When catching your first Pokemon, you were probably told to “choose a partner that’s strong against the ones you expect to face”. But do we really understand how this mechanic works and what consequences it has? Today I’m going to talk about how it actually affects the game. We need to start with the most basic rule: each type is super effective against two others and not very effective against the rest. You can see an example of this on the right.
Let’s say we have a Pikachu who is facing a Charmander, a Fire-type. Because Pikachu is a Lightning-type and Charmander is a Fire-type, they’re not very effective against each other: both only do half damage. But how does it work for Grass-type Charmander against Electric-type Pikachu? Well, since Grass is strong against Electric, it does 3x damage. And since Fire is weak to both Water and Ice, it only deals half damage. Now let’s start thinking on some implications these mechanics have in fight simulations.How do you think this affects the results of a fight between two equally strong Pokemon?
What pokemon is not a dragon type
Well, let’s take two Pokemon: Bulbasaur and Charmeleon. Both with the same CP and HP, they simply have different types. So, if we apply these mechanics to our fight, we can easily see how it will play out. The only thing that changes is damage output because of the different types of moves. This means that, in this fight, both Pokemon will deal the same amount of damage. Since Charmeleon deals more with physical moves (and each hit is calculated independently), it’ll end up dealing over 10% more damage than Bulbasaur. Of course, things change when talking about defending.
If Bulbasaur was defending instead of attacking, it would be able to deal more damage than Charmander because Grass is strong against Fire-type moves. Of course, this means that if Charmeleon was a defending Pokemon as well, its advantage in type would make Bulbasaur deal less damage… much less! Given the same CP and HP values, Bulbasaur would only deal 8.4% of damage! This is because Charmeleon does 4x more damage against Grass-type moves, but that’s still not enough to compensate for its type disadvantage. Now, what if both Pokemon had the same types?
Why are level 5 gyms so hard to beat
Well… nothing really changes. Both Pokemon would deal the same damage, so there’s no point in training either of them if you ask me.
While it might seem obvious by now, I wanted to show this example because it’s something that happened to me before: I had a level 5 Charmander with 500CP (which is the level 9 Bulbasaur’s CP) and my opponent had a level 9 Bulbasaur with 500CP. I was expecting to win because Charmander has an advantage against Bulbasaur. But that wasn’t the case, for some reason. I lost that fight even though all that changes is damage output (and how it decreases if both Pokemon are defending).
Tips for catching the most sought after Pokémon
I’m sure you’ve heard this a lot, but let me tell it again: when catching a Pokémon, use your weakest one so that the fight lasts longer. That way, you have time to catch the other one. This might be common knowledge for some of us, but many players don’t know how to use this mechanic in their favor.
You should always keep one strong and a couple weak Pokémon so that you can do other things while catching. The reason for this is simple: the weaker your first two are, the more likely it is for your third to have an advantage against the one you’re trying to catch. In addition, doing this gives you a better chance of catching the Pokémon. If it turns out you’re unlucky and your third one doesn’t have any advantage over the Pokemon you’re catching, just switch to your strong one so that you can deal as much damage as possible against it.
Conclusion
Don’t worry if you don’t get it at first. I think that, in order to truly understand how this mechanic works, you should go out and try catching some Pokémon. You might be surprised by the results! Have fun trying out different combinations of Pokemon–you never know what might work!
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