CAP 16 CAP 5 - Part 3 - Threats Discussion

[Birkal]

After an exciting series of polls, Grass / Dark comes out victorious as our official typing for CAP 5! What does this mean for the rest of the process? Only time will tell. For now, let's discuss some of the threats that CAP 5 is going to have. Remember, jas61292 is leading this discussion, so make sure to reply to his posts and focus on the thoughts he is conveying. Also, here are some more questions to think about in this thread:

• Going specifically by typing, what Pokemon found in the OU (or relevant) metagame will be able to comfortably give this CAP project trouble?
• What Pokemon will be major threats to this project right off the bat?
• What Pokemon have the potential to become counters?
• What Pokemon may end up as threats, but must be contained or dealt with per the concept?
• Will the concept succeed with these set list of threats?
• Is this list of threats acceptable for the project?
• What Pokemon will be threatened by the CAP based off of typing?
• Are these Pokemon targets that we want CAP to hit?
• Will these targets be "unavoidable" to threaten based solely on the typing?
• What direction must the project go in now that a set list of basic threats has been identified?
• What must be done in order to make these threats "wanted counters" or these threats be eliminated from counter discussion?
• What Pokemon do we want this project to counter entirely?

Obviously, no individual post has to answer every question. Please keep the assumptions minimal (e.g. "CAP 5 will have at least one STAB") to avoid poll-jumping.

CAP 5 so far:

Name: Type Equalizer

Description: A pokemon whose presence in the metagame increases the usage of one or more underused types and simultaneously decreases the usage of one or more overused types.

Justification: Take a look at the OU usage statistics for January and you'll see that 9 out of the top 10 pokemon have either steel, water, dragon or fighting as one of their types, and extending it to the top 20 shows 16/20 with those types. We should also be asking ourselves why these trends exist so strongly and what can be done about them. In creating this CAP, we'd have to discuss in depth many different aspects of what makes a type and opinions can ultimately being tested in the playtest.

Questions To Be Answered:

• Is a types usefulness relative to the metagame or is it intrinsic? (Ie. Can any type be the "best" type given the right circumstances or do type match-ups, available STAB moves etc mean some types will always be better than others?)
• What exploitable weaknesses do "good" types in OU have? Are their currently pokemon that can exploit them and if so, how do they function differently to CAP5?
• How (if at all) will the targeted types adapt to the situation created? Will people choose different movesets, abilities, etc or will they just use them more/less? How is this linked to the way CAP5 functions strategically?
• What effects will the changes on certain types' presence have on the metagame?
• Which members of the targeted types will benefit and suffer from this most and why?
• By creating CAP5, have we learnt any new ways to counter good types or use bad types?

Typing: Grass / Dark

 

[jas61292]

Well, I don’t have too much to add as far as discussion points right now. The questions presented in the OP already give very good direction to this thread, and I would prefer to just start off with those and add more later if need be. However, I do want to just emphasize one thing that is part of the questions, but previous projects have shown me is not the most obvious to people: we want to decide, not just what does threaten/is threatened by CAP5 based on typing, but what we actually want to threaten it/have it threaten. It’s easy to look at the typing and say that Scizor threatens us, however, that itself does nothing to help us build a Pokémon. It’s the decision of whether we want it to or not that will help us going forward.

To start off, I’ll just throw a few specifics out there to discuss. Steel types are probably the first thing that come to mind as far as things that threaten based on typing, as neither Dark nor Grass can do much tothem. Among steel types, Scizor and Heatran are probably the most threatening as they not only resist both STABs, but also hit back hard; Scizor with x4 Super Effective U-Turn and Heatran with powerful Fire attacks that may very well have a sun boost. Heatran in particular is notable for giving sun teams trouble in general. Some other notable type based threats in OU include Volcarona, Skarmory, Breloom, Lucario and Ferrothorn, among others. The question is, among these and any others you make think of, which do we want to threaten us? Remember, we need to focus on improving sun, but at the same time,we also need to remember that sun has other team slots as well. We don’t want to be going about this by simply trying to beat everything sun has problems with. So, when thinking about whether or not we should be threatened by these Pokémon, keep in mind whether or not it will actually make a difference in achieving our goal.

On the flip side, there is not as much we obviously threaten with our typing. Water types commonly carry Ice moves, making the type advantage there less notable. Electric types are not that common, and among the three that are in OU, Joleton frequently has HP Ice and Magnezone resists both CAP5’s STABs, leaving only Rotom-W as innately threatened based on typing alone. Offensively, the many Psychic and few Ghost types in OU are scared of Dark moves, though most carry fighting coverage to deal with this. So, once again, the question is, from all these things, and others, what do we want to threaten? One of the main reasons for choosing a Dark type, in my opinion, was to help threaten Latios and Latias. However, how we go about doing this will depend a lot on what else we want to cover as well.

Remember, beating things that have type advantage against CAP5 simply because we can will only serve to make CAP5 a more generically good Pokémon, which is not an advantage to sun. By the time this thread is done, I want to have a very good idea of both what we threaten, and what threatens us. Many problems can arise from not having clear goals in mind on either side, so let’s not take that risk. Stick to the questions in the OP for now, and remember, try not to get too ridiculous here. I know our typing may not do everything we want perfectly, but we chose it for a reason. Let’s try to take advantage of itas best we can and not simply try and beat stuff for the sake of eliminating our downsides.

 

[GRs Cousin]

What Pokemon may end up as threats, but must be contained or dealt with per the concept?

Hide

/thread

As said in the OP, Scizor is going to give us some nasty problems. Being the most OU Pokemon as well as being popular on rain, it should go without saying that we don't want CAP5 to die to Scizor. Failing to do so is going to hurt our concept, which is to raise the popularity of sun and lower the popularity of other weathers, Water-types, and Steel-types. As such, a Fire-type move should be included in its movepool, lest we raise Scizor's usage even more. Additionally, if we really striving to beat rain, we should still have an answer for other rainmons like Jirachi and Ferrothorn. Therefore, I propose we carry some sort of Ground-type move in our movepools as well.

• What Pokemon will be threatened by the CAP based off of typing?
• Are these Pokemon targets that we want CAP to hit?

Both of these questions are also particularly of interest. A chunk of Jas' OP had to do with how a lot of what we could threaten already have moves that could threaten CAP5 back, so clearly I'm not the only one in pondering this: What benefit does our Dark-typing provide beyond hitting Lati@s? Will our Dark-typing help us or hurt us more, factoring in how often we will use it? Considering our weakness to the already popular Fighting-type and double-weakness to common Bug-type moves like U-turn, my concern is that CAP5 is going fit CAP4's concept better than Aurumoth will if we don't find a better niche with this typing beyond "Kills Latias".

 

[Bull of Heaven]

I think, as a general principle, we want to be threatened by Fire and not by Steel. Steel is already a strong option on rain because the weather cancels its Fire weakness, and we shouldn't encourage its use if we want to hurt rain. On the other hand, one way to boost sun (and Fire-type usage) that I haven't seen discussed yet is to introduce a pokemon that not only supports the playstyle with its strengths, but is also weak against common sun threats. Volcarona is the best candidate for this, as it resists Fighting and is not weak to Ground, meaning it need not be checked by whatever measures we take against Steel-types. I would recommend that we allow other Fire-types to beat this mon as well, which would likely mean using Fighting moves to beat Steel-types instead of the Ground that GRs Cousin suggested.

 

[iamdanielcruces]

I think we should also think of the rain mons that threaten CAP5. I'm thinking of Tornadus-I in particular, which we should decide whether it should be a threat or not.

I'm also seconding the Fighting-over-Ground coverage options. This would mean that Arcanine (Fighting = Physical), Victini, Chandelure and the other mons mentioned by Bull are going to be threats for CAP5.
This also encourages the use of Poison types, I guess.

 

[Stratos]

I think the obvious thing to say here is that this typing was chosen, for a large part, to beat (specially offensive) dragons. I don't want to go back on that promise now. We don't want to be threatened by draggins NAMED LATIOS OR LATIAS. ginga has convinced me that being a catch-all counter to dragons poses the problem of potentially breaking sun.

Secondly: I COMPLETELY disagree with BoH. being stopped cold by steel is not a big deal. Actually, I /want/ it to be stopped by steels: of all the mons on a rain team, they provide the best switch-in opportunity for Ninetales, and since they are a large part of the meta, they keep the CAP from being broken. All or most steels should be able to wall CaP5.

Last, we want to be able to beat Toed for obvious reasons ^_^

EDIT: Oh one thing to mention: Dugtrio will remain a "must have" for sun with this typing. So whether we like it or not, the typing we picked means dugtrio will remain an integral part of sun. So we don't need to worry about beating Heatran, or TTar.

 

[Rhys DeAnno]

What we want CAP 5 to Threaten:

• If we want to spin effectively for CAP5 (sorry if this is a bit of a polljump) we want to threaten Ghosts. A lot of this job is already done with our Dark STAB and probably pursuit. If CAP5 attacks physically it is a little leery of switching into WoW or Scald from the likes of Jellicent or Sableye, but this would be managed if we went the Harvest route (with Lum or Chesto). It also dislikes switching into a Gengar substitute since it could be maimed by a Focus Blast or have its Dark STAB shut down by Disable, but this is probably acceptable as CAP5 can switch back out unharmed if Gengar can be managed in some other way.
• Similarly, we would want to threaten Deoxys-D. We have a great STAB and Deoxys-D is more or less completely helpless to hit us back short of Fire Gem HP Fire so this is handled.
• We want to threaten Politoed. Part of Sun's issue is that Politoed has an easier time switching into Sun threats than Ninetales does with rain threats, so Poli will tend to outlast Ninetales. Threatening Politoed offensively isn't so hard since we have a Grass STAB and even Pursuit to make it leery of switching out. However defensively we may have to contend with Scald burns, Toxic, Rain Hydros, and Specs Ice Beams. Again, HarvestLum could solve the status issues, but if we want to be switching in regularly we may want substantial Special Defense and probably want to outspeed unscarfed versions.
• We want to threaten Lati@s. We have no trouble doing this offensively, but defensively we must deal with Draco Meteors from Latios, and +1 Dpulses from Latias. Additionally if we want to be slower than Lati@s we may have to take two hits coming in before we hit back. Again this influences us towards very sturdy special bulk.

What we want CAP5 to be threatened by:

• Scizor is a fine thing to be threatened by as it is handled by Sun relatively easily. If we can spin into Scizor's face as it switches in we can go to any number of reasonable checks or counters the next turn, including Ninetales. Because of this Fire coverage is rather irrelevant.
• Venusaur will outspeed us in Sun and can hit us with a STAB SE Poison attack or HP Fire if it chooses to. This is fine as we want to encourage Sun in general and Venusaur is only seen on Sun. If Venusaur is threatening us on the Special side with HP Fire, we likely cannot OHKO it so it has time to use Growth and overwhelm even high Special Defense.

What we might not be sure about yet:

• Opposing Heatran is often a problem for Sun these days, and leaves us very threatened due to natural typing. We can control how this matchup plays out by tweaking CAP5's speed and/or giving it a Fighting or Ground move. Even reasonably high special defense is unlikely to let us confidently stay in against Heatran in the Sun due to supereffective double STAB.
• Ferrothorn is often seen on Rain, and as we naturally are immune to Leech Seed, resist Power Whip, and will possibly be able to spin into its face, we are already something of a check to it. The presence of a Fighting move would make CAP5 directly threaten Ferrothorn back with death as opposed to just ineffectiveness, however even without a Fighting move we will be reasonably good against Ferrothorn (especially if we shake off Twave with HarvestLum).

In conclusion I advocate high Special bulk to assist this CAP with its stated goals, as this helps it deal with Lati@s and Politoed while not necessarily keeping it safe from Heatran. I also advocate Harvest to allow it to deal with WoW from Ghosts and Scalds from Waters more reliably using Lum Berry or ChestoRest.

 

[Homeslice]

One thing I've noticed as of the Dark typing that gives CAP5 an advantage against another Pokemon besides Lati@s is Tyranitar. Yes, Tyranitar. This is extremely important, besides the fact that I'm kind of using Dark vs Dark logic here.
CAP 5 forces Tyranitar to use Stone Edge or Superpower. Both have drawbacks; Stone Edge is very unreliable while Superpower will be an easy hit for a Volcarona or Donphan to sponge and lower TTar's stats, most likely forcing the switch out. CAP5 can also threaten back with STAB Grass, forcing Tyranitar to take a hit or switch out, stacking up on Hazard Damage (hopefully). It's typing allows it to weed out Tyranitar to stop Sandstorm, which is about a third of Sun's problems. It should be an ideal counter, considering the Smogon Support Set doesn't recommend the use of Stone Edge or Superpower, but instead Fire Blast, which is still unreliable, but hits for SE damage, so it's gonna have to watch out for that. Great Tyranitar check at the minimum.
As for Hippodown, I don't see the same effectiveness. It boasts much better bulk than Tyranitar and its typing helps it more than Tyranitar. Hopefully CAP5 will be able to handle it somehow through a later discussion.

 

[Clankenator007]

A special pokemon that we should be worrying about in particular is Keldeo. From a sheer typing standpoint CAP5 could go either way with Keldeo, resisting one of it's STABs and being weak to the other. CAP5 needs to be able to stop Keldeo, as it is the premier rain sweeper, possessing the one of the fastest and most powerful hydropumps in OU. Hard countering Keldeo is probably not feasible nor would it be balanced, but CAP5 should be able to beat Keldeo unless Keldeo has boosts.

 

[Rhys DeAnno]

As for Hippodown, I don't see the same effectiveness. It boasts much better bulk than Tyranitar and its typing helps it more than Tyranitar. Hopefully CAP5 will be able to handle it somehow through a later discussion.

The thing is Hippo can't really do anything back (EQ resisted), and is going to get punished by that Grass STAB. Whirlwind will stop the CAP5 from setting up, but it'll still be able to hit it with a grass stab and force it to Slack off (with varying predicted success depending on CAP5's attack). Worst case, Hippo poses no threat and CAP5 can spin its rocks away as it forces it to eventually switch out.

 

[XXTheDingoXX]

The one thing that I think this pokemon will have trouble with is U-Turn. If it's faster than our CAPmon or holding a Choice Scarf (Which Most U-turners are), It can deal 4x damage before switching into a bulky pokemon like Blissey to absorb the attack our CAPmon will try to hit it with. Obviously, Bug pokemon are weak to stealth rock, so a rock/whirlwind moveset might be able to stop them. But then, there is still Scizor. Scizor, with a neutral resistance to rock, is extremely popular in rain. It can hit it with a STAB 4x Technician Bug Bite coming off a massive 130 base attack stat. This will almost certainly KO our CAPmon in one move. And that's provided Scizor's not running a Choice Band set.

So, Bugs seem to be our biggest problem. Our CAPmon would have to run a powerful fire attack to take out Scizor, and a High Speed Stat in order to outspeed non-scarfed U-turn users. However, as fire is weakened in rain, and Scizor's only weakness in fire, I am slightly worried about this, rather than increasing sun, increasing rain. As stated before me, Ninetales is a terrible weather pokemon when compared to the likes of Politoed and Tyranitar and Hippowdon. All of those pokemon can beat Ninetales easily with their STAB Super-effective attacks. When we try to switch in our CAPmon into these threats, they can switch in Scizor. If the Politoed won the weather battle, then Scizor can survive a strong, non-STAB, non-Boosted Fire Move, and then wreck our CAPmon with it's Bug STAB. And then history will repeat itself. Except there'll be no CAPmon to protect Ninetales from the other weathermon, and we will almost certainly lose the weather battle.

So, this is the problem. Scizor is our CAPmons greatest check (so far) and it can completely wreck our CAPmon provided their Politoed won the weather battle with Ninetales. And here's the problem. Politoed will almost certainly win a weather battle with Ninetales.

We need to find a way to make Ninetales win weatherbattles.

 

[Stratos]

The one thing that I think this pokemon will have trouble with is U-Turn. If it's faster than our CAPmon or holding a Choice Scarf (Which Most U-turners are), It can deal 4x damage before switching into a bulky pokemon like Blissey to absorb the attack our CAPmon will try to hit it with. Obviously, Bug pokemon are weak to stealth rock, so a rock/whirlwind moveset might be able to stop them. But then, there is still Scizor. Scizor, with a neutral resistance to rock, is extremely popular in rain. It can hit it with a STAB 4x Technician Bug Bite coming off a massive 130 base attack stat. This will almost certainly KO our CAPmon in one move. And that's provided Scizor's not running a Choice Band set.

So, Bugs seem to be our biggest problem. Our CAPmon would have to run a powerful fire attack to take out Scizor, and a High Speed Stat in order to outspeed non-scarfed U-turn users. However, as fire is weakened in rain, and Scizor's only weakness in fire, I am slightly worried about this, rather than increasing sun, increasing rain. As stated before me, Ninetales is a terrible weather pokemon when compared to the likes of Politoed and Tyranitar and Hippowdon. All of those pokemon can beat Ninetales easily with their STAB Super-effective attacks. When we try to switch in our CAPmon into these threats, they can switch in Scizor. If the Politoed won the weather battle, then Scizor can survive a strong, non-STAB, non-Boosted Fire Move, and then wreck our CAPmon with it's Bug STAB. And then history will repeat itself. Except there'll be no CAPmon to protect Ninetales from the other weathermon, and we will almost certainly lose the weather battle.

So, this is the problem. Scizor is our CAPmons greatest check (so far) and it can completely wreck our CAPmon provided their Politoed won the weather battle with Ninetales. And here's the problem. Politoed will almost certainly win a weather battle with Ninetales.

We need to find a way to make Ninetales win weatherbattles.

just wanted to hop in and, no offense to you or anyone who might agree with you, say that this is the wrong way to look at this. far too often do we look at a CAP and say "it has hard counters, how do we fix this." Hard counters are a good thing. We need to /embrace/ them. But we need to strategically choose our hard counters, so that our CAP can best accomplish its goals...

I don't see anything wrong with being beaten by scizor. It can't catch us with a pursuit, so if it tries to come in on CaP5, we are more than free to switch into ninetales on a resisted STAB attack, and threaten scizor out. Vice-versa, this CAP can switch in on Politoed, and threaten it out, letting tales come in. This makes for a nice "got-your-back" combination of ninetales and CaP5 beating each others' counters that i want to employ, not "fix." for one, it makes CAP5 fit better on sun teams than other teams, which is nice, and for two, it means we're not broken. this same principle applies to ferrothorn. I'd prefer to lose to both.

I'd like to address Heatran really quick. I alluded to it in my last post, but I think we should just pick our battles, and tran is not one of them. If we give our CAP coverage to beat Heatran, we're either beating Ferrothorn also (fight moves) which is bad (and allows the CAP to function well on rain teams) or we're beating sun pokemon also (ground moves) which is equally bad. I think the best we can do in regards to countering Heatran is to give our CAP U-turn to hit it, and possibly break balloon, on the switch, then go out to Dugtrio, which is basically an inevitability on every sun team still. this is what made GeneTrio so fearsome, except our CAP, unlike gene, would strive to not be broken.

 

[iamdanielcruces]

Sorry to disagree with you, Pwnemon, but if we cannot beat Heatran, or any Steels at all, then we'd be encouraging precisely the use of the most OU type of all, which is hardly the purpose of this CAP.

Regarding Dragons, the only ones we threaten at the moment are the Latis, while most of them either 4x resist one of our STABs (Dragonite, Salamence), or resist both of them (Hydreigon). To make things worse, Salamence and Hydreigon usually carry a Fire move for coverage, which would probably be used in Sun, so...
I'm trying to think of a way CAP5 can accomplish its (supposed) "Dragon killer" role.

 

[Nyktos]

Sorry to disagree with you, Pwnemon, but if we cannot beat Heatran, or any Steels at all, then we'd be encouraging precisely the use of the most OU type of all, which is hardly the purpose of this CAP.

Making sun good makes steels worse. Not every single Pokémon on the sun team has to be good against steels for that to be true.

 

[ganj4lF]

What should CAP5 be able to threaten:

• Lati@s: The main attractiveness of the Dark type is to be able to hit those two Dragons, that are a big threat for Sun teams. How to implement this can vary quite a bit, in my head this means very decent special bulk to be able to take an attack or two, however this may be poll jumping or just another road could be chosen. The important thing is to be able to switch in somewhat and threaten them immediately.
• Water types: Our Grass typing covers this mainly, since it allows us to take a couple hits and threaten back with powerful moves by both sides, depending on the stats we will choose. We do not necessarily want to be able to force out any Water pokemon, just to make them think twice / three times before risking the switch into a Grass move. However if Keldeo finds a way to come in, it's ok for CAP5 to be threatened by its Fighting STAB.

What should threaten CAP5:

• Steel types: As someone already said, Steel types are a good switch-in opportunity for Ninetales, and Sun teams are generally fine in dealing with them. I do not see a big concern the fact that they can switch into our STABs with a good degree of freedom. The one I'm not really sure about is Heatran, since Tales doesn't really want to switch into it, and Sun teams have a generally hard time against it. If Rocks are down on our side, Dugtrio is a risky play, since Heatran will try to roast our Grass pokemon anyway. To this regard, giving it U-Turn and no ways to hit Steels effectively looks a good idea to me, being able to switch into Duggy / Tales without too much fear, while allowing us to focus on our main target (Dragons).
• Fighting types: Our Dark typing is crippling here, but I think it's generally fine. Breloom should be able to check CAP5 to a degree, switching into any STAB move somewhat (it probably should try to avoid a Sun boosted HP Fire) and threaten out with Mach Punch. This is not a problem, Sun teams often carry Cresselia, Xatu or something else that can deal with Breloom easier. Other Fighting types will be able to force us out after being switched in, but many of them will have to gamble on the switch-in (Keldeo, Terrakion can't stand being hit by a STAB Grass move).

These are the main, most obvious things that we should pay attention to, in my opinion, although here are a little bit of other things that may be worth discussing (for example, we may want to threaten Psychic types to an extent, we don't want to give Deo-D or Celebi free switches, however this is implicit in the typing to an extent).

So yeah, this was a big post to say I agree with Pwnemon almost 100%...

Let me do another little comment before closing this: while Rhys DeAnno's post does make sense, it is just a massive poll jump since you assume that the main role of our pokemon is to spin. Giving a Grass / Dark pokemon the ability to spin means making it able to defeat all the main spinblockers while being very likely to have access to Pursuit...which is indeed a incredibly nice way to remove hazards, so nice that all thos DNites / Mences / Kyu-Bs / Thunduruses / whatever will thank us a million times and proceed to nuke Sun teams with their newfound bulk.

tl:dr:
- the main focus should be to threaten Dragons;
- we should be able to hit Water types hard, at least on the switch;
- U-Turn should be considered to give us a nice way to safely switch to our checks for Steels / Fightings / whatever;
- Steel types should be able to force us out by resisting our attacks (perhaps even coverage ones);
- Fighting types should have a hard time switching in (except Breloom thanks to its typing) and and force us out once there.

 

[Bull of Heaven]

Sorry to disagree with you, Pwnemon, but if we cannot beat Heatran, or any Steels at all, then we'd be encouraging precisely the use of the most OU type of all, which is hardly the purpose of this CAP

Pwnemon is arguing that CAP 5's likely teammates can handle Steel and capitalise on its use, not that we should encourage Steel to dominate the ladder. Either way, the concept only specifies that at least one overused type be targeted, and Steel doesn't have to be one of those.

Pwnemon, you've convinced me about the value of being threatened by Steel, but surely we can choose which Steel counters we prefer. I think we can use Fighting coverage to take on threats like Heatran, and still lose to things like Scizor and Skarmory that Ninetales can handle more easily. Technically, this would be easier with Ground coverage, but I still think that having Fire-types among the "best" checks is valuable as a way to increase their usage.

 

[GRs Cousin]

Scizor is a fine thing to be threatened by as it is handled by Sun relatively easily. If we can spin into Scizor's face as it switches in we can go to any number of reasonable checks or counters the next turn, including Ninetales. Because of this Fire coverage is rather irrelevant.

I disagree with this completely. Many Scizor carry U-turn, which they will use to OHKO CAP5. Simply relying on teammates to counter this will not work at all, as U-turn will let them switch to a counter as soon as you switch your teammate in. This being the case, users of Scizor will have absolutely no risk in using U-turn on CAP5, effectively strengthening its usage and lowering sun's reliability.

The very existence of Fire coverage alone will at least give us a chance at momentum, something sun teams desperately need. If they attempt to use U-turn, CAP5 might be carrying a Fire-type move and OHKO Scizor first; If they switch fearing we have a Fire-type move, sunlight gets the momentum it needs. Let me reiterate: We do not want CAP5 to lose to the most prominent rain threat in OU. We're trying to beat rain, not boost it.

 

[ginganinja]

Hi can we make sure that this CAP struggles with either some dragons or some members of a rain team because I have a strong fear that if it beats both then we basically broke sun :(

I am 100% o.k with it beating Lati@s for example, but if it could handle things such as CB Dragonite as well, then we potentially have a problem. I don't really mind what actually threatens CAP 5, so long as it actually threatens sun teams as well.

 

[iamdanielcruces]

Sorry if I sounded confrontational, but I strongly believe CAP5 shouldn't be checked by Heatran. We are trying to open up spaces in Sun teams, so relegating CAP5 to be an uturner that goes straight to Dugtrio assumes that one of those team slots will be given to a dedicated weather starter/Heatran counter.
I'm in favor of dealing with other Steel types through teammates/U-Turn, but Heatran and Latias were specifically named as obstacles during the process until now.

I would like to mention an OU "threat" that hasn't been brought up until now... Infernape (lol). The fire ape counters CAP5 through typing alone, and if we achieve our goal of "nerfing" rain, it could become a viable counter.

 

[Rhys DeAnno]

I disagree with this completely. Many Scizor carry U-turn, which they will use to OHKO CAP5. Simply relying on teammates to counter this will not work at all, as U-turn will let them switch to a counter as soon as you switch your teammate in.

I'll be a bit more specific about what I was saying. Assume rocks are on both sides of the field, and you just switched CAP5 into Politoed in Rain and absorbed a Scald.

Turn 1) You can pursuit the Toed as it switches out, Grass STAB in the hopes it stays in, or Rapid Spin and split your bets. Let's say we Rapid Spin.
Enemy Trainer switched in Scizor! It took 12.5% SR Damage.
CAP 5 used Rapid Spin! No more Rocks!

Turn 2) You are now facing Scizor, a counter to CAP. You switch out to Ninetales.
Come back CAP5, Go Ninetales!
Scizor used U-turn, Ninetales took about 35%, then recovered 6% from lefties.
Politoed switches in, takes 12.5% SR Damage, then recovered 6% from lefties.

Turn 3) Ninetales vs Politoed in Rain, quite the ordeal. Lets switch in CAP5 to turn things around!
Come back Ninetales, go CAP5!
Politoed used Scald! CAP5 took lol damage! Politoed recovered 6% again from lefties.

So now we're back in the same situation again, except we got to spin rocks from the field in exchange for losing about 35% on Ninetales. That might not seem very great, but considering we played super conservatively through that whole sequence it isn't bad either.

Next time, we could try Pursuit instead to take a big chunk out of Politoed, or even attempt a double switch into Ninetales to frustrate Scizor. None of our options are fantastic, but we aren't on the same permanent backfoot against Rain we were before either.

 

[capefeather]

I want to touch a bit on the Steel-types because I'm not sure if CAP 5 should be countered by all Steel-types. I think that CAP 5 should be able to threaten some of the Steel-types that give sun teams trouble. I'm mainly thinking about Scizor here. Sure, CAP 5 could just switch to some other dude to take the U-turn, but Heatran is the only common sun Pokemon I can think of that would want to play that game a lot, given Ninetales's Stealth Rock weakness. So I think that it should be able to stay in on Scizor OR be an effective way to prevent hazards directly or indirectly. Besides, it's not like CAP 5 can safely switch into Scizor. It's kind of an interesting dynamic. Other Steel-types should probably threaten CAP 5, especially under other weather conditions.

I don't know, I guess I'm thinking of this in terms of CAP 5 being potentially a liability to sun.

 

[Lster728]

The thing about CAP5 is that it's roles on a Sun team that it fills will completely depend on what Pokemon counter/check it. For example, if CAP5 lacks a fire move, than it can be easily forced out by Scizor, who will then be able to Swords Dance up. And any opponent Pokemon predicting CAP5 to switch in can easily use U-turn and OHKO it. I feel that CAP5 should be able to scare Steel-types while walling Water-types. If we can do that, than the threats will be limited to Pokemon such as Tran, Breloom, Volcarona, etc.

Remember: there are always going to be counters no matter how well we build CAP5. We just need to choose the counters that would least get in the way of CAP5 fulfilling its roles on a sun team.

 

[Harle]

Can a Grass/Dark type truly wall Water types though? I mean, with significant defensive investment, yes, but is that the route we want to go?

 

[MCBarrett]

I'll touch on the scizor/steel issue first since some people seem to be freaking out about it. I don't think it's going to be much of a problem really. Scizor has a very low speed stat so assuming we are faster, have rocks up, and have access to some sort of coverage move that can at least put a dent in scizor we should be fine. However, I don't think we should be destroying steel types either so I propose that we both can threaten offensive steel types (such as scizor, heatran, lucario) and are also threatened by them. So something like neither would really enjoy switching in on the other. Then with defensive steel types (forretress, ferrothorn) we should threaten them but not be threatened by them. They may be able to take a few more hits but they shouldn't be able to hit back hard. I think this is a good balance that keeps cap5 from being too powerful, but also allows it to avoid being shut down by a pretty common rain threat.

Keldeo was mentioned earlier and I think this should be the same deal as the offensive steel types where neither would really enjoy coming in on each other. However, cap5 should have the slight advantage since keldeo is such a huge threat to sun. Maybe something like cap5 Hausa chance to ohko after stealth rock but is outsped by keldeo and takes around 60%- 75% from timid scarf sets depending on our nature and Ev's.

Lastly, I also agree that the lati twins are the only dragons we should be threatening and all other dragons should be threatening to us. We should be opening up slots for other threats to dragons such as mamoswine, an extra steel or a scarfed dragon of our own so they shouldn't be too much of a problem anyways.

 

[erisia]

Bearing in mind that the concept behind CAP5 is to "rebalance the type chart", I think it goes without saying that Pokemon with conventionally unpopular typings should be able to do well against it, and Pokemon with popular typings should do poorly against it. Failing this, CAP5 should at least be able to create good opportunities for its teammates to deal with Water, Dragon, and Steel types. For now, I'm just going to suggest some Pokemon that we could make excellent checks/counters to CAP5, and thus promote their typing's usage.

Infernape: Infernape has a pretty bad rap in the BW2 metagame, mostly due to Rain being everywhere and Keldeo being a much better sweeper/cleaner in the most common conditions. However, two things should be noted; it resists both of CAP5's STAB attacks, and becomes significantly better in a Sun-friendly metagame. Making Infernape a better choice on teams, not only to deal with CAP5 but also to act as an offensive partner on Sun teams, would be a good way of promoting Fire-types.

Volcarona: Another Fire type, would take CAP5's Grass attacks like a champ and could cause a Burn with Flame Body if CAP5 opts to use physical Dark attacks. Boosting Volcarona's usage would not only encourage the use of more Fire-types, it would also provide Rain teams with a reasonable defense against CAP5, as Volcarona's great in both Sun and Rain, and can OHKO with Bug Buzz either way. Allowing Volcarona to do well against CAP5 would be important in ensuring that CAP5 doesn't completely tip the balance over to Sun. That said, it'd also be a great teammate choice, especially if CAP5 gets Rapid Spin.

Toxicroak: While Toxicroak only ever sees use on Rain teams, again, making Toxicroak a good response to CAP5 would ensure that Rain has at least some chance of staying level with Sunlight, while also providing some good type diversification, making it less tempting for Rain teams to simply fill their ranks with Water and Steel types. Like Infernape, it resists both STAB attacks inherently, so it could probably do a good job. Poison types are also pretty rare, so boosting them would be pretty cool.

Crobat: On a similar note, here's another Poison type that could do really well against CAP5. Crobat has a lot of ways in which it can deal with CAP5. 4x resisting Grass moves, almost certainly outspeeding it unless CAP5 has a Scarf or some kind of Speed boost (Chlorophyll?), STAB Brave Bird or U-Turning for a lot of damage. Crobat isn't really helped or hindered by weather, but getting a bonus on Heat Wave could give it at least a shot against Steel types.

I think that ensuring that there are suitable non-Steel-type ways of checking and countering CAP5 is important for fulfilling the original concept, so finding ways to make Poison, Bug, and Fire types such as the above more suitable responses sounds like a good idea to me. Other cool threats could be Houndoom, Heracross, and even stuff like Scolipede. Personally, in terms of dealing with Steel types, I think a Sun-boosted Hidden Power Fire or possibly Fire Fang would be good enough, as it lets CAP5 deal with stuff like Scizor, Forretress, and Ferrothorn, while leaving bulkier, non-4x weak Steels to Ninetales or other teammates. This would also allow the aforementioned Pokemon to more reliably check CAP5 than if we give it Ground or Fighting coverage, although it could still use other Hidden Powers if desperate, eg vs Heatran.