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Tragedy of using Rock-types in-game

mertyville

mertyville

Screenshot from 2026-02-11 13-20-41.png

Local Rock-type Pokemon missing a Rock-type move.​

I don't see many talk about the Rock-type. It is generally a beginners tutor type to learn 'problem' solving through gym battles as many regions have them as early gym leaders. However, as something one uses themselves the Rock-type is frankly in many cases awful. You have solid defenses and resist the most common used type used in the first generations in Normal and in the first 2 generations you had stat experience allowing you to bypass some of the problematic issues of most Rock-types.
Then again, you probably only use Geodude the first generations due to its good atk and being a good enough HM slave.
Later the issues of Rock-types become more apparent with the EV system. Bad special defense (usually), weak to a lot of common midgame types and in later gens even early game types like Grass and Water, bad speed, non of your STAB Rock moves hit... the issues pile up.

For in-game there have been successful Rock-types like Geodude, Gen 2 Sudowoodo, Onix when you can evolve it into not a Rock-type, XY Aerodactyl (I cannot believe they let you get such a Pokemon so early with its mega) and BW Archen. The last two really benefit from insane stats, secondary type and evolution. I heard Nacli is pretty good for making Titans salty but that's about it.

Advantages of Rock-types obviously are being able to squash Bugs, Birds, Fire-types, Ice-types (if your moves hit) as well as usually learning good physical coverage options in Fighting and Ground moves like Brickbreak and Earthquake. In practice, things usually don't play out well. Even something like Archeops is probably just gonna do Acrobatic spam.

In general, however, I don't see myself picking up a Rock-type at all. Geodude and Roggenrola (except the trade one in BW2) needs to trade to get its fully potential. Onix... is a tragety. Fossils are either late game, have slow growth or evolve at an unreasonble level. Many of them don't hit their moves. Many of them move last. Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness Larvitar doesn't do any damage and when it is fully evolved Sand Storm turns make the fight a drag and spearking of a drag... Klawf...

How were your experiences with Rock-types?
 
mertyville said:
I heard Nacli is pretty good for making Titans salty but that's about it.
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As I've previous stated in a different thread, the Nacli line is actually viable for a full playthrough. It has a good matchup against a few early Gyms, really appreciates forced EXP Share to stay on pace with the game, and access to IronPress ensures it can contribute lategame outside of Salt Cure.
 
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Frankly, for the sake of In-Game, I find most types to be fine, but rock especially doesn't feel bad at all to me. Normal type resistance is valuable, they usually get decent ways to deal with at least a couple of their resists, ground moves are commonplace to deal with Steels, and the rock STAB is valuable. If anything, I find it a better executed version of the Ice type, the strong offense is shared between the two while Rock is usually sturdier thanks to having actual resists, as well as not taking an eternity to find.
 
Rock is my favorite type, tied with Ground, and I've used one on nearly every ingame team. Never really had any issues whatsoever using them. A lot of them are so tanky they can even take super-effective hits too so it's far less of a problem defensively than other types you've made threads on.

Rock types often have insane attack and defense stats, and they also often have very good coverage learnsets. Rock, Ground, and sometimes Fighting on one pokemon is basically a swiss army knife pokemon.
mertyville said:
I heard Nacli is pretty good for making Titans salty but that's about it.
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Nacli line is probably the strongest early game Rock-type line ever? Very good movepool, great stats, doesn't have a x4 weakness to Grass or Water because it's not Geodude. There's also so many playthrus on youtube of Garganacl bailing people out in late game fights.

Granted you mentioned Sudowoodo as well, that mon is also really good. It's also funny how I just noticed how similar its stats are to Garg, they really like their rock types having this kind of stat spread lol

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I think Gigalith would be better than it if you could evolve it without trading. Roggenrola and Boldore are still pretty good tho.
 
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Stealth Rock has an interesting history for ingame. It almost feels like it's designed to be a significant buff for Rock-types, being the gym TM of the same game where it became a lot easier for attackers to have a better-than-Normal option, and many Rock-types have learned it by level in around the 20-30 range since. Obviously for competitive people will just use the tutors for it so we just get Grounds with SR and Rock Slide being the mirror to Waters with Ice Beam. Which seems to imply that the decision to give access what's a very powerful move (in some contexts) at a moderate level threshold was made with the ingame in mind. It's a shame, then, that ingame isn't very favourable to hazards, especially with Totem or Titan fights being significant.

Though looking at the data, I'm a little disappointed to learn that Carbink, which I've liked in my most recent USun playthrough for having a good utility movepool alongside SR, now has to wait all the way for 50 to learn it (it got SR at 21 in gens 6 and 7).
 
Rock-types are actually pretty cool in-game. Garganacl in particular is really good in SV yeah. Good bulk on both sides, fine offensive presence, and Salt Cure all combine to make for something that can be pretty darn good all the way to the end.

Geodude in Kanto is a very strong pick and is mainly held back by being a trade evolution. Though that's also kind of the problem with all four of the trade four. Machamp, Alakazam, Golem, and Gengar are legit really good for RBY/FRLG playthroughs in a vacuum but are held back by the final forms being locked behind trade. But Geodude and later on Golem are legit worthy. Geodude early on is an excellent tank to sponge Normal-type moves, and Golem in the later portions of the game can be a good bulky tank and has good dual STAB with Rock Slide and Earthquake. It's also surprisingly good in DPP. Rhydon and later Rhyperior also make really strong options for similar reasons, as despite some exploitable weaknesses, their sheer bulk is impressive combined with incredible offensive firepower, and Rhyperior in particular makes for a really good tank thanks to Solid Rock.

They're actually pretty good options a lot of the time. Even with some severe weaknesses and slow Speed, their sheer bulk and common resistances cannot be overlooked, and many can often dish out a good punch in return.
 
Yeah, I think Rock is pretty solid in-game.
Defenses aren't perfect, obviously, but Grass/Water are usually telegraphed, while Ground/Fighting/Steel coverage can be survived by generally hitting your sky-high defense. That combines with resisting Normal/Flying/Poison/Fire to make a pretty good tank.
The offenses are...less impressive, but not awful. Slow speed means you'll be tanking hits and consuming potions between fights, and inaccurate moves with mid BP are just annoying, but Rock+Ground is perfect coverage and often available early even on non Rock/Ground types. Other secondary types can be even better.
Support options are surprisingly good, Stealth Rock can really hurt boss trainers, Sandstorm is surprisingly nice, there's misc stuff like Rock Polish and Smackdown, and they often learn key HM moves.

The other thing is that Rock types are generally available early and scale well. This is partly just Geodude, but most games send you through a cave early on where you'll be tripping over a 3-stage Rock with decent starting options. More recent games have been putting the Fossils around the midgame, so they're a reasonable pickup, and classically they often throw various misc rocks at you then, too.

I think part of this is just vibes. Your Gigalith/Aggron/Graveler that you got in the first cave is definitely going to have fallen off by lategame, but it doesn't seem like it should. A Pidgeot/Butterfree is of course going to suck by then and get boxed, but something like Aggron SEEMS, per BST/size, to be a reasonable choice to bring into the E4. And then you do, and everything is faster than it and hitting hard enough that even through it's defenses, your rock will crack. You can swap it for a Rock with more speed(Aerodactyl/Archeops) or a better secondary typing, but those feel less like the classic rock type.

However, if the problem is that you think rocks suck, and then rocks that don't suck don't feel like rocks, I do think that's down to perception more than any actual qualities of the type.

TL/DR: I think it's a good type. Certainly no Water or Dragon, but a useful niche and I often end up with one on my team.
 
Karxrida said:
As I've previous stated in a different thread, the Nacli line is actually viable for a full playthrough. It has a good matchup against a few early Gyms, really appreciates forced EXP Share to stay on pace with the game, and access to IronPress ensures it can contribute lategame outside of Salt Cure.
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As someone that used Garganacl on my in-game team, Garganacl easily feels like one of the best rock types for casual playthroughs perhaps of all time. Reliable recovery helps it so much as a slow bulkier mon, while helping to stall out some mons with salt cure or to stack up Iron Defense into Body Press.
 
igiveuponaname said:
cant wait for there to be a thread for every type at this point
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Tbh, I don’t really mind, there’s definitely a fair bit that’s worth talking about when it comes to the various types as they stand.

As for my own thoughts on the type, it’s got a lot of high highs and a good number of low lows.

I’ve used couple of Rock types in-game through stuff like Aggron, Gigalith, Garganacl, Lycanroc Day, Barbaracle, Archeops and Carracosta. And there’s not really any duds, they’ve all been pretty great because they hit so many important types either via Rock type moves or their coverage. Garganacl especially because Body Press is just such an amazing move in general for high defense mons.
Plus against all of the Normal, Flying and Bugs types that are everywhere early on is just amazing, and they keep being amazing even into endgame

But looking back I always remember two notable things, their moves are just kind of ok and how similar they all were on the team.

Like my other mons could be running Surf, Ice Beam, Close Combat, etc against the champion. Meanwhile my Rock types are still using Rock Slide (Sans Rock Blast Loaded Dice on Garganacl) by endgame because Stone Edge just has a bad power to accuracy ratio that the extra damage just isn’t much of anything.
I do wish they’d give a good BP:Accuracy move someday for the type someday, lots of Rock types would love that.

And 2, just how similar they almost all play, being big, tanky and slow. Sure, I like having a tank on the team, but if it’s a Rock type it’s always gonna be a Tank of some kind which is rather dull.
It’s why I’m interested in using a Glimmora someday, it’s such a unique Rock type being a fast Special attacker like what Lycanroc and Archeops were.
 
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Rock-Types perform better in-game than they do in competitive play because they indirectly benefit more from NPC Trainers not playing against them the same way actual people will. Rock is honestly not that great of a defensive typing and real people are much more likely to be able to take advantage of that. NPCs much less often make use of things like switching out their Pokémon and running coverage moves to account for checks and counters.

That being said I still don’t often run them if they don’t have other factors going in their favor. Dual typings containing the Rock-Type have a tendency to either feel like an active handicap or a noticeable buff to an otherwise underwhelming Pokémon. I can promise you a Pokémon like Geodude is being hard carried by that Ground typing. The so-called “meta” for both in-game playthroughs and speedruns also tends to favor fast offense, and Rock brings a lot of inconsistency to the table with the combination of lower average Speed and inaccurate STAB.
 
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