Marlon-Easiest final Gym Leader ever?

[CaptainJigglypuff]

Don't get me wrong. Marlon is a pretty cool Gym Leader in theory and his Pokemon in both the Easy/Normal and Challenging difficulty settings are good but I think he's too easy for a final Leader. In the first gen, Giovanni could be difficult if Fissure hit your team as it caused an instant KO and if you had bad luck, I'm sure it would be easy to lose to him. The Second Gen I think was the most difficult as Dragon type Pokemon were quite rare and hard to get and Ice Pokemon weren't exactly all the powerhouses many are today (i.e. Piloswine not having Ancient Power and no Hail TM for 100% accurate Blizzard) and if you were like me, had no one to trade to get a Dragonite or Kingdra to beat Clair's Kingdra. That Pokemon made me lose so many times on the GB. Blue was alwaysdifficult as none of his Pokemon had a common weakness among them. Wallace/Juan were somewhat easy but then again Water Pulse could easily render your attacks useless when it caused Confusion and I believe that Luvdisc had Sweet Kiss which made things worse. Volkner was tough because of CHarge Beam's occasional Sp. Attack boost and Raichu. Drayden and Iris were hard because of Dragon Tail and Haxorus. But Marlon, I swear I beat him without even trying hard. I seriously just beat him with a Gavantula at Lv. 38 with Thunderbolt and Volt Switch. Took out three of his Pokemon with it. The Virizion took out Carracosta with two hits and Dragonite just used two Dragon Rush to take out Jellicent. I always beat him in one shot. And I restarted my game three times. Anyone else think Marlon is a bit weak for the eighth Gym Leader?

[MeLoVeGhOsTs]

Wait, you can have different difficult settings?

[Rossymore]

Only through extremely obnoxious means. By beating the Champion you unlock a mode for your current save depending on your version, Challenge Mode in Black 2, Wimpy, er, Assist Mode in White 2. Using Infrared capabilities, you can send this mode to another game, getting Challenge Mode on White 2, for instance.

And where the game fucks it up is when you start a new game, any changes are saved, so you can't start Challenge Mode on Black 2 unless someone sends you that mode before you start the game. Annoying, yes.

As for the thread itself, it really depends on type diversity. By the time you get to the last leader, you should have a nice varied team of different types. Since Marlon's type is water, you can beat him with your Electric and Grass type that you should have by then. I had both, Ampharos and Tangrowth. The only reason Clair is harder is because of availability. Electric and Grass are fairly common, so you can easily find something to smack Marlon with, but for Clair, she's only weak to Ice and Dragon, which are pretty rare. You can get some Ice types in the Ice Path, but you might have filled your team by that point (I know I had), and getting a Dragon type, especially in Gen II, was pretty much impossible, unless you like the Game Corner. Bleh. Therefore, Clair's Kingdra will be very difficult since it's only weak to Dragon.

To compare, Giovanni has never been too hard, since he can be beaten in around 5 Surfs. Wallace/Juan can be similarly beaten using Electric/Grass, Volkner has only one weakness in Ground, but you should have Earthquake on something by that point (although he's pretty awkward in DP due to lack of Electric types, same problem as Flint). Drayden is somewhat similar to Clair, but hasn't got anything as awkward typing wise as Kingdra.
Another factor is number of Pokemon. Giovanni has 5, Clair 4, Wallace/Juan 5, Volkner 4, Man City 2, er, then Drayden 3 and Marlon 3. Since the amount of Pokemon has gone down for some reason, the battles seem shorter and easier. And although Challenge Mode beefs Marlon up slightly, his Pokemon are overall pretty slow, so even with varied movesets, doesn't matter at all if you go first, use a supereffective, powerful move and knock him out in one shot.
Which leads onto the variety of moves. In Gen I, you had STAB and Normal moves, at best, for most of your Pokemon. In Gen V, you can have most moves for most Pokemon (mostly) and with a variety of STABs, you have quite a few options to take his Pokemon down.

So yes, considering the circumstances, Marlon is easier then most final Gym Leaders, but it all depends on your team variety and by that point, the main game should be giving you little trouble. After all, it's only the main game.

[DarkestLight]

Or the amount of Full Restores.... :/

[CaptainJigglypuff]

What I mean is I actually had MORE trouble with Skyla than Marlon. Took me ten tries to take out Skarmory! And that was with a lv 40 Emboar that knew Heat Crash, Flame CHarge and Flamethrower!

[Rossymore]

I suppose that's due to the Pokemon you have, I never found any of the leaders that tough, since for Skyla, my Aggron and Ampharos tore her Pokemon up quite a bit. And their healing items never really matter, since if you're taking their Pokemon out in one shot, then she never gets the chance to use them. But I do favor completely offensive movesets. Also, the Skarmory has a base Defense of 140, so going for Flamethrower, especially from a Base 100 Sp. Atk should have been fine. It just depended on your team at the time, the middle Gym Leaders tend to be in that awkward not-quite-there phase for your team.

[Lady Vulpix]

Yes, Marlon was pretty easy for me too. It seemed to me like his relaxed lifestyle did not allow him to train his Pokemon properly.