CAP 14 CAP 3 - Part 2 - Typing Discussion

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I think it's unfair to say...
those weaknesses are only common because they are the weaknesses of steel!
High Jump Kick, Earthquake, Fire Blast moves associated with their types, are common because they have a high base power complimented by a good offensive STAB that has good coverage disregarding steel.

Though I do think you have a point, considering dragons especially, of pokemon that carry coverage moves just to handle steels, maybe they are too strong though I am unconvinced in some parts. Registeel is mainly decent because of his stats and moveset.
 

Bughouse

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Fire / Ice is walled by: Every Bulky Water in existence (well, Gastrodon is neutral I suppose), as well as Heatran.
And what exactly is the usage level of Bulky Waters in OU? Not THAT high. Yes, Fire/Ice gets slaughtered by the weather war and particularly Rain, but I do worry it legitimizes Sun and even Hail a little too much. I'm really not being sarcastic. OU has a severe lack of Bulky Waters relative to other tiers (except on Rain teams of course.)
 
I'd have to say that Fire-Ice would be the best typing here.

Well, Fire and Ice are opposites. And when opposites attract, it doesn't always turn out well. With Fire-Ice, you are 4x weak to Stealth Rock, the most common hazard in OU, and you are also weak to Stone Edge, Superpower, Hydro Pump, and Close Combat. Take a look at the top used Pokemon in OU. Let's see... Scizor has Superpower, Tyranitar has Stone Edge and Superpower, Terrakion has Close Combat and Stone Edge, Rotom-W has Hydro Pump. Also, almost everything has Earthquake. Guess who's also weak to that. Yup. As an offensive typing it does OK, but being walled by Water-types sort of sucks.

Although Ice-Rock and Ice-Steel are both 4x weak to Fighting-types, Fire-Ice is still weak to Fighting. Besides, Ice-Rock gets the Sandstorm boost and Ice-Steel has a lot of resistances.
Thisthisthisthisthis. YES. I support this and would also like to add a bit more reasoning. Not only is being walled by Water-types a great way to check its offensive capabilites, but it's also walled by Fire-types. Though at first this doesn't seem like a huge deal, Heatran and Volcarona are the kind of Pokemon who just completely run through teams if given the chance, and a CAP with this typing would more than likely be pure setup fodder for them. Just something to consider.

Also, to address the inevitable, this typing is, in my view, remarkably balanced in regards to weather.

Sun: While its own Fire moves are boosted in the sun, this also changes its neutrality to Fire to a weakness. However, it is a nice buff against Chlorophyll users, resisting Grass and hitting them with its STABs.
Rain: In rain, it's in trouble in just about every way, though it does have the redeeming quality of possibly being able to check Flying-types who want to throw around Hurricanes with its Ice-STAB.
Sandstorm: Most sand teams would have plenty of members capable of tearing it apart, but also would have Ground-type members that would be quite scared of taking an Ice attack to the face.
Hail: In Hail it would get 100% accurate STAB Blizzard and STAB Fire moves would take out the opponent's Ice-types left and right, but it would also be stopped cold (pun intended) by the Water-types likely to be found on a Hail team.
 

jas61292

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So here we go.

I want to start off this post talking about single types. Now I have talked about this already over in the concept analysis thread, I would like to reiterate some of my main points. However, many of those points were already addressed quite thoroughly by Pwnemon:

I'm going to take a highly different direction in my post: namely move to remove some types from Deck's 1DTO list. As jas said, a typing is only bad if it is bad defensively. This is true for multiple reasons. For one, any sufficiently bulky mon with good stats is able to boost to the point it can sweep. Ths is not true in reverse. Secondly, you can choose to hit opposing mons with coverage moves of any type, given you have them. You cannot do the same in reverse. Thirdly, a good defensive mon can abuse any switches it forces to earn free turns to execute its strategy, the same cannot be said for a mon that dies upon switching into almost any attack. Look at any viable monotype in OU, and with the sole exception of [Darmanitan], all are defensive/supportive

This reasoning has convinced me that both Mono steel and Mono normal should be off the plate, Deck. These Pokemon cannot be used with any senblance of bulk, as they are simply too good defensively. It's been done to death in the case of Normal with mons such as Blissey, Chansey, Porygon2, and fuck even Miltank. Each, especially the last two, are quite successful due to their ability to force free switches with their bulk. While Mono-Steel is only really seen in Registeel, it sits pretty in UU despite its balls cock movepool and fairly useless ability. To reiterate, a mono Normal or Steel mon with any bulk has too good of typing. the only real option for either of these would be a straight-up Glass Cannon, which is just not a good idea because that would virtually define succeeding despite typing instead of thanks to. Not to mention be not very fun.

With that out of the way, i look at the rest of the allowed types and see a gery similar pattern to what I have suggested - good defensive types such as Ghost and Water are removed whilst terrible ones such as Dark, Fire, and Ice have stayed. While working off precedent is not the best argument for removing a type when precedent is two days old and established by the person you're trying to persuade, i do believe that it applies here, and unless someone makes a stellar case for Steel or Normal, I move that mono-steel and mono-normal be removed from the acceptable type list
I feel that this covers the majority of the points I have been trying to make on monotypes. However, I would go further than Pwnemon and suggest that almost no monotype is bad enough for this concept at all, because they all have relatively few weaknesses defensively, especially when compared to the worst dual types. While I personally think that any monotype is a bad idea, I would specifically like to mention Bug and Poison. These two types have only 3 weaknesses apiece, and each gets some very important resists. I think, as with all monotypes, they are far too defensively sound to be anywhere near what we would call a bad type.

Now though, I would like to move on to some types that I think would be fantastic for this concept. As of right now, I think my favorite typing would be Grass/Bug. Flarephoenix already went into detail about it above, but I would like to further elaborate on what makes this an awesome typing for this concept. One of the most important things to look at with any typing is its weaknesses and resistances. However, for this concept I feel that it is more than just weaknesses that matter. The fact is, we want our Pokémon to succeed because of its typing, and if it has no redeeming qualities at all, then our efforts will be wasted. However, at the same time, it must have significant, crippling weaknesses that make it so that a generic Pokémon of this type is not going to be successful in OU. I feel that Grass/Bug is the best of both worlds in this regard. Six total weaknesses, which is just one off the most possible, make switching in a challenge. Two of those are x4 weaknesses, including one to the ubiquitous fire type attacks. It is also weak to stealth rocks, meaning that switching in and out repeatedly is not going to be easy. Additionally, of the types it does resist, almost all Pokémon of those types frequently carry moves that hit Grass/Bug Super Effectively. However, its resistance list carries a few key types such as ground and fighting, which gives us a good place to start for fixing up the type and making it usable.

Next, I’d like to touch on Fire/Ice. While I have joked around with this type a lot on IRC, I legitimately think that it would work very well for CAP3. While its weakness list might not be as long as Grass/Bug’s, it could very easily be argued that its weaknesses are even more devastating. A double weakness to Stealth Rocks means that it has a good chance of being crippled before it even gets a chance to move. And, in addition to Rock, it is weak to Fighting, Ground and Water, all of which are incredibly common attacking types in OU. And as for resistances, outside of a double to Ice, there is very little to write home about. Picking this type would be great, especially if we want to go the offensive route, as its fairly good STABs are about the only redeeming quality it has. It would force us to find ways to not only survive through its crippling weaknesses and lack of resists, but thrive with them.

Speaking of types with crippling weaknesses and a lack of resists, how about Rock/Ice. To be honest though, I am not really sold on this typing. I may have used in myself many times as an example of just how bad a type can get, but I’m not sure it will really mesh well with this concept. My main concern is this: Rock/Ice just has so many bad points, that knowing CAP, it is very likely that we will try and over compensate and end up with a Pokémon that is successful, but not for any reason related to its typing. And, unfortunately, I feel like people have already taken a step in the wrong direction from what I have seen in discussions about this type. To be specific, multiple people have been completely seriously throwing around the idea that we could fix Rock/Ice by giving it Wonder Guard. That’s right WONDER GUARD! Now I am not going to say that this would make such a Pokémon broken or anything, but I can say with 100% certainty that any Pokémon that succeeds with Wonder Guard will be succeeding because of Wonder Guard, not its typing, and that goes completely against the concept we chose. Now I am not going to say that Rock/Ice is unsavable. In fact I think it may very well teach us a lot, but I think it is also give us the least margin of error, and without much of a benefit over other typings. Simply put, if we can accept the possibility that this Pokémon might not make OU and not overcompensate, taking away from the concept, then I think it would be a wonderful typing to select. However, if, as I fear will be the case, we are more concerned with how it works in OU than making sure it works for the right reasons, then I think we should steer clear of Rock/Ice.

Now, there are definitely some other typings out there that will work for this concept, and I am sure that we could do a good job with any of them. However, I feel that the two (or three) I mentioned above are definitely the best candidates for the job.

EDIT: I can't believe I forgot Fire/Rock. So I would just like to throw my support behind that as well, for the reasons Deck Knight pointed out.
 
I just have an observation concerning Deck Knight's discussion of Fire/Rock typing, which was entirely sound, but the point needing to be addressed is the near-absence of special rock moves. This issue impacts any CAP with Rock as part of its typing. Unless it's decided that this Pokemon will be physically biased, this needs to be discussed.

AncientPower and Power Gem are quite feeble at 60 and 70 base power, respectively, so they are out of reasonable contention. Indeed, Stratagem was given a specially made Paleo Wave for that very reason, to patch up the lack of good special attacks. Deck Knight correctly observes that Weather Ball in a Sandstorm gains a much more usable 100 base power, and this certainly helps. The main issue is that this CAP would lose its Rock STAB entirely if the weather changes, making Weather Ball somewhat unreliable. Therefore, if Rock is mentioned any further, we should see what can be done about this problem, or whether anyone else sees it this way. Is Paleo Wave deemed Stratagem's signature move, or might it be in the pool of possible moves? Should we create another custom move if it comes to that?
 
I actually like Electric / Fire for the "let's not race all the way to the bottom" option, as FlareBlitz explained it. It resists one commonly grouped set of types while being weak against another. This peculiarity lends itself to one interpretation of the concept pretty well.
 

Deck Knight

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I just have an observation concerning Deck Knight's discussion of Fire/Rock typing, which was entirely sound, but the point needing to be addressed is the near-absence of special rock moves. This issue impacts any CAP with Rock as part of its typing. Unless it's decided that this Pokemon will be physically biased, this needs to be discussed.

AncientPower and Power Gem are quite feeble at 60 and 70 base power, respectively, so they are out of reasonable contention. Indeed, Stratagem was given a specially made Paleo Wave for that very reason, to patch up the lack of good special attacks. Deck Knight correctly observes that Weather Ball in a Sandstorm gains a much more usable 100 base power, and this certainly helps. The main issue is that this CAP would lose its Rock STAB entirely if the weather changes, making Weather Ball somewhat unreliable. Therefore, if Rock is mentioned any further, we should see what can be done about this problem, or whether anyone else sees it this way. Is Paleo Wave deemed Stratagem's signature move, or might it be in the pool of possible moves? Should we create another custom move if it comes to that?
There are a couple of ways we could go with this. Like Strategem we could give it Technician, which instantly makes Ancientpower viable and a 10% breakout attack on such a strong offensives STAB. That actually helps its Fire moves too, by making Flame Charge a semi-competent attack that can help it as an Anti-Scarf move. The good thing about choosing a bad typing is that we can afford to give more powerful abilities.

That said though, Wonder Guard, Magic Bounce, and Magic Guard are not happening. I realize this constitutes a Poll Jump on my part, but let me be absolutely clear: There are many ways we can consider compensating for the typing we choose, but none of these three abilities will ever be in contention. The SR weakness level we choose will be that SR weakness level, and that will be the end of it.

This is actually very important and will speak to my next point: competence. While we are trying to select among the worst typings, we also want to select competent ones. I am actually intrigued by Ice / Rock, but for the case of counterargument based on competency I'll make an argument for Ice / Steel.

Ice / Steel

2x Weaknesses: Ground
4x Weaknesses: Fighting, Fire
Neutral: Electric, Rock, Steel, Water
2x Resistances: Bug, Dark, Dragon, Flying, Ghost, Grass, Normal, Psychic
4x Resistances: Ice
Immune: Poison
Immune to Toxic, Toxic Spikes, Hail, Sandstorm
Super-Effective Coverage: Dragon, Flying, Grass, Ground, Ice, Rock
Toxic Spikes Immunity

Why the typing is considered bad.

Ice/Steel has crippling Fighting and Fire weaknesses, as well as a weakness to Ground attacks. Basically, it doesn't mitigate any of Steel's weaknesses, and it nullifies Steel's SR resistance. The primary reason isn't really defensive though, it's offensive. Ice / Steel is basically Ice that can hit Tyranitar and Mamoswine in a pinch. It is completely vulnerable to Magnet Pull, and unless it can hit with Ice STAB it won't be able to do much damage. It can also easily be revenged by Dugtrio depending on stats.

What positive qualities it brings that can make it defining positively.

Lets be honest here, Ice / Steel is a lot better than pure Ice and arguably better than Ice / Rock, just from a weakness perspective. Ice / Steel is also unique in being the only type that resists Dragon while having a super-effective STAB against it. In general it has resistance to most forms of residual damage, being neutral to stealth rock and immune to Toxic and Toxic Spikes, something no other Ice type can say. That said, resistances are only one part of the equation, and the steel offense does let it target a few specific threats its Ice STAB can't hit.

What role it could fit given its weaknesses and defining strengths.

It's niche is as possibly the best Hail Pokemon conceivable, since it brings a lot of resistances to the table Ice doesn't normally have. It's true it does nothing for Fire and Fighting weaknesses, but it's sometimes better to only have to avoid 3 types instead of 5. Ultimately Steel / Ice is competent. It has serious situational drawbacks when it comes to trapping abilities, and it's offensive presence is basically limited to Ice. However, it's because of it's resistances it could fill a niche as an excellent Hail pivot. It brings out the best in Steel's defense and the best in Ice's offense. It will still have serious drawbacks in the weather wars, as it has no business at all messing with Ninetales, cannot strike Politoed effectively, and does not necessarily switch in well against Tyranitar or Hippowdon given their common resort to Fire or Ground attacks.

Is this the worst typing that could be selected and still fulfill the above discussion points competently?

To be sure, Ice / Steel plays differently from Ice / Rock and a lot of the other more offensive types up for discussion. It does have a lot more switch-ins by virtue of being part Steel, but unlike Heatran, which shares many of its qualities on paper, Ice / Steel is much easier to play around. Weather teams commonly have Ground or Fighting coverage and most Rain teams laugh at the Ice/Steel combination. It is not at all difficult to put HP Fighting or HP Fire on many attackers given their coverage, and unlike its Ice / Rock brethren, it has no SpD boost in Sandstorm to defend itself with. Ultimately it's still a bad type, but its weaknesses are harder to see because they lie on offense, not defense, and the primary means of exploiting them, Hidden Power, seems type neutral on paper despite the ubiquity of HP Fire and HP Fighting (and HP Ground for that matter) on the most common sets.
 
Alright here is my giant post.

I would like to bring up the Bug/Psychic typing. I am going to use the format Deck Knight used to post his idea about Fire/Rock and Ice/Steel just because it was easily the most organized post for a typing so far so please bear with me.

Typing:Bug/Psychic

2x Weaknesses: Fire,Flying,Bug,Rock,Ghost,Dark
4x Weaknesses: None
Neutral: Normal,Water,Electric,Ice,Poison,Dragon,Steel
2x Resistances: Grass,Ground,Psychic
4x Resistances: Fighting
Super-Effective Coverage: Fighting,Dark,Poison,Psychic,Grass


What makes it bad typing:

The Bug/Psychic typing while not giving any lethal 4x weaknesses, gives it plenty of 2x weaknesses to common types to contend with because of its weakness to Fire, Rock, Dark, and Ghost which are some of the more common offensive type moves in OU right now. It also gives it a weakness to Stealth Rocks and doesn't favorably work naturally on any weather team with its typing. It also has to contend with almost every offensive physical pokemon having a rock type attack which would hit it supereffectively. It is also walled by most steel types and is even more walled by Scizor and Forretress.

What positive qualities it brings that can make it defining positively.

Even though its typing isn't offensively powerful it still hits keys points, with the plethora of Fighting, and to a lesser extent Dark types this typing gives it a chance to switch in and hit them for super effective STAB provided you don't switch into a rock type attack. The typing isn't overpowering but it has redeeming qualities that make it worthwhile while still being a "bad" typing.

What role it could fit given its weaknesses and defining strengths.

As everyone knows right know in the OU metagame, we are seeing a plethora of fighting types running rampant and a majority of weather mostly being Sandstorm. This pokemon with this typing has the ability to switch in on Fighting type attacks and take it relatively well since this is one of the typings that has a 4x resistance to it and to lesser extent can switch in and resist EQ that you will be seeing on a lot of pokemon anyway. This gives it the unique spot of being an anti fighting type weapon while also having the ability to deal with dark types at the same time.

Is this the worst typing that could be selected and still fulfill the above discussion points competently?

I can argue this is one of the worst typings we could choose given its underwhelming coverage by itself and its common weaknesses but it also has some great advantages that when used right could make an interesting pokemon that would find a pretty nice niche in the current metagame. It is also a pokemon that doesn't have horrible typing because of its defensive stance but has a hard time because of both defensive and offensive weaknesses, something I think that the typings that have been discussed so far really haven't addressed. Its weaknesses are common and its STAB is pretty underwhelming but it also gives the unique opportunity of making a pokemon that would find a nice niche in the current meta that really hasn't been filled by any other pokemon so far.
 

Bughouse

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By the way, if we are actually looking to scrape the bottom of the barrel, then I think I should point out that the worst typing in the metagame is probably actually Fire/Flying.

(I know it doesn't fulfill the concept of 2CTD)

The stab is almost entirely redundant. The weaknesses abound. Fails mega-hard in both Rain and Sand. Quadweak to Stealth Rock.

Notably, counters Scizor, but loses to everything else towards the top of OU.

Just saying.
 
I have two typings that I have been pining for since this all began. Many of the people posting to support them actually got the roots for their very ideas for them from talking to me about them. I present to you my take on the two typings that without a doubt deserve to be slated: Rock / Ice and Poison.

Rock / Ice is the worst possible typing in the OU metagame. I emphasize this because it's important. I thoroughly believe that it is the worst typing imaginable for anything trying to be OU, and this is one of the biggest things that makes it such a lure for this concept. It has massive appeal insofar as it is the most difficult thing to work with and thus will force us, as a community, to think really hard about how to create a workable OU Pokemon in future discussions and polls. It also opens up lots of possibilities insofar as what types of things can be used; virtually anything is free game when your typing is this bad. That makes the process very exciting and could allow the project to forge new ground in the other stages that no other concept could ever enable.

Rock / Ice is a good offensive typing that has something to draw from in order to be useful. We could actually use the typing to an advantage in many ways. Offensively it's tough to switch into, and that gives it an edge in making it OU because it can actually threaten something once it gets in. This gives the typing direction because then we need to work in how it gets in in the first place. I think that sort of discussion would be intriguing and result in some cool stuff arising in the other parts of the project.

--

Mono-Poison is one of the most unimpressive offensive typings imaginable within its STAB. It gives us a lot of leeway to make it strong as hell in many ways (ability, STAB strength, stats, whatever) because no matter what, it will always be embarrassingly bad against Steel-types. This freedom is something I really think is good because it gives us a lot to talk about offensively down the road. The more options we have while still maintaining direction, the better off we are. No matter how you slice it, it's a bad typing when you're trying to kill everything on the opponent's team.

Mono-Poison's redeeming defensive switch-ins give it a chance to succeed in the concept. Because of a Fighting resist, it totally has a shot to switch in and be useful. This, combined with the fact that most Fighting-types don't pack a move super effective against Poison-types because Ground-type attacks are mostly redundant with Fighting-type attacks helps give this typing a chance to come in and achieve whatever its goal ends up being.

--

Essentially, both typings are awful, but both are excellent for the concept because they present the community with a variety of options that we can use at later steps to achieve whatever goal we choose to go with. Either way, though, both types are horrible in their own rights, but have slight redeeming qualities that we can use to patch things up down the road by focusing strictly on typing. I hope to see both get great support and hopefully slated for these reasons.
 

Okuu

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(I'll preface this by saying that I had 80% of this typed up about half an hour after the topic opened, and was typing the rest in email. Can't appear to be too much of a fanatic in a public setting. Now, off to read stuff here!)

I'll have to support Ice / Rock for this specific CAP typing.

Ice / Rock's Defensive Typing Chart:
  • Super Effective!! (x4): Fighting, Steel
  • Super Effective! (x2): Rock, Grass, Ground, Water
  • Neutral Coverage (x1): Fire, Psychic, Dark, Ghost, Bug, Electric, Dragon
  • Not very Effective (x0.5): Flying, Normal, Poison, Ice
  • Not very Effective (x0.25): -nothing-

Topics:
-Why the typing is considered bad.
-What positive qualities it brings that can make it defining positively.
-What role it could fit given its weaknesses and defining strengths.
-Is this the worst typing that could be selected and still fulfill the above discussion points competently?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
First of all, why is Rock / Ice a bad typing? Please, spare the laughter for later. You can refer to the chart above, or the many charts here (in which it scores at the bottom of all but the special defense chart, in which it's outclassed by bug/ice [Syclant], and a few others). I know that I gave you an option to, but I'll refer to the chart above regardless, and note that every one of its weaknesses are types that are commonly used in OU (save for Steel). Even if you tossed an Air Balloon onto this typing mix, all but 11 pokemon in Smogon's OU would be able to smack it for super effective damage without changing their typical hidden power around. And the list of pokemon that can't are a small mix of rapid spinners, walls, dragons, fire types, and Jolteon. I'll bring up this tidbit later in more detail, but at least gather the fact that the Ice / Rock typing is hit for Super Effective damage by 78% of the OU tier, assuming Balloon (without that, we'd be in the 90's).

Now, since I managed to submit such a laughably terrible typing here, what possible benefits can that specific typing bring to OU?. First of all, seeing as it has so many weaknesses, it would be doomed to becoming a revenge killer. But, without the proper speed stat, or the ability to resist getting slapped by a super effective attack, it wouldn't even be able to do that effectively. Fortunately, Ice and Rock are both powerful offensive types. Ice is renowned for ripping through dragons, flyers, grass, and ground types, while Rock has an equal number of advantages over fire, ice, flying, and bug types. All in all, that offensive combination can hit everything but the steel type for at least neutral damage. Of course, there are dual typings that exist that would resist this stab as well, but I assume we have more than two moveslots and access to Hidden Power, if anything else.

This is going to undeniably be the tricky part of the entire process. What sort of role do we think that this pokemon is going to play? Since I've established that this pokemon is practically weak to everything in OU, and that it can hit everything in OU for at least 1x damage, it would seem that a good role for it would be as a glass cannon / revenge attacker / scarf sweeper / something of that ilk. But, not only is that boring, but it completely gets around the idea that the poor defensive typing is a negative quality. The same effect could easily be emulated by any pokemon with pitiful defensive stats. So, I don't want this to become some sort of speedy glass cannon. However, that leaves me with a pokemon that's liable to be killed by at least 2/3's of a typical team, if not by every pokemon in it, and has the real possibility of dying before being of any use. Herein lies the problem that we are trying to solve here: What can we possibly do to save a pokemon with this much offensive potential, that would get completely obliterated by just about any other pokemon that has access to more than one attacking move?

Now, for the last of the four topics: Is this the worst typing that we could possibly select, that still fulfills the general idea of what we want out of this CAP? Well, at any rate, it's the worst typing that we could possibly select, from a defensive standpoint. That alone exceeds expectations. The fact that it's also an amazing offensive typing is simply icing on the cake, as it gives us an avenue to pursue that would allow us to even consider such an unviable typing in OU. It's a typing that has been untouched, so we'd be able to fully explore any and all possibilities for it, without having to sidestep around Arboks and Magcargos.
 
Deck Knight, I'm curious to why you stated:
Deck Knight said:
Electric / Fire (No Levitate)
It was my understanding using some combination of ability, stats and move pool to cover up some of the weaknesses of a "bad" typing was not only allowed, but the expected means for improving upon a "bad" typing, as the idea was presented by Theorymon's concept description:
Theorymon said:
What does it take for a Pokemon to overcome its "bad typing" so much that its typing becomes good? Are the stats the biggest contributer, is the ability the thing that saves it, does movepool make it a force, or is it a combination of the above?
Theorymon goes on to explicitly state that using an ability to cover a 4x weakness is a viable way to proceed with the concept:
Theorymon said:
The first thing that will probably come to mind when it comes to giving a bad defensive typing a make over is giving it an ability that gives it an immunity to a 4x weakness, abilities like Levitate, Sap Sipper, Flash Fire, Water Absorb, Lighting Rod, etc. This is certainly a direction this CAP can go, because there are plenty of typings that are considered terrible on a Pokemon just because its stats don't gel with a nasty 4x weakness!
So I only ask because what you are proposing (or disallowing) seems to be going against what Theorymon had in mind. (Although, I certainly don't claim to be speaking for Theorymon's mind.)
 

Asylum_Rhapsody

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While I'm actually very much a fan of Rock/Ice, I want to actually suggest mono-Normal. I know that at least a couple of people aren't going to see where I'm coming from this, but hear me out. One of the things that I see in common with a lot of the types being discusses, like Ice/Rock or Fire/Ice or Fire/Rock, is that they're really, really terrible in a lot of ways but can easily be shown to have significantly potent assets in other ways. Take the three types that I just mentioned, for example. They're horrible defensively, but they offer so much potential offensively. One way to interpret the concept may be to go for types that have the worst downsides (regardless of their ability to overcome them), but another way to interpret the concept may be to go for the type that normally has least remarkable redeeming qualities (pun intended). Going with the second interpretation, I submit that the best candidate may be mono-Normal simply being of its crippling mediocrity. Mediocrity in all areas is arguably the worst thing that a type could be.

So, let's go over the downsides of having a mono-Normal type Pokemon.
* No resistances.
* Fighting weakness. (In today's metagame, that's kind of a big deal)
* Never super effective.
* Only STAB in resisted by all Rock-types and Steel-types. (including Ferrothorn, Heatran, Jirachi, Lucario, Magnezone, Metagross, Scizor, Skarmory, Terrakion, and Tyranitar)
* Ghosts entirely immune to only STAB. (Gengar, Jellicent)

Now let's try to look at the upsides:
* Only one weakness. (But it's to Fighting)
* Immune to Ghost. (But do any OU or even UU Ghosts really care?)
* Only STAB gets okay coverage. (But not as good as Dark, Dragon, Flying, Rock, or Water)

So, what do we have to exploit here? We have a Pokemon that we say has an advantage because it can switch in on most things to take... average damage, I guess? It can also hit a good amount of stuff for... okay damage, I guess? How exciting. [/sarcasm]
Let's be real here. Talking about handing out a lot of neutral damage or taking a lot of neutral damage is something that we talk about when we can't think of any real advantages. Evidence of this can come from simply from realizing how we don't need to talk about Rock's neutral coverage or Water's neutral coverage to make them sound good. Mono-Normal is the straight-C student. Yeah, you get by okay, but don't pretend you have something to be proud of just because you're so consistent about your mediocrity. The best thing Normal has going for it one immunity. Maybe if it were to Fighting or Ground or something, but it's to Ghost. We have exactly two Normal-type Pokemon in OU, and let's not even pretend that they would anywhere if not for their monstrous HP stats. Only Ice and Rock have as few OU representatives, and they're at least from different evolutionary families.

All of that said, however, while Normal's advantages are mediocre, it can work. If there's one thing that Normal does have going for it, it is consistency, with its respectable neutral coverage and only singular weakness. We really don't have to look very far past Blissey to see that, but Ambipom, Porygon2, and Snorlax are all still good examples. Mono-Normal may not be the most exciting typing that we could pick, but I think that's exactly why it deserves consideration. Plus, it's so customizable in what we can make it do with its abilities and other qualities. For example, want to troll Jellicent? Try Normal with Water Absorb.



As a side note, I agree with Screw-On Head's above post. I don't think that we should take Levitate, Flash Fire, Magic Guard, or even Wonder Guard off the table. If it were any other concept, I would agree, but those sorts of extreme measures are, as I understand it, explicitly mentioned as part of the concept as being a legitimate way of making it work. If there will ever be a concept for which those dramatically powerful abilities are appropriate, this is exactly it. I think that taking such options off the table unnecessarily limits us. I think that the key, though, to using such powerful abilities, is to make sure that they're made to work because of the Pokemon's typing. If they're not, then I agree that they shouldn't be considered. As an extreme example, Wonder Guard is great, but it's definitely not as useful on a Rock//Psychic Pokemon as it is on a Dark/Ghost Pokemon. There, the ability is being made to work for the typing.

EDIT: One other thing that I want to bring up: I think that we should pick an ability before we have the Threats/Counters discussion. With a Pokemon like this, we are going to want to give it a significantly powerful ability that may very well alter how threats and counters are discussed, so I think that it would be very, very bad to settle on threats and counters solely based on typing when we have not yet decided on how abilities will affect typing effectiveness. For example, if we were to go with a Bug/Grass Pokemon, Flash Fire would be a perfectly legitimate ability to give it considering the concept at hand. However, if we have the Threats/Counter discussion first and decide that Infernape should be a counter given only information on typing, that's going to presuppose that Flash Fire will be off the table. If we recall from Necturna, people were very, very hesitant to discuss abilities that would in any way alter the threats and counters that had already been discussed beforehand, particularly Heatran, but while that wasn't such a big deal for that concept, it could be a very, very huge deal for this one. I do not think that we will be able to have a Threats/Counters discussion without poll-jumping the ability selection.

Yes, I have read this thread, but that discussion was had before this concept was decided upon, and I think that this concept warrants some special consideration because of the ways that we've all been discussing abilities interacting with the type effectiveness, which would normally be all that we would use for the Threats/Counters discussion. Really, I think that type effectiveness is such a HUGE part of this CAP that we need to get anything that alters it out of the way before we can meaningfully discuss Threats/Counters related to the concept.
 
Im supporting Ice/Rock as a 2CTD.

Its a fantastic type combination that we can learn alot from, and its defensive drawbacks can be patched in many ways, without giveing it Magic Guard or a massive BST. (Sandstorm SpD boost and the Solid Rock ability are just the first two off the top of my head).


Im not a big fan of the Mono types because it can only swing two ways: we either make it too strong that the typeing itself will no longer be relevant, or we make it too weak/mediocre that it just wont be able to pull its weight on a team.

We already have close enough examples of the later in alot of pokemons, like Mew and Registeel which are legendary status pokemons that fall flat on their face.


I really dont see how we can learn anything new from this other than what we already know: Overcompensateing makes anything good or "Yeah its pretty good but why eat cookies when you can have cake?"
 
General type-by-type thoughts:
Fire has both benefits and liabilities as far as offense and defense are concerned, but it moreso benefits offense. Its variability in how we can take it makes it a solid choice.
Rock is mostly poor defensively, as we all know; it is also great offensively, as we all know. This lends a part-rock to be moreso offensive. Generally questionable whether we'd be able to call this a "bad" type, but I'm kinda gonna go fer a yes.
Electric (though only fer dual-types) has a lot of potential defensively and offensively, I just think this type is underused due to its lack of powerful 'mons. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Grass has some fair potential in both regards, but also leaves a lot to be desired in both fields as well. Not trying to really plant this idea into your head, but I think grass, though a bit of a sappy typing, may prove to be a fruitful idea.
Bug is essentially a more defensive and less offensive grass, the latter of which is pretty fuckin' hard to accomplish. Though, we must remember that Megahorn has little drawbacks, especially being more accurate and probably a bit more useful than Power Whip, so I feel bug is generally a less "bad" type than grass.
Poison is one I'm a huge fan of. Lots of defensive potential, no offensive prowess. I would even say a defensive poison-type is amazing, especially if it's a mono-type or its secondary really compliments it.
Ice - ho boy - everyone knows what this will lead to. Fast 'n' frail. I'll agree with the many people who said it that this just screams "revenge killer." I'm personally not that big a fan of making the result more based on improving an attacking type, as any attack type already has at least 5 strong pokemon that have "better" typing. Ice-type attacks are already commonplace in OU, we don't need to really emphasize them.
Dark might be a way cool idea. I think its only real problems are the lack of really powerful dark-types (we have, what, ttar and darkrai?) and their weaknesses to one common and one well-used niche type (calling it that because only u-turn is really used). I may consider it not actually "bad."
Normal - yeah, this may be a good choice. It's barely under neutral in terms of its offensive and defensive abilities, though I think that may give it too much of an overemphasis on stats and abilities.


Now fer some combos suggested.
I am personally a huge fan of Fisd's Electric/poison and was even gonna suggest it. It gets its ass handed to it on a silver platter by anything that doesn't take sandstorm damage, which is a prominent chunk of the OU metagame. It has a fantastic blend of defensive capabilities that are often underlooked, completely shutting down Scizor; it also has good offensive potential, especially in rain, but its strong STAB in Thunder needs to watch out for the other two weathers. It can probably shut down Arghonaut and Tomohawk, and many water- and grass- types. The only real problem I see is that its 2 weaknesses and strong offensive presence is in fact too good, so I understand and am beginning to agree with where Deck's coming on that one.

Fire/poison Is a fantastic one that I love due to its similarity to my already-suggested idea of electric poison, though with more defensiveness to be desired.

I'm also slightly a fan of Ice/rock, though I do realize this would just become a revenge killer, and I've already stated my displeasure with that road. Its suggested counterpart of Ice/stee seems to me like it would possibly end up too good, even with its 4x weaknesses (after all, heatran, magnezone, gastrodon, gyarados, celebi, ferrothorn, scizor, dragonite, salamence, garchomp, rayquaza, and many more already deal with 4x weaknesses, most of them to all-too-common types of attacks). Its resistances, in addition to its types being weak to the same things instead of having a wider array of weaknesses, and while we're at it, its great offensive power with ice stabs, bullet punch + iron head, and immunity to both weathers and toxic make it all too potent a threat, in my opinion.

Deck's suggestion of Fire/rock, or a similar idea of Fire/ground, Seem really great, especially when you look at the plethora of defensive potential these types can possibly achieve in addition to reliable STAB coverage an' shit. I'd say fire/ground may be a tad better, with its inability to reliably damage Dragonite with its STABS and its higher defensive potential than rock.

Electric/fire - I like it. I've heard people bitching about voltturn for ages, so I know its resistance to that will be helpful, and I know its ground weakness won't be that big of a liability (see my steel/ice response). Pretty cool.

Steel... So simple, yet possibly effective. HOWEVER. You gotta remember that steel is a fantastic defensive type, and OU is full of 'em - I think it may violate the concept of taking a bad type and focusing on its strengths. You could argue that it's bad offensively, but focusing on its strengths means we make it defensively, which there's already enough of.


And now, my suggestion: Dark/bug.

Weak to: Fire, rock, bug, flying
Resistant to: Ground, grass, ghost, dark
Immune to: Psychic
Common or semi-common types italicized.

Why it's bad: Dark and bug are both unbelievably underwhelming and uncommon. There are really no dark attacks with bp 100 or more (less judgement), and Megahorn and Bug Buzz are the only powerful bug-type attacks. Weaknesses to fire, SR, U-turn are big, though a positive point is that the list basicaly ends there.

Why it's good: It's got great STABs on more effect-based moves like pursuit and u-turn, resistances to any less earthen coverage fighting-types may carry, and a fairly decent amount of neutralities. Lots of flexibility in defensive and potentially offensive prowess.

Roles: Maybe anything. Powerful megahorn is a fantastic thing to go for, solid bug buzz and dark pulse are also good, utility moves like pursuit and u-turn get more powerful, and it can come in on psychic-types like celebi and alakazam and frighten them out with impunity. It may be a bit of a niche mon, but it will certainly be adaptable to many roles based on these types alone.

Is this the worst: It's questionable. Weakness to Fire, SR, and U-turn are big liabilities, as are the fact that its resistances are mostly uncommonly STABed attacks (I think maybe TTar's pursuit, but then we fear the rock STABs, or KO with bug STABs). There've been worse offensive types, but look at dark, there's really nothing above a 90bp without being arceus. It can compete.
 

bugmaniacbob

Was fun while it lasted
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EDIT: Warning; a wild extremely huge post appeared

Before I start, can I just say: Please stop abusing formatting in your posts. I'm really finding it difficult to read some peoples' posts. Thanks.

Anyway, I'd like to vouch for the following typings:

-----------

Bug / Psychic

Why the typing is considered bad.

As far as passive damage goes, this is one of the worst ones about. The holy triumvirate of weaknesses to Stealth Rock, U-turn, and Pursuit, alongside susceptibility to Spikes and Toxic Spikes, sandstorm and hail, ensures a pretty huge weakness to passive damage. This, when coupled with six weaknesses, to Fire, Rock, Flying, Ghost, Dark, and Bug, makes it a pretty poor typing defensively. Offensively, it's not much better. While the two types have some offensive overlap - Psychic takes care of Poison and Fighting, while Bug takes care of Dark and Psychic - they still leave it painfully weak to Steel-types. And as we are all aware, no one coverage move can take care of all Steel-types. So in terms of a metagame niche in OU, it is altogether poor in all respects.

What positive qualities it brings that can make it defining positively.

When you look at its resistances, important resistances to Ground and Fighting immediately stick out - which is not, on the face of it, terribly helpful, since both are frequently paired with Rock-type attacks. Its resistances do make it a pretty decent answer to Reuniclus and Virizion, and that's something. Of course, its greatest redeeming quality is its relatively good STAB combination, which while still lacklustre in OU, owing to all the Steel-types here, there, and everywhere, is good enough to be usable. Its typing does give it resistances - it should not, at any rate, be hard to switch in to some Pokemon at least. At any rate, it is its offensive combination that defines it positively, and very little else.

What role it could fit given its weaknesses and defining strengths.

Nearly all Pokemon in the game can fit the bulky attacker mould given the right tools, regardless of type; however, I think that it would be a waste of the concept to simply introduce another powerful bulky attacker into the metagame. So what specific niche can a Pokemon of this nature occupy? Something defensive would be difficult, as unless we give it Magic Guard (which I am not in favour of) we will be left with a Stealth Rock-weak wall, which is something that - as far as I am aware of - there is not, presently, in OU at all. However, on the other hand, to create an offensive Pokemon would likely be pointless, since, well... anyone can make a good offensive Pokemon, despite its weakness to Steel-types. What I really want to see from this is for it to occupy a niche similar to that of Utility Cloyster - something that may well be used for attacking occasionally, but can also be used for a more offensive utility alternative. Another option would be for it to act as a lure. The possibilities with this typing are very much aplenty.

Is this the worst typing that could be selected and still fulfill the above discussion points competently?

Yep. The closest thing with similar weaknesses to passive damage is Ice/Psychic, which, yes, also happens to have unresisted STAB outside of Steel-types and weaknesses to just about every passive damage type imaginable, but is not affected by hail. So yes, Bug/Psychic is very slightly worse. Just a little bit. Well, OK, you can't hit Jirachi for neutral damage and you're complete Bullet Punch fodder, but *details*. Anyway, Ice/Psychic is even more unlikely to pull off a defensive set, so much so that I would consider it more or less impossible without Magic Guard.

------------------------

Ice / Steel

Why the typing is considered bad.

Well, this one's almost as bad as Rock/Steel, but trades the 4x Ground weakness and 2x Water weakness for a 2x Ground weakness and 4x Fire weakness. So, in summary, that's not one, but two 4x weaknesses to common attacking types, in addition to a third weakness to an even more common attacking type. Offensively speaking, it's not much better. It's still royally beaten up by all Fire-types, Water-types, and Steel-types - that's three very common types that almost entirely block out the STAB combination. Whichever way you look at it, this typing is pretty poor.

What positive qualities it brings that can make it defining positively.

Ice/Steel is one of those typings we've been wanting for a long time, for the reason that it seems to be an almost perfect Dragon killer. Ferrothorn can stick itself in the way of CB Haxorus Outrage but can't really kill it back - this would be a Pokemon with the potential to switch into a Dragon-type and kill it outright. Most obvious problem here? Yeah, most Dragons seem to carry around Fire- and Ground-type attacks. Unfortunately. But - and this is a very big but - this is a niche that is as yet unfulfilled - the universal dragon slayer. As far as my desire for this Pokemon to have a viable niche goes, this one is pretty big - and the typing plays a pretty massive part in it. I mean, the single biggest part in it. Ice gives it the KOs it needs and Steel gives it the resistances it needs - 10 in all.

What role it could fit given its weaknesses and defining strengths.

Universal Dragon counter? Why not? Something we've all been dreaming of for a long while, which is both a completely unfilled metagame niche and a way for us to fit the concept quite easily. There could be no argument that the typing was the deciding factor, even if we were to give it a little "help" with Flash Fire, Solid Rock, or Levitate to cancel out some of its weaknesses. Of course, that's not all it could potentially do. As Deck already pointed out, it would make a pretty excellent hail Pokemon thanks to all its resistances, should we choose to go down that route, or even a hail starter, despite an inability to combat any of the other 4 weather starters (besides Abomasnow, who is irrelevant).

Is this the worst typing that could be selected and still fulfill the above discussion points competently?

Ice is pretty much the worst type you could possibly pair with Steel, though Steel is not the worst type you could pair with Ice. However - and I mean this however - this is probably one of the only typings that could make a successful universal Dragon counter without going overboard on the stats, as well as being one of the best typings for a hail summoner or abuser, despite its many, many weaknesses.

----------

There are also a couple of other typings I would like to just briefly mention for sake of, well, whatever it may help. Fire / Flying is one I have brought up here and there, and I still believe it would make an excellent choice. The ability to take on Pokemon such as Scizor, Heatran, and Lucario with next to no fuss gives it an important metagame niche, and as somebody who loved using and hated facing Moltres in DPP UU and occasionally in DPP OU, I am quite certain that it would be possible to make a successful defensive Fire/Flying; however, it would almost require Magic Guard in order to be successful. In a similar vein I rather liked the idea of Bug / Flying and Ice / Flying for their individual merits, as well as for my insatiable and rather unhealthy desire to see a successful Bug/Flying (I am quite confident that even with Magic Guard it would need a great deal more to be successful, but that's just me).

The other typing I found intriguing, actually, was Fire / Rock, though for different reasons than the ones Deck Knight proposed - With Dry Skin, it would act as a rather excellent check to most rain teams, or even on rain teams, while at the same time not being overly powerful on or against sun teams for sake of losing health every turn. For example, it could quite easily pick apart Politoed, Starmie, Tentacruel, Ferrothorn, Scizor, and the like with minimal effort. Yes, I am well aware that Fire/Electric would probably be better for the same purpose, but I am of the opinion that Fire/Electric is too good a typing to be allowed. More on that later. Lastly, Bug / Grass is nice for that lucrative Grass-typing that gives a Water-, a Grass-, and an Electric-type resistance, so many a yay there. Again, this would give us a niche in taking on rain teams, as well as possibly sand teams thanks to the Fighting- and Ground-type resistances. 'ray.

--------------

Now, I'm going to try to explain why I don't like certain typings. As I'm sure you're all aware, I really don't like most mono-types for how limited they are in terms of what we can accomplish, as well as what can be done with them, and even how bad they are to begin with. As I have said before, the only real limiting factor for a mono-type is its lack of dual STAB and hence coverage; this is to an extent made up for by generally improved defensive ability. For example, mono-Normal has been done so many times it's slightly annoying. We know how an offensive Normal-type would work (Tauros, Zangoose, Ursaring, even Arceus) and how a defensive one would work (Blissey, Snorlax, Miltank), and there is very little left to discuss or explore. All mono-types are similarly limited in the same way. A word on Poison: It is hardly a poor type simply because it hits very few things super effectively. Like Normal, it has a great deal of neutral coverage, and unlike Normal, it has resistances to play off as well. The combination of Earthquake and Crunch, or something similar, for coverage, ought to be ample to enable it to be effective. There is very little challenge here. The only case this doesn't happen is if we attempt to make a defensively-inclined Fire- or Ice-type, and I feel that these are too general to enable it to carve a specific metagame niche.

Now, on to specific typings:

Electric / Fire - This is far too good, in my honest opinion. You may well say it has a 4x Ground weakness and a Stealth Rock weakness, but... it still has seven cracking resistances, an amazing STAB combination, and the ability to take out an alarmingly large number of OU's biggest threats. I don't see what we'd be doing to make it better, bar making Heatran v2.

Fire / Ice - I am not honestly convinced that, even with Magic Guard, this Pokemon would be even remotely usable in OU - at least, not without significant other help. Being totally screwed over by all Water- and Fire-types, more or less, is a pretty poor start, unless we're giving this thing access to Electric-type attacks as well. The trouble is that even with all this, I don't see what Fire/Ice could ever turn out to be, besides a powerful attacker. I just don't think it's worth the hassle. It might be fun, but in the end rather limited.

Grass / Ice - Nothing wrong with it in theory, but it's still pretty handily beaten by all Fire- and Steel-types and there's not much it can really accomplish in a defensive sense. Though, I will admit that it could be a nice answer to rain teams. Trouble is that we've already had one of those - Abomasnow - and I feel that building a stronger variant wouldn't accomplush much that the original couldn't already do, besides being a bit stronger.

Ground / Rock - Rhyperior tried and was rubbish, but then it was pretty slow. The only Rock/Grounds with a Speed stat over 70 are Pupitar and Onix, iirc. EdgeQuake is an amazing STAB combination but there is basically nothing around to use it effectively. I actually think that this is hardly a poor typing - it definitely has a great deal of plus points and the Ground-type is a great asset. I don't see this as making over a bad typing - it's already pretty solid.

Ice / Poison - Well... it's bad, but it's not that bad. Honestly I can't really see what the point of it would be, it's essentially trading a Fighting weakness for a Ground weakness. I can't see any real niches for it though, which is why I don't particularly like it that much. There's nothing wrong with it as a choice, but... it sort of doesn't have a lot we can do with it.

Ice / Rock - Somebody suggests make the worst typing in the game and everything snowballs. Ice/Rock, or as I like to call it, the "punching bag" is back on the menu. Yup, Ice/Rock is here, the typing with a 4x weakness to both Bullet Punch and Mach Punch, and nice weaknesses to Water, Grass, and Ground besides. But it's not all bad... it has a bunch of nifty resistances to Flying, Poison, Normal... yeah. Oh, and Ice I guess, which is most often paired with Water or Ground, unfortunately. As far as the offensive combination goes, it, like just about every other typing here, can't do toffee to Steel-types, and would probably run into trouble against Water- and Fighting-types, given half the chance. Of course, saying it can't do anything to Steel-types isn't totally accurate - It can still hit Scizor, Forretress, Skarmory, Ferrothorn, and Heatran for neutral damage, which only leaves Metagross, Magnezone, Lucario and Jirachi in OU as problematic. Yeah. I just have difficulty seeing how this Pokemon would actually work without being, well, covered in little bonuses. Without big defensive stats it can't switch in on anything. Without big offensive stats it can't really stop other stuff from switching in on it. To be a big offensive threat it would probably need Shell Smash or some similar boosting move, while to be a big defensive threat it would in all honesty probably need Wonder Guard. I just do not think that Ice/Rock is a feasible typing purely for the amount of support it would need to be effective, which I am trying to shy away from as much as possible. A good offensive combination is little use if you can't switch in, so a bulky attacker build is nigh-on inevitable, unless we make this as horribly powerful as DPP UU Yanmega.

----------------

And finally, a bit of clearing up work:

Screw-On Head said:
Deck Knight, I'm curious to why you stated:

[Electric / Fire (No Levitate)]

It was my understanding using some combination of ability, stats and move pool to cover up some of the weaknesses of a "bad" typing was not only allowed, but the expected means for improving upon a "bad" typing, as the idea was presented by Theorymon's concept description:
I imagine that this is because we already have a Levitate Electric/Fire in Rotom-H, and that making another one would be something of a waste, when the typing is capable of doing other things. Not that it matters to me since I disapprove of Electric/Fire regardless.

Asylum_Rhapsody said:
EDIT: One other thing that I want to bring up: I think that we should pick an ability before we have the Threats/Counters discussion. With a Pokemon like this, we are going to want to give it a significantly powerful ability that may very well alter how threats and counters are discussed, so I think that it would be very, very bad to settle on threats and counters solely based on typing when we have not yet decided on how abilities will affect typing effectiveness. For example, if we were to go with a Bug/Grass Pokemon, Flash Fire would be a perfectly legitimate ability to give it considering the concept at hand. However, if we have the Threats/Counter discussion first and decide that Infernape should be a counter given only information on typing, that's going to presuppose that Flash Fire will be off the table. If we recall from Necturna, people were very, very hesitant to discuss abilities that would in any way alter the threats and counters that had already been discussed beforehand, particularly Heatran, but while that wasn't such a big deal for that concept, it could be a very, very huge deal for this one. I do not think that we will be able to have a Threats/Counters discussion without poll-jumping the ability selection.
The thing is, you could quite easily turn that argument around and say that if we didn't want Infernape to be a counter, we could decide that during the threats discussion, and then we'd have more of a basis for choosing Flash Fire. Not the best example, but in any case, we're not deciding on Threats and Counters in the next stage, to my knowledge, merely identifying threats that might be problematic or unavoidable counters regardless of what we give it. It should not affect the typing discussion in any way. With regard to Necturna, it was nothing to do with the fact that we had "decided" on counters beforehand and everything to do with the fact that we were shaping up to be making a Pokemon that was nigh-on unstoppable at that very early stage, so most people felt it was a good idea not to make even more stuff totally useless against it. Still, your comment with regard to poll-jumping is legitimate, but then we can always decide that we don't want a certain archetype to counter our CAP, rather than naming exactly how we are going to go about it. Remember that you could just as easily make Infernape a non-issue by giving the Bug/Fire 110 base Speed and Earthquake as you could by giving it Flash Fire. Regardless of where you put the Threats discussion, some points about the future Pokemon will have to be assumed, hence why it is so early in the process.
 

Okuu

Blame [me] for Global Warming!
is a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnus
As a side note, I agree with Screw-On Head's above post. I don't think that we should take Levitate, Flash Fire, Magic Guard, or even Wonder Guard off the table. If it were any other concept, I would agree, but those sorts of extreme measures are, as I understand it, explicitly mentioned as part of the concept as being a legitimate way of making it work. If there will ever be a concept for which those dramatically powerful abilities are appropriate, this is exactly it. I think that taking such options off the table unnecessarily limits us. I think that the key, though, to using such powerful abilities, is to make sure that they're made to work because of the Pokemon's typing. If they're not, then I agree that they shouldn't be considered. As an extreme example, Wonder Guard is great, but it's definitely not as useful on a Rock//Psychic Pokemon as it is on a Dark/Ghost Pokemon. There, the ability is being made to work for the typing.

EDIT: One other thing that I want to bring up: I think that we should pick an ability before we have the Threats/Counters discussion. With a Pokemon like this, we are going to want to give it a significantly powerful ability that may very well alter how threats and counters are discussed, so I think that it would be very, very bad to settle on threats and counters solely based on typing when we have not yet decided on how abilities will affect typing effectiveness. For example, if we were to go with a Bug/Grass Pokemon, Flash Fire would be a perfectly legitimate ability to give it considering the concept at hand. However, if we have the Threats/Counter discussion first and decide that Infernape should be a counter given only information on typing, that's going to presuppose that Flash Fire will be off the table. If we recall from Necturna, people were very, very hesitant to discuss abilities that would in any way alter the threats and counters that had already been discussed beforehand, particularly Heatran, but while that wasn't such a big deal for that concept, it could be a very, very huge deal for this one. I do not think that we will be able to have a Threats/Counters discussion without poll-jumping the ability selection.

Yes, I have read this thread, but that discussion was had before this concept was decided upon, and I think that this concept warrants some special consideration because of the ways that we've all been discussing abilities interacting with the type effectiveness, which would normally be all that we would use for the Threats/Counters discussion. Really, I think that type effectiveness is such a HUGE part of this CAP that we need to get anything that alters it out of the way before we can meaningfully discuss Threats/Counters related to the concept.
I completely agree with these sentiments. With many of the abilities that I can forsee getting tied to a specific pokemon typing, they actually end up creating new types themselves. A Rock/Fire type with Water Absorb could be considered as a different type than a typical Rock/Fire, as the 4x Water weakness became an immunity/absorb. Something that was considered a weakness was effectively compensated for by the introduction of an ability. Now, a Rock/Fire with Water Absorb sounds silly outside of a theoretical level, but it's an effective way for that specific typing to deal with a weakness. It's the same idea behind things like Eelektross, who manage to counter their own natural weaknesses with their ability, and end up getting a slightly more effective typing out of the deal. If we're going to consider types, it's just as important to consider potential abilities that would work with those types at the same time. If anything, it will lead to a more effective presentation of the considered typings here. With this topic in general, I fear that we're going to end up with one of the following:

  • A pokemon with a weak typing, that is unable to make up for its intrinsic failings and falls far short of OU play.
  • A pokemon with a weak typing, that relies on speed and offense to a point where the weak typing of the pokemon ultimately has little bearing on the performance of the pokemon itself.

Of course, there are a variety of other options besides those. Personally, I'd like to see more of a bulky-offensive approach to whatever we end up selecting, and see what sort of compensation we would need to make up for it, though I'm all for a more defensive, or simply just a well-rounded pokemon as well. If it's a 150/150/150 defensive spread, then so be it. If it ends up needing Magic Guard to avoid hazard damage, I'll understand (but still hate hazards). And if it ends up needing an ability like Flash Fire / Water Absorb / Sap Sipper / Wonder Guard / etc. to force the opponent to rethink their short-term offensive strategy, then I have little issue with allowing it. I interpreted what we're trying to achieve here as "What do we need to do to make a pokemon with horrible typing viable in competitive play?" That said, we shouldn't immediately begin discarding ideas that could potentially lead to that outcome.
 
I completely agree with these sentiments. With many of the abilities that I can forsee getting tied to a specific pokemon typing, they actually end up creating new types themselves. A Rock/Fire type with Water Absorb could be considered as a different type than a typical Rock/Fire, as the 4x Water weakness became an immunity/absorb. Something that was considered a weakness was effectively compensated for by the introduction of an ability. Now, a Rock/Fire with Water Absorb sounds silly outside of a theoretical level, but it's an effective way for that specific typing to deal with a weakness. It's the same idea behind things like Eelektross, who manage to counter their own natural weaknesses with their ability, and end up getting a slightly more effective typing out of the deal. If we're going to consider types, it's just as important to consider potential abilities that would work with those types at the same time. If anything, it will lead to a more effective presentation of the considered typings here. With this topic in general, I fear that we're going to end up with one of the following:

  • A pokemon with a weak typing, that is unable to make up for its intrinsic failings and falls far short of OU play.
  • A pokemon with a weak typing, that relies on speed and offense to a point where the weak typing of the pokemon ultimately has little bearing on the performance of the pokemon itself.

Of course, there are a variety of other options besides those. Personally, I'd like to see more of a bulky-offensive approach to whatever we end up selecting, and see what sort of compensation we would need to make up for it, though I'm all for a more defensive, or simply just a well-rounded pokemon as well. If it's a 150/150/150 defensive spread, then so be it. If it ends up needing Magic Guard to avoid hazard damage, I'll understand (but still hate hazards). And if it ends up needing an ability like Flash Fire / Water Absorb / Sap Sipper / Wonder Guard / etc. to force the opponent to rethink their short-term offensive strategy, then I have little issue with allowing it. I interpreted what we're trying to achieve here as "What do we need to do to make a pokemon with horrible typing viable in competitive play?" That said, we shouldn't immediately begin discarding ideas that could potentially lead to that outcome.
I think we are jumping a bit ahead with the ability discussion... we should be talking about the types for now.

A Rock/Fire pokemon with Water Absorb can be fixed when we chose the pokemons design, something like a Geyserback volcano monster or something.

So i dont think giveing a Fire type a Water Absorb or Dry Skin will be a problem, if it is determined later on that it is neccesary for it to succeed in OU.
For now lets just focus on the types themselves and we can iron those things later on.

I also find Eelektross a bad example, because even with it being the third pokemon in existance without a weakness and a great movepool its still not that popular in OU, same with Electivire. It just goes to show you that slow & bulky atackers are touch and go in the Hyper agressive Gen V meta.
Somehow i cant shake the feeling that if we do make it slow and bulky and not inflate its BST it just wont make the cut. Sure theres always the revenge killer route but, its been done to death and we can only learn one thing from that....
 
Looking through this thread, I see only the people who've discussed Bug/Grass on IRC really recognizing it--though, a few people like Seven Eagles have put a sentence or two about it. So I'd like to compare Bug/Grass to two other types I whole-heartedly support: Ice/Rock and Fire/Rock.

What Makes it a bad typing?
This question is probably the most important of the entire thread. My opinion on what makes a typing bad is its defensive qualities. Defensive typing is hard/impossible to change while Offensive type-coverage can often be augmented. Specifically, I think the defensive weaknesses are what make a type bad, while the resistances are positive qualities to the type. Thus, I'll compare the three types:

Weaknesses
Bug/Grass -- x4 Fire, x4 Flying, x2 Rock, x2 Ice, x2 Poison
Ice/Rock -- x4 Fighting, x4 Steel, x2 Grass, x2 Water, x2 Ground, x2 Rock
Fire/Rock -- x4 Water, x4 Ground, x2 Fighting, x2 Rock

Winner: Ice/Rock. While they all have double double weaknesses, the I/R weaknesses are the worst of the bunch in OU. Being x4 weak to both Mach Punch and Bullet Punch is terrible. All 3 have 1/4th HP chipped from SR and none are immune to (T-)spikes, so that's a wash.

What positive qualities it brings that can make it defining positive?

Resistances
Bug/Grass -- x.25 Ground and Grass, x.5 Water, Fighting, Electric
Ice/Rock -- x.5 Flying, Ice, Normal, Poison
Fire/Rock -- x.25 Fire, x.5 Bug, Flying, Ice, Normal, Poison

Winner: Ice/Rock. Going by sheer volume of resistances, I/R is the worst. It has little to switch into, one of which (Poison) is almost never used in OU. Bug/Grass is clearly the best here with Double Ground resistance and a Water, Electric, AND Fighting resist to boot (to the head). But we're going with "worst-typing", so Ice/Rock it is!

Offensive Prowess
Bug/Grass -- Resisted by Steel, Fire, Poison, Flying.
Ice/Rock -- Resisted by Steel, Water/Fighting.
Fire/Rock -- Resisted by Water/Ground, Dragon/Ground, Water/Fighting, Rock/Ground, Rock/Fighting.

Winner: Bug/Grass. I had a hard time on this one. Bug/Grass is clearly the most defended and the other two have great solo-coverage. Bug/Grass wins here because, while I consider Offense to be a positive thing, we're still going for the "worst-type" of them all, and Bug/Grass clearly has it the worst.

What Role could it be given by its strengths?

Bug/Grass -- I feel this one is the most flexible. With bad weaknesses, nice resistances, and the worst offensive coverage of the three, Bug/Grass could probably fit into a lot of things--sweeper, wall (although SR weakness makes that harder), support, U-Turn spammer, etc.

Ice/Rock -- This has to be a fragile cannon with rockets for wheels. Double damage from BOTH Priorities means this thing has to hit hard and flee. Plus he's taking 1/4 Total HP damage from SR every switch. He's gotta do a lot in little time.

Fire/Rock -- This is pretty much the same as Ice/Rock for me.

Winner: I don't know. This is the point where I'm starting to pull up on "worst-type". If we wanted the "worst-type" here, I'd have to say Ice/Rock or Fire/Rock for sheer lack of flexibility, but I think having the flexibility in row will help us in this concept. I'm leaning towards Bug/Grass.

Is this the worst typing that could be selected and still fulfill the above discussion points competently?

All -- Yes. All three of these types have bad problems, yet I think all three are fixable. Some shine better in areas than others, but some are also worse than others in areas. You couldn't go wrong with any of the three, and while I really love Bug/Grass, I'm happy with either Ice/Rock or Fire/Rock.
 

jas61292

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I don't think Deck is saying that such immunity abilities should be disallowed. In fact I am fairly certain that Bugmaniacbob got it correct when he said that the specific example of no Levitate on Fire/Electric is due to Rotom-H existing, proving it can work well with Levitate, and not because it overcomes a weakness. As for Wonder Guard and the like, I don't think it is good to start a debate on that right now. I do agree with Deck in disallowing them, but even if they were allowed I don't think any typing should be given support simply because we want it to get a certain ability down the line. If the only feasible way to fix a typing is with this predetermined ability, then that typing does not promote discussion, and is not good for the process.

That being said, if such abilities are disallowed, then Rock/Ice has my full support. Finding a way to fix what is quite possibly the worst typing for OU without resorting to such extreme measures as Wonder Guard would be an incredible challenge, and one I think would be worth the effort.
 

Bughouse

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Can't believe we've all missed this one so far, but...

How about Ice/Dark?

I know it exists in Weavile. I know. Weavile is already a heavily flawed Pokemon though and it sees use basically solely to be a Dragon-Killer because it's typing is too bad to do anything else.

It is still completely wrecked by Scizor, Heatran, Tyranitar, etc, etc. Still can't touch Rain teams. Still is weak to lots of types.

The difference is Ice/Dark doesn't have near perfect offensive coverage like Ice/Rock.

As long as we don't give and Ice/Dark CAP3 any Fighting moves, like Weavile does get, it will be absolutely crushed by almost all of the meta, while still having possible other uses (based on typing alone) of checking Dragons and Reuniclus, etc.

But we could actually make a fully developed Pokemon idea and not just follow a Weavile style Revenge Killer build.

Just a thought. My reservation against Ice/Rock is it's really good STAB. This helps remove the STAB advantages while still remaining pretty terrible defensively.
 
Looking through this thread, I see only the people who've discussed Bug/Grass on IRC really recognizing it--though, a few people like Seven Eagles have put a sentence or two about it. So I'd like to compare Bug/Grass to two other types I whole-heartedly support: Ice/Rock and Fire/Rock.

What Makes it a bad typing?
This question is probably the most important of the entire thread. My opinion on what makes a typing bad is its defensive qualities. Defensive typing is hard/impossible to change while Offensive type-coverage can often be augmented. Specifically, I think the defensive weaknesses are what make a type bad, while the resistances are positive qualities to the type. Thus, I'll compare the three types:

Weaknesses
Bug/Grass -- x4 Fire, x4 Flying, x2 Rock, x2 Ice, x2 Poison
Ice/Rock -- x4 Fighting, x4 Steel, x2 Grass, x2 Water, x2 Ground, x2 Rock
Fire/Rock -- x4 Water, x4 Ground, x2 Fighting, x2 Rock

Winner: Ice/Rock. While they all have double double weaknesses, the I/R weaknesses are the worst of the bunch in OU. Being x4 weak to both Mach Punch and Bullet Punch is terrible. All 3 have 1/4th HP chipped from SR and none are immune to (T-)spikes, so that's a wash.

What positive qualities it brings that can make it defining positive?

Resistances
Bug/Grass -- x.25 Ground and Grass, x.5 Water, Fighting, Electric
Ice/Rock -- x.5 Flying, Ice, Normal, Poison
Fire/Rock -- x.25 Fire, x.5 Bug, Flying, Ice, Normal, Poison

Winner: Ice/Rock. Going by sheer volume of resistances, I/R is the worst. It has little to switch into, one of which (Poison) is almost never used in OU. Bug/Grass is clearly the best here with Double Ground resistance and a Water, Electric, AND Fighting resist to boot (to the head). But we're going with "worst-typing", so Ice/Rock it is!

Offensive Prowess
Bug/Grass -- Resisted by Steel, Fire, Poison, Flying.
Ice/Rock -- Resisted by Steel, Water/Fighting.
Fire/Rock -- Resisted by Water/Ground, Dragon/Ground, Water/Fighting, Rock/Ground, Rock/Fighting.

Winner: Bug/Grass. I had a hard time on this one. Bug/Grass is clearly the most defended and the other two have great solo-coverage. Bug/Grass wins here because, while I consider Offense to be a positive thing, we're still going for the "worst-type" of them all, and Bug/Grass clearly has it the worst.

What Role could it be given by its strengths?

Bug/Grass -- I feel this one is the most flexible. With bad weaknesses, nice resistances, and the worst offensive coverage of the three, Bug/Grass could probably fit into a lot of things--sweeper, wall (although SR weakness makes that harder), support, U-Turn spammer, etc.

Ice/Rock -- This has to be a fragile cannon with rockets for wheels. Double damage from BOTH Priorities means this thing has to hit hard and flee. Plus he's taking 1/4 Total HP damage from SR every switch. He's gotta do a lot in little time.

Fire/Rock -- This is pretty much the same as Ice/Rock for me.

Winner: I don't know. This is the point where I'm starting to pull up on "worst-type". If we wanted the "worst-type" here, I'd have to say Ice/Rock or Fire/Rock for sheer lack of flexibility, but I think having the flexibility in row will help us in this concept. I'm leaning towards Bug/Grass.

Is this the worst typing that could be selected and still fulfill the above discussion points competently?

All -- Yes. All three of these types have bad problems, yet I think all three are fixable. Some shine better in areas than others, but some are also worse than others in areas. You couldn't go wrong with any of the three, and while I really love Bug/Grass, I'm happy with either Ice/Rock or Fire/Rock.

I agree with everything you say except for Grass/Bug being a good choice.
We already have two of them, one a fantastic sub-seeder in the rain and the other a fail of a Sunny Day fast physical sweeper.

I dont think we can learn anything more from this type combination that we couldnt by giveing them better stats or moves. The end result would still be the same: they can only fill a specific, but good niche unless we overbuff them. At the end of the day we can take it however we want but Bug/Grass still has lots of weaknesses and for it to thrive outside weather support it needs to be too good of a poke to not have on the team, like Arceus.
Do you think people would give the extremekiller set a second look if it had a BST of 450?

We should look more towards Celebi as an example, who despite its massive flawls, has just the right BST, movepool and resistances to pull it off as a deffensive pivot.

Why? Because people need it on their team as a glue, it actualy has a purpose unlike "Mono Poison type with great BST and moves, but id still take Dragonite over it" kind of pokemon.
 
This is the first CAP I'm following thread by thread and while I don't feel I'm up to submit a typing I do have one or two things to say.

While Levitate and Flashfire are plausible abilities for this CAP I fail to see how wonderguard is. It's an ability that works around typing yes, and this is a CAP dealing with typing yes but this feels so easy. I hope people aren't serious when they bring it up and only post it to lump it in w/ other damage nullifying abilities. It's overpowered, easy, and defeats the purpose of this entire project.

I also think we almost have to do a dual type. I think we will learn so much more from the interactions of a dynamic or playable dualtype as opposed to a monotype. That's what this CAP is about, learning and observing the effects of a mon's typing and I think DT is the best way to do that. My votes are for Ice/Steel or any combination of Fire,Electric, and Poison.
 
The way I see it, this CAP needs to be built with a niche in mind from the very beginning, otherwise, if we go too general we will inevitably be overcompensating when we get to stats and abilities.

That said, Ice/Steel is a wonderful idea. We have a dedicated Dragon killer, resisting their attacks, and striking back with a super effective STAB. Dragons all too common in OU, and the typing becomes the selling point in this regard, while still being a weakness to the vast majority of the metagame, especially Fire attacks Dragons are likely to carry anyway, but Speed and/or priority can be considered later.

Magnezone for Dragon ftw!

Seriously though, this has my support.
 
I would suggest Ice/Poison

Key weakness

Ground: EQ is such a widespread move that many common pokemon can carry.
Fire: Fire coverage moves abound relentlessly thanks to Scizor and Ferro being so prevalent.
Rock: Stone Edge, another move abused by many in OU

Lesser weaknesses would be to Psychic and Steel type moves which see little use these days.

Resistances

Ice, Poison, Bug and Grass. Ice being the only one, possibly along with Bug that would be deemed beneficial to have a resistance to.

STAB Attacks

Whereas Ice has good coverage, poison is possibly the worst attacking type in the game netting supereffective damage on only grass, steel types are immune to it and it is resisted by 4 other types, ghost ground, rock and poison meaning that if your opponent knows you're running poison STAB, he can quickly move to take advantage with good prediction.

What makes it a bad typing?

A weakenss to 3 common attack types in OU and resistance to only one while it takes neutral damage from the rest of the commonly seen attacking types giving it no additional tank ability beyond it's stats.
In fact, given the OU top 20 in recent months, Ice/Poison would have it's work cut out for it to survive in today's meta.
Weak to SR and susceptible to spikes and sandstorm means residual damage can also take it's toll on our mon.

Is it the worst typing?

A very subjective question as a pokemon is so much more than it's typing. It does have it's drawbacks but also some good points.
-Ice stab is generally reliable
-Immunity to hail
-Immune to T-Spikes and Toxics

What role could it play?

With it's poison typing it could be a toxic spiker, status spreader or something to switch to if your Dragonite is caught with it's pants down and without a sub.
You could go all the way and try to make it the Ice type tank that Regice couldn't be due to it's monotyping.

All in all, I think Ice/Poison would make a fantastic experiment in combining a bad offensive and bad defensive typing to see if the sum of it's parts is greater than the whole.
 
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