Pokemon Go: How to defeat Magneton, weakness & counters

Last Updated on: 6th August 2021, 12:17 pm

Magneton might look like a few floating bolts, but it packs a punch, so do you know what weakness to use to defeat Magneton in Pokemon Go?

This short guide is designed to help you know precisely how to counter Magneton in Pokemon Go. Some players from even the very first generation of Pokemon might have issues with this tricky Pokemon because its type has actually changed over the years.

What is the weakness and counter of Magneton in Pokemon Go?

The best approach to dealing with Magneton is to grab a Ground-Type Pokemon and just hammer it with Ground-Type attacks. You’ll deal the most damage this way, on top of having immunity to a large slab of Magnetons attacks as well.

Fire-Types take a distant second place, while Fighting-Types are the last counter choice for dealing with Magneton in Pokemon Go – don’t misinterpret that, they’re not bad in this matchup. They’re just worse than the other options.

How did we find the most reliable counter?

As is typical in any Pokemon title, including Go, precisely how strong a Pokemon is and what moves it uses may vary depending on the individual Pokemon in question, but there are a few things that remain consistent across all of any given species of Pokemon.

The easiest of these factors to exploit in battle is often the Pokemon’s Type.

Magneton is an Electric/Steel dual-Type, and if the resistance list below is anything to go by, that makes for a pretty damn strong Typing. Fortunately, it does have a weakness or two and one does stand out over the others.

Magneton Type Interactions in Pokemon Go

Resistances

• Bug
• Dragon
• Electric
• Fairy
• Grass
• Ice
• Normal
• Psychic
• Rock
• Flying
• Poison
• Steel

This is by most Pokemon standards quite the impressive resisted Types list, for 12 resisted Types in total. If that wasn’t enough, the 3 bolded entries in the list of those 12 Types are actually doubled resisted, lowering their damage dealt to a mere 39% of the usual.

The rest will deal the typical 62.5% of typical damage.

Weaknesses

• Fighting
• Fire
• Ground

Fortunately for us, that resistance list came with a useful weakness tradeoff for Magneton in Pokemon Go, while Fighting and Fire-Types will deal 160% damage, Ground-Type attacks will deal an incredible 256% of their usual damage against Magneton.

READ MORE: Pokemon Go: How to defeat Klink, weakness & counters

What moves does Magneton use in battle?

Fast Attacks

• Charge Beam (Electric)
• Spark (Electric)
• Thunder Shock (Electric)

Charged Attacks

• Discharge (Electric)
• Flash Cannon (Steel)
• Magnet Bomb (Steel)
• Zap Cannon (Electric)

Fighting-Types don’t interact with these types of moves beyond simply taking normal levels of damage from them, so there’s nothing special to consider there. Reliable, but probably not ideal.

Fire-Types meanwhile will deal similarly Super-Effective damage against Magneton and resist those two Steel-Type moves, which is a nice bonus. The real winners here are Ground-Types however, given Magnetons heavy dependency on Electric-Type attacks really doesn’t help Magneton out much there, as Ground-Types are totally immune to them.

That means that Ground Types deal the most damage, and ignore most of Magnetons attacks back. Now that’s a tough matchup for Magneton.

READ MORE: Pokemon: Is Voltorb a good Pokemon design or was it a mistake?

Magneton weakness and counters Summary

The simplest answer here is to pick a Ground-Type Pokemon and keep hitting Magneton with it. Ground-Types deal the most damage and have total immunity to most of Magnetons attacks, including all 3 of its possible fast attacks.

If Ground-Types aren’t an option for you, Fire-Type makes a good backup with some advantages, but Ground-Types are simply the king here. It’s also worth noting Fighting-Types are still good, they’re just outright worse than both of the other options here.

That’s about everything we need to know to successfully counter Magneton though, so good luck out there Trainers!

If you’d like more stories, articles and guides for Pokemon Go, you can find them right here on The Click, and if you’d instead like to see more by me specifically, a list of my articles is available here.