DISCLAIMER: I do not claim the following chart would make the game better than it currently is. Not even that it would make it more balanced, though that's certainly the intention behind it. This is a thought experiment that I'd love to add your thoughts to as well.
I welcome any and all thoughts.
The idea was simple: if every advantage, be it offensive or defensive, over another type was one "point" (with immunities counting double) and every disadvantage was similarly a negative "point", the types are exposed as horribly unequal:
The following type chart is the result of my attempts to balance all the types to a perfect zero. In theory, this would allow all the types to be equally valuable. I tried to make my changes as reasonable as possible (so no making Steel weak to Grass and Bug just because points) and avoid changes larger than one "step" (aka, removing a resistance instead of turning a resistance into a weakness), though I did sidestep the latter once or twice.
STEEL Offense: -1 | Defense: 9 | Overall: +8
FAIRY Offense: 0 | Defense: 3 | Overall: +3
FIRE Offense: 0 | Defense: 3 | Overall: +3
GHOST Offense: -1 | Defense: 4 | Overall: +3
GROUND Offense: 1 | Defense: 1 | Overall: +2
WATER Offense: 0 | Defense: 2 | Overall: +2
FLYING Offense: 0 | Defense: 2 | Overall: +2
ROCK Offense: 1 | Defense: -1 | Overall: 0
DARK Offense: -1 | Defense: 1 | Overall: 0
POISON Offense: -4 | Defense: 3 | Overall: -1
ELECTRIC Offense: -3 | Defense: 2 | Overall: -1
DRAGON Offense: -2 | Defense: 1 | Overall: -1
FIGHTING Offense: -2 | Defense: 0 | Overall: -2
ICE Offense: 0 | Defense: -3 | Overall: -3
PSYCHIC Offense: -2 | Defense: -1 | Overall: -3
NORMAL Offense: -4 | Defense: 1 | Overall: -3
BUG Offense: -4 | Defense: 0 | Overall: -4
GRASS Offense: -4 | Defense: -1 | Overall: -5
FAIRY Offense: 0 | Defense: 3 | Overall: +3
FIRE Offense: 0 | Defense: 3 | Overall: +3
GHOST Offense: -1 | Defense: 4 | Overall: +3
GROUND Offense: 1 | Defense: 1 | Overall: +2
WATER Offense: 0 | Defense: 2 | Overall: +2
FLYING Offense: 0 | Defense: 2 | Overall: +2
ROCK Offense: 1 | Defense: -1 | Overall: 0
DARK Offense: -1 | Defense: 1 | Overall: 0
POISON Offense: -4 | Defense: 3 | Overall: -1
ELECTRIC Offense: -3 | Defense: 2 | Overall: -1
DRAGON Offense: -2 | Defense: 1 | Overall: -1
FIGHTING Offense: -2 | Defense: 0 | Overall: -2
ICE Offense: 0 | Defense: -3 | Overall: -3
PSYCHIC Offense: -2 | Defense: -1 | Overall: -3
NORMAL Offense: -4 | Defense: 1 | Overall: -3
BUG Offense: -4 | Defense: 0 | Overall: -4
GRASS Offense: -4 | Defense: -1 | Overall: -5
The following type chart is the result of my attempts to balance all the types to a perfect zero. In theory, this would allow all the types to be equally valuable. I tried to make my changes as reasonable as possible (so no making Steel weak to Grass and Bug just because points) and avoid changes larger than one "step" (aka, removing a resistance instead of turning a resistance into a weakness), though I did sidestep the latter once or twice.
That's a lot to take in, I know, and a lot of it probably looks absolutely broken, but stick with me. For now, my explanations - from the types with the least changes to the ones with the most:
ROCK TYPE: One of the two types that didn't need changes, I was actually able to leave the Rock type unchanged, despite flirting with things like a Fire immunity during the process. That's not to say the Rock types will remain exactly as useful as before, seeing as the types around them will change. Grass will become more prominent, but so will Ice and Bug. Trying to gauge how the game will change is the fun part.
Offensive: 1 | Defensive: -1
ELECTRIC TYPE: Steel needed a lot of nerfs here and adding an Electric weakness was the easiest. Water is weak to Electric because it conducts electricity. Steel also conducts electricity - simple as that.
Offensive: -2 | Defensive: +2
DRAGON TYPE: Now instead of being immune, Fairy types simply resist Dragon attacks. I'm aware many Dragon Pokémon are very powerful, but for the purposes of this thought experiment, we're concerning ourselves with just one aspect of the game - the type chart. That's not to say I think Dragons will necessarily become broken. Ice is now a much more usable STAB, for example.
Offensive: -1 | Defensive: 1
DARK TYPE: Despite being perfectly balanced already, Dark has received two changes in order to balance out other types. It is now resisted by Normal, which I will address shortly, and is super-effective against the mighty Steel types. This might be tough to justify, but if Fighting can be strong against Steel by virtue of "hits very hard", I figure sneaky Dark types finding and exploiting a weak spot in the Steel armor might be somewhat adequate. I've considered Water and Ghost as alternate new weaknesses of Steel, but both of those were types I needed to nerf rather than buff, and any other just wouldn't make enough sense.
Offensive: -1 | Defensive: 1
FLYING TYPE: Flying type is now resisted by Ice and the philosophy is the same as with Rock's or Steel's resistance - Ice, while more fragile than both of those, is still solid enough to be unperturbed by wind or wings. The other change might seem surprising - Grass has lost its Flying weakness. But if you think about it… why did it have it in the first place? Sure, birds eat seeds and fruit and whatnot, but they're not necessarily destroying plants. Not to mention not all the Flying types are based on birds anyway. Therefore, while Grass would remain not-very-effective against Flying types, I took away the weakness.
Offensive: -2 | Defensive: 2
WATER TYPE: The problem with Ice wasn't exactly its offensive capabilities, but when Water needed a little nerf, I wasn't hesitant to remove its Ice resistance. It never made much sense to me - if anything, I'd expect Water to be weak to Ice attacks, which should freeze them easy. And indeed Water gains a new weakness here, though not to Ice - to Poison instead. It makes sense if you consider pollution and such.
Offensive: 0 | Defensive: 0
NORMAL TYPE: Here is a tricky one. How do you buff the Normal type? I couldn't make it super-effective against anything - even putting aside the fact it wouldn't make sense for a non-element, a type weak to normal would essentially be weak to almost every Pokémon in the game. Even Magikarp learns Normal attacks, for crying out loud. At the same time, removing Rock and Steel resistance or the Ghost immunity wouldn't make sense either. Removing the Fighting weakness? No other type is allowed to be naturally weaknessless and also Chansey exists. So I had to get creative - in the end I picked three resistances: the combo of "good and evil" in Fairy and Dark, which a "neutral" Normal type could resist, and Bug, the type representing the weakest of critters. Hardly a perfect explanation, but it's the best I could come up with.
Offensive: -4 | Defensive: 4
PSYCHIC TYPE: It's pretty funny that Steel, a type largely introduced to balance the Psychic type, should lose its Psychic resistance in a chart meant to balance the game, but here we are. Steel's resistances, I figured, should be "physically-focused" and if ghostly spells can bypass the armor, there's no reason psychic powers shouldn't also. Additionally, Psychic gains two new resistances - to Ice and Fire. A powerful mind, I figure, can remain unperturbed by either cold or heat.
Offensive: -1 | Defensive: 1
FIRE TYPE: Raise your hand if you understood why Fire should resist Fairy. Yeah, me neither. I invert this resistance in this chart - it's now Fairies that resist Fire with their magical powers or whatnot. Psychic's new resistance to Fire we've already touched upon.
Offensive: -2 | Defensive: 2
GRASS TYPE: Here it is - my favourite type of them all and objectively the worst - despite everyone always giving said title to Ice or Bug instead. Fixing Grass was cathartic, but not necessarily easy. I wanted to focus on the defenses - the idea being that plants aren't very dangerous, but definitely stubborn. Still, I did make Grass just a little bit better offensively - by removing Bug's resistance to it. Bug remains super-effective on Grass types, but I figure this is one of those advantages that works fine without the added resistance. Grass loses a Flying weakness, as we've mentioned already, gains a Ghost resistance (like other "nature" or "life" affirming types as we'll soon see) and - the pièce de résistance - gains an immunity to Fairy. I was appalled when Fairy was introduced and it was Fire that resisted it, rather than Grass. Clearly GameFreak was going for a magical type, the first Fairy legendary literally having life-giving powers. Why not make it less harmful against the nature Grass type represents? Immunity is going pretty far, I admit, and I did try for some time to make it a simple resistance, but in the end Grass really needed a bigger buff.
Offensive: -3 | Defensive: 3
GROUND TYPE: Ground remains a strong offensive type but loses its advantages over Poison - I even considered making it weak to Poison with the pollution argument again, but the change would've been too drastic. It also gains a resistance to Steel, distinguishing itself a little more from the Rock type, and a weakness to Bug. This one is a little forced, but with bugs often burrowing skillfully through soil and softening it, I reckon it's just barely sensible enough.
Offensive: 0 | Defensive: 0
ICE TYPE: Here it is, the wet tissue paper that people mistakenly claim is worse than Grass. At least it can hit some things… Anyway, here we fix the fragile Ice type. I've mentioned already how Water doesn't resist Ice anymore but Psychic now does. What I haven't said yet that Steel also loses its Ice resistance. The idea is the same as the one with Psychic type - Steel's armor provides more "physical" resistances, while Ice attacks are more "elemental" even when not actually special moves. But what you've all been waiting for is the defensive buffs - two new resistances, to Flying and Poison. The first one I've already touched upon when discussing Flying type changes, but the Poison one is very valuable this time around. Poison is much better as an attacking type in this chart and Ice type resists it due to how cold can be used to slow or immobilize viruses and such. And though water might be easy to pollute, in the form of ice, it refuses to absorb the toxins quite as easily.
Offensive: 1 | Defensive: -1
GHOST TYPE: Now a much more dedicated defensive type, Ghost resists Steel type. I've considered giving it resistance to even more "physical" types, like Ground, but again, I was on a primarily nerfing mission here. Ghost loses two advantages over Bug - not only does it no longer resist Bug attacks (why did it?), but it's resisted by Bug instead. In fact Ghost is now resisted by three "life" or "nature" themed types in Bug, Fairy and Grass.
Offensive: -4 | Defensive: 4
FIGHTING TYPE: I tried to make Fighting type more offense-focused (duh!) and part of the result is better neutral coverage. Three types lose their Fighting resistance - Bug, Fairy and Poison. In fact the bizarre both-ways resistance with Bug is removed entirely. I never understood this one, but perhaps it had something to do with the "bugs = superheroes" association Japan has (the reason Bug is strong against the evil Dark). Anyway - Fighting now resists Steel, since a martial artist can handle even powerful attacks with weapons better, but is weak to Poison. Poison's advantage makes much more sense as an offensive one, in my opinion. It's reasonable to think even a powerful warrior can be taken down with venom, but why would poisonous animals be more resilient against martial arts?
Offensive: 1 | Defensive: -1
STEEL TYPE: Oh boy, here it is. Eight points, ladies and gentlemen. I had to remove eight points from this absolutely broken type the entire metagame is currently forced to play around. Most of the changes I've already described, but one remains, and it's a big one: Steel loses its immunity to Poison. It stays immune to the status condition, as that part makes sense, but takes at least a little damage from Poison moves. Some acids, after all, can corrode or even melt metal.
Offensive: -4 | Defensive: 4
FAIRY TYPE: All the changes to Fairy have already been mentioned in the descriptions of other types.
Offensive: -2 | Defensive: 2
POISON TYPE: Almost all the changes to Poison have already been mentioned in the descriptions of other types, except for one - it's now resisted by Bug. Insects, bugs and the like are capable of live in the most unsanitary conditions and care little about pollution. You might find it interesting that the type that started so close to a balanced zero points has received this many changes. This is partially due to making a lot of "passing by" changes, altering other types by changing their Poison relationships, but also because I had one slight agenda aside from balancing the chart - I wanted to make Poison much more offensively viable. The literal Killing type being awful in terms of offense never sat well with me.
Offensive: -2 | Defensive: 2
BUG TYPE: Remember how my goal for Grass type was to make it more defensive? Bug type is the opposite - representing the more... forward part of nature. Bugs bite you, bugs sting you, bugs crawl all over you, annoy you, they're everywhere. Therefore, I tried to make the type more offensively viable. Defensively speaking, the resistances to Grass and Fighting have been swapped for resistances to Ghost and Poison
Offensive: 0 | Defensive: 0
Many of those changes probably look horrifying on paper, but try to look at them as a whole. Yes, Electric just got way better - but now Grass can skyrocket in viability, providing many more usable Electric-resistant Pokémon than just Ground types. Yes, Steel now ties with Rock for the most weaknesses of all types, but it still resists literally half of all types and despite being even worse offensively, remains an advantageous pick over some of the most potent offensive types in Ice and Rock, as well as an even better answer to Dragon types.
You might claim that this will only amplify the advantages Pokémon have by virtue of their stats, movesets and Abilities - powerful legendary Dragon and Psychic types getting even stronger - but the opposite is true as well. Pokémon that were screwed by being cursed with awful typings, like Parasect or Aurorus, will be able to compete on a more level playing field. I would love love love to know how a metagame would change with these changes.
ROCK TYPE: One of the two types that didn't need changes, I was actually able to leave the Rock type unchanged, despite flirting with things like a Fire immunity during the process. That's not to say the Rock types will remain exactly as useful as before, seeing as the types around them will change. Grass will become more prominent, but so will Ice and Bug. Trying to gauge how the game will change is the fun part.
Offensive: 1 | Defensive: -1
ELECTRIC TYPE: Steel needed a lot of nerfs here and adding an Electric weakness was the easiest. Water is weak to Electric because it conducts electricity. Steel also conducts electricity - simple as that.
Offensive: -2 | Defensive: +2
DRAGON TYPE: Now instead of being immune, Fairy types simply resist Dragon attacks. I'm aware many Dragon Pokémon are very powerful, but for the purposes of this thought experiment, we're concerning ourselves with just one aspect of the game - the type chart. That's not to say I think Dragons will necessarily become broken. Ice is now a much more usable STAB, for example.
Offensive: -1 | Defensive: 1
DARK TYPE: Despite being perfectly balanced already, Dark has received two changes in order to balance out other types. It is now resisted by Normal, which I will address shortly, and is super-effective against the mighty Steel types. This might be tough to justify, but if Fighting can be strong against Steel by virtue of "hits very hard", I figure sneaky Dark types finding and exploiting a weak spot in the Steel armor might be somewhat adequate. I've considered Water and Ghost as alternate new weaknesses of Steel, but both of those were types I needed to nerf rather than buff, and any other just wouldn't make enough sense.
Offensive: -1 | Defensive: 1
FLYING TYPE: Flying type is now resisted by Ice and the philosophy is the same as with Rock's or Steel's resistance - Ice, while more fragile than both of those, is still solid enough to be unperturbed by wind or wings. The other change might seem surprising - Grass has lost its Flying weakness. But if you think about it… why did it have it in the first place? Sure, birds eat seeds and fruit and whatnot, but they're not necessarily destroying plants. Not to mention not all the Flying types are based on birds anyway. Therefore, while Grass would remain not-very-effective against Flying types, I took away the weakness.
Offensive: -2 | Defensive: 2
WATER TYPE: The problem with Ice wasn't exactly its offensive capabilities, but when Water needed a little nerf, I wasn't hesitant to remove its Ice resistance. It never made much sense to me - if anything, I'd expect Water to be weak to Ice attacks, which should freeze them easy. And indeed Water gains a new weakness here, though not to Ice - to Poison instead. It makes sense if you consider pollution and such.
Offensive: 0 | Defensive: 0
NORMAL TYPE: Here is a tricky one. How do you buff the Normal type? I couldn't make it super-effective against anything - even putting aside the fact it wouldn't make sense for a non-element, a type weak to normal would essentially be weak to almost every Pokémon in the game. Even Magikarp learns Normal attacks, for crying out loud. At the same time, removing Rock and Steel resistance or the Ghost immunity wouldn't make sense either. Removing the Fighting weakness? No other type is allowed to be naturally weaknessless and also Chansey exists. So I had to get creative - in the end I picked three resistances: the combo of "good and evil" in Fairy and Dark, which a "neutral" Normal type could resist, and Bug, the type representing the weakest of critters. Hardly a perfect explanation, but it's the best I could come up with.
Offensive: -4 | Defensive: 4
PSYCHIC TYPE: It's pretty funny that Steel, a type largely introduced to balance the Psychic type, should lose its Psychic resistance in a chart meant to balance the game, but here we are. Steel's resistances, I figured, should be "physically-focused" and if ghostly spells can bypass the armor, there's no reason psychic powers shouldn't also. Additionally, Psychic gains two new resistances - to Ice and Fire. A powerful mind, I figure, can remain unperturbed by either cold or heat.
Offensive: -1 | Defensive: 1
FIRE TYPE: Raise your hand if you understood why Fire should resist Fairy. Yeah, me neither. I invert this resistance in this chart - it's now Fairies that resist Fire with their magical powers or whatnot. Psychic's new resistance to Fire we've already touched upon.
Offensive: -2 | Defensive: 2
GRASS TYPE: Here it is - my favourite type of them all and objectively the worst - despite everyone always giving said title to Ice or Bug instead. Fixing Grass was cathartic, but not necessarily easy. I wanted to focus on the defenses - the idea being that plants aren't very dangerous, but definitely stubborn. Still, I did make Grass just a little bit better offensively - by removing Bug's resistance to it. Bug remains super-effective on Grass types, but I figure this is one of those advantages that works fine without the added resistance. Grass loses a Flying weakness, as we've mentioned already, gains a Ghost resistance (like other "nature" or "life" affirming types as we'll soon see) and - the pièce de résistance - gains an immunity to Fairy. I was appalled when Fairy was introduced and it was Fire that resisted it, rather than Grass. Clearly GameFreak was going for a magical type, the first Fairy legendary literally having life-giving powers. Why not make it less harmful against the nature Grass type represents? Immunity is going pretty far, I admit, and I did try for some time to make it a simple resistance, but in the end Grass really needed a bigger buff.
Offensive: -3 | Defensive: 3
GROUND TYPE: Ground remains a strong offensive type but loses its advantages over Poison - I even considered making it weak to Poison with the pollution argument again, but the change would've been too drastic. It also gains a resistance to Steel, distinguishing itself a little more from the Rock type, and a weakness to Bug. This one is a little forced, but with bugs often burrowing skillfully through soil and softening it, I reckon it's just barely sensible enough.
Offensive: 0 | Defensive: 0
ICE TYPE: Here it is, the wet tissue paper that people mistakenly claim is worse than Grass. At least it can hit some things… Anyway, here we fix the fragile Ice type. I've mentioned already how Water doesn't resist Ice anymore but Psychic now does. What I haven't said yet that Steel also loses its Ice resistance. The idea is the same as the one with Psychic type - Steel's armor provides more "physical" resistances, while Ice attacks are more "elemental" even when not actually special moves. But what you've all been waiting for is the defensive buffs - two new resistances, to Flying and Poison. The first one I've already touched upon when discussing Flying type changes, but the Poison one is very valuable this time around. Poison is much better as an attacking type in this chart and Ice type resists it due to how cold can be used to slow or immobilize viruses and such. And though water might be easy to pollute, in the form of ice, it refuses to absorb the toxins quite as easily.
Offensive: 1 | Defensive: -1
GHOST TYPE: Now a much more dedicated defensive type, Ghost resists Steel type. I've considered giving it resistance to even more "physical" types, like Ground, but again, I was on a primarily nerfing mission here. Ghost loses two advantages over Bug - not only does it no longer resist Bug attacks (why did it?), but it's resisted by Bug instead. In fact Ghost is now resisted by three "life" or "nature" themed types in Bug, Fairy and Grass.
Offensive: -4 | Defensive: 4
FIGHTING TYPE: I tried to make Fighting type more offense-focused (duh!) and part of the result is better neutral coverage. Three types lose their Fighting resistance - Bug, Fairy and Poison. In fact the bizarre both-ways resistance with Bug is removed entirely. I never understood this one, but perhaps it had something to do with the "bugs = superheroes" association Japan has (the reason Bug is strong against the evil Dark). Anyway - Fighting now resists Steel, since a martial artist can handle even powerful attacks with weapons better, but is weak to Poison. Poison's advantage makes much more sense as an offensive one, in my opinion. It's reasonable to think even a powerful warrior can be taken down with venom, but why would poisonous animals be more resilient against martial arts?
Offensive: 1 | Defensive: -1
STEEL TYPE: Oh boy, here it is. Eight points, ladies and gentlemen. I had to remove eight points from this absolutely broken type the entire metagame is currently forced to play around. Most of the changes I've already described, but one remains, and it's a big one: Steel loses its immunity to Poison. It stays immune to the status condition, as that part makes sense, but takes at least a little damage from Poison moves. Some acids, after all, can corrode or even melt metal.
Offensive: -4 | Defensive: 4
FAIRY TYPE: All the changes to Fairy have already been mentioned in the descriptions of other types.
Offensive: -2 | Defensive: 2
POISON TYPE: Almost all the changes to Poison have already been mentioned in the descriptions of other types, except for one - it's now resisted by Bug. Insects, bugs and the like are capable of live in the most unsanitary conditions and care little about pollution. You might find it interesting that the type that started so close to a balanced zero points has received this many changes. This is partially due to making a lot of "passing by" changes, altering other types by changing their Poison relationships, but also because I had one slight agenda aside from balancing the chart - I wanted to make Poison much more offensively viable. The literal Killing type being awful in terms of offense never sat well with me.
Offensive: -2 | Defensive: 2
BUG TYPE: Remember how my goal for Grass type was to make it more defensive? Bug type is the opposite - representing the more... forward part of nature. Bugs bite you, bugs sting you, bugs crawl all over you, annoy you, they're everywhere. Therefore, I tried to make the type more offensively viable. Defensively speaking, the resistances to Grass and Fighting have been swapped for resistances to Ghost and Poison
Offensive: 0 | Defensive: 0
Many of those changes probably look horrifying on paper, but try to look at them as a whole. Yes, Electric just got way better - but now Grass can skyrocket in viability, providing many more usable Electric-resistant Pokémon than just Ground types. Yes, Steel now ties with Rock for the most weaknesses of all types, but it still resists literally half of all types and despite being even worse offensively, remains an advantageous pick over some of the most potent offensive types in Ice and Rock, as well as an even better answer to Dragon types.
You might claim that this will only amplify the advantages Pokémon have by virtue of their stats, movesets and Abilities - powerful legendary Dragon and Psychic types getting even stronger - but the opposite is true as well. Pokémon that were screwed by being cursed with awful typings, like Parasect or Aurorus, will be able to compete on a more level playing field. I would love love love to know how a metagame would change with these changes.
I welcome any and all thoughts.
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