These 2 Pokemon Are Officially The Only Ones of Their Kind After Almost 20 Years

I have been playing Pokemon games for well over 27 years now, and I think I have amassed almost 11,000 hours in the series — especially with how much I’ve played Pokemon Legends: Z-A and Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen in the past few months. One of my favorite aspects of Pokemon games is that I can befriend critters I find while exploring new places, and I can train them in so many different ways to win battles against NPCs and other players alike. This kind of freedom is hard to beat for me, though it does come with some limitations. For example, each Pokemon species has its own distinct abilities, stats, and moves, and while I can customize them to a degree, the same is not true for types.

You can’t really change a Pokemon’s types, and while Pokemon Scarlet and Violet‘s Terastallization did provide a way to temporarily do this, it’s obviously not final. This is not really a problem, and the best way to deal with it is to build teams with few overlapping types and weaknesses. However, some of the best type combos in Pokemon games are locked behind very few critters, if any. Some types have expanded to other Pokemon over the years, but a few never got any representation other than one pocket monster, which happens to be the case for Empoleon and Heatran.

Say Hello to The Only Pokemon of Their Kind

Empoleon and Heatran are some of the best Gen 4 Pokemon due to their type combinations, as they are Water/Steel and Fire/Steel, respectively. These type combos are strong for a few reasons:

• Empoleon
  • Weaknesses: Fighting, Ground, Electric (x2)
  • Resistances: Normal, Flying, Rock, Bug, Water, Psychic, Dragon, Fairy (x0.5); Steel and Ice (x0.25)
  • Immunities: Poison
• Heatran
  • Weaknesses: Ground (x4); Fighting, Water (x2)
  • Resistances: Normal, Flying, Psychic, Dragon (x0.5); Bug, Steel, Grass, Fairy, Ice (x0.25)
  • Immunities: Poison

It’s undeniable that Steel is one of the best types in Pokemon games, if not the best, as it offers incredible defenses with its many resistances at the cost of reduced offensive prowess. Combined with Water and Fire, two other incredibly good types, it becomes all the stronger. This is specifically good in the case of both Empoleon and Heatran because of their abilities.

Empoleon gets access to Torrent, which is the standard ability for all Water-type starters in Pokemon games, but it also has Competitive as its hidden ability. This raises the user’s Special Attack by two stages whenever one of its stats is reduced, which makes Empoleon great against Pokemon with Intimidate. As for Heatran, it has Flash Fire and Flame Body, and while the latter is decent for burning opponents, Flash Fire gives Heatran a second immunity and even a way to heal if hit with Fire moves.

Empoleon and Heatran Are The Only Water/Steel and Fire/Steel Types

Despite Empoleon and Heatran being so unique, they are unfortunately the only Water/Steel-type and Fire/Steel-type in the series so far. It’s hard to say if this will change with the starters in Pokemon Winds and Waves or new Pokemon in general, but for now, these two Pokemon have been the only ones of their kind for 19 years — since Pokemon Diamond and Pearl launched.

These are not the only Pokemon with this issue, with another big example being Mega Altaria as the only Dragon/Fairy Pokemon in the series. However, these are both almost 20-year-old Pokemon, and it’s strange to think that no other Water/Steel or Fire/Steel critters were ever made. Whether a new one ends up in the Pokemon Winds and Waves Pokedex remains to be seen, but I doubt the starters in Gen 10 will have either of these type combinations.