Electric Type Weakness: Ground Is the Only Hole — Levitate or an Air Balloon Plugs It

Electric has exactly one weakness in the full 18-type chart: Ground. No hidden second weakness, no dual-typing trap waiting behind a 4x combo — one type deals double damage, confirmed directly on Pokémon Database’s type chart [1]. That’s the whole headline. What most “electric type weakness” explainers skip is that the weakness isn’t always live: two mechanisms let an Electric-type dodge Ground mid-battle, and one move exists specifically to strip both of them away.

Quick start — what actually matters:

• Ground moves are the only thing that deals 2x damage to a pure Electric-type.
• Electric resists itself, Flying, and Steel at 0.5x each — three resistances against one weakness, a better ratio than most single-weakness types get.
• Electric has no innate immunities, but every Ground-type Pokémon is immune to Electric-type moves right back.
• Levitate (an ability) and Air Balloon (a held item) both cancel the Ground weakness mid-fight — confirmed on separate Bulbapedia pages for each [2][4].
• One move, Thousand Arrows, cancels both tricks at once and grounds the target for the rest of the fight [5].
• Pokémon GO has no Abilities and no held items, so Levitate and Air Balloon simply don’t exist there — the only free pass is being Electric/Flying to begin with.

Why Ground Is the Only Hole in an Otherwise Strong Defensive Typing

Electric’s full damage-taken profile, per Pokémon Database [1]:

Electric’s offensive side is lopsided the same way: it hits Water and Flying for 2x, gets halved against Electric, Grass, and Dragon, and does nothing at all to Ground — a flat 0x, not a reduced hit [1]. That 0x is the mechanical mirror of Electric’s own single weakness: current has nowhere to go once it’s grounded, so the game encodes that as a full immunity rather than a resistance. It’s also why an Electric attacker needs a partner for Ground-type opponents rather than just accepting reduced damage.

One weakness against three resistances is a genuinely good ratio — most single-type Pokémon don’t get three cushions for one hole. The catch is that Ground isn’t a niche coverage type teams forget to pack. Earthquake and its relatives are staples specifically because so many metagame threats (Steel-types, other Electric-types, anything without a Flying or Ground-immune trick of its own) can’t do anything about it. A one-weakness typing only stays safe if nobody on the other side is running the one thing that beats it, and in practice, almost everybody is.

The Two Ways Electric Pokémon Dodge Ground Anyway

This is the part most type-chart explainers leave out entirely: the Ground weakness is a rule with two documented exceptions built into the game’s own mechanics, not a community house-rule.

Levitate is an ability that grants full immunity to damaging Ground-type moves, with a single exception (covered below). It also blocks Spikes, Toxic Spikes, Sticky Web, Arena Trap, and terrain effects [2]. Among Electric-types specifically, the holders are all of Rotom’s forms (base, Heat, Wash, Frost, Fan, Mow), the Tynamo line (Tynamo, Eelektrik, Eelektross), and Vikavolt [3]. None of these are optional or hidden-ability gimmicks — Levitate is Rotom and the Tynamo line’s only ability, so every single copy of those Pokémon is immune to Ground by default. That makes the Tynamo line notable: it’s a pure Electric-type family with no natural weakness at all, something Ampharos — also pure Electric, but with no Levitate to fall back on — never gets access to.

Air Balloon is a held item with the same immunity, but it’s temporary: any damaging hit pops it, Ground-type moves included, and once it’s gone the wearer takes Ground damage normally for the rest of the fight [4]. It’s the more flexible option since any Electric-type can hold one, but it’s a one-time shield, not a permanent trait like Levitate.

That flexibility cuts both ways. If you’re building a team around an Electric-type rather than countering one, an Air Balloon is a cheap way to buy a free turn against a Ground-heavy opponent — set up a Calm Mind or a Nasty Plot, force them to burn their Ground move on popping the balloon instead of dealing real damage, then attack while they’re stuck deciding whether to reload. It’s a one-shot trick, not a permanent fix, and a smart opponent will just switch their Ground-type out rather than waste the move — but against anyone who isn’t tracking it, it’s the single cheapest way to turn Electric’s one weakness into a bluff.

A third case looks like an exception but technically isn’t one: Electric/Flying dual-types were never weak to Ground in the first place, because Flying itself is immune to it. Zapdos [10], both formes of Thundurus, Emolga, the Wattrel line, Rotom’s Fan forme (which stacks this with Levitate redundantly), and Oricorio’s Pom-Pom style are all confirmed Electric/Flying — none of them ever had a hole for Levitate or a balloon to plug, because the typing itself never opened one.

The One Move That Cancels Every Exception

Every trick above has a counter-trick, and it’s one move: Thousand Arrows, Zygarde’s signature Ground-type attack. It deals neutral damage to Flying-types regardless of their secondary typing, ignores Levitate and Eelevate outright, and hits straight through an Air Balloon — all three exceptions, cancelled by one attack [5]. It doesn’t stop there: on top of dealing damage, it grounds the target for the rest of the battle (until it switches out), stripping its Ground immunity for every subsequent turn, not just the one hit [5].

The obvious limitation is access — Thousand Arrows is exclusive to Zygarde, so it’s not a tool every team can run. The team-wide fallback is Gravity: for five turns, it grounds every Pokémon on the field, Flying-types, Levitate holders, Air Balloon wearers, and all, on both sides [7]. That’s the trade-off to plan around — it also strips your own Flying-types and Levitate users of their Ground immunity for those five turns, so it’s a field-wide reset, not a one-sided strike. One item that sounds like it should help, Iron Ball, doesn’t: it grounds whoever is holding it, but you can’t force it onto an opponent’s Pokémon mid-battle, so it only matters for your own team’s positioning [6].

Best Ground Counters: Mainline vs. Pokémon GO

Which Ground-type actually earns a team slot depends on the format — and on how far you want to take the exceptions above.

In current Scarlet/Violet OU, Great Tusk leads all Ground-type usage by a wide margin at 34.022% of teams (Smogon’s April–June 2026 weighted usage stats, #1 overall in the format), with Gliscor at 11.955%, Landorus-Therian at 10.379%, and Excadrill at 3.101% [8]. Great Tusk’s dominance isn’t really about beating Electric specifically — it’s a generalist that happens to also solve the Ground matchup for free.

Pokémon GO runs on different rules entirely: no Abilities, no held items, so Levitate and Air Balloon are non-issues — the only Electric-types immune to Ground in GO are the Electric/Flying ones, exactly like in the mainline games, just without the ability/item layer on top [11]. Check the full Pokémon GO type chart before building a raid counter team, since a couple of type interactions differ slightly from the mainline games. For raid attackers, Dittobase’s DPS rankings put Primal Groudon (Mud Shot + Precipice Blades) on top, followed by Mega Garchomp (Mud Shot + Earth Power), Shadow Groudon, Shadow Garchomp, and Landorus Therian [9] — all of them irrelevant against Zapdos specifically, since Zapdos’s own Flying typing makes it immune to every Ground move regardless of which attacker you send in.

Verified against: Generation 9 mechanics and Smogon SV OU usage data (April–June 2026), and Pokémon GO as of August 2026. Type-chart multipliers themselves haven’t changed since the Fairy-type update in Generation 6.

FAQ

Is Ground really Electric’s only weakness, with no exceptions in the type chart itself?
Yes — the type chart gives Electric exactly one weakness, Ground, at 2x [1]. The exceptions covered above (Levitate, Air Balloon, Flying dual-typing) aren’t chart exceptions; they’re ability, item, and secondary-typing layers sitting on top of a chart that never changes.

If a Pokémon has Levitate, is it completely safe from every Ground move forever?
No, and treating it that way is the fastest way to lose a battle you should’ve won. Thousand Arrows ignores Levitate entirely, and Gravity or Smack Down strip it for a turn (or several) even without that move [2][5]. Levitate is a strong default, not a guarantee.

Why does Ground do 0 damage to Electric instead of just resisted damage?
Because the game encodes it as a full immunity, not a resistance — Pokémon Database’s chart lists Electric’s attacks against Ground at a flat 0x [1]. Mechanically it mirrors Electric’s own weakness: grounded current has nowhere left to arc, so the interaction is coded as “no effect” rather than “reduced effect.”

Is it worth building a team specifically around Electric/Flying types to dodge Ground permanently?
Only if you’re fine with the trade-off that comes with it: every Electric/Flying Pokémon picks up a genuine Ice weakness (and often Rock) in exchange for dodging Ground, since Flying itself is weak to both. You’re not removing a weakness, you’re swapping one for two — which is a reasonable trade against a Ground-heavy metagame, but not a free upgrade.

Sources

• Pokémon Database, Electric type Pokémon
• Bulbapedia, Levitate (Ability)
• Pokémon Database, Levitate
• Bulbapedia, Air Balloon
• Bulbapedia, Thousand Arrows (move)
• Bulbapedia, Iron Ball
• Bulbapedia, Gravity (move)
• Smogon Forums, Usage-Based Tier Update for July 2026
• Dittobase, Best Ground-type Attackers in Pokémon GO
• Pokémon Database, Zapdos
• Sportskeeda, Should abilities be added to Pokemon GO?

Michael R.

I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.