What's with the lack of ice types?

So I was talking with some people over on discord about the dragon type,
and I ended up running the numbers and there are almost 4 times as many dragon type pokemon to ice types.

Why in the world are there practically no ice type pokemon? Like individual species pokemon, I'm not talking evolutions and alt forms.

Even fairy type has blown past ice types!

For a type that has been with the series from the very beginning they are severely lacking in number.

it really sucks because i genuinely like the ice type; but it seems like the type itself is kinda... cursed? i dunno, there are some genuinely good ice types out there like weavile and mamoswine, but then Game Freak decides it's a good idea to mess up glaceon's stats and it's just.... sigh

i've mentioned this in the past, but it'd be a lot better for the type if there were less defensive ice types and more offensive ones. ice is a really good offensive type but shitty defensive type and there needs to be more pokemon created that takes advantage of the offense part of the type.

Could be less common due to its defensiveness as a type. Strives to make Pokemon very beginner-friendly. Avoids fragile Pokemon early on as a result. (Frontloads Bug-types with early-game power spikes for the same reason.) Shortens the window to introduce new Ice types. Cannot stick in too many at once either.

Cheats a bit with Dragons. Becomes a much more exclusive group without legendaries.

That's what Global Warming does to the environment: making it harder for Ice Types to survive due to their needs of cold areas not being met while also giving hot blooded creatures like Dragon Types an easier time to survive.

Yes! More Ice types please GameFreak, I need more =)
Preferably some new type combos too while at it!

I feel like it's mainly because Ice has a lot of weaknesses and GF likes to spam Dragons everywhere nowadays.

Maybe because many players avoid Ice type Pokémon (especially pure Ice-types) because they don't provide any defensive coverage to your team that you couldn't get in a much better way with another type, and they usually end up teaching some Ice type move (which is excelent offensively) like good old Ice Beam instead. If you want something that resists Ice, you have Fire/Water resisting Ice and other 3/4 types, or Steel resisting Ice and half of the type chart. But defensively, why would you ever want to add an Ice type Pokémon to your team?

Imo what they should do is improve Ice type defenses so that it can offer something unique. Having just one resistance makes no sense, it probably did in Gen 1 and 2 because apparently Ice was meant to be a dual type like Flying, but we started getting pure Ice types since Gen 3. It's as dumb as the issue with Poison type moves being only super effective against one type (and that type being Grass) that GF took 6 gens to address.

An easy little boost could be taking away Steel's resistance to Dragon (because it has steel too many resistances) and giving it to the Ice type, since Ice is supposed to be good against Dragon. And maaaaaybe also make it resist Ground. I wouldn't go as far as a certain fan game I've played where Ice resisted Electric and Grass because that makes certain dual types like Water-Ice Pokémon super broken and that's not the idea either.

While people have already talked about the mechanic part of things, there's another side: the conceptual.

You can stick types like normal, flying, psychic, fighting pretty much anywhere.
You can stick a water type in any water route.
You can stick a grass or bug type pretty much anywhere grassy.

But an Ice type only really fits somewhere cold (unless their second type make them fit somewhere else).

So I'd say it's not really that surprising that there are very few Ice Types. Nor that there are more Fairy types than Ice Types - you can make anything pink become fairy type, pretty much, can't say the same thing about Ice.

A little off topic but just found another weird mishap, so gen 3 introduced a lot of ghost types, but apparently back then physical special was still based on type.

So shadow ball and other ghost type moves were still attack stat based.
I completely forgot that, so I and many other people, always wondered why in the world shedinja had base 92 attack. https://pokemondb.net/pokedex/shedinja
and practically no attack moves!!

Its because of the switch from type split to move split.

Its stats were created based around the idea that all ghost type moves, were physical.
So with that in mind, pretty much all gen 3 ghost types have just wrong stats.

Because stats are the one thing that NEVER gets changed about pokemon.

I'll take a look to confirm but I'm thinking all gen 3 ghost types need to have their atk & sp atk stats swapped
to match what they should be/intent.

This may be the same for other early species types as well.


edit:
first glance seems only shedinja is like that,
I guess it was meant to be a glass canon, but gen 4 split ruined the small chance of it being useful.

not only does it have the 1hp thing working against it, it's offensive stats are backwards.

Radio said:

While people have already talked about the mechanic part of things, there's another side: the conceptual.

You can stick types like normal, flying, psychic, fighting pretty much anywhere.
You can stick a water type in any water route.
You can stick a grass or bug type pretty much anywhere grassy.

But an Ice type only really fits somewhere cold (unless their second type make them fit somewhere else).

So I'd say it's not really that surprising that there are very few Ice Types. Nor that there are more Fairy types than Ice Types - you can make anything pink become fairy type, pretty much, can't say the same thing about Ice.

Click to expand...

Yeah but that still leaves, every water spot, and most caves.
It doesn't need to be a snow capped mountain.

The first regions didn't have snow but they still fit in jynx, dewgong, cloyster, lapras & articuno.

There are plenty of places Ice types can fit into - underwater, caves, mountains (not necessarily snowy ones either, as long as they're not hot like a volcano), foggy locations, towers, etc. Cubchoo for example can be found in Dragonspiral Tower among other places in Unova, so they're not completely limited to locations that're very cold or iced in. Granted Dragonspiral Tower is probably somewhat cold since it's an old structure but it still opens up possibilities to ice types being available in similar locations. Many places can be reasoned to be cold enough, I feel. To an extent I do feel like their more specific location requirements are why they're a bit rarer than other types, but still wish we could see more.

Meister_anon~Master_o f_None said:

The first regions didn't have snow but they still fit in jynx, dewgong, cloyster, lapras & articuno.

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Lapras is a gift only Pokémon, while Seel + Dewgong, Jynx and Articuno are Seafoam Islands exclusives - which, according to the remaster in FRLG / HGSS / LGPE is a cold and chilly place.

The only Ice type you can get in Gen I that isn't in an icy location, or adjacent to icy locations, is Shellder and even then you can explain that way due to it only evolving into an ice type and being a water type itself.

Sheep said:

Lapras is a gift only while Seel + Dewgong, Jynx and Articuno are Seafoam Islands exclusives - which, given the design overhaul in FRLG / HGSS is implied to be a cold and chilly place. Cubchoo for example can be found in Dragonspiral Tower among other places in Unova, so they're not completely limited to locations that're very cold or iced in. Granted Dragonspiral Tower is probably somewhat cold since it's an old structure but it still opens up possibilities to ice types being available in similar locations. Many places can be reasoned to be cold enough, I feel. To an extent I do feel like their more specific location requirements are why they're a bit rarer than other types, but still wish we could see more.

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Cubchoo (as well as Vanillite and Cryogonal) can only be caught in Dragonspiral Tower during the winter, where it will naturally be colder.
It's also near the city with the Ice Gym and where it snows during the winter, if memory serves me right. It's not very surprising you'd find Ice types in the winter around there.

All I'm saying is that from a design perspective, it sure seems like Game Freak have decided that plain water spots or caves or foggy areas aren't enough for an Ice Type (unless it can be explained away by their other type or another design detail).

Maybe that's an unnecessarily strong restriction on their end but considering the target audience of the games I can certainly understand it.

I will say that I kinda wish the season system would come back, given the latest engine I can see it having interesting effects on the maps and allowing for a bigger distribution of different types.

Well, in Alola you can find Delibird and Smoochum in the first island, in an area that has no ice anywhere in it or around it. I don't remember if there are other exceptions but yeah, technically it shouldn't be a big deal to place a few Ice type Pokémon outside icy areas. I mean if you can find Golbat (a Pokémon weak to Ice) in a certain icy cave, or literally fish a Pokémon weak to Water (Stunfisk), we can't expect complete logic in locations.

I double checked and unless I've missed something or I got the details on Gen VIII stuff wrong, it seems that for the most part there are only three "questionable" ice type placements in the main games (i.e.: not obviously cold or adjacent to somewhere cold), all of them in Alola:

- Seaward Cave
- Alola Route 7
- Crabrawler / Crabominable

Seaward Cave has like 5 different Ice Types, but it doesn't look icy or snowed in or otherwise cold. That said, it does have a NeverMeltIce and the TM for Frost Breath so maybe it was supposed to be an Ice Cave and it's just not obviously cold because the tropics.

Crabrawler isn't an Ice type but it does evolve into one. It also shows up pretty much all over Alola in berry piles, so I don't know what to make of it.

Alola Route 7 has the Spheal family. Now, it is a water route so having a water type in a water route isn't particularly questionable in itself (and in fact it happens a lot with some of the other water / ice types), the thing is Alola Route 7 is explicitly said to be a very hot place. "It makes anyone sweat from the heat of the volcano." is literally in the description of the route.

This is the last place I'd think I'd find an Ice type but OK. (That said, it is an Island Scan encounter so it could very well be a "penguin got stuck in an iceberg until it reached the tropics" situation).

You could count more "questionable" placements if you consider things like Pokéwalker, Hidden Grottoes, Max Raids, Ultra Worlds and so on, but I personally think they don't really count since they have wonkier mechanics in my opinion.

So, I'd say that the few exceptions I could find are still mostly small and it looks to me like there's a conceptual barrier there.

Maybe I got something wrong in Gen VIII, or maybe GameFreak is starting to change things in the newer generations (that would be nice, I suppose) but at least as far as I can tell, "Ice pokemon in icy place pnly" seems to be the design MO.

Edit: Also Articuno has a bit of a weird placing because roaming legendaries have a tendency to be shoved anywhere but then again legends really are on a league of their own.

^ That's interesting. I'd personally like to see more Ice types available early in the games (because they usually start showing up so late when my team is full or almost full so I don't even bother checking them), and at least Pokémon that aren't Ice types themselves but do acquire the Ice type when evolving are good choices for that. Of course things like Abomasnow or Avalugg wouldn't probably fit well in an area without ice but some other species would.

Radio said:

Maybe that's an unnecessarily strong restriction on their end but considering the target audience of the games I can certainly understand it.

I will say that I kinda wish the season system would come back, given the latest engine I can see it having interesting effects on the maps and allowing for a bigger distribution of different types.

Click to expand...

target audience doesn't really jive for that, little kids either don't know or won't be thinking about things to that degree when playing the game.

Your other points make sense for why they didn't though, even if its not a good enough reason to justify the problem.
I could dig further into why it doesn't really make sense to exclude every ice type to only cold areas but there's not really much point.

It won't make them change how they do things.

...but to add to the discussion I'll just say this, a pokemon being of an elemental type doesn't necessarily mean they can only survive in that element, just that they take strength from it.

ex. Fire types are hot and (passively)make things hot, the other side of the coin makes sense that ice types are cold but also make things around them cold.

In that way I think of them as being somewhat "insulted" that to a degree they take their preferred environment with them.

water and I grass are the exceptions to the element idea I think. Since they don't passively create any effect in the environment.

Corveone said:

If you want something that resists Ice, you have Fire/Water resisting Ice and other 3/4 types, or Steel resisting Ice and half of the type chart. But defensively, why would you ever want to add an Ice type Pokémon to your team?

Imo what they should do is improve Ice type defenses so that it can offer something unique. Having just one resistance makes no sense, it probably did in Gen 1 and 2 because apparently Ice was meant to be a dual type like Flying, but we started getting pure Ice types since Gen 3. It's as dumb as the issue with Poison type moves being only super effective against one type (and that type being Grass) that GF took 6 gens to address.

An easy little boost could be taking away Steel's resistance to Dragon (because it has steel too many resistances) and giving it to the Ice type, since Ice is supposed to be good against Dragon. And maaaaaybe also make it resist Ground. I wouldn't go as far as a certain fan game I've played where Ice resisted Electric and Grass because that makes certain dual types like Water-Ice Pokémon super broken and that's not the idea either.

Click to expand...

See I completely disagree with making large changes like that just for the sake of balance, the thing about pokemon is that it was simple and effectiveness was logical,
it has to make sense too.

I'd like to say I'd disagree with adding a type just for the sake of balance too, but that actually worked really well with fairy type (for the most part), it made poison and steel a lot more viable offensively and it made sense from a lore perspective.


Ice resisting dragon makes no sense, so I can't get on board with that. but I'd be down with giving it some offensive tweaks.

Like..I always assumed ice was strong to bugs too, makes sense, but they aren't, also water freezes, so I'd remove water resistance to ice, and just make it normally effective.

Which I think would go a long way, as water is from what I've seen the most abundant type.
Actually I think I'd also give ice types a resistance to water for the same reason as above.

So the new typing would be this

Ice moves are super-effective against:

GRASS GROUND FLYING DRAGON BUG

Ice moves are not very effective against:

FIRE ICE STEEL

These types are not very effective against Ice Pokémon:

ICE WATER

These types are super-effective against Ice Pokémon:

FIRE FIGHTING ROCK STEEL



This may still look bad to some, but by adding bug to the list of type advantages and removing water from resistance

Ice types now have impressive coverage over the types most often combined with others!

[edit]
If you wanted to I guess you could also make ice types resistant to bug type attacks, since most bugs/insects are severely hampered by
the cold.

But I don't really know if that's necessary as you wouldn't really get many bugs fighting against ice types anyway.
[/edit]


*mods sorry for double post just needed to make a separate point*

also steel types are metal, you can't stop The METAL

that is all. Meister out

Meister_anon~Master_o f_None said:

target audience doesn't really jive for that, little kids either don't know or won't be thinking about things to that degree when playing the game.

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I mean, I'd expect most kids to think "ice Pokemon live in cold areas".

...but to add to the discussion I'll just say this, a pokemon being of an elemental type doesn't necessarily mean they can only survive in that element, just that they take strength from it.

ex. Fire types are hot and (passively)make things hot, the other side of the coin makes sense that ice types are cold but also make things around them cold.

In that way I think of them as being somewhat "insulted" that to a degree they take their preferred environment with them.

water and I grass are the exceptions to the element idea I think. Since they don't passively create any effect in the environment.

Click to expand...

I mean, I don't necessarily disagree. As an example, I've seen quite a lot of Siberian Huskies (which are very much built for the extreme cold) here in my little corner of the tropics, so I know for a fact animals can live outside of their natural habitat.

That said it isn't really their preferred environment. Huskies are severely disadvantaged in the tropics and can easily get a heatstroke or exhausted when they probably would be trucking just fine if they were somewhere colder.

Assuming Pokémon has some element of Darwinism - which is hinted at some places like Heatmor and Durant, or the regional variants - I'd imagine something similar would happen in Pokémon land.

And if we're theorycrafting about the ecology of Pokémon, I'd expect that if an Ice Pokemon would have a passive cold effect in the area they live (or think Fire Pokémon with heat or whatever):
1) be wiped out / caught out since the unnatural temperature drop is a giveaway of their position to trainers and predators
2) adapt into regional variants which would lose their original typings / gain other abilities
3) carve out a niche in the ecosystem and essentially warp it to suit their needs better - and their prey worse (e.g.: make a place permanently colder / icier because there's more Ice Pokemon there)

And considering the Ninetales and Darmanitan lines as canonical examples of what happens when you put a Fire type into icy places, apparently adapting worked out better than just abusing their fire powers to coexist with the ice types.

Radio said:

I mean, I'd expect most kids to think "ice Pokemon live in cold areas".



I mean, I don't necessarily disagree. As an example, I've seen quite a lot of Siberian Huskies (which are very much built for the extreme cold) here in my little corner of the tropics, so I know for a fact animals can live outside of their natural habitat.

That said it isn't really their preferred environment. Huskies are severely disadvantaged in the tropics and can easily get a heatstroke or exhausted when they probably would be trucking just fine if they were somewhere colder.

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Definitely, I just think ice types (and fire types) have (or should have) a bit more wiggle room, not so far as put them in the complete opposite environment but you know, they can go further then just their natural environment without being negatively effected.

Radio said:

And if we're theorycrafting about the ecology of Pokémon, I'd expect that if an Ice Pokemon would have a passive cold effect in the area they live (or think Fire Pokémon with heat or whatever):
1) be wiped out / caught out since the unnatural temperature drop is a giveaway of their position to trainers and predators
2) adapt into regional variants which would lose their original typings / gain other abilities
3) carve out a niche in the ecosystem and essentially warp it to suit their needs better - and their prey worse (e.g.: make a place permanently colder / icier because there's more Ice Pokemon there)

And considering the Ninetales and Darmanitan lines as canonical examples of what happens when you put a Fire type into icy places, apparently adapting worked out better than just abusing their fire powers to coexist with the ice types.

Click to expand...

:D lol yup 100%

that's about where my mind was as well. :) I didn't take the thought as far, but pretty much I was imagining elementals to have similar affects to kyogre & groudon, but to a far lesser degree & scale.

ghost pokemon provoke chills, and a feeling of being watched.
fire types make the area around them hotter, (even if just their direct vicinity)
ice types same but opposite effect.
electric types make the air crackle with electricity and hair stand on end. (if releasing electricity)

but to your point one, I want to disagree, but that feels too realistic to try and fight against. I mean just looking at the show, I remember all the times ash chanced on some weird happening, only to find out; oh wow its a rare pokemon GOTTA CATCH IT!!

So if they could/were willing to brave the environment I can definitely see a bunch of trainers making attempts to catch them.
The end result at that point would just be down to happenstance of who was stronger at the time.

So basic rules of nature, survival of the fittest, if the pokemon were strong enough to keep their refuge then they would otherwise they lose it.

It's kind of crazy to think about it but if enough pokemon of a type got together they'd have the power for large scale environment changing.

Meister_anon~Master_o f_None said:

I'd like to say I'd disagree with adding a type just for the sake of balance too, but that actually worked really well with fairy type (for the most part), it made poison and steel a lot more viable offensively and it made sense from a lore perspective.

Ice resisting dragon makes no sense, so I can't get on board with that. but I'd be down with giving it some offensive tweaks.

Like..I always assumed ice was strong to bugs too, makes sense, but they aren't, also water freezes, so I'd remove water resistance to ice, and just make it normally effective.

Click to expand...

Not only with Fairy; Steel and Dark were also added for balance reasons, mainly to nerf Gen 1's Psychic.

Improving the Ice type offensively would just improve the already strong enough Ice type moves that a lot of players just end up teaching to other (usually Water) types. To help making Ice Pokémon better, you probably need to tweak the type chart a little, otherwise Ice type Pokémon have nothing unique to offer besides... being good in Hail?, unless they have a good dual typing that complements them and your team well.

Most of the type chart match-ups are logical, but there have allways been exceptions. Like why isn't Rock immune to Poison when poisoning a rock is just as unlikely as poisoning a piece of metal, or why are Fairies immune to Dragon attacks, or Normal immune to Ghost, or what's the logic behind anything that resist Fighting not resisting Normal? If you can resist a hit from a wrestler or a karate champion, you should resist a hit from an average guy even easier. Etc.

Several type chart match-ups are just for gameplay sake. They removed two resistances from Steel (which they had to believe were logical to put then in the first place) to favor game balance. Making Bugs also weak to Ice would make sense in real life terms, but adding another weakness to one of the less favored types wouldn't help much. Also, Grass and Bug already share two weaknesses (the maximum number of X4 weaknesses any Pokémon can have), with Ice that would be three.

I suppose the Freeze-Dry move came out as an attempt to give Ice type Pokémon (and only Ice type Pokémon can learn it) something unique, so that at least the Sp. Attack oriented ones have a nice "surprise" move against Pokémon like Gyarados, Swampert, Gastrodon and Kingdra.

Corveone said:

Not only with Fairy; Steel and Dark were also added for balance reasons, mainly to nerf Gen 1's Psychic.

Improving the Ice type offensively would just improve the already strong enough Ice type moves that a lot of players just end up teaching to other (usually Water) types. To help making Ice Pokémon better, you probably need to tweak the type chart a little, otherwise Ice type Pokémon have nothing unique to offer besides... being good in Hail?, unless they have a good dual typing that complements them and your team well.

Most of the type chart match-ups are logical, but there have allways been exceptions. Like why isn't Rock immune to Poison when poisoning a rock is just as unlikely as poisoning a piece of metal, or why are Fairies immune to Dragon attacks, or Normal immune to Ghost, or what's the logic behind anything that resist Fighting not resisting Normal? If you can resist a hit from a wrestler or a karate champion, you should resist a hit from an average guy even easier. Etc.

Several type chart match-ups are just for gameplay sake. They removed two resistances from Steel (which they had to believe were logical to put then in the first place) to favor game balance. Making Bugs also weak to Ice would make sense in real life terms, but adding another weakness to one of the less favored types wouldn't help much. Also, Grass and Bug already share two weaknesses (the maximum number of X4 weaknesses any Pokémon can have), with Ice that would be three.

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I don't see too much problem with bug grass having a 3rd dual weakness, they're not too commonly used or liked anyway.
edit:
[just checked and there are only 2 species of bug/grass pokemon. so that's not really a problem.]

and it would be a huge step to putting it around the same level of the main trinity (grass, water, & fire) offensive type changes are necessary for increasing the utility of the type.
ice types are apparently usually high in defensive stats, the only problem is most people aren't able to notice this
because their type weaknesses are usually very high in attack/spattack and every ice pokemon isn't given a good amount of hp.

Like it was brought up above, using glaceon as an example, it has 110 defense and 95 sp defense.
Which sounds great, but its health is just 65, so it balances out to only being average.

Combined with Ice types also being horribly slow on average, and you have a recipe for
an entire type being one-shot fodder before they can even get an attack off. dang that's worse than I thought.
(well its not too bad, the real problem with glaceon is really that its moves suck, most of them are physical, when it has no good attack
the only good special moves it can learn are ice beam and blizzard)

But the other type stuff does make sense.

ghost, spirits without physical form, while normal types are just that normal.
So ghost types aren't able to physically interact with them.


think of it like rpg mechanics, normal are physical attacks everything else is magic, and only magic can damage spritis.

for rock/ground and poison.

I think the logic there is that rock and ground are still organic matter, ( or just sometimes in the case of rocks) which I think explains why its not effective instead of fully immune.

also earth can be "poisoned" if enough bad materials seep into it.

While steel is synthetic and so fully immune.

and a professional fighter is very different from an average person,
but if you want to take it further instead of thinking of both as physical hits, think of it like Ki.

A being empowered by awakening to using their physical energy.
which I guess can make them more sensitive to spirits. Which explains why fighting types aren't immune to ghost.


But The fairy /dragon relation, I never got that either, and I changed that first chance I got for my own stuff.

In some lore, fairies are the natural enemy of dragons, like in king arthur , weapons forged by the fae are known to be dragon killers.

and I think there's something about having the protection of the faries working against evil forces or something?
but that was never a dragon specific thing. (maybe in the story the enchanctment was to protect against the dragon? idk, either way full immunity is too much)

but in other places there's myths of dragon faries or fairy dragons

So I'm really not sure how they came up with full immunity, I think they just went overboard with that.


I agree they need more than just a type effect change, each type usually has a theme, I guess ice types could get some stat buffs so they can work as class of varied tanks?