Ladder Inverse Battle

Regice can be viable but note that Regice is quite slow and Ice isn't a good coverage in Inverse. Inverse metagame is very offensive metagame and Physically dominant (due to most priority moves and offensive Normal type pokes being Physically dominant). Based on many battles so far, people rarely used Regice. It can be a decent check to pokes like Porygon-Z and Celebi, but I find it hard to use due to Physical attacker being much more common than Special attackers. And some Special attackers carry Psyshock to anticipate Chanslugg.
 
So I decided to write up a big thingy covered how far apart Standard and Inverse actually are from each other -for the purposes of this, I use a simple points system to rate a types offensive and defensive qualities to provide some kind of quick comparison point -I'm aware it doesn't begin to capture the some of the qualities, such as how Grass is such a bad offensive type in part because Water invalidates it in every situation except against Water itself, but this is a quick'n'dirty comparison, not meant to be a definitive or 100% accurate presentation.

The system in question rates a resistance or weakness/ineffective or super effective as 1 point, while an immunity is 4 points -up for defensive types, down for offensive types. (Immunities are enormously useful, much more so than just focusing on the damage decrease would suggest)

Normal
Defensive-Standard: +3

Defensive-Inverse: 0

Offensive-Standard: -6

Offensive-Inverse: +3

The Best Type.

Defensively, it's OK. It resists Fighting, it's vulnerable to Ghost, that's it. Nobody really cares about that. The real meat is

Perfect Offense. Hits Steel, Rock, and Ghost super effectively, nothing resists it, full stop. (Not even Shedinja walls Normal types, because Ghost is vulnerable to Normal!) Combined with how many low or no-disadvantage hideously powerful Normal moves exist (Boomburst laughs in Draco Meteor's face) and how many Normal types are actually quite good in stats, Abilities, movepool, etc and mostly held back by Normal being a crap offensive type in Standard, Normal is by far the best offensive type in the entire game, even when you consider that Steel is not really worth running defensively and Ghost sucks too.

So yeah. Normal spam is a thing, and there's no proper answer to it.

Fighting

Defensive-Standard: 0

Defensive-Inverse: 0

Offensive-Standard: -4 (Yes, really)

Offensive-Inverse: +1

Defensively, it resists Fairy, Flying, and Psychic. Fairy resistance is pretty irrelevant, but Flying and Psychic resistance, especially Psychic resistance, are both very valuable -Fighting is the only real counter to Psychic, other than other Psychic types! Vulnerability to Dark, Bug, and Rock are all problematic -these are all types with substantial offensive use, and even with Stealth Rock being less popular in Inverse than in Standard, it's still a bad thing to be vulnerable to it. (Lucario sux, 50% health lost to Stealth Rock, no recovery beyond Drain Punch, Steel is awful in general)

Offensively, Fighting is resisted by Steel, Rock, Normal, Dark, and Ice -other than Steel, these are all relevant defensive types, so Fighting has some flaws as an offensive type. On the other hand, it hits Psychic, Flying, Bug, Poison, Ghost, and Fairy effectively -Psychic is huge, since Fighting is it other than Psychic itself for hitting Psychic effectively, Flying is quite relevant, and even Bug has relevance. (Mega Heracross has some pretty good value in this meta, for instance) Ghost, Poison, and Fairy are lot harder to appreciate the value of -they're all three severely flawed (Read: godawful) as defensive types, with little motivation to run them. In short, Fighting is less amazing an offensive type as in Standard, but it's still a crucial offensive type.

Again: the only counter to Psychic that exists. (Unless you count Shedinja I guess, but it's got more weaknesses than ever -most Psychic types should have some way to break it)

Psychic

Defensive-Standard: -1

Defensive-Inverse: +1

Offensive-Standard: -4

Offensive-Inverse: +1

Oh, to return to the halcyon days of Generation I, when Psychic was The Best Type, with only one type other than itself that acted as a counter... oh, wait, that's called Inverse.

Defensively, Psychic only has two weaknesses -itself and Fighting. Meanwhile it resists Dark, Ghost, and Bug, all of which are good types to resist. So only Fighting types are actually a counter, other than other Psychic types. (That preferably are Fighting or Poison typed -oh by the way, there is no Psychic/Poison Pokemon, and Poison sucks anyway)

Offensively it hits Dark, Steel, and itself super effectively, with only Fighting and Poison resisting it. It's super effective list isn't actually amazing -the Dark hit is useful- but Poison is godawful, leaving Fighting as the only real counter to Psychic. Alarmingly, there are a number of Psychic types with Dark, Bug, or Rock moves they can properly use to counter this counter, making it very difficult indeed to properly wall Psychic types -Gothitelle is a nightmarish trapper, being extremely difficult to KO and with Dark Pulse allowing it to finish off slower Fighting types if it wants. (Though it's probably better off running Energy Ball to deal with Poison, Grass, Bug, and yet other types, and it's difficult to justify three attacking moves on Gothitelle)

If it weren't for Normal, Ice, and Grass being amazing in their own ways, I'd just declare Psychic The Best Type. It's pretty nutty.

Dark

Defensive-Standard: +3

Defensive-Inverse: 0

Offensive-Standard: -1

Offensive-Inverse: +1

Resists Bug, Fairy, and Fighting. Resisting Fairy isn't actually that useful (See the Fairy entry below), but Bug is a very relevant offensive type and Fighting is huge, since Fighting is the only proper counter to Psychic types, which renders it very important to have Fighting counters -Rock can also do the job, but is more deeply flawed than Dark is, being weak to Normal. (On the other hand, Rock additionally resists Grass, Water, and Ground, so Rock certainly has arguments in its favor) Conversely it is weak to itself, Ghost, and Psychic, all of which hurts to be weak to. Tricky.

Offensively, Dark is only resisted by Psychic and Ghost. Being resisted by Psychic hurts, since Psychic is one of the best types in the game, but being resisted by Ghost is actually something of a laugh -Ghost types are really, really bad in Inverse, for all that Ghost moves are hugely important. Meanwhile it hits itself, Fighting, and Fairy all super effectively -the big one from the perspective of Dark type Pokemon is the effectiveness against Fighting types, though it certainly hurts that, for instance, Conkeldurr can use Knock Off for a super effective hit even though you resist it and are super effective, while Fairy is somewhat ignorable, as Fairy is painfully bad.

A very important type in general. I've personally been amused by how Tyranitar retains essentially it's weird position in Standard, but flipped around -either way it's an important Pokemon with problematic weaknesses and yet uniquely useful strengths. It just replaces a double weakness to Fighting with a single weakness to Normal -which is enough, when Normal gives us moves like Last Resort and Boomburst, not to mention Explosion.

Fairy

Defensive-Standard: +3

Defensive-Inverse: -2

Offensive-Standard: 0

Offensive-Inverse: 0

Defensively, its only resists are to Poison and Steel, and while they're both useful coverage types, not many actual Pokemon of those types are liable to show up, so that's a problem. (And many Poison types are also Bugs -Mega Beedrill will just U-Turn you out of existence) Worse yet, it's vulnerable to Bug, Fighting, and Dark, all of which are relevant offensive types, and it's also weak to Dragon, which has the advantage that only Dragon resists Dragon. It's very hard to argue for Fairy types from a defensive standpoint, in short.

Offensively, Fairy is good against Steel (So's everything else) Fire (Still a ton of things) and Poison (Also a ton of things) while being resisted by Dark, Fighting, and Dragon. It's a really redundant, unappealing offensive type. This makes it even harder to argue for actually using Fairies.

Really, Fairy is kind of just a crap type.

Ghost

Defensive-Standard: +8 (Two immunities!)

Defensive-Inverse: -2

Offensive-Standard: -3

Offensive-Inverse: 0

Defensively, one of the worst types of the meta. Literally it's only positives are resisting itself and Dark, while it's vulnerable to Normal, Fighting, Bug, and Poison. This is godawful, and really the only good arguments for Ghost types are A: they can't be trapped (Anti-Gothitelle work) and B: they are STAB super effective against Normal types. So many Ghosts imagine themselves to be walls this is a deep problem -though Gengar doesn't care, just like it never cares. It's always a good Pokemon in any meta.

Offensively Ghost has the crucial, crucial utility of being anti-Normal -the only type in the game, making the common access Psychic types have to Shadow Ball very valuable indeed. It additionally hits Dark effectively, with the only things that resist it being itself and Psychic, so it remains an excellent offensive type. (Fighting/Ghost remains perfect coverage, for instance)

Flying

Defensive-Standard: +4

Defensive-Inverse: -1

Offensive-Standard: 0

Offensive-Inverse: 0

Crucial as a resist to Electric, with the only other option being Water, and its resistance to Ice and even Rock are actually pretty useful. (Remember, even though Flying types are vulnerable to Ground, they're still not grounded, so most Flying types resist Stealth Rock and are immune to Spikes and Toxic Spikes) It's vulnerable to Bug, Grass, and Fighting, which is pretty horrifying given how powerful Grass is, how crucial Fighting is, and how appealing Bug can be, and it's also vulnerable to Ground, which is problematic when it's one of the best anti-Grass types around and Grass is so important. Yet, it's still a valuable defensive type.

Offensively, it's resisted by Bug, Grass, and Fighting, which sucks, though combined with the right coverage it's manageable. It's super effectives are Rock, Steel, and Electric, which isn't great. Its real problem as an offensive type is that Normal is always better unless you're dealing with an Electric type. (That is not also Bug, Grass, Fighting, or Ghost, at that) To be fair, while Electric has more weaknesses than strengths, those weaknesses are only Flying, Electric, and Steel, so Flying is the only proper counter to Electric types, other than Electrically immune Electrics. (Whom are not mutual counters, obviously) So there's that.

Also the ability to Roost your typing out of existence gives Flying the ability to wall threats it really shouldn't be able to, so its degree of vulnerability is misleading.

Bug

Defensive-Standard: 0

Defensive-Inverse: 0

Offensive-Standard: -4 (In spite of nothing being immune to it)

Offensive-Inverse: +4

Defensively, Bug hasn't changed in quantity, just distribution. Unfortunately, being vulnerable to Grass and Fighting is quite painful, and sharing Ground weakness with Grass is also quite painful, while its resistance to Fire and Flying is shared with Grass as well, leaving it with resistance to Rock over Grass. This is seriously limiting its appeal as a defensive type.

Offensively, it hits 7 types super effectively and is only ineffective on three types -unfortunately, the distribution has problems, with the important and powerful Psychic and Grass types being included among the resists (And even Dark has value), while many of the super effectives are severely flawed in other regards, or shared with Grass, such as Poison. (Yes, Bug hits Ghost effectively, but so does Normal, with better moves) It does hit Fighting super effectively, though, giving it value to Psychic types looking for Fighting coverage (And it provides Poison coverage, too!), such as Alakazam appreciating its access to Signal Beam, and is in fact perfect coverage alongside Psychic. (Though no Psychic type does better than Signal Beam, and Physically Mew, Gallade, and Arceus are the only Psychic types with so much as X-Scissor)

Most painfully, U-Turn is ineffective against the trapper Gothitelle. Bug types themselves aren't very good, in short -which is problematic, when Bug coverage is hard to come by outside of U-Turn. Note that the classic crapmon combo of Bug/Flying has gotten even worse, trading its double weakness to Rock in standard for double weaknesses to all of Grass, Fighting, and Ground in Inverse! Sure sure, you double resist Stealth Rock. Whatever.

Even so, Bug is an important type, especially offensively.

Grass

Defensive-Standard: -1

Defensive-Inverse: +1

Offensive-Standard: -4 (Again, with no immunities)

Offensive-Inverse: +4

The Best Type, other than Normal. Resists a ton of types, including the very relevant Ice and Bug types, while it's only weaknesses are itself, Water, Electric, and Ground -Water being almost 100% a bad Grass offensively, Electric has severe problems, and Ground... is actually pretty good, OK.

Offensively it's only resisted by Ground, Rock, and Water, and has seven super effectives. If Normal weren't the obvious king of offense, I'd argue Grass is the best offensive type in the game, alongside Bug -it's still a fantastic offensive type even then, the sort of thing that Normal types wish they could run as additional coverage. (Farfetch'd is the only Normal type with Leaf Blade, and the pool of Normal types that gets Energy Ball or Giga Drain is tiny... and for some reason includes Zangoose with Giga Drain, who really shouldn't be running a weak Special move, even if it does make Dragonite cry)

Gogoat is particularly notable, alongside Sawsbuck (Which is also the dreaded Normal type) as Grass supremacy Pokemon -Sap Sipper renders them immune to Grass, but they can hit back with STAB super effective hits, not to mention placing them at 5 resists, one immunity, three weaknesses, which is very impressive for Inverse. Also notable is Carnivine, as a Levitating Grass type, so Carnivine laughs in the face of Ground types that think they constitute a counter.

Electric

Defensive-Standard: +2

Defensive-Inverse: -2

Offensive-Standard: -6 (A good example of how this simple scoring system has problems)

Offensive-Inverse: +4

Defensively, only Steel is worse. It resists Ground (So does a bunch of other stuff), and it's vulnerable to itself, Steel, and Flying. On the other hand, it actually doesn't have to worry too much about Normal types slamming it with coverage, and Diggersby is one of the more popular Normal types around.

Offensively, it's amazing, with only Water (Very niche) and Flying (Mostly notable for resisting it) offering any protection without turning to Abilities. On the other hand, some Pokemon get Electric immunity via Ability that would normally be vulnerable, specifically Rhyperior, Marowak and Mega Sceptile, and they have actual appeal in Inverse.

The fact that various Electric types get Electric-immunity on Abilities is actually quite good, giving those Pokemon two weaknesses, one resistance, one immunity, which isn't half-bad, especially since Electric is actually a very powerful coverage type in this that most Pokemon can get a hold of.

The Rotoms (And Eelektross) are of course something of a mockery -but Mowtom and Fantom at least get some use out of Levitate now.

Fire

Defensive-Standard: +3

Defensive-Inverse: -3

Offensive-Standard: 0

Offensive-Inverse: 0

An enormous number of weaknesses, of which only maybe Fairy is ignorable. And yet, it resists all of Ground, Rock, and Water, the former two being rather important.

Offensively it's painfully bad. It's resisted by the excellent Grass, Bug, and Ice types, throwing in failure against Steel types for laughs, and meanwhile the things it's good against are itself, Water, Dragon, and Rock. Half of these are done better by Grass, Rock is done better by Normal, and Water is better handled by Ice.

I suddenly understand why I've never seen a Fire type in Inverse unless the team's creator was completely clueless about Inverse.

It's difficult to even argue that the assorted Flashfire Pokemon are well off -the only two Standard-competent abusers are both vulnerable to Normal, and the vast majority of the rest are low-stat and/or saddled with other problems.

Water

Defensive-Standard: +2

Defensive-Inverse: -2

Offensive-Standard: 0

Offensive-Inverse: 0

Defensively, it's bad, particularly since Fire and Ice are very relevant offensive types, and even Steel has uses. Crucially though, it resists Grass and Electric, only one of two types that resists the latter, so that's big and might win a Water type a spot on your team.

Offensively, I can reverse a statement I've made several times elsewhere -in Inverse, it's a bad Grass type, except when it comes to other Water types. This is even worse than it sounds when you consider how many Water types get Ability-based immunity to Water moves -so barring Mega Gyarados slamming into them, they essentially invalidate the notion of Water being anything other than a good STAB offense. Ouch. (Oh and for Mega Gyarados that is a STAB offense)

It's not even practical to say that the Water types that get Water Absorb or Storm Drain are good Water supremacy Pokemon -Seismitoad, Rotom-Wash, and Keldeo are the only fully evolved Water types that don't get Ice Beam, so you have to be talking something like Storm Drain Gastrodon for them to not just turn to Ice Beam or similar. So basically some of them (Cradily, mostly) might work as a Keldeo counter. (To be fair, Keldeo is still a quite good Pokemon in Inverse)

Ice

Defensive-Standard: -3

Defensive-Inverse: +3

Offensive-Standard: 0

Offensive-Inverse: 0

Wallin' everything forever. Only weak to itself, making it a crucial offensive type too. Probably it's biggest flaw offensively is that Grass resists it, but it's not that hard to get around that -Avalugg gets Earthquake, for instance.

Not much to say. It's a great type.

Ground

Defensive-Standard: +3

Defensive-Inverse: 0

Offensive-Standard: -1 (It hits so many things that even with immunities rated at -4 it's nearly 0)

Offensive-Inverse: -2

Resists Grass, Water, and Ice, which are all excellent resistances to have. Vulnerability to Poison isn't so bad, vulnerability to Rock isn't so bad (Rock types are very difficult to use properly when Normal spam is king), and vulnerability to Electric is somewhat odd -on the one hand, Electric is only not the worst defensive type because Steel is even worse, but on the other hand Electric has gone from having two important offenses but actually a bad total offensive capacity to being widely effective and with only two things resisting it, so Electric is actually a fairly good offensive type. Ground is, in short, a really good defensive type with manageable weaknesses. Use Hippowdon people!

Offensively, the main thing you can say for it is that it hits both Bug and Grass super effectively, which are both important types to hit. It's resisted by five types, and even considering that only Rock and Fire are the particularly relevant types that's still mediocre, and Fire is actually really good in Inverse, so that's a problem, especially since Ground types struggle to actually get anti-Fire coverage.

A good type overall, in short. Useful coverage against Grass types for some types. (eg regular Heracross appreciates its access to Earthquake [Mega Heracross has Bullet Seed for 25% more power]) Also keep in mind that Marowak and Rhyperior can be immune to Electric via Lightning Rod, reducing their weaknesses some -Marowak in particular ends up only weak to Rock and Poison at that point.

Rock

Defensive-Standard: -1

Defensive-Inverse: +1

Offensive-Standard: +1

Offensive-Inverse: -1

For all that it's points value goes up in Inverse, in practice it is severely hurt by being vulnerable to the omnipresent and omnipotent Normal types. It's also vulnerable to Fire, which is not great. On the other hand, it resists Fighting and Grass, both of which are important types, so it might be worth putting on your team as your anti-Fighting answer. Unfortunately Archeops (U-Turn) and Probopass (Volt Switch) are the only Rock types that are good at switching out of trouble productively (Get a hit in on the Ambipom that's switching in) and they both have severe problems.

Offensively Rock is in an odd place. It's resisted by Bug, Ice, Flying, and Fire, none of which is a good thing to be resisted by, but it's crucial for hitting Fighting and Ground types super effectively. It's a good coverage move anyway, even in Inverse, particularly for the likes of Ice and Psychic types. Slowking, Starmie, and Grumpig are all Special Psychic types with Power Gem, while Gallade, Mew, and Claydol are all reasonably competent users of Physical Rock moves, in both cases for anti-Fighting work. Avalugg, Mamoswine, Beartic, Walrein and Abomasnow are all reasonably competent Ice users of Physical Rock, though unfortunately no Ice type exists that has Power Gem.

Steel

Defensive-Standard: +11

Defensive-Inverse: -8

Offensive-Standard: -1

Offensive-Inverse: +1

Godawful.

OK, offensively it's worth some commentary, since plenty of Pokemon get Iron Head as coverage and some get Flash Cannon. Specifically, it hits Fire, Water, and Electric (Also itself but everything does) for super effective damage, with only Rock, Ice ("Only" Ice he says), and Fairies resisting it. So Chesnaught might run Iron Head for those pesky Water and Electric types, Thundurus might run Flash Cannon for Water types, etc. Not unusable offensively, in other words, though it really hurts its case that Ice resists it given that Ice is the king of defense in Inverse.

Poison

Defensive-Standard: +3

Defensive-Inverse: -3

Offensive-Standard: -6

Offensive-Inverse: +3

Crucial resistance to Psychic -it's the only thing other than Fighting that does resist it- and its resistance to Ground is also OK, though that's very commonplace. Unfortunately, it's a godawful defensive type, with all that really needs to be said being that it is vulnerable to both Bug and Grass -that's horrible. Offensively, it's more impressive, with only Fairy and Grass resisting it and a bunch of super effectives -but those include Rock (More terrified of Normal), Ghost (More terrified of Normal), Steel (More terrified of Normal) itself (Bad defensive type) and Ground. (Actually worth noting, since Electric and Rock are the only other options and they have severe problems themselves)

Probably Poison's biggest problem is how many of them desperately want to wall -but for the aggressive ones, this may well be a very good meta for them. (I'm honestly surprised at how rarely I see Crobat)

Crucially, it provides perfect coverage to Grass, so Grass/Poison is actually a very strong typing. In general it's actually a pretty nice coverage type.

Dragon

Defensive-Standard: +1

Defensive-Inverse: -1

Offensive-Standard: -4

Offensive-Inverse: +1

A bad defensive type in Inverse, and in spite of the +1 rating a bad offensive type in Inverse too -it's only effective against Steel (So's everything else) and Fairy. (Which is a shockingly bad type in Inverse) It does only falter against itself offensively, so Dragon is arguably back to pre-Gen VI "Outrage everything to death" mode, except Normal blows it out of the water for that type of nonsense. (And it gets Thrash to do the exact same thing) Defensively it's vulnerable to the excellent Water and Grass types, as well as Fire and Electric while you're at it, with it's only positive qualities being it resists itself (It's not a good offense type, barring Draco Meteor), it resists Fairy (Fairy sucks), and it resists Ice. (This is actually useful -but there are better types with that quality)

Probably Dragon's biggest problem is how heavily it overlaps with Grass -yes, Grass. They share three weaknesses, with the only weakness Grass has that Dragon doesn't being Ground (Carnivine laughs at the idea that this helps Dragon's case), and the most useful resistance Dragon has -Ice- is also shared with Grass, leaving it with being useful for Fairy resistance (Dark and Fighting both do it as well while being very important and useful types in their own right) and resisting itself.... which runs into the self-reinforcing loop problem that Dragon is too crappy for it to be worthwhile to carry a Dragon for Dragon resistance. Remember, almost any team prepared for Grass (And that's going to be pretty much any sensible team) is incidentally prepared to annihilate your Dragon, high BST or no.

Goodra's access to Sap Sipper is actually very notable in Inverse, turning Dragon's most unbearable weakness into a stat-boosting immunity. Still got problems compared to the likes of Gogoat and Carnivine.


Some points about this.

Firstly, in Standard there are only 4 types that score negatively, defensively speaking -and in turn in Inverse there are only 4 types that score positively, defensively speaking. Also, since immunities have gone the way of the dodo, defensive capacity has taken a further downturn as compared to even that.

Also, here's some "total" defensive scores, derived from simply adding together all the defensive numbers.

With Steel-Standard: +38

Without Steel-Standard: +27 (!!)

With Steel-Inverse: -18

Without Steel-Inverse: -10

In practice it's probably most instructive to compare the "With Steel-Standard" score to the "Without Steel-Inverse" score, since in Inverse Steel is simply so bad nobody will make use of it without a very good reason, but that's still 48 points apart -that's nuts, and even if you don't rate Immunities as high as I am it's still a huge difference. (Rating immunity as 2 points lowers "With Steel-Standard" to +22, which is still 32 points apart from -10)

So yeah Inverse is way more offensive, even discounting how far Steel skews things.

I also discuss the individual types some within the Hide tag. Did you know Psychic is god-type in Inverse? I'd consider it the best type in the game, particularly for walls, if Normal wasn't more ridiculous. And if Grass wasn't amazing.

Another point worth commentary compared to Standard: in Standard, offensive Normal, offensive Dragon, defensive Ice, and more debateably offensive Bug are the only "unusably bad" types. Note that none of those covers both ends -it's always either the offensive capacity or the defensive capacity, and only on four different types.

In Inverse, Fairy is crap on both ends, Steel is godawful defensively, Poison is godawful defensively, Ghost is godawful defensively, Dragon is almost flatly invalidated by Grass defensively, Fire is amazingly bad all around, and Electric is horrible defensively. That is: one can argue that a number of types are literally unusably bad in Inverse, far more than in Standard. This centralizes the game a lot -even aside from the fact that Normal is unquestionably the best offensive type, that's two types that are arguably irrelevant to the metagame as a whole (Fairy and Fire) and a further four types where you need a really good argument to justify using an actual Pokemon of that type, leaving the Inverse field of relevant typings/Pokemon rather more narrow than in Standard. And also note that most of these are crap as defensive types, and the other crap at both ends -whereas in Standard Ice is the only type that is "unusably bad" defensively.

So yeah. Inverse is a strange place. (I didn't realize until writing this up that Dragon doesn't show up much in Inverse because it's essentially Bad Grass. Strange thought)

Yes I did just discover colors recently, thank you for noticing.
 
Another point worth commentary compared to Standard: in Standard, offensive Normal, offensive Dragon, defensive Ice, and more debateably offensive Bug are the only "unusably bad" types. Note that none of those covers both ends -it's always either the offensive capacity or the defensive capacity, and only on four different types.

In Inverse, Fairy is crap on both ends, Steel is godawful defensively, Poison is godawful defensively, Ghost is godawful defensively, Dragon is almost flatly invalidated by Grass defensively, Fire is amazingly bad all around, and Electric is horrible defensively. That is: one can argue that a number of types are literally unusably bad in Inverse, far more than in Standard. This centralizes the game a lot -even aside from the fact that Normal is unquestionably the best offensive type, that's two types that are arguably irrelevant to the metagame as a whole (Fairy and Fire) and a further four types where you need a really good argument to justify using an actual Pokemon of that type, leaving the Inverse field of relevant typings/Pokemon rather more narrow than in Standard. And also note that most of these are crap as defensive types, and the other crap at both ends -whereas in Standard Ice is the only type that is "unusably bad" defensively.

So yeah. Inverse is a strange place. (I didn't realize until writing this up that Dragon doesn't show up much in Inverse because it's essentially Bad Grass. Strange thought)

Yes I did just discover colors recently, thank you for noticing.
false on a few points in this part of your post.
bug is debatably horrible offensively while unquestionably bad(u-turn is it's only saving grace) offensively while it's also bad defensively.
due to above part your statement that "none of those covers both ends" is false.
Grass is also unusually bad both offensively and defensively(I assume you forgot about it for a second) rendering the statement false again
the reason dragons don't show up much is because defensively they're bad grass and offensively bad normal.
You discovered colors when you were born so unless you were born yesterday you didn't just discover them recently. lel jk on this last bit
 
In Standard Grass is bad, not oh god why would anybody ever use it bad, which is what I mean by "unusably bad".

Bug's big problem in Standard, defensively, is that it overlaps with Flying and Steel in really negative ways -nobody needs to cover Bug in specific because Flying and Steel coverage incidentally covers Bug, and everything Bug resists is resisted by Flying -except Ground, which Flying is instead immune to. If Flying didn't exist, Bug would be OK defensively -not amazing, but nothing terrible, just sort of there. Offensively, yeah, it's got serious problems.

Yeah that's basically what I said in regards to Dragon -they're bad Grass defensively and Normal invalidates their offensive value.

A point to add to my whole shebang: it occurred to me some hours after I made the post that it explains a lot about why Diggersby is so popular in Inverse -it's not just that it's a Normal type with Huge Power, it's that its Normal/Ground typing gives it the best offensive type and the best counter to the excellent Grass type.

I still find it interesting that, if you ignore Normal (You can't, but let's pretend to ourselves for a moment you can -maybe a variant of Inverse where the Normal type is banned) the most important types in Inverse are Psychic, Fighting, Dark and Rock, and then Grass, followed in a more complicated way by everything else.

Ghoul King I would've liked that comment just for the sheer amount of effort and time it must've taken to create, but I don't even have time to read that beast. ;-;
I think I spent 6~ hours total making it, though I'm not entirely sure that's strictly correct between multitasking and it being spread over 4 days, so that's appreciated.
 
Ghoul King In your type viability thingy, there's repeated mention of types having to worry about Fire, yet in Fire's description you pretty much say it's nearly unusably bad. You may want to fix that.
 
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I actually wrote the whole thing backwards and didn't realize just how bad Fire would be until I got to it, at which point I'd already written Dragon and stuff -I considered going over that stuff and editing it, but even aside from how much time I'd already put into it, the fact is that there are still going to be Pokemon running Fire as their best coverage option, so even though it's extremely difficult to argue for Fire type Pokemon in Inverse, Fire type moves are still going to pop up -in particular, while Grass does what Fire does a lot better overall, there are tons of Pokemon that get Fire coverage (Fire Punch or Flamethrower or whatever) and no Grass coverage. There are Pokemon that are the other way around of course -Gothitelle, Alakazam, and Gardevoir all get Energy Ball and no Special Fire move for instance- but it's actually really really rare to find Grass coverage, especially Physical Grass coverage (Gallade and Farfetch'd are it for Leaf Blade, Sudowoodo is it for Wood Hammer, while Seed Bomb is vaguely available being learned by all of Ambipom, Arbok, Cinccino, Delibird, Donphan, Florges, Garbodor, Liepard, Linoone, Mantine, Mew, Octillery, Pachirisu, Pelipper, Persian, Primeape, Snorlax, Swalot, Ursaring, and Watchog, and Lickilicky and Goodra are it for Power Whip, while Xerneas is it for Horn Leech and Florges is it for Petal Blizzard. Note that a lot of these Seed Bomb users are not anything anybody uses) so in practice Fire is relevant coverage even if it's actually nothing anybody would use if they had a choice in the matter.

So yeah, Fire sucks, but it still sucks to be weak to it.
 
So now that Greninja got suspected in ORAS OU. If it's banned there, will it get banned here as well?

If it will, any good Spikes/Toxic Spikes setter other than Greninja? Diggersby doesn't seem to work for me. Maybe I'm just bad at using it though.
 
Standard Greninja is pretty meh in inverse... so I've been using a physically-oriented mixed attacker (though you can mixup the EVs). Still walled by P2 and frail, so I still don't know if it should be suspected.

Greninja @ Life Orb
Ability: Protean
252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive
- Gunk Shot
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Shadow Sneak / U-Turn / Spikes

Uninvested, Hydro Pump and Ice Beam are enough to take care of most Water, Grass, Ice, Fire and Dragon types. Gunk Shot is powerful physically and only resisted by Grass, hitting Rock types and giving better SE coverage and power than Return. U-Turn is always nice for momentum, Shadow Sneak is crazy powerful priority, and hazards are just nice. Breaks the most common walls and is good against offense as well; it's hard to predict and can screw around with Protean.

Diggersby is best at offense... if you want Spikes, I would suggest Chesnaught or Accelgor.
 
since mons like diggs and staraptor are much more cancerous(even if they arent actually broken) than ninja here I dont see any reason it should be banned.
 
I also don't think that Greninja should be banned in Inverse. Thing is, Inverse Battle uses the Standard OU Banlist. Before Mega Salamence was banned in OU, it was usable in Inverse. Once it is banned in OU, it's no longer usable in Inverse.
It was automatically banned in Inverse because it was banned in OU.

While I think Mega Salamence is clearly broken even in Inverse and should be banned, Greninja isn't. So if Greninja get banned in Standard OU, will it also get banned automatically in Inverse?
 
I only have one thought on this metagame so far.

GOGOAT SHOULD GO DIE IN A HOLE ALREADY!!!

Sorry, I HAD to get that out.

My team sort of deserves the Gogoat weakness, having 3 weaknesses to Grass. I've only encountered it twice, but both times I had to stall to more lengths than most stall teams should to contain it. The first time I succeeded, but it took 145 turns and a ton of hax to stop it, while the second time I failed due to a miserable misprediction.

The Replays:
1. http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/inversebattle-196634112
2. http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/inversebattle-196651752

Will need to fix this problem, will have more to say once I do. :D
 
I only have one thought on this metagame so far.

GOGOAT SHOULD GO DIE IN A HOLE ALREADY!!!

Sorry, I HAD to get that out.

My team sort of deserves the Gogoat weakness, having 3 weaknesses to Grass. I've only encountered it twice, but both times I had to stall to more lengths than most stall teams should to contain it. The first time I succeeded, but it took 145 turns and a ton of hax to stop it, while the second time I failed due to a miserable misprediction.

The Replays:
1. http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/inversebattle-196634112
2. http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/inversebattle-196651752

Will need to fix this problem, will have more to say once I do. :D
if you reached 145 turns you should be happy you reached closer to the average turn number in lord arians battles
maybe you should use a water type.
 
I know. I've been thinking about that. Not easy to find a good one sadly.
Gastrodon doubly resists and has two different STAB super effective options. Also Swampert, Quagsire, etc.

Starmie is actually quite good in Inverse.

Gyarados is still a surprisingly good Pokemon, though it has to be Mega to actually resist Grass.

Buncha Water/Ice types that are actually pretty good, including Walrein.

Crawdaunt is excellent, if a bit Specially fragile.

Keldeo is still excellent in Inverse.

And there's plenty of other more debatable options.
 
My team sort of deserves the Gogoat weakness, having 3 weaknesses to Grass. I've only encountered it twice, but both times I had to stall to more lengths than most stall teams should to contain it. The first time I succeeded, but it took 145 turns and a ton of hax to stop it, while the second time I failed due to a miserable misprediction.
Just give either Avalugg, Chansey, or Cresselia toxic (and don't let the toxic user die before they poison Gogoat) and Gogoat should be a non-issue. There's no reason to run rest over milk drink which means Gogoat is usually very weak to status.

So now that Greninja got suspected in ORAS OU. If it's banned there, will it get banned here as well?
I'm pretty sure it will be by default, though I'm pretty sure if the Inverse community's consensus is that Greninja isn't broken, The Eevee General will unban it as soon as it's banned
 
Just give either Avalugg, Chansey, or Cresselia toxic (and don't let the toxic user die before they poison Gogoat) and Gogoat should be a non-issue. There's no reason to run rest over milk drink which means Gogoat is usually very weak to status.
If that is the case, wouldn't Burns be better? Besides that most, if not all, reliable wispers are weak to the moves it commonly runs?

Gastrodon doubly resists and has two different STAB super effective options. Also Swampert, Quagsire, etc.

Starmie is actually quite good in Inverse.

Gyarados is still a surprisingly good Pokemon, though it has to be Mega to actually resist Grass.

Buncha Water/Ice types that are actually pretty good, including Walrein.

Crawdaunt is excellent, if a bit Specially fragile.

Keldeo is still excellent in Inverse.

And there's plenty of other more debatable options.
I was thinking from a more defensive position, not offensive. Because Water has so many weaknesses in Inverse, it is really hard to find a good one. :(
 
Then I shall just repeat two parts of that.

Walrein. (Ice covers half of Water's weaknesses, albeit it exaggerates its Ice weakness. Thick Fat, by the way)

Gastrodon. (Remember: Recover)

There's also Lapras, for that matter. There's plenty of fairly good defensive Water types, though definitely fewer than good offensive ones.
 
I found Gogoat to be very predictable, and even pokemon it's supposed to counter (Volcarona and Charizard-Y) can screw it over with Will O Wisp. It doesn't have too much immediate power either, so you have a lot of time to phase or status it.

I'd also like to see Viability Rankings for Inverse.

Vaporeon is an acceptable defensive water. It can phase, act as a cleric, and pass pretty hefty wishes. Milotic and Alomomola are decent too.
 
I'm pretty sure it will be by default, though I'm pretty sure if the Inverse community's consensus is that Greninja isn't broken, The Eevee General will unban it as soon as it's banned
So it will be banned in Inverse at the same time it's banned from OU?

Because there are so many difference between Standard OU and Inverse's banlist, would it be better if Inverse didn't follow Standard OU banlist? That'll prevent from having too much unbans or anything. Inverse is very different from OU. Greninja being broken in OU doesn't mean it's broken in Inverse. Same goes for the unbanned Steel types.
 
So Serperior is coming out soon...


Devastator (Serperior) @ Life Orb
Ability: Contrary
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Leaf Storm
- Giga Drain
- Gastro Acid / Hidden Power [Fire]
- Substitute / Hidden Power [Fire]

While in standard it looks to end up BL or so, this thing seems completely and utterly broken in Inverse considering the only things that can really stand up to it are sap sippers, which have a very hard time dealing with gastro acid, and sub-par resists. It doesn't really require any additional coverage bar grass considering both how grass resists are awfully mediocre, but Hidden Power [Fire] is still an option for hitting Water and Rock types slightly harder. Your counters are pretty much limited to things like specially defensive water types, dual sap sipper cores, and Tyranitar (Perhaps the only viable option, and the one most prone to being trapped by Gothitelle).

Here are some of the most common resists in the tier and how they fare against Serperior (Keep in mind 33,3%+ is a 2HKO):

252 SpA Life Orb Serperior Leaf Storm vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Diggersby: 120-140 (32 - 37.4%) -- 91.8% chance to 3HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Serperior Leaf Storm vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Crawdaunt: 155-183 (46.9 - 55.4%) -- 72.7% chance to 2HKO (Can OHKO back with Aqua Jet, but can only switch into one Leaf Storm)
252 SpA Life Orb Serperior Leaf Storm vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mamoswine: 144-172 (40.1 - 47.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Serperior Leaf Storm vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Keldeo: 104-123 (32.1 - 38%) -- 96.3% chance to 3HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Serperior Leaf Storm vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Terrakion: 104-123 (32.1 - 38%) -- 96.3% chance to 3HKO

So, basically, there is nothing offensive teams can reliably switch into this thing bar Tyranitar, and while stall teams are better off and have a fair amount of counters, they will have to run sub-par stuff to even think of standing up to it. Choice scarf is also a possibility that utterly tramples over most offensive team in the metagame in exchange for the inability to touch sap sippers.

I know it's not released yet so I won't cry for a ban yet, but I see very little doubt in my mind that this will end up overwhelming for the tier when it is.
 
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