Every Single Pokémon Type Ranked: What's your tier list like?

bdt2002

bdt2002

Guardian Signs super-fan
is a Pre-Contributor
Happy Halloween, everyone. It's been over nine months since I've made one of these threads, but I'm finally back with another tier list discussion thread. In my first two threads, we talked about Pokémon games and then about the different so-called "Starter Pokémon" respectively. It took me a while to decide on what I wanted us to try and rank next, but I eventually decided in on Pokémon types, a staple feature of the series ever since the original 1996 classics. There are 18 of these in total as of Pokémon Scarlet & Violet (2022), and each of them is full of different Pokémon, different type matchups, and different moves. One thing that also sets Pokémon types apart from the Pokémon themselves is that our favorites within each category may be wildly different for any number of reasons. For instance, on my rankings I have Poison listed very high because I like a lot of their Shiny Pokémon. By that, I mean pretty much all of them. Excluding pre-Mega Gengar, I genuinely believe Poison has the most consistently excellent Shinies of any type. And there's still over 10 of them in my Top 100!

Now that I've had a few of these kinds of threads under my belt, I like that I can keep the introduction extremely short this time. Other than that, here's the link, and I'll be back with my own tier list shortly after this thread goes live. Take care, and happy posting!

Website Link: https://tiermaker.com/create/pokemon-types-6600

(A quick question to the moderators, if I may: I want to link the other two threads into this message just so people can see how I handled those threads relative to this one and any related future threads. That being said, I just wanted to make sure I asked permission to do that first, because if that is against the rules, I'm still perfectly fine with that. If I am allowed, please PM me saying so and then I'll remove this section of the message and place the links here. Thanks either way :D)

My list is based off of how many Pokémon from each type are present in my Top 100 rankings (this took a lot longer than I expected)

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S: Grass, Poison, Steel
A: Ghost, Fire, Dragon, Dark, Electric
B: Water, Bug
C: Psychic, Ground, Rock, Ice
D: Flying, Normal, Fairy
F: Fighting


S Tier Types are so good in game that I can't not love them. Grass isn't the best type Defensively, but there's a lot of bulky Grass Types they can learn a lot of different Status Moves. Poison Powder/Toxic, Sleep Powder/Spore, Synthesis, Worry Seed for Magic Guard, and Leech Seed. That last one alone is my favorate move and enough to put Grass in S Tier by itself. Poison is very nice defensively with two weaknesses that can be covered with Flying and Dark support. Toxic and Toxic Spikes aren't exclusive to Poison Types, but it's a major reason for Poison to be S. A nice bonus Poison has for Battle Facilities is it has Black Sludge as a Second Leftovers to get around the Item Clause. Do I need to explain why the type that resists 10 Types and is Immune to an 11th is S Tier?


A Tier is just really cool Types. I may be a sucker for edgy stuff... Ghost and Fire are A+ because of Will-O-Wisp.


The B Tier Types are neat because their natures gives them lots of kinds of Pokemon that are mostly unique to their Types. Water, to the surprise of no one, has tons of Pokemon that live in or near the water. The ones that can only live in Water, like fish, are the most unique because there's so few Pokemon that aren't Water that can live in the water. Dragalge evolves from a Water Type and Hisuian Qwilfish is a Regional Variant of a Water Type.
I'm hate real life bugs, but Bug Types in Pokemon are a lot more interesting. The moths and butterflies are mostly pretty and the creepy bugs are cooler. The few that don't bother me, like Dragonflies and Mantises were already neat, so it's hard to mess those up. They might have messed up with Yanmega though...


I don't have much to say about C Tier. It's kind of nothing too positive, nothing too negative and there's enough variation in Pokemon of these types that it's hard to rank them based on how they generally are. Ice is more like hit or miss than my mostly neutral opinion on the others.


D Tier Types feel like they don't really represent anything for their Pokemon to me. I like Flying, but Flying is mostly Early Game Normal/Flying Birds or Pokemon that are defined by their other Type. In the case of Tornadus, what defined him as a Flying Type was he didn't have a second Type. Flying is a Secondary Type so much that I didn't realize Rookidee wasn't Normal/Flying until after I caught a Shiny one. The only Non Legendary Flying Type evolves into a Pokemon with two types.

Fairy feels slapped onto most old Pokemon that were retconed into Fairy after Gen 6 and Tapu Koko and Bulu. It doesn't help that I'm not a fan of half of the new ones, especially the flower based ones that should've been Grass Types. (My problem with the flower ones isn't the Pokemon themselves. It's just that they're not Grass types.) Normal is practically made to be the Typeless Type and Non-Flying Normal Types seem to be, "The other type, but not much of the other type" to me.


F Tier... Look under my name and in my signature. Fighting would be B if it weren't for the principal.
 
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Explanations, in order:

We start out with the two types I associate most with my preference for artificial-themed mons, with Steel in higher prominence. That said, the mechanics of the types in question help them a lot as well, since I usually prefer defensive and status-focused playstyles (just spamming shadow ball is a disservice to the type).

After that are types where the mechanics take focus while I still think the designs are decent. I like Bug for having a lot of strong status and disruption ability to compensate for poor matchups. I just really like that Poison is a type at all. I like damage-over-time effects a lot, so Toxic having been on such a pedestal throughout the series was a nice affirmation that my playstyles were valid. Shame about gen 8 forcing me to write in past tense about it.

Ground and Dark I think of as having good designs, though it could also be that they simply pair well with higher-ranking types: my preferred Grounds are the Poison-type Nidos, the Steel-type Excadrill, and the Ghost-type Palossand while my favourite Darks include the Ghost-type Spiritomb and Steel-type Bisharp.

After that is a large pile of types that I can think of having several well-liked mons as well as less-appreciated ones. Electric and Normal have the highest highs and lowest lows of the tier: they have mons that could easily fit in Flesh is Weak but they're drowned out by the number of mundane animals. Grass often has mechanics but rarely has aesthetics (Kartana is an exception to both). The rest of the tier is pretty much just the baseline.

The last types I feel that I don't get much out of either the mechanical or aesthetic design. My favourites in Fire and Water are usually carried by their other types and the mechanics feel basic, while both Fighting and Dragon lose extra points for deliberately being straightforward.
 
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S Rank:
Psychic types always had that badass aura to me. Pokémon such as Mewtwo, Alakazam, Delphox, Meowstic, and Starmie always looked cool to me. Their concept is also similar to the Jedi in Star Wars, which I am a big fan of.
Water always had a spot in my favorite because the Blastoise evolution line has always been my first and favorite. I also love how diverse Water-types are, with dopey ones such as Slowbro to cool-looking Pokemon such as Poliwrath.
Fire and Ground are at the top of the list since they have top tier designs in general, in my opinion. Such Pokemon include Rhydon, Flareon, Rapidash, Moltres, Sandslash, Camerupt, Victini, Mudsdale, and Coalossal.

A Rank
I love the design of Fighting-types, similar in the way of Psychic-types. Strong, hulking, and muscular Pokémon always seemed badass to me, especially as I am a pro-wrestling fan.
Bug- and Ice-types always have a special place in my teams since they have always been the underdog types. These two types have always been labeled as the "weak" types, so I always love the challenge to make these Pokémon useful in my teams.
I love the Poison type's "deadly" aura, where they could just slowly sap away a helpless opponent's health away. Also, Nidoqueen and Nidoking's design are just awesome.

B Rank
I generally love the Pokémon from these types, just not the same amount of Pokémon as the ones from the above types. Pokemon that I love from these types include Tauros, Lycanroc, Aurorus, Raticate, Golem, Clefable, Solrock, Lunatone., and Mega Pidgeot

C Rank
These are average types to my liking. There are a good Pokemon of these types that I like, but there are also meh Pokémon. Some of my favorite Pokémon of these types include Minun, Plusle, Raichu, Exeggutor, and Dragonite.

D Rank
Dark and Ghost types take the bottom rank for me because they make my favorite Psychic-type Pokémon's lives a living hell. Still, they have some great designs imo, such as Banette and Alolan Marowak.
 
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As for how I view the Pokemon of these respective types:
S: I love almost all of these with few exceptions, and can easily name a treasure trove of favorites from each right off the bat. I know I'm being cliche with these three, but what I'm not is someone who cares about being cliche.
A: Most of these are pretty good and I can pick out about 3-5 of each from my 50-ish all-time favorites.
B: Moderate amount of quality in each of these types. I can pick out about 2-3 standouts from my favorites.
C: The majority of the ones I do like tend to be propped up by a second better type.
D: Repeat what I said about the types in C, but add to that a type that can't hit anything super-effectively with its STAB attacks and now you've lost me.
 
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Did this according to the OP's parameters. Seems pretty accurate actually, tho there were some surprises. With that said, explanation time!

:ss/leavanny:
HAIL BUGS: Bug is, has been and will forever be the best type of the franchise, and nothing anyone says will change my mind. I just have so many good things to say about it. Incredibly diverse roster that includes a rich variety of invertebrates, solid disruption and setup moves and surprisingly good performance in monotype situations. (I swear each and every single member of my bug teams has felt useful at some time or another. Even butterfree has put work.) So yeah, bug rules, let's continue.
:ss/celebi: :ss/mothim: :ss/lunatone: :ss/pelipper: :ss/rayquaza:
10 or more pokemon present: These types all have a pretty solid representation on my top 100. They don't practically infest the list the way bug does, but I still have deep appreciation to them. Water and grass are pretty much the starter types that I usually use (tho that might change with gen 9. Maybe). They also represent the nature aesthetic that I've always been a fan of. Flying psychic and dragon all have a lot of mons that I like, and I also like their concepts a lot. (Tho I don't like that dragon is thought of with power in mind and thus gets a ton of op stuff while they mostly only give low bst trash to bug, which is why it's the lowest in the tier).
:ss/gallade-mega: :ss/arctozolt: :ss/crustle: :ss/flygon: :ss/aegislash-blade: :ss/ribombee: :ss/metagross-mega:
7 to 9 pokemon present: I think all of these are fine enough. They do have relative representation on my top 100, but not as much as the ones above. Fighting, I feel, has always had an abundance of extremely humanoid mons that I'm not particularly invested in (tho gallade IS king). But others like falinks breloom and heracross more than make up for that. Electric admittedly I did expect to be higher, but maybe it's just the type's natural semi rarity. Rock and ground both are pretty similar, and they both get more or less representation, tho I do wish the types had more slick looking mons.
Ghost is pretty much a fan favorite, and I too like it a lot, representing different paranormal creatures and concepts. Again, this tiering may just be the type's natural semi rarity. Lastly, fairy is relatively solid, tho I do wish that the large majority didn't fall under either "pink" "cute" "feminine" or a combination of any of those. Thankfully, they do have seemed to have learned that lesson judging by the later fairy mons. Steel has always been THE defensive type of the franchise. Therefore, almost all of its mons are slow and bulky! Admittedly, I am not particularly attracted to that playstyle, but it at least does have some neat creatures to it.
:ss/kecleon: :ss/rapidash: :ss/beedrill-mega: :ss/sandslash-alola: :ss/cacturne:
6 or less pokemon present: I don't rly hate any of these types, but they all have either something in their mons that annoys me or are plain rare. Normal has always felt like a neutral type. Almost all of them look like stylized animals, which can be kinda hit or miss for me. The hits can be absolutely incredible (kecleon for example) or they can just fall flat and be boring. Fire does also have the rarity problem, but I've also felt that the fire starters have always been given more attention than the others (Charizard for obvious reasons, cinderace getting TWO signature moves and a ton of marketing attention, incineroar getting all the tools to be a vgc staple...) It's always felt a little unfair for the others, who usually get one signature move at most. Poison has the problem of having slow and bulky mons which, as I mentioned, isn't a playstyle I'm rly fan of. However, it's also associated with toxic, which can be EXTREMELY annoying to face in conjunction with bulky stuff. Ice has a combination of being rare and also it's infamous weaknesses, which can mean the mons will most likely die before doing anything. This wouldn't be too problematic if it wasn't for the fact that, like rock ground steel and poison, a lot of their mons are, u guessed it, slow and bulky! But unlike the others (rock nonwithstanding) they don't rly fit with that style, which means that a lot of the time using them can feel annoying. Finally, dark. Tbh I've never rly been too much of an edgelord, so having a type full of those isn't particularly attractive to me. I do get why people love it tho.

Well, that's a wrap! Just for the record, not because the types are in the bottom doesn't mean I don't like any of the mons they have. And you're perfectly free to disagree ofc (but respectfully pls). Ok, idk how to finish this. Um... Have cute mothim he's genuinely underrated.
:bw/mothim:
Yeah that's good enough.
 
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