CAP 21 CAP 21 - Part 2 - Typing Discussion

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I would have to lean towards not changing type(s) between base and Mega forms. The benefit of having different typings between forms seems to be that you can make use of the base form's defensive capabilities, which could be different from the Mega forms. This walks a fine line with regards to not trying to negate the downsides of a typing; the base form also has lower stats and cannot have too many resistances (or it wouldn't be an undervalued type). The way I see it, if the forms are too different in utility, it risks derailing the concept; if the forms different typings are too similar in utility, the benefits of a type change are minimal. While it would be an interesting exercise, there isn't any merit if it distracts from the concept that the community voted for (as we saw in the concept assessment, this is already a surprisingly difficult concept to get a handle on).

I dislike people's reasoning that if the base form isn't great, that we might as well make a CAP with Mega stats. We should remember that we are looking for a mediocre-at-best typing that has a specific utility in countering specific Pokemon. That already alters how people play the CAP, as looking for the free turn to Mega Evolve is definitely a matter of timing and opportunity cost; the effect against item altering moves, like Knock Off, and generally high BST are a bonus. Yeah, you'll have to use your brain for this concept, even if there are no mind games to play. Finally, the concept isn't "How to best make use of the turn you Mega Evolve", "What are the benefits of a base form being different from a Mega form", "Mega Mind Games" or similar: it's looking at an undervalued typing an playing its strengths and weaknesses by way of being a utility counter to a set of Pokemon. There were concepts that focused on the different roles a base and Mega form could have, and a couple were even on the slate; I see no reason to try and tack those concepts onto this one, especially when this is the first Mega CAP. It's already a big milestone, so going the safe route isn't a problem at all when we're in uncharted territory. There will be plenty of time to take risks imo.
 
I think WhiteDMist's post hit the nail on the head here. Yes, we are having a mega evolution here, but this concept is not about the mega evolution or all the things that surround it. The mega is a tool we are using, but not the project itself. This is not to say we should not utilize the things that make up a mega evolution to their fullest, but at the same time we should not be looking to simply change typing because we can and it might make for a stronger Pokemon.

Now, to answer Imanalt's question, do I think that changing types helps us do a better job of being a utility counter with a poor typing? Not really, no. I don't think it would necessarily be worse, but unless the types are made to be of near equal use, I think we would see discrepancy that would cause the "better" type to get the use, and we would not really see a chosen "poor" typing in the role that we want. In other words, I see it as creating an increased risk of a failure of concept with regard to at least one chosen typing, without really any benefit, concept wise. Again, that's not to say we could not do it, but rather it is say that there is not a good reason to do so.

Furthermore, I think by sticking with a single typing, we would be able to go far more in depth. Our attention would not be split between two typings, and we could put greater focus on the bigger, and arguably more important aspects of mega evolution, the stats and ability. As a utility counter, we might not necessarily beat everything we aim to beat with a single set. Maybe some sets work better with a Mega Stone, while others want Lefties, Life Orb or Assault Vest. We can't really say at this point, and as such, I believe that sticking to one typing will allow us to better work with these issues and how the relate to the concept, as our attention won't be split.

So, going back to our Typing Leader's question, no, I don't think changing types would help us do the job we want to do better, but nor do I think it would make us to it worse. I just think that it would make things more complicated for a project so focused on making an undervalued typing good, and potentially cause conflicts with the concept. And in lieu of any major benefits of doing so, I think it would be in our best interest to stick to a single typing.
 
Yeah, I think it makes a lot more sense to stick with the same typing before and after mega evolution. I really agree with WhiteDMist's and jas's posts so read those, and I also want to add that it is extremely difficult to make two pokemon with large similarities where one has 100 higher bst (the mega) that are both relatively evenly useful. A lot of people have argued that we will learn more by trying to do this, but I would disagree. We don't have a great understanding of megas in general at this point, and so we still have a lot we can learn by going with the basic straightforward switch in once -> mega evolve immediately model that almost all megas follow. The only megas that don't follow this do it almost purely because of an ability change (slowbro, occasionally sableye), or to retain an immunity for one turn of set up (charizard-x). What people are proposing in making a utility counter that would counter different pokemon before and after mega evolution is something completely different to any of these. Thats not a good or a bad thing inherently, but it is a hard thing. For our first attempt at making a mega evolution, taking the harder road purely for the sake of being harder is not worth it. This cap will keep the same types before and after Mega evolution.

So now the question becomes, what typing should that be? With that question in mind, I have one major question to be answered to help us get to that typing:
What common trends are there among the typings and coverage moves used of the best pokemon in OU?

This is the next question I'd like to see answered. It is at this time that you can start proposing typings, using this question as your guide.
 
My proposal shall be Bug/Flying. It's well-known that Flying has wide neutral coverage by itself, as seen with Talonflame and Mega Pinsir, but tends to be defensively frail, especially when paired with Bug. I mean, look at that 4x Rock weakness. Nothing is immune to Bug outside of one irrelevant Pokémon (that being Shedinja), and nothing is immune to Flying.

What common trends are there among the typings and coverage moves used of the best pokemon in OU?

They tend to have wide neutral coverage with their STAB. Take Garchomp as an example. It's one of the highest-ranking Pokémon in OU because of its general power, Speed, wide neutral coverage with its STAB, and a wide movepool. Togekiss is immune to both of its STABs, but the 'chomp always has other coverage for it just in case. I'm not very familiar with the current OU, but no wonder it's such a beast!
 
I'd like to propose Normal as a typing for this CAP. This might seem uninteresting to work with, but I think it will be a fun challenge to look for the advantages in such a mediocre typing. As it stands, the only pure Normal type in OU is Chansey, but if anything its typing cripples it due to its Fighting weakness. We could investigate the advantages of having only one weakness, as well as an immunity.

As for Imanalt's question, most powerful OU Pokémon have typings that give them lots of resistances. Scizor, for example, is one of many Steel-types in top-tier OU, and Steel is a typing that is obviously known for its many resistances. Scizor has a fantastic typing, with 8 resistances, 1 immunity, and only 1 weakness. It is also evident that Scizor, among others, has an incredible coverage-filled movepool that allows it to function well against various threats in the tier.
 
I think people are misunderstanding my poorly phrased question. I didn't mean to look for things like "good pokemon have a lot of coverage" i meant things like "a lot of good pokemon use fairy moves, so types that resist fairy are useful" Apologies for the poor wording!
 
Knock Off is a coverage move that many pokes use now, but nothing would use Knock Off on a mega poke...I guess we could make it resist it so it could switch into it really well? Just a thought.
 
Looking through the top tier Pokemon in OU, the thing that matters most about their typing is relevancy. Namely, they either have STABs that hit other top tier OU Pokemon for massive damage, have resistances to the STABs of other top tier OU Pokemon, or both. Likewise, if they run coverage, it's for relevant Pokemon that wall their STAB.

For example, Thundurus runs Hidden Power Ice to hit Ground types that are immune to its STAB (and Thunder Wave), as there's plenty of Ground types in OU. Those Ground types are OU for not only their immunity to Thunder Wave, but for their high-power Earthquake that hits most Steel types SE, and it just goes on from there. On the other hand, Keldeo generally doesn't care about whether or not it can touch Jellicent, because Jellicent isn't something that's commonly used to good effect in OU.

What the most relevant typings in OU are is a matter of debate, as the Pokemon with those typings are often top tier for reasons beyond just their typing. Dragon, Steel, Fairy, Flying, Ground, and Water are all common amongst OU Pokemon, however.

With that in mind...I actually don't have a concrete suggestion for a typing, mostly because there's so many ways the term "utility counter" could be taken. However, I'd support an Electric type for this CAP, either on its own or paired with some other typing. Out of the aforementioned list, Electric hits two of those typings SE and a further two neutrally. Electric is lacking in resistances, but it's also lacking in weaknesses. And one of its resistances is to the ever-common Flying type, which is very nice indeed.
 
What common trends are there among the typings and coverage moves used of the best pokemon in OU?
There is an annoying abundance of Ground, Rock, and/or Fire coverage among the top Pokemon of OU, which really makes it difficult to think of a typing that is both undervalued and can properly counter at least a couple of important Pokemon. I am avoiding Dragon, Fairy, Water, and Steel typing additions, because these types are naturally very good and kind of carry most poor types a long way. This does make the above coverage a bit harder to get around and still have such a type be argued as undervalued.

After looking at a few types, I keep going back to Grass/Ice typing. It naturally counters non-HP Fire Water-types, notably Manaphy, Rotom-W, Suicune, Mega Sharpedo, Mega Gyrados (plus non-Bounce regular is checked), Quagsire, and Alomomola. It also checks Starmie (doesn't really like Psychic/Psyshock though), Azumarill (Superpower hurts a lot), and Mega Slowbro (unless Fire Blast ofc). In addition, this typing threatens Celebi, Dragons-types, and Ground-types offensively. Resisting Ground-type attacks is a very good thing as well, with the amount of such moves being used. The STABs are pretty potent, though they miss out on Steel and Fire types, which isn't too bad; both types also have great offensive moves on both sides of the spectrum, and Grass has a variety of support moves as well.

Now, this typing automatically brings Mega Abomasnow to mind, which is fair. There is also the problem of the huge number of weaknesses, Fire, Fighting, Rock, Flying, Poison, Bug, and Steel. The final problem is the stiff competition from Ferrothorn, Mega Venusaur, and Celebi (among others) as supporting/defensive Grass-types. I'll try to address each problem.

Mega Abomasnow has excellent offenses and decent defenses, which makes it a good wallbreaker. But its base 30 Speed is terrible, to the point where it relies too much on free turns to actually do anything. It also keeps its teammates on their toes with Snow Warning, wearing them down if care isn't taken. For this CAP, we are looking to make a utility counter, so high offenses aren't really required; it is nice, but more of an afterthought. There is no point is replicating Mega Abomasnow's poor Speed, and at the least outspeeding common defensive Pokemon should be top priority. There is no obligation to have Snow Warning, so that problem isn't too significant. Grass-types also tend to have HP gaining moves, at the very least Giga Drain, so longevity can be worked around with some care.

Weaknesses are a problem, but this is an undervalued type for a reason. I actually think that the Fire weakness plays pretty nicely with this concept: you won't actually stay in on any Fire-type, so you really only have to account for Fire-type coverage moves mostly. Looking at the Water-types I noted, very few of them carry Fire-type moves as coverage; the ones that do have to give up a better coverage move, such as Ice Beam, which can be used to your advantage. Flying, Poison, and Steel moves are usually only found on Pokemon that have STAB on them, which you naturally avoid regardless (plus you threaten the former in exchange). Rock-types aren't common, and they have to watch out for Grass moves; Ground-types that use Stone Edge for coverage dislike Ice moves. Fighting-types may threaten this typing, but they also don't resist either STAB, and Keldeo actually has to watch out for Grass attacks too (Breloom hates Ice moves). When talking about Bug-moves, you usually refer to U-turn (or Scizor), which is what looks to be a major problem. Best I can say is that the concept notes that the CAP should simply have ways to stay out such situations, so maybe turning the tables on the momentum can alleviate this problem a bit.

As for competition from other defensive Grass-types, the difference is that Grass/Ice also has amazing offensive potential, which is different enough that it should distinguish the typing (movepool and stats will help too). I think the combination of countering common Water-types AND threatening Dragon and Ground types is enough of a niche to be distinguishable.

If I find a typing I like more, I'll post it. Still plenty of combinations to try.
 
First, we need to answer the question, "What are the best Pokemon in OU?" While usage doesn't necessarily correspond to overall power, it is still a useful metric, particularly the higher ELO cutoffs. I'll be using the August 2015 stats on Showdown, since the September stats probably won't be up in time for this step of discussion.

Common trends for coverage and typings are as follows.
-Ground (e.g. Earthquake, Earth Power): Garchomp, Landorus-T, Heatran, Kyurem-Black, Excadrill, Mega Diancie, Hippowdon, Gliscor, Quagsire
-U-Turn: Landorus-T, Scizor, Talonflame, Tornadus-T, Jirachi
-Fairy: Clefable, Diancie, Azumarill, Mega Altaria
-Fire: Garchomp, Heatran, Talonflame, Tornadus-T, Latios, Mega Diancie
-Ice: Kyurem-Black, Keldeo, Manaphy, Thundurus, Raikou, Starmie

Attempting to counter all of these at once would be a nigh impossible feat, so it makes more sense to pick a group of these typings to work with. Excluding Ground for the time being, it can be seen that Fire resists all four of the remaining move categories. While Fire is itself a common type for coverage moves, the only commonly seen Fire types are Charizard, Talonflame, and Heatran, as having a weakness to Stealth Rock generally does no favors for a Pokemon's viability in OU.

Looking at potential type combinations with Fire typing, the one that immediately jumped out at me was Fire/Rock. This typing has never had its chance to shine in OU, as its only representative is Magcargo, a Pokemon so crippled by its terrible stats that not even Shell Smash can make it viable in higher tiers. While having two double weaknesses and a Stealth Rock weakness are glaring issues, Fire/Rock has some notable qualities in its favor. In addition to those mentioned earlier, Fire/Rock typing also resists Flying, making it arguably the best possible typing for shutting down birdspam. Offensively, Fire and Rock has excellent neutral coverage, as it is resisted only by a select few Pokemon seen regularly in OU (i.e. Garchomp, Swampert), yet it is difficult to find a single Pokemon viable in OU that runs both simultaneously. If there's a typing that's a better fit for the concept than this, I'd love to see it.
 
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Long ass irc convo incoming:
<imanalt> all the suggestions so far are complete shit
<imanalt> only 1 is an actually bad typing and its too bad to be salvageable
<Snobalt> wdm's grass/ice, right?
<imanalt> ye
<imanalt> which just... doesnt actually beat anything
<imanalt> like you beat bulky waters
<imanalt> and thats it
<imanalt> it has no resists
<imanalt> which any type w/ ice will have
<imanalt> no one has suggested any rock or poison typings yet sigh
<imanalt> even though both beat a lot of common shit
<imanalt> grass could possibly have potential but would need a dragon resist 2ndary tbh, which removes the possibility of a bad type
<Snobalt> why would we need that?
<imanalt> much as grass/steel or grass/fairy woudl do what we want, they also are just so good
<imanalt> my concern is that grass has very few options for what you can beat
<imanalt> like the two things you can beat being a grass type are bulky waters and bulky grounds, which is nice, but one bulky ground youre not really checking well because uturn (landog) and another has dragon stab
<imanalt> so you need to find another niche to be able to check more things
<imanalt> which pretty much leaves the fairies or the dragons
<imanalt> a fairy resist could maybe be possible, and grass/poison would be a decent enough shout, just feels explored already w/ venu
<imanalt> and grass/fire would lose you your water resist
<imanalt> which ends up at grass/steel or grass/fairy
<imanalt> rip
<imanalt> the big thing is categorizing the best mons in ou into things like "waters" "bulky grounds" "dragons" "fairies"
<imanalt> seeing what types do well against each category
<imanalt> and trying to find 2 categories we can beat most of
<imanalt> with types that aren't "good"
<Snobalt> the first thing that came to mind is ice/steel to beat dragons and fairies
<Snobalt> keep in mind i literally just thought of that, so take it with a grain of salt :P
<imanalt> ice just doesnt
<imanalt> add much
<imanalt> to a utility counter
<imanalt> like being able to threaten dragons with stab is nic ebut
<imanalt> extra residual from sr is nice
<imanalt> and it adds no resists
<Snobalt> looks like we're not beating dragons and fairies then
<Snobalt> the only other option is dragon/steel, which is clearly a strong typing
<imanalt> i mean
<imanalt> do we have to hit dragons super effective to beat them
<imanalt> with stab
<imanalt> i think something like poison/steel has potential, although it is questinable whether it is "bad"
<HD> underrepresented
<imanalt> although i guess poison is kind of redundant w/ steel
<imanalt> idk i dont like steel/anything
<imanalt> steel is scuh a good type
<HD> yeah steel is too good
<imanalt> steel fairy dragon water and ground are like my list of do not want types
<imanalt> maaaaybe flying too
<imanalt> but flying + another sr weak type is okish i guess
<imanalt> i just dont like the
<imanalt> this is why torn-t is a top tier mon
<imanalt> flying is a great type defensively and offensively
<imanalt> its problem is its weaknesses can be compoundable
<imanalt> oh ghost is probably another that i'd be VERY reluctant to do
<Rainman_Legends> Do fairy 8)
<imanalt> what types are left after that list
<imanalt> dark/poison/rock/fire/bug/grass/???
<HD> ROCK/FIRE
<imanalt> oh fighting is in the too good category too
<imanalt> rock/psn >> rock/fire sigh
<imanalt> oh psychic too
<Snobalt> normal fighting ice bug rock dark fire grass poison electric psychic
<HD> fighting is too good
<imanalt> yeah
<Snobalt> wait is psychic too good?
<imanalt> normal/ice/bug/rock/dark/fire/grass/poison/electric/psychic is a decent list to work off of
<HD> psychic is a good typing but not many mons for it
<imanalt> no
<imanalt> psychic is an ok type
<imanalt> not a good one
<HD> which is ideal actually
<imanalt> yeah
<imanalt> psychic is not a bad fit
<imanalt> im just not sure what we're checking w/ psychic typing
<Snobalt> i read that as "psychic is in the too good category along with fighting" :
<HD> fighting types?
<Snobalt> we check mons with fighting coverage i guess
<imanalt> HD which are?
<HD> uh terrakion
<HD> and um
<HD> conkeldurr?
<imanalt> keldeo is a good pokemon
<imanalt> conk is trash
<Snobalt> not conk- knock off
<imanalt> breloom is trash
<imanalt> terrak is ok
<imanalt> keldeo and terrak are like the only two relevant fightings rn
<imanalt> and only one is actually good
<HD> damn
<Snobalt> mega lopunny?
<imanalt> oh that too
<imanalt> so if we're going psychic we desperately need a secondary typing that lets us beat keldeo and lopunny
<imanalt> but no types resist normal and water :/
<imanalt> our only available water resist is grass
<imanalt> but just making celebi again is not fun
<imanalt> so psychic doesnt really /do/ that much
<imanalt> what type's next
<Snobalt> ghost/psychic is probably too good, and roc/psychic gives us a fighting neutrality
<imanalt> normal obviously doesnt actually do anything
<Snobalt> that leaves us with: grass bug dark fire rock poison ice electric
<imanalt> ice doesnt resist shit so is not useful
<Rainman_Legends> Grass/fairy is the obvious answer
<imanalt> does bug beat anything relevant?
<HD> normal might actually work maybe?
<imanalt> im working purely off this list of types normal/ice/bug/rock/dark/fire/grass/poison/electric/psychic
<HD> like get a really good ability
<imanalt> what does normal check
<imanalt> ghosts which is cool but
<HD> from the mega-evolution
<HD> and it could be a decent utility tank
<imanalt> we desperately need resists to a decent set of things to be a utility check
<Snobalt> bug does beat the myriad of psychics that roam free in ou
<Snobalt> offensively that is
<imanalt> but for a utiltiy counter defensively is more important
<imanalt> bug/psycic resist is possible
<imanalt> bug/dark?
<imanalt> does that beat anything other than psychics
<HD> ...venusaur?
<Snobalt> not really
<imanalt> yeah bug/dark seems p shit
<imanalt> bug gives us a ground resist
<imanalt> possibly pair it w/ a type that could capitalize on this?
<Rainman_Legends> Bug/ice ....wait
<imanalt> lol i could almost justify bug/ice here yeah
<imanalt> bug/grass does some coolish things but not enough coolish things
<HD> wooooooo syclant
<Snobalt> disregarding syclant, it might work
<HD> yeah it's not a good comparison
<imanalt> bug/ice is so poor defensively
<HD> theyd be filling entirely different roles
<imanalt> we could be a good revenge killer potentially, but i dont think we could build a utility that is bug/ice
<Rainman_Legends> Syclant needed a new ability just to not get murdered by rocks
<imanalt> syclant is the only direction bug/ice can go imo
<imanalt> yeah bug doesnt do much i guess
<imanalt> whats next
<imanalt> rock?
<imanalt> rock is cool
<Rainman_Legends> Rock/bug?
<Snobalt> nah
<HD> rock/grass
<Snobalt> ground and fighting neutralities :/
<HD> cradilly but good!
<imanalt> grass loses all your useful resists from rock
<imanalt> rocks big things are beating flying and fire mons
<imanalt> and you can potentially beat weavile w/ a secondary type that resists ice
<imanalt> since we take shit from knock
<Snobalt> bug/rock would obviously not do that either
<imanalt> whatt ypes on our list resist ice
<imanalt> fire
<Snobalt> fire
<imanalt> thats... it?
<Rainman_Legends> Rock/fire lol
<HD> ROCK/FIRE WOO
<imanalt> rock/fire sucks
<imanalt> but its possible
<imanalt> i'd be surprised if it doesnt end up slated
<Rainman_Legends> Rock/poison?
<imanalt> thats the type ive liked for a while Rainman_Legends
<imanalt> what else can we potentially add to rock to beat things
<HD> what does poison do though
<HD> neutrality to fighting
<imanalt> fire lets us beat weavileand talon more, poison lets us beat fairies
<Rainman_Legends> Check fairies?
<HD> oh fairies
<HD> i forgot
<imanalt> we still lose to azu but
<HD> those were a thing
<imanalt> alt + clef is a lot
<imanalt> so rock/poison is obv p cool
<imanalt> what else is there
<Rainman_Legends> Doesn't physical altaria run EQ?
<Snobalt> sometimes
<imanalt> yeah it can
<HD> if rock/poison goes through that would probably be always
<imanalt> but there are things we can do to deal w/ ground weak
<HD> given how playtests always overcentralize around the cap
<imanalt> i wouldnt be hugely opposed to either solid rock or leviate or something
<imanalt> its not ideal and it is a softish check to some things but
<imanalt> you have potential to hard counter talon and clef
<imanalt> thats a lot of useful things
<imanalt> and you dick on torn
<imanalt> you also more or less beat a decent number of heatrans
<imanalt> ok is there anything interetsing with rock other than rock/poison and rock/fire?
<Rainman_Legends> Rock/electric, how well would that fare
<HD> electric's list of resists is pretty short
<HD> grass/electric
<imanalt> what does electric do for rock Rainman_Legends ?
<Snobalt> rock/electric seems like a slightly worse rock/poison at first glance
<imanalt> i dont see what it lets us beat really
<Snobalt> you don't hard counter fairies anymore
<imanalt> yeah you lose beating fairies and gain very little
<HD> you really beat talonflame
<imanalt> you beat talon either way
<Rainman_Legends> I assume rock/dark gets thrown out the window
<imanalt> lol
<imanalt> i dont think rock/dark woudl even be good for us
<imanalt> ttar just makes it work because it has effectively 700 bst
<Rainman_Legends> Yea, ttar already exists
<imanalt> and a great movepool
<HD> and the bonus to spdef it gets
<HD> just by being out
<imanalt> exactly hd
<imanalt> what type is next on our list
<imanalt> dark?
<imanalt> what does dark do, anything interesting?
<Rainman_Legends> Pursuit trap
<imanalt> dark just seems to
<imanalt> get fucked by the whole meta defensively
<Rainman_Legends> Spam strong knock offs?
<imanalt> resisting ghost and psychic is cool
<HD> done more effectively by like
<Snobalt> fares well against the myriad of psychics
<HD> scizor and ttar i guess
<Rainman_Legends> And bisharp too i guess
<imanalt> the "core" mons to check with dark would be like
<HD> because of the high base/tech
<imanalt> gengar latios bisharp weavile alakazam?
<imanalt> oh and hoopa
<imanalt> and metagross
<imanalt> how many of those can we solidify with secondary typings
<imanalt> dealing with latios would require a dragon resist that we can't really get
<imanalt> so thats ou
<imanalt> out
<imanalt> dealing with gengar could use a poison resist, what are our options there
<imanalt> dark/poison
<imanalt> bisharp woudl lose to dark/fire
<HD> oh fire
<Snobalt> weavile would lose to that too
<imanalt> as would weavile
<imanalt> and metagross
<imanalt> and hoopa
<imanalt> i like dark/fire
So after a big debate between imanalt/HD/Rainman Legends/myself, we came up with Rock/Poison and Dark/Fire as our favorite types.

Rock/Poison works as a solid counter to most of the Flying- and Fairy-types in the metagame, particularly Talonflame, Tornadus-T, and Clefable. Dark/Fire royally screws over the Dark-types roaming OU, particularly Weavile and Bisharp. It can also check the myriad of Psychic-types such as Latios, Alakazam, Hoopa-U, and Mega Metagross, but it has trouble countering them due to their coverage moves (or STAB moves in Latios's case). The goal of a utility counter is to be able to switch into and force out certain threats, and these typings do just that without being generically good, losing to the likes of bulky Water- and Ground-types while still threatening what they're supposed to. But because Rock/Poison is a better counter to what it's supposed to counter (Flying- and Fairy-types), while Dark/Fire merely checks half of what it's supposed to counter (counters Dark-types but checks Psychic-types), I'm gonna say that Rock/Poison may be the way to go.

On another note, while Imanalt has stated that he does not like Grass/Ice, I actually like that typing; it's kinda like Dark/Fire in the sense that it's a hard counter to one group of Pokemon and a check to various others. In this case, Grass/Ice smashes bulky Water-types, which is good for a utility counter considering how threatening Manaphy is to the kind of teams we'll probably find CAP 21 on. It also checks bulky Ground-types and Dragons but does not counter most of them. Obviously it can't switch into Lando-T or Dragonite, and Fire Blast is common (perhaps even mandatory) on Garchomp, so there goes being a good counter to them. But because the typing a great bulky water counter and can check a lot of shit, it's a workable route to go down, about on par with Dark/Fire imo. I still feel that Rock/Poison trumps those two anyway.
 
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Imanalt said:
So now the question becomes, what typing should that be? With that question in mind, I have one major question to be answered to help us get to that typing:
What common trends are there among the typings and coverage moves used of the best pokemon in OU?

This is the next question I'd like to see answered. It is at this time that you can start proposing typings, using this question as your guide.
Click to expand...

I think we should move away from any trends, and make something that hasn't been done before or has never worked before.
All we really need is really poor typing, the poorest, and then make that work with whatever we can. Something like Steel/Ice. For the record, there is not a single Steel/Ice pokémon out there. Though it has many weaknesses, it would also have a pretty wide STAB coverage: Fairy, Ice, Rock, Dragon, Flying, Grass and Ground.
The weaknesses would be: Fire (x4), Fight (x4) and Ground. So it has only 3 weaknesses but 2 of them are x4, and it has a lot of defensive resistances due to its Steel typing. So in exchange to that specific weakness it gets some resistance to a lot of other types and it gets wide STAB coverage. So it would sort of be a glass cannon, but instead of having weakness to many types it has a few that are much more of a threat.
 
I'm not a fan of Dark/Fire, mostly because it struggles to differentiate from some of the better dark types commonly seen on balance. Tyranitar and (to a much greater extent) Mega Sableye are exceptionally good pokemon, and if this CAP wants to run a similar typing, then it really needs to usurp them, which in the case of Mega Sableye is tricky, since its so damn good, and you don't have the option to run both. There is a common opinion among many OU tier leaders that Mega Sableye creates such an unhealthy dynamic between the balance teams that do have it, and the ones that don't, with the team that has Mega Sableye usually winning out the vast majority of the time. You could argue I guess, that either way, no matter what typing you pick, its still going to have to clash with Mega Sableye regardless, but I'd rather we differentiate it more via type and niche, so you can better encourage a choice.
 
It's been a while since I did or said anything with CAP, but I decided to try to get back into it. I'll admit, I'm not much into competitive play, but I'll still try to say things that are in some way relevant XD.

After looking through everything that's been said thus far, I think a Dark/Fairy type might be an interesting possibility. From what I've read (and please, correct me if I'm wrong), our eventual goal here is to create a "utility counter" Pokemon with an undervalued type. To me, a utility counter would be a Pokemon that can 1) take a beating, but not so well that it becomes an absolute wall that no one can get rid of, 2) have some offensive presence, but not so much that it just demolishes everything set before it, and 3) has some sort of support/utility role, either in the form of an ability or moves that helps it's team mates (such as setting/removing hazards), or just in that it counters things that might otherwise be hard to remove. I think that a Dark/Fairy type can fit this quite nicely. As we all know, Fairy is one of the best defensive types available, however that trait is compromised somewhat by the Dark typing; A Dark/Fairy has a whopping 2 Resistances, to Ghost and Dark, 2 Immunities, to Psychic and Dragon, and 3 Weaknesses, to Poison, Steel and Fairy. While Ghost and Dark aren't exactly rare, they also aren't super common attacking types, which reduces the usefulness of those Resistances to mainly blocking Ghost and Dark types from getting STAB on our CAP. The Immunities to Psychic and Dragon are nice (Especially Dragon), but keep in mind that Psychic and Dragon Types tend to have a wide array of Type coverage, not to mention rather high stats, meaning that while they may not get those STABs, they can still do quite a bit to our CAP, which I think keeps it's typing from being to good. Finally, Poison and Steel have become more common as attacking Types since the advent of Fairies, and Fairy itself is often kept around to help deal with Dragons, meaning that most teams would probably still have a way to threaten our CAP.

At this point, your probably wondering, "well, if it sucks THAT much, why would we use it?" To that, I answer, those are just the reasons why the type is undervalued. There are flaws with a Dark/Fairy type. Serious flaws, that most people could probably use to tear this thing apart if given the chance. However, there are also quite a few interesting facets to the type that I think warrant consideration, especially given Imanalt's question regarding trends in coverage. Most Dragon and Psychic types seem to carry a STAB, one or two coverage moves, aiming for combos like Boltbeam or Edgequake when possible, and either a second STAB, a boosting move or a utility move. However, they typically don't carry Poison, Steel or Fairy type moves (unless those are it's second STAB, which is a very rare occurrence), meaning that while most Psychic and Dragon types would have strong neutral coverage of a Dark/Fairy, they would be unlikely to have a Super Effective move that could get rid of it quickly; they'd either have to whack it several times with a coverage move they have, hope to break it through raw power, or adjust their spreads to handle our CAP. I think the latter case by itself could be considered a form of utility; if I have to design my Pokemon with CAP 21 in mind, then it likely isn't built with its primary goal in mind, but if I don't build it to handle CAP 21 and the enemy happen to have CAP 21, then I could be in for a world of hurt.

I think we could make a Dark/Fairy Type into a strong check/counter for many of OUs top Dragon and Psychic Type threats, without having it be able to just demolish everything in it's path. Dark/Fairy only hits five types for Super Effective damage: Fighting, Psychic, Ghost, Dark and Dragon. Of those types, only Fighting, Psychic and Dragon are particularly common in OU. Fighting types often have access to moves like Bullet Punch, Poison Jab, etc, and while they may not always use them as a first choice, they rarely lose much for having them. Additionally, Fighting has neutral coverage over Dark/Fairy, and enough raw power to make it a bit risky, I would think, for a Dark/Fairy to take a Fighting Type head on. What this means is that the main use of our CAP would be to check/counter Dragon and Psychic types, with the option of providing utility on the side. That, to me at least, would be an excellent Utility Counter: A Pokemon that can come in on the things it threatens and make them go away, but which can't just sit there and take everything that's thrown at it, nor can it steamroll entire teams single handed.

To address other people's ideas: Rock/Poison is immediately interesting to me, simply because it's another unique typing like the one I suggested. I like the ability to force out Flying and Fairy types, but I would wonder if Rock gives it maybe to much coverage? Granted, Rock/Poison has the same number of Super Effective hits as Dark/Fairy, but it hits many more common types, being SE against Fire, Flying, Bug, Ice and Fairy. Bug isn't very common at all, but Fire, Flying, Ice and Fairy are all rather popular, and of those only Fairy is particularly defensive. Considering the number of OU Pokemon that sport one or both of those types, this thing has, I think, even more potential to become a monster than Dark/Fairy does. I'm not saying that we shouldn't use Rock/Poison, just that we'd have to be very careful in later stages to avoid making this thing in a sweeper instead of a utility counter.

As I said before, it's been a while since I participated in a CAP, and I'm not very much into competitive play, so you should take my opinions with a grain of salt; that being said, I do legitimately think we could do a lot with a Dark/Fairy Type. Of course, regardless of what type gets chosen, I'm sure we'll be able to get a lot of potential out of it; this is just my take on what we should do.
 
What common trends are there among the typings and coverage moves used of the best pokemon in OU?
Garchomp, Dragon/Ground, uses Earthquake for STAB and Fire Blast for Coverage.

Landorus-Therian, Ground/Flying, uses Earthquake for STAB, Stone Edge and Knock Off for Coverage, and U-turn which is moreso for the switching than for true coverage but it still kinda counts

Scizor, Bug/Steel, uses Bullet Punch and U-turn for STAB, Superpower and to a lesser extent Pursuit/Knock off for coverage

Keldeo, Water/Fighting, uses Secret Sword and Scald/Hydro Pump for STAB, Icy Wind and HP Electric for coverage

Talonflame, Flying/Fire, uses Brave Bird and Flare Blitz for STAB, doesn't really use coverage except U-turn if you want to count that

Heatran, Fire/Steel, uses Lava Plume for STAB, Earth Power for coverage

Latios, Dragon/Psychic, uses Psyshock and Draco Meteor for STAB, sometimes uses HP Fire for coverage

Clefable, Fairy, uses Moonblast for STAB, occasionally uses Flamethrower for coverage

Ferrothorn, Steel/Grass, uses Gyro Ball and Power Whip for STAB, no coverage

Bisharp, SteelDrak, Knock Off/Sucker Punch and Iron Head for STAB, no coverage
Of the attacking moves present from the list above, we seem to be having a fair amount of Ground-type moves (2 stab + 1 coverage) and Fire-type moves (1 STAB, 2-3 coverage moves). From that point on, further trends are harder to see right off the bat, with the possible of exception of U-turn getting used by three different mons. The usage list is also kinda wonky, as it doesn't include many of the S and A+ ranked mons. I think it's safe to say that Fairy Pokemon in general are something else that need to be considered, as well as Manaphy, Sableye (which then makes Dark moves more noticeable) and Char-X (which makes Fire STAB more noticeable and adds to the ground coverage a bit).

Putting this all together, we seem to have common Ground, Fire, Fairy, Dark, and Bug moves (mostly only for U-turn), and Manaphy kinda sits there alone but is notable all the same. If there's anything big that's been missed, it probably would be the Flying type, but such users are restricted to Talonflame (of course quite common) and Tornadus-T.

So, I've been trying to take all of the above into consideration, and I'll admit I still don't have a perfect type, but I'll go and apply this to some of the ones proposed already.

Rock/Poison: It may seem at first glance that this checks/counters Pokemon that use Fire-moves, but notably Char-X has Earthquake to deal with, and Heatran has Earth Power. Latios and Garchomp who sometimes use Fire Coverage also can deal with this type thanks to their STAB. It also doesn't deal with some of the most common U-turners, Lando-T and Scizor. So, it seems instead that this type deals with Flying and Fairy types... But it also seems to deal with them pretty darn efficiently, except for Mega Gard. Dealing well with only 2 types from the above list does seem a little small, though.

Fire/Rock: Even with a 4x Fire resist, the Ground Coverage used by Fire types prevents this from being an ideal Fire check. This typing deals better with some U-turners that Rock/Poison, but there's still the massive thing called Lando-T. It seems to deal well with taking Fairy STAB and more coverage moves, though, and it does the Flying-type check thing too. Overall, it seems pretty similar to Rock/Poison when speaking of wut mons/moves it can take.

Grass/Ice: The main Ground types run either Fire or Rock coverage, so this typing doesn't deal with them so much. Fairies like Clefable have the option of running Flamethrower, so in such events it isn't reliable versus them either. This typing is clearly not a Bug or Flying counter. Pretty much the only thing on the list that it does well against is Manaphy (but if we extend it to bulky waters, it doesn't do so well against Keldeo). Overall, I feel as if Celebi does the whole grass thing better defensively. If we look at the offensive side for a bit, Grass/Ice has the potential to beat Ground and Flying-types... But even with stellar speed, this is still not getting through Talonflame.

Ice/Steel: Once again, this type looks to take on a common OU type (Fairy) but fails against the coverage moves carried (Flamethrower from Clefable, Focus Blast from Gard). Of course, the flip side, similarly to Grass/Ice, is the offensive potential. It works a bit differently, but here Steel can be used against Fairies if brought into a Fairy move. Ice/Steel might resist U-turn, but even Scizor has Super Power to deal with the typing. In terms of Flying-types, Ice/Steel has to watch out for Torn-T's Focus Blast, and obviously doesn't do too hot against Talonflame unless it's choiced into Flying STAB.

Dark/Fire: Though it resists Fire-types, it still doesn't deal with their Ground coverage particularly well. It perhaps deals with Dark-types the best, I suppose (unless we go much further down the dark list to find Sharpedo or whatnot). Dark/Fire obviously fails against Manaphy, and doesn't do anything particularly notable to Flying-types. At this time, I just don't see the overall appeal for this type.

Now, I realize I've probably simplified some of the other fine nuances going on, but so far there's my two cents.
 
so seeing as im tired and dont feel like going into a lot of details ill try and keep this short and might eventually come back and put more...doubt it though

I've seen a lot of discussion on this and one of the things that i was and liked was steel-type as an option that would be able to do well, as it is an undervalued typing after the loss of the dark and ghost resists, and its fallen from its former grace these days.

As we want it to deal with utility it needs to be able to handle things like Clef, Mega Sableye, Skarm, Chansey, Ferro, klef, as well as others, but i see that steel would do well against a decent number of these with the right secondary typing, as well as an ability that helps, but thats not what we're talking about yet, so i wont get in to it.

Because of this i would like to say Fire-type a definitely less than ideal typing with all of its weaknesses, but even so it does have a nice set of resist that could be good to take advantage of, as well as giving it an immunity to another form of status that could be annoying to deal with. With this it resists fairy 4x and we all know how great that would be to have, but it also make this mon immune to will-o that sableye uses as a way to neuter physical attackers and widdle down the opposing team. Seeing as a common way that steel types are dealt with is mag, it doesnt particularly fear much from it, and threatens it too much for it to want in, and it can deal better with Heatrans that dont carry ep. This would also allow for Skarms to be threatened so they cant get up too many hazards, or prevent them from defogging for free. Rachi is another mon that often is used for utility in wish passing and getting rocks, and the fire typing would threaten rachi and with the addition of steel, it wont be bothered much by flinch attempts from either iron head or zen headbutt.

So in conclusion my suggestion is Fire/Steel because it allows for many threats in the OU team from clefable to ferrothorn, and threaten many hazard setters/removers and this typing would help teams greatly vs both dragon spam, and fairy spam, which are very threatening and can be hard to deal with. The immunity to 2 status', burn and poison, allows for it to not get widdled by many of these utility mons, that often rely on such to deal with threats is great. As a way to handle utility mons, i feel that this set up would do great against many and i hope that I dont later realize that in my half-asleep stat i said something really dumb...also hope you like it.
 
Some of these calcs seem to be overlooking how threatening a move is in lieu of how common some types are with respect to coverage. Here are what I see as the most important moves to consider when teambuilding due to how powerful they are:

Ground is arguably the best coverage typing in the game and it's easy to see why, it hits a whopping 5 types super effectively. Earthquake has high base damage, perfect accuracy, and is widely accessible, which is why a ground type resistance will always be extremely beneficial.

Scald is another move that is just too strong, it's easily spammable since only 3 types resist it, has decent power and perfect accuracy, and many mons fear the burn. A water resist is also ideal.

Finally, Stealth Rock is so incredibly common because it is extremely efficient at dealing chip damage and many pokemon fear switching into it.

Tldr; a Ground resist, Water resist, and at least a neutrality to Stealth rock are all fantastic traits on a utility mon. And since we'll have the option of holding a Mega Stone, Knock Off is not as threatening.

This is why I am proposing the Grass/Dragon typing. It resists Ground, isn't weak to Fire, and also 4x resists Water, Electric, and Grass which is a huge bonus. The only other Grass/Dragon type in the game is Mega Sceptile who is just too frail to make full use of its defensive potential.
 
Comments
Integer Mova said:
My proposal shall be Bug/Flying. It's well-known that Flying has wide neutral coverage by itself, as seen with Talonflame and Mega Pinsir, but tends to be defensively frail, especially when paired with Bug. I mean, look at that 4x Rock weakness. Nothing is immune to Bug outside of one irrelevant Pokémon (that being Shedinja), and nothing is immune to Flying.

What common trends are there among the typings and coverage moves used of the best pokemon in OU?
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You should explain how this typing can be a utility counter to certain major OU Pokemon. Looking at just the A- and higher rankings, this typing contributes little to nothing defensively, and really only has offensive merit (at best, I'd say it scares Celebi, Hoopa-Unbound, and other Psychic-types).

boxofkangaroos said:
I'd like to propose Normal as a typing for this CAP. This might seem uninteresting to work with, but I think it will be a fun challenge to look for the advantages in such a mediocre typing. As it stands, the only pure Normal type in OU is Chansey, but if anything its typing cripples it due to its Fighting weakness. We could investigate the advantages of having only one weakness, as well as an immunity.
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I was a fan of Normal until it was decided that the CAP would act as a utility counter to certain OU Pokemon. With Normal typing adding nothing defensively except a Ghost immunity, this ends up relying too much on stats and doesn't particularly explore the typing aspect.

Elite Lord Sigma said:
Looking at potential type combinations with Fire typing, the one that immediately jumped out at me was Fire/Rock. This typing has never had its chance to shine in OU, as its only representative is Magcargo, a Pokemon so crippled by its terrible stats that not even Shell Smash can make it viable in higher tiers. While having two double weaknesses and a Stealth Rock weakness are glaring issues, Fire/Rock has some notable qualities in its favor. In addition to those mentioned earlier, Fire/Rock typing also resists Flying, making it arguably the best possible typing for shutting down birdspam. Offensively, Fire and Rock has excellent neutral coverage, as it is resisted only by a select few Pokemon seen regularly in OU (i.e. Garchomp, Swampert), yet it is difficult to find a single Pokemon viable in OU that runs both simultaneously. If there's a typing that's a better fit for the concept than this, I'd love to see it.
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Some of the Pokemon Fire/Rock would check run Ground coverage, which is a problem. But really, the major problem is the competition from Heatran, which makes it hard to expect people to choose to use up a Mega slot for this typing rather than just throw Heatran on their team (Heatran also is neutral to Rock, which is a huge deal). Offensively, this typing is decent, so there is that benefit to consider.

Snobalt said:
So after a big debate between imanalt/HD/Rainman Legends/myself, we came up with Rock/Poison and Dark/Fire as our favorite types.

Rock/Poison works as a solid counter to most of the Flying- and Fairy-types in the metagame, particularly Talonflame, Tornadus-T, and Clefable. Dark/Fire royally screws over the Dark-types roaming OU, particularly Weavile and Bisharp. It can also check the myriad of Psychic-types such as Latios, Alakazam, Hoopa-U, and Mega Metagross, but it has trouble countering them due to their coverage moves (or STAB moves in Latios's case). The goal of a utility counter is to be able to switch into and force out certain threats, and these typings do just that without being generically good, losing to the likes of bulky Water- and Ground-types while still threatening what they're supposed to. But because Rock/Poison is a better counter to what it's supposed to counter (Flying- and Fairy-types), while Dark/Fire merely checks half of what it's supposed to counter (counters Dark-types but checks Psychic-types), I'm gonna say that Rock/Poison may be the way to go.

On another note, while Imanalt has stated that he does not like Grass/Ice, I actually like that typing; it's kinda like Dark/Fire in the sense that it's a hard counter to one group of Pokemon and a check to various others. In this case, Grass/Ice smashes bulky Water-types, which is good for a utility counter considering how threatening Manaphy is to the kind of teams we'll probably find CAP 21 on. It also checks bulky Ground-types and Dragons but does not counter most of them. Obviously it can't switch into Lando-T or Dragonite, and Fire Blast is common (perhaps even mandatory) on Garchomp, so there goes being a good counter to them. But because the typing a great bulky water counter and can check a lot of shit, it's a workable route to go down, about on par with Dark/Fire imo. I still feel that Rock/Poison trumps those two anyway.
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Rock/Poison is a cool type to stop a bunch of Flying-types (except Landorus-T/Gliscor/Gyrados) and Fairy-types (except Mega Altaria, Azumarill, Mega Gardevoir). The exceptions though are pretty major, but at least it does counter some important Pokemon.

Dark/Fire is interesting, and a pretty potent offensive typing. Defensively, it counters most major Dark-types, except Mega Gyrados and Tyranitar. Stopping Ferrothorn and Skarmory is a bonus. It doesn't really stop Fire-types or Psychic-types, as already noted, so its really about whether checking a variety of Pokemon and countering a few is enough.

For the other types listed, people are really pushing the undervalued part of the concept. Fairy, Steel, and Dragon are all extremely good types defensively, and two are also great offensively as well. These typings tend to compensate for the bad typings they are paired with, along with Water.

Yiam said:
I think we should move away from any trends, and make something that hasn't been done before or has never worked before.
All we really need is really poor typing, the poorest, and then make that work with whatever we can. Something like Steel/Ice. For the record, there is not a single Steel/Ice pokémon out there. Though it has many weaknesses, it would also have a pretty wide STAB coverage: Fairy, Ice, Rock, Dragon, Flying, Grass and Ground.
The weaknesses would be: Fire (x4), Fight (x4) and Ground. So it has only 3 weaknesses but 2 of them are x4, and it has a lot of defensive resistances due to its Steel typing. So in exchange to that specific weakness it gets some resistance to a lot of other types and it gets wide STAB coverage. So it would sort of be a glass cannon, but instead of having weakness to many types it has a few that are much more of a threat.
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The concept isn't about making a unique type combination (it can be a plus of course), but rather explore an undervalued/poor type. Like I said, Steel just covers up a lot of problems that most poor typings have, and is a bit of a cop-out imo. Ice is probably the only type that the good types cannot easily compensate for defensively. But this typing itself is pretty awful, and I can't really see what it counters, with Fire, Ground, and Fighting coverage being so common. You stop Manaphy, Skarmory, Ferrothorn, Celebi, Poltoed, Rotom-W, and Starmie (only if they don't carry HP Fire); a pretty small list of mostly support Pokemon. The STABs don't even threaten most Water-types, which is a problem if you are tying to counter them. You check a few mons as well, provided you don't try to take any of the 3 types attacks. But this type still has a lot of problems against most A- and higher rank Pokemon, and offensively its not that special either.

Mr Holiday said:
After looking through everything that's been said thus far, I think a Dark/Fairy type might be an interesting possibility. From what I've read (and please, correct me if I'm wrong), our eventual goal here is to create a "utility counter" Pokemon with an undervalued type. To me, a utility counter would be a Pokemon that can 1) take a beating, but not so well that it becomes an absolute wall that no one can get rid of, 2) have some offensive presence, but not so much that it just demolishes everything set before it, and 3) has some sort of support/utility role, either in the form of an ability or moves that helps it's team mates (such as setting/removing hazards), or just in that it counters things that might otherwise be hard to remove. I think that a Dark/Fairy type can fit this quite nicely. As we all know, Fairy is one of the best defensive types available, however that trait is compromised somewhat by the Dark typing; A Dark/Fairy has a whopping 2 Resistances, to Ghost and Dark, 2 Immunities, to Psychic and Dragon, and 3 Weaknesses, to Poison, Steel and Fairy. While Ghost and Dark aren't exactly rare, they also aren't super common attacking types, which reduces the usefulness of those Resistances to mainly blocking Ghost and Dark types from getting STAB on our CAP. The Immunities to Psychic and Dragon are nice (Especially Dragon), but keep in mind that Psychic and Dragon Types tend to have a wide array of Type coverage, not to mention rather high stats, meaning that while they may not get those STABs, they can still do quite a bit to our CAP, which I think keeps it's typing from being to good. Finally, Poison and Steel have become more common as attacking Types since the advent of Fairies, and Fairy itself is often kept around to help deal with Dragons, meaning that most teams would probably still have a way to threaten our CAP.

At this point, your probably wondering, "well, if it sucks THAT much, why would we use it?" To that, I answer, those are just the reasons why the type is undervalued. There are flaws with a Dark/Fairy type. Serious flaws, that most people could probably use to tear this thing apart if given the chance. However, there are also quite a few interesting facets to the type that I think warrant consideration, especially given Imanalt's question regarding trends in coverage. Most Dragon and Psychic types seem to carry a STAB, one or two coverage moves, aiming for combos like Boltbeam or Edgequake when possible, and either a second STAB, a boosting move or a utility move. However, they typically don't carry Poison, Steel or Fairy type moves (unless those are it's second STAB, which is a very rare occurrence), meaning that while most Psychic and Dragon types would have strong neutral coverage of a Dark/Fairy, they would be unlikely to have a Super Effective move that could get rid of it quickly; they'd either have to whack it several times with a coverage move they have, hope to break it through raw power, or adjust their spreads to handle our CAP. I think the latter case by itself could be considered a form of utility; if I have to design my Pokemon with CAP 21 in mind, then it likely isn't built with its primary goal in mind, but if I don't build it to handle CAP 21 and the enemy happen to have CAP 21, then I could be in for a world of hurt.

I think we could make a Dark/Fairy Type into a strong check/counter for many of OUs top Dragon and Psychic Type threats, without having it be able to just demolish everything in it's path. Dark/Fairy only hits five types for Super Effective damage: Fighting, Psychic, Ghost, Dark and Dragon. Of those types, only Fighting, Psychic and Dragon are particularly common in OU. Fighting types often have access to moves like Bullet Punch, Poison Jab, etc, and while they may not always use them as a first choice, they rarely lose much for having them. Additionally, Fighting has neutral coverage over Dark/Fairy, and enough raw power to make it a bit risky, I would think, for a Dark/Fairy to take a Fighting Type head on. What this means is that the main use of our CAP would be to check/counter Dragon and Psychic types, with the option of providing utility on the side. That, to me at least, would be an excellent Utility Counter: A Pokemon that can come in on the things it threatens and make them go away, but which can't just sit there and take everything that's thrown at it, nor can it steamroll entire teams single handed.
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The thing is, two immunities to some of the most popular types, as well as resistances to Ghost and Dark, are pretty good as is. The Fairy weakness sucks, but usually Fairy moves are STAB and are easy to see coming. As you also noted yourself, Steel and Poison moves are never used as coverage, so you only see them with STAB users as well. Meanwhile, this typing is also scary offensively; no Dark-type is safe (no common ones hit this type super-effectively with their coverage), and you also counter most Psychic-types (except for Mega Gardevoir and Mega Metagross). While this isn't a huge list, it leaves me wondering if you can really consider this a below average typing.

GiantWhirlpool said:
so seeing as im tired and dont feel like going into a lot of details ill try and keep this short and might eventually come back and put more...doubt it though

I've seen a lot of discussion on this and one of the things that i was and liked was steel-type as an option that would be able to do well, as it is an undervalued typing after the loss of the dark and ghost resists, and its fallen from its former grace these days.

As we want it to deal with utility it needs to be able to handle things like Clef, Mega Sableye, Skarm, Chansey, Ferro, klef, as well as others, but i see that steel would do well against a decent number of these with the right secondary typing, as well as an ability that helps, but thats not what we're talking about yet, so i wont get in to it.

Because of this i would like to say Fire-type a definitely less than ideal typing with all of its weaknesses, but even so it does have a nice set of resist that could be good to take advantage of, as well as giving it an immunity to another form of status that could be annoying to deal with. With this it resists fairy 4x and we all know how great that would be to have, but it also make this mon immune to will-o that sableye uses as a way to neuter physical attackers and widdle down the opposing team. Seeing as a common way that steel types are dealt with is mag, it doesnt particularly fear much from it, and threatens it too much for it to want in, and it can deal better with Heatrans that dont carry ep. This would also allow for Skarms to be threatened so they cant get up too many hazards, or prevent them from defogging for free. Rachi is another mon that often is used for utility in wish passing and getting rocks, and the fire typing would threaten rachi and with the addition of steel, it wont be bothered much by flinch attempts from either iron head or zen headbutt.

So in conclusion my suggestion is Fire/Steel because it allows for many threats in the OU team from clefable to ferrothorn, and threaten many hazard setters/removers and this typing would help teams greatly vs both dragon spam, and fairy spam, which are very threatening and can be hard to deal with. The immunity to 2 status', burn and poison, allows for it to not get widdled by many of these utility mons, that often rely on such to deal with threats is great. As a way to handle utility mons, i feel that this set up would do great against many and i hope that I dont later realize that in my half-asleep stat i said something really dumb...also hope you like it.
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Lol, Steel may have lost two resistances, but it is hardly undervalued at all. It is still by far one of the best defensive typings in the game, and any type would benefit from the addition of a Steel-typing. Heatran is also an important OU Pokemon, so it hardly helps your case as its not an undervalued typing at all.

Bramblestein said:
Some of these calcs seem to be overlooking how threatening a move is in lieu of how common some types are with respect to coverage. Here are what I see as the most important moves to consider when teambuilding due to how powerful they are:

Ground is arguably the best coverage typing in the game and it's easy to see why, it hits a whopping 5 types super effectively. Earthquake has high base damage, perfect accuracy, and is widely accessible, which is why a ground type resistance will always be extremely beneficial.

Scald is another move that is just too strong, it's easily spammable since only 3 types resist it, has decent power and perfect accuracy, and many mons fear the burn. A water resist is also ideal.

Finally, Stealth Rock is so incredibly common because it is extremely efficient at dealing chip damage and many pokemon fear switching into it.

Tldr; a Ground resist, Water resist, and at least a neutrality to Stealth rock are all fantastic traits on a utility mon. And since we'll have the option of holding a Mega Stone, Knock Off is not as threatening.

This is why I am proposing the Grass/Dragon typing. It resists Ground, isn't weak to Fire, and also 4x resists Water, Electric, and Grass which is a huge bonus. The only other Grass/Dragon type in the game is Mega Sceptile who is just too frail to make full use of its defensive potential.
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But we're not trying to cover all the common types per se, just a select few. Dragon is a pretty good defensive and offensive typing, and Grass is average. Hard to see how a Dragon-type is undervalued as well. I guess the Ice weakness is a major problem, which mitigates some of the obnoxiously good traits.

Maybe I'm looking at this wrong, and it's not a bad thing to add a well-known good typing to an undervalued type, but I feel like it ends up trying to cover up the problems of the weaker type.
 
To this point there isn't a proposed type that really convinced me but some came close:
Normal I think this type is really underevaluated so it would be ideal for this CAP. But like Whitemist said, it doesn't add much for a utility counter. Maybe in combination with another type, it would offer more...

Fairy/dark It is an interresting concept with the 2 immunities for psychic and dragon. But the main problem here is that I don't really think it is underevaluated. Both dark and fairy are in my opinion good types.

The type combination that I propose is Bug/Water.
- Could it serve as utility counter?
I would say: Yes! Being resistant to ground, water, ice, fighting and steel it can take common moves (EQ, close combat, scald, ...) more easily. It is weak against 3 types: electric, flying and rock. That moves aren't that frequent in OU. From the top 20 only 6 use those type of moves frequently (Landorus-Therian, Garchomp, Excadrill, Tyranitar Taronflame and Rotom-Wash).
- Is it underevaluated?
Again I would say: Yes! Bug is really an underevaluated type defensively speaking, since it is weak to a lot of types. But it is also one of the few types that is resistent to ground. Most of the time the weaknesses of the bug-type overrule this, making it very frail. One exception of course is Scizor, being only weak against fire.
But the Steel-type removes the resistance against ground-moves (and fight-moves), making it loose one of the 'exceptionally good' properties of the bug-type.
By combining bug with water this quality doesn't get lost.
Also: Who is afraid of Surskit?!
 
So.
We've came to the conclusion that Ground- and Fire-types are the most important to cover, alongside Fairies and specific moves such as Scald or U-turn.
The following typings come to my mind, when looking at the type chart:
Grass/Flying: my first thought was Grass/Bug but I felt it was a too horrible typing tbh. Grass/Flying is only represented by mediocre Pokémon such as Jumpluff, while it offers immunity to Ground and a Grass-type neutral to U-turn (and a Flying type neutral to Volt Switch). Also the Fighting resistance is nice, and the powder immunity is there too. However this typing is just the next victim for Fire-types and Stealth Rock and has a plethora of nasty weaknesses.
Bug/Fighting: represented only by Heracross which is an offensive monster, this typing offers very nice resistances to Dark, Fighting and Ground as well as U-turn, but gets destroyed by Flying and has problems with Fire.
I think Bug/Fighting is the most interesting idea. To be exact, this typing offers resistances to Bug, Ground, Dark, Grass and Fighting. Its weaknesses are Fairy, Psychic, Flying (x4) and Fire.
Resistances to both Fighting and Dark allows it to counter a lot of the Fighting types in OU such as Conkeldurr, which commonly run Knock Off as coverage. Of course, Dark types are also hurt by a CAP with such a typing. It is neutral to Stealth Rock as well and could beat one-on-one setters such as Landorus-T and other common U-turners.
Is this an undervalued typing? I'd say yes because I already stated Heracross (it's only representative) is an offensive monster, so ppl don't often consider the defensive potential of a Bug/Fighting mon.
 
I propose the typing of Poison/Flying.

The two typings that are central in high tier OU right now are Ground and Fairy which coincidentally make a near perfect coverage. This type combination allows for not only an immunity of Ground and a resistance to Fairy but also it resists a key coverage type, Fighting, and also has the benefit of resisting U-turn. It is a little problematic that it is weak to Psychic, Ice, and Rock but lucky those typings are easily manageable with the right partners (*Cough* Steel types *Cough*). It's also a typing that isn't really seen in OU since Crobat is it's only representative and he's not doing so well right now in terms of viability.

I also would be a little remiss if I didn't say something about Fire as well. In my opinion Fire is actually an easy enough to deal with outside of typing. With three abilities and a move that negate Fire I think it won't be too hard to find a way to work around it.

P.S. You don't know how close I came to proposing Bug/Grass *Shudders in disgust*
 
While Bug / Water is an unexplored typing, can we please refrain from mentioning Water, Fairy, Dragon, and Steel typings? These four typings usually compensate for every mediocre typing combination. The only exceptions are Water / Ice and Ice / Steel, but aside from that, any other typings mentioning Water / Fairy / Dragon / Steel typings should be off-limits.
 
-Mod Announcement-

Please do not propose good typings. The concept involves us choosing typings that are not obviously good. Fairy/Dark, as one example, is not a bad typing, and would probably be quite good.

imanalt is trying to direct us into choosing a typing that can be considered bad while simultaneously being able to check at least two groups of mons/move types in OU. Our role is a utility tank, which requires being able to take hits from common OU mons in order to work.

When suggesting a typing, you should be asking yourself these two questions:

1) Is this a good typing that I'm about to suggest? If it cannot be argued as bad / if it can be decently argued that is is good, you should not suggest it.
2) Is this typing so terribly bad that we can't possibly check a decent amount of OU threats? If you can't check relevant stuff at all, please don't suggest the type.

What is a good typing and what is a bad typing is somewhat subjective at times. But to some degree we all should have the competitive knowledge to know what's decent and what's not. imanalt would like you to exercise common sense before suggesting types that are too good to fit the concept's parameters. Sitting down and having a full blown what-is-good and what-is-bad conversation is distracting to the current question posed, to please exercise common sense.

-End Mod Announcement-
 
I would like to bring to attention Rock/Psychic. While it would definitely qualify as a bad typing, with 7 weaknesses, including to Dark types and the omnipresent Knock Off, it has merit in being a good counter for the variety of Flying, Fire, and Psychic types. Talonflame and Mega Charizard-Y would both be particularly threatened by this type, with their double weaknesses to Rock.
In addition, Psychic types traditionally have pretty wide move pools, as well as its Rock typing giving it access to Stealth Rocks and typically high defenses, allow it to operate as a utility tank with ease.
 
To build off HealNDeal's post, we should consider what Pokemon filling a similar role address. Mega Venusaur was brought up earlier, and it's biggest target is Keldeo and Clefable, though its fire neutrality through Thick Fat comes in very handy.

The last time we had a typing concept we looked into a combination of Fire/Poison and determined in a second stage that addressing one of its weaknesses through other means would be beneficial to that project. The issue being anything with a fire typing is weak to Ground, Rock, and Water and the first two go together. Every partial fire type is going to face that issue, and while there are remedies to that it may not be the right way to go.

Of the types brought up so far, I think Poison/Rock accomplishes a lot of the desired objectives, being a unique typing that can fill niches against several top-level Pokemon. It works well against Talonflame and Clefable and used with a Sandstream partner could be very formidable. It also can fill a utility role well because it absorbs Toxic Spikes.

There is one other typing that I think fits the bill, but I'll have to explain it: Dark/Rock.

I know what you're thinking: "But Deck, there's already a strong Rock/Dark mon with a Mega in Tyranitar!" This is true, but the same type doesn't mean the same role. Tyranitar is bulky and slow and its Mega remains that way, and it is locked into a role of setting sand except in the odd case you don't want that and have a non Mega-Stone with Unnerve. Either way, proof that TTar and sand go hand in glove and otherwise its typing is suspect more than meets our requirements. The question is, what would our CAP do differently, and here's where I think we can make some headway.

One example is priority. Since TTar doesn't have Sucker Punch, it has to catch U-turn with Pursuit, and it has to eat Bullet Punch every time. Tyranitar runs Pursuit of course, and it's a great user of it. The most common set of Tyranitar (about 41% Item Usage in August 1825 stats) is Choice Scarf. What if we made a Dark/Rock Pokemon that was built differently, specifically to handle top-tier threats? Our CAP would already be differentiated by being a reliable switch-in into Knock Off, as it would be holding a Mega Stone more often (TTar runs Tyranitarite <10% of the time).

I think it would also specifically help this concept because we already have an example to draw on, and can askif/why Tyranitar does or doesn't handle these threats and what a similar coverage but different construction could do about it.
 
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