Rare Article: Oh, the Memories...

I'm busy this week, so a new Rare Article isn't going to go up. HOWEVER! I, Travis, didn't want to leave you empty handed, so I concocted a little scheme. Way before I was actually a PKMNcastmember, I was a gigantic fan of ISE. I wanted to be on the podcast really badly! I emailed SBJ with a sample of what I could do if I wrote for the site. Because it stunk, it didn't get me on the website, but I thought it would be silly and entertaining for you folks to read my first (of many) attempt at being a PKMNcastmenber. So here it goes! (Disclaimer: This was written before Black and White were released. Also, the views of the past version of myself do not necessarily reflect the views of the present version of myself or those of PKMNcast. Apparently I hated legendaries or something. ALSO also, blame my past self for any mechanical errors below. Mechanical errors above are the fault of my present self.)

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Why Nintendo Needs to Stop Giving Flying-Type The Shaft

What’s that? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No. It’s just a bird, for today we are going to look at Game Freak’s least favorite children, the flying type.

As of Gen IV, there has never been a pure flying type. The closest thing that we have ever come to pure flying is Normal/Flying. The problem with that type combo is that the only resistance that a Pokémon would gain is immunity to ghost, at the cost of losing resistance to fighting.

However, Gen V introduces one pure flying type. Unfortunately for more serious players, it’s a legendary, and most people over the age of six are a bit averse to the idea of putting a legendary on his or her team, because doing so would be like having Wayne Gretzky on your high school hockey team. Even so, it is nice to know that Game Freak was at least pretending to care about our poor flyers.

“But, at least there are a few great dual type flyers, right?” you ask, because you think you’re cool enough to ask me questions. Sure, I’ll humor you. Let’s take a look at dual flying types. First off, flying’s weaknesses are ice, rock, and electric. When one looks at all of the flying Pokémon whose primary type would cancel out these weaknesses, one realizes that the primary type would have to be one of the following: dragon, electric, grass, fire, ice, steel, water, fighting, or ground. As of gen IV, only twelve fully evolved, non legendary flyers (out of 35) are any of these types. So, in effect, when looking at dual type flyers, all that having flying type seems to do for them is add weaknesses to ice, rock, and electric, because the move pool for flying type does not help out these Pokémon too much anyway.

As of Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, the strongest special attack flying move is Aeroblast, which can only be learned by one Pokémon (Lugia,) so that makes Air slash functionally the strongest at 75 power and 95% accuracy. Compare this to say, fire type, which has seven special moves that are at or over 100 power, including a few with 100% accuracy. When looking at physical type moves, arguably the strongest are Brave Bird, Sky Attack, and Fly. However, each one of these has its downside. Brave Bird has recoil and both Sky Attack and Fly require two turns to complete. The strongest physical flying type without any negative secondary effects, then, would be Drill Peck, at 80 power. Again, if we compare this to fire type, we see that there are three moves more powerful than Drill Peck, even though fire type is normally focused on special attacks. With Fly being one of the most necessary HMs to have, a flyer’s moveset is also hindered by having to have a lackluster physical attack at all times, limiting the flyer to just three other moves, one of which would probably be of the Pokémon’s primary type, and another would be a move of a third type for weakness coverage, leaving only room for one other flying type move. Sad day.

So, in conclusion, Game Freak hates flying. A lot.

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Tehe. I was silly then. See you all in a week.