The type effectiveness (weaknesses and strengths) feature of Pokemon influences how strong or weak a pokemon is against another. It’s been a staple of the games since the franchise’s inception in the 1990s, and the type chart in Pokemon Sword and Shield is no exception. In-game, the winner of a battle is frequently determined by whether you use type effectiveness correctly and optimally. Despite this, there are a few things to keep in mind. The move type of your opponent and your own species determine whether your Pokemon’s attack is super effective or not. For example, grass-types are vulnerable to bug-type moves, but even if a bug-type uses the best psychic-type move, it will still be vulnerable.
A table listing each type’s particular strengths and weaknesses can be seen below:
Type | Strengths | Weaknesses |
Bug | Grass / Dark / Psychic | Fire /Flying / Rock |
Dark | Ghost / Psychic | Bug / Fairy / Fighting |
Dragon | Dragon | Dragon / Fairy / Ice |
Electric | Flying / Water | Ground |
Fairy | Fighting / Dark / Dragon | Poison / Steel |
Fighting | Dark / Ice / Normal / Rock / Steel | Fairy / Flying/ Psychic |
Fire | Bug / Grass / Steel / Ice | Ground / Rock / Water |
Flying | Bug / Fighting / Grass | Electric / Ice / Rock |
Ghost | Ghost / Psychic | Dark / Ghost |
Grass | Ground / Rock / Water | Bug /Fire/ Flying / Ice / Poison |
Ground | Electric / Fire / Poison / Rock / Steel | Grass / Ice / Water |
Ice | Dragon / Flying / Grass / Ground | Fighting / Fire / Rock / Steel |
Normal | Fighting | |
Poison | Fairy / Grass | Ground / Psychic |
Psychic | Fighting / Poison | Bug / Dark / Ghost |
Rock | Bug / Fire / Flying / Ice | Fighting / Grass / Ground / Steel / Water |
Steel | Fairy / Ice / Rock | Fighting / Fire / Ground |
Water | Fire / Ground / Rock | Electric / Grass |
As you can see above, there are a total of 18 different types of Pokemon throughout the entire Pokemon series. As previously demonstrated, different’mon have different strengths and weaknesses against different types. Fire-types are an excellent example of this, as they are effective against bug, grass, ice, and steel-types but ineffective against ground, rock, and water.
Despite what the table above suggests, there is a lot more to type effectiveness than meets the eye. Super effective moves, for example, deal double the damage, whereas ‘weak’ moves deal half the damage. There are a few moves that do no damage at all, such as normal-type attacks on ghost-types. Dual-types play an important role as well. Dual-type Pokemon have two types, as the name implies. If you use a move that is effective against both of the opposing Pokemon’s typing, it will deal 4x the damage. If the move is weak against both, it will only deal 1/4 of the total damage.
Using a water attack against a rock and/or ground type is the best example of a super-effective type attack. Geodude (a dual rock/ground Pokemon) would be 4x more vulnerable to water Pokemon attacks in this case. When a Fairy-type move is used on a Pokemon like Heatran, who is a dual steel/fire type, the opposite effect occurs. This would only cause a quarter of the damage.