Pokemon Scarlet & Violet: Poison Type Weaknesses (And The Best Counters)
Unlike Normal-Type, Poison-Type Pokémon in "Scarlet and Violet" can be challenging to face. One of the major benefits of the Poison Type is that many of its moves and abilities are designed to induce the Poison status effect. Once this is in place, the enemy Pokémon's health will dwindle away with each passing turn until the rival trainer cures them, or they eventually run out of HP. This can be particularly devastating against a Pokémon who's designed around crazy high evasion or defense stats. Most Poison Pokémon in "Scarlet and Violet" are dual-type as well, meaning that they usually have access to an entire second class of movesets. This makes battles against Poison-Type Pokémon difficult to manage — but they are far from invincible.
Every Pokémon-Type has its own strengths and weaknesses. When one type is strong against another, the Pokémon deals extra damage and receives less from moves of that type. When a type is weak against another, it deals less damage and receives more. Poison-Type Pokémon are strong against Fairy and Grass, but Poison-Type weaknesses include Ground and Psychic-Type Pokémon.
The Team Star Squad Leader Atticus is probably the strongest Poison user in the campaign and battling him can certainly be a challenge. The best thing to do when facing a creature that your Pokémon is weak against is usually to change out to a different Pokémon in your party in order to gain a type-advantage, but there are a few additional tricks for dealing with Poison-Types as well.
Ground-Types
Ground-Types can make a very powerful addition to the player's arsenal. They aren't just useful against Poison. They're strong against no less than five different elemental types: Electric, Fire, Poison, Rock, and Steel. This makes them an incredibly popular choice for players looking to round out their teams as they are useful in a wide array of different situations. Ground-Type moves also do a tremendous amount of damage against Poison while also having resistance to Poison damage. Though players who use them should be careful about putting them up against any Pokémon with Grass, Ice, or Water-Type moves. These all deal at least double damage against Ground, so getting hit by them can be devastating.
Another thing to keep in mind is that a majority of the more powerful Ground moves — like Earthquake and Magnitude — require the target to be on the ground in order to hit. Even some Poison-Type Pokémon are immune to this. Ghastly and Haunter notably have the Levitate ability, which makes them immune to all Ground-Type moves. This can be particularly inconvenient if a Ground-Type is the only Pokémon in the player's party that has a Type-advantage against poison. When that happens, it's time to switch to a Psychic-Type.
Psychic
Psychic-Type Pokémon are another great addition to any team. They've been a popular choice ever since Gen 1 due to their incredibly high Special Attack stats, which make their more powerful moves hit like a psionic tank. They only have a Type-advantage over Fighting and Poison, but their attacks are so strong that they often don't need an advantage in order to deal considerable damage. This means that their attacks against Poison-Type Pokémon are particularly deadly.
One thing to consider, though, is that Psychic Pokémon are weak against Bug, Dark, and Ghost-Types. That wouldn't be an issue, except that these are three very common secondary types among Poison Pokémon. Ghastly, Haunter, Gengar, Stunky, Skuntank, Venonat, and Venomoth will all simultaneously have a weakness to receiving damage and an advantage to dealing damage against Psychic Pokémon. The Skuntank that belongs to Atticus can be particularly dangerous. Even many of the Poison-Types that aren't listed as having one of these subtypes are likely to have access to many of their moves.
Psychic-Types also tend to be glass cannons. Their incredibly high attack stats are balanced by low defense and HP. This means that the best tactic is to hit the enemy hard and fast right at the start of the battle and try to take them out in one shot if possible.
Covert Cloak and Antidotes
One of the deadliest things about Poison-Type Pokémon is their ability to inflict the Poison status condition. Therefore, one of the best defenses is to make sure that the player's Pokémon is immune. There are a few items that can help with this.
To start, it's always a good idea to load up on Antidotes so that the player can cure their team members of poisoning whenever it comes up across their Pokémon adventure, and it will – frequently. The downside to this is that it takes up a player's move. An even better solution is to prevent them from getting poisoned in the first place.
The Covert Cloak is a held item that was first introduced in Gen 9. It protects the Pokémon that wears it from any additional effects that might be inflicted by an enemy's moves. That means that while the Pokémon wearing it can still be poisoned by moves like Poison Powder and Poison Gas, which exclusively inflict status effects and don't deal damage, they no longer have a chance of being poisoned by moves like Sludge or Poison Jab.
This cloak can be obtained once for free in the snowy town of Montenevera, but it is first available as a purchasable item at the Levincia branch of Delibird Presents.