Gym Trainer Samuel is up next on our list of trainer battles in Pokemon Sword and Shield, and this time it’s actually in a Gym! Yes finally we’ve made it to Turffield stadium and, after a bit of conversation, we’re getting straight into the battle! We’re aware that gym battles can be avoided, but we’re looking to detail every single one here, so we’ve thrown ourselves at every single battle available!

Don’t forget to check out our full archive of Pokemon Sword & Shield trainer battles here!

Gym Trainer Samuel

Location: Turffield Stadium

Well it’s great to finally be at the first gym! We were expecting a bit more of an actual… Town, to be honest. Every location so far has been a Poke Centre, a shop of sorts and then you’re either whisked off to a gym or a central building location. We really don’t mind it too much, but where on earth do all the people live? We’ve seen three actual homes so far..

Anyway, we’d been told that the Turffield gym is predominantly Grass Type based by around eleventy million NPC characters so far, so we’ve prepared ourselves as well as possible. We’re still a bit annoyed by our lack of Fire Type Pokemon, but we’ll certainly give it our best shot.

Speaking of which, Gym Trainer Samuel is the first on our list of trainer battles in the gym. We’d guide you through the Wooloo herding part but it’s kind of self explanatory. If we’re honest, stopping them getting into the goal at the end before we’d fought all of the trainers was more of a struggle.

Pokemon:

gossifleur – grass type – LeVEL 16

• Weaknesses: Fire, Ice, Bug, Poison and Flying Type.
• Resistances: Grass, Electric, Water and Ground Type.
• Immunity: None.
• Notes: Very low speed. Equal physical and special defence.

Guide

Alright, so our first gym battle brings a familiar face: Gossifleur. It’s a higher level than we’ve faced previously, that having been a non-trainer Pokemon on Route 3 that we subsequently captured, but we’re still pretty prepared. Well, once we switched our Pokemon around and took a free hit for it, we became prepared by bringing out our resident favourite flying option.

We didn’t expect much trouble with this first fight if we’re honest, and we didn’t really find much either. It wouldn’t be the best gym design if they immediately threw problems at you. We initially joined the battle with our starter Pokemon, now evolved in Thwackey, and whilst this was perfectly fine – he does well against grass types obviously – but we were struggling for damage, so we brought out our resident Wingull and this soon sped things up.

Recommended Pokemon

As you might imagine, our Wingull recommendation continues here – the flying type moves completely destroy Gossifleur. Rookidee would of course manage just as well with regards to flying types. These can be found in the first wilds area and Route 1 & 2 respectively.

If you don’t have a flying type Pokemon then a Bug type is the next weakness that is easy to target. You can easily find a Blipbug on Route 1 & 2 and it’s Bug Type attack, Struggle Bug, does very good damage to the Gossifleur. Should you have gotten your hands on a rare candy by now, you may even have the evolved version, Dottler, that will do the same job.

Another vanquished-yet-cheerful opponent! You’d think those working at the gym would be a bit more competitive! Oh well. We’re expecting some tougher challenges as we work our way through Turffield, though we’re a little jealous of those that chose a fire type starter Pokemon… They could probably do this all with their eyes closed.

Salary check time! Looks like these gym workers are getting paid fairly well, even beating out those working in the Galar Mine! Not sure we’d be too happy getting paid less for working in a dusty mine all day long, but such is life!