CAP 16 CAP 5 - Part 1 - Concept Assessment

[BrianFantana]

prolly cos it would then break sun I guess. Idk if thats what people really want, but if we are attempting to make a balanced CAP for the OU metagame, creating something that has a high chance at breaking other weather doesn't sound enjoyable, and could impact heavily on the results of our testing.

I'm not sure a tougher Drought starter would necessarily 'break' sun; I daresay that even with a starter on the same level as Politoed it would still lag behind rain. If nyttyn's Politoed summary were reversed we would be getting somewhere - if Drought had been given to a Grass type instead of a Fire type, it would effectively be able to switch in, wall and threaten water types in the same way that Politoed can with Fire. But it wouldn't make sun overpowered; sun's flaws run deeper than just its starter.

What does rain have that sun doesn't? Well, for a start the Water type in OU covers a lot of ground; there is little that Politoed, Starmie, Gyarados, Tentacruel and Jellicent have in common besides that Water typing, and a vast amount of other Pokemon fit onto rain teams very naturally (Scizor and Ferrothorn appreciate the Fire nerf, plenty of sweepers appreciate 100% Hurricanes and Thunders). Additionally, Water types are commonly given Ice type coverage moves, allowing them to retaliate against Grass type counters.

Sun teams can't draw from so rich a well; most of the available Pokemon are offensively oriented. In terms of defensively oriented Fire types there are pretty much three - Rotom-H, Torkoal, Victini at a stretch and, errr, Magcargo. Where rain teams have Rain Dish, Hydration, Dry Skin and probably other defensive abilities, sun teams have Leaf Guard. Which kind of sucks.

Certain typings come associated with certain playstyles because of the trends within that typing. Perhaps when the time comes to consider exactly which typing CAP5 will try to raise into the metagame it should be determined which of the more underused typings is home to the most varied range of Pokemon whose viabilities are undermined primarily by their typing - it's key that we ascertain whether a typing's lack of metagame presence is due to its inherent qualities or simply because its representative Pokemon wouldn't have been any use in the first place. If CAP5 tries to boost usage of a type with the latter affliction it's doomed to fail from the beginning.

Edit: ganj4lyf beat me to the punch. Fair play.

 

[Nyktos]

In terms of the use of hail, but it's not a lack of good Ice-types that holds hail back. In fact, that is pretty much the opposite of the biggest problem with hail, which is the lack of good abusers that aren't Ice-types. Rain gets its Hurricane and Thunder users, plus the likes of Ferrothorn that are simply happy to have Fire weakened. Sun teams get their Grass-type Chlorophyll pokes, and usually carry a Dragon-type that's happy to have its Fire-type coverage move boosted. Sand helps three types to begin with. Hail, on the other hand, just gets a bunch of Ice-types, and that, more than anything else, is what makes it difficult for hail to succeed. (And the best "hail teams" tend to be basically weatherless teams that use Abomasnow to troll other weathers.)

My point is that while buffing hail teams is a legitimate avenue toward achieving the concept (even if it would feel like a bit of a "hijacking"), making an Ice-type is not the way to do it; instead, make something that synergizes well with Ice-types. The same logic, really, applies to any other type we may try to boost. Essentially there are two ways to go about boosting an underpowered type (which I feel is by far the more difficult part of the concept) that I think have a good chance of actually succeeding: one is to do as I previously suggested and have something that (probably via offensive coverage) incentivizes using Pokémon of the weaker type to check/counter it. The other is, as with the sun or hail booster, to make something that incentivizes using Pokémon of the weakened type alongside it, either through the blunt instrument that is weather or something a bit more subtle such as defensive synergy.

The common factor here is that CAP 5 need not be of the type it is trying to boost. Certainly it can be: if for instance we wanted to boost Dark using my previous suggestion of a sweeper with a coverage gap, making that sweeper a Dark-type is a possibility since Dark resists itself. But I would not take it as a given that CAP 5 should be Dark-type in this situation, and I would suggest that it's more likely that having it not be would improve its ability to fulfill the concept (to prevent the issue of overshadowing others of its type).

tl;dr: Making CAP 5 an Ice-type is a bad way to boost Ice, and that goes for other types too.

 

[Bughouse]

I have indeed become convinced that Water is the right way to focus our project. Messing with the Dragon/Steel dynamic (by say making something Ice/Fighting perhaps) will only increase Rain's dominance. There is already a glut of strong Psychic types to try to handle Fighting types, which have kept most all of them down, except for those with obvious, massive benefits (Spore, Rain boosted STAB Hydro Pumps, Terrakion just being too strongth.)

Water is the right focus. Rain inherently plays into Water's dominance. We've gone down the road of "good against Rain, not necessarily good in Rain" before. It's not an easy path to take.

I'd be much more inclined to focus on making something that functions well on Hail teams AGAINST Rain. Why Hail? Rain inherently has advantages over Sun and Sand in that the starters (and many abusers) are weak to Water attacks. Abomasnow does not fear Water attacks. Nor do many of Hail's best mons. If this mon is also intentionally bad (or at least not good) against Sun or Sand, it will increase their usage as well, leading to more playstyle parity. HO would likely increase as well.

I'm not saying we should be making a Hail abuser. BlizzSpam is not going to beat Rain any time soon. What I am saying however is something that fills a role or two for Hail that are currently hard to fill. Maybe several at once so as to free up a team slot.

One quick look at the CAP Metagame Free teams shows that we've made good CAPs that help Hail in the past. Obviously Syclant, but Krilowatt too functions amazingly on a Hail team. The worry with Krilowatt is that it obviously functions amazingly on Rain teams as well as just in general. Mollux also can make an appearance as a substitute for Tentacruel/Heatran, providing Rocks, Spinning, and an Fire/Grass resist against Sun teams. Again, though, Mollux obviously works wonders under Rain.

So what does Hail need? Or more pertinently, what roles under Hail can be consolidated into one Pokemon so that Hail can afford space for something that already hurts Rain? (i.e. Gastrodon)

 

[GRs Cousin]

I agree completely on Water being the focus of our project. Hail, however, does not sound like it will be the solution to the problem of Rain. There are a few ways to go about lowering the use of Rain, but I feel as if raising the use of another weather isn't going to fix that. Our CAP would need to still take down Water-types even within rain, and simply making it hail-centered means that Politoed and rain itself hasn't been countered yet, at least no more so than Sun or Sandstorm. In addition to the above, BlizzSpam could be an issue, which would lower the usage of Dragons and distort the high-equilibrium of Steel and Dragon usage. I'm not completely against the idea of the lessening of those types too, but we can't just let our process go into hoping we take down three major types. I'd rather go for a surefire counter of just one.

If we're going to focus on bringing down Water's usage, something among the lines of a specially bulky Grass/Electric-type might be of use to us. Not only does it guarantee neutral coverage against Water-types, but it would decently check a lot of Rain in general. Weaknesses to Fire, Ice, and Poison would additionally promote the use of those types as well, all considerably sparce in OU. I don't want to go into much else at risk of polljumping "in a single bound", I just merely want to emphasize the point that we have an excellent foundation for countering Rain without turning to other weather.

tl;dr: We can't just give rain more competition, we have to actually create a threat that overall weakens it.

 

[inanimate blob]

We've begun to shift towards becoming anti-Rain/Water, so I'd like to show a few Pokèmon that already help to hamper Water, so we can see how to progress if we want to make an end-all anti-Water (although I'm not saying this is the right way to go).

Gastrodon is a great Pokèmon to deal with some Water-types, if you have that problem. This is due to its ability, Storm Drain.

Toxicroak holds the distinction of being immune to Toxic, while Gastrodon is not. It's able to take on Water-types due to its ability, Dry Skin, but is hampered in the Sun.

Blissey is able to hold its own against Water-types due to its high Special Defense. Most of the "Rain Sweepers" are Special Attacking, with only a few exceptions on the Water-type end.

Breloom is also able to effectively hold its own against Water-types and Rain teams. It does this through a combination of typing, movepool, and abilities.

 

[Nyktos]

I tend to agree that trying to buff hail isn't the best way to go about this concept (even if it is a way) -- sun would be a better weather to try and strengthen if we do decide to go the weather route.

That said, I also agree that this...

I'm not saying we should be making a Hail abuser. BlizzSpam is not going to beat Rain any time soon. What I am saying however is something that fills a role or two for Hail that are currently hard to fill. Maybe several at once so as to free up a team slot.

...is the way to go if we do decide to focus on hail. (Though I don't think a utility mon is necessarily excluded from the category of "abuser".)

 

[Homeslice]

I really want to emphasize the fact that we should be trying to focus on just generally change types around without the use of weather. I feel as if weather countering should be used on another CAP. While it is true Steel and Water are very powerful, they can be used just as well without Rain. Steel still counters Dragon outside of Rain. Water types still hit other Pokes with Hydro Pump for huge amounts of damage. It still has very potent walls outside of rain. Take Starmie and Jellicent, for example. Starmie is able to simply destroy other Pokemon not named Blissey/Chansey easily with it's Hydro Pump and BoltBeam coverage. It still sports huge SpA and Spe stats. Jellicent is really uncommon in rain, at least based off what I see, and is still a very good wall. High HP, ability to easily spread status, and is able to SpinBlock. Weather shouldn't really be a huge topic- there's larger reasons they can become OU. Stats, movepool, abilities, and typing are all huge reasons of why Pokemon become OU. Some types just are graced with many above average Pokemon.

 

[Nyktos]

...you guys remember Syclant, right? Our little Ice/Bug type? We've already created an automatic Blizzard machine, and its even able to get rid of the Stealth Rocks weakness.

Well for one thing both I and srk were quite explicitly against making an Ice-type Blizzard spammer, but even if we were...what on Earth has Syclant got to do with anything? Is CAP not allowed to make multiple Pokémon that learn Blizzard, in different generations even?

I really want to emphasize the fact that we should be trying to focus on just generally change types around without the use of weather. I feel as if weather countering should be used on another CAP. While it is true Steel and Water are very powerful, they can be used just as well without Rain. Steel still counters Dragon outside of Rain. Water types still hit other Pokes with Hydro Pump for huge amounts of damage. It still has very potent walls outside of rain. Take Starmie and Jellicent, for example. Starmie is able to simply destroy other Pokemon not named Blissey/Chansey easily with it's Hydro Pump and BoltBeam coverage. It still sports huge SpA and Spe stats. Jellicent is really uncommon in rain, at least based off what I see, and is still a very good wall. High HP, ability to easily spread status, and is able to SpinBlock. Weather shouldn't really be a huge topic- there's larger reasons they can become OU. Stats, movepool, abilities, and typing are all huge reasons of why Pokemon become OU. Some types just are graced with many above average Pokemon.

If we're targeting Water (and I'm becoming convinced that we must target Water as the other dominant types would be difficult or impossible to really weaken with only one Pokémon), it's pretty impossible to avoid rain (and by extension other weathers) being a large part of the conversation.

 

[inanimate blob]

I really want to emphasize the fact that we should be trying to focus on just generally change types around without the use of weather. I feel as if weather countering should be used on another CAP. While it is true Steel and Water are very powerful, they can be used just as well without Rain. Steel still counters Dragon outside of Rain. Water types still hit other Pokes with Hydro Pump for huge amounts of damage. It still has very potent walls outside of rain. Take Starmie and Jellicent, for example. Starmie is able to simply destroy other Pokemon not named Blissey/Chansey easily with it's Hydro Pump and BoltBeam coverage. It still sports huge SpA and Spe stats. Jellicent is really uncommon in rain, at least based off what I see, and is still a very good wall. High HP, ability to easily spread status, and is able to SpinBlock. Weather shouldn't really be a huge topic- there's larger reasons they can become OU. Stats, movepool, abilities, and typing are all huge reasons of why Pokemon become OU. Some types just are graced with many above average Pokemon.

The issue is, in the current weather dominated metagame, it's nearly impossible to create a Pokèmon without accounting for weather. Especially if we're attempting to ease up on the harshness of the field on some Pokèmon.

Some Fire-types are nigh impossible to use because of Rain. Same goes for some Ground and Rock types.

But additionally, some Fire types are hard to use because of Stealth Rocks. But we all know that.

This may be overextending the reach of the Pokèmon, but it may be of interest to think about both issues - Rain and Rocks - when considering how our Pokèmon can work.

 

[MCBarrett]

I really want to emphasize the fact that we should be trying to focus on just generally change types around without the use of weather. I feel as if weather countering should be used on another CAP. While it is true Steel and Water are very powerful, they can be used just as well without Rain. Steel still counters Dragon outside of Rain. Water types still hit other Pokes with Hydro Pump for huge amounts of damage. It still has very potent walls outside of rain. Take Starmie and Jellicent, for example. Starmie is able to simply destroy other Pokemon not named Blissey/Chansey easily with it's Hydro Pump and BoltBeam coverage. It still sports huge SpA and Spe stats. Jellicent is really uncommon in rain, at least based off what I see, and is still a very good wall. High HP, ability to easily spread status, and is able to SpinBlock. Weather shouldn't really be a huge topic- there's larger reasons they can become OU. Stats, movepool, abilities, and typing are all huge reasons of why Pokemon become OU. Some types just are graced with many above average Pokemon.

I'm going to have to totally disagree with your argument regarding water types here. While there still would be some good water types they would be much less effective without rain and would be confined to more niche roles. For example the pokes you mentioned in starmie and jellicent are used outside of rain because they fill the roles of spinner and spinblocker better than arguably anything else in ou. Even keldeo for example, who has great stats and a good (albeit not very diverse) movepool, would be significantly less viable outside of rain. It is basically forced to run a revenge killing role, and while it can do this effectively with proper support, it is not gonna tear holes through everything in its path like it can with a specs rain boosted hydro pump. This is why I think its pretty necessary to focus on weather because in many ways types are connected to a certain weather and any type that doesn't contribute to a certain weather is going to be at a great disadvantage in the current metagame.

Now in regards to the hail discussion, I think this could be a very interesting approach. Although Nyktos is correct that we could do this much easier using sun as our weather, I do not see any immediate reason why it could not work. Also, as I have pointed out many times, and I will again since I'm not sure anyone saw it, we already have experience with a mon that patched up a sun teams weakness very well in the form of genesect. In order to be successful we would have to first look at what makes the most successful hail teams work. From my limited experience with hail teams I would say the more successful ones focus on controlling hazards to implement bulky offense. They also have an inherent weakness to fighting types and stealth rock. Off the top of my head something like lead terrakion would be a pain in the ass for a hail team as it can taunt anything trying to set up hazards, set up its own rocks, and proceed to put a dent into a great portion of the opposition. This is just a minor thought in what is going to obviously have to be much much more research into hail teams and what support they would need to thrive but I think it could be done and it should definitely be considered as a direction for this concept.

 

[ginganinja]

And how successful would you say it's been on that front?

Pretty darn successful?

Ferrothorn shut down so many water type pokemon, and even now, when Rain teams have adapted to the rise of Ferrothorn, its still an excellent switch in to water moves. Sure, Rain teams have ways of eventually getting past Ferrothorn, but its usually backed up by another water resist somewhere, and as such, its often a pretty good check against it. (You will notice I never said it counters rain alone, but it does a pretty darn good job at checking it)

 

[Omnivore]

What existing Pokémon individually affect the usage of entire types?

We all know a major answer to this is weather. Politoed helps bring Water and Steel usage, as well as Flying due to Hurricane up on those levels as they all help support each other and work in tandem in their Weaknesses and Resistances.

Ninetales as can be seen doesn't have the same effect because it doesn't really shut down and weaken a type through a simple switch in the same way Politoed does. It weakens Water moves by 50% but the weather inducing Pokemon is already weak to it. Bring back in Politoed and Bam, you are once again on the back foot due to a stronger Weather inducer. Whats that? Ninetales carry's Energy Ball?! But you have Ferrothorn to soak that move up. NEXT

I agree with most of this but want to focus on Ninetales a bit more. Ninetales does affect the usage of other Fire types that would normally enjoy the sun. This would be the real change between Ninetales and a grass type with Drought. Not a lot of sun teams can afford a second or even third fire type so they often compete for the same teamspot.

What ways are there to change a typing’s usage outside of simply countering/being countered by them?

That´s why I wanted to expand on Ninetales. I think if the community decides to weaken water types we could look at increase of competition. While water types have so much success because they are so varied in secondary typing and possible roles on a team, we could discourage the use of water types by creating a water type that works heavily against the use of other water types.
Now would it be possible to avoid a further drop of Fire type/ Sun usage and an increase in rain usage? I think it would still be possible, by giving it a precise movepool that does not allow to abuse it´s water stab offensively but it´s second stab and good coverage options to threaten the very variety that rain has to offer.

My point is not to necessarily create a water type but to look at the fundamental principles that make one Pokemon of a type outclass another Pokemon of the same type, which I tried to give an example for.

What elements of a Pokémon are most important when dictating how it interacts with other types?
If I understand it right, we could imagine a Pokemon and give it different typings(and adjust the movepool slightly) and look at the changes in interaction?
under those circumstances the number and relevance of resistances are very important if you need to switch in, but if you can avoid coming in on offensive moves the offensive capabilities are far more important.
A varied movepool with not easily predictable options that are powerful enough to threaten the opponent is important, if you want to take the offensive role. Having two Stab options that are in general viable is often helpful but even more the possibilities to switch between powerful coverage moves.

 

[Heroes and Cons]

I feel that the mere mention of countering Water types is turning this entire CAP into a weather war, or rather an anti-weather war. Yes, rain boosts water type moves, but how many pokemon in OU both have the attack or special attack to use said boosted Water moves, and actually use those moves in the first place? Jellicent, Gastrodon and Tentacruel aren't exactly sweeper material, often choosing a weak Scald with little-to-no Special Attack EVs to back it up for stalling purposes, and Latios doesn't get STAB, really leaving just Starmie, Rotom-W, Keldeo and the drizzler itself, Politoed. And do not forget that Rain also works against a lot of water types by giving Thunder users Swift-accuracy, as well as helping Ferrothorn - who checks every OU Water type except Keldeo - means that his very existence completes what this CAP seems to be heading towards.

I'm not saying rain should be ignored, but I definitely feel that this CAP has quickly become terribly focused on weather, when the concept only mentions field effects such as weather and entry hazards as one of the many things to be considered.

I'd prefer for this CAP to produce a Pokemon that works well to combat those specific typings of Water and Fighting, but not so much that its focus of defeating them makes it work well only in certain conditions - for example, another weather type like Hail. A Pokemon that works well in most or all weather conditions, is not particularly weak against common entry hazards, and still retains the ability to check most or all of the prominent Fighting and Water types, would be something I feel would be ideal for this CAP.

 

[MCBarrett]

I'd prefer for this CAP to produce a Pokemon that works well to combat those specific typings of Water and Fighting, but not so much that its focus of defeating them makes it work well only in certain conditions - for example, another weather type like Hail. A Pokemon that works well in most or all weather conditions, is not particularly weak against common entry hazards, and still retains the ability to check most or all of the prominent Fighting and Water types, would be something I feel would be ideal for this CAP.

There are a few huge problems with this proposal and they are all rooted in the fact that it is most likely impossible for one Pokemon to change what types are being used simply by countering another type. This is already proven by the current ou metagame with celebi. Celebi is a fantastic counter to both rain and fighting types and it has an uncommon typing in the form of grass, however it is not enough to counter an entire play style by itself because it has some common weaknesses.

Then you might say, we could just make it like a stronger version of celebi, which is where the second problem lies with this approach. If we attempt to counter an entire play style/typing whatever you want to call it, with one Pokemon it will simply end up being too powerful. On top of that we will completely be ignoring the other part of the concept where we make a less used typing as a whole more viable, not just a Pokemon with an uncommon typing that is powerful. That's just auromoth 2.0.

That is why we need something that can support a play style/typing and make it more viable rather than something that tries to counter specific threats. And unfortunately in this metagame the only viable play styles are weather and hyper offense so we have to work with those.

 

[jas61292]

So, there has been a lot of weather discussion going on here, and rightfully so. Weather is one of the most important factors affecting our metagame, and has drastic effects on type use. That being said, we need to remember that this is not a weather concept. This is a type concept, and while water types may be used a lot in rain, we want to be reducing the use of Pokemon themselves, not field conditions. Now, obviously, doing one will likely do the other, but I don't want to just go "lets nerf rain" as a way to beat water. Also, remember that this is double sided. We also want to be boosting the usage of a type or types.

For these reasons I am not really convinced by the arguments for trying to make a hail Pokemon. Hail is an opposing playstyle to Rain, but does not do anything really against Water types themselves. In addition, I have a hard time believing that making a hailmon would actually increase the usage of Ice types. There simply are not that many good Ice types to begin with, and the one's that do exist are used infrequently more due to the existance of Pokemon like Scizor and Heatran than due to a lack of Hail in the metagame.

On the other hand, Sun, as I already stated, while also a weather condition, directly goes after this concept. It is not simply an opposed force to rain, but in fact directly weakens water, not just through the weakening of their STAB moves, but also by being a condition supportive of Grass types that make life even harder for Water. Additionally, unlike Hail, the dominance of Rain is very much a factor in why many Fire (and certain Grass) Pokemon are not used.

Basically, though, I just wanted to remind people of the concept. We need to focus on types and ways to effect them, not playstyles. Playstyles can certainly be a means to an end, but they are not the ends themselves. With that said, I'd like to hear more on a few things.

The main thing I want to focus on are potential molds we could use to fufill the concept should we choose to go after types other than Water, or via methods other than weather. Hazard control, for example, is one thing that has been brought up a few times, but while I can see giving consideration to Rapid Spin should we be trying to increase the usage of a Rock weak typing, I have not really seen any suggestions as to how hazard control could fit as an overall project direction, specifically on how it can decrease a top types usage.

Additionally, I would like to see if we can find any more answers to the question of "what Pokemon single-handedly effect type usage?", outside of the weather summoners. We all know how Politoed, T-Tar and the like effect things, and that has been discussed to death, but I know there are other Pokemon out there that do it too. Furthermore, I'd like to see if we can answer the question "what is it about these Pokemon that make them have such an effect?" There have been a few example's brought up, but I'd like to delve a bit more into what specific traits are responsible for their effects.

 

[inanimate blob]

Well, I'd like to introduce the question formally.

How can Sun and/or Hail be utilized to help curb the dominance of Water-types and those types who benefit from Rain in the OU tier?

Really, one of the other concepts was introduced a huge number of times - anti-Rain Pokèmon. Obviously, multitudes of Trainers have noticed the dominance of Water. Trying to simply get rid of weather through abilities such as Cloud Nine truly don't cut it, since many times Rain and even Sand teams run Pokèmon devoted to taking out these "anti-Rain" Pokèmon.

Rather, introducing a different weather to the field would truly help curb the types that currently dominate the OU tier by taking away both useful and powerful STABs and useful resistances.

So, truly, helping to boost the use of other weathers would help curb the dominance of Rain (and to a lesser extent Sand), rather than creating a Pokèmon geared towards helping Pokèmon "overcome" being a lesser used type.

 

[capefeather]

Ferrothorn's been brought up a lot in a general context, but as ginganinja alluded to, it's one of the go-to examples of a Pokemon that changes the dynamics of many different typings. Electric-types like Wash Rotom, Thundurus Therian, and I guess Jolteon all end up being forced to have something other than STABs + typical coverage (Ice / Grass) to beat Ferrothorn. Wash Rotom of course has Will-O-Wisp, and Thundurus Therian has Focus Blast. I'd argue that Mamoswine kind of has a similar effect, though it's weak against Grass.

 

[Deck Knight]

Thought of a few more potential avenues to address the concept:

The Cannibal:

I think we're focusing too much on avoiding the types we want to decrease because they are so good. What if we had a Pokemon that used that type as a means to eat its own. Water, Steel, and Dragon are all interesting in that they have a mirror match dynamic, where Water is the best type to resist standard Water + Ice coverage, Steel resists itself and a lot of everything else, and Dragon is weak to itself so the faster, meaner Dragon wins.

The proposal here would be to build with one of these types to cannibalize its fellow members, but make it unable to address its usual counters, e.g. a Water type that could maul other waters with Electric or Grass moves but would lack the Ice attacks to use against opposing Grass types (since we want to eat Dragons, we would probably allow Dragon moves for that purpose).

Dual Doppler:

The other idea I came up with is a Pokemon that functions well in at least two weathers with a typing and ability that can take advantage. There's a multitude of these, basically just pick a mon that has a typing good in one weather (like Grass or Rock) with an ability that benefits it in another weather (like Sand Force or Flower Gift) so that the Pokemon can hold its own in a weather other than its favorite.

 

[Birkal]

Alright, I had to go through this thread and do a significant amount of clean up. There's two points that I want to emphasize for the betterment of this thread:

1) jas61292 is our Topic Leader; read his posts. If you don't know who he is, he's the guy with the Quilava avatar. It's his job to make sure that this thread is flowing in a focused manner that will give us some meaning out of our concept. His posts in this thread have been phenomenal, and I feel that they have been largely ignored by posters. Read his posts and respond to them, please. Quote them, tear them apart, do what you will with them, but it is his posts that matter most here. They are a goldmine of information; don't let them go to waste.


2) Do not poll jump. I know that many of you posting here are newer to CAP, and that's awesome! However, poll jumping is a serious offense in these threads, and you can get infracted for it. If you didn't know, poll jumping is when you discuss something that's WAY in the future, like specifying CAP5's stats or typing. You're allowed to do a little of this to conclude a point or provide an example, but do not centralize your post on a poll jump. The reason we moderate poll jumping is because if we allowed it, these threads would fall to pieces with everyone going off on tangents. If you're not sure if you're poll jumping or not, err on the side of caution and don't post it.


If you have any questions, you can always send me a message on the forums; I'd love to add clarification~

 

[Yllnath]

I think this is a very intriguing concept, the longer I think about it. Unlike many others here, who're only think about countering a playstyle or type by making a pokemon that deals with the most important key users of the typing/playstyle, I'd like to discuss something else. I want to think a lot larger, about the metagame, and players playing OU and what they think about building teams.

I think this concept is dead on in mentioning 'A pokemon whose presence in the metagame increases the usage of one or more underused types and simultaneously decreases the usage of one or more overused types.'

I've emphasized usage in this sentence. What defines usage of certain typings? It's how often players choose to put pokemon with the related typings appear on their OU teams.
Let's delve in deeper a bit. Why do these trainers put these pokemon on their teams more frequently than other pokemon? Regardless of what specific reasons, there is one thing that is sure. They appear more often because these pokemon on their own, or when played within a certain team strategy, in terms of competitive value, just beat everything else. Why sport a team of NU's in OU when you know there are teams of pokemon that outclass them in every other way? If you absolutely play to win, you go for the best the game can basically offer you. I mean, you don't go into a chess game either but you replace your queen with a spare pawn piece. No, you want the best the game you can offer to win the match-up.

Back to the quoted sentence. Even if it's just semantics, I'd like to take something literal about the order used of usage changing of types. 1) Increase usage of underused types. 2) decrease usage of overused types.

A lot of people in this thread have been going on about making a pokemon that counters popular play styles like rain, or countering strong pokemon like dragons. By decreasing the strength of these mons through countering them, surely lesser used types must rise up, right? Perhaps.

I'd like to propose going about it the other way around. What if we could take a decently capable playstyle or core of decent pokemon, and use CAP5 to to take this core and turn them into a solid offensive threat. Preferably a playstyle or core whose presence in the top of OU usage directly competes with top usage stats against the current kings of OU. (So not a pokemon, that in hindsight, works out really well too to make rain even stronger.)

Let me go back to one of the best questions Jas asked:

What ways are there to change a typing’s usage outside of simply countering/being countered by them?

By improving on another playstyle that has decent competitive usage, but lacks that final push to be considered by the larger population of OU players.
For example, if we make something to finalize Stall and turn it into a real threat, you counter-actively decrease HO usage and it's key abusers. (Dragons, Fighting, amongst others)
If you increase the viability of a stable bulky offensive core, you could offer a playstyle back to players to choose to put on their team slots.

I could list a bunch of playstyles we could increase the viability of, but what's important here is the following. A pokemon's (and by proxy their typing) usage is defined by how often players are willing to dedicate one of their 6 team slots to these pokemon. You only have 6 team slots and you can be sure that your opponent is packing all he can to win, so you don't want to be wasting even a single slot with dead weight. So you choose the pokemon with the most competitive merits.
That means, in order to raise the usage of certain underused typings and to inadvertently decrease the usage of current overused typings, all we need to do is create a competitive playstyle that has such competitive merits, it basically becomes the next flavour of the month.

Again, the concept is talking about affecting usage. Usage isn't a pokemon metric or stat or anything. It's related to the competitive metagame. We have a huge opportunity to think outside the box here. Yes, we can just counter water and decimate it's viability outright so that people don't want to play with it any more. Or we start thinking about team building psychology and competitive merits at a much broader scope and use that knowledge to try to manipulate how usage stats come about in the first place. Through popularity and competitive merits of certain pokemon or playstyles.

 

[Theorymon]

I'll elaborate more on the anti hazards approach and the "anti dragon sun mon" approach later, but for now I want to focus on my take on the "check the types" mold.

While directly dealing with the types that dominate OU like Water and Dragon is the most obvious approach, I feel like most of the posts are talking more about how something like Ferrothorn approaches this, aka walls the Pokemon, and then just forces them out. While I'd normally think that's fine, as ginganinja mentioned, its the kind of mon who you think about as "oh I gotta break through that later". I think a more interesting, and possibly more fruitful way of achieving this concept is to instead, make CAP 5 the kind of Pokemon that makes the target types a liability rather than just countering them. In an odd twist, I think a good (but extreme) example of what I'm talking about is found in Ubers.

Heatran is actually a pretty good Pokemon in Ubers. I mean, it gets Stealth Rock, Roar (very rare and awesome for a Steel-type in Ubers!), an amazing immunity to fire, and with Groudon around, Sun is a lot stronger in Ubers than it is in OU! But there is one serious issue that, while doesn't make Heatran nonviable, is a major reason its usage is pretty low: mother fucking Kyogre. Unlike the other viable Fire-types in Ubers (who are Ho-Oh, Blaziken, Reshiram, Victini, and even the niche Fire Arceus), Heatran is totally walled to hell by Kyogre with Heatran only being able to Toxic it on the switch or use that funny Torment set to beat some choiced Kyogre switch-ins. Unlike something like say, how Ferrothorn makes most OU water types react, Kyogre is a SERIOUS fucking threat, it won't just wall Heatran, it'll use the switch in to use scary shit like Specs Water Spout (which btw fucking 2HKOs Blissey at full health) or something else like set up a Calm Mind. This makes Heatran a liability for a lot of teams in Ubers despite its viability.

Now of course, I don't think we should go as far as to make some sort of OU version of Kyogre's craziness, but I think this approach is perfect for knocking down the Water-type (and maybe the Dragon-type) down a few pegs in OU. This way, instead of a player thinking "oh I'll just have to wear this down", the player will think "shit maybe I should get rid of some of these Water and Dragon types, those mons are making me really prone to getting swept by CAP5". I don't think that's where CAP 5 should end though, because I think in the direct approach, there is another key ingredient it'll need for it to fufill the concept: we need to make sure that this Pokemon, while beating the crap out of quite a few of the common Pokemon types, should also be EXTREMELY weak to some more obscure types like say, Fire, or Ice, or Ghost (these are just random examples since its early). This way, we can really put this concept to the test: will making a Pokemon that makes common types a far bigger risk, but gets stomped on by less common types really change the metagame, or are the dominant types so good that even a Pokemon that can make them a dangerous liability to a team isn't enough to make their usage drop too much?

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Water is the right focus. Rain inherently plays into Water's dominance. We've gone down the road of "good against Rain, not necessarily good in Rain" before. It's not an easy path to take.

I'd be much more inclined to focus on making something that functions well on Hail teams AGAINST Rain. Why Hail? Rain inherently has advantages over Sun and Sand in that the starters (and many abusers) are weak to Water attacks. Abomasnow does not fear Water attacks. Nor do many of Hail's best mons. If this mon is also intentionally bad (or at least not good) against Sun or Sand, it will increase their usage as well, leading to more playstyle parity. HO would likely increase as well.

I'm not saying we should be making a Hail abuser. BlizzSpam is not going to beat Rain any time soon. What I am saying however is something that fills a role or two for Hail that are currently hard to fill. Maybe several at once so as to free up a team slot.

One quick look at the CAP Metagame Free teams shows that we've made good CAPs that help Hail in the past. Obviously Syclant, but Krilowatt too functions amazingly on a Hail team. The worry with Krilowatt is that it obviously functions amazingly on Rain teams as well as just in general. Mollux also can make an appearance as a substitute for Tentacruel/Heatran, providing Rocks, Spinning, and an Fire/Grass resist against Sun teams. Again, though, Mollux obviously works wonders under Rain.

So what does Hail need? Or more pertinently, what roles under Hail can be consolidated into one Pokemon so that Hail can afford space for something that already hurts Rain? (i.e. Gastrodon)

I've had this in mind too while reading the thread. There is something that must be considered, however: Steel. It resists Ice, is strong against it and lol Heatran would love to burn everything to ashes. So, by boosting Hail somehow, we may end up increasing Scizor, Jirachi and Heatran's usage. And oh, would you look at that, the former two are great in Rain, so nothing will change. Heatran is used in weatherless teams so those would see an increase in usage I guess, but we're here to lower the dominance of types, not team archetypes.

Additionally, merely creating a "bulky Grass- or Electric-type" doesn't help much either because 1. Grass could even find a room in a Rain team to mitigate its Fire weakness (oh look, we already have one. Ferrothorn.) and 2. Electric would love Rain to spam Thunder.

The problem is that Rain is leagues above the other weathers. Just like Water, it's such a comprehensive weather that anything can find a way to fit in. If we want to stop the Water type somehow, we need to take not only Rain into account, but its benefits for other types, the variety of current Water-types in OU, and what else makes the lesser used types bad in the metagame. Fire sucks because of Politoed, but there's also Stealth Rock and maybe poor stat distribution on its pokémon; Ice has no resistances nor ("real") weather benefits and has bad stat distribution; Ghosts have... well, there are not many of them??? And so on.


I still have in my heart that an "Abomasnow evo" would be an awesome course of action, but I know that we need something more. Yllnath made a post about offensive cores, and that's a really interesting point: if Rain always operates as a team and is so successful because of their members' synergy, why should we expect to stop Water and the other types with a single pokémon alone? Heatran did an excellent job at reducing the usage of Fire and Grass-types in DPPt due to its STAB and resistances and still is used to lol at Venusaur and such; however, in a weather-centric metagame, where team building and team synergy are even more crucial than before, unless we make a pokémon that makes a playstyle associated with lesser used pokémon, or associated with screwing up with overused types better, we'll simply make BW Celebi 2.0; underused typing, great stats and movepool, "counters" Rain and Water-types... but can't change the world by itself and is actually good in Rain teams. Oops.

 

[Primalthirst]

Something people do need to take into account is that outside of Thunder's increased accuracy there actually isn't any benefit for Electric types in Rain. Bolt Strike is a very powerful move that puts a serious dent in most Water and Steel types, and doesn't benefit from usage on a Rain team.

Want to say so much more on the issue, but I don't want to poll jump.

 

[Yilx]

"what Pokemon single-handedly effect type usage?"

I'd like to bring one example up, on how people say Tornadus-T tamed the fighting meta. Most attribute our friend Virizion in UU and Conkeldurr middling around the 40-50's because of Tornadus-T's presence and we continue to feel it's effects even now. Sure, Torn-T might not have been the ONLY thing that quelled fighting-type usage, but stupid bird played a pretty big role in doing it.

Following that, I'd also like to bring up how Fighting-types, especially the likes of Terrakion, influenced the usage of Dark-Types in OU. Truth to be told, there are only two of them in OU right now; Hydreigon and Tyranitar. I don't need to discuss Tyranitar, but Hydreigon has U-Turn to let him escape potential fighting-type switch-ins and uses his Dragon STAB more often than not anyway. The moment you see a Terrakion in your opponent's team preview you know you cannot use your Dark-Type moves haphazardly lest you give your opponent's Terrakion a free +1.

Following this again, I'd like to use Tyranitar himself as an example. If you look at the Psychic-types in OU, they all have a certain niche that makes them highly desirable for teams or have a way to escape a CB Pursuit, one way or another; Alakazam has Sash Magic Guard, Espeon has Magic Bounce/BP, Starmie is pretty much one of the best spinners around, Lati@s... well, they'e Lati@s. All of them are "weak to pursuit" as per se but they all have a strong niche to allow them to be successful despite being "weak to pursuit". The only exception is Jirachi who counts more as a Steel-type than Psychic anyway.

"what is it about these Pokemon that make them have such an effect?"

These Pokemon all have one thing in common: Strong attacking stats, passable or above average bulk and a Strong attacking move. Toradus-T has Hurricane and Terrakion can choose between Stone Miss and Close Combat. The same does not really apply for Tyranitar as it's seen using Crunch or Stone Miss more often than not, but more of his usage comes from how his sand cancels out opposing weather; but I'd rather not talk about that.

make CAP 5 the kind of Pokemon that makes the target types a liability rather than just countering them.

I feel that this is certainly one of the more reasonable approaches to this CAP. I feel it's pretty much how people talk about Steels/Fires/Dragons making Grass-type attackers a liability despite them being perfectly viable in this rain-dominated meta.

I know this for sure because I did a "Case Study" of sorts. I was running a monowater team with nothing but 6 Popular water types with Scald, EVing them for nothing but Special Defense. The main things that murdered it were not electrics or Thunders coming off electric-types, but grass-types. Breloom and Celebi in particular steamrolled the team as I had no proper answer for them.

That's what you get for running monowater, but it definitely showed me how grass is a viable attacking type vs. Rain teams which generally run more than 2 Water-types more often than not.

 

[B.Reinquist]

I don't think just the typing is what's going to curb any of these popular types. I mean, the default position would be "Make a good (something that's good against one type) pokemon and we'll see less (popular type)"

Take steel, it's two biggest weaknesses are Fire and Fighting. Gamefreak keep giving us "strong" Fire Fighting starters and it has done very little to curb Steel's dominance. I think this CAP requires more thought than simple 1 tiered discussion. The complexity almost requires each section (Type, Ability, Movepools) to work together to create a balanced CAP that is function specific. I would like to see combinations of both Typing and Ability discussion, before locking out either (ie, setting the type first prevents multiple abilities from being useful). I may be the minority in thinking this, but I feel it needed to be said!