CAP 14 CAP 3 - Part 10 - Attacking Moves Discussion

[ZhengTann]

Your calcs didn't really prove anything about how we deal against Fighting-types. They range from OHKOes to 4HKOes and fail to take into account crucial factors such as who wins when trading blows or switching in (we lose with many of your calcs) and comparisons to the move you were trying to prove was unnecessary.

...

Lets also not forget that Mollux isn't getting all of the moves we "allow" or vote for in this thread - the only moves he is guaranteed to get are the "required" moves. "Allowed" simply represents the pool of moves that movepool submitters have to choose from. Hurricane could prove to a great balancing factor to those who don't want to include Thunder in their movepool, for instance.

Thank you for pointing out my flaws. Now attempting to add more realistic, qualitative, reasonings.

4HKOes against Terrakion - Terrakion wasn't supposed to be threatened by Mollux, it was supposed to be otherwise.

4HKOes against BU Scrafty, 2HKOes against DD Scrafty, Lucario, Virizion - BU Scrafty wins this one because it was heavily invested defensively, which is my point about Fighting-types - unless they sacrifice power for bulk, they don't survive long in a 1v1 encounter. Virizion either sacrifices itself for one-time screenings, or it can lose momentum by switching away from Mollux.

4HKO against Toxicroak - by nature of typing, Toxicroak and Mollux can't affect each other siginificantly enough to be game-changing. Still, its only 1 mon out of a list.

Also you're right about the difference of allowed and required. If my (blinded?) strong opposition offends, then I apologize.

 

[acausetolead]

Definitely changed my mind on Scald. It requires some prediction or control of the weather to be really useful, and if still want to be able to threaten Waters, then a Fire/Electric/Scald moveset almost requires you to run a Poison move if you want to hit Dragonite or Hydreigon for anything, or without an Electric move, something to hit Waters (bar Tentacruel). It doesn't really limit your HP choice any more, since I can't see anyone running HP Water to get Scald's coverage in the rain when HP Ground/Fighting gives you better coverage/solid hits on Heatran or Tyranitar.

Being able to be a "burn spreader in all weathers" is also a cool thing, and lets Mollux do something against weatherless Hyper Offense, though probably not much, being effectively ability-less (how many HO teams run Water moves?) and 4x weak to Earthquake.

 

[AJC]

People are overstating the usefulness of fire stab when they don't realize that to have good BP in rain Mollux will have to run LO fire blast/overheat to get most of the 2hkos on 2x fire weak mons in rain.

And it make for terrible neutral coverage the mons that are 4x weak are not relevant since they don't/can't beat it anyways most of the time.

Assuming Neutral no item boosting stab fire blast in the rain IS WEAKER THAN UN-STABBED FLAMETHROWER and overheat is only 5 BP stronger than heatwave without a item boost. with LO they become 117 and 136 BP neutrally.

Stab Flamethrower without a boosting item in the rain is almost a complete joke at 71 BP a mere single point stronger than hidden power. to 2x fire weak mons flamethrower is hitting at almost the same power as a 2x unstabbed SE hidden power. you need a LO to hit harder which brings the final effective BP to 184

Mollux is pretty much forced to run LO to do any real damage to neutral targets with it's fire stab and pretty much has to run the unreliable fire blast or the switch-out forcing overheat to have any serious power on a neutral target. because rain cuts the power of it's fire stab by a serious amount.

And pretty much has to invest quite a bit into special attack which forces it to be slow and/or frail because i doubt such weaken moves would be threatening from special attack stat weaker than 300+

So keep this in mind when one says stuff like "it's fire moves are still usable in rain" yes..but only if you LO them and use something like fire blast/overheat and run a buttload of special attack. when considering coverage moves keep in mind that it's fire moves require both massive special attack investment and a item boost to be a threat to things that are neutral to fire and don't mind poison stab or thunder.

 

[bugmaniacbob]

Whether or not a move is "overpowered" is irrelevant (unless it actually is overpowered, but that is very rarely the case for attacking moves on their own). Of course Mollux isn't going to be some sort of unstoppable behemoth with Scald or Hurricane or even both - I am fairly certain that even with something like Blue Flare it would still have the same easy set of counters. The problem with Scald has nothing to do with the fact that it is too powerful, but rather that it is doing something negative with our CAP without adding too many positives - yes, on the plus side, it is giving a stronger attack to use in rain. But then, Thunder is equally powerful in rain against neutral opponents, and doesn't affect our intended counters list. Scald does not hit any of the Pokemon - this is chiefly Water-types - that we intended to threaten, while hitting nearly all of the Pokemon we are supposed to be threatened by for super effective damage. It is a distracting move that is actively working against the threats list, without allowing us to hit anything else we are supposed to be threatening.

Some people may well say this does not matter, as Scald has inferior coverage and Mollux will have 4MSS as it is. But some of the arguments I am seeing in its favour border on the ridiculous. To say that Scald is necessary in order to have a decent attack in the rain is to forget that we already have Thunder, which is just as powerful, and perhaps Hurricane, though I do not intend to include it in my movepool. Trying to make Poison+Water+Electric coverage means that Mollux is walled by just about every specially defensive Steel-type in OU - in particular, Ferrothorn, who we are supposed to be beating.

Personally I feel as though we are rather over-doing it with the coverage moves. Nobody said that this thing had to be Salamence or Lucario - we don't need to give it infinite coverage, especially when it likely already has 4-move coverage. It's not a bad thing to give a Pokemon hard, or relatively hard, checks (as Hidden Power still offers a degree of uncertainty). But I'd like to accomplish two things here - to make Poison-type STAB a relatively usable choice, which I feel is most easily accomplished by limiting coverage and hence not allowing Hidden Power to be freed up, as Scald does, and keeping the focus on the typing, rather than simply dodging the issue by adding extra coverage or more powerful moves.

On another note I am unsure why people seem to think that the only use that Mollux will possibly have is in rain. I was hoping that Mollux would at least see some use outside of rain - and I don't mean in sun, either. I mean as a rain counter - and an emergency sun counter, potentially, since it resists just about everything outside of Heatran's Earth Power and Exeggutor's Psychic - indeed, it does well against three out of the four weathers. I personally see this as a pretty good reason to disallow Scald and potentially Hurricane - you may well say that, if it's usable outside of rain teams it will be used outside of rain teams, but I think that personally, we can do without encouraging the use of this thing on rain teams purely for sake of using it on rain teams.

Finally, I'd like to remind everybody that custom moves are only ever created when there is no other option - hence Kitsunoh got one because there was no decent physical Ghost-type move, and Stratagem got one because there was no decent special Rock-type move. Mollux has no need of a new STAB move for any purpose, really, so I'm not sure why people are still harping on about it.

 

[Cresselia92]

I suggested "Poison Psyshock" as a way to deal with Pokémon with high Sp. Def stat, since:

a) most Water types have naturally higher Sp D than Def (Vaporeon, Politoed, Tentacruel…) and tend to carry Calm Mind/recovery item/move/ability, and with our pathetic Atk we won't do much against them

b) the majority of our counters have high Def (Gliscor, Tyranitar, Dragonite…) or are resistant/immune to Poison or/and Fire (Gastrodon, Heatran…)

c) we'll still have to choose between more power (Sludge Bomb/Wave, Toxic+Venoshock) or chance to hit Water types in their weaker defensive stat (mirroring the choice between Psychic/Psyshock for Psychic types)

I know that custom moves are the last resort and tend to be ignored or overlooked. I proposed my idea as a form to deal better with some troublesome Water types, trying to incentive Poison while threatening Pokémon that we're suppose to threaten with our STAB.

 

[Deck Knight]

There is no world in which Fire/Electric/Water/Poison + Hidden Power is "infinite coverage." Especially when you consider Fire is reduced in Rain (but still, crucially KOs things we want it to) and Water is reduced in Sun.

Which leaves you with a realistic coverage of Water/Electric/Poison/Filler in Rain, Fire/Electric/Poison/Filler in sun, and whatever you want in Sand and Hail, noting Rock types don't do that poorly. Heck, Storm Drain Cradily in Sand looks like a pretty cool bet if you're using four attacking moves under the premise you'd be in Rain and forgo a Fire move.

Put I think people are right that we don't need to do overkill coverage with something like Hurricane, which actually does give a lot of decent neutral matchups. Fire/Electric/Water is resisted by Dragons and a few key Water/Ground types.

So what I'll do is axe Hurricane entirely. It doesn't really fit with me, serves no purpose but to expand coverage needlessly, and I feel a lot better about a movepool that has Scald with Electric and Fire than Hurricane with Electric and Fire. Our threats are still threatening, we still have a goodly number of counters. All we've done is added a move that allows CAP to thrive in the environment we've selected. A Max powered Eruption has 112.5 BAP in Rain while Scald has 120. In Sun the fortunes are reversed, but because of Dry Skin Eruption goes to about 297 (88% from DS) and Scald is 40, but you have the option of Solarbeam for 120. Solarbeam also mauls the counters list in conjunction with Fire STAB, based on play in a certain weather. In Sand our CAP isn't likely getting the benefits of its ability and it will be facing Pokemon that can threaten it at every turn anyway.

The two other coverage moves allowed are Mud Shot and Power Gem. Only the former is threatening with prediction, not as a standalone neutral matchup attack (the 15 BAP and 5 Accuracy make a huge difference), the latter is a cool and hits a few things harder than Thunderbolt/Thunder, (like Dragonite and Volcarona), but is otherwise a stand-in so you don't have to HP Rock.

Unless people have a problem with there being no poll, I think this settles what we need. If you want to argue for a Controversial option Hurricane exclusive from Scald, you can make a case for it.

 

[SunnyE]

since deck clearly doesn't want custom moves, I'll stop talking about it since I won't be able to change his mind in 24 hours. also, I really enjoyed getting my idea called "flat out terrible" by srk, who then was incapable of giving a single good reason why he felt that way...

Hurricane I feel is a lesser attack to Thunder, since they end up having the same neutral targets, but Thunder is much better for hitting water types for SE damage and for the paralyze chance (paralysis is better than confusion, imo). If Hurricane is disallowed, so should thunder, but I don't feel that'll be necessary, so allow hurricane

 

[Bughouse]

One single quibble. Can we get Hyper Beam, Giga Impact, Frustration, Return, and Round all moved into some sort of required list along with Hidden Power. Too often I see people submit movepools without these. With a CAP finally that is quite likely to have a small-ish movepool, there is no reason to leave these guys out. Can we just get those moves onto a permanent required list? They're not even competitive, so I don't see an issue.

The one move I see left as a possible issue is Flame Charge. +1 speed puts Mollux at 414 Speed Max if boosting nature, 376 max if not. This kind of speed boost enables Mollux to outspeed all of it's non-scarfed threats (even Alakazam). That's not a huge issue necessarily, since Flame Charge will cause 4MSS, but I don't know if it's something we want to deal with.

 

[Rising_Dusk]

Scald is a very distracting move from this Pokemon's concept.

Mollux will use Scald if it learns it. Yeah, it will. It's going to have just enough moveslots to use Scald and then still use a support move. Fire STAB / Scald / Thunder (If it gets it) / Support move. Nothing on a standard rain team takes that coverage except Lati@s, and they're not common on rain teams. They're most often used on non-rain teams as ways of handling rain teams. I'm not even considering running Poison STAB because it's terrible, and CAP 3 would much rather run a setup move in rain to actually have some lasting impact.

Scald serves absolutely no purpose besides distracting CAP 3 from using Poison STAB and hitting its threats super effectively. Remember that long schpeal Deck posted about Acid Spray? CAP 3 isn't going to run Acid Spray over Scald. Short of on a Specs set, it won't even run its poison STAB thanks to the combination of Scald and Thunder. Furthermore, yeah, it's not going to be broken with Scald, but Scald just adds to the distraction from a whole list of things that CAP 3 may already stop handily, but completely ravages with Scald. STAB Fire Blast in rain [90 BAP] vs. Scald in rain [120 BAP] is a big difference, not even factoring that Scald gets doubled vs. Ground- and Rock-types. Not that most of them generally want to switch in to begin with, but we should not be giving it assorted STAB against Ground- and Rock-types just because we can.

3) It supports Poison as an attacking type. Poison hits everything that resists Electric/Water (except Gastrodon) for neutral damage, which gives it 3-move coverage and STAB without having to resort to halved Fire attacks in the Rain. Outside of Rain, Fire STAB completely eclipses Poison STAB in OU, so it's a non-issue there.

Uh, no? Or did you forget that Ferrothorn is one of the most relevant Pokemon in rain? It does not support Poison as an attacking type. As a matter of fact, having Scald removes the want to actually run Poison-type attacks short of on a 4-attack set which would probably run HPIce over Poison STAB anyway.

 

[Stratos]

i'm with Dusk here. What does Scald do? It makes the typing absolutely secondary to a support move with infinitely better coverage than poison and 30 more BAP than Fire Blast. Plus, it turns our entire counters list except tyranitar into a checks list, and even Tyranitar has to think twice before switching into a 30% burn. I'm absolutely thinking scald for disallowed

 

[wiiii]

I'm against scald, it would have been a good flavor move, but it kill almost all the designed counters.

On hurricane, I see no reason to disallow it, landorus and gliscor should worry more on hp ice (almost every special sweeper use it), dugtrio, without focus sash, will have problems with any hidden power, so the only counter affected is terrakion, and if we use lava plume, even terrakion has something more important to worry about (burn>confusion).

Oh, one last thing, Final Gambit and Flame Charge should be at least considered, maybe they are a bit gimmick, but I think they are competitive enough to be discussed

 

[Birkal]

I'm cool with allowing Hurricane. CAP3 is going to land pretty squarely at the bottom of OU, if not lower, at the moment with the typing / abilities / stats we've given it. If we want Mollux to thrive in the rain against Water-types, I'm for giving it all the trinkets we can. I do agree with R_D and jas61292 that if we want to help its Poison-typing, then we should leave off Scald, but Hurricane is fair game, in my opinion.

Final Gambit is also really cool on CAP3. Its slow speed and just-under-100 base HP stat prevent it from abusing it horribly; while on the other hand, it creates a niche in terms of FG users by being able to recover health quickly in the rain (especially if it switches in on a Water-type attack).

 

[capefeather]

What happened to Discharge? Personally, I see it as a pointless addition, but it was on the list and now it's gone... This is also my third mention of Final Gambit, so if it doesn't go on the list somewhere, I don't want it to be suddenly pegged as competitive-therefore-disallowed in movepool submissions. Also, wiiii, Flame Charge is certainly non-attacking on this mon...

 

[canno]

I agree with Dusk, Scald should be disallowed.

I'll ask again, what does Scald do for Mollux except smash our check list and "rain abuse"? As far as I can as, absolutely nothing.
Except for our check list (and don't say they wouldn't switch in unless it was resisted anyways, Heatran use to love coming onto our moves, most of the ground-types either get hit by a resisted Poison-type attack, a rain weakened Fire-type attack, or an useless Electric-type attack. The only thing they fear is Hidden Power and Mollux outside of Rain, which is suppose to be it's weather of choice anyways.) it doesn't hit anything else that we don't already hit with Fire / Electric / Poison. Not only that, but people will run Scald over Poison STAB unless it's a sun team, it would much rather use it's Fire STAB in the rain. Yes, even in the rain Fire STAB outclasses Poison STAB. This is because, realistically, Poison / Electric / Water is walled by Ferrothorn, and can only hit other steal-types neutrally. Meanwhile, while Fire is weakened by the rain, it is still it's strongest weapon vs Steel-type (bar Heatran). A set of Fire / Electric / Water is going to be used more often than Poison / Electric / Water because there is nothing Poison hits that can't be smashed by Rain Boosted Water attacks. Hell, even if it doesn't want to run a support/set up move, it would most likely run Hidden Power Grass or Fighting over Poison STAB because of TTar and Water / Ground pokemon (most likely Fighting). We don't even need HP Ground, Scald hits Heatran SE (and in the rain, it rapes Offensive Heatran)

 

[Cretacerus]

When we selected the fire/poison-typing for cap3, one of the advantages we wanted to take from the typing was the obvious burn-status-spreading. Although not necessarily bounded by the fire typing, we intended flame plume to do the job.
As the project proceeded, we chose cap3 to become a bulky rain-abuser. While that matched with the burn-status rather well, flame plume become less of an option: it is too weak in rain to fulfill the job of the fire-type moveslot efficiently, which is dealing as much damage to the commonly fire-weak walls of rain-teams.
Therefore i would say, as much as i dislike the move generally, allow scald, not because of the coverage it provides, but because of its secondary effect. Scald is probably the only way of integrating the burn-status in cap3.

As for hurricane, i would rather not see it on cap3, as giving it such powerful attacks to abuse draws us away from the original concept (taking advantage of cap3's typing), making it more "create the ultimative rain-abuser". While i understand that rain is now a big part of cap3, i think hurricane would be a bit overkill, centralizing rain to much.
Hurricane just increases cap3's damage output (and doesn't provide significant coverage against what it should treaten unlike thunder), which draws us away from the offensive and also the defensive effect of its typing.

 

[Stratos]

When we selected the fire/poison-typing for cap3, one of the advantages we wanted to take from the typing was the obvious burn-status-spreading. Although not necessarily bounded by the fire typing, we intended flame plume to do the job.
As the project proceeded, we chose cap3 to become a bulky rain-abuser. While that matched with the burn-status rather well, flame plume become less of an option: it is too weak in rain to fulfill the job of the fire-type moveslot efficiently, which is dealing as much damage to the commonly fire-weak walls of rain-teams.
Therefore i would say, as much as i dislike the move generally, allow scald, not because of the coverage it provides, but because of its secondary effect. Scald is probably the only way of integrating the burn-status in cap3.

the problem is we can't just allow scald and say "BUT YOU'RE ONLY ALLOWED TO USE IT TO SPREAD BURNS NO USING IT FOR COVERAGE!" If we allow scald, we allow all of scald, and only a retard would not use an 80 power rain-boosted coverage type that happens to excellently smash all of mollux's supposed counters. the fact that it fucks up everyone else 30% of the time here is secondary to the fact that it rapes rock and ground.

 

[nyttyn]

At the end of the day, this CAP was a train wreck from the start. At first, we went with "Take a terrible typing, make the typing the reason to pick it." Solid enough, right? Ok, Fire/Poison, we can work with tha-

Fire type that counters water types. That was what we wound up agreeing upon with the ability discussion. Ignoring the fact that ignores its poison secondary typing entierly, this leaves us at a new crosssroads - How is a fire type going to threaten a water type?

Having all the great and hell, even good grass moves removed quickly shut down that avenue of approach. With Thunder, Thunderbolt, and possibly Discharge being our only sources of water-threatening damage, we need to look at what reason Mollux could possibly have to use his poison secondary typing.

Acid Spray has been suggested but quite frankly at the end of the day Mollux will not have the slot for it. In between having either substitute or a boosting move, and requiring that one slot be used for a fire move and slot be used for a electric move, I simply do not see where we can fit Acid Spray on him.

The only thing his poison typing is really doing at this point is serving as a handicap. With his ability and stat spread, as well as intended role, the fact that it makes him immune to toxic is really a small perk compared to all the negatives that poison typing brings.

So if we do not allow Scald, at what point are we going to give Mollux a redeeming quality? Are we going to give him Quiver Dance, or god forbid, Shell Smash? Because I know for fuck's sake if Drought didn't pass there is no way in hell Shell Smash will.

Lets face it. At the end of the day, Mollux's poison typing will not and can not be used even as a backup STAB simply because of the direction he is going in. At the end of the day, to remain a threat in OU, Mollux will either need a outstanding boosting move, or great coverage, and I'm fairly certain that nobody wants another Shell Smasher.

I'm NyttyN, and I support Scald.

 

[canno]

Hurricane just increases cap3's damage output (and doesn't provide significant coverage against what it should treaten unlike thunder), which draws us away from the offensive and also the defensive effect of its typing.

Wouldn't this argument work for Scald as well? I mean, it pretty much fits the bill for it, Scald does nothing to help except fuck all of the checks/counters and it's pretty much a "rain abuse" move.

Also, if we allow Scald, Mollux might as well be just mono-Fire, since it's not using it's Poison STAB even outside of rain (since now it needs to compete with Scald, Thunder(bolt), Discharge, and Hidden Power).

 

[Pallas Athena]

I needed to take a while to come up with this, but I think I've finally decided that Scald would be beneficial, and not detrimental, to CaP3. We've taken a typing that should really be playing a counter to choice Pokemon locked into the wrong moves (Fighting types) and a natural stallbreaker, and created a Pokemon that's fairly good at taking on some threats in the rain.

And that's it.

At the moment, there is no defining reason to use CaP3 over something like Toxicroak in the rain, or Heatran in the sun. I think we've taken a concept where the typing should be the best part, but stopped reading there. We haven't actually gone out of our way to make this Pokemon "good." Sure, its got a niche that it can do... because of an ability. If anything, this Pokemon needs to have some serious firepower to break down walls and abuse its typing in such a way that its good because of a typing, and not just a decent Dry Skin abuser that happens to be useless in a weather war against sand. Mollux needs to pull its own weight, and a slow speed and fairly bad coverage leaves it little to do but counter rain. Virizion is in a similar boat of having one solid use, and its barely even OU. In fact, Virizion has the ability to boost and have some success when not playing Rain. CaP3 does not.

So why not give CaP3 a use beyond countering rain? The speed is designed so that Offensive Heatran could revenge it. This implies that CaP3 actually has something that can take it down, and outspeeding is necessary. The only threat to CaP3 that's slower is Tyranitar, and he can change the weather. Every threat to CaP3 can still threaten it by forcing CaP3 out should it get in on a revenge kill, U-turn, or Baton Pass. No scald just makes Mollux hilariously useless against sand teams, which means that all we've really done is make a good Pokemon hindered by its typing.

I personally think that this concept became more about the ability than the typing awhile ago, but now we have the chance to actually give CaP3 the tools it needs to do a role that the typing would not suggest it be able to do. Additionally, Scald+Thunderbolt+Flamethrower allows for FWG cores to be destroyed, which is something that it was noted the typing could do.

In my opinion, its time that this CaP3 refocuses around what the typing can do with the right support, instead of how we can make a Pokemon that is good for an ability and hindered by its typing; exactly the mindset encouraged by a rain counter who dies pathetically to any Pokemon with Earthquake.



And before anyone bothers to say it, we never specified that the threatens list are "counters." Just that they threaten CaP3. Anything faster with a good ground move does, regardless of if CaP3 has Scald or not.

 

[Drifblim]

I think Scald should be allowed. It isn't really overpowered even in the Rain, and gives Mollux a good coverage move for the Rain. Mollux's defenses/typing aren't good enough to make the high chance of Burn a particularly big issue. Weakened Fire moves in the Rain is a bit of a setback to it's purpose of countering Rain. Thus, I believe Mollux should either get Scald or a Fire Move unaffected by Rain. Here is a proposal for that move:

Shellfire
Fire
BP:40
Accuracy:95

Blazing shots are fired from the Pokemon's molten center. Hits twice in a row. Unaffected by weather(Any affect of any weather won't alter the moves damage output or accuracy).

This would have the same BP as Rain boosted Scald if neutral. Moreover, it would allow Mollux to utilize its Fire STAB regardless of weather. Not being affted by any weather is to an extent for consistency, it would seem a tad odd if Rain was the only weather to affect the move. I think a signature move would actually be more fun then Scald, but there are likely better options then this hypothetical move.

 

[capefeather]

Okay seriously, Deck Knight has already said we're not doing custom moves. Stop suggesting custom moves. Please. At least for this stage.

Also, we could always use Will-O-Wisp for burning. Just sayin'.

 

[Cresselia92]

I don't even think that this CAP is going to have a free slot for WoW. Maybe Toxic, and if it wants to burn Lava Plume is better, since it hit and may burn.
Seriously, looking at the whole concept this guy is going to suffer from 4 Moves Syndrome (I don't know if that is the real name, forgive any eventual ignorance), and Poison typing is so bad offensively that we'll almost certainly forget his Poison moves and focus more in eventual stat ups, status, HP… even without Scald.
This guy just lack the tools to be a potent OU threat. Ok, it can absorb Toxic Spikes and water, it is immune to Poisoning and Burn and resist Fighting… and then what?
I can absorb Toxic Spikes and water with Toxicroak, I can resist Fighting with Volcarona and I'm "immune" to status with Heatran. And guess what? They all have better types, stats and movepools than our little snail (we still have to decide the non-offensive moves, but I don't think is going to receive much. We'll see…). At least let give it something to differentiate from the above mentioned Pokémon and a reason to really use it over the others.
I support Scald.

 

[fourkings8414]

Just some thoughts about our threats list.

Hide

One of the inherent problems with this CAP is just the selection of the threats list. We didn't think it through when we wanted a way to attack Water types and be threatened by Rock and Ground types. Water is only weak to Grass and Electric while Ground is weak to Grass, Water, and Ice whereas Rock is weak to Grass, Water, Steel, Ground and Fighting. Not noticing the overlap in types and therefore the limitations to the coverage we may want, we got stuck with either Electric, neutral, or weak moves in general (whether by BP or type of move, in this case physical). I think Grass would've solved most things for us but the fact that it has been disallowed puts us in a tight spot.

As Deck said before, our threatens list has changed a bit since we last checked on it. If anything, mons with high SpAtk or SpDef are going to be troublesome for us whereas those that were initially supposed to threaten us were in trouble already when we were talking about CaP3's offensive orientation. Besides, burn already scares them quite a bit. I am only mentioning this since I was reflecting on what many others were saying about the process. Don't take it to heart.

Really, Toxicroak does not compare to Mollux the same way Heatran does. Mollux has 7 resistances and an immunity with many of them being quite relevant to the metagame. In my honest opinion, Fire/Poison/Electric/HP of choice is all the coverage it really needs since this provides plenty of neutral coverage while hitting what we want to hit. And with as much SpAtk as Mollux has, those attacks are at least doing something. With the addition of Scald, we get coverage that is unnecessary for Mollux not to mention it hits what we decided should threaten us for a hefty amount. Disallow Scald

 

[Stratos]

read? deck has said multiple times no sig moves

 

[Deck Knight]

First, lets be very clear on this:

We created a Threats List, not a Counters list.

If Dusk wants to argue he submitted a stat spread with 131 SpA on the assumption it wouldn't trample over Landorus, Gliscor, and Duggy if they switched in during any weather condition other than Rain he can do so, but really: We're encouraging Mollux not to be used in Rain if we don't give it functionality in Rain.

Actually I know that's not the case and that it'd be fine since he submitted the spread under the assumption Drought would win, and it did not, so you'd have a bit of duality there you can play with. No such duality now exists, and I'll say it again its my fault for not requesting a Counters Discussion after Ability was selected anyway - not that I ever wanted it removed, but what's past is passed.

Mollux was built ostensibly as a Fire type that could mess with Rain by virtue of loling at Bulky Waters with Ice Beam and Toxic, while also keeping Ferrothorn and Scizor out with Fire STAB, even if weakened in Rain. That was the premise behind the typing. That is something it can accomplish, but then what? Then you have to use Poison STAB in Rain and you run into a very large wall of truly hard counters. Part of being OU is being able to perform in your niche, and the niche presented without Scald is fairly small. You end up with a Rain-loving Pokemon incapable of using Rain effectively, and the Burn chance of Scald is quite important, because Scald gives it a means of Burning foes without being forced out if the move doesn't burn, like Lava Plume would on anything that switches in during Rain.

This leads to an odd dynamic where you actually run things like Landorus/Gliscor/Duggy in Rain because you know Mollux is no threat since its only relevant offensive STAB gets halved in Rain. I don't think that's a healthy dynamic, and I think like the frets over Pyroak's walling capabilities, the frets over Scald are overblown. Ironically without Scald, are Threats are only true Counters in Rain, which is playing against their own style. Switching in Tyranitar actually *decreases* in value because in Sand, Mollux can obliterate most of those checks with Fire attacks.

Our check list (bar Tyranitar which hates Burn in all its forms) is already "smashed" circumstantially in Weather, with Sun allowing it to nuke Terrakion with Solarbeam (Solarbeam being balanced by being terrible everywhere else), and everything else getting exploded by a boosting Fire move. Heck, in the next phase if we allow Flame Charge for the Speed boost, the irony will be sweet. Let's be clear here, if we want to talk about our Threats List, every last one of them, Scald or no, is still a Check, with Tyranitar being the only Counter. All the other true Counters find themselves among the like of Latias, Latios, Hydreigon, Dragonite, and Gastrodon for which the only answer with our coverage options is Hidden Power. I'm comfortable with that, since bar Gastrodon every last one of them is faster and can do competent damage inside and outside of Rain.

An additional wrinkle is the role of Sun teams and Grass types. If you're running Water/Electric/Poison and forgo your Fire move because you assume Rain, you get boxed in by Grass/Poison types, especially Venusaur. Even Ninetales can give you trouble if your Electric move was Thunder, not Thunderbolt (same with Heatran, who lols as unSTAB Scald in Sun). Dry Skin's HP erosion along with boosted Fire in Sun is not pleasant. That's in general why I like Scald. I'm well aware it will be used, I just feel its effects are negligible considering the only thing it does is punish Mollux against Pokemon that would otherwise think twice about switching in during any weather other than the Rain teams we set it up to mess with. It can't control weather without using a move, so there's no sense in making it operate in Rain poorly against things it normally would be able to stave off.

I was a bit remiss with Final Gambit. It's pretty cool and definitely competitive with an HP Gaining ability and 95 HP.