How to Fix the Ice Type

[Enzap]

One of the worst things Game Freak can do for a Pokémon is slap the Ice typing on it. Sure, covering Ground, Dragon, and Flying types are nice, but now that Fairy has become such a powerful type, Ice is no longer Dragon's true bane and it becomes more of a liability as it takes super effective damage from some of the most common and powerful attacks in the game and only resists itself. This has led to the majority of Ice types being seen as practically useless competitively, with most of the relevant ones being fast sweepers who try to deal as much damage as possible before being KO'd due to their plethora of weaknesses and frail defenses. Slower Ice types and ones that focus on their defenses rather than attack feel more challenging to use since they lack the resistances necessary to take any real hits from sweepers. Even in-game there seems to be very little reward for using most Ice types compared to how late they often appear in the game and their relative rarity (I'm looking at you, RSE Snorunt).

Do you think Ice should be "fixed" by Game Freak, similar to how Steel was nerfed to take neutral damage from Dark and Ghost type attacks? If so, how should this be handled?

Personally, I think that Ice should resist Water, and Water type Pokémon should no longer resist Ice type attacks, or even be weak to Ice. I don't believe Water wouldn't suffer too much from having another weakness (it is currently only weak to Electric and Grass) and it just makes logical sense as Water is frozen by the cold. I don't understand why it ever resisted it at all.

Ice Type Matchup Chart (courtesy of Bulbapedia)

 

[Gengarzilla]

They've definitely made an effort to fix the type this time around with Slush Rush and Aurora Veil working under their designated weather condition. Ice is still a type with problems but it seems like Game Freak have finally caught on to that.

 

[Kisu]

You would think water would be weak to ice,maybe give ice an immunity to dark or fairy or something

 

[Lanstar]

I would do two things to buff up the Ice type:

1. Remove the Rock Weakness, and make it neutral. The biggest issue with Ice I've heard is Stealth Rock weakness - and cutting that off will help give Ice an even playing field. Plus, I don't get the idea that 'Rock crushes Ice' anyways, as Icy glaciers often can alter rocky landscapes as well.
2. Make Ice types have a 1/2 resistance to Electric type moves. Lately, the biggest buff in this generation has been to electric types, with Tapu Koko giving crazy power to the type. I'm not sure about the logic of doing that, though. :/

 

[Enzap]

They've definitely made an effort to fix the type this time around with Slush Rush and Aurora Veil working under their designated weather condition. Ice is still a type with problems but it seems like Game Freak have finally caught on to that.

I appreciate the stat buffs a few Ice types got and the the other aspects you mentioned, but I still feel like, with the exception of maybe Aurora Veil, they didn't address the core issues with the type and in fact only perpetuated some of the problems I mentioned. They introduced the Ice Stone, yet they made the only new Ice type Pokémon in the game (other than Alola variants) accessible only through evolution at the very, very end of the game. Stat wise, Crabominable is a very powerful attacker, but it's painfully slow even in a game where the majority of the dex is well below the average speed and it doesn't have the bulk to take more than a couple unresisted hits. Looking at the Alola variants, Alolan Ninetales is a very good Pokémon, but this is mostly because of its speed and Fairy typing. Alolan Sandslash is slightly bulkier than regular Sandslash, but it's not going to be doing much with that bulk since Ice is the worst defensive type and Steel is no longer the defensive juggernaut it once was. If anything Steel only hurts it defensively since pretty much any Fighting or Fire attack will OHKO it. So the only useful, at all accessible Ice type in the game is once again a fast sweeper and attempts to do anything else with the type ended mostly in disappointment.

Note that I don't dislike Crabominable and Alolan Sandslash at all, I think they have really cool designs and concepts, but it's just really unfortunate that their uses are limited largely by their typing and stats.

You would think water would be weak to ice,maybe give ice an immunity to dark or fairy or something

While any immunity at all would help, I think they still try to make make type matchups have some grounding in logic, and unfortunately I don't think an immunity to Ice or Dark would make logical sense for the type. :/

 

[Esserise]

I mean, thematically, the Ice type is supposed to be strong but frail. That being said, I don't think a resistance to Water would be unreasonable. It being super-effective on Water makes sense as well, although I couldn't see that actually happening.

More than that, I think what they really need to do is to simply stop giving Water types access to the best Ice type moves. If Ice types had more exclusive domain over their own moves, there would be more reason to use them despite the drawbacks.

 

[PurplePopplio]

Give Ice-type a resistance against Flying-type. Both Rock-type and Electric-type have it, why not Ice-type?

 

[Enzap]

I mean, thematically, the Ice type is supposed to be strong but frail. That being said, I don't think a resistance to Water would be unreasonable. It being super-effective on Water makes sense as well, although I couldn't see that actually happening.

More than that, I think what they really need to do is to simply stop giving Water types access to the best Ice type moves. If Ice types had more exclusive domain over their own moves, there would be more reason to use them despite the drawbacks.

We could have a whole separate conversation about type "themes," which I might actually make at some point because I find the idea interesting, but since so few types stick to any sort of consistent theme I see no reason why one type should suffer more than the rest because of it, especially if they're not going to give Pokémon the stats and moves to work with that theme.

If they removed access to Ice Beam from a lot of Pokémon that would incentivize using them more, but it would hurt a lot of Water type Pokémon that don't really have any other coverage moves. I'm thinking about Pokémon like Politoed and Vaporeon. It's an interesting idea, not completely sure if it would be worth the drawbacks but still an idea.

Give Ice-type a resistance against Flying-type. Both Rock-type and Electric-type have it, why not Ice-type?

I've considered that too, but I feel like that might hurt Flying just a touch too much, and it would be overboard if it were combined with the suggested changes to its interactions with Water.

 

[PaulTheProtist]

Make it resist Ground, Dragon, maybe Fairy.

Fixed.

 

[Stratelier]

Ice could benefit from resisting Ground, though the vulnerability to Rock (not to mention Stealth Rock) remains an issue that is also shared with the Flying type.

 

[PaulTheProtist]

Granted, Fire remains powerful in spite of a Rock weakness. Honestly, one thing that would really benefit Ice types (but make things hell for Flying types) is for there to be an Ice type equivalent of Stealth Rock.

 

[Enzap]

An Ice type entry hazard would be really nice as long as it wasn't as recklessly distributed as Stealth Rock once was. I think it was a mistake making it a TM in Gen V, and one that so many non Rock types could use at that. If an Ice type entry hazard was learned by either exclusively or almost exclusively Ice types, like how Sticky Web is used entirely by Bug types, then that could be another valuable tool for them. If they get enough gimmicks and resources like that and Aurora Veil then I could almost forgive its horrible type matchups.

 

[Kisu]

Make ice strong against dragon,water,grass,and maybe rock.
Weak against steel,fire, fighting

 

[Lyrebird]

A freeze attack.

 

[Bolt Strike]

Ice type definitely needs more resistances. Even if the entire concept does require Ice to be a frail type, there's absolutely no excuse for it to only resist itself. At least give it one or two more. I would definitely make Ground one of them, Ground is a pretty strong type and could use an extra counter.

 

[Stratelier]

Ground is a pretty strong type and could use an extra counter.

Yeah. Wild Mudbrays pack STAB Bulldoze right out of the gate. Plus, Ground and Rock Pokemon and techniques overlap a lot (not unlie Water and Ice), which seriously alleviates Ground's otherwise inability to damage Flying types.

 

[Morningstar]

Following some logicla basis I think think of adding a few things to Ice:

• SE against Bug-types. They have a low freeze tolerance.
• Resistance against Flying-type. Despite being the designated wind element. Flying is strongly associated with the type of animals that can easily be killed by cold. The fact that wind is a vital part of a blizzards as well as the existing Super-effectiveness should mean that ice should resit flying type moves.
• Resistance to Water. Should be obvious. Water is simply ice in a liquid state. However I wouldn't advocate making Water-type pokemon weak to ice or se against ice because they seem to have a great control over the temperature of their water, that Scald exist and that they can learn Ice-type moves are proof of that.
• Resistance against Fairies. Keep in mind that Steel-types are strong against Fairy-types because of a myth claiming that Cold Iron can repel fairies. Though the term is figurative, the Cold part can be taken literary for this context. Another factor is that Fairies tend to have insectoid features, (mostly wings, as well as size depending on the work) and as mentioned before Insects have a low freeze tolerance. Fairies other weakness, posion stems from their association with nature (which can be seen in the likes of the Floette line and Comfey, who are to Grass-types what the Lurantis line is to Bug-types), and the biggest threat to plant life besides pollution is, low temperatures. For these reasons, I think that Ice should get a resistance to fairies at least.
• SE against Rock: As mentioned before. Large ice can affect canyons, (Thought I suspect the once-sided weakness was due to ice "eroding" faster than Rock)
• A weakness to Ground: Last but not least. Making them weak to ground for tectonic shifts affects the ice too.

The things is Most of these fixes would run into homogenization problems. As such i would probably only recommend the last two (because I see earth and ice have the means to wipe each other out) the Fairy resist and the Bug um..super-effectiveness.

 

[PaulTheProtist]

SE against Bug-types. They have a low freeze tolerance.

Nah. Bugs have enough going against them, especially with Fairy resisting them. Furthermore, the one Bug that could use a nerf (Scizor) wouldn't be affected by this.

A weakness to Ground: Last but not least. Making them weak to ground for tectonic shifts affects the ice too.

Ground is already strong against five types. Giving it another strength would make it OP. Plus, gaining a weakness to Earthquake would kill whatever viability Ice types have now,

 

[Enzap]

I think I most agree with Bolt, adding a resistance to Ground would help to both make Ice slightly more of a defensive presence and alleviate the overcentralization of EQ.

 

[Slife]

In terms of type matchups I'd add resistances to Water, Ground, Ghost, and Fairy. Not sure how all these would be justified thematically, but if we want Ice to be bolstered as a defensive typing it'd help greatly to be able to resist some of the best offensive typings out there right now. As an offensive typing, ice is actually pretty decent, having perfect synergy with electric for coverage. Maybe add in a super-effectiveness to Water and Bug.

I'd also like to see something be done to make Hail teams more viable. Alolan Ninetails and Sandslash were a great improvement regarding this, but more can be done. For starters, Hail should boost the power of ice moves like Sunny Day and Rain Dance do, and maybe give a Special Defense boost to Ice types similar to Sandstorm or an immunity to some status perhaps. Also, give Slush Rush wider distributivity (good candidates would be Glaceon, Vanilluxe, and Crabominable), and add more abilities that work in Hail in general (a hail equivalent of solar power would be cool).