Pokémon Strengths and Weaknesses

Posted by Magic Madhouse on 24th Jul 2023

The Pokemon games are strategy games with plenty of finely tuned nuances to try and get your head around and Pokemon typing is something that every top trainer needs to know. Mastering the type chart is surprisingly easy. Making sure you go into battle having good type coverage against anything your opponent throws at you is important and should definitely not be overlooked.

Each Pokemon has its own type and this dictates which other types it is weak against and which types it is super effective against. Some are exactly as you would expect, water is super effective against fire; and fire is super effective against grass. But did you know that some types are immune to damage from certain types? For example Normal and Fighting type have no effect on Ghost type Pokemon, those attacks just pass right through them!

You might remember choosing your starter Pokemon and having to select from a fire, water or grass type. This is the perfect circle and each of those has one which they are super effective against and super weak to. Fire is super effective against grass, water is super effective against fire and grass is super effective against water. You may also have noticed that your rival will always pick the starter Pokemon which is super effective against the one you chose! Here’s a pub quiz fact for you, believe it or not, out of the 18 different Pokemon typings, Normal type is the only one that does not deal super effective damage against any others.

The type chart is relevant to all Pokemon games, including Pokemon GO, the Pokemon Trading Card Game and the video games. So no matter which game you are playing, you can make use of the strengths and weaknesses chart.

Let’s take a look at the type chart below which details all the strengths and weaknesses in Pokemon.

(Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pokemon_Type_Chart.svg; Credit: Aussie Evil, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

This is a really useful chart for quick reference and it is always a good idea to have a copy handy when preparing for a big battle. There are 18 different types and so memorising them off by heart is no easy feat!

As you can see, most attacks are neutral against each other (the white blocks) and this simply means that they deal their normal damage. The red blocks mean that when the attacker is attacking the defender of that type, it will only deal half damage as the defending Pokemon is resistant to that type. The green blocks are arguably the most important because these represent double damage, also known as being super-effective. Another thing to think about is dual typing, that is, Pokemon which have more than one type. If you are attacking a Pokemon which is dual type and both its types are weak to your attacker, you will deal double the damage, twice, essentially dealing 4x damage.

Another part of this which is not shown in the type charts is the Same Type Attack Bonus (STAB). Put quite simply, if a Pokemon is using a move that is the same type as its base type, then it gains the Same Type Attack Bonus of 1.5x. This is on top of any other super effective bonus. So it’s always a good idea to try and match some of your Pokemon’s move types to their base typing.

STAB has become quite prevalent and important in the new Scarlet and Violet games thanks to the new terastalize mechanic. When a Pokemon terastalizes, it potentially changes type and so can gain a STAB on 2 types. For example, you could have the flying tera type Pikachu. This means that in its normal form it is lightning type and so gains STAB on lightning type moves. When it terastalizes it becomes a flying type and so will gain STAB from flying type moves as well.

The type chart is exactly the same for Pokemon GO, the only difference is that the amount of damage is slightly different. For example, rather than super effective moves doing 2x damage, they only do 1.6x damage.

The Pokemon Trading Card Game also uses typing but the damage works a little differently again. Each card will show which type it is weak against and attacks from this type will deal double damage. So for a card that would normally deal 40 damage from an attack, it would deal 80 damage to a card that it is hitting for weakness. Cards also have what’s known as Resistance, and they will take 30 less damage from cards of that type. So if that same card that was doing 40 damage was hitting a card that was resistant to it, it would instead only deal 10 damage. This is definitely something to be aware of and can swing battles in your favour.

Being aware of the type chart and understanding your matchups can make a huge difference to your battles and can help you to become the very best! It is a relatively simple chart, but mastering it can really give you that competitive edge in your battles.