Pokemon Are Ghost Types the New Strongest Type?

jstar21

jstar21

Team Froakie & Goomy
Member
By now I’m sure everyone has at least looked at the new type chart or noticed the change Fairy type has brought, but something else has caught my attention and has made me second guess what Game Freak decided to do and that was having Steel types loose their resistance to Dark and Ghost type moves! Now even though this helped Dark types it was a give and take because they got the new weakness to Fairy and Fairy resists it as well. However Ghost on the other hand got a major boost by this “small” tweak. There is really nothing to “wall/stall” a Ghost type anymore!

In a similar fashion to Dragons (before Fairy was added), Ghost types only have two weakness: Dark and itself. Ghost can also learn a variety of different typed moves to take out various types of Pokemon and with most Dark types being duel-typed, they’ll have more weaknesses to exploit and Normal types may not be able to get hit by Ghost moves but they can’t hit back with a STAB move either.

I don’t play competitively so maybe I’m overthinking this, but as of right now it would appear that Ghost types have taken the mantle of “best” type in the metagame.
 
It has 2 advantages over Dragons:
-An IMMUNITY to Normal and Fighting(Normal is also Immune to it, but it counts).
-Can hit 2 Types for a super-effective hit: Psychic and itself. Dragon Type is super-effective ONLY to Dragon itself.
So overall, it does have some advantages. There is certainly no "Best Type", but is the one with a better Type Matchup than the others.
 
The main problems with dragons is their incredible base stats and access to ridiculously powerful moves such as Draco Meteor and Outrage which almost destroys everything that isn't a steel-type.
There aren't really any crazy strong ghost type moves at the moment. The strongest being Shadow Ball in competitive play (excluding ubers where both judgment ghost and shadow force is sometimes used).

However ghost typing was already really good, with immunities to normal and fighting they often find a lot of opportunities to switch in. Offensively ghost was already quite impressive since when combined with a fighting-type move they hit all their resistances for super effective damage.

While ghost types does gain quite a bit from being able to hit steel-types neutrally...
A very common typing will probably be Fairy + Normal in the next generation that could easily give ghosts a lot of problems (Fairy resist fighting).
However pokémon like Gengar can obliterate them with STAB Sludge Bomb and the new pokémon Honedge probably has STAB steel attacks for the job. So all of them definitely won't suffer from this problem, only time will tell how good the ghost types will be the next generation.
 
We will also need to wait and see how exactly the new mechanic of ghost types being able to escape from battle works and if it extends beyond wild encounters and into trainer battles. It will be promising if this turns out to be the case.
 
I'm no expert on competitive battling, but I would think Ground would be the new strongest considering it's strong against 5 types, 3 of which will see increased usage this gen because of Fairy, and most of its weaknesses are fairly uncommon.
 
Bolt the Cat said:
I'm no expert on competitive battling, but I would think Ground would be the new strongest considering it's strong against 5 types, 3 of which will see increased usage this gen because of Fairy, and most of its weaknesses are fairly uncommon.
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Grass and Water are uncommon?
 
Blob55 said:
Grass and Water are uncommon?
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Not Water, but I think Grass isn't really used often in competitive because it has 5 weaknesses. This gen is no kinder to Grass, since Fire and Poison will see increased usage.
 
Bolt the Cat said:
Blob55 said:
Grass and Water are uncommon?
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Not Water, but I think Grass isn't really used often in competitive because it has 5 weaknesses. This gen is no kinder to Grass, since Fire and Poison will see increased usage.
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And what about Ice?! Ice Shard, Ice Beam and Ice Punch are still used vastly, and Blizzard is almost a staple in Hail.
 
Luispipe8 said:
And what about Ice?! Ice Shard, Ice Beam and Ice Punch are still used vastly, and Blizzard is almost a staple in Hail.
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The moves, maybe. The Pokemon themselves, certainly not, Fairy has made them even more useless.
 
gacs said:
We will also need to wait and see how exactly the new mechanic of ghost types being able to escape from battle works and if it extends beyond wild encounters and into trainer battles. It will be promising if this turns out to be the case.
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Wild battles have always been "escapable." I'm pretty sure they only meant that ghosts can't be trapped by moves.
 
Blob55 said:
What are going to be the worst types? Some say Ice, while others say Grass.
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Ice, by far...

Weak to common offensive types like Fire, Fighting, Rock... heck, we might as well throw in Steel, what with Steel being able to counter both Ice and the new Fairy-type (I don't see Poison getting much of a boost, since they only counter Grass, and Grass is also covered by Fire)...

No valuable type resistances (it resists itself and that's it)... no valuable type specific immunities (immune to rarely seen Hail and Frozen status... whatever)...

Super effective against rarely used types like Grass, Ground and Flying, and those can all be handled by more common types...

It's one offensive niche (countering Dragons) now taken by Fairy-types, which are not only super effective against the common Dragon-type, but immune to them as well. Not to mention both super effective against and resistant to common Fighting-types as well; a type that can be almost as annoying as Dragon-types, making Fairies a good counter to two significantly powerful opposing types...

Really, Ice has lost a lot this generation and gained nothing in return... the only reason I can see using Ice-type attacks if for the 4X weak Dragons, or Dragons that with a type combo that resists Fairy but not Ice (and I don't think those exist yet)... after that, well... why not go with Fairy-type instead?

...honestly, what they NEEDED to do was neutralize Steel's Ice-type resistance (not it's Dark-type resistance)... that alone would have given Ice a good niche, hitting common walls like Ferrothorn and Skarmory...
 
J.D. said:
Blob55 said:
What are going to be the worst types? Some say Ice, while others say Grass.
Click to expand...
Ice, by far...

Weak to common offensive types like Fire, Fighting, Rock... heck we might as well throw in Steel, what with Steel being able to counter both Ice and the new Fairy-type (I don't see Poison getting much of a boost, since they only counter Grass, and Grass is also covered by Fire)...

No valuable type resistances (it resists itself and that's it)... no valuable type specific immunities (immune to rarely seen Hail and Frozen status... whatever)...

Super effective against rarely used types like Grass, Ground and Flying, and those can all be handled by more common types...

It's one offensive niche (countering Dragons) now taken by Fairy-types, which are not only super effective against the common Dragon-type, but immune to them as well; not to mention both super effective against and resistant to common Fighting-types as well (a type that can be almost as annoying as Dragon-types)...

Really, it lost a lot this generation and gained nothing in return... the only reason I can see using Ice-type attacks if for the 4X weak Dragons... after that, well... why not go with Fairy-type instead?
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:( Why Game Freak, why? Don't they see what they did to the poor, now pointless Ice type? I wouldn't be surprised if Ice types go extinct, unless they all gain secondary typing or the pure ice types stay far, far away from Kalos.
 
Blob55 said:
:( Why Game Freak, why? Don't they see what they did to the poor, now pointless Ice type? I wouldn't be surprised if Ice types go extinct, unless they all gain secondary typing or the pure ice types stay far, far away from Kalos.
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Oops! You quoted me before I was finished editing :p!

I'd also like to point out that Fairy-type was suppose to be GF's way of nerfing Dragon-types, but go figure, in the process they managed to destroy one of its currently existing counters...
 
Ghost types have benefited, but while Dark types are hurt by Fairies, they are now less threatened by Steels and Fighting types. Ghost being better now could cause an increase in Dark types, which in turn could cause an increase in Fighting or Bug types, which in turn could cause an increase in Ghost types.
Takeshi said:
What are going to be the worst types? Some say Ice, while others say Grass.
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Grass isn't as bad as some people make it out to be. Sure it has 5 weaknesses, but Fire and Ice are the only ones that matter. Now Grass is immune to powder moves and is good against the newly boosted Electric types and Ground types to counter them, not to mention how it's still great against Water aka one of the top types.

Just about every type has been effected by changes either to them or to types they are strong/weak against. It's still too early to tell how trends will be because of this domino/ripple effect. If you think about it, there are a lot of circles for just about every type. Water is hurt by an increase in Electric and Grass types, but benefits from an increase in Fire types. Ground types will increase if Electric and Fire do. An increase in Ground types could cause an increase in Water and Ice types. An increase in Ice types could cause a decrease in Grass types, and both of which could cause an increase in Water types. Let's not forget about how Water would benefit from less Dragon types. But then, so would Grass and Electric. But Fire would, too. But this increase in Fire, Grass, and Electric types could also cause an increase in Dragon types....
 
Bogleech said:
gacs said:
We will also need to wait and see how exactly the new mechanic of ghost types being able to escape from battle works and if it extends beyond wild encounters and into trainer battles. It will be promising if this turns out to be the case.
Click to expand...

Wild battles have always been "escapable." I'm pretty sure they only meant that ghosts can't be trapped by moves.
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Well not "always". In terms of trapping moves, we have Bind, Wrap, Sand Tomb, Whirpool, Fire Spin (...) that can very well be used by wild Pokemon.

It all points to it being present in vs. battles, but their usage of the word "flee" (which implies ending the battle altogether) instead of "fleeing or switching" is what stroke me as odd.
 
J.D. said:
Blob55 said:
:( Why Game Freak, why? Don't they see what they did to the poor, now pointless Ice type? I wouldn't be surprised if Ice types go extinct, unless they all gain secondary typing or the pure ice types stay far, far away from Kalos.
Click to expand...

Oops! You quoted me before I was finished editing :p!

I'd also like to point out that Fairy-type was suppose to be GF's way of nerfing Dragon-types, but go figure, in the process they managed to destroy one of its currently existing counters...
Click to expand...

I just hope that the Vanillite on the fat kids shirt gains a Fairy type, or it'll get eaten alive. I'm guessing it will either be very rare or a gift Pokémon.
 
Since I posted this you already know I consider Ghost to be the huge benefiters of the new changes. When I was thinking about all of this, it was Gengar that made me really concerned because their are few good counters to it since it can now hit Skarmory and Scizor for regular damage with a STAB move. I wasn't even thinking about Honedge as someone else mentioned. If GF introduces some new moves for Ghost types that are ridiculous like how Dragons have, then we will run into a similar problem we had the past generations with Dragons being overly dominant.

As far as "worst" type goes, it is clearly Ice. Personally I was hoping GF would recognize this and give Ice a resistance to Fairy or Water or Ground or even Dragon for that matter. Ice has sadly become a pointless typing as it can't even mix with another typing to make a Pokemon better. (Check a type calculator, Ice typing is not a help to any other typing. It just adds weaknesses.)
 
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