Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Birkal
So what motivates me is this: we can handle dragons during other CAP stages, but we cannot sponge water attacks at any other stage. Theoretically, we could stop rain-boosted water attacks by adding monstrous special bulk or a Water-type absorbing ability.
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I wanted to quote to challenge you on this one, Birkal, as frankly the Water-resistant typings Grass, Water, and Dragon are pidgeon-holing us into giving CAP5 enough bulk to use that resistance throughout the match. And to take on Rain-boosted Keldeo's Hydro Pumps, among others, would require a significant amount of bulk.
I said it during Concept Assessment and I abide by it, that I think
Water immunity is the right way to handle Rain and Waters in general. A resistant Pokemon can be eventually worn down, and gets weakened for a coverage move to KO it. A Pokemon with an immunity
makes not just Water types but Water attacks in general a liability to use. It also opens up our Typing options considerably, covering Water so we can use many more types to collect the necessary resistances. Better yet, the Immunity alone rather than a Water typing does not suggest it'll be effective under Rain (since a Water Type would have its Water STAB boosted in Rain, while Grass/Dragon's x4 Ice weakness is crippling enough that Ice Beam coverage will, again, require gargantuan defensive stats or plow right through it without Rain sweepers even slowing down).
Well, since Deck Knight allowed selecting a typing with an immunity in mind, I guess I can pause this here and move on to typings that I consider optimal for this job.
Electric/Fire is a good option for the reasons I gave in the last topic, but specifically for its wide array of resistances: x1/2 Bug, Electric, Fire, Flying, Grass, Ice, x1/4 Steel. That's pretty much all the coverage Rain teams usually run, barring Dragon and the odd Fighting or Psychic move. With Fire it can be a sun abuser and with Electric it gets no-miss Thunders under Rain. It doesn't address Dragons outside of getting coverage, but it's not weak to them or Fighters either, at least.
Electric/Ice I'm also a big fan of. Electric for Waters and Ice for Dragons. This typing has an obvious offensive bias because it's much weaker defensively, but again it at least resists Thunders, Ice Beams, and Hurricanes. I could see this working out.
Fire/Ice is also a typing worth considering. It'd take an odd route of being usable on both sun and hail teams probably, but it'd hit Dragons with Ice and hit Steels with Fire (but still get walled by Heatran and need coverage like Solarbeam to address Waters). x4 weakness to Stealth Rock though.
Fire/Ground is the last that I wanted to bring up. While it's true that Grass and Fire seen in isolation have good defensive synergy, Fire doesn't really have members to form a defensive core (barring Heatran). A Fire/Ground type (again, with a Water immunity) would block Hydro Pumps and Thunders, be neutral to Grass, Ice, Dragon, Flying, and Fighting moves, neutral to Rock (and thus, Stealth Rock). With other defensive properties it could trap or shuffle or plain wall various other threats that Sun teams currently can't handle outside of taking offensive measures like revenge-killing. If we'd want to incorporate hazard control, then a defensive Fire/Ground type is in my opinion the best choice for a spinner.
I'm not sold on the Dark type capefeather brought up, but I'd prefer it to many other choices.