BW2 Gym Leaders Untamed: Virbank City!

Heya everyone! Mr.Bojingles is back for another weekly article of BW2 Gyms: UNTAMED! I hope everyone is having a great summer break. For those of you in school, enjoy your summer off! For those of us who work. . .well, I hope you manage to find the time to take a vacation. Korean private schools only get a week off for the summer, which is two weeks away. I’ll be visiting the beautifully exotic Philippines! I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t counting down the minutes.

The start of this article (with the respective team) is covered below the spoilers line for those of you who have been purposely keeping yourselves out of the loop. Let’s discuss the second gym leader of the new Virbank City!

[spoiler]

     This next article will focus on the second gym leader, who happens to be a new one in the series. Without further adieu, I’d like to introduce you to the newcomer Roxie, the poison type gym leader of Virbank City! I was quite shocked with the rock-star theme of this particular NPC. Her battle setting is on a heavy metal rock stage sporting in gun metal colored deco with splashes of fuchsia and turquoise (hehehe. . . fuchsia). The backdrop is a Koffing with noxious gas clouds at its sides. The trainers you can battle happen to be the drummer and guitar/bass player of Roxie’s epic band who all use similar poison types.

Hopefully you didn’t choose Snivy like I did for this fight, because you’ll want to put it on the backburner. Unfortunately you don’t have access to any ground or psychic types, so that’s another hindrance you’ll have to cope with. However, choosing Tepig will be to your advantage since one of Roxie’s teammates happens to have a primary bug typing. Once you stock up on potions and antidotes, it’s time to commence the “Battle of the Bands”!

Roxie’s initial team consists a level 16 Koffing and a level 18 Whirlipede. Her challenge mode adds a level 16 Grimer to the mix. Koffing comes with the Levitate ability, which makes it immune to ground type moves. It’s equipped with Smog, Assuance, Tackle and Clear Smog. It’s movepool is quite poor so he doesn’t prove to be much of a threat. As far as stats go, Koffing is a decent physical tank with his defense stat reaching up to 90. It’s attack isn’t half bad either, both clocking in at 65/60. However, it’s quite slow and lacks special defense, so any type of special attack should take it out quickly. Whirlipede, on the other hand, is a bit more threatening. It comes with Venoshock, Poison Sting, Protect and Pursuit. Venoshock can be quite deadly if you’re poisoned, so I would suggest healing with an antidote immediately after being afflicted with the status effect (its power doubles if you’re poisoned. That plus the STAB can 1HKO one of your teammates). Not only is its movepool superior to that of Koffing’s, but its stats are better as well. Whirlipede comes with great defenses each reaching 99/79. It’s attack stats are lacking compared to Koffing, but at least Whirlipede can take a few more hits. A fire type move from Tepig or Growlith should take it out easily!

As far as the challenge mode version of Roxie goes, there are quite a few changes. Aside from the increased level, her teammates come with better moves. Koffing is equipped with Venoshock in lieu of Clear Smog and Whirlipede has Rollout instead of Pursuit. Grimer is basically the opposite of Koffing as its primary focus is attack (which hits at 90) instead of defense. It comes with Mudslap, Venoshock, Disable and Poison Gas.  The latter two abilities can be quite frustrating, especially since Disable has increased accuracy. Take advantage of Grimer’s low base 25 speed and strike swiftly with your strongest attack!

Virbank City image courtesy of Bulbapedia[/spoiler]

That just about does it for the second installment of the BW2 Gym Leaders: UNTAMED series! What was your reaction to this particular leader? Positive? Negative? Don’t forget to leave a comment! Cheers.