What are all the types necessary in a team that is to have coverage over every other type?

Question

So, take every type in the game. then create the list of types to have on the super-coverage team. 12 types max, must have at least one type supereffective against a type per type. I'm not making this clear am I? Just a list of types for a team which would have at least one Pokemon supereffective for dealing with each type. if you want to be super overachiever and do existing dual typings, then you will get upvoted, but not entirely necessary, just awesome. There are probably multiple answers, so you can include multiple.

Comments

If the intent is to make a team out of Pokemon with these types, it's probably not worth it:
- It completely ignores your team's defensive weaknesses
- Types are not the only factor affecting how well your team covers the metagame
- It restricts your teambuilding to Pokemon with only certain types, which just sounds like a burden to me.
But feel free to ignore me if this isn't what you mean at all.

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what? thats... confusing.

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but no, this isn't for metagaming.

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By the way, There are almost definately other ways to do this, so post more answers and get upvoted!

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Not sure what 'metagaming' is but all I'm really saying is restricting a team to Pokemon of these types is a bad idea.

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I know that.

Answer 1

To start answering this, there are three types that are absolutely required on any list for this question.

Ground

Since this is the only type that is super-effective against Electric types.
It also hits Fire, Poison, and Steel types.

Fighting

This is the only type that is super-effective against Normal types.
It also hits Dark, Rock, Steel, and Ice types.

Dark or Ghost

These types are super-effective against the same types, although their resistances are slightly different. They both deal with Psychic and Ghost types.

This means the remainder of the team would need to be composed of types to deal with Grass, Water, Fighting, Ground, Flying, Bug, Dragon, and Fairy types.

Ice

I think this is the next logical type to add, as it deals with quite of few of the leftover types. This means you can cross Grass, Ground, Flying, and Dragon types out of the above list.

At this point, the only types you have left to deal with is Fighting, Bug, Fairy, and Water. These types only have one shared weakness.

Flying

This is super-effective against Bug and Fighting types.

Water and Fairy don't have any shared weaknesses, so you will need to add two more types, one to cover each of them.

Electric or Grass

These both cover Water types.

Poison or Steel

These both cover Fairy types.

Summary

I know you said a maximum of 12 types, but 7 is enough to cover everything. These types are:

• Ground
• Fighting
• Dark/Ghost
• Ice
• Flying
• Electric/Grass
• Poison/Steel

The first four I feel are required for any team needed to cover all types. The last 3 can no doubt be swapped around, though. I really don't want to even think about adding dual-types into the mix, so I will leave my answer here.

I hope it helps!

Comments

brilliant. simply brilliant.

Answer 2

With the help of the type coverage checker, we can actually check what types cover all dual types. Because the existing Best Answer already covers super effectiveness against single types, I will only be showing what types are necessary to cover all dual types.

Absolutely Necessary: Fire, Grass, Fighting, Ground, Dark, Fairy

These types hit the typings or dual typings that only have one weakness: Fire covers Bug/Steel, Grass covers Water/Ground, Fighting covers Normal, Ground covers Electric, Dark covers Normal/Ghost, and Fairy covers Dark/Ghost. These six types also cover all of the unused type combinations, so those will not be an issue when considering future types.

Strong Coverage: Rock

Rock hits many dual typings that the previous six do not, hitting all of Fire, Bug, and Flying in one fell swoop. Additionally, many Pokemon, such as Araquanid, have weaknesses that do not offer much other super-effectiveness; Araquanid's only other weakness is Flying, which does not provide any more coverage other than a few specific type combinations.

Hits Fairies: Poison/Steel

Either Poison or Steel can be chosen to deal with Fairy types; however, both have their issues. For Poison, choosing it will leave only two type combinations left: Ground/Flying and Ghost/Fairy. Unfortunately, these type combinations have no shared weaknesses, meaning two additional types will need to be added. The same issue comes up with Steel, this time being Ground/Flying and Water/Grass.

If Poison is chosen:
Hits Remaining Typings: Water/Ice and Ghost/Steel

Water and Ice cover Ground/Flying, while Ghost and Steel cover Ghost/Fairy. This gives us a final list of:

1. Fire
2. Grass
3. Fighting
4. Ground
5. Dark
6. Fairy
7. Rock
8. Poison
9. Water/Ice
10. Ghost/Steel

If Steel is chosen:
Hits Remaining Typings: Water/Ice and Poison/Flying/Bug

As stated before, Water and Ice cover Ground/Flying, while Poison, Flying, and Bug cover Water/Grass. This gives us a final list of:

1. Fire
2. Grass
3. Fighting
4. Ground
5. Dark
6. Fairy
7. Rock
8. Steel
9. Water/Ice
10. Poison/Flying/Bug

In total, there are 2 * 2 + 2 * 3 = 10 combinations of types, but 2 of those are repeats that feature both Poison and Steel. Thus, there are 9 total combinations of types that can cover every dual type in the game. This is not a conclusive list, but every other list will have more than 10 types.

Hope I helped!

Answer 3

Sorry this answer is a bit late, but I think I managed to find the smallest attacking combination that can cover every possible combination of 2 types.

fire fighting ground rock dark steel fairy freeze-dry
Not very effective: 0 Regular effectiveness: 0 Super effective: 171

These are the smallest ones without freeze-dry in case you don't think freeze-dry counts as a type. Note that all of them have grass because there's no freeze-dry to cover water ground. Also note that none of them are pieces of sheet music.

fire water grass fighting poison ground rock ghost dark fairy
Not very effective: 0 Regular effectiveness: 0 Super effective: 171
fire water grass fighting poison ground rock dark steel fairy
Not very effective: 0 Regular effectiveness: 0 Super effective: 171
fire water grass fighting ground bug rock dark steel fairy
Not very effective: 0 Regular effectiveness: 0 Super effective: 171
fire electric grass ice fighting ground flying dark steel fairy
Not very effective: 0 Regular effectiveness: 0 Super effective: 171
fire grass ice fighting poison ground rock ghost dark fairy
Not very effective: 0 Regular effectiveness: 0 Super effective: 171
fire grass ice fighting poison ground rock dark steel fairy
Not very effective: 0 Regular effectiveness: 0 Super effective: 171
fire grass ice fighting ground flying rock dark steel fairy
Not very effective: 0 Regular effectiveness: 0 Super effective: 171
fire grass ice fighting ground bug rock dark steel fairy
Not very effective: 0 Regular effectiveness: 0 Super effective: 171

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