The Pokémon franchise has some Gym Leaders and other opponents which fail to provide a challenge, especially if they come between harder fights.
- In the original Pokémon Red and Blue:
- Lt. Surge is an Electric-type specialist, in Vermillion City... which is right next to Diglett's Cave, an area swarming with the extremely fast Ground-type Diglett (with a small chance to get their evolved form, Dugtrio). If they're level 19 or higher, which is likely, they know the move Dig, which has incredibly high base power for that point. The only thing in his team's arsenal that can damage a Ground-type is his Voltorb's Tackle and SonicBoom, and Voltorb is a Fragile Speedster who will be lucky to survive a single shot from Dig. A single level 19 Diglett can wreck most of Surge's team, and if you walked in with a Dugtrio, you basically already won. Yellow gives his Raichu Mega Kick and Mega Punch, so it's not helpless against Ground-types... but it also becomes the only Pokémon on his team, like in the anime. At most, he can be a sort of Wake-Up Call Boss if you've been relying too much on super-effective moves and neglecting to properly level up your team, as his Raichu can potentially take out Diglett or Dugtrio before they can land a hit.
- Koga. His Pokémon are higher-level than Erika's, but he's also got an all-Poison team... a team which is weak to Psychic, the best type in the game, and Ground, a type that you should have access to if you beat Lt. Surge. With nothing but Normal and Poison-type attacks, he's also very easy to wall, with Pokémon like Graveler and Haunter being immune or resistant to anything he can throw at you, and his only STAB attack is the rather weak Sludge. And he's possible to fight after Sabrina, who is not only about the same level as him, but has an infinitely stronger team. Yellow swapped out his team entirely for a much higher-level one with access to rather annoying movesets, more or less putting him on par with his fellows. His time as an Elite Four member did buff him on paper, but in practice, he's usually still going to be weak in comparison to his fellows, barring Bruno.
- Blaine, like Surge, gets screwed over a lot by his placement: he's a Fire-type Gym Leader, on an island surrounded by ocean, which can only be crossed if you have access to one of the strongest Water-type moves in the game in Surf. Catching a random level 30-40 Tentacool you encountered on the way there and teaching it Surf is enough to give you a pretty solid chance of sweeping his whole team. Hell, his island even has a facility used to revive fossils, which will yield you a level 30 Water/Rock type that resists everything he can throw at it. Even if you somehow don't have access to any Water-types (or Rock-types, or Ground-types), Blaine's team really isn't up to much, with two unevolved Pokémon, no moves aside from Normal and Fire-type moves, and only one of his Pokémon (his Arcanine) knowing any Fire-type moves with worthwhile base power; generally, the most he can do is be slightly annoying with Fire Spin. The issues with his team were somewhat fixed by Yellow, which swapped out his Growlithe and Ponyta for a Ninetales, raised their levels, and gave them much better moves on the whole, but he's still got Surf to deal with.
- Bruno is the weakest member of the Kanto Elite Four by some distance in all his appearances, though his Generation 1 appearance is the most infamous. This is due to the fact that he's a Fighting-type specialist in a region where Fighting is notoriously underpowered, and his team's non-Fighting representatives are a pair of Onix of the same breed used by Warm-Up Boss Brock. Aside from the two Onix, who have the combined offensive presence of a small cat, his Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee are incredibly frail, and his team on the whole is fairly slow. The only thing on his team that even resembles a threat is his Machamp, but even it suffers from an extremely poor move selection (consisting of a minor Defense debuff, a One-Hit KO move that will only work 30% of the time and only on slower enemies, a move that is bugged to reduce its critical hit rate, and a mediocre Fighting-type move with 80% accuracy and recoil damage). Even in games where his Fighting-types actually function, his two Onix still tend to drag his team down.
- In Pokémon Gold and Silver
- Janine, the Fuchsia City Gym Leader in GSC. Her team's levels are lower than the eighth leader of Johto, meaning that by the time you reach her, you team is at least a good ten levels higher.
- The majority of Kanto Gym Leaders (except Green/Blue) also applies. Most of their Pokémon levels are on par, or lower than Lance's (and some of the Elite Four's) Pokémon, so an average gamer would be at least five levels higher. For those who played the originals, this is even more obvious with Sabrina, as she (and Psychic Pokemon in general) now has a proper weakness, type-wise. The remakes fixed this by raising the levels of their Pokémon to be higher than Lance and his Elite Four.
- Most of the Johto Gym Leaders between Morty and Clair are unimpressive at best: their levels are fairly close to each other, meaning defeating one will usually mean you can defeat the other two, their teams are small (Chuck has two Pokémon, despite being at least the fifth one faced), and some of their selections are poor, with two-thirds of Jasmine's team being unevolved Magnemite.
- If you want to count legendary Pokémon as bosses, Mewtwo is surprisingly easy to catch in HeartGold and SoulSilver. Its only attacking move is Psycho Cut, and if you have a Dark-type that knows False Swipe, you can just whittle down its HP safely, give it sleep or paralysis, and start tossing Poké Balls.
- Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire:
- Tate & Liza are pretty easy for being the seventh Gym Leaders. Theirs is a Double Battle, in which they use a Solrock and Lunatone. Both are Rock/Psychic types weak to Water, and Surf can hit both of them at the same time for high damage. Especially Solrock who has very low Special Defense. Solrock may prove itself a problem with its Sunny Day/Solarbeam combo, but it shouldn't be a massive problem with a Grass-type - Shiftry (a Grass/Dark dual-type) immediately springs to mind as a great choice against both Lunatone and Solrock. This is also the case with the Updated Re-release Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphirenote . Emerald makes them more of a proper challenge, giving them Xatu and Claydol so they aren't massively outnumbered by your team.
- The final Elite Four Drake can be this. While he had strong Pokémon, all of them are weak to Ice. With the exception of Shelgon (which is the weakest of his Pokémon), they all take 4x damage against them too. So if you have a strong Ice Pokémon or even a strong Pokémon who knows Ice Beam, Drake will be easy sweep. Emerald fixed this by replacing one of his Flygon (he has two) with a Kingdra though.
- Pokémon Diamond and Pearl:
- Byron is a joke if you picked Chimchar. Considering you can get a free TM35 for Flamethrower in the Fuego Ironworks right after you get Surf, or if you're too lazy to do that you can get the TM38 for Fire Blast at the Veilstone Department Store, you can use those along with Close Combat and basically destroy him in three turns. And even if you don't have Chimchar, he's still not that hard at all. His Pokémon are light on offense (save Magneton, which Platinum gives him over Bronzor), Steelix dies to a good Water-type with Surf, and Bastiodon is easily susceptible to Fighting and Ground-types like Machamp or Golem. Bronzor might cause some annoyances, but this Gym is nothing compared to Fantina (DP) or Crasher Wake (Platinum) before it.
- Candice is also made extremely easy by Chimchar, as her Snover and Abomasnow have a big weakness to Fire while her Sneasel has the same weakness to Fighting moves. Chimchar's evolutions are both Fire/Fighting, making this self-explanatory. Even if you didn't pick Chimchar or raise a Ponyta, the only other Fire-type in Sinnoh, the sheer number of weaknesses that her Pokémon have still make her a very easy opponent. Considering that her gym is easily That One Puzzle, her easy battle will no doubt feel like a massive relief.
- Pokémon Black and White and Pokémon Black 2 and White 2:
- Pokémon Black and White gives us Skyla, who is pretty darn easy to beat if you've just got a decent Electric-type, especially considering her main Pokémon has a double weakness to Electric-types. This would not be such a problem if her gym didn't come right after a cave with 2 extremely useful electric-type Pokémon in it, not to mention Klink, which learns Electric moves and resists almost all her attacks. This is even more true in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, as there are even more electric types available beforehand, meaning you basically have no excuse not to run roughshod over her.
- Burgh is this if you have a decent Fire-type or Flying-type. In fact, his main Pokemon, Leavanny, has a double weakness to both.
- Brycen is also incredibly easy. His Pokemon are all pure Ice-types, which is defensively the worst type in the game, only resisting itself. So long as you don't use Ice-type moves (or Ground-type moves against Cryogonal) you'll always do at least neutral damage, and none of his Pokemon are strong enough to stand up to a super effective attack for too long. Things are made even easier by the fact that most of his team is pretty slow.
- Out of all the champions in each game, Alder is one of the easiest, which is made worse since in Black and White he's also one of the easiest storyline opponents. This is justified in that he is severely out of practice - his fight against Plasma King N had him choke to said opponent's legendary, highly suggesting he was never going to be back in his prime again.
- In addition to Skyla, Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 also has Marlon. Despite being the final gym leader, all of his Pokemon are weak to grass and electricity, and none of them have any particularly notable stats aside from high HP. He can wall pretty well, but he'll usually have difficulty dealing any high damage unless you send out a bunch of Fire and Ground types for some reason.
- Pokémon X and Y:
- For all the times you encounter Korrina before her Gym Battle and hear about how strong she is, most players will agree that she doesn't really live up to it. Two of her Pokémon are pure Fighting-types, making her the first Gym Leader in the game to fall to Poor, Predictable Rock. And since these games introduced the new Fairy-type, which is super effective against Fighting, most players made it a point to raise one. Finally, her main Pokémon is a Hawlucha, a Pokémon that you can encounter in the wild before you even fight her. Also does not help that her Pokemon can only counter Flying-types. It is all the more ironic, as your previous battles with Korrina's Lucario are tougher. If you have a Ghost type on your team, Korrina becomes a complete joke, as only one of her Pokemon has a move that can touch Ghost type Pokemon (Rock Tomb on Machoke).
- Ramos can either be this or he can be a Wake-Up Call Boss after Korrina. While his Jumpluff and Weepinbell don't seem like much of a threat, his Gogoat can be surprisingly tough and plow through your team if you underestimate it. But like Korrina, there's not enough type diversity in his team to overcome the overabundant weaknesses of the Grass-type.
- Olympia starts out strong with a Sigilyph and Slowking, two powerful Psychic-types. Then her trump card turns out to be a Meowstic of all things. You've already fought a Meowstic numerous times thanks to your rival, who you happen to battle right outside of Olympia's gym.
- Malva of the Elite Four can easily fall into this, as any Water-type with Surf can sweep her entire team of Fire-types with relative ease. Her Pyroar does have Noble Roar, which seems to be intended to overcome this weakness since it's the first Pokémon she sends out, so preferably save your Surfer till after you beat it.
- Pokémon Sword and Shield: Specific to Sword is Gordie, the 6th Gym Leader you face. He specializes in the Rock-type, a type with a poor reputation and is normally used by early-game Gym Leaders, and he does very little to compensate for that. All of his Pokémon have very exploitable vulnerabilities outside of that too, with Barbaracle having a x4 weakness to Grass, Shuckle having almost no offensive power, Stonjourner having abysmal Special Defense, and Coalossal having a x4 weakness to both Water and Ground, though it does have Steam Engine to boost Speed, which can catch people by surprise. Gordie is a threat only if you allow him to set up; as long as you try to keep the battle brief, there isn't much he can do to you.note This is contrasted with his Shield counterpart Melony, who, despite specializing in the Ice-type which is defensively even worse, can destroy unprepared teams as her Pokémon have a lot of tricks to defend themselves against Pokémon with type advantages.
- Going by non-main series games, Pokémon Colosseum has Gonzap, who comes after a few hard rematches with the Cipher Admins and before the leader of Team Cipher. None of his Pokémon are particularly dangerous, and they love to spam Earthquake. Unlike Dakim however, none of his Pokémon can avoid the move except for his Shadow Skarmory, so he usually ends up crippling his team via friendly fire making it easy to pick them off. The only real struggle in this fight is snagging his Skarmory, but even that's more annoying rather than truly difficult.
