CAP 14 CAP 3 - Part 4 - Primary Ability Discussion

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Birkal

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Well here we are at one of the most influential stages of this CAP. In fact, the CAP moderating staff and the Topic Leader (Deck Knight) have decided that ability discussion is so important, we're going to be putting this stage ahead of Stat Limits and all of the Stat Polls. Please recall that we have chosen Fire/Poison as our typing for a reason. It relates heavily to our concept, so please review what Theorymon has outlined in the CAP3 concept below. Use that knowledge to make well informed discussion points about which abilities would be valuable to CAP3. Remember this is not a place to discuss flavor abilities (especially in relation to the art thread). Rather, this is a place for discussing the competitive aspect of having an ability on CAP3. Let's begin.

Our CAP3 so far:


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?
Typing: Fire / Poison



BURNING PASSION!!!!!!!!
 

Deck Knight

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Alright, so let's get down to business.

In the threats discussion, it was decided our Fire/Poison typed CAP 3 should be able to check Water-type Pokemon. Ordinarily (e.g. through stats and movepool) this would be impossible, especially in a metagame where permanent Rain is allowed (and common). Therefore the focus of our initial discussion should be how best to check Rain threats. Our primary ability should be a means to this end, there are four abilities that aid in this to one degree or another. We should discuss their merits as to which ones we want, and then poll them.

After this we will resume the normal order and set stat limits, and return to Abilities at their normal time, after we have stats to work with.

The Four abilities are:

Drought
Dry Skin
Storm Drain
Water Absorb

Drought:

Pros:
Changes weather.
Enhances Fire STAB.

Cons:
Useless if opponent changes weather with their own starter.
Is very defining as support, but not necessarily indicative of the usefulness of the type.

Dry Skin:

Pros:
Healing on switchin to a Water attack and in Rain mitigate hazard damage CAP 3 might take.

Cons:
Reduces ability to be an effective Sun Sweeper by taking damage in Sun (even with enhanced Fire STAB) [Some may see this as a pro]

Storm Drain:


Pros:
Buffs Special Attack when hit by a Water move instead of healing, making it a more offense-oriented ability.

Cons:
Offers no healing and thus is more limited.

Water Absorb:

Pros:
Healing when switched into a Water attack.
No adverse effects in Sun.

Cons:
Is less related to weather and is more of a middle ground between Dry Skin and Storm Drain.

Conclusion:

Please discuss among yourselves which of these qualities in most desirable. If there is significant support for more than one option, a poll will be held to determine which of the abilities is best suited to CAP 3's needs.

 
I'm in favor of Storm Drain it would enhance his ability to be Mixed Sweeper or an all out special attacker I'm against drought because
1. We can always use Ninetales for support
2. We would have to lower it's stats to make it balanced
And in the threat poll we decided it should threaten Water Types and Storm Drain really stands out for me as something that can do that
 

canno

formerly The Reptile
Out of the 4 options, Dry Skin and Water Absorb look to be the most interesting.

Both can be used by an offensive and defensive roll, however, Dry Skin is harder to use in the Sun while Water Absorb can be used in different weather. The choice between the two, imo, depends on how you want weather to affect CaP and which weather it would prefer. Dry Skin would make CaP a valuable mon in Rain Teams (similar to Toxicroak), and is probably my favorite because it makes Poison the main STAB, while Fire is used to check 4x fire-weak pokemon such as Ferrothorn and Scizor, which is useful because Ferrothorn is a pain for Rain Teams to deal with. This would make this CaP one of the only Firemon that works in the rain (the other being Volcarona with it's Rain set). However, Sun now fucks up CaP because we lose health each turn, which is bad considering it's survivability is low as it is with weakness to Spikes and Stealth Rock. Water Absorb is much better for those who think CaP should either be unaffected by Weather or should be Sun-based, since it isn't affected by the weather. However, it makes for a great counter to Rain teams because you are immune to the Water STAB and resist the unSTAB Ice Beams most carry. I don't like Storm Drain or Drought because Water Absorb / Dry Skin could potentially heal up damage done by entry hazards.

Also, we could give it Regenerator to patch up the fact that it takes 25% from SR and just give it powerful coverage to deal with Water-types, although imo this should probably be a secondary ability.
 

Mario With Lasers

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Wouldn't Trace also count to deal with Tentacruel and Jellicent? It's not like Cursed Body is super common anyway.


And I'm strongly opposed to Drought. It's not even because of the typing concept or whatever, it's just that we're talking about weather abilities here, Ninetales sucks and is now a top 20 pokémon with the only thing it can do being setting up Sun. This stops being a pokémon discussion and becomes a weather discussion. Now, the others are something I find cute. Specially Dry Skin, now that I see how it would make it a good Rainmon that's nerfed under Sun. Storm Drain is interesting for the boost in power given to CAP3, but I have qualms with it as it doesn't restore HP, which I find to be really important for CAP3, as it's going to lose health to almost every residual damage (but luckily it's immune to poison and burn!).
 
i would say that Dry Skin is the best choice.

as a fire type, it has a weakness to water types.
if it were to absorb water attacks without any drawbacks (water absorb and storm drain) it would be too OP and too Perfect of a pokemon.

dry skin allows cap3 to have some weaknesses that will mediate the power granted by a water-immune ability. Also, it still will have the ability to take fire attacks (.75 damage iirc). The only downside is that it will lose health in the sun, but i believe that our pokemon will be too op in the sun and goes against our theme of having a bad typing, as what is a bad typing if one of its biggest weaknesses is gotten rid of? its like giving levitate to heatran or magnezone.

so, because there should be some disadvantage for CAP3, dryskin all the way
 

FlareBlitz

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I like Dry Skin simply because, as others have mentioned, it carries some disadvantage to it while conferring substantial advantages. I feel like that's consistent with the general theme of this CAP regarding trade-offs and occupying specific niches over being good at everything overall. Also, while this would lose power in the sun, a Fire STAB user that's immune to water and benefits from rain would be hugely invaluable for sun teams, so I don't think we should entirely write off that niche.
 

Bughouse

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While I wasn't entirely a fan of giving CAP3 one of these abilities, I do concede it is likely necessary for CAP3 to work in OU at all and certainly necessary to fulfill the counters/checks list (which by the way... I don't really get the whole adamance about not polljumping when the entire discussion of being a check/counter to water types is predicated upon one of these abilities... but whatever... futile battle).

Of the options, Dry Skin seems to be the most logical both competitively and flavor-wise. I don't think we should give any of the other options any consideration even as a secondary option. Maybe if we're feeling ambitious we can give Drought as a D/W ability or something with certain (serious?) restrictions on movesets. But I don't just want to make a better Ninetales.

Anyways, this discussion hopefully won't last long, since this really should be a pretty clear choice.
 

Mario With Lasers

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i would say that Dry Skin is the best choice.

as a fire type, it has a weakness to water types.
if it were to absorb water attacks without any drawbacks (water absorb and storm drain) it would be too OP and too Perfect of a pokemon.

dry skin allows cap3 to have some weaknesses that will mediate the power granted by a water-immune ability. Also, it still will have the ability to take fire attacks (.75 damage iirc). The only downside is that it will lose health in the sun, but i believe that our pokemon will be too op in the sun and goes against our theme of having a bad typing, as what is a bad typing if one of its biggest weaknesses is gotten rid of? its like giving levitate to heatran or magnezone.

so, because there should be some disadvantage for CAP3, dryskin all the way
I have to disagree with you. As Deck Knight said on the thread after I complained on giving CAP3 Water-type immunity/impunity, there are pokémon in OU/UU that are patched up by immunity abilities, and that didn't make them anywhere close to broken by any means. Gengar, Bronzong and Rotom-H lose their main weakness with Levitate, Alakazam and Reuniclus are immune to residual damage, Heatran/Gastrodon are immune to Water/Fire. This isn't reason enough to give it Dry Skin (not that I'm opposed to the ability).

But now that you mentioned Heatran, we have to be specially careful of it, as giving Dry Skin to CAP3 might make it flop in Sun teams really hard. Fine, it still only takes 0.625x damage from Fire-type moves, but it loses 1/8 HP by the end of every turn and has both STABs eaten by Heatran, and we know this fucker loves to give trouble to Sun teams. I know we're fine with CAP3 being threatened by offensive Heatran, but are we clear on defensive Heatran doing the same job?
 

LouisCyphre

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I'm falling in line with Dry Skin, purely because it alters CAP3's STAB paradigm. Poison becomes the main STAB, backed by whatever coverage, with Fire being resorted to outside of CAP3's favorite weather. Fire helps back CAP3's defensive place on Rain teams, too.—this mon is a fantastic Virizion stop, among other things. By giving CAP3 Dry Skin, we make Poison its offensive component and Fire its defensive component, which interests me a great deal.

I don't feel any particular compulsion to build a Sun mon purely because the Fire typing is present.
 
So if the main premise of the CAP is to ameliorate and redefine a typing's role through use of an ability, why not focus on creating two fairly different CAP's through the different abilities? For example, the Dry Skin CAP would serve as an excellent mon to keep in the rain for extended periods of time and boost, while Water Absorb and Storm Drain would be conducive to a pivot mon and hit and run attacker, respectively. Having an alternate ability like Drought would be a way for sun to actually outslow the other weather starters, and analyze if it is the outslowing debate that makes sun subservient to other weathers or the simple type weakness to water and rock.

Just as the main point of analysis for Necturna was to see how a sketched move could revolutionize the role of a Mon with given ability/typing/stats, I believe that giving two different abilities allows us to fully analyze the fire/poison typing in the OU metagame using two different frames of reference. The best scientific experiments measure multiple dependent variables, and our CAP should be no different.
 
I am strongly opposed to Dry Skin because it is so affected by weather. If CAP3 did hypothetically have Dry Skin, it would only compound OU battles even more into who controls the weather. In weather vs weather battles it becomes even more important to win your weather war because if Sun wins out then CAP3 will likely be dead weight because of the ridiculous residual damage it would be taking. If you use it on a weatherless team then it's another Pokemon that's completely at the mercy of your opponent's weather. If they use Rain then great but CAP3 loses an STAB, if they use Sand then CAP3 is a little bit screwed, and if they use Sun then CAP3 is completely deadweight because two switch ins with SR and Dry Skin damage will near enough kill it.

I think Water Absorb would be a much more balanced ability out of the four. It works in any weather and it can help mitigate SR damage if you get your prediction right. CAP3 doesn't get ridiculous healing in Rain, or ridiculous damage in Sun which means it's less dependent on the weather war which is a good thing in my books.

I am pretty neutral on Storm Drain, it possibly makes CAP3 more of an offensive threat. I think Water Absorb is the better option because CAP3 actually has a definite reason to look for the 25% healing. I am completely opposed to Drought of course. I mean, who would use Ninetales at all if CAP3 gets Drought!
 
I'm opposed to Dry skin as i think its Fire STAB will be much jeopardized: nobody will use it under sun, which squanders the 1.5 bonus of its Fire-moves, while in rain, well i agree Fire is still useful for detering Ferrothorn, but still this means being walled by Jirachi, Bronzong, and even to a certain extent Gengar! All of which are not designed to be counters/checks in the first place. Defensively speaking Dry skin is just a means of getting rid of the stealth rock weakness, which is another way of sneaking around the typing instead of using it. therefore this poke will be used in spite of its Fire-type, which is exactly what we want to avoid.
That is why i advocate Water absorb, over the others abilities because i feel gaining hp back is a much better way of checking Water-types than getting a spAtk boost, because of the stealth rock weakness.
Changing weather is for me an ability that will deter cap 3 too much of its original purpose.
 
What about Tinted Lens? I know that it isn't on your list, but I think this ability allows CAP3 to hit most potential sponges (excepting Heatran, Empoleon and Heatproof Bronzong) with normal effectivity, making it less attractive to switch in any bulky Water or (non-Grass) Poison Pokémon when CAP3 is on the field (Switching into Steel would be stupid) Maybe we could consider this as secondary ability.

Out of the above mentioned abilities I would prefer Dry Skin. This ability makes CAP3 to a Substaller in Rain or a pseudo Solar Power Charizard in Sun and in clear weather it is just an adustment according to its Water weakness. It would be very interesting, to have a Pokémon whose role changes so drastical depending on the weather.
 
What about Tinted Lens? I know that it isn't on your list, but I think this ability allows CAP3 to hit most potential sponges (excepting Heatran, Empoleon and Heatproof Bronzong) with normal effectivity, making it less attractive to switch in any bulky Water or (non-Grass) Poison Pokémon when CAP3 is on the field (Switching into Steel would be stupid) Maybe we could consider this as secondary ability.

Out of the above mentioned abilities I would prefer Dry Skin. This ability makes CAP3 to a Substaller in Rain or a pseudo Solar Power Charizard in Sun and in clear weather it is just an adustment according to its Water weakness. It would be very interesting, to have a Pokémon whose role changes so drastical depending on the weather.
The issue with Tinted Lens is that not only would it allow CAP3 to remain a threat to Pokemon that were decided it should not threaten, it doesn't affect the capacity of other pokemon to threaten it back. With water types being the key focus, CAP3 may be able to hit them with neutral STAB hits, but it still can't switch into their STABs for shit. The ability to threaten with moves can be patched up with a well constructed movepool, typing deficiencies need to be patched at the ability stage.
 
Giving it only one water-related ability may cause it too predictable and could restrict its opportunities. Dry Skin is a very special and high risky ability. IMO there should be a weaker, but less risky secondary ability, to make it less predictable and give more different scopes to CAP3.
 
Giving it only one water-related ability may cause it too predictable and could restrict its opportunities. Dry Skin is a very special and high risky ability. IMO there should be a weaker, but less risky secondary ability, to make it less predictable and give more different scopes to CAP3.
I assume there will be a secondary ability, or at very least discussion of it, but for now one of the aforementioned abilities is most central to the concept.
 
I am opposed to giving CAP3 Drought as the primary ability. There would be the possibility of it ending up as CAP3's only ability and I feel that would interfere with the concept since Drought is so good of an ability that Ninetales went from NU to OU just because of it. We could end up with a Pokemon that is good despite its typing instead of one that is good because of it.

I am fine with any of the other three, but I would prefer Dry Skin or Water Absorb because of their healing. Which one we should pick out of the two depends on how we want weather to affect CAP3. Dry Skin would cause it to prefer the rain making it more useful against and in a rain team while Water Absorb would make CAP3 easier to use on a sun team.
 
A way to make CAP 3 viabble in rain without dry skin is with Swift Swim. I would suggest this because it would allow it to outspeed most water types in rain (barring other swift swim mons) and hit them with a coverage attack. Other than swift swim, I like Dry Skin and Drought over the other two. Dry Skin because it makes it function quite well in rain. Drought because it makes an alternative to Ninetales and possibly a way to beat rain and sand.
 
I originally sent this post to the CAP mods in the hopes that one of them would post it for me since I wouldn't be around for the start of the thread. Fortunately, it seems Deck took a lot of the ideas from them for his post, which is great. Still, let me post it here so that you guys can get a feel for where I am going.

--

I want to bring two abilities, which I have pioneered the discussions for since before typing was even decided, to the attention of the community. These ideas are going to seem very serious and intense, but will hopefully be met with positive reinforcement from those who have since agreed with me. I think both of these abilities should end up slated and consequently be on the CAP together. Whether that happens or not is, ultimately, up to the community, and I hope that I can sell you on them for the good of the concept, the CAP, and breaking taboos in CAP that are no longer necessary.

Drought

Hear me out before you go "OMG WEATHER!" There are a few strategies used to defeat weather starters very consistently in OU. Among them is Toxic Spikes, and another is the move Toxic to begin with. As far as a weather starter goes, CAP 3 would excel because of its typing thanks to the very fortunate poison status immunity. Drought starting sun also enables us to more adequately use our Fire-type STAB. Simultaneously, Drought does exactly what we want as far as threats go: it halves Water-type damage and gets rid of the rain. Getting rid of the rain and replacing it with sun is huge because now Toxicroak takes damage per turn, Hurricane and Thunder are 50% accurate instead of 100%, and Tentacruel no longer gets bonus healing. It also lets it support its team magnificently, helping us to achieve the concept by taking an otherwise mediocre typing and making it OU-quality because of the typing's own advantages.

This is the only ability I can see being superior to my second, more community-renowned idea...

Dry Skin

There are three Water-type immunity abilities that we can choose from: Water Absorb, Dry Skin, and Storm Drain. We need to think about what we want to get out of an immunity ability before we choose one of them to pursue here. First of all, remember that we are SR weak, which means that we'd like an ability that helps to offset that damage when we switch in. This means that Water Absorb and Dry Skin are better than Storm Drain for our purposes because they heal 25% if we switch into a Water-type move. Of those two, we want the one that helps the most against rain, since it is the ideal weather we should be taking on with this CAP. That pretty much solidifies the idea of Dry Skin, as it heals it in the rain. Additionally, the 25% bonus damage from Fire-type attacks that Dry Skin gives us doesn't mean much because we already resist it through typing (x0.500 multiplier becomes x0.625). Furthermore, if we use CAP 3 in rain, it reduces that even further (x0.2500 multiplier becomes x0.3125).

Ideally, if we had both of these abilities together on the CAP, we'd be the best off. I say that because then with alternating abilities, CAP 3 could be usable in both sun and rain teams. This would essentially give CAP 3 a unique niche and further help CAP 3 become viable in a very diverse OU. Since we're forced to pick only one ability before stats, however, it is imperative that we select Drought. It is, without a doubt, the most competitively logical ability CAP 3 could have that simultaneously achieves the concept in the best way possible. It is the BEST ability possible for a concept that primarily wants to use the typing of a Pokemon, who otherwise has mediocre typing, as the selling point for the CAP.

Hopefully you like my ideas. Cheers.
 

Korski

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I do not presume for an instant that this Poke will be using its Poison STAB on any kind of common set, not in this metagame. That said, by bringing weather into the conversation this early on, we're committing to a making Fire-type that doesn't just check bulky waters but also functions well independently in Rain (Electric immunity next?); while an interesting idea, it still makes the CAP flounder offensively in lieu of good non-STABs like BoltBeam and such. I favor Dry Skin as the primary Abilility only because it gives CAP a chance to heal off SR with good prediction AND do some good Rain stalling when there's the chance. That's a good, albeit bizarre niche for this Fire type, since via typing this CAP is already fairly redundant on a Sun team in terms of stacking weaknesses, especially to SR. Now CAP can handle Rotom-W and VoltTurn to an acceptable degree as well, killing two birds with one stone (Rain and VoltTurn).

Water Absorb is of course a close second for me. Stealth Rock has pushed so many Fire types out of OU they had to get Drought in order to be let back in. Giving CAP the opportunity to come into battle at full health in specific situations (besides Spinning) is a step in the right direction for the concept at this stage of development. I'd like to focus more on the speedy Ground types and Terrakion moving forward, which I think should check CAP and vice versa, so I hope in stats we can figure out some good numbers for this guy.
 
The problem with Drought is it's so rare that any team wanting permanent sun will want to use it, regardless of the Pokemon's typing, strengths or weaknesses. If Ninetales didn't exist would Vulpix make the OU cut-off? I wouldn't bet against it. So if CAP3 had Drought, how can we identify if Drought has indeed increased its effectiveness as opposed to people using it just to have Sun?

The amount of extra support that Drought would provide to the team threatens to overshadow everything about CAP3, its typing, its stats and its movepool. That's my concern.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
Drought

Hear me out before you go "OMG WEATHER!" There are a few strategies used to defeat weather starters very consistently in OU. Among them is Toxic Spikes, and another is the move Toxic to begin with. As far as a weather starter goes, CAP 3 would excel because of its typing thanks to the very fortunate poison status immunity. Drought starting sun also enables us to more adequately use our Fire-type STAB. Simultaneously, Drought does exactly what we want as far as threats go: it halves Water-type damage and gets rid of the rain. Getting rid of the rain and replacing it with sun is huge because now Toxicroak takes damage per turn, Hurricane and Thunder are 50% accurate instead of 100%, and Tentacruel no longer gets bonus healing. It also lets it support its team magnificently, helping us to achieve the concept by taking an otherwise mediocre typing and making it OU-quality because of the typing's own advantages.
Okay, we've already gotten into an argument on #cap but i'd like to answer you here as well, where my response can be more thorough and thought out.

First, let us start with a review of Tmon's own concept:
Theorymon said:
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.
So, the idea of the concept is to take a Pokemon and make its typing become its selling point. I don't think drought adequately does this at all!

I implore you to take a look back over your own paragraph, leaving out the sentences i have highlighted. You will notice that everything else applies equally to Ninetales as it does to CAP3; the typing is not a selling point at all! Sure, we acquire a nifty toxic immunity and (possible) ability to absorb tspikes. So? Sun already gets Venusaur. 90% of the time you're killing a ninetales it is because it is frail as balls, not because you toxic stalled the thing. Fire/Poison typing is only marginally better than pure fire at Drought abuse.

"So?" you say. CAP3 will function way different from Ninetales. It can have better stats, be more offensively inclined, wider movepool, etc. To which I say, "exactly." Look at that argument right there. As soon as drought is on the table, we're already comparing it to Ninetalesin terms of effectiveness. Because Ninetales will be CAP3's ONLY competition for a team spot. And none of the things mentioned have to do with typing, except maybe a secondary poison stab to help with... other Fire types i guess? Furthermore, Ninetales and CAP3 would both suffer the same problem: being hard countered by Politoed and tyranitar. Poison typing does not help at all against either. Unless, say, we made it slower than both and gave it Solarbeam. But yet again, then we're looking how to make it the best drought abuser, and NOT how to help it use its typing! My issue with Drought is that CAP3's typing marginally if at all actually assists in being a weather starter, rather, we would just let Drought become the selling point of the CAP.

And before you accuse me of thinking that Drought is Taboo because it makes things auto-OU or something that is not the case at all. I'm perfectly fine with Drought or Sand Stream or Drizzle or fuck even Snow Warning on a later CAP. Even on this CAP, if it had had a different typing (say, Pyroak's typing). But as it stands, Drought does not at all accomplish the goal of the concept, which is, as i will reiterate,

Theorymon said:
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.
(ps if you couldn't tell i'm absolutely in favor of dry skin)
 

MCBarrett

i love it when you call me big hoppa
I don't think there is any reason that drought should be used for cap3. This wouldn't play to its typing at all and wouldn't really help against water types very much which is what we're trying to accomplish.

Also I'm not in favor of using water absorb as cap3's ability. Originally it was my favorite option but after looking into it, its just a less useful healing ability than dry skin when used in rain. I suppose some people may argue its safer but dry skin would give cap3 a spot on any rain dance team and would allow it to use Its typing to its advantage as the small fire type weakness brought about by dry skin will be negated by already having a resistance to fire. Also, with leftovers and in rain, cap3 will recover 18% hp per turn as opposed to only recovering slightly more on turns when it is hit by a water type attack. To me dry skin is simply the superior ability for recovery.

And finally, we have storm drain which would be a great option if we want to make cap3 a special sweeper. So with that said I am in favor of using either dry skin or storm drain for the ability of cap3
 
My main vote goes to Dry Skin and Storm Drain.

Dry Skin will be a given on countering or even working within rain teams. It adds more depth to making over the typing, as we'd be focusing on treating it like it's extremely unique for its typing: the main goal of our CAP. It'd be the only Fire-type--save Volcarona--to ever have use in the rain, which again is what we're sort of going for here. This would also help to emphasize using its Poison-typing as an offensive type, again part of the whole point of this CAP.

And I apologize if this is poll jumping, but should we choose Dry Skin, I think that Storm Drain would compliment it as a secondary ability. With this, CAP3 is not limited to being part of a rain team, meaning it can find use in sun teams or no weather at all. As opposed to being a defensive pivot with Dry Skin, Storm Drain gives the CAP more reason to be an offensive threat, hitting things hard with powerful Fire and Poison-type attacks.

tl;dr, Dry Skin = Unorthodox rain defense; Storm Drain = All-around Water counter offense
 
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