Elesa was really impressive as a type specialist. She actually came in prepared. I remember being shocked seeing her Zebstrika flame charge on my grass type.

Volkner having a Rotom would've been neat, especially if Platinum decided to make it Starter dependent (appliance based on what's strong against the starter).

Winona is another example of a type specialist who's a challenge with just one type. There's her Earthquaking Altaria of course but there's also her Double Team Swellow and her Skarmory that isn't weak to Rock.

I would have mentioned how Koga is full of duplicates, despite Poison being the most common type in Gen 1

Step 1: create new pokemon Step 2: give it to a gym leader in the next gen

Idk man, the worst one for me is Falkner, cuz honestly, when you beat him, he goes, "oh no, my dads prized bird pokemon!" Implying none of the Pokémon he used, he caught, he can't even catch a pokemon, and IS A GYM LEADER. So, to me, he is most unqualified by far.

Diamond and Pearl not having all newly introduced Pokémon on its National Dex is one of the most baffling things I've witnessed.

I totally agree with you about how gyms aren't showing off enough of their region's Pokemon, Johto especially. That's why I think modded Pokemon games are so cool, they can be improved upon so much.

3:08 If volkner could only keep one of his non-electric types, I feel that octillery would be the best choice, since it's an electric gym, you'd usually be using ground, which is weak to water, so octillery would throw a wrench into your plan and require extra thinking.

I have an issue with Olympia. Her ace is a meowstic, which you’ve seen your rival use about 4 times by this point and many regular trainers use them as well. Malamar or Delphox would have been a better inclusion

I bet Sabrina was on a journey in the Johto region and was attacked by a Tyranitar that defeated her Psychic types. Then that Venomoth came and used Bug Buzz making the Tyranitar go away. Venomoth and Sabrina connected in a psychic way and became friends. Venomoth can learn so many Psychic type moves naturally even though it is not a Psychic type. 💚💜

Volkner does actually make sense, because the narrative was he grew bored of being a gym leader and wasn't inspired until the you the trainer comes along. He was all but giving his badges away, so his team does reflect that. It isn't until later (Platinum) where he puts forth the effort.

The triplet gym at the beginning of gen 5 should have been the introduction to triple battles/Rotation battles, change my mind.

Morty not having Misdreavus is an offence

Two type specialists that really bug me are Flint and Volkner with their pre-Platinum teams. Ah yes,a fire specialist with only two fire types and an electric specialist with only two electric types. I'm so glad Platinum fixed their teams and was annoyed how BDSP didn't use the Platinum Dex.

Honestly I’d like to see gyms focusing on a single type be a thing of the past. I’d much rather they had themes which allowed for different types and strategies. This way rematches, remakes and the like allow for much more diversity and means you can’t just spam a super-effective attack from a resisted Pokemon type. Examples Theme: Mechanic allowing for use of steel, electric and fire (maybe some other things) Theme: Amusement park allowing for all sorts of things like fairy, flying, psychic etc Gyms just to be reimagined to be more interesting.

I kind of wish that the first gym in Black and White, the Striaton gym, was a triple battle/rotation battle (depending on your version). Having three gym leaders there and only fighting one of them is a missed opportunity in my opinion. Also, the eighth gym leader in Diamond and Pearl is a bit weird. Volkner, an Electric type gym leader, only uses like, two Electric types and an Ambipom. I especially find it weird considering that Sinnoh has quite a lot of Electric types like the Magnemite line, Pachirisu, the Shinx line, the Pikachu line, and the Elekid line, so I feel like his team could’ve been Magnezone, Raichu, Luxray, and Electivire

Speaking of Brock, I really think Gamefreak should stop trying to promote Onix as his ace Pokemon. It makes sense in Gen 1 since the concept of evolution in older Pokemon did not exist at the time but because Steelix changed its typing from Rock to Steel, I think Brock is the only Gym leader who’s ace Pokemon isn’t a fully evolved one and its a relatively weak one despite its cool design and size. Brock has a Geodude too, right? His ace can be Golem instead. Btw, great video Emperor Cubone. You made a lot of strong points I agree with. :)

I would’ve mentioned Raihan as well! His team is more weather focused than dragon focused, which isn’t a bad thing, I just would’ve liked a dragon gym of the “UK” region to be more draconic. I might’ve given him more of a pass here too if his Duraladon didn’t look like the least dragonest dragon of the dragons 😂

I absolutely love when gyms dont use monotypes, like, uhhh Electric gym, spam earthquake. It would be nice if a Water gym, foi instance, used Dragalge, malamar, cursola, dhelmise, etc

In Scarlet and Violet the Gym Leaders mention Geeta forcing them to hold back so that trainers who face them can actually have a shot at winning, so I’m assuming that this is the case for Lance/Steven/Cynthia/Alder/Diantha/Leon as well

An interesting note about Falkner's "underleveled" Pidgeotto, it actually *is* legal. In fact, in order to match it, you actually have to use the Move Deleter. But, in Yellow version, you actually can catch such low-level Pidgeotto in Viridian Forest and then trade it up into GSC through the Time Machine.

Tate and Liza should have also been given gallade and gardevoir respectively in ORAS, along with their original pokemon. They fit so well with their gendered twin theme that this should have been a no-brainer.

I think the Striaton gym battle should be a triple battle against the three elemental monkeys at the same time

In Platinum, I think the Gym Leader rematches should have given them different Pokémon to what they had. Gardenia doesn’t have a Leafeon, which is mind boggling.

I honestly think the inevitable Johto re-remakes should take the same approach to gym leader teams as LGPE, where every team was redone to provide better variety and consistency (best shown off with Sabrina's team as an example)

I would say Morty is quite bad in jhoto too. A Ghost type gym leader does not make sence, when there are only four ghost types in the game. And he still refuses to use the new misdreavus, instead he puts two haunters in his team from the previous generation.

I think in general every Gym Leader should have at least 3 Pokémon. There is no need to provide so little of a challenge, even in the beginning. I'd have Gyms 1-5 with 3, 6 and 7 with 4, and Gym 8 with a team of 5. This ideal would cause the Elite 4 to each have 6 Pokémon, if they are the best trainers in a given Region, treat them like that and force the player to step up. The point about Brock having a fossil Pokémon is actually pretty smart. It acts as foreshadowing for where they may have come from and would also be another unique challenge for a trainer, Arceus help those who choose a Charmander in that case. I also really wish that we got more Gym Leaders or Elite 4 members who have a mixed type team. It's always fun to battle Blue or Cynthia because they offer a challenge and you have to think more on how to beat them.

I replayed platinum recently and the rematches in the battle frontier are pretty fun specifically the type trainers, IE physical attack specialist, health specialist, etc. that could be a fun way to spice some gyms up.

I know it's not in the regional dex, but Crasher Wake should've had a Poliwrath! He's a water user who wrestles!

You forgot to mention that BOTH of Chuck's Pokemo were the only Fighting Types NOT on Bruno's Team, despite Bruno having THREE Fighting Types.

Volkner having Rotom in the initial fight and Rotom Heat in the Rematch (or give one to Flint)

As someone who's been playing Pokemon since Gen 2, having different types of Pokemons learning that specific gyms typing is a great way to show newcomers that Pokemon can learn different type of moves that aren't their base type. Example octillery can learn basically any move that has to do with war sounding. Example Beam,blast,bomb. Another example, imagine if Lt.Surge had a trainer in his gym with starmie, starmie can learn thunderbolt and be a curb ball to all those newbies who thought ground type will take care of the gym.

Omg pronouncing “delibird” like that makes so much sense! Sounds like “delivered” because it is delivering presents!

Wulfric 3 Pokémon no mega evolution Anime gave him one bruh

I really want a Kalos remake where they actually make the gyms good

The Gym Leaders using Fire, Grass, or Water type Pokémon need to start using the Starter Pokémon more

Lackluster and unchallenging for older players is one of the reasons why I would really like a difficulty setting added to Pokemon. The gym leader having two pokemon is fine for kids. But an increasing amount of Pokemon's audience is teens and adults, and that's not just too easy, it's boring. And as a fundamental rule, if your game is boring during one of the main times it really shouldn't be, you've got a big problem. Having the gym leaders programed to have different and increasingly challenging teams with higher difficulty choices is a simple, and just plain good, way to remedy a significant amount of that problem. It doesn't even have to be anything involved with the story, it could just be a simple question the game asks you when it's first starting, like it does with your starting player character look and your name. One screen, one question: "What difficulty level do you want to play on: easy, medium, or hard? This choice cannot be changed, so please chose wisely." The gyms are one of the main parts that are fun about these games, and it'd be nice to actually have to put in some effort, as an adult experienced player, into beating them. Having only about four, max, gym trainers in the gym challenges and then only about half a team for the Gym Leaders was incredibly disappointing in Sword. When you can speedrun the Water Gym with a single Joltik in ten minutes and oneshot everything just by being only about five levels over level for the gym, the game has a problem. When you can do the same thing with a Hatterene for the dragon type gym leader, even with the super effective weakness to steel, you have an even bigger problem. pokemon games need to figure out how to scale in difficulty if it wants to appease the wide range of it's audience. When I walk into a gym, I want it to be a fight. I want to struggle. I want to get frustrated and pissed off at it, and I want to feel smug and ecstatic when I managed to pull off a good play or my pokemon endure a hit that would've killed them because I put the effort into loving them. I want to smacked in the face with pokemon with movesets I didn't expect or prepare for. I want to be forced to strategize, I want to be forced to debate on if I should sacrifice a turn to use an item, to weigh those pros and cons, those risks vs the rewards. I want to earn my victory. I want that triumph to mean something. I want to experience to be memorable. Because otherwise what's the point of the gyms if they barely leave more of an impact than the average route NPC fight? The answer to 'How did you beat Leon?' shouldn't be 'I built a generic team and oneshot everything he threw at me with super effective moves because I accidentally got twenty levels higher than I was supposed to be for that part of the story whoops.'

Another thing for Johto is Morty. Why didn't he have a Misdreveous? The whole Johto gym leader challenge was abysmal

Johto Leaders should take like the whole list

Your intro always makes me wanna fire up my copy of x 😂 also 10:05 then it's me who does price 5th everytime

Feeding the PokéAlgorythm, gotta eat 'em all!

A couple picks for a list like this would be the Yellow teams for Sabrina and Lt. Surge. I know it's meant to be based on their anime teams, but Surge only having his Raichu and Sabrina only having the Abra line make those fights really weird. Sabrina in general is a weird one, since she has Venomoth in most of her other appearances, but it's one of Kanto's many fake Psychics, so I could see giving it a pass. But no Hypno? Especially when Koga's POISON gym has several? And her trainers using Gastly and Haunter instead? It ends up feeling pretty random.

I'd love to see some feature where you could rematch gym leaders and they would mix up their teams. For their regular battle they would stick to their type and maybe not have a full team, but for their rematch, they would have full teams of six and some different types, with new Pokemon matching the leader's personality or theme.

Elesa in W2 was literally the only Unova Gym Leader that gave me 3 tries to beat!

What if they started making gyms based off a certain theme? Like a gym in a seaside town/city where the gym leader is a sailor and he uses Pokemon that have a sailor vibe to them.

Raihon. Despite the fact that he is meant to be the _dragon type_ leader, only half of his Pokémon are even dragon type, one being a secondary type, while _3 are ground._ He is not a dragon leader. He is a ground leader. In The rematch fight he does have more dragon types though, so at least it’s not all bad.

funnily enough the only thing that stops the xyz anime arc from being perfect for me was how clemont had a bunnelby of all things

"is that all it takes to get a pass?" Yes, yes it does

I really like the Blaze Black Volt White version of Striaton's gym. The trainers all have a water, a grass, and a fire type. Then the leader uses their elemental monkey alongside the starters of the same type. Alternatively, it would have been cool to be able to battle all 3 monkeys which would line up with Ash's battle in the anime and be an even more unique first gym experience.

Candace’s random Medicham always surprises me. Out of nowhere, for no good reason it appears…

Me: sees thumbnail Also me: I mean some Pokémon look better unevolved

it is odd how they dropped the ball so much on some of these decisions.

Always so thought out. Love watching, Emperor!

Don't blame Clemont for only having 3 moves. Every Kalos leaders Pokemon only have 3 moves Edit: Blame Clemont. After double checking the only gym leader Pokemon after Clemont that only has three moves are Valerie's Mawile and Wulfrics Abomasnow.

So I remaked using ai so it may not be the best way for but here my remade Striaton City gym Gym Name: “Unova Elemental Café Gym” Gym Leaders: 1. Cilan (Grass-type specialist) 2. Chili (Fire-type specialist) 3. Cress (Water-type specialist) Gym Badge: Trio Harmony Badge Gym Puzzle: The gym has three interconnected sections, each specializing in one of the three types. Trainers must defeat the Gym Leaders in sequential order, starting with Cilan, then Chili, and finally Cress. Each section is themed to represent the Gym Leader’s type: 1. Cilan’s Café: • The Grass-type section resembles a cozy café filled with hanging plants and flower arrangements. • Trainers face Grass-type Pokémon challenges and café-related puzzles, like serving orders to Pokémon customers. 2. Chili’s Grill: • The Fire-type section simulates a fiery kitchen with flaming grills and hot stoves. • Trainers battle Fire-type Pokémon and solve challenges involving extinguishing flames and navigating through a sizzling kitchen. 3. Cress’s Aquarium: • The Water-type section resembles an underwater wonderland with bubbling streams and a serene aquatic environment. • Trainers take on Water-type Pokémon and solve water-related puzzles, such as manipulating water levels and avoiding underwater currents. Cilan’s Team: 1. Lilligant (Grass) 2. Leavanny (Grass/Bug) 3. Simisage (Grass) Chili’s Team: 1. Pansear (Fire) 2. Sawk (Fighting) 3. Darmanitan (Fire) Cress’s Team: 1. Panpour (Water) 2. Basculin (Water) 3. Ludicolo (Water/Grass)

The only reason I survived Elesa was because my serperior was over leveled enough to take out her Emolga despite having a slight disadvantage. Her Zebstrika was taken out by an earthquake

Also none of Pryce's Pokemon have a water type move for dealing with fire types despite two of them being water type

3:44 pachirisu's cute but counterpoint: pachirisu didn't use a single attack, it just used its supporting status moves to save its partner garchomp for the win.

Even i feel clemont should have a dedenne. Which would be a nice nod to the anime. Least falkner and bugsy had least 1 johto pokemon in the anime

After watching this, it feels like they make Pokemon, just to make Pokemon, an never to make'em to balance out the Pokedex.

Mankey's sprite is pretty funny in gen 2. He took some ballerina classes.

Faulkner is the biggest facepalm for me.

I walked in to Raihan’s gym expecting to finally be able to use the hatterene that I worked to get before having access to them in the wild area because I thought he would actually have a team made up of dragon types.

I think most gym's are poorly thought out, you're more than welcome to make part 2, 3, 4...

"Do you think Brock should have had a fossil Pokemon to highlight where you needed to go to resurrect them?" You mean... On Cinnabar Island? Your arrow pointed to where you get the Old Amber.

They could’ve given the unova first gym leaders a starter that is either the same one as yours or the one you are strong against. It would teach you about type weakness pretty good. Also johto Is the king of dumb gym decisions.

Also at least in BW2 they only have Cheren be the normal gym leader. The normal gym was removed and Straition gym became purely a restaurant

Clemont would have been even easier if he had a Dedenne instead of Emolga, since Dedenne lacks the Ground-type immunity.

The most egregious thing I find is that houndour, a Pokémon that evolves at level 24 at a point your levels would be about 25ish, isn't found in Mt. Mortar. Oh? A ghost gym? What is good against ghost? Dark! Oh? An ice type gym in mahogany town. What type is good against ice that can evolve at about level 25 and can possibly take on a level 32ish Pokémon, maybe a fire type...? Yeah he has a lot of water types but they pull tricks like that sometimes. Seriously they had a perfect location practically gift-wrapped for them but nope! Post game only for some reason.

Here is a cool idea gamefreak could have implemented for the striaton city gym, a triple battle. Black and white were the first games that had triple battles, but you as the player rarely do triple battles in the games. Striaton city gym would work well as an introduction to the triple battle mechanic, they could've done it by having Cilan, Chili and Cress bickering about who gets to battle the trainer, add a brief pause and then have them say something like "You want to face all three of us!?!?" and then follow up with "We'll make it a triple battle, *insert pun about serving a three course meal*" and the battle starts. So, instead of chosing one gym leader based on the choice of starter pokémon and battle with one of the elemental monkeys and a lillipup. We could've fought against all three gymleaders and their elemental monkeys in a more fun and interesting way. Yes, there are plenty of possibilities to catch 2 or more pokemon and you're given one of the monkeys by an npc in the dreamyard as a part of the story before the gym battle.

I know this was about gym leaders but E4 Flint in DP sinnoh only having Infernape and Rapidash as his fire types, but they did *improve* it in Pt

All of Kalos gym leaders are a joke in my opinion

Honestly I want gyms that focus on a part of competitive Pokémon. One that use berrys/doubles/weather/held items/ hazards. They can also incorporate this into their type speciality

I just hope that person in the hazmat suit in the latest scarlet and violet trailer winds up as a poison gym leader with an actually competent team. Poison only has two weaknesses and both can be immunities. All you need is a crobat/levitate pokemon and any poison dark type. And the only time that happens is when you rematch koga as an elite four member in hgss, with his skuntank and drapion, And Klara with her drapion and galarian wheezing. Neither of those are gym battles. I want my favorite type to have a diverse and challenging gym for a change.

You can in fact find a sinistea before fighting the gym in the part of balognea that isn’t blocked off there is some grass where you can find it

I never understood why gym leaders didn’t all have a full team with full moves. You can get a full team by the first gym so there’s no reason why a gym leader shouldn’t have a full team.

IT’S TO EARLY FOR THOSE NEW UNOVA POKÉMON, YOU CAN’T FIND THEM YET. IT’S TO EARLY FOR DREEPY, IT’S TO EARLY FOR THOSE STATS OR 4 MOVES.

Unova has this thing to where trainers, including gym leaders, will not use Pokemon that the player cannot obtain themself at that point. For example, the gym trainers and Elesa in Nimbasa (at least in BW1) only use the Blitzle and Emolga lines because other Unova Electric types like Joltik and Tynamo aren't available until later. That is probably why the Striaton leaders don't use Petilil/Darumaka/Tympole respectively, because the player cannot obtain those mons themself at that point in the game.

I think Wattson’s team is all Gen 1 Pokémon because Gen 3 was originally supposed to be more of a reboot like how Gen 5 ended up being.

Norman’s team is terrible, I know it has Hoenn Pokémon but all of them are from the Slaking line. He could’ve used Swellow, Delcatty, Swablu, or any other normal type in Hoenn but no

Before you start, Bugsy. Level 12 and 13 metapod and kakuna. OMG evolve them, they might have been tougher to beat

Honestly, I hope someday Pokémon will stop the type gyms in favor of strategy gyms. Like, having a status problem specialist, a booster, set up, tank, etc

Gym leaders don't need their whole team to be monotype. For game balance reasons, leaders with mixed teams stop the player from crushing a whole gym with one Pokemon.

Honestly, I kinda wish Falkner had his anime team of Pidgeot, Hoothoot, and Dodrio. Yes I know he's the first Johto Gym leader and all, but having just Pidgey and Pidgeotto was really disappointing for me.

I wonder why they made so many senseless choices? Isn't it obvious to have the newest pokemon shown off in each gym? I really don't understand, are the work conditions that intense and time constrained that they can't consider what would be a good time? Genuinely curious, so weird...

I think a cool thing they should have done especially in G1 is revamp the TMs they gym leasers give you. Like Brock giving you Bide? I get it somewhat because if you have a Rock type that can take a few hits then dish it out, it’s fine but most people can pick up on super effective moves. I think Brock should have given the player Rock Slide and the little girl that gives you the TM for that could give you either the Bide TM or another one. It’d be so cool to have such a strong move early in the game especially with so many Bug/Flying/Fire types. Misty’s Bubblebeam is cool I guess but I found myself just stick to Bubble/Water Gun until I could get Surf. Thunderbolt is obviously amazing from LT. Surge. Mega Drain is meh 🫤 Toxic is cool, Psywave is garbage - I usually just sell it because almost every PKMN that can learn PW can learn Psychic and I can just trade it to my G2 game and teach it Psychic then trade it back since the TM is buyable in G2. Fire Blast I realized as I got older is not worth it over Flamethrower due to its lower accuracy and PP - and I think all ‘mons that learn FB can learn FT so I just do the G1 to G2 move tutor thing again 😅 Earthquake is cool especially since Dig does the same amount of damage in G1 and you don’t have the EQ mechanic of hitting Dig in that gen, so you can have 2 hard-hitting ground moves in one team.

2:44 what about Pokemon of that type that have a secondary type that can resist or be straight-up immune to a type it's weak to?

last time I checked the sub count it was like 50k omg this has grown a lot

Makes perfect sense he pressed B

yeah, I agree with the newest Pikachu clone being represented in thier electric gym, used either by the trainers or its leader Clemont should definitely has a Dedenne, not Emolga!!!

Sneasel & Delibird would've made Pryce's battle much easier that what it was in Gen 2, No mention of everybody in Ecutreak Gym using only the Gengar line & leaving Misdreavus all alone in Mt Silver?

The mask is not evolved for lower reasons, Alistair is very timid so he doesn't leave his gym very much.

For most of R/B/Y, I give them a break since they didn't have much Pokémon to work with, but the Poison Gym... why tf did they use mostly Drowzee, Kadabra, Sandslash, and a few Arboks?? Not to mention Koga just has a family of Koffings and a Muk. Excuse me?? Kanto's _most prominent_ type is Poison, and you only used 3 species in the entire gym?? Koga's team in Yellow was even worse, 3 Venonats and a Venomoth. In the anime-- which Yellow was heavily based off of-- he has only 1 Venonat that evolved and a Golbat. Just... wtf? No Nidorans? Tentacruel? Beedrill? Vileplume? Victreebel? Gengar? Like c'mon.

If a Pokémon evolves at an earlier level than what the gym leader has, it’s not illegal. They just didn’t need it to evolve at that moment

I wish gen 2 all the gym leaders had the new Pokémon. Like Faulkner gets hoot Hoot at night, and pidgey in the day. Bugsy could use ladybug, and spinark at night. Whitney Is okay, morty should of had misdreavus, chuck should of had hitmontop, jasmine should of had scizor and skarmory, pryce should of had sneasel, jynx, piloswine, cloyster, lapras. Claire could have dratini, dragonair, seadra, and kingdra with dragon rage and dragon breath and outrage.

Raihan is more of a sandstorm specialist then Dragon

If we could add Gen 9 Gym Leaders, I have three more that I would like to add: Ryme, Grusha, and, I hate to say it, Larry. First, Ryme's team is pretty good, however, I think Montenevara would have been the perfect place to have a Gimmighoul or Gholdengo somewhere. Second, while Altaria fits with Grusha's team, I think Frigibax or Arctibax would have fit more with Altaria following up as Grusha's ace. Finally, Larry...I hate to say it, while I think Larry's one of my favorite Gym Leader, I think they dropped the ball giving him Dudunsparce instead of Tandemaus or Maushold.

Maybe Allister didn't have Synestea because he hates tea?

If you ever get to 1M subs, you should change your channel name to emperor marowak