Current Events > Remember when the Pokemon anime said Ghosts beat Psychics

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ash couldnt beat Sabrina so he needed to find a ghost type pokemon to help him. If Kadabra fights Haunter, Haunter is getting FUCKED up.

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Ghosts were supposed to be strong against Psychics, but a glitch made them ineffective.

Not that it matters, since the shit balancing in RBY meant the only non-fixed damage ghost move was Lick. Also, GameFreak's massive boner for slapping "poison" on everything in Gen 1 hit the only ghost line lol.

Even as a kid I was aware of the ludo-narrative dissonance of the ghost type matchups. >_>

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Was there even a grass pokemon that wasn't also poison?

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Yeah I think I tried fighting Sabrina with a Ghost as a kid after watching the anime and not understanding why it wouldn't work.

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Isn't haunter half poison anyway?

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VonOrdelia posted...

Was there even a grass pokemon that wasn't also poison?

Just looked them up and Tangela seems to be one. Very mediocre.

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VonOrdelia posted...

Was there even a grass pokemon that wasn't also poison?

Tangela

Edit: Damn it https://i.imgur.com/YvghbGh.gifv
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Exeggcute as well but that thing was rare

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AlisLandale posted...

Ghosts were supposed to be strong against Psychics, but a glitch made them ineffective.

Not that it matters, since the shit balancing in RBY meant the only non-fixed damage ghost move was Lick. Also, GameFreak's massive boner for slapping "poison" on everything in Gen 1 hit the only ghost line lol.

Even as a kid I was aware of the ludo-narrative dissonance of the ghost type matchups. >_>

Then they added Shadow Ball in gen 2 which would have been great, if all the ghost moves werent physical while all the ghost types were special attackers. >_>

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Rikiaz posted...

Then they added Shadow Ball in gen 2 which would have been great, if all the ghost moves werent physical while all the ghost types were special attackers. >_>

Yeah, I don't know what they were smoking when they assigned that shit.

Like they had two different teams working on it that never talked to each other, best fix in pokemon when they sorted that out.

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AlisLandale posted...

Ghosts were supposed to be strong against Psychics, but a glitch made them ineffective.

Not that it matters, since the shit balancing in RBY meant the only non-fixed damage ghost move was Lick. Also, GameFreak's massive boner for slapping "poison" on everything in Gen 1 hit the only ghost line lol.

Even as a kid I was aware of the ludo-narrative dissonance of the ghost type matchups. >_>

Pretty much all of this. I guess i'd add the minor footnote that in the early days of the Pokemon TCG, Gastly, Haunter, & Gengar did have an advantage against psychic types. They were classified as psychic, but had no weakness, unlike most traditional psychic types who were also weak to psychic.

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Blue_Inigo posted...

Exeggcute as well but that thing was rare

And Paras

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Actually now that someone brought it up, I never really thought about it but it is rather strange that Ghost type moves were physical before DPP came along

Why would dead creatures who normally can't interact with the living be physical instead of special?

Ghost and Dark should have really switched places lol

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MrFingers07 posted...

Actually now that someone brought it up, I never really thought about it but it is rather strange that Ghost type moves were physical before DPP came along

Why would dead creatures who normally can't interact with the living be physical instead of special?

Ghost and Dark should have really switched places lol

They really should have. Especially when you look deeper and see that ghost moves (aside from lick) were almost all spooky energy and dark moves were stuff like Sucker Punch, Knock Off and Thief which all involve physical contact.

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I was so annoyed with Dark being special because it took Bite, which was a fairly decent early-game move for all the Pokmon that learned it. And all the Pokmon that learned it were physical attackers RIP early game gyarados in Fr/Lg. >_>

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MrFingers07 posted...

Actually now that someone brought it up, I never really thought about it but it is rather strange that Ghost type moves were physical before DPP came along

Why would dead creatures who normally can't interact with the living be physical instead of special?

Ghost and Dark should have really switched places lol

Dark is probably special because it was introduced alongside steel in gen 2, and steel's harder to justify as a special type than dark. They probably just wanted to keep the physical/special types more or less equal in amount.

AlisLandale posted...

Ghosts were supposed to be strong against Psychics, but a glitch made them ineffective.

wait what glitch do you mean?

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MorganTJ posted...

Dark is probably special because it was introduced alongside steel in gen 2, and steel's harder to justify as a special type than dark. They probably just wanted to keep the physical/special types more or less equal in amount.

Though making Ghost special was clearly the correct move there to maintain balance.

It really wasn't until Gen 3 with the Shuppet line that, a Ghost Pokmon could reasonably be a Psychic counter. Once the physical/special split happened in Gen 4, it actually became more viable across the board.

Edit: I suppose Sableye in Gen 3 could also counter psychic types but a big part of that was its Dark Type more than it's proficiency with Ghost.

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AlisLandale posted...

Ghosts were supposed to be strong against Psychics, but a glitch made them ineffective.

Not that it matters, since the shit balancing in RBY meant the only non-fixed damage ghost move was Lick. Also, GameFreak's massive boner for slapping "poison" on everything in Gen 1 hit the only ghost line lol.

Even as a kid I was aware of the ludo-narrative dissonance of the ghost type matchups. >_>

Is it really shit balancing if you're judging it off of modern balancing? For the time, the game was revolutionary.

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SquirtleSkwad posted...

Is it really shit balancing if you're judging it off of modern balancing? For the time, the game was revolutionary.

dude even children knew that psychic was op

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Choco posted...

dude even children knew that psychic was op

Yeah, but unless you were playing Gen 1 competitively (very few were, att) you wouldn't have a big reason to think much about it.

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SquirtleSkwad posted...

Yeah, but unless you were playing Gen 1 competitively (very few were, att) you wouldn't have a big reason to think much about it.

i guess but the balancing was still bad even if it was irrelevant >_>

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Choco posted...

i guess but the balancing was still bad even if it was irrelevant >_>

Fair. No one plays the main game for competitive balance anyway lol

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ghost does beat psychic though

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SquirtleSkwad posted...

Is it really shit balancing if you're judging it off of modern balancing? For the time, the game was revolutionary.

Yes.

Psychic's singular weakness had only one now fixed damage move, with abysmal power, and only got STAB from Pokmon that would get BTFO by Psychic attacks.

You can argue it wasn't super relevant, but the balancing in Gen 1 and to a lesser extent Gen 2 was very bad.

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Compsognathus posted...

Yes.

Psychic's singular weakness had only one now fixed damage move, with abysmal power, and only got STAB from Pokmon that would get BTFO by Psychic attacks.

You can argue it wasn't super relevant, but the balancing in Gen 1 and to a lesser extent Gen 2 was very bad.

I think the relevancy is more my focus in this discussion. Balancing has never had an influence on the main games enjoyability unless you went out of your way to screw yourself. People who Nuzlocke are something else.

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Choco posted...

wait what glitch do you mean?

Psychic types were supposed to be weak to ghost, but were immune to ghost attacks.

Tsukasa1891 posted...

Psychic types were supposed to be weak to ghost, but were immune to ghost attacks.

For what it's worth, the glitch is almost irrelevant because Lick, a 20 power physical move, was really the only thing it was impacting. Even if Lick worked as intended its base power would still only be 40 when used on a Psychic type (60 if the Gastly-line used it!), which meant you were still better off using just about any other attack.

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Tsukasa1891 posted...

Psychic types were supposed to be weak to ghost, but were immune to ghost attacks.

wow i forgot about that

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PatrickMahomes posted...

ghost does beat psychic though

Not in gen 1. Ghastly, Haunter, and Gengar are the only ghost type in the game and they are also have poison as a secondary typing which is weak to psychic moves

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A fun note is the trainer in Saffron Gym who claims "psychics only fear ghosts & bugs" in Red/Blue, but in Yellow he says "only fear bugs", because they still hadn't fixed Ghost's/Lick's 0x multiplier.

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The entire history of the Pokemon franchise can be best described as "one questionable decision after another".