Teambuilding / Concrete Building Blocks

A Pokémon's typing greatly impacts how that Pokémon can be used in battle, from resisting damage to getting more damage out of attacks. However, not all types are created equal. The type chart is important, but how your team approaches covering it depends on the metagame and the threatening Pokémon that exist.

Typing usually refers to a Pokémon's types in a defensive sense, when it's taking damage from attacks. When we talk about a Pokémon's offensive capabilities, we talk about STAB attacks or coverage.

What does it mean for a Pokemon to have “good” typing?

Typing is useful in the context of the Pokémon that are popular in the metagame. If an offensive Pokémon appears on 60% of teams, and you have a Pokémon that resists its powerful attacks AND can do something useful in return, that Pokémon is likely going to be a good member of your team because of its typing. 

Pokémon with good typing often have few weaknesses, and might not have 4x weaknesses to common types. Another sign is that the moves that do hit them for super effective damage are hard to come by on good Pokémon in the format; for example, in most formats, Bug- and Poison-type moves are generally challenging to fit on teams, so you wouldn’t need to worry about those weaknesses as much. 

A Pokémon’s typing is also good when it synergizes with the other Pokémon on your team. If a Pokémon has typing that lets it resist attacks that would deal significant damage to other Pokémon on your team, that’s going to allow you to switch more often. This means a Pokémon can have good typing in general, good typing for your specific team, or a combination of both.

A Pokémon can only make use of its typing defensively if it has the stats to back it up. For example, if you were looking to make use of Fighting/Bug typing defensively, you’d look at Buzzwole before you looked at Pheromosa.

With Pokémon that have good typing, you can:

• Switch in on powerful attacks that threaten your Pokémon on the field

  • You can even switch Pokémon multiple times in the same game!

• Once on the field, survive attacks and take control of the battle

• Put pressure on your opponent by making use of both defensive typing and offensive coverage

What does it mean for a Pokemon to have “bad” typing?

Pokémon can be hindered by their defensive typing. If a Pokémon has many weaknesses and few resistances, or has 4x weaknesses to common attacks with no other defensive merit, you won’t be able to rely on it to take attacks or to switch in. If you need that Pokémon for offensive purposes, a bad typing may not be the end of the world– but you’ll notice in your games that you’ll be constrained on when you can switch that Pokémon in, which can be exploitable by your opponents.

Thinking about the type chart when teambuilding

A common misconception is that your Pokémon team needs to cover all types offensively (need to be able to hit every type for super effective) or defensively (need to be able to resist every attack). In fact, typing is slightly more contextual than that. As mentioned previously, the Pokémon that you’ll face more frequently determines which typing is important. You’re going to want to get a sense of which Pokémon will be attacking you most frequently; your own experience or usage stats can be a great source of information. 

You will want some balance on your team’s types, however– you don’t want a common Pokémon to be able to plow through your team! Make sure that you have Pokémon that can switch in on common attacks for each other. Some of my friends use the Marilland Teambuilder to plug in their team and make sure they have a good balance of defensive coverage. From there, they cross-reference the output with what they understand of the format, and go back to the teambuilder from there. You might be okay with having three Pokémon that are weak to Bug-type on your team; but if you’re thinking about including three Fairy-type weak Pokémon on your team, you might want to take a step back. 

When I pick Pokémon for my teams, ideally, I’m not picking Pokémon just for their typing– but the Pokémon does something offensively or defensively that I’m interested in, and its typing means that it will synergize nicely with the rest of my team. When I notice I’m focusing on finding the perfect typing that solves all my problems, I end up looking at Pokémon that I don’t think are very good. This is a sign to me that the rest of my team needs rethinking. Especially beware of Pokémon that have low damage output in these scenarios– it’s easy to justify choosing them based on their supportive moves, but typing alone won’t save you from threats that have high damage output.

Does typing always matter?

In restricted metagames or GS cup metagames, there are a few Pokémon that hit much harder than other Pokémon— culprits include Xerneas, Primal Groudon, Primal Kyogre, and Calyrex-Shadow, among others. When the metagame revolves around supporting these Pokémon, it’s important that your Pokémon are focused on resisting their attacks– and you can kind of forget about some of the rest of the type chart, because other Pokémon will appear less frequently, and won’t be hitting you with the same strength.

Wrapping Up

The type chart is one of the first things that we learn about Pokémon, and it’s easy to think that we need to cover all of it at once. However, it’s much less necessary to have every Pokémon be a different type, or to make sure to cover for every type defensively, than it is to understand how your Pokémon operate defensively and how typing plays into that puzzle.