CAP 32 - Part 3 - Concept Assessment 2

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spoo

spoo

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With the knowledge that we're a Fire/Fairy Pokemon with average stats, it's now time to reassess our concept as established by this post.

D2TheW said:
Name: Bang Average

Description: This pokemon will attempt to circumvent average or below average stats to become viable.

Justification: Ou has always shown a massive preference towards mons with great statlines and high base stats, but there have always been exceptions to this rule. However in Cap we have always exclusively made mons with good to great stats, meaning we have left a lot of interesting design space untouched. There's a variety of ways we could go about a concept like this and I think this would be an illuminating and interesting project for us to engage with.

Questions:
What actually counts as average stats?
This will likely be up for some debate, as this is somewhat relative. 85 speed is a perfectly good speed stat on fini, but if zera had 85 speed it'd probably be in ru. As for bst, the lowest bst of ou ranked mons at the conclusion of ss (sv is a bit young to draw conclusions from) is Pelipper at 440, with Clefable in 2nd with 483. Both of these are undeniably average but 3rd lowest is Ferrothorn at 489, whose statline could definitely be seen as above average. It'd be pretty hard to deny that Toxapex has a better statline than Alolatales, despite the 10 point bst difference being in the fox's favour. Particular attention will have to be paid to how the stats synergise, rather than a flat interest in BST

How much stat efficiency is permissable?
To return to the above example part of what gives Ferro and Pex above average stats is the efficiency with which their bst is divided, with speed and various attacking stats being dropped in favour of juicing up defenses. Conversely, to use a lower tier example, Cobalion has a bst 91 points higher than ferro, but that bst is inefficiently distributed giving Cob mediocre attacking stats and good bulk on only one side. Despite it's high bst, Coba has pretty average stats. Obviously some degree of efficiency will be necessary but to what extent. Breloom has a frankly awful statline with the exception of it's attack, finding use through it's unique combination of other strong attributes. Is one stat pushing 130 fundamentally antithetical to the concept or is it permissable if all other stats take hits? Where do we draw that line?

Do we actually do stats first?
This is obviously a very stat centric concept, but there's good reasons that stats are usually done so late in the process. It'd certainly be a shake up to the process but you could probably still achieve a similar result with a more standard process order.

How does this affect our power budget?
The Chromera process afforded a large power budget to other aspects of the process to account for it's bad ability. To what extent, if any, do we allow that here? Remember that the goal here is using stats that are average or below average, not explicitly bad. The sort of affordances allowed in chroms process are almost certainly over the line, and honestly we could potentially make a perfectly reasonable end product without dipping into anything explicitly overpowered.

What types suit average stats, if any?
For example, dragon might be more suitable for it's access to strong stabs like Draco and Outrage that mitigate ower attacking stats. Psychic on the other hand may suit less well due to its reliance on weaker stabs. Are there typings that can work around mediocre bulk by leveraging unique or valuable defensive profiles?

What can we learn from gen 9?
The early stages of SV has given us some interesting examples of successful mons with average stats. In particular, we've been given two excellent examples of what to avoid. Espathra and Houndstone both clearly have very average stats with both having a sub 500 bst and highest individual stats of 105 and 101 respectively. These two became the lowest bst mons to be banned to ubers since Mega Sableye in oras. Houndstone isn't particularly interesting, as it was purely broken by virtue of having one of the most cracked moves to ever exist. Espathra is more notable, as it initially fell to uu before rising through the ranks thanks to it's stored power shenanigans and ridiculous tera synergy. Espathra shows us that even with pretty shit stats, we have to be careful to not overtune in other stages, which is definitely a tendency that we have in cap projects.
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Guidelines:
1) Pay close attention to the Topic Leader during this discussion. Their job is to keep us focused and to bring insight.​
2) Do not poll jump. Poll jumping is a serious offense in these threads, and you can get infracted for it. Poll jumping is when you discuss something that should be discussed in the future, like specifying a CAP's stats or typing. You're allowed to hint at such things to conclude a point or to provide an example, but do not centralize your post on a poll jump. Poll jumping hurts the focus of early threads and can cause us to go off on a tangent. If you're not sure if you're poll jumping or not, err on the side of caution and don't post it.​

CAP 32's TL spoo will open the thread with their thoughts and a series of questions and considerations. Please make sure to read their initial post and subsequent posts carefully and follow them for discussion! Keep posts civil and on topic, or else they will be deleted.

CAP 32 So Far
 
Welcome back to Concept Assessment! Now that we know our typing, Fire/Fairy, it's time to decide on a role in order to focus ourselves moving forward.

Below is a list of some general roles so that we have a working vocabulary this stage. Please note that this isn't exhaustive, and you can mention any other roles that you can think of –– Glass Cannon, Tank, Revenge Killer, whatever else you want. This role dictionary is a somewhat outdated resource but still might prove helpful.
Hazard Setting
Hazard Control
Clerics
Item Manipulation
Wallbreakers
Offensive Pivots
Choice Users
Priority
Set-Up Sweepers
Walls
Defensive Pivots
Boost Removers
Snow
Rain
Sand
Sun
Trick Room

I'd also like to remind us of our discussion about roles in the first Concept Assessment where we decided that offensive routes generally seemed best for mons with middling stats:
spoo said:
The clear majority of us believe that offensive builds will be the most effective as potential roles. This is where the design space seems the most open, and through tools like high-BP STABs and unique boosting abilities/moves, we have a lot of room to work around lackluster stats and set ourselves apart from competition. Support for defensive roles was also decently high, though, and I agree that they have a lot of promise; while a defensive mon's stats may be comparatively harder to compensate for, we also established earlier that the bar for average stats is much lower for defensive mons in general, which helps to alleviate this issue. As for purely support-based roles, it seems our faith in them is the lowest. Still, because support options provide utility independent of our stats, certain abilities and moves could complement a more offensively or defensively inclined build very effectively.
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This was not a binding decision, so these questions are somewhat aimed at re-evaluating this consensus and seeing if it still holds up. With that said, here's what I'm now curious about:

What kinds of roles can Fire/Fairy reasonably fill? What kinds of roles does Fire/Fairy naturally lend itself to? What kinds of roles would be best for Fire/Fairy?
These questions might sound the same, but they're quite different. The first question asks in other words what our full design space is/if there are any roles that simply don't make sense. The second question is geared towards the inherent merits/demerits of the typing itself. Note that when looking at offensive merit, our super-effective coverage by the numbers isn't the only important factor: what STAB options this typing has access to, whether or not the mons that we hit SE can threaten us back, etc, are things to consider as well. Likewise, when looking at defensive merit, some of the mons whose STABs we resist may be able to beat us with coverage or utility options. The last question asks you to consider whether or not to lean into our natural strengths. For example, if we think our typing is geared towards defense, is it best to double down as a wall? Or is it best to shore up our offensive shortcomings, striking some kind of offense/defense balance as a tank or bulky wallbreaker?

Are there any roles that would be too difficult for CAP32 to compete within, given our lacking stats compared to other top-tier Pokemon?
If we choose a role that's already very crowded, we may be setting ourselves up for failure. This is one of the reasons that Dragon-types weren't slated as typings: Dragon wallbreakers are simply too powerful and too numerous for us to have a good chance setting ourselves apart from them. So, are there any roles that are similarly worrisome in this regard?

I figure these two questions (really five) are a good starting point for discussion. I'll come back in 48 hours and see where things stand!
 
What kinds of roles can Fire/Fairy reasonably fill? What kinds of roles does Fire/Fairy naturally lend itself to? What kinds of roles would be best for Fire/Fairy?

The main draw of Fire/Fairy over Fire/Psychic was the defensive potential, so as such, a defensive role would be best. We said that offensive roles would be best in the first concept assessment, which at the time I agreed with, but that was before we knew our typing. I think Fire/Fairy has more to offer defensively than offensively, and I think leaning into that would be the best move forward. So roles like wall would be good here, we are certainly capable of it with mons like Jumbao and Meowscarada running around, as well as utility roles like hazard setter or item manipulation. Going for a setup role in particular will be very difficult with Skeledirge and Clodsire in the tier, especially Skeledirge, and we can't make our stats good to compensate. I'm not saying offensive roles can't work, because I'm sure they can. I just think it would be harder.

Are there any roles that would be too difficult for CAP32 to compete within, given our lacking stats compared to other top-tier Pokemon?

The Fire type suggests sun wallbreaker, but I don't know if this is a good idea because we already have a ton in the tier, the most obvious example being Iron Moth.
 
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spoo said:
What kinds of roles can Fire/Fairy reasonably fill? What kinds of roles does Fire/Fairy naturally lend itself to? What kinds of roles would be best for Fire/Fairy?
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Fire/fairy is great for item manipulation as the fire type switch ins as well as some of the poison types (Venom, most fires) (also garg) that want to check it really depend on their item for bulk (boots/lefties) or at least are crippled by losing their item more than other mons.
Hazard setting is always valuable, especially in light of role compression which can be key for this fire type to compete with other fire types, that often aren’t that versatile in comparison.
It’s also notable that fire fairy pressure most of the removal options in the tier with SE STAB (Libra, Tusk, Corvi, Tomo, Treads)
Offensively Setting up is definitely and option as fire fairy is very solid coverage on its own as shown by CM Clef although skeledirge is a big head scratcher here especially since we are likely working with lower attacking power (pyroak currently faces a similar issue)
Very notable for fire and fairy is the possibility of compressing boosting and healing for a booster with attacking moves like fiery dance and draining kiss (or burns/Spa drops as implicit boosting)
Defensively the typing is solid enough to function as a defensive pivot although a lot of mons we can switch in also carry attacks that are at least neutral or SE coverage, which means being an outright wall might be harder especially given lower defense stats.
Atm I don’t have any particular preference for a role but I think that having a solid amount of utility role compression is great as most fairies and fires currently viable are fairly one dimensional in their duties.
spoo said:
Are there any roles that would be too difficult for CAP32 to compete within, given our lacking stats compared to other top-tier Pokemon?
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tbh a pure wall breaker and sweepe would be hard to pull off given competition from truly absurd mons like Iron Moth and Valiant.
 
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What kinds of roles can Fire/Fairy reasonably fill? What kinds of roles does Fire/Fairy naturally lend itself to? What kinds of roles would be bestfor Fire/Fairy?
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Contrary to the conclusion from the previous thread, I think defensive roles are quite nice for this typing, whether that be a defensive pivot, a wall, or something more utility-focused. Among those, pivot feels quite natural. Offensive roles are absolutely still achievable and we have a very good offensive typing. However with middling stats it might struggle to compete with other attackers like Irons Moth & Valiant in an offensive role. I think we will need to put in more work in later stages to ensure a niche, whereas I feel that a defensive niche is quite achievable only knowing what we already know about this mon.

Just by typing we can switch in on things like Iron Valiant, Volcarona, Meowscarada and Jumbao (and Baxcalibur and Band Roaring Moon if you avoid EQ) if we have some bulk, which is a huge feat and something we can easily augment with the right ability. I also believe it's easier to stretch "average" stats to be a successful defensive mon, and the ability to check a number of prominent threats while still being able to threaten a lot of things with our STABs feels like a really nice niche.

So I think something defensive is the best and most natural role for this CAP. I could also see something like fast utility being successful, with maybe things like item manipulation, hazard setting, or hazard removal and using not your offensive stats but your STAB coverage to outspeed and threaten some of the mons that have super effective coverage on you. That said, we tread a lot of similar ground to Astrolotl here, so we'd have to make sure to differentiate the two mons, maybe in terms of type of utility.

Utility in general is great here and arguably pretty important to differentiate ourselves from our competition.

Are there any roles that would be too difficult for CAP32 to compete within, given our lacking stats compared to other top-tier Pokemon?

Nothing is off the table. I've discussed how I think offensive roles are harder to make work (just look at the offensive stats of a random OU mon that we have to compete with), but it's absolutely doable with some powerful tools.
 
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It is important to approach these questions from the lens of teambuilding as much as CAP32's own internal synergy. No Pokemon exists in a vacuum. Fire/Fairy provides both offensive presence and defensive presence, but is limited in both innately at this stage of the project. The question of the hour is how it interacts in the builder with the other dominant Fire-types in the CAP metagame.

At the time of writing, Fire is one of the most useful typings for building in CAP, which was evident in the previous stage and solid victory of Fire/Fairy. From a defensive standpoint, Fire-types serve as an important defensive piece on teams as they are one of the few types that can not only confidently switch into Jumbao even if the Teras, but also resist the massively threatening Volcarona and Iron Moth. Fairy, one the other hand, is mostly useful for its ability to keep Dragapult from clicking its strongest move and resisting Fighting. The typing otherwise is somewhat let down by its Fire half, as other Dragon-types and Great Tusk run Ground moves. We are definitely more defined by our Fire-typing than Fairy-typing defensively, as the Fire-typing hurts the Fairy part more than it helps it. CAP32's Dark resist helps against Meowscarada, albeit a fairly uncommon face in the meta atm, and resisting Kingambit's Sucker Punch is always a boon.

With the exception of the last line, the above things overlap heavily with Skeledirge from a teambuilder perspective. In fact, with only CAP32's typing in discussion, it struggles tremendously competing with Skeledirge for a lot. CAP32 forces Iron Valiant into more awkward coverage and handles Dragapult better without Tera, but Skeledirge typically pairs well with several Pult checks anyways so it is less demanded for that role. Skeledirge's lack of Poison weakness makes it better into Iron Moth, while Unware obviously hurts Volcarona. Skeledirge also offers role compression as a wall and wincon simultaneously, making it a generally easy and efficient mon to slot on balance teams.

Offensively, Skeledirge, Iron Moth, Volcarona, and Cinderace are the big Fire-types we are competing with. Even with Jumbao sun support, the archetype that would stack Fire-types rarely does and instead usually roles with just one. So CAP32 has to punch way above its stat class to compete with these offensive juggernauts for an offensive role. The biggest thing from an offensive standpoint Fire/Fairy brings is the ability to hit Arghonaut and Dragon-types super effective. The others can do this too, but to break Arghonaut they typically need to either Tera or run Zen Headbutt. With that being said, Arghonaut is in a less dominate state right now (I know its still S on VR, but if you catch up on recent tour trends you will see what I mean) due to its relatively weaker MU into the current offense and balance structures. And most of the Dragon-types are pretty fast in one way or another, which should be considered when assessing the strength of CAP32's Fairy STAB. CAP32 is competing with stuff like QD Volc and Iron Moth's base 140 Fire STABs in the sun on its Fire merits alone; we have a lot for our Fire-type to prove to make its mark on the metagame.

As it stands, CAP32's potential roles are all filled with other strong Fire-types already. These roles are still very accessible for us, but the most important thing for whatever role we give CAP32 is making it very distinct in terms of its utility. We must provide CAP32 with an offensive or defensive utility unique to itself, which we can dive into during the next stages. Nothing is off the table in terms of roles, but we should not be afraid to push the limits of moves and abilities to make that role distinct, viable, and relevant to teambuilding.
 
What kinds of roles can Fire/Fairy reasonably fill?

Fire/Fairy can easily fill either one of the pivot roles, walls, wallbreakers, Sun, and Choice Users. Any of these options fits well with Fire/Fairy’s offensive and defensive synergy

What kinds of roles does Fire/Fairy naturally lend itself to?

Choice User/Wallbreaker and Walls seem to be easy to gravitate to for Fire/Fairy. Fire/Fairy’s amazing offensive typing make it a great pick for an offensive Pokémon. But Fire/Fairy’s unique raw defensive prowess make wall a nice option

What kinds of roles would be best
for Fire/Fairy?

I think one of the Pivots roles, walls, or Wallbreaker would be best for Fire/Fairy. Fire/Fairy combined with our concept can pressure a lot of switches and support it’s teammates

Are there any roles that would be too difficult for CAP32 to compete within, given our lacking stats compared to other top-tier Pokemon?

While I said Wallbreaker would be good for Fire/Fairy, it just has too much competition. Since that’s been beaten to death, I’d also like to discuss Unaware walls, since there are 4 semi-relevant ones in the CAP/OU metagame.

I’d like to propose something as well, I think we should have two roles which one is offensive and the other is defensive. Since our stats are supposed to be “average” our defensive and offensive stats won’t be much different if we go the route of average across the board stats. Therefore, Fire/Fairy’s potential as an offensive and defensive Mon is pratically the same, lemme know your thoughts.
 
What kinds of roles can Fire/Fairy reasonably fill? What kinds of roles does Fire/Fairy naturally lend itself to? What kinds of roles would be best for Fire/Fairy?

I'm in agreement with the other posters that one of the major benefits of fire/fairy is the strong defensive potential it has. Of course, it also has solid offensive potential thanks to being able to handle dragon and steel types alike among others. Solely considering the type, I struggle to think of a role that is can't take on (especially given that we have yet to specify the stats/ability/movepool) but thinking about the metagame as is I feel there is a fair amount of space that is already being taken up by existing mons. As mentioned above there are a host of fire types both offensively and defensively, and sun-setting is already taken up. For this reason, I feel like simply gravitating towards a simple-and-functional role like a purely offensive or defensive mon isn't going to be doing us any favours since there are already so many strong options for the fire typing.

Are there any roles that would be too difficult for CAP32 to compete within, given our lacking stats compared to other top-tier Pokemon?

As mentioned, there is a fair amount of competition. For this reason, I think that working in a unique form of utility is the best path to go down when it comes to defining a role for this mon. With an average BST there is a lot of work to be done in order to turn into something like a wall or choice-user, but providing a unique set of moves/abilities will allow us to create a niche that is both unique and not nearly as reliant on pure stats.

Personally, I think a defensively-oriented mon with a strong utility basis is the best option here.
 
spoo said:
What kinds of roles can Fire/Fairy reasonably fill? What kinds of roles does Fire/Fairy naturally lend itself to? What kinds of roles would be best for Fire/Fairy?
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Fire/Fairy is a very flexible type combination. We shouldn't ignore the offensive excellence of this typing. Notably, this is a Fire-type whose secondary STAB typing hits Arghonaut, Dragonite, and Roaring Moon for super-effective damage, and this is a Fairy-type that can break open resident Steel-types like Gholdengo, Corviknight, and Equilibra with its Fire-type moves. Sure, Fire/Fairy has some holes in its coverage, such as against the plentiful other Fire-types in the metagame as well as Toxapex and Glimmora peeking up from B ranks, but the typing lends itself towards an offensive role.

The defensive merits of Fire/Fairy are pretty solid too. A Fire-type that resists Kingambit's Sucker Punch is valuable, as other Fire-types can drop to boosted Sucker Punch if Kingambit is still alive. Fire/Fairy also resists common moves run from Meowscarada and Cinderace, including a double resist to their spammable U-turn, and being immune to Dragapult's Draco Meteor always gives it a headache. Of course, Fire/Fairy resists other Fire-types' moves, but without knowing anything else about CAP32, it's hard to know which Fire-type will win (that is, who has more firepower!).

However, Fire/Fairy has some pretty serious defensive holes on the basis of typing alone. Unless this Pokemon is relegated to hyper offensive use, Fire/Fairy is going to want to run Heavy-Duty Boots in almost every scenario. Despite resisting Knock Off, Fire/Fairy cannot reliably switch into Knock Off users because it will lose its Heavy-Duty Boots. This is particularly annoying into Arghonaut because CAP32 resists Circle Throw and Knock Off, as well as Iron Valiant because CAP32 resists its powerful STAB types. Furthermore, opposing Pokemon commonly run moves that can bypass one of CAP32 typing's to hit the other. For example, Earthquake from Great Tusk, Ting Lu, Roaring Moon, Dragonite, and Garchomp can complete destroy Fire/Fairy. Additionally, Choice Specs Dragapult's Shadow Ball will dent anything without a good special tankiness, and Iron Moth's Sludge Wave means that it has the natural upper hand.

Here's the payoff: while Fire/Fairy has some good defensive qualities, they're hardly the qualities needed for a good defensive wall similar to Arghonaut, Garganacl, or Venomicon (who gets around the boots weakness with Poison typing and titanic stats). Thus, a more efficient use of Fire/Fairy should be in more offensive role - we should definitely capitalize on the strength of STAB Fire + STAB Fairy coverage. Perhaps we can shore up some of its defensive merits so that it can get onto the field more easily, though, as this will be especially important in conjunction with average stats.

Thus, some mix of a wallbreaker and offensive pivot would be the best build for CAP32. I could also see trending towards a defensive pivot based on the choice of ability later in the process, but the defensive pivot set will still heavily rely on Fire/Fairy's offensive potential, and abilities chosen for a defensive pivot likely also fit on an offensive pivot too. While this does cover a wide range of roles, it does narrow down the playing field, and it's important to keep a healthy amount of flexibility through the early-stages of the process.

spoo said:
Are there any roles that would be too difficult for CAP32 to compete within, given our lacking stats compared to other top-tier Pokemon?
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Becoming a dedicated wall seems really difficult given our reliance on Heavy-Duty Boots. The defensive Pokemon that do run Heavy-Duty Boots in Generation 9 - Venomicon and Skeledirge - both have pretty well-above average stats. Skeledirge's stat spread surprised me when writing this: 104/100/75 bulk and 110 Special Attack stat is really nothing sneeze at.

On the flip-side, while I do think that Fire/Fairy is a strong offensive typing, I don't think a dedicated set-up sweeper similar to Dragon Dance Roaring Moon or Booster Energy Iron Valiant is right for this project. Average stats simply means that CAP32 will need a lot of boosts to deal meaningful damage into the metagame's defensive staples, let alone the suite of Unaware users we have access to this gen. I don't think it's impossible to accomplish, but the paths to get there are much more specific.
 
What kinds of roles can Fire/Fairy reasonably fill? What kinds of roles does Fire/Fairy naturally lend itself to? What kinds of roles would be best for Fire/Fairy?

I'm going to go against a lot of the thread here and say that I think that Fire/Fairy would be best suited towards a more offensive role. Looking at our typing, one huge thing we can see right off the bat is that we are both a Fire-type that beats Arghonaut and a Fairy-type that can threaten out Equilibra, both of which are incredibly valuable niches to have. However, where I personally think would shine the most would be as an offensive hazard setter. To demonstrate my point, I'm going to show our match-ups into every hazard remover ranked B- or higher on the VR

We Beat: :Corviknight: :Tomohawk:
We Threaten: :Great Tusk: :Equilibra: :Caribolt: :Iron Treads:
We Lose: :Glimmora: :Saharaja:

We are able to successfully threaten out every almost every single prominent hazard remover in the metagame, and the only two that we don't are either really only ever seen on a certain playstyle (Glimmora) or just aren't very common in general (Saharaja). Granted, we absolutely do not want to take a Ground-type attack from either of the Paradox Donphans or Equilibra, but denying their ability to safely switch-in is a strength that I do not think can really be understated here.

In terms of more defensive roles, I think that considering acting as a more defensive set-up sweeper, rather than a dedicated wall, would be a fairly desirable route to take. Both Fire and Fairy access to quite a few tools at their disposal that would synergize very nicely with this role, and it would be a bit of a shame to not really make use of our offensive typing just given the sheer strength that it is has in the metagame.

Are there any roles that would be too difficult for CAP32 to compete within, given our lacking stats compared to other top-tier Pokemon?

I really don't think there is a whole lot of merit in trying to function as a wallbreaker. As a Fire-type wallbreaker, it would be fairly hard to make a case to be used over Iron Moth, as it's access to an absolutely nuclear Overheat under Sun is just not something I can really see ourselves realistically trying to compete with, and in terms of being a Fairy-type wallbreaker, we are competiting quite a bit with Choice Specs Iron Valiant as well. I don't think that this option is completely dead in the water however, since like I said earlier, we have a fairly unique and strong STAB combination that works well into the metagame. However, without having access to solid stats, I just think that it's too easy for us to really fall behind in power for this option to feel desirable.
 
What kinds of roles can Fire/Fairy reasonably fill? What kinds of roles does Fire/Fairy naturally lend itself to? What kinds of roles would be best for Fire/Fairy?
These questions might sound the same, but they're quite different. The first question asks in other words what our full design space is/if there are any roles that simply don't make sense. The second question is geared towards the inherent merits/demerits of the typing itself. Note that when looking at offensive merit, our super-effective coverage by the numbers isn't the only important factor: what STAB options this typing has access to, whether or not the mons that we hit SE can threaten us back, etc, are things to consider as well. Likewise, when looking at defensive merit, some of the mons whose STABs we resist may be able to beat us with coverage or utility options. The last question asks you to consider whether or not to lean into our natural strengths. For example, if we think our typing is geared towards defense, is it best to double down as a wall? Or is it best to shore up our offensive shortcomings, striking some kind of offense/defense balance as a tank or bulky wallbreaker?

Iron's Answer: Fire/Fairy is a type with a huge amount of inherent diversity in utilization. Both types have excellent offensive properties, and the 2 of them together have surprisingly few weaknesses. Fire also acts as a counter play to a would be check from a Steel type attacker. Personally, I feel that a bulky wallbreaker would be a fantastic role, especially if burn strategies were taken into account to by proxy increase defenses by decreasing the opponent's attack. STAB moves like Draining Kiss make this kind of tank oriented playstyle even more natural

Are there any roles that would be too difficult for CAP32 to compete within, given our lacking stats compared to other top-tier Pokemon?
If we choose a role that's already very crowded, we may be setting ourselves up for failure. This is one of the reasons that Dragon-types weren't slated as typings: Dragon wallbreakers are simply too powerful and too numerous for us to have a good chance setting ourselves apart from them. So, are there any roles that are similarly worrisome in this regard?

Iron's Answer: I would imagine perhaps that something like Glimmora might pose an obstacle, given its ability to check both STABs, but also being able inflict STAB either way, all while setting up Toxic Spikes if any alternative attacks are used

A bird fact for Dex! Crows are capable of remembering people's faces, and even transferring this information to crows that have never originally seen the person! Wildlife biologists figured this out by conducting a simple experiment
 
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What kinds of roles can Fire/Fairy reasonably fill? What kinds of roles does Fire/Fairy naturally lend itself to? What kinds of roles would be best for Fire/Fairy?
Between a stealth rock weakness and two powerful offensive typings, one would expect a typing like this one to excel as an offensive pokemon, but I feel that a defensive utility role would be more fitting. Although the wide variety of weaknesses seems concerning, the equally varied resistances this type combination brings allows for a large amount of switch ins, and several common fairy and fire type attacks allow it to easily weaken opponents.
 
The typing can sorta do everything. That's the thing about Fairy, it's generally pretty good at most things. In the past, Fire-types were mainly limited to offensive roles; however, the past two generations have demonstrated how valuable a defensive Fire-type is. Important resistances to Fairy and Steel and relatively few weaknesses means that Fire is also a do-everything type. The combination of the two is going to be sort of good at everything in a vacuum, so I'll go over each role listed and talk about how it performs at that role in the current meta from a high-level perspective.

Hazard Setting - Fire/Fairy is pretty excellent at this. It has the potential to force out Corviknight and Great Tusk, with the ability to maybe pressure Equilibra down the road. Setting is absolutely worth a shout here.

Hazard Control - Removal is a bit more tough. A lot of setters run Knock Off, and one of the better rockers, Venomicon, probably beats this typing for days. Not impossible, but not optimal.

Clerics - In my opinion, the meta is a bit too fast paced for this role to exist. Unless we are building this mon to be an essential stall pick, cleric stuff outside of hwish or the ridiculous revival blessing isn't gonna see use and is probably done better by others.

Item Manipulation - Given that the typing wants to run boots, Trick is out of the question barring ability. Knock Off, however, is extremely enticing on this typing. The two big switch-ins, Venomicon and Skeledirge, both love their items more than most. I like it here.

Wallbreakers - This is doable, but a little tough. Skeledirge has such a positive matchup into this typing, and other defensive behemoths like Toxapex and Venomicon eat it up quite well. The typing has good coverage, but some common bad matchups are going to hold it back from going full Nidoking.

Offensive Pivots - I don't think this is a bad option per se, but I do think it's always going to be better accomplished by other mons. Without the guarantee of the raw offensive power to force switches, an offensive pivot role is going to fall a little flat compared to stuff like Dragapult and Roaring Moon, among others.

Choice Users - Barring ability, this is an unviable choice to build around.

Priority - No STAB priority barring ability means no priority abuser role for CAP 32.

Set-Up Sweepers - I think this is very doable. Access to setup can make or break a mon (see: Venomicon-E). It's not even something that needs to be built around; setup makes a mon a lot better on its own. I'm a big fan of this here.

Walls - I think this is super doable; Skeledirge has pretty average special bulkiness, buts it's oke of the best special walls in the game. With the right moveset, I think this typing could excel as a special wall specifically.

Defensive Pivots - Probably not the best barring ability. There's already tons of great defensive pivots, and I don't think Fire/Fairy adds anything better to the pool.

Boost Removers - I'll take this to mean checks setup mons. Fire/Fairy does just about as good as a lot of other types at this. It is just tough to say that this is the path when there's so many amazing sweepers in the tier. The typing has positive matchups into some notable ones like Kingambit and potentially Iron Valiant, but it also doesn't stop a lot of the other common ones like Iron Moth, Caribolt, etc. It's possible, but I don't think it should be a primary focus.

Sun - Gonna skip the rest cause they aren't relevant. It's a Fire-type, sun is really good right now. Eh. Sun has so, so many options at its disposal that CAP 32 is probably never going to be worth a look.

My favorite rolls of the bunch are hazard setter, item manipulation, defensive wall, and set-up
 
Fire/Fairy supremacy claims the finest of dubs. Really happy to see it take the victory because I think there's a lot we can do here due to Fire/Fairy bringing both great offensive potential and a supreme number of resistances to the table.

Generally speaking I think we extract the most unique value out of taking advantage of our defensive profile, using our good STAB combo to avoid being exploited. Besting Iron Valiant as an offensive Fairy-type or Iron Moth/Cinderace as offensive Fire-types is a monumental task. However, while that's far from impossible as the most influential stages have yet to come, I do believe we can only get so far in some departments without forcing ourselves to compete with Pokemon that are already head and shoulders more effective at a given job, given their core matchups and stat spreads.

Like dex I wanted to give thoughts on each role that spoo posited so we have a bit more of a clear, direct focus in mind. I'll be also summarizing my thoughts with a rating to keep things approachable.

8/10
Very strong option as we offensively pressure pretty much every viable form of removal in the tier. I feel if we do this we'll probably want to have Speed and a more offensive edge so we can react to Great Tusk and pressure Corviknight more effectively. A bulkier-end hazard setter is fine too, it just means we aren't exactly going to be pressuring things as well to keep our hazards on the field. Overall a good approach but I think by nature skewed more toward offense if we want to be effective at doing this.
7/10
The main appeal of this is that we can pressure all of Gholdengo, Great Tusk, and Garchomp, as well as the fact we'll be using Heavy-Duty Boots naturally. I don't really like that we lose to Venomicon, but I think it's very doable and a potentially good approach, but I think we'd rather be setting the hazards with this type.
4/10
Our immunity to Will-O-Wisp and Dragon Darts means that we can carve a potential niche as a Cleric into more offensive builds, so it's doable. I don't particularly like this option too much as we lose to every Toxic user available though, so it's sorta hard to create a compelling reason to favor this that isn't just "there are no clerics", in spite of the power status holds in the current metagame. On the other hand, using Wish also means we dedicate two moveslots for the role out the rip, which is a bit dire.
6/10 by itself, 9/10 in a vacuum
Trick is a massively hit or miss option considering that wearing a Choice item is a pretty terrible approach (sorry for spoiling that lol), but Knock Off is pretty viable seeing as it greatly disrupts two Pokemon likely to have a strong matchup into CAP 32 (Skeledirge and Venomicon). However, this can easily be folded into another role which makes item disruption a very "why-not" type of option given the innate synergy with Fire/Fairy and generally not being a polarizing tool, but by itself it's not really shifting its role in one direction or another.
7/10
Given we have yet to explore the Ability and Movepool stages this is without a doubt possible. Some really sweet suggestions have been given over Discord which makes me like the design space a lot more. However it is uncomfortably contingent on the turnout of those stages, as well as sheer competition in the raw threat factor of its Fire- and Fairy-type wallbreaking compatriots.
Defensive: 9/10
I am truthfully very compelled by this option and I think we should be considering it more due to our unique defensive profile and matchup spread. I understand that our Knock Off weakness will really sting this one, but I really like the potential here. We provide more potent offensive teammates with switch-in opportunities into Pokemon like Venomicon, Clodsire, Toxapex, and Skeledirge, and clearer passage into Kingambit, Jumbao, and Iron Valiant. This is truly a phenomenal asset for offense and should not be understated, especially given the design space that can come in terms of utility and ability to offset its more jarring weaknesses and potentially pull off some silly shit.

Offensive: 7/10
Like this one for similar reasons as defensive, but I think we extract more game-to-game value by really taking advantage of our resistances and honing in more on defensive matchups. Having a good offensive presence (namely with Speed) makes this possible, but I'd argue not as effective as its competitor.

Overall: 8/10
I appreciate the design space a pivot gives CAP 32, alongside the fact that we'll be wearing Heavy-Duty Boots anyway. We definitely need to consider our weaknesses but I think we can make a very successful product with a pivot angle.
1/10
Low BSR and being Stealth Rock weak makes this a tall task, especially since Iron Valiant is right there. While future stages could certainly make this a more effective option, the design space for a Choice user is incredibly dearth compared to everything else. I heavily discourage this approach.
0/10
We have no STAB priority, making this worthless without making CAP 32 a dedicated Terastal user. No.
5/10
Decent option given this takes good advantage of both our resistances and offensive potency. That said, our middling BSR is going to really suck for this unless we hone in hard due to how hardcore the competition is. Taking this route also means our usage of resistances will be for fairly selfish purposes, and unlike a wallbreaker route we're going to need certain conditions set more stringently before we can actually run away with a game due to our BSR. Because of these reasons I am skeptical, but there's definitely potential given how well our typing can enable setup.
9/10
As others have pointed out, this is a very honest and phenomenal option given the two-pronged utility our typing provides to keep us from being passive while providing a pool of great and unique resistances for a team. There's a ton of good design space for this, though my only issue, while a nitpicky one and arguably not even one at all, is that a defensive approach innately encourages a more select pool of abilities, namely immunity ones. Our reliance on Heavy-Duty Boots also stings as it means an added vulnerability to Knock Off. Great overall but we definitely have a couple holes to consider.
3/10
We're a Fire-type, so being a Sun abuser is a maybe? We're jarringly outclassed as a Sun wallbreaker by most other things though, but if we really want to I guess I could see it? I just don't think it's that compelling tbh.

Overall, my personal favorite roles are that of a offensive hazard setter, a wall, or a pivot. Wallbreaker looks the most fun, though.
 
What kinds of roles can Fire/Fairy reasonably fill? What kinds of roles does Fire/Fairy naturally lend itself to? What kinds of roles would be best for Fire/Fairy?

I'm going to kind of go against the grain here and suggest a more offensive role for CAP32. While Fire/Fairy is a great defensive typing in itself, fire and fairy are both amazing offensive types in their own right. It doesn't even necessarily need high stats to function as a choice user, as moves such as Overheat or Fleur Cannon can make up for that with their higher BP. I know it's a bit off topic from the intent of this post, but I've been tossing around an idea for a while about an ability that negates stat drops from moves, allowing the user to spam high base power moves without the broken side effects of Contrary, which might help make up for its lower stats. In terms of defensive potential, the fire type hinders it more than helps it in my opinion, although losing the steel weakness is admittedly nice.

Neither fire nor fairy has any priority moves of note, so unless a new move were to be added I don't see this being useful. Additionally, it could take a set-up sweeper role, but the middling base stats mean it would face stiff competition from other, better sweepers.
 
Fire/Fairy is quite the versatile typing. On the one hand, it has a nice set of resistances that we can lean on if we really want to, but on the other, the STAB combination plays really well and threatens a lot. Fairy hits the Dragon-types that come in to resist Fire, and Fire hits the Steel-types that come in to resist Fairy. On top of that, the only mons that resist the combination are opposing Fire-types, Toxapex and Glimmora, all of which can be covered with one attack if we really want to.

Ultimately, I have no real preference on whether this turns out offensive or defensive, but what I will do is outline each of the available roles and throw in my two cents on how I think it will perform in them. Bolded roles are the roles I'm truly looking forward to see in practice, underlined roles are the roles I see the potential in but am not entirely sold on and struck-through roles are the roles I don't expect it to be all that great at.

Hazard Setting: Fire/Fairy forces Corviknight and Tomohawk out completely, and it can also threaten Great Tusk and Colossoil. Those are just a few of the prominent removers off the top of my head. In any case, its (mostly) positive match-up against these removers is precisely why it would make for a good setter in theory.

Hazard Control: It also has a (mostly) positive match-up against the main setters, which in turn extends its coverage to Garchomp and Equilibra. On top of all that, Fire/Fairy directly threatens Gholdengo, which is considered the best spin-blocker in the game due its Steel/Ghost typing and its Good as Gold ability, which also allows it to block Defog. Fire/Fairy does have to watch out for Venomicon as it currently stands, but if it can lure it in and smack it with coverage, we might have something to go on.

Cleric: Possible? Yes. The right choice? Hard to say. Clerics have to either take hits or be prepared to sacrifice themselves to really do their jobs, and with low stats all-round, CAP32 is more likely to do the latter. The fast pace of the metagame doesn't help :/

Item Manipulation: Knock Off is a good move, here. Even its existence in CAP32's movepool alone may make Fire-types think twice about switching into its other moves. As for Trick, that depends on how well it can really perform as a Choice User. What I have to say on that particular field can be viewed in the Offensive spoiler below, but in any case, Knock and Trick are the main options on display.
Wallbreaker: Nidoking has proven in previous generations that a Pokemon can in fact break walls with a main attacking stat of... say, 85. You just need the right ability, the right item of choice and the right moveset. Well, that's cool and all, except that's asking a lot from our power budget, especially considering the competition CAP32 has to face.

Offensive Pivot: I'm gonna go against the grain and realize that Fire/Fairy sucks at pivoting right now. Pivots rely on switching in and out of the fray to put a key teammate in a position to sweep. Knowing that hazards are easier to set-up and maintain in the current metagame than ever before, a grounded Fire-type will not want to switch in more often than it absolutely has to. While its true that Boots eases this burden, it also undermines the Dark resistance that the Fairy part of its typing brings to the table completely, as Boots are that important for CAP32 to keep at all costs so it can do its job.

Choice User: Honestly, that depends entirely on how CAP32's stats ultimately line up. Sure, you can always slap a Choice Scarf on an otherwise slower mon to catch a fast one off-guard, but Band and Specs outright demand that you have a high enough Attack or Special Attack stat respectively to get the most out of them. Still, although it's a big ask from our power budget, we can still accommodate for a high attacking stat without abandoning the concept. Just ask Breloom.

Priority: There's only one way we can even try to force this to work, and mentioning it would be poll-jumping. Let's maybe not focus on priority rn.

Set-Up Sweeper: I'd probably lean towards bulky set-up so it can make use of its resistances, but either variant can work here. Once again, you face competition in this regard, particularly with Volcarona and its Quiver Dance set(s).
Wall: The thing about walls is, they rely heavily on their high Defense, Special Defense or HP to take the hits that they have to, and we can only accommodate for one of those at the very most. Fire/Fairy has its work cut out for it because if it's ever forced out, it may very well have to come back in on hazards that'd take a good chunk of its health. The role of wall is not off the table for Fire/Fairy by any means, but those are some pretty hard checks nonetheless.

Defensive Pivot: See Offensive Pivot. They literally both have the same problems.

Boost Remover: Unless this turns out to be a fast Hazer or something, I don't see how CAP32 can reliably remove boosts. Your only other option is to phaze, which forces CAP32 to take a hit first due to the -6 priority that phazing generally comes with. And let me tell you, boosted hits are a lot harder to stomach than unboosted hits!
Sun: Of course CAP32's gonna love Sun. It gives its Fire STAB some real wall-breaking potential. But is it gonna find the space in a team? Well, it can certainly try. Thing is, Sun has gotten a lot more powerful with the additions that SV bring to the metagame because with Protosynthesis, they're no longer forced to run all of 2 types any more. Fire/Fairy will have a really tough time selling its case with all these other Fire-types around.

Trick Room: Now this is interesting. Trick Room works best with a low Speed stat, and less Speed means more stats that we can afford to put elsewhere. Of course, we'll want some amount of bulk so that CAP32 can get the Trick Room up in the first place, but it rarely asks for more than outright survival. And survival might just be enough when you have 5 turns to ravage a whole team with :]
 
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What kinds of roles does Fire/Fairy naturally lend itself to? What kinds of roles would be best for Fire/Fairy?
Fire/Fairy is a combination of two types that have good offensive and defensive properties. Due to this, the typing swings both ways, as it hits almost the entire tier for at least neutral damage and is SE vs 7 different types, most of which are meta-relevant. It has this in tandem with 7 resistances and an immunity. In a vacuum, this typing leaves us with a versatile array of role options. However, due to our apparent stat limit

Are there any roles that would be too difficult for CAP32 to compete within, given our lacking stats compared to other top-tier Pokemon?
Unfortunately, yes. I think being a sit-around wall overlaps with Skeledirge, leaving us outclassed due to Skeledirge's excellent stats, and pure-wallbreaking sets are taken by Iron Moth, Iron Valiant, and Smokomodo.. Setup Sweeping also doesn't work well for us, seeing as those same three also do the job most likely better than us, (plus Ceruledge, Volcorona, Skeledirge, and Armarouge) in addition to the fact that Unaware has been more common than ever this gen. Dondozo, Clodsire, and Skeledirge all make use Unaware and Our type does not match up well vs. theirs.


An Offensive Pivot/Fast Utility Role Suits CAP32 the most.
This works especially well if we make CAP32 very very fast, widening the amount of pokemon we threaten out.

It makes use of both our offensive and defensive qualities, while giving us an important niche that lets us stand out from the pack,which lessens the possibility of CAP32 being outclassed. An Offensive Pivot CAP32 could easily come in on a resisted hit and then force progress with its impressive stabs or utility options, similar to Pokemon like Tornadus and Tapu Koko.

As for utility options...
We could take a hazard setter route since a lot of the removal (great tusk, corvi, libra, tomohawk) are afraid of switching into our STABs.

Hazard removal is a little less reliable, since we lave a losing MU vs Clodsire and Venomicon, but other setters have a losing MU vs. Us. Its doable, but probably not what we want to go for.

Item manipulation in the form of Knock Off is greatly enjoyed by CAP32, as it cripples its fire-type checks and Venomicon. Knock Off is a Great Move,who knew

Status is also something we should take into account. Status in the form of Toxic works similar to Knock Off,threatening most of its checks. However, Toxic doesn't threaten Clodsire,Venomicon, Toxapex, or Glimmora. Paralysis is always useful. It keeps Iron Moth from wanting to get a free turn, and speed control is always useful, but outside of those cases it doesnt really help CAP32 beat its biggest checks. Burn is the same; since CAP32's biggest checks are fire types and special attacking walls, burning them doesn't really flip our MU. However, Burn is still a useful status to spread around.

There are a lot of issues with being an offensive pivot, though.

We face competition in this slot from the likes of Dragapult, Cinderace, Meowscrada, and Greninja, but there are a multitude of ways to make ourselves stand out (that I will not discuss because polljumping). As of now CAP32 being a pivot would make us more reliant on Boots, since we will likely be switching in on hazards multiple times a game. This also neuters our Dark resistance as we become more afraid of Knock Off. The benefit to this is Knock Off is less common this generation, and (this isnt much of a benefit but it is worth mentioning) Most of the stuff that carries Knock has a winning MU regardless (Great Tusk, Venom). Argh has a worse MU on us, but we never switch in for free on it either. It either gets a Spike up, gets free damage on us with Circle Throw, or removes our item.

All that being said...
CAP32 being a fast utility with an offensive presence threatens a huge chunk of the metagame,either with its powerful STABs or potential utility options. Many of the downsides, while significant, can be mitigated with the right decisions moving forward (again i will not go into detail because polljump but i do have ideas).

CAP32 has potential for different roles but i do believe this role works the best for it so far.
 
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What kinds of roles would be best for Fire/Fairy?

I think that, by far, the best role for a Fire/Fairy in the current metagame is a Wallbreaker. Looking at the CAP meta as it stands, there's a massige number of outstanding Pokemon that just get shredded by your STABs. Argh, Libra, Tusk, Chomp, Tomo, Ting-Lu, Corv, Ghold, and offensive 'Mons like Valiant, Bao, Moon, and Caribolt all get completely destroyed by one of Fire or Fairy moves, and given that many of them are among the very best Pokemon in the metagame, being able to so thoroughly rip through them is a testament to this type's power. Not to mention that your Fire STAB gets superboosted by Jumbao's Sun, giving you an even easier time of punching through the metagame with proper support. Even though you do get pretty hardwalled by Dirge and have a number of fairly solid checks (many of which probably have a hard time taking you other STAB), you still blast holes in a huge amount of the most dominant forces in the meta, which is never gonna be a bad thing.

Hazard Setting and Hazard Control also work great for Fire/Fairy. Of all of the Pokemon currently ranked A- and above in viability, Fire/Fairy hits seven of eleven relevant hazard setters and four of seven relevant hazard removers for super-effective damage, making it damningly effective at not only setting hazards, but removing th as well. Hell, you can even clear hazards in front of Gholdengo, forcing Gholdengo into 50-50 scenarios like other great Spinners like Tusk and Libra would. Now yes, you are weak to Stealth Rock, which would normally spell disaster for a hazard control 'Mon, but Boots and Tera can generally fix this problem for you, so you won't have to worry about it too much, especially considering how well you do your job otherwise.

Lastly, I wanna give a brief mention to Fire/Fairy's value as a Choice User. While yes, being weak to Rocks is a massive blow for any Choice user, and I don't even think it's anywhere close to the best direction for this thing, but that doesn't change the fact that Fire and Fairy are great types to lock into. Neither type has any immunities outside of Flash Fire (the best Flash Fire user is currently ranked B+ in viability) and you also get to play with two really good STAB types with solid moves and a litany of important defensive targets. Being a Choice user also goes hand-in-hand with Item Manipulation, which allows you to cripple an otherwise hard counter like Dirge or Pex for the rest of the game while stealing their Boots for yourself in the process. Again, making CAP32 a Choice user is far from the best thing we can do with this, but I still do think it's worth at least considering.

Are there any roles that would be too difficult for CAP32 to compete within, given our lacking stats compared to other top-tier Pokemon?

While you could make an argument for CAP32 to fit into just about everything but Rain, I think an Offensive Pivot is probably the only thing that we won't be able to accomplish, solely because of the competition CAP32 faces for this role. One of the most important facets of an offensive pivot is their speed, and while CAP's current Fire-type offensive pivots (Iron Moth and Cinderace) aren't exactly blinding fast in their own right, boasting base speed of 110 and 119 respectively, that speed's still more than enough to get the jump on threats like Walking Wave, Caribolt, Krilowatt, Venomicon, and Jumbao, and in the case of the latter, even Iron Valiant. Given the fact that we are working with decidedly limited stats, we're either gonna have a Pokemon that's too slow to scare out other offensive Pokemon or far too frail to take advantage of its own great defensive typing, so all in all, I think this is one we can skip.

Other than that, I really do think that this 'mon can do pretty much anything it wants to with the right tools. Sure, being a wall that competes with Dirge or a sweeper that competes with Volc and Hat does suck, it's nothing that a set of unique advantages wouldn't be able to remedy. Hell, CAP32 currently has no true competition as a defensive pivot, so while being weak to Rocks and ruined by Knock (even as a Fairy) certainly doesn't work in its favors, simply doing something that no other 'mon currently can is huge. Overall, I think there's a ton of potential routes we could go down with this project, and I'm excited to see wher
 
After some thought, I confidently believe that Hazard Setting, specifically Stealth Rocker, is one of our strongest roles.

The main reason for this is being able to compress moveslots onto your Fire-type in order to free the slot on the other Pokemon on your team. CAP32 can "bear the burden" so to speak of running Stealth Rock so your Garganacl and/or Venomicon don't have to. Both of these Pokemon are often forced into the rocker role out of necessity, when in reality their most powerful, game-defining sets do not run the move. No other Fire-type or Fairy-type can offer that utility. Venomicon and Garganacl would love CAP32 so much as a teammate that it would immediately have a place on teams centered around either or both of the Pokemon. CAP32 doesn't need to have amazing stats across the board, because it has the most powerful stat of all: friendship.

CAP32 has the typing to come in and get em up against Pokemon like Jumbao, but probably needs a little more help from ability to find more opportunities to get them up and keep them up. As it stands, the list of things it can switch in on via typing alone is good, but still a little shallow.
 
I've already mentioned my preference for a utility mon (with a defensive basis) but I'd like to reiterate that along with my support for hazard utility that a couple of other posters here have mentioned.

Frankly, a decent chunk of that is the idea of a fire type being a SR setting is very funny to me.
 
Thinking more I’m more and more liking the idea of a defensive pivot that exudes great offensive pressure through moves and or speed similar to mons like Tornadus-T, Rotom-W/H, Scizor, pre SV Toxapex or the slows.
While fire Fairy is a solid defensive typing on paper I don’t think it is cut out to be an actual wall, as mons we can check through our typing are often still very powerful and there are only a select few we can actually sit in front of regardless of stats. There are probably ways we can still become a strong defensive piece but atm I see this path as fairly narrow.

At the same time while the typing in a vacuum has immense offensive potential, reaching the sheer power of mons like Iron Moth, Iron Valiant, Cinderace or even Volcarona seems like a tall task. We offer somewhat different coverage but we face similar defensive issues (Skeledirge, Toxapex, Venomicon, Garganacl and Clodsire for example). There are maybe two or three abilities that allow us to go this route (unless we tap into Legendary Signature moves)

Meanwhile pivoting naturally pairs well with item manipulation and hazard setting as well as spreading status and debuffing the opponent, which we handily compress with our STAB moves.
Since 98% of time this Mon will want to run boots - there are like 4 or 5 abilities where you might run smth else - our fire typing isn’t a huge worry wrt hazards.
At the same time our Stabs and defensive profile are great for forcing switches with a good amount of Super Effective hits and solid resists, which helps CAP32 gain momentum.

Ultimately i think the role of semi offensive pivot/semi defensive pivot somewhere between Torn and Rotom works really well here and offers a lot of flexibility to explore different approaches to low stats.
 
The more I've been thinking about it, the more I think an offensive approach is best. Is there competition? Absolutely, but I think there are plenty of ways to differentiate CAP 32 from the field of offensive Fairy- and Fire-types in the tier. Here is why I think this:

Defensively, Fire/Fairy has some nice attributes, but not enough to distance it from the pack of walls that inhabit the tier. Pivoting and hazard control can help differentiate it, but when you're competing with the Unawares and Venomicon for slots, it gets tough. It hurts that many of the tier's defensive staples "go both ways", walling both physical and special attackers, something CAP 32's lackluster stats may not be able to support.

Offensively, Fire/Fairy is a lot more effective. While it has some defined counterplay in Venomicon and Skeledirge, it pressures many of the tier's most common Pokemon like Corviknight, Great Tusk, and Arghonaut. More importantly, however, I believe that Fire/Fairy has a much better shot at creating a niche unto itself in the realm of offense. Let's take a look at some of the tier's best offensive Fire- and Fairy-types.

Iron Valiant: An excellent setup sweeper or special wallbreaker

Jumbao: Special wallbreaker with good team support

Azumarill: Physical setup sweeper

Ceruledge: Physical setup sweeper with bulk

Armarouge: Special setup sweeper or Psychic Terrain wallbreaker

Iron Moth: Special wallbreaker with a rarely used Agility sweeping set

Volcarona: Special, bulky setup sweeper

I think there's plenty of room to work here compared to the already excellent defensive choices in CAP. I now think the two best options for role are Offensive Pivot and Wallbreaker.
 
What kinds of roles can Fire/Fairy reasonably fill? What kinds of roles does Fire/Fairy naturally lend itself to? What kinds of roles would be best for Fire/Fairy?

In the interest of being thorough I'm going to list my thoughts on just about every role that we could even consider. It's gonna be a bit text dense but in all fairness there's a lot of things to say on the subject.

2/5. Our biggest competitors in this role are going to be Garchomp, Glimmora, Venomicon, and Great Tusk. Due to the prevalence of these mons in general play, I don't personally think this is the way to go. If we are a hazard setter with low stats and two very key weaknesses to Ground and Poison, I fear it will be very difficult to succeed in this role given that hazard setters usually end up staring each other in the face and we are hit super effectively by all our competitors STABs.
3.5/5. Hazard removal is more of a tool than a dedicated role on a team. For example, many spinners and defoggers don't necessarily need to run them to warrant a team slot, specifically the aforementioned Great Tusk, Scizor, and Corviknight. These Pokemon have access to hazard removal, but usually have something else they'd rather be doing than clearing hazards. If we pursue this route, I recommend we also select a second role to be able to spec into should clearing not be enough. While here I think it's worth mentioning that we could also add dispelling screens into this role due to the similarities in enabling other team members, and given that there's not really any competition in this niche role except for the underwhelming Mr. Rime, who does not yet currently exist in Gen 9.
1/5. If we're going to choose to aim for a clerical role, we'd need to focus on dispelling status conditions, as our concept of a mon with low stats does not lend itself to effective Wish passing. As it stands, there aren't really any Pokemon that can even perform this function right now, but that may change with the addition of the DLC. I don't really think we should let this be our main focus due to the relative difficulty justifying bringing an entire mon dedicated to removing status.
0/5. We need the timbs. We ain't gonna Trick them away.

Utility: 1.5/5. Of all the choices we could make, this one seems pretty lacking in overall viability. Hazard setting/removal are the only ones I think even deserve to be discussed, and even then they fall flat when we try and compare our likely meager stat spread to the likes of Great Tusk who is used on over 50% of standard OU teams and is likely to be at least a check to us based on typing alone.

2.5/5. We could make this happen. It wouldn't take much for us to have the tools to punch through bulkier mons that would just want to sit in our face. The question is what walls we would be aiming to break. We would almost certainly have no shot breaking through Ting-Lu, Garganacl, Toxapex, and Rotom-Wash due to our typing, which worries me because that cuts our breaking targets by a significant amount. Wallbreaking is feasible, but likely won't take us far or separate us enough from Iron Moth, which will undoubtedly have better stat optimization than we will.
4.5/5. This is the first role I really think we could nail in the long term given our typing. Fairy and Fire make excellent neutral coverage, and I think its worth noting here that we pair extremely well with Psychic, Ghost, and Dark type mons due to our resistances overlapping very well with their weaknesses. This would give us plenty of opportunities to get in, and thanks to our likely dependance on HDBs, we won't need to worry about hazard chip. Additionally, there aren't really any Fire type pivots running around right now except arguably Astrolotl, who we just kinda stomp as a pivot thanks to our Fairy types defensive profile.
2/5. I'm not very keen on trying to be locked into a move with even average stats. We can't be Chi-Yu's second coming without having the stats to back it up, which we likely won't have. In addition, the prominence of Gholdengo as a Scarfer means we'd have to get creative with ways to prove we deserve to take the team slot over it, which is a daunting task indeed.
?/5. This is the most interesting category to me. As it stands now, we absolutely will not have any chance to succeed without a STAB priority move. As neither a Fire or Fairy priority move exists, this role is not worth pursuing unless we are willing to create a priority move for this mon, which I'm aware is kinda poll jumping, but needs to be mentioned due to this role in the game being basically worthless without it.
3/5. Circumventing poor stats is the name of the game with this concept, and to that end boosting moves could be very successful. It obviously depends on how far we're willing to go with our boosting. There's a very marked difference between Dragon Dance and Swords Dance sweepers, and it would be important to distinguish which angle we want to take moving forward at this point.

Offense: 4/5. This is the way I want to go moving forward. Our typing is at least somewhat offensively oriented and there's a lot of directions we could go with this concept. My preference is definitely for a pivot, but set-up moves are definitely on the table.

4/5. We've seen a lot of walls with at least decent success and lower stat spreads. Gastrodon immediately jumps to mind as a solid defensive presence with a modest 475 stat total. We could easily pursue being a bulky annoying status spreader which has decent neutral STAB coverage that can chip away until the enemy can no longer hold up to a threatening sweeper.
3.5/5. I love the idea of being a pivot. I don't see us as having quite good enough of a defensive typing to be able to function as a defensive pivot except on very specific teams, however on those teams we may end up being a menace that enables dangerous threats to become unstoppable. We would be walking a fine line between uselessness and meta breaking dominance, and we've walked that line a lot on recent projects.
2/5. I want this role to work. I really do. But if we're going to have low/average stats, we're going to have a hard time being fast/bulky enough to effectively do our job and stop boosted threats. The exception to this is if we pursued Unaware, but then we are directly competing with Skeledirge, who is guaranteed to have better bulk than us. (aint no way we gonna have 104/100/75 bulk and still stick to concept.)

Defense: 2.5/5. It's not as unreasonable as some people think. Fairy typing alone opens the door to being a defensive option, and walling specifically is something we could pretty easily go for with a strong ability and powerful moves.

Weather/Rooms: 3/5. Weather is an interesting topic. As a Fire type, we obviously function well in the sun. It circumvents our Water weakness and plays to our strengths as a Fairy type with strong neutral coverage. I don't think we should actively pursue setting or abusing weather, but we will likely be able to take advantage of it even if it's not our main intent.
 
What kinds of roles can Fire/Fairy reasonably fill? What kinds of roles does Fire/Fairy naturally lend itself to? What kinds of roles would be best for Fire/Fairy?

Fire/Fairy is a typing that relies on its mixture of decent offensive and potential defensive quality. Offensively Fire/Fairy is alright, and good when paired with an additional move. Although both types are resisted by Fire types, the range of Fire types in the tier is not great enough to the point where they cant all be basically covered by a single coverage move. Unfortunately this mon can't use booster energies and may struggle using damage boosting items, which greatly limits its offensive capability compared to alternatives.

Defensively this typing is alright by itself, but with the right ability it actually gets a chance to shine. Unfortunately it does have a weird time with getting knocked off and uturned on which is uncomfortable as a Fairy. The number of free matchups that this typing offers feels shallow to me. But this is also how Astrolotl felt, and with the right ability a medium defensive typing was able to work. Its really important to note that Astrolotl was using a boosted medium defensive typing to enhance its offensive qualities and get switchins that always resulted in making progress- it wasnt trying to be a defensive wall. I think the same applies here.

Without suggesting a route for abilities, I think this mon starts off in the realm of Grimmsnarl- medium typing that could go any direction, paired with medium stats will struggle to do anything in the realm of being a premier wall or premier offensive threat. But just like Grimmsnarl, mons can be put on teams to provide crucial stuff that nothing else can offer, or a very very high tier ability can boost its offensive threat level or defensive switchins.

If its not clear, I think this mon should be an offensively leaning and/or utility mon that uses its typing to get some clean switchins. Theres a fair few routes to achieve that result

Are there any roles that would be too difficult for CAP32 to compete within, given our lacking stats compared to other top-tier Pokemon?

Not really. With Tera in the format and ability still in the air there isn't anything that's off the table for a specific typing this stage.
 
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Clearly no one knows what role this should be

In my opinion, defining a role now doesn’t feel like the right option, as I feel the power budget is still too high to put a pin in it. Maybe not unfortunately, we picked a typing that would be great in so many roles. Therefore, we don’t have enough knowledge about CAP32 to pick a role. The problem with Fire/Fairy is it’s kinda feeling like 4MSS where it has so many good things that it suffers from having to choose one (not the best analogy).

Anyway I think CAP32 should possess a mix of these roles in some shape or form: hazard setter/“protector” (i.e. what Ghold does), offensive pressure, wall, and pivot. I think all of these roles have been taken to a great liking by most of the thread, and I also agree that Fire/Fairy fits quite nicely with all of them. However, I’m aware that shoving them all into one Mon is kinda overwhelming and not good for CAP32’s success.
 
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