Did you find all three shinies? Whose your favorite Ghost Pokémon? If you enjoyed this video, subscribe because I'll be making more like it in the future. Thanks for watching!
The shinies being: Magikarp (0:05), Girafarig (5:16), Banette (10:50). Favorite ghost pokemon is hands down Aegislash. Sure, it’s annoying to deal with in most tiers that it’s in, but I love it’s design and typing.
My personal favourite Ghost Types are Mismagius, Runerigus, and Lunala Those are just three. I have more, but then I'd be listing almost all Ghost Types.
My favorite Ghost Pokemon are Duskull, Haunter, Honedge, and Mimikyu in roughly that order. If Marowak and Ninetales had the Ghost typing they rightly should have from the start, those would be my top two.
I anticipated something like shiny Gengar tbh. That would've been cruel lmao! As for favorites... there are a lot. I think Mismagius and H Zorua line are my most favorite.
Doesn't the damage of Night shade = to ur Level? So in a competitive setting ur hitting 50 power to 100 power and I don't think it got any more powerful when it hit Psychic types
@@nicholasaugello2534 100 damage is still better than Lick, which one: has 20 power and sucks, and two: Night shade can hit both psychic and normal types because set damage moves ignored immunity. Seismic Toss and Sonic Boom could hit ghosts even though they're fighting and normal type respectively.
@@liamdell6319 Yep, I nightshaded until the PP ran out many times in Pokemon Red. I was relying on that with Haunter to defeat Sabrina. I specifically went to Lavender Town's tower to collect a Haunter for that fight. What a fool I was.
I don't mind the ghost type being rare, but I do find it annoying that despite only three Pokemon being ghost type at the time, they got a really big focus. At that point, just make enough ghost types to feasibly make a full team of 6 with. Anyway, my favorite Ghost Pokemon is Cursola. A bleached coral with a beautiful yet spooky and awesome design. It's so sad, but it's so cool.
That's an interesting point. We got Lavender Town in the games that was all about being spooky, but there's only 2 ghosts you can encounter? It was very odd that they didn't add more to really push that vibe.
Ghost types are (black?)mages in rpgs where they want to be in the background and throw curses and statuses while tanks are keeping the heat off of them. Also my favorite is of course bannette
That makes me feel even more confident about the Testament comparison. Especially in Guilty Gear +R - the game I showed them in - they have a bunch of tricks like curses and such.
Dark type is also pretty weird. It has the exact same super effective coverage as Ghost. But they were made a Special type when introduced in Gen 2. What’s funny is that literally every Dark move introduced (like Bite, Crunch, Faint Attack) became Physical in Gen 4.
And wouldn't make more sense to be the other way around? With ghost being an ethereal evil creature while dark refers to pokemons with evil natures, the action of evil itself.
Dark is almost like a replacement for ghost type, and Umbreon's counterpart, Espeon (a psychic type), would logically be a light type if light type existed so light type would somewhat be a replacement for psychic.
Then on top of all of it, they made ghost and dark moves effective against the same types... which is just dumb. Plus Steel became the most powerful defensive type, meaning they created a much worse problem than the one they were trying to solve... which they then repeated with fairy types by making a worse problem than the one they were trying to solve. Whoever is in charge of these decisions has no idea what the hell they are doing.
I've always theorized that originally ghost and psychic were the same type at some point in development. The notable lack of any real planning or testing with gen 1 ghosts being a prime example. There's one ghost line, two moves, and none of it works right. Add on that a lot of tricky moves are psychic: reflect, light screen, hypnosis. Not only that, but later on psychic gets ally switch and synchronoise, with synchronoise in particular seeming like it should be ghost type instead as hitting psychics with a psychic move is decidedly not stonks, BUT gamefreak wrote themselves into a corner as the move sounds psychic.
This, Nidoqueen and Nidorina not breeding, Kangaskhan, and other such things from the early Gens, I will NEVER understand why Gamefreak doesn't fix these...
Game freak actually managed to pull off the trickster ghost type with Sableye, but they needed to give it a special ability (prankster) and wait several years to give it enough support moves to do its job (encore, disable, recover, taunt). There is no way they really intend ghosts to be support based tricksters when sableye (and maybe dusclops) is still the only ghost that can do this as far as i can remember. Imagine if all ghosts automatically had prankster and good support moves - that would make things interesting.
That's a good point. But in that case, I'm at a loss on what they were actually trying to do with Ghosts. Every one of them gets access to tons of support moves along with very limited offensive options from Ghost moves, but can learn a bunch of coverage moves that catch people off-guard.
I guess the intended point of Ghosts were to be fast surprising sweepers given what the best competitive Ghosts can do. Froslass does not count as that is an Ice type abusing its frailty correctly.
I think all ghosts should either have a quick 60 base special move like shadow ball, shadow punch or shadow sneak which you would think is a physical move but it tricks you. To make up for the low speed and sp. atk. And a main 90 base damage physical move so you get to chose what type of build you wanna do. A sweeper or a frustrating tanky status wall. Ghost should also get better physical defence. And nearly pseudo legendary stats as there are very few each game.
Mega Banette is another prankster ghost that I always felt like was missing some more support moves. Its only niche was prankster Destiny Bond, which was cool but very limiting and in the end, they just leaned into making it more of a physical attacker with really awkward stats otherwise. Unfortunately, from gen 7 onward, they made dark types immune to prankster moves so that 2 mediocre ghosts could get completely screwed over.
Ghost/Dark Gengar would've made a lot of sense considering how hard it was to get trade evolutions at the time. You had to find a wild Gastly by playing at night, raise it to level 25, then find someone with a Link cable to trade it back and forth with. The immunities would be much more deserved than with Sableye, which you can just catch in the wild before the 2nd badge in Hoenn
Still find it incredible that Ghost Type actually had a great niche just because Normal was such a powerful type, despite Ghosts sucking at doing the things they were (supposedly) designed to do. Anyways, favorite Ghost will always go to Chandelure, who also happens to be my favorite pokemon ever!
for me, it's honedge. literally farmed a shiny one from eggs the second i could catch one when i played pokemon sword. and basically played the game as a 'ghost gym leader' aka a six ghost team. (didnt play x and y, so sword was the first game i played with honedge in it)
@@DarthZ01Love that you did that, I actually did the same thing with Bug, Dark, Dragon, Fairy, Fighting, Ghost, Normal, Poison, Psychic, & Steel... The ones I had the hardest time making good teams for were Psychic & Fairy surprisingly...
@@LeahLuciB No can do, it is... fetish-y in origin... But, hey! If you're okay with a Klara that has a couple hundred pounds tacked on I'll gladly share it! (though youtube is *very* strange with links sometimes)
All hail Misdreavus the cutest ghost pokemon! Ghost in my mind shouldve been a defensive version of psychic. It shouldve resisted psychic from the start, and once you factor in the 2 immunities, they could add defensive ghost pokemon that focused more on the tricky style they intended (like dusclops in gen 3) earlier.
@@ultimatewinfestation7194 resisting psychic would mean Gengar only takes neutral damage from psychic. Add on it's great special stat in gen 1 and it would be able to actually live an Alakazam psychic which is huge
I feel like they kind of have hit the intended feel for some ghosts in recent generations, a lot of them have tricky abilities or signature moves that let them kinda change the way the game works in subtle ways. Good examples are Mimikyu, that's going to use disguise to take a free turn on you no matter what you do, or Aegislash being a tank when you hit it, but a glass cannon when it hits you. Even Shedinja, i think was a really good example of what ghosts should have always been aiming for, yes, it's gimmicky, but that feels appropriate for ghosts. Even when you look to most fiction, if you actually HAVE something that works on a ghost, it isn't too hard to deal with, the problem is that very few things actually work on a ghost. So thematically, Shedinja was perfect. Other abilities like shadow tag, and mummy I think really kind of hit the mark for the tricky shenanigans that should define the type. I think zoroark should have been a ghost, or part ghost, because illusion is very fitting for that tricky ghost identity, too.
Sabeleye and Golurk are my absolute favorite ghosts. Sabeleye didn't start out that way but it started to grow on me and then BAM mega evolution hit it and I was hooked
Gengar and Nidoking were my favorite Pokemon in Gen 1. I remember how Ghost types were presented as the counter to psychic mons, so i was glad to have Gengar for link-battles. And then my Gengar was always stomped, what a deception.
Ghost type is one of the few types in the series where I feel every design is at the very least good, so narrowing down a favorite for me is a tall order, but Runerigus holds a special place in my heart. I used it on an ancient-themed trick room team alongside mons like Perrserker and Cradily when I was first getting into competitive on the Doubles UU ladder out of all things, and its great defensive staying power, wide move pool, and fun shenanigans with Wandering Spirit made for a lot of memorable plays that cemented my love for this series.
Doubles UU was your first main format? That's really cool! Always love seeing what interesting theme teams people can come up with, made even better when those teams can put in the work.
@@GohLow VGC is my main format nowadays both as a player and spectator, but I still keep up to date with the singles meta, play randoms occasionally with friends, and I also really wanna try and set up a draft one day too. The recent vids on the format by folks like PokeAim have been really cool and interesting.
The thing about gen 1 is that its design took a lot of cues from traditional RPGs of the era. Ghost types were designed to be Pokemon's equivalent to "formless" enemies which were immune to basic attacks and only vulnerable to spells. Their primary role wasn't to counter psychics, it was to counter Normal types, as the Normal type was Pokemon's equivalent to the RPG basic attack. Yes, they were one of the few types intended to do super effective damage to psychic types, but they weren't meant to be a perfect counter. As for why ghost was physical, I think it's because they realized that the only Ghost move was Lick and it wouldn't make sense for Lick to be Special. After Gen 1, they carried over the physical damage to subsequent gens out of adherence to the established design, or laziness.
Except they made the Dark type in Gen 2 Special - even though every single Dark type move introduced became Physical in Gen 4 (like Bite, Crunch, and Faint Attack).
@@Begeruthe thing is, they introduced both Dark and Steel on the same gen, and if both had been physical then it would be 10 physical types to only 7 special ones which would be imbalanced, so GF probably had to make that choice because steel being special makes even less sense
@@joaopedroathayde757 My point is that their logic is inconsistent. If they made Ghost type physical because if Lick, then why didn’t they make Dark type physical because of Bite?
@@Begeru I explain in my first response why they likely made Dark special. It was not because of the moves, but more likely because having two new physical types back in gen 2 would mean a lot more of those compared to special types, so either Dark or Steel would have to be special to keep it balanced. Which one sounds more like they would have non-physical powers?
With Gastly clearly being a poison type based on its design, I'm guessing they probably thought it would just be weird for it to lose a type when evolving. That said, I do think there was some intent to give Gengar a "poisonous" image. The spikes may have been intended to reflect that poisons and toxins often come from thorns, stingers, or fangs, and poison is almost always represented with purple in Japanese media. With special being a single stat in gen 1, I think they made ghost a physical damage type to take advantage of the lower defense most psychic types had and with lick being the only "standard" ghost attack I'd say physical made more sense at the time.
Gengar is likely poison type because gastly is the poison gas pokemon. Also, i imagine ghost was phsyical because psychic types generally have poor physical defense, but thats just my guess.
Yeah, that's why I put such a focus on Gengar's dex entries specifically. The Poison type is a carry-over from Gastly and while it worked there, it stopped working once they hit Gengar. There isn't any instance of a dual-type Pokemon changing its type upon evolution amongst the Kanto dex, so I see why they just left Gengar Poison.
@@THGMR-ox7sd I mean it seems Gengar likes to torment people that drives them to complete sanity according to the Red and Blue dex entry... "Under a full moon, this POKéMON likes to mimic the shadows of people and *laugh at their fright.*" kinda like how someone uses poisonous words to mentally torture the victim that can result in taxing their mental health?
13:59 I think the other problem with the "trickster" archetype in Pokémon is that battles don't last long enough for that to be viable. A realistic battle between two Pokémon will only last at most 3 turns. That is not enough time given that you only have on average 2 turns to set up some kind of trap and the opponent can respond as fast as you set up the trap. Pokémon would need changes to its entire battle system to make Ghost fulfill their "intended" purpose.
Yeah that's a good point, canonically it makes no sense unless you're only thinking Pokemon battles only happen with trainers and full teams, especially since Pokemon isn't known to tailor their game to the competitive aspect.
I feel like poison in Gen1 was also the "Evil"-type, before dark. Since the Zubat-line also has NOTHING to do with poison. Bats aren't poisonous and no dex-entry mentions poison either.
That makes sense. Feels like they were trying to do too much with the poison type, tying it to both evil natured pokemon and the whole thing with toxic plants. Something I learned from all these comments, it would take until like Gen 8 that the amount of non-Kanto Poison types matched the number introduced in Kanto alone.
Ghost types are my favorite because of all the meaning and depthness that comes with their lore and their designs, you could always tell that there's a big story behind a ghost Pokemon's existence by just looking at them. Also yeah, I never fully understood why the heck the Gengar line was poison type.
I believe the reason why is because Gastly is literally made of poison gas, that, and without a dark type, poison sort of works as a stand in for evil and underhanded in a "corruption" sense, and poison was easily the most underhanded/evil type at the time As to why they didn't change it to make it ghost/dark in gen 2?... probably they either liked where gengar was at type-wise, they may have felt gengar would have been too strong, to keep the line more consistent, or they simply didn't put in the effort to change a previous pokemon they felt was complete
I think early GF SAW poison as the evil type. Many things we would probably assume are dark (evil) type ended up with Poison. Gengar, Arbok, Koga. It’s honestly a bit weird that Koga had pokemon that would be really good at taking out Poison types. Not many elite level trainers had pokemon strong against their main type unless that was the type’s thing (ghost, dragon).
I wasn't expecting a fighting game tangent in this video, but I'm not complaining. My favorite ghost type is either Haunter (for its design) or Mimikyu (for design and using it).
Yeah neither was I when I started writing the script lol, it just ended up working. Haunter's gen 2 sprite is one of the best. It looks perfectly evil.
I love haunter too. It's the only ghost type that actually looks like just a plain old ghost. Then it evolves into gengar who just looks like a little goblin.
The fucked up throughline I can see for ghost being physical goes back to being the other counter for psychic aside from bug. If anything has lick (something that's pretty common), sick! You have coverage to deal with psychics. And the only damaging move has extremely low base power. On the mascot ghost line being godly special sweepers. L+no shadow ball yet+you're poison.
Lick had no effect on Psychics. Even if it did, the damage was so low that it wasn't really worth giving up a turn for. Better off quaffing a potion or using Confuse Ray.
In general, I think gamefreak underestimated the value of STAB in RBY. At least four types have absolutely abysmal STAB options. Anyway, hot take, while Ghost might’ve been a hot mess in earlier generations it was much more interesting because of it. I feel that too many modern Ghosts just abuse their largely unresisted STAB. Removing Steel’s Ghost resistance might’ve been necessary to nerf that type but they should’ve given it to some other type to compensate. Personally I would choose Grass as it’s the closest we have to a “Life” type. My favorite Ghost Pokémon is Trevenant. It’s got such a badass design with its cyclops eye and horn-like branches and I love the name.
Each type counts as two duo to physical and special. So a ton of types didn't have a proper stab and even today, decades later, some types still don't.
I had Golurk in my Type Wild Deluxe video! I have no idea how it wasn't one of the most promoted Pokemon in Gen 5. Should have had a whole area built around it and its lore.
Gengar is a poison type due to Gastly being a floating ball of gas. Also since the poison type was supposed to represent the “evil type” back in gen 1 before dark was introduced
It's interesting you bring up the fighting game comparison here, but don't talk about Gengar in Pokken! I play competitively, so I can comment on that a bit: In Pokken, Gengar is essentially a resource management/Install character, though also with an emphasis on "tricky" moves and characteristics somewhat in line with what you propose/bring up: A lot of his moves have a lot of i-frames which allow him to phase through other attacks, plus a lot of cancels and variations on the same moves to keep the other player guessing what version he'll actually use past the intial startup (though to be clear, cancels are things all characters have and Garchomp, Libre, and Decidueye are more dedicated mixup characters). His most notable trait though is his very slow meter-gain rate which at a high level encourages you to go for setups and combos which build a lot of meter, and that his burst state, which is Mega Gengar, acts as an install transformation which basically changes his entire moveset and is easily the best character in the game, with multiple fullscreen options (which you can combo out of!) absurdly damaging grabs, and an unblockable super. Your comparsion to setplay and space control characters is actually a better description of Sceptile or Darkrai then Gengar, though: Sceptile is a mid range trap character, but is also capable of playing rushdown or pure zoning if he needs to, and fills the ninja character archtype: Het can set leech seed and seed bomb delayed traps and hazards, can throw out leaf shuriken which float as active hitboxes in midair, has a substitute log counter, an iajutsu mid range slash with armor in Leaf Blade, giga drain as a long range command grab, and leaf storm as an anti air izuna drop command grab. His basic gameplay is basically using leech seed, seed bomb, and the shuriken as tools to lock down the enemy at mid range or long range, then nail them as they approach with lead blade, grab them with giga drain if they stay in one spot for too long, or can use leaf storm (or more often, anti air combo starters since leaf storm has drawbacks even on hit) if they approach while jumping. Darkrai on the other hand is more of a dedicated space control/trap character without Sceptile's versatility, though also has install aspects: A lot of people incorrectly see Pokken as a 3d arena fighter, when in reality it's mostly designed around it's 2d phase and has all the competitive systems traditional fighters have like unique movelists, a height system (tho it works wierdly), cancels, just frames, and concepts like footsies, meaties, neutral, etc, but Darkrai is relatively unique in that his kit is designed around the 3d phase as much as the 2d one (wheras for most characters, the 3d phase is basically just a glorified second layer of neutral): Darkrai's normals in the 3d phase all set traps, with different traps setting both floating active hitboxes/hazards, and can also be triggered to then do different things like launch projectiles, explode, form different hitboxes, etc, many also of which leave the enemy in an extended stun state. Using those, he can actually do full extended combos even in the 3d phase. However, what he really wants to do is use Dark Void, which if it lands, shifts you into the 2d phase while giving Darkrai a install Bad Dreams Rising state which heavily buffs his toolkit: Without it, he CAN set traps in the 2d phase, but in BDR, all his moves, including normal hits, also set traps at the same time and traps are able to be activated instantly rather then only triggered after being set, and he gains a few new moves and better frame data. So Darkrai is all about staying in field/the 3d phase as much as possible, racking up damage with traps there when others characters can't, and then landing Dark Void to enter the 2d phase with BDR. He also gains resource stacks every time he sets a trap which he can cash out to boost his Dark Pulse special or for buffs. Darkrai is MAYBE the most technical character in the game, alongside Aegislash (a stance character which gets buffs the more he switches stances) and Shadow Mewtwo (a glass cannon with stupid meter gain rates and can alter the properties of his moves AFTER he uses them to reactivate hitboxes or changing projectiles mid flight, but uses his health as a cost to use specials)... I guess Gardevoir also has a lot of space control tools but this comment is getting long enoguh! I'd suggest checking the game out if you haven't already since you clearly like fighting games and Pokemon, but I checked your other fighting game videos and you seem to like fighting games with a big emphasis on longer technical combos, and Pokken is much more neutral heavy, even more then something like SF, so i'm not sure you'd be into it. Still, if you have questions, I'd be down to answer! Some characters with really nutty and flashy combos are Sceptile, Decidueye, Weavile, Garchomp, and Scizor. I play Weavile, myself, though I use him more as a neutral heavy hit and run character: a lot of his longer combos require wallsplats (but they look so sick and are pretty demanding in terms of timing and spacing, so you may enjoy that) or super technical corner carries.
Great analysis. Personally, i wish they would have made a regional form of a ghost pokemon (maybe even gengar, instead of its mega) that is ghost/normal type. The two types would cancel out each others weaknesses (normal is immune to ghost, ghost is immune to fighting), and getting STAB on normal moves, while at the same time being immune to them, is cool as hell^^.
More than anything, I'd be fascinated to see what a Ghost/Normal Gengar would look like. I couldn't design it if I tried because "Normal Type Gengar" just does not compute for me.
I was a Misdreavus simp for the longest time and they somehow managed to make Misdreavuser in Flutter Mane that I absolutely love, even though it’s busted in competitive and should stay in hell where it belongs.
As a competitive ghost mono user, ghost types tend to do best with weird gimmicks and shock factor they have a ton of weird niche moves. Oh and my Fav is Gourgeist, they're the definition of unpredictable with the size mechanic.
Made two videos on it recently imagining expanded rosters for it. It was in recording footage of it for this video that I learned Gengar could do Air Shadow Balls
I found 2 of the 3 shinies upon first watch. My favorite Ghost Pokemon is Trevenant. Because a spooky tree who just punches people REALLY hard is somehow very funny to me. Honorable mention goes out to Aegishlash, because it makes you feel like a tactical genious despite it just beeing overtuned.
I've made so many people forfeit on Showdown making hard reads with Aegi; it's hilarious how it can cause matches to snowball like crazy. Trevenant is awesome too, and I really hope we get a haunted forest level with it as the focus in any game at some point, main-series or side-game.
In a rom hack duo I’m working on, I have reworked the type listings, and I am choosing to see how Ghost fused with Psychic ends up, known as the Spirit-type. There’s some interesting side effects like Alakazam OHKOing itself or Gengar hitting Machamp for STAB 2x, but from what I’ve tested so far, it works really well. I won’t go too deep into it though.
Loved this. I think Gamefreak may have made ghost a physical attacking type initially due to Lick, not that this is justifies the decision lol. Keep up the good work!
I love the way Duskull looks, but I've only had mild success playing with them. My favorites for ascetic AND game play is between the Litwick family and the Honedge family.
Alolan Marowak is my favorite ghost. They could've made a cool paradox line of Cubone. Past Paradox: Cubone's body with a giant skull and club. Like it's "mother" was a giant dino or something. Ground/Ghost. The name could be something like "Giant Club."
I know it doesn't fit the ghost theme, but then a future paradox Marowak that's ground/fire. Its bone would shoot fire while its eyes turn red from fire. Iron Blaze. This, along with Past Cubone, mixes the Ground types with the Alolan's Fire/Ghost. I just really like Cubone and Marowak lol.
@@cir0plus This all sounds like great ideas. I'd love to see them make it into the actual games. Cubone/Marowak lore is something I wish got expanded upon more. We have no idea what these Pokemon actually look like, or why its mother's skull changes shape when IT evolves.
I mean, to me it seems the most likely explanation that ghost was physical because in Gen 1, as mentioned, the only ghost move was lick. Lick, is a physical move even later, so the typing would be physical too. If shadow ball existed, I’d imagine it would be special (but this is just me guessing) Then it just stayed the same. Almost the opposite issue to dark in Gen 2. As every dark move introduced in Gen 2 would be physical later, but it was special in game which hurt Pokémon like Sneasel even more.
@@Ditidos I’ve had a look quickly, and no. Not really. There’s an argument for Umbreon, but really that’s more defensive than either attacking side. But otherwise you’ve got: Mightyena - physical Absol - physical Murkrow - sort of balanced, but Murkrow isn’t great anyway Sneasel - as discussed, physical And Sableye - more physical.
Gengar is also literally the shadow pokemon, so you would think dark rather than poison. It also evolves to being a lot heavier tham Gastly and Haunter, so you could see the type change from beimg poisonous gas. My favourite ghost pokemon is Mimikyu.
GameFreak have always been the prime example of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Their code is always a mess, and there's constant inconsistencies with design vs gameplay. They've gotten slightly better with recent games, as they've put more intention into the competitive aspect of the games.
It’s so strange bc on paper it should be tied with Fairy as the best type, with its great resistances and immunities but it’s such a shame that ghost Pokémon as a whole are still suffering from the blunders of the past
I always felt that gengar shoulda been a straight ghost type in gen 1 then maybe shoulda been changed to ghost/dark in gen 2. I remember being a kid and the anime would say that ghosts were strong against psychic types yet they would get one-shotted every time cuz of their stupid poison typing.
I kinda assumed that Gengar was originally going to be ghost type, but they added poison because it was too powerful. Even with poison typing (which not only makes it weak to psychic, but ground too) and no STAB attacks, it’s still one of the best in Gen 1 due to a fast sleep attack, a fast explosion, normal immunity and high special. Why on Earth the anime played up the idea that “it’s the only thing that can beat psychics” I have no idea. 😅
I think that’s the entire point actually, you’re right. Ghosts need more moves that will do things if the opponent does a certain action. Like how all Dark moves cause the opponent some trickery.
13:39 Except ghost pokemon where always known for using traps in battle using moves such as curse, pain split, destiny bond, perish song, sucker punch, confuse ray, will o wisp and hypnosis
My guess as to why ghost was made physical was because dark and ghost were similar, hitting both ghost and psychic for super effective damage, so ghost was made physical, and dark special. Also, dragon being special before gen 4 also leads to believe that they didn't want to make dragons broken, like it happened in gen 4
Yeah Physical Dragon Claw and Outrage just outright broke Garchomp and Salamence, in combination with their many coverage moves. Dragon being a primarily special type even after the split would have been a more balanced way to approach it given how physically strong most of the dragons already were.
THANK YOU! I constantly struggle with the pitfalls of Ghost types even in gen 9. It feels like Ghost types often go into one extreme or the other: The fast, high Sp. Atk or Phys Atk Ghost (i.e. Gengar, Dragapult) or largely bulky types with limited movepools and high Sp. Def. The base Stats are mediocre at best and the selections are just not as good as other mons like Steel, Fire, Water, Dragon. I just wish there was a viable Rock/ Ghost type.
I fundamentally disagree with the title of this video, Because bug exists. Bug is easily the worst type in the franchise, And somehow has only gotten worse over the years. Meanwhile Ghost has excelled as the games went on, and even poison is now a viable type.
Bug is a really sad case. Some of the coolest designs, really interesting pair of resistances, but the series seems so focused on giving them the bare minimum then forgetting about them for 4 gens. Did a video on Spidops recently and it's so wild they made it a competitive nothing.
Whilst ghost is good now it took many games to be that good! That's the problem. They fumbled it so hard in the first few games, it was essentially the worst typing almost as none of the ghost types were viable enough (outside like misdreavus but it couldn't use ghost moves so point still stands)..there were at least a few strong bug type pokemon but for quite a few gens there were NO useable ghost types for what ghost was meant for! In Gen1 ghost was thee worst type as it failed to counter what it was made for (due to bad moves, bad stat spread, bad typing of the ONLY GHOST LINE and ofc the glitch making psychic immune to ghost) and just generally wasn't that good compared to other better options (you usually stuck to things like psychic types, normal types, legendaries, maybe an electric type for speedy hard hitters, or even the fully evolved starters in Gen1; ghost was never used in competitive, not really for a few gens I think, and you'd never use it in a Gen1 playthrough either).. Pretty much every type has gotten better with time due to: newer moves, newer stronger pokemon, and gamefreak learning how to better spread stats (somewhat..they've been making too broken of pokemon lately) But back then a type was either good or never used..
@@testerwulf3357 "But back then a type was either good or never used" The weirdest version of this is Ice types, because they were both. Ice Type Pokemon were awful, but Ice Beam and Blizzard were AMAZING moves.
@@testerwulf3357 Will you're forgiving is literally everything you said about gen one ghost is true of bug as well. If you wanted a bug type attack on your team you use Jolteon in Gen 1, Because Jolteon has better stats than Beedrill The only other pokémon to learn a bug type attack. Bug was Buffed a lot in Gen 2, rebalancing it's power against poison, adding Dark, and giving it 2 mid/late game moves. But in GS, useful bugs were useful in spite of their bug type, not because of it. Heracross was good because it was a bulky fighting type and Scizor and Fortress were good because steel was OP till gen 6. Then bug was basically dead for 2 generations, with Pokemon that were not competitive or even viable in a single player playthrough. You said every type has gotten better as the series goes on? That is factually not true. In gen 6 they decided to make Bug the worst type in the game by far. They made Fairy effective at everything Bug was already good at, and made Fairy resist Bug. Bug now has the most weaknesses, Is tied with Grass for the most pokémon that resist it (And unlike Grass it has no strong weather effects or great moves to make up for it) It is weak to some of the most common attacking types, And only has a few types it's effective against The other, better types that are probably on your team are more effective against. Bug has been and always will be a pitiful mess of a type.
Ghost attacks being physical makes sense when you consider that one of the strongest Psychic types, Alakazam, has weak physical defense. So Ghost being physical makes sense in that regard. But you’re correct in that they did Gen 1’s Ghosts dirty with them being special attackers and giving them no good moves. Which is on top of the Poison typing you mentioned. Maybe they didn’t want Psychics to be too weak to Ghost? But that hardly makes sense when you look at how much Grass sucks. Maybe, since Special was 1 stat in Gen 1, the high special for Ghosts was meant to be defensive so Psychic wouldn’t hit so hard? Who knows? They obviously didn’t think it through. idk I liked using Gengar for Hypnosis/Dream Eater in Gen 1. Not competitively, of course.
My favourite ghost has to be Lunala! I'm a sucker for moon related motifs in media. Ghost types are weird, man. You can sometimes tell that some types struggle escaping their own "niche" after the gen IV transition, like special attacking fighting types or physical psychics, but the ghosts are there especially. Only a few ghosts are physical attackers, snd if they don't have signature moves they suck hard, like Dusknoir, Golurk or Banette. Hell, Golurk has iron fist and has to settle for shadow punch. Physical electric types are in the same boat, but ghosts are more ironic since it used to be a physical type before lol, it's weird
I've always thought that Agatha should have been referred to as a poison type trainer considering the fact that all of her pokemons are either pure poison type or half poison type
10:25 only problem here is that typically ghost types are given low to mid hp. I know there are exceptions but thats the general rule it seems game freak was trying to follow.
I’ve always like Misdreavus, and Mismagius was a core part of my party when I played Pokémon Platinum. Definitely my favorites out of the ghosts, cuz I like the ‘mischievous cutie’ vibes. Next I’d say Shuppet and Banette, because I always love the haunted doll aspect, and Mega Banette is a genuinely good Mega-Evo that does more with the concept than just throws spikes on it. Third I’d say Rotom, even if’n I never used them in a game, just cuz I think they’re cool and the whole “possesses electronics” concept is fun - probably shouldn’t give them the keys to run every single aspect of your world’s communications and Pokémon storage grid though, lmao.
I don't mind gengar being poison due to from playing the games as a child till now I've rationalized that the gas that gastly embodied would evolve with him and gengar the final form his body was spectral and still maintained the toxins. His pokedex talked on sapping things and while sapping proactively isn't typical of toxins (external body) the spectral side added to his niche
I think the reason gengar didn't get dark type in gen 2 was a) types never retroactively replace types between gens apart from normal, which was kind of split into normal and fairy in gen 6, which I guess was an ok exception with normal being seen as kind of a blank type, so gengar, already being saddled with poison as a secondary type, was stuck with it by then (note that both onix and scyther themselves kept their flying and rock types in the transition and only gained the steel type by evolving - not an option for the second-evolution gengar) and b) the developers still seemed apprehensive about making anything OP, so they didn't want a pokémon as strong as gengar to have no weaknesses, so that type combo was saved for sableye, whose low stats offset this, and spiritomb, which was pretty hard to find. It's telling that the developers had to invent an entire new type as a ghost nerf before even daring to introduce a pure ghost type. And, as you said, it's not as if gengar's poison type made it ineffective overall, so the type change wasn't really needed. As for my favourite, it's gotta be sableye, one of my absolute favourites of gen 3, and generally just a fun li'l tricky goblin dude.
Ghost type is strange that it had almost no interaction with the other types early on offensively. As a type and lack of stab options. Which made them bad picks for being a ghost type. Instead used for thei other traits. Which made them bery mid for a long time. To now they are one of the top 4 types from this very decision to under develop the type. Ghost has very few weaknesses which are neglible ones to have. Great immunities and restinces. Its basically fairy type before fairy type existed and we didnt know it.
Ghost in gen 8 and 9 is pretty much gen 5 dragon type, not a lot of type interactions but that make them broken with their highe stats, reason becose right now they are strong, all ghost now are beast of 530 or more total stats
Considering that Steel and Fairy were retroactively added to some Pokemon, and Fairy even outright replaced somw Pokemon’s Normal Types, Gengar dropping it’s early Poison Type for Dark isn’t that big a stretch. Heck it doesn’t even have to apply to the whole line, just Gengar. Lines have changing types throughout evolution a lot of times.
Ghost couldn't be special because Game Freak reserved Special to Types that were... special. Starters, Eeveelutions, Psychics, Dragons. These types are Special because their respective Pokémon have special characteristics.
What makes Psychic more "Special" than Ghost? They're both in the same weird metaphysical bend. Or hell, what makes Ice more special Ghost? Ice is just hard water, so it should have been physical.
what's my favorite ghost type is a toughie, only because there are a number of well-designed ghosties... I think it might be either Gourgeist, Alolan Marowak, or Basculegion....
Yeah Gen 1 Really didn't need more Poison types, it's literally Gen 1's Most Prevalent type at 33 members, 1 more than even the Water Type... If you remove the Future typings from Pokemon that came out in Gen 1 you get: 12 Bugs, 3 Dragons, 9 Electrics, 8 Fighters, 12 Fires, 19 Fliers, 3 Ghosts, 14 Grasses, 14 Grounds, 5 Icies, 24 Normals, 33 Poisons, 15 Psychics, 11 Rocks, & 32 Waters
@@GohLow It really is, if you don't include the Alolan Muk line because they're a regional variant of a Gen 1 line that didn't add the poison typing, is less than the Gen 1 Poison types still, if you do include them it only Just then in Gen 7 Equals the # of Gen 1 Poison types. It is completely absurd because Poison in Gen 1 was ONLY strong against the Grass Type, which has 4 other weaknesses. It was weak against 2 of the strongest types. Had the same problem in moves as Ghost, Dragon, & Bug. And yet, there were that many Poison types?!? What are we trying to make Psychic seem that much stronger? Was making them immune to Ghosts & not giving Bugs any real bug-type moves not enough?
I love psychics, hex maniacs, etc and so I typically try to make my teams with Ghosts, Psychics, and Darks. Gengar is my go to but I also love Decidueye (Cheating with starters though), Golurk, Chandelure, and Dusknoir.
I know there is no "poison connection" with gengar as far as being toxic chemicals, but as I understand it both gastly and haunter are made of gas, which might be a poisonous kind of gas(there is talk of suffocation in some dex entrys) but it could also be that they have the consistency of a poisonous amorphous substance. On the other hand there are now several pure ghost types and they are still non solid but it could be like how most flying types are also normal. Now we have a few of them that are pure as well. I guess it's hard to understand what the heck gamefreak is even thinking
I had it confused with Shadow Force, Giratina's signature move. Wasn't until seeing this comment and checking around that I learned they were different moves.
Personally, Rotom is probably my own favorite Ghost-type, and I say that as someone who didn't even want to then shove it into an appliance, to get rid of its Ghost-type, in exchange for Ice, Grass, Flying, or Fire. I just like it's look, it's aesthetic, and while it was useful crammed inside a pokedex, I like to imagine using it for various other exploration advantages, if you could befriend the little, electric gremlin.
That Gengar looks hilarious, I'am exited for the video. Btw. congrats on the Nuggets winning! It was even enthusiastically reported on mainstream german news outlets. Funny how people in Europe where noone cares about basketball can be more exited about the nuggets than certain american sports journalists :p
It was awesome! I stayed up til like 3AM watching celebratory streams, just loving it! Central/Eastern Europe actually has a massive basketball history - Germany, Serbia, the former Yugoslavia have contributed so much to the game that kinda just gets ignored everywhere else - so it was nice for someone from that region to finally be at the top of the league.
My level 67 Gengar the crown jewel of my pokedex back in 1998/99. It was kinda hard to find someone with a link cable back then. Found a kid that wanted to trade his haunter for my gravler. Raised it from the low 30s to level 67 before I quit playing. It's moves were: 1.Lick 2.Nightshade 3.Hypnosis 4.Dream Eater It was super strong against most pokemon.
12:15 What about dusknoir It's very bulky, it has good attack, and can use trick room to compensate for low speed. Before anyone asks trick room did exist in gen 4
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
Did you find all three shinies? Whose your favorite Ghost Pokémon? If you enjoyed this video, subscribe because I'll be making more like it in the future. Thanks for watching!
The shinies being: Magikarp (0:05), Girafarig (5:16), Banette (10:50). Favorite ghost pokemon is hands down Aegislash. Sure, it’s annoying to deal with in most tiers that it’s in, but I love it’s design and typing.
My personal favourite Ghost Types are Mismagius, Runerigus, and Lunala
Those are just three. I have more, but then I'd be listing almost all Ghost Types.
My favorite Ghost Pokemon are Duskull, Haunter, Honedge, and Mimikyu in roughly that order. If Marowak and Ninetales had the Ghost typing they rightly should have from the start, those would be my top two.
My favorite Ghosts are Mismagius, Chandelure, Aegislash and the Sinistea and Yamask lines.
I anticipated something like shiny Gengar tbh. That would've been cruel lmao! As for favorites... there are a lot. I think Mismagius and H Zorua line are my most favorite.
The best ghost move in Gen 1 was actually Night Shade because it could hit Normal types and Psychic types due to how buggy set damage moves were.
Everyday, I learn a new thing that was broken in the generation 1 games.
Doesn't the damage of Night shade = to ur Level? So in a competitive setting ur hitting 50 power to 100 power and I don't think it got any more powerful when it hit Psychic types
@@nicholasaugello2534 100 damage is still better than Lick, which one: has 20 power and sucks, and two: Night shade can hit both psychic and normal types because set damage moves ignored immunity. Seismic Toss and Sonic Boom could hit ghosts even though they're fighting and normal type respectively.
@@liamdell6319 Yep, I nightshaded until the PP ran out many times in Pokemon Red. I was relying on that with Haunter to defeat Sabrina. I specifically went to Lavender Town's tower to collect a Haunter for that fight. What a fool I was.
@@nicholasaugello2534 yeah, but fixed damage was really good in gen 1.
Man, Gengar has the coolest Gen 2 sprite ever. That black and purple coloration with piercing red eyes should had been his official appearance!
And Haunter's sprite is a really close 2nd place. They nailed how to make then look evil, then just never went back to it in future games.
Probably because they made jinx black and got major backlash for it. That’s why many ghost Pokémon are purple instead of black.
@@KhanMann66 They changed Jynx to a purple face in Gen 2, the same generation Gengar had its blackest sprite.
Modern gengar looks so bad, all its alternate forms have to overcompensate just to try to look as scary as GB Gengar
I don't mind the ghost type being rare, but I do find it annoying that despite only three Pokemon being ghost type at the time, they got a really big focus. At that point, just make enough ghost types to feasibly make a full team of 6 with. Anyway, my favorite Ghost Pokemon is Cursola. A bleached coral with a beautiful yet spooky and awesome design. It's so sad, but it's so cool.
That's an interesting point. We got Lavender Town in the games that was all about being spooky, but there's only 2 ghosts you can encounter? It was very odd that they didn't add more to really push that vibe.
Cursola is just
Very real.
Ghosts in Pokemon is where they get randomly darker in tone, and that's one where they landed it
@@1stCallipostle That's why I adore Cursola, and ghost types in general. Ghost types are not afraid of getting grim.
Banette is my fave pokemon, and its a really shame that ghosts are in a weird middle ground Also shout out to Runerigus as second fave ghost
@@HalfDaft I mean, thematically, ghosts being stuck in a middle ground does technically fit quite well. Hehe. ;>_>
Ghost types are (black?)mages in rpgs where they want to be in the background and throw curses and statuses while tanks are keeping the heat off of them. Also my favorite is of course bannette
That makes me feel even more confident about the Testament comparison. Especially in Guilty Gear +R - the game I showed them in - they have a bunch of tricks like curses and such.
We should give gengar access to Temper + Haste :p
idk when I think of mages in RPGs I think of big damage special moves without a lot of bulk backing it up, glass cannon style.
@@StarshadowMelody I repeat. We should give Gengar Temper + Haste
My favorite is misdreavus
Dark type is also pretty weird. It has the exact same super effective coverage as Ghost. But they were made a Special type when introduced in Gen 2. What’s funny is that literally every Dark move introduced (like Bite, Crunch, Faint Attack) became Physical in Gen 4.
Wwhich is why dark pulse was introduced in gen 4, just to make a speacial dark tyoe move! Wow (got that from bulbapedia though)
And wouldn't make more sense to be the other way around? With ghost being an ethereal evil creature while dark refers to pokemons with evil natures, the action of evil itself.
Dark is almost like a replacement for ghost type, and Umbreon's counterpart, Espeon (a psychic type), would logically be a light type if light type existed so light type would somewhat be a replacement for psychic.
Then on top of all of it, they made ghost and dark moves effective against the same types... which is just dumb. Plus Steel became the most powerful defensive type, meaning they created a much worse problem than the one they were trying to solve... which they then repeated with fairy types by making a worse problem than the one they were trying to solve. Whoever is in charge of these decisions has no idea what the hell they are doing.
@naejimba fairy types are no where near as bad as steel types where(and kind of still are)
I've always theorized that originally ghost and psychic were the same type at some point in development. The notable lack of any real planning or testing with gen 1 ghosts being a prime example. There's one ghost line, two moves, and none of it works right. Add on that a lot of tricky moves are psychic: reflect, light screen, hypnosis. Not only that, but later on psychic gets ally switch and synchronoise, with synchronoise in particular seeming like it should be ghost type instead as hitting psychics with a psychic move is decidedly not stonks, BUT gamefreak wrote themselves into a corner as the move sounds psychic.
That's a really interesting thought. Now that you lay it out, it makes complete sense.
This, Nidoqueen and Nidorina not breeding, Kangaskhan, and other such things from the early Gens, I will NEVER understand why Gamefreak doesn't fix these...
Adults don't have time to breed, only work for ze kids 🤌
Also, they should've made Nidoran a single species once they introduced genders. That would've put the gen 1 dex at 150.
@@Proclifo Yes, they should've, if it was possible back then. That, or done it by the time they did a similar thing with Espurr and Meowstic.
Nidoqueen and nidoking don't breed IN CAPTIVITY
They do breed in the wild
@@ProclifoNah that’s ridiculous, they have different BSTs
Game freak actually managed to pull off the trickster ghost type with Sableye, but they needed to give it a special ability (prankster) and wait several years to give it enough support moves to do its job (encore, disable, recover, taunt). There is no way they really intend ghosts to be support based tricksters when sableye (and maybe dusclops) is still the only ghost that can do this as far as i can remember. Imagine if all ghosts automatically had prankster and good support moves - that would make things interesting.
That's a good point. But in that case, I'm at a loss on what they were actually trying to do with Ghosts. Every one of them gets access to tons of support moves along with very limited offensive options from Ghost moves, but can learn a bunch of coverage moves that catch people off-guard.
I guess the intended point of Ghosts were to be fast surprising sweepers given what the best competitive Ghosts can do. Froslass does not count as that is an Ice type abusing its frailty correctly.
I think all ghosts should either have a quick 60 base special move like shadow ball, shadow punch or shadow sneak which you would think is a physical move but it tricks you. To make up for the low speed and sp. atk.
And a main 90 base damage physical move so you get to chose what type of build you wanna do.
A sweeper or a frustrating tanky status wall. Ghost should also get better physical defence.
And nearly pseudo legendary stats as there are very few each game.
Mega Banette is another prankster ghost that I always felt like was missing some more support moves. Its only niche was prankster Destiny Bond, which was cool but very limiting and in the end, they just leaned into making it more of a physical attacker with really awkward stats otherwise. Unfortunately, from gen 7 onward, they made dark types immune to prankster moves so that 2 mediocre ghosts could get completely screwed over.
Right
Ghost/Dark Gengar would've made a lot of sense considering how hard it was to get trade evolutions at the time. You had to find a wild Gastly by playing at night, raise it to level 25, then find someone with a Link cable to trade it back and forth with. The immunities would be much more deserved than with Sableye, which you can just catch in the wild before the 2nd badge in Hoenn
Oh god, I forgot Gastly evolved at such a high level. 25 is just too far to have to climb with a weak Pokemon like that.
@@GohLow it's not weak, gen 2 moveset just sucks.
Weak? Ithas 100 Spatk @@GohLow
Still find it incredible that Ghost Type actually had a great niche just because Normal was such a powerful type, despite Ghosts sucking at doing the things they were (supposedly) designed to do.
Anyways, favorite Ghost will always go to Chandelure, who also happens to be my favorite pokemon ever!
Chandelure has one of the best shinies in the series, absolutely glowing and surprisingly menacing.
for me, it's honedge.
literally farmed a shiny one from eggs the second i could catch one when i played pokemon sword.
and basically played the game as a 'ghost gym leader' aka a six ghost team.
(didnt play x and y, so sword was the first game i played with honedge in it)
@@DarthZ01Love that you did that, I actually did the same thing with Bug, Dark, Dragon, Fairy, Fighting, Ghost, Normal, Poison, Psychic, & Steel... The ones I had the hardest time making good teams for were Psychic & Fairy surprisingly...
OMG do you have a link to the full image from your pfp?
@@LeahLuciB No can do, it is... fetish-y in origin...
But, hey! If you're okay with a Klara that has a couple hundred pounds tacked on I'll gladly share it! (though youtube is *very* strange with links sometimes)
All hail Misdreavus the cutest ghost pokemon! Ghost in my mind shouldve been a defensive version of psychic. It shouldve resisted psychic from the start, and once you factor in the 2 immunities, they could add defensive ghost pokemon that focused more on the tricky style they intended (like dusclops in gen 3) earlier.
An outright resistance to Psychic would have been fantastic and given them a lot more room to work with different ideas.
@@GohLow And the only other resistance should be poison. This way the ghost dark combo would be weak to bug.
Resisting Psychic wouldn’t have help Gengar in Gen 1 do to it’s Poison typing
@@ultimatewinfestation7194 You are mathematically wrong.
@@ultimatewinfestation7194 resisting psychic would mean Gengar only takes neutral damage from psychic. Add on it's great special stat in gen 1 and it would be able to actually live an Alakazam psychic which is huge
I feel like they kind of have hit the intended feel for some ghosts in recent generations, a lot of them have tricky abilities or signature moves that let them kinda change the way the game works in subtle ways. Good examples are Mimikyu, that's going to use disguise to take a free turn on you no matter what you do, or Aegislash being a tank when you hit it, but a glass cannon when it hits you. Even Shedinja, i think was a really good example of what ghosts should have always been aiming for, yes, it's gimmicky, but that feels appropriate for ghosts. Even when you look to most fiction, if you actually HAVE something that works on a ghost, it isn't too hard to deal with, the problem is that very few things actually work on a ghost. So thematically, Shedinja was perfect. Other abilities like shadow tag, and mummy I think really kind of hit the mark for the tricky shenanigans that should define the type. I think zoroark should have been a ghost, or part ghost, because illusion is very fitting for that tricky ghost identity, too.
Hisuian Zorua/ark in Scarlet/Violet (imported from Pokemon Legends Arceus) gets to keep the Illusion ability.
Sabeleye and Golurk are my absolute favorite ghosts. Sabeleye didn't start out that way but it started to grow on me and then BAM mega evolution hit it and I was hooked
Gengar and Nidoking were my favorite Pokemon in Gen 1. I remember how Ghost types were presented as the counter to psychic mons, so i was glad to have Gengar for link-battles. And then my Gengar was always stomped, what a deception.
Ghost type is one of the few types in the series where I feel every design is at the very least good, so narrowing down a favorite for me is a tall order, but Runerigus holds a special place in my heart. I used it on an ancient-themed trick room team alongside mons like Perrserker and Cradily when I was first getting into competitive on the Doubles UU ladder out of all things, and its great defensive staying power, wide move pool, and fun shenanigans with Wandering Spirit made for a lot of memorable plays that cemented my love for this series.
Doubles UU was your first main format? That's really cool! Always love seeing what interesting theme teams people can come up with, made even better when those teams can put in the work.
@@GohLow VGC is my main format nowadays both as a player and spectator, but I still keep up to date with the singles meta, play randoms occasionally with friends, and I also really wanna try and set up a draft one day too. The recent vids on the format by folks like PokeAim have been really cool and interesting.
Gengar: I wish my ghost moves were special
Sneasel: I wish my dark moves were physical
Then Gen 3 comes along with like 3 more physical dark types for some reason
The thing about gen 1 is that its design took a lot of cues from traditional RPGs of the era. Ghost types were designed to be Pokemon's equivalent to "formless" enemies which were immune to basic attacks and only vulnerable to spells. Their primary role wasn't to counter psychics, it was to counter Normal types, as the Normal type was Pokemon's equivalent to the RPG basic attack.
Yes, they were one of the few types intended to do super effective damage to psychic types, but they weren't meant to be a perfect counter.
As for why ghost was physical, I think it's because they realized that the only Ghost move was Lick and it wouldn't make sense for Lick to be Special. After Gen 1, they carried over the physical damage to subsequent gens out of adherence to the established design, or laziness.
Except they made the Dark type in Gen 2 Special - even though every single Dark type move introduced became Physical in Gen 4 (like Bite, Crunch, and Faint Attack).
@@Begeruthe thing is, they introduced both Dark and Steel on the same gen, and if both had been physical then it would be 10 physical types to only 7 special ones which would be imbalanced, so GF probably had to make that choice because steel being special makes even less sense
@@joaopedroathayde757 My point is that their logic is inconsistent. If they made Ghost type physical because if Lick, then why didn’t they make Dark type physical because of Bite?
@@Begeru I explain in my first response why they likely made Dark special. It was not because of the moves, but more likely because having two new physical types back in gen 2 would mean a lot more of those compared to special types, so either Dark or Steel would have to be special to keep it balanced. Which one sounds more like they would have non-physical powers?
Yeah, Pokémon is very heavily steeped in Japanese media, which is missed by a lot of people, because of how wide it’s reach is.
With Gastly clearly being a poison type based on its design, I'm guessing they probably thought it would just be weird for it to lose a type when evolving. That said, I do think there was some intent to give Gengar a "poisonous" image. The spikes may have been intended to reflect that poisons and toxins often come from thorns, stingers, or fangs, and poison is almost always represented with purple in Japanese media. With special being a single stat in gen 1, I think they made ghost a physical damage type to take advantage of the lower defense most psychic types had and with lick being the only "standard" ghost attack I'd say physical made more sense at the time.
Gengar is likely poison type because gastly is the poison gas pokemon.
Also, i imagine ghost was phsyical because psychic types generally have poor physical defense, but thats just my guess.
Yeah, that's why I put such a focus on Gengar's dex entries specifically. The Poison type is a carry-over from Gastly and while it worked there, it stopped working once they hit Gengar. There isn't any instance of a dual-type Pokemon changing its type upon evolution amongst the Kanto dex, so I see why they just left Gengar Poison.
I think gengar still has some poison in the design.
@@THGMR-ox7sd I mean it seems Gengar likes to torment people that drives them to complete sanity according to the Red and Blue dex entry... "Under a full moon, this POKéMON likes to mimic the shadows of people and *laugh at their fright.*"
kinda like how someone uses poisonous words to mentally torture the victim that can result in taxing their mental health?
@@THGMR-ox7sd purple body? I got nothing.
13:59 I think the other problem with the "trickster" archetype in Pokémon is that battles don't last long enough for that to be viable. A realistic battle between two Pokémon will only last at most 3 turns. That is not enough time given that you only have on average 2 turns to set up some kind of trap and the opponent can respond as fast as you set up the trap. Pokémon would need changes to its entire battle system to make Ghost fulfill their "intended" purpose.
Yeah that's a good point, canonically it makes no sense unless you're only thinking Pokemon battles only happen with trainers and full teams, especially since Pokemon isn't known to tailor their game to the competitive aspect.
GF definitely has its favorites and it’s red headed step child
I feel like poison in Gen1 was also the "Evil"-type, before dark. Since the Zubat-line also has NOTHING to do with poison. Bats aren't poisonous and no dex-entry mentions poison either.
That makes sense. Feels like they were trying to do too much with the poison type, tying it to both evil natured pokemon and the whole thing with toxic plants. Something I learned from all these comments, it would take until like Gen 8 that the amount of non-Kanto Poison types matched the number introduced in Kanto alone.
Ghost types are my favorite because of all the meaning and depthness that comes with their lore and their designs, you could always tell that there's a big story behind a ghost Pokemon's existence by just looking at them.
Also yeah, I never fully understood why the heck the Gengar line was poison type.
I believe the reason why is because Gastly is literally made of poison gas, that, and without a dark type, poison sort of works as a stand in for evil and underhanded in a "corruption" sense, and poison was easily the most underhanded/evil type at the time
As to why they didn't change it to make it ghost/dark in gen 2?... probably they either liked where gengar was at type-wise, they may have felt gengar would have been too strong, to keep the line more consistent, or they simply didn't put in the effort to change a previous pokemon they felt was complete
@@Wiggins- They didn't make it dark type bc then they'd have to acknowledge that they put all the dark types (besides Umbreon) in Kanto for no reason.
@@mr.sandman7339 valid lol
I think early GF SAW poison as the evil type. Many things we would probably assume are dark (evil) type ended up with Poison. Gengar, Arbok, Koga. It’s honestly a bit weird that Koga had pokemon that would be really good at taking out Poison types. Not many elite level trainers had pokemon strong against their main type unless that was the type’s thing (ghost, dragon).
I wasn't expecting a fighting game tangent in this video, but I'm not complaining. My favorite ghost type is either Haunter (for its design) or Mimikyu (for design and using it).
Yeah neither was I when I started writing the script lol, it just ended up working. Haunter's gen 2 sprite is one of the best. It looks perfectly evil.
Yes I love Haunter. Gengar is my favorite mon strictly because I got a Haunter pokemon card and I couldn't stop looking at it lol.
I love haunter too. It's the only ghost type that actually looks like just a plain old ghost. Then it evolves into gengar who just looks like a little goblin.
The only reason why Gengar is relevant in Gen 1 OU despite having flaws, it's because it can stop a Explosion/Body Slam just by switching in
The fucked up throughline I can see for ghost being physical goes back to being the other counter for psychic aside from bug. If anything has lick (something that's pretty common), sick! You have coverage to deal with psychics. And the only damaging move has extremely low base power. On the mascot ghost line being godly special sweepers. L+no shadow ball yet+you're poison.
Lick had no effect on Psychics. Even if it did, the damage was so low that it wasn't really worth giving up a turn for. Better off quaffing a potion or using Confuse Ray.
@@Icemario87Or using Thunder Wave.
In general, I think gamefreak underestimated the value of STAB in RBY. At least four types have absolutely abysmal STAB options.
Anyway, hot take, while Ghost might’ve been a hot mess in earlier generations it was much more interesting because of it. I feel that too many modern Ghosts just abuse their largely unresisted STAB. Removing Steel’s Ghost resistance might’ve been necessary to nerf that type but they should’ve given it to some other type to compensate. Personally I would choose Grass as it’s the closest we have to a “Life” type.
My favorite Ghost Pokémon is Trevenant. It’s got such a badass design with its cyclops eye and horn-like branches and I love the name.
Each type counts as two duo to physical and special. So a ton of types didn't have a proper stab and even today, decades later, some types still don't.
My fav used to be Gengar, but is now 100% Golurk.
It's a mech, it's a Golem, it's awesome.
I had Golurk in my Type Wild Deluxe video! I have no idea how it wasn't one of the most promoted Pokemon in Gen 5. Should have had a whole area built around it and its lore.
And it can learn Fly, I shit you not. Apparently, it turns into a rocket.
Gengar is a poison type due to Gastly being a floating ball of gas. Also since the poison type was supposed to represent the “evil type” back in gen 1 before dark was introduced
It's interesting you bring up the fighting game comparison here, but don't talk about Gengar in Pokken! I play competitively, so I can comment on that a bit: In Pokken, Gengar is essentially a resource management/Install character, though also with an emphasis on "tricky" moves and characteristics somewhat in line with what you propose/bring up: A lot of his moves have a lot of i-frames which allow him to phase through other attacks, plus a lot of cancels and variations on the same moves to keep the other player guessing what version he'll actually use past the intial startup (though to be clear, cancels are things all characters have and Garchomp, Libre, and Decidueye are more dedicated mixup characters).
His most notable trait though is his very slow meter-gain rate which at a high level encourages you to go for setups and combos which build a lot of meter, and that his burst state, which is Mega Gengar, acts as an install transformation which basically changes his entire moveset and is easily the best character in the game, with multiple fullscreen options (which you can combo out of!) absurdly damaging grabs, and an unblockable super.
Your comparsion to setplay and space control characters is actually a better description of Sceptile or Darkrai then Gengar, though: Sceptile is a mid range trap character, but is also capable of playing rushdown or pure zoning if he needs to, and fills the ninja character archtype: Het can set leech seed and seed bomb delayed traps and hazards, can throw out leaf shuriken which float as active hitboxes in midair, has a substitute log counter, an iajutsu mid range slash with armor in Leaf Blade, giga drain as a long range command grab, and leaf storm as an anti air izuna drop command grab. His basic gameplay is basically using leech seed, seed bomb, and the shuriken as tools to lock down the enemy at mid range or long range, then nail them as they approach with lead blade, grab them with giga drain if they stay in one spot for too long, or can use leaf storm (or more often, anti air combo starters since leaf storm has drawbacks even on hit) if they approach while jumping.
Darkrai on the other hand is more of a dedicated space control/trap character without Sceptile's versatility, though also has install aspects: A lot of people incorrectly see Pokken as a 3d arena fighter, when in reality it's mostly designed around it's 2d phase and has all the competitive systems traditional fighters have like unique movelists, a height system (tho it works wierdly), cancels, just frames, and concepts like footsies, meaties, neutral, etc, but Darkrai is relatively unique in that his kit is designed around the 3d phase as much as the 2d one (wheras for most characters, the 3d phase is basically just a glorified second layer of neutral): Darkrai's normals in the 3d phase all set traps, with different traps setting both floating active hitboxes/hazards, and can also be triggered to then do different things like launch projectiles, explode, form different hitboxes, etc, many also of which leave the enemy in an extended stun state. Using those, he can actually do full extended combos even in the 3d phase.
However, what he really wants to do is use Dark Void, which if it lands, shifts you into the 2d phase while giving Darkrai a install Bad Dreams Rising state which heavily buffs his toolkit: Without it, he CAN set traps in the 2d phase, but in BDR, all his moves, including normal hits, also set traps at the same time and traps are able to be activated instantly rather then only triggered after being set, and he gains a few new moves and better frame data. So Darkrai is all about staying in field/the 3d phase as much as possible, racking up damage with traps there when others characters can't, and then landing Dark Void to enter the 2d phase with BDR. He also gains resource stacks every time he sets a trap which he can cash out to boost his Dark Pulse special or for buffs. Darkrai is MAYBE the most technical character in the game, alongside Aegislash (a stance character which gets buffs the more he switches stances) and Shadow Mewtwo (a glass cannon with stupid meter gain rates and can alter the properties of his moves AFTER he uses them to reactivate hitboxes or changing projectiles mid flight, but uses his health as a cost to use specials)... I guess Gardevoir also has a lot of space control tools but this comment is getting long enoguh!
I'd suggest checking the game out if you haven't already since you clearly like fighting games and Pokemon, but I checked your other fighting game videos and you seem to like fighting games with a big emphasis on longer technical combos, and Pokken is much more neutral heavy, even more then something like SF, so i'm not sure you'd be into it. Still, if you have questions, I'd be down to answer! Some characters with really nutty and flashy combos are Sceptile, Decidueye, Weavile, Garchomp, and Scizor. I play Weavile, myself, though I use him more as a neutral heavy hit and run character: a lot of his longer combos require wallsplats (but they look so sick and are pretty demanding in terms of timing and spacing, so you may enjoy that) or super technical corner carries.
Great analysis. Personally, i wish they would have made a regional form of a ghost pokemon (maybe even gengar, instead of its mega) that is ghost/normal type.
The two types would cancel out each others weaknesses (normal is immune to ghost, ghost is immune to fighting), and getting STAB on normal moves, while at the same time being immune to them, is cool as hell^^.
More than anything, I'd be fascinated to see what a Ghost/Normal Gengar would look like. I couldn't design it if I tried because "Normal Type Gengar" just does not compute for me.
I was a Misdreavus simp for the longest time and they somehow managed to make Misdreavuser in Flutter Mane that I absolutely love, even though it’s busted in competitive and should stay in hell where it belongs.
Dammit, that reminds me, I had a bit about Missy at the end that I forgot to add. 5-star Pokemon, absolutely adorable.
And all it took was a gimmick that will basically never return and busted stats “to give love to a forgotten Pokémon line”.
Gamefreak got scared of ghost type potential, so they sealed it away...
The Gengar line should have been changed to Ghost/Dark in Gen 2, similar to how the Magneton line got changed to Electric/Steel.
Thing is they added the steel typic to magnemite and magneton, not change it
@darosilvertail7957 the bigger issue is that gastly and haunter do make several mentions of lethal poisons. Gastly is literal poison gas
As a competitive ghost mono user, ghost types tend to do best with weird gimmicks and shock factor they have a ton of weird niche moves. Oh and my Fav is Gourgeist, they're the definition of unpredictable with the size mechanic.
Yes, my experiences of going up against Mono-Ghost teams taught me the same
0:26 *flashback to when I used to play Pokemon Type Wild in early 2010s and made videos of it*
Made two videos on it recently imagining expanded rosters for it. It was in recording footage of it for this video that I learned Gengar could do Air Shadow Balls
GF: *makes 2 non legendary physical ghosts*
Smogon: banned
I found 2 of the 3 shinies upon first watch. My favorite Ghost Pokemon is Trevenant. Because a spooky tree who just punches people REALLY hard is somehow very funny to me. Honorable mention goes out to Aegishlash, because it makes you feel like a tactical genious despite it just beeing overtuned.
I've made so many people forfeit on Showdown making hard reads with Aegi; it's hilarious how it can cause matches to snowball like crazy. Trevenant is awesome too, and I really hope we get a haunted forest level with it as the focus in any game at some point, main-series or side-game.
Great Video!
In a rom hack duo I’m working on, I have reworked the type listings, and I am choosing to see how Ghost fused with Psychic ends up, known as the Spirit-type. There’s some interesting side effects like Alakazam OHKOing itself or Gengar hitting Machamp for STAB 2x, but from what I’ve tested so far, it works really well. I won’t go too deep into it though.
There's a lot Pokemon doesn't get about itself, but it was made totally obvious after they botched the franchise's lore in S&V.
Loved this. I think Gamefreak may have made ghost a physical attacking type initially due to Lick, not that this is justifies the decision lol. Keep up the good work!
I would be much more accepting of that answer if Lick was a good move lol.
There is a reason they say you should not make an rpg your first game. So hard to get the calculations right
I was so confused as kid going into Sabrina with my
Ghosts (after watching the anime) and getting rolled. They truly did screw them over.
Hell, even the games tell you ghosts are good against sabrina
I love the way Duskull looks, but I've only had mild success playing with them.
My favorites for ascetic AND game play is between the Litwick family and the Honedge family.
I remember when those two families first came out, they got made fun of so much, but they really are great designs.
Alolan Marowak is my favorite ghost. They could've made a cool paradox line of Cubone.
Past Paradox: Cubone's body with a giant skull and club. Like it's "mother" was a giant dino or something. Ground/Ghost. The name could be something like "Giant Club."
I know it doesn't fit the ghost theme, but then a future paradox Marowak that's ground/fire. Its bone would shoot fire while its eyes turn red from fire. Iron Blaze.
This, along with Past Cubone, mixes the Ground types with the Alolan's Fire/Ghost.
I just really like Cubone and Marowak lol.
@@cir0plus This all sounds like great ideas. I'd love to see them make it into the actual games. Cubone/Marowak lore is something I wish got expanded upon more. We have no idea what these Pokemon actually look like, or why its mother's skull changes shape when IT evolves.
Ægislash is probably my favourite ghost type. Used him in my first playthrough of Y and competitively when he was broken as well.
I mean, to me it seems the most likely explanation that ghost was physical because in Gen 1, as mentioned, the only ghost move was lick. Lick, is a physical move even later, so the typing would be physical too. If shadow ball existed, I’d imagine it would be special (but this is just me guessing)
Then it just stayed the same. Almost the opposite issue to dark in Gen 2. As every dark move introduced in Gen 2 would be physical later, but it was special in game which hurt Pokémon like Sneasel even more.
Dark being special was good for Houndoom, though. A shame it was a post-game mon. Were there any more special-leaning dark types before gen 4?
@@Ditidos I’ve had a look quickly, and no. Not really. There’s an argument for Umbreon, but really that’s more defensive than either attacking side.
But otherwise you’ve got:
Mightyena - physical
Absol - physical
Murkrow - sort of balanced, but Murkrow isn’t great anyway
Sneasel - as discussed, physical
And Sableye - more physical.
Gengar is also literally the shadow pokemon, so you would think dark rather than poison. It also evolves to being a lot heavier tham Gastly and Haunter, so you could see the type change from beimg poisonous gas.
My favourite ghost pokemon is Mimikyu.
GameFreak have always been the prime example of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Their code is always a mess, and there's constant inconsistencies with design vs gameplay. They've gotten slightly better with recent games, as they've put more intention into the competitive aspect of the games.
It’s so strange bc on paper it should be tied with Fairy as the best type, with its great resistances and immunities but it’s such a shame that ghost Pokémon as a whole are still suffering from the blunders of the past
Gastly’s dex references it being poison tho.
I never realized it took till gen 6 for there to be a decent physical attacking ghost type/move. That's so rough, good vid Goh Low
This was a great video man, keep it up!
Thank you! Got a few more like it in the scripting stage right now.
I always felt that gengar shoulda been a straight ghost type in gen 1 then maybe shoulda been changed to ghost/dark in gen 2. I remember being a kid and the anime would say that ghosts were strong against psychic types yet they would get one-shotted every time cuz of their stupid poison typing.
The games also tell you that. There's a trainer in Sabrina's gym that says Psychic types fear Ghosts and Bugs.
@@GohLow YEA! I REMEMBER! What horseshit
I kinda assumed that Gengar was originally going to be ghost type, but they added poison because it was too powerful.
Even with poison typing (which not only makes it weak to psychic, but ground too) and no STAB attacks, it’s still one of the best in Gen 1 due to a fast sleep attack, a fast explosion, normal immunity and high special.
Why on Earth the anime played up the idea that “it’s the only thing that can beat psychics” I have no idea. 😅
I think that’s the entire point actually, you’re right. Ghosts need more moves that will do things if the opponent does a certain action. Like how all Dark moves cause the opponent some trickery.
Gengar is my favorite ghost, but Chandalure is an easy second. Both require special evolutions to get tho...
Imagine if mega gengar went dark/ghost.
13:39 Except ghost pokemon where always known for using traps in battle using moves such as curse, pain split, destiny bond, perish song, sucker punch, confuse ray, will o wisp and hypnosis
My guess as to why ghost was made physical was because dark and ghost were similar, hitting both ghost and psychic for super effective damage, so ghost was made physical, and dark special. Also, dragon being special before gen 4 also leads to believe that they didn't want to make dragons broken, like it happened in gen 4
Yeah Physical Dragon Claw and Outrage just outright broke Garchomp and Salamence, in combination with their many coverage moves. Dragon being a primarily special type even after the split would have been a more balanced way to approach it given how physically strong most of the dragons already were.
dark was only introduced in gen 2 though, so that doesnt make too much sense to me, unless dark was removed late in development in gen 1.
Ghost being special and dark beating physical would've make more sense
8:56 abilities and items too.
Don't forget sticky barb, life orb, poison point, rough skin etc.
THANK YOU! I constantly struggle with the pitfalls of Ghost types even in gen 9. It feels like Ghost types often go into one extreme or the other: The fast, high Sp. Atk or Phys Atk Ghost (i.e. Gengar, Dragapult) or largely bulky types with limited movepools and high Sp. Def. The base Stats are mediocre at best and the selections are just not as good as other mons like Steel, Fire, Water, Dragon. I just wish there was a viable Rock/ Ghost type.
You'd think with all the ancient ruins we've seen throughout the series, we'd have gotten a ghost/rock inhabiting one of them.
I fundamentally disagree with the title of this video, Because bug exists.
Bug is easily the worst type in the franchise, And somehow has only gotten worse over the years. Meanwhile Ghost has excelled as the games went on, and even poison is now a viable type.
Bug is a really sad case. Some of the coolest designs, really interesting pair of resistances, but the series seems so focused on giving them the bare minimum then forgetting about them for 4 gens. Did a video on Spidops recently and it's so wild they made it a competitive nothing.
Whilst ghost is good now it took many games to be that good! That's the problem. They fumbled it so hard in the first few games, it was essentially the worst typing almost as none of the ghost types were viable enough (outside like misdreavus but it couldn't use ghost moves so point still stands)..there were at least a few strong bug type pokemon but for quite a few gens there were NO useable ghost types for what ghost was meant for! In Gen1 ghost was thee worst type as it failed to counter what it was made for (due to bad moves, bad stat spread, bad typing of the ONLY GHOST LINE and ofc the glitch making psychic immune to ghost) and just generally wasn't that good compared to other better options (you usually stuck to things like psychic types, normal types, legendaries, maybe an electric type for speedy hard hitters, or even the fully evolved starters in Gen1; ghost was never used in competitive, not really for a few gens I think, and you'd never use it in a Gen1 playthrough either)..
Pretty much every type has gotten better with time due to: newer moves, newer stronger pokemon, and gamefreak learning how to better spread stats (somewhat..they've been making too broken of pokemon lately) But back then a type was either good or never used..
@@testerwulf3357 "But back then a type was either good or never used"
The weirdest version of this is Ice types, because they were both. Ice Type Pokemon were awful, but Ice Beam and Blizzard were AMAZING moves.
@@testerwulf3357 Will you're forgiving is literally everything you said about gen one ghost is true of bug as well.
If you wanted a bug type attack on your team you use Jolteon in Gen 1, Because Jolteon has better stats than Beedrill The only other pokémon to learn a bug type attack.
Bug was Buffed a lot in Gen 2, rebalancing it's power against poison, adding Dark, and giving it 2 mid/late game moves. But in GS, useful bugs were useful in spite of their bug type, not because of it. Heracross was good because it was a bulky fighting type and Scizor and Fortress were good because steel was OP till gen 6. Then bug was basically dead for 2 generations, with Pokemon that were not competitive or even viable in a single player playthrough.
You said every type has gotten better as the series goes on? That is factually not true. In gen 6 they decided to make Bug the worst type in the game by far. They made Fairy effective at everything Bug was already good at, and made Fairy resist Bug.
Bug now has the most weaknesses, Is tied with Grass for the most pokémon that resist it (And unlike Grass it has no strong weather effects or great moves to make up for it) It is weak to some of the most common attacking types, And only has a few types it's effective against The other, better types that are probably on your team are more effective against.
Bug has been and always will be a pitiful mess of a type.
This is why I gave Gengar 'wonder guard' in my mod and made ghosts immune to rock, steel and fighting attacks. Respect Gengar, yo.
My favorite Ghost type (and pokemon overall) is Hoopa. Love that little prankster
Ghost attacks being physical makes sense when you consider that one of the strongest Psychic types, Alakazam, has weak physical defense. So Ghost being physical makes sense in that regard.
But you’re correct in that they did Gen 1’s Ghosts dirty with them being special attackers and giving them no good moves. Which is on top of the Poison typing you mentioned. Maybe they didn’t want Psychics to be too weak to Ghost? But that hardly makes sense when you look at how much Grass sucks.
Maybe, since Special was 1 stat in Gen 1, the high special for Ghosts was meant to be defensive so Psychic wouldn’t hit so hard? Who knows? They obviously didn’t think it through.
idk I liked using Gengar for Hypnosis/Dream Eater in Gen 1.
Not competitively, of course.
Yeah, they were like 70% of the way there then just seemingly gave up.
Three day wait for a premiere?
Bloody hell
All of my videos go out on Saturday. I just put the premieres up as soon as I'm done with the video now, to get it out of the way.
I’ve always liked Chandelure, I think it might be my second favourite Pokémon.
It's one of the few Gen 5 Pokemon that, even in the peak of Gen 5 hate, people defended. It's really cool. Wish it kept Shadow Tag though.
I never understood why Shadow Ball reduced special defense as a physical attack.
It's like they knew it was wrong in the moment and just said "Fuck it"
My favourite ghost has to be Lunala! I'm a sucker for moon related motifs in media.
Ghost types are weird, man. You can sometimes tell that some types struggle escaping their own "niche" after the gen IV transition, like special attacking fighting types or physical psychics, but the ghosts are there especially. Only a few ghosts are physical attackers, snd if they don't have signature moves they suck hard, like Dusknoir, Golurk or Banette. Hell, Golurk has iron fist and has to settle for shadow punch.
Physical electric types are in the same boat, but ghosts are more ironic since it used to be a physical type before lol, it's weird
Meanwhile all I'm thinking about is "Oh yeah, Persona 5. What a dark game that was."
I've always thought that Agatha should have been referred to as a poison type trainer considering the fact that all of her pokemons are either pure poison type or half poison type
10:25 only problem here is that typically ghost types are given low to mid hp. I know there are exceptions but thats the general rule it seems game freak was trying to follow.
I’ve always like Misdreavus, and Mismagius was a core part of my party when I played Pokémon Platinum. Definitely my favorites out of the ghosts, cuz I like the ‘mischievous cutie’ vibes. Next I’d say Shuppet and Banette, because I always love the haunted doll aspect, and Mega Banette is a genuinely good Mega-Evo that does more with the concept than just throws spikes on it. Third I’d say Rotom, even if’n I never used them in a game, just cuz I think they’re cool and the whole “possesses electronics” concept is fun - probably shouldn’t give them the keys to run every single aspect of your world’s communications and Pokémon storage grid though, lmao.
I like Mismagius, it's the ghost type that fit with my asorted team
I don't mind gengar being poison due to from playing the games as a child till now I've rationalized that the gas that gastly embodied would evolve with him and gengar the final form his body was spectral and still maintained the toxins. His pokedex talked on sapping things and while sapping proactively isn't typical of toxins (external body) the spectral side added to his niche
I understand what you are saying trying to make Banette viable but I dont think making it a 550 base stat mon is the way to got.
I think the reason gengar didn't get dark type in gen 2 was a) types never retroactively replace types between gens apart from normal, which was kind of split into normal and fairy in gen 6, which I guess was an ok exception with normal being seen as kind of a blank type, so gengar, already being saddled with poison as a secondary type, was stuck with it by then (note that both onix and scyther themselves kept their flying and rock types in the transition and only gained the steel type by evolving - not an option for the second-evolution gengar) and b) the developers still seemed apprehensive about making anything OP, so they didn't want a pokémon as strong as gengar to have no weaknesses, so that type combo was saved for sableye, whose low stats offset this, and spiritomb, which was pretty hard to find. It's telling that the developers had to invent an entire new type as a ghost nerf before even daring to introduce a pure ghost type. And, as you said, it's not as if gengar's poison type made it ineffective overall, so the type change wasn't really needed.
As for my favourite, it's gotta be sableye, one of my absolute favourites of gen 3, and generally just a fun li'l tricky goblin dude.
Incredibly well made video!! Honestly thought you’d have more subs. Loved it:)
Thank you!
Ghost type is strange that it had almost no interaction with the other types early on offensively. As a type and lack of stab options. Which made them bad picks for being a ghost type. Instead used for thei other traits. Which made them bery mid for a long time. To now they are one of the top 4 types from this very decision to under develop the type.
Ghost has very few weaknesses which are neglible ones to have. Great immunities and restinces. Its basically fairy type before fairy type existed and we didnt know it.
It's resists are pretty ass
@@tayIorswif ghost use to be trash entirely.
Ghost in gen 8 and 9 is pretty much gen 5 dragon type, not a lot of type interactions but that make them broken with their highe stats, reason becose right now they are strong, all ghost now are beast of 530 or more total stats
@@robertoalexandermendezmore408 I agree.
@@JO-iv7tl you said great resistances
Considering that Steel and Fairy were retroactively added to some Pokemon, and Fairy even outright replaced somw Pokemon’s Normal Types, Gengar dropping it’s early Poison Type for Dark isn’t that big a stretch. Heck it doesn’t even have to apply to the whole line, just Gengar. Lines have changing types throughout evolution a lot of times.
Ghost couldn't be special because Game Freak reserved Special to Types that were... special. Starters, Eeveelutions, Psychics, Dragons. These types are Special because their respective Pokémon have special characteristics.
What makes Psychic more "Special" than Ghost? They're both in the same weird metaphysical bend. Or hell, what makes Ice more special Ghost? Ice is just hard water, so it should have been physical.
what's my favorite ghost type is a toughie, only because there are a number of well-designed ghosties... I think it might be either Gourgeist, Alolan Marowak, or Basculegion....
Yeah Gen 1 Really didn't need more Poison types, it's literally Gen 1's Most Prevalent type at 33 members, 1 more than even the Water Type...
If you remove the Future typings from Pokemon that came out in Gen 1 you get: 12 Bugs, 3 Dragons, 9 Electrics, 8 Fighters, 12 Fires, 19 Fliers, 3 Ghosts, 14 Grasses, 14 Grounds, 5 Icies, 24 Normals, 33 Poisons, 15 Psychics, 11 Rocks, & 32 Waters
It took until Gen 8 for there to be more non-Gen 1 Poison types than there were Poison types introduced in Gen 1. It's that ridiculous.
@@GohLow It really is, if you don't include the Alolan Muk line because they're a regional variant of a Gen 1 line that didn't add the poison typing, is less than the Gen 1 Poison types still, if you do include them it only Just then in Gen 7 Equals the # of Gen 1 Poison types.
It is completely absurd because Poison in Gen 1 was ONLY strong against the Grass Type, which has 4 other weaknesses. It was weak against 2 of the strongest types. Had the same problem in moves as Ghost, Dragon, & Bug. And yet, there were that many Poison types?!? What are we trying to make Psychic seem that much stronger? Was making them immune to Ghosts & not giving Bugs any real bug-type moves not enough?
Not a single sableye mention? Damn .
So fun to use in Gen 3 playthroughs. It can break Brawly's gym so easily.
I love psychics, hex maniacs, etc and so I typically try to make my teams with Ghosts, Psychics, and Darks. Gengar is my go to but I also love Decidueye (Cheating with starters though), Golurk, Chandelure, and Dusknoir.
I like your videos because you talk slowly, use pictures, and explain throughly. Which is great for someone like me who is a very casual Pokémon fan,
I know there is no "poison connection" with gengar as far as being toxic chemicals, but as I understand it both gastly and haunter are made of gas, which might be a poisonous kind of gas(there is talk of suffocation in some dex entrys) but it could also be that they have the consistency of a poisonous amorphous substance.
On the other hand there are now several pure ghost types and they are still non solid but it could be like how most flying types are also normal.
Now we have a few of them that are pure as well.
I guess it's hard to understand what the heck gamefreak is even thinking
I was sure Phantom force was a signature move of brambleghast, never knew dragapult even had it
I had it confused with Shadow Force, Giratina's signature move. Wasn't until seeing this comment and checking around that I learned they were different moves.
the same problem with every flying typo also being normal stype, nullifying their resistance to fighting
Poison was the “dark” type in gen 1 thematically. Thats why he was part poison
Personally, Rotom is probably my own favorite Ghost-type, and I say that as someone who didn't even want to then shove it into an appliance, to get rid of its Ghost-type, in exchange for Ice, Grass, Flying, or Fire. I just like it's look, it's aesthetic, and while it was useful crammed inside a pokedex, I like to imagine using it for various other exploration advantages, if you could befriend the little, electric gremlin.
I bet they could make a really interesting 3rd-person puzzle adventure game built around all the different ways you could use Rotom to possess items.
That Gengar looks hilarious, I'am exited for the video.
Btw. congrats on the Nuggets winning! It was even enthusiastically reported on mainstream german news outlets. Funny how people in Europe where noone cares about basketball can be more exited about the nuggets than certain american sports journalists :p
It was awesome! I stayed up til like 3AM watching celebratory streams, just loving it! Central/Eastern Europe actually has a massive basketball history - Germany, Serbia, the former Yugoslavia have contributed so much to the game that kinda just gets ignored everywhere else - so it was nice for someone from that region to finally be at the top of the league.
My level 67 Gengar the crown jewel of my pokedex back in 1998/99. It was kinda hard to find someone with a link cable back then. Found a kid that wanted to trade his haunter for my gravler. Raised it from the low 30s to level 67 before I quit playing. It's moves were:
1.Lick
2.Nightshade
3.Hypnosis
4.Dream Eater
It was super strong against most pokemon.
Somtimes you see a fcuk up of such a magnitude that it has to be deliberate.
12:15 What about dusknoir
It's very bulky, it has good attack, and can use trick room to compensate for low speed.
Before anyone asks trick room did exist in gen 4
Dude I’m playing P5 while listening to this. Excellent choice for bg music
I use it in all my videos; it fits everything.