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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
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Hypothetical, but how unbalanced would things be if electric WAS super effective against Steel?
Since steel conducts electricity I have always wondered why this wasn’t a thing.
Since steel conducts electricity I have always wondered why this wasn’t a thing.
While I think freeze dry is an interesting move, I don't really like it as a method for buffing a type. If the move is too widely distributed, then essentially it's just a change to the type chart. There's not a huge practical difference between every ice type getting freeze dry and making water weak to ice. Give it too limited of a distribution and you're not really buffing that type, you're buffing a few mons of that type.
You do make a good point about steel punishing so many of these underpowered types. Ironically the only type I think makes thematic sense to be SE against steel, that being electric, is already a decent type that doesn't need the help. I think psychic could justifiably be taken off steel's resists, it doesn't make sense that it would be able to resist essentially mental magic, it's called the steel type, not the tin foil type.
Another idea would be to give pokemon of these weaker types widespread access to coverage of types that can threaten steels. Essentially take the relationship the water type has with ice beam and bring that to other types. Tons of psychics get Focus Blast, which is inconsistent, maybe give wider access to aura sphere or maybe even a stronger 100% accuracy move that's not widely available to non-psychics. Call it focus hit. Rock already sort of has this with earthquake, maybe make that even more widespread. Poison could paired with fire thematically. Ice types could get more and better ground or fighting coverage, depending on which made the most sense with the mon. Bug and grass could also pair with ground, though maybe not the bugs that fly, which would also improve both of their fire and rock matchups too. For normal, tbh I'm fine with it staying as is. There has to be a worst type and I'd be completely comfortable with normal being that type.
Here's a more radical idea, one that I'm not necessarily backing, just throwing it out there. Make steel have the special property of taking 2/3 damage from resisted types instead of half.
We already know that Electric (along with Water) being super effective against Steel was already floated by GF, thanks to the leak of the Spaceworld 97 demo of Gold and Silver. Presumably they saw the results of Nintendo Cup, released that Gen 1’s existing type chart was incredibly unbalanced, and pivoted to make Steel (along with Dark) more effective anti-meta types, nerfing the big dogs in Psychic and Normal while elevating the joke types in Fighting and Fire.
As for how it’d shape up nowadays… I’m not sure if it’d be broken per se but I certainly don’t think Electric warrants such a buff. A weaker type could use the assistance more.
The thing about an Electric buff to me is that it would make Ground even more prevalent and I wouldn't say most of the lower-end types have great matchups into Ground either. Even Ice and Bug, which should have the advantage, run into the fact that much like the standard Ice threat is a Water-type with Ice Beam, the standard Rock threat is a Ground-type with Rock Slide. There's Grass, but it'd be losing further relevance as an answer to Water if Electric gets better.
nerfing steel sounds like a bad idea to me, having so many resists condensed into one type is healthy for the game and makes defensive play easier. my only grief with steel is that its supposed to be weak offensively but then there's a lot of steels who are just extremely powerful sweepers anyways and even run their supposed weak stab lol.
Steel kinda gained an offensive benefit in Gen 6 by being one of the few types that hits Fairy super effectively. I think that's the main reason why it even gets used offensively at all nowadays.
Yeah as a whole its concept is that it's the blanket defensive type but is a rather bad offensive type. Before Fairy-type became a thing I remember that Steel was for the most part such a poor offensive type that many Steel-types wouldn't even use Steel-type attacks because the type was just shit offensively. The ones that did use their Steel-type STAB ran their Steel STAB for more gimmicky reasons, like Scizor having Technician STAB Bullet Punch as powerful priority or Jirachi having Serene Grace Iron Head which in tandem with paralysis has a high flinch chance+paralysis rate rendering the target immobile for most turns, so even if the attack itself was weak, you could repeatedly wear down an opponent while they spend many turns doing nothing. But those were largely exceptions, not the rule.
Nowadays it does have offensive value because of the Fairy-type, which is quite a strong type nowadays.
Yeah as a whole its concept is that it's the blanket defensive type but is a rather bad offensive type. Before Fairy-type became a thing I remember that Steel was for the most part such a poor offensive type that many Steel-types wouldn't even use Steel-type attacks because the type was just shit offensively. The ones that did use their Steel-type STAB ran their Steel STAB for more gimmicky reasons, like Scizor having Technician STAB Bullet Punch as powerful priority or Jirachi having Serene Grace Iron Head which in tandem with paralysis has a high flinch chance+paralysis rate rendering the target immobile for most turns, so even if the attack itself was weak, you could repeatedly wear down an opponent while they spend many turns doing nothing. But those were largely exceptions, not the rule.
Nowadays it does have offensive value because of the Fairy-type, which is quite a strong type nowadays.
I personally put the Eras like this
Gen 1-2: Pokémania Era, when the series had it's explosive start and was pretty much a household name right off the get go.
Gen 3-5: Stigmatized Era, when the popularity of the series dwindled down, and the stereotypical audience for the series was schoolkids and nerds.
Gen 6-8 (up to SwSh + DLC): The Revival Era, when the series became a household name again thanks to GO, and tried to experiment with new concepts, Imo the Golden Age/Series Peak.
Gens 8-Now (starting at BDSP): Modern Era, when the hype of the previous era died down. This was also when the games started to feel rushed to fans.
My main problem with separating eras like this is that not only is it subjective (plenty of people think gen 6 or gen 7 is when pokemon got "bad") but its also just kinda not matched by reality. sv is second place for the best sold pokemon games of all time, only beaten by the Impossible To Beat gen 1 games and has broken tradition of the second release on a console doing worse than the first. Pokemon IS hype now
"This is when the hype died down" usually just corresponds to whatever specific time period the person making that statement got older and aged out of the primary demographic.
Personally, if I was to apply that argument to one generation specifically, it'd be gen 3. For one, that was the first "dexit." Link trading from past games was eliminated, and initially there was no legitimate way to access the entire roster in Ruby/Sapphire. The shift in art style also drew a lot of "everything is overdesigned now" and "this looks like Digimon" complaints. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it was consensus opinion, but it wasn't uncommon to hear sentiment along the lines of "the Pokemon fad is over."
No one really wants to admit that Gen 2 was when Pokemania was dying. It's very noticeable for the anime crowd that after Ash lost in the Indigo league, interest plummeted as people were mad. It doesn't help that Gen 2's identity is severely Kanto oriented, so even the casual crowd that grew up and left the franchise by Gen 3 care more about Kanto than Johto
The exhaustion is arguably around 2000/2001. Gen 3 just got ostracized cuz of the hardware disconnect trapping old mons + fully abandoning watercolor art + the anime still not fucking dying along with Max being hated
The exhaustion is arguably around 2000/2001. Gen 3 just got ostracized cuz of the hardware disconnect trapping old mons + fully abandoning watercolor art + the anime still not fucking dying along with Max being hated
On the topic of the Steel type, I believe that it shouldn't have lost its resistances to Dark and Ghost. Alright, I can let Dark slide because Fairy resists it, but ever since the type changes in XY, Ghost has become such an unbearably strong offensive type. Its tied with Dragon for being the least resisted of any types, with only one resistance and immunity for each. Unlike Dragon though, Ghost is better super effectively since it hits two types as opposed to one, which can be proven by how more Pokemon run Ghost as a coverage move compared to Dragon. Every generation has introduced since 6 has created insanely powerful Ghost types like Mega Gengar, Aegislash, Mimikyu, Lunala, Marshadow, Spectrier Calyrex-S, Gengar, Dragapult, Annihlape, Ceruledge, Flutter Mane and Gholdengo all of which have their Success tied to how strong Ghost is offesnively, especially when paired with Ghost/Fighting and Ghost/Fairy, both of which make Annihlape, Marshadow, and Flutter Mane uber worthy, though Mimikyu is also uber when placed in formats with no or little switching like 1v1 and BSS. You know a type is busted when a Pokémon with one STAB gets banned. Steel keeping its resistant to Ghost, it would make the onslaught of Ghost a lot easier to handle defensively, for example, Dialga could carve a niche a TR setter thanks to resistance to Ghost in restricted formats thanks to resisting Astral Barrage from Caly-S, which is the number one threat in all formats. If the issue is that Steel would be too good defensively, then the changes should be making indiviual Steel types weaker, like nerfing Technician for Scizor, no Leech Seed on Ferrothorn, and lower BST for Aegislash. The other solution would be making it worse offensively.
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I agree with this to the extent that gen 2 definitely had a vibe of waning enthusiasm. (Genwunners are a thing for a reason after all.) It's just that gen 3 was such a clean break from the prior games in multiple ways that it functioned as a clear offramp for that specific crowd.
I feel like this is giving the anime's decision to make Ash lose slightly too much credit.
I cannot remember why exactly, but I personally didn't catch a good chunk of the Kanto and Johto seasons as a kid. It probably had to do with sports and swim team and whatnot; new episodes aired on Saturday mornings, I was often out of the house (or maybe sleeping), and TiVo wasn't a thing yet. I believe I had to record the Orange Islands finale on VHS since I wasn't able to watch it live. (I definitely know that tape existed at one point, I just don't recall why I felt the need to record.)
I can easily imagine many kids being unable to follow the anime religiously, especially since iirc even the weekday block ran a little too close to when school ended. There might have also been issues with accessibility to the programming block itself depending on how that was handled because cable do be like that. Can't be mad at the loss if you weren't able to catch everything – I sure didn't know at the time. The aforementioned Orange Islands finale could have also negated the negative feelings on how Indigo turned out.
fwiw I was able to follow ADV. Had TiVo by then. But I also distinctly recall dipping out for like 6 months for whatever reason and later coming back to Ash only having one more badge lmao.
I feel like the thing about Pokémon’s type chart is that every Type is designed to have some form of use and that even the worst Types in the game can thrive in the right situation. Trying to decide if any Types are over or underpowered isn’t a matter of looking at which Types are strictly the strongest and against what, but rather it’s a complex puzzle that dives into the core mechanics of the game. Which Types are good for a win condition? Which types are good for a defensive pivot? How much opportunity cost am I spending by picking this Type of Pokémon over another? Things like that. Sometimes, you’ll have situations where added mechanics seemingly “break” already existing Types, too- see how Power caused some controversy way back in the day in Gen 2 with the Legendary Electrics in particular because that design archetype wasn’t designed around the idea of universal type coverage.
Every time there’s been Types Game Freak wants to tone down, there’s been some common trends between those Types. In their eyes, a “broken Type” needs a handful of things, and preferably a combination of them. It needs a deep roster of strong Pokémon of that Type, it needs a deep roster of good moves or at the very least one move so good that it helps carry the entire Type (see Psychic in Gen 1 and Close Combat in Gens 4-5), and it needs good unweighted and weighted matchups both offensively and defensively. When new generations are created, however, we see a scenario where already strong Types tend to get even stronger… at the cost of their bad matchups also getting the same treatment. Power creep is a universal phenomenon in this sense, and for that reason I don’t there’s any one Type in the game right now that’s overly dominant or completely ruinous, since even the strongest Pokémon tend to have equally viable answers because of all of the power creep.
Instead of broken individual Types, what we’ve seen more and more of over time is a shift towards overpowered Pokémon who are as strong as they are for reasons other than their typing. Now, it stands to reason that several Ubers are strong because they can use their STABs or whatever, but something like a Mega Kangaskhan pre-nerf or a Prankster Thundurus, to say nothing of all the threats running around in Gen 9, is probably going to be strong no matter what Type(s) it is. Conversely, if a Pokémon’s base stats, movepool, and Abilities aren’t very useful, it’s going to be way harder to make use of whatever typing that Pokémon is given. This is an extreme example, but you could have a Steel/Fairy Pokémon with a deep movepool, incredible base stats, and something like Truant as its only Ability and the Pokémon would still probably be unviable.
Refer back to what I said about the Legendary Electrics in Gen 2, however. No tiering action against them or against Hidden Power currently exists at this time, but when newer mechanics are introduced that massively warp the metagame in favor of certain Types like this, specifically those features the Type chart wasn’t designed for, that’s the kind of thing that breaks a Type in the traditional sense. Rock-Types tend to be slow? Say hello to Speed boosting strategies and both Dragon Dance Tyranitar and Choice Band Aerodactyl in Gen 3 who bypass many of the normal issues Rock-Types are known for. Most Dragons have higher physical Attack in the older generations? Say hello to the physical-special split. Fairies being resisted by the three Types with the most resistances? Slap a Ground Tera on that bad boy and watch as your problems disappear.
Edit to prevent double posting: This whole concept of “later introduced mechanics can break older strategies” is arguably the entire reason Baton Pass has been so controversial for so long, By nature, being able to do things like pass stat boosts or make use of “slow pivoting” (as opposed to the immediacy of just switching out normally) changes how the game is to be approached. That begs the question, though- is every newly developed strategy like this “broken” by definition, if you’re speaking as strictly as possible? And wouldn’t that mean Gen 1 is technically the only generation with nothing (besides Mewtwo and Mew I suppose) “broken” about it at all?
Every time there’s been Types Game Freak wants to tone down, there’s been some common trends between those Types. In their eyes, a “broken Type” needs a handful of things, and preferably a combination of them. It needs a deep roster of strong Pokémon of that Type, it needs a deep roster of good moves or at the very least one move so good that it helps carry the entire Type (see Psychic in Gen 1 and Close Combat in Gens 4-5), and it needs good unweighted and weighted matchups both offensively and defensively. When new generations are created, however, we see a scenario where already strong Types tend to get even stronger… at the cost of their bad matchups also getting the same treatment. Power creep is a universal phenomenon in this sense, and for that reason I don’t there’s any one Type in the game right now that’s overly dominant or completely ruinous, since even the strongest Pokémon tend to have equally viable answers because of all of the power creep.
Instead of broken individual Types, what we’ve seen more and more of over time is a shift towards overpowered Pokémon who are as strong as they are for reasons other than their typing. Now, it stands to reason that several Ubers are strong because they can use their STABs or whatever, but something like a Mega Kangaskhan pre-nerf or a Prankster Thundurus, to say nothing of all the threats running around in Gen 9, is probably going to be strong no matter what Type(s) it is. Conversely, if a Pokémon’s base stats, movepool, and Abilities aren’t very useful, it’s going to be way harder to make use of whatever typing that Pokémon is given. This is an extreme example, but you could have a Steel/Fairy Pokémon with a deep movepool, incredible base stats, and something like Truant as its only Ability and the Pokémon would still probably be unviable.
Refer back to what I said about the Legendary Electrics in Gen 2, however. No tiering action against them or against Hidden Power currently exists at this time, but when newer mechanics are introduced that massively warp the metagame in favor of certain Types like this, specifically those features the Type chart wasn’t designed for, that’s the kind of thing that breaks a Type in the traditional sense. Rock-Types tend to be slow? Say hello to Speed boosting strategies and both Dragon Dance Tyranitar and Choice Band Aerodactyl in Gen 3 who bypass many of the normal issues Rock-Types are known for. Most Dragons have higher physical Attack in the older generations? Say hello to the physical-special split. Fairies being resisted by the three Types with the most resistances? Slap a Ground Tera on that bad boy and watch as your problems disappear.
Edit to prevent double posting: This whole concept of “later introduced mechanics can break older strategies” is arguably the entire reason Baton Pass has been so controversial for so long, By nature, being able to do things like pass stat boosts or make use of “slow pivoting” (as opposed to the immediacy of just switching out normally) changes how the game is to be approached. That begs the question, though- is every newly developed strategy like this “broken” by definition, if you’re speaking as strictly as possible? And wouldn’t that mean Gen 1 is technically the only generation with nothing (besides Mewtwo and Mew I suppose) “broken” about it at all?
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Having each type a niche through a mean or another is nice and all, but a bad defensive matchup (be it against too many great offensive types, or too little valuable resistances) or too many duds can end up outweighting the positives, especially if another type can do the same niche with much less issues.
Ice is meant to be a great offense-oriented type, but while a few non-legendary like Weavile, Alolan Ninetales and Baxcalibur saw success, most others ended up being too slow to do this task, and too many are not bulky enough to really do the “mighty glacier” concept well either. Same with Rock, not helped by too many Rock-type moves being less than 100% accurate despite many of the Rock-type Pokémon also slow to begin with.
Bug was a victim of too many duds during the first four generations. Early route bugs being only good for early route? Fine. But when you add other Bug-type Pokémon that are barely better than the early route bugs, we got something wrong. It improves at the fifth generation, and since then it is still weighted down by the remnants of most of the Gen 1-4 Bug-type Pokémon.
I do agree that type alone doesn’t make an overpowered or poor Pokémon, but it does have an influence on how a Pokémon succeed with a designated role. Had the bulky, slow Ice-type got that type replaced by something like Steel, Water, Ghost or Fairy, their viability as a wall or bulky attacker might shoot up at least higher than PU.
This extends to even the first generation itself. Dragon was presented as one of those ultimate types with Dratini line as the sole representative… but they only have set damage in Dragon Rage, while Ghost is stuck with the weak Lick. It took Gold and Silver to put them as more tentalizing types to have with actual damaging moves.
Executions matter as much as the concepts, if not more. If a type concept does not match the type effectiveness well, then of course more than a few Pokémon will suffer just because of the conflict of type, stat distribution and Abilities.
Grass resisting Electric makes it a bit more valuable defensively in this scenario, but it hardly matters since it has so many common weaknesses.
You right tho, the nerfs worked too well now that Ghost and Dark are some of the best types in the game.
You know it's a wild take when I gotta bash Sinnoh.
BDSP wasn't as bad as it's painted, but the affection mechanics, forced Exp. Share in a game that was inequivocally NOT balanced with it in mind, and overtuned boss design were crippling.
Idk about you, but I don't play the stock market, I play video games. If we're being honest here, all of that gotta go out of the window and we gotta look at things from a game perspective.
With that said... Everything else you said was right, a lot of "eras" were subjective. Even Pokémania's is questioned when it comes to including Gen 2.
I'll go a step further. Trying to balance this game properly is a fool's errand. There are too many variables to begin with, but also the metagame evolves in unpredictable ways. For example, we were talking about Bug's reputation as the worst type of the game, and Scizor just made it back to OU with its Bug typing being a very valuable asset to it (Defensive synergy with Steel + STAB on U-Turn).
With that said, adjustments are perfectly fine.
What really works is having types have identities. Good flavor, good synergy, gameplay that feels unique because of a type besides the type chart.
I'm talking about exclusive moves to a type, like Aurora Veil, properties, like Ghost being immune to trapping, an overall theme, like Electrics being excellent at speed control... That's the stuff that really elevates a type.
This. I mean this with all due respect to the competitive scene, but this franchise is a monumental disaster of game design where you can’t try and fix one balance issue without creating three more. But at the same time, you as the developers consciously don’t want Pokémon types or the Pokémon themselves to just be perfectly balanced rock-paper-scissors either. (18-way rock-paper-scissors sounds miserable in that context.)
Going back to the Bug example you mentioned: Scizor just rose back up to OU to my complete shock, and it did so without needing anything truly significant in terms of changes to the Bug or Steel Types (Tera doesn’t count since that doesn’t fundamentally change the details of what each Type does).
I would like to discuss the idea that Bug would benefit significantly from one of these extra effects, but I also don’t know how to do that without getting into wishlisting territory. We’ve seen this work wonders in metagames too- Flying has been called the best Type in Gen 3 by some content creators for example, in very large part due to their airborne nature making them immune to Spikes. Rock has the Sandstorm boost, Ice has the Snow boost, Poison has the Toxic Spikes interaction, Grass and Psychic both have Terrains and Grass is also immune to powder moves, and while Normal doesn’t have any special traits like that, I would argue that Normal representing flexibility is its main trait, as is its identity as “that one Type that has a ton of neutral matchups”. Am I forgetting any of the other Types we’ve all mentioned? I feel like every Type besides Normal and maybe Dragon should have some kind of trait like this.
Bug already got a nice identity going on lately with all the debuffing attacks it has, but Fairy getting a resist to it just off U-Turn is a mess.
They should rip that band-aid off and nerf it to 60BP already.
"But what about Scizor!?"
When was the last time y'all seen Scizor in a VGC match? It clearly needs it.
Besides, let's be real, one good mon getting buffed over hundreds nerfed is just part of the process, it is what it is. Every game has a winner and a loser.
Honestly I'd argue Dark isn't THAT good, it's just hard carried by Prankster (fucking bullshit it gives priority to none volatile moves), and Kingambit's ability, along with the ruinous quartet having hyper minmaxxed stats for 2 of them
When you look at Bombirdier and Mabosstiff, neither make an impact. Lokix is entirely carried by Tinted Lens and priority
It's the same with looking at Gen 5. Only Bisharp was genuinely good, other dark types were eh, Zoroark straight up is ruined by team preview, and only Darkrai is busted cuz >Dark Void legendary BST
Vs fighting where Close Combat spam was extremely common Gen 4/5, which incidentally made being Psychic more valueable as they resisted it. If it wasn't for the Knock Off and Prankster buff Gen 6/7, Dark type as a whole could've become the next old Bug
When you look at Bombirdier and Mabosstiff, neither make an impact. Lokix is entirely carried by Tinted Lens and priority
It's the same with looking at Gen 5. Only Bisharp was genuinely good, other dark types were eh, Zoroark straight up is ruined by team preview, and only Darkrai is busted cuz >Dark Void legendary BST
Vs fighting where Close Combat spam was extremely common Gen 4/5, which incidentally made being Psychic more valueable as they resisted it. If it wasn't for the Knock Off and Prankster buff Gen 6/7, Dark type as a whole could've become the next old Bug
Before Psychic ironically came into its own as a strong utility Type, I would argue Dark was originally meant to fill that niche. You’ve got Thief and Knock Off as weaker (prior to the Knock Off buff) attacks based around held items, Pursuit to try and hit opponents on the switch, and basically every Dark-Type attack has this trend of “lower base power but a secondary effect to compensate”. Historically Dark has also been more of a defensive Type if anything, only being weak to Fighting and Bug prior to Fairy-Types coming in, and they also resist Ghost which is very valuable and rare in the modern type chart.
Knock Off’s buff and no longer being resisted by Steel is what pushed Dark over the edge for many people, and the Prankster immunity didn’t make matters any better. Then again, Prankster as an Ability is kind of insane, so there isn’t really a best way out of this situation. Gen 9 also introduced multiple strong Dark-Types such as the Treasures of Ruin, Meowscarada, freaking Roaring Moon, and anything that wants to become Prankster-immune with Terastalizing. This new offensive identity for the Type is somewhat balanced out by Fairy being as good as it is defensively, but basically nothing enjoys eating a Knock Off in Singles, and in VGC Dark-Types got an even larger indirect buff with the Tapus being Dexited and freaking Murkrow of all things being a Prankster Dark-Type of its own that can enable the use of the newer Tailwind mechanics and has Haze for the occasional Tatsugiri team.
Fighting is in a unique place in Scarlet & Violet, however. At the top of the tier lists for Singles you’ve got Great Tusk, Zamazenta after it became legal, and Sneasler before its ban, and you also have Koraidon for Ubers and restricted VGC metagames. Behind this admittedly really strong top four, though, there’s not as much depth as some other Types, and even Bug-Types have good debuffing options and U-Turn, to name a few tools. Close Combat is still an incredible move but Fairies exist now and when it became a TM in Sword & Shield a lot more non-Fighting Pokémon got this move making it less unique to the Pokémon that did have it naturally. They retain Bulk Up (or Victory Dance, for Hisuian Lilligant) and also have STAB on the popular move Body Press, and on the special side they retain Aura Sphere and Focus Miss- sorry, Blast- but nothing else the Type offers really sticks out as all that interesting save for individual Fighting-Types that do great in the various Smogon tiers. In OU Fighting is solid off of Great Tusk and Zamazenta alone, alongside that crucial Dark resist, but like I said, it’s the depth and the lack of utility I have a problem with.
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i dont care for bdsp and never played it and i find it a Worthless Product in the franchise, but my point isnt that the games are good, its that we just cant take filtered bubble views on the generations as ways to define eras: bdsp Was successful whether its dogshit ass or mid or the best game ever, so it being part of any kind of era signified by death of hype seems silly to me.
as an example, i do not think many golden era disney movies are good. i find them mediocre products. doesnt meant they arent some behemoths of animation success
Lmao how in the world did I forget about Iron Valiant
Yeah, we agree on it.
And like we were saying it's all subjective, for example, that post you were replying to completely different from the usual take on what was the peak of the franchise.