poll Toughest Gym Leaders in Reborn (Community Polls)

[Oscarus]

With V19 existing for... almost half a year, I think it's safe to assume that vast majority of Reborn community have at least completed the "main story" and become Undisputed Reborn Grand Champion (either in old V18 save, new V19 save, or both). But, as in every journey toward the top, you had to cross both shallow paddles on the road... and deep seas of the unknown.

 

Inspired by one of Michael Groth's videos, I've decided to find out which Gym Leader in Reborn Region is the toughest to defeat in a game, in their initial Gym Battle, where you're given the Badge as a reward. And by 'toughest' I don't mean 'strongest' because most people would mostly select, due to different definitions of the 'strength', Samson, Titania or Saphira.

'Toughest' means the hardest to defeat at that particular spot in the game. So the one you've struggled the most with the Pokemon, movesets and items you've had access to. So for example; when analyzing Julia, one must take into account very limited Pokemon roster choice that early in a game, especially since the only (probably) Ground-type Pokemon available that early is Marshtomp... but you HAVE TO select Mudkip as a starter in order to have one. Or when analyzing for example Radomus or Charlotte, one must think and break down their rarely-seen-yet-effective battle strategies, which are Chess Board Trick Room mishmash and burning down every single living cell in your body. 

 

Sounds easy and clear, right...? Ha! Wrong.

Pokemon players aren't equal - some are more experienced, some more talented, some more lucky, and some more casual. Plus we all have different favorites, which we'd love to use in a playthrough. Add on our habit of experimenting and creating new strategies and teams, and all... It's safe to say that if I was to create a tier list or ranking of toughest Reborn Leaders, much more would disagree with me rather than agree.

And that's the point of this post: I want YOU, THE REBORN COMMUNITY, to decide who's the hardest to defeat, and who's the complete pushover. I know I'm not exactly in place to do such things as I'm neither dev nor mod nor someone vaguely important... But I have a feeling they wouldn't mind such "event" transpiring here (I, on their place, wouldn't), as this would be a fun form, showing what kind of strategies and where bring the most pain to the players. 

 

I'll be making TWO POLLS, however: one for Gym Leaders specializing in Singles, and one for those specializing in Doubles. I do so because Singles and Doubles are existing by different rules and the style of battling differs between both, and I'd be unfair to have them participate in one shared poll... plus, let's be honest, Doubles' Gym Leaders would wipe the floor with Singles lmao. 

Here are the polls for both polls where you can vote for the Hardest Gym Leader to defeat!

_{relax, you'll be 100% anonymous to everyone on this forum; vote like your heart desires}

 

This poll will be closed automatically after midnight, 1st December of 2022 (West USA Time Zone).

After it, I'll pick the results and show them, and analyze the ones who've gotten the most amount of votes, saying if I agree with you, or not. 

Remember also, the more of you vote, the more accurate the results will be. A standard rule followed by any self-respecting statistician. 

 

Oh, and also you can comment down here which Gym Leaders was the hardest to you, and why. I'll eagerly read and probably respond to every your comment. 

And if wasn't obvious, everyone can participate - both those who have just registered here, and legends of this forum. The more, the merrier~

Edited October 17, 2022 by Oscarus
correcting little mistakes

[Faint]

Shelley was the hardest in doubles because of the limited available pokes, the field buffs etc - took me a LOT of tries the first time I went through reborn to get past her 

 

For singles - I found Ciel way tougher than other people seemed to, but I think the toughest still remains to be Titania - with the field buffs and her crazy team, it's absolutely wild. 

[flamesear]

Funny thing is that, as long as you prepare a shedinja (with protect to stall for her one rock type move to run out of pp), Amaria's team is, or at least was, practically harmless. Otherwise, it can be infuriating.

[Gentleman Jaggi]

For Doubles I'd say Shelly handily wins this. You have to fight her quite early on when your options are still relatively limited and her team has a very well thought out strategy with potential counters to everything you might want to use against aside from a few particular Pokemon. Her Araquanid is an absolute unit for that point in the game that will take away all your momentum if you're not in a good situation to take it out immediately. It tends to come out in response to players setting the Field on fire so the Fire type you probably used for that won't do much against Araquanid, leaving you with at least one Pokémon ill-suited for the new circumstances. Meanwhile Yanmega and Anorith will run a train on your team. Volbeat at base isn't nearly as threatening as any of those three but it can still make itself out to be a pain with Tailglow and Moonlight so it's another thing you ideally want to take out quickly.

I'd say the only other fight that comes close to Shelly's difficulty is Charlotte but she tends to die just as fast as she kills you. Shelly doesn't give you that luxury, you need to work a lot harder to take out her team.

 

For Singles the one I've had the most cponsisten struggles with is Samson, interestingly enough. I don't remember him having been an issue the first few time I played but at some point he started getting mroe and more threatening. Might just be because I rarely run Psychic or Fairy Types and most Flying Types aren't well-suited to taking him out, either way he's been the most consistently troublesome Singles leader for me. His Hawlucha is so stupid fast that you can pretty much give up on killing it before it gets to attack so you pretty much have to devote at least one of your team slots to taking that down with a Sturdy mon or something. With the boosts it gets from the Big Top I don't think there's anything that can take a hit the usual way and then also hit hard enough to take it out. Mienshao can also act like sort of a lite version of Hawlucha if your team is particularly lacking in fast sweepers. It's not nearly as fast as Hawlucha but can wreak similar havoc if you can't take it out first. To round it out there's Conkeldurr which can take hits like they're nothing while healing itself with Drain Punch.

The saving grace with Samson is that his whole team uses only physical attacks, so he's somewhat easier to wall the heck out of than most other leaders. Somewhat.

[Oscarus]

16 hours ago, Faint said:

Shelley was the hardest in doubles because of the limited available pokes, the field buffs etc - took me a LOT of tries the first time I went through reborn to get past her 

Not uncommon. Despite her type speciality, Shelly's a common wall for newer players. And for quite obvious reasons. 

15 hours ago, flamesear said:

Funny thing is that, as long as you prepare a shedinja (with protect to stall for her one rock type move to run out of pp), Amaria's team is, or at least was, practically harmless.

Shedninja against Water specialist, huh? 

Savage would know something about it XD

15 hours ago, Gentleman Jaggi said:

I'd say the only other fight that comes close to Shelly's difficulty is Charlotte but she tends to die just as fast as she kills you

In my opinion, all three of Belrose sisters are so reliant on their Fields that if you delete or transform them, then... well... They'll be as defenseless as after Connal's electroshock therapy. 

15 hours ago, Gentleman Jaggi said:

The saving grace with Samson is that his whole team uses only physical attacks, so he's somewhat easier to wall the heck out of than most other leaders. Somewhat.

Samson is the very definition of "hyperoffense" - 6 powerful strikers with high attacking stat, one good Status boosting-move and powerful, field-boosted attacks. It could overwhelm any normal opponents. 

But the flaw of only having Psyhical strikers can really knock him down a peg. The same goes to Solaris. 

[Zargerth]

For Singles that'd probably be Terra. I'm always caught off-guard by just how much damage that Garchomp Draco Meteor does. You can also get easily walled by her Palossand if you're not prepared. Aside from her and Ciel, I don't think I've had any other roadblock Gym Leaders in Singles in any of my playthroughs.

 

As for Doubles, it's Charlotte. She can delete your entire team with relative ease, even if you have resists for her Fire-type attacks. While Shelly is tough, I've never found her to be a difficulty spike or a roadblock (assuming Hardcore or Redux doesn't count), and Hardy is more annoying than tough.

[Seel The Deal]

For Singles, probably unpopular opinion, but I actually think it's Shade? I find lategame singles leaders tend to be (relatively) underwhelming because of how easy it is to abuse broken tools in singles, I find the earlier singles leaders don't even require you to have good tools, and Noel and Luna are certainly the gym leaders of all time. It's mostly down to whether or not Shade or Samson are harder, and the latter is just so one-dimensional, even if their shtick is really damn effective. Hawlucha is 100 meters from your location and approaching rapidly - start running.

 

For Doubles I'd say Adrienn. They're one of the few leaders that are particularly adaptable and function well on any field the player can create (except Glitch lmao), and most offensive gimmicks fall flat against a heavily specially bulky doubles team with two Intimidate users. Sludge Wave seems effective until you realize it's doubles and their whole team has 1.5x spdef so the move is pathetically weak. There isn't any real "cheese" for this fight like bringing Wide Guard against Hardy or using a slower team than Radomus - there's some specific mons/strats that are really good for the fight but nothing universal. Oh, and Fairy is almost undeniably the best overall type in the game, so there's that. That being said the doubles leaders as a whole are harder than singles and I could just as easily advocate for Shelly or Radomus.