CAP 7 CAP 7 - Part 2 - Main Type Discussion

[Umbreon Dan]

I like Steel as the primary type for it's boatload of resistances, but I'm worried that after Steel is chosen, everyone will vote Bug as the secondary type. I really like the combination Steel/Ghost, as you've then got three or four immunities and a wide selection of resistances, with only Fire and Ground as weaknesses.

I guess I'll vote Steel.

 

[Deck Knight]

I would much rather take SR damage than get hit by Ground and Fighting Super Effectively. Also, since Scoutmon is offensive how does this benifit the theme here. Steel is useless if it doesn't have the stats.

Steel types have a precedent of getting Magnet Rise. The overwhelming majority of EQ users are Sub-100 Speed. Magnet Rise can solve any EQ/EP Problems, while also scouting out the odd Earthquake. Stealth Rock weakness is THE worst possible weakness for a scout to have. Why do you think that of all the Bugs that are out there, not one of them makes a good scout? Because every time they switch in at least 1/4th of their health is taken out.

Metagross and Jirachi are both examples of Steel types with stats. And please, please don't suggest to me that being part Psychic is somehow a major blessing. It mitigates Close Combat, but you seem to have more issues with Earthquake.

You don't need to Scout Strata. It will always be Special, so send in your special wall. Besides, don't most Stratas carry Earth Power?

Does Strata want to switch into anything with Steel STAB? I think not. Bug though? Here comes Paleo Wave...

Bulky Waters are predictable-They don't need to be scouted
Grass in CAP=Breloom (needs no scouting) or Pyroak.
Ice is the only real issue.

Aside from the occasional CB Scyclant, most Syclant are special as well.

Quite a fine option, Normal fails to offer real STAB power, which a Scout will want to rely on, so it can have more room for important stuff, like actual scouting moves. This is also why Steel is bad-its terrible STAB.

Steel STABs problems are all in highly predictable pokemon (Fire, Water, Electric, Steel). Nothing is immune to Steel while a host of popular sweepers and walls are immune to Normal. Said Sweepers/Walls also resist Bug. They're called Ghosts.

Steel provides nothing offensivlely and weakness in the worst places.
Normal is better than Steel, seeing as it won;t become EQ bait.
Dark seems like a good secondary typing,adding a little on to the main idea. Ground is also in this boat.

Normal is weak to Close Combat, which is both stronger than and harder to switch into than Earthquake. Steel shares this weakness, but Fighting is the only weakness that can't be addressed with a currently existing ability.

Bug easily has weaknesses in "the worst places" it resists nothing of value outside of EQ and CC. It is weak to Air Slash, which Skymin and Togekiss bandy about like its going out of style. Similarly, it is weak to Flamethrower and Fire Blast. Steel shares this weakness, however, Steel can also switch into Toxic and Toxic Spikes with impunity, as well as escape Pursuit with minimal damage and switch into a plethora of STAB attacks. Bug cannot do this. Did I mention Bug loses 25% of its HP every time it switches in to scout something?

Bug is just plain the best typing.

Bug is a horrible scout typing, useful only for STAB U-Turn. STAB U-turn has done zilch for Bug scouts, including those with U-turn, good speed, and Sleep Powder (see: Venomoth). Of the major threats you would want to scout, both Salamence and Lucario resist it to a higher degree than Steel. In fact, Bug is basically useless on anything not named Celebi, Cresselia, and Tyranitar. Coincidentally, all those things are fairly easy to get information on.

 

[Yllnath]

I'm sorry to say this, but Steel looks like a crappy typing at best. Has everyone forgotton about Magnezone?
Or is it decided already that U-turn is going to be required on any set we make.
"Look, we have 4 teams in our CAP7 analysis. You may notice that U-turn is on all of them, but that's because we screwed our first typing poll and now have a major magnezone weak. Don't worry about it though, you still have 3 other moveslots."
I'm sorry to sound sarcastic, but isn't this just going far to fast without any constructive thought being put in? Maybe it's because I work in IT and am used to work in an analytic manner, but I always want to adress issues first before I name any possible solutions.

Anyway, hoping it's not too late yet, but when thinking about the typing, a few obvious questions come to mind for me.

Do we want to be neutral, resistant or immune to entry hazards through typing? Or do we want to get rid of those hazards with an ability like mountaineer or maybe even magic guard?
Do we want to be weak to pursuit?
Do we want to be weak to the few most common attacking types? (Rock/Ground/Fighting/BoltBeam. Fire is also up there to deal with Scizor mainly.) With Steel, we already have 3 of these weaknesses and only neutral to the Tbolt part. (Hi maggy again)

And a more general question, do we want CAP7 to be offensive or defensive? We already seen multiple opinions and multiple people believing that this is obviously going to become offensive or defensive. Steel is indeed a decent defensive type (Not good, a fighting weakness in a CAP metagame filled with fighting types is far from logical), but steel sucks as an offensive type. According to the little IRC convo on page 2, CAP7 isn't going to be really defensive with 80 and 90 base stats on defensive already being a lot. Of course, nothing is decided yet, but if we really won't go over 100 base defense, our little steel CAP7 will get creamed by any Close Combat or Earthquake and will actually not be able to switch in to the metagame a lot. And since the defensive also isn't really going to be high, will we then go attack with our not so great (because people also don't want high offensive stats) attack stat and STAB *cough*Steel*cough* attack?

To be honest, since we haven't even decided on whether this is going to be bulky (not even naming stats here, we don't even know where our global stat spread is going to lie) or sweeperish (yee, I thought up a new word), I don't see how we could even have started with the first type poll.

Anyway, to answer my own questions, here is my opinion on them.

And a more general question, do we want CAP7 to be offensive or defensive?
I say defensive. I want to be able to switch in and live. I'm not saying we want to make a tank, but at least we shouldn't be 2HKOed by neutral attacks, meaning we have some room to breath once we are in. I also don't want to scare away pokemon through sheer force, that's the easy way. I want CAP7 to have highly tactical play and only be able to force someone out through moves and right decisions. Throwing a -2atk on a pokemon that can run special and physical sets is a wrong choice. Yawn would've been better there, or something like that. I only want to be able to KO stuff, like I said before, after they got their defence weakened by me and got totally crippled, yet they still decided to keep that pokemon in.

Do we want to be neutral, resistant or immune to entry hazards through typing? Or do we want to get rid of those hazards with an ability like mountaineer or maybe even magic guard?
I actually don't see why we need to be locked into the few types that are resistant to SR. For the record, only 3 types naturally resist SR, Ground, Steel and Fighting. Seeing as our metagame is already full with fighting and how we thus tailored our couters to have HP flying and having more psychics, fighting already drops for me. Leaving only ground and steel. And to be honest Steek being weak to Fire, fighting and ground, 3 types that are commonly spammed, I think that only leaves ground. And I also don't really like ground because it would almost be impossible to scout bulky waters then. So to me, it seems it's totally ineffecient to gain a SR resistance through typing. So either we need to be content with only a neutrality, (Slap on a leftovers, run protect and you have 12% HP back) or we'll need to use an ability if we really want to be resistant/immune to SR and entry hazards. I'm actually content with neutrality. It's really only SR we are talking about. All the talk about spikes and Tspikes. I've never ever seen a full set been laid down and attempts to put down spikes are only done once in a full moon.

Do we want to be weak to pursuit?
Absolutely not. If we can't switch out, then what's the point of a scout? It's natural that we are going to have weaknesses. There is really no such thing as an uber poke (there is, but I assume we are not going to make one in CAP 7). We will always have someone that forces us out. If he pursuits our ass and we die from it, that really a wasted team slot then. So no Psychic or Ghost type.

Do we want to be weak to the few most common attacking types?
I want to be resistant to most of them. My reasoning for this is that even though we take 12% from SR, at least we can switch in to the majority of the spammed attacks and take no damage from those.
And to provoke a little bit.. What good will an immunity to SR do if we are weak to the most commonly spammed attacking types, all almost able to KO us on our switch in? Did anyone even think about that? Yee, I only took 3% damage from SR. O crap, I switched in on a CC doing 254% damage. Woohoo.

Anyway, saying I want to be neutral to SR and resistant to most of the common attacking types I listed, my bet is going to Water, hopefully paired with something that resists the thing water is weak too. Water isn't great either and takes a lot of neutral damage, but I'd rather take a neutral hit than a SE hit. Dragon, ground and normal seem like pretty decent choices as well, although I think water should be the base to be paired with any of these.

 

[polelover44]

I'm sorry to say this, but Steel looks like a crappy typing at best. Has everyone forgotton about Magnezone?

Have you forgotten about Shed Shell/Baton Pass?
Anyway, Steel has the most resistances of any type. We could go with Ghost, and have more immunities, but steel is best.

 

[redsoxfan325]

Have you forgotten about Shed Shell/Baton Pass?

Or U-turn for that matter, a move everyone seems certain is going to be on CAP7.

 

[Yllnath]

So we are saying that any possible set is going to carry U-turn or baton pass? And I find Shed Shell an even more appaling option for something that could do so many things and slap on so many different items.
We don't even want to have other options for that 4th moveslot on any of our sets? While this seems to be a pokemon that is already going to suffer from the moveslot syndrome.

And as for everyone saying that steel is a good defensive type, that is a bunch of crap. It's the users that make steel a good defensive type, all carrying high defensive stats. Even something like Lucario with awesome attacking stats still has 70/70/70 defences. Hell, even something as crappy as wormadam has 60/95/95. This goes all the way up to 200 defence on Registeel and most users have defences that go over 100.

Looking at the type chart, of all the types steel resist, most attacking types are situational and not really common. Bug, Dark, Flying, Grass, Normal, Poison, Psychic and Steel. All these types are situational at best and most pokemon that wield this types usually have a stronger move they'll be spamming instead of these. The only useful resistances are Dragon, Ghost, Ice and Rock, with Dragon and Ghost also not being very common moves. In return, there is neutrality to water and electric are annoying, espacially Electric and the Fire, Ground and Fighting weaknesses just happen to be a few of the most common attacks.

If necessary, I don't mind running a few calcs on supposes stats for scoutmon, probably along the lines of 80/80/80 or maybe even lower with only 252 EVs to spare on defences (as 252 EVs will most likely go to speed). I can probably prove that scoutmon will probably even have to be afraid of random Surfs or Thunderbolts when switching in.

 

[Deck Knight]

I'm sorry to say this, but Steel looks like a crappy typing at best. Has everyone forgotton about Magnezone?
Or is it decided already that U-turn is going to be required on any set we make.

This will probably sound "pokemon beats pokemon with move" to you, but: Earthquake is the definitive answer to Magnezone. Magnezone's options against a pure Steel are limited to Thunderbolt and Hidden Power, of which, Thunderbolt will always hold more power unless this resists electric attacks through some other type. I'm sure Specs Thunderbolt hurts hella bad. And so does HP Ground/Earth Power/Earthquake on Zone.

Furthermore, U-Turn is an excellent scouting move, rendering both Magnezone and Dugtrio moot vis-a-vis trapping to begin with.

"Look, we have 4 teams in our CAP7 analysis. You may notice that U-turn is on all of them, but that's because we screwed our first typing poll and now have a major magnezone weak. Don't worry about it though, you still have 3 other moveslots."
I'm sorry to sound sarcastic, but isn't this just going far to fast without any constructive thought being put in? Maybe it's because I work in IT and am used to work in an analytic manner, but I always want to adress issues first before I name any possible solutions.

U-Turn is a scouting move. We're making the ultimate scout. You may consider this poll jumping of some sort, however, I am certain 99% of people thought during Fidgit's process (ultimate utility) that it was going to get Rapid Spin. Ultimate Utility without Rapid Spin is as ridiculous as Ultimate Scout without U-Turn.

Anyway, hoping it's not too late yet, but when thinking about the typing, a few obvious questions come to mind for me.

Do we want to be neutral, resistant or immune to entry hazards through typing? Or do we want to get rid of those hazards with an ability like mountaineer or maybe even magic guard?
Do we want to be weak to pursuit?
Do we want to be weak to the few most common attacking types? (Rock/Ground/Fighting/BoltBeam. Fire is also up there to deal with Scizor mainly.) With Steel, we already have 3 of these weaknesses and only neutral to the Tbolt part. (Hi maggy again)

Electrical attacks are a nuisance, but aren't super-effective and the likelihood our scout will be choiced on a regular set is nil. Magnezone's Thunderbolt does equal damage to a Steel, Bug, or Normal type. In the meantime, Steel typing does the most to avert hazards without giving up an ability slot that is not necessarily conducive to scouting. It also fulfils a Pursuit resistance and a Stealth Rock resistance. We already have Fighting CAPS out the wazoo, and Ground hardly needs any more representatives either, and those are the only other types to boast SR resistance.

And a more general question, do we want CAP7 to be offensive or defensive? We already seen multiple opinions and multiple people believing that this is obviously going to become offensive or defensive. Steel is indeed a decent defensive type (Not good, a fighting weakness in a CAP metagame filled with fighting types is far from logical), but steel sucks as an offensive type. According to the little IRC convo on page 2, CAP7 isn't going to be really defensive with 80 and 90 base stats on defensive already being a lot. Of course, nothing is decided yet, but if we really won't go over 100 base defense, our little steel CAP7 will get creamed by any Close Combat or Earthquake and will actually not be able to switch in to the metagame a lot. And since the defensive also isn't really going to be high, will we then go attack with our not so great (because people also don't want high offensive stats) attack stat and STAB *cough*Steel*cough* attack?

You know, there's a funny thing about Earthquake and Close Combat: Several pokemon are immune or 4x resistant to both simultaneously. Chief among these being the Levitating Ghosts, with honorable mention to Crobat, Zapdos, and Gyarados. The idea that every pokemon on your opponents team is going to be belting out Earthquake or Close Combat is laughable, especially in the latter's case, where Close Combat is as predictable as the sun rising in the east.

To be honest, since we haven't even decided on whether this is going to be bulky (not even naming stats here, we don't even know where our global stat spread is going to lie) or sweeperish (yee, I thought up a new word), I don't see how we could even have started with the first type poll.

This kind of statement could only come from someone unfamiliar with the process. Stats are decided in due time, after we have gone through the basics of what the pokemon must do, which falls heavily onto type. The current process has already brought us 6 successful creations, I don't see why we should switch now just because you believe stats should be decided in a type-devoid vacuum.

I'm all for your post expounding on your own questions, but I find the reasoning behind "most spammed moves" complaint highly subjective. If they are indeed spammed, and will be attempted on a pokemon capable of fleeing in an instant, does that not simply open up more opportunities for Gyarados, Zapdos, and Gengar to tear into your opponents team, confident in the knowledge your opponent is locked into a Choice attack they resist?

 

[X-Act]

I think a scout should have as neutral a typing as possible. In that respect, I would want a Normal-typed one.

 

[Yllnath]

This will probably sound "pokemon beats pokemon with move" to you, but: Earthquake is the definitive answer to Magnezone. Magnezone's options against a pure Steel are limited to Thunderbolt and Hidden Power, of which, Thunderbolt will always hold more power unless this resists electric attacks through some other type. I'm sure Specs Thunderbolt hurts hella bad. And so does HP Ground/Earth Power/Earthquake on Zone.

Furthermore, U-Turn is an excellent scouting move, rendering both Magnezone and Dugtrio moot vis-a-vis trapping to begin with.

But isn't that just assuming that you will always have a certain move on your moveset? I agree totally that U-turn breaks out of a lock, making the lock useless, but that is under the assumption that CAP7 is always carrying U-Turn (Or a random Ground move).

U-Turn is a scouting move. We're making the ultimate scout. You may consider this poll jumping of some sort, however, I am certain 99% of people thought during Fidgit's process (ultimate utility) that it was going to get Rapid Spin. Ultimate Utility without Rapid Spin is as ridiculous as Ultimate Scout without U-Turn.

And does every set of Fidgit run Rapid Spin? Even if it's the ultimate Utility user, that doesn't mean it's key move needs to be on every set. I think the same applies to Scoutmon. Even if U-turn is such a great move for it, if we need to put it on every set because we might lose out on our ability to switch, it will limit all our sets potential by 25%. Perhaps I want a set that causes switches by lowering stats and have a random attack that can strike an opponent after I dropped their defences. I already have a moveslot syndrome just for that set. Maybe I want a set that .. . You get my point, I assume.

Electrical attacks are a nuisance, but aren't super-effective and the likelihood our scout will be choiced on a regular set is nil. Magnezone's Thunderbolt does equal damage to a Steel, Bug, or Normal type. In the meantime, Steel typing does the most to avert hazards without giving up an ability slot that is not necessarily conductive to scouting. It also fulfils a Pursuit resistance and a Stealth Rock resistance. We already have Fighting CAPS out the wazoo, and Ground hardly needs any more representatives either, and those are the only other types to boast SR resistance.

So because we can't make a fighting type or ground type, we must have steel, because getting 12.5% damage is really too much? There are also many types that don't care about pursuit, either.

You know, there's a funny thing about Earthquake and Close Combat: Several pokemon are immune or 4x resistant to both simultaneously. Chief among these being the Levitating Ghosts, with honorable mention to Crobat, Zapdos, and Gyarados. The idea that every pokemon on your opponents team is going to be belting out Earthquake or Close Combat is laughable, especially in the latter's case, where Close Combat is as predictable as the sun rising in the east.

It's true those moves are easy to detect. That still doesn't mean you can switch in on them. And seeing as the 6 move types I listen probably are around 40%-50% on most commonly used movetypes, meaning of all offensive moves used, those 6 types are used for 40%-50% and all other 11 types make up the other 50%. That means you can't switch in to almost half of the moves that are used. As for sending in counters first to make a path for a scout to come in, seems ludicrous. If you cleared a path anyway, you could just sent a sweeper in. I fail to see how it's logical that we have to clear a path for a scout to come in. See 2 quotes below as well where I eloborate more on this.

This kind of statement could only come from someone unfamiliar with the process. Stats are decided in due time, after we have gone through the basics of what the pokemon must do, which falls heavily onto type. The current process has already brought us 6 successful creations, I don't see why we should switch now just because you believe stats should be decided in a type-devoid vacuum.

It's indeed true that I wasn't around in other CAPs. That doesn't change the fact that a lot of reason for chosing steal in this topic have been flawed. We chose steel because it's a good defensive type. It is indeed a good defensive type if you give it good defences, that's true indeed. If you give it crappy defences in the end while expanding on it's offensive potential, isn't chosing steel then not just a waste of what could've been a good STAB move? And I'm not saying that the stats should be decided first, that's just twisting my words, which I don't appreciate. I clearly mentioned numerous times that I was talking about a vague idea of where the stats could be heading. There is a complete difference there. If we think up front that we are going to make it bulky, we can assume that there isn't going to be a highly offensive stat spread later on. (which wouldn't benefit from Steel as a STAB, aside from the fact that a low defence steel being good on defence is a moot point)
As for being around in other CAPs, if you can honestly say that everything went smoothly in previous CAPs and there were no points at which everyone had to look back and think, wow what happened there, I think you are lying. Because the entire reason for the concept assesment stage to be added (according to the policy discussion itself), was to make sure there is some general info to go on in the later stages to avoid situations where we have to look back to check what went wrong at that stage. And I'm just even more critical than that. I don't check back after a few stages, I just ask questions every stage when we still have an option of changing things, to see if a choice that is about to be made is actually beneficial to the concept we are trying to make. If you think that such questions are illogical and it's better to just go on vague ideas, comments and bandwagons, be my guest. I'll keep my observations to my self then.

I'm all for your post expounding on your own questions, but I find the reasoning behind "most spammed moves" complaint highly subjective. If they are indeed spammed, and will be attempted on a pokemon capable of fleeing in an instant, does that not simply open up more opportunities for Gyarados, Zapdos, and Gengar to tear into your opponents team, confident in the knowledge your opponent is locked into a Choice attack they resist?

I have nothing to add here. It's completely true that I can also have counters to the things that Scoutmon is weak too, but isn't scoutmons true objective not to switch in to as many as pokemons as possible, espacially the more common ones (the ones in the top 20, not some random top 40s-50s), to check what they can do and what counters they have, before you go sending in your own counters and sweepers. And the 3 pokemon you listed all have obvious weaknesses of their own which could be easily be exploited by the opponent. Isn't scoutmons job to find out if the opponent can indeed pursuit your gengar to hell or stone rape your Gyarados (seeing as most earthquakers carry Stone Edge as well). If we need to clear a path in the opponents team just so we can send in our scout (a scout that is supposed to come in early aid you sweeper, not the other way around), seems a bit in contrast to what we want with the concept.



Edit: Let me just eloborate with a simple example. Let's say there is someone CB locked spamming Earthquakes. You can't switch in the future CAP7 because of the weakness to ground. So you sent in the levitating Gengar. He then switches to T-tar. You have just lost your Gengar because, leave or stay, he'll eat your ass. If you would've known he had a T-Tar, it's more likely you would not have sent in Gengar, because of the high risk of losing it, or you could sent in Gengar, and immediately start spamming Focus Blast, meaning you have 2 chances to hit it with FB (the first turn it switches in, and the 2nd turn, when you are faster than him).
So if CAP7 hadn't been limited to switch into that CB earthquake, there is a high chance you also could've discovered the T-Tar hiding in the team and your entire strategy would've changed.

 

[Mekkah]

I'm gonna go ahead and note that if you make another Bug, you will get _another_ CAP likely weak to Flying, which is definitely not going to help the game. Not going to say a lot else since I don't have a lot of CAP experience left...from what I've seen, I'd want Normal. Maybe Steel, but Steel is represented plenty as it is.

 

[seantyler]

Steel
-resistance to stealth rock and the immunity to toxic and toxic spikes is kinda neat.
-and I also want to have a steel/grass pokemon for its unique typing that's why steel for its main type.

 

[Mattman324]

And of course we HAVE to make a slow Steel type. I mean, Stratagem is living proof that we can make fast Pokemon out of normally slow typing. Other than Aerodactyl, Rock is slow, and Stratagem is fast. Having a regular typing stat restraint istn really something that CAP, or Gamefreak follows. The fastest OU Pokemon is Ninjask, with a base speed of 160. Now, if we look at Shuckle, its base speed is 5, and is also a Bug type. Your point is completely irrelevant in the sense that we must make a slow steel type. Ever heard of a slow bullet?

I find irony in this post. You see, stratagem was designed to be different. Scoutmon was designed to be a scout. We do not have to break the mold on every CAP we do, but we seem too.

Most normals are fast, even if they shouldn't be (see: miltank) They are neutral too almost everything, and even get an immunity to a key type! (Ghost.) I say, Normal is the way to go.

 

[jagged_angel]

The trouble with Normal is "neutral to almost everything" sounds pretty unappealing to me. What good is neutrality if you don't have bulky stats?

If you people really wanted a good Neutral typing, you should choose Dragon.

Weaknesses to Dragon and Ice are about the same as a Fighting weakness IMO.

Dragon is rare and very predictable, and Ice is rarely STABbed, whereas Fighting is on Alot of OU pokes, both STABbed and unSTABbed, with unSTABbed attacks still packing a punch due to the widespread Platinum Superpower.

On the resistance side, Dragon also wins having 4 common resists instead of Normal's one semi-common immunity.

On the STAB side, Dragon also wins being SE against one type and resisted by one type, compared to Normal being SE against nothing, weak against 2 types and useless against one.

All in all Normal is even crappier than Poison type on all counts. If you want neutrality you should have voted Dragon.

However that is all academic since Steel is what CAP7 needs.

 

[Skyshroud]

If you want neutrality you should have voted Dragon.

Except then you have trouble switching into Ice and Dragon moves, which is kinda big. CAP7 would likely then have trouble switching in on 'Mence, which I believe was one of the high priority pokemon we wanted it to scout.