Is Ghost becoming the new Dragon?

bdt2002

Guardian Signs super-fan
is a Pre-Contributor
I've been looking at the history of the Pokémon games a lot lately, and one of the things that came to my attention was how each of the different generations of this franchise always seemed to place certain Types at the forefront. Gen 5 was the first full generation I was a fan of Pokémon during its tenure as the current generation, and anyone who was around during the DS era can tell you just how much Dragon-Type Pokémon were practically shoved in our faces. It's honestly lowkey genius marketing- advertise the crap out of arguably the strongest Type in the game at the time so that way when the type chart would get rebalanced for the 3DS games later, you can create a brand new Type and advertise it as the new official counter to that Type. Pretty much overnight Nintendo, The Pokémon Company, and Game Freak completely changed a major aspect of how the franchise would be presented.

As it turns out, though, this wouldn't have been the first time this has happened. The Dark-Type and the Fairy-Type actually have quite a bit in common, what with how each of the Types were created to balance the type chart and how Pokémon X & Y opted to release new "restricted Legendaries" for each Type. There was a 14 year gap in between updates to the type chart from 1999 to 2013, however, and the only times we have seen updates to the type chart have been when new Types are added and there was at least one Type deemed overpowered by the developers. That got me thinking about something. Which Type, if any, is the most broken Type in the games nowadays? What would be the modern-day equivalent to Gen 1 Psychic and Gens 4-5 Dragon, if that question makes sense? In an attempt to answer this question, I started looking at the similarities between Psychic in its prime and Dragon in its prime:

  • Both Types were the least resisted Types in the game at the time
  • Both Types were represented by the new mascot Legendaries (Yes, I know Mewtwo never had its own game, but you get my point)
  • Both Types had a winning defensive matchup record (meaning they resisted or were immune to more Types than they were weak to
    • Incidentally, Gen 1 Psychic is the only Type in history to have a winning record both offensively and defensively at the same time
  • Both Types were heavily advertised during its tenure as the "broken Type of the games"
  • Both Types had at least one Gym Leader (and in Dragon's case, two Champions during the DS era) representing it
There's probably a few more similarities that I missed, but the important part is that I wanted to look at these trends and analyze what's what and which, if any Types, match these same criteria. One Type immediately stood out to me as a contender for... maybe not as broken as these two were back in the day, but honestly, the Ghost-Type could be getting there? It's certainly up for discussion. Ghost has always had a lot in common with Dragon, but the more recent generations have given us Lunala, Dawn Wings Necrozma, and Shadow Rider Calyrex as restricted Legendaries, as well as Giratina's role in the climactic fight with Volo in Legends: Arecus where the Spooky Plate is the last Plate you obtain, and the Switch games have given us a back-to-back starter typing combination in Fire/Ghost (Hisuian Typhlosion and Skeledirge) for the first time since Gens 3 through 5 had the infamous Fire/Fighting repeats. Scarlet & Violet also introduced two extremely powerful Ghost-Type moves that either are or started off as signature moves in the similarly designed Last Respects and Rage Fist respectively, and many of the most controversial Pokémon in competitive play since Gen 6 have been Ghost-Types. Mega Gengar and Shadow Rider Calyrex are the big ones, but pre-nerf Aegislash, pre-nerf Mimikyu, the first Ghost-Type psuedo-Legendary in Dragapult, the most recent Mythical Pokémon Pecharunt, and the two Fighting/Ghost Types Marshadow and Annihilape with their unresisted type combination only blocked by fellow Ghost-Types Hisuian Zorua and Zoroark all come to mind as well. Galar and Paldea, the two new regions introduced on Switch, also both have Ghost-Type Gym Leaders, and thanks to Ghost no longer being resisted by Steel and Dragons having to deal with Fairies, the two Types are ironically now tied for the title of being the least resisted Type in the games. Ghost even has a 4-2 defensive matchup record (Normal, Fighting, Poison, and Bug are the four wins) as an added bonus. Finally, Gens 7 and 8 in particular have introduced more new Ghost-Types than any other time period on average if you count Hisuian Pokémon for Gen 8.

Despite all of those points in Ghost's favor, I still don't know how strong the Type actually is overall. The biggest thorn in Ghost's side remains the Dark-Type, a Type that was already introduced and has strong matchups into both Ghost and the aforementioned Psychic-Type as well. Knock Off specifically is widely considered to be the best Dark-Type move in the game following its significant buffs in Gen 6, and Incineroar being as omnipresent as it is in VGC further increases the odds your opponent's going to have at least one Dark-Type on their team in Doubles, if not multiple since Dark was also buffed in Gen 7 to become immune to the Prankster ability. Psychic and Dragon did not have this kind of answer when they were in their prime, and that's even more true in Gen 9 when anything could become a Dark-Type with Terastalization as well. So, with all of these factors in mind, what do you think? Do you think Ghost might becoming the new Dragon? DO you think there are any particularly standout Types since Gen 6? I'm not going to ask any wishlisting questions here, but I will leave the discussion of existing mechanics in your hands. I look forward to seeing what you all have to say about this.

:sm/gengar-mega: :ss/calyrex-shadow: :xy/aegislash: :sm/mimikyu: :sv/typhlosion-hisui: :sv/skeledirge:
 
imo, no. Dragon's strength was that its typing was often given to Pokemon with the best stats in the game, and it was strong defensively, only being hit by an ice move or better dragon, and resisting several common types. The flying type it was paired with often helped by giving it another good immunity. Adding a weakness to Rock wasn't ideal but Rock moves are often inconsistent and can be played around, especially as the Pokemon would often have the stats to survive a hit or 2. Once the phys/spec split occurred and the psuedos could take full advantage of their higher attack stat, the type really took off.

The ghost typing is good but lacks the same defensive strength because it has less resistances. Most of the time it isn't given to Pokemon with the highest stats in game. And due to power creep it's hard to not have multiple powerful counters, and usually something can have coverage that will hit you. If I had to say one type stands out, that would be the Fairy typing, where a Pokemon having fairy typing seems like an advantageous thing.
 
Maybe this is just because I don't play competitive that much, but honestly I've always thought both these types were overrated af and that the real strength of them (particularly with Dragon) is just how strong the pokemon with those types are.

Dragon is good defensively, but offensively it feels nearly useless. Only hits itself super effectively, which in turn means it's also weak to itself....so it has no matchups it actually wins in offensively, the one thing it can hit super effectively is just a double edged sword. It at least isn't resisted by a lot of types, but it's still resisted by the best defensive type in the game and another one of the best types is completely immune to it. So it doesn't feel like Dragon really has a purpose offensively, and I don't think it's quite good enough defensively to make up for that.

Ghost feels a bit more solid overall, but still doesn't have much of a purpose offensively when it similarly only hits itself and Psychic super effectively. So again, its main offensive advantage is a double edged sword that it can't safely use because it also hurts itself just as much. And Psychic is one of the weakest types, so that barely helps matters. Defensively, it's a lot better as it only has two weaknesses and also has two immunities, but overall it still doesn't feel like all that great of a type considering how bad it is offensively. It doesn't help that Dark also hits the exact same two types super effectively.

Honestly I feel like Ghost is an average (and therefore solid but nothing special) typing, and Dragon a below average type, both of which aren't very good by themselves but can work very well with other types, due to their defensive advantages and offensive shortcomings. And both end up being types I rarely use (outside of dual type pokemon that I use moreso or at least equally because of a secondary typing) because they don't feel like they serve too much of a purpose on my team with how little they can hit super effectively that they don't also get hit super effectively by themselves.
 
I wanna half agree.
Ghosts have 100% risen in usage but it's not for the same reasons Dragons did, sans the occasional excessively powerful Pokemon.
(Gen 5 Hydreigon, Salamence & Garchomp/Flutter Mane & Calyrex Shadow Rider)

Dragons were given more stronger tools over the years, culminating in stuff like +2 Outrages and Dragon Gem Draco Meteors. It's why Fairy is specifically Immune to Dragon instead of resisting, to prevent a second Steel type from happening because they couldn't consistently stop dragons because they hit way to hard.
Ghosts meanwhile have gotten stronger less because of overwhelming might but because they're been getting harder to slow down. Before gen 6 Steel and Dark types types were always available to counter them with the rare Blissey/Eviolite Chansey around, and Pursuit was the best tool to scare a ghost type before they could become a problem.
But starting from gen 6 more tools to slow down ghosts have been taken away, almost too many if you ask me. Steel doesn't resist Ghost anymore, Pursuit was removed in gen 8 when we got some of the best ghost types stat wise, and Normal types currently have zero representation in OU this gen.
Genuinely, if Dark types and moves like Knock off were not so common across the entire metagame, and the best moves for 99% of Ghost types was anything stronger then a Shadow Ball it could and would easily be a second coming of gen 5 Dragon types (who were the second coming of gen 1 Psychic types).

Granted, I don't believe they need to do a lot of prevent this from happening unlike Psychic and Dragon who needed entire types added. Bringing back Pursuit, having another type resist Ghost, like the common suggestion of Rock types or even Grass or Bug, and start making actually good Normal types would be an excellent stopgap to keep Ghosts from getting to that level.
 
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WinterArcanine said:
Maybe this is just because I don't play competitive that much, but honestly I've always thought both these types were overrated af and that the real strength of them (particularly with Dragon) is just how strong the pokemon with those types are.

Dragon is good defensively, but offensively it feels nearly useless. Only hits itself super effectively, which in turn means it's also weak to itself....so it has no matchups it actually wins in offensively, the one thing it can hit super effectively is just a double edged sword. It at least isn't resisted by a lot of types, but it's still resisted by the best defensive type in the game and another one of the best types is completely immune to it. So it doesn't feel like Dragon really has a purpose offensively, and I don't think it's quite good enough defensively to make up for that.

Ghost feels a bit more solid overall, but still doesn't have much of a purpose offensively when it similarly only hits itself and Psychic super effectively. So again, its main offensive advantage is a double edged sword that it can't safely use because it also hurts itself just as much. And Psychic is one of the weakest types, so that barely helps matters. Defensively, it's a lot better as it only has two weaknesses and also has two immunities, but overall it still doesn't feel like all that great of a type considering how bad it is offensively. It doesn't help that Dark also hits the exact same two types super effectively.

Honestly I feel like Ghost is an average (and therefore solid but nothing special) typing, and Dragon a below average type, both of which aren't very good by themselves but can work very well with other types, due to their defensive advantages and offensive shortcomings. And both end up being types I rarely use (outside of dual type pokemon that I use moreso or at least equally because of a secondary typing) because they don't feel like they serve too much of a purpose on my team with how little they can hit super effectively that they don't also get hit super effectively by themselves.
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The thing here is that even without the big-boy stat mons, the appeal of Ghost and Dragon isn't in hitting things super-effectively so much as so many things they DON'T have to watch for resistances. In competitive play, the ability to hit most of the game with just one STAB is incredibly powerful and usually only requires a bit of coverage, leading to a lot of moveset flexibility. Consider how many really strong Dragons did things like Dragon Dance + Roost sets, or Ghosts like Gengar that just needed Shadow Ball + Focus Blast and then could mess with SubDisable or Pain Split or the like. Despite how powerful you see some offensive mons kits looking like Scizor's Technician Priority or Iron Valiant's high sweeping Stats, they have to make more concessions because their moves will run into a lot of significant resistances that they can't simply plow through while leaving 2 free moveslots. At the same time you won't see them on non-STAB users very often since the point of Coverage is "hit this thing for SE damage harder than my neutral/resisted STAB" which as noted is not what Dragon or Ghost do much anyway.

The types are more powerful in that I would say there is a lower bar to clear to be strong with Dragon or Ghost STAB than with most other STAB types. Defensively it's also important to consider how valuable a resist is rather than just the quantity. Ghost's Immunity to Fighting for example is far more valuable than Rock's resistance to Poison, since the former is much more commonly thrown around with high power moves than the latter in a competitive setting where you can't always ensure ideal match-up alignment like Main-Games with the Switch prompt.
 
I'm unsure on the developers' reasoning behind Steel losing its Ghost and, to a lesser extent, Dark resistances starting in Gen 6, since it doesn't seem to make sense in terms of balancing. The only rational reasoning I can think of is that, thematically, something incorporeal like a ghost shouldn't be affected by a physical obstruction like a steel wall, but I'm not sure if that line of thinking was worth reducing the already small number of Ghost-resistant types without introducing new general countermeasures against Ghost-types. The trend of "broken Ghost-type glass cannon" being introduced every generation onwards doesn't help matters either.
 
a blue banana said:
I'm unsure on the developers' reasoning behind Steel losing its Ghost and, to a lesser extent, Dark resistances starting in Gen 6, since it doesn't seem to make sense in terms of balancing. The only rational reasoning I can think of is that, thematically, something incorporeal like a ghost shouldn't be affected by a physical obstruction like a steel wall, but I'm not sure if that line of thinking was worth reducing the already small number of Ghost-resistant types without introducing new general countermeasures against Ghost-types. The trend of "broken Ghost-type glass cannon" being introduced every generation onwards doesn't help matters either.
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I'm pretty sure it's entirely gameplay related. Steel gained a new Resistance to a type Gamefreak wanted to make prominent (Fairy), so they took away other resistances to "even out" the playing field. They didn't think about it too hard considering it was a 2-for-1 trade that I'd almost argue had either individual type as an equally valuable resist in Competitive at the time to where Fairy was before the Tapus at least. Aegislash might have also factored in since without that change it's only got 2 Weaknesses instead of 4, with a plethora of more useful resistances over the Steel/Psychics in preceding gens.
 
pika pal said:
I'm pretty sure it's entirely gameplay related. Steel gained a new Resistance to a type Gamefreak wanted to make prominent (Fairy), so they took away other resistances to "even out" the playing field. They didn't think about it too hard considering it was a 2-for-1 trade that I'd almost argue had either individual type as an equally valuable resist in Competitive at the time to where Fairy was before the Tapus at least. Aegislash might have also factored in since without that change it's only got 2 Weaknesses instead of 4, with a plethora of more useful resistances over the Steel/Psychics in preceding gens.
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While it isn't that relevant for doubles, the buff to Defog also seems like it might also be a reason to have buffed Ghost in gen 6. Ghost's immunity to Normal got less valuable when it no longer reliably negates hazard removal.
 
pika pal said:
I'm pretty sure it's entirely gameplay related. Steel gained a new Resistance to a type Gamefreak wanted to make prominent (Fairy), so they took away other resistances to "even out" the playing field. They didn't think about it too hard considering it was a 2-for-1 trade that I'd almost argue had either individual type as an equally valuable resist in Competitive at the time to where Fairy was before the Tapus at least. Aegislash might have also factored in since without that change it's only got 2 Weaknesses instead of 4, with a plethora of more useful resistances over the Steel/Psychics in preceding gens.
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I know I made this thread specifically talking about the Ghost-Type originally, but I do want to mention the specific way the type chart ended up playing out during the 3DS era of core series games. The Steel-Type was in a position of "I'm busted defensively but I'm pretty weak offensively", and I had always assumed that this is what Game Freak was trying to do- buff Steel offensively but nerf it defensively. Unfortunately, they went about this in maybe the worst way possible.

The problem with trying to buff and nerf a Type in the same generation, at least in my opinion, is that you're losing the point of why certain Types are good in the first place. Steel wasn't just good because of all of its resistances- it also benefits massively from the Poison immunity, the Stealth Rock resistance, and an immunity to Sandstorm damage, as well as the higher Defense stat that seems to be stereotypically slapped onto a lot of Steel-Types. Even the Switch-native, obviously offense-inspired Zacian-Crowned clocks in with base 115 defenses for some stupid reason. Numerically speaking, Steel was nerfed overall in the transition to Gen 6, losing more than it gained in return, but the changes in the metagame that did favor Steel were much more significant. Gen 6 honestly wasn't a very favorable environment for Ghost-Types with not many new ones being added compared to the explosion of Ghost-Type additions in the following generations, and with Knock Off having competitive play and Dark-weak Pokémon specifically in a chokehold. As Ironmage mentioned, the Defog buff made the immunity to Rapid Spin not as important as in earlier generations, and Pursuit still exists as a threat in Gens 6 and 7 even if you might think Ghost's new immunity to being trapped would take this move into account as well. (Or at least I thought that.) Fairies were much more prominent in both Singles and Doubles by comparison in Gen 6, though, and even before Gen 7 added the Tapus and Magearna (for the sake of OU play) the new Fairy-Types and the ones that were buffed because of the Type led to people wanting to counter those Fairy-Types by extension.

What does that lead to? Good question. If only there was a Type that had a winning matchup against Fairy but also retained most of its strongest traits into the rest of the type chart too. If only said Type also benefitted from the nerfs to Fighting as a nice bonus. HMM. Interesting. If anything the way the type chart played out during this time, Steel actually ended up stronger than it was in previous generations despite the nerfs. The Steel-Type's dominance arguably peaked in X & Y, with Mega Lucario, Mega Mawile, and Aegislash leading the charge into the new Smogon tiers and the VGC 2014 metagame flooded with new, young players spamming Mega Kangaskhan at locals. And, since Defog was eventually decided upon as not having that many viable users of the move in Gen 6, entry hazards, specifically Spikes which is usually a move Steel-Types would be using, also rose in usage late into the generation in Singles with ORAS OU being known for Spikes wars for quite some time. Sure, Mega Charizard Y may have been the third most used Mega across all officially documented VGC 2014 events, helping provide some Steel-Type counterplay, but make no mistake about it, even in 2015 and 2016 this but especially in 2014, this new Steel-Type was in one of the best spots any Type has ever been.
 
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