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What is Strong Against Rock-Type Pokémon?

This is an age-old question among Pokémon fans, as Rock types can be a difficult type to contend with, depending on what you use.

When fighting a Rock-type Pokémon, you actually have several options at your disposal. As of Pokémon Gold and Silver onward, Fighting, Grass, Water, Steel, and Ground do twice as much damage, and Fighting, Steel, and Ground take half damage from Rock-type attacks. However, do note that when a Rock-type Pokémon uses a Rock-type move, they get a .5x boost.

However, there are many more things to consider with respect to Rock-type Pokémon. These include dual typing, weather interactions, and how common Rock-type Pokémon even are, both in the main game and in competitive play.

What is Strong Against Rock-Type Pokémon?

The ideal Pokémon and moves to use against Rock-type Pokémon are Fighting, Grass, Water, Steel, and Ground. Immediately, this seems like something of a big deal; if you use a Rock-type Pokémon, you have to consider five different weaknesses, tied for the most weakness with Grass-type Pokémon. This only increases with certain dual-type Pokémon that have a total of seven weaknesses, such as:

  • Lunatone and Solrock (Rock/Psychic)
  • Terrakion (Rock/Fighting)
  • Tyranitar (Rock/Dark)

However, that does not mean that Rock-type Pokémon are weak. Some, like Tyranitar, have great movepools and stats. Movepools are something to keep into consideration, as a Pokémon like Tyranitar may have different types of moves. For example, this literal and figurative beast of a Pokémon is able to learn Fire, Ice, and Electric moves in addition to Rock-type moves, meaning that it has a natural answer to Grass, Water, Steel, and Ground types just from those three moves.

Beyond type disadvantages, you also need to consider how strong Rock-type Pokémon are. Despite having many weaknesses, the actual defensive capabilities are high, among the most defensive types in the series (along with Steel-type Pokémon). While its Special Defense is relatively high, it only gets higher when in Sandstorm conditions (a 50 percent increase).

What Resists Rock-Type Pokémon Best?

If you want to maximize resistance, consider going with a Pokémon that is a mix of one of the three: Fighting, Steel, and Ground. Unfortunately, there are no Fighting/Ground-type Pokémon, but there are Steel/Ground and Fighting/Steel types. Hopefully the next Pokémon adds one, as this would be a solid counter to Rock-type Pokémon and moves.

What Pokémon are Fighting and Steel?

For Steel/Fighting, you have Lucario, which is a powerful Pokémon in its own right (partially contributing to why it’s such a popular Pokémon). Lucario is an effective Pokémon against a lot of powerful opponents in competitive play, and it has highly impressive attack power (and attack boosting). Additionally, in Pokémon X and Y and Pokémon Sun and Moon, you can use Lucario’s Mega Evolution, which makes it an absolute demon against a Rock-type Pokémon.

After Lucario was introduced in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, Cobalion was introduced in Pokémon Black and White. It’s never been the most prominent competitively, but it’s still a solid threat to Rock-type Pokémon, thanks to being so strong offensively and defensively.

The most recent Pokémon with this typing was introduced in Pokémon Sword and Shield: Zamazenta, the cover Legendary Pokémon (though only in its Crowned Shield form). Since it’s a Legendary Pokémon, you should expect that it will do short work on most Rock types, if they don’t have a proper answer.

What Pokémon are Steel and Ground?

Pokémon that are both Steel and Ground are about as common as Fighting and Steel, having two evolutionary lines and one Pokémon that never evolves. The first is the Aron line, which evolves into Lairon, and eventually Aggron. This line is able to be a tanky piece of work, but is still able to pack quite the punch. Diamond and Pearl added Shieldon and Bastiodon (Fossil Pokémon, discussed below), and Sun and Moon added the Ultra Beast, Stakataka.

What dual-type Rock-type Pokémon are most dangerous?

While Rock types are not nearly the best types, that doesn’t mean there are not some particularly dangerous ones — and the most dangerous are typically dual-type, the second type rounding out their weaknesses. Yet, even with that, few to no Rock types are actually extremely dangerous.

One of the most common dual-types for Rock types is Rock/Ground, with two evolutionary lines and a single Pokémon added in Pokémon Red and Blue alone (Geodude line, Rhyhorn line, and Onix). These Pokémon aren’t necessary awful, but their dual typing makes them 4x weak to Grass and Water, both of which are quite common. However, that is not the extent of the dual types available.

As mentioned above, Tyranitar is quite the beast, especially since it has a Mega Evolution. Of course, the fact that Mega Evolutions were removed from the game after Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon means that Tyranitar’s threat is markedly reduced in Sword and Shield (as well as later entries).

Fossil Pokémon

Fossil Pokémon stand out in terms of Rock Pokémon, due to how, until Pokémon Sword and Shield, all Fossil Pokémon were at least Rock type (in addition to another). Omanyte, Kabuto, and Aerodactyl are the original Fossil Pokémon, the first two being Rock/Water and the latter being Rock/Flying. Water/Rock is an interesting typing, but be mindful of that 4x weakness to Grass.

Fossil Pokémon have been a frequent addition to the series, only skipping Pokémon Gold and Silver and Pokémon Sun and Moon. One solid Pokémon added in Black and White was Archeops, which has decently high attack, though if its HP drops below half, all of its stats are halved. Pokémon Sword and Shield brought Fossil Pokémon back after their brief absence, but for the first time, these have no Rock typing.

Legendary Rock-type Pokémon

The first Rock-type Legendary Pokémon was introduced back in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, though it was not the easiest to find. Its name was Regirock, one of the few pure Rock-type Pokémon at the time, and a part of the Regi trio (including Regice and Registeel).

After that, we got Terrakion; a decent Rock-type Pokémon in its own right, but one with quite a few weaknesses to watch out for as mentioned above, due to also being Fighting type. The most recent Rock-type Legendary, DIancie, was introduced in Pokémon X and Y. Yet again, not amazing, but at least in that and Sun and Moon, its Mega Evolution form gave it at least some use.

While not Legendary Pokémon, there were a couple Ultra Beasts that were Rock types, particularly Nihilego and Stakataka.

What’s the most popular Rock-type Pokémon?

In terms of popularity, a lot of the most popular Rock types tend to come from Pokémon Red and Blue, just because Pokémon Red and Blue are still the most popular entries. This means that Pokémon like Geodude and Onix got a lot of mindshare, especially since they were a mainstay of Brock’s for a long time in the anime (as well as Sudowoodo, who was added in Gold and Silver). Another Pokémon that got a lot of positive attention was Lycanroc, mainly due to the fact that it was the Pokémon that won the Alolan Pokémon Championship for series protagonist Ash Ketchum (a perennial loser otherwise).

Another popular Rock-type Pokémon is also a Pokémon from Red and Blue named Omanyte (and its evolution, Omastar), though not for reasons you might think. Back in February 2014, a channel called Twitch Plays Pokémon started up, where users in the chat could control the character. People selected the Helix Fossil (which becomes Omanyte) so much that people made the joke of saying “praise Helix,” and Omanyte became a meme as a result. There is so much lore to that series, but this was probably the biggest thing to come out of the stream.

In terms of mainstream popularity, it’s hard to say that any one Rock-type Pokémon is a particularly popular Pokémon. Of course, pretty much every Pokémon has its fans, but there’s nothing that really reaches the heights of Pikachu or or a starter Pokémon., though we reckon Lycanroc is the closest to being a series icon.

Steven Carr

Steven is a certified IT professional and gaming enthusiast. He has been working in the tech industry for over 10 years, and specializes in all things Tech-related. When he's not geeking out over the latest hardware or software release, he can be found testing out the latest video game.

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