Type classifications

Alright, my goal here is to take all the different Pokemon types and divide them into different categories, based on matchups and just... y'know, how they seem to fit together. I barely have a clue what I'm doing, and I'm starting from scratch, so there may be overlaps, or even missed types. Wish me luck, and feel free to give your own input to my nonsense.

And yes, I'll probably ramble some theories about these things later.

Uncategorized: No true, distinct place it fits.
Normal

Basic: Types that focus on simple striking attacks (offense) or body structure (defense), instead of fancy powers.
Normal
Fighting
Flying
Bug
Poison

Elemental: This one is pretty obvious, isn't it?
Fire
Water
Grass
Electric
Ice
Rock
Ground

Spectral: Paranormal powers. OooooOOOOooooo~
Psychic
Ghost
Dark
Fighting

Phobic: Common human fears.
Ghost
Bug
Dark

Earth: Obvious again.
Rock
Ground
Steel

Nature: Think of nature for a minute. Now look at these types.
Grass
Water
Rock
Ground
Poison
Flying

Unnatural (human): Unnatural, and caused by human interference.
Steel
Poison
Electric
Normal

Unnatural (other): Not... normal. But also not caused by humans.
Psychic
Ghost

Legendary: Let's face it... there's a -lot- of legendaries for both these types.
Psychic
Dragon

Recursive: They're both super effective against themselves. Intriguing!
Ghost
Dragon

Mutual: The only types that aren't very effective against each other.
Bug
Fighting

Null: The only types that don't effect each other at all.
Normal
Ghost

Questions? Comments? I'm insane? Post it. |3

This is great! I thought of something like it too a while back.
Dividing the types up into Physical, Chemical, Mental and Electrical.

I do think that 'special defence' is far too broad a term... being hit by and resisting a flamethrower would take an entirely different form of defence to having your mind tormented by dream eater for example, yet they both work on the same 'special defence' stat.

Then there's also the irregularity of the electric type. Since electricity passes through objects it means that having a hard shell would be no-use if your insides are all fleshy, and so would require a very different form of resistance.

Anthan wrote:This is great! I thought of something like it too a while back.
Dividing the types up into Physical, Chemical, Mental and Electrical.

I do think that 'special defence' is far too broad a term... being hit by and resisting a flamethrower would take an entirely different form of defence to having your mind tormented by dream eater for example, yet they both work on the same 'special defence' stat.

Then there's also the irregularity of the electric type. Since electricity passes through objects it means that having a hard shell would be no-use if your insides are all fleshy, and so would require a very different form of resistance.

Well, first off, I don't really think you can -totally- divide them up into separate groups. Hence the overlaps.

Second off, that bit about 'special defense' is more a matter of game simplicity. It's a lot easier to work with (and program) physical and special stats. As opposed to physical and... heat, cold, electric, water attack and defense. >.>

Besides, look at a lot of the Pokemon with high special defense! Blissey, Clefable, Wigglytuff. Clearly, they're magic. Therefore, a wizard did it~

As for names of groups, I assume your "Mental" group is similar to my "Spectral" group, right? There's a particular reason I didn't go with Mental for the name of mine. Mainly, it's that the Psychic type is the only one whose powers are explicitly mind-based. And the Fighting type, to a lesser extent. Dark and Ghost types seem to be a more paranormal force, but operating on the same plane of existence that Psychics manipulate. I plan on going into a big, in-depth thing about this later.

I went on what would be needed to resist it. You'd need a strong mind to resist a psychic type or a ghost type move.
And it was based on the Physical/Special attribute rather than the type of the move. Therefore could be applied to the individual move than the type of the move.

Anthan wrote:I went on what would be needed to resist it. You'd need a strong mind to resist a psychic type or a ghost type move.
And it was based on the Physical/Special attribute rather than the type of the move. Therefore could be applied to the individual move than the type of the move.

Again, main problem is just... y'know, simplicity's sake. It would be -obscenely- hard to program every Pokemon with a separate Attack and Defense stat for every conceivable kind of attack. And that's just on the developers' end. The stat display would be an absolute nightmare to read, on top of the difficulty in programming it up to begin with. And what's the plan for physical moves with 'special' attributes? Y'know, Fire Punch and Wild Charge and such? Split the damage between its physical parts and its elemental parts? Sorry, but that'd be a major pain to get working.

And, to be fair? I'm pretty sure the entire system of type matchups is... pretty much set up to do exactly what you're talking about. It's not necessarily perfect, of course, but... that's what it's there to do. It's the reason most types are resistant to themselves, and most elemental type matchups are pretty logical in that regard, too.

Anyways, the developers aren't idiots. They might have their consistency errors and terrible Pokemon designs now and then, but I'm pretty sure they -know- the system doesn't catch everything. Frankly, this sort of thing -has- been addressed with a couple abilities.

Thick Fat gives a resistance to Fire and Ice attacks, and Heatproof does the same for Fire only. Flash Fire and things like that might count too, but they generally turn a resistance into an immunity, as opposed to providing an immunity against what would normally be a weakness, or neutral.

Anyways... this whole discussion is a bit irrelevant. I'm talking about grouping types together, not all the reasons Special Defense is a stupid stat. In fact, I never once mentioned Special Defense in the original post.

EDIT: Sorry if that whole thing was a ramble about nothing. I'm not entirely sure I got what you meant by that line about 'mental' attacks and the physical/special split, so I just had to assume I didn't agree with it. |3