The release of Pokemon Black and White last week knocked a few more type combinations off the list of the unused, including Bug/Electric, Grass/Normal, Dark/Steel, and a handful of others. It also introduced the first pure-type Flying Pokemon (#641, right), so finally, after five generations, we have a pure-type Pokemon for every type.
Still, there are a whopping 44 type combinations that still haven’t been used, which is ridiculous considering there are only 153 possible combinations of the 17 types (136 two-type combinations + 17 single types). This number can be reduced to 32 if we take out all the missing half-Normal types, like Normal/Dark, Normal/Electric, etc., but that’s still a big percentage.
I always figured that non-Normal, pure-type Pokemon had “Normal” as their de facto second type anyway. It wouldn’t change anything as far as weaknesses go, as a Normal/Electric Pokemon would have the same weaknesses as a pure Electric-type, so whatever? In fact, most half-type Normals probably shouldn’t be half-types to begin with. A vast majority of them are Normal/Flying, and considering we didn’t have a pure-type Flying until just now, I wonder why all they all weren’t just pure-Flyings to begin with? Also: the only two half-type Normals that weren’t Normal/Flying prior to the fifth generation were Girafarig (Normal/Psychic) and Bibarel (Normal/Water).
The former could be considered a legitimate hybrid, but Bibarel only ever learns one Water move. Fifth gen introduces a Normal/Grass line and two legendaries — Normal/Fighting and Normal/Psychic, though the two legendaries have the same moveset and might just be two forms of the same legendary, except they have individual ‘dex numbers, so I have no idea. Still, they could have easily made them a pure Psychic and a pure Fighting, so I’ve yet to see anything particularly creative done with Normal half-types. That’s probably why they’re “normal.”
Of the thirty-two other combinations, Poison is involved in the most with seven unused combinations — Dragon/Poison, Electric/Poison, Fire/Poison, Ice/Poison, Psychic/Poison, Rock/Poison, and Steel/Poison. Of those, Psychic/Poison and Steel/Poison are probably the most interesting since Poison is weak to Psychic and Steel is impervious to Poison. It’s kind of surprising that Poison seems to have gotten shafted so much considering it’s more an ability-describing type rather than a form-describing type like Ghost and Dragon, meaning it can theoretically be applied to any variety of Pokemon.
Psychic/Poison would be easy enough to come up with something for — Psychics, also being an ability-describing type, are pretty all over the place as far as physical form, so giving them an added poison attribute is easy. Steel/Poison is harder to imagine since they are opposites… Maybe some kind of machine-looking thing with syringes? Hmmm. Malpracticemon! Okay, so I guess it is a bit difficult to match Poison with some of the descriptor-types like Rock and Steel… it doesn’t make much sense for a thing of Rock or Steel to be able to poison you. …But the others have no excuse!
Electric would also have seven unused type combinations if you don’t count the alternate Rotom forms (Electric/Ice, Electric/Fire, and Electric/Grass, above), which I kind of don’t since they’re only obtainable through a Wifi event item and are, you know, alternate forms. The other four missing Electric combos are Electric/Fighting, Electric/Poison, Electric/Psychic, Electric/Rock. Electric is another ability-type, and all of its combination partners except Rock (and maybe Grass, if we’re counting that) are also ability-types. Therefore, Electric has also been unfairly ignored for way too long, though I’m probably a little biased because Electric is my favorite type. But seriously, how hard is it to find some unused animal base — like, say, a dimetrodon — and decide that it can invoke the powers of fire and electricity? That would be badass. Or hell, if you made the dimetrodon Electric/Rock and just axed the fire part since all prehistoric-based Pokemon are part Rock (for reviving fossils), that would kill the trouble of needing to fit it with a more literal Rock-type!
Next on the Most Shafted list is a five-way tie between Ice, Fighting, Ghost, Psychic, and Rock, which have five missing combinations each, unless you want to disclude Rotom alternate forms, in which case Ice comes out on top with six, and Fire is added to the five-way with five. This kind of surprised me since I expected Dragon to be higher up, but apparently there are only four missing combinations that include Dragon — I guess I just haven’t been paying much attention since I don’t like Dragon-types, usually. Ice, Fighting, and Psychic are ability-types and should, again, be easy to just attach to anything.
Rocks are hard to mix types with since they are in direct conflict with a lot of other types (Rock has the most weaknesses of any type). Still, if we continue the trend of all prehistoric-based Pokemon being part Rock, this gives us a lot of options because there are a ton of prehistoric animals we don’t have Pokemon versions of. I already mentioned dimetrodon, and without even getting too esoteric, there’s also stegosaurus, parasaurolophus, and ankylosaurus. Four dinosaurs. Let them be part Rock and part Electric, Ghost, Ice, and Dragon, and then the only thing you have left is Rock/Poison. Okay, a ghost dinosaur is kind of weird — they are all kind of freaky revived fossil ghosts, I guess, but I’m sure you can find some kind of creative explanation. Rock/Dragon wouldn’t be hard to do outside of straight up dinosaurs since Dragon is a form-type, so maybe if you cross one of those dinosaurs with a scorpion you could do Rock/Poison. In fact, why not do that with stegosaurus or ankylosaurus? They both have the tail for it. There. Problem solved!
Ghosts are kind of weird. The missing combinations are Ghost/Grass, Ghost/Psychic, Ghost/Rock, Ghost/Steel, and Ghost/Fighting. I think technically, it would be passable to just pick any kind of base form, ghostify it, slap on another element and call it a day, but Ghosts are always more fun when there’s some kind of story behind them, no matter how silly, like the idea that Driftloons are the ghosts of popped balloons. I don’t think it’d be hard to ghostify a plant, so Ghost/Grass should be easy. Ghost/Rock was already kind of touched on above. Ghost/Fighting could be the ghost of some breed of fighters, I dunno. Fighting Pokemon all seem rather similar to me anyway. Ghost/Psychic and Ghost/Steel seem to have the most potential for weird origin stories; Ghost/Psychic also being a combination of opposing types makes it even more fun, especially since they’re doubly weak to Dark. I hope the eventual debut Pokemon of that type combo isn’t disappointing…
Though I’m not a big fan of Fire-types, there’s also really no reason for the missing combinations to still be missing because Fire is yet another ability-type and all of its missing partners are also ability-types. Leaving out the Electric/Fire Rotom form, we’re still missing Fire/Grass, Fire/Ice, Fire/Poison, Fire/Water. Three of those pair Fire with an opposing type and are therefore of immediate interest. Opposing type combinations are always great since it automatically knocks out a weakness — Fire/Grass, despite being part Grass, would obviously not be weak to Fire. It would also not be weak to Ground, despite being part Fire. Think of the team strategies we’re missing out on here! Also, Fire/Water is the only combination involving Water we’re still missing. Apparently there are shrimp that live near underwater volcanoes. I don’t think we have a shrimp Pokemon. Crab, yes, but no shrimp! There you go!
Tied with four missing type combos are Dragon and Bug (and Grass, if we disclude Rotom). Both are form-based types (and Grass is weird and kind of both form- and ability-based) and the missing pairs are: Dragon/Grass, Dragon/Poison, Dragon/Rock, Bug/Dragon, Bug/Ice, Bug/Psychic, and Bug/Dark. Dragons are easy. Start with a generic dragon form and pimp it out with its element. None of its missing types are particularly clashing, except maybe Rock, but it’s not that hard to imagine a golem-like Dragon. Dragon/Bug is also kind of weird, and it’s a shame they’ve already typed out the dragonfly-based Pokemon to other combinations, but it still shouldn’t be that difficult. Bugs are kind of monster-like already, so dragons shouldn’t be far off. It also shouldn’t be hard to give some random bug psychic or dark powers, so the only challenge here is Bug/Ice. Hmm.
Hanging out at the bottom of the list are Grass, Dark, Ground, Flying, Water, and whatever else I’ve forgotten. Most of them have already been covered as the second half of aforementioned type combinations, and none of them seem particularly difficult to come up with something for. Really, a majority of the types involved in the missing pairs are ability-based types; thus, a many of the combinations involve two ability-based types, which are easy to attach onto anything. Of the form-based types, Dragon and Bug are easy, as is Fighting (which could be disputed as an ability-based type anyway), and Rock can be knocked out almost completely with dinosaurs. Steel is kind of problematic, but it’s only involved in three combos anyway.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that it shouldn’t be hard to come up with Pokemon for these missing combinations, it will probably take another two or three generations to cover them all because there are a lot of type combinations that seem to be covered as part of tradition more than anything else, including slews of Normal and Water-types, of which there are more than any others. Let’s assume no new generation adds more than the third generation did (135 new Pokemon). Let’s assume that we’re never going to cover any new type combos with the starters and their evolutions (-9). Let’s assume two or three evolution lines of basic Normal-types that harass you at the beginning of the game (-10), two lines of Normal/Flyings (-5), and a couple of bugs (-6). We always seem to have a handful of pure Grass-types (-8), a couple of pure Fightings (-2), and a bunch of new Fish, and Water only has one missing type combo left (-15). That’s 55 Pokemon out of the way already. If the generation only adds about a hundred new guys, that’s half your possibilities gone. If they add the max of 135, that’s still more than a third. Throw in all the repeat combos and you aren’t left with very many.
Still, I guess it’s a good defense for when people claim that Nintendo is “running out of ideas.” They still have 33-45 type combinations to cover. That is plenty of justification for another generation! Not that they really need it though.
One thing that’s always bothered me about the Ghost type was that we never had a pure one until Gold/Silver, with Misdreavus. Ghosts have always been rare enough as it is, but the only ones you could get in Red and Blue all had a Poison subtype, which always made for some strange arguments with my friends. You can’t hit it with Tackle; that’s completely obvious. You can’t hit it with Hyper Beam, which is a little harder to explain. But if you so much as toss a femur in its direction it’s down for the count. Why? That’s just silly!
And I don’t think a Dragon/Bug type would necessarily have to be based on a dragonfly; Not all Dragon-types are actually dragons, after all. (Altaria comes to mind, specifically.) They could, in theory, base it on a different slightly-mythical creature, like a proper fairy. Maybe.
And the fact that we still don’t have an Electric/Fighting type just baffles the mind. They came pretty damn close with Electabuzz in particular, and to this day I constantly forget that he doesn’t have a Fighting subtype. He has EVERY reason to have it, but he does not. For shame.
Stopped reading to post after the dimetrodon bit.
“since they’re only obtainable through a Wifi event item”
Catch Rotom in D/P/Pt, transfer to HG/SS, make it the first in the party, go to Silph Co., talk to to dude at the elevator. Only Wifi needed is the do the trade.
And it’s a shame we don’t have an Electric/Psychic (is there a Psychic/Electric?), since those two types were the ones in my first cards of the TCG, a pre-made deck with Mewtwo and Pikachu on the cover. That Mewtwo was also the first card I had stolen, right outta my hand, back in front of my middle school…
There are some major disappointments in terms of use of type. Illumise is the firefly pokemon and it’s not Bug/Fire? What?
I’m also really disappointed that the gen-5 Pigeon isn’t half Poison. I think it should have followed in the same line as Grimer/Muk, Koffing/Weezing with city pokemon being poison. It could have had cellophane trash wings…
The urban/pollution line of thought could probably get you the Steel/Poison pretty easily.
Sorry, the post is a bit tl;dr but I skimmed through and got the main idea. Just one thing…
“…Normal/Electric Pokemon would have the same weaknesses as a pure Electric-type…”
But wouldn’t anything half Normal-type gain a weakness to Fighting-types? So they wouldn’t have the same weaknesses as a pure type.
But anyway, I agree that Nintendo still has plenty of ideas left for type combinations. I suppose the reason they haven’t used them all yet is to keep fresh combinations in store for future generations =)
@Harry: Ghost definitely seemed like an under-thought out type in the first gen. The Ghastly line with their Ghost/Poison were the only ones available. Similarly though, Dark and Steel didn’t have many options when they were first introduced in gen two. I don’t think a Dragon/Bug has to be a dragonfly either, but it’s the most obvious conclusion, and I do think they’ll stick to the basic dragon (or basic bug) shape even though there have been some exceptions. I see them being a bit more random with, say, Steel, since I think it’s harder to come up with a more attractive design for a literal interpertation, so we may see more Steel-types like Lucario. The fact that we still don’t have a Flying/Fighting kind of baffles me too — I mean, THERE’s your chance for a kickass fairy-thing!
@TJF588: Ah, thanks, I didn’t realize that. I haven’t had time to make it back to Kanto yet in my SoulSilver game, so yeah. Still, it’s an alternate form, and I don’t think it counts! I don’t think Pokemon distinguishes between a primary and secondary type for two-type Pokemon, so Electric/Psychic is the same as Psychic/Electric. My favorite TCG deck was Electric/Water, but I reaaaally don’t like Lanturn, etc, much.
@Joe: Gen three had a lot of disappointments, I think… though I’m probably biased because it’s the only generation that I haven’t finished a game from. (I am like, two gyms in on Sapphire and have been for the last few years?) I hadn’t thought about the pollution aspect of Poison-types though, and now that you bring it up, the new pigeon being Poison/Flying would be awesome (even though Zubat, etc, already debuted that combo). I guess a pigeon being poisonous is more of a stretch than Grimer/Muk/Koffing/Wheezing since a pigeon isn’t literally pollution like smog and sludge.
@Yumeka: Hm. I had been under the impression that the type paired with Normal would cancel out its Fighting-weakness (unless it’s a type also weak to Fighting), but Serebii confirms that Bibarel the Normal/Water is weak to Fighting, so I guess this would also translate to Normal/Electric, etc. Interesting. The half-Normals are also still impervious to Ghost, apparently… even for Normal/Psychic. Maybe half-Normals can be interesting after all then… :O
I agree about the alternate forms of Rotom should not be counted. The dex number of any Rotom form is counted as one and the same, not another pokemon.
I agree that a lot of normal/flying should just be pure flying-types (i.e. pidgeot line, fearow line, noctowl line, swellow line, staraptor line, pidove line, and braviary line, farfetch’d, chattot and swablu). of course, this will mean that pure flying-types could now be hit by ghost attacks since the abovementioned lines would no longer part-normal type. any typical bird form pokemon that can fly should just be a flying-type, unless they obviously feature other elemental characteristics. for example, Skarmory–it is a bird form that flies, so it is a flying-type. but because it features steel-type qualities, then it gains the combo steel/flying type. A Pidgeot is just a bird form and can fly, but it doesn’t have other elemental characteristics. therefore, it should just be a pure flying-type.
However, we still can have pure flying-types even if they’re not in bird form (i.e. Tornadus). Can we have a bird form that is a pure normal-type? Yes, as long as it’s a flightless bird (i.e. chick, silkie, emu, kiwi, weka, dodo). The only normal/flying types i’d consider legitimate would be the togekiss line, and perhaps the dodrio line too. doduo and dodrio are obviously bird forms, but i don’t think they can actually fly despite the fact they can learn the HM Fly in the game. so, for me, they’re ok to be normal/flying. a Griffin-like pokemon could be a normal/flying-type. if Clefable’s and Dunsparce’s wings were bigger and enabled them to fly through the sky, they could be normal/flying.
i disagree about the part when you said the pure electric-types would have the same weaknesses as normal/electric. pokemon that are normal/electric types would be weak against fighting but will gain immunity against ghost attacks. pure electric-types take standard (x1) damage from both fighting- and ghost-type attacks.
a bug/dragon type shouldn’t necessarily be a dragonfly-inspired pokemon. it’s a good idea, but it should not always be the case. any pokemon of any type could be based on any animal.
A good idea for a Poison/Steel pokemon would have been if Trubbish (and Garbodar) were part trash-bag part trash-can (but it’s too late for that). Well, gen 5 needed a pure poison type anyway. And to name a few more ideas…
Electric/Poison – Computer Virus
Poison/Dragon – Komodo Dragon
Rock/Dragon – yes, any foot dinosaur
Normal/Ghost – Opossum (because they play dead)
Rock/Ice – Mountainous Animal (mountain goat? hmm…)
Bug/Dark – Leech? (i’m surprised they don’t have a bug/dark or bug/psychic yet)
Grass/Fire – Jackolanturn (lol, a good name for this would be ‘planturn’ and I’m sure they’d go with that, too.)
Grass/Ghost – yes, you could just ghostify a plant, but how about a wood-carved sculpture with a spiritual background (tiki, maybe. idk.)
Fighting/Flying – i would say, “basically take any typical fighting type and attatch angel wings,” but I’m in the mood for a humanoid-shaped bird. Falco anyone?
i could go on.
ps – it intrigues me that some obvious typings weren’t used yet :/
I really, really like some of those ideas! Especially the Jack-o-Lantern and Tiki/Totem Pole for Grass/Fire an Grass/Ghost. The Opposum is also pretty cute. I kind of think Blaziken would have been a good Fighting/Flying if he wasn’t Fire/Fighting.
But yeah, it’s pretty strange how long we’ve gone without some of the more obvious ones… I’m really still shocked it took them five generations to get a pure Flying-type.
yes, they should’ve started off with pure flying types. Poor little normal/flying birds that are weak to fighting type (when fighting type is weak to flying). At least there’s hope for more future pure flying types. I don’t expect them to be common though :/
thanks for liking my ideas!! there’re not too shabby after all (can’t believe i just said that).
And i never said totem(pole)… but i was thinking it!! Totem poles don’t have any spiritual background, but there should be one in the pokemon world. Tiki > Totem. *AWESOME*
I imagine them using Psychic/Electric as the type combo for one of those small, cute legendaries in a future generation (like how they have Mew, Celebi, etc.)
Dunsparce should have a split evolution (because it levitates AND digs). Normal/Flying and NORMAL/GROUND. Pretty freaky stuff.
S’more ideas:
Bug/Ice – Snow Flea
Fire/Ice – Trojan Horse (lol)
Can’t come up with any more right now…
Agreed! Having a majority of Flying-types as Normal/Flying was poorly thought out, I think… along with the only first gen Ghosts being Poison/Ghost, effectively stacking the cards in favor of Psychics throughout the game.
Natu/Xatu already have some totem influence, but it would be neat for them to take it further! I can also see a cute legendary as a Psychic/Electric…man, that would be so awesome. We need more awesome Electrics!
Haha, I’ve been meaning to make another post about animals/objects that have yet to be Pokefied. I still might make one eventually. Do you mind if I mention some of your ideas? (Do you have a blog I could link back to or I could just credit your alias?)
That would be okay. I’m just a guest here. It’s fine if you wanna give me credit through my email adress.
e.licruz@yahoo.com
Or, you could just credit me with words… i dont really care, its up to you.
Oh yea! another idea popped into my head:
Fire/Poison – Sheep with smoke-cloud body
http://tinypic.com/r/6i8krn/7
a REALLY basic idea for a grass/fire pokemon would be this (drawn quickly on paint)
http://oi56.tinypic.com/6i8krn.jpg
pokemon with normal/flying typing should be flying/normal and NOT normal/flying because they are first and foremost flying pokemon. their flying nature should comes first; their normal nature secondary. but i strongly believe more that most of the normal/flying types to be just pure flying-types.
except the togekiss line, that is a legitimate normal/flying. dodrio line should just be normal type because, come on, they can’t fly. i mean they can learn HM Fly in the games, but in the anime and in common sense, their ostrich-like body should not allow them to soar.
I think for the jack-o-lantern pokemon they’d either have to have it not evolve, or start as a pure grass pokemon, then evolve if it knows like flash or something like that.
Also I followed the link and I think theyed have and issue with thinking it might end up part ghost, because if it had fiery arms it would most likely hover/float and a floating pumkin just feels haunted so the appendadges would most likely be vines and the flame would be just be part of its intiorier body.
I don’t know about Ice/Fire ever exhisting, they are too opposite to really make work in a lot of ways. I feel like it would have issues because it is just too powerful offensively, but defensively will just get destroyed. Individually fire type is the glass cannon of types, and ice is the worst defensive type in the game, it’s main function as a type is to add offensive stadgy to counter the weakness of a type (IE Staryu using ice beam on Bulbasaur).
offensively, both types are commonly used ofeensively, fire for almost half of them being >99 base power; and Ice, has good number common types to which it’s super effective as well as a high number of pecies with a 4x weakness to ice. Also, large portion of fire pokemon can learn sunny day and solar beam, giving them grass ofensively, Ice type can typically learn water type moves.
Putting the two together give and interesting, but rarely usible and onesided, all or nothing style of pokemon, but it just no balance. All offence, no defence, it reallyt would just be a battle of speed which would put a lot of preassure on the creators to really carefully consider the base speed, and defence of this pokemon. So much so that the work to look into the base speed of rock, ground, water and fighting to find a number that gives a balanced feeling would be impossible. But Pokemon natures would really throw a wrench in it because they only give further reasoning towards the “all-or-nothing” vibe of this pokemon. They may aswell just call it Artillerice the Ice Artillery Pokemon – (Backround none existant. How do you explain the origan of glass cannon made of ice)
BTW this is just my opinion I’m sure there’s a side to the Ice/Fire thing I’m not seeing.
Pokemon were given the dual Flying / Normal type due to the move roost. When you use it, you recover half of your HP, but also lose your flying subtype. Assuming flying is your only type, this would cause practical problems.
The confusion in the first few parts is easily understood once you realize something interesting: Type order is not random.
Meaning for dual typed pokemon, the type that’s listed first is the primary type, while the other one is the secondary type. Although the whole internet always goes on me “oh well makes no difference in battle”, that is a fact. It really has no effect on the game (yet!), but it is related to the pokemon design. After all the colour, height, name, dex number, makes no difference either, but its all part of a pokemon.
So what this helps to understand is that the primary type is meant to be the more prominent type.
For anyone who needs undisprovable evidence, check the types of Rhyhorn and Geodude in any official source. They are reverse. For a reason. Geodude is literally mineral-based, also excelling in Ground, while Rhyhorn is just a mammal, but covered in rocky armor, so its prefered way of attacking is Ground moves, with Rock as the extra type. Another direct comparison is Sableye and Spiritomb, where its obvious which one is the true Ghost-type and which one the properly sneaky guy.
The other thing you gotta understand is what the Normal type is: the default type. It only comes into play for pokemon who do not specialize in a specific type well enough to justify being one. As you know there is however Normal/something ones, but since its now clear that secondary types are basically less prominent, all those make sense. It means that Bibarel simply doesn’t have enough Water focus to justify being a pure Water type. Same with all the birds. They are not “Flying” enough to get RID of the Normal type, which, as is now finally implied through Tornadus, requires not just the ability to fly but a serious wind relation (also with all this in mind, the newsflash with Tornadus is actually that we finally have a primary Flying type, not just that we have a pure one).
So in conclusion, there are actually more unused combinations than that. So for example we do have a tough gangster now (Scrafty=Dark/Fighting), but have yet to see a sneaky fighter (Fighting/Dark).
I’m sure this explains a lot of questions people always wonder, like Jellicent really being Ghost type -> its just secondary Ghost, but foremost a Water type.
Heres my graphic showing all unused combinations
http://saiph-charon.deviantart.com/art/Unused-type-combinations-Gen-V-189564617
One thing that bugs me is that there are a few Gen V Pokemon that would TOTALLY work as some unique types but aren’t.
The Gothita line just screams that it should be Psychic/Dark. While Cofagrigus could be Ghost/Steel. I mean, look it, it’s a ghost metal coffin.
Or Beartic, Ice/Fighting, then it wouldn’t feel so…plain in every aspect. Or Eelektross Electric/Poison, that would be fun, since Levitate eliminates a weakness of each (sure itd have a single Psy weakness then, but hey, a Fighting resistance? deal.), or Elgyem Psychic/Rock (it feels so ancient..), etc..
But you wanna know why they are not? Because there would be no simple single types to represent the casual pokemon of its type.
And its not like we haven’t had these cases since the begnning.
Just think Golduck, Ninetales… Milotic, Banette…Luxray, Electivire.
Ghost and poison does excist.. Gengar? And rock and poison hasnt been used yet