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

I had a shitload of trouble with Brawly, even with an overleveled Combusken with Peck. In favour of cutting Juan as well though.

Sableye (Sapphire and Emerald) walls his entire team and has Nightshade so Bulk Up isn't an issue. Alternatively, you can grab an Abra and evolve it.

I did the proposed cuts for Gen 3, ans I think everyone left is a keeper. Moving on to Gen 4, these are my votes.

• Fantina: Cut.
• Candice: Keep.
• Volkner: Cut.
• Commanders Mars at Valley Windworks: Keep.
• Cyrus: Cut.
• Flint: Cut.
• Lucian: Keep.

Also, I added the examples from VideoGame.Pokemon Trading Card Game to the page. If you feel they need to cut be, vote on it ans say so.

My memory of Sinnoh is pretty bad, but I remember reading somewhere that Platinum is considered the hardest main game.

Brawly was only mildly annoying because of the level curve, otherwise, he is quite manageable. The makuhita is actually weaker than his machop in ruby and sapphire, and apart from maybe a boosted vital throw, he isn’t anything spectacular. You get a lot of options to beat him very easily as well. Sableye is available in Emerald, as well as abra in the dewford cave, which can easily be a kadabra, its possible to get through without flash, so slateport is accessible as well to deal with levels brawly has compared to Roxanne. Leaning towards cutting Brawly.

May/Brandon is interestingly at their most vicious on that first battle though with a grovyle, a lot worse than brawly and even wattson, though combusken and with a grass type, marshstomp are can be beaten without much trouble.

Norman is a tricky one for me to judge, since slaking is the deciding factor, and there are available protect users in this game, like aron and pelliper, and notably marshstomp, which is a starter, though a particularly gamebreaking one. Slaking is going to hurt nearly everything else for sure, even sableye and graveler with faint attack. Combusken probably can’t withstand façade, though blaziken beats this with enough level grinding. The slaking without focus punch does require a bit of caution and strategy more than the past bosses and some future ones, so I vote a keep.

Ice beam is available, in both the game corner and a rather out of the way ship, which will tear altaria apart, and graveler has some defenses to take earthquakes and hit altaria with rock moves. Its mildly challenging, but not something that’s going to destroy you like slaking instantly. I’m leaning towards a cut for that one. Its also a skippable boss.

Mandatory Surf defeats ruby and sapphire Tate and Liza, but they are kind of a pain in Emerald due to more, fully evolved pokemon, even when 3/4ths were weak to surf because of light screens, sunny day and earthquake in a double battle setting, along with healing items, as well as decent calm mind abusers. I’d keep them. Juan can be cut. There are so many water pokemon to fight, and for the last gym leader to use water types, its quite underwhelming, especially since his trainers uses everything he has except whiscash and his kingdra, and Tate and Liza were more troublesome.

For colosseum, those admins are a lot tougher story bosses than most pokemon games, easily stronger than any other admin in the games. Gale of darkness did tone down the admins difficulty quite a bit, with the exception of Ardos and Eldes. They can be kept.

Mirror B is kind of tough to take down, considering he uses a team entirely of ludicolos, even with practice killing lotads and lombres, plust they do abuse a bit of rain dance. I’m unsure with him.

Dakim I’m not certain on deciding. His earthquake + protect is a good double strategy, but 2 of his pokemon have a 4x weakness to water moves, and 2 are 4x weak to grass. Metang is defensive, but doesn’t hit too hard with earthquake. However, Entei is another serious factor to consider, since it is actually a bit of a threat by itself, being the highest leveled pokemon on his team. Those STAB fire blasts hurt quite a number of things at that point in the game, but even with water types, it has something else for those; Shadow Rush. Entei is the legendary beast with the highest attack stat, so the recoil inducing shadow rush, which nothing resists, is going to hurt the player’s team, as well as the player’s chance in catching Entei, since it can end up killing itself. And catching something with a catch rate of 3 for the first time is going to be quite an experience, if unfriendly fire earthquake didn’t kill it first. I’m actually leaning towards a keep just because of Entei itself. Ein is a solid keep. Its not enough that he has vicious rain dance combos with water moves and thunder, especially coming from Raikou, but adding confuse ray along with a high chance of paralysis.

Exol the Cipher commander is mildly threatening, but not really vicious at that point, since you do have a lot of shadow pokemon to get.

The thing about Gale of Darkness is that if you still have a shadow pokemon, they are immune to shadow sky’s sandstorm/hail effect, and they resist shadow moves except one. So Snattle, and even Zook isn’t too bad, so they can be cut.

Ardos is the exception to Shadow Pokemon resisting shadow moves, because shadow half still cuts them in half as well, and his non-shadows are powerful.

edited 1st Jan '16 3:19:50 PM by SinisterHoodedFigure2

Pelipper isn't exactly fantastic with its bulk, Aron and Larion get it somewhat late so you need to grind, and Marshtomp doesn't get it until level 42 (and I'd say it's not even a Game-Breaker).

I don't think you can even get Ice Beam from the ship until you have Dive (which is way later), and the Game Corner is only consistent if you know how to play it (plus you have limited money to compensate for screw-ups).

edited 1st Jan '16 3:21:11 PM by Karxrida

True about marshtomp a protect, though a dig tm is obtainable to gimp Slaking, but it's a tailor made strat so Norman is a keep in all three versions.

Winona was beaten with some effort without ice beam, but dragon dance and earthquake is a bit worrysome so maybe she does earn a spot on this list, considering illegal levels for dragon dance.

Oh, someone thinks Dakim should stay? I can revert that cut if more people think the same also.

edited 1st Jan '16 4:03:19 PM by VeryMelon

Sinnoh certainly does have a higher standard of difficulty than before.

Fantina isn't too bad in diamond and pearl, but she's actually fought earlier in platinum, coming after Jupiter. Mismagius does have shadow ball, and some coverage, and no starter has significant advantages over that, and confuse Ray and will o wisp does make it much more stressful dealing with mismagius. The placement makes her on par with morty, so i vote a keep.

Mars is pretty mean at that point, guess that's a perk for being a bad guy but i find Jupiter's first fight much more brutal. She has this Skuntank with one weakness and a powerful Stab night slash, immediately after Gardenia, though her zubat is kind of weak at that point.

Rapidash and especially Infernape makes mincemeat out of Candice in diamond and pearl, but the evasion haxing frosslass in platinum might have a chance to halt infernapes's sweep, though there are a lot of fire types and other things, including faint attack, that could counter her in platinum, so I'm voting for a cut.

Cyrus was definitely tougher than Volkner in all three versions, so volkner's a cut, though Cyrus's last fight is actually quite dangerous in platinum even with some shared weaknesses, enough for a keep.

Flint is a bit standard for an elite four member in DPP, so I vote his cut.

Lucian is a good keep.

Cynthia in the handhelds is especially tough for a final boss in all three versions, and perhaps the standout Pokemon league champion compared to the others. At least one of her Pokemon will prove quite formidable with preparation.

I re-added Dakim. I also cut Candice, Volker, Flint, Exol, and Zook.

Oh boy, we're gonna have to decide on Cynthia and Ghetsis once and for all when everything else is done, because the opinions on them are divided.

Moving on the gen 5 bosses:

• Lenora: Keep.
• Cheren: Could go either way on him.
• Elesa: Keep.
• N: Cut.
• Marshal: Could go either way.
• Shauntal: Could go either way.

I don't recall having trouble with either Marshal or Shauntal. At most, the former's Sawk is just annoying because of its Sturdy.

N, however, I'd argue for otherwise. Sigilyph just has its level-up moveset at that point, but it's a surprisingly good moveset consisting of two strong STA Bs for that point in the game plus Tailwind to make itself even faster. Plus Sigilyph itself is probably the strongest thing statwise the player's come across at that point.

Unova E4 was never an issue for me. It helps that the fight order is the player's choice and they're all the same level ranges.

N's Sigilyph never gave me any issue. Neither did the 2 Elite Four members.

Am I the only one noticing a pattern of notorious normal type gym leaders? And some people say normal is the worst type. Keep for Lenora, since she is much harder than the next gym leader Burgh, and retaliate is going to hurt for the second gym.

Elesa isn't really devastating as Lenora, but there is a bit of trickery with volt switch switching between ground immunity and an electric type with a fire move for ice types, and she is gym 4. She'll catch people off guard for sure with the typings, scoutings, and switchings, so that might warrant a keep.

N is using wild Pokemon in routes, being slightly more difficult because of better AI. He doesn't swap like Elesa does, so he could be cut.

Both Shauntal and Marshal seem rather standard for elite four members, and they only have 4 Pokemon for their first round, and aren't too threatening after N and Ghetsis. Speaking of...

Ghetsis is something special all right. If not for final bosses but for handheld evil team leaders. His BW team is better balanced than Alder's, and has a lot of mean things with few weaknesses and decent attacks. Hydreigon lacks a 4x weakness until gen 6, is bulky, fairly speedy, illegally acquired to fit the early 50s level curve, and hits hard with excellent coverage. He's also kind of similar to Lance in that he isn't the 'real' ingame final boss. I'd vote a keep for him.

I think it's been a fandom meme for years that the Normal-type Gym Leaders tend to be harder than the others.

Good movepools and being encountered early contribute to it. Besides, Bug or Poison are probably worse types overall.

Cynthia and Ghetsis look they might be getting to stay, depending on how many other people think they count.

Cynthia memories are bad (as in Incan't remember squat). Ghetsis memories are better and he was never an issue. I can see why people find him difficult, though.

I cut N, Shauntal, and Marshal. With no one in Gen 6 not qualifying due to the EXP Share being turned on by default, that's every main series game accounted for.

Now we're free to make one last evaluation on Cynthia and Ghetsis.

It's been a while since anyone's posted, and nothing for Cynthia and Ghetsis has come up in a significant way.

With that, I'll give this topic one more day until I ask the mods to lock That One Boss/Pokemon.

I don't think a lock will be necessary.

The point of this was to lock the page after cleaning it up. I made that very clear in the opening post.

We already discussed this on the last few pages. With the right party, Cynthia and Ghetsis are really not that difficult, even compared to other series final bosses. Best to remove them.

edited 7th Jan '16 12:50:30 PM by GM_3826

With the right party Misty and Whitney are easy. All Pokemon bosses are easy if you know what you're doing. Cynthia and Ghetsis have balanced, powerful, and high leveled teams. Cynthia has a Spiritomb with no weaknesses and the mighty Garchomp. Ghetsis's team is bulky, Eelektross usually has no weaknesses, and Hydreigon makes short work of your legendary dragon. I say both should stay.

Gonna give this one more day.