Types and matchups
From the Polandball Go Wiki
The game calls types attributes. There are seventeen, and every ball has one or two of them. Mymics in raids have types too, and a merged boss encounter can carry five at once.
1 The type chart#
The game publishes a chart that scores every attacking type against every defending type: +1 when the attack is strong, 0 when it's neutral and −1 when it's weak. Fire, for example, is strong against Agriculture, Ice, Metal, Nature, Oil and Shadow, and weak against eight types including Water and Cosmic. Balance is the opposite extreme: it's strong only against Chaos and weak only against itself. The type chart, type by type lists all seventeen.
The chart isn't a mirror. Chaos is strong against Fire, but Fire hitting Chaos is neutral, not weak. Chaos is even strong against itself, while Balance is weak against itself. Always read a matchup from the attacker's side.
2 Two defending types#
The attacker hits with one type. The defender's types both count, and their scores add together. So a hit into a dual-typed ball scores anywhere from −2 to +2.
Take the British Empire, which is Water and Light:
- Nature and Agriculture are strong against both Water and Light, so they hit it at +2.
- Storm is strong against Light and neutral against Water, so it hits at +1.
- Fire and Light are weak against both, so they hit at −2.
A strong and a weak score cancel. Prague is Storm and Shadow. Light is strong against Shadow but weak against Storm, so a Light hit into Prague comes out neutral.
A ball whose two types are the same counts that type once. Global Dominion British Empire is Cosmic only, so a Light hit into it is a plain +1.
The Dex shows the result for each ball under Type Matchups. Prague's card lists three types it's weak to (Faith, Fire and Mountain) and five it resists (Agriculture, Chaos, Cosmic, Metal and Shadow).
3 From score to damage#
The score alone doesn't say how much damage changes. That comes from the orb tracks under Type Proficiency, and it depends on both balls:
- When the score is positive, the hit grows by the attacker's Type Boost for each point. Type Boost comes from the Attack track and runs from 10% at level 1 to 30% at level 10.
- When the score is negative, the hit shrinks by the defender's Resistance for each point. Resistance comes from the Multiattack track and runs from 5% at level 1 to 25% at level 10.
- At 0, the hit is unchanged.
Here is a 2,000 hit at different scores and orb levels:
- +2 with Attack orbs at 10: 60% more, 3,200.
- +2 with Attack orbs at 1: 20% more, 2,400.
- −1 into Multiattack at 10: 25% less, 1,500.
- −2 into Multiattack at 10: 50% less, 1,000.
So the chart's swing is small on fresh balls and large on fully upgraded ones. Both curves also climb faster near the top, so the last few orb levels are worth more than the first few. Type Proficiency and orbs has every level.
4 Primary typing#
A dual-typed ball doesn't choose its better type. When you unlock a copy, the game picks one of its two types at random, and that primary typing is the type the copy attacks with for as long as you own it. A trade picks it again for both balls.
So two United States copies, Oil and Agriculture, can play very differently. An Oil copy is strong against Fire and Nature. An Agriculture copy is strong against Faith, Light, Nature and Water instead. Defending, both copies take the same hits, because defense always uses both types. See Primary typing.
5 Items carry a type of their own#
Most items have a resonance type. In PvP and war duels, the Weapon move hits with the item's resonance instead of the ball's own type, so an item can hand a ball a strong hit it otherwise lacks.
In one recorded ladder duel, a Global Dominion British Empire (Cosmic) carried Staff of Incandescence ✦✦✦, a Light item. Its normal Cosmic hit into a United Nations (Cosmic and Balance) was neutral, but its Weapon hit was Light into Cosmic, a +1. See Items, tiers and resonance.
6 Arenas#
Every PvP duel is fought in a random arena, shown when the duel loads. Each arena boosts some types by 5%, and any hit of those types, Weapon hits included, is multiplied by 1.05 after the chart. You never pick the arena, so it's no reason to build around one type. Arenas don't apply to war attacks.
7 Raids#
Mymics have types, and raid items talk in the same terms. Taegeuk Spirits makes its holder's attacks ignore type matchups and deal 30% more damage, and Gardener's Trowel deals 20% more damage to Agriculture types. Tutor Leviticus is Light and Faith, the same pair as Lord of Light, so on the chart Agriculture and Nature score +2 against it and Fire scores −2. How much that moves a raid hit isn't known, because the raid damage formula isn't published. See Raids and Mymics.
8 Type isn't everything#
In a duel the chart only scales a hit up or down. CP and country stats set the size of the hit in the first place, and the moves both sides pick decide whether it lands. At the same CP, Russia's Military of 95 makes its normal hit 35% bigger than Switzerland's Military of 40, more than a −1 hit loses even into maxed Resistance. A good matchup can still lose to a much stronger ball. See Country stats and How a duel works.
9 On polbielytics#
- The type chart shows any matchup both ways, with the orb levels as inputs.
- Each typing has its own page, like Fire or Fire and Water.
- Typings ranks typings by how they do in real battles.