CAP 18 CAP 18 - Part 2 - Typing Discussion

[TeamNormalizer]

I have to agree with Mektar on pretty much every point and throw my support behind Normal/Fire. A lot of these types that are being suggested are quite good as ordinary Pokemon, and, though I'm not familiar enough with teambuilding to think of any particular cores, I'm sure there are plenty that will wind up overshadowing our CAP. One of the goals of this CAP is to increase the usage of Latias and Lucario. That won't happen if something else overshadows that combo, so we have to be careful. Normal/Fire is a mediocre to bad type combination ordinarily, but it works well here, since, as mentioned before, it defeats Aegislash completely and at least resists Fairy moves, and the typing seems like it could be given A Poison move to defeat them, with its fire STAB taking out the Steel/Fairy Pokemon that are immune. It also relies on Latias' Defog to get rid of Stealth Rock, which would otherwise threaten it, and Latias covers its weaknesses to Ground, Fighting, and Water while Lucario covers Rock. Likewise, it covers Latias' weaknesses to Ghost, Bug, Ice, and of course, Fairy.

One other major problem I have with many of the types discussed is that they really don't counter Aegislash very well. We have to remember here that Aegislash is an extremely varied Pokemon capable of running a multitude of different sets, both physical and special-based, and has very solid defenses as well. What this CAP has to be able to do is switch into Aegislash, take an attack, and defeat Aegis before it can defeat the CAP. In order to do that, a Pokemon that does not resist Ghost (which most of the types suggested, including the seeming frontrunner Water/Fire, do not) will have to have very good mixed defenses to be able to take on all of Aegislash's sets. However, it also must be able to knock out Aegislash effectively while it is in Shield Form, as there is really nothing stopping it from changing stance, meaning the CAP will have to have one very strong offensive stat. This makes me worried that the CAP may become broken, with the good typings that are being suggested and stats at least capable of taking an unresisted Shadow Ball or Shadow Claw as well as being able to take a Shadow Sneak afterward and/or OHKO Shield Form. A resistance to Ghost helps reduce this, so I can support some of the part Dark typings suggested, but I really think a Normal typing is the way to go, as it works quite well in practice (I cite Diggersby as an example, as it works extremely well as an Aegislash counter due to its ability to switch into any of Aegislash's attacks and OHKO before it can do anything, taking no damage if predicted correctly).

The two major problems I see with the Normal/Fire typing are its inability to deal with Ground-types and Talonflame. I think this could be fixed pretty easily by giving Latias Surf, which doesn't seem like too much of a stretch.

I think it's the closest we're gonna get to a perfect type combo for this particular project, even though it may not be the absolute best for this core. That's just my two cents though. (On somewhat of a side note, this is my first post in the CAP community, and actually to Smogon in general! I've been lurking a bit in CAP for a while and I'm excited to finally participate!)

 

[Qwilphish]

I agree with DarkSlay in that there is no way that typing alone can cover all of the threats that we wanted to, as per the Concept Assessment. There is no way to do all of the following through typing alone:
1) Threaten Aegislash Offensively (Defensive Threatening is also Preferred)
2) Threaten Fairies (Defensive Threatening is also Preferred)
3) Threaten Ground-types
4) Lure / Threaten Dragons
5) Check FlySpam

That said, we can try and do as many of these things as possible. This is why I support Deck's Dark/Poison typing. By giving us a resistance to Ghost (i.e. Shadow Ball) we free ourselves later on for abilities instead of basically shoehorning ourselves into Bulletproof (possible pole-jump, but I know many who agree that this will likely be the case). Dark is preferred to Normal because... well, Normal sucks and offers almost nothing besides a neutrality to Fairy (which will be addressed later on) and also because it gives us a way to threaten Aegislash offensively since this was the original way in which we wanted to threaten Aegislash anyways. Besides Aegislash, the threat of Ghost-types seemed to have fallen under the radar. Granted there aren't many Ghosts in OU besides Aegislash, other Ghosts (specifically Gengar) significantly threaten this core because Lucario doesn't have the speed nor bulk to survive switching in and Latias gets demolished by Shadow Ball. Dark allows us to basically put all other Ghosts on the back burner and allows us to focus on more pressing issues later on the line.

Poison is a very interesting type that I believe gets overlooked often. Poison works incredibly well with Dark because it neutralizes most of its weaknesses as well as Dark removing the Psychic weakness from Poison. With Poison, we are now able to check most any Aegislash (depending on our bulk), any Ghost, and allows us to both threaten Fairies offensively and defensively which is something that is very difficult to do through later steps as there is no Fairy immunity ability or something of that sort. Poison also has the benefit of having Conkeldurr not automatically donk us through typing alone.

In my opinion, not being able to threaten Ground-types and not being able lure Dragons/FlySpam are the easier problem to fix as they can be relatively mitigated through Ability and Movepool if we want to.

 

[JayHankEdLyon]

More like forget Normal/Ghost. This is is the most ridiculous idea in the thread in my opinion as you are literally ONLY countering Aegislash. In fact, you are hardly countering it, more like forcing it out. You sacrifice potential to check and counter many threats to the core to only focus on ONE single threat which can still hit you, if it runs iron head instead. This is not the idea of a core. You are supposed to protect as many aspects of the core as you can, not just throw away potential to check one single pokemon.

Don't use literally so carelessly, you're gonna hurt yourself. Normal/Ghost takes care of any mon that relies on Fighting/Ghost coverage. Yes, its primary focus is Aegislash (which you may recall is the most prominent threat to the core) but it also resists Bug, which Latias appreciates.

The two biggest threats to the bare-bones Normal/Ghost are Tar and Bisharp, both of which have a nasty 4x weakness to Fighting that can easily be filled by a coverage move. I could go on, but there are all sorts of things that can be added to typing to keep things interesting. Stats matter. Ability matters. Moveset matters. But until we can discuss those more vividly, we may as well pick a typing that's unique and interesting, that happens to counter one of the biggest threats in the game.

(Also, in terms of Aegislash just getting forced out: barring Pursuit, Slash can literally (and this is an ACTUAL literally) switch away from ANY threatening pokemon. And given Pursuit is a move, not a type, I fail to see your point.)

 

[Pata Hikari]

However, it also must be able to knock out Aegislash effectively while it is in Shield Form, as there is really nothing stopping it from changing stance, meaning the CAP will have to have one very strong offensive stat.

Not really no, just as an example:

252+ SpA Charizard Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Aegislash-Shield: 156-186 (48.1 - 57.4%) -- 89.5% chance to 2HKO

Regular Charizard has a SpA of 109, and with just Flamethrower is will still 2HKO most of the time (or all the time with SR) an Aegislash built to be as specially defensive as possible. The CAP could easily have modest attacking stats and still threaten Aegislash from a Super Effective attack.

 

[topher4167]

It's good that we're getting some serious nominations going on, but please, let's stop throwing types up against the wall and hoping something sticks. There's an abundance of proposed types already that could use a lot of discussion. We don't need to see the type chart of these typings anymore; let's get on with the meat of the discussion.

There have been 3 types submitted since Birkal said this. Seriously, unless you think it out a ton (which based on the typings you suggest you obviously aren't)stop submitting typings!!!!! We have tons of typings we still need to talk about, because we need to decide what type to make our CAP!

With that, I would like to make this a useful post as well. I want to throw some more support behind Fire/Water. Fire is unarguably a very good type for this CAP in terms of what we are looking for: it is SE against Aegislash, Klefki, and Mawile, it resists Fairy, and it is weak to Stealth Rocks. This is the perfect combination of pros and cons that we need to make this core useful without making our CAP so powerful as to be useful outside of this core. The only thing needed is to be able to handle Ground types and Talonflame, both of which are handled by the secondary Water typing. Now I know that this makes Azumarill hard to beat, but Azumarill doesn't have much to beat us either. Play Rough is resisted and Water type moves are neutral, and we can certainly get some coverage moves to hit it for at least neutral damage, but this is for a later stage, obviously. So these are some reasons why I support Fire/Water.

 

[FierceDeity1]

I think the two best types right now are Fire/Water and Fire/Electric. It seems like they both give us similar things offensively, the only difference in hitting Grounds or Azumarill, respectively.
I would like to hear what some other (more experienced) people have to sayabout the pros and cons of each type comparatively.

Edit: On a side note, Gastrodon could potentially wall this core with either of the above typings, as it could spread burns or Toxic, and Recover off damage

 

[TeamNormalizer]

Not really no, just as an example:

252+ SpA Charizard Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Aegislash-Shield: 156-186 (48.1 - 57.4%) -- 89.5% chance to 2HKO

Regular Charizard has a SpA of 109, and with just Flamethrower is will still 2HKO most of the time (or all the time with SR) an Aegislash built to be as specially defensive as possible. The CAP could easily have modest attacking stats and still threaten Aegislash from a Super Effective attack.

I see where you're coming from here, but I'm worried about a 2HKO. If that's the case, the CAP will have to have enough defenses to survive 2 Shadow Balls/Shadow Claws (One on the switch-in, one after the first hit) and a Shadow Sneak, since even with just 252 HP evs and no SpD investment something with around 100 SpA will still miss the OHKO, and if the Aegislash has investment in its attacking stat of choice, that may be difficult to do.

 

[ReddyGo]

I have a point about this concept that I don't think has been brought up much, and it's something I wanted to bring up with the discussion of choosing for the Major Third, but never got the chance to. Is there any Pokemon out there that already does fill the role of a third for these two (but just maybe hasn't been found yet)? A lot of people are talking about a Fire/Electric Type, simply because it would carry a Super Effective hit on Aegislash and a Volt Switch, on top of a FlySpam/Fairy resist. Doesn't Rotom-H have all of these things, with a pretty usable Bulk and SpA + Overheat? Plus it has a nifty Ground immunity. What would a new Fire/Electric be able to do that Rotom-H can't already do? Maybe have some form of set-up. I think, when suggesting a typing that already exists, people need to consider what would make CAP excel past the Pokemon that already exist. I'm not saying that we shouldn't use a type combination that already exists, I'm not even saying we shouldn't use Fire/Electric, but I think it's good food for thought.

 

[MudcrabDL]

I know that my opinions here are pretty unpopular. Believe me, I wish we could have a Fairy-type for CAP18. But the previous conversations and ideas do not at all accumulate to supporting the type. I fear that many of the suggestions coming in now are more fanboyish than anything. Unless you have some extremely strong evidence that Fairy-type is conducive to everything we've decided thus far, it is probably best to stow that argument away. Please, let's not take a giant dump on all of our hard work so far.

I'm going to discuss this in relation to the Fire/Fairy typing, because I still think that's the most valid of the typings with Fairy in them. While you're absolutely right in saying that a steel weakness is going to get us nowhere, Fire/Fairy has a neutrality to that, AND a resistance to other fairies. In addition, the fairy typing has been suggested, for the most part, due to the defensive synergy it shares with both members of the core. A dragon immunity is absolutely worthwhile for this project, as Latias will have a lot of trouble taking Dragon Claws on the switch-in, and Lucario, while it does resist these attacks, they're often coming off very high base stats, which means that they can often secure the 2HKO regardless. Not to mention, most dragons have the capacity to carry Fire type coverage moves, which spell absolute destruction for Lucario.

In addition; while Lucario resists Dark, and Latias resists Fighting, there are threats in the metagame, like AV Conkeldurr, that more often than not, carry both, and cannot be dealt with effectively by Lucario OR Latias in the slightest, and will often result in one of them getting picked off; Latias' best option for AV Conk is a psyshock, which will wound, but not KO immediately, and a Knock Off is absolutely debilitating. A fairy typing means that these threats don't need to be played around, they can be dealt with head on.

It also carries a helpful resistance to Bug type attacks, which can help with predicted U-Turns. (Fire/Fairy has a 4x resistance to this.)

I don't believe the Fairy type should be discounted in this CAP: The type doesn't help as significantly when looking at its merits on its own, but as a secondary typing, it adds in a bunch of useful resistances and coverage which supports its position in the core.

On Fire/Fairy: the only weakness it retains from its fairy typing is Poison, which Lucario is entirely immune to, leaving the potential open for a free switch-in. It has a Ground weakness, which Latias is immune to, a Rock weakness, which Lucario is 4x resistant to, and a Water weakness, which Latias is 2x resistant to. As a glue pokemon in this core, it has the opportunity to switch in and out quite happily throughout the match on attacks that would give its teammates trouble (Bug, Fire, Ice, Fairy, Dark, Fighting), and can pass attacks to its teammates that it doesn't want to handle. Offensively, the Fire type is a massive boon to dealing with threats like Aegislash, Scizor, Pinsir, Mawile, Bisharp, and gives it the capacity to run Will-o-Wisp to support its team... while the Fairy typing can deal with opposing dragons, can pick off weakened Tyranitars (or switch to Lucario in anticipation of the Stone Edge), punch a hole in Mandibuzz, and just generally hurt people's feelings.

I feel like there has been a ton of evidence to support this as a typing, which is all I really took exception to; your opinion isn't unpopular, I just don't really understand the negatives that you're inferring about such a typing, mostly just because I haven't seen anyone provide any evidence for that position. As far as I can see, the most significant negative about the typing is its Ground weakness, which, while Latias can switch in, can be run alongside coverage moves that will put a dent in her anyway; for instance, Landoge has been running Knock Off a lot lately, and mostly carries U-Turn, making dealing with Lando-T a big old bucket of prediction clusterloving.

EDIT: Also, a sidenote about the possibility of a Fire/Electric type. If we were to make one, it would automatically have one small niche over Rotom-H: You can run it alongside Rotom-W. Just food for thought.

 

[JayHankEdLyon]

I have a point about this concept that I don't think has been brought up much, and it's something I wanted to bring up with the discussion of choosing for the Major Third, but never got the chance to. Is there any Pokemon out there that already does fill the role of a third for these two (but just maybe hasn't been found yet)? A lot of people are talking about a Fire/Electric Type, simply because it would carry a Super Effective hit on Aegislash and a Volt Switch, on top of a FlySpam/Fairy resist. Doesn't Rotom-H have all of these things, with a pretty usable Bulk and SpA + Overheat? Plus it has a nifty Ground immunity. What would a new Fire/Electric be able to do that Rotom-H can't already do? Maybe have some form of set-up. I think, when suggesting a typing that already exists, people need to consider what would make CAP excel past the Pokemon that already exist. I'm not saying that we shouldn't use a type combination that already exists, I'm not even saying we shouldn't use Fire/Electric, but I think it's good food for thought.

Can't like this post enough. On top of those strengths, it can burn, paralyze, toxic (lol), confuse ray (lol), sleep with hypnosis (biggest lol), trick, and volt switch. Seriously, Rotom-H is incredible.

I'm actually struggling to think of why this CAP exists now, given how perfect Rotom is. Maybe it'd be nice to have a mon that counters fairies more reliably? All Rotom can really do is trick a useless item to try and counter Clefable and Sylveon; it can burn Azumarill, but hates Aqua Jet. It utterly stops Togekiss and Mawile at least, as well a Klefki if we're counting it as a threat.

Fairies do give standard LukeLat trouble, so something with good Poison coverage would be nice offensively. This doesn't necessarily mean we need a Poison-type, but honestly more and more I've liked the idea of Normal/Poison (despite the dismissive flak it's gotten throughout this thread; I guess I just like the underdog?).

Yes, Dark/Poison sounds better initially, but Normal/Poison actually resists Fairy instead of being neutral (as a bonus, it now also resists Bug). It still walls standard Aegislash; better, in fact, as instead of resisting Ghost and being neutral to Fighting, it keeps that neutrality and is now immune to Ghost.

The problem of course is that offensively, Normal/Poison is literally the lowest amount of STAB super effective coverage possible in a dual-type. But if it's played defensively, or has good attributes beyond typing (stats, coverage moves, ability, all that jazz) it's superb at dealing with Aegislash and Fairies.

 

[Project_Mars]

After reading the arguments for it, I do have to admit that Fire/Fairy is definitely the best of the x/Fairy typings proposed for this CAP to accomplish this goal, although the points about Fairy not adding a ton to the resistances for CAP18 that are meaningful is a valid one.

The main thing we need to do in picking a type combo is to probably pick which would be the larger threat to focus on besides Aegislash, the main pokemon that this is supposed to handle. Given that flying-types, fairy-types, and bulky grounds are the three most talked about alternate targets, it seems that they are the types to beat. However covering all three of those and Aegislash with two STABs isnt possible, especially when you consider stuff like Talonflame, which is neutral vs flying and ground's shared Ice Weakness and could strike back with Flare Blitz. So the question is which of those three poses the larger threat to where we would want to tailor CAP18's typing to directly counter for the core and which would we want to discuss about dealing with, if at all, in the ability and movepool stage.

 

[MudcrabDL]

Hmm: on "flying types", that's a bit of a hard thing to counter, considering Flying types can have literally whatever secondary type they want. More accurately, I would say, is we need to deal with Talonflame and Mega Pinsir, as the two users of Flying type priority. The best way to do this, in my opinion, isn't through typing, but moveset, as both those threats can be taken out with their crippling 4x Rocks weakness. As long as our pokemon can A: take a Brave Bird and B: run Rock coverage, and/or set up SR, that shouldn't be a massive issue. More pressing is Fairies and Ground types. As I covered before, Ground and Fairy are an almost unresisted type combo, as anything that resists fairy is weak or at least neutral to ground, unless Levitating or a Flying type. Latias can switch in on ground types, and has the capacity to run ice coverage, so that isn't as significant a concern as Fairy types, which nothing in the core can adequately deal with considering the movesets we're currently going with.

 

[alexwolf]

I have a point about this concept that I don't think has been brought up much, and it's something I wanted to bring up with the discussion of choosing for the Major Third, but never got the chance to. Is there any Pokemon out there that already does fill the role of a third for these two (but just maybe hasn't been found yet)? A lot of people are talking about a Fire/Electric Type, simply because it would carry a Super Effective hit on Aegislash and a Volt Switch, on top of a FlySpam/Fairy resist. Doesn't Rotom-H have all of these things, with a pretty usable Bulk and SpA + Overheat? Plus it has a nifty Ground immunity. What would a new Fire/Electric be able to do that Rotom-H can't already do? Maybe have some form of set-up. I think, when suggesting a typing that already exists, people need to consider what would make CAP excel past the Pokemon that already exist. I'm not saying that we shouldn't use a type combination that already exists, I'm not even saying we shouldn't use Fire/Electric, but I think it's good food for thought.

Set up moves, different stat spread (we could go physical, or we could have more Speed), different ability, better STAB (Overheat is unreliable on a pivot), and actual coverage are all things that can be done to make the CAP very different from Rotom-H.

The reasoning for adding a Fairy typing to Fire has been poor so far. For example:

In addition, the fairy typing has been suggested, for the most part, due to the defensive synergy it shares with both members of the core. A dragon immunity is absolutely worthwhile for this project, as Latias will have a lot of trouble taking Dragon Claws on the switch-in, and Lucario, while it does resist these attacks, they're often coming off very high base stats, which means that they can often secure the 2HKO regardless. Not to mention, most dragons have the capacity to carry Fire type coverage moves, which spell absolute destruction for Lucario.

In addition; while Lucario resists Dark, and Latias resists Fighting, there are threats in the metagame, like AV Conkeldurr, that more often than not, carry both, and cannot be dealt with effectively by Lucario OR Latias in the slightest, and will often result in one of them getting picked off; Latias' best option for AV Conk is a psyshock, which will wound, but not KO immediately, and a Knock Off is absolutely debilitating. A fairy typing means that these threats don't need to be played around, they can be dealt with head on.

You talk about general defensive synergy between Latias + Lucario + CAP, but you don't mention anywhere how the Fairy-typing helps the CAP deal with our threatlist, namely Aegislash, Ground-types, Talonflame, and Fairy-types. And the truth is, that the Fairy typing does nothing to help with our threatlist. It doesn't resist any STAB of the Pokemon we want to switch into, and it doesn't provide super effective hits on any of them. So, while forming a solid core in terms if covering types is good and all, we have created the threat list for a reason, and adding a typing that does nothing to cover those doesn't feel right and isn't the way to go. There is a reason why we didn't include Pokemon such as Conkeldurr in our threat list, and this is because Conkeldurr cannot check neither Lucario nor Latias, and it even loses to Latias one on one, as LO Psyshock OHKOes 75% after SR.

 

[vyomov]

So I created a table for ALL the types we've discussed until now so that everyone can refer to it when shortlisting types

Based on this table, we can see the resists of the types, how they do vs Aegislash and Fairies both offensively, thus giving us an idea as to what type is the best combination to pursue for CAP 18
I hope the image is big enough, I'm sorry if it's too small but I hope it helps everyone!
If there are any errors in the table, please point them out to me and I'll edit the table and change the screenshot accordingly
EDIT: Updated with the changes T-Bolt pointed out, if there are any other errors please PM me and I'll edit them in the screenshot

 

[Bughouse]

OK so I brought up Water/Ground early on (too early) with the intent of it being a versatile type we could tailor to whatever we cared about most. A huge selling point of it indeed was the fact that it only has 1 weakness, Grass, and Grass moves aren't used by much anything that threatens our core except for some Greninja who run HP Grass or Grass Knot. Additionally, it's got a nice Steel resistance, which is very helpful against something like Scizor, and an Electric immunity, which is super helpful against Thundurus, who can definitely also threaten Lucario and Latias if it's using a Physical/Mixed set.

However, there are a number of offensive benefits to Water/Ground as well. First, it has the only Super Effective physical STAB attack on Aegislash that doesn't get destroyed by King's Shield. Earthquake is an amazing move for our CAP to have and to have STAB on (since Aegislash is very bulky.) Yes, we could satisfy this with something like Fire Blast, but I think it's essential for our CAP to be able to hit on the physical side, since Lucario already will and even Latias does too with Psyshock. That's just how most offensive cores tend to work, hammering on the same side of the spectrum to weaken each others checks and counters. It's not necessary, to be sure, but from my perspective, it'd go easiest if we went Physical and EQ is the way to go in that case. The Water STAB plays in too, helping us get around bulky Grounds (Landorus-T, Gliscor, Hippowdon) that Lucario doesn't like without Ice Punch.

So in theory, Water/Ground can help Lucario have the space to run Iron Tail to slaughter Fairies and some Mega Venusaur by covering Aegislash and the Bulky Grounds. As an additional benefit, Water/Ground is incredibly likely to attract Grass-types. And Ferrothorn, Mega Venusaur, and Breloom are all well dealt with by Lucario and Latias.

Finally, for the eventual success of the core, it's incredibly important that our CAP not be good against things that other Physical sweepers need removing. For example, if this CAP is good against Skarmory and Rotom-W, why would it be partnered with Lucario rather than Mega Pinsir? This typing is horrible against Rotom-W and possibly ineffective against Skarmory too (unless it has high SpA) which I think are vital to keeping CAP 18 in line with Lucario and Latias rather than a different more established core.

 

[Torty73]

Ok. I gonna go through the list and give some input.

electric/poison. Lucario is weak to ground. While latios is immune it, Garchomp will wreck this core, if it can switch in.

electric/fire. Same as for electric/poison, but it is a little better at dealing with Aegislash. However, it can kill talonflame.

electric/ground. Not keen on water or ice. Bit of a one trick aegislash killer. Weak to Azumarill and ice type attacks are common.

electric/dark. Hates fairies and fighting types, which is pretty awful.

electric/fairy. Certainly the only usable typing of the 5 electric type ones. still hates garchomp, as do all its electric brethren but could deal with if it had the right stats. However it can deal with talonflame.

fire/fairy. has a lot in common with electric fairy, the only difference being it can handle Aegislash better, but hates Azumarill

fire/ice. Weak to rock, water, fighting and ground. whatever the merits, The typing is awful. another one trick Aegislash killer.

fire/water. This a great typing, It can deal with Aegislash and gets good synergy with the other two, covering weaknesses well. Not keen on the ground weakness, however, as it is weak to garchomp.

fire/normal. All the normal typing does is add a fighting type weakness and a ghost immunity. Still, not a awful typing, but their is better.

fairy/dark. A dragon and psychic immunity is great, but it will struggle to counter fairies and Aegislash can iron head it.

fairy/poison. I don't think this thing will kill Aegislash.

fairy/steel. Mavile 2.0 is great, but Mavile makes it redundant.

normal/ghost. While good on the outside, it only exists to cover for the pairs weaknesses, and it will is a one trick Aegislash killer.

normal/poison. I don't think this thing will kill Aegislash if it has iron head, nor much else.

steel/flying. This is a great idea, but what would it have over skarmory.

dark/flying. while it looks good in theory, it has awful fairy and ice type weaknesses effecting the synergy in the core.

water/flying. this is another good typing and deals with talonflame, garchomp and Azumarill. it provides great synergy in the core, and with the right moves, could be quite good.

poison/dark. This is good as well, and only has one weakness, ground. still, remember Garchomp.

poison/steel. This is ok, but the ground weakness is crippling and isn't great at dealing with Aegislash.

I sure someone is going to disagree with me, but that's life.

 

[pkmn-taicho321]

I just want to pop in here to post, why would people want Normal/ Fire? Offensively the coverage is lacking, It's weak to SR, which pretty much forces Latias into a Defogger role, or forces you to use another Pokemon on your team for said role. Aegislash isn't even "beaten" by the typing, as he can still run Scared Sword, and besides coverage there's nothing going for this type against Fairy.

I think Deck Knight proposed Poison/ Dark, which i really love as a typing to provide some offensive hurt to a lot of the threats that plague Luke/ Latias (should totally call this combo "Luke, Leia". Just about the only thing this typing really needs to worry about is Earthquakes which can be taken care of with Air Balloon or an ability if it become too problematic.

I have also entertained Fairy/ Poison, though I have no idea who suggested that one. The Fairy STAB would do nicely against Conk, who could otherwise scare out Lucario and Knock Off on Latias.

 

[Jewvia]

Looking at the list vyomov posted, I would like to give my support to Poison/Dark, Fire/Water and Electric/Fire. I was originally not sure if the latter would be effective, due to the 4X weakness to ground, which is a very common OU offensive typing which Lucario is also weak to, but there are ways around it, such as Gravity, Air Balloon, Levitate, and Ice Beam/Punch, which can be carried by either core mate, for those who receive STAB from Ground. The other two are also weak to Ground, but to a lesser extent. Especially Fire/Water, which can try to fend them of with Super Effective Water STAB.

 

[jas61292]

Well, it seems to me that discussion here might be winding down a bit, so I'm going to go ahead and put out a 24 hour warning on this thread.

But, before this is closed up and a slate made, I definitely want to give some feedback on some of the proposed typings. A few typings that have been proposed, such as Fire/Water, Electric/Fire and Poison/Dark, have been getting a good amount of discussion, with most of it being positive, so I don't have too much to say about those right now. Rather, I would like to speak a bit about typings that have gotten a bit more of a mixed response so far, such as Normal/Ghost, Fire/Fairy, among others.

I think one of the biggest problems that people are having when trying to make arguments for these typings is that they are not fully acknowledging the first part of this thread where we discussed what exactly we wanted out of our type. While there was a lot of different things we would love for our type to do, as I said in my last post, it seem that the general community consensus was that we wanted to try and achieve these goals in an offense first manner. Many of the more fringe typings seem to have the problem that their supporters arguments are overly defense oriented.

Normal/Ghost, for example, is not the worst coverage ever, and certainly does hit Aegislash super effectively, but I'm not sure either type would be much use offensively beyond that. Maybe they would have some use, but from what I have read here, the vast majority of what people have said focuses on being immune to Aegislash, which does not really take into account the more offensive way we decided we wanted to go about this.

I think this problem is even more severe for Fire/Fairy, where, while again we have the STAB to hit Aegislash, beyond that, almost every single argument people have made for it has been about its quality as a defensive typing. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it does not have nice resists. But that is not really how we said we wanted to go about things here. When actually looking at the typing in the context of putting the pressure on some of our chosen targets, the pro Fire/Fairy arguments have really not done a lot to show why that typing would be the superior choice over the many other part Fire options out there.

If supporters of types such as these want to see the types make it to a poll, you are going to need to better show why these typings are desirable from an offensive point of view, and how they are not outclassed by similar choices.

So, with that said, for these last 24 hours, I'd like it if people could refrain from proposing anything new, and instead talk more about some of the proposed typings that have not seen as much discussion, such as Poison/Electric, Normal/Fire, Steel/Flying, Dark/Flying and the recently proposed Water/Ground. Of course, any further arguments for any of the other types I mentioned above are also welcome.

 

[MudcrabDL]

There is a reason why we didn't include Pokemon such as Conkeldurr in our threat list, and this is because Conkeldurr cannot check neither Lucario nor Latias, and it even loses to Latias one on one, as LO Psyshock OHKOes 75% after SR.

Conk can take up to 90% from LO Latias, and SR does 6%. Knock Off has an 80% chance to OHKO back, or on the switch, and Drain Punch massively hurts Lucario. And Conk is a top 30 pokemon, which I've been using as the threatlist. But I'm done pushing this until I have a chance to sit down and make a proper argument, there have been other types suggested which I haven't contributed to discussing.

From that type comparison, Electric/Poison actually looks very good. A lot of useful resists, and can reliably counter Talonflame, however keep in mind Pinsir nearly invariably runs EQ, so anything designed to counter bird offense can't really take that risk. Still a good typing, particularly with Levitate. Fire/Water also looks good, but I'm a bit reluctant to fill a niche that looks like it'll be filled by Volcanion and possibly outclassed when that is introduced: other than that it does appear to do very well.

I feel that if Aegislash is that high on our priorities, we should be looking at types that have a STAB that is super effective, and a secondary type that resists.

 

[alexwolf]

Conk can take up to 90% from LO Latias, and SR does 6%. Knock Off has an 80% chance to OHKO back, or on the switch, and Drain Punch massively hurts Lucario. And Conk is a top 30 pokemon, which I've been using as the threatlist. But I'm done pushing this until I have a chance to sit down and make a proper argument, there have been other types suggested which I haven't contributed to discussing.

From that type comparison, Electric/Poison actually looks very good. A lot of useful resists, and can reliably counter Talonflame, however keep in mind Pinsir nearly invariably runs EQ, so anything designed to counter bird offense can't really take that risk. Still a good typing, particularly with Levitate. Fire/Water also looks good, but I'm a bit reluctant to fill a niche that looks like it'll be filled by Volcanion and possibly outclassed when that is introduced: other than that it does appear to do very well.

I feel that if Aegislash is that high on our priorities, we should be looking at types that have a STAB that is super effective, and a secondary type that resists.

The best spread and the one that is suggested in Conkeldurr's analysis is 4 Def / 252 Atk / 252 SpD, which has a 75% chance to get OHKOed after SR by Psyshock.

 

[MudcrabDL]

Huh. I've never seen a build that prioritizes the individual defenses over HP. I guess that has to do with Assault Vests mechanics? Oh well, point taken. SR is still not guaranteed to be up, considering we're focusing on Defog Latias. Fire/fairys main selling point is as an all around 'screw you' to fighting/dark, protecting the core from prediction shenanigans, but there are more significant threats to the core that should take precedence.

I'm actually starting to like Normal/Ghost. It does crap all over Aegislash, and Normal type has a lot of versatility: we could even go the Lickilicky niche and give it Explosion, which can bring Lucario in safely to clean up, or eliminate a threat. Being Pursuit weak hurts, but only significantly if you switch out, and with normal types coverage, we could really make it deal with whatever the hell it wants to. It doesn't share the defensive synergy that other typings have, but if it's bulky enough, it could be really worthwhile, hitting most things at least neutrally. It would make a really interesting pokemon to consider, with 3 immunities that don't need to be applied to merely Aegislash, the amount of stuff with Fighting type coverage like Superpower can give some free switchins, though I wouldn't be able to tell you how that would function within the core itself: Azumarill would rather Play Rough, and Scizor...actually, maybe Scizor on Lucario. I don't believe it's a one trick Aegislash killer, just because Normal types utility is so immense: it merely starts off as an Aegislash counter, and we can work out the rest of its utility from there, with several guaranteed switchouts. Or just no Aegislash in CAP.

On Talonflame and Pinsir, the major issue is that every type that resists Flying is weak to Ground, which ties into our problem with Grounds and Fairies: every singular type that resists Fairy is also weak to Ground. The type that has no troubles with any of these is Steel/Flying, which can't handle Flare Blitz. If we want to deal with the birds, Ground types and Fairies all at once defensively, we're almost necessitated to use Levitate at the Ability stage and twist ourselves into some serious knots typing wise. Electric/Poison seems like the best option for this calling, only hit neutrally by Fire. Poison/Steel with Levitate is...empirically worse with this in mind, sadly.

 

[Clankenator007]

Normal/Ghost, for example, is not the worst coverage ever, and certainly does hit Aegislash super effectively, but I'm not sure either type would be much use offensively beyond that. Maybe they would have some use, but from what I have read here, the vast majority of what people have said focuses on being immune to Aegislash, which does not really take into account the more offensive way we decided we wanted to go about this.

I whole-heartedly agree that CAP wants to go a more offensive route, but I disagree that Normal/Ghost hinders that.

Firstly, I want to point out that Ghost is a great offensive STAB to be packing. The fact that we're having so much trouble deciding on a perfect type to tank Aegislash's mighty shadow balls is proof enough of that. The only things that stop Ghost are Normal and Dark, of which there are only 5 in OU (I don't count Greninja because he can't switch in on anything and isn't a dark type half the time). No, Normal doesn't add much more coverage, but it does narrow down the list of resists down to Tyranitar and Bisharp, who are both wrecked by Lucario. Honestly I don't think having only two Pokemon who resist your STAB is bad for an offensive Pokemon at all, especially when both of them have a 4x weakness to a common type.

Secondly, I'd like to explain how giving CAP a defensive type actually helps us make a better offensive Pokemon. The key thing going for Normal/Ghost is that it is immune to both of Aegislash's most common attacking types- Ghost and Fighting. The problem with only resisting these is that Aegislash still hits really fricking hard, and even with the resist we will have to beef up CAP's defenses to take those hits. And unless we're going to be OK with making CAP a 600 BST mon or riding BSR's like it's gen 4 every point in defenses means a point not put into offenses. Now I'm not saying that we should or could make CAP a glass cannon but taking no damage at all from Aegislash certainly gives us a lot more freedom to put points into offense and forgo a little defense.

So no, Normal/Ghost is no Ground/Fairy but it's coverage really isn't that bad, and ghost moves are very easily spammable. It may not hit much super-effectively but the great neutral coverage and the room to put more stat points into offense without being broken more than makes up for that, at least in my opinion.

 

[Minnakht]

I'm not good at this, so I'll just drop in to suggest something.

There is a Fire/Electric Pokemann with good stats, and it's called Rotom-H. While it levitates, so it's a little different from a Fire/Electric without such an ability, people could actually try running teams with Lucario, Latias and Rotom-H as a core - and maybe some information could be gained from that. Maybe. I don't know.

This is just my opinion, but I am in favor of a Fire type here. It gives a SE hit against Aegislash, for all that's worth, and against Mega Pinsir, for all that's worth, and it eats burns that... Lucario wouldn't enjoy, I suppose? Meanwhile, Lucario eats Toxics, so that's... switch-in opportunities, or something. Am I making sense?
No idea what'd be a good secondary type. Electric is a little redundant with Rotom-H, but then we can find out what do we want from Rotom-H that it doesn't and make CAP18 do so. Fairy is a type that we'd all like to slap on everything. Poison is a type. I don't know.

Huh. I've never seen a build that prioritizes the individual defenses over HP. I guess that has to do with Assault Vests mechanics?

Might be related to Conk running Drain Punch a lot.

 

[Mektar]

When I suggested a Normal/Fire typing, the idea was that Normal types have access to a wide array of coverage moves, which could be used to check most, if not all, problematic Pokémon. As an example, the offensively-useless Blissey nevertheless has all of Boltbeam, Flamethrower, EQ, Rock Slide, Shadow Ball, Psychic, Iron Tail, Focus Miss, and Water Pulse in its movepool. Even without the extra STAB, our CAP would have no trouble performing if it were to have even half of that selection.

As for some of the other proposed types, if we want to approach this from an offensive perspective, Water/Ground actually seems like a great option, as the combination of the two types is only resisted by Grass, and you would probably switch into Latias immediately if one were to show up anyway. In fact, according to the list of Pokémon that see high usage in OU posted by shinyskarmory earlier, the only two Grass types that see major usage are Venusaur and Ferrothorn, both of which get owned by Latias. I'm too lazy to do calcs, but I assume that Venusaur gets 2HKOd by Psychic/Psyshock, and that Ferrothorn simply doesn't work when we have a Defog user.