Pokémon Type Weakness Chart: Strong & Weak Against (All 18 Types)

How to read a Pokémon type chart

Every attack in the main series Pokémon games carries a type, and every Pokémon has one or two types of its own. When an attack lands, the game multiplies the damage by a number that depends on how the attacking move’s type interacts with the defending Pokémon’s type. That multiplier is the entire reason type matchups matter: the same move can do almost nothing or wreck a target depending on who is standing across from it.

The multipliers are simple once you see them laid out. A super effective hit deals double damage (a 2× multiplier). A not very effective hit deals half damage (0.5×). A no effect matchup deals nothing at all (0×), which is how a Normal-type move bounces harmlessly off a Ghost. Everything else is neutral and lands at the normal 1×. Those four numbers — 0, 0.5, 1, and 2 — describe the whole system on a single-type target.

The phrasing players use changes constantly. Someone might ask what is good against fire type Pokémon, what beats an electric type, what counters water, or what are ice type Pokémon weak to. All of those questions point at the same chart from slightly different angles. “Weak to” and “good against” are two sides of the same coin: if Fire is weak to Water, then Water is good against Fire. Once you internalise that, you can answer any of those questions by reading a single row or column.

This article walks through the most-searched types one at a time, then gives you the complete grid. If you would rather skip the reading and just get an answer for a specific battle, the type effectiveness calculator takes an attacking type and a defending Pokémon and returns the exact multiplier instantly. The guide below explains the why; the calculator handles the now.

It helps to know where these numbers come from. The original games shipped with a fixed table of relationships that has stayed remarkably stable, with only a few deliberate changes across generations — the addition of the Fairy type and a couple of rebalanced matchups being the most notable. That stability is good news for players: once you learn the chart, it stays learned. The relationships you commit to memory this year will still be accurate next year and across nearly every game in the series.

There is also a logic to many of the matchups that makes them easier to remember than rote memorisation suggests. Water beats Fire because water puts out fire; Fire beats Grass because fire burns plants; Grass beats Water because plants soak up water. That rock-paper-scissors triangle anchors three types at once. Electric beats Water for the same intuitive reason electricity and water are dangerous together, and Ground beats Electric because the ground absorbs a current. Leaning on these real-world intuitions turns an abstract grid into a set of small stories, and stories stick far better than tables.

Fire: what it’s strong against and weak to

Fire is one of the most popular offensive types in the game, and one of the most-searched matchups by a wide margin. Players constantly want to know what is good against fire type Pokémon and, on the flip side, what fire is good at hitting.

So what is strong against fire type Pokémon? Water, Ground, and Rock all land super effective hits for double damage. Water is the cleanest answer because it is common, has reliable moves, and resists Fire’s return attacks. Ground works beautifully too, and Rock punishes Fire on the physical side. If you are staring at an enemy Fire-type and wondering what to bring, any of those three is a safe pick.

On offense, Fire shreds Grass, Ice, Bug, and Steel. That last one is the underrated part — Steel walls a huge fraction of the game, and Fire is one of the few common types that melts through it. The takeaway: a Fire move belongs in the back pocket of most teams precisely because it answers Steel.

Want the exact damage number rather than just the multiplier? Pair this matchup with the damage formula breakdown to see how a 2× Water hit translates into actual HP lost, or just feed the matchup into the calculator.

Water: what counters it and what it counters

Water is the most common type in the entire National Dex, so knowing what counters water type Pokémon pays off in almost every playthrough. The good news is that the answer is short and easy to remember.

Water has exactly two weaknesses: Electric and Grass. That is unusually clean for such a common type, which is part of why Water-types are so reliable defensively. If you want to counter a Water-type, an Electric move is the textbook answer — it is super effective and Electric is rarely walled in return. Grass works too and brings the bonus of resisting Water’s own attacks, though Grass is fragile against the Fire and Ice coverage many Water-types carry.

There is a practical wrinkle worth flagging: many Water-types carry a second type that adds extra weaknesses or removes one. A Water/Ground Pokémon, for example, loses the Electric weakness entirely because Ground is immune to Electric — so the “just use Electric” advice fails completely against that specific pairing, and Grass becomes the only super effective option (and a devastating 4× one at that). This is the clearest everyday reminder that the single-type chart is a starting point, not the final word, and why checking the actual dual typing matters.

Offensively, Water is the premier answer to Fire, Ground, and Rock. If an opponent leans on those types, a single solid Water attacker can hold the line by itself.

Electric: weaknesses and the one immunity that matters

Electric is the single most-searched matchup in this whole keyword set. Players want to know what type of Pokémon is good against electric, what beats an electric type, and what electric type Pokémon are weak against. Here is the full picture.

The best answer to what type of Pokémon is best against electric is Ground, and it is not close. Ground is Electric’s only weakness, and Ground is completely immune to Electric attacks — a 0× multiplier means an Electric move does literally nothing to a Ground-type. That makes a Ground-type the perfect hard counter: it shrugs off the incoming hit and answers with super effective damage. This is the single most important immunity for new players to memorise, because it flips an entire matchup on its head.

Electric itself has almost no defensive weaknesses, which is why it is considered a fantastic offensive type. It cleanly answers Water and Flying, the two types it hits for double, and it pairs well with almost anything. The catch is the lack of breadth: Electric struggles to hit Ground, Grass, Dragon, and Electric for meaningful damage, so it usually needs a partner move.

Grass: the type with the most weaknesses

Grass is famous for being weak to a lot of things, and players often ask what is good against grass type Pokémon when they are trying to clear a Grass-heavy gym or route.

Grass carries five weaknesses — Fire, Ice, Poison, Flying, and Bug — which ties it for the most-exposed pure type on the chart. If you need to beat a Grass-type, Fire is the most reliable pick because it is common and brutal. Flying is a great alternative since many Flying-types outspeed Grass and resist its attacks.

What saves Grass is its excellent defensive resistance to Water, Electric, Ground, and Grass — the exact attacks Water-types and Ground-types love to throw. That is why Grass remains a staple despite the long weakness list: it answers some of the most common offensive types in the game.

Ice: glass cannon offense, fragile defense

Ice is the textbook glass cannon. Offensively it is one of the scariest types in the game; defensively it is one of the worst. Players asking what are ice type Pokémon weak to are usually about to find out the hard way.

So what is good against ice type Pokémon? Fire, Fighting, Rock, and Steel all hit for double. Fighting is often the best practical choice because Fighting-types tend to be bulky and Ice-types are usually fragile, so the exchange goes heavily one way. Rock is the spicy pick — it punishes the many Ice-types that also carry a Flying or Ground secondary type.

Ice resists only itself, which is a brutal defensive profile. But the offense makes up for it: Ice is the famous answer to Dragon, Flying, Ground, and Grass all at once. That four-way coverage is why “Ice beats Dragon” is one of the first advanced lessons most players learn, and it ties directly into the debate over the strongest offensive type.

Ghost: spooky, and only two types touch it

Ghost generates a lot of searches because its matchups are counter-intuitive. People ask what’s strong against ghost type Pokémon and what counters ghost, often after a Normal move did absolutely nothing.

Only two things are super effective against Ghost: Dark and other Ghost moves. Dark is the cleaner counter because it isn’t weak to Ghost in return, making it the textbook answer to what counters ghost type Pokémon. The famous quirk is the double immunity — Ghost takes zero damage from Normal and Fighting attacks. That is why a Normal-type can be completely helpless against a Ghost, and it is one of the most common surprises for newer players.

Offensively, Ghost is excellent: it hits Psychic and other Ghosts hard and is resisted by very little. The Dark-versus-Ghost relationship is one of the matchups worth committing to memory, and it shows up again in our worked battle examples.

Rock: huge offense, shaky defense

Rock is a fan favourite for offense but a liability on defense. The question what is rock type Pokémon weak against comes up constantly because Rock’s weakness list is long and full of common types.

What is effective against rock type Pokémon? Water, Grass, Fighting, Ground, and Steel all land super effective hits. Fighting and Ground are the heaviest hitters in practice. The flip side is that Rock’s offense is genuinely great: it is super effective against Fire, Ice, Flying, and Bug, which is why Rock moves are prized for revenge-killing fast, fragile attackers.

Steel: the best defensive type in the game

Steel resists more types than anything else, which is exactly why players ask what is good against steel type Pokémon — cracking it requires the right tool.

Steel has only three weaknesses — Fire, Fighting, and Ground — and is immune to Poison entirely. Fire is the most popular crack because it is common and Steel-types are often slow. Fighting and Ground are the bruiser options. Everything else bounces off, which is why a Steel-type can wall half a team if you bring the wrong moves. This single fact is responsible for a lot of the matchup mistakes new players make.

Dragon: powerful, but it has clear answers

Dragon has a reputation as a heavyweight, and players regularly ask what are the weaknesses of dragon type Pokémon and what’s good against dragon type Pokémon — usually right before a pseudo-legendary wipes their team.

Dragon has three weaknesses: Ice, Dragon, and Fairy. Fairy is the standout answer to what’s good against dragon type Pokémon because Fairy is also immune to nothing from Dragon — Dragon moves do zero damage to Fairy-types. That makes a Fairy the safest hard counter: it cannot be hit by the enemy’s main attack and answers with a super effective hit. Ice is the classic offensive answer, and a mirror Dragon works if you can move first. The strongest dragon type Pokémon are still vulnerable to all three.

Fairy: the dragon-slayer with two weaknesses

Fairy is the newest type and one of the most important defensively. Players ask what are fairy type Pokémon weak to, what counters fairy, and what is strong against fairy type Pokémon — and the answer is refreshingly short.

Fairy has exactly two weaknesses: Poison and Steel. So what counters fairy type Pokémon? A Poison move is the cheap, common answer; a Steel move is the heavy-duty one and also resists Fairy in return. On offense, Fairy is the modern answer to Dragon, Dark, and Fighting — three formerly dominant types — and it is immune to Dragon attacks, which is why it reshaped competitive play when it arrived. If you are curious how many of these creatures exist, we counted every Fairy-type in a dedicated breakdown.

Dark, Poison & Fighting: the rest of the most-asked trio

Three more types round out the highest-search matchups. Here they are in compact form.

Reading the chart two ways: offense versus defense

The single biggest unlock for understanding type matchups is realising that every type has two completely separate stories: what it does on offense and what happens to it on defense. The two are not mirror images, and treating them as the same thing is where most confusion starts.

Take Ice as the clearest example. On offense it is one of the best types in the game, landing super effective hits on Grass, Ground, Flying, and Dragon — four common, important types. But on defense it is arguably the worst type in the game, resisting only itself and folding to Fire, Fighting, Rock, and Steel. A pure Ice-type is a brilliant attacker and a terrible wall at the same time. If you only looked at one half of the picture you would either overrate or underrate it badly.

Steel is the inverse. Defensively it is the best type in the game, resisting ten different attack types and shrugging off Poison entirely. Offensively it is mediocre, hitting only Ice, Rock, and Fairy for extra damage. A Steel-type is a fortress that struggles to punch back hard. When you ask what is good against steel type Pokémon, you are asking an offensive question, and the answer (Fire, Fighting, Ground) has nothing to do with what Steel does to you — only what it cannot survive.

This is why a good team is built by reading both columns. You want attackers whose offensive coverage hits the threats you expect, and you want defensive typing that resists the attacks those same threats will throw back. The chart gives you both answers if you remember to read it in both directions, and the type calculator lets you flip an attacker and defender around to check each direction in seconds.

The immunities that break the chart

Most of the type chart is about 2× and 0.5× multipliers, but a handful of matchups go all the way to zero. These immunities are the most important relationships to memorise because they are absolute — no amount of attack stat or same-type bonus changes a 0× into damage. A move that does nothing does nothing.

There are five core immunities in the modern games. Normal and Fighting moves both do nothing to Ghost-types, which is why a Normal-type attacker can be utterly stranded against a Ghost. Ghost moves, in turn, do nothing to Normal-types — the relationship is mutual. Electric moves do nothing to Ground-types, the single most important immunity for new players because it makes Ground the perfect Electric counter. Ground moves do nothing to Flying-types, which is why a Levitating or Flying Pokémon laughs off Earthquake. Psychic moves do nothing to Dark-types, a deliberate design choice meant to give Dark a defensive identity. And Dragon moves do nothing to Fairy-types, the immunity that single-handedly knocked Dragon off its throne when Fairy was introduced.

These immunities matter far more than ordinary resistances because they create hard counters — Pokémon that can switch in safely, take zero from the expected attack, and threaten back. When you build a team, mapping out which immunities you can exploit against common threats is often more valuable than chasing raw super effective coverage. A Ground-type walling an Electric attacker is not just resisting it; it is removing that attacker’s main weapon from the equation entirely. We dig into how players misread these immunities in the dedicated mistakes guide, and you can see them decide real fights in the worked examples article.

Why type matchups decide most battles

One more practical consequence: because immunities and weaknesses live in the same chart, a single well-chosen Pokémon can answer several threats at once. A Ground-type, for instance, is immune to Electric, resists Poison and Rock, and threatens Fire, Electric, Poison, Rock, and Steel back — an enormous amount of value from one typing. Hunting for these overlapping roles is what separates a thrown-together team from a cohesive one, and it all starts with reading the relationships in this guide carefully enough to spot them.

It is tempting to think that raw stats win fights — that the Pokémon with the higher attack or more HP simply comes out ahead. In practice, type matchups override stats more often than not, because a 2× multiplier is a 100% damage increase and a 4× multiplier doubles that again. No stat difference between two comparable Pokémon comes close to that swing.

Consider a simple thought experiment. A bulky Water-type with excellent defences will still be knocked out quickly by a Grass move, because the 2× weakness cuts straight through its bulk. Meanwhile a frail attacker hitting into a quad resistance might fail to dent a target it should, on paper, threaten. The multiplier sits on top of every other calculation, so it tends to be the first thing experienced players check before they consider speed, stats, or items.

This is also why switching is such a core skill. A large part of high-level play is predicting the incoming attack type and bringing in a Pokémon that resists or is immune to it, turning a dangerous moment into a free turn. Every safe switch is really a type-chart decision made under pressure. The better you know the relationships in this guide, the faster you can make those calls without hesitating.

None of this means stats are irrelevant — in a neutral matchup, stats and movesets decide everything. The point is about priority: type effectiveness is the first filter you apply, and only once the multipliers are even do the finer details take over. New players who flip that order, leading with their strongest Pokémon regardless of matchup, lose winnable battles constantly. Experienced players check the chart first, every single time, even when it feels obvious.

The multiplier is only the framing, though. To know whether a super effective hit actually secures the knockout — or whether the target survives with a sliver of HP and retaliates — you have to run the full damage numbers, factoring in base power, stats, levels, and the same-type attack bonus. That is the bridge between this chart and the damage calculation guide: the type chart tells you the multiplier, the damage formula tells you the outcome, and the damage calculator does both at once.

Dual types: how 2× becomes 4× (and 0.5× becomes 0.25×)

Everything above assumes a single-type target. The moment a Pokémon has two types, the game multiplies the two relationships together — and that is where the chart stops being intuitive and the numbers get spicy.

Say you fire an Ice move at a Grass/Flying Pokémon. Ice is super effective on Grass (2×) and super effective on Flying (2×). Multiply them: 2 × 2 = 4×, a quad-weakness that can one-shot the target. That is the famous reason Ice is so terrifying against dual-typed dragons and fliers.

The reverse happens too. Fire a Water move at a Water/Ground Pokémon: Water resists Water (0.5×) but Ground is weak to Water (2×), so they cancel to a neutral 1×. Or fire a Grass move at a Bug/Steel target: both halves resist it, 0.5 × 0.5 = 0.25×, doing almost nothing. And if either half is immune — like Ground against Electric — the whole thing collapses to 0× no matter what the other type does.

This is precisely why a flat chart can mislead you and why the best and worst dual-type combinations are worth studying separately. It is also the number-one source of confusion we cover in the matchup mistakes guide. When two types stack, do not eyeball it — the type calculator multiplies both relationships automatically so you never miscount a 4× hit as a 2× one.

From multiplier to actual damage

Knowing the multiplier is only half the battle. The multiplier tells you how the type matchup scales the hit, but the raw damage depends on the attacker’s level, the move’s base power, the relevant attack and defence stats, and the same-type attack bonus. To turn “4× super effective” into a concrete HP figure, you need the full damage equation — which is exactly what our damage calculation walkthrough unpacks step by step, or you can shortcut the math with the Pokémon damage calculator.

External references

The relationships in this guide follow the standard type chart used across the modern main-series games. For primary documentation, these references are the gold standard:

Frequently asked questions