All Gens The Best Types In History - Round 2: GSC (See post 114)

Isa

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Finally, I think that we should take into account that almost any OU team has a Ground type, while only a few have an Ice type.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/spl-6-weekly-usage-statistics.3527172/

6 | Jynx | 23 | 32% | 48%
8 | Lapras | 19 | 26% | 53%
9 | Golem | 15 | 21% | 40%
13 | Rhydon | 5 | 7% | 0%
15 | Cloyster | 2 | 3% | 0%
18 | Nidoking | 1 | 1% | 100%

It's not even a contest in terms of usage, and win rates point in the favor of the ice type as well.
 

Disaster Area

formerly Piexplode
the reason I rate ice above ground in part is because ice types are a lot better in ou than ground types, if that influences anyone..

edit: isa's point's great even if tour stats do have their limitations..
 
I won't argue against the statistics. I had a different perception, but it seems I underrated Jynx and Lapras's popularity.


Just to be clear, though, I was comparing the frequency of teams with at least 1 Ground-type vs. teams with at least 1 Ice-type. Since Golem and Rhydon are not used on the same team, we can safely add their frequency together.
The same can't be done with Ice-types, however, because Jynx and Lapras are viable in the same team. Still, considering Jynx's usage was 32% on her own (which is higher than Golem and Rhydon's combined 28%), I admit my defeat. :-P
 
Stepping outside of the RBY OU competitive meta context, I agree that Psychic was the dominating type of the first generation. The cartridge game had poison types EVERYWHERE (Team Rocket loved them, Zubats flooded every cave, poison was paired with stupidly common Pokemon on routes like Venonat/Bellsprout/Oddish etc), it had no practical weaknesses, and the Psychic Pokemon tended to be gifted in terms of stats - plus Mewtwo. It was so clearly out of control that Game Freak had to nerf it like crazy in Gen II by introducing Dark. Game Freak did their best to "balance" in Gen I, but there were tons of oversights, and Psychic was definitely OP. So, Psychic in Gen I has a reputation that a lot of these posters are leaning on - as Isa mentioned, there are some names here we don't see play RBY competitively, but the general knowledge of "Psychic was OP in Gen I" is an earned reputation.

However, as Jellicent has pointed out, we're talking about the RBY OU metagame, not the cartridge game and not the Ubers tier. Psychic is still powerful, but it's not undeniably number one. Here's my list:

1) Normal. Everyone else has given their reasons, and I agree. Tauros, Snorlax, Chansey, Hyper Beam, Body Slam, etc. Golem/Rhydon resist it and Gengar is immune, but they all get coverage (except poor Persian v Gengar) - this means a normal type is almost always a good choice. I don't want to get too specifically into distinct Pokemon v Pokemon matchups, but there are very few things who WANT to switch into a normal type and eat an attack, whereas if you need to switch into an Alakazam, or Eggy, or Jynx, your team is more likely to carry something that can switch in more happily.

2) Psychic. This is a very close 2. I think we don't fear Psychic anymore BECAUSE we've accommodated to play around Psychic. Psychic resists Psychic so an Alakazam isn't really scary to another Alakazam, or an Eggy. Psychic has the POTENTIAL to be everywhere and so Poison types rarely make a showing (Gengar and Victreebel being the prime counterexamples, but they're riding on the coattails of their primary typing). It's a scary type - whether you use the actual move Psychic or not. But, Psychic rides a lot on that intimidation. We know Psychic is scary so we counter with other Psychics, we don't bring Poisons (even if that Slowbro doesn't carry Psychic), because of the intimidation factor. Normal gets the edge because it doesn't need to bluff to make its point.

3) Ground. Electric would be a terrifying type if it weren't for these guys, and Golem/Rhydon attack hard on the physical side. As for Ice v Ground, I know Isa threw the SPL usage stats up there, but tournament stats for just 4 weeks aren't too illustrative, especially in an extremely high-level tournament like SPL where people are building teams to specifically counter their opponents' play styles, rather than using a jack-of-all-trades team on the ladder, or against opponents they don't know well or haven't studied. I feel like Jynx has seen a huge resurgence as a lead lately, too, which means the stats up there could simply be representing a fad that could fade away. That being said, it's all my opinion and my opinion only. Personally, I think Ground is more mandatory on a team than an Ice, and Earthquake has more opportunities to be threatening than Ice Beam/Blizzard.

4) Ice. Of course, Ice is still huge, so it gets 4. Honestly, it's so close I wouldn't be surprised if Ice and Ground end up tying when this is all over. Ice Beam and Blizzard are fantastic, and the freeze chance can be devastating. As I said above, I think Earthquake has more opportunities to hurt. If you disregard the freeze chance, of the 16 Pokemon in OU, 6 clearly fear the Rock/Ground attacking combo more (Zam, Chansey, Cloyster, Gengar, Jynx, Lapras), 4 clearly fear an Ice attack more (Dragonite, Exeggutor, Golem, Rhydon), 2 can shrug off Ice attacks and take more damage from Ground, even if they aren't particularly threatened by Ground (Starmie, Slowbro), and the last 4 would fear them roughly equally depending on the matchup (Persian, Snorlax, Tauros, Zapdos). It's a crude analysis, but when it's this close it gives Ground the edge.

Those are my major thoughts. I have some general thoughts on ranking below that but I don't feel too terribly strongly.

5) Water. When I first read Jellicent's original post, my instinct was to put Water at 3. But after reading everyone's replies I agree that Water itself isn't really the powerhouse. There are tons of water TYPES, but they love their secondary typing more (Starmie, Slowbro, Lapras, Cloyster). Still, some very powerful, threatening Pokemon are Water-type (even ones like Kingler, who aren't technically in OU but can hold their own), and that can't be underestimated.

6) Electric. Electric would shred OU if it weren't for ground. They're fast with high crit rates and have good special stats. On non-Electric types, Thunderbolt is a staple on most of the Pokemon who learn it.

7) Grass. Double-edged sword here - Ground and Ice are pretty much tied for me, and Grass may resist one, but is weak to the other. Still, Eggy is arguably a mandatory addition to an RBY OU team, and the Grass typing helps it way more than it hurts it - the resistances to Electric, Water, and Ground are a more-than-fair tradeoff to the Ice weakness. As an attacking type, Grass can bring some hurt with Razor Leaf, and I personally have a soft spot for Leech Seed.

8) Ghost. I wish Gengar wasn't Poison, or this type would be so damn good. With only one Ghost Pokemon in the whole game, though, you can't ignore the fact that it's part Poison and therefore gets some devastating weakness to Psychic and Ground. Still, Gengar has a lot going for it (I've written a lot about Gengar previously) and that means Ghost still has a strong presence in the tier.

9) Rock. That normal resist is handy, and Rock Slide is a great move.

10) Flying. I wish more Flying types had a good STAB, but while Flying can often be more of a hindrance than a help on a Pokemon (Dragonite would love to ditch the typing, and weaknesses to Rock, Electric, and Ice is terrible), the Pokemon who happen to be Flying types can hold their own.

11) Dragon. Eh. It's kind of worthless as a type in RBY with only one Pokemon and no STAB and a terrible Ice weakness, but Dragonite can be a real threat anyway.

12) Poison. Poison typing brings nothing good to the table. It doesn't resist anything useful, its weaknesses are extremely unfortunate, there are no decent STAB attacks and even if there were they would only be useful against Eggy (Bel and Saur would be hit neutral) so everything that is half-Poison just wishes it wasn't. Still, there are viable half-Poison Pokemon in OU (Gengar, Victreebel) so you can't ignore Poison's presence.

13) Fire. Bad attacking type, inflicts a status you normally don't want to inflict. It has some "cool" Pokemon though that can be brought into an OU match. However, I see a potential for Fire: now that Body Slam can't paralyze Normals, is using Fire Blast to burn Snorlax and Tauros a not-terrible idea [EDIT to respond to Ortheore/clarify: as in, does finding a slot for Fire Blast (as in, in place of Body Slam on Goldon) seem more appealing for the burn chance? Probably not, but because you used to mostly hope for paraslam against those guys, Fire Blast just seems so interesting to me now]?

14) Bug. Pin Missile on Jolteon. Shrug.

15) Fighting. Fighting and Fire are the ONLY types listed with virtually no presence in OU. Bug and Poison are also terrible, but Jolteon brings Pin Missile, so Bug gets represented. Gengar and Bel are Poison-types, so Poison is represented. So why is Fire above Bug and Fighting? One, I feel like I see Ninetales, Flareon, and Moltres in OU far, far more often than I see Machamp, Poliwrath, or Hitmonlee. Maybe not Poliwrath. Two, I bumped Fire up a little bit because Burn would seriously hurt Snorlax and Tauros, even if it would be the worst thing that could happen to a Starmie or Chansey. Shrug.
 
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okie dokie. I'm still not sure to what extent we should consider pokemon whose success is not directly tied to the typing in question but w/e (like Poison easily is the worst typing in the game, but there are pokemon that are viable despite that, same can't be said of Fire)

Normal>Psychic imo. STAB normal attacks are just fantastic, Body Slam is easily the most spammable attack in the game. Also there's Chansey which is vital to like 90% of teams. Psychic resisting itself makes it a weird situation- offensively it feels like there's always some thing walling it... but said things are either Chansey or psychic types themselves.
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Ice is #3 and it's not even close. Gives you good coverage, Blizzard is a nice high base power, and mostly importantly, freezes. Freezes break games open in a way nothing else does, being able to play for one while limiting your opponent's chances at a freeze is a huge deal
Ground is a nice #4. EQ is one of the best attacks in OU, immensely spammable once Egg's out of the picture. It's funny though, because while it's the driving force behind GolDon's power, it doesn't feature prominently in any other set- it's only there to nail Gengar (and GolDon if no coverage for them) and scout for Counter
Water #5, everyone's talked about this. I guess Bro and Cloy are cool and make use of their water typing (But even then, Bro's electric weakness is a huge issue)

Rock>Ghost imo. Both bring that normal resist which is fantastic, but Rock Slide is one of the more spammable moves in RBY, since the only things that resist it in OU are GolDon, which are the ones using it in the first place. Ghost typing itself contributes nothing offensively.

Also GG, Fire Blasting Lax/Taur was always a good idea if you had it. The real issue is running Fire Blast in the first place, not to mention an opp would never leave their normal attacker in when they could potentially pick up a burn on Star/Chans

Other than that I mostly agree with everyone's rankings (when considering how good pokemon of that type are)

The rankings below only consider how good a type is in the meta, not how good the pokemon that have that typing are (So I've ranked water really low despite there being loads of really good water types)
Normal
Psychic
=======
Ice
Ground
Electric- Extremely potent, water types are everywhere, only issue is the existence of ground types
=======
Rock- Normal resist is fantastic, pretty good STAB as well
Grass- Ground resistance is invaluable, otherwise meh since electrics and water types have ways of seriously damaging them
Water- Only notable resist is Ice, while offensively it's totally outclassed by Ice. Still, only notable weakness is electric, which is easy to work around
Ghost- Normal resist is amazing, doesn't bring anything else
=======
Flying- Physical type that isn't checked by Egg. Trouble with GolDon and crippling weaknesses make Flying type more trouble than its worth
Fighting- they beat up on normals I guess, hindered by shitty STAB and being Psychic weak
Dragon- A couple cool resistances, outweighed by the fact that it has no STAB and is Ice weak
=======
Bug- No good resistances, no good attacking options. I guess Pin missile can hurt Psychics a bit?
Fire- No good resistances, ground weak, STAB is comfortably walled by Star/Chans/Zam which benefit from being burned
Poison- Giving anything Poison typing is actively hindering it from succeeding in OU, due to the Psychic and Ground weaknesses it brings. Without poison typing, Gengar would be one of the best pokemon in the tier, Bel might actually have defensive utility
 

Jorgen

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I was gonna try to be objective but it was taking so long so have a subjective top 5 list instead.

1 - Normal
Strongest STABs in the game, best mons in the game.

2 - Psychic
Vastly improves any mon that gets it, to the point where Mr. Mime is the only fully evolved Psychic to have no place whatsoever in OU. This same prevalence neuters the offensive strength it otherwise would have with only one resist, thereby limiting its usefulness to a defensive one.

3 - Ice
Freezes are strong. Blizzards are strong.

4 - Water
Lots of good mons are part water type. Granted it hurts them a little bit most of the time, but not much, and Water is a potent attacking type that's really only ignored as much as it is because of Blizzard existing.

5 - Electric
Twave arguably the most influential move in the game. Electric moves are okay, Electric mons are very scary (if only situationally).


Beyond this I'm not sure. Grass and Ground probably go above Ghost/Flying/Rock, succeeded by Poison and Fire to then be followed by Fighting, then Bug and Dragon to bring up the rear.
 
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Mr.E

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Normal is a better offensive typing insofar as Psychics don't resist it... Psychic is a better defensive typing insofar as they resist Psychic. :P But I'm a Psychic guy myself, much as I like my quad-Normal Dodrio teams. The problem with Psychic, the move, isn't merely that Psychic-types resist it but its low PP and Zam/Starmie having Recover to stall the hell out of each other. Otherwise it would run train through everything because Special drops double dip on offense and defense in RBY. In a Psychic vs. Normal matchup, neither resist each other. Normals just tend to get more shit done offensively because they also don't resist each other whereas Psychics do.

I think that inherently makes Psychics better, no? On paper, Psychics are just as good offensively... the only reason they aren't in reality, compared to Normals, is that Psychics are equally as good defensively. You need Psychics to both present the threat and to defend against it. You don't need Normals, it's just nice to have one for cleanup duty since they're neutral attackers. Tauros is a close #2 duelist to Zam but you have to coddle it a lot more because it has no defensive utility. Chansey is kinda like a Slowbro that presents no offensive threat to anything except Starmie (because of its secondary typing, and lack of Amnesia like Slowbro), just a slow lump of undying aggravation. Snorlax is pretty well-balanced though.

And then I don't really give a shit after that but Ice is probably #3 solely off the back of FRZ and Blizzard being the best attack on paper.
 
So, maybe first we should agree on the criteria we are basing our rankings on.

For example, I don't think TW should matter when ranking Electric, because the typing of the move has no relevance besides Ground-types being immune to it. Which is a point in favor of Ground, but it doesn't say much about Electric.

And I agree that Psychic could be the best offensive type if Recover/Softboiled weren't an exclusive of special-based Pokémon. But can we ignore this fact? Special drops are awesome and all, but they can be eliminated by switching out + recovering. In order to capitalize on Special drops, you pretty much need a physical attacker, and Normal-types happen to be the best ones.
So just like Normal-types rely on Psychic-types' resistance to Psychic for defense, Psychic-types rely on Normal-types' power to break stall.
I don't think Psychic-types are more essential to a team than Normal-types. Both are the best at what they do, but they can be replaced. You can have Chansey with and without LS, Amnesia Snorlax, Victreebel instead of Exeggutor...

In reality, what you really need in every team is one Psychic-type for the potential of stalling other Psychic-types. The other Pokémon can be either Chansey or another Psychic.
Conversely, you usually want more than one Normal-type on your team.
(Although I will agree with Mr.E that Chansey can be aggravating, I have come to prefer Alakazam over her.)


So far, I think we can all agree on this list. (The types are in alphabetical order.)
Tier #1: Normal & Psychic.
Tier #2: Ground, Ice, & Water.
Tier #3: Flying, Ghost, & Rock.
Tier #4: Bug, Fighting, Fire, & Poison.

While everyone has different opinions on the exact order within each tier, I think we can all agree that there is a huge gap between this four subdivisions. No matter what you rank #3, it will be much closer to your #4 than your #2.
Dragon, Electric, and Grass are the most difficult to place for me. Electric and Grass may be tier #2, tier #3, or somewhere in between, while we need to agree on how much Agiwrap Dragonite affects the ranking of Dragon.

Cheers.
 

Jorgen

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I don't think it's unfair that Twave be considered a point for Electric, especially as Twave's typing totally factors into its effectiveness. More dubious would be stuff like Sleep Powder for Grass and Recover for Normal, where the typing does literally nothing for the move's effectiveness. Even there, if we're going to give typings good grades based on which mons are present among them (e.g., in "old meta", Chansey is just flat-out better with a Psychic typing, but it counts as a point for Normal because that's what it is in practice; also, most Water mons would prefer to just be their secondary type than to have Water added on top of it), we should also give boosts to types based on which moves they get. I think the main exception should be Normal, though, as that seems to be a catch-all typing for most moves where the type doesn't matter and GF couldn't be arsed to find a type alignment for it.
 
The reason I don't agree with you about Thunder Wave is because Thunder Wave being Electric has no importance in why a Pokémon chooses to have it in its moveset. You don't pick it because it is Electric, you pick it because you want to paralyze stuff.
On attacking moves, on the other hand, the typing is a factor in this choice. You pick a STAB move for the extra damage (so the effectiveness of the move's typing is directly linked with the effectiveness of the Pokémon's typing) and you pick a coverage move specifically because of its typing (you pick EQ because it covers almost every Pokémon resisting Normal attacks). Granted, it is not the only factor. Sometimes you simply pick Body Slam because of the paralysis chance, or Ice Beam because of the freeze chance. But the typing is a factor nonetheless.
With TW, you don't pick the move because it's Electric, but you might pick a Ground-type Pokémon because it's immune to TW.

Regarding other status moves like Sleep Powder and Recover, I think their typing doesn't matter and it should not be counted. What should matter is the typing of the Pokémon that learn these moves.
For example, Sleep Powder is learned by Grass- and Bug-types, so it should be a factor when ranking these two types. Why? Because if you want Sleep Powder in your team, this implies having a Grass/Bug in your team.
Similarly, Recover being Normal has zero importance. What matters is that it is commonly learned by Psychic-types.
 
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You need Psychics to both present the threat and to defend against it. You don't need Normals.
Thunderbolt Chansey is the only 'mon I feel safe switching into Starmie. Any other OU team has no proper defense against it other than "threatening to stall it out". It's not an offensive threat but it stops other mons from being so.

Tauros is a close #2 duelist to Zam but you have to coddle it a lot more because it has no defensive utility.
What does #2 duelist mean? Alakazam can 1v1 most Psychics and Chansey thanks to Special Drops but it tends to be unable to deal if they can safely switch out of those drops to waste its Psychic PP. There is no way to stall out a Tauros, you just need to hope it doesn't get lucky. If Tauros comes in on a wounded Pokémon, you are almost forced to let it die or it gets a shot at crippling something else. If Alakazam tries to finish off a low health Pokémon there's a huge number of Pokémon I can switch in safely.
 

Mr.E

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Zam will beat everything 1v1. (Well, not Amnesia users but please.) Tauros will 1v1 everything except Zam and that's still almost 50/50. Obviously. And even though in reality Zam can't really kill that much because it runs out of Psychic PP before it can do so, the switches it forces are precisely what lets you get that delicate little flower Tauros in most safely.

But seriously, how does being able to switch in Zam against Zam make Psychics worse? Tauros is equally bad then because it can't switch into Tauros. On its own, that doesn't really say much of anything about either type. I just feel Psychics drive the metagame more, but balance is necessary in a team context and Tauros just happens to be the best cleaner. On paper it's still overall worse than Zam who is even better in a strictly 1v1 context, is faster, and has Recover. There are other really good Normals but again they're still not quite as good as the other Psychics.
 
is this a question of typing purely in theory, the best pokemon's type, or the best attack type?

ghost is probably the best type on paper, strong against psychic, immune against normals, and weak against pretty much nothing. but this is all irrelevant in practice.

best pokemon's type seems to be the vast majority of discussion, in which case isn't it pretty clear cut that psychic takes a backseat to normal? top 3 pokemon are normal, what more is there to say?

as an attacking type, psychic is pretty ass. the move psychic is pretty good for the spc fall, but the actual psychic typing is utter garbage due to the prevalence of psychic pokemon in general. so on average, 1/3 to 1/2 of the opponent's team resists psychic, and there's probably a chansey. psychic as an attack blows. ironically, it's usually self destruct, hyper beams, body slams, explosions, and ice beams/blizzards that do all the pokemon killing. psychic is there to pseudo haze and do recoverable damage. once again, normal attacks.
 
Zam will beat everything 1v1. (Well, not Amnesia users but please.) Tauros will 1v1 everything except Zam and that's still almost 50/50
Do I not understand what you are saying correctly, or are you saying Alakaza beats Tauros 1v1?

Alakazam Psychic vs. Tauros: 151-178 (42.7 - 50.4%) -- 0.8% chance to 2HKO
Alakazam Psychic vs. Tauros on a critical hit: 296-348 (83.8 - 98.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Tauros Body Slam vs. Alakazam: 145-171 (46.3 - 54.6%) -- 60.2% chance to 2HKO
Tauros Body Slam vs. Alakazam on a critical hit: 281-331 (89.7 - 105.7%) -- 35.9% chance to OHKO

Sure there is always the Spc-drop chance, but there is the equal chance for a Bodyslam-para, so Alakazam does not have the better match-up vs Tauros, but rather the other way around!
 
Tauros's crit rate is so high that it probably has the advantage even vs reflect zam, though I'm not sure about the exact probabilities (which depend on the choices of both sides, especially zam regarding twave, psychic and recover, though predicting tauros hyper beam might be relevant too)
 

Mr.E

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oh okay I got it wrong and Tauros is the one with a slight advantage on Zam I guess thanks for finding that topic Piexplode (because I'm obviously too lazy or I would've myself and not made the mistake of misremembering which mon won)

but fuck you Borat Zam and Eggy are still the other two of the top three mons you peeps can get your snorlaxen and chansey (who may as well be an honorary Psychic since it definitely isn't a physical presence like other Normals) out of here
 

Disaster Area

formerly Piexplode
I disagree with alakazam being top 4 and I think most top RBYers would agree with me, but you're entitled to your opinion.

You are kinda right I think about chansey's typing I mean.. it's not really signficant to it. Unless it has something particularly useful for it like ice or horrible for it like poison then I don't think it really makes a huge difference. Still, the ability to take any attack as at worst neutrally (which I think only otherwise ghost can truly make that claim, but for all intents and purposes that's also true for psychic).. if it were any type other than ghost/psychic/normal then it would pose issues with some of its current matchups, although ice would probably be more beneficial for it in some circumstances. Also, ghost chansey would be insane.
 
You are kinda right I think about chansey's typing I mean
who may as well be an honorary Psychic since it definitely isn't a physical presence like other Normals
are you guys really counting chansey as psychic because it has low physical attack? this argument is asstounding.

in any case, egg is still 3rd at best outside of rby player mr.e's opinion. 2 of the top 2 are normal. 3 of the top 4 are normal.

moving on top number 3 typing, it's between water (cloy, starmie, lapras) vs ice (starmie, lapras, jynx, and articuno??) vs golem/rhydon vs gengar. i feel like we might as well go back to the viability list to determine these rankings. yeah i'm real fun at parties.

ps. making chansey psychic would be a huge upgrade. but it's not; it's normal. this isn't a point for psychic unless we're changing the grading criteria altogether, in which case ghost #1.
 

Disaster Area

formerly Piexplode
yeah, chansey being normal puts it at a very certain spot (psychic/ghost would be too much, anything else would be a nerf, apart from very possibly ice..). At the same time, chansey's typing is in essence not a huge amount of what makes it good, compared to its base stats and movepool, but its typing does contribute a lot when you consider if you changed it at all the effect it'd have would be really large.

bear in mind borat, with water it's not a particularly useful typing for a lot of the mons that get it (slowbro's only advantage from it is scaring rhydon easier, and resisting ice, for example, whilst victreebel and electrics and tbolt stuff scare it more), but Ice is just a blessing; the weaknesses of it are fairly insignificant, ice resistance is the only resistance it gives but it counts for lots, freeze immunity is lordly, and it's a great offensive typing. Imo the only thing that steps up to ice's level is ground since it's fairly relevant defensively as well as a great and important move type offensively.
 
I think the criteria for our rankings should be:
1. How Pokémon of that type perform in the metagame;
2. How attacks of that type are important in the metagame;
3. How influential the typing is in the above two factors.
"In the metagame" being the opposite of "On paper".

For example, Water ranks quite high according to criteria #1, but much more poorly according to criteria #3. Water is far from a bad typing, but it does give you important disadvantages along with its advantages (in a generation where there are a lot of types with no negative traits at all - like Normal, Psychic, Ice, and Ghost). Also, the Water-typing is rarely what makes a Pokémon good.
Finally, it performs quite horribly according to criteria #2.

Contrast this with Ice and Ground, which rank high in all three fields. This is why I think Water cannot be ranked higher than #5.
EDIT: To further clarify, I think Ground performs better than Water with criteria #3 because while both give you advantages and disadvantages, Ground's advantages are unique while Water's are not.
 
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You guys are right, the fact that Chansey is an "honorary Psychic" isn't a point for Psychic ... but it's just more evidence to putting Normal types at number 1. If you've got a Normal that can serve a similar function on your team as a Psychic, but you don't have a Psychic that could serve the function of a Normal (Eggy comes closest), that's another notch on Normal's belt. I think we're all agreed, though, that Normal > Psychic for the 1 and 2 slots, yes?

I like where Loudo was coming from with his tiering and his criteria list. How do we hammer out the ordering of "Tier 2" of Ground, Ice, and Water?
 

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