Deck Knight
Blast Off At The Speed Of Light! That's Right!
Hello everyone, I'd like to start a little revitalization effort of the main forum. There's always seemed to be a lot of apprehension about jumping into the main forum with a non-process thread. There's no need for that, in fact the CAP moderators are already in the process of clearing out some of the clutter so that CAP participants don't feel like the only threads they can start and post in are CAP Process threads.
Now, I'm no expert at BW CAP, but historically Flying STAB has had major impacts on the CAP Pokemon. After the release of Syclant, Revenankh, and Pyroak, Togekiss started to show up everywhere because of its reliable bulk and the fact it could check, cripple, or counter the major CAP Pokemon with a combination of Thunder Wave and Air Slash.
In general Flying has gotten stronger over time because so many CAPs had a type weak to Flying. Fidgit's Ground STAB did nothing to them, Arghonaut had no solid answer for Togekiss, and immunity to ShadowStrike made Kitsunoh less than ideal. Even Stratagem had to watch out for the aforementioned Thunder Wave and Aura Sphere.
After Colossoil is when Flying really started picking up though. Colossoil not only demolished OU's premier spinblocker in Rotom-W, applied to CAP it could also maul Kitsunoh and easily get a spin in or tear teams apart. Togekiss was slower than it and couldn't paralyze it easily, but another flying type stepped in to fill the void: Staraptor. With Colossoil ridding Staraptor of Rotom Appliances and common Stealth Rocks, Staraptor was perfectly suited to enter not only as a partner, but also as a foil to Colossoil. It's difficult to imagine a more effective paper counter to Colossoil than a faster Normal/Flying Pokemon with Intimidate, Close Combat, and huge ATK.
This is not to discount another popular flying threat at the time: Crobat. Crobat's combination of speed and decent bulk along with Taunt, Whirlwind, and what was then 70% Hypnosis in Platinum made it a great backstop, since it 4x resisted the common Fighting attacks and was immune to Earthquake.
Generation 5 now has Rain everywhere, and Hurricane is a fantastic move. Tomohawk is almost a testament to the relevance of Flying in Gen 5 as a whole, since it introduced so many new Fighting-type threats for Terrakion to Conkeldurr. Ground also got a new friend in Excadrill, so Earthquake immunity was also a selling point.
What is your observations on Flying in the CAP metagame? Do you run Sun just to mess with Hurricane or Rain to abuse it? How often do you run into Cyclohm, Krillowatt, and Kitsunoh, which resist Flying? What are your favorite Flying sets? Flying counters?
Now, I'm no expert at BW CAP, but historically Flying STAB has had major impacts on the CAP Pokemon. After the release of Syclant, Revenankh, and Pyroak, Togekiss started to show up everywhere because of its reliable bulk and the fact it could check, cripple, or counter the major CAP Pokemon with a combination of Thunder Wave and Air Slash.
In general Flying has gotten stronger over time because so many CAPs had a type weak to Flying. Fidgit's Ground STAB did nothing to them, Arghonaut had no solid answer for Togekiss, and immunity to ShadowStrike made Kitsunoh less than ideal. Even Stratagem had to watch out for the aforementioned Thunder Wave and Aura Sphere.
After Colossoil is when Flying really started picking up though. Colossoil not only demolished OU's premier spinblocker in Rotom-W, applied to CAP it could also maul Kitsunoh and easily get a spin in or tear teams apart. Togekiss was slower than it and couldn't paralyze it easily, but another flying type stepped in to fill the void: Staraptor. With Colossoil ridding Staraptor of Rotom Appliances and common Stealth Rocks, Staraptor was perfectly suited to enter not only as a partner, but also as a foil to Colossoil. It's difficult to imagine a more effective paper counter to Colossoil than a faster Normal/Flying Pokemon with Intimidate, Close Combat, and huge ATK.
This is not to discount another popular flying threat at the time: Crobat. Crobat's combination of speed and decent bulk along with Taunt, Whirlwind, and what was then 70% Hypnosis in Platinum made it a great backstop, since it 4x resisted the common Fighting attacks and was immune to Earthquake.
Generation 5 now has Rain everywhere, and Hurricane is a fantastic move. Tomohawk is almost a testament to the relevance of Flying in Gen 5 as a whole, since it introduced so many new Fighting-type threats for Terrakion to Conkeldurr. Ground also got a new friend in Excadrill, so Earthquake immunity was also a selling point.
What is your observations on Flying in the CAP metagame? Do you run Sun just to mess with Hurricane or Rain to abuse it? How often do you run into Cyclohm, Krillowatt, and Kitsunoh, which resist Flying? What are your favorite Flying sets? Flying counters?