CAP 14 CAP 3 - Part 2 - Typing Discussion

[Mari]

@Meganium Sulfate: You're right. Posion/Normal is a very bad type. However I have to mention that typing is a defensive mechanic. STAB is another part. Blissey and Bastiodon are good examples for Pokémon who don't profit from their STAB. What would happen if we made a Rock/Fighting type with a bad physical attack stat (both Fighting and Rock mainly include physical moves) or a bad movepool (see Eelektross), so that it cannot profit from its STAB very well. On the other hand Normal/Posion would be easier to balance ... I'm undecided.

 

[Bughouse]

OK yes, I missed Heatran and Tentacruel somehow... I made a fast post. And I apologize if it made me look silly.

However, in response, I would say the list of what counters a Monofire Type (my preference) is considerably larger than that which counters Fire/Poison. Everything that counters Fire/Poison still counters Fire. Then add on Vaporeon, Infernape, and every Dragon.

As for my point against Ice/Steel bugmaniacbob completely missed my point frankly, and has done nothing to convince me that Ice/Steel is bad typing (compared to our other options of course.)

 

[canno]

What would happen if we made a Rock/Fighting type with a bad physical attack stat (both Fighting and Rock mainly include physical moves) or a bad movepool (see Eelektross), so that it cannot profit from its STAB very well.

Then we would be crippling the pokemon to make up for it's typing. Which is the exact opposite of what the goal is here.

And Poison / Normal is actually better than MonoPosion because Normal has an amazing neutral coverage, iirc only Dragon has a better Neutral Coverage.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

I have to agree with capefeather here, Bug/Psychic is very easy to make good.

The main reason for this is because of the offensive options afforded to Bug and Psychic Pokemon. Bug types get Bug Buzz, Quiver Dance, and Megahorn commonly, and these are some of the best attacking moves there are because Bug gets surprisingly decent neutral coverage. Paired up with Psychic, we run the risk of overpowering this Pokemon with the best boosting move in the game (Quiver Dance) and the best move to complement Quiver Dance, Stored Power. With these three moves alone, we get a fast, strong, and bulky sweeper who can fire off powerful STAB moves and wreck a lot of OU. Give it Hidden Power Fire as well and you have a virtually unstoppable killing machine (outside of Heatran, though with enough Special Defense...).

I would warn against Bug/Psychic because these two types are some of the most underrated types in the game.

 

[Cinesra]

I really like the Fire/Poison idea. It has potential and some dangerous weaknesses. It's weak to SR, 4x weak to Ground, and weak to Water. On the other hand, it's immune to Poison and Burn status, and resists Grass, Poison, Steel, Bug, Ice, Fire, and Fighting. This makes its typing give it some major potential in being a great Celebi/Infernape/Scizor, etc check and a status absorber, for example, while still being weak to some common offensive types. Fire/Poison is a nice Steel killer with decent offensive coverage that can threaten switch-ins, such as Washtom, with Toxic or something. I think this typing fits the concept well, because it's an interesting mixed bag.

 

[Uberksetchy]

I personally would just love to see a fire type that can work without Ninetales on a leash ten feet away from it. Amirite? Besides ice, there is no other type in the metagame that got the shorter end of the stick after Gen IV. The only fire types that get used are either in sun teams or named Infernape (who gets used more often as a wicked fast fighting type bruiser, not a proper fire type burninator).

The fact that Steel dual types are even being DISCUSSED for this CAP seems wrong to me. Steel's set, guys. it's good. it's good in multiple combinations and in multiple combat variations. Meanwhile, Fire has been relegated to only being good when paired with Steel (Heatran) or fighting (Blaziken, Infernape).

And don't even get me started on ice. Fire, it's main foil, is barely even existent and it STILL can't catch a break. There's too many Steels and Rocks floating around for it to even get a word in edgewise.

Fire and Ice, people. CAP3 needs to represent at least one of those.

 

[Birkal]

On the other hand, it's immune to Poison and Burn status, and resists Grass, Poison, Steel, Bug, Ice, Fire, and Fighting.

This is exactly what frightens me about Poison/Fire. Having 7 resists and immunity to two of the most popular status effects tips this typing from "bad" to "good", in my opinion. Furthermore, it takes away the best part of doing a mono-Poison type: it gives CAP3 a way around Steel-type Pokemon. If it we give it a strong offensive Poison-type STAB, it can just abuse that and use Fire-type attacks as coverage. It doesn't seem like much of a challenge to make Poison/Fire good.

In regards to my favorite typings, I lean heavily towards mono-Poison. I feel that there is so much creative depth for this typing in terms of what we do; many questions spring into my head. Do we give it coverage moves? How do we force it to use its Poison-type STAB? Which kind of stats do we give it to give it enough presence with Poison-type STAB? The most intriguing question for me is: to what degree to we balance how well mono-Poison does against the OU tier in relation to Steel-types specifically? For example, if we give it some nice coverage for Steel-types, then we can't make it too strong to overpower all of OU. On the other hand, we could splurge and make it ridiculously offensive with no coverage and then embarrassingly bad against Steel-types. It's all highly intriguing. Ice/Rock is an easy second place for me; it would be excellent to take such a terrible typing and make it plausible in OU.

 

[MLaRF]

The fact that Steel dual types are even being DISCUSSED for this CAP seems wrong to me. Steel's set, guys. it's good. it's good in multiple combinations and in multiple combat variations.

Yeah, I'm going to reiterate this point again. I really don't think we should have any type combos including steel. If you even look at the chart No Luck posted, at least one steel is (statistically) used on every team. Personally, Fire/Rock is probably my favourite out of all the suggestions, Ice/Poison being my second, because they have both defensive and offensive potential going for them while still being types which are generally undesired, but still not too potent that it wrecks everything in a certain margin (i.e. steel/ice bringing dragons to ruin). But steel seriously does not need any assistance. I am firmly against the type for this project.

 

[No Luck Involved]

This is exactly what frightens me about Poison/Fire. Having 7 resists and immunity to two of the most popular status effects tips this typing from "bad" to "good", in my opinion. Furthermore, it takes away the best part of doing a mono-Poison type: it gives CAP3 a way around Steel-type Pokemon. If it we give it a strong offensive Poison-type STAB, it can just abuse that and use Fire-type attacks as coverage. It doesn't seem like much of a challenge to make Poison/Fire good.

Let's take a look at the 7 resistances for Fire/Poison, because taken in isolation it's just a number and doesn't really tell us anything.

4x Grass: Celebi and Virizion commonly carry moves that threaten Fire/Poison super-effectively. It is a good answer to variants of Venusaur and most Breloom and Ferrothorn however.

4x Bug: There are only three Bug type Pokemon in OU and only two of them use Bug type attacks. However Fire/Poison is a fantastic counter to them: Scizor, Volcarona and Forretress. Bug type attacks seen on other Pokemon is almost always U-turn, make of that what you will.

2x Steel: This is more of a resistance 'on paper' because Steel type moves aren't commonly seen on most Steel types. Fire/Poison is still notable for countering or checking the vast majority of Steel types however including Mr #1 Scizor, Ferrothorn, Jirachi (most variants), Skarmory, Magnezone, Forretress and Lucario. However it must be wary of switching into Metagross while Heatran is a hard counter and commonly carries Earth Power.

2x Ice: The two Ice Pokemon in OU are Mamoswine and Cloyster, and they both threaten Fire/Poison with a super effective STAB move.

2x Fighting: Fire/Poison is not going to feel safe switching into any Fighting type that commonly carries a strong Rock move. This includes Terrakion, Conkeldurr, Mienshao, Virizion and Infernape. Terrakion is in fact a hard counter. It is a good answer to Breloom, Lucario, Toxicroak and Scrafty.

2x Poison: This is a resistance on paper because no Pokemon commonly uses Poison type moves in OU and Tentacruel is a hard counter. It will threaten Toxicroak however.

2x Fire: There are four Fire Pokemon in OU. One, Heatran, is a hard counter; Infernape threatens with Stone Edge, but Fire/Poison is a good answer to Ninetales and Volcarona.

That was a list of all the types of Pokemon that Fire/Poison 'resists' or is supposed to be good against. What we find is that it's quite a mixed bag, and Fire/Poison will not be handily switching in as often as its '7 resistances' may suggest. In fact the only type that Fire/Poison can consistently threaten is Steel and Bug.

Fire/Poison is not great defensively, it often won't be able to switch in safely to types even if it 'resists'. However it can consistently switch into Steel and Bug types, and this is where the dual typing shines. Once it has grabbed that opportunity to come in safely, its neutral coverage acts as a great deterant to help it establish its presence.

Its list of hard counters in OU reads as: Heatran, Tyranitar, Terrakion, Tentacruel, Jellicent and Gastrodon.

Of course this analysis was considering typing alone and stats or movepool will affect its performance greatly.


In summary: Fire/Poison cannot switch in safely to the vast majority of the OU metagame; it can't even switch in against most of the types that it 'resists' and it has a 4x weakness to Ground that can be taken advantage of. It can be demonstrated to be a pretty 'bad' defensive typing. However it can consistently switch in easily against Steel types and that is the only type it can feel safe to switch in against and it is reliable at it. It's 'good' offensive coverage only comes into play when it is safely switched in, which no one can deny is a good offensive typing. It also has common hard counters in OU by typing alone.

I hope someone can do an analysis like this of other typings being discussed, I'd love to see some comparisons made. I hope that's where this discussion will go, to really analyse and compare what we have on the table. Again I'd like to say in closing that I'd be happy to see a Fire, Ice or Poison type go through. Giving the right tools to a lesser used type is what draws me most to this concept.

 

[Skore]

Fire/Poison can and may switch in quite freely to any fighting type with a strong rock move if it can out-speed and KO. We can't just make these statements in a vacuum.

The only thing we know right now beyond much doubt about Fire/Poison is that it will be KO'd by a Ground type move as going on every other OU mon with a 4x weakness, unless you have Sturdy/Focus Sash or sometimes Multiscale, you will be OHKO'd.

I get the feeling that many people are proposing type combos that they hope will become the next revolutionary sweeper and have already dismissed the challenge in making a defensive CAP with "bad" typing.

Edit: Not that I'm saying this is a bad thing necessarily, however I think it's easier to make an offensive mon with a bad typing work as opposed to a defensive one.

 

[Cinesra]

This is exactly what frightens me about Poison/Fire. Having 7 resists and immunity to two of the most popular status effects tips this typing from "bad" to "good", in my opinion. Furthermore, it takes away the best part of doing a mono-Poison type: it gives CAP3 a way around Steel-type Pokemon. If it we give it a strong offensive Poison-type STAB, it can just abuse that and use Fire-type attacks as coverage. It doesn't seem like much of a challenge to make Poison/Fire good.

While Fire lets Poison get past Steel types, it adds a weakness to SR and Water, and makes Ground even harder to take. But, I do see your point. Fire/Poison feels like it fits the concept more, to me, though.

 

[Meganium Sulfate]

And Poison / Normal is actually better than MonoPosion because Normal has an amazing neutral coverage, iirc only Dragon has a better Neutral Coverage.

Oh, I completely agree. I was speaking purely in terms of a dual-typed pokemon. Out of the types that Deck has slated, I would wholeheartedly vote for Poison, to try to make a pokemon that, while okay defensively, has to work around a terrible offensive STAB.

 

[No Luck Involved]

Fire/Poison can and may switch in quite freely to any fighting type with a strong rock move if it can out-speed and KO. We can't just make these statements in a vacuum.

Actually we can't make statements like you've just made for exactly the reason you gave. The fact is, if the opposing Pokemon has a strong move that hits a Pokemon super-effectively then you can't assume you can just switch in as long as you outspeed and KO. We can only make the more conservative assumption that you cannot safely switch in, for fear of a super-effective hit.

edit: Didn't mean to sound arrogant or bossy. Don't really know how to reword it. Will send cookies to anyone offended.*
*postage and packing apply, cookies may show signs of tampering by bear.

 

[Okuu]

I keep seeing certain things pop up here, so I thought I'd address those.

• A typing that either already exists but doesn't appear in OU, or a typing that doesn't exist, but consists of types that aren't popular in OU, aren't necessarily bad ones.

The Poison/anything typings seem to fall into this. Poison is a lackluster type, yes, but not a bad one. The reason it's not generally viable in OU isn't solely because of its typing, but generally because of the stat distributions, movesets, and abilities of the pokemon. (Following counts exclude Arceus-Poison) Only 25 pokemon have a Poison subtype and 400+ total BST. Only five of those have 500+ total BST. And out of those 5 pokemon, 4 of them are actually in OU already. True, it's only 4 out of 50, but that's simply due to a lack of high-powered Poison threats, the prevalence of Steel, and the more competitive types that it is tacked to (ghost, water, fighting, grass). Poison would be an interesting type to consider later, if we ever decide to try and explore a typing that Game Freak seemed to forget about when creating good pokemon. However, the Poison type itself isn't so bad as to warrant having to fix it somehow to make it viable. It's not bad, it's just underrepresented.

• Typings that aren't bad, or typings that are naturally bad when considered apart, but work fairly well when placed together.

The Steel/anything typings seem to fall into this spectrum. There's a reason why 18% of OU consists of Steel types, and why it's so hard to find a team without one, and also why the fire/ground/fighting types are commonly used in any given pokemon's offensive repertoire. It has a frightening number of resistances, and generally does nothing but add to the effectiveness of a pokemon. Scizor/Heatran/Forretress/Ferrothorn/Magnezone all have crippling 4x weaknesses to either Fire or Ground, and yet the majority of them have little problem functioning effectively as defensive types, simply because they resist so many other types (second typing removing a weakness helps too :D ). Yes, Ice/Steel would lead to two 4x weaknesses instead of a single one in the above examples. But other than those, it still boasts an impressive set of resistances granted almost entirely by the steel type itself. The end product is a type that works fairly well just of its own nature. Little help is needed to make it viable, assuming we stat it in similar fashion to the rest of the CAPmons here. And with that, the Ice/Steel typing retains two critical weaknesses, but can still be considered a good enough typing in itself that we shouldn't need to consider it for this CAP topic.

All in all, I still support Ice/Rock as the best choice for this topic. I personally thought that I did a good enough job laying out the various downfalls of that typing in earlier pages to warrant my not repeating them here in great detail. But, to summarize, it retains critical weaknesses to 6 commonly used offensive types (4x to fighting/steel, 2x to grass/water/ground/rock), and has no noteworthy resistances bar Flying and Ice (as few pokemon use Normal attacks or any sort of Poison outside of Toxic). It has potential in that Ice and Rock are both powerful offensive types, but the defensive mix of Ice/Rock wouldn't allow it to switch into just about any commonly used attack in this level of play.

 

[fourkings8414]

Though I support Fire-Poison greatly, the argument made by Birkal should be taken seriously. Obviously, this is a debate between the detrimental qualities and competency of the typing itself. I believe that both are present and that is exactly why I support this combination.

However, Poison itself is competent enough, like Birkal said, when we bring in the move pool stage (in this, I am saying that coverage moves will take care of this dilemma). This is poll-jumping, but we have to remember that the ability, move pool, and stats augment the pokemon so that it can perform well in the meta. In the case of bringing Fire in, we can give it Flamethrower and/or Fire Blast and since this does not have STAB, weakens the power of it being able to counter Steel types. In the back of my head, it also prevents Rain from becoming ever more popular since it removes Steel's weakness to fire, though this may happen even if we give this Poison type a fire move. Another thing to think about for Poison is not necessarily the idea that it is a type that is fine by itself, but it is also a type that wants more, or even needs more when compared to a lot of the other combinations in the listing. As said before, dual typings are often better than mono-types, no matter the combination.

But I feel when we give coverage moves to pivot the pokemon, the move pool begins to shine more than the type itself. This is why the potential in Fire-Poison appeals to me more than the others in the listing. The two STAB moves are enough for it to perform well, at least in my honest opinion. If we decide upon this type, it may be a good idea to even limit its move pool to just these types with maybe HP to round off the set, or not even provide that and force it to carry a support move.

 

[No Luck Involved]

I keep seeing certain things pop up here, so I thought I'd address those.

• A typing that either already exists but doesn't appear in OU, or a typing that doesn't exist, but consists of types that aren't popular in OU, aren't necessarily bad ones.

The Poison/anything typings seem to fall into this. Poison is a lackluster type, yes, but not a bad one. The reason it's not generally viable in OU isn't solely because of its typing, but generally because of the stat distributions, movesets, and abilities of the pokemon. (Following counts exclude Arceus-Poison) Only 25 pokemon have a Poison subtype and 400+ total BST. Only five of those have 500+ total BST. And out of those 5 pokemon, 4 of them are actually in OU already. True, it's only 4 out of 50, but that's simply due to a lack of high-powered Poison threats, the prevalence of Steel, and the more competitive types that it is tacked to (ghost, water, fighting, grass). Poison would be an interesting type to consider later, if we ever decide to try and explore a typing that Game Freak seemed to forget about when creating good pokemon. However, the Poison type itself isn't so bad as to warrant having to fix it somehow to make it viable. It's not bad, it's just underrepresented.

This depends on your personal interpretation of the concept. I think this is one of the crucial points that is making it hard to agree on what exactly we want to see in the end product.

Personally I don't believe any type is bad. A type with poor defensive presence will have good offensive qualities, this is the way Game Freak has made it. We can argue day and night about which type is subjectively the worst and there will be good points brought up for either side. I believe the only only objective way to determine a good type from a bad type is by usage stats. It doesn't matter how many good points can be made for Ice's usefulness, if it's sitting in practically joint last place in OU then the reality is it's not useful to people.

The reason for that may be that Game Freak has not blessed that particular type with good stats, as is the case with Poison, or good movepool options, or useful secondary typings or abilities or whatever. But that still doesn't take away from the fact that Pokemon of that type are just plain not useful. People don't use it.

My interpretation was that we'd take a type like this, a 'bad' type based objectively on usage stats and give it the right tools to let it be 'useful' in OU. Whether that type can be argued to be 'good' (such as Ice) is irrelevant in my books because people aren't using it therefore it is clearly demonstrated to be not good. It needs something to be 'fixed' to make it good.

Where this gets muddy is how strict we are about it. Objectively from usage stats Normal and Ice are the worst types in OU. Very few people use a Pokemon of this type on their teams. This is where our judgements come in because I don't think a Normal type is that hard to make 'good' and it wouldn't be very interesting because it has no resistances and no super-effective coverage. It would most likely need to be a heavy hitter that is still walled by common physical walls. I feel it will have a negligible effect on the metagame and that doesn't interest me (this is up for grabs of course, it's completely my biased opinion).

My own personal judgement makes me want to see a Ice, Poison or Fire type being 'fixed' because I feel they will shake up the metagame the most; they are types that are lesser seen but have huge potential to influence team building, moveset choices and threat lists. In order to keep to the brief I feel whatever Pokemon we choose should have plenty of weaknesses to be demonstrated to be 'poor' defensively (because offensively it's not hard to make something good as long as it has the right stats and coverage).

Also I support giving a Steel type to an Ice type for example because this is indeed a way to 'fix' the Ice type. It wasn't used before but now with Steel by its side people may judge it to be useful. That's fair game imo and doesn't contradict the concept. The most important thing for me is to see a 'bad' type (and I define that to be a lesser used type) be given the right tools (stats, secondary typing, movepool, ability, whatever) to see it become a consideration for the average battler in team building.

 

[DarkOrbX]

I kinda want to see mono-normal. There really aren't too many Normal OU mons that are used because they are normal. Mono-steel may not exist, but Scizor is definitely used for its steel typing offensively, for example. I think Steel is just too easy as well. I mean, we'd end up just making it bulky enough to switch in on resisted hits and hit sorta hard. It's not interesting or new. I saw we develop the normal type. It's neutral. It's hard to complain, but there are better options out there. It's not too difficult to base a pokemon around, but its still not the most desired typing.

I have to completely agree with you on this. The way I see it, many of the mono-normal types in the competitive game need a certain special trait about them before they become useful. For Miltank (UU) it's the move Milk Drink, plus it's high defenses. For Blissey (OU) it's her high HP and SpD. Other mono-normal types require more move-based incentives for use, such as Smeargle (UU) with Sketch. With such obvious OU threats as the ever-present Terrakion and Conkeldurr, creating a mono-normal type that could be used PURELY for it's type as the concept suggests would make for an interesting feat.

 

[jas61292]

Not to reiterate myself too much, but I would like to post in agreement with Okuu on Poison not being a bad type. The problems that Poison has are not that it has crippling weaknesses or that it has problems switching in or anything like that. The only problems presented are that it doesn't have good offensive coverage. But seriously does that make it a bad type at all? How many Pokemon make OU by only running STAB moves? Very very few. Being a bad offensive typing won't stop a Pokemon with the right coverage, and being a good defensive typing will only serve to make things even easier. The fact is, poison is not bad, there are just not good Poison Pokemon.

Fire/Poison, on the other hand, does indeed have major weaknesses, and as such I believe it to be a significantly worse typing that pure Poison. Sure, its offensive coverage might be better, but any Poison typing worth using is going to need a coverage move to beat Steels anyways, so in reality, it is not as big a difference as people make it out to be. At the same time though, Fire typing adds important weaknesses to Rock and Water, and doubles the Ground weakness, without covering up any weaknesses that existed already. And as stated by No Luck Involved above, while it may have 7 resistances, all of these are usually coupled with attacks that threaten it. However, it still leaves it able to hard counter a few Pokemon, instantly giving it a niche we can work off of. It is for these reasons why I think Fire/Poison would work well for this concept, but pure Poison would not.

Finally, I just want to touch on Ice/Steel. I feel like people are giving steel too much credit and not objectively analyzing the real problems with this typing. Sure, it has plenty of resistances thanks to Steel, but how many are actually important. Dragon? Sure that's nice, but every dragon in existence carries a Ground Fighting or Fire move, meaning that it is unlikely to be able to wall any of them. Ice? Well that's the only thing Ice itself already does right, its not like adding Steel changes too much. And outside of those, is there really anything else worth mentioning? All the other common attacking types, Ground, Fighting, Fire, Rock, Water, and Electric, hit it for neutral or better. But most importantly of all are its weaknesses. Double to Fire and double to Fighting, in addition to a ground weakness. Having a double weakness to fighting is arguably the worst weakness to have in the OU metagame, with only a double rock weakness being anywhere near as crippling. Look at the list of OU Pokemon, and you will see only one Pokemon with such a weakness. Tyranitar. They guy with everything else going for it is the only one able to overcome that weakness. If nothing else, that should show you how bad such a flaw can be. I really feel that despite being part steel, Ice/Steel has enough flaws to make a fantastic typing for this concept.

 

[jap killa]

I think that Ice / Poison could be a very interesting typing. Ice is commonly know as the best offensive typing, but the worst defensive typing, while poison is the worst offensive, but a decent defensive typing. pokemon would have decent STAB synergy, unfortunately completely walled by steels. However, I think this could be an interesting concept in contradicting stabs in terms of usefulness.

 

[Bughouse]

Not to reiterate myself too much, but I would like to post in agreement with Okuu on Poison not being a bad type. The problems that Poison has are not that it has crippling weaknesses or that it has problems switching in or anything like that. The only problems presented are that it doesn't have good offensive coverage. But seriously does that make it a bad type at all? How many Pokemon make OU by only running STAB moves? Very very few. Being a bad offensive typing won't stop a Pokemon with the right coverage, and being a good defensive typing will only serve to make things even easier. The fact is, poison is not bad, there are just not good Poison Pokemon.

Fire/Poison, on the other hand, does indeed have major weaknesses, and as such I believe it to be a significantly worse typing that pure Poison. Sure, its offensive coverage might be better, but any Poison typing worth using is going to need a coverage move to beat Steels anyways, so in reality, it is not as big a difference as people make it out to be. At the same time though, Fire typing adds important weaknesses to Rock and Water, and doubles the Ground weakness, without covering up any weaknesses that existed already.

Not to be patronizing... but if what makes Fire/Poison bad is the Fire part, then WHY DON'T WE JUST DO MONOFIRE?! -end rant-

 

[Deck Knight]

Want to say I do appreciate all the end-topic discussion here, but it's cemented my position that Fire/Poison is significantly different enough from both Fire and Poison to warrant a position.

I've also been following the notes on Bug/Psychic. They're pretty cool things that the typing can do, but I feel like its weaknesses to Rock, Fire, and Dark are significant enough drawbacks that it's still pretty "bad." The whole point has been to find bad but unique and salvagable types, and I think the list we've got represents a plethora of options that could go a lot of different ways.

The slate shall be:

Fire
Poison
Bug / Psychic
Fire / Poison
Ice / Rock
Ice / Steel


Now onto the big kahuna. What typing are we going to build this around.