Even though this is a stupid tangent, I feel obliged to point out that Beej was away, or ill, or something, for the entirety of the secondary ability discussion and most of the poll, by which time there wasn't exactly much that could be done about it. I still firmly believe that, had Beej been around, we wouldn't have totally ruined what I still feel would have been the best CAPmon this community has ever made, but I digress.
(I'd also like to note here that I was away for most of the secondary ability poll as well, so nobody blame me)
Anyway, to defend the list I put up there somewhat, I was only trying to see what could be done and to see if a somewhat vague concept was actually possible. The fact that I took the time to do this has nothing to do with my opinions. Personally I also feel that categorising abilities is almost entirely subjective, as others have said, and I would not support making it a concrete part of any new process to base the weighting of abilities around a single list without considering the CAP itself. Hence why I went to so much variation with the list above, and actually bothering to put which abilities were more conditional separately. I'd like everybody to note that, while we could probably keep the process without any kind of regulation on abilities, an opposite argument in the same area is also true (not literally opposite but whatever) - that it is literally impossible to judge an ability poll without both common sense from the masses and TL discretion. Any way we do this, these will have to be a part of the decision-making process in some way. So for all of you agonising over the loss of common sense, I think it is hardly likely that any list would be able to take over any more than partial regulation from TK discretion. Personally I prefer to acknowledge subjectivity. It allows more for more interesting discussion, without a blanket set of rules. There will be no "arbitrary constraints".
On the other hand, I still feel that weighting abilities with a metric would be helpful, if not for the people with common sense then for the people without any. You may say "why bother" and to be quite honest, you have a point. But I think there has to be some way we can concretely write down "Do not suggest ridiculously good abilities" without having randomuserxxx propose that Wonder Guard should be a suggested ability because we don't have one yet. To be quite honest, the ability discussions are the ones I hate most in the entire process. Sure, there is a bit of intelligent discussion, but unless the TL and the respected community point the direction very early on, I've found that it quite quickly disintegrates into "Ooh let's try this for laughs". Everybody is proposing abilities. Even in the most recent one, Voodoom's secondary ability, the trend was set very early on, and yet the thread ended inevitably with such wide shots as Hustle, Inner Focus, and Immunity being passed around, if memory serves correctly (which it probably doesn't). Why is this relevant? Here we have a common metric against which we can say, "this is the general rule, please follow it". At any rate, it could cut down on the rubbish flying. Maybe I'm just paranoid after seeing so many threads fall down to custom abilities. Remember Kitsunoh and Limber? Colossoil and Guts? Or, as we have heard so much about already, Krilowatt and Magic Guard? It would help if we didn't have to go through the tiresome process of having to beat down the floodtide every single CAP. That's all I really want to say.
As far as the actual list goes, I agree it's not perfect. I never said it was. Of course everything is highly subjective. I'm not going to answer all queries (since you all inevitably have more) but just for now, Vital Spirit/Insomnia was an honest mistake, I meant to move it up there with Limber and Immunity as per my rule for no-drawback status immunities being high effects, but I must have forgotten. And I agree that Aftermath is a poorer ability in hindsight than most of the others on the list, so I've changed that to low effect. For Liquid Ooze, Drain Punch Roobushin and Leech Seed Nattorei are seriously common, so I would not say that draining moves are 'rare' at all. So, I am adamant about keeping it as 'high'. For Stall, the effect is not totally detrimental, as it allows you to use Payback and healing moves more effectively, but it entirely depends on the moveset, so that's why I've changed it to a conditional ability. Static and Flame Body are 'uncompetitive' because you would honestly choose most of the 'high' and 'low' abilities over them. Really, they are just abilities used when you have nothing else. Their effect chance is also very low, so I've included them with Poison Hand and Poison Point. They aren't useless, but then neither is Luvdisc (entirely) and you wouldn't describe that as competitive. For Rough Skin/Iron Barbs... two of the most common physical moves generally speaking are Earthquake and Stone Edge, neither of which makes contact. Personally I'm not fond of either ability for the same reasons as Aftermath, but I'm open to further opinions on these, as there is no denying that they are both good abilities. All other opinions are welcomed, and I would strongly support a vote on these abilities or ability metrics should it come to that.
Sorry if I'm a bit incoherent, it's late here (I seem to say that a lot nowadays)
