(screaming) WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?!?!?!?!?!?! XO

[Blademaster]

Have you ever seen something in the anime, games, or TCG thast just pissed you off? Not because you were offended (Sorry to all those Jynx-hating crybabies; BLACK JYNX 4EVER!!!11!!!11!1! :dance:), or you didn't agree with it for any moral or ethical reason...

But just because it was so stupid or just plain messed up that it made your head spin.

I do! :D

So, I decided to share my idea with all you lovely, lovely people, in the hopes I can encourage you to share some of your Pokemon peeves. Make your voices heard!

Here's an example of what I mean.

Dragon Pokemon... they are weak against nothing, except Ice and Dragon attacks...

What the **** is up with that!? When I think of dragons, I think of fire.

AND FIRE > ICE!!!!!!! WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING WHEN THEY THOUGHT THAT IDEA UP??????????

And weak against other Dragons? I have never ONCE seen two dragons fighting each other, except maybe Godzilla and Ghidorah, Anguirus, and possibly (POSSIBLY) Rodan. Where did Dragon > Dragon come from? In every fairy tale I've ever seen, the dragon gets killed by an armored knight. So wouldn't it make sense for Fighting and Steel types to be strong against Dragons?

And on the subject of Fighting Pokemon, what is up with Flying Pokemon beating Fighting Pokemon? If Mike Tyson got in his head kicked in by an ostrich, what would you think? What about if a sumo wrestler got KOed by a big scruffy albatross? Or maybe Chuck Norris getting his brains drilled out by a woodpecker?

You would say 'What the ************************************************!? ?!?!?!??!?!?!?!???!?!?!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?' until your head started spinning around and you passed out.

I just don't get it.

...OK, next!

(hits the 'Pointless Complaining' button)

[frylock]

Why are Water types resistant to Ice? You'd think it would be super effective! WHAT'S UP WITH THAT!!!!!!???????? And why are bug types strong against psychic and dark? Seriously, what's a bug gonna do? And why are ground types weak against Ice? What's ICE gonna do to the GROUND? FROST IT UP!?!?!/1/?!?!backslash!?!?!one?!/ 1! THAt's what it would do to other types, except for water, which it would FREEZE! And why is steel weak to fighting? I can see fighting being strong against rock(breaking rocks for training) and ice(breaking ice for training if you're in the frozen North/are just too dumb to break rocks) but breaking STEEL!? And on Steel types, why aren't they weak against Electric? Steel conducts electricity, just like Water!

[Austrian ViceMaster Alex]

Why shouldn't ice be strong against dragons? Dragons can fly, they are reptiles and those are cold blooded. Ice freezes their wings and eventhough dragons might have warm blood they still have their reptilian origins, not being able to cope with the massive chilly power of an ice attack.

And it makes sense that fighting types are strong against steel. Fighting types reprsent sheer physical (superhuman) power, what else could bend and demolish steel.

All strenghts and weaknesses of the different types make sense if you just try hard enough or use enough imagination to find them.

[Magmar]

If Ice freezes the Ground, it can't move. It's a solid freeze. Besides, attacks like Ice Beam and Blizzard should be self-explanatory as to how they could cause some serious damage. Articuno's Blizzard = Day After Tomorrow.

What's up with no pure Flying types...

[frylock]

Techinically, there IS a pure flying type, if you give Aruseus the flying plate.

[Houndoom_Lover]

Grrrr! I love that moive! (Day after tommoroh)

EVEE TICKS ME OFF!!! What's up with the effing moss stone? Maybe it's a grass stone...

AND THE NIGHT AND DAY EVELTIONS?! What about the moon stone and sun stone? Morons -_-...I'm not done yet....My spelling sucks...

[The Blue Avenger]

EVEE TICKS ME OFF!!! What's up with the effing moss stone? Maybe it's a grass stone...

AND THE NIGHT AND DAY EVELTIONS?! What about the moon stone and sun stone? Morons -_-...I'm not done yet....My spelling sucks...


Eevee's evolutions evolve the way they do because Gamefreak wanted a way to explain why you couldn't evolve an Eevee into, say, an Umbreon in RBY. If the Moon Stone was used to get Umbreon, why couldn't he be obtained in RBY? Espeon, being Umbreon's counterpart, faces the same problem, even though the Sun Stone didn't exist in RBY.

[mr_pikachu]

Exactly. A lot of the "unusual" stuff involving evolutions is GameFreak's way of explaining why the Pokemon were unobtainable before. It's the same reason that most of the people looking at Diamond and Pearl doubt that the newer evolutions will use stones we've seen in the past. The same goes with items and times of day - with the last one being a possible exception, as there are many more time periods now than there were in GSC.

[Blademaster]

Why shouldn't ice be strong against dragons? Dragons can fly, they are reptiles and those are cold blooded. Ice freezes their wings and eventhough dragons might have warm blood they still have their reptilian origins, not being able to cope with the massive chilly power of an ice attack.

And? Replace 'reptile' and 'reptilian' with 'insect' and 'insectoid, and by that logic Bugs should be just as weak against Ice; they're not.

[Silencer]

How did pokémon suddenly develop abilities from one day to the next. Hmmm, let's see. If I get hit from this day forth I'll paralyse my opponent 3 out of every 10 times.(electrical types)
Hmmm, for some reason I can keep my opponent from running away but I have never used it before (diglett, trapinch,...)

WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?!?!?!?!?!?!

It might have been explained in the anime but I haven't seen the advanced journeys and stuff like that so...

[UmbreonCurse]

And on Steel types, why aren't they weak against Electric? Steel conducts electricity, just like Water!

I'm nearly positive that Steel IS weak against electricity... or, at least, it is in he thid generation

[frylock]

I'm nearly positive that Steel IS weak against electricity... or, at least, it is in he thid generation


It doesn't many a time I've attempted to have a Raichu or a Porygon2 thunderbolt a Metagross, only to hurt it normally and be killed by Earthquake. Electric is not weak against steel.

[mr_pikachu]

Electric is not weak against steel.

Nor is it strong against Steel. ;)

It's the same mistake I used to make in thinking that Ice attacks were super-effective against Bug Pokemon. Bugs tend to have secondary types that are weak against Ice (though there are certainly exceptions), but Bug Pokemon themselves aren't weak against Ice.

[frylock]

And what's up with that? What happens to bugs in the winter? They either hibernate or die! And although it makes sense at first, why do all the water types learn Ice Beam? Ice Beam is a beam of coldness. I know Ice is frozen water, but how can a water pokemon just generate cold? It'd make more sense if Ice types were called cold type or smething. And why are ghosts weak against dark attacks?

[mr_pikachu]

Well, I think there are some varieties of bugs that are fairly hardy in terms of temperature. I think.

Water types learn Ice Beam because there aren't enough Ice Pokemon. :D (But seriously, I guess they just figured the element was close enough that it would make sense. Also, it's part of the lesser-element trio of Flamethrower, T-Bolt and Ice Beam. They needed a significant number of Pokemon to learn it, I suppose.)

And maybe Dark represents oblivion or the afterlife, which would be the end of any Ghost (seeing as they have resisted the afterlife in favor of staying on earth after death).

[Zak]

Gamefreak broke the rule of their being an explanation for why a Poke didn't evolve previously with Lickitung's evolution.

[Silencer]

Why isn't their a Chuck Norris-type? They should all have roundhouse-kick as an attack.

Now more seriously, how come pokémon just evolve out of nowhere... What I mean is pokémon getting evos or prevos. Speaking of prevos, why was it that you would get a Mr. Mime from an egg at G/S/C but in D/P you'll get a Mime.Jr Did it evolve in the egg or something?

[mr_pikachu]

It's just another Azurill situation, I guess. Probably has some special requirement to get the Mime Jr. in the egg.

Which is to say that it's horrendously ridiculous, in all seriousness.

[rinku]

Dragon Pokemon... they are weak against nothing, except Ice and Dragon attacks...

What the **** is up with that!? When I think of dragons, I think of fire.

AND FIRE > ICE!!!!!!! WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING WHEN THEY THOUGHT THAT IDEA UP??????????

The oriental tradition of dragons is very different to the western one. Chinese dragons are elemental gods and are associated with all five elements (fire, water, metal, wood, air). While pokémon *does* have influences from the western tradition of dragons (Charizard, Salamence), their elemental dragon type seems to be more oriental in style. In the games, Dragon type is basically used as a universal defence against the starter elements. Simple as that.

[Blademaster]

OK, now explain how these universal gods are weak against ice.

[Andrew]

Maybe because the Dinosaurs were kind of dragons... and they got killed by an ice age...

[Blademaster]

Actually, the dinosaurs were killed by an asteroid, so in that sense Rock, Fire, and/or Steel would make the most sense.

[Jeff]

I like to think of it as since dragons are reptilian, like reptiles they are cold-blooded and weak to the cold.

Also, I think alot of the type matchups that don't make much sense are just there to help balance the chart out especially when it comes to Steel and Dark. Fighting was a fairly weak type in RBY, so they made both Steel and Dark weak to it, to bring it up. On that note, what's up with poison only being strong against grass? If they wanted the chart to be balanced, they would have at least thrown in another type that's weak to it. And yeah I know about Bug being weak to it in RBY, why they got rid of that is beyond me.

[Silencer]

Why not normal? Anyone normal would die of poisoning :p

[Blademaster]

That... actually makes sense. Normal should be weak against Fire, too. Oh, and Electric, and maybe Ice - balance those Uuber Normals of death out a bit!

[darktyranitar]

But normal resist ghost... so anyone who is normal isn't afraid of ghost?

[Silencer]

Ghost live on another plain so ghost can't touch normals and vica-versa. When living toghether might be scary but you will hardly be able to notice the 'other presence'

[Andrew]

Actually, the dinosaurs were killed by an asteroid, so in that sense Rock, Fire, and/or Steel would make the most sense.


No, the asteroid didn't kill the dinosaurs, the resulting cloud of dust obscuring the sun and resulting ice age wiped them out. If you believe all dinosaurs were wiped out by one asteriod, you're wrong. The repocussions FROM The asteriod in the form of an ice age did them in and let mankind evolve.

Christ. What do they teach you kids these days.

[Magmar]

Christ. What do they teach you kids these days.


PEEKACHU EVOLVES TO RIACHU AT LEVEL 44 OMGZ

[Blademaster]

Asteroids cause global cooling periods, not Ice Ages. And whether the asteroid killed every dinosaur at once (which is obviously impossible) or it triggered a chain reaction that altered the planet enough to kill them off is irrelevant - it was still the asteroid that inevitably caused the dinosaurs to die out. It's called 'cause and effect': Because the asteroid hit the Earth, the global climate was affected severely enough to kill off the dinosaurs and almost everything else on the planet. Get it?


Christ. What do they teach you kids these days.

They teach us how to spell words like 'repercussion' and 'asteroid' the right way. :p

[Andrew]

What I was getting at is: Due to the global cooldown or easier to use buzz phrase of ICE AGE, which the repercussions of killed the dinosaurs is WHY the Dragon Type Pokemon are weak to ice. Thus totally fucking up your idiotic idea that an asteroid knocked them all out at once.

Also, you try post from you mobile phone perfectly ever time, lol. It's a difficult thing.

[Blademaster]

Fine. But I never said the asteroid killed them all at once - I just said it killed them.

...

But, since the dinosaurs are more closely related to birds than reptiles, and dragons are more closely related to reptiles than birds, it stands to reason that your idea is just as idiotic, since while we know 'bird Pokemon (By which I mean Flying types.)' are weak against Ice, we don't know that 'reptile Pokemon' would be.

Besides, most reptilian Pokemon nowadays are either indifferent to Ice (Ekans' line, Seviper, Kecleon, etc.) or strong against it, either offensively or defensively (Totodile's line, Torkoal, Squirtle's line, etc.), which kinda counters the Ice > Reptile theory. Sure, there's the Bulbasaur, Treecko, and Neatle lines, but... well, they're plants, too, so they don't count. :p

[Magmar]

Or maybe it's just a game :) I think the ice thing counters it nicely. Otherwise, Dragonite would've been too strong in RBY. Giving it a 4x weakness was a smart move.

[Andrew]

Some reptile Pokemon could be seen as being Dragon Pokemon.

However, yes, everything that survived the ice age survived through evolution.

[Blademaster]

Yeah...

But still, it just always seemed weird to me, is all - Dragonite needing a 4x weakness makes sense, but out of the three possibilities that Nintendo had (Ice, Rock, and Electric), Ice just seemed to me like the least plausible choice, and what do you know - it's the one Nintendo picked. Figures. :sweat:

[Magmar]

Well, Ice has to be good for *something* besides having Jynx put the smackdown on Exeggutor.

[Silencer]

They should have made water, weak to ice and change all the water/ice types to pure water types and then come up with some ice types to kick their asses.

Ofcourse they'll need more water and ice moves for that

[Saffire Persian]

OK, now explain how these universal gods are weak against ice.

Because they have to be weak against something. XDXDXD... besides themselves.

[Phoenixsong]

First of all, Dragonite wouldn't have been 4x weak to ice in RBY. 4x weakness, half weaknesses and two types canceling each other out, stupidly enough, were not implemented until GSC. I could start ranting about how my favorite Charizard, back in the RBY days, got KO'd by one Ice Beam from Articuno and it definitely said "It's super-effective!" By the same token, I can't count the number of times that I used Pidgeot in those games and it got hit by a "not very effective..." Fighting-type attack. It's like they randomly picked and chose which of a dual-type's types would decide weakness and resistance.

So, yeah. That's one thing that annoys me about Pokémon. But they fixed that now. So you wanna know what REALLY bugs me about Pokémon?

The entire concept of "good Pokémon, bad Pokémon", that's what.

Okay... who the @^#$^#@$&@$%&$*&@$^&$#@!!##$& came up with that STUPID idea?!?! Good character/bad character is one of the dumbest video game concepts ever. Let's say I like... arbitrarily, I pick Mawile. Mawile is now my favorite Pokémon and I love it to death. I also love... hmmm, let's see... Beedrill, Unown, Raticate, Illumise and Ditto. I use those six Pokémon as my ingame team, that's all well and good. But then I want to enter a tournament.

Well, guess what? All six of my favorite Pokémon have crapadoodletastic stats and not the greatest movesets. If I so much as look at a Groudon, or a DDMance, or a Punching Alakazam or whatever, my entire team will explode in a fiery cataclysm of d00m. If I want half a chance of winning at a tournament, I have to use all of those stupid ubers and Pokémon that have relevant base stats of over 100 and all that. And, also arbitrarily, let's say that I think Tyranitar, Mewtwo, Alakazam and all of them can burn in hell for various reasons. I am now faced with a choice: use the Pokémon I love and get my butt handed to me on a tray in a record time of three seconds, use the Pokémon I absolutely loathe and possibly win (whee...), or not enter at all, stay at home and cry about it.

HOW THE @#^$&%#$&#$^*@ IS THAT FAIR?! Why should I be penalized for using Pokémon that I LIKE?!?! Wasn't the entire POINT of creating 493 flippin' Pokémon to give players around the world a full set of options both ingame AND when playing against one another?! Shouldn't that full set of options be FAIR all the way around?! SHOULDN'T IT?!?!?! But NO! It's NOT! So now, if I want to use my favorite "bad" Pokémon, I have to go to a UU or NU tournament... and saying that a Pokémon qualifies for UU or NU is a nice way of saying "Your favorite Pokémon is a giant lump of poo, so go and play with it in the weenie leagues and leave us big kids alone, ahahaha!"

...On a related note, legendaries are too strong. You also get laughed at for using legendary Pokémon. Again... I have MY OWN REASONS for liking Rayquaza, and I think I would ENJOY MYSELF if I trained one and played with it. I'm NOT just doing it because it has a final SA of 438 *hides her perfect-SA Rayquaza under the bed*, so if you call me a noob just because I use Pokémon that I LIKE ONE MORE TIME then I WILL smack you upside the head with my keyboard! Excuse me for having FUN playing a stupid video game!!!

*pants heavily* ...Anyway, I'm not saying that all Pokémon need to have exactly the same base/final stats or that they all need to be perfect in every single stat. But they really could lower the stronger Pokémon a bit and strengthen the weaker ones. It's not like that would make every single physical sweeper just like every other one... there are still the variables of types, held items, EV training, IVs (EVs and IVs annoy me too, but that's another longwinded rant) and how smart you are in choosing your Pokémon's movesets. Whether or not someone wins a tournament or something should be decided entirely by skill, not by randomly saying "Houndoom is good, Mightyena sucks, Mightyena users will always get their backsides pwned, Houndoom users will win all of the time, the end."

So yeah. That, to me, is the single most annoying thing about Pokémon (and about several video games in general). I cannot think of a single good reason for there to be such a drastic difference in the final stats of Pokémon, and it's NEVER a good idea to discourage your players from using their favorite character just because he/she/it "sucks" (or is "too good").

...I'm done now... at least until I remember more of what I wanted to rant about on this topic. Politics, religion and stupid video game concepts... the three things that I can literally go on forever about, heh.

[Poryhedron]

And why are bug types strong against psychic and dark? Seriously, what's a bug gonna do?
Take a closer look at the original RBY Bug-type attacks. There's more going on here than just a worm crawling all over you. Twineedle...Pin Missile...Bug was the element of choice for tiny but repeating piercing attacks. Even Leech Life follows that to a certain degree.
In order to use their power, Psychic-types typically need to concentrate. There are very few things that screw over your focus quite like a flechette wound.


And why are ground types weak against Ice? What's ICE gonna do to the GROUND? FROST IT UP!?!?!/1/?!?!backslash!?!?!one?!/ 1!
Actually, the expanding water molecules would gradually tear apart the soil. Ice is one of the major sources of erosion, which is why it (as well as water) is strong against Ground.


And on Steel types, why aren't they weak against Electric? Steel conducts electricity, just like Water!
This has actually been discussed before. Yes, its true that electrocuting a stainless steel fork can cause some serious damage to it. But try applying the exact same amount of energy, in the form of fire rather than electricity, and instead of becoming all bent, twisted and blackened the fork will simply wind up a puddle. Fire wins.


And why are ghosts weak against dark attacks?


And maybe Dark represents oblivion or the afterlife, which would be the end of any Ghost (seeing as they have resisted the afterlife in favor of staying on earth after death).

Here's another thought: Maybe Dark-type attacks tend to directly damage the soul. Ghosts are pure soul, so Dark-type attacks are a bane to Ghost-types' entire being.


Okay, here's something that always makes me raise an eyebrow. In RBY and FR/LG, when you face Agatha of the Elite Four, she goes on about what a useless, spineless putz Prof. Oak has become in his old age...and then says "I'll show you how a real trainer fights!"
...right. Because I have eight Badges and just beat two Elite Four members and I haven't seen that yet.
Anyone else got downright stupid in-game quotes to mention?

[Poryhedron]

First of all, Dragonite wouldn't have been 4x weak to ice in RBY. 4x weakness, half weaknesses and two types canceling each other out, stupidly enough, were not implemented until GSC. I could start ranting about how my favorite Charizard, back in the RBY days, got KO'd by one Ice Beam from Articuno and it definitely said "It's super-effective!" By the same token, I can't count the number of times that I used Pidgeot in those games and it got hit by a "not very effective..." Fighting-type attack. It's like they randomly picked and chose which of a dual-type's types would decide weakness and resistance.

So, yeah. That's one thing that annoys me about Pokémon. But they fixed that now.

Actually...4x weaknesses and cancelling out did exist in RBY. The math has been done and all indications are the damage is working that way. The problem was that the designers of the battle engine never really considered what happens when, say, a Venusaur gets hit by a Ground-type attack. A glitch in the programming causes either "It's super effective!" or "It's not very effective..." to appear even when it actually got cancelled out. Which one appears depends on the order in which the factors were applied. I could explain in more detail, but it requires a basic understanding of programming principles.
...and as for your Charizard, sorry to say, Fire-types weren't resistant to Ice in RBY. An Ice Beam would deal standard damage to a Charmeleon back then.


So you wanna know what REALLY bugs me about Pokémon?

/really long rant about the enormous disparity in stats between species/

Well, on one hand, I feel it's a good thing that Game Freak represented a wide range of power levels in species. It makes the world of Pokémon seem more credible; in a real, living world, there are going to be creatures that could never hope to stand up to other creatures. To let the rats and pigeons of the world attain power levels that let them stand up to ancient dragons and genetically engineered war machines would just about blow "suspension of disbelief" all to heck and back.

On the other hand, I agree with you that it can get quite annoying when only a meager handful of species are considered worthy of appearing in a serious tournament. There really ought to be more variety in metagame teams than we see after a generation has been around long enough for people to work out what's best. I mean, in GSC, there were, what, a dozen standard species? Less, actually, I think. Out of over two hundred. Even allowing for the rats and pigeons of the world, there should have been more that was usable.