CAP 25 - Part 4 - Secondary Typings Discussion

[Ahhhhhh......Clefable.]

Let's talk about CAP25w.

I agree that Water/Poison should be avoided. It risks too high of competition with Toxapex. I get the arguments that we COULD make it different, but at the end of the day I think we would just be reinventing the wheel, especially considering CAP25w's BST limitations. We really need to explore how to make the best of the BST without reinventing something, and Water/Poison just gives us Toxapex 2.0 no matter what we do. Toxapex has balanced stats, reliable recovery, a fantastic ability, a solid movepool: everything Water/Poison needs to be successful. I don't see how we can (or why we would want to) create something different enough to be viable. And the arguments for Corrosion and Merciless are irrelevant, since they don't actually rely on Poison-typing STAB and could be used on any Pokemon of any type.

Water/Ground has two viable defensive options in CAP (Gastrodon, who is ranked A-, and Quagsire, who is ranked C), and I think we risk the same problem here as with Water/Poison. Considering our BST limit, I worry that we can't create something that will differentiate itself enough. Gastrodon especially is good in CAP right now, ranking higher than Toxapex in viability, and again, it has what Water/Ground needs to succeed: legit movepool, reliable recovery, great ability, and well-placed stats. No need to create something that already exists.

Water/Steel and Water/Electric are both tricky as defensive mons due to their Ground-type weaknesses, but we have a lot of flexibility to create something that doesn't already exist, and Ground is easy enough to work around with team support. There is no relevant purely DEFENSIVE Pokemon of these types. Naviathan and Krilowatt focus on attacking, Rotom-W needs recovery, and Empoleon and Lanturn are irrelevant in CAP. These types could each be successful, but I don't think we fulfill the brief of CAP25 (ability and movepool coordination) as well as with Water/Grass, which I'll explain later.

Water/Bug is a neat thought, but I'm not sold. Bug has some really cool STAB options that would synergize well with defensive abilities and stats, but the Stealth Rock weakness is the biggest deterrent here for me, which can be crushing for a defensive mon.

Water/Ice, frankly, is a ridiculous typing for a defensive mon. Being weak to Stealth Rock already sucks, and Ice does nothing for this typing defensively other than adding a x4 Ice resistance, which is not a worthy trade for the additional weaknesses to Fighting and Rock and losing resistances to Fire and Steel. Aurora Veil is not enough justification to make this seem viable to me. CAP25w would have to be fast AND bulky to make that work, and I don't think we can make that happen with our starter BST limit.

Water/Dark should also be avoided. The weaknesses are too common. Losing to Fighting, Fairy, Bug, Electric, and Grass is just too much for a defensive mon. And, as it has been pointed out, with our BST limits as a starter, we can't be as bulky as we would need to be AND hit as hard as we would need to with Pursuit, Knock Off, Sucker Punch, etc.

As of now, I think I'm most convinced with Water/Grass for CAP25w. Ground-resistance is awesome for a defensive mon; being neutral to Electric is great for a Water-type; Bug, Flying, and Poison are easy enough to work around; and we get some really awesome defensive movepool / ability synergy. Grass-type moves have an abundance of ability-supported defensive options, and Water is a great defensive typing. Plus, this type combo doesn't risk being overshadowed by anything else (no one uses Ludicolo, especially defensively.)

 

[VannAccessible]

I’m not jazzed about Grass/Normal. It doesn’t really help it beat SS Necturna or Pajantom, just by virtue of being resistant to Grass an immune to Ghost, unless it had something like Unaware. If you wanted to go this route, Grass/Dark would actually be better, but this typing is pretty lousy as it’s very weak to U-Turn.

I think the other reason people want to see with the Grass/Normal typing is Boomburst for countering Zygarde and bypassing Substitutes, but there’s other ways to get through those - Bullet Seed+Skill Link, Infiltrator, Hyper Voice with an -ate ability.

But if you guys really want to go with Grass/Normal, I think Unaware is almost mandatory if you want it to reliably beat Necturna and Zygarde, and that just seems like a bad choice, on what’s supposed to be an offensive mon with a bad defensive typing.

 

[lovesyzygy]

Is there any reason no one has brought up making the trio Fire/Water, Water/Grass, and Grass/Fire? Though all of these type combinations exist, and CAP has done Pyroak already, these are relatively unexplored type combinations.

Fire/Water has excellent offensive presence, Water/Grass has unique set of resistances, and Grass/Fire has the potential to create a unique niche that is neither exclusively offensive or defensive.

I'm looking through the concept and don't see anything specifically against it. Would be interesting and challenging to create a "double trio" of starters.

Edit: Just saw that Water/Grass has been discussed previously in this thread, but not the others. Thought this was an interesting idea since this is the first time that CAP is designing multiple Pokemon at once.

 

[LucarioOfLegends]

Is there any reason no one has brought up making the trio Fire/Water, Water/Grass, and Grass/Fire? Though all of these type combinations exist, and CAP has done Pyroak already, these are relatively unexplored type combinations.

Fire/Water has excellent offensive presence, Water/Grass has unique set of resistances, and Grass/Fire has the potential to create a unique niche that is neither exclusively offensive or defensive.

I'm looking through the concept and don't see anything specifically against it. Would be interesting and challenging to create a "double trio" of starters.

I can't speak for everyone here, but I personally feel that double type combo would create too much overlap in what we would do, as our minds would likely resort to very similar methods for possible scenarios, and I worry that they would eventually not feel distinct from each other at the end of the process. Also, Fire/Water has been very sufficiently explored in terms of offensive roles in Volkraken, as it is literally one of CAP's best Choice Scarf users. Grass/Fire I also think could be used offensively, but its overall coverage is somewhat lackluster and the comparisons to Pyroak I think would be too great. Water/Grass is the most interesting my type in my opinion, but it just doesn't seem like the preferred option.

 

[Warren685]

Is there any reason no one has brought up making the trio Fire/Water, Water/Grass, and Grass/Fire? Though all of these type combinations exist, and CAP has done Pyroak already, these are relatively unexplored type combinations.

Also like what Luc pointed out earlier the only type we could explore is Water/Grass as it could make a good defensive option while Fire/Water and Grass/Fire will have to compete with Volkraken and Pyroak as they already have solid roles in the current meta

Modedit: Removed reference to deleted post.

 

[Mr Holiday]

We could make a better Toxapex if we wanted to because Toxapex actually has a very poorly optimized defensive spread. Its current spread of 50/152/142 adds up to a total of 344 Stat points dedicated to defense. A spread of 126/93/79 is nearly identical defensively, fits within the stat range required by starters, and only uses 298 stat points.

Fair enough. I guess we could make a better Toxapex, if we really, really wanted to. However, the point remains that Water/Poison won't, by itself, be a Toxapex clone unless we consciously make it one. It would easy to differentiate it from Toxapex while still keeping it viable, and achieving our goal of building a defensive Pokemon. As I said in my previous post, all it would take is 70-80 points in Attack or Special Attack and a decent Movepool to reach an appreciable damage output. It's not a sweeper, and it's not supposed to be, but it would give it the option to actually force out or weaken the things it walls, rather than just sitting there like a spiky punching bag. (I ran some preliminary calculations as a proof of concept, but I won't post them here to avoid accusations of poll jumping. If anyone's interested in seeing them, though, I can provide them).

However, for those still not convinced, I want to, again, propose Water/Ghost as a possibility. Weaknesses to Ghost, Grass, Electric and Dark are manageable, while resistances to Poison, Bug, Steel, Fire, Water, Ice, and immunities to Fighting and Normal, make it a solid defensive Type, able to resist common attacking types and coverage/STAB moves that might be thrown it's way. Keeping with the idea that "defensive doesn't mean passive", Water/Ghost has solid coverage, and can provide useful damage output to further differentiate it from other bulky Water Types, even without heavy offensive Stats. It also doesn't face competition from anything of note, for those who can't get over Water/Poison competing with Toxapex.

 

[superstrike66]

Here are my opinions of the typings people have suggested for grass and fire (with water, I think any of the suggested types could work out).

GRASS

Grass-Ice: I don't want to offend anyone, but I think this is the worst possibility for grass. While people talk about its good offensive coverage (which is true), they seem to ignore its horrid defensive typing. Who cares that you resist Water, Ground, and Electric when you have weaknesses to good offensive types: a quad weakness to fire, weakness to rock, fighting and flying, as well as weaknesses to poison bug and steel. These weaknesses really limit the defensive capabilities of this 'mon, and would only be good on a glass cannon like Mx said.

Grass-Electric: This is probably my favorite typing of the bunch. This is a pretty good defensive typing, and its pretty good offensively as well, which allows this 'mon either to be more offensively or defensively oriented.

Grass-Rock: This used to be my favorite typing for the grass starter, but the lack of resistances this type has is unfortunate. However, these 2 types eliminate a bunch of their weakness, and this is a pretty good offensive typing. However, I still think this is a good option, and is my 2nd favorite typing.

Grass-Normal: I honestly don't have a opinion about this typing. I think it could be cool, and it's better than Grass-Ice.

FIRE

Fire-Rock and Fire-Ice: Like Grass-Ice, I also think these are the worst possible options for fire. Unlike Grass-Ice, these typings don't really have any good resists (other than fairy and a quad fire resist for Fire-Rock), which really limit the switch-in opportunities. This is made even worse by Fire-Ice's quad weakness to rocks.

Fire-Electric: This is actually pretty solid both offensively and defensively (other than the quad ground weakness), and this typing would go well with an ability like sheer force or serene grace. Tied with Fire-Fairy for my 2nd favorite option for the fire 'mon.

Fire-Fairy: Good offensively and defensively. There really isn't that much else to say about this typing, other than fairy moves are far and few between, so pixelize would probably be the best ability here.

Fire-Ground: Finally, we have in my opinion, the best option for fire. Yes, it does have a quad weakness to water, but other than a weakness to ground, this typing has no other weakness. Adding a ground typing eliminates the rock weakness, and allows this guy to switch in and out a lot more easily, since it won't loose 1/4 or 1/2 of its health to rocks. And, I can't stress enough how fantastic fire and ground is offensively.

 

[Warren685]

Fire-Rock and Fire-Ice: Like Grass-Ice, I also think these are the worst possible options for fire. Unlike Grass-Ice, these typings don't really have any good resists (other than fairy and a quad fire resist for Fire-Rock), which really limit the switch-in opportunities. This is made even worse by Fire-Ice's quad weakness to rocks.

You're making Fire/Ice sound bad through a defensive standpoint rather then a offensive standpoint. The Fire/Ice typing is a big threats to VoltTurn teams and pivots include Landorus-T, Garchomp, Gliscor and even Cyclohm.

 

[Frostbiyt]

However, for those still not convinced, I want to, again, propose Water/Ghost as a possibility. Weaknesses to Ghost, Grass, Electric and Dark are manageable, while resistances to Poison, Bug, Steel, Fire, Water, Ice, and immunities to Fighting and Normal, make it a solid defensive Type, able to resist common attacking types and coverage/STAB moves that might be thrown it's way. Keeping with the idea that "defensive doesn't mean passive", Water/Ghost has solid coverage, and can provide useful damage output to further differentiate it from other bulky Water Types, even without heavy offensive Stats. It also doesn't face competition from anything of note, for those who can't get over Water/Poison competing with Toxapex.

On top of the defensive benefits, Ghost also gets some interesting utility moves. Destiny Bond is already used on occasion, but there are other Ghost status moves that could be explored like Confuse Ray, Curse, Grudge, Nightmare, Spite, and Trick-or-Treat. There are also some Ghost type attacks that have interesting effects such as Hex, Night Shade, and Spirit Shackle. Spectral Thief as well, but that is exclusive to Marshadow.

 

[GMars]

You're making Fire/Ice sound bad through a defensive standpoint rather then a offensive standpoint. The Fire/Ice typing is a big threats to VoltTurn teams and pivots include Landorus-T, Garchomp, Gliscor and even Cyclohm.

While our Fire-type will be primarily offensive, we need to make sure it's able to pivot in against a handful of threats in the CAP metagame to be decently viable. Some Pokemon are able to bypass this need, like Volcarona, because of their ability to win the game on certain matchups the first time they come in. However, in this sort of meta, most offensive Pokemon need to bring at least some defensive synergy to be self-sufficient enough to be an attractive choice when teambuilding. This is the primary issue of Fire / Ice typing; while it's alluring offensively, it suffers from its 4x Stealth Rock weakness and can't switch in on virtually any Pokemon in the tier to make up for it, like Fire / Flying types are able to do. Our Pokemon also won't need the STAB boost on Ice to take care of most of the Pokemon you mentioned, like Landorus-T, Garchomp, and Gliscor -- non-STAB Ice coverage on its own would be satisfactory to let it beat these Pokemon because of their 4x weaknesses.

 

[Magic Mayhem Maiden]

So yeah, I do agree with multiple people about grass being a specialist type. Grass/Normal might be good against Ghost types, but not really, as its basically an even match, and grass type is already a pretty meh type. Pajantom has coverage moves like Brave Bird and can outright do a lot of damage with Dragon STAB, while Necturna can Still do a lot of damage with a Resisted 120 STAB move. Revenankh, while being less common, can also benefit from the added Normal typing to deal even more damage to Grass/Normal. After looking away from the normal typings, and it seems like a normal grass type with STAB on normal type moves, and the 2 best mono-grass types (which none of them are in the A Ranks) are either a frail stallbreaker/cleaner or a tank/pivot, so all the options are taken. The other choices, Grass/Electric and Grass/Ice (Grass/Rock is bad in my eyes) can deal with Flying Types, which is definitely specialist. Grass/Ice can decimate Zygarde, Landorus, and Gliscor, and tank the ground type attacks they throw. Grass/Electric might have lost its ground resistance, but to be able to fight things like Skarmory, Celesteela, and possibly Tomohawk, and water types have nowhere to run.

On an somewhat related note, I feel like the coverage argument is pretty bad, because its like saying a psychic type is good against a dark type because it has a fighting type move. Sure, the stats may not be shown, but that point is also stupid, because it might has the stats to suck against the dark type.

On a stupid note, the 25W arguments suggest that it should be Water/Grass. But what if 25G was the Grass/Water? XD

 

[Dece1t]

On a stupid note, the 25W arguments suggest that it should be Water/Grass. But what if 25G was the Grass/Water? XD

Because 25W is meant to be defensive, and 25G is meant to be a bit more specialized, but its leaning towards more offensive. I'm still standing by this being the best defensive option for us, it gives us so many neutralities and it would be able to defensively take on so many offensive threats already aforementioned, and the other type combos for 25w already mentioned each have very glaring problems when it comes to competition/pressure, weaknesses/resistances, available utility given by its type combination, and how much each combo has been explored already. This type's only real cons are its weakness to U-Turn and the fact that it would share a type with another starter (the latter of which is begrudgingly minor and is not against the rules or the concept).

On another note, Fire-Ground is a rather interesting combo, it does exploit the offensive nature we want by getting STAB EQ/EP and a neutrality to SR/rock moves in general. As for Fire/Electric, I feel like it is a tad linear as a combo. We would have an advantage against bulky waters and a one-up against Flying types (cough Tomohawk), but I'm not entirely convinced that that pairing should be our main route. We're gonna get hardwalled by Mega Lati@s, Heatran, and bulky Ground types in general. I think that would, if anything, hinder our offensive presence as an hyper offensive Fire type.

 

[hawk1113]

On an somewhat related note, I feel like the coverage argument is pretty bad, because its like saying a psychic type is good against a dark type because it has a fighting type move. Sure, the stats may not be shown, but that point is also stupid, because it might has the stats to suck against the dark type.

This argument has gotten complex, and I don't discount some other points, but this is an apples and oranges comparison. Psychic IS bad against Dark, and no amount of good Fighting coverage completely alleviates that, because of typing and getting hit SE against dark moves (namely and most awfully, Pursuit and Sucker Punch). This type would be GOOD against Necturna and Pajantom by resisting their primary STABs. It is also possibly walled, but coverage can help with that especially if a strong ability boosts coverage moves. We may also decide that we don't care if we're walled, we're just going to tank it out while setting up some sort of utility.

What you're saying is like saying that a Fire/Flying type is bad at fighting Heatran because its STABs are bad against Heatran - but what we care about at this stage is that Fire/Flying can come in against any Fire, Steel, or ground coverage move Heatran fires off, resist or ignore it, and then do some other move. We can patch the lack of strong moves later. But what we can't do is deal with the fact that our Fire/Flying type likely dies to rocks - and so making a Fire/Flying type Rapid Spin user is just harder because ultimately even if we account for rocks, we can't account for getting one-shot by Stone Edge. Totally different problems to solve.

 

[Magic Mayhem Maiden]

This argument has gotten complex, and I don't discount some other points, but this is an apples and oranges comparison. Psychic IS bad against Dark, and no amount of good Fighting coverage completely alleviates that, because of typing and getting hit SE against dark moves (namely and most awfully, Pursuit and Sucker Punch). This type would be GOOD against Necturna and Pajantom by resisting their primary STABs. It is also possibly walled, but coverage can help with that especially if a strong ability boosts coverage moves. We may also decide that we don't care if we're walled, we're just going to tank it out while setting up some sort of utility.

What you're saying is like saying that a Fire/Flying type is bad at fighting Heatran because its STABs are bad against Heatran - but what we care about at this stage is that Fire/Flying can come in against any Fire, Steel, or ground coverage move Heatran fires off, resist or ignore it, and then do some other move. We can patch the lack of strong moves later. But what we can't do is deal with the fact that our Fire/Flying type likely dies to rocks - and so making a Fire/Flying type Rapid Spin user is just harder because ultimately even if we account for rocks, we can't account for getting one-shot by Stone Edge. Totally different problems to solve.

True enough, but I wouldn't be so sure to say it is an apples to oranges comparisons. I mean sure, Fire/Flying dies to rocks, but that's a random point you are bringing up when currently, we are discussing about Heatran. I think your second paragraph is the one comparing apples to oranges. Sure, I agree that the Psychic/Dark example suck, since it's clear who is better, so I will expand on the Fire/Flying VS Heatran. For the sake of the argument, the Fire/Flying is M Charizard Y. I looked in both of their Smogon Strategies for any signs of one beating the other in a potential 1v1. Charizard Y's option is running Focus Blast to get a super effective hit, and Heatran's option was to run any rock type moves. Sure, Charizard Y's set use Focus Blast as one of its premier moves, but it states that it is for coverage, and Heatran's Stone Edge is being slashed for Flash Cannon, a move which allows Heatran to check what it should check. You're saying that the Heatrans are expected to run Fire/Ground/Steel type moves, but Heatran is a specialized pokemon, much like our Grass. The trapper Heatran only runs Fire and ground attacks, but thats because the mons it need to trap is Toxapex and the other 2 moves are for trapping other stalls. It can definitely run rock type moves on offensive versions, and it will have more reason if this Fire/Flying is added. Also, if Heatran didn't have Flash Fire, the Fire/Flying would be good.

Now to the Grass/Normal VS Necturna. I might have been biased by letting Necturna use a coverage move as stone edge, but with a not very effective 120 BP STAB move, its still doing 10 BP less damage, which is still decent and can get in the ranges of a 2KO. Now since Necturna can't use coverage moves, it's only fair if the Grass/Normal didn't. You might call this point bad, but if we let the Grass/Normal get coverage moves, then Necturna can get the +2 Attack boosts from SS and get a substitute up. We don't know the stats, but if 25g is an attacker, it will most likely 2KO'd by Necturna, and if it's a bulkier mon, they have to break the sub then and then inflict toxic/paralysis, while Necturna is dealing massive damage to it. Also, Snake_Rattler pointed out that the new builds use a Ghost Z-Move, but I would maybe see some Necturna using a grass Z-Move to counter it, and possibly other builds to lure this Grass/Normal

 

[gibygiby]

As a note, those saying that 25f needs some sort defensive potential in its type aren't completely right. While we could do this just fine, another perfectly fine option is going all out offensive in our typing to pair with Fire such as Fire/Ice. Some good examples of this are Weavile and Syclant (ironically both are part Ice) who ignore any defensive presence but focus purely on offense. They both do have issues with priority, (sometimes they can circumvent it with their priority) but posses a lot of offensive potential. We could go this route with Fire (and actually now that I think about it, with our Grass type too).

In summary, we could go completely all out offensive, or some defensive semblance. Either way works.

 

[Warren685]

As a note, those saying that 25f needs some sort defensive potential in its type aren't completely right. While we could do this just fine, another perfectly fine option is going all out offensive in our typing to pair with Fire such as Fire/Ice. Some good examples of this are Weavile and Syclant (ironically both are part Ice) who ignore any defensive presence but focus purely on offense. They both do have issues with priority, (sometimes they can circumvent it with their priority) but posses a lot of offensive potential. We could go this route with Fire (and actually now that I think about it, with our Grass type too).

In summary, we could go completely all out offensive, or some defensive semblance. Either way works.

Right as you see with Focus Sash Syclant where it can set up with Tail Glow proceed to sweep and put dents into the enemy team before getting taken out. Weavile has a great offensive typing, but with a mediocre ability and yet still presents it self as a threat. If we give CAP25f a chance with ice typing then we as a community can definitely make this work as we have the power to decide what kind of ability like either Magic Guard if people were really concern with the SR weakness or Sheer Force, Tough Claws or Huge Power when we really want to be hyper offensive also we can discuss what it's base spread will be.

 

[Pokekeytrix]

Fire-Fairy: Good offensively and defensively. There really isn't that much else to say about this typing, other than fairy moves are far and few between, so pixelize would probably be the best ability here.

This kind of thinking is what really limits what Fairy typing can do. Of course the movepoll is terrible with just 4 viable moves but abilities such as Sheer Force (boosts Moonblast and Play Rough), Serene Grace (Atk drop of Play Rough and SpA drop on Moonnblast), Technician (Draining Kiss gets boosted), and I'm sure there are many others that work too that can really make the most out of this limited movepool. Pixilate, while being a good option for expanding the movepool, is far from the only option.

 

[Pipotchi]

Fire/Ground: This typing is so right. Its not only fantastic offensively, its a fire type that isnt SR weak and an electric-immune mon not weak to Ice, and is currently an unused typing by anything viable. This makes it an immediate standout to face mons like Tapu Koko, Magearna, Mega Mawile, Volcarona and Plasmanta. It resists both u-turn and absorbs volt switch, and Fire/Ground is such a good offensive pairing that a wide range of abilities can apply, both weak and strong, especially abilities with universal value like Mold Breaker and Poison Touch. This means the discussion is more varied. In my eyes its the easiest and best route to take!

Fire/Electric: Its fine offensively, but itll probably be just that. Its very shallow from typing alone despite having a decent range of moves to pick from. Its not too easy for Fire/Electric to switch around, so if it can find success in limited switchins (eg: be a setup sweeper that ends the game or a wallbreaker) itll work. Personal preference here, itd be more interesting to not make another setup sweeper or raw power mon so Im lukewarm on this.

I have a big opinion on grass/normal being a bad typing even though we can make anything viable.
Grass/Normal: This typing grants a lot of stab moves that can interact with an ability because Normal has an extensive range of attacks. however, the typing itself is booty. Even pure grass type shouldnt be mistaken for a good defensive typing- Tangrowth succeeds with it because mono-typing fits its role as a pivot thanks to its mostly neutral matchup, and has everything else going for it- but I think its also a fair bit worse in the CAP meta compared to OU. To gain a fighting weakness on top is a heavy burden, and miniscule benefit of ghost immunity is irrelevant as every ghost has ways around it. Offensively grass/normal is bad. Individually they are two of the worst offensive types in the game, and provide an average amount of coverage- the issue is that they have no good super effective coverage, and this makes me worried.. does this mon have to hit as hard as Mega Crucibelle (another mon which turns disappointing stab combos into success) to be good? Because right now that mon is ugly to play against imo. And necturna is warping the discussion too. Necturna shouldnt make us create sawsbuck or cruci 2.0, that should be a clear indicator that necturna is too strong. And if all this mon does is make necturna switch to stone edge over substitute and perhaps not even drop from A+ to A, then why bother? This single mon is not going to bring down necturna, and it would then require further tailoring in all the other stages to not allow necturna to happily blast through it with stuff like psychium z, stone edge z, or whatever else. making necturnas setup a little harder doesnt remove the strain from teambuilding. If necturna sets change next gen to beat new threats, or shell smash falls out of viability entirely, where will it leave this pokemon? Is this gunna be a voodoom in 1 or 2 gens, its original purpose totally lost?
So yea i dont really understand grass/normal if we are trying to pick a relevant typing to use in the tier. We can always make a mon viable despite its typing. But will it skew the mon too much like previous attempts? Probably imo.
Is there a reason why people want grass/normal over Water/Normal or Fire/Normal? Just the necturna thing? It seems like the worst of the three to pair with normal typing, at least fire/normal has good offensive coverage and water/normal has near-perfect neutral coverage in the cap metagame, only resisted by necturna and pajantom.

Grass/Electric and Grass/Ice are flawed, but imo are a little better. Its still incredibly hard for me to thinkof anything but Grass/Steel when it comes to viability, despite a small amount of overlap with Ferro and Kartana. Those mons are incredibly specialized though as a fully defensive hazard setter and sweeper respectively, so there is a ton of room to slot in a new pokemon. Even simply starting with a specially offensive bias would set it apart.

 

[Mr Holiday]

Fire/Electric: Its fine offensively, but itll probably be just that. Its very shallow from typing alone despite having a decent range of moves to pick from. Its not too easy for Fire/Electric to switch around, so if it can find success in limited switchins (eg: be a setup sweeper that ends the game or a wallbreaker) itll work. Personal preference here, itd be more interesting to not make another setup sweeper or raw power mon so Im lukewarm on this.

Just a point of clarity, Fire/Electric is weak to Ground, Rock and Water, and resists Flying, Bug, Fire, Grass, Electric, Ice, Fairy and Steel. It's probably got more defensive viability than most of Water/X Types we've been throwing around. While yes, it would be vulnerable to Stealth Rock, I don't think that by itself is enough to counteract having eight resistances to switch in on. Combined with it's pretty solid STAB coverage and wide variety of Moves to coordinate Abilities with, Fire/Electric is probably one of the more viable suggestions so far for CAP25f.

In other news, I've been putting a lot of thought into CAP25g, and I had a possibly very stupid interesting idea. It might seem a bit counter-intuitive, but hear me out. Grass/Bug. I know, it's pretty terrible in terms of both offense and defense. Grass/Bug is weak to Flying, Fire, Poison, Rock, Bug, and Ice, and resists Fighting, Water, Electric, Ground and Grass. Offensively, Grass/Bug has pretty poor STAB coverage, only hitting Grass, Water, Rock, Ground, Psychic and Dark for Super Effective damage. So, why would I suggest it? Grass/Bug both have a large number of Moves that coordinate well with Abilities on both sides of the spectrum, as well as a large variety of Moves with unique/under used mechanics to help carve out a unique niche. One thing that strikes me is that they both have various ways of restoring HP, often to the opponent's direct detriment, leading me to wonder if a kind of "offensive stall/utility" might be possible. It might be a bit gimmicky, but if done well it could certainly be a viable tactic. I also think it's worth pointing out that Grass/Bug can easily eliminate many bulky Water, Grass and Ground Types by itself, lending a degree of useful role compression to teams. It also does well against potentially dangerous Psychic and Dark Types, like Alakazam or Hydreigon, that Grass Types might not be able to deal with by themselves, giving further role compression.

Again, I know Grass/Bug is a generally bad Type, and normally I wouldn't suggest it. However, I keep thinking about how to make CAP25g a "specialist", and by definition a specialist tends to lie outside the norms. I feel like going down tried and true routes while trying to make CAP25g is only doing us, and the project as a whole, a disservice. As I've said before, if we make something that's generally good, it'll be a generalist, not a specialist. We have to be willing to consider unorthodox ideas if we want to get something "special".

 

[Magic Mayhem Maiden]

I have a big opinion on grass/normal being a bad typing even though we can make anything viable.
Grass/Normal: This typing grants a lot of stab moves that can interact with an ability because Normal has an extensive range of attacks. however, the typing itself is booty. Even pure grass type shouldnt be mistaken for a good defensive typing- Tangrowth succeeds with it because mono-typing fits its role as a pivot thanks to its mostly neutral matchup, and has everything else going for it- but I think its also a fair bit worse in the CAP meta compared to OU. To gain a fighting weakness on top is a heavy burden, and miniscule benefit of ghost immunity is irrelevant as every ghost has ways around it. Offensively grass/normal is bad. Individually they are two of the worst offensive types in the game, and provide an average amount of coverage- the issue is that they have no good super effective coverage, and this makes me worried.. does this mon have to hit as hard as Mega Crucibelle (another mon which turns disappointing stab combos into success) to be good? Because right now that mon is ugly to play against imo. And necturna is warping the discussion too. Necturna shouldnt make us create sawsbuck or cruci 2.0, that should be a clear indicator that necturna is too strong. And if all this mon does is make necturna switch to stone edge over substitute and perhaps not even drop from A+ to A, then why bother? This single mon is not going to bring down necturna, and it would then require further tailoring in all the other stages to not allow necturna to happily blast through it with stuff like psychium z, stone edge z, or whatever else. making necturnas setup a little harder doesnt remove the strain from teambuilding. If necturna sets change next gen to beat new threats, or shell smash falls out of viability entirely, where will it leave this pokemon? Is this gunna be a voodoom in 1 or 2 gens, its original purpose totally lost?
So yea i dont really understand grass/normal if we are trying to pick a relevant typing to use in the tier. We can always make a mon viable despite its typing. But will it skew the mon too much like previous attempts? Probably imo.
Is there a reason why people want grass/normal over Water/Normal or Fire/Normal? Just the necturna thing? It seems like the worst of the three to pair with normal typing, at least fire/normal has good offensive coverage and water/normal has near-perfect neutral coverage in the cap metagame, only resisted by necturna and pajantom.

Grass/Electric and Grass/Ice are flawed, but imo are a little better. Its still incredibly hard for me to thinkof anything but Grass/Steel when it comes to viability, despite a small amount of overlap with Ferro and Kartana. Those mons are incredibly specialized though as a fully defensive hazard setter and sweeper respectively, so there is a ton of room to slot in a new pokemon. Even simply starting with a specially offensive bias would set it apart.

So I do agree that Grass/Normal sucks because it's really just mono-grass with Normal slapped on and everyone is hyping it for the ability that it can beat Necturna but ONLY DEFENSIVELY, but I disagree with making it Grass/Steel. There has been a lot of discussion with grass to NOT choose this typing, solely because of the overlap is far greater than you think. So great, that everyone unanimously thinks Grass/Steel should not be chosen.

First, Ferrothorn is not a fully defensive hazard setter. It has Power Whip, which it can do some serious damage, and Ferrothorn's 94 Base ATK is decent enough to use attacks. It also gets Knock Off, which is a great utility move which can also do damage. Also it gets Leech Seed, which does affect the opposing team and can increase the longevity of Ferrothorn, and health sapping is not something I will put in "fully defensive". From a fully defensive pokemon, I would expect it to break apart when you taunt it, and Taunting Ferrothorn might stop it's job, but it's far from being useless. Now for Kartana. Sure it has pitiful HP and literally the worst Special Defense in the metagame, but it has decent defense, and decent might be an understatement, because it has 131 defense. It's stats allow it to be either a booster or a choicer. So, you think they are extreme defense and offense, but they are really not. Extreme Defense is in terms of Chansey, who is literally tanky as hell and cannot do anything with BP moves, and extreme offense goes to Pheromosa, who is literally built to be faster than 150 speed and can destroy anything on both physical and special but dies to anything.

Next, I don't think Grass/Steel being special will cut it. You point out that grass and normal are bad offensive types. Well, I think steel should also place near the bottom. Being good against Rock Ice and Fairy (2 of them which already have problems) will not help you when it is resisted by Fire, Water, Electric, and Steel, all of which are somewhat common in the tier. Also this will face competition with Magearna, which is also a Steel type special attacker, but one it's tanky, second it doesn't have a quad weakness, and lastly Fairy is probably better attacking type than Grass.

Also we want a specialist grass type. I don't think a middle of the road Grass/Steel brings anything new to the table. Even special attacking ones are basically outclassed by Magearna. I think Grass/Electric and Grass/Ice brings new things to the table like being able to smack Tomohawk and other flying type pokemons and utterly decimating x4 weak pokemons which grass would normally be challenged respectively. I think grass type being neutral to ground is something that could be specialist

 

[Pipotchi]

A lot of ppl have touched incredibly briefly on grass/steel and said we dont want to compete with ferro or kart. But remember every grass type we make is competing with those pokemon, not just if we make a grass/steel. Also, ferrothorn is definitely a defensive pokemon and kartana is offensive. ferrothorn not being totally passive and kartana having switchin opportunities are the reasons they are viable in OU, as with most other defensive and offensive mons in the tier, but they dont exist outside of their hazard setting / sweeper+wallbreaker roles. We can still make a specialist grass/steel pokemon, there's no need to shoot for a middle ground or anything similar to ferro or kartana whatsoever. Imagine Serperior was a grass/steel pokemon- would it perform the same role as those two?
Youre right that grass/steel is not an impressive offensive combination. Grass is a hard type to play with because its not a good offensive type. A lot of successful grass types rely on their super effective coverage to make an impact also. Grass/ Steel does have a small benefit of allowing a Steel pokemon to get through specially defensive roadblocks in Arghonaut and Gastrodon, but for the most part its not great. But I think we can circumvent a weak offensive typing more than a weak defensive one, because we can add any coverage we like that fits the concept. This is probably a disliked opinion but this stage is not that relevant to the movepool-ability interaction concept and we should try and grab some strong typings to allow the mons to be a bit more viable without creating an unrealistically strong movepool or ridiculous stats later on.

 

[Mx]

I have a big opinion on grass/normal being a bad typing even though we can make anything viable.
Grass/Normal: This typing grants a lot of stab moves that can interact with an ability because Normal has an extensive range of attacks. however, the typing itself is booty. Even pure grass type shouldnt be mistaken for a good defensive typing- Tangrowth succeeds with it because mono-typing fits its role as a pivot thanks to its mostly neutral matchup, and has everything else going for it- but I think its also a fair bit worse in the CAP meta compared to OU. To gain a fighting weakness on top is a heavy burden, and miniscule benefit of ghost immunity is irrelevant as every ghost has ways around it. Offensively grass/normal is bad. Individually they are two of the worst offensive types in the game, and provide an average amount of coverage- the issue is that they have no good super effective coverage, and this makes me worried.. does this mon have to hit as hard as Mega Crucibelle (another mon which turns disappointing stab combos into success) to be good? Because right now that mon is ugly to play against imo. And necturna is warping the discussion too. Necturna shouldnt make us create sawsbuck or cruci 2.0, that should be a clear indicator that necturna is too strong. And if all this mon does is make necturna switch to stone edge over substitute and perhaps not even drop from A+ to A, then why bother? This single mon is not going to bring down necturna, and it would then require further tailoring in all the other stages to not allow necturna to happily blast through it with stuff like psychium z, stone edge z, or whatever else. making necturnas setup a little harder doesnt remove the strain from teambuilding. If necturna sets change next gen to beat new threats, or shell smash falls out of viability entirely, where will it leave this pokemon? Is this gunna be a voodoom in 1 or 2 gens, its original purpose totally lost?
So yea i dont really understand grass/normal if we are trying to pick a relevant typing to use in the tier. We can always make a mon viable despite its typing. But will it skew the mon too much like previous attempts? Probably imo.
Is there a reason why people want grass/normal over Water/Normal or Fire/Normal? Just the necturna thing? It seems like the worst of the three to pair with normal typing, at least fire/normal has good offensive coverage and water/normal has near-perfect neutral coverage in the cap metagame, only resisted by necturna and pajantom.

I heavily disagree with all of this. First of all, while Grass has a fair share of problems, it also has a great match up against some of the biggest threats in the meta, such as Tapu Koko, Ash-Greninja and Zygarde. This last one is particularly notable because of how hard it is to find resists to Thousand Arrows. The added Fighting weakness is negligible, as Fighting is a pretty mediocre type in the current meta because of Tomohawk's dominance and the abundance of Fairy-types. The only relevant match-ups that would be affected by this extra weakness are against Kartana, M-Medicham, and Revenankh, and this few problems are more than worth it in exchange of having an excellent match-up against Shell Smash Necturna, which can easily be dealt with with coverage, especially if you consider that Nect needs to lower her own defenses in order to boost. This leads me to my next point, SS Nect herself. I think that the fact that the whole discussion has centered around this particular mon speaks more about how broken this thing currently is than about anything bad about the typing itself, we are just reacting against this threat by trying to create something to contain her. We're also not obliged to counter every little thing that Nect could throw at us, the main set that this type aims to counter is SS + Ghostium-Z the other ones are just not that relevant, and already possess a fair amount of checks and counters. Besides, our main objective for CAP 25g is to differentiate ourselves from other Grass types, and Grass/Normal does this automatically just by this match up alone.

Offensively Grass/Normal is not nearly as bad as you make it look like, the only type that resist it is Steel, and by using Ground or Fire coverage, you can hit almost anything for neutral damage. Normal STAB options should also not be underestimated, as you have powerful option on both sides with moves like Facade, Boomburst, Extreme Speed and Double-Edge that will seriously threaten anything that doesn't resist them. It is true that other types could get access to them by using an -ate ability, but that would lock us into one specific choice, while choosing Normal-type would still let us explore these moves in conjunction with other kind of abilities.

Finally, as for pairing Normal with Water or Fire. Water/Normal is a terrible, as unlike Grass, you fail to capitalize your Ghost immunity because of how Necturna still smacks you with Power Whip. Fire/Normal is an ok typing, but its bad match up against Toxapex and Arghonaut makes it much harder to differentiate ourselves from Volkraken, as we will share them as counters, so it would be an inferior choice compared with Fire/Electric, Fire/Psychic and Fire/Ground.

 

[Dogfish44]

Hangover posts on mobile are fun ^^;

A lot of the lines of argument against Grass/Normal having a viable niche in being able to Check or potentially Counter SS Necturna seems to be relying on a -1 Def/SpD Uninvested Necturna having a lot more bull than it actually does.

Obviously STAB options should be considered - particularly for our offensive Fire type - but we are not restricted in our coverage options. Moves like Chatter and Icicle Spear are able to break through Necty once her sub is up, and standard coverage like Knock Off also threatens her.

And whilst the discussion has centred around Necty... the beauty of the typing is that it’s incredible free with regards to what we pick as our other niches. Tackling Necty can be done in one move spot and a typing, that still leaves much room to consider a secondary niche - whether it be a defensive synergy set or an offensive one.

 

[Billy the Uncle]

I'm gonna leave my two cents for CAP25w here and advocate pure Water as a typing for it.

As common as Water-typing is across the tiers, there is a strange lack of defensive pure Water types in the upper echelons. The closest things are Suicune, who uses its bulk to set up slowly, and Alomomola which doesn't see much high-tier play. Both Cune's and Mola's stat distributions would be ineligible for CAP25w as well. Since we're taking a defensive focus for CAP25w, this could be a good chance to make something that doesn't exist.

I don't think I need to remind anyone the defensive merits of a pure Water typing; while it lacks 4x resistances and doesn't have the boatloads of 2x resistances like Water/Poison or Water/Steel, it still resists Fire, Ice, and Water itself while having lots of neutralities. More so, Grass and Electric attacks are usually easy to predict/work around.

Anyway this will never happen because CAP has a fetish for dual types Because of this, I think we can give Water a shot.

 

[Dece1t]

I heavily disagree with all of this. First of all, while Grass has a fair share of problems, it also has a great match up against some of the biggest threats in the meta, such as Tapu Koko, Ash-Greninja and Zygarde. This last one is particularly notable because of how hard it is to find resists to Thousand Arrows. The added Fighting weakness is negligible, as Fighting is a pretty mediocre type in the current meta because of Tomohawk's dominance and the abundance of Fairy-types. The only relevant match-ups that would be affected by this extra weakness are against Kartana, M-Medicham, and Revenankh, and this few problems are more than worth it in exchange of having an excellent match-up against Shell Smash Necturna, which can easily be dealt with with coverage, especially if you consider that Nect needs to lower her own defenses in order to boost. This leads me to my next point, SS Nect herself. I think that the fact that the whole discussion has centered around this particular mon speaks more about how broken this thing currently is than about anything bad about the typing itself, we are just reacting against this threat by trying to create something to contain her. We're also not obliged to counter every little thing that Nect could throw at us, the main set that this type aims to counter is SS + Ghostium-Z the other ones are just not that relevant, and already possess a fair amount of checks and counters. Besides, our main objective for CAP 25g is to differentiate ourselves from other Grass types, and Grass/Normal does this automatically just by this match up alone.

Offensively Grass/Normal is not nearly as bad as you make it look like, the only type that resist it is Steel, and by using Ground or Fire coverage, you can hit almost anything for neutral damage. Normal STAB options should also not be underestimated, as you have powerful option on both sides with moves like Facade, Boomburst, Extreme Speed and Double-Edge that will seriously threaten anything that doesn't resist them. It is true that other types could get access to them by using an -ate ability, but that would lock us into one specific choice, while choosing Normal-type would still let us explore these moves in conjunction with other kind of abilities.

Finally, as for pairing Normal with Water or Fire. Water/Normal is a terrible, as unlike Grass, you fail to capitalize your Ghost immunity because of how Necturna still smacks you with Power Whip. Fire/Normal is an ok typing, but its bad match up against Toxapex and Arghonaut makes it much harder to differentiate ourselves from Volkraken, as we will share them as counters, so it would be an inferior choice compared with Fire/Electric, Fire/Psychic and Fire/Ground.

I actually agree with Pipotachi with this one, not only is Grass/Normal suboptimal, but we're warping this discussion way too much around Shell Smash Necturna. Sure it has a niche of being immune to one of its stabs and resistant to the other, but thats about all thats going for it. It doesnt have a strong niche against other Ghost types, for one, and the normal typing isn't doing its already defensively sub par grass typing any big favors: we, in turn, gain a fighting weakness. Its hard for me to see how we can make this mon specialized in some sort of way with that combo. Normal STAB isnt terrible, especially if this is picked and we end up giving it boomburst or extreme speed, but I dont think its nearly as good or has a defined and broad specialized niche better than just countering Necturna. Even Grass/Ice sounds a tad more beneficial (not saying I support it fully, but it has niches), with Refrigerate it could rapid spin against anything it wants, and it would be able to threaten top-tier threats like lando t, tomohawk, and zygarde, and theoretically be able to revenge kill Necturna with Ice Shard.