Name: Extreme Makeover: Typing Edition
General Description: The idea here is to create a Pokemon who's typing, while normally considered poor defensively and/or offensively, becomes a strong selling point of the Pokemon itself via help from an ability, stats, and/or movepool.
Justification: There are a lot of typings we scoff at on a daily basis because of their serious flaws, often forgetting about their strong points. For example, Poison is a really terrible offensive typing, but a decent defensive typing, while the Ice typing is good offensively, but awful defensively. Instead of just accepting that some typings will just ruin a Pokemon, this CAP concept aims to take that "terrible typing", and find ways to fix it (usually via ability, movepool, or stats) to the point where the formerly terrible typing becomes the CAP's strong point! The reason this CAP could benefit OU is because a Pokemon who makes a "bad typing" into a great one could find many unique offensive and/or defensive niches that aren't currently found!
Questions To Be Answered
-What does it take for a Pokemon to overcome its "bad typing" so much that its typing becomes good? Are the stats the biggest contributer, is the ability the thing that saves it, does movepool make it a force, or is it a combination of the above?
-How does the typing makeover effect the Pokemon's playstyle? Does the Pokemon become a unique wall that uses its makeover to overcome its typing's normally fatal flaws, does the make over make a terrible offensive typing into a fearsome sweeper, does the makeover make it into a formidible combination of deffense and offense to a typing that brings it neither, or does the makeover bring forth something none of us see coming from the typing?
-Which resistances and immunities are the most relevant to the metagame? Sure, this concept is aiming to have a "bad typing" become good, but part of that will require the bad typing to have some key resistances and/or immunties to certain typings to defend against or set up on, while still having a very unorthodox competitive typing. This works the other way around too, what are the typings most relevant to hit super effectively or at least neutral?
-How will the rest of the OU metagame react to this extreme type makeover? Will Pokemon start carrying moves they normally wouldn't carry to break through a new defensive threat, will some Pokemon take on new defensive roles due to resisting the unorthodox STABs CAP 3 may carry? Or will This Pokemon, despite being a very real threat, not have many "custom made sets" to beat it, being more of a Pokemon that is a reaction to the metagame than causing a metagame reaction?
-Finally, how will this effect the teams CAP3 is on? Will this be the kind of Pokemon who needs a lot of support to become a threat, will this Pokemon be more of key team member to execute another strategy, or will this be the kind of Pokemon that's part of the glue that holds the team together?
Explanation:
Alright first let me get something out of the way: I don't exactly envision us making something like "another Volcarona", or "another Ho-Oh". Those two are more examples of Pokemon who succeed despite the problems their typing give them. While we could go that way, I envision this concept as more of a way to make a normally terrible typing good, not just a good Pokemon with a bad typing! Now some of you make think this concept could get a bit restrictive, but there are actually a LOT of ways this concept can go! I'll divide the rest of this Explanation into Defensive and Offensive examples, and also examples of Pokemon in existing metagames that illustrate what I'm talking about. Just one thing to note, these aren't the only possible ways a CAP under this concept can go! The below are just merely examples of how we could form this CAP, there are plenty of other avenues this CAP could go and explore that I don't mention!
Defensive
-The first thing that will probably come to mind when it comes to giving a bad defensive typing a make over is giving it an ability that gives it an immunity to a 4x weakness, abilities like Levitate, Sap Sipper, Flash Fire, Water Absorb, Lighting Rod, etc. This is certainly a direction this CAP can go, because there are plenty of typings that are considered terrible on a Pokemon just because its stats don't gel with a nasty 4x weakness!
-When it comes to abilities, there are others that can aid the quest of turning a bad typing into a good one! The most obvious example is Magic Guard on a Pokemon that has the often ruining 4x Stealth Rock weakness, but this isn't the only way! Another solid example that isn't seen at all in OU is Solid Rock, which could be perfect for a Pokemon who has a lot of nasty 2x weaknesses.
-Simply having stats in the right places can do wonders here in making a bad typing on paper become a good typing in practice! For example, lets look at Blissey and Chansey in OU. Normal is a pretty bleh typing, in fact these two are the only Normal types in OU! However, that massive SpD is what shows the strength of Normal being neutral to almost everything and having only one weakness!
-Solstice brought up a pretty good point on IRC that I forgot to mention! Having resists in the right places can be a huge help! The great example he brought up was Celebi. Celebi has 7 weakneses, including a nasty 4x weak to Bug. What made Celebi OU (and makes it work in Ubers hehehehehehe) is that it brings along aweome resistances to common attacking types like Water, Ground, and Fighting, and it certainly has the movepool to take advantage of these kinds of resistances!
-There is also one great example of a Pokemon in OU and Ubers, who's typing, while normally pretty bad defensively, works wonders because of its ability: Tyranitar! Dark / Rock has a normally devastating 6 weaknesses, including weakneses to common types like Water, Fighting, and Ground. What really saves Tyranitar here is of course, the SpD boost it gets from Sandstream. This, in combination with its great defensive stats, makes Tyranitar FAR more difficult to take down than it seems! Combine that with great offensive stats, and being one of the best Pursuiters around, and you have a great example of a Pokemon turning a normally terrible typing into one hell of an asset!
Offensive
This concept may seem like it would be very biased defensively, but thats not the case, there are plenty of ways to make this CAP focused on offense!
-Sometimes, a great move is what can turn a bad typing on a Pokemon into a good one! I'm guessing a lot of you are thinking "Like Quiver Dance on Volcarona?", and while that is an example in some ways, I have another example that some of you might not expect: the classic god of Pokemon, Mewtwo! Last generation in Ubers, Mewtwo's typing actually really sucked, it had a terrible stab plenty of Pokemon resisted, to the point where it didnt even bother using a STAB, AND it also had a pretty meh defensive typing too! That all changed this generation when Mewtwo got Psystrike, the 100 BP Psyshock clone. Because of Psystrike, Mewtwo has become one of the most fearsome mixed sweepers in Pokemon history, suffering none of the consequences most mixed attackers do, and in the process, making a Psychic resistance extremely important and a Psychic weakness a very big flaw unlike last generation! So TL;DR, giving a Pokemon the right offensive movepool can go a long way twords making its bad typing become good!
-We could go with a Pokemon that has a great defensive typing, but a terrible offensive typing. The catch here is that this would actually be an offensive Pokemon, that uses its defensive typing to either launch off powerful attacks or set up. A great example of an already existing Pokemon that does this is none other than Steel Arceus in Ubers! While Mono Steel is still a great defensive type, its a pretty sucky offensive typing. Steel Arceus gets away with being offensive anyways as an awesome Calm Minder, it uses its great defensive typing to set up, and takes advantage of the fact that Steel effects every type to use Judgement as its only attack, and use a nice support move like Roar in the last slot!
-Offensive Abilities can also go a long way twords making a bad typing into a good typing! A great example that user Deck Knight has mentioned a couple times is a Rock / Fire type with Rock Head. Normally, Rock / Fire reminds us of how much Magcargo really sucks, but imagine if Magcargo had Flare Blitz and Head Smash? Sure it'd still have an SR weakness and a 4x weakness to water and ground, but it'd sure be able to hit hard!
-To expand on the point made above, having stats in the right places can go a long way twords making a Pokemon with a bad typing appealing, ESPECIALLY SPEED! Lets bring up that hypothetical Rock / Fire Pokemon again. If we want to make this thing offensive, why not give it lots of speed to make it so it can hit stuff before getting nuked by a Surf? Making the Pokemon super fast isn't guaranteed either. For example, we could make something like a bulky Dark / Psychic Pokemon with just enough speed so it could reasonably out speed most Scizor, and then Fire Blast its ass!