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CAP 9 CAP 9 - Main Typing Discussion

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Okay, what makes you think that a Normal-type Pokemon cannot get any Dark moves? I think you're assuming that, since a Pokemon needs to combat Dark-weak Pokemon, it must be a Dark-type Pokemon. What kind of reasoning is that?

The typing of a Pokemon affects mostly the defensive aspect of the Pokemon. STAB really doesn't matter that much. The offensive part of the Pokemon is mainly covered by movepool, not typing. I chose Normal because it barely has any weaknesses. Weaknesses matter much more than resists, and, if we want certain resists, there's always the secondary typing to look into.

STAB really doesn't matter that much? Are you serious?
Just to make a simple comparison, a Dark-type Pokémon with base 100 Atk (assuming 252 EVs and neutral nature, we would have 299 Atk) deals with Pursuit (for example) the same damage that would deal a Non-Dark Pokémon with base 175 Atk (since, with 252 EVs and neutral nature, we would obtain 449 Atk, which is approximately 50% higher than 299 and so balances out STAB). This is a huge difference, and I'm surprised you discount it so easily. Besides, Normal is weak to Fighting just like Dark. Basically, the difference between the 2 types, defensively, is:

Normal is immune to ghost instead of resistant
Dark is resistant to Ghost instead of immune and also suffer a Bug weakness, BUT it resists also Dark and is immune to psychic

Moreover, Dark STAB is arguably better than Normal STAB. Again, the difference betwenn the 2 is sharing a supereffective hit on Ghosts and Psychics and a not-very-effective hit on Dark and Fighting types for a not-very-effective on Rock types and a 0 damage on ghosts types. So, both the types have 3 resistant/immune (Rock, Ghost and Steel for Normal; Dark, Fighting and Steel for Dark), but Dark have the supereffective hit on Psychics and Ghosts (which happen to be the most common users of Trick), and the latter is of crucial importance because of Rapid Spin.

How Normal and Dark can be on equal ground is beyond my understanding.

EDIT: Walvren, those are not issues. What stops us from giving CAP Poison Heal, Guts or somthing like that for status protection? While Steel - especially if we go on the defense/support route - would still need something like Sticky Hold or Klutz to avoid Trick. So, either way we go, we will need an ability to fix the non-covered secondary effect, but then Dark STAB outmatch Steel resistances in every way (especially since most users of secondary effects have something to pound Steel types)
 
Here are some other things i've noticed:
Normal is one of the worse types to choose, and by the very little arguments given it seems all you want is well-rounded weaknesses/resistances. Dark has a great balance on this subject. Steel does not.
Trick is this important. Only 2 discussion threads so far and both of them have had flared-up battles on Trick. Dark is the way to go with this. STAB Pursuit will handle them.
If you switch CAP9 into a burn, well hopefully you have something similar to Guts, since then it would nullify the attack reduction.

Also, this is the main-typing thread. Not secondary-typing yet.



I think sticking to the Main-typing is the way to go for now.
 
It makes it much easier to "avoid the secondary", not to "stop" it. If you can't remove the threat but only being immune to it, your teammates will benefit very little from your presence - especially in the case of entry hazards.

Quoted for truth. We don't need to "avoid" it, we have plenty of pokemon that can do that. Also, I believe we should work like this:

TYPE 1: Offensive type.
TYPE 2: Defensive type. Should not fuck type one over.

Now, do you want STEEL as you're main offensive type? No, of course not! Look at Kitsunoh. He has Meteor Mash, but he's never EVER seen using it.

Dark is not only a good offensive type (that focuses on things like Pursuit, and the flinching of Crunch, not damage), it gains 3 resistances. 1 is a resistance to Dark, meaning it can pop in on Tyranitaur and Scizor and hit THEM while they're fleeing. 1 is a resistance to ghost, making a potential Rotom wall. (not easy to do considering it can have 5 odd moves). 1 is an immunity (not resistance) to Psychic, which, to those of you who don't know, is a common attacking type on the CAP server.

While steel is nice, I think we should focus on that in the second poll. (however, I think Ground might be more useful.)
 
Quoted for truth. We don't need to "avoid" it, we have plenty of pokemon that can do that. Also, I believe we should work like this:

TYPE 1: Offensive type.
TYPE 2: Defensive type. Should not fuck type one over.

Now, do you want STEEL as you're main offensive type? No, of course not! Look at Kitsunoh. He has Meteor Mash, but he's never EVER seen using it.

Dark is not only a good offensive type (that focuses on things like Pursuit, and the flinching of Crunch, not damage), it gains 3 resistances. 1 is a resistance to Dark, meaning it can pop in on Tyranitaur and Scizor and hit THEM while they're fleeing. 1 is a resistance to ghost, making a potential Rotom wall. (not easy to do considering it can have 5 odd moves). 1 is an immunity (not resistance) to Psychic, which, to those of you who don't know, is a common attacking type on the CAP server.

While steel is nice, I think we should focus on that in the second poll. (however, I think Ground might be more useful.)

I don't think we should put Steel off till the second poll. We want to use Steel defensively and we can't do that all too well if we've got Dark in there as well. In my opinion, Steel is used purely for survivability which is important for the stopping the secondary.

Also, it is because we don't know the other type that the first type needs to focus on defense rather than offense.
 
I agree that Dark has good potential. The only weakness it has to really worry about is fighting, which don't use secondary moves all too often.

In addition, may I state that several typing problems can be easily fixed by abilities. Scylant, for example.
 
I don't understand why people are focusing so heavily on Trick. After all, that's basically the sole purpose of people choosing Dark type, yet it's only a minor aspect of what we're trying to achieve. Sure, Dark can punish Trick users but it doesn't stop any sort of secondary effect, and even with a dark type, it won't necessarily stop trick. So what do we accomplish with a dark type? Well, we can punish ghosts and psychics. But why are we just focusing on those? Trick can cripple a support pokémon but status can cripple absolutely everyone. I'd like it if we could focus on that.

I'm supporting Ground for reasons given before, and particularly immunity to t-wave.
 
STAB really doesn't matter that much? Are you serious?
Just to make a simple comparison, a Dark-type Pokémon with base 100 Atk (assuming 252 EVs and neutral nature, we would have 299 Atk) deals with Pursuit (for example) the same damage that would deal a Non-Dark Pokémon with base 175 Atk (since, with 252 EVs and neutral nature, we would obtain 449 Atk, which is approximately 50% higher than 299 and so balances out STAB). This is a huge difference, and I'm surprised you discount it so easily. Besides, Normal is weak to Fighting just like Dark.
A supereffective move will deal tons of damage anyway, even without STAB. The difference between having STAB on a supereffective move and not is usually minor; what can happen at most is that the STABbed supereffective move OHKOs and the non-STABbed ones 2HKOs. I don't think that the Pokemon will like to take the hit in either case, so it will switch in both cases; so the final result is the same.

Basically, the difference between the 2 types, defensively, is:

Normal is immune to ghost instead of resistant
Dark is resistant to Ghost instead of immune and also suffer a Bug weakness, BUT it resists also Dark and is immune to psychic
Granted. But my main point is that I chose Normal because it has barely any weaknesses. If you want your Pokemon not to take a heavy hit, you need to keep the weaknesses at a minimum, not maximize the resistances.

Moreover, Dark STAB is arguably better than Normal STAB. Again, the difference betwenn the 2 is sharing a supereffective hit on Ghosts and Psychics and a not-very-effective hit on Dark and Fighting types for a not-very-effective on Rock types and a 0 damage on ghosts types. So, both the types have 3 resistant/immune (Rock, Ghost and Steel for Normal; Dark, Fighting and Steel for Dark), but Dark have the supereffective hit on Psychics and Ghosts (which happen to be the most common users of Trick), and the latter is of crucial importance because of Rapid Spin.
Of course Dark STAB is better than Normal STAB. Normal is one of the worst attacking types; only Poison is worse. But again, my point is not the STAB moves. I don't care about the STAB moves. As I said before, the offensive nature of a Pokemon is due to its movepool; it's never due to its STABs. Fire is a very offensive type, but do you see Entei do well offensively? No, because its movepool sucks.

How Normal and Dark can be on equal ground is beyond my understanding.
I never said this. Maybe someone else did, but I never said this. I agree fully that Dark and Normal are very different types, and are obviously not on an equal footing.

I will actually now argue that Normal is one of the best defensive types. Why? Because it has only one weakness. Steel has bazillion resists, but ultimately is weak to Fire, Ground and Fighting - three of the most common and offensive types in the game. Normal is only weak to one of those moves - Fighting. Just look at Blissey and tell me if Normal isn't a defensive type. Why is Blissey so hard to take down? Because it's only weak to Fighting. You either need to pack a strong Fighting move or else you won't take Blissey down. Simple as that. Of course, the stats and Softboiled help, so maybe I chose an extreme example. Okay, I'll provide a few more examples. Porygon2. Miltank. Clefable. Snorlax. When Normal types have decent defensive stats, they are very annoying to take down. Which is maybe why GameFreak opted for most Normal Pokemon to have frail defenses?
 
May I also add that the Trickster won't always be using Trick and the opponent's team won't always have a Trickster. Good battlers aren't dumb, and they won't always be using Trick first thing they switch in, they should know such thing exists and will wait for the perfect opportunity. They can just as easily attack with other moves instead and Trick their item later in the battle.

It's not always guaranteed that CAP9 will be switching into Trick anyway. I don't think we should be focusing too heavily on it, like Purpureal stated above. This is all what Dark really accomplishes, and it's forced to use a secondary typing because Dark is just not good enough.

I still haven't changed my mind about Steel, though.
 
i agree with x-act on the subject that the typing could really be anything and be fine. although in regards to the concept of stopping the secondary, the main types that actually stop any kind of secondary alone are steel, rock, ground, ice, poison, fire, flying and grass.

dark, id like to point out does not stop trick users at all. it may threaten the majority of trick users but thats it. the only way to 100% stop a trick user from using trick is by ability and if we do that then while stopping trick we'll be left taking the brunt of nearly every other secondary we hoped to check. as for pursuit, despite lack of coverage over trick users, we do have the means to re-type it if we really feel its a must but this isnt the place for that yet.

as for me after thinking it over i would like to go with ground while thinking of other secondary types in mind. grass, poison, fire, ice. maybe flying.

normal was also a choice i considered to be acceptable, also for the same reason x act just explained.
 
I think I'll go with Ground. A Rock resistance and Thunder Wave immunity is great to have, and not many Pokemon actually have that in the current metagame. Sure, it's Spikes and Toxic Spikes weak, but I think we can get around that with a suitable ability + secondary weakness.
 
Although X-act brings up the valid point that stats can back up a normal pokemon because of a low amount of weaknesses, we'll have to count on it being a mono-normal type. That typing, for the purposes of stop the secondary is inferior to a plethora of typings.

Mono-normal's only real chance is having Aromatherapy and having the ability Klutz/Volt Absorb/Poison Heal/Flash Fire/Own Tempo etc and even then, its capacity to stop the secondary is quite low...

You could always have a secondary typing to go with Normal, but still, Normal type itself has little to offer in terms of dealing eith secondaries and a lack of resistances makes it easier to take down (taking the secondary type into account).
 
Mono-normal's only real chance is having Aromatherapy and having the ability Klutz/Volt Absorb/Poison Heal/Flash Fire/Own Tempo etc and even then, its capacity to stop the secondary is quite low... Normal type itself has little to offer in terms of dealing with secondaries and a lack of resistances makes it easier to take down (taking the secondary type into account).
I'm really not understanding how it's so obvious that a Normal-typed CAP9 would be doomed to eventual failure, so please enlighten me.

What we need to create is a Pokemon that "stops the secondary"; even if I deal 0 damage to the opposing Pokemon, if I stopped him doing his usual effect, I'm done. I don't necessarily need to OHKO a Pokemon or deal it massive amounts of damage in order to prevent it from doing what it usually does.
 
I actually see where X-Act is going with normal type. They are usually good defensive pokemon, simply because of their one weakness (and relatively good stats, but that's another poll). Normal types are very versatile, so our CAP would be able to take down many status users, depending on which way you go with it. Adding on to this: Like X-Act just said, who cares if you kill them, the goal is to stop the secondary, not build a tank that does that as a side job.

I don't see what dark has over normal. It can kill the trick users, but who cares, they've already completed their "secondary" attack, and they won't do it again. The only thing you're gaining from killing them is just that, killing them. You guys are worrying to much about trick. There is no way at all to stop it, besides ability or item. Killing them will not stop the secondary at all, unless they acquired a useful item to trick back at you.

If normal doesn't go through, I'd definitely like to see ground. It has a thunder wave immunity, which in my opinion is one of the hardest things to stop a pokemon from spamming. Of course, stealth rock resistance is very handy also, along with sandstorm immunity, which are two of the most common residual damagers in the game.
 
even if I deal 0 damage to the opposing Pokemon, if I stopped him doing his usual effect, I'm done. I don't necessarily need to OHKO a Pokemon or deal it massive amounts of damage in order to prevent it from doing what it usually does.

But if you don't threaten the "secondary" user, what's stopping him from KOing you outright and than doing his stuff? CAP9 should be able to threaten a pokemon, not just stand there walling "secondary" moves and getting beaten to a pulp.
 
As I see it, the most popular contenders for main type are Flying, Steel, Ground, Normal, and Dark. While the latter two options seem fine enough for a main type, I do see issues with the other three options.

The problems I see with having a partial Flying-type CAP is the obvious weakness to Stealth Rock, which is really a deal breaker for me. Add this fact to no immunities to weather effects (and weakness to Blizzard, Thunder, and Stone Edge, which are commonly seen on weather teams) and you'll understand why there is such a dilemma with this type.

Nearly anything you can gain from being partial Flying-type can also be gained through the ability Levitate, while losing the negative side-effects. Should there be a choce between abilities (Levitate and Guts, for example), there would be zero reason to keep Flying.

The problem with Steel as the main type is the overall commonness of Steel-types in the CAP metagame. With a type so common, nearly every team does (or should) have a check to it, meaning it doesn't add much diversity or offensive power to the CAP, and therefore makes it vulnerable right from the start. These problems really outweight the pros of the supportive argument for me, and though it does serve great purpose as a defensive typing, I feel it would be better suited as a secondary type than a primary one.

Ground-types have the ability to overcome Electric secondary, and an immunity to sandstorm, but what else can it do other than that? It's weak to Water, Grass, and Ice (commonly seen moves types), and can't hit Pokemon with Levitate or partial Flying-typing. It's a better choice than the above, but is really limited when it comes to defending or attacking. Though attacking isn't the most important thing for this CAP, if it's only able to preform its job once over the course of the battle, how many battlers are going to want to lose their support Pokemon and stay vulnerable to repeated secondary?
 
I'm currently in the Steel boat. Reason? Simple. A Pokemon whose point it is to "Stop the Secondary" should not be very suceptible to "secondaries" in the first place! If the Pokemon can be crippled easily, then what's the point?

On the other hand, Dark seems to be pulling me over a bit. It seems pretty useful, without Pursuit and the type coverage. I'll need a little bit more swaying, though...anyone offering?
 
Don't really much see the point in trying to pick up immunities to status through typing, as you'll only actually get like one status immunity from any single type anyway, meaning even a dual-type would only be getting like two. Due to this, it's highly inefficient to simply be trying to use the typing to make the Pokemon be able to deal with status--the ability is really a much better slot for that, and is what's most likely going to end up being used for it either way. Due to this, typings like Steel, which seems to be supported mostly for its Poison immunity, don't appeal overly much to me.

Due to this, I'd much rather leave immunities to status and such for the abilities when we get there, as abilities are much better able to deal with making a Pokemon able to handle multiple statuses and other secondary effects in one swoop, and see the typing itself focus on crippling the most common users of these secondary moves. Thus, I believe Dark is a good route to go, as it lets us hit some of those common users of status like Azelf, Rotom, Cresselia, Dusknoir, and Celebi, scaring them from coming in, and scaring them away if they do come in.
 
Without threatening the secondary user, you cannot stop them from continuing to use their move.
Without being immune to or benefitting from the move of the opponent's choice, you cannot stop them from continuing to use their move. In other words, being immune to their method of crippling is a crucial part of being threatening.

Further EDIT:
As another little bonus over other status-immune types like Poison and Steel, Ground typing means STAB on Earthquake, one of the most powerful and useful moves in the metagame.
 
I'm currently in the Steel boat. Reason? Simple. A Pokemon whose point it is to "Stop the Secondary" should not be very suceptible to "secondaries" in the first place! If the Pokemon can be crippled easily, then what's the point?

On the other hand, Dark seems to be pulling me over a bit. It seems pretty useful, without Pursuit and the type coverage. I'll need a little bit more swaying, though...anyone offering?

Steel offers nothing in the way of actually stopping the secondary. You could switch into hazards all day, but that doesn't help the rest of your team switch into the hazards because it cannot spin against a ghost without scrappy. While it will take more damage from the hazards, a Dark Pokemon would almost be guaranteed a successful spin, because any ghost that wishes to switch in must face a STAB pursuit.

Furthermore, as was posted by Deck Knight on the first page, most secondary users have a reliable way to threaten a Steel Pokemon; however, a Dark Pokemon possesses the means to threaten a fair deal of these Pokemon through STAB while not suffering from the ground or fire weakness.

Without threatening the secondary user, you cannot stop them from continuing to use their move.

While I'm quite sure these points have been said before, I feel that they need to be reiterated.
 
Dark is the best typing for CAP9. It beats most Trick users with Pursuit, and can also kill pokemon like Celebi, Azelf, and to a lesser extent, Alakazam, who commonly use Secondary moves. But I am less in support of Dark as I am against Steel.

Steel isn't anything special against the secondary. It only resists SR and is immune to Toxic. But how are those going to really that benificial? Sure it can switch in on SR. It can try to spin them away, but Scarf-Rotom can come in, trick you a scarf, and cripple you the entire game. Dark on the other hand, can switch in to normal SR damage, and proceed to spin. Rotom wouldn't come in, because instead of resisting STAB Iron Heads or Flash Cannons, it has to deal with Pursuits and Dark Pulses. So, even though it doesn't resist SR, it is more likely to eliminate them entirely, therefore, helping its team better. If CAP9 can take all the secondary moves, it still won't support the rest of its team very well. Even if CAP9 doesn't resist SR, Spikes, Leech Seed, and Will-o-wisp, if it can take out the opponents using them, it will support the team better.
 
I think the error X-Act and Walvren are doing is thinking that CAP9 will probably go on the defense, which definitely is not the way to go. Walls may stop in their tracks standard sweepers, but there is little they can do against secondary effect moves like entry hazards and Trick. Moreover, the defensive Pokémon are the ones which suffer from Trick the most. While, for example, an SD Lucario can still be threatening with a Choice Scarf attached as a revenge killer of sorts, what are going to do Blissey and Swampert after they have been Tricked? More often than not they will give to the opponent multiple setup opportunities every time they come in.

If we go on the offensive route, CAP9 will be able to put a lot more pressure on the opponent. Let's say, for example, that I have a Spikes/Wish/U-turn/Earth Power Fidgit. If I know Blissey may come in, I have little to lose laying down a layer of Spikes. Even if Blissey walls the hell out of me and can force me out (let's imagine this Blissey has Ice Beam, for example), I still have probably a Pokémon to switch into her with little risk, and I can always lay the other Spikes later in the match. On the contrary, if I fear a Gyarados or Salamence switch in, I will be much more cautious: will I risk laying down Spikes, giving to an incoming Gyarados (or Salamence) the opportunity to setup and potentially sweeping my team a little? I for one would prefer 100 times facing a Blissey rather than a +1/+1 Gyarados (even if I have something like Vaporeon, I'm still on the defensive, while I may switch something like Scizor into Blissey and regain the control of the match).

So, as I hopefully have shown, offense is the way to go. And seeing which are the most likely targets of CAP9, Dark seems the best choice. Even if CAP9 faces an opponent neutral to Dark, you can still threaten a powerful Pursuit. And X-act, STAB on Pursuit may not make the difference against something like Rotom, or Gengar, or (maybe) Celebi, but it is of utmost importance against neutral-to-Dark stuff (for example, against a Toxic Spiker like Tentacruel or Roserade).
 
Steel isn't anything special against the secondary. It only resists SR and is immune to Toxic. But how are those going to really that benificial? Sure it can switch in on SR. It can try to spin them away, but Scarf-Rotom can come in, trick you a scarf, and cripple you the entire game. Dark on the other hand, can switch in to normal SR damage, and proceed to spin. Rotom wouldn't come in, because instead of resisting STAB Iron Heads or Flash Cannons, it has to deal with Pursuits and Dark Pulses. So, even though it doesn't resist SR, it is more likely to eliminate them entirely, therefore, helping its team better. If CAP9 can take all the secondary moves, it still won't support the rest of its team very well. Even if CAP9 doesn't resist SR, Spikes, Leech Seed, and Will-o-wisp, if it can take out the opponents using them, it will support the team better.

youre assuming if we choose steel the only moves in its move pool will be steel moves.
 
If we want to give CAP9 the ability to scare off users of secondary moves, that's what stats and movepool are for. How is a typing without status immunities going to make people think twice about using status moves on a predicted switch-in? A pokemon hit by status is crippled, maybe even incapacitated.
What I mean to say is that simply focusing on making a Pokemon immune to this or that isn't the best use of the typing, as you will only pick up a maximum of like two or three immunities like that. Granted, that definitely is better than nothing, but why even bother going that route at all with the typing when abilities handle it so much better, and allow us to give it however many immunities we want? Considering this, it seems a waste to pick a typing just for two or three immunities, which can just be gotten later on.

The best way to actually make use of the typing is naturally to make the most of it. IMO, the best of way of doing so is to make it to make it combine with its stats and movepool to deter common users of secondary effects from coming in, and to get rid of them if they do come in. If you just focus on trying to deal with them through immunities, then Azelf will just Fire Blast you, Rotom Overheat, Dusknoir EQ, etc, and thus there's more to it than that. You want to make sure that you can actually deal with these guys, and scare them off or just get rid of them.

That's what typing is best for; using it for the STAB bonus on attacks that will be able to deal them. Without doing something like giving it an absolutely massive attack stat, or using the ability on increasing its stats instead of its number of immunities, that can't really be made up for. Sure, it can still use the moves, but without that STAB bonus, they'll hardly be quite as fearful, and thus won't work as well as deterrents as they could. Thus, the most efficient use of the typing is to use it to deal with and threaten the users of secondary-effect moves, whereas the abilities are left for making it immune to their moves.

Try to make both ability and typing focus around immunities, and it will become more difficult to actually threaten them, and they'll have a greater tendency to stick around, get rid of CAP9, and then continue throwing around secondary-effects. Try to make typing focus around immunities and the ability offensive, and it will fail, as typing alone can offer too few immunities to be useful, as each type typically offers about one. Try to make both typing and ability offensive, and it won't work so well, as it will very vulnerable to the secondary effects it's trying to stuff.

Thus, we're left with making the typing offensive and the ability defensive, which is the best combination, IMO. Due to the STAB bonus, a Pokemon will be able to threaten them from coming in, and deal with them if they do. With the correct typing choice, the inverse will also hopefully be true, and the status-user won't be able to threaten CAP9 with it's actual attacks too much. The ability protects it from any status that can be thrown out, and all this combines to a Pokemon that can pretty effectively deal with them.

Other combinations do work too, but for the reasons I've mentioned, I feel this to be the most efficient way of accomplishing the concept. Due to this, I really would prefer a typing like Dark, which does so pretty well, for the reasons I and others have already mentioned.

Edit: In other words, my main problem with focusing on status-immunities through typing is that it seems quite likely that the ability will go down that route anyway, since that's what it's best at and it would greatly help along the concept. Thus, why double-up and cover status-immunities through both typing and ability? That seems illogical to me. Leave being immune to status for the aspect of Pokemon that's better at covering that, the ability. Thus, we open up the typing for other uses, namely, scaring away and actually dealing offensively with the users of the status moves. That seems the most efficient route to go for accomplishing this concept to me.
 
To me, the main attraction of the Dark type is its ability to get a STAB super effective hit on spin blockers. Ghosts are the only thing able to stop Rapid Spin. If CAP9 were a Dark type, Ghosts would be far less likely to switch in, and thus using Rapid Spin sucessfully would be far easier (maybe I am jumping ahead here assuming attacks for CAP9, but I figure that any "Stop the secondary" Pokemon would have access to this move by default).

I understand that CAP9 could carry a super effective attack for Ghosts no matter what type it is, but the 50% STAB boost (as well as resistance to Ghost) seems too good to pass up. Dark does not boast any immunities to status or entry hazards, but we still have a secondary type and ability left to cover those holes.

If we are not allowed to assume just yet that CAP9 could have access to Rapid Spin though, disregard everything I just said.
 
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