CAP 35 - Part 3 - Typing Discussion

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i didnt plan on posting for this stage but i've got some free time tonight and felt like hating. ice/fighting is a dark resist, has SE stabs into grounds, and gets the chilly boost, so it seems to play well with gking. but it gets blown up by focus blast, iron head, doom desire/flash cannon, close combat, and crippled by toxic... so it reliably beats almost none of the darks or grounds it wants to. defensive fighting implies we take arghonaut’s slot on a team, but this typing offers no *meaningful* use case over it. at least, not without very specific immunity/resist/generally busted abilities, and lots, lots of stats. aka we just want to click the tera water button. why in the world am i putting this beat-nothing typing on a team, over arghonaut of all mons? other "holder of few" typings at least have genuinely good resists, and are not burdened by a laundry list of weaknesses to some of the most common attacking types in the meta. there is often talk in CAP about avoiding choices that "put us into a box"; ice/fighting is that to a tee. it demands massive compensation, warps this process into a pseudo partner concept (regardless of whether or not it ACTUALLY needs to be a gking partner - people will hyperfixate on this synergy), and constrains every future stage.

i also do not care much for a "balanced slate" this time around. while usually it's good to have a slate where everyone's preferences are more or less represented, for a stage this singularly imperative to project success just pick the typings on merit and merit alone. a smaller than usual slate could also be considered under the same logic. i endorse fire/fighting for president and grass/normal for vice president
 
I was encouraged to post for Ice/Flying which I believe to be a very high-potential typing for this concept.

This typing might look laughable at first glance, being not only holding one of the worst defensive single typings in Ice but also a 4x rock-weak Flying type, a typing that usually wants to switch into many popular Knock Off abusers such as Gliscor, Rillaboom, Great Tusk, the list goes on.

Here's why Ice Flying is a strong route:
1) Flying Type
Flying is a great archetypal typing: you want a ground immunity on your team. With Flying typing alone, you check metagame staples like Lando-T, Gliscor, Tusk, Argho, Ting Lu and more, allowing you to switch in and do whatever your intended tasks are. All flying types for the most part can achieve this. For many of these mons, you can continue checking them for the entire match regardless of losing boots (being knocked off) or not. As a wall, your tasks might not be as pro-active as a sweeper, but these switchins do matter a lot when it comes to mons feeling useful. We can move on to what gets walled by mon this later.

2) Ice STAB obliterates the hazard game
Here's the big seller- basically every setter and some common removers of hazards absolutely hates ice types. Lando, Gliscor, Tusk, Ting Lu, Tomo, Colossoil, Fidgit, Malaconda, Clod, both Venoms, Meow all may be scared off by powerful STAB moves. What's more, Ice types is the only type to have access to Freeze-Dry which extends the hazard matchup even further by including Snaelstrom, Arghonaut, Toxapex, and Ogerpon-W. I just need to acknowledge for a second time how insane this list is, and if catered to, this could be an extremely valid hazard removal mon- since this mon can start early and think about how to bypass Gholdengo (and Pult/Rev/Nect already gets hit SE). This concept is looking for purpose and quality routes that arent just landing as a niche 6th mon on a stall team, and here that is.
Ice is also awesome as a solo STAB- Having a wall that can monoattack can sometimes make or break a set. Look at how Tomo has some nice tools but flops all over the place trying to work out how to hit everything it needs to with Fighting/Flying/Fire and its bad stab options. 3 extra slots = woohoo

3) Ice neutral Flyer means very acceptable overlap with other metagame mons
Pretty much whats said on the tin: other good Flying mons like Lando-T and Gliscor could be ran alongside a mon like this due to them being fine with elec/rock moves, and this being fine with ice moves. Thats pretty nice to know as those mons are very popular glue. Its matchup into mons like Meowscarada or Great Tusk is quite nice and separates it from some of the other Flying types that exist.

4) Its a full flex of the concept
I feel like its a good choice to go all out with the concept. While it does have fears of rock type tech moves, or tera, these things are pretty cheesy and also make the users a lot worse- just to take out a wall. I'd much rather see a cool typing work out that boasts a real niche than a mid typing trying to play midgame with actual behemoths and just falling behind from mid disease.


The last fear is: Isnt this mon just dead if its boots get knocked off? Does that mean we can only have realistically 3 abils (the ones that improve hazard matchup)? Well, this is hard to discuss because yes- the mon does get worse when knocked off. Not sugar coating this one- although if it does go a hazard removal route (which it excels at) that means that vs some teams, rocks will never get the chance to hinder it later as it'll be switching in on the turn they go up and removing them. I also wanna say that mons like Moltres can still exist while also being designed to switch into knock off users like Rillaboom, Great Tusk etc. Moltres is allowed to exist because it does something nothing else can do. So if you take this route, make sure you're ready to make this a capable mon that is allowed to be good in OU- because Ice Flying needs to meet its full potential both offensive and defensively for it to be good. Thats all I got on this typing.

edit: I realise I didnt talk about snow or glowking so this is me acknowledging that that is a thing that may or may not be a bit helpful for an ice type but also completely unnecessary to make this a good typing to choose
 
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I have not seen enough ICE shilling in this thread. Bear witness to this powerful ICE propaganda and revere my vast wisdom.

Ice is far from a standard defensive type no matter how much it has been attempted over the years, but Gen 9's mechanics overhaul from Hail to Snow has brought new potential for a defensive Ice to work. I do not think we can separate an Ice-type Wall from the Snow condition: the 50% boost to Defense has great potential in enabling us to stand tall in the face of our potential weaknesses. If there is one other benefit to Ice, it's a decent check to itself: Water is vulnerable to Freeze-Dry, whereas Steel and Fire are targeted by commonly paired Ground coverage. Ice also cannot be frozen, which could be vital if we wanted to target a Pokemon like Kyurem which is infamous for fishing for freezes to steal a game.

Ice remains very flawed, however, so you'd need a strong secondary type to compliment it. I will now go over the various Ice types already mentioned and then cover two more.

ICE/FIGHTING
I understand what is being crafted here: a wall with the Fighting-type can easily spec into Body Press as a reliable STAB option, while our Ice typing provides a means to boost our Defense and likewise strengthens the damage of Body Press. I know this sounds polljumpy given it specifies a move and physical bias, but you couldn't convince me of any other merit a wall would have with such typing. This is not SS CAP where Weavile is the mon to beat, and we're not exactly trying to operate as a tank. Ice/Fighting has a ton of vulnerabilities to common attacking types without fostering any particularly useful resists on its own. Neutrality to Stealth Rock is hardly a boon when you get ravaged by Spikes and likely want Boots anyway. Your defensive profile competes with Cresceidon and Arghonaut while actively losing versus both bar Freeze Dry, to say nothing of what little it convincingly walls in the current metagame.

ICE/FIRE
This is simply too much of a burden. You end up with a ton of weaknesses, especially versus hazards, with the resists you do have not nearly making up for how much you need to fear. Ice only offers extra protection against itself, which Fire already resists, so you basically beat Choice-locked Ice moves since anything that runs Ice-type attacks can easily find a way to beat you.

ICE/FLYING
Significant upgrade over the last two. Immunities are strictly good, and the Flying type lets us switch into Ground moves safely while also ignoring dangerous Spikes and Toxic Spikes. This leaves Stealth Rock as the main problematic hazard, and it certainly is one. We have seen 4x Rocks weak mons succeed many times over competitive history, as with Moltres, Volcarona, and Mega Pinsir (who kinda cheats but w/e), and the former two have worked quite well with bulkier, if not purely defensive sets in Moltres' case. Ice/Flying, however, does not have a similarly loaded defensive profile as Fire/Flying does.

Part of what stands out to me for Ice/Flying is the limited pool of strong Electric-types in the metagame, and the ones that do exist have some very rough matchups: even OU's premier Electric, Raging Bolt, needs to maneuver around Equilibra's huge statline and Ground/Steel typing, Chuggalong's threatening Dragon STAB and immunity to Electric, and also not get outmurked by Hemogoblin's SE Extreme Speed. Our weakness to Electric definitely feels manageable, which then leaves Steel, Fire, and Rock as more pressing concerns. Being a Ground immune weak to Doom Desire is a significant problem, whereas Fire is simply common and good and Rock is uncommon but means we want zero business versus Garganacl. I will echo Pip with Pokemon teching in Rock coverage to beat us as a move that likely makes them weaker overall: Pokemon we may look to win against could definitely throw on a stray Rock Slide or Stone Edge to ruin our day but if it makes them far worse into potential teammates than it's a net positive for CAP 35's utility. Overall I enjoy what this brings to the table even if the biggest defensive centerpiece is being airborne.

ICE/STEEL
Right off the bat, and this will be important later, I am skeptical of if a typing like Steel really works in our case. Don't get me wrong: Ice/Steel has some bad traits: two 4x weaknesses to common attacking types is not a good showing, and makes it quite easy for teams to have multiple members capable of scaring us out. See, I tricked you. This typing feels like it loses to everything, and I do not think it's a feasible choice for that reason. You would need some extreme heavy lifting in later stages to make this happen, and that's something I'd rather avoid as too much of everything except typing means we just want to Tera ASAP.

ICE/POISON
This feels doable but I am biased and sick of CAPs infinite supply of Poison-types. Toxic immunity is a great trait to have for any wall, and lacking a big 4x weakness to offset what useful resists we do have means we are more comfortable sticking with our base typing. In some ways Poison feels a bit too good and would be the third time we made a CAP with a "difficult typing" that was part Poison.


Okay very cool. I'm going to talk about my own types now.

ICE/WATER
I do genuinely think this has a lot going for it. Water has been the classic Ice resist for a long time now, but Freeze Dry has complicated that. Pair with Ice, however, and suddenly that weakness is a neutrality, meaning you have a Water type that can safely answer incoming Ice-type Attacks: especially as we aren't weak to Ground, which is often paired with Ice for their strong neutral coverage. On that note, Ice/Water ends up being quite neutral as a type: just as with Ice/Flying, our weakness to Electric isn't terribly hard to build around, leaving Grass, Fighting, and Rock as types we need to be particular wary of. With Woger as powerful and controversial as ever, and the very quick rise of Necturna as a metagame staple, Grass is a pretty annoying weakness. Being vulnerable to Woger is particularly sour given how little defensive counterplay already exists. Fighting is simply common as an attacking type, even if STAB Fighting is a bit more rare. Rock isn't as painful as it was for Ice/Flying but Stealth Rock sure will be, so Ice/Water feels very tied to Boots as a key to success.

The lack of heavy weaknesses does a lot to elevate Ice/Water's potential: many Grounds aren't able to immediately scare us beyond Knock. Even Great Tusk, who has the scary Fighting-type, does not always enjoy running Fighting STAB when its moveslots are so torn between Ground STAB, Spin, Rocks, Knock, Bulk Up, and Ice Spinner. Grounds and Dragons, many of which can also struggle against us, do not enjoy our STABs either. There's a real angle towards having CAP 35 be tanky enough to stomach hits from them and threaten back in return. It's definitely not the most obvious choice, but I find it a suitable starting point that doesn't necessarily need a lot of compensation in later stages to perform its job.

ICE/FAIRY
So here's where things get complicated. Fairy is really strong, and I do wonder if Fairy is a bit beyond the scope of this process. Ice/Fairy does feel sufficiently troubled that I think it could get a pass, but I wouldn't be opposed to being shut down on this. First order of business: if you do not like Kyurem, this is your guy. Earth Power isn't STAB and shouldn't be too hard to manage, and we're just fine versus the rest of Kyurem's regular kit. Other Dragons will need to be wary of us, but outside of that, as a Fairy-type, we definitely struggle with doing Fairy-type things. We aren't a good Knock switch-in given our hazard weakness, and we don't resist Fighting. Fire/Poison/Rock lets plenty of defensive and offensive mons pressure us, though our own typing has offensive merit and could pressure them in return. The 4x Steel weakness is also a huge factor towards my feelings that Ice/Fairy is sufficiently contradictory. We get absolutely obliterated by Doom Desire and want nothing to do against Gholdengo's Make It Rain or Iron Crown's Tachyon Cutter. Kingambit is a regular user of Iron Head as well, and would demand accounting for. Steel is also techable by some mons, but a Kyurem with Iron Head to beat CAP 35 sounds like a Kyurem that struggles to win versus anything else. Just like the typing above, pairing Ice with a solid, low-profile defensive typing like Fairy feels functional.


Overall I find Ice to be a more challenging approach than other typings suggested, but also a more dynamic one that would try to lean on our base typing as much as possible to function, give how Snow could be used to actualize our walling desires in the face of an otherwise poor defensive type. I find Ice/Water to be my favorite of the bunch, since it provides a decent launching point for us to take into later stages thanks to that general neutrality. Ice/Flying comes next just because Flying good and then Ice/Fairy because Fairy good. If anyone has further commentary do speak up: as an aside, I am in agreement with spoo that a more concise and focused slate would be better than a "fair" slate, and Ice is putting a lot on the table that we may not be comfortable with, so we'd only benefit ourselves in figuring if Ice is a worthwhile gamble to chase.
 
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Wanted to drop in and hard vouch for an ice typing, it's conceptually the worst defensive typing in the game, with a single resistance and is extremely pro-concept.

Very much a fan of:

- Ice / Flying
- Ice / Water
- Ice / Fairy

I did also want to shout out Normal / Flying, which is another typing I absolutely adore here.
 
Gonna toss out support for Electric/Dark, really cool unconventional typing that others have mentioned before that is super favorable into stuff like Gholdengo and Kingambit but loses to stuff like Great Tusk.
 
Thinking more, I'm in favor of Ice/Flying. The ability to switch into and threaten out a lot of common grounds (provided we have the stats for it), as well as potentially leaning into our neutral resists vs common dragons and grasses while simultaneously threatening to hit them for heavy damage is really neat. I think I"m in favor of it over the other Ice-types. Ice/Water has the issue that its competing with every single water type in the meta, and I feel like it would need some really special sauce to escape those comparisons. Ice/Fighting just lacks relevant resists, as the Ice-typing really nullifies a lot of the cool stuff that Fighting brings.
 
Gonna give some love to some concepts I’ve liked in wake of the slate.

Grass/Normal accomplishes a similar goal to what I had laid out in my Grass/Dark submission, arguably in a better way thanks to losing the fairy weakness and the 4x U-Turn weakness. Ground, Ghost, Grass, and Water is a pretty solid spread of resistances/immunities in the current metagame, and it slots well with other defensive mons in the CAP meta like Cresceidon, Slowking-G, and Equilibra who are all weak to one or more of these typings. It doesn’t overlap too much with any existing wall or tank in the metagame, and its multitude of weaknesses are typically resisted by other CAP defensive mons. I think this type’s solid resistance spread combined with numerous weaknesses makes it fit this concept perfectly.

Electric/Dark has already been given a ton of love but there’s a reason for that. The typing provides a very unique niche that walls very effectively into certain mons that lack many distinct counters like Gambit and Ghold but matches up poorly against other common offensive pokemon like Tusk and Hemo.
 
Types like Fire/Normal are maybe a little too good? Fire itself has a great set of resists with only two weaknesses, and normal adds a weakness and an immunity. Electric/Dark is probably in that same boat. Bug/Fire is definitely a good defensive type, just hasn't seen use on a proper defensive mon.

Bug/Dark is exciting to me, sometimes has me wishing for bug/fighting instead (knock resist, not rocks weak), but we've seen that work for buzzwole already. Bring in fat lokix!

Bug/Ground might be my fav bug choice, has a decent resist/immunity palette and while intimidating, I think a manageable set of weaknesses.

Normal/Flying is definitely an interesting choice, flying itself is definitely a good type, and a lot of mons have access to recovery in roost, so it's defintely a type we've seen on defensive mons, but never on a Flying/Normal. It's a low resistance count/low weakness count, but we've seen that work without crazy stats.

I'm *worried* about an ice type, but I think there's something exciting about trying to do what gamefreak has been trying to: make an Ice type wall. It definitely opens up our power budget in a way, but could end up limiting us in other ways. Ice/Flying is most promising to me.

Rock/Flying and Ice/Flying are interesting options to me for their weather synergy at the very least.
 
Giving my support to these typings in particular:

Electric/Dark: super relevant resists to Ghost, Dark, and Steel gives this normally offense-leaning typing some real utility. I like any of the Dark combinations because of how many Dark moves are fantastic utility-wise (Foul Play, Knock, Parting Shot, Ruination) and I feel like the weaknesses to common typings like Fighting, Fairy, and Ground keep this type from being TOO good for this concept but still very much a typing that can be good defensively.

Ice/Flying and Ice/Fairy: Ice is a great typing to look to for this concept because it’s usually considered terrible defensively which makes any combination interesting to work with. These two I feel have the best potential into the current meta with Ice/Flying threatening most hazard setters and having a good immunity while Ice/Fairy offers similar offensive pressure with a different immunity. Ice’s resistance to itself is also much more useful in this iteration of OU because of Kyurem’s dominance, which makes Ice/Fairy a really enticing pick imo. Both of these also synergize with Glowking’s Snow to great effect.

Ice/Steel: trades some of the useful defensive perks of the above two (like the ability to switch into Ground moves) for Steel’s amazing defensive profile which notably removes the weakness to Stealth Rock, making this type much less reliant on Boots. It comes with two nasty 4x weaknesses and an aforementioned Ground weakness, however, although it still has Ice’s solid offensive prowess at the very least.

Grass/Normal: This typing is lovely, tons of weaknesses that hold it back but man that defensive profile is kind of stacked! A new Wogerpon check is always appreciated and the Ghost immunity could certainly be utilized if we make this thing bulky enough with tools to take on mons like Ghold. And while most people likely haven’t fought Arboliva much, I can say from experience that this typing can make for a really difficult wall to take down with the right tools!

Bug/Ground: not much I have to say about this one that hasn’t already been said but I like it a lot. I am afraid that other Bug-typings may end up too weak (outside of Bug/Fire which I fear will run into issues trying not to be a bad Moltres) but this one’s neutrality to SR should make it easier to create something that can work in OU. Cute resistance profile and enough weaknesses to make it suitable for the concept. (On further thought, this typing is prolly not the best because of the inherent competition with OU’s menagerie of fat Ground types, maybe for another concept)
 
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Types I wanna support

Normal/Flying

I wanna support this typing because not only is typing pro-concept because of its lack of weaknesses and neutralities, because also just conceptually, who thinks of this typing as viable in a high level metagame, let alone a wall. This is why I submitted Normal/Fire as the Normal-type’s lack of anything is extremely pro-concept! I also see the support behind Normal/Grass because of this reasoning.

Ice/Flying

This is definitely my favorite Ice-typing. The quad rocks-weakness is something that really holds this back, but it’s supposed to be held back, making it pro-concept. I think a “better Articuno” is something that would be incredibly neat to explore, something that I would definitely support.

HOWEVER, isn’t this kinda Syclant? Like this probably is too far of a reach to discuss, rocks weakness is something sorta explored a lot in CAP but it’s really not holding back my opinion too much.

Psychic/Fighting

My absolute favorite of the Offensive Walls category. I think the competition with Arghonaut is something that really isn’t there, as Psychic v Water has a lot of distinctions. I think STAB Body Press is a really cool idea to explore on its own. And that’s why I heavily support this typing.

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The AUDIENCE is what’s driving the idea behind this concept; therefore, we should probably be thinking more abstractly than “what’s competitive” which these typing do well.
 
Types I think should make the slate:

Normal/Flying is likely the most "Anti-Meta" and closest to pure viability options... though that makes me less keen on picking it. Still, the value of a Ground + Ghost immune pokemon with a poor offensive typing is still interesting enough to me to make the ending slate.

I do think one of the Psychic entries should likely make it. Psychic has a really bad rap in Gen 9 thanks to the presence of uber-strong Dark types like Gambit, RMoon, Hamurott, etc. My personal preference would be either Fighting/Psychic or pure Psychic, but any of the proffered psychic typings would be very interesting to work with.

I know proffering one of my suggestions is kind of lame, but I still really think Fighting/Dark has a lot of potential. Not only do we have a lot of very cool defensive attacking STABs to pull from (Foul Play, BPress, Knock, etc), being a 4x knock resist who doesn't care about Stealth Rock is really cool, and our 4x weakness to Fairy means we'll have a natural check no matter what. Won't be too pressed if it doesn't make it though.

Of the various Ice types we've seen, I would love to see Ice/Poison (with its' ability to uniquely check Iron Valiant). The other Ice types I think are just a bit too weak to too many things to be worth considering.

Types I don't think we should see:

Normal/Fairy, Normal/Fire, Fire, Electric/Dark, Dragon, and Electric/Fairy espicially all feel like their generally "too solid" to really seem contradictory for a wall.
  • Normal/Fairy has two (relativly uncommon) weaknesses, and incredibly strong immunes/resists.
  • Normal/Fire, while does suffer slightly to some weaknesses towards common hazards/hazard setters, has 7 resists/immunities, and some really important ones like Fairy, Ice, Ghost, and Fire.
  • Fire is just Normal/Fire but strictly better.
  • Electric/Dark would be a bit too much of a blanket check for Kingambit, Gholdengo, Dragapult, and Darkrai for me to be super comfortable with. Not super mad if this makes the slate, but its of my opinion that this isn't really that bad.
  • Dragon, while weak to dragon and fairy, just resists too much to be worth considering.
  • Do I really have to talk about Electric/Fairy?
There are some types that I think are just too irredeemable to make the list too.
  • Steel/Rock just kind of loses to every viable meta option right now.
  • Rock/Ground is a similar story, but loses even harder to weather than Steel/Rock. At least this has STABs going for it
  • Ice/Fire has Quad weakness to stealth rock, loses to most setters, and has fairly inconsequential resistances (Fairy and Ice are nice, but not enough)
  • Dark/Psychic just sucks, I tried to make a case for it, but we'd have to uber-pump its stats/ability to the point of CAP 35 becoming a polarizing monster.
  • Bug/Ghost is just kinda worse than the other Bug types we've seen throughout the discussion.
  • Ice/Fighting is similar to Steel/Rock, almost every meta pokemon right now has an amazing way of beating this pokemon to the floor. What we don't want is to create a pokemon so strong as to completely counteract its' poor typing.
  • Ice/Steel does have some decent resists but a quad weakness to Fighting, Fire, and taking double from the tiers' ubiquitous ground types is too much.
Types I don't really care for:

there's nothing inherently wrong with Ice/Flying, Fire/Fighting, or Grass/Normal, I just don't really prefer them to our other options.

Bug/Ground would just be competition for the already stacked category of Grounds in the current CAP meta, not super excited even though the type fits the concept well.
 
Fire/Normal has been praised both here and on the discord and it's clear why. The typing matches up incredibly well into many of the tier's Ghosts, being able to take most of their STABs and threaten many of them with Super Effective Fire STAB while also being immune to burn which particularly helps with Pult. Additionally, there is one other mon that the typing walls that I think is notable, being Hemo. While this role is one that can also be filled by other defensive Fires such as Moltres and Mollux, being able to wall Hemo along side the likes of Pult and Ghold is useful in compressing the targets a team needs to handle.
Another great aspect of this typing is how it appreciates being paired alongside other defensive mons as many already resist its weakness, for example Venomicon has a quadruple resist against Fighting and an immunity to Ground covering two of Fire/Normal's weaknesses, or Libra handling the Rock the mon hates and being immune to Ground with levitate. However, at the same time the type shares weaknesses with several of those mons as well, such as Venomicon's Rock weakness or Libra's Fighting and Water weaknesses (and Ground if it's not levitate). This makes the weaknesses possible to build around, but not completely ignorable so they aren't irrelevant.

As for the sudden posts calling Fire/Normal too good, I don't quite understand the argument against it. Sure it isn't as blatantly bad as say your Ices or your Bugs, but the weaknesses of the type are still very apparent and very common at that, which is the main thing that limits the type. There's a reason the type's main praise is its matchup into the tier's Ghosts, as outside of those many other mons can get around your resistances with either a Super Effective STAB or Super Effective Coverage. Woger has cudgel to get around the grass resist, Cresc, Primarina and Valiant all get around the Fairy resist, Kyurem Earth Powers you to get around the Ice resist while Weav just knocks you, removing the boots that the mon would want as a Fire type.
While yes the type has a lot of resists, it's only able to really utilize a few of them well, which is what makes it great as a Holder of Many. Instead of using the resists to wall a verity of mons it uses them to let it hone into a few and excel in those matchups, giving it a clear niche and a clear reason to use it while still having clear downsides which is what I think we should be looking for in a type for this concept.
 
Just wanna chime in again and comment on the Ice type.
While I see the advantages of Ice/Flying compared to Ice/Water for teambuilding, a concern I have with Ice/Flying is the Doom Desire interaction. Glowking, setting Snow, often attracts in Equilibra.

Libra is often a glue mon in CAP, and DD has a very powerful BP behind it. And Libra usually finds multiple opportunities to come in vs most teams.
I have a hard time imagining how we could be an effective wall with this often looming, and especially since our focus would be mitigating the 4x SR weakness first.

I don't really like Ice/Fighting that much, but to have an Ice type not weak to SR means that perhaps other abilities and etc. could help against Libra more.

Perhaps Ice/Ground could be a consideration as well, as Ground is in higher demand defensively, but actually not sure about this typing either.
 
Let’s calm the heck down with immediately talking about snow’s interaction with Ice-types. Galarian Slowking is one Pokemon. If the wall can’t stand up on its own, then that is a glaring issue with the typing that means it should not be considered good enough. Let’s not make this a partner concept.
 
Palosaks said:
As for the sudden posts calling Fire/Normal too good
Click to expand...
we're a few hours away from slating finishing, it's important for everyone to pitch in to consolidate down to a few types for blind voting. Hence, people may be (myself included) overly critical of typings they don't prefer.

besides, most of the proponent arguments I've heard for Fire/Normal are about how Fire/Normal is good, not about potential weaknesses. Considering the overwhelming majority of Fire types get access to burns, being weak to primarily physical types (equilibra is one of the few special grounds) and Rain structures isn't enough of a downside. Consider the fact that pokemon like Cinderace, despite being mono-Fire and having a very poorly defensively structured stat distribution, is a stellar defensive cornerstone in CAP and OU right now.
 
Okay let’s talk some typings I like and some I don’t. There’s a lot to go over so I’m gonna keep it brief.

Bug/Dark is honestly one of my favorites, just because it compresses resistances to Ghost and Ground in one package, giving us a lot of room to carve out a unique defensive niche for CAP35. Combined with an ability which helps it stand out, I think Bug/Dark could be a really successful type for the concept. The weakness to U-turn isn’t great, but frankly the mons that utilize it are not going to be hitting so hard where accounting for that in our stats is gonna be a Herculean task. The weakness to Stealth Rock means this really shouldn’t be acting as something that switches into Knock Off, but that isn’t why you’d run this typing anyway.

Dark is probably the monotype that I’d support most. Even just resisting Ghost and Dark with a Psychic immunity pairs well with the likes of Venomicon while also taking pressure off of the likes of Equilibra and Cresceidon to check the strong Ghost-types of the tier. Compared to Bug/Dark you are neutral to Rock, letting CAP35 act as a nice Knock Off absorber as well. Good times.

Electric/Dark trades the Ground resist and Fighting neutrality of Bug/Dark for resistances to Flying and Steel, which alongside maybe checking Venomicon means you can hard wall Kingambit (given we are light enough to not worry about Low Kick) and basically not worry about Gholdengo unless it runs Focus Blast. Also not a terrible choice, although I think I prefer the other two Dark-type options.

Fire/Fighting has a lot of defensive issues, most notably being a Fire-type neutral to Fairy and common weaknesses to Ground, Flying, and Water. But it has a lot going for it defensively too; stuffing Gholdengo and Kingambit, an immunity to burn, beating out Darkrai, and otherwise pretty neutral matchups overall. A fire-type that can come in on Knock Off and isn’t weak to Rocks is also very nice. I think you’d pair Fire/Fighting with something like Libra since it likes something that eats Fire moves and resists Knock Off. Just a great option for us.

Fire/Normal is the other Fire-type and one of two Normal-type combinations I’m in favor of. All three are immune to Ghost which is obviously huge, but Fire/Normal comes with the added benefit of completely hard-walling Hex Dragapult while also stuffing Hemogoblin that lack Ground Tera Blast. It’s a bit debatable as to whether this should count given Fire’s defensive strengths, but being weak to Rock, Water, Ground, and Fighting is a tough set of weaknesses which arguably help make this type qualify. I get if people disagree though.

Normal/Flying, surprisingly, is my favorite Normal-type combo. Immunities to Ghost and Ground, combined with being otherwise neutral to nearly everything else, gives us quite a blank canvas to work with. The only thing may be it’s a little too blank to go from here, but I suspect once we have an ability the rest would fall into place. I genuinely think this is an option that’s being slept on.

Rock/Flying compresses resistances to Fire and Poison with a Ground immunity on top, which alongside a neutrality to Fighting lets you tackle the likes of Iron Moth, Great Tusk, Venomicon, Mollux, and more. Rock/Flying takes pressure off of bulky Waters to check Ground-types without exposing you to a Fire weakness. You pair well with Cresceidon in particular because of being able to cover its Poison weakness. Just solid overall imo.
Electric/Normal is honestly not bad by any means for this concept, but I oppose it simply because I think Electric/Dark does what Electric/Normal would do better. Unlike Fire/Normal, Electric doesn’t hit any Ghosts super-effectively and compared to its Dark counterpart really only benefits from not being weak to Fairy, but realistically Electric/Normal would not be used as a Fairy check regardless. The only Pokémon it’d make a material difference is Cresceidon, which is super weak offensively anyway. Just feel like it’s outclassed.

Ice/Flying I originally supported, but I’ve changed my mind. I’d rather just not risk the type falling flat on its face. A lot of what I said below applies to it.

Ice-types besides Ice/Flying just feel incredibly weak to the point where we risk pulling a Chromera. I don’t know what about any other Ice-type makes me want to run it on a team. Ice/Flying at least has the Ground immunity and the fact it destroys a lot of current hazard setters. Like Ice/Poison and Ice/Fighting in particular have nothing really going for them defensively. Just no.

Bug isn’t the worst monotype idea, but I just feel its resistances are not as widely applicable as Dark’s; Bug really wants that secondary type for a bit more wiggle room as to what it actually checks based on typing, so I don’t think mono Bug is the way.

Bug/Ground simply has too much competition for a Ground slot on a team and does nothing to stand out, particularly against Gliscor which similarly resists Fighting and is neutral to Rock. You really just wouldn’t run this unless you had no other choice. No thanks.
 
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Imw0rstadP0keM0n said:
we're a few hours away from slating finishing, it's important for everyone to pitch in to consolidate down to a few types for blind voting. Hence, people may be (myself included) overly critical of typings they don't prefer.
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I wasn't saying it was a bad thing, just commenting on it. Admittedly I should've worded that differently.
Imw0rstadP0keM0n said:
besides, most of the proponent arguments I've heard for Fire/Normal are about how Fire/Normal is good, not about potential weaknesses. Considering the overwhelming majority of Fire types get access to burns, being weak to primarily physical types (equilibra is one of the few special grounds) and Rain structures isn't enough of a downside. Consider the fact that pokemon like Cinderace, despite being mono-Fire and having a very poorly defensively structured stat distribution, is a stellar defensive cornerstone in CAP and OU right now.
Click to expand...
The main reason given has been the very common weaknesses and how they make it difficult for the type to use its resist profile to the fullest, I tried to expand upon this in my post with the section going over mons which can get around the resists by exploiting these weaknesses. Additionally the weaknesses being common affects the weaknesses stacking with those of other defensive mons, adding on to the contradiction. It's also worth noting that despite the contradiction, we need the typing we pick to have some reason to put it on a team so we actually have something to build around, Fire/Normal provides this in it's excellent matchup into the tier's Ghost types, that gives it a very good niche that we can build the mon off of from there. We also don't need to give it burns just because it's a Fire type, and even then we can give any type a way to consistently get burns off if we wanted to. Cinderace works as a defensive pivot because of the utility it provides, utility we can't guarantee this mon will have. The Fighting weakness added by Normal does also change some matchups such as Valiant being able to get around you with CC instead of resisting Moonblast.
 
Some people really enjoy Ice/Flying but I struggle to see how we won't railroad ourselves into either:

  • Having abilities that prevent boots from being knocked off or needed.
  • And that is different enough to Articuno. With this type we will have to go in on the stats to make it viable right?
I really like the flying type (and ice) but together it pushes us into a specific pokemon really quickly.

This might be fine but we should be smart about it.
 
Breaking my usual lurking just to pop in and say I really don't understand the late-hour push for Ice/Flying. While most of the proposed typings have never been properly explored on a defensive pokemon, Ice/Flying has an infamously failed defensive pokemon named Articuno. It has almost everything a wall should theoretically want--solid 90/100/125 defensive stats, excellent healing in Roost, useful tools like U-turn, Roar, Haze, and formerly Defog, and isn't dead weight with 90 Sp Atk and Freeze-Dry--yet the poor, beautiful legendary has languished in NU for generations. We would need to give Ice/Flying some extremely unique and powerful tools to prevent it from suffering the same fate as the Legend of Seafoam Island. And if we were to somehow make it usable by giving it Garganacl-level tech, then at that point I feel we have made a usable mon thanks to whatever that unique power is rather than by exploring how to make a suboptimal defensive typing work.
 
Hey all, figured I’d pop in here to give some support noms before we run down the clock on the slate.

By far my favorite typing for this project is Normal/Flying. The unique defensive profile of this is really interesting for the meta we’re in, those dial immunities to Ghost and Ground are incredibly prevalent and, I suspect, will only continue to grow more useful with time. The weakness to Stealth Rock is admittedly a bit annoying but with Boots or just general skillful play, I don’t imagine this would really be much of an issue in practice. The host of neutralities this typing presents are actually quite useful in comparison to some of the more overwhelming hosts of weaknesses some of the other typings presented here have. Although it’s not a major selling point, it’s always useful for a wall to resist Bug with U-Turn being as common as it is, and the resistance to Grass is growing increasingly important with Necturna having such a meteoric comeback and Wogre being as dangerous as it is. Finally, I also just find the design space of a Normal/Flying wall to be immensely compelling. We’ve only ever seen this typing on Route 1 birds or general early-game mons (the exception being Braviary, but he’s not exactly viable). The typing has always been used on mons that predominantly lean towards offense, so repurposing it for a defensive lean is very enticing to me.

Fire/Fighting is interesting to me in that it takes such a historically offensive typing and flips it. The neutrality to Fairy and resistance to Fire is important for Hemo and Moth especially, and the general resistance profile leans particularly well into threats like Kingambit, Darkrai, Necturna (ish), etc. Fire/Fighting isn’t without its weaknesses though, Ground types are as ubiquitous as ever, and Water and Psychic aren’t the best thing to be weak to, either. I think this typing could lead to a really interesting process and as such deserves to be slated.

Grass/Normal is my second favorite of the Normal typings and deserves being slated alongside Normal/Flying for the unique profile it brings to the table. Grass, Water, Ground, and Ghost are extremely valuable things to resist or outright be immune to in this meta, which definitely balances out the rather large pool of weaknesses the typing otherwise has. While there definitely are a lot of weaknesses for this typing, the specific pool of resistances it has are potent enough to make up for it, and I think we could really work this into something cool.

I’m a little meh on the Ice typings presented here, mostly because I’m very wary of us turning this into a partner concept with Glowking to circumvent the atrocious profile Ice has. If anything, Ice/Flying is probably my favorite of the Ice types, but in all honestly I just don’t really care enough for these types to see it slated. I don’t really see the vision on it this time.

I think Bug/Dark is actually really interesting considering, once again, how offensive it is. Or at least, how it’s only ever been present on a Mon who basically defines revenge killing, in Lokix. It’s got a unique profile, the resistances to Ground, Ghost, Grass, and Dark are really, really useful. Of all the Bug types being thrown around, this is definitely my favorite.

As a final note, I want to really strongly caution against any Ground, Water, or Poison types. If we were to run with any one of these, CAP35 would instantly be faced with the innate issue of struggling for a use case against other Grounds, Waters, and Poisons in the meta. We would have to really work hard to set ourselves apart from other meta staples, which would mean really using a lot of our power budget in later stages and perhaps overdoing it. I think we have a lot more potential for an interesting process if we avoid these types and focus on something that won’t necessarily compete as heavily with other Pokémon for usage.
 
Hey all,

This was a pretty insane discussion, with a ton of really cool and interesting ideas and also a lot of uncertainty around the implications of engaging in certain typing avenues. To be real, finding that sweet spot has proven to be a pretty major challenge, far more than I was expecting. While I had a pretty hard time figuring things out, I am beyond grateful to kenn and the rest of the TLT for their insight and helping guide my thoughts and iron out a philosophy for what to do here. There are probably going to be a few typings I omit here that people are probably gonna be pretty disappointed with me omitting, so I'll be sure to explain that as well. Thank you all again for an amazing discussion; as always, this is my favorite part of the process and it's been my honor to help guide it again.

Your slate is as follows:

Psychic/Fighting
Fire/Fighting
Fire/Normal
Electric/Normal
Grass/Normal
Bug/Dark
Dark

___

Psychic/Fighting
Holder of Few

Psychic/Fighting at first seems to be a very bizarre type combination to include here, and to the average beholder it would make sense why. It doesn't come with many meaningful resists, and it also has some pretty gnarly weaknesses. However, what it lacks in good resists it makes up for with a brutally useful STAB combination, an all-around incredible neutral profile, and a key resistance to Fighting. It packs weaknesses to Ghost, Flying, and Fairy, but because it is neutral to so much, it is a hard type to fully exploit without the help of a Pokemon like Hemogoblin or Dragapult. Its Fighting-type resistance with this neutral profile is also quite a neat quality into Pokemon like Zamazenta and Close Combat Great Tusk, while being a great way to find entry-points into Fighting-type coverage in general. With access to potential options like Body Press and Psychic Noise as tantalizing STABs, this typing is about as quintessential as it gets when it comes to embodying the Holder of Few archetype and has a ton of really interesting qualities that I think would make for an engaging process.

Fire/Fighting
Holder of Many

Fire/Fighting is mostly represented by Pokemon like Blaziken, Infernape, and Emboar, designed almost entirely to be offensive powerhouses. However Fire/Fighting brings a really awesome defensive profile to the table that is mostly unexplored, packing meaningful resistances to Steel, Dark, Ice, Fire, and Grass, as well as a neutrality to Rock to improve its matchup into Stealth Rock. All around, this typing is just a great option for teams to fully utilize in the metagame since it provides a Weavile, Kingambit, and Darkrai check while also being a bit more resilient into other threats like Malaconda, bulkier Gholdengo, and WispHex Dragapult in a way that its main competitor Arghonaut cannot be. On paper this type is just all around strong defensively, but what brings it into the territory of contradictory is that its defensive profile can be exploited by many common Pokemon due to its really common weaknesses, namely Water Psychic and Ground, making it a bit more selective in what it's aiming to check. However, the STAB combination, which could include options like Lava Plume and Body Press, and the flexibility into Will-O-Wisp users are a huge selling point for it. I have no doubts we can make a great CAP with this typing.

Fire/Normal
Holder of Many

Going off of our previous point, Fire/Normal sacrifices the all around defensive flexibility of Fire/Fighting to shit on Gholdengo and Dragapult specifically. Because of this feature as well as Fire in general being an incredibly emblematic typing for this concept, Fire/Normal is easily one of the most popular type combinations in the thread, and it's not hard to see why. It's an incredibly valuable quality for defensive backbones to have more tools into Gholdengo and Dragapult, with the added bonus of a buffed Kitsunoh, and with it, the typing possesses a potentially better matchup into Hemogoblin thanks to the bonus Fairy-type resistance lost by Fire/Fighting. A huge draw is also beating Necturna. This typing is a bit more specialized, but possesses a mightier niche.

Grass/Normal
Holder of Many

Grass/Normal on paper looks to be a pretty arbitrary combination, however it is a pretty great option for both Normal and Grass that takes both of their upsides while not cancelling out their intrinsic value in any way. There is a ton of inherent value of being a Grass-type in this metagame when Ogerpon-Wellspring, Cresceidon, Primarina, Arghonaut, and Walking Wake are such potent options, and packing a Ghost-type immunity with it helps cement a stronger niche against its Grass-type competition. The combination of Ghost with Ground, Water, and Electric is really dope, and while we have a lot of weaknesses, many points have been made regarding models like Chesnaught and Sinistcha that demonstrate how far good bulk can offset non-STAB-boosted coverage moves. The added Fighting-type weakness sucks, but our Grass-type STAB can easily leverage us into Great Tusk depending on our build, which makes the Ghost-type immunity very worth it for the most part.

Electric/Normal
Holder of Few

Electric/Normal is a paralysis-immune variant on Fire/Normal that heavily dials back the weaknesses demonstrated by the other two Normal-type slate options and imo best embodies the Holder of Few archetype for a Normal-type in the context of this concept. Electric/Normal only has two weaknesses to Ground and Fighting, making it relatively hard to exploit, and shits on Gholdengo arguably the hardest of any option on this slate thanks to its Paralysis immunity, which as stated is highly valuable. It is the most committed to being a Holder of Few, akin to Psychic/Fighting, and does so practically while boasting a couple of meaningful resistances.

Dark
Holder of Few

This is the slate's only monotype, which makes it rather unique, but for it, comes with a pretty honest set of resistances and weaknesses. Ghost and Dark are obviously very valuable, and it's pretty hard to fully capitalize on its weaknesses if we're built to be tanky, unlike most other Dark-types in the tier. Most other Dark-type combinations render down the inherent usefulness of having a Dark-type wall by introducing more annoying weaknesses to the table, which complicates Dark's defensive gameplan by nature, so having mono-Dark cuts out the middleman by keeping the weaknesses to a minimum and holding onto the key resistances we know Dark for.

Bug/Dark
Holder of Many

Bug/Dark is the other Dark-type I took interest in. While Lokix is almost exclusively an offensive Pokemon, its access to Leech Life and propensity to have some HP investment puts its typing's defensive potential on display, making it a rather interesting angle to explore. Mono Dark leans the most into the defensive utility of being Dark by toning down the weaknesses, but Bug/Dark is probably the best "Holder of Many" Dark-type take since it neutralizes Fighting and introduces a Ground-type resistance, making it a take on Dark that leverages a potentially decent matchup into Great Tusk and allows for us to threaten opposing Dark-types. The additional weaknesses, namely to Stealth Rock and Fire, suck pretty bad, but for a Dark-type wall that aims to leverage itself into common Dark-type resistances, it's a pretty compelling angle to take with many build routes.

___

Lastly, I wanted to briefly address a few popular typings and explain why I didn't include them.

Electric/Dark is cool and I've genuinely included it on a few iterations of this slate, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt that it was generically outclassed at effectively being a Dark-type by mono Dark and outclassed in potential niche-carving by Bug/Dark. Furthermore, Electric/Normal also covers the "Electric resilient into Ghost" angle I'd say more feasibly due to its fewer weaknesses. It's a cool option and I'd include it if there wasn't this degree of overlap, but it feels like it's trying to do a bit much and doesn't really blend these combined traits in a very practical way imo due to its awkward combination of weaknesses.

Bug/Ground also got a lot of reception and to be honest with you, this typing was never in consideration for me unless I got a god-tier argument. The reality is that there are a metric fuckton of Ground-types in this metagame, all covering an insane amount of roles, and being x2 weak to Ice Spinner instead of x4 is not enough of a niche to make it stand out from the insane splashability Gliscor and Landorus-T, especially when Equilibra exists. It's a cute typing but the circumstances of this metagame just make me struggle to see how we could give it a niche without overtuning it to hell.

Ice/Flying and Ice/Fighting are really cool. I will be honest and say that originally this slate had 8 options, with the 8th consisting of one of these two typings. Both have some cool qualities and I did (do?) have faith in these qualities, but my issue is that these types are far too specialized and are far too underwhelming in their upsides to offset the asinine amount of weaknesses they have. As fun as it would be to try and make one of these typings work, I struggle to see an angle for them that doesn't result in us trying to mitigate their weaknesses more than actually leveraging their positive traits. Maybe someday.

Normal/Flying was also pretty popular, but personally I never really understood the hype. It's a decent Holder of Few, but I feel as though Electric/Normal was generally more compelling considering that being a Ground-type immunity with a good Ghost-type matchup is not really a dearth niche.

With that, I'm going to pass the baton to kenn for approval. Thank you all again for having me!
 
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As previously discussed, I have no issues with this slate so with that, let us move on to the polls!

Also while I have y'all, gonna provide you with a fun Fire Emblem fact:

Fire Emblem Awakening (best Fire Emblem game btw if you couldn't tell from my profile picture lol) was Nintendo's last hurrah to save the franchise and said if it didn't sell 250,000 units, it would be shelved forever. It sold that (and more) in the first week of its release and now Fire Emblem is one of the best-selling strategy RPG franchises!
 
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