CAP 29 - Part 4 - Typing Discussion

[snake]

I think my favorite typings right now are Poison/Dark, Ground/Flying, and Water/Ground. I've already elaborated why I like Poison/Dark in my original post, but Ground/Flying and Water/Ground give CAP29 a really big reason to be added to the team by deterring Volt Switch from being used entirely. Ground/Flying is great because it means that Zapdos can't chain Hurricane into Volt Switch. I like Water/Ground's positive traits are outlined well by spoo in the post just above this one. Even though it loses hard to Rillaboom, having no other weaknesses with its resist palette and Electric-type immunity are really great.

Feeling pretty ambivalent about the rest of the typings honestly, but I've been very swayed by these Ground typings because being immune to Volt Switch can give CAP29 a big reason to be used, and Ground-type moves are always good to have, STAB or not.

 

[quziel]

Hey, I'm recovering from a er, very low sleep night, so I am afraid I can't put all the effort I want here. I'm going to be dividing this into two different categories, that is, a set of typings that are guaranteed on the slate, and a set of typings that I am heavily considering for the slate. I am aiming for about 6-8 total, so just keep that in mind.

Guaranteed:

Dark / Poison: This typing has been widely endorsed by just so much of the community, and for good reason, it simply is very hard to take advantage of thanks to only having one weakness, being Toxic immune, and just being the best Glowking answer.

Dark / Ghost: This is another fairly acclaimed typing that offers similar defensive merits, with only a weakness to Fairy, can completely deny Knock into Close Combat as well as Ghost into Ghost combos, and offers two potentially solid STAB options.

Steel / Flying: This typing is the most endorsed out of every option, boasting excellent switching opportunities thanks to a literal mountain of resists and immunities, and its only two weaknesses are Color Change resists. This really is the best defensive option we have available, although it doesn't really offer us initial STABs (Flying stab moves sorta suck lol), and does have a bit of competition with Corv / Cele / Caw.

Water / Poison: That said, Water / Poison comes close to Steel / Flying's defensive merit, just look at pex to see why, with multiple Weak to CC resist combos, and is one of the few water types that leaves Rillaboom open. Access to initial Water-type STAB is a major bonus given how wide its neutral coverage is (just look at Suicune), and the only like, actual drawback is that this is yet another Water-type that loses to Libra rip.

Potential:

Fire / Fighting, Fire / Fairy, and Fire / Steel: These all offer honestly like the best mono-attacking stab ever in Fire itself, just look at how stupid Astrolotl is. These typings, despite having access to a great initial STAB aren't even lightweights defensively, with Fire offering several Resist/Resist combos to Steel and Grass. That said, Fire / Fairy really has to justify needing HDB over the rest of the slate, Fire/Fighting gives up the valuable Fairy-resist, and Fire/Steel basically shuts off setting up on Libra, which is potentially open for the other two. They all offer a streamlined offensive gameplan with their own specific drawbacks.

Ground / Flying: If you wanted to make CAP 29 justify its place on a team purely based on immunities, this might be your choice; a still valuable Volt Switch immunity almost immediately justifies this typing, and being able to basically freely switch into some of our Ground-types really helps it out. There's valuable access to a Grass Neutral to Resist combo, which isn't really offered by many other Ground-types (Bug/Ground is notable, but arguably just a tad outclassed), and turning Scald into a resist is pretty easy.

Electric / Ghost: This typing pretty clearly centers itself around the dual aspects of just making Tomohawk incredibly sad, as well as several other flying types, and having a fairly good initial stab combo. Aside from those two compelling aspects, it also has a load of Neutral to Resist combos including Grass, Fire, and Water, which really actualize Color Change, and can technically set up a Dark Weak to Resist combo, though doing that with Knock Off is sorta wasted.

Water / Ground: This is a super recent submission, but fits into a similar camp as Steel/Flying and Ghost/Dark in terms of just having very minimal weaknesses, boasting a Volt Immunity over them, at the cost of completely sacking the Rilla/Kart matchup. I'd like a bit more discussion here, but access to Water and Ground stab is actually fairly compelling, as are its numerous neutral matchups.

Grass / Poison: This is perhaps the most centered around just beating up Rillaboom, though it offers a fair few Weak to Resist interactions such as Fire, Psychic, and Ice, which really actualize Color Change; just look at how this makes the Krilowatt matchup go. I do worry a tad about the sheer lack of good offensive STAB options, but frankly we can just give it good neutral ones like a lot of these typing may end up going. Overall this is fairly solid, my main worry is just that you're giving up the ability to do Poison resists w.r.t. the Glowking matchup.

Ground / Fairy: This is honestly one that I missed up front, but it makes a compelling case for itself thanks to the sheer utility it'll bring to a team thanks to a great initial palette of resists, and well, the vaunted Volt Switch immunity. Both of its STABs are pretty good offensively, meaning that you get a great bonus for positioning this mon well, and while it can struggle a tad with Weak to Resist combos thanks to the sheer strength of Steel and Grass moves in the meta, it can still access them with Ice and Water to a limited degree. I definitely want more discussion here though.

Again, subs are technically still open, but like, I would still like discussion. I aim to have a voting slate posted by afternoon tomorrow, as a fyi.

 

[MrDollSteak]

Finally able to comment on this thread this week, I think type discussions have been awesome and want to share my thoughts on some of the popular options as well as to make a case for one of the typing combinations that isn't currently being considered.

Poison / Dark

An overall solid and pro-concept typing as others have identified. I like in particular the balance between having a set of specialised resistances that Colour Change can take advantage of in order to set up, as well as having some potent enough STABs to dole out some offensive pressure. The utility provided by many Poison and Dark moves also cannot be overstated. I think this an all around balanced typing that doesn't have much to criticise. Ground is a bit of an annoying weakness in terms of it being often carried as coverage, but nevertheless it is possible to play around it and isn't as crippling as other weaknesses.

Fire / Fairy

This is a type that initially would appear to be quite bad in terms of it being weak to Stealth Rock as well as quite a few other popular attacking types such as Ground, Water and Poison, nevertheless the interactions that play out as a result of these weaknesses with Colour Change are quite interesting and the overall large amount of resistances, as well as the potency of the stab options gives it quite a lot of depth. As others have mentioned, the way that the initial Fire typing prevents a burn from taking place may allow us to set up physically and force opposing Water types to consider staying in to achieve little damage and fish for a burn once Colour Change turns it into a Water-type. As Quziel mentions the incentive to run Heavy-Duty Boots is a bit of a shame but there may be other ways to circumvent this, particularly if it plans on sweeping.

Grass / Poison

This was the typing I was planning to submit although I didn't have time earlier. As we have seen from a range of defensive Pokemon such as Amoonguss and Mega Venusaur in previous generations, the compression of Fighting, Water, Grass, Electric and Fairy resistances is incredibly valuable against a range of offensive threats. While weaknesses to Fire, Ice and Psychic moves may appear quite damaging, the fact that they are all self-resisting typings means that they will be circumvented once Colour Change activates, completely reversing matchups, particularly on Pokemon using those types as coverage, or running low base power options. Although neither Grass nor Poison are particularly premium attacking STABs, particularly when run together, as we can see on Venusaur, in conjunction with powerful coverage, the utility afforded by moves like Giga Drain and Sludge Bomb can be surprisingly potent.

Ground / Flying

This is one of the more unique typings on the list in terms of its utility and one that I thing has a lot of merit. As others have mentioned its immunities and resistances are pretty premium, and its matchups against self resisted typings are for the more part ideal, naturally Ice type attacks completely dump it but they are in general less common this generation with the loss of Hidden Power. Other benefits include it being Rock neutral and dodges other hazards on the switch helping its longevity, and its STABs are pretty excellent both individually and in conjunction with one another which gives it some strong sweeping potential, even if Flying attacks are typically not used as coverage.

Normal / Fairy

I'd like to end my discussion of the types I like from the consideration list to make a case for the consideration of Normal / Fairy. In many ways I think Normal / Fairy is quite similar to Poison / Dark in terms of possessing a wide spread of neutral to resisted matchups as well as a Knock Off resistance. In comparison to Poison / Dark, we lose the ability to take on G-Slowking consistently, take more initial damage from Rillaboom, and have some slightly worse STAB options in terms of general utility, but gain some obvious benefits in terms of resisting U-Turn and having our weaknesses be to self resisting typings in comparison to a neutral one, as well as possessing immunities to the self Super-effective typings on the switch. Overall I think the typing is worse than Poison / Dark with Color Change in a vacuum, but I don't think it's any less pro-concept, and certainly has enough upsides to merit its consideration.

In terms of its Ghost and Dragon immunities, while I can understand how it would appear that we are attempting to circumvent the negative aspects of Colour Change, there are a range more negatives caused by Colour Change than purely in 1v 1 matchups against Ghost and Dragon type Pokemon as we have discussed in the concept assessment, such as losing STAB, and being set up upon by being chained by different moves that are all super effective against each other such as Aura Sphere into Hurricane, or Sludge Bomb into Earth Power. While being hit by Ghost and Dragon attacks on the switch is obviously particularly damaging, I don't think it's fair to say that wanting to avoid this one interaction would be removing all of Colour Change's downsides.

A Normal / Fairy Pokemon with Color Change can still be forced out by Ghost and Dragon attacks, just not on the turn that it switches in, which gives it a few more safe entries into the match. In many ways these interactions aren't too different from other immunity types like Flying or Dark coming in on Ground or Psychic attacks, it just means that instead of the opponent being able to swap in any Dragon or Ghost as a check, they will instead need to swap in Pokemon that can cause interesting sequences to take advantage of the Colour Change Pokemon. For example, if we were to swap in on a predicted Ghost or Dragon attack, the opponent would have to choose between bring in something that hits it super-effectively off the bat such as G-Slowking that risks being walled on the second hit becoming resisted, or to bring in a Pokemon like Cinderace that could either U-Turn into a powerful Flying type, or set up its own sequence in HJK or Gunk Shot into Zen Headbutt. In this regard I think a type like Normal / Fairy actually allows us to better explore the more subtle and nuanced what in which Color Change interacts with matchups. Besides, many of the Pokemon that run Ghost or Dragon moves such as Dragapult, Garchomp, Pajantom, Gengar and Aegislash also carry moves that either set up negative sequences for us such as U-Turn, are not self resisting such as Earthquake, or are super-effective right off the bat, meaning that we don't intrinsically beat these Pokemon on the switch in a bubble, only with good prediction, which I think once again demonstrates the potential for Color Change's negative aspects to be explored in greater depth. The Garchomp interaction for example would be quite interesting, as either a double Earthquake, or a Swords Dance into an Earthquake that then turns us into a Ground type, might mean that our Fairy STAB no longer KOs as it loses the 1.5 bonus.

Our immunities also don't by any metric mean that we won't be switching in on Pokemon that Color Change will allow us to wall such as Astrolotl, the Slows, or Suicune by turning neutral hits into resistances. It's more that the number of situations where this can occur are likely to be few and far between in the first place or be somewhat context or sequence dependent that having other switchin opportunities will be appreciated. In the cases that we do find these switchin opportunities, it also means that we can be forced out later by the very Ghost and Dragon attackers that we would otherwise wall, again highlighting the different ways in which Color Change will affect our checks and counters list.

 

[viol and bass]

I want to defend Ghost/Electric and then comment on a few other typings.

Ghost/Electric's niche over Ghost/Dark is that 1) it has significantly better resistances (Electric, Flying, Steel, and Bug), which has the practical effect of us being able to much more effectively check flying types, swap into Volt Switches and maintain our typing, dissuade Melmetal from clicking DIB, etc., 2) paralysis immunity and 3) that our dual-STAB hits the entire tier. This is simply not true of Ghost/Dark. I believe this is crucial for set efficiency and CAP29's effectiveness as a whole. This opens up myriad options for effective 2-attacking move sets that will be immediately threatening to much of the tier. Dual STABs is fantastic and resisted by 2 entire mons on the CAP viability rankings, but we have other effective 2-move options, such as Electric/Ice and Ghost/Fighting. This gives us an incredible amount of flexibility.

One relatively overlooked aspect of a good dual STAB typing is that it allows us to force other mons out, which in turn allows us to maintain our typing in many cases. This can allow us free turns to set up while maintaining our typing. I think this is one of the best ways to make this mon useable, and it's a feature that many other typings do not offer. A Flying/Steel CAP will not be forcing anything out, and will lose its typing more often.

We have a ground weakness, but I think one interesting direction to take this typing is Air Balloon sets. Air Balloon's benefit here is twofold: You don't die to Ground moves, but you also gain another typing which does not activate Color Change. This is potentially very useful for granting us a free turn of setup on certain mons and is an interesting synergy to explore.

I think this typing differentiates itself enough to deserve a spot on the slate.

Flying/Steel

I really don't like this typing for us. I view at as a directly opposite approach to what I listed above: impotent STABs and no immediate threat. Instead, we go hard on the defensive end. To me, this would face competition from Magearna, a mon that gets to keep its excellent typing, and it would also be incredibly hard to balance. It would either never get going or it would break open entire teams. I don't think that makes for a healthy mon in the metagame, and balancing this mon will be hard enough already since Color Change is relatively new to all of us.

Edit: Rabia I'm not saying that a mon can't function without relying on STAB, I'm saying that mon will end up like dual dance Magearna, which is a very all-or-nothing mon and arguably not a very healthy one. You try not to set up with it until it can sweep an opponent's entire team. There's no picking things off or wearing things down in the early game. That's what I mean when I say all-or-nothing. About STAB, if you believe that STAB is completely irrelevant to this CAP, then absolutely vote for Flying/Steel. Nothing else really compares. It's a different approach and one that I don't particularly like the idea of, but I understand it.

Ground / Flying

I like this typing. It's a good mix of defensive and offensive merits. It can be somewhat threatening right off the bat, which I think is extremely important. Ground and Electric immunities are premium and switching in is not hard. Its weaknesses are few and not devastating. Solid typing all around.

 

[spoo]

Going to shill for the two typings I submitted + a couple others that I think are the best candidates for making the slate.

I think my thoughts on fire/fighting and the rest of the fire types are summed up quite well here-

That said, Fire / Fairy really has to justify needing HDB over the rest of the slate, Fire/Fighting gives up the valuable Fairy-resist, and Fire/Steel basically shuts off setting up on Libra, which is potentially open for the other two. They all offer a streamlined offensive gameplan with their own specific drawbacks.

One of these types should absolutely be slated because they're all fairly similar and have received a substantial amount of support, it just comes down to picking which one it'll be. My preference goes fire/fighting>fairy>steel; the pros and cons of fire/fighting ultimately weigh out to be a better typing than either of the competing options, as avoiding a rocks weakness is worth much more than resisting fairy for one turn and being 4x weak to ground is simply going to be too much of a burden for us imo. Fire/fighting just seems to maximise the strengths of a fire typing while minimizing the weakest parts of it, so I'd much prefer it over the other two fire types despite them both being quite good in their own right.

Water/ground is also really cool, and while I'm not going to rehash every positive thing I just said about it a few hours ago, I'll mention that pretty much every water/ground mon crutches hard on its typing in some way. Pert and seis have good role compression, seis and gastro are water immune etc etc but ultimately a lot of their strength comes from water/ground being stupid good. Aside from being a great typing in general it's also super nice for our concept specifically so I definitely think this one should be in the running for slate.

Ground/flying is another one of my favorites that I hope is being heavily considered. We've seen with lando how valuable a mon is when it can compress an electric+ground immunity into one slot (though lando does other useful stuff as well) and I feel that ground/flying strikes a really nice balance between offensive and defensive potential, which is really important here. Its stab combo is hard walled by a few common mons in zap and libra but it's insanely good outside of those matchups, and there's no shortage of potential coverage options that pair excellently with one of our individual stabs. It's a ground type that isn't weak to grass, a flying type that isn't weak to rocks with an elec immunity, has a bunch of good neutral=>resist interactions to leverage our ability, and its only weaknesses are 4x ice (v uncommon) and water (perhaps the most accessible self resist). The fact that we'd have two immunities that literally every team needs is also a strong reason to be picked in the teambuilder, and anything that will make us more attractive in the builder is going to be a massive boon. Overall this is just a rock solid type combo.

Elec/ghost is probably my next favorite but I don't love it quite as much as the types I've already listed. It feels a little too hyperfocused on tomohawk but it's undeniable that elec+ghost is an incredible stab combination, plus the typing has a great number of resists/immunities to help generate switchin opportunities. My only concerns are that ghost moves become pretty lackluster when we lose stab on them + being weak to knock is unfortunate, but we're not forced to run our ghost stab in the first place and we can work around a knock vulnerability so these things are somewhat forgivable. In general I think ghost/dark is a little more flexible but elec/ghost is very cool too and I wouldn't be unhappy at all if it made slate.

 

[Rabia]

Flying/Steel

I really don't like this typing for us. I view at as a directly opposite approach to what I listed above: impotent STABs and no immediate threat. Instead, we go hard on the defensive end. To me, this would face competition from Magearna, a mon that gets to keep its excellent typing, and it would also be incredibly hard to balance. It would either never get going or it would break open entire teams. I don't think that makes for a healthy mon in the metagame, and balancing this mon will be hard enough already since Color Change is relatively new to all of us.

This is a lot of doomsaying that I don't find particularly conducive to fruitful discussion. There is definitely a middleground between "never get going" and "break[ing] open entire teams" that should be aimed for with any CAP produced; additionally, I don't find the issue of poor STAB moves relevant at all here. It's a bulky setup sweeper that we're going for; posing an immediate threat isn't really important at all. Hell, you even compare a potential Steel / Flying CAP to Magearna with regards to setup sets; Magearna's setup sets certainly pose no threat before they get going either and don't even rely on STAB moves a fair amount of the time. All of these points you raise feel like nonissues to me.

 

[Zephyri]

This might be way too late for a typing sub and I'm prob not going to get on the slate but here goes

Subbing Fire/Psychic

Initial weak=>CC resist
Not really too many of these, but a really prevalent one is Water, allowing us to switch in on weak Scalds and threaten Pex if we're to switch in on a non-damaging move. There's also Dark but there aren't too many Dark-type move users that this would really affect. This typing specifically focuses on the resist->resist combos along with some REALLY nice individual MUs.

Initial neutral=>CC resist
Again, not too many of these, there's only Electric... which isnt all that important since the most common Electric types (Kril, Zera, Koko) can hit us with neutral STAB or just Volt Switch out. Maybe resisting a Specs Koko is cool but in general this section isnt all that important. There's also Poison which I don't find extremely relevant considering that the two best Poison move users (Galarking and Nidoking (hey two kings)) either have SE coverage against Poison types or just completely disregard the ability.

Initial resist=>CC resist
Now, the fun bit. We resist... Fire, Steel, Grass, Psychic and Ice. Resisting Fire specifically is pretty awesome cuz it helps with what this type was designed for: winning the Cindy MU. If this mon were to come in on Cindy, Cindy could either U-Turn out and give us a free turn to set-up, or it could click Gunk Shot and become a Poison-type, which we can manipulate due to our almost-guaranteed decent Psychic type attacks. We also kinda screw over Rillaboom, which is just nice in general. Steel is just a really nice consistent resist in general with mons like Mag, Equi, and Melm finding it difficult to chain SE hits on us, or even just neutral hits at time.

8) What further bonuses does this typing offer (SR Resistance, Toxic Immunity, Burn Immunity, Spikes Immunity.., Ghost Immunity, Dragon Immunity) beyond its resistances.

This might be the weakest point of the type, as we have an SR weakness along with no real typing perks aside from a burn immunity which isn't extremely relevant. However, we can still fit on a team by virtue of individual matchups, similar to how mons like Drei used to act as checks to Spectrier. We're able to clown on popular 'mons like Cinderace and Rillaboom, while also having favorable MUs against the vast majority of Fairies, examples being Jumbao, Kerfluffle (which is usually Choiced, and we still have a favorable MU even if not choiced), Tapu Fini, Magearna, and Clefable. This is super valuable in a metagame where Fairies are so prominent. Imo these individual MUs (especially the Cindy MU) give us a distinct identity and advantage in comparison to some other presented types, and although we do struggle to differentiate ourselves from Fire/Fairy in some ways, i feel that this type has enough things going for specifically it (Steel Resist, Cindy MU) to warrant a spot on the slate.

 

[quziel]

After review of recent posts and the thread as a whole, I am proposing the following slate using the criteria of:

Criteria:

General Defensive Merit
Color Change Utility
Additional Benefits (Initial STAB relevance, Toxic Immunity)
Color Change Weakness Reduction (Denial of specific SE to SE chains, Avoidance of specific 4x Weaknesses)

=====

Dark / Poison
Electric / Ghost
Fire / Fighting
Flying / Ground
Flying / Steel
Water / Poison

=====

Explanations

Dark / Poison: This typing minimizes overall weaknesses only being weak to Ground initially, letting it use Color Change's Neutral to Resistance power to an exceptional extent, with Fire, Water, Electric being noteworthy examples. This typing also allows CAP 29 to function as an excellent Rillaboom check, functionally hard counter Slowking-Galar, and, as a minor bonus, this typing provides stab on both Dark and Poison moves, which both are excellent utility typings.

Electric / Ghost: This typing is one of the most focused of the options submitted, functioning as a near perfect answer to one of CAP's premiere walls, Tomohawk, while also offering a significant number of CC Neutral to Resist combos, although its main CC Weakness to Resist combo of Dark is not perfect due to how Knock Off's mechanics. It offers a number of circumstantial benefits with a great initial STAB combo, as well as being a spin blocker.

Fire / Fighting: This typing is by far the most offensively inclined of those in the slate, and if it ever manages to keep its initial typing, it will force a switch, which is something that not every option here can boast thanks to its amazing initial STABs. Despite being the most offensively inclined of the slate it does offer useful defensive utility, resisting all of Rillaboom's coverage, and also making excellent use of CC's defensive merits, being able to turn itself into a Scald resist fairly easily.

Flying / Ground: Of the typings on the slate, this option maximizes our inherent immunities, providing a very solid Ground and Electric immunity, two aspects that a lot of teams need, with a Volt Switch immunity alone being enough to justify our place on some teams. This typing also offers access to excellent initial STABs, as a combo or with additional moves. Finally it maintains access to a number of CC Weakness to Resist and CC Neutral to Resist combos.

Flying / Steel: This typing is probably the best on the slate in terms of both general defensive merit, fulfilling many important defensive niches within CAP in general, notably letting us just eat Equilibra, Rillaboom itself, and providing the sheer utility of an initial Steel typing. This typing's only two weaknesses also allow for a Weakness to Resist interaction. Frankly speaking, this typing is a good choice due to these two elements alone, and although it does struggle a tad with its initial STABs the benefits definitely outweigh that.

Water / Poison: This typing balances excellent defensive and great offensive merit, being one of the few Water-types that can even access the Rillaboom matchup through Color Change, thanks to how useful Water typing is from both a defensive, and even offensive standpoint. Suicune and others show how useful Water moves in terms of supreme neutral coverage, and access to initial Water-STAB could do a lot of good for us in terms of setting up moveslots.

====

 

[Birkal]

I reread this thread in preparation for the slate today, and I've got to hand it to quziel for providing a slate that gets to the intelligent community consensus, but also is incredibly diverse. In this post, quziel mentioned several potential criteria for CAP29's typing that fell in line with the discussions we'd fostered during our Concept Assessment threads, and they are represented here in the slate. All of these typings have a number of relevant resistances (and immunities) to common moves in the metagame. None of them are Stealth Rock weak, several account for a poison immunity, and one accounts for a burn immunity (which was a conditional requirement). Furthermore, every single one of the slated typings matches up positively with the Color Change match-up chart from Concept Assessment 2 (see the OP of this thread) against at least one of the primary threats in the CAP metagame. Overall, I feel this is a solid slate, and I will be approving it fully with no alterations.

In terms of how I recommend CAP participants vote, that will ultimately depend on your philosophy of how CAP29 should function. quziel's initial question at the top of this thread pertained to how important you find our STAB to be, and that could certainly play into how well CAP29 will be able to threaten out opponents initially to manufacture a turn to set-up. The more defensively-oriented typings might lack that STAB to force switches, but they'll also be able to come in more reliably throughout a match to find an opening, also increasing their general viability. You should also consider how important you find it that CAP29 can fish out SE moves that it then resists with Color Change, but also how many resistances it has that will allow it to switch in relatively for free. Take your thoughts on those, and read over quziel's post above mine once more; he did a phenomenal job of summarizing each of these typings far better than I could.

Let's go ahead and move into voting. Thanks to everyone who participated!