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2 votes
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Back when I was a kid, having a Dragon meant having a Dragonite, and those beasts were as rare and hard to find and raise as they were to put down.
Keep in mind that ICE types were neither popular or, back then at least, easy to find.
So, to sum it up, if you had a Dragonite (and if we consider Gen II, also a Tyranitar) you were without a doubt the most envied kid in the school ground.

Nowadays tho, dragons lost their shine.
Ice types and moves are pretty much everywhere and easy to obtain, plus with Gen VI we have FAIRIES.

I despise fairies.

They destroyed any chance for Zard X to be a good option and a good step up from normal Zard.

But regardless, I'm losing track of my point.

Here's the question:

Is it worth it / useful / smart to go thru the trouble of raising a Dragon, dual type or full type doesn't matter, anymore?

Don't you lose more than you gain?

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Down With Fairys!!

3 Answers

8 votes
 
Best answer

Let's look at today's roster of popular Dragons…

Garchomp

Garchomp was deadly yesterday, is deadly today, and will be deadly tomorrow. The intruduction of the Fairy has barely made a dent the the ol' dragon-shark, as can be plainly seen in the sheer power of his Earthquakes that make Fairies run and hide under their beds.

Mega Salamence

MegaMence was quickbanned at the very start of Gen VI. It had the ability to tank some of the weaker Fairy attacks, set up a Dragon Dance, then slay all of the Fairies bar Clefable with Return. Please not that no Fairy has ever been quickbanned to Ubers, and that Mawile's ban is still being debated.

Lat@s

The Lati twins have seen no less use now as they did in previous gens. Latios still does his thing – wreck everything with Life Orb Psyshock – and Latias is still that bulky attacker you all know and love. Fairies haven't scared these Dragons one bit.

Dialga

Takes neutral damage from Fairy attacks, tanks Moonblasts from Xerneas all day and KOs with Flash Cannon. Dialga is a Fairy's worst nightmare.

Mega Charizard X

Fairy is not very effective against Fire. MegaZard X is Fire/Dragon. Therefore, no Fairy weakness. While he still doesn't like Fairies, he's still an A-rank threat and doesn't flinch in the face of magic.

Mega Altaria

Heck yeah. Screw Fairies, I'm a fluffy cloud dragon that's also a pixie. Heck yeah. I don't give a crap about those Fairies because I am proof that you can have the best of both worlds. Heck yeah.

Dragonite

If you've ever been wrecked by a Weakness Policy Dragonite then you know what pain is. Dragonite posesses a deadly physical and mixed set, and has a terrific variety of moves. Multiscale makes him an absolut monster to take down, and imagine an Iron Head from a +2 Dragonite after he survives a Moonblast. Ouch.

Mega Rayquaza

Too strong for Ubers, had to have another tier made just for him. Take that, Sylveon.


In conclusion, the Dragon-type has suffered a blow from the Fairy-type, but there are still those who defy Game Freak and keep on wreckin'.

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I'm going to critique your answer here. First of all garchomp lost a lot of offensive usage, especially due to fairies, and a lot of sets run rocks and defense. Mega menace was banned because of aerilate, and good stat division. Lati@s gets countered by clefable and sylveon and gets checked by every single fairy in OU. Zard-X gains great coverage and dance with an appropriate ability to come with it, doesn't use dragon stab as much as fire stab. Mega alt is like a balanced wonder with just great defensive typing and Good offensive too and pixilated. That's about it because Alt's stats aren't absolutely amazing like mence or metagross. One of the main reasons people stopped using dragon its was fairies because unlike almost any other mon on this list, it only really could work with physical dragon STAB. So I think u exaggerated a little but I still like your answer. I'd say that dragons are good, not as a type mostly, but as the Pokemon, because dragon is noted for badassery, so game freak tends to make them good.
In addition to all of Generekt's points, I really don't think Iron Head is a particularly good or common move to run on Dragonite, considering it takes up one of the slot of it's regular moves including EQ, Fire Punch and ExtremeSpeed which are all quite useful in their own manner. Dialga also has serious trouble with Xerneas if you think about it, due to coverage in Focus Blast, and Xerneas outspeeds and can grab the Geomancy, which nullifies Flash Cannon's 2x basically. The Latio@s twins, as Generekt said have also been affected by Fairies to a fair extent, as have all the dragon types you listed above, barr Mega Rayquaza which was banned since it had access to a Mega Evolution without needing a Stone which literally nullified the biggest drawback of Megas.
@ Generekt: Torym never specified a particualr tier, he's just asking if Dragons were atill viable. MegaMence may be Ubers, but Ubers has Fairies. Therefore, I casn use it in my answer. And you're right, I may have exaggerated a little. Just a smidge. Okay, I have a thing for Mega Altaria.
@ Sempiternus: I know that Iron Head isn't a common move on Dragonite, but gimmick and lure sets do exist. I guess I should have specified that in my answer. The Lati twins are still top-tier threats and Latios is a common sight on quite a few teams. I said Dialga is "a Fairy's worst nighmare" because it takes neutral from theri STABs. I wasn't getting all technical in my answer, I was just listing the pros on some of the best Dragons (the con pretty much speaks for itself – the Fairy type). They did take a blow from the Fairies, but they still hit hard and, while not as common as they used to be, are still a force to be reckoned with.
I never said that ubers Dragons are not allowed in your answer. All I said was that mega mence was good because of its ability and stat spread. Never said anything about uber dragons not being viable.
Sorry about that, I misinterpreted when you said "Mega Salamence was banned."
5 votes

Sure is!

Individual Dragons are still great, even though there are more duds. Just because Pokemon like Azumarill, Mawile and Togekiss make life difficult for Dragons and some Dragons like Deino and Sliggo soil the other's street creed, Dragons are still one if not the most powerful types at a whole. MRayquasa is pretty much undeniably the most powerful Pokemon, the Creation Trio+Reshiram/Zekrom are still utter monsters, and MSalamence, Dragonite and Garchomp all run rampant. In short Dragons might not be rare or unchallanged overlords of the cosmos anymore, but they are still very much viable, powerful, good and worthy of beiong trained.

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0 votes

Of course there is. And there's a lot of advantage in having a dragon type in your team because dragons are still the most powerful pokémons since they usually have the highest stats among all other normal pokémons.

But you must adapt to the new environment. Yes, there are fairies and Ice types everywhere, and that's why you have to bring Poison, Steel and Water types to support your dragons. It's pretty simple. Try to do some switches to deal with the things that threaten your dragons before bringing them back to battle.

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