CAP 5 - Part 1 - Concept Assessment

[capefeather]

Looking at the January stats is going to be a really flawed approach to this problem, not just because people are really bad at statistical analysis, but also because the January stats include some of the Tornadus Therian metagame.

I find that abilities tend to have a huge role in the representation of some of the types in OU. Psychic, for example, has Alakazam, Reuniclus, Espeon, Deoxys, etc. Conversely, there are typings with less representation than one might expect because of the lack of specific traits in existing Pokemon. Flying, for example, was strongly represented by Tornadus Therian because of Regenerator and Hurricane, but a lot of Flying-types don't have Hurricane and/or are really bad. I've heard people referring to the Flying type as a "sleeper threat" before. Not that I think Flying is necessarily a good type for this, considering we already did Tomohawk and we've already seen Tornadus Therian. My point is merely that this is the kind of thing that we could be looking at.

Something to keep in mind: While typing is certainly a very large factor in a Pokemon's viability, it's far from everything. Kyurem's formes are an excellent example of this. We can say that Dragon / Ice is a horrible typing all we want, but a comparison of Black Kyurem and White Kyurem makes it hard to justify using it as an excuse for Black Kyurem being solidly OU at this point, while a very similar alternate forme is Uber.

[PureQuestion]

I think it's sort of interesting to look at the actual usage stats and see that there are 4 steel pokemon in the top 6 - Scizor, Ferrothorn, Jirachi, and Heatran, in that order - and then nothing else until Forretress down at 17, and Skarm down at 24. It's an interesting point to note that with Dragons and Steels especially it's only a very small number of pokemon with the actual typing that dominate. So to what degree is it because of the steel typing, and to what degree is it that these pokemon are simply really good? Let's be honest here, when you talk about a defensive steel type, are you thinking of anything other than Ferrothorn, Skarm, Forretress, or Jirachi? Maybe Heatran?

Other responses:

Originally Posted by Fat Rhys DeAnno

Stealth Rock: SR in the metagame is a huge factor in what typings are defensively good and bad. Fire, Bug, and Ice are all commonly thought to be awful defensive typing, and all are weak to SR (Flying is at least immune to Spikes). Steel and Fighting are great defensive typings and both resist SR. If CAP 5 can spin or magic bounce rocks away it'll do a lot to help equalize defensive typing even when it isn't on the battlefield. A fast taunt to stop SR in an "anti-lead" role with no SR itself might also be helpful. Conversely if it lays SR or is a spin-blocking ghost type it'll contribute more to the problem

Yes. I think SR is incredibly important to this concept.

Originally Posted by Fat Rhys DeAnno

Physical Defense: Steels soak Dragon Outrages, and Fighting Close Combats menace Steels. I think a strong physically defensive pokemon which is weak to neither Dragon nor Fighting would both lessen the need for Steel types while not reinforcing Fighting types. Ideally, this pokemon would not be one of the "strong" types itself. Since we don't want to use Steels here, we need either a lot of physical defense indeed, or outside the box solutions like Unaware or Prankster WoW.

IIRC Slowbro is a good example of this atm, with regards to being able to take an Outrage.

Aerophoenix: I'd like to suppose that at least partially, the commonness of the types capable of hurting steels is at least partially in part due to the existence of Steels. Fighting was a terrible type in Gen I, because the most powerful typing was Psychic. In Gen II, Dark and Steel were added, both of which beat Psychic and lose to Fighting. And now Fighting is one of the most lauded types in the game.

nyttyn: Grass is an interesting type, because of course, Ferrothorn is at #3 right now, and loves its grass typing. Grass has representatives all over the place, and a few of them are certainly noteworthy in their own tiers. Ferrothorn needs no explanation. Ferroseed does well itself in LC. Venusaur is terrifying when it gets out in the sun. Tangrowth is a very effective wall down in the lower tiers, Roserade is great in UU, Shaymin-S.... is Shaymin-S. Celebi also fills a variety of potent roles.

Grass isn't a dominating type, but it's not ice, either.

[forestflamerunner]

I think Nyttyn's type chart undervalues the number of pokemon with each type in OU like how there are( eight dragons and only four grass types). Since we are trying to increase the type diversity in OU, i think using the formula (%usage of a type)*(# of type in OU) might be a bit more useful to get an idea of what types are common in OU.

Steel: 107.000*9=963.000
Water: 99,826*10=998.260
Dragon: 72.711*8=581.688
Bug: 42.024*3=126.072
Grass: 46.487*4:185.948
Psychic: 86.616*10=866.160
Flying: 81.341*9=732.069
Fire: 41.260*4=165.040
Electric:35.477*4=141.908
Rock: 26.926*2=53.852
Dark: 18.941*2=37.882
Fighting: 61.573*7:431.001
Normal:5.539*1=5.539
Poison:33.215*4=132.860
Ghost: 17.497*2=34.994
Ground: 64.142*9= 577.278
Ice: 19.885*3=59.655


Putting it order from greatest to least, we get

1. Water-998.260
2. Steel-963.000
3. Psychic-866.160
4. flying-732.069
5. Dragon-581.688
6. Ground- 577.278
7. Fighting-431.001
8. Grass:185.948
9. Fire-165,040
10. Electric-141.908
11. Poison-132.860
12. Bug-126.072
13. Ice-59.655
14. Rock-53.852
15. Dark- 37.822
16. Ghost-34.994
17. Normal-5.539

This distribution puts a lot more emphasis on how diverse each type is in OU, which I think speaks more to the concept a bit better than Nyttyn's distribution. Based on this data, it seems to me that water, steel, psychic, flying, dragon, ground, and fighting types dominate our metagame while ice, rock , dark, ghost and normal are the bottom feeders. I hope this data can help orient our discussion.

[Skyfall]

I believe that the types we really need to counter are water, dragon, and fighting. These types are by far the strongest and most used, but they are also very hard to counter together. No type combination resists them all, and the only combo that resists both dragon and fighting is steel-ghost, a typing we have already made a CAP have (Kitsunoh). It would be really hard to counter all three of these types, and I personally think we will need to put in a water resisting ability so that we will be able to counter all three of these types.

[MCBarrett]

This concept really intrigued me because there is a lot going on and it will definitely be a challenge, but it will really teach us some interesting things if we prove to be successful.

Now, as it's been stated many times so far, I think water, steel, and dragon should be the focus of our project. I say we do not focus on fighting for on simple reason. There is no dominant play style that revolves around the fighting type. I think focusing on types that the metagame is centralized around will make it easier to find a way to lower the usage of said types.

As to our approach, I do not think we should take a route such as nyttyn's, in focusing on a type that would do well against these common typings. This won't really teach us anything about the metagame except that if a powerful Pokemon is introduced, the Pokemon it has good type matchups against will decrease in usage. I also see this direction being more inclined to fall into the trap of making a super Pokemon, like what happened with auromoth.

I feel the approach we should be taking is finding a Pokemon that can bring a lesser used play style greater effectiveness by covering its weaknesses against the types we are focusing on. after thinking about that for a while, I thought of an example in genesect. Genesect did an excellent job of patching up a sun team's weakness to dragons and rain teams specifically things such as lati@s. the only problem with this example is that genesect also centralized the metagame around itself. The other thing about this example though is that although genesect was a steel type, he made steels less effective by countering dragons, steel types other than heatran, and making sun more viable.

So in conclusion, the focus we should be taking is not on a single Pokemon but on an entire play style, which will make the metagame less centralized around the types that are under question.

[Rayquaza_]

One thing to keep in mind is that a defensive type advantage isn't always necessary in order to counter a playstyle. STAB and access to a priority move are definitely maker or breakers.

Mamoswine has many weaknesses commonly found in rain teams, yet it has the ability to check rain abusers like Thundurus-T, Jolteon and Dragonite thanks to its STAB Ice Shard and high attack stat.

A weakness rain teams have is their lack of viable Aqua Jet users. Kabutops and Azumarill are the closest ones but they're not commonly seen in OU. Dragonite gets access to it but it has no STAB and it prefers Extremespeed anyway.

Now imagine if something like Gyarados suddenly gained access to said move - it would be much, much harder to deal with and I wouldn't be surprised if it was banned for this reason alone (or rather, for the combination of 125 attack, STAB, rain, Moxie and priority).

Mach Punch is probably the only thing that keeps Conkeldurr in OU, and Techniloom wouldn't be anywhere as dangerous if it didn't get it. Lucario has a terrible base speed in OU and would probably drop to UU if it didn't have a plethora of priority moves at its disposal.

Likewise, Ice Shard is probably the only thing that keeps monsters like Salamence and Garchomp in OU - for the opposite reason.

After entry hazards and weather, priority weakness/resistance is metagame-defining. This is something to keep in mind.

Originally Posted by Fat capefeather

Something to keep in mind: While typing is certainly a very large factor in a Pokemon's viability, it's far from everything. Kyurem's formes are an excellent example of this. We can say that Dragon / Ice is a horrible typing all we want, but a comparison of Black Kyurem and White Kyurem makes it hard to justify using it as an excuse for Black Kyurem being solidly OU at this point, while a very similar alternate forme is Uber.

I'm glad you brought this up.
I have always been a supporter of Kyurem's typing not being anywhere as bad as many people claim, especially when we compare it with Dragon/Flying.

Compared to Dragon/Ice, Dragon/Flying trades a steel and fighting weakness for a 4x ice one.
If there were more viable Ice Shard users instead of just Mamoswine and Weavile, suddenly Dragonite, Salamence and perhaps even Rayquaza might not in practice be as powerful as they seem.

One of the arguments that supported Kyurem-B's release in OU was "it doesn't matter if you kill something with that 170 base attack, the next turn I'm going to send my Scizor in and KO you or force you out".
What made that argument hold water was the fact that Scizor is one of the most used pokemon in the metagame, often sitting at #1. I wonder if things would have been the same if Scizor wasn't as viable? The same logic works to a lesser extent for Mach Punch users (as most of them can't directly switch on Kyu-B).

[The Steam Punk]

I agree with zyrefredric's first post, Normal-types in particular. They only have one weakness, and are only resisted by three types (two if Scrappy is in play). They could definitely see more usage.

[BrianFantana]

Originally Posted by Fat The Steam Punk

I agree with zyrefredric's first post, Normal-types in particular. They only have one weakness, and are only resisted by three types (two if Scrappy is in play). They could definitely see more usage.

The thing about the Normal type is that its benefits are effectively passive - neutral coverage and lack of weaknesses. It doesn't have universal qualities that are actively exploitable like super-effective coverage, resistances (with the exception of Ghost) or weather, and as such I'd imagine it would be difficult to pull it into prominence by any means, let alone a single Pokemon. It is also home to a more diverse range of Pokemon than most types, housing everything from massive walls (Blissey, Snorlax) to fast sweepers (Cincinno, Staraptor) to other niche-fillers (Togekiss, bloody Smeargle), which makes it an interesting type but makes it harder for the project to influence as a whole.

Normal typing shines when a single Pokemon can exploit it to its fullest - see Extreme Killer Arceus or Blissey. But because of its neutrality I don't believe it could ever be a metagame force unto itself - looking over the Smogon analyses for Normal types in UU, one notes that their typing is rarely so much as mentioned. It's the closest a Pokemon could come to simply not having a typing at all.

[reachzero]

What types are common in the current metagame? Why?

I don't think it is much of a mystery to anyone why Water, Dragon, Steel and Fighting types dominate the metagame. If the CAP project as a whole has taught us anything, it is that these types (plus Ghost, and to a lesser degree Electric as a secondary type) are the absolute most optimal types that exist in terms of maximizing both defensive versatility and offensive threat. That being set, types don't exist in a metagame divorced from the Pokemon that actually possess them (a fallacy common to much theorymon, especially in CAP, in my opinion). As such it is helpful to note which Pokemon actually belong to each of our targeted types in OU.

Water

...

---

| 2 | Politoed
| 7 | Rotom-Wash
| 12 | Starmie
| 13 | Keldeo
| 16 | Tentacruel
| 32 | Jellicent
| 34 | Gyarados
| 44 | Vaporeon
| 48 | Gastrodon

It doesn't take much insight to realize that all of these Pokemon except Rotom-w and Jellicent are joined at the hip to Rain teams, and that even Rotom-w strongly prefers Rain to all other Weathers. Remember, these stats are no longer strongly representative of the present metagame; Tornadus-T was still around, and Drizzle was very clearly the dominant weather. Sand has made a major comeback (look at how low Landorus' usage is in these stats compared to the last few weeks of Smogon Premier League!), but there is no doubt whatsover that the overall benefits of Rain being up are the best Weather boost there is.

Dragon

...

---

| 5 | Dragonite
| 10 | Latios
| 14 | Garchomp
| 19 | Salamence
| 28 | Latias
| 42 | Kyurem-Black
| 47 | Hydreigon
| 53 | Haxorus

Dragon types have a massive advantage in BW2 OU in that they they tend to have very little Weather preference compared to practically every other OU Pokemon. Dragonite and the Lati@s twins in particular have amazing typing and bulk for handling otherwise extremely annoying Pokemon like Volcarona and Rotom-w. All of the OU Dragons have astounding offensive stats and coverage. The only really limiting factors for the OU Dragons are bulky Steels (especially Scizor) and Ice Shard, and only Mamoswine (which is amazing in this metagame) commonly carries Ice Shard. The OU Dragons are simply such optimized Pokemon that they will shine in any metagame.

Steel

...

---

| 1 | Scizor
| 4 | Jirachi
| 3 | Ferrothorn
| 6 | Heatran
| 17 | Forretress
| 24 | Skarmory
| 38 | Magnezone
| 41 | Lucario
| 49 | Metagross

Of the Steel types listed here, the usage of almost all of them except Lucario is strongly tied to the usage of Dragons. When Dragon usage goes up, Steel usage goes up. Jirachi and Ferrothorn have additional strong ties to Rain teams, explaining their additional very high usage. In other words, Steel usage tends to be reactive, not trend-setting. If Dragon and Water usage drops, Steel usage will naturally drop with them.

Fighting

...

---

| 9 | Breloom
| 11 | Terrakion
| 13 | Keldeo
| 30 | Infernape
| 41 | Lucario
| 45 | Toxicroak
| 46 | Conkeldurr

Honestly, the usage numbers tell the story here. Of the Fighting types in OU, only Breloom, Terrakion and Keldeo are highly representative of the metagame and the highest level of play (Lucario is at least seen, rarely). Keldeo has the advantage of also being a Water type and having great stats, Breloom basically rides the strength of Spore and Technician Mach Punch, and Terrakion just kills everything there is. A lot. In other words, the OU Fighting types don't really have defining characteristics that tie them together the way the other dominant typings do. It could be argued, in fact, that while Terrakion and Keldeo in particular are dominant Pokemon, Fighting as such is not a particularly dominant typing. Practically, this means that Fighting probably ought to be a lower priority for this CAP.



What shortcoming do common types have?

The most common and exploitable shortcomings belong to Waters and Steels. Both have clear and common offensive weaknesses, and far more importantly, both have clear enemies in the Weather wars that constitute the OU metagame. Water types invariably prefer Rain, and so are hurt considerably by other Weathers, very noticeably by Sun, which commonly runs many Grass types, and nerfs both Water moves and Thunder. Steels that aren't Heatran are likewise in serious danger from Sun teams, which exploit the boost to Fire attacks to great effect against most Steels.

On the other hand, the OU Dragons have far fewer shortcomings. The most obvious is a weakness to Ice attacks, but aside from using Mamoswine, there are really few ways to exploit this tendency, short of using even more Steel types, which runs contrary to the concept.

What types are uncommon in the current metagame? Why?

Most of the types uncommon in the current metagame are uncommon because they simply do not have strong enough individual Pokemon. For instance, Ghost type would theoretically be an excellent typing in OU, yet there are only two OU Ghost types, and Jellicent is fairly rare. Fire types are quite rare compared to their offensive power, largely due to the overall Water- and Dragon-dominance of the metagame.

What positive features do these underused types possess?

Fire has the advantage of exploiting Sun, having good offensive coverage with other common attacks, and hitting nearly all Steels very hard. Having a weather that specifically caters to its strengths and minimizes its weaknesses is a major asset.

Ghost is a strong typing both offensively and defensively, but lacks the overall cohesion and team synergy that tends to make teams work in BW2 OU.

What existing Pokémon individually affect the usage of entire types?

Heatran is a factor for nearly every Fire and Grass type to think about, since it walls a huge number of Fire and especially Grass types. The Lati@s twins are a major factor for Water, Grass and Fire types, and they wall all of the above, often including the common coverage moves. Dragonite presents similar issues, though not to so great an extent.
What ways are there to change a typing’s usage outside of simply countering/being countered by them?

Weather is the single greatest determining factor of type usage in BW2 OU, as the glut of Water types clearly demonstrates. The balance of Weather strongly influences the balance of typing. When Sand rises, Ground, Rock and Steel Pokemon will dominate the usage stats. When Rain rises, Water, Steel and Electric Pokemon will climb. When Sun rises, Steel usage drops dramatically, and Dragon usage climbs dramatically. In fact, Sun dominance would decrease the usage of every targeted type except Dragon quite substantially--I believe that the strongest possible way to decrease all the currently dominant types in OU is to make CAP5 along the lines of an "anti-Dragon Sun-encouraging Pokemon". A Pokemon that could help Sun teams overcome their greatest nemesis would radically re-draw the OU type usage.

Finally, what elements of a Pokémon are most important when dictating how it interacts with other types?

The most important factors in OU typing are strongly tied to team-build and playstyle. For a Dragons-and-Steels team, overall defensive and offensive versatility is the goal. Cover as many types as possible, resist as many as possible. Because Dragons and Steels are so versatile by nature of the quality of their typing, this is attainable. On the other hand, Weather-based teams (especially Rain and Sun) rely much more strongly on specialization between similarly-typed Pokemon, relying on a few specific Pokemon to beat other teams of the same trope.

[Corkscrew]

Weather is almost definitely going to be key in this project as bumping up another weather will decrease rain usage and therefore water usage. I mentioned this with my idea for a Hail abusing, anti-rain mon and reachzero mentioned this with his "anti-Dragon Sun-encouraging Pokemon."

However I think most people (including me) have been focusing on how to nerf good types and not increase poor types. We don't have to necessary use a bad typing to increase a bad typing. For example, if we were to use a Grass mon it may be good at nerfing water but also at increasing the fire types who counter it. This is a very simple, obvious example but I felt it was being overlooked by a lot of people. Creating a mon of one type won't increase the whole of that type.

As for which types to increase I think that Fire and Ice would be interesting choices but also probably cop outs because this can be easily achieved through creating a weather mon. Dark is a very interesting type to consider. The only OU ones are Tyranitar and Hydreigon who are not really used because of their Dark typing but mainly for their other qualities. If we were to focus on a Ghost or Psychic mon that would also be able to tackle Water or Dragons or something, if we do it right we may end up increasing the viability of some of the lesser used Dark types.

EDIT: Nyktos' post (2 posts down) is what I'm trying to say but explained slightly better.

[PureQuestion]

I'm strongly in favour of Reachzero's proposal, after much IRC discussion. Shifting sun in power would have a massive effect on the metagame, and would hopefully reduce the dominance of a number of pokemon, and thus their types.

[Nyktos]

I definitely think that simply making a strong Pokémon of a weak type is not the way to go about this. We've been there and done that; see CAP 3. The goal here is to try and change the dynamics of typing in OU: if only one Pokémon of a lesser-used type (whether it be CAP 5 itself or something else) becomes good, we haven't done that. If we decide we want to improve, say, Ice-types, we should try and make it so CAP 5's presence in the metagame actively causes Ice to become a desirable typing. Simply making a good Ice-type will likely do the opposite of that: if CAP 5 outclasses every other Ice-type, that just makes the general lot of Ice-types worse.

I think the best approach on the boosting weak types side is to create a Pokémon that has a strong STAB/coverage combination but which critically misses out on one or more underpowered types. For an absurdly exaggerated example, consider a Pokémon with 255 each in Attack and Speed that gets only Normal and Fighting moves -- it would be pretty rare to see a team without a Ghost if that's legal! Ice would be hard to boost this way but the rest of the underpowered types that have been mentioned have a couple good resistances/immunities that we could make use of.

Weakening strong types is a little more straightforward in that we can probably get away with targeting only the popular Pokémon of that type in OU rather than the type in general. Taking Steel as an example, if CAP 5 is excellent against Scizor, Ferrothorn, Jirachi, and Heatran and merely okay against Steel-types in general, that will do fine for weakening Steel-types overall.

Edit: I guess making a sunmon works too.

[Birkal*]

I want to emphasize as a moderator that this thread is not for suggesting specific types for this CAP. We'll do that during typing discussion. Right now, the focus needs to be on the concept. Please reread jas's post to get a full understand for the kinds of responses he's looking for here. Thank you!


One of my favorite parts of this concept is that it also seeks to raise the viability of what we would consider "poor" typings. It's easy to look at this stuff in a vacuum, so I encourage every to not look necessarily at the statistics, but moreso at what actually occurs. For example, you might see that Bug-types are use considerably in OU. But what those statistics don't tell you is that nearly all of those Pokemon are neutral to Rock-type attacks. Forretress, Scizor, Heracross, and Genesect (when it was OU) fall into this mold. The only one that breaks suit here is Volcarona, which has access to great STABs, good coverage, and Quiver Dance. Pretty much every other Bug-type is non-viable; Crustle, Galvantula, Scolipede, Yanmega, Vespiquen, Ninjask, Venomoth, and Parasect all fall into this mold.

When I look at usage stats in general, four types seem to be pretty lacking: Flying, Ice, Fire, and Bug. As I said before, the ones with these types in OU generally have a complementary secondary typing (Heatran, Mamoswine) or a usable ability (Ninetales). In general, if you don't have one of those two things, you fall in usage. And when you look at those four types, you see one common weakness: Stealth Rock. This hazard's presence specifically holds down a lot of usable Pokemon (Victini, Arcanine, etc), and I think in order to meet the concept, we must address keeping rocks off the field in some manner. When it comes to teambuilding, it is almost always advantageous to pick a Pokemon that resists Rock-type over one that is weak to it.

I think the same can be said for Drizzle, to some degree. If you're a Pokemon that can't either a) outspeed rain threats or b) tank a hit in the rain, your usage in OU is going to drop. I still think that Stealth Rock control is more important for raising less-desirable types, but Drizzle should still be a point we consider at some point in the process.

[jynx KB]

One point I would like to make is that whether we are successful or not, the playtesting period WILL bring changes in builds and team usage simply due to countering the new member.

If there's anything I would like to see a boost higher, it would be Ice, but sadly anything they can do, Dragon types usually can do in spades. Most have access to Fire moves for Grass types, and Dragon moves for other dragons.

As much as I hate to say it, typing and roles they play in the metagame are pretty stable. More usable members of a certain type can change the metagame, as seen with a return to psychics in Gen 5 when usable fighting types came in droves. We can't do that, as we can only introduce one pokemon.

The only thing I can really think of to shift something with one member is to introduce a whole new type, exploit some immunities or resistances, (ie. a dragon type resisting dragon attacks) or drastically conflict this Cap's typing with it's movepool, (which would involve massive attack boosts to non STAB attacks.

Honestly, I don't know how this is possible without introducing elements we don't want to touch, such as Multitype.

I do agree with a major element being keeping Stealth Rocks off the field. Types weak to rock like Moltres and Yanmega aren't considered on that move alone. If any one element is possible in changeing up the typing ratios, it would be this. Not just a band-aid, I mean something that renders Rocks all but unusable, or even a detriment to the opponent.

In short, something needs to shake Huge.

[inanimate blob]

Originally Posted by Fat Birkal

When I look at usage stats in general, four types seem to be pretty lacking: Flying, Ice, Fire, and Bug. As I said before, the ones with these types in OU generally have a complementary secondary typing (Heatran, Mamoswine) or a usable ability (Ninetales). In general, if you don't have one of those two things, you fall in usage. And when you look at those four types, you see one common weakness: Stealth Rock. This hazard's presence specifically holds down a lot of usable Pokemon (Victini, Arcanine, etc), and I think in order to meet the concept, we must address keeping rocks off the field in some manner. When it comes to teambuilding, it is almost always advantageous to pick a Pokemon that resists Rock-type over one that is weak to Rock.

Now, while keeping Rocks off the field is a great idea to base a Pokèmon off of, it already exists - we have Magic Mirror Pokèmon, a multitude of Rapid Spinners, and Pokèmon such as Volcarona who need Rocks off the field.

Rather, this Pokèmon may need to be resistant to Rocks. As you said, people are more likely to choose a Pokèmon that resists the Rock-type. People don't want to waste a turn with Rapid Spin.

Only two types resist Rock - Steel and Ground. As such, a Pokèmon would need to be either of those types to truly resist it.

You also mentioned resisting Rain - effectively, you described a Ferrothorn or Gastrodon.

However, a different way of dealing with Rocks would be with Magic Guard. Just a possibility, but definitely something to consider when creating this Pokèmon.

Additionally, a Pokèmon resistant to Rain would be substantially helpful - but Water and Dragon are common types already. This leaves Grass, who are unfortunately hit hard with Hurricane. An ability such as Water Absorb or Dry Skin would help.

So essentially, this Pokèmon probably needs to be dependent upon an ability, or dependent on a common typing to patch it's weaknesses.

[Midnight]

Looking at some of the stats posted by zyrefredric, you can clearly see, what I think, was a slight surprise in what types were the least represented when looking at some of the top Pokémon.

With the ever present Stealth Rocks, I would have expected stuff like Ice, Bug and Flying to be around the bottom.

I think we need to look at the type usage in a broader sense and look at what each typing gives as a support to the rest of the team in different team builds, and the easiest example to use is of course, the ever present Drizzle team!

Let's take a quick look at some of the top ones, Steel, Water, and Flying.

Water, that's an obvious one. With the presence of Drizzle, this is naturally be quite high in order to make the most of this weather effect increasing STAB on these moves, as well as the Ultimate weather Pokémon itself being Water.

Steel, with the presence of Drizzle, fire attacks that would normally scare these guys off are suddenly not as bad. As well as the resistances it adds on these types of teams, the general defensiveness of this type as well as it having some of the most vital roles in today’s meta-game (Spiker, Stealth Rocker, Pivot point) it is easier to see why it is effective.

Flying is another one which, although it does indeed have a SR weakness, Drizzle helps those popular Hurricane moves used by some prominent Attackers to have an increased Accuracy.

When you look at these types, one or two things also should come into mind:-

• Some of these usages happen due to popular Pokémon with great move pools, abilities and base stats owning 1/2 of these types (Starmie, Ferrothorn, and Dragonite).
• The types themselves come with things that complement each other very well as listed above.
• Alot of the Pokémon who are owned to these types seem to have a speciality role in most cases rather than several roles they can fill

So what are my thoughts? We are actually looking at this type thing all wrong. Perhaps instead of us looking at using an actual type and bringing it's usage up, we need to come up with a Pokémon that forms some perfect bonds to some strong Pokémon with the underused typing and tackle it from that way. The type we use doesn't have to be underused as such, but it has to be something that helps support the underused typings.

This is going to be a complicated CAP, as to try and have one Pokémon become, basically a centralisation for a meta-game to the point when the usage of a type increases just to defeat that Pokémon whilst making sure the Pokémon made isn't too overpowered.

Again quickly look at the roles we have for Steel types:-

Ferrothorn - Prime Spiker and Special/Physical Wall
Scizor - Strong Physical Attacker and revenge killer
Jirachi - Play several different roles
Heatran - Special Attacker, Special Wall
Lucario - Prime Wallbreaker

It seems to me that the effect an Ability, Stat distribution or Movepool has is very much a key decider for a large portion of Pokémon (portion, not all). Trying to come up with a Pokémon to change these types will be very difficult for one Pokémon. In fact, take Steel, Water and Flying again, there is already one Pokémon which generally is the bane of all of these Pokémon’s existence (depending, of course on the movepools), Magnezone, which even in Drizzle conditions to build it up cannot seem to really effect these too much.

[Rayquaza_]

Originally Posted by Fat jynx KB

If there's anything I would like to see a boost higher, it would be Ice, but sadly anything they can do, Dragon types usually can do in spades. Most have access to Fire moves for Grass types, and Dragon moves for other dragons.

That's really not the same thing. Dragon lacks the SE coverage Ice does, and neutral coverage just doesn't cut it at times. Plus having STAB on Ice Shard is a big deal. Kyu-W in ubers is an example of how ice STAB is a huge advantage even when you have Dragon STAB and 170 Sp.Atk.
I realize a dragon-type could get Ice Shard without STAB, but as Machamp and Donphan demonstrate a 40 BP attack without STAB isn't threatening at all.

Another thing ice types have over dragons is the ability to take advantage of hail and Blizzspamming.
Speaking of this, one of the reasons hail isn't often seen is Abomasnow being a mediocre pokemon on its own that compounds the weaknesses of ice types.
However, when hail does become a dominant weather ice-types really do shine: this is easily observed in Smogon doubles (where hail is a dominant weather) and in the lower tiers (where it's the only weather).
Things like Rotom-F and Walrein become much more threatening if you can ensure hail stays on the field.

A similiar argument can be made with Ninetales and sun teams - the abusers are good, but Ninetales is a horrible pokemon on its own.

I believe a sun or hail (or maybe even both!) weather inducer that manages to cover sun and/or hail teams' weaknesses (mainly SR) has the potential to completely reshape the OU tier.

[Deck Knight]

So this thread hasn't gone much into methodology yet (h/t) reachzero.

Having TL'd for a very type-centric concept (and being type leader now) I've though of a few theoretical ways for us to handle this.

Anti-Dragon Pro-Sun:

Reach mentions one in a sun-encouraging anti-Dragon Pokemon. Interestingly, this actually points to something like a Steel type because it will simultaneously increase the use of Drought Pokemon while also providing a bulwark against Dragon attacks. The question here is, what does i do that Heatran already doesn't. There are a couple of avenues here. One is to make it actually bring Drought, which will serve as an augment to Ninetales. This would make a lot of Dragons change their coverage to Fire. A Secondary type could help, with Fire being the most logical choice because of its Fire resistance (now neutrality) and its own ability to use Sun-boosted attacks. The only other types that might work here are Rock and, oddly enough, Water. Dragon's problem is that its Fire resist removes the Dragon resist we're trying to get out of Steel, and while it lets us hit Dragons with STAB Dragon moves, all it would do is increase the number of Steels and Dragons.

This brings us to Rock. Rock is unpleasant because it opens up huge double weaknesses to Ground and Fighting, however it also makes the Pokemon even more playable against opposing Sand teams. Rock can also work with Droughts Psuedo-STAB to ward off an overcentralization toward Fire types themselves.

So for anti-Dragon Sun encourager I'm thinking of Steel/Fire or Steel/Rock w/ Drought as a potential model. My fear is that Ninetales has the same problem as Abomasnow in that it drags everything else on the team down with it as a load.

Fast Rules Lawyer:

The other potential tack I've been thinking of is a fast offensive Ice type w/ Swift Swim as the only ability. Again, while this seems to polljump it is the only way to have a Water type added that does not increase Drizzle's power because of the complex Drizzle + Swift Swim ban. I still find it quite distasteful because its based solely on rules lawyering, but it would work. The Ice typing and high speed would allow the Pokemon to get the jump on Dragons, and even though it can't be used with Drizzle, if the opponent used Drizzle + Dragons it would be so fast after a Swift Swim it could easily outspeed them all. I'm talking very fast here, it would need to be faster than the Latis, which immediately puts it in 111-130 Spe territory. For obvious reasons this means against a Rain team it even beats Scarf Pokemon.

Roundabout attacker:

Electric/Ghost is also an interest choice because it can hit all of our target types for Neutral or better damage, is not weak to any of them, is immune to Fighting and resists Bug and Steel (for Scizor). However it is lacking in relevant resistances, so even if it can function in Rain, it is not a big fan of double-boosted Water attacks. An Ability could remedy that, but we run into the problem of boosting Rain rather than diminishing it again, and Elec/Ghost with Swift Swim is well... kinda bad for optics.

[ginganinja]

Physical Defense: Steels soak Dragon Outrages, and Fighting Close Combats menace Steels. I think a strong physically defensive pokemon which is weak to neither Dragon nor Fighting would both lessen the need for Steel types while not reinforcing Fighting types. Ideally, this pokemon would not be one of the "strong" types itself. Since we don't want to use Steels here, we need either a lot of physical defense indeed, or outside the box solutions like Unaware or Prankster WoW.

Just pointing out that we have this. Hippowdon, Gliscor and Landorus-T are all "physically defensive" pokemon that are not weak to Fighting and Dragon. Despite this, none of them have significantly high usage, due to the fact that resisting dragon, is placed at a higher priority than just being bulky.

In terms of "targetting" a type, I just think we need to be clear on why each type is used. Dragon is a really aggressive type, that has a bunch of high powered pokemon, but its often used in this metagame for its resistances. Latios for example, resists Fire, Grass, Water, Fighting, Psychic and Electric, while being immune to Ground all of which are common attacking types. Fire and Grass attacks are often seen on Sun teams, and Electric and water attacks are common on Rain teams, so I do think there is something their to be explored.

Personally, if I had to hit a type, water would be the one to go, since it has a massive pool of pokemon available to use, and actively promotes Dragon and Grass pokemon (and even water pokemon themselves) to greater usage, least you get swept by a Rain team. Fighting would prolly be my second choice, which enjoys a decent amount of usage due to many OU fighters having excellent typing / moves / abilities, while having a limited number of direct counters / checks. The overuse of fighting pokemon has actually resulted in an increase of Psychic moves from Starmie, Latios, and Latias, mostly due to the top tier fighting pokemon this generation, as well as the rise of Tentacruel, a pokemon that can be difficult to handle under rain. I am a little reluctant to hit fighters mostly because I feel that they are just "well built" rather than the actual typing being strong but whatever. I don't think the OU metagame would shift too much if we broken up Fighting pokemon but idk if thats a positive or a negative.

The two types I actually don't want to hit are steel and dragon, mostly because they are closely knitted together. If you targetted Steel pokemon (say, a Magnet Pull CAP) you directly increase the usage of DragMag teams, while hitting dragon pokemon remove valuable resistances from the metagame, which makes it more difficult to handle the powerful water / fire / grass attacks of the metagame. Sure, you have secondary typings and shit, but dragon pokemon are some of the best pivots in the game, decreasing their usage would make other, more common types even harder to handle IMO

Hit Rain pls :)

[MCBarrett]

dont have much time so i wont go into much detail but in regards to the anti-dragon, pro-sun argument, this has already happened. Genesect accomplished this to a T, which i talked about in my earlier post, and although he is banned now i think for this to work we should look at the qualities that made genesect a great match for sun teams and focus in on those. Other than that though, i think since we have already seen this in ou, i would like to see an anti-dragon, pro- some other playstyle mon. However, we really dont have much to work with since the only remaining playstyles in BW2 are sand, hail, and hyper offense and sun seems like a better offense for being anti-steel anti-rain and anti-dragon all at the same time but i think we should look into how we could make the other playstyles work!

[FlapJack]

I think that maybe instead of removing a less popular types counters or whatever, we should make a Pokemon that counters a popular type (reducing its use) and is only countered by an underused type (increasing that types use).

[Camisado]

The hard part about decentralizing Dragon is the only reliable way to counter them is to run a Steel. There's no ways to currently answer dragons without going some creative route with move or ability creating.

If only there was an ability that could make CAP 5 immune to Dragon, Fighting, and Water, and we could work to create a balanced CAP that utilized this ability without being overpowered with it, we could create a typing that forces less- commonly seen attacking types to be utilized...

Through my interpretation of the concept, CAP 5 has to be so centralizing (think Politoad) that players are forced to use uncommon types out of fear of being swept by CAP (think Gastrodon). Going overly powerful and hard to counter without specific types/ type combinations shouldn't be shunned by any means here. In fact, I think CAP 5 being so powerful it's centralizes the meta should be encouraged.

[samtheman]

Originally Posted by Fat Camisado

If only there was an ability that could make CAP 5 immune to Dragon, Fighting, and Water, and we could work to create a balanced CAP that utilized this ability without being overpowered with it, we could create a typing that forces less- commonly seen attacking types to be utilized...

Wonder Guard grants Shedinja immunity to all of these types, as well as Steel. Even though Wonder Guard might seem like a broken ability, Shedinja certainly is not broken, because most Dragon and Fighting types have Fire or Rock coverage, and Bulky waters often have Toxic.

Besides giving CAP5 Wonder Guard, or inventing a new ability, which isn't going to happen, there's no way it will resist all of these four types without being one of them itself. In my opinion, narrowing it to just Water might be more productive.

[Unitas]

Originally Posted by Fat Camisado

I think CAP 5 being ridiculous should be encouraged.

I feel that we should not try and take the route of giving CAP5 amazing bulk to tank outrages or make it a steel type. Doing either of these things would completely change the metagame and not for the better. Imagine there being a pokemon who has such good bulk, he can take a choice banded STAB'd outrage from a Dragonite, and only lose a quarter health. This pokemon would have to be so ridiculously bulky, because it would have to take these STAB'd dragon attacks BETTER even better than a steel type. Instead, I feel we should try and stay away from defensively stopping the dragon type, and going after it in almost a STALLING way.

I feel we can accomplish through something similar too Walrein but with a bit more bulk. Walrein with access to hail body, leftovers and protect, is a menace to face in hail because of great bulk and steady recovery. With CAP5, we can approach dragons in a similar manner. This CAP would obviously need some help in the ability and movepool sections of this project but can work. Now i am NOT saying we should make this pokeon ice type and I am not saying we should make a pokemon that functions well in hail, these are merely just options.

Electric would also be a very good option. With Salamence and Dragonite both carrying Flying as their secondary type, electric hits them for super-effective damage. Also, most electric types gain access to thunder wave which can effectively cripple most dragons and helps with the idea of a slower, more stallish for a colloquial term, playstyle for this CAP. Electric also helps immensely with the the crippling of Water types for obvious reasons. Giving CAP an electric typing has a large consequence in that rain teams can abuse it, which is exactly what we would like to stop. We could try and stop this from giving CAP5 no water moves or perhaps an ability that lends itself to a different type of weather.

[jas61292]

While some of the posts, especially the ones on this second page have been doing a good job of this, I just want to reemphasize that this thread is about focusing the concept, not deciding specific elements. Additionally, remember that we want to increase the usage of types themselves, and that, say, increasing Fire usage by making an awesome fire mon that gets a lot of use does nothing to address the concept.

With that said, I do like the directions some of the more recent posts are taking. reachzero's post, for example does a very good job of not only analyzing the types we want to deal with, but also providing an idea for a direction to take. While I don't think it is the only approach, a Pokemon that boosts the relevance of sun would definitely do the trick. However, in response to Deck's post, I don't think making a Drought mon is a good way of going about this. While we would want to increase suns usage, our goal should be to increase the usage of sun mons, not just replace some of them with better versions. On the same note, I don't think we would want to make a great Chlorophyll mon either. Venusaur, another Pokemon of lesser used typing, covers this already. If we are to take this route, I would like to see what other niches sun teams are lacking that we could provide.

Moving along with this thread, I'll like to see what else we can come up with along these lines. The first 4 questions from my first post have been answered quite satisfactorily, so I don't think we need more posts stating why Dragon is good or Ice is bad. However, I feel like only a few people have tried to address the other questions, so going foreward I'd like to see more responses to these, as well as to proposed avenues for achieving our goals, such as the above Sun method.

For reference, here are the three questions to which I am refering:

• What existing Pokémon individually affect the usage of entire types?
• What ways are there to change a typing’s usage outside of simply countering/being countered by them?
• What elements of a Pokémon are most important when dictating how it interacts with other types?

I'd especially like to focus on the first and third questions. While we do need to answer the second to have a good direction for the project, answering the other two will help tell us which methods are actually viable.