CAP 10 CAP 10 - Main Typing Discussion

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One last pitch about this before bed!

First, ??? may not be an 'official' type, but this is CAP and it IS in the system. We're trying to foster ideas here, and questions are encouraged. There is actually a good deal of information about this typing in general from tests, and it is confirmed that it is not resistant, immune, nor weak to any other of the standard 17 types. A hypothetical pure flying pokemon using roost would have the ??? type. Also, anyone can test ??? offensively by use of struggle, as it is ??? type. All targets, regardless of their typing receive ??? damage neutrally, and it can't miss (for struggle, anyway). Anyway, back to main topic. Again I will quote the now overused DougJustDoug quote.

DougJustDoug said:

  • Good resistances.
  • No weakness to Stealth Rock.
  • No Pursuit weakness.
  • At least one good attacking STAB.
Click to expand...

Considering these, Water is a very good candidate for our goal at this stage and I support it right after Fighting, which to remind everyone is to discuss and choose a primary typing as a mold for the future. We want a type that allows a base for us to build a pokemon to be a utility counter for multiple pokemon, not necessarily at the same time. The danger with water is what familyguyman's equation captured perfectly; Arghonaut. I doubt that CAP10 will turn out very similarly to Arghonaut, but the fact is that there are many usable water types in OU of very varied abilities and traits that fill many roles and niches. That said, creating a new unique pokemon that does not repeat what has already done and in a new way that enables us to learn about the metagame using water is not impossible, but there's a bit more difficulty. All in all though, the merits of water I believe far outweigh the dangers and cons of it as a useful mold.

The same simply cannot be said for steel (and to most of the other types). First of all, YES steel has a ton of resistances - not all useful, by the way - but are they really covering most of what is being used offensively? The simple fact is no. Even more important than that, are those important resistances - and omg, poison immunity - really worth settling for a defining secondary type/ability or two? In addition, the benefits shared by fighting and steel (same three resistances to the same three specific important attacks) are not equal in that they are usually sacrificed in order to make up for the weaknesses of steel. Take steel/psychic becoming u-turn and pursuit neutral instead of resistant, or steel/bug becoming SR neutral instead of resistant, same goes for steel/flying among their obvious and profound elemental weakness(es). Also, the whole deal with poison impunity of steel types is also very underwhelming to me; the threats on the top 10-20 hardly even employ toxic directly. Toxic spikes yes, but when are they crippling enough on the first switch in to counter one specific pokemon? Poison type is actually much better in this regard as the grounded ones can absorb T spikes.

Fighting, how do I put this.. Fighting is the most viable choice for a very subtle reason. Not only for all the previously stated benefits and lack of weaknesses, but because it really is so workable as a primary type. Even standalone, fighting is a very good typing across multiple metagames, for many reasons. It is solid defensively due to the nature of OU and even Ubers. The attacking prowess of it are also much above average, but like Deck Knight addresses, there are very easy switchins to counter fighting and I believe that is the greatest weakness of the type itself (which is much more mild than most any other type can boast). However, usually with just the use of one or two slots for offensive coverage, fighting has very good synergy with many other types; dark, rock, fire, and ghost come to mind. Type mutability has been tossed around a few times, and I think the lack of support that fighting needs is the definitive reason that will enable us to synergize well later on using it as a base. It really has all the important positive traits that normal and poison have (without immunities and fighting resist) while bringing much more to the table. Please make sure to consider all the characteristics we're aiming to meet along with the initial concept goal. It's clear (at least to me) that fighting as primary type for CAP10 will move us much more closer to that goal in comparison with the rest of the types.

List #12,009: (Why Fighting?)

  • Resistances to valuable types, especially specific detrimental effects
  • Excellent mold; with few glaring issues that are compulsory to be addressed by later stages (allowing more maneuverability)
  • One of the best attacking potentials, with built in counters, also not nearly as broken as Dragon
  • Variable movepool to adjust to specific threats associated with the typing
  • Offensive synergy with multiple types allow effective use of moveslots for type coverage in order to counter specific targets on the whole
  • Possible access to recovery: Slack Off
It looks like discussions have circled and are to circle again at this point. Above all, the most important thing to remember is that - especially at this early stage - during the process we need to limit future limitations as much as we can. We don't know a lot of stuff about the end result and its effects are by far, but by doing something like coercing levitate as desired ability now, when that can be done naturally in the steps ahead, we neuter what can be achieved. One of the interesting arguments made in favor of Normal type is a 'blank slate' to work with later for the ability compartment, and this is nearly ideal in any CAP. The better option to consider though, is a little leeway that allows ability, bst, and other factors to work together instead of apart. Fighting definitely allows this, and water to a close degree. Really its getting lame to see the same mindset (though I am also at fault) when other arguments try to have quick fixes to huge problems with other types by simply poll jumping an ability or secondary typing alone. C'mon guys, you can do so much better.
 
I have to put in my vote for Ghost as a primary typing. Most pokemon can be tanked by something taking neutral damage, as long as its defenses are high enough. Add in the right movepool, and you have a viable counter. As such, I think the most important thing to consider is which pokemon CANNOT be easily switched into, and cater the pokemon most specifically to beating those threats. Most everything else can be covered with high defenses and movepool tweaks.

Key among these pokemon that are most difficult to truly counter are Lucario, Infernape, Machamp, and Breloom, due to the naturally wide coverage and high base power of their STAB attacks. On top of that, the former two have ridiculous movepools, while the latter two can shut down their would-be counters with their side effects. As such, I think the first thing to consider is how to shut down these particular threats, and being a Ghost is the first step.

Most other major threats can be more easily dealt with by exploiting key weaknesses, like Mach Punch for Tyranitar, Ice Shard for Salamence, etc. This means that CAP10 doesn't need to dedicate its typing to resisting their attacks, so long as it isn't OHKOd on the switch. The only other pokemon I'd worry about are those that tend to just out-muscle or out-hax their would-be counters, namely Jirachi, but a good secondary typing and some helpful ability should be able to remedy that.
 
Electrics 1 weakness, which is easily avoidable by use of levitate, seems favourable and I would like to give it my support. however, the widespread use of Earthquake would demand that levitate be one of it's abilities. while this is fine in it's own right, choosing a type because we would be able to use an ability is a bad move. we don't know what abilities or stats or whatever will be needed at this point, so jumping ahead like that won't help.

I still support Fighting type because of it's useful resistances to Stealth rock, U-turn and Pursuit; as well as other attacks of those types. it's resists are more useful than that of waters (which gets ice and water resists, with fire having minor merit. good, but not as good). The only problem with it are weaknesses that aren't as easy to overcome, but they see much less use than a lot of other types.
 
I think SR resistance comes up too often in CAP and going for a type just because it resists SR isn't very logical. I understand that is is a huge part of the metagame but a lot of people going for fighting have this as a point of consideration. Same with pursuit, as long as it isn't weak to dark, pursuit probably won't dent it enough to make it a viable attack on it. Although I don't feel pursuit resistance is necessary, a weakness to pursuit is too much of a disadvantage. If it is weak to it, then it will come in, opponent switches to a pursuit user, CAP10 just died and what it was meant to counter is still running around. So psychic and ghost aren't good choices.

I'm going with poison type. Since the typing isn't very good offensively, people won't stick a STAB move on it just cause it has STAB, which i believe would be quite frequent with types like water and electric. This goes along with how i imagine the Utility Counter will be like, built for whatever it needs to do and no STAB that doesn't help out with countering that much. Poison also only has two weaknesses, one of which is barely used. I feel this of lack of weakness and STAB will create a pokemon that can be tailored in any direction without taking the opponent's typing into too much consideration.

Plus, poison types are underrated. Someone needs to step up. (:
 
Since when has "move beats type" become a viable argument?

We already have a Pursuit-weak defensive pokemon of the Ghost type: It's name is Rotom-A and it is without question one of the most ubiquitous pokemon in OU (It'd be even moreso if it weren't actually limited in the special moves it could carry). You know what happens to the one of the most ubiquitous Pursuit user in OU when it comes in? It risks getting burned by WoW or a Reflect being set up, making the damage Rotom-A receives from Pursuit n the process negligible. Rotom's Defenses aren't even optimized like most CAPs, sitting at 50/107/107. Before Rotom-A was around we had Dusknoir, who way back when in ADV when it was Dusclops carried WoW and Focus Punch just in case Tyranitar showed its ugly mug.

Ultimately you have to ask what is going to run Pursuit specifically against this. There are many viable potential Pursuiters in OU but most of them have much, much better things to do. It generally boils down to TTar, Weavile, and Scizor. The former two have a huge weakness to Fighting and the latter a huge weakness to Fire. None particularly appreciate Burn status either. Heracross is interesting in that it would be Guts Boosted, but any Ghost mon would be immune to one STAB and resist the other. Metagross has enough trouble as it is fitting in Agility, Bullet Punch, or Explosion.
 
Banryu said:
Poison would be another good defensive type to build off of.... but there are already levitating Poison-types, and I can't think of too many other immunizing abilities that would work on a poison-type, except maybe Water Absorb. =\ Hmm. But then, there's the fact that there's been no CAP Poison-type to date, so there's the originality factor too.
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Actually, Fidget is a Poison/Ground type.
 
Hi guys this will be my first post here so bare with me. I made sure to read the CAP introductions. I'd also like to say I've been following since Colosoil was being developed but waited till a new CAP to post so as to better familiarize myself with the proceedings.


For a good defensive typing I think that either Steel/Dragon or Steel Grass would be interesting. Neither exist yet and both sport excellent resistances.

Steel/Dragon for instance is resistant to 9 resists, 1 immunity, 1 weakness in Ground, very powerful stabs, the ability to learn many crippling status moves such as Toxic and T-wave. The downside is that OU is already painfully dominated by Steels and Dragons though this is less so with CAP. I fear making a powerful and versatile pokemon with both those types would only exacerbate things.


Now, Grass/Steel on the other hand is also a good defensive typing with out the, I'll use dominating for lack of a better word, "problem" mention above. It has 9 resists, 1 immunity, 2 weakness in fire (a painful x4, but see below) and fighting.

It also boasts a wide possible movepool with strong stabs like Power Whip and Meteor Mash or status inflicters like Spore, Toxic, and Para Powder. To cover it's glaring weakness to Fire I suggest that we give it Heatproof as an ability or one of it's abilities.


Both would capable of setting up on pokemon they wall (D-dance, Swords Dance or Iron Defence), Inflicting status to beat sweepers/leads and punish walls, they can also take hits well even with moderate defenses since they resist over half the types in the game. Both could also be capable Spikers Dragon/Steel getting normal spikes and Grass/Steel receiving both.

There also exists a lot wiggling room when it comes to voting on stats since there is wide variety pokemon among these typings exist. Sceptile is fast Grass sweeper while Cradily is more than capable of taking hits (especially in a sandstorm). Salamence's stats and ability allow for a flexible pokemon that can be mixed, special, physical, or bulky.

All in all I think either of these typings (mainly Steel) would make a very interesting poke that would be capable of countering/checking wide varieties pokemon or specific roles that similar pokemon fill depending on how it was built.


(P.s. Sorry if I broke any rules I triple checked everything to make sure I did nothing wrong.)
 
^
Welcome to CAP, I'm new myself but already am enjoying myself. The only problem with your post is ironic, as this discussion is about selecting a primary type for the pokemon in question and you jumped the gun a little by posting your thoughts on final typing. As much as the next guy, I like to see creativity and new type combinations being employed but it's better to take things one step at a time for CAP, and keeping things flexible for the latter steps. Commendable that you lurked though, I almost feel I lurk too much, but it seems impossible. By the way, Dialga is a Dragon/Steel - which have weaknesses to ground and fighting.

Your post is a good example of a trend for this CAP, and that is to fall under the trap that what we're looking for is a defensive pokemon. This is not entirely true, we're looking to make a utility counter. The concepts are much different, and while having defensive attributes definitely play a part, they are not what we should base decisions on alone. And I agree that grass and dragon have lots of 'wiggling room' when it comes to variety (as do all types really) but for this concept, those two and especially steel just do not have the necessary 'variety' factor needed in utility counter.
 
I completely agree with Swordmaster in regards to why Steel should not be the primary type of this CAP.

Anyway, To counter the counter arguments as to why Water is a bad choice, I'll start by saying that this pokemon does Not need to be completely defensive and I feel that we are pidgin (Pidgey) holing ourselves into a forced defensive stat spread. If we go the Steel route, it is etched into our brains that the pokemon must be able to absorb all forms of punishment simply because it's Steel type. If we go the Electric route, then we 'have to have' Levitate or some way to get rid of it's ground weakness. If we go the fighting route, then the pokemon must be able to use the elemental punches to full effect or use Subpunch etc.

Water type keeps our options completely open. We do not have to get rid of any glaring weaknesses, nor do we have to make it's stat spread so precise that it's no longer a wild card.

Blissey does not have to be a dangerous opponent for this CAP. Who said Water type have to be specially based? Waterfall, Aqua Jet, Aqua Tail are all very viable Water moves that are physical.

I do like the idea of fighting type as well. Resistances to U-Turn, Pursuit, Sucker Punch and Stealth Rock are nifty. Although, thats all it's bringing to the table. STAB Fighting moves are nice but sadly, many people carry resistances to them now-a-days. Gyarados, Salamence, The uncommon Zapdos, Azelf, Celebi, Rotom, Gengar and who knows what else all laugh in the face of a powerful Fighting move. Yes, There are pokemon out there who scoff at Water. But we're playing with a wild card here. Water is a safe move to use 99% of the time (The other 1% concerned Vaporeon). On top of that, it provides amazing coverage when combined with Normal type. This frees up 2 slots for more utility. Sure, Fighting + Ghost does this too, but we've already created a pokemon that takes advantage of this combo.

Water is simply a very broad type that can fill any role desired. Many types suggested here make me feel as if we're making a defensively perfect pokemon. We are not though. We are creating a pokemon that is suppose to be moldable into specific forms to counter specific threats.

I've listed some very useful reasons why Water is so useful earlier in this thread. Now I will list a few weaknesses to other types.

Steel: It's weakness to Fighting and Ground are taken advantage of in every single team. Steel type is so common that it's second nature to carry 2 possibly even 3 pokemon that can handle them with very little effort already. It also lacks broad coverage, making it undisireable offensively.

Poison: Weakness to ground automatically makes me hate it (Sadly). While it's resistances are nice, and ability to absorb toxic spikes, it sadly forces us to address it's ground weakness and lack of broad coverage. Once agian a pidgey hole.

Fighting: Possibly my second choice but I feel that there are too many pokemon in the current metagame that resist or outright ignore fighting moves. It's special movepool isn't amazing and has this uncanny effect of causing us to sway towards a more offensive approach. "Fighting = Power" kind of mentality.

Electric: Once agian, it's ground weakness forces us to pick levitate. Sure, we can pair it with flying or grass, but once agian we forced ourselves into a specific choice. Electric's STAB is great no doubt, but a ground type is almost immediately a hard counter, due to it being able to switch in with impunity.

Ghost: Ghost type has been taken advantage of in CAPs already. Are we that uncreative? Sorry if I sounded blunt but is ghost type -that- powerful? It sports few useful resistances and a very big weakness: Dark. Sucker Punch and Pursuit users would have a field day. Not to mention it's lacking physical movepool.

So, I once agian have to turn to Water's essentially most amazing feature: It's naive. It scoffs at ground, it isn't weak to a single priority move (I think.. I can't remember), It's ability to mold into anything we want (Pun intended). And most importantly; It doesn't force us into any specific options. We don't have to take levitate, We don't have to make up an ability or an attack in order to make up for it's short comings and we certainly don't have to limit our creativity because of it.
 
@Midou

Hmm, you're right I did get ahead myself. Guess I should of checked my post as well as I did the forum rules. I stand behind Steel though. The resists it adds form a "safety net" of sorts that should allow it to come in on many types with relative impunity and gives us some interesting moves to play with.
 
Rising_Dusk said:
And all I have in response to that is that Normal has zero resistances and a single immunity to a relatively rare attacking type. This Pokemon needs resistances to switch in on. It just does. There's no escaping that.
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With huge defensive stats, who needs resistances?
 
@ Dominion

I don't think that steel will limit our thinking to defense oriented pokemon. If anything it should allow us more freedom since having many resistances to common types lets us ease up more on the defensive side of things since it can rely on those instead of bulk. I also think that if we just remind ourselves that the goal is to create a utility counter to that is capable of countering/checking many types, but only a few at time that we won't stray to far from a balanced middle.

I know it's definitely to early start talking about stats even in this vague manner, but that's what I thought he meant by pidgey holing our focus to defense. Lucario relies more on coming in on what he resists and threatens than his bulk.

That isn't to say your point is invalid. I just think that it's avoidable if we keep an open mind.
 
Objection said:
With huge defensive stats, who needs resistances?
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Yeah but you can only go so hug on defensive stats without crippling it offensively (see Shuckle) and even then it the Poké has some crippling weakness defensive stats won't help for crap. Resistance are useful even on highly defensive Pokémon. Even Blissey has trouble once you break out Focus Blast.
 
pkmn-taicho321 said:
Yeah but you can only go so hug on defensive stats without crippling it offensively (see Shuckle) and even then it the Poké has some crippling weakness defensive stats won't help for crap. Resistance are useful even on highly defensive Pokémon. Even Blissey has trouble once you break out Focus Blast.
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Exactly. Focusing to much on one way of countering limits it's other options. The CAP is a supposed versatile and customizable. So while a defensive variant should be possible so should a fast attacker of some type which can't happen if it has huge defensive capabilities.
 
When it comes down to it, water definitely takes the cake for 'all-purpose typing' card. I agree with many of the points of your post, Dominion. Especially your concerns on pidgin holing ourselves into thinking we must have a defensively oriented mindset, which simply isn't true. Water by all means is not a bad choice, and it is a very solid choice. Really the only reason it is the less preferable choice for me is similar to your opinion on ghost in that the fact that water is one of the most commonly explored and used types and will make it somewhat harder for us to achieve the creativity and learn something new about the importance and impact of utility counters. But it does a hell of a lot better than anything else, fighting and water really are in a league of their own with this decision. Steel's 'amazing set of resistances' really just can't stack up.

You touched on something I find important and that is Typing Presence, which is a subset of an individual pokemon's presence whenever shown. Aside from everything else that has been said about the pros and cons for each typing, presence is a unique possession that whenever you see or think about a specific pokemon, an evaluation process occurs. Without going into that much more detail about the process itself, fighting and water will offer the best 'presence factors' when considering this project. Let's put steel as a very simple example.

Steel, like many have said and thought gives an immediate thought of defense and bulkiness - hard to kill. Like my previous post, this is the trap many are falling for when associating 'counter' with 'defense'. These thoughts are somewhat justified as bulky offense is becoming more of the norm in today's metagame, and when all OU steels have some sort of claim to being able to take hits - be it Jirachi, Metagross, or Skarmory.

Fighting on the other hand is a little bit more ambiguous. One might say at first that Fighting is immediately associated with offense and power, but more experienced battlers know that this does not define fighting types to any all-inclusive, reasonable degree at all. They in fact take advantage of the pseudo-association with offense and power and use it to create exploitable opportunities. In reality, fighting is a solid choice defensively that allows customization and execution of unique strategies, if only explored. It's interesting to say this today when this was the opposite situation in the RBY generation when psychic was the centralizing force.

Now Water doesn't have many of the subtleties that in terms of presence that fighting has, but the way it works is also valuable to what 'utility counter' is trying to achieve. The irony of water's presence is actually its lack of presence. When water comes to mind, there is really no defining aspect about it aside from, well, balance. The scale of water pokemon is so varied and abundant that you can go from the atrocious Gyarados to impenetrable Suicune to all sorts of middlemen like Poliwrath, Swampert, and Empoleon. And as many have said, offensively water is not poor by any reasonable standard. This is why water is exactly what utility counter is looking for, not ostensible defense. Fighting just happens to do it better for this contributor.

The unique combination Fighting brings to the table (not just its above average type resistance) is what makes it truly shine. Powerful offense (with very defined limits and holes, it CAN have more than one attacking type, by the way), true lack of crippling weaknesses, and above average offensive and defensive synergies with multiple types create a powerful mold that is greater than the sum of its parts. Look beyond the simple resistances, guys, they do not define a type.
 
Objection said:
With huge defensive stats, who needs resistances?
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Because we have a limited BST(<= 600). If we give this guy Cresselia's defenses or something close to that so it can survive a +1 Outrage from Salamence (Which is important if it's to counter the thing), then it will be crippled offensively and in speed. Also, another thing that people seem to be forgetting here: CAP10 is a utility counter, not a wall. It is not intended to just soak hits from a thousand things before going down, which is what a Cresselia stat distribution will let it do. It won't just counter things - heck, it might not counter anything at all. It might just be Cresselia with a different typing and Ice Beam to beat the Dragons. That to me is not the core of a utility counter, that's just a wall. Just another Cresselia.

We need this thing to come in on resistances so that it's stats do not have to be 120/120/120 in defenses. If the stats are more mellow because of a supreme resistive typing, then we can invest, say, 155 in Speed or something. (155 in speed will outspeed +1 neutral natured base 100's!) This means it could come in on Mence on the DD or Draco Meteor, and immediately threaten it out without it doing anything! Talk about a counter! There are dozens of stat distributions here if we pick Steel as the main typing, that it enables us to do practically anything. So not only does Steel not stifle creativity, but it also serves to give us more options with the later steps of CAP10. Meanwhile, it'll also wind up actually being a counter to Pokemon, instead of just being a wall with a decent offensive move pool.

This is why Steel is the optimal choice for CAP10, and also gives a little insight into future polls without particularly poll-jumping. The options are there if we go with Steel, but they're just not if we pick anything else.

Bolded are my key points here, in case you tl;dr it. :P
 
After looking through the thread, I have found Water to be the most intresting type.

Water is in my opinion the best defensive type in the game. Its two weaknesses are not extremely common, and Grass is only seen because of Swampert really. The Ice and Fire resistances are extremely useful.

But the real advantage comes from being able to be paired with anything and not sucking. Water/Bug and Water/Electric are suprisingly good defensively, and have excellent coverage. Water/Poison (Poison is probably my 2nd choice btw) is very strong defensively, even with the EQ weakness, and it also has nearly perfect coverage. Water/Grass is only weak to three types, the most common being bug, and also helps the pokemon beat other water types. The worst combo water can be involved with is Probably Water/Rock, which is about average defensively.

Fighting has been praised for similar advantages, but I am not nearly as amazed with it. First of all, it doesn't have any good resistances. Yeah you can switch in on T-Tar flawlessly, but what else? So my support is with Water for now.
 
One problem with Steel - by default, they are naturally slow. I think a 155 Base Speed Steel-type would be out of taste. But that's generally flavour, so I'll ignore that.

What's more is, Steel holds some large weaknesses to three very common offensive types, most of which are carried by some of the top threats in the game. Sure, two of them can be negated with Ability, but the point still stands that the weaknesses aren't worth the resistances.

Generally, I think a resistance to Stealth Rock, U-Turn and perhaps a majority of the biggest threats in OU are what we'll be looking for.
Fighting provides quite a number of this, with decent resistances around and two negligible weaknesses, one of which can be worked around the other is rare.
If we add Steel as the secondary typing, then yes, it will be brilliant, but I think Steel as a primary typing wouldn't be the best option.
 
I underlined a couple of things I found extremely distracting when reading certain counterarguments.
NedtheRed said:
I don't think that steel will limit our thinking to defense oriented pokemon. If anything it should allow us more freedom since having many resistances to common types lets us ease up more on the defensive side of things since it can rely on those instead of bulk. I also think that if we just remind ourselves that the goal is to create a utility counter to that is capable of countering/checking many types, but only a few at time that we won't stray to far from a balanced middle.
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Rising_Dusk said:
This is why Steel is the optimal choice for CAP10, and also gives a little insight into future polls without particularly poll-jumping. The options are there if we go with Steel, but they're just not if we pick anything else.
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hydrolphin said:
Fighting has been praised for similar advantages, but I am not nearly as amazed with it. First of all, it doesn't have any good resistances. Yeah you can switch in on T-Tar flawlessly, but what else? So my support is with Water for now.
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To begin, its never good to start an argument with "I don't think", regardless of topic. I'll address some relevant points brought up by these posts individually.

@NedtheRed
As has been touched on numerous times before your posts and the ones after it, the built-in weaknesses of steel are as rigid as the compound is in real life. Yes, we may consider adding levitate; yes, we may consider adding flash fire; yes, we will address secondary typing soon to compensate, but the fact that the special circumstances that must be accounted for in terms of steel weaknesses IS the inflexibility that makes it one of the poorest choices for primary type when making a utility counter.

@Rising_dusk
No, the options are not much more limited when considering steel as primary type for utility counter. Reasons listed above. Your points against making a wall are shared by me, and there isn't really much else to say about that. The thing I would add is that we definitely need a way of addressing dragon type attacks, but BST and steel typing are not the only ways. The best example I could give you that seems like a very exciting prospect is type alterability, and perhaps steel can be a choice there, as well as secondary typing. But having it as a primary type really closes the gap on the range of threats we can counter, just the opposite of all your reasoning of widening it.

@hydrolphin
Resistances to SR, U-turn, pursuit while retaining neutrality to most other forms of passive damage neutrally while at the same time being one of the most powerful offensive types (albeit with very large holes) is only accomplished by one type, and this is not to be offhandedly dismissed. Blissey has no type resistances at all, yet why is she so effective at what she does (one day she will be smitten)? This also begs the question about the relative importance of resistance in its entirety.

[edit: After consideration, Blissey is a poor example. But the point still stands, porygon2 is another good example.]
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ZystraL said:
What's more is, Steel holds some large weaknesses to three very common offensive types, most of which are carried by some of the top threats in the game. Sure, two of them can be negated with Ability, but the point still stands that the weaknesses aren't worth the resistances.
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Sums up many of my arguments against steel from the beginning very concisely, thank you for that.
 
Steel or Water
Sure, with Steel we are obligated in the secondary typing or ability stage to help with its weaknesses. With water we are just as limited but in the stat stage. I like them both but I am leaning more and more towards Steel. Sure this pokemon shouldn't be a wall but if it can't switch in on the majority of attacks from +1 pokemon then it won't get a chance to take an offensive approach. Just like has been said from the beginning, most recently by Rising Dusk, without resistances the pokemon will have to be a wall simply because the stat distribution will be used up on defense. We are going to face limitations regardless. I feel like Steel minimizes the limitations the most.
 
fear_my_shuckle said:
Steel or Water
Sure, with Steel we are obligated in the secondary typing or ability stage to help with its weaknesses. With water we are just as limited but in the stat stage. I like them both but I am leaning more and more towards Steel. Sure this pokemon shouldn't be a wall but if it can't switch in on the majority of attacks from +1 pokemon then it won't get a chance to take an offensive approach. Just like has been said from the beginning, most recently by Rising Dusk, without resistances the pokemon will have to be a wall simply because the stat distribution will be used up on defense. We are going to face limitations regardless. I feel like Steel minimizes the limitations the most.
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^
I wonder how making up for steel's limitations by using up the secondary typing and ability stages actually 'mimimizes' limitations at all. Granted, we'll have to give enough bulk to survive +1 hits, but remember the definition to begin with? We want it to counter specific threats individually. We don't have to necessarily switch in to the vast majority of attacks at once to begin with if we're doing what we're set out to do.

Where exactly is this dictum that we have to sacrifice have a specific X amount of defense value to counter a pokemon? We want to be able to switch in, take a strong hit, and retaliate in some way, for one pokemon among many. That's a lot of qualifications, but nowhere in there does it say 'must be able to take all kinds of assorted hits repeatedly' that isn't even feasible except for walls. The easier perspective to take is to take the definition of counter more specifically (without total focus on defensive part) and come up with a unique, perhaps novel way to address threats.
 
@Drybones: I don't understand your reasoning - why should we go with Steel + Levitate? There seems no reasoning.

Why are resistances so important to the metagame? Sure, it's nice to resist a lot of types which are used a lot, but just because Steel can do that, we should pick it? Similarly, Normal typing has a lack of resistances, so we should ignore it for that sole reason? That reasoning makes no sense. So what, Steel can resist Flying type, Poison type, Steel type, Ghost type, Psychic type and Dark Type. Big deal - most of the moves of these types aren't often used competitively as attacking types, save Pursuit for Dark type and Toxic for Poison type. A huge slew of effectively useless resistances doesn't mean it's a good typing. It has horrible weaknesses - almost every team can easily deal with Steel types with half the team.

Water typing is the most useful - it has two weaknesses, one of which only being used for countering Swampert. It has a few resistances, but they resist common types - Water, Fire and Ice, with Steel as an add-on. It's useful in that it doesn't take much to combine it with another typing, but equally can be left alone and do well. That's a major plus in my book when looking at a PRIMARY typing.

Steel always seems to need that secondary typing to make it work. Now, I might be wrong, but the in the top 20 threats, almost all of them can run a Steel-countering move in their movesets. Heatran is popular for the Fire/Steel typing being unique, as well as having one of it's weakness made into it's strength due to Flash Fire. Metagross takes neutral damage from CC, which is a godsend considering the potential damage that move can cause.

Meanwhile, Vaporeon is a Bulky Water with only Water typing. It can do the job presented to it well and not worry so much about failing, and similarly, so can Suicune. Plus, Gyarados and Swampert trade one SE hit for 4x in the other, and both remain popular choices in OU.

Resistances are not key - Blissey proves that, as does Tyranitar, who resists a few minor types (Flying; Psychic; Ghost; Normal and Poison) but only one popular move type - Fire, and takes 5 SE hits and 1 4x hit. Yet both are popular and brilliant Pokemon. Inversely, Steelix, which is the first "true" Steel type - one with high defence and able to take hits -, has been relegated to UU for a long time, and even there, it's numerous resistances are outbalanced by it's weaknesses.
 
@Midou: You put words in my mouth. Notice I did not say 'take hits repeatedly'. I said we have to take a hard one switching in. Sure we are only going to be countering a small number of pokes at a time. But to be able to build the Utility into this counter it has to be able to target many different groups though not at the same time. If you want to do that you have to start with a poke that can switch in on almost anything. That is all I said. Water will need a larger investment in the defensive stats to do this. Steel will need to use either its typing or ability to help this. Both are limiting in their own way.

@Seizen: This is CAP. Your water examples are perfect examples of what I said above. They have a lot more investment in their defensive spread and it makes them solid but we will have to do just that to make a WaterCAP solid enough. Once you do that your pokemon is effectively a wall and is no longer as much of an offensive threat since your stats are in your defenses. If steels typing/ability helps make it viable there isn't any problem with that. Our CAP can have a second typing if we want one and it will have an ability of some sort.
 
@shuckle: My second paragraph was not targeting what you posted specifically. Had I offended you or anyone else, it was not my intention.

The only partially untrue thing you said is that water will need a larger investment in the defensive stats to do what steel does. Regarding taking hits from dragon-type attacks, and other types that water does not share a resistances to, yes a higher proportion of defensive stats will need to supplemented for the same effect. The area where this is untrue is the value of the resistances offered by steel in terms of defense potential.

Let's look at the most valuable types that steel resists: dragon, ice, rock, dark, and bug (loosely in that order). Of these 5, water shares the ice resistance, and fighting resists the latter three. When you look at the valuable OU steels, none are monotype and none retain all 5 of these valuable resistances (Heatran, Skarmory, and the bugs comes close, losing rock). Now when these are taken away in order to accommodate for the weaknesses of steel, while adding the OTHER weaknesses of the accomodating types, the durability of steel types begins to crumble. This is yet another reason why steel is not the best choice to cover many different, offensive, groups. Water and Fighting neutrality to these attacks is more valuable in this regard. Remember, just having a high hp stat goes such a long way to providing bulkiness - though looking over the hp stats of the past CAP projects, the majority have above average hp stats, but this is not here nor there.

edit: Posting this unknowingly after Objection's post almost made me lol. Almost, but not really.
 
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