Becoming a Pokemon pro means remembering a long list of type matchups. With eighteen types and a majority of Pokemon having two of them, it’s hard to remember absolutely every combination possible. But, it can be helpful to learn which types have the most resistances. They won’t necessarily be great offensively, depending, but you know they’ll be able to take a hit from at least a few other types.
Most Pokemon are dual-types, so their weaknesses and resistances will sometimes slightly change, depending on the combination. But, here are the pure types with the most resistances.
Updated February 21st, 2021 by Michael Christopher: Playing Pokemon competitively means being an expert on your type matchups. With most of the missing Pokemon finally returned to the series with the Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra expansions, there are a couple hundred more Pokemon to remember the matchups for. We thought we’d take another pass at this list and make sure it’s all up to date.
10 Fairy
As the newest type to be introduced into the series, it seems as though Fairy was meant to balance out some of the meta-game. It was made to be offensively powerful against some of the more common and somewhat-unchallenged types like Fighting, Dragon, and Dark.
The developers also gave Fairy a good number of resistances. It resists Bug, Dark, and Fighting. Furthermore, it’s entirely immune to Dragon-type attacks. Fairy is definitely a Dragon-killer, especially fun because many Fairy-types are cute and pink.
9 Flying
The Flying-type, which only has three Pokemon within it that are pure-Flying (Tornadus, Rookidee, and Corvisquire), ties with Fairy for resistances and immunities. Flying has three resisted types and a single immunity. It will resist Fighting, Grass, and Bug. Additionally, Ground-type moves will have no effect on Flying-type Pokemon.
This is of course, under normal circumstances. There are a variety of items and moves that will “ground” Flying-type Pokemon, making them vulnerable to the Ground-type.
8 Ghost
If you like Flying and Fairy Pokemon because they are completely immune to another type, consider the Ghost-type. This spooky type doesn’t just have two resistances — Bug and Poison — it’s also completely immune to two different types.
Normal-type and Fighting-type moves will have zero effect against Ghost-type Pokemon. Some species that pair Ghost with another type that has an immunity, like Drifloon (Ghost/Flying) will have an immunity to three whole types. Now, that’s overpowered.
7 Rock
Rock is an interesting type. Did you know that if a Pokemon somehow had all eighteen types, its only weakness would be Rock? Offensively, Rock is great, being super-effective against four types: Bug, Flying, Fire, and Ice. Luckily, it actually has an equal number of resistances and weaknesses, with four again.
Rock-type Pokemon will resist Fire, Flying, Normal, and Poison. It’s weak to Fighting, Grass, Ground, and Water. What a beautiful trio of number-fours.
6 Water
The most populous type in the game is Water, and it also holds the title for the second-most monotypes, just behind Normal. The type makes up almost a fifth of all Pokemon. While being very populous, Water is also busy resisting several other types.
Tying with Rock, Water resists a nice four types: Ice, Fire, Steel, and itself. If you’re using an Ice-type against a Water-type, though, the move Freeze-Dry is unique in being super-effective, which is cool (literally).
5 Grass
Tied for Rock for the most weaknesses, Grass also interestingly has quite a few resistances, tying with Rock again. With five weaknesses and four resistances, Grass has some type of matchup effectiveness with half of all the types.
Grass resists Electric, Ground, Water, and itself. One might think “Grass has the most weaknesses, why would I pick it as a starter Pokemon choice?” but it’s frequently paired with other types, like Poison, that reduce its weakness count and increase its resistances.
4 Dragon
Another interesting type is the Dragon-type, which has some weird matchup combinations when it comes to weaknesses. Dragon resists four types — Fire, Water, Grass, and Electric. It’s interesting to note that these are the four starter types from Generation I — Charmander, Squirtle, Bulbasaur, and Pikachu.
In terms of its use offensively, Dragon is only actually good against one other type: itself. At the same time, it is only resisted by Steel and ineffective against Fairy.
3 Poison
Some fans may be surprised to see Poison so high on this list. At face value, it doesn’t seem like it should resist more than other types like Rock or Ground do, but it does. Poison has a total of five resistances, which is very good. Poison-types will resist Fighting, Bug, Grass, Fairy, and Poison itself.
It also only has two weaknesses — Ground and Psychic. Defensively, it’s a great type. It’s a smart strategy to inflict poison on a foe and then resist more than a quarter of the types, outlasting them while the poison status slowly chips away at their health.
2 Fire
In second place for the most resistances is the very popular Fire-type, which resists a fantastic six types. Besides Fire itself, it resists Fairy, Ice, Steel, Grass, and Bug. It is also immune to burns.
Having so many resistances might make one think that a Fire-type starter would be the best choice of the three, but unfortunately, Fire is weak to the very common Water, Ground, and Rock, meaning it’ll go down quickly to both Surf and Earthquake.
1 Steel
The reigning ruler of type resistances is the super-defensive Steel-type, which boasts a whopping ten resistances. This means it resists more than half of all the types, plus it has complete immunity to Poison-type moves (and as a result, being poisoned).
Steel’s long list of resistances includes Bug, Dragon, Flying, Grass, Ice, Normal, Psychic, Rock, Fairy, and itself. Before Generation VI, Steel-types were even more insane, resisting Dark and Ghost, bringing the total to twelve resistances and an immunity.
NEXT: 10 Pokémon That Learn Moves that Make No Sense
