Ice's downside compared to Water is its abysmal defensive profile, and I would argue Psychic's defensive profile is nearly as bad in a close second-to-last place. Being weak to both U-turn and Knock Off is horrendous.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
Heck, Ice at least has a use offensively because it hits so many types at once and has use offensively for Tera-ing because of coverage.
Psychic meanwhile is good for Poison and Fighting, which the omnipresent Ground and Fairy do better, meanwhile outside of Expanding Force nobody really Teras into the Psychic type.
I’d also say the reason Psychic gets a lot of good moves is because it’s such a bad type overall.
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I like this pokemon
yeah sure it would've been cooler if it were a train but I like rock types, Coalossal is also a cool name
Emboar is my favorite starter
which I also know is very unpopular but it has never bothered me that it has no neck (its a pig) nor have I ever had a problem with it being fire/fighting
yeah sure it would've been cooler if it were a train but I like rock types, Coalossal is also a cool name
Emboar is my favorite starter
which I also know is very unpopular but it has never bothered me that it has no neck (its a pig) nor have I ever had a problem with it being fire/fighting
My stance on Psychic is that Alakazam kind of broke the type and they never figured out how to fix it. Zam too fast, too powerful offensively, and has too much coverage. And it gets that by dying to a light tap. Which means that any normal offensive psychic-type (Raichu-A, Delphox) is going to be hopelessly outclassed by a psychic from Gen 1. You either give it a broken ability (Espeon, Espathra), or you have to make it bulky. And any bulky Psychic has to compete with Alakazam for a teamslot AND has to deal with everyone running stuff that beats Zam(and also the defensive profile sucks and people hate bulky mons in general).
They can't buff the type without Zam breaking stuff, they can't make interesting complex mons because everyone would rather run Alakazam, and so we're left with stuff like Slowbro or Hatterene as the actual relevant mons of the type. And most of those sorts of bulky mons are themselves broken, because being broken is the only way to handle the problem of being weak to U-Turn etc. But also I don't see a way to fix things. It's a mess.
They can't buff the type without Zam breaking stuff, they can't make interesting complex mons because everyone would rather run Alakazam, and so we're left with stuff like Slowbro or Hatterene as the actual relevant mons of the type. And most of those sorts of bulky mons are themselves broken, because being broken is the only way to handle the problem of being weak to U-Turn etc. But also I don't see a way to fix things. It's a mess.
B-B-B-BASED i love emboar so much dude he's a badass chinese warrior pig with one of the best starter shinies
Coalossal is cool as fuck, hard agree.I like this pokemon
yeah sure it would've been cooler if it were a train but I like rock types, Coalossal is also a cool name
Emboar is my favorite starter
Emboar isn't bad, and a lot of the hate from being fire/fighting is due to it being the 3rd gen in a row of it but IDT thats really emboars fault. I would say emboar is middle of the road for starters, not bad, but nothing spectacular.
Anyways, starter tier list. Generally something is ranked due to its final form, though other evos do account a bit. And tbh, even the lower starters aren't bad, they just aren't as good as the higher ones. For example, meganium isn't even bad, i'd say its a pretty good pokemon, just it is worse then every other starter. Also I tried to order it in the tiers, but they aren't 100% accurate.
I feel like it’s a thought too rigid without considering other factors, as well as GF’s utter refusal of severely toning down stats of a broken Pokémon (only happened to a few fringe of Pokémon that got infamy in VGC and nothing more), even with people complaining if this happens. There’s also Starmie and Exeggutor making names in Gen 1 OU because of how ubiquitous Psychic is, not just Alakazam.
Raichu-A and Delphox at least got dual STAB and the latter having a distinct Ability, so those not wanting to use Alakazam for a change may enjoy using them while facing challenges. Plus Alakazam, with or without Mega, is itself victim of power-creep with Legendary Psychics in mind, especially Shadow Calyrex.
most of the starters I don't have strong opinions on but I think my top 5 are Emboar, Torterra, Rillaboom, Skeledirge, Feraligatr.
I think in the very weird format they had back then as their official format the most used psychic type was Jynx which has always surprised me every time I remember it.
it's also funny they can't nerf U-Turn because it would buff Scizor
They could bring it down to 50 and it would only barely buff it for Scizor (70 -> 75) , or they could bring it down to 45 or lower to not give Scizor any buff and it would probably still be a top tier move. Also, fun fact, there is only one 45 BP move currently, Vine Whip.
To add to this, every good Psychic Pokemon I encounter feels like it's good in spite or or with no relevance on the Psychic typing a lot of the time. The only two resistances it gives are itself and Fighting, and given how poor Psychic's Coverage is outside of strong neutral STAB like Alakazam's sweeper Stat Line or Expanding Force in general with a Terrain Boost, how often are you realistically benefiting from that side?
Slowbro appreciates the Close Combat resistance, but is that a good trade for being weak to Dark (Knock Off, Sucker Punch Kingambit), Bug (U-Turn everywhere), and Ghost (it and Slowking could otherwise deal well with Gholdengo or Dragapult, for example). Hatterene is a Fairy/Psychic, and Fairy more or less amounts to "what if we didn't break Psychic's Knees" given its role as Anti-Fighting + Neutral coverage which resisting Psychic's most valuable defensive trait PLUS one of its most significant weaknesses. I'm hard-pressed to think Hatterene would not have been stronger as Pure Fairy.
And now it's too deep-seeded. They made so many Pokemon that are busted for their time with the mediocre traits of Psychic (Mewtwo, Lugia, Cosmog Evos and Necrozma Forms, friggin both Calyrex riders) that if they buff the type, these things risk running wild and making Restricted VGC completely unfun (especially considering the Horses already kind of do) without going in to rebalance THEM, which you know Game Freak and TPC aren't gonna spend the time on even in this hypothetical.
Honestly it’s pretty reasonable for Psychic-Type to be in the position it’s in. It’s always been a weird type, since it doesn’t “fit” the two main categories of type. Most types are either elemental (fire, ice, water, electric, etc.) or physical characteristics (rock, bug, grass, dragon, ghost, etc.) or occasionally both (flying). The others that don’t really fit either — Dark and Fairy — are later additions than Psychic where its identity had already been formed.
Psychic-Type is basically Normal-Type except abnormal. These are mons that don’t fit either of the above categories, but can do ooooh psychic powers ! Bend a spoon ! Use the undescriptive attack Psychic to hit hard all, y’know, psychicly!
Because of that it’s not got a lot of instinctive type interactions that necessarily track. It probably could resist and/or be super effective against Normal, and they didn’t go for that, but that would also harm Normal a lot so fair enough. For all the others… what does using “Psychic” on a flame, or an ocean, or a plant, or a rock, etc. really do? Psychic is so undefined as a concept or element that it wouldn’t do anything. Being Psychic isn’t real, it’s just being vaguely special. That extends up to current day. Psychic Fangs is just Bite but Psychic, Psyshock is just Psychic but shocking(?), Psycho Boost is just Psychic but it, ironically, lowers your own stats (so not boost then).
When you take that into account, Psychic as a type pretty much sucking due to lack of meaningful interactions tracks, it’s much like Normal-Type in that way. But Psychic-Type is meant to be more special than Normal-Type, so give Psychic Pokémon some higher stats on average and pat yourself on the back, you’ve got a realised type concept. I think it’s why the vast majority of Psychic-Type Pokémon are mammalian. Obviously there’s some exceptions, just like Normal-Type has some exceptions (such as God or dragons except old), but on the bulk these are supposed to be real life everyday animals that are just turned into Pokémon with maybe like one or two fantastical components added to them. Gen I only had Psychic-Type mammals and a tree (and a clone of one of those mammals but it’s still a cat). Mimes are mammals too.
Psychic-Type is basically Normal-Type except abnormal. These are mons that don’t fit either of the above categories, but can do ooooh psychic powers ! Bend a spoon ! Use the undescriptive attack Psychic to hit hard all, y’know, psychicly!
Because of that it’s not got a lot of instinctive type interactions that necessarily track. It probably could resist and/or be super effective against Normal, and they didn’t go for that, but that would also harm Normal a lot so fair enough. For all the others… what does using “Psychic” on a flame, or an ocean, or a plant, or a rock, etc. really do? Psychic is so undefined as a concept or element that it wouldn’t do anything. Being Psychic isn’t real, it’s just being vaguely special. That extends up to current day. Psychic Fangs is just Bite but Psychic, Psyshock is just Psychic but shocking(?), Psycho Boost is just Psychic but it, ironically, lowers your own stats (so not boost then).
When you take that into account, Psychic as a type pretty much sucking due to lack of meaningful interactions tracks, it’s much like Normal-Type in that way. But Psychic-Type is meant to be more special than Normal-Type, so give Psychic Pokémon some higher stats on average and pat yourself on the back, you’ve got a realised type concept. I think it’s why the vast majority of Psychic-Type Pokémon are mammalian. Obviously there’s some exceptions, just like Normal-Type has some exceptions (such as God or dragons except old), but on the bulk these are supposed to be real life everyday animals that are just turned into Pokémon with maybe like one or two fantastical components added to them. Gen I only had Psychic-Type mammals and a tree (and a clone of one of those mammals but it’s still a cat). Mimes are mammals too.
Psyshock is condensing psychic energy into physical matter and then hitting the opponent with it. How this is different enough from Psycho Cut to be run off special attack and not physical is unclear. Even more unclear is how Esper Wing is different enough from Psycho Cut to be an entirely different move category as opposed to Psyshock's weird in-between.
Psycho Cut is basically like Slash and the like, an elemental extension of the claws or other sharp body part but still governed by physical strength. Most special Psychic moves are generally depicted as telekinesis acting on the target, Psyshock meanwhile is claimed to be the Pokémon materializing an odd psychic wave, so I guess the difference would be that it's physical Psychic energy that is then thrown at the target?
Esper Wing has never appeared in the anime, but the animation in the games is basically just Air Cutter with a pink glow, and it doesn't make contact, so I don't think it really is anything like Psycho Cut?
Psychic pokemon are either literal psychics or aliens, they harness the power of space and/or their mind
so it bothers me that Moonblast is a Fairy-type move rather than being Psychic-type because Psychic-type is supposed to be the celestial type. Not only did Fairy steal the anti-Fighting niche but they also are randomly infringing on the Space theme.
It's essentially the Magic type, and "Magic" or "Arcane" or whatever synonym they use is usually depicted as an element in other rpgs. Fairy is now the second Magic type but it's both magic and not, Game Freak can't really decide. Like half of Fairy is faes and the other half is just pink cute things.
Clefable is kind of the perfect example to me of how Fairy is a very contrived type they mostly invented for balance reasons. Psychic type was somewhat weird in Gen 1 because they took it rather literally with like one space alien in Gen 1 (Staryu/Starmie). Then later they went more all in on the whole Space Alien = Psychic thing in Gen 3 especially. At that point I think Clefable should've been Psychic and probably would have been if they had introduced it then rather than it being a Gen 1 pokemon. If you look at a list of Fairy types Clefable oddly stands out other than it being Pink (when color isn't supposed to be what type something is 100% of the time or Luxray would be Dark lol) At the very least I think Clefable should be like Gardevoir line and be Fairy/Psychic but when they added new types they didn't want to replace anything other than Normal.
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The Clefairy line are supposed to be Japanese moon fairies Ala Princess Kaguya, and potentially also the moon rabbit based on the ears. Also Clefable's Japanese name is literally Pixie. The moon never had any sort of specific association with Psychic. Moonlight was a Normal move.
Theres no type more contrived to me than dark honestly.
I think Dark is the most clear non-elemental type in the game because it's just a bunch of edgy monsters and mean moves. The only contrived part to me is that the English localizers were cowards and decided to call it Dark rather than Evil. I guess also that it's weak to Bug but that's more of a specific cultural context and reference from Japanese being completely lost in other languages.
You'd think it's just the pink version of Shadow Claw or Night Slash but no, Psycho Cut is specifically a projectile attack. It doesn't make contact and it's always depicted as blades of psychic energy being launched at the opponent.
It's actually really simple - It's evil is the wrestling sense adapted to animals, a dirty fighter who will pull out every underhanded trick in the book to win.
Well i say contrived because the whole "evil" thing is kinda a misnomer since this is the same series that also preaches up and down that "no pokemon is truely evil", but more so because the type cant seem to decide if its based on shadow-y moves, general ninja or trickster skills or just flat out "im gonna beat you up so badly your mother won't reconize you" moves. The pokemon themselves dont really help in this regard either.
(how the hell is Arbok, the pokemon that "binds and poisons the frightened victim" Gyarados a pokemon that "has an extremely aggressive nature" less dark than absol a pokemon thats basically a weatherman that no one likes.)
I feel like at this point, because of the level of power a lot of Psychic types are at combined with the devs sheer lack of desire to straight up nerf them, such as Calyrex and NDM, they'd have an easier time adding in a bunch of new attacks and abilities to help buff the weaker Psychic type mons.
Like alot of weaker Psychic types would love to have access to Psycho Boost, an actually good physical attack, or a Freeze dry equivalent for dealing with Steel or Dark types.
Could add in some new abilities to counter Psychic types weakness, like an ability that gives a passive Miracle Eye effect or a resistance to Bug or Ghost types.
Like alot of weaker Psychic types would love to have access to Psycho Boost, an actually good physical attack, or a Freeze dry equivalent for dealing with Steel or Dark types.
Could add in some new abilities to counter Psychic types weakness, like an ability that gives a passive Miracle Eye effect or a resistance to Bug or Ghost types.
I think the idea is that the user is still using their bodies to 'throw' the attack at their opponent vs straight up slashing the target like with Slash or Night Slash
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Also Cresselia, which really should have been updated to at least part Fairy so it actually has a good matchup against Darkrai.
a certain villainous kraken would love this pls game freak
I do agree that game freak is very weird about giving new types to old pokemon, lots of pokemon that shouldve been made dark or fairy that just werent
Cress not being part Fairy I assume was a balancing decision.