CAP 34 - Part 3 - Typing Discussion

[Anchor9]

Given how generally weak these Sound-Based moves are, it’s invaluable to make these moves worth clicking, by making them powerful via STAB or coverage. If we worry too much about defensive typing, this CAP won’t be as strong as it can be. I think flaws produced through typing can be tackled in the Ability / Stat Distribution stages.

Mod edit: SL has not opened discussion on specific typings.

 

[R. P. Genocraft]

I believe if said CAP is to have Throat Spray as its main item it's important to make sure it's not weak to stealth rock, preferably resistant to it, so as to not benefit too much from Heavy-Duty Boots. Considering none of the highlighted moves are fighting, steel or ground type that would mean it can have at most one STAB move activate its item, but it shouldn't be that big of a deal.
Offensively, I wonder if it's better to pick a STAB combination that isn't perfectly complementary? That might discourage usage of choice specs, while not being that big of a burden overall thanks to its great coverage, especially since it can probably afford to run 4 attacking moves.
Honestly overall I feel that typing is one of the least inportant choices here, but those are my suggestions

 

[CelesteelYaMan]

I feel like part Psychic makes it more susceptible to this things main threats being knock off and throat chop which is already it’s weakness. When this thing drops everyone gonna be running them for immediate stoping what it can do.

 

[Amamama]

In my opinion, we should choose a relatively poor offensive typing for CAP34, forcing it to rely on super-effective coverage moves rather than spamming STAB attacks. This approach synergises well with Throat Spray because:

I don’t think this makes much sense at all. Offensive Pokémon that are successful always have a strong combination of STABs that hit a great amount of Pokémon SE.
Look at Pokémon with strong but not super Spammamble STAB like Zamazenta or Revenankh. Their fighting type moves are incredibly powerful but they fail to hit a lot of defensive staples just with STABs, requiring coverage to work sufficiently. This is especially apparent with Zama, which in theory has great coverage options but in reality struggles to gain a solid foothold in the meta (or well one that corresponds to its formerly UBeR status) due to having trouble fitting all the moves it needs.
I still think it’s possible to be really threatening with a STAB that is resisted commonly or even checked by an immunity, so long as it also targets common defensive cores. From our list both Psychic (Psy Noise) and Electric (Overdrive) are prime examples of this. Both types are checked by an immunity but both also target 2/3 of common defensive cores, hitting Arghonaut, Venomicon respectively Venomicon and defensive water types SE.
Imo for STAB we are looking for types such as these, that target common defensive cores but need a complementary STAB to dispatch of common checks to incentivize switching moves, not types that have poor offensive coverage overall.
I think Singaporygon puts it a bit better in their answer to this post. A type that covers a lot of defensive staples but requires complementary STAB or coverage to not be walled is ideal.

I think resistance to common strong priority is a very helpful trait here.

I agree, that not falling prey to any priority in the meta is important. I definitely think we should be resisting some of these moves.
I wanna however caution against focusing too much on this, especially with regards to Hemogoblin. Pokémon such as Iron Valiant, Roaring Moon or Walking Wake all are weak to it’s priority moves and nevertheless are capable of being so threatening, that they manage to climb to the top of the VR since the start of this gen.

Psychic Noise, on the other hand, definitely requires STAB IMO - not only is it the weakest of our options at only 75 BP, but Psychic is a pretty mediocre offensive type.

Up to this point I shared this opinion, but I’m slowly starting to think that Psy Noise doesn’t necessarily require STAB to be used.
Imo we have to ask the question, why aren’t we hitting the walls we want to beat with an even stronger STAB move, if it’s a SE hit?
What benefit is there to hit a wall super effectively with Psy Noise do 50% and block them from healing, when I can also hit them with SE Psychic, do 75% and beat them still?
Being able to quasi Taunt a neutral or resisting Wall, while chipping it seems actually much more valuable especially if you can’t hit them SE at all, since that leaves the Wall in a suboptimal state for teammates to pick it off.
You might not beat the wall but leaving a Cresceidon at 60% and die or blocking Hemogoblins valuable recovery means you might create situations for teammates to beat them at a later point of the game.

CAP34 can activate Throat Spray by KOing a weakened opponent, so it will be difficult for an opponent to force damage on it in the process of setting up. Being somewhat bulky and neutral to strong priority attacks should therefore give CAP34 adequate protection against priority.

I think this is a great observation of Throat Sprays upsides in general. Not having to click a set up move makes you less vulnerable on the set up turn. Obviously a sweeper that forces out a weakened Wall on its set up turn will do the same. But CAP 34 will be able to do so while also making Progress the same turn and limiting the necessity for predicting. A weakened wall might be able to stay in and Recover on a Mon clicking Nasty Plot, which isn’t as easy on a move like Boomburst.

I believe if said CAP is to have Throat Spray as its main item it's important to make sure it's not weak to stealth rock, preferably resistant to it, so as to not benefit too much from Heavy-Duty Boots.

Being not weak to Rocks is by no means a requirement. It definitely helps incentivize Throat Spray, but examples such as Armarouge, (formerly Baxcalibur), Ceruledge, Gouging Fire, Iron Moth, Kyurem and Miasmaw prove, that a rocks weakness doesn’t immediately imply running boots, if the pay off of using another item is big enough.
Being weak to rocks becomes even less of an issue on HO structures as longevity is secondary to breaking power.
Imo this is especially true for Fire type pairings, as they have several of the qualities, which we have identified throughout this discussion as being great to have for a sweeper.
1) Great spammable one move coverage.
2) resistance to common priority (in this case Hemogoblins Espeed and Grassy Glide as well as the rare Scizor Bullet Punch.
3) Great dual STAB coverage with all of the chosen Sound moves on our list.

I feel like part Psychic makes it more susceptible to this things main threats being knock off and throat chop

Throat Chop is not used on any Dark type in the meta atm and for now we have no reason to believe, that this will change just because of CAP 34.
Regarding Knock Off I believe, that it’s actually a benefit to have a Mon with a consumable be weak to it, for one because you wont risk switching in on a Mon with Knock and lose your item in the process, because you’re also taking heavy damage.
Additionally after using the item you can cut the power of a widely used weakness by 2/3 making it harder for mons that rely on this move to revenge kill CAP 34.
Lastly in a generation, that allows you to adjust your typing in a pinch I don’t think such a weakness is too crippling, as long as it doesn’t make CAP 34 a Tera hog.

 

[skippergamez]

I didn’t answer all the questions but I do wanna get my opinions out there

1: We have our defining moves, all of which are offensive to some extent. How important is having a STAB-bonus in order to optimize the value we get out of using them? Do any have any noteworthy attributes (secondary effects, BP) or relevant coverage types that could give them flexibility one way or another?

I think at least one of our attacking defining moves should be STAB, personally I think the higher the BP, the more likely it should be the STAB. However, I see the appeal of the weaker being STAB.

2: Conversely, how valuable are the intrinsic qualities of our typing when maximizing and optimizing the opportunities we have to use the defining moves needed to activate our Throat Spray? In other words, to what extent do we value our resistances, STAB combination, and core matchups when actually using sound moves to activate our Throat Spray?

I think we shouldn’t really consider the attacking moves as the activation (Clangorous Soul is my preferred choice).

3: Since our role is effectively defined for us, it's only natural that we will want to have some level of offensive prowess in our STAB(s) regardless of whether we want defensive utility in our typing or not. Is it better for us to have a STAB (or STAB combination) that possesses excellent offensive synergy with our defining sound moves, or better to generally focus on using our defining sound moves as our main form of STAB-boosted damage output? Why?

Both?

I think we should consider our sound moves as coverage, and for the people saying that our options are too weak, Dark Pulse and Shadow Ball are incredibly consistent options, and while there are better options over the sound moves (Moonblast, Thunder(bolt), Hydro Pump, Psychic) we have the power to control that choice that the user is forced to make.

I do think that a sound move should be a primary STAB option, while Clangorous Soul is a great way to get Throat Spray on the set, a STAB sound move to back it up I think is very important (think Kommo-O with Clanging Scales).

 

[Da Pizza Man]

I feel like part Psychic makes it more susceptible to this things main threats being knock off and throat chop which is already it’s weakness. When this thing drops everyone gonna be running them for immediate stoping what it can do.

Throat Chop is not at all a concern for us here. The move is severely outclassed by Knock Off in almost all situations, and as a result it rarely, if ever, sees serious play.

You do have a valid point with Knock Off though, but I think it's a bit overblown. Our item is a consumable anyways, so we don't lose as much value in getting knocked off as we would if we went with say, something like Mystic Spoon. Furthermore, it's very safe to assume that, if we are given a safe switch-in opportunity, we are going to be given a chance at using a Sound move to boost our Special Attack.

That being said, I'm not a fan of Psychic types either, but that's more because I sort of question how much merit there is in using Psychic Noise as our main attack. The move really isn't that strong, so there's a very reasonable argument to make that we would rather just want to go with like Specs so we can just be clicking Psychic and/or Psyshock instead.

 

[mark6870]

I second the notion made by Amamama that because our item is a consumable and we're likely not giving it anything else to boost to incentivize Throat Spray, we're most likely just coming in once and attempting a sweep. Therefore, unless we go with Clangorous Soul, I don't think having a rock weak typing is that big of an issue. We see with mons like Cloyster that even though they're rock weak they still want their 'niche' item (in cloy's case, white herb) since it helps them fulfill their role better since they're not switching in and out.

TLDR; Being a sweeper alone disincentivizes the use of Boots.

Additionally, if we go with Clangorous Soul, it opens up the idea of a mixed attacker with a special bias instead of purely a special attacker, which opens up certain typings that rely more on physical attacks such as Fighting, if we find solid enough reasoning to. Fighting is notable for its access to strong Physical STAB and resistance to Dark, giving us a potential resistance or neutrality to Kingambit's Sucker Punch.

In my opinion, we should choose a relatively poor offensive typing for CAP34, forcing it to rely on super-effective coverage moves rather than spamming STAB attacks. This approach synergises well with Throat Spray because:

1. Throat Spray frees up a moveslot for CAP34 to run additional coverage rather than a stat-boosting move.
2. Without spammable STABs, CAP34 will be less likely to viably use Choice Specs or other items over Throat Spray.

I feel like the opposite is true, honestly. A very strong offensive typing will make CAP34 want to switch between its moves rather than just lock into one. For example, say we're Psychic/Fighting, and the opposing team has Kingambit and Venomicon.
It would obviously be better to be able to switch moves to make use of our incredible STABs, right?

 

[shnowshner]

I see a lot of talk regarding a Psychic-type not wanting to use Psychic Noise as its STAB, and how non-STAB users would be more ideal when using it as coverage. This is a rhetoric I do not agree with by any means. If a Psychic-type is turned away from Psychic Noise because it is less powerful than the 90 BP Psychic, why is it any different for a non-STAB user? Because we're not Psychic-type and thus are less likely to have the move? If I had to choose between a 75 BP coverage move or a 90 BP one, I'm going for the one with higher damage so I can actually threaten its targets.

Look, if CAP 34's end product was built around Psychic Noise, and it wishes it could just run Psychic instead, we've failed the concept. STAB or no STAB. Having our Throat Spray move come out the gate swinging is a great asset for us down the line and STAB via the Psychic Type is an incredibly easy way to achieve this effect when considering Psychic Noise. If you hate the idea of us being a Specs Psychic STAB clicker, consider addressing that concern by giving Throat Spray and Psychic Noise the tools they need to thrive during later stages.

 

[Brambane]

I see a lot of talk regarding a Psychic-type not wanting to use Psychic Noise as its STAB, and how non-STAB users would be more ideal when using it as coverage. This is a rhetoric I do not agree with by any means. If a Psychic-type is turned away from Psychic Noise because it is less powerful than the 90 BP Psychic, why is it any different for a non-STAB user? Because we're not Psychic-type and thus are less likely to have the move? If I had to choose between a 75 BP coverage move or a 90 BP one, I'm going for the one with higher damage so I can actually threaten its targets.

Look, if CAP 34's end product was built around Psychic Noise, and it wishes it could just run Psychic instead, we've failed the concept. STAB or no STAB. Having our Throat Spray move come out the gate swinging is a great asset for us down the line and STAB via the Psychic Type is an incredibly easy way to achieve this effect when considering Psychic Noise. If you hate the idea of us being a Specs Psychic STAB clicker, consider addressing that concern by giving Throat Spray and Psychic Noise the tools they need to thrive during later stages.

I think the consideration is that a non-STAB user is more likely to run a utility-coverage hybrid move since it is frontloading its general power into its STAB options. Sort of the same idea why a Fire-type forced to run Fire Punch would probably be ass but a Dragon-type running Fire Punch as coverage is more functional. Part of the reason why STAB is critical for offensive Pokemon is you need the power to sweep against what you hit neutrally.

Part of the reason why Psychic Noise as STAB kinda falls flat is its harder to sweep with neutral STAB when that move is 75 BP. So that not only forces the mon to rely more on its secondary typing to carry the power or just really high BP moves like Boomburst. The other reason is its sort of of a hedge option in general. If it lets you 1v1 something like Hemogoblin or Cresceidon then that is really cool, but again you don't really need STAB on the move to do that. For Venomicon or Arghonaut, Argh is probably going to not even think about Recovering against a Throat Spray mon, since if it Circle Throws you it basically kills your item, and you basically just chipped it for less than Psychic in the process. Venomicon also probably isn't going to stay in unless it Teras anyways, and if it does, STAB actually doesn't change that MU much does it?

Psychic Noise to me seems like a move you really don't need STAB on since you don't really want to click it that much. You have some specific MUs where it is unique tech. I like the move, but it is new toy syndrome for sure and I wouldn't rally too hard behind Psychic as a typing when Psychic Noise is more in the category of coverage tech.

 

[AzothBend]

Part of the reason why Psychic Noise as STAB kinda falls flat is its harder to sweep with neutral STAB when that move is 75 BP.

Agree with both your and shnowshner's points. There's at least the consideration that a weaker STAB option like Psychic Noise may incentivize Throat Spray over Choice Specs. At 75 BP, Psychic Noise as the primary STAB moves would not benefit much from Choice Specs; certainly not if you could run Psychic + Choice Specs instead. You're sacrificing some power for the secondary effect and for Throat Spray activation to boost all moves.
It's partially why I think CAP 34 would work better as a wallbreaker first and foremost with cleaner potential, but that's another discussion.

Look, if CAP 34's end product was built around Psychic Noise, and it wishes it could just run Psychic instead, we've failed the concept.

This is my concern as well. There's a delicate balance to be made between strong enough STAB to give sweeping potential without making it so powerful that Throat Spray is irrelevant. That's why STAB Boomburst is completely off the table for many of us. The best defining moves to achieve this balance are probably Sparkling Aria and Clanging Scales. There are stronger Water and Dragon-type moves but with significant drawbacks to a sweeper (Hydro Pump's accuracy, Draco Meteor's stat drop, etc, for example). I still like STAB Psychic Noise for the point mentioned above among points made by others.
Or we could just take the easy road with Clangorous Soul and give it whatever STAB combination is most threatening to the metagame. It's why I cautioned against the move in my first post. Not interested in that path, but it's entirely viable.

 

[ausma]

Hi everyone, sorry for being a bit late to the draw. We've had a lot of amazing conversation, with a lot of great points and important frameworks that I believe we should keep in mind as we go into submissions.

Offense:

First and foremost, it seems heavily agreed upon that we should have STAB on our primary sound move, if offensive. This is a pretty intuitive train of thought; if we have a STAB boost on our sound move, it's going to be able to double as both a Throat Spray activator and an actual STAB attack worth clicking in most situations. STAB boosts on our sound moves mean the sound moves are given more reason to be used, even those with less tantalizing coverage like Clanging Scales. The main exception to this is Boomburst, which also makes sense, as it rocks an astonishing 140 BP by itself. Pretty much everyone here agrees that if Boomburst is in the equation, that we should not tread the path of granting it direct STAB, and I agree completely. The raw high BP with a 1.5x boost is a recipe for a wall-breaker; after all, why would you use a Throat Spray to boost the Boomburst you're clicking 99% of the time when you can just run a Choice Specs to get an immediate, permanent boost on it?

Coverage is also a very important factor when it comes to having a good setup sweeper. A good, all-around STAB move is important, but it's also just as important to have good, concise coverage that naturally complements the weak points of your primary STAB. This can be augmented by a secondary STAB or greatly mitigated by a generally synergistic coverage move. So, in determining a route for our sweeper, it's important that we consider types that have offensive weak points that can be well covered for without investing too many resources. The coverage profile does not need to be elite by any means, but it helps a lot to be able to concisely and safely respond to our sound-move switch-ins so it is easier to actually activate our Throat Spray. Having a STAB type that pairs naturally with an offensive sound move that we will want to click and can get good mileage with only one or two dedicated coverage slots to keep our move slots open are major steps toward building a successful sweeper in this context!

Defense:

quziel and several others have been talking quite a bit about the criteria of our defensive profile to complete a sweep, and this is a line of thinking really important to consider that I'm very happy has seen such long discussion! Having some resistances to common priority moves like Sucker Punch or Grassy Glide can keep us in the game longer and leverage us to sustain more damage if need be. Furthermore, having resistances to vital attacking types that can help us enter the field are ultimately what is most important. Super effective weaknesses are always rough when taking on a more long winded setup route utilizing recovery, but when we don an all-out offensive sweeper role (especially one where we are using an item like Throat Spray) we are making a pretty direct commitment regardless. Being able to use our typing's defensive qualities to maximize the opportunities we have to wreak havoc can ensure that we not only can actually set up, but can do so in a wider range of matchups. Though, being conscientious of our weaknesses can help us navigate more passive Pokemon that can actually hit our weak spots; this can also include Stealth Rock as it can impede our longevity, but seeing as we will not be coming in and out of battle often, it's something that shouldn't have much bearing on our overall decision-making process, but can perhaps lightly influence our choice of moves.

All moves fit into this mold, but Clangorous Soul especially stands out as it has the unique distinction of being a setup move itself with a noteworthy drawback relevant to our ability to take hits. If we opt for Clangorous Soul as our main setup option, finding the balance of good resistances and good offensive presence that takes credence from offensive sound moves skews completely toward being able to enable usage of Clangorous Soul itself. Compared to every other move listed, it very much so commands the process in a way unlike the others.

__

I split my primary observations into offense and defense to truly illustrate that we need to be aware of our STAB and resistances' chemistry with one another, and that our ability to find opportunities is not only based on being able to enter the field more easily, but also having the ability to push for a more aggressive sweep with less contingencies needed to do so more consistently. I'm extremely happy with where discussion has went and how streamlined we've come regarding this fickle balance.

I don't believe much more needs to be explored regarding this balance; in other words, it's time to open up type suggestions! As a reminder, these are no longer submissions but suggestions. Please frame type combos as such!

As stated before; unlike most processes, we have more information to go off of to inform our typing. In fact, we have a lot of information, and some of it has some natural conflict. With approval from dex and CAP moderation, I am going to include that all type suggestions must also list suggested moves from the defining moves that they believe are most relevant to the type in achieving the balance of offense and defense in sweeping. This is pretty similar to stat submissions, where listing moves helps inform the overall visage of the type combo, but is not binding. That's exactly how it will be here. All move suggestions tied to the winning type should be honed in on in future stages as a rule of thumb, but if one or two wind up falling out of interest, or others seem better than the original suggester thought, then they should also be considered. This is another reminder that combos do not have to have all suggested moves be STAB-boosted and can operate as coverage as well.

I'm going to give this stage about 72-96 hours to unfold, since this is a pretty major step of the process! If you have any questions, don't be afraid to reach out, as usual. I may extend depending on activity or personal request.

 

[Anchor9]

Alright, I’m pretty set on this here:

Typing: Psychic / Poison

Defining Moves: Psychic Noise, Sparkling Aria, Alluring Voice. Poison STAB

Psychic Noise is the STAB move, while Sparkling Aria and Alluring Voice covers against Ground and Dark weaknesses. Psychic / Poison / Water /Fairy is excellent coverage that hits a ton of the tier super effectively with no move too powerful, which discourages Spec sets. Fairs ok against hazards. Now it is weak to Sucker Punch, but it does well against other priority move, such as from Hemogoblin. If priority seems to be too large a problem it can be worked over in the Ability section.

Final Submission

 

[Ayecrusher King]

I'm gonna suggest Psychic/Fighting. As Ausma mentioned, we want to have a STAB bonus on our sound move, and Psychic Noise seems to be the most popular option, even if it does lack base power.

As for why the Fighting-Type, well, Knock Off, Sucker Punch, and Throat Chop are three things that can cripple us, the first two practically metagame staples, the last much more niche, but still possible. Tacking on this type combo lowers the damage input from Dark-Type attacks, and we also worry less from Stealth Rock as a bonus.

Altogether, Psychic/Fighting coverage can hit Poison, Dark, and Steel-types such as Venomicon, Chromera, and Equilibra for super effective damage. It however does struggle against Ghost types like Skeledurge and Pajantom, as well as Fairy-Types like Primarina and Hemogoblin. For Defining Moves, I can envision Psychic Noise, Alluring Voice; Clangorus Soul is one that I can only put together as a flavour one, so...

 

[Tunana]

WIP

Psychic/Poison
My favorite typing of these three. Both of these types have powerful special STAB to use in tandem with Throat Spray. Psychic Noise and Clangorous Soul are both moves I would envision on this, alongside some coverage to hit Steels. A big draw of Poison is the ability to hit the Fairies in the meta as well as taking a hit back, in particular Hemogoblin's ESpeed that could potentially revenge kill a sweeper like this. Poison also matches well against Rillaboom's Grassy Glide. A build using the powerful Poison moves like Sludge Bomb/Wave alongside Psychic Noise could be a seriously threatening sweeper.

Psychic/Steel
This is very similar to Psychic/Poison, but Steel trades the offensive potential of Poison for even more defensive potency. Nine resistances and an immunity are extremely valuable to help set up Throat Spray. On this one, I would support the same moves of Psychic Noise and Clangorous Soul. Not much else to say; this type is extremely good.

Psychic/Water
Water and Psychic have amazing coverage and an equally good pool of resistances together. For this one, I would support Sparkling Aria, Clangorous Soul, and Psychic Noise as moves. With so many sound moves, it affords a lot of versatility, allowing us to swap Sparkling Aria for Hydro Pump or Psychic Noise for Psyshock/Psychic for higher power while still keeping a Throat Spray activation. The only issue I have with this typing is the weakness to Grassy Glide, a very common priority move. But other than that, this typing is nearly flawless for this concept.

 

[pyuking muku]

I've been thinking a lot about our STAB move options and how to balance both the offensive merits of powerful STAB and the defensive merits of typing for a sweeper, and I think that one great potential option for typing is Fairy. Fairy is an extremely powerful type that has very positive offensive matchups in to many of the viable mons in the metagame (Kyurem, Dragapult, Roaring Moon, Ting Lu, etc.), and functions well defensively into Kingambit's Sucker Punch, many of the fast Dragon-types that would try to revenge kill it like Miasmaw, Dragapult, and Walking Wake, and powerful and splashable Fighting-types like Iron Valiant and Great Tusk. The typing gives STAB to Alluring Voice, which functions as a strong, consistent STAB and boosts CAP 34. I think that another great move that functions well with this typing is Psychic Noise. This greatly helps CAP 34's matchup against Poison-types, such as Venomicon and Clodsire, and can be used to shut down and break through walls like Cresceidon and Clefable. Additionally, it can also proc Throat Spray, allowing CAP 34 to be less picky about move choices.

Given this, here are some example typings that I think could work well.

Mono-Fairy
Defining Moves: Alluring Voice, Psychic Noise, Clangorous Soul, Boomburst
This might be a bit of an odd choice, but I think that CAP 34 can function viably as a mono-Fairy sweeper. Part of this is a little bit of bias coming from the fact that there are precisely two mono-typed CAPs, and it would be interesting to design another one, but also the fact that Fairy functions well enough by itself as a typing. CAP 34 doesn't necessarily have to have access to all the moves listed above, and I wouldn't expect to see them all on the same set (Steel would wall it). I imagine that if it ran Clangorous Soul, it would run Alluring Voice, Psychic Noise/Boomburst to bust down walls and Poison-types, and some coverage to help against Steel-types (could be physical or special). Without Clangorous Soul, it could run all three sound moves and then coverage for Steels.

Fairy/Steel
Defining Moves: Alluring Voice, Psychic Noise, Sparkling Aria, Clangorous Soul
Yup, there it is. The 'most broken typing in Pokemon.' The benefits of adding Steel-typing are insane, as it grants resistance to common priority like Pixilate Espeed (and regular Espeed for that matter), Grassy Glide, and other moves from fast threats, like Weavile's Icicle Crash and Meowscarada's Flower Trick. It also maintains most of the benefits from its Fairy typing, the only notable one lost being its neutrality to Fighting moves. I could see this typing functioning with or without Clangorous Soul, and using the three sound moves mentioned above. I won't reiterate why Voice and Noise fit this typing well, but Sparkling Aria would function as amazing coverage into potential threats and walls, such as Hemogoblin, Gliscor, Heatran, and Equilibra. If we go with this typing though, I feel like we'd probably have to cut back on its power somewhere, because I can see this easily destroying the metagame.

Fairy/Poison
Defining Moves: Alluring Voice, Psychic Noise, Sparkling Aria, Clangorous Soul, Boomburst
This typing works as a sort of 'toned-down version' of Fairy/Steel, filling a lot of the same roles and getting a lot of the same benefits. I could see a Fairy/Poison mon being more likely to run a secondary STAB move than a Fairy/Steel type. The additional niche that this typing has over Fairy/Steel is an even better matchup into Fighting-types, and with more incentive to run offensive STAB due to its great matchup into Fairy types like Hemogoblin, Primarina, Clefable, and Cresceidon. I could also see this mon more viably running Boomburst, as it seems to lean more offensively.

I understand that these typings will probably be a bit less popular out the gate as the past two CAPs were both part Fairy, but I think that they function very well for the project we are working on, so I ask that you try and consider them without bias. Thanks!

TL;DR: fairy go brrrr

 

[HealthGage]

I'm just going to post about my favorite Psychic combinations that I support and explain why each is nice for this concept. Maybe later I'll drop some others I like.

Psychic/Poison
My favorite typing of these three. Both of these types have powerful special STAB to use in tandem with Throat Spray. Psychic Noise and Clangorous Soul are both moves I would envision on this, alongside some coverage to hit Steels. A big draw of Poison is the ability to hit the Fairies in the meta as well as taking a hit back, in particular Hemogoblin's ESpeed that could potentially revenge kill a sweeper like this. Poison also matches well against Rillaboom's Grassy Glide. A build using the powerful Poison moves like Sludge Bomb/Wave alongside Psychic Noise could be a seriously threatening sweeper.

Psychic/Steel
This is very similar to Psychic/Poison, but Steel trades the offensive potential of Poison for even more defensive potency. Nine resistances and an immunity are extremely valuable to help set up Throat Spray. On this one, I would support the same moves of Psychic Noise and Clangorous Soul. Not much else to say; this type is extremely good.

Psychic/Water
Water and Psychic have amazing coverage and an equally good pool of resistances together. For this one, I would support Sparkling Aria, Clangorous Soul, and Psychic Noise as moves. With so many sound moves, it affords a lot of versatility, allowing us to swap Sparkling Aria for Hydro Pump or Psychic Noise for Psyshock/Psychic for higher power while still keeping a Throat Spray activation. The only issue I have with this typing is the weakness to Grassy Glide, a very common priority move. But other than that, this typing is nearly flawless for this concept.

Out of these three I would say Psychic/Poison would be both very useful for CAP 34 and very fun to work with throughout the rest of the process. As stated in the explanation for why this would be a good typing over the other two stated is Hemogoblin. With that mons access to Pixilate Fakeout into Espeed makes this a looking threat to us trying to set up. Since Psychic/Water doesn't resist these attacks, that leaves Psychic/Poison and Psychic/Steel.

Now both of these typings resist Fairy very well, however I think we should also consider Hemogoblin's Fire typing and stab with Bitter Blade. Sure Poison is neutral to Fire, Steel is actually weak to Fire. I should mention that basing out typing around one singular Pokémon isn't really fair but with the last two caps being part fairy, we should keep this in mind.

Also not going to lie I like Psychic/Poison over the other two since I'm a big fan of the poison typing. I hope this is the typing we end up landing on.

 

[IronTemplar]

Folks, I cannot tell you how absolutely excited I am for CAP 34 to finally have a proper typing discussion, let alone that Dragon is among them. Big favourite of mine (note my PFP). And much like my PFP, my primary type recommendation is going to be Dragon/Steel

Among the many possible reasons is my philosophy for near perfect mutual defensive type coverage. Where Clanging Scales is an absolutely massive amount of damage for a sweeper, the type combination offers considerable defence in lieu of defensive stats, should that be presented. The Steel STAB also offers retaliation for Fairy type threats, and in my opinion is more valuable than Poison in this regard

I’d like to finish by justifying my choice as I believe Clanging Scales simply to be the most powerful offensive option purely for a special sweeper. Fairy immunity aside, the sheer power is incredible, and should be our primary focus

I should also clarify that I by no means do not consider the other defining moves. I simply do not consider any one of them to be powerful enough to warrant being a STAB option. They all present a wide variety of coverage options for a number of possible threats, and I cannot discount that. But as far as pure offensive power goes, I have to give it to Clanging Scales

 

[a fairy]

WIP

I'm a fan of Psychic/Fighting put above, as well as Psychic/Steel, focusing on Psychic Noise and Alluring Voice as primary means of activation.

However, I want to put forward something that didn't have Psychic or Fairy attached to it, so I wanted to explore a slightly different approach. If we discard those two moves as worth exploring in this post, leaving it for others to brainstorm, we're left with the two Dragon-type moves, as well as one each in Normal, Water, and Electric type moves.

I've expressed before that I was more concerned with defensive synergy than offensive synergy, and that I was more worried about coverage options like Ground- and Bug-type moves, in addition to the elementals like Fire and Electric. I think I am still worried about those, more than things like Dark- or Grass-type moves. I recognize that Sucker Punch and Grassy Glide are dangerous, but I think that if our Pokemon has to worry about every single opponent that could be packing a U-Turn, an Earthquake, whatever the standard coverages for special attackers is - Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Flamethrower, et cetra.

I'm also hazards-phobic, I do not want to be weak to Stealth Rock under any circumstances. This was my driving force, I fully eliminated any combination that would've made us weak to Rocks. Given the primary types I focused on, a lot of interesting types I discarded out of hand. Sorry, folks!

We're never going to be able to take all of those hits. The type chart is well designed to leave most Pokemon with some struggles (Spiritomb, DNI) when it comes to weaknesses and resistances. But there are always tradeoffs, and that's okay. There are considerations to be made, and my primary sacrifice kept seeming to be a lack of resistance to Dark and a weakness to Ground.

Some types that I've been toying with, again while avoiding Psychic and Fairy:

Pure Dragon, Pure Electric - Maintains solid defensive charts without introducing too much messiness from a secondary typing. The latter has few resistances of "value", but both benefit from avoiding glaring weaknesses to major types. The worst one here is Electric's weakness to Ground, but it's not disqualifying. These would derive strongly from the Dragon-type activation moves, and Overdrive.

Dragon/Poison - Off of our Clang-- moves, this one I think introduces manageable weaknesses while introducing beneficial resistances to Fighting and Bug.

Electric/Fighting - Off of Overdrive, the synergy here is quite nice when it comes to resistances - Rock, Bug, Dark - while adding admittedly notable counterplay in weaknesses to Psychic and Fairy.

Water/Steel - Maybe more of a pull, but I didn't want Sparkling Aria to be completely forgotten about. Steel provides some good resistances, and doesn't interfere with Water's type chart all that much.

Finally, the Boomburst "to hell with it" option, Grass/Steel - this definitely won't be my final pitch, but it's nearly unparalleled as a defensive powerhouse typing.

If I had to rank these in how fond I am of them, I think loosely speaking: Pure typings > W/S > D/P > E/F > G/S.

 

[sun_dew]

Now both of these typings resist Fairy very well, however I think we should also consider Hemogoblin's Fire typing and stab with Bitter Blade. Sure Poison is neutral to Fire, Steel is actually weak to Fire. I should mention that basing out typing around one singular Pokémon isn't really fair but with the last two caps being part fairy, we should keep this in mind.

I think it is worth noting here that if we go with Psychic/Steel we will most likely be building around Psychic Noise, which prevents healing moves from being used. This includes Bitter Blade, so most Hemo sets won't be hitting us with Fire STAB. Of course, there are still other Fire-type threats to consider if we go with Steel, but being able to shut down Bitter Blade is still huge.

That being said, I would like to throw my support behind the aforementioned types of Psychic/Steel, Water/Steel, Fairy/Steel, and Psychic/Poison. Steel is a very good typing for this CAP, as it makes it easier for us to run Throat Spray over a defensive item. Don't have much to add other than that, most of what I'd like to say has already been said.

 

[quziel]

Water / Electric

Is just insanely neat from a coverage and sound move perspective. While neither has premiere BP, the combo of Sparkling Aria and Overdrive makes getting a Throat Spray off fairly trivial, and the typing combo is missing very little offensively. Its well known that Water/Electric/Ice is capable of hitting just about everything outside of defensive Fairy types super-effectively, and I really don't think its a major stretch to give a Water-type Ice coverage. Yes, this is a repeat of Krilowatt's typing, but honestly the three move coverage this typing offers is strong enough that I think its worth doing our first typing repeat. Beyond that the typing offers solid enough resists, being a very free switchin to everything Cresceidon can throw at us barring Moonblast, giving a very valuable immunity to Thunder-Wave, and Paralysis in general. You have a SE stab against Venomicon, Cresceidon, Equilibra, Arghonaut from the CAP side, and (Unaware) Clodsire, Skeledirge, Gliscor, Great Tusk, Heatran, and Ting Lu, only really missing Slowking-Galar and Clefable from the major defensive mons in the meta. Don't have a ton else to say, this typing has two very solid sound moves as STABs, and just can force a ton of switches due to very wide super effective coverage against basically every common wall.

Gonna shill more later.

 

[mark6870]

Showing support for Water/Electric and Dragon/Poison. They both have solid offensive coverage, with the latter making use of solid neutral coverage with its stab moves.


the following two types are meant for mixed attackers. Clangorous Soul enables mixed attackers by boosting our physical attack as well while being perhaps the single best move to enable Throat Spray as our item.

Psychic/Fighting
Super Effective: Dark, Fighting, Ice, Normal, Poison, Rock, Steel
Neutral: Bug, Dragon, Electric, Fairy, Fire, Flying, Ghost, Grass, Ground, Stellar, Water
Resists: Psychic
Weaknesses: Fairy, Flying, Ghost
Resistances: Fighting, Rock
Immunities: None
Includes: Clangorous Soul

This combo is very interesting because it is offensively incredible but defensively lacking. The combination of Psychic and Fighting hit a huge portion of the tier for super effective and everything else is hit at least neutrally due to a glaring lack of good Psychic types in the tier. Notably, it hits Arghonaut, Venomicon, Roaring Moon, Great Tusk, Raging Boulder, Equilibra, Kingambit, Kyurem, Malaconda, Heatran, Iron Valiant, all for super effective damage with its STAB alone. Its defensive ineptitude comes from its stark lack of resistances, and in a tier with very powerful wallbreakers hitting us for neutral can be deadly. This typing may have issues entering the field but it can make the most of every opportunity it gets because of its potency. Give it Dark coverage and switchins become non-existent, which is something we may want for a sweeper.

Fire/Fighting
Includes: Clangorous Soul, Psychic Noise

I have less to say about this one.
This typing is better defensively, mostly. The main benefits to this over Psychic/Fighting is the neutrality to Hemoglobin's Extreme Speed and resistance to Kingambit's Sucker Punch. That being said , the typing is still very on the offensively, hitting for the entire tier bar Dragonite for neutral. Psychic Noise works as insurance against Argh and Unaware Clod.

 

[pyuking muku]

Want to show some support for Psychic/Steel and Psychic/Poison. I really like Psychic typing in general here, but it had already been thoroughly discussed, so I talked about Fairy. Both of the Psychic combos here fulfill similar roles as the Fairy combos I liked, so my thought process remains similar for them. I think that Steel and Poison are really great secondary typings for what this CAP wants to do, so I'm interested in seeing what other combos people come up with.

Psychic Noise, which prevents healing moves from being used. This includes Bitter Blade, so most Hemo sets won't be hitting us with Fire STAB.

I also wanted to highlight this point, especially because many people are interested in working with Psychic Noise. If we have both Noise and a Fairy resistance, this allows us to really shut down one of the most powerful mons in the tier, and sweep very easily uninterrupted. This makes Steel, Poison, and Fire very enticing secondary typings. However, I would also like to note that we don't necessarily need to hard counter Hemo, and it may be good enough to just have a neutrality to Fairy. The prevalence of Hemo and how it can easily shut down CAP34 does disincline me from endorsing Dragon, Dark, or Fighting as potential typings, at the very least not without an additional typing to provide a Fairy neutrality.

 

[G-Luke]

Going to throw out a few typings that have yet to be discussed so far, and what they can offer to not only the CAP but the process as well, while highlighting some already suggested typings and throwing my hat into the wind with them.

Dragon / Electric
Defining Moves: Clanging Scales / Overdrive / Sparkling Aura / Filler

Dragon / Electric carries alot of positive traits. Firstly, it packs a very strong STAB combo, with Dragon Electric hitting most of the tier for neutral coverage at best, and smacking quite a few major cores for SE damage. It leans wallbreaker much more cleanly than most suggesed typings due to the high base power of its most often Throat Spray activator of choice Clanging Scales, and can use a pro concept coverage move in Sparkling to hit common Electric switchins like bulky Ground types, and the natural immunities to the dual STAB in a way may dissuade us from choiced sets and use coverage to smack our immunities instead. I think we should definitely look into this option, as another positive is that, due to the naturally high base power of Scales and otherwise slim pickings in reliable competition as main STAB options, it gives us alot more freedom in the ability stage as opposed to other options, if we do not want to wander down that specific ability path that must not be yet named.

Water / Poison
Defining Moves: Sparkling Aura / Clangorous Soul / Overdrive or Alluring Voice / Poison STAB

Water / Poison is an excellent defensive typing, and Water / Poison / Fairy (or Electric) presents itself as very solid offensive coverage in the metagame thus far. While it does have he caveat of only having 1 STAB move that triggers Throat Spray, I think its flexible enough to give us many options to explore. However, I think the most interesting aspect about this typing is how efficient it is at abusing Ckangorous Soul. It hits Clodsire for SE damage naturally, has pro concept coverage for Argh, if non sound based STAB is the goal on a Clang set the typing offers excellent options to utilize, and it has natural resistance to many key priority moves whike not bein weak to any at all. Immune to toxic stalling as well. It is overall one of the best typings available if Clangorous Soul is an option one is open to explore, while not being limited to that specific niche even if decided that Soul is not the route we want to take.

Psychic / Fire
Defining Moves: Psychic Noise / Fire STAB / Sparkling Aura / Overdrive or Boomburst

I am going to be frank. Any Psychic typing that seeks to take full advantage of Psychic Noise cannot be burdened with a secondary STAB that is not offensively compatible, esp if said STAB is not pro concept. Psychic Poison is probably gonna be a very reactive offenisve Pokémon or be overtly reliant on many threats to be defeated before it can get it going as a breaker, and is prone to be forced out by way too many targets, making our 1 time Throat Spray null and void. This has to be a Pokemon that can make the most of its one time boost, so I think we need a strong offensive tping out the gate. Psychic Fire is very strong neutrally into most of thetier and hiys many defensive threats for SE as well. Fire STAB is also veryu useful for breing able to hit prevalent switvhins to a potential Psychic Noise like Weavile and Kingambit with a SE Fire STAB of choice, dissuading them from risking a switvhin to prevent our +1 Throat Spray activation in the first place. Even the boogeyman Heatran does not enjoy a Psychic Noise into a +1 Sparkling Aura, esp with Leftovers being down as well. I think this typing has it's own pitfalls but its strengths vastly outweigh the drawbacs here. If we wish to make the most of +1 from Throat Spray, we need to be a wallbreaker, and Fire Psychic is one of the best there is at doing so right now.

I will edit in my thoughts on already suggested typings later!

 

[Brammi]

Not much of a CAP poster, but the typing that immediately came to mind was Fairy/Fighting.

This would utilize moves like Alluring Voice, Overdrive and Sparkling Aria and Fighting STAB to create strong offensive coverage among most of the top threats on the viability rankings. Dragapult / Equilibra / Kingambit / Kyurem / Roaring Moon / Argonaut among others.

With additional coverage of the other sound move Overdrive to provide super effective hits on Cresceidon and Venomicon.
Sparkling Aria then has the potential to hit Hemogoblin and Gliscor
Both provide effective options to steer threat levels later on in the cap process.

I think this typing also provides an additional incentive to be using offensive set up power of throat spray because it is somewhat worse defensively. This would be a mon that can pick off targets with the throat spray activating move at which point it becomes exceptionally difficult to switch in to with the offensive coverage. This has the potential to pick off targets to facilitate sweeps through hard to remove mons, and it boasts the 4x resistance to dark type allowing it to not be hampered by mons that could otherwise still rampage over it like Kingambit Sucker Punch, or the dual stab of Roaring Moon. This provides just enough defensive utility from typing to find the opportunities to go for sweeps/breaks/whatever role we want.

I do want to throw support for some of the more defensive typings that have been mentioned to make use of Clang at a momentum hard stop to force a response that can be held off of. Something like Mono Electric or Electric / Flying with the use of Clang and Overdrive to provide the activations allow for it to function as that momentum shift, hole breaker.

 

[Suppletangerine]

Hi I'm a lurker and hope I don't post this response wrong but I wanted to say I'd personally advocate against Fairy in any capacity for one reason: Kommo-o. Out of all of the Soundproof mons available I think Kommo-o presents the biggest potential threat to CAP 34's sweeping potential and I think any player using CAP 34 will have to keep it in account. I wouldn't say that CAP 34 will necessarily be unable to defeat Kommo-o with appropriate coverage but I think it could possibly necessitate a super effective secondary STAB to at least prevent it from being a huge annoyance. As such, I'm kind of envisioning that if CAP 34 is Fairy then players will probably feel it necessary to add an additional Fairy STAB like Moonblast for Kommo-o which would make building more restricted and annoying, especially considering Kommo-o doesn't have much use in the tier outside of countering this. The only real possibility I could see in preventing this would be Dragon/Fairy typing so that a player could choose which sound move to use, but even then I think they'd opt for Clang and Moonblast for a surefire kill of Kommo-o which makes Alluring Voice a bit useless. I'm sorry if this is looking ahead a bit too much, but I definitely think the typing should be non-fairy but Fairy coverage in the form of Dazzling Gleam should be provided because otherwise Kommo-o stocks go up kind of needlessly as it is otherwise unviable aside from countering CAP 34.

I personally promote the idea of Psychic as the definite first type (it's also the most fun to me given how nicely it coincides with the most interesting new move introduced in the DLC), and like the idea of Electric as the second type for another STAB sound option and flavor since it's a pretty unique typing, but I know CAP is about more than just giving something new. Psychic/Steel sounds like a pretty good offensive/defensive combo, though I like Psychic/Dragon as well but again definitely think it needs coverage for Kommo-o (same scenario as Fairy/Dragon). And Psychic/Fire or Psychic/Fighting seem like great ways to prevent a bad Steel matchup which may be a necessity.