CAP 16 CAP 5 - Part 2 - Typing Discussion

Status
Not open for further replies.

MCBarrett

i love it when you call me big hoppa
Filling the roles that things like xatu and dugtrio provide for sun teams is definitely the approach we need to take. Another threat such as grass/dragon can be dealt with easily. Why? Because it will just be replacing another threat on the sun team. If we have CAP5 open up team slots though, we now have room for multiple threats which will be harder for rain to counter, no matter how good grass/dragon can be against rain.

Now, the abilities and move pool of xatu and dugtrio are very important but we can play to their strengths still in this stage. What we need is something that can trap, control hazards, and be a pivot switch all at the same time. This is why I support dark/electric. This typing has the potential to be a great trapper with STAB pursuit, can keep momentum that as a bonus threatens rain with STAB volt turn, and shares few weaknesses with most sun teams. Another thing I like about it is that it has at least one super effective coverage against Rain's spinners in starmie and Tentacruel, and against spin blockers. I also like erisia's suggestion of ghost/electric as ghost is a great support typing and it provides a fighting immunity as opposed to a fighting weakness. However, this isn't a typing that is as inclined to trap effectively unless we were to give it the necessary ability to do so in the future. Also I think a dark/electric type would lend itself to sun more naturally as sun lacks a pursuit trapper while rain and sand could definitely utilize a defensive pivot/spin blocker. Also, trapping is already covered in rain with gothitelle/ scizor and in sand with tyranitar/scizor/magnezone.
 
There's something I'd like to stress because Ice / Fighting is being brought up a few times and Deck Knight's post uses the reasoning a lot. Relative to the other stages, and especially concerning what we're trying to achieve, the typing is more important defensively than offensively. You don't need STAB Ground to beat Heatran or STAB Ice/Dragon to beat Dragon-types. This is mainly why I think that Deck Knight's suggestions of Electric / Ice and Dragon / Electric are inferior to the Dark / Electric I'd proposed last night. I find it a lot more valuable to go after specific threats and not be mangled by Stealth Rock. More generally, there's a lot of talk about filling in roles in a sun team, but the fact is that the typing isn't going to entirely define CAP 5's role. Movepool and possibly ability will have a greater role in that. For typing we should concentrate on a wide palette of neutralities and resistances, as well as utility of hybrid utility/attacking moves.

I still think that Dark / Electric or Dark / Poison have what it takes to go after the things we should be going after (mainly Latios/Latias) while not having risky switch-ins to certain threats (mainly offensive Water-types). I'm not sure on what I'd personally pick if I had to choose, though. Electric has the Flying resistance and hits lots of rain Pokemon super effectively, while Poison results in a single weakness to Ground.
 
I have to agree with Reach, while a dragon typing could be useful to the concept, i feel that it would be a complete and total slap in the face to it. Were not accomplishing the concept of reducing those types by creating a pokemon of that type that will be a huge asset to the style of play we are trying to boost. I also agree with with Dark typing being the way to go, being able to possibly take advantage of pursuit to hinder Politoed if we can threaten it with other moves or perhaps its secondary typing, we can threaten the Latis, since they are one of the biggest threats to sun teams dragon-wise, and it doesnt carry any ugly weaknesses to water or ice, like grass or ground. I'm not sure what we should do for a secondary typing though.
 
I came here intending to speak based on the Sun teams I've been playing around with, trying to learn from. It looks like reachzero beat me to my main point though, that the Lati@s are the biggest problems to Sun teams overall. Heatran is something that there are already answers for, as well as Rain teams. None of the best counters for the Lati@s fit well onto Sun teams however. Tyranitar is right out, and Steels other than Heatran and maybe Forretress tend to be liabilities, stacking a Fire weakness with Chlorophyll sweepers. Walls like Blissey and Chansey find no place on most Sun teams, because there is no room to fit them. Scarfed or fast Dragons are sometimes seen on Sun, but they compound the Ice Shard vulnerability inherent in Chlorophyll sweepers. Ice types are also hard to fit on Sun, as most of them are bad. Mamoswine is the only reasonable choice, but adds another weakness to Water on a team that has at least one, often two, already. Therefore, something that threatens the Lati@s, while not compounding weaknesses commonly found on Sun teams would be good. As reachzero said, a Dark type is ideal for this.

And building on what others have said, Electric type is also good for this Pokemon. One reason for this is that it threatens Water-types, without gaining a weakness to common coverage moves on the same (Ice Beam). Electric type also gives it some valuble resistances for Sun. A Flying resistance gives Sun a better switchin to Tornadus, and an Electric resistance gives it a switchin to Thunders and Thunderbolts, without risking a Chlorophyll sweeper being paralyzed. Electric STAB also has the advantage of hitting one of Sun's biggest nemeses, Heatran, for Neutral damage.

Therefore, I agree with Dark/Electric as the typing for this CAP. This would give Sun a much-needed answer to the Lati@s, while also being good against Rain, and useful against Heatran.

Ghost/Electric also has its merits, trading some of its effectiveness against the Lati@s for Fighting immunity and spinblocking ability, with the latter of which being useful on a team that often depends on having the hazards advantage.

EDIT: Triple ninja'd!
 

DetroitLolcat

Maize and Blue Badge Set 2014-2017
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnus
Remember, our goal is to raise the potency of Sun in the current OU metagame, therefore boosting the Fire type as a whole and weakening the Water type by indirectly discouraging Rain. For that reason, I think the direction our Pokemon should go in is to deal specifically with threats that give Sun headaches while making sure that this Pokemon is not worth using on a Rain team. For that reason, we need to make sure this Pokemon is NOT a Water type, or it could instantly turn into Politoed's surfing buddy and another reason why Sun is just not as good as Rain in the OU metagame.

One reason why Sun is not as good as Rain in OU is the lack of available team slots and the limited options for a Sun team in OU. Rain and Sun are both offensive playstyles, yet Rain outranks Sun in the current metagame not because of quality of sweepers, but because Rain has the quintessential defensive pivot Pokemon in OU: Ferrothorn. One of this biggest threats to Rain is that the opponent might spam powered-up Water moves and break through the Rain team's Pokemon, but Ferrothorn puts those fears to bed by soaking up just about every neutral and resisted hit in OU. Even a Steel-type's greatest nemesis, Magnezone, will lose to Ferrothorn if it switches in on a Leech Seed. Meanwhile, a Sun team has little recourse against a Dugtrio or a Scarfed Dragon faster than Venusaur. What I'm getting at is that if Sun had a defensive pivot like Rain does, Sun would be just as viable in the OU metagame as Rain is. Rain has nothing to fear against Water types because Ferrothorn just soaks 'em up and spits 'em out, but Sun has to live in fear that a strong enough Pokemon, usually a Choice Scarfer, can just run through their team.

Now, there was a point that Birkal brought up that I have to take issue with:

Birkal said:
So what motivates me is this: we can handle dragons during other CAP stages, but we cannot sponge water attacks at any other stage. Theoretically, we could stop rain-boosted water attacks by adding monstrous special bulk or a Water-type absorbing ability. But outside of those two options, we can't really resolve the constant struggle that sun teams have with rain. On the flip side, we can stop dragons at many other stages. We can make CAP 5 faster than them, or give it the correct moves to take them out. I feel that if we wish to oppose rain teams in any sort of format, we should consider it now; stopping dragons can come later.
I disagree that we can handle Dragons to a significant extent without making this Pokemon a Steel-type, as Dragons are just too powerful to be severely threatened by a Pokemon that does not resist their attacks. No Pokemon can successfully grapple with a Dragon such as Latios or Kyurem-Black without being able to take at least one Outrage or Draco Meteor, and it would take absolutely gargantuan Defense/Special Defense to do so. I concede that there are some Pokemon that can be specialized to handle Dragons, but most of them cannot reliably defeat Latios, Kyurem, Garchomp, etc. and very few of them work well on Sun teams. While I'm not specifically advocating to make CAP5 a Steel-type, we cannot ignore the fact that Dragons become significantly more of a problem without a way to resist their attacks. Furthermore, though you claim we can always deal with Dragons later, I do not understand how you mean to do that. We would probably need to outspeed them, and without something as drastic as 111+ Speed plus good defensive stats or Technician Ice Shard, Pursuit, etc, that could become, well, either insufficient to defeat them or too broken to feasibly exist. I'll stop myself before I start polljumping, but I would like to challenge the idea that we can put off dealing with Dragons later.

Now, when it comes to dealing with Water type attacks, you said it yourself. We can always resort to Water-immunity ability or deal with Water types by amping up CAP5's Special Defense, which would play in well when dealing with Dragons to an extent.

In dealing with Latios, a real annoyance to Sun teams, I would like to advocate for Dark/Electric as our typing, though there are plenty of other types such as Ghost/Steel that can do an adequate job of making Sun great.
 
While I think a Dark type of some kind could work really well as a Lati@s slayer and pursuit trapper, it's also important to consider that this works both ways. Politoed has more physical bulk than Ninetales, so it could easily end up as more of a boon to Rain than a boon to Sun/Weatherless. We should also remember that while the Lati's are away the Fighting types will come out to play. I'm not against boosting Fighting type usage but we shouldn't let it slip under our noses.
 

erisia

Innovative new design!
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Scorpio, we don't need Ground-typing to use Arena Trap or Rapid Spin. We can put them on anything we want, so that's not really a valid justification. Also, I'm against Arena Trap overall, as it would be way too overcentralising if we made CAP5 even slightly decent, and people would use it on ALL teams.

I agree with DetroitLolcat's post a lot; we need to make sure that CAP5 is much more useful on Sun teams than Rain teams, and still better on Sun than in other weathers or in weatherless conditions. However, I completely disagree with Steel/Ghost... that would be ridiculous to face in Rain. With Ghost/Electric or Dark/Electric, we could go about this is subtle ways, such as not giving it Thunder, or letting it have a good Fire coverage move (even Flame Burst would free up a Hidden Power slot), or of course a Sun-related ability if necessary. This can be negotiated in the later stages.

Also, while Ghost/Electric wouldn't be able to trap Politoed as well as Dark/Electric, assuming that Dark/Electric CAP would OHKO Politoed with Pursuit is a huge poll jump since it would require a Tyranitar-level Attack stat to do so to merely ScarfToed after SR. In addition, any Electric-type would be able to abuse Politoed via Volt Switch shenanigans, as Ground-types are rarely seen on Rain teams, so perhaps trapping is not as massive a priority so much as completely seizing momentum from Politoed.

Also, I'm leaning more towards Korski's Grass/Dragon since discussion on IRC, but I think having a Dragon typing could be a risky play, so I'm still for Ghost/Electric overall.
 

Imanalt

I'm the coolest girl you'll ever meet
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
I'd like to throw my support behind dualtypes with fighting. Basically, i'm looking for a typing that can both deal with water pokemon, and beat heatran and tyranitar, thus freeing up a team spot instead of needing pokemon to deal with these.

The first possibility I see is Water/fighting. It has a lot of advantages, such as being able to more reliably switch into water moves and heatran, which allows it to be a very good pivot as well as dealing with many threats to sun. My concern however with water/fighting, is that we will need to be careful in later stages to make sure that it doesnt turn into being a rain abuser. It also may struggle to actually do more than just survive water attacks...

Electric/fighting cant switch into waters or heatran as reliably due to a lack of resists, but it can reliably beat both with its stabs, which in many ways fits the offensive nature of sun.

Dark/fighting allows for more easily beating lati@s, which is nice, but does less for killing waters than electric/fighting.


and im probably forgetting a couple of fighting dualtypes that work well
 

ginganinja

It's all coming back to me now
is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
K, just woke up and thought id post since I contributed to that 2 hr CAP discussion and that refined my current thoughts.

Firstly, I am 100% throwing full support to an Electric type. This doesn't mean that I want mono electric, just that I think Electric is a good typing to start with, and then we can think further ahead. Electric does not resist water attacks, which is a downside, however it does threaten rain teams as it can hit many abusers for super effective damage, as well as being an excellent switch in to Tornadus. Zapdos and Thundurus-T have already proven to be frustrating for rain teams, and its always possible to address a water resist / immunity via a secondary typing or ability later in the process.

but SubCM or CM Refresh Latias are practically impossible for a Sun team to actually kill
This is actually a good point, as Genesect was one of those pokemon which checked dragons for sun. I think Volcarona tho is one of those classic sun abusers that can win 1 on 1? I also think that Birkal is trying to say that counters for Sub CM Latias already exist (surely its not just Tyranitar?), but sun teams lack the slots to handle it ergo, we can give CAP 5 the ability to fill a teamslot or two giving sun teams the freedom to include a pokemon that can handle Lati@s. (I think Reach and I disagree mostly on what type to target between Dragon and Water so I guess this makes my reply a little moot)

I will always, always be reluctant to have CAP 5 hard counter dragons such as Lati@s since they are the best sun checks in the game, and I think there is an element of risk involved, especially if CAP 5 also has a good matchup vs Rain. If we nerf / weaken / hit both Rain and Dragons, Sun teams become dam difficult to beat since we just removed 2 of its biggest vulnerabilities. Also, I think Dragons do a fine job at checking both sun and rain teams, as well as other stuff like Breloom, and do not like the possible uncertainty CAP 5 could create if we attacked the dragon type. Sure, Sun teams have the ability to take water moves, but its still a very tough matchup, as Venusaur needs sunlight up to take water attacks (and most water types carry Ice Beam anyway) and Tornadus can be a real bitch.
 
I want to throw my support behind Ice/Electric Lots of other people have mentioned Electric, so I don't think I need to explain it. Ice is useful to resist its own type, which is carried on lots of water-types. It also is weak to fire and to Rock, two uncommon types.
 
I'd like to suggest Electric/Fire. Considering the usage stats, a lot of the High-usage Pokemon are weak to Electric and Fire. The only thing that will resist this are Dragon-type Pokemon, but using Hidden Power Ice, that'll eliminate that resistance. Huge Ground weakness, however.
 
Hats off to Scorpio for making me not feel entirely alone in my thinking. <3

Anyway, I'd like to point out a few things that I'm not sure everyone realizes, save for those frequenting #cap.

Our typing needs to not only be good in opposition to rain, but should also be incompatible within other weather as well. This being the case, we don't want our typings to be Water or Rock (not that anyone is even suggesting the latter) or else we risk making a CAP that could thrive in Rain or Sandstorm and thus wipe out Sun's usage. The exception to this is Ice I suppose, as Hail is such a minority weather as it is, and bringing up the amount of hail teams would in term make Fire-types more valuable for countering them.

Stealth Rock is one of the major issues with sun-teams, meaning that if possible, we should select typings that aren't Stealth Rock weak, damage neutrality at the very least. This being the case, Fire and Ice-type suggestions are fine, but the switch-in damage it will take is going to compound an issue that sunlight already has. Consider that when arguing for your type.

While Lati@s is a major boon to sun teams, basing your typing to being part Dark or Ghost simply to counter them is a little extreme. I've heard your arguments for them and they're solid points, but I still feel like its use is a little too niche to really benefit us. More relevant offensive or defensive types should be considered so that we can handle entire weather playstyles, not just two Pokemon. Additionally, there are plenty of Fighting-types that would smack down a given Dark-type CAP5, and Tyranitar would simply tear apart a Ghost-type. Countering the Lati's is fine, but we can't pigeonhole ourselves into being a dedicated check to them without risking losing the weather wars in general. If we focus on killing Dragons and Water in general, as well as keep in mind compatible teammates that can pick up on what CAP5 can't handle itself, CAP5 will do a much better job at fulfilling its concept.

Also, perhaps it's just my own taste, but no Dragons, please. We already have plenty of those and we're trying to lower their usage. Including Dragon-typing might actually increase the usage of Dragons on part that we're weak to them. That would be counter-intuitive to the concept.

So far, the most solid typings to come out of this thread sound to me like Grass/Electric, Electric/Fighting, and Ice/Fighting, if I couldn't make the choice of my own proposed Electric/Ground. Of course, that's just my opinion. You have no obligation to care, but I would assume you would have some degree of agreement with my reasoning if you've honestly read all this.
 
Reading through some of these posts and stuff has made me come up with a typing that will probably get flamed for one reason, it has a Stealth Rock weakness.

I am going to suggest a Grass/Flying typing with some reasoning to back this up.

First thing is first, lets go through it's Weaknesses and Strengths.

4x: Ice
2x: Fire, Rock, Flying, Poison
1x: Normal, Electric, Psychic, Bug, Ghost, Dragon, Dark, Steel
1/2x: Water, Fighting
1/4x: Grass
Immunity: Ground

Firstly, weakness. It has a 4x weakness to Ice, coupled with those 2x weaknesses. Out of the 5 listed, flying is one of the higher used types in OU, but the rest are quite low. Remember as well as us reducing usage of types, increasing the usage of others was another part and this will help us cover some do this. Yes it does have a Stealth Rock weakness, but I will talk about this abit later.

However, this typing does boast some pretty good resistances on the higher portion of OU pokemon (mainly Water, Fighting) as well as an Immunity to a popular coverage move used by some high hitting Physical sweepers and an Immunity to Toxic Spikes and Spikes. He is also neutral to the other two big types that can be used in OU (Dragon, Steel) so while not resisting them, he has no real fear from them. As well as this, the movepool options that come with this can also greatly help us, mainly in the form of moves such as Leech Seed, Roost, Cotton Guard, Solarbeam, Leaf Blade, Hurricane, Brave Bird, etc allows us the ability to make this Cap very much what we want it to be, giving it moves effective against the Rain teams and OU types without having to give it too much coverage to the point it can take down any Pokemon or counter it's weakness types (Poison, Ice, Rock, Fire).

Although I see Grass/Dragon as a good typing, I also see a fundamental flaw with it. With it resisting Electric and Grass x4 and not being weak to Fire, it could be used effectively on a Rain team as well against opposing Sun teams. So that could potentially be counter productive as it also give sa Rain team a possible answer to the thing we are looking at to counter it.

As jas said, we can't have a Pokemon coming in and taking too many roles at once. However, a SR weakness DOES NOT make you an ineffective spinner. You only have to look at Cryogonal to see that. It's movepool and stats help that out.

This typing allows two good attacking move types (with potential of hitting off both ends of the spectrum), resistances to key OU types (Water and Fighting), immunity to some Hazards as well as a common filler attack type and weaknesses to some less common types, potentially helping us raise the usage of said Pokemon.
 
Fighting / Dragon.

Putting aside completely how much the CAP community has wanted this type for the entire history of the project, it fits all of the criteria that we want from CAP5.

It limits overused types:
Fighting / Dragon has 7 2x resistances: Water, Grass, Electric, Rock, Bug, Dark, and Fire. The Water and Electric resistances are especially important, as it gives CAP5 a significant defense against the move types used by Rain teams. Its STAB Dragon attacks can plow through enemy Dragons, and its Fighting type can really hurt Steels, particularly Ferrothorn in Rain.

It helps underused types:
Nothing stimulates the demand for counters for Dragons and Fighting types like a new Dragon / Fighting type in the metagame. CAP5 with this typing would be weak against all of the same types as Dragon types and Fighting types, most of which are underused, simultaneously boosting those types and, in doing so, making more problems for the existing Dragon and Fighting types.

It won't simply replace existing dragons:
We all agree that Fighting / Dragon is a dangerous type, possibly the most powerful offensive combination in the game. Nothing but Kitsunoh resists it (and this is meant for OU anyway), and it has STAB against some of the Steels that give other Dragon-types so much trouble. There are, however, a number of aspects that will make this Dragon as limited as the others. First of all, its STAB combination makes it predictable: unlike the other Fire-blasting, Earth-quaking, Thunder-inducing dragons, this one has a coverage that certain pokemon can always reliably overcome, such as Skarmory, Jirachi, Celebi, or Reuniclus (obviously not an exact science, since the ultimate indicators of what will counter CAP5 will be its stats). Not only that, but its presence will cause teams to need dragon-counters even more, and once the number of dragons and counters settles into an equilibrium, it is mathematically probable that the number of dragons will be lower. This is because of the dual factors of more counters for dragons, and CAP5 countering other dragons and itself.

It supports sun:
Like Birkal and Jas were saying, the real problem on Sun teams is the lack of space. CAP5 could fill multiple roles, solving this issue; it serves as a Dragon counter and a solid switch-in to water types and Rain teams. It resists Rock, lessening the harm that Stealth Rock does to Sun, a major source of the strategy's underuse. Its resistance to Fire is particularly useful on Sun teams, preventing the other team from benefitting too much from its team's Sun. This is an asset that is incredibly important, as too many pokemon already on Sun teams (Grass types, Non-Heatran Steels) fall prey to this.

For these reasons, Fighting / Dragon would make the best CAP5 type. The last point illustrates how Grass / Electric and Grass / Dragon types are less able to cope with what Sun teams need, while most other options either fail to combat Rain teams, or do not fill any niche on a Sun team that an existing pokemon does not already provide.
 

Bughouse

Like ships in the night, you're passing me by
is a Site Content Manageris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Just as a clarification, a Dark/Electric CAP5 needn't ohko offensive Politoed with Pursuit. Just do enough to make Politoed think twice before switching scot free.
 

Deluks917

Ride on Shooting Star
Switching into rain boosted water attacks really requires a ton of spd or a 4x water resist. If it only 2x resists water we are really limting its stat spread.
 
This may sound stupid, as I missed the concept assessment and it may have been brought up there. But, I see lots of people suggesting types to wall overused types. No one is really keeping to the concept, which isn't to wall overused types but to raise the usage of underused types. We don't need a pokemon with 27 million type resistances and is super effective against every single overused type. What I think we need is some important coverage against, and resistances to, overused and only overused types. But, I believe we need some weaknesses to underused types, so that whenever CAP 5 is used, a lesser used typed pokemon has to be used to defeat it. So, I'm going to propose an Electric/Flying type. It gives resistances to Fighting while giving SE STAB against Water and Fighting. But, it has important weaknesses to Rock and Ice, as well as Stealth Rocks. So it will bring up the usage of Rock and Ice type pokemon, while lowering the usage of Water and Fighting types.
 

nyttyn

From Now On, We'll...
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnus
We should be really, really careful about doing a Stealth Rock weak pokemon, as Sun teams already seriously suffer against Stealth Rock. Not because it will be bad, but because we WILL try to overcompensate in later stages, and wind up with another Aurumoth. Historically CAP has had a really hard time keeping power in check, and it gets even worse if we don't start off with an ideal typing - so I'd think twice before endorsing any type that is not at the very least neutral to Stealth Rock.
 
Ok I highly support a Grass/Electric type.

Raises underused types:
Besides being underused types themselves, this typing is weak to Bug, Fire, Poison, and Ice, most of which are underused in the OU tier. By creating a Pokemon such as this would require these Bug, Fire, Poison, and Ice types to be used in order to effectively counter it.

DEFINETELY Lowers Overused Types:
This typing provides for some of the best countering in the OU tier(especially against rain teams). This typing resists Steel, Water, Grass, and Electric. Steel and Water are the two most-common types on Rain teams, and will be not-very-effective on this Pokemon. Furthermore, the 4x resistance to Electric means that a Rotom-W cannot touch this Pokemon at all. The less common Ice Beam Politoed and Bug Bite Scizor sets will have to be used if they are to deal super-effective damage on this typing. Also, besides Fire Blast/Flamethrower sets(which would be rare on rain teams), Dragons would not be able to deal super-effective damage.

Sun Supporter
As previously mentioned, this typing can greatly counter many Rain-team Pokemon and their sets. By having the Grass-type, the ability for One-turn Solarbeams or any other move/ability that is supported by the Sunny weather is definitely a potential option. Also, the Electric-type will allow it to Volt Switch on incoming Politoeds and what-not and switch back to your Ninetales to immediately set up the Sun again.

What makes this typing different:
This typing has the potential to support Sun teams and force new typing to be used to counter it. The weather war between Sun and Rain is much too common and this typing can help to fix it. Finally, a Sun team gets Volt Switch support that is usually only seen on the Rain team. Also, the Rain team's two most common types can be countered and STAB Super-effective damage can be dealt against Politoed, Rotom-W, Tornadus, Salamence, and many other OU Rain Threats. For once, the OU Rain teams will have to incorporate more Bug, Poison, and Ice types(and maybe a Fire-type if they really want to) into their team. By creating this Grass/Electric CAP, the OU will be open to a new array of types and playstyles never seen before because of the coverage and support that this Pokemon can provide.
 
Grass/Dragon, while good, does have some flaws pointed out above, namely its viability on a rain team. All the electric proposals are great, but we have to be careful not to give it Thunder, or rain will surely find a way to use it.
That being said, it seems like the discussion is revolving around three things: Making sure this Mon can't be abused by rain, making sure it acts as either a fundamental core for sun, either offensive or defensive, and making sure it increases Sun usage over the other weathers to mess with type usage. Of those three, the first is probably the hardest: Even cool ideas like Electric/Grass or Grass/Dragon could be used as defensive pivots or part of offensive strategic cores in rain. Which could be OK, if CAP 5 is more appealing on sun(personally, this aspect reminds of volcarona). So ideally, we pick a type that rain teams won't actually really want much. So, we could take the easy path of a bulky Ice/Fighting that can put up with rain and remove sun checks, or we could be risky and use Fire/Electric, which though usable on rain, can be a huge defensive liability. Fire/electric is also distinguished in that it could run Bolt/thrower/HP ice, breaking heatran, dragons, gliscor, scizor, ferrothorn, even in rain, and act as a powerful offensive core in sun in exchange for that crippling defensive liability.
Constructive criticism is much appreciated :-)
 
When people point at Pokèmon to become resistors/counters, I've seen a trend in offensive typing.

I would like to propose using the Dragon/Steel type. It's Stealth Rock resistant, Water-resistant, is not weak to Ice, and could, with the right moveset/abilities/stats fit on many teams (and maybe be tailored with moves ineffective in Rain?)
 
A Dragon/Steel type is the antithesis of what the objective of CAP 5 is; taking two of the strongest types in the metagame and mashing them together does not encourage use of a more underused type.

I would like to echo Reachzero's comment regarding how CAP 5 fares vs. Dragons:

If we give it the wrong typing, it will be guaranteed to be unable to switch in, and it will be extremely difficult to find a way to actually kill those Dragons. Specifically, I would say that Dragon itself is a terrible typing to consider, totally destroying the whole point.
I would also like to echo his sentiment that a Dark typing has potential, dealing with Lati@s very well and eliminating a large threat for Sun teams (which seems to be the direction that this CAP is leaning toward). However, I would also like to mention that CAP 5 should not be "Effective Dragon Counter", but more of "Opens up unorthodox options while not being weak to Dragons/rain/etc". Dark falls a little short in this respect because it indirectly encourages Fighting as a counter, and if we decide to circumvent this by means of a Dark/Ghost typing, we're basically just making a better Spiritomb - and here I struggle to see how a Dark/Ghost CAP 5 will strengthen just the underused parts of the metagame while not being used on standard teams as a mon with no weaknesses that destroys Lati@s.
 

MCBarrett

i love it when you call me big hoppa
Some people seem to think that dark was only suggested because of its ability to deal with lati@s. this is obviously a great part of this typing, especially on a sun team but it isn't the only reason. If you look back to capefeather's original post you will see that he suggested this typing because it has very few weakness, and coupled with electric or poison it gains some great resistances as well and, especially with electric, gives us some nice offensive coverage. The advantage of have a typing with fewer weaknesses is two-fold. One, it is more versatile, therefore giving us more leeway with which role we want to take on in later stages. And two, it gives us a better opportunity to fulfill more than one role at once, opening up more team slots for other threats that could be useful on a sun team.
 

alexwolf

lurks in the shadows
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
Electric / Dark ftw!

- What it does for sun teams?

It will be able to deal with Lati@s to an extend, threaten the various water-types in rain teams with Electric STAB, provide sun teams with a Flying resistance, giving them a real option at tanking Hurricane instead of banging on luck with Ninetales, keep offensive pressure with Volt Switch, and finally give to sun teams a much needed Pursuit trapper. As you can see there are various things that a pokemon with such a typing would be able to do for sun teams. And it can get even better, as if we give it a water absorbing ability it will dominate Politoed, making all choiced sets a liability to its Pursuit trapping.

- Will this Pokemon only benefit Sun teams?

I don't think so, but i don't see why this is a problem. The way i see it we want to make rain worse, sun better, and generally make more popular some rare types while bringing down some more popular types. And this is what a Pokemon with Dark / Electric typing would do. Certainly decrease the usage of rain, help sun, and make Dark more popular, while toning down Water types. I am not even sure if this Pokemon would be used in sand teams, which usually have better choices for Pursuit trappers (Scizor and TTar), don't really have a problem with Lati@s and if they have the other pursuiters deal with it better, and regarding the Electric typing, Rotom-W usually fits better on such teams.

tl;dr

A Dark / Electric mon would help sun while also working best in sun, where it isn't outclassed. Sand teams already have Ttar / Scizor / Rotom-W, Rain teams have Scizor / Thundurus-T / Jolteon and they will take a bit hit from its introduction anyway, and the same is true for weatherless usually (better pursuit trappers and electric mons).
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top