Other Psychic Typing

[JebusChrist]

Wouldn't it be better to discuss how we can use present psychic types to the best ability despite this shortcomings we keep repeating? It seems to be obvious enough...

Ask not what your typing can do for you, but ask what you can do for your typing.

On topic, I think for the most part Psychic is bad when you look at the type chart, but a lot of the mons that are Psychic have good stats/abilities/movepools etc, so buffing Psychic could be problematic.

 

[Jaroda]

Really, saying that a type sucks relative to other types is just plain silly. It's not like every Pokemon of one type is going to have the same base stats, movepool, or abilities, so it's pretty unfair to judge a type via generalization. This especially applies to a type as diverse as Psychic. The Psychic type has plenty of Pokemon to assume many different roles, be it specially based (Alakazam, Lati@s, Espeon, etc.), physically based (Metagross, Medicham, Gallade, etc.), support (Gardevoir, Cresselia, Claydol, etc.), or even a mixture of any one of these roles. So to say that Psychic is "worse" than any other type just seems foolish.

That being said, I will concede that a Mono-Psychic typing is just suffering, and it has been since Generation 2. And unfortunately, many stellar Pokemon are faced with this, including Alakazam, Espeon, and the Deoxys Forms. The only type Psychic resists is Fighting (and itself, duh), which isn't anything special considering literally every Fighting type carries something to hit Psychic- types with. And with Knock Off being extremely common this generation, it only adds to the issue. Psychic's three weaknesses are also common offensive types, especially with Aegislash compounding the issue.

No. What's silly is implying that things with varying characteristics are all the same and universally indistinguishable. If two things are not identical, by fiat one is better or worse than the other by some unit of measurement.

It's been said a million times that typing is just one of multiple variables that determine a pokemon's usefulness. Slaking has the stats of a legendary with BST of 670, including an HP of 150 and Attack of 160, higher than Deoxys-N. He has a great physical movepool, but guess what, he has the absolute worst ability in the game, being absolute dead weight. Kyurem-B has an outrageous attack stat of 170 and Terravolt, a great ability, as well as STAB Dragon moves. but hey, he's not Ubers because of his typing giving him numerous weaknesses and a movepool that does not compliment his stat layout. In regards to KyuB you absolutely can not say that a different typing would not change how he plays, like if her were Dragon/Electric for example.

And no, you can't discuss ways of improving Psychic the type without changing game mechanics. The Psychic pokemon in OU are the sum of their parts and not solely defined by their typing. They have the combination of potential dual typing, moves, stats and abilities to carve a usefule niche.

 

[LoDart210]

No. What's silly is implying that things with varying characteristics are all the same and universally indistinguishable. If two things are not identical, by fiat one is better or worse than the other by some unit of measurement.

It's been said a million times that typing is just one of multiple variables that determine a pokemon's usefulness. Slaking has the stats of a legendary with BST of 670, including an HP of 150 and Attack of 160, higher than Deoxys-N. He has a great physical movepool, but guess what, he has the absolute worst ability in the game, being absolute dead weight. Kyurem-B has an outrageous attack stat of 170 and Terravolt, a great ability, as well as STAB Dragon moves. but hey, he's not Ubers because of his typing giving him numerous weaknesses and a movepool that does not compliment his stat layout. In regards to KyuB you absolutely can not say that a different typing would not change how he plays, like if her were Dragon/Electric for example.

And no, you can't discuss ways of improving Psychic the type without changing game mechanics. The Psychic pokemon in OU are the sum of their parts and not solely defined by their typing. They have the combination of potential dual typing, moves, stats and abilities to carve a usefule niche.

Which is really weird when you consider:

Moves- psyshock, future sight, healing wish, hypnosis

Abilities - trace, magic guard, magic bounce, levitate

Stats - high speed, high special attack, good special defense

Niches - take out mega venusaur, conkeldurr, keldeo, terrakion, and a good neutral attacking type


And yet, psychic types are so rare despite their potential to preform so well.

 

[SHUCKLE MAN]

I do agree that Psychic is a poor type at the moment (not saying all Psychic types are bad, or that it doesn't have its advantages of cours).

However, we shouldn't alter the game to save them. Ice is pretty awful as a type (defensively, it's amazing offensively) as well but we haven't done anything in the past to try and make it a better type, we just let Regice and Articuno and others fall to NU. Some types are simply better than others, we used to have OU dominated by Dragons and Steels. It's just the way it is, it doesn't mean the game can't be fun and competitive.

 

[SotheBlacKnight]

Which is really weird when you consider:

Moves- psyshock, future sight, healing wish, hypnosis

Abilities - trace, magic guard, magic bounce, levitate

Stats - high speed, high special attack, good special defense

Niches - take out mega venusaur, conkeldurr, keldeo, terrakion, and a good neutral attacking type


And yet, psychic types are so rare despite their potential to preform so well.

Well all those niches can be performed better by Flying types or Fairy types. Also I wouldn't consider Future Sight and Trace to be worth mentioning, and Levitate and Hypnosis aren't unique to just Psychics (I mean the best user of Hypnosis is Gengar who also has Levitate (just realized that when writing lol)).

 

[Strykeypoo]

Psychic is still feeling the effects of the gen 2 nerfs. As a primary attacking type, hitting only Fighting and Poisons provides pretty poor coverage in OU. Even ignoring the Dark immunity, being resisted by steel means there will always be a pokemon the opposing team who can shrug off your stab. As for defensive typing, few resists and weaknesses to U-turn and more importantly Pursuit. Just Pursuit.

As a secondary type, Psychic is much better, though it still provides to be a liability. Lati@s are the best example of this, as their Psychic typing is their biggest weakness, due to the existence of Tyranitar and Pursuit. Metagross and Jirachi appreciated the Psychic typing in Gen 4-5 a lot, as Steel used to cover a lot of the weaknesses of Psychic, but with the Dark/Ghost change, it's become a liability again.

I'd go as far as saying Psychic is the runner-up to Ice in the 'shitty typing that weakens otherwise good pokemon' award.

 

[Rotosect]

I'd go as far as saying Psychic is the runner-up to Ice in the 'shitty typing that weakens otherwise good pokemon' award.

Many ice types enjoy their ice STAB.
Without its ice type Mamoswine would be a worse Donphan, Kyu-B couldn't beat Mega Venusaur and Cloyster would be just another run-of-the-mill water type that gets walled by Ferrothorn.

 

[Ninja Charizard]

Yeah, Ice is the worst defensive type in the game, but it's one of the best offensive types. Every team enjoys having multiple pokemon with ice attacks.

Psychic, on the other hand, is just bad on both sides. It kills fighting and poison, which is useful depending on the team/pokemon, but it's mostly a situational thing, and defensively it's just bad.

I feel they should have made fairy weak to psychic. That would balance both types.

 

[WebBowser]

Idk why this is a bad thing. There can be bad typings to balance out good pokemon. Like Sergeant Spooky said, Deo-D would be completely upgraded as a ghost type... but do you really want that? Deo-D is already a pain in the dick to kill. Extra weaknesses for him are a good thing.

The best comparison I can think of is gen 1 Gengar. Gengar would have been god damn amazing if he was pure ghost type in gen 1. Having a secondary poison typing (and therefore a weakness to 2 very common attacking types) is the only thing that kept him from being on every single team. Even with that poison typing, he was still one of maybe 10-15 usable pokemon and a worthy addition to a team.

I think you maaay have forgotten that gen 1 gengar had no offensive STABS (both ghost and poison were physical until gen 4, and lol lick) and while his defensive typing is decent, his defenses have always been on the frail side. I think he prolly could have gotten away with being pure ghost with little issue in gen 1, due to lack of STAB and overall frailty. The only thing he had over zam in gen 1 was hypnosis tbh (but zam was stupid op anyway, so maybe not the best comparison).

Also, best user of hypnosis imo is compound eyes Yanmega, he's fast, compound eyes helps with crummy accuracy, and he has decent sp attack on top of it. Now if only he had a few other moves to abuse that with...

*edit*

or maybe I should stop talking about things I don't know about, derp. Sorry for derailing the topic (I have got to stop doing that)

 

[Pipotchi]

I think you maaay have forgotten that gen 1 gengar had no offensive STABS (both ghost and poison were physical until gen 4, and lol lick) and while his defensive typing is decent, his defenses have always been on the frail side. I think he prolly could have gotten away with being pure ghost with little issue in gen 1, due to lack of STAB and overall frailty. The only thing he had over zam in gen 1 was hypnosis tbh (but zam was stupid op anyway, so maybe not the best comparison).

Also, best user of hypnosis imo is compound eyes Yanmega, he's fast, compound eyes helps with crummy accuracy, and he has decent sp attack on top of it. Now if only he had a few other moves to abuse that with...

Yanmega doesnt get compoundeyes?

 

[Aragorn the King]

Yanmega doesnt get compoundeyes?

Maybe he meant Yanma... :P

 

[effyouzion]

I think you maaay have forgotten that gen 1 gengar had no offensive STABS (both ghost and poison were physical until gen 4, and lol lick) and while his defensive typing is decent, his defenses have always been on the frail side. I think he prolly could have gotten away with being pure ghost with little issue in gen 1, due to lack of STAB and overall frailty. The only thing he had over zam in gen 1 was hypnosis tbh (but zam was stupid op anyway, so maybe not the best comparison).

No STABs was offset by his great special and being the only normal type immunity in the game. Rhydon/Golem resisted, but if they got paralyzed by a body slam you were at a huge disadvantage because you couldn't sweep with them late game. Had Gengar not been poison he would have been the go to switch in for every single Tauros and Snorlax, being able to at least significantly weaken if not outright kill Tauros before going down (although admittedly not being able to do much vs. Snorlax except bait the earthquake and then switch to Dragonite or Exeggutor).

But anyway this is kinda off topic and total theorymon. You can PM me if you wanna talk more about it. I'm a huge gen 1 fan.

 

[SagMyPants]

Psychic was a great type and still is but Dragon, Steel, Dark, Water, and Ghost just got soooo much better both in offensive moves, and individual Pokemon. Psychic type is just in the bunch of the other 11 or so types that don't matter.

 

[dkkc19]

Psychic was a great type and still is but Dragon, Steel, Dark, Water, and Ghost just got soooo much better both in offensive moves, and individual Pokemon. Psychic type is just in the bunch of the other 11 or so types that don't matter.

Ground, Fire, Fairy and Flying are better types. The only type I can think of being worse than Psychic is Ice and maybe Normal.

 

[Deleted User 220884]

ghost and dark types are common in the meta, and scizor because of i\the fairys so u-turn knock off and shadow ball litterally kills all physics.
latios/latias, alakazam and espeon are like the only physic type pokemon i see on showdown.

 

[Durant]

ghost and dark types are common in the meta, and scizor because of i\the fairys so u-turn knock off and shadow ball litterally kills all physics.
latios/latias, alakazam and espeon are like the only physic type pokemon i see on showdown.

And Deoxys speed / defense. Also there are some good but uncommon psychic types too like Gothitelle, Reuniclus, Starmie, mega Medicham, Wobbufet, Mew, Victini and Cresselia. Those are quite a few viable psychic types listed. The psychic type may not be the best by itself but it certainly has some good individual pokemon.

 

[Deleted User 220884]

megachamp is probably the best mega in the psychic type

 

[WebBowser]

megachamp is probably the best mega in the psychic type

Mega machamp...... WHY ISN'T THIS A THING YET?

more seriously, mega medicham is a decent wallbreaker, but is stupid vulnerable to priority. you need to have a way to get her in safely, repeatedly, for her to pull her weight.

 

[XDPokemon]

Dont forget that psychic is neccasary for counter m-venosaur if you dont run talonflame.

 

[Durant]

Dont forget that psychic is neccasary for counter m-venosaur if you dont run talonflame.

There are other birds out there, not just Talonflame.

 

[XDPokemon]

Yea but if im not wrong talonflame is the most common.
If you dont want to be cripple to the stealth rock weakness so a good psychic type like the offensive latios can do a really good job against many threads, including m-vanosaur

There are other birds out there, not just Talonflame.

 

[Frisodium]

We have witnessed the gold age (gen I) and the silver age (gen V) for psychic types. It's pretty obvious why gen I psychic types were so overpowered, so I won't discuss anything else. The "silver age" was due basically because gen V was fighting type's golden age. Dragons were overpowered and they needed someone to break their steel counters, and fighting types were even more efficient for that task than Magnezone. Moreover, the metagame was feeded with so many new and powerful fighting types (Conkeldurr, Mienshao, Keldeo, Terrakion, Scrafty, techniLoom) that the metagame was literally overpopulated with fighting types. In addition, many old psychic pokes recieved a powerful hidden ability (Slowbro, Alakazam, Xatu, Espeon), new pokes were added (Reuniclus, Sigilyph) and they get psyshock in order to pass through the blobs.

What has changed? Many things, but not the psychic pokes themselves. Dark and ghost attacks are simply everywhere, specially the overkilling knock off (probably the most gamebreaking attack since stealth rock). Fairy types, the phantom menace and talonflame have made fighting pokes much less common, thus reducing the niche of psychics as fighting counters. The balance should have been restored if poison types rised to counter the fairies, but that never happened, with only a new poison type introduced and only M-Venusaur raising with a new niche (Venusaur was an important mon in the previous generation with his growth sets under the sun). Toxicroak has vanished. Tentacruel is not common at all. Crobat has raised a little in usage, but he's still uncommon and can simply u-turn any psychic type facing him.

And what have they get to compensate? Almost nothing. Metagross recieved the coup de grace with two new weaknesses. Alakazam recieved a new mega with blazing speed and special attack... that cannot survive in the bulkier and priority infested metagame we have. The same goes for M-Medicham. Gardevoir recieved a huge plus with its new type, but for her psychic typing is simply a burden, making her neutral to dark and bug attacks, and weak to ghost. Defog has made Xatu's and Espeon role as hazard controller much less relevant. Deoxys recieved the "gift" of being weak enougth for OU (speed and defense forms). Reuniclus simply cannot survive the plethora of knock offs it has to face, and the main niche he still has are trick room gimmicks or anti stall capabilities. Slowbro recieved Assault Vest, wich is really amazing actually. And Latios never liked his type anyway...

There are many amazing pokes with psychic typing (in fact, there are way more viable ones than normal, rock or ice types, even in our metagame). It is an awful type, yes, but at least it doesn't have a ton of weaknesses, like rock or ice, and it has decent neutral coverage...

 

[babaGAReeb]

psychic type seems like a extra status effect that will never go away to me. even having no type is better then having psychic type

 

[HauntedPumpkin]

The problem is that if they somehow buff the typing in some way, some Pokemon would be too much (eg Mewtwo). My guess is that GF knows the Psychic typing is trash so they try to make the Pokemon themselves very useful and/or very powerful like Alakazam, Reuniclus, Slowbro, Gothitelle, Lati@s, Espeon etc.

Buffing the typing would mess up with this supposed balance there is, imho. Although I still think something needs to be done.

 

[XDPokemon]

I think also that some of the psychic pokemons are still pretty good at the right teams (my new OU team won many battels, two pokes from the all six are psychic type).
A type that is really need a buff is an ice type, no resistences (only ice) and four weakneses, i think that in the XY OU metagame there are pnly two ice types (mamoswine and kyorem-b) correct me if im wrong.