Pokemon news discussion 2: Spoiler Tag Boogaloo

Ooh, at some point I want to see a vengeful Poison/Fairy. That would be cool.

and that doesn't mean slapping fairy on koffing or something that'd just be dumb

Okay, now I kind of want to see Koffing re-imagined as a Poison/Fairy type. SOMEONE MAKE THIS HAPPEN GO GO GO

Drega: not really. Short of a massive poison influx, Psychics have been badly damaged this gen. Basically, by typing alone, they're completely outclassed. Also Ghost is set to be on the rise. And heavily so - ten bucks says any psychic type that gets a boost is down to it also getting fairy. The old steel/psychic standbyes are in trouble now, too. I wouldn't mind a FEW pokemon getting strong fairy moves.
But!
Fairy + Dark is one of the best offensive combos the game will ever see. It is something to be aware of.

(I'm kind hoping absol's increased stats are mostly speed and ideally gets Fairy physical move (any usable base power) and Parting shot. Lead with that and Sucker Punch or Night Slash and I would be in love... Providing it's not so fearsomely strong people hate it. I'd be happy just with parting shot though <3 )

Also, I disagree: I think Poison's offenses should stay the way they are ( though I'd love S.E versus water. That would change everything) because the changes it would need to become offensively viable would uproot the metagame. Rather, the meta is happiest when each type fulfills a role of some sort - compare Ice to Dragon to Dark to Normal to Steel to Fairy. They all have a niche. And Poison types seem to work best in unconventional defensive roles, not following in Steel's footsteps: I'd like this to be bolstered. The meta is a bit too offense oriented anyway. (Poison resisting Water would also be rather nice. Water is an excellent type with a 'deluge' of options available to it. And scald and rain was just mean.)

Changes I'd theorymon: Fairy loses Bug resistance. Psychic, Grass resist fairy. Possibly not all three though. Poison EITHER resist FOR hit water super effectively. Fighting immune to ghost? Perhaps. Ice S.E on... Rock?? Nah, Rock needs help too. Rock resist... Something. Normal resist something too? Aaaah too many changes not enough types! Poison change and psychic resist wouldn be my priorities though. Before fairy, a Fighting weakness and removing Steel's resistances would have been there, too.

Rock is already super-effective against Ice, so I doubt it would simultaneously become weak to Ice. Rock actually has four resistances at the moment; I think any more could easily become overkill.

I'll admit, I was convinced for a long time that Ice was super effective against Rock, especially when I kept trouncing Rock/Ground types with Icy Wind or something. I figured it was because it was 4x effective, not because Rock types also usually have pitiful Special Defense.

I also thought Ice was good against Bug, so I was really confused when my Weavile was horrible against Aaron from Sinnoh's Elite Four.

Been there, all of those things. I blame gen 1. A whole bunch of rock/grounds and then Aerodactyl to cement the idea. But Rock's resistances aren't any good. Like at fire; second-most resistances yet terrible defensive type. Being weak to Fighting, Ground, Ice and Water (all top-tier offensive types) makes it a poor defensive choice. Which is a shame, because GameFreak can't seem to ditch the idea of Rock being tough. Still. Bring on the Aerodactlys and the Rampadoses.

Heeeeey drega have you added me yet :0

I thought I did! But I guess I didn't. I need internet to add you, and everything here is either ethernet or computer or phone only wifi. I'll check that out sometime.

Hey, Drega and I are in the same boat with internet! At the very least, we should all be good to go around Thanksgiving, and then for the holidays as well.

'Thanksgiving'

Guys c'mon a bit of help here

We could be Canadian??

This year, it's November 28 (that's really late), but most schools (read: virtually all, both K-12 and college) will give students most of that week off. This year, because it's so late, my school has the last day of classes for the semester right before Thanksgiving Break starts, then we come back for finals before leaving again for Winter Break. Why Thanksgiving has to be on a Thursday every year instead of a fixed date is beyond me.

Okay, I have actually been thinking about fairies as dragon slayers and I think they doing a pretty bad job. It's like Ice all over again, except from small differences.

Fairy type attacks are super effective. Then again, Ice attacks are just as effective, unless you get STAB. Heck, on all Dragon/Flying and Dragon/Ground types, Ice is actually better.

Fairies are immune to Dragon attacks. Honestly, I don't know about others but Dragon type attacks only had three uses in my opinion.
STAB, Dragon counter or Neutral Coverage.
Your Dragons use Dragon moves just for STAB most of the time, not because they are good moves. And non Dragons either use them because they have a high base power, hit everything but steel neutrally and dragon good.
But since fairies are now immune, Dragon type moves became MUCH weaker, and as I said, they weren't that great to beginn with...

Fairies are weak to fire. This was one of Ices MAIN problems with Dragons. Most if not all of them had at least one fire move.

I think the reason why fairy type might not work well as a nerf to Dragon type mons is simply that they didn't realize why dragon type mons were so good. It wasn't their good dragon moves or the fact that there wasn't much to hit them supereffectivly with.
It was that most of them are Pseudo Legendaries which have awesome stats. Add in a rather flexible movepool and a type which resists some of the big types and there is your reason why dragons are so freaking strong.

EDIT:
I went through the list of Pokemons to check which dragons would be weaker to Fairy type attacks then Ice type attacks (not counting STAB), here is the list of all the (fully evolved) ones:

List:

Yeah, that's it in a nutshell. Uh, a rather large nutshell.

Unfortunately CA, at my college we only get half a week off for Thanksgiving, so I'm not going home for the week. (I AM going to my great-uncle's house though, but that's a different story.) What really sucks is that my little brother does get the whole week off, so he and my parents are going to freaking Hawaii without me.

Except I just noticed that fairy isn't weak to fire, it's only resisted by it. So I guess they DO get hurt less by Dragon types, so eh...

EDIT:
I just went and checked, they can learn either Steel or Poison moves though.
Haxorus and Garchomp both can learn Poison Jab
Hydreigon can learn Flash Cannon
Dragonite and Garchomp both can learn Iron Head
And most of them can learn Iron Tail (By which I mean, I checked Haxorus, Dragonite, Salamence, Garchomp, Flygon and Hydreigon and they all were able to learn Iron Tail via tutor in B2/W2)

^Good point for the most part, but I feel the need to point out that fairy-types aren't actually weak to Fire. Fire resists 'em, but that doesn't affect things that have Fire moves only for type coverage.

EDIT: Wow um. How did I get ninja'd that badly??? I cannot have spent 17 minutes writing this post!

Heh, that happens to me all the time muffinz, don't worry

Plus the fact that

Spoiler:

Edit: I hope you guys aren't offended or anything, but I'm kind of really excited that I got the 3333rd post in the General Chat thread.

Dregadude wrote:Plus the fact that

Spoiler:

Edit: I hope you guys aren't offended or anything, but I'm kind of really excited that I got the 3333rd post in the General Chat thread.

Reply to the spoiler:

Also, congratulations on post 3333

Objection! The potentially good fairies we've seen so far are Gardevoir, Azumarill, Mawile, possibly Clefable (it's only been held back by its normal typing) Togekiss and, god forbid, Blissey. In the cards could be Flabebe and Co, can't forget Xerneas in ubers. There could be more, but even if those are it you have a handy selection; Togekiss for example can take down all Garchomps without Stone Edge; which would be fine only Garchomp starts to lose coverage. Earthquake Fire Blast Outrage SD/Dragon Claw, none of these Garchomp wants to leave out. Same for the other Dragons. Nobody sane will teach them poison jab, it's terrible coverage. And Steel is equally iffy. The point with all the 4x Ice weaknesses is that it's not a coincidence. For a long time GF have been trying to neuter Dragons with it; because of Ice's TERRIBLE (read: worst) defense (compared to Fairy's excellent ones), weaknesses in often shared with the known dragon check Steel types, and typically high dragon-speed, if an ice type couldn't OHKO, it was dead. Look at all the problems Yache Chomp caused, for example. One Ice Beam was not enough. But with Fairy type coverage and immunity and weaknesses, quite a dew fairies will be in  position to take a hit and 2HKO if necessary. And Dragon's not a bad type now. It's an excellent type that now has a total counter to play around, so you can't 6-0 with an SD Chomp. Which is fine, you shouldn't do that anyway. It's been given greater gifts than other types and now it's been countered a bit more than other types. Electric types manage fine, Dragon will too.

Objection: Dragons never were that strong because of their type but because most of them had excellent stats. Most of them were Pseudo Legendaries or Legendaries after all. Sure, resisting the four elements is neat and all but that alone wouldn't have been enough. And Dragon moves give (gave) you great neutral coverage but it was the varied movepool that the Dragons had that made them so strong, not their powerful Dragon moves.

Fairies aren't changing the great stats or the wide movepool and a Dragon with a Firemove still has complete neutral coverage.

And we don't know if either Togekiss or Blissey will get fairy type. And even if they do, that changes nothing about the fact that the fairies we've seen from THIS gen have been underwhelming so far.

So all in all, I doubt that the pseudo legendaries will have to much trouble with fairies, especially the ones we saw in this gen.

D_What, by "old new fairies" I meant all the Pokemon that got a secondary fairy typing. So, all the ones you labeled as potentially good. Your objection is invalid!

Togekiss is fairy/flying. This has been confirmed. And this gen's fairies bar xerneas are inconsequential compared to Mawile, Gardevoir and Azumarill. (Note: drega I wasn't objecting what YOU had said, those were just parts of my point  and in any case that's the fallacy fallacy.) 
And OJ, the moves had an awful lot to do with it. Back in gen 4, most dragons didn't get Outrage (which prior to that had been a 90ish base power move IIRC). So other than those that did and those who could attack specially (Draco Meteor, before Dragons could even BE special attackers, my god how the game has changed) dragons filled niche roles, often defensive ones (dragonite, salamence especially). And then platinum's Move tutors came along.. POW. What will be forever known as the Dragon and Stealth Rock generation. Dragons are superior basically across the board: highly useable resistances, highly spammable, POWERFUL moves on both sides of the spectrum, otherwise excellent coverage (fighting, ground, fire) and superior base stats, and very iffy weaknesses (one basically, the glass cannon type. Fighting Dragons with Dragons causes speed-creep feedback loops, increasing the number of dragons.) They're undeniably excellent. Fairy has weakened their defenses and made their moves less spammable.

Also, neutral coverage is a loaded term. If every pokemon was a single type, yep, that would work. But they aren't and fire/dragon is pr96lematic (heheh): Azumarill and Heatran are set to rocket up in usage, for example, or anything with a dragon resist in rain (very common). The Pseudos can run coverage moves to take down (some) of the fairy fellows, but it sorely limits heir efficiency against other types. One-on-one, it depends on the set run and the opponent. 6-on-6, the pseudos have been nerfed, mostly indirectly. But their typing and attacks still make them a very valid threat.

Edit: excuse typoos!

d_what wrote:Togekiss is fairy/flying. This has been confirmed.

First of all, when and where was that confirmed? I thought only Gardevoir, Marill and Jigglypuff had been confirmed.

~Outrage snop~

Yeah, Outrage is powerful I guess.

Dragons are superior basically across the board: highly useable resistances, highly spammable, POWERFUL moves on both sides of the spectrum, otherwise excellent coverage (fighting, ground, fire) and superior base stats, and very iffy weaknesses (one basically, the glass cannon type. Fighting Dragons with Dragons causes speed-creep feedback loops, increasing the number of dragons.) They're undeniably excellent. Fairy has weakened their defenses and made their moves less spammable.

Now hold up for a sec, neither Fighting nor Ground are Dragon resistances, they are only from the Flying type. None of the other Dragons resist those two types (except those with Levitate) (And I suppose Giratina is immune to Fighting And Latios and Latias as well as Skrelps evolution will resist fighting as well...)

But that isn't an issue with Dragons.

The same goes for the stats, stats aren't technically linked to the type. I already said that their superior stats were one of the main reasons why they were so powerful and fairies don't change that.

And what do you mean with "one basically" for weaknesses? Don't you count Dragons or don't you count Ice?

Also, neutral coverage is a loaded term. If every pokemon was a single type, yep, that would work. But they aren't and fire/dragon is pr96lematic (heheh): Azumarill and Heatran are set to rocket up in usage, for example, or anything with a dragon resist in rain (very common). The Pseudos can run coverage moves to take down (some) of the fairy fellows, but it sorely limits heir efficiency against other types. One-on-one, it depends on the set run and the opponent. 6-on-6, the pseudos have been nerfed, mostly indirectly. But their typing and attacks still make them a very valid threat.

What are you even talking about here?

OverlordJ wrote:Now hold up for a sec, neither Fighting nor Ground are Dragon resistances, they are only from the Flying type. None of the other Dragons resist those two types (except those with Levitate) (And I suppose Giratina is immune to Fighting And Latios and Latias as well as Skrelps evolution will resist fighting as well...)[/spoiler]

He's talking about Dragons using those moves for coverage.

OverlordJ wrote:The same goes for the stats, stats aren't technically linked to the type. I already said that their superior stats were one of the main reasons why they were so powerful and fairies don't change that.

Yeah, in the same way that Tyranitar and Metagross are good. Pseudo-legendaries are good, it's why they evolve at level 50+ most of the time. Dragon pseudo-legendaries just had a ridiculously spammable STAB that only had one resistance. Fairies aren't going to end the reign of the pseudo-legendaries, but they will make the Dragon pseudo-legends less metagame-dominating.
Pseudo-legends are just better stats-wise than most normal Pokemon. That won't change, regardless of how good Fairy-types are.

OverlordJ wrote:And what do you mean with "one basically" for weaknesses? Don't you count Dragons or don't you count Ice?

He means that Dragons being weak to themselves just increases the dominance of Dragon-types; if the only way to kill a Dragon is to use a Dragon, then everybody needs a Dragon-type.

OverlordJ wrote:

Also, neutral coverage is a loaded term. If every pokemon was a single type, yep, that would work. But they aren't and fire/dragon is pr96lematic (heheh): Azumarill and Heatran are set to rocket up in usage, for example, or anything with a dragon resist in rain (very common). The Pseudos can run coverage moves to take down (some) of the fairy fellows, but it sorely limits heir efficiency against other types. One-on-one, it depends on the set run and the opponent. 6-on-6, the pseudos have been nerfed, mostly indirectly. But their typing and attacks still make them a very valid threat.

What are you even talking about here?

What he's saying is that with the new Fairies, suddenly you can't get neutral coverage over every Pokemon besides one (ie. Skarmory or Heatran) with just Dragon/Fire or Dragon/Ground. Coverage for Fairy-types limit their options, and as D_What says, nobody wants to run Poison Jab or Iron Head just to kill Fairies.

Fighting ground and fire ARE dragon's coverage moves. They hit steel and ice S.E... But not fairy, sadly! :Dbut I was saying that fire dragon is not great for neutral coverage, far less great now with fairies. Dragon/fire/steel meanwhile has redundant coverage. Having to run poison and steel moves to take down the Pokémon that resist dragon+GFF makes them less efficient.

And no, I don't count dragon as a viable weakness. Because few non-dragons can run dragon moves effectively, and dragons countering dragons is a feedback loop that needs more dragons to solve, unless you stop the cycle with ice. Ice is the primary weakness. Interestingly, gfreak avoided that with fairy in that they don't resist themselves. This means the metagame won't be full of fairies who exist to counter fairies, and that's a good thing.

Also... Okay I kinda fudged the info. TOGEPI has been confirmed mono-fairy, smogon spoilers thread. So more than likely Togekiss is (ou!) Fairy/Flying. Bad weaknesses but excellent resistances and immunities.


Edit: haha rather eloquently ninjask'd. Every point made. Kudos, Xaber!

I didn't know about the Togepi spoiler either.

And I am upset about Fairy/Flying and I don't even use Dragons. Because it is basically a hardcounter to my Krookodile. Which uses a Dragon move, it's high speed and high attack to effectifly take down dragons. But since a Flying fairy is immune to both Dragon and Ground moves and it resists dark and fighting moves I'd have to get rid of either my Dragon or my Fighting move if I'd want to use it. Which I'm actually kind of upset about. Because now, non dragons basically have no reason to run dragon moves anymore. Sure, you can still use them against dragons but that's the only thing they are good against because they nolonger have their excellent neutral coverage.