Why aren't some moves dual types?

Question

for example:fire punch. could'nt that be a fire and fighting type move?

Comments

A grass water move on golem!

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Here is what its damage will be:

Water/Grass

SE: Ground and Rock(both 4x)
NVE: Grass(double RES), Poison, Flying, Bug, Dragon(double RES), Steel

Answer 1

Firstly, older moves are not dual type most likely because they did not think of doing that in the past, or the older games did not have the technical capacity to have too many unique moves with special conditions.

Next, although it's called a dual type move, from a technical standpoint it's a Fighting type move that's effective against different types to usual. In the same way Freeze-Dry is an Ice type move but is also super effective on Water.

Flying Press works well because the two types do not overlap. The types that Fighting is SE against, Flying is not. So there is no awkwardness with 4x damage against a single type. A Grass/Water dual type would make it 4x effective on both Ground and Rock which as the comment above says, would be devastating against Golem: 16x damage!

So in theory, they could add more moves in future that were considered dual types. But they would have to limit the damage to make it sensible.

Comments

wow this is so rare xD

Answer 2

Another Reason is it would be really difficult and messy in calculation the defences . Fire punch to Ferrothorn will do like X6 damage .
Even i wondered about the same thing like a month ago but then realised how complicated the game would get .

Ex. Shadow Claw ( Chost + Fighting )

 Does it hit normal pokemon , does it not !! Sooo complicated .

Comments

If shadow claw was a fighting and ghost type move, it would hit normal types w/ring target.

Here is what its damage will be:

Fighting/Ghost

SuperEffective: Ice, Rock, Steel
Not Effective: Normal(2x), Ghost(2x)
Not Very Effective: Poison, Flying, Bug, Fairy

Answer 3

A fairly decent answer is the that it would add too much power to small attacks thus hindering the entire defensive spectrum of the game, a fire fighting move would indefinitely hit a steel type for a free 4x damage(or maybe more than that on Ferrothorn) almost guaranteeing a knockout every time, in other words there would be no defensive pokemon anymore, and even more typing to calculate in an attack would easily make the game less enjoyable. In other words, they pick one to keep it a simple as possible.

Answer 4

I know I shouldn't be commenting on something from 2011, but I feel it's worth noting the move Flying Press. I think it has a great way of being two types. It counts as whichever of Flying and Fighting will do more damage though for the sake of certain berries and Justified is by default Fighting. Example, if Hawlucha (it being the only 'mon with the move) uses Flying Press on a Rock type, it will count as a Fighting type move to be super effective though will be a Flying type move on Grass types. It is an interesting move and I hope Gen VIII will bring more such moves.

Comments

Flying press isn't super effective on the rock type because rock resists flying.

Answer 5

The reason is because some moves just wouldnt work , example shadow claw (like another person said) would be ghost+fighting it wouldnt hit normal type moves unless you had the ring target item on your Pokemon , and a lot of moves would have the same issue , and yes I think fire punch could be fire+fighting but hey , its up to nintendo.