Why Grass Types ACTUALLY "Suck" - Pokemon Type History
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- Опубліковано 23 чер 2022
- Despite being one of the most prominent types in Pokemon, Grass has always noticeably lagged behind. What are some of the real reasons for it?
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For the most part having nearly the same super efficient to an another type can be a sore thumb I mean yes there are balance one like dark and ghost and fire and flying but in the other hand you got grass and water and posion in general and the the most recent victim the psychic at the time psychic was general an good type to deal both fighting and poison there was other option ground and flying and ground is the better type but for flying most fighting type have rock move than dark move at the time but than gen 6 happen and induction the fairy and was now one the best type in the game and is good against fighting now psychic become an redundant type
@@608sweater Happy BDay!!
I actually REALLY like grass type Pokémon.most of them are really cool, like Decidueye and Roserade, with a lot of pretty good moves like giga drain and leech seed that turn a lot of grass types, even the hyper offensive ones, into mons with a decent amount of staying power.
Damn that's kinda cringe that you like Decidueye, but then again you have an anime profile...
@@kahukuracollinsmohi
Decidueye has a very nice Robin Hood aesthetic. And I like owls. That’s about it.
@@goroakechi6126 yea id probably really like it as well, if not for the glaring '12 yr old bait' it's design conveys. I'm just old and spiteful
@@kahukuracollinsmohi old and spiteful is a little bit of a understatement
@@baninkus lmao yea
The thing that bothers me about Grass types is their lack of coverage. Before Gen 6, it was the most resisted type, resisted by a whopping SEVEN different types. And prior to Gen 4, there was a lack of good one turn Grass type moves. Leaf Blade was the only decent one but only Sceptile got it. And like you said, Razor Leaf was strong in Gen 1 but got nerfed.
Most Grass types I see only learn STABs, Normal and sometimes Poison coverage. Usually types like Ground, Rock, Fire, Water, or Ice pair well with Grass but not that many Grass types get those types of coverage moves. You see a few exceptions (Tangrowth, Tsareena, Tapu Bulu and Abomasnow).
One thing I can say is that Grass types have good status moves, immune to powder moves, common resistances, and compared to Rock, that has the same # of resistances and weaknesses, you see mono Grass and dual Grass types in higher tiers than Rock types.
Venusaur has Earth Power now
Sunflora of all mons have Earth Power
Celebi has Earth Power, Dazzling Gleam, and Aura Sphere
Sceptile's movepool is actually pretty good.........................too bad it's all wasted on his 85 Atk as opposed to his 105 Sp. Atk (110 Atk vs. 145 Sp. Atk for the mega)
Breloom has Rock Tomb (for Technichan), Rock Slide and Stone Edge
Torterra has everything it needs as far as coverage goes
same with Chesnaught
Gogoat has Surf, Rock Slide, and Earthquake
Trevevant has Rock Slide, Earthquake, and Power-Up Punch
Kartana has Sacred Sword
Rillaboom has Superpower, High Horsepower, and Knock Off
@@goGothitaLOL Yes those are examples, and Shiftry, Zarude and Ludicolo can be added. I was thinking of Pokemon like Serperior, Vileplume, Meganium, Lilligant, Victreebel, Exeggutor (Kantonian).
While they may have a few coverage moves, they lack the common coverage moves a lot of Pokemon tend to have (Focus Blast, Earthquake, Rock Slide, etc.). There are some Pokémon that have these, those you listed like Torterra, Celebi and Sceptile, just me saying a good number of grass types lack common coverage.
Pretty much why I think moves like Earth Power and Power Gem should be distributed more to them (they did with Venusaur and Abomasnow this gen with EP).
yeah. basically you only need Ice/Ground (hit 6 resisted types) or Ground/Flying (hit 5 resisted types) as coverage. Funny enough I only remembered Abomasnow-line gets all 3 (Avalanche, Wood Hammer, EQ).
@@nazra1127 Yeah Abomasnow has a good secondary STAB in Ice Beam and unusually has a good amount of coverage moves from both sides (Physical: EQ, Rock Slide and Brick Break; Special: Focus Blast, Shadow Ball and Earth Power). Wished more Grass types had more variable coverage.
Funnily enough, the only Rock/Grass type, Cradily, somehow is a great wall Pokémon because the water weakness is negated, it has STAB healing moves and leech seed, and otherwise a good attacking move.
Also, Abomasnow’s good coverage makes Abomasnow high tier in BDSP RU, where it fares nicely to many other Pokémon who have bad movesets.
being the most resisted type and the type with the most weakness is already bad, but to salt the wound many grass Pokémons have abysmal coverage. I genuinely believe that many grass types will be made better if they are simply another type. Shame, because my favourite starter is serperior. Well at least he has made a name for himself
And Serperior got lucky that it was bulky enough that Contrary sweeping was a viable option. Many other Grass types don’t have that even given there are good Grass types.
Another problem is that the majority of Grass types are slow AF as well.
Not counting Mythicals/Legendaries, the fast is Sceptile with 120 speed, then Whimsicott with 116, followed by Serperior with 113 (Which is also something Serperior has the advantage over, especially since its also bulky enough), Jumpluff with 110 speed (But then is set back by its 4x Ice weakness in the process and its other mediocore stats). The next fastest is Gourgeist with 99 speed, depending on the form. Then we have Grovyle, Sawsbuck and Leafeon with 95. Leavanny with 92 and then we have Roserade and Lilligant with 90. The rest is all below 90 speed.
Yes. Serperior is my Fav too. And it breaks the "Grass type Stigma"
Also it feels like all evil teams usually get poison types making grass types just weak during the story
Yeah if I’m playing frlg with a bulbasaur, then I almost always get an abra asap so I have the ability to nuke all the poison types that team rocket throws at you throughout the game (plus all the bikers that have poison types as well). The starter choice for the other gens is usually the water or fire type so it’s not as bad but with bulbasaur being the go to pick in kanto, then a psychic type is almost mandatory
@@fenixrises9854 I never had a problem with poison types with venusaur in frlg it learns earthquake and it’s take down is good enough to mess up zubats lol a better team mate for it is the gyrados you get a mt.moon to block fire
@@mikewehr7887 that makes sense. I just like getting psychic types to make things easier
@@fenixrises9854 hahaha yeah I too love me some gyrados before gym 2 to show misty what’s up
@@mikewehr7887 nothing wrong with that. Basically walls starmie after the intimidate and resisting the water pulse
Grass might be the weakest of the three types but it is the most fun type to use . Also the Pokémon line up is just wonderful.
agree, ironically enough of the starters, imo only the sceptile line is disappointing.
@@jaretco6423 Chikorita was my first ever starter. I know it’s not the strongest of the three but I love that line.
@@nazra1127 You don't like the sceptical line?
@@daniyalahmed2396 no i don't like them
Weird most like that line.
The thing is, in competitive pokemon Kartana, Rilaboom, Ferrothorn are irreplacable because of their broken stats and/or ability and rare water resist. But other than that they're insignificant. They're super good or super useless... It's sad cause Grass is my favorite type.
even there ferro and rillaboom in VGC are carried by Gen8 hard
they might suck or return to be mediocre out of this
And Kartana has to have good stats simply because it’s an Ultra Beast.
Grass type mons were meant to be more "supportive" in competitive, with the amount of status moves. The type by itself is really bad for the lack of coverage, mostly depending in a secondary type to make them more effective.
Yeah, grass types' niche is super unsuited for playthrough runs where status moves don't matter as much and type coverage matters way more since while in competitive, you'll slog it out against one guy, in-game, you have to push through a bunch of people with a bunch of different types.
Doesn't help that the evil team tends to have poison types
Grass is one of those types that people often think is worse than it actually is. 5 weaknesses is a lot sure, but the only ones that you commonly see are Fire and Ice, with Poison, Flying, and Bug being much more niche. Meanwhile resistances to Water, Ground, and Electric is an incredible trait to have in a world of Scald, Earthquake, and Volt Switch.
Offensively, sure Grass is resisted by 7 types, but once again, being good into Water, Ground, and to a lesser extent Rock, is a valuable asset to any team, to the point where a lot of Pokemon used to run Hidden Power Grass for coverage when that was still a thing (Gen 7 Blacephalon, Gen 3 Zapdos, etc.), and even without it, a lot of Pokemon still like like running a Grass coverage move.
And how could we forget their giant toolbox of support options? Spore, Strength Sap, Leech Seed, Sleep Powder are among some of the best moves in the entire game, to the point where they specifically made it so Grass itself was immune to Leech Seed, and then powders and spores Gen 6 onward.
Even in modern competitive Pokemon, things like Serperior, Rillaboom, Ferrothorn, Amoonguss, Kartana, Tangrowth, Whimsicott, Breloom, Chesnaught, and Venusaur are all able to leverage the beneficial parts of the Grass-typing to great success.
A of this is to say that I do think Grass could still use a little buff, considering how quite a few Grass-types end up feeling underpowered. I've thought up ways to balance the type chart, and the way I ended up changing Grass was just to make it resist Rock. The combination of Ground + Rock offensive coverage, or QuakeSlide, is one of the best two-type offensive combos in the game, naturally hitting all but a select few Grass-types for at least neutral. With this change, every Grass-type in the game would naturally resist QuakeSlide, save for the Grass-types that happen to love losing their Rock weaknesses, like Abomasnow, Jumpluff, or Leavanny. Additionally Grass-types would take reduced damage from Stealth Rock, which would help them to switch in better, something any Pokemon appreciates (Stealth Rock ideally wouldn't deal type-based damage anymore, but whatever). Changing anything else about Grass felt unnecessary and didn't make much sense lorewise, while the new Rock resistance would at least make sense due to Grass beating Rock offensively, and how Grass is sorta the type to dominate over the natural world
flying is not niche at all for solo gameplay
its coold to be wrong i guess, grass types are generally dog and the few that are good are carried by 1 broken mechanic like glide or spore, and there is like 2 good abusers in the roster so gg to that.
Personally I would make grass moves SE to electric
Then again, Electric can handle Water better, Water can handle Ground better, and Water, Fighting, Ground, and Steel can all handle Rock better.
Also, Ice is one of the worst types in the franchise, and being weak to it causes Grass and Flying to rank near the bottom of my type ranking list. In fact, Flying is also weak to Rock, and like I said, Ice and Rock are two of the worst types in the franchise. The Flying type is so bad that it took five generations for any Pokemon to come along and be only Flying type or even primary Flying.
Fire = mostly offensive, only weak to rock, ground and water
Water = quite versitile, can be both bulky or offensive, only weak to 2 types. Electric and grass.
Grass = weak to Ice, Bug, Poison, Flying and Fire (lmao!). Also mostly defensive. Which isnt bad were it not for the fact that its weak to many types.
Conclusion: Unless it has a good dual typing like Ferrothorn, Grass types sucks.
in fact grass is tied with Rock for the most weaknesses out of any type as they both have 5 weaknesses
I can understand why GF would want both grass and rock to be defensive in their aesthetic, but my god, if they’re gonna do that then they have to freaking commit and just eliminate some of the 2x weaknesses those types have even if they do make sense from a natural standpoint.
Funny thing is, I think steel would also be logically SE against grass (one word: lawnmower) but it sure as heck doesn’t need a SIXTH weakness. So why not apply that logic to take away one or two if its weaknesses. Or at least give it more resistances, hm?
It’s why I think Grass should have a move similar to Freeze Dry, or just give Grass types more coverage.
Grass is more like Posion which is meant to stall out your opponents
Tell that to my Leafeon fool.
i absolutely love grass types despite their shortcomings for how much color and vibrance they bring to my teams, at least aesthetically; it's like having plants as decoration in your house. it's genuinely disheartening to see grass types be niche at best, but i'm glad game freak addressed a lot of their shortcomings sooner than later. at least giga drain is usable in gen 4, unlike in gen 3 when razor leaf was actually a better choice.
The Leech Seed / Toxic thing actually isn’t really seen in competitive Gen 1 because a) Toxic is pretty bad most of the time in RBY b) it’s easier said than done to get the whole thing set up and c) Venusaur is mostly useful for Sleep Powder rather than any other status.
I don’t think he was talking about competitive play, so that’s pretty irrelevant.
Grass is not suck, really! They absorb!
Also 99% most the the time razor leaf or a normal type attack will get the job done quicker than leech seed and toxic.
@@costby1105 imported cheese fan ?
@@ahmadbassam2898 Maybe I have watched some of his videos, I don't recall. In game most of the time two razor leaf will take care of most opponents. Competitively toxic is trash in generation 1 and seems to be used primarily to punish trapping strats.
This is why Gogoat is my fav grass type cuz its type coverage, surf drowns fire. rock slide kills bug, flying, ice. Earthquake shakes ups fire, and poison.
And that type coverage is the only thing Gogoat really has, cuz its slow AF (68 speed), so it dies to anything bug, flying, ice related really fast, because its physical defense is also piss poor (62 physical). So this means that Gogoat dies in one hit against a SE physical move and its special defense is also only 81. Meaning you also need to run Aerial Ace in case you are faced off against a Fighting type that can learn Ice Punch (Which is the majority of them).
Which in turn means you need to either lose one STAB move in Grass or lose one of the coverage moves. And it needs that Grass move, cuz most, if not all, water types can learn Ice attacks as well.
Gogoats best moveset is
Horn Leech (It needs it to stay alive due to its piss poor physical defense)
Aerial Ace (To deal with Bug and Fighting types carrying Ice Punch, but is also an advantage over other Grass types)
Rock Slide (Killing Bug, Flying and Ice)
And one utility move in Leech Seed.
Homestly, I think a good buff to the Grass type in future generations would be a resistence pr outright immunity to Fairy type moves, since the Fairy type is often associated with nature spirits, so it would make sense for Grass types to be unaffected by any nature magic.
That really wouldn't work flavor-wise though. The entire point of nature magic is that it manipulates nature, so why would the most natural Pokemon be resistant to the very magic designed to manipulate them? Of course, not every type chart matchup needs to make sense, but a lot of them do, so it would make sense to look elsewhere for that buff.
@@abderianagelast7868but could you not argue that fairy magic draws its power from nature hence nature being inherently more powerful than it?
Well, folks, we're adding a type to balance the type chart. It's based around magic, with most of the mons being presented as serene and peaceful faery folk, coexisting with nature and being weak to the most "man-made" flavor types, Steel and Poison. Also, our current most "nature" flavor types in Bug and Grass are also the ones in need of buffs. With all that said, I think we all agree that Fairy should be resisted by FIRE, WOO-HOO, CHARIZARD STAYS WINNING
You can fix ice types pretty easily. Make ice resistant to normal, flying, and bug type moves (this would make logical sense given that most birds and insects cant penetrate blocks of ice). And make ice resistant to water (except make scald super effective). This makes ice types more defensively viable without being broken
I wouldn't make them resist Bug because that type is already tied with Grass for being resisted by the most types; resisting Ground instead maybe?
@@unwithering5313 Ground could definitely use another resist only Grass and Bug resist, with Flying being immune. I’d switch out Normal for Water as Ice isn’t that hard to shatter like Rock or Steel.
@@unwithering5313 But the bug type was never meant to be more than an early game help with it's fast track to final evos. But even if we treat it as an equally important type, most bugs have a secondary type. Some of the best bugs are already strong against the slow ice type, with Heracross, Scisor, and Volcarona being able to 1HKO and/or resist ice
Swap Bug with Ground xD
@@casper_z1259 While this is true, you can easily carry a bug type into the E4 and champion battle, because since gen 5, they make the Bug type really solid for late play as well (Leavanny, Scolipede, Vikavolt, Orbeetle), but even as early as gen 2, you could have Bug types to carry you (Heracross, Scizor, Armaldo).
People don't give bug types the credit they deserve, since at this point, the only bug types that are really bad are those with a 4x weakness.
Congrats JPR! You’ve touched Grass!
When it comes to "worst type" these 5 comes to mind:
-Bug (common weaknesses even when only 3 of them, resistances don't matter when Ground and Fighting get Rock coverage, resisted by half the types, mostly dogshit mons)
-Ice (4 common weaknesses, only resist itself, mostly slow mons that make the weakness problem worse. Great offensively tho)
-Rock (5 weaknesses with 4 of them being super common STAB or otherwise, 4 resistances when half of them don't matter, STAB moves that have a chance of missing, mostly slow mons also making the weakness problem worse. Great offensively, pretty similar to Ice overall, they also have the infamous Stealth Rock the type is best known for)
-Grass (5 weaknesses with 3 of them being common, resisted by half the types, mostly slow mons with either none existent movepools or dual-typings that don't work for them, best set of resistances of the contenders as well as interesting support moves)
-and Poison (resisted by 6 types, only super-effective against Fairy and said Grass, weak to the ever prominent Ground, decent/solid defensive typing but mostly outclassed by Steel
Poison is resisted by 5 but I agree
Honestly normal is worse than poison :
- insane lack of resists (only hads a ghost immunity which is good but not but much, that means that aside from ghost you will always take at least neutral damage which isn’t good in competitive)
- mediocre offensive presence due to no type its super effective against and walled by 3 types
This overall makes pure normal pokemon very difficult to justify the use of because you know right of the bat that they will never hit super effectively and have very little defensive utility and synergy to your team, so that’s why most pure normal types who have good treats like stats and movepools like Zangoose, kangaskhan, bouffalant struggle even in the lower tiers because of their pure normal type. Normal really only works well as a dual type and those aren’t that common unfortunately and even then as far as dual types go you usually want something else than normal.
I don't think poison is bottom 5. Being immune to poison status and having a chance to inflict it with most stabs is useful, and it's not bad defensively. It's also insanely good with some double typings, like Dark/Poison, Flying/Poison and Water/Poison
Bug has a few really good mons and starting un gen 4 the movepools got alot deeper/better. (Forretress and shuckle are great tanks, Heracross and Scyther/Scizor are good attackers. Bug is just famous for being an early game powerup, but its still not super strong)
Ice's original function was to kill dragins in the Elite 4 (Dragonite, Salamance, Flygon, and Garchomp all are 4x weak to it, but this just makes it a good coverage move more than anything)
Normal is actually a pretty decent type, its primary advantage is accurate high base power moves on high base attack mons. Basically you are spamming stab return not playing the type chart, and using good coverage moves as needed. (Linoone can sole the emerald E4 with bellydrum, return, and shadowball which is nothing to snease at)
Rock, grass, and poison are all nice secondary typings but definitely are not top teir types for the reasons listed. (But a hypothetical poison/steel could be an amazing defensive mon, and with the right stats could even be a serious threat)
@@IgnitedQuils he said "resisted by 6" because he took into account steel's immunity to poison, it's a weird technicality but it does count in this regard
This could make for an interesting series. I'd like to see more. Maybe bug, poison or ice next?
Poison is a good defensive type and poison mons are usually better at killing fairies than steel, as well as typically having better coverage that them. Poison was bad, but it's much better now
I think bug gets a slightly worse rap than it deserves, mainly because our primary exposure to it is through the earlygame bugs like Butterfree, Breedrill, Paras, Ledian, Spinarak, Beautifly, Dustox, Kricketune, ect. And while they are decent they also aren't strong and usually get dropped by level 15 in favor of the much stinger pokemon you have found.
That said some stong late game pokem like scyther/scizor, pinser, heracross, yanma/yanmega, shuckle, forretress, ect are all very useful bug types. Some of them are genuinely good at playing the oneshot game, but others like shuckle and forretress are tanks that need a slightly more advanced strat. (Or stall but stall is boring) And of course in later gens alot more bugs with good basestats were introduced along with better moves like x-scissor, U-turn, and bug buzz getting added. (I think HGSS are the best games to do a bug only run in due to the abundance of good mons and moves)
Full discussions on types have to include the full context from the type chart to available moves to the general quality of the pokemon of that type. (Like bug originally just being an earlygame powerup but also having some good lategame mons) For ice it has always been a lategame type meant for slaying dragons. (Dragonite, Salamance, Flygon, and Garchomp are all 4x weak to it) but its often been easier to just put icebeam on your best special attacker instead of getting an ice type itself. (Although starting in gen 4 blizzard works like thunder which is a great buff)
I've never considered poison to be terrible but it could use a buff, and i really want a steel/poison type just so the ultimate defensive mon can exist. (Seviper being a perfect candidate for getting an evolution with this typing)
So, funny enough, when I was doing a Ground type Monotype run of Platinum, Gardinia was one of the biggest head scratchers I had. I let myself use Pokemon that turn into Ground types, so up to that point, I had Grotle, Onix, Geodude, and Shellos. I had so much trouble with figuring out a way to beat Gardinia, and then it hit me: Wormadam Sand Cloak. You'd think such an obsolete Pokemon wouldn't be good, but it honestly helped out so much.
So I guess what I'm saying is... Ground type next?
Thing is, Ground type isn't a bad typing at all. Its one of the three best typings (Alongside Dragon and Fairy), cuz of its pletora of resistances. Especially Mudsdale is the flagship mon of the type, its can dish out damage, while at the same time take them. Then put its stamina ability on it and you have arguably one of the best mons in every game.
@@nickdentoom1173 i'd say alongside those 3, water is also very high on the totem pole of types due to it being a very balanced type and naturally being home to a bunch of bulky mofo's. the only drawback water does have is that since they almost never learn ground moves, they generally have a hard time against electric...but thats really about it
@@bulborb8756 Yeah true. There is also the thing that a Water/Dual type is usually better than other ones (Depending on the dual type, since Water/Dark is a shitty combination for example, while Water/Ground is a perfect one).
I feel like grass is a victim of constantly being rooted(hah) in tradition. While the game is growing(haha) around them, grass types remain repeating the same sort of troupe over and over again. You see this is rock and ice as well.
The thing is, you'd have grass types with powerful traits. Sceptile for example is one of the fastest grass types in the entire game. But looking at its movepool, you start to see the problem. It's a special attacker, but with very few special moves. And no calm mind or nasty plot to boost it further. Well now it has to rely on its physical movepool. It has Earthquake which covers steel types, Swords Dance for boosting its attack. But rock slide and Acrobatics are its only other options. Weak moves that must be boosted 4 stages on average in order to do any meaningful damage.
Roserade is another mon I thought should be good. Despite having a good speed and special attack stat, it still struggles with grass weaknesses because it's movepool I'd severely limited to poison, grass, and normal attacks. As well as technician being worthless on Roserade because it has no moves 60bp or less that isn't just outclassed by Energy Ball and Sludge Bomb.
And I will also mention Virizion. It has a strong Grass Fighting type to use, but a pitiful 90 attack to use it with. Yes it gets Swords Dance and a good speed stat, bit with 90 attack it can't break through much. And it's movepool won't allow it to break poison types at all because it's limited to its Duel type.
Why I think this is bs is because water for example has access to many many things to help itself. It defensively checks fire, one of the best attacking types as well as threatens ground and rocks two of the other most threatening types. It's only weak to grass and electric, with only grass resisting its attacks. But guess what
The majority of water types learn ice beam or ice Fang.
Water types typically carry the stats, abilities, and movepool to handle its checks, while grass has to scrape the bottom of the barrel to counter the massive list of things its weak too. Water is gaurnenteed to have ice beam, while Grass is just lucky to have Earth Power or Earthquake. And an act of Arcues needs to occur before they get Stone Edge or a good electric attack!
I know this was covering the type itself and not really moves of the type, but find it weird that you never mentioned Grass Knot at all, considering it’s a common tm move and useful against anything heavy (which the types grass is strong against often are). Also grass is the only super effective type against the really good water/ground typing combination
Freeze-dry also hits Water/Grounds for 4x, but only a few Ice types get it.
also a lot more pokemon has water absorb/storm drain/dry skin than sap sipper
@@fangornfan ice type is worse than grass though 😂
@@mikewehr7887 which is partially due to fairy stealing its thunder/niche as the dragon slayer type. The most common dragons in gens 1-4 were Dragonite, Salamance, Flygon, and Garchomp which are all 4x weak to ice, i don't think any if gen 5's dragins are 4x weak to it and then gen 6 introduced fairy to counter the "broken" dragon type. (Personally ice should be super effective against fairy as well, it would go a long way to reclaiming its role as the type you get to help clean up the late game monsters)
@@jasonreed7522 but an ice type move on a water mon was and is generally better than an ice type in any of if those generations
And while you might lose stab
Who cares when it's 4× weak to the ice move
So generally water was used more than ice
For Ice coverage
An easy issue with grass types is they are structurally (moves, abilities, etc) designed for a slow playstyle. But then the majority of the game is build around a speedy one. Was it deliberate on their part to show that in the anime with Ash's Turtwig? And how things got difficult for him after he evolved and got slower? Not sure, but it was a good example of it.
And it doesn't help when the slow playstyle means being tanky, but there are so many common ways to get 2x damage on grass types, and most of the offensive recovery options for them did little, since they are well resisted, and only hit 2x on three things, with rock and ground arguably being one from how often they are paired together. Grass Type is just sadly kept too niche. Too good in it's niche to need buffing, since when it works it works very well, but too subparr everywhere else to be very 'fun' really.
At least give Grass types their own debuff move. Maybe something like 'thorns' that works like burn and sticky barb.
@@thecod2345 Grass DEFINITELY needed to resist Fairy. Would help balance fairy types a bit too. Blanket super effective... maybe not, but a move like Freezedry would have been cool XD
@@Dusxio Fairy is technically the 'Light type' so that would make sense, in my opinion
@@jaretco6423 Nah that would be TOO many weaknesses, putting Fairy in the same position as Grass, Ice and Bug as a Bad Typing due to the abundance of weaknesses and resistances. You wouldn't really want to do more than 3 weaknesses.
@@jaretco6423 The coverage the pokemon with the typing get isn't a factor to the balance of the type itself. That's gamefreak making them (as individual pokemon) even more broken. It's a factor in what 'Fairy Type Pokemon' are overpowered, true, but distinct from balancing the type itself. We want to balance the types, not fully nerf them. XD
Yeah but then again they could have showed the reverse with Snivy going all the way (But i guess it never happened due to Trip having a Serperior, since we all know what happened with Pauls Torterra the moment Ash got his, Pauls never showed up anymore).
I love this as a concept for a new series by you. This type of different content is why you’re one of my favorite Pokémon content creators. Please do more Pokémon type histories bro. 👍🏻👏
In the anime when one of the protagonists have a grass starter it never reaches it's full evolution apart from Sceptile and Torterra:
Bulbasaur
Bayleef
Snivy
Chespin
Rowlet
Grookey
Whenever I play any Pokemon game I always start with a fire type starter on follow up with both grass and water types later on my journey. It makes my team balance along with other types that I soon added in my team.
Fire-Water-Grass core!
@@robertlupa8273 if you can get that trio, and ideally with unique secondary typings you are pretty set for most of the game.
And some old go-to types were electric, steel, psychic, fighting, and dark to fill the last 3 slots if the team. (Psychic always felt mandatory, kadabra and Gardevoir are very strong)
Fresh-cut boi
Great vid man! Would love to see this as a series.
Some little inaccuracies in this video are :
-thought poison was undeniably awful in gen 1, it is now almost unanimously considered better than grass, both type are defensive but poison has much less weaknesses while still having useful resists.
-Chesnaught is a great mon despite its double weakness, as it is the case for quite some grass types mentioned in this video, grass is far from a death sentence unlike with normal, ice and sometimes bug and rock, it is generally a pretty decent double typing with an extremely useful set of resistances, it is not meta defining but rather a great anti meta pick.
Poison is a hard defensive typing and it often have to rely on a secondary typing for it's offense.
At least Nuzlockers tend to get mileage out of Grass starters. Leech Seed and powder moves are so useful when trying to stay alive.
Looking at you, TFS and Mr. Stake.
Breloom is a good one.. with poison heal ability and give him poison orb then teach him spore, substitute and leach seed that will be a good combo to last long..
You found something to keep my interest for 17 more types. Gone and run thru each one, keep up the work. New sub
Grass’s gimmick is healing themselves.
And it can’t outheal the damage it receives from all those 2x weaknesses
I don't think regular Decidueye should be left out alongside Venusaur & Torterra - whilst it gains extra weaknesses, it also gains two immunities including a useful one to Fighting and it negates Poison weakness by it's Ghost typing. Yes,it's slow but it's bulk isn't bad
Would dig getting videos like this for all the types. Especially some love for Ground type next!
I would love videos of you diving into each type history it’d be fun
More of this please. Great summary with fun witty dialogue. Love your vids man
*videos not vids. I don't understand the concept of wanting to shorten a word that is already short enough as it is. I find it ridiculous. But I do understand wanting to shorten long words.🤦
@@SuperPlacido1 VDs :P
Leorio, the saykio aniki It’s all about the flow. Videos is just an annoying number of syllables to hear all the time
@@emblemblade9245 What does this have to do with the word sounding bad and not being able to write two more letters? I don't work with stupidities! Think for once in your life and try to come up with an intelligent excuse! Ah yes... You can't, because there is no excuse for not writing two other letters in a word.
Great video, I’d love to see other types done in a series like this!
I think the issue it comes down to is grass types are not offensive enough with mono-typing alone and aren’t fast enough to act if they do have said offense. If we can get more versatile grass types with grass/poison, grass/steel, or even grass/water, it could be more devastating. Still, it sucks that mono-grass is always gonna struggle to be somewhat viable
Great video by the way! I think the best point is that they make fragile grass types slow, which while thematically making sense, is in practice very annoying.
Especially considering that the bst contribution usually goes into making a Pokémon a mixed attacker, when most grass types from my experience are better on the special side. If you're not going to put it into speed or the relevant att/spatt stat, at least give it to bulk!
A grass-rock starter would be cool. The type chart works pretty well for that pairing.
Agreed, though while it would be strong against Ice and Bug, it would still be weak against Ice and Bug. Not gonna lie, despite the 4x weakness to Fire I'd like a Grass/Steel type.
@@billdeco08 I agree grass steel is really good. But since there are a few strong grass steel types and grass rock type pokemon are rare, I think a grass rock starter would be a more fun addition than a grass steel type starter.
Not to mentioned Grass/Steel would be too much for an starter Pokemon considering it only has 2 weakness. Yeah. It would be quadruple weak to Fire. But only having 2 weakness makes it pretty unbalanced for an starter Pokemon. Ferrathorn & Kartana weren't starters. U have to capture and earn them. Which is good. But given it to the starter Pokemons would break the entire game. It's one of the reason why I despise the Mudkip family because once Mudkip evolved, it becomes part Ground type. Meaning the only weakness it'll be is Grass type. But has an easy chance of learning Ice type moves to cover that. And it makes the entire Gen. 3 completely easy because of that and I hated that.
Just because of this video, I'm going to do a mono grass playthrough of Heart Gold.
5 weaknesses. Fire, flying, bug, poison, and ice, and SO many other types are resistant to them
In my opinion Fairy schould be 1/2 effective to grass, as many magical creatures live in the woods. That alone would make Grass a much better type, I think. Other than that, Ice has historically been such a good offensive type that I worry about it becoming too powerful if it had better defensive coverage, though it would make sense it resisting Electric, since ice and snow are both poor conductors of electricity.
Depends how much air the ice contains.
I would give them resistance to Ghost(they are chill guys,and Ghost needs some defensive checks for a while)
@@robertocorti9845 I don't think it does, actually: air and ice are both insulator, despite the former being much more efficient.
As per your suggestion, Ice is a type that is heavily elementally-themed, so I'm not sure that an anecdotal justification would fit.
If I had to justify a resistance to Ghost, I'd pick types who can wield magical powers (Dragon/Fairy/Psychic), which could match it on the mystical level, or the one that can stand the sight of spooky ghosts because of its association with courage (Fighting).
There are many Grass-Types that are excellent in strategy, like Serperior, Rillaboom, Gen 1 Eggxegutor, Mega-Venusaur, or Gen 3 Celebi (he was even more broken back in time)...
In an effort to make grass more viable, what if grass was immune to fairy? It would make thematic sense, with fairies being seen as guardians of life and nature, and would also work to buff a bad type like grass and humble an overpowered type fairy. Although I’m not a competitive battler at all so let me know how well this works.
That would be a good debuff to fairy, although the strongest type combo, steel/fairy, would still be strong against grass.
@@casper_z1259 True, but I’m just lookin at the general changes that would happen rather than countering a specific combination
My thoughts too. I’d also add psychic to resistance because a common trope in fiction is plants being immune to telepathy/psychic powers.
I like this type a lot. I will say that with a new region and a soft reboot for the franchise it can be a very good opportunity to rebalance the type chart, and it can be explained away by something like the quality of the grass and soil in the region
Lately, I’ve been doing lots of Pokémon Showdown battles, mainly Gen 8 National Dex AG. The main Grass-Type I use is mostly Mega Venusaur with max investment in Sp. Defense IVs, which has actually allowed me to put Sp. Attacking monsters like Shadow-Rider Calyrex to rest (with Sleep Powder, not usually as 1v1 unless the situation calls for it). With Smeargle being prominent in the tier and capable of learning Spore, I either have Hatterene’s Magic Bounce or a Grass-Type like Venusaur or Serperior since they’re immune.
Aside from Venusaur and Serperior, the only other Grass-Types I use are Cradily, Rillaboom, Serperior, Ferrothorn, and Whimsicott (have a female one called Cotton; she’s so cute 🥰). I know Kartana and Shaymin exist, but I like proving that you don’t need legends, mythicals, or Ultra Beasts Pokémon to be on top. But then some others, most of which are also my favorites, like Torterra, Decidueye, and Sceptile (even with its Mega) are either RU or NU, which hurts me, but it’s understandable to see why.
People: Grass types suck
Venusaur, Kartana, Serperior, Rillaboom, Ferrothorn: Hold our beers
Tangrowth too! Lol
Would like to see more of this, I don't personally like grass types (well, they're my 7th favorite of the 18), but I felt awful about grass types not getting too much stuff.
Edit: In the earlier gens, there are no/less abilities to worry about. Now a lot more Pokemon now has water absorb/storm drain/dry skin than sap sipper.
I find it interesting that the only type Grass hasn’t been with yet is Fire.
ok fair enough with that, but like it did take until like gen 8 for us to get something that is grass/electric (and no, rotom-mow doesn't count), but it really does depend on if you count hisuian electrode as it's own thing or not
@@bulborb8756 Do you consider Electric/Fire & Dragon/Fairy unused then?
@@RFE812 yes I do consider them unused, as they are on an alternate form and not on a normal pokemon that isnt a legendary, i do make a slight exception on regional forms however, but there are some exceptions like fire/ice still being unused as that's on an alternate form
And there's so many different concepts for a Grass/Fire type. Chilli pepper, flaming tiki, maybe even the ever-burning shrub from the Bible?
That's what I'm hoping Maractus & Sunflora will be if it gets an regional form and an evolution.
Another thing I don’t see people being up is Grass and Sunny day simultaneously being synergistic and unsynergistic with the type. While grass types have stuff like solar power and chlorophyll you also get a 4x weakness to fire.
I wish grass got better synergy with rain dance, would have great potential due to it removing the fire weakness
Edit: oh, and Electric also pretty much does everything grass can do against water types, but with better coverage
Electric doesn’t resist Water and usually consists of frail mons, though, so an argument could be made that Grass would be preferable sometimes.
@@skeetermania3202 It depends on the game honestly, in something like Gen 4, outside of Roserade, a lot of grass types are too slow for me so I just use an electric type.
3:00 you nailed it - it wasn't that bad before gen 2. Sleep is potent as hell & a staple of grass. They held a pretty specific & balanced place originally.. & parasect was the grass-type experience without the psychic-weakness (& always overlooked in its damage against)
If this becomes a series I'll subscribe. This is my first time watching your video
"Water steals grass's thunder."
That takes me back to a scene in the Indigo League. When Brock asked Gary what Gary would use against his Rock/Ground types and Gary said a Water type with a Grass type _as backup._ Even though Grass is technically better because it resists Ground and Water doesn't, it was still overlooked for Water. Now Gary could have had a Water type bias since his starter is Water, but since it was sort of a test about Pokemon battle knowledge it goes to show how Grass is almost an afterthought.
and tbh Gary had a right idea since water has fewer issues then grass does due to water being such a balanced type, plus in general so many water types tend to be very bulky and thus can SOAK up a lot of hits before going down
Chesnaught is actually quite good as a Tank despite its ×4 flying weakness, and immune to amoongus and its spores and rage powders , which is huge.
This is a good premise for a series. You should do the other types.
I love all your racing memorabilia in the background. Jeff Gordon for life!
I’m gonna sub in hopes that this becomes a series
I really enjoy youre content i like to see a 18 part series of this
I always close the fire starter, because the first Pokémon you encounter on your journey are grass and bug, and then they’re pretty much always there in all of the tall grass. The only exception is snivy, cuz serperior is the coolest
The grass types are one of my favourite types. My play style tends to lean towards defensive and outlasting my opponent.
My favourite type is steel so needless to say, I love the slower play.
Can't wait for next week to be about the ice type
Ice....desperately needs some help, mainly on the defensive side as they resist basically nothing, like giving them say a resistance to water and grass would be very handy
Powder immunity was and still is pretty significant in VGC!
Actually being immune to Spore, as well as ignoring redirection of Rage Powder, can make you bring your Grass type to a match a lot.
The biggest effect from this is hard blocking Amoonguss. Even in Singles it stops a lot of the common Spore and Sleep Powder spammers.
@@cartergamegeek still amoonguss is a common sight as it's insanely bulky, plus having one of the best sleep inducing moves in spore is a plus and regenerator and effect spore are good defensive abilities
@@bulborb8756 You see it way more in doubles. But singles you do see it every so often because it heals on the switch out so you get good HP back as you switch. It was just one of the best redirection Pokemon for doubles so you see it a ton for that reason. Singles it was good but far less common.
I agree. For me, when doing play throughs in a game, I tend to find less reason to use a Grass-type Pokemon in general, except for very niche reasons (Water/Ground-type Pokemon are an example, but are far too few). For the types Grass is super-effective against, Water- and Electric-types already cover those and both types are GREAT to have in a team. I get so much use out of my Water-type and Electric-type Pokemon that Grass-type just feels redundant.
This video made me come to the realization that I have never liked a fully evolved Grass Starter more than the other 2 (I say fully evolved because I think Bayleef is the best gen 2 starter in general). The only one that comes close are Serperior who I like about just as much as Emboar. This was just an observation though, I actually really like Grass. Grass Pokemon have made it into top 10 Pokemon of the region for me multiple times (ex. Aforementioned Bayleef, Ivysaur, Whimsicott, Chespin, Roserade). It really sucks that it's been dealt a bad hand.....or farming equiment in this case.
If a grass field attack that was vines on the ground akin to stealth rocks comes to mind to help.
Like a leech seed on the switch in.
Loved this vid! I’d really enjoy it if it was a series
*video not vid. I don't understand the concept of wanting to shorten a word that is already short enough as it is. I find it ridiculous. But I do understand wanting to shorten long words.🤦
@@SuperPlacido1 you really
Spent your time to ment that on my ment? U cray
@@ppo190 Not even able to write "You" and "crazy"! If you want to take the piss out of someone, do it the right way! Otherwise, you're the one who looks ridiculous!😆
Did a mono run of Pokemon Emerald with only grass types. The team was Sceptile, Ludicolo, Breloom, Tropius, Viluplume and Cradily. Was extremely challenging but loved it!
Ice is my favorite type and I would not call it the weakest. As long as you go first, which is possible via trick room, choice scarf or slush rush, it can actually KO a lot of strong pokemon. I at least have had quite a lot of success with my mono ice teams
That's just it, ice is very much a glass cannon of a type, having solid offensive capabilities but are atrocious defensively, which is exactly why they are only really good at being offensive Pokemon, as besides the slush rush sweepers you mentioned, things like Cloyster with shell smash, Weavile and Galarian Darmanitan are some of the biggest stand outs that have really made names for themselves. The problem is that these types of ice Pokemon are more often than not the exception to the rule rather than the standard, with it being much more common to see them boasting high defensive stat distributions that their typing does practically nothing to compliment, even pairing it with steel, the best defensive type in the game, doesn't exactly do a ton to help fix it's issues as a tanky type, as Alolan Sandslash can attest to
@@matthewkuscienko4616 I like the Water/Ice pairing best because it cancels out fire and steel weakenesses while also being able to hit Grass and Rock super effectively. Thus there only remain Fighting and Electric to worry about. Plus some Pokémon with this combination such as Dewgong and Walrein also get Thick Fat giving them a nice Fire resistance as well
@@mrmacura3421 Cloyster has high physical defence, too, making its weakness to fighting moves less of a concern.
@@reillywalker195 Yes, that's important as well. But you can also run a shell smash set, outspeed most pokemon and hit them almost always super effectively with ice, water or rock type moves
You've heard it here first folks, it's time for a speedy grass/fire type pokemon.
Well when it comes to venu better then zard that is only the case in 1/4/5 and 8 where venu and zard are often seen on the same team while zard is from what I can tell better in 2 ou in 3 and the main meta in 6/7 thanks to mega so I would say they are equal in comepetive
Also vgc I would say they are equal with the main edge venu had over zard is gen 5
I’m kinda offended that they made hisuian decidueye slow.
They did my boy dirty and people hate his design when it’s my favourite.
also, quick question: will you do the best and worst types for scarlet and violet once the games come up?
I love how the Turtwig is called Hashirama 4:25
6:10 To be fair Gamefreak cares about VGC way more than they care about singles competitively and grass types being immune to powder and spore moves made grass types extremely widespread on teams so to Gamefreak and everyone in VGC Gamefreak already gave grass types enough of a buff
I remember playing Pokémon White and using Snivy only to be annoyed at it having no good moves to be taught as it grew older. It’s still my favorite unova starter tho
In my opinion, Grass types should resist fairy (because why would a fairy attempt to hurt the nature?) and deal neutral damage to flying, since when birds bonk their heads in trees, it hurts.
I think the perceived strength of fire types far outweigh their actual power since in term of viability, they are not far ahead of grass (grass is a bottom 6 type while fire is a bottom 8 type, not much better). But water is so much ahead of the other two, arguably top 3 definitly top 5 type in the game, that it really make the trio feel unbalanced. If I had to rank the types from best to worst in competitive singles it would be something like :
Steel
Fairy
Flying
Water
Ground
Ghost
Elektrik
Fighting
Dragon
Poison
Dark
Fire
Grass
Psychic
Rock
Bug
Normal
Ice
I'd really appreciate this becoming a series.
Teal Mask giving Torterra access to Trailblaze, Grassy Glide, and Shell Smash: Go. Do a crime.
5 weaknesses some of which are very common offensive types, general lack of decent/ usable coverage e.g: sceptile losing Tpunch and pursuit, super effective on types that have better weaknesses to exploit e.g: ground = ice/water water = electric rock = fighting/ ground and lack of a good boosting move on those that would actually make use of it
I think a good way to boost grass types would be to have them resist fairy or even be healed by it. This would also nerf fairy slightly. Also maybe resist psychic too (common dnd trope that plants are immune to telepathy/psychic attacks).
Not sure how to boost them offensively except maybe normal damage to steel?
Water even in gen 1, blastiose can learn icebeam or blizzard which kills grass, and more importantly dragons
‘Grass-lighted’…. fair play
It would be great to hear ice type’s story, and what might be done for it
I really enjoyed this. It was so fun to got through the history
5:16 Whimsicott is fairly common as prankster support. Certainly more common than appletun, shiinotic or chesnaught.
6:11 I don't see how this is bad. Spore is used a lot in competitive. Being immune to spore and leech seed gives grass types greater survivability without wasting an item slot on safety goggles.
7:47 I mean there is a total of 11 out of the many fully evolved water types that are ice, flying or poison. And ones like qwilfish and arctovish are not viable so...
I've picked the grass starter in every Pokémon game I've ever played (started with Sapphire) and plan to do so again in S&V and yes it's definitely the worst pick most of the time, but hey at least I tend to like their designs lol (by which I mean literally all of them except for Meganium)
This was really good!
I hope this becomes a series
I see grass as a more utilitarian type. They have draining moves, powders, stuff like that. They're not like Ice or fire which are pure offense
Speaking of gen one people always go on about the psychics and razor leaf but don't forget just how op ground types were back then specially the moves dig and earthquake they'd one shot pretty everything that wasn't flying
Love this video idea. I would absolutely love to see this with other types.
Bug is in the same category.
Would be down to see that 18 part series. Subbin
Grass types have always been my goto, that said I've never played competitively and Pokemon campaigns in general aren't that difficult, especially recently, so I just pick the starter I like the most which is always grass. I like plants a lot in real life, green is my favorite color. Serperior's gotta be one of my favorite pokemon. But very interesting video seeing the history of the game's balance. Since I'm pretty unaware of the overall history of balance, can anyone suggest a good site so I can research the history of the balance changes made to each type and move? I can't find it on the wikis that show up first in google search.
To be fair, Sleep Powder + Leech Seed is nice for a slower and safer playstyle. You don’t have to brute force everything.
Funny enough, when given the option for a Grass type, I go for Whimsicott. Such a perfect little tank with some speed.
Thinking of Sawsbuck, Sceptile and Kartana, Grass should be considered an offensive type, being slow like how most Rock types are treated is a mistake.
I once did a mono Grass run in Black version, due to the sheer variety of grass types available. And yup, Ferrothorn is amazing cause of steel typing.
It’s more what team you put with them
For the most part I usually have much more diverse coverage when I have a grass starter compared to the other two
Problem with most grass pokemon is their pretty bad type coverage. Grass and Ice mons have by far the most plain same type learnsets comparing to any other types. In most cases your move options are Grass + Normal + an occasional 3rd move of a different type. Even dual-typed grass mons have pretty shallow movepools. When it comes to the type itself Grass isn't as bad, Loses to Fire Flying Bug and Poison and wins against Ground and Water the 2 most used types in competitive Pokemon. As for the stats of Grass mons in general, those with decent stats get hindered from bad movepools while the other half have amazing movepools but terrible stats to utilize them.
Also in gen 3 i notice grass types seam to fall into 1 if 2 categories damage dealers and vampires. (The first set learns moves like vinewhip, razor leaf, magical leaf; and the second set gets absorb, mega drain, and giga drain) and rarely a mon learns damaging grass moves from both sides by levelup.
Its probably telling my all time favorite grass type is breloom (who has Fighting secondary typing and does most of his damage with fighting or normal moves and gets the vampire line of grass moves to stay topped off or to kill the abundant water types of Hoenn).
Ice has always felt like its primary existence has been to slay dragons. Its usually 4x super effect against all the dragons in a game (flying and ground secondary typings being common in gens 1-4). I think a buff to it should include becoming super effective against fairy and making icetypes available earlier in the games. As of now alot of ices value can be gained by just teaching icebeam to a non-ice special attacker and using it as coverage and avoiding ice's bad defensive matchups.
@@jasonreed7522 there's also the fact that thanks to breloom's fighting type, it's got access to rock moves to deal with its issues against flying and fire, plus fighting has a vampiric move in drain punch.
however the lack of physical dark and poison moves is worth noting as this means breloom is vulnerable to psychics, ghosts and fairies (i'd also say poison...but it's not often fighting gets ground or psychic moves)
I think if you give grass a resistance to fairy (nature reasons idk) and ice is no longer super effective (it’s water and also every water type has ice beam) grass could be relevant again
Ice being super effective against grass makes sense, though, since plants are easily killed by cold weather. It's also the best way for water types to cover against grass.
Can sum1 tell me whether u think that either Overgrow Rillaboom w/o grassy surge is better or worse than Torrent Inteleon competitively?? (w/o any choice items)