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Underappreciated Types


Moneybanks416

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Hello everyone!

 

During my playthrough of Pokemon Sun I included a Golisopod on my team. This is the first time in all 7 generations I've ever used a Bug type! I always considered bug types to be annoying early game mons but after using Golisopod I was not disappointed! I never realized how useful bug types can be, from resistances to ground and fighting types to the recently buffed Leech Life! I must say that I now have a newfound appreciation for Bug types!

 

My question for you all is what type(s) have you not previously had experience with but discovered how useful they can be after using them for the first time?

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I'm in your same boat. I never really used bug-types in my playthroughs, so I decided to use one in Pokemon Sun. I picked up a Scyther off the GTS and evolved it into Scizor; it has become a pivotal member of my team ever since. I'm also looking forward to using Golisopod at some point!

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I was always an offensive player so I never really appriciated defensive types. In my current playthrough I'm playing more defensively and both Fairy and Water types proved to be exceptionally helpful.

 

Then of couse I always underestimated bugs - until my Heracross literally slaughtered Luna's entire team by itself.

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As far as competitive play goes, I lean a bit on the defensive side, so naturally Steel would be among my favorite types. Also, I'm just much better at evasive play and predicting switches than I am at things like hyper offense. That being said, the type I had underrated the most was probably Dark. I noticed myself using Dark Pokemon (i.e. Bisharp, Mandibuzz, Weavile, Sableye, etc.) considerably more often ever since X/Y came out -- which seems odd on its face. You would think that they'd be worse off with the introduction of the Fairy-type, right? (Missing In Action: Hydreigon, Scrafty. Last seen: 2013.) I'd argue that it has been the opposite.

 

One of the biggest downsides to Dark-types in my mind was that they were generally useless against Steel-types. In the transition from Gen V to Gen VI, Steel lost its resistances to Dark and Ghost. That has probably been the best thing to ever happen to Dark-types, especially since Steels are even more common than in past generations due to the presence of Fairies. So many Pokemon that just weren't offensively versatile enough can now actually put dents in otherwise annoying walls like Heatran, Skarmory, and defensive Scizor. SD Bisharp w/ Sucker Punch became a premier OU threat because it was very tricky to deal with once its checks were KO'ed. 

 

I realized though, that some of these Dark-types were almost every bit as useful in Gen V as they were at the time. Defensive Pokemon like Mandibuzz and Umbreon had gained nothing in the new gen except a new weakness, but I still found room for them and the like on my teams. Hell, Sableye was a giant troll even before it could Mega Evolve. 

 

So I thought to myself: why didn't I see the advantages to these Pokemon before? I don't know. I never thought Dark was a bad type, I just never knew how good it could be all on its own -- and not just because T-tar or Weavile have good secondary STAB typings. 

Edited by WujiKyurem
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4 hours ago, WujiKyurem said:

As far as competitive play goes, I lean a bit on the defensive side, so naturally Steel would be among my favorite types. Also, I'm just much better at evasive play and predicting switches than I am at things like hyper offense. That being said, the type I had underrated the most was probably Dark. I noticed myself using Dark Pokemon (i.e. Bisharp, Mandibuzz, Weavile, Sableye, etc.) considerably more often ever since X/Y came out -- which seems odd on its face. You would think that they'd be worse off with the introduction of the Fairy-type, right? (Missing In Action: Hydreigon, Scrafty. Last seen: 2013.) I'd argue that it has been the opposite.

 

One of the biggest downsides to Dark-types in my mind was that they were generally useless against Steel-types. In the transition from Gen V to Gen VI, Steel lost its resistances to Dark and Ghost. That has probably been the best thing to ever happen to Dark-types, especially since Steels are even more common than in past generations due to the presence of Fairies. So many Pokemon that just weren't offensively versatile enough can now actually put dents in otherwise annoying walls like Heatran, Skarmory, and defensive Scizor. SD Bisharp w/ Sucker Punch became a premier OU threat because it was very tricky to deal with once its checks were KO'ed. 

 

I realized though, that some of these Dark-types were almost every bit as useful in Gen V as they were at the time. Defensive Pokemon like Mandibuzz and Umbreon had gained nothing in the new gen except a new weakness, but I still found room for them and the like on my teams. Hell, Sableye was a giant troll even before it could Mega Evolve. 

 

So I thought to myself: why didn't I see the advantages to these Pokemon before? I don't know. I never thought Dark was a bad type, I just never knew how good it could be all on its own -- and not just because T-tar or Weavile have good secondary STAB typings. 

You're speaking my language my friend! I've always loved Dark types since they were introduced, from their designs to the moves they get. From a competitive standpoint, Weavile is still one of the best Garchomp counters and also happens to be my favorite Pokemon! More recently I've experienced success with Incineroar on battle spot, very underreated mon in my opinion

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As a competitive monotype player over smogon, I'd love to speak about my favourite yet underappreciated type, Ice. ( During gen6, 60% of ice types were in pu, basically, next to useless)

 

During gen5 and gen6 metas, ice was considered a D rank type due to its general coverage and lack of pokemons. Usually in monotype, the rank of the tier gets determined by the dual typed pokemons and their coverage from moves. Most basic example would be psychic being a S rank type, but the truth is psychic's coverage is truly weak. It can hit super effective to only 2 types, which are poison and fighting, and poison is not a popular type. On the other hand, it gets resisted by steel,psychic and dark, and its weak to dark,ghost and bug. The typing coverage and weakness would make psychic a terrible type, but as you know, after normal type, psychic has one of largest movepools in the game, and a quite high amount of dual typed psychic pokemons. When you consider it, you can understand why it has became a S rank.

 

Victini,gardevoir,metagross,hoopa,latios,slowbro,meloetta... List goes on. Also, most psychic pokemons comes with  great offense capabilities, this favors them even more. Most basic example of this would be alakazam. With a movepool of focusblast,dazzlinggleam,energyball and psychic, alakazam can cover up 10 types out of 18, which is what makes this type a strong threat.

 

On the other hand, with ice's limited pokemons, there is literally no pokemon that can get a huge coverage. They re all fragile to stealth rock, this forces a rapid spinner a must in teams. Most viable choice is avalugg , but its slow af and cant make a hard hit in return. A single steel type pokemon can ruin your entire team, because no ice pokemon is capable of learning a fire type move. Best choices are mamoswine with earthquake, or a kyurem with earth power. Even tho, priority steel users will still ruin your entire team, using an ice team was always a problem during the gen5/6 monotype metagames. 

 

Even thought I managed to peak monotype ladder once with ice team, and achieved to 1600 rating under 3 different nicknames. ( So it just depends on how you use your team eh? ;) ) 

 

 

For couple of years , I shouted all around that we needed more love for ice types, and I finally got what I want with gen 7. With the addition of slush rush, more snow warning pokemons, and alola forms of sandslash and ninetales , ice now has become a reckonized type with its godlike coverage ( Yeah no joke, it hits dragon and flying type, which are S rank types).

 

With addition of aurora veil, a free dual screen even gave a great survivability towards steel types, ninetales alola gave ice types a great niche versus fighting teams, and sandslash alola itself is good on his own with its steel typing and access to a recovery move leech life ( Its best thing ever vs psychic teams) . Gaining a new spinner, the need of avalugg was lifted, and teams became far more remarkable, ice has became quite popular amongst monotype users over smogon.

 

( I also peaked gen7 ladder with ice type ;) ) 

 

Do we have any more ice type lovers??

Edited by Cyczer
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16 hours ago, WujiKyurem said:

As far as competitive play goes, I lean a bit on the defensive side, so naturally Steel would be among my favorite types. Also, I'm just much better at evasive play and predicting switches than I am at things like hyper offense. That being said, the type I had underrated the most was probably Dark. I noticed myself using Dark Pokemon (i.e. Bisharp, Mandibuzz, Weavile, Sableye, etc.) considerably more often ever since X/Y came out -- which seems odd on its face. You would think that they'd be worse off with the introduction of the Fairy-type, right? (Missing In Action: Hydreigon, Scrafty. Last seen: 2013.) I'd argue that it has been the opposite.

 

Wow! I really could have written this! I'm also a huge fan of defensive play, so Steel is my favourite type too (mostly because of mawile and metagross), but thanks to you, I'm now thinking of a dark monorun. Do you have any tips or good mons to use? 

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The Normal typing, obviously. Huge movepools, only one weakness, one immunity. Everything else hits for x1 damage. Did I mention that one of the most annoying stallers has the Normal typing? Jeez, I love it. After I found Chansey, my whole experience with competitive got a little better. (Though, I'm still not exactly good, heh.) There's also other Pokémon. But it seems that there are a few popular Normal types, with the rest being useless and forgotten. It's a bit weird, I suppose. Most Normal types in competitive play usually have a secondary typing which is the main reason why people use them.

Edited by Lagspike
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@Cyczer RIGHT, ICE IS SO MUCH WORSE THAN IT SHOULD BE!!! I love a lot of Ice 'mons and just the concept of Ice-types in general, but they're so imbalanced that it makes me want to cry. They have merits, sure, but they're virtually impossible to use defensively -- unless you're either RestCurseHydration Lapras (which isn't even viable anymore with the Drizzle nerf) or StallRein (but who uses Hail?). Remember how Steel was the type that everyone wanted to be but nobody wanted to have as coverage? Ice is the complete inverse. Everyone wants the coverage, but nothing wants to be an Ice-type. It's so depressing! Here's how I would rebalance Ice:

 

• Super-effective against Bug

• Super-effective against Water

• Not very effective against Rock

• Resists Bug

• Resists Fairy

 

Get on it, GameFreak!

 

 

@Thiazzi a monorun? Nice! I attempted my first monotype playthrough with Water, but I didn't get too far (just past Florinia) because of how bad my old computer was... hopefully I can start a new one up soon. Frogadier was the only reason I was able to beat Julia lol. Protean Lick made me immune to SonicBoom! As far as Dark 'mons go, I can't remember what's available in exactly what order (except Greninja), but I can give you ideas of what to try using. It's tricky to gauge because the game isn't finished yet, but I'd take looks at Honchkrow/Scrafty/Krookodile (Moxie), Sharpedo (SPEED BOOST), Umbreon, Sableye, and Drapion. I think everything else of use is either too gimmicky, too exclusive, or too late in the game to use. 

 

 

@Lagspike Chansey is nice but I always found Porygon2 more fun to use for whatever reason. Probably because it's the most annoying of the Eviolite users, with the possible exception of Dusclops. Jesus, that thing was a nightmare to knock out back in the day.

Edited by WujiKyurem
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3 minutes ago, WujiKyurem said:

@Cyczer RIGHT, ICE IS SO MUCH WORSE THAN IT SHOULD BE!!! I love a lot of Ice 'mons and just the concept of Ice-types in general, but they're so imbalanced that it makes me want to cry. It has merits, sure, but they're virtually impossible to use defensively -- unless you're either RestCurseHydration Lapras (which isn't even viable with the Drizzle nerf) or StallRein (but who uses Hail?). Remember how Steel was the type that everyone wanted to be but nobody wanted to have as coverage? Ice is the complete inverse. Everyone wants the coverage, but nothing wants to be an Ice-type. It's so depressing! Here's how I would rebalance Ice:

 

• Super-effective against Bug

• Super-effective against Water

• Not very effective against Rock

• Resists Bug

• Resists Fairy

 

Get on it, GameFreak!

 

 

 

Really depends on how you use it mate. With your suggestions, ice would be an instant S rank type cuz your. suggestions are just way too strong. Personally, I rarely have problems versus bug and fairy teams, rock just wins due to the type matchup, but alolan sandslash removed that it can pretty much ohko every rock type with iron head. It got far better and Idk why you dont like it. ( Also, running lapras is a mistake) Ice already has a strong coverage versus dragon and flying, which are top tier threats in the game currently. A type doesnt solely has to be effective versus every type, water just beats ice due to having crapload amount of pokemons, and being able to resist ( Which is bullshit, ice is just cold water :P ) I agree it should resist bugs tho

Edited by Cyczer
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@Cyczer I think part of it is because of how long it's been since I've played competitive seriously. Last meta I knew by heart was BW2, and I've been off and on ever since. My idea had standard Smogon singles in mind since I don't have the right level of patience for monotype, but yeah, I can see how it would make Ice kinda broken 😁

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Trust me, monotype ladders over smogon is filled up with S rank users just to rank easily. You would love to see a normal vs normal 800+ turns battle. ( Praise chanseys). But well, ice had this funny trick that it was only weak to other low tiered types that nobody would use.(Rock,fire,fighting?) Ice can beat flying and dragon easily? both are S type, Ice can occasionally beat steel, Ice can pretty much dominate high ladder with correct pokemons.

 

Its ultimate counter is water(Rain), swampert and ludicolo shuts your entire team. But this is no longer a problem because now we have hail teams!

 

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I used to hate grass because it had so many weaknesses (and because meganium and treeko were so awful) but since then I've discovered some grasses I like such as breloom, Torterra, Chesnaught, and Tsareena.

 

Also, when I first started pokemon, my favorite type was electric. I later migrated to steel once I'd played the gen 3 games and seen scizor and metagross in action. also most electric types are kinda....bad. RIP Luxray, you'll always be OU in my heart.

 

I'd liked poison for a while, but it wasn't until gen 6 when poison was Actually Good that I really considered using them on my team. And then, in gen 7, Alola-Muk happened. Gamefreak, you done good.

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Never did like Rock-Types, atleast for playthroughs, can't think of many Rock-Types that are actually good or fun to use, and I'm not talking about late game stuff they give like Tyranitar, Diancie, and Terrakion; I'm talking about Geodudes, Roggenrolla, Nosepass, etc. stuff that you get through early and mid game. They don't learn any Rock-moves that make me want to use them, Rock Throw? Rock Blast? Smack Down? It doesn't stand out until they get something like Technician and Skill Link for those low BP.

 

But, man, Lycanrock really shined for me in Sun and Moon. Sure Rockruff had the same move issues I've said earlier, but once it get accelerock and swords dance, I had a blast. I know some of you are thinking, Accelerock is technically weaker than Rock Throw and Smack Down, but it's a Quick Attack, it doesn't miss like most of the other rock moves, and Lycanrock is both fast and strong. I don't know how else to explain it to be honest, but Lycanrock is one of my favorite Rock-types to use in a playthrough.

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A few that I personally feel are under appreciated are

 

Ground - Electric Immunity, great coverage move that's widely learned in Earthquake. Hits 5 types for super effective damage, only 2 resisted + 1 immune. Defensively, it's hit supereffectively by only 3 types, but has two resistances and one good immunity to electric.

Grass - Immune to all sort of powder moves and a lot of secondary type diversity. Grass has a wide array of pokemon to choose from.

Poison - Ever since the introduction of Fairies Poison has gone from zero to hero. Fairies are OP and need to be nerfed.

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