CAP 31 - Part 2 - Typing Discussion

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I believe that Pyuking Muku brings up a really interesting idea: a Pokémon with a lot of neutralities and few weaknesses turning its physical neutralities into resistances by boosting its Defense seems very pro-concept.
With this idea in mind, I would like to submit Steel/Flying.

1. What useful type resistances/immunities does this type have that mesh well with Diamond Storm?
Many Fighting, Ground, Steel, and Water types will want to switch in to a potential Diamond Storm to minimize its damage and waste its PP. However, they won't be able to do crippling damage in return, as Steel/Flying is neutral to Water and Fighting, resists Steel, and is completely immune to Ground type attacks. Resisting Flying is also a big deal, allowing CAP31 an easier time switching into and countering the meta's Flying types. Being immune to Poison further counters Books, and having a 4x U-Turn resistance and a 2x Bullet Punch resistance is never a bad thing.


2. Does this type come with any additional benefits that are particularly appreciated by CAP 31? (ex. Stealth Rock resistance, immunity to a status, etc.)
Steel and Flying makes CAP31 all but invulnerable to some of the most common means of wearing Pokémon down, those being Toxic and Spikes. Being immune to Sandstorm and Sticky Webs is nice, too.

3. What weaknesses does this type have that can be effectively patched by a Diamond Storm Defense raise?
Having a Fire type weakness is a huge deal that can be well dealt with by scaring out said Fire types with Diamond Storm. Unfortunately, an Electric weakness isn't one easily fixed with a Diamond Storm boost, given the type's predominantly Special lean.

4. Does this type seek to use Diamond Storm offensively or defensively? Or does it leave this more up in the air?
This type seeks to use Diamond Storm offensively, I think.

5. How does this type complement Diamond Storm coverage-wise? If this type does not have STAB on Diamond Storm, how does it justify using the move and how much value does the extra STAB coverage provide?
While the Steel typing doesn't add much offensively, the Flying typing allows CAP31 to hit Fighting types like Arghonaut for super-effective damage. Furthermore, Diamond Storm hits Flying types and Fire types super-effectively, and Electric types neutrally, providing valuable coverage against things CAP31 needs to beat and its checks.


The Steel/Flying type has many resistances and few weaknesses, as well as several neutralities, being Rock, Fighting, Ghost, Dark, Water, and Ice. I picked Steel/Flying because 4 of those 6 neutralities are mainly physical, and can effectively be turned from neutralities into resistances by doubling CAP31's Defense with Diamond Storm.
A few types I was also considering were Steel/Bug for having even more neutralities that can be turned into resistances, Rock/Grass for also having many neutralities, Diamond Storm STAB, and excellent offensive synergy, and Ground/Flying for its incredible coverage with Diamond Storm and useful resistances and neutralities. However, I decided against them for a multitude of reasons, including how none of them actually resist Flying, making it harder to counter Flying types, Rock/Grass still being weak against Steel and Fighting types, and Ground/Flying just striking me as Landorus but with actual usable Flying STAB and a more accurate Stone Edge. I believe that Steel/Flying strikes the best balance, but I still very much like these 3 other types and hope we get to see a little bit of discussion on them.
Personally, I'm not a fan of Electric types as, while they may counter Flying types really well, I feel like outside of Rock/Electric (which I love as an offensive typing but HATE as a defensive typing), an Electric type would often rather use its Electric STAB to fight Flying types, especially since those moves will almost certainly have more PP.
 

Yu_IOTJ

formerly NoahIOTJ
is a Community Contributor
Yes, we get forced out by just a Water Gun. Yes, everything usually carries Ground coverage anyway. THERE WILL NEVER BE A PERFECT TYPING! I'd prefer to do something innovative rather than trying to replicate something tried-and-true. This is why I'm a huge fan of typings that have some great strengths and great weaknesses, like Rock/Ghost, Rock/Electric, and Rock/Fire. These typings will allow us to introduce an entirely new factor into this metagame that can capitalize on the unique properties of Diamond Storm.
This paragraph basically summs up what I like about Ghost/Rock and Rock/Electric and why I’m in support of those typings. If we were out to make a Mon with the perfect storm (heh) of defensive and offensive qualities to make a safe reliable mon, I think we’d all be subbing fairy/steel at this point. These typings are quite unique, and they provide a challenge in building a Mon geared towards their strengths. And I think we should welcome weaknesses where need be. Having a generally bad defensive profile doesn’t make these types not worth pursuing, they have a lot going for them offensively and they provide specific unique defensive qualities that we can use to their advantage, quad flying resist is huge in this metagame dominated by flyings, and a ghost immune to fighting is really interesting.

I also just think these two are really cool.
 
I am very behind in any contribution, but having read through eaxh post and weighed up the options, i would like to state my support for Rock/Flying.

The STAB ground immunity, and how that move meshes with Sandstorm abuse with SpDef boost, Shore up/Roost and Chip Damage provide so much more flexibility.

We get annihilated by Ice? Oh well, Ice is already strong offensively, and there has to be something that can kill us anyway to provide counterplay. Phys Ice already has to overcome potential multiple Def+ from Diamond Storm and outspeed or get KO'd anyway by 140BP STAB and with Special, if Sand is up, can make it less than guaranteed KO
 

spoo

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I think Ground type combos are very cool for CAP 31. My issue with a lot of the Rock-type combinations is that the secondary typing often removes a lot of Rock's valuable characteristics (especially resistances) or creates a combination that may need to be "fixed" in later stages.

For example, Rock/Psychic's weaknesses to Knock Off, U-turn, and Ground effectively cancel out Rock's valuable Flying-type resist, given that most relevant Flying-types run at least one of these moves. The same can be said about Rock/Ghost to a lesser extent. Rock/Grass is fun offensively, but offers virtually no redeeming defensive qualities. Rock/Water wants to switch into Fire-types, but the vast majority of relevant Fires run Ground-type coverage. Rock/Fire faces this even more pointedly, but its sheer offensive prowess makes up for it to an extent; then again, it has a truly unfortunate matchup into Toxapex and Slowbro, two Pokemon myself and others in this thread have argued are among Diamond Storm's worst roadblocks. Rock/Ground fares better than most into Toxapex and some Steel-types, but its mere status as a Ground-type (read: competes for a teamslot with Landorus-T) that's weak to Close Combat kind of puts a ceiling on how often it'll be used –– see Colossoil and Equilibra right now.

Because of issues like these, I think most Rock-type combinations will want to lean into offensive builds. This fact itself is not a criticism; it's 100% fine to be an offensive user of the move, but I believe it does limit our design space going forward and means that many of these weaknesses will need to be addressed later in this process. It is also true that Rock-type combinations offer something no other combinations do –– STAB Diamond Storm, which is a great boon. Still, I think our time in later stages would be better spent on honing in on these typing's strengths and creating a more interactive end product instead of patching up weaknesses. Of the Rock typings, Rock/Flying, Rock/Electric, and Rock/Fire are my favorites, in that order. Rock/Flying is the only Rock combination that actually capitalizes on Rock's valuable Fire-type resist while still performing well into many Flying-types, and doesn't sacrifice much offensive potency to do so. I heavily value Rock/Electric's performance into Corviknight and bulky Water-types, only really being held back in my eyes by the 4x Ground weakness. Rock/Fire has a lot of issues but many of them are forgivable because it's just so good offensively and we can double down on that.

Of the typings without Rock, Ground-type combinations are the best of them IMO. They make the fewest sacrifices in what we're looking for while offering great returns. Many non-Rock combinations struggle to incentivize CAP 31 to ever click Diamond Storm, but Ground-type combos don't face this issue as much because of how potent EdgeQuake coverage is. In general, the Ground-type submissions have a much more open design space and are more self-sufficient as type combinations; they're able to stand on their own without worrying about being "fixed" later, and offer no shortage of strengths to capitalize on. Pure Ground is really fascinating to me; it's not locked into three attacking moves the way many other submissions are, has an instant incentive to be put on teams as an Electric immunity, can leverage Defense boosts quite well, and has a ridiculously open Ability stage. Ground/Water and Ground/Fighting share many of these same attributes at the cost of some moveset freedom, but also offer secondary STAB and a better defensive and offensive palette, respectively; however, Ground/Fighting may struggle to capitalize on Diamond Storm's boosts given its weaknesses are mostly on the special side. Ground/Grass has this same issue but with fewer strengths to offset it (also totally blanked by Corviknight - goodbye PP and moveslots), and I am fairly neutral on it as a result.

Anyways, long Ground-type shill over. I'm very high on the Rock-type combos I went into but I think most others are honestly pretty bad. Regardless, I'm excited to see where the slate takes us!
 

Brambane

protect the wetlands
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I will post my 8 favorite typings in no particular order and a brief reasoning why to fish for likes

Rock/Flying
Generally solid defensive type with a good foundation for 3 move coverage; Ground/Flying/Rock is close to unresisted outside of stuff like Equilibra, Fighting/Flying/Rock the likes of Aegislash, and Fire/Flying/Rock misses on what, Rhyperior? Defensively resisting Fire while being immune to Ground checks off as "good" against the standard Astrolotl and Heatran; the Flying resist is useful for Torn-T and ig Book but but much else. I think this one has a tremendous amount of direction for abilities, partially due to the general goodness of this type. Aerodactyl would be a good mon if it had real Flying STAB and better defenses than a soft-boiled egg.

Ground
The best blank canvas on the slate; this typing could go in literally any direction. It has strong incentive to run Diamond Storm and a lot of flexibility with only 3 weaknesses. The typing is a little shy on resists; Hippowdown shows the need for a LOT of bulk investment to tank shit. I think this typing is one that we would stuff with lots of goodies during ability and stats, part of what I meant by it being a blank slate. An offensive Pokemon with one STAB and a smattering of resists is going to need a bit of extra umph down the line. Still, as far as single type options go, this one fits what are looking for very, very well with a lot of creative potential.

Grass/Ground
Complete opposite of above, this typing is very narrow but very interesting. Grass/Ground takes the best attributes of Grass and shits on them. Goodbye Water and Grass resists, hello 4x Ice weakness. It also adds a lot of weaknesses to the otherwise solid Ground-typing that it really didn't want, especially Fire and Flying. And a Ground-type that resists Ground sounds cute, but fucking Lando-T exists. At least it can probably handle Zera, but this typing is about raw offense. Every Water-type in existence will yield to Grass/Ground/Rock coverage, and most Steel-types (dang metal birdies) aren't a fan either. Sure, Buzzwole probably walls you to hell and back and back to hell and back, but that's only one incredibly buff mosquito in a sea of Pex, Finis, Heatrans, and Ferros. Being immune to Leech Seed really shits in Ferrothorn's corn flakes. If we want to roll out with an offensive direction in a big, let's grab Torterra's leftover lasagna and do what it cannot: actually hit shit.

Fire/Rock
Another pretty offensive typing, although some abilities could give this a fun defensive twist. The main appeal here comes from a couple things. You kinda admit that bulky Waters, especially Toxapex, are going to need either strong ass coverage or some degree of boosting to break through, but hey, screw Steels. Heatran could be annoying, although the neutral Rock STAB might be enough. Honestly Fire just has a lot of cool STAB moves. Flare Blitz is strong with good ability synergies, Heat Crash is potentially excellent if we want to make this mon chonky, Fire Lash is broken, Lava Plume is broken 30% of the time, Pyro Ball probably gets us an athletic scholarship, you get the idea. This typing is deceptively diverse in its directions, but a solid offensive backbone is appreciated here.

Ground/Fighting
This is a slightly more targeted version of pure Ground. You add three miserable weaknesses, which a definitely a blow to its defensive potential, for marginal returns. The Bug resist is a meme and the Dark resist kinda means less when you are weak to Ice. This typing is much more focused on the offensive side; Fighting STAB gives the type a way around Steel birds. Or you can look at it as a Fighting-type with a really good way around Toxapex. Either way, the typing has a strong offensive niche. It's also gigabad into Buzzwole, which is fantastic. We love Buzzwole here. MAKE BUZZWOLE MORE VIABLE.

Grass
I think Grass/Poison is almost always better, but no one subbed that so here we are. This typing has pretty clear incentive to run Rock coverage and a mixed bag defensive profile. An Electric resist that isn't weak to Dark, Fighting, or Fairy gives it potential against the likes of Zeraora and Tapu Koko (Electric/Rock and Grass/Rock can cry their hearts out here.) Grass also has the widest range of "weirdass physical STABs" of any type. You get multi-hit, recoil-inflicting nuke, non-recoil inflicting nuke, Fire Lash clone, priority in terrain, high crit move with good BP AND PP, draining move, this typing straight up smokes grass. Similar to some of the other types (most of the other types) you would be relying heavily on supporting coverage, but the baseline Grass STAB options and four noteworthy resists (well, three noteworthy and one Kartana resist) are cool enough for me to support.

Rock/Ground
QuakeSlide, QuakeEdge, and finally, QuakeStorm. This typing is the pinnacle of evolution for probably the most infamous coverage duo in competitive mons, only rivaled by BoltBeam. I love a classic type reimagined, and nothing rings old school to me like Rock/Ground. Defensively, its pretty good into the common birds Zapdos and Torn-T (Grass Knot Torn doesn't exist and I refuse to believe it will) and almost nothing else! Ground-type weak to Ground, Fighting, and Steel fucking SUCKS, although if you consider how common physical attackers of those 3 types are, you can probably leverage Diamond Storm's boost very well. But this typing for me is all about the STABs. Those glorious, glorious STABs. I cannot imagine a more titanic offensive juggernaut than a mon that can just run QuakeEdge STABs and give us free room for the other two moveslots.

Rock/Normal
So I'm going to be honest, I think this typing is mostly crap compared to the above seven. It's defensive profile is shaky outside of being a really good Blacephalon answer. This mon would probably give Torn-T reason to run Focus Blast/Superpower again, which I don't count as a win either. The Fire resist is somewhat muddied by the Ground weakness. And while you could switch into something like Pult or Paj, you have to scout them first or risk it for the biscuit, since both have SE coverage for the type. There are abilities to mitigate this somewhat, but I really don't see much value in the defensive profile with this typing. Feels very high risk, high reward. Offensively, the dual STAB combination needs help too, although Ground or Fire mostly covers what it wants so thats minor point. Where this typing shines is just how good Normal STAB options are. There a just a lot of good, strong Normal-type options we talk about exploring every CAP and never do, and we are going to do it here again. Being a really good Blacephalon answer is enough in my book to justify this in my top 8, but whereas the other 7 are very close to each other, this is the last of my pack.

So yeah, those are my top 8. I am not really hot on any of the other types after substantial thought. Except Electric/Fire. Long live good Rotom-Heat.
 
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I have been in support of partial Rock typings, even ones that should be walled by Steels. However, I will admit that Rock/Normal is one of the few Normal combos that appreciates the Ghost immunity and can get a boost or few out of a Diamond Storm while the opponent is forced to switch at least once.

inb4 Rock/Speed typing
 
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I've been reading for a while, and I have some favorites in mind.

Rock/Flying is probably the best combination for countering fire and flying types. It's got an interesting typing defensively while also boasting some offensive merits. Something that also interests me is that, historically, Rock-Flying mons have always been relegated to hyper offensive, fast mons. We could easily try and break the mold and experiment with stats with this kind of typing.

Rock/Electric is the other one I would like to endorse. Although you do get walled by ground, this typing allows CAP 31 to deal with a lot of the most problematic matchups that have been mentionned since the beginning (waters and corviknight). It is also a fairly unexplored typing so far, as it has been used once on a mediocre mon. I would be happy to work with that.
 
Many non-Rock combinations struggle to incentivize CAP 31 to ever click Diamond Storm, but Ground-type combos don't face this issue as much because of how potent EdgeQuake coverage is. In general, the Ground-type submissions have a much more open design space and are more self-sufficient as type combinations
I want to push back against this sentiment a bit.
I agree with Spoo, that ground types have a lot to offer here, especially regarding their defensive utility and instantly valuable properties for teambuilding.
But while Edgequake is great coverage on paper, we have seen most viable physical grounds dropping Rock coverage in favor of other moves this gen. Even now that flyspam is pretty common, it is rare for Lando to run Stone edge outside of choiced or SD sets and Garchomp prefers Aqua Tail, even though it’s much worse neutral coverage. Colossoil Never runs Rock moves even on offensive sets, Hippowdon does neither, leaving Excadrill which is both rare and still often prefers other options over Rock Slide.
If we want to pursue a ground, we’ll have to look into, why this is the case and if Diamond Storm is such a significant upgrade to Stone Edge, that it becomes preferable to other options or if we have to limit ourselves.
Again, I’m sure most Ground types can work, but I think, that at the same time they might be the most restrictive wrt moveset design and may not be as open for roles as they might look at first glance, especially considering, that we want to ensure, that we’re using diamond Storm.
For this reason I believe, Rock and Grass type combinations to be preferable, as they are much more likely to want to use Diamond Storm and while some of them might not be as solid in their defensive profile, several of them offer valuable defensive utility, that can easily work in the meta.
 

DetroitLolcat

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Rock/Psychic is a typing that interests me a lot., in that it lets us gauge how well Diamond Storm lets us cover Psychic's biggest problems: weaknesses to Knock Off and U-Turn. It also lets us cover one of the biggest drawbacks of Diamond Storm - that no matter how many boosts we get, we can't beat Urshifu-R.

Most users of U-Turn and Knock Off are relatively weak. Landorus-Therian, Tornadus-Therian, Dragapult, Tapu Koko, etc. are only getting chip damage with U-Turn, and a CAP31 with a Diamond Storm boost could stay in and continue boosting against at least some of those Pokemon (although Landorus-T and Dragapult would likely have other ways of stopping a Rock/Psychic CAP31). Knock Off is the same way: CAP31 could take a Knock Off from weaker Pokemon such as Ferrothorn, Clefable, etc. and not really care. While I'm skeptical Diamond Storm can fully mitigate Rock/Psychic's atrocious matchup against Pokemon like Landorus-Therian or Dragapult, it could provide interesting workarounds that other Rock-type or Psychic-type attackers don't have.

Furthermore, Rock/Psychic (and Rock/Electric) give CAP31 a way to cover a big drawback of Diamond Storm: weakness in the face of Surging Strikes crits. With a secondary typing that beats Water or Fighting, we can offensively pressure what would otherwise be a natural counter to CAP31.
 
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dex

Hard as Vince Carter’s knee cartilage is
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Want to give y'all the 24 hour notice now, say your piece or forever hold it to yourself! Slate will be announced sometime tomorrow night. Here are some questions that could help:
  1. Which Rock typings are more offensive in nature? Which are more defensive? Which give the closest semblance of balance?
  2. In what ways do some of the non-Rock typings use Diamond Storm? Are there some that are safer bets than others to use the move?
Bird Fact of the Day: Sociable Weavers (yes, that's their name!) create the largest nests of any bird species. They build massive, beehive-esque structures on the tops of trees that play host to hundreds of weavers. Words and numbers cannot do the magnitude of their nests justice, so I'm including a picture of one!

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Which Rock typings are more offensive in nature? Which are more defensive? Which give the closest semblance of balance?
Trying to find an actually defensive Rock type is like trying to find a square rock on a beach.
The most defensive typing is probably Rock/Steel despite its aweful weaknesses, since it boasts a huge resist palette and valuable immunity to poison.
Rock/Flying and Rock/Fairy are still fairly solid defensively, but already more offensive imo.
These two are definitely the most rounded Rock types out there.
rock/dark is definitely more offensive, but has some overall nice resists, that help it be defensive.
I think rock/normal and rock/ground do have some defensive applications even though they are mostly offensively geared, due to their immunities.
The last Tock type with a semblance of defensiveness is Rock/Electric just because it actually resists Ebook.
Typings like Rock/Grass, Rock/Psychic and Rock/Fire are all about offense.
In what ways do some of the non-Rock typings use Diamond Storm? Are there some that are safer bets than others to use the move?
I’ve commented on this topic in my last post already, but I want to reiterate, that grass types are the safest bet of using Diamond Storm, without having to limit us in movesets, since rock is literally the dream Coverage option for any grass type.
Fightings definitely have a desire to run Rock moves, but some type combinations could start dropping it for more utility based options, so movepool might be a bit narrower.
Grounds still have a use case for it, but the gen8 trend of grounds dropping rock moves has me wary of the typing. I’m certain with the right limitations, that ground will use rock moves, but we cannot be as forgiving with coverage and utility options as the other two types.
I think all of the three want to use Rock moves a s a “lure” option to smash usual switch ins to their Stab moves. While some of these types will appreciate the defensive boost, it almost certainly will be an afterthought in most cases.
 
  1. Which Rock typings are more offensive in nature? Which are more defensive? Which give the closest semblance of balance?
  2. In what ways do some of the non-Rock typings use Diamond Storm? Are there some that are safer bets than others to use the move?
  1. Some of our more offensive typings are Rock/Electric, Rock/Fire, and Rock/Grass. These typings all add a weakness or remove a neutrality in order to hit Rock checks hard. Electric doubles the Ground weakness, but hits bulky Waters and Corv. Fire doubles Water and Ground weaknesses, but hits Steels, gives resistance to Ice and Fairy, and provides fantastic neutral coverage in general. Grass removes Flying resistance and gives us a U-turn weakness, but patches up common Rock weaknesses while also hitting some bulky Waters. Defensive Rock typings include Rock/Bug and Rock/Fairy, but for different reasons. Rock/Bug removes Rock’s two biggest weaknesses (Fighting and Ground) and its Grass weakness, while only adding a weakness to Rock, an uncommon attacking type. In return, it accepts Flying and Fire neutralities and Stealth Rock weakness. It doesn’t do anything crazy offensively. Rock/Fairy softens Fighting weakness, gives a very useful Dragon neutrality, and useful Knock Off and U-turn resistances. In return, it receives a heavy Steel weakness, but this is an uncommon enough attacking type that it is manageable. (Honestly, this typing has a lot more merit than I think it has been given in our discussion, and it’s a shame that we’re discounting it because it reuses Diancie’s typing) Balance-wise, Rock/Ghost and Rock/Flying stick out to me. Rock/Ghost has a decent defensive profile inherently, being immune to Fighting and resisting Bug with all Rock’s usual stuff, and with good neutral coverage from albeit mediocre Ghost moves. It doesn’t necessarily incline to either an offensive or defensive role, and could likely work either way. Rock/Flying seems to be a favorite atm, which makes sense due to its flexibility. It patches up Rock’s two major physical weaknesses by being immune to Ground and neutral to Fighting, while having a handy U-turn resistance. Offensively, it has great coverage, only getting stopped by Steels. It does add weaknesses to common special attacking types in Ice and Electric, which could be harder to manage than expected. There are more responses than these, and these can be fleshed out more, but I want to keep it concise so others can respond.
  2. Most non-Rocks seem to use the move mostly as an offensive coverage move, specifically for Grass and Ground types to hit Flying-types, and for Grass and Steel types to hit Fire-types. Some typings like Bug/Steel, Steel/Flying, Steel/Fairy, Ground/Fairy, mono-Ground and Water/Ground attempt to use Diamond Storm with their great defensive profile and few weaknesses to further force out physical attackers or, in the case of the Steels, hit Fire type switch ins. I wasn’t as invested in these, but here’s my two cents on them.
Out of the different profiles for Rock and non-Rock, here are my favorites:
Rock/Fire
Rock/Bug
Rock/Ghost
Grass/Ground
Bug/Steel
I hope this can maybe help some of y’all. Good night!
 
I made a small chart that should help with these answers, posted below:

CAP 31 Typing Chart.png

- Which Rock typings are more offensive in nature? Which are more defensive? Which give the closest semblance of balance?

Based on the chart above, I would define the typings that are most defensive as those that have a few resists, and maybe an immunity, but minimize having 4x weaknesses to Rock's usual weaknesses. Also keeping the Rock type in mind, all of the typings that fall under defensive here happen to resist both Fire and Flying. With that in mind, the typings I would say are most defensive are:

- Rock/Flying (Ground immunity)
- Rock/Water (Useful resists and neutralities)
- Rock/Ghost (Fighting immunity)
- Rock/Dragon (Solid resists in general)
- Debatably Rock/Electric (Strong resists and neutralities, but 4x Ground weakness)

For those that are offensive, my chart doesn't really represent that too well with the Rock types, but my focus was in STAB overlap with Diamond Storm, and prowess vs bulky Waters and Steels. For some noteable choices:

- Rock/Grass vs Bulky Waters and perfect STAB overlap
- Rock/Electric vs Waters and Steel Birds
- Rock/Ground vs Grounded Steels
- Rock/Fire vs non-Heatran Steels
- Debatably Rock/Water vs exactly Heatran and Landorus

For the closest semblance to balance, I would give it to Rock/Electric or Rock/Water, as I think both can be argued to be both defensive and offensive with their targeted coverage and defensive profiles. That being said, I am still a fan of the heavily defensive Rock/Flying or the heavily offensive Rock/Grass, and believe both are routes worth exploring.


- In what ways do some of the non-Rock typings use Diamond Storm? Are there some that are safer bets than others to use the move?

And this is why I included the STAB Overlap. The priority types for the overlap here are Flying and Fire, as I believe that if we have a STAB that can already take care of one of these two typings, we might just ignore bringing Diamond Storm all together. With this in mind, in addition to the STAB from the non-Rock typing covering Water and Steels that we would usually want to demolish, I have a few comments on a few types.

- Grass has no STAB overlap and takes care of Bulky Waters for Rock. This is the safest bet on this slate for a typing that would take Diamond Storm, as every type Rock covers is one of Grass' weaknesses, including the major targets of Flying and Fire (Also Bug and Ice which matter a little less.) And since it is a mono type, we are all but assured to have a minimum of 2 moveslots for flexibility in addition to Grass STAB and Diamond Storm.
- Grass/Fighting has minimal STAB overlap, with the only overlap in STAB being Ice. This typing also shares all of the defensive boons of mono Grass, but can threaten Steel types in addition to the aforementioned Waters. This also helps Diamond Storm immensely, and it would love to take that move in its 3rd moveslot. But that only leaves it with one more slot, assuming double STAB.
- Grass/Ground is a bit trickier, since it has overlap with Fire. However, this choice would still have consideration for Diamond Storm or else it gets completely walled by Flying types. Grass is a nice complement to the ever popular combo of EdgeQuake DStormQuake, and the trio do have a very potent offensive presence with some passable defenses that Rock STAB can keep in check.

For completion sake, I also want to touch on a few non-Rock types that I think won't use Diamond Storm and, in my opinion, are not safe to consider the move based on typing alone.

- Psychic/Normal is the only other typing with no STAB overlap, but it is a weird typing that just has a spread of neutralities to our targetted typings, and the only threatening STAB that Rock can harm is Bug. I think this is incidentally a dangerous route that will not use Rock at all (also realized I left out the Normal/Normal Elec/Normal Bug typings. Same argument there for the most part.)
- Electric/Fire is probably the single worst choice here. Electric and Fire hit pretty much everything except Fire types SE, and Electric hits every relevant Fire type for neutral or better (other than Pyroak, but Pyroak is complicated and currently being discussed for nerf.) I am convinced this typing will never use Diamond Storm unless we feed super hard into it and get polljumpy with the other stages to force it to use Diamond Storm.

End Note: My preferences are, in no particular order:

Rock/Flying
Rock/Water
Rock/Electric
Rock/Grass
Grass
Grass/Fighting
Grass/Ground

Edit: I no longer like Rock/Electric. Its a bit polljumpy as to why, but I am not confident in being able to pair well with physical electric moves. I think it would be a bit too restrictive as all the choices require a specific ability, have recoil, or are Zing Zap.
 
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Voltage

OTTN5
is a Pre-Contributor
Read through this thread and I think I would really like to advocate for and against a few typings in particular (even if they've already been talked to death):

For:

Rock / Electric: This right now is probably my favorite of the bunch as it gives us a wonderful flying resistance, has two clearly offensive-oriented types, while also having clearly definable counterplay in likely falling to any and all ground type moves. I also really enjoy having a Rock typed mon that doesn't immediately fold to flying types that resist rock (Corv, Skarm, Celesteela), and can hit bulky water types (like Pex, Argh, and the Slowtwins). This is a front runner for me as well as it is a fairly underexplored typing that I think could provide significant amounts of interesting discussion as to what makes an offensive threat in this metagame.

Rock / Flying: I like this combination for many of the same reasons I like Rock / Electric: we have two clearly defined offensively-oriented types that can support the others weaknesses. No Grass type that would otherwise stop a Rock type threat wants to stay in from physical Flying STAB, and having Rock coverage on a flying mon allows it to beat threats like Ice types. I think my one hang-up on this typing is that it is yet another flying type, but like, that's just a personal bias. This process would absolutely create a great mon though, I have no doubts about that.

Rock / Grass: Rabia put it realy well. This typing has huge amounts of offensive capabilities, but is defensively held back by its typing. This would mean that with a right setup of stats and moves, this thing could become a very potent offensive powerhouse while still having easy and obvious counterplay.

Grass / Fighting: The fact that a mon with this typing would absolutely use Diamond Storm as a means to hit things it would otherwise fold to is great. Plus having resistances to Knock Off and Stealth Rock also make it an interesting prospect. I think that inchoosing Grass/fighting though, we'll likely have to consider in the stats stage how significantly we want to rely on a +2 Diamond Storm boost, and what this mon would be capable of beforehand.

Against:

I think that, as a general note, if we want to have a Rock typing as one of our types, then we need to lean into the offensive momentum it provides. I'm not saying that it would be impossible to make a defensive Rock type, but I can guarantee you that it will require a lot of support. This is why I'm less inclined to vote for things like Rock/Water, Rock/Steel, or Rock/Ghost for example. I think that we would be wasting a lot of the offensive capabilities that Diamond Storm provides while also failing to capitalize on any of the added benefits a secondary typing would provide should we choose Rock as one of the types. I also am biased because, while I am confident that Rock / Fairy would be a fun process to consider, I can't help but feel like we'd literally spend the rest of the process trying to figure out how to avoid making Diancie and Mega Diancie.

I also feel that we should avoid going for any paths that don't have Rock as one of the types, but still beats things that Rock types threaten. In a more boldable quote, If we aren't going to have a Rock type, we should avoid Electric, Ice, and Water types among others. The first two types would easily overshadow Diamond Storm on a moveset as a means of attacking Flying types, while the latter would be used over Diamond Storm to beat Fire types. This may be small, but if the goal of this process is to create a Pokemon that uses Diamond Storm, it seems incredibly counter-intuitive to have a mon that gets STABs on types that threaten the same things that Diamond Storm does. I think the main one I saw that fits this category is Electric/Fire. Now obviously there hasn't been a huge amount of discussion about any of these typings, but again, just good to speak what might go unspoken only because it's assumed.

That's as much as I can really say for things for which I have strong feelings. I would honestly be happy with most of the type combinations being suggested here, but these were just a few of my particulars.
 
In what ways do some of the non-Rock typings use Diamond Storm? Are there some that are safer bets than others to use the move?
I am doubtful that pure Grass and Water/Ground will actually use Diamond Storm in practice.

Despite Rock's vaunted coverage of every type Grass is weak to, it still gets resisted by Steel and remains neutral to Grass, two typings that resist Grass. This would explain Gen 7 Serperior's use of Hidden Power Fire instead of Hidden Power Rock, for instance. I am particularly concerned that 2-attack sets of our mono-Grass CAP will forgo Diamond Storm entirely for similar reasons.

It is also likely telling that the Water/Ground-type Swampert rarely uses Rock moves, instead preferring STABs and even Ice Punch and Superpower, despite its access to Stone Edge and Mega Swampert's love of offensive sets. Perhaps even more telling: since Generation 4, Gyarados sets (at least in the Smogon Pokedex) with no Flying-type moves are at least as likely, if not more likely, to use Earthquake than Stone Edge.
 
Wanted to highlight some of my faves:

Ground: I love the mono-type here, because it will absolutely want to use Diamond Storm and brings in more neutral match-ups, which I think is pro-concept more than trying to maximize resistances, means the +2 from DS goes further. We see examples (albeit somewhat juiced ones) in Blissey, Clefable, etc. where the mono-type without a lot of major resists and an immunity makes for an excellent defensive presence. Same can be said for mons like Stratagem and Barraskewda who decimate offensively with just one STAB.

Grass/Ground: This type is weak to the 4 types Rock threatens and I love it. Of course in practice this isn't a perfect example, Corviknight is a good example of something that doesn't really care about the Rock type and threatens back with Brave Bird. But the coverage here is great, it makes for one of the best non-STAB options based on that offensive and defensive synergy.

Rock/Flying: I was, and I suspect others may be, hesitant to support Flying as a type here based on the number of Flying types we're seeing at the top of the viability rankings. I've come around, sometimes you need another bird so there's less birds. I'm sure there's a two birds one stone joke in there somewhere. This is an exemplary typing, the best of the defensive options we're seeing out of Rock STAB.

Rock/Psychic: I like this typing but will readily admit, this will need us to do some extra elbow grease later in the process to make it functional, 7 weaknesses is nothing to sneeze at. In fact sneezing at Rock/Psychic is probably enough to take it down. What I do like about this typing is the specific Tox/Argh match-ups and how it will help us keep our boosts in the face of Unaware/Haze. Definitely a more offensive option unless we crank it up in other areas.
 

Wulfanator

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In what ways do some of the non-Rock typings use Diamond Storm? Are there some that are safer bets than others to use the move?
I am doubtful that pure Grass and Water/Ground will actually use Diamond Storm in practice.

Despite Rock's vaunted coverage of every type Grass is weak to, it still gets resisted by Steel and remains neutral to Grass, two typings that resist Grass. This would explain Gen 7 Serperior's use of Hidden Power Fire instead of Hidden Power Rock, for instance. I am particularly concerned that 2-attack sets of our mono-Grass CAP will forgo Diamond Storm entirely for similar reasons.

It is also likely telling that the Water/Ground-type Swampert rarely uses Rock moves, instead preferring STABs and even Ice Punch and Superpower, despite its access to Stone Edge and Mega Swampert's love of offensive sets. Perhaps even more telling: since Generation 4, Gyarados sets (at least in the Smogon Pokedex) with no Flying-type moves are at least as likely, if not more likely, to use Earthquake than Stone Edge.
Both of these arguments are subpar. We need to understand that to make Diamond Storm a defining element of any typing's moveset, we cannot gift it multiple options that will overshadow it. In the case of mono-grass, we will need to address the issues with opposing steels and determine how we want 31 to respond when faced with these matchups. This can be achieved with additional coverage, utility options, or being reliant on a teammate to support 31. Unfortunately, we cannot address these issues at this time because of the structure of the project, but this should not discredit the typing or any typing for that matter.

The gen 7 Serperior example is a weak comparison since it is overly reliant on Hidden Power for its coverage. Hidden power already forces you to pick between the coverage type regardless of if you had the slots to fit both, but the weak base power makes the wide neutral coverage Grass+Rock offers absolutely worthless. Not to mention, Serperior would rather Glare potential Hidden Power Rock targets and let a teammate handle them.

Likewise, the use of Swampert and Mega-Swampert when criticizing Water/Ground fails to acknowledge several things. For Mega-Swampert, Ice coverage hits would-be Rock targets while also addressing the mons issues with Grass-types which makes it a must on any set. This is equally valid for earlier generation sets for Swampert. Superpower is both stronger and 100% accurate, but is primarily used to target Ferrothorn. Otherwise, Stealth Rock often occupies that moveslot instead. For regular Swampert in the current gen, the mon is focused solely on its defensive build and with access to strong supporting options like Stealth Rock, Toxic, and Flip Turn. It is not hard to see why Stone Edge would never be considered. The mon is really only running Earthquake as an attacking move because STAB, high base power, and better PP.
 
Which Rock typings are more offensive in nature? Which are more defensive? Which give the closest semblance of balance?

My best suggestions for offense are Rock/Fighting and Rock/Grass.

Fighting:
Rock/Fighting is a very potent offensive pairing, hitting every type in the game for neutral damage, and having nearly 50% of the game threatened by it's STAB's. No other type pairing offers the level of coverage Fighting does.

Grass: While having less coverage than Fighting, Grass hits arguably more relevant types, namely Water and Ground. Grass also far less weaknesses, but also fewer resistances, so I can envision this typing having a harder time switching in, but a harder time being forced out.

In terms of defense, Rock/Bug and Rock/Poison stand out to me

Bug: These types pair better defensively than any other combo with Rock, sporting a meager three weaknesses. Despite having few resistances, no other Rock typing can say it has so few hard counters.

Poison: I know, a 4x Ground weakness isn't very defensively helpful, but look at what we resist. Having the ability to wall out Fairy types is extremely valuable, and no other pairing does so while avoiding multiple 4x weaknesses. Rock isn't very strong defensively, and really there's not a lot of good options outside of these.

As far as balance goes, Rock/Ghost, Rock/Electric, and Rock/Fairy are the standouts to me.

Ghost: With a "manageable" six weaknesses and useful immunities, Ghost is a semi-defensive typing paired with Rock. Additionally, perfect neutral coverage and the possibility for even a single coverage move to blow the type chart wide open make this pairing very strong for balance.

Electric: This pairing has surprisingly few weaknesses, but doesn't have the same valuable resistances as Rock/Poison. Offensively, we wouldn't hit as much for super effective, but Electric is so strong offensively I don't foresee that being a problem.

Fairy: I don't like this typing personally, but it's worth mentioning. Dragon immunity is neat, and Fairy is just so fantastic on it's own that a 4x Steel weakness might not even matter.

My personal suggestions are that we avoid Ground and Flying types for this project. These types just don't feel quite as satisfying to me as those above, and don't synergize* well with a Rock type offensively or defensively.

*I would personally vote for either Rock/Ghost or Rock/Bug, because I feel they give us the most options and don't lock us into an offensive or defensive role.*
 
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While my support is still primarily for Rock/Ghost, if not by a large margin, there are some other types that I will show some support to:

Rock/Flying - Immunity to ground and STAB against Fighting and Grass types is nice for a Rock-type,
Rock/Dark - The cousin of Rock/Ghost, they share a lot of similarities - and while Rock/Dark overall is worse (Fighting resists both STAB and deals x4 damage) at the same time Tyranitar exists, and if .
Rock/Dragon - something I mentioned in my argument for Rock/Ghost was that it was tied for least resisted type with Dragon. The dragon typing doesn't do much for Rock compared to some other types (give a double resistance to Fire, adding a resistance to Electric and trading weaknesses of Water and Grass with weaknesses of Ice, Dragon and Fairy), but is still a somewhat solid option nontheless.
Rock/Bug - For what it's worth, 3 weaknesses isn't bad. Only resisting Normal and Poison isn't great - but dropping weaknesses to Fighting, Ground and Grass in return for a weakness to Rock pretty much is.

Mod Edit: Removed flavor reasoning.

Writer Edit:
While it was within the beginning of the flavor reasoning/ideas, I will now restate my caution for typings without Rock which is unrelated to flavor: as the concept is centred around the Rock type move, not only would not losing strength dampen the damage output by loss of STAB, but it also means that we're relying on the move being picked as coverage - something the move may lose out on to another for one reason or another. Whether that is a bad thing I cannot say, but given the focus on the move it ending up not being used is probably something that should be avoided.
 
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My personal suggestions are that we avoid Ground and Flying types for this project. These types just don't feel quite as satisfying to me as those above, and don't synergize* well with a Rock type offensively or defensively.

*I would personally vote for either Rock/Ghost or Rock/Bug, because I feel they give us the most options and don't lock us into an offensive or defensive role.*
Could you explain why you think Ground and Flying don't synergize with Rock? Rock/Flying is possibly the best defensive rock typing and Rock/Ground is unresisted in CAP OU
 
Could you explain why you think Ground and Flying don't synergize with Rock? Rock/Flying is possibly the best defensive rock typing and Rock/Ground is unresisted in CAP OU
Rock/Flying isn't ideal defensively to me for two specific reasons, those being an Electric weakness and relatively poor offensive synergy. Given how common Electric coverage is, I worry Flying would be more of a liability than a help. Additionally, Rock/Ground is atrocious defensively,
and weak to common special coverage typings in Water and more notably Ice. From a purely offensive standpoint, Fighting hits more types, Grass is more balanced, and Bug has more utility options (i.e. U-Turn).
 

quziel

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Honest that's wrong. Heatran is debatably #1 in the meta atm, and Rock/Flying simply does not care about either of its standard sets (Fire+Ground sucks into Rock/Flying), Landorus often runs Eq + U-turn + Toxic as its "offensive" moves, and again is completely shut down by this typing. Ya cannot look at a typing from the perspective of what types it beats, but rather what threats it beats, and how highly they are ranked in the meta. Being weak to Electric affects how it beats Zapdos, but has no effect on how it matches up vs Tornadus-Therian.

To expand this post beyond simply a response, I really don't like most of the Rock typings that are weak to Bug, and resist Flying. I know that's sorta a weird criteria, but eg Rock/Psychic and Rock/Dark both imply that you wanna swap into Torn (again, a legit top 5 mon), but you are also likely taking 40% from U-turn. This is coincidentally why defensive TTar sorta sux (Pult clicked U-turn), among other reasons. This specific weakness is imo one of the bigger ones, as it really hurts us in a matchup that we should be winning easily.

To do a final expansion, I think we should be ok with offensive typings that cannot hit Pex SE with our stab. Doing so is a very obvious benefit, and is a ton of why Rock/Electric is a very strong contender imo, but I've seen some arguments that its a requirement for offensively-leaning typings, when we absolutely have ways to work around that (eg making us status resilient).
 

ausma

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Looking through all of these, I'd like to help out in dex's evaluation and pitch my 2 cents on most of the popular types, ordering my favorites in both Rock-STAB and non-Rock-STAB.

Rock-STAB comboes:
As stated before, I am mostly in favor of Rock-STAB; I think Rock-STAB is practical both offensively and defensively, considering it can serve as both moveslot compression on a defensive Pokemon and a powerful, versatile STAB option. I mostly favor these types, but that's not to say there aren't non-Rock-type comboes I am intrigued by and do genuinely like!

Rock/Electric
This was a type I thought about a lot earlier this slate, especially when thinking about how an added Electric-STAB would interact with the bulky Water-types that wouldn't mind pivoting into Diamond Storm, but after having really thought about it and having seen the discussion earlier in this thread, it's risen to become my favorite of the options next to Rock/Ground. In terms of consistent breaking ability, Rock/Electric has several really unique and effective things about it, including both the bulky Water-type interaction as stated prior, but more interestingly (and something I didn't pay much mind to before): a quad-resistance to Flying- and the added resistance to Electric- make it extremely practical in tackling Venomicon and Tornadus-T/Zapdos, which is something we for sure want to emphasize with CAP 31, while hitting most Steel-types besides Ferrothorn and Corviknight (which you hit super effectively actually) for neutral damage. So although its offensive profile is quite unique and effective, it also has a very defined and relevant set of niches defensively, too, which can make for a very unique developmental angle. Being 4x weak to Ground- is really bad for our purposes, and is the main reason I'm a bit worried about it in a vacuum, but Heatran exists and is still able to dish major pressure to Landorus-T on the switch anyway, so it's doable for sure. It's unique, has a very practical niche, and above else, has genuinely cool and effective interactions with some of the metagame's best options.


Rock/Flying
This is another combo I've been pleasantly surprised by in this slate, mostly because it takes a very practical spin on Rock-type's natural defensive utility by completely blindsiding the Ground- matchup and improving the Fighting- and Grass- matchups defensively. Notably, too, is that Rock/Flying, offensively is quite solid in letting CAP 31 snipe Arghonaut and Urshifu-R, as well as neutrally pressure Ferrothorn with a neutral STAB. Although it seems to struggle more against Steel-types, having the ability to threaten a 1v1 against Heatran through attrition is of note due to packing an added Earth Power immunity. I worry some that it may have too hard a time against most Steel-types to be practical, but this boils down to future polls and how we feel this type should go forward with interacting with their resistance profile, so it's not like we're strapped for options here. My reason for liking it, mainly, is that this type is the most practical angle for STAB Diamond Storm and extracting the most value out of Rock-type's resistances, but it's an extremely potent set of reasons that makes it #2 on this list.

Rock/Ghost
This one is a weird one. I kind of surprisingly like it because Rock/Ghost is just a super cool, unexplored type, and the idea of forcing out Fighting-types in of itself is an interesting route. Though, that being said, I worry it won't be consistent enough for what it's designed to be. Galarian Zapdos is the only Fighting- Pokemon that this type combination will safely threaten boosts against, and if it wants to safely come in on Urshifu-R, it needs to both be sure it's Choice-locked and it needs to be Choice-locked into Close Combat, which will either first require a sack or some dangerous maneuvering. Offensively speaking, though, I would be remiss to disregard that this type is insanely powerful, having neutral coverage against pretty much the entirety of the relevant metagame barring Bisharp, which could in of itself be very, very powerful with Diamond Storm boosts to where the sheer amount of turns to be threatening could lead to the inconsistency of using Fighting-types for boosts being a moot point. Though, its reliance on Diamond Storm to threaten things super effectively could also be an Achilles Heel on this front. The main reason I'd be down for exploring it is because of how unexplored of a combo it is, especially when meshed with Diamond Storm.

Rock/Fire
This one is offense to the max, and really raises the dial on Rock/Electric's offenses, but really dials down its defensive utility in return. As such, it's definitely an option that could be very cool to explore considering how potent this type is offensively but how much it collapses as a defensive option. Though, it's a type that would need to be fully subscribed to as offensive, since its defensive utility is next to none, especially with a Stealth Rock weakness. There's certainly no problem with taking a more offensive route, but I always feel like an offensive Pokemon having a bit of defensive utility with resistances to both come in and potentially provide a temporary stopgap to dangerous threats will tend to be more consistent to where I can see its really terrible defensive profile being a tangible problem for its viability. Although it's cool and I'd be for it, I just can't help but worry finding a balanced ground of viability for it is going to be really fickle.

Rock/Normal
While not the most pragmatic and likely the most one-trick of these options, it is super flashy and I applaud the ingenuity on this one. The idea of this typing, from what I can gather, is to take a very similar role to Weavile by using its positive Ghost-type (particularly Blacephalon) matchup to punish what's otherwise a spammable STAB, and use said Ghost-type as a progress-making opportunity through Diamond Storm. This one is actually really really cool, but it would be streamlined toward an offensive route for sure. Not to say that's a bad thing, of course, but Rock/Normal is a double-edged sword to the extreme, packing a few really sick resists, but threatened with numerous crippling ones to where the few solid matchups it can exploit are greatly eclipsed by the many that it will intrinsically struggle against. Can't say I entirely support going forward with this one, but I still like it in concept for its creativity and room to carve a very distinct niche for itself.


Rock/Grass
This one takes kind of a similar tone to Rock/Electric by more drastically improving the Water-type matchup, but in exchange foregoes a lot of defensive utility due to the highly mentioned lack of good resistances. I'm inclined to agree with the majority here in that Rock/Grass would mostly shine offensively which is super nice against things like Slowbro, especially if you can find a way to take advantage of some less great matchups like against Steel-types, and use the Grass-type's neutralization of Rock-based weaknesses to more commandingly pressure Diamond Storm answers. However, in spite of this, I can't really subscribe to the hype on this one? To me, it feels like Rock/Electric but less practical especially since its Grass-STAB is hitting Toxapex and Landorus-T for neutral anyway to where it just kind of feels like a very on-paper typing. Its primary draws, imo, are being immune to Leech Seed and neutral to Ground- and Water- as opposed to being weak to them. The latter could prove to be relevant against things Arghonaut/Urshifu-R and Landorus-T, but you're weak to Fighting- and U-turn anyway. I'm not sure; I think the neutralities could be of note in some contexts, especially with Diamond Storm boosts, but the lack of practical resistances really limits the pool of options, especially considering that the things it's supposed to be good against have options to either super effectively pressure it (including pivoting in U-turn) or can easily punish it with status (Scald).

non-Rock-STAB comboes:
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Ground/Fighting
This one is actually a super awesome typing and one I was interested in from the start, but teetered away from in the midst of other options. Though, looking at it again, it's one I really would really love to see seeing considering that both of these types' embarrassing trouble against Flying- is a very legitimate incentive to nearly always run Diamond Storm, being a very solid defensive Ground-type pairing, while having the Fighting-type STAB to pressure Corviknight without eating away at Diamond Storm PP. I could go on about this type but it's a favorite from this slate for sure, with its only real drawback being a lack of moveslot compression, which could pose to be a problem in limiting its defensive options.

Ground
This one is another one of my favorites here. It's elegantly simple, providing the tier with an honest Ground-type, which has reason to use Diamond Storm due to being an amazing coverage option and also appreciating the Defense boosts in potential mirrors, against Landorus-T, Garchomp, and Melmetal. Also shockingly, despite having specially oriented weaknesses, Weavile and Kartana existing as the pre-dominant Ice- and Grass-type threats weirdly works to this type's favor. Furthermore, as quziel said, this type only really needing two moves to cover pretty much all offensive ground (haha im funny) is great and gives it a lot of room for its other two moveslots to shine, which could be neat with potential extra coverage, utility, or boosting. I think my only real problem with it is that it stumbles really hard against Corviknight, but other than that I really enjoy its simplicity and how it brings an honest offensive and defensive profile that, due to lacking STAB on Diamond Storm nor a secondary STAB in general, could intrinsically diversify the process regarding how to optimize non-STAB Diamond Storm as an option, which is admittedly quite an appeal over Rock/Ground.

Grass/Fighting
This is a bizarre option on paper that's really grown on me. Grass/Fighting types have huge incentive to consider running Diamond Storm considering just how absolutely dire their Flying-type matchup is, and how things like Virizion and Breloom tend to run Rock-coverage on more dedicated offensive sets as proof of concept. This is a type we'd definitely want to teeter more offensively, though, in order to really drive home Diamond Storm as an option for it, and probably try to use its resists as means to either create free turns for itself or set up. That could make this a bit more limited, but I think it depends.

Grass/Ground
I was finnicky on this one at first, but it's started to grow on me. Grass/Ground has a few pretty cool resistances, including both a Ground-resistance and a Volt Switch immunity, alongside a potent Ground-type STAB with the ability to threaten bulky Water-types, and Diamond Storm as an option to batter Flying-types willing to handle its type combination. I personally think this type does what Rock/Grass is trying to do but a lot better, since it has practical resistances to take advantage of, while still having those neutral matchups that give it more effective Diamond Storm-boosting/breaking opportunities against Water-types, and even more consistently against Ground-types. Although I personally am still not the most crazy about that interaction considering the threat of moves like Scald, I still think this type is how to really pull that off more pragmatically. A U-turn weakness smarts quite a bit and I worry bulkier variants could have feasible incentive to forego Diamond Storm, though.

Ground/Fairy
Let's be real with ourselves; this is probably one of the best type comboes in the game both defensively and offensively, and as such this type is immensely self sufficient in the context of offensive prowess. Considering Corviknight existing and Diamond Storm not having STAB, your only real incentive for Diamond Storm here is Venomicon. As such, I can't really say I like this type combo much in the context of CAP 31. It's obviously an insanely strong typing, but I worry it's too strong to where Diamond Storm is just a moot coverage option and would likely never see much use unless we heavily speared the rest of the process to cater to Diamond Storm and Diamond Storm alone, which... is not ideal, imo.
 
Before things wrap up here, I want to make a post explaining why I feel Rock/Electric is preferable to Rock/Grass overall when it comes to their success in this project, and a lot of that comes down to their offensive capablilities vs their defensive ones.

Offensively, both of these types serve a similar purpose, allowing Rock to pressure many of the Water types in the tier who would otherwise threaten the type. Each of these types also provide some other positives in addition to this role as well, with Grass helping to pressure Ground types such as Landorus-T and Garchomp better, while Electric allows us to hit Toxapex and Corviknight super effectively. These types are both useful offensively, but I feel that Rock/Grass struggles a bit more due to its focus on having more neutral targets compared to Rock/Electric's more focused super effective matchup spread. Another point I want to mention is that an argument against Rock/Electric has been that both having a positive matchup against flying types is too much overlap, and goes against the concept by limiting Diamond Storms usage. However, I feel that this actually somewhat helps the concept by allowing Diamond Storms limited PP to be used more efficiently, saving it for matchups where its power and effect are necessary rather than using it to beat flying types in general. This is especially important for our matchup against Pressure Corviknight, where Electric both hits the bird super effectively and prevents Corv from eating away at Diamond Storm's PP with pressure.

Defensively, the matchup is heavily skewed in Rock/Electric's favor. While Rock/Electric 4x weakness to ground does hurt it, it has a useful set of resistances to fall back on, notably having a quad resistance to the ever common flying type, as well as useful resistances to Fire and Electric as well. In contrast, not only does Rock/Grass have a puny amount of resistances, but its weaknesses also make it difficult for it to take advantage of those or neutral hits, with a weakness to both Close Combat and U-turn being especially bad for it. In the end, this means that Rock/Grass is almost forced to follow an offensive route, heavily limiting the options we're allowed for the rest of the proccess and limiting Diamond Storms role as well.
 

shnowshner

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I don't have much to say for Rock/Flying, Rock/Ground, and Rock/Fire, that hasn't already been said. The former feels extremely safe for the concept because of the offensive/defensive profile, and the latter two imply offense-heavy discussion but are excellent at such a role in a way other types could only dream of.

Rock/Normal is equal parts stupid and brilliant. It gives us an obvious switch-in opportunity on the highly spammable Ghost, in exchange for dying to Fighting-type moves unless we get a luck Diamond Storm boost. i will mention now that 60% of my support for Rock/Normal is that it gives us a sizeable Blacephalon answer. The other 40% is from the novelty of making a Normal-type that has some modicum of offensive presense to it's name, and figuring out how to make a typing that has largely fallen off the face of OU/CAP into a viable addition to the metagame.

Rock/Electric has yet to really impress me, being the ultimate Flying-type destroyer does sound like a good time, but Electric doesn't feel like it meshes amazingly well with Diamond Storm. Part of this is simply because Physical + Electric is not the greatest thing in the world unless you're named Zeraora. Mixed sounds legitimately cool but is not something I am banking on going forward. This also really isn't improving the defenses of the Rock typing, outside of like mono-Brave Bird EBook, and it makes our Ground weakness glaringly awful. It's not close to my least favorite subs, but I'm lukewarm at the prospect of it.

Rock/Grass isn't amazing either, we don't have a lot of opportunities to come in with so few resists, and the offensive coverage between these two, while impressive for what it is, really doesn't strike me as that useful when we're so lacking in the defense department. This typing feels overly neutral in both offensive pressure and defensive presense, while squandering a lot of the best traits of both typings, those being the Ground + Water resists of Grass, and Flying + Fire resists of Rock. Being left with Normal and Electric as our only resistances is outright pathetic, only made worse by still having bad weaknesses to Ice, Fighting, and U-Turn. I feel you'd really have to lean into offense to let this work, but there are plenty of other type combos that can go the offense route as well while bringing a lot more to the table.

Ground is pretty aesthetic and leaves the door wide open for what direction we take it. Not having Rock STAB is a fine tradeoff for not having the 5 Rock-type weaknesses weighing us down, letting us actually match well into the ever-annoying Zeraora and further pressures the omnipresent Lando-T. What it lacks in a flashy type combo and resistances, it makes up for with not being terribly easy to exploit by ending up with too many common weaknesses, which sounds quite good for a something that can randomly beef itself up on the Physical side. Like others have said, this is a blank canvas to finely-tune to our concept and the meta at large, and the prospect of such is very enticing.

Ground/Fighting is a tad more restrictive than mono-Ground itself since Fighting; that said it does better versus Zera on paper, and has a nasty STAB combo that threatens an absolute ton. Above all, this still really wants Diamond Storm to blow past its worst match-up: Bug (and flyign i guess???lmoa). Seriously I think the prospect of a typing that is so obviously weak into Flying-types yet packs one of the best Rock-type moves in the back to punish them is such a fantastic application of the move.

Ground/Fairy is... powerful. Not only is it defensively applicable versus a lot of Pokemon right now, it's also a killer offensive pairing once opposing Steels/Books have been dealt with, or chipped accordingly. Diamond Storm would feel more like a flex move to let it handle Venomicons, Static Zapdos, ig Helmet flyers?? Beat a chipped Corviknight and deal more initial damage to Balloon Tran?? I would be into this more in a defensive sense, where I think it'd be pretty cool, but I do see it dropping Diamond Storm often simply because of how borked its STAB is, and defensive sets don't exactly need the move to exist. We'd need to build with either extreme precision or just hamstring the thing into using Rock coverage ala Tapu "where are my mf'n fairy moves" Bulu, and I feel other type combos are able to succeed just fine without such headaches.

Grass is funny since Rock almost completely covers all our bad matchups. Yeah I know i didn't like Rock/Grass, but this is just Grass: that means we resist Ground, Water, and ourselves again! Without the Fighting (and Steel) weaknesses either! This is a historically awkward typing offensively and defensively, but it has its niches and, like mono-Ground, leaves us with a ton of room to explore, and how we can improve or create matchups into targets/pressures like Zera, Koko, Pex, Ferro, Fini, and more. It does kinda blow to be a user of a Rock-type move when we're hit SE by essentially every possible target of the move, but that also makes it kinda cool to make work.

Grass/Fighting is similar to Ground/Fighting in that we have really poor STAB versus Flying and Bug, but have access to a strong Rock-type move to bully them with. This is really good three-move coverage and our odd but somewhat practical resistances provides a handful of common Pokemon to get in versus. I prefer the Ground variation, but this isn't a bad choice either.
 
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