CAP 17 CAP 6 - Part 2 - Typing Discussion

[orkid]

I love the logic behind Birkal's defense of Dragon/Steel. I especially appreciate his point that dragon's stab is great for bellydrum, precisely because we can't make it CAP6 a better choicebander than Ky-B or Haxorus, and that bellydrum lets you use dragon claw over outrage! I also agree that we don't want a pokemon weak to volt/turn. I also agree that this typing allows multiple 4th moves, which I think is crucial. That said my only concern with dragon/steel is that it is so good defensively I worry it'll be hard not to use it as a defensive mon.

The way I see it, the risk on typing this CAP is as follows - if its too good defensively it risks a pokemon that will be used defensively and not as a bellydrummer, and if its too good offensively then it risks being used as a revenge killer, or (if its STAB is boosted by rain/sun) a weather-mon (otherwise water/electric would be kinda cool).

One type I want to explore more is Dragon/Fighting, which Birkal and I both brought up sorta by the way - this type resists water, electric, grass, fire, steel, rock, bug. That means you resist volt/turn! We have access to stab priority if we want to include it in the movepool stage. We have some bad weaknesses (psychic, flying, dragon, ice) but not tons of them. We resist stealth rock. also with bellydrum lower power fighting moves like DRAIN PUNCH(!), Brick break, force palm, and low sweep become more viable, and means we don't have to give it close combat or even superpower. (I hope that wasn't poll-jumping). My fear for dragon/fighting is basically the opposite as my fear for dragon/steel, its so offensively good it risks not needing bellydrum. But I think keeping its movepool and stats in check will help with that. As I see, dragon/fighting is better than dragon/water, another type some people like, in lots of ways. You won't have to worry abt weather affects very much. It has better resists and is better offensively. That said dragob/water has 2 quad-resists, which is really nice for this CAP and neither dragon/steel or dragon/fighting match that particular advantage to dragon/water. (poison immunity does not matter except for toxic).

Finally, three(ish) other kind of odd-ball types to consider:

Ground/Water - I would love to have this thing be a ground type, precisely because it would be awesome to not get twaved. But ground has many bad weaknesses. I think water/ground at least lets us imagine a pokemon with an immunity (something reachzero wants), only 1 weakness, a few good resists (including to stealth rock). Offensively the stabs combo well. That said, I don't like the idea of a CAP6 that is affected much by weather...

Flying/Electric - Not weak to voltswitch, or u-turn. A flying electric would be pretty anti-meta, and there are (barely) decent enough physical stabs on both sides to imagine using (drill peck/ thunderpunch). Rock and ice weakness is bad, but hey you're not weak to spikes/tspikes and you have nifty resists to fighting and steel and bug and is immune to ground. Offensively you have pretty good coverage with just your stabs... I kinda like this type actually!

Rock/Ghost or Rock/Fighting or Rock/Flying (with volt absorb! j/k)... yeah probably not. I guess there are reasons there are only 2 rock-types in OU. One problem I have with ghost typing is that you end up making a pokemon people will want to use as a defensive spin-blocker and rock/fighting is like ok i'll just use terrakion. But I still think a rock-type bellydrummer would be amazing because hello rock slide instead of stonemiss But Rock might just suck too much. I wish Rock/Grass wasn't weak to steal, bug and fighting, ugh!

 

[erisia]

I would agree with people in general that Ghost seems to be an excellent typing to base things around. The immunity to Extremespeed and Mach Punch is great, and switching into Close Combats and Superpowers to set up is fantastic. Furthermore, while Ghost has weak physical STABs in general, +6 Shadow Sneak is still capable of sweeping through offensive Pokémon with some residual damage, and Shadow Claw is strong enough to break through bulky neutral opponents after Belly Drum.

Of course, having a good defensive secondary typing to go along with it is also extremely important, as Ghost typing alone doesn't pack a whole lot of resistances, or really help against residual damage. Steel obviously helps the most in these aspects, but I have serious fears that Steel/Ghost will cause defensive roles to overshadow the Belly Drum role; even Base 60 HP and Defense would let CAP6 run a decent physically defensive set depending on its movepool, through the power of its resistances and immunities alone. However, Kitsunoh stands as evidence that this may not be the case, so I'm on the fence about it at the moment. I've already explained the merits of Water, which helps with the first point but not with the second. Other typings that mitigate residual damage include Ground, Fire, Poison, and Rock, with the former having the least drawbacks but still providing few resistances (although Stealth Rock resistance is nice), and the latter three all having significant drawbacks that make them poor choices (SR weakness, few resistances, and multiple weaknesses respectively).

So overall, this leads me to believe that mitigating residual damage is best left to the other stages. Abilities can certainly go some way to mitigating hazard damage, regenerating health, blocking harmful status effects etc, and certain non-attacking movepool choices could also achieve this. Furthermore, with Life Orbs and Choice items being poor choices, CAP6 may well be using Lum Berry as the standard item, making status-mitigation through other means a low priority.

As an aside, Fighting typing provides some good benefits (perfect coverage with STAB priority, SR resistance, good movepool choices) but helps with neither of these defensive aspects. Thus, unless we are very careful with the following stages, it would be very easy for CAP6 to become an impractical glass cannon if following this route.

 

[thecanvashat]

Ice

Ah, crud, I thought I forgot something. I support Normal/Ghost then.

 

[ProfPuppyPunter]

Of course, having a good defensive secondary typing to go along with it is also extremely important, as Ghost typing alone doesn't pack a whole lot of resistances, or really help against residual damage. Steel obviously helps the most in these aspects, but I have serious fears that Steel/Ghost will cause defensive roles to overshadow the Belly Drum role; even Base 60 HP and Defense would let CAP6 run a decent physically defensive set depending on its movepool, through the power of its resistances and immunities alone.

A defensive typing does not merit a defensive mon, I think. An orthodox movepool made to complement BD can make our hypothetical wall into a wallbreaker.

 

[alexwolf]

I want to support Normal / Ghost as the typing for this CAP and here is why:

• STAB Extremespeed to KO most faster offensive Pokemon and outprioritize most priority users
• STAB Shadow Sneak (if we decide that we don't want to give Extremespeed to the CAP)
  
• No real exploitable weaknesses outside of Dark-type moves which are only commonly used by Tyranitar and sometimes Hydreigon. This means that with the right ability and stats, the CAP could be able to setup on a certain array of threats with little to no fear. For example if we give to the CAP Intimidate and decent physical bulk (Lando-T level bulk) it would be able to setup on many offensive setup sweepers. If we give it Water Absorb it could setup on a lot of rain threats, etc. This is the benefit that the Ghost / Normal dual typing gives by having only one relatively rare weakness
  
• STAB Explosion to give to the CAP a bit of versatility and explore a few more underused moves (Explosion could be made to be illegal with Belly Drum if we decide that they are too much on the same set)
• Potential to act as a spinblocker in order to have use even before using Belly Drum.

Those are the most basic and rough points of the reasoning behind this typing but i want to explain some more things. In the concept assessment thread it was discussed a lot how in order for the Belly Drum CAPmon to be successful it must do something that the sweepers of OU can't, otherwise it will just be outclassed or broken. I've been thinking about this and i came up with the idea of making the CAP some sort of anti-sweeper sweeper Pokemon. What does this mean? Make a Pokemon that is able to switch into some of the most dangerous setup sweepers of OU and setup on their face, immediately threatening with a counter sweep. However, this Pokemon shouldn't be able to beat the majority of the physical walls and generally physically bulky Pokemon, just the majority of the offensive Pokemon and offensive pivots that offensive teams use. This would create something like a safety net for all teams to use against offensive teams, which however wouldn't be dangerous as long as even somewhat physically bulky Pokemon aren't sufficiently weakened. By following this idea we don't just make another sweeper, which is something that OU is full of, but we make a Pokemon that has a role previously unseen in OU and that any kind of team would appreciate. We also make sure that Belly Drum will be essential in order for this Pokemon to function, otherwise it loses its main role and the reason for teams to use it in the first place, assuming of 'course that we don't give it too many other generally good traits (ability, stats, moves, etc).

 

[topher4167]

I'd like to compile a list of all types that have been proposed so far before I post my arguments.
Adding on this, I would like to group these into four main categories (some will be in two categories, apologies if I miss any):

The Steels

• Poison/Steel
• Normal/Steel
• Fire/Steel
• Steel/Ghost*
• Psychic/Steel
• Flying/Steel
• Dragon/Steel

The Ghosts

• Ghost/Normal
• Steel/Ghost*
• Water/Ghost
• Ground/Ghost
• Electric/Ghost
• Ghost/Fighting

The Misfits

• Poison/Ground
• Electric/Ice
• Dragon/Water
• Water/Poison

*Appears in two categories

Okay, now I am going to deal with each category as a whole:
The Steels:

Pros:

• Tons of resistances
• Resistances to some common forms of priority (Bullet Punch, ESpeed)
• Great defensive typings due to being half-Steel
• Immune to Poison-type as well as Toxic poison
• Doesn't take sandstorm damage
• Takes little SR and spikes damage, toxic spikes don't affect them
• STAB priority in Bullet Punch
• Resist U-Turn and in some cases Volt Switch

Cons:

• Most can be walled by Terrakion with Superpower or even EQ if they don't have an Air Balloon
• Many can be destroyed by Fighting-types, specifically those with Mach Punch (Breloom, Conkeldurr)

The Ghosts

Pros:

• Immune to Fighting- and Normal-types
• Immune to common types of priority (Mach Punch, ESpeed)
• STAB priority in Shadow Sneak
• Access to moves that force switches, such as Will-O-Wisp or Confuse Ray

Cons:

• Horrible physical offensive STAB, with Shadow Claw as its most powerful move
• Only hits two types SE, neither of which are amazingly common (Psychic is fairly common I guess)

The Misfits

Have no common pros or cons; I will review each separately

Poison/Ground

Pros:

• Immune to Toxic poison and toxic spikes
• Takes no sandstorm damage
• Access to powerful STAB Earthquake

Cons:

• No STAB priority
• Aqua Jet in the rain rips in to shreds
• Only resists 1 priority move: Mach Punch
• Physical Poison STAB is very weak

Electric/Ice

Not even worthy of a pro/con list. While it's true that it would have powerful special STAB, that would completely undermine or goal here! We want to use Belly Drum, so we should have strong physical STAB! If we have strong special STAB, nobody will ever use Belly Drum!

Dragon/Water

Pros:

• Has STAB priority in Aqua Jet
• Strong physical STAB in Waterfall and Dual Chop
• Only one weakness in Dragon

Cons:

• STAB Aqua Jet in the rain with +6 Atk is way OP
• STAB Outrage with +6 Atk is way OP
• Dragon/Water with BD is way OP

Water/Poison

Pros:

• STAB priority in Aqua Jet
• Immune to Toxic poison and toxic spikes
• Resists Mach Punch

Cons:

• STAB Aqua Jet in the rain with +6 Atk is way OP
• Weak physical Poison STAB

So as you can probably see, I am leaning towards the Steels, and particularly, as I mentioned yesterday, Psychic/Steel. So here is my more detailed review of Psychic/Steel

Psychic/Steel

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

Pros:

• Immune to Toxic poison and toxic spikes
• Immune to sandstorm damage
• A massive 8 resistances and 1 immunity
• Resists Bullet Punch and ESpeed
• Hits most Mach Punch users for SE damage with Psychic-type moves
• 4x resists Psychic-type moves, which are pretty common

Cons:

• Doesn't resist U-Turn or Volt Switch
• Any priority that isn't resisted could seriously cripple it after BD, specifically Aqua Jet in the rain
• I'm sure there are others that I can't think of

So I'm continuing to support Psychic/Steel.

 

[LimaPro643]

Normal/Ghost is weak to Dark. However, there are very few Dark-type moves out there that are decent. The main two are Sucker Punch and Pursuit. Pursuit isn't that big of a deal unless you switch out. Sucker Punch would be a problem, but on the Belly Drum turn, it couldn't be hit with it. ExtremeSpeed comes before Sucker Punch and stops everything but Rock, Steel, and other Ghost-types, which in turn could be Shadow Sneaked.

Sadly, the real problem with Normal/Ghost is its lack of resistances. Three immunities are great for switching in, but what's to stop a powerful neutral hit from destroying it? (Destroying [CAP 6]: doing greater than 50% damage at any given point)

 

[alexwolf]

Normal/Ghost is weak to Dark. However, there are very few Dark-type moves out there that are decent. The main two are Sucker Punch and Pursuit. Pursuit isn't that big of a deal unless you switch out. Sucker Punch would be a problem, but on the Belly Drum turn, it couldn't be hit with it. ExtremeSpeed comes before Sucker Punch and stops everything but Rock, Steel, and other Ghost-types, which in turn could be Shadow Sneaked.

Sadly, the real problem with Normal/Ghost is its lack of resistances. Three immunities are great for switching in, but what's to stop a powerful neutral hit from destroying it? (Destroying [CAP 6]: doing greater than 50% damage at any given point)

I think that with the right abilities and stats we can give to the CAP plenty of opportunities to setup against various popular OU setup sweepers as i showed in the example of my above post. There are many great abilities that we can give to the CAP to compliment the Normal / Ghost typing such as Water Absorb, Flash Fire, Thick Fat, Intimidate, Multiscale, and Volt Absorb. Imo we only need to setup on popular setup sweepers to counter sweep them and this can be done with the ways i mentioned above.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

Since we're making a Pokemon whose primary set is Belly Drum, we have to realize that taking neutral hits is not acceptable. We're going to be operating either at under 50% health or during a turn when we willingly reduce our health by 50%. Therefore, when determining a typing, we need to be looking at resistances and immunities, not weaknesses or neutral hits. Neutral attacks and weaknesses from most common Pokemon are both probably going to take out 50% of our CAP's health, but we can take resisted hits and possibly even weak neutral priority attacks.

I have yet to see a better typing for our Pokemon that Ghost/Steel; Ghost/Steel provides three immunities, two of which are extremely important. It gives us a resistance to Bullet Punch, an immunity to ExtremeSpeed and Mach Punch, plus two different STAB priority attacks if we choose to go that route. A Ghost/Steel Pokemon can potentially set up on Scizor, Ferrothorn, Jirachi, possibly Breloom, choice-locked Keldeo, Forretress, possibly Gengar, possibly Skarmory, choice-locked Terrakion, Celebi, Espeon, Latias, and Blissey. Not a bad haul, even though some of those Pokemon are conditional. If we're looking to maximize setup opportunities, we're not getting a better type than Ghost/Steel.

I would like to warn against using STABs that are conducive to recoil-causing STAB attacks. We're already playing with what might be the riskiest move in all of Pokemon; we already plan to sacrifice half of our HP just to set up, plus we're going to probably take an attack while we're at it unless we predict very well. Therefore, if the best Physical STABs on our Pokemon happen to cause our Pokemon damage, we put CAP6 at a great disadvantage when sweeping.

Steel/Fighting also lets us do a lot since we combine the great defensive prowess of the Steel type with the frightening offensive prowess of the Fighting type. Although we pick up a nasty Mach Punch weakness, we can still out-priority common Mach Punch users with our own Mach Punch. If we choose not to go down the priority route, we can always just use the high-powered offensive STABs that the Steel and Fighting types have been blessed with. Steel/Fighting Pokemon can set up on Forretress, possibly Ferrothorn, Latias, Specially Defensive Jirachi, and defensive Celebi. It can also set up on choice-locked priority moves that it resists, plus Choice-locked Tyranitar provided that it's not locked into Superpower. We'll be 4x resistant to Rock AND Dark with this type. Steel/Fighting is the best balance of setup opportunities and offensive presence available to this Pokemon.

TL;DR: Ghost/Steel and Fighting/Steel are our best options; the former lets us set up on plenty of Pokemon while the latter gets us amazing STAB coverage.

 

[Avira]

I'd like to propose Steel/Fighting.

• OU is littered with Dragon, Water, and Fighting type attacks because they are very potent offensively. I believe that a type combination that uses two of the above three types would make CAP 6 too much of an immediate threat, giving Belly Drum less appeal.
• Minimizing entry hazard damage is vital to allowing a Pokemon use Belly Drum effectively. A Steel/Fighting type with Levitate would mean that Stealth Rock does diddly-shit to it and that it avoids the grounded entry hazards and the popular Earthquake.
  
• The Steel typing without the Ground weakness should provide CAP 6 with enough set-up opportunities. Like Lucario, it will be able to set up on CBTar. Unlike Luke, CAP 6 will be able to set up on several Ground-type Pokemon. This typing also resists several priorities moves (Bullet Punch, ExtremeSpeed, and Ice Shard), which minimizes opportunities for the opponent to revenge CAP 6. Should CAP 6 also have priority, that should help stymy the threat that some Mach Punch users may pose.
  
• As this typing is not fantastic defensively (and isn't ridiculous offensively), there should be plenty of reason to use a Belly Drum set.

 

[TheMetaPhoenix]

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.

I'd also like to add the benefit of using STAB Dual Chop. Another underrated move that would be perfect for taking down pokemon who think they can Substitute while the CAP uses Belly Drum.

 

[Lolk]

I also agree Steel/Fighting, i think Steel will give it the most opportunities to set up and fighting will give it a more reliable priority with mach punches better coverage (and hopefully drain punch)

Edit: Yeah now that i think about it, a Fighting or Grass secondary typing would work really well as they both receive STAB physical recovery moves. Resistance to priority matters less and it would play really exposed for one turn while it uses belly drum, but it can recover amazingly the next turn. IDK if that would be too OP but depending on Drain Punch/Horn Leech, ghost-types/ferrothorn-dragons could reasonably check both types.

And it think strong multi hit moves might move it on the more OP side, since Sub users, focus sashers, and sturdy mons are practically the only things that stop it once it gets going besides priority.

 

[Fuzznip]

I'll just throw in my two cents. :)

Given that this CAP is to be built around Belly Drum, it should be resistant or immune to as many common priority moves as possible. Being at 50% HP without factoring entry hazards leaves it vulnerable; however, for me, I'm not entirely sold on giving this its own priority to potentially outspeed other common priority users. This is what Linoone does and it does it fairly well. I feel like if we resort to priority moves, we're just making an OU Linoone and we won't be learning as much as we could be with this CAP. I would rather this CAP take advantage of a typing that solves its priority-prone issues without resorting to priority itself, as this will make it more interesting and beneficial for us. For example, BellyZard is a Pokemon that has no priority, but has atrocious typing to make it consistently viable, so building a Pokemon like Charizard but in a more competitive approach will be more appealing and fitting for this project. For this reason, I am basing my typing of choice without taking possible STAB priority moves into account and I will also be considering entry hazard susceptibility.

Before that, though, it is necessary to outline all priority moves and highlight ones that are most commonly seen within the OU metagame.

Aqua Jet - Not common, only notable user is Feraligatr.
Bullet Punch - Scizor, Lucario, and Metagross.
ExtremeSpeed - Dragonite and Lucario.
Ice Shard - Not that common, as it's only seen on Mamoswine and Donphan.
Mach Punch - Breloom, Conkeldurr, and Infernape.
Quick Attack - Not common, only notable users are Scizor and Terrakion.
Shadow Sneak - Not common.
Sucker Punch - Not that common, as it's only seen on Toxicroak and Dugtrio.
Vacuum Wave - Not common, only notable user is Lucario.

From this list, it is clear that Bullet Punch, ExtremeSpeed, and Mach Punch are the biggest threats to this CAP. All users of them hit hard and can probably shave the last half of its HP. Knowing this, what types can be used to accommodate for this?

Steel resists both ExtremeSpeed and Bullet Punch, as well as Ice Shard, Quick Attack, Shadow Sneak, and Sucker Punch. However, this will leave our CAP with at least a neutrality to Mach Punch with another type, unless the secondary typing is Ghost. Steel also packs a resistance to Stealth Rock which is highly beneficial to ensure this CAP doesn't go below 40% after using Belly Drum with just Stealth Rock in play. The issue with Spikes can be dealt with later. With this information, Steel/Ghost resists or is immune to the common priority attacks this CAP will encounter. It further resists or is immune to many of the lesser seen priority attacks. Aqua Jet, Sucker Punch, and Shadow Sneak are the only priority attacks that will hit CAP neutrally, but this can be accommodated for through abilities, movepool, and stat spread; however, these are uncommon within OU anyway so it's probably a nonissue (Would they rise in popularity, however?). I understand Kitsunoh shares this same typing, but that should not have any effect on the outcome of this CAP's type and should never influence a person away from it whatsoever. This part Ghost-type is also helpful because this CAP can switch into a Choice-locked Fighting attack from the likes of Keldeo and Terrakion and freely set up without taking a scratch. This is a big deal for a Belly Drummer. Not only that, but Steel/Ghost is a phenomenal defensive typing, so this CAP has countless opportunities to switch in and set up.

Also, Steel/Ghost isn't even that bad offensively. Sure Skarmory, Heatran, and Ferrothorn wall it to oblivion, but this CAP isn't forced to run with both of its STAB attacks and isn't forced to run them at all. Furthermore, coverage moves exist for a reason, and with Belly Drum pumping up this CAP's attack to +6, anything will do really. I did say that I did not intend for the typing to have any STAB priority attacks, but it does. If the general public strongly encourages priority attacks for whatever the reason, Steel/Ghost can provide that in Bullet Punch and Shadow Sneak. However, I am strongly against this and believe it defeats the purpose of the concept, but I'm not the one who decides this.

 

[Seraph's Fire]

I'd like to throw Steel/Ground out there.

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

Pros:

• Double resistance to Stealth Rock.
• Immunity to Toxic.
• Immunity to thunder wave.
• Immunity to sandstorm damage.
  
• Many resistances and two immunities, letting it switch in/set up easily.
• Resistance to ExtremeSpeed and Bullet punch.
• STAB priority in Bullet Punch.
  
• Ground is a good offensive type.

Cons:

• Weakness to four common attacking types, including mach punch
• Steel is a poor offensive type.
• Probably others that aren't coming to mind right now.

Besides this, I'd also like to support Fire/Steel and Ghost/Steel.

 

[Deck Knight]

Steel/Ghost is a solid typing, my only concern with it is similar to my concern with Steel/Poison, in that Shadow Claw is the weakest physical STAB that exists. Iron Head is decent, but Iron Tail is terrible and Meteor Mash might actually lend itself to a non-Belly Drum set because the attack boost circumvents the focus of BD. Even if we went with Iron Fist as an ability to buff Bullet Punch, that barely makes Shadow Punch any better than Shadow Claw. Ghost has decent neutral coverage, not quite on par with Normal or Dragon, but it will still have trouble with Steels and Hydreigon to some extent. It's offensive potential is much better than Poison/Steel, but it really, really wants for a coverage move because its priority attacks are a bit underpowered when it comes to SE coverage. Aqua Jet, Ice Shard, and Mach Punch have much more attractive targets than Shadow Sneak and Bullet Punch (excepting a few common targets like Terrakion).

 

[ProfPuppyPunter]

Steel/Ghost is a solid typing, my only concern with it is similar to my concern with Steel/Poison, in that Shadow Claw is the weakest physical STAB that exists. Iron Head is decent, but Iron Tail is terrible and Meteor Mash might actually lend itself to a non-Belly Drum set because the attack boost circumvents the focus of BD. Even if we went with Iron Fist as an ability to buff Bullet Punch, that barely makes Shadow Punch any better than Shadow Claw. Ghost has decent neutral coverage, not quite on par with Normal or Dragon, but it will still have trouble with Steels and Hydreigon to some extent. It's offensive potential is much better than Poison/Steel, but it really, really wants for a coverage move because its priority attacks are a bit underpowered when it comes to SE coverage. Aqua Jet, Ice Shard, and Mach Punch have much more attractive targets than Shadow Sneak and Bullet Punch (excepting a few common targets like Terrakion).

Is Shadow Strike still up for grabs as a move?

 

[Fuzznip]

Steel/Ghost is a solid typing, my only concern with it is similar to my concern with Steel/Poison, in that Shadow Claw is the weakest physical STAB that exists. Iron Head is decent, but Iron Tail is terrible and Meteor Mash might actually lend itself to a non-Belly Drum set because the attack boost circumvents the focus of BD. Even if we went with Iron Fist as an ability to buff Bullet Punch, that barely makes Shadow Punch any better than Shadow Claw. Ghost has decent neutral coverage, not quite on par with Normal or Dragon, but it will still have trouble with Steels and Hydreigon to some extent. It's offensive potential is much better than Poison/Steel, but it really, really wants for a coverage move because its priority attacks are a bit underpowered when it comes to SE coverage. Aqua Jet, Ice Shard, and Mach Punch have much more attractive targets than Shadow Sneak and Bullet Punch (excepting a few common targets like Terrakion).

I'm not concerned about its weak STAB moves. In fact, this further emphasizes the fact that this CAP isn't your typical Choice Band or Choice Scarf user, nor should it be used as an all-out attacker with Life Orb. The reason? The STAB attacks at its disposal are incredibly underwhelming for a sweeper, so using it as such is costing you. However, with Belly Drum, the +6 Attack boost makes the "meh" STAB attacks into moves that will pretty much OHKO anything that doesn't resist it and packs phenomenal Defense, as long as this CAP is equipped with a reasonably high Attack stat itself. Iron Head on its own is a great choice and Shadow Claw itself isn't going to be that bad (I've been running +6 damage calculations with Banette and it pretty much OHKOes defensive Gliscor with Stealth Rock and mixed wall Hippowdon with tiny prior damage). Iron Head is also fun because of its 30% flinch chance, which can be life-saving in certain scenarios considering how one relatively strong attack can basically kill this CAP. Also, again, coverage moves exist to help with this issue. There are many available that can be made great use of.

 

[LimaPro643]

Poison/Steel

Pros: Fighting neutrality, coverage move option over Poison STAB

Cons: 4x Ground weakness

Dragon/Steel

Pros: Dragon is a great attacking type, Fire neutrality, Water and Electric resistances

Cons: Dragon neutrality

Ghost/Steel

Pros: Fighting immunity

Cons: ... ...uh... ...Kitsunoh?

 

[LimaPro643]

Poison/Steel

Pros: Fighting neutrality, coverage move option over Poison STAB

Cons: 4x Ground weakness

Dragon/Steel

Pros: Dragon is a great attacking type, Fire neutrality, Water and Electric resistances

Cons: Dragon neutrality

Ghost/Steel

Pros: Fighting immunity

Cons: ... ...uh... ...Kitsunoh?

Horrible STAB moves, that's right! But at +6...

 

[DougJustDoug]

Great discussion so far! I think Korski's post on Poison/Steel is brilliant, and the various posts on Dragon/Water and Dragon/Steel posts are really good too. I think Pwnemon's defense for Ghost/Steel is one of the most cogent and focused arguments in the entire thread, because it lasers in on "What do we set up on?"

With that said, I have a bad feeling about any Steel typing for this CAP, but not for specific reasons. At the specifics level, Steel has a ton of benefit, as many have already pointed out. But for general reasons, I'm worried about Steel.

My biggest fear is that we'll end up going defensive with this pokemon if we choose Steel. I realize we can keep it defensively balanced via stats and all, but the number of resistances we are considering with all the Steel typings is going to make it very hard to make a Belly Drummer! In later steps we can keep our defensive urgings in check, and we haven't decided anything yet, so claiming what this will look like in the end is obscenely premature. But I'm just saying I think Steel could be an irresistable siren song for awesome defensive capability throughout the remainder of the project, and we may inadvertently add a wall to the metagame, not a Belly Drummer.

I also think Steel typing means we'll give it Bullet Punch. And the tag line for CAP6 will be "Steel type that sets up and uses Bullet Punch" -- which is a role that the top-used pokemon in OU can already perform very well. Scizor uses Swords Dance 40% of the time, which is quite a lot, even if SD isn't its top-used moveset. I just don't see how to make a Bullet Punching Steel CAP6 get out from under Scizor's shadow.

Another general concern I have with Steel, I also share concern with Water typing -- and that is the meta is almost oversaturated with those types already. The metagame is already incredibly prepared for all forms of Steel and Water types -- which means one of two things:

1) We are faced with a meta that is completely prepared to shut us down.
OR
2) We make CAP6 overpower a metagame completely prepared for it.
​

Neither of those is good.

I don't have a great typing to suggest, and I'm enjoying the discussion in this thread. But, I think we need to explore typings other than Steel and Water, and look for something that "creates space" in the current metagame, rather than trying to find room with a typing that is already very crowded with OU pokemon.

 

[Bull of Heaven]

I would like to warn against using STABs that are conducive to recoil-causing STAB attacks. We're already playing with what might be the riskiest move in all of Pokemon; we already plan to sacrifice half of our HP just to set up, plus we're going to probably take an attack while we're at it unless we predict very well. Therefore, if the best Physical STABs on our Pokemon happen to cause our Pokemon damage, we put CAP6 at a great disadvantage when sweeping.

I'm not sure what you're concerned about here. Typing alone will not push a Pokemon toward recoil attacksl it depends on what we do with the stats and movepool. With a Belly Drum mon, it shouldn't be too hard to make a move like Fire Punch or Drill Peck viable, and we don't have to give it the recoil attacks at all if we're really concerned about this. Every type has at least a mediocre physical attack that doesn't damage the user, and we don't need to worry about more than that at this stage.

Is Shadow Strike still up for grabs as a move?

No. I'm not sure whether custom moves are explicitly banned or not, but either way we don't use them anymore.

 

[P2X7]

Well, might as well throw my opinion in:

First, I just want to say that I fully support Normal/Ghost. However, I feel that everyone else in this thread have already covered it, and that there wouldn't be much for me to say about it, so, to make this post actually worth something, I'll suggest Poison/Dragon.

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

Pros:
7 resistances, including some of the most common special attacking types, giving it quite a few chances to come in/set up.
Immunities to Toxic and Toxic Spikes.
Resists Mach Punch.
Poison isn't the best attacking type, so a coverage move could be chosen over Poison STAB.
Dragon is a great attacking type.

Cons:
A few nasty weaknesses in Ice, Ground, and Dragon.

 

[scrake]

The only thing about Ghost is that you're Pursuit bait, especially Normal/Ghost which would have a lot of trouble with Tyranitar (primary Pursuit user in OU). I suppose we could give it Fighting coverage, but that seems like too easy a fix for such an interesting concept. I like Steel/Dragon a lot more since it simultaneously gives plenty of resistances for setup opportunities while also having a useful STAB. I feel like one good STAB would help limit the CAP's movepool and save it from 4MSS since it could abide just by it's good neutral STAB coverage, instead of using quick-fix coverage moves. Normal/Ghost would have a lot of trouble sweeping without Fighting coverage IMO, while a Dragon type could probably break through even resists at +6 using just one STAB move.

 

[topher4167]

As I can't argue with DougJustDoug's views on Steel-typing, and no one seems to be supporting Psychic/Steel, I'm going to propose an alternative typing:

Bug/Fighting

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

Pros:

• STAB on Mach Punch
• Powerful STAB on X-Scissor, Brick Break, Drain Punch, Force Palm, and even Sky Uppercut
• Resists Mach Punch and Sucker Punch, and isn't weak to any priority

Cons:

• Only 5 resistances, no 4x resists or immunities
• Weak to Psychic, a fairly common attacking type in OU
• As before, probably more that I'm not thinking about

 

[S0L1D G0LD]

I think I've composed enough of an argument for my opinion to become valid in this discussion.

I believe Grass/Dragon, although very unorthodox, could provide a very handy typing for a pokemon looking to switch into types to set up.

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

Pros:
Resists a lot of the common special attacking types, so with a little bit of bulk could come in on most rain teams and proceed to set up.
Is not weak to any of the common priority moves, but not resistant either, so not completely overpowered.
Could use Horn Leech as STAB to regain health lost to Belly Drum.
Can use its uncommon Grass-Type STAB to beat the ever present Politoed and Tyranitar.
Immunity to Leech Seed, which, while situational, makes it easier to set up on ferrothorn and sometimes breloom.
Has the ever-handy dragon typing.

Cons:
Crippling ice weakness makes it hard to switch in to certain pokemon.
STAB combo is resisted by common pokemon.
Is not immune to any dehabilitating statuses.