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I'm think we're ready for this type of discussion. The purpose of this thread is to discuss CAP25's three secondary typings, which will be led by none other than yours truly, EpicUmbreon29! Please read his posts carefully, and do not start posting typing combinations until he says so.
NEW: This is a Celebration CAP, meaning that we are going out of our way to break some rules. We'll be creating a set of three Pokemon this time around, a set of Fire, Water, and Grass-type starters! You can read exactly which rules we'll be breaking here and the logic behind Celebration CAPs here. Give these a read-through to get some context.
CAP25's framework and concept are contained in the project summary at the end of the post. Please find reachzero's concluding post from the concept assessment below.
That's all for Concept Assessment! We have agreed to build CAP 25f as an primarily offensive Pokemon, CAP 25w as a primarily defensive Pokemon, and CAP 25g as a specialized Pokemon, with offensive or defensive focus taking a back seat in the face of the challenge of differentiation.
Here is our list of abilities that lie outside the scope of our concept.
Dry Skin
Flash Fire
Sap Sipper
Lightning Rod
Motor Drive
Storm Drain
Volt Absorb
Water Absorb
Guts
Flare Boost
Toxic Boost
Bulletproof
Soundproof
Aftermath
Clear Body
Cute Charm
Damp
Dancer
Defeatist
Effect Spore
Filter
Fluffy
Forewarn
Heatproof
Hyper Cutter
Immunity
Innards Out
Inner Focus
Insomnia
Iron Barbs
Limber
Liquid Ooze
Magma Armor
Moxie
Mummy
Natural Cure
Overcoat
Poison Point
Rattled
Rough Skin
Sand Rush
Sand Veil
Shield Dust
Solid Rock
Static
Steadfast
Sticky Hold
Sweet Veil
Thick Fat
Unnerve
Vital Spirit
Weak Armor
Our next step up will be the Typing Stage, led by our fearless Typing Leader, EpicUmbreon29!
Description: This CAP is not one Pokemon, but three seperate Pokemon, based off of a Grass/Water/Fire starter trio.
Explanation: There is rarely such thing as a competitively viable starter Pokemon in the OU metagame, rare exceptions being Serperior, Greninja, and Blaziken for their insanely powerful abilities, and Infernape for his speed and movepool. Running three seperate CAP Processes with different Concepts can be loads of fun, and a nice way to celebrate CAP with our own starter trio! I'd love to see what the artists can come up with, and what pre-evos will be made alongside this trio, as well.
I've spoken to Birkal about this framework, and I've decided that this framework would definitely limit the Typing stage of each CAP, but not necessarily limit the Abilities stages, as Overgrow, Torrent, and Blaze aren't very competitively viable, and not necessarily limit the Stats stages, as starter trios tend not to share the same BSTs, giving us flexibility with where and how we want to place stats, especially with each "starter" most likely having a different concept from the others.
Possible Questions:
Is it possible to create a fully competitively viable Grass/Water/Fire trio?
What can be learned from a trio of Pokemon that will mostly likely check, if not counter, each other in a Rock Paper Scissors manner?
Exactly what does it take to create a fully competitively viable starter trio, something unprecedented in all of official, competitive Pokemon?
Of course, feedback is all but begged for as we work to flesh out this framework!
Name - Astounding Ability Actualization (Triple A)
Description - These Pokemon each maximize the potential of their given, separate abilities by coordinating their movepools and that ability's competitive effect.
Justification - This is an Actualization concept much like Cyclohm's original "Neglected Ability." In my research on what made Pokemon with "Starter Level" stats effective, the common denominator was they all had abilities they used to full effect with their other competitive aspects. This framework gives us a unique opportunity to A-B test some fairly powerful abilities we usually shy away from and bring out an effective competitive starter trio.
Questions To Be Answered -
Which Abilities are best suited to a full, comprehensive exploration of their specific mechanics?
Why does Ability seem to be the common factor in taking "starter-esque" Pokemon into prominence (e.g. Protean and Battle Bond Greninja, Contrary Serperior, Speed Boost Blaziken to Ubers, etc.)
What is the threshold where maximizing an ability goes toi far, such as Blaziken's combination of Swords Dance, strong attack and mid-grade speed, and high BP STABS with Speed Boost or Protean Greninja's huge speed and just-varied enough movepool in prior Generations?
How will introducing three specialized Pokemon into the metagame at once impact it overall?
Which type combinations along with the starter types are best suited to maximizing the potential of a specific ability, and why?
Explanation - Competitive Pokemon has suffered from a massive power creep for a long time. In order for a Pokemon to be effective, not only does it have to be fairly good generally, it also can't be directly outclassed. Considering our Framework, our Pokemon are already competing against Heatran/Volcarona, Toxapex/Keldeo/Greninja, and Ferrothorn/Kartana for offensive or defensive roles. However, each of those Pokemon have their own flaws that give our FWG CAP Trio space to explore if we are focused on a key niche for each of them.
Let's take Grass for example, and Tough Claws. Tough Claws boosts one of the most incredibly CAP-relevant moves, Grass Knot, because it is a special contact attack. Only Mega Metagross ever even came close to utilizing this combination, and Mega-Meta was banned (for other reasons, of course). Grass could also use it's huge number of healing options with Triage, including priority Strength Sap that even outruns Bullet Punch. Nearly every Fire attack has a secondary effect chance perfect for Serene Grace or Sheer Force. Water has a few specific moves that would also love Serene Grace, but would also appreciate breaking through Gastrodon and Mollux with Mold Breaker. Suffice it to say, this concept gives us an ability to meet our Framework demands and think through a huge combination of synergistic types and abilities in a single project.
Hiya all y'all! Welcome to CAP 25 Typing Discussion!
Here, we'll be determining the first concrete details of our soon-to-be trio (well, aside from the concrete details that were already decided via Framework), and as such, this discussion will be important to set the tone for the remainder of the concrete competitive stages! I know there were many out there who had hoped to see Ability Discussion come first, myself included, but in order to best fit the specific needs of this CAP Process we will be proceeding in our usual fashion. I look forward to the great discussion to come! After carefully evaluating our position, I have a few basic questions that will serve as a guide for this conversation and that will benefit the process as ordered.
1 (Grass). What are some underexplored types that have the potential to allow us to create an as-of-yet unseen niche for CAP 25g? How does this typing help us to explore our concept?
1 (Fire). What types have healthy STAB movepools that they can coordinate with eligible abilities for offensive use? What types might be better suited to coordinate with an eligible ability as non-STAB coverage, due to their faults defensively or otherwise, and why?
1 (Water). What types can make effective use of defensively-oriented moves that coordinate with eligible abilities?
2. What types place the most restrictions on our list of potential abilities? Are these types worth discussing anyway, if they can avoid pigeonholing us into only one or two viable options? What types leave the most variety available?
3. Based on their primary types and decided roles, which members of our trio will need a more versatile second typing to be viable? What is it that makes a typing versatile?
4. Given our BST limitations, how can we intelligently use typing in order to prevent our starter trio from being outclassed by similar Grass, Fire, and Water Pokemon, even if they should share a somewhat similar role? Read: how can we use typing to carve out a new role in the CAP metagame?
A few very important notes:
You can focus on CAP 25g, 25f, or 25w one at a time in your posts if you wish; do not feel pressured to tackle all three at once. Similarly, answer as many or as few questions as you wish at a time.
Monotyping is allowed, as is the use of Grass, Fire, and Water as secondary types.
CAP 25g, 25f, and 25w are all being discussed, voted on, and released into the CAP Metagame at the same time, and it is legal to use known variables about them in reasoning for or against certain typings; thus, while you can talk about how the secondary typing of CAP 25x affects its matchup against CAP25y's primary type in this stage, for example, you should not jump to any conclusions about how it affects CAP25y's secondary type. It should be clarified that, while voting happens simultaneously, the voting outcomes will not be linked to each other.
Because our primary types have already been determined, and because CAP 25 is more expansive than scale than any past project, I am making the decision to allow discussion on specific type combinations, effective immediately. This will help us focus our discussion by eliminating unnecessary uncertainty in answering the questions above.
Poll-jumping is a serious offense and will not be taken lightly. Do not focus your post around the use of a certain ability, an exact stats spread, a specific set of moves, etc. Posts will be moderated if they are found to violate this rule.
For Fire, two combos stand out to me. Those are Fire/Electric and Fire/Flying. Both combos have strong offensive coverage together and have multiple ability options. I’m more familiar with the latter, so I’ll say options for it include the taboo Regenerator, a weird-ish Gluttony, and my personal favorite, Rock Head/Reckless.
For Water, I want Water/Steel. It is a defensive combo that most notably deals with things like Mega Crucibelle. It also doesn’t have any ties to abilities, meaning it’s arguably one of the most versatile combos in terms of abilities.
1 (Fire). What types have healthy STAB movepools that they can coordinate with eligible abilities for offensive use? What types might be better suited to coordinate with an eligible ability as non-STAB coverage, due to their faults defensively or otherwise, and why?
Alright, so uhh, I kinda just looked through abilities and looked at whatever might work together pretty well with Fire/Fighting. And moves too. I present to you, the list of Fire/Fighting. Dont kill me for my choice.
Italics indicates I considered it worse then the others but it was still a thing.
1 (Grass). What are some underexplored types that have the potential to allow us to create an as-of-yet unseen niche for CAP 25g? How does this typing help us to explore our concept?
I think Grass/Electric could be an interesting type combination because
None of the actual offensive Grass-type in OU has a STAB move can deal with Flying-types (Necturna can get coverage via Sketch, but it's highly unlikely.
Grass and Electric STAB moves that have a good amount of interactions with abilities like healing moves (Parabolic Charge, Horn Leech, Giga Drain, Synthesis, Leech Seed) moves with secondary status effects (Energy Ball, Thunderbolt, Thunder, Needle Arm, Zing Zap, Volt Tackle) recoil moves (Wild Charge, Volt Tackle, Wood Hammer) moves with low BP -which is specifically for Technician- (Magical Leaf, Bullet Seed, Charge Beam, Electroweb) some interesting status moves that can interact with abilities like Aroma Veil to use them with consistency or Compounded Eyes due to the shaky accuracy of some of them (Aromatherapy, Leech Seed, Thunder Wave, Sleep Powder, Stun Spore and probably others I can't remember right now) and low accuracy moves (Zap Cannon, Stun Spore, Grass Whistle, Sleep Power, Thunder, Power Whip) so we have a good amount of options for abilities can cover offensive or defensive aspects.
As a defensive typing it's usable due to the x4 resistances to Electric and resistances to Steel, Grass and Water, and in the offensive aspect it's pretty usable as well due to how good is Electric STAB and the fact Grass STAB is actually not bad at all. The typing itself can help to carve a niche in whichever role we decide to choose.
1:30 AM thoughts klaxon! Will probably edit this Soon™
1 (Grass). What are some underexplored types that have the potential to allow us to create an as-of-yet unseen niche for CAP 25g? How does this typing help us to explore our concept?
Two types currently stand out to me - Grass/Normal and Grass/Electric.
Grass/Normal has a niche purely in the fact that we can tailor it to tackle Shell Smash Necturna without even considering our Ability - Sawsbuck gives an example of the sort of stats you would expect on that front. This improves our ability to examine our concept by virtue of giving us options to explore later down the line, whilst already securing us a first niche.
Grass/Electric provides a solid niche, again from typing, in that it's only current option is limited to Hidden Power and Leaf Storm when it comes to Grass-type moves. Grass/Electric also has a solid amount of synergy in terms of it's STAB Offensive Movepools - Recoil Moves, High % Effect Moves, Damaging Healing Moves, and High-Damage Low-Accuracy moves. This means we have multiple options which help both typings when we approach our ability choices - in addition to those choices only effecting one side primarily.
1 (Fire). What types have healthy STAB movepools that they can coordinate with eligible abilities for offensive use? What types might be better suited to coordinate with an eligible ability as non-STAB coverage, due to their faults defensively or otherwise, and why?
Fire has a decent number of 'weird' moves (Shell Trap, Burn Up), but moves which have something we can build upon are broadly Blaze Kick (High Crit), Fire Lash (Defense Lowering), Flame Charge (+Speed), Flare Blitz (Recoil), Eruption (HP --> BP), Fiery Dance (+SpA), Fire Spin (Trapping) Inferno (100% Burn), Mystical Fire (SpA Lower) and Overheat (Self-Weakening). Whilst most of Fire is 10% Burn, that's actually a lot of options we have to hand here.
Fire/Flying has been raised on this one, and with good reason. There is overlap including High Power Inaccurate Moves and Recoil Options, though perhaps not as much as you might expect.
Fire/Fighting (yes I know ANOTHER ONE) has some solid pairs - self-weakening moves, high crit rate moves, and recoil moves are all available, and each can be partnered off well.
1 (Water). What types can make effective use of defensively-oriented moves that coordinate with eligible abilities?
This is the trickiest of the three questions at the moment - our Bulky Water's typing determines what sort of matchups we can win. For instance, something like Water/Dragon can block out a Volkraken, but we risk losing on that niche to Gastrodon. We can also consider something that is generically going to be bulky such as Water/Steel, just allowing us to have multiple resisted switch ins. After all, if we die before we can use our moves, we won't be making effective usage of those moves.
2. What types place the most restrictions on our list of potential abilities? Are these types worth discussing anyway, if they can avoid pigeonholing us into only one or two viable options? What types leave the most variety available?
I think Fairy subtypes are ridiculously limiting to this concept - with many of it's STAB options locked as legendary exclusive, there is little that can be done with it's miniscule 6 Offensive Options - of which maybe 3 (Moonblast, Draining Kiss, Play Rough) have any value in examining for a concept like this.
1 (Grass). What are some underexplored types that have the potential to allow us to create an as-of-yet unseen niche for CAP 25g? How does this typing help us to explore our concept?
1 (Fire). What types have healthy STAB movepools that they can coordinate with eligible abilities for offensive use? What types might be better suited to coordinate with an eligible ability as non-STAB coverage, due to their faults defensively or otherwise, and why?
1 (Water). What types can make effective use of defensively-oriented moves that coordinate with eligible abilities?
Going from the top, I feel like Grass/Flying could be an interesting Type for us to explore with CAP25g. Grass/Flying has strong STAB coverage, only really missing out on Steel Types and a handful of other things, it has useful resistances to Fighting, Water, Grass and an immunity to Ground, amd weaknesses to Ice, Flying, Poison, Rock and Fire. While it's weaknesses are, admittedly, pretty bad, it's resistance to, and Super-Effective coverage over, common Fighting, Water, Grass and Ground Types strikes me as a potentially useful niche that could be filled, switching in on predicted moves it resists, and forcing out or eliminating opposing Fighting/Water/Grass/Ground Types.
If we're talking about healthy STAB Movepools, I feel like Fire/Rock is an exceptional Type, especially with our Concept of coordinating Moves and Ability. Fire/Rock is hard to beat for an offensive Typing, and while it is weak to common Ground, Water, Fighting and Rock Type attacks, it also several useful resistances in Flying, Poison, Bug, Ice, Fairy, Fire, and, for what it's worth, Normal Types, giving it a lot of room to switch in and get to work. Both have plentiful high-powered moves to choose from on both ends of spectrum (Well, for Fire anyway), such as Flare Blitz/Head Smash, Stone Edge, Flame Thrower/Power Gem (it's weak, but not completely useless), Fire Blast, etc., etc.
Squidy822 said:
Alright, so uhh, I kinda just looked through abilities and looked at whatever might work together pretty well with Fire/Fighting. And moves too. I present to you, the list of Fire/Fighting. Dont kill me for my choice.
I'm not going to kill you (can't speak for anyone else, though lol), but I personally don't think we stand to learn anything new from Fire/Fighting. Is it a solid Type combination? Absolutely. Without a doubt. Problem is, we've had three of 'em, one that was to good, one that was pretty good, and one that sucked, and I don't think we need a fourth. That's just me though.
Finally, Water/Poison strikes me as a splendid defensive Typing for CAP25w. Sporting only three weaknesses (Ground, Electric and Psychic) and eight resistances (Fighting, Poison, Bug, Steel, Fire, Water, Ice and Fairy), Water/Poison can wall an awful lot of things, while offering us lots of opportunity for supporting/utility/disruptive moves to coordinate with, especially on the Poison side of things.
--
Also, I have to agree with Dogfish44, Fairy is a no-go for this Concept. Besides the fact that we just did one, it has little to nothing to coordinate with, unless we're ok with requiring Pixilate and Hyper Voice later on. Personally, I'm not cool with that, but as I've said before, that's just me.
I'm not going to kill you (can't speak for anyone else, though lol), but I personally don't think we stand to learn anything new from Fire/Fighting. Is it a solid Type combination? Absolutely. Without a doubt. Problem is, we've had three of 'em, one that was to good, one that was pretty good, and one that sucked, and I don't think we need a fourth. That's just me though.
Finally, Water/Poison strikes me as a splendid defensive Typing for CAP25w. Sporting only three weaknesses (Ground, Electric and Psychic) and eight resistances (Fighting, Poison, Bug, Steel, Fire, Water, Ice and Fairy), Water/Poison can wall an awful lot of things, while offering us lots of opportunity for supporting/utility/disruptive moves to coordinate with, especially on the Poison side of things.
1. Yes, we've had 3 before. However, did they really have the coordination between ability and moves and typing like we're doing? Well, Emboar had flare blitz and wild charge coverage, Infernape had...Mach Punch. I guess. And Blaziken's Speed Boost was just plain ow.
2. I find your point against Fire/Fighting ironic since you kinda just mentioned Toxapex. Just saying.
Water/Poison can make good use of recovery moves due to its immunity to toxic poisoning, and its many meta-relevant resistances. It also by default has more access to moves that work with toxic poisoning, which are a way that defensive pokemon can help their trainer in a battle.
1 (Fire). What types have healthy STAB movepools that they can coordinate with eligible abilities for offensive use? What types might be better suited to coordinate with an eligible ability as non-STAB coverage, due to their faults defensively or otherwise, and why?
Fire/Electric is a very good offensive type, with Electric-type only adding a weakness to ground. But since our fire type is not defensive, making the weakness to ground even bigger is unlikely to make a difference to many of our matchups. In return, it gets two types with much in common - each having a characteristic status (paralysis/burn) and moves that reflect that similarity. The many resistances (fire, grass, fairy, flying, steel, ice, bug) help it switch in and act as an offensive pivot.
Fire/Rock is also a good combination, resisted mainly by Gastrodon and Zygarde . The type's weaknesses mostly don't matter for an offensive fire type, and fire and rock also share many kinds of moves in common.
To me it's easiest to explore what HAS been explored, to somewhat rule it out:
We have two somewhat successful mono-grasses in CAP already (Serperior and Tangela). While we could certainly explore how to make a successful mono-grass 'mon, it will be tough to replace or work alongside those two given our concept imo.
We have had numerous extremely successful Grass/Steel (Ferrothorn, Kartana) and Grass/Fairy (Jumbao, Tapu Bulu) Pokemon. Despite having great defensive resistsand a few key moves that can synergize with pro-concept abilities, I'd think those typings will make it near-impossible to create a Pokemon that occupies a unique niche and differentiates itself well.
Grass/Poison is extremely common, and why it succeeds or fails is well-documented in CAP superstars like Amoongus and Venusaur-M in the "pro" side, and with every other Grass/Poison 'mon littering PU on the "fail" side.
The remaining Grass types in the CAP meta are Grass/Fire (Pyroak), Grass/Ghost (Necturna), and Grass/Dark (Malaconda, and only barely and due to sheer stubborness on our part). Seeing as how two of those are CAP pokemon and not Gamefreak 'mons and the third typing has had a ton of looks in Gen 6 and 7 including the actual Gen 7 starter, part of me feels it'd be best to leave those typings alone as well, although I don't want to rule Dark typing out entirely due to its power as an anti-Prankster typing for a utility 'mon.
From there, Grass is one of the few types were thanks to CAP (and Pyroak), EVERY secondary typing has at least one example, with only Grass/Electric as a technicality (since it only exists in the form of Rotom-Mow). A few typings we could explore more that stand out to me, however, are...
Grass/Electric is an intriguing typing, as there is potential there for a tanky special attacker or a fast special attacker that murders water types super hard. There's also potential there as some sort of utility 'mon , specifically one that could absorb status, spread status, or break stall. There are a few attacks present in both typings that can be greatly enhanced by some pro-concept abilities. We don't have a true Grass/Electric type, so that's nice and new as well. The drawback is that while we may make a Pokemon different than most Grass-types, it does compete with Jumbao as an anti-water type and possibly with other offensive set-up and self-recovery mons, and it loses its Ground resistance. I personally think it's pivotal to keep a ground resist if we can, as currently a full half of useful Grass mons in the meta don't actually resist Ground due to secondary typing and we'd have a great niche in being able to.
I'd also propose Grass/Dragon. The abilities that stand out for such a typing are super obvious and would probably orient us towards a more offensive 'mon, although there's also some overlap on secondary effect moves as a harraser/status mon. As a typing though, I definitely think our existing Grass/Dragons are badly hampered by god-awful abilities and/or movepools.
Grass/Ice has only one existing user, and it is a hail-focused 'mon. While Grass/Ice may infact be the worst possible defensive typing in the universe, there is some spicy overlap in Grass/Ice moves in terms of both offensive potential (with several multi-hit, secondary effect, and priority moves).
Grass/Psychic is the last one I'll suggest. Our existing Grass/Psychics are flawed and held back by poor movepools and abilities, something we could alleviate despite it also being a crummy defensive typing. There's some funny stuff possible in a powerful special-attacker or status user/utility 'mon here that may be worth exploring.
1 (Grass). What are some underexplored types that have the potential to allow us to create an as-of-yet unseen niche for CAP 25g? How does this typing help us to explore our concept?
There are a few underexplored typings that combine with Grass. If we wanted to go with an offensive option, Rock could be worth exploring in the capacity of a Rock Head/Regenerator/Skill Link capacity. The big issue is that Grass's resistance to Ground and Water were found to be some of the only redeeming factors to Grass as a type, and we would lose both of those as a Grass/Rock. Dragon is interesting in that it's one of the few defensive typings that Grass has that isn't on a good defensive mon already. It makes you even better against Water and Electric types and gives you Draco Meteor and Leaf Storm to combo with abilities that care about hitting hard. Outrage and Petal Dance can even count as a combo with a confusion immunity ability. Dark has utility moves to go with Grass's utility moves, so if CAPG has a utility-oriented ability like Corrosion or Technician, this would be very tempting. The key issue is that U-Turn weakness is unfortunate and Malaconda already has a hard enough time competing without a good alternative existing.
1 (Fire). What types have healthy STAB movepools that they can coordinate with eligible abilities for offensive use? What types might be better suited to coordinate with an eligible ability as non-STAB coverage, due to their faults defensively or otherwise, and why?
The unique thing about Fire moves is that many of their hard hitting moves also have utility of some sort, usually in the form of a burn chance. Abilities like Serene Grace, Sheer Force, Stamina, and even things like Rock Head and Contrary are all really good on Fire types. Fairy seems strong on a Serene Grace variant, as the Moonblast SpAtk drop synergizes well with burns, as well as being good with Sheer Force. It's also good defensive typing for a Stamina variant. Dragon gets a nod yet again for synergizing well defensively with Fire and allowing both Contrary and No Guard synergies. As everybody else mentioned, Fighting is fairly good, but I doubt anybody would vote for it. Steel makes Heavy Metal/ Heat Crash/Heavy Slam work, but puts it in direct competition with Heatran.
1 (Water). What types can make effective use of defensively-oriented moves that coordinate with eligible abilities?
So we have a few options on this one. Poison is overburdened with strong utility moves that synergizes well with Water moves. We could opt into Serene Grace, Corrosion, Technician, and all sorts of other defensive abilities. Steel gives you the interesting synergy of priority moves plus SR resist plus Emergency Exit, as well as Technician. Otherwise, Water just synergizes with everything.
I'll work on some other question later, but I wanna focus on the three subquestions of 1 first. 1 (Grass). What are some underexplored types that have the potential to allow us to create an as-of-yet unseen niche for CAP 25g? How does this typing help us to explore our concept?
I think the part of this question that really matters is the unexplored part, since replicating current types in the metagame will get us nowhere and is likely to be outclassed. This means a lot of different types are going to be cut from my list. Grass/Fairy is already on Jumbao and Bulu, who can already do both offensive and defensive stuff depending on the set. Very similar case for Grass/Steel except is representatives Kartana and Ferrothorn already have very defined roles which they do very well. A Grass/Ghost has to compete with Necturna, which already has a great niche in its highly destructive Ghostium Shell Smash set as well as its Sticky Web utility, so 25g would likely struggle to find a reason to use over our current forest maiden. Grass/Dark could be used in a more offensive way than is currently used with Malaconda, but I really don't see a major niche possible with this type linked to an ability or movepool besides ones already explored with Malaconda.
Here's where we get into some more interesting typings. A Grass/Electric type generally could work as an anti-defogger, as it can beat a lot of the common defoggers in CAP with its typing alone. Grass/Electric is also generally a solid typing, albiet quite offensive. My favorite is personally Grass/Fighting, as it has a large variety of different moves at its disposal including stat lowerers, setup options, low accuracy moves, low power moves, priority, and my personal taste of multi-hit moves in Arm Thrust. It also supports a possibility of biases, and a decent amount of resistences, even though it carries a significant amount of weaknesses and a likely chance to lose against the major flying types. Also support Grass/Rock for similar reasons, but it doesn't have any good resistences besides Electric, and can be lacking in the movepool department compared to Fighting
1 (Fire). What types have healthy STAB movepools that they can coordinate with eligible abilities for offensive use? What types might be better suited to coordinate with an eligible ability as non-STAB coverage, due to their faults defensively or otherwise, and why?
Fire/Electric works very well STAB wise, as it hits everything but Ground types super well, and offers some great type resistances. Fire/Rock also work with its STAB quite nicely, and sports some different options for attacking, albiet that they are mostly physical for Rock.
However, I want to talk about one type that has been the butt of many typing stages before: Normal. Fire/Normal, weirdly enough, has incredible type synergy together, as the Fire STAB deals with the Steels and Ghosts (suprisingly our ghosts in the tier actually are not that great against Fire :/) for Normal types, while the Normal STAB hits a lot of the weaknesses that the type struggles against, most notably Ground types and Water types. It doesn't beat all Steel types, as Heatran still resists it, and it can also not do well against the tier's rock types, but this is an exception coverage for just two STABs. Normal type moves are also massively varied in nature, supporting priority, boosting, recoil, low accuracy, and plenty more in their expansive movepools. I think it is certainly an option to look into.
1 (Water). What types can make effective use of defensively-oriented moves that coordinate with eligible abilities?
I think the best type for this Pokemon is honestly Water/Psychic. Its a typing that can be quite solid paired together, as it can usually cover its weaknesses quite well, and sports some pretty hefty resistences to Steels, Fighting types, and can have a good matchup against other defensive Waters like Arghonaut and Toxapex. But what Water/Psychic sells to me is a whole bunch of possible utility options. It can have access to screens, Calm Mind, Trick Room, and plenty of other moves that can differentiate it from other defensive Waters.
I second Grass/Electric for CAP25g. That typing was only explored before by Mow-Rotom, which didn't even touch the Grass part outside of Leaf Storm. Grass has always been more about status than raw offense or defense, and Electric adds a few really interesting options (I could name names, but I'm really on-edge about accidentally poll-jumping and would rather err on the side of caution). Being an Electric-type also solves most problems with dealing with Flying- and Steel-types, while Grass offsets most of the downsides of being an Electric-type. Backed by an Ability that facilitates the application of status, we could have a fearsome gradual grinder on our hands.
For CAP25f, I appreciate the idea of Fire/Psychic and Fire/Dark. Fire and Psychic synergize well together, as Psychic hits everything but Psychic, Steel, and Dark for at least neutral damage. You may notice that none of the types which resist Fire are among those, and Fire hits all the types which resist Psychic for at least neutral damage. There are dual-type and type-Ability combinations which can tank both - Heatran, Tyranitar, and Greninja, to name a few instances which often show up in OU - but that's what coverage is for. While Psychic-type moves aren't as powerful on average as Fire-type moves, their moves are at least reliable. Basically, I'm looking to explore the reason why Psychic was so powerful in Gen I and Dragon was so powerful in Gen V: hitting almost everything decently well and being able to rely on sheer power to carry it to victory. While Psychic can no longer mow down everything in its path, it can pair up with Fire and some sort of coverage to make up for its shortcomings and relive its glory days. As for Dark, its penchant for weak-ish moves that become much more powerful under the right conditions pairs well with Fire's consistently-high power to generate a Pokémon that pressures its opponent with strong damage while waiting for its chance to utterly crush them with a perfectly-timed ultimate haymaker. Backed up by an Ability that helps build up power (and I do have some good specifics in mind), CAP25f could be an excellent snowball sweeper that near-singlehandedly crushes opposing teams under its incredible might in an awe-inspiring blitzkrieg if given half a chance to prepare for battle.
Unfortunately, I've got nothing for Water. I chafe at the idea of Water/Steel because CAP did that very recently in the form of Naviathan. A Water/Poison tank would feel like a rehash of Toxapex. And adding Dragon to any non-Mega starter Pokémon spits in the face of the rock-paper-scissors triad that the starter types represent by resisting all three of them. I just don't know what we can add without intruding on another Pokémon's niche or violating the spirit of a starter Pokémon.
I'm a bit new here, but hey I'll give it some thought. 1 (Grass). What are some underexplored types that have the potential to allow us to create an as-of-yet unseen niche for CAP 25g? How does this typing help us to explore our concept?
Maybe Rock/Grass? I feel like the concept was just slightly wasted with Cradily. Defensive mons that are mostly neutral against other types instead of resistant never sat well with me (And really anyone else), so perhaps a faster offensive pokemon that can take down usual grass checks with it's Rock STAB while being open to other threats most other grass types don't have to worry about. Really don't want to see a defensive mon with that typing though. 1 (Fire). What types have healthy STAB movepools that they can coordinate with eligible abilities for offensive use? What types might be better suited to coordinate with an eligible ability as non-STAB coverage, due to their faults defensively or otherwise, and why?
I really have to agree with Reviloja753and his idea for it. I don't feel like I can really add to it when I agree with his ideas for it so much, mainly the "Fire/Flying with Rock Head/Reckless" one. Fire/Flying is a really hit or miss type (For hit see Mega Zard Y and Gen 6 Talonflame [Rest In Peace], for miss see stuff like Moltres and non-mega zard) but I feel like that would make for something interesting at least. 1 (Water). What types can make effective use of defensively-oriented moves that coordinate with eligible abilities? I actually feel like a pure-Water type might work here. Water/Steel was already pretty well handled by Naviathan. As for abilities, I'm having a bit of trouble figuring something out. But hey, pure Water leaves a lot of room for experimentation, though honestly Water just pairs well with just about anything.
1 (Grass). What are some underexplored types that have the potential to allow us to create an as-of-yet unseen niche for CAP 25g? How does this typing help us to explore our concept?
The best way to identify a niche CAP 25g may fill is to look at the pitfalls of pure grass-typing both offensively and defensively. Grass-typing has a difficult time dealing damage against flying, poison, bug, steel, fire, dragon, and other grass-types. This issue is only exacerbated when you take note that most of the CAP roster either resists or takes neutral damage to grass attacks. 13 out of the 25 CAP Pokémon resist grass-type attacks and 3 of them 4x resist them (Cawmodore, Mollox, and Pyroak). When you compare that to the 3 CAP Pokémon CAP 25g is hitting super-effective (Arghonaut, Colossoil, and Stratagem), you quickly realize why Pokémon like Jumbao often don’t run grass moves. Defensively, grass-types struggle with flying, poison, bug, fire, and ice. 4 of these types already posed issues for grass offensively.
Based off of this initial analysis of grass-typing, I considered types that would either strength its offensive or defensive potential. Offensively, Fire, Rock, Ice, and Ground help the most when it comes to types grass cannot handle well. The order of these types indicates how much grass-typing reciprocates usefulness.
Fire: Fire-type would deal with the steel, bug, and grass-types pure grass would otherwise struggle with. Grass would also hit the water and rock-types fire-types fear.
Rock: Rock-type would deal with the flying, bug, and fire-types pure grass would otherwise struggle with. Grass would also help with the ground-types, but that’s about it.
Ice: Ice-type would deal with the flying, grass, and dragon-types pure grass would otherwise struggle with. Grass would also help with the water-types ice-types without freeze dry can’t hit, but that’s about it.
Ground: Ground-type would deal with the steel, poison, and fire-types pure grass would otherwise struggle with. Grass would unfortunately not offer any usefulness to ground-typing, but the type was worth mentioning because of the 3 4x ground weak CAPs that would be a headache for grass-types
Defensively, Steel, Poison, Fire, and Rock remove the most weaknesses from pure-grass typing and/or offer additional resistances. Again, the ordering indicates which types adds the most benefits with the fewest drawbacks.
Steel: Steel-type is by far the best type defensively for grass. Steel removes 3 of the weaknesses that plague grass-types. Grass/Steel has 9 resistance and 1 immunity. The only downside is that Grass/Steel is 4x weak to fire.
Poison: Grass/Poison is a very overused type combination, but for good reason. Poison removes the poison and bug weakness of grass types and gains a fighting and fairy resistance (5 resistances total).
Fire: Fire-type would remove the weaknesses to fire, bug, and ice. The type does not gain any additional resistances but substitutes a water and ground resist for steel and fairy (4 resistances total).
Rock: Rock removes fire, flying, and poison weaknesses, but Grass/Rock has the fewest resistances with only electric and normal.
I know someone will mention that some of the types I’ve listed aren’t underexplored, and I agree. What needs to be understood is that while underexplored typing would be nice, this CAP needs to make the most of its typing. These typings offer the most benefits before ability, stats, and movepool come into consideration.
2. What types place the most restrictions on our list of potential abilities? Are these types worth discussing anyway, if they can avoid pigeonholing us into only one or two viable options? What types leave the most variety available?
As Dogfish mentioned, Fairy is a pretty terrible type just because of how small its movepool options currently are. It only has a few possible offensive options that aren't legendary locked, and while its support movepool is a bit bigger, they tend to be very weird and situational and almost always unusable. Its much more of an option to be picked for its type than its movepool, so I think that it is a pretty bad option. Speaking of type over movepool, I also think Steel is a pretty not great option as well. This opinion may get some more flack, since it does have a pretty decent set of offensive moves and some utility options, but the reason why they tend to pick it for a typing is not because of the movepool that it offers, but for the sheer defensive utility of the type itself. Steel is literally the best defensive typing there is, and while its movepool is competent, its not really winning any awards for diversity. I think if Steel is picked, the ability and movepool coordination will be taking a competitive backseat to that incredible typing, and the natural movepool we can take advantage of I feel is pretty lacking still.
3. Based on their primary types and decided roles, which members of our trio will need a more versatile second typing to be viable? What is it that makes a typing versatile?
I think the best way for a type to be versatile is for it to find usage through many different ways. Here's an example, A Water type vs an Ice type. Water is massively successful as a type because of the different ways that it can be applied, and even those that overlap type wise are able to be more unique through their options, which complement the typing. Ice is not versatile because of how rigid of a way it tends to be used. It has been shown over and over again that you almost always have to be offensive and decently fast to have any success as an Ice type, and all others who do not fall well into that role or don't do it well enough are usually horrendous trash.
With that said, I think the type that needs versatility the most is honestly the water type and the grass type. The Fire type, while still having competition with Volkraken and other possible offensive Fire-types, can pretty much hit things are and get pretty decent results if executed at least decently well, which is what I expect. The Water-type has a lot of expectation riding on it, as it has to compete with Arghonaut, Toxapex, Naviathan, and all of the other defensive Waters of the tier. Because it has to compete with these, it absolutely has to be more versatile. Grass is in a similar boat, as it has to differentiate itself from other Grass types who can generally cover a lot.
4. Given our BST limitations, how can we intelligently use typing in order to prevent our starter trio from being outclassed by similar Grass, Fire, and Water Pokemon, even if they should share a somewhat similar role? Read: how can we use typing to carve out a new role in the CAP metagame?
This is a question, and it probably has an answer. I'm not completely sure about this one, but I'll try my best to respond.
I think the best way to compete with these Pokemon with typings is to give them a typing that can let them do stuff that the others simply cannot. This will carve a niche over these Pokemon, and if we give them somewhat similar strengths otherwise, it will actually create competition between them so they can actually be used. For example, creating a Water/Psychic type lets it possible become a defensive Pokemon that could run something to actually beat Tomohawk, which is not something the others can do. If it still gets decent bulk and recovery, this could actually be a good reason to use it over the others.
(Grass): What are some underexplored types that have the potential to allow us to create an as-of-yet unseen niche for CAP 25g? How does this typing help us to explore our concept?
I'm really on the bandwagon withGrass/Electric! It would be able to tackle its flying weakness very well, and as S. Court mentioned, it would allow us to take advantage of a variety of offensive/support moves. I'll save myself the work and reference his post. It's definitely an intuitive type combo that would easily allow us to discern ourselves from Jumbao. For starters, not only could we better handle Tomohawk, but it allows us to threaten on top of the Skarmory, Hawlucha, Pelliper, and Sap Sipper Azumarill. There are plenty of abilities that pair well with the diverse movepool I'd imagine it'll have due to its unique typing.
(Fire): What types have healthy STAB movepools that they can coordinate with eligible abilities for offensive use? What types might be better suited to coordinate with an eligible ability as non-STAB coverage, due to their faults defensively or otherwise, and why?
To be blatantly honest, I'm not particularly hooked on any one type combination here just yet, but after a little bit of tinkering, I really like the idea of Fire/Fairy (where the bloody hell is pink lmao). Fairy, for starters, is a good offensive type in general, so off the bat, we'd have good STAB potential. I saw in a previous post that Fairy would limit us due to the amount of legendary exclusive moves, and lack of other tempting moves outside of that. While that is partially true, Fire/Fairy would allow us to at the very least threaten Greninja (and Ash Gren, ofc depending on stats), we'd take reduced damage on U-turn from Tapu Koko, Lando-T, and Torn-T, and we could potentially* take advantage of Misty Terrain to prevent status and up offensive momentum (I think we would need Misty Surge for that to be viable, whether that is allowed or not since, as of now, its exclusive to Tapu Fini, but it would be a very definitive niche to emphasize offensive use). (Misty Terrain, while could be good, is very niche, and it does diverge a tad from the concept, given it does limit move-ability conjunction options) It's good to note we would be able to have the niche of threatening Dragon types such as Kyurem-B, Garchomp, and Mega Latios, which no Fire type (besides Zard X to an extremely limited extent), can safely do.
(Water): What types can make effective use of defensively-oriented moves that coordinate with eligible abilities?
Don't shoot me down here too hard, because there is some serious merit in this combo. I'd actually like to suggest Water/Grass. We did just finish Jumbao, and we have another Grass type on the way, but this would give CAPw some serious defensive merit. For one, it would be neutral to Kartana, Tapu Koko, Kyurem-B's Fusion Bolt, and other Offensive Grass types like Serperior (not to mention we'd be resistant to one of the most common coverage moves in Earthquake). Secondly, we'd have access to some serious defensive utility, including Leech Seed (seeding Zapdos safely being a biggie), the Spores (and even Spore itself), Synthesis, Aromatherapy, Spiky Shield, Cotton Guard, and (as aforementioned for CAPg a few posts back) Horn Leech. We would, in turn, gain a weakness to U-Turn and neutrality to Fire and Ice moves, I believe those are things that can be worked around while embellishing its defensive gains mentioned above. This typing could coordinate well with an ability like Corrosion, being able to spread toxic almost limitlessly (only really stopped by Gliscor and Clefable) alongside taking advantage of spreading Leech Seed especially. That would masterfully bolster the defensive route we wanna take for this concept.
If I had to choose any other combo, because I can imagine this would give us another quazi-Grass starter (though, for flavor, would could update the Grass typing on 2nd or 3rd stage evolution), I like the idea of Water/Dragon out of the sheer neutralities it would give us, while only gaining a weakness to Dragon itself. It would, however, limit us on utility moves because Dragon does not offer a whole lot (since all Dragon moves have really only offensive use). Dragon Tail, however, is very well worth mentioning, but I don't know how important it is to receive STAB on it.
I may update this with the other questions later if I think of valid solutions as the thread goes on.
I've never posted here aside from voting in the last couple slates for the concept, but I've been lurking since the tail-end of Kerfluffle. I've loved the work y'all have been doing, especially with Jumbao, he's the shit! :)
EDIT: After talking with EpicUmbreon, other walls the Grass typing on CAPw could very easily hold its own against include: Arghonaut, Cyclohm, Pyroak (blocks Pyroaks leech seed), Celesteela (same is Pyroak), Ferrothorn (^^^), Gastrodon, Zapdos, and Rotom-W. Another massive reason secondary Grass typing could be pretty beneficial to us!
1 (Grass). What are some underexplored types that have the potential to allow us to create an as-of-yet unseen niche for CAP 25g? How does this typing help us to explore our concept?
Grass/Electric seems to be a popular choice so far and I'm inclined to agree. The only instance of this typing before is in Rotom-Mow and that hardly made use of its secondary typing, having only access to Energy Ball. Rotom-Mow was also limited to the ability Levitate while we have a lot of options to play around with so this seems like the perfect opportunity to see the extent of what this typing can do. In regards to the synergy, the mere presence of Ground types deters a lot of Electric types from throwing out moves such as Thunderbolt and Volt Switch in fear of the Ground getting a free switch and this typing would give it a better way to punish those switches. I've seen Grass/Rock also mentioned and I think that would be another interesting type to explore especially given how the Cradily line are the only pokemon with this type. Grass able to help against the many Water and Ground types that threaten Rock types while Rock can help against the Fire, Flying, and Bug types in return so the synergy is there.
1 (Fire). What types have healthy STAB movepools that they can coordinate with eligible abilities for offensive use? What types might be better suited to coordinate with an eligible ability as non-STAB coverage, due to their faults defensively or otherwise, and why?
Fire/Fairy offers a lot more than what people are giving it credit for in my opinion. The typings do synergize with Fairy covering the Dragon resists while Fire can cover the Steel resists. The problem with Fairy comes from coordinating with abilities due to the lack of options the typing offers, having four viable offensive moves in the form of Play Rough, Moonblast, Dazzling Gleam, and Draining Kiss but I think its too early in discussion to immediately dismiss that we have nothing to work with. Sheer Force gets boosted for Play Rough and Moonblast because of the secondary effects of dropping attack and special attack respectfully. Triage can offer CAP25f a form of unorthodox priority and recovery with Draining Kiss but Technician can also boost the power of the move. Pixilate is an easy ability to think of because it makes common moves into STAB, offering a strong STAB Return, Body Slam being a good move to throw out for the change to para, and priority Quick Attack for the physical side while Hyper Voice is a strong special option and the uncommon Tri-Attack could be an interesting move to work with. Serene Grace can boost the chance of drops from Moonblast and Play Rough. These are just some ideas I quickly came up with so I'm sure there's a lot more options than what people are thinking. I completely understand that there are typings such as the infamous Fire/Fighting that are much easier to work with because there are a lot more options and we just came off a Fairy type but we should at least discuss the options for Fairy typing before completely dismissing it like some people already have.
1 (Water). What types can make effective use of defensively-oriented moves that coordinate with eligible abilities?
Water/Dragon is an interesting combination that we could discuss especially since the typing is not that seen, Palkia being in ubers and Kingdra being exclusively a rain abuser in OU. Having only two weaknesses in Dragon and Fairy is pretty good but has lackluster resistances being only Fire, Steel, and Water. Being a defensive pokemon in general already has a lot of options to work with but there are some options like Dragon Tail for shuffling around a team or phasing out a pokemon trying to sweep like Mega Scizor, Draco Meteor for a powerful move that defensive types usually lack, Dragon Breath while being a lackluster choice in comparison to Dragon Pulse does offer a 30% to paralyze that we could explore with abilities like Serene Grace, Dual Chop is a multi-hitting move that could be useful to breaking through subs, and Dragon Rush while it has less than superb accuracy could be an interesting option to think about. While I do believe that the previously mentioned types of Water/Poison and Water/Steel have better defensive options than what this typing offers, we can look into making CAP25w rely less on stalling tactics and more on offensive capabilities to defend itself.
1 (Fire). What types have healthy STAB movepools that they can coordinate with eligible abilities for offensive use? What types might be better suited to coordinate with an eligible ability as non-STAB coverage, due to their faults defensively or otherwise, and why?
Like what NumberCruncher mentioned Fire/Dragon can prove to be a successful offensive typing, for instance say that it has the ability Serene Grace or Sheer Force then a number of dragon moves such as Dragon Rush, Dragon Breath and Twister will gain this bonus, and Fire moves such as Lava Plume, Fire Punch, Fire Blast, Flamethrower, Mystical Fire , Heat Wave, etc. I also agree with NumberCruncher about Fire/Fairy being a good offensive typing. Now with Serene Grace or Sheer Force the increased secondary effects or power added to Moonblast or Play Rough will certainly punch holes into the enemy team. Also with the immunity of Dragon moves and resistances of Fighting, Fire, Grass, Ice, Dark, Fairy, and Bug.
2. What types place the most restrictions on our list of potential abilities? Are these types worth discussing anyway, if they can avoid pigeonholing us into only one or two viable options? What types leave the most variety available?
I second Dogfish's observation about Fairy type, the movepool can be synergized with abilities is pretty limited and by extension, the abilities's choices will be pretty limited
For CAP25-g, I think Steel should be avoided, not because it's not a good typing (because come on, Grass/Steel is a good type)
My main problem with Grass/Steel is the high possibility that CAP25-g will be outclassed with whichever Ferrothorn (if we go for the defensive route) or Kartana (for the offensive route, and we're talking about Kartana, being outclassed by it it's very likely) we need CAP25-g has an unique niche to be usable in this metagame and typing plays an important role to fulfill this idea, so I think we should minimize the risks avoiding types have too much competence, and talking about this... Grass/Ghost should ve avoided, specially if we go for the ofensive route. Necturna is a really strong sweeper in CAP metagame and we'd have a similar scenary if we choose Grass/Steel for this Pokemon, we run the risk CAP25-g will be outclassed and probably lacks use to be justified in a team. The defensive route is not that bad, but I'm not convinced enough about Grass/Ghost type resistances to be exploited in this aspect.
For CAP25-w... Well, I personally don't see how the typing itself can synergize well with abilities and movepool to fulfill the concept, so instead I'd suggest to make CAP25-w use this typing just to take a good advantage of the defensive quality, so for this reason bad defensive typing such as Water/Dark, Water/Ice, Water/Rock and probably others I can't think right now should be avoided.
Water/Poison is a great defensive typing, but we have a Pokemon will probably outclass CAP25-w if we go with this typing: Toxapex, so I think this typing should be avoided as well.
4. Given our BST limitations, how can we intelligently use typing in order to prevent our starter trio from being outclassed by similar Grass, Fire, and Water Pokemon, even if they should share a somewhat similar role? Read: how can we use typing to carve out a new role in the CAP metagame?
I want to address this part in particular because there are several type combinations being suggested that I think are less advantageous than they seem when you look at the competition they possess. The first one I want to address is Fire which faces stiff competition as an offensive mon from Heatran, Volkraken, and Volcarona. These 3 all have BSTs that are well above our limits and they perform their roles very well. Heatran is an offensive stealth rock setter, stall breaker, and trapper depending on what you need and it's immune to Fire, which means it also can potentially be a counter to CAP depending on what typing we give it. Volkraken is an efficient and effective cleaner or breaker depending on if you're running Scarf or Specs and it's Fire/Water typing also allows it to threaten opposing Fire types. These two are especially noteworthy in my eyes because they have strong type combinations with good defensive synergy; which is, I think, the most important factor in making an offensive Fire type. This is why I am against Fire/Flying as a typing because they don't add much of anything to each other defensively and being 4x weak to stealth rock is a huge liability (especially since that makes it compete even more with Volcarona). I am, however, in favor of Fire/Dragon as a type since they share several resistances and cover at least some of each other's weaknesses. Fire/Fairy also has a lot of resistances that it can use and I would rather use the ability stage to patch up any issues these 2 combinations might have in offensive power/coverage than be stuck trying to compensate for defensive traits in later stages.
(Grass). What are some underexplored types that have the potential to allow us to create an as-of-yet unseen niche for CAP 25g? How does this typing help us to explore our concept?
I like to think I helped get us to this point with 25G as I promoted a specialist in the concept assessment. That said I think a few typings have started to separate themselves for me. The first being Grass/Electric, a unique underexplored typing that shows a lot of promise if we take the right approach and don’t try to stretch the mon into more than it can handle. A second option that has been suggested higher in the thread was Grass/Normal. This wasn’t something I originally thought of, but I really like it. Normal types are known for a wide and diverse movepool, so this option probably gives us the most flexibility moving forward which is a good thing. Grass/Dragon is another discussed typing. Dragon isn’t an amazing typing right now, and I don’t seeing it giving us a lot of options to take advantage of, unless we go for that crazy Contrary Draco/Leaf Storm and improve upon serperior. While I don’t love Grass/Dragon it is actually my third favorite option right now, since at the very least Dragons can justify quite a bit ability wise similarly to normals granting us options. I will say discussed options I dislike are Flying and Psychic, just don’t love flying as a secondary typing as Grass/Flying is just bad typing and I don’t love being 4x weak to U-turn with Grass/Psychic since then your ground resist doesn’t even like coming in on defensive lando fearing U-turn which is meh. Also I think it’s going to be hard to beat out and find a niche with a Grass/Steel or Grass/Fairy so I’d axe those.
(Fire). What types have healthy STAB movepools that they can coordinate with eligible abilities for offensive use? What types might be better suited to coordinate with an eligible ability as non-STAB coverage, due to their faults defensively or otherwise, and why?
I’d almost prefer to break it down from a secondary typings in the tier that give off enough offensive pressure for me to really consider them stand point. Rock, Electric, Fairy, and I guess normal work for me. I think normal while giving a good movepool and lots of options just isn’t what I am looking for – can’t really give a long explanation on it just a bias I have I guess. Rock, Electric, and Fairy are great typings in their own right, and combined with Fire they become scary threats. I think all options have enough abilities to be considered going forward - especially when you consider there is nothing wrong with an ability that mainly helps the Fire type aspect of the mon and isn’t a huge gain to the secondary typing. Also just another note of bias, but I’m not a fan of Fire/Fighting and will more than likely vote that last as I don’t want to see number four.
(Water). What types can make effective use of defensively-oriented moves that coordinate with eligible abilities?
In my original post on roles I broke down improving Empoleon and Swampert, so I believe Steel and Ground should be strongly considered for 25W. I’ve also seen enough from discussion towards Water/Dragon to consider it, though it is strongly in third place for me. Also as always normal is just a great option for this based on the variety it can provide. I will say that Water/Poison is not worth pursuing, yes it’s a good type. However, you’re not improving Toxapex defensively and picking this option is setting yourself up for failure. Normal also comes to mind for this obviously as it is so diverse, but once again I prefer to save that for the Grass, and it’s not exactly adding a ton defensively aside from options and a ghost immunity. Water/Grass is also great, but I don’t like the secondary typing being one of the other two starters primary typing.
It’s pretty late for me right now so I’ll end this here and focus on the other questions when I wake up tomorrow. Really enjoyed writing this, and I hope you enjoyed reading it. I’ve loved the discussion so far, and am excited to answer the other set of questions in the future/keep reading everyone else’s ideas. (also it’s late so I won’t proof read this)
1 (Grass). What are some underexplored types that have the potential to allow us to create an as-of-yet unseen niche for CAP 25g? How does this typing help us to explore our concept?
Well, creating a niche for CAP25g will be quite tricky. Grass / Electric is a great option. However, I'd also like to look at Grass / Ice. To get the elephant out of the room, Refrigerate pairs well with Ice-typing, allowing access to Ice-type priority with Quick Attack (or if we're feeling cool, Extreme Speed), unblockable Rapid Spin, and Hyper Voice if we want to go special. With lower accuracy moves in Stun Spore, Blizzard, Power Whip, and Icicle Crash, Compound Eyes or No Guard are options. Of course, Ice and Grass also have moves with secondary effects like Ice Beam and Energy Ball, so abilities that affect those are up for grabs as well. Technician powers up lower-base powered moves like priority Ice Shard and Bullet Seed as well. I'm probably missing a few, but Grass / Ice, despite its relatively bad defensive merit, provides a pretty nice contrast to most of the other Grass-types in the metagame, similar to that of Grass / Electric.
1(Grass) I think that an interesting typing to explore for this particular starter is Grass/Normal, as Dogfish44 has already brought up. Normal might only add a immunity to Ghost, but this allows us to check the standard Shell Smash Necturna, something that would greatly help us differentiate from any other Grass type, as none of them are capable of taking a +2 Z-Phantom Force. I admit that this is probably not a very optimized typing, but I think that it clearly achieves our goal of making CAP 25g have a distinct niche, its problems can easily be addressed on later stages, and it lets us explore Normal, a unorthodox typing, which rarely ever comes up in discussions. Besides, while Grass might have a lot of common weakness, the strength of this type has always been its key resistances to Ground, Water and Electric, and I think that typings like Grass/Rock and to a lesser extent Grass/Electric don't really play to these natural strengths, and instead try to fix Grass weaknesses, which I don't really like, as defensively, you are still hit neutrally by Flying, the type I think these combinations try to beat, so your still going to take a ton of damage from things like Tornadus-T, while offensively, a Normal move or non-STAB coverage should be enough to deal with most of these threats.
1(Fire) I believe that the key to make this particular one successful is being able to deal with Bulky Waters that trouble Volkraken, our main rival for a slot on a team. Therefore, I think that Fire/Electric or Fire/Psychic are the best choices, as they would both allows us to threaten two of the main common bulky waters in the meta, Arghonaut and Toxapex with a Super-effective STAB. I think this is particularly important because both of them are so bulky that non-STAB coverage will probably not be enough to get a 2HKO on either of them (For example: 252 SpA Blacephalon Thunderbolt vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Toxapex: 124-148 (40.9 - 48.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Black Sludge recovery).
On an unrelated tangent, if anybody questions the fact that a secondary Electric-type would give 25f a strange advantage against 25w, something unusual for starters, I'd like to point out that Torterra already does the same, being a Ground type that deals super-effective damage against Fire, the type it is supposed to be weak against, so there is already a clear precedent for this in-game.
1(Water) I think Water/Steel is clearly the best typing for our job as a defensive Water-type. Not only Steel is one of the best type in the game, it also separates us from most other defensive Water-types by resisting Psychic, Fairy, Rock and Poison, giving us a better match-up against Tapu Lele and M-Crucibelle. Water/Dragon is also interesting, and has a much better match-up against Fire-types, particularly Volkraken, but I think that its weakness to Fairy could be a huge issue, as Toxapex can deal with those threats perfectly fine while also resisting Fairy, so we would need to be even more careful to avoid being outclassed by it.
On a more general note, I really dislike argument for or against types because of how many moves/abilities the type directly interacts with. Even if we choose a typing doesn't directly interact with anything, we will still be able to pick moves from other types as coverage, so this should have little to no impact on later stages.
I'd like to quickly mention Grass / Flying as a possibility for CAP 25g. Grass has a very unique move in Leech Seed that can pair with some abilities like Prankster, Compound Eyes, Multiscale, Mold Breaker, or (most interesting in my opinion) Stakeout/Analytic. Flying-type STAB punishes the only type immune to Leech Seed and also includes some moves that combo with the aforementioned abilities, notably Hurricane and Roost. It also potentially brings Gale Wings into consideration in combination with Leech Seed. This might limit future stages a bit if we are basing things around a single move but at the same time it might be a lot more interesting than abilities that passively boost the power of certain moves. There is also a good chance of such a build being a "specialist" and having a unique niche and playstyle. Of course there are a ton of types that could fill a similar role by hitting Grass super effectively: Grass / Fire, Grass / Ice, Grass / Poison, Grass / Bug. I might analyze some of these in a later post.
