6th Gen New Type Confirmed: Fairy!

I think it needs to interact with Dark in some way, I bet it will be weak to it because Dark is already weak to one of the strongest attacking types in the game (Fighting). Also it could be weak to Ghost because that's only super effective against two types (and one of them is itself).

Welp, I guess I finally get to comment on the officialness of the Fairy type. As much as I'm truly not a fan of it, I guess it's nice to see it confirmed, as speculating on it was getting pretty old =P As far as type effectiveness goes, I agree that Dark will be super effective against Fairy. I honestly don't have any long or thought=out reasoning for it, it's kind of a gut feeling. If anything maybe it'd be something to balance out their strengths, seeing as it hits Dragons hard, it probably needs something that can take it down.

Jake♫ said:

Welp, I guess I finally get to comment on the officialness of the Fairy type. As much as I'm truly not a fan of it, I guess it's nice to see it confirmed, as speculating on it was getting pretty old =P As far as type effectiveness goes, I agree that Dark will be super effective against Fairy. I honestly don't have any long or thought=out reasoning for it, it's kind of a gut feeling. If anything maybe it'd be something to balance out their strengths, seeing as it hits Dragons hard, it probably needs something that can take it down.

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I was thinking that if Yveltal is Dark/Flying and Xerneas is Grass/Fairy they might want Fairy to have a weakness to dark so both will have a weakness to each other.

JayTheKing said:

I was thinking that if Yveltal is Dark/Flying and Xerneas is Grass/Fairy they might want Fairy to have a weakness to dark so both will have a weakness to each other.

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If dark is strong against fairy then a dark/flying Yveltal has advantage over a grass/fairy Xerneas. They won't be weak to one another.

Also...I'm starting to think Xerneas is part Ice. It uses an attack in one of the newer trailers that looks like an Ice type attack. I don't know if either of them will be fairy since neither has bad thier type revealed after Fairy's revealing.

XanderO said:

Also...I'm starting to think Xerneas is part Ice. It uses an attack in one of the newer trailers that looks like an Ice type attack. I don't know if either of them will be fairy since neither has bad thier type revealed after Fairy's revealing.

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Something I remember mentioning awhile back was its antlers. They're very crystalline looking, almost like icicles. On top of the new attack it was shown using (if it does end up being an Ice type move), then it very well might end up being an Ice type. If that were to happen, Xerneas ended up being part Fairy, AND Yveltal ends up being part Dark (yes, this is extremely stretched out, just go with it), then they'd be balanced too. Not that they need to be or anything, but it'd be cool I suppose!

XanderO said:

If dark is strong against fairy then a dark/flying Yveltal has advantage over a grass/fairy Xerneas. They won't be weak to one another.

Also...I'm starting to think Xerneas is part Ice. It uses an attack in one of the newer trailers that looks like an Ice type attack. I don't know if either of them will be fairy since neither has bad thier type revealed after Fairy's revealing.

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Yeah my bad.I meant fairy stronger than dark.
And still the possibilities of Xerneas being Fairy are the same as him being ice.

I dunno if its exactly on topic, but the dragon metagame giants thing seems blown out if proportion now that the vgcs have ended and the three champions didn't use any mainstream dragons from what has been posted. One kid won with a Sandstorm team so I gotta question the effect of Fairies now. Nintendo meta doesn't have as many dragon heavy teams and this last vgc showed it. I have to ask if it was really needed now since dragons were barely used at all this go round.

I think the whole dark super effective against fairy will only really be valid if this new Fairy type is purely for Disney style fairies. (which I hope won't be the case)

I can't imagine any of the more sinister fairies or trolls being bothered by the dark type.

This new type introduction will motivate me to buying the Strategy Guide so that I can fully understand how the new Fairy type works in terms of advantages and weaknesses.

XanderO said:

I dunno if its exactly on topic, but the dragon metagame giants thing seems blown out if proportion now that the vgcs have ended and the three champions didn't use any mainstream dragons from what has been posted. One kid won with a Sandstorm team so I gotta question the effect of Fairies now. Nintendo meta doesn't have as many dragon heavy teams and this last vgc showed it. I have to ask if it was really needed now since dragons were barely used at all this go round.

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Well I'm personally hoping that wasn't the reason that the Fairy type came to be. If it was to balance a type that I personally think wasn't overpowered, then there was a better way to do it. They should have made new Pokémon using current types that would be able to beat them, not bring in a new type to counter something. It was one thing for Psychic types, who in Gen I were pretty much unbeatable, and NEEDED a new type to balance them out. In this situation we didn't need the Fairy type to balance Dragons, just new Pokémon who were better equipped to counter them. As you said, people won without using Dragons, so were they really overpowered?

shengar said:

If Fairy SE against Ice, then Ice-type practically near useless now as they have too many weaknesses with too little offense advantage. We know that Ice-type worth something because they are the only type that SE against Dragon beside itself. While other Ice offense advantage easily replaced by something else. Use Fire for grass, Water for Ground, and Electric for Flying. With too many weaknesses, the STAB isn't worth it. It'll be better ito use Water Pokemon for Ice attack.

They add one potential strong type while in the meantime they make another already weak type into near-useless state. Well, this is rather harsh isn't it?

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ice types werent meant to be defensive. in fact other than cryogonal i cant really think of an ice type that specializes in defense. but theyre massive at offense, being good to ground, grass, flying, and yes dragon. you just have to know how to use them. like my favorite would be either abomosnow or walrein

Jake♫ said:

Well I'm personally hoping that wasn't the reason that the Fairy type came to be. If it was to balance a type that I personally think wasn't overpowered, then there was a better way to do it. They should have made new Pokémon using current types that would be able to beat them, not bring in a new type to counter something. It was one thing for Psychic types, who in Gen I were pretty much unbeatable, and NEEDED a new type to balance them out. In this situation we didn't need the Fairy type to balance Dragons, just new Pokémon who were better equipped to counter them. As you said, people won without using Dragons, so were they really overpowered?

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During E3 they were asked "will we get some backstory in-game reason for why fairies exist." Matsuda answers: "well we wanted to weaken dragon types without actually weakening dragon types so we added a new type to 'balance' out the game."

Paraphrased. I can edit in the actual Q&A when I get computer access later.

Twilight Sky said:

Steel-types are completely out of the question nowadays due to just about 90% of Dragons having either EQ, Fire Blast, or both. And Ice-types are a laughable measure unless you're talking about weavile which iirc doesn't even get usage in OU, I believe. Even then the presence of stealth rock as well as spikes greatly deter ice-types from switching in, the latter holds true for steel types with the exception of foretress and relevant spinners. Even if entry hazards aren't in play, i believe zone is used at least often enough to trap steels as well as kill them. The point being is that the types that originally resisted dragons and beat them are (to some extent) no longer effective at what they do.

Yes, you can make the argument that creating new Pokemon would remedy this issue in theory, but how? In what stat spread would it be necessary to completely wall a dragon? And even then how would you know that these "better equipped" Pokemon wouldn't be countered/checked by some other means before Dragons feel free to spam outrage?

You could make the argument that this is also true against Fairy, that, hypothetically, if Fairy had weaknesses to poison as well as dark, that these things would deter fairies and dragons would feel free to spam all they would like, but the addition of a (hopeful) dragon-resist is a pleasing thought nonetheless. I do hope that the outcome is that Fairies are immune to dragon types, because I don't know about you, but I like switching in my Pokemon while they take 0 damage from an outrage and have a potential to strike back hard.

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(Totally meant to do this yesterday but PC derped out)

I think the main issue with this entire argument is that it's all centered around competitive Pokémon. Game Freak and Nintendo do not care AT ALL about that when they're making the games. But let respond to it and pretend that they do.

The main thing I'm see here is that Dragons carry the coverage moves required to defeat their counters. How is this different than any other Pokémon? Isn't that the way to beat your counters, regardless of your typing? Reuniclus runs a Fighting move to get past the Dark types that would wall it. Starmie runs BoltBeam to beat everything that resists its Water STAB. Just because something is carrying moves to beat its counters doesn't make them overpowered.

Which leads me on to my next point: carrying a coverage move doesn't make you able to defeat your counter. This is the problem with theorymon: it takes out everything human about it. A good player predicts, and should be able to wager a decent guess about what the other player is thinking. Plus on top of that, it gets rid of strategy. If someone was running an Ice type to be their main counter for Dragons, you would think they'd also run a spinner so that switching out didn't maim them quickly. Magnezone trapping your Steel types? Run Shed Shell. There's ways around everything.

As far as "what stat spread would wall a Dragon" goes, that doesn't exist. That also doesn't exist for any type. The closet thing you are going to get is Blissey walling special attacks, but even now that's not terribly difficult to break through either. With the power creep that happened, Blissey has a hard time walling special attackers now. Throw in Psyshock that hits it Defense instead of Special Defense and now it's even worse. Nothing is going to 100% wall Dragons. I wouldn't want that either.

For this supposed new Pokémon getting counter by something else so Dragons can spam Outrage...isn't that a strategy? Remove your counters so something can sweep? I don't see the problem there. If someone is effectively removing your means to wall something with other Pokémon, then they're playing correctly.


And it looks like that counter-argument was a little pointless (although I stand by it!) due to...

XanderO said:

During E3 they were asked "will we get some backstory in-game reason for why fairies exist." Matsuda answers: "well we wanted to weaken dragon types without actually weakening dragon types so we added a new type to 'balance' out the game."

Paraphrased. I can edit in the actual Q&A when I get computer access later.

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Welp. I guess that would answer that then. Since this is now the case I'm happy they at least went the route of not nerfing them completely, which would have been kind of stupid in my opinion.

GF sure seems to be going all out here with fairy Pokemon, there's was a new bunch released this month...and Xerneas is confirmed as a Fairy...maybe it'll shake the Uber tier a little...considering the number of dragons in that tier...

I definitely feel like since they revealed the new type, they want to show off the new Pokémon which would fall under that type. I'm kind of happy they are doing that, instead of teasing us with the new type and then not showing us anything that falls under that type (minus Sylveon and a few of the old Pokémon they retyped). I'm assuming (well, hoping) that after as many Fairy types they showed us there can't be THAT many more.

True, I wouldn't want to see the type become too common...also all minus the retyped ones are pure fairy...I want to see a new Dual type fairy...

It should also maybe be super affective against Ghost since Spiritomb [and Sableye] need weaknesses.

Raichupacabra said:

It should also maybe be super affective against Ghost since Spiritomb [and Sableye] need weaknesses.

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I don't think they NEED weaknesses. It's not like they're that jacked that a type weakness would help tremendously. I think they're fine as they are.

I really want to see some NEW Pokemon that are dual-typed with Fairy. The old ones are all well and good, and definitely make things interesting... but I really hope they're not the only ones that are dual-types.

The Noh Mask looking Bird and Xerneas are like the only two non-disneyfied Fairy Types. ugh. Need more non-disneyfied Fairy types.

XanderO said:

The Noh Mask looking Bird and Xerneas are like the only two non-disneyfied Fairy Types. ugh. Need more non-disneyfied Fairy types.

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The Noh mask bird reminds me of something from Cardcaptor sakura...and Sylveon makes me think of Sailor moon, so the fairy type seems to be more of a "magical girl" based type than "Disney fairies" imo.