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>The 6 level jumps between Pryce and Claire is... le bad?!
This is one I wish others would catch up on, I think a few YouTubers who want baby step incremental gym leaders said it and people clung to it.
I did a gen 2 run where I leveled the team about evenly and I went from being about at level with all other trainers to punching up and needing to train to beat Claire.
You can read between the lines and get this sense that between Lance and Claire that dragon tamers are supposed to be really strong, and a team leveled below Claire's will beat you quick.
If you do a run that's anything besides over leveling a single starter, you potentially have to train to beat her, and I'm fairly sure that was intentional.
I later continued the "punch up" play style and beating the Elite 4 starting with level 40s was very fun.