How could we possibly make the Grass/Dark typing work?

[PageEmperor]

Or any bad typing similar to it work even?

So this is a revival of a previous thread. Although the thread I made on this site seemed to be better handled than the Pokecommunity version.

Now, I didn’t explain why I despise the Grass/Dark typing so much last time, so here I shall: I used a particularly abysmal Shiftry in one of my old playthroughs, it never had a particular role or niche and it was weak to practically everything, and I constantly switched up my team just to make it function, and then I gave up the run entirely just because of it.

I really don’t want to experience that again, and with all the reliable leakers claiming the starter I plan to pick is going to be Grass/Dark, I have an issue with that.

I am aware that back then, I probably wasn’t trying too hard, but that said, how do you guys think we could make the Grass/Dark typing more manageable? Let’s strive to be more mature than the last thread.

 

[WyndonCalling]

It's true that the typing is a bit of a mismatch in terms of defensive capabilities - Dark undermines Grass by bringing nasty weaknesses to moves such as Close Combat and U-Turn, while bringing little else to the table - but on the offense, it's actually a pretty intimidating combo. Knock Off is probably one of the best moves in the game in competitive circles, but Dark Pulse, Darkest Lariat and Crunch are all very spammable and Sucker Punch provides unusually powerful priority. On the other hand, Grass actually has a number of incredibly powerful moves; Leaf Storm, Wood Hammer and Power Whip all have over 100 base power. Furthermore, while resistances to Grass are pretty common there's no single type that resists both, so very few opponents will be completely safe from such a combination.

Shiftry can be scary in some circumstances but it's not very bulky and not very fast, so it feels those defensive shortcomings quite acutely; the same goes for Cacturne. Zarude, however, sees high-tier play in competitive environments thanks in part to a monstrous Power Whip. If Sprigatito's final stage shares this typing, it will probably want to be a fast and strong hit-and-run attacker that doesn't stick around against threats it can't take out quickly - and that's a perfectly good place to be in.

 

[hanecco]

Any Pokémon with a dual typing that gives it a lot of weaknesses is not going to be very useful if it's slow. Giving them good attack stats and high speed, as well as a broad movepool with a variety of types, helps to mitigate that

Kartana is 4x weak to fire (Grass/Steel), as well as weak to fighting and a bunch of other things, but people use it a lot competitively because it's relatively fast and has a monstrous attack stat

 

[Harryghost]

Giving strong offense and speed is seemingly the only viable way to assist such a weakness-laden typing. Alternatively, an Ability which cancels out one of its weaknesses helps out.