Fellas, which pokemon type matchups make the least sense to you?

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Far be it from me to nitpick the logic of a childrens' video game, but some things you can never really get out of your mind twenty five years later. Pokemon Type matchups. Some make sense, some don't. Let's talk about the ones that bug us the most.

Poison beats Grass: Buddy, plants don't have a circulatory system. How would venom threaten them? If anything that's a justification for Resistance, not weakness. And it would be consistent with Ghost types resisting poison. The only way I could see this making sense is if we contextualize Poison as a "Chemical type" and said chemical is an herbicide. But why would snakes need a way to harm the very terrain that conceals their ability to hunt?

Rock and Steel are weak to Fighting: ...what? Try punching a rock and see where that gets you.

Electric beats Water: Shouldn't this go both ways? Throw any electric appliance into the tub and it will be inoperable. I'd expect any living creature with an internal electric current to do the same when made wet or submersed in water. 

Grass types resist Ground: If I was a plant, the idea of my opponent burrowing underground to attack my exposed roots is terrifying. This should be the other way around 100%

Water Resists Ice: The vast majority of fish species cannot survive in arctic waters. Certainly not as well as us warm blooded mammals that can retain our own body heat. Water being weak to ice makes more sense to me. Furthermore, Ice types should resist water. Turning water into Ice is easier than turning thin air into ice. Splashing them with water just gives them more ammo/armor to work with.

Bonus Round: Which Type Matchup low key makes tons of sense?

Bugs resist Fighting: So in the pokemon universe, Bugs are large, sometimes person-sized creatures, and that tips the scales in the other direction. Most bugs wear a dense exoskeleton, so the idea of battling a person sized ant sounds like punching a rock. Think about it: Ever planted your finger down on an ant and noticed it's still crawling just fine? They didn't feel a thing. But an ant sized person would be squished immediately - we're made of soft skin and water. We don't do so well getting crushed, punched, or slammed. Also many bugs can push or carry several times their body weight, so good luck wrestling that into submission.

[Armchair General]

6 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Poison beats Grass

It's kind of justifiable if you're counting the eight or so critters that were based on varying types of pollution; although it's mainly an case of conflating poison with an venomous cobra.

6 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Rock and Steel are weak to Fighting

This has always been an weird one, even when factoring the superhuman strength that fighting types have. I've always seen it as an case on how both of them can't hold up to excessive kinetic energy...Which doesn't exactly hold up for an lot of Steel types.

7 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Grass types resist Ground

Technically, this is related towards preventing erosion; but even then, it flies in the face of an actual landslide

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

14 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Poison beats Grass: Buddy, plants don't have a circulatory system. How would venom threaten them? If anything that's a justification for Resistance, not weakness. And it would be consistent with Ghost types resisting poison. The only way I could see this making sense is if we contextualize Poison as a "Chemical type" and said chemical is an herbicide. But why would snakes need a way to harm the very terrain that conceals their ability to hunt?

Interestingly, many early Grass-types were actually Grass/Poison-type, making them neutral to Poison. That said, this ogic makes me think that Gen I's "Poison is super-effective against Bug" should come back. Since, y'know, pesticides.

Anyway, the one that I don't get is Ghost resisting Bug. Like... why? If Ghosts are beings who died, then many Bugs actually eat the dead, so if anything, this should be reversed. Ghosts can fly, but so can a lot of Bugs, so they're not avoiding them. I don't think the game ever mentions, or attempts to explain this one. I was also going to raise "Ghost resisting Poison", but then I realized it made perfect sense, because why should a Ghost fear Poison? It's already dead.

EDIT: Wait a minute, most plants absolutely do have a circulatory system! It's called xylem and phloem, circulating water and nutrients throughout the plant. Obviously it's different from what animals have, and the "snake" point stands, but still.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Shanty Pete's 1st Mate
Clarification.

[Morgan--Grandmaster]

17 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Poison beats Grass

Toxins,by definition, are any antigenic poison or venom of plant or animal origin, especially one produced by or derived from microorganisms and causing disease when present at low concentration in the body, and many plant toxins such as sulfur and fluorides occur in nature or are pollutants. Also, while not inherently mutual, poison is often associated with sickness, and there are many, many plant pathogens.

17 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Rock and Steel are weak to Fighting

Just like ice, any solid object will bend or break with enough strength on it. As a kid, I used to do magic tricks where I would crush dirt "rocks" with just one finger and bend metallic spoons. If a child can do that, just imagine what a body-builder could do.

17 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Electric beats Water: Shouldn't this go both ways? Throw any electric appliance into the tub and it will be inoperable. I'd expect any living creature with an internal electric current to do the same when made wet or submersed in water. 

In nature, there are several conditions that make being in any body of water dangerous during a thunderstorm, from electricity-attracting ions to the fact that anything sticking out of the ocean is relatively tall. Just like they tell you not to put your hair dryer in the tub, you shouldn't swim during a thunderstorm.

17 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Grass types resist Ground

Plants keep soil in place.

17 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Water Resists Ice

At room temperature, if you throw an ice cube into a body of water, it will melt, just putting more water into it. Also, most oceans and lakes don't exactly freeze over due to the heat generated by the plants and animals living there.

This video does a great job of explaining all of them.

 

[Shadow Mir]

18 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Poison beats Grass: Buddy, plants don't have a circulatory system. How would venom threaten them? If anything that's a justification for Resistance, not weakness. And it would be consistent with Ghost types resisting poison. The only way I could see this making sense is if we contextualize Poison as a "Chemical type" and said chemical is an herbicide. But why would snakes need a way to harm the very terrain that conceals their ability to hunt?

From what I understand, poison represents pollution in general, and grass has nature associations. Aside from that, herbicides and weed killers are a thing.

[Dark Holy Elf]

On Ice/Water, the main thing I feel is that ice should be weak to water. Anyone who's lived in a place with snow knows that nothing melts snow faster than a big dump of rain. ... well except extreme sources of heat, but ice is already weak to fire!

I don't feel strongly about what ice should do on offence to water. I can see the case to go either way. I suppose it depends on which one there's more of; a small amount of ice won't do much to water for a variety of reasons, but a large full-scale temperature drop obviously threatens water by literally turning it into ice.

Steel should not resist psychic or ice. Oh, I know why it does; it's because those were two of the most dominant types in gen 1 and both steel and dark are very blatantly "let's balance the gen 1 type chart". But neither makes any sense to me! I guess steel resisting pyschic makes a little sense if we consider pokemon who are inorganic, but many steel pokemon are just "some animal-like creature wearing metal armour" so I don't really get it for them. Ice I feel even more strongly about. Metal conducts heat really well; in a situation of extreme cold, that means it conducts heat away from the person wearing it, causing them to enter a hypothermic state much faster than they otherwise would. Wearing platemail in sub-freezing weather is a terrifying prospect.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

16 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Steel should not resist psychic or ice. Oh, I know why it does; it's because those were two of the most dominant types in gen 1 and both steel and dark are very blatantly "let's balance the gen 1 type chart". But neither makes any sense to me! I guess steel resisting pyschic makes a little sense if we consider pokemon who are inorganic, but many steel pokemon are just "some animal-like creature wearing metal armour" so I don't really get it for them.

Building off of this, one of the signature Psychic-type lines in Gen I - Abra, Kadabra, Alakazam - is notable for their spoon-bending prowess. In that light, Psychic should actually be super-effective against Steel-types! At the very least, it'd be cool to see a move (i.e. "Spoon Bend") or an ability (i.e. "Mind Over Metal") that grants Psychic super-effectiveness against Steel.

17 hours ago, Morgan--Grandmaster said:

At room temperature, if you throw an ice cube into a body of water, it will melt, just putting more water into it. Also, most oceans and lakes don't exactly freeze over due to the heat generated by the plants and animals living there.

I mean, that's part of it, but it's moreso that it actually takes a lot of cold to get water frozen. Particularly salt water. Also, while  lakes do freeze over, they don't freeze all the way through. That's because the frozen top layer creates a barrier with the sub-zero air.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Oh and let's not forget the biggest offender

Normal types are immune to Ghost: I can't speculate on what it's like to be hit with a shadow ball, but I do know that regular people are susceptible to a good spook. A battle with fear is a battle that comes within. There is no natural defense against it other than telling yourself that ghosts aren't real. But in the pokemon universe, ghosts and ghoulies are real. 

23 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Anyway, the one that I don't get is Ghost resisting Bug. Like... why? If Ghosts are beings who died, then many Bugs actually eat the dead, so if anything, this should be reversed. Ghosts can fly, but so can a lot of Bugs, so they're not avoiding them. I don't think the game ever mentions, or attempts to explain this one. I was also going to raise "Ghost resisting Poison", but then I realized it made perfect sense, because why should a Ghost fear Poison? It's already dead.

This is a good one, though I do think it's possible that they were thinking of body decomposition with this relationship. A spirit that has left the body may not care what happens to their corpse. But then again, all the myths surrounding hauntings suggest that spirits can be very petty about what the living does to them and their former possessions. But But But, when have you ever heard of ghosts haunting animals that don't know any better - specifically the lowly maggot? But But But But every pokemon is presumably possession of conscious thought and awareness to the point of accepting commands from humans.

19 hours ago, Morgan--Grandmaster said:

In nature, there are several conditions that make being in any body of water dangerous during a thunderstorm, from electricity-attracting ions to the fact that anything sticking out of the ocean is relatively tall. Just like they tell you not to put your hair dryer in the tub, you shouldn't swim during a thunderstorm.

I realize now that what I should have written in bold is Electric is neutral to Water, since that's what I'm taking issue with in my writeup. Still you ought to have read beyond the bolded part.

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Plants keep soil in place

I think you have this backwards.

I'm guessing their justification was simply plants feed off the very ground they sit in. But a Ground type is not a clump of dirt. It's a creature that also thrives off the very earth they live in. And farming crops is just as much about warding off these varmints than its is warding off bugs who will eat the top parts of the plant.

18 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I don't feel strongly about what ice should do on offence to water. I can see the case to go either way. I suppose it depends on which one there's more of; a small amount of ice won't do much to water for a variety of reasons, but a large full-scale temperature drop obviously threatens water by literally turning it into ice.

It's not so much volume of ice, but quickness of the temperature change. An ice type using moves like Ice Beam is flash freezing their opponent solid. This doesn't exist in nature, just like flame throwers don't exist in nature. Temperature change is gradual, and that's what makes the top layer of a body of water freeze over and not the rest of it. The ice sheet is a barrier to the rest of the cold.

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Steel should not resist psychic or ice. Oh, I know why it does; it's because those were two of the most dominant types in gen 1 and both steel and dark are very blatantly "let's balance the gen 1 type chart". But neither makes any sense to me! I guess steel resisting pyschic makes a little sense if we consider pokemon who are inorganic, but many steel pokemon are just "some animal-like creature wearing metal armour" so I don't really get it for them. Ice I feel even more strongly about. Metal conducts heat really well; in a situation of extreme cold, that means it conducts heat away from the person wearing it, causing them to enter a hypothermic state much faster than they otherwise would. Wearing platemail in sub-freezing weather is a terrifying prospect.

Steel should not have resisted half of the moves it resists, but it's as you claim. They were thinking of game balance. And they've only patched out two resistances: Dark and Ghost. Psychic is definitely in that same ball park of warranting justification. Could be that pyschic powers are often depicted in their most basic form as telekenesis. Throwing objects at a dense steel type wouldn't be effective and neither would throwing them against a surface that's less dense than themselves. But if you asked me what it's like to be hit by "a psychic blast" I wouldn't know what to tell you. Sounds like something that would give you a headache, and no external armor would defend against that unless steel types don't have an organic brain. 

It's hard to pin down what they may have been going for with Ice other than it being a counterpoint to a steel type's weakness to fire. But I can see arguments for Steel being weak to water and especially electricity before fire in the first place. Metals are not flammable, but every metal rusts and conducts electricity. It can bend when it's hot, but that requires hours of exposure to flame. And open flames (like a flamethrower) would have an even harder time getting the job done.

I tend to contextualize steel types as being organisms that are part machine. Not in a strict computer sense, but in a "not relying so much on what organics need to survive" sense. Like how rock types are living rock golem creatures, steel types are that but more "functional". Prosthetic limbs, fashioned tools, inner magnetic field that can serve the functions of a skeleton and muscles. There's less of their body that's vulnerable to conventional threats. 

19 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

From what I understand, poison represents pollution in general, and grass has nature associations. Aside from that, herbicides and weed killers are a thing.

If it is pollution, then plants are no more susceptible than another other creature that lives in that ecosystem. Plants actually prefer environments with greater air pollution (they eat carbon dioxide), while other organic life does not. Anyway here's a list of poison type moves. And I can't find a single one that's depicted as an herbicidal spray. Most of them unambiguously involve some sort of venom, which is obviously no threat to a plant that lacks blood vessels.

[MadBoar]

On 7/14/2023 at 9:50 PM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Electric beats Water: Shouldn't this go both ways? Throw any electric appliance into the tub and it will be inoperable. I'd expect any living creature with an internal electric current to do the same when made wet or submersed in water. 

Water conducts electricity because of the minerals it contains, not because of the water itself. Electric should be super effective against steel. 

[Loekhs]

On 7/15/2023 at 8:20 AM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Electric beats Water: Shouldn't this go both ways? Throw any electric appliance into the tub and it will be inoperable. I'd expect any living creature with an internal electric current to do the same when made wet or submersed in water. 

Connect a wire to a power suppy and throw the wire only in the water. It will electrify the water and cause damage to the ones in that water. 

Second, if a living creature is of a certain nature and can use the respective elemental-type skills, then it's given that it is immune to it. So, entering in the water and then using the electric-skill will not deal any damage to it. That's my opinion. 

Otherwise, if they are not immune, when casting skills, they will be injured too at the point of release. 

[Lord_Brand]

On 7/15/2023 at 1:33 PM, Morgan--Grandmaster said:

At room temperature, if you throw an ice cube into a body of water, it will melt, just putting more water into it. Also, most oceans and lakes don't exactly freeze over due to the heat generated by the plants and animals living there.

And if you expose water to a cold environment - say, a blizzard or a beam of supercold air - the water will freeze. Drop a fish in water too cold for it and it dies (sadly, we lost at least one goldfish that way). To me, Ice-type is less the "frozen water" type and more the "cold" type. I see no reason why Ice Beam or Blizzard can't super-effect Water-type Pokemon.

As for my own matchups, I don't get why they removed Poison > Bug. Poison resisting Bug rather than being weak to it, I get, but Poison super-effecting Bug makes perfect sense.

[Paper Mario]

Fairy resists Bug. What is the point of this given that Bug is already resisted by six other types?

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 8/24/2023 at 7:43 AM, Paper Mario said:

Fairy resists Bug. What is the point of this given that Bug is already resisted by six other types?

Bug, as an offensive type, must suffer.

Narratively... I dunno. Maybe the fae folk were so in-tune with nature that the insects left them alone? No idea.

On 7/28/2023 at 5:04 AM, Lord_Brand said:

As for my own matchups, I don't get why they removed Poison > Bug. Poison resisting Bug rather than being weak to it, I get, but Poison super-effecting Bug makes perfect sense.

Gameplay-wise, it contributes to the "Bug and Grass are too similar defensively" dilemma. Both are weak to Fire and Flying, and resist Ground and Grass. If we want Poison to be super-effective against Bug again, perhaps we could remove their Fire weakness? Sure, fire can kill bugs, but it can kill mammals and birds, too.

On 7/28/2023 at 5:04 AM, Lord_Brand said:

To me, Ice-type is less the "frozen water" type and more the "cold" type. I see no reason why Ice Beam or Blizzard can't super-effect Water-type Pokemon.

Building off of this, most "Water-type" Pokemon aren't actually made out of liquid water. Rather, they're creatures who live in the water, be they fish (Goldeen), amphibians (Poliwag), reptiles (Totodile), mammals (Seel), or arthropods (Krabby). It makes sense for many, but not necessarily all, of them to be susceptible to the cold.

Personally, I'm fine with the status quo: "Water resists Ice-type attacks, except for Freeze-Dry, which is super-effective". I think it's better for gameplay, as Ice is already a strong offensive type. But there definitely could be a narrative case for "Ice > Water".