CAP 24 CAP 24 - Part 2 - Typing Discussion

[Mr Holiday]

Sand Damage will not mean anything in the long run for us, imo. Fire/Dragon, unlike Grass/Fairy, has a lot of wallbreaking potential, as nothing resists that STAB combo, helping out Sand and Sun alike.

There are a few abilities that can circumvent sand damage. Taking residual damage from sand should not absolutely force us to make a Rock, Ground, or Steel-type, especially because those typings immediately make us weak to Water- and/or Ground-types, moves that Sand teams have trouble facing. Not all Pokemon on Sand-based teams are immune to Sandstorm; I don’t think we should necessarily expect CAP24 to be immune by typing too. Note that I’m not trying to exclude these types, just pointing out that there’s more to Sandstorm than being immune to chip damage.

To clarify, my concern isn't that we absolutely must be immune to Sand damage (though in my opinion, I think we should be). Rather, I'm worried that picking a Typing that is vulnerable to it may make people feel forced to choose one of the above mentioned Abilities, or alternatively, that such a Typing will be chosen under the assumption that one of those Abilities is guaranteed to be chosen. This may not be a valid or realistic concern, but it's the concern I have. If we, as a community, decide that Sand damage isn't going to be an issue for CAP 24, then that's fine. I just don't want us to be pigeon-holed into certain choices later because of choices we make now, if that makes sense.

To Reviloja's point, Fire/Dragon does have better wall breaking potential, especially with the possibility to nuke things with Sun boosted Fire STABS. I still personally prefer Grass/Rock, but I wouldn't be unhappy if Fire/Dragon was chosen. Grass/Electric (Which you literally posted about three minutes ago lol) also seems to have some strong potential. Again, I prefer the idea of Grass/Rock, but I think Grass/Electric is a fine idea, as well.

EDIT: I misspelled your name. I fixed it. Sorry lol.

 

[Hys]

1: Now that we've narrowed down to Sun and Sand, what areas and roles do these two weathers struggle or lack in? Are any of these holes in their team frameworks shared?
I feel like everyone has a huge misconception about being on either sun OR sand, we've seen many teams use a core of TTar+Zard-Y+Excadrill in the past to great success. It was a common staple of the OU tier for a long time, using banded or scarf TTar to pursuit trap Zard-y counters. While people are saying it needs to be a special wallbreaker for sand, Zard-y actually fills that role quite nicely. With that core you have everything you could ever want in a core, hazard removal (Exca) for Zard, Pursuit trapping for Zard (Ttar), Wallbreaking potential (Zard), allowing lategame sweepers (Exca) to succeed under sand (Ttar). In my honest opinion, we should be creating a poke that can amplify the effectiveness of this core, since it's the only example of a successful sun/sand core OU, or any tier, has ever seen, and seeing how OU and CAP mirror each other at times, we as a community should be basing that as THE shining example of what this poke could help with. Even in Gen 5, Sand teams weren't based around having sand-immune pokes, Water used many pokes who didn't even benefit directly from rain in the manner Ferrothorn does, such as Jirachi and Dugtrio, Sun had a very tiny core built around abusing sun, but its main draw was more so denying the opponent their strategy. Instead of looking at how CAP 24 gains power by being in said weather, perhaps we could look at how its typing doesn't synergize with, but ENHANCES the weather being used, weather it be by providing an important immunity to a move-type that bothers the archetype in question, or perhaps even just a service, like tailwind/more forms of speed control besides Chlorophyll for sun.

If I'm wrong, please correct me. This seems to me the only new angle on what we could do with this CAP, so weather (get it?) or not this gets us anywhere, please at least consider it.

And sorry if this comes out as a rant, I didn't mean it to.

 

[The Lord Penguin]

I have been watching this thread for a few days now and there are some things I would like to say. Before I start this, I'd like to say that there aren't going to be any perfect typing, and all will have flaws.

First, no ghost types, they don't benefit well from either weather, and colossoil is a huge problem for ghost types, which isn't good.

Next, I don't think that having a type that benefits directly from sand (steel, ground, rock) is necessary. However, if we do want to do one of those, I think that the best option is Grass/Rock. This typing gets the benefits from the sp. def boost and is only 1x affected by water. In the sun it would also cut that down. The stab move coverages aren't bad but are walled by steel types. The typing does have a lot weaknesses, and the sp def boost isn't that great all the time.

The next typing that I really liked is Fire/Dragon. It is a cool typing that gets extra power from fire and would be really cool to see on a sand team. Doesn't get sp def boost, but that doesn't matter. Powerful dragon and sun boosted fire stabs could be able to break through teams, and is definitely an option we can choose.

The third typing I like is Grass/Fairy. Resists water moves, which has been a big part of this discussion, and fairy typing could be an interesting type for sun or sand teams to be able to use. One problem is a weakness to flying, which isn't huge compared to other benefits it could get.

The Electric/Grass typing also caught my eye, as it was something I was thinking of myself. Great stabs that cover a lot and a resistance to water and ground could be very useful.

Not going too much in depth, just my thoughts on the best typings imo. My favorite is probably fire dragon right now, but the other 3 are all other options I would fine with.

 

[snake]

I was talking to Hys about typings just now, and he mentioned an interesting type combination to me: Dragon / Flying. He said he'd like for me to post my thoughts on it here, and I'm actually thinking this would be a cool typing to consider for CAP24.

Dragon / Flying is surprisingly similar to Grass / Fairy (which I'm still supporting). For one, Dragon / Flying absorbs the Grass-, Water-, and Ground-type attacks aimed towards most sand teams, much like Grass / Fairy, but it lacks the weakness to Flying-type attacks and is fully immune to Ground-type attacks. For sun teams, Dragon / Flying resists Ash-Greninja's brutal STAB Hydro Pump for its Fire-type teammates and also can smack around the opposing Dragon-types that give those teams trouble. It's pretty interesting to me how similar these typings really are in what they do.

Of course, as with any type combination, Dragon / Flying doesn't come without its flaws. For one, a 4x weakness to Ice is pretty glaring, but I certainly don't think that's a complete deal breaker. The Stealth Rock weakness also hurts too, but it's also immune to other hazards, particularly Sticky Web, making its projected role on a sun team cleaner much easier. Ash-Greninja's Dark Pulse also can chunk this Pokemon harder than Grass / Fairy. Overall, Dragon / Flying addresses many of the issues that Sun and Sand teams face, much like Grass / Fairy does.

 

[Mx]

More importantly, I'd like to address an annoying trend I've seen here with regard to role. We do not need to have a great individual matchup with Rain, especially when CAP 24 is used on Sun. Sun in particular can run Thunder Punch (or HP Electric) Charizard-Y, which is an absolute matchup nightmare for practically every Rain team. Sand has a harder time, certainly, but Sand also has more team flexibility to work with as well. I'm not saying that we should have a *bad* matchup with Rain, but I am saying that Rain doesn't dominate this metagame, and how CAP 24 performs against non-Weather will be more important the great majority of the time.

I have to heavily disagree about this point. While it's true that Rain is not the most dominant playstyle in the meta, it is already extremely effective, and having CAP 24 being weak against it would give us a huge disadvantage. Just by doing so, Rain teams would have an incentive to be run more frequently, as they possess Type-advantage over most already existing Sand and Sun abusers. If Gen 5 should have taught us something is that in a weather-heavy metagame, Rain naturally tends to overwhelm the others, so we need to be extra careful to avoid this happening in the CAP 24 meta. I'm also quite skeptical of the effectiveness of Thunder Punch/HP Electric M-Char-Y, as while you might be able to take Pelipper by surprise the first few times, if your opponent actually expects it, it shouldn't be that hard to play around, as Rain teams should usually pack a Ground-Type in M-Swampert, and Char-Y is still clearly 2HKO'd by powerful Water-type attacks like Ash-Greninja's Hydro Pump even under sunlight. And this doesn't even cover the fact that I'm not sure how viable Char-Y actually is on dedicated sun teams, as it can only summon Sun for 5 turns, making it a mediocre setter, and Volkraken usually fills the role of a slow Fire-Type wallbreaker better, without even using your Mega.

Also, here's my opinion on a few more specific types:

Grass: I feel that people are overestimating the usefulness of this one. Defensively, Water and Ground resists are appealing, but this leaves aside the huge number of weakness, including, Ice, Fire, Bug (Piling up more U-Turn weakness on teams that I would assume already have either Tyranitar or Malaconda) and Flying (Meaning that unless is paired with a type that resist, we won't be able to switch into Tomohawk, which is easily the biggest threat to Sand teams). Offensively, Grass is mediocre at best, as it is resisted by seven other types. There's are only two relevant offensive Grass-Types in the metagame, Tapu Bulu and Kartana, and they work only because of a combination fantastic Attack stat, access to good coverage moves and amazing abilities. Besides, as other have already pointed out, it actually benefits very little from its interaction with Sun, as Solar Beam/Blade are useless if they're used without it. All in all, I think that the problems of this type end up greatly outweighing its benefits, making it outclassed by both Dragon and Water if we want a type resistant to Water.

Fairy: I feel that this one aims to be generically good, but it can work if pair it with another type that is more weather-specific.

Water: I have actually warmed up to this one a lot, and I now think it is a solid contender. We already have Krilowatt as an example of a Water-Type mon that usually forgoes this STAB in favor of better coverage, however, this is still a very risky choice, as it would leave us with only one good STAB, at least under the sun.

 

[Yay61]

Obviously it’s impossible to make a pokemon that resists all threats we need to face so I feel like Water / Fairy should be one of the best defensive options. As already said it can deal supereffective damage to many of the problems these teams face while still being able to take neutral hits from ground and flying. And on top of this, it resists water, dark and ice, letting it come in on greninja. I also like Grass / Electric and Dragon / Flying for similar reasons, but regardless being able to deter as many common threats to sand and sun teams from coming in on cap 24 will be the way to try and lift the viability of these teams.

 

[Sereg]

Yeah, despite it being my favourite type, I don't like Grass for this either.

I'm actually starting to really feel a Flying type. It it really helps against Tomo, Lando and Colo.

Pairing it with Rock would give it the largest benefit from both weathers, and Rock's Ground weakness is turned into an immunity, while its Fighting weakness becomes a neutrality. It's not quad weak to water at least, and both Sun and Sand would make that weakness less crippling. Flying STAB is also good against Grass. It hates Thunder, but we don't want to be in Rain anyway.

Ground/Flying is also a good option, as seen from Lando itself. And makes us even better against Tomo.

If we really want type diversity though, I really like Flying/Fairy. That improves our matchup against Tomo and Colo even more, while also meaning that not only are we not weak to Ash-Greninja's Water Shuriken, our Fairy STAB scares it. It also means that Sun benefits us by boosting our Fire coverage to get through Steels that normally wall us. We also have an additional immunity and target we hit SE in Dragon, which is another enemy of Sun.

 

[CharSiuEmboar]

Here’s another type to give thought: Grass/Electric. It’s neutral to Flying and Ground, and resists Water. It blows Tomohawk away, as 130 Special Attack Modest Thunderbolt has a 3 in 5 chance to OHKO Tomo. I’m on Mobile so I can’t show it, but if either a mod can edit it in this post or someone else to post it, that’d be great. With Grass/Electric, STAB moves alone take down Ash Gren, Mega Swampert, Pelipper, Hawlucha, and Tornadus-Therian. Basically, only Kingdra resists our STABs on rain teams, so there’s that. As for use in Sand, Grass helps break Ground-types that usually eat Sand for lunch. In Sun, it has Solar Beam, or we could go with a fun ability for Sun. Overall, Grass/Electric is a rather decent type to consider.

You could say the same for Ice, rather than Electric; which also gives STAB on Freeze-Dry, to OHKO Pelipper, Mega-Swampert, Kingdra, or allows Ice Beam to do the same against Tomohawk and OHKO; it could even OHKO with Freeze-Dry with Choice Specs. Tornadus-T gets beaten, Hawlucha gets beaten. For reasons stated above, I'm not sure that counting Solar Beam as a go-to ability should be a thing; it telegraphs so brazenly that if Sun is up, and we have a Solar Beam abuser is out, Pelipper will switch in, before switching to Ferrothorn. I absolutely agree it should be in for flavour as a Sun-using mon, but that 2 turn wind up limits it to Grassium-Z users competitively IMHO, unless there's a guarantee. Solar Beam in the sun is one of those "nice to have" abilities, and can even be buffed with abilities like Flower Gift, but that then creates an issue

With Ice as well, it's going to need something that can knock away rocks; on a sand team, the simplest option is old-mate Excadrill, while on Sun, there is Torkoal, but there is also the option of bringing in Sunny Day Tomohawk as a secondary setter also well as defog and Solar Beam; as well as bring down some Stealth Rocks that will hurt Pelipper (breaking Sash etc).

I'm going to propose Water/Grass, however. If we absolutely need have resistance to Electric as a priority, there is always an ability to walk into those attacks with another mon (such as Manectric. At +1, it can OHKO M-Swampert with HP-Grass). If we absolutely need to have resistance to Hurricane, well, that's what Levitate Magnezone, Stakataka or TTar, AV'd or otherwise can be for (the latter, especially, thanks to the 50% Accuracy, SE STAB vs Flying, and it's sheer Special fatness).

Rain provides a boost to Water-types, that's obvious, but there are already plenty of Water-abusers on a Rain Dance team, so it's not as though it needs to be a Water-Sweeper. If it ends up getting Drought, then it's super resilient about switching into Water-type attacks; 4* Resistant on top of the Power Drop from Sun. And in the sun, it's lack of powerful water-type attacks means that it can encourage use other than its STABs OR use Water to provide some Chip+Status effects like Burns, Flinches or Def drops through Scald, Waterfall or Razor Shell. In the rain, Waterfall and Scald are 2HKO after Rocks vs Mega Swampert even at 90 Att/SpA, so it's not like it's toothless.

Flying, Poison and Bug are 2* Weaknesses vs Water/Grass; Poison is largely a rarity, outside of Crucibelle, who isn't going to get along well with the weakness to water, while Greninja is going to be susceptible to the Grass and/or freeze-dry. There's also Hoopa-U, but I don't think I've seen a Rain Team utilize it; that said, Hoopa-U could provide a viable foil to any Greninja running Extrasensory. The Bug weakness comes from Lando-T, Colossoil, Crucibelle, Syclant, Volkraken, etc, none of whom are particularly going to enjoy different aspects of a Sun or Sand team, or a mon like CAP24 who may be packing Ice coverage, even if they don't have Freeze-Dry.

As for Tapu-Koko, well, on a sand team there's a plethora of Ground users, and on a Sun team, you could give it some ground, steel, or poison coverage, or make use of something like Marowak-A; whose back you cover by being able to withstand Ground. Tomohawk etc is going to be susceptible to Tapu Lele, thanks to the lack of Priority, and Koko won't appreciate it either if you can U-Turn/Volt Switch in Lele before Hawlucha gets it seed off (phrasing, I know).

This typing has some specifically designed defensive holes that encourage certain switch-ins, while being able to hurt those switch-ins through typing, coverage, set-up, by those mons' be weak to the other members of the team. One of the weaknesses of the weather teams is that they're too reliant on the weather to do their thing, but Rain is able to function well without need for weather up. it simply gets empowered with the Rain up, shoring up defensive weaknesses. Water/Grass inverts the strength of Rain, while providing useful hitting power elsewhere.

 

[SHSP]

There’s been some absolutely phenominal discussion going on in here, really happy with how things have been working out. We’ve started to get some early ideas on typings and there’s a lot of diversity with what can work out for our concept. I wanted to add a few more questions before we really start hammering out our typing, this time focused on the effects of combining the weathers.

4: When addressing both sand and sun at once in a typing, what issues do we specifically have to address? There’s been a few points like this so far, like “ash gren answer/water resist,” but not all have gotten a strong consensus; let’s iron out what we need and don’t.

5: When addressing both sand and sun at once in a typing, what weaknesses can be exposed on a greater scale? A typing may appear to work extremely well within both weathers, but could it have fundamental problems? Again, some discussion has been done on similar points (like the debate over types like Rock defensively) but it requires some more concious thought.

 

[Zephias]

4: When addressing both sand and sun at once in a typing, what issues do we specifically have to address?

There's a family of 'mons that practically dismantle both Sun and Sand (most notably sand) due to their typings, offensive presence and moveset. The big names that come to mind to me are Ash-Greninja, Tomohawk, Lando-T, Zygarde, Colossoil. If CAP24 struggles with these, it'll be very difficult for it to truly affect how viable both strategies are within the metagame.

Offensive potential should also, in my opinion, be a major consideration. The fact is, as we have established in assessment, Sand needs a breaker and Sun needs an offensive presence that is more powerful and reliable than Venusaur. As such, we absolutely cannot go for a typing such as Grass/Rock in my opinion because it would not have the necessary offensive pressure with its STABs to fulfill the roles we need.

5: When addressing both sand and sun at once in a typing, what weaknesses can be exposed on a greater scale?
I think weaknesses will be some of the most notable problems with typings. Water and Ground cause major problems to the teams we're trying to improve already, which makes typings that would abuse the weathers potentially not be suitable for the concept. Take Fire/Rock, for example. It would abuse Sun for double STAB and Sand for the Sdef boost, but it comes with a shiny x4 vulnerability to Water that would essentially make it a walking Battle Bond activation.

I know the concept is all about abusing weather, but I think due to the things we want to not die to the best typings may be some like Grass/Fairy or Flying/Fairy, which don't intrinsically abuse weather. The typings that naturally abuse our target weathers due to built-in mechanics (Fire and Rock mostly) come with too many drawbacks for the pluses that come with them to be worth it. Even if I would love a Fire-type Chlorophyll user.

I just want to add that our job is not to make a 'mon that abuses the two weathers the most. It's to make a 'mon that abuses both weathers while also helping them become more viable.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

Lots of people are making really good points, but I’m finding it really hard to settle on a preferred type combination. It seems that any typing we choose will have shortcomings that make it hard to fulfil the concept.

For example, I really like the idea of a Flying-type CAP, because of its positive matchups against Tomohawk, Zygarde, Colossoil and Landorus. However, Sand in particular would really appreciate a special wallbreaker, and Flying is a bit strapped for powerful special attacks besides Hurricane, which doesn’t synergise well with Sun.

A solid secondary STAB would make up for this of course, especially with the potential for some nice coverage options. Fairy and Dragon stand out for this, as has already been noted. I worry that those combos don’t threaten offensive Water-types enough though, especially in Sand.

Edit: Again though, this was mostly unedited rambling, and even as I posted it I realised I was falling into the trap of treating this CAP as though it needs to do EVERYTHING or else be completely useless haha.

 

[Escavalier Royale]

I have an idea that might be worth looking at.
While I have seen types like Dragon, Flying, Rock, Grass, Fairy... around, there's one type I haven't seen being discussed about despite being pretty decent. The Bug type.

Bug is a really underappreciated typing both offensively and defensively. It hits Colossoil and Greninja, two huge threats to us, super-effectively, while resisting Ground and Fighting.

True, it can't scratch Tomohawk and Lando, but we are going to go for a double typing anyway, not? The only real problem is that Bug has poor synergy with a lot of other types. Bug/Flying, Bug/Grass and Bug/Ice are absolutely awful combinations and Bug/Psychic isn't anything to write home about either. Bug/Fairy might work but then we don't resist Water. But maybe, just maybe, we can make the almighty Bug/Dragon the fans have been begging for. And who says Tomo and Lando can't be handled with coverage? Especially Lando wouldn't want to take Ice attacks, even HP Ice.

True, Bug has a crippling SR weakness, but so does Flying. Another nice thing about Bug is STAB U-Turn, and even on a special attacker, momentum is always nice on weather teams who have few turns to abuse their weather.

 

[snake]

4: When addressing both sand and sun at once in a typing, what issues do we specifically have to address? There’s been a few points like this so far, like “ash gren answer/water resist,” but not all have gotten a strong consensus; let’s iron out what we need and don’t.

What we definitely need for both Sun and Sand teams:
Ground-type resistance / immunity: Pokemon like Landorus-T, Zygarde, and Colossoil threaten these teams by nature of their Ground-type STAB moves. As such, this resistance / immunity is pretty vital. Zygarde in particular resists Fire-type moves, has the bulk to deal with Excadrill, and can countersweep with Dragon Dance.

What Sand teams definitely needs:
Water-type resistance: Ash-Greninja can tear through a Sand team with Hydro Pump and Water Shuriken alone. Assault Vest Tangrowth helps out against this weakness, but it loses momentum quickly, has a not-so-great damage output, and, segwaying into my next point...
Landorus-T and Tomohawk killers: These Pokemon straight up wall Tyranitar and Excadrill; a solid answer to both of these would be extremely helpful for these teams. In general, Sand teams would prefer a better wallbreaker.

What Sun teams definitely needs:
A better cleaner: While this is more about stats and potentially ability, Sun would prefer a better speed control sweeper. Venusaur is just bad. It looks great on paper, but it's worn down quickly due to its awkward typing, has extreme 4MSS, and is forced to use the wimpy Hidden Power Fire if it wants to have a chance to hit Magearna.
Heatran work-around: Heatran is actually really annoying for Sun-based teams. It's Magma Storms are buffed up and Sun-teams can blast the opposing team with Fire-type moves.

All in all, this is a pretty hefty list of requirements. I think we have to admit that there is no one perfect typing, but I think we can get pretty close with these:

Grass / Fairy - I've elaborated on this one for awhile already. The Flying-type weakness is very unfortunate, but in terms of what it really /needs/ to resist for these teams and what it can achieve offensively, it works pretty well. Heatran, while annoying, can be dealt with, and I think it's just one thing we'll have to deal with if we pick the combination.
Dragon / Flying - Similar to Grass / Fairy, trades a few resistances for an immunity to Ground-type attacks and shifts its relatively weak 4x weakness to Poison over to a common 4x weakness to Ice. The Zygarde matchup is much weaker with this typing, but the Heatran matchup is stronger.
Fairy / Flying - Very similar to Dragon / Flying. It has an arguably better STAB move to work with, but it loses the Water-type resistance that Sand teams would appreciate.

Comments on some of the typings thus far:
Grass / Rock: Yes, it's not weak to Water- or Ground-type attacks. It gains the Special Defense boost in Sand, and it won't take chip damage. Sounds great? Not so much. Because Tomohawk is a big threat to Sand based teams, having no super effective STAB moves already puts CAP24 at a disadvantage compared to some of the other suggested typings. It's not an impossible typing by any means, but I certainly think we can do better, especially because it provides no resistance to Ground-type attacks.
Grass / Electric: Like Grass / Rock, when you negate the amazing Ground-type resistance that Grass-types provide, it really sucks. I like this typing better than Grass / Rock simply because STAB Electric coverage doesn't make you complete Tomohawk and Hawlucha food.

One thing to remember is that Ground- (EQ/Thousand Arrows/Earth Power users), Flying-(Tomohawk's Air Slash), and Water-type attacks(Ash-Greninja) all threaten both of these teams. Outside of abilities, we aren't resisting all three. It's basically impossible. Personally, I feel as if we should prioritize the Ground- and Water-type attacks mostly because of Sand-teams and the ubiquity of Landorus-T, Colossoil, Zygarde, Greninja, and Ash-Greninja. Resisting Tomohawk's Air Slash is great and all, but I'm not sure how realistic that is. Tanking them neutrally works too. If we have the offensive coverage to deal with Tomohawk, I think we can afford to be weak to Flying-type moves. Regardless, I think Ground-type and Water-type resistances are much better to focus on for CAP24.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

4: When addressing both sand and sun at once in a typing, what issues do we specifically have to address? There’s been a few points like this so far, like “ash gren answer/water resist,” but not all have gotten a strong consensus; let’s iron out what we need and don’t.

I think this question was answered in both the Concept Assessment and earlier in the thread. Sand needs a "breaker" that can get through the plethora of Pokemon that destroy both Tyranitar and Excadrill. The most notorious of these are Landorus-T and Tomohawk, but Ferrothorn, Celesteela, Arghonaut, Rotom-W, and to a lesser extent bulky Grounds like Gliscor, Mega Swampert, Colossoil and Zygarde pose a threat. Ash-Greninja also outspeeds/out-prioritizes and destroys Tyranitar and Excadrill, although it switches into neither. Sand needs a Pokemon that beats the majority of those Pokemon, and beating Landorus-T and Tomohawk is non-negotiable. An offensive core that loses to either Landorus-T or Tomohawk is not a serious offensive core in the CAP metagame.

Sun needs bigger, faster, stronger threats. It could also use a stronger weather setter, although that's not as important. While Sand has Excadrill and Rain has Mega Swampert and Kingdra, there is not a viable Chlorophyll user or priority user that flourishes under the sun. That's not to say CAP24 needs Chlorophyll, but it does need a fast sweeper that can close out games. The closest thing Sun has to that is Venusaur, which is just laughably weak when compared to Sand's or Rain's sweepers. Not to mention Venusaur is utter garbage outside of the Sun, while Excadrill and Mega Swampert are still solid if unspectacular Pokemon.

So, to wrap this up, we need a Pokemon that can defeat specific targets for Sand and provide general firepower for Sun. As I have said before, this makes Typing much more important for Sand than for Sun.

5: When addressing both sand and sun at once in a typing, what weaknesses can be exposed on a greater scale?

For example, I really like the idea of a Flying-type CAP, because of its positive matchups against Tomohawk, Zygarde, Colossoil and Landorus. However, Sand in particular would really appreciate a special wallbreaker, and Flying is a bit strapped for powerful special attacks besides Hurricane, which doesn’t synergise well with Sun.

A solid secondary STAB would make up for this of course, especially with the potential for some nice coverage options. Fairy and Dragon stand out for this, as has already been noted. I worry that those combos don’t threaten offensive Water-types enough though, especially in Sand.

Cobalt Empoleon's post sums up what I have to say about the second question well. I am a major proponent of Flying, and Fairy/Flying is my preferred typing for this CAP. But it is absolutely true that Flying has garbage in terms of Special attacking coverage. Hurricane is the only move with solid power, and even then it's inaccurate and straight-up unviable in Sun. I think there are ways to mitigate this, whether that's going mixed or providing the CAP with solid coverage options, but this isn't that discussion.

We need to be wary of the weaknesses of having poor STAB moves. We are building an offensive Pokemon. It is a lot easier to build an offensive Pokemon when your STABs are spammable.

We also need to be wary of relying on the weather for our bulk. Neither Sun nor Sand provides great defensive benefits to any Pokemon. Sun gives a Pokemon one extra half-weakness and one extra resistance. But as I've shown in previous posts, even if this Pokemon resists Fire it will need extreme bulk to take Fire attacks in the sun. Essentially, Sun makes a Fire resistance useless in exchange for making a Water neutrality desirable. We already can't be weak to Water because of Ash-Greninja dunking on Sand teams.

Sand, on the other hand, has one defensive benefit: a 50% boost to Rock-types Special Defense. Rock is a bad defensive typing. It carries weaknesses to Water, Grass, Ground, Steel, and Fighting. All five of those types are common attacking types. Most of them use Physical moves, not Special ones. We cannot afford to say "Sun's Water nerf and Sand's Special Defense boost make a Water weakness acceptable". The defensive benefits of Sun and Sand are meager, and should be looked at as nifty perks at most.

 

[david0895]

I agree with snake on the ground and water weaknesses, so Grass type seems to be mandatory.
Also, even Fairy seems to be a good choice, since it helps to counter Zygarde, Ash-ninja, Colossoil and to check Tomohawk.
I don't like Flying type because since sun teams needs of a sweeper, a SR weakness will limit the times that CAP24 can enter on the field

 

[BARABOY]

I agree with snake on the ground and water weaknesses, so Grass type seems to be mandatory.
Also, even Fairy seems to be a good choice, since it helps to counter Zygarde, Ash-ninja, Colossoil and to check Tomohawk.
I don't like Flying type because since sun teams needs of a sweeper, a SR weakness will limit the times that CAP24 can enter on the field

I definitely agree with you about the grass typing. However, fairy seems a bit redundant when compared with grass, since all but one of the pokemon you mentioned being countered by fairy are also countered by grass, with the added fact that grass performs considerably well in the sun. And I also agree on the flying type; it probably wouldn't work out.

 

[S. Court]

I have mixed thoughts about Flying type: Yes, it helps to avoid Landorus-T and Colossoil, but saying it helps to stop Zygarde is not accurate, let's remember it has Thousand Arrows and that nulifies its inmunity. This is the main reason I prefer Grass type over Flying type, because it's able to consistently take Ground type attacks as a whole.

On the other hand, if this Grass type mon doesn't have a recovery move, it can be chipped by Earthquake spam in long term, but at least it has some interesting resistance can be used, specially when paired with a decent enough defensive typing (this is why I like Grass/Fairy despite having a certain amount of weaknesses)

 

[Sereg]

I definitely agree with you about the grass typing. However, fairy seems a bit redundant when compared with grass, since all but one of the pokemon you mentioned being countered by fairy are also countered by grass, with the added fact that grass performs considerably well in the sun. And I also agree on the flying type; it probably wouldn't work out.

How does Grass perform well in the Sun? Just looking at the typing and not the abilities associated with it. The Grass STABs boosted by it turn into traps if the opponent changs the weather. It's weak and to and can't hurt Fire, which Sun teams hate, as it walls their attacks and its attacks are boosted by the weather. It's already resistant to Water, so the Water weakening does not help much.

S. Court: Fairy/Flying has a STAB that hurts Zygarde though.

 

[david0895]

I definitely agree with you about the grass typing. However, fairy seems a bit redundant when compared with grass, since all but one of the pokemon you mentioned being countered by fairy are also countered by grass, with the added fact that grass performs considerably well in the sun. And I also agree on the flying type; it probably wouldn't work out.

No because a single type can't counter both of them: grass can't enter on Dragon and Dark, Fairy can't enter on Water and Ground

 

[Yahooboo]

We could try making a Normal/Fairy type and then using the Normal type's powerful priority options to deal with Ash Greninja, while possibly making it physically biased defensively so that it can switch in on the ground types at least once anyway without the resist. Fairy typing would then give a strong STAB to hit Zygarde and Colossoil, and since it's a Sand + Sun mon it'll definitely have Fire and Ground moves to hit the Steels with. I know it might not quite cover all the bases we've been asked to cover, but I honestly doubt you can really cover all of them in one Pokemon while also having a meaningful weather synergy through an ability (since we've been specifically told to make an abuser, not just a normal mon which happens to be a great partner on these teams). I'm obviously not terribly wise on this matter, it was just a thought.

 

[reachzero]

We could try making a Normal/Fairy type and then using the Normal type's powerful priority options to deal with Ash Greninja, while possibly making it physically biased defensively so that it can switch in on the ground types at least once anyway without the resist. Fairy typing would then give a strong STAB to hit Zygarde and Colossoil, and since it's a Sand + Sun mon it'll definitely have Fire and Ground moves to hit the Steels with. I know it might not quite cover all the bases we've been asked to cover, but I honestly doubt you can really cover all of them in one Pokemon while also having a meaningful weather synergy through an ability (since we've been specifically told to make an abuser, not just a normal mon which happens to be a great partner on these teams). I'm obviously not terribly wise on this matter, it was just a thought.

Discussing what coverage this will "definitely" get and proposing stat biases is poll jumping because those aren't the stage we're on--any future posts I see doing this will be deleted and warned. Of course we can beat any threat if we have base 181 Attack or Special Defense, any given coverage move, etc.--the point of this stage based on our consensus so far is to discuss what typing is most beneficial to build a Sand breaker and Sun speed control Pokemon.

 

[Deck Knight]

4: When addressing both sand and sun at once in a typing, what issues do we specifically have to address? There’s been a few points like this so far, like “ash gren answer/water resist,” but not all have gotten a strong consensus; let’s iron out what we need and don’t.

What sand needs is another offensive threat to complement Excadrill, preferably one that could switch in where Tyranitar or Excadrill currently cannot.

What sun needs is a little more complicated. Sun needs A speed control mon, but that does not necessarily have to be CAP 24 if CAP can open up a role for another Pokemon. When it comes to Speed Control, a great potential candidate is another CAP that already exists: Harvest Malaconda. Harvest Malaconda can run Sitrus Berry to create a very bulky threat that has room for the speed control Sun needs in the form of spreading Glare, using Knock Off to remove the items on Choice Scarfed opponents, it can Spin, and it generally has nothing to fear from unSTABBed U-turns as they just get it down to Sitrus activation. Painful but not ruinous. Malaconda can also pivot with a slow U-turn itself, meaning it is rarely a momentum sink when played right. Malaconda on a team with good partners is exasperatingly difficult to finish off, and the offensive role that Venusaur does not currently fill effectively can be filled by CAP. I grant I just gave Mala an entire set, but you can replace anything but Glare with Power Whip if you really desire and still have a sturdy Speed Control mon that operates well on a Sun team.

CAP can do this either by setting sun itself and providing an alternative-typed setter to ZardY or Ninetales/Torkoal, or by having an ability that makes it worth it to manually set sun. ZardY itself is already a great answer to M-Scizor as it is deceptively bulky, Volkraken does not care about Bullet Punch whatsoever, and boosted Fire moves are generally ruinous to M-Scizor at the outset.

The typings I feel that best do both of these things as once are Dragon/Rock and Fairy/Water (reach has converted me with his proselytizing, but his marketing is terrible).

The key here is offensive pressure. Dragon/Rock is an outstanding offensive pressure typing, combining one of the best typings for neutral damage with one of the best typings for super-effective damage. With psuedo-STAB from Sun, facing down a Pokemon with effective Rock/Dragon/Fire STAB is a daunting task. Heatran can take the rock attacks neutrally, but if it can't OHKO with Earth Power (or Flash Cannon on an offensive set) it could potentially lose a 1v1, and CAP suffers little damage from Magma Storm in that instance, even under sun.

On Sand, CAP gets an increase in special bulk to better handle Earth Power, cares even less about Magma Storm than it already does, and it can actually break with high-powered STABs in Sand Weather Ball and the usual Draco Meteor or Z-Drake.

Now for Fairy/Water. With apologies to reachzero, the focus here really is on Fairy, followed by what Water can do defensively for the type. CAP has always had great success in making CAPs that can't fill roles the Pokemon Gamefreak tends to create, the best examples being Pyroak and Cyclohm as bulky Fire and Electric types and Mollux as a Rain Pokemon with a Fire/Poison typing. CAP is almost perfectly suited for making these oddball niche threats.

The crown jewels here are Fairy's interactions with Sun and Sand traits. In Sun, Fairy + boosted Fire STAB provides good coverage on almost everything except Heatran, and it directly addresses Sun's numerous problems with Dragons. It plows through Tomohawk, fears little from Colossoil, and while it has to avoid Discharge from Cyclohm it can hit it hard with Fairy STAB too. Fairy/Water almost perfectly complements Malaconda as a partner by resisting Bug, Fire, Fighting, Ice, and Water attacks aimed at the crafty serpent. In Sand, the combination we're looking at is Fairy STAB and Ground coverage (which incidentally also helps with Heatran in Sun). This again helps adress Sand's problems with Tomohawk, Arghonaut, and Colossoil without being weak to near anything Ash-Gren throws at it (Though Protean Gren can run Gunk Shot).

5: When addressing both sand and sun at once in a typing, what weaknesses can be exposed on a greater scale? A typing may appear to work extremely well within both weathers, but could it have fundamental problems? Again, some discussion has been done on similar points (like the debate over types like Rock defensively) but it requires some more concious thought.

The biggest weakness is that trying to do two things at once inherently opens up patches one weather has that another does not. One thing I think is overlooked is that type resistance matters more than actual bulk. Grass/Fairy's utter inability to switch into every variant of Tomohawk and it's 50/50 chance with Landorus-T is a disqualifying feature to me. You can paper over Ground weakness with Air Balloon or Shuca to an extent or the fact predicted Ground moves have many, many available switchins. There is no respite from a Flying attack except Coba Berry, and Tomo has enough variants where Flying is not the only threat, there are Tomohawks with Heat Wave out there.

Obviously, Rock/Dragon is not without its weaknesses, especially to some priority attacks. However on switchin it benefits directly in Sand from not being weak to Tyranitar or Hippowdon's Grass or Water weaknesses, and it can also sponge Strong Fire attacks and deal with Water attacks amicably in either weather. Interestingly, both Sun and Sand have strong Pokemon that directly switch into the Fairy attacks it lures in Charizard-Y and Excadrill. Basically, it's a type that augments the team with high amounts of offensive pressure and baits attacks other teammates can deal with without costing any offensive momentum.

Fairy/Water's approach is different. It provides both archetypes with an entirely different offensive threat that has a strong defensive presence and could use the boosted healing moves of either weather much better in order to sustain its assaults. It's a much more balanced approach to being a team member without sacrificing the necessary offensive pressure this CAP needs to bring to both archetypes.

 

[Pipotchi]

I dont like how Grass/Fairy looks when dealing with Toxapex for Sun, or Celesteela/Skarmory for Sand. Those seem like key mons that have always been a huge stop to those team archetypes and this mon should surely deal with them(?)

The typing that deals with all 3 of those mons in my head is Electric- I think its an underrated typing for this mon that hasnt really been discussed yet.

I think Electric/Flying could be potentially be a very good typing for this mon. If we go down the route of aiming to create a setter for Sun and a special breaker for Sand. Electric/Flying pairs very well with Excadrill as an offensive duo, since it has the typing to take out Grass, Flying, Fighting and Water types that give it the most grief such as Celesteela, Tomohawk, and Tangrowth. It also dodges ground types that threaten both Tyranitar and Excadrill like Lando-T and Hippowdon, and are able to be dealt with in the movepool stage. And for Sun teams it could be made to deal with the rain matchup happily- as a setter, it would be switching into Pelipper basically for free, abusing Koko's terrain and walling Hawlucha, while threatening half the team with its Electric stab. And outside of a rain matchup, it should be able to nuke bulky waters such as Toxapex and Suicune, and fares better than the Grass type option thanks to the improved hit against Toxapex.

Electric/Flying has the benefit of not wanting to be put on a rain team (as long as it isnt given hurricane/thunder), since its typing stacks up heavily with Pelipper and Koko and to a lesser extent Hawlucha, not breaking anything Hawlucha/Koko doesnt already.

This typing has the disadvantage of seemingly not taking advantage of any of the innate benefits of Sun or Sand off the bat (no STAB boost or defensive raises, doesnt lighten its own weaknesses or anything) but I think the typing could mesh well and its utilization of weather can happen in the ability/movepool stages.

I guess an interesting take on things is thinking of Sun as a beneficiary to a Sand team, since it covers the water weakness for the team while balancing 2 weathers also allows you to reset weathers and get more turns of each. Electric/Flying in Sun has the ability to resist everything that Tyranitar is weak to outside of Fairy, which could be abused by other common Sun team mons or Excadrill.

 

[Wulfanator]

We could also take a different approach with sand/sun and use this CAP to create new core outside of Zard-Y, Tyranitar, and Excadrill. Two Pokemon that might like to see some more use in sand are Mega Steelix and Mega Garchomp. These mons would also benefit from the speed control sun teams are looking for either from fighting in trick room or paralyzing faster threats. Just food for thought.

 

[Mx]

I really think that people are worrying too much about having a Ground weakness. Unlike a Water weakness, which would give us a bad match-up against numerous Rain abusers, with very different counters, such as Ash-Greninja, Pelipper, M-Swampert and Volkraken, Ground-Type mons are much easier to check. With mons like Tomohawk, Landorus-T, Tapu Bulu and Zapdos being available, it is not hard to have a answer to them ready to switch into an Earthquake/Thousand Arrows/Earth Power at any time. Not only that, but the most relevant Ground-Type, Landorus-T, has only 91 Base Speed, no reliable recovery, and its weakness on the special side means that even a weak HP Ice can 2HKO it, so as long as we outspeed it, it should not be able to switch into us easily regardless of any weakness we might have, while we can leave the job of switching into Lando to one of our teammates without losing too much.