When exactly did the Psychic-type start to fall off in-game?

Volt-Ikazuchi

Volt-Ikazuchi

Psychic is washed.png

It's a well-known fact that the Psychic-type is washed-up. Competitively, it's easy to see why, but as a reminder, let's see what happened between RBY and GSC.

  1. The Ghost type had its interaction with Psychic fixed and gained reliable STAB in Shadow Ball, a widely-distributed TM.
  2. The Dark and Steel types were introduced, Steel being another resistance to Psychic, and Dark being outright immune.
  3. Psychic (The move) got nerfed from a 33% chance of lowering both SpA and SpD to a 10% chance of lowering SpD.
  4. The Special stat was split between SpA and SpD, and many Psychic-types had their base SpD nerfed.

Yet, unlike its competitive performance in that gen, GSC Alakazam is a contender for best in-game mon EVER. So when exactly did things go wrong for Psychics in-game? How bad did they fall off?
 
Alakazam being a monster in game is less due to its type and more that you can get it at LV16 because trade evos are a stupid mechanic. In GSC it also had the elemental punches.

Personally I think they fell off starting in Gen 2, the perception was simply skewed by lots of Psychic type legendaries and classic Mons like Alakazam and Mewtwo leaving a lasting impression. Most Psychics I used in game over the years were a disappointment, and the few that impressed me probably did it moreso because of their secondary typing. (Hello Bronzong:zonger:)

The offensive output is not that great in terms of super effective hits, and defensively its really lacking, despite Dark/Bug weakness being less severe ingame compared to competetive.

I wish they would buff it just a little:psygrump:
 
The thing about the Psychic-type in-game is that Abra is just busted whenever it shows up. You don't have to baby it as much as Magikarp(especially given it has the best early-game XP curve) and it comes with a useful utility move, and then at lvl 16 it gets 120 Spa, 105 speed, and a good TM movepool. And it's a gen 1 mon and iconic, so Abra is available early-on a LOT. And other psychics are built to compete with that, which keeps all of them really good. The fact that their STAB is mostly unresisted in-game(Dark and Steel are both rare and obviously telegraphed when they show up) doesn't hurt either.

Looking at it, the XY list puts Fenniken in A tier and basically every other Psychic in B, which is very respectable and one of the latest games we have tier lists for. SM is similar.

Now that doesn't mean there's no downsides. USUM famously is HEAVY on the random bug coverage on everything(arguably purely to discourage Zoroark) which hurts Psychics a lot. And they're mostly frail, so anything that does survive is going to be a problem. But I'm usually pretty happy to add a psychic to my team, even now.
 
Probably DPP, when more Dark types (who now can be physical) started appearing, more Steels too and Sucker Punch became a thing. Dark-Poison typing specifically is a nightmare for Psychics to deal with, especially since the Mon with said typing tend to be quite bulky and don,t lack power either.

From Nuzlocke perspective, the Psychic type was only good in Gen 1 and 2, after that the defensive value went down quickly and the offensive value more slowly but still went down as well. There is an interesting case in Hypno, in which after being a sturdy unkillable wall for 2 Gens (also hitting hard in Gen 1), it both lost the ability to have invested EVs in every Stats and gained Insomnia in Gen 3, meaning it now can,t use Rest (in Gen 4 it gained another ability though), therefore being a bad wall but bad at attacking too. Its only useful niche in Gen 3 is actually killing opposing Psychic types with Shadow Ball, while easily walling them.
 
If I'm being honest, I really don't think Psychic-Types ever fell off completely in single player. The thing to keep in mind here is that even though the Type's matchup spread got a lot worse in Gen 2, newer games are sporadically giving useful buffs to specific Psychic-Types that helps them compete with casual play fan favorites like Kadabra/Alakazam (depending on if you can do the trade evolution) and Gardevoir. Even in Sword & Shield, a game that actively incentivizes the Fairy-Type being able to function as a replacement of the Psychic-Type and has Dark and Steel-Type specialists, the Psychic-Type Pokémon that did make it in can still find a use in this volatile environment thanks to decreased competition, generally good secondary types alongside Psychic, and access to one of the better Max Moves in my opinion in the form of Max Mindstorm.

Psychic-Types are still able to make use of beneficial matchups against the Poison-Types used by a lot of, if not most evil teams as well as the relative scarcity of strong checks in the earlygame. Up until Gen 7, all Dark-Type specialists in the series were Elite Four members, and even Nanu and Piers are fought in the back half of their games, leaving the Dark-Type Team Star base as the only early-game use of Dark-Types that I can think of. Steel-Type opponents are a bit more common, but by the time they show up most Psychic-Types have ways around problematic threats. Their bad matchups against Dark, Steel, and Ghost depending on the generation and region are made up for with the aforementioned common Poison-Types as well as Fighting-Types, which are one of the most commonly seen specialist Types across the series with every region so far having someone who uses them (Bruno, Chuck, Brawly, Maylene, Marshal, Korrina, Hala, Bea, and Eri respectively). It certainly helps that in most regions, there's usually at least one excellent Psychic-Type available and a number of okay to decent Psychics behind them. Almost every region has the Abra family, Hoenn has Ralts, Sinnoh has Bronzor, Unova has Sigilyph, and so on.
 
I'd probably go with gen 4, for three main reasons:
  1. Many early Psychics relied on the Elemental Punches for coverage, and those moves are now physical
  2. Giving decent physical and special options for each type didn't benefit Psychic as much since it already had a strong move and leaned Special while Special Ghosts, Physical Darks, and Bugs in general got a large increase in viability (Pursuit might also be scarier to Psychic as a physical move compared to before).
  3. Sucker Punch and U-turn are really good moves that happen to hit Psychic super-effectively.
 
Leif98 said:
Alakazam being a monster in game is less due to its type and more that you can get it at LV16 because trade evos are a stupid mechanic. In GSC it also had the elemental punches.
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GSC was a perfect storm for Alakazam.

Abra being immediately viable on capture (And even soft-resettable too because it could be a game corner mon) was HUGE. Having unresisted coverage that was solely dependent on how much bread you had pretty much turned it into First Form Frieza on Namek.

Then it evolved, got STAB, and said STAB was one of the best typings to run through Johto's pockets with all the Poison fodder around.
At that point, pack it up. It's pretty much the only mon that I'd seriously consider ranking S+. :mehowth:


Ralts in RSE is no slouch either. There was some controversy about it being S-Tier or not, but I gotta make two points about it.
The first is that RSE had a LOT of Dark-types as early as the first route AND non-rival Trainer and Ralts was still able to pull its weight.
The second is that Game Freak NEVER allowed it to have Calm Mind and Psychic that early again.

Once Ralts hit that Lv. 21, it was over for Hoenn too. I genuinely have a lot more fun using Ralts than Abra. It has such a versatile movepool and ability.

I'd guess Gen 4 really was when things started to slow down for Psychics. I dunno if it's Sinnoh just having a lot of bonkers options and legit threatening bosses, but I'm pretty sure even the Trade Abra with HP Ice in DP wasn't making waves.

Fantina pulling up with Shadow Ball Mismagius and Jupiter snatching souls with Skuntank might have closed the book on Abra's dominance, but I'd have to run some tests.
 
Seconding on Sinnoh game.

Kirlia really got hit hard by making its crucial move learnt later (Calm Mind from L21 to L25, Psychic from L26 to L31), which made Pre-Gardevoir phase awful, not to mentioned, Ralts was also horrible on routes, i had mine somehow struggling to 1v1 a Machop. As Gardevoir, 80 Speed felt middling in this game.

This is also the game where i had high expectation for Kadabra being as good as in other game, but it ended up performing mediocre overall (more like a C Tier mon if you ask me), both the wild one and Kazza. Here's my Kadabra experience during the test run in Platinum, both wild and Kazza, and i don't know if i would blame the game's difficulty here:

Gardenia - Really needs Psybeam, you don't sweep with Confusion (you only beat Turtwig and Roserade)
Fantina - Shadow Sneak and Sucker Punch can be annoying.
Maylene - can't reliably sweep a Fighting Gym Leader unlike Torterra or Gliscor, Meditite dealt half HP with Fake Out, so not even Inner Focus may save you here. You only 2HKO Lucario while it shreds you if Meditite went for Fake out (Kazza gets outsped by Lucario)
Wake - Kazza has a roll to 1HKO Gyarados with Specs Shock Wave thanks to +SpA Nature
Byron - only beats Magneton
Candice - Borderline F Tier, everyone one shots you, and Kadabra doesn't one shot back with Specs Psychic(You need Specs Grass Knot to 1HKO Piloswine)
Cyrus (HQ) - F Tier. Crobat one shots you unless you have super high HP and Def IVs or something
Cyrus (Distortion) - same as above, Crobat likely demolishes you. Kazza can 1HKO Gyarados with Specs Shock Wave thanks to +SpA Nature tho
Volkner - F Tier, Kadabra doesn't one shot anything and gets one shotted back (Jolteon is faster, Kazza gets outsped by Raichu and Electivire)
Aaron - Beats Yanmega and Heracross, and that's it
Bertha - Good, but you can't reliably deal with Whiscash, it lives a hit and had a chance to one shot you back, and even if you lived a hit, Hippowdon comes in next
Flint - F Tier, everyone one shots you and you don't 1HKO back (Infernape is faster)
Lucian - Even with Specs Shadow Ball, you only beat Mr. Mime and still loses against the rest. (Kazza gets outsped and may run into issue like fast Light Screen)
Cynthia - its Cynthia, but i like to mention Kazza gets outsped and 1HKO'd by Roserade unlike the wild one.

In other games, Abra joins with some sort of conviniency, GSC has Abra join at the point where you can buy elemental punches, RSE has EXP Share instantly available if you backtrack, FRLG had Abra joined at like L13, and there's like Thief TM nearby(which is special in that game), HGSS has Abra joined at L15, which is one level away from evolving. In DPP? technically. The earliest wild Abra joins at L4-5, which is lower than RSE, and you don't get EXP Share at that point until Gym2. While DP has Hidden Power at that point, Platinum isn't and it was absolutely a painful experience. Yeah, Kazza exist, but it had 2 issue;

1. obedience. Kazza will stay disobedient until after Gym 2, and it doesn't stop there, the obedient cap is now L30 until after Maylene, so you have to be careful.

2. Nature. Kazza is locked to Quiet, and while the +SpA is great, the reduced Speed nature really hampered it in some fight

Volt-Ikazuchi said:
Fantina pulling up with Shadow Ball Mismagius and Jupiter snatching souls with Skuntank might have closed the book on Abra's dominance, but I'd have to run some tests.
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Kadabra/Alakazam can beat Skuntank with Substitute, Disable, Miracle Eye, Psybeam, though that's super gimmicky, i know. And speaking of, I wonder if Kadabra/Alakazam can potentially 1v1 Fantina's Mismagius with Sub + Disable? (I haven't actually done it myself during my test run, Kazza as Kadabra gets outsped by Mismagius tho, unsure from Kazza as Zam)
 
One thing to keep in mind is that it's a team game. I don't expect my Psychics to be 1vs1ing Darks, if I have to stick Kadabra at the back of my team for Piers/Karen/etc, it's fine. But Psychics route sweep very well and are great for walking into most gyms with SE coverage and a potent STAB from very early levels. Whereas plenty of types(Fire, Ghost, etc) are great for Route clearing and when they have a good matchup but don't have much for a random Flying boss and have to slug it out with neutral hits.

Basically, if I go into the water gym with a Grass type with Giga Drain and a Kadabra with TBolt, I feel much happier than if I just have one of those. And Psychics are really good at always having something to help. It's maybe not quite as good as Gen II's busted Elemental Punches Abra, but I pretty much always assume that a Psychic will be able to contribute significantly in the vast majority of situations I encounter in-game. And that's a level of power I only assume for Psychic, Ghost, Steel, Dragon, and maybe Water.
 
I'd say Gen II, for the simple reason that in Gen I there's not a single Pokemon with advantageous typing to Psychic which is actually capable of standing up to them. In Gen II Bug and Ghost didn't yet have the massive improvements later generations would give them but there's already a swathe of Pokemon of those types very much capable of taking on a Psychic-type and winning the fight. That's even before you take into account Dark and Steel.

Gen III solidifies that but the "fall off" very much started in Gen II. It's still one of the better types overall in the early gens (and arguably still is) but it's only uber-dominant in Gen I.
 
I'd say Gen 4. Galactic's type speciality is arguably Dark - with loads of trainers carrying Stunky, Houndour, Murkrow, Sneasel, and their evolutions. And it also feels like a lot of stray mons by this point have a Bite or Faint Attack in their level-up movepool that really hinders Psychics as well.

I don't think a single crucial boss is really ploughed through due to a Psychic Pokemon's typing like in previous games. Even Maylene has two of her three Pokemon who are neutral to Psychic, and no Poison type bosses. Feels like the typing started to become more of a hinderance rather than an asset at this stage, against crucial bosses like the Galactic leaders, Fantina, Aaron, and even Lucian to an extent.
 
I'm seeing a lot of people say Gen 4 is where Psychic-Types started falling off, and while I stand by my previous post claiming the Type has enough going for it to where it never really truly "fell off"- even that phrase is heavily dependent on personal opinion- I decided to do some (very extensive) digging about what Gen 4 Sinnoh has to work with for the Psychic-Type. (Buckle up, because this is going to be a long post.)

The Psychic-Type in Pokémon Diamond & Pearl

:dp/alakazam: :dp/chimecho: :dp/medicham: :dp/bronzong: :dp/mr. mime: :dp/unown: :dp/girafarig: :dp/uxie: :dp/mesprit: :dp/azelf:

The above list of Pokémon consists of every fully evolved Pokémon in Diamond & Pearl's regional PokéDex. As we'll see in a moment, three of the type's best options aren't available here and were later added in Platinum's regional PokéDex expansion. In a region notorious for its lack of availability for certain Types, the Psychic-Type's available roster isn't the greatest but isn't the worst either. Three of the 10 available options are Legendaries that are found much later in the game, however, and Unown realistically doesn't count as a true Psychic-Type. That means you're only left with six options assuming you don't like to use Legendaries on your team, and out of those six, only the Abra, Meditite, and Bronzor families are able to consistently pull their own weight. Mr. Mime and Girafarig haven't yet received the buffs they would gain in later generations, and Chimecho is available too late relative to its base stats and its competition for a team slot. Alakazam and Medicham also don't have their Mega Evolutions yet, and Alakazam itself is still a trade evolution, meaning that some players will be stuck with Kadabra instead.

Moving onto important matchups and move availability, things aren't looking as great as you might expect. Abra is the only Psychic-Type available in time for Roark, and while Hidden Power Ice is usable for Geodude and Onix, this matchup falls apart thanks to Cranidos knowing Pursuit, and that's assuming Abra is playing at a level cap of 14 and is able to KO the Ground-Types in time. Abra's extremely poor physical bulk and Quiet nature make this an overall loss in my opinion. The battle against Mars in the Valley Windworks plays out similarly- while you should be okay against Zubat, it doesn't matter that much when Purugly and its Faint Attack are right there to outspeed and strike you down. Gardenia is a bit easier for Psychic-Types, notably winning against her strongest Pokémon Roserade and because Turtwig does not have Bite like I thought it did, but the following fight against Jupiter is just as bad for Psychic-Types as you'd expect with Skuntank at the ready. Psychic-Types finally get their first real win against Maylene, although thanks to Lucario it's more than likely not going to be a clean sweep. Crasher Wake is sadly probably another overall loss though, with Bite Gyarados and Pursuit Floatzel making things tricky for non-Bronzor Psychic-Types at this point in the game. Fantina and Byron are just as difficult as you might expect, Fantina's Ghost-Types moreso because at least with Byron you can maybe try and use some random coverage moves to get by? Maybe? It's around this point after Byron where Team Galactic battles start to become more prominent, and Psychic-Types are hit-or-miss against the grunts and are generally only useful against Saturn's Toxicroak and the Zubat family used by multiple members. Candice is a manageable fight with only Faint Attack on Sneasel posing an immediate threat, but enjoy it while it lasts because her Froslass's Shadow Ball in the Platinum version of this fight makes this much worse. All of Cyrus's battles can be counted as an overall loss for Psychic-Types with the Dark-Types he uses, before Psychic-Types earn a much more manageable matchup against Volkner only having to worry about non-STAB Crunch on his Luxray. His Platinum Gym battle will add the Bug-Type Signal Beam to his Raichu, so keep an eye out for that. I haven't mentioned the rival up until now because there's honestly not much to talk about with him, other than that Psychic-Types win against Infernape and Roserade on the best possible route where you chose Turtwig. In the Pokémon League, you lose pretty handily against Aaron's Bug-Type team and against Flint's Steelix and Drifblim, while most of Bertha's team is more manageable on average although she has Sucker Punch on Sudowoodo and Crunch on Hippowdon. Lucian's team I would have to call a difficult mirror match more than an actual win, while against Cynthia Psychic-Types hit another roadblock against Spiritomb and have a single win against Roserade. Not that Bronzong will perform noticeably worse in this fight if it doesn't have Levitate, thus making it vulnerable to Gastrodon, Lucario, and Garchomp's respective Earthquakes.

The Psychic-Type in Pokémon Platinum

:dp/gardevoir: :dp/gallade: :dp/espeon:

The full Diamond & Pearl section took way longer to write than I expected, so I'll try and keep this section brief. First, the good news. Gardevoir, Gallade, and Espeon are all pretty solid Psychic-Types to be added to the roster here, Gallade especially with its secondary Fighting-Type, and you also get some extra coverage options with the help of the Move Tutors. Unfortunately, that's where the good news quickly ends, as Platinum's slightly higher difficulty and different team compositions make things slightly harder for Psychic-Types overall here than they were in Diamond & Pearl. Most of the major NPC trainers' placement remains unchanged, but Psychic-Types notably suffer from Fantina being made available as the third Gym Leader, making an already hard matchup even tougher, as well as adding an extra battle against Cyrus. I already mentioned Shadow Ball Froslass and Signal Beam Raichu, but other miscellaneous NPCs also see moveset and team changes here that are otherwise a mixed bag for Psychic-Types Types on average. At least Flint isn't arguably a losing matchup anymore since he actually has a full Fire-Type team now, so that's something, I guess. Not much else to day here honestly, expect that Cynthia's Lucario has Shadow Ball this time around and that Diamond & Pearl's weaker Psychic-Types are still mediocre.

Final Conclusion

Would I say the Psychic-Type's downfall began in Gen 4 Sinnoh now? Ehh... probably not, since the Abra family can still do Abra things and because options like Bronzong and the Psychic/Fighting duo give the list of options some much-needed depth, but I would agree in saying that Sinnoh was probably the Psychic-Type's worst performance so far. I would argue that Psychic-Types are even worse off in the first set of Unova games and especially in the Ultra versions of Alola (B2W2 and base SuMo aren't easy either, but they have better type matchups in these versions). Psychic is also a bit overrated in the Hoenn games in my opinion but to a lesser extent than in Sinnoh, Unova, or Alola, as aside from the Abra and Ralts families, you really don't have that many options for type coverage depth to work with compared to the newer games. Ralts does get a bit better in the remakes in my opinion, but that's arguably because of the addition of the Fairy-Type more than the Psychic-Type itself being improved. I plan on making a full tier list of all the games this week for this thread based off of how good Psychic-Types are in each one, but overall, I can definitely see where you guys are coming from even if more in-depth analysis might be required. Thank you for reading this extremely long post, this took over an hour to write.
 
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It seems like people are basing their posts on different ideas of what it means for a type to 'fall off', which imo is fuelling the debate more than any actual disagreements about the specifics.

Gen 2 is where the Psychic type fell off in the sense that being a Psychic-type was no longer a guarantee of in-game or competitive utility. GSC Alakazam is still busted, sure, but that's because its stats and movepool line up perfectly and it gets strong early in a region where the level curve flattens off severely in the midgame, not because of its typing per se.

Gen 3 is where the Psychic type fell off in the sense that its bad matchups were suddenly much more prominent. RSE is where the Dark type became a ComMon type and, by extension, an evil team staple (although Alakazam and Gardevoir specifically can muscle past most Dark-type opponents because it's a special-attacking type). Competitively, Tyranitar's dominance makes Psychic mons hard to use in Gen 3 OU without exceptional stats, unique utility, or a useful secondary typing.

Gen 4 is where the Psychic type fell off in the sense that it now just felt like any other type. Alakazam is still great, but I distinctly remember being 10 years old and having my Kadabra OHKO'd by a Sucker Punch from a Galactic Grunt's Croagunk at Lake Valor; little moments like that removed some of its sheen. Other Psychic mons perform fine, well even, but the type's balance of strengths and weaknesses feels worse than 'good' types now and about in line with types that had previously been considered bad. With the physical-special split and a big increase in the number of moves, lacking decent STAB became a much rarer problem, so specially-inclined Psychic Pokemon both lost an advantage they'd had over other types for generations and gained more defensive vulnerabilities to Bug-, Dark-, and Ghost-types.

Sidenote: I feel like people are overrating Bronzong as an addition to the roster of Psychic-types? As a Steel-type enthusiast, I love Bronzor/Bronzong, but its performance in-game is pretty underwhelming. Its excellent defensive qualities make it annoying to face when an AI trainer is using it, but in the player's hands it takes lots of chip damage and doesn't have the offensive power to compensate for its Speed, so every battle takes longer than you'd like and it always needs healing.​

Gen 5 is where the Psychic type fell off in the sense that, well, Alakazam is gone. B2W2 provides a solid alternative in Espeon, but BW's new Psychic mons are generally pretty middling. Also, by this point, Psychic's complete lack of defensive utility is really starting to Bite (heh). To feel properly strong, a Psychic Pokemon in the modern games needs a great dual typing, overwhelming speed and power, a supremely busted ability, or some combination of the above.
 
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bdt2002 said:
Gallade especially with its secondary Fighting-Type, and you also get some extra coverage options with the help of the Move Tutors.
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Gallade doesn't need move tutors, it wants Heart Scales and preferably the Brick Break TM to not have to rely on Drain Punch's middling power and 5pp.

1 Heart Scale gets it Night Slash, instantly giving it unresisted coverage with his Fighting STAB of choice.

2 gives it Leaf Blade if you need something against Wake, but that probably means giving up Swords Dance. It's a surprisingly useful coverage move though.

The biggest problem with Gallade in Plat is how you usually need to think outside the box to put it in a position to succeed.

The Dawn Stone is right next to Pastoria, so you actually should stealth run all the way from Hearthome through Solaceon and Veilstone up to Pastoria. Iirc, the only mandatory battle in those routes is the Rival one.

Evolving Kirlia ASAP gives it access to solid options though, such as Slash at Lv. 22, Swords Dance at 25, and Psycho Cut at 31. Psycho Cut is definitely the most important of the lot as it's his main Psychic STAB.

So basically, to properly use Gallade in-game, you need to do this whole circuit just to evolve it and have at least a Heart Scale and you'll still have to deal with a Slow Exp. Group mon.

It's amazingly fun to use, but it requires a lot of setup.
 
Volt-Ikazuchi said:
Gallade doesn't need move tutors, it wants Heart Scales and preferably the Brick Break TM to not have to rely on Drain Punch's middling power and 5pp.

1 Heart Scale gets it Night Slash, instantly giving it unresisted coverage with his Fighting STAB of choice.

2 gives it Leaf Blade if you need something against Wake, but that probably means giving up Swords Dance. It's a surprisingly useful coverage move though.

The biggest problem with Gallade in Plat is how you usually need to think outside the box to put it in a position to succeed.

The Dawn Stone is right next to Pastoria, so you actually should stealth run all the way from Hearthome through Solaceon and Veilstone up to Pastoria. Iirc, the only mandatory battle in those routes is the Rival one.

Evolving Kirlia ASAP gives it access to solid options though, such as Slash at Lv. 22, Swords Dance at 25, and Psycho Cut at 31. Psycho Cut is definitely the most important of the lot as it's his main Psychic STAB.

So basically, to properly use Gallade in-game, you need to do this whole circuit just to evolve it and have at least a Heart Scale and you'll still have to deal with a Slow Exp. Group mon.

It's amazingly fun to use, but it requires a lot of setup.
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This is just personal opinion, but I still consider the Heart Scale method as a form of move tutor. You're talking to an NPC and you give them something as payment in exchange for being able to learn a new move (or I guess an old move technically speaking). Sounds similar enough to me :sphearical:
 
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Here's a tier list I made, ranking (almost) every main series game by how good Psychic-Types are in it. Admittedly this was a ranking I've been working on for a while now- I had intended this to be ready back in March- but I could not for the life of me decide on where a lot of the low-tier games for Psychic-Types should go. This iteration of the list is just what I'm feeling right now and my opinions could always change over time. In fact, by the time this post goes live, I'll probably have already changed my mind on a few placements. If I had to rank the regions themselves from worst to best, which is how I made most of this tier list, my list would look something like this:

9. Alola
8. Unova
7. Hoenn
6. Galar
5. Paldea
4. Sinnoh
3. Kalos
2. Johto
1. Kanto
 
We all know that Psychic was busted in Gen 1 but it’s still incredibly good in the other 2 gameboy gens. On paper it only has 2 resistances and 2 SE hits contrast with 3 weaknesses, an immunity and 2 types that resist it but when you break it down you realize it still isn’t balanced. Heracross is the only wielder of a truly strong SE move but he’s got average speed and a psychic weakness. Banette and Rhydon have 120 power physical SE from >114 Atk but Rhydon is slow and specially frail and Banette is well…Banette. Tyranitar is the sex and Houndoom and Sharpedo are decent crunch users but Psychics have calm mind and most have better spdef. A lot of the early legendaries were psychic and all 4 mythicals. Being psychic almost guarantees you a solid support movepool. There’s quite a few psychics that have special dual types and some of the pures get the punches.

I think gen 4 was the start of the slippery slope for psychics. Physical crunch and special shadow ball. Physical pursuit, sucker punch, u-turn. All of a sudden being poison doesn’t always mean you’re psychic weak but can sometimes mean the opposite. 2 more fighting types have neutrality. Payback is good in this gen and there’s some solid bug users.
 
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Something I wanted to mention that came to my attention lately: is it possible that the Psychic-Type quote, "fell off" in single player only? I understand we generally avoid talking about multiplayer in OI, but not too long ago I found myself exploring the past generations of (the) Monotype metagames, since I've always had an underlying interest in statistics and have been wondering which types were at their best and worst at different times. My ideas basically to look at how each Type was ranked relative to each other, a task theoretically made easy by the existing "Type VR" lists for Generations 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. (I guess Gens 2 and 3 never had a fully developed Monotype metagame or something, but I digress.) And what I found was... actually pretty fascinating.

Basically, my findings can be summarized by saying "the Psychic-Type is noticeably better in multiplayer than in single player because of the far greater list of available Pokémon to pick from". Seeing Psychic, Normal, and then Water after the consensus Top 2 for Gen 1's Type VR wasn't too surprising, but I also saw Psychic at or near the top of the list for multiple generations it would theoretically have no business being at the top of. All these posts saying Psychic-Types fell off in Gen 4, for example? Yeah, apparently Psychic is at the very top of that Type VR, alongside the Steel-Type I thought would be ranked #1. Psychic then places in the top 2 again in Gens 5 and 6's Monotype Type VRs, before losing a fourth straight Top 2 appearance that I'm assuming was because of Tapu Lele's ban from Gen 7 Monotype play.

Looking at the list of viable Pokémon in these later generations, I can definitely see why this is the case- but this also brings one of the Psychic-Type's biggest flaws into the picture. Their best representees either aren't available for the purpose of single player, or if they are, they come too late in their respective games (see Beldum in Hoenn) or don't have access to all of the same traits and benefits that makes the Pokémon work in a competitive setting. If you go through the list and take a look at several of the most iconic Psychic-Types across multiple generations- Starmie, Metagross, Azelf, the Mythicals- you'll notice a pattern, that these Pokémon aren't good because of their Psychic typing. In fact, it's not too uncommon in later generations of multiplayer to see the more utility-based Psychic-Types not run a Psychic-Type STAB move at all. For the purpose of in-game playthroughs, however, where good availability and access to reliable STAB is... maybe even more important depending on the game?, this is where the best Psychic-Types really drop in viability. The type's poor matchup spread post-nerf only gets highlighted more when the types around Psychic that got better over time (such as Dark) can take advantage of the combination of poor availability and poor species distribution.
 
As far as in-game goes, the Psychic type probably fell off the most starting in gen 3 & 4. And when I mean fell off, I mean it isn't a top 5 typing anymore but just good or average. Psychic never really got awful. It just isn't the absolutely bonkers typing it once was.

Psychic was arguably like the gen 5 Dragon or gen 6 Fairy typing. The best Pokemon of those types just spam its strong STAB moves, that will almost always hit at least neutrally, coming from great stats. Coverage is barely ever needed for those Pokemon.

Gen 1 and 2 was basically a freebie for Psychics because Team Rocket and a ton of the remaining Pokemon were awful Poison types that they just blow through. Gen 2 technically introduced a lot of counters to Psychic types but they were barely a presence in singleplayer. You can count the Dark and Steel types you have to fight on one hand, and Ghost and Bug types don't resist your strong Psychics and were either a joke or part Poison.

Gen 3 had significant nerfs for Psychic types.
Not too much because of more present Dark types, tough. Because only the Poochyena and Carvanha lines are really encountered often. NPCs with Carvanha / Sharpedo often don't actually carry Bite or Crunch, instead opting for physical options like Slash, and the Poochyena line is such a joke that Psychics often beat them regardless with coverage. The few other Dark types like Cacturne aren't really present until the Elite Four, which is probably the only really bad matchup location for most Psychics in Hoenn.
The much bigger nerf is the loss of stat exp. Suddenly the Psychics couldn't be strong, fast AND bulky at the same time, and defenses started to matter a little more. Since Psychics mostly hit neutrally in Hoenn, the Psychic types have to take more hits, which the best two, Kadabra and Kirlia, really don't like. Also, the movepool of basically all Psychic types in Hoenn is really lacking, almost as bad as in gen 1. The best coverage moves like the elemental punches are now post-game unlike in gen 2. So only the medicore Thief and Shock Wave TMs are available as coverage moves for most Psychic types. They still do the job against other Psychic types and most Dark types but you certainly realize that things got worse since gen 2.

In gen 4 most Psychics are doing fine but they aren't as strong as the type used to be. Even more bad matchups and most importantly with the fix of the physical special split and the NPC Pokemon becoming less crap, just hitting with neutral STAB is often not good enough anymore. The following gens only made this point hit home harder and today Psychic is a pretty average typing in-game. Not bad, but other types often match up better.
 
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A lot of ppl are saying that was gen 4, what is not wrong, but Psychic Type Fall started at gen 4, but Unova also made that even worse for Psychics, strong Dark Types where introduced, like Bisharp and Hydreigon, and Gen 6 it was even worse, with Fairy Type introduction, and doing basically same stuff as Psychic, but better:puff:

Fairy Type is literally Psychic but better, dealing super effective on Fighting, just like Psychic, on Dark, type that is imune against Psychic, and on Dragon

And with only 2 Types that can super effective on Fairy (Steel and Poison) made Psychic (with 3 supereffectives and 1 immunity) very bad

Yo, I talked more about Fairy than about Psychic, lmao
 
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