What's the best Pokemon type?

[Squirrel]

Poison I'd unfortunately have to say Dragon. If you're building a monotype team I'd give Flying the spot of the best type simply because they have so much diversity and can perform practically any niche with ease, but as part of a balanced mixed type team I'd say Dragon are the winners. It's annoying because I've always seen them as over-powered and irritating for this very reason, but what can you do when they give the typing to most of the strongest Pokémon in the game? Hopefully the Fairies will nerf the Dragons a bit, but we'll have to wait and see.

 

[Hikamaru]

Poison I'd unfortunately have to say Dragon. If you're building a monotype team I'd give Flying the spot of the best type simply because they have so much diversity and can perform practically any niche with ease, but as part of a balanced mixed type team I'd say Dragon are the winners. It's annoying because I've always seen them as over-powered and irritating for this very reason, but what can you do when they give the typing to most of the strongest Pokémon in the game? Hopefully the Fairies will nerf the Dragons a bit, but we'll have to wait and see.

I second this, Dragon-types became OP in the DS era, sorta like Psychic-types in 1st Gen. Hence why instead of weakening certain attacks, they bring the Fairy-types into the mix so that Dragons can get another weakness and therefore not be as threatening. It doesn't help that Dragons often have very superior stats too.

 

[KorpiklaaniVodka]

If you're building a monotype team I'd give Flying the spot of the best type simply because they have so much diversity and can perform practically any niche with ease

A type that is mega-weak to Stealth Rock is not the best type in monotype teams.

As for Monotype teams, probably Fighting is the best, because it hits many types for super effective damage and has weapons against Psychic-, Flying- and Ghost- types (Payback, Stone Edge, Ice Punch.)

The Dragon-type isn't the best type imo because it only hits itself for super effective damage (at least it's better than Normal).

 

[PlatinumDude]

A type that is mega-weak to Stealth Rock is not the best type in monotype teams.

As for Monotype teams, probably Fighting is the best, because it hits many types for super effective damage and has weapons against Psychic-, Flying- and Ghost- types (Payback, Stone Edge, Ice Punch.)

The Dragon-type isn't the best type imo because it only hits itself for super effective damage (at least it's better than Normal).

Don't forget that some Flying Pokemon have another type that's resistant to Rock, like Skarmory and Gliscor.

 

[Zebz213]

I don't think there is a best type since it usually depends on the person rather than the pokemon but if I had to pick, I'd say Dragon-Type.

 

[Shrew]

Definitely Steel. On average, types have 3.58 resistances or immunities. Steel has 11. On average, types have 2.71 weaknesses. Steel fits the average with 3.

So what if steel moves are bad offensively? The true strength of a steel-type shines when paired with other types--Heatran can still use fire STAB, Skarmory still has flying STAB, and Ferrothorn can use grass STAB.

In XY, it's been strongly hinted and rumored that Fairy will be weak against Steel. Yikes.

I think claiming that Dragon is the best type is grossly exaggerated because it's really their high BSTs that made the type overpowered. Consider: Altaria has the same BST as both Alakazam and Ferrothorn. Altaria also has access to the most useful dragon type moves: Outrage, Draco Meteor, and Dragon Dance. And yet, Altaria is NU whereas the latter are OU. Meanwhile, the majority of OU's dragons have 600 BST.

Sure, dragon is useful considering it's only resisted by one type in the game (*cough* steel), but no one ever carries dragon coverage moves. I mean, when was the last time you saw Hidden Power Dragon being used for its good neutral-coverage? Defensively, you'll find that dragons fit the average. It's the stats that make dragons useful, not the typing per se.

 

[KorpiklaaniVodka]

i'm going to tell you guys why dragon-types aren't op

When there were so many steel-types back in gen 4 OU like Skarmory, Forretress, Jirachi, Metagross etc etc, and Draco Meteor was very rare back in gen 4 OU because the best users of it were banned (with the exception of Latias and Salamence, who got the boot too in late Gen 4 for stupid reasons)

Dragon Dance ... yes that's a good move, but if Dragonite uses Dragon Dance as I switch to weavile, dragonite's sweep is halted (ES Dragonite was pretty rare back in gen 4 on DD sets) and even then Weavile can take a +1 ExtremeSpeed and ohko with Ice Shard.

Yes there are a ton of dragons in OU now, but Jirachi, Forretress and Skarmory can still hold them, and now they even have one new ally: Ferrothorn. There's also Drizzle Politoed which helps them take fire-type attacks better, which are very often seen on dragons. Oh yeah and Skarmory is also immune to Earthquake which forces Garchomp and Salamence to use Fire Blast.

Steel-types have always been popular because of how many resistances it had and because most Steel-types were also pretty bulky. Imagine a Steel-type with Multiscale and Lugia-like defenses, that'd be awful.

 

[KRUDDYMUSICIAN]

you seem to forget, dragon type moves are only super effective against dragon types. they are tied with poison types with having the lowest amount of types weak against 1 type. poison is only super effective against grass. But when you have Kingdra and palkia, water/dragon pokemon, dragon type moves are the only super effective moves against these guys. lets remember, that's 2 pokemon out of 600+ pokemon that counts for.