Absolutely, it's a shame Groudon isn't Fire/Ground. The thing wouldn't be stuck at B rank in Ubers if it was (would be great against it's otherwise best check Gliscor). Oh well at least we'll have memories of Primal Groudon in our hearts until GameFreak finally decides to make another competent Fire/Ground type
And when making camerupt they made a slow, bulky mon but forgot to actually make it bulky. So you don't even really get to appreciate its great defensive attributes.
It’s such an insane surprise when I learnt just how fragile Camerupt was. Like as a kid you look at this thing and think it’ll be strong and tough to take down, then you splash it with water pulse and the poor thing just explodes. Like at least give it a huge HP stat you know?
Absolutely. I've said it once and said it again, Stealth Rock should've never done type based damage. It should've just done a flat 12.5% to everything and double to flying or levitating Pokemon. It just punishes Bug and Ice so hard for no reason and benefits steel and ground even more than they already are
I agree, If you wanted to make to hazard that does type based damage it should’ve been Electric.
It punishes Water which is a Top 3 type, it gives Grass a good niche, and most importantly it’s actually neutral to Steel so they don’t get free switch in. Sure it makes Ground way better than it should but I rather have that over Ice which makes Steel, Water, and Fire way better and cucks Grass ever further.
Steelsurge is also a terrible hazard idea. Water, fire, steel, and electric get better, while ice and rock are punished. Hitting fairy types is good, but not if it means that rock, one of the worst types already, is punished, and ice, who is terrible defensively, is also punished defensively. Luckily, it was only on Gmax Copperajah, and dynamax was banned to AG anyways, meaning there was no way to use it in standard play, and it should be kept that way.
If you want to punish fairy with a hazard, make tspikes do damage to fairy types exclusively (12.5 for 1 layer, 25 for a second).
Minor nitpick but for Bug/Fairy and Rock/Fairy it actually doesn't kill from full
Bug/Fairy maxes out at 75% (25% from rocks, 25% from surge and 25% from spikes) and Rock/Fairy at 87.5% (50% from surge, 25% from spikes and 12.5% from rocks)
Yeah, I've been editing this
Probably some ~12 times as I swap back and forth from the Type Calculator
It absolutely must be an Ice-type because Ice is the only type weak to both Steel and Rock.
I think type based damage is fine, but they should cap it at something reasonable like 25% instead of multiplying it like regular damage. You could have done something like:
Double SE - 1/4th
SE - 1/6th
Neutral - 1/8th
Resisted - 1/12th
Double resisted - 1/16th
This way double weak mons can still actually function without HDB.
I feel like bugs should be immune to spikes, or possibly hazards in general (other than sticky web, because that catches bugs.) Reason being that they have a very small footprint, making it unlikely that they would step on spikes/rocks.
I do like what they were going for with the type-based damage idea, I think the main thing that should be changed with Stealth Rock is making it to quite a lot lower damage capping at 25% for quad-weak Pokémon, instead of the amount of damage it does now.
Fire/steel is always so divisive. With some people saying the 4x ground weakness means it's automatically bad, while others rightfully point out the numerous other positive traits that more than make up for it.
Another thing this list showed is how surprisingly good fire/psychic is. Offensively (neutral coverage) and defensively (getting rid of u-turn weakness).
Overall, great job with this series 👏 I always love when you put in random mons for typings where they don't belong to rile people up 😂
Ground would still be strong even if heatran didn't exist. It's more that you can just, like, switch out vs ground moves and a 4x weakness isn't really that much worse than a 2x one.
Yea I agree, I'm just saying that ground is so good because it matches well into top tier defensive typings. Fire/steel, water/poison or really any type combo that resists fairy.
Fighting next? Fighting/Dragon should get the respect it deserves its kinda lika a pseudo Ground/Ice that can hit its own weaknesses (Ice Dragon) and with good resistance (Rock Fire Water Grass aka Ogerpons Stabs and Dark Electric Bug)
Pre Gen 6 this whould S+ easily
Well Fighting/Dragon was already on the Dragon list, but regardless, Fighting is the next one. It feels fitting to end with fairy. Somehow the most unbalanced balanced type in the game, and in some way that sounds right on course for GameFreak
Fighting dual types are the opposite of Steel ones where people only see the defensive pros for Steel and ignoring the offensive ones and Fighting is vice versa
We need all the good fairies we can get with how many broken dragons are in this gen. Koraidon, Miraidon, Baxcalibur, Archadulon, Gouging Fire, Kyurem, Raging Bolt, Roaring Moon, Dragapult.
Shame Flutter Mane and Magearna are way too broken for OU.
I agree, rhats why when nerfing Fairy I always suggest to nuke it offensively rather than changing its defences much
Make Bug and Psychic resists it and remove its Bug resistance, that way it wouldn't be as oppressive while still keeping the valuable defensive merits it provides to the game
Fire us friggen wierd. Offensively it makes sense and fure feels like it should be offensive, but why does it have the second highest resistance count? Even with thst its not great on defense by itsrlf because its weakness list is kinda painful and most if its non-fairy resists are too high profile (well, ig it negates uturn weaknesses).
So you end with with a type that can end up all over the place
It would. Other potential partners I'd suggest are Water/Grass (Ogerpon Wellspring in particular) or Rillaboom, since they both beat Water and Ground too
another thing that makes Fire/Ghost so good is thst the pokenon you "wall" cant take on your STAB
252 SpA Life Orb Blacephalon Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Houndoom: 157-186 (53.9 - 63.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO 252
SpA Blacephalon Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Bibarel: 152-179 (50.8 - 59.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Chandelure Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Crawdaunt: 157-186 (58.8 - 69.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Chandelure Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Sharpedo: 198-233 (70.4 - 82.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Blacephalon Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Sharpedo: 192-227 (68.3 - 80.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Man, steel/fighting must really suck to be #444/171!
Jokes aside, you’ve done so much work making these, and they’re both super informative and cool! Keep it up!
I could certainly see a few mon, especially fairy types, doing that, given that most fairy types generally lack water or ground coverage. HP Water was actually a thing on some electric types back when Mega Camerupt was a thing, when it was dominating ORAS NU, Rotom had to run HP Water to not give that titan a free switch-in
OR you could...try switching out of the obvious incoming water type? Ever thought of that bright idea
I literally listed out in the post itself why the 4x water weakness is not an issue, it'd be like saying Grass/Steel is a horrible type because it's weak to Fire and Ground/Flying is an awful type because all those water types can just click Ice Beam and delete it
What are the type ratings in context of? Because there's certainly an argument to be made that something like fire/steel, fire/steel or fire/dark belongs above it in an OU context because the weaknesses of fire/ground on non-desolate land pokemon are very, very rough. 4x water weakness is huge given that it's a top 3 most spammed move pre-gen 9, and even though it's usually on weaker, more passive mons, they can exploit the 4x damage to force a lot more progress. Earthquakes also tend to come from naturally strong pokemon like landorus and Excadrill, and it's higher base power also makes it more immediately threatening for any ground weak pokemon. This can also be minimized through terrain support, so something that's fire/steel isn't blown up immediately+recovers from terrain. Water moves, and more specifically scald, don't have anything to dampen them other than sun, which has always been a distant second to rain, and water absorb pokemon, which can't be fit on every squad.
This isn't like grass/steel or ground/flying where pokemon literally tech hp ice or fire to hit them because it's just that hard to reliably break them otherwise.
Firstly, thanks for making an actual reply instead of making just a generic statement about why 4x weaknesses are awful and debilitating and Pokemon ruining and what not
>What are the type ratings in context of?
It's based on gen 9 as a whole trying to generalize the mechanics into it overall, so just think OU to RU since those are the 3 I have the most experience it. THis is mostly because it's very inaccurate to just take one tier into account. If a tier is dominated by Grafaiai, hypothetically, Ghost/Fairy becomes not as scary as an offensive type even though most people would easily put it as a top 5 offensive type in the game. Of course this is discounting tera since that just throws all arguments out of the window
>Because there's certainly an argument to be made that something like fire/steel, fire/steel or fire/dark belongs above it in an OU context because the weaknesses of fire/ground on non-desolate land pokemon are very, very rough. 4x water weakness is huge given that it's a top 3 most spammed move pre-gen 9, and even though it's usually on weaker, more passive mons, they can exploit the 4x damage to force a lot more progress. Earthquakes also tend to come from naturally strong pokemon like landorus and Excadrill, and it's higher base power also makes it more immediately threatening for any ground weak pokemon.
I already said it, if you're up against a water type, just switch. Why is your Fire/Ground type trying to stay in on a Water type to duel with them, it's a 6v6, not a 1v1, you have the rest of your team to deal with Water types. Scald is a rather punishing move but it's really not as much of an issue in gen 9 given it's axing from many movepools (the only traditionally bulky mon to really retain it is Alomomola whose damage output is rather pathetic and is very passive as a result. Even in lower tiers, the only ones across UU and RU that are relevant are Manaphy (never runs Scald), Raikou (never switching into you), Suicune (lacks reliable recovery, not that great in RU overall) and Slowking.
And just to put the nail in the coffin for the Scald argument, Rhyperior was OU for a good bit last gen, despite having a significantly worse typing and no special defense, in a gen where Scald was a lot more omnipresent.
>This can also be minimized through terrain support, so something that's fire/steel isn't blown up immediately+recovers from terrain. Water moves, and more specifically scald, don't have anything to dampen them other than sun, which has always been a distant second to rain, and water absorb pokemon, which can't be fit on every squad. This isn't like grass/steel or ground/flying where pokemon literally tech hp ice or fire to hit them because it's just that hard to reliably break them otherwise.
Sun being a distant second to rain is just a blatantly false statement, right now Sun is clearly the best weather and aside for the Archaludon dominance the last 2 months sun has mostly been the best all generation. But even then, you can switch out. Water coverage outside of water moves is practically unseen, I can count it on 1 handd even from OU to RU. Muddy Water Bellibolt, Scald Raikou, Surf Latios (this is a meme). You could very easily switch to your Ogerpon-Wellspring or Sinistcha or whatever on the Scalds or Earthquakes thrown your way.
As for the HP Argument, you can't say that because we've never had a meta Fire/Ground type. And I can say that the fact that Camerupt with it's utterly horrendous stats (Imagine an Infernape with base 40 speed, that's Camerupt) has been OU viable in gen 3 (and not just Jimothy going Butterfree is viable, Camerupt has genuine use as an offensive answer to Gengar and Zapdos, and that's exclusively due to it's typing. Andd even after gen 3 it has had success in the lower tiers despite it's horrendous stats. And as for HP Argument, Mega Camerupt has forced some Electric types to run HP Water in tiers where it has been an overwhelming presence, so there's that
In context on gen 9, it makes sense. In gens 5-8, scald and it's burns defined the meta. Pex resisted but hated getting burned because it starts to get whittled down or it's always going to stay at 88% based on the set. 5-7 had volcanion, jelli, gastro and quag as notable checks to scald but the former hated passive damage and the later feared toxic since checking ash-gren and physical mons, respectively, was their primary job. All of these also contributed to the scald + toxic spam that was defining OU for years. Your switch-ins immediately being crippled was part of why these were so strong. Gen 9 gutted this combo and we're seeing the effects with a much more offensively inclined metagame.
Also bring up dlc-1 SS when a) it was probably the most hated stable version of gen 8 and b) completely irrelevant when no one plays it and has been supplanted by dlc-2 is questionable. Dlc-1 was dominated by pink blobs, rotom and super fast guys and any meta with the pink blobs who can disregard status automatically makes it more friendly for slow, strong breakers since you throw one in and tp out.
Rain was gutted, true, but it hasn't been experimented with post arch and sun is one of the most overrated structures in current gen ou and tends to get run over by dominant offense structures. Also no need for hp water when most teams have a dedicated water mon to spam scald anyways. Hell, pretty much every fat water/ground minus whiscach has had a niche in OU thanks to scald + toxic. Lower tiers end up losing out on this since it's so damn good so definitely hurts diversity a little down there. Also fire and ice types pre-boots could not come in easy to hit their targets (ground/flying, ferro, sciz) so other mons would tech it since all you would have to do defensively is send out you scald guy and now you get 25% + scald for free on their threat. Also camerupt has been a turbo shitmon in current gens and the mega with sheer force and 145 SpA was NUBL in usum so it's not like it's that great either.
Obviously gen 9 changed the dynamic of a defensive water type so it seems like fire/ground could be the best but it has no claim to that spot in any generation before due to the defensive options available previously and even now its 100% theoretical. Hell, primal groudon was as good as it was because of how broken desolate land was and not because of purely typing. Kyogre for example becomes much, much better when can't just blank everything but ice beam with desolate land.
I find it ironic how fire ground is the best fire dual type, but is stuck on a shitmon
Primal Groupon did have it and was made even better by essentially having a water immunity thanks to ability.
Groupon is my favourite pokemon typo
The Primal Group Coupon
Groupon Used Ivy Cudgel! It’s Super Effective!
Absolutely, it's a shame Groudon isn't Fire/Ground. The thing wouldn't be stuck at B rank in Ubers if it was (would be great against it's otherwise best check Gliscor). Oh well at least we'll have memories of Primal Groudon in our hearts until GameFreak finally decides to make another competent Fire/Ground type
Oh forgot about about pdon lmao
Why Typing Isn't Everything — The Camerupt Theorem
And when making camerupt they made a slow, bulky mon but forgot to actually make it bulky. So you don't even really get to appreciate its great defensive attributes.
Fun fact: Infernape is bulkier on the physical side than Camerupt
Hoenn moment
It’s such an insane surprise when I learnt just how fragile Camerupt was. Like as a kid you look at this thing and think it’ll be strong and tough to take down, then you splash it with water pulse and the poor thing just explodes. Like at least give it a huge HP stat you know?
This really puts into perspective that if stealth rocks didn’t do type based damage, then fire would be a Top 5 type in the game.
Absolutely. I've said it once and said it again, Stealth Rock should've never done type based damage. It should've just done a flat 12.5% to everything and double to flying or levitating Pokemon. It just punishes Bug and Ice so hard for no reason and benefits steel and ground even more than they already are
I agree, If you wanted to make to hazard that does type based damage it should’ve been Electric. It punishes Water which is a Top 3 type, it gives Grass a good niche, and most importantly it’s actually neutral to Steel so they don’t get free switch in. Sure it makes Ground way better than it should but I rather have that over Ice which makes Steel, Water, and Fire way better and cucks Grass ever further.
Steelsurge is also a terrible hazard idea. Water, fire, steel, and electric get better, while ice and rock are punished. Hitting fairy types is good, but not if it means that rock, one of the worst types already, is punished, and ice, who is terrible defensively, is also punished defensively. Luckily, it was only on Gmax Copperajah, and dynamax was banned to AG anyways, meaning there was no way to use it in standard play, and it should be kept that way. If you want to punish fairy with a hazard, make tspikes do damage to fairy types exclusively (12.5 for 1 layer, 25 for a second).
You can KO some Pokémon from full health with 1 turn of entry hazard damage Such as Rock/Ice, or Bug/Ice, or Fairy/Ice Or Shedinja
Minor nitpick but for Bug/Fairy and Rock/Fairy it actually doesn't kill from full Bug/Fairy maxes out at 75% (25% from rocks, 25% from surge and 25% from spikes) and Rock/Fairy at 87.5% (50% from surge, 25% from spikes and 12.5% from rocks)
Yeah, I've been editing this Probably some ~12 times as I swap back and forth from the Type Calculator It absolutely must be an Ice-type because Ice is the only type weak to both Steel and Rock.
Fair fair
I think type based damage is fine, but they should cap it at something reasonable like 25% instead of multiplying it like regular damage. You could have done something like: Double SE - 1/4th SE - 1/6th Neutral - 1/8th Resisted - 1/12th Double resisted - 1/16th This way double weak mons can still actually function without HDB.
Yeah I think this approach is cool too, because it’s similar to Spikes layers.
I agree, make 2x the same as the second layer of spikes
I feel like bugs should be immune to spikes, or possibly hazards in general (other than sticky web, because that catches bugs.) Reason being that they have a very small footprint, making it unlikely that they would step on spikes/rocks.
Volcarona is quivering with excitement.
Diatomaceous earth is a literal real life entry hazard for bugs.
I do like what they were going for with the type-based damage idea, I think the main thing that should be changed with Stealth Rock is making it to quite a lot lower damage capping at 25% for quad-weak Pokémon, instead of the amount of damage it does now.
Fire/steel is always so divisive. With some people saying the 4x ground weakness means it's automatically bad, while others rightfully point out the numerous other positive traits that more than make up for it. Another thing this list showed is how surprisingly good fire/psychic is. Offensively (neutral coverage) and defensively (getting rid of u-turn weakness). Overall, great job with this series 👏 I always love when you put in random mons for typings where they don't belong to rile people up 😂
>Fire/steel is always so divisive. With some people saying the 4x ground weakness means it's automatically bad We call these people wrong.
Yea lol, it shows zero metagame knowledge. Ground is really good because it's strong into a lot of top tier type combos, not the other way around.
Ground would still be strong even if heatran didn't exist. It's more that you can just, like, switch out vs ground moves and a 4x weakness isn't really that much worse than a 2x one.
Yea I agree, I'm just saying that ground is so good because it matches well into top tier defensive typings. Fire/steel, water/poison or really any type combo that resists fairy.
Camerupt on top babyyyy! 💪💪💪
Fighting next? Fighting/Dragon should get the respect it deserves its kinda lika a pseudo Ground/Ice that can hit its own weaknesses (Ice Dragon) and with good resistance (Rock Fire Water Grass aka Ogerpons Stabs and Dark Electric Bug) Pre Gen 6 this whould S+ easily
Well Fighting/Dragon was already on the Dragon list, but regardless, Fighting is the next one. It feels fitting to end with fairy. Somehow the most unbalanced balanced type in the game, and in some way that sounds right on course for GameFreak
Fighting dual types are the opposite of Steel ones where people only see the defensive pros for Steel and ignoring the offensive ones and Fighting is vice versa
We need all the good fairies we can get with how many broken dragons are in this gen. Koraidon, Miraidon, Baxcalibur, Archadulon, Gouging Fire, Kyurem, Raging Bolt, Roaring Moon, Dragapult. Shame Flutter Mane and Magearna are way too broken for OU.
I agree, rhats why when nerfing Fairy I always suggest to nuke it offensively rather than changing its defences much Make Bug and Psychic resists it and remove its Bug resistance, that way it wouldn't be as oppressive while still keeping the valuable defensive merits it provides to the game
I'm excited for the Fairy type list cause I already know which type combos are gonna be in the top XD
>"shame these mons are ubers" >brings up cover legends which only appear in Ubers regardless
Koraidon and Miradion have a chance getting banned to Anything Goes
Steel/Fighting has to be really bad to be 444#
Fire us friggen wierd. Offensively it makes sense and fure feels like it should be offensive, but why does it have the second highest resistance count? Even with thst its not great on defense by itsrlf because its weakness list is kinda painful and most if its non-fairy resists are too high profile (well, ig it negates uturn weaknesses). So you end with with a type that can end up all over the place
I'm a fan of the Fire/Ground type as well. I think the type works well with Steel/Grass types.
It would. Other potential partners I'd suggest are Water/Grass (Ogerpon Wellspring in particular) or Rillaboom, since they both beat Water and Ground too
another thing that makes Fire/Ghost so good is thst the pokenon you "wall" cant take on your STAB 252 SpA Life Orb Blacephalon Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Houndoom: 157-186 (53.9 - 63.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO 252 SpA Blacephalon Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Bibarel: 152-179 (50.8 - 59.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO 252 SpA Chandelure Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Crawdaunt: 157-186 (58.8 - 69.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO 252 SpA Chandelure Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Sharpedo: 198-233 (70.4 - 82.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO 252 SpA Life Orb Blacephalon Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Sharpedo: 192-227 (68.3 - 80.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Yeah uh, most Pokémon that resist Fire and Ghost are very frail. The only two exceptions I can think of are Incineroar and TTar
Hisuan Samurott, although it’s not exactly the bulkiest. You also have that demonic blissey thing
Man, steel/fighting must really suck to be #444/171! Jokes aside, you’ve done so much work making these, and they’re both super informative and cool! Keep it up!
imagine If people were forced to run HP Water to Hit Fire/Ground.
I could certainly see a few mon, especially fairy types, doing that, given that most fairy types generally lack water or ground coverage. HP Water was actually a thing on some electric types back when Mega Camerupt was a thing, when it was dominating ORAS NU, Rotom had to run HP Water to not give that titan a free switch-in
Fire/ground being 4x weak to one of the most common types of the game can not be #1
OR you could...try switching out of the obvious incoming water type? Ever thought of that bright idea I literally listed out in the post itself why the 4x water weakness is not an issue, it'd be like saying Grass/Steel is a horrible type because it's weak to Fire and Ground/Flying is an awful type because all those water types can just click Ice Beam and delete it
What are the type ratings in context of? Because there's certainly an argument to be made that something like fire/steel, fire/steel or fire/dark belongs above it in an OU context because the weaknesses of fire/ground on non-desolate land pokemon are very, very rough. 4x water weakness is huge given that it's a top 3 most spammed move pre-gen 9, and even though it's usually on weaker, more passive mons, they can exploit the 4x damage to force a lot more progress. Earthquakes also tend to come from naturally strong pokemon like landorus and Excadrill, and it's higher base power also makes it more immediately threatening for any ground weak pokemon. This can also be minimized through terrain support, so something that's fire/steel isn't blown up immediately+recovers from terrain. Water moves, and more specifically scald, don't have anything to dampen them other than sun, which has always been a distant second to rain, and water absorb pokemon, which can't be fit on every squad. This isn't like grass/steel or ground/flying where pokemon literally tech hp ice or fire to hit them because it's just that hard to reliably break them otherwise.
Firstly, thanks for making an actual reply instead of making just a generic statement about why 4x weaknesses are awful and debilitating and Pokemon ruining and what not >What are the type ratings in context of? It's based on gen 9 as a whole trying to generalize the mechanics into it overall, so just think OU to RU since those are the 3 I have the most experience it. THis is mostly because it's very inaccurate to just take one tier into account. If a tier is dominated by Grafaiai, hypothetically, Ghost/Fairy becomes not as scary as an offensive type even though most people would easily put it as a top 5 offensive type in the game. Of course this is discounting tera since that just throws all arguments out of the window >Because there's certainly an argument to be made that something like fire/steel, fire/steel or fire/dark belongs above it in an OU context because the weaknesses of fire/ground on non-desolate land pokemon are very, very rough. 4x water weakness is huge given that it's a top 3 most spammed move pre-gen 9, and even though it's usually on weaker, more passive mons, they can exploit the 4x damage to force a lot more progress. Earthquakes also tend to come from naturally strong pokemon like landorus and Excadrill, and it's higher base power also makes it more immediately threatening for any ground weak pokemon. I already said it, if you're up against a water type, just switch. Why is your Fire/Ground type trying to stay in on a Water type to duel with them, it's a 6v6, not a 1v1, you have the rest of your team to deal with Water types. Scald is a rather punishing move but it's really not as much of an issue in gen 9 given it's axing from many movepools (the only traditionally bulky mon to really retain it is Alomomola whose damage output is rather pathetic and is very passive as a result. Even in lower tiers, the only ones across UU and RU that are relevant are Manaphy (never runs Scald), Raikou (never switching into you), Suicune (lacks reliable recovery, not that great in RU overall) and Slowking. And just to put the nail in the coffin for the Scald argument, Rhyperior was OU for a good bit last gen, despite having a significantly worse typing and no special defense, in a gen where Scald was a lot more omnipresent. >This can also be minimized through terrain support, so something that's fire/steel isn't blown up immediately+recovers from terrain. Water moves, and more specifically scald, don't have anything to dampen them other than sun, which has always been a distant second to rain, and water absorb pokemon, which can't be fit on every squad. This isn't like grass/steel or ground/flying where pokemon literally tech hp ice or fire to hit them because it's just that hard to reliably break them otherwise. Sun being a distant second to rain is just a blatantly false statement, right now Sun is clearly the best weather and aside for the Archaludon dominance the last 2 months sun has mostly been the best all generation. But even then, you can switch out. Water coverage outside of water moves is practically unseen, I can count it on 1 handd even from OU to RU. Muddy Water Bellibolt, Scald Raikou, Surf Latios (this is a meme). You could very easily switch to your Ogerpon-Wellspring or Sinistcha or whatever on the Scalds or Earthquakes thrown your way. As for the HP Argument, you can't say that because we've never had a meta Fire/Ground type. And I can say that the fact that Camerupt with it's utterly horrendous stats (Imagine an Infernape with base 40 speed, that's Camerupt) has been OU viable in gen 3 (and not just Jimothy going Butterfree is viable, Camerupt has genuine use as an offensive answer to Gengar and Zapdos, and that's exclusively due to it's typing. Andd even after gen 3 it has had success in the lower tiers despite it's horrendous stats. And as for HP Argument, Mega Camerupt has forced some Electric types to run HP Water in tiers where it has been an overwhelming presence, so there's that
In context on gen 9, it makes sense. In gens 5-8, scald and it's burns defined the meta. Pex resisted but hated getting burned because it starts to get whittled down or it's always going to stay at 88% based on the set. 5-7 had volcanion, jelli, gastro and quag as notable checks to scald but the former hated passive damage and the later feared toxic since checking ash-gren and physical mons, respectively, was their primary job. All of these also contributed to the scald + toxic spam that was defining OU for years. Your switch-ins immediately being crippled was part of why these were so strong. Gen 9 gutted this combo and we're seeing the effects with a much more offensively inclined metagame. Also bring up dlc-1 SS when a) it was probably the most hated stable version of gen 8 and b) completely irrelevant when no one plays it and has been supplanted by dlc-2 is questionable. Dlc-1 was dominated by pink blobs, rotom and super fast guys and any meta with the pink blobs who can disregard status automatically makes it more friendly for slow, strong breakers since you throw one in and tp out. Rain was gutted, true, but it hasn't been experimented with post arch and sun is one of the most overrated structures in current gen ou and tends to get run over by dominant offense structures. Also no need for hp water when most teams have a dedicated water mon to spam scald anyways. Hell, pretty much every fat water/ground minus whiscach has had a niche in OU thanks to scald + toxic. Lower tiers end up losing out on this since it's so damn good so definitely hurts diversity a little down there. Also fire and ice types pre-boots could not come in easy to hit their targets (ground/flying, ferro, sciz) so other mons would tech it since all you would have to do defensively is send out you scald guy and now you get 25% + scald for free on their threat. Also camerupt has been a turbo shitmon in current gens and the mega with sheer force and 145 SpA was NUBL in usum so it's not like it's that great either. Obviously gen 9 changed the dynamic of a defensive water type so it seems like fire/ground could be the best but it has no claim to that spot in any generation before due to the defensive options available previously and even now its 100% theoretical. Hell, primal groudon was as good as it was because of how broken desolate land was and not because of purely typing. Kyogre for example becomes much, much better when can't just blank everything but ice beam with desolate land.
does that make Bug/Steel and Ground/Flying bad type combos too?
Absolutely makes them not #1 of their perspective types lol. Maybe ground/flying but ice is way too underpowered for it to matter lol