History ThatOneBoss / Pokemon

* Karen of the Elite Four in HG/SS. Murkrow can hit Fighting- and Bug-types hard with Pluck, force your Pokemon out with Whirlwind, use a STAB Faint Attack, which never misses, and hit your Pokemon with Sucker Punch. Houndoom was gifted with Nasty Plot to send its already beefy Special Attack through the roof, Vileplume on its own isn't too tough, but Karen is GenreSavvy enough to anticipate you using a fire type move on it, switching to Houndoom so it will use Flash Fire to buff its Special Attack without even having to use Nasty Plot, Umbreon is very bulky and can use its sluggish speed to its advantage with Payback, and Gengar has Focus Blast and Destiny Bond, the latter of which takes your Pokemon down with Gengar if KOed the same turn Destiny Bond's used.

* Karen of the Elite Four in HG/SS. Murkrow can hit Fighting- and Bug-types hard with Pluck, force your Pokemon out with Whirlwind, use a STAB Faint Attack, which never misses, and hit your Pokemon with Sucker Punch. Houndoom was gifted with Nasty Plot to send its already beefy Special Attack through the roof, Umbreon is very bulky and can use its sluggish speed to its advantage with Payback, and Gengar has Focus Blast and Destiny Bond, the latter of which takes your Pokemon down with Gengar if KOed the same turn Destiny Bond's used.
* Champion Lance has 6 Pokemon which ALL know the super-powerful Hyper Beam. His team consists of 3 under-leveled Dragonite, one of which has Outrage, which will easily take out most of your team. They also know Thunder Wave, so chances are you'll be the slower one. His Aerodactyl is super-fast and has the flinch-inducing Rock Slide, which Aerodactyl ISN'T EVEN SUPPOSED TO LEARN in Gen2. Gyarados and Charizard will be the least of your troubles, but even they are quite annoying. In the remakes, he gets even harder. All of his Pokemon except for the higher-level Dragonite have flinching moves (Dragon Rush, Rock Slide/Thunder Fang, Air Slash, and Waterfall), and he isn't as prone to abusing Hyper Beam like he did before due to the requirement of a recharge, and the other moves on his Pokemon are so strong he doesn't need to anyway.

[[AC:VideoGame/PokemonStadium]]

* Erika might not seem like much trouble, but if she manages to get the first attack in, be prepared for her Victreebel to spam the single most annoying attack of Gen 1: Wrap. Unlike the version of the attack you're now familiar with, Gen 1 Wrap prevented your Pokémon from taking any actions while they were caught. And guess what she'll do the moment your Pokémon is free from her Wrap attack. That's right, use Wrap again, preventing you from doing anything more than watching as the attack chips away your helpless Pokémon's health at a painfully slow pace to add insult to injury, and God forbid she manages to paralyze your Pokémon while they're suffering Wrap. You'll essentially be stuck in an infinite juggle. On the other hand, if you get the first attack in, this battle will be very easy if you're a Fire, Flying, Electric, or Ice-type.

* Whitney's Clefairy is for the most part is easy to deal with, but the same cannot be said for the ''[[MemeticMutation infamous]]'' Miltank. It has Rollout, a Rock-type attack that gets stronger every consecutive turn it connects, and lasts up to five turns[[note]] The move's attack power ''doubles'' its previous value from hit two onward, meaning on the fifth consecutive hit it's doing ''1600% of its base damage''[[/note]]. At this stage in the game, Rollout can gradually put the hurt on pretty much anything, even if it resists Rock. Miltank also knows Attract, which can infatuate male Pokemon and give them a 50% chance of not attacking every turn, Stomp, a strong STAB attack with a chance of causing flinching, and Milk Drink to restore health. Add to that Miltank is surprisingly fast and has enough bulk to give most physical attackers pause. In [=HeartGold=] & [=SoulSilver=], they gave her the ability "Scrappy" ([[TheScrappy how appropriate]]) which allows it to hit Ghost-types with Normal-type attacks. On top of that, they gave it a Lum Berry as a hold item, giving it the ability to remove whatever status ailment you inflicted upon it.
** In fact, Whitney is ''so bad'' that, like Brock in Yellow, the game actually comes with a hidden "cheat" to get around her, thanks to an in-game trainer in the Goldenrod Department Store who'll swap their female Machop for a Drowzee (or an Abra, in Crystal). And keep in mind, she's ''still'' not a perfect counter since Miltank is more than capable of flinching her to death with Stomp before she can do anything.

* Sootopolis Gym is already hard enough with that godforsaken puzzle, and then in Emerald, there's Wallace's replacement and former tutor Juan. He starts out with his Luvdisc, which has a lot of Speed and loves to spam confusion (and Attract if your Pokémon is male) - terrible stats apart from Speed don't matter much when your Pokémon is busily damaging ''itself''. And that's just the starting point - his other Pokémon will be quite happy to use Rain Dance, boosting the power of their Water moves to ridiculous levels (and as an added bonus, doubling the speed of any his Pokémon with "Swift Swim"). Whiscash hits hard with STAB Earthquake, and his Sealeo is all too happy to annoy you with the seldom seen but incredibly nasty Encore. Of course, all of this pales in comparison to his trump card: Kingdra. Not only does it have excellent defensive typing, it has the ability Swift Swim, meaning that while it's raining, outspeeding it is nigh impossible, and that's on top of the rain boosting its power. It also uses the obnoxious Chesto-Rest strategy, allowing it to fully heal its HP and remove status at no cost (only once, but of course after that, Juan is all too happy to use Max Potions when its HP gets low). Did we mention Kingdra also has [[ThatOneAttack Double]] [[LuckBasedMission Team]]? [[SarcasmMode Have fun with that.]]

* Candice in Platinum. Most of her Pokémon are pretty easy, but after Abomasnow sets up some permanent hail and Froslass comes out, things can get hectic. Endless hail will be chipping away at your health while an absurdly fast Froslass spams perfectly accurate Blizzards. Furthermore, its ability Snow Cloak will cause you to miss 20% of the time. Even worse, it can use Double-Team to even further decrease your chances of hitting it. Type advantages are meaningless if you keep missing while Hail and powerful coverage moves takes large chunks out of your HP every turn.

* Lt. Surge in Yellow has only one Pokémon, which is his Raichu. Easy, right? Wrong. First off, it knows Thunderbolt, which hits incredibly hard, especially at this part of the game, and it hits even harder than usual due to STAB. And to top it off, Raichu is at level 28, much higher than anything you've faced at this point in the game. It also has Mega Punch and Mega Kick, both of which hit incredibly hard and will do a number on Pokémon with lackluster defenses. To make it even harder, Raichu is one of the fastest Pokémon ''in the game'', meaning that you probably won't have anything fast enough to hit it first. Unless you managed to grab a [[DemonicSpiders Diglett or Dugtrio]] from the nearby tunnel.

** In fact, Whitney is ''so bad'' that, like Brock in Yellow, the game actually comes with a hidden "cheat" to get around her, thanks to an in-game trainer in the Goldenrod Department Store who'll swap their female Machop for a Drowzee (or an Abra, in Crystal).
* In Gen II's remake, Bugsy's Scyther gained a move called ''U-Turn'', which takes Scyther off the field to protect him from retaliation. The real horror comes from a strategy with Scyther: Once Bugsy's two cocoon Pokémon faint, Scyther has a STAB 70 power Bug-type attack without drawback (and with Scyther's good attack stat spells trouble) and the other attacks get a boost from Technician, Scyther's ability. There's also the fact that Scyther is extremely fast, so you probably won't be able to attack first.
* Morty's Gengar was already strong, with STAB Shadow Ball, Hypnosis to put you to sleep, Dream Eater to LifeDrain sleeping Mons, and Mean Look to prevent switching out. Then HG/SS improved it even further, with Levitate turning its Ground weakness into an ''immunity'', and Shadow Ball running off Gengar's monstrous Special Attack, instead of its inferior Attack.

** Even worse is the training that unlocks only for fully trained Pokemon. Several of them will fire an AdvancingWallOfDoom that covers roughly 2/3s of the screen. Hydreigon's shots will always reset your score to zero. And Mega Tyranitar not only fires two [[AdvancingWallOfDoom advancing walls of doom]] in a row, but one is horizontal and the other is vertical. [[MarathonBoss Did we mention that this is after fighting Larivatar, Pupitar, and Tyranitar in the same match? Or that it takes a total of 12,800 points to take out all four?]].

** This is much worse in Pokemon Yellow, as your starter, your beloved Pikachu, will most likely have no reliable strategy to deal with any of his Pokemon 1-vs-1 bar Potion spamming until level 20, when he gets Slam and his absurdly higher level will most likely be strong enough to take his Pokemon down with several non-effective hits. Thankfully, it's not hard to catch and raise one of the Nidoran lurking in the patch of tall grass just outside Pewter City, and they learn the super-effective Double Kick at level 12 as opposed to level 43 in Red and Blue. (You should at least evolve it into a Nidorino/Nidorina first, though.)

** The other right-hand man, [[spoiler: Ardos]], is far more nasty in other ways. Half of his team consists of very dangerous shadow pokemon, and the other half, consists of very dangerous non-shadow pokemon, unlike the aforementioned Ninjask and Flygon. His signature Pokemon, [[spoiler: Alakazam]], which utterly one-shotted a previous entry, has all elemental punches and has a very powerful STAB attack, all coming off from one of the highest special attack stats in the series, and he can easily target many shadow pokemon's, and even regular pokemon's weaknesses. Heracross and Kingdra are no slouches either, the former has a powerful STAB megahorn attack which will leave a mark, the latter has a weakness to a type that you most likely won't have, and can cover that weakness easily. Two of his shadow pokemon are extremely fast, and have a nasty move called "Shadow Half" which works like an unholy combination of pain split and super fang, which halves the HP of every pokemon on the field, with a recharge turn. The third shadow pokemon is a Snorlax, which introduces the powerful Shadow End move, which will destroy non-shadows very easily, and works really well together with its equally dangerous teammates. In addition, the first two shadow pokemon have four different shadow moves, including Shadow Break, Shadow Storm, Shadow Sky, and Shadow Mist.

** The other right-hand man, [[spoiler: Ardos]], is far more nasty in other ways. Half of his team consists of very dangerous shadow pokemon, and the other half, consists of very dangerous non-shadow pokemon, unlike the aforementioned Ninjask and Flygon. His signature Pokemon, [[spoiler: Alakazam]], which utterly one-shotted a previous entry, has all elemental punches and has a very powerful STAB attack, all coming off from one of the highest special attack stats in the series, and he can easily target many shadow pokemon's, and even regular pokemon's weaknesses. Heracross and Kingdra are no slouches either, the former has a powerful STAB megahorn attack which will leave a mark, the latter has a weakness to a type that you most likely won't have, and can cover that weakness easily. Two of his shadow pokemon are extremely fast, and have a nasty move called "Shadow Half" which works like an unholy combination of pain split and super fang, which halves the HP of every pokemon on the field, with a recharge turn. The third shadow pokemon is a Snorlax, which introduces the powerful Shadow End move, which will destroy non-shadows very easily, and works really well together with its equally dangerous teammates. In addition, the first two shadow pokemon have four different shadow moves, including Shadow Break and Shadow Break, Shadow Storm, Shadow Sky, and Shadow Mist.

** Before him, there's one of his right-hand men as well as the penultimate boss, [[spoiler: Eldes]]. He has four Shadow Pokémon, which will be the highest amount you've seen in the game so far, and they are all hard hitters. Special mention goes to his Marowak, who hits extremely hard thanks to its held item the Thick Club, and his Salamence, who is Level 50 at a point where your past opponents have been in the mid forites. Without a decently bulky Shadow Pokémon to absorb their blows, Marowak and Salamence will pretty much one-shot anything you throw at them. And to make things worse, all of them (save for his Shadow Manectric) are decently bulky as well, making them even harder to take down. If it's any consolation, his non-Shadow Ninjask and Flygon are nowhere near as annoying to deal with as the rest of his party.

* Whitney's Clefairy is for the most part is easy to deal with, but the same cannot be said for Miltank. It has Rollout, a Rock-type attack that gets stronger every consecutive turn it connects, and lasts up to five turns[[note]] The move's attack power ''doubles'' its previous value from hit two onward, meaning on the fifth consecutive hit it's doing ''1600% of its base damage''[[/note]]. At this stage in the game, Rollout can gradually put the hurt on pretty much anything, even if it resists Rock. Miltank also knows Attract, which can infatuate male Pokemon and give them a 50% chance of not attacking every turn, Stomp, a strong STAB attack with a chance of causing flinching, and Milk Drink to restore health. Add to that Miltank is surprisingly fast and has enough bulk to give most physical attackers pause. In [=HeartGold=] & [=SoulSilver=], they gave her the ability "Scrappy" ([[TheScrappy how appropriate]]) which allows it to hit Ghost-types with Normal-type attacks. On top of that, they gave it a Lum Berry as a hold item, giving it the ability to remove whatever status ailment you inflicted upon it.

* Whitney's Clefairy is for the most part is easy to deal with, but the same cannot be said for Miltank. It has a Rock-type attack that gets stronger every consecutive turn it connects, and lasts up to five turns[[note]] The move's attack power ''doubles'' its previous value from hit two onward, meaning on the fifth consecutive hit it's doing ''1600% of its base damage''[[/note]]. At this stage in the game, Rollout can gradually put the hurt on pretty much anything, even if it resists Rock. Miltank also knows Attract, which can infatuate male Pokemon and give them a 50% chance of not attacking every turn, Stomp, a strong STAB attack with a chance of causing flinching, and Milk Drink to restore health. Add to that Miltank is surprisingly fast and has enough bulk to give most physical attackers pause. In [=HeartGold=] & [=SoulSilver=], they gave her the ability "Scrappy" ([[TheScrappy how appropriate]]) which allows it to hit Ghost-types with Normal-type attacks. On top of that, they gave it a Lum Berry as a hold item, giving it the ability to remove whatever status ailment you inflicted upon it.

* Jasmine in GSC/HGSS has two Magnemite and a Steelix, both of whom have rather high levels for that stage in the game. It doesn't help that Steel has a load of resistances, making her a tricky battle. However, if you picked Cyndaquil as your starter, this battle will actually be fairly easy.

Behold the tales of Franchise/{{Pokemon}} bosses, Gym Leaders, and Grand Masters for whom laugh at the player's expense flow more readily than the water in the Eclo Wastes. To make a long story short, these are the reason why Gym Guides exist.

* Erika might not seem like much trouble, but if she manages to get the first attack in, be prepared for her Victreebel to spam the single most annoying attack of Gen 1: Wrap. Unlike the version of the attack you're now familiar with, Gen 1 Wrap prevented your Pokémon from taking any actions while they were caught. And guess what she'll do the moment your Pokémon is free from her Wrap attack. That's right, use Wrap again, preventing you from doing anything more than watching as the attack chips away your helpless Pokémon's health at a painfully slow pace to add insult to injury, and God forbid she manages to paralyze your Pokémon while they're suffering Wrap. You'll essentially be stuck in an infinite juggle. On the other hand, if you get the first attack in, this battle will be very easy.

* Karen of the Elite Four in HG/SS. Murkrow can hit Fighting- and Bug-types hard with Pluck, force your Pokemon out with Whirlwind, use a STAB Faint Attack, which never misses, and hit your Pokemon with Sucker Punch. Houndoom was gifted with Nasty Plot to send its already beefy Special Attack through the roof, Umbreon is very bulky and can use its sluggish speed to its advantage with Payback, and Gengar has Focus Blast and Destiny Bond.

* Winona is basically the Whitney of Gen 3, having a fairly easy team up until the final round. Winona uses Flying-types, and her last Pokemon is an Altaria which knows the deadly combo of Earthquake and Dragon Dance, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard which she can't learn at the level you fight her]], setting her up perfectly to sweep your entire team with powered up Earthquake and STAB Aerial Ace techniques, the latter of which never misses. Plus, Altaria is part Dragon-type, neutralizing its weakness to Electric-type moves.

* Hell, speaking of Team Galactic, Commanders Mars and Jupiter, due to the EarlyGameHell aspect in Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum being downright absurd, with their level curves resulting in extensive grinding for the average player. Not only this, but they have also earned the bane of many for their hideously underleveled Pokemon, ranging from [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard PURUGLY AT LEVEL 16 AND A SKUNTANK AT LEVEL 23]], both with endgame stats and movesets that otherwise annihilate any player that dares fight them unprepared or worse, (And [[ForcedLevelGrinding more than likely]]) underleveled. It doesn't help that these Pokémon have typing that leaves them each with only one type weakness.

** This is much worse in Pokemon Yellow, as your starter, your beloved Pikachu, will most likely have no reliable strategy to deal with any of his Pokemon 1-vs-1 bar Potion spamming until level 20, when he gets Slam and his absurdly higher level will most likely be strong enough to take his Pokemon down with several non-effective hits. Thankfully, it's not hard to catch and raise one of the Nidoran lurking in the patch of tall grass just outside Pewter City, and they learn the super-effective Double Kick at level 12 as opposed to level 43 in Red and Blue. (You should at least evolve it into a Nodorino/Nidorina first, though.)

** Knowing all of this, sounds pretty bad, right? Well guess what? There's one more fact that makes this battle ''TEN TIMES'' worse. Not only is this a forced encounter, it's a ''forced capture'' too. As in, you cannot knock out Primal Kyogre or Primal Groudon and just get yourself ready for them later. You have no choice here. You HAVE to catch them. If you don't want to use the Master Ball or you simply don't have it, ''good freaking luck''.

* The champion battle with Cynthia is by far one of the most difficult fights of the franchise. Her team is very high-level even compared to the battle immediately before her, has varied types, and boasts perfect [=IVs=] across the board, meaning that they're far stronger than normal Pokémon you might fight at the same level. She has Spiritomb, which back then had no weaknesses to any types by default; you just have to have a Pokemon strong enough to hit it until it gets knocked out. She has Milotic with Ice Beam for your Grass-types and Mirror Coat for your special attackers. And then there's her Garchomp, a LightningBruiser of a pokemon with powerful moves.

* Koga in Yellow. In addition to getting a huge level spike from Red and Blue, Koga now uses the strategy of Double Team + Toxic to stall out your Pokemon. His Level 50 Venomoth (which is likely stronger than anything you have at that point by at least ten levels) is more than capable of tanking most anything you can actually hit him with, and its Psychic attack can usually knock out most of your team in two hits. In [=FireRed=] and [=LeafGreen=]; both of his Koffing and Weezing have the Levitate ability to turn their Ground-type weakness into an ''immunity'', and Muk would spam Acid Armor and Minimize to increase its already strong defenses.

* [[BigBad Cyrus]]'s battle in Spear Pillar[[note]]Diamond / Pearl[[/note]] / Distortion World [[note]]Platinum[[/note]]. Gyarados used Aqua Tail / Waterfall! Bam, you're dead. Reload. Gyarados used Earthquake! Bam, you're dead. Gyarados used Ice Fang! Bam, you're dead. His [[FragileSpeedster Crobat]] is just as bad. Confuse Ray to throw you in for a loop, Air Slash to flinch, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard which is likely to happen]], and Toxic just to make it more painful. Weavile, Cyrus's strongest Pokémon, has high ATK and Speed. He will be able to demolish your team quite easily thanks to his high coverage, with attacks like like Night Slash, X-Scissor, Ice Punch, and depending on the version, Brick Break (Diamond / Pearl) or Fake Out (Platinum). Honchkrow has a good mix of attacks, especially in Platinum. Houndoom in the Platinum version is the least of your worries, but it can pack quite a punch with Flamethrower and Dark Pulse. It also has Thunder Fang, in case you were trying to use a Water-Type against it. His team's movesets are much better than what you have faced up to that point as well, so... less to be said, Cyrus's team is quite the thing for that point in the game. If you lose, [[ContinuingIsPainful you're climbing back up Mt. Coronet and through the Distortion World]].

* Flint. His Infernape is outright terrifying due to its high level and great coverage (Flare Blitz, Thunderpunch, Earthquake, and Mach Punch). He usually starts off with Sunny Day, and then the "fun" really begins. His Infernape's Flare Blitz combined with Sunny Day will pretty much instantly defeat anything and even then he still knows Earthquake. He's no slouch in Platinum either. If his Houndoom or Rapidash manage to use Sunny Day, you're in trouble. Rapidash is pretty damn fast. His strongest Pokemon, Magmortar, will hit extremely hard with any of its moves, and it can easily cover its type weaknesses. If Sunny Day is still in effect from one of Flint's previous Pokemon, Magmortar's Solar Beam will take no time to charge up, and it is super-effective against anything that normally has an advantage over Fire-types. It also knows Thunderbolt, which can make short work of most Water-type opponents and takes no time to charge up, in case Sunny Day is not active.

** In the remakes, he trades Facade with Retaliate. While Status Effects are now safe to use against him, this presents a different problem. Remember Lenora's Watchog from Black and White? Well now, his Pokémon have it. If you knock out one of his Pokémon and he uses his other Slaking next, keep in mind it runs off a titanic base 160 attack. Add that to a base 140 attack that gets STAB, guaranteeing a OneHitKill.