• Our software update is now concluded. You will need to reset your password to log in. In order to do this, you will have to click "Log in" in the top right corner and then "Forgot your password?".
  • Forum moderator applications are now open! Click here for details.
  • Welcome to PokéCommunity! Register now and join one of the best fan communities on the 'net to talk Pokémon and more! We are not affiliated with The Pokémon Company or Nintendo.

Which Pokemon Type Suffered the Most?

Which Type Suffered the Most

  • Grass

    Votes: 8 26.7%
  • Fire

    Votes: 2 6.7%
  • Electric

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Ice

    Votes: 1 3.3%
  • Poison

    Votes: 11 36.7%
  • Psychic

    Votes: 2 6.7%
  • Rock

    Votes: 4 13.3%
  • Flying

    Votes: 2 6.7%

  • Total voters
    30
  • Poll closed .

Pinkie-Dawn

Vampire Waifu
9,528
Posts
11
Years
There are some people who suggest that the type chart needs an overhaul, because some types are used less, outclassed by other types, or are generally given bad stat spreads. Here are the types who have suffered from these categories:

Grass types - They have 5 weaknesses, which ruins their supporting roles, and suffer from shallow movepools to cover them. Very few of them have a Rock move to cover 4/5 of their weaknesses.

Fire types - They have a glass cannon status, and to make matters worse, they're next to unusable due to the presence of Stealth Rock. Solarbeam is also a terrible way to cover their only weaknesses if you're not using a Sunny Day team. Dragon types outclass Fire types, for they also have access to Fire moves to beat Steel types.

Electric types - Despite having only one weakness, Ground, they have a fragile speedster status, which means just about any move they don't resist can be a OHKO. They also suffer coverage against their only weakness.

Ice types - They only have one resistance, which is their own type, and that's about it. Game Freak constantly tries to make them bulky to make up for it, but that's not how the type itself works. They are outclassed by Water types, who also learn Ice moves, have more resistances, and do not suffer from a Stealth Rock weakness.

Poison types - They only have one advantage against Grass, which isn't a very common type in battle, and it lost its niche by the fact that every single Pokemon can learn Toxic.

Psychic types - The real reason why Psychics were OP in Gen 1 was because of the lack of diversity and strong moves for Ghost and Bug types, and most of the Kanto Pokemon were Poison types. Apart from legendaries, Alakazam was the strongest Gen 1 Psychic type while everyone else have lots of weaknesses and don't have powerful special stats. Since then, GF has been screwing the type by making slower and weaker Pokemon.

Rock types - Because of how dominant Fighting types are this gen, they can't utilize their full potential. Plus, they can't cover all of their 5 weaknesses unlike Grass types.

Flying types - Despite Fighting types' dominance, Flying types are rare to be seen due to the fact that not all of them have good SpA stats to use Heat Wave against Steel types, nor do they have good Fighting moves. Some aren't bulky enough to be worth using despite getting harmed by Stealth Rock.

Which of these types I've listed do you think have suffered the most in the series?
 

Captain Gizmo

Monkey King
4,843
Posts
11
Years
I would say either rock or flying.

Rock for one, a lot of them got very low speed, so the other trainer could just switch out for a super effective Pokemon or just hit them with a supper effective move.

Birds, they don't have alot of defense and special defense, so alot of attacks could easily bring them down to 50% of their health or lower.
 

lineofdeath

...overuser of the ellipsis...
179
Posts
11
Years
Poison, I think the hot the short stick, they need , ore duper effective types that are weak to it, more powerful stab moves, better stats ( for the majority) better typing (toxicroak, I'm looking at you) and basically need to be better!
 
14,092
Posts
14
Years
No bug types? It took most of them until Generation 4 to even get decent STAB moves, because there literally were none. :/

Flying is pretty disadvantaged too. Lack of widely available powerful attacks, Stealth Rock weakness, Ice & Electric weakness, etc.
 

Griffinbane

I hate Smeargle.
1,293
Posts
16
Years
Rock types for certain. Seriously, very few of them are special attackers and there are no rock type special attacks (hidden power doesn't count). The majority of them are physical attackers and/or physically defensive. The few that aren't are glass cannons, or slow, or use forced to use nothing but non-rock moves. Special water and grass attacks ruin them terribly and those types are rampant in competitive, casual AND in-game. Aura sphere ruins them too and that move is somewhat common in wifi battling. Okay, they're strong as hell, and bulky too, but they're slower than a snail. Most of them, anyway. Aerodactyl was scary in gen 4 but nowadays, pfft! Flick an Ice Beam at it and watch it fall like a meteor.

But how to make a special rock-type attack that is believable?
 

Pinkie-Dawn

Vampire Waifu
9,528
Posts
11
Years
Rock types for certain. Seriously, very few of them are special attackers and there are no rock type special attacks (hidden power doesn't count). The majority of them are physical attackers and/or physically defensive. The few that aren't are glass cannons, or slow, or use forced to use nothing but non-rock moves. Special water and grass attacks ruin them terribly and those types are rampant in competitive, casual AND in-game. Aura sphere ruins them too and that move is somewhat common in wifi battling. Okay, they're strong as hell, and bulky too, but they're slower than a snail. Most of them, anyway. Aerodactyl was scary in gen 4 but nowadays, pfft! Flick an Ice Beam at it and watch it fall like a meteor.

You know, Rock types have Sturdy and Rock Polish to fix those flaws you've mentioned. The problem is that Ground types outclasses it on the offensive side, and Steel outclasses it on the defensive side. The only reasons Tyranitar and Terrakion are being used is because the former is a weather summoner and the latter is a Fighting type and happens to be part of the reason why Fighting types are dominating the metagame.

But how to make a special rock-type attack that is believable?

A move involving meteor showers?
 
483
Posts
11
Years
  • Seen Oct 2, 2020
The types are mostly fine. Sure they've got their weakness and the things they can't hit well, but it's no coincidence that those things are generally the same things. Sure - grasses have trouble hitting flyers effectively, but that's just because that's the way that type matchup works. Grasses are weak to flying attacks anyway, so they really have no business being in against a flyer in the first place. The fact that they can't hit them well is, or should be, moot, since it's a matchup to be avoided. In-game, where most of us spend most of our time (and where I spend all of mine), such things are of only passing significance and generally don't harm the balance of the game, since far and away the best strategy is simply to switch away from poor matchups, rather than to lament the fact that one type doesn't have an attack to super-effectively hit another type that it's defensively weak to anyway.

And I want to hammer on that point for a minute, since it's fundamental to the games. The entire identity of the games is wrapped up in the diverse types of Pokemon and their innate strengths and weaknesses. That's why all those things exist in the game in the first place, why you have room for a team of six and why switching during battle is possible. The entire point, obviously, is that pokemon are good against some things and bad against others, but if you combine a few of them and spread those strengths and weaknesses around, you can come up with a team that, between them, can handle any threat. Beyond the fact that it usually doesn't make any sense for a hunk of grass or a flower to be able to attack a flying opponent with rocks, there's no reason why it should need to be able to anyway, since a good trainer has another pokemon that CAN attack that flying opponent with rocks, and that other pokemon is just sitting there in its ball, ready to be switched in so it can do exactly that. In-game, that's the best strategy, and it's obviously the way the games were designed from day one. And it works just fine. It's only in the competitive metagame that switching is a problem, and I really don't want to see all the rest of the games undermined just to accommodate the current strategies of the competitive battling minority.

All that said, in-game, Poison types are certainly at a bit of a disadvantage overall. They just really don't have a useful niche. They only have one type they can hit super-effectively, and that's Grass, which a lot of types can hit SE, so they're certainly not special there. They have a pretty good range of neutral coverage, but they don't particularly stand out there too, since they don't have anything that other types don't have - their most powerful move is Gunk Shot - 120 base with 70% accuracy - and their most powerful 100% accuracy move is Sludge Wave, which is 95 base. That's exactly on par with, for instance, Flare Blitz and Flamethrower or Hydro Pump and Surf, and without the important SE hits those types get. With fewer SE types, they really need some more powerful attacks, since neutral STAB is pretty much the best they're going to do. And I think it'd be interesting at least, and reasonable, for Poison types to get some sort of bonus for Poison status, since, as noted, pretty much everything in the game can now use Toxic, so being able to poison opponents isn't special at all. It might work to bump up the added effects of all the poison type offensive moves so that they can poison at the ever-increasing Toxic rate, but ONLY if they're used by Poison types, and/or to eliminate that rate from Toxic and make it just simple 1/16 or maybe 1/8 damage per turn if it's used by a non-Poison type. That would essentially give Poison types a sort of "STAB" on the poison effect, which would at least give them some sort of niche.

Psychics struggled in Gen IV. They've never been as powerful as they were in Gen I, but they were broken in Gen I, so that's a good thing. They were pretty much fine in Gens II and III, but Gen IV brought a much broader distribution of Dark moves (damned near everything in the Sinnoh dex learns Bite and Crunch), which really hurt the viability of the already sort of fragile Psychics. GF appears to know that though, which I presume is the reason for the introduction of some notably bulky Psychics in the Unova dex. As near as I can tell, that's a balance issue that GF is actively addressing.

I don't think any of the other types are particularly disadvantaged, or at least not unworkably so. As I already said - they all have their weaknesses, and some have more than others, but that's as it should be - it's a fundamental aspect of the games, and in-game, isn't a problem. It's just the basis of team strategy, as it should be, and in my opinion, it doesn't need to be and more importantly shouldn't be changed.

I would think that if anything should be changed to deal with the skewing of things in the competitive metagame, it's Stealth Rock itself. Rather than altering the balance and movepools of some enormous number of pokemon with all the repercussions that would have on all the games and all the players just because of one overused move (and particularly a move that's essentially useless in-game), they should alter that move so that it no longer forces virtually all competitive battlers to plan their strategies around it. Done and done.
 

Sassy Milkshake

It's ok to cry.
371
Posts
11
Years
  • Age 32
  • Seen Feb 10, 2013
I guess it's not popular opinion, but I immediately thought Normal. With no super effective moves, no resistances if I'm correct, and without the ability to hit Ghosts, I feel like they're at a disadvantage. Coverage varies from Pokemon to Pokemon, but from my experience, Normal types have a hard time competing with the other types out there.
 
8,571
Posts
14
Years
I guess it's not popular opinion, but I immediately thought Normal. With no super effective moves, no resistances if I'm correct, and without the ability to hit Ghosts, I feel like they're at a disadvantage. Coverage varies from Pokemon to Pokemon, but from my experience, Normal types have a hard time competing with the other types out there.
This was the very first thing that came to my mind as well. Although, being the Normal type, I guess it does make a little sense that it's at a disadvantage.

Other than Normal, I think that the Flying type has one of the biggest disadvantages. Up until the fifth gen, not a single Pokemon was primarily Flying type (and Tornadus is still the only single-type Flying Pokemon). It also has a pretty small movepool, and weaknesses to common move types like Ice, Rock and Electric.
 

Nolafus

Aspiring something
5,724
Posts
11
Years
I think grass because they have an enormous amount of weaknesses and can't always cover those weaknesses. I guess that is made up a little by moves such a giga drain, but despite the fact I love them, I find it hard sometimes to make it work.
 
50,218
Posts
13
Years
Poison, cos even though some of them may look cool, the fact that it's only super-effective against Grass means they really need a buff of all things.
 

Cerberus87

Mega Houndoom, baby!
1,639
Posts
11
Years
I would think that if anything should be changed to deal with the skewing of things in the competitive metagame, it's Stealth Rock itself. Rather than altering the balance and movepools of some enormous number of pokemon with all the repercussions that would have on all the games and all the players just because of one overused move (and particularly a move that's essentially useless in-game), they should alter that move so that it no longer forces virtually all competitive battlers to plan their strategies around it. Done and done.

Either that, or Smogon should've had the balls to actually ban it back when it was first released. Take every description on Smogon of NU Pokémon with a 4x weakness to Rock and it'll say they're only NU because of Stealth Rock (Charizard being the biggest example).

I remember the 4th gen pre-release discussion threads on Smogon very well, and everyone agreed that Stealth Rock made a lot of Pokémon very difficult to use properly. But they chose not to ban it, and the biggest counter to Steel types (Fire) was severely weakened by the introduction of the move. I remember discussing this in another forum and mentioning the only Pokémon in OU with a 4x weakness to Stealth Rock is Volcarona, which despite the 4x weakness, is a powerhouse with huge Special stats and Quiver Dance.
 

Pinkie-Dawn

Vampire Waifu
9,528
Posts
11
Years
Either that, or Smogon should've had the balls to actually ban it back when it was first released. Take every description on Smogon of NU Pokémon with a 4x weakness to Rock and it'll say they're only NU because of Stealth Rock (Charizard being the biggest example).

I remember the 4th gen pre-release discussion threads on Smogon very well, and everyone agreed that Stealth Rock made a lot of Pokémon very difficult to use properly. But they chose not to ban it, and the biggest counter to Steel types (Fire) was severely weakened by the introduction of the move. I remember discussing this in another forum and mentioning the only Pokémon in OU with a 4x weakness to Stealth Rock is Volcarona, which despite the 4x weakness, is a powerhouse with huge Special stats and Quiver Dance.

To be fair, Fire types have been suffering since the very beginning of the series before Stealth Rock came along to seal the final nail in the coffin. There was not a single a Fire type in OU for the first two gens, and the only Fire type who made it to OU for Gen III was Houndoom.
 

Puppeteer Mask

Hey-Chicka-Bump-Bump!
129
Posts
11
Years
I'm going to say that the Poison type deserves a much needed overhaul, only being able to hit grass types for super effective damage and even then only sporadically. The introduction of the Steel type as well as the fact that bug types are no longer weak against them really hurt them bad. I could probably think of a few pokemon types that could be weak to poison that aren't. The Poison and Rock types are the only types to yet have their own dedicated legendary, if I remember correctly, but I think Poison types have gotten it worse considering the rock type has gotten several wonderful gifts over the generations, including that darned gamebreaking Stealth Rock. There are plenty of Poison type pokemon that would be downright great if they made the poison type a genuinely viable attacking option.
 
40
Posts
11
Years
  • Seen Dec 23, 2013
I'm going to say that the Poison type deserves a much needed overhaul, only being able to hit grass types for super effective damage and even then only sporadically. The introduction of the Steel type as well as the fact that bug types are no longer weak against them really hurt them bad. I could probably think of a few pokemon types that could be weak to poison that aren't. The Poison and Rock types are the only types to yet have their own dedicated legendary, if I remember correctly, but I think Poison types have gotten it worse considering the rock type has gotten several wonderful gifts over the generations, including that darned gamebreaking Stealth Rock. There are plenty of Poison type pokemon that would be downright great if they made the poison type a genuinely viable attacking option.

There is Regirock as far as legendaries goes. On the subject of poison I do believe that the super effect damage against bug should be returned AND I think it would be an okay idea to add super effective damage against fighting types. Fighting types could use another weakness imo since they only currently have 2 but are also super effective toward 5 types. The only other type super effective against 5 types is ground and it has 3 weaknesses. The only justification I have for poison being super effective against fighting (outside of posion resisting fighting) would be that fighting types would move the poison through thier system faster due to the natural physical exertion is battle.
 

Sweets Witch

I just love ham jerky.
1,388
Posts
11
Years
Poison's definitely suffered the most, but Ice disappoints me more. Ice moves are extremely useful. HP Ice is great and I've used it many, many times, but there's no such demand for Poison moves.
 

Puppeteer Mask

Hey-Chicka-Bump-Bump!
129
Posts
11
Years
There is Regirock as far as legendaries goes. On the subject of poison I do believe that the super effect damage against bug should be returned AND I think it would be an okay idea to add super effective damage against fighting types. Fighting types could use another weakness imo since they only currently have 2 but are also super effective toward 5 types. The only other type super effective against 5 types is ground and it has 3 weaknesses. The only justification I have for poison being super effective against fighting (outside of posion resisting fighting) would be that fighting types would move the poison through thier system faster due to the natural physical exertion is battle.

Gah, I plain forgot all about Regirock. My bad, I dropped the ball hard on that one. And there's Terrakion too... But yeah, Poison needs some more help, its options are really lacking at the moment.
 

PlatinumDude

Nyeh?
12,964
Posts
13
Years
Both Poisons and Psychics suffered the most, IMO. Psychic was the most powerful type in R/B/Y, but G/S/C introduced the Dark and Steel types to keep them in check. Now, Psychic isn't one of the best types for a Pokémon to have.

Poison, on the other hand, suffered in the type shift in G/S/C because in R/B/Y, they hit 2 types for supereffective damage (Grass, Bug). The type chart in G/S/C was modified so that Poison only hit Bug supereffectively; Poison moves were also rendered useless by Steels.
 
Back
Top