Did the dragon type need balancing?

isthatyoudan said:

I always thought it was awesome that dragon types were only weak against each other. It's like they are so awesome, only a dragon can beat another dragon. Like only a ninja can sneak up on another ninja.

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I agree with this, I really liked that idea in the older games.

I haven't played XY yet but I feel like fairy is a cool addition but electric types need nerfing more than dragons do. The only thing that gets electric types is ground. Which means you have something like Eelektross with levitate and voila - a pokemon with no weaknesses. The only thing that really catches Electric types out is their (mostly) crappy defenses. But then to make matters worse, the majority of them have Static. Seriously, there's nothing more annoying.

Dragons are, for the most part, brute strength. what kills it is that Dragons and ice types are pretty rare to find, which makes it brilliant to come up against one!

Ok, so the fairy type has added a new "balance" to the table, but As far as I'm concerned types shouldn't be balanced to the same extent. We need types that are stables as crappy ones, dammit!

isthatyoudan said:

I always thought it was awesome that dragon types were only weak against each other. It's like they are so awesome, only a dragon can beat another dragon. Like only a ninja can sneak up on another ninja.

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Well there was Ice, too...

Dragons felt indestructible in the first gen because of how scarce Pokemon that carried their weakness was. I struggled a lot on Lance and would frequently get frustrated after having tried so hard to beat the rest of the Elite Four only to lose on him.

Even though Fairies are portrayed as these ultimate dragon slayers, the fact of the matter is they balance things for other types too (Fighting/Dark types having another weakness, giving Steel/Poison another type to actually be effective against, and so on).

I like 'em.

Staying on topic: No... Dragons were actually very easy to kill if you hit them fast and hard. Ice Beam was generally my staple move to elinimate any dragons I ran into up to Gen IV, but I kept Ice Punch and Dragon Pulse users on-hand in Gen V, especially in BW2's PWT. However, the Fairy-type offers some greater options aside from being immune to Dragon-type attacks. For instance, Gardevoir is suddenly usable again since its new Fairy-type attributes nullify a lot of Dark-type and Bug-type attacks that would've otherwise instantly KO'ed it in the previous gens (it may not have practical use in competitive battling, but this is a blessing for in-game battles).

I'm more of the mindset that dragons got to big and too powerful.

Let me put it this way - Outrage. In previous gens, it seemed like thats all a dragon needed to do to win. All Moxie Mence needs to do is kill a guy, and it's pretty much over. There's moves like Outrage though.. Petal Dance, Thrash etc.. but those have hard counters. You got ghosts and poison/flying types there to resist that stuff.. sure, you have steel types that can sort of stand up to a dragon's onslaught.. but thats all they do. A good majority of them don't even have the means to dish out damage, so it's really more a matter of time before a dragon overpowers it. You got an Ice type to kill a dragon? Good luck with that. You want to bring your dragon on another dragon's outrage? Not going to get far. Thats what I like about Fairy type. I would LOVE to just Petal Dance my opponents to death with my Venusaur, but I can't. Dragon's shouldn't have the ability to do it either because then the game becomes broken.

That being said, I don't see the Fairy type as a nuetering of the once mighty dragons.. it just means the people who rely on nothing but outrage to carry them need to be a bit more careful about what they do.. because it's not going to work as well anymore. Simular thing happened to Pyschic type back in the day.

Skunter said:

However, the Fairy-type offers some greater options aside from being immune to Dragon-type attacks. For instance, Gardevoir is suddenly usable again since its new Fairy-type attributes nullify a lot of Dark-type and Bug-type attacks that would've otherwise instantly KO'ed it in the previous gens (it may not have practical use in competitive battling, but this is a blessing for in-game battles).

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glad you brought up that stuff regarding the benefits that other-type-turned-fairy pokemon have gained. Mawile, too, has lost some resistances due to being steel-type, yet regains them by being part fairy. Fairy is still a fresh new type..there will still be many additions, improvements and turnarounds in the following gens. That is for sure. Even dark-types didn't fully shine the first time - not everything new does.

On the note about dragons (not directed to anyone), they sure are a "superior" species, given their unwavering overall base stats and offensive moves, i'll give them that... but they still are (and should be) as vulnerable as any type. I don't think gamefreak has to make an exception. They used to be -and still quite are- the "brutes" of the game. Very little strategy was needed to actually "make them work". Perhaps a single type can change that - and I would find that pulling me back to OUs and battling with/against them once again. Got too bored of the cliched OU battles in the past years, to be honest =/ Once again, not going pro or anti-dragons/fairies. Just think that everything's still pretty balanced so far, no big deal.

LoudSilence said:

Funny how Electric has managed to have only one weakness all the way from GenI until now...but I guess Ground-types are common enough that it's not unbalanced?

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One thing about electric is that they're mostly, if not all, glass cannons(can hit hard but can't take a hit themselves) so countering one will mostly not require a Ground-type in your team, as long as you have one that can resist it.

Non-legend Dragons are sort off unbalanced in that, statwise, they equal or compete most legendaries. Half of the pseudo legends(w/ BST 600) are dragon types so it adds to my point.

Fairy-type shouldn't have been announced to counter them, but if not, what can? Sure there is Ice to fight them and Steel to resist them, but most dragons are able to carry Flamethrower and Steel-types are mostly Specially weak. Both Ice and Steel are slow, and so is Fairy, but it can take a Flamethrower, or two.

Dragon-Types were originally meant to be super powerful, and even when they added the new types into Gen II the only weaknesses that Dragon-Types have are Ice and Dragon. Now, seriously that's a little overpowered. Don't forget that many Dragon-Types are legendaries, and lots are psuedo. Now, the stats would be immense. I'd understand if Dragon was meant for legendaries only; but quite a lot of Pokémon have the typing, so it was kinda strong.

But with the addition of the Fairy-Type in X/Y, Dragon-Types have been nerfed. Personally, I think they needed this. Now many people are saying Fairy is OP, but seriously it's not. If a Dragon-Type is carefully EV trained, it could stand out most Fairy attacks. Also mentioning that there is only a few strong Fairy-Type moves, such as Moonblast.

Dragons did need to be balanced as they could just use fore/fight/ground moves to get pass their steel resistant.

The fact that they could hit everything except Steel-types for neutral damage with 120/140 base power moves in the form of Outrage and Draco Meteor (before the DM nerf), combined with Earthquake and Fire Blast for perfect coverage on everything, was ridiculous. No other type matched the offensive prowess of the Dragon-type, aside from maybe Water and Fire in their respective weathers (but there were Pokemon that were immune to them). Switching into powerful dragons like Salamence, Garchomp, Latios, Hydreigon, etc. was (and probably still is) a guessing game when battling against a good player. There were no reliable methods of switching in for a good chunk of them. Does this mean the Dragon-type should be nerfed? Maybe, but competitive Pokemon in general is so unbalanced nowadays that even a new type won't come close to fixing all of its problems. The Fairy-type is better than nothing, though.

Creating weaker Dragon types would be loathsome due to its main archetype as lightning bruisers, so giving them another weakness was their only choice to balance them. Archetypes are an important factor for game balance, which is why Electric's status as fragile speedsters allowed them to have only one weakness.

Dragons needed to be heavily nerfed because of their advantage over almost every type in the game. You know about the insanely diverse movepools, fantastic base stats rivaled by no other type and only one resistance to Dragon type moves, Steel. Besides Metagross and a few others, Steel types weren't used much because of their common weaknesses.

GF aimed to make their metagame a little more strategic than battles with 13 year olds and their Outrage Garchomps. I'll admit I've used at least one Dragon in nearly every team I made, so of course Fairy type was necessary.

The Fairy type is obviously a work in progress, there are only a few Fairies that are regularly used. Look at Pokemon like Azumarill with that Belly Drum/Aqua Jet set, and the annoying Sylveon stall sets. To use these correctly, players now need to use more strategy, the goal of GF's metagame.

TLDR: Fairy type was needed, Dragons were so overpowered in the previous gens. I don't like the new Fairy pokemon but I'm in favor of their Dragon-nerfing purpose.

Generally speaking, I like the idea of a new type that counters the Dragon type but I'm not totally satisfied with how it was done.

When the people of Game Freak noted how OP the Dragon type was, they seemed to overlook just how weak the Ice type is defensively..... I think that in setting up the Fairy type the way they did, they made the Steel type even more OP than before, even with the resistances to Ghost and Dark cleared. Not only are Steel attacks super effective against Fairy types, Steel is the unique type that resists both of the Fairy type's weaknesses, and with the Ice type being weak to Steel and not getting any additional resistances, and the Fairy type providing competition with Ice types to serve as Dragon counters, this change served to further marginalize Ice type Pokémon ._. I mean, why didn't they make Ice resist Water at least?

I think that a better way would be to clear the Steel type's resistances to Dragon and Psychic attacks in addition to Ghost and Dark and make Ice types resist Dragon, Water and possibly Ground attacks so that Ice types would have some defensive utility and they could better serve to counter Dragon types and the Steel type wouldn't be so OP ;)

Chrysanthia said:

Generally speaking, I like the idea of a new type that counters the Dragon type but I'm not totally satisfied with how it was done.

When the people of Game Freak noted how OP the Dragon type was, they seemed to overlook just how weak the Ice type is defensively..... I think that in setting up the Fairy type the way they did, they made the Steel type even more OP than before, even with the resistances to Ghost and Dark cleared. Not only are Steel attacks super effective against Fairy types, Steel is the unique type that resists both of the Fairy type's weaknesses, and with the Ice type being weak to Steel and not getting any additional resistances, and the Fairy type providing competition with Ice types to serve as Dragon counters, this change served to further marginalize Ice type Pokémon ._. I mean, why didn't they make Ice resist Water at least?

I think that a better way would be to clear the Steel type's resistances to Dragon and Psychic attacks in addition to Ghost and Dark and make Ice types resist Dragon, Water and possibly Ground attacks so that Ice types would have some defensive utility and they could better serve to counter Dragon types and the Steel type wouldn't be so OP ;)

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Getting rid of Steel's resistance to Psychic is a big no no, because that was its original purpose when it was first introduced in Gen II alongside with Dark types: to nerf Psychic types for having no resistances from their moves other than their own typing. What GF should do to fix Ice types is simply stop making tankish Ice types and start making sweepers, since the type is meant to be a glass cannon.

Pinkie-Dawn said:

...which is why Electric's status as fragile speedsters allowed them to have only one weakness.

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and yet Ice -being the same glasscannons- lack the speed and have 4x the weaknesses. Uh-uh -- before anyone responds to that... I have nothing against the electric type. "There is still imbalance here and there" is just what I wanted to point out.

Chrysanthia said:

...and make Ice types resist Dragon, Water and possibly Ground attacks so that Ice types would have some defensive utility...

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I'd think that being resistant to ground and dragon -two physically-attuned typings- is rather unlikely. Overkill, to be exact. Ground can dent steel, and Dragons can smash things to bits. Being resistant to flying and water types is probably the most it can get. On the other hand, grass types are too similar to water in terms of strengths - quite lame since both are starter types. What I despise more is that grass gets all those weaknesses while Water is looking great with only 2 weaknesses to boot.

Revising the type chart is one solution (which I'm still desperately looking forward to for grass-types) to this problem; and, as mentioned above, creating (competitively) better pokemon under those types is another. I'd have to admit, the former can cause more harm than good, but both have already worked well in the past. I'll just wait for Gamefreak to make their move... hopefully.