It can tear apart Sidney. You can beat Steven single handedly. Winona was no problem, I just used Blaze (nickname of my Blaziken) and a Plusle. I even tore up Mossdeep's Gym and it's not supposed to. Mine now is level 89 and knows: Flamethrower, Double Kick, Aerial Ace, and Blaze Kick(wich I will replace). I think it's the best starter because Sceptile's Defense is less than crap and Swampert is to slow and has a 4x weakness to a very common type. I wish they had the elemental punches as TMs, then my Blaziken would have Thunderpunch to destroy Water types! Most of the obtainable Fire types are too slow, and so are most Fighting types. Mine is stuck with a bad nature. On my Ruby version (I was talking about Sapphire), I have a female and I'm breeding an army of Rock Sliding Tochic!