I actually have been playtesting Rotom H alongside this core recently, though I was running a Scarf/Trick set rather than a bulky Rotom. It works pretty well. The dual levitation works nicely, and the fairy resist is nice. I'd struggle to design a Fire/Electric type that does Rotoms job better, but there is always a niche available in that another Rotom form can be run alongside it: I used to run Lanturn to surprising success alongside Rotom-H, I'm sure the same would apply in reverse, as Fire/Electric tempts Ground moves like no other, except maybe Heatran. That said, it's not directly relevant to the core at hand.
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CAP 18 CAP 18 - Part 2 - Typing Discussion
- Thread starter jas61292
- Start date
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So your whole argument is invalid. And in what world is Ghost the second best offensive type? The way I see it, there are only 3 Ghost type pokemon in the top 60 usage-wise. Gengar, Sableye, and Aegislash. Ghost is most definitely not that good if out of the 60 most used pokemon, only 3 are ghosts. The only thing that Normal/Ghost can do for our core is beat Aegislash. We need to stop having a "must beat Aegislash" fetish, okay? We need to beat Aegislash. It is a huge threat to our core. We can agree on this. But CAP 18 also needs to cover our core's other weaknesses. Normal/Ghost performs very poorly against almost everything else besides what it is immune to. Normal is, most definitely, the worst offensive type in the game. Ghost can be useful, but certainly isn't as good as you say. It will be destroyed by things it doesn't at least resist and have a SE STAB against. Things like Talonflame, Fairies, and most Ground types will tear this thing apart. You Normal/Ghost fanboys need to either come up with some new arguments for your type or drop it.
EpicUmbreon29
^-^
I would like to throw support behind the typing of Normal/Ghost. I have already submitted a type, Water/Flying, but it has come to my attention that this idea needs support more, as this is the type which will allow our CAP to be most successful. Now, to be supporting an idea which is not mine is not something I would do without thought. Normal/Ghost is completely immune to Fighting and Ghost, Aegislash's two biggest attacking types crippling weaknesses to Lucario and Latias, respectively. Though there are other threats to this core, not everything must be solved through defensive typing; the evidence shows that this Pokemon can have great STAB coverage. Ghost covers everything except for Dark and Normal, while Normal covers everything except for Rock, Steel, and Ghost. Therefore, the only things this Pokemon would not cover with STAB are Bisharp, Tyranitar, and itself, and taking care of the offensive aspect of this Pokemon assisting the core. I'm tired of reading mixed reviews about this typing, especially those which try to pant it in a negative light. Now, i will admit, this Pokemon does have few resistances, with only Bug and Poison resistances, but it is still immune to Fighting and Normal. Also, its only weakness is the Dark type, which Lucario handles extremely well. Therefore, this Pokemon answers the problem of protecting Lucario and Latias (to an extent) AND providing offensive pressure against those the former two cannot. In conclusion, I think this type is the right choice to go forward with and will ultimately allow us to make CAP 18 the best (and most balanced, as in it won't become overpowered, like Cawmodore, or largely unused, like Malaconda) one yet.
Edit: Also, in response to topher4167, I just want to make sure that everyone understands that there are only about 19 Ghosts that would ever be viable (and legal) in OU, with only 34 overall Ghost types. Therefore, for them to send just 2 representatives out of those 19 to the official OU tier list is still a big accomplishment.
Edit: Also, in response to topher4167, I just want to make sure that everyone understands that there are only about 19 Ghosts that would ever be viable (and legal) in OU, with only 34 overall Ghost types. Therefore, for them to send just 2 representatives out of those 19 to the official OU tier list is still a big accomplishment.
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Yeah, normal is a shit attacking type, practically on par with the awfulness of Steel and Poison. And we all know how shit the ghosts with those as subtypes are.
I appreciate the criticism and I think that it is awesome that you have a different opinion than I do, but I'd ask you to not take such an offensive tone. We're all here to complete the same goal- together. It's not a competition and there is no reason to go around claiming people's arguments are invalid and calling people fanboys. Quite frankly that is a little rude.
In response to your argument, I honestly think what you are asking is impossible. There is no typing that resists Flying, Ghost, Fighting, Ground, and Fairy types AND ko's those types back or forces them out. We can't have everything. We have to prioritize, and I think beating Aegislash is the highest priority. Honestly I would rather worry about that monster with 150 base sp.Atk shadow balls that we currently have no resists to and also cold stops our sweeper than a Pokemon that Lucario already walks all over with extremespeed or a type our main pivot is immune to. I'll grant you strong Fairy attacks from the likes of Azumarill and Mawile are problematic, but I think that is worth a sure fire answer to Aegislash.
I happen to think that Normal/Ghost is the best typing to go with- but I do not think that it is the only option. There are a lot of well thought out typings here and I think we could see success with many of them. With the level of thought and hard research behind the popular types in this thread there is no right, wrong, or even best answer- just different answers. I'm rooting for Poison/Dark, Fire/Electric and Fire/Fairy just as much as Normal/Ghost but there is already a big defense for those and there is nothing more to add in support of them really. Let's not act like picking a certain type is going to be the death of the project- with abilities, stats, and movepool still to come we ain't even halfway done.
Ignus
Copying deli meat to hard drive
Alright, let's talk business. This thread has, in my opinion, given us no definitive results as to ANY of the mentioned questions by the topic leader. This is not a point where we can be suggesting types. I honestly believe that.
The first thing I want to say is that we have to remember that we have 3 more team slots outside of our core. Redundancy is a necessary part of team building, but we shouldn't expect to be able to handle every single threat thrown at us. If our core seems to handle Aegislash terribly after we finish this stage, we can realize that there are other ways to handle it. If fairies give us some trouble, it can be dealt with the final slots of the team. We are only building half a team, and should treat it as such.
That said, I think it's a necessary move to analyze each one of the weaknesses separately to find out which is the least important, the weakness that is most approachable through the support of the other team members. Let's take a look, shall we?
Aegislash
This Pokemon is scary mostly because it has very few ways to deal with it. Everything that checks it can be played around (minus a few exceptions, such as mandibuzz) or dies on switch in. As scary as it is, I feel the reason it's been given so much attention is the fact that It's our only weakness that's been given a face.
However, it's also only one pokemon. That means it takes only one pokemon to handle it. Handling Aegislash takes very little investment in our final team slots compared to some of our other concerns with the core. The point of a core is to handle as large a variety of threats, and "over-specialization" will lead to failure.
Because of this, I want to make a point to say that While dealing with aegislash is a useful thing for our Perfect third, It should not be prioritized over other weaknesses of the core.
Pursuit, but more specifically, Knock off
Knock off is stupid. On it's first use, It's basically a dark type earthquake with utility. That's really, really dumb.
Not only that, but it has surprisingly good distribution. Let's look at the list of the top 20 Pokemon. Of them, 4 commonly use it. These pokemon are, not including Thundurus (6% knock off usage OP), Lando-T, Conkeldurr, Bisharp, and Mandibuzz. While that doesn't sound like much, that's still a Whopping 20% of the upper metagame, tying with earthquake.
But Ignus! Lucario can already absorb Knock-Off and get a justified boost!
And then systematically loose to every user except Mandibuzz, yes. Even Bisharp gives Lucario a run for it's money, as knock off sucker punch kills you a good majority of the time. Mandibuzz is shaky at best, as the combined damage of foul play and knock off will kill you if you use close combat, and do about 70-80% if you don't, and rely on iron tail for the 2hko. This is all assuming no prior damage. So, yeah. This doesn't work. Lucario cannot stop knock off.
Pursuit is a similar situation, but stupider. Latias just dies. Or Lucario switches in and dies because the enemy didn't use pursuit. Or kills Tyranitar. Both are options.
Because our core not only terribly handles Knock off, but the fact that it's less easily handled by a single team member leads me (and you?) to the conclusion that this is a task that can be effectively handled by a core. It should be treated as a higher priority then it currently is.
FAIrIES!
Shitty nineties cartoons aside, I honestly feel like categorizing all Fairies together is a mistake. The offensively threatening fairies are few and far between, and tend to have names that start with "Azumar" or "Mega". To be perfectly honest, these are a bigger deal than the defensive fairies, who tend more towards the specially defensive side of the spectrum, and can either be handled by Lucario (IRON TAILLLL) or by crying really loudly and getting your opponent to forfeit.
So, in this post, I'm going to focus on offensive Faries, more specifically, Azumarill and Mega-Mawile. Neither of these Pokemon are straightforward to deal with, as they both do a crap ton of damage. Fairy has no immunities. Both of these pokemon resist our STABs and are neutrally hit by steel. More importantly, they both can 1hko both members of the core with play rough. So that's not good. Having both pokemon loose to the number 10 and number 28 can never be a good thing. (Both Lucario and Latias loose to mega-gardeviour, also.) To be perfectly honest, I think the inability to deal with These three pokemon is more important than aegislash, but being able to do both would be nice.
So yeah. I think I'm done for now. If you disagree with any of this, please let me know.
The first thing I want to say is that we have to remember that we have 3 more team slots outside of our core. Redundancy is a necessary part of team building, but we shouldn't expect to be able to handle every single threat thrown at us. If our core seems to handle Aegislash terribly after we finish this stage, we can realize that there are other ways to handle it. If fairies give us some trouble, it can be dealt with the final slots of the team. We are only building half a team, and should treat it as such.
That said, I think it's a necessary move to analyze each one of the weaknesses separately to find out which is the least important, the weakness that is most approachable through the support of the other team members. Let's take a look, shall we?
Aegislash
This Pokemon is scary mostly because it has very few ways to deal with it. Everything that checks it can be played around (minus a few exceptions, such as mandibuzz) or dies on switch in. As scary as it is, I feel the reason it's been given so much attention is the fact that It's our only weakness that's been given a face.
However, it's also only one pokemon. That means it takes only one pokemon to handle it. Handling Aegislash takes very little investment in our final team slots compared to some of our other concerns with the core. The point of a core is to handle as large a variety of threats, and "over-specialization" will lead to failure.
Because of this, I want to make a point to say that While dealing with aegislash is a useful thing for our Perfect third, It should not be prioritized over other weaknesses of the core.
Pursuit, but more specifically, Knock off
Knock off is stupid. On it's first use, It's basically a dark type earthquake with utility. That's really, really dumb.
Not only that, but it has surprisingly good distribution. Let's look at the list of the top 20 Pokemon. Of them, 4 commonly use it. These pokemon are, not including Thundurus (6% knock off usage OP), Lando-T, Conkeldurr, Bisharp, and Mandibuzz. While that doesn't sound like much, that's still a Whopping 20% of the upper metagame, tying with earthquake.
But Ignus! Lucario can already absorb Knock-Off and get a justified boost!
And then systematically loose to every user except Mandibuzz, yes. Even Bisharp gives Lucario a run for it's money, as knock off sucker punch kills you a good majority of the time. Mandibuzz is shaky at best, as the combined damage of foul play and knock off will kill you if you use close combat, and do about 70-80% if you don't, and rely on iron tail for the 2hko. This is all assuming no prior damage. So, yeah. This doesn't work. Lucario cannot stop knock off.
Pursuit is a similar situation, but stupider. Latias just dies. Or Lucario switches in and dies because the enemy didn't use pursuit. Or kills Tyranitar. Both are options.
Because our core not only terribly handles Knock off, but the fact that it's less easily handled by a single team member leads me (and you?) to the conclusion that this is a task that can be effectively handled by a core. It should be treated as a higher priority then it currently is.
FAIrIES!
Shitty nineties cartoons aside, I honestly feel like categorizing all Fairies together is a mistake. The offensively threatening fairies are few and far between, and tend to have names that start with "Azumar" or "Mega". To be perfectly honest, these are a bigger deal than the defensive fairies, who tend more towards the specially defensive side of the spectrum, and can either be handled by Lucario (IRON TAILLLL) or by crying really loudly and getting your opponent to forfeit.
So, in this post, I'm going to focus on offensive Faries, more specifically, Azumarill and Mega-Mawile. Neither of these Pokemon are straightforward to deal with, as they both do a crap ton of damage. Fairy has no immunities. Both of these pokemon resist our STABs and are neutrally hit by steel. More importantly, they both can 1hko both members of the core with play rough. So that's not good. Having both pokemon loose to the number 10 and number 28 can never be a good thing. (Both Lucario and Latias loose to mega-gardeviour, also.) To be perfectly honest, I think the inability to deal with These three pokemon is more important than aegislash, but being able to do both would be nice.
So yeah. I think I'm done for now. If you disagree with any of this, please let me know.
Since I'm going to have a say in what gets slated at the end of this, I'm going to post my positions on existing favorite types in addition to the ones jas61292 mentioned, although I'm definitely going to focus on what jas61292 is directing the discussion towards.
It's pretty clear that Aegislash and Fairies are our top targets, but the former is much, much more difficult to deal with than the latter. However, Aegislash is something that can be dealt with during stages other than Typing (i.e., Typing is not the only stage where we can deal with Aegislash, although we definitely have to pay it mind right now). Fairy-type Pokemon, however, cannot be handled well without a typing that takes advantage of common Fairies or a ridiculous defensive presence.Most Fairy-type Pokemon are powerful. Really powerful. The top-used Fairy in OU, Azumarill, is a Physical powerhouse. Other Fairies such as Sylveon and Mega Mawile are not fun to take hits from. Our core is absolutely manhandled by Fairy-type Pokemon at the moment unless Lucario runs the incredibly unreliable Iron Tail, so we're going to have to address the Fairy problem here and now. Since we're building an offensive core with Lucario and Latias, it's at least as important to maintain our offensive presence as our defensive presence. As a result, I believe Dark/Poison is the best typing available to us at the moment because we get one powerful STAB in addition to a sneaky good defensive typing in Poison. Dark/Poison is preferable to other choices such as Poison/Steel and Normal/Ghost because it gives us enough insurance against Aegislash and Fairies while actually threatening them back. Furthermore, it doesn't compound our weaknesses to Conkeldurr, as we are not weak to its STAB and resist Knock Off. We'll have a problem with Grounds as well, but it won't be difficult to pair this core with something like Landorus-Therian that can provide additional insurance in addition to Latias.
Poison/Electric gives us a Fairy resistance and a means to hit Fairies super-effectively, but I'm not particularly sold on what the Electric typing does here. It gives us an extra Zapdos check, but we've already got Latias in this core. It's not checking Mega Pinsir without at least 105+ Speed and maximum investment, and even then Flying spam is not really that important of a strategy to counter. Lucario's +2 ExtremeSpeed does pretty well against Talonflame and Mega Pinsir, and at the very worst Lucario's breaking even against Talonflame and causing a double KO. When the worst-case scenario against Talonflame and Mega Pinsir is that you break even or heavily cripple them, I'm not sure why we need to devote one of our two types to defeating it. I find this typing outclassed by Dark/Poison, which can take Knock Offs and doesn't fall into the "
Normal/Fire hits the "threaten Aegislash and Fairy-type Pokemon" benchmark, but provides us essentially nothing beyond that. We're walled hard by Heatran and have no recourse against Conkeldurr at all. If Conkeldurr comes in against this Pokemon, we will not be able to handle it with our core. We also have no chance against Azumarill, who shatters us with an Aqua Jet or Waterfall. Although some of the other typings don't do particularly well against Azumarill, this one does by far the worst and essentially mandates that we'll need additional Pokemon to get through Azumarill as well as Conkeldurr. It also has potential issues with Landorus-Therian and Hippowdon. This isn't a bad typing for what we want to do, but this is a typing intended to hard-counter our threats and little else.
I'll edit this post or possibly post again with some more typings, but these are my thoughts about some of the current contenders.
It's pretty clear that Aegislash and Fairies are our top targets, but the former is much, much more difficult to deal with than the latter. However, Aegislash is something that can be dealt with during stages other than Typing (i.e., Typing is not the only stage where we can deal with Aegislash, although we definitely have to pay it mind right now). Fairy-type Pokemon, however, cannot be handled well without a typing that takes advantage of common Fairies or a ridiculous defensive presence.Most Fairy-type Pokemon are powerful. Really powerful. The top-used Fairy in OU, Azumarill, is a Physical powerhouse. Other Fairies such as Sylveon and Mega Mawile are not fun to take hits from. Our core is absolutely manhandled by Fairy-type Pokemon at the moment unless Lucario runs the incredibly unreliable Iron Tail, so we're going to have to address the Fairy problem here and now. Since we're building an offensive core with Lucario and Latias, it's at least as important to maintain our offensive presence as our defensive presence. As a result, I believe Dark/Poison is the best typing available to us at the moment because we get one powerful STAB in addition to a sneaky good defensive typing in Poison. Dark/Poison is preferable to other choices such as Poison/Steel and Normal/Ghost because it gives us enough insurance against Aegislash and Fairies while actually threatening them back. Furthermore, it doesn't compound our weaknesses to Conkeldurr, as we are not weak to its STAB and resist Knock Off. We'll have a problem with Grounds as well, but it won't be difficult to pair this core with something like Landorus-Therian that can provide additional insurance in addition to Latias.
Poison/Electric gives us a Fairy resistance and a means to hit Fairies super-effectively, but I'm not particularly sold on what the Electric typing does here. It gives us an extra Zapdos check, but we've already got Latias in this core. It's not checking Mega Pinsir without at least 105+ Speed and maximum investment, and even then Flying spam is not really that important of a strategy to counter. Lucario's +2 ExtremeSpeed does pretty well against Talonflame and Mega Pinsir, and at the very worst Lucario's breaking even against Talonflame and causing a double KO. When the worst-case scenario against Talonflame and Mega Pinsir is that you break even or heavily cripple them, I'm not sure why we need to devote one of our two types to defeating it. I find this typing outclassed by Dark/Poison, which can take Knock Offs and doesn't fall into the "
Normal/Fire hits the "threaten Aegislash and Fairy-type Pokemon" benchmark, but provides us essentially nothing beyond that. We're walled hard by Heatran and have no recourse against Conkeldurr at all. If Conkeldurr comes in against this Pokemon, we will not be able to handle it with our core. We also have no chance against Azumarill, who shatters us with an Aqua Jet or Waterfall. Although some of the other typings don't do particularly well against Azumarill, this one does by far the worst and essentially mandates that we'll need additional Pokemon to get through Azumarill as well as Conkeldurr. It also has potential issues with Landorus-Therian and Hippowdon. This isn't a bad typing for what we want to do, but this is a typing intended to hard-counter our threats and little else.
I'll edit this post or possibly post again with some more typings, but these are my thoughts about some of the current contenders.
First time posting in CaP...
I'm thinking something along the lines of Poison/Fairy could stand up to Latias and Lucario's weaknesses reasonably well defensively. Although weak to Ground, Steel and Psychic (only one of which is common) it would also sport some useful resistances, including Dark, Fairy, Bug and Fighting (4x). While its offensive STABs don't even scratch Aegislash or other Steel-types like Heatran or Scizor, a strong Poison attack can mean trouble for things like Azumarill and Togekiss, and a Fairy STAB deters common Knock Off users like Conkeldurr and Mandibuzz, but lacks an answer to Mega Mawile.
While Poison/Fairy leaves much to be desired offensively, it has much to offer in terms of being a defensive intermediate between Lucario and Latias.
I'm thinking something along the lines of Poison/Fairy could stand up to Latias and Lucario's weaknesses reasonably well defensively. Although weak to Ground, Steel and Psychic (only one of which is common) it would also sport some useful resistances, including Dark, Fairy, Bug and Fighting (4x). While its offensive STABs don't even scratch Aegislash or other Steel-types like Heatran or Scizor, a strong Poison attack can mean trouble for things like Azumarill and Togekiss, and a Fairy STAB deters common Knock Off users like Conkeldurr and Mandibuzz, but lacks an answer to Mega Mawile.
While Poison/Fairy leaves much to be desired offensively, it has much to offer in terms of being a defensive intermediate between Lucario and Latias.
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I'm also supporting Dark / Poison. While I concede that Fire / Electric can be good for the concept (threatens Aegislash, provides STAB Volt Switch and an useful resistance to Flying), I really feel we're pidgeonholed into Levitate and into another couple of choices, which basically would lead to a Rotom-H v2.0 (yeah, I know this is purely subjective since we could come out with a completely different pokemon, but I'm still uncomfortable pursuing that route). And, on a more objective-based observation, Fire / Electric utterly destroys Skarmory, which makes the typing very attractive for other physical sweepers that can't do so (e.g. Mega Pinsir), thus removing one of the advantages Lucario has over them. Dark / Poison is instead quite ineffective against it (especially if we end up with a physically attacking mon), so Lucario can actually have and edge with its STAB CC. While a resistance to Flying-type moves is a very useful asset, it is not essential when Lucario is already one of the hardest sweepers to revenge kill (Extremespeed), and I guess Dark type gives us the possibility of using STAB Sucker Punch which could alleviate the problem somehow.
I also like srk's Ground / Water idea since it provides Ground STAB against Aegislash (and Skarmory is immune to it and neutral to Water, so that works in favor of the combination) while having a very minimal set of weaknesses (one); however, it doesn't resist key types (Ghost for Aegislash, Fairy, and Flying) so it doesn't seem as well suited as Dark / Poison for the concept we chose.
I also like srk's Ground / Water idea since it provides Ground STAB against Aegislash (and Skarmory is immune to it and neutral to Water, so that works in favor of the combination) while having a very minimal set of weaknesses (one); however, it doesn't resist key types (Ghost for Aegislash, Fairy, and Flying) so it doesn't seem as well suited as Dark / Poison for the concept we chose.
You start perfectly by saying how checking Fairies with typing is more important than checking Aegislash with typing, and then you say that you favor Dark / Poison, which is neutral to Fairy moves and thus can't really switch into them without ridiculous physical bulk. Also, you say that with this typing we fare well against Conkeldurr, which is not even a big threat to our core, as the only Pokemon it can threaten 1 v 1 is Lucario, and it can't switch into anything. Finally, you say that flying spam is not such an important strategy to counter, when Mega Pinsir is an S and Talonflame an A+ threat in the viability ranking list, and together they form one of the best offensive combos in OU. Not only this, but Talonflame has the speed advantage and will always play first against our whole core, except from Lucario, which can sacrifice itself to weaken it with ES, but isn't the point to assist Lucario's sweep, and not to sacrifice Lucario in order to deal with Talonflame? Yeah, Lucario might get to +2 before Talonflame enters the field, but Talonflame getting into the field before Lucario sets up is way more likely, as Lucario is a late game sweeper, where Talonflame can work great throughout the whole game.
With that said, i see a lot of support for typings such as Ghost / Normal and Dark / Poison, which have a clear focus of being able to switch into Aegislash but not much else, so let me say this: Aegislash is not that hardest Pokemon to check, even without resisting Shadow Ball. Garchomp, specially defensive Heatran, Landorus-T, and Assault Vest Excadrill all do it just fine, and none of them resist Shadow Ball. On the other hand, let's see how many Pokemon check or counter Azumarill and Mega Mawile without resisting Fairy moves: Rotom-W and Landorus-T. That's it. Landorus-T can only check Mega Mawile, as Azumarill can fuck it up with Waterfall, but it can at least take a couple of Play Rough hits. And Rotom-W can only really check CB Azumarill and Mega Mawile once if they go for Play Rough, which they will as our core does nothing to discourage this so far, and Rotom-W needs max HP / max Def+ to do so, max HP gets OHKOed by both after SR. So, in order to check Fairy-types, we will need physical bulk to the level of Landorus-T, or just good physical bulk (Rotom-W) with max physical bulk investment, which goes against what we agreed, to build a Pokemon able to apply offensive pressure, and not a defensive pivot. This is why a Fairy resistance is a must, not a Ghost resistance.
And, because right now, Talonflame can go to town with just spamming Brave Bird, i think that a Flying resistance is really important as well, but not an absolute must like the Fairy resistance. So far, here are the typings that resist both Flying and Fairy, are not weak to Aegislash's common moves, and their STABs provide decent offensive presence:
Electric / Poison: Resists Fairy without being weak to any move that Fairies commonly carry, outside of Mega Gardevoir's Psyshock. Also, resists Flying moves while not being weak to Flare Blitz or U-turn, which is excellent. It also resists Iron Head, Sacred Sword, Flash Cannon, and is immune to Toxic, all moves that Aegislash can carry, so we only have to worry about tanking Shadow Ball. Electric / Poison is weak to Psychic and Ground, both of which Latias resists, while Electric / Poison can take on Steel and Fairy-types for Latias, so those two have good synergy together, which is good, as Lucario and Latias don't have many reasons to be used together, so we will have to make sure that the CAP pairs well with Latias if we want people to use Latias in this core. Moving on, Electric is a good offensive STAB, and Poison helps hit most Grass- and Dragon-types at least neutrally, outside of Ferrothorn, which is nice. However, the combo is completely ineffective against Ground-types, which are already somewhat problematic to our core. However, all typings have flaws, and this flaw is not that hard to solve with stats and the right movepool, so i think that this typing is one of the best proposed so far.
Electric / Fire: Resists Fairy moves but is weak to Azumarill's Water STAB, and resists the whole moveset of Talonflame. Also, it's not weak to any of the moves that Aegislash carries and can threaten back with Fire STAB. Fire / Electric has great synergy with Latias, with Latias resisting Water and being immune to Ground, and Fire / Electric dealing with Steel and Fairy-types, not to mention Latias getting rid of SR, which CAP is weak to, so this is a big plus. Finally, Fire / Electric is fantastic neutral and super effective coverage, with only Garchomp, Latios, and Latias resisting both, out of which Garchomp can be dealt with by WoW, a move that all Fire-types carry. As for the cons, Fire / Electric is weak to Ground, which makes Pokemon such as Scarf Excadrill and Garchomp even more problematic to our core. Also, being weak to Water while you want to check Azumarill sucks, but at least we resist both of Azumarill's STABs without our core, so we can play around choiced versions and revenge kill BD sets with Latias. Not the best solution, but a solution nonetheless. All around, pretty good typing though, with many pros and little cons, which can be addressed later in the concept. And no, we won't make Rotom-H v2 with this typing, we have a ton of options to make it different, such as different ability, physical orientation, set moves, different stat spread, etc. There are plenty of ways to go with an offensive Fire / Electric type, so don't let Rotom-H discourage you from picking Electric / Fire.
Gyarados and Mantine have extremely different stat spreads granted, but more importantly they have different abilities which allow them to perform different roles. What you have to note is what we're trying to do with a Fire/Electric type. With the prevalence of Ground types and Pokemon that carry Ground type coverage, the argument is that we can't afford to run that typing without the Levitate ability, which would then pigeon-hole us a lot in terms of what we can do to keep CAP from doing what Rotom-H already does. Rotom has Volt Switch to keep momentum, often carries Will 0' Wisp to cripple physical sweepers, and has decent bulk and offensive capabilities, only really missing out on HP and Attack (its speed tier is usable). So basically, it will be really difficult to create a Fire/Electric type that can function well with the core without making it a more specialized version of Rotom-H. And if we choose not to go with Levitate then Garchomp will just wreck the core with little to no effort.
I apologize, I was having a bit of a bad day yesterday, and was kind of venting.
However, I still just don't believe Normal/Ghost is gonna cut it for our CAP. I wasn't saying that we need to resist all those types; I meant we should resist or have a SE STAB against most of them. For example, Fire/Water 4x resists Steel (although Aegislash doesn't always run it, but whatever) and has SE STAB on it. It resists Fairies, can defeat the most threatening Flying types (Pinsir and Talonflame) with its STAB, can defeat Ground types with its STAB, and covers Ghost neutrally. But the main Ghost we're afraid of here is Aegislash, and Fire/Water can cover that. So that's what I meant; we need to have a fairly good way of defeating all the threats rather than a 100% chance of defeating one of them. Now, although I am favorable towards Fire/Water, I'm sure there are other typings that do just as well. I just don't believe that Normal/Ghost is one of them.
Stratos
Banned deucer.
I don't see how Fire/Electric detractors think Levitate is already guaranteed. Does Heatran need Levitate to function? Does Gyarados need Motor Drive? When we proposed a grass/dark for CAP16, we were told "WE ALREADY HAVE SHIFTRY." Did we make shiftry? CAP needs to stop having a boner for ~~*les unique typings*~~ because two pokemon can have the same typing and be very different. Forretress = scizor = genesect?
Garchomp hardly ruins this core because it can't switch in on shit: Lucario 2hkoes with Close Combat + Extremespeed (admittedly racking up a metric fuckton of recoil in the process) while Latias obviously outspeeds and KOes. Admittedly a ScarfChomp with good prediction could do work, and one that switches in on a Lucario Swords Dance can force it out, but there are 1202394309382 problems with this core and garchomp is pretty low on the list. People are just glomming onto it as something to bitch about if they don't like Fire/Electric because on paper it counters the core, but as alexwofl said, if we give CAP18 Will-o-Wisp then it literally cannot come in on anything except a KO. when it does, well, there's six pokemon to a team.
As someone earlier said, let's not get our panties in such a bundle about beating ONE POKEMON (aegislash) when there are so many boxes to tick with this third core member. Remember also that three Pokemon in OU get Pursuit, not just one: cap18 must have a similar relationship with Bisharp that it does with Aegis (Tyranitar can be taken by the mandatory bulky ground, which i still see as a thing though it hasn't been commented on much). Fortunately, this can be accomplished with Fighting-type coverage, but it means we can't have something fucking weak to dark *cough normal/ghost* if we want this to succeed at all.
I won't hide the fact that Fire/Electric has two real problems: Azumarill and Skarmory. we want to be able to kill the former and not the latter, and we do the opposite. I'm still working to find the perfect type, but it's clear to me at this point that every type has issues. Dark/Flying can't do dick to fairies, and since bulky grounds can't either, that's a pain because we have four mons weak to them. Fire/Water can SE STAB grounds unlike fire/elec but doesn't get STAB volt switch, resist flying, or break bulky waters, and it's got the same problems with Azu and Skarm. Besides, I guarantee Specs Fire Blast will 2HKO whatever bulky Ground will try to switch in on Fire/Elec. Both of these types don't resist ghost.
I want to say something about dark/poison though. I'm not sure how it incentivizes the use of Latias and Lucario at all? I feel like the things Dark/Poison needs help with are better covered by things that aren't those two, since the three combined cannot punch grounds and are vulnerable to huge loss in momentum if they allow certain Pokemon (cough megapinsir) to set up. As far as defensive patching with Lucario and Latias go, Dark/Poison is the best, but the synergy is not reciprocal. I simply can't help but think that it would be better with Terrakion
Garchomp hardly ruins this core because it can't switch in on shit: Lucario 2hkoes with Close Combat + Extremespeed (admittedly racking up a metric fuckton of recoil in the process) while Latias obviously outspeeds and KOes. Admittedly a ScarfChomp with good prediction could do work, and one that switches in on a Lucario Swords Dance can force it out, but there are 1202394309382 problems with this core and garchomp is pretty low on the list. People are just glomming onto it as something to bitch about if they don't like Fire/Electric because on paper it counters the core, but as alexwofl said, if we give CAP18 Will-o-Wisp then it literally cannot come in on anything except a KO. when it does, well, there's six pokemon to a team.
As someone earlier said, let's not get our panties in such a bundle about beating ONE POKEMON (aegislash) when there are so many boxes to tick with this third core member. Remember also that three Pokemon in OU get Pursuit, not just one: cap18 must have a similar relationship with Bisharp that it does with Aegis (Tyranitar can be taken by the mandatory bulky ground, which i still see as a thing though it hasn't been commented on much). Fortunately, this can be accomplished with Fighting-type coverage, but it means we can't have something fucking weak to dark *cough normal/ghost* if we want this to succeed at all.
I won't hide the fact that Fire/Electric has two real problems: Azumarill and Skarmory. we want to be able to kill the former and not the latter, and we do the opposite. I'm still working to find the perfect type, but it's clear to me at this point that every type has issues. Dark/Flying can't do dick to fairies, and since bulky grounds can't either, that's a pain because we have four mons weak to them. Fire/Water can SE STAB grounds unlike fire/elec but doesn't get STAB volt switch, resist flying, or break bulky waters, and it's got the same problems with Azu and Skarm. Besides, I guarantee Specs Fire Blast will 2HKO whatever bulky Ground will try to switch in on Fire/Elec. Both of these types don't resist ghost.
I want to say something about dark/poison though. I'm not sure how it incentivizes the use of Latias and Lucario at all? I feel like the things Dark/Poison needs help with are better covered by things that aren't those two, since the three combined cannot punch grounds and are vulnerable to huge loss in momentum if they allow certain Pokemon (cough megapinsir) to set up. As far as defensive patching with Lucario and Latias go, Dark/Poison is the best, but the synergy is not reciprocal. I simply can't help but think that it would be better with Terrakion
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my two favorites so far are Poison/Dark and Water/Fire
I havent really seen the light about Dark/Poison but the points so far are decent.
Im really excited for Water/Fire. This would fit basically all of the criteria needed for this CAP while also fulfilling my childhood dreams of a Water/Fire type. It can smash Aegislash with Fire Moves, swamp ground types with its water moves, and it can switch into fairies without getting completely obliterated by their STAB moves. It also has a bunch of nice resistances to steel, bug, fire, etc. It has a nice offensive and defensive typing that works with the core so if we went with Water/Fire, I would be happy.
I havent really seen the light about Dark/Poison but the points so far are decent.
Im really excited for Water/Fire. This would fit basically all of the criteria needed for this CAP while also fulfilling my childhood dreams of a Water/Fire type. It can smash Aegislash with Fire Moves, swamp ground types with its water moves, and it can switch into fairies without getting completely obliterated by their STAB moves. It also has a bunch of nice resistances to steel, bug, fire, etc. It has a nice offensive and defensive typing that works with the core so if we went with Water/Fire, I would be happy.
I want to respond to this point by point, as there are some parts where I have important disagreements.
252 SpACharizard [a non fire type with Charizard's SpA] Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 124-146 (38.2 - 45%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
which requires that CAP18 be bulky enough to take 2 attacks+Shadow Sneak from Aegislash (he can mix in King's Shields to return to Shield Form if he's slower then us) if we correctly predict its switch in and 3 attacks+Shadow Sneak if we don't correctly predict its switch in. This is as good a way to show as any that we NEED one of our STABs to hit supereffectively against Aegislash. If we don't take one of those and we run, say, Flamethrower, then we'll need a 175 base attacking stat to KO with a non-STAB coverage move.
(just a little optional addendum here: If we have Choice Specs/Band, we'd need 100 base SpA to score a guaranteed 2HKO with non-stab Flamethrower or a move of equivalent base power. If we use Life Orb, we need 120. However, since Lucario is offensively oriented and Latias is a sort of bulky offense thing-we chose her more for her special bulk and resists then her offenses-I think it'd be best if CAP18 was more defensive or at least bulky offense)
So, now that I've read some of the suggestions, here are my top 3 at this moment (for reasons already posted). Please don't interpret my critiques as being reasons we should shoot down a typing; instead, take them as something we need to consider when crafting the ability and movepool.
Dark/Poison (IMO the best combination for beating Aegislash without sacrificing too much against our other problem mons, but if we take this we flat out lose to Mawile-M and we're no better off then before against either Landorus form)
Fire/Water (abandons tanking Aegislash in favor of just killing shit like Mawile, Gliscor, and the Landorus formes. Is a little risky in that we will need to handle Azumarill with another mon and in that we're pretty much locked into a 3rd offensive mon with this typing)
Fire/Fairy (very specialized towards dealing with Aegislash and Conkeldurr, but those are mons that we need to deal with. Again, we do no better vs Landorus and we will have Azumarill problems unless we can take a +0 Aqua Jet and have enough power to OHKO in return with a Fairy move)
I partially agree with this. However, I think that Aegislash becomes much more difficult to handle if one of our STABs doesn't threaten it. As someone posted earlier in the thread, non-mega Charizard can score a 2HKO on Aegislash with Flamethrower with only its 109 base SpA. However, without STAB we get this:
252 SpA
which requires that CAP18 be bulky enough to take 2 attacks+Shadow Sneak from Aegislash (he can mix in King's Shields to return to Shield Form if he's slower then us) if we correctly predict its switch in and 3 attacks+Shadow Sneak if we don't correctly predict its switch in. This is as good a way to show as any that we NEED one of our STABs to hit supereffectively against Aegislash. If we don't take one of those and we run, say, Flamethrower, then we'll need a 175 base attacking stat to KO with a non-STAB coverage move.
(just a little optional addendum here: If we have Choice Specs/Band, we'd need 100 base SpA to score a guaranteed 2HKO with non-stab Flamethrower or a move of equivalent base power. If we use Life Orb, we need 120. However, since Lucario is offensively oriented and Latias is a sort of bulky offense thing-we chose her more for her special bulk and resists then her offenses-I think it'd be best if CAP18 was more defensive or at least bulky offense)
Fully agreed here, but with one caveat. Azumarill is the only non-Mega Fairy that's really offensively threatening (Klefki gtfo) to us. Mega Mawile and Mega Gardevoir both give us problems as well, but obviously they take up a team's Mega slot, which limits their distribution and therefore how often we'll run into them.
I was going to oppose the "actually threatening them back" part, but after doing calculations I'll agree with you here. Aegislash gets dismantled with Dark Pulse/Night Slash coming off a fairly good (but not Uber) level of base SpA/Atk without a damage boosting item, and so does Azumarill and Gardevoir-M with Sludge Bomb. However, it's important to note that Night Slash and Poison Jab both make contact, potentially allowing us to be walled by Aegislash if he predicts correctly, and that this combination gets absolutely destroyed by Mawile-M.
When you say "problem with grounds" I hear "problem with Landorus formes". Nevertheless, agree.
Flying spam should not be a priority for this core. If we have SR up Lucario beats every one of the Flying types with Espeed. Sure, we need to have an answer to them...but so does every OU team. CAP18 itself does NOT need to check Flying types, because we already do alright against them. So agreed, I guess.
It's a typing intended to hard counter Aegislash and nothing else. Fire/Normal is just Fire/Fairy, except it's better vs: [Aegislash] and worse vs: [Everything that isn't Aegislash]. Aegislash is certainly a major threat but he is not the ONLY threat. Stuff like Azumarill, Mawile-M, Conkeldurr, and Landorus formes are other threats that we need a way to deal with.
So, now that I've read some of the suggestions, here are my top 3 at this moment (for reasons already posted). Please don't interpret my critiques as being reasons we should shoot down a typing; instead, take them as something we need to consider when crafting the ability and movepool.
Dark/Poison (IMO the best combination for beating Aegislash without sacrificing too much against our other problem mons, but if we take this we flat out lose to Mawile-M and we're no better off then before against either Landorus form)
Fire/Water (abandons tanking Aegislash in favor of just killing shit like Mawile, Gliscor, and the Landorus formes. Is a little risky in that we will need to handle Azumarill with another mon and in that we're pretty much locked into a 3rd offensive mon with this typing)
Fire/Fairy (very specialized towards dealing with Aegislash and Conkeldurr, but those are mons that we need to deal with. Again, we do no better vs Landorus and we will have Azumarill problems unless we can take a +0 Aqua Jet and have enough power to OHKO in return with a Fairy move)
Hey, so this thread is probably only going to be open for a few more hours, and in the remaining time, I would like to see some more variety in what is being talked about. We've had more than enough discussion on Dark/Poison, Fire/Water and Electric/Fire, so if we can shift the discussion away from these types, that would be great. It will be much easier to make a slate here if we can get some thorough discussion on a wider variety of types.
Here's how I've been thinking about how to make the best choice here:
Starting with Fairy resistance:
Fire | Poison | Steel
- all have ground weakness
Fire: hits Aegislash 2x, Fairy 1x, Ground 1x
Poison: hits Aegislash 0x, Fairy 2x, Ground 0.5x
adds Fighting resist
Steel: hits Aegislash 0.5x, Fairy 2x, Ground 1x
adds Fighting weakness
Fire - can burn and absorb burn
- adding Fairy 2x offense (Poison, Steel) results in 4x Ground weakness
- adding Water results in a 1x Water weakness, Grounds can't switch in as easily, we can deal with them offensively, Azumarill hits neutrally
- adding Electric results in 4x Ground weakness, Grounds can switch in very easily, but we can hit Azumarill
- adding Normal results in Ghost immunity, Fighting weakness
Poison -
- adding Aegislash 2x offense (Dark, Ground, Fire):
- Dark: removes Fighting resist, removes Fairy resist, adds Ghost resist, adds Pursuit/Knock Off resist
can't deal w Ground
- Ground: adds Water(Azumarill) weakness, keeps fighting resist, can't deal w Ground
- Fire: adds Water weakness, keep fighting resist, can't deal w Ground
- Poison/Electric: Dark is a better option because it adds more relevant STAB coverage and doesn't become super susceptible to Ground
Steel - can't remove Fighting weakness while adding STAB Aegislash offense that hits for at least 1x damage
note: Ghost was not an option for Aegislash offense because of added Ghost weakness
Conclusion: The best option for part Fire is Fire/Water (leans on later steps for bulk to deal with Aegi), the best for part Poison is Poison/Dark(leans on other team members to deal with Grounds)
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Starting with Ghost resistance:
Dark | Normal
- both have fighting weakness that must be patched to deal with Aegislash (Bug, Fairy, Flying, Poison, Psychic, Ghost). Dark has fairy weakness that must be patched (only option is Poison/Dark, see above)
Normal -
- Bug, Fairy, Flying, Psychic: No relevant STAB offense
- Poison: Fairy 2x offense, but weak offense for Aegislash, Ground weakness
- Ghost: 2x offense for Aegislash, nothing to deal with Fairies, gives Dark weakness
Conclusion: Ghost resistance options are sub-optimal. Normal/Ghost can work.
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Other suggestions:
- Ground/Electric: Ground/Poison actually gives more relevant STAB and a fighting resistance AND a fairy resist while having the same 4x ground weakness. Don't think Ground/Poison was brought up though.
- Ground/Water: no resistance to Fairy, Fighting or Ghost, but has good STAB for Aegi and Grounds and the Water typing removes the Water(Azumarill) weakness. Has the problem of both Fire/Water (needs to rely on extra bulk for Aegi) and Dark/Poison (needs to lean on other team members to deal with one of our threat groups). On the other hand, has the benefit of King's Shield-immune SE Physical STAB for Aegi. It can hit part-Steel Fairies.
Conclusion: Ground/Water is a good way to patch Ground's ideal STAB to not be weak to Azumarill and doesn't have any problematic weaknesses, but is not as optimal as Fire/Water or Dark/Poison. It has similar problems as Normal/Ghost (needs others to deal w fairies), but its STABs are more useful in general and it's not Pursuit weak.
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Fire/Water, Poison/Dark and Ground/Water have the most pros while having acceptable cons. Here I admittedly haven't talked about core synergy, so I'd suggest that that's the best way to decide between these 3 typings.
edit: fixed where i said fire/water was ground neutral, that's wrong! added point about Normal/Ghost pursuit weakness
Starting with Fairy resistance:
Fire | Poison | Steel
- all have ground weakness
Fire: hits Aegislash 2x, Fairy 1x, Ground 1x
Poison: hits Aegislash 0x, Fairy 2x, Ground 0.5x
adds Fighting resist
Steel: hits Aegislash 0.5x, Fairy 2x, Ground 1x
adds Fighting weakness
Fire - can burn and absorb burn
- adding Fairy 2x offense (Poison, Steel) results in 4x Ground weakness
- adding Water results in a 1x Water weakness, Grounds can't switch in as easily, we can deal with them offensively, Azumarill hits neutrally
- adding Electric results in 4x Ground weakness, Grounds can switch in very easily, but we can hit Azumarill
- adding Normal results in Ghost immunity, Fighting weakness
Poison -
- adding Aegislash 2x offense (Dark, Ground, Fire):
- Dark: removes Fighting resist, removes Fairy resist, adds Ghost resist, adds Pursuit/Knock Off resist
can't deal w Ground
- Ground: adds Water(Azumarill) weakness, keeps fighting resist, can't deal w Ground
- Fire: adds Water weakness, keep fighting resist, can't deal w Ground
- Poison/Electric: Dark is a better option because it adds more relevant STAB coverage and doesn't become super susceptible to Ground
Steel - can't remove Fighting weakness while adding STAB Aegislash offense that hits for at least 1x damage
note: Ghost was not an option for Aegislash offense because of added Ghost weakness
Conclusion: The best option for part Fire is Fire/Water (leans on later steps for bulk to deal with Aegi), the best for part Poison is Poison/Dark(leans on other team members to deal with Grounds)
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Starting with Ghost resistance:
Dark | Normal
- both have fighting weakness that must be patched to deal with Aegislash (Bug, Fairy, Flying, Poison, Psychic, Ghost). Dark has fairy weakness that must be patched (only option is Poison/Dark, see above)
Normal -
- Bug, Fairy, Flying, Psychic: No relevant STAB offense
- Poison: Fairy 2x offense, but weak offense for Aegislash, Ground weakness
- Ghost: 2x offense for Aegislash, nothing to deal with Fairies, gives Dark weakness
Conclusion: Ghost resistance options are sub-optimal. Normal/Ghost can work.
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Other suggestions:
- Ground/Electric: Ground/Poison actually gives more relevant STAB and a fighting resistance AND a fairy resist while having the same 4x ground weakness. Don't think Ground/Poison was brought up though.
- Ground/Water: no resistance to Fairy, Fighting or Ghost, but has good STAB for Aegi and Grounds and the Water typing removes the Water(Azumarill) weakness. Has the problem of both Fire/Water (needs to rely on extra bulk for Aegi) and Dark/Poison (needs to lean on other team members to deal with one of our threat groups). On the other hand, has the benefit of King's Shield-immune SE Physical STAB for Aegi. It can hit part-Steel Fairies.
Conclusion: Ground/Water is a good way to patch Ground's ideal STAB to not be weak to Azumarill and doesn't have any problematic weaknesses, but is not as optimal as Fire/Water or Dark/Poison. It has similar problems as Normal/Ghost (needs others to deal w fairies), but its STABs are more useful in general and it's not Pursuit weak.
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Fire/Water, Poison/Dark and Ground/Water have the most pros while having acceptable cons. Here I admittedly haven't talked about core synergy, so I'd suggest that that's the best way to decide between these 3 typings.
edit: fixed where i said fire/water was ground neutral, that's wrong! added point about Normal/Ghost pursuit weakness
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I think I'm a little late to the party to be saying this, but I still think it needs to be said: We will not make up a type combination that perfects this core. We can stop trying. And to be perfectly honest, I don't think this core can be made perfect. I mean, could there even be such a thing?
We want to make the best mon to complete this core, right? Whether or not that actually happens will be determined both here and elsewhere, right? So let's just work with what we can, alright?
So as for type combos that probably won't make the cut? Yeah, you can already tell what I think of anything besides Dark/Poison, Fire/Water and Electric/Fire. Let's take a run down of some of them with this in mind: Our Major Third needs to somehow be able to tackle both Aegislash and Fairies. The best type combination should be able to resist all of: Ghost, Fairy, Steel and Fighting. There's not a combination that can possibly do that, so let's just settle for resisting/being immune on at least one, with the former-most being the most important, and the later-most being the least important.
Anything/Fairy: No. I agree with what Birkal said earlier. The Fairy-type just doesn't add anything significant beyond what we barely need. In addition, some combinations I've seen leave it weak to Steel, which Aegislash gets a STAB on. Not good.
Normal/Ghost: I thought this sounded pretty cool at first, but then I realized that it's actually worse than the above. It deals with Aegislash pretty awesomely, but Fairies just don't really care.
Steel/Flying: Awesome typing - not for handling the Great Slash's Shadow Ball outside of stupidly high special bulk though.
Electric/Poison: Same as the above (w/ 4x Ground weakness).
Normal/Fire: Why did this even come up? Yeah, it's immune to Ghost while resisting Fairy and hitting Aegislash hard, but it's weak to Fighting! That's not something you can just ignore when the most significant variants of one of the most dangerous mons in the tier carry a Fighting-type move!
Dark/Anything besides Poison (which resists both Fighting and Fairy): C'mon people. This one's not too hard to figure out.
Water/Ground: Actually a pretty solid combination... just like Steel/Flying.
Water/Flying: I just don't see what it adds to our CAP that Gyarados can't already add. Sorry, but I can't feel anything much more specific than that.
Electric/Ground: Stunfisk's combination? I've never really given it much thought... Except that it resists neither Fairy nor Ghost. Why was this even suggested?
Ground/Poison: Much more relevant than the above. Sorts out hitting Aegislash while hitting Fairies at the same time. I can actually be okay with this!
Normal/Poison: Passes the resistances test with flying colors, but has no offensive presence.
One thing I should point out: every type that resists Fairy is weak to Ground. There's no way to work around that little detail.
Edit: removed a thing about Electric/Poison, because I failed to actually write about it.
We want to make the best mon to complete this core, right? Whether or not that actually happens will be determined both here and elsewhere, right? So let's just work with what we can, alright?
So as for type combos that probably won't make the cut? Yeah, you can already tell what I think of anything besides Dark/Poison, Fire/Water and Electric/Fire. Let's take a run down of some of them with this in mind: Our Major Third needs to somehow be able to tackle both Aegislash and Fairies. The best type combination should be able to resist all of: Ghost, Fairy, Steel and Fighting. There's not a combination that can possibly do that, so let's just settle for resisting/being immune on at least one, with the former-most being the most important, and the later-most being the least important.
Anything/Fairy: No. I agree with what Birkal said earlier. The Fairy-type just doesn't add anything significant beyond what we barely need. In addition, some combinations I've seen leave it weak to Steel, which Aegislash gets a STAB on. Not good.
Normal/Ghost: I thought this sounded pretty cool at first, but then I realized that it's actually worse than the above. It deals with Aegislash pretty awesomely, but Fairies just don't really care.
Steel/Flying: Awesome typing - not for handling the Great Slash's Shadow Ball outside of stupidly high special bulk though.
Electric/Poison: Same as the above (w/ 4x Ground weakness).
Normal/Fire: Why did this even come up? Yeah, it's immune to Ghost while resisting Fairy and hitting Aegislash hard, but it's weak to Fighting! That's not something you can just ignore when the most significant variants of one of the most dangerous mons in the tier carry a Fighting-type move!
Dark/Anything besides Poison (which resists both Fighting and Fairy): C'mon people. This one's not too hard to figure out.
Water/Ground: Actually a pretty solid combination... just like Steel/Flying.
Water/Flying: I just don't see what it adds to our CAP that Gyarados can't already add. Sorry, but I can't feel anything much more specific than that.
Electric/Ground: Stunfisk's combination? I've never really given it much thought... Except that it resists neither Fairy nor Ghost. Why was this even suggested?
Ground/Poison: Much more relevant than the above. Sorts out hitting Aegislash while hitting Fairies at the same time. I can actually be okay with this!
Normal/Poison: Passes the resistances test with flying colors, but has no offensive presence.
One thing I should point out: every type that resists Fairy is weak to Ground. There's no way to work around that little detail.
Edit: removed a thing about Electric/Poison, because I failed to actually write about it.
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Yo, still on my phone, but jas61292, you mentioned that you weren't impressed with the offensive prowess off Normal / Ghost. Normal has great neutral coverage and strong BAP attacks. On the other hand, Ghost pairs with a few secondary attacking types to obtain mad coverage. Look at Aegislash itself; it can get slick offensive presence with just Ghost and Fighting. To me, the typing grants itself towards a strong offense, as well as immunities to Aegislash.
I'm also a bit partial here because Ghost / Normal is probably the only type that isn't going to (nearly) force us into Bulletproof later down the road to stop Aegislash. Clankenator summed up why this typing is solid for this CAP. Definitely shouldn't be overlooked, in my opinion.
I'm also a bit partial here because Ghost / Normal is probably the only type that isn't going to (nearly) force us into Bulletproof later down the road to stop Aegislash. Clankenator summed up why this typing is solid for this CAP. Definitely shouldn't be overlooked, in my opinion.
Birkal: The reason I (and others) are unhappy with Normal/Ghost is that it has very few resistances. Sure, it stops Aegislash cold and has high power STAB moves available for Normal type at least in Return/Boomburst. But defensively, outside of stopping Aegislash, it's just terrible, and the immunities granted by its dual types include immunities to ITS OWN STAB, possibly making CAP18 counter itself. As funny as watching two Normal/Ghost bulkymons throw the same coverage attack at each other while healing the damage off ad infinitum would be, I don't think it's a good place to go with this CAP.
Here's the type breakdown:
Normal/Ghost
0x: Normal, Ghost, Fighting
0.25x: None
0.5x: Bug, Poison
2x: Dark
4x: None
1x: All types not listed
Speaking realistically, if we choose Normal/Ghost, CAP18 will be barren of resistances, only being able to switch in on standard Aegislash barring us giving him massive mixed bulk. That would be alright if our concept for CAP18 was "a pokemon who is the perfect counter to Aegislash" but it's not alright here because CAP18 needs to do more then beat Aegislash. It will also have to rely on coverage moves to deal damage to other CAP18s, which is a pretty ugly situation, because with the bulk we would need to give CAP18 to switch in, the chances of CAP18s being able to kill each other reasonably quickly with just coverage aren't great.
I'll be honest here; I understand the collective myopia we have at the moment regarding Aegislash. However, THERE ARE OTHER POKEMON WE HAVE TROUBLE WITH AS WELL. What is Normal/Ghost going to do for us against Azumarill? Or Mawile-M? Or the Landorus formes? It's not gonna help against Conkeldurr either, as he's got Knock Off. It's a terrible typing for everything except stopping Aegislash. Even though Normal/Ghost nearly has perfect neutral coverage, only being resisted by itself and any combination of Dark/Normal+Rock/Steel/Fighting, look at the pokemon who do resist it: Tyranitar, Bisharp (both of whom demolish Latias with Pursuit), and another CAP18.
Normal/Ghost in my mind is just as unworthy of consideration as others have derided Fairy/anything as being.
Here's the type breakdown:
Normal/Ghost
0x: Normal, Ghost, Fighting
0.25x: None
0.5x: Bug, Poison
2x: Dark
4x: None
1x: All types not listed
Speaking realistically, if we choose Normal/Ghost, CAP18 will be barren of resistances, only being able to switch in on standard Aegislash barring us giving him massive mixed bulk. That would be alright if our concept for CAP18 was "a pokemon who is the perfect counter to Aegislash" but it's not alright here because CAP18 needs to do more then beat Aegislash. It will also have to rely on coverage moves to deal damage to other CAP18s, which is a pretty ugly situation, because with the bulk we would need to give CAP18 to switch in, the chances of CAP18s being able to kill each other reasonably quickly with just coverage aren't great.
I'll be honest here; I understand the collective myopia we have at the moment regarding Aegislash. However, THERE ARE OTHER POKEMON WE HAVE TROUBLE WITH AS WELL. What is Normal/Ghost going to do for us against Azumarill? Or Mawile-M? Or the Landorus formes? It's not gonna help against Conkeldurr either, as he's got Knock Off. It's a terrible typing for everything except stopping Aegislash. Even though Normal/Ghost nearly has perfect neutral coverage, only being resisted by itself and any combination of Dark/Normal+Rock/Steel/Fighting, look at the pokemon who do resist it: Tyranitar, Bisharp (both of whom demolish Latias with Pursuit), and another CAP18.
Normal/Ghost in my mind is just as unworthy of consideration as others have derided Fairy/anything as being.
That's not true at all, at least for Mega Mawile: Mawile 5.59967%. That's its usage in February's stats, which means that even with competition with other MEvos, it is good enough to get plenty of usage.shinyskarmory said:
Also, people need to stop brining up Conkeldurr as a threat to our core. Conkeldurr can't switch into anything and loses 1 on 1 against Latias, so the only situation where it's threatening is on a 1 v 1 against Lucario, which is not very likely to happen as Lucario usually comes in late game and when it can find a turn to set up, in order to finish the game. If we are going to treat Pokemon that threaten only one of our Pokemon and only in a 1 v 1 scenario as significant threats worth basing our typing around, we might as well treat Tyranitar as a threat, which not only beats Latias 1 v 1, but can also switch freely into it and trap it with Pursuit. And Latias, unlike Lucario, is supposed to come in early and mid game to clear the field from hazards and check dangerous threats, unlike Lucario, so her problem against Tyranitar is way bigger than Lucario's problem with Conkeldurr. Yet, nobody is mentioning Tyranitar as a threat to our core, so stop bringing up Conkeldurr, it's not an issue.
Now, let's discuss some typings that weren't in jas's post:
Steel / Flying
What it does: It deals defensively with our threatlist almost perfectly. Resists Fairy and Flying moves, so it is able to switch into Mega Mawile, Azumarill, Talonflame, and Mega Pinsir (CB Talonflame needs prediction between Latias and CAP, but it's doable). It also checks threatening Ground-types, such as Garchomp and Choice Scarf Excadrill, which is great. Furthermore, Flying STAB is very potent offensively, and the Steel STAB allows the CAP to deal with some Fairy-types, such as Sylveon and Clefable, in case Lucario doesn't want to carry Iron Tail. Flying / Steel also has good defensive and offensive synergy with Latias, as Latias handles Pokemon such as Rotom-W, Mega Charizard Y, Thundurus, and Skarmory, while the CAP can deal with Fairy types and check some Steel-types. Finally, this typing is ineffective against Skarmory, so it won't help sweepers that Lucario competes with to get rid of one major physical wall, such as Mega Pinsir, giving incentive to use the CAP with physical sweepers that can get past Skarmory, such as Lucario.
What are its problems: One main problem with this typing, which is the lack of a super effective or even neutral STAB against Aegislash, while not resisting Shadow Ball, which means that the CAP will have to rely on coverage and set up moves to beat or take advantage of the CAP, and will need great special bulk, reliable recovery, or Bulletproof to switch into Aegislash. However, this is perfectly acceptable imo, as the best way to punish Aegislash is to set up anyway (otherwise Aegislash can just Pursuit trap Latias and switch out when the CAP comes in with little cost), so i don't think it's a far fetched idea that the CAP will have the moves needed to deal with Aegislash. As for how to switch into Aegislash in the first place, Bulletproof or good special bulk are both great ways to do this, so i don't see it as a big problem really. So, while this typing does have one big flaw, this flaw can be addressed in later stages without extreme measures, unlike the problems of most other typings. For example, any typing that lacks a Fairy resistance will need huge physical bulk to switch into Mega Mawile and Azumarill, something very unlikely and limiting for an offensive Pokemon.
Electric / Poison
Just bringing this up again because i think it's a great typing that should get more focus. Weakness to Ground-types and lack of super effective STAB vs Aegislash are its biggest problems, but those problems are not particularly hard to deal with, as i already explained. Other than this, this typing offers a great deal of pros, such as Fairy and Flying resistances, good synergy with Latias, STAB Volt Switch, and good STAB combo, not counting Ground types and Ferrothorn, the latter of which is set up bait for Lucario.
Finally, regarding the Ghost / Normal and Dark / Poison suggestions, other than how they address our threatlist, you also have to take into account their synergy with Latias, which i see little to none so far.
I'm not going to pretend that Normal/Ghost does a lot more than cold stop Aegislash while maintaining a solid offensive presence. I do think this helps Latias a little bit as the sword is a worry for her, but this type is meant to help Lucario more. Breaking Aegislash, wearing down the enemy with nearly unresisted STAB, and luring out Tyranitar and Bisharp and the other dark types for a set-up opportunity is all Lucario could really ask for other than his mega-stone back. I envision CAP1 and Lucario doing most of the KO'ing with CAP as a wallbreaker and Lucario sweeping, and Latias supporting them with a hazard free environment and dual screens.
As for Dark/Poison, most of what can be said about it has been said but I disagree that it fails to synergize with Latias, at least defensively. Dark/Poison can take the ghost and dark moves that plague Latias like Shadow Ball, Shadow Sneak, Knock-off, and Sucker Punch and Latias is immune to ground, Dark/Poison's only weakness.
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