Bugmerald Type Matchup Chart

I've made several references now in other posts to the fact that I plan to change the type matchup chart for this hack. Before we go much further, it's time that I detail those changes before everybody gets confused. I do think that the vanilla Pokemon type chart is in a pretty good spot. I realistically could make no changes at all and the game would be fine, but this is a project all about Bug types and a lot of people who play the game a lot more than I do agree that Bug is probably the worst type in the entire game. I think we can do better than that.

Changes to Bug Resistances

Pretty simple buff here, Bug types will now resist Psychic and Dark type attacks. Psychic and Dark are already weak to Bug, so thematically its not a big jump to add in these resistances. It's pretty easy to headcanon that Psychic types have trouble concentrating with one of their big fears on the field facing them down, affecting the strength of the their moves. Likewise, Bug types are not standard fighters and kind of just do their own thing, so a Dark type trying to be sneaky or underhanded would not be as effective as against a more standard type.

I'm also throwing in a resistance to Fairy. This is one of the best types in the game already so having a resistance here will really help out the Bugs that want a secondary type weak to Fairy. All the above changes boost Bug types up to 6 resistances and 3 weaknesses, which is mirrored by the Fire type funnily enough.

Changes to Bug Attacks

In my initial draft, I set up Bug to hit super effectively against Fairy types. While I think this would be fair from a competitive standpoint, it was definitely too strong for a single player experience when I did a test play-through. Instead, Fairy will just lose their resistance to Bug moves so Bug types will hit for normal damage. I'm doing the same thing for Fighting, whose Bug resistance was always odd to me anyway. But to make sure things don't get too easy, I'm adding a resistance to Bug for Rock types. That's right, Rock types somehow do not already resist Bug moves, a fact that I have shocked my friends with that have been playing Pokemon for decades. These changes move Bug attacks to 3 super effective match-ups and 6 types that resist them. So not fantastic, but at least they're better than Grass moves now.

Changes to other types

The only other type that I decided to adjust here was Ice. They did get a nice buff in the newest games with snowy weather now giving Ice types a 1.5x defense boost, but from a type matchup perspective they are still struggling defensively. I don't want to shake it up too much, so I'm just adding two new resistances to Water and Flying moves. There will be some very cool (ha) Bug/Ice types available and hopefully this small buff can make them a little more usable despite their 4x weakness to Rock moves.

Final Notes

I've based a lot of these changes on type analysis videos by Wolfe Glick so definitely give him a watch over at https://www.youtube.com/@WolfeyVGC. He's got some great videos if you're a Pokemon fan. With the above changes wrapped up, where does the Bug type sit? Offensively, not much has changed but going from a net 7 types that resist Bug to 6 will make Bug moves at least a little stronger. Defensively, they're in a much better spot. Bug types can offer some great resistances to pair with secondary types that will erase a lot of weaknesses and make it easier for teammates to switch in.

When you consider abilities, Fire is probably the most manageable weakness at the moment. Water Bubble and Flash Fire both allow select Bug types to take Fire moves very well and hit back with something hard. For Flying, on the other hand, there is currently no way for any Bug type to resist a Flying move. Fortunately, Flying moves tend to be a lot more rare outside of Flying types, and there are a lot of very powerful options to deal with those Flying types such as Rock Slide and Discharge.

The player will realize quickly that the greatest struggle in this game will be finding a way to deal with Rock attacks. Like Flying, there is no way to resist a hit from Rock moves outside of certain Ability/Type combos, but the danger is that Rock moves are everywhere. Rock Slide is a strong move with very wide distribution that hits your whole team. Even if a Bug has a strong Defense, the extra flinch chance can be devastating. Rock Tomb, Rock Blast, and Stone Edge will also be very dangerous to the team. It will be nearly essential that at least one Pokemon with Steel, Ground, or Fighting types be on a team so the player can have some way to tank a Rock attack.

And with that, we're done! Here a sample of what the new type chart will look like, assuming nothing else changes in development.