CAP 5 - Part 1 - Concept Assessment

[Theorymon]

I'll elaborate more on the anti hazards approach and the "anti dragon sun mon" approach later, but for now I want to focus on my take on the "check the types" mold.

While directly dealing with the types that dominate OU like Water and Dragon is the most obvious approach, I feel like most of the posts are talking more about how something like Ferrothorn approaches this, aka walls the Pokemon, and then just forces them out. While I'd normally think that's fine, as ginganinja mentioned, its the kind of mon who you think about as "oh I gotta break through that later". I think a more interesting, and possibly more fruitful way of achieving this concept is to instead, make CAP 5 the kind of Pokemon that makes the target types a liability rather than just countering them. In an odd twist, I think a good (but extreme) example of what I'm talking about is found in Ubers.

Heatran is actually a pretty good Pokemon in Ubers. I mean, it gets Stealth Rock, Roar (very rare and awesome for a Steel-type in Ubers!), an amazing immunity to fire, and with Groudon around, Sun is a lot stronger in Ubers than it is in OU! But there is one serious issue that, while doesn't make Heatran nonviable, is a major reason its usage is pretty low: mother fucking Kyogre. Unlike the other viable Fire-types in Ubers (who are Ho-Oh, Blaziken, Reshiram, Victini, and even the niche Fire Arceus), Heatran is totally walled to hell by Kyogre with Heatran only being able to Toxic it on the switch or use that funny Torment set to beat some choiced Kyogre switch-ins. Unlike something like say, how Ferrothorn makes most OU water types react, Kyogre is a SERIOUS fucking threat, it won't just wall Heatran, it'll use the switch in to use scary shit like Specs Water Spout (which btw fucking 2HKOs Blissey at full health) or something else like set up a Calm Mind. This makes Heatran a liability for a lot of teams in Ubers despite its viability.

Now of course, I don't think we should go as far as to make some sort of OU version of Kyogre's craziness, but I think this approach is perfect for knocking down the Water-type (and maybe the Dragon-type) down a few pegs in OU. This way, instead of a player thinking "oh I'll just have to wear this down", the player will think "shit maybe I should get rid of some of these Water and Dragon types, those mons are making me really prone to getting swept by CAP5". I don't think that's where CAP 5 should end though, because I think in the direct approach, there is another key ingredient it'll need for it to fufill the concept: we need to make sure that this Pokemon, while beating the crap out of quite a few of the common Pokemon types, should also be EXTREMELY weak to some more obscure types like say, Fire, or Ice, or Ghost (these are just random examples since its early). This way, we can really put this concept to the test: will making a Pokemon that makes common types a far bigger risk, but gets stomped on by less common types really change the metagame, or are the dominant types so good that even a Pokemon that can make them a dangerous liability to a team isn't enough to make their usage drop too much?

[Mario With Lasers]

Originally Posted by Fat srk1214

Water is the right focus. Rain inherently plays into Water's dominance. We've gone down the road of "good against Rain, not necessarily good in Rain" before. It's not an easy path to take.

I'd be much more inclined to focus on making something that functions well on Hail teams AGAINST Rain. Why Hail? Rain inherently has advantages over Sun and Sand in that the starters (and many abusers) are weak to Water attacks. Abomasnow does not fear Water attacks. Nor do many of Hail's best mons. If this mon is also intentionally bad (or at least not good) against Sun or Sand, it will increase their usage as well, leading to more playstyle parity. HO would likely increase as well.

I'm not saying we should be making a Hail abuser. BlizzSpam is not going to beat Rain any time soon. What I am saying however is something that fills a role or two for Hail that are currently hard to fill. Maybe several at once so as to free up a team slot.

One quick look at the CAP Metagame Free teams shows that we've made good CAPs that help Hail in the past. Obviously Syclant, but Krilowatt too functions amazingly on a Hail team. The worry with Krilowatt is that it obviously functions amazingly on Rain teams as well as just in general. Mollux also can make an appearance as a substitute for Tentacruel/Heatran, providing Rocks, Spinning, and an Fire/Grass resist against Sun teams. Again, though, Mollux obviously works wonders under Rain.

So what does Hail need? Or more pertinently, what roles under Hail can be consolidated into one Pokemon so that Hail can afford space for something that already hurts Rain? (i.e. Gastrodon)

I've had this in mind too while reading the thread. There is something that must be considered, however: Steel. It resists Ice, is strong against it and lol Heatran would love to burn everything to ashes. So, by boosting Hail somehow, we may end up increasing Scizor, Jirachi and Heatran's usage. And oh, would you look at that, the former two are great in Rain, so nothing will change. Heatran is used in weatherless teams so those would see an increase in usage I guess, but we're here to lower the dominance of types, not team archetypes.

Additionally, merely creating a "bulky Grass- or Electric-type" doesn't help much either because 1. Grass could even find a room in a Rain team to mitigate its Fire weakness (oh look, we already have one. Ferrothorn.) and 2. Electric would love Rain to spam Thunder.

The problem is that Rain is leagues above the other weathers. Just like Water, it's such a comprehensive weather that anything can find a way to fit in. If we want to stop the Water type somehow, we need to take not only Rain into account, but its benefits for other types, the variety of current Water-types in OU, and what else makes the lesser used types bad in the metagame. Fire sucks because of Politoed, but there's also Stealth Rock and maybe poor stat distribution on its pokémon; Ice has no resistances nor ("real") weather benefits and has bad stat distribution; Ghosts have... well, there are not many of them??? And so on.


I still have in my heart that an "Abomasnow evo" would be an awesome course of action, but I know that we need something more. Yllnath made a post about offensive cores, and that's a really interesting point: if Rain always operates as a team and is so successful because of their members' synergy, why should we expect to stop Water and the other types with a single pokémon alone? Heatran did an excellent job at reducing the usage of Fire and Grass-types in DPPt due to its STAB and resistances and still is used to lol at Venusaur and such; however, in a weather-centric metagame, where team building and team synergy are even more crucial than before, unless we make a pokémon that makes a playstyle associated with lesser used pokémon, or associated with screwing up with overused types better, we'll simply make BW Celebi 2.0; underused typing, great stats and movepool, "counters" Rain and Water-types... but can't change the world by itself and is actually good in Rain teams. Oops.

[Primalthirst]

Something people do need to take into account is that outside of Thunder's increased accuracy there actually isn't any benefit for Electric types in Rain. Bolt Strike is a very powerful move that puts a serious dent in most Water and Steel types, and doesn't benefit from usage on a Rain team.

Want to say so much more on the issue, but I don't want to poll jump.

[Yilx]

Originally Posted by Fat jas61292

"what Pokemon single-handedly effect type usage?"

I'd like to bring one example up, on how people say Tornadus-T tamed the fighting meta. Most attribute our friend Virizion in UU and Conkeldurr middling around the 40-50's because of Tornadus-T's presence and we continue to feel it's effects even now. Sure, Torn-T might not have been the ONLY thing that quelled fighting-type usage, but stupid bird played a pretty big role in doing it.

Following that, I'd also like to bring up how Fighting-types, especially the likes of Terrakion, influenced the usage of Dark-Types in OU. Truth to be told, there are only two of them in OU right now; Hydreigon and Tyranitar. I don't need to discuss Tyranitar, but Hydreigon has U-Turn to let him escape potential fighting-type switch-ins and uses his Dragon STAB more often than not anyway. The moment you see a Terrakion in your opponent's team preview you know you cannot use your Dark-Type moves haphazardly lest you give your opponent's Terrakion a free +1.

Following this again, I'd like to use Tyranitar himself as an example. If you look at the Psychic-types in OU, they all have a certain niche that makes them highly desirable for teams or have a way to escape a CB Pursuit, one way or another; Alakazam has Sash Magic Guard, Espeon has Magic Bounce/BP, Starmie is pretty much one of the best spinners around, Lati@s... well, they'e Lati@s. All of them are "weak to pursuit" as per se but they all have a strong niche to allow them to be successful despite being "weak to pursuit". The only exception is Jirachi who counts more as a Steel-type than Psychic anyway.

Originally Posted by Fat jas61292

"what is it about these Pokemon that make them have such an effect?"

These Pokemon all have one thing in common: Strong attacking stats, passable or above average bulk and a Strong attacking move. Toradus-T has Hurricane and Terrakion can choose between Stone Miss and Close Combat. The same does not really apply for Tyranitar as it's seen using Crunch or Stone Miss more often than not, but more of his usage comes from how his sand cancels out opposing weather; but I'd rather not talk about that.

Originally Posted by Fat Theorymon

make CAP 5 the kind of Pokemon that makes the target types a liability rather than just countering them.

I feel that this is certainly one of the more reasonable approaches to this CAP. I feel it's pretty much how people talk about Steels/Fires/Dragons making Grass-type attackers a liability despite them being perfectly viable in this rain-dominated meta.

I know this for sure because I did a "Case Study" of sorts. I was running a monowater team with nothing but 6 Popular water types with Scald, EVing them for nothing but Special Defense. The main things that murdered it were not electrics or Thunders coming off electric-types, but grass-types. Breloom and Celebi in particular steamrolled the team as I had no proper answer for them.

That's what you get for running monowater, but it definitely showed me how grass is a viable attacking type vs. Rain teams which generally run more than 2 Water-types more often than not.

[B.Reinquist]

I don't think just the typing is what's going to curb any of these popular types. I mean, the default position would be "Make a good (something that's good against one type) pokemon and we'll see less (popular type)"

Take steel, it's two biggest weaknesses are Fire and Fighting. Gamefreak keep giving us "strong" Fire Fighting starters and it has done very little to curb Steel's dominance. I think this CAP requires more thought than simple 1 tiered discussion. The complexity almost requires each section (Type, Ability, Movepools) to work together to create a balanced CAP that is function specific. I would like to see combinations of both Typing and Ability discussion, before locking out either (ie, setting the type first prevents multiple abilities from being useful). I may be the minority in thinking this, but I feel it needed to be said!

[reachzero]

First of all, two closely-connected thoughts.

This concept is worded in such a way that it will not be immediately evident in every single battle featuring this CAP. That is really important, because it is (almost) unprecedented. Except for Arghonaut's Decentralizer, no other CAP concept has been like that. Tomohawk grabbed momentum in every single battle it was featured in. Colossoil actively discouraged the secondary in every single battle he was used in. This concept doesn't work that way. That is a really, really big deal. Where you will see the impact of this concept is over five battles, ten battles, twenty battles. It's not about one battle, it's about usage. So when we talk about the metagame, we need to talk about more than "viability". I liked Yllnath's post quite a bit (read it right now if you haven't already) because he really emphasized how usage is competitive, how it's all about getting the best chance to win. If a Pokemon is "viable", it can be used in OU without being a complete liability. However, usage is a zero-sum game. We talk in percentages, slices of the pie. A Pokemon or a type may become individually usable, but this does not mean a real percentage change if the change drives up the usage of the prominent Pokemon or types. Countering a type doesn't necessarily drive its usage down at all, it may even drive it's usage up. Why? That's brings us to our second point.

OU team building is different in BW than it was in DPP, or in BW UU, or any other metagame, excepting perhaps VGC and Smogon Doubles. The BW OU team building process is very greatly defined by team tropes. I know that we could probably distinguish between more tropes than these (like Rain stall vs Rain offense), but for simplicity's sake, let's say there are eight basic tropes: Sand, Rain, Sun, Hail, dedicated anti-Weather, Dragonspam, true heavy offense, and Baton Pass chains. The most dangerous match-ups for a team of a particular trope are basically the same no matter which one is actually used: generally there is one particular trope that gives your trope considerable problems, for which you need to have specific Pokemon that perform well against that trope. As an example, using Celebi on a Sand team. However, almost as large a threat are teams of the same trope. For a Baton Pass team, the trope is so rare that the threat of facing an opposing BP chain is negligible. However, for a popular and powerful trope like Sand or Rain, facing a same-troped theme is guaranteed. All of this to say, having Pokemon that fit on a troped team that perform very well against other Pokemon of the same trope is a massive premium, and boosts rather than hinders that trope considerably. No one wants to use a Sun team that is helpless against enemy Heatran and Volcarona. Inanimate Blob brought up Gastrodon and Toxicroak as two good examples of Pokemon that do well against Water types (and are actually dangerous against Rain teams). This is an ideal example of what I am talking about, since both of those Pokemon are used almost entirely on Rain teams, specifically to help those Rain teams beat other Rain teams. Boosting Rain will always boost Water usage, no matter how well a Pokemon counters Waters.

A lot of discussion in this thread has gone into how to make underused types more "viable". I believe this is misguided. Suppose we created the perfect Rapid Spinner. It made Stealth Rock so difficult to keep down that it could be almost completely ignored as a factor. This would theoretically make Fire types much, much more "viable". And it probably would. But it would also make Dragonite, Thundurus-t, Salamence and Kyurem-b many times more powerful with it. Usage is a zero-sum game, so if you want an underused type to gain usage, you have to make sure that the change you are using to do it does not boost the dominant type in the process. If you want to decrease the usage of Water types, CAP5 has to do more than be anti-Water, or even anti-Rain. It has to be significantly more advantageous to use outside of Rain than on Rain, or risk doing the exact opposite of what the concept is intended to do.

So think big picture. Don't worry so much about what CAP5 does in one game. Worry about what the metagame looks like over the course of five, ten, twenty. That is what a usage-based concept is all about.

[Yilx]

Like I said in IRC, reachzero's first paragraph puts across what I wanted to say but I couldn't I'm not very strong in word-fu.

Another point I'd really like to bring up is:

Making a mon weak to a specific type =/= Increasing the usage of that type. Do you see people running Fire-types more often to curb the increase in usage of Scizor and Ferro? No, people slap Flamethrower on Blissey and HP Fire on Latias/Celebi instead.

[sandshrewz]

Starting off with a jas# quote, haha.

Originally Posted by Fat jasnumbers

what Pokemon single-handedly effect type usage?

Weather starters etc you know which Pokemon can have such a great impact on the metagame. For a single Pokemon to be able to influence and entire type usage, it would have to be very metagame defining. A Pokemon made to, for example, check rain / xyz-type Pokemon will not be able to single-handedly affect the type usage. There will be ways to get past check and counters with teammates. It can dampen them a bit, but it won't be enough to have such a great impact as a single Pokemon.

I'm probably going to run along the lines of reachzero's post. In order to affect type usage, it has to influence a large group of Pokemon. This cannot be simply done by making a counter or threat to reduce the usage of xyz Pokemon. For example, back in DPP, despite the presence of Gliscor and other various Lucario check and counters, Lucario remained strong in OU. It might not be able to bypass them, but teammates can. A team can center around Lucario to support it and bring the checks down. Whether or not the teams are always succesful in paving way for a Lucario sweep, it did not have a huge negative impact on Lucario usage.

The example is just to show that simply check and countering things aren't going to leave a hole in usage stats. Probably anyway, haha. A more effective way of doing so would be by influencing playstyles. Was it reachzero who mentioned the pro-sun thing ?_? I really like supporting sun as a playstyle to dampen rain a bit, and hence reducing Water usage. A Pokemon that support the sun playstyles could make sun teams more viable and easier to use against weather teams, since they often face difficulties against opposing weather teams. The sun playstyle is an example, but perhaps a good one as to how to reduce the use of Water-types by not nerfing rain but making sun better. Support a playstyle that can weaken a dominant one. A playstyle covers a huge range of Pokemon, often from the same type, weather or not. A possible way is to have a Pokemon that supports a particular playstyle that's 'inferior' and hence uses more of the less used types. The Pokemon does not have to be of a type that is considered less-used, perhaps even opposite. By supporting a playstyle, it can level the playing ground of the playstyle to some extent, probably not completely since there's limitations working with a single Pokemon.

By supporting the playstyle, it encourages use of that playstyle and if some of its disadvantages can be patched up, it might then become as good as some other more popular playstyles. It doesn't have to mean crippling the rival playstyle, however. The playstyle could be supported in such a way that its still the same Pokemon that contribute to that playstyle that remain to define the playstyle. If the playstyle is better supported and easier to use, those Pokemon attributed to the playstyle can then rise, and such Pokemon are usually of the same or similar type and belong to the less used types.

What I'm suggesting is, it can be a Pokemon that influence any playstyle, doesn't have to be sun. However, sun seems like a pretty likely route though. The next question could be, how do you support a playstyle and meet some of the needs of the playstyle? Going back to the sun example, Ninetales has a hard time against other weather inducers. A Pokemon that can help Ninetales guard against them, not neccessarily KO them like a Dugtrio, could be helpful. Rapid Spin or not, that's a possibility but might not be the focus. It can help to keep sun up temporarily or simply support Ninetales with whatever tools to keep it alive. There's a huge variety of ways to support a playstyle to make it more viable.

Pretty much just working on reachzero's post lol >_> so back to the topic of usage. A Pokemon that can influence usage can also influence playstyles.

[Rhys DeAnno]

Originally Posted by Fat Theorymon

I think a more interesting, and possibly more fruitful way of achieving this concept is to instead, make CAP 5 the kind of Pokemon that makes the target types a liability rather than just countering them.

I think this is a really good point. If we build a pokemon in the counter archetype and want it to affect usage, we need a pokemon that doesn't just wall the target types, but actively set up on them. This means when those types use their STAB choice moves, or lack effective coverage attacks, their team is going to possibly be left with a huge problem to deal with and might have to sack something or worse to fix it.

As a silly example, imagine if Roserade had 121 Base Speed and Solar Power. A set running Sunny Day/Weather Ball/Leaf Storm/HP Ice can switch into a choiced Hydro from Politoed or Keldeo, set up Sunny Day on the switchout, and probably end up killing something.

A pokemon like this discourages Rain as a playstyle by making a lot of its best Water types setup fodder for changing the weather and putting a dangerous threat into play. At the same time, the Roserade wouldn't be as effective against non-Rain teams, with less chances to setup and a higher probability of being walled by an enemy Heatran. Using the Roserade would be better on Sunny Day, but at the same time Roserade tends to be walled easily by Sunny Day teams so would be discouraging to use due to the mirroring argument brought up by reachzero.

You might see some otherwise weatherless teams happy to run Roserade as a "soft" weatherchanger/sweeper, and you might see some Sun teams running it as a Rain counter. Rain teams however would gain nothing from Roserade except a deadly foe; this would probably lower Rain's usage and the usage of waters overall. An important thing to remember from this example is that super-Roserade did not need a weatherchanging ability to have a huge effect on the weather meta, since it was in effect using its weather move as a set up sweeping move, and had the ability to set up on highly used pokemon of the opposing weatherstyle.

Of course, its relatively easy to make up this sort of pokemon when targeting rain and waters, but creating something to setup on Dragons that Dragmag teams wouldn't want to use to beat enemy scarfLatios is a little bit tougher :P

[CiteAndPrune]

First of all, I must stress that Yllnath and reachzero raise excellent points. They explained the matter better than I could, so let it suffice that the underused playstyle focus is one I believe will prove most successful for us.

Secondly, I'm afraid there is no decreasing Water usage without addressing Rain. The two are joined at the hip, bring down Rain and Water usage will (pardon the pun) sink.

Third... there is something that I find nobody raised yet. Dragon types, Fighting types and Rain (particularly H-Pump/Hurri/Thunder spamming teams, as opposed to Rain Stall) all have a common feature to them. They're pretty much deadly offensive forces, complemented by Steel to patch up their weaknesses to other offensive forces. Therefore adding to what Yllnath said, I think improving Stall to make Hyper Offense itself a liability can be just the promotion of a playstyle we need. Not sun or hail, but Stall. We just need to find that one member the stall teams lack, that 'one final push'.

Fourth - Theorymon's example is also very potent, and I urge you strongly to consider it. What would happen to Dragons if after wasting a turn setting up and hopefully KOing a single Pokemon they were ALWAYS KOed back by a powerful Technician STAB Ice Shard user? Who, if they chose to switch instead, could set up and sweep an entire team in turn? They'd be getting the treatment that Weavile is getting from Scizor now - fast and powerful but too frail. Only Latias could MAYBE go bulky enough, whereas all the others would be doomed. There goes your Dragon usage... it's just an example but it's one way to do this, and certainly better than creating a Steel that could tank the Outrages and Draco Meteors.

Fifth - Others have spoken about Stealth Rock before. I'd just want to stress that if we can address Stealth Rock adequately, then removing it from the metagame will single-handedly make all the otherwise Stealth-Rock weak mons more viable, hopefully leading to their increased usage. This doesn't mean we need Magic Bounce or something - using the above example, if CAP5 was even x4 weak to Stealth Rock, like Volcarona - but also, like Volcarona, threatened to sweep at a moment's notice if allowed to setup, nobody could afford the TURN to cast Stealth Rock. Especially if it had Taunt (to counter Whirlwind and status and other such threats).


So in short, I see two approaches that this could take, pushing Stall to the top of viability this meta, or making an excellent revenger/setup sweeper that preys on the current top threats. There's probably more, but these are definitely doable - and they can either depend on weather or be largely independent from it, so we're free to decide that at a later stage.

[Base Speed]

Well then.

So it's fair to say that there's quite a lot of weather discussion going on here. Of all the ways to approach the concept, I'm very much in agreement with Jas and Reachzero on the idea of a sunmon. Reach has really quite beautifully explained how it fulfills the various aspects of the concept. Sun teams deal well with steel types and can with the right tools tackle water types too. Creating a 'mon that encourages sun and gives them the right tools to patch up their weaknesses is a great idea.
However, I'm don't think CAP5 should be a 100% dedicated sun mon. It seems one dimensional to me if we focus entirely on this - sun sets are good, but the ability to perform outside of it is to me a necessity, otherwise rain would become the best way to shut it down. Furthermore, I'm keen to discourage drought or chorophyll as abilities, despite them immediately coming to mind for a sunmon. Why? Because they'll have the double whammy problem of potentialally making CAP5 broken and out competing Ninetales and Venusaur - two pokemon who would fulfill the concept if we raise their usage.

I'm also quite the fan of the anti-stealth rock approach. Once again the logic behind how it'll fulfill the concept seems sound to me, giving rock weak types a bit more breathing space might see their usage increase. Again I don't want CAP5 to be focused entirely on this. While I'm very conscious of the give-CAP-everything approach that saw Aurumoth fail, it would be good to see CAP5 have anti-hazard sets and sun-sweeping sets, but not both simultaneously. That's not to say that sun couldn't somehow help in an anti-hazard role - balance would need to be found.

Theorymon provides another valid, yet largely different approach. I won't repeat his post but the idea of making types liabilities seems like a good one. How would we go about this? A powerful dedicated dragon or water slayer that could set up and sweep if it catches a dragon out? I also wonder if it's possible to use this in tandem with previous ideas without it becoming broken. Does anyone have any thoughts on that?

In terms of approaches I'm not so fond of, I've yet to see convincing logic for either sand or hail fulfilling the concept - I fear these are a hangover of sorts from weather's popularity in the concept submissions, though I'll keep an open mind and see if anyone can give a good explanation for them.

And then there's my least favorite approach of them all, something I really want to just shut down entirely, is the creation of a Swift Swim user to stop rain's use via the Swift Swim + Drizzle clause. I strongly dislike the idea of achieving the concept on a technicality, using a smogon induced clause. It teaches us nothing about building a pokemon and even though it would create a rain free meta, I believe other approaches could have more significant effects on type usage.


Lastly, for pokemon that single handedly effect type usage, weather's been done to death answering this question. I'd like to raise the possibility of Terrakion as one of these pokemon. Don't get me wrong, I doubt it's having an effect of the same magnitude that the weather starters are, but still it's such a strong offensive presence that it's making having a fighting type weakness a more liability for pokemon, and for most non steel types this liability isn't worth it) and making a rock weakness in today's meta even worse. I wonder what other people think of this one, because it's really not as clear cut as some of the other examples people are going for.

[GoodwillBBQ]

Pardon me if it's already been decided, but I feel the very first thing we should do is decide whether we want to increase the usage of certain underused types or decrease the usage of certain popular types. I feel trying to do both of these at the same time would be too much for CAP5 to do and might end with the same results as the last. The way we approach the rest of the project has a large dependency on this decision.

[Raikoben]

If you reduced de usage of Dragon and ground types you will get a indirect increase of electric types to counter Politoed, skarmory...

However, if we reduce dragon an ground and try to increase electric (doing a ice/flying cap for example) we will get a huge decrease of water types. Probably not Politoed but Gyarados, Keldeo, Cloyster, Starmie...

[inanimate blob]

Originally Posted by Fat Raikoben

If you reduced de usage of Dragon and ground types you will get a indirect increase of electric types to counter Politoed, skarmory...

However, if we reduce dragon an ground and try to increase electric (doing a ice/flying cap for example) we will get a huge decrease of water types. Probably not Politoed but Gyarados, Keldeo, Cloyster, Starmie...

The issue with this is the fact that the Electric-types that could come up and become more used...already exist.

Rotom-W has a niche - it's amazing both on and off Rain teams, but more so because of its ability to effectively Volt Switch, or run status moves. It wouldn't really rise because of its ability to take on anti-Dragon Pokèmon.

The other Pokèmon able to take on a potential anti-Dragon Pokèmon would be Jolteon...which also is used mainly on Rain teams. And the easy counter to both of these Pokèmon are is also a Water-type, Gastrodon.

[Nyktos]

Originally Posted by Fat GoodwillBBQ

Pardon me if it's already been decided, but I feel the very first thing we should do is decide whether we want to increase the usage of certain underused types or decrease the usage of certain popular types. I feel trying to do both of these at the same time would be too much for CAP5 to do and might end with the same results as the last. The way we approach the rest of the project has a large dependency on this decision.

The concept is specifically to do both.

[Ignus]

Theorymon's post about heatran in ubers is a really good point. Making a pokemon a liability is probably the easiest way to decrease the usage of pokemon of a certain type. Think about some of the pokemon in OU right now. Jellicent makes free turns with it's great typing and water absorb. Ferrothorn does much of the same. CAP 5 should be able to create these opportunities on water, dragon, steel, and fighting types (whichever we decide to focus on) and then in return set up for the less used types of the meta.

What it comes down to is: what can create free turns against the stronger of types and then pass that momentum to a less used type efficiently? A good example would be something along the lines of:

Motor Drive into Baton Pass
Walling the shit out of something->u-Turn/volt switch
Rapid Spin for easy switch ins
Wish
Choice band/specs Trick

Anything that eases prediction creates free turns. Just something to think about

[erisia]

To follow up Ignus' point, Storm Drain + Baton Pass would be a fearsome tool for dealing with Water-types, in particular. Especially if our CAP was able to threaten the majority of Water-types with, say, STAB Thunderbolt, Giga Drain, or just a coverage option like unSTABed Grass Knot. Storm Drain + Volt Switch (possibly STAB) would also be pretty useful in this regard, so long as CAP was able to deal with Ground-types in a respectable manner. I can't really think of any other ways of dealing with Water types that would lead to generating more momentum, outside of stupid stuff like Shell Smash / Quiver Dance alongside a Water-immunity.

[ganj4lF]

Originally Posted by Fat erisia

To follow up Ignus' point, Storm Drain + Baton Pass would be a fearsome tool for dealing with Water-types, in particular. Especially if our CAP was able to threaten the majority of Water-types with, say, STAB Thunderbolt, Giga Drain, or just a coverage option like unSTABed Grass Knot. Storm Drain + Volt Switch (possibly STAB) would also be pretty useful in this regard, so long as CAP was able to deal with Ground-types in a respectable manner. I can't really think of any other ways of dealing with Water types that would lead to generating more momentum, outside of stupid stuff like Shell Smash / Quiver Dance alongside a Water-immunity.

This would be awesome to lower the usage of the Water type, however nothing keeps from Baton Passing onto Latios / ScarfKeldeo / whatever and nuking everything on the switch. You're forgetting the part of the concept that says "increase the usage of a lesser used type", which Baton Pass + Storm Drain (or a similar ability) doesn't address at all.

[jc104]

Originally Posted by Fat reachzero

OU team building is different in BW than it was in DPP, or in BW UU, or any other metagame, excepting perhaps VGC and Smogon Doubles. The BW OU team building process is very greatly defined by team tropes. I know that we could probably distinguish between more tropes than these (like Rain stall vs Rain offense), but for simplicity's sake, let's say there are eight basic tropes: Sand, Rain, Sun, Hail, dedicated anti-Weather, Dragonspam, true heavy offense, and Baton Pass chains. The most dangerous match-ups for a team of a particular trope are basically the same no matter which one is actually used: generally there is one particular trope that gives your trope considerable problems, for which you need to have specific Pokemon that perform well against that trope. As an example, using Celebi on a Sand team. However, almost as large a threat are teams of the same trope. For a Baton Pass team, the trope is so rare that the threat of facing an opposing BP chain is negligible. However, for a popular and powerful trope like Sand or Rain, facing a same-troped theme is guaranteed. All of this to say, having Pokemon that fit on a troped team that perform very well against other Pokemon of the same trope is a massive premium, and boosts rather than hinders that trope considerably. No one wants to use a Sun team that is helpless against enemy Heatran and Volcarona. Inanimate Blob brought up Gastrodon and Toxicroak as two good examples of Pokemon that do well against Water types (and are actually dangerous against Rain teams). This is an ideal example of what I am talking about, since both of those Pokemon are used almost entirely on Rain teams, specifically to help those Rain teams beat other Rain teams. Boosting Rain will always boost Water usage, no matter how well a Pokemon counters Waters.

A lot of discussion in this thread has gone into how to make underused types more "viable". I believe this is misguided. Suppose we created the perfect Rapid Spinner. It made Stealth Rock so difficult to keep down that it could be almost completely ignored as a factor. This would theoretically make Fire types much, much more "viable". And it probably would. But it would also make Dragonite, Thundurus-t, Salamence and Kyurem-b many times more powerful with it. Usage is a zero-sum game, so if you want an underused type to gain usage, you have to make sure that the change you are using to do it does not boost the dominant type in the process. If you want to decrease the usage of Water types, CAP5 has to do more than be anti-Water, or even anti-Rain. It has to be significantly more advantageous to use outside of Rain than on Rain, or risk doing the exact opposite of what the concept is intended to do.

So think big picture. Don't worry so much about what CAP5 does in one game. Worry about what the metagame looks like over the course of five, ten, twenty. That is what a usage-based concept is all about.

While I think the post contains some good points, and is expressed with your usual eloquence, I find some of this reasoning worrying to say the least. While I agree that it is possible for a counter of a type to increase the usage of said type, I don't think it can happen in this way at all. While a pokemon can both support and counter the same type, and while triangles such as Fire/Water/Grass can cause the increase of said type, I don't think it happens for the reasons stated in your post.

A Pokemon being strong against rain can only negatively impact rain. Full stop. (edit: if the pokemon is good in rain, that helps rain, obviously - try to look at the two things - being good in rain and against rain - separately, as I do not believe one implies the other. Many pokemon are both good in rain and against rain, in which case the balance might lean either way) If you use a pokemon strong against rain teams on your rain team to help in mirror matches, you're negatively affecting the other rain team, and you're (probably) negatively affecting your own team's performance against teams of other varieties. Any positive effect for your team is at best balanced by a negative effect on the opponent's rain team. Say, for example, if every rain team was forced to carry a CAP 5 just to deal with other rain teams; every rain team would be weaker in relation to other team styles.

Now, what you say about rain counters increasing rain usage might turn out to be coincidentally true for nearly every OU viable Pokemon. That's because most of the rain counters are inherently strong IN rain. Every OU viable water-immune pokemon is either water-typed, or recovers an absurd amount of health each turn in rain. Ferrothorn becomes almost impossible to take down thanks to its reduced fire weakness. Imagine, however, if this wasn't the case. Imagine if we had given Mollux Water Absorb (ok perhaps not the best example, as it would be a pretty good sun check too, and thereby help rain to an extent). Imagine if we made a decent version of Cradily. Something strong against rain that doesn't actually prefer rain. I think this is wholly possible. If some people use it on rain, so freaking what? It still weakens rain either way.


edit: ok apparently not at my most coherent (tip: don't post while slightly drunk), so here's the tl;dr - mirror matches can only ever affect a playstyle negatively. If an anti-rain pokemon gets used on a rain team for mirror matches, it's doing its job properly. The key is to be good against rain, but not to benefit from rain directly.

[jas61292]

First off, I want to say that I think reachzero's most recent post is incredibly important, and I would urge everyone to read it. While I understand jc104's concerns, I think a lot of the points it makes, especially with regard to usage being a zero sum game, are crucial for this concept. We don't need a Pokemon that causes every single battle to have a reduced amount of a certain type. It does not need to directly counter, or directly buff the types we are affecting. But we do need to make sure that, over the metagame as a whole, we are having an effect. This means, not only reducing the usefullness of one type and increasing that of another, but that the reduction and increases actually translate into usage changed. It doesn't matter if Fire/Ice/Grass/Poison/whatever is better in the metagame. It matters that they are more used, and this means we need to make sure that any reduction in a top type's usage is at least partially filled in by a lower type. Reducing the use of Water alone would not be enough to fufill our goals if the usage they lose is transfered purely to dragons.

With that said, I do think we have had plenty of good ideas out there about how to go about this concept, and I would like to shift the focus away from trying to figure out different ways to do the project, and onto comparing the ones we have already come up with. The ideas that have been discussed so far include:

The direct approach: Counter a top type, lose to a lesser used type.

The more extreme version: A Pokemon that makes a top type a liability agains when it is around, but is destroyed by lesser used types

Sun mon: A Pokemon that increases the usefulness of sun teams, thereby increasing use of sun Pokemon (Fire/Grass), and decreasing use of Water.

Hazard controler: A Pokemon that helps increase use of lesser used types by helping make Stealth Rocks less of a factor. This one is not itself really a full direction, as it fails to address over half the concept, but it a start that, if elaborated on or combined with another method, could have merit.

Help a playstyle: Similar to the Sun mon, but takes a less direct approach, by going with a playstyle that does not directly opposes one of the top typings as much as Sun. This is less direct, but gives more freedom as to what types to go after on both sides. While a perfectly valid option, we would need more direction before going with it.

There were also a few other things brought up, but I believe these were the most talked about. (Though, please speak up if you feel I left anything major out). Up until this point we have mostly been talking about these directions in isolation. What I would like to do now is compare and contrast.

Of the different project directions brought up in this thread, how do you think they compare with each other?
Which are most likely to be successful? Least?
Are any too restrictive? Too broad?
Do you believe any of them are more conducive to interesting discussion than the others?
What types would each method be best for dealing with, both positively and negatively? Conversely, what method would be best for increasing/decreasing the usage of the different highly/lesser used types?

My goal at this point is to find out what method, of those we have thought up, you all think we should use to go about this project. We need a direction, and, if possible, I would like see if we can reach a general concensus on what will be the best. I know it is unlikely that we will be able to get everyone to agree, I at least want some direct comparison, rather than just looking at the different suggestions in a vacuum.

[Quark]

It seem to me that the hazard control strategy might work by itself, but rather indirectly. If CAP 5 is successful at keeping stealth rocks away, then we would hope to see more of a use of flying, fire and ice type Pokemon. If this holds true, the flying and ice would threaten the fighting and dragon Pokemon, respectively.

This may be a bit indirect, and I feel that a hazard control strategy is one that we would add onto another strategy to boost its capabilities (like the sun team mon). I feel like this concept almost has to be paired with another, and that it would have to be decided if we want hazard control to be a way we help a play style.

Also, the direct approach and extreme version sound like general descriptions of the Perfect Nemesis concept. If we decide to go with either of these, how do we ensure that the "lesser" type is used instead of one Pokemon. Does it matter if only one Pokemon's usage goes up as long as it is of an underused type, or do we need multiple Pokemon of a type to be brought up?

If we need to bring up multiple Pokemon of a type, might I suggest something that spreads status? If we have a Pokemon that is hitting everything with burns, would the fire type usage rise? Would the same happen with poison and poison types? This might fit into another strategy, but a status spreader might be a strategy worth considering.

[Espyboss]

I think that the Sun Mon has the best potential as of now. This is because we have decided on the types to raise and lower in usage as well as have a solid approach to tackle that task. This pokemon would fulfill our goal by encouraging sun over water, which would boost fire/grass type usage and lower water usage. Also, The More Extreme Version would also work if we have a bit more detail. We should at least decide what types we would focus on if we take that avenue.

As for other possible approaches that we might've left out, I think Deck Knight's Anti-Dragon Pro-Sun and The Cannibal mons could have potential if we don't mind making CAP5 a type that we could be trying to lower the usage of.

[Hailblue]

First off, there are a lot of really good ideas have thrown out there. I support Theorymon's idea of a pokemon making dragon type a liability. For instance, if we use Citeandprune's idea of a Stab Technician Ice Shard user (I always encourage the use of Ice), it would considerably reduce the effectivness of dragon sweeps.

The problem with creating a pokemon while looking at the dragon type, is that if we remember, dragons are really only super effective against other dragon pokemon. The benefit of a dragon type pokemon is the neutral power it provides. Reducing the dragon type, does not necessarily mean raising the usage of other pokemon types. The niche that dragons fulfill on a team is one that impacts the natural power creep of the game. And the dragon type tends to set the standard of that power creep. Therefore limiting the dragon type, does not mean bringing up another type as the concept encourages. Limiting the dragon type means bringing up a lost play style from last gen, stall. Unless, that is, we make CAP 5 so broken, that every team must have one, as well as every team must have a CAP 5 counter which would be a lesser type.

I have a few thoughts on the water/steel/fighting types, but they are still forming in my head. I shall post later on those types.

[Meganium Sulfate]

Guys, maybe we've been going about this the wrong way. Though it might seem paradoxical, what if CAP5 was a really strong Water, Steel, Fighting, or Dragon type? Just like Thundurus polarized the metagame, making it so that every team needed to have a response to it, CAP5 could be such a threat that teams will need to respond more strongly against the type we choose for CAP5. In effect, while this project would create a powerful addition to the type that we're trying to hinder, the net effect will be the overall reduction of that type's potential.

Jas, this may be a promising avenue of thought that we had overlooked. Thoughts, anyone?

[Yllnath]

I personally believe that the direct counter and the more extreme version methods are the easy ways out for us and won't let us learn as much from the process. We just end up making a pokemon that will just be a bit of number crunching that performs well against the pokemons we want them to perform well against. There is no challenge here.

Sun-mon is somewhat in the middle. If we're creating a sun-mon that is intended to help the current sun-playstyle become good, that could be very interesting. If we just make a solid strong pokemon and slap on Drought, the project becomes incredibly boring again.

Hazard controller and Help a playstyle are my preferred options. Going back to my own post, and more importantly, Reach's post, he very nicely stated that this pokemon doesn't have to be an important key aspect of each battle. The only thing that counts is, that in the end, after a week or 4, we get new usage stats and a shift in popular typings have taken place. Indirect sun-mon (so no Drought for it's own), Hazard controller and Help a playstyle for me all fall under the indirect approach of trying to shake up usage in the metagame.
When going with either of these 3 concepts, we will have to be focused the entire project on choices we make to make sure that we somehow aid/boost an underused typing/playstyle to become a competitive choice. It will lead to much more interesting discussion along the entire project.

I'm usually very iffy of anything weather related in concepts. I feel that if the dozens of actually listed weather concepts (that get tossed up every single time in the submissions) didn't win, and we pick something different, we should just steer away from weather-related things. I feel those things always get brought up in every CAP because sun or hail fans wanted the weather concept to win and are now instead turning the regular concept back into the weather concept.
Even now, I still think that just making Ninetales 2.0 will not learn us shit about what affects usage in the metagame, or how we can work on indirectly making less competitive playstyles more competitive to the point that it deserves teamspots enough that usage rises.

Aiding the current sun pokes to become good, is completely different, and is really focused and could be just what we need as a turn around from the much more broader concepts we've had lately. Hazard control for that reason also has much potential.

Even though I'm the one who's brought up offensive cores or helping underused playstyles like stall or BO become valid, I also know that this is too broad to just start with. Then we also need another discussion on what playstyle to aid. Or who to form a core with. etc. Because just going into the typing stage only know we're going to aid .. a .. playstyle. Shitstorm guaranteed.

So in my opinion, the most interesting approach would be the aid a sun-team (with clear restrictions set by TL/TLT that it will not be Ninetales 2.0), or hazard control.
Interestingly enough, I think these two method mesh well to the point that I'd even think it's valid considering both approaches in one. Just removing SR from the field 90% or more of the time will make life easier for a bunch of sun-team members, after all.