[Deck Knight]

The two hour discussion occurred just before I had to leave this morning so I got cut off at the end. One of the things I brought up, phrased differently from Birkal, is that the primary problem of a sun team is that a sun team is tactical, not strategic.

What do I mean by that? Well, a Sun team is usually constructed as Ninetales / Venusaur / Dugtrio / Spinner / Heatran / Slot. 4/6ths of your team is essentially dedicated to a tactic. Venusaur is overstretched as Sun Sweeper and pivot since it alone takes Water attacks well outside of Sun, Dugtrio is used for Arena Trap, period, and Heatran adds unfortunate redundancies in offensive coverage and some weaknesses.

The best direction for CAP 5 would be to create a Pokemon to fill one of those holes and act in both a tactical capacity and as another defensive pivot to give sun teams a true core rather than being reducible to tactical roles like weather starter, trapper, spinner, sun sweeper.

Obviously based on my concept I'd prefer we build a trapping Pokemon that's more competent than Dugtrio and let a Pokemon more suited to addressing sun's weaknesses in the freed up slot.

An additional auto-weather starter is out of the question no matter how helpful it might be since it is more apt to replace Ninetales than synergize with it.

That leaves a dedicated spinner as an effective defensive pivot or a Pokemon that allows for different synergystic options that Heatran, a much more ill-defined role - or a sun sweeper that is equally as effective as Venusaur such that it can allow Venusaur to make a more defensive role viable on the playstyle.

As far as typings I like based on this:

Electric/Grass is a great defensive pivot that can take water attacks and specifically isolate every water type used in Rain and take it down, from Rotom-W to Gastrodon. It is an ideal typing for a Dugtrio kind of replacement because Electric/Grass is very redundant offensively and defensively, having STABs resisted by both Grass and Dragon, but if used as a very specifically built trapper pivot will be able to isolate rain threats. It's also not going to work as well on rain than as soon, as rain already has a huge number of electric-type abusers, and Ferrothorn is much more viable type-wise than this would be.

I require more convincing with Electric/Dark that the Latis are the primary threat we should concern ourselves with,. Rain hates the Latis just as much and introducing a Pokemon that can take those out is just going to perpetuate that cycle. Electric/Dark is a fairly neutral typing to weather, and not really specifically useful to sun over the others. Remember, this concept is about raising the usage of a type, not just this CAP. My fear with Electric/Dark is that it just gives Rain another tool, and will increase the popularity of Electric and Water types by giving Rain a more solid answer to the Latis.

Grass / Steel provides a potential alternative to Heatran with a Dragon resistance, and we can differentiate it from Ferrothorn with any number of traits such as a different build, sun-boosting abilities that make it much more functional to take the risk of insta-death to Fire in Sun for an offensive or defensive benefit. Of the Hidden Power types Rain Pokemon are likely to take, Fire is the lowest on the list - it's just too difficult to play on a Rain team.

Grass / Ice operates in the same sort of realm as Grass/Steel, except it takes a more pro-active approach to the Latis, and has a STAB Priority that can get the drop at least on Breloom. If used in the Sun, we could again utilize abilities that have maximum effect in the sun, in addition to operating with a type that has minimal benefit to Rain.

Steel / Fire is a final consideration, and this particular typing I think could take on Heatran's role as a hazard layer and also take on the spinner role. In this case the typing is targeted toward a defensive pivot for Dragon type attacks aimed at sun teams in general and Ice attacks against Venusaur and Dugtrio specifically.

I know the last typing hasn't been discussed, but I want to take this discussion in a direction that addresses the biggest flaw in sun teams as they currently exist, and opens up one of their team slots by taking one of their tactical slots and turning it into a strategic one. This could mean a Spinner that is perfectly calibrated to use in sun by fulfilling a defensive pivot role, a Trapper that can isolate a more broad threat list than the Ground-weak Pokemon that plague sun times, or even a Pokemon that can take over Venusaur's job and let it act a defensive glue rather than a premier sweeper.

In short, the questions to ask should be:

How does this typing address the biggest weaknesses of sun teams?

What slot does it fill in a sun team that allows the team the flexibility commonly available to rain and sand?

What gaps in the typing are potential issues that could be filled by an existing Pokemon that could be introduced into one of the slots that are opened up?