CAP 15 CAP 4 - Part 4 - Secondary Ability Discussion

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I am completely against Mummy, because I really see no risk in it. It gets rid of the opponents ability, which can force switches (Conkeldurr, Scizor, etc) and thus an opportunity to set up. The only "risk" mummy induces is not getting the speed boost, but seeing as it WANTS to take physical hits with mummy, it should not want to lower its defense at all, even for speed. Given the right bulk, I would definitely choose Mummy over Weak Armor.

I'm backing No Guard for previously said arguments which I will not elaborate on.

Illusion is very iffy for me. It seems promising, but dealing with the risk seems like a LOT of work. I really cannot tell whether it would be more rewarding or risky You can only send in Illusion CAP4 on a few situations(so far), all of which require hazards off the field.

1) You lead with CAP4, bluffing a threat, but both CAP4 and Zoroark have a weakness to U-turn, and with the advent of Scarf Genesect who runs rampart in OU, who can probably determine whether or not a pokemon is running illusion using its download boost, CAP4 becomes vulnerable. Or it can fall to Fake-out, which completely ruins one's illusion. This is a situation in which you have to rely on the opposing lead being a stealth rocker or something, and thus, too much risk.

2) After one of your pokemon go down to a physical attacker, you'll be able to bring in CAP4 to do whatever it does. I'm assuming that CAP4 will have decent physical bulk(Meaning NOT base 60 defense) without weak armour hindering it, meaning that unlike zoroark, it can handle a few physical hits if the bluff fails. Its only going to be risky if the opponent has boosts up and cannot do anything to the threat that Illusion CAP4 is bluffing, at which point you might as well have brought in the actual threat to deal with the boosted poke. This is a situation where I feel Illusion does not warrant enough risk, bar the fact that you have already lost one pokemon.

3) Predict a non-attacking move or switch. The Illusion is ruined if CAP4 does not carry lum berry and the opponent decides to status CAP4. The Illusion will not help if the opponent subs up on the switch in, which allows a turn of dealing/taking damage to scout for illusion. However, as CAP4 will not have weak armour, it will manage this situation well even if the bluff is called if the opponent is not specially based.

TO sum it up, Mummy is not risky, No Guard Blah blah the arguments were made, and Illusion is extremely situational imo and puts more risk on the opponent rather than the player.
 
Title?

I personally find mummy very interesting as an ability. A large amount of pokemon in the ou tier are given their high usage rankings in part due to their abilities. While most of these abilities might not be game-breaking, they still act to buff the pokemon. Mummy should be seen as a debuffing ability used to make other pokemon easier to deal with. Anyways, as I browse through the list of OU pokes, I can imagine many situations where mummy can give your team an advantage. Sometimes that advantage can be very significant (auto-winning weather wars against Ttar, hippo, and physical abomasnow). Other times, mummy can just serve to weaken the opponent's team by getting rid of abilities like technician or poison heal. The rest of the time, mummy will have practically no effect on the opposing pokemon.

Mummy itself does not create much risk. The only risks to using mummy are getting rid of nerfing abilities like truant or spreading mummy to your own team, which in some cases can be a pain but mostly is not a problem. Aside from that, if the cap were played as if it had no ability, then the player could only benefit. It is the player that will use mummy to create the risk. Mummy can be used aggressively in an attempt to actively debuff the opponent's team at the risk of the CAP's health. If we use the sweeper stat spread implied by the primary ability, the CAP may not have too many opportunities to debuff the opponent's team, especially with hazards up. The player will sometimes need to decide if the removal of an ability like moxie, sandstream, or regenerator is worth losing a member of the team, a member that may have had other responsibilities. The temptation of a great reward will result in riskier play and result in either great benefits or a squished bug.

I believe mummy is a great fit for this concept and can work quite well with weak armour, although I'm getting pretty tired so I don't feel up to writing an explanation at the moment. As for the other abilities, I believe all the self damaging ones are really boring. As the soldier worm said before, I would rather have an interesting failure than a boring success and I feel that all of the self damaging abilities are far too limiting and focused. But hey, if it rocks your socks...
 
I realize that Huge Power is a massive poll jumping kind of ability since it limits the stat stage a lot and also requires some moves to (not) be available in the movepool.

On the other hand, I'd like to bring up the ability once more, because I do feel it fits the concept perfectly. The ability in itself is not risky, not at all. It's just a stat manipulator really, it's effect is constant. However, the risk lies in the duality with it's other ability. You only have that potential massive attack stat when you actually choose for Huge Power. If you need that speed boost from Weak Armour instead, you're attack stat will likely end up lackluster. This is a risk that you'll need to calculate in when building your CAP4 and team. You make the conscious choice to pursue a physical hard-hitter, or a potentially fast special attacker. In return, the reward comes from having made the right choice, and this sadly depends a bit on what is on your opponents team. Personally, I'm all in favour of pursuing this kind of risk that is more game-by-game based, and less turn-by-turn.

Honestly, between Huge Power and all other listed abilities, I can't seem to find anything in the proposed slate that offers the same kind of ability duality that you can also find in something like Bronzong. If duality is really something you want to achieve with this CAP-mon (as it was something you brought up first), then I'd say that Huge Power is one of the better abilities to slate.
 
Yllnath, I do like the idea of Huge/Pure Power boosting attack, and the player having to choose between an attack boost or a potential speed boost when selecting the Ability. Unfortunately though, it will be useful in absolutely all situations where it is selected, and it makes Weak Armour purely for special sets. BMB has said he wants the Abilities to all work potentially on the same set which would not happen with a Power Ability.

I think the current slate of 4 Abilities that will go on to poll is a little sparse and could be augmented somewhat. My current favourite of the four is Moxie simply because it gives a situational boost to Attack which can easily be contrasted with Weak Armour's situational boost to Speed. The downside being that Moxie is only of benefit to Physical Attackers, and both Abilities will encourage CAP4 to be played as a late-game sweeper.

Several people have said they're not turned on by any of the Abilities being bandied about and I think that's because there is no perfect risky counterpart to Weak Armour that is truly balanced with it, while also being in-keeping with the concept and teaching us something new.

To that end I propose a new Ability:
Quick Tempered (name to be decided by the community)
Raises Attack and Special Attack, and lowers Special Defence by one stage each upon being hit by a special move.


This would be a direct counterpart to Weak Armour that would reward the user with increased mixed attacking prowess for taking a special hit, but would leave it open to special/mixed revenge killers since its speed will not be boosted by the Ability. You might say 'hold on, that Ability gives you two boosts to Weak Armour's single boost, so it's gonna be stronger'. But in terms of how much each facilitates a sweep, I'd say each has merits. 'Quick Tempered'would only encourage a sweep if the faster/special opponents have already being dealt with in some way. Weak Armour will be stronger if the bulkier/physical/priority users have been dealt with.

Quick Tempered would encourage CAP4 to fit a different team role to Weak Armour. CAP4 would be able to become a better wallbreaker after a special hit, meaning it could be brought out early to punch holes. On the other hand, Weak Armour CAP4 would be most effective hanging back, waiting for a late game chance to sweep once Scizor etc have been removed. Each Ability will bring the risk of increased susceptibility to different pokemon.

Both Abilities would be viable on the same set. CAP4 will need good mixed attack stats to make use of the Speed boost from Weak Armour, and a decent speed stat to ensure that even a single stage boost will be a good reward. Quick Temperedwill make use of good mixed attacking stats by becoming scary after a single stage boost, but since its Speed won't be boosted, it will still have trouble with faster pokes.

It is important that Quick Tempered should boost both Attack and Special Attack so that CAP4 isn't encouraged towards a single physical or special set. If we wanted a physical wallbreaker/sweeper we have Moxie on the slate already. Quick Tempered is also good because it wouldn't restrict the movepool in the same way that No Guard or something more powerful would.

Since both sides of the spectrum are boosted by Quick Tempered, the same movesets can be used as with Weak Armour. The choice will be simple. Do you want the chance to boost speed or power? However, the ramifications of that choice will be extremely interesting.
 
If we are into custom abilities now, might as well give CAP4 two other custom abilities:
  • Weak Armor - Boosts Speed by 1 stage and lowers Defense by 1 stage when hit by a physical move.
  • Berserk - Boosts Attack by 1 stage and lowers Defense by 1 stage when hit by a physical move.
  • Frantic - Boosts Special Attack by 1 stage and lowers Defense by 1 stage when hit by a physical move.
That takes care of the whole issue on ability synergy (both of risk&reward and equal competitive worth). Because they all have the same risk, that is a lowered Defense stat, unlike Quick Tempered above, it wouldn't put too much of a strain on our future stat spread, as we wouldn't have to deal with Special Defense at all. The three abilities combined gives CAP4 completely different roles as the rewards each gives are totally different. CAP4 could be Physical or Special Attacker with middling speed, or a fast late-game cleaner/sweeper. A poll-jump (highlight): giving it Agility/Swords Dance/Nasty Plot further gives it a lot of potentially rewarding options. But custom abilities are generally frowned upon, and bmb has already stated his take on the matter. So yeah.

On the other hand, seeing as Analytic is out of the question (I finally got what bmb is trying to say after rereading all his arguments against it), I'd say out of the current slate, I'd be supporting Moxie, as it has a similar mechanic to Weak Armor in that its reward is a stat boost. The others works too differently from the first ability. I know that's not a valid argument, but the slated abilities are equally fine for me (except No Guard, which is just no), so I guess it's just for preference then.
 
If it were a 2-stage SDF drop, or if both DEF and SDF dropped 1-stage each, then that ability would have a balanced risk and reward. It does promote both special and physical sets equally, but mixed even moreso, to get through dedicated walls, with speed being its only downfall. And on a set with Choice Scarf for early game and Trick to get rid of it later...

I like the duality between responding to physical and special moves differently. If Quick Tempered was added to the slate I'd vote for it I guess. I'm only concerned if it isn't TOO similar to Weak Armor - in the sense that it might double up our current problems when we get started on the 3rd ability (unless we pick NCA/NTA then).


That's all from me for now. I'd advocate another ability, but at this point it seems futile to try. Multiscale I won't support, although on paper it sounds not that bad - but given that CAP4 is exposed to not just hazards but also weather and status damage, and will most likely have to take a hit coming in, I don't see how it'd hold up Multiscale intact anyway. Dragonite/Lugia are both part-Flying to dodge (T-)Spikes, and are practically required to run Leftovers to counter weather chip damage, as well as pack Substitute/Roost. It's a tall order to replicate on our Bug/Psychic with its multitude of weaknesses.
 

scorpdestroyer

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Since we're talking about high risk high return, what about Hustle? I mean, Hustle is an ability that sacrifices Accuracy for Attack. So the attacks have a higher chance of missing but when they do hit, they deal more damage. For the Hidden Ability, I would think Guts, Flare Boost or Toxic Boost is a good idea. Or maybe Reckless.

And since we're on to new custom abilities, why not something that is similar to a Life Orb? The user will have its attack boosted by X% but will receive recoil of Y% of its health.
 
Since we're talking about high risk high return, what about Hustle? I mean, Hustle is an ability that sacrifices Accuracy for Attack. So the attacks have a higher chance of missing but when they do hit, they deal more damage. For the Hidden Ability, I would think Guts, Flare Boost or Toxic Boost is a good idea. Or maybe Reckless.

And since we're on to new custom abilities, why not something that is similar to a Life Orb? The user will have its attack boosted by X% but will receive recoil of Y% of its health.
Well, according to BMB:

"I am so opposed to abilities such as Flare Boost and Reckless - the strategies they promote are those all too familiar to us, namely the limited-duration breaker (for "glass cannon" is something I want to wean us off). I do not care about them. We are achieving nothing by selecting them - the rest of the CAP only serves to make them usable, perhaps adding a few extra risks here and there. This is not a role I want to encourage, and much more importantly, it is not a mindset I want to encourage."

I'm pretty sure he also said no to custom abilities as well. Hustle I'm more inclined to agree with, but it would largely depend on what CAP 4's stat spreads end up being.

For now, looks like I'm putting my support behind Mummy.
 

scorpdestroyer

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Well, according to BMB:

"I am so opposed to abilities such as Flare Boost and Reckless - the strategies they promote are those all too familiar to us, namely the limited-duration breaker (for "glass cannon" is something I want to wean us off). I do not care about them. We are achieving nothing by selecting them - the rest of the CAP only serves to make them usable, perhaps adding a few extra risks here and there. This is not a role I want to encourage, and much more importantly, it is not a mindset I want to encourage."

I'm pretty sure he also said no to custom abilities as well. Hustle I'm more inclined to agree with, but it would largely depend on what CAP 4's stat spreads end up being.

For now, looks like I'm putting my support behind Mummy.
Well, I don't think Mummy is such a good fitting of high risk, high return. It gives the opponent a useless ability but that doesn't involve any risk. I'm still for the Life Orb-like custom ability but if we can't do that, I guess I'll still go with Hustle.
 
I like most of the abilities that are slated at the moment. I don't quite see how Mummy is a risky ability, but I still kinda like it for the chance to be able to use CAP 4's implied physical bulk, which can't be done with WA. Moxie is my favorite out of all of them, with No Guard and Illusion close seconds. If "Quick Temmperd" were to be allowed on the slate, (which is questionable since BMB said he didn't want any custom abilities), I would support that too. It makes a stark contrast with WA, and it implies some special bulk, meaning that we would get a chance to make a sweeper that is both risky and bulky, (a rare combonation). If we pulled that off, I think that we could safely say that we have stepped up to BMB's challenges.
So, what I want to accomplish out of this CAP is something, if not unique, then at least noticeable. That is where the interesting parts of the process lie. I am adamantly of the opinion that if we cannot achieve this, we have failed the concept... I'd like to say that I pushed the boundaries with this CAP, and that I didn't just blindly build a Pokemon to pre-existing specifications based on the prejudices of others....
I would elaborate more, but I don't have any more time to do so. In summery, I would like to see Quick Temperd slated.
 
Please be more careful when you put forward stuff like Multiscale and Huge Power. If you're arguing that a generic rewarding ability works well with Weak Armour, you also have to convince people that it won't just completely overshadow Weak Armour. If it does, then it's a generic great ability, which completely misses the point. Multiscale is a VERY good ability in OU, especially if CAP 4 gets any kind of setup move. And of course Huge Power is just... The only justification I can see for that is to have high power on both physical and special attacks, a goal that I find rather incompatible with this concept taken by itself (not necessarily as a means to achieve another, more compatible goal, though).

Quick Tempered seems like it would become incredibly demanding on the stat spread to put it on an even footing with Weak Armour... I doubt I'd ever choose it over Weak Armour. Also, I didn't get the memo saying that No Guard would restrict movepool possibilities... If anything, it increases them (and I don't mean the 50% accuracy moves).
 
I concept also support Quick-Tempered and Huge Power, as nothing else here has the power vs. speed duality that fits with the risk/reward dynamic in the concept.
 
I concept also support Quick-Tempered and Huge Power, as nothing else here has the power vs. speed duality that fits with the risk/reward dynamic in the concept.
Quick Tempered I'm iffy on, but I don't see how Huge Power offers any sort of risk. Yes, you're giving up the potential speed boost you'd ordinarily get from Weak Armour, but it's not like that speed boost comes for free -- you've got to take physical damage first, and considering CAP 4's stealth rock weakness (and also however much physical bulk it ends up having), that's quite a risky proposition. Huge Power, on the other hand, just makes you really good at punching things. There's no drawback inherent to Huge Power; if you want proof, just look at Azumarill in UU. Yeah, he's slow, but he hits so damn hard that he doesn't care (although I do admit that it's somewhat different because Azumarill gets priority, but from what I've seen, unless it's revenge killing something it doesn't need it).
 
Well, I don't think Mummy is such a good fitting of high risk, high return. It gives the opponent a useless ability but that doesn't involve any risk. I'm still for the Life Orb-like custom ability but if we can't do that, I guess I'll still go with Hustle.
Voicing my opposition to Hustle for reasons stated before. Hustle promotes luck-based risk, which is not the direction we want to go with this CAP. Weak Armor, for example, creates skill-based risk, where we bank on predicting correctly to take full advantage of the stat boost. Hustle has no skill involved whatsoever.
 
I'm not English native, so if you find mistakes, don't whip me. Please.

Bleh, Hustle. We really don't want to promote luck. Maybe I'm biased because I hate overhaxxed matches, but I don't understand how is it fitting to the concept.
Yes, it brings "risk" and "reward". But you can't control the risk nor the reward. Praying each time you use Megahorn doesn't promote smart strategy at all.

I support No Guard. While it obviously gives us 100% Megahorn (and Fighting coverage, probably), it also let up use a more supportive way : WoW / Hypnosis or even gimmicky options like Scary Face or Glare (Hello ScarfTerrakion !) without affecting the whole movepool. We don't need DynamicPunch or Inferno to use No Guard effectively (and it won't outclass Weak Armor).
Moreover, when bringing CAP 4 on field, it will, from its simple presence, make think twice before doing anything, from both players : you bluff just by going in : do you have a "glass-canon" set or are baiting your foe's scarfer ? But it's not only luck thanks to Team Preview. But several people have argued about No Guard better than me.

Illusion is nice too. I think there are lots of opportunities with it, but idk if they are worth it. Rebound (IIRC) is a fine choice, if it can be chosen.

Liquid Ooze, while probably not a 2nd option, is viable as a Dream World Ability.
What about Cloud Nine ? It is not the riskiest option, of course. But CAP 4 has a very interesting interaction with other weathers :
-Sandstorm : Most notably, we remove the x1.5 Sp Def bonus to Rock and make Landorus weaker. Ok, not a big deal. But all in all, SS is a bad weather to CAP 4. Whenever he comes in field, he is in danger. With Cloud Nine, we can find him some utility (forcing Terrakion out without Psyshock).
-Sun : CAP 4 resists to Grass but is weak to Fire, the two main types found under the sun (this, and Dugtrio). CAP 4 will bring an interesting problem : will we try to disrupt the momentum of Chlorophyll users, at the risk of facing Heatran / Ninetales ? Because we are using Weak Armor, CAP 4 will probably outspeed most Chlorophill (and most notably, Venusaur). It is not just prediction. I think.
-Rain : The obvious thing is that CAP 4 will take normal damages from Water-moves. It means a lot. While he isn't resisting to ANY common types (and weak to Hurricane), coming into a non-Rained attack still turn the tide of the battle.
But of course, there is risks. Rain is still rain. Using CAP 4 to deal with it is just asking to Tornadus / Hurricane-users / Scizor etc... to come in. Both you and your opponent have to change your play-style. Both of you must take risks : you can neuter SOME strength of its attacks, but he still have a lot of tricks under his belt.
And of course, it does nothing to weatherless battle.

That's why I'm not fiercely advocating it, because it is, by far, not the riskiest option we have (and it does nothing without weather). But when playing against / with (hey, I've heard you use Kingdra to counter my rain ?) weather, it forces both players to change their mind. The weather-player can't just use weather-boosted options (Starmie without Rain is significantly weaker) but the CAP 4 user can't use it to check everything.
 
I actually want to throw my support behind Huge Power as well. Giving up an ability that can enable a sweep with a Special Attacker in order to exploit a significantly weaker offensive stat has Risk/Reward written all over it. There is such a lack of Psychic types that utilize their physical STAB, and I think that in-of itself has risk/reward
 

GatoDelFuego

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Does anyone know that azumarill, a poke with 50 base attack has over 150 with huge power? Unless you give it weedle level attack, it has no risk. There's no risk when you have that kind of power
 
And how many people are screaming "BAN AZUMARRIL" and "BAN MEDICHAM"? Going by OU standards, you can clearly see how overpowered spamming Psychic STAB is (/sarcasm). I'd find it really hard to believe that either of the above examples would be described as "mindlessly easy and skill-less" it is to run either in a Standard OU team effectively.

It's to be noted both of these Pokemon are noted for "not having a lot of counters, just checks" in their OU descriptions, which we've determined was already a goal for Riskymon

Weak Armour has a lot of potential to aid in sweeping immensely, and there is risk in reward in sacrificing that potential speed boost to gain (assuming CAP had a microscopic base stat) mixed sweeping capabilities.

The best example I can come up with is BW2 Drifblim, who can use Unburden or Flare Boost. Choosing Unburden allows for a physical (or possibly mixed?) offensive set by utilizing Flying Gem boosted Acrobat, or a Specially Offensive attacker using Flare Boost to throw +1 SpATK attacks off with a Flame Orb equipped.

However, Drifblim is not viable in Standard OU. The Unburden set has the speed, but neither set has the offensive capabilities to make the risk worth the reward. Combining both sets would probably lead to a viable Poke, however both abilities can't be ran simultaneously.

If Unburden is to Weak Armor as Flare Boost is to Huge Power, we can create a balancing act, using checks and balances to create a risks and reward for both in the stat poll decisions.

Choosing Huge Power and Weak Armour, alongside an appropriate move pool and stat distribution, can create an Offensive pokemon with mixed capabilities that, while can be checked by many things, lacks hard counters and creates risk/reward situations in both team building and in-game decisions.
 

Asylum_Rhapsody

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Seriously, for a custom ability to even begin to be considered, the first thing that must be done is for it to be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that no existing ability can fulfill the desired function, and then it has to be proven that the desired function is one necessary to the successful execution of the concept. As those have yet to be proven, proposing or supporting a custom ability is a complete waste of time.

While I'm at it, it's extremely tempting for me to also plug in Hustle, Huge Power, and Rivalry into the above image. (Yes, I know that I'm bolding things unnecessarily. So sue me.) There are some other bad suggestions being thrown around, but these seem to be the most popular offenders.
Hustle and Rivalry are almost completely luck-driven, and we've already decided that luck-based risk, at least of the kind entirely dependent on the random number generator, is not the kind of risk that we want to explore with this concept. This should be apparent to anybody who actually read through the last ability discussion.
Huge Power is an amazingly fantastic ability, regardless of normally being found on Pokemon that are otherwise unfit for OU, that introduces nothing risky whatsoever to the concept. The proposal that not getting the speed boosts from Weak Armor could be enough of a detriment to qualify as a risk on its own is a shaky one at best, especially when (and this is important) we still have no idea what this thing's speed will be.
 
Mummy isn't really risky at all; I'm not counting opportunity cost in relation to Weak Armor, since every ability supplies that. The chance of hurting yourself with Mummy is so much lower than the chance of hurting an enemy with Mummy that I can't really see this being a "high risk high reward" ability. Hitting another pokemon with mummy means you ate a physical attack with CAP4, then switched, then successfully use a physical attack on the enemy. That requires three turns to go a particular way, as opposed to one for just infecting an enemy.

That said, I don't think it's a horrible choice as a secondary ability; it's the best choice on the slate if we want the secondary ability to boil down to a choice between Weak Armor or no Weak Armor. It may sound like I just dismissed this argument in my first sentence of this post, but I am really making a distinction. There are a plethora of abilities that could accomplish the same thing (namely, not Weak Armor and not that influential), and they aren't risky abilities; choosing such an ability may be fine for the concept, however. First, it works as a great "control" for Weak Armor, as being able to play CAP4 with either ability will let us decide whether or not the Speed boosts are worth the Defense drops. Second, it is another ability based on taking physical hits, which will make life a lot easier when we reach the stats stage.

P.S. The number of people suggesting Hustle is kind of alarming when it was pretty clearly agreed upon (and stated by BMB more than once) that we are NOT using luck based risk on this pokemon. I can only guess it comes from people who didn't notice this CAP until after the early stages (where this was decided) and don't know this. I think it would be awesome if there was a list of links to the TL's post, which could be linked in the "CAP so far" part at the beginning of every thread; this might make it easier to catch up important decisions that have been made about the CAP that haven't been a result of a vote. At the very least, his posts in the Concept Assessment and Threat Discussion pages could be linked to, since those decisions affect every subsequent stage.
 

Birkal

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Choosing Huge Power and Weak Armour, alongside an appropriate move pool and stat distribution, can create an Offensive pokemon with mixed capabilities that, while can be checked by many things, lacks hard counters and creates risk/reward situations in both team building and in-game decisions.
This could be done with literally any ability. I don't see how this helps the case for Huge Power at all. In fact, I don't see the case in Huge Power at all; it just seems like adding an ability for the sake of it. It doesn't mesh with Weak Armor, from what I can tell, in fact, it would end up making Weak Armor even less viable. If we need to lower its Attack stat to allow for Huge Power, that is one less thing the Weak Armor sets can do.


I want to chat about Mummy for a little bit. I think it is one of those abilities that people are throwing up and saying "this is a cool ability" but when it reality, it doesn't do anything to fulfill the concepts. First of all, it's impractical in Overused. It has nothing to do with risk; it's just a random assortment of Pokemon that are impeded by it. Below is a list of current Overused Pokemon that would be hindered by Mummy. I was incredibly generous in making this list; some of this stuff shouldn't even be on here, that is how little their function in Overused is threatened by temporarily losing their ability.

Ferrothorn
Multiscale Dragonite
Scizor (lol)
Breloom
Gliscor
Jirachi
Moxie Salamence
Mamoswine
Cloyster
Moxie Gyarados
Landorus
Offensive Lucario
Conkeldurr
Haxorus
Toxicroak


I know we have some newer CAP members, so I just want to make this clear: Mummy is not a permanent ability for the opponent. This should be painfully obvious, but I fear that some people are supporting Mummy so hard that they aren't aware of this fact. As soon as you switch out, you regain your past ability once again, so you aren't going to be stopping Tyranitar or Intimidate Pokemon anytime soon. Now of this list, there can be some significant reduction. Ferrothorn, Landorus, Scizor, Gliscor, Jirachi, and many others are all used to switching out; they don't even rely on their ability that much (beside Jirachi, but again, it doesn't mind SR damage or U-turning out. Getting rid of Multiscale Dragonite is only key if you somehow plan to OHKO back with HP Ice (not to mention survive the attack). Breloom, Gyarados, Salamence, Lucario, Conkeldurr, and others usually carry coverage that can take out CAP4 (Rock-type moves). When you keep making cuts from this list, you eventually end up with a very small list. I am pretty convinced that Toxicroak would be the only Pokemon that would be even remotely hindered by Mummy.

Furthermore, there is no risk in Mummy either. If there is, someone needs to explain it to me, because I am just not seeing it. Yes, punishing opponents for relying on their ability is awesome (that was my concept for CAP2), but it has literally nothing to do with this concept. It falls into the same category as Harvest and Magic Bounce for me. While I think they are awesome abilities, they have no place on CAP4. I implore you all to think before you vote. Mummy is cool, but it doesn't promote risk OR reward, it doesn't threaten Overused, and it doesn't mesh with Weak Armor at all. If Mummy wins, it will essentially be the default ability for battlers who don't want to use Weak Armor. And if all we get out of this thread is a "default" ability that could have easily been accomplished with NCA, then I think we have failed our concept.


I am still adamant about Illusion being the best ability for this CAP. Check out my post to see where my thoughts lie on it. I have not seen anything even remotely as compartmentalized and easy to understand as the points I laid out there for any other ability suggested in this thread. The connection is strong and is easily accessible for anyone questions about what CAP4 does. "It's a Pokemon about risk with two risky abilities: Illusion and Weak Armor" is a perfectly coherent thought; I don't think any other ability makes logical sense in that sentence without considerably more explanation. I've seen criticism that it would break CAP4. I've also seen criticism that it would literally never get used. I think both lines of thought are close-minded and need to come to terms with the fact that we are creating a Pokemon. We have the power to balance Illusion in a meaningful way; it wouldn't even be that hard to do.

Also, for anyone bringing up Zoroark, just stop, please. It ranked 93rd in Overused usage these past three months. It is not an incredible Pokemon that is breaking any new ground in Overused; it's a niche Pokemon that is incredibly frail and is poorly suited for the OU environment. Please come to terms with this when discussion Illusion.
 
The proposal that not getting the speed boosts from Weak Armor could be enough of a detriment to qualify as a risk on its own is a shaky one at best, especially when (and this is important) we still have no idea what this thing's speed will be.
I want to reply to this stating that we of course do not know the speed yet, because the stat stage is yet to come. BMB changed the order on purpose, so we have total freedom in the ability stage, regardless of having to fit them into an existing stat spread.
What you're saying is the exact same as being in any other CAP project in the stat stage, and mentioning a stat spread doesn't work because we don't know the ability yet.
Huge Power is one of those abilities that may have an impact on the stat spread, I admit that. But for now, we should only evaluate Huge Power on the basis of what it does for the concept, and this goes for any ability, btw.

When the stat stage comes around, we'll deal with what we've got then.

Regardless of what speed stat we end up chosing, it's definitely true that Huge Power and Weak Armor have a potential to be a risky pair together as abilities are (obviously) mutually exclusive. Being able to have high attack, but perhaps (as we can not know) limited speed, or speed boosting through Weak Armour, but little to none attack..
Yes, this combo is highly reliant on future stages, but regardless, the potential for them to work together as a good combo of abilities is definitely there. And the potential risk that is created from having to choose one or the other for any set can be great, again dependant on future stages.

Because of this potential, I think Huge Power is a good ability for this concept, when paired with Weak Armour.
 
The risk in choosing Pure Power over Weak Armor is the risk of having or not having Weak Armor.

On the assumption that a Pure Power/Weak Armor CAP would have adequate SpAtk, and a ATK stat not usable without Pure Power, you're sacrificing the Speed boosts to facilitate a sweep for mixed possibilities.

Mixed sweepers take much more skill, and the risk/prediction aspect is significantly more important. "SPAM SCARF WATER SPOUT IN THE RAIN" works for Ubers Kyogre, but doesn't have the Attack stat to work in the tier.

However, Kyogre can run one physical attack viably- Waterfall. The x2 boost in the Rain (x2 being comparable to Huge Power) allows for the ability to 2hko Blissey/Chansey.

Spamming high-powered attacks with something really fast does not take the most amount of skill, and we chose Weak Armor to neutralize obscene, risk-less STAB spam, while enabling offensive potential. Huge Power opens up an opportunity to use mixed attacking at the sacrifice +1's to speed that you don't need to waste your turn to utilize.

There is clearly a risk/reward in having a viable boost to stats, verse mixed offensive capabilities, and takes a very closed-minded individual to ignore that.

In fact, I don't see the case in Huge Power at all; it just seems like adding an ability for the sake of it. . . If we need to lower its Attack stat to allow for Huge Power, that is one less thing the Weak Armor sets can do.
Only having one competitive ability was not determined to be viable for this CAP. This says to me that different abilities are meant to have different roles. If both abilities could perform the same roles, then you would simply pick the ability that performs that role better- there is no risk in that.

If a secondary ability doesn't take away an aspect of CAP to offer another avenue to explore, you are not creating the risk/reward scenario we're aiming for.
 

bugmaniacbob

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Right I've only got a few minutes. Slate time.

Code:
Illusion
Moxie
No Guard
Took out Mummy after reconsideration alongside Birkal's arguments.

On another note, I liked the idea of Multiscale on reflection, but it seems too limited without recovery to really be worth it.

Expect poll shortly.

On custom abilities / Huge Power: No comment. Seriously.
 
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