Poison. If you've been on the server you've probably heard me lobbying for Elec/Poison and here's why:
- Electric/Poison has good resistances: Steel, Fighting, and Flying resistances are really cool to me and I wanted them on this CaP badly. On top of that you have an Electric resistance and a Bug resistance (as well as a Grass and Poison resist). And if you've noticed, most of these types (bar Steel), are not paired offensiely with types that Electric/Poison is weak to.
- Neutrality to Stealth Rock: I would have pushed for Electric/Bug or Electric/Flying, but I decided that a neutrality to Stealth Rock and less weaknesses made Electric/Poison a much better typing defensively, even though the above two weren't 4x Ground weak and still resisted Fighting.
- Not Pursuit-weak: Uggh I hate Pursuit-weak defensive pokemon. I would have liked Electric/Ghost or Electric/Psychic (as they also had excellent resistances), but they were Pursuit weak and overall that made me want Electric/Poison more.
- Look past the 4x Ground weakness! You shouldn't be fighting any pokemon with Ground moves anyways. We picked an Electric-type pokemon, so unless we make it insanely bulky it won't be able to withstand more than one Earthquake regardless. Also, keep in mind a lot of the types that Electric/Poison has resistances to rarely (if ever) pack Ground type attacks. The only type that does is Steel (because Bronzong and Metagross and the rare Forretress run Earthquake). Fighting types generally don't because it's bad coverage. Flying types don't because they generally don't have access to EQ. Heracross, Syclant, Yanmega, and Scizor (the only commonish Bug pokemon) don't run EQ. It won't be an issue. Electric/Poison-mon will still have plenty of pokemon to wall.
Of course, the Psychic weakness is also pretty irrelevant since again, most of the types that Electric/Poison resists don't pack Psychic-type attacks either (except the rare Zen Headbutt Jirachi and Metagross).
Electric/Poison is an excellent defensive typing, and if you want a defensive ability/pokemon then it's a fine choice to pick for CaP8!
EM has pretty much won me over to
Poison in this post. In addition to what's already been pointed out here, the only things in OU that resist the combination of Electric and Poison are ground-types such as Fidgit and Gliscor, which it shouldn't be staying in on anyway, so it's not too terrible offensively.
As for the other popular type, bug, I'm not really liking it. It has some nice attributes, such as a ground neutrality, but that Stealth Rock weakness is killer, especially since we won't be able to give it something like Mountaineer. If it wasn't for the SR weakness though, I probably would have gone with it.
I'd also prefer not to go for Grass. It's not SR or Pursuit weak, and the Ground neutrality is nice, but the added weaknesses are unpleasant. Fire shouldn't be too much of an issue hopefully, but the Ice and Bug weaknesses aren't too great.
However, no secondary typing also isn't too bad; it keeps CAP8 at only one weakness, and it doesn't pick up a weakness to SR. It also isn't too terrible itself in any area, so it would be my secondary choice, should poison fail.
jagged_angel said:
I'm leaning more strongly towards Elec/Bug or Elec/Fighting, both have only 2 weaknesses and pretty decent STAB synergy. As offensive type combos, they are quite high up.
Not really sure about Electric/Fighting. Metagross and Jirachi are both still neutral to Fighting, and can hit you with Earthquake and Zen Headbutt (where you'd be neutral to it otherwise) for super-effective damage, respectively. It also makes Pokemon like Celebi, Gliscor (even more so than it already was), and Kitsunoh (due to it's fighting immunity) more willing to come in. It does help a bit against Pokemon like Lucario and Magenzone (if CAP8 is faster than it), but I'm not sure that's worth it.
Edit: Not sure I like Rock either. It's adding on several weaknesses, just to hit Fire and Ice for super-effective basically. However, the only Fire and Ice types really found commonly in Standard are Heatran, Pyroak, Mamoswine, Syclant and Weavile. However, due to their secondary typings, Heatran and Mamoswine are both neutral to rock.
That leaves Weavile, Syclant and Pyroak. Weavile is on the frail side, so it doesn't really need STAB rock to be taken care of; even something like Volt Tackle or Thunderbolt should leave a good dent in it, ignoring other options we could give it, such as Close Combat (plus, there's also how on the reverse side of things, if you're not faster than it, it will be able to leave a big dent in you regadless). Similar applies to Syclant, leaving Pyroak. But even negating that and assuming it wouldn't be able to touch Syclant and Weavile at all otherwise, that means you're adding on several weaknesses just to make it handle three Pokemon (Syclant, Pyroak, and Weavile) more easily, and I'm not sure if that's a fair trade off.