Characters / Pokémon - Physical Types

Main Character Index > Pokémon Types > Physical Types | Special Types | Later Types

Pokémon come in 18 different types, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. When the franchise began, these types were little more than gameplay elements, but over the years, Game Freak and the fandom have added more than enough depth to the types to make them characters in their own right. This page is for types that were introduced in the first-generation games and were considered physical types in those games.

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Normal

Normal-Type (ノーマルタイプ Nōmaru Taipu)

Normal-type Pokémon are the Non-Elemental of the series. It's not too useful offensively, but their diverse movepools make them capable of some truly impressive Confusion Fu. Unlike most types, which have some kind of obvious unifying theme, Normal-types can be anything from common animals to bizarre Cartoon Creatures. A few Pokémon, such as Ditto, Castform, Kecleon, Meloetta, Silvally, or Arceus, whose main gimmick revolves around changing their types or not relying on types at all, are Normal-types in their natural state.

They make their habitats in any region that they can call home, being the most exceptional generalists of the 18 types. Normal is the second most-common type.

They make up most of the Com Mons, but there are a few outliers like Snorlax and Blissey. Arceus, the creator deity of the Pokémon world, is Normal-type in its default form.

Normal-type attacks are strong against no types, are resisted by Rock and Steel, and do not affect Ghost. Normal-types are only weak to Fighting-type attacks, and are immune to Ghost.

In the Trading Card Game, Normal-type Pokémon are part of the Colorless energy type.

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• Action Bomb: The moves Self-Destruct and Explosion, which both knock out the user in exchange for inflicting massive damage on the opponent, are Normal moves.
• Action Initiative:
  • Quick Attack has +1 priority, causing the move to hit first in most situations.
  • Feint is weak but breaks all protection moves such as Protect, Wide Guard, and Spiky Shield. It has +2 priority.
  • Until the 7th generation games (which nerfed Sucker Punch's power and introduced the 90 power Bug-type move First Impression), Extreme Speed was tied with Sucker Punch for having the highest power of all priority attacks, at 80. It has +2 priority.
  • Fake Out has +3 priority and will always make the opponent Flinch, but it can only be used the first turn the user is allowed to act.
  • Inverted with Roar and Whirlwind, which have -6 priority, meaning that in the majority of cases, they will hit last.
• Always Accurate Attack:
  • Swift, Trump Card, Confide, Play Nice, and Tearful Look bypass accuracy and evasion checks when used.
  • Lock-On and Mind Reader cause the next attack to always hit even during the semi-invulnerable periods of moves like Fly and Dig.
  • And as a variation, Odor Sleuth and Foresight removes Ghost-type immunity and reset Evasion to default. They also bypass accuracy and evasion checks, since they would have a hard time doing what they're supposed to if they were prone to missing.
• Armor-Piercing Attack:
  • As mentioned above, Feint breaks through moves like Protect.
  • Chip Away ignores changes in the target's Defense. That's exactly what it does — it ignores increases in defense, but also decreases. (It also ignores modifiers to Evasion.)
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Hyper Beam and Giga Impact are widespread and powerful attacks, but they have a recharge turn after use that forces the user to stay in battle and be unable to do anything. What makes this Awesome, but Impractical is that the opponent can use this turn to do anything they like — healing, switching, boosting, or just beating the crap out of you. Chances are, your opponent's free turn will more than offset the damage your attack did. Even worse, you can most likely deal just as much (if not more) damage with any other move with an effective base 75 power or more — just use it twice in a row. In other words, barring Slaking — whose Truant ability makes it skip every other turn anyway — there is next to no reason to ever use Hyper Beam or any other move that requires two turns to execute.^note Interestingly, Hyper Beam is an aversion in Gen I since you don't have to recharge if you knock out an enemy Pokémon with it, making it very practical. This was changed from Gen II onward.
  • Trump Card has the unique property of increasing in power as its PP depletes, up to 200 Power on the final attack. However, it's very weak for the first few attacks and it's difficult surviving long enough for the power to reach its maximum. And, of course, you can only use the max power Trump Card once.
  • Horn Drill and Guillotine will KO the target no matter what (unless its Ability is Sturdy). However, it has an accuracy of 30% if both Pokémon are at the same level, and if the target's level is greater, the attack will fail. The only way to increase the accuracy of the OHKO moves is to have a level advantage: one level higher is one extra percent. If a Pokémon has a 20-level advantage to grant a 50% accuracy for these moves, then there are probably other moves in the Pokémon's arsenal that could one-shot its opponent with better efficiency. If you have a 50-level advantage, you can one-shot your opponent with Tackle or some similarly laughably weak move. There are ways to make these more reliable (like Mind Reader or No Guard), but nothing that makes them practical.
• Badass Normal: The best way to describe some of the tougher Normal-types. They have weak Special Attacks and limited Special Movepools, but their physical stats and prowess with such moves are excellent.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Rapid Spin, Swords Dance, Substitute, Protect, Baton Pass, Encore, and Fake Out. Normal-type moves like these aren't particularly flashy and most don't deal damage, but they can make or break entire battles.
  • Although Normal-types lack super-effective STAB coverage and have very little in the way of resistances, they can fill a wide variety of roles and find effective use on a team, both for serious battling and in-game adventuring.
• Brown Note: Perish Song is a cursed song that causes all Pokémon that hear it to instantly faint in three turns. The curse can be nullified by switching out, so utilizing trapping moves and stalling ("Perish Trapping") is practically a requirement to effectively use Perish Song.
• Cartoon Creature: A lot of Normal-types look quite bizarre, even if they have recognizable basis. Just look at Lickitung and Audino for a few examples.
• Cast from Hit Points:
  • Take Down, Double Edge, and Head Charge deal damage to the user equal to a fraction of the damage dealt to opponents; 1/4 for Take Down and Head Charge and 1/3 for Double Edge.
  • Belly Drum consumes 50% of the user's max HP and boosts its Attack to the maximum. Substitute consumes 25% of the user's max HP to create a decoy with that amount of HP to take attacks for it, while also blocking status attacks outright. If the user would be brought to 0 or less HP by either move, it fails.
• Charged Attack:
  • Razor Wind and Skull Bash both require the user to spend a turn doing nothing before the attack. As a result, they fall squarely into Awesome, but Impractical territory, though they at least have an increased critical hit chance and raise the user's Defense, respectively.
  • Spit Up plays it a little differently — it only works after the user has used Stockpile at least once, and deals more damage if the user has used Stockpile more than once, consuming all charges in the process.
• Color-Coded Elements: Normal-types are represented by a warm grey to represent their low interaction with other types. In practice, Normal-types tend to be grey, brown, or pink.
• Com Mons: The majority of Com Mons are Normal-types, but the opposite is not necessarily true. This includes Rattata, Sentret, Zigzagoon, Patrat, Lillipup, and a majority of early Flying-types who have Normal as their second type.
• Confusion Fu:
  • Normal-types tend to have large and extremely versatile movepools to go with their Jack of All Trades nature.
  • Hidden Power has the potential to become any type but Normal and Fairy. The trainer can't determine its type without consulting the regional Hidden Power checker or doing a lot of math with hidden values, and its animation has no clue to what typing it is.
  • Assist can become almost any attack that another Pokémon in the trainer's party knows, while Metronome can become almost any attack, period. ^note Except Assist, Chatter, Copycat, Counter, Covet, Destiny Bond, Detect, Endure, Feint, Focus Punch, Follow Me, Helping Hand, Me First, Metronome, Mimic, Mirror Coat, Mirror Move, Protect, Quick Guard, Sketch, Sleep Talk, Snatch, Struggle, Switcheroo, Thief, Trick, and Wide Guard.
• Counter-Attack: Bide causes the user to charge for two turns, and then attack on the third turn for double the damage it took during the charging period.
• Critical Hit Class: The moves Slash and Razor Wind have a higher than normal chance of causing Critical Hits. Also of note is the move Focus Energy, which raises the user's overall chances of landing a critical hit and is useful for any Pokémon that plans to specialize in doing so. There is also Laser Focus, which guarantees that the next attack will be a critical hit.
• Desperation Attack: Flail deals much more damage if used by a Pokémon that's at low HP.
• Disc-One Nuke: TM27 Return is obtained early in the game in Platinum, Black 2 and White 2 and X and Y. With enough patience and walking around, it's possible to have a 102 power attack before tackling the first few gyms. Considering that most moves in the early-game have half that power at best, that's quite powerful. It's even more effective if used by a Normal-type, as its strength increases to 153 power, stronger than a STAB-less Giga Impact. More moves will become available, but until then, Return has incredible power.
• Dramatic Red Samurai Background: The animation for Retaliate features this starting from Generation VI, with the user perfoming a Single-Stroke Battle on the target over a red sliding door background.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors
  • Offense
    • Strong: None
    • Weak: Rock, Steel
    • Immune: Ghost
  • Defense
    • Strong: None
    • Weak: Fighting
    • Immune: Ghost
• Emergency Weapon: Struggle can only be used by Pokémon that cannot use any more moves (either due to totally running out of PP or being locked into one move and running out of PP for that one). While it's considered a Normal-type move, the move is truly non-elemental because it doesn't apply Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors. It also damages the user by 1/4th of its max HP with each use, so when a Pokémon starts using Struggle, the battle's going to be over quick.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: Tri Attack is depicted as firing three balls of fire, ice, and electric energy. It has a 20% chance of burning, freezing, or paralyzing the opponent, and each one has a 1/3rd chance of happening.
• Fixed Damage Attack: Sonic Boom does exactly 20 damage to anything that's not a Ghost-type.
• Heal Thyself: Recover, Soft-Boiled, Milk Drink, Slack Off, and Morning Sun all restore the user's HP. Swallow does the same, but only if the user has some charges stored from using Stockpile. Refresh doesn't heal any HP, but it cures some of the major status effects.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Captivate, Growl, Hyper Voice, Leer, Razor Wind, Relic Song, Sweet Scent, Swift, and Tail Whip affect all foes while Boomburst, Explosion, Self-Destruct, and Teeter Dance hit everyone but the user.
• Horn Attack: The Trope Namer is a Normal-type move.
• HP to One: False Swipe and Hold Back deal normal damage but cannot cause a KO, leaving the target with at least 1 HP. Useful for catching Pokémon.
• Jack of All Stats: As far as matchups go, it's nicely balanced, being weak to one type and immune to another. Offensively, Normal-type moves aren't particularly useful except for S.T.A.B. (Same Type Attack Bonus), which enhances the strength of the moves by 50% as long as the user is the same type.
• Jack of All Trades:
  • They can also fulfill various roles with their plethora of attacking options.
  • In the Galar region, Normal-types are preferred in Poké Job requests as they are best at dealing with a wide variety of customers.
• Last Chance Hit Point: Endure allows the user to survive lethal attacks with 1 HP left for the duration of the turn. Especially powerful when combined with Flail and Reversal (which gain strength the lower the user's HP is).
• Last Disc Magic: Hyper Beam and Giga Impact are usually available to buy as a TM late in the game or can be learned naturally by some Pokémon during the late- or post-game.
• Limit Break:
  • The Normal-type Z-Move is Breakneck Blitz, in which the user crashes into the foe at full speed.
  • The Normal-type Max Move, Max Strike, sends a shockwave through the ground that lowers the target's Speed by 1 stage.
  • Gigantamax Meowth's exclusive G-Max Move, G-Max Gold Rush, causes beams of golden light to erupt from the ground to confuse the target and scatter large coins everywhere.
  • Pulverizing Pancake, Snorlax's personal Z-Move, causes it to build up energy before leaping up high and crushing its opponent. Its exclusive G-Max Move, G-Max Replenish, restores any Berries it and its allies have eaten.
  • Eevee's exclusive Z-Move is Extreme Evoboost, in which it summons one of each of its evolutions to infuse it with strength, increasing each of its stats by two stages each. G-Max Cuddle, Gigantamax Eevee's G-Max Move, has it playfully "cuddle" (read: crush) its opponent, infatuating the target if it's the opposite gender.
• Luck-Based Mission: Hidden Power's type (and power before X and Y) is dependent on a hidden stat value that each Pokémon has, not that the games tell you this. It's pretty much impossible to influence what you'll get without breeding (impractical before the credits roll and both time-consuming and sanity-draining regardless), manipulating the games' Random Number God system (only possible before X and Y), or just cheating.
• Make Some Noise: Snore, Uproar, Hyper Voice, Round, Echoed Voice, Relic Song, and Boomburst are all damaging sound-based Normal moves. As of X and Y, they can hit Pokémon that are behind a Substitute.
• Man Bites Man: Super Fang, Hyper Fang, and Bite (only during Gen 1) are all moves where the Pokemon bites the target.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: A lot of Normal-types are based on one animal, but have characteristics of other animals. Slaking is a gorilla mixed with a sloth, Eevee has canine and feline traits, Staraptor resembles a cross between a starling and a bird of prey, and so on.
• Mutual Disadvantage: Normal-types cannot be harmed by Ghost-type moves, but Normal moves can't harm Ghost-types either.
• Nerf:
  • Explosion and Self-Destruct no longer halve the target's Defense starting in Generation V, effectively halving its power.
  • Horn Drill and Guillotine (and Fissure) based the hit possibility on Speed in Generation I and were affected by accuracy and evasion modifiers. Using X Accuracy (which made all attacks hit) on a fast Pokémon with Fissure could quickly defeat teams, even if using an underleveled Pokémon. Generation II changed these moves to the level-based hit possibility, and they ignore accuracy and evasion modifiers.
  • Hyper Beam in Generation I did not have a recharge turn if the Pokémon knocked out its opponent or broke a Substitute. In Generation II and beyond, the attack always has a recharge turn.
• Non-Elemental:
  • Normal is (unsurprisingly) this in the type system. It has the fewest interactions with other types, being resisted by two types, having one type immune to it, and dealing normal damage to the other fifteen types (including itself). On the downside, Normal moves are not super-effective against any type either.
  • In relation to them being essentially the "default" typing and not having any strong elemental qualities of its own, Normal is notable for having many moves that can be strongly influenced by the environment, weather, or simply the individual inner qualities of the Pokémon using the move. Hidden Power becomes a elemental typing depending on the IVs of the Pokémon, Secret Power changes effect according to the current surroundings, Nature Power becomes a different move depending on the current terrain, Weather Ball changes typing and power with the weather, and Terrain Pulse changes power and typing with the Terrain. Likewise there are a number of Abilities (Aerilate, Pixilate, Refrigerate, Galvanize) which increase the power of Normal type attacks and change them into an elemental typing in the process. Normalize does the opposite, writing over elemental attacks the user knows and turning them into Normal type moves while also boosting their strength.
  • This aspect of the Normal type having a comparative lack of strong elemental affinity is further emphasized by the Normal type plate item in Legends Arceus being called the "Blank Plate."
• Non-Indicative Name: There are many Pokémon who aren't "normal" in the slightest, but are Normal-type solely because they don't fit into any of the other types. Good examples of this would be Arceus (the creator of the universe) and Type: Null (a chimera of parts from other Pokémon).^note It should be noted that both Arceus and Silvally (the evolution of Type: Null) have the gimmick of being able to change their type before battle, depending on what item they hold, so the Normal type is little more than a default state of being for them.
• One-Hit KO: Horn Drill and Guillotine will instantly KO the target if they connect.
• Percent Damage Attack: Super Fang cuts the current HP of the target in half.
• The Power of Friendship: Return. Its power is dependent on how high the user's Friendship Value is, maxing out at 102 power. Inverted with Frustration, which has the same power when the Value is as low as possible.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Tearful Look makes the target lose its combative spirit, lowering its Attack and Special Attack.
• Quirky Bard: There are a lot of Normal-type Pokémon whose main features are gimmicks. Ditto can transform into other Pokémon; Eevee has eight potential evolutions; Smeargle can copy nearly every move; Spinda has variable spot patterns; Castform's type changes to match the weather (except sandstorms for some odd reason); Kecleon's ability changes its type into the attack last used on it; Chatot interacts with the DS microphone; Deerling and Sawsbuck have different designs depending on the in-game season; and many more. Often, these gimmicks are all they have, though some are still capable fighters (like Eevee's evolutions and Sawsbuck).
• Ramming Always Works: Tackle, Take Down, Double Edge, Head Charge, and Giga Impact, among others. Ramming is so iconic for being associated with Normal type attacks that the ultimate Normal type move (Breakneck Blitz) is itself basically a terrain-tearing Tackle in its animation.
• Random Effect Spell: Metronome can select nearly any move in the series when used, while Assist is more controlled in that it will randomly select a move that one of the user's teammates knows. Both of them cannot call certain moves, like themselves, Protect, or Counter.
• Real Is Brown: Many of them have a brown or tan color scheme to make them look more like real animals.
• Retcon:
  • Several previously Normal-type Pokémon and a few Normal-type moves became Fairy-type in Gen VI.
  • This also happened in Generation II, where Sand Attack, Bite, Karate Chop, and Gust, all Normal-type in Generation I, changed type.
• Scissors Cuts Rock: Foresight and Odor Sleuth allow the user to hit Ghost-type Pokémon with Normal- and Fighting-type moves, which is normally impossible.
• Shed Armor, Gain Speed: This is how Shell Smash works. Though it lowers the user's defenses, it also gives great boosts to Speed as well as both offenses.
• Situational Damage Attack: Flail deals more damage the lower the user's HP is. At full HP, the power is a measly 20, but when the user has under 5% of their HP left, it becomes even stronger than Hyper Beam.
• Spam Attack: Barrage, Comet Punch, Double Slap, Fury Attack, Fury Swipes, Spike Cannon, and Tail Slap hit 2-5 times when used, though each hit is pretty weak.
• Spin to Deflect Stuff: The move Rapid Spin has the user spin at high speed to deal damage. It's actually really weak, but it has the useful property of removing Leech Seed, trapping moves that deal damage like Bind, and entry hazards like Spikes. This effect only works if the attack deals damage and the user doesn't faint from recoil, so a Ghost-type or damage from Rocky Helmet/Rough Skin/Iron Barbs can stop it.
• Status Buff:
  • Swords Dance increases the user's Attack by 2 stages (a 100% additive increase).
  • Work Up and Growth increase Attack and Special Attack by 1 stage each (a 50% additive increase), with Growth doubling the boosts during Sunny Day or Drought.
  • Harden and Defense Curl increase Defense by 1 stage, with Defense Curl having the added bonus of doubling the power of Rollout and Ice Ball.
  • Howl and Sharpen increase Attack by 1 stage.
  • Acupressure randomly increases one stat by 2 stages.
  • Belly Drum maxes out attack (to 400%) at the cost of half the user's HP.
  • Double Team increases Evasion by 1 stage.
  • Minimize increases Evasion by 2 stages, but also causes the user to always get hit by and take double damage from Stomp, Body Slam, Steamroller, Dragon Rush, Flying Press, and Phantom Force, as well as taking double damage from Malicious Moonsault.
  • Shell Smash increases Attack, Special Attack, and Speed by 2 stages, but decreases Defense and Special Defense by 1 stage.
  • Stockpile increases both Defense and Special Defense by 1 stage, but maxes out at 3 stages instead of 6 because of the move's interaction with Swallow and Spit Up.
  • Helping Hand increases the damage dealt by a partner Pokémon in Doubles/Triples by 50%.
• Super Mode: Pidgeot, Kangaskhan, Lopunny, and Audino are capable of Mega Evolution, while Meowth, Eevee, and Snorlax are capable of Gigantamax.
• Super-Speed: Invoked with Quick Attack and Extreme Speed, which involve the user moving so fast they strike before other Pokémon normally would.
• Switch-Out Move:
  • Roar and Whirlwind cause the target to switch out, but force the user to move last (mainly as a safeguard against abusive shuffle/lockdown shenanigans).
  • Baton Pass causes the user to simply switch out. However, doing so will maintain the user's current status changes (positive and negative), non-permanent status conditions (like confusion), Substitutes, and the like. Switching out normally would remove those changes. It also allows the user to switch out if it is prevented from doing so by Mean Look or Shadow Tag, and it will not trigger Pursuit's special effect.
• Useless Useful Spell:
  • Hidden Power can turn out like this if the type you get is something you can already get, like a STAB move (unless the user is one of the rare Pokémon that doesn't get access to one of their STABs, like Flying-type moves for Thundurus). Even worse before X and Y, where your Hidden Power could end up with a Power of 30, meaning that your resisted STAB attacks will most likely hit harder than a super-effective Hidden Power.
  • Most Normal-types have astoundingly diverse movepools (by TM and tutor), but sadly, most of the moves that make up that movepool run off stats that most Normal-types don't have use for (namely special attacks).
• Wave-Motion Gun: The famous Hyper Beam manifests as a huge beam of energy.
• You Will Not Evade Me: The moves Block and Mean Look prevent most opponents from escaping as long as the user remains in play. Only Ghost-types and Pokémon with certain abilities can escape.

Fighting

Fighting-Type (かくとうタイプ Kakutō Taipu)

Fighting-types tend to represent various styles of martial artists, but with the twist that these fighters have their skills as a natural ability, rather than as a discipline. They can be found in caves, honing their discipline against the tough Rock-types, and occasionally in urban areas, likely a result of their discipline making them easily domesticated. They can be useful in construction.

Originally, Fighting-types weren't very useful in Gen I, when Psychic-types ruled the proverbial roost. With the introduction of both Dark- and Steel-types, both of which were weak to Fighting-types, their usability shot up dramatically, and they are now one of the major attacking types alongside Ground and Rock. Fighting-type attacks are super-effective on Normal, Rock, Ice, and the aforementioned Dark and Steel types, but are resisted by Bug, Poison, Flying, Psychic, and Fairy-types and completely ignored by Ghosts. Fighting-types are also useful defensively against Rock, Bug, and Dark attacks, but take double damage from Flying, Psychic, and Fairy moves.

As of Gen IX, Fighting has been paired with every other type at least once.

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• Action Initiative:
  • The physical Mach Punch and the special Vacuum Wave have priority, letting the user go before the opponent more often than not.
  • Inverted with Vital Throw, Revenge, Counter, Focus Punch, and Circle Throw, which all have negative priority, causing the user to go last most of the time.
• Always Accurate Attack: Aura Sphere and Vital Throw bypass accuracy and evasion checks. They can still fail if the opponent is in the middle of using a move like Fly, as it removes them from the field.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Sacred Sword ignores changes in the target's Defense and Evasion (but also ignores increases as well).
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Focus Blast is a very powerful special attack that can be taught to many Pokémon, but is unreliable due to having 70% accuracy and has a low Power Point count.
  • Dynamic Punch will always confuse the opponent when it hits and has high power, but has 50% accuracy. Averted if used by a Machamp or Golurk with the ability No Guard, since the ability makes everything an Always Accurate Attack, even if the opponent is outside of the field after using Dig or Fly.
  • Flying Press is the only dual-type attack in the game, being a Fighting and Flying attack. However, some types that are weak to Fighting resist Flying and vice-versa, meaning that it will usually only hit for neutral damage. Plus, there are few Pokémon that are weak to both Flying and Fighting-type attacks, so the end result is basically a Fighting-type move that really hurts Grass and Fighting-types, but doesn't work as well on Rock and Steel-types.
  • Meteor Assault is a Fighting-type clone of Giga Impact, meaning that Sirfetch'd is a sitting duck for 1 turn after using it (and it could do way more damage by just using Close Combat twice).
• Badass Normal: Most Fighting-types don't have very many elemental or supernatural powers compared to most Pokémon and they tend to have low Special Attack power, but their physical strength is excellent.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: In general, the Fighting-type is used to represent this sort of fighting style in the Pokémon series. Most Fighting-types use no form of weapon, but they can punch hard enough to smash Steel-, Rock-, and Ice-types. Several Fighting-types can have the ability Iron Fist, which powers up their punching attacks.
• Barrier-Busting Blow: Brick Break removes Reflect and Light Screen from the opponent's side of the field before doing damage, unless they are a Ghost-type.
• Blood Knight: Well, they don't particularly care for killing, but generally speaking, they're certainly one of the most eager types to enter combat.
• Boring, but Practical: Fighting-Types lack the flashy attacks of the other types and variety in their moves, with the majority of them being just different variations of punches and kicks, but their raw strength and technique is so good that they really don't need to do anything else.
• Brick Break: The Trope Namer. It has average power, but it also has the useful properties of shattering Light Screen and Reflect.
• Cast from Hit Points:
  • Submission deals damage to the user equal to 1/4 of the damage dealt to the target.
  • Final Gambit causes the user to faint, but deals damage equal to the value of their HP when it was used.
• Charged Attack: Focus Punch plays with this. It charges during the turn it is used and is executed at the end of it (making it the only charged attack that is anywhere near practical without a Power Herb), but requires the user to not take any damage for the attack to succeed, which is very difficult without using Substitute or somehow making the opponent unable to attack.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Most of them are described as having Super-Strength and toughness from sheer training.
• Close-Range Combatant: The majority of Fighting-types attack by getting up close and attacking with their fists.
• Color-Coded Elements: The Fighting-type icon is reddish brown. Some Fighting-types are likewise colored.
• Counter-Attack: The appropriately-named Counter deals twice the damage the user takes from Physical attacks to the opponent. It doesn't work on Ghost-types or if the user doesn't take physical damage.
• Critical Hit Class:
  • Cross Chop has an increased chance to land a Critical Hit, as does Karate Chop.
  • Storm Throw will always land a Critical Hit when it's used, but has only average power.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique:
  • Close Combat and Superpower are as powerful as Fire Blast, Blizzard, and Thunder without the accuracy issues, but they lower the user's stats^note Defense and Special Defense for Close Combat, Attack and Defense for Superpower each time they're used. For Superpower, this is averted if used by Malamar, Lurantis, and Enamorus-Incarnate with Contrary, in which case it raises the user's Attack and Defense.
  • Hammer Arm is as powerful as Earthquake, but it lowers the user's Speed each time it's used and has a small chance to miss.
• Death or Glory Attack: Jump Kick and High Jump Kick deal massive damage, but missing or having the attack blocked/nullified causes heavy damage to the user (a portion of the damage it would've done in Gens I-IV; half of the user's max HP from Gen V and on).
• Defend Command:
  • Detect acts like the move Protect and defends the user from most attacks. Attempting to use it consecutively will decrease the chance of it succeeding by half.
  • Quick Guard protects the user and their allies from Priority attacks and is designed for Double and Triple Battles.
  • Mat Block protects the user and their allies from attack moves, but can only be used the first turn the user is in battle. Like Quick Guard, it's designed for Double and Triple Battles.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Focus Punch has 150 Power and 100% accuracy, but if the user takes direct damage when using it, they lose focus and can't move. Since the move is decreased priority (and beginning to focus has increased priority), the Pokémon using Focus Punch is likely to get hit and not be able to use the move, unless they're up against an opponent who is very fond of status moves. It's possible to work around this, like having a Substitute to sponge an attack (a broken Substitute doesn't count as getting hit), inflicting Sleep on a target before using it, or using it when the opponent doesn't attack. Double and Triple Battles also add the possibility of a speedy partner with After You or Follow Me.
• Dumb Muscle: The implicit reason for their weakness to Psychics; Fighting-types fail in contests of the mind, and most of them have poor Special Attack. Ironically, Fighting-types can be Genius Bruisers as far as their knowledge of martial arts and physical training go; they just aren't that good with other subjects, implying they're more Book Dumb than outright stupid. This is averted (but reinforced) with Gallade, Meditite, and Medicham, who are equally disciplined in the mind due to their additional Psychic typing. By and large, most Fighting-types are more-or-less just as intelligent as any other Pokémon.
• Elemental Punch: As long as they have arms, they usually can be taught Fire Punch, Ice Punch, and Thunder Punch.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors
  • Offense
    • Strong: Dark, Ice, Normal, Rock, Steel
    • Weak: Bug, Fairy, Flying, Poison, Psychic
    • Can't Hit: Ghost
  • Defense
    • Strong: Bug, Dark, Rock
    • Weak: Fairy, Flying, Psychic
• Fixed Damage Attack:
  • Seismic Toss inflicts flat damage equal to the user's level.
  • Final Gambit deals damage equal to the user's HP when they used the attack. Emphasis on "when they used the attack".
• Force and Finesse: Makuhita/Hariyama and Meditite/Medicham were the only primary Fighting-types introduced in Gen III (although a few other Pokémon carried a secondary Fighting typing) and make a good pair, with Hariyama's sumo origin and slow, bulky style of mighty slaps and punches contrasted against Medicham's yogini influence and evasive, dance-like movements bolstered by psychic prediction. Most other Fighting-types lean toward the Force aspect, although there are some notable exceptions, like Mienfoo/Mienshao.
• For Great Justice: Fighting is generally treated as a heroic and honorable type, forming a contrast with the more underhanded and villainous Dark-type. This (along with Honor Before Reason) is why the Fighting-type is strong against the Dark-type (the Fighting-type represents discipline and law, which trumps the Dark-type's criminally-inclined chaos) and helps to explain why many Fighting-type Pokémon are depicted as heroes in their Pokédex entries (Pangoro is a Bully Hunter, the Swords of Justice defend innocent Pokémon, Hakamo-o and Kommo-o drive away evil with their bells, Gigantamax Urshifu can smite evil with its glare, and so on). The description for the Justified ability even reads: "Being hit by a Dark-type move boosts the Attack stat of the Pokémon, for justice."
• Genius Bruiser: While Fighting-type Pokémon in earlier generations displayed Dumb Muscle characteristics, later ones appear to lean towards this: For example, Conkeldurr developed the ability to produce concrete, which it taught to humans, while older Hariyama are said to teach younger Makuhita how to properly train in sumo. Lucario are also said to be very intelligent and capable of easily understanding humans.
• Glass Cannon: The majority of Fighting-types have very good attack stats. Their defenses tend to run the gamut between bulky and frail, depending on what type of fighting style they are based on, but they lean towards frail overall.
• Honor Before Reason: The implicit reason for their advantage against Dark-types. This is further backed up by the ability Justified (Heart of Justice in Japanese), which increases Attack when hit by a Dark-type move.
• Hu Mons: In terms of both body shape and fighting style, most Fighting-types are the most similar to humans. There are a few that explicitly aren't, such as the Swords of Justice (who resemble ungulates). Later generations introduced Fighting-types that are less and less humanoid.
• Human Hammer-Throw: There are a handful of Fighting moves that involve bodily throwing the target, including Circle Throw, Seismic Toss, Storm Throw, and Vital Throw.
• Kamehame Hadoken: Aura Sphere is described as being this, which makes sense when used by most Pokémon capable of it (Lucario, Mewtwo, Mew, etc.), but ends up being ridiculous when it's coming from the likes of Dialga, Giratina, or Togekiss.
• Ki Manipulation: The moves Aura Sphere and Focus Blast are energy-based Fighting-type moves. Kubfu is also stated to have an organ in its body that produces "fighting energy".
• Last Disc Magic:
  • Close Combat is usually available to many Fighting-types late-game, though some get it as soon as they reach the mid 30's in level. Or you can go to the Move Relearner and get it as soon as they evolve because it's listed as a Level 1 move in the programming.
  • Superpower is typically naturally learned late in the game or taught by move tutors found in the late- or postgame.
• Life Drain: Drain Punch inflicts damage and heals back 50% of the damage it inflicted.
• Limit Break:
  • The Fighting-type Z-Move is All-Out Pummeling, in which the user rams an energy orb into the target after some Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs.
  • The Fighting-type Max Move is Max Knuckle. It forms a huge fist made out of energy which hits the opponent and causes the Attack stat of the user and its allies to rise.
  • Gigantamax Machamp's exclusive G-Max Move is G-Max Chi Strike. It forms a huge fist made out of energy which hits the opponent and causes the Critical Hit rate of itself and its allies to rise.
• Magically Inept Fighter: A huge number of Fighting-types have high Attack but low Special Attack, and most Fighting-type moves are physical to go with their high attack. Ironically, quite a few Fighting-types actually have better Special Defense than physical Defense, most notably all of the Hitmon- Pokémon.
• Megaton Punch:
  • Dynamic Punch is one of these, having a power of 100 and the move's description saying the user punches the target with full, concentrated power.
  • Max Knuckle and G-Max Chi Strike are depicted as this in the anime despite not acting that way in the games (In the games, Max Knuckle and G-Max Chi Strike wallop the opponent with a gigantic fist of energy).
• Mutual Disadvantage: Towards Bug-types, where they resist each other's attacks.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: In Gens IV and V, Close Combat is depicted as multiple fists pummeling the target. However, the move is also learnable by several quadrupeds (like Growlithe, Arcanine, and the Swords of Justice), a bird of prey (Staraptor), and a fish (Barraskewda), so it can just as easily involve kicks, beaks, fins, or whatever else the user has to pummel the opponent with.
• The Paralyzer: The move Force Palm can inflict Paralysis 30% of the time.
• Power of the Void: Believe it or not, this shows up in a certain Fighting move, Vacuum Wave, though not many Pokémon can make good use of it since it's a special move (most Fighting-types are oriented toward physical attacks) and it has a direct physical counterpart in Mach Punch.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Close Combat is depicted as a barrage of kicks and punches. Some Pokédex entries imply that Fighting-types can do that naturally, such as Machamp and Hitmonchan. The ultimate Fighting-type attack, the Z-Move called All Out Pummeling, takes this to the extreme of having dozens of fists knock the opponent into a mountainside.
• Red Hot Masculinity: Dark vermilion (a color redder than oranges used by the Fire type) is the color most commonly associated with the Fighting type, and its use of skill and strength in physical combat makes it the most outwardly masculine type. Fighting-type Pokémon also tend to either be all-male or have gender ratios that favor males.
• Situational Damage Attack:
  • The Power of Low Kick is dependent on the target's weight. For opponents weighing less than 10 kg, it's a measly 20, but for anyone weighing equal to or greater than 200 kg, it's a very strong 120.
  • Revenge normally has an okay Power of 60, but that will double if the user took damage on the same turn it was used.
  • Reversal's Power is dependent on how much HP the user has left; the lower the value, the more damage it deals. At max HP, it's a very weak 20, but at less than 5%, it maxes out at 200.
• Spam Attack: Arm Thrust hits the opponent 2-5 times on each use.
• Spinning Piledriver: The move Submission.
• Status Buff: Bulk Up increases the user's Attack and Defense by 1 stage each.
• Strong Flesh, Weak Steel: They are strong against the Steel-type despite mostly being made of flesh.
• Suicide Attack: Final Gambit causes the user to faint but inflicts an amount of damage equal to the user's current HP. Sadly, it's prevented from qualifying for Taking You with Me by mostly being given to Pokémon with laughably low HP (including the One-Hit-Point Wonder Shedinja).
• Super Mode: Heracross, Blaziken, Medicham, Lucario, and Gallade are capable of Mega Evolution, while Mega Mewtwo X and Lopunny gain the Fighting-type upon Mega Evolving. Machamp and both forms of Urshifu are also capable of Gigantamax, though the Urshifu formes derive their G-Max Moves' type from their style (Dark for Single Strike, Water for Rapid Strike).
• Super-Toughness: They resist Rock-type attacks.
• Switch-Out Move: Circle Throw goes last, but forces the target to switch when it hits, unless they are immune to the move.
• Training from Hell: Many of them go through a self-inflicted form of this. Sawk secludes itself in the mountains and trains without sleeping, Machoke lifts vehicles to train its muscles, Medicham fasts and meditates daily to develop its mental powers, and Poliwrath swims the width of the Pacific Ocean.
• Underground Monkey: Galarian Farfetch'd and the Combat Breed of Paldean Tauros are pure-Fighting type, while Galarian Zapdos, Hisuian Lilligant, Sneasel and Decidueye as well as the other two breeds of Paldean Tauros have this type, unlike their regular forms.
• Useless Useful Spell:
  • Vacuum Wave was until the 7th generation the only Special priority attack in the series, but almost every Pokémon that learns it has horrible Special Attack. Infernape, Lucario, and Toxicroak are the only ones that can actually deal respectable damage with it, since they have passable Special Attack and a Status Buff to increase it further.
  • Prior to Gen IV, most Fighting-types with the elemental punches were fairly useless, because those attacks all ran off their (usually) low Special Attack stat.
• Weak to Magic: Fighting types are weak against Psychic and Fairy attacks (the types that correspond the best to magic). In addition, Fighting attacks have low effectiveness on Psychic and Fairy Pokémon and are utterly useless against Ghost types (unless Foresight is in play).

Poison

Poison-Type (どくタイプ Doku Taipu)

These vile Pokémon have powers of venom, toxins, and poisons. Their specialty is harassing the enemy with status effects and residual damage. Most Poison-types are based on poisonous or venomous creatures, though some resemble inanimate objects such as trash bags and piles of sludge. They are mostly found in urban areas and forests, with the infamous Zubat family residing in caves.

The status associated with them is Poison and Bad Poison. Both effects cause the afflicted Pokémon to lose health at the end of the turn, but Bad Poison is especially nasty because it inflicts steadily increasing amounts of damage — 1/16th of its max HP, which increases to 1/8 to 3/16 to 1/4, and so on. The moves Toxic and Poison Fang can inflict the latter status, as can Toxic Spikes if it is stacked, and if a Poison-type Pokémon uses Toxic in Generation VI and beyond, it has absolutely perfect accuracy, hitting even if the target uses Fly or Dig. Poison-types cannot be Poisoned themselves.

Their offensive capabilities are not spectacular, though, as they are strong against only two types, Grass and Fairy, and are resisted by four types (Rock, Ground, Poison, and Ghost) and nullified by one (Steel). Despite this, they still have a few powerhouses. Their defensive abilities, however, are a bit better, resisting five types (Grass, Bug, Fighting, Poison, and Fairy) while being only weak to two, namely Psychic and Ground (although those two are fairly common...).

Originally, Poison was the most common type in the game, narrowly edging out the ubiquitous Water type in Generation I. However, it hasn't been terribly common since; Generations II-VII combined have introduced exactly as many Poison-types as Generation I alone.

In the Trading Card Game, Poison-type Pokémon are currently part of the Darkness energy type. In sets prior to Diamond & Pearl, they were part of the Grass type, while in sets starting with Diamond & Pearl but prior to Sword & Shield they were part of the Psychic type.

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• Acid Attack: The Poison-type is traditionally associated with acid in its flavor and attacks.
  • Numerous Poison moves — such as Acid Downpour, Acid Spray, Acid, Acid Armor, and Gastro Acid — are themed around corrosive substances rather than strictly toxic ones.
  • Gulpin and Swalot are also explicitly themed around gastric acids. Dragalge can, according to the Pokédex, spit acid powerful enough to dissolve the hull of a tanker.
• All Webbed Up: Toxic Thread lowers the target's Speed by 1 stage and poisons it. If the target is immune to one effect but not the other, the move will do whatever it can to the target rather than outright failing.
• Always Accurate Attack: As of X and Y, if a Poison-type uses Toxic, it will always hit the target regardless of accuracy/evasion modifiers and can even hit targets during the semi-invulnerable period provided by moves like Fly and Dig. Clear Smog also bypasses accuracy and evasion checks, as it's meant to remove stat changes and it would be difficult to do so if it can't hit the target.
• Always Chaotic Evil: While wild Poison-types are just as neutral as any other wild Pokémon, they are usually the first choice of villainous teams, showing up most frequently at the command of Team Skull in the Alola region.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Belch is a strong special attack that actually has good accuracy for its power, but requires that the user consume a berry before it can be used and is mostly only learned by Pokémon with low Special Attack.
• Balance Buff: Poison was once the worst offensive type in the game. It only did super-effective damage to one other type (Grass), which plenty of other types did anyway; on the flip-side, several types resisted Poison. Gen VI added Fairies, giving Poison another type it could be effective against. Unrelated to this, Toxic now never misses if the user is a Poison-type.
• Bubblegloop Swamp: The Poison-type Spectacular Talent animation in ORAS involves the Pokémon being surrounded by exploding bubbles in a swamp filled with bright purple and green liquid.
• Caltrops: The move Toxic Spikes lays poisoned caltrops that inflict poison on anything grounded that switches in if they lack Heavy-Duty Boots. Adding a second layer upgrades the effect to bad poison.
• Color-Coded Elements: Poison-types are associated with purple, leading to an aversion of Purple Is Powerful.
• Combat Pragmatist: Not to the same extent as Dark, but definitely a prominent feature. Poison-type features include poisoning the opponent through various methods and lowering their stats through acidic poisons.
• Combos: Can use Toxic to poison an opponent, then use Venoshock to deal extra damage to the poisoned target, or Venom Drench, which lowers the Attack, Special Attack, and Speed of a poisoned opponent by 1 stage each. If the user has Merciless, its attacks on a poisoned target will be guaranteed Critical Hits (barring Shell/Battle Armor or Lucky Chant). And, yes, Merciless can be paired with Venoshock.
• Damage Over Time: They are excellent at residual damage and status effects. Many Poison-types also have high HP (Muk, Garbodor, Swalot, Amoonguss, etc.), Defense (Weezing, Toxapex), or Special Defense stats (Nihilego, Venusaur, Tentacruel, Toxapex again).
• Deadly Gas: A key concept behind Koffing/Weezing, iconic Pokémon of their type, as well as the moves Poison Gas, Smog, and Clear Smog.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors
  • Offense
    • Strong: Bug (Gen I Only), Fairy, Grass
    • Weak: Ghost, Ground, Poison, Rock
    • Can't Hit: Steel
  • Defense
    • Strong: Bug (Gen II-Forward), Fairy, Fighting, Grass, Poison
    • Weak: Bug (Gen I Only), Ground, Psychic
• Feed It with Fire: In a slightly unusual sense of the trope, Poison-types are not only immune to poisoning, but can also remove any number of layers of Toxic Spikes on entry (unless they happen to not be grounded). The Poison-type Pokémon gets no benefit from doing this, though.
• Gasshole: Belch, a powerful move introduced in Generation VI that requires the user to have consumed a berry during the battle to be used.
• Gonk: In general, Poison-types tend to look more monstrous than most other Pokémon, being based on gasbags, slime monsters, literal garbage, and various poisonous animals, including snakes, frogs, and insects. Not many Poison-types could be called beautiful or even cute, though some qualify for Ugly Cute.
• Heal Thyself: Purify is a move that removes the target's status condition, and if successful, it also heals the user's HP by up to 50%. However, it's Pyukumuku's Secret Art, and Pyukumuku isn't a Poison-type.
  • Pokémon with the Poison Heal ability will heal 1/8th of their max HP per turn, making this the only time Poisoning would give a healing factor instead of reducing hit points. Obviously, it's never seen on Poison-type Pokémon.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Acid and Poison Gas hit all opponents, while Sludge Wave hits everyone but the user.
• Limit Break:
  • The Poison-type Z-Move is Acid Downpour, in which the user creates a poisonous swamp and sinks the target into it.
  • The Poison-type Max Move is Max Ooze, which causes slimy purple poison to erupt from the ground, raising the user and its allies' Special Attack stat by 1 stage.
  • Gigantamax Garbodor's signature G-Max Move is G-Max Malodor. This move causes green poisonous sludge to erupt from the ground, Poisoning everyone on the target's side of the field.
• Like Cannot Cut Like: Poison moves won't do much against Poison Pokémon, and Poison-types are immune to the status condition.
• Mooks: The most common type (along with Dark) to be used by the bad guys. Note that, as they are the servants of Mooks themselves, this effectively makes them Mooks squared.
• Mutual Disadvantage: In Gen 1, they are mutually weak against Bug-types. Not anymore from Gen 2 onwards, as Poison-types resist Bug attacks, while Bug-types take neutral damage from Poison attacks.
• Nerf: Toxic as a Technical Machine used to be notable in that just about every fully-evolved or Legendary Pokémon (and most unevolved Pokémon) could learn it, but as of Gen 8, it has been restricted to mainly Poison type Pokémon and ones whose history, abilities, or design inspirations have connections to toxins in some way. This severely puts a damper on the classic "Toxic stall" strategy by substantially reducing the number of Pokémon able to use it.
• Poison Is Corrosive: The moves Acid and Acid Spray deal damage without inflicting poison; instead, they lower the target's Special Defense (Acid has a 10% chance of doing so while Acid Spray always lowers Special Defense by 2 stages). Despite this, they still don't affect Steel-types. The Ability Corrosion allows the user to poison Steel-types via Poison Gas or Toxic, but it doesn't allow any Poison-type attacks to damage them.
• Poison Is Evil: While Poison-types as a whole aren't inherently evil, villainous teams such as Team Rocket are fond of using them. Several leaders of villainous teams often include a Poison-type or two on their team, including Giovanni's Nidoking and Nidoqueen, Maxie's, Archie's, and Cyrus's Crobat, Ghetsis's Drapion and Toxicroak (Black 2 and White 2 only), Plumeria's Salazzle, Guzma's Ariados, and Oleana's Salazzle and Gigantamax Garbodor. Lusamine is heavily associated with Nihilego, but does not use one in battle. The Loyal Three and Pecharunt is the first instance in the franchise where Poison-type Pokémon are inherently evil.^note Eternatus is more of an Ambiguously Evil case.
• Poisonous Person: Toxins, and corrosives, and fumes!
• Power Nullifier:
  • The move Gastro Acid suppresses the target's ability (unless it's Multitype, Stance Change, Schooling, Comatose, Shields Down, Disguise, RKS System, Battle Bond, or Power Construct) as long as they remain in battle.
  • The Koffing line's Neutralizing Gas ability suppresses the abilities of all other Pokémon in the battle.
• Secret Art:
  • The Ability Liquid Ooze causes any Life Drain effect used against the owner to inflict damage on the opponent instead of healing them.
  • Stench decreases the chances of Random Encounters if the user is in the head of the party and gives a free 10% flinch chance to all the user's attacks in battle. This effect does not stack when holding a King's Rock or Razor Fang.
  • Toxic's guaranteed-to-hit effect only applies if a Poison-type uses the move.
  • As of Gen 8, Toxic's distribution has been limited to primarily Poison-types or Pokèmon related to it.
  • Corrosion allows the user to poison Steel-types as well as other Poison-types via Poison Gas or Toxic. It still will not allow Poison-type attacks to damage Steel-types, however. If the user is holding a Toxic Orb, it becomes the only time a Poison-type can poison itself as well.
  • Merciless causes a Pokémon’s attacks to become guaranteed Critical Hits^note barring Shell/Battle Armor or Lucky Chant — but only if the target is poisoned.
  • Neutralizing Gas suppresses the abilities of all other Pokémon in the battle.
• Situational Damage Attack: Venoshock normally has slightly below-average Power of 65, but if the target is Poisoned, the power doubles to a high 130.
• Situational Sword: Venom Drench lowers the target's Attack, Special Attack, and Speed by one stage each, but will only work if the target is Poisoned.
• Status Buff: Coil increases Attack, Defense, and Accuracy by 1 stage each, while Acid Armor increases Defense by 2 stages.
• Status-Buff Dispel: The move Clear Smog removes all stat changes when it deals damage.
• Stone Wall: The type itself leans toward this, given its poor attacking versatility but high number of resistances, though in practice the Mons themselves run the entire spectrum of stat distributions.
• Super Mode: Venusaur, Beedrill, and Gengar are capable of Mega Evolution, and Venusaur, Gengar, Garbodor, and Toxtricity are capable of Gigantamax (though Garbodor is the only one to have a Poison-type G-Max Move).
• Technicolor Toxin: Purple, in this case.
• Trap Master: The Toxic Spikes move creates a field effect on the opponent's side, causing their Pokémon to be poisoned when they switch in (badly poisoned if a second layer is set). Steel-types, airborne Pokémon, Pokémon holding Heavy-Duty Boots and other Poison-types (who remove Toxic Spikes when they switch in, unless they are flying/levitating) are unaffected.
• Universal Poison: Despite the kind of toxicity varying between species, they all inflict the same kind of Poison (or Toxic Poison).
• Walking Wasteland: A number are said to cause pollution and decaying plants just by their presence. Grimer and its evolution Muk are particularly awful about this:
  "Just one drop of this Pokémon's body fluid can turn a pool stagnant and rancid."
  "A toxic fluid seeps from its body. The fluid instantly kills plants and trees on contact."
  "Wherever Grimer has passed, so many germs are left behind that no plants will ever grow again."
• Weak, but Skilled: Poison-type moves have issues with being used for direct damage, but are very effective with status effects and grinding.

Ground

Ground-Type (じめんタイプ Jimen Taipu)

These Pokémon are associated with the Earth. As such, these Pokémon are often based on underground or desert-dwelling creatures, and their attacks usually involve sand or using the Earth itself. They are most famous for the move Earthquake, a strong and reliable attack that is a must-have on a team. Ground types make their homes in caves and desert regions. Their greatest advantage is over Electric-types, as Ground-types are immune to Electric-type attacks.

Ground is tied with Fighting for being super-effective against the most types — Fire, Rock, Electric, Poison, and Steel — and unlike Fighting, it is resisted by a mere two types (Grass and Bug), both of which have their own defensive shortcomings. However, with a type this strong, there are many ways to be immune to it: the Flying type, the Levitate ability, the Air Balloon item, and the moves Magnet Rise and Telekinesis all can render a Pokémon immune to Ground. Defensively, Ground resists Poison and Rock and is immune to Electric, but is weak to Water, Grass, and Ice.

If a sandstorm is raging, Ground-type Pokémon take no residual damage from it.

In the Trading Card Game, Ground-type Pokémon are part of the Fighting energy type.

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• A Handful for an Eye: Sand-Attack, favored move of myriad Com Mons, is essentially them throwing a fistful of sand in their opponent's eyes to lower their accuracy. Mud Bomb and Mud-Slap function similarly, though in their cases its a fistful of mud.
• Anti-Air: Normally, Ground-type attacks are ineffective against Flying-types. The one exception is Zygarde's Secret Art Thousand Arrows, which not only can hit Flying-types, but will also bring them down to the ground and remove any immunity to Ground-type moves the target may have. It can even bypass the semi-invulnerable phase from Bounce, Fly, or Sky Drop and cancel them out.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Downplayed with Dig. It gives invulnerability to most attacks for one turn, but said turn is also a charge turn that telegraphs what you are doing to your opponent, so you must think ahead when you use it, lest you become a sitting duck when you emerge and/or find yourself fruitlessly attacking a Flying-type or Levitator.
  • Magnitude can hit as hard as Hyper Beam without the recharge turn side-effect, but only if the Random Number God likes you. If it doesn't, have fun tickling the opponent to death.
• Bad with the Bone: Cubone and Marowak are ground types, on top of that the moves Bone Rush, Bone Club, and Bonemerang are also ground type moves which in battle animation uses a Stock Femur Bone to inflict damage.
• Caltrops: The move Spikes lays some at the opponent's feet, causing damage whenever a grounded Pokémon on their side switches in. It's even called "Caltrop" in Japan.
• Chunky Updraft: The animation for Zygarde's signature move, Land's Wrath, depicts dirt and rocks rising around it.
• Color-Coded Elements: Ground-types are often tan or light brown, and their elemental icon is the same.
• Dishing Out Dirt: More literal dirt than Rock-types. They can learn plenty of Rock-type moves, though.
• Disney Villain Death: The Ground move Fissure entails opening up a chasm in the earth for the target to plummet into, causing an instant KO. No deaths in Pokémon battles, of course, but Fissure is the closest the franchise comes to invoking this trope.
• Earthquakes Cause Fissures: Woe betide you if your Pokémon gets hit with the instant-knockout move Fissure.
• Elemental Powers: The move Earth Power is a special move that strikes the target with a burst of energy.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors
  • Offense
    • Strong: Electric, Fire, Poison, Rock, Steel
    • Weak: Bug, Grass
    • Can't Hit: Flying
  • Defense
    • Strong: Poison, Rock
    • Weak: Grass, Ice, Water
    • Immune: Electric
• Fast Tunnelling: Almost all Ground-types can learn the move Dig, and plenty of other Pokémon as well, until it lost its TM status in Sun and Moon. (Dig became a TM again in Sword and Shield.)
• Ground Pound: It can be inferred that this is why Magnitude and Earthquake are physical moves, not special: the Pokémon isn't summoning elemental power to vibrate the ground, but actually striking it with a punch or full-body blow. Most anime depictions bear this reading out. (Contrast the special move Earth Power.)
• A Handful for an Eye: One of the more infamous moves of the early game is Sand Attack, which lowers the target's accuracy. The moves Mud-Slap and Mud Bomb can accomplish this as well while actually causing damage, unlike Sand Attack.
• Heal Thyself: Shore Up, the Secret Art of Sandygast and Pallosand, heals the user's HP, normally by 1/2, but it's boosted to 2/3 if there's a sandstorm.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Land's Wrath, Thousand Arrows, Thousand Waves, and Precipice Blades hit all opponents, while Bulldoze, Earthquake, and Magnitude hit everyone but the user.
• Horsing Around: Introduced as the signature move of Mudsdale, the move High Horsepower became a Technical Record in the 8th Generation. While slightly weaker than Earthquake (95 Power and Accuracy), it doesn't get weaker under Grassy Terrain or risk hitting the user's allies in Double Battles since it’s a single-target move, making it a viable alternative.
• Kill It with Ice: Most Ground-types are weak to Ice.
• Kill It with Water: One of their biggest weaknesses is the Water type.
• Last Disc Magic: The TM for Earthquake is usually found very late in the game, often in Victory Road. Like Close Combat for Fighting-types, however, several Pokémon learn the move in the mid-30s, giving them a very powerful attack early on.
• Limit Break:
  • The Ground-type Z-Move is Tectonic Rage, in which the user forces the target deeper and deeper underground until the heat and pressure create an explosion of energy.
  • The Ground-type Max Move is Max Quake. The user burrows underground, the force of which sends a massive focused wave of tectonic force to be directed into the opponent. This also raises the Special Defense of the user and their allies.
  • Gigantamax Sandaconda's exclusive G-Max Move is G-Max Sandblast, where Sandaconda burrows underground and sends a blast of sand to erupt and bind the opponent in a Sand Tomb for four to five turns.
• Living Statues: A couple of Ground-types (such as the Claydol and Golurk lines) are artificial lifeforms made of clay or other sedimentary material.
• Mighty Glacier: Ground-types aren't known for being too fast in general, but make up for it with great power and bulk to compliment the type's fantastic offensive and solid defensive profiles.
• One-Hit KO: Fissure creates a massive pit in the ground and drops the target into it to knock it out instantly.
• Power Nullifier: The type is immune to Electric-type moves, which makes it particularly important for stuffing the ever-common Thunder Wave and Volt Switch. Additionally, Thousand Arrows nullifies Flying-types' and Pokémon with Levitate's immunity to Ground-type moves.
• Randomized Damage Attack: Magnitude randomly selects a Magnitude ranging from 4 (10 base damage) to 10 (150 base damage).
• Sand Blaster: Certain Ground-type moves, such a Sand Tomb or Scorching Sands, function by blasting the oppoent with sand.
• Scissors Cuts Rock: One of Zygarde's signature moves, Thousand Arrows, is a strong Ground-type move that not only hits normally immune Flying-types or Pokémon with Levitate, but also knocks them to the ground, leaving them vulnerable to other Ground-type attacks.
• Secret Art: Arena Trap prevents all grounded (read: those without an Air Balloon, Levitate, or part Flying-type) and non-Ghost-type opponents from switching out or fleeing.
• Shockwave Stomp: The move Bulldoze is described as a strike against the ground that sends a shockwave of energy to lower the speed of all targets who are hit.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Earthquake. All it does is cause the ground to shake strongly and has no additional effects aside from hitting Pokémon around the user in Double and Triple Battles. It has high power, can be taught to a ton of Pokémon via TM, and makes for a great coverage option due to the amount of types Ground hits super-effectively. The only thing that could be considered a drawback when used in Singles, the most used battle format during the story, is its somewhat low PP of 10 (16 max), which should still be more than enough to last a battle.
• Spam Attack: Bone Rush hits the target 2-5 times per use, with each hit being a weak attack. Bonemerang will always hit 2 times, and is stronger than similar moves of its archetype (50 Power and 90 Accuracy, as opposed to the usual 40 Power and 90 Accuracy of most 2-hit moves).
• Status Buff: Rototiller increases the Attack and Special Attack of all Grass-types on the field by 1 stage. This does include the opponent's side.
• Super Mode: Steelix, Swampert, Camerupt, and Garchomp are capable of Mega Evolution. Groudon can undergo Primal Reversion to become Primal Groudon, and Zygarde with Power Construct shifts into Complete Forme when its HP falls below half. Sandaconda alone is capable of Gigantamax.
• Theme Naming: A number have "don" somewhere in their names, as it manages to incorporate the Japanese character 土 do (meaning "ground"). Rhydon, Donphan, Groudon, Hippowdon…
• This Is a Drill: The move Drill Run, a powerful spinning move used by drill-based and spinning Pokémon (like Excadrill).
• Trap Master: Spikes creates a field effect on the opponent's side that causes their Pokémon to take damage whenever they switch in unless they're immune to Ground or are holding Heavy-Duty Boots. The effect can have up to three layers; the first causes them to lose 12.5% of their max health upon switching in, the second layer 16.67%, and the last layer 25%.
• Underground Monkey: Galarian Yamask is part-Ground type.

Flying

Flying-Type (ひこうタイプ Hikō Taipu)

These Pokémon soar through the skies with grace. Some of them don't, but they have similar abilities. Flying-type Pokémon are usually based on birds and other avian creatures, but quite a few are based on other fliers: dragons, mammals, insects, and even seedlings, balloons, and rockets. There are a wide variety of Pokémon represented by this type; in Gen VI, it was the first type to be paired with every existing type at least once, with the introduction of the Fighting/Flying Hawlucha and the retcon of Togetic & Togekiss into Fairy/Flying. They're diverse and adaptive enough that Flying-types are found in almost every conceivable environment imaginable, save for the ocean floor. The majority of them are dual-type Pokémon (as, prior to Generation V, there was no such thing as a pure-Flying type or a Pokémon with Flying as a primary type), and have Flying as their second type. Generations V, VI, and VIII introduced seven exceptions: Tornadus (pure Flying), Noibat and Noivern (Flying/Dragon), the Rookidee family (pure Flying in the first two stages, Flying/Steel upon evolving into Corviknight), and Cramorant (Flying/Water). Flying is the third most-common type.

Offensively, they are strong against Grass, Bug, and Fighting, and are resisted by Electric, Steel, and Rock. Defensively, they resist Fighting, Bug, Grass, and are immune to Ground, but are weak against Rock, Electric, and Ice.

In Triple Battles, Flying-type attacks can hit a target regardless of their placement, except for Air Cutter, which hits more than one Pokémon instead.

Flying-types are also useful for their ability to learn Fly, which takes the trainer to important locations like towns and cities. There are a few Pokémon that are not Flying-type yet can learn the move, though.

In the Trading Card Game, Flying-type Pokémon are part of the Colorless energy type.

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• Airborne Mook: When they're encountered as enemies.
• Air Jousting: Gen VI introduced Sky Battles, ostensibly reserved exclusively for Flying-types and those with Levitate (though in fact, it really comes down to whether or not the Pokémon's animation depicts them in midair, and a number of Flying-types are excluded, especially lesser evolutions who are depicted as roosting on the ground, such as Pidgey).
• Always Accurate Attack: Aerial Ace bypasses accuracy and evasion checks when used. Hurricane will also do so during Rain, with the added bonus of hitting opponents when they are in the middle of using Fly, Bounce, or Sky Drop.
• Anti-Air: Roost is a self-healing move that also removes the Flying type from the user for the turn if it has that type.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Downplayed with Bounce and Fly. They give invulnerability to most attacks for one turn, but said turn is a charge turn that telegraphs what you are doing to your opponent, so you must think carefully before using them. Sky Attack does the same thing, but is more powerful and without the invulnerability part. Sky Drop works around the main issue by grabbing the target on the first turn so they can't be switched out, although it's hilariously easy to negate in Rotation Battles, does no damage whatsoever to Pokémon that would be immune to Ground-type moves, and fails entirely on Pokémon above a certain weight threshold.
  • Hurricane is a powerful attack that has a decent chance of causing confusion, but has shaky accuracy at 70%. Averted in Rain, since it bypasses accuracy and evasion checks.
• Blow You Away: As Pokémon lacks a Wind type, Flying is the type that uses many of the wind-based attacks like Gust, Air Slash, Air Cutter, Hurricane, and Tailwind.
• Cast from Hit Points: Brave Bird deals damage to the user equal to 1/3 of the damage dealt to the target.
• Charged Attack:
  • Sky Attack charges for one turn, and then inflicts damage on the second.
  • Beak Blast, Toucannon's signature move, charges up at the start of the turn and inflicts damage at the end, just like Focus Punch. Unlike Focus Punch, it can't be stopped by attacking the user; trying it is a bad idea, as anyone that makes contact with the user while it's in the process of charging up is burned.
• Clip Its Wings: Flying-types are vulnerable to this from the move Smack Down, which, in addition to causing super-effective damage (it's a Rock-type move), negates the Flying Pokémon's immunity to Ground moves. ^note It doesn't cause extra damage beyond being super-effective, though. Zygarde's Secret Art Thousand Arrows has the same effect.
• Color-Coded Elements: The Flying-type color is light blue, verging on periwinkle (in contrast to Ice's cyan). However, most Flying-types, being based on birds, tend to incorporate white, brown, tan, and red into their designs.
• Com Mons: They're some of the first Pokémon a trainer will encounter, and a lot of them are Normal-typed, too.
• Confusion Fu: Owing to the type's diverse nature, Flying-types can fill all kinds of roles, many of which aren't the same. Will that Flying-type be a special attacker, physical attacker, mixed attacker, wall, or supporter? What kind of attacks will it throw at you? You won't know unless you have a general idea of what tricks they like to use.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Dragon Ascent, Rayquaza's signature move, is an incredibly powerful move that also allows it to Mega Evolve, but each use lowers the user's defenses.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors
  • Offense
    • Strong: Bug, Fighting, Grass
    • Weak: Electric, Rock, Steel
  • Defense
    • Strong: Bug, Fighting, Grass
    • Weak: Electric, Ice, Rock
    • Immune: Ground
• Feathered Fiend: The bird-based Flying-types are definitely not all handsome and pleasant. Fearow, Dodrio, Honchkrow, Unfezant, and Mandibuzz deserve particular mention, along with all the bird-based legendaries except Ho-Oh.
• Flight: It's a given — virtually all Flying-types can fly in some manner, and though some are too young and small to fly yet, they'll evolve into something that can. The only exceptions are Gyarados^note which was revealed to actually be able to fly in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the Doduo line, the Hoppip line, and the Mantine line, but the latter two can still glide on wind currents in lieu of flying themselves. Subverted with Hawlucha and the Gligar line, which can glide in a manner almost identical to flight given the proper wind conditions.
• Fragile Flyer: As a rule, Flying-type Pokémon are strongest in their Speed, Attack, and Special Attack stats, but lag in their Defenses and HP.
• Fragile Speedster: Most of them have Speed as their best stat, especially in Generation VI when a number of Pokémon received slight boosts to one of their stats; many Com Mon birds received Speed boosts as part of this. The fastest non-legendary Pokémon, Ninjask, is a Flying-type. Also, many of them can learn Tailwind to double the Speed of party members for a few turns. Flying-types' HP and defenses, meanwhile, tend to be on the low side; as with most generalizations, however, there are exceptions.
• Game-Breaking Bug: In Black and White, if Gravity was activated while Sky Drop was being used, the opponent Pokémon would be stuck in the air, unable to attack or be attacked. This could potentially lead to an Unwinnable situation if neither side has a move that can hit the stuck Mon.
  • In Sun and Moon, if Sky Drop is used on a Pokémon protected by Spiky Shield and the resulting damage would KO the Sky Drop user, they instead remain on the field with 0 HP, unable to attack or be attacked. Unlike the Gravity/Sky Drop glitch, not even moves that can hit a Pokémon in the semi-invulnerable state can fix this — the game views the opposing side of the field as empty, as evidenced by the fact that the displayed message isn't "But it missed" or "[Pokémon] avoided the attack", which are generally used when a move misses; rather, it's "But it failed", which appears when trying to attack an empty side of the field (either because a quicker opponent self-KOed or a quicker partner in a Double Battle cleared the field).
• Giant Flyer: Ho-oh, Lugia, and Yveltal are the largest birds in the Pokémon world and rank among the largest Pokémon altogether, though Rayquaza, also a Flying-type, is longer still and the tenth "tallest" Pokémon overall.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • Sky Drop had a weight limit added to it in X and Y that the games don't mention.
  • There are a few moves which can hit a Pokémon that's in the "invulnerable" state of Fly, Bounce, or Sky Drop, like Gust, Thunder, Twister, Hurricane, and Sky Uppercut. Nobody will ever tell you this in the games.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Air Cutter hits all opponents in Doubles, Triples, and Horde Battles.
• In a Single Bound: With the Bounce move, the user springs high into the air on the first turn to crash back down on the second, potentially causing paralysis.
• Life Drain: Yveltal's Secret Art Oblivion Wing heals the user for 75% of the damage it dealt.
• Limit Break:
  • The Flying-type Z-Move is Supersonic Skystrike, in which the user soars up and plummets towards the target at full speed, impacting with enough force to tear the ground apart.
  • The Flying-type Max-Move is Max Airstream, which launches essentially a horizontal tornado at the opponent. This also causes the Speed stat of the user and their allies to rise.
  • Gigantamax Corviknight's signature G-Max Move is G-Max Wind Rage. This move has Corviknight unleash a blast of wind filled with sharp feathers which shatter screens like Light Screen and Reflect, as well as blowing away terrain effects and entry hazards like Spikes.
• Nerf:
  • Hurricane had its Power lowered from 120 to 110 in X and Y.
  • Sky Drop will fail on anything weighing more than 400.9 lbs. (200 kg) as of X and Y.
• Lost in Translation: Despite its name, Aerial Ace can be learned by pretty much anything with claws or some kind of slashing protrusion. This is because the Japanese name is "Swallow Return/Cut", which is named after a famous sword technique used in feudal Japan that was supposed to look like a swallow's tail and what the move is supposed to be based on (hence the slashing shown in the attack's animations). Note that in its debut games, Taillow and Swellow (Pokémon based on swallows) were the only Pokémon that learned the move without a TM.
• Obvious Rule Patch: During Gen V, Sky Drop was banned from random Wi-Fi matches, official tournaments, and even the in-game Pokémon World Tournament due to an exploit that could neuter a target Pokémon for an entire match in Double and Triple battles.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Among the few Pokémon based on dragons that lack the actual Dragon type, most of them instead have Flying as their secondary typing. Charizard is based on Western dragons, Aerodactyl^note a pterosaur and Lugia^note a birdlike Cartoon Creature resemble wyverns and are made out to be draconic, Thundurus' Therian Forme is more serpentine, and Gyarados is clearly based on an Eastern dragon — though unlike the other four, it wasn't stated to be capable of free flight, making its Flying typing a bit baffling until Pokémon Legends: Arceus clarified that Gyarados is in fact able to fly. Sceptile^note a gecko, Ampharos^note a sheep, and Tyranitar^note a dinosaur are notable exceptions, though they're based on real-world animals. There are also many Dragon/Flying dual types, with flight being part of the dragon mythos all over the world.
• Powerful, but Inaccurate: In particular the special attacking moves of this type tend to be on the less accurate side. However, at least for Hurricane there's a workaround, as it turns into an Always Accurate Attack during rain.
• Razor Wind: Air Slash and Air Cutter attack with sharp gusts of wind that slice up opponents.
• Recurring Element: As mentioned in Com Mons above, every generation includes a weak Normal/Flying bird Pokémon encountered early on. Gen I actually had both Pidgey and Spearow, Gen II brought Hoothoot, and so on for Taillow, Starly, Pidove, Fletchling, and Pikipek in further generations. Rookidee in Gen 8 averts this by being a pure Flying-type. Their evolved forms are definitely not all mediocre, though, especially Staraptor, Talonflame (who is a Fire/Flying-type), and Corviknight (who is a Flying/Steel-type).
• Resting Recovery: The move Roost, which is described as the user landing to rest. This restores half its max HP, and if a Flying-type uses the move, they'll lose their Flying type for the remainder of the turn^note In Gen IV, a pure Flying-type that knew the move would become a ???-type.. This will cause some interesting effects:
  • If a pure Flying-type Pokémon successfully uses Roost, it will become Normal-type until the end of the turn. If a Pokémon is a Fire/Flying type that lost its Fire type due to using Burn Up (such as Moltres or Ho-Oh), using Roost causes it to become typeless until the end of the turn.
  • If a Pokémon with another type besides Flying uses Roost, it will lose its Flying type until the end of the turn (but will not have it replaced with the Normal type).
  • If a pure Flying-type Pokémon that has been affected by Forest's Curse/Trick-or-Treat successfully uses Roost, its Flying type will be replaced by Normal, in addition to retaining its Grass or Ghost type addition, respectively.
• Secret Art:
  • Aerilate turns all Normal-type attacks into Flying-type and gives a free 20% damage boost that stacks with the STAB bonus (30% in Gen VI).
  • Big Pecks prevents the user's Defense from being lowered.
  • Gale Wings gives Flying-type moves +1 priority (in Gen VI, this always applied, but from Gen VII onwards, it only applies at full health).
  • Multiscale decreases damage taken by 50% if the user's HP is full when the hit is taken.
  • Delta Stream activates a weather condition which turns any attack that's normally super-effective against Flying to neutral. Due to being weather-based, this can be cancelled out with Air Lock or Cloud Nine.
  • The move Sky Drop picks up the opponent during the first turn and drops them on the second, but can fail if used on anything past a specific weight threshold and will not damage anything immune to Ground-type moves.
• Somewhere, an Ornithologist Is Crying: The Zubat, Woobat, and Noibat lines are in the Flying egg group, which is otherwise restricted to Pokémon that are birds.
• Status Buff: Tailwind doubles the Speed of the user and their allies for 4 turns (3 turns in Gen IV).
• Super Mode: Charizard, Pidgeot, Gyarados, Aerodactyl, Altaria, Salamence, and Rayquaza are capable of Mega Evolution, though Mega Charizard X, Gyarados, and Altaria have their Flying-type replaced with another type, while Pinsir gains the Flying-type. Charizard, Butterfree, and Corviknight are capable of Gigantamax, but only Corviknight has a Flying-type G-Max Move.
• This Is a Drill: Drill Peck has the user use a corkscrew attack with its beak acting like a drill. In the anime, depending on the iteration, the beak spins like a drill on its own, or is covered in a spinning aura of energy.
• Tornado Move: Gust and Hurricane hit the target with a tornado.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Flying is a very solid offensive type with neutral coverage comparable to Normal, but every Flying-type move with a base power higher than 80 (and even some below that) has either less than 100% accuracy or some sort of disadvantage, and even the better of them can be rather stingy about their distribution. Fly, Sky Attack, and Bounce require one turn or a Power Herb to charge them up and can still miss, Brave Bird has recoil damage, Dragon Ascent drops the user's defenses, Beak Blast has a low priority, and Acrobatics can only used for its full damage when the user doesn't hold a possibly helpful item.
• Wind from Beneath My Wings: Most Flying-types use their wings to generate the aforementioned Blow You Away attacks, although not all (Drifloon and Drifblim obviously don't when using Gust, for instance).

Bug

Bug-Type (むしタイプ Mushi Taipu)

Bugs are made up of mostly insectoid Pokémon as the name implies, but tend to represent arthropods in general, rather than just what we would consider "bugs", up to and including crabs and extinct arthropods like Anomalocaris. Like with Dragon-types, there are a few Pokémon based on arthropods that are not Bug-type, though they have characteristics in common with Bug-types.

They are normally fragile in combat, as one might expect, but tend to be surprisingly effective offensively, as they are highly effective against the popular Dark- and Psychic-types. They're also super-effective against Grass-types. However, they're resisted by a whopping seven types — Poison-, Fighting-, Fire-, Flying-, Ghost-, Steel-, and Fairy-types. Defensively, they resist Fighting-, Grass-, and Ground-type attacks, but are weak to Fire, Flying, and Rock.

Bug-types are often found in the beginnings of a journey. They start extremely weak, sometimes get not much better, and then have stats that are stronger than most things in that stage — but only that stage. There are a few exceptions, though; Gen V in particular has quite a few strong contenders. They are typically found in forest areas, but are commonplace enough that one can expect to find them nearly anywhere.

In the Trading Card Game, Bug-type Pokémon are part of the Grass energy type.

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• Action Initiative: First Impression is a powerful attack with increased priority, but it only works on the first turn in battle, like Fake Out.
• All Webbed Up: String Shot, Spider Web, and Sticky Web are Bug-type moves with ensnaring effects. Savage Spin-Out also uses webbing to attack.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Silver Wind has a rare chance to raise all of the user's stats (except Evasion, Accuracy, and critical hit rate) by one stage at the same time. However, it's only a mere 10% chance, and the attack's power of 60 and maximum PP count of 8 means that it can't be relied on that much.
• Balance Buff: The type used to be one of the worst ones overall, then Generation IV introduced several Bug-type moves that can be accessed at the appropriate levels, such as Bug Bite, X-Scissor, and Bug Buzz. Generation V gave them some immense buffs and introduced powerhouses such as Scolipede, Galvantula, Volcarona, and Genesect. Generation VII also introduced Vikavolt, Araquanid, Golisopod, and Buzzwole, all four of which are incredibly useful Mighty Glaciers, Ribombee is a very fast Support Party Member with Pollen Puff, which functions both as a powerful Bug-type attack and a healing move when it's used on a partner, and Pheromosa is an extremely fast and powerful Glass Cannon. However, the type is still plagued by a massive array of weaknesses on both the offensive and defensive sides.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Despite being based on insects, a lot of them are just as large as Pokémon of other types. The largest is Slither Wing, which is around 10 and a half feet long 3.2 meters) on average and the heaviest is Buzzwole, weighing 735.5 Ibs (333.6 kg). The smallest is Joltik, which is reasonable in size for a bug. It's only 4 inches long, about the size of a tarantula. (However, it's based on a tick, which are much smaller.)
• Beware My Stinger Tail: Fell Stinger increase the user's Attack stat if it knocks out a foe with it.
• Com Mons: Many of them are species that are very common in the beginning-game, but not that useful beyond the early levels.
• Color-Coded Elements: The Bug-type icon is jade/lime green, as are many Bugs themselves. However, Bug-types can also be a wide variety of other colors similar to real-life insects.
• Creepy Good: While more 'evil' Bug-types do exist, on average the Bug-type is usually played more positively, with cute or heroic Pokémon making up a lot of their ranks. They are even super effective against the Dark-type.
• Crutch Character: Many of the Bug-types in earlier generations (and some in later generations) were designed as this, making the late-game and competitive viability of the type as a whole rather questionable outside of some rare exceptions. Downplayed as time went on, as more Bug-types were designed to match the average power level of their fellow types, while many of the older Bug-types received powerful moves and abilities like Quiver Dance and Tinted Lens.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors
  • Offense
    • Strong: Dark, Grass, Poison (Gen I Only), Psychic
    • Weak: Fairy, Fighting, Fire, Flying, Ghost, Poison (Gen II-Forward), Steel
  • Defense
    • Strong: Fighting, Grass, Ground
    • Weak: Fire, Flying, Poison (Gen I Only), Rock
• Four-Legged Insect: Setting aside the bipedal Bug types like Pinsir and Scyther, there are some four-legged ones like Ariados, Surskit, Nincada, and Joltik.
• Fragile Speedster: Typical for insectoid fighters, with emphasis on the fragile in a lot of cases.
• Heal Thyself: Heal Order, one of the Secret Arts of Vespiquen, restores HP.
• Healing Shiv: Pollen Puff, the Secret Art of Ribombee, is notable for actually dealing damage if you use it on an opponent. If Pollen Puff targets an ally, it heals their HP instead.
• Horn Attack: The mighty Megahorn, the strongest of all Bug-type attacks, is learned by many Pokémon with impressively strong horns — especially Heracross, since it's based on a beetle.
• Irony: Out of all of the types, Bug's only second to Normal when it comes to having Flying as a secondary type. There's only a few Bug-types capable of learning Fly^*Volcarona, Genesect, and Vikavolt, and none of them are part-Flying.
• Kryptonite Is Everywhere: Just like Grass, Bug is resisted by seven types. Thankfully, many Bug-types have surprisingly good movepools, allowing them to work around this. A few Bug-types possess the Tinted Lens ability, which practically eliminates their type resistances and makes them neutral.
• Life Drain: Leech Life allows Bug-types (and Zubat) to heal themselves for half of the damage inflicted to the enemy. However, it was the most mediocre Life Drain attack up until Gen VII's major buff to its base power, bringing it up from 20 to 80.
• Light 'em Up: The move Signal Beam is described as a "sinister beam of light". Psychic-, Water-, and Electric-types tend to learn the move through tutors.
• Limit Break:
  • The Bug-type Z-Move is Savage Spin-Out, in which the user binds the target with threads of silk, throws and drags the resulting cocoon around violently, and then cuts the cocoon (and the target) with a slash.
  • The Bug-type Max Move is Max Flutterby, in which the user sends at its opponent a swarm of butterfly-shaped projections that explode and lower the Special Attack of the target and its allies.
  • Gigantamax Butterfree's signature G-Max Move is G-Max Befuddle. This move causes Butterfree to cover the target in highly toxic powder from its wings, randomly causing paralysis, poison, or sleep.
• Magikarp Power: On the opposite end of the Crutch Character that some early Bug-types suffer from, others famously fall into this: some Bug-types like Wimpod, Larvesta, Pineco, Sewaddle, Snom, and Blipbug start out with mediocre-at-best (if not outright terrible) stats and/or shallow movepools: when they evolve, they gain massive stats and many more tricks to make them very respectable on the field in some form.
• Master of None: Most of the early generation Bug-type Pokémon tend to have rather poor stats, usually because they're the early-game bugs. This trait has since been mostly dropped out from Generation V onwards.
• Mutual Disadvantage:
  • They are mutually resistant to Fighting-types.
  • In Gen I, they are mutually weak against Poison-types. Not anymore from Gen II onwards, as Poison-types resist Bug attacks, while Bug-types take neutral damage from Poison attacks.
• Pest Controller: Several moves, such as Infestation and Attack Order, function by siccing a swarm of smaller bugs against the opponent.
• Power Gives You Wings: The animation of the Bug-type Spectacular Talent involves the Pokémon spinning a silk cocoon around itself, which glows in multiple colors before bursting to reveal a pair of butterfly wings made of bright orange and yellow light.
• Projectile Webbing: Several Bug-type moves are themed around a Pokémon shooting or spitting strands of silk at its opponent.
  • The old staple String Shot is typically themed as a Pokémon shooting strands of silk from its mouth to bind its opponent. It's most often learned by Pokémon resembling caterpillars, other insect larvae, or spiders.
  • This tends to be particularly evident in anime depictions, where moves such as Spider Web and Sticky Web are often shown as the user (typically a spider-like 'mon such as Ariados, Galvantula, or Dewpider) tossing fully-formed orb webs at its opponent, or alternatively as sticky globs that turn into webs on contact with a target. Notably, the moves' descriptions in the games just reference their users spinning or weaving nets around their targets — no active launching is implied.
• Scissors Cuts Rock: The Tinted Lens ability which is owned by a handful of Bug-Types, doubles the damage on resisted ("Not Very Effective") hits, effectively making them neutral instead. Considering Bug is resisted by a lot of types, this ability is very helpful.
• Secret Art:
  • The Ability Swarm increases the power of Bug moves when the user is at 1/3 or less health.
  • The Ability Compound Eyes gives a 30% accuracy bonus to the user's attacks. The bonus works on a multiplier, so a move with 70% accuracy will hit 91% of the time, not 100%. It also increases the chance that a wild Pokémon will hold an item when encountered.
  • The Ability Shield Dust protects the user from the secondary effects of attacks (such as Shadow Ball's potential Special Defense drop or Scald's chance to burn).
  • The Bug Buzz move has a 10% chance to lower the target's Special Defense and is a sound-based attack.
  • The Sticky Web move sets a trap on the opposing team's side that lowers the speed of grounded Pokémon that switch into battle.
• Shown Their Work: Possibly unintentionally, but String Shot and its effect (slowing down the opponent) are nigh identical to the bizarre prey catching method of the velvet worm, a small, multi-legged invertebrate that ensnares its prey by squirting a long strand of sticky goo on them, which then hardens and immobilizes the target.
• Spam Attack: Pin Missile hits the target 2-5 times on each use, with each individual hit dealing weak damage.
• Status Buff:
  • One of Vespiquen's Secret Arts, Defend Order, increases Defense and Special Defense by 1 stage each.
  • Quiver Dance increases Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed by 1 stage each.
  • Tail Glow drastically increases Special Attack (3 stages), meaning the user can max out their Special Attack in 2 turns.
• Super Mode: Beedrill, Pinsir, Scizor, and Heracross are capable of Mega Evolution, while Butterfree, Orbeetle, and Centiskorch are capable of Gigantamax (but only Butterfree has a Bug-type G-Max Move).
• Switch-Out Move: The move U-turn inflicts damage before forcing the user to switch out. Many Flying-types and naturally fast Pokémon tend to get this move from TM.
• Too Dumb to Fool: One possible reason why they're strong against Dark-types and Psychic-types — insects are just too simple-minded to fall for the trickery of a Dark-type or be bested by a Psychic-type's mental attacks.
• Turns Red: The Ability Swarm boosts the power of Bug-type moves by 30% when the user is at low health. Unusually enough, this ability is the only one of its kind that isn't a starter type-exclusive.
• Weak, but Skilled: The Bug-type is rather lackluster in the offensive department. However, many Bug-types have tricks up their sleeve. U-turn and Sticky Web are great for utility purposes, with Tail Glow and Quiver Dance being among the best Status Buff moves in the game. Additionally, most Pokémon based on butterflies or moths can learn Stun Spore or Sleep Powder, and most of those have access to the powerful Quiver Dance.
• Weak to Fire: Bug/Steel and Bug/Grass are some of the most common Bug type combinations, and they take quadruple damage from Fire attacks. The former combo is especially noteworthy because this double weakness is their only weakness, while the latter combo is an extreme sufferer of Kryptonite Is Everywhere.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Insects are one of the most common phobias, which is likely why the type deals double damage to Psychic-types.
• "X" Makes Anything Cool: The move X-Scissor has the user attack by doing a scissors motion with their claws (or whatever is being used to slash), creating an X-shaped slash.
• You Will Not Evade Me: The move Spider Web traps the target in the arena so long as it's not a Ghost-type.

Rock

Rock-Type (いわタイプ Iwa Taipu)

A type made up of Pokémon with mineral bodies, prehistoric Pokémon brought back to life through Fossil Revival^note with the exceptions of Genesect, who is Bug/Steel, and the Galar Region fossils, or those just durable enough to be considered rock-like. Many of them are physically strong in both attack and defense. Rock attacks are particularly effective against a lot of types; hitting Fire, Bug, Ice, and Flying super effectively while being resisted by Ground, Fighting, and Steel (if a hypothetical Pokémon had all 18 types simultaneously, it would still be weak to Rock moves). Defensively, they resist Poison, Fire, Flying, and Normal, but they are weak to five different types: Water, Grass, Ground, Fighting, and Steel. They tend to reside in caves, arid lands, and mountainous regions.

The type is best known for having several moves that can be taught to a large variety of Pokémon via TMs or Move Tutors like Rock Slide, Stone Edge, and Stealth Rock, as well as a lack of moves that are both powerful and accurate.

When a sandstorm is raging, Rock-type Pokémon are unaffected by the residual damage from the sandstorm, and their Special Defense is boosted by 50%.^note Starting in Generation IV.

In the Trading Card Game, Rock-type Pokémon are part of the Fighting energy type.

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• Achilles' Heel: While the Rock-type does not have any quadruple weaknesses (no single type does), it was often paired with the Ground-type in Gens I and II, and when it is, it has quadruple weaknesses to Water and Grass. Since both of these types are often specially offensive, just one hit from either of them usually means that the Pokémon will faint.
• Action Initiative: Accelerock has a priority of +1, meaning it goes before most attacks.
• Anti-Air: As one of the types super-effective against Flying-types. As a matter of fact, one of its moves, Smack Down, will remove any immunity to Ground-type moves the target may have. It even knocks the target out of the sky if it's in the middle of using Fly, Bounce, or Sky Drop.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Ancient Power has a rare chance to raise all of the user's stats (except Evasion, Accuracy, and critical hit rate) by one stage at the same time. However, it's only a mere 10% chance, and the attack's power of 60 and maximum PP count of 8 means it can't be relied on that much.
  • Head Smash inflicts enormous damage, but it has low PP and accuracy and will deal half the damage it dealt back to the user. On more frail users, that really hurts. The last part is averted if the user has the Rock Head ability, which nullifies recoil.
  • Rock Wrecker is a Rock-type clone of Giga Impact, meaning that your opponent will have 1 turn to rock your world after you use it. Also, you could do more damage by using Rock Slide or Stone Edge repeatedly (assuming that they don't miss).
  • The more common^note at least in the late-game Stone Edge has 100 base attack with a high Critical Hit ratio, but it has a pitiful amount of PP and prone to miss (though not as much as Thunder and Blizzard), making this move a huge liability, especially when travelling long distances in-game. NPCs are not as affected by this, since many of them are packing this move on at least one of their Pokémon.
• Cast from Hit Points: Head Smash. Notable for damaging the user for 1/2 of the damage dealt to the target compared to the other recoil moves' 1/4 or 1/3, thanks to having a Power of 150.
• Crutch Character: Rock-type's defensive role is only relevant early in the game, where most of the Pokémon are either Normal, Bug^*actually does neutral damage to Rock, but Bug-type moves are unavailable in the early game, or Flying-types. Past that point of the game, they get overshadowed by Steel defensively and the types they are weak to become much more common.
• Chunky Updraft: Ancient Power is depicted in-game as a rising wave of stones around the opponent. Stone Edge is depicted similarly.
• Color-Coded Elements: The Rock-type icon is dark brown, though Rock-types themselves are usually varying shades of grey or black.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Rock is a very strong type, but it's not without problems. Offensively, it provides awesome coverage and has powerful attacks, but most Rock-type moves have less than 100% accuracy. The few Rock-type moves that have good accuracy are very weak (Ancient Power and Smack Down) or have limited distribution (Power Gem and Diamond Storm). Defensively, the type's tendencies towards low Special Defense stats and a myriad of weaknesses make them far more brittle than expected. Using Rock-types holds a lot of risk, but if the odds are in your favor, they will yield results.
• Dishing Out Dirt: One of two types to represent this, along with Ground. They attack with stones and boulders. Naturally, they can easily learn Ground-type moves.
• Early-Bird Boss: Related to Crutch Character above. Whenever there is a Rock-type Gym Leader, they are usually the first gym challenge in the game (Brock, Roxanne, Roark) or second (Grant), where the player has limited resources and their lineup consists of unevolved Pokémon limited to Normal- and Flying-type moves, which Rock-types resist. This makes them rather difficult to deal with early on (especially for the Fire-type starter). Once the player gets further in the game with access to more varied elemental types and stronger Pokémon that can easily prey on their numerous weaknesses, Rock-types become far less difficult to handle.
• Eat Dirt, Cheap: Many of them feed on sediment, most notably the Tyranitar and Aggron families.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors
  • Offense
    • Strong: Bug, Fire, Flying, Ice
    • Weak: Fighting, Ground, Steel
  • Defense
    • Strong: Fire, Flying, Normal, Poison
    • Weak: Fighting, Grass, Ground, Steel, Water
• Fossil Revival: All of the fossil Pokémon except those from the Galar Region are part Rock.
• Gemstone Assault: The moves Power Gem ("a ray of light that sparkles as if it were made of gemstones") and Diamond Storm (a storm of sharp diamonds and the Secret Art of Diancie).
• Glass Cannon: While most Rock-types lean towards Mighty Glacier, from a typing standpoint, they're this trope. Offensively, they're strong against four types, including the common Bug-, Fire-, and Flying-types, and only resisted by three. Defensively, however, they're not so good — while Rock may have four resistances and be one of only two types to resist Normal, it's saddled with a whopping five weaknesses, many of which are to common attacking types.
• Kryptonite Is Everywhere: The Rock type is tied with the Grass type for the most weaknesses, with five. Of those weaknesses, three of them — Water, Ground, and Fighting — are some of the strongest offensive types in the game, and Steel is the best defensive typing and is likely to have a Steel-type attack even if it's purely defensive. Fortunately, Rock doesn't have nearly as many resistors as Grass does. The Rock/Dark Tyranitar ties with Grass/Psychic, Grass/Ice, and Grass/Dark for having the most weaknesses of any type combination (seven weaknesses, one of which is a double weakness).
• Last Chance Hit Point: The very useful ability Sturdy, which is mainly associated with the Rock-type, protects the Pokémon from one-hit knockouts by leaving it with one HP if an attack would otherwise take it from full health to zero. It also protects against the One-Hit KO moves, and that was what the Ability did prior to Gen V, but the newer feature is more important.
• Last Disc Magic: The TM for Stone Edge is only available late or post-game or can be learned naturally by many Rock-types during the aforementioned time frame. Due to the large amount of Pokémon that can learn it, said TM is harder to find compared to other examples of this trope.
• Light 'em Up: The move Power Gem is a barrage of light beams released from gemstones.
• Limit Break:
  • The Rock-type Z-Move is Continental Crush, in which the user forms a gigantic rock by fusing many small rocks and drops it on the target. Lycanroc's exclusive Z-Move, Splintered Stormshards, has Lycanroc summon giant pointy chunks of boulders and launch them at the opponent.
  • The Rock-type Max Move is Max Rockfall. Exactly What It Says on the Tin, the move creates a rock similar in height to the average Dynamax transformation and then simply lets it fall over onto the opponent. The rock proceeds to shatter into grain-sized pieces, producing a Sandstorm for five turns.
  • Gigantamax Coalossal's signature G-Max Move is G-Max Volcalith. This move creates a volcanic rock similar in height to Coalossal and then simply lets it fall over onto the opponent. The rock proceeds to explode and continuously damage non-Rock types.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Rock-types typically lean on the physical side with high Attack and Defense. Their special stats are nowhere near as impressive. To illustrate this further, after nine generations, the grand total of special Rock-type moves can be counted on one hand, and even fewer of them are viable.
• Mighty Glacier: Speed is not the forte of this type, but when it comes to Attack and Defense stats, they shine.
• Poor, Predictable Rock: Pun aside, when you go up against a Rock-type, you're probably not going to have to worry much about them exploiting a low Special Defense; even after the split, almost all Rock-type moves are physical. Some Rock-types, like Rhydon/Rhyperior and Aggron, have surprisingly large coverage movepools, but they lack the Special Attack to take advantage of them.
• Powerful, but Inaccurate: The driving force behind Rock-type attacks is that they have great damage, but their accuracy is poor. In fact, before Generation IV, there was a grand total of one Rock-type attack with 100% accuracy.
• Prehistoric Monster: Most of the Fossil Pokémon, known as such because they're generally revived from various fossils, are all at least part Rock-type. They range from invertebrates that lived in the sea to ones that are based on actual dinosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles. It's unclear if they were all Rock-types in life or if the Rock-type being added may be a side effect of being revived from fossils (it's noted a number of times that the revival process may not revive them in their original form). The only exceptions to being Rock-type so far have been Genesect and the Generation 8 fossils, all of whom have rather special conditions regarding their revival.
• Rock Monster: Most of them are clearly comprised in part of rocks and other minerals, though some, like Archeops, really push the concept in terms of design.
• Rolling Attack: Rollout, which increases in strength on each consecutive turn... assuming that it connects.
• Shed Armor, Gain Speed: Half of all Pokémon with the Weak Armor Ability (which sharply raises the user's Speed but lowers its Defense for every contact attack it takes) are Rock-type, as are over half of the Pokémon that can learn Shell Smash. Minior's Shields Down ability boosts its Speed and both attack stats at the cost of defense when its health is reduced to half.
• Silicon-Based Life: Many Rock-types are mostly made up of rocks, like Geodude and Regirock. Uniquely, Nihilego is a Rock-type that's made of glass (molten sand), or at least some flexible substance resembling glass.
• Spam Attack: Rock Blast hits the target 2-5 times on each use, with each hit dealing weak damage.
• Status Buff: Rock Polish increases the user's Speed by 2 stages. All Rock-types also get a 50% boost to Special Defense during a Sandstorm.
• Stone Wall: Statistically, though the type's weaknesses don't always bear it out. Shuckle and Carbink (and Diancie) are strong on both defenses, while Regirock, Rhyperior, Golem, and even Onix are top physical defenders (and Regirock's special defense is pretty good, too, being part of a defensively-oriented legendary trio).
• Super Mode: Aerodactyl, Tyranitar, Aggron, and Diancie are capable of Mega Evolution, though Mega Aggron loses its Rock-type. Coalossal and Drednaw are capable of Gigantamax, but only Coalossal has a Rock-type G-Max Move.
• Trap Master: The move Stealth Rock summons sharp floating stones on the opponent's side of the field which proceed to somehow turn invisible (hence the "stealth" part of the move). The stones automatically deal damage by striking at any opponent that switches in (unless they are equipped with Heavy-Duty Boots or have an ability that shields against the effects of entry hazards). The amount of HP lost is dependent on how weak a Pokémon is to Rock in the Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors; it deals 3.125% of the switch-in's total HP on a double resist, 6.25% on a single resist, 12.5% on a neutrality, 25% on a single weakness, and a whopping 50% on a double weakness.
• Warm-Up Boss: Rock-type specialists are often the first bosses in the games of their generation, sometimes with a Rock-type Fake Ultimate Mook as their ace. This is most prominent in the early generations, with examples like Brock's Onix, Roxanne's Nosepass, and Roark's Cranidos (though the last one is trickier). Later games also have a few examples of single strong Rock-types as early bosses, such as Lord Kleavor in Legends: Arceus or the Titan Klawf in Scarlet and Violet.
• Weak to Magic: Many Rock-types, especially in the early generations, have very high defence but much lower Special Defence. Their Special Defence buff in a sandstorm mitigates this.
• Use Your Head: The ultra-powerful and dangerous-to-the-user Head Smash works like this.

Ghost

Ghost-Type (ゴーストタイプ Gōsuto Taipu)

A group of Pokémon based on spirits, ghosts, goblins, and all manner of mischievous and creepy creatures from beyond the grave. They can be found in abandoned buildings and burial grounds. Due to their unusual nature, the Ghost type has the second-least representatives out of all types.

Ghosts are primarily useful due to the fact that they're immune to 2 types, both of which are particularly common. Their resistances, to Bug and Poison, aren't quite as useful. Combined with other types and abilities, Ghost-types usually find a niche in No Selling other attacks. In previous generations, their resistances can overlap with the weaknesses of the Dark type, thus, Pokémon that were both types had no inherent weaknesses (although with the introduction of the Fairy-type, this is no longer the case). Starting in Gen VI, Ghost-types also cannot be trapped and can be freely switched out at any time (they can also run from any wild Pokémon regardless of speed).

In the Trading Card Game, Ghost-type Pokémon are part of the Psychic energy type.

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• Action Initiative: Shadow Sneak has increased priority, letting the user circumvent Speed.
• Animate Inanimate Object:
  • Many Ghost-types are based on living objects, some of which are actually normal objects possessed by spirits. Such examples include Rotom, the Honedge line, and the Sandygast line.
  • The move Poltergeist, introduced in the Isle of Armor, involves taking control of the opposing Pokémon's item and attacking them with it.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Ominous Wind has a rare chance to raise all of the user's stats (except Evasion, Accuracy, and critical hit rate) by one stage at the same time. However, it's only a mere 10% chance, and the attack's power of 60 and PP count of 5 (8 at most with PP Up/Max) means it can't be relied on that much.
  • Shadow Force and Phantom Force make you completely invincible for one turn, but said turn is a charge turn that telegraphs what you are doing to your opponent, meaning that they will probably switch in a Normal-type. At least they ignore Protect, Detect, and other protection moves.
  • Trick-or-Treat adds the Ghost-type to its target, meaning you can spam your now super-effective Ghost STAB at them. However, because it adds the type and doesn't override it, Normal-types will still be immune (and will now be immune to Fighting attacks, their only weakness). Or your opponent can just switch out to something that resists Ghost anyway.
  • Curse, when used by a Ghost-type, takes away half the user's HP to afflict a Damage Over Time effect that takes away 1/4 of the victim's HP each turn, but can be removed by switching. Guess what a human opponent with even a tiny shred of competence will do immediately unless you took the time to prevent it? (And if you did bother to stop your opponent from running away, you're probably nearly dead and will be finished off with just one more hit, which will allow your opponent to switch out.)
  • Prior to Gen II, Ghost-types had next to no practicality in battle; there were only three Ghost-types available, all of which were dual Poison-types too, they were only super-effective against themselves, and, contrary to what the anime claimed at the time, were useless against Psychic-types.^note They could have had a niche in No Selling Normal-type moves from the likes of Tauros or Kangaskhan, but as the only Ghost-types at the time (the Gastly line) were also Poison-type and had poor defensive stats and Abilities didn't exist yet, this would probably lead to getting wrecked by Earthquake.
• Always Accurate Attack:
  • Shadow Punch bypasses accuracy and evasion checks when it's used.
  • Apart from Poltergeist, no Ghost-type move with a given accuracy number has less than 100% accuracy.
• Balance Buff: Steel-types lost their resistance to Ghost-type attacks starting from Gen VI, making Ghosts among the types that directly benefitted from the generational change, with no (direct) nerfs. Even the introduction of Fairy-types was good for Ghosts, as it's another type that scares away Dark-types.
• Barrier-Busting Blow: The moves Phantom Force and Shadow Force not only bypass Protect and Detect, they also remove the protection for the rest of the turn. They also ignore the negative effects of Spiky Shield, King's Shield, Baneful Bunker, Obstruct, Silk Trap, and Burning Bulwark.
• Boring, but Practical: Ghost-type moves tend to be more reliable than those from other types, making them well-suited for patient players.
  • Every move's (except Poltergeist) accuracy is either 100% or it bypasses miss checks entirely; Phantom Force and Shadow Force also give the user substantial protection while hitting through any Defend Command in their way.
  • Attacks like Shadow Bone and Shadow Ball carry higher chances of their added effect activating, and those two moves in particular have a chance to lower the foe's relevant defense stat. The type also has increased priority in Shadow Sneak, Swift-accuracy in Shadow Punch, and a Fixed Damage Attack in Night Shade. None of these attacks are especially powerful, though.
  • The Ghost type's unique status effects — Spite, Curse, Nightmare, Trick-or-Treat, Destiny Bond, and the innate effects in Spirit Shackle and Spectral Thief — aren't as game-changing as the Status Effects found in, say, Grass or Poison moves, but they're more likely to hit^note all are 100% accurate and unaffected by type matchups, and some can bypass Defend Command moves, harder to get rid of^note Spite can only be fixed with Leppa Berries and Nightmares last until the opponent wakes up, but everything else fixable can only be fixed by switching out and less likely to backfire^note Trick-or-Treat and Spite are the only ones that can be bounced back with Magic Coat or Magic Bounce, and none of them can feed a Status Buff ability.
• Breaking Old Trends: After 8 generations, the move Poltergeist is the very first Ghost-type move that has less than 100% (or always accurate) accuracy.
• Came Back Strong: Pokémon that become Ghost-type after they evolved tend to be much stronger than when they were alive. Annihilape's Dex entries in Gen IX even imply that it was dying and becoming a Revenant Zombie that granted it such insane power (both in lore and in gameplay).
• Casting a Shadow: They actually fit this better than the Dark-types. Shadow Claw and Shadow Ball take the form of weaponized darkness, while other attacks like Shadow Punch and Shadow Force describe the user manipulating darkness to hide themself before striking.
• Color-Coded Elements: The Ghost icon is a grayish dark purple. Ghost-types are very often purple too.
• Confusion Fu: Not just in movesets, but in fighting style, as Ghosts have been legitimately used as Glass Cannons^note Gengar, Mighty Glaciers^note Giratina, Stone Walls^note Eviolite Dusclops, Fragile Speedsters^note Dragapult, and as Lightning Bruisers^note Annihilape.
• Curse: Ghost-types are fittingly fond of using moves and Abilities that could be considered curses, including Grudge, Destiny Bond, the Abilities Cursed Body and Mummy, and Curse itself. Curse is a Secret Art that was initially a move of unknown type that worked differently for Ghosts based on a pun. ^note The move's Japanese name can mean either "curse" or slow", depending on the kanji used. It officially became a Ghost-type move in Gen V. Cast from Hit Points to regularly drain the opponent's health for Ghost-types; lowers Speed and raises Attack and Defense for anything else.
• Dark Is Not Evil:
  • They are all rather spooky as expected, but they tend to be more mischievous than malevolent.
  • This also applies to their ace trainers, as well. Despite specializing in Ghost-types, none of them are evil, malicious, or even all that spooky. Agatha is a Cool Old Lady, Morty is a Perky Goth, Phoebe and Acerola are Genki Girls, Fantina is a Funny Foreigner, Shauntal is a Cute Bookworm, Allister is a Shrinking Violet, and Ryme is a Battle Rapping Cool Old Lady.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Most Ghost types won't care for you at all when you first catch them. They can still bond with you through the usual methods (winning battles with them, pampering or playing with them, and even just keeping them in your party long enough).
• Demonic Possession:
  • In the original game, Ghost-types possessed the Channelers in Lavender Town, forcing them to be their "trainers" in attacking you. It's implied that the Ghosts were driven mad by the anger and grief of the Marowak mother whose son Team Rocket killed.
  • More benignly, many Ghost-types possess various inanimate objects ranging from dolls to sand castles, forming different species based on what they're controlling.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Ghosts and ghost moves can force your opponent to make some very uncomfortable choices. Perish Song can end them if they have no way to escape, made all the more difficult with the trapping moves they know. And trapping is useless on ghosts since Gen VI. If you fully exploit the strengths of the ghosts you use, the opponent can do nothing but watch helplessly as their wall or support gets dragged off by the reaper.
• The Drag-Along: There's a small subset of Pokémon that begin with 35 base friendship rather than 70 when you capture them in the wild — in other words, they're significantly less happy to join up with you than ordinary Pokémon (though you'll still win them over through dedication and care). Ghost- and Dark-types jointly make up a major chunk of this group.
• Dying Curse: Destiny Bond and Grudge will only work if the user is knocked out on the same turn they are successfully used.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors:
  • Offense
    • Strong: Ghost, Psychic (Gen II-Forward)
    • Weak: Dark, Steel (Gen II-V)
    • Can't Hit: Normal, Psychic (Gen I Only)
  • Defense
    • Strong: Bug, Poison
    • Weak: Dark, Ghost
    • Immune: Fighting, Normal
• Escape Battle Technique: All Ghost-types are immune to being trapped and can switch out at will from trapping abilities. Furthermore, they are capable of successfully escaping regardless of speed in a wild battle.
• Exact Time to Failure: Forced with Perish Song^note which is technically a Normal-type move, but can be learned by many Ghost-type Pokémon. Three turns, and both sides are K.O.ed, bypassing Focus Sash and any ability that may have saved them. The number of trapping moves that ghosts learn means that they can switch out before the timer reaches zero, and their opponent cannot.
• Faux Flame: Probably an influence as to why the Fire-type move Will-o-Wisp is so widely distributed among Ghost-types and likely the reason it's the only Fire-type move that works when Primal Kyogre's fire-extinguishing rainstorm is in effect. Rest assured, though, the move will burn the target when it lands.
• Four Is Death: In a very strange way. As of Generation VII, the Ghost Pokémon evolutionary families who don't evolve via level-up are in groups of four. 4^note Gengar, Dusknoir, Trevenant, and Gourgeist need to be traded to reach their final evolution, and 4^note Mismagius, Froslass, Chandelure, and Aegislash need stones to reach their final evolution.
• Infinity +1 Element: In the Mystery Dungeon subseries, Ghost-types are king. The ability to walk through walls is supremely powerful in a roguelike game, allowing you to escape bad situations, hit enemies from where they can't retaliate, and perform a Dungeon Bypass. It's quite telling that you generally can't recruit them until the post-game.
• Intangibility: Why the Ghost-type is immune to Normal and Fighting-type moves, as well as trapping effects/abilities — they can vanish and reappear at will and make matter pass through their bodies. It could also be the reason why Ghost-type moves became neutral against Steel-types in Gen VI.
• Irony: Before the Physical/Special split, Ghost-type attacks used to be all physical, but the ghosts they're based on don't have a physical body.
• Jack of All Stats: Type-wise. Ghost is tied with Dragon for the fewest unfavorable attacking matchups; it's weak against Dark and nullified by Normal. Offensively, though, it's only strong against itself and Psychic, but at the same time, it only has 2 resistances against it: Dark types and Normal types (the only type immune to it)^note Prior to Gen 6, 3 resistances, the third type being Steel. As a result, Ghost-type attacks will be hitting foes neutrally more often than not.
• Limit Break:
  • The Ghost-type Z-Move is Never-Ending Nightmare, in which the user summons deep-seated grudges to attack the target, taking the form of huge energy tendrils that pile on the target and explode.
  • The Ghost-type Max-Move, Max Phantasm, creates huge spectral furniture and other decor which it proceeds to crash into the opponent. This also lowers the Defense of the opponent and their allies.
  • Gigantamax Gengar's exclusive G-Max Move is G-Max Terror, which creates huge spectral furniture and other decor which it proceeds to crash into and absolutely terrify the opponent, preventing them from fleeing or switching out.
• Mana Burn: Two different Ghost-type moves can drain PP (Power Points). Spite knocks 4 PP off the move last used (all of it in the Mystery Dungeon games), while Grudge causes all of the PP to be drained from the move that KOed the user.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Ghost-type attacks aren't very effective offensively, but they have many unique status attacks like Spite, Curse, Nightmare, and Destiny Bond, and also have a number of moves that can inflict other status conditions (Confuse Ray, Lick, Astonish).
• Mundane Utility: The move Poltergeist, while being a powerful attack on its own, also has the useful side effect of revealing the target Pokémon's held item, even if said held item cannot be removed with moves such as Knock Off.
• Mutual Disadvantage: While they enjoy being immune to Normal-type moves, Ghost-type moves cannot harm Normal-type Pokémon.
• Nocturnal Mooks: In the games that base Random Encounters off the time of day, they will frequently only appear at night or in dark areas like caves.
• Non-Indicative Name: Many Ghost-types are actually natively ethereal entities that share the characteristics of a ghost without actually being the lingering soul of a creature that died, as a ghost is commonly understood to be. Giratina, for example, is a deity that is not dead, but simply able to phase through matter much like a ghost can. A more appropriate name would probably be something like "Spirit-type".
• No-Sell: Ghost-type Pokémon are completely immune to Normal and Fighting-type moves. Normal-type Pokémon are also completely immune to their attacks, however.
• Our Ghosts Are Different:
  • Ghost-type Pokémon have many traditional characteristics of ghosts but are not, for the most part, actually spirits of the dead. Some aren't even ghostly at all — Sableye, Oricorio's Sensu Style, Alolan Marowak, and Decidueye, for example, are all clearly living and tangible creatures. As shown by "Mimikins" in the anime, they can even die and become actual undead ghosts (key differences including that truly "ghost" Pokémon cannot interact with the living world in any physical way, unlike Ghost-types).
  • When Ghost-type Pokémon have death as part of their origin, they are typically treated not as dead themselves but rather described as becoming Ghost-type in order to be able to live again in a different form or state of being. Examples include ones like Yamask and Phantump which are stated to be human spirits reborn as Pokémon, while Drifloon is stated to have been "formed by the spirits of people and Pokémon" that gathered together. Dreepy and Galarian Corsola were once non-Ghost types but became extinct in those forms and then were reborn as Ghost-types at some point. Becoming Ghost-type for them is treated in lore as a form of adaptation so they could live again in their old habitats, and in Corsola's case allowed for it to even evolve where its original form couldn't. This proved to be the case for the ancient Hisuian population of Zorua and Zoroark as well, which were reborn as Normal/Ghost-types when they proved unable to survive in the region in their original forms (though their spite toward both humans and other Pokémon for contributing to their deaths led to this rebirth as well). An even straighter example of adaptation is Alolan Marowak, who explicitly gained the Ghost/Fire typing in order to protect themselves and the (still Ground type) Cubone from their local enemies, no extinction involved, with the implication that the spirits of their mothers have returned to protect them via the ghostly flames on their bones. Spiritomb is explicitly 108 (human) souls that are forced together inside one Soul Jar, and Froslass is repeatedly stated in dex entries to have originated from the soul of a woman who died in a snowstorm, her regrets and grudges causing her to be reborn as this Pokémon (although another dex entry says such a soul merely "inhabits" the body of Froslass, rather than being the Pokémon's own soul). How reliable dex entries are for Ghost types in particular can be debated, with some dex entries stating their origins as undisputed facts, others giving the same or similar info but stating such an origin is a legend or story.
• Our Monsters Are Weird: The type's favoring of Animate Inanimate Object often results in some odd Pokémon like haunted, carnivorous sandcastles and seaweed that use nautical instruments as weapons. Even Ghost-types that aren't directly haunted objects but are based on them can be strange, such as the Litwick line (candles, lamps, and chandeliers) and Drifloon and Drifblim (balloons).
• Poltergeist: The exact name of one Ghost-type attack, which manipulates an opponent's held item and hits them with it. It's surprisingly powerful having 110 power, but has only 90% accuracy and fails if the opponent lacks a held item.
• Power Nullifier: The Ghost type's defenses are defined by its immunities, not its resistances; it is immune to two other types, Normal and Fighting, something no other type can claim. Twenty-five out of the forty-four Ghost-type Pokémon also have access to a third immunity through an ability or secondary typing, and the Pokémon with the most type immunities, Shedinja^note through Wonder Guard, is partially a Ghost-type.
• Psychic Powers: Many Ghost-types are capable of learning Psychic-type moves.
• Purple Is the New Black: The only Ghost-types in Gen I, the Gastly line ending in Gengar, was based around a living shadow and are all purple. For them, the wires are crossed, being part Poison.
• Secret Art:
  • The move Curse will only do its Damage Over Time special effect when used by a Ghost-type.
  • The ability Cursed Body has a 30% chance of preventing the opponent from using the last move they used for the next 4 turns.
• Situational Damage Attack: Hex has a below-average power of 65, but its power doubles to a whopping 130 when used on targets with Status Effects.
• Soul Power: A lot of the Ghost-type's abilities are related to the spirit.
• Squishy Wizard: Ghost Pokémon have lots of cool tricks and can be pretty good on offense, but if you can actually hit them their defenses are often rather lacking.
• Status Buff: Curse, when used by a non-Ghost, increases Attack and Defense by 1 stage but also lowers Speed by 1 stage.
• Status Infliction Attack:
  • Many Ghost-types get Will-O-Wisp, which inflicts Burn.
  • Lick has a high chance of inflicting paralysis, while Confuse Ray is a 100% accurate attack that causes confusion.
  • Hex doesn't cause a status effect, but it does deal double damage against foes afflicted with them.
• Super Mode: Gengar, Sableye, and Banette are capable of Mega Evolution, with Gengar alone also being capable of Gigantamax.
• Takes One to Kill One: Ghost is one of the two types weak to itself, the other being Dragon.
• Taking You with Me:
  • Destiny Bond will instantly KO the opponent if their next attack KOs the user, with a success rate that declines with every consecutive use (Gen VII onwards, as it could be used repeatedly without failing in Gen II-VI).
  • This can apply to Perish Song as it not only counts down to the target's demise but also the user's. This can be averted however if the user switches out before the timer reaches 0.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: As described under The Drag-Along above, most Ghost types won't like you when you first catch them. That said, they'll still obey your commands if you're a skilled enough trainer, usually as measured by your number of badges.
• Undead Abomination: Ghost-types tend to be more otherworldly and bizarre than their contemporaries in the mortal realm, with their very existence often defying scientific explanation — Gengar is a gaseous Living Shadow that's somehow also poisonous, Shedinja is the possessed empty shell left behind by a metamorphosed Ninjask whose back cavity can suck your soul out if you look at it too long, Spiritomb is a merger of one hundred and eight evil souls held together by negative emotions and permanently bound to a keystone, no one knows what Mimikyu is because anyone who looks upon its true form will die of fright, etc.
• Underground Monkey: Galarian Corsola is pure Ghost-type. Alolan Marowak as well as Hisuian Typhlosion, Zorua and Zoroark are part Ghost-Type.
• Uniqueness Decay: It was once only represented by the Gastly family. Now there's a good selection to choose from (though they're still rare, with 72 Pokémon, making Ghost the rarest type after Ice).
• Was Once a Man: A few Ghost-type families are frequently stated to be former humans. We never actually see exactly how this happens, but its frequently stated it's spirits gaining physical form through possessing objects or a sheer power of will. Examples include Yamask, Froslass, Spiritomb, Ghastly, Phantump and Sandyghast.
• Weak, but Skilled: When in the offensive, Ghost-type moves tend to be on the weak side. Until the Generation VI games introduced Phantom Force, there was no Ghost-type Pokémon with a Base Power higher than 80 that wasn't a signature move, a Z-Move, or a Max Move, and it took until the introduction of Poltergeist in Generation VIII to get one such move that was executed in a single turn. Due to this, offensive Ghost-type moves are generally valued for their secondary effects or the fact only two types (three before Generation 6) take less than neutral damage from Ghost-type attacks.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Some Ghost-types are said to love stealing or draining the souls of people and Pokémon alike.
• You Will Not Evade Me: The move Spirit Shackle prevents the opponent from switching out or running away if it hits. Many ghosts also learn Mean Look and Block naturally, more than the normal types these moves belong to. Worse still, ghosts also tend to learn Perish Song, which if the situation is unfavorable for the victim, means their defeat is inevitable.

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