Now it's time for something you have all been waiting for: an explanation on why I have such intense resentment towards the Grass/Dark typing.
I was doing a randomized run of a game I can't remember anything other than there was Physical/Special split, and ended up with Shiftry that I immediately added to the squad. Beforehand, I assumed it would be awesome since, well, it looked cool, and had a cool premise, and I was excited.
Now, let's take a break to discuss something: balanced stat mons. Can something that is evenly good at more or less everything but nothing being particularly high work? Absolutely! Feraligatr and Nidoking are like that and I have always had fun using those. Shiftry is also somewhat like that where everything is pretty even but evenly good, so it has to be as good as thouse guys, right? Right?
Being weak to virtually every coverage move is good, right? Dying to a surprise Fighting attack is good… right? Or a surprise Bug attack? Grass/Dark is weak to way too many things, and many of those are common coverage! And that is not good for Shiftry due to it not excelling at anything.
And I'm pretty sure it was only the specific Shiftry I had was bad, but mine didn't just suck, mine was just abysmal. Mine didn't have any particular niche, I constantly added team members and adjusting my team JUST for it, and it did nothing but hold us back. If I recall, it was the reason I quit that playthrough altogether.
And of course every reliable leaker I have seen claims the gen9 Grass starter is going to be Grass/Dark, and it's doing nothing but remind me of the awful Shiftry I had. I do NOT want to deal with that again. I plan to pick the Grass starter for my first run through the game and had always had hoped that it would end up being the strongest of the 3 new starters because I thought it would be interesting for the Grass starter to be the most useful for in game playthrough again since gen1.
That Shiftry was undeniably the WORST thing I had ever used in a long time. I have used early game bugs, 2 stage normal mons, gallons of mons I have seen other people deem underwhelming, and I had significantly more fun using ALL of those over Shiftry. Just those weaknesses… I just can't. I really don't want to say I hate Shiftry now, since I still kinda think it has a somewhat cool idea, but this ordeal genuinely made me lose respect for it, which is an acheivement.
