Originally posted to reddit but I thought it may fit here, too:
After linking the result *here, let me interpret some of it, and I hope it will be useful to you.
Also here's a TL:DR: Ground is the real MVP of types when it comes to super-effective coverage, but water, fairy and rock are not bad either. I'd like to see Pokémon that attack with coverage moves that are super-effective against their resisted enemies, instead of only using STABbed attacks. Dual-typings don't always have to justify using a coverage move.
I. Calculation method
I copied and pasted the whole dual-type effectiveness chart. From that, I calculated the percentage of each type within each type dual chart:
% of super-effective lines (regardless x2 or x4)
% of not effective lines (regardless of 1/2 or 1/4)
% of immune lines
% of neutral lines
After that I've taken numbers from these %ages, following a concatenation:
First dozen of %SE, then first dozen of %Neutral, then comma, then first dozen of %NE, then first dozen of %immune. The only little twist is, for this to work, I'm gonna have to round the numbers. So, for example, a 6% chance will become number 1 (10%). Which is why, is you add up the 4 digits of each number, it won't be 10 all the time. Also, sice the full immunity exists with 100%, I had to display it as 00.01 instead of 00.010.
Now, he biggest number is potentially 100 (super effective on all, neutral on nothing, not effective on nothing, immune on nothing), although no type can reach it, and the smallest number is 00.01 (this one occurs in types with immunity like ghost).
The goal was to calculate a simple way to farm against wild Pokémon because I hate it, so I figured I could imagine a system to display what moves will be OHKOs or 2HKOs against wild Pokémon, without being beaten.
I was a bit surprised at how the numbers are uniform and consistent with the mono-type chart, but the twist was, some types are more potent than others when it comes to coverage, and that comes now to interpretation.
II. Interpretation
For this interpretation, I'll divide all type into groups, and these groups will focus specifically on the neutral damage, that's pictured in white on my chart.
No coverage
This group only has the normal type. All of its numbers are lower than 10, meaning that it really has no super-effective damage. But 8 is pretty decent, because in these cases it means that 80% of chances are that a neutral damage will be inflicted.
Low-tier coverage
This group has neutral values lower than 20. It means that for these given types, there's lower than 20% chance that their hit will be super-effective against the dual-typing of the target.
These types are: electric, poison, psychic, ghost, dragon, dark. Some of them have redeeming qualities, in example we dragon will be super-effective in 90% of the cases when hitting their already-know single-type nemeses. Overall it becomes 80% for the other SE types, which is also good.
Mid-tier coverage
This group has neutral values lower than 30. It becomes already much better because you realize these types can land a SE damage against 25% of every dual-type, which means a 1/4 landing chance.
These types are: fire, water, grass, ice, flying, bug, rock, fairy.
High-tier coverage
This group has neutral values greater than 30, which is the maximum that can be reached.
These types are: fighting and ground. Of course, that means a bit less SE chances on the single-SE (from 82 to 45), but imo that can be great in a setting where you beat multiple wild Pokémon in a row (non-comptetitive). Finally, as we find that fighting is trickier due to the higher amount of red cells, ground is the only one that works on most dual-types combinations.
This is just one method, we could instead focus on the safer types that fear no immunity but still have a good chance a landing SE damage to most dual-types in the game, and we also should account how many NE single-types there are. With this method, other challengers emerge, such as water, fairy and rock with a score higher than 20 and only 3 red cells.
Conclusion
It was a little funny exercise I wanted to do because I realize there's way more content available for strategic battling than for the same old, boring, in-game battling that's really comparable to a marathon, while strategic is more comparable to an olympic sprint performance. After all, in-game grinding battles come in quantity and each individual battle must be fast and easily resolved, while a strategic battle is "just" one single battle.
This in-game aspect really grinds my gears sometimes, the most potent example is Wobbuffet. Like, OK, Wobbuffet finds an OK niche in strategic battles, but in reality he isn't fit at all to venture through the game. He can't be trained on his own, he will have to rely on Exp. share and Exp. all to level up in the game. This isn't acceptable for me. Raticate or Fearow will perform much better, even if they're no match in some fancy OU battle.
What I want to do next is, a table of which types can safely switch in and take one hit or two. I found it interesting. One example is Electric. If Ground-type moves were not so widely accessible, Electric would be able to just come in and take neutral of NE damage from anything. Same for pure Steel-types. Poison and Dragon are decent, too. The concepts I'd like to see in Pokémon are Pokémon who only use their resistances, instead of their STAB moves. That could be a pure Steel type attacking with Bug attacks only, meaning it's designed to specifically beat Psychic Pokémon.
There could also be funny gym battles with mixed teams where all the Pokémon are weak to fire (Steel, Grass, Bug for example), when no fire-type is yet available in the game. Or another funny concept could emerge, I don't know, a Dragon-type Pokémon that's fit for the beginning of the game (never saw that), all it takes it to give it a full-evo BST lower than 500, and Normal moves only until it raches lv. 20 or 25, that way it's not overpowered, it's well-balanced according to its environment.
Well that was all, I hope it sparked your curiosity, if you made it here, thanks for reading.
Feedback is appreciated.
After linking the result *here, let me interpret some of it, and I hope it will be useful to you.
Also here's a TL:DR: Ground is the real MVP of types when it comes to super-effective coverage, but water, fairy and rock are not bad either. I'd like to see Pokémon that attack with coverage moves that are super-effective against their resisted enemies, instead of only using STABbed attacks. Dual-typings don't always have to justify using a coverage move.
I. Calculation method
I copied and pasted the whole dual-type effectiveness chart. From that, I calculated the percentage of each type within each type dual chart:
% of super-effective lines (regardless x2 or x4)
% of not effective lines (regardless of 1/2 or 1/4)
% of immune lines
% of neutral lines
After that I've taken numbers from these %ages, following a concatenation:
First dozen of %SE, then first dozen of %Neutral, then comma, then first dozen of %NE, then first dozen of %immune. The only little twist is, for this to work, I'm gonna have to round the numbers. So, for example, a 6% chance will become number 1 (10%). Which is why, is you add up the 4 digits of each number, it won't be 10 all the time. Also, sice the full immunity exists with 100%, I had to display it as 00.01 instead of 00.010.
Now, he biggest number is potentially 100 (super effective on all, neutral on nothing, not effective on nothing, immune on nothing), although no type can reach it, and the smallest number is 00.01 (this one occurs in types with immunity like ghost).
The goal was to calculate a simple way to farm against wild Pokémon because I hate it, so I figured I could imagine a system to display what moves will be OHKOs or 2HKOs against wild Pokémon, without being beaten.
I was a bit surprised at how the numbers are uniform and consistent with the mono-type chart, but the twist was, some types are more potent than others when it comes to coverage, and that comes now to interpretation.
II. Interpretation
For this interpretation, I'll divide all type into groups, and these groups will focus specifically on the neutral damage, that's pictured in white on my chart.
No coverage
This group only has the normal type. All of its numbers are lower than 10, meaning that it really has no super-effective damage. But 8 is pretty decent, because in these cases it means that 80% of chances are that a neutral damage will be inflicted.
Low-tier coverage
This group has neutral values lower than 20. It means that for these given types, there's lower than 20% chance that their hit will be super-effective against the dual-typing of the target.
These types are: electric, poison, psychic, ghost, dragon, dark. Some of them have redeeming qualities, in example we dragon will be super-effective in 90% of the cases when hitting their already-know single-type nemeses. Overall it becomes 80% for the other SE types, which is also good.
Mid-tier coverage
This group has neutral values lower than 30. It becomes already much better because you realize these types can land a SE damage against 25% of every dual-type, which means a 1/4 landing chance.
These types are: fire, water, grass, ice, flying, bug, rock, fairy.
High-tier coverage
This group has neutral values greater than 30, which is the maximum that can be reached.
These types are: fighting and ground. Of course, that means a bit less SE chances on the single-SE (from 82 to 45), but imo that can be great in a setting where you beat multiple wild Pokémon in a row (non-comptetitive). Finally, as we find that fighting is trickier due to the higher amount of red cells, ground is the only one that works on most dual-types combinations.
This is just one method, we could instead focus on the safer types that fear no immunity but still have a good chance a landing SE damage to most dual-types in the game, and we also should account how many NE single-types there are. With this method, other challengers emerge, such as water, fairy and rock with a score higher than 20 and only 3 red cells.
Conclusion
It was a little funny exercise I wanted to do because I realize there's way more content available for strategic battling than for the same old, boring, in-game battling that's really comparable to a marathon, while strategic is more comparable to an olympic sprint performance. After all, in-game grinding battles come in quantity and each individual battle must be fast and easily resolved, while a strategic battle is "just" one single battle.
This in-game aspect really grinds my gears sometimes, the most potent example is Wobbuffet. Like, OK, Wobbuffet finds an OK niche in strategic battles, but in reality he isn't fit at all to venture through the game. He can't be trained on his own, he will have to rely on Exp. share and Exp. all to level up in the game. This isn't acceptable for me. Raticate or Fearow will perform much better, even if they're no match in some fancy OU battle.
What I want to do next is, a table of which types can safely switch in and take one hit or two. I found it interesting. One example is Electric. If Ground-type moves were not so widely accessible, Electric would be able to just come in and take neutral of NE damage from anything. Same for pure Steel-types. Poison and Dragon are decent, too. The concepts I'd like to see in Pokémon are Pokémon who only use their resistances, instead of their STAB moves. That could be a pure Steel type attacking with Bug attacks only, meaning it's designed to specifically beat Psychic Pokémon.
There could also be funny gym battles with mixed teams where all the Pokémon are weak to fire (Steel, Grass, Bug for example), when no fire-type is yet available in the game. Or another funny concept could emerge, I don't know, a Dragon-type Pokémon that's fit for the beginning of the game (never saw that), all it takes it to give it a full-evo BST lower than 500, and Normal moves only until it raches lv. 20 or 25, that way it's not overpowered, it's well-balanced according to its environment.
Well that was all, I hope it sparked your curiosity, if you made it here, thanks for reading.
Feedback is appreciated.