ThatOneBoss/Pokemon clean-up: That One Boss.Pokemon

Sturdy + Flash Cannon can be an issue for his Magneton/Magnezone, but it's not that big an issue overall, and the rest of his team sucks. Cut him.

Once again, I request a revaluation of BW Ghetsis. His Hydreigon can easily KO your legendary Dragon, his levels are even nastier than N's, and overall his team is well put together and difficult to deal with, even by Pokemon Final Boss standards.

I'll cut Colress soon, but since we're talking about harder than normal final bosses I'd like some opinions on Evice from Pokémon Colosseum and Greevil fro it's sequel. Do they get to stay? Are they harder than Final Boss Pokemon standards?

Evice can catch you off guard with his strat to Skill Swap Truant off of Slaking (which I don't think the game gives you any reasonable way to stop bar killing Slaking ASAP) and he comes at the end of a gauntlet of several battles (including another boss) with no chance to heal. I think he has chance of staying.

I don't remember Greevil being an issue unless you try to catch all of his Shadow 'mons in one go.

EDIT: Double-checked Bulbapedia, and apparently you're given chances to heal before Evice. I'm not so sure anymore.

edited 30th Dec '15 6:07:43 PM by Karxrida

Damn I remember this page always being a mess of gross exaggeration, about time it got cleaned up. Some things in particular on the page still I want to address.

Erika: Her Victreebel, while powerful, is hardly that dangerous, with plenty of exploitable weaknesses (including being weak to Psychics) and its Wrap isn't as much of an issue as the page claims. With the AI choosing moves at random in Gen 1 to begin with, you're not going to get caught in repeated Wraps that abuse the move's mechanics. And even then, her Victrebel is slow and you're not going to have difficulty outspeeding it if you're reasonably levelled, especially with the fast fire and flying types you're going to be using against her. And none of her pokemon know paralyzing moves, so that bit about her being able to paralyze you before using Wrap is complete bullshit. Then her Yellow team, while higher-levelled with a Tangela that has actual moves, loses the Victreebel and Vileplume for a Weepinbell and Gloom, with the Weepinbell not even having Wrap anymore. Then for her FRLG team, Victreebel is a much weaker pokemon than its Gen 1 version and no longer has Gen 1 Wrap, the reason the pages claims she's a difficult boss.

Yellow Koga: Yeah his team will significantly outlevel you if you don't significantly overgrind, but three of his mons are Venonats, that will be significantly weaker than any decent evolved pokemon you'll have at that point regardless of level. Then for his Venomoth, no it's not going to tank a bunch of unresisted hits with 70/60/90 defenses and no EV investment, its Psychic isn't going to be that strong when it doesn't get STAB and comes off a 90 special, and no its Leech Life isn't going to hurt your Psychics much, when it's a 20 BP move coming off of 65 attack with no E Vs. And the Double Team+Toxic point is moot when the AI roulette will prevent him from actually correctly abusing it.

FRLG Lorelei: Seems like another case of exaggeration. To begin with her Hail is nothing but a minor annoyance, Hail was no better a weather in Gen 3, especially when you don't specifically abuse it. Then simply having access to good moves in Surf and Ice Beam doesn't make an opponent exceptionally difficult when you're in the final stretch of the game, especially when her pokemon using them don't have exceptionally good special attack outside Jynx, who has no Surf and uses Ice Punch instead of Ice Beam. With a decent balanced team, she is not going to be exceptionally difficult.

Gen 1 Lance: Sure Hyper Beam is a devastating move in Gen 1 if used correctly, but with Gen 1 AI, no it's not going to be used correctly and random Hyper Beams will just give you free turns most of the time, where you can easily heal up the damage without repercussion. Then the RB movesets have nothing worthwhile outside Hyper Beam; fun fact, he has no non-normal attacking moves besides Dragon Rage, which is a utterly pathetic move at that point in the game, and Hydro Pump on Gyarados, who can be easily outsped and then OHKO'd with any decently strong electric move, so once the initial Gyarados is down you've won if you got a Ghost or Rock pokemon on your team. The Yellow movesets are better, but Gyarados is still just as easy to OHKO before it can do anything, Dragonair is still a mediocre mid-stage pokemon, Aerodactyl still has no threatening moves outside Hyper Beam, and Dragonite doesn't have an exceptional special to make its new array of powerful special moves exceptionally threatening at that point in the game (not to mention the lack of STAB on any of its moves).

I would probably dispute Sabrina being one too. Her teams in both RB and Y are carried by Alakazam, and a single overpowered pokemon just isn't that big of a deal at that point in the game, especially in RB when you should easily approach/surpass its level of 43 with reasonable levelling. It's not like Misty where you're contending one of the fastest endgame-powered pokemon with mostly com mons, and nothing stronger than a recently evolved mid-stage starter and/or Nidoking/queen (who are outsped and countered by Starmie).

edited 31st Dec '15 1:42:32 AM by Garo1o8

Gonna wait for more opinions before doing anything.

To be honest, the only one that really strikes me as that one boss in Gen 1 was misty, while the rest is seen as mildy threatening at best.

The last boss before getting a gastly, which is easy to encounter get and will break RBY in pieces, is Gary, and if he hasn't picked squirtle, he gets a Gyarados with Dragon Rage and Hydro Pump, though bite and leer can buy you time to beat it. You can thunderbolt it unless you wish to save it.

Erika is possibly the only gym boss in Red and Blue that is harder than its yellow incarnation, and her AI isn't too bad apart from some type matchups; if you bring a fire type, you won't be damaging it as much as you'd like with ember, thanks to her teams superior special stat. Poison/Grass types however, can exploit her into doing poison powder, but her Victrebel can choose to wrap and vileplume can take hits too. Victrebel is perhaps the biggest threat, because it will use wrap/poison in any order, but it can get off this chance. It won't sleep powder or razor leaf the fire types, and razor leaf will seriously damage water types with ice beam. Psychic types with a strong psychic move are kind of hard to get unless there is sequence breaking for TM 29, getting Abra from the Game Corner and evolving it to Kadabra. Tangela has bind and constrict, so ghost types and rock types can beat this, but it is bulky on both ends, and can tank psybeams. Vileplume is manageable, though petal dance is going to sting a bit. Overall, compared to most bosses, she's slightly above average just because she actually has a fully evolved team with... passable movesets.

RB Sabrina's Kadabra is actually more dangerous than her Alakazam, because that actually has Psychic, while alakazam only has psybeam and psywave. Oddly she has Venomoth with psybeam and Mr. Mime with confusion. The juggler in Koga's gym with the lv.38 Hypno is potentially more threatening, since it has psychic and its bulky. You fought the rival with a full team and an Alakazam with psybeam at that point, though she is definitely above average compared to other gym leaders apart from misty, but Giovanni's Red/Blue lv. 42 Dugtrio relatively more dangerous offensively than the level 43 Alakazam due to high base power moves, but he's certainly not "that one boss" material either due to defensive issues and Guard spec.

Koga hits the more "Double team abuser" kind of boss in yellow, for only one venomoth, and special drops from psychic are painful, but he can waste x attacks, and it is one pokemon, and can still be defeated by underleveled pokemon. Hypno deals with venomoth the best, along with ninetails with flamethrower, which it gets at level 35, but are kind of tricky to get. I vote a cut though because of the overgrinding issue.

Lorelei in RBY is theoretically far more threatening than any boss in pokemon red and blue, mostly because of Lapras, and because her team is fully evolved, and isn't walled by haunter apart from one exception. Her lapras has Confuse Ray, Blizzard, Hydro Pump, and Body slam; moves used in competitive, and it is very bulky and hits very hard. Her yellow team is a bit more dangerous, since some do have decent moves, like Cloyster's ice beam and clamp, or slowbro's amnesia, surf, and psychic. But haunter can guarantee its defeat with an AI exploit, but then again, Haunter can guarantee Lance's defeat (and many others) very easily thanks to agility being "super effective" against haunter's poison typing according to the AI, and gastly is very easy to encounter in pokemon tower. The other thing that hurts Lorelei chances of being that one boss in RBY, is her use of Super potions, instead of hyper potions, which will give an easy opening to kill poor lapras.

I don't know if using legendary birds would affect how a boss's status can be, though only misty and Koga don't have to worry about the birds.

And stat EXP defeats alot of the lategame bosses in RBY, so misty is perhaps the only one that counts as that one boss, while the rest are very manageable due to primitive AI and evs.

That's 2 votes for "cut every Gen 1 boss except Misty." I'm gonna wait for at least one more similar opinion before going through with the cut.

I personally think Sabrina should also stay, but if enough people disagree with that I can cut her too.

edited 31st Dec '15 11:13:48 AM by VeryMelon

Sabrina can probably stay because there are no good answers to her at all, plus Alakazam has Reflect (which lasts for as long as the user is active Gen I) and Recover to compensate for it being a Squishy Wizard.

edited 31st Dec '15 11:13:19 AM by Karxrida

I'm also not sure I can accept an argument for removal on the basis of exploiting A.I. because it's no different than removing the difficulty of any game with a Good Bad Bug, so it feels like using Walkthrough Mode to justify the removal. Again, though, it's just my opinion and I'll cut regardless if enough people disagree.

Also, thanks for your opinions on Evice and Greevil Karx. I'll delted them when I move for deleting Colress and any Gen 1 bosses.

edited 31st Dec '15 3:37:41 PM by VeryMelon

And done with the discussed cuts. Sabrina is still there because some of us still think she counts.

It's not really exploiting the AI though, when the Gen 1 AI is so bad that it'll do stupid and useless things all the times without you doing unusual specific stuff.

Regarding Sabrina, while you can't counter her, it still isn't hard to just overpower her. By this point in the game, your pokemon are in the 40s or high 30s and fully evolved, with plenty of E Vs and at least semi-competent movesets, and you have access to nearly every decent pokmon you can get in the game (including Zapdos, who can easily sweep her whole team unlevelled, with high Special to easily take multiple Psychics/Psybeams, and Drill Peck off of adequate attack to nail their weak defense). Any adequately-levelled pokemon that isn't a fighting or poison type with low special should be able to take at least one hit from her Kadabra and Alakazam, and when it's essentially 6 competent mons against 2, with the latter controlled by horrendous AI, you should be able to knock out those 2 before all 6 of yours are. Yeah she's the most difficult of the gym leaders after Misty, but she's still overall a mild speedbump rather than an actual challenge to defeat.

"Psychic types with a strong psychic move are kind of hard to get unless there is sequence breaking for TM 29, getting Abra from the Game Corner and evolving it to Kadabra."

You can get a Drowzee once you get to Vermillion, who you can evolve to Hypno with normal levelling by the time you fight Erika, and even with just Confusion it'll stomp her Victreebel and Vileplume. Then you can get Abra as early as Cerulean in RB, and while it's infamously annoying to catch, its very high catch rate leaves it easily catchable with just pokeballs at full health with a little persistence. Then you have an easy Kadabra (or even Alakazam if you just trade it right away) well before Erika, and it should have Psybeam by the time you fight Erika, leaving her even more easily defeated than what the aforementioned Hypno does.

Well we've gotta keep something on the page. Before we had too many bosses justified as being "too hard" but we shouldn't start going the other way.

Besides, that's a lot of rally specific stuff to do, and by that point there's also a sudden level gap, since half the time you're gonna miss Koga entirely since he's out of the way and Sabrina is right there. So on top of being really broken type-wise, they're also stronger than you, and faste than you, and bulkier than you (since the Special stat in the first gen meant attack and defense). And Zapdos is out of the way, too. Most first-time players aren't gonna know to make a beeline for a completely different Pokémon in an old power plant that they've never used before.

edited 31st Dec '15 4:08:00 PM by WonderSquid

If you can convince enough people to support your opinion on Sabrina, then I'll cut her. As it stands, 4 people in this thread have support Sabrina's inclusion over the 2 against her.

We are keeping stuff, but this series is not so hard as to require every game having an entry.

edited 31st Dec '15 4:09:46 PM by Karxrida

oop, you edited

still, I think going "well it has this specific weak point so it shouldn't be there" is a bit much

edited 31st Dec '15 4:12:21 PM by WonderSquid

Karx is right but rest assured, we aren't deleting the page outright. TheOneBoss.Pokemon is also for the entire franchise of spin-off games, so the same rules apply to them.

edited 31st Dec '15 4:12:42 PM by VeryMelon

This series is weird because there's a stupid amount of party customization not seen in many other RPGs (at least to this scale). Your team composition and whether or not you go Legend hunting will make certain fights stupid easy or stupid hard.

edited 31st Dec '15 4:15:22 PM by Karxrida

The only series that comes close in the same genre is the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, and those game are harder than the average RPG that comes out of Japan.

This whole deal is kinda tricky because the games are so easy in general so I've been trying to approach this with the attitude "if I was an eight year-old whose criteria for the strongest pokemon were 'which ones have the biggest sprites' what would I do".

I mean as Karx pointed out in that bit he deleted you can pretty much breeze through story mode if you're competent enough and can read, so I'm not really sure what the line is for this. Difficult for an eight year-old? Just unfair in general?

edited 31st Dec '15 5:00:10 PM by WonderSquid

I would say consistently hard regardless of your tactics, available tools, and familiarity with the game.

"Besides, that's a lot of rally specific stuff to do"

It's not anything specific though, just normal play will get your pokemon strong enough to overpower Sabrina by that point as explained. Zapdos was just the most extreme example of what powerful pokemon are available at that point; for a less extreme but still significant example, you have Snorlax available after you beat the Pokemon Tower, who with some levelling will also sweep Sabrina without issue.

And sure fighting Sabrina before Koga will make things a bit tougher, but that can be considered Sequence Breaking, and Sabrina isn't really "right there"; her gym is blocked by rockets until you beat Silph Co., and you don't get access to there until beating Pokemon Tower. After you beat Pokemon Tower however, you can finally get rid of the Snorlax blockades, one of which is right there outside Lavender, where you then can go to Fuschia and immediately fight Koga. If we are to assume players will follow the "path of least resistance", most will naturally go to Fuschia and fight Koga first, especially as they last knew, Saffron's gym was blocked and they couldn't go in yet. However, if you do fight Sabrina before Koga, the "level jump" is overstated; you have to beat Silph Co. before fighting her, where the opponents have pokemon in the high 20s and 30s, with Giovanni at the end going up to level 41. So even then your pokemon should still be around the mid 30s and mostly finished evolving.

Regarding the current topic, as I see it, the trainer should be a significant challenge to defeat by the average player using their reasonably available resources and not restricting themselves in any way, rather than just being a bit more threatening than the other trainers and leaders you fight (as Gen 1 Sabrina is). To think about my own first time experiences when I knew nothing to little about the inner workings of pokemon, with a couple of the examples here; Misty was really tough as a kid even on subsequent playthroughs because her Starmie was just so much stronger than what I had, and Cynthia in Diamond took multiple tries even with full item abuse my first time through. Sabrina however, was never that hard even as an eight year old, because she could simply be easily overpowered at the point you encounter her; just using my Charizard was enough (Sabrina in Stadium on the other hand, where you were on even ground in pokemon level and number, handled by much more competent AI, was definitely worthy of being on this page).

My post was pretty much recommending exactly that. Cut the individual page, list a few of the ones most commonly considered to be hard on the main page, and prevent this sort of thing from happening again.

We've basically talked as much as we could about Gen 1 and 2(including both Stadium Game), so let's talk about Gen 3 now.

• Brawly: I vote keep.
• Route 110 May/Brendan battle: I vote cut.
• Norman: I vote keep.
• Winona: I vote keep, but I want to cut the line comparing her to Whiteny because it's not needed.
• Tate and Liza: I vote keep.
• Juan: I vote cut.

Now for the gamecube games.

• The Cipher Admins: I think Ein and Mirror B are legit keepers even if you aren't trying to catch their Shadow Pokemon over just trying to win, but cut the line about Mirror B being easier in the sequel. Dakim I'm not sure about because I never played this game myself.
• Exol: Keep.
• Snattle: Cut.
• Kleef: Cut.
• Zook: Keep.
• Eldes: Keep.
• Ardos: Keep.

Brawly: Was never an issue, and I never used Psychics or Sableye on him. Cut.

May/Brendan Route 110: Cut. Had trouble as a kid, breezed by it later.

Norman: Keep. Even with Truant and bringing a Blaziken, Slakings can fuck you up because they're so strong.

Winona: Maybe keep?

Tate and Liza: Not sure. Consistently trouble as a kid, but my only Water-type was Swampert and I didn't try to support it with a secondary like Sharpedo.

Juan: Cut. He's a joke.

Miror B.: Keep. The game gives you almost nothing that handles him adequately (Fly Noctowl is basically all you have for super effective attacks) and he's heal spamming.

Dakim: Cut. Hard if you're trying to catch Entei because he's spamming Earthquake. He doesn't kill you, he snubs you of your optional prize.

Exol: ???

Snattle: Cut. He's not hard.

Kleef: Cut. He's a mook.

Zook: ???

Eldes: ???

Ardos: ???

I can switch my vote to cutting Brawly for the reasoning you gave.