Making sense of the type effectiveness chart NO I HAVE NEVER TRIED

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Notes:
  • Where a resistance has a corresponding super-effectiveness in reverse (e.g. for Fire's weakness Water there's Water's resistance to Fire, then the relationship is listed for one type only)
  • One-sided weaknesses/resistances are represented in the same way which leaves room for ambiguity, but everyone reading this probably knows the chart off by heart
  • Immunities treated the same as resistances because the difference between a 0 and 1/2 modifier when both reduce damage is pretty arbitrary
  • Dragon not included because fuck dragon

Fire
  • Melts Ice
  • Melts Steel
  • Sets Fire to Grass
  • Roasts Bug
  • Can't melt/burn Rock
  • Fire already alight

Water
  • Douses Fire
  • Erodes Rock
  • Turns Ground to mud
  • Water already wet
  • Not frozen by Ice due to high heat capacity
  • Steel corroded by water on contact

Grass
  • Grows through Ground
  • Grows through Rock
  • Soaks up Water
  • Can't invade other Grass root networks
  • Roots ground it against Electric

Ice
  • Freeze-thaws Ground
  • Frosts Grass
  • Slows metabolism, Flying can't flap enough to stay aloft
  • Ice already frozen

Electric
  • Electrolyses Water
  • Shocks Flying due to lack of grounding
  • Resists Electric
  • Steel gets shocked by electricity on contact

Fighting
  • Bruises Normal
  • Shatters Rock, Ice
  • Bends Steel
  • Not squeamish about Bug

Ghost
  • Passes through Ghost, freaks out
  • Spooks Psychic
  • Normal goes through it
  • Fighting goes through it
  • Bug has nothing to feed on
  • No flesh to Poison

Psychic
  • Outsmarts Fighting
  • Uses knowledge to neutralise Poison
  • Matches own wits

Poison
  • Poisons Grass
  • Is toxic to Bug
  • Contact poison deters Fighting
  • Immunised against self

Steel
  • Impermeable to Poison
  • Harder than Rock
  • Tougher than Normal
  • Technology disproves Ghost
  • Technology beats (Dark) magic
  • Tin-foil hat effect against Psychic
  • Grass can't grow roots into it
  • Inedible to Bug
  • Harder than Flying beaks/talons
  • Hardened by Ice
  • Steel can't cut itself

Bug
  • Brings plague on Grass
  • (Proportionally - see ants/rhinoceros beetles etc) Stronger than Fighting
  • Triggers Psychic's OCD
  • Can dig itself out of Ground

Rock
  • Drops Flying out of the sky
  • Crushes Bug
  • Harder than Ice
  • Tougher than Normal
  • Impermeable to Poison

Ground
  • Grounds Electric
  • Buries Rock
  • Binds with Poison
  • Puts out Fire
  • Turns Steel back to ore

Flying
  • Eats Bug
  • Eats Grass
  • Can fly out of Fighting's reach
  • Can fly out of Ground's reach

Dark
  • Makes Psychic depressed
  • Eats soul of Ghost
  • Sensitive to beating from Fighting

Normal
  • Can't see Ghost
 
This topic should be stickied. On FDR's face on Mount Rushmore.


Edit: Why u no Dragon?

Dragon:

- Imagine two T-Rex's chillin out with each other and sharing a steak. Not happening.


 
Steel
-Technology beats magic, Dragons are magic and cannot hurt it.

Dragon
-Hide resists most elements
-Except Ice because Dragons are reptiles, and thus, cold-blooded
 
it's shit like that that makes me realize how deep-seated pokemon is in my psyche without my realizing it

when i think of rock vs water, i think to myself that water wins because it just 'makes sense' but im pretty sure the reason i think it makes sense is because thats how it works in pokemon. honestly ive never consciously made the erosion connection before despite it being so obvious, which is funny considering my signature was 'like erosion' for several months. haha oops??
 
This one is my favorite

Rock
Why is it twice as effective against Flying? Cause you can hit two birds with one stone.
 
Normal

Without developed muscles, you can't get past Rock and Steel

Fighting

Good (fighting) beats evil (dark)

Psychic

They have enough intelligence to know that if they get nervous, their blood will flow quickly through the veins, thus making the poison take effect faster
 
Dark is super effective on Psychic because the latter is the nerd type, and nerds can't read their books in the dark.

On a serious note though, I always thought that flying types were resistant to fighting because of the feathers which not only provide some minor cushion from blows, but also individual feathers can't really be broken by fighting moves, merely bent before returning to regular shape momentarily
 
Grass
bugmaniacbob said:
Have you ever tried to grass a cannon?
Click to expand...

Anyway the reasoning behind Ground being super effective against Poison, Fire and Steel just made me shake my head numerous times.
 
You mention the bug fighting relationhip twice and i think fighting should be squeamish about bug or maybe im misunderstanding it. Also poison has no relation with bug.

Jolly good read though. What glen said is also very interesting and true of myself also for certain things. When i see a dragons depicted in other media being deterred with fire i always have a fleeting thought that that isnt the right way to do it. The grass ground i have a similar feel of 'that just makes sense'

Edit:oops. Although fighting being shit against bug ive always thought was rather odd. Strange that i never felt that way for poison psychic, which as you pointed out is really fucking strange.
 
Glen said:
it's shit like that that makes me realize how deep-seated pokemon is in my psyche without my realizing it

when i think of rock vs water, i think to myself that water wins because it just 'makes sense' but im pretty sure the reason i think it makes sense is because thats how it works in pokemon. honestly ive never consciously made the erosion connection before despite it being so obvious, which is funny considering my signature was 'like erosion' for several months. haha oops??
Click to expand...

I had that moment with Poison vs Psychic, which is really hard to actually understand lol

Poppy said:
You mention the bug fighting relationhip twice and i think fighting should be squeamish about bug or maybe im misunderstanding it. Also poison has no relation with bug.
Click to expand...

poison resists bug, but isn't SE on bug. The Fighting/Bug relation is listed twice because they resist each other, rather than having a resist/SE pair.
 
Dark-type is the Evil-type in Japan so instead of technology being immune to Dark magic it's more like Robots can't be morally swayed one way or the other?

It's unfortunate that we can't have evil robots in the Pokemon universe ):
 
Rock

It's possible to extinguish fire with solid things, like stone

It can crush ice (on a similar way to fighting)

Ice

One possible form of melting ice, is leaning something made of steel

Bug

Don't mind Psychic's intelligence

They can't get past fire

Birds are their predators

They can't eat ghosts since ghosts don't have flesh

They cannot eat things made of steel at all

Electric

Ground does not conduct electricity

Plants can barely (if ever) conduct electricity

Ground

Insects use ground as their home

Same thing about plants

Birds can simply fly and avoid all ground-related effects, like earthquakes

Water

Oxidize some metal (steel not very effective on water)

Fighting

Excessive use of steroids (fighting not very effective on poison)
 
I knew there were a few missing (some like the rock extinguishing fire is already covered by the corresponding resistance)

added missing ones
 
how is it that this thread is better than the OI thread on the same topic

talk about a scathing condemnation of OI's userbase
 
Eagle4 said:
Anyway the reasoning behind Ground being super effective against Poison, Fire and Steel just made me shake my head numerous times.
Click to expand...
ground actually does put out fire, laboratories and the like usually have a bucket of sand to extinguish oil fires (which water would fuel).

also, here's a (rather obscure) resistance you forgot:

Rock

  • Has no veins for Poison to take effect
 
I always thought that Steel's resistance to Dragon came from those old stories about knights in armor slaying dragons.
 
Fighting
-Ever try to punch a fly? Did you hit it? If you did the bug bug still just flew away.

Bug
-Ever see a bug squash a body builder?
 
cookie said:
Fire
  • Melts Ice
  • Melts Steel
  • Sets Fire to Grass
  • Roasts Bug
  • Can't melt/burn Rock
  • Fire already alight
Click to expand...

Steel has a higher melting point than most minerals due to metallic bonding. Perhaps it's that steel is a better heat conductor (whereas most minerals are usually pretty shitty ones) and hence the mon is easier to hurt via conduction?
 
I had two nagging problems with the type-effectiveness chart. The first one was why water wasn't super-effective against electric. I just thought that the water would short-circuit electric (an example is spilling water on your laptop). I don't know if others feel the same way, but there ya go.

I also thought that water should be super-effective against steel, since water can rust certain metals and alloys such as non-stainless steel. Meh, I still think that should change. And eh, Ice should be super effective against fighting, as it would slow the fighting type down and give him or her hypothermia.

I'm looking too far into this.

also @brah

Well, if steel is good at conducting, then surely steel should be super effective against fire? In the same way that grass absorbs water.
 
Ice being weak to Fire has always bugged me. I know, Fire melts Ice, but that just turns it into Water, which Fire is weak to. Maybe I just constantly have Mega Man on my mind.
 
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