Opinions on the Fairy type

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Even nowadays, I wouldn't call ghost a better offensive type than Dragon.

Dragon is weak against steel, does nothing against fairy and is super effective against itself.

Ghost is weak against dark, SE against itself and psychic and does nothing against normal.

Still, the strongest ghost attack is Shadow ball, with a BP of 80. Dragon has Outrage and DM, extremely powerful moves (and it also has dragon claw, which has the same BP of SB).

And lets be honest, dealing SE damage to dragon alone is better than doing SE damage to ghost and psychic types, considering there are many dragons in OU, while gengar and aegislash are the only prevalent ghosts and psychic types are even rarer.

Dragons generally get 2HKOed at worst by Shadow Ball from either Quiet Aegislash or Timid LO Gengar, so the SE advantage is slightly overstated, in my opinion (the only exceptions that come to mind are Goodra and Multiscale Dragonite). The existence of Steel-types, which are a bit more common than Dragon-types whether or not Genesect and Mega Lucario are neglected, makes it more difficult to spam Dragon-type moves than Ghost-type moves. Even putting aside the obvious drawbacks of Draco Meteor and Outrage, having to predict whether you should use Dragon Claw or whether you should predict the incoming Steel-type and use a coverage move is bothersome and can often result in a wasted turn if you guess wrong.

In contrast, you won't have to predict as often (and for this reason are less likely to waste your turn) which attack you select if using an Aegislash since many teams lack Ghost-type resistances. Mandibuzz, Chesnaught, and Tyranitar aren't always capable of handling Aegislash because of Flash Cannon (2HKO on physically defensive Mandibuzz and Chesnaught) and Toxic. Crunch from a +0 Tyranitar doesn't OHKO Aegislash-Shield. It's true, though, that Bisharp's Pursuit forces Aegislash to guess.

Back on topic: Fairy-types are nifty; maybe not metagame-defining, but somewhat useful. Dragons like Latios and Garchomp have good STAB options to work around them, but Fairies nonetheless make Dragon-type attacks less effective. My favorite is Unaware Clefable, who makes a great partner for Unaware Quagsire.

Edited February 19, 2014 by Miikaya