Type Triangles in Pokémon 

In true _me_ fashion, I missed type triangles 😭 Ice, Ground, Rock Fire, Grass, Ground I’m really killing it🙃

I always had the Fighting-Psychic-Dark triangle in my head as linking to traditional RPGs as well, it's fighter-mage-rogue trio.

No one ever talks about bug vs fighting, the eternal stalemate.

In my fakemon region, the starters are fighting, flying, and rock, and their final evolutions are fighting//grass, flying//fire, and rock//water

Actually, the Ice, rock, grass triangle IS a perfect triangle, because none of the types resist the type they beat

One thing people always forget is that the original trio types also resist themselves. Because annoyingly, not every type that isn’t super effective against itself resists itself. Fighting doesn’t resist itself for example. With this in mind I’m not sure if there’s any perfect trios besides Grass, Fire, Water

It's interesting that the Trapinch, Wartortle and Ampharos all kind of align inversely to how the type would fare. Considering Ground is the best type, it takes longer to evolve, and considering electric is the worst off, you get the final evolution early. It makes the choice slightly more balanced this way and that's what that may have been going in their mind when they chose that. It could also make sense if you think starters as difficulty options. Ground is the better type reward, but it takes longer to level, making it potentially more difficult to advance in the game. Not sure how that would go in the particular instance you mention, maybe it could've been the easy mode with an easy reward instead, but it could be a factor as to the why.

5:14 the balance of this Water/Ground/Electric triangle is actually making sense now. Electric has the biggest disadvantage, but fully evolves first. Ground has the biggest advantage, and evolves last. Water is in the middle, and evolves in the middle! It's actually ingenious!

I would love to see a classic grass fire water trio with all three final evolutions receiving a secondary Dragon type. Perfectly balanced

I've always wanted a pokemon game where the starters all gain a secondary typing and signature move of that typing on their final evolution, and, crucially... the advantage would go in the opposite direction. It'd be perfect for these modern "rivals" who pick the type that's weak to you by turning that on it's head later in the game.

to be fair to the flying rock grass triangle, the Gen 4 starters play SUPER fast and loose with the rules when it comes to secondary types. Empoleon is no longer weak to Grass when it gains the steel type too, tho it DOES gain a weakness to Torterra's new type. Solution: Make the Rock starter gain either a Fire or Electric type when it reaches it's final stage; so like, Alolan Geodude?

In gen 1 bug poison and psychic is actually an imperfect type triangle because bug and poison were super effective against each other

Water has always had an inherent advantage over Grass due to every Water-type being able to learn Ice-type moves. IMO, there needs to be more dual-type moves like Flying Press.

Ah yes the perfect starter type triangle, Charizard, Chesnaught and Blastoise cosplaying as Carracosta

I found the trapinch, mareep squirtle one really balanced! Since ground is the best one (and is immune to eletric), it makes sense it evolves the latest, while mareep has the unluckiest type and thus evolves earlier

We made our starter triangle Grass/Flying, Fire/Rock, and Water/Fairy. It's sortve imbalanced because fire resists fairy, and rock is weak to grass, but it should work pretty okay 😂😂 Amazing video!

I actually did drew Fakemon starters and posted it on Reddit 2 years ago. I decided to go with a Grass/Flying butterfly, a Fire/Fighting bull and Water/Rock narwhal and I am thinking about giving them hidden abilities that are similar to Overgrown, Blaze and Torrent but it boosts Flying, Rock and Fighting moves when HP is low

“The only type to have an immunity” Ghost type:

There's also Electric, Flying, Ground as an imperfect triangle. Flying isn't supereffective to ground but is immune to it instead.

The Water-Ground-Electric to Ice-Ground-Fire transition was creatively hilarious!

For fighting/flying/rock, I think that Machop, Rookidee, and Rolycoly make for perfect starters. While Corviknight loses it's rock weakness, Coalossal can still hit it for super effective with STAB fire moves. Plus, they can all Gigantamax. A Sw/Sh mod with these guys would be great.

As a lover of the Poison type, my favourite is automatically the type trio with the Poison type, and I love that it's perfect too! I would love to see some Poison starter designs!

What I’ve always wanted is a traditional starter trio but their secondary types let them Uno-reverse

This video rocks you did such a good job explaining the triangles independently, but also accounting for the defense and offensive relationships. I tried to explain this to my partner a few months ago and she loved to see it in this explainer :) nice work

great vid! I always used to think about type triangles when I'm bored lol. you showed off some ones I haven't realized before. I've been getting your videos recommended to me recently and they're great! you're earned a sub from me man. keep it up!

I love the fact that you made the perfect and imperfect categories(love the video just mainly cz of this reason). Like people really be thinking psychic/fighting/dark is the same as fire/water/grass.😤

Grass/Rock type has to be the best dual type Rock can have

Great video and the breakdown of type triangles by perfect, imperfect, and monotype was really smart.

Great video as always! I had no idea there were so many triangles that actually worked. I *need* to see that region with Fire/Steel/Rock starters. With so many triangles to choose from to add as secondary Types, I never want to see a pure-type starter trio again, you hear me Gamefreak?!

omg i love your doggo and the little doodle you use in the vids!

I think you describe it all and make it easy to follow! Great job! Cool dog too😊

FINALLY!! SOMEONE WHO ACKNOWLEDGES FLYING-FIGHTING-ROCK AS THE PERFECT TYPE TRIANGLE THAT DOESN'T USE ANY TRADITIONAL STARTER TYPES!!! God I'm so annoyed of people saying "Dark-Psychic-Fighting is actually the best trio!!" because it's *not* 😭 great video man!!! I really loved it :)

Fire still shouldn’t resist Ice. Yeah fire can melt ice but ice puts out fire. If anything, ice should be buffed by making it super effective against fire.

Pokémon's Type triangle is never offensive only. They also form a Defensive type triangle. And the types resist themselves. Fire water Grass is only example of that

8:01 Glad to hear this Triangle mentioned, it's a secondary typing for a batch of fakemon starters I'm developing, with Fire/Steel, Water/Fighting, and Grass/Fairy as the final Evo typings.

I love this video. I've been trying to make starters while thinking of the reverse fighting from gen 6 in mind. it's hard come up about the perfect triangles if I'm dumb. thankfully not everyone is me. thank you for your hard video!

I love the type triangle concept. Fantastic breakdown of them.

I actually once made a challenge run on the Pokecommunity forums with this concept in mind! You would just select the type triangle and use one Pokemon of each type in the run!

unironically such an interesting video, had fun watching it

Speaking of Types, if you are the type of person that likes a particular type, such as Dark or Fighting, you can actually use all three starters. As of Gen 9, there is a Grass, Fire and Water Starter that is also dual-typed Dark and Fighting, meaning you can use all three even as a Dark or Figthing specialist. Blaziken/Infernape/Emboar are all Fire/Fighting. Chestnaught is Grass/Fighting, and you can even include Hisuian Decidueye if you want. Quaquawel is Water/Fighting. Meaning you can use these for an All-Figther team while still covering the Grass/Fire/Water triad. For Dark, you have Greninja as Water/Dark, Incineroar as a Fire/Dark, and Meowscarada, as a Grass/Dark. I'd actually like to see more combos like this, that is so dope :D

I always think the best triangle trio is obviously psychic fighting and dark

Interesting that your favorite one is the one I stumbled on when thinking about what I'd do for my own game. I was planning on having them as secondary types along with the usual three, but in the other order.

I really like the idea of different type triangle starters, well overdue

I also like the final type triangle you showed. I like the idea that the game would get a little harder near the mid point when you think your new evolution is going to make things easier

Thank you so much for letting us know about this cool guy at the end of the video ❤❤

When you said your ideas about a fire-steel-rock starter trio region I was ecstatic because that's what I was thinking :'D

9:01 Charizard, Chestnaught and samurot as a water rock type. Boom

8:24 Weird, I did implement that in my fanfic Pokémon: Champion of the Rings and had the conventional types appear as secondary types in the final forms so that they were Fairy/Fire, Steel/Water, and Fighting/Grass. What a coincidence!

Wild that the game you said you wanted was the one i was making as a kid and gave up on. Maybe I'll get back to it now that I'm not so lost.

Dude that pokemon-style drawing of your husky is the exact depiction of my husky as well. I made up a pokedex description for my pup (Dexter) based on that drawing 😂: New pokemon named Wreckster. Husky type pokemon, part fighting type, part dark type. Eyes are so bright and mesmerizing, he can hypnotize opponents with a quick glare, then use his speed to mow them down. Can't hit hard with special moves, but his bark and his bite can leave nasty damage on his opponent. Secondary moves are physical ice type to match his glassy blue eyes.

Unfortunately there is no dual-type perfect triangle without including triple dragon or ghost. Even Rock/Water, Fire/Flying, & Grass/Fighting is slightly imbalanced since Fire/Flying double resists Grass. Ignoring the secondary typings, you can get some really solid dual-type triangles though. Rock/Dragon, Flying/Electric, & Fighting/Poison is my favorite. Ro/Dr resist Electric too, so Fly/El is slightly weaker of the 3, but I'd consider that an okay sacrifice since R/D has the most weaknesses anyways.

earned a sub from me lol, love this sorta in-depth pokemon knowledge

Personally, I find starters the most interesting when their secondary typing helps defend them against their initial weakness. That's to say, a pure grass type is weak to fire, but if you give it the rock type as a secondary, fire now does neutral damage. Or maybe, if you take a triangle that doesn’t interact with the classic starter types at all, a *reverse* triangle with the secondaries. As in, a grass/dark type, a fire/psychic type and a water/fighting type, or something like that. It gives the grass type something to do against the fire type, but still leaves them at risk of taking a fire type attack to the face. But conversely, the fire type is now at risk of taking a stab dark type attack to the face, with it's new psychic secondary typing.

I've been wanting that last combo for a while. An arid or industrial region where grass and water types are hard to find (at least in early game), so the local starters have to reflect that.

My favorite alternate triangle is Flying/Ground/Electric. My choice of existing Pokemon to use as starters for this triangle are Rookidee, Trapinch (with altered evolution levels), and Shinx.

7:07 Immediately gets an idea into my skull. If the region is industrial, then the team could be a bunch of extremists trying to bring nature back to the region by any means necessary.

Not to mention resistant type lines, such as: Bug Fighting

Amazing vid, everything everyone asked for!

The issue with any Steel or Rock type starter type triangles is that the pokemon would resist basically all of the early game moves that are just bug, normal, or flying type, making a particularly easy early game for that starter

Now this is the Pokemon content I was looking for!

What's funny about your love for the flying fighting rock is that my starter trio for my fan region. It's specifically based on the Legends of King Arthur but with modern day and time travel. 😅

I can't believe you mentioned claydol. You're amazing for that! Claydol needs more love

An interesting thing to consider with triangles containing Rock and Steel is that they resist Normal. This would make them exceptionally strong at early stages of the games, where mons often have very limited coverage outside of Scratch, Tackle etc. Something to consider when making a game

The most interesting thing with learning about these type triangles was that, before even knowing about the triangles, I designed my Fakemon starters to have the following typings: Grass/Flying, Fire/Rock, and Water/Fighting. When designing the Fakemon, I realized the pattern of being 4x strong against each other. It was really nice learning about the triangles because now I know the Flying-Rock-Fighting triangle can be just as iconic as the Grass-Fire-Water triangle. On another note, I'd really like to see a starter concept where their secondary types move in an opposite sequence than their main typing, sort of like a yin-yang thing. Maybe something like Grass/Psychic, Water/Dark, and Fire/Fighting (and I'm aware Fire/Fighting starters are way overdone, but I'm mentioning it just for the sake of the concept). I think that would make for a pretty interesting dynamic, although it might get rid of the extra effort you would do to give your team more coverage to deal with those types.

I’m holding out for that dual type triangle vid

In my fakemon region, I made the starter trio grass, ground and poison - a perfect type triangle - without even noticing.

Thanks to the triangle of Rock-Fighting-Flying, I was reminded of Pokémon Clover and how midway through the game, you would be able to pick a 2nd starter Pokémon from a different selection than the first batch. This set had, by their final evos, Fighting/Dragon, Rock/Fairy, and Flying/Dark as their final types so while the secondary types somewhat also break the triangle since the Rock/Fairy would have advantage on the other two, it is a neat concept that also would be adapted at around end game/post game with a third set of starters that were the classic type triangle of Grass, Fire, and Water but their final evos would gain the other triangle's main types (Grass/Rock, Fire/Flying, and Water/Fighting) Stuff like this is always fun to consider when crafting one's own Pokémon world or campaign.

I had the seeds for a fanregion planted where the starters used the Steel/Fairy/Fighting triangle, and then evolved into Steel/Poison, Fairy/Grass, and Fighting/Ground. The only one I really remember much about is the Steel/Poison one being a skunk based on tetanus and rusty metal.

Fire-Grass-Water is the only true perfect triangle because those types are not effective against themselves either. Fighting, Rock, Ground and Flying don't resist themselves.

Hear me out, Ive always thought as a kid that electric

some more imperfect: Flying, Electric, Ground Ghost, Dark, Fighting Dragon, Ice, Fire Bug, Rock, Grass

Fighting, Flying, and Ice are also an imperfect type triangle but I like that they represent the three threat reactions: fight flight and freeze.

Many years ago i came up with Basic triangle if new pokemon that evolved into groundGrass electricFire flyingWater. And for the final stage back to roginsl typings plus dragon. Using the middle stage as an excuse to learn coverage moves.

7:15 lol that's me! I made your previous video into a GBA game

I love that concept

The other really nice thing about fighting rock flying is they were all originally physical types (like how the grass water fire trio were special types) and while physical/special isn't tied to type anymore, it still has had a lasting impact on the design of each type.

7:07 I’m jumping straight on this triangle. It fits almost perfectly with the game I’m creating. One starter to represent each of the three regions. Now I just have to figure out how to get said starters… and design them.

to me the perfect trio is where the secondary type reverse the triangle. by doing this you allow the player to choose the one that simply like the best without a loss is advantage. grass/rock vs water/fighting vs fire/flying is something I have wanted as starter type for a long time. Also I think that making the starters evolve at the same levels would be a nice touch to again make no advantage to picking each one.

Before the physical special split of gen 4, grass/fire/water were all considered special. While rock/flying/fighting were all considered physical. I think the contrast between the two is a very cool detail.

Great video

I'm a big fan of when the secondary typings work the opposite way of the conventional one or otherwise give your starter a way to counteract the triangle. It's great for the rival to start with a massive advantage but later in the game you're now on equal footing

This is a great video

I've been thinking this for so long

I’ve always thought that the coolest idea for a starter trio would be one where their secondary types have a type triangle that goes in the opposite direction. That way, they are all balanced since they all have an option against the starter they would otherwise be weak to. A hypothetical Grass/Flying//Water/Fighting//Fire/Rock trio would accomplish this without repeating a combination they’ve already used for starters (Though it would have to be new pokemon; the only existing trios would be Jumpluff, Macargo/Coalossal, and Quaquaval/Urshifu-Rapid strike which isn’t exactly fair).

fire grass water should forever be the starter trio, as it's the only type triangle that intuitively makes sense to someone who has not played pokemon

3:26 Yeah, when it took five generations to get a pure Flying type, despite Flying existing since Gen 1, Flying feels underutilized, period. I remember being shocked, and thrilled, to discover Tornadus was a pure Flying type when I caught him the first time.

I was randomly thinking of triangles at work lol My personal favorite is Ground -> Steel -> Ice

It seems actually quite easy to algorithmicly list every dual type triangle, even every m-uplet (mono, duo or trio) type n-cycle (triangle or square or anything), and calculate weither or not those are perfect. I would even be surprised that this doesn't already exists somewhere.

9:01 that pretty much perfect. flying decimates grass/fighting. grass decimates water/rock. and rock decimates fire/flying

I love when he pluralizes Darmanitan and Marowak and then just gives that up immediately lol

i think it makes sense for fire to not resist ice. when ice hits fire, it melts and becomes water, which puts out fire.

about grass fire water, it works so well because not only they work on both direction like you mentioned, they also resist themselves. so grass is not effective against grass, fire not effective against fire, water not effective against water. cant say the same for the other triangle

I LOVE the idea of introducing starters with a different type triangle. Ice + Rock + Ground would be epic

One thing about that last dual triangle (and which the gen 6 starters also embody) is the whole 4x weakness thing. If you were aaking me to add a dial type triangle to a hypothetical new starter trio, I would have the primary typings go one way, and the secondary types go another. Not necessarily covering weaknesses to the primary type, but being a bit more balanced So thrn we would get something like fire/rock, water/flying, and gras/fighting. Or you could rotate the secondary types into fire/fighting, water/rock, grass flying or fire/flying, water/fighting, and grass/rock This way, picking a starter never really means its always weak to another starter once fully evolved (first and middle forms will likely just be monotype)

Worth to mention, Bulbasaur is Grass/Poison, so in gen 1 we did have a poison starter and the trianle could be seen as Water, Fire, Poison

I think about types like this - each type can be ranked as an offensive type - how good it is as stab (essentially how likely it is to just deal unresisted damage, dark, ghost and fairy are the best offensive types in the game because of how "clickable" they are). a defensive type - how good are the resistances and immunities you get from it (steel, fire, and poison are all good defensive types because of useful resistances and good multitype options). and coverage - how common are the types that are weak to this type. (ice, grass and fighting are amazing coverage types because the types they hit for super effetive damage are very valuable/ common). there are types that were created with the very purpose of controling the meta - ground, steel, and fairy all fit in that category imo because these types are innatley stronger than others. These types are all at least good (if not excellent) at 2 or more of the categories above - In other words any type that has a positive matchup agaisnt a type like one of those benefits A LOT more from it than it would from other positive matchups. Type triangles that include a type like fire for example might look as if they have some sort of disadvantage but its balanced around the other type matchups. A type that is good agaisnt both fairy and steel gets much more value from it than being good agaisnt ice and grass.

(7:26) I have to say that I am loving the old school art style.

Breloom, Houndoom and Slowking. Perfection and a core of all my runs

Years ago, I started designing my own Pokemon game based around the gimmick of the gym leaders specializing in two types instead of just one and the Elite 4 members using different battle styles instead of types. I think I accidenly ending up basing all of the gyms around the concept of type triangles before I was aware of this term/saw this video.

There's a reason all non-Yellow games use the Water/Fire/Grass triangle. The starters are designed to be the first thing a new player will see, so they need to have types that make immediate sense for a Rock-Paper-Scissors relationship. A player will intuitively understand why Fire is effective against Grass, but has to jump through a few more hoops to justify Ground against Poison.