How Pokemon Saved the Ice Type 

And then I die

Now kith

Brother?

Not the best of jokes

Lmao

I can see that, specialy since dragon was a defense only thing in gen1 since it only had 1 move 😂

also they was more powerful pokemon. so ice wasnt weaker only the graph was but the type made up for it other ways.

Ice also wasn't that bad in gen 1. Offensively: Fire didn't resist ice, and steel didn't exist yet. (So only Water and Ice resisted Ice). Blizzard was 120BP and 90% accurate, so Ice had one of the best attacks in the game. Defensively: Freeze was basically an OHKO, so being immune to it was really good. There were no good fighting moves (that weren't exclusive to Hitmonlee). The only relevant rock move was Rock Slide. Steel didn't exist yet.

Also all ice types were dual types with a good secondary type. This made sense.

Even competitively, Ice's weaknesses in gen 1 also didn't matter as much. Fire was a type that most people were hesitant to use attacks from because it didn't offer much in the way of coverage against relevant threats, and it gave opponents the chance to unfreeze their pokemon. Fighting moves sucked with Submission being the best one, and all the fighting type pokemon being bad. Steel didn't exist The only relevant weakness Ice had was Rock Slide, which was generally only used by the also ice weak Golem and Rhydon, making it a mutual weakness while the Ice type outspeeds (and in the case of Lapras/Jynx has good odds to OHKO). Meanwhile its ice resistance was good when Blizzard was one of the best offensive attacks in the game that also had a reasonable distribution, and possibly even more importantly, being ice type gave immunity to the secondary effects of ice attacks, so no random permanent (until hit with a fire move) random freezes from an enemy's blizzard. Then with Blizzard being such a great attack, getting STAB with it is strong.

I feel like it would make sense to make water weak to ice, since water becomes ice when it freezes, and ice doesn't flow, obviously.

ice and fire should be mutually super effective, I think that would be really fun (and also make sense - ice stops being ice when fire hits it, and it also stops being ice when it hits fire - and becomes water)

@@TheRealBlazingDiamond Water is a thermal insulator, which is why it is resistant to fire and ice.

Yep. I've believed this for a long time. There's no reason Water should get to resist Ice but not vice versa.

@@staringatthesun861 I've seen ice melt in running room temperature water.

That always bothered me too. Also didn't help that (especially Gen 1) some are part water and you gain access to Ice Types after learning Surf. By that point just teach your Water type Ice Beam and call it a day

I guess the idea is that hostile environments such as snowy mountains aren't exactly the sort of thing that, from an RPG design standpoint, is the sort of thing you immediately set foot in from your starting town. Problem with that is, while they might seem aesthetically and thematically intimidating, it falls completely flat when the wild encounters that would give you trouble are prone to dying from the slightest pebble thrown their way (it's all the worse when the Ice-type Gym Leaders tend to be among the last Gyms you go against in any given region that features one). Though one generation where this especially didn't make sense was gen4....... so the snowy region based off of Hokkaido, the northern-most major island of Japan, features a grand total of TWO Ice-type lines (one of which, Sneasel, isn't even new, though did have a new evolution introduced), both of which are relegated to only appearing late-game? Sure, Platinum helped a bit, but it was still a pretty abysmal display (and made even less sense when Platinum added snow along almost every route). For Christ's sake, Ice-types seemed more plentiful in Hoenn and Alola, god damn tropical islands, than they ever did in the northern-most region.

@@YamatoFukkatsu I feel like they could do it if they started near a mountain/ous area. Like a village at the foot of a mountain where it snows but still has the regular forests and grass. That way its not too harsh but you get the feel of a starting area.

@@YamatoFukkatsu I actually think the idea that Ice-types are exclusive to hostile environments is an issue in itself. You often see Fire-types running around the grasslands, far from their native volcanoes, Water-types chilling on the water surface instead of the dark abysses of the sea, or Electric-types frolicking among trees instead of inside destroyed power plants. But Ice-types seem to be exclusively relegated to snowy mountains found in the late-game. In one way, I get it. They need to fill those late-game mountains with *something*, and Ice-types are perfect for the job, so they cram the game's entire quota of Ice-types in there leaving none for the early-game. Not to mention that few Ice-types evolve before the mid-level-30's anyway. But then we are stuck in that vicious cycle where the Ice-types default to late-game Pokémon, so that's the role they design new Ice-types to fit in, and so there are no Ice-types that feel suitable for the early-game, so they kind of have to relegate them all to the late-game again, and once again the snowy mountain becomes the last biome of the game, where all the new Ice-types are ...

@@Codraroll I guess another thing worth considering is that, back in gen1, Ice seems to have been designed as a sort of hidden type. Tama Hero did a fantastic video on the way gen1 games were designed with the single-player RPG aspect in mind, but for the long and short of it, Ice was pretty much designed as a hard counter to Lance's Dragonite (which serves as a semi-final boss), and they would be your reward for going out of your way to explore the Seafoam Islands, an area which is otherwise completely optional. But of course, much like how Dragon has been expanded upon immensely since being "final boss monster", they likewise should've made better alterations to the Ice type (especially since, from gen3 onward, pure Ice-types would begin to be a thing, whereas in gens 1 and 2, it solely existed as a sub-type, mostly just being there to add the benefit of STAB and little else), but they didn't. Even worse, the introduction of Fairy made Ice comparatively obsolete in its old role as the Dragon-killer. Sad thing is, the introduction of Fairy in gen6 would've been as good a time as any to rework Ice's disgustingly lacking resistances, since gen6 was the only time they bothered to update the type chart since Steel and Dark got added in gen2...... but no, screw that. Let's just add Fairy, make Dark and Ghost even more similar to one another than they already were, and do absolutely nothing else.

That's... pretty sad when you think about it.

this beg a question... is there any pokemon that have tera ice as its first preference of tera?

​@@justsightseeing1regieleki with tera blast and some others, but not many

Regieleki@@justsightseeing1

@@Juan_-em5py ah yes. the good combination of electric ice coverage

I am schocked that you are implying that not every single one of those stories is not 100% factual.

I was there. I saw them kissed.

We love them evil gays

We. Need. A. Supercut.

Wdym 'invent' 🤨

Lapras and Jynx were good Ice types in Gen 1 due to having High Special stats before they split into two stats. And yeah I agree with the dark type thing, unless Houndoom is in the picture. Houndoom SpAtk is pretty good, but yeah. At the time, it was probably the only Dark Type Special Attacker.

Funny because EVERY dark attack from gen 1-3 became a physical move when gen 4 came out

@@Connowot387 Its special offense lagged quite a bit behind its physical, but I recall Tyranitar's being decent enough to run mixed sets and take advantage of both STABs (mixed Tyranitar seemed all the more tempting since, before gen4 introduced Stone Edge, Rock STAB was somewhat lacking, with Rock Slide being about the best they were capable of). But yeah, a lot of Pokemon in gen2 and especially gen3 have stat spreads that leave you feeling that the physical/special split should've happened yesterday at the time. Off the top of my head, the only Pokemon that seemed to have stats designed with the type-alignment in mind were Sceptile (visual design suggests physical, but got higher special to take advantage of its signature Leaf Blade...... which then got a power boost in gen4 to make up for the switch) and Shedinja (higher physical attack let it use both Shadow Ball and Silver Wind, its only relevent STABs at the time..... sadly, while gen4 gave it no shortage of new physical STABs to take advantage of, the poor thing now had to contend with physical contact being yet another thing that could insta-kill it, made all the worse with gen5's introduction of Rocky Helm...... even more F'ed up is that its Special Attack and even its Speed are lower than its Defense, which is literally unusable).

Yeah a lot of people don't realize pretty much all dark types were crippled pre gen iv when 99% were all physical attackers but dark was a special type. Mon like Absol had to choose between running moves that worked with their better attacking stat OR STAB. The opposite was true for Ghost Types too, iirc. Most of them were special attackers but Ghost was a physical type.

​@@tritone2276 i wonder what the devs were smoking back then

It's so good. The level of quality is through the roof.

It's on game theory level good

Lol Regieleki being counted since it was just never Electric outside of the first turn. But, to be fair, the actual Ice-types that got banned aren't even that related to Tera - Iron Bundle used it, but wasn't the reason for its ban, and Baxcalibur barely cared about Tera at all, since it actually wanted to keep its base type

I see what you did there :)

😂😂😂😂

Regieleki is my favorite paldean mon. I just love its design and competitive viability

All those guys are extremely overtuned is the problem

it's mentioned at 6:09

I think hail would be fine if it did the chip damage as well as the defense boost. The problem with the chip damage is that only ice types and pokemon with overcoat were immune. Unlike sandstorm where more types and abilities were immune. So if they made something like water or normal type or something immune to hail you would be able to use a more diverse set of pokemon on hail teams. The chip damage works even better with the hyper offense nature of ice types.

But where does that leave abilities like overcoat?

​@@Friendly_Neigborhood_Astolfoimmune to spore

Alolan ninetales w/Snow Warning -> Aurora Veil -> switch to Lunala -> Lunala holds weakness policy -> Cosmic Power until policy activates -> *sweep*

Also Fire Types didn't resist Ice until Gen2, so Charizard and Moltres were actually WEAK to Ice moves in Gen1.

Best Bug rework would just be to make it super effective against Fairy instead of resisted by it. I don't understand why when GameFreak made this ultra powerful type, they made the Bug type worse than it already was. Seriously, we thought it was getting a massive boost with all the amazing Bug-Type Moves and Pokémon introduced in Gens 4 and 5 respectively, but then they come out with this shit and now it's in the gutter again! What the fuck?!

Why electric? I would personally make it fairy. Since fire and poison are good against fairy is because they destroy the nature that fairies live in. Ice can definitely use the same reason, and fairy can definitely use a nerf.

Since i was a kid ive been scratching my head at why is ice not resisting to water, it just....makes sense

@@FoxxPlushie I don't think it makes too much thematical sense for Fairy to be weak against Ice, my fairy nerf would be bug types having their role reversed and being super effective against fairy. Electricity implies electrons moving around at high charge and high speed, and being cold means particles are moving less, on top of the fact that Ice is a bad conductor of electricity. It would give Ice an important defensive niche of being the only type resistant to bolt-beam, plus be decent since electric has so few resists.

@@nunoarmond3973 he meant, ice resiting fairy, because fire also resists fairy, so a defensive buff and not an offensive one

I would say Ice should resist Grass, Water, itself, and maybe Bug. Electricity lore wise actual works better in the cold (see superconductors from Nile Red), but it should lose either the rock or steel as a weakness to help balance it *also agree with thinking that Fire should resist fairy defensively

All true, though to be fair, I'd consider rock about as much a non-weakness gen 1 as fire type was. Rock slide is a fairly weak move and the best gen 1 rock types are part ground and won't come in against an ice type as they'll get outsped and oneshot. Other gen 1 rock type like Kabutops and earodactyl don't even learn a rock move gen 1 (Aerodactyl actually runs fire blast gen 1as it has nothing better). Meanwhile, moves like flamethrower and fire blast hit hard enough, and fire spin has some uses, though I agree fire is an uncommon coverage choice as most good mons weak to fire (except Jinx) could just be handled by either ice beam and thunderbolt (and fire types themselves had no useful resistances to work with and thus uncommon).

@@Dragonoid269 Well an Ice Pokémon can't switch on Rhydon or Golem either.

That's what makes it even stronger - Rock Slide is not a commonly seen move in RBY due to its limited distribution and most of the rock types with STAB Rock Slide match up horrendously vs the ice types in RBY

Ice is genuinely a top 3 type in RBY, only behind normal and psychic.

Unrelated but.. What's your pfp from?

Linoone is GOAT

Triage kommo-o in almost any ability still destroys me

This is Linoone erasure and I won't stand for it

Bloodmoon and szangoose too

ice should resist flying, water and normal too. Flying because Flying is weak to ice but also because wind only enhances cold rather then weakening it. Water because of oblivious reasons, freezing the water. and Normal because without some level of warmth, most normal things freeze or get covered in ice, plus hardened ice is surpirsingly tough and you can't break it through the usual means

or add small frostbite damage along with freeze

Frostbite shouldn't replace Freeze imo it should be a poison/toxic poison kinda deal if anything. You could have moves deal frostbite now instead of freeze, and if the opponent already has the frostbite status applied, you can freeze them with the same move. And Freezing Glare should just never have Frostbite as its secondary effect because that doesn't work

honestly its kind of nuts how there hasnt been a new major status condition in the mainline games

@@takaquill just... no. Do not make a non-volatile status that works the same as poison but can stack with other statuses.

Like there’s someone who would use Walrein or Dewgong.

@@caseyjones8153 Walrein could be used now with the help of Snow and his healing ability

@@groudonvert7286 Just because someone COULD use it doesn’t mean that anyone would willingly use it.

@@caseyjones8153 I agree.

​@@caseyjones8153yeaaaa, walrain on that content creator type beat

thats fire 🔥🔥

That's pretty cool of you to say.

Ice cold 🥶

Those two games have been made around the same time so it’s very likely that it will appear in the next generation.

Chien-Pao is only available now. That is still a twenty-to-fifteen year gap on Ice types that are good in VGC-like battles.

One idea I have for helping bug types is to add a new field effect called “Swampy Terrain” which buffs Bug and Poison type Pokemon offensive capabilities

@@typemasters2871 Swamp already exists by virtue of Grass + Water Pledge.

Yes. Bug should be super effective against and resist fairy.

@@glitch9643 I am aware of that, but when it comes to poisonous animals and bugs, the first location people think of are swamps, full of bugs and poisonous animals like poisonous frogs

hopefully they take u-turn away from all the pokemon without an exoskeleton.

It would also be even more overpowered.

They now just need to add a move to inflict Frostbite. This should cover special attackers since Snow already boosts the DEF.

@@TaLeng2023 Replace freeze with Frostbite and it's gonna be pretty much perfect. Ice moves that freeze are low probability so it's pretty much only relevant when you RNG cheese an opponent, or if you are using Sheer Force + Life Orb combo.

@@Technizor I always wanted Frostbite to be a thing in the main games but they must put measures to prevent Water types (which all pretty much learn Ice Beam) going ham with the status. 10% Frostbite chance on moves that used to Freeze. If user is Ice type, x2; then if Snow is active, additional x1.5. Water types stay at 10%, Ice types can get it up to 30%

Probably because he focuses on doubles and G-Darm isn't that good in doubles

@@gusteen3292eiscue is also a menace in singles but trash in doubles

​@@gusteen3292To be fair, I don't think GameFreak even recognizes Singles as an actual competitive format. At least not 6v6

Ice type wasn’t broken in RBY you can easily run teams that doesn’t have lapras cloyster or articuno on it

Ice was good , but not broken when u had normal and psychics . And it was mostly ice moves being good ( blizzard and perma freeze ) than ice types themselves tbf

I agree that Ice types weren't broken, but they were absolutely strong in Gen 1. Getting STAB on Blizzard is phenomenal, its weaknesses were rare (Fighting had no good moves, the only good Rock types were part Ground, and Fire coverage was too risky to run since it could thaw frozen opponents), and the immunity to Freeze is very helpful.

I feel like the stories I read are always talking about Fairies being frozen in ice too

agreed, I would make it super effective to Fairy, which would make it the definition of a glass cannon

ice should resist flying, water and normal too. Flying because Flying is weak to ice but also because wind only enhances cold rather then weakening it. Water because of oblivious reasons, freezing the water. and Normal because without some level of warmth, most normal things freeze or get covered in ice, plus hardened ice is surpirsingly tough and you can't break it through the usual means

Sound also travels slower in colder temperatures so maybe Gamefreak can make them resist sound-based moves? Idk

Fairy needs to be nerfed

It should also be noted that in singles, some Ice types could be usable before Stealth Rocks. Yes, one of them is Jynx and that is more that it is a fast sleeper, but it should be noted Articuno and Regice were at least usable before Stealth Rocks.

I believe that water and grass changing to become resisted would be a balanced changee

Glaceon is awesome. Hits so hard

Aside from the buff, how would the terrain also protect them? Electric prevents sleep, Grass lowers Ground and increases health, fairy lowers dragon and prevents statuses and psychic prevents priority. How would your idea work?

@@YoJoRockThaBeat1.2 atk boost

@@Kaifunsiu would that attack buff apply for all pokemon on the field? Because the swamp terrain would already be giving poison and bug type moves a boost already according to the OP

I think poison types are fine without a buff, since poison is already a great defensive type with many resistances including fighting and only 2 weakness. Only buff I would give it is make Ghost not resist it but that's more to just nerf Ghost

@@YoJoRockThaBeat if “Swampy Terrain” was a true terrain then it could prevent regeneration effects (I.E. Leech Seed and Left Overs) But Black Sludge and Poison Heal ability ignore this effect of Swampy Terrain because the user has to be poison type or have poison status effect to gain any benefit

Makes more sense with sandstorm. 3 common types compatible with it compared to just 1 rarer type for hail

Yeah and even if they were "worried" about the chip damage.. make it so hail/snow related abilities also gave an immunity to the chip in same way some mons aren't any of the sand types but still immune.. it'd at least then let some mons be in the hail and not be an ice type

My best guess is because it probably would mess with the user just as much? Only Ice types ignore it compared to sandstorm where you could easily make a rock/ground/steel centered team to take advantage of the chip damage. With ice... That's a lot harder to avoid

Froslass should have more SpA

I agree cause Ice beam and shadow ball are better than ice fang and shadow claw

ice should resist flying, water and normal too. Flying because Flying is weak to ice but also because wind only enhances cold rather then weakening it. Water because of oblivious reasons, freezing the water. and Normal because without some level of warmth, most normal things freeze or get covered in ice, plus hardened ice is surpirsingly tough and you can't break it through the usual means

Until Physical Attackers no longer run the Meta, frostbite would be a terrible Idea IMO. Ting-Lu with Assault vest would make special attackers not named Fluttermane or legendary status go extinct. If things are more balanced than sure.

​@@connorradcliffe1769Don't make it resist normal, normal types are already doing really poorly RN

Ice should resist 4 types: - Ice - Water - Fairy - Flying

One idea I have for helping bug types is to add a new field effect called “Swampy Terrain” which buffs Bug and Poison type Pokemon offensive capabilities

that could be a good idea but i feel like they should also get some defensive buffs but idk if that would make them too op@@typemasters2871

Isn’t this basically bug?

​@@bent_forek696You missed the fact that this was sarcasm

Bug is much better defensively than Ice is lol.

bug isnt bad defensively. grass is widely used, and fighting and ground are two of the most oppressive offensive types in the game. As for its weaknesses rock and fire weakness really hurt, and flying less so. so 2 very good defenses ad 2 very bad weaknesses, overall its defensively balanced and can become crazy as a dual type (bug/steel is especially notorious for ending up with only a single double weakness left)

Bug is terrible not because of its defense (which actually isn't that bad), it's that seemingly everything resists bug moves, and said bug moves are almost always hot garbage to begin with.

Blizzard's accuracy was also 90 in Gen 1 making it superior to Ice beam for the most part.

Ice moves being good didn't really affect ice mons' viability since nearly every viable thing that wasn't Ice type also had those moves that being said, Jynx, Cloyster, and sometimes Articuno were absolutely good in gen 1

So I guess Ice types being good, until now, was always just a coincidence and more that there were well-designed Pokemon with the Ice type?

Melting Point?

ice breaker

Thaw Out

This sum cassette beasts shit

It should be a gimmick for a Pokémon more than an ability, honestly

They also “designed” Onix to have a terrible attack stat for very little reason. I think you give them too much credit. They straight up just didn’t know what they were doing. Which, in fairness, they were essentially inventing a new subgenre of RPG so there wasn’t a lot of precedent, but damn. 9 gens is a long time to wait for a buff

@@SerDerpishand yet Smt existed before theme But I get the idea already that it was more about singles back then before doubles was implemented

Articuno was pretty decent in gen 1 and Lapras had a valuable niche as well. Ice was actually pretty good in gen 1

@@halfpace1462 I mean there were 5 Ice types in Gen 1, all of them are late game 'mons, all of them have another type, and Blizzard was fucking busted. It was bound to be great given those circumstances 🤣

That was Froslass's role for a while. It had really high speed, and could do one devastating set up before most things before getting KOed in prior gens.

That shit came out in the nineties, it's fair

@@feihceht656 I know, I just have a particular fascination with Gen 1 and its funny to see people not realize things such as the ice type being genuinely great.