BASIC · The call you make every single turn
Every turn, you pick a move, and the question running underneath that choice is always the same: will this hit hard, get resisted, or do nothing? The faster that read becomes automatic, the better every turn gets. This lesson front-loads the instinct so you don't have to lose forty games to find it.
Here's the bare-minimum version first: super effective (×2) doubles your damage, resisted (×0.5) halves it, immune (×0) deals nothing. Know just those three and you can already play. From there we go down one layer at a time, each with a real example, so you never have to memorize a chart cold.
BASIC · The five multipliers, learn them all
When a move hits, the damage lands in one of these five bands:
- ×0 (immune) — zero damage, the whole turn wasted
- ×0.25 — doubly resisted, barely a scratch
- ×0.5 (not very effective) — resisted, half damage
- ×2 (super effective) — hitting a weakness, double damage
- ×4 — hitting a double weakness, four times damage
The classic ×4: Garchomp is Dragon/Ground, so an Ice move hits it for Ice ×2 vs Dragon, times Ice ×2 vs Ground — the two multipliers stack, giving ×4. That's the whole reason people say "see a Garchomp, think Ice."
One-line rule: check the multiplier before you commit. A ×4 can end a game; clicking into a ×0 you could have seen coming just hands the opponent a free turn.
INTERMEDIATE · How two types stack — the part that's really about cancellation
What trips beginners isn't the ×4. It's when a Pokémon's two types pull the multiplier in opposite directions. The rule is simple: multiply both, regardless of direction. You need to recognize all three outcomes.
Case 1, both point the same way → ×4 or ×0.25. Gastrodon (Water/Ground) eating a Grass move: Grass ×2 vs Water, ×2 vs Ground → ×4. Flip it: Charizard (Fire/Flying) eating Grass: ×0.5 vs Fire, ×0.5 vs Flying → ×0.25, almost nothing.
Case 2, one weakness and one resistance → they cancel to ×1. A Fire move on Gastrodon: Fire ×0.5 vs Water, ×1 vs Ground → ×0.5 (just resisted). Now a true cancel: an Electric move into a Water/Grass target — Electric ×2 vs Water, ×0.5 vs Grass → ×1. It looks like you're hitting a weakness, and it lands for neutral. This is the single most common beginner trap: seeing one half of a weakness and assuming you profit, when the other half drags it back to neutral. Always run both types before you click.
Case 3, one half is immune → the whole thing zeroes out, immunity beats everything. Charizard is Fire/Flying. A Ground move would hit Fire for ×2, but Flying is immune to Ground — ×0 wipes the entire multiplier. You click Earthquake, you deal nothing. Immunity always wins, no matter how super effective the other half looked.
Memorize the common immunities and you save yourself your worst wasted turns:
- Ground → Flying (×0)
- Normal, Fighting → Ghost (×0)
- Ghost → Normal (×0)
- Electric → Ground (×0)
- Poison → Steel (×0)
- Dragon → Fairy (×0)
- Psychic → Dark (×0)
Note most of those are type-based immunities, separate from ability-based ones like Levitate (immune to Ground). The ability kind comes in the next lesson.
INTERMEDIATE · STAB: a free 1.5× you never pay for
STAB (Same-Type Attack Bonus) means a move that matches one of your Pokémon's own types deals ×1.5 damage, automatically. No setup, no conditions, always on. That's why nearly every Pokémon carries at least one move of its own type — it's the highest damage floor they get without doing anything to earn it.
Garchomp is Dragon/Ground, so its Earthquake (Ground) gets STAB; its Ice Fang (Ice) does not. Same Pokémon, same turn, one move is multiplied by 1.5 and the other isn't. That gap shows.
INTERMEDIATE · STAB × super effective → ×3, the reason beginners get deleted
Now multiply the two together. Super effective (×2) + STAB (×1.5) = an effective ×3.
Real scene: Garchomp uses its STAB Earthquake into a Steel-type that's weak to Ground (×2). That's Earthquake's base power × 1.5 (STAB) × 2 (matchup) — triple the base. The "how did that one move kill me" moments are almost always these two bonuses stacking. The flip side: when you hold a STAB super-effective move, don't hesitate — that's usually your highest output of the turn.
INTERMEDIATE · Predict, then reveal
Don't scroll. Work it out in your head first, then check. Guessing once beats re-reading ten times.
Q1. A Gastrodon (Water/Ground) is in front of you, and you have a Grass-type Pokémon with a STAB Grass move. What's the type multiplier? And with STAB included, what total multiple of base power?
Answer → Grass vs Water/Ground = ×2 × ×2 = ×4, then STAB ×1.5 = an effective ×6. This is the textbook "one move ends it" — see a Water/Ground target, think Grass.
Q2. You want a Ground move on Charizard (Fire/Flying). Ground is ×2 into Fire, so it sounds like a hit. What's it really?
Answer → ×0. Flying is immune to Ground, which zeroes everything before the Fire half can matter. Clicking it is a dead turn — exactly the "immunity beats everything" trap from above.
ADVANCED · Defensive vs offensive typing: the same Pokémon's two faces
At this layer, start splitting "type" into two jobs.
Offensive typing is the type of your move — it decides how hard you hit others and whether you get STAB. Defensive typing is the Pokémon's own type combination — it decides how hard others hit you. A Pokémon's two types work on both tables at once, and they're often a strength on one and a liability on the other.
Charizard is the living example. Its Flying type gives it STAB Flying moves on offense and a Ground immunity on defense (great). But Fire/Flying on defense also makes it doubly weak to Rock — Rock ×2 vs Fire, ×2 vs Flying = ×4. That's why a Rock-type entry hazard like Stealth Rock is so brutal to it. Same Flying type: an asset on offense, a soft spot on defense. When you build and when you pick a move, you have to count both faces.
One aside: in tournament rules, the only mechanic that changes a Pokémon's defensive typing mid-battle is Mega Evolution — some Pokémon shift type on Mega Evolving, and their weaknesses re-shuffle with it. The Scarlet/Violet tools — Tera, Z-Moves, Dynamax — aren't in Champions right now, so "change my typing to dodge a weakness" only runs through Mega for now. Don't reason about it like SV.
ADVANCED · Chaining type × STAB × roll into one real decision
You can compute a single multiplier now. But a real attacking decision isn't one number — it's a string of them multiplied together, and a lot of players only solve half the chain before they click. The full chain:
Base power × STAB (×1.5) × type multiplier × damage roll × (ability modifiers) = this hit's real range
That damage roll matters: every time a move connects, the game picks a value randomly between 85% and 100% of the maximum — exactly 16 equally-likely steps (covered properly in the "Reading a Calc" lesson). So the calculator never says "this does X." It says "this rolls in this range," and a KO comes as a probability — "12/16 to KO" means 12 of those 16 rolls finish the target and the other 4 leave it standing to hit you back.
Walk one all the way through. You want Garchomp's STAB Earthquake to take out an opposing physical attacker at a neutral ×1, and the calc says "15/16 to KO" — very likely, one roll short of guaranteed. Now suppose they have Intimidate (drops your Attack one stage on switch-in). Your 15/16 was the number before Intimidate. Once it cuts your Attack, the damage drops and that 15/16 might become 9/16. The most common beginner mistake here: reading the calc number and committing without re-running it post-Intimidate. See an Intimidate user, recompute your KO line.
Doubles adds one more multiplier. A spread move (one that hits both targets at once, like Rock Slide or Heat Wave) takes a ×0.75 penalty in doubles. A single-target calc that reads "just barely KOs" becomes only 0.75× as a spread move and may stop killing. When you're focus-firing one target, fold that ×0.75 in before you conclude anything.
So a genuinely solid attacking read is this whole string: multiply the defender's two types into a multiplier (watch for immunities and cancellation) → does your move get STAB → is it a spread move taking ×0.75 → is there an Intimidate to recompute → then look at the calc's X/16 KO chance and decide. Run that string smoothly in your head and you've gone from "knows the type chart" to "calculates the hit."
ADVANCED · Test the fuzzy combos until they're not fuzzy
Use the type matchup tool below. Pick a combination you had to stop and think about earlier — ideally a dual-type with that "one weakness, one resistance" cancellation — guess the multiplier first, then reveal it. The ones you guess wrong are the ones that stick.
So what — now do this
Go back to your borrowed or rented team (Roster Ranch rentals are fine) and do three concrete things. One: look up both defensive types on each Pokémon and find which ones are doubly weak to a common type — especially Rock or Ground, the types that hazard-style entry moves use. Two: take your main attacker and find which target its STAB super-effective move hits at that ×3 band. Three: open the damage calculator (/calc), run that STAB move against a target you assume you'll KO, and read the real X/16 — odds are one or two will surprise you. Nail those three down and your next game's moves aren't guesses anymore.