I would like to thank everyone who commented that there is a Machop you can trade for in Goldenrod city! I can’t believe I forgot that and didn’t run across it in my research - one rare candy to all of you as a reward lol. I still stand by Whitney at #1, because of the stomp flinches, but this definitely pulls Clair a little closer! Thanks again ❤
I don’t agree with Whitney being at number 1, it should’ve been Clair. The in-game Machop literally is the answer to beating the gym, however there is no definitive answer to beat Clair except strategy. There’s only 3 options to handle Clair: get the Lapras to take care of only half her team (3 if you teach it Thunderbolt), get the Game Corner Dratini which will take you ages to get the coins and by the time you get there it’ll be mid 30s - early 40s or go to the Whirl Islands, catch a Horsea and then try to catch multiple Horsea and Seadra until you get the Dragon Scale to evolve it into Kingdra
Whitney is one of the few cases where something everyone found difficult as kids in the game was, in fact, just as difficult as we thought when coming back as adults
I disagree, she's honestly fairly easy, you do need to strategize, sure, but that just makes the game more fun, I still think that Clair is the strongest, Kingdra is really strong and has an absolutely phenomenal typing, only being weak to dragon (In gen 4) and Gyarados is also really strong, so I say she's the strongest
@@Jay_Games4409 also clair is my idol but HOLY HELL is she heard.. i wish she would take it easy man i can;t handle it ): ..... she's still awesome tho
Fun fact: Heracross is not the only Fighting type you can get to defeat Whitney, in the 5F TM Corner of the Goldenrod Department Store, there's a guy who trades a Machop for a Drowzee (found in route 34), you just level it up and crush Whitney with it. You're welcome.
If you got gina's number early and didn't get any other phone numbers before that, you can get a leaf stone early and evolve exeggcute. Leech seed/reflect (or protect)/hypnosis or sleep powder works vs Whitney. Intimidate from growlithe or gyarados works too.. you can even buy protect in the mall to stop rollout... and geodude can solo Whitney and explode. Even pinsir counters miltank with revenge/brick break.
and the funny that is that Muscle the Macop was added to the game purely in order to help players beat Whittney because in gen 2 it was near impossible. When the game has to do you a soild for a specific gym leader you know they made someone tough.
@skylergreenberg8717 That Machop did exist in gen 2 too. I remember that I found her in my first playtrough by sheer luck and never got the hype why Wittney was ever considered difficult. It's one of the things I really love in the early games - they always give you all the tools you need to defeat the next challenge if you look. You can get Onix to defeat Falkner, there are decently leveled spearows near Bugsy, then there is Mashop for Wittney, wild Raticate and a berry to cure sleep near the fourth Gym, a level 30 Garados for the middle game and an ice cave next to the Dragon gym.
There is a parallel universe where Jasmine has a roster of Magnetone, Skarmory and Steelix, and she's considered the second coming of Whitney. I stand for best girl. ♥️ Also, do you think you could do the same for their rematch teams? No bias for my girl having a Metagross. 😅
I wish Jasmine had a better first-run team so bad!! As for rematch rankings, we’ll see! I’m always torn on how I feel about them, maybe I can do a quicker video talking about how the rankings would shuffle with rematches. Great idea, thanks!
I remember playing SoulSilver for the first time. I was using larvitar and Whitney's clefairy. I used dig. She used metronome. Clefairy used earthquake!!! I could NOT believe my luck! For those who don't know, earthquake does double damage against pokemon using dig.
You know what's funny. Whitney is probably the only gym leader that ever felt difficult, with Claire following in 2nd. For the rest of the gens, I usually get something to deal with each gym and win the badge pretty comfortably, even those which is not common to have super effective moves against.
@@abrawolf they didn't nerf him. his character development from the first game carried over. the team is weaker but you can't do anything about the trainer's level.
@@Samueldoucette883 he’s even worse in Challenge Mode because he adds a Pidove to his team. It thankfully doesn’t have any flying moves, but it’s still one more obstacle that also takes neutral damage to fighting moves instead of being weak to them.
Loved how fleshed out the Johto gym leaders are in the pokemon manga Especially Falkner Morty and the villain Pryce Pryce becomes the villain because he wants to capture Celebi and go back in time to capture a Pokemon he lost So he kidnaps children like Karen Will Silver and Green/Leaf and brainwashes them into working for him so that he can manipulate them into helping him capture Ho-oh and Lugia in order to summon Celebi to the Ilex Forest and capture it to have its time travel powers to himself Blame Kimeh Eye for this manga spoiler
@@KimahEye Not my fault they have been missing out The manga has been out for several years already Maybe don't check out the UA-cam comments next time
@@edra2005 Some people don't even know that there is a manga to begin with, not everyone has the same circumstances as you, no need for the condescending tone, especially when someone just advises you to change your comment a bit. It's common sense and courtesy not to adress crucial plot points or the ending of a movie/serie/book in a public setting if you can help it. Like you could litteraly just remove the word "villain" and we're good And I'm not talking about me, I've red the manga ages ago, but unlike you I'm thinking about other people. The entitlement of some people to think that everyone has had the same experience, red the same things, seen the same things and that if you didn't, it's your FAULT (like having a different experience is a bad thing) is astouding.
Clair is more difficult then Whitney imo. While Whitney may be difficult for inexperienced players, most people who replay johto can probably beat her unless they have a team that gets completely hard countered. There are Pokémon such as heracross, machop, nidorino, geodude, and even bayleef that can 1v1 the miltank. Clair’s kingdra doesn’t have any real direct counter. Yes some Pokémon such as mantine, ampharos, and slowking will help in the battle because of there good special defence, but because kingdra is only weak to dragon and is bulky, you will almost never be able to one shot it. Also hyper beam crit will kill everything except a shuckle and maybe a mantine with lots of special defence EV’s. Overall I think this vid does an excellent job of explaining the difficulty levels of each gym leader. I agree with most of this. ❤
Facts Whitney isn't even that good just throw a bunch of attacks at the miltank and you'll be fine. Never lost to her and never needed any hard counters
@@slamgaming32Considering that all those Gym leaders come from the same game, it could be a fair match. If you need some help, I have some experience playing around with Smogon Team Builder and such. Can't do much for the AI part. 😅
My second favorite because of the double region and free money farming I did on thr weekends with the gym leaders. Hoenn will be my favorite because it was always pretty fun to run circles through when I was younger, finding new things along the way. Thanks to the current wave of depression, I'm currently playing through heartgold and remembering how slow the health bars are 😞
I might give Clair my top spot for strongest gym leader mainly due to their being an in-game trade for a machop in goldenrod. Whitney is no slouch though. Without that trade, Whitney wrecks me 10 times out of 10. Also, I never thought about using a dunsparce or girafarig. I always relied on Bill's Eevee to evolve into an Umbreon and spam pursuit (not knowing that Umbreon's attack stats are really bad lol). A great video overall!
I used an Eevee with Dig in Gen 2. But I'm the same way, I never went to the Lake of Rage and Mahogany to catch a Girafarig so Morty was usually tough for me in HGSS
I don't care what people say, Whitney and Clair are always my favorite Gym Leaders in the Gen 2 games, due to their unique personalities and fun challenge.
Just an opinion since we looked at HGSS would we take their rematches in mind too later in the game? Not complaining because this video was way good just a thought
You mentioned Heracross and Gastly but i felt you forgot about Rocky! Traded onix that resists Rollout and Stomp damage and gets xp faster so can be overlevel until 3rd gym, the game is really telling you to get this deal even though it is still male and slower to take the attracts That said, i dont like being forced to use specific pokemon just to beat a gym so yeah i hate these guys who always go "hey just use that pokemon". In GSC is even funnier bc Heracross cant learn a fighting type move except for Counter until lvl 44 EDIT: Just remembered Muscle the machop in the goldenrod store. Another option but i follow Karen words and prefer fight with my favorites
There's also Geodude, too, which I personally prefer because it has more attack than Onix, and it's also not 100% reliant on needing to be traded to evolve, either
"Stuck" with a Geodude? I'll have to defend the 'dude there, because it's an absolute powerhouse in the first few gyms. Rock Polish enables it to out-speed Pidgeotto (and 2HKO it before it can Roost, if it has an Attack+ Nature), 90% accuracy is great for a move that hits Bugsy's Scyther like a nuke, setting up Defense Curl on Clefairy makes it one of the only Pokémon that can contain Miltank's overwhelming power, and a good Selfdestruct can fell the great pink beast outright if she's been weakened a little. Geodude was even great against Morty back in Gold/Silver/Crystal, where his team didn't have Levitate and thus lived in terror of Magnitude. I'd also like to point out that there's a female Machop, Muscle, that you can get for a Drowsee in Goldenrod City, which has a pretty good offensive edge in the gym, so it isn't just Heracross, after all.
I love that this video came out exactly on my birthday! I actually agree with this list almost perfectly, it's almost the exact same order I would've chosen. I would've pretty much only placed Morty a bit higher because his fight can be a bit more annoying if you don't cheese it with a Normal type. As someone who never even thought of doing that on my first Johto playthrough, Morty can give some trouble if you didn't prepare a Normal type for his gym. Meanwhile Chuck has never given me an issue. For the point of the game he appears in, his team is very lacking. Here's what my ranking would look like: HOW ARE YOU A GYM LEADER? 8 - Chuck: You can have pretty much any team composition, and as long as you're not intentionally handicapping yourself, this gym doesn't really pose much of a threat. Having only 2 Pokémon is acceptable early on in the game like in Falkner's case, and Whitney is a special case because her Miltank alone gives a tougher fight than other gym leaders' entire teams. But by the point in the game Chuck is at, having 2 Pokémon is just so underwhelming. The fight will usually end pretty quickly, since Chuck's Pokémon, while not entirely useless, aren't really anything to write home about either. Now if Chuck had a Pokémon that posed a huge threat like Whitney does, then I'd be able to overlook his small team, but in my experience, neither Primeape or Poliwrath are threatening enough to carry the gym.Primeape does have Double Team, but it's also really frail, so it'll likely faint before that becomes an issue. Poliwrath is bulkier, and Hypnosis could potentially be annoying, but Poliwrath can't carry the gym alone, so that's why I believe Chuck is the easiest gym leader. EASY 7 - Pryce: Pryce suffers the same problem of having a pretty lackluster team for how late in the game you fight him. He at least has three Pokémon, but none of them are actually much of an issue. Seel has a BST only slightly higher than that of first stage starters, at a point of the game where the game expects you to be in the early thirties, so Seel is pretty much useless. Dewgong is kind of bulky, but by now you're almost guaranteed to have something that can hit it for super effective damage (Electric, Fighting, Rock, just to name a few options, even Grass, though that's risky since it can hit you back with Ice moves), so it's likely not going to be much of an issue. Piloswine can pose some problem if Hail is up thanks to Snow Cloak, and it's attack is great, so some strong physical Ground and Ice moves should hit pretty hard! Oh wait... it's running 2 special moves and only 1 Physical move? Yeah... not ideal. Not only that, but it's also painfully slow, so you're likely to just knock it out before it can do anything. So we have a slow Pokémon who is mostly relying on its worse offensive stat, and has a type combo that has several exploitable weaknesses, including Surf which you have access to by now. So yeah... not as bad as Chuck, but still pretty underwhelming for this point in the game. If he had something stronger like Lapras, I could see him giving a much better fight. 6 - Morty: This is where I'd rank Morty. True, you can cheese the fight easily if you have a Normal type on your team, but for this I'll say the same thing I said for Brock: he's free if you have the right Pokémon, but if you don't he can definitely give quite a fight. The Ghastly line is really fast, and these Pokémon have quite a few tricks up their sleeves: Curse, Hypnosis, Mean Look, as well as their respective Ghost moves. The tricks he can pull off with his team make him feel like a mini-Agatha in a way. Not nearly as difficult as Agatha, but his tricks can be annoying to deal with. I've had my Pokémon trapped by Mean Look and then afflicted by Curse, and Hypnosis is always annoying. Again, if you prepared a Normal type for this fight then he's easy, but he can be troublesome if you didn't. 5 - Jasmine: From this point onwards my list is pretty much identical to yours. I agree that Jasmine is the hardest of these four gym leaders. Well, not actually hard, rather the "least easy". Her magnemites are easy to take care of, and I don't really know why she has two of them. There were other Steel types she could've used to give a more decent fight. Why not something like Skarmory, or Forretress? But I digress, this is a problem that most Johto gym leaders tend to have overall. The point is that her 2 Magnemites are easy to handle for the point of the game you're in, so that leaves Steelix. Sure, it has excellent physical defense, but a decent special attacker should be enough to handle it. It's extremely slow as well, so you certainly outspeed it. Furthermore, it's weak to two of the three starters, so unless you chose Chikorita, your starter probably has a move that can handle Steelix. And even if you chose Chikorita, you'd have access to Surf by now, so that's an easy answer to Steelix as well. So while Jasmine is a step above the previous 3, she's still not difficult. MEDIUM 4 - Bugsy: Bugsy benefits greatly from being an early game gym leader. That's the thing in Johto, due to the way the map works, you have very few options in the early game, so what seems like lackluster teams in a vacuum are compensated by you not really having that many ways to punish them, but as soon as the map opens up, you just get so many more options, that the gym leaders' poor teams can't handle it, until you get to Clair, who actually has a very decent team. Bugsy has two team members that are dead weight, but he more than makes up for it with Scyther, who is a monster for this early in the game. It has a BST of 500,far beyond pretty much anything you can have at that point of the game. It will most certainly outspeed you with its base 105 speed, and it hits pretty hard. Not unbeatable by any means, but certainly a threat that you have to respect for how early in the game you have to fight it. 3 - Falkner: Falkner's team looks lackluster, and in a vacuum, it is. But you fight him so early, that it can pose quite a challenge. Pidgey's sand attack is annoying, and Pidgeotto is reasonably strong for this point in the game, plus it can recover health with Roost. So while it's not a brutal fight, it's decently challenging for a first gym. HARD 2 - Clair: Out of all the gym leaders that you fight after the map opens up, Clair is the only one who has a team that is prepared to handle the options you have access to. Gyarados with Intimidate is a great lead, you really can't go wrong with that. Dragonairs aren't insanely strong, but they can be annoying with Thunder Wave, and have some coverage moves that you need to be ready to deal with. And unless you have ice coverage, you're probably going to have to rely on neutral damage to take them down, But the ace Kingdra is what seals the deal. If Whitney wasn't in Johto, I'm positive that Kingdra would be the Pokémon that we'd talk about as the hardest ace in Johto. It's not weak to Ice, and Fairy doesn't exist yet, and given that you're not really going to have access to some good Dragon type options yet, you're pretty much forced into dealing with this menace using only neutral damage. And when you look at its moveset, you can see it was designed to hit hard. Hydro Pump, Hyper Beam, it's all meant to hit as hard as possible, plus its ability Sniper boosts critical hits even further, so if it gets a critical hit, it's likely going to knock out whatever it attacked. All I can say is, at least this one doesn't know Double Team like Juan's Kingdra, because if it did... oh boy, this would be a pretty frustrating fight. WHITNEY 1 - Whitney: We can all agree that Whitney is completely deserving of her reputation as a brutally hard gym leader. Easily the hardest gym leader in Johto, and I'd say she has a good argument for being the hardest gym leader in the entirety of the main series. Sabrina is difficult, but Whitney's Miltank far outclasses Sabrina's team in my opinion in terms of how brutal of a fight it gives. And again this has to do with how early in the game you fight Whitney. If you fought Whitney as say, the 6th or 7th gym leader, she wouldn't be a big problem, because by then you'd have stronger Pokémon than can handle her Miltank. But this early? It's a horrific beast. Extremely fast, very bulky, hits like a truck, it basically has no shortcomings in the stat department. The only lackluster stat it has is Special Attack, which it doesn't care about because it only uses physical moves anyway. Pair this with being a Normal type, meaning it's only weak to fighting moves, and the fact that it can flinch you with Stomp, and that it can use Attract on any male Pokémon you bring into her gym. Guess what Pokémon has an 87.5% chance of being male? Your starter. So what is probably one of your strongest team members can get rendered useless just like that. Pair this with Milk Drink to always keep itself healthy, and Rollout which builds up over time until it becomes a nuke, and the fact that it has a Lum Berry to counter your attempts of inflicting it with status conditions, and you can see why she's so infamous. Her reputation is well deserved. When I look back to all my previous playthroughs, Whitney was without a doubt the gym leader that walled me the hardest. And this is coming from someone who used to have the bad habit of overleveling his Pokémon. My team was overleveled, and Miltank was still able to beat them consistently for a good while. Yes, there's the trade Machop you can get, but the fact that we have to resort to that as a counter in the first place just shows how brutal Miltank is.
In Pokemon Adventures manga, Pryce don't bother to fight with crime syndicate, because he was a headmaster of this xD Seriously, he was more evil than Giovanni himself and his that strong so his Delibird was able to defeat Ho-oh.
One crazy strategy to Witney's Miltank, i see used on Nuzlocke: Croconaw RAGE! If Miltank starts to Rollout, USE RAGE, it'll build up so hard to even takes more than 60% of her HP
Maybe it's just me, but I'm always surprised to hear people say how ultra rare Heracross is. I'm not saying it's an immediate find but it's a 30% chance to find one in an encounter-yielding tree. There are a lot of trees to be fair but, i dunno, it usually doesn't take me that long to find one. Probably alone on this one.
I have a LOT of nostalgic love for gen 2 and I love the darker tone/feel in comparison to gen 1, but some of these gym teams are just bizarre and downright awful 😂 Great video though - definitely do gen 3 next!
I understand that there are cute technical qualities to Falkner's lineup, but even without a decent Rock-type or the Mareep line, you can very easily body through the frail Pidgey and Pidgeotto. Imo the (Flying-type, lol) Scyther on Bugsy's team warrants Bugsy to be higher than Falkner i.e. 1) Whitney 2) Clair 3) Bugsy. Great vid!
That's one thing I love about pokemon, the gym leaders are just the local strongest trainers, which means a teenage girl can become the gym leader by divising a difficult strategy on just one of her pokemon. On a national scale, Whitney would likely get rolled, but all she's dealing with are the Goldenrod locals and some transient challengers. It's almost like a civic duty rather than an prestigious title.
I knew whitney was coming at no. 1....i rlly had to work sooo hard against her! Her rollout and attract was irritating! . . But nothing comes close to the champion battle! It was rlly my 2nd hardest champion battle of all time! (After cynthia from platinum)
The miltank is the main danger against Whitney, but with some bad luck the Clefairy can be a nightmare too... in my first playthrough this pinky ball with metronome hit me with Hydopump on quilava, Earthquake on a Flaffy, Megabsorb on a Geodude, then Outrage, Fissure (a OHKO move) and, when.afert reloading many times (some times defeating the clefairy but falling under the flitch-attract trap of the bovine) i have enogh and i decide to take the in-game trade female Machop (i don't like to use in-game trades, but i was furious), Clefairy's metronome at the second turn become AEROBLAST!... WTF
I think the idea of chuck only having 2 Pokémon is that each of his Pokémon have a much higher level, so they would be harder to take down and make up for not having 3 or more Pokémon.
The funny thing about Whitney, I actually traded over a baby Blaze Kick Chimchar over to my Heartgold in the early game and I almost finished my entire Mach Punch PP fighting that damn Miltank. I dont even know if I should've traded over a baby Torchic at the start (maybe double kick would've been better?)
You should have just evolved it into Monferno and mach punched it until it fainted. You just can't level it up more than 30 because that's the level cap for traded Pokémon.
@yazanraouf9604 Wow, that's weird to me because I remember even some of the evolved Pokémon names. You could have also leveled it up more if Miltank was that hard or get a Heracross with brick break. It will destroy that Miltank.
If you are doing Honen, then I assume you will be using Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire? This is how I would rank them: 8. Brawly 7. Roxanne 6. Liza & Tate 5. Flannery 4. Wattson 3. Norman 2. Wallace 1. Winona It might be off, as I'm thinking of my experience of Emerald as I was ranking them.
Morty is actually pretty interesting in GSC because the difficulty is completely binary. If you have Kadabra with Psybeam (barring completely terrible DVs), then he's trivially easy. If you're doing a Nuzlocke and you ban Kadabra, however, the Gengar (who does have Hypnosis + Dream Eater in GSC) is a potential runkiller.
The teams i would give the gym leaders Falkner: Murkrow and ace Hoothoot Bugsy: Spinarak and ace Heracross Whitney: Furret, Jigglypuff and that damn ace KILLTANK Chuck: Machoke, Poliwrath, Primeape and the ace hitmontop Jasmine: Skarmory, Magneton, Scizor, and the ace Steelix Pryce: Sneasel, Delibird, Dewgong, and the ace Piloswine Clair: Gyarados, Dragonair, Lapras, Aerodactyl and the ace Kingdra
People who think the first 3 gym of Johto is hard probably didn't know the fact that you can get Geodude before you even fought Falkner. Also yeah notice that Johto gym leader didn't even use Johto pokemon?
I completely agree with the lower 4, I always thought that they all fall in the same trash bag... Too easy to worry about. But regard Bugsy... I honestly think that he's rank is too high... For 1 single reason and this reason is birds. In the first routes you can catch pidgey (And there's a ton of then) or you can catch a Ferrow in lower part of route 49. Both of them have flying moves that are really strong. And like you said, those are 2 option just if you don't pick cindaquil, wich is the the best starter of the region by far.
You can trade a Drowsy for a Machomp, so there are some Options. I fact if your creative, its realy fun to outsmart the Cow. If you try to copy it whit Ditto, use Drowsis Hynosis, Sandattack, and Mudslap, maybe Dig to reset the Rollout, Stunspore from Grass Types, or a Onix whit Screech, or even nuke it whit Geodudes Selfe detruct like I did, its a lot if fun coming up whit Tactics against her. I hate how 99% of Players just proceed to hit it realy hard.
I think you would really appreciate pimanrules' series where he scientifically ranks all the trainers in Pokémon Red/Blue by having EVERY trainer fight each other. He is also making one for Crystal soon!
The only counter that seems consistent to deal with witney’s Miltank is getting a alakazam before the gym, and teaching in focus blast from the goldenrod department store (abra is on the route before goldenrod, just evolve to kadabra 16 and than immediately trade to evolve it to alakazam)
I wish i could fix those Gyms.. Falkner with Noctowl and Natu instead of Pidgeotto and Pidgey, Bugsy with Ledyba and Spinarak instead of Kakuna and Metapod, Morty with a Missdreavus instead of one Haunter, Chuck with Hitmontop and Heracross added to his team, Skarmory and Forrestress added to Jasmine's team and i would remove Seel from Pryce's team, and add Sneasel, Jynx and Delibird
I can imagine Wattson ranking high in the Hoenn video, because without a Marshtomp you're quite screwed. There are other options, like Combusken, Breloom, Hariyama or even Geodude. But you still have to grind. That Magneton is nasty, specially if you took Treecko.
Do the Johto time skip Kanto leaders! When I played them on the OG version, I thought it was going to be an easy win cause I had done them once before in the R/B/Y. Brock is was completely justified and the fight with Cal in Viridion City was interesting too. I think you’ve already done Red but sounds fun again lol Whitney was hard but a nidoran on route 12 solved the issue, just evolve it to nidorino and get Double Kick. 1 shot the clefairy, switch to potential jigglypuff from waaaaay back in the beginning of the game for sleep and switch back to ko. I think I restarted the game like 5xs before I got any actual help 😅😂
I understand peoples struggle with Whitney, I know the first time I played Johto as a kid I struggled, but since then I’ve always just mud slapped it into irrelevance and geodude just sits on it like it’s nothing
Imo, Falkner ranked way too high and Whitney is overrated. Overall though, tough to rank Johto given that the whole game is disgustingly easy, even by Pokemon standards.
Beat Whitney on first try...I got super lost in the game and by the time I knew where I was suppose to go I have my only 3 pokemon all at lvl 40. Seven year old me curbstomped her whole team...and then proceeded to wipe my ass with the rest of the Johto gym leaders....Johto was so easy.
Ngl Chuck always gave me a hard time whenever I face him. His Poliwrath is suprisingly bulky and can really wear you down with Hypnosis and Body Slam. Also, if you're using healing items, Chuck can just straight up cheat and Focus Punch you as you're healing. Also, do not underestimate the power of Geodude against Bugsy all you have to do is set up one defense curl and you body Bugsy's entire team.
I'm rather surprised how much I disagree with the ranking on this. Nothing against you at all, I agree with basically all the reasoning here, but my list is just pretty different. So here's mine if you care enough to read. 8. Jasmine. Quagsire. That's it. It counters the entire team with Earthquake (or Mud Shot if you use level caps) and Surf. Surf alone invalidates the Steelix, and likely even the Magnemites if you feel risky with just a water type, otherwise you likely have a Graveler/Golem waiting patiently in the back. If Steelix had Earthquake, she might be more of an issue, but as it stands, Jasmine's rock bottom sadly. 7. Morty. I'd imagine that it would be just as, if not easier, to sweep Morty with Raticate Crunch, but I never tried for some reason. Because of that, he's always given me a bit more trouble than Jasmine. And that's thanks to Curse, a move that all but Gengar has. 1/4 hp is a lot of damage, so I never get an immediate sweep because of it. Doesn't make him less easy, though. I bet if the Gengar kept Dream Eater from his Gen 2 days, he'd be formidable; Mean Look combined with Hypnosis (which is 90% for him) could potentially ravage teams if left unchecked. Sucker Punch really ruins poor Gengar. 6. Pryce. Electric + Water = a finished battle. Dewgong is quite bulky, though, so it almost always hits back, and Piloswine gets Hail and Blizzard, so at least there's some strategy. 5. Falkner. Honestly, don't struggle against him much, but he has the perfect recipe to be a problem. Sand-Attack and Roost is all he needs to whittle down your pokemon one by one since you won't OHKO Pidgeotto or outspeed him without Paralysis or Rock Polish. Otherwise, eh. 4. Chuck. It's all about the RNG for me. Poliwrath is always a pain to deal with since, again, you can never OHKO, and it can hit back surprisingly hard with Surf. Couple that with Hypnosis & Body Slam hacks, and sorta random AI and, yeah, he's just a pain. 3. Bugsy. I remember the first time I played HG, brimming with confidence, then walking out with a badge in one hand, a dead Quilava in the other, and a thoroughly shattered ego. The boy doesn't play around. At least if we ignore the cocoons. The star of the show is Scyther, of course, and the funny thing is that, despite Bug and its pitiful type matchup, there are very few pokemon at that point that resist it, and those that do certainly don't resist the Technician boosted Quick Attack. Combined with Focus Energy and a scary high Attack stat and he just mows through health bars. Your best bet is Onix, to be honest. 2. Whitney. Upset of the year, I bet, but I feel like, so long as you can slow it down, half the RNG check is won. Is that an easy prospect? Absolutely not. We all know why Miltank sucks to fight so I won't reiterate it. But you are given just enough to stand a chance, I think. So, while I won't act like "it's not that hard y'all stoopid", I know there is a sort of consistent strategy to beat her. Unlike... 1. Clair. This is the Gym Leader I shudder to think about. Every pokemon she has is a problem, even down to the Gyarados thanks to Dragon Rage. Then there are the Thunder Wave Dragonairs that I can never seem to even 2 shot for some reason, ready to cripple my entire team. Probably should trust Blizzard more or actually grind for Ice Beam, but who cares because Kingdra isn't weak to Ice. Or practically ANYTHING. If you want Super Effective so badly, the best you get is Dragon Claw (Goldenrod Lottery) on Feraligatr. That's it. If not, then get ready to try and outmanoeuvre the devastating Hydro Pump - Dragon Pulse combo that nothing resists. And every once in a while, a pokemon just gets deleted from the field thanks to Sniper. Absolute nightmare. I can sometimes take Whitney down without losing anyone, but I can't remember the last time I walked out of Clair's Gym with all 6 pokemon alive.
Love the list! Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I totally get where you’re coming from (and I love the high ranking for 2 pokemon Chuck, you justify it well!)
11:45 You are completely and utterly wrong. Beating Whitney 101: 1. Don't play the Crystal version. 2. Catch a Drowzee. 3. Trade it for an always female Machop in the department store. 4. Let Machop defeat all trainers in the gym to level it up a bit. 5. Now you have a mon with two super effective moves, resistance to Rollout, and immunity to Attract. 6. ??? 7. World domination.
Whitneys Miltank was the pokemon I hated the most when I was playing SS, followed by Mortys Gengar bcs of Shadowball but Whitneys Miltank WTF HAHAHAHAHHA Thank God I was smart enough to save before facing her bcs I fainted a lot of Pokemon and almost lost (i dont like losing 😂). Everyone said, Kingdra by Clair is hard but I really prepared and captured a Jynx and Lapras to kill her team and I used Perish Song on her Kingdra so none of my pokemon fainted so Clair for me was the easiest bcs I really grinded and prepared
Heavily disagree with the Morty placement, he’s defo in the top 3 for me. Sure if you know his team and move sets exactly, you can prepare for it but most people won’t know the teams and move sets going into it the first time. The hypnosis, dream eater combo and shadow ball on gengar are no joke. Look at Lucahjin’s let’s play for Pokémon Heartgold. She easily goes past Whitney but struggles a lot against Morty. I think Pryce is by far the easiest because his Pokémon can’t really do much to your team at that point in the game. Even Chuck can do a lot with moves like hypnosis and focus punch. Pryce doesn’t have much of a strategy other than rest stalling if I remember correctly
Morty's Gengar doesn't have Dream Eater in HGSS. If a normal type tries to use Leer or Growl 5 times to run out Sucker Punch, he literally can't touch it.
@@kavinselvakumar4301 wasn't worded very well. "The hypnosis, dream eater combo and shadow ball on Gengar," makes it sound like it's all on one Pokémon (which it was in GSC).
@@kavinselvakumar4301 I would also add that some players may not have a Normal type, and if that’s not the case, Morty could easily be a candidate for #1.
People say that Whitney is horrible, that Clair is tough, that others like Fantina and Norman are ... Wait, WHAT? Yes, Whitney is pain, i agree. But you have access to focus blast tm and greatest fighting type heracross. Only time Clair is tough, when you try draco meteor strat. because dragonair in anyway can not OHKO. And i never EVER understand why NORMAN is hard. Like, you have min. 3 fighting type (well 1 is starter) encounters + on my opinion also his ruby/sapphire (yes, i mean 2 slakings) team is not tough.
I don't think Norman is that hard but his Slaking literally just spam yawn and that battle took forever. They're really annoying. I'm kind of glad it got loafing around ability because he almost beaten me the first time I battled him.
Wait was Hoenn Gyms really that competitive I haven’t played the gyms for a while and just do elite four wipes for money and lvl up for evolutions The only thing I recalled was Norman just being annoying not necessarily hard just wasted a lot of time
I argue that Falkner at least should be below Jasmine. His flying types should be weak to the neighborhood Mareep south of Violet City. Jasmine, as a Steel type gym leader, should pack more of a punch than Falkner.
That means that I think this should be the list: 8. Morty (which I stalled using my level 3 Sentret of all Pokemon) 7. Chuck 6. Pryce 5. Falkner 4. Jasmine (interchangable with Bugsy) 3. Bugsy (interchangable with Jasmine) 2. Clair 1. Whitney
I would like to thank everyone who commented that there is a Machop you can trade for in Goldenrod city! I can’t believe I forgot that and didn’t run across it in my research - one rare candy to all of you as a reward lol. I still stand by Whitney at #1, because of the stomp flinches, but this definitely pulls Clair a little closer! Thanks again ❤
No problem bro it's not a big deal
I do have nightmares about Whitney and that rolling tank
Female machop. Saves you from attract
I don’t agree with Whitney being at number 1, it should’ve been Clair. The in-game Machop literally is the answer to beating the gym, however there is no definitive answer to beat Clair except strategy. There’s only 3 options to handle Clair: get the Lapras to take care of only half her team (3 if you teach it Thunderbolt), get the Game Corner Dratini which will take you ages to get the coins and by the time you get there it’ll be mid 30s - early 40s or go to the Whirl Islands, catch a Horsea and then try to catch multiple Horsea and Seadra until you get the Dragon Scale to evolve it into Kingdra
It's all good
Whitney is one of the few cases where something everyone found difficult as kids in the game was, in fact, just as difficult as we thought when coming back as adults
she's is awesome
I disagree, she's honestly fairly easy, you do need to strategize, sure, but that just makes the game more fun, I still think that Clair is the strongest, Kingdra is really strong and has an absolutely phenomenal typing, only being weak to dragon (In gen 4) and Gyarados is also really strong, so I say she's the strongest
@@Jay_Games4409 nice name
@@Jay_Games4409 also clair is my idol but HOLY HELL is she heard.. i wish she would take it easy man i can;t handle it ): ..... she's still awesome tho
Literally beat her first try with my Graveller.
Fun fact: Heracross is not the only Fighting type you can get to defeat Whitney, in the 5F TM Corner of the Goldenrod Department Store, there's a guy who trades a Machop for a Drowzee (found in route 34), you just level it up and crush Whitney with it. You're welcome.
Also, Muscle the Machop is always female, so you bypass the Attract!
If you are a complete psychopath and get enough game corner points, dratini and dragon rage help too!
If you got gina's number early and didn't get any other phone numbers before that, you can get a leaf stone early and evolve exeggcute. Leech seed/reflect (or protect)/hypnosis or sleep powder works vs Whitney.
Intimidate from growlithe or gyarados works too.. you can even buy protect in the mall to stop rollout... and geodude can solo Whitney and explode. Even pinsir counters miltank with revenge/brick break.
and the funny that is that Muscle the Macop was added to the game purely in order to help players beat Whittney because in gen 2 it was near impossible. When the game has to do you a soild for a specific gym leader you know they made someone tough.
@skylergreenberg8717 That Machop did exist in gen 2 too. I remember that I found her in my first playtrough by sheer luck and never got the hype why Wittney was ever considered difficult. It's one of the things I really love in the early games - they always give you all the tools you need to defeat the next challenge if you look. You can get Onix to defeat Falkner, there are decently leveled spearows near Bugsy, then there is Mashop for Wittney, wild Raticate and a berry to cure sleep near the fourth Gym, a level 30 Garados for the middle game and an ice cave next to the Dragon gym.
There is a parallel universe where Jasmine has a roster of Magnetone, Skarmory and Steelix, and she's considered the second coming of Whitney.
I stand for best girl. ♥️
Also, do you think you could do the same for their rematch teams?
No bias for my girl having a Metagross. 😅
I wish Jasmine had a better first-run team so bad!! As for rematch rankings, we’ll see! I’m always torn on how I feel about them, maybe I can do a quicker video talking about how the rankings would shuffle with rematches. Great idea, thanks!
Based Jasmine appreciator. She's far too underrated
I remember playing SoulSilver for the first time. I was using larvitar and Whitney's clefairy. I used dig. She used metronome. Clefairy used earthquake!!! I could NOT believe my luck! For those who don't know, earthquake does double damage against pokemon using dig.
That’s amazing! What a great memory, thank you for sharing
You go underground where you're semi protected, to receiving a 200 ATK Super effective Earthquake instead. She can be brutal
You know what's funny. Whitney is probably the only gym leader that ever felt difficult, with Claire following in 2nd. For the rest of the gens, I usually get something to deal with each gym and win the badge pretty comfortably, even those which is not common to have super effective moves against.
I'd say cheren in white 2 was super hard, especially if you dont have a riolu because 1 work up can sweep your team
@Samueldoucette883 recently replayed, the work up spam was painful and I didn't want to run riolu so I just had to suffer
@@abrawolf they didn't nerf him. his character development from the first game carried over. the team is weaker but you can't do anything about the trainer's level.
@@Samueldoucette883 he’s even worse in Challenge Mode because he adds a Pidove to his team. It thankfully doesn’t have any flying moves, but it’s still one more obstacle that also takes neutral damage to fighting moves instead of being weak to them.
Loved how fleshed out the Johto gym leaders are in the pokemon manga
Especially Falkner Morty and the villain Pryce
Pryce becomes the villain because he wants to capture Celebi and go back in time to capture a Pokemon he lost
So he kidnaps children like Karen Will Silver and Green/Leaf and brainwashes them into working for him so that he can manipulate them into helping him capture Ho-oh and Lugia in order to summon Celebi to the Ilex Forest and capture it to have its time travel powers to himself
Blame Kimeh Eye for this manga spoiler
Someone not knowing and reading this just got spoiled the whole Gold/Silver/Crystal arc
Might want to edit that for the future
@@KimahEye Not my fault they have been missing out
The manga has been out for several years already
Maybe don't check out the UA-cam comments next time
@@edra2005 Some people don't even know that there is a manga to begin with, not everyone has the same circumstances as you, no need for the condescending tone, especially when someone just advises you to change your comment a bit. It's common sense and courtesy not to adress crucial plot points or the ending of a movie/serie/book in a public setting if you can help it.
Like you could litteraly just remove the word "villain" and we're good
And I'm not talking about me, I've red the manga ages ago, but unlike you I'm thinking about other people.
The entitlement of some people to think that everyone has had the same experience, red the same things, seen the same things and that if you didn't, it's your FAULT (like having a different experience is a bad thing) is astouding.
Clair is more difficult then Whitney imo. While Whitney may be difficult for inexperienced players, most people who replay johto can probably beat her unless they have a team that gets completely hard countered. There are Pokémon such as heracross, machop, nidorino, geodude, and even bayleef that can 1v1 the miltank. Clair’s kingdra doesn’t have any real direct counter. Yes some Pokémon such as mantine, ampharos, and slowking will help in the battle because of there good special defence, but because kingdra is only weak to dragon and is bulky, you will almost never be able to one shot it. Also hyper beam crit will kill everything except a shuckle and maybe a mantine with lots of special defence EV’s. Overall I think this vid does an excellent job of explaining the difficulty levels of each gym leader. I agree with most of this. ❤
Facts Whitney isn't even that good just throw a bunch of attacks at the miltank and you'll be fine. Never lost to her and never needed any hard counters
You should make a rematch ranking!
Also..might be fun to host some ai tournaments of Kanto vs Johto leaders...
Ooh I like that idea!
@@slamgaming32Considering that all those Gym leaders come from the same game, it could be a fair match.
If you need some help, I have some experience playing around with Smogon Team Builder and such.
Can't do much for the AI part. 😅
I found you, legend
My second favorite because of the double region and free money farming I did on thr weekends with the gym leaders. Hoenn will be my favorite because it was always pretty fun to run circles through when I was younger, finding new things along the way. Thanks to the current wave of depression, I'm currently playing through heartgold and remembering how slow the health bars are 😞
a slowpoke can beat a gen 4 health bar in a race. a bit annoying but adds to the charm of the gen.
I might give Clair my top spot for strongest gym leader mainly due to their being an in-game trade for a machop in goldenrod. Whitney is no slouch though. Without that trade, Whitney wrecks me 10 times out of 10.
Also, I never thought about using a dunsparce or girafarig. I always relied on Bill's Eevee to evolve into an Umbreon and spam pursuit (not knowing that Umbreon's attack stats are really bad lol).
A great video overall!
I've beaten Morty with both a Raticate and a furret in the past…… you don’t even need to be particularly clever with who you pick.
I used an Eevee with Dig in Gen 2.
But I'm the same way, I never went to the Lake of Rage and Mahogany to catch a Girafarig so Morty was usually tough for me in HGSS
Really liking this series! Loved the Pyrce bit!
I don't care what people say, Whitney and Clair are always my favorite Gym Leaders in the Gen 2 games, due to their unique personalities and fun challenge.
Just an opinion since we looked at HGSS would we take their rematches in mind too later in the game? Not complaining because this video was way good just a thought
Not a bad idea! I’m toying around with a shorter addendum video that shuffles ranking based on rematch teams. Thanks!
You mentioned Heracross and Gastly but i felt you forgot about Rocky! Traded onix that resists Rollout and Stomp damage and gets xp faster so can be overlevel until 3rd gym, the game is really telling you to get this deal even though it is still male and slower to take the attracts
That said, i dont like being forced to use specific pokemon just to beat a gym so yeah i hate these guys who always go "hey just use that pokemon". In GSC is even funnier bc Heracross cant learn a fighting type move except for Counter until lvl 44
EDIT: Just remembered Muscle the machop in the goldenrod store. Another option but i follow Karen words and prefer fight with my favorites
There's also Geodude, too, which I personally prefer because it has more attack than Onix, and it's also not 100% reliant on needing to be traded to evolve, either
"Stuck" with a Geodude? I'll have to defend the 'dude there, because it's an absolute powerhouse in the first few gyms. Rock Polish enables it to out-speed Pidgeotto (and 2HKO it before it can Roost, if it has an Attack+ Nature), 90% accuracy is great for a move that hits Bugsy's Scyther like a nuke, setting up Defense Curl on Clefairy makes it one of the only Pokémon that can contain Miltank's overwhelming power, and a good Selfdestruct can fell the great pink beast outright if she's been weakened a little. Geodude was even great against Morty back in Gold/Silver/Crystal, where his team didn't have Levitate and thus lived in terror of Magnitude.
I'd also like to point out that there's a female Machop, Muscle, that you can get for a Drowsee in Goldenrod City, which has a pretty good offensive edge in the gym, so it isn't just Heracross, after all.
I love that this video came out exactly on my birthday! I actually agree with this list almost perfectly, it's almost the exact same order I would've chosen. I would've pretty much only placed Morty a bit higher because his fight can be a bit more annoying if you don't cheese it with a Normal type. As someone who never even thought of doing that on my first Johto playthrough, Morty can give some trouble if you didn't prepare a Normal type for his gym. Meanwhile Chuck has never given me an issue. For the point of the game he appears in, his team is very lacking. Here's what my ranking would look like:
HOW ARE YOU A GYM LEADER?
8 - Chuck: You can have pretty much any team composition, and as long as you're not intentionally handicapping yourself, this gym doesn't really pose much of a threat. Having only 2 Pokémon is acceptable early on in the game like in Falkner's case, and Whitney is a special case because her Miltank alone gives a tougher fight than other gym leaders' entire teams. But by the point in the game Chuck is at, having 2 Pokémon is just so underwhelming. The fight will usually end pretty quickly, since Chuck's Pokémon, while not entirely useless, aren't really anything to write home about either. Now if Chuck had a Pokémon that posed a huge threat like Whitney does, then I'd be able to overlook his small team, but in my experience, neither Primeape or Poliwrath are threatening enough to carry the gym.Primeape does have Double Team, but it's also really frail, so it'll likely faint before that becomes an issue. Poliwrath is bulkier, and Hypnosis could potentially be annoying, but Poliwrath can't carry the gym alone, so that's why I believe Chuck is the easiest gym leader.
EASY
7 - Pryce: Pryce suffers the same problem of having a pretty lackluster team for how late in the game you fight him. He at least has three Pokémon, but none of them are actually much of an issue. Seel has a BST only slightly higher than that of first stage starters, at a point of the game where the game expects you to be in the early thirties, so Seel is pretty much useless. Dewgong is kind of bulky, but by now you're almost guaranteed to have something that can hit it for super effective damage (Electric, Fighting, Rock, just to name a few options, even Grass, though that's risky since it can hit you back with Ice moves), so it's likely not going to be much of an issue. Piloswine can pose some problem if Hail is up thanks to Snow Cloak, and it's attack is great, so some strong physical Ground and Ice moves should hit pretty hard! Oh wait... it's running 2 special moves and only 1 Physical move? Yeah... not ideal. Not only that, but it's also painfully slow, so you're likely to just knock it out before it can do anything. So we have a slow Pokémon who is mostly relying on its worse offensive stat, and has a type combo that has several exploitable weaknesses, including Surf which you have access to by now. So yeah... not as bad as Chuck, but still pretty underwhelming for this point in the game. If he had something stronger like Lapras, I could see him giving a much better fight.
6 - Morty: This is where I'd rank Morty. True, you can cheese the fight easily if you have a Normal type on your team, but for this I'll say the same thing I said for Brock: he's free if you have the right Pokémon, but if you don't he can definitely give quite a fight. The Ghastly line is really fast, and these Pokémon have quite a few tricks up their sleeves: Curse, Hypnosis, Mean Look, as well as their respective Ghost moves. The tricks he can pull off with his team make him feel like a mini-Agatha in a way. Not nearly as difficult as Agatha, but his tricks can be annoying to deal with. I've had my Pokémon trapped by Mean Look and then afflicted by Curse, and Hypnosis is always annoying. Again, if you prepared a Normal type for this fight then he's easy, but he can be troublesome if you didn't.
5 - Jasmine: From this point onwards my list is pretty much identical to yours. I agree that Jasmine is the hardest of these four gym leaders. Well, not actually hard, rather the "least easy". Her magnemites are easy to take care of, and I don't really know why she has two of them. There were other Steel types she could've used to give a more decent fight. Why not something like Skarmory, or Forretress? But I digress, this is a problem that most Johto gym leaders tend to have overall. The point is that her 2 Magnemites are easy to handle for the point of the game you're in, so that leaves Steelix. Sure, it has excellent physical defense, but a decent special attacker should be enough to handle it. It's extremely slow as well, so you certainly outspeed it. Furthermore, it's weak to two of the three starters, so unless you chose Chikorita, your starter probably has a move that can handle Steelix. And even if you chose Chikorita, you'd have access to Surf by now, so that's an easy answer to Steelix as well. So while Jasmine is a step above the previous 3, she's still not difficult.
MEDIUM
4 - Bugsy: Bugsy benefits greatly from being an early game gym leader. That's the thing in Johto, due to the way the map works, you have very few options in the early game, so what seems like lackluster teams in a vacuum are compensated by you not really having that many ways to punish them, but as soon as the map opens up, you just get so many more options, that the gym leaders' poor teams can't handle it, until you get to Clair, who actually has a very decent team. Bugsy has two team members that are dead weight, but he more than makes up for it with Scyther, who is a monster for this early in the game. It has a BST of 500,far beyond pretty much anything you can have at that point of the game. It will most certainly outspeed you with its base 105 speed, and it hits pretty hard. Not unbeatable by any means, but certainly a threat that you have to respect for how early in the game you have to fight it.
3 - Falkner: Falkner's team looks lackluster, and in a vacuum, it is. But you fight him so early, that it can pose quite a challenge. Pidgey's sand attack is annoying, and Pidgeotto is reasonably strong for this point in the game, plus it can recover health with Roost. So while it's not a brutal fight, it's decently challenging for a first gym.
HARD
2 - Clair: Out of all the gym leaders that you fight after the map opens up, Clair is the only one who has a team that is prepared to handle the options you have access to. Gyarados with Intimidate is a great lead, you really can't go wrong with that. Dragonairs aren't insanely strong, but they can be annoying with Thunder Wave, and have some coverage moves that you need to be ready to deal with. And unless you have ice coverage, you're probably going to have to rely on neutral damage to take them down, But the ace Kingdra is what seals the deal. If Whitney wasn't in Johto, I'm positive that Kingdra would be the Pokémon that we'd talk about as the hardest ace in Johto. It's not weak to Ice, and Fairy doesn't exist yet, and given that you're not really going to have access to some good Dragon type options yet, you're pretty much forced into dealing with this menace using only neutral damage. And when you look at its moveset, you can see it was designed to hit hard. Hydro Pump, Hyper Beam, it's all meant to hit as hard as possible, plus its ability Sniper boosts critical hits even further, so if it gets a critical hit, it's likely going to knock out whatever it attacked. All I can say is, at least this one doesn't know Double Team like Juan's Kingdra, because if it did... oh boy, this would be a pretty frustrating fight.
WHITNEY
1 - Whitney: We can all agree that Whitney is completely deserving of her reputation as a brutally hard gym leader. Easily the hardest gym leader in Johto, and I'd say she has a good argument for being the hardest gym leader in the entirety of the main series. Sabrina is difficult, but Whitney's Miltank far outclasses Sabrina's team in my opinion in terms of how brutal of a fight it gives. And again this has to do with how early in the game you fight Whitney. If you fought Whitney as say, the 6th or 7th gym leader, she wouldn't be a big problem, because by then you'd have stronger Pokémon than can handle her Miltank. But this early? It's a horrific beast.
Extremely fast, very bulky, hits like a truck, it basically has no shortcomings in the stat department. The only lackluster stat it has is Special Attack, which it doesn't care about because it only uses physical moves anyway. Pair this with being a Normal type, meaning it's only weak to fighting moves, and the fact that it can flinch you with Stomp, and that it can use Attract on any male Pokémon you bring into her gym. Guess what Pokémon has an 87.5% chance of being male? Your starter. So what is probably one of your strongest team members can get rendered useless just like that. Pair this with Milk Drink to always keep itself healthy, and Rollout which builds up over time until it becomes a nuke, and the fact that it has a Lum Berry to counter your attempts of inflicting it with status conditions, and you can see why she's so infamous. Her reputation is well deserved. When I look back to all my previous playthroughs, Whitney was without a doubt the gym leader that walled me the hardest. And this is coming from someone who used to have the bad habit of overleveling his Pokémon. My team was overleveled, and Miltank was still able to beat them consistently for a good while. Yes, there's the trade Machop you can get, but the fact that we have to resort to that as a counter in the first place just shows how brutal Miltank is.
Holy an essay
In Pokemon Adventures manga, Pryce don't bother to fight with crime syndicate, because he was a headmaster of this xD Seriously, he was more evil than Giovanni himself and his that strong so his Delibird was able to defeat Ho-oh.
I didn’t know! That’s amazing, thanks for sharing
Dude. I know about it but for those who haven't read the manga put a spoiler warning
One crazy strategy to Witney's Miltank, i see used on Nuzlocke: Croconaw RAGE!
If Miltank starts to Rollout, USE RAGE, it'll build up so hard to even takes more than 60% of her HP
Maybe it's just me, but I'm always surprised to hear people say how ultra rare Heracross is. I'm not saying it's an immediate find but it's a 30% chance to find one in an encounter-yielding tree. There are a lot of trees to be fair but, i dunno, it usually doesn't take me that long to find one. Probably alone on this one.
4:29 that is too damn funny
I soloed Morthy on gsc with geodude with magnitude
Here from the shorts, this has definitely earned my sub! Great content!
Thanks so much! Really appreciate it!
I have a LOT of nostalgic love for gen 2 and I love the darker tone/feel in comparison to gen 1, but some of these gym teams are just bizarre and downright awful 😂 Great video though - definitely do gen 3 next!
3:48 😂😂 love that bit!!
Very good!
I do like johto a lot. Kanto was cool but johto was so open. I wanna try a price to chuck route
Great video Whitney has def been the toughest even for nearly 20 years
I understand that there are cute technical qualities to Falkner's lineup, but even without a decent Rock-type or the Mareep line, you can very easily body through the frail Pidgey and Pidgeotto. Imo the (Flying-type, lol) Scyther on Bugsy's team warrants Bugsy to be higher than Falkner i.e. 1) Whitney 2) Clair 3) Bugsy. Great vid!
I still have PTSD from Whitney's miltank
When fighting Whitney, the odds are always against you. And that's just a fact.
Haha true
My list
1) Whitney
2) Morty
3) Clair
4) Faulkner
5) Jasmine
6) Pryce
7) Chuck
8) Bugsy
Looking forward to more from this series!
Bro Whitney was such a menace of Johto 😭
Listen, Morty is the hardest gym leader because when I was playing gold as a kid, I couldn't figure out the gym puzzle
Dude love your content. Videos are great, keep em' coming.
11:38 isn’t there a machop trade in goldenrod, or am I misremembering?
Yes but high chance that it’ll be male
That's one thing I love about pokemon, the gym leaders are just the local strongest trainers, which means a teenage girl can become the gym leader by divising a difficult strategy on just one of her pokemon. On a national scale, Whitney would likely get rolled, but all she's dealing with are the Goldenrod locals and some transient challengers. It's almost like a civic duty rather than an prestigious title.
I actually agree with pretty much all your rankings here
Awesome video man. I've seen a bunch of you on shorts and I was excited to see a full video! Definite subscribe, and you have a great day too!
Thank you so much! Means a lot
Honestly nowadays I just use female Pokemon or fighting types to deal with Whitney, but as a kid I definitely struggled with her
I knew whitney was coming at no. 1....i rlly had to work sooo hard against her! Her rollout and attract was irritating!
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. But nothing comes close to the champion battle! It was rlly my 2nd hardest champion battle of all time! (After cynthia from platinum)
Justmine is bumped up a few spots for me because of that one really cute Masters event with her and Whitney
I really like your videos bro. I think you should probably make more long length videos
Thanks! That’s the plan, I have a couple in the works already
Would be great if we got an update to Johto, where they pretty much have their own Pokemon League.
Great video! Def do hoenn
Whitney is actually countered pretty well by a Geodude with Dig. Slam does next to nothing, and you can break her rollout chain by hiding underground.
Everyone indeed knew Miltank is coming😂
The miltank is the main danger against Whitney, but with some bad luck the Clefairy can be a nightmare too... in my first playthrough this pinky ball with metronome hit me with Hydopump on quilava, Earthquake on a Flaffy, Megabsorb on a Geodude, then Outrage, Fissure (a OHKO move) and, when.afert reloading many times (some times defeating the clefairy but falling under the flitch-attract trap of the bovine) i have enogh and i decide to take the in-game trade female Machop (i don't like to use in-game trades, but i was furious), Clefairy's metronome at the second turn become AEROBLAST!... WTF
I think the idea of chuck only having 2 Pokémon is that each of his Pokémon have a much higher level, so they would be harder to take down and make up for not having 3 or more Pokémon.
The funny thing about Whitney, I actually traded over a baby Blaze Kick Chimchar over to my Heartgold in the early game and I almost finished my entire Mach Punch PP fighting that damn Miltank. I dont even know if I should've traded over a baby Torchic at the start (maybe double kick would've been better?)
You should have just evolved it into Monferno and mach punched it until it fainted. You just can't level it up more than 30 because that's the level cap for traded Pokémon.
@@KixVux yeah it was a monferno by then, I just have a habit of forgetting what second evolutions are called
@yazanraouf9604 Wow, that's weird to me because I remember even some of the evolved Pokémon names. You could have also leveled it up more if Miltank was that hard or get a Heracross with brick break. It will destroy that Miltank.
Johto has been and always will be my favourite generation
If you are doing Honen, then I assume you will be using Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire?
This is how I would rank them:
8. Brawly
7. Roxanne
6. Liza & Tate
5. Flannery
4. Wattson
3. Norman
2. Wallace
1. Winona
It might be off, as I'm thinking of my experience of Emerald as I was ranking them.
Can you do this for the Hoenn gym leaders??
Edit: I wrote this before finishing the video lol. Yes! I wanna see the Hoenn version!
Dealing with Morty is hard because Hypnosis almost always hits
I defeated whitney with my quilava in one turn although i used potions but i found clair was the most difficult one in this region
Morty is actually pretty interesting in GSC because the difficulty is completely binary. If you have Kadabra with Psybeam (barring completely terrible DVs), then he's trivially easy. If you're doing a Nuzlocke and you ban Kadabra, however, the Gengar (who does have Hypnosis + Dream Eater in GSC) is a potential runkiller.
The teams i would give the gym leaders
Falkner: Murkrow and ace Hoothoot
Bugsy: Spinarak and ace Heracross
Whitney: Furret, Jigglypuff and that damn ace KILLTANK
Chuck: Machoke, Poliwrath, Primeape and the ace hitmontop
Jasmine: Skarmory, Magneton, Scizor, and the ace Steelix
Pryce: Sneasel, Delibird, Dewgong, and the ace Piloswine
Clair: Gyarados, Dragonair, Lapras, Aerodactyl and the ace Kingdra
People who think the first 3 gym of Johto is hard probably didn't know the fact that you can get Geodude before you even fought Falkner. Also yeah notice that Johto gym leader didn't even use Johto pokemon?
And machop. Or just para it two times with flaaffy. Or use a level 21 fearow you get for free. How is Whitney hard again?
As somebody who started Pokémon during Gen 6 and never played HGSS until this year, Johto is the best region
I completely agree with the lower 4, I always thought that they all fall in the same trash bag... Too easy to worry about. But regard Bugsy... I honestly think that he's rank is too high... For 1 single reason and this reason is birds. In the first routes you can catch pidgey (And there's a ton of then) or you can catch a Ferrow in lower part of route 49. Both of them have flying moves that are really strong. And like you said, those are 2 option just if you don't pick cindaquil, wich is the the best starter of the region by far.
You can trade a Drowsy for a Machomp, so there are some Options. I fact if your creative, its realy fun to outsmart the Cow.
If you try to copy it whit Ditto, use Drowsis Hynosis, Sandattack, and Mudslap, maybe Dig to reset the Rollout, Stunspore from Grass Types, or a Onix whit Screech, or even nuke it whit Geodudes Selfe detruct like I did, its a lot if fun coming up whit Tactics against her.
I hate how 99% of Players just proceed to hit it realy hard.
I think you would really appreciate pimanrules' series where he scientifically ranks all the trainers in Pokémon Red/Blue by having EVERY trainer fight each other. He is also making one for Crystal soon!
Morty is also very flawed if you can manage to catch a Miltank with the scrappy ability, making it able to land normal type attacks.
I do love Hoenn
The only counter that seems consistent to deal with witney’s Miltank is getting a alakazam before the gym, and teaching in focus blast from the goldenrod department store (abra is on the route before goldenrod, just evolve to kadabra 16 and than immediately trade to evolve it to alakazam)
I would say everybody found the E4 and the cow pusher Whitney to be difficult.
I forgot that lance had his dragonite eradicate a low level team rocket grunt…. Man we got off lucky beating him
Chuck, Pryce and Jasmine can be fought in any order
I would always deal with Chuck first because I can get fly and the secret medicine much faster.
I wish i could fix those Gyms.. Falkner with Noctowl and Natu instead of Pidgeotto and Pidgey, Bugsy with Ledyba and Spinarak instead of Kakuna and Metapod, Morty with a Missdreavus instead of one Haunter, Chuck with Hitmontop and Heracross added to his team, Skarmory and Forrestress added to Jasmine's team and i would remove Seel from Pryce's team, and add Sneasel, Jynx and Delibird
I can imagine Wattson ranking high in the Hoenn video, because without a Marshtomp you're quite screwed. There are other options, like Combusken, Breloom, Hariyama or even Geodude. But you still have to grind. That Magneton is nasty, specially if you took Treecko.
all hail clair!
I don't ever have trouble with Whitney. I don't understand how people always talk about how hard it is to beat her miltank.
I was once playing a nuzlocke on SS and Whitney 's clefairy use metronome. Unluckly she used hydropump and one shotted my geodude... So I lost
Great video! Could you rank the Gym leaders based on their Fighting Dojo teams 😃
Yes plz Hoenn!
Do the Johto time skip Kanto leaders! When I played them on the OG version, I thought it was going to be an easy win cause I had done them once before in the R/B/Y. Brock is was completely justified and the fight with Cal in Viridion City was interesting too. I think you’ve already done Red but sounds fun again lol
Whitney was hard but a nidoran on route 12 solved the issue, just evolve it to nidorino and get Double Kick. 1 shot the clefairy, switch to potential jigglypuff from waaaaay back in the beginning of the game for sleep and switch back to ko. I think I restarted the game like 5xs before I got any actual help 😅😂
Subbed dope video
I bought a used soul silver game and guess what? The previous owner stopped his journey right at goldenrod city and no badge to show for it lol
I understand peoples struggle with Whitney, I know the first time I played Johto as a kid I struggled, but since then I’ve always just mud slapped it into irrelevance and geodude just sits on it like it’s nothing
Imo, Falkner ranked way too high and Whitney is overrated. Overall though, tough to rank Johto given that the whole game is disgustingly easy, even by Pokemon standards.
Beat Whitney on first try...I got super lost in the game and by the time I knew where I was suppose to go I have my only 3 pokemon all at lvl 40. Seven year old me curbstomped her whole team...and then proceeded to wipe my ass with the rest of the Johto gym leaders....Johto was so easy.
It’s kind of strange but I just didn’t have the same issues with Whitney that everyone else had. I beat her on my second try.
With Whitney you can trade for a machop with a golden berry with them. Honestly, tough still even with a machop but it is an option.
Morty should be much higher. I always ran a pigeotto and gengar would also hypnotise it and dream eat it to death
That moveset is from Gen 2.
Why am I not surprised that the Pink Witch is in first? 😂
Ngl Chuck always gave me a hard time whenever I face him. His Poliwrath is suprisingly bulky and can really wear you down with Hypnosis and Body Slam. Also, if you're using healing items, Chuck can just straight up cheat and Focus Punch you as you're healing. Also, do not underestimate the power of Geodude against Bugsy all you have to do is set up one defense curl and you body Bugsy's entire team.
I'm rather surprised how much I disagree with the ranking on this. Nothing against you at all, I agree with basically all the reasoning here, but my list is just pretty different. So here's mine if you care enough to read.
8. Jasmine. Quagsire. That's it. It counters the entire team with Earthquake (or Mud Shot if you use level caps) and Surf. Surf alone invalidates the Steelix, and likely even the Magnemites if you feel risky with just a water type, otherwise you likely have a Graveler/Golem waiting patiently in the back. If Steelix had Earthquake, she might be more of an issue, but as it stands, Jasmine's rock bottom sadly.
7. Morty. I'd imagine that it would be just as, if not easier, to sweep Morty with Raticate Crunch, but I never tried for some reason. Because of that, he's always given me a bit more trouble than Jasmine. And that's thanks to Curse, a move that all but Gengar has. 1/4 hp is a lot of damage, so I never get an immediate sweep because of it. Doesn't make him less easy, though. I bet if the Gengar kept Dream Eater from his Gen 2 days, he'd be formidable; Mean Look combined with Hypnosis (which is 90% for him) could potentially ravage teams if left unchecked. Sucker Punch really ruins poor Gengar.
6. Pryce. Electric + Water = a finished battle. Dewgong is quite bulky, though, so it almost always hits back, and Piloswine gets Hail and Blizzard, so at least there's some strategy.
5. Falkner. Honestly, don't struggle against him much, but he has the perfect recipe to be a problem. Sand-Attack and Roost is all he needs to whittle down your pokemon one by one since you won't OHKO Pidgeotto or outspeed him without Paralysis or Rock Polish. Otherwise, eh.
4. Chuck. It's all about the RNG for me. Poliwrath is always a pain to deal with since, again, you can never OHKO, and it can hit back surprisingly hard with Surf. Couple that with Hypnosis & Body Slam hacks, and sorta random AI and, yeah, he's just a pain.
3. Bugsy. I remember the first time I played HG, brimming with confidence, then walking out with a badge in one hand, a dead Quilava in the other, and a thoroughly shattered ego. The boy doesn't play around. At least if we ignore the cocoons. The star of the show is Scyther, of course, and the funny thing is that, despite Bug and its pitiful type matchup, there are very few pokemon at that point that resist it, and those that do certainly don't resist the Technician boosted Quick Attack. Combined with Focus Energy and a scary high Attack stat and he just mows through health bars. Your best bet is Onix, to be honest.
2. Whitney. Upset of the year, I bet, but I feel like, so long as you can slow it down, half the RNG check is won. Is that an easy prospect? Absolutely not. We all know why Miltank sucks to fight so I won't reiterate it. But you are given just enough to stand a chance, I think. So, while I won't act like "it's not that hard y'all stoopid", I know there is a sort of consistent strategy to beat her. Unlike...
1. Clair. This is the Gym Leader I shudder to think about. Every pokemon she has is a problem, even down to the Gyarados thanks to Dragon Rage. Then there are the Thunder Wave Dragonairs that I can never seem to even 2 shot for some reason, ready to cripple my entire team. Probably should trust Blizzard more or actually grind for Ice Beam, but who cares because Kingdra isn't weak to Ice. Or practically ANYTHING. If you want Super Effective so badly, the best you get is Dragon Claw (Goldenrod Lottery) on Feraligatr. That's it. If not, then get ready to try and outmanoeuvre the devastating Hydro Pump - Dragon Pulse combo that nothing resists. And every once in a while, a pokemon just gets deleted from the field thanks to Sniper. Absolute nightmare. I can sometimes take Whitney down without losing anyone, but I can't remember the last time I walked out of Clair's Gym with all 6 pokemon alive.
Love the list! Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I totally get where you’re coming from (and I love the high ranking for 2 pokemon Chuck, you justify it well!)
@slamgaming32 Thanks! Glad you enjoyed. It was fun to make.
The Miltank is why Chikorita is the best starter. The early game is brutal, but when you et to Whitney, your bayleef has Poisonpowder and Reflect.
Or you can use the machop from by trading the dude in the market
@@ArTb.. I'd rather not use a pokemon that I'm just gonna throw away later
11:45 You are completely and utterly wrong.
Beating Whitney 101:
1. Don't play the Crystal version.
2. Catch a Drowzee.
3. Trade it for an always female Machop in the department store.
4. Let Machop defeat all trainers in the gym to level it up a bit.
5. Now you have a mon with two super effective moves, resistance to Rollout, and immunity to Attract.
6. ???
7. World domination.
Honestly I never have any problems against Whitney, maybe a few pokemon down but nothing too big
Whitneys Miltank was the pokemon I hated the most when I was playing SS, followed by Mortys Gengar bcs of Shadowball but Whitneys Miltank WTF HAHAHAHAHHA Thank God I was smart enough to save before facing her bcs I fainted a lot of Pokemon and almost lost (i dont like losing 😂). Everyone said, Kingdra by Clair is hard but I really prepared and captured a Jynx and Lapras to kill her team and I used Perish Song on her Kingdra so none of my pokemon fainted so Clair for me was the easiest bcs I really grinded and prepared
Heavily disagree with the Morty placement, he’s defo in the top 3 for me. Sure if you know his team and move sets exactly, you can prepare for it but most people won’t know the teams and move sets going into it the first time. The hypnosis, dream eater combo and shadow ball on gengar are no joke.
Look at Lucahjin’s let’s play for Pokémon Heartgold. She easily goes past Whitney but struggles a lot against Morty. I think Pryce is by far the easiest because his Pokémon can’t really do much to your team at that point in the game. Even Chuck can do a lot with moves like hypnosis and focus punch. Pryce doesn’t have much of a strategy other than rest stalling if I remember correctly
Morty's Gengar doesn't have Dream Eater in HGSS. If a normal type tries to use Leer or Growl 5 times to run out Sucker Punch, he literally can't touch it.
@@yorecf9641 I'm referring to the Haunter when I talk about the hypnosis dream eater combo
@@kavinselvakumar4301 wasn't worded very well. "The hypnosis, dream eater combo and shadow ball on Gengar," makes it sound like it's all on one Pokémon (which it was in GSC).
@@kavinselvakumar4301 I would also add that some players may not have a Normal type, and if that’s not the case, Morty could easily be a candidate for #1.
People say that Whitney is horrible, that Clair is tough, that others like Fantina and Norman are ...
Wait, WHAT?
Yes, Whitney is pain, i agree. But you have access to focus blast tm and greatest fighting type heracross.
Only time Clair is tough, when you try draco meteor strat. because dragonair in anyway can not OHKO.
And i never EVER understand why NORMAN is hard. Like, you have min. 3 fighting type (well 1 is starter) encounters + on my opinion also his ruby/sapphire (yes, i mean 2 slakings) team is not tough.
I don't think Norman is that hard but his Slaking literally just spam yawn and that battle took forever. They're really annoying. I'm kind of glad it got loafing around ability because he almost beaten me the first time I battled him.
Did you do emerald gym leaders? Did I miss it?
G video ❤
What about the Johto gym leaders in HGSS when you call them in the endgame?
Wait was Hoenn Gyms really that competitive
I haven’t played the gyms for a while and just do elite four wipes for money and lvl up for evolutions
The only thing I recalled was Norman just being annoying not necessarily hard just wasted a lot of time
Damit, Rocky the Onix is the GOAT for the first 3 gyms !!! Screech is way more useful than you average can imagine !!!
I argue that Falkner at least should be below Jasmine. His flying types should be weak to the neighborhood Mareep south of Violet City. Jasmine, as a Steel type gym leader, should pack more of a punch than Falkner.
That means that I think this should be the list:
8. Morty (which I stalled using my level 3 Sentret of all Pokemon)
7. Chuck
6. Pryce
5. Falkner
4. Jasmine (interchangable with Bugsy)
3. Bugsy (interchangable with Jasmine)
2. Clair
1. Whitney