Which four types have the best coverage, using this points system?

Question

What moveset just based off of types, would have the most coverage over all other types? This is a vague question so I will go into more detail. I am asking what four combination of types would have the best coverage of trying to be at least normally effective and super effective against as many types as possible. I have a system that would make things easier to understand.

If the move set you have has at least one move type that is
supereffective against a type it gets 2 points
normally effective gets 1 point
not very effective is .5 points
no effect at all against a move (nearly impossible unless all moves are the same type) 0 points

an example would be having moves that ice, fire, water, and electric would have a score of 27 since it has super effective typing against 10 types and normally effective typing against 7. The goal is to have the highest score.

Comments

U would likely want a fighting and ground

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Just putting one ghost and one fighting move already gives you a very good coverage. Ghost hits everything for super effective or neutral damage except dark and normal types. Both of which get destroyed by fighting type

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The system described in this question assumes that each type is equally important to hit, which is not true in practice. It's better to assess which coverage moves to use on a case-by-case basis.
You should also consider that a) dual-typed Pokemon make this scoring system even less valuable and b) each additional coverage move you add is likely to be less useful than the previous, to the point you should rarely use four-attacks movesets in the first place.

Answer 1

There are 3060 4-type combinations(18 ncr 4 = 3060)

Ice Fighting Ground Flying, Ice Fighting Ground Ghost, and Ice Fighting Ground Dark are all tied for first with 32 points. Normal Ghost Dragon Dark is in last place with 21 points.(Also last place in the below ruleset with 219.5 points)

Alternatively considering all 171 type combinations, Ice Fighting Ground Rock wins with 377 points(31 points in the simpler system).
Ice Fighting Ground Ghost, and Fire Grass Poison Psychic from BlazeFreeze are tied for 20th with 361 points, and for 1547th with 303 points, respectively. Fire Fighting Ground Ghost by Stormy Eevee is tied for 85th place with 352 points.

Ice Fighting Ground Flying does best in the combination of both competitions with a 4th place 370 points.

Answer 2

Mold Breaker Basculin with Soak and Hidden Power for either Grass or Electric can hit everything super effectively except Arceus and Silvally, and still has two move slots to spare. (In later games Morpeko would dodge it too because its automatic and frequent form changes cause its type to reset, but there's no game where Morpeko exists and Hidden Power is usable at all.)

Comments

"there's no game where Morpeko exists and Hidden Power is usable at all." technically both can be used in NatDex

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National Dex is an artificial format that doesn't replicate the conditions of any official game, and is necessarily subject to a bit of editorial discretion regarding "what-ifs" for situations that could never arise in the games as they exist.

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You can do something similar to this with Lanturn by giving it Soak + any electric type move

Answer 3

The best moveset would include types that are super-effective against numerous other types (eg. Ground).

I think this is a good coverage ( This is the best I could find)-
Ground
Fighting
Fire
Ghost
2+2+1+2+2+2+1+2+1+1+2+2+2+1+2+2+1
That brings me to a total of 28 points.
You could replace Ghost with Fairy- also leaving you with 28 points.
I would recommend Fairy over Ghost because of those annoying pseudo-legendaries like Dragapult, but finding a Pokemon with this type combo is pretty tricky (I actually tried to find one, but Gallade doesn't have reliable Speed Defense and HP unless it's Mega Evolved, and even then Gallade's HP is sad. Mew works but it's a Mythical- I highly doubt you have a competitively viable Mew with a perfect Nature and EVs stashed at the bottom of your PC somewhere.)

On the other hand, it should be easier to find one with the Ground-Fighting-Fire-Ghost combo eg. Garchomp, Tyranitar, Lucario, etc.

Good luck!

Comments

According to the type coverage checker, swapping fire for rock would allow you to hit more pokemon super-effectively. You can also swap ghost for fairy as quite a few moderately decent pokemon can learn decent moves of all of these types.

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Gallade’ one of my favorite Pokémon... :(

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lol, same! But I have to face that's it not a great Pokemon to use in battles sometimes... >.<; (Didn't stop my early battling experience tho)

Answer 4

We would be choosing two mons in which, one does the role of having highest points and the other would cover the types which the first one can't.

The type which is included in brackets () is repeated

Ice - Grass, Flying, Dragon, Ground
Ground - Electric, Fire, Rock, Steel, Poison
Ghost - Psychic, Ghost
Fighting - Dark, Normal, Ice, (Rock), (Steel)

2 + 2 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 = 32 points

• Ice Punch / Avalanche
• Earthquake
• Shadow Claw
• Brick Break / Superpower / Close Combat

Alolan Sandshrew / Sandslash, Nidoking / Nidoqueen, Rhydon / Rhyperior, Kangaskhan, Tyranitar, Aggron, Registeel, Riolu / Lucario, Pangoro, Beawer and Kommo-o can learn Ice Punch + Brick Break.

Nidoking / Nidoqueen, Rhydon / Rhyperior, Tyranitar, Aggron, Registeel, Pangoro, Bewear and Kommo-o can learn Ice Punch + Superpower

Lucario, Pangoro, Bewear and Kommo-o can learn Ice Punch + Close Combat.

Alolan Sandshrew / Sandslash, Nidoqueen / Nidoking, Rhydon / Rhyperior, Kangaskhan, Aggron, Tyranitar, Rayquaza and Palkia can learn Avalanche + Brick Break

Nidoqueen / Nidoking, Rhydon / Rhyperior, Kangaskhan, Aggron and Tyranitar can learn Avalanche + Superpower.

Avalanche + Close Combat combo doesn't exist (no one can learn)

The rest are Bug, Water, Fighting and Fairy types.

Fire - Ice, Steel, Grass, Bug
Grass - Rock, Ground, Water
Psychic - Poison, Fighting
Poison - (Grass), Fairy

1 + 1 + 2 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 2 = 28 points

Though points are less (28), as I said, it just gives support to the first Pokémon I had mentioned.

• Flamethrower
• Energy Ball
• Psychic
• Sludge Bomb

Alolan Exeggutor, Octillery and Pumpkaboo / Gourgeist (average size) can learn all of the above moves.

Hope this helps ;)

Comments

Hm.. cool!