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Best Offensive Typing?
- Thread starter Orik
- Start date
My Smog article from issue #3 explains clearly which are the best attacking types, taking bulkiness, usage, type chart, abilities, etc. into account. And it also caters for different metagames.
Just saying some resists you forgot.
Also, you forgot the Ground/Rock Combo. Only resisted by Claydol, Flygon, Breloom, and Torterra iirc. Possibly a little more.
The way I see it the best offensive typings are based on the defensive typings of what you are facing.
Look at Psychic in Ubers. Its a Stab move for a lot of things, but as such is also resisted by most of the metagame so it sees little use. As such Psychic is a bad offensive typing in Ubers even in a 'perfect coverage combo' and following from that Fighting is a good defensive typing in Ubers because its weaknesses are mostly absent and its resists common attack-types used in Ubers.
Similarly it depends on what your Pokemon's role is on your team. Sometimes hitting select types super-effective is more important than hitting a larger variety of types neutrally. Having perfect neutral coverage isn't much good if you aren't doing sufficient damage.
Look at Psychic in Ubers. Its a Stab move for a lot of things, but as such is also resisted by most of the metagame so it sees little use. As such Psychic is a bad offensive typing in Ubers even in a 'perfect coverage combo' and following from that Fighting is a good defensive typing in Ubers because its weaknesses are mostly absent and its resists common attack-types used in Ubers.
Similarly it depends on what your Pokemon's role is on your team. Sometimes hitting select types super-effective is more important than hitting a larger variety of types neutrally. Having perfect neutral coverage isn't much good if you aren't doing sufficient damage.
Agreed. And in fact, Psychic is by far the worst offensive type in Ubers, according to my Smog article I linked to previously.
Electivire(lol) has a set that hits 13 types super effectively. I forget what it is though. Electivire's base attack and special attack are generally too low to use though.
I agree with TSPhoenix. However, going into general effectiveness, Ground and Dark hit all except Skarmory, Honchkrow, Cacturne, Shiftry, and Heracross. All can be taken care of a fire move. I know this pokemon is not perfect, but off the top of my head, Hariyama can use all of the moves. Hariyama with EQ, Fire Punch, Payback, and Bulk Up with Leftovers as item sounds good(at least in theory). Also, the new CAP pokemon, Colossoil I think, can utilize EQ, Crunch, and Fire Fang.
Could your charts be modified to reflect the wild base power differences between different move types, though? For example, the most common special Fire moves are 120 and 95 bp, while Ice is almost always 95 bp, and ghost and dark are only 80. Fighting and Fire are not only good because of the pokemon they hit, Fire Blast and Close Combat are excellent moves in general. I'm sure if there was a 120 bp drawback-free special Rock move things would work out differently...
Wow, I read the smog, I don't know how I missed this! Thanks a lot!
I guess those who use Electivire have a reason to. He has access to special fire, physical ice, physical fighting, and physical electric.
2 of those have really shitty base power though, which is really important. Half the reason ice/electric is used so much is because ice beam and tbolt have such great power/accuracy ratio. Personally I find water/electric/ice to be my favorite three type combo since hydro pump is so strong. Reason being it hits the stuff that matters super effective: the bulky pokes like rock, ground, grass, dragon, and water (!), while steels, ghosts, and what not have low special defense anyways.
Agreed, but they are the most common/powerful physical types for those attacks, and still physical electric/ice is above their counterparts.
I wrote a program that would test which set of 4 got the best effectiveness against different pokemon. This was tested against the actual pokemon and not just the types. Also, the abilities were taken in context (which changes the numbers around a bit, since if you have no fire or ground moves then bronzong is counted as one poke but if you have a set with a fire move then it treats heatproof bronzong as separate from levitate bronzong)
Note that I have not put these through thorough testing and I don't play competitively (yet). These also don't look at tiers, so a super effective set against caterpie counts as much as a super effective set against arceus
There are 2380 different combinations so I'll just post a few here.
Electric, Fire, Fighting, Ground (418 SE, 3 NVE)
-Largest number of pokes hit for super-effective damage. Only three resist: Latias, Latios and Giratina-O
Ice, Electric, Fighting, Ground (411 SE, 1 NVE)
-Next best, and there's our boltbeam! Only Shedinja resists
Ice, Fighting, Grass, Ground (406 SE, 1 NVE)
-3rd best, again only resisted by shedinja
The next six sets have the most SE hits with absolutely no one resisting them.
Electric, Fire, Ghost, Ground (402 SE)
Electric, Fire, Dark, Ground (400 SE)
Ice, Fighting, Ghost, Ground (399 SE)
Electric, Fire, Fighting, Ghost, Grass (397 SE)
Ice, Fighting, Dark, Ground (397 SE)
Fire, Fighting, Grass Rock (396 SE)
For comparison, here are the worst sets
Ghost, Dark, Dragon, Normal (85 SE, 19 NVE)
-Haven't checked, but the 19 is probably every steel type in the game. If you ignore steels you do neutral damage to nearly everything
Dragon, Poison, Normal, Steel (99 SE, 20 NVE)
And here's a few that are begging to get walled because of resists
Ice, Fire, Steel, Water (259 SE, 68 NVE)
-For 4 moves of different types, this set has the largest number of resists.
Electric, Grass, Ground, Water (281 SE, 39 NVE)
-The next largest number of resists
And just for fun...
Ice, Grass, Ground, Rock (376 SE, 2 NVE)
-The set with the most 4x effectiveness, 67 different pokes!
If anyone wants the entire list let me know. It's too big for a forum mail (I've tried) so I'd need your email to actually send it.
Note that I have not put these through thorough testing and I don't play competitively (yet). These also don't look at tiers, so a super effective set against caterpie counts as much as a super effective set against arceus
There are 2380 different combinations so I'll just post a few here.
Electric, Fire, Fighting, Ground (418 SE, 3 NVE)
-Largest number of pokes hit for super-effective damage. Only three resist: Latias, Latios and Giratina-O
Ice, Electric, Fighting, Ground (411 SE, 1 NVE)
-Next best, and there's our boltbeam! Only Shedinja resists
Ice, Fighting, Grass, Ground (406 SE, 1 NVE)
-3rd best, again only resisted by shedinja
The next six sets have the most SE hits with absolutely no one resisting them.
Electric, Fire, Ghost, Ground (402 SE)
Electric, Fire, Dark, Ground (400 SE)
Ice, Fighting, Ghost, Ground (399 SE)
Electric, Fire, Fighting, Ghost, Grass (397 SE)
Ice, Fighting, Dark, Ground (397 SE)
Fire, Fighting, Grass Rock (396 SE)
For comparison, here are the worst sets
Ghost, Dark, Dragon, Normal (85 SE, 19 NVE)
-Haven't checked, but the 19 is probably every steel type in the game. If you ignore steels you do neutral damage to nearly everything
Dragon, Poison, Normal, Steel (99 SE, 20 NVE)
And here's a few that are begging to get walled because of resists
Ice, Fire, Steel, Water (259 SE, 68 NVE)
-For 4 moves of different types, this set has the largest number of resists.
Electric, Grass, Ground, Water (281 SE, 39 NVE)
-The next largest number of resists
And just for fun...
Ice, Grass, Ground, Rock (376 SE, 2 NVE)
-The set with the most 4x effectiveness, 67 different pokes!
If anyone wants the entire list let me know. It's too big for a forum mail (I've tried) so I'd need your email to actually send it.
I have to agree with Blasphemy's chart. Most of those type combos have great coverage and great defensive backbones.
There is only 1 Pokemon who carries this moveset, iirc:
Electivire
- Thunderbolt/ThunderPunch
- Flamethrower
- Cross Chop
- Earthquake
There is only 1 Pokemon who carries this moveset, iirc:
Electivire
- Thunderbolt/ThunderPunch
- Flamethrower
- Cross Chop
- Earthquake
Infernape does it better.
Infernape
- Thunderpunch
- Flamethrower/Flare Blitz/Fire Punch
- Close Combat
- Earthquake
Admittedly, Infernape does a little worse against Dragon types than Electivire, but he also get STAB on two of the moves, as opposed to one for Electivire. Plus, Close Combat is a much better move than Cross Chop. Also, Infernape's resistances and more reliable Speed make it a better choice for this moveset IMO.
with resistances to that many forms of Residual damage, why give it Magic Guard? Why not go with Levitate to make it a special psuedo-Flygon?
The last subtopic at the end of the article explains exactly how you can compare moves together. Seems like you haven't reached till the end of the article! :)
When it comes to this moveset, Electivire is definitely better:
Thunderbolt/ThunderPunch
Hidden Power Ice/Ice Punch
Cross Chop
Earthquake
You can go mixed or Physical, whereas Infernape can't really compete with this, 'cause he has to deal with Swampert.
Evire still has to deal with Swampert, as Swampert is immune to Tbolt, Infernape has a higher SpA than Evire, and Swampert's defenses make him shrug off Cross Chop and Earthquake anyway. At least Close Combat has a higher Base Power and STAB to hit Swampert with.
What makes it better? The only difference between the two is to use fire or ice. The fire version hit more poke super effectively, but is resisted by three legendary dragons. Also X-Acts article shows that special fire then physical fire have the highest ATE in the standard metagame.
Electric, Fire, Fighting, Ground (418 SE, 3 NVE)
Electric, Ice, Fighting, Ground (411 SE, 1 NVE)
I'm asking because I haven't put these through a lot of testing and I'm hoping to revise my algorithms later on to make them more useful.
Yea man that 123 Base Attack is completely useless for sure. But what do you expect, it's Electivire(lol)!
Electivire's stats are decent, it is just his lack of brute force and stat up moves that make him suck. Unlike something like Salamence, Gyarados, Tyranitar, and other real powerhouses, he has to rely on shaky SE hits that sometimes don't hit that hard anyway. Electivire really needs a crazy strong STAB move, or something like SD.