Why do people always say Elesa is hard in BW?

[Kelleo]

I beat her in both Black and White easily. My team in Black was a bit underleveled too.

But I see a lot of people complain that she's hard, mainly because of Volt Switch. Maybe she was easy for me because she never used it against me. Well, maybe she used it once in Black, but I just battled her in White and she didn't use it.

Now Lenora is a Unova gym leader who's a pain in the butt for me. >_<

 

[Silverwynde]

Lenora gave me no problems in Black or White. My Sawk pretty much went nuts in her Gym and she had no real chance. But Elesa.... :banghead:

On Black, she used Volt Switch constantly. I could barely get a hit in edgewise. She drove me nuts and I never wanted to see her again. On White however, it was a different story.

She was easy on White, as I had transferred three boxes of Goletts from my Black game. I took the best one out of the boxes and added it to my team. Yeah, Elesa's stupid little flying rats could do nothing as my dearest Braver slaughtered them. Ah, revenge is so very sweet. :evil:

 

[Proxima Centauri B]

I had trouble with Elesa in my first playthrough. The Volt Switching is super annoying and Zebstrika knows Flame Charge which KO'd alot of my Pokemon. In White, I raised a Roggenrolla into a Blodore and evolved it into Gigalith, and beat Elesa fairly easily using Gigalith as my main Pokemon. Its kind of difficult if you dont have a rock type.

 

[Kelleo]

I rarely use rock types on my teams, so I didn't have any to use against Elesa in BW. I just used my own Zebstrika against her Emolga since electric type moves will do normal damage to them while their electric type moves would do little damage to Zebstrika.

But she never uses Volt Switch against me. My Sandile easily beats her Zebstrika too.

 

[Pedro "Lucario"]

In my battle,when I reached her Emolga....
EVERY DAMN TURN.
I had a Sandile on my team,but guess what?
Emolga killed it with another move..
It was hell,but I beated her easily,without counting those demonish flying hamsters...
I'm actually going to try to get 2 Emolgas and do that in wi-fi.

 

[~ Z ~]

It's kinda funny how Elesa can be both easy and hard.

In my white it was easy as easy can be.
I didn't use anyone else than my just evolved Krokorok.
Crunch murdered both of those flying squirrels
and even Zebra fell to Sand Tomb.
Extremely easy.

On my black on the other hand...Completely different story.
1. My Blitzle wasn't level enough to know even Spar (under 25) so it got it ass kicked easily.
2. My Pignite could take a hit from the Zebra, but not the S.E Air Slash from squirrels. End of that battle.
3. Drillbur was safe from electric attacks, but couldn't really do much with Dig, Slash, Metal Claw, Hone Claws and paper thin defenses.
4. Leavanny can take some hits that early in the game, but it was agains't S.E Air Slash AND S.S.E Flame Charge...Hod do you guess thaat ended?
5. The other two team members I had were Tranquil and Tirtouga. The later one did fight back with Ancient Power, but we do know what two Volt Switches did to both of these...

 

[Joshawott]

Emolga used Volt Switch
Gym Leader Elesa sent out Emolga
Emolga used Volt Switch
Gym Leader Elesa sent out Emolga
Emolga used Volt Switch
Gym Leader Elesa sent out Emolga
Emolga used Volt Switch
Gym Leader Elesa sent out Emolga
Emolga used Volt Switch
Gym Leader Elesa sent out Emolga
Emolga used Volt Switch
Gym Leader Elesa sent out Emolga
Emolga used Volt Switch
Gym Leader Elesa sent out Emolga
Emolga used Volt Switch

And repeat.

That's why. As a whole though, Unova's gyms were too easy.

 

[GatoRage]

As a whole though, Unova's gyms were too easy.

This.
Brycen's Gym being the biggest culprit. Laughable excuse for a Gym Leader, really.

Elesa can take you by surprise though if you're not familiar with her Volt Switch tactics. Starting the battle with a Ground-type such as Palpitoad or Excadrill pretty much stops her stone-cold though.

 

[Kelleo]

^No way, Drayden/Iris takes the cake for easiest. You can OHKO their entire team if you use a Rivalry Fraxure that's the same gender as their Pokemon.

But yeah, it seems Elesa can be both easy and hard. But Lenora always kicks my butt at least once, mainly because of her Watchog! Stupid Retaliate, stupid Hypnosis, stupid Confuse Ray! I believe her Herdier can use Roar as well.

 

[Winterdaze]

Elesa can be difficult depending on how your team is built. For example, my team at the time only had one Electric resistance (Swadloon), who happened to be 4x weak to Flame Charge and Aerial Ace. All the other Electric resistors I planned for the team came after Driftveil.
So I had to catch a Dwebble and abuse Sturdy and Stealth Rock to win.

 

[Karamazov]

Because people don't use Tepig's line enough, kyu. My Pignite just kind of...derped through Elesa's team all by himself, kyu.

 

[GatoRage]

Because people don't use Tepig's line enough, kyu. My Pignite just kind of...derped through Elesa's team all by himself, kyu.

I had always disliked that line.
Then I used it on my last playthrough and now I freakin' love Emboar. That fiend just kinda steamrolls over everything he encounters in-game, including most of the Gym Leaders.

 

[Oswin]

Unova gyms were too easy. Retaliate was good at making my team faint though. Elesa was OK, it just annoyed me to have her switch out all the time.

 

[Almonds]

The last four Unova gyms were easy for me. I easily beat Clay with Simipour, Skyla with Gavalunta, Brycen with Litwick and Serperior (grass beat ice lol wut), and Drayden with Gothorita. Yeah, I beat Drayden with an underleveled GOTHORITA - I used Attract on his Fraxure and it never attacked... so I spammed Shadow Ball till it fainted...

On the other hand, I had trouble getting through the first four gyms - pretty much because I didn't have a decent team. I lost to all four gyms at least once. AND ELESA WAS HARD FOR ME. Only when I went all the way back and caught a Roggenrola with Sturdy did I win...and that was after I lost three times.

But looking at the above posts - maybe they made the Black and White gym battles differently? Yes, in Black version, Elesa uses Volt Switch ALL THE TIME. But seeing people say that she never did in White... lol?

 

[proserpina]

Elesa wasn't particularly difficult for me, just.. Oh, how do we put it... A pain in the arse?

For the record, I've played White and she spammed Volt Switch just as much.

 

[turtlekid]

I think it is because well you can't really use water type or starter because electric will defeat it, then say you have a grass guy because it resists electricity to bad there is flame charge to take care of that as well as emolga's secondary flying type that makes grass moves do half damage against.

 

[Bouffalant Herdier]

Elesa is the only Unova Gym Leader who gave me any trouble at all. (At least until I sent out Throh against her) They bring you into a false sense of security with her Electric Pokemon by giving you TM 28 Dig and Sandile in the areas just before you battle her.

Before entering the Gym, I was feeling confident I would mow through her team, but those poxy Emolgas had to be part Flying-type. I didn't have any super effective moves to use on them, and when Zebstrika was out, I was too worried it would use Volt Switch and switch back to one of them to use Dig on it. My Sandile was of no help whatsoever, because it was much too flimsy this early to last long enough and do anything.

But whilst my other Pokemon got thrashed by her team, I eventually sent out Throh, and he proceeded to destroy all her Pokemon without any problems. I didn't want to use him, really. I felt like I had relied on his power too much at that point, and I think you can get Throh and Sawk much too early. But without him, I would have definitely lost.

 

[Hydeous]

Well, you can't say there's any real difficulty in the games ; that's especially true if you've tasted competitive battling, but even before that, you know you can pretty much steamroll through whole regions firing SE moves right and left. You don't even have to bother with the "SE" part if your mons out-level the opposition enough.

That being said, Elesa comes with a "surprise" to the BW newcomer : Emolga, the Electric-type Pokémon... who got rid of Electric-types' only weakness by being airborne. Yeah, their secondary typing actually gives them more weaknesses, but at this point you can't abuse them that easily. So you come with a Ground-type to bulldoze your way to the badge, and then you realize Emolga also has STAB on Aerial Ace, which hurts. The combo covers rather well most of what you can use at that point.
That's what makes her objectively not-that-easy.
In my case, my Sandile couldn't take both of her flying imps even after some extra training, let alone Pignite who's a Fighting-type. Cutemon, the boar can do it if it's overleveled, but then again a sufficiently overleveled Magikarp could do it.

I don't see how her Volt Switching is relevant though. Since she's basically switching from Emolga to Emolga, it's as though she'd got only one of those little trolls with two HP bars.
And of course she's not going to Volt Switch on a Blitzle, both of its abilities grant it immunity against Electric-type moves. BW's IA is at least that savvy.

Edit : d'oh, wrote that last night during maintenance time, I come back to post to find I've been ninja'ed by a Bouffalant D:

 

[Pomegranate]

She was hard because they put the Desert right before her, but her Emolgas aren't affected by Ground-type moves. If you're not expecting the Emolgas then you're screwed trying to beat them without using the Ground-types you probably got just for this occasion.

 

[Rocky505]

I beat Elesa, I used Volt Switch as my advantage. Dwebble with SR FTW!