This page offers a guide on how to beat the Normal Gym Leader Larry in Medali in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet as part of the Victory Road story path. You will face Larry after completing the Gym Test.

How to Get to the Normal Gym Leader Larry in Medali¶

Gym Leader Larry is likely the fifth gym you’ll want to take on as you’ll be battling against Level 35-36 Pokémon. Gym Leader Larry can be found in Medali. To get to Medali, you’ll first want to fast travel to Cascarrafa (Water Gym). From there head into Asado Desert. Cross the desert, heading northwest until you find a path exiting into the West Province (Area Two) area. You can then take the path north to cross the river or west to go through a cave. Which ever way you go, you’ll pop out in West Province (Area 3) and you can head southwest to Medali.

If you’re interested in finding out about the optimal way to complete this game, head over to our guide on What is the Best Story Order in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.

Recommended Pokémon for Fighting Gym Leader Larry¶

Your Pokémon team should ideally be Level 35 or higher for facing Gym Leader Larry.

Since you’re fighting at the Normal Gym, you’ll want to make-up a team of Pokémon that do well against Normal-types. That being said, only Fighting types can do x2 damage against Normal-types. Bringing a strong Fighting-type Pokémon is definitely a good call for this gym battle!

Normal-type moves don’t do x2 damage to any other Pokémon but they do do x0.5 damage to Rock and Steel Pokémon. It is also worth knowing that Ghost moves have no effect on Normal-type Pokémon and Normal moves have no effect on Ghost-type Pokémon - so it might be good to bring in some Ghost-type Pokémon so long as they have other types of attacks to take down Gym Leader Larry!

Gym Leader Larry’s Pokémon¶

Komala¶

Komala is trickier to battle than you might initially think. It possesses the Yawn move which makes the target drowsy. At the end of the next turn your drowsy Pokémon will fall asleep, unless it is already afflicted by a non-volatile status condition. If a drowsy Pokémon switches out, it loses its drowsiness.

In addition to Yawn, Gym Leader Larry’s Komala also uses the Slam attack move, which is a pretty painful normal-type attack. With this combination of moves, Komala can make it difficult for your Pokémon to actually get attacks in because it could be sleeping! Bring out a powerful fighting-type or your strongest Pokémon in general to try and one-shot Komala before it starts making your Pokémon too sleepy!

Dudunsparce¶

Dudunsparce is the new evolution of Dunsparce! It will use Glare in an attempt to paralyze you with fear! It also has a powerful new move called Hyper Drill, make sure to use items in your bag to heal your Pokémon if you need it! Luckily, Gym Leader Larry’s Dunsparce isn’t that tanky so you can send lots of damage right back at it.

Terastallized Staraptor¶

When Staraptor enters the battle, it’ll not only be Terastallized, it will also intimidate its opponent, making it’s attack fall. Since your Pokémon will be affected by this reduction in attack damage, it might be worth considering bringing in a Pokémon that can boost its attack stats to counteract this.

Gym Leader Larry’s Staraptor will use the Normal-type move Facade a lot during this fight. It does a lot of damage and its base power doubles from 70 to 140 if the user is poisoned, paralyzed, or burned. You should avoid trying to apply status effects so that the Staraptor can’t do double damage to your Pokémon.

It also has the Flying-type move, Aerial Ace. This attack bypasses accuracy and always hits! If you’ve got a Grass-type, Fighting-type or Bug-type you might want to avoid using it in this final battle as it’ll use Aerial Ace as a strong attack against weak types.

Once you’ve defeated the Staraptor, you’ll earn the Normal Gym Badge from Gym Leader Larry. You can now also catch and command Pokémon up to level 45. In addition, Larry will give you with the TM025 Facade. Facade would be a great move for Pokémon with burn, poison or paralyze attacks as they’ll then be able to follow up with a powerful attack that does double damage!