CAP 8 CAP 8 - Counters Discussion

Our Pokemon so far:

Elevator Music said:

Name: Neglected Ability

Description: This pokemon will have an ability [or two] that is currently undervalued (but possibly very helpful) in the metagame but isn't used because the other pokemon with this ability don't have the stats or movepool to make it work.

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Type: Electric / Dragon
Style Bias: Somewhat Defensive
Build Bias: Mixed, possibly Special
Ability: Shield Dust/Static
Stats: 108 HP/60 Atk/118 Def/112 Sp Atk/70 Sp Def/80 Spe

In this thread, we will discuss what should counter CAP 8. No poll - just a discussion so as to keep the movepool thread clean. Primarily, the discussion should be focused on how we could limit or expand this Pokemon's ability to battle against specific other Pokemon so as to be able to best fulfill its purpose.

hmm, i think a counter for this guy should be something like heatran, a special force that can hit it for SE.
just for starting the discussion

Tyranitar has pretty good potential for being a counter. Access to a strong earthquake, albeit not STABed, and with the SpDef boost it could be a decent switch-in to sets without Thunderwave, which would likely be several should people take advantage of Static. I don't think that Earthquake is an applicable move for Statics effect anyways?

Blissey of course is great for taking special moves, and with 60 base attack, it won't be doing too much without swords dance or Life Orb. Toxic kills this if it doesn't utilize a ResTalk set or something like Refresh, should it get it.

I would suggest bronzong, explosion won't KO with those defenses, and Thunderbolt is pretty scary off of 112 SpAtk.

Steelix resists both STABs, as well as Magnezone. This thing probably won't be going physical/mixed all too often, so I'd imagine Zone being a decent switch in if it doesnt have Flamethrower or a special ground move.

Willl be editting.

EDIT: Agreeing that Heatran has decent bulk, but if this thing goes with an offensive set (with arguably better STABs and higher base speed than Heatran!) then you are only left with a nonSTAB Earth Power while this is launching STAB thunderbolts or HP Grounds at you.

The only steels that threaten this as far as I can see are Magnezone and maybe Metagross, who has agility and a rather strong earthquake, and even then neither want to switch in to Flamthrower/Thunderbolt.

Tyranitar seems like a solid counter to CAP8 for me. Being a pokemon that will mainly use Special Attacks, I don't see why Tyranitar, who gives himself a Special Defense boost when switching in, can not handle this pokemon (as long as we don't give it a Fighting-type attack). Once Tyranitar is in this pokemon will fear an Earthquake and will have to switch out.

its stat spread is already decided, and spdef isnt fantastic...

Heatran would be a fine counter, 3 of the moves it usually carries, Dragon Pulse, Earth Power and HP Ice hit for super effective. He also attacks from CAP8 weaker defensive stat and resists one of is stabs.

I agree on Tyranitar and Blissey. A lot of common Dragons (especially Flygon and Latias) can also come on a predicted non-Dragon attack (Flygon in particular on predicted Electric attacks) and scare it off with Outrage or Draco Meteor. Pretty much all Dragons will be able to check/revenge kill it, albeit unable to switch-in safely.

Snorlax should also be able to soak up a hit or 2 and retaliate with Earthquake.

Gen. Empoleon said:

It still will obtain a boost from the Sand Storm, which will help Tyranitar in the long run.

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erm... i was mentioning cap 8 in regard to heatran countering it.

I would actually like to see this thing abuse Static a bit. Switching into Lucario as it Swords Dances, and you can outspeed and KO with Thunderbolt/HP Ground, and it forces Lucario to Extremespeed, potentially crippling it?

Also, this can make a GREAT Scizor counter, resisting Bullet Punch with great defenses, and with Static potentially crippling him as well, though Scizor doesn't mind paralysis all too much.

First, a list of pokemon who should utterly obliterate it given a standard non-boosting set or without a great coverage move:

Counters:
Rhyperior
Tyranitar
Steelix
Blissey
Snorlax
Regice
Cresselia

These pokemon are either generally bulky enough to survive two or three hits in a row from Draco Meteor/Thunderbolt, and can either hit for super-effective damage, phaze out, utilize reliable recovery, or in general stop a sweep cold. Rhyperior is the most suspect but since it is usually played in a Sandstorm environment it is in truth much less so.

Checks:

There are infinitely more checks than there are hard counters. Electric/Dragon is particularly vulnerable to revenge killing from any of the above and the following:

Dugtrio
Salamence
Latias
Flygon
Heatran
Mamoswine
Hippowdon
Weavile
Swampert (Swampert is not listed above because it lacks reliable recovery and cannot boost its SDef via Sandstorm)

Now all these checks and counters only take into consideration Electric and Dragon attack moves. Surf/Hydro Pump eliminate a significant portion of the Ground type counters and Tyranitar to an extent, whereas Flamethrower/Fire Blast/Overheat eliminate Steelix and Regice specifically. Magnet Rise makes slower ground types unreliable revenge killers or even counters, since their best alternate recourse tends to be low-powered Ice moves or Hidden Power.

There are more pokemon that situationally counter, such as HP Ice Magnezone that switches into Draco Meteor, but generally speaking Zone is slower, both its STABs are resisted (Tbolt 4x), and since CAP8 is faster it will win in an SE HP vs. SE HP war.

It won't outspeed with base 80 speed compared to base 90 which lucario has unless you run near 252 speed evs with a +nature which is a heavy loss if you want the CAP to take hits better.

Well, Jolteon can generally switch in on Thunderbolt and threaten CAP with HP Ice.

I agree that Snorlax is an awesome counter since it also has Thick Fat to reduce Fire Blast damage which it will most likely have.

Oh I was thinking lucario had 70 for whatever reason >_<

ignore that last part

EDIT: Fuzz, Jolteon doesn't have *great* spdef, and with a high probability of flamethrower this thing could easily run HP Ground, which also helps against Heatran and magnezone. Though I must agree Snorlax sounds great, as it doesn't even mind the paralysis and could live without paralyzing one pokemon with Body Slam.

I want this to be able to take down at least Latias and Heatran, but Tyranitar looks like a safe counter. Bronzong and Blissey could probably take this thing, although Bronzong probably couldn't hurt it much besides blowing up or Earthquaking.

@Deck: I wonder why you put Regice in the counters (which honestly is not the most common special sponge around with that massive SR weakness and lack of reliable recovery) and didnt mention Snorlax even in the check list. And also, I really can't understand how (when SR is up, i.e. almost always) Regice is more reliable than Swampert at even checking CAP8...

EQ Tyranitar could dent this thing quite hard, as noted by these calcs:

604 Atk vs 272 Def & 420 HP (100 Base Power): 318 - 376 (75.71% - 89.52%)

That considers max HP and no Defense on max Atk Adamant CBTar. Sdef tar in general seems like a decent counter against this thing, although the potential support moves we MAY give it will hinder it's abilities, notably screens.

Blissey also looks like a good candidate to take on CAP 8. Ice Beam would be the best option to deal with this. Perhaps Blissey may run Twave/Softboiled/IceBeam/Aromatherapy in order to take the potential paralysis this thing may dish out, but that looks like some big bait for some contenders in CAP Meta, mainly Sub Strata and CM Jira. Blissey acts like a sitting duck a lot though, but it sure as hell looks like it could take CAP8.

You can't really switch in a Heatran on CAP8's Thunderbolt without taking a dent, so that's not really a counter, rather a check. Same could go for Latias -- it can't really take a Draco Meteor but it could take a Thunderbolt. Definitely, Latias could dent CAP 8.

The difference between checks and counters relies solely on the ability to switch in. Simply put, checks can not switch into absolutely everything and come out strong. Nonetheless, what matters most in a team is the ability is to handle pokemon via checks, not really counters. You can't have a team full of counters for every pokemon, but you could have a team full of checks for just about everything. That being the case, I could picture Jira or some sort of steel switching in on a Draco Meteor, and being able to wall it afterwards. Support Jira could give this thing a bit of trouble provided it runs Static and not Shield Dust, so hopefully we will see a bit of variation in abilities here. I could picture Body Slam being thrown out onto CAP 8, then having a paralyzed dragon while Jira U-turns into say, Swampert, with Swampert being able to retaliate with Ice Beam and EQ. Swampert in particular doesn't seem to like Dragon Pulses from Latias, so I really doubt it would like Dragon Pulses or even Draco Meteors from this thing either. However it does seem like a good candidate to hit CaP8 hard under the correct circumstances.

@Deck: I'm not really sure as to why you put Hippow in the counters section. Sure enough, EQ does 2hko cap8. However, Dragon Pulse could 2HKO Hippow as well. Seeing as how CAP8 is faster, I doubt that is a reliable counter. It looks to me like a Check if anything. Furthermore a LO variant of this CAP8 mon that could possibly carry LO DM does 339 Atk vs 180 Def & 420 HP (140 Base Power): 367 - 433 (87.38% - 103.10%) against Hippow. That is quite a lot.

Joatmon said:

Oh I was thinking lucario had 70 for whatever reason >_<

ignore that last part

EDIT: Fuzz, Jolteon doesn't have *great* spdef, and with a high probability of flamethrower this thing could easily run HP Ground, which also helps against Heatran and magnezone. Though I must agree Snorlax sounds great, as it doesn't even mind the paralysis and could live without paralyzing one pokemon with Body Slam.

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I'm just saying that it's capable of switching into a predicted Thunderbolt and threaten CAP with Hidden Power Ice/Ground.

Fuzznip said:

Well, Jolteon can generally switch in on Thunderbolt and threaten CAP with HP Ice.

I agree that Snorlax is an awesome counter since it also has Thick Fat to reduce Fire Blast damage which it will most likely have.

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Snorlax walls it. It takes 17-20% from the posted support spread Thunderbolt. It takes 31-37% from Max Modest Specs Thunderbolt. Shield Dust prevents it from being paralyzed by Lax's Body Slam, but unless it gets Focus Blast Snorlax is a definitive counter.

@ zarator: It's a working list. I edit stuff in as people bring up things I forgot.

I'm agreeing with Deck Knight on the Water/Fire move split. If CAP8 gets Hydro Pump/Surf, it makes life a lot harder on Ground and Rock types. If CAP8 gets Fire Blast/Flamethrower, count Steels (other than Heatran) out. I don't really care which it gets, but I would prefer it only gets one set or the other. Personally I'd rather go with Hydro Pump and Surf, since it gets better neutral coverage and I'd rather see Steel-types remain as counters/checks because they're more common and you won't have to go out of your way to find a decent switch-in that works with any given team. With Fire Blast/Flamethrower it gets a bit dicier, but it is still manageable.

I'm going to agree with tennis and DK, especially that if we had to split between Water and Fire we choose Water moves, moving some of the Rocks/Grounds down to checks (I'm looking at you Tyranitar!) or just off the list completely.

To me Latias seems like a a reasonable counter. It can use a STAB Dragon Pulse or Draco Meteor to knock out this CAP due to its low special defense, and Latias has pretty high special defense itself to wall this CAP's special attacks (since it's not doing much physical-wise). All Latias would need is a time you can guarentee it won't use a dragon attack, and then Latias can easily outspeed it and knock it out with its STAB.
I agree that T-Tar also seems like a viable counter since it can take a special hit no problem, and then knock out the CAP with a good EQ.

Those are the best ones I can think of right now.

I'd like to point out Snorlax as a counter. Much like Blissey, it can wall it's special attacks forever, doesn't mind status, and can directly threaten CAP8 with Earthquake. Unlike Blissey, Snorlax can set up Curses in CAP8's face. Unless CAP8 is given Focus Punch, Snorlax can beat any set it uses.

EDIT: late :S

What about Metagross? Even though it won't like Thunderbolts, it needs to be considered due to its high usage.

I would actually prefer if CAP8 had fire moves over water in order to build upon its higher speed and great Defence in order to check Gross. As the number 1 poke is needs to be threatened as much as possible by CAP8.

Jirachi is also solidly countered with Shield Dust so CAP8 having fire moves to threaten it out would be nice. I know, this is counters not movepool, but I'm leaving for the Amazon tomorrow so squeezing in my thoughts on the fire/water thing now.

Switching into Thunderbolt or having CAP8 switch into MM and getting Gross paralyzed due to Static Isn't threatening enough? I guess earthquake is problematic but unless CAP8 is at <60% health I am willing to explode on it, there is no way I am switching Metagross into CAP8 D;

Hippowadon should be quite the... not counter, but they'll be brick walls at each other. Kinda sucky if you think about it. SS damage would eventually kill it though.