CAP 16 CAP 5 - Part 2 - Typing Discussion

[Birkal]

jas61292 and I have had quite a conversation about this, but I want to make an opinion clear on this. The crux of the discussion is "what is the primary threat of sun teams" and that guided our conversation. His opinion is that dragons are the most difficult hurdle for sun teams to overcome, specifically the Latis. While I do think that sun teams have problems with dragons, they typically have strategies to overcome them. There's Heatran (and Forretress, Chansey, Gliscor to a lesser extent) to help sponge attacks. They also have faster Chlorophyll mons, which can utilize coverage attacks like Rock Slide and Sleep Powder to bust through. Finally, sun teams often run a scarfer, so there's at least a way to respond for the revenge kill. While I do agree that dragons are a threat for sun teams, I can't help but think that sun teams have already developed quite a few strategies for handling them.

In my opinion, rain teams give sun the biggest headaches. Arguably the biggest thread is Politoed itself. What on sun teams reliably switches in to Hydro Pump? They are either forced to use a sponge such as Blissey or a specialized mon such as Gastrodon. Outside of that, Ninetales is probably your best bet. And between SR and Hydro Pump damage, you're not sitting pretty. In fact, Ninetales just doesn't do well against any member on a rain team sans Ferrothorn and Toxicroak (kind of). And when you add in Keldeo and other rain threats to the mix, sun has a serious uphill battle. The onus is basically on the sun team to trap toed and ensure sun, or they can expect Ninetales to be worn down and eventually taken out.

So what motivates me is this: we can handle dragons during other CAP stages, but we cannot sponge water attacks at any other stage. Theoretically, we could stop rain-boosted water attacks by adding monstrous special bulk or a Water-type absorbing ability. But outside of those two options, we can't really resolve the constant struggle that sun teams have with rain. On the flip side, we can stop dragons at many other stages. We can make CAP 5 faster than them, or give it the correct moves to take them out. I feel that if we wish to oppose rain teams in any sort of format, we should consider it now; stopping dragons can come later.

Therefore, I am in full support of all Water-resisting types. That narrows us down to Grass, Dragon, and Water. I think all three of these types would add something interesting to sun teams, especially when combined with another unique typing. None of these types are SR weak either, which is an added bonus to sun. I know Water-type seems really counter-intuitive to help a Sun team, but sun teams don't really have a go-to Water-type. Regardless, it's something to consider. The issue jas61292 has brought up with these three types is that they don't bring anything "new" to sun teams. To rebuttal, I don't think you really need a new typing to add something new. Volcarona doesn't add anything new to sun teams with its typing (except an even bigger SR weakness), and yet it's a staple due to its great movepool and good stats. I don't think we should limit ourselves from utilizing these three types because they're not interesting or unique.

 

[Deck Knight]

I'm just going to make a brief post, I won't be able to do much more until Sunday night. EDIT - so yeah I ended up elaborating a bit more.

The way I see it, our typing has to contend with three major problems (and a minor problem) when it comes to aiding Sun.

1. Rain/Sand Defense. Switch in during other weathers and either facilitate a Ninetales switch-in or be able to change the weather to Sun.
2. Heatran. Be able to stop Heatran, which can not only abuse sun but also makes like extremely difficult for Fire and Grass types to thrive, as it is versatile enough to be used on almost any team.
3. Dragons. They present the dual problem of usually being able to take advantage of sun and resisting the fire and grass types sun likes to use.
a. Hidden Power: A 4x weakness would make it very easy to adapt to CAP 5 and so it should be avoided if at all possible. Given 1. this means CAP 5 cannot have a 4x Ice weakness because of the prevalence of Ice Beam on Rain teams.

The methods to resolve 1. can include typing or Ability, there being no shortage of water-stopping abilities as we discussed in CAP 3. Some types may require us to do this because they do a better job at addressing 2. and 3. If we select a typing weak to Water to better cover 2. and 3. this would nearly mandate such an ability - you cannot encourage sun unless the new threat brought by the CAP can properly handle rain-boosted water attacks.

2. Is a bit more difficult, because while an abundance of Heatran would technically increase Fire types, Heatran is already abundant and its as much a hindrance to Sun teams as it is a boon. The best way around this is a Pokemon that encourages non-Heatran sun Pokemon by being able to deal with Heatran. Since Sun-boosted Heatran does a ton of damage with Fire attacks, but Flash Fire would aggravate the existing Heatran problem, we need a type that is not weak to Fire. It does not need to resist it, but it cannot be weak to it.

3. Is probably the hardest part, since it requires either strong defensive stats to take ridiculously powerful neutral Dragon attacks, a Steel typing so it can resist Dragon, or a means of using strong Ice-type or Dragon-type attacks faster than the worst offenders like the Latis.


Under this test, a few types form a solid basis for discussion.

Grass / Water: As already mentioned, it can easily tank rain attacks and threaten sand, and has no weakness to either Fire or Dragon. Getting around Heatran itself may prove difficult, but at least STAB Water can do some damage in sun with a proper offensive stat. This does have the problem of making a Pokemon that is better at beating Rain that Sun though, which will cause problems if we want a strong move to damage Heatran.

Electric / Ice: Boltbeam mon. While this type might also require an Ability to intervene in its general typing weaknesses, it does have a few key elements that we want in being able to neatly handle most Dragons, threaten Water types, and with the exception of STAB Thunder (a reason NOT to use Rain against it and TO use Sun against it), it can't really be abused in Rain. While it does hit the Grass types used in Sun, it also provides them with its own Ice resistance, and raises the profile of a potential counter in Mamoswine.

Ground / Dark: This is one of those types where we would need Ability to intervene to reach our goals, and yes, this is familiar territory for long-timers too. Ground gives us the advantage of having an easy answer to Heatran and a combination of reliable offensive STABs, one of which can take aim at the Latis. However, it does have serious problems dealing with most of the Dragons, Hydreigon specifically and Salamence / Dragonite to a lesser degree.

Dragon / Steel: Our concept assessment may have been all about reducing the prevalence of these two types, but taken together they do something entirely different in allowing us to threaten Dragons, threaten Heatran with coverage without being weak to fire, resisting water, and having neutrality to Ice. This typing would also introduce new STABs into the usual mix of Sun Pokemon.

Dragon / Electric: This typing will be familiar to long-time CAP Users, but it still has a place here, resisting Fire and Water, having some ability to revenge kill Dragons, and offering new STABs to Sun teams. Electric STAB specifically lets it target Water types and Rain.

Feel free to ramble/attack/dissemble these.

 

[Bughouse]

In response to Birkal, I actually considered suggesting a Water type too, much as it seems counter intuitive. The rough idea was inspired by how Gastrodon can function well on a Sun team due to how it hard counters a lot of things on Rain. But at the same time it kinda sits there...

The thought occurred to me that if Gastrodon had Stealth Rock and/or Spikes and/or Rapid Spin, its utility for a Sun team would skyrocket. Sun would have a useful response to Rain teams. The problem is, so would its usage in general skyrocket.

Nothing about a very good Storm Drain mon is going to boost Sun. It's going to boost Sand too. Heck, it'll get used on Rain teams...

This is the same issue with creating a Dragon to help against Rain boosted Water attacks. First off, it will likely be weak to all the Ice type attacks that accompany Water types almost every time (this is a flaw of Grass too). Second of all, it will only heighten usage of Steels and faster Dragons to check it.

Grass, well, just doesn't have enough going for it, imo. First, as said above, Grass is weak to the Ice Beams that come on Rain teams anyway. Not to mention Hurricanes. Yes, Grass is the classic example of being anti Rain and Sand simultaneously. I'm not buying it. The simple fact is that a Grass mon is going to be set-up bait for a wide range of things. OK great, you switched in on Specs Politoed's Hydro Pump, have massive bulk and manage to take maybe 35-40%, plus any hazard damage. But nothing keeps Politoed from switching out to any of the following, which all are often found on Rain: Toxicroak, Latios, Jirachi, Ferrothorn, Scizor, Breloom, or Volcarona. Now what?

You wanna talk about a massively specially bulky Grass type that can switch into Specs Toed Hydro Pumps? Virizion. Now where does Virizion exist again? UU. And Virizion has a Special Tankiness of 335.4 (compared to Celebi's 285.7 and Ferrothorn's 245.3), ideal for tanking Specs Rain boosted Hydro Pumps. Beyond that Virizion has an amazing base speed of 108.

What more can really be given to Grass as a Bulky Rain stopper than those 3 that already exist? I just don't see it.

 

[Raikoben]

Grass/Ground

-Viable in both Sunny and Sand Storm
-Neutral to Fire & Water
-With Sunny, there is a chance of not be OHKO'ed by Ice atacks (if had some bulky)
-Increase the Ice type (to reduce dragon) and probably Grass (cause it could be a Sunny Abuser with bulky+Syntesis)

 

[ginganinja]

O.k lets go

Firstly, the average Sun team ususally consists of Ninetales, Venusaur, Dugtrio, and a way to handle hazards, usually a Xatu, but I have also seen pokemon such as Tentacruel, Donphan, Starmie, Espeon and Cloyster. Many sun teams also have a Heatran, which is often a trapper set, designed to trap, and cripple / eliminate Politoed for a sun team to shine.

Sun teams have the following vulnerabilities.

Firstly, Sun teams really dislike Heatran, mostly because it walls most of the key sweeper(s) that a sun team has (Sawsbuck, Venusaur, Victini and Volcarona). Tyranitar, and Terrakion are also frustrating pokemon, due to their ability to switch in and threaten with powerful STAB moves, moves that sun teams often lack proper resists to.

Second, Sun teams really dislike Dragon types. They are strapped for teamslots, which means that they struggle to handle CB Dragonite, CM Latias, and LO Latios for example. Dragon types are the best way to handle Sun teams atm (since most of them don't fear Dugtrio). More on this later.

Vs Rain teams, Sun teams have a slight advantage due to nerfing the power of water moves, as well as them carrying a number of grass pokemon to handle said rain team. This does put sun teams under a little pressure against Tornadus however, since it can snatch momentium with U-Turn, or threaten with Hurricane. Ninetales isn't a great switch when you risk losing momentum, or Hurricane actually hitting, crippling your weather starter. It's also worth noting that many rain abusers also carry Ice Beam, making Venusaur sometimes a dodge switch

Conclusions

Basically, sun teams lack teamslots, and effective defensive pivots. Rain teams have Ferrothorn, Rotom-W, Jirachi etc, while Sand teams usually have access to Rotom=W as well, while having the options of Latias / Latios, and Tyranitar isn't a bad pivot sometimes either. Sun teams also do struggle against certain pokemon as pointed out.

Anyway, with this over and done with its time to actually move onwards to the point im trying to make.

Firstly, I really really dislike a sun CAP, that handles Heatran and / or Dragons. They are the standard ways of handling sun teams, checking the playstyle as it were and I feel that creating a mon that can handle the above pokemon (as well as nerfing rain) risks breaking sun, something that would be nice to avoid. Remember, that Heatran is not seen on rain teams, so quite frankly, im fine if CAP 5 cannot break through it, as far as I am concerned, I want a sun mon that can handle with Rain and Rain only, not a sun mon that attempts to beat Dragons + Heatran + Rain (leaving fuck all to check sun with).

As far as typing goes, resisting water is a big one, which leaves Grass, Dragon or Water. I am opposed to Dragon for the reasons outlined about, and think that Grass and Water are the better options. Ironically enough, I potentially prefer Water since it also resists Ice Attacks, (which most water rain sweepers have) although care would need to be taken to ensure a secondary typing would both hurt Rain teams, as well as discouraging said pokemones usage on a Rain team. A Grass type would be fine, but it again, has to discourage its use on Rain team, and its still vulnerable vs Tornadus and Ice Attacks.

This is potentially poll jumping but I guess an option to bear in mind are abilities such as Water Absorb to absorb water moves, paired with a typing which resists / isn't weak to Ice Attacks (and maybe Flying).

Key resistances / immunities that CAP 5 needs to focus on: Water, Ice, Flying (maybe).
Key typings that hit water super-effectively: Water, Electric

I think focusing on Water, Grass, or Electric are good typings to hit since the 1st 2 resist water while the last 1 hits water for super effective damage while not being water to Ice Attacks, opening up the oppotunity for a water resisting type / ability or whatever.

 

[CiteAndPrune]

So what motivates me is this: we can handle dragons during other CAP stages, but we cannot sponge water attacks at any other stage. Theoretically, we could stop rain-boosted water attacks by adding monstrous special bulk or a Water-type absorbing ability.

I wanted to quote to challenge you on this one, Birkal, as frankly the Water-resistant typings Grass, Water, and Dragon are pidgeon-holing us into giving CAP5 enough bulk to use that resistance throughout the match. And to take on Rain-boosted Keldeo's Hydro Pumps, among others, would require a significant amount of bulk.

I said it during Concept Assessment and I abide by it, that I think Water immunity is the right way to handle Rain and Waters in general. A resistant Pokemon can be eventually worn down, and gets weakened for a coverage move to KO it. A Pokemon with an immunity makes not just Water types but Water attacks in general a liability to use. It also opens up our Typing options considerably, covering Water so we can use many more types to collect the necessary resistances. Better yet, the Immunity alone rather than a Water typing does not suggest it'll be effective under Rain (since a Water Type would have its Water STAB boosted in Rain, while Grass/Dragon's x4 Ice weakness is crippling enough that Ice Beam coverage will, again, require gargantuan defensive stats or plow right through it without Rain sweepers even slowing down).


Well, since Deck Knight allowed selecting a typing with an immunity in mind, I guess I can pause this here and move on to typings that I consider optimal for this job.


Electric/Fire is a good option for the reasons I gave in the last topic, but specifically for its wide array of resistances: x1/2 Bug, Electric, Fire, Flying, Grass, Ice, x1/4 Steel. That's pretty much all the coverage Rain teams usually run, barring Dragon and the odd Fighting or Psychic move. With Fire it can be a sun abuser and with Electric it gets no-miss Thunders under Rain. It doesn't address Dragons outside of getting coverage, but it's not weak to them or Fighters either, at least.

Electric/Ice I'm also a big fan of. Electric for Waters and Ice for Dragons. This typing has an obvious offensive bias because it's much weaker defensively, but again it at least resists Thunders, Ice Beams, and Hurricanes. I could see this working out.

Fire/Ice is also a typing worth considering. It'd take an odd route of being usable on both sun and hail teams probably, but it'd hit Dragons with Ice and hit Steels with Fire (but still get walled by Heatran and need coverage like Solarbeam to address Waters). x4 weakness to Stealth Rock though.

Fire/Ground is the last that I wanted to bring up. While it's true that Grass and Fire seen in isolation have good defensive synergy, Fire doesn't really have members to form a defensive core (barring Heatran). A Fire/Ground type (again, with a Water immunity) would block Hydro Pumps and Thunders, be neutral to Grass, Ice, Dragon, Flying, and Fighting moves, neutral to Rock (and thus, Stealth Rock). With other defensive properties it could trap or shuffle or plain wall various other threats that Sun teams currently can't handle outside of taking offensive measures like revenge-killing. If we'd want to incorporate hazard control, then a defensive Fire/Ground type is in my opinion the best choice for a spinner.


I'm not sold on the Dark type capefeather brought up, but I'd prefer it to many other choices.

 

[Birkal]

I'm going to bed very soon, but I wanted to make a quick post here. We've had an incredibly engaging conversation in #cap for about the past two hours, and I wanted to post a bit of what we gleaned there in this thread.

We talked a lot about waters versus dragons, and didn't make a lot of headway. Yes, both types threaten sun. In general, many sun teams gear themselves in either one direction: they either handle dragons or go for trapping toed and ensuring sun. The ultimate problem of sun is that it lacks team slots. In order to function well, you need to run Ninetales / Venusaur / Spinner / Trapper / Slot / Slot, where the last two show some semblance of a defensive pivot. So what would be the most beneficial thing we could give sun? Giving it more team slots would ultimately give it the flexibility to incorporate more Pokemon. If CAP 5 was able to trap (this doesn't need to be an ability!), keep Stealth Rock away, and serve as a reasonable defensive pivot, then sun has around three slots open to utilize to bring down Water-types and Dragon-types.

Many sun teams have to utilize Venusaur as a check to bring down rain teams; unfortunately for them, Venusaur is also their premiere sweeper. If it dies, then the team loses a key element to its offense. If we can harness that same idea of checking rain teams in a pinch, that saves sun teams yet another team slot. I'm not saying replace Venusaur, but distribute some of its role to CAP 5 to give Sun more options.

Sure, we can scurry around here and try to counter a few specific Pokemon with CAP 5. The thing is, those Pokemon already exist. We already have counters for the Latis and Politoed. If we want to threaten dragons and water, we need to make sun better (I thought that was the entire point of choosing sun mon). So working to consolidate some of those necessary roles on a sun team is the biggest buff we could give to a sun team. jas61292 has made clear that we shouldn't try to do everything with one single Pokemon. I agree with that, and I don't think I'm asking for that much here. All I'm saying is that we should have a) a way to come in on a few common threats to sun, b) a way to deter/remove stealth rock, and c) a way to trap other weather starters. In doing so, we've effectively given sun teams four slots to do what they please with.


Now, in order to do point a) that I listed above, we should focus on a few Pokemon here that sun teams would like to have some solid switch ins. The reason I support Water-resistant types is because we can't really have a Dragon-resistant type without it being Steel (ugh). I don't care if dragons or waters are more threatening to sun. What sun needs it a Pokemon that can start filling in some of the roles of its team. By proving a water resist, we free Venusaur up to perform its role as a Chlorophyll sweeper, and therefore more team slots are availabe. So yes, let's try to push for something here that frees up some space.

The type I'm going to push for now is Electric / Grass. It has that solid water resist that Sun teams can rely upon, but also some other useful tricks. Notably, it provides Electric STAB for Sun teams, which is basically unheard of outside of Zapdos and Thundurus-T (which I don't think many would consider sun staples). In fact, it hosts STABs that force out all three big weather starters. I also like Electric / Grass because it's not blatant about trying to do it all. It doesn't fare well against dragons or all rain threats, which leaves us for some other things to tackle down the road. Finally, it doesn't really offer much on rain teams on its own. Plenty of other Pokemon outclass it, notably Ferrothorn which can set hazards and has an incredible typing. We can certainly gear CAP 5 with this typing to be outclassed on rain teams, yet preferred on sun teams.

 

[Yllnath]

I love Ginganinja's post and it got me thinking about defensive pivots, something that sun team severely lack. Something that can take a water attack or ice attack with relative ease, threaten out with coverage and pivot back to your Ninetales or other sun sweeper.
As a lot of sun team members are SR weak, regardless of the ability to spin, being at the very least neutral to SR seems rather important for this pivot.

I feel that the best way to deal with water is through a water immunity. This leaves more regular coverage attacks to be dealt with. For example, Ice Beams and Hurricanes that hurt our grass type pokemon, and in general, strong Thunder spammage. Electric/Steel typing +water immunity for our defensive pivot gives some solid switch-in opportunities against rain team, soaking up a lot of regular attacks from rain teams that would otherwise mess with the more default sun-team line-ups. Electric on it's own has a major benefit of threatening water types regardless because of powerful STAB Electric attacks.
Steel also helps taking attacks from Dragons, including the Lati twins, whom both STABs are walled by the single typing.

Not being able to deal with Heatran may be a good thing. We're already talking about a typing that could be used to shut-down both Rain and tank dragon attacks. Sun teams already carry around Dugtrio to deal with Heatran, so they already have a somewhat decent solution to him. Like Ginganinja is saying. We need to improve sun, not break it.

I feel Electric/Steel goes a long way to help the current sun team members to be all they can be.

Edit: Just read Birkal's post and he talks about a lot I think is important for this CAP, and expresses it far better. Although I prefer Electric/Steel as a defensive pivot, Electric/Grass is surely my runner up, although the increased Ice weakness means your pivot ability against rain teams is a lot less solid. Water pokemon are famous after all, for almost all of them having access to Ice Beam. (Which might just see more usage on moveslots if one of the main defensive core pokemon of sun teams is weak to it.)

 

[ShyGuy1221]

I would like to suggest Grass/Electric.

Resistances: Water, Grass, Steel, x2 Electric
Weaknesses: Fire, Ice, Poison, Bug

The resistance to water allows it to switch in on rain boosted water type attacks, and it's dual STABs means it can threaten every OU water type. As it is neutral to flying it also does not have to worry too much about hurricanes from Tornadus and can even threaten it with STAB electric attacks. Being rock and ground neutral, as well as having grass STAB, it has the potential to check many sand threats, further helping sun as a whole.

It is important to not that, when deciding on this type, I envisioned a bulky tank to act as a pivot against rain, particularly water types, and to provide general support to sun teams. It is meant to bring rain and sand down a few pegs by forcing switches and checking their weather starters so it's teammates can bring out the sun and abuse it without worrying as much about other weathers.

Pwnemon summed up sun's weaknesses earlier,

• Weak to hazards, especially Stealth Rock, and lack a good spinner
• Main attacking types are walled by Dragons and Heatran
• Weak to Sand and Rain if Ninetales cannot switch in
• Lacks solid defensive backbone; virtually forced to play offense at all times.

If built defensively, a Grass/Electric type can help answer the last two problems. If we decide to later, we may also address hazards so it may further support it's teammates. It may not resist rocks, but then again, neither do Starmie or Tentacruel.

This leads to the last weakness sun has, Dragons and Heatran. You may have notice by now that a Grass/Electric typing has no real way to deal with these threats. As ginganinja stated, if we were to address Heatran and Dragons as well as the other weathers, sun could run the risk of becoming broken. We do not need to check everything with one pokemon. I vote we focus on opposing weather.

The weakness to ice could be problematic as many water types carry ice coverage, however, if given enough bulk, CaP5 can take the un-STABed ice attacks and threaten with its own STABs.

Grass/Electric also has access to many moves and abilities that can help support it's team are function better in sun. Grass pokemon in general have tons of moves and abilities that work well under sun, as well as many supportive moves. Electric adds the possibility of Volt-Switch and Thunder Wave to scout and paralyze more reliably that Stun Spore.

I'm rambling now, and borderline poll jumping, so I'm just gonna end with this...

TL/DR - Grass/Electric, look into it.

Edit: Ninja'd
Editx2: Throwing support behind Dark/Electric as well. Lot of good points have been made for that.

 

[ganj4lF]

As someone already pointed out, the ability selection is closely related to our typing choices; we absolutely want a pokemon who is resistant to Water for obvious reasons, and if we don't select something like Water Absorb or Storm Drain, our choices are much more limited. However I don't think I'm allowed to discuss this point much, since it would be poll-jumping, but just keep in mind we also have that option.

Let's assume for a moment that Water Absorb & co don't exist. Then our type choices are limited to Grass-X, Water-X, and Dragon-X. I'd exclude the latter first, since it would actually promote the usage of Dragon types (let's be honest, do we want to create a CAP faster than Lati@s and able to OHKO them? I don't think so) while bringing an Ice weakness that limit us even more in the choice of the secondary typing (that's why I don't like Grass/Dragon: 4x Ice Weakness means having huge troubles switching into anything that have a remote probability to carry Ice Beam / HP Ice). Now, for Water-X, I think we would just redo a version of Rotom-W pursuing this route. Yeah, maybe with a better movepool, more offensive stats, whatever. The point is, Rain teams already have the tools to get rid of such annoyance even in Sun (unless you carry HP Fire, Ferrothorn walls you all day and set up on you, and if you give it a STAB SE on Ferro you're either crippling yourself with SR or risking to redo Virizion while also being walled hard by Dragons). So the Grass type looks the best choice here. Sun teams are already carrying Venusaur, which is however used both as a sweeper and as a Sun check. Giving a more pivot-oriented pokemon that can take Water attacks and hit back hard is obviously a good thing.

For the secondary typing, I'm a big fan of Electric. While a Grass / Electric pokemon is already available, it lacks the movepool and the stats to pull off its role effectively, and to cover its weaknesses adequately. Bringing a pokemon which works well in Sun, can take off a good portion of pressure in sponging Water attacks from Venusaur, and hitting back SE with both STABs while being able to (possibly) build momentum via Volt Switch is great. Furthermore, we can make it in a way that it's not attractive for Water teams, and they would already be reclutant to give up Ferrothorn or invest two teamslots in Grass types while Sun would have gained a good pokemon to boot. Electric is also almost non-existant in Sun teams, since the two main users of this STAB in ou are either crippled by Sun (Rotom) or by SR (Thundurus), so that would add some variety which cannot hurt at all. This typing also has some notables neutralities, for example Ground and Flyingwhich usually cripple quite hard Grass types and Electric types. So, if our idea is to avoid Water immunities, this is my favourite way to go: Electric / Grass.

However, if we do want to consider the aforementioned abilities, I'm a big fan of capefeather's proposal of Electric / Dark. It would be neutral to Ice and could threaten Latis with its STAB while not being incredibly overpowering (Heatran and non-Psychic Dragons still wall it somewhat). Electric / Ice would be nice too, except that stupid SR weakness that just prevents it to perform well in a Sun team. Overall, this way gives us much more freedom in selecting types (to be honest anything that is part Electric type and not weak to SR has some merit to my eyes) but restrain us while selecting abilities, and is much more risky since it basically assume something in the future, so...

Overall, my favourite type remains Grass / Electric, but I could change opinion for something else with the Electric type if some convincing argument is provided.

(lol, while previewing this I noticed that Birkal basically ninjaed me saying very similar things, I'm glad that I'm agreeing with you guys on IRC)
((yeah, I was ninjaed by much more people, whatever...))

 

[B.Reinquist]

I think Grass/Electric is a fairly good combo, able to deal handily with Water and some other threats, although I don't think it hits the top types particularly much. I absolutely agree with Electric, but as for secondary typing I would rather something like Ghost, so act as a Fighting check and a Spin blocker. With Ghost and Electric, Water and Fighting become far less threatening.

I do like the idea of a few others, but the problem with the ones I like have a coupled typing of Electric with either Water, Dragon, Fighting or Steel. I really don't see the point of trying to make popular types less used, by adding another popular type. Seems...counter-intuitive at best.

I'm going to suggest Ghost/Electric, but also throw support behind Grass/Electric.

 

[KingNeedlesThe1st]

Going to take my submission in a completely different direction than the others so far:

Steel/Flying

I know that we already have a Steel/Flying type, but Skarmory has an extremely specific niche and isn't even found on sun teams anyway! Steel/Flying is a typing with interesting potential. A Pokemon with such typing can already switch in for free on Tyranitar and Hippowdon as well as checking Tornadus. It is also a typing well suited to switching into Mamoswine (a Pokemon that tends to give sun teams trouble). How will Steel/Flying diminish the use of common types?

Steel/Flying is uniquely suited to defeating most Dragon-types because it is immune to Ground-type attacks, a common coverage move for most Dragon-type attackers. It can diminish the use of Steel-types as Steel/Flying switches into most Steel-types in OU and sets up on them -- a Pokemon with the ability to set up something and Steel/Flying typing can make Scizor a liability when the CAP could threaten to come in and set something up on an errant Bullet Punch. Steel/Flying also has the STAB to hit all OU Fighting-types super effectively bar Lucario. Finally, while not resistant to Water-type attacks, a Steel/Flying Pokemon checks Tornadus (and possibly Toxicroak), rain staples, very well.

Steel/Flying is also unlikely to turn around and benefit rain teams against sun as Drought exacerbates its weakness to Fire-type attacks, and with the right tuning in stats it can be made to lose to most Chlorophyll abusers.

There's a reason you don't see Skarmory on sun teams. Most dragon types tend to carry Fire-type coverage moves that obliterate Steel/Flying, as well as Electric-type coverage on Rain-based teams. You'd have to have ungodly Special Defense to even think about surviving these attacks.

 

[erisia]

I think that the Electric type is a pretty good starting point for CAP5. Firstly, it threatens almost all Water-types directly with its STAB attacks, whereas the popular Tentacruel and (to an extent) Gyarados can easily take Grass-type attacks and gain momentum in their various ways. Gastrodon is fodder for a lot of other Sun-mons, while Rotom-W can't really hit mono Electric very well at all in Sunlight, especially if we give it good special bulk or a Water-immunity ability. It also has an inherent lack of weaknesses for Rain teams to abuse, as Ground-type coverage generally isn't very popular on them. Electric typing also blocks Thundurus-T's and Tornadus-I's STAB attacks, which is something that hasn't really been considered that much. This means it'd be pretty reliable as an anti-Water-type and anti-Rain Pokemon, whereas a similar Grass-type would have that weakness to Ice Beam to contend with.

It would also promote the use of Ground-type Pokemon, especially if we make it bulky enough to take non-STAB Earthquakes and survive. While Ground-type Pokemon aren't exactly uncommon, they generally fall in middling to low usage, especially on Rain-teams, so the shift caused by a potent Electric Sun-mon would be quite interesting.

Ground-type Usage

| 14 | Garchomp | 11.30204% |
| 18 | Gliscor | 9.85896% |
| 22 | Landorus-Therian | 8.67255% |
| 26 | Mamoswine | 7.95481% |
| 33 | Landorus | 6.93382% |
| 36 | Donphan | 6.39731% |
| 48 | Gastrodon | 4.48809% |
| 50 | Hippowdon | 4.27449% |
| 51 | Dugtrio | 4.26136% |

While this looks like a pretty big list, and while Dragon-types aren't directly threatened by Electric-typing, movepool and stat choices can give a number of Dragon-type Pokemon (and a few Ground-types) poor matchups against CAP5, so these issues can be resolved later. Notably, if CAP5 has a decent Special Attack stat, the almost certain presence of Hidden Power Ice on its movesets would significantly affect what Ground- and Dragon-types could and couldn't check or counter it, the extent of which can be controlled during the stat polls. Furthermore, if there's concerns that an Electric CAP5 wouldn't have enough reason to be run on Sun-teams, this can easily be rectified by a (carefully selected) secondary typing, movepool, or ability choices. We don't have to give this thing Thunder, for instance.

Overall, I think that providing CAP5 with Electric typing would be a good starting point, providing an offensive tool for Sun-teams to use against Rain teams while not opening up weaknesses to common coverage moves. If we decide to give CAP5 a secondary typing (we aren't being forced to!), then I'd suggest that it doesn't have a lot of exploitable weaknesses to common moves found on Rain teams. Thus, I think Ghost, Fighting, Dark, and Psychic, would be the best choices in that order, all having specific, unusual weaknesses that would need to be exploited to OHKO CAP5 if we make it suitably bulky, while each providing intrinsic advantages such as Rapid Spin immunity, Stealth Rock resistance, great coverage vs Lati@s, etc. This would help to encourage the use of lesser used types such as Dark and Ghost, if STAB was necessary for their low base-power moves to OHKO CAP5. Water secondary typing would be interesting and provides a Water-resistance while only adding a Grass-type weakness, but we'd be heavily in danger of making something that is both usable on Rain teams and promotes Water-types in general. It'd be a very risky path to take, so I'd recommend not going with Water typing, personally.

tl;dr, Electric would be good mono-typing, Ghost/Electric would be good for dual-typing, based on previous arguments.

I also think that having a Water-immunity ability is the way to go, as it would definitely make Water-types a liability with more certainty than any typing choice ever could, but this is poll-jumping so I'll drop it for now.

 

[Haradion]

Fire/Ice To me sounds good. It is unique for a start and would just be fun to work with on principle. It kills dragons, Steels and resists water.
Remember not everything is in the typing. A lot of weaknesses can be nullified just by giving it bolt/beam.

The glaring weakness though:
X4 Stealth Rock.

Perhaps this can be offset by an ability that removes hazards? An auto rapid spin? Immunity to Hazards?

Please think about this.

 

[Lord Jesseus]

Fire/Ice To me sounds good. It is unique for a start and would just be fun to work with on principle. It kills dragons, Steels and resists water.

no, it's actually weak to water...

 

[Stratos]

I'm not getting the Electric type fetish here. So far the arguments i've seen for it are: 1) It counters tornadus. Well whoopidyfuckin do. If you switch in ninetales, tornadus has a 50% accurate hurricane. I don't think we need to worry about him. 2) It bolsters ground-type usage. Because sun teams need another ground weak.

In particular, I've seen a lot of support for Elec/Grass, which has different qualifications than just electric. 1) It provides sun with a good Electric-type STAB. Along with the countering tornadus, this is something that sounds nice until you realize that sun doesn't /need/ electric STAB. Electric is mostly used to take care of Waters (which grass already gets) and Flyers (which is Tornadus, which I've addressed above). 2) Its STABs force out Politoed and Tyranitar? You mean grass forces out politoed and tyranitar, and electric doesn't do shit-all. 3) Poll-jumping. Special bulk, hidden power ice, and volt switch are all arguments i've seen for electric, as if we can't do this with other types?

I'm not saying electric is actively bad for this CAP. I'm saying it is so overwhelmingly "meh;" it does absolutely nothing for Sun, really, and I think we can do better.


And by better, I mean Water/Fighting

Why use water-fighting?

• it serves as a great pivot against Tyranitar and Politoed, switching in on any likely attack and being able to threaten them, then go out to Ninetales.
• it won't be used on Rain. Sun teams need help with: Water, Rock, Heatran attacks, which water/fight resists. Rain teams need help with: flying, electric, grass attacks: which water/fight is useless for.
• a resistance to Stealth Rock, so we can help sun teams deal with their hazard weakness.
• it doesn't break sun. It provides a secondary counter for Heatran, but does nothing to curb Dragons. And since it's virtually useless in mirror matches with other sun teams, it actually is a self-regulating presence; sun teams may need it to be very successful, but too much sun and he becomes worse at his job, so the ladder will be balanced, not recentralized.
• if the weather isn't going sun's way, Water and Fighting are two very useful STAB types, so it's not sunk if you lose the weather war.

edit: specsx has expressed concern over irc that i'm advocating using two of the "big four"; and that this Pokemon will be used on Rain teams.

In response to the first, remember what reach said in the concept assessment: this isn't about an every game, this is five, ten, twenty games. If we increase the usage of one water/fighting type but decrease the prominence of rain, thus decreasing the usage of a lot of types, overall water will go down. Furthermore, the concept isn't "beat water dragon fighting over the head and leave them for dead in a dark alley fuck yeah ice types," it's type EQUALIZER. Give everything a fair shot. Not recentralize the meta around sun.

In response to the second, another water/fight has not much to lend to rain. In the way of sweeping, i would certainly hope that we can restrain ourselves from making a better sweeper than Keldeo, and defensively, water/fighting doesn't offer much. Redundant typing would stop this from being used on rain teams—an inability to switch in on ferrothorn, tornadus, thundurus, or rotom-w (four things sun doesn't care about) would also not help. In general, water/fighting is specialized to target the areas that Sun has trouble with and suck against the pokemon Sun can already beat which Rain has trouble with.

 

[iamdanielcruces]

Water / Fighting is a good combination, but the first mon that comes to mind is Keldeo, which is one of the perfect Rain abusers at the moment.

Regarding the lack of team slots in a Sun team, most of the roles are defined at a later stage of the CAP (spinner, trapper). Actually, save for Magnezone, trappers have poor typings, and that doesn't stop them from doing their job.

 

[PureQuestion]

If you switch in ninetales, tornadus has a 50% accurate hurricane.

252 SpA Life Orb Tornadus Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ninetales: 250-294 (71.42 - 84%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

That right there is a 50% chance that your Ninetails is not doing too great.

 

[dirtyrat]

Hey all, I've been lurking/reading CAP since CAP 4, and am newish to the OU battle scene. First forum post now too. That being said, I'd like to contribute constructively.
-Wouldn't Electric/Grass also have some abuse potential on a rain team? Sure, it can help out sun, but the simplicity of giving it thunder and spamming it on a rain team is probably very appealing...
-Personally, I support Ice/Fighting. Out of the 4 weathers, it seems like sun could counter that mon the best(fire moves), where it's rock neutral and can do some heavy damage on sand teams(ground types?). Using a good ice/fighting could also let us offensively take care of Heatran and Dragons. In addition, if we make this mon relatively powerful on both sides of the offensive spectrum, speedy, and even a bit specially bulky, we could simultaneously be offensive, and not be mauled by rain or the Latis so easily. Also, this is Stealth Rock neutral right? I'm really liking Ice/Fighting.

 

[erisia]

After some discussion on IRC, I've decided to revise my position a little. If our primary aim is to boost Fire-types and nerf Water-types through the increased popularity of Sun teams, then we need to make Sun-teams able to contend with Rain (and Sand) teams on a more even footing. This isn't a matter of making another sweeper (Sun already has fantastic sweepers such as Venusaur, Volcarona, and Infernape while Sunlight is up), but in compensating for the general weaknesses of Sun teams.

• Politoed >> Ninetales.
• So many slots on a Sun team are dedicated to support niches.
• Lack of defense.

I think a good way for CAP5 to promote Sun teams would be to fill these support niches, such as spinning/hazard blocking, entry hazards, trapping Politoed, and providing a defensive backbone/pivot for Sun teams to fall back on. By filling a load of niches and performing these roles well, you could free up a slot on your Sun team (eg, you wouldn't need Dugtrio and Xatu / Espeon / Donphan / Spinner, as CAP5 would fill both niches) and thus use either an extra Fire-type sweeper or something to deal with Sun's other issues, like Dragon types or Heatran (Mamoswine!)

The question for this thread, however, is how CAP's typing would help it out in this case. Bearing in mind that the aim of this CAP is to change type popularity, I think that Ghost typing would be a great choice. Firstly, it lacks exploitable weaknesses for Rain teams to abuse, meaning if you've got the Sunlight going, Rain teams are going to have a hard time breaking through CAP5 if it has sufficient bulk. This means that it will find opportunities for filling support niches, such as Rapid Spinning hazards away, providing hazards, maybe even using Sunny Day to relieve some pressure from Ninetales. Secondly, it would promote the use of STAB Ghost / Dark attacks to break through it; bearing in mind that the only OU candidates for both types are Tyranitar, Hydreigon, Gengar, and Jellicent, this would promote underused types and bring them to the forefront. Having a bulky Ghost would make Dark Pulse Hydreigon, Scrafty, Sharpedo, and even Zoroark more popular choices.

As for trapping Politoed, I don't see how this can be done outside of moves/abilities, so that's not really a matter for typing discussion. Ghost typing certainly doesn't hinder these, however, and we can make flavour clones of trapping moves like Magma Storm if necessary.

Without being weak to common coverage moves used by Rain teams, provided that we make the correct choices in subsequent stages, we can create a powerful support Pokemon that Sun Teams would love to use to free up teamslots and thus allow Sun Teams to deal with more threats in general. Rain teams already have the best spinners in the tier (Starmie and Tentacruel) to abuse, and Ferrothorn provides them with hazards, so CAP5 wouldn't boost Rain by anywhere near as much. Sand teams also have Forretress and Ferrothorn to provide hazards, spin, and beat physical Dragons, so again, they wouldn't benefit as much from CAP5 as Sun would. Hail would probably see a lot of benefit to CAP5, but if we're aiming to reshuffle type popularity, that's not exactly a bad thing.

So overall, Ghost sounds like a good way to go with this. Again, if a dual-typing was to be used, it should interfere with CAP5's weaknesses as little as possible, making Ghost/Electric and Ghost/Poison other good candidates. Ghost/Electric jumps out at me because its secondary STAB threatens Water-types so much, so overall, I'm going to go with Ghost/Electric as my preferred choice. The reasoning for Electric-typing is in my previous post. I appreciate this post might be a little poll-jumpy, but frankly, to discuss ways of filling Sun-niches, it's slightly necessary.

 

[Bughouse]

Here's why Dark/Electric needs to be the chosen type:

The goal is to wear down Politoed faster than Ninetales can be worn down. How do Sand teams/HO teams often do this nowadays? Band TTar, whose pursuit obliterates offensive Politoed.

This CAP needs to offer similar support to Sun teams. Therefore something with a strong Pursuit (maybe even comparable to TTar's, we'll see when we get to Stats/movepool) is a huge plus. STAB practically is required to acheive that, since Pursuit is pathetically weak otherwise. The simple problem is that Dugtrio/Wobbuffet/Gothitelle are pretty unsatisfactory when it comes to trapping Politoed. An ability alone is not going to cut it.

With Dark/Electric, we can threaten Politoed with STAB super effective moves, potentially STAB Volt Switch if facing Defensive Politoed on a switch to gain Momentum (reinstate Sun most likely), potentially STAB Pursuit against Offensive Politoed to do solid damage. On top of that, if we do decide to give a water absorbing ability, Choice Politoed will be basically auto-pursuited if they take something out with a Hydro Pump.

The key is weather control first, and hazard control second. And an Electric CAP is ideal for hazard control against a Rain team as Tentacruel and Starmie are both weak to Electric moves. Ferrothorn remains problematic, but then... it always is.

 

[Clankenator007]

I'd like to second the Dragon/Steel typing that Deck Knight proposed. It resists the main spamming types of rain teams, Water and Electric, without benefiting from rain by having STABs boosted or weaknesses eliminated.

How it deals with Dragons is mostly up to its stats but at least it isn't weak to Dragon and can fire back its own Dragon STAB super effectively. Opposing Dragon-types would have to resort to Fighting and Ground coverage moves to hit super-effectively, which are both very common immunities in OU.

As for sun teams, this typing is not outright weak to them but unless it has epic bulk it won't be able to stand up to powerful Sun-boosted fire stabs from the likes of Volcorona. Serving on sun-teams, it does add another ground weakness common to Sun-team pokemon, but it adds a Water resist and a SR resist, which are both very valuable to a Sun-team.

For these reasons I see Dragon/Steel as the best type for this concept, seconded by Water/Steel and Dragon/Grass both for similar reasons.

 

[jas61292]

We talked a lot about waters versus dragons, and didn't make a lot of headway. Yes, both types threaten sun. In general, many sun teams gear themselves in either one direction: they either handle dragons or go for trapping toed and ensuring sun. The ultimate problem of sun is that it lacks team slots. In order to function well, you need to run Ninetales / Venusaur / Spinner / Trapper / Slot / Slot, where the last two show some semblance of a defensive pivot. So what would be the most beneficial thing we could give sun? Giving it more team slots would ultimately give it the flexibility to incorporate more Pokemon.

While I still don't fully agree with all of the specifics Birkal has brought up about typings, the point above is something that I think is incredibly important. We have really shifted too much away from focusing on what sun actually needs, and have been looking too much at weakening the opposition rather than helping the playstyle we want to help. We won't help sun by trying to counter water. We won't help sun by trying to counter dragons. Pokemon that do these things already exist. The problem with sun is the lack of team slots available for these Pokemon, not the fact that these Pokemon are nonexistent. The biggest problem sun has is not that it can't deal with water or dragon. It can, certainly. The problem is that sun has so many roles that are necessary that it often cannot afford to carry the Pokemon needed to do so. As I have said multiple times, we don't want to simply make a better sun setter or sun abuser. Replacing existant roles might improve sun, but it won't fix the critical problems it has. Rather, the best way to improve sun as a playstyle would be to take the rest of the core they like to run, the Dugtrio, Donphan, Xatu, etc, and find a way to do 2 or more of these roles with a single teamslot. We don't need to make a better version of them, simply one that can do more that one thing.

With that said, I still don't believe any sort of water resistance is needed like so many people seem to be insisting. There is nothing wrong with having one, but it is not a necessary part of the job. But what exactly is necessary is not really clear. I believe that if we are to improve sun, then it is the role it takes that is far more important than what typing it is. Do sun teams run Dugtrio + Donphan because they need multiple ground types? No way. They do it because they fill necessary roles for the team. In this light, I honeslty don't believe typing is nearly that important in comparison to the other things that will go into this Pokemon.

My biggest concern right now is simply that we will try and do to much with a single team slot. We do want to consolidate the roles sun teams already use, but you only need to free up a single slot to drastically improve sun. I don't see a problem with trying to possibly do two roles and something else minor, but I am deeply worried that we will try and take on too much, and either be unable to handle it, or make a Pokemon that is too powerful in the process.

All I'm saying is that we should have a) a way to come in on a few common threats to sun, b) a way to deter/remove stealth rock, and c) a way to trap other weather starters.

Suggestions like this may seem harmless enough, but it is essentially trying to take on the role of 3 very different Pokemon at once. Add on the fact that Birkal was essentially asking it to be an answer to rain as well, and we would be trying to fill waaay too many roles at once, and big roles at that.

All that said, I will agree with a lot of people here that I think Electric type is a good choice for this Pokemon. While I do not value the ability to wall water, the ability to threaten back is always a benifit. Currently, the Pokemon filling many of the roles on sun teams outside of the sun abusing sweepers lack the ability to do much back to water. A Pokemon that does not so easily draw in the opposition that sun already fears would be much more suited to filling the necessary roles. As for other typings, well, I am not so sure any one is needed, but if we do want one, I like the suggestions of Electric/Dark and Electric/Grass. While I feel the reasoning that many people have brought up in favor of these typings is based on a misplaced sense of needing to take on new roles rather than fill existing ones, the utility they provide in detering certain opposition can help us be more free to do the jobs we need to.

 

[Korski]

Okay it's no secret to anyone of IRC that I think we have a strong chance at making a Grass/Dragon work for us here. There is already support for the Grass half of this typing, so I'll try and focus on the pros of the controversial Dragon side. First, looking at the typing as a whole, here's the breakdown of defensive type interactions:

4x: Ice
2x: Bug, Dragon, Flying, Poison
1x: Dark, Fire, Fighting, Ghost, Normal, Psychic, Rock, Steel
1/2x: Ground
1/4x: Electric, Grass, Water

Who needs a Water immunity? Putting aside the poll-jumping arguments for some Water-weak typings, Grass/Dragon naturally takes a pittance from Rain-boosted Hydro Pumps and Scalds, giving it an easy switch into the most abusable move in the metagame (and it's probably the main type we're trying to diminish for this concept). One major problem Drought teams have is keeping Sun up vs. Drizzle teams or getting Sun back up once Rainmons start throwing around Hydro Pumps. That said, it doesn't get much better for Drought teams than having a teammate that can switch into Water attacks in the Rain. Even better, its Grass STAB forces the Water-types out, and its dual STABs encourage Steel-types to switch in. If you're still following me here, the Grass/Dragon typing makes CAP a great pivot for putting Sun back up against Rain teams (almost all Steel-types give Ninetales an easy switch-in, especially those on Rain teams, to be more clear).

The 4x Electric resist couples well with the Water resist, making CAP a full-stop to Rotom-W. It takes Thunders better than anything bar Ground-types and further neuters the efficacy of Thunder-spamming Rainmons like Thundurus-T and Jolteon (the two of which have exploitably weak HP-Ices) and annoying Volt Switchers. Needless to say, this will benefit Sun teams all the more by taking pressure off Ninetales to diminish Thunder's accuracy or Venusaur to tank just about everything (when it's supposed to be sweeping). The Grass resist is useful against Celebi's Leaf Storm and sporadic Grass attacks, although the Leech Seed immunity is probably the preferred niche, for battling Ferrothorn.

The Ground resist is also awesome for Sun teams, who have almost nothing to work with towards this end. Fire-types (even Volcarona), Steels, and Venusaur hate dealing with Earthquakes or Landorus formes or Earth Power Heatrans, and this typing takes the pressure off of Xatu or BalloonTran or whatever to absorb those blows. And again, much like with the Water moves, we won't need to resort to an immunity ability patch up a major hole we didn't address with the typing.

Now, the most important weakness is to Ice, and yes, a number of Water-types typically carry Ice coverage, like Politoed, Starmie, and Keldeo, so they can predict a switch and most likely OHKO, thanks to the 4x weakness. However, this is nothing new to competitive Pokemon, to the OU tier, or to CAP. To say that Grass/Dragon will fail against anything with HP-Ice or Ice Beam is to ignore typical battle conditions at best, and to completely ignore the presence of Dragonite, Salamence, Garchomp, Gliscor, and both Landorus formes at worst. The Ice weakness will be a balancing effect, to be sure, but I contend that giving something like Mamoswine a bigger niche in OU would be a good thing. Weak HP-Ices/Ice Shards and non-STAB Ice Beams will make for easy switch-ins for Sun's Fires and Steels, and honestly a whole host of things, which is why those aforementioned Pokemon still manage to be dominant in OU.

Dragon is the next most significant weakness, and without polljumping it is another balancing point for this CAP. The best it can do for Drought's Dragon weakness is discourage opposing Dragons from switching in, which is something we can address with stats. All-in-all, the Dragon typing helps the concept about as much as it hurts it in this regard. Now, the optics of the Dragon typing can be concerning with a cursory glance of the concept; that is an unfortunately reasonable assertion. I know we can explain it away in an equally reasonable way, but I won't do that in this post. Suffice it to say that it's something to weigh against the pros (I still think the pros outweigh the cons, obvoiusly).

Finally, Bug, Flying, and Poison weaknesses are all neat because, with the exception of U-turn, they all come only from STAB users, so being weak to those types is directly related to those typings being more highly valued. Fortunately, U-turn is rarely a powerful move, but unfortunately the addition to the Dragon/Steel carousel has a good chance of limiting CAP's switch-in potential. Something to consider.

Offensively, Grass/Dragon alone hits Waters and Dragons amongst our targeted types. Grass also hits Terrakion and Keldeo, while HP-Fire, especially in the Sun, will roast Lucario and Breloom (Breloom won't like Dragon attacks anyway), taking out every dominant Fighting-type in the tier. Supporting Sun also makes life harder for Steel-types, and HP-Fire could help out just as much there. So, in the end, we will likely have a realistic path towards SE moves/strategies for OU's Water, Dragon, Fighting, and Steel-types, (mostly) without resembling polljumping, with our typing and concept direction alone! For Sun teams, this is perfect: a Dragon check / Water neutralizer offensively and an anti-Rain pivot defensively. This is without even touching abilities or movepool, so I think it's a really, really good start here.

So, Grass/Dragon is worth a closer look. We can get a lot out of it and put it right where we want to in the metagame.

 

[reachzero]

I cannot disagree more strongly with Birkal on this subject. This step of the process is the only step where we could completely neuter CAP5's ability to deal with Dragons; if we give it the wrong typing, it will be guaranteed to be unable to switch in, and it will be extremely difficult to find a way to actually kill those Dragons. Specifically, I would say that Dragon itself is a terrible typing to consider, totally destroying the whole point. Grass is at least viable, since not every Dragon carries a Fire attack, especially our prime targets, the Lati@s twins. Sun teams can run many different ways of dealing with Waters (Venusaur, Dragons of their own), but SubCM or CM Refresh Latias are practically impossible for a Sun team to actually kill. Heatran just won't cut it. Luckily, most of the non-Lati@s Dragon Pokemon are slow(er) and can be handled as much with movepool as which typing, but in terms of beat the Lati@s twins and taking most moves used by Dragons neutrally, there is nothing that does it as well as Dark does. The other combination that does well, accounting for a few more possibilities such as Superpower on Dragonite or Haxorus or Focus Blast on Hydreigon, would be Dark/Ghost. Barring a Steel type, we are not going to resist Dragon, so neutrality to all moves carried by Dragons is an asset, and no other type destroys the Latis as effetively as Dark does.