Unpopular opinions

[pika pal]

You're not saying anything wrong, but you're kinda proving my point: most of the value of the Fairy Types isnt just "they're fairy types", is how stacked they are with both good typing AND good moves / ability / stats.

Purely being a fairy type doesn't make a mon good. As I said, call me when Aromatisse is sent to Ubers due to being a fairy type. Most good fairy types would still be good without the fairy typing. Xerneas would still be a godtier pokemon if it was pure Normal. Zacian would still be insane if it was Bug type. Tapu Koko would still be strong if it was pure Electric.
There's definitely cases where being fairy is *part* of why a pokemon is good, es speaking of Tapus, Tapu Lele wouldn't be anywhere as strong if it wasnt part fairy letting it actually face Dark types instead of being murdered by them. But being "part fairy" never was the breaking point.

There is a massive difference between being "good" and being "op". No single type is op in pokemon. Otherwise, if say... a mechanic was introduced that lets you change typing on a whim, everyone would run Fairy type right?
https://x.com/VGCdata/status/1746967515866058773?s=20
Hint: it isnt. If you take out Flutter Mane, which mainly uses it for the 2x stab value, it would be far down compared to Water, Grass and Ghost.
Water type is op if anything, not Fairy.

Fairy types just happen to have a higher amount of min-maxed or optimized pokemon than the other type. That's the limit of it. The type is not op.

Xerneas and Tapu Koko I could debate but Zacian DEFINITELY thrives on its Fairy typing because they min-maxed its offensive profile so hard that a Neutral typing with only 1 Coverage move needed is plenty for it to blow through things, while being one of the best dual typings in the game (so Fairy is just as intrinsic as Steel to Crowned).

And you seem to be missing my actual point: I said

Its design encompasses all the worst aspects of how Gamefreak tries to handle balance

This is not me saying the type is strictly overpowered on its own to the point that being a Fairy automatically makes something OP, and that's inadvertently arguing with a strawman if your responses treat that as the position being dealt with. My point was that Fairy's design was lazy and didn't think about how to design or balance its attributes beyond the surface aspects of "weaken these types and empower these" when those match-ups carry significantly more problem.

With that said I WOULD still argue Fairy is one of the strongest vacuum types in that it is one of the hardest types for a Pokemon to be given and not be better with it than without it.

The Terastal comparison is faulty because Terastalization, like everything else, derives from the whole kit in what it synergizes with, and since the Pokemon were not designed with the types in mind they don't frequently include aspects like this. Incineroar runs Grass because it specifically wants to gain resistances to two of its base type weaknesses (Water from the extremely prevalent Urshifu and Ground) and doesn't have Fairy moves or base offensive options (or even a role) that favors Fairy on those fronts instead. Farigiraf by comparison is an Anti-Meta mon with Utility moves and a good Fairy type option while Fairy actively helps its existing profile. The "gotcha" here is that Terastalization is one-off so a Tera Fairy Incineroar is not a comparable value proposition to a Base Fairy Incineroar-esque Pokemon Kit.

Doubles particularly thrives more on surviving a few big/gotcha hits than Singles where either a single mon might take more turns of mileage from 1 extra survived (see set up sweepers) or long-term Defensive survival holds significantly more value. This warrants mention to me because there are still officially supported Singles formats in-game even outside of Smogon, even if VGC itself is doubles, so they can't totally ignore the way types or mechanics play out in both.

And

Fairy types just happen to have a higher amount of min-maxed or optimized pokemon than the other type. That's the limit of it. The type is not op.

Arguing against this was my whole point of bringing up the 8 Dragons in current OU and history with others like Garchomp. Fairy if anything has an extremely low number of min-maxed Pokemon since most of the Pokemon the typing was added to were "mid-game mid-mons" like Whimsicott and Granbull. Heck even one of the most famous Fairy types is Clefable, who is ANYTHING but min-maxed despite having a very cohesive kit (to the point of being useful in Gen 4 singles before the type's introduction rocketed it even higher). I am receptive to the claim that Fairy type is not "OP" even with my position that it is just poorly designed and "just" better than the majority of standalone types, but you have a much harder case convincing me Fairy type includes more min-maxed Pokemon than the majority of other types like Dragon, Ground, Fighting, maybe even Dark.

 

[Worldie]

. Heck even one of the most famous Fairy types is Clefable, who is ANYTHING but min-maxed despite having a very cohesive kit (to the point of being useful in Gen 4 singles before the type's introduction rocketed it even higher). I am receptive to the claim that Fairy type is not "OP" even with my position that it is just poorly designed and "just" better than the majority of standalone types, but you have a much harder case convincing me Fairy type includes more min-maxed Pokemon than the majority of other types like Dragon, Ground, Fighting, maybe even Dark.

I think Clefable is definitely not the best choice here to prove your point, considering that after it became so good in gen 6, people started using it in previous generations and were like "actually this thing is good even as pure normal type!" since turns out Magic Guard is that good of an abilty in metas with permanent weather and hazard everywhere.

 

[pika pal]

I think Clefable is definitely not the best choice here to prove your point, considering that after it became so good in gen 6, people started using it in previous generations and were like "actually this thing is good even as pure normal type!" since turns out Magic Guard is that good of an abilty in metas with permanent weather and hazard everywhere.

This point only applies to Gen 4 which I already brought up when saying that (I see no suggestion it was stand out in Gen 5 where offense was wild and teams depended most heavily on Weather for specialization). I referenced Clefable to distinguish the point that it is not a min-maxed Fairy given its extremely balance-numbered stat distribution and lack of heavy emphasis on any particular role in movepool as well. Magic Guard can be cited in a gen where it was Signature, but I would reference that Reuniclus, Sigilyph, and Alakazam all see significantly less usage in Gens after they gained the ability but had to compete with a Fairy type Clefable. This is no more of a point in your favor as presented

 

[Coronis]

Xerneas and Tapu Koko I could debate but Zacian DEFINITELY thrives on its Fairy typing because they min-maxed its offensive profile so hard that a Neutral typing with only 1 Coverage move needed is plenty for it to blow through things, while being one of the best dual typings in the game (so Fairy is just as intrinsic as Steel to Crowned).

Not wanting to get involved in this competitive debate cos screw competitive I like ingame but isn’t this exactly what Worldie is saying?

 

[pika pal]

Not wanting to get involved in this competitive debate cos screw competitive I like ingame but isn’t this exactly what Worldie is saying?

I probably misread his point or misspoke on mine. What I was trying to say is that Zacian's min-maxed stats are good, but Fairy is why it thrives rather than simply succeeds, since Bug is nowhere close to as effective a type in general (Bug has good moves but the type itself is pretty meh to be). That is to say it would maybe be "good" but not "insane" as it was in Gen 8 and still does well in Gen 9

 

[Worldie]

Not wanting to get involved in this competitive debate cos screw competitive I like ingame but isn’t this exactly what Worldie is saying?

I probably misread his point or misspoke on mine. What I was trying to say is that Zacian's min-maxed stats are good, but Fairy is why it thrives rather than simply succeeds, since Bug is nowhere close to as effective a type in general (Bug has good moves but the type itself is pretty meh to be). That is to say it would maybe be "good" but not "insane" as it was in Gen 8 and still does well in Gen 9

My main point in regard to stuff like Zacian or Xerneas isn't that Fairy type doesn't make them better, as I said Fairy is definitely a good type regardless, is just that it's "part of the equation". These pokemon would still be absolutely insane with a different type. Being fairy makes them *even better* obviously, but even with the worst type ever they'd still be solid mons.

The general consensus is that "Fairy type is op", and my point is, it isn't, it's just a good type, as good as some of the other top types like Steel, Water, Fire. But it's only as good as the pokemon who have that type. I pointed to Clefable to also show that even though the fairy typing is definitely part of what makes it good, the mon was discovered to be good even as mono-normal type, because like every pokemon, it's the sum of the parts that makes it strong, not just the typing.

Fairy just happens to have a large amount of minmaxed pokemon in its ranking, mostly due to it having two of the most busted cover legendaries have that type, and half of the gen 7 semi-legendaries also being part fairy. Outside of the legendaries, "op fairies" are quite scarce, because once you take out the minmaxing, it's just a generically good type with no particular perk other than blanking dragon types.

 

[Ironmage]

Got curious to check on the Tera type distribution for singles. I still definitely think this isn't an absolute measure of how good a type is since that also includes e.g. access to fancier moves than Tera Blast, but anyway. Since the standard usage dump doesn't list tera types, I instead went through the sample sets of all OU analyses (including mons that have said analyses but aren't currently in OU). Each instance is counted as a fraction of how much the total analysis recommends that type (so e.g. Heatran has two sets with only Grass and Grass or Flying, so gets counted as 0.75 for Grass and 0.25 for Flying).

bar charts

Water is the highest total, though that's buoyed (heh) by an overwhelming lead on STAB tera (including Rotom-W despite that being objectively worse defensively). It's second in non-STAB rankings but not significantly above the runners-up in Ghost, Flying, and Steel. Fairy, by contrast, has very few suggestions for STAB tera but is over 1.5* more likely than Water to appear as a non-STAB option. There's also a pretty clear gap between Fairy and everything else for total incidence.

In short, the singles data for Tera types seems to be this:

tier list

Conveniently, "Fairy's effectiveness is different between singles and doubles formats" would mean that neither "it's good but not crazy (in VGC)" and "it's crazy (in singles)" needs to be invalid. (unless, of course, you feel the need to say that all doubles/singles are invalid on principle).

 

[Yung Dramps]

My seemingly unpopular type chart take is that it is fine as-is and doesn't need further changes or additions. MAYBE at most make Bug neutral against Fairy, that's all

Feel like I've mentioned this before somewhere but eh it's relevant so I'll mention it again

 

[Worldie]

Conveniently, "Fairy's effectiveness is different between singles and doubles formats" would mean that neither "it's good but not crazy (in VGC)" and "it's crazy (in singles)" needs to be invalid. (unless, of course, you feel the need to say that all doubles/singles are invalid on principle).

Fwiw, if you're not familiar for VGC, most non-stab teras there will generally be either Grass to dodge Spore/Rage Powder, Ghost (for Fake Out immunity), Fire to avoid Will-o-wisp, or just whatever reverses a 4x weakness. Fairy and Water are the "generic non-tab teras" you will see if none of the above is important simply due to both types having the best lineup of single typed resistances vs weaknesses, both at only 2 weaknesses and resisting some of the most common meta threats.
You'd expect Steel to be up there, but the prevalence of Fire types (expecially Incineroar) and Urshifu existing makes it way less desiderable.

 

[Axiemeister]

while that tera type table doesn't tell the whole tale it definitely says something about how some types are inherently worse than others when imo that shouldn't happen to types. obviously it should happen to individual pokémon, and it's inevitable that some type combinations will work better than others, but the viability of a mon changing radically depending on its type, and nothing else about it changing, screams lack of balance. bug type is the best example, specially offensively - why is it even resisted by a solid half of the types that do?

 

[Worldie]

when imo that shouldn't happen to types

Honestly speaking, I think this is the issue with the general mentality.
It *should* be like that.

Pokemon is not checkers. It's more like 99D Chess.

Let's take regular chess. In chess, the pawns once they reach the other side can turn into another piece. 99% of the time, that piece will be the Queen or Rook, very very rarely you'd see a pawn turned into a Knight or Bishop. That's because these pieces are significantly better than the other and more valuable to have.
Noone complains that Queen is much stronger than a Bishop, because that is part of how chess plays out.

Pokemon is similar, amongst the various parts, there *is* the type inequality. And despite the type inequality, every type has some kind of good perks that can make it good in the right scenario.
Take Bug. Bug type is definitely not the best, however it does hit supereffectively Grass Dark and Psychic, and the high amount of resists lets it have one of the most busted pivot moves (U-Turn), giving extra value to the pokemon that can afford to run stab U-turn. One of the main quirks of Genesect was specifically how strong its U-Turns hit.
Defensively, surprisingly, Bug type is actually much less bad than people make it, resisting ground and grass while not being weak to ice. Bug/Steel is one of the best defensive type combinations of the game, even better than Grass/Steel.

People also meme how bad ice type is defensively, that on other hand is made up by how insaney strong stab ice moves are, to the point that any time a glass cannon ice type is released, they're almost always insanely strong.

I'll echo Yung Dramps . The type chart is fine. Pokemon does *not* need type equality. The massive diversity in how types interact is one of the key components of what makes pokemon pokemon.
Plus, having arguably or situationally bad types gives more creative liberty. You can make a pokemon have insane stats and balance it out by having a terrible typing, and other way around.

We were talking about Fairy types earlier, while I still stand that it doesn't make pokemon inherently op, it isn't false that many pokemon are viable purely due to being X/fairy combined with other trait. Case in point would be Tinkaton and Klefki, two pokemon that are basically carried by their typing that gives them way more switchin opportunities that their stats would otherwise allow.

 

[Empress]

There is literally only one thing that makes flavor sense about the Fairy-type: Fairies hate iron. That's why Fairy being weak to Steel doesn't bother me, but the rest of it does.

 

[AztecCroc]

There is literally only one thing that makes flavor sense about the Fairy-type: Fairies hate iron. That's why Fairy being weak to Steel doesn't bother me, but the rest of it does.

Fairy are weak to pollution.

 

[Sonikku A]

So ignoring this type debate, what if GF makes a Psychic type move SE on ghost types, like Exorcise, functioning similar to Freeze Dry

Cuz clamoring for Pursuit to come back hurts Psychic just as much if not more than Ghosts, so why not directly buff Psychic?

Unpopular opinion, Shadow tag should trap ghosts. If you can trap the literal shadows, which ghosts are repped by, you should be able to trap ghosts. And meta wise it'd be healthier

 

[AztecCroc]

So ignoring this type debate, what if GF makes a Psychic type move SE on ghost types, like Exorcise, functioning similar to Freeze Dry

Cuz clamoring for Pursuit to come back hurts Psychic just as much if not more than Ghosts, so why not directly buff Psychic?

Unpopular opinion, Shadow tag should trap ghosts. If you can trap the literal shadows, which ghosts are repped by, you should be able to trap ghosts. And meta wise it'd be healthier

Shadow Tag is trapping them by immobilizing their shadows by touching them, it's an actual game.

 

[Coronis]

From Gen IX

The Pokémon steps on the opposing Pokémon's shadows to prevent them from fleeing or switching out.

I’d have to check if certain Ghosts still have shadows in the overworld in Paldea. I think Rotom does but I don’t remember.

 

[ant4456]

when imo that shouldn't happen to types

The truth you learn in game design is that bumpy roads are required.

Winning with Bug Types wouldn't feel so good if they weren't so weak. Neither would they be as popular, IMO. You need weaker and stronger elements to create a more rugged feel to a game's world competitively, or else everything starts feeling like the same.

 

[DreamPrince]

impossible)

Call me when Aromatisse is banned to Ubers for being a fairy type.

In all Fairness, Aromatisse was actually a top threat in Gen 8 1v1 thanks to the unique combination of Aroma Veil and Encore + Disable, with the former preventing it from being Encore and Taunted, giving it pretty much a very good matchup against Pokémon that aren’t hitting it super effectively which isn’t a lot because Poison and Steel are terrible attacking types.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

"All types are not equal" isn't a mistake, it's a feature, and that's what makes types flavorful from a worldbuilding and in-universe perspective, as well as a gameplay design perspective.

Different types are intentionally not equal because they have different roles to play from a gameplay standpoint in addition to their flavor standpoint. Bug-type is a weak type because it's basically an introductory type, it's an early game type and its classical members are the likes of Caterpie and Weedle and their derivatives. Small insects who in many cases undergo the metamorphosis process from larva->pupa->imago very quickly thanks to low evolution levels and act as early game crutches, being relatively strong early on but quickly falling off to be replaced by better Pokemon later on so you make room for Pokemon introduced later in the game. Bugs are a fairly intuitive "early game" type of Pokemon as insects are commonplace in our world and the metamorphosis process is very intuitive to a kid, and they interact with the three starter types in intuitive ways (and Flying, another early type, has an advantage against it, because of the classic "birds eat bugs" thing). It's an ideal early type and is weak as a result of that.

Meanwhile types like Dragon, Steel, and Fairy are more powerful because they are later game types, and conceptually are less intuitive and more abstract, with Dragon covering a very abstract concept and gameplay wise resists all three starter types and is only weak to itself, Ice (a late type), and later on Fairy. You get the drill.

It not only makes it more satisfying to use different types as per their flavor, like winning with Bugs, but it makes any newly introduced Pokemon who deviates from the traditional mold a type has established for itself stand out that much more. Bug has traditionally been a weaker type with weak Pokemon, but then you have something like Volcarona, a very powerful late-game Pokemon who is a Bug-type. Volcarona is standout and memorable to people because it combines being a Bug-type with being an exceptional and unique late-game powerhouse. In general many of Gen 5's Bugs are great, Scolipede, Durant, Galvantula, etc. which helps make them all really stand out: because they're Bug-types that are powerful. And they have more standout designs to boot. Or in the case of Dragons, which are traditionally associated with legendaries and pseudos, then you get to something like Druddigon or the Applin line or Turtonator+Drampa. They're dragons, but statistically less impressive and very average Pokemon, and even in terms of design and lore they are comparatively unremarkable in every aspect. A Dragon-type that isn't particularly powerful or impressive stands out because they're so, well, boring and average, in a type filled with exotic and powerful designs.

The fact that types are of different strengths relative to each other, and the fact they are often used and distributed in-game in different ways, makes them flavorful and more interesting in that regard.

 

[Samtendo09]

While it is fair to give each type their own flavor, it doesn‘t stop Rock and Ice Pokémom to suffer because of the blatant mismatch Game Freak insisted so often despite being detrimental for so many slower Pokémon in both in-game and most competitive scenes.

Both types, at the moment, are best suited for all-out offensive with no important resistances, since both are pretty good offensive types in their own right. However, in practice, it resulted these two types becoming too rigid to the point that it makes offense-oriented Pokémon the only way to make them viable in the long run without resorting to overpowered defensive Abilities. Even the more offense-oriented Dragon have important resistances in Water, Fire and Electric.

Rock‘s important resistances are Fire and Flying, and also Normal and Poison as less signficant but still notable resistances. Those are dandy and all, but the issue comes from having five whopping weaknesses, four of which are Grass, Water, Fighting and Ground, the latter three being potent offensive types. The fifth weakness is Steel, which not only resists Normal and Flying, but is immune to Poison. And yet, a vast majority of standard Rock-type Pokémon are around 70 Speed or lower. As a result, the type’s only main perk is Stealth Rock, and even then that move is widely distributed than just kept for just Rock-type. While a lot of attacking Rock moves may be a flavor standpoint, it also means far less consistency for STAB.

As a result, not a lot of slow Rock Pokémon has managed to make a name, even with Sandstorm’s boost to the Special Defense of Rock-type Pokémon. The only exceptions are Tyranitar and Garganacl, the latter only because of obnoxiously good signatures and benefitting Terastalization a lot.

Ice may have better offensive profile compared to Rock, but have by far the worst defensive matchup. Having only itself as resistance may not sound too bad on a vacuum, but then it is weak to Fire, Fighting and Rock, all of which happens to be very good offensive types. The fourth weakness is, again, Steel, which while not a good offensive type on it’s own, just adds another issue to the pile of weaknesses. Even Normal didn’t suffered as much due to only having one weakness in Fighting.

It wouldn’t be so bad if so many Ice-type Pokémon aren’t slow. And most standard Ice-type Pokémon that have 100 base Speed or higher doesn’t hit hard enough to be notable, with Alolan Ninetales and Weavile being the only exceptions. It does not help that Slush Rush Pokémon aren’t consistent due to how little Hail or Snow offered compared to other weathers. Aurora Veil and Snow’s Defense buff for Ice-type Pokémon feels overly compensating than anything else, because at the time of Gen 7, the damage is already done. And we already know that Ice can be prove game-breakingly good if used well offensively, as shown with Weavile, and especially Chien-Pao and Iron Bundle.

Flavor worked on other types because they don’t have too many weaknesses or too little resistances to the point of allowing for some flexibility and make it work, so even a more defensive Fighting-type can work with the right secondary type, stats, Abilities and moves. Rock and Ice Pokémon doesn’t have the same luck because of such an atrocious defensive profile, and as a result, the only way to make them viable without super good Abilities is to make them fast and hard-hitting… which can make things boring pretty quickly for these two types just as fast as making them slow that struggle to make the most of their own type.

 

[Ironmage]

Meanwhile types like Dragon, Steel, and Fairy are more powerful because they are later game types, and conceptually are less intuitive and more abstract, with Dragon covering a very abstract concept and gameplay wise resists all three starter types and is only weak to itself, Ice (a late type), and later on Fairy. You get the drill.

I actually think there should be more focus on early-game Dragon types because it resists all starter types. It made sense to have Rock as a first gym type because it resists the default Normal attacks, thus pushing new players to explore coverage options. However, later generations have given starters STAB at the outset, so I think those should be looked at as the 'default attack' now. Dragon could fill this role potentially better than Rock used to because it doesn't threaten SE damage on any starter either (giving more time for new players to figure out what's going on before losing).

 

[Axiemeister]

i just don't agree with "the type table being naturally unbalanced adds flavour" because all of those arguments can just easily be applied to the pokémon themselves. i do think some mons should be naturally weaker and others naturally stronger; that's why we have early game mons and legendary mons. but an entire type being supposed to be worse? having even its stronger late game members suffer from having it? imo that's not good game design and none of the arguments on this page convinced me, and tera really showcased this imbalance.

 

[Adeleine]

(This kinda responds to Sam's post, kinda is just my own unpopular opinions that kinda relate.)

Slow Ices and Rocks suffering is based. I'm super down for some Pokemon being bad, super down for some Pokemon being suboptimal, and super down for this resulting from polarized archetypes (or just 'types' in this context, ha, see what I did there? I'm so smart) that have good reason to be polarized (having a body made of ice seems pretty polarizing in the context of monsters fighting monsters, wow, I'm on a roll) and don't make the metagame miserable.

When the discussion comes around to buffing types, my focus is on the identity types can or should have, and how buffs play into their strengths and weaknesses. I want 18 types that are fun and have a reason to exist (not necessarily "that are good", see Scrafty's post - this post was made before Axie's and I may respond to it eventually). If type alone isn't enough for a Pokemon to be fun and have a reason to exist (again, not necessarily "to be good"), that's where I'd throw in fun moves and/or abilities.

For an example, Ice is a glass cannon type, so I'd buff it through attacks. People complain that the offensive prowess of Ice and the high distribution of Ice Beam (and once Hidden Power Ice) make it more interesting in the hands of non-Ice Pokemon, and I agree with this complaint. "Coverage type" is a pretty bad "reason to exist" to me, I think types should make the Pokemon that actually have them more interesting too. Physical Ice move buffs (Triple Axel, Loaded Dice Icicle Spear, etc.) have done this to an extent, and I'd complement that with special move buffs. I want there to be a good special Ice-type move that is better than Ice Beam and more focused on Ice-type Pokemon in distribution, to make actually having the type more interesting: whether that'd be e.g. a retool of Blizzard or its own thing is fairly unimportant to me, conceptually.

Similarly, Psychic is struggling to find a competitive reason to exist. I'd lean on its Gen1 identity as an offensive powerhouse, putting Psychic (the move) to at least 100 BP and/or increasing its SpD drop chance to at least 30%.

 

[Worldie]

i just don't agree with "the type table being naturally unbalanced adds flavour" because all of those arguments can just easily be applied to the pokémon themselves. i do think some mons should be naturally weaker and others naturally stronger; that's why we have early game mons and legendary mons. but an entire type being supposed to be worse? having even its stronger late game members suffer from having it? imo that's not good game design and none of the arguments on this page convinced me, and tera really showcased this imbalance.

Ok my dear sir, I am listening, how exactly do you plan to make 18 types *exactly identical*?
Are you really asking pokemon to just become checkers?

Or you would rather have... rock paper lizard spock?

If all types were "equal number" in what they resist/weak, then at that point types themselves don't have any real distinguishing factor.

 

[ant4456]

Similarly, Psychic is struggling to find a competitive reason to exist. I'd lean on its Gen1 identity as an offensive powerhouse, putting Psychic (the move) to at least 100 BP and/or increasing its SpD drop chance to at least 30%.

as a psychic type fan, please literally just make us neutral to steel

like holy shit dude we have a theme of bending metal spoons, we do not need to be resisted by the best type in the game. Then there is 20,000 Dark Types, and the offensive prowess is fucking mid. SE against Fighting Types which have Knock Off and U-Turn, and Poison. Poison is interesting but then a lot of Poison types have dualtypes that make it not matter.