Type Synergy?

[kirbyraeg]

Just my 2 cents on this subject:

There's a few main cores that I've seen, but I think they could use a bit of expanding upon:

F/G/W: Everybody's favorite UU core, Fire/Water/Grass is a common defensive core that can easily come in on the other's weaknesses. It is generally seen on bulkier teams just because of their excellent type synergy, and is increasingly common in OU especially with CeleTran being a well-known defensive combo and Heatran becoming everybody's new favorite Pokémon, edging out Scizor in July's stats...

D/F/P: Dark/Fighting/Psychic is a core less often seen (though tyranitar, machamp, and starmie say hi) that is more offensive. It forces a lot of switches and opens up teams to certain faster sweepers very well, as Fighting types can generally break walls very nicely while Dark/Psychic types can sponge their weaknesses and hit from both sides of the attacking spectrum while also generally being speedy.

D/S/F: Used to be the focus of the metagame, but with few good dragons left Dragon/Steel is not played up as a defensive core. Flying synergizes decently with these types as well, as long as you can keep Stealth Rock off of the field.

B/R/P: Bug/Rock synergizes almost perfectly together! Poison is actually a nice defensive type paired up with these, as Bug can hit Psychics back hard and gives a Ground resist. Neutrality to common types means that they'll have to rely on bulk more than good switching to get in, but coming in on a resisted hit can give them an opportunity to switch in and set up. Bug/Rock are good offensive types while Poison types have nice support options, making it a decent core imo (one that I kinda want to try sometime).

Any other cores you can think of?

 

[Terywj [태리]]

B/R/P: Bug/Rock synergizes almost perfectly together! Poison is actually a nice defensive type paired up with these, as Bug can hit Psychics back hard and gives a Ground resist. Neutrality to common types means that they'll have to rely on bulk more than good switching to get in, but coming in on a resisted hit can give them an opportunity to switch in and set up. Bug/Rock are good offensive types while Poison types have nice support options, making it a decent core imo (one that I kinda want to try sometime).

The problem with Bug / Rock / Poison is that if you're really running that kind of core for the offensive idea (especially for OU) you're basically running something like Heracross / Yanmega, Tyranitar, and Weezing. You'll need the Ground-type immunities, but abusing the low use of Psychic-type moves is definitely something notworthy. I'd argue that Fire / Water / Grass has a lot more going for it, though.

 

[mood4food77]

electric/ground/flying makes a good core, pretty good offensive coverage and has some bulk to it, the problem is thought, outside of the flying pokemon, there really aren't that many viable ground and electric pokes

 

[kirbyraeg]

Ampharos and Lanturn are nice defensive Electric types, and there's a ton of good ground types. Jolteon is gold standard for fast offense, and he pairs up with Gyarados and other flying types quite nicely.

Lots of options there :3

I was also gonna mention normal/fighting/ghost just because of their overall nice coverage and the fact that most normal types will bait out fighting attacks all the time. Think like Miltank/Hariyama/Mismagius for a defensive UU stall core and something like Snorlax/Breloom/Rotom-A in OU could work similarly...?

 

[Zankoku]

Bug/Rock/Poison is resisted/nulled by Steel. This is a problem, isn't it?

 

[kirbyraeg]

Not really, since pretty much any rock type will have access to Earthquake, and quite a few OU steels are neutral to Bug (except scizor who nobody loves anymore and heatran who can eat a ****). This is more about defensive synergy than offensive coverage though, since I know those types don't do that much together. Offensive coverage is more along the lines of BoltBeam, QuakeEdge, Shadow Ball+Fighting move, etc.

 

[Wave⁂]

Snorlax instead of Blissey in a defensive core?

 

[Zankoku]

Blissey's part of SkarmBlissCruel, as more of a defensive stats distribution synergy thing. Snorlax at least has a bit of physical defense, if still not much.. however, combining him with Breloom and Rotom-A seems to form a more offensive than defensive core, taking advantage of Snorlax base 110 attack and Breloom's infamous Spore-to-whatever, while Rotom-A can be used in a variety of ways.

 

[Wave⁂]

Gyarados's Waterfall vs. WishBliss:
45.9% - 54.2%

vs. Curselax:
43.5% - 51.3%

 

[Zankoku]

WishBliss EV spread:
252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe

CurseLax EV spread:
168 HP / 120 Def / 220 SpD

Gyarados's Waterfall vs 252/252 Bold Snorlax:
32.6% - 38.5%

 

[kirbyraeg]

I mention Snorlax only because it pairs up extremely well with Breloom, scaring off Fire/Ice coverage users with actual offense and Pursuit to trap faster ghosts who could deal with defensive Rotom-A. In terms of pure walling it's inferior to Blissey, but it also provides reliable offense that would pair up very well with a more defensive Breloom, leaving Rotom-A able to check setup threats who would otherwise walk all over both of them.

 

[Smugleaf]

F/W/G is so common because of Heatran, Shaymin/Celebi/Breloom, and Starmie/Gyarados. All good pokemon that work excellently in a core like that and can either be defensive or a bulky offense core.

Another good core is Superachi/DDTar. Superachi easily takes care of DDTar's counters and allows it to sweep with less trouble. The DDTar carries either Babiri Berry if the user is afraid of Scizor or Life Orb just to get the extra power that Admant would've gave because the only good DDTar is a Jolly one.

 

[mood4food77]

rock/ground/steel actually could work as a core, if there were rock types outside of ttar that are good

but for that to work, you really need a flyer, which makes a core of ttar/gliscor/scizor actually seem like a good, balanced combo

lastly, flying is quite possibly, the most important type in the game, you CANNOT make a team without one of your pokes being it unless you have a poke with levitate