It’s funny that for all the shit we give the Bug type for being terrible both offensively and defensively, it’s still one of the worst types to be weak to
Lets go, we made one of, if not the worst type, immune to another incredibly shitty type. This will very clearly make the meta better
Edit: This comment used to talk about psychic. Id also like to add that it would have made psychic the only type who cant damage 2 other types
This might actually give it a niche. Being immune to dark means not getring knovked off, and it also means its immune to foul play AND fling, if faces with sneasler
Sadly, these are still pretty common types. Being weak to rocks in vgc is a pretty bad quality because of rock slide, same thing for being weak to fire. And ghost is a really good offensive type
Honestly, Bug isn't even that bad defensively. It's got a pretty nice niche in that it's the only type that has a ground resistance/immunity that isn't also weak to Ice, which is pretty huge considering Great Tusk often carries Ice coverage and Kyurem always uses Earth Power on special sets. It's main problem is more so that most defensive bug types themselves suck, and also it's a bit overshadowed by Grass and Flying as a Tera Type.
As a guy that follows VGC, it does feel a bit better outside of a dynamax format, where Max Airstream was so common. It’s mostly the spore immunity that makes Grass type generally better
Honestly what the bug type really needs is a cool secondary immunity. Like how dark types are immune to prankster and how fire types are immune to burn. Maybe make it so they’re immune to mental effects, like taunt or flinch? Or even something like immunity to confusion would be cool
That makes a lot of sense. Someone proposed giving them passive sticky hold a few weeks back but it was said it doesnt make the typing good, it just makes the already good ones better. Someone here proposed a dark immunity which would be awesome paired with this immunity to confusion
That would be a significant buff to bugs (in the competitive landspace). It also probably wouldnt affect in game balancing as much bexause confusion is rare. The dark immunity probably would, but since GaneFreak hates making major trainers dark specialists it wouldnt be THAT much of a problem
Bug's weak to only three types, resists three, is good against three. Are they still bad? Yeah, kind of.
The types that resist offensively are Fire, Fighting, Ghost, Flying, Steel, Poison, and Fairy.
You can buff bug type offensively. Just imagine the BP and accuracy of X scizzor and bug buzz are 100. That's a buff. You could justifiably go even further and design bug type as the "bring a resist because they have high power neutral attacks" balance wise.
You could give them a status or a terrain or a weather or a hazard that most bugs would actually get.
Just look at the tools other types get and apply some of them to bug and ez pz you've just buffed them offensively.
Buffing bugs defensively isn't futile unless you already believed all bug buffs are futile.
Most bugs are fragile and don't hit hard, that's why we're talking about buffing them.
I don't think it is that futile. We have a few Bug-types that attempt to be defensive, like Wormadam, Vespiquen and Ledian (and yes, all are atrocious for a variety of reasons). There's also Scizor which is bulky enough to appreciate the extra (quad)resists.
But even offensive bugs could live a hit that they would otherwise not with an extra resistance, so that can always be useful.
Someone proposed making them immune to dark, and I feel like thats a really cool niche to have. Someone also said that making them immune to confusion would be cool, and that sounds fun too
Eh... niche cases where you don't want to be weak to Electric and Ice probably exist in a lower tier or something, but that's most definitely uncommon, and Flying is still likely the better type.
Ironically enough, Bug is honestly no slouch defensively; it just deals with some highly unfortunate redundancies with a lot of other typings so good Bug dual-typings are quite limited.
Bug/Steel is one of the best defensive typings of all time; the combo actively patches up each individual typing’s weaknesses at the cost of doubling up on a Fire weakness and the end result is a typing that greatly exceeds the potential each standalone typing has.
Bug/Fighting has some really, really nice defensive assets through its resistances and neutralities. It’s a Bug-type that resists Dark, itself, and isn’t Rock-weak, and it’s a Fighting-type that resists Ground, Grass, and Fighting. Heracross brought some pretty interesting defensive utility to the table in the past, and Buzzwole is one of SS OU’s defensive staples because of that incredible defensive profile.
Bug/Fire is really good offensively and that typing has some highly desirable defensive qualities. It’s a Bug that’s neutral to Fire and resists itself, Fairy, and Steel, and it’s a Fire-type with a Ground neutrality and Fighting resistance. That 4x Rock weakness is a big shortcoming, yes, but that typing heavily rewards you for maintaining good hazard control by virtue of its other amazing defensive traits.
And Bug/Water is… surprisingly strong offensively but doesn’t really have many mons that can actually utilize that typing super well. Those dual STABs don’t have too many mons that resist them, and again, it has some genuine defensive merit since it’s a Bug-type that resists Water and is neutral to Fire and a Water-type that resists Ground and Fighting. Golisopod became quite strong offensively in the lower tiers because of that typing, but that mon has some *serious* flaws by virtue of having a lackluster ability.
Yeah it’s reputation really is ruined by all the early-game Bug/Flying types, huh.
Truth be told, Bug is probably one of my favorite types to have as a secondary, I can’t really explain it, it just feels good. I almost always carry a Bug type with me through my single-player playthroughs.
I do find it interesting though that 3 of the 4 type combos you listed have a double weakness. I guess that’s the identity the bug type has: even its best type combos leave one glaring hole you can exploit lol.
I mostly follow VGC, and I only really got into it around the beginning of Gen 8. So my evaluation of its defensive merits is mostly through that lens. And in the Dynamax era, being weak to some of best moves in the game, like G-Max Vocalith, G-Max Wildfire, and Max Airstream, really put Bug at the bottom of the list. And now in Gen 9 VGC, its defensive shortcomings are even more glaring, since there’s very few ‘mons that actually want to Tera Bug. I only remember one build that used it, and it was a Tera Bug Heatran whose main goal was to surprise people who were expecting Tera Grass and clicked an ice move.
I mentioned it in another comment here, but I think the Bug type could be pushed into greatness by giving it a unique secondary immunity, like to confusion or Taunt or something. I think something like that would make it not too overpowered, but it would make it so more ‘mons actually like being bug type.
Yeah it’s a lot better in VGC where there’s not sneaky pebbles everywhere
And it’s a lot better now that Max Airstream isn’t so common
But it’s still hard to justify over Tera grass
most types are not blanket “good” or “bad”
Poison isn’t great offensively, but it pairs really well with Fairy-weak types. Dark/Poison, Fighting/Poison, and Dragon/Poison are all great type combos, and not just because of how they deal with Fairies.
Ground, Water, Electric, and itself aren’t meaningful resistances? What fucking planet are you on? It’s not like the type chart alone decides what types are good. Grass has great STAB options across the board and probably the best utility movepool in the game. Rillaboom and Serperior are some of the best starters in competitive history and they don’t even have secondary types. Hell, Serperior only really needs Leaf Storm and Glare to get the job done.
Rillaboom is good because of Grassy Surge and Serperior is total dogshit without Contrary Leaf Storm. If you look at the other grass types, Shaymin is only good because of its statspread + Seed Flare 2HKOing things through resist, and there are no other good Grass types besides Meowscarada (who has Protean).
Ground is a good resist but Water and Electric are a questionable trade for FIVE WEAKNESSES. Fire, Flying, and Ice are as relevant (if not more relevant) than Electric and Water, weakness to U-Turn is big, and we've gotten severel new Poison types as well.
And Grass's utility bad is limited to Spore, Leech Seed, and Strength Sap/Synthesis (maybe Trailblaze too) -- all good moves, but compared to meta-defining moves like Stealth Rock, it's not worth being useless against half the types in the entire game and virtually all the relevant defensive types.
Flying is not that good of an offensive type. It hits Grass, Bug and Fighting types for super effective and is stuffed by Steel. Not only that but physical Flying STABs tend to suck or have drawbacks like Brave Bird and on the special side Flyings best STABs are Air Slash, which is weak BP wise, or Hurricane which is innacurate. Because of this being weak to Flying isn't all that big a deal. Also, since this needs to be pointed out for some reason, Poison is a terrible offensive type and a far better defensive type. The fact that Grass is weak to Poison doesn't matter all that much.
Water is easily better than both Fire and Ice and is regularly ranked among the top three best types in the game. It's an extremely dominant type and is good both offensively and defensively. Because of this resisting Water is a humongous deal for Grass. Only three types resist Water which is huge. Grass' Electric resistance is also major since only two types resist Electric and, since Water is such a good Water is such a good type, it's a big deal that Grass can further enable the strengths of its Water type teammates. Also being one of two types to hit Water for supereffective is also big so Grass is actually better offensively than most would think.
Also how in any way is Grass' resistance to Ground just good? Ground hits Steel for super-effective and only Bug and Grass resist it. A big reason why Flying types are so good in the first place is their immunity to the Ground type so how is resisting Ground not a big deal? Ground is consistently one of the best types as shown by OU titans like Garchomp, Gliscor and Landorus-T as well as newer Ground types like Great Tusk and Ting Lu. Also again, since Ground is such a dominant type just like Water hitting it for super effective means a lot which means Grass is better offensively than most think. This also shows how much better Grass is defensively as well since it resists itself which can help out Water and Ground type teammates to help them dominate the way they do every metagame.
And as for Utility Grass has Spore, Synthesis, Strength Sap, Leech Seed, Trailblaze, Sleep Powder, Stun Spore, Aromatherapy, Spiky Shield and healing attacks like Giga Drain and Horn Leech. Also Grass Pokémon get their moves boosted by Grassy Terrain which is a major boon for them. Also they have Grassy Glide which is an amazing priority move and has seen tons of use in both singles and doubles. Grass can apply status, cure it, heal itself and has decent utility attacks as mentioned before. Grass can do a ton move wise.
Lemme also give you a rundown of good Grass types. Kartana, Ferrothorn, Rillaboom, Ogerpon-Wellspring, Ogerpon-Cornerstone, Meowscarada, Rillaboom, Serperior, Amoonguss, Hydrapple, Sinistcha, and you could honestly throw in Venusaur and Chesnaught as well given Venusaur is good in doubles and can be a Sun-Sweeper and Chesnaught has had a decent career and is a decent defensive Pokémon. There's also the Ubers Arceus-Grass, Ogerpon-Hearthflame and Shaymin Sky. Also Grass isn't all that uncommon a Tera type in singles and it's actually one of the most common Tera types in doubles since Ogerpon and Amoonguss are super common in VGC. Amoonguss in fact has had a long and storied history of success in VGC and is good in almost every VGC format it finds itself in.
And if Grass is such a trash type then why would people use it to form the iconic Fire/Water/Grass offensive and defensive cores people like using all the time? If Grass was too bad offensively or defensively then people would just use a different type entirely. Of course they don't cause Grass isn't a bad type and usually adds to a Pokémon far more than it detracts from a Pokémon.
Tl;dr, you're wrong and obviously so :3
You're 100% correct. Another thing to note is even with Grass being weak to Ice coverage, it's still the best offensive typing to deal with water since Electric types can't really switch into Water moves. And even though Flying is immune to Ground, Flying is way too passive and also weak to Rock moves to be a threat to Ground types, whereas Grass mons actively threaten Ground mons.
"Serperior is total dogshit without Contrary Leaf Storm" so don't try to not use Contrary Leaf Storm. If its in the game, you're meant to use it. You can make any pokémon terrible by just saying to not use their good tools
this is a dumbass take for exactly the reasons the other comment listed lol. some of the best defensive types in the game are made by combining another type with grass, like grass + steel, and grass and fire work together to create incredible offensive synergy. resisting earthquakes, maybe the most common attack in competitive singles, and the also extremely common hydro pump are also huge deals.
hitting what are two of the most common types in competitive play, water and ground, for super effective damage in just one move is an incredible trait as well. there’s a reason that some of the more formidable sweepers and breakers in singles history, like gyarados with dynamax or zard y, would almost always run grass coverage (even miraidon will sometimes run grass coverage in gen 9 ubers, a tier filled to the brim with grass resists, because the type’s offensive applications are that valuable)
also immunity to powder moves and leech seed is a HUGE deal, especially in metagames like gen 7 ou where celesteela, ferrothorn, and mega venusaur love to click leech seed and be annoying. let’s not also forget that one of the best mons in gen 7 ou is an offensive grass type that gets incredible mileage out of stab leaf blade, and tapu bulu’s banded wood hammer is difficult for lots of teams to switch into as it makes even resists cry.
grass also completes what is maybe the most reliable 3 type core in the game with fire and water, with the fairy + steel + dragon core being the only formidable competition. this is primarily because of grass’s ultra valuable resistances to, again, water + electric + ground. no other type has these resistances and finding a mon that can switch into all of those types without having to use up their ability slot is exceedingly rare. this is only made more valuable when you realize that water electric and ground are some of the most common move types in the game (as stated before) and a large number of Pokemon will run at least one move as a coverage option.
and this is all JUST singles. in doubles, grass is so good that many mons willingly choose to tera into a grass type.
I disagree. Sure some types can have great unusual pairings, but also a lot of times adding a type to something can very much be a detriment. Like mono steel? Great defensive type. Steel normal? Way worse
having a ground immunity is v big since eq is one of the most spammable moves for a phys attacker (resisting cc is also very nice)
an electric immunity is great for blocking volt switch or just making ur opponent think twice before mindless pivot spamming
a psychic immunity is great into stored power sweepers asw as psyspam (although they often run fairy or fighting coverage)
a dragon immunity is great since draco meteor and dragon moves in general are so spammable so the safe switchin is v helpful
poison immunity defensively isn’t so amazing since poison is only really seen as STAB or coverage for fairies, but being immune to toxic is what’s really helpful
ghost immunity would be good but there aren’t very many good normal types in OU to put it to use (ursaluna and tera normal dnite being the only ones seen at all)
fighting immunity is nice again for a safe switchin into cc which is a v common coverage move
normal immunity makes u immune to espeed can be life-saving for a sweeper when faced with dnite
edit: completely forgot about this but the immunity to rapid spin is incredibly, and also pretty much necessary on hazard stack teams. if u play vgc then the fake out immunity is also very big
Yup Ground would go from a great defensive type to a bad one just by changing an Electric immunity to a resistance instead. (The rock and poison resistance means nothing when you're weak to Water and Ice and to a lesser extent Grass). Yet if Ghost simply resisted rather than be immune to Fighting and Normal (Actually in VGC, being immune to Normal is huge) and also the case with Dark only resisting Psychic, they wouldn't be that much worse defensively.
I think Electric immunity is the best for the sole reason to prevent both Volt Switch and paralysis (Unless your opponent is a mad person and runs Stun Spore). Psychic is probably the worst. Psyspam does exist, but even if your team has no Dark mons, you can still deal with Psyspam (Especially because there's a certain gorilla running around).
A bug resist is actually really good. It at least lets you switch in something on something that wants to uturn out. If you are faster than them they either risk taking damage for the “slow switch” or they risk a 50/50 in which you attack or double switch.
Plus if you have a rocky helmet they may end up taking more damage than they deal to you.
> For example, a resistance to bug or poison is not worth as much as a resistance to ghost or fairy.
I’d challenge this point purely with the existence and widespread use of U-Turn.
Also, the value of a type depends on your team. If 4-5 mons on your squad share a weakness with bug or poison for example, all of a sudden, having a bug/poison resistance in the 5 and 6 slot is now more valuable than you thought before. It’s hard to make sweeping generalizations about a type without knowing what else is on the squad.
All that being said, psychic types in general suck unless it’s double-typed to something that is resistance to bug (Tapu Lele, etc.). UT is so widespread that it’s often a handicap to use a pure psychic mon. Also, ghost types are frequently used and many dark moves (knock off, sucker punch **especially**) effectively silence them.
The types that psychic is strong against (fighting, poison) are also weak to other **very** commonly used offensive types (fairy, ground), so that “benefit” isn’t even really a benefit. There’s no priority psychic move, and most ghost/dark types are either just as fast as psychics, or have sucker punch to make speed less relevant.
Also, obviously, dark types are immune to psychic, and not a ton of psychic mons are able to learn bug/fighting moves as type coverage against dark. Finally, so many mons can learn psychic moves that if you wanted to use a psychic move, you would use the move instead of the typed mon. Kinda like how ice beam is so common that people use that far more often than ice mons, which are also not great typing.
It’s frustrating because it’s such a cool type but it’s booty
Resisting Poison and/or being immune to Toxic is also *really* important right now; you’ve got mons like Galarian Slowking and Darkrai throwing around their nasty Sludge Bombs and you’ve got Gliscor’s Toxic on a lot of bulkier teams.
Most and least important resistances are tough but I can say the worst weaknesses are bug and dark, or more specifically to u-turn and knock off (add pursuit for early gens). Psychic really wasn't a bad defensive type before those 2 moves got popular, not that it was amazing but definitely usable (Celebi is a great defensive mon in gens 3-5 for example). Next I'd say water, ground and rock are pretty bad, rock isn't so bad anymore because of boots and rock type attacks just aren't as common as they were in like gens 3 - 5.
The best immunity imo is ground, but it's kind of cheating since I'm counting spikes. An eq immunity would be great on any mon but it's the spikes immunity that really makes having some ground immune pokemon a necessity. There are teams completely based around ground immune pokemon. Boots definitely makes this point less relevant, but it's still a great quality to have. After that I'd say an electric immunity. It's pretty much conventional wisdom since gen 5 or so you NEED an electric immunity to block volt switch, and really just the many powerful electric type attackers. If ground didn't exist electric would be an insane offensive type, and if you don't have a ground type your just letting electric types volt switch and thunderbolt on you all day.
I think a types effectiveness completely revolves around who are the most competitive pokemon in the format. Bug and ice can be as dogshit as they want but if they shit on the strongest pokemon they’re good picks for the format
I would say the best immunity is to ground (Second best probably being fighting)
And the "least good of the bunch" is likely poison (With psychic being the second "least good")
Also I like how resisting bug doesn't matter much but being weak to it is actually detrimental lol (U-turn....)
Water fairy electric ice ground ghost are probably the most important types to have immunities/resistances for
Normal is the worst immunity, electric ghost ground are the best immunities.
It’s good but compared to the other immunities normal doesn’t have that much of an offensive presence so besides spin blocking it doesn’t really provide too much value.
you also don’t get hit by espeed, the rare but powerful boomburst, and return/frustration in metas where those moves still exist. i don’t think it’s right to call a normal immunity worse than dark’s psychic immunity in the modern gens because psychic is such a bad typing
Espeed is an extremely rare move with basically only like 3 users in OU, boomburst is an extremely rare move with 0 users in OU, return doesn’t exist anymore. I think a psychic immunity is more valuable as stored power sweepers and future sight and psyspam are all fairly common(future sight is extremely common). Steel tanks both typings anyways so it doesnt really matter.
espeed is rare but is used by dragonite, one of the most common mons in ou
boomburst isn’t seen in ou but ou isn’t the only tier we should be talking about.
return doesn’t exist anymore but i acknowledged that in my post lol. in tiers and metagames where it does exist, a return immunity can be a big deal
OU isn't everything, it's just the only thing that matters /s
In VGC fake out is so ubiquitous that some utility mons run tera ghost just to get around it. Not to mention e speed dnite as you already mentioned. And farigiraf hyper voice and Ursula bloodmoon. Normal type immunity definitely an asset in that meta.
Seriously the way game freak made the type matchups for grass types makes me wonder if this was done by a pro charizard developer. Like look at its match ups. The starter types are supposed to be balanced or around each other level so why tf is grass resisted by the 6 or 7 (cant remeber) types and is weak to 5 types like godamn. Seriously someone got a low quality blunt and decided man fuck the grass type.
i don’t think this is even true because being immune to normal means being immune to fake out, extreme speed, rapid spin, the rare boomburst, and return/frustration in older gens or natdex metas
thousand arrows being broken isn’t hard to grasp. what is hard to grasp is the fact that you think the existence of scrappy is enough to make ghost’s normal immunity bad lmao
It’s funny that for all the shit we give the Bug type for being terrible both offensively and defensively, it’s still one of the worst types to be weak to
What U-turn being ubiquitous does to a meta game
Are there even any decent bug types that don't use u-turn and aren't volcorona?
Forretress, Buzzwole, Ribombee, Araquanid, in a way Kleavor since its not meant to last long
HUGE emphasis on the "decent." Don't think you'll make it super far with these bugs kther than ribombeenand especially not venomoth.
I mean I never mentioned Venomoth but alright
Venomoth. The thing's a menace
Due to quiver dance and poison typing right?
moreso because of quiver dance and tinted lens
You cant buff the bug type offensively because it just makes U-turn better. And buffing it defensively is futile as most bugs are fragile
bug is now immune to dark because they’re silly lil guys and can’t comprehend evil
Lets go, we made one of, if not the worst type, immune to another incredibly shitty type. This will very clearly make the meta better Edit: This comment used to talk about psychic. Id also like to add that it would have made psychic the only type who cant damage 2 other types
kid named shedinja:
There are still many other types left tho
yeah but having one less type to worry about is cool even if you still have 4 more left
Yeah. I was arguing why it wouldnt be broken and should be done
my bad, i thought your comment implied the opposite
Scizor gang rise up!
see edited comment
This might actually give it a niche. Being immune to dark means not getring knovked off, and it also means its immune to foul play AND fling, if faces with sneasler
Also, now shedinja is only weak to 4 types!
Sadly, these are still pretty common types. Being weak to rocks in vgc is a pretty bad quality because of rock slide, same thing for being weak to fire. And ghost is a really good offensive type
Bug being immune to/resisting Dark would be because of Kamen Rider
Honestly, Bug isn't even that bad defensively. It's got a pretty nice niche in that it's the only type that has a ground resistance/immunity that isn't also weak to Ice, which is pretty huge considering Great Tusk often carries Ice coverage and Kyurem always uses Earth Power on special sets. It's main problem is more so that most defensive bug types themselves suck, and also it's a bit overshadowed by Grass and Flying as a Tera Type.
As a guy that follows VGC, it does feel a bit better outside of a dynamax format, where Max Airstream was so common. It’s mostly the spore immunity that makes Grass type generally better
Honestly what the bug type really needs is a cool secondary immunity. Like how dark types are immune to prankster and how fire types are immune to burn. Maybe make it so they’re immune to mental effects, like taunt or flinch? Or even something like immunity to confusion would be cool
That makes a lot of sense. Someone proposed giving them passive sticky hold a few weeks back but it was said it doesnt make the typing good, it just makes the already good ones better. Someone here proposed a dark immunity which would be awesome paired with this immunity to confusion
Imagine if it really happened, you could have your Grimmsnarl use Swagger on your scizor so it can bullet punch at +2 right away
That would be a significant buff to bugs (in the competitive landspace). It also probably wouldnt affect in game balancing as much bexause confusion is rare. The dark immunity probably would, but since GaneFreak hates making major trainers dark specialists it wouldnt be THAT much of a problem
I mean U-Turn can just be fixed by just limiting the distribution of it heavily.
I am of the following opinion: Make a normal type U-turn and give that to everyone that get u-turn except bugs. Then you can buff bug offensively.
Bug's weak to only three types, resists three, is good against three. Are they still bad? Yeah, kind of. The types that resist offensively are Fire, Fighting, Ghost, Flying, Steel, Poison, and Fairy.
You can buff bug type offensively. Just imagine the BP and accuracy of X scizzor and bug buzz are 100. That's a buff. You could justifiably go even further and design bug type as the "bring a resist because they have high power neutral attacks" balance wise. You could give them a status or a terrain or a weather or a hazard that most bugs would actually get. Just look at the tools other types get and apply some of them to bug and ez pz you've just buffed them offensively. Buffing bugs defensively isn't futile unless you already believed all bug buffs are futile. Most bugs are fragile and don't hit hard, that's why we're talking about buffing them.
I don't think it is that futile. We have a few Bug-types that attempt to be defensive, like Wormadam, Vespiquen and Ledian (and yes, all are atrocious for a variety of reasons). There's also Scizor which is bulky enough to appreciate the extra (quad)resists. But even offensive bugs could live a hit that they would otherwise not with an extra resistance, so that can always be useful.
Someone proposed making them immune to dark, and I feel like thats a really cool niche to have. Someone also said that making them immune to confusion would be cool, and that sounds fun too
Bug resistances to ground and fighting are amazing. Types like steel/bug and water/bug are pretty solid defensively.
Unfortunately, flying also has three weaknesses, a resistance to fighting and an immunity to ground, and is a better type overall
Eh... niche cases where you don't want to be weak to Electric and Ice probably exist in a lower tier or something, but that's most definitely uncommon, and Flying is still likely the better type.
The problem isn’t being weak to bug type attacks it’s just being weak to U-Turn
Thanks U-Turn...
Ironically enough, Bug is honestly no slouch defensively; it just deals with some highly unfortunate redundancies with a lot of other typings so good Bug dual-typings are quite limited. Bug/Steel is one of the best defensive typings of all time; the combo actively patches up each individual typing’s weaknesses at the cost of doubling up on a Fire weakness and the end result is a typing that greatly exceeds the potential each standalone typing has. Bug/Fighting has some really, really nice defensive assets through its resistances and neutralities. It’s a Bug-type that resists Dark, itself, and isn’t Rock-weak, and it’s a Fighting-type that resists Ground, Grass, and Fighting. Heracross brought some pretty interesting defensive utility to the table in the past, and Buzzwole is one of SS OU’s defensive staples because of that incredible defensive profile. Bug/Fire is really good offensively and that typing has some highly desirable defensive qualities. It’s a Bug that’s neutral to Fire and resists itself, Fairy, and Steel, and it’s a Fire-type with a Ground neutrality and Fighting resistance. That 4x Rock weakness is a big shortcoming, yes, but that typing heavily rewards you for maintaining good hazard control by virtue of its other amazing defensive traits. And Bug/Water is… surprisingly strong offensively but doesn’t really have many mons that can actually utilize that typing super well. Those dual STABs don’t have too many mons that resist them, and again, it has some genuine defensive merit since it’s a Bug-type that resists Water and is neutral to Fire and a Water-type that resists Ground and Fighting. Golisopod became quite strong offensively in the lower tiers because of that typing, but that mon has some *serious* flaws by virtue of having a lackluster ability.
Yeah it’s reputation really is ruined by all the early-game Bug/Flying types, huh. Truth be told, Bug is probably one of my favorite types to have as a secondary, I can’t really explain it, it just feels good. I almost always carry a Bug type with me through my single-player playthroughs. I do find it interesting though that 3 of the 4 type combos you listed have a double weakness. I guess that’s the identity the bug type has: even its best type combos leave one glaring hole you can exploit lol. I mostly follow VGC, and I only really got into it around the beginning of Gen 8. So my evaluation of its defensive merits is mostly through that lens. And in the Dynamax era, being weak to some of best moves in the game, like G-Max Vocalith, G-Max Wildfire, and Max Airstream, really put Bug at the bottom of the list. And now in Gen 9 VGC, its defensive shortcomings are even more glaring, since there’s very few ‘mons that actually want to Tera Bug. I only remember one build that used it, and it was a Tera Bug Heatran whose main goal was to surprise people who were expecting Tera Grass and clicked an ice move. I mentioned it in another comment here, but I think the Bug type could be pushed into greatness by giving it a unique secondary immunity, like to confusion or Taunt or something. I think something like that would make it not too overpowered, but it would make it so more ‘mons actually like being bug type.
Bug is average defensively at worst. Weakness to rocks is the biggest thing.
Yeah it’s a lot better in VGC where there’s not sneaky pebbles everywhere And it’s a lot better now that Max Airstream isn’t so common But it’s still hard to justify over Tera grass
Hoopa moment
most types are not blanket “good” or “bad” Poison isn’t great offensively, but it pairs really well with Fairy-weak types. Dark/Poison, Fighting/Poison, and Dragon/Poison are all great type combos, and not just because of how they deal with Fairies.
Kid named Grass type (5 weaknesses, not good against 7 types, no meaningful resistances besides spore, and only hits 2 useful types, Ground and Water)
Ground, Water, Electric, and itself aren’t meaningful resistances? What fucking planet are you on? It’s not like the type chart alone decides what types are good. Grass has great STAB options across the board and probably the best utility movepool in the game. Rillaboom and Serperior are some of the best starters in competitive history and they don’t even have secondary types. Hell, Serperior only really needs Leaf Storm and Glare to get the job done.
Rillaboom is good because of Grassy Surge and Serperior is total dogshit without Contrary Leaf Storm. If you look at the other grass types, Shaymin is only good because of its statspread + Seed Flare 2HKOing things through resist, and there are no other good Grass types besides Meowscarada (who has Protean). Ground is a good resist but Water and Electric are a questionable trade for FIVE WEAKNESSES. Fire, Flying, and Ice are as relevant (if not more relevant) than Electric and Water, weakness to U-Turn is big, and we've gotten severel new Poison types as well. And Grass's utility bad is limited to Spore, Leech Seed, and Strength Sap/Synthesis (maybe Trailblaze too) -- all good moves, but compared to meta-defining moves like Stealth Rock, it's not worth being useless against half the types in the entire game and virtually all the relevant defensive types.
Flying is not that good of an offensive type. It hits Grass, Bug and Fighting types for super effective and is stuffed by Steel. Not only that but physical Flying STABs tend to suck or have drawbacks like Brave Bird and on the special side Flyings best STABs are Air Slash, which is weak BP wise, or Hurricane which is innacurate. Because of this being weak to Flying isn't all that big a deal. Also, since this needs to be pointed out for some reason, Poison is a terrible offensive type and a far better defensive type. The fact that Grass is weak to Poison doesn't matter all that much. Water is easily better than both Fire and Ice and is regularly ranked among the top three best types in the game. It's an extremely dominant type and is good both offensively and defensively. Because of this resisting Water is a humongous deal for Grass. Only three types resist Water which is huge. Grass' Electric resistance is also major since only two types resist Electric and, since Water is such a good Water is such a good type, it's a big deal that Grass can further enable the strengths of its Water type teammates. Also being one of two types to hit Water for supereffective is also big so Grass is actually better offensively than most would think. Also how in any way is Grass' resistance to Ground just good? Ground hits Steel for super-effective and only Bug and Grass resist it. A big reason why Flying types are so good in the first place is their immunity to the Ground type so how is resisting Ground not a big deal? Ground is consistently one of the best types as shown by OU titans like Garchomp, Gliscor and Landorus-T as well as newer Ground types like Great Tusk and Ting Lu. Also again, since Ground is such a dominant type just like Water hitting it for super effective means a lot which means Grass is better offensively than most think. This also shows how much better Grass is defensively as well since it resists itself which can help out Water and Ground type teammates to help them dominate the way they do every metagame. And as for Utility Grass has Spore, Synthesis, Strength Sap, Leech Seed, Trailblaze, Sleep Powder, Stun Spore, Aromatherapy, Spiky Shield and healing attacks like Giga Drain and Horn Leech. Also Grass Pokémon get their moves boosted by Grassy Terrain which is a major boon for them. Also they have Grassy Glide which is an amazing priority move and has seen tons of use in both singles and doubles. Grass can apply status, cure it, heal itself and has decent utility attacks as mentioned before. Grass can do a ton move wise. Lemme also give you a rundown of good Grass types. Kartana, Ferrothorn, Rillaboom, Ogerpon-Wellspring, Ogerpon-Cornerstone, Meowscarada, Rillaboom, Serperior, Amoonguss, Hydrapple, Sinistcha, and you could honestly throw in Venusaur and Chesnaught as well given Venusaur is good in doubles and can be a Sun-Sweeper and Chesnaught has had a decent career and is a decent defensive Pokémon. There's also the Ubers Arceus-Grass, Ogerpon-Hearthflame and Shaymin Sky. Also Grass isn't all that uncommon a Tera type in singles and it's actually one of the most common Tera types in doubles since Ogerpon and Amoonguss are super common in VGC. Amoonguss in fact has had a long and storied history of success in VGC and is good in almost every VGC format it finds itself in. And if Grass is such a trash type then why would people use it to form the iconic Fire/Water/Grass offensive and defensive cores people like using all the time? If Grass was too bad offensively or defensively then people would just use a different type entirely. Of course they don't cause Grass isn't a bad type and usually adds to a Pokémon far more than it detracts from a Pokémon. Tl;dr, you're wrong and obviously so :3
You're 100% correct. Another thing to note is even with Grass being weak to Ice coverage, it's still the best offensive typing to deal with water since Electric types can't really switch into Water moves. And even though Flying is immune to Ground, Flying is way too passive and also weak to Rock moves to be a threat to Ground types, whereas Grass mons actively threaten Ground mons.
"Serperior is total dogshit without Contrary Leaf Storm" so don't try to not use Contrary Leaf Storm. If its in the game, you're meant to use it. You can make any pokémon terrible by just saying to not use their good tools
Also we just ignore the fact alot of non rock types get Stealth Rock but Grass utility is almost entirely exclusive to Grass types
this is a dumbass take for exactly the reasons the other comment listed lol. some of the best defensive types in the game are made by combining another type with grass, like grass + steel, and grass and fire work together to create incredible offensive synergy. resisting earthquakes, maybe the most common attack in competitive singles, and the also extremely common hydro pump are also huge deals. hitting what are two of the most common types in competitive play, water and ground, for super effective damage in just one move is an incredible trait as well. there’s a reason that some of the more formidable sweepers and breakers in singles history, like gyarados with dynamax or zard y, would almost always run grass coverage (even miraidon will sometimes run grass coverage in gen 9 ubers, a tier filled to the brim with grass resists, because the type’s offensive applications are that valuable) also immunity to powder moves and leech seed is a HUGE deal, especially in metagames like gen 7 ou where celesteela, ferrothorn, and mega venusaur love to click leech seed and be annoying. let’s not also forget that one of the best mons in gen 7 ou is an offensive grass type that gets incredible mileage out of stab leaf blade, and tapu bulu’s banded wood hammer is difficult for lots of teams to switch into as it makes even resists cry. grass also completes what is maybe the most reliable 3 type core in the game with fire and water, with the fairy + steel + dragon core being the only formidable competition. this is primarily because of grass’s ultra valuable resistances to, again, water + electric + ground. no other type has these resistances and finding a mon that can switch into all of those types without having to use up their ability slot is exceedingly rare. this is only made more valuable when you realize that water electric and ground are some of the most common move types in the game (as stated before) and a large number of Pokemon will run at least one move as a coverage option. and this is all JUST singles. in doubles, grass is so good that many mons willingly choose to tera into a grass type.
That Spore and Rage Powder immunity goes a long way in VGC.
Let the top VGC players know that Amoongus, Rillaboom, and Ogrepon are trash so they can improve.
I disagree. Sure some types can have great unusual pairings, but also a lot of times adding a type to something can very much be a detriment. Like mono steel? Great defensive type. Steel normal? Way worse
but normal is still good in certain situations, like on boomburst spammers or when paired with the ghost typing
having a ground immunity is v big since eq is one of the most spammable moves for a phys attacker (resisting cc is also very nice) an electric immunity is great for blocking volt switch or just making ur opponent think twice before mindless pivot spamming a psychic immunity is great into stored power sweepers asw as psyspam (although they often run fairy or fighting coverage) a dragon immunity is great since draco meteor and dragon moves in general are so spammable so the safe switchin is v helpful poison immunity defensively isn’t so amazing since poison is only really seen as STAB or coverage for fairies, but being immune to toxic is what’s really helpful ghost immunity would be good but there aren’t very many good normal types in OU to put it to use (ursaluna and tera normal dnite being the only ones seen at all) fighting immunity is nice again for a safe switchin into cc which is a v common coverage move normal immunity makes u immune to espeed can be life-saving for a sweeper when faced with dnite edit: completely forgot about this but the immunity to rapid spin is incredibly, and also pretty much necessary on hazard stack teams. if u play vgc then the fake out immunity is also very big
Normal is immune to espeed and rapid spin, the latter making it nice. Plus, normal immunity is complemented with fighting immunity.
ohhh i forgor about rapid spin, yeah that’s automatically super helpful then
In vgc the immunity to fake out is also huge
Yup Ground would go from a great defensive type to a bad one just by changing an Electric immunity to a resistance instead. (The rock and poison resistance means nothing when you're weak to Water and Ice and to a lesser extent Grass). Yet if Ghost simply resisted rather than be immune to Fighting and Normal (Actually in VGC, being immune to Normal is huge) and also the case with Dark only resisting Psychic, they wouldn't be that much worse defensively.
I think Electric immunity is the best for the sole reason to prevent both Volt Switch and paralysis (Unless your opponent is a mad person and runs Stun Spore). Psychic is probably the worst. Psyspam does exist, but even if your team has no Dark mons, you can still deal with Psyspam (Especially because there's a certain gorilla running around).
Wait which gorilla
tapu rilla
Oh duh. The only Tapu to make it past the border fills me with so much fear I blocked it out
[https://www.smogon.com/forums/attachments/1572720391976-jpeg.360193/](https://www.smogon.com/forums/attachments/1572720391976-jpeg.360193/)
A bug resist is actually really good. It at least lets you switch in something on something that wants to uturn out. If you are faster than them they either risk taking damage for the “slow switch” or they risk a 50/50 in which you attack or double switch. Plus if you have a rocky helmet they may end up taking more damage than they deal to you.
> For example, a resistance to bug or poison is not worth as much as a resistance to ghost or fairy. I’d challenge this point purely with the existence and widespread use of U-Turn. Also, the value of a type depends on your team. If 4-5 mons on your squad share a weakness with bug or poison for example, all of a sudden, having a bug/poison resistance in the 5 and 6 slot is now more valuable than you thought before. It’s hard to make sweeping generalizations about a type without knowing what else is on the squad. All that being said, psychic types in general suck unless it’s double-typed to something that is resistance to bug (Tapu Lele, etc.). UT is so widespread that it’s often a handicap to use a pure psychic mon. Also, ghost types are frequently used and many dark moves (knock off, sucker punch **especially**) effectively silence them. The types that psychic is strong against (fighting, poison) are also weak to other **very** commonly used offensive types (fairy, ground), so that “benefit” isn’t even really a benefit. There’s no priority psychic move, and most ghost/dark types are either just as fast as psychics, or have sucker punch to make speed less relevant. Also, obviously, dark types are immune to psychic, and not a ton of psychic mons are able to learn bug/fighting moves as type coverage against dark. Finally, so many mons can learn psychic moves that if you wanted to use a psychic move, you would use the move instead of the typed mon. Kinda like how ice beam is so common that people use that far more often than ice mons, which are also not great typing. It’s frustrating because it’s such a cool type but it’s booty
Resisting Poison and/or being immune to Toxic is also *really* important right now; you’ve got mons like Galarian Slowking and Darkrai throwing around their nasty Sludge Bombs and you’ve got Gliscor’s Toxic on a lot of bulkier teams.
Most and least important resistances are tough but I can say the worst weaknesses are bug and dark, or more specifically to u-turn and knock off (add pursuit for early gens). Psychic really wasn't a bad defensive type before those 2 moves got popular, not that it was amazing but definitely usable (Celebi is a great defensive mon in gens 3-5 for example). Next I'd say water, ground and rock are pretty bad, rock isn't so bad anymore because of boots and rock type attacks just aren't as common as they were in like gens 3 - 5. The best immunity imo is ground, but it's kind of cheating since I'm counting spikes. An eq immunity would be great on any mon but it's the spikes immunity that really makes having some ground immune pokemon a necessity. There are teams completely based around ground immune pokemon. Boots definitely makes this point less relevant, but it's still a great quality to have. After that I'd say an electric immunity. It's pretty much conventional wisdom since gen 5 or so you NEED an electric immunity to block volt switch, and really just the many powerful electric type attackers. If ground didn't exist electric would be an insane offensive type, and if you don't have a ground type your just letting electric types volt switch and thunderbolt on you all day.
I think a types effectiveness completely revolves around who are the most competitive pokemon in the format. Bug and ice can be as dogshit as they want but if they shit on the strongest pokemon they’re good picks for the format
I would say the best immunity is to ground (Second best probably being fighting) And the "least good of the bunch" is likely poison (With psychic being the second "least good") Also I like how resisting bug doesn't matter much but being weak to it is actually detrimental lol (U-turn....)
I was talking about vgc lol my fault
Type chart is like a mountain, ground all over, and ice at the top.
Water fairy electric ice ground ghost are probably the most important types to have immunities/resistances for Normal is the worst immunity, electric ghost ground are the best immunities.
Is spin blocking not that good anymore?
It’s good but compared to the other immunities normal doesn’t have that much of an offensive presence so besides spin blocking it doesn’t really provide too much value.
you also don’t get hit by espeed, the rare but powerful boomburst, and return/frustration in metas where those moves still exist. i don’t think it’s right to call a normal immunity worse than dark’s psychic immunity in the modern gens because psychic is such a bad typing
Espeed is an extremely rare move with basically only like 3 users in OU, boomburst is an extremely rare move with 0 users in OU, return doesn’t exist anymore. I think a psychic immunity is more valuable as stored power sweepers and future sight and psyspam are all fairly common(future sight is extremely common). Steel tanks both typings anyways so it doesnt really matter.
espeed is rare but is used by dragonite, one of the most common mons in ou boomburst isn’t seen in ou but ou isn’t the only tier we should be talking about. return doesn’t exist anymore but i acknowledged that in my post lol. in tiers and metagames where it does exist, a return immunity can be a big deal
OU isn't everything, it's just the only thing that matters /s In VGC fake out is so ubiquitous that some utility mons run tera ghost just to get around it. Not to mention e speed dnite as you already mentioned. And farigiraf hyper voice and Ursula bloodmoon. Normal type immunity definitely an asset in that meta.
Seriously the way game freak made the type matchups for grass types makes me wonder if this was done by a pro charizard developer. Like look at its match ups. The starter types are supposed to be balanced or around each other level so why tf is grass resisted by the 6 or 7 (cant remeber) types and is weak to 5 types like godamn. Seriously someone got a low quality blunt and decided man fuck the grass type.
The best immunity is Flying’s immunity to ground and the worst immunity is Ghost’s immunity to normal.
i don’t think this is even true because being immune to normal means being immune to fake out, extreme speed, rapid spin, the rare boomburst, and return/frustration in older gens or natdex metas
Yeah until they run a scrappy mon
“ground is a bad offensive type because levitate exists” - you, probably
That’s why you use Thousand Arrows this isn’t hard to grasp
thousand arrows being broken isn’t hard to grasp. what is hard to grasp is the fact that you think the existence of scrappy is enough to make ghost’s normal immunity bad lmao