: Ultra necrozma easily the hardest or second hardest battle Gen 8: Leon Gen 9: Kieran
Sorry, but I am a complete noob regarding Nuzlocke challenges. I only completed 4 of my runs. But I never had a problem with Elesa. You just shouldn´t go into the fight with underleveled Pokemon and you will be fine.
Even as a kid playing the original Gold, I wasn't scared from Whitney as much as from Morty. Even as a kid, I saw a strategy to invalidate the threat of the Miltank using only the very universal tools - namely, the Mud-Slap TM you get from Falkner. After 2 Mud-Slaps, you hardly ever see Rollout 3 or more and can quite safely chip Miltank down. On the other hand, Bugsy was rather tough with his Fury Cutter spam forcing you to lead as strong as possible (which I didn't like to do) and Morty, with ghost-immunities, Curses on your mons in preparation and Hypnospamming Gengar was far tougher for a kid's understanding of the game, the one I knew I need to use both preparations and luck (or overlevelling - L28 Rock Slide Sudowoodo did a lot) to win.
I don't really remember feeling all that challenged playing Pokemon. Whitney went down after a couple attempts. My sister and I started playing HG/SS at the same time (both got the games for Christmas) but she played it a lot more than I did and yet she told me she was stuck on Red, so I rushed to get to him and see what was up. Beat him first attempt using 2 revives "man that's cheap"..😐 In B/W I found a Minccino, thought it was cute and kept it, it got echoed voice and the rest is history. Ghetsis went down before his chorus kicked in.
People love to trivialize Whitneys fight, like you didnt just walk into a challenge. She literally uses a Pokemon that has a near 500 base stat total when your pokemon and those youve encountered are almost always under 400 at that point. Your starter might have slightly over 400 in its second evolution, but thats still almost a 100 point difference in stats. And running into that battle blind is crazy. Honorable mention to Bugsy for roadblocking non fire type starters (especially grass) since he ALSO has a 500 BST pokemon that is probably even further out of your league at that point (we were just fighting Geodudes and zubats in that damn cave like 30 seconds before this gym)
Blue's difficulty spike makes more sense when you remember you're not supposed to fight him until after you beat koga (whose levels are higher than him). He's basically a skill check for players who skipped badge 5 and decided to go straight to Sabrina. Very manageable if you did things in order, but difficult if you did it out of order.
For FRLG tbh I'd say the hardest battle is honestly the post game Blue rematch. He has pokemon ranging from lvl 73-75 and is guaranteed to have a Heracross, Tyranitar, and Alakazam, as well as a decent Fire-Water-Grass core, and the level jump is quite steep as you possibly may not have really leveled up your mons a lot
Kanto: Route 22 Blue (first battle), comes out of nowhere while you are exploring with 2 lvl 9 pokemon, otherwise Silph Co. Johto: Clair and Lance Double Battle (HGSS). Silver hints you on him wanting to get stronger, follow him to the dragon den and surprise lvl 75 Dragonite when you are in the 50s probably. Hoenn: That darn Rival Fight, or Norman for Nuzlockes Orre: Greevil (how do you feel about catching 7 pokemon, 4 of them legendary, in a row, or just fighting them) Sinnoh: BDSP Cynthia final rematch Unova: Cheran (BW2), hits hard with work up, and not many options (riolu doesn't learn a fighting move for a while) Kalos: Furfrou Alola: Ultra Necrozma (otherwise Lusamine 2 from the much better Sun Moon) Galar: Master Mustard's true battle Hisui: 8 pokemon on a team with Hisui's combat Paldea: Kieran's champion fight, or the true final boss if you refuse to terastalize.
IDK why so many people consider Machop to be an 'easy answer' to Miltank. You aren't one shotting her, and even worse, you are 1 flinch away from fainting without even touching her.
I personally struggled a lot against the first Marnie fight in Shield. Wiped twice against her in my casual playthrough. One of the reasons being that I could not figure out her typings, plus switching around my team to get to know the new Pokémon.
In Violet, you chose Sprigatito and Nemona took Quaxly, then that battle after the fourth or fifth badge - when Quaxly had fully evolved into that tacky disco duck - was probably the hardest for me. I literally had to just revive my Pokémon until that disco duck ran out of moves.
I actually think Watson should be an honorable mention for hoe. Maybe it's just from a nuzlock point of view but without marshtomp or Geodude he is pretty tough. Magneton is quite tough on the low level and can even throw ground types for a loop with supersonic and Sonic boom. Also manectric can get scary if it sets up.
In X and Y it's some random guy in a cave with the LeBron James of Hawlucha's. Got my ass smoked like 5 times meanwhile i dont think i lost any other battle more than once the whole game.
One of my favourite Pokémon memories of late is using Golisopod against Ultra Necrozma and just First Impressioning it three times, getting OHKOed after each one then reviving. It's a cheese for sure but it was great.
I almost lost to AI Turo on my first playthrough. Fortunately Meowscarada went ultra instinct and toughed out 3 attacks while critting their way through those otherworldly demons.
Nothin is hard once you become an adult with access to the internet.. but when I was a kid that Whitney fight was absolutely wild. It taught me what grinding was
If we discount Whitney, I’d say the toughest in Johto is Clair. First, Johto’s bad level curve in all gens means you’re likely to be underleveled for her, especially with a full team of six. Second, her Pokémon can be pretty tough, especially in HGSS where they can play more to their strengths, like physical Water moves on Gyarados. Lastly, your options for weaknesses are limited. Gyarados isn’t too bad- you’ve had access to Ampharos in GS and HGSS since the start, Crystal can get Raichu or Electabuzz from the Odd Egg, and all versions can get Magneton/zone (again with trades). Plus in Gen 2, the Thunder Punch TM exists, giving weakness options to others like Kadabra/Alakazam or Haunter/Gengar. The Ice Punch TM can be an answer to her Dragonair, but if you don’t have an Ice Puncher then your options drop- and in Gen 4 that isn’t an option. Jynx is probably your best bet in Gen 2 if you’re playing Crystal (not sure if it’s in HGSS) The Swinub line is really only good in Gen 4 where they got access to Ice Shard or Ice Fang to use their physical Attack, Delibird is worthless, Sneasel isn’t around in most versions until Mt. Silver, and I’m not sure if Dewgong is an option at this point. But that’s just Ice. And that won’t do much good against Kingdra. With Kingdra’s only being weak to Dragon, you’ve got even less options. Getting a Dratini of your own is not easy to do (and if you planned to get the Extremespeed one after the fight, you may not have bothered) and getting your own Kingdra is even harder. This basically forces you to fight it without its weakness, and since you’re likely underleveled, that thing is going to take a beating and dish one right back out before it drops. Kingdra alone has ended otherwise great attempts at the fight before for me.
Mostly, I feel like Whitney wasn't as bad if you knew what her team could do. I realized that a female Gastly was easy to pick up super early, extremely useful against gyms, and not too hard to level up. When I was a kid, I had game guides for GSC so they told you that stuff beforehand but I was a kid and didn't really know how to team build. Also, WHY DO PEOPLE THINK ULTRA NECROZMA WAS HARD?! 😆😆😆 I held back because I thought I had to catch it and it turned out I needed to beat it. My Incineroar literally just said "Nope" and blocked its attacks.
Kanto: very game dependent, but Silph Rival is probably the right choice Johto: nah, it's not Whitney. it's Jasmine. two Magnemites that want to Thunder Wave you, and Steelix that laughs at anything that's not super effective, and also shrugs off super effective physical moves that aren't STAB and 60+ BP. and hits like a truck with Iron Tail, only balanced by Iron Tail's godawful accuracy. which suspiciously misses less for Jasmine than it seems like it should. Red's also worth mentioning because of the absurd level spike. there's no good way to grind up a full team to be close to his level. you have to either power level one or two Pokemon, go into grinding hell, use the duplication glitch if it's the original games, or figure out a way to cheese the fight by setting up on the Pikachu. Hoenn: oh, no, no, no. It's absolutely not that rival fight. It's Emerald Wattson or Emerald Tate & Liza. for R/S I guess the rival there is a fair answer, but I think Norman's RS on team is a lot more threatening. Even if you know how to cheese Slaking it can catch you off guard. Flannery is also dangerous no matter the version. with Sunny Day and massive bulk, Torkoal is a monster that should be talked about in the same breath as Whitney's Miltank and Jasmine's Steelix. oh, and Wattson's goddamn evil Magneton. The only thing with Wattson is that Marshtomp trivializes the fight, as well as Makuhita or Geodude. but if none of those are on your team, you're gonna have a bad time Sinnoh: D/P I would say it's Mars or Jupiter, or maybe Crasher Wake. Platinum it's Distortion World Cyrus. Cynthia is quite hard, but idk, you're usually ready for it or you're a stupid child. or doing some kind of deranged challenge run. but I guess BDSP Cynthia is the hardest. Honorable mention to Platinum Fantina, who can be a miserable wall blocking game progress. Making the third gym leader have a Mismagius is something Game Freak's done twice, and I strongly feel like whoever pushes for it to be done a third time should be [REDACTED]. it is true evil. that thing's objectively too powerful for that early in the game. not balanced fairly. Unova: Elesa is probably the right choice, but Ghetsis is tough even if you're prepared (though quite easy to cheese if you have prior experience), and Clay is also dangerous. The first and last Colress fights are pretty tough, imo. Kalos: Grant or the final Rival battle. OR any Sky Battle where the opponent's Pokemon knows Rock, Electric, or Ice moves. Sky Battles were a mistake. Alola: Totem Lurantis/Totem Mimikyu/Lusamine original, Ultra Necrozma is such bullshit that it's more interesting to talk second place regarding USUM. for me that was either Totem Togedemaru or the final Hau fight. Galar: I dunno, I lost to the first Bede fight the first time so part of me wants to say that, but I can't imagine what could have gone wrong with my team for that to happen. No the toughest fight is Raihan and his goddamn Sandstorm team. The first time through I only won using Vileplume Sleep Powder cheese, which wasted Archaludon's Dynamax turns, heh. Paldea: main game, it's Iono. Mela and Atticus are both dangerous. Bombirdier can be nasty. in the DLC I would agree on the oger clan trainers, as two of them rinsed me first try, though I'd have won if I wasn't rolling with an all Kitakami team. wild Pokemon in Kitakami are SLOW AS MOLASSES, and I couldn't be bothered to EV train. I would say for Blueberry Academy I had the most difficulty with Amarys and Lacey. nearly lost those. I'd say Drayton but he got absurdly good luck or it wouldn't have been that much of a nailbiter. Kieran's team is not as well balanced as it appears. Terapagos has a simple solution - a well-trained Alolan Muk.
You forgot a region: Orre. I would go with Dakim, with Evice as a close second. Also, if playing Gen 5 blind, it was very much possible to fight Cynthia with a team that just barely beat the Elite Four. "How bad could it be," I said.
Me trying whitney in a hgss nuzlocke run with geodude: my plan was to set up 2 or 3 Rock polishes to outspeed miltank in the end to not get flinched by stomp and use rollout with defense curl. The plan worked until the clefairy decided to use surf after metronome ...
When I was little, I never got the chance to fight Cynthia because I gave up when I got stuck in the distortion world part of the game. I'm much more strategic now in terms of type matchups and levels, so I feel strangely... sad that I'll never get to experience the despair that comes with being a little kid and getting absolutely demolished by Cynthia's Garchomp.
Not sure if anyone mentioned this, but there is an error with what you said for the Volo fight from Legends. You stated that you fight Giratina first but you actually fight Volo first. After you beat him, you then fight the back-to-back Giratina forms.
![Jack Harlow - Hello Miss Johnson [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Q86_nlRoIGw/mqdefault.jpg)
Lol "In Sinnoh, the question isn't which trainer is the hardest, it's which version of Cynthia you're choosing"
Yes
Still shoutout to Cyrus, he rekt me as a child :(
Other than Cynthia and Cyrus, I'd say Crasher Wake is kinda difficult as well
Personally for X and Y, I feel like Grant, the second gym leader, is the most challenging. His Amorus is easy enough but if you don't fix the paralysis, he Tyrunt is a problem. Strong Jaw bite which has a 30% chance to flinch and you may still be paralysised from his previous pokemon. If you're not prepared, he can sweep your team. Ashamed to say I've been sweeped by him before
With x and y the random trainers from post gym one to pre gym three were the most and only challenging trainers in the game, especially the area in and around the cave before the third gym
Not only that, but I'm pretty sure he is the earliest gym leader in any main series game to use a Dragon Type. I feel like I should bring that up
Definitely agree
unless you get the trade steelix that the game gives you for free.
@@sephirotten2413That's similar to the Whitney geodude or machop idea though
The professor battle in base S/V really threw me for a loop. I guess my team wasn't built very well because the paradox pokemon got me. One of the very few battles in recent memory that I had to retry. Not a trainer battle, but finding an alpha shiny Walrein in Legends Arceus when I barely started the game made me sad. I just couldn't catch it.
oof
Yea the professor was a really cool fight. Not only are all the paradox Pokemon just shy of pseudo in terms of bst, but for half of them you have to guess their types. Actually made me use my brain a little in my first run, which was nice.
The only right answer. Its part of the story and unless you went out of your way to over level your pokemon, its a legit tough fight. The dlc was released long after most people finished the game and got their good mons to level 100. You'd have to intentionally use lower leveled mons to make it challenging.
@@Semystic Maybe I just suck but Champion Kieran REALLY kept me on my toes even though I had a mostly maxed out lvl 100 team. Hydrapple was easy though.
Had to use all three entry hazards, and I hate those moves, so I normally don't use the TMs or let them learn those moves. I don't play competitive so I don't see their appeal. Just that fight made me have to use entry hazards on a well balanced team, my poor Clodshire, I had to make it tank a ton of damage just to set up three layers of spike, two layers of toxic spikes, and stealth rocks. and pray.
I've never liked the "just use machop or geodude" argument for whitney. Machop isn't going to be outspeeding miltank and will inevitably be taking a powerful stomp to the face. As for geodude, it does resist both stomp and rollout but even a resisted rollout from base 80 attack is still going to hurt once it gets going.
That's all not to mention that everyone just totally sleeps on clefairy. An unlucky metronome, unlucky for the player that is, can lead into some sticky situations.
its not just machop or geodude, theres a lot of debuff/status moves you can use and you also get dig in national park to cancel her rollout chains. Ofc a lot of ppl playing casually wont consider those options tho, cause pokemon doesnt rly encourage strategy most of the time
Then don't let it get going with rollout. Set up on clefairy, wipe out miltank before it builds up. Or get dig and reset it. Its an absolute joke of a fight if you think even slightly.
I promise you as someone who very often uses Geodude vs Whitney, Rollout doesn't do shit and you will most of the time (Thanks Magnitude) kill the Miltank before Rollout starts to become a problem
You can sweep with Heracross with fury cutter. Just get the fury cutter going on with cleafairy and once you reach miltank you will be hitting her hard
Perlize or sleep breaks the rollout combo
The most difficult trainer in Kanto is obviusly the Fisherman on Route 21 with his 6 Magicarp on Lv 27.
He is, next to the champion himself, the ONLY trainer who ever carried 6 Pokémon. That knowledge alone makes him superior!
But no joke here, he really strong. Very easy to get rage quit and W/O lose with him. Not gonna lie, once I did it... And i feel that shame... STILL! I think i must pay Game Freak 1 000 000 USD for this, if i dont wanna feel humiliated again!
if we're talking just base game paldea (sans the dlc) i think the hardest trainer in the region is eri by a landslide the only trainer in gen 9 to knock me flat on my ass not once but in two seperate playthroughs that's gotta be worth something. as for gen 6 i think the second gym leader grant at least deserves a mention having two fossil mons with good coverage that early in the game is definately a threat and and amaura having a functionally base 117 power ice move with stab is nothing to sneeze at.
Yeah, Eri was tough. Without a doubt the hardest fight in the base game.
I had no problem with Eri, should also mention I played blind (no guide, internet of any kind so no spoliers of what was to come - played on launch as well). Only fght I had some difficulty with was Hassell - elite 4 member no# 4. fighting that over glorified secretary after him was such a let down (yes i mean geeta). I dont like including DLC fights in these sorts of lists as they were made after the release so they should address things like difficulty - specially when they take place after main storyline when you are probs lvl 70-80 anyway and have access to everything you need to win. Sorta sad the PWT fights weren't mentioned but they are similar to battle frontier facilities so I understand. Also agree about Grant for Gen 6 hardest fight - the only gym leader to knock out a single 1 of my pokemon (got a crit against a paralyzed 'mon with tyrunt)
I'd also give the professor an honorable mention just because they have 6 super strong Pokemon and you don't know what type half of them are.
I had to look up who Eri was. Apparently I didn't struggle with that fight enough to remember 😅
I also struggled against Eri, even more than against Hassel or Professor Sada. I would give an honorable mention to Iono who made me need to devise a strategy specifically to deal with her Mismagius with no weakness...
Lowkey, I think the hardest fight in Galar is versus Calyrex-Rider. Not because he’s hard to defeat - but because you have to survive his insane attacks while trying to catch him. If just one of your Pokemon goes down, he’ll steamroll you with Moxie Boosts.
I presume you mean either form of Calyrex-Rider, though I would argue Shadow Rider edges out due to having more moves that will be boosted by As One's ramping power, being ghost typed so no false swipe unless you have Scrappy, and being hideously frail.
Zacian is arguably in a similar boat, due to it just straight up having Swords Dance.
I sucker punched him 🤣 my team was to overpowered even before the dlc
Moxie Boosted, good RUclipsr.
Even tho I agree with Cynthia as the strongest sinnoh trainer. I feel like the double battle just before veilstone and the double battle on the foggy route (especially with fog) can kick your ass since you are not prepared for them like a gym or e4.
It reminds me of mandjtv saying something like "these trainers always give me a hard time no matter the playthrough"
The two ace trainers before Veilstone can be battled separately though
@@dervertica true, if you battle them 1v1 they are way easier
While I understand the argument, I do think Clair is a hardest fight in Johto mainly because of her Kingdra(the rest of team does suck). Compared to Whitney, the counters to Kingdra aren't as obvious as Miltank. It hits hard, isn't particulary weak in either defense, and in the remakes, stalling it is dangerous due to the sniper ability.
You (should) have a full team of six when facing Clair. If you struggle to win 6 v 1 (as you said, the rest of her team sucks)...I don't know what to say lol. Though there are ways to deal with Miltank, Whitney is miles clear of Clair in terms of difficulty.
you can literally sweep whitney with rage, or get a machop, clairs kingdra is way harder and also spams smokescreen@@sebastianstiernspetz7205
Clair I only ever struggled for my first time as a kid that knew nothing. But with a bit of experience and common game knowledge she's a joke.
@@willemdafoe6256 I don't ever remember having that hard of a time against Clair. By the time you challenge her, your team is usually complete and fully evolved, giving you more to work with than you would have against Whitney.
Even Wallace in ORAS is harder than Clair.
I would say Misty is really hard to beat in Kanto. Her Starmie is really hard to beat
Agreed, even in Speedruns she play very important role.
Going into the figth blind, Ultra Necrozma actually didn't give me trouble when I played the Ultra games (I know this was an uncommon experience). However, Alolan Marowak beat me like twice in a row when I first played Gen 7.
For me, Necrozma was challenging, but I beat him relatively easy. But Totem Ribombee defeated me at least 6 times in my first play through of USUM
The main reason I handled that fight so well is because I had gone "I wanna start the game with one of my favorites" and had an Aegislash on my team. Necrozma struggled to break that thing.
I beat that thing in two turns with Malamar lmao
Sameeeee
Ultra Necrozma was hard as hell for me, but I was a bit more prepared since Totem Komo-o completely swept me multiple times.
Eri was definitely a major struggle for me in Gen 9, upon my first playthrough I used mostly physical Pokémon Meowscarada, Ceruledge, Palafin, Clodsire, Tinkaton and Baxcalibur so fighting the stamina Revavroom that kept boosting was unable to be statused, was level 56 and had super high HP was very challenging, this fight becomes a lot easier with Skeledirge, but it’s super difficult for the other 2 starters
Am I the only one who beat Whitney on the first try and had no idea until years later that people think she's hard to beat? I don't think I even had a fighting type in my team, I just used my starter for almost everything back when I first played Gold. Though the fact that I chose chikorita was probably a factor.
👍
I feel like people who use Bayleef (then Chikorita) in this battle have more chances at winning than with the other starters, ironically enough.
@@juliodaguyyeah because Bayleef learns poison powder which can whittle away at Miltank hp even with Drink milk move
Same Erin.
Me too, although I think my strategy was teaching Quilava Dig. The off turns meant Rollout would never get a chance to build power. Not that I understood that at the time, I just knew Dig was a strong move.
I'm going to have to disagree with Hoenn, and say Emerald Wattson or Emerald Flannery.
Both of them have 4 pokemon, 2 of which are fully evolved. The Electric type only has 1 weakness, and the Ground-type is not readily avaliable in Hoenn at this point unless you picked Mudkip [Nincada isn't sweeping this gym, neither is Geodude taking the whole thing on with it's speed and Sonicbooms being thrown at it] And by your Whitney logic [which I'd actually say Claire otherwise] "use Geodude" or worse "You must use Mudkip" isn't enough to cross Wattson out.
And Flannery is just raw power. She uses Sunny Day, and has STAB BP140 Overheats, and her Torkoal has a White Herb. Also; her pokemon have physical attacks to resort to post-Overheat. And you still can't get many Ground-types; and the only new one is weak to Ground, which Flannery has.
And yes; good call on Kalos. Although I'd have said Battle Girl Hedvig; who is stronger Korrina but earlier. Her Hawlucha has almost perfect coverage; as opposed to Korrina who can't even hurt Ghosts. She's also deep in a cave, and has a Throh too; which is really strong for that point.
For sword and shield, I believe hop's rematch at glimwood tangle is the hardest battle, specially if you are playing shield. Firstly, your team can be severely underleveled to hop's team at this point. Secondly Zacian might outspeed everything and one to two hit ko everything.
I had to intimidate switch gyarados repeatedly against snorlax, then dragon dance 6 times so that it could easily outspeed everything, and it had leftovers to recover from damage taken by snorlax. And this strategy took 2 tries, as 1st time Rillaboom survived my hit, and then crit hit me. No other Pokemon was able to deal with Zacian
I strongly regret picking Shield purely because Hop had the infinitely SUPERIOR Zacian and wrecked my team
For me, the hardest trainer in GSC and with HeartGold and SoulSilver, is undoubtedly Red. His team is level 81 in gen 2 and a whopping 88 in the remakes. In GSC, his team consists of Pikachu/Espeon/Venusaur/Charizard/Snorlax/Blastoise. In the remakes however, his team has changed to Pikachu/Lapras/Charizard/Venusaur/Blastoise/Snorlax. Red's team in gen 4 is a bit of a downgrade as now half of his team is weak to Electric. Therefore, Red is the hardest trainer in generation 2. In generation 4, that was taken by Cynthia
I agree that Red has the best team to take you on but exclusive to HGSS you can catch Mewtwo at lv 70, making the fight way less hard compared to Clair or Whitney
first ever Play Through running into red with a Team in the 60s and no answer for Snorlax. I´ve used a Level 17 Gastly with Curse and Nightmare, Red spamming Rest
@@Kali_Krause yes, red espeon in gsc is powerfull
I personally love the battle against hau as you arrive at ula ula island and malie city in the ultra games. He has a solid team of mid stage starter, an eeveelution, noibat, tauros and alolan raichu. its like the battle against gen 3 rival before mauville but even more intense
The ultra games definitely weren't perfect but what they did do right was the fun and challenging difficulty
For real, his A-Raichu swoop my ass 2 or 3 times before I managed to cheese him. The rest of his team was no threat tho, as much as I remember.
Volo is the only trainer as a nearly 30 year old adult that’s been playing since Gen 1 and Gen 2 make me have to retry more than twice
My list kanto- blue
Johto- the Clair and Lance double battle with your rival.
Hoenn-Norman
Sinnoh- Cynthia
Unova- the one verteran npc that exists in the depths of the cavern just past the daycare.
Kalos- grant
Alola- kukui/ultra necrosis
Galar- base game Leon, dlc 100% zygarde Dynamax raid battle.
Hisui- Volo
Paldea- professor Turo (I played violet)
To me, I'd actually place Lorelei above Sabrina. Psychic's really busted, but Sabrina herself just has _awful_ movesets and doesn't take full advantage of it. And I love Venomoth, but it's just dead weight in Gen One, ESPECIALLY with two different powder moves at once.
Lorelei presents a rather steep level-spike compared to Giovanni, with a whole herd of bulky water-types. She's still not _hard,_ I mean her Slowbro's only attacking move is Water Gun. But she's at least more challenging than the lady who'll die on the hill that Psywave isn't just move-slot-filler.
Shoutout to yellow version sabrina who actually remembered to teach psychic to alakazam and swept through my entire team. Earlier this year was my first time actually finishing a gen 1 game, as i started with gen 2 and never went backwards though i did play the other kanto games, and that is one moment that will stick with me. The main other thing is that gen 1 dewgong is amazing, as I used one, and it makes me so sad to see it fall from grace.
Both are strong, depends also on what team you have and levels.
alola is not relatively easy, USUM is consider to this day the hardest game to nuzlock in the franchise, and no, its not cause of ultra necrozma, that adds too but all the totems are nightmares, 2 vs 1 battles with usually weather teams or nice strategies, araquanid and lutantis beeing very famous runkillers.
Nuzlockes and casual play are two very different beasts.
Hoenn has Winona, whose Altaria can buff itself with Dragon Dance, has Earthquake and you need to go out of your way to sequence break just to find an Ice type (that or hope Castform’s Powder Snow will get you through that), and Emerald’s Tate and Liza, who start with the Xatu/Claydol combination to really mess with your day before Lunatone and Solrock mop up what’s left of your team if you manage to knock out Xatu and/or Claydol.
You can get Ice Beam as soon as you beat Norman and get Surf, it's in the part of the abandoned ship you don't need Dive to navigate.
Personally, I feel that it's hard to call May 2 the hardest in Gen 3 when Emerald's fights against Tate & Liza and Wallace exist. For T&L, you're gonna have a scary time without having two Dark types in the lead to invalidate the Xatu. And Wallace is just fucking brutal. Ludicolo with Double Team that makes me always want to bring an Aerial Ace mon to E4, Gyarados with a potentially scary setup in DDance, the Toxic-immune Tentacruel and that FUCKING MILOTIC, THAT DAMN DEMON FROM HELL. Imo, if Cynthia didn't exist then Emerald Wallace would def be the hardest fight in the series.
Winona with her Altaria is also a tough battle in Hoenn.
You can't spam items because Dragon Dance invalidates that.
Electric-type attacks aren't super effective because Altaria is part dragon-type. Also, Altaria has Earthquake.
Rock-types have the same problem due to Earthquake.
So what are your options?
1. Brute force it. Just use neutral moves while also tanking Altaria's attacks.
2. Use rock-type moves but not rock-type pokémon. You escape the weakness to Earthquake at the expense of not getting STAB.
3. Use ice-type moves. You normally have no access to ice-type pokémon at this point in the game (aside from Castform, I guess). And as far as I know, the only ice-type damaging moves you could learn at this stage in the game would be from TMs. And the repeatable one you have access to is Ice Beam in the Game Corner (meaning, grinding for it could be tedious). There's a free Ice Beam TM in the Abandoned Ship though.
4. Use dragon-types. Maybe have your own Altaria with Dragon Breath. Or maybe a Vibrava (unlikely that it would be a Flygon already).
The thing is Tate & Liza require Surf to get to them, while their team is 3/4ths weak to it and mostly pretty slow. Even if you don’t pick Swampert most Water types can fairly easily take on their team with support for Xatu.
I beat them easily in emerald May/brendan used to beat me all the time back then so they was considered hard
Honestly, Hoenn has hardest battles in whole region from all regions by my vision. Because... Who is really easy there? Let's talk fast...: Roxanne, you dont get Combusken? Brawly and his Makuhita? Wattson, who destroy you if you not use double kick / Marshtomp properly? Defensive Torkoal and Flannery? Insane Norman with his Slaking(s)? Winona and her Altaria? Tate and Liz, one of hardest gym leaders? ¨(But here carefully, they hard in Emerald, but ez in Ruby/Sapphire and ORAS). Wallace, also hard, Juan, probably only one "easier" but also not complete suck. And then there's a league... With insane champions Wallace/Steven... Which region is that hard like Hoenn? Tell me... Oh, i honestly know, which. Unova, maybe. Because there was hard even Team Plasma....
(But i agree May is pretty easy, even Wally harder, and in ORAS, his last battle especially hard)
i used gardevoir with imprison move for defeating tate and liza.
Fair picks. I 100% agree with some for sure and could totally agree with the others.
Recently, I've been trying to play extremely chill to make them harder with no restrictions, but going unprepared, and some battles can get a bit annoying.
I didn't evolve Piplup for BDSP and oh boy he was not ready for Cynthia even at lvl 78.
14:34 And unlike a certain someone, he doesn't terastrallise his Kingambit into a flying type to ambush fighting and ground types.
😂😂😂
3:50 machop is really out of the way too. The pokemart extras usually have nothing important to say so many people skip them too.
Personally for me:
Kanto-Surge
Johto-Clair
Hoenn-Watson
Sinnoh-Cynthia
Unova-Elesa
Kalos-Grant
Alola-Water Trial
Galar-Raihan
Paldea-Atticus (I think he’s the poison guy)
For me, the hardest battle in Kanto is Koga in Pokemon Yellow. His team comprises of 3 Venonats and a Venomoth. Sounds like an easy team on paper right? Nope. This team was hard due to 2 factors, the level jump and their movesets.
Koga's team in Yellow comprises of a Level 44 Venonat, Level 46 Venonat, Level 48 Venonat, and a Level 50 Venomoth. Now compare this with Erika's team of the 4th Gym, whose levels are at 30-32, that's a whopping 12-20 level jump. Especially so when the trainers around are only starting to pack level 30ish Pokemon, Koga's team level wise is a very huge leap.
Then, there's their moveset. All of them comes with Toxic and PSYCHIC. Yes, you read that right, PSYCHIC to counter other Poison types we might bring to cheese our way around Toxic. And if that isn't enough, 2 of his Venonats packed Sleep Powder if you heal your way out of Toxic, leaving you at the mercy of strong attacks like the aforementioned Psychic and Double Edge for one Venonat. The Venomoth packed Double Team, so it will make your attacks harder to land once it stacked enough evasion bonuses.The Venomoth also packed Leech Life seeming just to remind you of those pesky Zubats you encountered, and also to counter any Psychic types.
I find even Yellow Sabrina easier than Yellow Koga. Cause Sabrina is just carried by the Psychic type, Koga combines power with status conditions. Yellow Koga changed how I play Kanto in future games. Heck, it changed how I approach future Pokemon games by necessitating the need to level grind my entire team to 20 before the 1st gym and 40 before the 3rd.
Yellow sabrina also only has one good pokemon. The lv 50 abra and kadabra do nothing, but the lv 50 alakazam is scary. Compared to koga's venomoth, koga surely wins
8:05 Nah. It's Cynthia again. You walk into her beach house and instantly get smoked.
The first most people see her, they're exploring after the end game and suddenly come across her insane team while most players only have Pokémon in the mid to upper 60s. Sometimes they don't even go to the Pokémon Center yet, so their team could already be in dire straights when suddenly battling her.
I have another contender for Hoenn's most challenging, and that's Blackbelf Hideki from ORAS.
The guy is insane, sure, he only has a level 13 Machop, but for some reason, his Machop has 30 IVs in every stats. That Machop has No Guard, so all of his attacks will land, he has Foresight so you can't rely on Ghost types, he Low Sweep which lowers your speed, he has Focus Energy so Low Sweep has a 50% chance to crit, and he has Karate Chop which also has 50% chance to crit or be a guaranteed if Focus Energy was used prior.
As for reliable counters, you don't have any, Ralts/Kirlia have low defense so a crit Karate Chop is going to hurt a fair bit and you don't have access to Pokémon like Koffing who could theoratically survive a hit or Shell/Battle Armor users who are immune to crits. Evasion or defense spam is no good because No Guard and crits, and there are no mono Flying types with naturally high defense by that point in the game.
The almost max IVs turn what would normally be a simple opponent into an absolute nightmare, even more so if you're doing a Nuzlocke with its even more limited selection of Pokémon or a speedrun where things have to go your way with very little margin for error.
Ok imma be That Person and point out that you don't fight Ultra Necrozma in Alola, nor do you fight the Kitakami Ogre Clan in Paldea.
Hardest fight actually taking place in the Paldea region, especially if you don't know what to prepare for, has gotta be Terapagos. Even with support you'll be floundering until you figure out what to do. Even the battle against the security system/AI and the inability to properly prep for it unless you have prior knowledge can be sidestepped if you just power level your party. But Terapagos keeps coming back and brings with it a brand new typing.
I'd also say that the second rival fight in RBY/FRLG can be difficult too for beginners. Especially because there's really no good way to train for it once you reach Cerulean City, since you are unable to backtrack until you receive HM01.
Tbh if you battle Misty in r/b with a team of like 3 lvl 22 or below pokemon and didn't bring the type advantage there's a very good chance her Starmies gonna wipe you
For Kalos it's one of the sky battles, there's a lot of sky battles with pretty tough mons sometimes with SE moves against flying types, where you're restricted to only have a couple pokemon that are primarily going to be flying types unless for some reason you have a lot of levitate mons
PERSONALLY IT'S LIKE THIS FOR ME!
Kanto - Misty (her starmie is so fast or its typing is too offensively good for me most times when I was a kid I almost quit pokemon because of that ONE fight lucky for me I beat it but still)
Johto - Red ( yes whitney was a pain but you had options for it for example overleveling but once you get to red you had to actually plan that out EVEN ONE of his pokemon unchecked would cook me unlike whitney were it was just the milktank.)
Hoenn - Wallace ( ignoring the battle fontier Honestly I thought steven was tough worthy champ but fair. and tate and liza were BULLSHIT but u usually had a way out. wallace on the other hand was consistent thanks to water being water weaknesses were covered just unfortunate ii like fire)
Sinnoh - Cynthia (yeah yeah duh ofc It was her that milotic and garchomp crazy with a pokemon with no weaknesses crazy. Outside of that shoutout to bertha ground type elite four honestly just solid sand team.)
Unova - Ghetsis ( honestly elsa was annoying but due to ground types being nearby not too much of an issue clay is another annoying one but doable, Ghetsis cheated I swear in both bw and sequels but yeah its him)
Kalos - Diantha ( nobody here is that hard the victory road is hardest place but given my nuzlocke this one got me.)
Aloha - Ultra Necorma ( u know why I know why. but shout out to guzma who somehow always catches me off guard.)
Galar- Leon (duh no notes)
Hisui- volo ( duh again but shout out to boss pokemon electrode)
Paldea - our boy with doggo caught me off guard, but with dlc kerime (little guy last fight honestly he got tough a few times.)
Hardest fight in Kanto is that guy with the Raticate in Mt. Moon. It's a single Pokémon team so the developers gave it a higher level than everybody else in the area, and the Raticate -- in addition to the level advantage -- is fully evolved. Raticate obviously isn't all that powerful in the grand scheme, but the strongest Pokémon you might have stat-wise at this point are probably Butterfree or Beedrill, and this guy is plunked right in the middle of the dungeon. If you know what's coming he will absolutely cream you.
He's easy to walk around, fortunately, but he was a major punch to the face when I was a kid.
For me in scarlet and violet I struggled a lot against Kofu I was following the guide someone posted online but his team is very good for when your meant to face him and not going to lie I did wipe out first time I faced him
The paldea one is a weird pick. If youre going purely by team strength, sure. But in a real playthrough, a level 80 kingambit isnt a threat when almost everyone playing the dlc has a team of lv100's...
If we're talking Paldea specifically, I'd say that honor goes to Mela. As you said, the difficulty of any battle largely depends on where the player is at the time, levels-wise. However, Mela's base is located in between the Artazon and Levincia Gyms, whose strongest Pokémon are at levels 17 and 24, respectively. Mela, meanwhile, has her strongest at level 26. In addition, she starts the battle with Drought Torkoal, so if you go into it with a Water type, she's effectively nullified your super-effective moves.
For me, in Paldea, Atticus was definitely the hardest boss. I looked up a list online so I would never be under or overleveled, so when I fought Atticus I was at a point where most of my members weren't yet fully evolved, but he had a team full of final stage mons making his battle the most difficult.
For Paldea, Drayton's gym challenge trainers because you HAVE to use pokemon caught in the academy. No tera raids, no Kitakami or Paldean mon, no Home transfers. Yes, you can still power level them and even change their tera types by the point, but competitive teams with actual strategy vs a limited roster (assuming you aren't going to breed a mon there) is kinda crazy
Hardest fights per region: (for me)
Kanto - Misty
Johto - Clair
Hoenn - Winona
Sinnoh - Lucian
Unova - Marshal
Kalos - Lysandre
Alola - Totem Lurantis
Galar - Raihan
Legends: Arceus - Hisuian Arcanine
Paldea - Nemona (4th battle) or Hassel
Why Clair...?
@Dark_Dusknoir I had no Pokemon that had enough power to really take down her Dragonairs and Kingdra quickly. Also my Pokemon were too underleveled for her 'mons but also too high to get meaningful exp from the surrounding wild Pokemon
I definitely lost to Whitney several times but Clair was the more impactful.
I’d actually love to see this list if it were just common trainers within the regions. No rivals, Gym Leaders, E4/Champions, or enemy teams, just the trainers you encounter along the way, and probably only battle once.
bro i am playing my first nuzlocke ever and also in kalos and it’s been super easy EXCEPT THOSE TWO DOUBLE BATTLES. You hit the nail on the head im deaddddd
Leon's "Very well constructed team" having 3/6 of his Inteleon team share a weakness and 4/6 of his Rillaboom team share a weakness.
I got to say when I was a kid, i actually found morty and claire to be the hardest gym battles in gsc. Now I dont think they are, but when I didn't know as much they always gave me trouble.
When I first played many years ago original silver version I had no idea that you can trade for a machop to beat Whitney so it was very difficult to beat her!
Ultra Necrozma is a nightmare😭. If you don’t have high affection with your Pokemon you’re pretty much screwed💀💀
He can't hit Zoroark
In Kalos, you hit it on the nail. It's a really difficult battle fo that point in the game and it destroys my nuzlockes each time I fight them hahaha
Necrozma and Volo were definitely difficult for me. When I was battling Necrozma, I had to keep restarting the battle until my Magnazone could paralyze it with Discharge. As for Volo, I had to do extra training and give my pokemon a bunch of Grit to raise their effort, just so they could last longer in the battle.
It's possible to evolve Drilbur into Excadrill before Elesa. Of course, you have to watch out for Zebstrika's Flame Charge.
What about the Orre region
So i only skimmed over the video but just wanted to say this thumbnail is a breath of fresh air compared to most pokemon thumbnails
Hardest Trainers I've Faced:
Kanto - Sabrina (RBY)
Johto - Red
Hoenn - Wally (ORAS)
Sinnoh - Cynthia
Unova - Cynthia again (specifically BW)
Kalos - Grant
Alola - Ultra Necrozma
Galar - Leon
Hisui - Arceus
Paldea - Eri
Okay, look, before you laugh at me first off i was like 7
Ok now thats out the way
In USUM ive been sweeped by totem araquinid and lost so much i couldnt pay the fine, after i won, i was finding it easy... Until ultranecrozma sweeped me so much not only did my older brother trade me his primarina to help me win, but when i DID win, my DS decided to crash.
Also, for sword and shield it is 100% peony's first fight becausr unlike sword and shield, there is ni level scaling so it's just stuck at 70,so if your like me and started a new playtrough, he inky needs one pokemon
Thank you for addressing the Whitney counterpoints. Not only does your argument about time revealing our options down the road hold true, but it's important to note that people play Pokemon in a variety of ways and the route of just grabbing a Machop doesn't hold up. Machop might simply not be a Pokemon you want on your team, or you could be working on a Nuzlocke/challenge run. Pokemon having a counter doesn't suddenly undercut their difficulty.
the funny thing is that there's actually some amusing intended Game Freak design in the run of Gym Leaders from Falkner to Bugsy to Whitney. Those two give you Mud Slap and Fury Cutter. The former can be used to ruin Miltank's ability to stack up Rollouts, and the latter can maybe be built up on the Clefairy. in the unlikely event you have a Pokemon faster than Miltank, Headbutt exists for flinch chance. the Rollout and Dig TMs are also available. Whitney is meant to subtly teach the players about the uses of these TMs rather than simply coasting on super effective moves. but a lot of people didn't really learn that lesson because they tried brute force, just using their strongest STAB. and then even when Rollout didn't get them, the Stomp/Attract/Milk Drink shenanigans did them in.
@@dvillines26 In our defense, a lot of us were kids barely getting by in the first place - and that first impression became the foundation of Whitney's reputation. It's really cool to look back on it because you're absolutely right about us being given multiple tools (not just Machop) to strategize and deal with the threat, but on account of still being a little clueless most of us didn't put the pieces together until much later.
I appreciate Whitney as a meme, but it frustrates me that people genuinely think there weren't options - or that Machop was the only way around it. There were a lot of clever options available, GameFreak just kind of overestimated us.
Lance gen 1
Red gen 2
Winona or liza/tate gen 3
Cynthia gen 4
The fighting type e4 gen 5
Lysandre gen 6
Mimikyu trial gen 7
The dragon gym gen 8
The ghost gym gen 9
Almost the same, except Gen 8 and 9. Leon/Chilli. I mean that fire guy from E4 in Blueberry Academy, forgot his name.
@@Meloettadg2 I'm glad somebody gave Gen I Lance a shout out. I recently did a run of Yellow, and I actually had a harder time against Lance than I did against the champion Blue. His Dragonite is no joke.
@@jamiecinder9412 gyarados. Or lapras. I run surf, rain dance, ice beam, thunder. Should help.. but him spammin full restores doesnt help
@@Meloettadg2 Oh, I was talking about this Gen I team. Gyarados, 2 Dragonair, Aerodactyl and Dragonite.
@jamiecinder9412 i know. So was i. You can get lapras in silph co
The Hop battle in shield is definitely the hardest in that game. Leon's Charizard is strong, but only because of the dmax solarbeam. Once the Dynamax is over, you can easily take him down. Hop has the super busted Zacian that can take down your whole team without worrying about dynamax. He's the only time I wiped out in shield because I was not prepared for that monster.
Stantler also trivializes Miltank because it can have Stomp, Thunderwave, Confuse Ray, and Flash. That mean combo can completely hospitalize Miltank.
I’m over 30 playing these games since gen 1 to now. Volo in legends gave me such a hard time that I’m embarrassed to think how long it took me to finally beat that guy.
For me, I would have to see Leon put in the Galar battle, not in the championship, as it’s pretty much endless mode in that facility is that he will match your level with yours and Charizard is will always be at least in both singles and double battles as those even more tougher because he can strategize and every time that he can pretty much buff, his speed with airstream or even G-max to basically make it effectively a fire spin, but as a very strong fire type g-max move.
For me Kabu was actually the by far the hardest battle of Sword and Shield. Even during my third playthrough, when I had the water starter and thought this might give me an advantage, I still struggled for some reason.
The Cyrus battle in the distortion world in Pokemon Platinum is a contender for hardest battle in Sinnoh. His team all hits like freight trains
My biggest struggle was Lucian in diamond, i had to afk level up my ds for 3 days straight to get kricketune up to level 50 so i even had a chance. I beat cynthia first try without even losing half my team. I got wiped my lucian 8 times.
I certainly can see why Cynthia leads Sinnoh, especially since in BDSP she had a competitively-trained team. That being said, I never seem to see people consider the double battle with Barry against Mars and Jupiter to be one of the harder Sinnoh battles, especially if you don't pick Chimchar. It's a double battle, so you probably don't really have a lot of strategy to deal with doubles-specific battles (eg Protect, Follow Me, Fake Out, etc). The Bronzors are so annoying and provide a ton of screen support, and if you don't have Infernape (or Houndoom for Platinum players) you can't get rid of either of them quickly, and only Platinum users with Magmar can get rid of both of them quickly with Lava Plume. The Golbats are also super annoying. Purugly and Skuntank hit incredibly hard. The reason this battle is hard, however, is because Barry doesn't know what he's doing. His Munchlax is absolutely terrible, it's so egregious he doesn't have Close Combat on Staraptor, and while the rest of his team is pretty good, he always calls the wrong moves. I always end up losing at least a couple of Pokémon when I fight this battle.
Also, I think Juan's battle in Emerald was harder than any battles with May, but maybe that's my confirmation bias from always catching a Taillow on my team whenever I had Mudkip. Juan's Mon's can mess you up in so many ways with Double Team and Water Pulse confusion, and his Kingdra does more damage with non-STAB Ice Beam than Clair's GSC one does with STAB Dragonbreath (also means you can't use Altaria or Flygon). I remember almost always having to resort to Swampert to get into an Ice Beam war with Kingdra whenever I play Emerald. Don't forget about Chesto Rest either.
A lot of important battles in Black and White and Black and White 2 were hard: Lenora (of course), Ghetsis, Elesa, and surprisingly N despite you getting a Zekrom/Reshiram. I also thought in BW2 Iris and a couple of N's seasonal teams weren't easy.
XY is so easy, but I did lose a Pokémon against Lysandre. This was a game when I was playing with a ton of constraints, but it's worth mentioning I didn't sweep every important battle in the middle and endgame.
Right? Barry's Munchlax sucks so much that even offical guides recommend taking him out as soon as possible. Brutal battle. The final battle with Cyrus in the Distortion World in Platinum is also brutally difficult, especially if you DON'T bring electric coverage. Even my Snorlax was getting absolutely washed by Gyarados' Waterfall.
I kind of have to disagree about the gen 1 Rival, Blue is absolutely PATHETIC in terms of movepolls, until the fourth fight ONLY Rattata and maybe his starter are contributing anything until the forth fight and all his Pokemon are struggling in the move department until LATE into FRLG! The Silph Co. fight you mentioned has a Pidgeot who’s strongest move is Wing Attack, two of a Gyarados with no physical moves or STAB, an unevolved Exeggcute with good status moves but bad STAB, an unevolved Growlithe with kind of bad non attacking moves and very mid attacking ones, then a passive Alakazam with good support moves but can’t even directly attack you, and his that will range from pulling its own weight with useful STAB and good status moves (Venusaur), to just having good STAB (Charizard), to not really doing anything well. (Blastoise) Keep in mind you are facing the much higher level Sabrina at around the same time and it’s no contest who’s harder. Additionally she doesn’t ACTUALLY get all that much worse in the remakes since her weaknesses are about as bad as they were previously since Ghost is still physical and the only Pokemon with STAB are special attackers weak to poison. The Bug types are still weak, half are weak to Psychic, and none get good STAB moves yet. And Dark types still don’t exist so you are stuck using coverage moves on their stronger special defense meaning she’s JUST as hard as in the originals!
My guesses:
Kanto: Rival 5-al
Johto: Whitney
Hoenn: Watson
Sinnoh: Cynthia
*Never played gen 5*
X&Y: No one..?
Alola: Second Trial (water)
Galar: LEON'S CHARIZARD
Paldea: ...no one.
You rly know that the game is TOO EASY when The hardest trainer is just two random guys in the middle of the route
Well, Kieran definitely isn’t the strongest anything. That honor goes to rematch Nemona in the BB Club. In X/Y, I think the toughest battle is actually a double battle on the route after the 8th gym with a Wailord and Vileplume. It caused me so many trials and heartache in my Nuzlocke, and almost TPK’d me. It cost me my Delphox AND my Xerneas, along with two other heavy hitters. It remains my waking nightmare.
Let's Go has Red, Blue, and Green [unprepared? GFLMF]
My list is
-Gen 1: Sabrina
In gen 1 psychic types are a nightmare to deal with and even outside of that her team is very good
-Gen 2: Whitney
Her Miltank is stupidly broken for that early in the game
-Gen 3:
Steven same as the last one
-Gen 4: Cynthia
What else was I going to say? (If we’re counting hisui than it’s Volo)
Gen 5: Getsis
Gen 6: Diana
Gen 7: Ultra necrozma easily the hardest or second hardest battle
Gen 8: Leon
Gen 9: Kieran
Sorry, but I am a complete noob regarding Nuzlocke challenges. I only completed 4 of my runs. But I never had a problem with Elesa. You just shouldn´t go into the fight with underleveled Pokemon and you will be fine.
Even as a kid playing the original Gold, I wasn't scared from Whitney as much as from Morty. Even as a kid, I saw a strategy to invalidate the threat of the Miltank using only the very universal tools - namely, the Mud-Slap TM you get from Falkner. After 2 Mud-Slaps, you hardly ever see Rollout 3 or more and can quite safely chip Miltank down.
On the other hand, Bugsy was rather tough with his Fury Cutter spam forcing you to lead as strong as possible (which I didn't like to do) and Morty, with ghost-immunities, Curses on your mons in preparation and Hypnospamming Gengar was far tougher for a kid's understanding of the game, the one I knew I need to use both preparations and luck (or overlevelling - L28 Rock Slide Sudowoodo did a lot) to win.
I don't really remember feeling all that challenged playing Pokemon.
Whitney went down after a couple attempts.
My sister and I started playing HG/SS at the same time (both got the games for Christmas) but she played it a lot more than I did and yet she told me she was stuck on Red, so I rushed to get to him and see what was up. Beat him first attempt using 2 revives "man that's cheap"..😐
In B/W I found a Minccino, thought it was cute and kept it, it got echoed voice and the rest is history. Ghetsis went down before his chorus kicked in.
People love to trivialize Whitneys fight, like you didnt just walk into a challenge. She literally uses a Pokemon that has a near 500 base stat total when your pokemon and those youve encountered are almost always under 400 at that point. Your starter might have slightly over 400 in its second evolution, but thats still almost a 100 point difference in stats. And running into that battle blind is crazy.
Honorable mention to Bugsy for roadblocking non fire type starters (especially grass) since he ALSO has a 500 BST pokemon that is probably even further out of your league at that point (we were just fighting Geodudes and zubats in that damn cave like 30 seconds before this gym)
Blue's difficulty spike makes more sense when you remember you're not supposed to fight him until after you beat koga (whose levels are higher than him).
He's basically a skill check for players who skipped badge 5 and decided to go straight to Sabrina. Very manageable if you did things in order, but difficult if you did it out of order.
For FRLG tbh I'd say the hardest battle is honestly the post game Blue rematch. He has pokemon ranging from lvl 73-75 and is guaranteed to have a Heracross, Tyranitar, and Alakazam, as well as a decent Fire-Water-Grass core, and the level jump is quite steep as you possibly may not have really leveled up your mons a lot
I know gamecube games arent from mainline series but it would be cool to cover them too (especially because they are really difficult)
Kanto: Route 22 Blue (first battle), comes out of nowhere while you are exploring with 2 lvl 9 pokemon, otherwise Silph Co.
Johto: Clair and Lance Double Battle (HGSS). Silver hints you on him wanting to get stronger, follow him to the dragon den and surprise lvl 75 Dragonite when you are in the 50s probably.
Hoenn: That darn Rival Fight, or Norman for Nuzlockes
Orre: Greevil (how do you feel about catching 7 pokemon, 4 of them legendary, in a row, or just fighting them)
Sinnoh: BDSP Cynthia final rematch
Unova: Cheran (BW2), hits hard with work up, and not many options (riolu doesn't learn a fighting move for a while)
Kalos: Furfrou
Alola: Ultra Necrozma (otherwise Lusamine 2 from the much better Sun Moon)
Galar: Master Mustard's true battle
Hisui: 8 pokemon on a team with Hisui's combat
Paldea: Kieran's champion fight, or the true final boss if you refuse to terastalize.
IDK why so many people consider Machop to be an 'easy answer' to Miltank. You aren't one shotting her, and even worse, you are 1 flinch away from fainting without even touching her.
I personally struggled a lot against the first Marnie fight in Shield. Wiped twice against her in my casual playthrough. One of the reasons being that I could not figure out her typings, plus switching around my team to get to know the new Pokémon.
The hardest battle in any region is the dude with 6 Magikarps
A true test of patience.
@@robertlupa8273 Yes. The hardest battle. Where W/O lose is easy to get (rage quit).
In Violet, you chose Sprigatito and Nemona took Quaxly, then that battle after the fourth or fifth badge - when Quaxly had fully evolved into that tacky disco duck - was probably the hardest for me. I literally had to just revive my Pokémon until that disco duck ran out of moves.
I actually think Watson should be an honorable mention for hoe.
Maybe it's just from a nuzlock point of view but without marshtomp or Geodude he is pretty tough.
Magneton is quite tough on the low level and can even throw ground types for a loop with supersonic and Sonic boom.
Also manectric can get scary if it sets up.
In X and Y it's some random guy in a cave with the LeBron James of Hawlucha's. Got my ass smoked like 5 times meanwhile i dont think i lost any other battle more than once the whole game.
I'm trying to envision the LeBron James of Hawluchas and I keep thinking if a Hawlucha would even be permitted to play basketball since it can fly
Leon was the only one who kicked my ass multiple times. I love Leon as a character, he's super cool.
One of my favourite Pokémon memories of late is using Golisopod against Ultra Necrozma and just First Impressioning it three times, getting OHKOed after each one then reviving. It's a cheese for sure but it was great.
I almost lost to AI Turo on my first playthrough. Fortunately Meowscarada went ultra instinct and toughed out 3 attacks while critting their way through those otherworldly demons.
May on Route 110. The grave of Nutzlocks and Speedruns
Nothin is hard once you become an adult with access to the internet.. but when I was a kid that Whitney fight was absolutely wild. It taught me what grinding was
If we discount Whitney, I’d say the toughest in Johto is Clair. First, Johto’s bad level curve in all gens means you’re likely to be underleveled for her, especially with a full team of six. Second, her Pokémon can be pretty tough, especially in HGSS where they can play more to their strengths, like physical Water moves on Gyarados. Lastly, your options for weaknesses are limited. Gyarados isn’t too bad- you’ve had access to Ampharos in GS and HGSS since the start, Crystal can get Raichu or Electabuzz from the Odd Egg, and all versions can get Magneton/zone (again with trades). Plus in Gen 2, the Thunder Punch TM exists, giving weakness options to others like Kadabra/Alakazam or Haunter/Gengar. The Ice Punch TM can be an answer to her Dragonair, but if you don’t have an Ice Puncher then your options drop- and in Gen 4 that isn’t an option. Jynx is probably your best bet in Gen 2 if you’re playing Crystal (not sure if it’s in HGSS) The Swinub line is really only good in Gen 4 where they got access to Ice Shard or Ice Fang to use their physical Attack, Delibird is worthless, Sneasel isn’t around in most versions until Mt. Silver, and I’m not sure if Dewgong is an option at this point. But that’s just Ice.
And that won’t do much good against Kingdra.
With Kingdra’s only being weak to Dragon, you’ve got even less options. Getting a Dratini of your own is not easy to do (and if you planned to get the Extremespeed one after the fight, you may not have bothered) and getting your own Kingdra is even harder. This basically forces you to fight it without its weakness, and since you’re likely underleveled, that thing is going to take a beating and dish one right back out before it drops. Kingdra alone has ended otherwise great attempts at the fight before for me.
Mostly, I feel like Whitney wasn't as bad if you knew what her team could do. I realized that a female Gastly was easy to pick up super early, extremely useful against gyms, and not too hard to level up. When I was a kid, I had game guides for GSC so they told you that stuff beforehand but I was a kid and didn't really know how to team build.
Also, WHY DO PEOPLE THINK ULTRA NECROZMA WAS HARD?! 😆😆😆
I held back because I thought I had to catch it and it turned out I needed to beat it. My Incineroar literally just said "Nope" and blocked its attacks.
Gen 1 rival at Silph Co. is the true boss of the game. Once you defeat him you know you are the champion.
Kanto: very game dependent, but Silph Rival is probably the right choice
Johto: nah, it's not Whitney. it's Jasmine. two Magnemites that want to Thunder Wave you, and Steelix that laughs at anything that's not super effective, and also shrugs off super effective physical moves that aren't STAB and 60+ BP. and hits like a truck with Iron Tail, only balanced by Iron Tail's godawful accuracy. which suspiciously misses less for Jasmine than it seems like it should. Red's also worth mentioning because of the absurd level spike. there's no good way to grind up a full team to be close to his level. you have to either power level one or two Pokemon, go into grinding hell, use the duplication glitch if it's the original games, or figure out a way to cheese the fight by setting up on the Pikachu.
Hoenn: oh, no, no, no. It's absolutely not that rival fight. It's Emerald Wattson or Emerald Tate & Liza. for R/S I guess the rival there is a fair answer, but I think Norman's RS on team is a lot more threatening. Even if you know how to cheese Slaking it can catch you off guard. Flannery is also dangerous no matter the version. with Sunny Day and massive bulk, Torkoal is a monster that should be talked about in the same breath as Whitney's Miltank and Jasmine's Steelix. oh, and Wattson's goddamn evil Magneton. The only thing with Wattson is that Marshtomp trivializes the fight, as well as Makuhita or Geodude. but if none of those are on your team, you're gonna have a bad time
Sinnoh: D/P I would say it's Mars or Jupiter, or maybe Crasher Wake. Platinum it's Distortion World Cyrus. Cynthia is quite hard, but idk, you're usually ready for it or you're a stupid child. or doing some kind of deranged challenge run. but I guess BDSP Cynthia is the hardest. Honorable mention to Platinum Fantina, who can be a miserable wall blocking game progress. Making the third gym leader have a Mismagius is something Game Freak's done twice, and I strongly feel like whoever pushes for it to be done a third time should be [REDACTED]. it is true evil. that thing's objectively too powerful for that early in the game. not balanced fairly.
Unova: Elesa is probably the right choice, but Ghetsis is tough even if you're prepared (though quite easy to cheese if you have prior experience), and Clay is also dangerous. The first and last Colress fights are pretty tough, imo.
Kalos: Grant or the final Rival battle. OR any Sky Battle where the opponent's Pokemon knows Rock, Electric, or Ice moves. Sky Battles were a mistake.
Alola: Totem Lurantis/Totem Mimikyu/Lusamine original, Ultra Necrozma is such bullshit that it's more interesting to talk second place regarding USUM. for me that was either Totem Togedemaru or the final Hau fight.
Galar: I dunno, I lost to the first Bede fight the first time so part of me wants to say that, but I can't imagine what could have gone wrong with my team for that to happen.
No the toughest fight is Raihan and his goddamn Sandstorm team. The first time through I only won using Vileplume Sleep Powder cheese, which wasted Archaludon's Dynamax turns, heh.
Paldea: main game, it's Iono. Mela and Atticus are both dangerous. Bombirdier can be nasty. in the DLC I would agree on the oger clan trainers, as two of them rinsed me first try, though I'd have won if I wasn't rolling with an all Kitakami team. wild Pokemon in Kitakami are SLOW AS MOLASSES, and I couldn't be bothered to EV train. I would say for Blueberry Academy I had the most difficulty with Amarys and Lacey. nearly lost those. I'd say Drayton but he got absurdly good luck or it wouldn't have been that much of a nailbiter. Kieran's team is not as well balanced as it appears. Terapagos has a simple solution - a well-trained Alolan Muk.
You forgot a region: Orre. I would go with Dakim, with Evice as a close second.
Also, if playing Gen 5 blind, it was very much possible to fight Cynthia with a team that just barely beat the Elite Four. "How bad could it be," I said.
I'm going to give an alternate gen 2
Clair. That kingdra is ridiculous
Me trying whitney in a hgss nuzlocke run with geodude: my plan was to set up 2 or 3 Rock polishes to outspeed miltank in the end to not get flinched by stomp and use rollout with defense curl. The plan worked until the clefairy decided to use surf after metronome ...
When I was little, I never got the chance to fight Cynthia because I gave up when I got stuck in the distortion world part of the game. I'm much more strategic now in terms of type matchups and levels, so I feel strangely... sad that I'll never get to experience the despair that comes with being a little kid and getting absolutely demolished by Cynthia's Garchomp.
The machoke and mr mime duo have messed up a few nuzlockes for me
Not sure if anyone mentioned this, but there is an error with what you said for the Volo fight from Legends. You stated that you fight Giratina first but you actually fight Volo first. After you beat him, you then fight the back-to-back Giratina forms.