Pokémon type matchups explained: weaknesses, resistances and how to remember them

TUREFF• •0

Type matchups are the heart of every Pokémon battle. Once you understand them, you stop guessing which move to use and start choosing on purpose. The chart looks intimidating at first, with 18 types, but most of it follows logic you already know.

How effectiveness works

Every Pokémon has one or two types, and every damaging move has one type. When a move hits, the game compares the move's type with the target's type or types:

Super effective: the move does double damage.
Not very effective: the move does half damage.
No effect: the move does nothing at all. These are called immunities.
Everything else does normal damage.

What matters is the move's type, not the attacking Pokémon's type. A Water-type Pokémon using an Ice move is attacking with Ice.

The 18 types

Normal, Fire, Water, Grass, Electric, Ice, Fighting, Poison, Ground, Flying, Psychic, Bug, Rock, Ghost, Dragon, Dark, Steel and Fairy. Fairy is the newest, added in Pokémon X and Y, largely to keep Dragon types in check.

The core triangle and the logic behind it

Start with the starter triangle, because it repeats everywhere:

Fire beats Grass (it burns), Grass beats Water (it soaks it up), Water beats Fire (it puts it out).

Many other matchups follow the same real-world sense:

Electric beats Water and Flying, but does nothing to Ground.
Ground beats Fire, Electric, Rock, Poison and Steel, but cannot touch Flying types.
Ice beats Grass, Ground, Flying and Dragon, but melts against Fire.
Rock beats Fire, Ice, Flying and Bug.
Flying beats Grass, Bug and Fighting.
Steel beats Ice, Rock and Fairy, and resists a long list of types.

The ones that need memorising

Some matchups are less intuitive:

Fighting beats Normal, Ice, Rock, Steel and Dark, but has no effect on Ghost.
Psychic beats Fighting and Poison; Dark types are immune to it.
Ghost beats Psychic and Ghost; Normal types are immune to it, and Normal and Fighting moves cannot hit Ghosts.
Dark beats Psychic and Ghost.
Bug beats Grass, Psychic and Dark.
Dragon beats only Dragon; Fairy is immune to it.
Fairy beats Fighting, Dragon and Dark.
Poison beats Grass and Fairy, and has no effect on Steel.

Dual types: multiply, do not add

When a Pokémon has two types, the effects multiply:

Weak on both types: four times damage. Gyarados is Water and Flying, and both are weak to Electric, so Electric moves hit it four times as hard.
Weak on one, resistant on the other: they cancel out to normal damage.
Resistant on both: a quarter of the damage. Charizard (Fire and Flying) takes very little from Grass moves.
An immunity on either type wins outright. Charizard's Flying type makes it immune to Ground moves, even though Fire is weak to Ground. Rock, however, hits it four times as hard.

STAB: same-type attack bonus

When a Pokémon uses a move that matches one of its own types, the move gets a 50% damage boost. This is STAB. A Fire-type using a Fire move hits harder than a Normal-type using the same Fire move. It is why a Pokémon's own-type moves are usually the core of its moveset, and why a move with lower listed power can still be the better choice. Some abilities change these rules (Levitate, for example, makes a Pokémon immune to Ground moves), so check abilities as well as types.

How to remember it all

Learn by sense first. Most matchups match physics or nature: water douses fire, birds eat bugs, rocks break ice.
Learn the immunities as a separate list. There are only a handful, and they decide battles.
Think in pairs. Ghost and Dark, Dragon and Fairy, Fighting and Psychic each have a clear rival.
Use the in-game help. Recent games show whether a move is effective on a Pokémon you have already battled.
Play. After a few gym battles, the common matchups become automatic.

Using it in battle

Build a team whose weaknesses do not all overlap, so one type of attack cannot sweep you.
Switch out a Pokémon facing a bad matchup rather than letting it faint.
Give each Pokémon at least one move of a different type, to cover the types its STAB moves cannot hit.

Which matchup still catches you out? Share it, or your favourite team, in the comments.