>>33056260Yes, from a purely objective point of view.
The only merits of Ice are as an offensive type, but its moves are widespread coverage, specially among Water which is a much better type and can use it much better being SE against one of its only 2 weaknesses. Instead Ice has 4 weaknesses and only resists itself, making it the worst defensive type in the game by far.
The weather condition it is associated with is the worst in the game as well, it only damages non-ices and buffs Blizzard's accuracy, but doesn't benefit it offensively or defensively unlike other weathers.
Stat distributions don't help either, most ice mons are slow and bulky, which doesn't fit their type, and they perform poorly because of it. The only successful ice types have high speed, good priority or strong matchups because of their secondary type and movepool.
Usage wise, ice mons are unpopular and seldom used even in standard gameplay. They are introduced late into the game when the player is likely to already have a full team, and being a slow and frail type does not help.
Ice was decent when it was the only type super effective against dragon other than dragon itself, mostly because the strongest dragons used to have a x4 weakness to it, but the introduction of fairiy took this niche from it.
The only way to buff Ice and make it viable again in the current games is to give it 2 resistances and a passive defensive buff in hail. Moves like Freeze dry and Aurora Veil are good to have but they don't fix the underlying problems of the type.
