HISTORY: In Generation I, Psychic-types were very popular. Not only did they have a great Special stat, but they had STAB from Psychic that had a chance to lower Special and only other Psychic pokemon resisted it back then. They were relatively quick with the exception of Exeggutor and Slowbro. There were even five Psychic-type Pokemon in OU tier in Generation. They rarely were hit with a weakness since Ghost wasn't effective and bug only had 2 attacking moves, but if they were a dual type, then this wasn't the case. Even so, Psychic-types were living good until...

Generation II came along. Gold and Silver, the first two Generation II games, introduced two new types: Dark and Steel. These two new types were introduced just to weaken Psychic-types. Steel-types were resisted to their moves and Dark-types were immune. However, there were only 5 steel-types and 6 dark-types available in Generation II. Ghost-types, however, were now super effective against Psychic-types, but most of them specialized in Special Attack, leaving their STAB Ghost-types useless as it now was a Physical move. Plus, they split Special to Special Attack and Special Defense, making them be slightly weaker in Special Defense than in Generation I.

Generation III and Generation IV then came and introduced more Dark, Steel, and Ghost-types which lead to Psychic-types having more and more trouble. However, in Generation IV, it was their decision that they should split the Physical moves and Special moves. Could it be that this was a chance that Psychic pokemon could come back again? With the splitting, it made most of the Ghost attacks Special, blasting Ghost-types out of their way. They even introduced a special Fighting move, Focus Blast, that was available to most Psychics to defeat their nemesis Dark and Steel-types. Even Hidden Power was now Special, making their coverage a bit wider. However, they still were weak against the Dark, Steels, and Ghost and Focus Blast had a risky 70% accuracy.

STATISTICS: Psychic-types generally have a great Special Attack and Speed, mediocre Special Defense, but low attack, defense, and HP. The only exception of the attack, defense, and HP are Gallade, Metagross, and Wobbuffet respectively. They can heal themselves with Recover, improve their Defense and Special Defense with Reflect and Light Screen, and switch stats, status, items and abilities with Power/Guard Swap, Psycho Shift, Trick, and Skill Swap. Their defense is their only downfall, however. With the new Physical and Special distribution, they can easily fall to a single Crunch.

CONCLUSION: Psychic-types were super strong in Generation I. With their Special being high, their weakness was one of the weakest types, and only other Psychic-types could resist their STAB, they were really powerful. Then Generation II came and cut Special to Special Attack and Special Defense and introduced Dark and Steel-types. Although they introduced more Pokemon of those types in Generation III and IV, they distributed Physical and Special moves, letting Psychic-types have a chance.

TRIVIA: What's a type without any trivia? Here's some trivia that I personally enjoy:
There has been at least one Gym Leader or one Elite Four member who specializes in Psychics.
Zen Headbutt and Psycho Cut are the only Physical moves.
Psychics are most common type of Legendary pokemon.
On that note, there has been at least 2 legendary pokemon with that type.
Psychic-types have more non-damaging attacks than damaging attacks.
There's a total of 53 Psychic-types.
There's currently 7 Psychic-types in OU and 15 in NU.

I hope you enjoyed this 'Type of the Month'! Talk to you guys again!
Write up by: MBlaze aka Paradox