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Ice Types: The Underdogs Again?

Blob

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Ice Types seem to be more and more out competed in the Metagame, what with the sheer amount of Fighting Types, Water Types using Ice Beam more efficiently and Fairy taking it's one niche. Do you think Ice will go through the same thing again? Or do you thing GF will finally see the error of their ways and give it a buff.
 
if we got a warm island based region in Alola then maybe we may get in future a swamp , desert or icy tundra region?

Ice types would only need:

-better abilities like Disquise and so on to make them stronger against their weaknesses
-a Icy terrain with a good effect in battle
- better movepools
-more type combos with them done right
- better ice type moves that rise their stats and decrese the stats of their oponents
 
Ice moves should be super effective on water types and resist water and ground moves.
 
Reading this thread makes me sad. Ice is my favorite type, as evident by my love of the cold and snow, so it really pains me to see the Ice-type shafted so frequently in favor of other types, especially the Water-type.

Now, my thoughts about how to buff the Ice type are to make it strong against Water, resist Water, Flying, and Dragon, gain more access to stronger move and more types of moves like Water, Dark, Ghost, Electric, and such (which is one reason why I like Glalie a lot, as it has great access to good moves), and have less Water-types be able to use Ice moves like Ice Beam so easily.
 
Reading this thread makes me sad. Ice is my favorite type, as evident by my love of the cold and snow, so it really pains me to see the Ice-type shafted so frequently in favor of other types, especially the Water-type.

Now, my thoughts about how to buff the Ice type are to make it strong against Water, resist Water, Flying, and Dragon, gain more access to stronger move and more types of moves like Water, Dark, Ghost, Electric, and such (which is one reason why I like Glalie a lot, as it has great access to good moves), and have less Water-types be able to use Ice moves like Ice Beam so easily.
I think that there should be more powerful Ice moves and even have a physical version of Ice Beam (without awful acc) and have it Ice Type exclusive.

Personally, I think Ice should resist Ground, since Ground is a pretty to-tier Type, as well as Dragon, meaning Ice Types are better than popular Pokémon like Garchomp.
Also, get rid of Fairy's random Bug resistance and give it to Ice instead, as Bugs die during the winter.

Ice should damage Rock Types normally, since IRL Ice is stronger than rocks, but Pokémon goes by Rocks being stronger than Ice, so I'd rather have a middle ground.

Plus give Ice Types a 50% Sp. Def boost in Hail, which is something that should have happened a long time ago...
 
I'm actually surprised GF didnt go the route of giving water types an ice form and gas form instead of compeltely separate pokemon. but i suppose the way they did it gives more variety and more room for creativity.
maybe one day we will get a pokemon that changes form between liquid solid and gas.
 
I think that there should be more powerful Ice moves and even have a physical version of Ice Beam (without awful acc) and have it Ice Type exclusive.

Personally, I think Ice should resist Ground, since Ground is a pretty to-tier Type, as well as Dragon, meaning Ice Types are better than popular Pokémon like Garchomp.
Also, get rid of Fairy's random Bug resistance and give it to Ice instead, as Bugs die during the winter.


Ice should damage Rock Types normally, since IRL Ice is stronger than rocks, but Pokémon goes by Rocks being stronger than Ice, so I'd rather have a middle ground.

Plus give Ice Types a 50% Sp. Def boost in Hail, which is something that should have happened a long time ago...

We've got Ice Punch which is lower in BP, yeah, but still usually gets the job done. Same with Icicle Crash which is Ice exclusive (except Pikachu-Belle of course).

I don't see any reason to remove Fairy's resistance to Bug nor to give it to Ice. The two types are not really related (but, then, when has that stopped them before?)

Finally, it is a common misconception that Rock resists Ice. It does not. Ice is neutral on Rock and always has been :)

Totally agree with the Hail boost, though.

I'm actually surprised GF didnt go the route of giving water types an ice form and gas form instead of compeltely separate pokemon. but i suppose the way they did it gives more variety and more room for creativity.
maybe one day we will get a pokemon that changes form between liquid solid and gas.

They really missed an opportunity for this with Cryogonal! :(
 
I think that there should be more powerful Ice moves and even have a physical version of Ice Beam (without awful acc) and have it Ice Type exclusive.

Personally, I think Ice should resist Ground, since Ground is a pretty to-tier Type, as well as Dragon, meaning Ice Types are better than popular Pokémon like Garchomp.
Also, get rid of Fairy's random Bug resistance and give it to Ice instead, as Bugs die during the winter.

Ice should damage Rock Types normally, since IRL Ice is stronger than rocks, but Pokémon goes by Rocks being stronger than Ice, so I'd rather have a middle ground.

Plus give Ice Types a 50% Sp. Def boost in Hail, which is something that should have happened a long time ago...

Well, I do agree with the fact that most Ice physical moves tend to be low powered and/or have shoddy accuracy. Probably the best of the group that has 100% accuracy is Ice Punch, but it's usually only seen as a move tutor move, so that limits any usefulness it has. Maybe even an Ice-type version of Earthquake would be nice. But yes, Ice does need either more exclusive moves like Freeze-Dry, or more powerful moves that have better accuracy and effects. Plus maybe give them a higher chance of freezing the opponent, as no Ice move has a greater chance of freezing the opponent than 10%.

While I don't agree that Ice should resist Ground, as not only are Ground-types weak to Ice, but usually a lot slower, so Ice can get its licks in first anyway, but as I said before, it should resist Dragon. I mean, if they made such a big deal about Ice-types being super-effective against Dragon in places like the anime and manga, don't ya think it should resist Dragon to further extend that point. I have nothing against Dragon, mind you, as it's my 3rd favorite type, but even with Fairy in the mix, Dragons are still high-class creatures overall, thanks to versatility. So I do feel that Ice should at least resist Dragon. As for Bug, meh, not very important.

Uh, just so you know, Ice does neutral damage to Rock-types. Unless you want Ice to be super effective against it, that is. So Ice can usually get in some clean shots against Rock-types, especially thanks to their low Special Defense. Plus many are part Ground, which actually makes them weak to it. So I think it's best to leave the Rock-type alone, as it already has 5 weaknesses, it doesn't need a 6th.

The Hail bit I do agree with, as Hail's usage is less compared to say Sandstorm or Rain Dance. While that doesn't mean it doesn't get any usage at all, it's a lot rarer than Sandstorm Teams or Rain Dance Teams. Just imagine Hail in play with Ice Body active AND a Special Defense boost. It could make more tankish Ice Mons really shine.

However, the recent trend with Ice-types, sadly, is being tank-like, which doesn't do them any favors. The type is fragile to begin with, so making them into tanks just further hurts them. They need to be more well-rounded or at least a bit faster so they can hit hard and fast while still have enough bulk to survive a super-effective hit. It's, again, why I like Glalie so much, as it's very well-rounded and balanced, with access to a lot of good moves like Ice Beam, Freeze-Dry Shadow Ball, Crunch, Water Pulse, Earthquake, and Iron Head to better balance it out and give it good coverage. If they'd only do more Ice-types like that, then Ice could have another chance to shine.

Well, that's probably enough out of me for now, otherwise I'd be here all day whining about my beloved Ice-type.
 
Ice does need a slight boost to keep it at the same level as other types. Moves like Freeze Dry helps. So new moves and abilities for Ice types would really help.
 
Isn't the whole point of the Ice type to be very frail? I mean I could agree that it wouldn't hurt to make it resist Flying or something, but I always got the sense that it was intended to be as brittle as it is.

Now, as to why they keep making defense-oriented Ice types in spite of that, I have no idea.

(Mind you, I do love the Ice type and wish we would see a lot more Ice types in general, and I'd also love for them to show up a bit earlier in the games. Vanillite was wonderful about this.)
 
I wouldn't say Ice types are entirely out competed this time around. Alolan Ninetails, Alolan Sandslash, and
Yeti crab
are looking to shake things up typing-wise.
But of course these specific Pokemon are getting boosted by their other types, and it remains that Ice itself needs a match-up boost.
Here's what I'd do:

Offensively:
Make Ice super-effective against Rock.

Defensively:
Make Ice resistant to Water.
Make Ice resistant to Flying.
Make Ice normally affected by Rock.

Phase out some of (not entirely though) the distribution of Ice Beam to non Ice type Pokemon.

This makes Ice a more rounded as a type and follows with the sort-of logical reasoning that type match-ups have.
 
Finally, it is a common misconception that Rock resists Ice. It does not. Ice is neutral on Rock and always has been :)
I meant that Rock shouldn't be SE against Ice.

I wouldn't say Ice types are entirely out competed this Alolan Sandslash
Alolan Sandslash is SLOWER than regular Sandslash, according to GF, meaning it's yet another slow, defensive Ice Type with a 4x weakness to Fighting and Fire.
 
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Alolan Sandslash is SLOWER than regular Sandslash, according to GF, meaning it's yet another slow, defensive Ice Type with a 4x weakness to Fighting and Fire.
It's movement is slower. That does not mean it's Speed stat is slower - which is better defined as a Pokemon's reaction time. Remember the Pokemon with an abysmal Speed that can fly around at mach speeds.


And give Rock/Ground types a third 4x weakness? No thank you.
If it has to be, so be it. Rock/Ground would still be a fairly good combination regardless. There are other combinations with three or more x4 weaknesses that still do really well in battle.

However, I have an entirely adjusted type chart I would implement that includes making Rock normally affected by Water. So if I had my way, that combination would only trade a x4 weakness. It just wasn't worth mentioning since the thread is about Ice types alone.
 
-for me changing of resistances and efectviness now would only cause more problems, if they would have made it immune to fairy last generation then we would have a triangle, but they choose not to.

- ice types need also better use of their freeze status in game, if they nerved paralize then maybe they have done somewthing with it too? Poison and burn have bad and regular status maybe they could make something with freeze.
 
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