User blog:Shadyknight121/Proposal for the 19th Pokemon Type

As of Generation VI there are currently 18 pokemon types. Some people find this very confusing. A friend of mine with some insight once said: "Games should be simple." I agree with him on that. If too many new types are introduced it becomes a law of diminshing returns and makes the game needlessly complex. However, I think there is room for one more type: The plasma type. This proposed type would represent plasma, the 4th state of matter, light, and the cosmos in general. Here are the proposed defensive and offensive characteristics of the type:

Defense:

Resistances: Electric, Steel, Ghost, Dark, Grass

Immunity: Fire

Weaknesses: Water, Ice

Damaged normally by all other types.

Offense:

Super Effective: Electric, Steel, Ghost

Weak Against: Water, Ice, Psychic

No Effect: none

Does normal damage to all other types

Explanation for the type matchups:

Defense: (Electric) Plasma is essentially a hot ionized gas. Applying electricity would only energize it. (Steel) Even the most durable metals will melt at very high temperatures. (Ghost) Ghosts don't like bright lights. (Dark) Light can drive out darkness but darkness can't drive out light. Darkness can only exist as an absence of light. (Grass) Plants are often very flamable, they wouldn't do well in very high temperatures. (Fire 0x) Plasma usually exists at very high temperatures. When you apply fire to something you're heating it up (obviously), by adding heat to plasma you don't hurt it, you give it more energy.

Weaknesses: (Water) Light has to be concentrated to do a lot of damage (ie. a laser). Water bends and distorts light, making it less concentrated. Also, water is very good at rapidly cooling something hot. (Ice) Similar thing, but ice is even colder so it can be even better at rapidly cooling hot material. The weaknesses of plasma are based on it needing to maintain a constant high temperature to be effective.

Offense:

Super Effective: (Electric) Naturally occuring plasmas like solar wind and lightning are very good at disabiling electronic devices. (Steel) All metals will melt if they get hot enough. The best sword in the world becomes useless as a weapon if it melts. (Ghost) Ghosts usually hate bright lights and may be redered powerless by direct sunlight.

Note: Although it would make sense for plasma to be super effective against dark, I decided against that because Fairy is already super effective against dark. No need to punish dark types too much!

Not Very Effective: (Water) + (Ice) These types would resist plasma for the reasons stated earlier. (Psychic) Mystics and psychics claim to be able to foretell the future by reading the movements of the stars and planets. Also psychics claim to be able to tap into cosmic power. They would be better than most at resisting someone's attempt to use this type of power against them.

Other Properties:

Plasma would the fastest type overall with good special attack, average attack and HP, and below average defensive stats. I envision it as a "glass canon" type similar to fire, but taken to the extreme. One of the reasons I want there to be a plasma type is partly to balance out the electric type. Electric is super effective against water and flying, two very common types with a sole weakness to ground. If you've been frustrated by a fast electric type using magnet rise to turn their one weakness into an immunity temporarily then you can understand why I think this is reasonable. Contrast the electric type with normal. Normal type moves aren't super effective against anything! I know many normal types have diverse move pools. Still though, I think there would be more balance in the game if normal was the only type with one weakness. I have a feeling that some readers might complain about this, saying something like: "You want them to create a new type just to make other types worse. That's lame!" That's not exactly true though. I see the plasma type as being a platform for potentially introducing a new status ailment: irradiation. I came up with the idea for the irradiated status when I looked at the main status conditions that currently exist: poison, paralysis, burn, confusion, sleep, frozen, infatuation, and fainted. I saw that burn does damage every turn and halves physical attack (unless something like guts is in play). Looking over the list I saw that there isn't a volatile status condition that does damage every turn that halves special attack. Why is that? Isn't it possible that the game could be more balanced if there were something like that? It certainly could help when facing good special attackers like Chandelure, Alakazam, and Magnezone. I envision plasma types as being immune to the irradiation status condition.

Balance Issues:

In order to keep the game balanced there are certain things that I'd include. For example, plasma types WOULD NOT be immune to paralysis (unlike electric types) or any status conditions other than irradiation in normal gameplay. Although it would have 5 resistances and an immunity this would be balanced by its weaknesses to water and ice, both of which are common offensively. Base stats for plasma types other than speed and special attack would usually be average or below average. Even though plasma types in general would be able to use electric moves to counter water and fire to counter ice, relatively few would be able to learn powerful moves of both types like thunderbolt and flamethrower. Not all plasma attacks would be able to cause irradiation. Additionally, berries could be created, one to reduce damage from super effective plasma attacks (Cadmi berry, a reference to cadmuim), and another to cure irradiation (Ivory berry). New moves like rip tide (a damaging water type attack that switches out the user) and frost claw (a damaging ice type attack that may score a critical hit and/or freeze the target, high critical hit chance) could be invented and taught to electric, ghost, and steel types to help cover this additional weakness.

Possible Plasma Type Pokemon:

Which pokemon could be plasma type? Possibilities include pokemon like ditto due to its shapshifting abilities, volcarona due to its association with the sun, magcargo, and rotom. Alternatively, larvesta could be given a branched evolution with another final form like heliosect bug/plasma. A new eeveelution could be introduced: quatreon (from quatro, Spanish for "four" refering to the fourth state of matter. A plasma/flying counterpart to talonflame would be interesting.

Proposed Plasma Type Moves:

piercing gaze: a special attack, the higher the target's defense stat the greater the power.

comet tail: a physical attack with 90% accuracy. damage dealing with no secondary effect.

solar wind: a weak attack that may irradiate the target.

solar flare: a strong, inaccurate attack that may irradiate the target. If the weather is sunny this move has perfect accuracy.

deionize: prevents both the user and the target from using electric type moves for three turns.

radiation bath: the target is irradiated 75% accuracy.

x-ray vision: prevents the target from raising its evasivness or reducing the users accuracy for 5 turns.

pinpoint laser: 60 power, never misses

Items Related to the Plasma Type:

solid smoke: a held item that boosts plasma moves by 20%.

sublimation plate: a plate to be held by arceus. It changes arceus' type to plasma, boosts plasma moves by 20%.

cadmi berry: reduces damage from one super effective plasma attack

ivory berry: cures irradiation

iris stone: a stone that shine with all the colors of the rainbow. It causes certain species of pokemon to evolve.

So what are your thoughts about all this? Do you like it? Dislike it? Feel neutral? If you really like it you can spread the word about my idea if you use my username on this site. Let me know what you think but be respectful regardless.

Have a great day!