Sorry for the typo. I meant too many.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
Dragapult.
"Ice and Bug need buffs" is a common opinion, but "Rock needs buffs" is an interesting one. Rock is one of the better offensive types, Rock Slide is everywhere in Doubles, Stone Edge is both hated and feared, and Sandstorm increases their Sp. Def.
I guess its weaknesses (Fighting, Grass, Ground, and Water) are all inconvenient, but "needs buffs" is otherwise kinda vague. Increase the distribution of Power Gem, maybe?
In-game, I don't think there are any truly weak starters, let alone recently. Meganium struggles in Johto, sure, but it's far from the worst Pokémon in the region, and IIRC it's still usable in a playthrough. The Johto trio is also by far the most imbalanced in-game to my knowledge, Chikorita is clearly worse than Cyndaquil and Totodile.
What I would like to see for Starters is similar power levels within a trio. Yet even today, we got stuff like Incineroar being a lot better in Doubles than the two other Alolan starters. Competitively, it's all over the place, especially since Generation VI I feel like.
And not let me talk about publicity... *cough*Charizard*cough*
Preach!
Grass starters are usually struggle-tier regardless of the game. Of course, a lot of that has to do with the type itself like Meganium in Johto.
Rock is like Ice in the sense of it being full of slow bulky mons that got a ton of weaknesses. To make things worse, most of its moves have accuracy issues.
I get why one would want some buffs.
The weird thing with Grass Starters is that, in-game, they don't really feel like Grass mons. Most of them don't get the Powder moves, Leech Seed, or Growth. And they all have Overgrow because Starters, rather than something like Natural Cure or Effect Spore.
Grass is supposed to be a Utility/Defensive type, but that sucks in a playthrough, so the Grass starters all have these more offensive stat spreads, designs, and movepools. But that means that a Decidueye in-game doesn't play like most other grass types do. And grass sucks offensively(Because it's a utility type), and healing moves are bad when the game throws hyper potions at your head, so you get these offensive Grass starters that aren't bulky enough to make up for their weaknesses, have a STAB that's resisted by like 3/4ths of the boss mons, and don't get utility like Sleep Powder. I actually like a lot of their designs, but the grass starters just play so bad.
Grass is supposed to be a Utility/Defensive type, but that sucks in a playthrough, so the Grass starters all have these more offensive stat spreads, designs, and movepools. But that means that a Decidueye in-game doesn't play like most other grass types do. And grass sucks offensively(Because it's a utility type), and healing moves are bad when the game throws hyper potions at your head, so you get these offensive Grass starters that aren't bulky enough to make up for their weaknesses, have a STAB that's resisted by like 3/4ths of the boss mons, and don't get utility like Sleep Powder. I actually like a lot of their designs, but the grass starters just play so bad.
Both Stone Edge and Rock Slide have horrible acuuracy. I have lost more matches due to Stone Edge than i have won. Plus all good rock type moves like Accelrock and Power Gem have limited distribution.
Plus most rock types have horrible Sp. Def which entirely negates their high Defences. Only two rock types pokemons have the ability Sandstream.
Torterra is really weak in game. Gen 5 starters are all meh. My Samurrott was relatively lackluster in White. My Krokodile, Haxorus and Heidregon were much powerful despite having lower levels. Yeah apart from that starters aren't that imbalanced in-game.
The reason Incineror is better than other starters is because of his ability Intimidate. While Decidueye gets the gimmicky long reach.
While some starters get protean or contrary others get gimmicky shell armor or bulletproof.
why doesn't grass resists rock?
Better question is, why so many types resist Grass despite being one of the three starter types?
Because the prototypical Grass isn't Rillaboom or Kartana, it's Venusaur or Ferrothorn. Grass is supposed to be the designated status-spreader, using Leech Seed or Giga Drain to stay healthy while whittling down the oppt through weak attacks. Thing is, that's boring to play, so they don't make many of them in-game. But give Infernape Sleep Powder or make Amoongus, say, Ground, and it'd become apparent why the Grass type sucks so much.
"B-But my STAB is super effective against the Water/Ground pairing! And I'm now immune to powder moves!"
As explained by Imported Cheese on this video, Grass in casual playthrough also originally had few good spammable damaging moves. Sure, back in Gen I, Razor Leaf kills, but it is then nerfed, so Chikorita sucked. Not to mention the weaknesses (in spite of nifty resistance against Electric and Ground) and Pokémon who resist Grass, several of them immune to Leech Life and/or Toxic.
Compare to Water-type Pokémon, who already had reliable Surf spam, and Fire-types, who have only two Status moves as of Generation VIII.
...But the games are easy, so you can beat them with a plant/animal hybrid if you want.
But grass is one of the weakest type defensively along with Ice and Rock. So unless it's paired with poison or steel, it's utility is kinda limited.
Actually it's the weakest type overall. Because unlike Ice and Rock, it sucks offensively. And bug isn't really bad defensively.
so you've just figured out that... actually balancing a type chart with almost 20 types is actually complicate and buffing one thing makes something else automatically weaker?Yeah...buffing bug defensively in my chart would indirectly hurt grass types, same with Ice/Rock
Poison getting a buff makes it worse, OMG...
I wouldn't call Grass one of the weaker types defensively, if anything, it's actually quite a valuable defensive type. It may have several weaknesses in a vacuum, but the thing is that with type matchups you cannot assess a type's offensive and defensive value purely based on the number of weaknesses/resistances they have or how many types they hit super effectively/not very effectively in a vacuum.
Grass may have five weaknesses, but on the contrary, it has four resistances, one to itself and three to Water, Ground, and Electric. That might not seem like much on paper, but in practice this is actually a *big* deal. Those three resistances are extremely valuable resistances to have on a Pokemon. Water, Electric, and Ground are all very prolific offensive types, and not only are they prolific, they also have notable moves that are widespread in competitive such as Scald, Volt Switch, and Earthquake. Not only that, but the former two are particularly prolific in rain. This is in addition to the wide range of utility they have such as powder moves, Leech Seed, Aromatherapy, and whatnot. In general the three types are very common and good offensive types and resistances to them are highly sought after, especially since even outside of those moves they have a lot of great offensive Pokemon and high powered offensive moves at their disposal such as Hydro Pump and Thunder.
After all, Ferrothorn is one of the best defensive Pokémon, and while its Steel-typing is a big part of it, the Grass-type it possesses is also a big part of its defensive prowess. For the reasons I outlined, Grass isn't one of the weaker defensive types: if anything, it's one of the good ones defensively. It's not the *best* defensive type, but it is by no means a bad defensive type and in many ways it's a good defensive type in its own right. Any defensive Grass-type is good in part because it has Grass as a type, which speaks volumes about its own defensive value.
On the contrary, a type that can be considered to be quite poor defensively despite not looking so in a vacuum is Fire. In a vacuum, Fire seems like it would be a great defensive type, with a grand total of six resistances and only three weaknesses, but Fire's three weaknesses are highly crippling weaknesses to have, meanwhile its resistances hold little value because they are to weaker offensive types (Grass, Bug, Steel) or overlap with other, better defensive types that don't have the three crippling weaknesses Fire has. Fire's three weaknesses are to Ground, Rock, and Water. With how common Ground and Rock are as offensive types, this is very bad, same with Water which has offensive merit in many places, especially on rain. All three enjoy powerful moves such as Earthquake, Hydro Pump/Scald, Stone Edge, etc, both as STAB and as coverage, and worst of all, Fire's weakness to Rock is also an issue because of Stealth Rock, meaning a Fire-type takes more damage upon switch-in from the hazard, effectively hurting the type's defensive value because a Fire-type loses more health more quickly from Stealth Rock than it would if it wasn't weak to it. Now yes, on the contrary, Fire can be considered a fantastic offensive type because the ability to hit Steel and Grass super effectively is a valuable trait, but on the defensive end it's another case of "looks can be deceiving" as it resists several types, but its three weaknesses are so crippling that Fire is effectively a bad defensive type.
Thought I'd highlight two things to get the record straight.
Yeah...buffing bug defensively in my chart would indirectly hurt grass types, same with Ice/Rock
Poison getting a buff makes it worse, OMG...
Actually there is a good way to balance them.
Make grass resist rock.
Make rock moves like Stone edge and rock slide more accurate(95% in case of stone edge and 100% in case of rock slide) and give wider distribution to moves like accelrock and power gem among rock types. Make them more specially bulky. Rhyperior with more special bulk and access to Accelrock might be usable in OU.
Make bug resist fairy and super effective against it. And give wider distribution of moves like Attack order, Lunge and Megahorn among bug types. Only 3 bug types learn Megahorn. Also Bug types have generally poor BST. The worst of all actually. Make more high BST bug mons. Give Scizor 540 BST. It is an evolution of Scyther. Doesn't make sense for both of them to have samme BST.
Make Ice resist water. And make ice type move more accurate. Give 100% accuracy to
Also take the steel resistance of Dragon.
Also make less legendaries and pseudo legendaries that are dragon type.
U turn is as common as volt switch if not more. Plus it's weak to fire, ice and flying which are pretty common in competitive scene.
While fire is not a stellar defensive type, it still is much better compared to grass. It resists fairy, ice and fire itself which is a huge deal in competitive. Plus there are more good defensive fire mons.
There are actually some amazing efensive fire types. Heatran, Torkoal, Incineroar, Ho-oh, Rotom-H. Fire type is not that stellar defensively compared to Grass types because they lack recovery and status moves outside of will o wissp and access to regenerator. Fire mons not being used defensively generally has less to do with their typing and more to do with their lack of defensiive movepool and abilties.
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Not on the types that Grass is supposed to check.
Fire-types are generally much worse at checking Fairy, Ice, and Fire types than Grass-types are at checking Water, Ground, and Electric types.
Anyways echoing this because it is really well said:
I think that this is the best way to look at type balance, and it is why I think that type balance is mostly reasonable. While some types are generally better/worse than others, for most types it is possible to design a Pokemon for a variety of roles (both offensive and defensive) in a way where its typing contributes to its viability, rather than hindering it. Rock and Bug are probably below-average defensively, but there are Pokemon that use the defensive properties of those types well (Diancie and Rhyperior for Rock, Forretress and Buzzwole for Bug). Obviously, you can see that Ice is flawed under this framework because it only works on offensive Pokemon (and only relatively fast ones, as Crabominable can attest to). But as said previously, type balance is hard, and that's why I think the system functions decently enough in most cases.
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No you can't. If you said in the Isle of Armor and/or Crown Tundra, then it's true
I'm not sure if this is popular or unpopular, but Kalos was honestly the best region for routes. gf put a lot of effort into visuals it seems, and the routes in XY can differentiate between a cool, breezy autumn forest, to a coastal area with a farm and a river going into the bay, to a rich path with taller grass on either side leading to a regal palace, to a winter wonderland where you must ride a freaking mammoth to traverse.
The music is also great!
Kalos Route 15 is a better tune than Unova Route 10, change my mind.
["KymaTheDragon, post: 9310920, member: 604639"]
My mistake… I meant the DLC area
Nah. The best checks of the most threatning fire type of OU volcarona are other fire types like Heatran, Mega Charizard etc.
Firebugs are regularly used to counter Zacian and Zacian Crowned in AG. And Volcarona and Heartran are consistent checks of Xerneas in ubers. Biggest check for the most important fairy in OU, Clefable are Heatran, Volcarona and Victini.
Fire types are also a consistent check to Ninetales-A. Ho-oh is a consistent check to Darmanitan-G in Ubers.
So Grass is not supposed to check Electric(Tapu Koko), Water(Urshifu) and Ground(Landorus-T)?
Now I'm wondering if Grass/Fire would be a good defensive type, since they resist a lot of each others' weaknesses.
Time to rustle some jimmies.
Balancing the Type Chart would be boring. I like that there are some underdog types like Bug and Ice as well as lording types like Fairy and Steel. That doesn't mean I wouldn't mind a bit of change here and there (I would love for Steel to take x0.5 dmg from Poison rather than x0), but I'm not a fan of changes like giving Ice a Water resistance or giving Fairy more weaknesses. Also I think it'd be more fun to buff/nerf types outside of the Type chart. Something like making Ghost immune to Hail damage so they could be a part of a Hail team, or Poisoned Pokemon having their evasion halved.
Balancing the Type Chart would be boring. I like that there are some underdog types like Bug and Ice as well as lording types like Fairy and Steel. That doesn't mean I wouldn't mind a bit of change here and there (I would love for Steel to take x0.5 dmg from Poison rather than x0), but I'm not a fan of changes like giving Ice a Water resistance or giving Fairy more weaknesses. Also I think it'd be more fun to buff/nerf types outside of the Type chart. Something like making Ghost immune to Hail damage so they could be a part of a Hail team, or Poisoned Pokemon having their evasion halved.
Eh, it's a decent typing but nothing to speak hugely of. 4 resist (a 4x to grass) and 3 weaknesses (1 of which to rock which is never good, and one to flying which is a bad weakness to have in current vgc), but it has a pretty decent offensive profile as few types resist both fire and grass (main reason for sun sweepers to love solar beam for example).
Normal needs a buff, possibly more than any other type. It's a solid contender for worst type.
Return's cut is by far the most unjust of all Gen VIII Move cuts IMO. Double-Edge is a decent offensive move, but Return was a good, reliable, recoil-less option that can be learned by many Pokémon, including several who can't learn Double-Edge.
It also lacks utility compared to other types, even mediocre ones:
Return's cut is by far the most unjust of all Gen VIII Move cuts IMO. Double-Edge is a decent offensive move, but Return was a good, reliable, recoil-less option that can be learned by many Pokémon, including several who can't learn Double-Edge.
It also lacks utility compared to other types, even mediocre ones:
- Rock is already a great offensive type, one of the better in fact; Rock Slide is one of the most popular moves in VGC. Rock is a bleh defensive type, but I guess resisting Stealth Rock is good.
- Ice is still a decent coverage type; it is the main beneficiary of Hail-based playstyles, including Aurora Veil.
- Poison and Grass also have nifty immunities to poison and powder moves respectively. They also have useful resistances, seriously Grass is actually underrated due to resisting Ground and Electric.
Due to the fae’s supremancy over insects, I dunno? Bug certainly doesn’t need another type that resists it, it’s just overkill at this rate.
Normal certainly needs to get Return back, as well as Frustration.