CAP 26 - Part 2 - Typing Discussion

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Fair point over ladder, but I think you've jumped a little down my throat, putting words in my mouth.

It's clear we're going to disagree, however. I still believe that Dark and Rock resistance is more vital than your concepts. You're free to disagree.
 
The way in which you have presented your post, Deck Knight, is really bad. Not only are there barely any relevant metagame-relevant examples, it's just a mediocre way of looking at this in general. I'd like to use this post to dissect why almost every assessment you made is flawed in some way or another.

Steel/Normal

Added Tools:
Stronger potential Priority
Strong neutral hits
Immunity to Spirit Shackle/Ghost Attacks

Added Liabilities:
4x fighting weakness
Requires split offenses to get the most out of tools.
Limited super-effective offensive potential

Normal is a bit rough to deal with because the power gap from Hyper Voice to Boomburst is significant, and although Wring Out is actually fantastic with Doom Desire, it's not that reliable as an immediate STAB after hazards and chip. It doesn't have anything to fear from Pajantom's STABs, and walls Necturna (though post-nerf this isn't as important.)
Honestly, I really don't see an argument for priority at all, because it's just super weak. This is primarily because we are going to be a special attacker. To add onto that, it's really just never worth it to run priority with literally no offensive coverage unless it is boosted by an ability in some way. Furthermore, you bring up the fact that it possesses over "strong" neutral hits, but they are more often than not, not enough for Pokemon to consistently force switches - the power creep is so high that you really have to be able to hit bulky Pokemon super effectively to force them out. Additionally, I feel like this post just doesn't put enough emphasis on how huge a 4x weakness to Fighting is. All relevant Psychic- and most relevant Fairy-types run Fighting-type coverage to hit Steel-types like Ferrothorn. Now, I am well aware that Ferrothorn is also weak to Fighting, but it can at least afford to take a Focus Blast, whereas Steel / Normal CAP 26 will almost certainly not. Basically, what I'm trying to get at is that Steel / Normal is more detrimental to CAP 26's defensive utility if anything, and thus will hinder it as a pivot.

Steel/Dark
Added Tools:
STAB on Pursuit
Psychic Immunity
Strong potential Priority
Strong Neutral Coverage
Resists Knock Off/Pursuit
Immune to Prankster Status
Pressures Psychic / Ghost Types

Added Liabilities:
4x Fighting weakness
Loses Bug Resistance
Loses Fairy Resistance

Steel/Dark is a typing with a lot of tradeoffs for the tools it brings. It probably has the worst matchup possible against Arghonaut, but hits most of the rest for neutral. It probably has a different idealized build than other type options because Dark Pulse's flinch chance is nasty combined with Doom Desire for piling on unanswered damage, but I feel like it's a plausible direction.
You bring up Pursuit as a positive asset to Steel / Dark, but if anything, Pursuit would disincentivize the usage of Doom Desire altogether; as we determined in Concept Assessment, we agreed that the optimal usage of Doom Desire was on forced switches, which Pursuit will want to be used on as well. Again, you bring up priority, but it's still going to hit like a wet paper towel, because we will almost certainly be a special attacker. You also talk about an immunity to Prankster-boosted moves, but Prankster users are irrelevant, apart from Sableye and Tomohawk, which I am pretty sure of that we can't realistically overwhelm with the STAB moves from this typing. The only Prankster-boosted move Tomohawk would want to hit us with anyway would be Toxic, which we are (obviously) immune to. Furthermore, Sableye can just Mega Evolve into Mega Sableye and negate the immunity to Will-O-Wisp anyway. Once again you bring up its 4x weakness to Fighting, and once again, I feel like you just don't put enough emphasis on how huge it is, because it means we can't check most common Psychic-types at all.

Steel/Psychic
Added Tools:
Adds 4x Psychic resistance
Adds Fighting neutrality
Pressures Fighting types

Added Liabilities:
Removes Bug Resistance
Adds Weakness to Knock Off/Pursuit
Adds Weakness to Spirit Shackle/ Ghost moves

This is probably the only project where I would argue Steel/Psychic is superior to Steel/Ghost, which I actually pan below. Although I consider the weakness to Knock Off especially and Pursuit to a degree problematic, a Pokemon platformed for Doom Desire can also platform for Future Sight, and the move has excellent partner potential. Tapu Lele is a decent partner for this type pairing, and Psychic STAB + Psychic Terrain gives an option with an incredible 270 BP accounting for STAB in a choke situation where Dark types would need to eat a STAB Moonblast to try and absorb it. This typing does have a terrible marchup against Pajantom though, a mon which likes to punish direct pivot strategies.
The claim that Steel / Psychic is superior to Steel / Ghost is honestly just wrong. I don't really see how you can say that Steel / Psychic is fine and then rip into Steel / Ghost, which both suffer from the exact same drawbacks, but Steel / Ghost does to a much lesser extent. Steel / Ghost is better because of its immunity to Fighting and its superior neutral coverage. Additionally, I do not see why we are even talking about Future Sight, because SHSP clearly said that we are going to be focusing on Doom Desire; so using Future Sight as a justifying point is honestly an extremely weak point. I will go more in-depth about why Steel / Ghost is so powerful now.

Steel/Ghost - the two big liabilities here are Dark weakness and low offensive power. Knock Off is arguably the worst part of Dark weakness over Pursuit. Pursuit has a few poweful users with STAB, but the bigger danger is Knock Off from crazy attackers like Kartana to pivots like Tornadus-T and Tangrowth. While I've been pushing Z-sets, a lot of Discord discussion has centered around sets much more susceptible to Knock Off. Ghost typing also gives Pajantom a lot of power to threaten CAP and do a lot of damage with Spirit Shackle even if it won't trap, so that is something to consider as well. Pajantom is the natural enemy of direct pivoting strategies that we seem to be aiming for, best not to exacerbate that.

On the offensive end, Shadow Ball may hit most targets neutrally but it has pretty low overall power. It isn't going to deter many offensive threats from coming in unless CAP has something like Chandelure level SpA, and I feel that's going to be really hard to balance.
While the negatives that you pointed out are true to a certain extent (although some such as the Knock Off weakness are overstated), these all still apply to Steel / Psychic. I feel like the fact that we can hit most of the metagame for nearly unresisted damage, is honestly really valuable, especially on a Pokemon that is trying to force as many switches as possible to make optimal usage out of Doom Desire. Furthermore, the immunity to Fighting, is just THAT much better than being neutral to it, because it actually turns CAP 26 into a solid Tapu Lele and Mega Alakazam check, which I have seen as a major justifying point in favor of Steel / Psychic. I guess I should put it like this. Why should we turn CAP 26 into a mediocre check to Psychic-types when the same can be done with a typing that achieves most of the same things, but also does this more effectively?

Steel/Fairy: The biggest liability here is probably competition. It's just a very generically good type that makes a great pivot, but already has two great competing bulky offensive threats in Mega Mawile and Magearna. These threats are already prepared for and it would make it very difficult for CAP to muscle in for one of their slots given they have their own unique niches.
Contrary to your belief, I think that it'll actually be easy to differentiate CAP 26 from Magearna and Mega Mawile. Magearna is the most notable one, because it's also a special attacker and can function as a pivot, though Calm Mind and double dance sets are often preferred. However, Magearna has a fatal flaw that really makes it suffer as a defensive pivot, which is its lack of reliable recovery and thus susceptibility to hazards in general. We can definitely capitalize on this with CAP 26 and give it some way to compete with Magearna as a pivot, and potentially outclass it as a pivot altogether. I don't think we will be able to outclass it completely, because its Calm Mind sets are still very strong and definitely not something CAP 26 should focus on running. You also mention Mega Mawile, which isn't a dedicated pivot, so CAP 26 and Mega Mawile wouldn't really compete at all.
 
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It was mentioned in Discord that we hadn't seriously examined Water/Steel, and I had mentioned it as a typing I think warrants discussion. Now that I've ruled out Dark as a typing I'm in favor of, that positions it as the fifth best typing, so let's take a deeper look...

Offensive Potential:
First, a Frostbiyt-esque analysis. As a reminder, we are color-coding as not very effective, neutral, and super-effective. We want to hit most of the right column neutrally and super-effectively, and most of the left column wants to be not very effective or neutral.

Defensive ResistsOffensive Resists
A+S
ArghonautHeatran
CelesteelaA+
FerrothornGreninja
A-Volkraken
ToxapexA
ZapdosKitsunoh
B+A-
Chansey*Caribolt
CyclohmKartana
PelipperKrilowatt
SlowkingMagnezone
SuicuneVolcarona
BB+
JirachiGyarados
Rotom-WNaviathan
B-Smokomodo
Mega AggronMega Swampert
GastrodonB
MoltresExcadrill
CMega Camerupt
MolluxMega Charizard X
PyroakMega Charizard Y***
QuagsireMega Scizor
SlowbroVictini
Mega SlowbroB-
SnaelstromCawmodore
Kingdra
Manaphy
C
Crawdaunt
Keldeo
Alolan Marowak

*** - Mega Charizard-Y's Drought means that it functionally is neutral versus water moves, but if you can change or counter the weather advantage it would be hit super effectively.

As we can see, it is nearly perfect from the standpoint of making defensive Doom Desire switch-ins feel VERY safe. Its coverage on offensive threats is a little more thin (particularly at the A to S ranks), but not violently so - notably, it lets us hit Heatran extremely hard without compromising any defensive switch-ins. What's also nice about water is how we can modulate it - we have moves of BP 65-150 and lots of benchmarks in between (most iconically we can select 80, 90, or 110 BP that is all fairly reliable), so we can temper our movepool to our stats in a way we won't really be able to with, say, ground or ghost or fighting or flying. We also gain the ability to potentially spread status or even trap foes - some nice perks that shouldn't be ignored.

Defensively:
Immune: Poison
Strongly resists: Ice, Steel
Resists: Bug, Dragon, Fairy, Flying, Normal, Psychic, Rock, Water
Weak to: Electric, Fighting, Ground

Nothing huge here. The key thing is that like Ground and Electric, this preserves our natural state against Tapu Lele, M-Alakazam, and other powerful psychics and fairys that carry Fighting coverage. Our new electric weakness is annoying in theory, but in practice only affects our Caribolt matchup. Being Fire neutral and Water resistant is pretty good, as it helps tremendously versus the likes of Heatran, Volcarona, Greninja, and Volkraken. We also double on our ice and steel resist, which I guess is nice if we come into a banded Weavile's ice attacks but is functionally irrelevant.
 
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GMars

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Discussion's been picking up nicely lately. I wanted to drop in with my thoughts on what we've learned through the questions so far, give you all my current opinions on typings, and provide additional questions to focus the conversation. I'll separate the typings into the following categories: Negligible chance of being slated, weaker typings that would need extra support from posters to have a shot at getting slated, and strong typings.

ICC bad typings for this concept:
This section can broadly be separated into three categories, primarily coming from how we've answered question 3. These typings would prevent CAP 26 from being an attractive choice as a pivot while teambuilding in the CAP meta, and should be avoided so it's successful in that role. The ICC was that downgrading to a 4x Fighting weakness or losing a Psychic resistance is not something that's wanted out of a Steel-type pivot in the CAP meta, given what it would be slotted to help versus. Given this, the following typings would be unsuccessful:

Steel / Ice
Steel / Rock
Steel / Dark
Steel / Normal
Steel / Fighting
Steel / Poison

Next, there's the concern of competing with established Steel-type pivots, primarily Heatran and Ferrothorn. While we theoretically could out-do Ferrothorn, doing so would almost certainly require an oversaturated movepool that would have a high likelihood to push out Doom Desire in order to maximize utility, bringing a high risk of failing the concept. Heatran, on the other hand, is potentially insurmountable as far as hoping CAP 26 could replace it without putting a huge strain on the meta. With this, we want to avoid the following two typings:

Steel / Fire
Steel / Grass

The last batch of ICC bad typings come from the way we've answered question 4, in that they fail to strike the balance we're looking for in pressuring a sufficient group of offensive answers to Doom Desire. Steel / Bug is something I want to particularly note as a distraction for this concept, as pivoting moves would have a high likelihood of replacing Doom Desire on any real movesets.

Steel / Psychic
Steel / Bug

Please, unless you have any sparks of grand insight, avoid discussing the above typings, as their weaknesses would be a grand undertaking to remedy for the success of this concept.

Typings that merit more discussion, but are low on my personal list:
Now, we move into typings that I'm not hot on, but at least deserve to be looked into more. These typings are:

Steel
Steel / Dragon
Steel / Fairy

Here are some questions to focus the conversation:

Steel - Supporters of mono-Steel have only focused on the defensive benefits that this typing could bring. Would CAP 26 be able to succeed in pressuring offensive Steel-answers without STAB on its coverage? What coverage or utility options would allow this to be possible? (Attacking isn't the only way to pressure offensive switch-ins. Are there enough potential options to punish our offensive threatlist without forcing us to bank on hoping for a single option down the road, which would effectively be polljumping?)

Steel / Dragon - This typing fails to hit Tapu Lele at least neutrally, meaning that on most realistic movesets that this CAP would run, it would have to run either Steelium Z, which is a negative given Z-Competition in CAP, or Flash Cannon in order to check Tapu Lele as a Steel-type. There's also the issue of losing a resistance to Fairy, which is generally seen as a key reason for adding a Steel-type onto a team in the first place. How could a Steel / Dragon CAP 26 bypass these failings without oversaturating its movepool, risking pushing out Doom Desire?

Steel / Fairy - The real concern here for me is not in being overshadowed by Magearna or Mega Mawile. Rather, I worry that this typing has offensive failings. The only case where Steel and Fairy coverage are run together is on Assault Vest Magearna with Fleur Cannon + Iron Head. All other Magearna sets and Mega Mawile sets pass on running the STAB combination together. Does Fairy STAB strike the offensive balance we're looking for by pressuring a handful of offensive threats while enabling a set of good defensive answers?

Solid typings for this concept based off of initial discussion:
Finally, we have my frontrunners for typings.

Steel / Flying
Steel / Water
Steel / Electric
Steel / Ground
Steel / Ghost

As far as questions go:

Steel / Flying - This typing can be exceptional defensively, but offensively it's lacking. This isn't simply due to the lack of consistent special Flying STAB. Rather, I'm most concerned about allowing offensive behemoths such as Heatran in freely. How can Steel / Flying be justified offensively? Similar to the mono-Steel question, are there enough non-STAB or non-attack ways to pressure our offensive threatlist?

Steel / Water - I've become a fan of this typing because of the way in which Scald (assumed due to universal distribution, only missing out on washing machines, primordial beings, and Ice-types) pressures our offensive answers while allowing a good range of defensive answers. What specific checkmate scenarios would this typing allow? Would it require too many specific partners to be successful, or are its answers naturally handled by a few common slots?

Steel / Electric - A few supporters of this typing so far have brought up STAB pivot moves as a pro for this, which worries me, given that pivoting moves have the highest chance of directly replacing Doom Desire on potential movesets, and there is precedent for not including Volt Switch in Electric-types' movepools. Does this typing have enough to stand on its own without Volt Switch? Based on what answers this typing allows, what specific checkmate scenarios could you envision when teambuilding with a Steel / Electric Doom Desire CAP 26?

Steel / Ground - This is a great typing, but there is a growing concern that it could be too good offensively. Really dive into and expand on this - if you support Steel / Ground, justify why the offensive power Ground provides isn't overbearing by showing us that it hits the happy medium that we're looking for.

Steel / Ghost - This is personally my favorite typing. I feel that people against this typing have been blowing a Pursuit weakness out of proportion. The near-universally neutral hits Ghost allows naturally favors defensive answers over offensive ones just by the virtue of bulk, key super effective hits on Lele, Aurumoth, Alakazam, Pajantom, and Mega Medicham are very enticing, and the defensive suite from Steel / Ghost would give CAP 26 a huge number of switch-in opportunities. Supporters of Steel / Ghost, in order to address detractors' main concerns, how would a Steel / Ghost CAP 26 function around a Pursuit and Knock Off weakness? Are these weaknesses as relevant as some are making them out to be?
 

SHSP

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I'm here to chime in on a few types after a week from hell- apologies this isn't sooner. Getting into it:

Mono Steel: Off of steel alone, we certainly have a lot of defensive strength and good resistances, but like in Gmars's, the question in my mind is the tradeoff you get offensively. Jho's post in support highlights this- we're going to have a lot of switchins, and this can either be good in the case of being able to emphasize passive answers, or bad in the case of not packing enough of a punch to be successful with Doom Desire at all. I'm unsure, but leaning towards disliking this as argued- it seems to miss the power floor we have to have to really make Doom Desire appealing, and I'm not sure how we can effectively bring this up to that mark.

Steel/Ghost: Firstly, people are overestimating Pursuit a LOT in this thread, I think. Yes, pursuit is very good in this metagame, and yes, we'd be weak to it. That won't break us as a concept, although it can definitely make setting up Doom Desire a lot more difficult. This likely leads more to Pursuit-Knock 50/50's and the like, which can be problematic, but aren't the end of the world and are honestly a solid weakness for a really good typing. Knock is a much bigger concern, because it's a lot more prevalent- but even still, I'm not sure how many times we're going to leave ourselves open to that.

Steel/Flying: This one might just be my favorite, actually. I think it's spectacular defensively- Steela and Skarm highlight that- and offensively outside of hitting opposing Steels it isn't too bad. The difficulty really rests in how diverse those steels are in the metagame, and how common- it's gonna be a pain to properly "checkmate" well made teams without good play yourself. I think it's certainly manageable, though, and the fairly common weakness really pins it in the "goldilocks" zone of meeting the power floor without breaking through the power ceiling. (Also I think a strict upgrade on mono steel, for what it's worth.)

I haven't thought too much about the rest, but I'll give a little bit on them.

Steel/Dragon seems to really struggle defensively, which holds it back a lot- though I think it's strong neutrally/offensively, it seems worse off than other types (especially with a resistance in Steel, again). Steel/Ground scares me- it seems good, but could easily be too good- I'm unsure but it leans too close to breaking that power ceiling. The others I'll have to give more time to, I'm very unsure on them from a lack of considering them so far.
 
I'd like to address the concern that ground/steel would be too powerful on offense. Yes, it is a very powerful combination - but in this specific instance, it does EXACTLY what we want.

We want to pressure more offensive pokemon than we do defensive, and ground/steel does this fantastically for a few important reasons; first, the two premier defensive steel types are neutral versus ground (ferrothorn) and immune to it (celesteela.) There are another few important defensive pokemon that are immune to ground or resist it, two of which resist DD as well - namely, Rotom-Wash, Zapdos, Tornadus-T and Tangrowth.

The only important defensive pokemon ground hits super effectively are toxapex and cyclohm - other big defensive names in CAP are either neutral or else resist. Even among defensive pokemon that see less play, few of those that resist DD take super effective ground damage - namely Jirachi, Mega Aggron, and Mollux.

Meanwhile, against offensive checks to DD, ground stab has plenty of neutral and SE hits that force out essentially anything that can't one-shot us, with a few notable exceptions that either probably CAN one shot us (volkraken and ash-greninja come to mind), is capable of taking fairly hefty special hits (such a volcarona), or else resist/are immune to ground (such as aurumoth).

tldr; ground is super effective against remarkably few defensive counters to DD, and threatens almost all of the offensive ones.
 

quziel

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I'd just like to talk about the coverage that Steel gets with some of the most promising secondary typings so far, if only to see how useful Doom Desire will be for self-checkmate situations.

Steel / Flying is the first typing I'd like to talk about. In the situation where you've managed to set up a Self-Checkmate, Doom Desire does not really benefit Flying Coverage that much, realistically letting you beat Tyranitar, Tapu Koko, and Magearna over just regular flying coverage. Given the small list of additional targets, and how easy many of these targets could be to hit with additional coverage (note, Fighting or Ground coverage could easily lead to DD being dropped if it gets even small amounts of utility moves, see Torn-T), this means that CAP 26 could be in a huge danger of simply dropping Doom Desire for additional utility/coverage.

Steel / Ghost
has a similar conundrum, with Doom Desire expanding its reach to cover Tyranitar / Weavile, but has far fewer resists than Flying, meaning that this is often enough. However, it is noteworthy that even small movepool additions could cover those targets thanks to their typing, which will mean that the movepool stage for this typing could be restricted. That said, I don't view Steel/Ghost as being in nearly as much danger of dropping Doom Desire as Steel/Flying.

Steel/Ground heavily appreciates the coverage that Doom Desire brings it, hitting Jumbao and Ground-immune pokemon such as Tornadus-Therian and Mega-Latios for very heavy damage. Additionally, Steel/Ground is neutral to Grass, and resists Flying, meaning that this pokemon could potentially stay in against its checkmate Targets. Like the other two typings mentioned above, Ground has very wide neutral and super effective coverage, meaning we do not need to worry too much about overcrowding the moveset with coverage. However, unlike the two mentioned above, Ground has a pressing reason to use Doom Desire, and thanks to the aforementioned good neutral coverage, it would likely have an open moveslot for it. Because Ground moves heavily benefit from Steel coverage, and the sheer strength of the checkmate turn, and the ability to actually stay in against checkmate targets and force said turn, I view this as an incredibly strong typing for this CAP, regardless of its defensive issues (which are still very manageable).

I guess since this post is ultimately in support of Ground typing, I'll cover why I don't think this is overbearing:

Steel/Ground is good coverage, and helps us out a ton vs Jumbao and friends, but is far from perfect. Ground coverage still fails to heavily damage many walls such as Arghonaut, Rotom-Wash, Zapdos, and Celesteela, all of which easily take a Doom Desire, and all of which are fairly passive. I'd argue that this helps our concept, as it gives us a clearly defined set of pokemon that are all easy to switch into (relatively), and we are unlikely to break these pokemon by ourself. As mentioned before, having primarily defensive switchins to our main combo is desirable for this cap, and thanks to the sheer number of defensive switchins, I don't believe Ground STAB would be overpowering.
 
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Deck Knight

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So I'm going to borrow a little from a few posts and possibly incur GMars wrath for revisting Steel/Psychic. My last post was made on mobile so I didn't quite flesh out everything I needed to.

Here I will argue that Steel/Psychic cannot be likened to an inferior Steel/Ghost. I'll start with a rebuttal to a Jordy point:

Jordy said:
While the negatives that you pointed out are true to a certain extent (although some such as the Knock Off weakness are overstated), these all still apply to Steel / Psychic. I feel like the fact that we can hit most of the metagame for nearly unresisted damage, is honestly really valuable, especially on a Pokemon that is trying to force as many switches as possible to make optimal usage out of Doom Desire. Furthermore, the immunity to Fighting, is just THAT much better than being neutral to it, because it actually turns CAP 26 into a solid Tapu Lele and Mega Alakazam check, which I have seen as a major justifying point in favor of Steel / Psychic. I guess I should put it like this. Why should we turn CAP 26 into a mediocre check to Psychic-types when the same can be done with a typing that achieves most of the same things, but also does this more effectively?
Check seems fairly inaccurate here, as resisting both STABs and being immune to common coverage is definitely hard check on a bulky defensive pivot at a minimum. While it cannot be doubted Ghost/Steel is superior defensively, it barely applies any offensive pressure. It has extremely limited super-effective coverage, and "hitting neutrally" is not very threatening when the STAB you're actually talking about has 80 Base Power and hits almost nothing SE. I mentioned tools in my earlier post because I think the tools STAB gives you are relevant in what you want to achieve.

Below is an effectiveness comparison between Ghost and Psychic

Defensive ResistsOffensive Resists
A+S
Arghonaut (neut/weak LD)Heatran (neut/resist)
Celesteela (neut/resist LD)A+
Ferrothorn (neut/resist)Greninja (resist/immune)
A-Volkraken (neut/neut LD)
Toxapex (neut/weak LD)A
Zapdos (neut/neut)Kitsunoh (weak/resist)
B+A-
Chansey (neut*/neut LD)Caribolt (neut/neut)
Cyclohm (neut/neut HD)Kartana (neut LD/resist HD)
Pelipper (neut/neut HD)Krilowatt (neut/neut)
Slowking (weak/resist LD)Magnezone (neut/resist HD)
Suicune (neut/neut)Volcarona (neut/neut LD)
BB+
Jirachi (weak/resist)Gyarados (neut/neut)
Rotom-W (neut/neut HD)Naviathan (neut LD/resist HD)
B-Smokomodo (neut HD/neut LD)
Mega Aggron (neut/resist HD)Mega Swampert (neut/neut)
Gastrodon (neut/neut)B
Moltres (neut/neut)Excadrill (neut/resist)
CMega Camerupt (neut/neut)
Mollux (neut/weak)Mega Charizard X (neut LD/neut HD)
Pyroak (neut/neut)Mega Charizard Y (neut HD/neut LD)
Quagsire (neut/neut)Mega Scizor (neut/resist HD)
Slowbro (weak/resist HD)Victini (weak/resist)
Mega Slowbro (weak/resist HD)B-
Snaelstrom (neut/neut)Cawmodore (neut LD/resist HD)
Kingdra (neut/neut)
Manaphy (neut/neut)
C
Crawdaunt (resist/immune)
Keldeo (neut/weak)
Alolan Marowak (weak/neut HD)
*Honorary Resist

Summary: Psychic STAB dissuades Arghonaut, Toxapex, and Mollux while drawing in Celesteela, Ferrothorn, Pyroak, Cyclohm, Heatran, Magnezone, Excadrill, M-Scizor and ZardX. It also draws in Pokemon like Slowbro and Slowking, Psychics that also resist Steel but trend towards defense.
At the risk of being premature, Psyshock adds Smokomodo and Chansey to the dissuade list, also bypasses Calm Mind and Quiver Dance should CAP end up in CM wars, and it effectively makes CAP 26 a dual-spectrum attacker able to target opponents with low physical defense. This is something Steel/Ghost cannot do which Psychic hypothetically can, and this is a tool which Psychic types including relevant threats in the CAP meta already utilize. It is something that would benefit CAP 26 that is not otherwise able to be replicated at the power level CAP 26 needs to achieve.

The shift in what Psychic attracts or detracts is mostly beneficial by avoiding heavily passive Pokemon that can just recover off the Doom Desire damage. Shadow Ball is insufficient to offensively pressure them, and CAP would prefer to attract targets with less access to reliable recovery. Pyroak, Cylcohm, and M-Scizor are the counterexamples, and here is where I really think Ghost/Steel becomes a problem. Ghost/Steel is an exceptionally good defensive type. While no Pokemon will ever match the things Aegislash does, in practice a Pokemon that can switch in with that resistance set and also pile on damage is extremely threatening. Steel/Psychic is a much more offense-oriented typing that is easier to balance with those considerations in mind. Steel/Psychic inherently allows CAP to dissuade the huge number of Fighting types using Knock Off (including Arghonaut) from switching in in ways that Steel/Ghost just hitting them neutrally doesn't. Arghonaut in particular can just scrap its item and Recover off damage.

Now, for the Tapu Lele matchup. I'm just going to use Jirachi as a stand-in with Max HP/Max SpA, and alternate types.

Calm Mind Lele vs /Psy:
+1 252 SpA Tapu Lele All-Out Pummeling (190 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Jirachi: 310-365 (76.7 - 90.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+1 252 SpA Tapu Lele Shattered Psyche (175 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Jirachi in Psychic Terrain: 160-189 (39.6 - 46.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

+1 252 SpA Tapu Lele Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Jirachi: 196-231 (48.5 - 57.1%) -- 44.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+1 252 SpA Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Jirachi in Psychic Terrain: 82-97 (20.2 - 24%) -- possible 6HKO after Leftovers recovery
(These would also be Specs Calcs)

252+ SpA Jirachi Psyshock vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tapu Lele in Psychic Terrain: 114-135 (40.5 - 48%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Calm Mind Lele vs /Ghost:
+1 252 SpA Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Jirachi in Psychic Terrain: 165-195 (40.8 - 48.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
+1 252 SpA Tapu Lele Shattered Psyche (175 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Jirachi in Psychic Terrain: 321-378 (79.4 - 93.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ SpA Jirachi Shadow Ball vs. +1 0 HP / 4 SpD Tapu Lele: 144-170 (51.2 - 60.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Jirachi Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Tapu Lele: 212-252 (75.4 - 89.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (Non CM Calc)


Obviously the actual stats would tweak these numbers. That said the offensive and defensive potential of Psychic vs Ghost in this specific matchup is roughly similar assuming Lele has the advantageous Z-Crystal. That 4x Psychic resistance is far from irrelevant, and Focus Blast and AoP are not world-enders even at +1. You can run a similar analysis for other Psychics, but the point is as far as Tapu Lele is concerned Steel/Psychic is a certainly reasonable type to actually check Lele while Steel/Ghost trends closer to counter unless Lele runs Psychium-Z. I do not think CAP 26 should be orienting itself to Lele Counter. I think Steel/Psychic is much, much more than a poor man's Steel/Ghost, especially for this concept where CAP needs to be able to apply both offensive and defensive pressure.

There is no doubt Steel/Ghost has amazing defensive capability. It's offensive capability is so lacking that to address it's shortcomings later will keep us out of the "goldilocks zone" we are trying to achieve in utilizing Doom Desire. Steel/Psychic shares many of Steel/Ghosts positive qualities, including competence as a Lele check, while being much easier to work with, even with a sole and exclusive focus on assisting Doom Desire.
 

GMars

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So I'm going to borrow a little from a few posts and possibly incur GMars wrath for revisting Steel/Psychic.
Yes you will. While I won't go point by point, there's something I particularly need to address.
The shift in what Psychic attracts or detracts is mostly beneficial by avoiding heavily passive Pokemon that can just recover off the Doom Desire damage.
We have decided during Concept Assessment and through the beginning of this thread that this is the exact opposite of what we want. In attracting passive Pokemon, the following happens: if you were to do chip damage to them with one of your attacks, you accept you weren't going to beat them and they'd be able to recover off what you'd do to them. Thus, you store an attack for later using Doom Desire to beat something later as you force out the passive Pokemon. Since the opposing Pokemon is passive, you're also able to switch into them more easily and create a checkmate scenario with Doom Desire by pressuring the passive mon: Either they get wallopped by what you've brought in, or something unable to handle Doom Desire + the attack from the mon you've brought in has to bite the dust.

If anything, the large number of offensive resists, including allowing in extremely hard-to-switch into Pokemon such as Heatran, demonstrate to me the failings of Psychic as a typing for this concept and further justify why I preferred it removed from the discussion in the first place.
 
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Bughouse

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I think Steel/Ground is clearly the best option, based on the comparison of how it fairs vs offensive and defensive steel checks. While a potentially strong special attacker with Ground STAB may raise fears of Lando-I threat level, this can be totally mitigated by the CAP having little coverage beyond its two stabs or a less than great speed stat, etc. What makes Lando-I so threatening and banned to Ubers is a combination of a few things: strong STAB and coverage due to 115 SpA + sheer force, along with 101 speed. We can nerf some or all of those to easily make this CAP sit comfortably in OU.

I think fears about a TYPING being too good before anything else has been decided is incredibly alarmist and nonsense. Mind you, it's a typing that exists on numerous existing Pokemon already, including one viable mon in the CAP meta (Excadrill in B rank).
 
3) During Concept Assessment, we came to the conclusion that a pivot is an ideal role for CAP 26. What typings would best allow CAP 26 to be an attractive choice in this role while teambuilding in the CAP meta? What typings should be avoided for success in this role?

TBH, I can't help but think of a steel and ground typing for CAP 26 when it comes to getting what we want. Steel and Ground has quite a bit of synergy, at least when it comes to offensive coverage. Perhaps Steel and Flying could potentially be doable to that end as well.

As far as what typings that aren't all that suitable for CAP 26, I don't really have an idea, and if I did, then I'd be preaching to the choir.
 
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Steel/Ground heavily appreciates the coverage that Doom Desire brings it, hitting Jumbao and Ground-immune pokemon such as Tornadus-Therian and Mega-Latios for very heavy damage. Additionally, Steel/Ground is neutral to Grass, and resists Flying, meaning that this pokemon could potentially stay in against its checkmate Targets. Like the other two typings mentioned above, Ground has very wide neutral and super effective coverage, meaning we do not need to worry too much about overcrowding the moveset with coverage. However, unlike the two mentioned above, Ground has a pressing reason to use Doom Desire, and thanks to the aforementioned good neutral coverage, it would likely have an open moveslot for it. Because Ground moves heavily benefit from Steel coverage, and the sheer strength of the checkmate turn, and the ability to actually stay in against checkmate targets and force said turn, I view this as an incredibly strong typing for this CAP, regardless of its defensive issues (which are still very manageable).
No, Steel/Ground gives you a good reason to run Flash Cannon/Earth Power/Hidden Power/ Support Move as a movepool. It heavily disencourages us from putting Doom Desire on CAP. The only way Doom Desire would fit in this movepool is if it was a support move, but that would probably require us to have literally nothing else worth running as a support move, which isn't great because Doom Desire is fairly middling as a support move. It's only good against mons we can't hit for at least neutral damage with FC/EP, and as pretty much everybody has pointed out, that isn't much.

Compare that to something like Steel/Water. Water is such a strong offensive typing and Flash Cannon synergizes so poorly with it, the optimal moveset would probably look something like Scald/Support Move/Support Move/Support Move. That gives us ton of room for Doom Desire. It also leads us to want to click Doom Desire more, as Water types are a safe switch-in to CAP as a Water/Steel.
 
Steel - Supporters of mono-Steel have only focused on the defensive benefits that this typing could bring. Would CAP 26 be able to succeed in pressuring offensive Steel-answers without STAB on its coverage? What coverage or utility options would allow this to be possible? (Attacking isn't the only way to pressure offensive switch-ins. Are there enough potential options to punish our offensive threatlist without forcing us to bank on hoping for a single option down the road, which would effectively be polljumping?)
I would just like to clarify within this thread that coverage IS NOT the only form of pressure that cap26 can use to dissuade offensive checks. One of the main perks of Mono steel is that it really only has one for sure move slot at this point in Doom Desire, meaning it can make use of various utility moves and it's in these utility moves that offensive presence can be found. Take Ferrothorn for example, a Pokemon which is very obviously a wall however it dissuades offensive switch-ins with the possibility of moves such as Knock Off, which can remove items such as Choice Scarf which are extremely important, as well as options such as Thunder Wave, allowing it to cripple switch-ins for the rest of the game. The same can be seen in defensive Tornadus-T, Arghonaut and Rotom-W.

Basically what I'm trying to demonstrate is that even with a Mono-Steel typing, 26 CAN have the pressure to keep out offensive checks and can also have the immediate threat to force out Pokemon such as Tapu Lele and Alakazam, which don't want to take be crippled by similar utility moves. 2HKOing offensive checks is not the only way to keep them out and I actually think such a route in this build will only serve to push Doom Desire out of potential movepools. 26 CAN and imo SHOULD seek to use utility options to prevent offensive checks from taking advantage of it, as this minimizes the chances of Doom Desire leaving its main sets.
 

GMars

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Hi all, consider this your 48 hour warning for this thread. Please continue to discuss your top (or bottom) typings using the questions I dropped as a guide. If discussion really picks up I'll extend the time this thread is open, otherwise I'll be talking with SHSP and the rest of the TLT and bringing a slate to you soon. Thanks!
 

twinkay

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Steel / Flying
I think this typing is very interesting and is probably my second favorite right now. The Ground immunity is very useful for checking strong Ground-types such as Colossoil and Landorus-T, which can provide switch-ins and opportunities for CAP 26 to set-up Doom Desire. The Fighting neutrality to help against M-Medicham and Tomohawk is also helpful defensively. I also think an immunity to Spikes is a small perk but still an important one for a pivot.

Offensively, I don't think Steel / Flying would struggle too much. For offensive checks, it can beat Volcarona and Keldeo, and Arghonaut defensively. It can also hit many of the offensive checks neutrally, as it's only resisted by Electric and Steel, and a few of those (Caribolt, Kartana) are hit neutrally anyway. However, if we did end up choosing Steel / Flying, I think we would end up focusing more on punishing Doom Desire switch-ins with teammates. A lot of the switch-ins offensively are very exploitable. Heatran, Magnezone, Kitsunoh, Krilowatt, Naviathan, and Excadrill (couldn't really win vs us anyway) are all weak to Ground-types, which aren't exactly rare to find. Furthermore, most (except Kitsunoh) are weak to Fighting-types, and a few (except Heatran + waters) are weak to Fire-types, such as Heatran, Smokomodo, and Volcarona.

Steel / Water
Steel / Water is interesting because of Scald. Scald pretty much pressures every physically offensive switch-in to Doom Desire. However, this puts us in a weird place because the main thing Water STAB pressures, Fire-types like Smokomodo and Heatran, are also immune to burns, so there's not a whole lot of overlap. I suppose you could argue that this a good thing; however, I don't think Scald is enough to justify losing to pretty much every specially offensive DD switch-in, including Magnezone, Krilowatt, Volkraken, Keldeo, and even M-Charizard-Y. Naviathan gets a special mention because not only does it completely resist Doom Desire / Scald, but it also benefits off of being burned and is thus a solid check to Steel / Water CAP 26 as well.

Steel / Electric
If the argument that "Volt Switch would move Doom Desire out of the picture" is accepted, then I don't really think this type should be considered. Even though covering Waters is nice, I don't really feel like it justifies having a 4x weakness to Ground and a retained Fire and Fighting weakness, because that wouldn't make for a very good pivot. However, I do think we could potentially use Volt Switch and still have Doom Desre in the picture, as long as we don't go crazy with coverage. Either way, I would say don't use this type if we don't use Volt Switch.

Steel / Ground
No, Steel/Ground gives you a good reason to run Flash Cannon/Earth Power/Hidden Power/ Support Move as a movepool.
To start, I want to address this. This kind of logic does not really make sense as it could be applied to literally any type. You say later that Steel / Water would not use Flash Cannon / Scald / Hidden Power / Support Move because Steel / Water does not have good offensive synergy. However, this does not seem to be the case. First of all, Water is probably the type that is most likely to run two STABs: Scald and a more powerful Water move, usually Hydro Pump. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, any type could potentially have "reason" to run Flash Cannon / STAB / Hidden Power / Support Move. Since we are designing CAP 26 specifically around Doom Desire, this is a concern I find less effective, especially since we have many more stages to go until our final product. (We could even forgo Flash Cannon if that is a serious concern, but that's more suited for later in the process).

Anyway, Steel / Ground is my current favorite type for now. Its offensive potential is simply unmatched in terms of super-effective coverage, and, since it's already been discussed how good the STAB combination is, I won't elaborate on it too much. However, I really don't think this type would be too overbearing. It has a few defensive checks, notably drawing in Celesteela, Zapdos, Pelipper, Slowking, Suicune and a few more. Considering these mons aren't scarce, we would definitely have a healthy amount of defensive checks while beating the majority of offensive checks, thus fulfilling the role we were designed to do. Plus, I think someone has already mentioned Excadrill as an example of a Steel / Ground mon that is not overbearing in the slightest, and although they aren't exactly the same, I think it shows pretty well that we can create Steel / Ground coverage that does not overwhelm the metagame.

Steel / Ghost
Steel / Ghost has grown on me a bit since I made my initial post on the matter; however I don't think the concerns about Knock Off and Pursuit are being overblown by any means. Now that I've thought more about it I actually agree with SHSP that the problem is more Knock Off than Pursuit. Knock Off is everywhere; you would be hard-pressed to find a viable CAP team without at least one Knock Off user. Furthermore, Knock Off is a big problem if we don't run Steelium Z, because we either lose an Assault Vest or some other useful item which would give us more opportunities to set-up Doom Desire. If we do run Steelium Z, then we have less switch-in opportunities and thus limited opportunities to set-up Doom Desire. Furthermore, by setting up Doom Desire, we risk letting in a Pursuit user and then subsequently being Pursuit-trapped. I suppose this is a mindgame, but it all could easily be avoided by picking a non-Dark-weak typing. It also doesn't help that Steel / Ghost gets trapped by Pajantom, a further strain on CAP 26's role as a pivot.

I'm not arguing that Steel / Ghost is not a good defensive typing, However, I think if we want CAP 26 to be a viable Doom Desire user, we should commit to a clear direction for our Pivot. Steel / Ground clearly thrives off of offensive coverage, Steel / Flying clearly thrives off of multiple switch-in opportunities, and Steel / Water has Scald to work as a decent pressure tool to offensive switch-ins (and Steel / Electric has Volt Switch but I won't go into that right now). Steel / Ghost doesn't have any of that same direction. It doesn't thrive off of offensive coverage because neutral coverage isn't nearly as strong as broad super-effective coverage that Steel / Ground or even arguably Steel / Electric brings. It doesn't really have multiple switch-in opportunities not only because of Knock Off / Pursuit but also a weakness to Fire and Ground (and a less common Ghost) stacking on top of the prevalent Dark weakness. And unlike Steel / Water, it doesn't have a spammable and useful STAB that pressures physical attackers. All in all, this isn't the "Goldilocks zone" we're looking for.
 
No, Steel/Ground gives you a good reason to run Flash Cannon/Earth Power/Hidden Power/ Support Move as a movepool. It heavily disencourages us from putting Doom Desire on CAP. The only way Doom Desire would fit in this movepool is if it was a support move, but that would probably require us to have literally nothing else worth running as a support move, which isn't great because Doom Desire is fairly middling as a support move. It's only good against mons we can't hit for at least neutral damage with FC/EP, and as pretty much everybody has pointed out, that isn't much.

Compare that to something like Steel/Water. Water is such a strong offensive typing and Flash Cannon synergizes so poorly with it, the optimal moveset would probably look something like Scald/Support Move/Support Move/Support Move. That gives us ton of room for Doom Desire. It also leads us to want to click Doom Desire more, as Water types are a safe switch-in to CAP as a Water/Steel.
As a strong supporter of Steel/Ground, I want to spend some time on this as well as GMar's questions.

1) This makes some broad assumptions about our movepool that aren't true. If we determine that having access to Flash Cannon kills our concept - we can avoid having Flash Cannon. Every typing with a move of 80+ BP that hits some of our counters SE is going to run into this problem so we will juggle it in Movepool.

2) I think it is actually a GOOD thing if we heavily threaten offensive switch-ins and even pressure some defensive ones. I know we need Doom Desire to be a part of 26's kit, but we have to recognize that there is a very good reason that this move is unexplored in the metagame - it's a lot of setup for a small payoff. This is a move that is going to struggle to seriously dent several theoretically steel-weak opponents like AV Tyranitar. If we design a mon that is just neutral against most things, and needs a ton of team support to effectively use Doom Desire, we run into the "Bond Villain" problem best summarized by Scott Evil in Austin Powers: "Why don't we just shoot them?". In other words, if 26 has a typing that struggles against every single DD target, and needs 2-3 teammates to cover that weakness, we end up with a situation where we either never run Doom Desire or worse, CAP 26 ends up unranked as there is no good reason to use it over more straightfowrard Steels like Heatran and Kitsunoh and Ferrothorn to "just shoot them".

Ground/Steel is still hard countered and brickwalled by Celesteela, Zapdos, and Pelipper (for 'mons at B+ or better) and those types don't have an easily exploitable Hidden Power that wrecks them all. We also won't matchup great with Arghonaut, Ferrothorn, Chansey, Suicune, Slowking, and Tangrowth. Really it only threatens Toxapex (and note we aren't gonna love coming in or staying in versus Scalds or anything with that ground typing) and Cyclohm and again, I see that as for the good.

I think we can probably make a largely neutral typing (Ghost, Flying) work, but I think we end up being too cumbersome (or too desperately in need of powerful coverage moves to further crowd out Doom Desire or utility) if we take a typing that is largely offensively resisted by both offensive and defensive threats. It seems irresponsible to me to saddle this 'mon with a Water typing that is going to struggle to threaten anything. While an Electric or Ground typing will mean we have to carefully balance our movepool, I have more confidence in our ability to do that than I have confidence in our ability to help a struggling Water/Steel type out without oversaturating its movepool.
 
Short answer for now due to short time after having to reset password: Seconding what Jho said about Mono-Steel: It does give us more freedom to add utility and other ways to deal with threats without having to worry as much about as moveslots with coverage.
 

snake

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I know it's a little late in the game, but Steel / Water is really bothering me now. Water-types don't really settle in the metagame as the pivot this concept calls for, where they pressure offensive switch-ins. The best Water-types have end up in mostly three groups:

1) Wallbreakers / sweepers like Volkraken, Greninja-Ash, or Naviathan

Volkraken and Greninja-Ash in particular have really high offensive stats and speed, as well as punishing switch-ins more efficiently with better moves like U-turn and Spikes, which might not be desirable traits on a Steel / Water pivot. Furthermore, Naviathan, another Steel / Water, doesn't even run Heavy Slam on its primary offensive set, favoring Icicle Crash or Slack Off first after Dragon Dance / Waterfall / Facade.

2) Bulky mono-attacking stallbreakers like Suicune or CM Naviathan.

Note that Suicune runs Substitute / Protect / Scald / Calm Mind. Sub + Protect are automatic additions to CAP26 due to all TM-learning Pokemon getting them, and Naviathan barely has room to run coverage, let alone Steel-type STAB, and if it drops any of Calm Mind / Taunt / Recover, it's not a good stallbreaker anymore.

3) Walls like Arghonaut and Toxapex.

While Toxapex can be classified as pivot, you'd be hard pressed not to classify both of these as walls first. In fact, Toxapex's Regenerator is probably the only reason why you can call it a pivot really. Arghonaut isn't really a great pivot because it doesn't generate free turns especially well. Their access to entry hazards allows them to punish switch-ins, which really only alleviates how passive they are.

Now, there are a few oddballs left like Krilowatt (offensive pivot with Electric / Ice / Ground coverage - it would be significantly worse without this coverage), Gyarados (Dragon Dance sweeper with Moxie), and Rotom-W (pivots with Volt Switch). Though, I'm not sure if we'll actually get a moveset like we'd want: Doom Desire / Water-type STAB / utility / utility/recovery. The Pokemon that want to run Water-type STAB effectively with their secondary STAB are fast sweepers/wallbreakers, and in the case of Naviathan, it doesn't even run its secondary STAB. Doom Desire doesn't lend itself to be a stallbreaker; moves like Calm Mind + Pressure Stalling or Calm Mind + Taunt do. Finally, Doom Desire is less efficient at forcing damage on an opponent like Toxapex's Toxic Spikes or Arghonaut's Spikes are, so Doom Desire doesn't lend itself as a wall either.

So, I'm not sure where the Steel / Water CAP26 really shakes out in this. Being a fast sweeper invalidates the idea of being a pivot, and being a stallbreaker means that Doom Desire doesn't have a place on its set. Are we really capable of finding way where a Water-type can be an offensive pivot when there aren't really many examples of them? Or a defensive pivot isn't an even more passive wall than Toxapex or Arghonaut? Remember that Doom Desire should be at the forefront of CAP26's sets, so polarizing utility like pivoting moves and excessive use of other utility moves aren't real options here. The way that the metagame treats Water-types hasn't really shown this to be easy, if possible at all, despite how many Water-types we have (a lot of which that I haven't even mentioned are at the bottom of the VR).

Furthermore, adding Water to Steel typing doesn't exactly help its resist palate. Being neutral to Fire-type moves doesn't really alleviate its matchup with powerful Fire-type nukes, a point I made with Steel / Dragon earlier this thread, while resisting Water-type moves really only helps against Dragon Dance Naviathan (a rather rare sweeper, only appearing on some screens teams), as Ash Greninja's Dark Pulse and Volkraken's Fire-type STAB can bypass the Water-type resistance. Adding a Fire-type and a Water-type resistance didn't really provide much defensive, and then you're looking at Kartana, Jumbao, and Necturna's Grass-type STAB moves being neutral now and Tapu Koko and Krilowatt forcing CAP26 out. In other words, in this metagame, Steel / Water is actually not that great of a defensive typing because the resists it does provide don't really outweigh the additional weaknesses it provides. Thus, Water / Steel will actually have trouble forcing out the threats it wants to because it's just neutral to them. Fire-types like Heatran (assuming CAP26 is slower, doesn't apply if faster), Volcarona, Mega Charizard Y, and Volkraken, as well as the aforementioned Electric-types and opposing Water-types will just end up forcing out CAP26 most of the time, rather than the other way around.
 
Before this thread closes, I'd like to reiterate that I'm very skeptic about Pure Steel, to the point where it is probably my least favorite typing. As I said before, without another STAB move, it would be very difficult to run Doom Desire, as you really, really want to run Flash Cannon to have a reliable STAB move that allows you to hit the Pokemon you want to check. The argument that we can use utility moves is also very flawed, because no amount of utility will substitute the fact that by running Doom Desire as your main STAB, you won't be able to damage any threat for 2 turns. Sure, you could cripple them by removing their items, paralyzing or poisoning them, but that is hardly a substitute to a reliable attacking move, as the offensive presence of many threats that a Steel type would like to check like Tapu Lele and Magearna is strong enough that you need some sort of immediate power in order to beat them 1v1, as their coverage alone will most than likely be enough to overwhelm a CAP 26 that only depends on Doom Desire + status moves in order to check them.

Even if you tried to fit in both Doom Desire and Flash cannon into the same set, the poor coverage of Steel-type makes this very unappealing, as even something like Hidden Power is much more preferable for extra coverage, and any utility move you want to add will be used over over Doom Desire. Coverage moves could be used to alleviate this problem, but at that point, CAP 26 would suffer from its lack of a secondary STAB, and with a moveslot used for coverage, you would lose the slot you tried to save by choosing pure Steel.
 
"Steel / Dragon - This typing fails to hit Tapu Lele at least neutrally, meaning that on most realistic movesets that this CAP would run, it would have to run either Steelium Z, which is a negative given Z-Competition in CAP, or Flash Cannon in order to check Tapu Lele as a Steel-type. There's also the issue of losing a resistance to Fairy, which is generally seen as a key reason for adding a Steel-type onto a team in the first place. How could a Steel / Dragon CAP 26 bypass these failings without oversaturating its movepool, risking pushing out Doom Desire?"

I want to provide an argument for why I suggested this typing, and what advantages I think it could add to go along with Doom Desire on a slow, bulky pivot. As a disclaimer I would like to say that this typing is not my top pick for CAP 26, but it is a stronger option than I think it's been given credit. It is hard to be specific without poll-jumping, but most of the Fairy-types in the metagame that want to switch into a Dragon-type STAB phasing move do not want to eat a Doom Desire hit. And Tapu Lele is never going to be comfortable switching into a Steel-type in this metagame, even one it could potentially hit neutrally with Moonblast. The threat of Flash Cannon or Z-Doom Desire, even if they aren't always run, would be quite significant. Since Slowbro and Slowking have already demonstrated the potency of using phasing moves in conjunction with delayed-damage moves, I think it is a route worth exploring, albeit late in the stage to do so.

To address some of the concerns that have been brought up: 1) "CAP 26 won't have the stats to be a mixed attacker" -- Given how slow I believe we can make this mon without significantly lowering its effectiveness, I would not think it impossible to afford a usable attack stat. 2) "Phazing moves do not need STAB to be effective" -- I don't think we've really seen many mons that actualize the concept of effective phazer, regardless of the tier. But one of the scariest phazers I think I've faced is Circle Throw Poliwrath in PU, precisely because it is able to deal decent damage while denying set-up opportunities and attempted switch-ins. 3) "A Steel/Dragon wouldn't be an effective answer to Tapu Lele" -- This one is the most relevant criticism to me, although I think we are going to struggle to make a Steel-type mon that does a better job than Magearna, Jirachi, Celesteela, defensive Kitsunoh, or Ferrothorn at checking Tapu Lele. Most of the relevant Steels in the tier are specially-defensive powerhouses designed to take on Psychic spam, and I'm not sure that's a role in which we have to outperform other Steels in order to establish a niche for CAP 25. We will have a lot of room in the Ability stage to give CAP 26 defensive tools that other Steel-types might lack, such as resistances/immunities to certain attacking types, hazards, or status effects, that could compliment Dragon's strength as a secondary typing.
 
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snake

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2) "Phazing moves do not need STAB to be effective" -- I don't think we've really seen many mons that actualize the concept of effective phazer, regardless of the tier. But one of the scariest phazers I think I've faced is Circle Throw Poliwrath in PU, precisely because it is able to deal decent damage while denying set-up opportunities and attempted switch-ins.
I mean you said it yourself here:
Since Slowbro and Slowking have already demonstrated the potency of using phasing moves in conjunction with delayed-damage moves, I think it is a route worth exploring, albeit late in the stage to do so.
If the potency of using a phazing move + delayed attacking move is already confirmed to be good without STAB with Assault Vest Slowking, how can you deny that "phazing moves do not need STAB to be effective?" The extra chip damage, while useful, isn't as meaningful as dragging out the opponent's Fairy-type into the incoming Doom Desire. STAB on the phazing move is absolutely not required to be used effectively.

------

3) "A Steel/Dragon wouldn't be an effective answer to Tapu Lele" -- This one is the most relevant criticism to me, although I think we are going to struggle to make a Steel-type mon that does a better job than Magearna, Jirachi, Celesteela, defensive Kitsunoh, or Ferrothorn at checking Tapu Lele. Most of the relevant Steels in the tier are specially-defensive powerhouses designed to take on Pyschic spam, and I'm not sure that's a role in which we have to outperform other Steels in order to establish a niche for CAP 25. We will have a lot of room in the Ability stage to give CAP 26 defensive tools that other Steel-types might lack, such as resistances/immunities to certain attacking types, hazards, or status effects, that could compliment Dragon's strength as a secondary typing.
Even if we give it defensive tools that Steel-types might lack, a Doom Desire using Steel / Dragon just can't hit Tapu Lele super-effectively easily and immediately. This means that after CAP26's first two moveslots, Doom Desire / powerful Dragon-type STAB, you still don't have a move that can immediately. Meaning you have to run a) Steelium Z, b) a secondary Steel-type move, c) a Ghost-type or a Poison-type coverage move. While this is certainly possible, it constrains what CAP26 can reasonably achieve, especially when compared to some of the other prominent typings in this thread, whose secondary STAB can hit Tapu Lele for neutral damage. Keep in mind that competition for the team's Z-Crystal is very high in CAP right now, with many potent threats like Magearna, Tornadus-T, Tapu Lele, Landorus-T, Garchomp, Heatran, Aurumoth, Volcarona, and Pajantom all wanting the teams Z-Crystal, so relying on Steelium Z would be rather subpar. If you also want to run the STAB phazing move, then your moveset is Doom Desire / powerful Dragon-type STAB / phazing move / move to hit Tapu Lele - and that's your moveset, with no option of recovery barring one specific ability.

Finally, yes, there is an ability that blocks Focus Blast, but no ability can block Moonblast or All-Out Pummeling. I'd like to supply Tapu Lele vs Dialga calcs, as Dialga has decent 100 HP / 100 SpD. The more CAP26 invests into Special Defense, the weaker its Doom Desires get so, at this point, I want to assume that it's going to have a generic 252 HP / 0 SpD EV spread.

252 SpA Tapu Lele Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Dialga: 156-184 (38.6 - 45.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
+1 252 SpA Tapu Lele Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Dialga: 232-274 (57.4 - 67.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Tapu Lele Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Dialga: 232-274 (57.4 - 67.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 SpA Tapu Lele All-Out Pummeling (190 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Dialga: 414-488 (102.4 - 120.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Tapu Lele analysis

While unboosted this isn't a 2HKO, a guaranteed 3HKO from Moonblast on a Steel-type just isn't that great, and then factor in Calm Mind (which most commonly run Fightinium Z) and Choice Specs sets, and you've got a Steel-type that cannot check the primary target of what Steel-types need to check not only in the current metagame but for all of Generation 7. A Steel-type that also has to run an awkward coverage move or Z-Crystal specifically for that primary target, too. Of course, CAP26 isn't guaranteed to have the defensive stats of Dialga, but the above calcs really aren't a selling point for me on Steel / Dragon.
 

G-Luke

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"Steel / Dragon - This typing fails to hit Tapu Lele at least neutrally, meaning that on most realistic movesets that this CAP would run, it would have to run either Steelium Z, which is a negative given Z-Competition in CAP, or Flash Cannon in order to check Tapu Lele as a Steel-type. There's also the issue of losing a resistance to Fairy, which is generally seen as a key reason for adding a Steel-type onto a team in the first place. How could a Steel / Dragon CAP 26 bypass these failings without oversaturating its movepool, risking pushing out Doom Desire?"

I want to provide an argument for why I suggested this typing, and what advantages I think it could add to go along with Doom Desire on a slow, bulky pivot. As a disclaimer I would like to say that this typing is not my top pick for CAP 26, but it is a stronger option than I think it's been given credit. It is hard to be specific without poll-jumping, but most of the Fairy-types in the metagame that want to switch into a Dragon-type STAB phasing move do not want to eat a Doom Desire hit. And Tapu Lele is never going to be comfortable switching into a Steel-type in this metagame, even one it could potentially hit neutrally with Moonblast. The threat of Flash Cannon or Z-Doom Desire, even if they aren't always run, would be quite significant. Since Slowbro and Slowking have already demonstrated the potency of using phasing moves in conjunction with delayed-damage moves, I think it is a route worth exploring, albeit late in the stage to do so.

To address some of the concerns that have been brought up: 1) "CAP 26 won't have the stats to be a mixed attacker" -- Given how slow I believe we can make this mon without significantly lowering its effectiveness, I would not think it impossible to afford a usable attack stat. 2) "Phazing moves do not need STAB to be effective" -- I don't think we've really seen many mons that actualize the concept of effective phazer, regardless of the tier. But one of the scariest phazers I think I've faced is Circle Throw Poliwrath in PU, precisely because it is able to deal decent damage while denying set-up opportunities and attempted switch-ins. 3) "A Steel/Dragon wouldn't be an effective answer to Tapu Lele" -- This one is the most relevant criticism to me, although I think we are going to struggle to make a Steel-type mon that does a better job than Magearna, Jirachi, Celesteela, defensive Kitsunoh, or Ferrothorn at checking Tapu Lele. Most of the relevant Steels in the tier are specially-defensive powerhouses designed to take on Psychic spam, and I'm not sure that's a role in which we have to outperform other Steels in order to establish a niche for CAP 25. We will have a lot of room in the Ability stage to give CAP 26 defensive tools that other Steel-types might lack, such as resistances/immunities to certain attacking types, hazards, or status effects, that could compliment Dragon's strength as a secondary typing.
Steel Dragon isn't that good of a defensive typing in this metagame. Lets just get that out of the way. It removes important resistances to Fairy and Ice type moves so it can gain a resistance to Water and Electric type moves, while gaining a neutrality to Fire (the Grass resistance doesn't really matter, since it can only switch in on only one comnon offensive Grass type, while Grass itself is a very terrible attacking type.) The Water resistance matters little, since every offensive Water type in the tier can easily pressure Steel Dragon with secondary STAB or coverage. (Mega Swamp kills with Earthquake, Volkraken nukes with Fire Blast, Ash Gren Dark Pulse and DDance Navi with Icicle Crash.)

More importantly, it does a bad job at checking the various popular Psychic type Pokemon within the tier, with Tapu Lele in particular having a field day with the fact that it is not forced to lock into coverage just to dent an opposing Steel type. And, if we do the concept right, Tapu Lele would actually more often than not be able to actually switch in on CAP 26, since Steelium-Z would be uncommon at best, and no way is this Pokemon viably running Flash Cannon and Doom Desire on the same set. Then you say this CAP does not have to be on par with the tier's current Steel types in the ability to check Steel type. Unfortunately the sad reality is that checking Psychic types are the primary reasons to run Steel type Pokemon in the current metagame, so if CAP 26 struggles to check Steel types, it runs the real risk of being overshadowed completely by other Steel types. Also, "defensive Kitsunoh" is not a viable set by any means, and I am sure we will be able to create a Pokemon better at checking Psychic types than "defensive Kitsunoh".

But on to the meat of your argument. Based on what I am reading, all of your campaigning of this typing seems to hinge on the ability to utilize phazing with Doom Desire. While that may be an interesting niche and role to be explored, especially on hazard stacking teams (with Doom Desire as a potent "hazard"), I fail to see anything relevant that Steel / Dragon offers over every other typing. STAB on a particular Phazing move is not relevant. CAP 26 can easily get that move and / or any other Phazing move with a much stronger defensive or offensive typing than Steel Dragon and effectively do the same thing, since STAB on phazing has never been something of note within the CAP metagame, especially on one that will most likely desire (pun) to be a specially biased Pokemon that uses an attack dropping nature, espwcially since phazing in and of itself is certainly not a prevalent nor particularly viable means of utility in the current metagame. Plus you already pointed out how certain Pokemon can utilize phazing well with delayed moves with the need for a ok attack stat nor STAB, so that already moots your argument.

At the end of the day, I cannot seriously see why one would value Steel Dragon over other, more useful typings that have been presented in this thread. Maybe if we were approaching for a wallbreaker route, but alas that ship has sailed.
 
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I would just like to clarify within this thread that coverage IS NOT the only form of pressure that cap26 can use to dissuade offensive checks. One of the main perks of Mono steel is that it really only has one for sure move slot at this point in Doom Desire, meaning it can make use of various utility moves and it's in these utility moves that offensive presence can be found. Take Ferrothorn for example, a Pokemon which is very obviously a wall however it dissuades offensive switch-ins with the possibility of moves such as Knock Off, which can remove items such as Choice Scarf which are extremely important, as well as options such as Thunder Wave, allowing it to cripple switch-ins for the rest of the game. The same can be seen in defensive Tornadus-T, Arghonaut and Rotom-W.

Basically what I'm trying to demonstrate is that even with a Mono-Steel typing, 26 CAN have the pressure to keep out offensive checks and can also have the immediate threat to force out Pokemon such as Tapu Lele and Alakazam, which don't want to take be crippled by similar utility moves. 2HKOing offensive checks is not the only way to keep them out and I actually think such a route in this build will only serve to push Doom Desire out of potential movepools. 26 CAN and imo SHOULD seek to use utility options to prevent offensive checks from taking advantage of it, as this minimizes the chances of Doom Desire leaving its main sets.
This is not a bad call, specifically because this need for utility moves has the potential to keep would be offensive checks at bay without the potential double-edged sword of offensive coverage and additional weaknesses with added typings. Although to be honest, that unto itself would be a double-edged sword because we would effectively eliminate the need for doom desire entirely if we give it too much utility, and that would go against CAP 26's concept entirely. Thus with a mono steel typing, we would need to be very careful not to give CAP 26 too much utility.
 

GMars

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Alright, that concludes our typing section! It was great leading as part of the TLT, and I really enjoyed the discussion that came out of this thread. With that, I have our slate in alphabetical order:

Steel
Steel / Electric
Steel / Flying
Steel / Ghost

Steel / Ground


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Why was x slated?

Steel - Pros: Powering up Doom Desire to make it a very attractive option while keeping other attacks reasonable, as well as potential unpredictability through non-STAB coverage, some element of in-battle unpredictability being important for Doom Desire to be able to function. Going forward, we would need to take a close look at not only coverage but also non-attacking options that apply the right kind of pressure we would want to force switches into the right group of answers for Doom Desire to be effective.

Steel / Electric - Pros: Offensively, Electric has the ability to force switches well, and Steel / Electric has a suite of resistances that could let it function as a pivot. Going forward, we need to be mindful in our threats analysis of getting a solid understanding of the checkmate situations this typing would create and how we can achieve the best scenarios through abilities, stats, and utility options. Please note, assuming Volt Switch would be a bad idea and a polljumping assumption, since a large fraction of the community generally assumes switching moves to be anti-concept right now. Of course, this decision will be made officially later in the movepool stage, but please do not make that assumption going in.

Steel / Flying - Pros: Very effective defensive typing with some self sufficiency in the ability to spam strong Flying STAB with a Doom Desire looming overhead, as well as similarities to mono-Steel in having an element of unpredictability by looking for an array of utility to force switches into defensive answers over offensive ones. Notable resistance addition: Ground immunity. Going forward, we would need to analyze potential movesets around Flying STAB while still considering what utility options are there to prevent hard-to-switch-into answers to the STAB combo, such as Heatran.

Steel / Ghost - Pros: Stops many key threats and has solid neutral coverage, naturally favoring defensive answers over offensive ones. Hits all criteria we've outlined throughout this thread and concept assessment. Notable resistance addition: Fighting immunity. Going forward, we would need an in-depth threats analysis to ensure that this typing has what it would need to function around a potential Dark weakness.

Steel / Ground - Pros: Solid opportunities to pivot in and the ability to force switches into the right blend of defensive vs offensive answers with great offensive STAB. Notable resistance addition: Electric immunity. Going forward, we would need to be mindful of making Doom Desire an attractive enough option that it sees usage and isn't simply replaced by another Steel STAB.

Why wasn't x slated?

Steel / Dragon - Ultimately, consensus at the end of the day was that this typing would struggle to function as a pivot in the CAP meta. Losing a Fairy resistance is a big negative for looking at why Steel-types are put on teams, and the inability to hit threats most Steel-types are slotted to check with just Doom Desire + Dragon STAB would constrain slots on a Steel / Dragon CAP 26 to an unfavorable spot where the allure of Dragon-type STAB places a severe risk to kicking out Doom Desire. For excellent posts explaining these issues with Steel / Dragon, see: snake_rattler's post, G-Luke's post.

Steel / Water - Steel / Water as a pair ends up suffering in a number of ways. It fails to really force switches and open up what would be an opportunity to use Doom Desire without relying on the threat of 30% burn from Scald, which enables a huge set of powerful specially offensive and burn-immune counterplay that's incredible difficult to switch into in return, putting a big strain on teambuilding with CAP 26. Your set of resistances is also deceptive - a Fire neutrality means little in the face of the power of Volkraken and friends, and if you really wanted to force switches while keeping out some offensive mons with Scald, you'd end up playing as more of a wall than a pivot, which is against what we've decided is our goal in Concept Assessment. Ultimately, defensive and offensive failings lead this to being a rather anti-concept typing. See: hawk1113's post, snake_rattler's post.

Steel / Fairy - There was very little discussion on this type, and ultimately concerns of pairing Fairy STAB with Doom Desire being an uninspiring combination or Fairy overshadowing Steel offensively went unaddressed.

The rest - Please see my previous post on the matter. Summarizing from earlier: the community came to the decision that STAB was important for letting Doom Desire function, solidifying Steel as at least half of the typing. Three primary concerns caused the other typings to be considered bad by the majority of the community - inability to function well as a pivot, having too much competition with well-established Steel-types that could strain the meta if we tried to overcome them while copying their typings, and secondary typings that had a sufficiently problematic balance of defensive vs offensive answers.

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Thanks for all the great discussion guys! After SHSP reviews this officially, it's on to the polls!
 

SHSP

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Slate looks excellent, thanks for a great step of discussion! Let’s get the polling going!
 
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