What is the least amount of types that can cover all types super effectively?

Question

I'm not really sure how to explain this, it's like can you cover all types super effectively in a moveset, except you can go over four and it has to be the least amount of types.

Comments

D oyou mean super-effective coverage for ALL types, or just neutral coverage for all types that hits the most Pokémon possible supereffectively?

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ALL types super effectively, the first one.

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Thansk for the answers guys! +1 all!

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With a new answer, does it still need the XY tag? Do people still need to answer from an XY perspective or they can answer with the current Gen in mind?

Answer 1

With two moves, you can cover ten types with a ground move in freeze dry

When accounting for no dual-types (typing in general), the most efficient grouping of types I found was:

Freeze Dry: Water, Ground, Dragon, Flying, Grass
Ground: Electric, Rock, Steel, Poison, Fire
Fighting: Normal, Dark, Ice
Dark/Ghost: Ghost, Psychic
Steel: Fairy
Flying: Bug, Fighting

However, accounting for all known types you'll need Mold Breaker (to break Eelektross's levitate) and in addition to the types listed above

Fairy: (for Dark/Ghosts, Dark/Psychic and Kingdra)
Fire: For Bug/Steels and Steel/Flying
Rock: For fire/flying

If there's a more efficient combination or I missed something feel free to tell me I'm wrong

However, this was all a lie, because you really only need three moves to hit every Pokemon superffectively
- Soak
- An electric move
- A grass move

Comments

Does Freeze-Dry pretty much count just as Water coverage?

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yeah, you could say that

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Ghost preferred over Dark because of Mimikyu and Gardevoir, tho if you use Steel it won't matter. But if you use poison as fairy coverage instead of Dark...

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does this mean that I can change Steel to Poison for the Fairy coverage?

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You need grass to super effectively hit water ground.

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Freeze dry hits water/ground supereffectively

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Fire, Water, Grass, Fighting, Rock, Ground, Poison, Dark, and Fairy doesn't work because you can't super-effectively hit Mimikyu with any of those types.

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The answer uses steel to cover fairy. Steel can super-effectively hit Mimikyu.

Answer 2

My Combination

My combination consists of the possible minimum types needed to counter the eighteen types.

Fighting - Normal, Ice, Dark, Steel
Ground - Fire, Electric, Poison, Rock
Ice - Grass. Flying, Dragon
Grass- Water, Ground
Flying- Bug, Fighting
Ghost -Psychic, Ghost
Steel- Fairy

Hope I've Helped!

Comments

My answer would've been first but for some reason I needed to disable Javascript... So now I have DB on Chrome! Goodbye Internet Browser XD

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I feel for ya

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That still can't counter Fire/Flying, Water/Flying, Normal/Psychic, Steel/Bug, Steel/Flying, Water/Dragon, Ghost/Dark, Bug/Electric, or Dark/Psychic.

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The question asked about all types, not all type combinations.

Answer 3

8 moves are required to hit all 171 type combinations super effectively. There's only one combo that does it and that's Fire Freeze-Dry Fighting Ground Rock Dark Steel Fairy.

Break down:
Freeze-dry is super effective vs. 65 types, with 33 resistances and 3 double resistances(Fire, Steel, Ice)
Ground adds 56 SE types(121 total), with 1 resistance (Bug-Water)
Rock adds 23(144), Fairy adds 13(157), Dark adds 5(Ghost, Psychic)(162), Steel adds 5(Fairy, Ice-Ground)(167), Fire adds 3(Steel)(170), and Fighting adds 1(Normal)(171)

Ignoring Freeze-dry, any of these 9 combinations of 10 are needed:
Fire Grass Ice Fighting Ground Bug Rock Dark Steel Fairy
Fire Grass Ice Fighting Ground Flying Rock Dark Steel Fairy
Fire Grass Ice Fighting Poison Ground Rock Dark Steel Fairy
Fire Grass Ice Fighting Poison Ground Rock Ghost Dark Fairy
Fire Water Grass Fighting Ground Bug Rock Dark Steel Fairy
Fire Electric Grass Ice Fighting Ground Flying Dark Steel Fairy
Fire Water Grass Fighting Ground Flying Rock Dark Steel Fairy
Fire Water Grass Fighting Poison Ground Rock Dark Steel Fairy
Fire Water Grass Fighting Poison Ground Rock Ghost Dark Fairy

Comments

Mate the question is asking for the 18 types, not all 171 type combinations. Your answer isn't wrong, it just unfortunately doesn't belong here.

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That's far from clearly stated and I disagree, and there are multiple comments in this thread specifically referencing hitting niche type combinations. Additionally, there's an answer that doesn't cover all 18 types and doesn't have anyone claiming it doesn't belong here.

"Your answer isn't wrong" strongly suggests you have/know more details about hitting the 171 type combinations, which I doubt.

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1. The question says "What is the least amount of *types* that can cover all types super effectively?" If it was asking about type-combinations, when it would've said that.
2. In the comment on the question itself, the OP says "ALL types super effectively, the first one." If they ever meant type-combinations, then they would've mentioned it now.
3. The best answer's main focus is on the 18 types. Hitting all 171 type combinations is like a side-note.
4. "The question asked about all types, not all type combinations.
commented Mar 21, 2020 by sumwun" Even though sumwun asked about hitting Water-Ground in a comment, that comment is 2 years older than this and it can be safely assumed they realised later that the question is about the 18 types.

Regarding the ""Your answer isn't wrong" strongly suggests you have/know more details about hitting the 171 type combinations, which I doubt.", I said your answer isn't wrong because a lot of new users feel their whole answer is wrong if someone points a small issue about it. I said that to clarify that my intention is not to debunk your answer -- its just to highlight that issue.

Again, I feel like you should also include hitting the 18 types in your answer since that is what the question *most probably* is about. But anyway, its upto you what you wanna do with your answer mate.