pointless thread #321385468433165
Someone mentioned that the types are currently balanced. That is incorrect.
There is about one good bug poke - Heracross, and if it wasn't part fighting, it probably wouldn't have gotten a lot of what it did to make it good (w/o a STABed Focus Punch I really doubt this would be nearly as good as it is).
Poison is a greatly underpowered type. The only real usable poison is Weezing (and Gengar, but I don't really count it as part of this group), and poison is pathetic offensively, only SE against grass.
Ice has like no good resistances (the only thing it resists is itself), and although is useful as an attacking type, is learned by so many pokes that there isn't even a purpose for having ice pokemon in the first place. Regice is about the only thing pokemon-wise the Ice type has. Articuno is a bit more usable after XD, but still isn't that good.
Grass is another type that isn't made for battling, having four weaks and few good resists makes it poor defensively, and the only thing it has makes it worthwhile offensively is that it scores 4x damage on Swampert. The only grass poke deserving of mention is Celebi. In fact, all that's keeping Celebi from being uber is its absolute trash typing.
Fire is pretty much the definition of an awful type, though. The only good SE it gets is against Steel. In fact, the only time you usually see fire moves is on physical sweepers looking to take out skarm. The resistances it has are basically pathetic, with some very common weaknesses. Most fire pokemon are geared toward offense, anyway, though. There are very few usable ones that can actually compete in OU. Moltres became more usable after XD, and Charizard always has had some potential. Houndoom has some usability (discussed later), but even Entei sucks, unable to use its best stat, Atk, a fate shared by many fire types.
Psychic used to be a very potent type, yes. However, Game Freak has spammed the type so much in ubers that it's become an awful attacking type in ubers (where most psychics are), and doesn't even grant many good resistances on the defensive side. In OU, Psychic is only really used at all as an offensive type, and gets its kills through sheer SAtk strength, rather than through SEs. Celebi is possibly the most played Psychic in OU, and it is usually played defensively, but considering it relies on stats rather than typing to survive, I don't think it should count, really.
I suppose you could consider Psychic to have been a bit of a transition into the good types, because its pokes usually recieve very impressive SAtk and Speed, or otherwise usually have something making them worth playing.
Water is an incredibly broken type. Many good pokemon spawn from the water type, with incredible defensive and offensive stats and movepools. Suicune, Swampert, Milotic, Vaporeon, and Gyarados are all very potent OU pokes. The water type even gets its own uber: Kyorge.
Steel is another broken type. Most every good physical wall comes from the steel type, due to its plethora of resistances and most steel pokes having a strong Def stat. Skarm, Steelix, Forretress are all some of the most popular physical walls, and on the offensive side, Metagross and Jirachi are both quite potent. Steel is a bad attacking type, hitting only ice (lol) and rock SE, and several popular types NVE, but since the only thing that ever uses the steel type to attack is Metagross, which gets a HUGE attack, or Jirachi when it uses a CB set with Doom Desire (which ignores typing), it's not much to worry about.
Ground lays claim to what is possibly the best move in the game - EQ. Ground, being SE on 5 types, is an excellent attacking type. The immunity flyers have is negligible, considering most pokes that get EQ also get an attack that allows them to easily deal with flyers. Ground has several very potent pokes, including Donphan, Claydol, Flygon, and Swampert.
I figure I may as well mention Rock right here. Overall, it's a pretty meh type. Most rock types are slow and have low SDef, and rarely make it into OU. However, rock is the reason ground is so overpowered. Commonly referred to as QuakeSlide, the combination of Rock and Ground hits almost every pokemon in the game for at least neutral damage, barring levitating grounds (aka Flygon and Claydol), so you'll almost always be hitting pokes for either a 100 power Ground attack that may cause SE damage, or a 70/75 power (depending on if you go with HP:Rock or RS) SE Rock attack. The only exceptions are Gligar and Skarmory, which both take neutral damage from rock attacks. Skarm will still flee from a STABed rock attack, and ground pokes (or other rock resists) are the more common switch ins on STABed Rock abusers. TTar and Aerodactyl are about the only two popular rocks I can think of off the top of my head. Rhydon and Regirock also occasionally make an appearence.
Dragon, although it isn't a particulary good attacking type (it only hits itself SE; at least the only thing that resists it is Steel), or even that good defensively (falling prey to the ever-so-popular boltbeam combo) hosts some of the best pokes stat- and movepool-wise. Salamence, Dragonite, and Flygon are all OUs, and R/S also added three dragon ubers - Latias, Latios, and Rayquaza.
Electric is an interesting type. It gave birth to great pokes such as Zapdos, Jolteon, Raikou, and Magneton (which is really only used to kill skarm thanks to its trait). There aren't many other electrics that really stand out, though. However, these four pokes are all extremely potent, and the first three are the real reason for people playing special walls at all, so I figured they deserved some recognition. Zapdos is the most broken, though, capable of being played in a variety of different ways, and can be very defensive if it wants to. And before someone says that Electrics can't touch ground types... I have two words for you: Hidden Power.
The following are in a bit of a gray area... none of them are plain awful, and although all have very good pokemon, there's also many sucky pokes mixed in with them. None of these types single-handedly forced the usage of certain things, except in the case of when a type was already overpowered. Some are pretty meh, but it's hard to say the entire class is trash.
Flying is another interesting type. It only ever serves as a subtype to something else. Because of this, half of the pokes of this type are generally trash, while the other half are OUs. Immunity to Ground is nice, making them a good switch in on some CBers. The problem is they also carry a weakness to rock, which, as mentioned above, puts a bit of a damper on their effectiveness for that.
Ghost is a real oddball. It gets a nice set of immunities and a few resistances, but the most OU Ghost poke, Gengar, has trash defenses. It can switch in on several CBed moves to get a free turn, however, given that it also gets Levitate. Gengar will almost never use physical attacks, relying solely on its special and support movepools (aka it's not using either of its STAB moves, and the reason I don't classify it with Weezing in usable poisons), except in the case of Focus Punch to poke holes in special walls, so Ghost is almost never used as an attacking type outside of UU, where Bannete is decent, though you might see some fighters relying on HP:Ghost so they can have their own "hit everything" combo. The other OU Ghost, Dusclops, can take much better advantages of its defensive typing. GF gave Dusclops mediocre Atk and trash HP to complement its impressive defenses, so it's no where near as potent as it could have been, although is still a pain to deal with. Every other Ghost in the game not named Gengar or Dusclops basically sucks (and there aren't too many, making Ghost even more of an oddball).
Dark is another oddball. Umbreon is a pure dark type, and is an extremely defensive pokemon, with great stats and movepool for a utility pokemon, but not much of a way to do damage. All other dark types are far more offensively oriented. Looking at the type chart, it's a poor type either way: offensively or defensively. It has few good SEs, and no real resistances to common types. Houndoom is possibly one of the few good fire types, abusing a base 110 SAtk (iirc) and 100 Spd, with double STAB, Pursuit, Beat Up to put the hurt on Blissey, and access to WoW. Even Houndoom isn't particulary common, though. TTar is the only thing that really makes Dark recognized in OU, and unless you're facing the rare boah, it's showing off its rock type far more. Overall, dark is a very average type, especially after you factor in all the other sucky dark types like Mightyena, Murkrow, or Sneasel.
Fighting, much as the name implies, is a very offensive based type. It has a poor set of resistances, and although it only scores SE on three types, two of those types are very heavily played, and certain fighting pokes are very commonly referred to as "anti-metagame." Very little can switch into the likes of a CBMachamp w/o fearing a huge hit, forcing you to predict right to avoid losing something. Heracross is another pokemon that is a predictor's best friend, and it can also Endrev (Blaziken is also known for Endreving). Breloom with it's famous "SporePunch" can also prove to be a pain for your team.
Normal is an incredibly broad type. It's pretty poor offensively, getting no SEs, getting resisted by two types and completely ignored by another. High power STABed normal attacks still pack a punch, though, and of the many Atk oriented Normals only a handful have made it to OU. A few SAtk oriented normals exist though, such as Porygon2, which is actually a pretty good poke. No normal is a physical wall, but two of the most OU pokes, Snorlax and Blissey, are both special walls, and are both Normals. After that they have nothing in common (which shows just how diverse this type can be).
