Took some time to think about the main typing I find interesting which is fire. its the only one which i seem to disagree with the fairly arbitrary general consensus. i included some examples from ou and cap as successful fire types and some examples from ubers as overly successful fire types and heres my thoughts:
fire types are viable when:
Defensive Niche:
the key to the defensive utility of fire types is that fire has a nice set of resistances that can mesh very well with certain typings and achieve defensive combinations that are otherwise impossible. fire types hold the rare ability to check offensive fairies while usually resisting/ignoring their coverage- such as jumbao/tapu koko for pyroak, tapu lele/clef for heatran, xerneas for primal groudon in ubers- it can also be seen last generation with specially defensive talonflame which was geared to deal with mega altaria and clefables, amongst other stuff. a near-essential element of the defensive fire type is having a way to not be destroyed by stealth rock. heatran and primal groudon deal with it with their secondary typings, and ho-oh deals with it with regenerator. SR is a huge detriment to pyroaks viability.
in addition to their usually specially defensive strength, these fire types will also often be able to burn any physical switchins, making them apply heavy pressure to the special attacker in front of them.
Offensive Power:
the key to offensive value in the fire type is interesting. fire is an amazing offensive type just like ice, and just like ice its not essential to use a fire type to reap the benefits. fire coverage is readily available for many non-fire types and usually attached to a pokemon with less defensive issues. whats more, hidden power is often enough to threaten key pokemon in the metagame with 4x weaknesses to fire like ferrothorn, who can wear down fire types by forcing them to switch through hazards and leech seed damage- or mega scizor who can u-turn and also force fire types through hazards multiple times.
the fire types that find success in OU and above are the ones that offer so much offensive presence that they can end the game, either by sweeping or breaking the opponent's defensive backbone, without needing to switch around. victini and volcarona are examples of offensive fire types that close out the match, with the sum of their sets being impossible to deal with by one single check, and require scouting or luck to deal with. blaziken was able to break through OU and get banned to ubers thanks to its crazy strong stab combo and super speed tier after a turn or two. heatran and volkraken, and similarly primal groudon/ho-oh in ubers have very straight forward sets that dont require much scouting, but even still are very pressuring due to sheer offensive presence.
Crossover/Conclusion:
there is a heavy crossover between these two roles when it comes to successful fire types. primal groudon, ho-oh, and heatran are all huge offensive threats and have key defensive utility. i also think that the offensive element of fire types comes more with the territory and the focus should be on getting that key defensive utility from our fire type. there's a lot of relevant roles that fire types could pick up defensively right now with annoying fire, grass, bug, and fairy types in the tier, and whats more, just as personal preference i think its a more friendly addition to the metagame to not create another pokemon that over-specializes in offence to the level that a successful fire type requires, since they often create a "if you dont have a STRONG check, you lose" situation which already exists way too much in cap for my liking.
You might also notice that when it comes to offensive and defensive fire types, its the mons with defensive utility that create the most interesting interaction with their abilities. Heatran, Primal Groudon, Ho-oh all create unique and complex interactions defensively and offensively with their abilities, and all of them benefit in multiple ways: negating some of their weaknesses while also boosting them offensively. On the other side, Victini, Volcarona, Blaziken and Blacephalon have incredibly flat interaction with their abilities- hit hard, get fast, win the game. Volcarona doesnt even make any attempt to utilise its defensive ability in Flame Body, even if its the ability of choice.
Also when it comes to having move/ability synergy, its not always about using stab moves, so perhaps its a bad idea to focus on the small number of "defensive" or utility moves that are Fire type. Hopefully what i wrote above will convince you the importance of the secondary typing for a successful fire type also, so a lot of viability will come from moves from that typing also.
When we discuss the typing we should maybe just be thinking about the defensive benefit vs offensive payoff of STAB, and whether we want to make success linked to typing or despite typing. For instance for grass it might be better to make something successful despite typing if we dont want to go with the standout grass typing of Grass/Steel.
fire types are viable when:
- they hold an incredibly important defensive niche- see heatran, ho-oh, primal groudon, pyroak
- they are able to offer a level of offense that is incredibly hard/impossible to fully deal with- see heatran, volcarona, primal groudon, ho-oh, blaziken, volkraken, blacephalon, victini
Defensive Niche:
the key to the defensive utility of fire types is that fire has a nice set of resistances that can mesh very well with certain typings and achieve defensive combinations that are otherwise impossible. fire types hold the rare ability to check offensive fairies while usually resisting/ignoring their coverage- such as jumbao/tapu koko for pyroak, tapu lele/clef for heatran, xerneas for primal groudon in ubers- it can also be seen last generation with specially defensive talonflame which was geared to deal with mega altaria and clefables, amongst other stuff. a near-essential element of the defensive fire type is having a way to not be destroyed by stealth rock. heatran and primal groudon deal with it with their secondary typings, and ho-oh deals with it with regenerator. SR is a huge detriment to pyroaks viability.
in addition to their usually specially defensive strength, these fire types will also often be able to burn any physical switchins, making them apply heavy pressure to the special attacker in front of them.
Offensive Power:
the key to offensive value in the fire type is interesting. fire is an amazing offensive type just like ice, and just like ice its not essential to use a fire type to reap the benefits. fire coverage is readily available for many non-fire types and usually attached to a pokemon with less defensive issues. whats more, hidden power is often enough to threaten key pokemon in the metagame with 4x weaknesses to fire like ferrothorn, who can wear down fire types by forcing them to switch through hazards and leech seed damage- or mega scizor who can u-turn and also force fire types through hazards multiple times.
the fire types that find success in OU and above are the ones that offer so much offensive presence that they can end the game, either by sweeping or breaking the opponent's defensive backbone, without needing to switch around. victini and volcarona are examples of offensive fire types that close out the match, with the sum of their sets being impossible to deal with by one single check, and require scouting or luck to deal with. blaziken was able to break through OU and get banned to ubers thanks to its crazy strong stab combo and super speed tier after a turn or two. heatran and volkraken, and similarly primal groudon/ho-oh in ubers have very straight forward sets that dont require much scouting, but even still are very pressuring due to sheer offensive presence.
Crossover/Conclusion:
there is a heavy crossover between these two roles when it comes to successful fire types. primal groudon, ho-oh, and heatran are all huge offensive threats and have key defensive utility. i also think that the offensive element of fire types comes more with the territory and the focus should be on getting that key defensive utility from our fire type. there's a lot of relevant roles that fire types could pick up defensively right now with annoying fire, grass, bug, and fairy types in the tier, and whats more, just as personal preference i think its a more friendly addition to the metagame to not create another pokemon that over-specializes in offence to the level that a successful fire type requires, since they often create a "if you dont have a STRONG check, you lose" situation which already exists way too much in cap for my liking.
You might also notice that when it comes to offensive and defensive fire types, its the mons with defensive utility that create the most interesting interaction with their abilities. Heatran, Primal Groudon, Ho-oh all create unique and complex interactions defensively and offensively with their abilities, and all of them benefit in multiple ways: negating some of their weaknesses while also boosting them offensively. On the other side, Victini, Volcarona, Blaziken and Blacephalon have incredibly flat interaction with their abilities- hit hard, get fast, win the game. Volcarona doesnt even make any attempt to utilise its defensive ability in Flame Body, even if its the ability of choice.
Also when it comes to having move/ability synergy, its not always about using stab moves, so perhaps its a bad idea to focus on the small number of "defensive" or utility moves that are Fire type. Hopefully what i wrote above will convince you the importance of the secondary typing for a successful fire type also, so a lot of viability will come from moves from that typing also.
When we discuss the typing we should maybe just be thinking about the defensive benefit vs offensive payoff of STAB, and whether we want to make success linked to typing or despite typing. For instance for grass it might be better to make something successful despite typing if we dont want to go with the standout grass typing of Grass/Steel.
Last edited:
