The Best and Worst Boss Fights in Pokemon

[R_N]

I've always been really fond of this totem battle. Replaceing Vikavolt and I think does a great job.
Toegedemaru is, well, a Togedemaru. So it's really not thta much of a threat but...it can put up a surprising fight. That +2 Def goes pretty far when you lack a special fire move (sigh....) in particular; or a suitable ground stab (sighhhhh).

First off: always nice that it gets both Zip Zap & Iron head. It also has a reasonable attack stat to begin with, and equally reasonable speed. But what this also does is clue in on the fight's real purpose: a war of attrition. Both these moves have flinch chanches. It comes with Spiky Shield to both stall out a turn and deal some residual damage. It has Bounce to make you waste another turn AND a chance of paralysis if it lands. It probably should have had Iron Barbs instead but!

Support #1: Skarmory
Skaromy is weak to electric, so Lightning Rod doubles as a "not so fast" move. The special boost is irrelevant to Togedemaru's moveset but that's fine, the important thing is it absorbs it entirely and keeps skarmory around another round if you didn't think to use a fire move instead. BUT ALSO it has Sturdy. No matter what this Skarmory is getting off something and all of it synergizes with Togedemaru really well:
-tailwind to make it faster (the easier to flinch you with)
-stealth rocks, since you might consider switching out when a plan doesnt work out or to take a different hit. In particular if you didn't lead with a fire type there's a chance this will really screw you over. As I said I ddin't really have the right moves for this so I actually did have to deal with this for a while
-Torment. Hypothetically you can't spam moves but also it kind of acts as a gotcha on bounce turns. You use a good move but oops togedemaru used Bounce and now you cant use that move for another turn

Support #2:
So Dedenne is....not a good Pokemon, we'll say. But that's fine because its purpose here is to Annoy You Specifically. Skarmory is the support to help get togedemaru to wear you down more. Dedenne is here to make you deal less damage.
-Charm will make that +2 Def last even longer, especially if you skipped straight to the Dedenne phase of the battle
-Eerie Impulse is definitely more "wishful thinking", but -2 Special Attack could make Togedemaru live a bit longer depending on the moves in play
-Super Fang to help line Togedemaru up for a kill
And Lightning Rod lets Discharge go off safely. If Togedemaru had Iron Barbs instead I imagine Dedenne would've used Thunderbolt but that's fine.

Also as a bonus we potentially get a rare usage (in-game or competitively) of Pickup! Depending on the timing for when Dedenne coems out its possible that Togedemaru pops its Sitrus Berry and then Dedenne can use it too. I mean it really has to line up properly for this to happen but it's nice that it can, at all.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

I've really grown to appreciate the Totem strats.

Not the battles themselves, they kinda feel like one side is trying to play chess and the other checkers with both using monopoly pieces. The asymmetrical design low key bothers me. But there was a real attempt at strategy that I can really appreciate because it not only makes battles harder, but more importantly, they make the battles unique.

SwSh really wastes that potential.

 

[Hugin]

I've really grown to appreciate the Totem strats.

Not the battles themselves, they kinda feel like one side is trying to play chess and the other checkers with both using monopoly pieces. The asymmetrical design low key bothers me. But there was a real attempt at strategy that I can really appreciate because it not only makes battles harder, but more importantly, they make the battles unique.

SwSh really wastes that potential.

Sword/Shield are really interesting for boss battle quality. I play through without Dynamax for most fights*, which in theory should mean the gyms are much harder than normal, but...not really? With it being the ace, usually I can find a spot against an early mon to set up, then I hit the dynamax mon with a 2x or 4x STAB and watch the giant healthbar fall. Better than previous gens, where the strat is usually "pick something with a type advantage and then click buttons", but still not difficult.

*I use it for Dens and some of the storyline battles where it's mandatory, but not for gyms or the rampaging dynamax pokes

 

[Smoughon Account]

I don't know if anyone's mentioned this fight, but the 35th battle cd in Pokemon XD has got to be one of the worst fights in all of Pokemon. The whole gimmick is it's a Metronome fight. No shade towards anyone that plays Metronome Cup (that's a thing right?), but this is the most infuriating thing I've done in years. To make matters worse, the AI has a Machop and a Geodude. What do you get? A goddamn Cleffa and Togepi. I've been trying this crap for almost an hour. It must just be crap luck, but the AI gets the most busted moves ever while I get crap like Sand Attack. Or, I get a good move, but it only hits for not very effective damage. Every halfway decent move, even special moves do like a third of my health. Sorry for the rant, but this fight is awful. This crap is more infuriating than Pokemon Snakewood. (I'm being serious)


On a more positive note, some of the Battle CDs are actually kind of cool. But not this one. Not this one.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Sword/Shield are really interesting for boss battle quality. I play through without Dynamax for most fights*, which in theory should mean the gyms are much harder than normal, but...not really?

"Interesting" is not the appropriate word.

I'd straight up call them bad.

There's a lot of potential for SwSh leaders to actually use strategies, but they really just stack mons of the same type and run around like headless chickens.

Even Kabu, which is one of the most strategy-oriented leaders, just has Will-o-Wisp and fully evolved mons.

Compare this to pretty much any Totem beyond Raticate and they start to look funny.

 

[shinquickman]

Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald Wattson are among my least favorite boss fights if not the least. Being so early in the game, there just aren't any meaningful counters to fully evolved Steel mons beyond five specific mons (Geodude, Hariyama, Breloom, Combusken, Marshtomp), and two of those are starters. If you start with Treecko, you either get a Makuhita, Geodude, or Shroomish for Magneton or you will lose. I get that this is Pokemon, and winning through type advantage is just the name of the game, but this is different. Oftentimes Gym battles are considered tough because of the dearth of counters to those gyms, but even so there is some degree of options beyond just "Bring in type advanaged mon" for these other gyms. You can beat Misty without a Grass or Electric mon, such as by tanking with Clefable and Wartortle, or overpowering her Starmie with Beedrill, or Sleephacking with Butterfree or Wigglytuff. You can take down Elesa without a Ground mon. You have Rock Tomb TM for Emolga and Dig TM for Zebristrika, moves which a ton of mons are able to learn. You can win against Whitney without a Geodude, Onix, or Machop by overwhelming her Miltank with stat debuffs, status effects, or even by turning the tide with a Rollout sweep of your own.

For Wattson? You can forget about finding backdoor strategies or spreading debuffs or optimizing TMs or any of that. His Magneton will absolutely kick anything's ass that's not named Geodude, Hariyama, etc. Skipping ahead is not an option. You need Rock Smash to progress which requires beating Wattson. Worst still is that there are no good ways to power level at that point, so if you missed the bus on picking up a Makuhita, Shroomish, or Geodude early, you can find yourself in grinding pergutory for a while; rematches in this game are notoriously inconsistent, and wild mons stay fairly low level. The end result is that early game mon choices are too linear in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald. I don't always want to play one of those same five mons every time I play the game, but thanks to that old douche Wattson, I have no choice.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald Wattson are among my least favorite boss fights if not the least. Being so early in the game, there just aren't any meaningful counters to fully evolved Steel mons beyond five specific mons (Geodude, Hariyama, Breloom, Combusken, Marshtomp), and two of those are starters. If you start with Treecko, you either get a Makuhita, Geodude, or Shroomish for Magneton or you will lose. I get that this is Pokemon, and winning through type advantage is just the name of the game, but this is different. Oftentimes Gym battles are considered tough because of the dearth of counters to those gyms, but even so there is some degree of options beyond just "Bring in type advanaged mon" for these other gyms. You can beat Misty without a Grass or Electric mon, such as by tanking with Clefable and Wartortle, or overpowering her Starmie with Beedrill, or Sleephacking with Butterfree or Wigglytuff. You can take down Elesa without a Ground mon. You have Rock Tomb TM for Emolga and Dig TM for Zebristrika, moves which a ton of mons are able to learn. You can win against Whitney without a Geodude, Onix, or Machop by overwhelming her Miltank with stat debuffs, status effects, or even by turning the tide with a Rollout sweep of your own.

For Wattson? You can forget about finding backdoor strategies or spreading debuffs or optimizing TMs or any of that. His Magneton will absolutely kick anything's ass that's not named Geodude, Hariyama, etc. Skipping ahead is not an option. You need Rock Smash to progress which requires beating Wattson. Worst still is that there are no good ways to power level at that point, so if you missed the bus on picking up a Makuhita, Shroomish, or Geodude early, you can find yourself in grinding pergutory for a while; rematches in this game are notoriously inconsistent, and wild mons stay fairly low level. The end result is that early game mon choices are too linear in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald. I don't always want to play one of those same five mons every time I play the game, but thanks to that old douche Wattson, I have no choice.

Can't you use something like Thief Grovyle or even Rock Smash then delete it in Fallarbor?

I dunno man, I'm sure you can find *something* to force a neutral match-up.

 

[Nokocchi]

Can't you use something like Thief Grovyle or even Rock Smash then delete it in Fallarbor?

I dunno man, I'm sure you can find *something* to force a neutral match-up.

That cannot work because:
-Steel resists Dark(and Ghost) in Gen III
-The Sceptile line has never been able to learn thief. You might have confused Thief with Pursuit, which had the same power in Gen III(40)
-Rock Smash has only 20 Base Power in Gen III. While it would do more damage than anything else Grovyle can get at that point, it still barely any damage. And you'd be stuck with it for a while.

You're better off just not using the Treeko line against Watson

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Steel resists Dark(and Ghost) in Gen III

Oh right, forgot about that.

As for Smash, it's more of a "making the best out of a bad situation" deal. It's not strong, but it's not like Grovyle is missing out on much at that point and stacking up Defense debuffs helps a lot. Paired up with the Elec resistance, I'd like my chances on a 1v1.

 

[StarKirb94]

Wally's final rematch is one of the funniest boss fights I think.

This dude threw away his Delcatty and Altaria, and instead got himself a Gale Wings Brave Bird Talonflame, a Huge Power Aqua Jet Azumarill and a Garchomp. Aside from that pretty bad Roserade, this feels like it could very well be a random Gen 6 OU competitive team, which for some reason is just hilarious to me. It's specially funny considering that this is what his entire character arc of overcoming his illness and becoming a better trainer culminates into.

 

[Pikachu315111]

That cannot work because:
-Steel resists Dark(and Ghost) in Gen III
-The Sceptile line has never been able to learn thief. You might have confused Thief with Pursuit, which had the same power in Gen III(40)
-Rock Smash has only 20 Base Power in Gen III. While it would do more damage than anything else Grovyle can get at that point, it still barely any damage. And you'd be stuck with it for a while.

You're better off just not using the Treeko line against Watson

What about setting up X Attacks/X Sp. Atks on his first Pokemon and trying to sweep?

 

[jordanthejq12]

What about setting up X Attacks/X Sp. Atks on his first Pokemon and trying to sweep?

Imagine using battle items, lol. /s

In seriousness, Voltorb has Rollout and Self-Destruct in Emerald, while his RS Magnemite has Sonic Boom. If Grovyle is your desired option for this Gym, you're probably going to need a couple of X items at least, and the aforementioned moves mean you'll also need a Super Potion or two. So it'll work, it'll just be considerably more tedious than just having a Makuhita/Geodude.

 

[shinquickman]

Oh right, forgot about that.

As for Smash, it's more of a "making the best out of a bad situation" deal. It's not strong, but it's not like Grovyle is missing out on much at that point and stacking up Defense debuffs helps a lot. Paired up with the Elec resistance, I'd like my chances on a 1v1.

You'll like your chances a lot less when Grovyle is repeatedly paralyzed by Spark, Thunder Wave, and Static. Grovyle can win with X-Item spam, but only on the condition that it's notably overleveled if it wants to win with any reliability. If you're around Magneton level, Grovyle will have to get lucky to win even with stat boosts and healing items. If brute force with items and a massive level advantage is the only way to get through Wattson without the five mons I mentioned before, then that's a poorly designed Gym battle. What boss wouldn't be beatable with that strategy?

 

[Martin]

Idk whether this should be counted as a "boss" battle considering it's the very first battle in the game and serves more as a tutorial than as a challenge, but it's unavoidable for story reasons so IG it's fine to mention it here.

In Pokemon Sword and Shield's initial rival fight, Hop leads with his Wooloo, which you take out using your only attacking move at level 5 (generic Normal-type attack). You then level up, learning a STAB move in the process, and he proceeds to send out his starter. You now have a shiny new button that you'll be itching to click if you're playing Pokemon for the first time, which then hits his starter super effectively—thus introducing them to the concept of type advantage without making them read a single text box.

It's easy to sorta gloss over something like this if you've been playing Pokemon for years like I'm sure most people ITT have, but when evaluating aspects of a game it's also important to take into account what steps are taken to make sure a new player understands how different parts of the game interact. The way they handled this fight is just extremely smart game design, and I was a little taken aback at Pokémon of all things doing a tutorial in a way that was actually good for a change.

It's not reinventing the wheel or anything—other games (e.g. Baba is You) are excellent for show-don't-tell teaching as well, and the technique goes back at least as far as Super Mario Bros.' first goomba and block structure—but up until now, Pokémon games have either expected you to read walls of text in the Trainer School or have given you stuff from the outset and expected you to click on them to figure out how things work instead of nudging you towards them at a point when it's most likely to stick. I hope that they continue to make initial battles like this one going forward.

===============

As for a more typical response about enjoyable boss fights, the Mt. Silver Red always kinda stuck out to me as a fun boss to fight. There's something very climactic about facing him atop Mt. Silver, no words exchanged and his team very high level, and when you win you're rewarded with that sweet, sweet ending music. It's kinda a shame that he shares his battle theme with Lance, but that's whatever honestly—not enough to detract from how epic the fight is and how satisfying it is to win.

I'm also a big fan of Cynthia and Leon if only because of how well-rounded their teams are. The Cynthia fight, in particular, is good because of how her movesets are designed to be navigable but not exploitable, meaning you can overcome her while under-levelled without her feeling like a slouch. The Leon fight was unfortunately undercut by Dynamax being fucking ridiculous, but I liked his team which I guess is something.

Echoing the praise for Cyrus 3 and Ghetsis for evil team bosses, and Lusamine 3 was neat although auto-boosting is just… very broken and tedious to break past if you don't have the right Pokemon—I prefer the challenge to come from the team being hard to beat rather than from artificial buffs that require either over-levelling or item cheesing to break consistently. Kinda want to draw attention to Kukui as well, not because it's particularly difficult or fun compared to other boss fights so much as I just like that we finally get a chance to battle a professor.

Eternamax was neat conceptually—the idea of taking down a mon with >1000 BST is honestly very enjoyable on the surface—but I remember feeling a touch underwhelmed by it in practice. Eternamax doesn't really pose much of a threat when you're paired with two funny dogs that also have ridiculous stats, Behemoth Bash/Blade, draw its attention, and take it down relatively fast. I would've probably liked it more if you had to train four Pokemon and fight the max raid singlehandedly or something, which itself would've lent a lot to the climax factor, but ig that would've undercut the whole "Zacian and Zamazenta protect the region from Eternamax" lore so I can sorta forgive it, and it's not like Pokemon games need to be hard anyway.

As for bad boss fights, nothing will ever be as bad as the Rocket Admins from GSC/HGSS. Their teams are extremely pitiful and underwhelming, and outside of the guy who has multiple Weezing they all just feel like grunts rather than admins. Not to mention the level curve! It's honestly pathetic lol. Outside of that, I remember being very underwhelmed by Steven and his Giga Impact-spamming Metagross. All in all extremely exploitable and doesn't really pose much of a threat, leading to a super anticlimactic champion fight.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Eternamax was neat conceptually—the idea of taking down a mon with >1000 BST is honestly very enjoyable on the surface—but I remember feeling a touch underwhelmed by it in practice. Eternamax doesn't really pose much of a threat when you're paired with two funny dogs that also have ridiculous stats, Behemoth Bash/Blade, draw its attention, and take it down relatively fast. I would've probably liked it more if you had to train four Pokemon and fight the max raid singlehandedly or something, which itself would've lent a lot to the climax factor, but ig that would've undercut the whole "Zacian and Zamazenta protect the region from Eternamax" lore so I can sorta forgive it, and it's not like Pokemon games need to be hard anyway.

I wonder if the fight would have been better if it had been structured similarly to the final Flowey fight in Undertale. Phase one sees you just trying to survive. You can attack it, but your attacks deal pitiful damage, meanwhile the boss is out there swinging. Then in phase two, help arrives, the tables turn, and you deliver a climactic beatdown.

So basically how the fight is normally, but instead of an in-battle cutscene where your attacks are nullified and Eternatus just sits there charging something, you and Hop just get your asses handed to you.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

What about setting up X Attacks/X Sp. Atks on his first Pokemon and trying to sweep?

Trying to sweep Wattson is nuts. Exploding mons and everything packing TWave just stops runs cold.

If Grovyle is your desired option for this Gym, you're probably going to need a couple of X items at least, and the aforementioned moves mean you'll also need a Super Potion or two. So it'll work, it'll just be considerably more tedious than just having a Makuhita/Geodude.

Yeah, but that's the point. You're not using one of 5 possible counters, and you picked the Grass starter.

Expecting an easy road with the Grass starter in any game is lulzy, you already know where you're getting into. I'm not talking about the best option, I'm talking about how you can scrap with Mag using Grovyle.

 

[shinquickman]

Yeah, but that's the point. You're not using one of 5 possible counters, and you picked the Grass starter.

Expecting an easy road with the Grass starter in any game is lulzy, you already know where you're getting into. I'm not talking about the best option, I'm talking about how you can scrap with Mag using Grovyle.

You absolutely positively need a Lv 29 Leaf Blade Grovyle with an X-Special or two to beat this gym with any reliability, and even then you have to resort to using potions and/or status heals if you get para-haxed. I even went in with a Lv 31 Grovyle and was only winning about 75% of the time. Anything short of that, and you're only winning through some freak unlucky streaks from Wattson like missing Thunder Waves and Sonic Booms back to back to back. I don't know about you, but I don't consider "Just use a massively overleveled mon and some items" a meaningful counter. You could say that about most any other mon.

 

[Yung Dramps]

Wally's final rematch is one of the funniest boss fights I think.

View attachment 294718

This dude threw away his Delcatty and Altaria, and instead got himself a Gale Wings Brave Bird Talonflame, a Huge Power Aqua Jet Azumarill and a Garchomp. Aside from that pretty bad Roserade, this feels like it could very well be a random Gen 6 OU competitive team, which for some reason is just hilarious to me. It's specially funny considering that this is what his entire character arc of overcoming his illness and becoming a better trainer culminates into.

Postgame Final Wally is a gigachad, idc if the levels are slightly lower he makes any version of Red look like a bitch, it's just a damn shame he's so hard to unlock unless you're a facility grinder

In Pokemon Sword and Shield's initial rival fight, Hop leads with his Wooloo, which you take out using your only attacking move at level 5 (generic Normal-type attack). You then level up, learning a STAB move in the process, and he proceeds to send out his starter. You now have a shiny new button that you'll be itching to click if you're playing Pokemon for the first time, which then hits his starter super effectively—thus introducing them to the concept of type advantage without making them read a single text box.

It's easy to sorta gloss over something like this if you've been playing Pokemon for years like I'm sure most people ITT have, but when evaluating aspects of a game it's also important to take into account what steps are taken to make sure a new player understands how different parts of the game interact. The way they handled this fight is just extremely smart game design, and I was a little taken aback at Pokémon of all things doing a tutorial in a way that was actually good for a change.

It's not reinventing the wheel or anything—other games (e.g. Baba is You) are excellent for show-don't-tell teaching as well, and the technique goes back at least as far as Super Mario Bros.' first goomba and block structure—but up until now, Pokémon games have either expected you to read walls of text in the Trainer School or have given you stuff from the outset and expected you to click on them to figure out how things work instead of nudging you towards them at a point when it's most likely to stick. I hope that they continue to make initial battles like this one going forward.

Interesting analysis! SWSH is a nice step above other games in the series in terms of making the tutorial portion not as much of a slog, and this is just one example of that.

 

[Hugin]

Yeah, but that's the point. You're not using one of 5 possible counters, and you picked the Grass starter.

Expecting an easy road with the Grass starter in any game is lulzy, you already know where you're getting into. I'm not talking about the best option, I'm talking about how you can scrap with Mag using Grovyle.

The problem is, there's not 5 counters. There's 2 counters+your starter. If you picked grass, you have to either pick up the Geodude that you've used a million times before or Makuhita, and that's it*. The part that bugs me is that this is a gen with very interesting ground-types. Barboach, Trapinch, Baltoy, I want to use all of them, and the games are explicitly designed to only give you access to them after the fight where they would be most useful. Wattson isn't unbeatable without a hard counter(IIRC in my grass-type playthrough I just outleveled him and used Breloom and debuffs), but compare that to Clemont, who comes immediately after the game gives you Gible/Trapinch/Graveller/Dugtrio, plus a lot of earlier Dragon/Fighting/Fire options, and both Bulldoze and Dig TMs. I don't want it to be easy mode, but I also like having options for beating gyms so I can play my way.

*There's also Nincada, which...gen VI you get Mud Slap at least, if you consider that an attack.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

*There's also Nincada, which...gen VI you get Mud Slap at least, if you consider that an attack.

Hol up...

We got another one. Mud-Slap Shedinja hard-counters and it's also a Cut mon when you're done with Mag.

 

[shinquickman]

Hol up...

We got another one. Mud-Slap Shedinja hard-counters and it's also a Cut mon when you're done with Mag.

Unfortunately Magneton has Supersonic and Voltorb has Rollout, so Wattson has some outs for that match-up. Either way, Gen 6 Wattson is much easier to deal with thanks to the Power-Up Punch and Low Sweep TMs as well as a buffed Rock Smash.

 

[Choice Specs Heracross]

Playing Platinum again recently has just reminded me of how awful Fantina really is. I mean the Gym trainers are bad enough with Aftermath Drifloon, Pain Split Misdreavus and Shadow Ball Haunter but that Mismagius of hers is just brutal. It’s super fast at that point in the game and it’s Shadow Ball hits really hard. Confuse Ray is just dumb coming from something so fast and there’s no Persim berries at this point (at least in the field). There’s very few ways of dealing with it; Diamond took the 2 dark type options, other Ghosts are obviously gonna get outmuscled and Normals still have to deal with coverage and Confuse Ray whilst struggling to do much back. Floatzel is probably the only Pokemon I feel comfortable using in this fight because he has Crunch and is even faster, but there’s a fair chance you won’t even have one by this point.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Floatzel is probably the only Pokemon I feel comfortable using in this fight because he has Crunch and is even faster

And that one ain't even guaranteed because of Magical Leaf.

It's always refreshing to battle Fantina because she's really just going to chuck a strong mon at you and you just gotta deal with that. Fighting her after all these leaders that bend over backwards to lose is just fun.

Just think about it. You potentially have a lot of really strong mons at that point of the game. Some of the best starters in-game out of the whole franchise, Best Bird, Rotom, Crunch Floatzel, EQ+Dragon Rage Gabite, maybe even Gengar. And she's still that tough.
Not unbeatable, but really tough.

That's the kinda battle you tell your kids about, fellas!!!

Confuse Ray was kind of a dick move tho.

 

[R_N]

Real talk I barely even remember the Fantina fight, DP or Pt

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Platinum Fantina is absolutely stupid, there are like the Shinx line, Floatzel, and Vespiquen with Toxic and that's it for counters. Vespiquen is a legit counter, look at how little damage Shadow Ball does:

So you just spam Heal Order after you Toxic it to victory.

But yes this fight is stupid hard and my least favorite boss in Pokemon history. Yes, even more than HGSS Lance.