What this Pokémon type coverage calculator shows
Select up to four attacking types and the calculator reports three numbers: how many of the 18 single types take ×2 damage from at least one of your attacks, how many of the dual-type combinations that actually exist on a Pokémon take ×2, and what percentage of all Pokémon in the database you hit super effectively. Below those cards, the Best multiplier against each type grid shows the highest multiplier you have against every single type, and the Type combinations you can't hit super-effectively list names each real typing you miss, with the number of Pokémon that have it.
The default selection is Fire, Water, Grass and Electric, the four types a starter-heavy playthrough team often ends up with. It hits 9 of 18 single types and roughly 60 percent of Pokémon, and the missed list shows why that feels worse than it sounds: pure Normal, Psychic, Electric and Fighting types, which are everywhere, all take neutral damage, and every Dragon type resists at least two of the four.
How to use the coverage calculator
- Click up to four type buttons. The line above them reads Pick up to four attacking types (n selected) and updates as you go. Clicking a selected type removes it; once four are selected, further clicks are ignored until you remove one.
- Set the type chart with the dropdown. Gen 6–9 is the current chart. Gen 2–5 removes Fairy and gives Steel its old Ghost and Dark resistances. Gen 1 removes Steel, Dark and Fairy and uses the original Bug, Poison, Ghost and Ice matchups.
- Read the three cards. Single types hit ×2 is the textbook count. Existing type combos hit ×2 is the realistic one. Pokémon hit ×2 weights those combinations by how many Pokémon have them, so a hole on a typing that only two Pokémon share costs you much less than a hole on pure Water.
- Scan the per-type grid. Green cells are ×2 or better, grey cells are ×1 and red cells are ×0, meaning every one of your attacks is blocked by that type on its own. A red cell on Ghost when you only carry Normal and Fighting is the most common thing this grid catches.
- Work through the missed list. Each chip is one type combination you cannot hit for ×2, in order of how many Pokémon have it. A chip with a red border is a combination that resists or is immune to all of your attacks, not just one that takes neutral damage. Hover to see the exact count and your best multiplier.
If the list is empty the calculator prints Perfect coverage, meaning every existing type combination takes super-effective damage from at least one of your attacks. No four attacking types manage that against the current roster in the Gen 6–9 chart; the best four-type set by combinations hit is Ice, Ground, Rock and Fairy, and even that leaves around twenty typings at neutral. The point of the tool is to show you which twenty.
Why real type combinations matter more than the 18-type count
The chart says Electric beats Water. A Water/Ground Pokémon disagrees: Ground's immunity zeroes the attack. The chart says Fighting beats Normal. Against the Normal/Flying typing shared by most early-route birds, Flying's resistance cancels Normal's weakness and the hit is neutral. Coverage that looks complete on single types can have large holes against the Pokémon you actually face, which is why this calculator checks each combination that exists on at least one Pokémon rather than stopping at the 18-type count.
The combination check also catches the opposite case. Ice is only super effective on four single types, but those four, Grass, Ground, Flying and Dragon, appear on so many dual types that Ice attacks hit a large share of all Pokémon. The Pokémon hit ×2 percentage is where that shows up.
Classic move coverage combinations compared
The numbers below use the Gen 6–9 chart and the current database. Pokémon counts in the tool may shift slightly as forms are added, but the single-type counts and the resist lists do not.
| Attacking types | Single types hit ×2 | Existing typings that resist all of them | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ground + Ice | 9 of 18 | Bug/Water, Bug/Ice | The strongest two-type pair by raw coverage. |
| Electric + Ice (BoltBeam) | 5 of 18 | Electric/Steel, Electric/Fire, Electric/Ice | The classic pair. Only the Magnemite line and two Rotom appliance forms resist both. |
| Fighting + Ghost | 7 of 18 | Normal/Ghost | Neutral or better against every other existing typing. Normal/Ghost (Hisuian Zoroark) is immune to both. |
| Fire + Fighting | 7 of 18 | Fire/Ghost, Water/Flying, Fire/Flying, Water/Poison, Water/Psychic, Dragon/Flying and others | Common on starters; Water types take neutral damage from both. |
| Rock + Ground (EdgeQuake) | 8 of 18 | Grass/Fighting, Grass/Ground | Resisted by very few typings, but both attacks are physical and often inaccurate. |
| Fairy + Steel | 6 of 18 | Pure Fire, pure Steel, Steel/Psychic, Fire/Ghost and more | Strong against Dragon and Dark, but Fire and Steel types wall it. |
| Ground + Ice + Fighting + Ghost | 14 of 18 | None | Every existing typing takes at least neutral damage; pure Water, Fighting, Bug and Fairy take neutral. |
| Fire + Water + Grass + Ground | 10 of 18 | Dragon/Flying | Normal, Psychic, Fighting, Fairy, Ghost, Dark and Dragon all take neutral damage. |
Two lessons come out of the table. First, a pair that hits more single types is not automatically better: Fighting + Ghost hits only seven single types but is neutral or better against every existing typing bar one, while Fairy + Steel hits six and is resisted by dozens of Pokémon. Second, pure Water, pure Normal and pure Psychic are the three typings most often left at ×1, simply because so many Pokémon have them. If your missed list starts with one of those, pick a type that fixes it: Electric or Grass for Water, Fighting for Normal, Bug, Ghost or Dark for Psychic.
Coverage for one Pokémon versus coverage for a team
This page answers the one-Pokémon question: given the four moves this Pokémon can carry, what does it fail to hit? The team question is different. Six Pokémon with four moves each have far more coverage between them, and what matters is whether at least one teammate can threaten each common opponent.
The Pokémon team builder on the home page handles the team version in a simplified form. It uses each member's own types as attacking types, because a Pokémon almost always learns strong same-type attacks, and marks the defending types none of your six can hit for ×2. Treat a struck-through type there as a prompt to come back here, select the real attacking types your members learn, and see whether the hole closes.
The other half of the picture is defense. The Pokémon type calculator takes one Pokémon or type combination and lists everything that hits it for ×2 or ×4, which is the question an opponent is asking about your Pokémon while you are asking this one about theirs.
How to pick coverage moves with this calculator
Start with the attacking types your Pokémon gets a same-type bonus on, since those will be its strongest moves regardless of coverage. Then add one type at a time and watch the missed list shrink. The best third or fourth type is the one that removes the chips with the highest counts, not the one that adds the most green cells to the single-type grid.
A few rules of thumb hold across most generations:
- Ground and Fighting each hit five single types for ×2, more than any other attacking type; Ice, Rock and Fire hit four each. One of these five appears in almost every good coverage set.
- Normal, Poison, Bug and Grass are poor coverage types. Normal is super effective against nothing; Poison is only ×2 on Grass and Fairy; Bug and Grass are each resisted by seven types.
- Fairy is the standard answer to Dragon and Dark. Ghost and Dark are the standard answers to Ghost and Psychic.
- Don't fix a Steel problem with Steel. Steel attacks hit Ice, Rock and Fairy; to hit Steel types themselves you want Fire, Fighting or Ground.
For how coverage fits into the rest of team planning, including defensive synergy and speed, the how to build a Pokémon team guide works through a full example. To see every matchup behind these numbers in a single grid, open the Pokémon type chart.