- Greetings, Pokefans! Michael here, and
in today's video I'm gonna be going over which gym leaders
are consistently the most difficult to defeat in every single main
series Pokemon game. This should be obvious
to most of you, but just in case it's not, the most difficult gym
leader is not the one that has the highest
level Pokemon. It's the one that players most
commonly struggle to defeat at that particular
point in their journey with the Pokemon that
they have access to. How difficult a gym battle is is a subjective thing that
depends on many factors, but primarily what your team is. For example, Brock. If you started with
Bulbasaur or Squirtle, he's very easy to defeat. But if you started
with Charmander or you're playing "Yellow," he's much more difficult. In short, the difficulty
of a gym leader is a subjective metric that is based on people's
opinions and experiences, not hard data. Therefore, I
figured the best way to determined which one is the
most difficult in every game is by letting you guys decide. My first step was narrowing down a particular game's gym leaders to just two to four. This trimming was done based on my own personal
experiences, somewhat, but primarily based on
replies I got on social media. I would ask, "Hey, what do you think is
the most difficult gym leader "in this particular game?" And the names that I saw the
most often in the replies were the ones who made the cut. Then after I narrowed
down the gym leaders, I ran several polls
on my community tab, asking you guys to vote
on which gym leader you found the most difficult
in any particular game. By doing this, the
results for this video are not just my own
personal experiences, but the experiences of
the community as a whole. So if you disagree with
any of these picks, I'm sorry, but you got outvoted. But now that I've
explained my method, we can dive into the list. So don't forget to
subscribe to my channel, and let's get started with
the Generation One games, "Red," "Blue," and "Yellow." First, I should
list the gym leaders that I narrowed
the poll down to, and those were Brock, Lieutenant
Surge, Koga, and Sabrina. To explain the Brock pick, since I just used
him as an example of a battle that's
sometimes very difficult but sometimes very easy, I figured, for half of
the Gen One starters, if he's difficult, then he should at least
make the cut for the poll. So I ran the poll between
these four gym leaders, and the results showed that
Sabrina won in a landslide. And I must say, I
absolutely agree with this. The main reason Sabrina
is the toughest gym leader in Generation One is because of her
type specialty. The Psychic type was ridiculously overpowered
in Generation One, probably the most overpowered
any particular type has been in the history of Pokemon. There were multiple
reasons for this. The first was that the Dark
type just didn't exist yet. They created it in Gen Two, in order to make the Psychic
type less overpowered. That means Psychic is down to
having just two weaknesses, Ghost and Bug. However, in Generation One, Psychic wasn't
actually weak to Ghost! It was immune to it! It's widely believed this was
an error in the game's coding, not intentional, because I'm pretty sure
there's a character in-game that recommends using Ghost
against Bug-type Pokemon. But the end result
is that in Gen One, the Psychic type only
had one weakness, and that was to the Bug type. And in Generation One,
the Bug type was garbage. The strongest Bug types,
Pinsir and Scyther, literally learned
no Bug-type moves. That's because there
were only three Bug-type attacks
in Generation One, Leech Life, Pin Missile,
and Twin Needle. Leech Life was atrociously weak, so it doesn't even matter. Then Pin Missile could
max out at 70 base power if it hit five times, but it's only 85% accurate, so the chances of that
happening are minimal. And then Twin Needle only has
an effective base power of 50. Oh, and another important
piece of information, Twin Needle could only
be learned by Beedrill. Yeah, a Pokemon that not
only has terrible stats, but is also weak to Psychic! In short, the only way to
hit Psychic-type Pokemon with super effective damage using a Pokemon that is
not also weak to Psychic, is by using Pin
Missile on a Jolteon, a Pokemon with terrible
Physical Attack. So what's even the point? To beat Sabrina, you are forced to
use neutral hits. So Sabrina's already
got a massive advantage based purely on
her type specialty, but then you look at her teams, and they don't
make things easier. This is her team from
"Red" and "Blue." Venomoth isn't a huge deal, but the other three
all hit very hard with their Psychic-type moves and have two ways to bolster
their poor physical defense. Plus, in Generation One, Special Attack and
Special Defense were just one stat
called Special. And all these Pokemon
have good Special stats, which means they hit hard
with their Psychic moves but also will tank your
Special Attacks really well. You'd pretty much have
to use physical moves. Her team in "Yellow Version"
looks easier to deal with because Venomoth and Mr. Mime were replaced by a
pretty much useless Abra, but then you notice
their levels. In "Red" and "Blue," the level jump from
Erica's strongest Pokemon to Koga's and Sabrina's
strongest Pokemon was 14 levels. In "Yellow," that
was increased to 18. Because of this
ridiculous level jump, most players will be fighting
Sabrina in "Yellow Version," with Pokemon that are a
lower level than hers, and that, of course,
makes it even harder. If you are somehow
fighting Sabrina with level 50 plus Pokemon, I will be very impressed. So Sabrina is absolutely
the toughest gym leader in "Red," "Blue," and "Yellow," and that wraps up
Generation One. But before we move
on to Generation Two, I, real quick, wanna
let you guys know that I have some
exciting new merch over on my second
channel MandJTV Plays. We just wrapped up a
Pokemon battling league of just metronome battles called the Metronome
Battle Federation. And my team, the Houston
Gastros, won the entire thing! To celebrate my
glorious victory, for a limited time, I am selling Houston Gastros
MBF Champions shirts. I made this design myself
and I'm very proud of it, and I think it'll be a great
way to support my awesome team as we try for
back-to-back titles in season three later this year. It will only be available
for a limited time though, so if you want one head to the link
in the description or click the shirts
below the video to pick one up as
soon as you can. But anyways, back to the
toughest gym leaders. Let's move on to Generation Two, "Gold," "Silver," and "Crystal." I should say upfront that the toughest gym
leader in these games it's not gonna be any of
the Kanto gym leaders, because they're
post-game battles. When you fight them, you have access to
a fully evolved team with good strong STAB moves. You have pretty much no limits as to what Pokemon you
can use on your team. Additionally, their levels
are not that much higher than the Pokemon league's level, so you don't really have to
do a whole lot of training to match their levels. So overall, the
post-game gym battles are just not as difficult as
the Johto Region gym battles. The first Johto gym leader I narrowed it down
to was Whitney. While her Clefairy
is a pushover, her Miltank is infamous. The other one I narrowed
it down to was Clair. She is difficult by nature
of using the Dragon-type prior to the
Fairy-type being added. So you have very few options
for super effective damage. Plus, her strongest
Pokemon, Kingdra, its only weakness is
Dragon in Gen Two. These were the only two gym
leaders I put into this poll because they're just on
another level of difficulty compared to all the
other Johto gym leaders. The results of the poll were
Whitney winning in a landslide, and oh my God, I agree so much. Clair is certainly tricky, but the fact that she's
the last Johto gym leader means that your team
options to use against her are much larger. Whitney is only the third
gym leader in the game, so your team options are
not only very limited, but you're probably
stuck fighting her with not fully evolved Pokemon. That's actually a big reason why her Miltank is so
extremely difficult to beat. It has a base stat total of 490. 490! That's higher than Golem! And you have to fight this thing with Pokemon that are
just about Level 20! You are almost certainly
fighting this Miltank with Pokemon that have a
much lower base stat total. Plus, in addition to Miltank just being a stupid
strong Pokemon at this point in the game, its moveset is one of
the rudest movesets of any gym battle
Pokemon out there. First is its STAB move Stomp. Not only does this
hit very hard, but it can flinch you
if Miltank moves first, which will happen a lot since
Miltank is extremely fast. Next is Attract, another move that can
prevent your Pokemon from even doing anything. Yes, it only works
on male Pokemon, but your starter has an
87.5% chance to be male. Therefore, your
strongest Pokemon, most likely is getting
put out of commission. Next is Milk Drink, which means this bulky Pokemon that takes only a little
bit of damage at a time can heal itself back up even once Whitney has
run out of potions. And finally is Rollout, a move that gets so strong it can obliterate any Pokemon, even those that
would resist the hit. Additionally, Miltank is
a Normal-type Pokemon, which means its only weakness
is the Fighting type. And guess what, you have two options for
Fighting-type Pokemon. The first option is the
in-game trade Machop which is pretty solid. Your other option
is a Heracross, a Pokemon that does not
learn a Fighting-type attack other than Counter at level 44. Sure you could
teach it Rock Smash, but the move is stupid
weak in Gen Two. This means your only good option for STAB super effective hits is the in-game trade Machop. And that's it. If you don't wanna
use that Machop, then you are stuck beating
this Miltank with neutral hits, something which is
very challenging to do against such a bulky Pokemon that can also immobilize
you with half its moveset. Whitney and Miltank
are hands down the most difficult gym
battle in Generation Two. And I would argue, the
most difficult gym battle in all of main series Pokemon. It's why I hate Miltank so much. This battle is so stupid tough! Now it's time for
Generation Three, starting with the Hoenn games "Ruby," "Sapphire,"
and "Emerald." The teams that the
gym leaders use differ between "Ruby" and
"Sapphire" than "Emerald." But spoiler alert, the end result is the
same for all three. For "Ruby" and "Sapphire," the gym leaders I
narrowed it down to were Brawly, Wattson,
Norman, and Winona. For "Emerald," I swapped out
Brawly for Tate and Liza, since the addition of two
extra Pokemon to their squad makes their battle
a much bigger deal. However, that swapping didn't
end up making a difference, because the winner of both polls by a large margin was Norman, which I agree with. Norman is difficult
for multiple reasons. One of the first reasons is
that he uses the Normal type, which as I just
mentioned is tough because while it can't hit you
with super effective damage, it only has one weakness. Additionally, his
battle is tough because it happens immediately
after the previous gym battle with no new areas
that are unlocked. Your only natural training
between Flannery and Norman is Norman's gym trainers, which likely aren't enough to make up for the
level difference
between the two leaders. But what really makes Norman
difficult are his Slakings. Slaking has a base
stat total of 670, which is the same as
Groudon and Kyogre. The dude is using what is
basically a legendary Pokemon, and in "Ruby" and "Sapphire," he's got two of 'em. Now, of course, Slaking
does have Truant which means it can only
move every other turn, which is good. Otherwise this would
be broken as hell! But even so, it's
still a huge challenge, because on the
turns it can attack, it can absolutely decimate you with its base 160 attack stat. Meanwhile, you're gonna
need a lot of turns to whittle down its HP due
to its incredible bulk, which he can then
easily cancel out with a Potion or Slack Off. The presence of Facade also forces you to be careful
about status conditions, and Yawn is always
annoying to deal with. His Emerald team got rid
of one of the Slakings but replaced it with
a Spinda and Linoone. While Spinda isn't
much of a problem other than Teeter
Dance being annoying, if Linoone is able to
get off a Belly Drum, it will sweep your team
in devastating fashion. While this Slaking no
longer has Slack Off, it does have a Sitrus Berry, plus having Counter means that if you hit it with
a strong Fighting attack, that does a lot but
isn't enough to K.O., you'll be destroyed with
double the damage back at you. Who'd have thought
Normal-type gym leaders, a typing that is normally
subpar compared to the others would end up being so
freakin' difficult? Next up are the remakes
within Generation Three, "FireRed" and "LeafGreen." While I did not run a poll
for these games specifically, I just ran a poll for toughest
Kanto gym leader in general, I find it difficult to believe that anyone would
disagree with me when I say that Sabrina is
still the toughest gym leader. Sabrina's Gen Three team is very similar to
her Red and Blue team, with the main differences
being in movesets and the addition of abilities. Overall though it doesn't
change drastically, with Alakazam still being
there as the biggest threat. But the main reason Sabrina is
still the toughest gym leader is that the Psychic type is
still O.P. in Generation Three. Or should I say
Generation Three Kanto? It's not anywhere as O.P.
as it was in Gen One, but it's still overpowered in a Kanto playthrough
specifically due to certain attributes of the Pokemon available
to you in Kanto. There are still no Dark-type
Pokemon in the Kanto Region. When they added the Dark
type in Generation Two, they didn't retroactively
give it to any Kanto Pokemon. So, therefore, you just
have no Dark-type options in a Kanto playthrough. Yes, you can have Dark-type
moves like Crunch, but you're not getting a
STAB boost for any of them. The second reason, is that the only
Ghost-type Pokemon available to you is Gengar. Yes, they did fix the issue with Psychic type
being immune to Ghost, so you can hit with STAB
super effective Ghost types but Gengar is a Poison type and therefore is
weak to Psychic. So if your Gengar doesn't
outspeed and OHKO her Pokemon, your Gengar is dead. And the third reason,
the Bug type still sucks. The only ones with
good base stat totals are Pinsir, Scyther,
and Venomoth. Pinsir learns no Bug-type
moves by level up still, Scyther's only Bug
move is Fury Cutter which starts hopelessly weak
and must hit consecutively to do any kind of decent damage, and Venomoth is
both weak to Psychic and its best Bug
move is Silver Wind, which is only base 60 power
and it's a level one move, so you can't actually
teach it to it! Plus, you're not getting
non-STAB Bug moves either. The strongest Bug move in
Gen Three was Megahorn, which one, isn't learned by
any Kanto Bug-type Pokemon. But for the Pokemon that do
learn it that aren't Bug type, almost all of them learn
it at too late of a level for it to be used for Sabrina. The only one that you could
possibly use it on is Nidoking, who learns it at level 43. But guess what, Nidoking
is weak to Psychic. Fun fact, while the
strongest Bug move in Gen Three was Megahorn, the second strongest
was Signal Beam, which could only be
learned by one, Volbeat, and two, Dewgong. For who knows what reason. So while Sabrina in
"FireRed" and "LeafGreen" is easier to handle
than she was in Gen One, she's still the toughest
gym leader in those games simply due to being a
Psychic-type specialist in the Kanto Region. Next is Generation Four,
starting with the Sinnoh games, "Diamond," "Pearl,"
and "Platinum." The gym leaders I
narrowed it down to were Maylene, Wake,
Fantina, and Volkner. I ran a poll between these four, and Fantina won in a
landslide, which I agree with. This is her team in
"Diamond" and "Pearl," and all three of these
Pokemon are monsters. Her ace, Mismagius, has the lowest base
stat total of the three, and it's 495! Drifblim just does not die,
both due to being bulky as hell and becoming harder to
hit due to Minimize. And while Gengar
isn't super O.P. because she uses its
weaker physical attack, its speedy Confuse Rays
can cause serious problems. Then, of course, is
her ace, Mismagius, which is both fast
and hits quite hard with its special moves, especially Shadow Ball
which can be devastating. But then in "Platinum Version," Fantina changed from
being the fifth gym leader to the third gym leader, which, in my opinion,
made her even tougher. Duskull is her new tank, which doesn't pose
an offensive threat but is sneakily
difficult to kill. If it burns your Pokemon there to use physical Dark
moves like Bite, you're in trouble. Then is Haunter, which doesn't have as good
as stats as Gengar obviously, but it's still very fast and has both Hypnosis
and Confuse Ray. So get ready for even
more status conditions. And then is her Mismagius which she has with
the same moveset, berry and base stat total, but at level 26! Dear god! This lower level is scarier because it's the same
situation as Whitney's Miltank, albeit less severe. It is a high base
stat total Pokemon that you have to fight with
lower base stat total Pokemon. In "Diamond" and "Pearl," you're fighting Fantina with a team that's
in the mid-level 30s. And therefore, most of them
are probably fully evolved. But then in "Platinum," you're fighting her with a team
that's in the mid-level 20s, and therefore, far
fewer of your Pokemon are probably fully evolved. In the mid-30s, you may have a fully
evolved starter, in the mid-20s you
definitely don't. In short, her Mismagius
stayed the same while everything
around it got weaker. Fantina is difficult in
"Diamond" and "Pearl," but she is extra-difficult
in "Platinum." Next is "HeartGold"
and "SoulSilver," and unsurprisingly, Whitney is still the
strongest gym leader. While the swapping of
one of Clair's Dragonairs for a Gyarados made her
easier, Whitney got harder. The first reason this happened, is that her Miltank
was given a Lum Berry, meaning that if you
wanna cripple it with a status condition, you have to do it twice. The second, is that now it
has the ability, Scrappy, which means the strategy
of stopping Stomp with a Ghost type
is out the window. Whitney's Generation
Four Miltank is the most difficult
gym battle Pokemon in all of the main
series, in my opinion. My correct opinion. Next is Generation Five, and the gym leaders
vary quite a bit from "Black" and "White"
to "Black 2" and White 2." For "Black" and "White," I narrowed it down
to the triplets, Lenora, Elesa, and Drayden/Iris. For "Black 2" and "White 2," I narrowed it down to
Roxie, Elesa, and Drayden. The winner for both polls
was the same though, and that was Elesa. This makes sense to me. First off, she's an
Electric-type gym leader, and the Electric type can
be difficult to deal with because like the Normal-type, it only has one weakness, but it also has much
more offensive power. There are two reasons
Elesa is more difficult than other Electric-type
gym leaders though, her Flying types
and Volt Switch. In "Black" and "White," all three of her
Pokemon are very fast, so they're likely moving first. If you don't have a ground type, they'll Volt Switch,
leave the field, and then have another one of
them take the hit instead. You click a ground
move on Zebstrika? It Volt Switches and in comes
in Emolga, who's immune. You click a Rock move on Emolga? It Volt Switches and
in comes Zebstrika, who is not weak to Rock. Couple that Volt
Switching strategy and limited access to
Rock and Ground types this early in the game, and you have a pretty
challenging gym battle. Her team in "Black 2" and "White
2" is easier to deal with, since one Emolga was nerfed and the other one was replaced
with a weaker Flaaffy, but all three still
know Volt Switch, and that strategy is
still a giant pain. Next is Generation Six,
starting with "X" and "Y." And I must say, I personally didn't think any of the gym
leaders in these games were very difficult to defeat, which is a big flaw
with these games. So I was super dependent
on the community response to figure this one out. Based on the replies to
some tweets I posted, I narrowed down the gym leaders to Grant, Korrina, and Valerie. And Korrina won in a landslide. While I have never personally
struggled with Korrina, I can see why she's
more difficult than the other
Kalos gym leaders. All three of her Pokemon
know a Power-Up Punch which can definitely get scary. Hawlucha is the
scariest one though because it's blazing fast and has very good
physical attack. It also knows Flying Press, a move that is both strong and has a Tricky-type
matchup mechanic that first time players
may not understand. These factors combine to create a potentially
sweeping threat. Again, she's not
particularly difficult compared to the
other gym leaders I've discussed in this video, she's still the most
difficult in Kalos because Kalos, overall,
is pretty easy. Next is "Omega Ruby"
and "Alpha Sapphire," and the toughest gym
leader is still Norman. While his team and therefore the
difficulty of his battle stayed overall the same
from "Ruby" and "Sapphire," the gym leaders that finished behind him
in the polls got easier. Winona's Altaria
lost Dragon Dance, which was the main reason
she could be so scary, and Tate and Liza returned
to just having two Pokemon. Next is Generation Seven, starting with the Alola games, "Sun," "Moon," "Ultra
Sun," and "Ultra Moon." And these games don't
have gym battles, they were replaced by
Totem Pokemon battles and Grand Trials
against Island Kahunas. I'll be covering who
the toughest Kahuna is because they're very similar
to gym leader battles, 1v1 single battles. Meanwhile, Totem battles
are a whole different beast, and I figured it was just best
to skip them for this video. If you wanna know
which Totem battle I thought was the most difficult in "Ultra Sun" and "Ultra Moon," I have a whole video on that
that I made a few years ago, that you can check out. For the toughest kahuna, I simply ran a poll
for the four of them. Didn't really need
to narrow it down since there's just four. I ran one poll for
all four Alola games since their teams
are very similar, and Nanu won in a landslide. My memory of these
battles is a bit fuzzy since I haven't played
through the Alola games since "Ultra Sun" came out, but based on the
responses to this poll, it seemed the reason
most people picked Nanu was because of his
Alolan Persian. First off, it's
got the Z Crystal, so that can be devastating. It also has Fur Coat, which halves the damage it
takes from physical attacks. Since most Fighting-type
attacks are physical, this basically cancels
out one of its weaknesses. It carries Power Gem for
coverage against Bug types, and while it has no coverage
for Fairy or Fighting types, it's blazing fast and can cause
serious flinching problems with Dark Pulse. Overall, not as difficult
as older gen gym leaders like Sabrina or Whitney, but I can still see
why people picked him as the toughest
one of Gen Seven, or should I say, the
Gen Seven Alola Games because we still have the
Gen Seven Kanto games, "Let's Go, Pikachu!"
and "Let's Go, Eevee!" I thought there was a chance that Koga might pass up Sabrina as the toughest Kanto gym leader because in "Let's Go," he has some really frustrating Toxic-Protect
stalling strategies on three of his four Pokemon, so I ran a poll between
just the two of them. But nope, Sabrina still won and is still the
toughest gym leader. To me, this makes sense. While the weak Bug-type
Pokemon problem has pretty much been completely
remedied by this point, you're still limited in
Ghost and Dark types. The only Ghost type
is still Gengar, who is weak to Psychic and there still
aren't any Dark types. Okay, actually that's
not quite true. You can get other Ghost and
Dark types via in-game trades. The in-game trades
for Alola forms allow you to get some other
Ghost and Dark-type Pokemon, those being Alolan Raticate and Alolan Marowak
in both games, then Alolan Muk in
"Let's Go, Pikachu!" and Alolan Persian
in "Let's Go, Eevee!" But that's it! You're still very limited in what Pokemon you can use that are good against
Psychic-type Pokemon. So while Let's Go's Sabrina is probably the easiest to beat of all the various
versions of Sabrina that we've discussed so far, she's still the
toughest in Kanto. Finally is Generation Eight, the games being of course,
"Sword" and "Shield." Using my own experiences
and replies to my questions, I narrowed down the toughest
gym leaders in "Sword" to Kabu, Bea, Opal, and Raihan, then the same group but swapping Bea for
Allister in "Shield." I ran polls for both sets, and both times, Raihan
was massively victorious, which to me, makes sense. Although, before
I discuss Raihan, I do wanna say that
my battle with Opal was the most unfair gym
battle I've ever done because I got every one
of her questions wrong. because apparently I'm dumb. I can see why people didn't
vote for Opal though, because if you get
the questions wrong, the battle is
unfair in her favor but if you get them right,
it's unfair in your favor, which can result in
a very easy battle. Raihan is consistently the
toughest gym leader in Galar for several reasons, but I think the biggest reason is that his battle
is a double battle. Double battles are by nature
tougher in playthroughs because your team
isn't built for them. Your playthrough team
likely doesn't know moves like Protect or Follow Me, because the vast
majority of the time, they are useless
in single battles, which are the battles
that you've been doing your entire playthrough. However, in a double
battle situation, they are staple support moves. But it's not just that your team lacks the right support moves, they also might have the
wrong offensive moves. In the current VGC meta, most Ground-type attackers likely run High Horsepower
over Earthquake. High Horsepower is weaker, but it makes it so players
don't have to worry about hurting their own ally. But if you have a
Ground-type Pokemon on your playthrough team and it can learn High
Horsepower and Earthquake, you're picking
Earthquake every time. Pretty much all of your
battles are single battles, and in a single battle, Earthquake is strictly
superior to High Horsepower because it's 100% accurate
physical Ground-type move with no secondary effects. It's just stronger. So if your Ground
type knows Earthquake, then you go into this
battle with Raihan, you now have to worry about
hurting your own ally. Whereas if all the battles
were double battles, you probably would have
taught it High Horsepower. So you're already
at a disadvantage because your team is not
built for the double battle that you have to deal with, but then it gets even tougher because Raihan has a pretty
good dedicated strategy, Sandstorms. All of his Pokemon take
no damage from Sandstorms, and Gigalith even gets a
special defense boost from it. Plus their movesets
are excellent, with every one but Duraludon having a move to cover
one of their weaknesses. And while Duraludon
doesn't have that, it's a freakin' Duraludon,
it only has two weaknesses. Plus, all four of its max moves have fantastic
secondary effects, dropping your moves' PP, boosting both his
Pokemon's Attack, boosting both his
Pokemon's Defense, or setting the Sandstorm
back up if it's run out. Having to fight such a
well-constructed team in a battle format that
your squad isn't setup for, makes Raihan's gym battle the toughest in
"Sword" and "Shield" by a large margin. Thank you so much for watching. And an extra special thanks
to my patrons over on Patreon for helping support me during a time for the worst
YouTube ad rates I have seen since becoming a YouTuber. If you wanna help support
me in the same way, the link is in the
description below. And another way to support me is picking up the Houston
Gastros Champions shirt. It's a really awesome shirt, it's a limited time, so pick one up
while you still can. All right, that's
all I have for now. So until next time, Pokefans. Gotta catch them all.
Rule no4:No spam
Plz stop spaming bot.
You miltank