CAP 15 CAP 4 - Part 3 - Threat Discussion

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bugmaniacbob

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I know what you're thinking. What could possibly threaten such a magnificent Bug?

  • Going specifically by typing, what Pokemon found in the OU (or relevant) metagame will be able to comfortably give this CAP project trouble?
  • What Pokemon will be major threats to this project right off the bat?
  • What Pokemon have the potential to become counters?
  • What Pokemon may end up as threats, but must be contained or dealt with per the concept?
  • Will the concept succeed with these set list of threats?
  • Is this list of threats acceptable for the project?
  • What Pokemon will be threatened by the CAP based off of typing?
  • Are these Pokemon targets that we want CAP to hit?
  • Will these targets be "unavoidable" to threaten based solely on the typing?
  • What direction must the project go in now that a set list of basic threats has been identified?
  • What must be done in order to make these threats "wanted counters" or these threats be eliminated from counter discussion?
  • What Pokemon do we want this project to counter entirely?

Please try not to poll-jump.

Below is CAP 4 so far:

Name: Risky Business
(formerly "Living On the Edge")

General Description: This Pokémon is very risky to play, but very rewarding if played correctly.

Justification: Many of the Pokémon that are successful in OU are relatively easy to play or have great "safe" options (e.g. U-turn). Yet, many other Pokémon look very powerful, but are less successful than they could be because of some large risks involved (e.g. Hydreigon), and some aren't successful at all (e.g. Honchkrow). This self-balancing concept intends to explore what it takes for a risky Pokémon to be successful, and how much inherent risk a Pokémon can get away with. It should be emphasized that this concept is NOT about luck management, but rather, it is about what the user can afford to do given his/her opponent's options, and vice versa.

Questions To Be Answered:

  • What is the relationship between risk and potential consequences, both positive and negative?
  • What kinds of inherently risky tactics are successful in the OU metagame?
  • Do risky Pokémon need some form of safe options (e.g. switch-ins) to be successful in OU, or can it get away with having few really safe options?
  • How does Substitute, a well-known "safe" move with nearly universal distribution, impact how this Pokémon is built and played?
  • How do existing Pokémon use and deal with risky situations?
  • Can risky Pokémon be played well in the early game, or are they better off put into action later on?
  • How do different playstyles interact with risky situations?
Typing: Bug / Psychic
 

bugmaniacbob

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Well, here we are, with CAP's first ever Psychic-type creation! Three cheers and lashings of ginger pop all round. Of course, we've barely even begun to scratch the surface of this CAP – we still have stats, abilities, and the movepool to go, not to mention the artwork! Before that, though, we have this curious little stage known as the Threats Discussion. For the benefit of our newer members, I'll just go into a little bit of detail regarding what we can expect to be discussing – older members will perhaps want to skip the next paragraph.

Here, we are asking ourselves the question, "What do we want to threaten CAP4, and what do we want to be threatened by CAP4?" Now, the key word in this question is "want". Doubtless when you see Bug/Psychic, you will automatically say, "Well, Scizor will check it, obviously, because it resists Bug and Psychic and can Pursuit, U-turn, or Bullet Punch". That is not the way to approach this, and I don't want to see that in this thread. We are quite within our rights to create a custom priority Fire-type attack if we decide that Scizor should not be threatening this CAP in any way, shape or form (not that we will do, obviously). So, in this instance, we are deciding what we want to be threatening CAP4, and vice versa, based on such things as roles, momentum, and of course typing.

So, in any case, this is something that is important to get right, especially given the importance of hitting and switching to a Pokemon that is focusing on Risk and Reward. Too much Reward, and there is little Risk; and vice versa. In this case, what we want to do is to compromise between roles; as there are many roles that we have decided that this Pokemon could accomplish, we will need to find the optimum middle ground through this thread. Here, to start off with, are the specifications of the typing we are working with:

4x Weakness: (none)
2x Weakness: Fire, Flying, Bug, Rock, Ghost, Dark
Neutrality: Normal, Water, Electric, Ice, Poison, Dragon, Steel
2x Resistance: Grass, Ground, Psychic
4x Resistance: Fighting
Immunity: (none)

Bug hits super effectively: Grass, Psychic, Dark
Bug hits not very effectively: Fire, Fighting, Poison, Flying, Ghost, Steel
Psychic hits super effectively: Fighting, Poison
Psychic hits not very effectively: Psychic, Dark, Steel

Notable Pokemon not hit for at least neutral by STAB moves:
- Forretress
- Genesect
- Heatran
- Magnezone
- Scizor
- Skarmory

So, yeah. Let's ask ourselves the vital questions.

Our first order of business is, naturally, the set-up sweeper build. What should reasonably be expected to be able to stop this sweeper, or at least possibly hinder it, once it gets set up? And perhaps equally importantly, what will be able to stop it before it gets set up? Next, assuming this Pokemon has a general attacking or wall-breaking set: what more do we want to stop this than the sweeper?

I have plenty of questions and thoughts, but I'll let the CAP Community see what it can do first.

-----

BMB's obligatory Topic Leader footnote gimmick - My Top 15 Arthropods

#12 The Flat-Bottomed Trapdoor Spider



Fascinating Fact said:
There aren't many spiders with a quite literal shield on their backsides, but the genus Cyclocosmia tears up all the rules for what a spider should look like. As with most spiders that spend most of their day sitting in a hole in the ground waiting for prey to amble past, it ought to be a quite tempting target for any predators (including the infamous spider wasps, which have a nasty habit of laying eggs in the spiders and leaving the larvae to guzzle the spider alive. Poor spider). The Flat-Bottomed Trapdoor Spider, however, has a tunnel adjoining its main hole, into which it scurries, plugging up the gap with its armour-plated abdomen, and quite content to sit there until the predator gets bored and wanders off. Evolution in action.

Even so, I couldn't find anywhere that listed them as Flat-Bottomed Trapdoor Spiders, which of course is their proper name. Wonder why?
 

Base Speed

What a load of BS!
Looking at potential counters for CAP4, based on its typing...

First thing I'm thinking is that Heatran is going to be a monumental pain in the arse for CAP4. Resisting it's stabs and hitting back with SE fire attacks will not be fun. That said, if CAP4 gets ground coverage, Heatran may well struggle to switch in. I think Heatran seems too obvious as a counter, and it already counters plenty of OU threats. I'd quite like to see CAP4 having at least one set that can beat Heatran

Infernape has the potential to cause it a great deal of trouble if it can hit it with a flare blitz, but wouldn't be able to switch in for fear of a psychic attack. Who wins in this situation would depend who's faster.

Any good user of sucker punch may present a problem for CAP4 too, and could be the best way to stop it after it's set up. Dugtrio could use it for a revenge kill, and from UU Bisharp and Houndoom could come along and cause trouble, especially since both have secondary typings that make bug hit for only neutral (though that won't count for much if CAP4 has boosted)

Landorus, Tyranitar and Terrakion could all bully CAP4 too should they end up outpacing it. CS Landorus may even be able to outpace CAP4 at +1 or +2 and use Stone Edge (or perhaps CAP4 will make it use its flying STAB more)

Scizor doesn't need talking about too much. We all know it'll give CAP4 trouble and the obvious fix is to give it fire type coverage, should we want to avoid Scizor being a counter.

I'm sure I'll think of more, but I'm gonna post this now to avoid being too badly ninja'd.

Edit: All in all, I think it benefits the concept to have no 100% counters. If different sets have different counters, it gives good team building risk - what if my opponent has the counters for this set rather than the others?
 
Heatran and Skarmory seem perfect for tanking our CAPs stabs - one will be best depending on whether CAP ends up being physical or specially based but it seems that apart from these 2 and Magnezone, other Steel types carry a typing that at least let our CAP hit them for neutral damage with it's STAB attacks.

Dammit: Forgot Scizor and Genesect - well Scizor is slow unless using Bullet Punch, but Genesect is probably going to cause major headaches for our CAP seeing as the most common set id the Scarf set.
 
I think in terms of risk, Terrakion is the obvious and perfect counter for this Pokemon, due to its Stone Edge/Close Combat coverage, where you could switch in and resist x4, or switch in and get OHKOed. Tyranitar may be a problem to switch in on, but as long as CAP4 is faster, it shouldn't represent too much of a problem, due to its bug weakness.

Any Dragon in OU has the potential to destroy this CAP, most noticeably Haxorus or Dragonite. I can see this pokemon getting Dragon Pulse somehow, which might nullify the dragon's effectiveness.

I can also see Jellicent as an effective counter, due to its notorious walling ability, and its Ghost typing.

EDIT: I'm going to include the Pokemon which I can see emerging from UU to OU, due to CAP4:

Chandelure has the potential to be a massive threat. Each STAB hits this Pokemon super effective, and it isn't affected much by CAP4's STAB.
 
I agree with Base Speed in that CAP4 should not have any threats that counter all of its sets, and I think the best way to do this is to give it 100% type coverage. In a set-up sweeper build, CAP4 will be limited heavily by the 4-move restriction; a set-up move and both STABs gives it only one more coverage move, which could as easily be Ground against Heatran and Magnezone as Fire against Scizor, Forretress, and Genesect. It should be able to defeat any of its counters, but not all at the same time. Thus there is risk in choosing the moveset, and risk in switching in.
 
From what I'm reading, it seems that CAP 4 will rely on Fire or Fighting type moves to round out coverage alongside its STAB moves. With that in mind, I could see Jellicent being a decent counter considering his resistance to Bug & Fire moves, being immune to Fighting moves, and having enough special bulk to take most Pyschic attacks. Of course, Psyshock could give Jellicent some problems. as well as Shadow Ball which, to my knowledge, is an attack that every Psychic type learns by TM.

Now that I think about it, we could easily make CAP 4 more risky by giving it Four-Slot-Move-Syndrome. If CAP 4 runs Bug/Psychic/Fighting for type coverage, that it will have trouble dealing with Bulky Ghost-types. However, if CAP 4 runs Bug/Psychic/Ghost for coverage, it's gonna be beaten pretty hard by most Steel types.

And for a brief discussion for what Pokemon we want CAP 4 to threaten, considering CAP 4's resistance to Grass and Fighting moves, I'd like to see CAP 4 be able to at least check variants of Breloom that don't carry Stone Edge.
 
i believe we should give it a useful fire type move for dealing with steel types, except for heatran. heatran makes a perfect counter to it, as long as this does not have reliable ground coverage heatran can switch in on a resisted STAB or a coverage fire, and proceed to force the switch or kill it. Choice scarf terrakion should also be a firm counter, provided stone edge hits. Tornadus-T also hits it with STAB hurricane and super0effective heat wave. These 3 popular and powerful counters would give this pokemon enough risk in battle, while keeping it usable.
 

MCBarrett

i love it when you call me big hoppa
Okay, so obviously this is going to be a very important aspect of this cap as we need to balance the amount of threats, counters and targets for our psychic bug. I think the best way to do that is to stay true to the typing and why we selected it. There shouldn't be many areas where we should try to negate a weakness in order to threaten certain ou pokes. We have to keep risk involved. So with that here are some threats counters and targets i feel we should keep in mind for this cap.

Counters:I think with our stealth rock weakness and susceptibility to hazards in general bulky pokemon that threaten momentum should be a big problem. Of course set-up sweeper is still an option so if these walls can't do anything to slow down cap4 through status or if they can't break subs they will be great set-up bait and can be taken advantage of from there. So here's a list of the counters that should be most threatening to cap4, i'll only list the ones that will be near 100% counters that can threaten as well to keep it short and to the point.

Heatran- Resists both stabs and can hit super effectively. Can also set up stealth rocks on the switch.
Jellicent- Resists bug moves, can burn with scald, taunt to avoid setting up and hits super effectively with stab shadow ball.
Skarmory - Resists both stabs and can hit super effectively with brave bird. Can stop set up variants with whirlwind and can set up spikes on the switch.
Jirachi - 4x resists psychic attacks, can threaten with paralyzation and possible super effective coverage with fire punch.

Threats: To keep risk in tact there must be a good number of inopportune switch ins for cap4 to make. There are also obviously going to be a number of pokes that can revenge kill if cap4 has not set up, and some that could still be a threat even if it has set up (not if its still behind a sub though). I'll keep this list simply to anything that cap4 should not be able to switch into and can switch in on an attack and still be a threat as we don't know what set ups cap4 will receive or if he will receive any at all. Obviously there are more threats than just these but these are the ones cap4 should never be able to beat (unless it has already set up a ton and has the appropriate hidden power)

Genesect - resists both stabs, hits super effectively with stab u-turn and bug buzz, also has flamethrower for more super effective coverage. Easy to say you're gonna need a genesect counter or hp fire if you want to win with cap4.
Dragonite - Resists bug and has access to fire punch and hurricane for super effective damage.
Magnezone - Resists both stabs and almost always runs hp fire. Can set up on the switch/ get behind a sub.
Scizor - resists both stabs and hits super effectively with u turn. can also pursuit trap.
Tornadus-t has good enough bulk to take unboosted attacks. can hit super effectively with stab hurricane or with u-turn.

Targets: Here i'm only going to list what can not hit back effectively under any circumstances and what is threatened by at least one stab at the same time. With set up moves this could shrink greatly. I'll have input for what should be included on this list either by set up moves or proper stats after but this is what we have as definite targets right now to get them out of the way so we don't have to discuss them any further.

Toxicroak- is 4x weak to psychic stab and fighting stab is 4x resisted.
Breloom- weak to psychic stab and both stabs are resisted.
Verizion- same as breloom but doesn't have spore so its even more of a target.

So thats the list of the definites. Now there are still some things that i feel we should give cap 4 in order to have some success.

1. Be able to ohko conkeldurr. If conkeldurr isn't able to be ohko'd either by way of setting up or by proper stats it becomes a threat with payback.

2. Have enough special defense to survive an unboosted, neutral weathered, hydro pump from keldeo, or provide calm mind as a boosting move to be able to take one. This may seem like a lot to ask but is actually very important. A main selling point of bug/psychic is its 4x fighting resist so it should be able to handle most fighting types in ou. The only other fighting types that i haven't mentioned are infernape and terrakion because they both have moves that can hit super effectively so they're probably around a 50/50 chance. That means cap4 should be able to take on keldeo to give it the best possible chance against the fighting types of ou as a whole.

3. u-turn. I think in order to have balance between risk and reward u-turn must be an option for cap to get out of risky situations. pursuit will still hit for double damage if cap4 is faster so that isn't taken totally out of play, and switch ins are so risky for it, being weak to rocks and susceptible to hazards, that it should be given some help on the switch out side.
 

jc104

Humblest person ever
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Looking at the list of Pokemon resisting CAP4's STABs, it looks like trappers could help out CAP4 significantly (especially magnezone, but also Dugtrio and Gothitelle somewhat). Do we consider trapping the correct pokemon to be "playing well?" Would we therefore want to allow these Pokemon to wall CAP4? Or is trapping considered to be easy, and therefore we ought to let other pokemon counter CAP4? It's a difficult one.

Also, I would really not like CAP4 to be able to hard counter much at all, if possible, as this doesn't fit in well with the concept. Sadly there is fairly little we can actually do about this. Anyway, we shouldn't be trying to add any pokemon to this list (e.g Breloom lacking Stone Edge). I'd actually prefer if this CAP was not able to OHKO Conkeldurr for this reason (OHKOing conk is an achievement anyway).
 

MCBarrett

i love it when you call me big hoppa
Also, I would really not like CAP4 to be able to hard counter much at all, if possible, as this doesn't fit in well with the concept. Sadly there is fairly little we can actually do about this. Anyway, we shouldn't be trying to add any pokemon to this list (e.g Breloom lacking Stone Edge). I'd actually prefer if this CAP was not able to OHKO Conkeldurr for this reason (OHKOing conk is an achievement anyway).
you have to remember that reward is part of this concept as well so there should be some things that cap4 can take on very well. Risk and reward should be looked at in terms of the entire metagame not in terms of every one on one matchup. There will be some match ups that are very risky/ not winnable and some match ups that are very rewarding/ very winnable.

Adding to that i don't think conkeldurr should become a threat so thats why i feel its important to have the power to ohko it. otherwise it will and i don't think thats something we want.
 
1. Be able to ohko conkeldurr. If conkeldurr isn't able to be ohko'd either by way of setting up or by proper stats it becomes a threat with payback.
For comparison:

252SpAtk Latios (+SAtk) Psyshock vs 224HP/0Def Conkeldurr (Neutral): 74% - 87% (302 - 356 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO.
252SpAtk Latios (+SAtk) Psychic vs 224HP/0SpDef Conkeldurr (Neutral): 112% - 133% (458 - 542 HP). Guaranteed OHKO.


Now I know what you're going to say - run Psychic over Psyshock - however we have yet to decide CAP's movepool and more importantly - Psychic types that don't run Psyshock are in danger of being walled by the pink blobs. And what if our CAP ends up wanting a +Spe Nature? And Latios has 110 Base Sp Attack which is useful to keep in mind when we decide on stat weights.

Do we want our CAP to be walled by the pink blobs?

That aside: as you can see, a Latios that lacks specs or Life Orb cannot OHKO Conkeldurr with Psyshock so to throw something else out there:

252Atk Light Metal Metagross (+Atk) Zen Headbutt vs 224HP/0Def Conkeldurr (Neutral): 75% - 89% (308 - 366 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO.
252Atk Life Orb Light Metal Metagross (+Atk) Zen Headbutt vs 224HP/0Def Conkeldurr (Neutral): 97% - 116% (398 - 474 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO. 88% chance to OHKO.


As you can see from the Calcs, if Metagross cannot OHKO Conkeldurr with the highest BP Physical psychic move and only gets an 88% chance to KO with Life Orb then by insisting that it can OHKO Conkeldurr we are either pigeon-holing our CAP into a special based attacker already or we are advocating giving it 140+ Base Attack?

Payback is a bitch, loads of T-shirts agree. I think it SHOULD be a risk inherent in our CAP to not just switch into every fighting type with impunity just because it has a 4x resist and it also promotes our CAP as a set up sweeper as a boosted CAP could easily KO Conk, but only once it's nabbed at least 1 boost.

Example used: Exeggutor (95 Base Attack) with Swords Dance

252Atk +2 Exeggutor (+Atk) Zen Headbutt vs 224HP/0Def Conkeldurr (Neutral): 118% - 140% (482 - 570 HP). Guaranteed OHKO.

The Conk set I'm referencing is the Status Orb set from the Smogon pokedex.
 
Finding a balance is going to be tough. I believe the biggest obstacles to overcome are going to be in Scizor, Skarmory and Heatran. If it uses Fire type coverage it gets walled by Heatran(assuming of course it doesn't use 4 attacks) on the other hand ground coverage rids it of Heatran and other grounded Steel types but it fares poorly against Skarmory and Scizor to some extent. Fighting type coverage is an option to find some middle ground but I believe it won't hit hard enough to warrant a slot.A fire type move would be the best bet so that it threatens Scizor and Skarmory. On the other hand it could'nt switch directly into Scizor for fear of the U-turn. Heatran carries Air Balloon often enough anyways so its appropriate to have it counter our CAP. I just looking at this from a typing perspective since depending on its movepool and stats it can be tailor made to take out other threats.
 

MCBarrett

i love it when you call me big hoppa
in reply to skore's post, one of the things i mentioned was that a boosting move could help ohko conkeldurr. That would be a good balance between risk and reward since, without a boost, conkeldurr is a threat, but it can be handled when a boost is achieved. I was mainly trying to say that the ability to take out conkeldurr should be there, either through boosts or running psychic over psyshock (which is a good example of risk and reward as well as each has their own merits), because i dont think we want conkeldurr to become a hard counter. The possibility of it countering is fine, just not 100% of the time
 
An important thing we need to address in the creation of CAP4 is how it interacts with weather. I'd like to draw our attention for a moment to the interesting relationship that Bug/Psychic has with Tyranitar. The strongest special STAB move that CAP4 would be able to use against Tyranitar is Bug Buzz, obviously; unfortunately, even with Choice Specs Bug Buzz only OHKOs Specially Defensive (252/252+) Tyranitar if CAP4 is running 252+ SAtk with a minimum of 221 base SAtk, even after Stealth Rock. The significance of being able to OHKO Tyranitar should hopefully be apparent to most, namely that if Tyranitar has a chance to attack, Fire Blast/Stone Edge/Crunch/Pursuit will hurt. A lot. Now, we can't give CAP4 221+ Special Attack because it would ravage the tier; this should also hopefully be apparent.

We've set out on CAP4 with the mission of creating a "Pokémon is very risky to play, but very rewarding if played correctly." According to the PO August OU usage statistics, Tyranitar is used on 13.399 of teams in the current metagame. That's more than one Tyranitar on every 8 teams that we face without having the added component of something that's extremely threatened by T-Tar being on practically every single team out there (playtest). Tyranitar is just one example, as well. Scizor would be another that put CAP4 in a sticky situation if it's not threatened by something in CAP4's moveset. Assuming we don't end up giving CAP4 a Fire-typed priority attack (seriously, BMB... I'd like to see you come up with the flavor explanation for that) Scizor could also pose a threat. Similar situations arise for other pokes which also would be good counters and at the same time are dangerous in other respects; examples include Genesect and Air Balloon Heatran. The point I'm trying to make with this is that in order for CAP4 to get around these threats it's going to need to specialize too much in being able to eliminate them and while this is a risk that the user is taking when using CAP4, I feel it may be too much of a risk and lower the appeal of using CAP4 to an extent.
 
All right, I'm actually pretty stoked for this because I think what I'm about to say could really work out. Basically, I think we should minimize the number of counters, but have a good number of checks. I'm finding that this is actually not terribly difficult to achieve, but I suppose that's a discussion for future threads. In particular, I'm looking at using coverage for Steel-types. This I am hoping will leave faster offensive threats and very defensive Dragon- and Steel-types (e.g. SpD Jirachi) as the most reliable checks to CAP 4. Therian Tornadus is a prime example of a probable reliable offensive check to CAP 4 (unless CAP 4 has 122+ base Speed) due to its high usage as well as Regenerator and, of course, its base Speed. Most Choice Scarf users are also pretty obvious checks, and it probably should stay that way (not like we could do much outside of compelling Choice Scarf CAP 4 sets somehow). Blissey probably should be a check, too, so as not to justify some ridiculously high SpA to allow Psyshock to 2HKO. More specifically, with the right coverage move(s), CAP 4 could threaten most of the current top 30 if we wanted. One idea I have is that CAP 4 should be able to 2HKO most threats with a recovery move or setup sweeper move, and 3HKO most of the rest.
 

Korski

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I think it's important to note that Psychic still isn't a very good STAB and is seen only sporadically amongst the 12 Psychic types in OU. Since even our new CAP itself resists Psychic, those attacks are going to be even riskier to waste a moveslot on in the playtest. That could EITHER mean we shouldn't necessarily count on Psychic STAB if coverage is sufficient (a la Starmie), OR we should try and encourage Psychic STAB use as much as possible. To avoid polljumping, I will suggest the latter and argue that we should target our CAP at being able to reliably check Terrakion, Keldeo, Breloom, Infernape, Conkeldurr, Tentacruel, and ideally (but not necessarily) Gengar/Venusaur. Since many of these 'mons will likely check CAP right back, I think it's fair to reward the player for playing smartly with a niche STAB. Toxicroak would be a fascinating risk/reward prospect with Sucker Punch, but the winner of that battle is just going to be who gets their Sub up first, I imagine (i.e. strategy will deal with Toxicroak, so we should focus on the other Fighting types).

A lot of this can be done with a high Speed stat, as the frailer Gengar, Infernape, and Breloom will all fall to whatever standard Psychic attack we give our Poke. On the other hand, high Speed doesn't help as much against Terrakion, Keldeo, Tentacruel, and Conkeldurr without the Atk/SpA to break through those bulkier opponents. Nor will it help against the various Steel-types who wall it anyway.

Otherwise, as per "roles" are concerned, I like the idea of a not-so-bulky booster like Salamence or Alakazam. Since CAP's STABs are walled pretty thoroughly by most Steel-types, we should be able to give the thing a couple different methods of boosting offensively at the expense of needed coverage (if available at all). Being affected by status and passive damage gives it a universal weakness to stall and offensive VoltTurn teams, so the different boosting sets, for example, Dragon Dance vs. Quiver Dance vs. Swords Dance vs. Tail Glow (all hypothetical), would all have different sets of both offensive and defensive checks. The risk of boosting sets will hopefully depend on requiring two or more boosts to sweep past a hard counter to that set, like Skarmory/Scarf Terrakion for the DD set or Blissey/Heatran for the Tail Glow set, and few (if any) means of bypassing residual damage and/or status. Thus the reward would be a clean sweep or the removal of a major defensive threat.

Goodbye, AmoonBro.
 
Don't overlook Coil as a boosting move. Someone mentioned Bug Buzz as being the strongest STAB vs Tyranitar, but obviously forgot Megahorn or was thinking that Psychic type automatically meant Special Attacker.

Megahorn could use the accuracy boost as could a lot of coverage moves.
 

bugmaniacbob

Was fun while it lasted
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Right so everybody seems to have their own list of, well, everything. Reading through it, I've heard some good points that I think need addressing or, at least, some form of consideration. I'd like us to turn our attention to those, or at least, after I've had my little say.

I think we all need to remember that this CAP is not going to be present in a vacuum when it is played. Likely as not, we can take Stealth Rock and Spikes as given; the possibility, then, of losing almost 50% of its HP when switching in on a resisted attack is a very real one. As such, it is very important that we remember that there must be a very, very good payoff for this enormous Risk, if there is to be a reason to use it over any other, more generic attacker. This problem was not foreign to Bug/Dragon; it is very much present here as well. And in this case, there are fewer absolute resistances we can play off. I believe I took issue, earlier, with Fire/Electric as being able to switch in on Genesect of all things with near impunity, but the opposite is true of Bug/Psychic. There is very little it can switch in on with little risk to itself. And that's a good thing, but it presents us with a problem that we are not quite addressing yet.

If this CAP is to be properly viable, it has to give a reward for its use that is greater than that of its nearest rival, as we have already chosen a typing that immediately places it at a disadvantage. Now, in this case there are no immediate rivals in terms of typing. Celebi comes the closest, perhaps, but it at least has a niche, being able to quite effectively check rain teams. Thus any attempt we may make to create a CAP4 that can compete on that kind of defensive or utility level seems doomed to failure. As it is hard to adequately describe a threat to high-risk support in a single Pokemon, we are forced to primarily concentrate our efforts on offensive weaknesses. My thoughts on this very particular area follow:

As for set-up sweepers, I believe that there should be no 100% counters, and even checks should take heavy damage, such that they may be OHKOed by adequate prior damage. I believe this is crucial, as there needs must be some sort of Reward that surpasses that of other key sweepers in OU, such as DD Salamence - in this, perhaps, the ability to sweep cleanly and reliably when healthy, though this would deteriorate when weakened. I am firmly of the opinion that if it doesn't have this capability, it will be significantly weakened. Obviously the requisite prior damage would alter depending on the strength of the set-up move. CAP4 can easily obtain perfect neutral coverage through Bug/Psychic/Fighting, or alternatively get reasonably good coverage through through Bug/Psychic/Electric (misses Magnezone) and Bug/Psychic/Water (misses Empoleon). Through this it should not be too difficult to fashion an adequate sweeper, given the right choices.

As for generic attackers with 4 attacks, the advantage here over the sweeper is, of course, the ability to run an extra coverage or support move. Hence the possibility of being able to OHKO something on the switch, with a super effective attack, or to enable added support on a predicted switch, is increased. I believe that the most we can get out of this is by playing on CAP4's natural tendency to lure in Steel-types, and thus making good use of coverage moves to defeat its usual checks. This is a high-Risk strategy, made all the more eyeball-watering by CAP4's difficulty in switching in - you will only get a few chances to execute said strategy. As such, it's a good idea to make sure that the reward is worth the risk - which is why I would propose that it has the offensive stats necessary to severely damage a Pokemon switching in, but is not necessarily capable of following that attack up by outspeeding it on the next turn.

Continue, and please do read the opinions of others as well as my own.
 
I do feel like bmb brought up some really important things about how we would like CAP4 to perform and others on here ahve also brought up that we do need some way of getting the reward that makes up for the risk that we have created with alot of common weaknesses and the stealthrock weakness.

Someone also brought up the fact that bug buzz would be the strongest move against t-tar which I personally feel should be at least a 65-35 in CAP4s favour. This means that we should probably go with a physical set with megahorn as it's main stab. If this is the route we would take I feel like CAP4 would need a "high" attacking stat cause if so a Megahorn/Zen headbutt (yeah I know there is nothing better this far...) Would be able to deal alot of damage even if it's resisted (base 130 atk adamant megahorn 2-hits standard ferro on the switch and the same set OHKOs standard Tentacruel with Zen headbutt)

If U go physical though pokes like: Forretress, Scizor, Skarmory, Heatran and Genesect would completely wall CAP4 if we don't give it a coverage move (I would suggest fighting in this case) since going with hidden power fire/ground won't be as effective as if you used a special set. I have a feeling though that people are gonna go full support for a special QD set.

Sry if I went to much into moves/stats but I just really wanted to analyze what counters we would get if we decide to go with a physical set.
also sry for my english it could be a bit better (Swede)
 
Obviously, steel types are a pretty big problem, but I really don't know if talking about movepool would be poll-jumping, so I won't go on about steel types.

One thing I think would make a great counter to this CAP is that thing. That Dark/Flying thing that's named vullaby or something. That thing is hit neutrally by bug and not at all by psychic. Also, it's STABs hit super-effectively. Now, an electric move would deal with that bird, so it might not be such a problem after all, but I wanted to get that in there.
 
Obviously, steel types are a pretty big problem, but I really don't know if talking about movepool would be poll-jumping, so I won't go on about steel types.

One thing I think would make a great counter to this CAP is that thing. That Dark/Flying thing that's named vullaby or something. That thing is hit neutrally by bug and not at all by psychic. Also, it's STABs hit super-effectively. Now, an electric move would deal with that bird, so it might not be such a problem after all, but I wanted to get that in there.
Yeah, Mandibuzz seems like a great idea as a counter. Its hella bulky too, and its typing is rather good, barring that SR weakness.
I also agree with BugManiacBob in that there should be 4MSS here. A great way to do so would be to give it both Fire and Ground coverage moves, forcing a user to choose, do they get walled by Heatran or by Skarmory? The main way to deal with CAP4 should be by checking it, though, since that would alin with the goal.
Another idea would be giving it the ability to perform as a remarkable Choice user, barring the SR weakness. This would be a great way to make players make those tough decisions, and picking a certain move could have terrible effects, but the pros would make the gamble worth the risk.
 
I hope this isn't poll-jumping, but perhaps creating a more powerful physical Psychic attack to go along with Megahorn might be a good thing for CAP4 to have. Another possibility could be Quiver Dance (he is a bug type after all, so why not?) This might add to the risk-reward theme, helping CAP4 sweep well if it manages to get a quiver dance up without getting hurt too much.

As for a physical sweeper I can see Gliscor being a bit of a problem, since it resists Bug and CAP4 really would be crippled if it was poisoned or hit with an Acrobatics.
 
Don't overlook Coil as a boosting move. Someone mentioned Bug Buzz as being the strongest STAB vs Tyranitar, but obviously forgot Megahorn or was thinking that Psychic type automatically meant Special Attacker.

Megahorn could use the accuracy boost as could a lot of coverage moves.
Just noting that I did specifically say "strongest special STAB move that CAP4 would be able to use against Tyranitar is Bug Buzz"; I did not discount physical attacks because of the psychic secondary typing, though I suppose I was unclear. I was trying to imply there that a special set would have troubles with Tyranitar because there had been a lot of talk about Fire/Fighting/Ground coverage. I automatically assumed that they were referring to Hidden Power, my bad.

Anyways, I think that Capefeather's idea has some interesting implications. Apart from the fact that it would grant CAP4 a unique reward factor to somewhat mitigate the awful defensive qualities of Bug/Psychic, I think it would also tend to our base concept of risk. I'm going to use the example of Life Orb Deoxys-A in Ubers against Dialga (we'll assume for a moment that you know that Dialga isn't Scarfed). You know that your opponent has Giratina-O waiting in the wings, so you are stuck with a dilemma: Do you use Superpower with the intent of nuking Dialga, or do you use Psycho Boost to try to cripple the Giratina-O switch-in? If you mispredict, you face certain death from Dialga's Dragon move of choice or from Giratina-O's Shadow Sneak. Neither of these Pokemon could be considered counters to Deoxys-A; heck, one of them can't even be considered a reliable check. You have the ability to eliminate one of them, but you need to enter into a risky battle of wits with your opponent; you outpredict them, they lose (or take quite a bit of damage on) one of their Pokemon. If they outpredict you, well, you either lose Deoxys-A or give Giratina-O a free switch-in. The same sort of thing would apply to CAP4 if it had no hard counters.
 
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