Type Effectiveness Explained

Pokemon, at its core, is a glorified game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. If you know your opponent is picking Paper, you wouldn't pick Rock or Paper, you'd pick Scissors. Pokemon is no different: substitute "Rock", "Paper", and "Scissors" with "Fire", "Water", and "Grass", and you've understood the core idea of Pokemon Type Effectiveness.

Type Effectiveness

Type effectiveness depends on the interaction between the type of the move you're using and the type of the Pokemon you're using the move against. Learning to properly abuse type effectiveness is the single most important factor in battling. There are 4 categories of type effectiveness:

  1. Neutral: Your move will do its normal damage, with a 1x multiplier.
  2. Super Effective: Your move will do increased damage. For simplicity's sake, think of this as a 2x damage multiplier.
  3. Not Very Effective: Your move will do decreased damage. For simplicity's sake, think of this as a 0.5x damage multiplier.
  4. Not Effective: Your move will do drastically decreased damage. In the core games, this is a 0x damage multiplier.
    5. The damage multipliers shown are not the values actually used in Pokemon Go. These numbers are just easier to understand for the sake of learning.
    The actual multipliers values used in Pokemon Go, for those interested:
    1. Neutral: 1x
    2. Super Effective: 1.6x
    3. Not Very Effective: 0.625x
    4. Not Effective: 0.390625x

Since a Pokemon can have two types, you will need to consider type effectiveness for both types of the defending Pokemon. Type effectiveness is multiplicative.

Type Chart
Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral NVE Neutral NE NVE Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral
SE Neutral NVE NVE Neutral SE NVE NE SE Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral NVE SE Neutral SE NVE
Neutral SE Neutral Neutral Neutral NVE SE Neutral NVE Neutral Neutral SE NVE Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral NVE
Neutral Neutral Neutral NVE NVE NVE Neutral NVE NE Neutral Neutral SE Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral SE
Neutral Neutral NE SE Neutral SE NVE Neutral SE SE Neutral NVE SE Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral
Neutral NVE SE Neutral NVE Neutral SE Neutral NVE SE Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral SE Neutral Neutral Neutral
Neutral NVE NVE NVE Neutral Neutral Neutral NVE NVE NVE Neutral SE Neutral SE Neutral Neutral SE NVE
NE Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral SE Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral SE Neutral Neutral NVE Neutral
Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral SE Neutral Neutral NVE NVE NVE Neutral NVE Neutral SE Neutral Neutral SE
Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral NVE SE Neutral SE NVE NVE SE Neutral Neutral SE NVE Neutral Neutral
Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral SE SE Neutral Neutral Neutral SE NVE NVE Neutral Neutral Neutral NVE Neutral Neutral
Neutral Neutral NVE NVE SE SE NVE Neutral NVE NVE SE NVE Neutral Neutral Neutral NVE Neutral Neutral
Neutral Neutral SE Neutral NE Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral SE NVE NVE Neutral Neutral NVE Neutral Neutral
Neutral SE Neutral SE Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral NVE Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral NVE Neutral Neutral NE Neutral
Neutral Neutral SE Neutral SE Neutral Neutral Neutral NVE NVE NVE SE Neutral Neutral NVE SE Neutral Neutral
Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral NVE Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral SE Neutral NE
Neutral NVE Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral SE Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral SE Neutral Neutral NVE NVE
Neutral SE Neutral NVE Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral NVE NVE Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral Neutral SE SE Neutral

An Example

Let's use Charizard as an example. Charizard is Fire and Flying-type:

In order of descending effectiveness:

Super Effective + Super Effective

Rock is super effective against both Fire and Flying.

The result:

  • 2x * 2x = 4x

In Pokemon Go:

  • 1.6x * 1.6x = 2.56x Damage Multiplier
A Rock-type attack will be super effective against Charizard and deal 2.56x damage.
Super Effective + Neutral

Water is super effective against Fire, but Water is only neutral against Flying.

Because Water is neutral against Flying, the Water-Flying type interaction does not impact the final type effectiveness.

The result:

  • 2x * 1x = 2x

In Pokemon Go:

  • 1.6x * 1x = 1.6x Damage Multiplier
A Water-type attack will be super effective against Charizard and deal 1.6x damage.
Neutral + Neutral

Normal is neutral against both Fire and Flying.

If a type is neutral against one of your Pokemon's types, it essentially has no impact on the final type effectiveness (since it's just multiplying by 1).

The result:

  • 1x * 1x = 1x

In Pokemon Go:

  • 1x * 1x = 1x Damage Multiplier
A Normal-type attack will be neutral against Charizard and deal normal (1x) damage.
Not very Effective + Super Effective

Ice is not very effective against Fire, but Ice is also super effective against Flying.

The result:

  • 0.5x * 2x = 1x

In Pokemon Go:

  • 0.625x * 1.6x = 1x Damage Multiplier
An Ice-type attack will be neutral against Charizard and deal normal (1x) damage.
Not very Effective + Neutral

Fire is not very effective against Fire, but Fire is only neutral against Flying.

Because Fire is neutral against Flying, the Fire-Flying type interaction does not impact the final type effectiveness.

The result:

  • 0.5x * 1x = 0.5x

In Pokemon Go:

  • 0.625x * 1x = 0.625x Damage Multiplier
A Fire-type attack will be not very effective against Charizard and deal 0.625x damage.
Not very Effective + Not very Effective

Grass is not very effective against both Fire and Flying.

The result:

  • 0.5x * 0.5x = 0.25x

In Pokemon Go:

  • 0.625x * 0.625x = 0.390625x Damage Multiplier
A Grass-type attack will be not very effective against Charizard and deal 0.390625x damage.
Immunities

In the core games, some types are completely ineffective against others. Ground, for example, is completely ineffective against Flying, because an earthquake won't have much of an effect on a bird Pokemon flying in the sky. Even though Fire is weak to Ground, Flying's immunity to Ground means that Ground-type moves will do 0 damage to Charizard.

  • 0x * 2x = 0x

In Pokemon Go, immunities are treated as double resistances, and can stack normally with other weaknesses or resistances:

Ground is super effective against Fire, but it is also not effective against Flying:

  • 1.6x * 0.390625x = 0.625x Damage Multiplier
In Pokemon Go, a Ground-type attack will be not very effective against Charizard, and will deal 0.625x damage.

In Charizard's case, Fire's single weakness to Ground partly cancels out Flying's Immunity to Ground; however, because immunities are treated as double resistances, Ground still ends up as not very effective against Charizard.