Ice Types need to be IMPROVED!!!

[Ogu]

First off I don't know if there is a thread like this already (couldn't find one) and even if this belongs here.

So, I don't think I am the only one who thinks the Ice Type needs to improve. It is my favorite type but so limited in usage. It is even better to give non ice types ice type moves as coverage than having an ice type in your party.
That's why I wanted to start this discussion.

In Competitive there are only really three viable non-legendary Ice Types: Alolan Ninetales, Weavile and Mamoswine. The role of Alolan Vulnona is in most cases just to set up Aurora Veil and get an Blizzard off if your enemy did not predict you would start with it. Weavile is a glass cannon revenge killer and Mamoswine can be killed off easily too.
There are too many defensive Ice Types which are unusable.

My idea would be to give this type a few more resistances. I'd say at least one but I think two would be better. Dragon, Flying or Water could be added as resistance. But what I would prefer add only one resistance and give it a neutrality to Rock.

If we look at weather conditions Slush Rush is a very good addition to Hail and Aurora Veil is very useful. But every other weather condition has at least one more effect like Sun weakens Water and buffs Fire Type moves and Rain weakens Fire and buffs Water Type moves.
My idea is do the same with Hail and Sandstorm. Sandstorm buffs Rock Types SpD and Hail should buff the Def of Ice Types.

What could be done also is buffing the offensive capabilities of Ice Types. Let's say not adding any resistance but cutting the speed of non Ice Types but 0,5x. The reason for this could be that Hail is hindering the movement of non Ice Types. Normally it would make more sense to drop the accuracy of non Ice Types in Hail but that would be too broken.

So that's my Ideas. I'd love to hear yours! :)
And if this does not belong here please notify me so that I can copy this and paste it on the right place.
Happy Discussion!!! :D

 

[Ageha1304]

Now when you say it, it makes sense, because I honestly thought that ice type already resisted water and flying types. O.O Can't say that I have used too many ice types (since they usually appear late in the game).
I totally agree with you, ice type should at least resist water and flying types. Resistance against dragons would also make sense. Get on with it, Gamefreak! XD

 

[LilyGardy]

Ice type is largely fine as it is. The three things it is weak to (Fire, Fighting, Rock) make sense and Hail works fine as it is. Making Ice types neutral to Rock wouldn't make sense. If you want to stick a Rock Resistance on something then put it on Grass Types.

Dropping everything's speed in hail wouldn't work. 100% accuracy Blizzard is strong and all none Ice types getting hit by hail is nice for Ice types too.

A resistance to water would make sense though as to an extent would Dragon.

 

[Ogu]

Can't say that I have used too many ice types (since they usually appear late in the game).

Yeah that's truly one of the biggest issues with Ice Types. They appear so late in the main series games that you don't have the need to use one. And of course there are other Types who utilize Ice Moves better than actual Ice Types.
Gamefreak at least make an Water/Ice starter Pokemon please, show Ice some love.

Ice type is largely fine as it is. The three things it is weak to (Fire, Fighting, Rock) make sense and Hail works fine as it is. Making Ice types neutral to Rock wouldn't make sense. If you want to stick a Rock Resistance on something then put it on Grass Types.

Dropping everything's speed in hail wouldn't work. 100% accuracy Blizzard is strong and all none Ice types getting hit by hail is nice for Ice types too.

A resistance to water would make sense though as to an extent would Dragon.

Sadly Ice is also weak to Steel which are everywhere even as coverage moves because of Fairies but I am cool with having four weaknesses (especially to three great offensive Types Fire Fighting and Rock ^^)
But having four weaknesses with only resisting itself is truly disappointing. And it might be that Hail has a 100% accurate Blizzard option but Rain while buffing Water Type moves and weakening Fire has Thunder and Hurricane bypassing accuracy check too, both of which are amazing moves. I still think Ice should gain a resistance or too and Hail should get at least one more effect. Even if this is a buff to another Type it would at least make Hail a little bit more relevant.

 

[Ageha1304]

Another thing I noticed with ice types is that only GOOD ice type are those with a secondary type like Weavile, Mamoswine, etc. I can't think of single pure ice type which I would willingly put on my competitive team.

That is so sad! I want to use Glaceon and other cool looking ice type in my competitive team.

 

[Ogu]

Another thing I noticed with ice types is that only GOOD ice type are those with a secondary type like Weavile, Mamoswine, etc. I can't think of single pure ice type which I would willingly put on my competitive team.

That is so sad! I want to use Glaceon and other cool looking ice type in my competitive team.

If you look at all the cover legendary (trio's) like Lugia, Ho-oh, Groudon, Kyogre, Rayquaza, Dialga, Palkia, Giratina (both forms), Reshiram, Zekrom, Yveltal, Xerneas, Solgaleo and Lunala they are all in Smogon's Uber Tier. Kyurem-White is the only Ice legendary who is Uber. Kyurem and Kyurem Black are either OU or lower. The only non-ice cover legendary is Zygarde which is still OU. I guess that's because of his 4 times ice weakness. That's my Point. Even a 170 Atk Beast like Kyurem-Black is playable in OU only due to his Ice Type and having not a good Physical Ice STAB Move. I think that's showing that Ice Type really needs improvement cause the only competitive viable Ice Types are good despite their Ice Typings.

 

[Ogu]

Ok here is my Final Suggestion to improve the Ice Type and it's defensive relevance:

Offensively: Remove Water's resistance to it, add Rock a resistance to Ice Moves.
Defensively: Add a Water and Flying resistance to it

Hail buffing Ice Types defense by 50%.

You might remove or not remove the resistance Water Type has against Ice. But I think all other changes should be done.

PS: If you are interested in changes to the whole type chart in detail you can look at a Post from me on PGC

 

[Mab]

Competitive isn't really my thing but I don't mind the balancing of Ice-types right now. A lot of the time Ice isn't a type that's actually used on Pokemon competitively (there are very few Ice-types in OU), but Ice moves are quite common. Hidden Power Ice is definitely one of the most popular if not the most, but almost never used by actual Ice-types.

I'd assume this is because Ice is a strong offensive type that's super effective against a lot of different competitive Pokemon type combinations and the extra STAB given by having the Pokemon using the move actually be Ice-type isn't worth using up an extra team slot. That's an okay balance in my eyes.

 

[Ogu]

Competitive isn't really my thing but I don't mind the balancing of Ice-types right now. A lot of the time Ice isn't a type that's actually used on Pokemon competitively (there are very few Ice-types in OU), but Ice moves are quite common. Hidden Power Ice is definitely one of the most popular if not the most, but almost never used by actual Ice-types.

I'd assume this is because Ice is a strong offensive type that's super effective against a lot of different competitive Pokemon type combinations and the extra STAB given by having the Pokemon using the move actually be Ice-type isn't worth using up an extra team slot. That's an okay balance in my eyes.

Why is an Ice Type move a must have on every Team? We all say Ice is strong offensively but in reality it is strong against 4 types being Dragon, Flying, Ground and Grass and resisted by 4 also being Steel, Ice, Fire and Water.
The difference is that Dragon, Flying and Ground are amazing types used all over the metagame. So Ice has many opportunities to be super effective. In many Dragon cases even 4x. If predicted well Ice Type moves can be walled very easy. But if you don't expect any Pokemon to run HP Ice and put your Landorus-T, Garchomp or Dragonite (Which are 3 very strong and useful Pokemon) you are doomed.
So Ice is mostly strong because it is super effective against many Pokemon who are dominating the metagame.
Even Landorus-T is running HP Ice to counter enemy Landorus-T ^^
But being an Ice Type still sucks, which makes me sad...

Oh yeah btw, even though Ice Pokemon could be very 'cool' looking Pokemon, the only ones which imo are cool looking are Weavile, Alolan Sandslash and Kyurem Black and White. This type has so great potential design wise. Look at the only Ice Fighting type. Crabominable is a shame imo (sorry if you love it). A crab with paws? Really? The only Ice Fighting Type is a crab. Wtf Gamefreak you can do better than that for sure.

 

[J-Pom]

Everything that's SE against Ice is SE against it for a reason. It's saying that strong muscles (Fighting), stone (Rock), flames (Fire) and metal (Steel) can all penetrate through Ice (Plus, ice picks are made out of metal).

Not to mention since Ice is already a broken offensive type, they probably are just keeping the balance by hindering it's defensive capabilities, though I do agree that it would help give people more incentive to play strong, competitive Ice types like Lapras and Glaceon if the type had at least a bit more defensive perks. Maybe Ice Types could have increased accuracy for certain moves like Blizzard and Frost Breath.

 

[Ogu]

Ok I get that, Ice is great offensively that's why defensively it is lacking.
Then why in the f-ing world are Weavile, Alolan Ninetales and Mamoswine the only non-legendary options? OU you have Kyurem-Black but he is a Legendary (even one that's only in OU because of his Ice Type). Weavile and Alolan Ninetales are BL which means not used enough for OU and too strong for UU and Mamoswine is the only Ice Option for UU. You see where I am getting at? They are all great Pokemon held back by their typings (besides Alolan Ninetales which should be Ice).

Edit: Imagine Alolan Ninetales with access to Snow Warning, Aurora Veil and Blizzard but be Steel/Fairy typing. Still not agreeing that Ice should be a type to be improved?

 

[Nah]

Ice is the smallest type in the game--out of the 802 or whatever we have at the moment, only 40 Pokemon (including alternate forms and shit) are Ice type. So there's very few Ice types to choose from at all (unlike Water, the 2nd biggest type in the game), which means less chances of good ones existing.

Ice always appeared to me as a glass cannon archetype. So rather than make kind of drastic changes to the type chart regarding defensive capabilities, why not instead improve upon or make better use of its strengths? Give some pre-existing ones slight stat boosts, introduce new actually offensively inclined Ice types, have Hail boost the damage of Ice type moves, expand the movepools of some Ice types, that sort of thing.

 

[Ogu]

Nah -- I gotta say I agree with all of your points. Nobody would say anything if Ice Type Pokemon would be more speedy glass cannons. The problem here is that they always keep making new defensive ones who nobody would use. I mean if you see an Regice or Avalugg in front of you just damage them super effectively on their weaker defense and they are down easily. We need more Weavile and less Crabominable!

 

[wolf]

Stealth Rock has played a big role in hindering Ice-types. They were pretty good in Gen 3 when there were viable Ice-types like Regice, Cloyster, maybe Articuno, and maybe Walrein. That wasn't half bad considering the low number of Ice-types to begin with. The introduction of SR in Gen 4 limited the use of Ice-types to Mamoswine, Weavile, and Abomasnow.

Adding only one resistance and removing their weakness to Rock wouldn't be enough to fix their defense problems. Most Flying-types have other coverage moves that can hit them hard (e.g. Pinsir's Close Combat), and most Ice-types hate getting burned by Scald, regardless if they resisted Water. Removing their weakness to Rock and Fighting plus either a Flying or Water resistance would do the trick, probably. It never made sense why Ice was weak to Fighting. Ice should be a good defensive type in theory.

Anyhow, Ice-types are similar to Fire-types in that only really strong glass cannons can be good, with the exception of certain type combos like Fire/Steel and Fire/Ground. There are some Fire Pokemon that fit that role, but hardly any Ice-types do.

 

[J-Pom]

Stealth Rock has played a big role in hindering Ice-types. They were pretty good in Gen 3 when there were viable Ice-types like Regice, Cloyster, maybe Articuno, and maybe Walrein. That wasn't half bad considering the low number of Ice-types to begin with. The introduction of SR in Gen 4 limited the use of Ice-types to Mamoswine, Weavile, and Abomasnow.

Adding only one resistance and removing their weakness to Rock wouldn't be enough to fix their defense problems. Most Flying-types have other coverage moves that can hit them hard (e.g. Pinsir's Close Combat), and most Ice-types hate getting burned by Scald, regardless if they resisted Water. Removing their weakness to Rock and Fighting plus either a Flying or Water resistance would do the trick, probably. It never made sense why Ice was weak to Fighting. Ice should be a good defensive type in theory.

Anyhow, Ice-types are similar to Fire-types in that only really strong glass cannons can be good, with the exception of certain type combos like Fire/Steel and Fire/Ground. There are some Fire Pokemon that fit that role, but hardly any Ice-types do.

If the punches and kicks are enough to shatter Rock, why shouldn't they be enough to shatter Ice (Which is a lot less hard than Rock)? So, removing Ice's weaknesses would only make sense from a competitive standpoint, not a logical one.

Besides, removing Ice's weaknesses would eventually make Ice an even bigger problem to face than Psychic was when it was first around, since Ice moves are already broken as it is (Especially the only guaranteed critical hit move, Frost Breath).

However, I do agree that Ice types should have some defensive improvement to allow competitive Pokemon like Lapras, Glaceon and Cloyster more play, since their frailty is the only thing holding them back from competitive play and people aren't really taking advantage of STAB in Ice (It is much more frequent that people just teach Ice moves to Pure Water types like Vaporeon and Suicune).

A Flying resistance would be nice, since it could say that the pecking and talons can't do much to the frozen exterior. If they won't make anymore type chart changes at all, they could, say, add more Ice type moves, abilities and effects to give Ice types more defensive perks. Hail could increase the Speed of Ice types, because of the slippery floor, Frost Breath could never miss if an Ice type used it, Ice types could be flat out immune to Blizzard (After all, why should a creature made of Ice take damage from it).

 

[Ogu]

I really like the mentioned points but I agree that Fighting should be Super Effective against Ice if it is SE against Steel and Rock.
So there are many OP moves in Pokemon for example Quiver Dance which only Bug Types have and Volcarona is the only viable option for OU or Shift Gear is OP too and only usable by 'Machine' Steel Types which makes them unique. Then you have Sticky Web which is a great entry hazard but again Araquanid and Galvantula or to an extend Shuckle are the only viable options in OU to use it and only Bug Types can use it.
Then I look at Stealth Rock. Oh boy this move can be learned by such a great variety of Pokemon and not only Rock Types but Ground and Steel Types can utilize this too. It is not really hard to set Stealth Rock up which hinders Bug, Fire, Ice and Flying Mons so much that if you have a Pokemon with any Type Combo between those it will lose 50% of its HP switching in. Even if you Post a Team on Rate my Team at Smogon without Stealth Rocks the first thing you get adviced is to use Stealt Rock because it is so OP. So maybe I should start a threat talking about ways to nerf Stealth Rock.