CAP 17 CAP 6 - Part 2 - Typing Discussion

[FirstWorldProblems]

I could suggest Steel / Ghost, as it seems unique enough and it could learn some very interesting offensive moves or defensive moves.

Pros:
•Immunities to Normal and •Fighting.
•Many Resistances.
•A typing that could work defensively really well.
•A resistance to Stealth Rock, and immunities to Spikes and Toxic Spikes if it gets Levitate.

Cons:
•Weaknesses to Fire and Ground-type attacks, but Levitate could complement this also.
•Steel in particular is a poor offensive typing and Ghost doesn't help it too much either, it only covers 4 types super-effectively with those 2 types.

Maybe access to the rare Meteor Mash and decent Shadow Claw could help it not be Taunt-bait if used defensively? Since Belly Drum could be used, these moves would go better with them. Or if it does get Levitate, maybe Roost to help Belly Drum if it manages too? I hope these could be good moves and typings and I apologise they don't.!

 

[Base Speed]

Throwing my support behind Poison/Steel typing. Won't repeat Korski's reasoning but can't recommend reading his post enough. Pwnemon makes a good point that I'd like to address though:

What pokemon does this type actually wall?

Well, if you forget the existence of items. Not many. But then, consider this:

BaseSpeed !usage Scizor items
TIBot Choice Band 49.162% | Leftovers 16.633% | Life Orb 16.596% | Choice Scarf 4.189% | Focus Sash 2.022% | Iron Plate 1.910% | Lum Berry 1.691% | Metal Coat 1.146% | Flying Gem 1.135% | Steel Gem 0.967% | Other 4.548%

BaseSpeed !usage Latios items
TIBot Choice Specs 37.157% | Choice Scarf 27.773% | Life Orb 14.604% | Leftovers 7.868% | Expert Belt 6.535% | White Herb 1.043% | Focus Sash 0.939% | Other 4.079%

It's easy to say Poison/Steel can't wall either Scizor or Latios because they have neutral coverage in the form of Superpower and Surf/Psyshock respectively. But Scizor runs a Choice item just over 54% of the time and Latios just under 63%. If you catch Scizor locked into Bullet Punch, you could have your set up opportunity. Heaven forbid you catch it stuck in Pursuit. As for Superpower, if it's already done it once, Scizor is at -1 and a big disadvantage. And if you have a Latios fresh off a Draco Meteor, you've got a fairly good chance all it can do is fire another or switch. Set up opportunity, again.


And what about your own items? Poison/Steel massively benefits from the existence of the Air Balloon. Not only is it one of the few typings suggested here that can have its main weakness removed by an item, but consider this scenario:

BaseSpeed !Usage Landorus-T moves
TIBot Earthquake 98.760% | U-turn 86.311% | Stone Edge 78.374% | Stealth Rock 46.426% | Superpower 30.354% | Hidden Power Ice 24.088% | Rock Polish 11.005% | Swords Dance 7.017% | Other 17.666%

BaseSpeed !Usage Landorus-T items
TIBotLeftovers 54.140% | Choice Scarf 28.336% | Life Orb 6.172% | Choice Band 4.622% | Expert Belt 2.021% | Other 4.708%

Let's pretend you're not up against a Landorus with Superpower. A bit idealistic, I admit but not the world's most unreasonable assumption. U-Turn and Stone Edge can't really hurt you much, thanks to your Poison/Steel resistances and assuming reasonable bulk from Movemon. Naturally, Landorus really wants to Earthquake you. But if you're holding an Air Balloon, it can't! It'll need to waste a turn using Stone Edge or Hidden Power Ice or whatever coverage it carries. And if it's one of those 32% Choiced variants and it's just made a kill, you'll be practically untouchable. Belly Drumming time for Movemon.

Anyway, what I'm getting at here is that Poison/Steel typing can most certainly wall common OU pokemon, despite Pwnemon's concerns. And it has the potential to function amazingly with Air Balloon. Don't write it off!

 

[Stratos]

Base Speed—I don't mean to sound patronizing, but it looks like you're really scraping bottom barrel for examples of what we can set up on. Scizor choice locked into bullet punch (when most choice scizor spam u-turn) (and barely EVER pursuit) or Latios choice locked into DM (which i'll admit is more common) or Landorus if we have an air balloon and it doesn't have superpower. When nyttyn and I brought up volcarona, it was a Pokemon that could dry switch into Scizor 100% of the time without fear (at least until the AcroZor set gained popularity), but those aren't dry switches without fear, those are scouted switches with (at least in lando's case) slow u-turn or sac support.

As for me, I'll throw out my support behind Ghost/Steel. Why?

1) Access to two priority STABs
2) Immune to Mach Punch and Espeed, resists bullet punch
3) Sets up on scizor: 4x resist bug STAB. 2x resist Steel STAB. 2x resist Acrobat. Immune to Superpower. Neutral to Pursuit (but if you dry switch in, guess who isn't hit by pursuit?)
4) Sets up on Terrak: Immune to CC. 2x resist SE. 4x resist X-scissor. Weak to EQ (but EQ is only run on the choice sets, so you can scout for it easily) Probably KOed by +2 SE but Terrak should be switching out for fear of bullet punch.
5) Sets up on the most common Celebi set. 2x resist psychic, 2x resist giga drain, 4x resist u-turn, can be neutered by T-wave (screw full paras) or Perish Song but celebi should be switching out for fear of a Ghost attack.
6) Sets up on Breloom once something is asleep. 2x resist Bullet Seed, 2x resist Stone Edge, immune to fighting STAB.

yes, i'm slightly afraid of a ghost/steel mon becoming defensive instead of offensive, but that's something to deal with in stats and movepool, not here. Ghost/Steel, i'm convinced, is the best Pokemon for belly drum.

 

[Deck Knight]

Relying on Air Balloon to ensure your setup when your only immunity otherwise is to Poison attacks, and your only useful offensive STAB against most Pokemon is Steel is not a winning recipe for a Belly Drummer. Having to rely on Poison Jab means you'll really need a lot more Attack to get anything done, and at that point why run Belly Drum instead of Choice Band.

Remember, Belly Drum is an offensive strategy. Whatever type we choose needs to have some kind of competent offense. Poison and Steel are unfortunately two of the most commonly resisted types in OU, with Poison being walled by Ground, Rock, and Steel types that form of core of Sand, Ghost types which can cause it trouble in general with Will-O-Wisp, and then Steel is walled by the Water and Electric types that dominate Rain and Fire types inherent to Sun.

Water / Dragon and Normal / Steel still appeal to me most because they have an offensive type that has strong neutral coverage (Dragon, Normal) and a defensive type (Water, Steel) that plugs the remaining holes in the coverage competently. Normal hits everything but Rock, Ghost, and Steel, and Steel picks up the slack for two of the remaining three, one of which gets hit SE.

We should also keep in mind that we don't necessarily have to give CAP 6 STAB priority - a Water / Dragon CAP that had Extremespeed for its priority, but not Aqua Jet would not be able to tear holes with Rain-boosted AJet before a foe could move, but it would be able to defeat Breloom , Landorus, and other revenge killers effectively. IF ES is a problem, Ice Shard could be used for Breloom / Landorus and we could tweak speed for Keldeo, if Keldeo would even be an issue at all.

 

[erisia]

I'd like to post my support behind Water/Ghost typing too, which I think has a lot of advantages that will make it a dominant threat in the OU metagame, but also manageable enough to not be broken. Before jumping in, I'm going to repost the criteria that capefeather produced at the end of the concept assessment.

• CAP 6 should have opportunities to set up. Volcarona and Cloyster are examples of Pokemon that lose a lot of defensive capability, yet succeed as sweepers (well, Volcarona more than Cloyster). One clear way to achieve this is to have CAP 6 force lots of switches.
• CAP 6 should have focused defensive attributes, rather than necessarily relying on statistical bulk. Typing is the most obvious stage to realize this, but of course abilities and moves can help.
• CAP 6 should have a limited, focused movepool.
• CAP 6 should be largely self-reliant.
• We should look at Miltank and Flygon as primary benchmarks.

The first four are particularly important to me at this stage.

Immune to: Fighting, Normal
1/2 effectiveness: Water, Ice, Steel, Fire, Bug, Poison
1x effectiveness: Rock, Dragon, Flying, Ground, Psychic
2x effectiveness: Electric, Grass, Ghost, Dark

Water/Ghost is a really excellent defensive typing, as Jellicent can attest to, but it functions in different ways for a Belly Drum focused Pokémon. Firstly, resists Bullet Punch, Aqua Jet, and Ice Shard, and is immune to Extremespeed and Mach Punch. This makes Water/Ghost one of the best typings for resisting priority and ensuring that CAP6 can sweep uninterrupted. Furthermore, it provides opportunities to set up in big threats like Scizor, Heatran, Jirachi (who can't use Body Slam!) and Volcarona, among others, and can force out lots of Pokémon due to an immunity to choiced Fighting attacks and the occasional Extremespeed from CB Dragonite, in addition to these resistances and the threat of powerful Water STAB. In addition, the typing also has focused defensive attributes, relying on a few key resistances and immunities as opposed to resisting everything on the planet like some Steel type suggestions, ensuring that its defensive capabilities do not overshadow its offensive presence; its multiple weaknesses should help ensure this.

So what other advantages and disadvantages does this typing have?

Pros:

• The aforementioned defensive resistances, especially to pretty much all common priority attacks. This makes it highly self-reliant, not requiring a lot of threats to be dealt with/mitigated before attempting a sweep.
  
• Notable defensive resistances also let it switch into lots of threats, especially with its Fighting-immunity. Being able to spinblock may also help it to seize momentum against opponents like Donphan more effectively, while preserving the hazards that will aid its sweep.
  
• STAB Aqua Jet is an excellent sweeping tool in the Rain. So long as we don't give it a huge Attack stat, the fact that CAP6 will not be running a Life Orb or similar attack boosting item will keep its power in check, preventing it from OHKOing resists but allowing it to OHKO most neutral offensive Pokémon.
• STAB Shadow Sneak follows up on neutral coverage, preventing it from being stopped outright by Water-resists.
  
• Other physical STABs (Waterfall, Shadow Claw) do not overshadow the priority attacks significantly against offensive Pokémon, and thus ensure that CAP6 is better suited to Belly Drum than Swords Dance. In addition, +6 Waterfall in Rain is an excellent wallbreaking tool, destroying just about any slower opponent with a reasonable Attack stat.
• Water/Normal also has excellent neutral coverage, ensuring that CAP6 can make good use of the likes of Extremespeed and Explosion if we decide to provide it with those moves. With such good neutral coverage between its STABs and Norma moves, it doesn't need a huge coverage movepool either, helping to maintain its focus.
• The possibility of giving CAP6 too much defensive focus subconsciously is slim. Jellicent has a huge number of defensive perks such as Recover and Water Absorb that should make it preferable in a defensive role in most cases. Typings such as Steel/Ghost and Steel/Poison are far more vulnerable to being hijacked this way.

Cons:

• STAB Waterfall in Rain may be too powerful. With Base 90 Attack and no boosting item, it comes close to OHKOing Ferrothorn after entry hazards at +6, possibly making CAP6 too difficult to respond too. Then again, this heightens the risk-reward aspect of Belly Drum; if CAP6 gets to setup, the opponent will almost certainly lose a Pokémon. By choosing the Speed stat carefully, this could easily be turned into a selling point.
  
• No 4x resistances. This is kind of lame when compared to Water/Dragon, but hopefully compensated for by the immunities to Fighting attacks, Extremespeed, and Rapid Spin.
• Pursuit and Sucker Punch weaknesses, but these are minor issues as CAP6 intends to stay in and setup whenever possible, and Sucker Punch is an extremely rare move in the first place.
• Non STAB Extremespeed would possibly compete with Shadow Sneak for a slot; that said, the Ghost-typing was picked primarily for defensive purposes, so CAP6 not using its physical Ghost STABs isn't a deal-breaker for me.

Just as an aside, the fact that Water/Ghost typing would make Rain teams better is /not/ a bad thing. Making CAP6 suited to Rain is of absolutely no detriment to its role of being an exceptional Belly Drum abuser, and actually makes it considerably better. We cannot say that this can't be an option just because we don't want Rain to see increased usage; if that is the best way to fulfill the concept, then so be it. Besides, every single CAP made this generation benefits indirectly from Rain, so we might as well go the full hog :p

Overall, the advantages of this typing are quite strong, and aside from Waterfall possibly being too powerful for our purposes (something that can be balanced with Speed), the disadvantages aren't that substantial. I think it's a typing worth considering.

 

[Yilx]

Going to make a small post for now. One thing I've observed is people banking on "lack of good attacking types" and "stack as many resistances as possible" onto the mon. While I do understand this discussion is just for the typing alone, I feel that we should start to look at things that could potentially revenge/out-prio us instead of "i have 114514 resistances". Off the top of my head scarf latios/terrak/chomper/rotom-w sometimes and scizor/luke/dnite's prios come to mind; they are mons that commonly run priority and/or usually hold a scarf.

If you scrutinize, the most "threatening" types that we should really look out for are dragon/normal/fighting and steel just because scizor.

That being said, I originally supported water-based typings because of a nifty steel resist, but fuk rain seriously. I'm looking towards Steel/(Fight Resist) right now. Bug, Poison, Flying and Psychic (and ghost lol) are capable candiates for this and Steel/Poison has seemed to gotten quite a bit of popularity thus far. Steel also has that bonus of being a "shitty attacking type" which would probably aid us in creating something not overbearing. I will abstain on suggesting an actual typing though as I don't think I've looked enough into the offensive side of things yet.

 

[Mega Ampharos]

I think DRAGON/STEEL is a good type for this CAP. First lets look at the Type Chart.


4x: None
2x: Ground, Fighting
1x: Dragon, Ice, Fire
1/2x: Water, Ghost, Normal, Flying, Rock, Bug, Steel, Electric, Psychic,, Dark
1/4x: Grass
0x: Poison

Even though this CAP has glaring weaknesses to the common Ground and Fighting. This Pokemon has some key resistances to Water, Grass, Electric, and Psychic. Not to mention it has a immunity to Poison so it does not have to worry about Toxic Spikes and Toxic ending its sweeps. This Pokemon also resists Stealth Rocks.

Priority:
This Pokemon resists all forms of priority with the exception of Mach Punch, Vacuum Wave, and Ice Shard. This Pokemon also has Bullet Punch to deal with faster threats.


Overall this Pokemon type is good to be used as a Belly Drum user. Although it has its flaws the advantages make up for it. I thing Dragon Steel should be used for our CAP.

 

[Spork]

Normal/Steel just doesn't feel right to me at all; pretty much the only way to justify its use it "oh, STAB ExtremeSpeed", which is not only polljumpy as fuck, but is also sort of irrelevant considering that base power is far from the only thing that goes into damage calculation. We can get high powered priority through stats or ability or whatever, or even go for unSTABed ESpeed. On a basic level, pure Steel is just a better typing. What does Normal add to Steel compared to other types? I don't want to have to say "nothing" but...

Ghost/Fighting hasn't been brought up yet. It might be poll suicide considering Revenankh or whatever but it is rather undeniably one of the better typings here. It offers:

1. Perfect neutral coverage (almost). Obviously a huge deal considering that the whole point of Belly Drum is to sweep via brute strength.
2. Access to STAB priority in TWO DIFFERENT TYPES.
3. Immunities to Fighting- and Normal-type attacks. Especially relevant considering Mach Punch and ESpeed, and we're gonna need those immunities to set up.
4. Stealth Rock resistance. Gonna need every sliver of health-bar we can get in order to survive the bullet punches (or whatever) that seep through the cracks.
5. A high-powered, accurate STAB move in Close Combat/HJK/Superpower to crush even 4x resists. (not many other types actually offer this! high-powered physical attacks are rare, and moves like Outrage and Brave Bird have obvious and unwieldy drawbacks.)

I'll throw in a little support for Dragon/Water.

 

[Full_Korbe]

I think BellyCAP must also have the right typing to switch into things. He won't always come after a KO (or a free U-Turn) so a typing which let it :
-Switch into some top-tiers and not be maimed by most attacks.
-Force switches on-said top-tiers threats.
-Can handle most revenge-killers (Scizor says hello).

The most important typings to consider are these ones IMO :
-Steel (Scizor says hello²)
-Fighting : Mach Punch is quite common (Conkeldurr, Breloom and uh, that's all) and that's the most reliable move of Terrakion / Keldeo Scarf.
-Normal : Nite Bander.
-Ice : We must not make an Ice-weak (even neutral is shaky) CAPMon. Ice Shard is already what is keeping at bay many powerful threats, and we don't want to make Mamoswine even more anti-meta.
-Water : Aqua Jet under rain hurts. A lot.

That's why I think Ghost will do a lot to our CAPMon. Immunity to Rapid Spin, Close Combat, Mach Punch and E.Speed is huge. But Ghost isn't a very good offensive typing (well, it isn't bad by any means but it is severely lacking in the power department) so the secondary typing needs to plug this hole. I think of Water because of the useful resistances and the good neutral coverage, Fire is also interesting because Ghost + Fire hits many OU hard (we miss Heatran, TTar and Hydreigon) but it also lacks good physical STAB and is hampered by rain.
I still think Ghost / Water is the best typing. Resistance to nearly every priority, immunities etc... The only thing I don't like is the lack of hazard resistance.

 

[ginganinja]

While I do understand this discussion is just for the typing alone, I feel that we should start to look at things that could potentially revenge/out-prio us instead of "i have 114514 resistances". Off the top of my head scarf latios/terrak/chomper/rotom-w sometimes and scizor/luke/dnite's prios come to mind; they are mons that commonly run priority and/or usually hold a scarf.

I actually agree with this. Going off the current OU meta, the standard scarfers seen are Scarf Keldeo, Terrakion, Latias, Jirachi, Garchomp, Thundurus-T and maybe Salamence. Below the 100+ speed zone its p much Rotom-W, Cube, Landorus-T, Politoed and Tyrantiar. Priority users are usually limited to Dragonite, Breloom and Scizor, with Feraligatr, Mamoswine and Lucario being uncommon priority users that show up every now and again.

As far as typing, again, I would appreciate having a water resist seeing as its one of the more common attacking types, along with Fighting (after that its potentially something like Dragon and maybe Psychic) but whatever lol. I still 100% disagree with Water as a typing full stop, but would maybe be more open to it if we didn't give it Aqua Jet or something.

 

[orkid]

Ok clearly I'm getting sucked into CAP a bit! I just wanted to write and say a few things:
1. Something I've read on this site a few times is that a pokemon doesn't get to be in OU unless it has multiple sets and niches. For the most part, I think that's true. If we want CAP6 to have belly drum on its most preferred set, I think we should aim for CAP6 to have bellydrum on more than one usable set. Otherwise it either won't be OU, it will barely be OU, or it; or it will be OU at best because of bellydrum + other sets.

2. What #1 means for typing, I think, is that we should not scrimp on giving CAP6 a strong offensive and decent defensive typing. Also, from the previous threads it seems like this CAP is going to be nerfed at the level of movepool, not typing. To me all the above means that CAP6 should be able to do most of its offensive work with its STABS alone. That means it gets to have multiple sets (some with a support move, some with a different coverage move, some with priorty maybe, etc). Think abt the best offensive pokemon in OU - they're relying on their STABS to punch massive holes as wall breakers or to clean up teams as sweepers, not on coverage moves (which they rely on to get past what would otherwise be a counter or check. Because I believe this, I am against typings like Poison/Steel - which would rely totally on coverage - that risks making a poke a bit like Electivire - great coverage, not OU. Note - I think the risk of making a pokemon whose stabs are reliable for this CAP is that then why wouldn't it use choice items/life orb? If people think this risk is too large, then I could see giving it less reliable STABS (such as grass, normal, flying, or bug), but still not terrible STABS like poison...

3. From the Malaconda discussion I remember people saying the best types are Steel, Dragon, Water, and then Fighting slightly behind those types. I think these are decent types to think abt making this CAP, with any of the also serving as good secondary types (dragon/fighting!). I am slightly anti-steel, since its not a great offensive type, and why use belly-drum/bullet punch when scizor exists? Still steel so good defensively that I see its appeal. Other typings that are good to think abt, IMHO, are Ground and Rock, with the right secondary typing, because they are such good offensive types (though Rock has so many weakenesses it would have to be combined with a type that cancels them out). As cool as Ghost is, making this pokemon that has to lose a ton of HP to work weak to pursuit also seems like a mistake to me, though I guess you could say that its teammates will have to take care of the pursuit users...

3a. I just want to plug Rock (tentatively) for a second - one thing that's cool abt it is that its STAB has good coverage and there are only 2 rock types in OU - which means that their is probably a lot of room for another rock type sweeper.

4. Water, fire, weather, priority - I'm sympathetic to ginganija's point that a water or fire typing would interact with weather a lot and make it harder to keep CAP6 balanced, and also harder to have CAP6 set up. Those are huge problems for those 2 types. Despite these risks, I still think that Water/Dragon is a great type to at least consider, and I think that just cause it has a water typing doesn't mean it will get aqua jet. It could go the Gallade route and get non-stab priority, for example. This logic depends on us actually nerfing at the movepool stage, but that seems likely anyway.

 

[Koorutheguru]

I'd also like to throw my support behind a Water/Ghost typing. This typing resists or is immune to every priority move in the game bar Shadow Sneak and Sucker Punch, which are incredibly rare in OU (There are no users of Shadow Sneak in OU, and Toxicroak and Dugtrio are the only viable users of Sucker Punch). This is imperative to CAP6's success, as it limits opportunities for its opponents to revenge kill it with priority, while also bolstering its attempts to switch in and Belly Drum.

In addition to this, Water/Ghost typing allows CAP6 a slew of key resistances to some of the premier Revenge Killers in OU; It resists (or is immune to) everything in Scizor's arsenal but Pursuit, everything in Hetran's arsenal but HP Grass, and everything in Dugtrio's arsenal but the aforementioned Sucker punch. With decent bulk, CAP6 would also be able to take hits with relative ease to Scarf Keldeo, Scarf Terrakion, ScarfChomp, Scarf Latios, and Scarf Jirachi (all 100+ base speed scarfers) as well as resisting many other potential scarfers. This, combined with its useful immunities will allow CAP6 to independently force switches, giving it plenty of opportunities to come in, set up, and proceed to wreck things with a +6 attack.

Water/Ghost is also a potent offensive type, with a Water-STAB which can be boosted by the omnipresent rain, two useful STAB priority options in Shadow Sneak and Aqua Jet, and a variety of interesting, low BP moves such as Clamp, Astonish, and, to a lesser extent, Lick, which would normally never see the light of day, but become viable threats behind a +6 attack boost. Plus, it gets decent coverage, hitting everything but steel for neutral coverage with its STABs.

All this being said, Water/Ghost is not without faults. CAP6 would get walled to the moon and back by Ferrothorn, and would be devastated by Breloom's obscenely powerful Bullet Seed (but then again, what isn't?), as well as taking massive damage from powerful, Electric type moves, namely Thunder and Bolt Strike. Water/Ghost typing also leaves DrumMon wary of strong Ghost and Dark attacks, specifically Pursuit and Shadow Ball, though (and forgive my polljumping here) I think pairing this typing and the Rattled ability has the potential to create interesting mind games concerning speed boosts. This set of weaknesses is reasonable enough to not cripple CAP6, but will give it a number of counters to ensure that it will not be broken.

Finally, concerning some things I have read about a Water-Type sweeper being overpowered due to the rain boost: While rain is ubiquitous in OU, and the power boost would indeed be a huge boon to our CAP, so long as we adhere to our Miltank-Flygon baseline (i.e. circa-Base 80 Attack), I think that, though other sets might present themselves, Belly Drum would still be our best set and would remain unbroken. On top of this, if it still seems like a +6 rain-boosted STAB Crabhammer/Waterfall is too powerful, we should keep in mind that it is not necessary to just jam the most powerful STAB physical moves we can on this CAP; we need to keep the original concept of a Pokemon that uses underutilized moves effectively, so perhaps less powerful moves, like Razor Shell, could be considered.

Water/Ghost provides our CAP with the resistances and immunities it needs to set up and shine, without going crazy with resistances (like some Steel/??? suggestions). With Water/Ghost, the CAP would have a good chance stopping its most immediately dangerous threats, but would still have to think hard around switching into powerful attacks or Status moves, especially Toxic and Toxic Spikes. This typing is a great way to efficiently provide our Pokemon with the appropriate defenses without butchering its offenses or making it overpowered.

 

[forestflamerunner]

It seems some people are under the impression that Water/Dragon typing will help CAP set up on defensive mons. These people are wrong.

If you want to set up on defensive mons, your chief concern shouldn't be tanking ferrothorns power whip or jellicent's scald. The more important question would be how to avoid being crippled by ferrothorns thunder wave and Jellicent's will-o-wisp. I feel some people are operating under the assumption that defensive pokemon will try to attack in order to KO our mon. That almost certainly will not be the case. You are far more likely to be phazed, seeded, or statused if you attempt to set up on a defensive mon, and that basically leaves you with a half dead pokemon that can't sweep despite just using a belly drum.

Furthermore, its important to realize that intelligent players only switch when they have a Pokemon that can handle the opposing pokemon better than the one they currently have out. For example, a player wouldn't withdraw a ferrothorn when faced with a Volcarona if he knew nothing on his team could take volcarona at +1 speed. In that case, the player would opt to keep his ferrothorn in and thunder wave/leech seed in order to cripple volcarona if it attempts to set up, or, if the volcarona goes for the kill, to provide some other pokemon a safe switch-in to an unboosted, and therefore more manageable, volcarona.

Now what does that mean for our Belly Drummer who tries to set up on a defensive mon? Well, if the opponent has a good answer to CAP 6, then he will switch out to said pokemon, allowing CAP 6 to set up. However, since CAP 6 cannot defeat the opponents switch in in its current state, it will either be KOed by the opponents check or CAP 6 will have to switch out, but would be crippled for the remainder of the match. Alternatively, if the opponent does not have a better answer to CAP 6, he will not switch out his defensive mon and instead try to cripple our belly drummer with t-wave, toxic, or what have you in effect preventing CAP 6 from setting up safely.

Now, I am not saying it is impossible to set up on a defensive mon. Rather, I am just explaining that setting up on a defensive mon has a lot more to do with handling their support movepool than handling their attacking options. For example, being immune to statuses such as burns and paralysis would help this pokemon set up on defensive pokemon a lot more than resisting their STAB options, especially considering that we cannot afford not to sweep after we set up.

With that in mind, let's reexamine Water/Dragon. This typing does not shield us from thunder wave, will-o- wisp, or toxic, meaning we probably can't set up on ferrothorn, jellicent, or even blissey for that matter. The only defensive mons we could really set up on with a Water/Dragon typing are those with no status move, so basically some variants of tentacruel and gastrodon, but even then you would have to be warry of scald burns. Water/Dragon typing does turn CAP 6 into a world eater after a belly drum, but it doesn't open up many set up opportunities beyond stomaching choiced water attacks, and I beleive the hardest part about using belly drum was setting up, not killing shit at +6.

 

[Birkal]

I want to talk a bit about momentum. On IRC, we had a pretty sizable discussion about Steel / Flying. While it initially seemed appealing to me (Ground immunity + Fighting neutrality), it really doesn't do anything against key revenge killers. Furthermore, I want to note something very key here: being weak to Volt Switch and/or U-turn sucks for this concept. One of the biggest issues with Belly Drum is that it can result in a considerable amount of momentum loss. If we create a Pokemon that is forced out by either of these moves, we've created a giant momentum burner, which won't be a popular option for competitive players. While things like Stealth Rock neutrality and immunities are important, I think focusing in on how we interact with these two moves is going to be key. In fact, that's why I've been researching Ground-type so furiously for this CAP; that Electric-type immunity is critical here. Unfortunately, Ground-type has a lot of other weaknesses that make it undesirable for this concept, so let me propose something else. NinjaStars brought it up a few posts earlier, but I'd like to dig in-depth on why I think it's such a great typing for CAP 6.

Dragon/Steel

2x: Fighting, Ground
1x: Fire, Ice, Dragon
1/2x: Normal, Water, Electric, Flying, Psychic, Bug, Rock, Ghost, Dark, Steel
1/4x: Grass
0x: Poison​

This is the result of me wrestling with the things I didn't like about Poison / Steel. As I listed above, I am largely wary of Volt Switch, and I didn't like how Poison / Steel doesn't do anything to discourage its use. Furthermore, it doesn't resist Water, which is absolutely rampant in this metagame as well. Finally, I think Dragon-type gives us the perfect offensive typing to fulfill this concept. While this new typing does create some new weaknesses, those weakness are desirable.

Why exactly are we against making CAP 6 weak to Fighting-type? I asked this in #cap, and I was greeted with a chorus of "Mach Punch". But which Pokemon in OU are using Mach Punch? Breloom can easily be picked off by neutral priority. Conkeldurr and Infernape might give CAP 6 a run for its money, but its being weak to those Pokemon necessarily a bad thing? They're not really common in OU at the moment anyways... To finish off priority weaknesses, Dragonite and Scizor are both resisted by this typing, so no dice.

So what about scarfers? My case is that popular scarfers in OU are either a) stopped with neutral priority or b) stopped by having all of their attacks resisted. Terrakion and Keldeo are a good example of the former. They're not necessarily bulky, and won't stand up well to a neutral priority attack from a +6 Atk behemoth. The ones that are more bulky (Latias and Jirachi) don't typically run moves that are Super Effective against Dragon / Steel. This creates a fantastic situation for us: CAP 6 is seldom stopped once it sets up Belly Drum. Note the 'seldom' in there. It makes it so that CAP 6 can be stopped and isn't completely broken in OU. If Jirachi is forced to run Earthquake on its Choice Scarf set, that's a predictable move that a competitive player can utilize to get momentum. Defensively, Dragon / Steel is sound. It resists switching moves like U-turn and Volt Switch, while creating momentum in that it's only stopped by a few, select, super-effective attacks.


I want to make one more comparison between this and Poison / Steel. One of the things that I struggled with in Korski's suggestion is that Poison / Steel doesn't have any good STAB options. While there are advantages to that maneuver, I do think it opens CAP 6 up to being a lot more weak than it needs to be. With Poison / Steel, I could see CAP 6 being forced to run a set of STAB / Coverage 1 / Coverage 2 / Belly Drum. As I discussed in Concept Assessment 2, this is not optimal. If we can free up a moveslot for self-reliant move like Wish (for healing) and Confuse Ray (for forcing switches), then we're in much better shape. Therefore, I'd like to see CAP 6 with strong, offensive, neutral coverage. We can easily limit this coverage option with either typing, but I believe that Dragon / Steel does it better because it has a strong STAB option that is its default maneuver. Dragon-type pairs up with a few other typings (my favorite being Fighting) to create an unresisted core of moves that allows for two free moveslots.

Furthermore, the STAB, physical moves for Dragon-type fit this concept to a tee. We can utilize the typing to force CAP 6 to use Belly Drum in order to be viable. Dragon Claw is a great in that it's largely unusable without some sort of boost. Its interaction with Outrage is curious in the case of Belly Drum. Almost all Dragon-types opt for Outrage (even on boosting sets) simply for the sake of more power. At +6 Atk, you have all the power you need. While Outrage would be a solid option, I could envision Dragon Claw being the preferred move due to its non-locking properties. Finally, relying on Dragon-type STAB pushes CAP 6 away from being tempted to use an All-Out Attacking set, or even a Choice Band set. These are both horribly outclassed by Kyurem-B, Dragonite, and Garchomp without Belly Drum. CAP 6's viability would come through what it has to offer over other Dragons: Belly Drum.

 

[Mikasa]

Hi people, first post here I've been lurking all the project for CAP 6 till now.

While I don't know which type we should choose there are some types I dislike kind a bit and I'll state why:

1- Water - Due to rain I highly dislike this type, because if the mon is good it will probably boost a playstyle which is already almost broken.

2- Fire- Fire has too many problems IMO, like water it may boost a weather, it is nerfed on the omnipresent rain and the best physical STAB it could get (flare blitz) is not good with Belly Drum due to HP loss.

3- Ice - Awful defensive type that will give us too few opportunities to setup a belly drum (even steel/ice has 3 very common weaknesses), also Ice Shard which would probably be a reason to go with an ice typing is a move that could clearly be used without belly drum because it is normally targeting 4x weaknesses and thus could make CB sets more popular than belly drum.

Now for types that have problems but could be used:
1- Ghost - I'm not fully against ghost, but it is a type we need to be very careful with, if we go with something like ghost/steel it may be used as a spinblocker who simply doesn't die rather than a belly drum user, spinblocker and belly drum are two roles that terribly clash and if we make our mon too good at preventing spinning, belly drum can become almost unseen.

2- Flying - Lack of decent STAB, flying is an amazing offensive type, but Brave Bird clashes with belly drum due to recoil, and acrobatics is a little restrictive, it can work with the right secondary typing and status tho.

 

[LimaPro643]

Dragon/Steel has great resistances just like Poison/Steel, but it also has its faults. Though Mach Punch is not widely spread, Fighting is one of the best and most common attacking types. Anything faster with a Fighting-type move could easily get it past 1/2 HP. Another problem is a neutrality to Dragon-type moves. Dragon is the only type that Dragon is super effective against, and thus, the only type, when paired with Steel, to not resist the Dragon-type. The typical Dragon is a speedy, offensive powerhouse. Even with good defenses, it still wouldn't like a neutral Draco Meteor or Outrage. The latter is one of the main reasons teams have Steel-types. With Belly Drum, it's as if this Pokémon has a pitiful HP stat. Like Regigigas' Slow Start or Archeops' Defeatist, we're making this Pokémon to have a halved HP stat in order to function.

Not to say that Poison/Steel doesn't have flaws either. A crippling Ground weakness may force it to need Air Balloon like Marowak needs Thick Club, but it could potentially be helpful. Ground is a very common attacking type, and many non-Ground-types have access to it. Dragon/Steel may seem like it wouldn't need an Air Balloon as well, but in reality, it can't lose more than half its HP at a time. It may sound silly, but unless it has Regirock's bulk, a 2x weakness shuts it down as much as a 4x weakness does. Said 4x weakness may make players realize how much it needs an Air Balloon rather than a 2x weakness making it seem less important.

 

[ProfPuppyPunter]

I think that Steel/Ghost is perfect because by reducing the number of weaknesses, we can also strengthen the chance of getting the opponent to switch, giving us a free Belly Drum. Only having one or two weakness greatly decreases the moves that the opponent will want to hit with, which also makes me think that Me First (sorry if this counts as poll-jumping) could go hand in hand with this typing, mon, and goal. Also, maybe we should stop trying to find things the pokemon could be checked by, but instead things we want to check.

 

[Bughouse]

It seems some people are under the impression that Water/Dragon typing will help CAP set up on defensive mons. These people are wrong.

If you want to set up on defensive mons, your chief concern shouldn't be tanking ferrothorns power whip or jellicent's scald. The more important question would be how to avoid being crippled by ferrothorns thunder wave and Jellicent's will-o-wisp. I feel some people are operating under the assumption that defensive pokemon will try to attack in order to KO our mon. That almost certainly will not be the case. You are far more likely to be phazed, seeded, or statused if you attempt to set up on a defensive mon, and that basically leaves you with a half dead pokemon that can't sweep despite just using a belly drum.

There are so many ways to deal with these issues, which I alluded to, though not specifically, in my post.

Abilities like Water Veil or Shield Dust or Limber or even Guts/Quick Feet can mitigate Paralysis and Burn as threats. Lum Berry is a highly viable item as well. Leech Seed can be bypassed by Liquid Ooze, if we so desire.

Second, if hazard control is good, you can even survive the 75% recoil caused by Substitute and then Belly Drum, leaving these walls as total set-up fodder. While scary to use up 2 moveslots, Dragon/Water has great coverage by itself and it could work. Similarly, there is no reason why Belly Drum + Lum/Chesto Rest isn't viable. Good two move coverage opens up moveslots for strategies to walk all over the things it can set up.

In short there are MANY ways to avoid these potential threats and have perfect set-up opportunities.

 

[Vividsketch]

I'd have to second Deck Knight's original type of choice:

Normal/Steel

Offensively:

As already stated, obvious benefits are STAB on the premium priority move in 'Extremespeed' at +2 priority this really does circumvent opposition priority issues, particularly that of the severe 'Mach Punch/Vacuum Wave' weakness. And of course, as Deck Knight also already pointed out, potentially STAB on 'Bullet Punch' works well to cover for Rocks and Ghosts that otherwise cause problems. Really leaving only 'Steels' to provoke a direct deterrent.

With a large amount of the success of a 'Belly Drum' pokemon resting on possibly priority wars and/or enough bulk to hang in there at 50% HP (or less), it seems prudent to allow the opportunity of this advantage. Further more, 'Normal' type, much the same as 'Dragon', provide very good neutral coverage damage. This is important as, though of course we haven't yet discussed move pool in any detail yet, relying on coverage attacks isn't going to cut it on a pokemon that will likely quickly start running out of move slots and options to function.

I'd also like to draw attention to the bygone relic previously spoken of in early threads of 'Explosion/Selfdestruct', for all those that were advocating it earlier. We all know how are it has been heavily nerfed this gen, and as a result is all but unused or inadequately viable. With STAB we could breath all new life into it. A +6 STAB 'Explosion/Selfdestruct' even running off a mild Attack stat is nothing to sneeze at. Even a base Attack stat of 65 is enough to 1HKO a Max HP, Max Def+ Skarmory.

Defensively:

We all know what 'Steel' can do defensively. Immunity to 'Toxic' and 'Sandstorm' passive damage. Resistant 'Stealth Rock' ect.. And the Normal type doesn't really take anything away from that, only doubling up on a 'Fighting' weakness that would likely already be crippling. And we also know how to manage a 'Fire' and 'Ground' weakness. Neither of which of any priority attacks to worry about. And as a side note, 'Normal/Steel' resists or is immune to all other priority moves aside from 'Aqua Jet' and 'Mach Punch/Vacuum Wave'.


I feel that 'Normal/Steel' is just the most direct in trying to accomplish our current mission statement. But is is also flexible enough from a Offensive and Defensive point of view to incorporate other elements of it's design that we should descide on further into the process.

 

[Bull of Heaven]

After giving this some thought earlier today, I think this CAP almost has to be a Steel-type. A Pokemon built on sacrificing half of its HP simply can't afford to be worn down by residual damage, and no other type protects against residual damage as well as Steel does. Steel gives an immunity to Sandstorm and Toxic/Toxic Spikes, and a resistance to Stealth Rock. The only non-Steel typing that would do all of this is Poison/Ground. If you've ever used a spike-stacking team, you know that entry hazard damage in particular can build up quickly, and this is why I think CAP6 almost needs to resist SR. Yes, Steel is weak to common attacking types, but residual damage alone could keep Belly Drum from being viable, and the protection from it is just too important IMO to give up. STAB priority with Bullet Punch is just the icing on the cake.

So for me, the question isn't so much "what type combination we should use" as it is "what we should combine with Steel". My favourite options so far are Ghost and Dragon, due to the different defensive benefits that these each offer. I might add more thoughts on them later, but I don't have much time now. I do want to say quickly that I don't like Steel/Fire. The burn immunity is appealing, but there are a lot of ways to protect against burns (whether it's in later stages or just running Lum Berry in the playtest) and I really think the Stealth Rock resistance is too valuable to give up.

Steel/Normal seems cool at first, and I don't want to just give up on Explosion, but the 4x Fighting weakness is kind of scary. I guess we can handle Terrakion with Bullet Punch and other things with Extremespeed, plus the right team support can keep Fighting-types in check, but I think I'll have to be sold on this a little more before I start supporting it. EDIT: Actually, with Belly Drum the difference between 2x and 4x doesn't seem like such a big deal. And STAB Extremespeed is one of the best defences against revenge killers we could ask for. Having given it some more thought, this is also one of my favourites.

 

[Imanalt]

I really like ghost typing in general, as nearly every scarfer is neutral to ghost, which gets us clean kos at +6, but due largely to ghosts awful set of physical moves, we arent likely to be using it unboosted. The immunity provided by ghost is also invaluable to setting up, forcing opponents to play much more conservatively with choice locked fighting pokemon, or risk getting set up on. Basically any type can be paired with ghost here, but my personal favorite is electric, as electric/ghost has the ability to set up cleanly on both scizor without pursuit and most thundurus-ts, as well as being able to scare out a lot of water types with the threat of an attack instead of setting up. I also agree with birkal that "being weak to Volt Switch and/or U-turn sucks for this concept." and electric/ghost takes that a whole step farther and resists both. Electric/ghost also manages to avoid being weak to any priority that is ever used in ou, and resists all but ice shard.

 

[forestflamerunner]

There are so many ways to deal with these issues, which I alluded to, though not specifically, in my post.

Abilities like Water Veil or Shield Dust or Limber or even Guts/Quick Feet can mitigate Paralysis and Burn as threats. Lum Berry is a highly viable item as well. Leech Seed can be bypassed by Liquid Ooze, if we so desire.

Second, if hazard control is good, you can even survive the 75% recoil caused by Substitute and then Belly Drum, leaving these walls as total set-up fodder. While scary to use up 2 moveslots, Dragon/Water has great coverage by itself and it could work. Similarly, there is no reason why Belly Drum + Lum/Chesto Rest isn't viable. Good two move coverage opens up moveslots for strategies to walk all over the things it can set up.

In short there are MANY ways to avoid these potential threats and have perfect set-up opportunities.

I don't deny any of that. All I am saying is that Water/Dragon typing does not help us set up Belly Brum in any way outside of sponging choiced water type attacks like a boss. Any typing can use substitute, guts, lum berry or whatever to help it deal with status; that is by no means unique to Water/Dragon. From my point of View, the main draw to a Water Dragon typing is that it decimates everything at +6, but honestly, most typings fuck shit up at +6 so thats nothing too special. You are saying that abilities and stats can help mitigate the weakness to status conditions. i argue that it would be better to choose a typing that deals with status reasonably well so that we can focus stats and ability on creating more set up typings via added bulk/immunities. That's one of the reasons i like Ground/Poison Typing: it provides immunity to toxic and thunder wave and provides useful resistances that allow us to set up on terrakion and Pokemon choiced locked into fighting and electric type moves.

 

[thecanvashat]

I'm don't think giving CAP6 a 4× weakness to anything is a good idea. As noted above, the typing does have to be defensive, and capable of taking a hit even at half-health.

Also, Earthquake seems to be common and Volt Switch and U-turn would allow a Pokemon to just switch into CAP6 with a super effective type. A lot of people have suggested using an Air Balloon to mitigate this weakness, but I think that this may be too restricting. I do agree with Mikasa in that I think that Ghost typing may cause people to focus too much on the spinblocking aspect of the Pokemon if it is too defensive. However, I think that the Ghost type would be useful, as it could switch into a Pokemon that would use Rapid Spin, and not sustain any damage. However, Rapid Spin only has 20 has power, and likely wouldn't cause too much damage. That being said, I do like Nomark's suggestion of Normal/Ghost.

Another type I don't think I've Sen mentioned, but I think may still work is Ground/Flying.

4×:None.
2×:Water, Ice.
1×:Normal, Rock, Steel,Dragon, Grass, Flying, Fire, Ghost, Dark, Psychic.
1/2×:Fighting, Poison, Bug.
1/4×:None
0×:Ground, Electric.

Pros:
Immune to Earthquake and other ground type attacks.

Resists U-turn and immune to Volt Switch.

Immune to Thunder Wave, which could easily cripple CAP6.

Resists Fighting type moves.

Cons:
Weak against Water, wouldn't fare well in Rain.

Weak against Ice moves, like Ice Shard.

 

[Sgt.Moose]

I'm don't think giving CAP6 a 4× weakness to anything is a good idea. As noted above, the typing does have to be defensive, and capable of taking a hit even at half-health.

Ground/Flying.

4×:None.

Ice

 

[ProfPuppyPunter]

I can't say I like Ground/Fly, just because being weak to any priority is a bad idea. In no way do we want to get hit with a SE priority move, since we want to keep as much health as possible before and after BellyDrum.