CAP 12 CAP 1 - Part 3 -(Secondary Type Discussion)

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reachzero

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Now that we have decided that the primary typing of CAP 1 is Flying, it is time for us to discuss the secondary typing that will best complement Flying in order to fulfill the concept. The concept, of course, is:

Concept: Momentum
General Description: This will be a Pokemon that can be utilized to gain or regain momentum for a player's team at any point in the match as its primary function.
Justification: Gen. 5 is a very powerful metagame. As such, most battles are won by the smarter strategist who can best maneuver around his/her opponent's onslaught to gain even a single turn's advantage, potentially clinching them the match. This process of gaining and regaining momentum is most often the defining element that makes a winner and a loser out of a single Pokemon battle. Any top player in this metagame should agree that momentum is the most crucial element in any given match; however, "momentum" itself is a rather vaguely defined term that is never really explored in concrete terms. Is it keeping opposing teams on the defensive? Forcing switches? Good prediction? Spamming U-turn? These have all been approaches to achieving momentum, but they are also player-side and largely synonymous with "strategy," as opposed to Pokemon-side and regarding a Pokemon's role on the team. Certainly there are threats like Ferrothorn/Gliscor (defensive) and Scizor/Latios/Voltlos, etc., etc. (offensive) that can achieve momentum as we know it, but there is no current niche for a "momentum Pokemon" because the concept has been purely delegated to players and not to Pokemon.
Questions to be Answered:
-How do we define momentum in terms of competitive Pokemon? What factors make current Pokemon able to achieve momentum and how can we incorporate that information into a successful CAP?
-How do different styles of play (Weather-based offense, stall, bulky offense, etc.) use momentum to achieve their goals and how can our CAP play to those strategies in an effort to take their momentum away?
-What type of traditional role (sweeper, tank, wall, support) would a Pokemon like this most resemble? Would it have to be able to fit more than one of these roles to fit in a variety of teams?
-How will the different playstyles be affected by the addition of a Pokemon that can regain offensive/defensive momentum at any given point? Will offensive teams play more conservatively? Will defensive teams play more recklessly? Will everything simply adapt to a new threat and move on normally?
At this point, we should not be discussing types in the abstract. Now that we know CAP1 is at least half Flying, it would be a good idea to discuss actual threats--we know CAP1 can switch in on "Fighting attacks and Ground attacks", but can it switch in on Virizion or Excadrill? Obviously much of this cannot be decided sheerly on the basis of typing, but typing does play a large role in terms of which Pokemon can switch in and force out which.

Because this is our first Flying type in the history of CAP, let me get this out of the way right away: a Stealth Rock weakness isn't the end of the world. If the type combination that helps us fulfill the concept the best happens to be weak to Stealth Rock (not 4x weak, which is a lot worse), we can deal with it. So let's think creatively!

This thread will be open for 24 hours. Isn't it exciting to watch a new CAP taking shape?
 
I think the two best secondary types for CAP 1 would be Ghost or Steel.

Ghost - Ghost would be a good type because with two immunitiesit would be able to create momentum against Ground and Fighting/Normal type pokemon. Not to mention it would look really cool.

Steel - With many resistances, CAP 1 would be able to switch in on many pokemon and force them out creating momentum. This would also make Stealth Rock netural.

E: Awsome, First Post
 

SJCrew

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Since Flying helps us change the momentum of the game by being SR-weak, I only think it's fair to compliment such a dominating property with the Ghost typing that allows us to switch in to Rapid Spin and keep entry hazards up, the ultimate momentum controllers in any match.
 
Ghost I think will be a poor choice, since that would make the CAP both stealth rocks and pursuit weak. And For a pokemon designed around momentum the ability to switch easily I think should be taken into account. I know neither of these things on their own is terrible but combined I think does more harm than the good.
 
My first reaction was to start thinking of types that would remove the Stealth Rock weakness. Then I stepped back, thought a minute, and decided to take reach's message to heart. Stealth Rock isn't the end of the world. So, for my purposes, Fighting, Steel, and Ground were off the table.

After further digging around and research, I came to the conclusion that one of the following three types would benefit CAP1 quite a great deal. First up:

Poison: While it adds in a Psychic weakness on top of the Electric, Rock, and Ice weaknesses already present, it makes CAP1 4x resistant to three types - Fighting, Grass, and Bug - while being 2x resistant to Poison. These resistances make Virizion and Breloom non-issues (assuming something is already asleep, in Breloom's case). CAP1 could also (depending on stats) probably check Pokemon such as Scizor and Conkeldurr pretty handily with these resistances. Reuniclus, Excadrill, and Landorus cause some trouble, but that's nothing some smart teambuilding can't handle.

Next up:

Water: The Water typing trades off the Ice weakness, but increases the Electric weakness to 4x. However, it 2x resists five types - Fighting, Bug, Steel, Fire, and Water. These resistances make it an ideal teammate for Ferrothorn, since he resists both of Ferro's weaknesses, making it easy for you to force your opponent in the direction you want them to go. You're obviously not going to stay in on anything packing an Electric attack (Thundurus, Starmie, etc), and Rock attacks aren't to be trifled with either (Excadril, Landorus, etc), but this also works in your favor: much like GyaraVire of early DPP, you can fish for Thunderbolts, making your opponent extremely predictable.

Lastly:

Electric: Electric typing would make CAP1 only 2x weak to Rock and Ice, while giving CAP1 five 2x resistances - Fighting, Bug, Flying, Steel, and Grass. This typing would again make Virizion and Breloom non-issues, while also countering things like Scizor and FlingScor (assuming he's chucked his Toxic orb away) pretty well. Conkeldurr is handily checked. Excadrill and Landorus cause some trouble. Electric also gives us STAB on Volt Switch. My only concern with this typing is that we'd have to be sure to differentiate him from Zapdos, who's a pretty decent momentum-mon in his own right.


When it's all said and done, I'm personally leaning pretty strongly in the direction of Poison as my preference for secondary typing.
 

Korski

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Pursuit-weakness isn't the end of the world, neither is it really all that bad. Pursuit is actually much less common nowadays, as most Tyranitar are running mixed sets with Crunch as their only STAB. Scizor still runs CB well, but the bulky SDer is becoming more and more commonplace. Either way, a Ghost typing opens up a distinct possibility for Will-o-Wisp to neuter these threats, and there's no saying what this CAP will be capable of behind a Sub, (Substitute being the momentumest of momentum moves). Also don't forget that Tar and Zor both have 4x weaknesses to exploit.
 
I'm going to present a quick overview of types to get rid of. The idea is that this will focus discussion (a little) early on. I'll post my thoughts on the remainder in a later post.

4x weak to Stealth Rock

The following types lose 50% of their health just for switching in. This is just too much, and could only be remedied with a powerful ability.

Bug, Fire and Ice are out.


Many weaknesses, no extra immunities

The following types increase CaP1's weaknesses to an alarming level, without giving us anything worthwhile to make up for it (immunities).

Bug, Grass, Psychic and Rock all have five weaknesses, and are only immune to Ground. Too many pokemon would be able to target them with coverage moves.


Inferior to Flying/Poison

Poison has great synergy with flying. It has just two weaknesses, and one of those (Ground) is irrelevant.

On the other hand, it enhances all three of Flying's resistances: Bug, Fighting and Grass all go from half-damage to quarter-damage. That means a Flying/Poison pokemon can almost completely ignore Ground, Fighting, Grass and Bug - four types!

I consider Flying/Poison to be strictly superior to both pure Flying, and Flying/Normal. Thus they should be discarded.


The remaining types

Dark, Dragon, Electric, Fighting, Ghost, Ground, Poison, Steel and Water.
 
Since Flying is already resistant to fighting so an inmunity might not be very needed

Steel has nice resistances and would be the mon SR neutral, and strong against resistant angains pursuit, making it only week to fire (which would make obvious the attack the foe is planning to use, and if he uses a Stabbed fire attacker then he is at least neutral to SR too) and electric (also easy to predict) but neutral to fighting (which may not be the worst since it's flying attack should deal with it), it also helps you being week to ice (just make sure it doesn't end like Skar's twin)

Poison is a type i think should be considered, while it's psychic weekness is bad for things like Rankurusu around, that's the only problems, since graund is something you shouldn't have to worry, being inmune to toxic is important since you can come in toxic and ruin the only form of damage or many mons, 4x resistant to fighting is awesome considering that's the only thing you should worry in most fighting types, and 4x ressistant to u-turn is also nice, although most of it's resistans are shared, it's still something to consider

Electric is another that might fit, giving you neutrality to electric attacks, and a resistance to bullet punch, it might not be as effective as the other two, but in thesefast meta tunder wave is something all-non ground types are going to fell, that could easily transform a match by simply paralysing a top treath to your team (nobody like to see the message "x cannot move"

PD: great other people are seing posion as a good type c:
 
Ehh I would have rather had ghost win

To me momentum occurs when stop you your opponents plan while setting up your own

So a momentum poke needs to be able to either come in stop and cripple an opposing sweeper, or come in and be capable of counter sweeping

Because of this I think grass is a great choice

Only gives one additional common weakness in fire
allows us acess to the massive grass support movepool
 

Alchemator

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If you've been discussing this CAP with me, you know that I without a doubt support Poison as the secondary typing. I think CAP 1 would do well as a Flying/Poison type because of all the 4x resistances that it brings to the table.

As I believe I've said in another thread, I think the key to gaining momentum is being able to switch in with relative impunity and threaten the opponent, and then capitalise on that threat. Some Pokémon (especially in this new generation) have the power to bulldoze through resistances with enough tries, but as far as I know very little can break through a 4x resistance. The 4x resistances of Flying/Poison are, as you probably know: Fighting, Bug, Grass. The first is undoubtedly the most important, with powerful Fighting-types such as Conkeldurr throwing around Drain Punches like no tomorrow. Bug is also extremely useful, allowing CAP 1 to take U-turns easily.

While some may criticise the Poison-type for being weak to Psychic-type attacks that are more common than ever with the presence of Reuniclus, I'd like to take it completely the other way. Many have argued that CAP 1 should have 'obvious weaknesses', and this weakness to Reuniclus certainly is - luring a Psychic-type attack so that Tyranitar/Miscellaneous effective pursuiter can switch in and dispose of it. Surely in the eyes of those arguing for 'obvious weaknesses' this is a fantastic way to gain momentum?

Flying/Poison bolsters all that is excellent about the Flying-type, while providing an effective way to dispose of that dangerous embryo!
 
it would also make you 4x week to ice
Which isn't so bad, not for the concept we're working with here. Being 4x weak to Ice also means it's really easy to predict what your opponent is going to do - in this case, throw Ice Beams your way. This makes it easy for you to switch in a resist to force a switch, to maintain your own momentum.

4x weaknesses aren't a death sentence, and in fact having one may be a boon to this particular CAP.
 
Code:
130208 <+capefeather> I think that this video sums up my reaction nicely
130208 <+capefeather> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUVdA9ABzpg
Well, the Stealth Rock weakness isn't bad, but Landorus and Excadrill are. Considering both pack Rock-type moves, it seems very compelling to pick one of the following two types:

Steel is obviously an excellent defensive type that is notable here for its immunity to sandstorm, which will preserve CAP 1's longevity. The Flying type removes the potentially terrible Ground weakness as well. The typing overall helps to draw in Rotom-W, allowing its set to be scouted among other things. Magnezone is kind of mean to this typing, but oh, well.

Fighting is here because it carries with it a very good attacking STAB that, together with Flying, is walled only by Zapdos and Thundurus in OU (Rotom isn't OU -.-). We kind of abandoned dealing immediately with both of them when we picked Flying, but Thundurus is going to be wary of switching in, anyway, and Zapdos is pretty rare.

Water comes to mind as well. Two large threats that come to mind are Reuniclus and Blaziken. It would be nice to mitigate these threats somewhat, though this would come at the cost of doing badly against Landorus and Excadrill. If we really wanted CAP 1 to deal with Blaziken, though, it would probably have to be heavily defensive. This combo is notable for its double Electric weakness, providing an effective "funnel" for luring enemies like Rotom-W, Jolteon and random Electric coverage attackers.

Some types I've been toying with but I'm wary of supporting them:

Dark is an "obvious" choice for responding to Reuniclus and deals with Jellicent as well (but not really Ferrothorn, though that depends on how good the Flying STAB is). It's otherwise similar to what Steel is attempting to accomplish, except it's vulnerable to sandstorm. Problem is it's a bit *too* similar to Steel and loses a lot of Steel's benefits...

Poison - The 4x Fighting resistance is great; on the other hand, weaknesses to both Rock and Psychic make me wary.
 
The Candidates: Dark, Dragon, Electric, Fighting, Ghost, Ground, Poison, Steel and Water.


My favourites, in alphabetical order:


Electric



  • Two weaknesses: Ice and Rock
  • Many special attackers carry Ice (but not Rock)
  • Many physical attackers carry Rock (but not Ice)
  • This makes opponents very predictable.

Ground


  • Two weaknesses: Ice and Water
  • Makes opponents predictable
  • Would defend well against physical attackers
  • Immune to Electric
  • Stealth Rock neutral: not essential, but nice.

Poison



  • Great synergy with Flying
  • Immune to Ground, x4 resistant to Bug, Fighting, Grass
  • But still weak to Electric, Ice and Psychic, so would be very vulnerable to special attackers, and would not limit their options much.
  • Poor attacking type.

Steel



  • Defense! We all know how tough this combo is.

Water



  • Two weaknesses: Electric and Rock
  • Many special attackers carry Electric (but not Rock)
  • Many physical attackers carry Rock (but not Electric)
  • This makes opponents very predictable.

  • Resists water: helps counter rain dance teams
  • Water is a great attacking type.

I am simply not excited by Dark, Dragon, Fighting or Ghost.

I fear Flying/Ghost has too many weaknesses to achieve the significant swings in momentum we are looking for. How many pokemon could it really scare out?

There is nothing much wrong with Flying/Dark, but it doesn't stand out like the four I listed above. It is weak to both halves of Boltbeam... how does that limit our opponent's options?

Flying/Dragon would struggle to beat opposing Dragons. We would need a worrying amount of speed and/or strength to fend off the 'big boys' we all love to fear.

Flying/Fighting is Stealth Rock neutral... but that's its main draw, and I agree with Reach that it is not worth picking a type for.
 

SJCrew

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Pursuit is actually much less common nowadays
Let's say away from these arguments about what is and isn't common unless it's blatantly obvious, as most of them are unsubstantiated attempts to prove a point. I run Pursuit on almost every team just for Latios and I'm sure most players are running both Pursuit and Crunch just for Latios and Reuniclus.

But Pursuit-weak being a deterrent for this concept is not something I'd agree with without us knowing its stats and movepool. Dusclops and Cresselia being Pursuit weak amounts to nothing with their sky-high defenses and Cresselia setting up screens to make the damage laughable. Also, if this CAP has the movepool for it, Scizor and Tyranitar can fall to either Will-o-Wisp or a Fighting-type attack. You just never know.

There's still some hope for Ghost/Flying, and I don't want to take spinblocking off of the table, since that's the kind of thing that usually changes matches (ouch, my team has to take another round of ~19% damage before I can kill the blocker, woe is me).
 
Fighting could be fun though. Great resistances and perfect typing to counter the classical combo of Fighting-mons. Moreover, he'll have great STABs (to prevent loss of momentum) and predictable weaknesses.
With Fighting, we'll get an all-around Pokemon, with good STABs and nice resistances. I guess it's the mid-way between Ground (few weaknesses) and Poison (resistances

I like Poison too for obvious reasons : great resistances against rising types but and, surprisingly, the bad coverage between his STABs can be an asset. What sort of coverage will he carry ? It will be unpredictable and unpredictability can make gain surprise-KO, so a total win of momentum.

So I prefer Fighting or Poison. Ghost is... meh with many weaknesses despite nice resistances, Water can be nice at a Blaziken-check but it wouldn't be the more interesting typing.
 
I personally think that flying is best complemented by a type that resists stealth rock, as a stealth rock weakness would greatly harm the successfulness of the CAP. These types are steel, fighting and ground.

Steel. While a great choice because of its numerous resistances and its excellent synergy with the ground type, I think steel should not be the top choice mainly because Steel is a bad offensive type. Yes it is true that the CAP can make use of its Flying STAB, but Flying does not complement steel very well. The STAB combination of Steel+Flying gets resisted by many pokemon, and as such it greatly reduces the offensive ability of the CAP. A Flying/Steel type fails to pose a big offensive threat to the opponent as there is a high chance that a lot of pokemon on the opposing pokemon resist the combo, as opposed to just one or two. What this means is that the player has quite a few options to switch to in case the CAP appears on the foe's team, which defeats the purpose of the CAP, which is to force a predictable reaction from the opponent in order to control the flow of the battle.

In addition, being a part Steel-type strips the flying type of its valuable fighting resistance which is one of the biggest selling points of the flying type.

Also, if the CAP is made to pose a defensive threat, we already have skarmory, who does the same thing. In my opinion, an offensive steel/flying type will be hindered by its inability to abuse its dual STAB while defensive one will face competition from Skarmory, and will be too similar to it.


Ground: Ground is one of the best types to pair Flying up with, with the biggest selling point being its immunitiy to electricity, and most importantly, to thunder wave. Ground/Flying is a great offensive as well as a great defensive typing. With only two weaknesses in Water and Ice it also forces the opponent to make a predictable move, one of the biggest objectives of the CAP.

However, again, we have two great Ground/Flying types in the current metagame, both of which can accomplish the job of gaining momentum very well. In my opinion we should avoid making the CAP too similar to existing pokemon who do the exact same job of regaining momentum by either posing an offensive or a defensive threat lest the CAP either replace the said pokemon on teams or be outclassed by them(which means that we already had a pokemon who did the CAP's job in the metagame)

Also, a Ground/Flying type will be too easily dealt with by faster ice users or strong ice sharders which again means that, in time, the things that the cap usually switches on in the metagame will begin packing some ice move(or a hidden power) to get rid of the pokemon.

Fighting: Now, Fighting is probably the best type that could support the flying type in achieving the aim of the CAP. Fighting lets Flying retain its important resistances to fighting, grass and ground and at the same time add a valuable resistance to Dark. True, there are not many users of dark moves, but there are quite a few users of Pursuit, and most of them are generally choiced. This enables the CAP to quickly regain momentum which was lost when the pursuiter managed to take out some member of the users team. It also synergises well with most Pursuit-weak pokemon(psychic types).

Fighting/Flying is also a nearly unresisted STAB combo. Only a handful of Pokemon can handle this combination. Hence, it achieves the main goal of the CAP by forcing the opponent to make a predictable switch or lose a pokemon/give a free turn to the user. The user can take advantage of this situation, and thereby gain momentum, fulfilling the CAP's goal.


Thus, in my opinion, Fighting is probably the best type to pair up with Flying, followed by Steel, and then Ground.

EDIT: Yeah I probably got ninja'd pretty badly considering there have been more than 5 or so posts while I was writing this
 
Poison to me would be an amazing second typing. Great resistances, only a Psychic weakness (lol Psychic) and that gives quite a bit of potential for movepool.
 
An interesting subtype would be Fighting. When you think about it, it does a handful of things very well;
1. Resists rocks
2. Has only 2 rather uncommon weaknesses (Psychic and Flying) that don't overlap with any of flying's
3. Provides fighting STAB

There are some minor details like creating a 4x resistance to Bug type, but I think the versatility that would come from two very unique types in one could be very beneficial. With the abundance of fighting-types this gen, it could be the anti-fighting fighting type.
 
I agree with UnhandledException and Breadsticks; Fighting is the best way to go, since it takes neutral damage from Stealth Rock and helps against Steels, especially Excadrill. If checking and/or countering one of the best sand sweepers in the metagame can't gain momentum, nothing can.
 
This CAP needs to not be weak to Stealth Rock in order to do its job properly. For that reason, Fighting and Steel are the only options worth considering.

Fighting is the best option both because of the deadly offensive STABs and because of the importance of not recreating existing Pokemon. Steel is a lesser option because of the much less threatening STABs, and because Skarmory is an existing Steel/Flying type that is highly effective at gaining multiple forms of defensive momentum, which seems to be the best sort of momentum for our CAP to seek. However, Skarmory's role is specific enough that the CAP could still be differentiated from it without too much difficulty, making it a good second option.

Ground would also be an option for preventing a Stealth Rock weakness, but a poor one. As UnhandledException said, no matter what kind of momentum this CAP is meant to help with, there is little we can do to make a Ground/Flying momentum-oriented CAP differentiated from both Gliscor and Landorus. We'll either end up with a better version of one of the two or an inferior version of one of the two, and neither result is desirable.
 
Fighting intrigues me as a type here because it actually pairs quite well with Flying in terms of neutral coverage. In addition, it gets rid of the stealth rock weakness, which is significant, even if I agree that it isn't crucial. I like the idea of having a good STAB combo on this pokemon which, given well-tuned attacking stats, gives CAP1 the ability to do consistent, but not overwhelming, damage.
 
I'm going to bring up a very good option that doesn't seem as popular as I would have expected: Flying/Fighting. This typing has three big advantages:

Resistances: Flying/Fighting sport some very nice resistances, with Fighting, Grass, Dark, Bug, and the Ground immunity, and more importantly it resists or is neutral to some very important type combinations. Most valuable are the Fighting/Dark resistances, Fighting resistance/Rock neutrality, the Ground immunity/Rock neutrality, the 4x resistance to U-turn, and SR neutrality (which alongside Spikes and TS immunity greatly reduces switch-in damage). These allow you to switch in on (and far more importantly force out) many threats, including Excadrill, Tyranitar, Ferrothorn, Terakion, Virizion, and Conckledurr. The problem with sub-types like Ghost or Poison is that most attacks that are resisted by these types are usually used alongside coverage attacks that will hit SE, meaning they won't actually switch out and no momentum is gained. ie Fighting/Dark/Ghost, Fighting/Rock, Ground/Rock/Ice, Grass/Ice (and normal isn't used much at all, except Rapid Spin. Unfortunately you're weak to Starmie's TB and IB, and Excadrill's Rock Slide).

Weaknesses: Ice, Electric, Flying, and Psychic are easily taken advantage of. Flying and Psychic in particular will almost never be used without STAB, and Ice and Electric are quite predictable, usually coming from pokemon like Starmie or Thundurus - not to mention that Roost can remove these weaknesses should it be selected (thought that should't be assumed!).

Coverage: Also interesting is the fantastic STAB coverage. One thing to note about the coverage is that while it has great neutral coverage it doesn't have amazing super-effective coverage (except on the Pokemon you want to force out, like Terakion, TTar, Conckledurr, etc). This means that most pokemon would take consistent damage damage from CAP 1 without being outright KOed. I think that this is valuable as it allows you to weaken switch-in's consistently while not being easily forced out by resistances. This also allows us to focus on secondary moves as a means of gaining momentum (since we presumably wouldn't be using powerful STABs like Heatran's Fire Blast).

The only (viable) pokemon that resist Flying/Fighting coverage are Zapdos and Thundurus, which makes two very predictable switch-ins to be crippled (eg if we decided to give it Thunder Wave) or met with a pokemon that could take advantage of them. Obviously this seems very limited, however, it has been firmly stated that CAP 1 will not have stellar attacking options/stats, and it almost certainly won't have offensive boosting moves. Thus, a number of pokemon with solid defences will still be able to switch in to CAP 1 effectively. Meanwhile, Flying still provides decent coverage on its own, so a mono-attacking set can still easily be run.
 
I would like to give my suport to Poison.

Alchemator summed it up really good. 4x restsitances, fighing in perticular, is a great asset to this cap. While adding only a single weakness that's can be used to your own advantage to generate more momentum because of the imunity to it that Dark posess.

I'm not convinced about Steel, it gives up the fighting resist that's an important part of the flying main type. It's definitly a great defensive typing, and thats a bit what worries me. While Steel have many resistances all over the board, Poison gives it a few very strong key resistances. But steel is a good typing that i wouldn't be that unhappy about if we do end up with that end result. I simply think poison works better.

Poison would end up weak to SR but, that is not everything. Gen V rocks are less prevailant, and i really think this pokemon can be able to gain momentum despite a weakness to stealth rock.
 
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