Pokemon Go: How to defeat Gengar, weakness & counters
Gengar is a powerful Pokemon in Pokemon Go, often used to deal huge damage quickly, but what is the weakness of this troublesome ghost type?
This short guide is designed to inform you enough about Gengar and any possible weakness you can target so that you know how to defeat the troublesome Shadow Pokemon.
What is the biggest weakness of Gengar in Pokemon Go?
As is typical in any Pokemon title, including Pokemon Go, precisely how strong a Pokemon is and what moves it uses may vary depending on the individual, but there are a few things that remain consistent across all versions of it.
Regardless of the stats, moves and other aspects of a Pokemon, Type is a constant we can use to target a weakness in any Pokemon, including Gengar.
Gengar is a Ghost/Poison dual-Type, which affords the troublesome ghost a fair few resistances – including a very rare triple resistance – and a nice handful of weakness options that you can target for a battle advantage.
Gengar, much like Tyranitar in a previous guide, has a lot of different type interactions due to its dual-type nature, that its much easier to simply list them together rather than cover them individually.
Gengar Resistances
- Fairy
- Grass
- Bug
- Normal
- Poison
- Fighting
Fairy and grass are both standard resistances that reduce damage down to 62.5% of the usual. Types listed in italics (bug and so on) deal only 39% damage, while Fighting is a very rare triple-resisted type, dealing a mere 24% of it’s intended damage.
Gengar Weaknesses
Gengar doesn’t possess quite as many weakness options to list for Pokemon Go, but there’s still a nice few to take advantage of. Note that all of these deal 160% of their usual damage.
- Dark
- Ghost
- Ground
- Psychic
Going off this, you have a good number of approaches to try fighting Gengar with, though at the very least you absolutely must avoid using Fighting-Type moves.
Between Dark, Ghost, Ground and Psychic, there are no Types with an edge based on damage dealt per attack as they all tie with 160%, so let’s consider what moves Gengar has access to next.
What moves can Gengar use in battle?
Fast Attacks
- Hex (Ghost)
- Shadow Claw (Ghost)
- Sucker Punch (Dark)
- Lick (Ghost)
Charged Attacks
- Focus Blast (Fighting)
- Shadow Ball (Ghost)
- Sludge Bomb (Poison)
- Dark Pulse (Dark)
- Psychic (Psychic)
- Shadow Punch (Ghost)
- Sludge Wave (Poison)
Gengar’s access to Dark-Type and Ghost-Type moves makes using a Psychic-Type or Ghost-Type a risk – as a matter of fact, Gengars entire Fast Attacks pool counters Ghost-Type Pokemon – so they should be avoided as much as possible.
Using Dark-Type moves against Gengar is more of an option, as the only weakness of Dark-Type Pokemon that Gengar can make use of is Fighting-Type via Focus Blast.
Even then, Dark-Types resist both Dark and Ghost attacks, so using a Dark-Type against Gengar is a good method.
Similarly, Ground-Type Pokemon have no weaknesses whatsoever that Gengar can make use of, and boast a resistance of Poison, one of his attack types.
In summary, stick to using Ground or Dark Type Pokemon to fight Gengar. Gengar’s other Weakness options, Psychic and Ghost, have significant drawbacks while fighting him. You can still use those weaknesses if Ground or Dark aren’t available to you, but they are not as good as those two options.
Gengar in Pokemon Go – Summary
That’s about as much detail as we need I think. The short answer is to simply use Ground or Dark-Type Pokemon that use their respective types moves. While other counter-types do exist, they have considerable drawbacks while actually fighting Gengar, so they are the ideal choice.
With the weakness of Gengar in Pokemon Go revealed at last, we’ve covered this topic about as much as is needed. If you’d be interested, you can find further Pokemon Go articles, stories, and guides on The Click right here, and more pieces written by me personally here.
