Whats a rainbow yah...
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not to be pretentious but yall should really read this… C.H.A.T. (Come Here for All Talk)
- Thread starter Astra
- Start date
Well I think optimally there should be one fragrance for warm weather, one for cold and one for special occasions like dates or job interviews
Some people will say that there are fragrances for the office, for the gym, for the beach, really for any specific occassion, but that's way too much. I personally would like a collection of 4 fragrances for the seasons and one special occasion fragrance
And yes you can have one signature fragrance, it depends on what you wish to have. Acqua Dubai is great if you want to smell like a cheap french hooker, for example. I think Afnan 9pm and it's versions are great, Hawas Ice, Lataffa Asad is pretty legit. I'd honestly still advice having a warm and cold weather fragrance though, like Hawas Ice for summer, Liquid Brun or Lataffa Khamra Duquat for winter. Look for some location or chance to try these out on skin and just pick your favs
pretty simple
you can ping any user on the site by using @ and then typing out their name.
For example! One of my friends is Magic Mayhem Maiden. By using @, she will get a notfication and be directed to look at the thread. Same principle.
Like this SonicBoomX
AND there he goes.
Thanks for the advice phoopy-booby. The Wu Tang concert was incredible. Most expensive concert I went to but worth the cash. There was a moment where Method Man, after a solo performance, did the Wu Tang sign, lowered his hands, turned the Wu Tang sign into a heart and smiled, it was genuinely so cute ngl. In general, the feeling it gave was so real and personal, despite the huge audience. The ending, where all the guys stood on stage and thanked us for being there seemed so genuine and emotional. They put everything in there. Everyone in town is running around with the Wu Tang merch after the show now
also through the concert have I learned that RZA is becoming a director and Ghostface Killah is making video games.
despite my account existing for three years i'm relatively new here
what's a likeshop
What does the deucer word means on banned deucer?
dropping a deuce is a euphemism for shitting so you can probably make an inference from there
you know, i havent really watched smiling friends and dont really know what its about despite hearing about it a lot. i am willing to bet that it is centered around a group of friends that smile a lot though
hey does anyone wanna play scrabble plz dm me if youwanna play scabrle
mentioning this because ive been watching a bunch of competitive scrabble videos as of late and am curious to actually play it
mentioning this because ive been watching a bunch of competitive scrabble videos as of late and am curious to actually play it
deuce = double
its basically a banned alt
I have a Smogon Scrabble server invite for you! Tbh server isn’t very active but I love to play so you can at least get games from me lol. DM if that sounds interesting to you
I remember seeing a video where they thought not like us sampled this game lmfao
Update: I found a perfurmer in my area who has all the raw oils from common designer and niche fragrances and mixes dupes before your eyes. Sells 50ml for 25 bucks.
I bought Most Wanted, Naxos, a date night attar of his own creation and lilac/orange blossom attar of my commission for a grand total of 75 bucks as he gifted me one attar
He even has LV pur oud, you can just save 1.475 bucks when you get it from him and it smells identical because it's the same oil
Incredible find. I'll return to him soon
Investigating the Psychic Myth
This is Part 1 of a two-part post. Stay tuned for Part 2!
The overstated power of the Psychic type in Gen. 1 is the fandom's misconception I find most fascinating. I want to give it a fuller treatment here.
Like my previous posts about heuristics and bias in the community, this is less a post about Pokemon for Pokemon's sake, and more breaking down a thought pattern that happens to take place in the Pokemon community.
What is the myth?
Part of my fascination is how nuanced the myth is. It's definitely wrong, but rhymes enough with the truth to make a challenging case to perfectly disentangle. I phrase the myth as so.
"The Psychic typing is so uniquely good in Gen. 1, it breaks the balance of the game."
The precise words matter. "The Psychic type is very good, powerful, and dangerous in Gen. 1." is not a myth. That's just true. But many people go beyond that to further elevate Psychic and underrate other strong, dangerous types. We're also talking about the type itself, not the Pokemon who happen to have it.
Is this myth about the games Red and Blue (and/or Green and Yellow), competitive simulator play, or both? In my experience here, primarily competitive. However, this is a competitive community, which may explain why people care about that side. People have many misconceptions about the actual games themselves, and I've occasionally seen Psychic end up there. I'm plenty willing to believe people misunderstand its in-game role, too.
Therefore, while competitive is my base, I'll talk about Red and Blue as well.
What are the facts on the Psychic type?
First, I thoroughly investigate the myth to establish what is untrue about it, and to set up future reasons why people might believe it. I'll cover the type from a few angles, and I'll compare it with some possible competitors along the way. Then I'll talk about some specific misconceptions in Part 2.
Type Matchups
| Offense | Psychic | Normal | Ice |
| 2x | Poison, Fighting | Grass, Dragon, Flying, Ground | |
| 1/2x | Psychic | Rock | Ice, Water |
| 0x | Ghost |
Psychic has a very clean sheet here. Nothing resists it besides itself, and if the only counterplay to Psychic was more Psychic, that would sound broken! Luckily, there is other counterplay. Psychic hits very few types super effectively, so many bulky Pokemon can adequately take neutral Psychic attacks. This lack of super effective coverage is especially imprtant in Gen. 1, where differences in stat calculations and tools make neutral OHKOs and 2HKOs much rarer. In general, Psychic-types are not bowling over the metagame by OHKOing foes left and right.
And, as far as super effective hits go, their two are especially unremarkable. Poison and Fighting are the two worst types in RBY, so raining further pain on them is largely redundant. The exceptions are Pokemon who are good despite having Poison or Fighting as a secondary type. In standard competitive play, this is mostly just one Pokemon, Gengar, with Victreebel and maybe Poliwrath having a piece of relevance too. Lower tiers have a smattering of similarly low numbers, or even lower.
(A side note. RBY Ubers has the same legal Pokemon as standard besides adding Mew and Mewtwo, who are Psychic-types and will get further attention. It has some other differences, but I usually won't go out of my way to talk about Ubers.)
In-game, the story is somewhat different. Fighting is still quite rare - even the specialist Bruno only has 3 of them – but Poison-types are common fodder for Team Rocket and wild encounters, as well as Agatha's team in the Elite Four. Besides Agatha's Gengars, most of these Poison-types are weak enough to not hugely prioritize super effective hits to beat them, and Ground-types handle them anyway, but breezing past them a little more easily and quickly is nice.
Normal has a similar model to Psychic, prioritizing neutral over super effective coverage. Its matchups are a bit worse, but not as much as a naive table calculation suggests. There is only one fully evolved Ghost-type, Gengar. It is a good Pokemon, so not hitting it is unfortunate, but it's exactly one Pokemon. (Haunter can function similarly to Gengar in lower tiers, I guess?) Rock-types are a bit more common, but still not tremendously so. Rhydon is the only good one in standard play. For our purposes, Golem is basically a reskinned Rhydon that's a bit worse in some areas and a bit better in others. In-game, these types are similarly rare. The Rock specialist and his Onix are the first Gym, so before Psychic and Ice even see the light of day for comparison. Beyond that, I don't believe the Fossil Pokemon are ever opponents, which leaves us with just the Rhydon and Golem lines again. Some wild Geodude and Graveler may be annoying, I suppose, but Normal-type Pokemon tend to learn many coverage moves to help deal with them. More on that later.
Ice goes for a different approach, prioritizing super effective coverage. Several prominent OU Pokemon are weak to Ice, including mainstays in Exeggutor, Zapdos, and Rhydon, plus more niche Pokemon like Victreebel, Moltres, and Dragonite. (Remember that Fire-types like Moltres don't resist Ice in Gen. 1.) Lower tiers have plenty of Ice-weak Pokemon too, as does in-game. Like with Ghost, there's only one fully evolved Dragon-type in Dragonite, but there are plenty of Grass-, Flying-, and Ground-types. Like with Psychic, I'll ignore Ice resisting itself. The Water resistance matters, especially in-game, where it's among the larger types by volume, but it's hardly impossible to overcome. By the time you get Ice-types, the most prominent Water-type user remaining will be Lorelei, and you might want an Ice-type there to handle her Ice-types defensively. More on that later.
| Defense | Psychic | Normal | Ice |
| 2x | Bug | Fighting | Fire, Fighting, Rock |
| 1/2x | Psychic, Fighting | Ice | |
| 0x | Ghost | Ghost |
For both Psychic and Normal, this table might as well be blank. Opposing Bug-moves are basically non-existent in competitive or the games. Their most prominent competitive user is Jolteon, with its 65 Attack stat for Pin Missile, a 28-70 Base Power move with 85% accuracy. Those stats help explain why even Jolteon generally does not run it. As we discussed, Fighting is very poor. Aside from Hitmonlee's 85 Base Power Hi Jump Kick, the most powerful Fighting attack is Submission, an 80 Base Power, 80 Accuracy move that also inflicts recoil on the user. As Big Yellow memorably noted, if you actually KO a powerful Normal-type like Chansey or Snorlax with Submission, you're taking so much recoil damage that you threaten your own life. The only Ghost-type move with type effectiveness is the 30 Base Power Lick, so that doesn't matter.
Ice is somewhat more dynamic. 3 weaknesses and no resistances besides yourself looks scary. However, Fighting remains bad, and Fire and Rock are not the best offensively. Fire's signature attack, Fire Blast, has a 30% chance to burn on hit, which makes it dangerous to use in competitive, since burn protects the opponent from more dangerous statuses like freeze and paralysis. The best Fire-type Pokemon, Moltres and Charizard, are also weak to Ice anyway. In the games, enemy Fire types are not super common outside Blaine's gym. I mentioned Rock-types are limited in number, and Rock Slide is rarer than that. It's an alright move at 75 BP and useful coverage, albeit without its modern flinch chance. The real issue is who (doesn't) use it. Aerodactyl, Kabutops, and Omastar can't learn it, while the most prominent Rock-types in the games, Brock's Onix and Blue's Rhydon, don't have the move in their sets.
Moves
Moves always matter, but type movepools are extremely important in Gen1. The gap between good and bad moves is a yawning chasm, so having a good, widely-distributed stab move at all is a real privilege. Beyond that, some moves rise beyond 'good' to define matches. Let's talk about those.
A ground rule. I'm not including moves that have one type, but are not primarily used by Pokemon of that type. This is subjective, but we often care about types in terms of the Pokemon using them, and people generally don't see Stealth Rock as like, a boon for the Rock type that improves it vis a vis other types. This primarily dings Normal, as many amazing moves are Normal-type but not primarily given to Normal-types, especially Swords Dance, Recover, Explosion, and Wrap. To not mix up moves signature to specific Pokemon (or close) with attributes of a type, every move must be learned by 5 fully evolved Pokemon of the type.
Psychic:
Psychic
90 Base Power is good, but a 1/3rd chance to drop the opponent's Special is extremely good. As a reminder, Gen. 1 consolidates Special Attack and Special Defense into one Special stat. Dropping Special makes an opponent both more vulnerable to future Psychics, and less able to hurt you with special attacks of their own.
You may be surprised to not see Amnesia here. That is because only two Psychic-types get it: Mewtwo and Slowbro.
Normal:
Body Slam
Hyper Beam
Body Slam is the eternal "midground" option of Gen. 1. If you don't know what move the opposing player will make, a Body Slam is sure to worry them no matter what. Its 85 power is actually quite good by Gen. 1 standards – besides Ground, there's no type with a stronger realistic physical attack, and even the special attacks are only a bit stronger at 90-95. Its neutral coverage, as we talked about, is great. And that 30% paralysis chance is a huge deal. As sleep bans increase in competitive, paralysis emerges as the most dangerous reliable status (with freeze being more dangerous but unreliable to inflict). At 1/4th speed and with a 1/4th chance to not move at all, powerful offensive threats become easy bait for fellow sweepers – who now easily get the jump on them – or muscly linebackers like Rhydon.
With 150 power, no drawback if you KO the opponent, and a Normal-type learnset of "everyone bar Ditto and Farfetch'd", Hyper Beam is an awe-inspiring finisher. 1.5-2x stronger than most attacks, it makes picking up KOs much easier, making offensive sweepers much scarier. This especially holds if the opponent is slower and unable to finish or sabotage you first, e.g. they are paralyzed. That paralysis detail helps give Body Slam and Hyper Beam synergy. You soften up opponents with uncommittal Body Slams, hopefully paralyzing them to further drag them down and keep yourself safe, before finishing up with a Hyper Beam. Just be careful that opposing players don't punish a predictable Hyper Beam by switching to a Pokemon that takes it well, like Gengar or Rhydon.
Ice:
Blizzard
Blizzard and Fire Blast are the strongest mainstream attacks without a Hyper Beam-level downside. Blizzard is more accurate, has better super effective coverage, and inflicts a deadly status in freeze instead of potentially helping foes with burns, while Fire Blast... has no major advantages to speak of. 120 power, a good 90% accuracy, and a 10% chance to permanently neutralize a foe with Gen. 1 freeze – which never expires on its own – makes Blizzard utterly terrifying for your opponent to handle. Unless they have an Ice-type of their own to block the freeze, even a bulky Water-type may get effectively KOd by the freeze chance, turning your ostensible Ice-type answer into dead weight.
Blizzard's 5 base PP can be an issue, but Ice Beam exists as a great alternative with solid power and preserved freeze chance for Pokemon that more value PP, like Chansey. It's not like Ice-types are locked to having 8 maximum PP on their STAB without exception.
Physical/Special Note
In Gen. 1, all Psychic- and Ice-type attacks are special, while all Normal-type attacks are physical. Both classes have upside and downside. Because Special is offensive and defensive, high-Special Psychic and Ice Pokemon are both better able to deal out, and absorb, Special damage. Therefore, high Special Pokemon are less able to KO each other quickly, grinding out wars through quirks like Psychic (move) special drops, Blizzard freezes, and full paralyses. Because Attack and Defense are separate, high-Attack Pokemon often lack high Defense to take each other out quickly, so matches end with quicker KOs, making the Hyper Beam finisher more important. In-game, this dynamic probably favors Normal-types and their moves, since the actual games lack a permanent lose state in the way that competitive battles do, which makes efficiency more valuable. In competitive, I don't know which is preferable, if either is.
Pokemon
This section requires some nuance. If Pokemon of a certain type are good, does that improve the type? There are different answers. I'll outline some arguments both ways.
No, the type's quality and Pokemon's quality are separate:
- Pokemon can be good for lots of reasons besides their type. Stats and moves are very important.
- Pokemon can have a type without particularly benefitting from it. Gengar really wishes it could get rid of its Poison-type. It's not good because it's a Poison-type, that's a coincidence. It succeeds despite Poison.
- Poison is often thought to be the worst Gen. 1 type. Should we undo that because Gengar has it, even though Gengar doesn't like it? That sounds odd.
- The finite pool of Pokemon available will not be able to showcase all the potential strengths and weaknesses of a given type.
Yes, the type's quality and Pokemon's quality are related:
- Good Pokemon using a type provide a possible signal that the type is useful, and clear evidence that the type can play a successful role in some capacity.
- Pokemon are the vehicle by which types actually apply and matter to play. If a type is theoretically very strong, but has no Pokemon utilizing its strengths, how much do those strengths matter in practice?
- Good Pokemon increase the metagame relevance of the type. Even if Gengar doesn't use Poison-type moves, its Poison type makes Ground and Psychic moves more important in the metagame.
- Types don't exist in a vacuum. Pokemon of certain types tend to get other qualities associated with the type. For example, Psychic types often have high Special, and that is a valuable stat to have high.
I align more with the "No, type quality and Pokemon are separate" camp, if not absolutely so. To me, the more we start bringing in Pokemon, the less we evaluate a type itself, and the more we blend that in with uncertain other factors, like the Gengar / Poison example. However, both sides have merits, and your mileage may vary.
That aside, I want to talk about the Pokemon anyway, since, for whatever varying complexes of reasons, they influence people's perceptions of type viability.
Psychic-type Pokemon:
In Pokemon, Psychic-types have both the highest ceiling and among the highest floors of any type. That's a pretty powerful statement. As the Pokemon with the highest stat total and the tied-for second highest total, Mewtwo and Mew are naturally very strong, the only Pokemon banished to Ubers. Mew is even stronger than its stat total suggests with its massive movepool, which includes all TMs in the game. Many other Psychic-types are mainstays in standard play, like Alakazam, Exeggutor, Starmie, and Jynx. Even the weaker Psychic-types have OU relevance or strong roles in lower tiers. Mr. Mime is the lowest in competitive at NU, and he rules that tier. In-game, Psychics are just as strong, or even stronger. Mewtwo and Mew are overwhelming, and despite their availability disqualifying them from the Smogon In-game Tier List, more than half of the S tier is still Psychic-types.
How much of this power is due to the type? Some of it – access to the move Psychic as a powerful STAB definitely matters. However, these Pokemon also tend to have very high stats, very optimized stats, or both. As enormous-stat legendaries, and with Mew's extra movepool advantage, Mewtwo and Mew certainly belong here. With Alakazam's massive Special and Speed, it is destined to be an excellent sweeper. Mr. Mime is the lowest-statted at 340, but its highest stats are Special at 100 – remember this is the only stat that is both offensive and defensive power – and Speed at 90. It's destined to be a miniature Alakazam. The Psychic-type (besides Mew?) with the least efficient stat distribution is Hypno, who yet still manages to focus on what's most important, with a mighty 115 Special. Psychic-types also tend to get excellent movepools beyond the move Psychic, usually featuring two or more of Recover, Amnesia, Blizzard, Thunderbolt, and Thunder Wave. Exeggutor and Jynx instead get some of the best Sleep moves in the game – different mechanics make Gen. 1 sleep broken enough for many tiers to ban. Exeggutor also gets the excellent Explosion and a budget Thunder Wave in Stun Spore, while Jynx gets not just Blizzard, but STAB Blizzard. Hypno again is the runt of the litter, but it still gets Thunder Wave to shore up its poor 67 speed and OK sleep in Hypnosis. Turning to in-game, the best Psychics tend to arrive early and evolve early, or not need to evolve at all, making them more useful. Abra and Mr. Mime become available at Nugget Bridge – Abra evolves at 16 and can be immediately traded to become Alakazam, with no loss or inconvenience in level-up moves from the trade. Not only does Mr. Mime not need to evolve, but it gets the trade experience boost. Drowzee arrives early and evolves at 26. Jynx comes late but does not need evolve and also gets the experience boost.
How much do these Pokemon specifically care about their Psychic type? STAB on the good and reliable Psychic move is definitely a positive in isolation, but the bigger question is complicated to talk about. I've circumvented talking about Psychic's resistance to itself in depth, but it's impossible to avoid here. Since Psychic resists itself, Psychic-types are commonly switch-ins to other Psychic-types. Psychic-types can muscle through these Psychic-types with special drops from Psychic (the move), or even Amnesia boosts, but fear the same from other Psychic-types. This complex metagame interdependence of multiple gears, where Psychic-types like and dislike Psychic (both the type and the move) both offensively and defensively, makes it hard to imagine a world where Pokemon consider alternative types. Another complication set relates to the philosophical questions we talked about first. Should we assume that Psychic type = access to the move Psychic, as holds true now? When considering other types, should we assume the Pokemon gets expected moves from that type?
I'm not going to make concrete statements on whether Pokemon benefit a lot or a little from Psychic, and whether they'd be better or worse with another type. I'm just going to focus on the Ice/Normal alternative set, and I'm just going to describe some possible dynamics from some Psychic-types becoming Ice or Normal. Here's how I will rule it.
A hypothetical change (e.g. Ice-type Mewtwo) has the following rules:
- The new type replaces Psychic on the original Pokemon.
- If it did not have Hyper Beam + Body Slam (Normal) or Blizzard (Ice), it gets those moves now.
- If it gained new moves, it loses Psychic (the move). If it already had the moves it would gain, it keeps Psychic.
- Stats and moves not-yet-described are unchanged.
General Expected Outcomes with losing Psychic for Ice/Normal Are:
- More good foes resist them on offense
- Less able to check other Psychic-types
- Less able to muscle through bulky Pokemon with Psychic special drops
- Better able to spread paralysis through Body Slam (if changing to Normal)
- Better able to finish off foes with Hyper Beam if physical (if changing to Normal)
- Changing from special to physical move category (if changing to Normal)
- STAB has higher power, lower accuracy, ability to freeze (if changing to Ice)
- Immune to Freeze (if changing to Ice)
Also:
- This section will be focused on competitive, where I have more interesting to say.
- I will focus on the most prominent Pokemon, since they best figure into how people evaluate the type.
Finally, let's look at some specific Pokemon.
Normal Mewtwo
This is probably a bad idea, since physical Mewtwo can't use Amnesia to sweep through teams. STAB Hyper Beam, Body Slam, and Self-Destruct as strong as Snorlax deserve mention, and well stronger if you assume the 154 Special would be Attack instead. But hamstringing setup – particularly in a generation where neutral OHKOs are so hard to come by – robs Mewtwo of its generational team-destroying force. Self-Destruct has actual use, but primarily for beating other Mewtwo, which makes STAB on it less valuable for general use. Getting rid of your Mewtwo in exchange for a non-Mewtwo is often not a worthwhile trade.
Normal Mew
This is the inverse of Normal Mewtwo, where Mew only has Swords Dance and not Amnesia. Actually, using Swords Dance and forgoing Psychic (the move) is already standard for Mew. There is currently no viable Swords Dance Pokemon with STAB Body Slam and Hyper Beam, or even Explosion if you want. Earthquake provides great coverage. This sounds very dangerous. The tier's many Psychic-types, like other Mewtwo, can KO you more easily, but you do have Recover to help you survive.
Ice Mewtwo
Two gains are especially notable for Mewtwo. Since it's so hard to take down through normal means given its stats, Amnesia, and Recover, freeze is a big way to neutralize it, and that's off the table now. Also, for a Pokemon with so few checks, better powering through one in Mew helps a lot. The prospect of freezing Light Screen Chansey is also appealing. However, if another foe is frozen, Mewtwo's STAB won't be able to inflict a secondary effect. This can create awkward role overlap between Mewtwo and its teammates, and leave it more predictable and reliable to answer once a foe is already frozen. Mewtwo could run Psychic alongside Blizzard to still threaten Special drops, but this leaves it vulnerable to Slowbro.
Ice Mew
This is probably not a great idea, since Mew has no viable special sets right now. A bit more power in the STAB would be nice, but like, Mew could always enforce the threat of freeze anyway, and it chooses not to. The big issue is that you're less able to resist Psychics from threats like Mewtwo, and gaining little in return.
Ice Alakazam
135 Special STAB Blizzard, with an additional 10% chance to functionally KO through freeze, is vile. It immediately becomes the strongest special attack in the game, and greatly helps Alakazam handle Exeggutor. A downside is that STAB Psychic and its Special drops was your closest thing to setup to break through the bulkiest Pokemon, and you lack that now. The freeze has some negative synergy with Alakazam's Thunder Wave, since paralysis blocks freeze, but a mainstream Gen. 1 competitive rule, Freeze Clause, limits the negativity. By this rule, only one Pokemon per team can be frozen at a time. Then, once Alakazam (or a teammate) freezes a Pokemon, Thunder Wave is useful to allow it to keep statusing Pokemon. Defensively, Alakazam's weak spot of physical bulk is largely unaffected by this change, limiting the defensive impact. You're weak to Rock Slide, but annihilate Rhydon and Golem with STAB Blizzard, so it's okay. Slowbro and Starmie may hit either version of Alakazam neutrally with Surf, but it still stinks to not resist Psychic, since they can better fish for Psychic Special drops on you, helping them overwhelm your Recover.
The freeze chance creates a new dynamic with a major counter, Chansey, that is higher risk and higher reward. Chansey is a good check to Psychic Alakazam, but cumulative pressure from Alakazam's Thunder Wave eating turns, and its Psychic semi-reliably dropping Special eventually, limits its ability to safely stay in. Now, Chansey has only a 10% chance of a negative secondary effect, and 0 chance if Chansey is paralyzed, or if a teammate is frozen thanks to Freeze Clause. However, if Alakazam manages to freeze this essential special wall, that can tip the entire game, let alone the matchup, making the situation very scary for Chansey.
Normal Alakazam would completely fail with its current Special-dominated stat spread, but if Special and Attack were switched, you would be easily faster and stronger than current #1 revenge killer in standard, Tauros, at the cost of paper-mache 55/45/50 bulk. Like Dugtrio but stronger and blessed with the Normal-type, and a hair bulkier, I guess.
Grass / Ice Exeggutor
This might be a relatively low-impact change. Exeggutor already spreads great status with Sleep Powder, so freeze is more redundant. Blizzard's power is nice, but Exeggutor is too slow and lacking in setup to sweep. You don't resist Psychic anymore, so Psychic from Pokemon like Alakazam, Jynx, and Starmie may be scarier, but the latter two could hit you with a super effective Blizzard, which you're now only neutral to because Ice resists itself. You may want to hit these Psychic-types with Blizzard in return, since you aren't relying on resisted Psychic to hit them, but the latter two already resist Blizzard, and Alakazam boasts great special + Recover.
Grass / Normal Exeggutor
This is a bit difficult rules-wise, because Exeggutor does not get Body Slam, but it gets Double-Edge and Egg Bomb, so maybe it wouldn't get Body Slam even if it was a Normal-type, because it has pre-existing options? I'll ignore the issue and briefly note that Stun Spore makes Body Slam a bit less useful, but Exeggutor often doesn't have space to run Stun Spore, so compressing paralysis threat and power into one move would be nice.
Exeggutor actually has a great Attack - only 5 points behind Tauros - to dish out some real power. It's not fast enough to be a great Hyper Beam sweeper, but that Explosion is now comically strong. For example, it always OHKOs Zapdos, when it could never before. STAB Mega Drain terrifies Rhydon and Golem, who might enjoy your Normal-type moves otherwise, and standard Exeggutor already ran Double-Edge, so you can just swap out Psychic to fit Mega Drain. Not resisting Psychic can be inconvenient for Slowbro, but the occasional Blizzard Slowbro wouldn't mind either way, and Alakazam greatly fears your STAB now.
Normal- and Ice-type Pokemon:
The prior section was longer than I thought, so I'll be brief here.
Normal-types range the gamut in intended and actual power levels. Pokemon like Pidgeot are intended to be weak and easy to get, so they have correspondingly low stats and weak movepools, and they are bad. However, the three best Pokemon in OU are Normal-type, too: Chansey, Snorlax, and Tauros have great stats and movepools to match. Like how Psychic- (and Ice-) types tend to get great Special stats, Normal-types tend to get wide movepools, helping Pokemon like Tauros get past checks like Rhydon with moves like Blizzard and Earthquake. Many Normal-types are worse off in the games not because they perform worse, but because they are challenging to obtain. Tauros, Chansey, and Kangaskhan are notoriously locked behind the Safari Zone. Even within the Safari Zone and its harder catching mechanics, they have very low encounter rates, making failed catches all the more punishing. Clefable, though, stands out as an excellent Normal-type in both game performance and accessibility, almost immediately reaching its (final) evolution in Mt. Moon.
Ice-types in competitive have quite a high floor. Their weakest is Dewgong, but even he kept up solid usage in UU as an Articuno check before Articuno was banned. You could note that this is a type-checking-itself situation, where the defensive role implies limitations on the type's offense, though. The other four – Jynx, Cloyster, Articuno, and Lapras – are neatly snug within the B through C ranks of OU. In other words, they're all OU viable, but not the highest mainstays in the S and A ranks, but neither do they consort with D-ranks like Porygon, Golem, and Sandslash. (Jynx and Cloyster, the best two, round out the top 10.) All are pumped full of stats, though perhaps a bit less optimized than the Psychic types overall, with Dewgong lacking much specialization, and Cloyster and Lapras picking some of the weaker specializations in Defense and HP, respectively. (I will specify that fellow HP titan Chansey benefits a lot from specializing in HP and Special, which Lapras does not.)
Summary
That was a lot. Let's refresh and take tabs on what we learned.
- Psychic is a very powerful type, but not the only powerful type.
- Compared to other powerful types in Normal and Ice, it has a complex set of tradeoffs.
- All three types have broadly desirable sets of type matchups and a really powerful move or two.
- Psychic interacts with most Pokemon neutrally, as does Normal. This means few weaknesses, but few strengths.
- Psychic's matchups are a bit better than Normal, but not a ton better. Notably, its defensive utility comes from checking itself, which necessarily limits its offense in exchange.
- Ice is the best of the three for super effective hits. It has some weaknesses, too, but they are relatively sparse.
- The most remarkable, unique thing about Psychic is that both of the strongest Legendary Pokemon have it.
- These Legendary Pokemon – like most good Pokemon – benefit from their type but succeed for many reasons besides it.
- Powerful Psychic-types might benefit from, suffer from, or see little change from changing types. There are many possibilities and it's complex to evaluate interdependent metagame dynamics.
- As Pokemon, Psychic-types range from alright or good to excellent in competitive. Normal-types range from terrible to excellent, with the minor ding of not having a legendary Pokemon to carry their stats and advantages to the next level. Ice-types range from alright or good to great.
- A lot of in-game viability for any type comes from Pokemons' availability. One could talk about evolution levels and methods here, but overall, availability is less about the Pokemon itself and more about where (and how) the game puts it in the campaign.
I look forward to talking more about the Psychic myth – how it differs from reality, and how it got rooted – in Part 2!
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Investigating the Psychic Myth: Part 2
In Part 1, I explained the popular fandom myth that Gen. 1 Psychic is uniquely overpowered and unbalanced. I analyzed the type, compared it with two other powerful types in Normal and Ice, and went over the good and the bad.
Now, I'm talking more about the myth. First, I'm going to talk about specific, identifiable factors that contribute to the myth. I'll also tag these with specific explanatory heuristics from my post about those. Then, I'm going to synthesize that into a broader explanation.
1. The Ghost Bug
In Gen. 1, Psychic is supposed to be weak to Ghost, but due to a bug, it is immune.
As we talked about, this does not matter either way. The only Ghost move, Lick, is 30 Base Power, and the only Ghost-types are the Gengar line. Also, Ghost-type moves are physical in Gen. 1, so the special-dominated Gengar line would use it especially poorly.
However, this bug is regularly one of the first points people bring up about Gen. 1 Psychic being supposedly overpowered.
This was actually my example for the Visibility heuristic in my prior post. But another applies too.
Visibility: If something sticks out, it is more important.
Objectivity: When deciding whether A or B is better, statements that are unquestionably, factually correct are better.Being a bug, a breaking of the established rules, this interaction is easy to spot, especially since the game and official sources throw "Ghost beats Psychic!" in your face. Not only is Psychic a strong type, but it's receiving, illegal, unplanned, under-the-counter help to push it further over the edge! Also, as an interaction that is objectively not supposed to happen, this bug feels easier to bring up. Nobody could challenge and say that Psychic was meant to be immune to Ghost, because multiple official sources say otherwise.
2. Gen. 1 Jank / Other Type "Issues"
No matter how you feel about Gen. 1, there's a lot of jank, bugs, and imbalance. People often overrate the importance of these, and I would often call them non-problems, or even actively positive, but that's for another time. However I feel about these opinions, the jank, and the perceptions of fans on its importance and all-encompassing nature, is real.
This environment makes it easy to believe that Gen. 1 Psychic could be overpowered. Many things are not as intended, and many types are extremely poor, like Poison, Bug (...contains perceptions and nuances...), and Fighting. Surely it's possible that a type like Psychic could be made too strong, and surely the best type(s) in a game with so much jank would be broken!
Categorization Leaching: If A can broadly be described as X, then every part of A is X.Well, no, it wouldn't be broken. Gen. 1 jank is not distributed equally. The worst types are farther below baseline than the best types are above baseline.
I attached a tier list from Big Yellow's great tier list video on the Gen. 1 types for reference. (They have great videos breaking down specific types that helped inspire this post. Consider checking them out.) You don't need to agree with every individual placement, this is just, pinning down the big picture.
By this list, Water is the most average type in Gen. 1, and that'd be my first guess too. Water is a type with a solid, reliable-if-sauceless STAB move in Surf, a good defensive property in resisting Ice, a bad defensive property in being weak to Electric, and useful super effective coverage on Ground and Rock. It's definitely worse than the three we talked about, but the drop off is not, like, catastrophic. You lose sauce on your good move, but the good move is still there, and you still have a broadly solid type matchup sheet. Two Water-types are OU, Starmie and Cloyster, and Lapras and Slowbro are knocking on the door. It's awkward that Ice already resists itself, which can box out Water's niche in resisting it, but like, Dewgong put that 4x resistance to great work checking Articuno, and other Water / Ice types enjoy it too. Some of these use Surf, some more than others, it's not the best move and often gets crowded out but it can be nice sometimes.
Water to Poison is a catastrophic drop. Poison has 0 good moves. It is weak to two of the best types in competitive, Psychic and Ground, and its only valuable resistance is the middling Grass. If you're desperate enough to use the 65 Base Power Sludge, you'll hit basically nothing besides ?Pinsir and Tangela? super effective, be resisted by multiple good Pokemon, and shudder at the move's 40% poison chance. Because, of course, poison is the worst status in competitive RBY, usually actively detrimental to inflict on your opponent, like burn in Part 1 but worse. There are 2 Poison-types in OU, Gengar and Victreebel, but they both wish they could immediately drop the typing. Its closest thing to competitive viability was immunity to Toxic, which disrupted cheesy Wrap setups, but these are often banned in competitive play these days anyway. These downsides are less applicable and extreme in the games, but the type remains terrible, largely occupied by fodder Rocket grunts for a reason.
3. Mewtwo (and Mew I guess)
Gen. 1 Mewtwo has earned its reputation as one of the most dangerous Pokemon of all time. Its Psychic typing definitely helped, and if you say it learning Amnesia depended on its Psychic type, then the type helped even more. But, as we talked about, it also has a bundle of stats and powerful moves to work with.
The potential for inaccuracy comes with people associating the Psychic type with Mewtwo, and overrating it because Mewtwo itself merits that immense respect. Associational evaluations and decision-making is commonplace enough to not need additional discussion, but this is also like an inverse of category leaching above – If the Psychic type can narrowly be defined as Mewtwo, then every part of the Psychic type is Mewtwo-esque (i.e. broken). You could also mention Mew here – not only is the best Pokemon in RBY Psychic, but both of the best two, and the only two Ubers, are.
4. Lack of Flaws
OK. I need to mention that I looked up an image of Mr. Mime creating its walls, to get to this idea of like, the Psychic-type has no major flaws you can ding it for, but then I remembered Mr. Mime's walls are invisible. So like. I'm lucky to have found a workable image at all. Of the invisible walls. Because you can't see them.
In Part 1 I said the remarkable thing about Psychic was that the two strongest Legendary Pokemon had them. I'll drop another, more abstract, one here. Psychic has no flaws. It has no real weaknesses on defense, no real resistances on offense, and does not rely on a bad move. While lacking flaws is of course good, it doesn't automatically make the type the best, because it also matters to have strengths, too. Psychic has one main active, affirmative strength, the Special drop chance of Psychic (the move). This is a big one for sure, but Normal and Ice have more of these strengths, like Body Slam's paralysis, Hyper Beam's finishing potential, and Blizzard's power or freeze chance.
This focus on lacking flaws versus a composite viability picture, which includes strengths, is not unique to Gen. 1 Psychic. Remember how people overrated Spiritomb in earlier generations when it had no weaknesses. You could think about it in terms of Category Leaching (perfect at avoiding flaws -> perfect in general), Objectivity (the importance and weighting of strengths is subjective; the absence of flaws is more concrete), or Visibility (lacking flaws is rare and attracts attention). You could also bring in Prospect Theory, the established psychological phenomenon where people are more concerned about avoiding negative outcomes than achieving positive outcomes in decision-making, on average.
5/6. Moves and Other Types: Comprehension and Philosophy
This is more complex and messy. As I mentioned above, a lot of the active strengths of these leading types are tied up in their moves. This is deeper knowledge than the surface-level type chart. People may not know these properties or their importance at all, or they may not understand how important they are, especially if they don't have much familiarity with playing Gen. 1. To this day, we have many people misunderstand the usefulness of modern Hyper Beam, overrating it because of its high Base Power.
Another potential for subsurface knowledge gaps is when it comes to other types. If you don't know that Ghost is terrible on offense, you may overrate Psychic's immunity to it, even separate from the heuristics of visibility and objectivity I talked about earlier. Similarly, you may think Ice's 3 weaknesses matter much more than they do. (I traditionally count them as being worth 1 or 1.5 weaknesses, collectively.) People also may be looking up type charts, numerically adding up weaknesses, subtracting resistances, and creating naive scores of effectiveness that don't map well onto the metagame or even in-game experience.
Alternatively, people may not philosophically consider moves to be part of types. People will readily admit that Hyper Beam and Blizzard are very good – even if not Body Slam so much. They may even call these moves overpowered and balance-breaking in their own right, and with Blizzard freezes they might be right. I will take a guess from past discussions and say that most people, when deciding what types are best, don't figure in move options as much as I do. I think ignoring moves outright is a bad idea. I won't fully get into why, but like, Gen. 1 Psychic would be a C-tier type if the move Psychic was removed from the game. Regardless of the reasons and wisdom, some people give moves less attention or ignore them outright, and this removes some of the biggest advantages of Ice and Normal. It also removes a huge advantage for Psychic, the move Psychic, but people tend to underrate that move too. Maybe higher Base Power numbers are more visible?
The Myth: The Big Picture
People believe the Gen. 1 Psychic-type is uniquely overpowered and breaks balance. I went through the evidence, and that isn't true. Two intentionally broken Pokemon in Mewtwo and Mew are broken and happen to be Psychic-type, but broadly speaking, Psychic-types are very manageable despite being strong, broadly comparable to other strong types, and largely getting by on a basic (not overwhelming) matchup spread, good stats, and one move's special property. I went through some specific reasons for this myth's persistence, but I haven't taken a big crack at it. These reasons all help explain why the myth feels believable and often goes unchallenged, but no one piece is enough on its own.
People don't know Gen. 1 mechanics very well. Red and Blue released almost 30 years ago. Most people talking in Pokemon fandom are not old enough to have naturally played them without taking a special effort to revisit retro content, often navigating accessibility barriers in emulation or retro hardware. When there's little firsthand knowledge or experience, a largely casual audience, complex answers to questions, and enough seeds peppered around to make the myth plausible, it's easy for people to accept it without red flags popping up when they hear it spread – whether by content creators or peers in the fandom. They don't have huge incentive to check their work, because they probably don't play Gen. 1 competitively or in-game, so what does it matter for their activities? And then they spread it, because it seems interesting and true, and the myth perpetuates.
Thanks for reading. Cheers.
Holy shit there's a scrabble server? Sign me up. I've been getting interested in scrabble since I have rejected chess. No offense to the game by the way I just don't like playing it compared to scrabble.
Is there anywhere to see the old firebot thread?
the voices helped me find it, nevermind y'all