The Most Frustrating Pokemon Scarlet And Violet Gym Leader

Game Freak has made a lot of game changing innovations in "Pokémon Scarlet" and "Violet," but it has also kept a lot of the things that have been constant throughout the entire franchise. There are now three separate quests across the new Paldea Region, including one to defeat Team Star and one to battle several Titan Pokémon in order to help Arven collect the Herba Mystica, but one thing that it has kept is the mission to face eight gym leaders in order to challenge Victory Road and become the league champion. Most gamers can probably handle the Bug and Grass leaders at the beginning of the game pretty easily, but some of the later ones definitely aren't pushovers.

See, even though "Pokémon Scarlet" and "Violet" were marketed as allowing players to explore the open world in any order they choose, some regions are actually locked behind certain missions. Not only that, but some of the gym leaders are all but impossible to defeat in the early portions of the game since there isn't any kind of level scaling. Many would probably consider the former pro-snowboarder Grusha to be the gym leader that Game Freak intended to be the final challenge. His Pokémon are level 47-48, which is the highest of any gym leader in the game (per Polygon). Even so, he isn't the strongest. That honor belongs to the Psychic gym leader from the mountain town of Alfornada, Tulip.

Grusha's Ice-Type Pokémon are easy to deal with given the large number of powerful Fire and Fighting-Type Pokémon that are available in both versions of the game. Tulip, on the other hand, uses Psychic-Type Pokémon. Hers are only level 44-45, but they pack a much more serious punch than anything in Grusha's line-up.

She has a Farigiraf, a Gardevoir, an Espathra, and a Florges. Not only do all of these hit hard, like most Psychic-Types, they also have surprisingly well-rounded defense stats. The Fairigiraf is pretty straightforward, but the Gardevoir can be particularly troublesome due to its dual Fairy-Type. Its Dazzling Gleam attack is sure to wipe the smirks off any clever trainers who think they can take out her whole line-up using a Dark-Type Pokémon. Right after that comes her Espathra. It has the ability to use Shadow Ball, which can also be devastating against other Ghost and Psychic-Types. Then, like other gym leaders before her, Tulip will Terastallize her Fairy-Type Florges into a Psychic Type, once again boosting its power while simultaneously maintaining the ability to target many who could hit its weaknesses.

In order to beat Tulip, trainers will either need to spend a fair amount of time grinding, or else get really creative in how they choose to take her on. A good Bug-Type Pokémon would go far here.