How Pokemon Ruined the Psychic Type

when I was a kid everybody knew that the best type was psychic because the strongest and coolest Pokémon ever was Mewtwo a psychic type if you needed more proof Mew was the only mythical Pokémon a classification so rare you could only get one by going to a store that no longer exists but somewhere between my bright childhood and today's Bleak wind reality something changed and psychic fell from the best type in the game to maybe not the absolute worst but pretty close to it today I'm going to break down how Pokémon ruined the psychic type every generation we get new Pokémon of every type whereas how the actual types interact with one another stays the same or that's how it worked the last three generations but to fully understand what happened to the psychic type we can't start with Generation 7 we need to go all the way back to the kto region in Pokemon Red and Blue the year is 1996 and Pokémon has just just been released with 151 unique creatures launching the series to unprecedented success as Pokémon fever infects everyone except for this guy so Pokemon is a game that teaches children how to enter into the world of Witchcraft how to cast spells how to use psychic phenomena your children KN need to know there's a devil and he hates them and he wants to ruin their life naturally the developers started doing what any good game company would do working on a sequel which means an opportunity to not only expand the game with new Pokémon new locations and new mechanics but also to correct anything that was out of line in the first games and there is one issue that is so blatantly gamebreaking that even the developers who keep ignoring incinerar couldn't possibly leave it untouched the psychic type is completely overpowered this has to do with more than just Mewtwo a type strength is determined by two things the strength of the Pokémon that have that type and how the actual types interact with each other in generation one psychic type Pokémon were as the kids say Amaze balls Alakazam was one of the strongest Pokemon in the game and Pokemon like Star me Jinx slow bro even Mr mime were so good they'd make reloom look ah Rel boomed if you want my jokes to get better you should subscribe this is a threat there are a few gen one Oddities that make these Pokémon even more fearsome such as the presence of a combined special stat instead of a split special attack and special defense stat but on top of the Pokemon themselves being strong psychic had pretty nutty relationships with the other types it was only resisted by other psychic types meaning if you had one of your fast and strong psychic types in position your opponent's only option was to switch in their own psychic type or take a big chunk of damage plus psychic's only weaknesses were bug and ghost with the only Ghost type Pokemon being Gengar who is weak to psychic and the only Ghost type attack being lick gen one psychic types weren't especially superstitious and even if there had been more Ghost type moves it wouldn't have mattered since due to a bug psychic types were accidentally immune to Ghost type attacks instead of weak to them speaking of bug psychic's other weakness wasn't much scarier the bug types in gen one are incredibly weak Pokemon and they also had no real moves at the time pincer didn't even learn a bug type attack for crying out loud looking back it's easy to see how psychic types went completely unchecked now it's clear that going into generation 2 game freak still wanted psychic to be Grandma's most specialist type the introduction of Lugia as a psychic and flying type despite the fact that all signs pointed to it making more sense as a water and flying type since you know it is canonically the guardian of the Seas only emphasized that psychic was meant to sit at top the throne and that's not even mentioning that the only new mythical Pokémon was this psychic type onion but something had to change or else this new batch of mental monstrosities would spend another generation more untouched than a PSA 10 Charizard and you probably know the solution that game freak came up with the introduction of two new types steel and dark steel types resist psychic and dark types were not only completely immune to psychic attacks they could deal super effective damage in return add on to this Ghost Attacks you know actually working and it looked like psychic types might be manageable at least from a type relationship standpoint a big question though would be how the new steel ghost dark and bug type Pokémon would stack up against the defending champs now not every new Pokemon was uh good but generation 2 introduced several Pokémon that would eventually become competitive main stay such as Scizor and Tyranitar add on to this the splitting of the special stat into special attack and special defense offering a major Nerf to Pokemon like Alakazam Jinx starmy and actually most other psychic types and things have been dramatically shaken up since the generation prior I didn't play Pokemon competitively back in generation 2 as far as I'm aware there weren't even official tournaments back then so at this point it is a little bit hard to say just how dominant psychic types actually were but what I can say is that by introducing two new types with the sole purpose of giving Alakazam and Friends a brain freeze and updating the Stat system to allow counterplay for special attacking Pokemon the building blocks were in place to make sure that psychic was if not nerfed at least manageable or that's how it was supposed to go but somehow between these changes introduced in generation 2 and our current game in generation 9 psychic types went off the rails and ended up as one of the worst types in the game so what happened they added incinerar wait no that can't be right that didn't happen until sun and moon okay fine let's look a little deeper part of the answer has to do with the two new types introduced in generation 2 see while these types were designed to help make psychic types more manageable generation 2 only introduced 100 new Pokémon and obviously only a handful of those could be either steel or dark with only five Pokémon lines to choose from each and over half of the steel and dark type Pokémon have stats that make spy doops look well not good but not as bad psychic was still able to shine despite the efforts of big Pikachu because there just weren't enough good Pokémon to stop them it wasn't really that dark types countered psychic types it was more like Tyranitar countered psychic types and just one Pokemon is easy enough to deal with but the longer the series went on the more steel and dark type Pokémon were introduced Generation 3 for example more than doubled the amount of dark types going from five lines to 12 as well as adding five new Steel type Pokémon including Metagross an incredible ball of stats who resist psychic with both of its types and M while a Pokemon that can Yap twice as efficiently and if 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video I haven't mentioned it yet but ghost and Bug probably the two worst types in the game at the start of the franchise would also receive Buffs the longer the series went on Ghost type moves being able to be both physical and special starting in generation 4 was a massive buff for special attacking ghosts like Gengar and just like steel and dark the longer the series went on the more good Ghost type Pokémon there were to choose from in stark contrast to the first two generations where your literal only options were Gengar and mous wait why does it look so weird Ah that's better the same can be said of bug types as well the introduction of better bug type moves was a massive deal for Pokémon who pre previously had to use like 20 base power leash life and many bug type Pokémon benefited from the addition of abilities in Generation 3 such as shinja with its Wonder guard scissor with technician and Parasect with dry skin at the same time game freak appears to have been very wary of making new psychic types too strong excluding legendaries generation 2's psychic types were relatively weak and the same was true for Generation 3 not counting Metagross now to be fair that is excluding legendary Pokémon like Latios and Latios are exceptional Pokémon but there definitely seems to be a restraint shown when designing new Pokémon that was suspiciously lacking in Generation 1 so looking at just the first handful of generations we're starting to see a vag picture of our murder mystery new types were introduced that had a very good match up against psychic types and the more new Pokemon were introduced the more of the types that could handle psychic were fleshed out at the same time strong new psychic type Pokemon were few and far between often limited to powerful and rare Legendary Pokémon but this isn't the full picture it's just one piece of the puzzle there's more at play here than just the introduction of new Pokémon let's take a step back and look at what makes psychic types well psychic type psychic type Pokémon as of generation 2 had the following relationships they deal super effective damage against fighting and poison types they deal resisted damage to steel and psychic types and psychic moves are unable to damage dark types on the defensive side of things they resist psychic and fighting attacks and they're weak to ghost dark and bug type moves I want to focus on a few things in particular here but let's start with psychic's offense psychic types only hit two other types for super effective damage and neither is a type you're excited to see your starter Pokemon evolve into poison was for a long time viewed as a bottom three type and fighting H it's okay but it's not great now this wasn't as big a deal in Generation 1 when psychic types dominated because even though there weren't that many fighting and poison types nothing resisted psychic except psychic but with steel and dark types popping up more and more not being able to hit a majority of the cast for super effective damage is a much bigger issue with more types that resist it than are weak to it psychic isn't able to serve as the offensive Powerhouse type it once was which is a problem especially because it also can't function very well as a defensive type while psychic only has three weaknesses and two of them have never been exceedingly common types it also doesn't have many resistances and by it doesn't have many resistances what I mean is its resistances are practically worthless fighting a type that is never at the top of the food chain and psychic yippe in a sense psychic's relationships to the other types are very similar to normals offensively psychic hits two types for super super effective while normal doesn't hit any and they each struggle to damage three types while psychic has three weaknesses normal only has one and psychic's two resistances To Mediocre types are comparable to normal's immunity to ghost a great offensive type the difference is that in order to offset the clear disadvantage that being a normal type gives due to the type chart normal type Pokemon are given a host of other benefits from wide- ranging move pools to higher than average base stats vantages that are suspiciously absent from most psychic types now this didn't stop psychic types from being strong in generation 2 or from continuing to be a good type for the next several Generations but their success was built on unstable footing the more Pokémon were released the more new moves introduced the more underserved types brought up to speed the more pressure was placed on the psychic type and in generation 4 another huge blow was dealt an enormous mechanic changed completely warping how every Pokémon game would work thereafter see the way the game used to work is that all moves of a type were either physical or special if the type was dragon or the same type as any of Eevee's Evolutions it was special otherwise it's physical that means that moves like fire punch a physical move nowadays was a special move just like all other fire type attacks this really helped some Pokémon and really hurt others many psychic type Pokémon benefited from this system you could proc quick claw and then have the Flint what did I say Braden what did I say Alakazam for example was able to use moves like fire punch and ice punch for coverage since they were special moves at the time other Pokemon like Gengar were seriously held back as Gengar stats wanted to be a special attacker but all ghost and poison type moves at the time were physical but since basically every psychic type preferred to be a special attacker this pretty much only helped psychic type Pokémon until Hill Generation 4 when the physical special split occurred and suddenly Pokémon that had never been relevant before could actually be used we talked about Gengar but other Pokemon like cradon and Sharpedo who were previously unusable could actually play the game add on to this new dark type Pokemon like weile spiritum honchkrow and drapion being introduced who could take advantage of new physical dark type moves and the fact that almost no psychic types benefited from this change and you can probably see that this was another major nail in the wheezing of course not everything about Generation 4 was disastrous for psychic types in addition to adding bronzong a strong Pokemon who I'm personally fond of for uh no reason in particular Diamond and Pearl introduced a new Pokemon who would go on to prove itself as arguably the best psychic type Pokemon of all time Cresselia Cresselia is a legendary Pokémon with absolutely absurd stats while it isn't strong offensively its incredible defensive stats allow it to actually make use of psychic as a defensive type because it's so tanky it can afford to not have that many resistances especially with its ability making it immune to ground type moves and with only three weaknesses it's difficult to hit it for super effective damage now I want to be clear that for the most part Cresselia succeeds despite its psychic typing not because of it if it were a water or electric or fire or Steel type it would probably be just as good if not better with one exception Cresselia move pool is phenomenal and that's in large part because being a psychic type gives it access to some very valuable supporting moves Cresselia can control the speed of the battle with moves like icy wind Thunder Wave and trick room it can boost its partner's damage output with helping hand it can take control of the weather with sunny day it can disrupt the battle with skill Swap and Swagger I even tried out a psycho shift flame orb set one time though there's a reason that this is the first time you're hearing about it with such a versatile move pool and incredible stats Cresselia would go on to win the World Championships three times a feat no other Pokemon has yet surpassed but Cresselia is just a single Pokemon and though it's a great one it doesn't redeem the entire type as of generation 4 psychic was no longer in contention for the best type in the game bat mantle had fallen to dragon and let me tell you psychic wasn't in the discussion for runner up this is disgusting this is a in every way but despite getting knocked off the mountain psychic was still a respectable type it's kind of like an athlete that's past their Prime who occasionally shows moments of greatness and when you see them you can remember how good they were at their Peak and even though they're not pogging out as hard as they used to hey at least they're still in the game going into generation 5 psychic types didn't make a grand recovery they didn't receive any major Buffs and the best new psychic type Pokémon introduced were good but not great goth was the standout though it didn't receive Shadow tag until late into generation 5's lifespan it seemed like at this point psychic had finally fallen out of favor with game freak Grandma had forgotten her most specialist type for the first time since the series Inception there were no new psychic type Legendary Pokémon instead they gave us the Genies yay but game freak had a new problem Dragons Dragon was the spiritual successor to psychic and with the introduction of so many powerful Dragon type Pokémon over the years the game was once again in a state where fast and Powerful attackers were met with only a single type that could resist them this time steel but many dragon type Pokémon learn Fire or ground type attacks making steel an unreliable counter and the powerful new gem items introduced in generation 5 made it so that even Steel type Pokémon couldn't switch in safely against moves like Draco meteor so once again it was clear that something had to change and Game Freak solution was the same as it had been a decade prior the introduction of a new type what wasn't clear is that this final addition to the type chart would be the death Nell for the once great psychic types bar type Pokémon were introduced in Generation 6 with a handful of new Pokemon being given the type as well as some old Pokémon being retroactively changed and by some definitions of the word this change worked dragon type Pokémon were no longer dominating the game great job of course the reason they were no longer dominating is because Grandma had a new most specialist type and boy is it fairy fairy type Pokémon were very clearly not designed with a lot of thought given to uh counterplay despite the relatively small amount of fairy type pokemon the type was so blatantly overpowered that almost every fairy type pokemon with even decent stats saw success aeral gavor ma Sylveon kfy whimsicott Togekiss even Wiggly tough one or Regional Wiggly tough your children KN need to know there's a devil and he hates them and he wants to ruin their life and don't even get me started on xerus I mean it I do not want to talk about what that Pokemon put me through but what does the fairy type have to do with psychic fairy type is like the platonic ideal of psychic type fairy type Pokémon are weak to only poison and steal compared to psychic ghost dark and Bug they resist fighting dark and bug and are immune to Dragon compared to psychic resistances to only fighting and psychic offensively fairy type moves hit fighting dark and dragon types for super effective damage compared to just fighting and poison for psychic and lastly fairy attacks are resisted by fire steel and poison compared to the psychic steel and dark of psychic attacks it should be apparent pretty quickly that Ferry is just a strict upgrade compared to psychic one of the two types psychic has a strictly positive match up against is fighting an advantage fairy offers as well but you get so much more out of fairy type pokemon and truthfully out of all the changes made to psychic over the years I personally believe this one to be the single most devastating Pokémon isn't a game about objective strength while there are Pokemon that are clearly better than others and will be used more than others there's often opportunities for weak Pokémon that fill a specific Niche or do a specific thing the most famous example is pisu of course though countless other Pokémon over the years have thrived despite not appearing as powerful as the Pokémon around them there are some Pokémon that can almost never succeed though and that's Pokémon that do the same thing as a different more powerful Pokémon it's the reason why we rarely see kto Arcanine or hitmontop when incinerar is around and the reason why nobody would use masara instead of C Celia and in a sense the addition of the fairy type made the vast majority of psychic type Pokémon obsolete that isn't to say that there are no good psychic type Pokémon in fact a psychic type Pokémon has won the World Championships five of the eight years since fairy type was introduced but the Pokémon that have one are Cresselia ceric Shadow and lunala Pokemon that are exceptionally powerful despite their typing not necessarily because of it it seems like nowadays psychic type Pokemon can't rely on their typing to carry them they've got to have something else be the selling point that being said it does seem like game freak is no longer opposed to making powerful psychic type Pokémon now that the type is more in line recent Generations have introduced several strong psychic types with interesting mechanics attached to them oranguru became the first Pokemon ever to be able to cause a partner to attack twice in a row thanks to its unique move instruct and in the same generation there were a ton of powerful psychic type legendaries tapele was a Mainstay in competitive play with its psychic terrain ability not only shutting down priority but also boosting the power of all psychic type attacks Choice specs and psyche MZ tapele could output huge damage while choice scarf could be used to wipe opponents out before they attacked not to mention that every box art legendary was for the first time psychic type solal lunala necros necros dusm necrozma Dawn wings and Ultra necros were all at least part psychic type SOA was more of a niche pick though it did see some use in competitive play similar to necros Dawn wings but dusk made necros got second at the world championships in 2019 in part due to the power of ultra acrma and lunala actually won worlds that year now of course these Pokemon did succeed in large part due to their absurd stats secondary typing amazing abilities and impressive move pools but hey they were all psychic types Generation 8 introduced hatteri and Indi who would formed the backbone of trick room teams early on with hatteri strength as a Dynamax attacker and indeed's utility as a follow me support Pokémon while hatteri has fallen off since the early days of sword and shield indeed he remains a strong Pokemon even in the current format sword and shield also did something similar to what Ultra sun and moon did with necros and introduced another Fusion Style Pokemon cerx ice rider and ker Shadow Rider are both psychic type Pokémon but what makes them Stand Out is how good their stats are their completely unfair ability which is literally just two abilities smashed into one and their signature moves which I still can't believe are real CER Shadow won the World Championships in 2022 with Ker's ice finishing in the semifinals which brings us to generation 9 and the final installment in The Saga of psychic type Pokémon thus far scarlet and violet introduced a lot of psychic types and while some of them were um repulsive many of them turned out to be quite strong armar saw a bunch of play this year as the spiritual successor to hatteri and espo saw some Niche use as well some personal favorite Pokémon of mine this year were psychic type most notably scream tail and furra both of whom I won the largest Tournament of all time with though not at the same time the final part of the DLC dropped recently and introduced new psychic type Paradox Pokemon which seemed to be good as well though we'll have to see if they can keep up now that incinerar is back oh man incinerar is back also they added this monkey but I don't think it's very good anyway now you know the whole story how psychic went from the king of the world to a popper at the gates but you also know that a Pokemon's type doesn't Define it psychic type Pokémon continue to thrive despite all of the shortcomings of their type and I think that's kind of cool and maybe just a little bit mental

Channel: WolfeyVGC

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Keywords: Wolfey, Pokemon, VGC, Wolfe Glick, Competitive Pokemon, Pokemon VGC, twitch, pokemon nuzlocke, nuzlocke, hardcore nuzlocke, smallant, ludwig, pokemon challenge, pokemon challenges, alpharad, wolfeyvgc, purplecliffe, pm7, pokemen7, mandjtv, shiny pokemon, pokemon scarlet, pokemon violet, scarlet, violet, scarlet and violet, fuecoco, quaxly, sprigatito, psychic, psychic type pokemon, palworld, palworld pokemon, mewtwo, how pokemon ruined the psychic type, pokemon video essay

Id: 97kXYE8j9xQ

Length: 24min 49sec (1489 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 03 2024