Which fight did you think was the hardest? Or if there’s any fights you think I should’ve mentioned, which fights are they? Let me know in the comments below
I first tried bdsp Cynthia but I went into that fight studying Cynthia because of how infamous she was so I don’t think it’s fair for me to say it was easy plus I didn’t do her rematch. Volo took me soo many attempts because I went into blind and even after I studied him and better built my team it still wasn’t easy, my team was pretty trash though so that might have been why it was harder for me. Kieran was baby work and I haven’t fought red yet
Red: Is carried by his level advantage and hail. Cynthia: Full EVs/IVs, a very competent team, and has held items. Kieran: Like Cynthia, but his team is a bit less competent, and being DLC holds him back a bit. Volo: A 6v8 essentially, and has the pokemon equivalent to Satan backing him up.
Cynthia is absolutely still a difficult fight even after all these years, but her team suffers from a fatal flaw, her team gets counter picked really hard, especially if you have anything with really high special defence. Good thing those counter picks are so uncommonly on any teams that aren’t going out of their way for those Pokémon.
Cynthia is the QUEEN!! Something to note is that original Gen 4 trainers (Including Cynthia) were oddly coded to just use their moves randomly so it was just a 25% roll every time an AI attacked in Gen 4 originally and we still thought she was difficult back then LOL (A youtube video about came out like a month ago or so from posting this)
volo was the first time ive ever cried because of a video games difficulty. i didnt start bawling, but there were tears. 8 POKEMON. 8 OF THEM. COME THE FUCK ON
I fought Kieran with a team made up entirely of level 100 Pokemon that were EV trained and IV bred, and still lost 3 of them in the battle. I imagine that he must have been an absolute menace had my team been at level 80 like his.
The difference between level 100 and 80 is honestly not that big compared to the difference between, say, 60 and 80. By that point everything has 80 levels worth of stat boosts so the extra 20 levels isn’t that big of a deal. Definitely still gives a meaningful advantage but it’s not as big as you’d think. Pokémon games don’t normally have level curves that high so no one really notices this.
@@epicphantom589 Idk, a lvl 80 -> 100 gives a roughly 25% increase in each stat. That is quite huge when it comes to both dishing out and tanking damage, as well as allowing you to control the speed of the battle far easier
@@zillva Ok yeah I guess it’s still meaningful. But I just replayed Indigo Disk and spent forever on Amarys and a long time on Drayton. Then I first-tried Kieran. My team was only in the 80s (some high some low). I had Quaquaval, Talonflame, Gardevior, Lucario, Grimsnarl, and Ogerpon. Tailwind definitely gave me a big advantage early on but most of Kieran’s Pokémon are relatively slow anyway.
@epicphantom589 I see. I actually struggled the most with Lacey, due to my BB team not being finished yet (I got a full shiny team of Archaludon, Overqwil, Araquanid, Whimsicott, Incineroar and Rampardos), seeing as they were low 70s, not EV trained and not complete movesets yet. Just that difference between lvl 70-74 and 78-80 is already enough to make a huge difference, imo, as it can be as drastic as fainting to a move you would have survived otherwise. Tera water, water bubble Araquanid hits HARD in rain btw (2.5x dmg from STAB)
Ugh! That made me paranoid to the point of saving my game every time I was about to enter a house afterwards. Even the fanmade games I got into that habit because of that one jump scare and getting my teeth kicked in so hard.
I think that Hyper beam porygon-Z is underrated here. In the competitive scene, this type of set is called a “delete button” where the strategy with it is just to send it out against a slower Pokémon, and you get a guaranteed kill. The chances of anything surviving a STAB, adaptability, hyper beam from a max EV/IV P-Z are very low. It doesn’t really matter that it needs to recharge after, as it’s already picked up a kill and done it’s job, and anything else is just a bonus. Cynthia already has Spiritomb and Milotic as bulky options, so eviolite Porygon 2 wouldn’t make much sense, and tri-attack would leave P-Z vulnerable because it’s significantly less likely to one-shot anything. The main goal in the context of Cynthia’s team is to remove anything that could stop the Garchomp sweep, and if porygon can get a Hyper Beam off on a bulky Fairy that can survive poison jab or a powerful ice type, that’s a huge advantage for her. Recharge moves are also generally better in singles because of pivoting, so the idea of “never have any recharge moves” definitely makes sense if you’re more involved in the VGC format. Singles is all about playing towards a particular win condition, and everything on Cynthia’s team is there to set up for the garchomp sweep, which is why most people do end up wiping to the garchomp and not some random other team member.
@@veljkokravic15 I got the game before anyone I knew and it was my first game. I had no idea there were methods to beating it like that. I was frustrated for a month on it lol. I got lucky and my primaria touched out an attack and landed a crit moonblast lol
@@Ethan_Fassler That's true for the most part, as before the Indigo Disk released, most of us built new teams to take on Double battles The ones who went in blind struggled in the Blueberry Elite 4 too
Kieran was running a competitive team with competitive tactics. As someone who refuses to touch competitive Pokemon, I only won that fight by switch baiting Kieran with Ogerpon. And even then, I only had one Pokemon left by the time his Hydrapple went down.
Red doesn't use Earthquake because HE'S ON TOP OF A F**KING MOUNTAIN ...but seriously though, just bring something that _does_ and his pikachu is toast also I feel like Kieran's movesets are so subpar is because he's supposed to be actually somewhat beatable lmao
@@jointser1008Pikachu- weak to Ground Venusaur- neutral to ground Blastoise- neutral to Ground Charizard- immune to ground Espeon-nuetral to ground Snorlax-neutral to ground
@@hylianhero1921 I am talking about reds weakness to ELECTRIC types while none of his pokemons knows anything to counter electric I am talking about red from HGSS btw. Lapras,blastoise and charizard all have a weakness against electric.
The thing with Red, or at least gold and silver Red, is that most of the time you're not going to be fighting him at an equal level just because of how big of a pain it was leveling up in those specific games. When I fought him, my highest level Pokemon, my starter was barely at level 65, and I only won because I had stocked up on revives and heals.
yea. most of Red's Challenge comes from the massive level jump from Kanto-Post Game to Mt Steel. at most you fought Lv 60 mons frim Blue in Kanto. Red starts with Lv 81/88 Pikachu and then overpowers your pokemon with lv77/84 pokemons. and i only won because i knew what was coming for the most part and prepared from the VERY BEGINNING against red.
I feel like, lore wise, that’s supposed to be the point. He’s been training on that mountain for years. You started your journey what I believe is assumed to be like “a few months ago” in game. You’re *supposed* to be lower leveled than him. If he had better pokemon species/moves he’d be even more of a nightmare
Yes. That’s his advantage. They all have something for them, and his point is that he has "experience". More then you. Which is why he’s hardest. You can’t have any bigger advantage then more lvls then your opponent
I remember going into bdsp Cynthia fight thinking I was prepared with a full level 65 team only to realise Cynthia had an almost level 70 garchomp but my abomasnow clutched up and 1 tapped it after surviving a poison jab as my final pokemon
Red is carried hard by a massive level spike from Gen 2’s poor scaling mixed with permanent Hail. A good electric type or something with bolt-beam coverage absolutely wrecks him. I never really understood why people feared Cynthia for a long time, I never had any trouble with her and beat her first try in any game she appeared in on my first play throughs. And then BDSP happened… Granted, they went balls to the wall with the league’s difficulty so it’s understandable for anyone to struggle, but still, she arguably puts some smogon sweats to shame. Volo is a hard fight even if you bring level 100 legendaries to the battle. It’s less so about team composition and more so about game mechanics. Volo’s battle is like a game of chess, pieces being taken every turn, and then all of a sudden Volo uses a style or gets a lucky crit and a chainsaw goes flying through the chess board. Kieran is surprisingly straight forward. No environmental gimmicks mixed with poor game design, no balls to the wall competitive strats, no Uno Reverses, just your standard fair with a bit more sauce to it. He’s arguably the perfect example of what a good end game battle should be, tough but nothing ludicrous. Personally, none of them compare to Eri though lol. That girl kicked my ass 10 times and threw the match out of pity on the 11th. Even after I EV & IV trained my team she was still thrashing me. Hardest fight I’ve ever dealt with in the whole series.
i think in cynthia's case is she's really hard if you're blind with pokemon her whole thing was being unexpected and difficult without prep unless it's bdsp. no one knew what weakness spiritomb has becasue well... it had none in gen 4 without fairy type and then insert meme of walking into the wrong house in undella town with no time to heal.
Her and Drayton (the Dragon E4 member from Indigo Disc) were the only 2 to hand me L's in SV. But I feel Ultra Necrozma should have replaced Kieran on this list. If you didn't Toxic spam him or cheese him with Zoroark, he was an absolute menace
Out of the 4 fights, I think the best balanced one is Volo's. The problem with Red and Cynthia is that most of the time you lose because you are underleveled, and that isn't at all "good difficulty" While Kieran, since is DLC, YOU are the overleveled one. That kills mostly of the difficulty in a bad way Levels in Pokemon are a high problem while balancing fights, that's why I think Volo's fight is the best one, under or overleveled. PD: Cynthia's rematch in BDSP could have a good difficulty, but the problem is that it is a rematch... Mostly of the rematchs in Pokemon have a good difficulty, so I personally think that we should be talking about in-game and not post-game (I know that Volo is technically a post-game fight... But I don't care, Legends Arceus has a extremely low number of battles)
@@thomasmoreo3230 hm, interesting, I guess everyone has their own experiences, I never really particularly struggled with Ghetsis but I did with Elesa lol, kinda cool to hear everyone stories on what they struggled with
If Cynthia gave Porygon-Z Tri Attack and Psyshock/Psychic alongside Bolt-Beam, replaced Garchomp's Poison Jab with Iron Head, and used Mega Lucario, her team would be 10/10.
Iron head would’ve guaranteed inflicting damage on players trying to PP stall because no type is immune to steel. The downside is not hitting azumarill super effectively
@@SMBZYT 🤔 May. Route 110. Infamous for Sapphire speedruns, and prime Nuzlocke-ender. She may not be an endgame fight, or a boss… but hard nonetheless. …also Whitney exists.
Like this video! When I was a kid playing GSC for the first time and noone knew you could even find Red at the top of Mount Silver the level gap absolutely made it a bigger deal, I get why it wasnt accounted for here, but at the time it was rare to grind pokemon up that high and when you found him you were likely 20ish levels behind him, was a goal to reach for. Thats why the fight has mystique in my mind, less so the team compositions competitiveness
(I’m gonna piss so many people of with this) Honestly, I’d switch out Red for one of the AI profferers, since the thing that makes Red so hard is the levels, not necessarily the Pokémon themselves. Meanwhile, not only are all of the professors Pokemon 570 BST or higher, you don’t even know what types they are going in, leading to this guessing game that can potentially give them free turns. Turo is particularly nasty in this regard, since not one of his “Iron” Pokemon are even steel types.
The only reason why some people had difficulty with the ai professors is because the 6 Pokemon in their teams were unknown but also familiar species. Also the element of suprise that is their new typings AND the Ace holding a Booster Energy, that automatically activates the ability I really don't think the professors are challenging at all since we now have Information on the Paradox Pokemon
@@mr.lantern1111 once you know what types the paradox Pokémon are they aren’t very difficult to handle. At that point of the game your Pokémon should have around almost perfect IVs, great coverage, and held items.
Would replace Red for Iris rematch team from BW2 hardmode, however Red is one of the four horseman due to his high levels not his slightly above average team.
@@jointser1008 Oh yeah, that would definitely be my other choice if we aren’t taking into account changed type matchups in the AI fights. That fight made her my favorite champion
I think any weather team can easily counter Kieran because if you change the weather he doesn’t set the rain back up, and that kinda makes his politoed useless
Cynthia having a legitimate competitively viable team trumps all others. And then they put her in B/W as an unavoidable encounter. They knew she was a menace.
Not surprised with Cynthia. Still digesting my teeth she thoroughly kicked in back the in OG D/P/Plt. OH and the paranoia fear she instilled into me to never just walk into a house without saving outside first. Now I just save on the side, right in front of the door, to avoid walking in and getting wrecked all the sudden.
They were harder (well, AI Turo was harder since I never played Scarlet but I can imagine AI Sada is about the same) but I also didn't feel either were exceptionally hard. The hardest part about the AI fight was the feels, considering the AI is an innocent pawn in the professor's plan.
I've noticed a fairly common trend between pokemon that only have 3 moves. They all run a move that locks the user into only using that move(and the same logic is applied to PLA for some reason, despite Lock-in moves working a bit differently iirc). Dunno why that's always the case. I know the video is 2 months old now, but just wanted to share my thoughts on this.
Kieran had a decent team, what generations eight and nine have become so ridiculously easy that it was still near impossible to lose any battles against 99% of trainers because you couldn’t avoid being over leveled even if you specificallytried to
I had a level 100 Mewtwo when I did Kieran and the Elite 4 in the BB League… Basically I swept all of them and did the entire DLC final boss with just Mewtwo.
BDSP Cynthia was...an experience. I flung myself at that blonde wall for FOUR HOURS to no avail. I was crying. I had to spend the next day grinding off camera. Volo was very hard but i still managed to beat him first try. I knew i would fight him but I was also expecting to fight Arceus soon after. I also thought i would get to heal before Giratina... I packed a variety of mons including two tanks, alpha Snorlax and a shiny Hippowdon. Volo's base team whittled me down to almost nothing, but i beat him with a half-health Porygon-Z. And then when the Giratina fight started IMMEDIATELY, I knew i had to do something out of the box. I used Max Revives on my team, starting with Snorlax if I remember correctly. I'm pretty sure Volo himself had sold me a lot of them. And finally it was down to Hippowdon, who felled the antimatter beast with a strong Crunch. You can see videos of both of these on my channel, as well as me steamrolling Kieran (and getting whupped by Lacey)
That’s weird because all four of these are super easy particularly Kieran using one ice and one fighting type Pokémon move (which there should be abundance of) wrecks the majority of his team and Pon-pon could pretty much take care of the rest lol
Makes me wish we could battle Cogita. Maybe they'll bring her to Masters. Also Cynthia has that little sister who doesn't even have a name or unique sprite. Imagine. She could be anywhere.
I feel like i didn't have the Kieran fight experience, I just had a competitive Milotic and he buffed her to +6 and i sweeped, then my game crashed and i had to do it again... same thing happened again
I'll just say, I've never seen anybody do a pokemon scarlet and violet Nuzlocke including the dlc. Red has been defeated multiple times on Nuzlockes. BDSP Cynthia too, not including her rematches, though. I've only seen a few nuzlockes beat Volo. But Kieran? I'm not sure if its even possible if you aren't overleveling not healing.
I understand what you mean by having a team likely built strictly for single battles, but, the only battles you fight in the BB League are Doubles. I'd HOPE to have a team built strictly on Doubles... oh wait: Myriga the Espeon Dyguino the Umbreon Citadark the Triumphant Typhlosion Ostyrix the Triumphant Quagsire Lanayru the Triumphant Ampharos Nyxorius the Triumphant Flygon Yeah, these six were MADE for doubles because that's all you fight in Colosseum. So, these 6 have a story. But, it was beautiful to see Kieran fall to the tag team of Myriga & Dyguino. They started off the adventure in Orre and they defeated Kieran's Hydrapple, ending his reign. I get what you mean though, since players may be too accustomed to Single Battles, so when you fight Lacey at the start and get jumpscared by a double battle.
Red’s difficulty is the lvl of his Pokemon so if you take that away then he has nothing left. Considering my highest lvl Pokemon is usually upper 60s at best I always struggled with that fight
I’m surprised to find out people thought Kieran was a hard battle, idk if it was my team that made it easy or what but I thought it woulda been harder. I definitely agree with the other 3 tho
@@SMBZYT honestly don’t remember, I didn’t wanna spoil his team so I didn’t know what the levels were but I’d cap myself out at the level of the last boss I’d fight
Bdsp was really easy but when I got to the elite four things begin to look challenge, but then Cynthia was on a whole other level. Like you said items, perfect evs and ivs and almost perfect movesets. The experienced the trauma all over again 😭😵💫
@@SMBZYT bruh, that miltank was garchomp before Cynthia's garchomp. it has high BST for where you are in the game, high speed, good hp and attack, more than enough bulk, and 2 bullshit move that would make you slam your head; Attract and Milk Drink. yes, there are counterplays to miltank like Muscle the Machop and Geodudette. but considering you have at most lv 20 pokemons and most pokemon you can get is slower than that damned miltank, it becomes a death sentence to trainers that isnt prepared to miltank.
To be honest, I can't say anything about Red and Cynthia as i've never fought them at least properly since I never played Platinum but Volo is probably the hardest fight in my opinion since there's no preparation since everyone else is so much weaker before him, the gameplay style is different and worse than in other games and he has technically 8 Pokemon but for Kieran, I kind of don't think he should be here which is weird because he's my favorite Pokemon character ever and I would say that he does fit but there's a lot of factors that's holding him back like him being a DLC boss and him being the only one out of the 4 that isn't a final boss technically. Also I will say that this doesn't really seem like a fair ranking mainly because of the rematches since Red and Volo don't have rematches and while Kieran does, his team doesn't really change while Cynthia has a vastly stronger team on a rematch which is why the way you judged the certain teams is a bit odd to me
Kieran whooped my ass in the last battle for ogerpon in the teal mask only because I started the dlc at the beginning of the regular playthrough. So I defeated the first paldean gym leader(bug type lady) and then started the teal mask. The dlc sort of accommodates to your level the entire time, up until that specific battle with Kieran. So there I was battling his lvl 70+ team with my lvl 20-25 team. His yanmega basically swept my entire team lol.
The only one out of these I had to grind for was Cynthia, and not even because the first time I fought her was when I was 8 in Platinum. She still beat me in BDSP. Oh, and so did Red, when I was 10, but Cynthia was worse. God knows how I beat Volo the first time. I was in tears.
@@SMBZYT honestly the first one in Black/White after beating N is my favorite. But is Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon team is most likely better. Unless they pulled that (Not having 4 moves) crap again. (Actually scratch that, they only gave him 5 mons.) the first fight is the hardest in my opinion
I challenged myself to use Kieran's team comp to sweep the ace tournaments and it was so fun (using any other mon besides glalie, sylveon or deoxys is an experience for me)
Which fight did you think was the hardest? Or if there’s any fights you think I should’ve mentioned, which fights are they? Let me know in the comments below
My Chronomon Holy Mode Sweeps All Four Of These Trainers!Corona!Holy Flare!Chrono DSR!
Wouldn't Cynthia be horsewomen
Cynthia and Volo were tough. Red was too. But not as much as them.
I first tried bdsp Cynthia but I went into that fight studying Cynthia because of how infamous she was so I don’t think it’s fair for me to say it was easy plus I didn’t do her rematch. Volo took me soo many attempts because I went into blind and even after I studied him and better built my team it still wasn’t easy, my team was pretty trash though so that might have been why it was harder for me. Kieran was baby work and I haven’t fought red yet
@@SMBZYT bdsp Cynthia. It's not close. She has an actual competitive team.
Volo laughing from the heavens watching one of his descendants give a 11 year old immense trauma
Laughing from hell*
"Thats my girl"
Great vid but you forgot whittney
@@SK953Gaming on my first time playing HGSS i two shot her Miltank using Geodude and Magnitude-
Volo and Cynthia are the equivalent of my pain because I felt like I was was going to loose it when I fought them
Red: Is carried by his level advantage and hail.
Cynthia: Full EVs/IVs, a very competent team, and has held items.
Kieran: Like Cynthia, but his team is a bit less competent, and being DLC holds him back a bit.
Volo: A 6v8 essentially, and has the pokemon equivalent to Satan backing him up.
Fighting volo is like fighting a gen 4 cynthia and satan TWICE😭
Red from GSC was pure nightmare cuz Snorlax
Took me 2 WEEKS to beat Volo
Cynthia’s the definition of you picked the wrong house fool, while her ancestor make you question your life choices
True when I fought Volo I wondered my life choices I have done and Cynthia I said I chose the wrong house to go in
Kieran suffers so much being dlc I feel like 90% of people had way over leveled Pokémon for this fight because of when it takes place
I think that’s why people say he’s so easy was due to them being overleveled
I swept half his team with just my meowscrada
I started with a new team for each dlc
@@lukechaney3718ash Ketchum method i did the same
I built a mono grass team for the dlc built around the double battles so I wouldn't be over leveled and he was a monster to fight.
Platinum Cynthia was a pushover when i ran through it the first time. BDSP Cynthia decided my karma was awful and punished me accordingly
Cynthia is absolutely still a difficult fight even after all these years, but her team suffers from a fatal flaw, her team gets counter picked really hard, especially if you have anything with really high special defence. Good thing those counter picks are so uncommonly on any teams that aren’t going out of their way for those Pokémon.
Cynthia is the QUEEN!! Something to note is that original Gen 4 trainers (Including Cynthia) were oddly coded to just use their moves randomly so it was just a 25% roll every time an AI attacked in Gen 4 originally and we still thought she was difficult back then LOL (A youtube video about came out like a month ago or so from posting this)
D/P Cynthia hit different
@@Digidude0probably because original diamond and pearl games didnt have npc ais
platinum cynthia was an EXPERIENCE for me personally, i used pokemon i thought looked cool and suffered because of it 😭
volo was the first time ive ever cried because of a video games difficulty. i didnt start bawling, but there were tears. 8 POKEMON. 8 OF THEM. COME THE FUCK ON
Sound like you never played souls like or smt
try pokemon reborn. There are some 6 v 12 double battles there lmaooo
imagine forgetting Greevil had 7 pokemon in his team from Gale of darkness
@@sheinz2556 glass factory fight haunts me
I was so happy when I finally defeated the Giratina. I immediately quit the game when the second one started
I fought Kieran with a team made up entirely of level 100 Pokemon that were EV trained and IV bred, and still lost 3 of them in the battle. I imagine that he must have been an absolute menace had my team been at level 80 like his.
I fought him around his levels and did lose a few guys but I beat the fight first try
The difference between level 100 and 80 is honestly not that big compared to the difference between, say, 60 and 80. By that point everything has 80 levels worth of stat boosts so the extra 20 levels isn’t that big of a deal. Definitely still gives a meaningful advantage but it’s not as big as you’d think. Pokémon games don’t normally have level curves that high so no one really notices this.
@@epicphantom589 Idk, a lvl 80 -> 100 gives a roughly 25% increase in each stat. That is quite huge when it comes to both dishing out and tanking damage, as well as allowing you to control the speed of the battle far easier
@@zillva Ok yeah I guess it’s still meaningful. But I just replayed Indigo Disk and spent forever on Amarys and a long time on Drayton. Then I first-tried Kieran. My team was only in the 80s (some high some low).
I had Quaquaval, Talonflame, Gardevior, Lucario, Grimsnarl, and Ogerpon. Tailwind definitely gave me a big advantage early on but most of Kieran’s Pokémon are relatively slow anyway.
@epicphantom589 I see. I actually struggled the most with Lacey, due to my BB team not being finished yet (I got a full shiny team of Archaludon, Overqwil, Araquanid, Whimsicott, Incineroar and Rampardos), seeing as they were low 70s, not EV trained and not complete movesets yet.
Just that difference between lvl 70-74 and 78-80 is already enough to make a huge difference, imo, as it can be as drastic as fainting to a move you would have survived otherwise.
Tera water, water bubble Araquanid hits HARD in rain btw (2.5x dmg from STAB)
Volo pulling out the Cynthia team (yes arcanine i know) into the double Giratina battle honestly made me have to grind levels to get to 70 ish
Umbreon saved me at the end cuz bro was cheating
I no diff'd that b¡tch. Underlevelled, no items, first try.
Me totally not losing to 7 shadow pokemon or a 6 trainer gaunlet in Colosseum and XD. Yup Volo sure is hard guys smiles
I’ll be honest, I’m a bit surprised he didn’t just use Gyarados (They’re both Water type serpentine mons.)
@@MegaMachiOnline I have Hisuian Zoroark to thank for my Vengeance.
Nah it’s the Cynthia jump scare in undella town black and white.
Ugh! That made me paranoid to the point of saving my game every time I was about to enter a house afterwards. Even the fanmade games I got into that habit because of that one jump scare and getting my teeth kicked in so hard.
Um, ackshually, you could’ve said no to fighting her but you probably mashed, so that’s completely on you🤓
I think that Hyper beam porygon-Z is underrated here. In the competitive scene, this type of set is called a “delete button” where the strategy with it is just to send it out against a slower Pokémon, and you get a guaranteed kill. The chances of anything surviving a STAB, adaptability, hyper beam from a max EV/IV P-Z are very low. It doesn’t really matter that it needs to recharge after, as it’s already picked up a kill and done it’s job, and anything else is just a bonus. Cynthia already has Spiritomb and Milotic as bulky options, so eviolite Porygon 2 wouldn’t make much sense, and tri-attack would leave P-Z vulnerable because it’s significantly less likely to one-shot anything. The main goal in the context of Cynthia’s team is to remove anything that could stop the Garchomp sweep, and if porygon can get a Hyper Beam off on a bulky Fairy that can survive poison jab or a powerful ice type, that’s a huge advantage for her. Recharge moves are also generally better in singles because of pivoting, so the idea of “never have any recharge moves” definitely makes sense if you’re more involved in the VGC format. Singles is all about playing towards a particular win condition, and everything on Cynthia’s team is there to set up for the garchomp sweep, which is why most people do end up wiping to the garchomp and not some random other team member.
That’s a very good insight, I’ve never thought of it that way
Ultra necrozma was Cynthia for 3ds players. Crazy stats and if you didn’t cheese your way through it it was a insane fight
me spamming quick claw with full revives lol
@@veljkokravic15 I got the game before anyone I knew and it was my first game. I had no idea there were methods to beating it like that. I was frustrated for a month on it lol. I got lucky and my primaria touched out an attack and landed a crit moonblast lol
@@WyattStone-lx5wc lol i saw a lot of people used toxic or endeavor but i thought it was boring so i went with brute force and reviving pokemon
Kid named FEAR level 1 rattata with sash Endeavor and Quick Attack
Facts!!! Ultra Necrozma should replace Kieran on this list
Red. trust me, that thing is a genetically modified battle machine.
Whoever thinks Kieran is a hard fight is insane. I had an easy time with this guy
I did too, but most people struggled with him it seems
@@SMBZYT I guess it depends on the team ur using
Me too
@@Ethan_Fassler That's true for the most part, as before the Indigo Disk released, most of us built new teams to take on Double battles
The ones who went in blind struggled in the Blueberry Elite 4 too
If you didn’t over level him, he actually does become insanely difficult
Kieran was running a competitive team with competitive tactics. As someone who refuses to touch competitive Pokemon, I only won that fight by switch baiting Kieran with Ogerpon. And even then, I only had one Pokemon left by the time his Hydrapple went down.
iris:how how are you more difficult than me?
Kieran:idk
Ultra Necrozma: "Hello darkness my old friend🎶"
@axillaryclinical honestly. I swept iris with a zangoose.
Volo ruined me for a minute, I think that's the first story battle I had to grind for
I knew of the battle beforehand because I got the game late and was prepared and knew what to expect, and he still destroyed me I had to grind too
Red doesn't use Earthquake because HE'S ON TOP OF A F**KING MOUNTAIN
...but seriously though, just bring something that _does_ and his pikachu is toast
also I feel like Kieran's movesets are so subpar is because he's supposed to be actually somewhat beatable lmao
a grave mistake considering 50% of his pokemons have electric weakness.
@@jointser1008Pikachu- weak to Ground
Venusaur- neutral to ground
Blastoise- neutral to Ground
Charizard- immune to ground
Espeon-nuetral to ground
Snorlax-neutral to ground
@@hylianhero1921 I am talking about reds weakness to ELECTRIC types while none of his pokemons knows anything to counter electric I am talking about red from HGSS btw. Lapras,blastoise and charizard all have a weakness against electric.
Giving red a low rating when he has some of the highest levelled pokemon in all games is too weird
Idk you can use Earthquake in a moving subway car and it's fine
Cynthia in BDSP looked at power creep and laughed.
The thing with Red, or at least gold and silver Red, is that most of the time you're not going to be fighting him at an equal level just because of how big of a pain it was leveling up in those specific games. When I fought him, my highest level Pokemon, my starter was barely at level 65, and I only won because I had stocked up on revives and heals.
yea. most of Red's Challenge comes from the massive level jump from Kanto-Post Game to Mt Steel. at most you fought Lv 60 mons frim Blue in Kanto. Red starts with Lv 81/88 Pikachu and then overpowers your pokemon with lv77/84 pokemons. and i only won because i knew what was coming for the most part and prepared from the VERY BEGINNING against red.
I feel like, lore wise, that’s supposed to be the point. He’s been training on that mountain for years. You started your journey what I believe is assumed to be like “a few months ago” in game. You’re *supposed* to be lower leveled than him. If he had better pokemon species/moves he’d be even more of a nightmare
Yes. That’s his advantage. They all have something for them, and his point is that he has "experience". More then you. Which is why he’s hardest. You can’t have any bigger advantage then more lvls then your opponent
It wouldve made even more sense for his pokemon to all ve max level due to this but i understand why they didnt do that.
I remember going into bdsp Cynthia fight thinking I was prepared with a full level 65 team only to realise Cynthia had an almost level 70 garchomp but my abomasnow clutched up and 1 tapped it after surviving a poison jab as my final pokemon
I know exactly why Red doesn't use earthquake!
To cause the mountain to destroy?
@@exeggutivejudge3747 and it was the tm given by the leader of team rocket who steals and sells pokemon
@@MojaveKnight17 Aaaah, great attention to detail then
You can use Fire moves in tall grass and not burn the whole field down. Pokemon battles have no impact on the overworld!
@alexvaughan1013 it's just a theory a pokemon battle theory!
Red is carried hard by a massive level spike from Gen 2’s poor scaling mixed with permanent Hail. A good electric type or something with bolt-beam coverage absolutely wrecks him.
I never really understood why people feared Cynthia for a long time, I never had any trouble with her and beat her first try in any game she appeared in on my first play throughs. And then BDSP happened… Granted, they went balls to the wall with the league’s difficulty so it’s understandable for anyone to struggle, but still, she arguably puts some smogon sweats to shame.
Volo is a hard fight even if you bring level 100 legendaries to the battle. It’s less so about team composition and more so about game mechanics. Volo’s battle is like a game of chess, pieces being taken every turn, and then all of a sudden Volo uses a style or gets a lucky crit and a chainsaw goes flying through the chess board.
Kieran is surprisingly straight forward. No environmental gimmicks mixed with poor game design, no balls to the wall competitive strats, no Uno Reverses, just your standard fair with a bit more sauce to it. He’s arguably the perfect example of what a good end game battle should be, tough but nothing ludicrous.
Personally, none of them compare to Eri though lol. That girl kicked my ass 10 times and threw the match out of pity on the 11th. Even after I EV & IV trained my team she was still thrashing me. Hardest fight I’ve ever dealt with in the whole series.
i think in cynthia's case is she's really hard if you're blind with pokemon her whole thing was being unexpected and difficult without prep unless it's bdsp. no one knew what weakness spiritomb has becasue well... it had none in gen 4 without fairy type and then insert meme of walking into the wrong house in undella town with no time to heal.
@@AizakkuAdomanPeople keep forgetting that you can decline to fight Cynthia after you enter that house.
Cynthia was tougher than Eri. I rematched them and everything and it still stands that Cynthia is way harder.
@@SS-yj2le I’m talking from personal experience, from their initial fights
Her and Drayton (the Dragon E4 member from Indigo Disc) were the only 2 to hand me L's in SV. But I feel Ultra Necrozma should have replaced Kieran on this list. If you didn't Toxic spam him or cheese him with Zoroark, he was an absolute menace
Out of the 4 fights, I think the best balanced one is Volo's.
The problem with Red and Cynthia is that most of the time you lose because you are underleveled, and that isn't at all "good difficulty"
While Kieran, since is DLC, YOU are the overleveled one. That kills mostly of the difficulty in a bad way
Levels in Pokemon are a high problem while balancing fights, that's why I think Volo's fight is the best one, under or overleveled.
PD: Cynthia's rematch in BDSP could have a good difficulty, but the problem is that it is a rematch... Mostly of the rematchs in Pokemon have a good difficulty, so I personally think that we should be talking about in-game and not post-game (I know that Volo is technically a post-game fight... But I don't care, Legends Arceus has a extremely low number of battles)
yeah a post game 8v1 is WAY more balanced than a slight level diff
I think Ghetsis deserves to be here
that’s interesting, I never had any difficulty with him
And Ultra Necrozma
@@XenteBRidk his Hydreigon alone has swept my team before
@@thomasmoreo3230 hm, interesting, I guess everyone has their own experiences, I never really particularly struggled with Ghetsis but I did with Elesa lol, kinda cool to hear everyone stories on what they struggled with
And Greevil!
Only Cynthia and Red gave me ptsd, but the fact that I was a clueless elementary schooler played into it.
Bro just left Ultra Necrozma out
Not a Pokémon trainer
Video says Pokémon battle not trainer, and you refer to them as hardest bosses is not trainers?? You left bro out 😭
@@yasser9399 whoops, my bad g. Here’s your crown 👑
If Cynthia gave Porygon-Z Tri Attack and Psyshock/Psychic alongside Bolt-Beam, replaced Garchomp's Poison Jab with Iron Head, and used Mega Lucario, her team would be 10/10.
Yeah and if Red just replaced his Pikachu with Eternamax Eternitus, then he would be a 40/30
BDSP doesn’t have megas…
@@mr_red3 I know, but they should. If they did, the games would be more popular.
Iron head would’ve guaranteed inflicting damage on players trying to PP stall because no type is immune to steel. The downside is not hitting azumarill super effectively
I struggled more with the Blueberry League’s E4 more than I did with Kieran.
Those are 4 trainers compared to 1, unless you struggled with individual members
Yea, Drayton was definitely tougher than Kieran
Imagine that being the elite four in the next game.
Red: Yup.
Cynthia: Of course.
Volo: Absolutely.
Keiran: …seriously?
I mean… were there really any better options?
@@SMBZYT
🤔
May.
Route 110.
Infamous for Sapphire speedruns, and prime Nuzlocke-ender.
She may not be an endgame fight, or a boss… but hard nonetheless.
…also Whitney exists.
@@Deoxys_Used_Mimic Lowkey Red gets carried by level curves and Kieran gets gimped by them pretty hard.
Cynthia and Volo gave about 15 L's when facing them. Kieran gave me problems but I never lost to him and Red only gave me problems due to level curve.
Unbeatable champion Leon crying in the shower
Volo was the only guy that was a challange out of all the porkeman games i played. Fuck it i had to THINK HARDER
Then there’s necrozma single handedly destroying teams 🥲🥹
Mysterial*: "Pathetic!"
*when you use the walmart pokemon the game gives you
I’m more surprised superboss Nemona’s final rematch team didn’t make this list.
I never struggled with Cynthia until bdsp
Same
Like this video!
When I was a kid playing GSC for the first time and noone knew you could even find Red at the top of Mount Silver the level gap absolutely made it a bigger deal, I get why it wasnt accounted for here, but at the time it was rare to grind pokemon up that high and when you found him you were likely 20ish levels behind him, was a goal to reach for. Thats why the fight has mystique in my mind, less so the team compositions competitiveness
(I’m gonna piss so many people of with this)
Honestly, I’d switch out Red for one of the AI profferers, since the thing that makes Red so hard is the levels, not necessarily the Pokémon themselves.
Meanwhile, not only are all of the professors Pokemon 570 BST or higher, you don’t even know what types they are going in, leading to this guessing game that can potentially give them free turns.
Turo is particularly nasty in this regard, since not one of his “Iron” Pokemon are even steel types.
The only reason why some people had difficulty with the ai professors is because the 6 Pokemon in their teams were unknown but also familiar species. Also the element of suprise that is their new typings AND the Ace holding a Booster Energy, that automatically activates the ability
I really don't think the professors are challenging at all since we now have Information on the Paradox Pokemon
@@mr.lantern1111 once you know what types the paradox Pokémon are they aren’t very difficult to handle. At that point of the game your Pokémon should have around almost perfect IVs, great coverage, and held items.
Would replace Red for Iris rematch team from BW2 hardmode, however Red is one of the four horseman due to his high levels not his slightly above average team.
@@jointser1008 Oh yeah, that would definitely be my other choice if we aren’t taking into account changed type matchups in the AI fights.
That fight made her my favorite champion
@@thepowerscaler5217the still have meta pokemon tho. Sada has FLUTTER MANE for crying out loud which slams all of Red’s team
The fact that 2 of the trainers mentioned are from the same line.
Kieran is a forced Champion. He's like if Disney's trauma bragging became a person, All bark no bite
Honorable Mentions:
Whitney (HGSS)
Champion Leon and Mustard (SwSh)
Ghetsis (BW)
Hop (Sh)
@@DrFlagShipKingBeard Ultra necrozma
I think any weather team can easily counter Kieran because if you change the weather he doesn’t set the rain back up, and that kinda makes his politoed useless
Everyone forgets about the trainer with max ev‘s machop
Who?
what is the site you used here 2:12
Marriland’s Teambuilder Website
@ thanks
cynthia and volo are definitely the hardest ones
cynthia is just a menace and volo summons poke satan
Whitney looks at them and do her malignant laugh
Cynthia having a legitimate competitively viable team trumps all others. And then they put her in B/W as an unavoidable encounter. They knew she was a menace.
That Kieran battle was light work lol
Not surprised with Cynthia. Still digesting my teeth she thoroughly kicked in back the in OG D/P/Plt. OH and the paranoia fear she instilled into me to never just walk into a house without saving outside first. Now I just save on the side, right in front of the door, to avoid walking in and getting wrecked all the sudden.
Never knew people had issues with Kieran saw more people complaining about the AI professors instead.
Might be since people were better prepared for Kieran than the AI professors + we had better Pokémon cause of the new Pokemon in the dlc
Not to mention that final pokemon has booster energy, I remember using a speed focused gardevoir to outkill the killer
They were harder (well, AI Turo was harder since I never played Scarlet but I can imagine AI Sada is about the same) but I also didn't feel either were exceptionally hard. The hardest part about the AI fight was the feels, considering the AI is an innocent pawn in the professor's plan.
Notice how half of the thumbnail is straight up Cynthia's family 💀
Honestly, Kieran gave me a harder time at the end of Teal Mask than he did in Indigo Disk.
I’m so glad I found out he was a horseman before going into battle all willynilly lol
Video title: "the 4 horseman of hardest pokemon battles"
Me who beat Kieran and Volo first try without overleveling: 😅
I maintain that Volo is only hard because of PLA's mechanics.
He'd be cake in a normal Pokemon game
Kieran was the easiest fight in dlc 2 by a long shot. I struggled with every other Elite 4 but I didn’t lose a single Pokémon against him
I've noticed a fairly common trend between pokemon that only have 3 moves. They all run a move that locks the user into only using that move(and the same logic is applied to PLA for some reason, despite Lock-in moves working a bit differently iirc). Dunno why that's always the case. I know the video is 2 months old now, but just wanted to share my thoughts on this.
Kieran had a decent team, what generations eight and nine have become so ridiculously easy that it was still near impossible to lose any battles against 99% of trainers because you couldn’t avoid being over leveled even if you specificallytried to
Cynthia when I sweep her in black 2 with my fucking level 85 moxie krookodile
None of these stand a chance against Whitney's Miltank
I had a level 100 Mewtwo when I did Kieran and the Elite 4 in the BB League… Basically I swept all of them and did the entire DLC final boss with just Mewtwo.
3:14 did anyone hear “ she has a dragon, furry, steel core” no just me I’ll see myself out
Other then Cynthia in the bw Red is probably the only character that I immediately just locked in the moment I figured out who he was
I hate that level 80 is like the hardest a trainer can get, we need level 100 pokemon battles
BDSP Cynthia was...an experience. I flung myself at that blonde wall for FOUR HOURS to no avail. I was crying. I had to spend the next day grinding off camera.
Volo was very hard but i still managed to beat him first try. I knew i would fight him but I was also expecting to fight Arceus soon after. I also thought i would get to heal before Giratina...
I packed a variety of mons including two tanks, alpha Snorlax and a shiny Hippowdon. Volo's base team whittled me down to almost nothing, but i beat him with a half-health Porygon-Z. And then when the Giratina fight started IMMEDIATELY, I knew i had to do something out of the box. I used Max Revives on my team, starting with Snorlax if I remember correctly. I'm pretty sure Volo himself had sold me a lot of them. And finally it was down to Hippowdon, who felled the antimatter beast with a strong Crunch.
You can see videos of both of these on my channel, as well as me steamrolling Kieran (and getting whupped by Lacey)
That’s weird because all four of these are super easy particularly Kieran using one ice and one fighting type Pokémon move (which there should be abundance of) wrecks the majority of his team and Pon-pon could pretty much take care of the rest lol
Darkrai in pmd sky
being hard runs in the family when it comes to volo and cynthia
Makes me wish we could battle Cogita. Maybe they'll bring her to Masters.
Also Cynthia has that little sister who doesn't even have a name or unique sprite. Imagine. She could be anywhere.
I had fully EV trained Pokémon for BDSP Cynthia with a pretty standard Gen 4 team, and she still took out 4 of my Pokémon.
Extra note. Volo's giratina has boosted stats during his battle. Like when you fight alphas in the wild.
That title 😅😅😅😅 is so accurate.
Not to mengtion ultra necrozma. Probbaly the hardest single pokémon. But they're not a trainer w a team so i get it
Why do people think kieran is hard? My skeledirge gave most of his pokemon a run for their money
I have only faced Red, Cynthia, and Kieran, but of the three, Red was the only one that gave me trouble.
Never understood the rep the other two have.
I feel like i didn't have the Kieran fight experience, I just had a competitive Milotic and he buffed her to +6 and i sweeped, then my game crashed and i had to do it again... same thing happened again
So Kieran is hard, but he has a serious fairy weakness. I nearly lost and then sent in my Sylveon and she actually solo’d 4 of his pokemon.
Kieran is only easy for people because he's DLC, so by the time it came out people were already way overleveled.
For Volo I one shot both giratinnas with a level 100 garchomp that you can find at level 88
I'll just say, I've never seen anybody do a pokemon scarlet and violet Nuzlocke including the dlc.
Red has been defeated multiple times on Nuzlockes. BDSP Cynthia too, not including her rematches, though. I've only seen a few nuzlockes beat Volo. But Kieran? I'm not sure if its even possible if you aren't overleveling not healing.
I understand what you mean by having a team likely built strictly for single battles, but, the only battles you fight in the BB League are Doubles. I'd HOPE to have a team built strictly on Doubles... oh wait:
Myriga the Espeon
Dyguino the Umbreon
Citadark the Triumphant Typhlosion
Ostyrix the Triumphant Quagsire
Lanayru the Triumphant Ampharos
Nyxorius the Triumphant Flygon
Yeah, these six were MADE for doubles because that's all you fight in Colosseum. So, these 6 have a story. But, it was beautiful to see Kieran fall to the tag team of Myriga & Dyguino. They started off the adventure in Orre and they defeated Kieran's Hydrapple, ending his reign. I get what you mean though, since players may be too accustomed to Single Battles, so when you fight Lacey at the start and get jumpscared by a double battle.
I remember having a lot of trouble with Iris in Black/White 2, ESPECIALLY on challenge mode.
Red’s difficulty is the lvl of his Pokemon so if you take that away then he has nothing left. Considering my highest lvl Pokemon is usually upper 60s at best I always struggled with that fight
Darn you Porygon Z! DARN YOU FOR REPLACING ROSERADE!
The perc30
I’m surprised to find out people thought Kieran was a hard battle, idk if it was my team that made it easy or what but I thought it woulda been harder. I definitely agree with the other 3 tho
Were you over leveled?
@@SMBZYT honestly don’t remember, I didn’t wanna spoil his team so I didn’t know what the levels were but I’d cap myself out at the level of the last boss I’d fight
Bdsp was really easy but when I got to the elite four things begin to look challenge, but then Cynthia was on a whole other level. Like you said items, perfect evs and ivs and almost perfect movesets. The experienced the trauma all over again 😭😵💫
Evice from Pokémon Colosseum should be on here once I saw him use Skill Swap on his Slaking I knew it was over. Honorable mention to Greevil from XD
Whitney and her miltank...
She ain’t that hard
@@SMBZYT bruh, that miltank was garchomp before Cynthia's garchomp. it has high BST for where you are in the game, high speed, good hp and attack, more than enough bulk, and 2 bullshit move that would make you slam your head; Attract and Milk Drink. yes, there are counterplays to miltank like Muscle the Machop and Geodudette. but considering you have at most lv 20 pokemons and most pokemon you can get is slower than that damned miltank, it becomes a death sentence to trainers that isnt prepared to miltank.
Pokemon colosseum sweeps..
Cynthia/Volo bloodline is crazy.
To be honest, I can't say anything about Red and Cynthia as i've never fought them at least properly since I never played Platinum but Volo is probably the hardest fight in my opinion since there's no preparation since everyone else is so much weaker before him, the gameplay style is different and worse than in other games and he has technically 8 Pokemon but for Kieran, I kind of don't think he should be here which is weird because he's my favorite Pokemon character ever and I would say that he does fit but there's a lot of factors that's holding him back like him being a DLC boss and him being the only one out of the 4 that isn't a final boss technically. Also I will say that this doesn't really seem like a fair ranking mainly because of the rematches since Red and Volo don't have rematches and while Kieran does, his team doesn't really change while Cynthia has a vastly stronger team on a rematch which is why the way you judged the certain teams is a bit odd to me
Kieran whooped my ass in the last battle for ogerpon in the teal mask only because I started the dlc at the beginning of the regular playthrough. So I defeated the first paldean gym leader(bug type lady) and then started the teal mask. The dlc sort of accommodates to your level the entire time, up until that specific battle with Kieran. So there I was battling his lvl 70+ team with my lvl 20-25 team. His yanmega basically swept my entire team lol.
Kieran? No.
Whitney? Very Much.
Tbh I don’t find Whitney that difficult to beat
May Route 110 should be here
The only one out of these I had to grind for was Cynthia, and not even because the first time I fought her was when I was 8 in Platinum. She still beat me in BDSP. Oh, and so did Red, when I was 10, but Cynthia was worse. God knows how I beat Volo the first time. I was in tears.
The fact Gheteis isn’t here is sad. We all know he’s up there.
Which ghetsis fight
@@SMBZYT honestly the first one in Black/White after beating N is my favorite. But is Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon team is most likely better. Unless they pulled that (Not having 4 moves) crap again. (Actually scratch that, they only gave him 5 mons.) the first fight is the hardest in my opinion
The Kieran sneak
I challenged myself to use Kieran's team comp to sweep the ace tournaments and it was so fun (using any other mon besides glalie, sylveon or deoxys is an experience for me)
Out of all of these, I think Volo is the hardest here.
Unless we are talking about BDSP Cynthia, then both of them are tied for difficult…