CAP 17 CAP 6 - Part 2 - Typing Discussion

[Fuzznip]

It's harder to force switches offensively rather than defensively, since you're basically relying on your opponent to switch out for you to freely use Belly Drum. For instance, think of Lucario switching into Heatran. Will Heatran switch out in fear of Close Combat, or will Heatran stay in in fear of Swords Dance? This kind of mind-game is what I dislike about using offensive pressure to buy free setup turns. For this reason, I'm personally against any typing that produces said pressure because it's an unreliable tactic.

In order to guarantee setup whilst taking minimal damage in the process, you need high defensive pressure. This can be done fairly easily by having a typing that packs handy resistances and/or immunities and few weaknesses. Steel/Dragon isn't that great when you consider this because it's defensive presence is far inferior to its offensive presence. Sure it packs nifty resistances, but that's mostly due to the part Steel-type. Packing on a Dragon typing makes it take neutral damage from Fire, Ice, and most importantly, Dragon. This keeps it from being able to reliably set up against a potential Salamence locked into Outrage or a Choice Specs Latios's -2 Draco Meteor. You have to consider the most common attacking types out there. I mean, you're taking super effective damage from Fighting-type attacks now, making something like Scizor easily use Superpower rather than the expected Bullet Punch and Breloom or Conkeldurr to nuke you with priority Mach Punch. In fact, the majority of Steel/Dragon's resistances mean nothing when looking at popular Pokemon using said move. For example: it resists Gengar's Shadow Ball, but takes super effective damage from Focus Blast; it resists Terrakion's Stone Edge, but takes super effective damage from Close Combat; it resists Alakazam's Psychic, but takes super effective damage from Focus Blast; it resists Thundurus-T's Thunder and Hurricane, but takes super effective damage from Focus Blast; it resists Hydreigon's Dark Pulse, but will likely take upwards of 50% damage from Draco Meteor due to a neutral hit; it resists Keldeo's Surf, but takes super effective damage from Secret Sword. Also, the Water resistance can be nullified essentially under rain. I mean, you can probably do this with every other typing out there because these Pokemon are typically packed with good coverage moves, but as you can see, Fighting is such a popular coverage move among these Pokemon and many others unlisted and is simply just a common attacking type within OU. Being weak to it is seriously unfortunate. On top of that, the neutrality to the omnipresent Dragon-type attacks significantly reduces opportunities to set up.

This is why I'm still keen on Steel/Ghost. It has literally no offensive potential due to its poor STABs, but can have sufficient sweeping ability after a Belly Drum boost to finish off a weakened team. It's defensive presence, on the other hand, is phenomenal, almost perfect for a Belly Drum user. It's immune to the common Fighting-type hits, meaning it will take ZERO damage upon switching into a Fighting-type attack. This makes Pokemon like Choice Scarf Terrakion and Keldeo potential setup bait. When you don't consider Choice users, Breloom and Lucario are other Fighting-types this CAP can set up against if it was Steel/Ghost since they're coverage moves can't even harm it (Lucario might be running Crunch though). By the way, Steel/Ghost resists all of Terrakion's typical moveset (Close Combat immunity, but Stone Edge/X-Scissor resistance) and even Alakazam running Hidden Power Ice > Hidden Power Fire. What I'm trying to say here is Steel/Ghost provides so many useful resistances and a much-needed immunity against a lot of Pokemon and their moveset, and boasting that resistance to Dragon is a very beautiful thing. Some may argue that Steel/Ghost is too defensive and the player will opt to use it defensively, but this is so easily avoidable it shouldn't be a concern. Kitsunoh was capable of being used defensively because of Will-O-Wisp and Pain Split pretty much. Lucario is a decent example of a Pokemon that boasts a good defensive typing that allows it to set up Swords Dance on a lot of things, but is never used defensively because it doesn't have the movepool or statspread. Something to that effect can be done with this CAP and I feel like Steel/Ghost is the number one type combination that comes closest to ensuring its success.

 

[jynx KB]

Two of the more popular type combinations being discussed are Poison/Steel and Ghost/Steel. Both are very similar, but I think the main difference is this. Poison as a secondary typing gives us just what we need and no more. Priority Fighting moves such as Mach Punch? Resisted. STABs, while their impact is minimal in this project, has similar weak coverage. The main difference with Ghost is the immunity (unnecessary for the concept) to fighting, Normal priority is already resisted, so there's no need for an immunity for that either. Spinblocking on the other hand has major implications here.

The true danger is turning into a defensive spinblocker, and a massive one at that. We have a generic wall and defensive pivot other than an offensive setup Pokemon. Let alone that we already know how the typing functions with Kitsunoh.

The Ghost typing does accomplish what we want with the concept, but it also has far more unnecessary bonuses than we need. It's overkill.

 

[BrianFantana]

So after following this thread and seeing a lot of great argument, I'm seeing two broad camps - typings built to use resists and immunities for setup opportunities and typings built to get setup opps through offensive pressure. My opinion has swung this way and that way since the beginning of the thread, which is surely a sign of good debate. I want to try and draw some attention to a particular, underrepresented typing combination which I believe excels both defensively and offensively while suggesting a few particular mons that can be set up on - Steel/Fighting. I hope I can throw in some decent points and maybe win a few people over.

In terms of the basic stuff, it has a couple of obvious selling points. 4x SR resist + Toxic Spikes immunity is great for a Belly Drummer, and the potential for dual STAB priority, while definitely inessential as jas and others have argued, certainly doesn't hurt. It has some excellent resists - quad resists against SR, U-Turn, and whatever Dark attack you might be scared of are particularly nice in terms of switchin opportunities, on top of the rest of Steel's vaunted set of resists (with the exceptions of Flying and Psychic, which shouldn't cause too much headaches). Fighting STAB also hits a lot of the metagame hard - which, while not really important once a Belly Drum is up, can help provide the offensive pressure to get a Drum in in the first place (although that is not the only way Steel/Fighting might score setups). It resists Extremespeed and Bullet Punch (though yes, Mach Punch could be an issue).

In terms of specific setup opportunities, there are a couple of OU staples that are between a rock and a hard place against Steel/Fighting. Ferrothorn can't really touch it offensively, while being threatened by its Fighting STAB. Jirachi is commonly seen without enough coverage to hit it. Tyranitar is an easy switchin with 4x resists to both of its STABs, and is immediately threatened by Fighting STAB - hell, if it's stupid enough not to run Superpower/Earthquake/Fire Blast (and many don't - at least according to the July OU stats!) it's helpless. Terrakion choice-locked into Stone Edge or X-Scissor is in trouble. Specially defensive Celebi without Psychic. Stuff like Blissey and Forretress are setup bait anyway, but Chansey/Blissey can't Toxic and Forry can't Gyro Ball (or HP Ice).

These are not 100% setup opportunities - for the most part they are dependent upon scouting movesets and switching at the opportune moment, and some of them could potentially still make life difficult (Celebi throwing down Perish Song for example). But that moveset-dependence has its own merits - firstly, if CAP6 had more than a couple of pokemon that gave it 100% safe, free setups, I feel it would be bordering on broken. Secondly though, these pokemon would simply not get used - especially not in the playtest. While the pokemon I've listed need to be running certain sets to provide a setup opportunity, they rank among the top dogs in OU, making them relevant threats, and if CAP6 can get a Belly Drum off against them it's in a good position.

Edit: I've just scanned through the thread again. I would no longer consider this tying 'underrepresented'... d'oh. Nonetheless, I think it could do with some love.

 

[Nyktos]

Let's talk about Poison/Steel. To put it simply: this is not a good typing. I have read and reread the posts supporting it and I still have no idea how people are coming to the conclusion that the best secondary type for Steel is Poison. As far as I can tell, the only useful upside to Poison as compared to mono-Steel is the neutrality to Fighting. With reasonable defenses, a neutral Mach Punch from Jolly LO Breloom will never KO even after rocks and a Drum, preventing it from revenging unassisted. That's cool and all, but avoiding one particular revenge killer doesn't strike me as being worth half of our typing when our ability to even set up in the first place is in question. As srk pointed out, setting up on choice-locked dragons is much harder than it might seem, and there aren't many Pokémon in OU that lack the ability to 2HKO a Poison/Steel Pokémon, even with above-average bulk, when they aren't locked into a move.

Even if you accept that Mach Punch is super-important, though, Poison is almost strictly worse than Ghost as a way to avoid it. Not only does Ghost make CAP 6 outright immune to those Mach Punches, it also provides actual setup opportunities as any choice-locked Fighting move becomes a setup opportunity. Poison offers what over Ghost? A resistance to Sucker Punch? That is hardly comparable. (Oh and I guess it absorbs Toxic Spikes too.) People have brought up that it could be used as a spinblocker, but that's a (small) positive in my books: Rapid Spin is as good a move to switch in on and Drum as any other. While Starmie can almost certainly KO with one of its offensive moves, Forretress and Tentacruel are likely setup bait (the latter might need Lum Berry or something for the Scald burn chance). I'm not totally sold on Ghost/Steel myself, but if "Steel + not weak to Fighting" is what you want it completely outclasses every other option. (Though Flying has that nice Ground immunity and is a pretty good offensive type. That could be okay too.)

There has been the argument that picking Poison/Steel is "better for the concept" because it is a worse typing, and therefore it means that we can be more liberal with stats and movepool because our typing is bad? Given that there is serious doubt that Belly Drum is capable of succeeding on OU at all, deliberately making the CAP worse at this stage seems absurdly overcautious. If anything, picking a bad typing is likely to cause the complete opposite effect, where stats and movepool have to be pushed further than we would like in order to make CAP 6 usable at all. Poison/Steel has a lot of trouble setting up. To some extent, any type does: setting up a Belly Drum is just plain hard. However, deliberately choosing a type that has more trouble than most is asking for trouble. If people support Poison/Steel for promises of setting up on choice-locked dragons, are we prepared to give it the absurd bulk necessary to actually do that?

Incidentally the argument that having redundant STABs gives you an "extra moveslot" is ridiculous. You are not constitutionally mandated to run both STABs just because they're not redundant with each other. If running an extra coverage move over a STAB is actually better, people can and will do it.

 

[Rafikichu]

It seems that the the most ideal typing would give CAP 6 as many opportunities to set up Belly Drum as possible. I like Ghost/Ground because it allows the Pokemon to come in on Close Combat locked Terrakion; Superpower locked Scizor; or T-bolt/Volt Switch locked Thundrus-T, Jolteon, Rotom-W, etc. It also gives it a resistance to stealth rock which is extremely helpful. In addition, if it is decided that CAP 6 needs STAB priority, it is available.

 

[Flaming Facepalm]

How about something simple, such as a slow and bulky poke with a Ghost/Fighting typing?


Pros:

• Not weak to any type of priority, so it won't be slaughtered after a Belly Dance before being given a chance to react.

• Decent STAB priority moves in the form of Shadow Sneak and Mach Punch, and they aren't exactly very powerful, meaning that CAP 6 would fail to destroy enemies from Turn 1, but it would be great for the role of an endgame sweeper.

• It's typing allows him to switch into the threatening Fighting typed moves in the tier, such as a Close Combat locked Terrakion, or a Superpower locked Scizor.

• Resistant to Stealth Rock.

Cons:

• A Sucker Punch user could revenge it.

• It lacks power if you don't set up a Belly Drum, so you would require setting up to be able to sweep.

 

[reachzero]

Wow! We've had a lot of different types suggested so far! As several people have noted so far, the suggestions seem to be divided into several categories united by a strong defensive type. Some of these have more to recommend them than others.

The Steel family has had several typings suggested with radically different configurations. All Steel typings have in common the advantage of potentially taking Ice, Rock, Steel, Grass and Psychic attacks and then setting up, and conveniently there are Pokemon such as Ferrothorn and Celebi that rarely carry coverage moves that actually hurt Steel types. Many of the differences in Steel pairings come from the questions of whether the complementary type should be primarily offensive, primarily defensive, or both. The ones that have major support so far are:

Poison/Steel
Ghost/Steel
Fire/Steel
Fighting/Steel
Dragon/Steel

That is obviously many more choices than are likely to be slated. I am not a fan of Poison/Steel at all; I don't think neutrality to Fighting matters much given the sheer strength of most Fighting attacks; on the other hand, neutrality to Psychic instead of resisting it actually makes it harder to set up on Celebi. I am actually not convinced that Poison/Steel as many advantages over even pure Steel. The other Steel pairings have much to recommend them, especially Ghost/Steel and Fire/Steel. Considering that CAP6 will only need to set up once, I do not think it is much of a liability at all to have a 4x weakness, but having a few really useful and focused resistances go a long way. I haven't seen Steel/Flying brought up much in this thread, but it has come up a few times in #cap and I'd be interested in hearing if there is any interesting in it. Specifically, I would like to hear a little more discussion on the pros and cons of each of the Steel types in comparison to one another.

In addition to the various Steel suggestions, there have been a few Ghost typings brought up, in addition to Ghost/Steel. A few of these are really interesting, and I'd like to see whether they are being seriously considered.

Water/Ghost
Ground/Ghost
Normal/Ghost

As a few users have pointed out, Normal/Ghost has some serious flaws in that both Tyranitar and Scizor totally wall the STABs, and possess supereffective Pursuit. That would mean risking either turning CAP6 into a major liability, or pigeon-hole us into giving it the sort of coverage moves that would make it extremely hard to stop in general. As a result, I really doubt its viability for a Pokemon that is already built around a very volatile move like Belly Drum that could easily end up either ridiculously weak or ridiculously strong. The other two combinations, on the other hand, seem to me to offer a lot of the qualities we are looking for; the ability to set up on Keldeo or Terrakion would be a pretty huge advantage.

The Dragon suggestions are a little frustrating to me, as they seem like they would be very difficult to balance, especially with the type combinations being suggested; I have a really hard time seeing Water/Dragon or Fighting/Dragon being anything other than awe-inspiring, and I'm not sure that is exactly what we're looking for here. Steel/Dragon sounds more workable, so I've included it with the other Steel suggestions.

It seems like the Ghost/Steel/Dragon suggestions have been extremely popular, so if I were to slate five typings right now, I'd probably try to represent Ghost and Steel more or less equally, plus one Dragon. If there are any other good suggestions outside these paradigms, now would be an excellent time to bring them up and argue for them.

 

[Bughouse]

What specifically about Water/Dragon do you find will be awe-inspiring and too difficult to balance? That's my main question, I guess. It has seen good support, so I'm curious for some specific thoughts. I think Deck Knight and I made pretty good cases for it all the way back on page 1, but I'm happy to revisit particular points to clear up any concerns.

 

[sucker_puncher]

Honestly, I'm surprised no one has brought up Ghost/Dark. With no weaknesses, taking hits will be much easier. Its stats, ability, and move pool will determine if the poke is broken or not, so I feel like this could be a solid typing. Good priority moves, with medium coverage. This could be a bulky CAP without having to go heavy in defensive stats. Idk, just throwing my hat in the ring here. Lots and lots of good suggestions out there.

 

[Hollymon]

Honestly, I'm surprised no one has brought up Ghost/Dark. With no weaknesses, taking hits will be much easier. Its stats, ability, and move pool will determine if the poke is broken or not, so I feel like this could be a solid typing. Good priority moves, with medium coverage. This could be a bulky CAP without having to go heavy in defensive stats. Idk, just throwing my hat in the ring here. Lots and lots of good suggestions out there.

What I think we should look at is resistances to a lot of types and it may be that a ghost dark has no weakness and 3 immunities, but it only resists 1 type, poison, possibly the most awful type in the game. The rest of the types are normal damage, and after a Belly Drum, one hit from a normal move would most probably KO it, unless it had high defences. I think that this is the reason no one has bought the type Ghost/Dark up yet. I may be wrong so if you can counter my argument go ahead and i'll see what you have to say :)

Also I support the Steel group, particularly Poison/Steel. While it has weaknesses to fire and particularly ground, I think if it switches in at the right time, it could set up a belly drum as the opposition possibly switches out, then use priority moves such as Bullet Punch and maybe Quick Attack (?). No priority move is super effective against it and it has resistances to most of them and also even though this is a more defensive typing, when you are at +6 it doesn't matter and you can sweep a fair bit of the team, making yourself even more effective if you had a HP recovering item like Black Sludge or Lefovers.

Tell me if I broke any rules this is my first post in this section and I don't want to get banned or something

 

[dwarfstar]

Hollymon said what I wanted to with regards to the defensive utility (or lack thereof, rather) of Dark-Ghost typing. I'd like to add that it doesn't present much offensive pressure either, since comparatively few Pokemon are forced to switch when faced with a Dark or Ghost move. Off the top of my head I can only think of Lati@s and Gengar, since a healthy Jellicent can tank the first unboosted hit and burn CAP6 (crippling us more or less completely) and an Alakazam at full health can make Belly Drum impossible (either by hitting CAP6 first if we don't use the priority move or by going to Focus Sash range and hitting back). Really, the only upside I can see to Dark-Ghost typing is STAB on Sucker Punch, and as others have mentioned before, getting STAB on our priority doesn't really matter if it's Sucker Punch or Extremespeed.

I'm liking the Steel-Poison and Dragon-Steel (and to a lesser extent Steel-Ghost) ideas I've seen so far, but I'd like to take another look at P2X7's suggestion that we go with Dragon-Poison. While we don't get the massive array of resistances offered by the aforementioned combinations, I believe we do have some interesting options here. A Dragon-Poison typing would grant us handy resistances to Fire, Water, Electric, Fighting, and Bug, along with a quad-resistance to Grass. We've got the same lovely Volt-Turn resistance and offensive pressure presented by Birkal's Dragon-Steel, we can deal with Breloom and Scarf Keldeo more easily and do about as well against Terrakion (I'd say resisting Close Combat is marginally better than Stone Edge). Scarf Jirachi has a tough choice to make against us, as carrying Zen Headbutt for CAP6 opens up a hole in its coverage that it can ill afford with only base 100 Attack, and Latios will fall to any of the unresisted priority moves we've been discussing at +6 (and really, if Latios has to switch in as we boost or after the fact, that means CAP6 gets the win). Latias is in a similar situation, although she has slightly more bulk. The remaining issues are with Scizor, Garchomp, and Landorus-T, but the last is just as annoying for all of the Steel-types being discussed.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[Deck Knight]

I needn't make this a quote-fest because we have enough posts, but I'll simply state that saying "BD Priority has been done before. It has failed" is a silly argument. It is not "BD Priority" that has failed - because the only existing user is Linoone, and Linoone is a terrible Pokemon. It's terrible offensively, it's terrible defensively, and BD Priority isn't so much its strategy as it is its gimmick, without which it wouldn't even threaten NU of all places. This is like saying that 165 Base Attack Mold Breaker has failed because Rampardos can't use it to get into OU for reasons specific to Rampardos. A single Pokemon as an example does not mean an entire strategy has succeeded or failed.

And I'm still adamant that offensive STAB absolutely matters. Anyone saying Steel with Meteor Mash, explain to me why I shouldn't just slap on a CB and wait for an attack boost that Choice Band is going to further augment? Explain to me why I should use Belly Drum when I could use a Life Orb with that coverage and awesome defensive typing to get the drop on everything from Dragons to Landorus (given enough Speed)? You're NOT going to be able to hit whatever you're facing with a super-effective coverage move. You WILL need a powerful neutral hit. And choosing the one typing Steel can actually come in on with total impunity is a folly.

Quite bluntly I see a lot of parallels to Mollux here in terms of what we want our movepool to do. Throwing on a bunch of powerful coverage isn't going to make us a Belly Drummer, it's going to make us a defensive revenge killer. We need to do most of our work with our STABs and have specific coverage that keeps us with a set of definable counters we need to take out before sweeping. That can't be achieved if we want to give CAP6 terrible offensive STAB and make up for it with tons of coverage. We're just going to make Electivire 2.0, where we have the coverage to take on any foe but lack the power to seal the deal.

Like I said before, I have some concerns about Steel/Ghost because it seems much more apt to be converted to a defensive Pokemon with no compelling reason to Belly Drum, Steel/Poison however is just absurd. In order to make an OU viable Drummer, it must have some sort of priority because that is the *only* way it can reduce its list of revenge killers. It must also be able to utilize an offensive STAB that is not easily walled, and Steel doesn't really fit that bill, though Iron Head's flinch can hax its way to victory. The issue with using Extremespeed for this is that it's liable to beat all of them (an argument against Normal), whereas having STAB on a priority move at least lessens the risk certain revenge killers pose. STAB Bullet Punch is obviously helpful there, but it has no guarantees against the likes of Scarf Lando-T annihilating you.

For fun and non-profit I have created an "All vs. One" that assumes 90 Atk, Poison/Steel Typing (I put in Scizor, changed the Atk to 90, and made it Poison/Steel with +Spe), and strong coverage moves on the theory we're just going to make this fast enough to not worry about getting revenge-killed by anything but a Scarfer. The list looks pretty good, and I can PM it to anyone who asks. The problem is, if you remove ANY of the moves I selected, but especially Poison Jab (I selected a coverage move that can serve as a proxy for Steel STAB where relevant), you lose a lot of your sweeping potential. So the question becomes, which of your coverage moves do you drop if you don't want to be completely defenseless against Revenge Scarfers? The STAB backing your priority must be a different type and have good neutral coverage. Otherwise you create a Gordian Knot of 3 moveslot syndrome where you either cannot defend yourself against weakened revenge killers or you lose to a broader array of threats and are unable to pull off the mid-game sweep suggested by Belly Drum.

 

[thecanvashat]

Now that I think about it, I do think that Fire/Steel is probably a good idea. Taking a status like burn or poison would be very bad if CAP6 was already at 50% (37.5% after Stealth Rock). This being said, being weak to Earthquake, water moves, and Fighting moves kinda a bummer.

Another one I really like is Ghost/Steel, because of the Fighting immunity.

 

[SotheBlacKnight]

I kind of like the idea of Water/Poison, while weak to Volt Switch it does still resist Mach Punch, Bullet Punch, Ice Shard, Aqua Jet and U-turn. It can have stab Aqua Jet for priority and still have decent coverage with a Poison stab and a fighting/fire move.

I also like Dragon/Poison, it resist all the same moves as the former but switches the electric weakness for ice. Dragons generally have great coverage but this might run the risk of having no stab priority moves. Though that never stopped Dragonite but that's a different matter all together.

 

[Fuzznip]

I needn't make this a quote-fest because we have enough posts, but I'll simply state that saying "BD Priority has been done before. It has failed" is a silly argument. It is not "BD Priority" that has failed - because the only existing user is Linoone, and Linoone is a terrible Pokemon. It's terrible offensively, it's terrible defensively, and BD Priority isn't so much its strategy as it is its gimmick, without which it wouldn't even threaten NU of all places. This is like saying that 165 Base Attack Mold Breaker has failed because Rampardos can't use it to get into OU for reasons specific to Rampardos. A single Pokemon as an example does not mean an entire strategy has succeeded or failed

It's not that BD priority has "failed," it's that the only user of it, Linoone, already does it and we already know the effects a BD priority use has on a metagame. Recreating this to fit the OU metagame is a pointless exercise because what else is there to learn from it? The fact that BD priority can be done in OU? All you have to do is give Linoone a spread of straight 100's and you'll probably see it excelling in OU. BD priority isn't a gimmick as you state, Linoone's actually a pretty respectable threat if you give it the opportunity to set up Belly Drum. If you let it set up, you will probably lose if you lack the correct revenge killers or superb physical walls. The reason it's NU is because of its poor stat distribution and typing to an extent, nothing more, nothing less. So what I will say about BD priority is this: The Belly Drum + STAB priority concept has been done before and the effects of such are clearly seen with Linoone in NU. Designing a beefed up Linoone for the purposes of the OU metagame will provide next to no beneficial information and is a complete waste of a concept if we go that route.

And I'm still adamant that offensive STAB absolutely matters. Anyone saying Steel with Meteor Mash, explain to me why I shouldn't just slap on a CB and wait for an attack boost that Choice Band is going to further augment? Explain to me why I should use Belly Drum when I could use a Life Orb with that coverage and awesome defensive typing to get the drop on everything from Dragons to Landorus (given enough Speed)? You're NOT going to be able to hit whatever you're facing with a super-effective coverage move. You WILL need a powerful neutral hit. And choosing the one typing Steel can actually come in on with total impunity is a folly.

Hopefully I'm not misunderstanding you, but Steel isn't a good offensive STAB move. It's resisted by common types within the metagame and barely hits things super effectively. Jirachi does it well because of Iron Head's 60% flinch chance, Metagross uses it because Meteor Mash > Zen Headbutt for a STAB attack, Ferrothorn and Forretress use Gyro Ball because of their pitiful Speed, Heatran doesn't use it, Lucario rarely uses Bullet Punch, Magnezone uses it because it has nothing else to use, Scizor uses it because of Technician priority, and Skarmory doesn't use it. So, saying that a very defensive type in Steel would forgo Belly Drum and use Choice Band or Life Orb is a little silly. If you were using Dragon as an example, however, I will wholeheartedly agree with you because seriously, why should I go with a Belly Drum set when I can deal instant notable damage with an offensive set using my awesome STAB and coverage moves? No one is forcing you to use Steel as your STAB move of choice, the Steel typing is there for its much-needed resistances to a variety of types. Steel simply provides more setup opportunities.

Quite bluntly I see a lot of parallels to Mollux here in terms of what we want our movepool to do. Throwing on a bunch of powerful coverage isn't going to make us a Belly Drummer, it's going to make us a defensive revenge killer. We need to do most of our work with our STABs and have specific coverage that keeps us with a set of definable counters we need to take out before sweeping. That can't be achieved if we want to give CAP6 terrible offensive STAB and make up for it with tons of coverage. We're just going to make Electivire 2.0, where we have the coverage to take on any foe but lack the power to seal the deal.

I'm inclined to disagree with you here. This particular CAP doesn't need good coverage with its STAB moves; in fact, it's probably better for it to have unusable offensive STAB moves. Why? This will typically force players to forgo any thought of neglecting Belly Drum and going straight to an offensive Life Orb or Choice set. With poor offensive STAB attacks, running anything but Belly Drum is a waste of a sweeper. Belly Drum gives you a +6 Attack boost, so in general, any STAB attack with coverage will do assuming CAP gets a reasonable Attack stat. There isn't a need to flood the CAP with coverage moves to make up for its underwhelming STAB options either, it's okay for it to be checked by certain Pokemon. This will ensure that this CAP isn't going to be a be-all-end-all, overpowered sweeper. For example, let me use Steel/Ghost. Notable STAB moves are Meteor Mash/Iron Head and Shadow Claw. This is obviously walled by Pokemon such as Skarmory, Heatran, Forretress, and Ferrothorn. Hey look, Fighting coverage alone will prevent us from being cock-blocked. Or we can go with Ground instead and have Skarmory as one counter, or Fire and have Heatran as a possible check. Who knows? I highly doubt we're going to end up with an Electivire 2.0 because infinite coverage is nothing we need to make this work.

Like I said before, I have some concerns about Steel/Ghost because it seems much more apt to be converted to a defensive Pokemon with no compelling reason to Belly Drum, Steel/Poison however is just absurd. In order to make an OU viable Drummer, it must have some sort of priority because that is the *only* way it can reduce its list of revenge killers. It must also be able to utilize an offensive STAB that is not easily walled, and Steel doesn't really fit that bill, though Iron Head's flinch can hax its way to victory. The issue with using Extremespeed for this is that it's liable to beat all of them (an argument against Normal), whereas having STAB on a priority move at least lessens the risk certain revenge killers pose. STAB Bullet Punch is obviously helpful there, but it has no guarantees against the likes of Scarf Lando-T annihilating you.

I'm going to quote what I said before about Steel/Ghost being used defensively, because this reasoning behind its neglect irks me.

"Some may argue that Steel/Ghost is too defensive and the player will opt to use it defensively, but this is so easily avoidable it shouldn't be a concern. Kitsunoh was capable of being used defensively because of Will-O-Wisp and Pain Split pretty much. Lucario is a decent example of a Pokemon that boasts a good defensive typing that allows it to set up Swords Dance on a lot of things, but is never used defensively because it doesn't have the movepool or statspread. Something to that effect can be done with this CAP and I feel like Steel/Ghost is the number one type combination that comes closest to ensuring its success."

It is ridiculously doable to prevent this CAP from being used defensively. Between no recovery moves, no Will-O-Wisp, no ShadowStrike that packed potential Defense drops, and no absurd defensive spread, there seriously is no reason to use this defensively, because what would it even do to the Pokemon it's supposed to counter? Next to nothing. You'll end up using deadweight and the opponent will just use you as bait.

Also, having priority is not the only way to make an OU viable Belly Drummer. This isn't true. Having said this, two things need to happen: resistances to ALL common forms of priority (Steel, Fighting, Normal) and the ability to compensate for the lack of priority against faster targets. The former is easy to do (Ghost/Steel 9.9) and the latter is what will make this project extremely interesting. I've already had a discussion about the various possibilities here (Salac + Gluttony, Salac + Harvest, Speed Boost, Sitrus + Unburden, etcetcetc) and they look really promising. I want us to go this route because it'll brew very interesting discussion and outside-the-box thinking. Tacking on priority to solve our problems is lame, disappointing, and not beneficial in the slightest. Also, Ghost has better neutral coverage than Steel, so it isn't even bad for a STAB attack.

I've said this time and time again, but Steel/Ghost is the way to go!

 

[Eagle4]

Oooookay, so Fire/Steel is the best type for our CAP. The immunity to both Will O Wisp and Toxic is extremely handy for this CAP as it increases the longevity of it. A large amount of resistances and a good STAB in Fire can force out many opposing Pokemon. Those Pokemon are very common as well, including Ferrothorn, Scizor, Skarmory, Forretress and Celebi. Only Scizor can do anything back to us, providing it's not choice-locked into Bullet Punch, with a Superpower. Of course, I doubt this CAP will be slower than Scizor, and so it can just OHKO the Scizor with a STAB Fire move, if predicting correctly. The Ground weakness of this typing can be addressed via an ability or even a simple Air Balloon. The Fighting weakness is something to watch out for, but at +6 we have the ability to overwhelm those who use Mach Punch (which is the most dangerous move for this Pokemon'd typing imo) such as Breloom. Fire/Steel is also a good offensive typing (look at Heatran for example), but does not have the offensive prowess to be used on its own without Belly Drum. It also has the potential of having access to Fire Charge, a useful move for a Belly Drummer as well as a move which is fitting for this concept. An added bonus of this typing is that it 4x resists U-Turn. Anyway, I think I've had my say on why Fire/Steel is the best typing, so now it's time to address other typings.

Now for the typings which Reachzero mentioned:

Steel/Poison: I have many problems with this, as you already know Korski. The weaknesses can be addressed easily enough, sure, and it's great that it's immune to Toxic, but the STABs are so poor offensively that it cannot force anything out. What do you expect to force out with this typing, Choice-locked Dragons? Since their moves can still do an awful lot to this CAP. Then there's the risk that these Dragons aren't Choice-locked, and would bring your HP down below half with a Fire move before you've had time to Belly Drum (or even worse, after). Ookay, so you can force out Scizor well enough, right? 4x resist to both of its STABs? Well, what if it uses Superpower? You can do absolutely nothing to Scizor if you predict that it will use Superpower rather than BP or U-Turn, as your STABs are meaningless against it. Now, what if Scizor is at +2 after a Swords Dance? Can't switch in now for fear of Superpower. There are too little things for Steel/Poison to switch into for it to become a viable typing.

Steel/Ghost: Ghost nullifies the Fighting weakness of Steel, which is cool, but I have the same problem with this typing as I do with Steel/Poison: not enough offensive prowess. The STABs are walled by any Steel type bar Metagross and Bronzong, both of which are very uncommon in the OU metagame. So, who do you force out? Well, Scizor is one, and is the most common, but what if Scizor isn't on your opponent's team? Anyway, Steel/Ghost is a decent enough defensive typing, but that would severely limit he bulkiness of our Pokemon to prevent it from becoming a full-out defensive Pokemon, or hey, even an offensive non-BD Pokemon which can rely on its defensive typing for longevity.

Steel/Fighting: Ehhhhh. It has decent offensive prowess, but the weakness to Fire/Fighting/Ground is damaging. It doesn't have nearly enough resistances to make up for its weaknesses. The main selling point of this typing I see is the 4x resistance to Stealth Rocks and the 4x resistance to U-Turn, which is handy, but not too important for it to be the reason why we choose the typing. I'm a little iffy on the typing, but I value it over Steel/Poison and Steel/Ghost

Steel/Dragon: Nice! Good offensive prowess with a solid defensive typing, I'm okay with this. Dragon/Steel is walled by a ton of Steels STAB-wise, but I'm sure that can be fixed with coverage. My only problem with this typing is that it doesn't force all-too many Pokemon out, despite its typing. Dragons aren't forced out since they can just hit with a powerful Dragon-type move, and as the Dragon type nullifies Steel's resistance towards opposing Dragon-type moves, the attacks would most likely deal over 50% HP. Sure, it can set up on the normal Set-up fodder Pokemon such as Forretress, but without Fire coverage it can't do anything back. Same with Ferrothorn; it can set up on Ferrothorn, but needs Fire coverage in order to do so. It doesn't have the same luxury with Scizor, as Scizor can just Superpower, dealing over half HP if not killing our CAP.

Water/Ghost: This is alright. It has a few good switch-ins (Keldeo for example, as well as Choice-locked Fighting types), and it's STAB coverage and offensive prowess is not bad. That's the problem though; I dislike this typing since it's a little bland and doesn't have much going for it other than: 2 immunities and able to counter Keldeo effectively. It is still affected by Toxic, Will-O-Wisp and Thunder Wave, still takes neutral damage from Stealth Rock and Spikes, still affected by Toxic Spikes, Sandstorm and Hail.

Ground/Ghost: Honestly, while countering Terrakion and being immune to Thunder Wave is good, this mon has too many weaknesses to become a viable typing. The weakness to Sucker Punch is particularly damaging, so speed is vital for this CAP. Ground isn't an all-too effective STAB in the OU metagame as so many Pokemon are immune to it. The fact that without coverage this Pokemon is completely countered by Skarmory is also a downside to this typing.

Normal/Ghost: This typing is really, really bad for a Belly Drummer in OU, and I presume that it was mentioned since many people marveled at the idea of this typing before CAP6 even started. Anyway, this typing cannot take hits due to so many types being neutral against it. The OU metagame is so offensively-oriented that any neutral hit would deal over 50% HP. It's not immune to any status, to any damaging weather condition, or resistant to any entry hazard. This is one of the worst typings we could give our CAP.

Dragon/Water and Dragon/Fighting: I like it! Dragon is a decent typing for our CAP due to it only being resisted by Steel types and Fairy types. Dragon/Water would most likely encourage rain teams, which my mind tells me is a bad thing but it's largely irrelevant. Dragon/Fighting is great for the fact that it has unresisted STAB as well as a resistance to U-Turn and Stealth Rock. I value Dragon/Fighting over Dragon/Water for how the sheer power of the typing, but it will be a challenge to not make this mon tooo overpowered if we do indeed go for Dragon/Fighting.

 

[scrake]

I'd like to throw support behind Dragon/Poison since it reminds me a lot of Dragon/Steel (great defensive typing with reliable primary STAB), but it resists Fighting instead of being weak to it. Dragon/Poison still resists VoltTurn along with resisting Fighting, which is definitely handy in OU. On the other hand, you lose a neutrality to Dragon and Ice by forgoing Steel. But as some people have mentioned, Dragon types in OU hit hard enough that a neutrality to Dragon doesn't count for much. The Ice neutrality IMO does count for a bit more though since it allows easier setup against Water types carrying Ice coverage (for example). I'd also like to support Fire/Steel since it also has many handy resistances with an even more useful primary STAB IMO (Fire) that allows it to better scare out common Steels (the main problem I have with typings like Poison/Steel, which have no good offensive STAB, is forcing switches for setup). I like Dragon/Poison the most so far since it isn't weak to Fighting while still having an offensive presence which is a pretty big deal for me.

 

[capefeather]

I've read the reasoning for Dragon / Fighting and Water / Dragon more closely, and I'm inclined to agree with reachzero on these. The fact that Dragon / Fighting in particular is even being seriously proposed at all without much criticism is a tad frightening, and I see it as a hint for some of us to step back a bit. Don't get me wrong, I tend to prefer being more liberal earlier in the process and more conservative later, but even considering Belly Drum, this is pushing it...

The thing about Water / Dragon for me is that the reasoning doesn't quite match what it actually does. With one weakness, it's checked mainly by Dragon-types, depending on the Speed tier (and even then...). The STAB coverage seems rather overkill as well. I'm convinced that STAB matters somewhat, but not to the extent that some people seem to be promoting.

 

[Millky95]

I've just read a little bit of this and would like to add in my 2 cents

Dark/Ghost:
Pros:
No weaknesses
3 immunities
STAB Shadow Sneak and STAB Sucker Punch

Cons:
No stealth Rock resist
STABs are walled by Steels

I think this is a solid defensive typing to allow for a bit more offense with moves, ability or stats.

 

[Rafikichu]

I don't think that any Dragon typing, especially something like dragon/fire or dragon/fighting is really the right idea. The Pokemon will be strong enough after a Belly Drum without unresisted or hyperoffensive STABS. A Pokemon like that would make a better choice item or life orb user than a Belly Drummer. It doesn't need more than a couple of decent attacks when it's at +6.
I think steel typing is okay, but it still isn't the right idea in my opinion. It provides a lot of resistances, which is nice, but I don't think a wide variety of resistances is what CAP 6 needs. I think we should choose a typing that's really focused. We need immunities more than resistances. (Yes, steel is immune to poison, but poison sucks) Types like Ghost, Ground, and Flying have immunities to common attacks which will give CAP 6 the opportunities it needs to set up.
Essentially, I think a lot of people are focusing on typings that are really good defensively or really good offensively when that isn't what the Pokemon needs. It needs a specific typing that works for its exact needs.

 

[topher4167]

I know some people think Dragon/anything would be too OP at +6, myself included, but I think as long as we leave out things like Outrage and keep the Attack stat reasonable, CAP6 can be powerful without being OP. I want to propose a final typing (I know, I have proposed multiple disliked typings): Ghost/Dragon. It packs two immunities, one that is key: Fighting. Fighting type moves are all over in OU, and if we can be immune to it, it would be really great. Dragon also gives some key resistances (Water, Electric) while giving us an actually useful offensive typing. So I think we need to consider Ghost/Dragon as CAP6's typing.

 

[Error3130]

I know some people think Dragon/anything would be too OP at +6, myself included, but I think as long as we leave out things like Outrage and keep the Attack stat reasonable, CAP6 can be powerful without being OP. I want to propose a final typing (I know, I have proposed multiple disliked typings): Ghost/Dragon. It packs two immunities, one that is key: Fighting. Fighting type moves are all over in OU, and if we can be immune to it, it would be really great. Dragon also gives some key resistances (Water, Electric) while giving us an actually useful offensive typing. So I think we need to consider Ghost/Dragon as CAP6's typing.

Name one physically attacking dragon without outrage.
You simply can't expect people not to root for it in move discussion.

Also, anything with ghost has 2 immunities

All that would be is a toned down giratina at +6

 

[topher4167]

Name one physically attacking dragon without outrage.
You simply can't expect people not to root for it in move discussion.

Also, anything with ghost has 2 immunities

All that would be is a toned down giratina at +6

I get that people would want Outrage. I sure hope our Movepool TL wouldn't allow it. And like I said, I'm sure we could make it not be OP.

 

[dwarfstar]

Actually, at +6, there's not an appreciable difference between Outrage and Dragon Claw for our purposes. Birkal brought up the fact that having Outrage over Dragon Claw wouldn't be needed for kills at +6, allowing CAP6 to use the underused Dragon Claw as a superior option because it doesn't lock CAP6 into one move (thus allowing it to use its priority against a revenge killer). Because Outrage and Dragon Claw will be killing pretty much all the same things, there's no reason to go against flavor-precedent and disallow Outrage if CAP6 ends up being part Dragon-type.

...Keeping this post relevant to the typing discussion, I want to express my opposition to giving CAP6 any sort of Water-based typing. Rain is already extremely dominant on the CAP ladder, and I don't think it would be a good idea to give those teams another new toy to abuse... And as has been stated before, Dragon-Water is insane coverage even without rain, only resisted by Ferrothorn, the rare Empoleon, and the completely irrelevant Shedinja.

 

[Qwilphish]

I would like to throw in my support for Steel/Flying:

First of all I would like to say that one of the biggest selling points for this type is the natural immunity to Spikes. While some may say that you can just run Air Balloon or have Levitate, by having Flying as a typing you free yourself up to either another Ability or a held item which is huge. Especially considering how most of these typings that have been proposed are based around resistances, potentially not having to have 25% of your health be stripped away before you even get a chance to Belly Drum is huge since even most strong resisted hits are able to deal upwards of 30%.

Defensively, Steel/Flying has already been shown to be really good from Skarmory. Key resistances to Bug, Steel, Dark, and an immunity to Ground allows us to set up on many Pokemon that other types can also. Specifically, Steel/Flying has the potential to set up on Scizor, Forretress, potentially Latios/Latias. However, I can see that the biggest flaw in this type compared to others is the neutrality to Rock and Fighting which means that we have a more limited set-up field. This can be somewhat remedied in later stages if we decide in the Threats discussion that it needs to be adressed.

The second selling point for this typing though, is the fact that it not only applied some defensive pressure upon the opponent, but it also offers offensive pressure. At the moment, Flying is one of the best offensive types in the metagame due to how good of neutral coverage it receives. This means that even though we may not have the most ideal defensive pressure that can be placed upon the opponent, the threat of taking a strong Acrobatics/Brave Bird/Drill Peck is a powerful motivator of forcing switches (albeit it is not as strong of a motivator as Defensive pressure). Also the fact that Steel has a strong reason to be used due to the fact that it can hit Rock types Super-Effectively means that we can not only have a strong priority, but a priority that actually has purpose.

There hasn't been much discussion of this type although it has been mentioned. Hopefully, this post will jumpstart discussion about this interesting type.