The Best and Worst Boss Fights in Pokemon

I'll try to contribute as well:

Best: Lance and Clair (HGSS):

DRAGON BROS! DRAGON BRO-I mean cousins. I love this fight! While Silver is the weakest trainer of us 4, this being a double battle means that it depends on you and him working together to take on the overpowered opponent, Lance, who destroyed Silver offscreen and made him reconsider his beliefs. Taking down that lv 75 Dragonite with Pokemon below lv 60, slowly chipping off his HP, felt inmensely satisfying. Clair is no slouch either, she likes to mess you up with paralysis and still has that Kingdra at her disposal.

Worst: Mars and Jupiter (DPPt):

This is more an annoyance than a challenge. Those two girls lead up with their Bronzors (yeah, Bronzors, not Bronzongs) while Barry for some reason sends out Munchlax, who can't do anything against those two (learn from Silver, he leads with his starter!). Unless you KO one of the Bronzors right away, the battle becomes a snoozefest of screens and Confuse Ray. It's not like you are in a disadvantage, both of you have full team of 6 against 2 Bronzors, 2 Golbats, Purugly and Skuntank; this should be an easy fight since you clearly overpower the duo, but because of that lead it unnecesarily drags longer than it should.

Then again, Mars and Jupiter were stalling for Cyrus to complete his plan, so from a story perspective makes...sense?
 
going back to the ice discussion, what if...
- you get your box legendary or ORAS lati equivalent to make the game easier before the gym
- then the next gym (or a few gyms after) you get a ice type gym with mons faster than your legendary
it might catch people off guard who were relying on them and go against gf's design policy these days, or it might end up like zinnia where you just plow through anyway, but it might be COOL
this doesnt even have to be an ice type, like with ghetistis' hydregon (which i remembered is where i got the idea from so it isnt unique any more ahhh)
 
Best: Lance and Clair (HGSS):

DRAGON BROS! DRAGON BRO-I mean cousins. I love this fight! While Silver is the weakest trainer of us 4, this being a double battle means that it depends on you and him working together to take on the overpowered opponent, Lance, who destroyed Silver offscreen and made him reconsider his beliefs. Taking down that lv 75 Dragonite with Pokemon below lv 60, slowly chipping off his HP, felt inmensely satisfying. Clair is no slouch either, she likes to mess you up with paralysis and still has that Kingdra at her disposal.
That reminds me of how much I love Lance in general, but particularly his GSC team.
Rain Dance
Surf
Flail
Hyper Beam​
Twister
Thunder Wave
Blizzard
Hyper Beam​
Flamethrower
Wing Attack
Slash
Hyper Beam​
Rock Slide
Ancient Power
Wing Attack
Hyper Beam​
Twister
Thunder Wave
Thunder
Hyper Beam​
Safeguard
Outrage
Fire Blast
Hyper Beam​

I don't love this team because it's good or well-designed or anything like that. Those things do not matter at all here. I love this team because I find it hilarious. This madman put Hyper Beam, that awesome flashy move that in reality blows chunks, on every single one of his Pokemon. And who needs a balanced team when you can just fill half your team with Dragonites? It's like someone on the dev team asked their six-year-old child what they thought the most powerful Pokemon team looked like, and then used that as the basis for designing the team of the dude officially recognized as the strongest trainer across two regions. For the cherry on top, Lance himself is equally as ridiculous looking and embodying of that six-year-old sense of badass. He looks like a cross between Count Dracula, Vegeta, and a bottle of red hair dye.

Though I actually learned something interesting while writing this which lets me appreciate Lance as something more than a really funny joke. You see how his last Dragonite has Safeguard + Outrage? In Gen 2, that combo actually worked. As long as Safeguard is up, Dragonite cannot confuse itself with Outrage.
 
Though I actually learned something interesting while writing this which lets me appreciate Lance as something more than a really funny joke. You see how his last Dragonite has Safeguard + Outrage? In Gen 2, that combo actually worked. As long as Safeguard is up, Dragonite cannot confuse itself with Outrage.
In HGSS it still has Safeguard, so it blocking confusion from its own Outrage was most likely unintentional.
 
In HGSS it still has Safeguard, so it blocking confusion from its own Outrage was most likely unintentional.
He also not only still has it in FRLG, but he also gave it to his two Dragonair.

Maybe it was unintentional, or maybe it was intentional but kept around for whatever reason. Whatever the reason for its existence, it's a neat Gen 2 combo that I didn't know about until a few hours ago.
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
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He also not only still has it in FRLG, but he also gave it to his two Dragonair.

Maybe it was unintentional, or maybe it was intentional but kept around for whatever reason. Whatever the reason for its existence, it's a neat Gen 2 combo that I didn't know about until a few hours ago.
Well, even without the Outrage Confusion blocking, Sageguard is a useful move to setup as it prevents the major status ailments from inflicting his team. No hurting itself with Confusion, No Poison/Toxic stalling, no Speed decrease and skipping turns with Paralysis, and no Attack decrease and chip damage from Burn. You're going to feel the full brunt of his team (well, unless you can decrease his stats other ways, but that's a more specified effect where status ailments can do multiple things).

Funny you are saying that when I am sweeping him here with Water Pulse Persian and Giga Drain Golbat...
I think they were just talking on a more general term. Sure, any Water- or Grass-type move will toss around Giovanni, but Surf is a powerful Water-type move you get before battling him and, at least in the old games, need to teach to a Pokemon to progress (plus many Pokemon could learn it).
 

Ryota Mitarai

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I think they were just talking on a more general term. Sure, any Water- or Grass-type move will toss around Giovanni, but Surf is a powerful Water-type move you get before battling him and, at least in the old games, need to teach to a Pokemon to progress (plus many Pokemon could learn it).
just wanted to emphasize even more how easy of a fight he is
 

Molk

Godlike Usmash
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So something i was thinking about earlier while playing through my VC Pokemon Blue...

I don't know if she's the best or the worst fight, but it's a fight that's interesting

1590113531806.png
1590113541936.png

Interesting: Lorelei (in general)

In basically any run in both the generation 1 Pokemon games and the remakes, i've always found Lorelei to be the toughest member of the elite four short of Blue's Champion match despite being the first and lowest leveled trainer. After thinking about it for a bit and taking a look through the Kanto Elite Four's teams, i think i know why.

Lorelei is considered an Ice-type trainer, but she does an exceptional job of covering the Ice-type's traditional weaknesses. This is mainly due to the fact that she's really both an Ice-type specialist and a Water-type specialist at the same time. Slowbro in particular covers all of the traditional weaknesses of Ice-type Pokemon through a combination of its typing and sheer physical bulk to take the Rock-type moves that it doesn't resist, and the secondary Water-typing a lot of her team has (along with her Dewgong having Thick Fat in the remakes) helps cover Fire- and Steel-type moves further than Slowbro could by itself. In reality it's probably better to treat her like a Water-type trainer as much as possible instead of an Ice-type trainer, but Grass-types are always running a big risk of being smacked by Ice Beams from pretty much her entire team, so Electric-types are the way to go. However, Zapdos is also weak to Ice-type moves and it's many trainers Electric-type of choice in Kanto, further complicating things (also, in the rematches she replaces her Slowbro with a Piloswine, which covers this a bit although it leaves her weaker to Fighting and Steel-type moves).

Combine this with her being the only member of the Kanto elite four that has an entire team of fully evolved Pokemon (short of FRLG's rematches), her entire team short of Jynx being VERY bulky, and her Lapras having one of the best and most threatening movesets of any Pokemon on the elite four's roster in my opinion, and i think she's pretty tough compared to the trainers after her (especially Bruno, who's a joke) even Lance is held back by his Dragonair having pretty low stats and both his Gyarados and Dragonite having exploitable 4x weaknesses.


So what do you guys think? I think Lorelei's fight is very well designed compared to other Ice-type trainers that you can kind of run through easily, if not mainly due to most Ice-types in gen 1 having the water subtype lol.
 
So something i was thinking about earlier while playing through my VC Pokemon Blue...

I don't know if she's the best or the worst fight, but it's a fight that's interesting

View attachment 247949View attachment 247950
Interesting: Lorelei (in general)

In basically any run in both the generation 1 Pokemon games and the remakes, i've always found Lorelei to be the toughest member of the elite four short of Blue's Champion match despite being the first and lowest leveled trainer. After thinking about it for a bit and taking a look through the Kanto Elite Four's teams, i think i know why.

Lorelei is considered an Ice-type trainer, but she does an exceptional job of covering the Ice-type's traditional weaknesses. This is mainly due to the fact that she's really both an Ice-type specialist and a Water-type specialist at the same time. Slowbro in particular covers all of the traditional weaknesses of Ice-type Pokemon through a combination of its typing and sheer physical bulk to take the Rock-type moves that it doesn't resist, and the secondary Water-typing a lot of her team has (along with her Dewgong having Thick Fat in the remakes) helps cover Fire- and Steel-type moves further than Slowbro could by itself. In reality it's probably better to treat her like a Water-type trainer as much as possible instead of an Ice-type trainer, but Grass-types are always running a big risk of being smacked by Ice Beams from pretty much her entire team, so Electric-types are the way to go. However, Zapdos is also weak to Ice-type moves and it's many trainers Electric-type of choice in Kanto, further complicating things (also, in the rematches she replaces her Slowbro with a Piloswine, which covers this a bit although it leaves her weaker to Fighting and Steel-type moves).

Combine this with her being the only member of the Kanto elite four that has an entire team of fully evolved Pokemon (short of FRLG's rematches), her entire team short of Jynx being VERY bulky, and her Lapras having one of the best and most threatening movesets of any Pokemon on the elite four's roster in my opinion, and i think she's pretty tough compared to the trainers after her (especially Bruno, who's a joke) even Lance is held back by his Dragonair having pretty low stats and both his Gyarados and Dragonite having exploitable 4x weaknesses.


So what do you guys think? I think Lorelei's fight is very well designed compared to other Ice-type trainers that you can kind of run through easily, if not mainly due to most Ice-types in gen 1 having the water subtype lol.
Ironic that the first member of the E4 is the most difficult lol
 
Ironic that the first member of the E4 is the most difficult lol
Let's be real here, the rest of the Elite Four is pretty awful. Shout out to Bruno's Hitmonchan with only Counter as a fighting move and Machamp with that nasty Focus Energy bug, Agatha's "Ghost team" and her identical terrible movesets on her two Gengars and Haunter. Lance at least has Hyper Beam spam, but any Normal type can do that.

Really, Agatha just sets that terrible trend of spamming the same evolutionary family and saying they're a "Ghost" or "Dragon" type trainer. No Lance, spamming Dragonite doesn't make you a Dragon type trainer. You're a Flying type trainer.
 
Let's be real here, the rest of the Elite Four is pretty awful. Shout out to Bruno's Hitmonchan with only Counter as a fighting move and Machamp with that nasty Focus Energy bug, Agatha's "Ghost team" and her identical terrible movesets on her two Gengars and Haunter. Lance at least has Hyper Beam spam, but any Normal type can do that.

Really, Agatha just sets that terrible trend of spamming the same evolutionary family and saying they're a "Ghost" or "Dragon" type trainer. No Lance, spamming Dragonite doesn't make you a Dragon type trainer. You're a Flying type trainer.
Phoebe and Glacia...
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
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No Lance, spamming Dragonite doesn't make you a Dragon type trainer. You're a Flying type trainer.
Funny thing I just noticed about that. In HGSS, for Lance's rematches they do give him more Dragon-types from other gens. The thing is, two of them is Salamence and Altaria, he keeps his Dragonite, Gyrados, and Charizard, and he also gets a Garchomp. Notice something? While he now has 4 Dragon-types, he also has 5 Flying-types. :bloblul:

It wouldn't be until the Pokemon World Tournament where he got a full team of Dragons which include a Kingdra.

Also in Let's Go, while his initial team still essentially makes him a Flying-type trainer, his rematch team swaps around Pokemon so that he technically has 3 Dragon-types and 3 Flying-types (Charizard losing its Flying-type to become Dragon when it Mega Evolves). Also on both teams he has a Seadra referencing Kingdra.
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
Time to wrap up my Gym Leader talks with a rundown of the worst of each gen, remakes included. Due to the amount of stuff to cover these'll be kinda quick and shorthandy

RBG: Blaine
Spr RG Blaine.png

Semifinal gym and he uses 2 baby mons, nice going lol. His coverage is shit too, Fire Blast spam is all he has going for him.

Yellow: Sabrina
Spr Y Sabrina.png

What the hell is that team? I guess it's supposed to be an anime reference but that doesn't make it good. Also has wack levels

FRLG: Lt. Surge
Spr FRLG Lt Surge.png

He uses evasion on his ace so he's automatically scum. A shame too, he's otherwise cool soldier man

Let's Go: Brock
VSBrock PE.png

Let's Go gave a lot of great revamps to the gym leaders like making Blaine use more unique Fire types and giving more Psychic mons to Sabrina, so Brock really only is the worst due to how little he was altered. He also uses a strange amount of normal moves: His Geodude now only has Tackle and he gives the TM for Headbutt of all things. Wouldn't have Rock Tomb made more sense?


Gen 2
GSC/HGSS: Chuck

Spr GS Chuck.png
Spr HGSS Chuck.png

What an absolute trainwreck of a gym leader. Gym #5 and all he can muster are 2 Pokemon, neither of which are from Johto even though Hitmontop and Heracross were ripe for the taking. HGSS tries to buff him a bit by giving him a Focus Punch theme, but without increases to the Pokemon count it's nowhere near good enough. He's kinda cute ig but there are better bears in Pokemon (people rag on Bruno but I'd cuddle him anytime over this loser)

Gen 3
RS/ORAS: Tate & Liza
Spr RS Tate and Liza.png
VSLiza & Tate.png

Just like Chuck they're stuck with 2 Pokemon, except in their case it's even worse since they are Gym #7. ORAS I fuckin love you and will defend you from the rabid Emerald/Battle Frontier fanboys any day, but what were you thinking not giving these two their Emerald team, or at least another 2 mons of your own like Gardevoir and Gallade maybe?

Emerald: Juan
Spr E Juan.png

He uses evasion on his ace so he's automatically scum. ORAS forgetting you in favor of even more homoerotic Wallace easily makes up for the T&L slip-up

Gen 4
DP: Roark
Spr DP Roark.png

They didn't even try with Roark. A Rock-type first gym leader when RSE already had one, and all he's got to show for it is a team which is literally Brock's + Cranidos. Doesn't help that his actual gym is a snoozefest even for 1st gym standards, and again a semi-clone of Pewter Gym when you compare them side-by-side. Using Stealth Rock is kind of novel and I like the detail where he and his dad Byron use the two fossils between their gym battles but it's too little too late with all the other stuff going against him.
Platinum: Candice
Spr Pt Candice.png

She uses evasion on her ace so she's automatically scum.

Gen 5
BW: Brycen

Spr BW Brycen.png

Infamously terrible: 3 Pokemon at Gym #7, all of which are mono Ice mons the fastest of which caps out at 105. At least with Chuck I can sorta maybe see someone losing to his HGSS incarnation if they didnt prepare adequately, but with Brycen I truly wanna know if any of the segment of the 15 million or so people who played BW and reached Icirrus have ever lost to him.

BW2: Cheren
Spr B2W2 Cheren.png

Alright, hear me out for a sec. I get that people like this guy for not disadvantaging/advantaging any of the starters over one another, and that is a cool touch, but unfortunately it came at a big price: He's just so boring. His gym team is Patrat and Lillipup, probably the most uninspired Pokemon selection possible in Gen 5. Sure, Challenge Mode gives him Pidove, but I'm not considering that and even if I did it's still pretty milquetoast. Those two Pokemon even have the same freaking movesets of Tackle, Work Up and Bite! And while I'm not evaluating story roles for the most part, it's worth noting that later on in the game Cheren joins the player in a Plasma Frigate raid and instead of dusting off his BW1 team and wasting the fuckers he brings in low 30s Normal mons! What's up with that? At least Blue had the sense to keep the Pokemon that helped him on his original journey handy!

Gen 6
XY: Valerie

VSValerie.png

So many Gym Leaders in this game are so painfully mediocre, but IMO Valerie edges the others out thanks to no STAB Hyper Cutter Mawile. Absolutely legendary.

Gen 8
SWSH: Milo
VSMilo.png

Milo is like the anti-Viola. Whereas she was the one brilliant gem in the pile of shit that was XY's boss battles, Milo is by far the poorest showing and a pretty mediocre first impression to one of the near-universally recognized best Gym Challenges in the series. Muscle daddy status can't save him from being pretty boring as a character compared to the heavy lifters like Raihan and Piers, and his team is by far one of the worst in the game, falling into the "two mons of the same evolutionary line on one team" trap and falling hard with having both Gossifleur and Eldegoss and nothing else.
 
I think the reason he didn't "dust off" his BW1 team for the partner battles is a combination of wanting to keep to his new established theme and also his BW1 team would suck. Judging by Bianca, they'd keep to 2 Pokemon he always has and then a third from his rematch team. So in his case it'd be Liepard (oh god), Unfezant (OH GOD) and then either Fraxure (guh) or Gigalith (possibly boldore). As-is he leads with the very acceptable Stoutland and ends with the equally pretty solid Cinccino; Watchog is his only real dud and that at least has more support going on.



Come to think of it why isn't Minccino his third in challenge mode....
 
I respect BW2 Cheren if only because he's the gym leader I've probably lost to the most in the series. His Work Up bullshit can get really out of control and he will outlevel you if you ditch your starter like I usually do in Unova. I always forget his Lillipup is a threat and get rolled lmao. It doesn't help that there isn't really a way to "cheese" him (like the way most people know how to get past, say, Miltank or Starmie after a couple of playthroughs) besides power-leveling your starter. Riolu is a trap since he only gets STAB at lvl 15.

My pick for the worst is Roxie. Yes it's a cool gym but she's up there with Lt. Surge as being super easy to sweep by a freshly caught wild pokemon in an adjacent route, it's embarrassing.
 
I don't know whether he's one of the best or one of the worst, but I just want to give a shout out to one of the weirdest bosses: Zinzolin, who for the majority of the main story in BW2 is the highest-ranking villain you encounter, has this as his final team:

615.png
615.png
461.png

I mean, yeah, Weavile's a good Pokemon, but this lineup would make Brycen double over in laughter. Like I said, just weird. All that waiting in the Cold Storage in BW1 must have done a number on this guy.
 
Best: FRLG Blue
While the terrible AI of the original games took away a bit of this fights impact, the remade version delivers and it’s absolutely fantastic.Fairly unexpected and very well built up to be an emotional climax of the players journey.
Worst: Unova Elite 4
Probably the most underwhelming out of any of the Eilte 4s, parties uniformly at level 48 and only four pokemon a piece, these guys were pushovers and completely forgettable.

I'll try to contribute as well:

Best: Lance and Clair (HGSS):

DRAGON BROS! DRAGON BRO-I mean cousins. I love this fight! While Silver is the weakest trainer of us 4, this being a double battle means that it depends on you and him working together to take on the overpowered opponent, Lance, who destroyed Silver offscreen and made him reconsider his beliefs. Taking down that lv 75 Dragonite with Pokemon below lv 60, slowly chipping off his HP, felt inmensely satisfying. Clair is no slouch either, she likes to mess you up with paralysis and still has that Kingdra at her disposal.

Worst: Mars and Jupiter (DPPt):

This is more an annoyance than a challenge. Those two girls lead up with their Bronzors (yeah, Bronzors, not Bronzongs) while Barry for some reason sends out Munchlax, who can't do anything against those two (learn from Silver, he leads with his starter!). Unless you KO one of the Bronzors right away, the battle becomes a snoozefest of screens and Confuse Ray. It's not like you are in a disadvantage, both of you have full team of 6 against 2 Bronzors, 2 Golbats, Purugly and Skuntank; this should be an easy fight since you clearly overpower the duo, but because of that lead it unnecesarily drags longer than it should.

Then again, Mars and Jupiter were stalling for Cyrus to complete his plan, so from a story perspective makes...sense?
Big brain strategy is to kill munchlax so he starts using actually useful mons
 
The best battles in my opinion are Blue (FRLG), Professor Kukui (SM), and Leon (SwSh). But since they've been already discussed a lot here, I'd like to discuss another character here: Giovanni. Giovanni is one of my favorite characters in the Pokemon franchise (probably after Blue) - he's a menacing villain with the cool and intimidating aura. Here are my best and worst battles with him:

Best: Pokemon Yellow
giovanni yellow.PNG

On paper, this is one of the best gym leader battles. Five fully evolved Pokemon with very high level fit for a final boss battle. Add in a boost of flavor with his pet Persian in his team. Despite their similar typing, the team is quite diverse with the Pokemon providing different roles: Dugtrio and Persian provide speed, Nidoqueen provides bulk, while Rhydon and Nidoking provide pure power. The Nidos also have a surprise Thunder in case a Water-type gets too comfortable.



Worst: Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen
giovanni frlg.PNG

I don't know it it's an oversight or was intentional, but Giovanni was really neutered here. The highest-leveled Pokemon of the final Gym Leader was... a Rhyhorn? Granted, Rhydon would still be OHKO'ed by a fast Water-type sure, but it will surely look cooler as a final boss and has a 130 Attack stat to use if it survives a hit while also giving out much more experience for your Pokemon. Another thing here is that if you use a Haunter/Gengar, Dugtrio cannot touch you while the Nidos will be forced to use Poison Sting on you. FRLG was my first ever Pokemon game and it will always be one of my favorite, but this battle is really a missed opportunity.
 
Here's my pick for my worst Boss Fight: Sabrina in RBY/FRLG. These are her teams:

Screen Shot 2020-07-25 at 12.21.15 AM.png

Screen Shot 2020-07-25 at 12.22.17 AM.png
Screen Shot 2020-07-25 at 12.20.46 AM.png

These are her teams in the original Kanto games. If we are going by " Flint didn't use Fire types so he's Awful. " logic, Sabrina is just as bad. She uses Kadabra and Venomoth; there is no literally no reason for her to use these Pokemon in RB and FRLG over Jynx, Slowbro, Exeggcutor, or Hypno. Kadabra is literally a worse Alakazam, and Venomoth does not contribute anything to her team in terms of typing. Even in FRLG, where it has Super effective STAB against Dark Types, that's null and void because there are 0 Dark types prior to the Sevii Islands.

HGSS/GSC did give her a full of Psychic Types, but there all pure Psychic types and have pretty similar stat distributions, giving her Slowbro or Jynx would have given more variety in stats as well as types.

Fortunately, Let's Go gives her Jynx and Slowbro replacing her Venomoth and Kadabra, so kudos for Let's Go for doing that! But then again, Dark types are available in Let's Go, so maybe keeping Venomoth was not such a bad idea.
 

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