When exactly did the Fire-type start to rise in-game?

[mertyville]

Seeing how Volt-Ikazuki's focused on type balancing by how Game Freak tried nerving Psychic types, I want to look from the other perspective that always intruiged me by looking how much the Fire-type improved over the years from becoming a joke of a time in RBY to almost a must have type on any team be it competitvely or in-game. Like DP having no Fire Types memes aren't for show, the games feel like they are made that you need a Fire type and every playthrough myself I have to pick Chimchar despite me being annoyed by the fact they added another Fire/Fighting type.
Sure, you can say Charmander isn't awful because there is a literal forest to put into flames just so Charmander can get quick experience to overwhelm Brock with Charmeleon's Ember but that's as far it goes.

1. Fire finally resists Ice and also having actual targets of that type to hit Super Effective with except Jynx.
2. Higher distribution of Fire Type moves (you don't have to just rely on Ember and Flamethrower)
3. Steel-type Pokemon exist and over time become more prominent in-game *cough* Diamond *cough* Pearl *cough*
4. Prominent Fire-type moves have become far more accessable to teach your Pokemon like Fire Blast in HGSS or Flamethrower in RSE.
5. Resisting the newest Type Fairy

Funny how many SV Fire Types are just insanely good especially with the stone evolution mechanics changing allowing you to get Arcanine with all its good moves thanks to the move relearn mechanic.

 

[bdt2002]

Fire is quite the Type when it comes to analyzing its strengths and weaknesses. It usually doesn’t have that many Pokémon to pick from in the older regions, and in newer games it definitely has more on average but even this is largely because of regional PokéDex sizes increasing significantly starting in Black & White 2.

By this point I think most of us would agree that Fire is a somewhat underwhelming Type in the Kanto games, especially in the original games where there exists a noticeable disparity between the available options. Charmander and Growlithe benefit in later generations from high Special Attack, Flareon somehow gets worse than it was here, Moltres’s movepool is laughably bad for Legendary standards, and Vulpix is solid but is version exclusive and mainly benefits from Gen 1 mechanics and cheese. That just leaves Magmar, who’s available relatively late and isn’t anything spectacular until Johto anyway. Speaking of Johto and Magmar, one would think the Type’s fortunes would be better here than in Kanto, but only Magmar and Cyndaquil are really going to be seeing consistent usage on a higher number of in-game teams and as good as those two getting ThunderPunch is, Typhlosion arrives pretty late by Johto standards and Magmar’s base stats are still just decent. Not bad, by any means, just decent.

Surprisingly I think I have to give it to Hoenn for this one, which surprised me because of the infamous amount of water all over the place in this region. Both Champions aren’t very strong matchups for Fire-Types either, not even Steven thanks to the fossils and Claydol, and only Blaziken is a safe matchup into Aggron. So why do I say this? Aside from the underwhelming Magcargo, Hoenn’s roster of fully-evolved Fire-Types is pretty solid, actually. Blaziken is decent in Gen 3 but incredibly strong in the remakes, Camerupt has one of the best Type combinations in the game and tends to play well into anything that’s not a Water-Type in the lategame, Ninetales is back from the first two generations and is probably better than its Pokémon Silver iteration, and Torkoal is a decent mid-game pick that would have benefited heavily from getting Drought in the remakes instead of in Sun & Moon. I wouldn’t say this is a game breaking roster or anything, but this helped set the standard for future PokéDexes having a decent Fire-Type selection going forward. Remember, the title of this thread is when did this start, and while Hoenn is absolutely not the Fire-Type’s best region, it’s the reason we had the Fire/Fighting starters at all and gave the series something to build on for games where I can actually say Fire is among the best Types in the game.

As far as what that peak actually is, Kalos seems like it would be the obvious pick due to good raw type matchups, but there’s a pretty steep drop-off eventually between the earlygame and lategame Fire-Types in terms of how viable each group is overall. That is to say, you won’t have much reason to use any of the later options over Fennekin, Fletchinder, or Charmander, as well as that event Torchic if you played back when the game first came out. Galar also feels like a strong pick in Pokémon Shield specifically where the Water-Type gym is your only real challenge for a good while due to the Rock-Type Gym in Sword being Ice-Type here, though both versions do share losses against Raihan’s Gym fight and Nessa’s Champion Cup rematch during the endgame.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I think for a lot of types the answer to this question would (boringly) be the same: Gen II.

Fire in Gen I is underwhelming for sure, but the introduction of Steel in Gen II makes Fire coverage a lot more attractive. There's also the fact that almost every Fire-type Pokemon in the game was improved in general by the transition: some got a bump to their stats due to the Special split, and while in Gen I most Fire-type species are limited to Fire and Normal moves and not much else in GSC everyone gets a welcome movepool expansion - it's not gamebreaking in most cases, but it's enough that you can actually put together a workable moveset and for some species it means they can actually hit the types they're weak to.

That's not to mention the introduction of sunny weather - not as useful as it would later be once Abilities were introduced, but certainly a benefit - and there's also Gen II's added resistance to Ice moves which, while hardly gamebreaking, certainly doesn't hurt to have. Gen II didn't make Fire the best type, but it made it a lot better.

I'd actually be really interested in a discussion along the lines of "how good is each type in each generation" as I think there's some notable and observeable fluctuation. Fire IMO declines from Gen II to Gen III (it's overall a rather poor type in that generation) but gets better in other generations on the whole - off the cuff I'd say one could say the same of Dark.

Exceptions to the "most types got better in Gen II" generalisation: Bug (it improved somewhat with the introduction of Heracross and Megahorn, but one good Pokemon and one good move are hardly enough to constitute a "rise"), Fighting (it took until Gen IV for it to become a generally worthwhile type, and then truly peaked in Gen V), Water (already very good and that largely didn't change), Psychic (as discussed elsewhere, basically the only type to decline from I>II), and Ice (took a few more generations and a lot of buffs to become a serious contender).

 

[bdt2002]

I think for a lot of types the answer to this question would (boringly) be the same: Gen II.

Fire in Gen I is underwhelming for sure, but the introduction of Steel in Gen II makes Fire coverage a lot more attractive. There's also the fact that almost every Fire-type Pokemon in the game was improved in general by the transition: some got a bump to their stats due to the Special split, and while in Gen I most Fire-type species are limited to Fire and Normal moves and not much else in GSC everyone gets a welcome movepool expansion - it's not gamebreaking in most cases, but it's enough that you can actually put together a workable moveset and for some species it means they can actually hit the types they're weak to.

For the sake of in-game playthroughs, I don’t think level up movepools were that good for Fire-Types until at least Ruby & Sapphire at the earliest, and the type coverage additions aren’t as universal as you might think- Hidden Power is great for competitive, sure, but it’s notoriously hard to make full use of in single player, ThunderPunch is, for all intents and purposes, a GSC exclusive outside of any games the punches appear with Shard tutors in, and SolarBeam is most Fire-Type’s best option but requires a turn to set up Sun. Don’t get me wrong, Gen 2 and Johto specifically was a big step up for these guys, but the buffs are definitely more felt in multiplayer. Stealth Rock is almost never used by NPCs, Ice-Types always being late and checked by more than just Fire-Types, and the fact that Water is so omnipresent in every region is the cherry on top.

Comparing this to Hoenn, which has more (reasonable) options of what to use, has newly added or moved around TMs, and even a handful of matchup wins you might not expect right away (for example, every Fire-Type available before Norman has a way to beat him), and the ease of use of the Fire typing is what’s more apparent even in this more hostile environment when the buffs came earlier and the Type arguably got worse or stayed the same.

Edit: So apparently Slugma doesn’t evolve until Level 38 for some reason, so there goes half of that idea. For context, I was going to say Magcargo wins against Norman and goes 3-2 against Winona, but nooooo we can’t have nice things, apparently. Gah, this thing is bad.

I'd actually be really interested in a discussion along the lines of "how good is each type in each generation" as I think there's some notable and observeable fluctuation. Fire IMO declines from Gen II to Gen III (it's overall a rather poor type in that generation) but gets better in other generations on the whole - off the cuff I'd say one could say the same of Dark.

Exceptions to the "most types got better in Gen II" generalisation: Bug (it improved somewhat with the introduction of Heracross and Megahorn, but one good Pokemon and one good move are hardly enough to constitute a "rise"), Fighting (it took until Gen IV for it to become a generally worthwhile type, and then truly peaked in Gen V), Water (already very good and that largely didn't change), Psychic (as discussed elsewhere, basically the only type to decline from I>II), and Ice (took a few more generations and a lot of buffs to become a serious contender).

I kid you not, I actually just made something along these lines last night. I’d love to start this discussion if I may be allowed to give a helping hand. In the meantime, I think there’s actually three Types that got worse after the original games. You mentioned the obvious one, Psychic, but Grass took a massive hit in GSC with most of the returning cast losing Special stat points and their movepools being nerfed overall (note that Giga Drain’s TM is in Kanto, so you can’t use it for Johto). My third pick for one that got worse in GSC is Ice, albeit not as significantly as Psychic got hit since Ice Punch at least became a TM here.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

For the sake of in-game playthroughs, I don’t think level up movepools were that good for Fire-Types until at least Ruby & Sapphire at the earliest

Mmm, largely depends on the Fire-type. Hoenn counterbalances slightly better movesets with the fact that Fire-types generally aren't available until well into the midgame if you don't choose Torchic; as you note, Slugma is hard to raise and Torkoal's moveset is far from stellar. Numel is the only one with a really great natural movepool.

Growlithe, for instance, absolutely can get by with Bite and Ember for much of GSC's earlygame and gets Take Down at level 26 which is a little on the late side for Johto, but still a pretty powerful move to get so early. Cyndaquil/Quilava, too, does more or less fine with Ember and Quick Attack until it gets Flame Wheel. For in-game playthroughs I don't think you can ignore TMs; Headbutt is basically mandatory on any physical attacker in GSC.

But I'm trying to take more of a rounded view: in-game playthroughs are one metric by which you could judge a type's improvement, but not the be-all and end-all. For instance: how does the type stack up compared to previous generations? Did it receive any significant buffs or tools which change the overall way it plays? Dragonite is pretty dominating in an in-game playthrough of GSC, but would you really say Dragon improved considerably in Gen II? Not really, by my judgement: there aren't enough species of that type for Dragon moves to be worthwhile coverage, as opposed to later generations, and even if there had been none of the newly-introduced moves were particularly widespread (with two-thirds of those being too weak to merit serious consideration).

I'd agree that Fires are generally more reasonable to use in Hoenn, but as a type I would say it performs worse overall - Hoenn is full of Water-types, and both Rock and Ground moves are far more widespread than they previously were.

I kid you not, I actually just made something along these lines last night. I’d love to start this discussion if I may be allowed to give a helping hand.

Sure. A little digging has unearthed this thread, which should prove interesting reading.

In the meantime, I think there’s actually three Types that got worse after the original games. You mentioned the obvious one, Psychic, but Grass took a massive hit in GSC with most of the returning cast losing Special stat points and their movepools being nerfed overall (note that Giga Drain’s TM is in Kanto, so you can’t use it for Johto).

I think it's hard to make the case for any other type than Psychic getting significantly worse from Gen I>II. You're right that several Grass Pokemon took hits in the shift but Grass overall isn't really a stellar type in either Gen I or II (Gen III is where I think it significantly improved); it's just that Johto is more punishing to Grass-types than Kanto is which I think influences the perception of it as a poor type in Gen II. Most Grass-types don't have significantly altered movesets from RBY to GSC: a couple, like Paras, actually expand their options, and Exeggcute learns Leech Seed significantly earlier than it does in RBY, accounting for it being available much earlier than it was in Kanto.

My third pick for one that got worse in GSC is Ice, albeit not as significantly as Psychic got hit since Ice Punch at least became a TM here.

Yeah, you might be onto something with Ice. In large part that's probably because it has a lot of mechanical advantages that weren't ironed out in Gen I, though I do think that its relative merits in Gen I are largely due to it piggybacking on the strengths of other types - barring Articuno, all Ice-types are either part-Water or part-Psychic.

Though with that said I'm unsure if it's that much worse in Gen II. Steel exists now, sure, but Steel-type moves are fairly uncommon and most Ice-types being part-Water makes those matchups generally more even. Thinking about later generations, I'd say it's broadly the case that Ice stayed more or less in the same place while the types it was weak to got better (Fighting, Steel, and Rock are all far better than they were). It's interesting to note that while Fighting became a much better coverage move in Gen II compared to I, Fighting moves in general are rarer - Submission is no longer a TM, and nearly all of the other offensive moves are only learned by a handful of Pokemon each. Dynamicpunch is of course a TM, but too unreliable to see common usage. I've always found this quite curious.