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2 votes
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It's status move, so why it cannot hit Ground-types?

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3 Answers

5 votes
 
Best answer

Immunity is based on the moves type, not damaging vs. non damaging moves. The same reason Toxic has no effect on Steel types, as they are immune to poison (the type, not the condition.)

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edited by
But Confuse Ray can hit Normal-types, cannot it?
That is true, but remember that confusion is a secondary status effect, and thunder wave and toxic are main status effects (they show an icon when your pokemon has it.) secondary status effects are fair game for hitting types, like you can use attract on a ghost type despite it being normal.
Also, give people a chance to explain before voting them down. :/
I was waiting, NOW I will vote upXPP
Weird, I was just going to ask this question.
0 votes

Thunder Wave is the only status move that takes the type chart into account.
Consequently, it is the only status move that cannot hit Ground-type Pokémon (even when other status moves are affected by Electrify).

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ie. Thunder wave is just programmed differently from other status moves, like confuse ray. I don't know why the programmers did this.

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Probably for balancing reasons, since paralysis greatly cripples many sweepers, and a lot of support Pokémon get Thunder Wave. They’ve been slowly nerfing paralysis over the past few Gens, like changing the speed cut from 25% to 50% and lowering TWave’s accuracy down in Gen 7.
0 votes

Thunder Wave is a status move which involves a weak charge which paralyses the foe.

Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald - A weak jolt of electricity that paralyzes the foe.

This is the explanation given by db here.
Ground types don't get affected by electricity. So T-Wave won't affect the Ground Types.

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