CAP 5 - Part 3 - Threats Discussion

[Yllnath]

Originally Posted by Fat DrRobotnik

If we're not supposed to be taking on large groups of Pokemon (types), then why is the goal to reduce usage of large groups of Pokemon (types)?

I'm done with trying to explain why beating everything =/= lowering usage. I did that in the concept submission thread, I did it again it the typing discussion thread.
Read this.

I find myself fully agreeing with Pwnemon (and Jas) once more. We should not break this CAP and Sun to counter everything with just CAP5. Beating just the things that are troublesome for our sun team members, like the Lati's and water mons, of which most prominently Toad already gives a lot of breathing room to our sun team, that previously wasn't there. But we don't need to kill everything on a rain team to make sun teams work. We still have 5 other sun team members that you can and should rely on. Favouring reliance on sun team members is what will define how CAP5 really does work best on sun team and not other teams.

The pokemon Jas lists as checks, and those he list that CAP5 threatens seem perfectly fine to me.

[ShyGuy1221]

I have to say that I agree with Jas on this, we want to be targeting water pokemon, primarily toad, as well as the Latis and not much else. Because of our stabs, we should inherently have an advantage against rock, ground, ghost, and psychic types, but I don't think we need to actively try to check them.

As what should threaten CaP5, I feel the list Deck has is pretty good list, but I would add the pokemon Jas has mentioned to that list. I would also personally suggest flying types that do not use hurricane as their stab move, namely Crobat and Staraptor. Not being able to really harm these two and being at risk of KO by stab brave bird could help flying types rise a bit in usage. Not a big deal, but something I though was interesting.

I want to make a separate note for Keldeo and Terrakion. I think someone has mentioned this earlier, but I feel CaP5 should be on neutral ground with them so to speak. CaP5 doesn't want to switch into any of their fighting moves, and Keld and Terra don't want to switch into any stab grass attacks.

[Unoriginal Name]

This is probably the part that I'll struggle the most in with contribution, but nonetheless, I'll try and help out here.
Now, remember. We want to reduce the usage of commonly-used types, not add more usage of them to the mix. A Scizor check (like a Fire-type move) may play nicely with this, as instead we give lesser types more usage.
This rules Water, Fighting, Steel and Dragon out immediately, due to them being common types. I don't see why you'd check a Grassmon with a Water, but regardless. So, what check do I have in mind?

Mamoswine. Why? Mamoswine isn't a one-trick mammoth by any standards: he has excellent offensive typing that is defensively compatible and gives powerful STABs like EQ and Blizzard. However, Ice's terrible defensive value and his sort-of poor move pool (poor for OU, at least) often get him overlooked. Sure, he's my favourite tanky Stealth Rocker, but why use him over, say, Forretress, Ferrothorn or even Tentacruel? Who would use Hail in OU? I think that Mamo would be a great check in essence: Ice punches holes in Grass, EQ is powerful (though resisted), and he's just good enough to be viable without this CAP to check, and just mediocre enough to make him not used enough in the current metagame. Also, I specifically tried to do one thing with him: make it not a 4x SE STAB-Resisting super machine (Scizor in a nutshell). It also makes it so, if you choose that a Scizor check would be executed well with a decent Fire-type move, it can absorb it due to a lack of a 4x weakness. As an added bonus, it may make Hail SLIGHTLY halfway almost viable.

Just my two cents worth.

[ginganinja]

Originally Posted by Fat nyttyn

I think we're going to have to be really careful of Kyurem-B in the dragon department as he can completely and totally wreck a sun team's day. We're going to want to kill this motherfucker, and he should be put on the "want to beat" list. Anyone who's ever fought a Kyurem-B with a sun team can agree with me here.

this might seem light on reasoning as to why we want Kyurem-Bastard dead, but his bulk, resistances, and the fact that sun teams are damned helpless against him when he's behind a sub all scream problem. Especailly since he can either fuck you with dragon claw and mostrous power or just nail your venusaur and other chlorophyl abusers with ice beam. Very nasty mon, crushes sun teams, needs to be handled since sun teams don't really have any nice way of handling him.

I'd say also do something about Garchomp but honestly w/e fuck Garchomp we won't be able to nail him without lowering out checks and counters too much. As they say you can't win em all.

This is the perfect example of a post I worry about. Heatran, Dragons, and Rain are the common checks towards sun teams, as well as I guess Landorus-I recently. What nyttyn is attempting to propose is giving CAP 5 the tools to take down all dragons (or at least the large majority of them), as well as checking / beating rain at the same time, removing pretty much everything that counters / checks the sun playstyle as a whole. I don't mind singling out 1 or 2 dragons (like Lati@s) but hitting all them is really risking breaking sun entirely.

Who the fuck cares if sun still has problems with Kyurem-B. Its only a good thing, as it means their are still tools available to check the damn thing.

Not to mention hitting Kyurem-B means opening up our moveset to types such as Dragon / Rock / Fighting which in turn have other consequences towards other pokemon.

[erisia]

Yeah, I'm agreed in that Kyurem-B should probably be able to beat CAP5, because we'd have to give CAP5 some seriously high-powered coverage moves to break through its defenses, and this would invariably mess with a lot of other Pokemon we want to keep as checks and counters. That, and if we encourage people to use Kyurem-B and thus boost the usage of Ice-types in general, I'd say that's a success for the concept, at the very least diversifying the Dragons used in OU a bit more.

I also agree with Deck Knight's list of checks/counters. Boosting Fire-types in general should be the obvious strategy here, and boosting Hydreigon again diversifies the Dragons used in OU while promoting the seriously rare Dark type even more. I think having Toxicroak be able to respond to CAP5 is important as it gives Rain teams another tool against it to prevent Sun from dominating it, and it promotes Poison-typing, so I disagree with him on that front alone.

Looking at the viability rankings thread, I think promoting Heracross would be super cool. It resists CAP5's STAB attacks, doesn't fear a potential Will o Wisp, and can survive Hidden Power Fire in Sunlight if CAP5 has a Life Orb and an uninvested base 105 Special Attack, even after SR. Then it can just come in and wreak havoc with its STAB attacks. So to summarise, here's a list of Pokemon that I'd like to be good responses to CAP5.

Venusaur
Heatran
Ninetales
Rotom-H
Hydreigon
Infernape
Volcarona
Toxicroak
Heracross
Kyurem-B

[sanches br]

I've been lurking the production of this cap and i think that we are missing some points...maybe making a sure trapper for the latis isn't a good idea. the latis are mainly used to check 4 out of 5 s-ranked pokes, especially keldeo and landorus-i which both can be very dangerous to sun. I'm feeling that this cap would be a better version of ttar and with better synergy with keldeo, so they could make a cap5+keldeo+landy-i or even add a toed to the core to make keldeo stronger. Also making trappers in general can be incredibly unpredictable, as they can turn an powerhouse into an op mon (just naming a few broken cores with trappers: gene+dug/ttar+keldeo/torn-t+dug/chandelure+exca in dw). maybe focusing on making this cap more a pivot (like rotom-w or genesect) than a trapper (like a sun ttar).

[CatTurtle]

I agree heavily with Jas's post saying that we should stick to types we have an advantage over by virtue of our typing when discussing what we want to counter with CAP5.

This mean electric, ground, water, and psychic.
So a what we should counter list would look a lot like this.

Hippowdon ?
Landorus-T
Landorus
Gliscor
Alakazam
Reuniclus
Espeon
Celebi
Latios
Latias
Politoed
Keldeo ?
Jellicent
Gastrodon
Tentacruel
Rotom-W
Thundurus-T


I really like the current threat list + Scizor, Breloom and Toxicroak.

[CiteAndPrune]

Generally I agree with the list Deck Knight posted, and the points jas makes about all the broad types of Pokemon CAP5 might threaten based on typing alone. Sticking to what our STAB helps us deal with is the way to go, and not bite off more than we can chew.

Stopping Lati@s and Water types bar Keldeo, plus certain Electric and Ground types sounds right. I'm all for making the case where Keldeo and Terrakion don't want to switch into CAP5 or vice versa.

Scizor is an excellent counter, we're already x4 Bug weak so there's that, and the rest of a sun team can handle Scizor. He might steal momentum, sure, but smart switching goes a long way (and then there's always overpredicting).


What's most important in my eyes though, is how CAP5 fullfills that trapper role (since Grass/Dark was chosen with Pursuit in mind) to handle rival weather starters in Politoed, Hippowdon and Tyranitar.

-We need to have the means to threaten out Politoed to make it want to switch and get hit by boosted Pursuit, to go towards winning the weather war. That said, we need to keep in mind that if CAP5 isn't faster than Politoed, then Poli can just Ice Beam us for SE damage before we can land our Grass move.
- For Hippowdon, we resist Earthquake and hit it SE with Grass STAB, but it can grab Ice Fang to hit us and is very physically bulky, so this match up could go either way. However, I think CAP5 being a decent threat that can handle Hippowdon is important since the rest of a Sun team usually can't do it too well, since Fire types are weak (Heatran x4, though Volcarona is neutral), Venusaur is Ground neutral and Dugtrio is too frail.
- Tyranitar is going to hate Grass STAB and if our Pursuiter is more Attack oriented it'll be hitting Tyranitar on the weaker defensive side. This match up I could see going either way though. We'll probably cover Tyranitar while aiming for the other two though (between bulk to handle Hippowdon and a Speed tier to beat Politoed to the punch before CAP5 eats an Ice Beam).

[DougJustDoug**]

I'm with Jas and Pwnemon on this one. Read their posts in this thread, if you haven't already.

I don't know if Dark/Grass is the best typing for this concept, but it is the typing we chose and we need to work with it, not against it. Too often CAP gets into the habit of trying to solve every problem posted in every thread. That just isn't feasible. This is Pokemon. No single pokemon beats everything, and no single pokemon makes a team function perfectly. And even if we did want to make a pokemon to beat everything, we certainly wouldn't use Dark/Grass typing as the basis for that. As others have stated, we are weak to a slew of common attacking types and we are 4x weak to the most common switching move in the game. This is not the typing for the next world-beater pokemon. But it IS a typing that can do a few things very well, and more importantly, those few things it can do well can fill a vital role in making Sun teams better.

Note that I didn't say we can make Sun teams awesome. I didn't say we can make sun teams beat Rain or Sand hands down. We can make Sun teams BETTER than they are currently. And if we do that, we should be able to fulfill the chosen Concept for this CAP, as we hypothesized in the Concept Assessment.

The beauty of it is that we can do that if we just work with the obvious stuff that our typing is screaming for anyway. Many posters in this thread are trying to get too clever with our threats, checks, and counters. I realize it's hard to dial back expectations and simply identify obvious stuff. But that's exactly what we need to do.

I am operating on the assumption that we have general consensus on a few things:

We want CAP 5 to be an effective "answer" for the Latis.
I'm not using the word "counter" here, because every dweeb in Smogon loves to get into pedantic definitions about what is a "counter" or not. And I'm not going to get into that bullshit. It's a waste of time. Suffice to say, we want CAP5 to be able to make Sun team owners have almost no fear of Lati@s ever again. Do not bring up stupid gimmick moves Lati@s can run, like HP-Bug or whatever, as an argument that we can never "always beat" Lati@s. I'm talking about common cases here, and yes, I think we have every right to expect we can kick the shit out of Lati@s and not look back.

We have established that Lati@s is a big problem for Sun teams, and there is no current answer for it. Our typing is very well-suited to the task of handling the Latis, so let's set it in stone right here and now: CAP5 will be a one-stop shop for handling Lati@s in all its common forms. We are all aware of the challenges that presents us, and there are a limited number of ways to deal with Lati@s in a definitive manner. But we do have options. Some options have great synergy with our typing, and some don't. But this isn't the thread to deal with the specifics of how we'll do it. We're simply committing to do it over the course of the project.

We want CAP 5 to be better on Sun teams than it is on Rain teams.
I have a feeling this assumption will have to be addressed when we pick abilities, by choosing abilities that work well in Sun or work poorly in Rain. Regardless, this isn't an Ability discussion thread, so I'm not going to get into details about abilities. I don't think there is much we can do in terms of defining threats to ensure CAP5 is better in Sun than Rain. Anything we threaten or get threatened by is equally likely to be faced by all teams, so we can't really impact this assumption at this stage of the project. But I suspect we'll be talking about this assumption at great length in the near future.

We want to help Sun teams deal with lack of team slots.
This is important, and I think it will dictate how we build this pokemon more than many people realize. The extension to that is it will deeply affect what we need to threaten to fill the required role.

Someone posted the following template for a relatively standard Sun team:

• Ninetales
• Venusaur
• SR Handler (Bouncer or Spinner)
• Dugtrio
• Firemon
• Filler

Perhaps you disagree that is a good template, but I'm operating on the assumption that it's fairly representative of a normal Sun team. Usage stats also back up this template, so I'm going with it. If that is the sun team template, then we really don't have many viable options to replace and improve one of the five "locked up" teamslots. In fact, I think we only have one teamslot we can replace and improve with CAP5.

Obviously we're not getting rid of Ninetales.

Obviously we're not going to be a Fire-abuser (even if we give it Fire coverage moves), because of our typing.

I guess we could technically try to replace Venusaur, but I'm hard pressed to see us improve upon what Venusaur does for a Sun team. At best, we make a Venusaur clone; more likely we'd make a cheap imitation. Venusaur is pretty much irreplaceable.

With Dark typing, we can be a very effective Pursuit trapper, but we won't be able to trapkill the big threats that Dugtrio is most valuable for currently. Ttar and Heatran come to mind, but there are many others. We can threaten those pokemon if we want, but we won't be able to trap and kill them like Duggy can. The capability to completely destroy threats like Tar and Tran is incredibly useful. So in all likelihood, we shouldn't kid ourselves into thinking CAP5 will be able to replace Duggy on Sun teams. I still think we should make CAP5 a Pursuit-trapper for other reasons, but we won't be freeing up a teamslot by doing so.

So that leaves us with one vital role we are capable of filling and improving: Stealth Rock Handler. Sun teams despise Rocks, and need an answer for it. Our typing is very good for this role, maybe too good. Technically, we could handle rocks with an Ability, and ultimately we'll settle that in a later step. But for purposes of driving to conclusions about Threats and Counters, I'm assuming if we have intentions to fill the Rock Handler teamslot we'd most likely end up doing so with a move, which means Rapid Spin.

Obviously, a Dark type spinner is amazing since it hits STAB SE on every common spin blocker in OU. Jellicent is pretty much screwed against CAP 5 anyway, by virtue of our perfect typing opposition to it (acknowledging non-STAB Ice Beam is an option for almost every Water type we face, but let's just get used to that, OK?). Gengar is in for a world of hurt against CAP5, despite its resistance to our Grass STAB. If Gengar is dumb enough to come in, I doubt we'll make CAP 5 frail enough to fear unstabbed HP-Fire, so the dastardly Ghost is hosed unless it's running an odd Sludge Bomb set. Even if we don't make CAP5 a spinner (and we may not), our typing pretty much assures that we'll dominate the OU Ghosts.

My big question along this line of thinking: If we end up filling the role of SR Handler, is there anything currently dealt with by existing Sun team SR Handlers that we MUST deal with to fill the role, that is NOT already indicated by Dark/Grass typing or already handled by other members of Sun teams? I'm keenly interested to hear answers to this, because I think it is far more relevant to this Threats discussion than some of the random scenarios presented by others.

The point of this long post is not to predetermine the outcome of our later steps. I am simply laying out some assumptions that most of us seem to agree on so far, and discussing the direction those assumptions point us in in terms of threats. If we continue to adhere to those assumptions through the project, I think we have a good chance to end up with a pokemon that does the following:

1. Completely eliminates Lati@s as a problem for Sun teams
2. Handles Stealth Rock hazards better than any current Sun team member
3. Improves the effectiveness of Ninetales and Fire-abusers on Sun teams

Read those again and think about how big a deal it would be. If over the course of this CAP we successfully do those three things, that's enough. Hell, some people may argue it is TOO MUCH. But all three of those are possible by just going with the natural flow of our typing. We just give it things that our typing likes and we beat the stuff our typing indicates that we should beat. We don't need to do anything weird to handle Steel pokemon that laugh at our STABs. Nor do we need to wall U-Turns or give CAP5 a bunch of fast, high-powered coverage moves.

If we stick to the obvious indications of our typing, we have a legit shot at making a pokemon that does the stuff listed above. I'm not saying we WILL do those three things, but I think there will be a strong bias for us to do so, if we continue to stick to the assumptions I mentioned earlier. And if we do those three things successfully, we can pat ourselves on the back and call it a day. Right now, we need to not over-complicate things and not try to do too much with this pokemon.

"Perfect is the enemy of good."

[MCBarrett]

Originally Posted by Fat DougJustDoug

My big question along this line of thinking: If we end up filling the role of SR Handler, is there anything currently dealt with by existing Sun team SR Handlers that we need to deal with that is NOT already indicated by Dark/Grass typing or already handled by other members of Sun teams? I'm keenly interested to hear answers to this, because I think it is far more relevant to this Threats discussion than some of the random scenarios presented by others. [/INDENT]

To answer this question we're first going to have to identify the current "Hazard Handlers" on sun teams. I would say that these are Xatu, Donphan, and Forretress. I'll focus on what these can take on defensively, since these are mainly defensive pokemon, and from there we can identify what is going to still threaten sun teams.

Xatu-

• Breloom
• Scizor
• Dugtrio

Donphan-

• Terrakion
• Dugtrio
• Scizor
• Lucario

Forretress-

• Terrakion
• Mamoswine
• Dugtrio
• Tyranitar (Physical attacking variants)
• Dragon attacks

So looking at this list we can see that the current Hazard Handlers on sun teams generally do well against physical attackers, especially those who use fighting, rock and ground type moves. Now if we look at our typing we are obviously going to have some trouble with fighting types but ground and rock type moves will still be pretty safe to switch into. Plus we can handle ground and rock types with our grass STAB. So to take specific pokes from this list I think Scizor, Breloom, Terrakion, Lucario, and Mamoswine all have the potential to be threatening to CAP5.

Now, we have to look at which of these threaten sun teams overall. Scizor, Lucario and Breloom definitely do not, although their priority can potentially be annoying they won't be major threats. Terrakion and Mamoswine however can threaten large portions of sun teams with their dual STABs. However, I think Terrakion can be dealt with much easier than Mamoswine. Terrakion (and all OU fighting types outside of Conkeldurr) is easily taken care of by Venusaur as long as the sun is up. Therefore, Mamoswine seems like the only poke previously checked by a common sun team hazard handler (Forretress), that will becoming significantly more threatening if CAP5 becomes the go to hazard handler for sun teams. However, Mamoswine is still weak to common grass and fire type moves on sun teams so it isn't going to have all that easy of a time switching in. Plus, Mamoswine is not specifically used on any type of weather and is made up of two uncommon typings. With that being said, I would say that we should leave Mamoswine as a potential threat for CAP5 despite it causing some trouble for the rest of a sun team.

[DetroitLolcat]

I think one thing we should not take into account is whether or not this Pokemon will break Sun. OU is currently a two-dog race with Sand and Rain as the premier weathers while Sun always takes a backseat. Sun has vastly inferior starters, something we cannot correct without giving CAP5 Drought, massive Stealth Rock problems, and weaknesses to Dragons. Speaking of Dragons, CAP5's typing suggests that it's not going to fare greatly against Dragons without some sweet coverage moves. Is building one great Sun Pokemon going to break the playstyle? Almost certainly not. Remember, in the end, CAP5 is only going to have four moveslots and it's highly doubtful all four of them are going to be attacking moves. In fact, it's highly probable that only two of them will be attacking moves if we decide to give CAP5 SubSeed, but regardless, CAP5 will probably run at most one coverage attacking move. Regardless of the type coverage we give CAP5, we will not run the risk of breaking Sun as a playstyle. Its starter still loses to every other weather summoner this side of Abomasnow. It's still Stealth Rock weak. Even with a great Sun abuser, Sun will not become this monstrous playstyle that Rain and Sand cannot contend with.

We've already stated through the typing polls that we want to handle Latios and Latias or else we wouldn't have made CAP5 a Dark type. Now, although Dragons pose a large problem to Sun, we can design CAP5 as a Pokemon that enables its teammates to defeat Dragons. The only Dragon not named Lati-something CAP5 should be able to threaten is Kyurem-B in my opinion, but the only way to do so without making CAP5 a bit too powerful is to give it Steel coverage. However, giving CAP5 the option to handle a few Dragons is beneficial to the concept.

Being threatened by common members of a Sun team is good, though unfortunately it seems being threatened by Heatran is an inevitability, as defeating Heatran will most likely require Ground coverage which would be used to defeat common Sun Pokemon. Fighting coverage, on the other hand, would probably not be strong enough to defeat Heatran without bloated Attack stats or Hi Jump Kick, which we really don't need, so I recommend that we bite the bullet against Heatran.

Against Rain teams, we should build this Pokemon to not be greatly threatened by most Rain staples, as Rain usually has Sun's number in an OU match. We're already toast against Tornadus and have problems with Keldeo, and we'll need pretty sweet Special Defense to handle the ubiquitous Ice coverage on Rain teams. We really don't want to lose to that many more Rain staples, which is why I recommend CAP5 threatening Ferrothron, Thundurus-T, Jolteon, Starmie, Gyarados, and Rotom-W. Toxicroak is more of a judgment call, as making us Toxicroak weak will potentially raise a Poison-type Pokemon out of obscurity but also promote use of a Water-type Pokemon. I'm wary of Rain being able to successfully reinvent itself if we design CAP5 too cautiously against Rain, so I'm more in favor of threatening Toxicroak rather than being threatened by it.

As far as lists go, here's a preliminary list of Pokemon that CAP5 should threaten/be threatened by:

CAP5 Should Threaten:

Blissey/Chansey
Espeon
Ferrothorn
Gyarados
Hippowdon
Jellicent
Jolteon
Keldeo
Kyurem-B
Latias
Latios
Politoed
Rotom-W
Thundurus-T
Toxicroak
Vaporeon
Tyranitar

CAP5 should be threatened by

Breloom
Conkeldurr
Dragonite
Heatran
Hydreigon
Infernape
Ninetales
Volcarona
Venusaur
Salamence

Now, those lists may seem long, but remember: CAP5's typing already dictates most of these weaknesses and strengths, so the only truly "controversial" Pokemon are the Dragons and Steels, which should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. One thing I would like to say philosophy-wise is that a less-is-more approach will not do our concept much good. There are some concepts that call for a more limited CAP, but this is not one of them. We're trying to engineer a Sun Pokemon that can work well against Rain teams in order to dethrone one of the most common types in Pokemon while lifting up an underappreciated type or two. This will not be done without giving CAP5 significant coverage moves, as Rain can and will adapt to whatever Sun throws at it. Rain is a very versatile playstyle. Sun is not. Sun relies on a weak weather starter and a predictable playstyle to win while Rain can manifest itself in countless ways, so remember we're fighting an uphill battle with this concept. We're not going to break Sun by creating one good Sun abuser in a metagame where Sun is a distant third in the weather wars, and by limiting this Pokemon too greatly we will not give Sun the armaments to contend with Rain and Sand on a consistent basis.

[Nyktos]

I don't see any reason why we need to go far beyond what our typing naturally makes us good against. Grass/Dark, with its STABs, beats Water, Ghost, and Psychic -- is that not enough? Water is rain, Psychic is Latia@s, and Ghost is spinblockers if we do choose to give CAP5 Rapid Spin. Targeting those three types, more or less exclusively, does plenty for sun in my opinion. We don't need to beat Steels: sun teams beat most of them quite fine, and even Heatran is beaten quite effectively by U-turn / Volt Switch to Dugtrio, if we choose to give it one of those moves. We don't need to every Dragon, either: if sun teams are still weak to Dragons, so what? Our goal is to make sun teams better, not make them indestructible. Beating two of the most threatening Dragons does plenty for sun's dragon problems, on its own.

I think limiting the "threatens" list to Waters, Psychics, and Ghosts is quite fine, and trying to do more smells of trying to do too much. Moreso than almost any other CAP, this one needs to be looked at as a team player and not as one Pokémon vs the world.

[reachzero]

When we talk about what we want CAP5 to threaten, I take this to mean what we expect CAP5 to be good at switching into, and be good at forcing out/killing. This doesn't mean we will always be able to handle every set of these Pokemon, or come into every move these Pokemon could possibly use. The reason for this is very simple, yet very important: we are talking about Pokemon that threaten one another, not which counter one another. Heatran threatens Volcarona. Volcarona can choose to be able to beat Heatran outright. Not all Volcarona sets can do anything to Heatran. Simply on the basis of type, we would expect CAP5 to be able to threaten: (bolded Pokemon are Pokemon I consider very good switch-ins to have competitively)

...

---

| 2 | Politoed
| 7 | Rotom-Wash
| 10 | Latios
| 12 | Starmie
| 16 | Tentacruel
| 27 | Espeon
| 28 | Latias
| 32 | Jellicent
| 35 | Celebi
| 36 | Donphan
| 44 | Vaporeon
| 48 | Gastrodon
| 50 | Hippowdon
| 52 | Reuniclus

Against each of these Pokemon, we either already have or must have a considerably safe switch-in. I have not included Pokemon that are very risky to switch into because of movepool--for instance, it is must too risky to switch into Landorus-T when it is possible to end up taking a U-turn. There are a few more that might become good opportunities to switch in, but much will depend on other stages. The ideal example is Tyranitar; CAP5 should come in without too much difficulty on a Crunch and threaten Tyranitar out with STAB Grass attacks, but Tyranitar very well have Superpower, and without a ton of Defense, CAP5 will not win that matchup if it is slower. Personally, I think it would be a very good idea to add Tyranitar to the list of Pokemon we would like to threaten, it would go a long way toward not making CAP5 useless against Sand--note the Sand Pokemon on the list above.

On the other hand, we have a pretty obvious list of the Pokemon that will be major hazards for CAP5 on the basis of type. These are:

...

---

| 1 | Scizor
| 3 | Ferrothorn
| 6 | Heatran
| 9 | Breloom
| 17 | Forretress
| 24 | Skarmory
| 30 | Infernape
| 38 | Magnezone
| 41 | Lucario
| 45 | Toxicroak
| 47 | Hydreigon

These basically belong in three distinct groups.

The first group is Scizor, by itself. It's the #1 Pokemon, it's a great opportunity to switch in Ninetales or Heatran or Volcarona. I definitely don't want to let Scizor in absolutely for free, but allowing Scizor to threaten CAP5 is a good idea. Sun does relatively well against Scizor, so it's not a hugely problematic matchup issue.

The second major group is the Ferrothorn/Forretress/Skarmory group. They belong together because while they may or may not present a significant offensive threat to CAP5, they absolutely threaten to set up all sorts of hazards, a major issue for a Sun team. All three are Steel types, the sort we are hoping to reduce. All three allow Ninetales, Heatran, and Volcarona in for free, but at the price of conceding at least one layer of hazards. This is something of a toss-up for me, since this match-up seems relatively fair either way; odds are, the decisions made in addressing Scizor, Heatran, Breloom, etc. will affect this matchup considerably.

The third major group is Breloom/Heatran/Lucario/Hydreigon. These constitute Pokemon that will do massive damage to a Sun team if allowed in completely for free. It is absolutely imperative that these Pokemon not be allowed to switch into CAP5 for free. Heatran is particularly important in this regard.

As a special note, the issue of Rapid Spin, which isn't really a discussion for this stage of the process, would change the whole issue of threats and switch-ins dramatically, since virtually every Spinner not weak to Pursuit or Dugtrio will allow just about any counter in gladly if it can get off a successful Spin.

[Rhys DeAnno]

Something I think that needs to be discussed a bit is how exactly we want to threaten Latios. Scarf, Specs, and LO are all fairly common, and all of them frequently chuck out Draco Meteors with wild abandon upon switching in. It'll be a huge commitment to do anything other than revenge it, and we might want to consider if it being on the threat list will majorly warp the pokemon beyond what it's typing can do.

Edit: I realize its a little late in the threats assessment to get at this, but I've just been looking at some numbers and Latios is a depressingly difficult game to get into.

[jas61292]

I don't have much more to add at this point, but I just want to put a 24 hour warning on this thread. If you have any more arguments to present get them in soon.

[Inferblaze]

This CAPmon will have interesting interaction with other weather teams.

Rain:

- Hit hard to Starmie is pretty good, like Venusaur without that surprising psychic o psyshock weakness (only need to watch from ice-beam), killing Jellicent is good too

- When i see a Dragonite in rain normally you can wait Thunder/Hurricane, that Stab Hurricane can be deadly, thats why this CAPmon work good with sun, reducing the hit of Hurricane (I can´t think in another Flying Stab that can be this deadly)

- Toxicroak is important because he can be a counter, with Stab Drain-punch or Close-combat, i never see a Toxi with a Poison Stab (Venusar can be a switch check if Toxi don´t have Ice-punch)

- Tentacruel i have seen this guy in rain, sand and non-weather teams, it never used Sludge-bomb can be the only danger, maybe with a life orb ice-beam or your own giga-drain XD

This is interesting because this maybe can make the rain teams to use one move slot in a Poison Stab with Toxi or Tenta

Sand:

- Either Tyranitar and Hyppowdon can be very scare of this CAPmon... only a close-combat Tyranitar?... this is gold, killing the sand starters and helping Ninetales vs this guys

- With Terrakion no matter if we can kill it with a Grass Stab if he use close-combat, and normally it will when you change for counter he can use Sub making it harder to kill

- Skarmory can use Brave-bird or set hazard one of the most predicable pkmn but effective. I see that some people want a spinner CAPmon, so battle vs Skarmy can be very currents

Others

- With the rare Hail, finally a pokemon that Abomasnow can hit or Blizzard attackers

- Alakazam with his speed and Focus-blast can be dangerous no matter the Dark type, or other pkmn with no weakness to Grass/Dark Hydreigon with Focus-blast and U-turn or Lucario with Aura-sphere, even Infernape... And remember that Latios can Draco-meteor to death

- This CAPmon will always be in danger because almost all teams have powerful Ice and Fighting attacks and is split between Atk and SpA

- But the most important of all things... this CAPmon can help Ninetales to survive with checks, counters and maybe spin... this is very important when you want to win vs a Politoed in weather

We need to know more stuffs to make a better idea of the metagame... like stats and moves, it can be defensive or offensive (even if he is hit with Atk or SpA so we can imagine vs Blissie), he can have Spore or Extreme-speed, the abilitys maybe Rattled or Chlorophyll (imagine with Drought XD). The real analysis is just starting

Sorry for long post and bad english :P

[nyttyn]

On handling the latis

Latios moves
Draco Meteor 81.581% | Surf 79.385% | Psyshock 74.860% | Hidden Power Fire 43.638% | Trick 27.138% | Dragon Pulse 23.482% | Thunderbolt 11.339% | Roost 11.015% | Thunder 9.735% | Ice Beam 5.736% | Psychic 5.588% | Recover 5.331% | Calm Mind 4.613% | Other 16.559%
Moves which threaten CAP 5: Hidden Power Fire, Ice Beam, Draco Meteor, Dragon Pulse
Latios items
Choice Scarf 33.353% | Choice Specs 26.607% | Life Orb 18.415% | Expert Belt 12.174% | Leftovers 4.693% | Other 4.758%

Latias moves
Dragon Pulse 63.662% | Calm Mind 54.187% | Recover 49.250% | Psyshock 41.497% | Draco Meteor 33.272% | Roost 31.174% | Surf 28.970% | Hidden Power Fire 28.498% | Substitute 20.294% | Healing Wish 5.381% | Thunder Wave 5.330% | Psychic 4.662% | Reflect 4.609% | Roar 4.198% | Thunderbolt 4.085% | Light Screen 3.396% | Other 17.537%
Moves which threaten CAP5: Hidden Power Fire, Draco Meteor, Dragon Puse
Latias items
Leftovers 61.308% | Life Orb 24.346% | Choice Scarf 4.537% | Light Clay 3.387% | Choice Specs 2.706% | Other 3.716%


Based on this we can see that the biggest possible threat to CAP5 checking the Lati@s is going to be Choice Specs Draco Meteor from Latios, although Choice Specs HP Fire in the sun is also going to be a huge issue. As a result, if we want to effectively make CAP5 an answer for Latios and Latias, CAP 5 is also going to be an answer to, by default, keeping this and Typing in mind:

Politoed
Rotom-W
Gastrodon
Espeon
Jolteon
Jellicent
unboosted Thundurus-T
Vaporeon
Magnezone?
Celebi
Alakazam
Gengar (Without Will-o-Wisp)
Venusaur (Sleep Clause activated)
Reuniclus

Many of these pokemon also have access to Focus Blast, but it is similar in power to Specs Meteor all things considered, so that's not of terrible concern. Also it's called Focus Miss for a reason.

[CatTurtle]

Originally Posted by Fat nyttyn

On handling the latis

Latios moves
Draco Meteor 81.581% | Surf 79.385% | Psyshock 74.860% | Hidden Power Fire 43.638% | Trick 27.138% | Dragon Pulse 23.482% | Thunderbolt 11.339% | Roost 11.015% | Thunder 9.735% | Ice Beam 5.736% | Psychic 5.588% | Recover 5.331% | Calm Mind 4.613% | Other 16.559%
Moves which threaten CAP 5: Hidden Power Fire, Ice Beam, Draco Meteor, Dragon Pulse
Latios items
Choice Scarf 33.353% | Choice Specs 26.607% | Life Orb 18.415% | Expert Belt 12.174% | Leftovers 4.693% | Other 4.758%

Latias moves
Dragon Pulse 63.662% | Calm Mind 54.187% | Recover 49.250% | Psyshock 41.497% | Draco Meteor 33.272% | Roost 31.174% | Surf 28.970% | Hidden Power Fire 28.498% | Substitute 20.294% | Healing Wish 5.381% | Thunder Wave 5.330% | Psychic 4.662% | Reflect 4.609% | Roar 4.198% | Thunderbolt 4.085% | Light Screen 3.396% | Other 17.537%
Moves which threaten CAP5: Hidden Power Fire, Draco Meteor, Dragon Puse
Latias items
Leftovers 61.308% | Life Orb 24.346% | Choice Scarf 4.537% | Light Clay 3.387% | Choice Specs 2.706% | Other 3.716%


Based on this we can see that the biggest possible threat to CAP5 checking the Lati@s is going to be Choice Specs Draco Meteor from Latios, although Choice Specs HP Fire in the sun is also going to be a huge issue. As a result, if we want to effectively make CAP5 an answer for Latios and Latias, CAP 5 is also going to be an answer to, by default, keeping this and Typing in mind:

Politoed
Rotom-W
Gastrodon
Espeon
Jolteon
Jellicent
unboosted Thundurus-T
Vaporeon
Magnezone?
Celebi
Alakazam
Gengar (Without Will-o-Wisp)
Venusaur (Sleep Clause activated)
Reuniclus

Many of these pokemon also have access to Focus Blast, but it is similar in power to Specs Meteor all things considered, so that's not of terrible concern. Also it's called Focus Miss for a reason.

That actually it a great list of things for us to threaten. Arguably the best one we have right now, - Venusaur.



On topic of what we should allow to counter us, I think that it is really important we don't do anything drastic to deal with steel types except maybe Heatran. The issue with Heatran is that while we would want CAP5 to lure in steel types, so that Ninetales/fire abusers have as many easy switch as possible, Heatran doesn't facilitate easy switches to your Sun abusers, unless you are using Infernape.

However, I fear that if we do anything to counter Heatran we seriously run the risk of over extending the project. As such we should likely leave Heatran alone. Other than that, I think we should just allow the natural counters that would appear do to typing come up. Things that carry bug, fire, or fighting type moves mainly. We should make sure that we can't die to Ice type coverage only STAB Ice type moves.

[nyttyn]

So I've seen Toxicroak being threatened getting a lot of love - why? CAP 5, at best, will be getting ground coverage to nail it with, while Toxicroak is always going to threaten CAP 5 with SE STAB Drain Punch, which recovers health to add insult to injury. And given CAP5's likely absolutely atrocious physical bulk (with the stats it needs to answer the Latis, it's going to have shit physical bulk), it's highly likely most toxicroak sets will actually threaten the OHKO. Both of our STABs are resisted as well.

To reiterate: there's no way in hell Toxicroak is anything other then a counter to CAP 5 - It threatens with SE stab that heals it, is only threatened by a coverage type CAP 5 would be getting for covering only it and Heatran (and it would very much like to run something else if it's only threatening two mons with a move that can give dangerous mons free switch ins.), and resists both of our STABs. CAP 5 beating Toxicroak will happen when it is a cold day in hell.

And preemptively since I know someone might think this: no we're not giving it psycho cut why the hell would it use non-stab'd psychic moves.

Edit: oh yeah and Gyarados wrecks our shit with Bounce I guess.

[erisia]

Originally Posted by Fat nyttyn

To reiterate: there's no way in hell Toxicroak is anything other then a counter to CAP 5 - It threatens with SE stab that heals it, is only threatened by a coverage type CAP 5 would be getting for covering only it and Heatran (and it would very much like to run something else if it's only threatening two mons with a move that can give dangerous mons free switch ins.), and resists both of our STABs. CAP 5 beating Toxicroak will happen when it is a cold day in hell.

Thank you!

Okay, as the discussion's coming to a close, I'd just like to sum up what I'd like to see CAP threaten / be threatened by, based on the arguments in the thread.

• CAP5 needs to threaten Pokemon it intrinsically has a typing advantage against to be effective. Eg Water, Psychic, and Ghost types. The proliferation of Sun teams will make life more difficult for Steel types, so we don't have to address them directly.
• CAP5 should not be able to get past non-Steel type checks and counters without difficulty. This includes things like Toxicroak, Infernape, physically defensive Volcarona, and Rotom-H.
• CAP5's teammates should be able to deal with Steel-type checks and counters more easily, such as Ninetales, other Volcarona, Infernape etc, so CAP5 doesn't need to deal with them directly. especially as the coverage necessary to beat them would eliminate the non-Steel type checks and counters we want to encourage.

Concerning Heatran, I don't think it's a huge problem. We can hit it on the switch with a STAB attack (or even Rapid Spin!) to break Air Balloons, and then we can just use Dugtrio to trap it later. If necessary, CAP can run Hidden Power Ground to beat it, as given the correct SpA stat it can 2HKO SpD sets after Rocks while not threatening to OHKO any other Fire or Poison types in the tier, thus preserving the other non-Steel type checks and counters.

And on the whole Dragon scenario, trying to beat Kyurem-B with this thing is honestly asking for too much. If we're trying to get rid of Dragons, then Lati@s should obviously be our first targets, but Sun teams could also really use something that can deal with Dragonite and Salamence, as they can set up sweeps against Sun teams super easily if Venusaur is gone, or if Sleep Clause is activated and it doesn't pack HP Ice. This is especially true as CAP5 is aiming to replace Forretress' anti-hazard spot on Sun teams. I'm not saying we should be able to wall them, but I really think we need to be able to threaten them and stop a steamroll via offensive momentum if necessary.

[Pokemonmaster217]

I'd like to discuss issues CAP5 might have, mostly it has to do with steel types. If we want to encourage the use of sun teams for this project, then CAP5 should be able to take on water- and steel-types. With grass-type STAB, most water types will be scared out.

Scizor and Heatran will always be a problem for CAP5 to face, as Scizor is seen more often in rain then in sun and Heatran has been a force to be reckoned with against sun teams.

Now,, the biggest issue is finding a chance for CAP5 to switch in. CAP5 will probably easily switch into ghost- and psychic-types, provided they don't use Focus Blast on the switch-in. Going back to Scizor and Heatran, they both resist grass- and dark-type moves and then can hit it back hard.

In the end, threats we want to counter CAP5 are all fire-types except Heatran, and who we want it to counter is all water-, steel-, and dragon-types.

[Darth Missingno.]

Steel-types aren't a problem for sun, dude. We've already got Fire-types to deal with those, so don't worry about CAP5 not being able to take on Steels.

[ganj4lF]

While I mostly agree with the detailed analysis DJD posted, I am slightly concerned about giving CAP5 the role of hazard controller. This may involve a little too much poll-jumping for this thread's purpose, but I think this point is good enough to be done anyway. If we give it Rapid Spin, we basically produce the ultimate anti-hazard machine, able to remove them and get rid on its own of all those Ghost switch-ins with ease (and maybe even Pursuit them to oblivion if they try to play mindgames with you); this is obviously undesirable since other teams are likely to take advantage of it and use that advantage against Sun (non-Lati Dragons would thank infinitely for that, for example). If we instead don't give it Rapid Spin, we are basically forced into Magic Bounce since the main source of hazards are indeed Steel types (Ferro, Forretress, Skarmory, Zong, etc) and we're arguing mostly against being able to threaten them too much; being forced into something is something we want to avoid at all costs in CAP, if I got the project's spirit and purpose right, so that's an undesirable path too. Since both alternatives lead to not-so-good outcomes, I think we should focus on dealing with Latis and threatening Water types as our main goals; trying to also handle hazards looks potentially troublesome to me, and since you included a "filler" role in your basic Sun team scheme, a Sun player should have no problem to accomodate CAP5 in his team if it's really a great asset for a Sun team.

[erisia]

Originally Posted by Fat ganj4lF

... and since you included a "filler" role in your basic Sun team scheme, a Sun player should have no problem to accommodate CAP5 in his team if it's really a great asset for a Sun team.

But it was decided that we want CAP5 to take an existing teamslot and let Sun run something else to catch other threats in the filler slot. Imo having hazard control is the best way of taking an existing niche on Sun teams and promoting Fire / Bug and even Ice types in general. I don't really have any reason to think this thing would be broken solely because of Rapid Spin + Dark STAB; if CAP5 gets a spin off, lots of things could switch into it and set up, like salamence / dragonite / lucario / loads of things due to its lacklustre STAB coverage and likely poor coverage moves. Rapid Spin inherently sacrifices momentum; there's a difference between having ultimate hazard control and letting your opponent sweep you because you were too busy spinning. Magic Bounce is far more dangerous than Rapid Spin because it doesn't sacrifice any momentum at all, unless your hazard carrier happens to u-turn as it switches out.

[ganj4lF]

Yeah, your points make sense, still I'm not really comfortable with that route. I'm not sure the fact our STABs are lackluster will grant something the ability to set up on us freely (you are ignoring eventual status or coverage moves, and even if we don't give it any, Hidden Power is always there, and specifically doing stats to avoid its usage seems ridiculous to me...), and even in that case, it doesn't seem to me a big deal. When my Forretress wants to spin, I'm much more annoyed if the opponent switches into, say, Jellicent than if the opponent goes to Lucario; I'll probably carry an answer to Lucario anyway, while an average Sun team (or any team not sporting TTar, to be honest) is likely to not have a reliable way to trap the spinblocker or otherwise force the opponent to let you Spin. Giving a single pokemon both the ability to kill / trap the spinblockers if they switch in AND Spin itself AND be able to do other awesome things (deal with Lati, threaten Waters, whatever) looks just too good to me; so good that even other teams (not Sun related) will take advantage of it if we don't give it an ability or something that really make it suck outside Sun. This is why I'm not really comfortable with this concept / idea / whatever it's called.