Pokémon Type Matchups

Every Pokémon and every move belongs to one (or two) types. When a move hits a Pokémon, the game multiplies the damage by a fixed effectiveness value based on the move's type versus the defender's type(s):

• 2× — super-effective (the message "It's super effective!")
• 1× — neutral
• ½× — not very effective ("It's not very effective…")
• 0× — no effect at all

A Pokémon with two types takes the product of both. A Water move into a Ground/Rock defender is 2× × 2× = 4× (quadruple). A Grass move into a Water/Poison defender is 2× × ½× = 1× — "super-effective" on screen, but mathematically neutral. Always multiply, don't trust the label.

STAB (Same-Type Attack Bonus) adds ×1.5 when the user shares a type with the move. STAB stacks with type effectiveness: a Water Pokémon using a Water move into a Ground/Rock target is 1.5 × 2 × 2 = 6×.

Only the combinations matter, not the order. A few that trip people up:

• Steel/Fairy defends at ¼× versus Fire (Fire is ½× to both) — one of the best defensive pairs.
• Water/Ground is 4× weak to Grass, but resists Fire, Water, Electric (Ground takes 0× from Electric) and Poison.
• Flying/Fire is 4× weak to Rock — the classic Charizard problem.
• Dark/Ghost offensively hits Psychic and Ghost at 2×, and only Fairy resists it (½×).

Most of the chart is stable, but three moments matter:

• Generation 2 added Dark and Steel. From Gen 6 on, Ghost and Dark moves hit Steel neutrally; before that they were resisted.
• Generation 6 added Fairy, which is super-effective on Dragon, Dark, and Fighting, and resists Bug, Dark, and Fighting. This was the last structural change to the chart.
• Generation 1 quirks (long fixed): Ghost was not effective on Psychic (later corrected to 2×); Bug was super-effective on Poison and vice-versa (later Bug resists Poison); Ice was neutral on Fire (later ½×).

Before Generation 4, the game split moves into physical and special by the move's type, not by the move itself. A 2009 fan chart (archived from the now-dead site azureheights.com) still lists only 15 types and groups them as Special = Fire/Water/Grass/Electric/Ice/Psychic, Physical = Normal/Fighting/Flying/Ground/Rock/Bug/Poison/Ghost/Dragon. That type-based split was replaced in Gen 4 (2006) when the physical/special split moved to individual moves. It's a tidy reminder that "the type chart" is itself a moving target — the 18-type, move-based version above is what current games use.

Source: archived dead-site snapshot, Wayback Machine, 2009-01-07. Included as original historical context, not as a current reference.

This is a fan-made reference page, put together so a single lookup doesn't mean opening five tabs. No ads, no tracking, no account.

The effectiveness values follow the official games' defined type chart — public and generation-stable. The page was written and built by a human operator; the chart is the game's documented mechanic, presented here as an original layout. If you spot a discrepancy, the in-game values always win.