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Name: Risky Business (formerly "Living On the Edge")
General Description: This Pokémon is very risky to play, but very rewarding if played correctly.
Justification: Many of the Pokémon that are successful in OU are relatively easy to play or have great "safe" options (e.g. U-turn). Yet, many other Pokémon look very powerful, but are less successful than they could be because of some large risks involved (e.g. Hydreigon), and some aren't successful at all (e.g. Honchkrow). This self-balancing concept intends to explore what it takes for a risky Pokémon to be successful, and how much inherent risk a Pokémon can get away with. It should be emphasized that this concept is NOT about luck management, but rather, it is about what the user can afford to do given his/her opponent's options, and vice versa.
Questions To Be Answered:
What is the relationship between risk and potential consequences, both positive and negative?
What kinds of inherently risky tactics are successful in the OU metagame?
Do risky Pokémon need some form of safe options (e.g. switch-ins) to be successful in OU, or can it get away with having few really safe options?
How does Substitute, a well-known "safe" move with nearly universal distribution, impact how this Pokémon is built and played?
How do existing Pokémon use and deal with risky situations?
Can risky Pokémon be played well in the early game, or are they better off put into action later on?
How do different playstyles interact with risky situations?
Explanation: This concept has been a rather long time coming. My main inspiration actually comes from obi / david stone and his battling AI, Technical Machine. Part of me imagined Technical Machine playing in a metagame containing this kind of Pokémon to see how it would play it, and by submitting this now I risk never having that come to fruition, but it doesn't seem like it will be finished for this generation any time soon. My other inspirations mainly comes from examples of risky Pokémon in other metagames. Honchkrow in UU, for example, has a deadly combination in Sucker Punch + Brave Bird + Pursuit, and with enough balls (or a good opportunity), it can use Roost to keep on trucking past Life Orb recoil. Another arguable example is Ursaring in Glitchmons. It is successful for having an extremely powerful priority STAB move, but at the same time, its other priority moves aren't quite as powerful, and sometimes it has to resort to a move like V-create, which punishes its low Speed.
Now, some may have noticed that there was no mention whatsoever of the term "prediction" throughout this submission. This was intentional. I feel that "prediction" has very much become a sort of buzzword even among seasoned battlers, and people get the heavily simplified idea that Pokémon is just about predicting your opponent's move. Yet, as anyone who's played poker or even competitive rock-paper-scissors will tell you, there is an inherent risk in every read, and these risks have to be considered to be successful. The aforementioned Technical Machine has no inherent concept of "prediction" at all. Hopefully, by making a Pokémon that embodies risk and reward, we will have a better understanding of the long-term implications of risk in a Pokémon match.
I know bugmaniacbob said he wants a concept focused on how to build a Pokémon more than what the metagame does when presented with a certain Pokémon. I know that this concept is pretty heavy on the latter, but I definitely chose this concept with the former in mind as well. There are a lot of good possibilities for making risk happen, and I am eager to see what people come up with.
Phew, we've definitely chosen an ambitious concept. Make sure you read it through in its entirety; you must understand the thoughts presented in this concept if you are to contribute to this project in a meaningful way. capefeather presented some fantastic guiding questions, so I hope that they don't go ignored in this thread. I can't wait to see what you guys come up with; let's get some good discussion going on what exactly Risky Business is. Besides a 1983 comedy drama starring Tom Cruise.
Once bugmaniacbob posts his thoughts, you're more than free to present yours. As always, please be polite and considerate when presenting your opinions. Thanks for reading!
This is the second time I have typed this up as my computer crashed in the middle of the last one, so apologies if I'm a tad incoherent.
Anyway, without going into too much detail, I would like us to start off our concept assessment as follows: Firstly, I would like to ensure that we are all on the same page as regards the concept. For one thing, it is an extremely broad concept, and that means that any number of interpretations are possible. For a start, I have seen people in – I forget which thread – saying that any CAP with the moniker "Risky Business" must necessarily be a glass cannon of sorts. Now, I certainly don't agree with that assessment, though at the same time I'm not necessarily saying that that is an invalid interpretation of the concept. But I do want to make sure that everyone knows what we're gunning for and what we hope to accomplish, so that we have a better idea of our end goal and how we develop our ideas from here on out. That being said, we require a starting point, and thus, I have given below a list of questions, alongside my answers to them, which detail how I believe we should be proceeding from here on out with regards to actually creating our Risk-mon. Now, I fully expect people to disagree with me, shout, scream, denounce my opinions as a crime against logic – indeed, that's what I want people to do (not literally, but you get the idea). I would like to see that people are thinking about it and trying to get their opinions across – I am not going to force an opinion down your throats, or at least, if I do, I at least want to make sure it's an opinion that, if not amenable to all of, at least discussed with the CAP community. So, we all need a place to start, and we will be starting here.
How are we to define Risk?
And by this question I do not want a dictionary definition of risk, nor do I necessarily want one based on your experiences as a competitive battler. I mean that strictly within the confines of the concept and of what we are trying to learn, how should we go about defining Risk? After all, there are many different kinds of Risk, and I want to pare down our options so that we all know exactly what we are gunning for – if we do not, we will all take our own definitions of Risk as gospel, and sorting it all out will be a nightmare. As such, we should be eliminating the portions of Risk that are not worth or that we do not want to investigate – capefeather has already done this, to an extent, by excluding "luck management" and "prediction" from his concept. That is not to say that we must necessarily exclude them entirely, except that to be honest I entirely agree here, but if not these, then what deeper elements of Risk are to be explored here?
Well, for example, take the following (rather rare, but helpful for our purposes) scenario. You have a Choice Band Dugtrio out against your opponent's healthy Ninetales. Now, you want to be eliminating said Ninetales immediately, but you know that your opponent has a Dragonite waiting in the wings. Although you do not know whether said Dragonite is of a Dragon Dance disposition (and hence able to sweep your weakened team) or not, you do know that it is inadvisable to give any Dragonite a free turn by choosing Earthquake. The alternative is to use Stone Edge, which may not OHKO, either because it gets a low damage roll or because it, well, misses. However, it will deter your opponent's Dragonite from switching in, which lessens your opponent's potential offensive momentum. Now, you may say here that this is not a particularly good example, as the choice, statistically speaking, should be obvious; however, I am using it as my example a) because it was the first one I thought of and I couldn't be bothered to think of another and b) because it exemplifies a large number of the potential risk factors that I was talking about, and more importantly, want to talk further about.
The first ones you will notice will naturally be the "luck-management" related ones. Stupid Stone Edge accuracy, I hear you say. Yes, we are here paying the price for the additional strength of our Rock-type coverage by risking a fatal miss leading to the loss of our beloved triple mole. At the same time, we are also playing a "prediction" risk – possibly said Dragonite is not nearly as dangerous as was imagined, and was in fact a mixed attacker, certainly threatening but not necessarily able to sweep your team. This is not necessarily a significant risk – you may say that the danger posed justifies the precaution – but you are still taking a risk in order to obtain, hopefully, a more favourable situation for yourself. Possibly it backfires, and you miss your Stone Edge; possibly it backfires, and that Tyranitar you didn't give a second thought to turns out to be a Rock Polish variant. However, I believe that we can go deeper than this. The sort of Risk that I believe we should be focusing on was, well, your original decision to use a Choice Band Dugtrio, knowing that you would, in all likelihood, be faced with this situation on more than one occasion, but going for the power to be able to 2HKO a 252 Def Calm Blissey through Leftovers and have a better chance to OHKO that bulky Tyranitar with Stealth Rock damage regardless. Thus the sort of risk that is specific to the player, where the consequence is known before the battle begins.
What are some good Pokemon to emulate, based on this definition?
Note that we need not go into specifics with our definition of Risk – we only want a core to build around. With that said, there are a number of Pokemon in OU that, while not entirely fitting all of the ideas of Risk, are still worth noting in some capacity or another. This is, I think, a useful exercise, as most of us should be familiar with all of the Pokemon in the OU metagame and how they work, and as such, it is an easy way of talking about a complex idea, or in this case several. The Pokemon that I think personally embodies the concept the best, or at least to the greatest extent that any Pokemon currently in OU does, is Volcarona. Put simply, here is a Pokemon with a 4x weakness to Stealth Rock, usually the worst thing that can be done to cripple a Pokemon, which is used purely because of how devastating it can be if it sets up. Here lies an interesting state of affairs, then: The user of Volcarona is making the conscious decision to choose a Pokemon which, in the case of Stealth Rock being up, is rendered far less effective – aside from anything else, it is unlikely to be able to set up. If Stealth Rock is not up, it is a monster – while the Risk involved clearly depends on the user's ability to keep Stealth Rock off the field and the opponent's insistence on keeping it there, it is still more to do with the choice of the battler than any mechanical risk. This is the case for any Pokemon that relies on the prevailing battle conditions to be at its most effective, such as Chlorophyll Pokemon. Archeops embodies the same principle – but that unfortunate fossil is a good example of what happens when the reward does not on average compensate the Risk, or does not appear to do so. Archeops is fast, powerful, and has a huge movepool, but the Risk embodied by Defeatist (and to a lesser but related extent, the Stealth Rock weakness) makes it far less usable.
This can also be seen in other OU Pokemon, to a less recognisable extent. I know that capefeather mentioned Hydreigon – this is perhaps common to all Dragon-types that use Draco Meteor commonly. In this case, the user decides first to run, then to use, a move of immense power, which then has a debilitating side effect that puts the momentum in the opponent's favour. In the case of Draco Meteor, the typing and the power usually behind it makes it a more worthwhile investment than, say, Hyper Beam – I would not necessarily agree that Hydreigon itself is an open-and-shut case of Risk/Reward because it is usually a pretty safe bet that whatever Draco Meteor hits will be taking massive damage, so there is less of a Risk, perhaps, than something like Tyranitar with Superpower. What else? Cloyster represents a different and more extreme case of Risk, where the ability to become one of the strongest sweepers in OU is undermined by a severe weakness to special attacks and priority revenge kills, not to mention being hit while setting up – and very probably only one chance to really try to sweep the opponent in any case. A weakness to Stealth Rock doesn't help either. Lastly, although here I am talking about DPP more than BW, Tyranitar's Sand Stream can hurt your team as much as it helps it, by damaging them, or simply restricting team options. If Garchomp existed (which it doesn't, but just pretend it does for the sake of this example) it would cause other problems too.
What game elements or mechanics can we talk about when discussing Risk?
This part, similarly to the above, is more a brainstorming session than anything else – but I want to make perfectly clear, before we begin, that you must not poll-jump when answering this question. By this I mean that you are perfectly allowed to talk about Baton Pass as an element of Risk as and how it relates to the concept of Risk that we have talked about, but you mustn't suggest that CAP4 have any individual element, or even just suggest an element without any substance behind it.
In any case, we have already had a cursory look at some of the more notable Risk-heavy items and moves, such as the Choice items and Draco Meteor, respectively. We can go further than this, and look at other moves with what may be called "negative side effects" which punish the user for using them, but deliver greater benefits for their use. Although every element in the game carries some sort of risk, some moves are more prone to it than others – there are the stat-dropping and Hyper Beam-esque moves already mentioned, and then there are also recoil moves, even moves that happen to make contact with opponents. I would like to focus, for my own part, however, on abilities. The following have some sort of inherent Risk attached to their use:
Code:
Anger Point
Colour Change
Defeatist
Dry Skin
Forecast
Flare Boost
Gluttony
Guts
Hustle
Illusion maybe?
Quick Feet
Reckless
Rivalry
Simple maybe?
Sniper maybe?
Solar Power
Super Luck maybe?
Toxic Boost
(Trace)
Unburden
Anger Point, Flare Boost, Gluttony, Guts, Quick Feet, Reckless, Solar Power, Toxic Boost, and Unburden are all hopefully obvious – they all contain some advantage that can only be gleaned through the simultaneous loss of HP or some similar advantage that the Pokemon would otherwise have enjoyed. Defeatist, as a purely negative ability, is similarly obvious, though I have left out Slow Start and Truant as they are beyond salvageable by pretty much any means. Dry Skin, Trace, and Rivalry are all pretty much dependent on conditions beyond one's own control (or at least to an extent), and Hustle, Sniper, and Super Luck are highly concerned with luck management (although the choice to use a less powerful move purely because it has a higher critical hit rate could be construed as the user's choice). Simple is almost definitive of high risk, high reward, and as such needs no discussion.
The ones I want to talk about, then, are Colour Change, Forecast, and Illusion. Illusion is purely another example of Risk that entirely takes your opponent's relative ability, or capacity to see, into its effectiveness – if your opponent notices a discrepancy between Stealth Rock damage and the amount you should have taken, bang goes your surprise value. Colour Change, I believe, opens up an interesting line of enquiry for this CAP – namely, what happens when part of your singular identity as a Pokemon is almost entirely randomised. It doesn't necessarily have to be the typing – the question of how a Pokemon works when its effectiveness and even potential uses vary dramatically throughout a battle is an interesting question indeed. The reason I am bringing this up now is because, apart from Colour Change and Forecast, there are no ways of seeing how this works currently in Pokemon itself, and both of these are combinations of ability and typing that would need to be discussed here before the polls went any further.
How should we go about building this Pokemon?
With all of the above in mind, here is the crucial question. Where should we focus our energies in order to properly answer the questions proposed by the concept, or to create a Pokemon that answers any further questions we may have, or even brings up new ones? I have an idea of where I want this discussion to head, so I would strongly advise that you concentrate on the above questions for now, and leave this one for the end of the thread. Having said that, I won't begrudge you the opportunity to discuss where you think the emphasis on risk and reward should be – provided that you do not poll jump.
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BMB's obligatory Topic Leader footnote gimmick - My Top 15 Arthropods
#14 The Stag Beetle
Fascinating Fact said:
I do so very much love the stag beetle, or more specifically, Lucanus cervus (all the other stag beetles don't count). It will always hold a special place in my heart, partly because I used to enjoy running into them occasionally in woodland – they are the sort of weird wildlife that the UK typically lacks – and because they are, well, endangered. Stuff the panda, save the stag beetle, and all that.
Anyway, interestingly enough, the female has a far more painful bite than the male despite having tiny antlers compared to the male's (I'm not saying anything…)
The way I would define risk is how much you stand to lose when making a choice. If your opponent has a heatran then playing very conservatively with your SD scizor is not a good idea, because you won't lose much of a chance to sweep if it dies. However, now lets say you trap heatran with duggy, and scizor can sweep. This is the point were scizor becomes important, and you do stand to lose a lot if it dies. Now it is a better idea to wait until scizor has a less risky chance to set up, because it is worth more.
A risky ability i didn't see listed is truant, which makes slaking much riskier but can be played around, for ex: if the whole team is centered around it with a whimsicott to encore set up pokes that come in on slaking and mag to trap steels that can take hits, slaking becomes better. On the other hand, like the ex posted with volc, if something happens big risks can make small problems pretty much end the game. Volc is so good at sweeping it has enough reward to compensate for the risk, but slaking doesn't so (sadly =<) it is not used. The point of slaking vs volc is that having a risk to a poke makes it so that to be worthwhile the poke also has to have some fantastic points that balance risk out.
One of the questions was how do play styles deal with risk, Volturn is interesting because it has what capefeather called a "safe" option. One of the most important merits of volturn is the low risk, but the reason it isn't broken is that there isn't a huge reward like a (coming back to this ex) volc sweep.
Stall also attempts to play very simply and have very little risk, although again, the low reward balances this out. In some cases with a bad team matchup stall does have to play a bit more riskily but the point of stall is play safely.
This poke should definitely be more risk/reward based than prediction (which is really just guessing), so I'd suggest that it could have the potential to sweep teams and is very good against some pokes but has a hard counter (maybe arghonaut or something) that makes it far less rewarding. That would make playing with that poke be centered on how rewarding it would be to set up and sweep. The more rewarding it is the more you stand to lose, which goes back to my definition.
In terms of game mechanics there are some moves that affect risk (not saying these must be/not be its movepool, just some things to consider).
- u-turn/volt switch are the main ex of a safe move, no huge risk pretty much whatever happens.
- baton pass to a lesser extent, on tomohawk it can function like volt or turn
- substitute is also a pretty safe move, on sweepers like sub dd gyara it can take out some risk so it might be interesting to consider not giving to this poke
- protect is useful on defensive pokes to scout what the opponent will do if they're choiced, gain leftys recovery, and have a small reward but even smaller risk (heatran comes to mind).
Some moves increase risk and reward
- set up moves like dragon dance and calm mind have the potential to sweep but can end up doing nothing and losing a poke. Deck night mentioned belly drum, that could be cool as either a gimmick or its only means of set up, it would certainly be important to think "can i sweep" before using belly drum because of the inherent risk. (also mentioned curse but while that could be interesting I don't see it sweeping)
- certain moves like fire blast are sorta risky, and luck management is part of risk/reward, but hax is just so annoying in general and can happen even if the right choice is made (focus blast from +2 cm reuniclus on ttar, misses. Even if that was the best choice it can still lead to failing). Having those moves would make this poke more about luck than risk, so imo they should stay out of its movepool
Skore said typing weaknesses, it could be interesting to make this poke weak to certain things and resists others (say, weak to bolt beam, fblast, and hp fire but resists edge quake) so that it becomes more rewarding if it has something like a dugtrio to set up on, but less useful if they have genesect/rotom w left.
I'm new to posting on cap forums so sorry if I said something that is supposed to be in some other thread.
What most people dont realize is risk doesn't always mean luck. The main idea behind risk is if the scale tips in your favor, you reap unnaturally high benefits, but if the scale tips in the opponent's favor, it could cost you the match.
For me, the main and most obvious risk would be a weakness to common offensive type.
Without being exhaustive, Focus Blast, HP Fire, Bolt-Beam and Edge-Quake are all common moves and move combos to see in the Smogon Pokedex as they're so effective and a weakness to more than a few of these common coverage moves without a resistance to any of them is usually a risky move when teambuilding.
This is probably the reason only exceptional normal types survive in competitive play and the likes of Blissey carry their own risk, able to sponge special hits like a boss but physical hits will destroy it and being forced to switch to a wall can usually spell the loss of your momentum; which is why stall in today's meta is also a risky playstyle unless it's done extremely well.
(I'm not sure if this is a good contribution to the discussion, but it's based on my understanding of the concept, so if not, then it'll be good to clear it up.)
In my experience, a good example of a Pokemon whose role is defined by risk management is Ursaring. I used to run a UU Trick Room team with Guts Ursaring with Flame Orb and its astounding STAB Facade. The payoff was amazing when everything went as planned, but there was always a lot of risk. Besides the risk involved in setting up Trick Room and getting Ursaring out in time to abuse it to begin with (which was necessary because of its horrible speed), there was, of course, the who issue of needing for it to burn itself with Flame Orb before it could really shine and then the even bigger issue that Facade was a Normal-type move, meaning that a Facade sweep could rather easily be stopped by a Steel-type or, even worse, a Ghost-type.
I think that might be an interesting way to go for this Riskymon, to have its major draw be a fantastic attack that a lot of Pokemon are resistant or immune to, like for example Psystrike or Earthquake or Bolt Strike.
I think the key to this CAP's success will be one of two things. Either CAP4 will have 1 Primary set that despite being the clear option, still with proper preparation remains dangerous in a playtest designed to challenge CAP4 or CAP4 will have 2 or more sets of differing levels of risk that all remain dangerous in their own right, albeit less so than in the case of the first option.
For the first option, Defeatist is the obvious choice, though of course that may be too much risk depending on typing/stats to be determined later.
However, for the second option, I'm not sure any of the abilities listed is particularly necessary. An excellent example of a Pokemon that depending on the situation either is the MVP of the match or is worthless is Moxie Honchkrow.
I guess what I'm saying is we should decide more what track we want to take than necessarily be debating "riskiness" in ability already.
One of the kinds of risk that hasn't been mentioned in detail yet is Role Risk. The quintessential example of this is Rampardos, which is almost by definition a high-risk, high-reward Pokemon because it can smash through most opponents right off the bat with its insane attack, or boost itself with Swords Dance or Rock Polish. It's typing doesn't lend itself well to this role, so a better example along the same line might be Rhyperior. Unlike Rampardos, Rhyperior actually can take a slew of hits well in addition to its monstrous attack, but its low speed and huge common weaknesses hold it back.
In either case these are Pokemon which have one extraordinarily fine set of advantages that are held back by their weaknesses, which in Rampardos/Rhyperior's case happen to make them ineffective in OU.
One element of risk not yet explored is something like Belly Drum or Ghost Curse. Belly Drum is the king of risky moves. Given the right combination of moves to work with it can be a lethal one-turn setup, as we learned in the Necturna playtest when Belly Drum along with a physical draining move and priority attack the right set up can be incredibly dangerous.
Ghost Curse is often laughed at, but my honest opinion is that it could be just as scary given the right tools, which in this case would be a trapping ability like Shadow Tag or Arena Trap to provide some immediacy to it. Granted that's a poll jump of epic proportions, but I think it encapsulates the idea that it's not just Pokemon that can be risky, but also the strategies they employ.
In general I'd say the riskier strategies tend to be offensive ones. Stall is built around the premise of minimizing risk through sheer defensive prowess, whereas more offensive styles will have wallbreakers that can subvert stall's ability to define a game's ebb and flow. Glass Cannon sweepers and stat-boosters are the most common risk-oriented strategies, though there are others like Trick Room setup. Shedinja is basically a parable of high-risk high-reward, especially in Hackmons where it can get Sturdy. It's either completely invulnerable or totally useless.
I view risk as taking a gamble, not on random chance, but on playing your opponent. For example, if you have a heatran in against a venosaur, you could stay in and gamble that it doesn't have earthquake. This is very risky, but it doesn't rely on any luck in the process. You also described a similar scenario with Dugtrio and Dragonite. That being said, I think that illusion would work the best for what the concept aims to achieve. Take a risk that the opponent thinks you are something else...if they guess wrong, then you can have an easy sweep, but if they guess right, you're gonna have a tough time. If working around illusion, it would be essential to have a core built around it, similar to Zoroark + Haxorus, which really doesn't work due to the lack of mold breaker. Again, I think risk should be about gambling on your opponent's unknown factors, which include their prediction skills and movesets.
I don't think stall will work with this, as others have said, due to the fact that stall teams are played to remove risk from the game. In doing so, they risk having one stallbreaker that can shut them down hardcore. While color change also sounds like a very interesting concept, I think that illusion will have the most reward for the highest risk.
There are many different aspects of risk that we could look at with this concept, but in my mind, certain ones would be a lot more interesting and informative than others. To me, the kind of risks that would be most worthwhile to look at where a Pokemon, that while otherwise not so great, can have great competitive value in specific situations, AND whether or not it succeeds when these situations arise is based on conscious player choice. To be more specific on what I mean, I think the example of Cloyster is one of the best one you are going to get. Cloyster's main use in OU is as a Shell Smash sweeper, and when set up, it is one of the most threatening Pokemon in the entire game. However, it is very risky, as it cannot take a single special hit, and only really gets one shot at a sweep. If it fails, it is essentially dead weight on your team. However, the success and failure of Cloyster is entirely in the players hands. There is no luck involved, and if can successfully determine how and when to let is set up, it will be a terror.
Another good example I think would be Zoroark. Zoroark works by using the element of surprise. Force the opponent to make a bad switch and you can eliminate an important Pokemon without them being able to do anything about it. However, Zoroark itself is incredibly frail. Make a single wrong move and it will be crippled, at best, KOd at worst. Every move you make with it is a calculated risk.
Now, as bmb said, while hyper offense is what may come to mind first, there is certainly other ways to go about something like this. I think a good example of this is something like Gastrodon. Gastrodon excels at one thing: killing special rain Pokemon. It is not the sturdiest wall ever, but it does its one job incredibly well, if played correctly. However, by putting it on your team, you take an inherent risk. If your opponent does not carry such rain sweepers, then you are stuck with a mediocre at best Pokemon.
As I said above, I think the best thing for us to look at is risk over which you have control. capefeather said in the concept that this is not about luck, and, in my mind, this applies both to things decided by and RNG and those decided actively in game by your opponent. Sure, you may be able to affect your opponent and not the RNG, but either way, the decisions they make are out of your own hands. While above two examples I gave were forms of risk which you have total control over, I feel some of the examples bmb pointed out are not really the kind of thing we should be looking at due to lack of player control over them, making them more akin to the luck factor that this concept is not interested in. Now obviously this includes things like Anger Point, Hustle, Sniper and Super Luck, but I believe it also applies to Color Change. While it may indeed be a risky strategy, how it works is no more in your own hands than whether or not your Focus Blast hits. You are at the complete mercy of your opponent, and there is not really anything you can do but hope they don't have moves to hit you super effectively. You honestly need to be lucky for it to work.
Illusion is another ability that I don't believes really illustrates the kind of risk we want at all. Now, yes, I did say above that Zoroark was a great example of risk, but that is because of Zoroark as a whole. By itself, Illusion is just a generally good ability. There is nothing really risky about it. Screw it up and you lose the Illusion, but that in and of itself is not a bad thing. It is due to Zoroark's near complete reliance on it to be successful that Zoroark is a risky Pokemon.
That being said, I do think some of those listed abilities could fit this definition of risk well. Forecast is an interesting one because while, like Color Change, your opponent can affect your type, you still do ultimately have control over what type you are when you come out, until the weather war is won. Yet, at the same time, I'm not sure if that is indeed risky enough. It would obviously depend on the specifics of the 4 forms, but unless we make it intentionally bad for some weathers, there is really not much risk involved at all. I think it certainly has potential, but I'm not sure it would be practical or sensible for us to do what is necessary to achieve that risk. Among the abilities though, I think the two that best embody what the kind of risk I believe we should be striving for are Gluttony and Unburden. Both share a trait similar to that of Cloyster. They can both be very powerful abilities if used right, but are easy to screw up, and only give you a single shot. When and how you go about using them is all in your control, but you better get it right the first time. Screw it up and its over. Now, I'm not saying we need to use an ability like one of these, just that I believe that they embody the kind of risk we should be looking for.
To answer the last question, when building this Pokemon, I believe we should try and make sure that its success is reliant mainly on one thing. And that one thing must not be guaranteed to always work, not as far as failing, but as far as having limited application. This could mean using one of the aforementioned abilities, or being reliant on the opponent having a certain team of type of Pokemon, in the way I described with Gastrodon above. We should force it to rely on specific, but achievable, conditions in order to perform at its maximum prowess, while making sure it is at least decently outclassed when in cannot achieve said conditions.
The definition of "risky" in competitive pokemon is that a Pokemon is much more difficult than necessary to utilise effectively. One of, if the not the best way to increase the risk factor is to give a Pokemon a typing that has multiple common weaknesses, or one or more 4x weaknesses, thus making it much more difficult to either switch in safely, or tank hits (depending on the stats of the pokemon later). One of the best examples that springs to mind is Tyranitar which, despite its colossal stats, great ability and enormous movepool, has a multitude of weaknesses - including a 4x weakness to an exessively common attack type - that severely hinder its defensive capabilities, while at the same time offering few notable resistances. Thus in my view, whatever playstyle this CAP ends up being - be it sweeper, tank, wall or stall - it must not have a fantastic defensive typing. Many good resistances and few weaknesses would severely lessen the risk involved, which would negate the whole point of capefeather's idea almost totally.
As for abilities, it may not have to be necessarily an ability from that list to make it risky to use. For example, Shell Armor involves the lowering of defense in exchange for speed, which means with every physical hit the Pokemon takes, it will be hit harder. This could be used to the advantage of either the user or the opponent, but it definitely has a risk factor which could be considered. The elemental abilities of Blaze, Torrent, Overgrow and Swarm also have inherent risk factors, as they are unuseable unless the user has suffered extensive damage. This, again, could both help and hinder the wielder, in a similar manner to Guts, wherein the holder must (usually) take damage to become more powerful and threatening. Finally, Analytic is a powerful ability but the holder must go second for it to work, giving it the potentially debilitating risk of having to take hits before it can retaliate most effectively, and as such could also be considered.
I think for the concept of "risk", one has to consider getting rid of "safe options" as Capefeather's proposal mentioned. I think a balance of weaknesses/frality and 4x resists/immunities, as with Honchkrow and Gengar, makes even switching it in a matter of risk and reward. Having STABs and coverage moves that are fairly divided- i.e. they hit very different things (like that of Mamoswine or in some ways Terrakion) makes even great coverage risky to use because a wrong prediction means an almost absolutely free switch-in. The final big aspect in my opinion is prediction-based moves like Pursuit or Sucker Punch, as we can see in Honchkrow (who is all around a good model for risky traits).
The definition of "risky" in competitive pokemon is that a Pokemon is much more difficult than necessary to utilise effectively. One of, if the not the best way to increase the risk factor is to give a Pokemon a typing that has multiple common weaknesses, or one or more 4x weaknesses, thus making it much more difficult to either switch in safely, or tank hits (depending on the stats of the pokemon later). One of the best examples that springs to mind is Tyranitar which, despite its colossal stats, great ability and enormous movepool, has a multitude of weaknesses - including a 4x weakness to an exessively common attack type - that severely hinder its defensive capabilities, while at the same time offering few notable resistances. Thus in my view, whatever playstyle this CAP ends up being - be it sweeper, tank, wall or stall - it must not have a fantastic defensive typing. Many good resistances and few weaknesses would severely lessen the risk involved, which would negate the whole point of capefeather's idea almost totally.
As for abilities, it may not have to be necessarily an ability from that list to make it risky to use. For example, Shell Armor involves the lowering of defense in exchange for speed, which means with every physical hit the Pokemon takes, it will be hit harder. This could be used to the advantage of either the user or the opponent, but it definitely has a risk factor which could be considered. The elemental abilities of Blaze, Torrent, Overgrow and Swarm also have inherent risk factors, as they are unuseable unless the user has suffered extensive damage. This, again, could both help and hinder the wielder, in a similar manner to Guts, wherein the holder must (usually) take damage to become more powerful and threatening. Finally, Analytic is a powerful ability but the holder must go second for it to work, giving it the potentially debilitating risk of having to take hits before it can retaliate most effectively, and as such could also be considered.
The main reason I want to avoid luck management is that I want CAP 4 to provide a way to reflect an aspect of a player's battling skill more than the often luck-heavy usual OU metagame allows. Because of this, when I was thinking about this concept before submitting it, I seriously considered abilities like No Guard, CompoundEyes, Sheer Force and Shield Dust, so that a bad outcome can't be blamed on a bad roll, and you get what you pay for I also think that, in turn, people will get a better idea of how to make decisions in a battle than just vaguely guessing what the opponent will do.
I suppose I could throw some potential examples I thought of out there. As bugmaniacbob alluded to, choice items tend to be one of the most prominent ways to increase risk for some significant reward. I also considered Focus Punch in Gen III, back when the next most powerful (reliable) Fighting-type move was Brick Break. One time I saw people lament about how the introduction of Close Combat in Gen IV completely destroyed the risk-reward dynamic of Fighting-type moves by obsoleting the "naked" Focus Punch tactic. I also mentioned Glitchmons Ursaring and Honchkrow because both of them have priority, and yet both of them have slow "gotcha" moves. If you switch out of an opposing Honchkrow, you risk having it use Roost, erasing much of your attempts to wear it down indirectly - and that's on top of the risk of Brave Bird on the switch-in or Pursuit on the switch-out. This kind of tense situation was what I initially envisioned with this concept.
One potentially interesting aspect of this concept is the idea of inducing risk onto existing Pokémon with CAP 4's presence. If we consider, say, a priority move, we can consider not just how CAP 4 interacts with priority users, but also how CAP 4 could potentially use priority moves to interact with opponents. A similar thing can be done, I think, with any other move, ability or whatever else.
I unfortunately don't have much time so I guess you guys can chew on this for a while.
Risk can be defined as putting oneself into danger to gain the upper hand, whether it be to gain momentum or to set up a sweep or anything similar to that. Risk can either be low-accuracy such as Fire Blast or Hydro Pump (used these over FB and SE because the risk is intentional, you choose to risk missing for the extra power) a set-up pokemon that employs a risky set-up move (Belly Drum is really the perfect example of this) or pokemon that just simply have a hard time setting up, but can sweep teams when it does (The perfect example of this is Volcarona, who risks being useless due to taking 50% from Stealth Rock, but can end up sweeping teams if it sets-up). There are many ways to define risk in competitive pokemon, and many ways to employ these risks. Another source of risk is typing. A typing can be extremely effective offensively, however, it can be atrocious defensively. For example, an Ice-type pokemon has some of the worst defensive typing around. However, Ice is amazing offensively, hitting Dragon SE and having good coverage with a plethora of other types (Electric and Ground are the first two that come to mind).
What are some good Pokemon to emulate, based on this definition?
Volcarona - Dangerous set-up sweeper that takes 50% from Stealth Rock and has bad physical defense. Using Volc is extremely risky, if you can't get Stealth Rock off the field then you risk Volcarona ending up being death fodder and a waste of slot. However, when it does set-up, there is a good chance the game is already over. In my opinion, Volcarona is the perfect example of a high-risk, high-reward pokemon without resorting to luck.
Stone Edge, Hyrdo Pump, Fire Blast, Ect. - While this isn't a pokemon exactly, I feel that these are the best examples for luck-based risk. This isn't a list of low-accuracy moves such as Focus Blast. These are low-accuracy moves with a safer alternative (Stone Edge is debatable for this, as Rock Slide can still miss. However, it has 90% over 80%, so I think it can work for this). For example, Fire Blast is chosen Flamethrower, even though Flamethrower is decently strong and Fire Blast has less pp/less accuracy. This is because the high power from Fire Blast is desirable. This is the simplest example of Risk vs Reward in pokemon I can think of, which is why I mention it.
Tyranitar - Tyranitar's typing is crucial to it's success, as Rock gives him massive Special Defense in the sand that TTar summons while Dark gives him utility vs Psychic-types (most importantly Lati@s). However, it also leaves it weak to being trapped by Dugtrio, being hit by a Fighting-type attack due to it usually hitting his lower Def and hitting for 4x SE damage. Finally, Dark-type makes him weak to U-turn, a common utility move. This makes TTar risky over Hippo, however, TTar is considered better because the rewards using TTar outway the risks.
Kingdra in OU - This is a unique example to Kingdra and his Swift Swimming buddies, but I chose Kingdra because he's the best out of all of them outside of rain. Of course, Swift Swim + Drizzle is banned. However, carrying one on your team can let Kingdra destroy Drizzle team. The problem with this is that if your opponent isn't using Drizzle, then Kingdra becomes extremely mediocre. Thus, using Kingdra as an answer to rain is extremely risky, as if you're opponent isn't using rain, then Kingdra becomes outclassed at what it does. This is an example of risk that you cannot control and isn't luck-based, as it is based on team match-up rather than actual gameplay. This shows us that there is also risk during team building, which is important and we should definitely try to emulate this.
Hyper Offense/Heavy Offense - Again, not a pokemon, but something I wanted to talk about briefly. This is probably the most riskiest play-style in the metagame, as a single misplay can cost the momentum, and possibly the game, for the HO player. I'm not sure how this can be applied to CaP 4, but I thought I should bring it up.
What game elements or mechanics can we talk about when discussing Risk?
Typing - Typing is really important to pokemon. Without the right typing, a pokemon can end up being useless. This is especially true when you consider entry hazards, as simply being weak to Stealth Rock affects your usefulness. There are very safe typings such as Dragon and Water. And there are riskier types such as Bug and Ice. Typing is going to be a key part of CaP 4 as it defines what we can and cannot switch into, and what we do and do not hit for good damage. We need to find a nice balance between risky typing and bad typing though. Terrakion is a good example of this. While offensively Rock / Fighting is amazing, it leaves Terrakion weak to common attacking types such as Water and Ground. It also leaves it weak to common priority such as Bullet Punch and Mach Punch. While Terrakion might not be the riskiest pokemon, his typing is an example of a good and risky typing. We should also avoid making a risky typing for the sake of making a risky typing. My example of this is Volcarona. While I think Volc is a great example of Risk vs Reward, its typing is unnecessarily risky because Bug / Fire just isn't a good typing at all. Offensively, it's redundant while Defensively it's pretty bad, especially horrible 4x weakness to rock. For our typing, we want to be closer to Terrakion rather than to Volcarona. Team Building - This is similar to the Kingdra in OU example. Kingdra can deal with rain, but it is poor vs anything else. While I don't think we should be this dramatic with CaP 4, I think we should employ something similar. I'm not sure how to do this though, so ideas would be great. However, CaP 4 should start being risky before you put it in your team. Abilities and Movepool - Both of these are also important to risk. Again, Kingdra is the best example, as Swift Swim is the prime reason to use it. vs Drizzle, it's perfect, but vs anything else it might as well not have an ability (unless you are running Rain Dance Kingdra I guess). A lesser example is Analytic. In order for Analytic to work, you need to go last. This is risky because letting the opponent first could lead to trouble, such as massive damage that is unwanted or even death. Normalize is also very risky, as Ghost can come in whenever they please and stop you. However, you can now paralyze Ground-types with Thunder Wave and possibly get STAB on great moves such as Close Combat or Fire Blast. Movepool is also important. Belly Drum is the best example of a risky move, although Close Combat and Hi Jump Kick are also risky to use (Defense Drop and risk of losing 50%). The movepool and ability also need to be carefully analyzed, but we should stray away from "safe" moves such as U-Turn and Substitute. (Oh, and if I poll jumped I apologize, sometimes it's hard not to imo)
How should we go about building this Pokemon?
I think the best way to go about building CaP 4 is to make it offensive, not necessarily fragile, but definitely offensive. Offensive is a lot more risky than Support and Defensive, as both of those play more conservatively than Offense. I don't really have much to say other than that, I could but I would probably start poll-jumping.
I probably missed some stuff here and there, but hopefully this helps us get a general idea of CaP 4.
(I'm glad to see other people bringing up some of the ideas I wanted to mention - it makes me think I'm on the right track with them.)
There's been a general agreement that stall plays to minimize risk and arrive at victory through safe plays, therefore we should look to offense for inspiration to how we build this CAP. There were also a number of Pokemon examples like Volcarona, Honchkrow, and Cloyster, that carry an inherent risk in use (will they be allowed to set up?) but can sweep entire teams if unstopped. That got me thinking of the second part of the equation, as it were.
Big risk carries a big reward, it's why it even draws players to use them. Risk without a commensurate reward is usually what turns Pokemon into 'gimmicks' at best. And what is the highest reward possible in a game of Pokemon? Winning the game. Walls and supporters don't win the game by themselves (well they can if used consistently throughout the match and with synergy, BUT), it's sweepers that decide the outcome of a match, sometimes in a single turn when they're allowed to set up, on an enemy's mistake or forced misplay. Likewise, bulky offense is the safer end of the continuum than hyper offense; but even hyper offensive strategies use some safe elements (like dual screens), so this CAP doesn't necessarily have to be a glass cannon sweeper.
Depending on the stats that CAP4 will have, then choosing its EVs and nature can mean taking a risk. Should the +Speed nature be selected at the price of missing some OHKOs/2HKOs, or should the +Attack/+Special Attack nature be used at the risk of being outsped? Of course if the Speed is too high or too low for this decision to even be relevant, then that aspect of strategy vanishes. This is one of those cases when too much of a good thing can go bad (as more Speed would make it objectively better but bad for the concept).
Of the abilities that BMB listed, I'm happy to see Anger Point and Analytic in particular. I'm sure these abilities would inspire strategies that are inherently risky, but the reward they offer is significant. Analytic giving up the first-move advantage each turn (guaranteed with a Lagging Tail attached) is quite a risk to take: after all, how do you sustain a sweep if the enemy can hit you every time? (Maybe a draining move to recover just enough HP to survive?)
The ability I think holds the most potential for our riskmon though, is Hustle. It has one problem though - it needs to be paired with another offensive ability, but granting a lesser/trickier benefit (Analytic is a good example here). If Hustle is the strongest boosting option then the decision while team-building to pick it, along with the accuracy penalty, will have a lot of relevance; if instead Hustle was partnered up with Guts then there'd be no question which of them to choose, as Guts is superior in basically every situation and a far safer ability - it removes the risk of our sweeper getting shut down by burn. Hustle would require more work to make effective, but it could still serve our needs.
To answer the last question, when building this Pokemon, I believe we should try and make sure that its success is reliant mainly on one thing. And that one thing must not be guaranteed to always work, not as far as failing, but as far as having limited application. This could mean using one of the aforementioned abilities, or being reliant on the opponent having a certain team of type of Pokemon, in the way I described with Gastrodon above. We should force it to rely on specific, but achievable, conditions in order to perform at its maximum prowess, while making sure it is at least decently outclassed when in cannot achieve said conditions.
I just wanted to quote jas61292 here because I think he raises a very good point. I see it as a very good guideline to keep in mind if we are to create a successful riskmon without pushing it into the area when it's broken. At the same time, it doesn't mean the Pokemon would have to be inflexible and locked to only one strategy.
As an example, if CAP4 were a mixed sweeper that has to choose between its Belly Drum physical or Nasty Plot (or Tail Glow?) special setup route, and/or being a Choiced hit-and-runner, it would in fact give plenty of flexibility to its sets and offense, but still leave manageable weaknesses that can get it stopped (either by not allowing it to set up, or if it runs Choiced, proper switching and exploiting free turns). Just don't give it Shell Smash (or even Quiver Dance) because that would outclass every other set it can run, and we know from Cloyster in minute detail how a Shell Smash sweeper runs.
Well as we have already smartly eliminated luck based and prediction based risk, I believe all we have left is basically risk to the team or risk to the individual pokemon, whether it be it fainting or becoming dead weight. Eviolite Chansey for instance carries the risk of being set up on and swept, while using a set up move has the risk of your opponent simply knocking you out before you have a chance to do anything, or switching in something to counteract this (for instance an encore or a pokemon with a typing or ability that renders your boosts null). Risk here I believe should basically be defined as the ease of which you can take advantage of the pokemon, whether through walling it and shutting it down, knocking it out, or setting up on it and strolling through an entire team.
What are some good Pokemon to emulate, based on this definition?
As I haven't played much lately, I'm going to use a few examples from NU notably two one trick ponies.
Shuckle is a good example of this, under standstorm conditions it can wall quite a few pokemon, and by using moves such as toxic, encore, knock off or gastro acid can be quite the nuisance. However it's weak to entry hazards, can hardly live without sandstorm, and can easily be disabled by just about anything. Still, it can set up and cripple many pokemon. Using shuckle in the end is all about risk, more often than not it will be a subpar wall, but on a good day it will wall the whole entire other team or use encore to allow you to set up and sweep.
Linoone is another example, under the correct conditions you can use belly drum and sweep a team. Under any other conditions, it just dies and is completely useless. Linoone is almost completely about risk, it's a one trick pony and if it fails, it's dead weight.
Though what these two pokemon do exemplify risk, I do NOT believe we should make it a one trick pony like Linoone as suddenly everyone will just carry a counter to it. (It's a new CAP pokemon after all, people will want to use it)
What game elements or mechanics can we talk about when discussing Risk?
Three things come to mind, abilities movepool and typing.
Typing is simple enough, a typing with insanely good stabs but bad defense obviously incorporates more risk. I think we should make an effort to make sure it isn't terrible against SR, though it is risk it's all too simple to carry and execute, I think it would probably reduce what we could learn here.
Movepool is also fairly simple. In order to isolate the variable we want here we should eliminate luck, I recommend that for this reason we stick to accurate moves only if possible.
Ability is where I really think we have potential. All sorts of abilities are built around high risk high reward, and by giving two abilities with very different effects we can keep from having one counter simply kill the whole set's effectiveness. People have already touched on this though, and the metagame is full of risky abilities for the taking.
How should we go about building this Pokemon?
I think we should go one of two ways here.
The most simplistic way is simply to build a glass cannon of sorts, or a set up sweeper that desperately needs a chance to set up. This will probably result in a more minor risk, if all fails you've just lost a pokemon. Still though, I think this would be pretty simplistic and straightforward to execute as far as CAP goes.
The other way which I think would give us better results is to build a wall that can typically bar all threats, but under the right circumstances not only fails but fails spectacularly (I'm thinking you get set up on somehow here really) bringing down the rest of the team with it. If it does its job spectacularly but fails under a certain stress test, we can really up the ante and see what this does at an extreme we can't already find in the metagame.
The kind of wall you mention, Aqueos, makes me think of one with Rest as its necessary recovery move. Once you're forced to Rest and wait sleeping, the enemy has a chance to set up and sweep your entire team in turn.
I must admit I forgot all about Shuckle. Shuckle isn't a sweeper (barring Trick Room support + Power Trick + Rollout) but it is a risky wall to use, its defensive stats (bar HP) allow it to tank just about any hit regardless of weaknesses; in fact, with Wish and Aromatherapy support Shuckle could even overcome its typing (and with Unaware against setup sweepers it'd be a one-wall-for-all). Its other weaknesses (like prone to all status and hazard damage, rock-bottom speed and unusable offenses) hold it back, but it can be a good wall or focused disrupter (and frequently does a bit of both).
As far as typing goes, unless we want a one-shot sweeper I'd rather we don't emulate Volcarona's example of giving a x4 Rock weak typing. I'm thinking a typical neutral to Stealth Rock (by combining one resistant and one weak) would generally be more beneficial for the concept. That way the risk-mon could double-switch sometimes for the purpose of checking the enemy's response (what's their first switch in, hence intended counter? and how to eliminate it?) and acting on that knowledge with appropriate coverage moves (if any) or a teammate (would it see use with Dugtrio or Tyranitar on the team, as trappers?). Beyond Stealth Rock, I think a typing weak to common attacking types on top of frail stats would go sufficiently far in making CAP4 risky to use, to the point that it cannot afford to stay in on defensive Pokemon if they happen to carry a Hidden Power or other super-effective coverage option against it. Therefore, when CAP4 is difficult to switch into play normally, strategies to create an opening (Encore on a setup move, or U-Turn/Baton Pass from a slower Pokemon) will become important. That would suit the concept, now wouldn't it?
I think it is incredibly important that this risk is manageable by skill, rather than luck-based. With a luck-based risk, you will always not achieve the goal at least a certain percentage of the time. This pretty much guarantees low usage because it makes it impossible to ladder, especially in the higher rankings where a single loss can lose you upwards of 20 points and a win can get you as few as 1 or 2. If it was skill-based, however, a good player could manage to achieve the goal of the CAPmon more often and therefore still use it in the higher rankings. Of course, we need to make sure that even at very high skill levels there is an inherent risk so that we achieve the concept, and to that end i think making it prediction-based would fit very well. If you can predict well, you can win more often with this CAPmon, but you would still be taking a risk every time you did so, achieving the concept. In addition to abilities already discussed like Torrent, guts, and so forth, I think it's important we consider abilities such as flash-fire and lightningrod: paired with ample weaknesses, this means that a good switch in nets you a stat-boost but a bad one can KO your pokemon. In that vein, I think it is very important that this CAP have ample not only resists but complete immunities (obviously with plenty of weaknesses to counterbalance) to provide ample switch in opportunity. There are other very interesting routes you could go with ability, such as a reverse-defeatist: above half health your (sp.) atk or spe is halved, and paired with belly drum or even substitute could make for a very high-risk, high-reward playstyle.
Since there is always going to be risk-reward situations within a battle, regardless of the pokemon you choose, I feel that the most important aspect of this cap would be to make it a risky option before it is even put into battle. There should be a number of factors that the battler must account for in order to make the risk rewarding, while on the other hand if the battler does not properly account for these risks then the risk should end up not paying off most of the time.
This would mean that certain situations must be thought of beforehand and taken into account in both a team-building aspect and before the pokemon is actually sent out in a given battle. There are obviously many examples of this. one that has been used a lot is volcarona as it has a crippling stealth rock weakness but can be a frightening threat. however, volcarona has gained roost and giga drain to lessen this risk significantly, and it is really threatening enough to sometimes be successful at 50% health if switched in at the proper time. I think a better example is using a chlorophyll sweeper such as venusaur or sawsbuck. There is obvious risk to this in the current metagame as opposing weather is seen very often and in this case in particular, sun is usually at a disadvantage and ninetales can be taken out easily by rain and sand teams. however with good speed investement and the sun in play, these two pokemon can outspeed even some of the fastest choice scarf users and still have the ability to change moves, boost stats and recover hp throughout the match. So thats the first way i think we could go about this cap: a pokemon whose success heavily relies on a certain facet of the match becoming dominant if played/ supported correctly but becoming rather ineffective if it is not. i think that can be achieved through a combination of ability, moveset, typing and stat distribution.
One direction i feel that this cap should try to avoid is one that solely focuses on a risky moveset. A risky moveset will entail one of two things. an obnoxious amount of luck-based moves which really just makes things frustrating and teaches us nothing more than simple probabality. or it could be reliant on a set up move and there are already plenty of those and i dont see much high risk or much skill that must go into setting up at the right time (this doesnt include belly drum however as cutting half of your hp is very risky and much more of a challenge to pull of than a swords dance boost). basically i think that it should be more complex than moveset alone but it is obviously going to be playing a major role. i think it should be something to increase risk, like volcarona's moveset before bw2 made it much riskier because it was unable to recover hp on its own bar rest or leftovers.
So basically to sum things up i think we should look towards a combination of certain aspects of the pokemon to maximize its potential in certain situations that must be accounted for by the battler, and that combination should minimize its potential should the battler be unable to address the risk factors this pokemon will bring to the table.
I'd like to point out the ability Wonder Guard.
Everybody knows Shedinja which is a really high risk pokemon, but not really a High Reward one.
There are Possible ways to change the Stats/Typing of a pokemon while still keeping its ability as wonder guard thus producing a true high risk/high reward pokemon. for example:
1. The pokemon will have a base HP stat of more than 1 (but still quite low - "glass cannon"). Making the pokemon live SR/Spikes Hits but only once/twice.
2. Great offensive stats And/Or amazing boosting moves - maybe belly drum?
3. Typing which has a good amount of weaknesses but can counter them with low accurecy moves (i.e a Dark pokemon which is weak to bug and fighting has access to hurricane). The low accurecy moves is an idea bugmaniacbob mentioned.
4. Pursuit user. This may be an oddball, but a Wonder Guard pokemon can come on with its many immunites and then Pursuit-Trap. But then, A pokemon with S.E move can come in and threaten it out/Set up with ease (Again, the dugtrio/dragonite example from bugmaniacbob's post).
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This is an example of a poke that has several Risky strategies combined in one, and im opinion fit the concept:
- Low accurecy moves
- "Glass Cannon"
- Dangerous Set up Moves
- Dangerous but really effective Choiced sets (Dangerous in a way you are locked on a "weak" move and then a set-up fodder).
- Getting hit by a S.E move is a death sentence.
First of all, if we are trying not to focus on luck and prediction, it seems like we want a pokemon who is risky to use, rather than one that does risky things. I say this because luck and prediction risk both revolve around the outcomes of single turns. It sounds like what BugManiacBob is suggesting is that we try to focus on risk in a broader sense: something that plays out over the course of the game.
As for defining risk in that broader sense, I would say it is the potential for something about an opponent's team or strategy to gain them an advantage as a direct result of your "strategy" (in our case, the strategy is "use of CAP4"). So basically the "risk" of a pokemon+moveset would be the degree to which your opponent can punish you for using it. In addition to luck and prediction, I would like to narrow down the definition by removing risk in the form of team matchups. Ideally, CAP4 shouldn't be risky because your opponent might be running something that totally messes it up. After all, it would be lame and uninformative if we find out whether the risk payed off as soon as we see the team preview. Instead, I think the risk should lie in reliance on your own play and your ability to mitigate the potential downfalls of your strategy. Basically, you are fighting against this risk the entire game; as such, using CAP4 is a risky strategic decision whose results play out over the course of the game. This approach really keeps luck and prediction out of the picture, and instead focuses on the meatier concepts of teambuilding and long-term strategy.
I want to comment on what game mechanics we could use to achieve this, but I'll save that for later since my brain is a bit frazzled right now.
I actually think this is a really interesting idea, and could actually be used for a defensive pokemon. The easiest way to punish an opponent is to set up, and so a pokemon that has many support options or is a defensive powerhouse but could easily be turned into set up fodder could still be a high risk/high reward mon.
It seems the most common defintion of risk is low defense, either low defensive stats or weakness to common types, but i dont think bad typing or glass defense stats alone can constitute a risky pokemon.
It needs to be one that might be tricky to pull off and as a result you have to "risk" using it
When I think risky pokemon some I think of are: Slaking, Regigas(this is spelled wrong I know) and Shedninja.
Of course none of these guys are even close to being viable in OU so the big challenge with this CAP is how do you make a pokemon be risky while having the correct amount of pay off? It will be very hard to find the "sweet" spot for this CAP. If its too risky to use then no one will use it and if its too rewarding to use then it will almost certainly be too strong and wont fulfill the cap.
