BestType?

[Neyo]

This is purely on what you think is the best Pokémon type. This is by any parameter.

Note: Thanks to @SpinyShell for pointing out some errors.

 

[Phosphene]

To my understanding, Ice is decently powerful offensively so its exclusion doesn't make sense to me. Sure, it is pretty bad in terms of defenses, but defenses ≠ power. Otherwise, glass cannons wouldn't be a thing.

Edit: And, from what I've read, the Steel type isn't exactly the best offensively, though it is great defensively.

 

[Neyo]

To my understanding, Ice is decently powerful offensively so its exclusion doesn't make sense to me. Sure, it is pretty bad in terms of defenses, but defenses ≠ power. Otherwise, glass cannons wouldn't be a thing.

Edit: And, from what I've read, the Steel type isn't exactly the best offensively, though it is great defensively.

Okay. I’ll switch the descriptive term to best type, and include everything. Sorry about that.

 

[Jammy2A]

I'd say on Fire for its versatility. Yes, it's resisted by Rock, Water, Dragon, and itself, but most Pokémon of that type have access to coverage moves and, what is more important, the burn effect is so powerful (halving Attack is pretty OP on top of that residual damage). Also, harsh sunlight helps both offensively and defensively: from reducing the power of Water type moves, to boosting Chlorophyl, to boosting Fire moves and speeding up Solar Beam, and of course hitting them Dry Skin Pokémon hard.

All in all, I think fire is pretty incredibly powerful. And I haven't even mentioned effectiveness against Grass, Bug, Ice, and Steel. Oddly enough though, not my favourite type, I prefer Ground type Pokémon overall, but I do think Fire is stronger.

 

[Aulos]

There are a number of types I always have in my team because they are just so reliable in-game (not talking about competitive, I don't play competitive) and those would be:

Water
Electric
Fire
Psychic
Dark
Fairy

These are my staple types to build a team around. If I really thought about my top favorite types? Maybe Water and Fairy. They're just so versatile and sturdy.

 

[WyndonCalling]

There are four main contenders from my perspective: Flying, Dragon, Steel and Fairy.

For Flying, I'll just self-plagiarise from another thread:

I actually rate Flying very highly in competitive circles, not least because it hits a large amount of types for solid neutral damage and the types that usually keep in it check aren't actually that hard for it to deal with - Steel and Rock-types hate taking on moves like Heat Wave and Close Combat (if they even resist Flying in the first instance - some of the best Steel-types pack a secondary typing that reduces it down to just a neutrality) and Electric-types are often so fragile it isn't particular hard to brute-force a way through them.

Defensively, Flying got a huge leg up this generation with Heavy-Duty Boots and still boasts resistance or outright immunity to two of the best offensive moves going - Close Combat and Earthquake. Roost is probably one of the most widely-distributed recovery options in the game, and Defog is one of the most important support moves. I believe I'm right in saying that Flying is the most represented type in OU at the moment.

Given the almost complete lack of mono-Flying Pokémon it's pretty hard to assess the value of the type in a complete vacuum, but it's safe to say that Flying is an excellent secondary type, especially for defensive builds.

I actually think Dragon might be the weakest of the top four, and the only reason it's in contention is because of the ridiculous BSTs it's often associated with - once you start dipping below that hallowed 600 there's a number of Dragons which are pretty mediocre, such as Altaria and Drampa. It hits almost nothing super-effectively, and the resistances aren't particularly desirable (Fire's a good one to have, but Grass is borderline-irrelevant and many Dragons take neutral damage from Electric due to secondary typings).

Dragon's physical offering is either weak, in the case of Dragon Claw, or easily exploitable, in the case of Outrage (Dragon Darts is excellent move, but it's only learned by one Pokémon that usually doesn't even run physical sets). Draco Meteor is very good on the special side, but still brings obvious issues and prevents sustained sweeps. The reasons many Dragons are good are high BSTs, access to Dragon Dance and wide movepools, and owes little to the qualities of the typing itself.

Steel has been excellent since it was introduced, though it has shifted sideways from being a defensive catch-all to something more balanced. You can no longer just plonk a Steel-type in front of Dark and Ghost-types and expect it to win, but it's also no longer the case that absolutely no one runs Steel coverage, thanks to the rise of Fairies. Gyro Ball and Heavy Slam tend to be absurdly good on the species that get them and even Iron Head is serviceable for the purpose of keeping the Tapus at bay. It says a lot about Steel that you can simply tack it on to otherwise poor types - such as Bug and Grass - and as a net result end up with powerhouses such as Ferrothorn and Scizor, respectively.

I think Fairy takes it though, and it was so obviously constructed in the first instance to push competitive battles in a certain direction that I'm still a little disgruntled. All of its resistances are extremely relevant (it seems that GF literally picked out the best attacking types) and despite Steel's offensive Renaissance the weaknesses are paltry - I'm especially annoyed that it made Bug, already a long-suffering type, into a competitive joke. Moonblast is a brilliant, risk-free move with even a chance at a jammy stat drop, and though the types that resist it are very good themselves there's also nothing outright immune to it bar Shedinja.

OU isn't exactly teeming with Fairies, but there's also not many of them that exist in the first instance. If you want a glittering example of just how good the type is, just look to Clefable; though blessed with that typically ridiculous Gen 1 movepool and one of the best abilities in the game, it was always just a mediocre Normal-type with some support capabilities. All it took was a simple typing swap (and not even a sexy dual-typing) to make it one of the best Pokémon in OU, tussling with giants such as Landorus and Heatran with a BST of just 483.

 

[Neyo]

I actually think Dragon might be the weakest of the top four, and the only reason it's in contention is because of the ridiculous BSTs it's often associated with - once you start dipping below that hallowed 600 there's a number of Dragons which are pretty mediocre, such as Altaria and Drampa.

How dare you offend my two favorite Dragons. But yeah, they aren’t especially great.

 

[Fan of Jarrus]

Dragon and Steel because of attack and defense.

 

[Norzan]

Fairy, both offensively and defensively. Just the fact that it's a dragon killer gives it that extra edge because dragons in general are some of the biggest threats, and offensively steel and poison aren't exactly very high on to totem pole (to be fair, fairies were given these weaknesses to help these types offensively, but it still wasn't enough).

Sure, Steel does resist more types than Fairy, but it has three crippling weaknesses to great offensive types with fire, ground and fighting. And Fairy's immunity to dragon type moves is huge.

 

[nickdt]

Ground and Steel imo. They resist the most and have to be a staple on every in-game team i think (Together or one of them).

However, i think its not the type alone you need to look at, also the Pokemon that has said type or the secondary typing for to go with its primary one (Lets Take Greninja for example - It isn't much if you take his typing into consideration, since due to Dark, it gets 2 weaknesses added).

Like, Mudsdale is easily the best Ground type out there, simply because of its Stamina Ability.

 

[GhostLucario]

I don't think there's a "best type" because they have very different defensive and offensive capabilities, but I feel the types with the best balance are Water and Fairy.

Water has only two weaknesses, it's only resisted by itself and Grass, and it has strong neutral coverage. And most Water types get Ice types by default, helping with the Grass resistance/weakness.

Fairy is strong defensively, resisting the strongest types (Fighting and Dark, and being immune to Dragon) while also being effective against those. And it's weaknesses are sort of bad offensively.

 

[Camille]

Water, it is the most common type yet is great offensively and defensively.
Flying and Dragon are pretty good types, too.