CAP 17 CAP 6 - Part 1 - Concept Assessment 1

[nyttyn]

Gravity

Nobody has yet to address the key flaws that it is A. Worse then a +1 boost at best and B. Only lasts 4 turns period no matter what.

Belly Drum

The problem with Belly Drum is that it would make for a horribly binary mon - either it can drum and do massive damage/ruin the enemy team, or it can't and it just flat out dies without doing anything since any mon balanced around +6 attack dealing massive damage will have to have a piss attack stat to compensate.

For the record I used to play NU and Linoone was the least interesting shit ever. He either completely swept you or demolished a lot of your team in totally BS fashion, or he didn't and did absolutely nothing that match.

 

[Brammi]

Nobody has yet to address the key flaws that it is A. Worse then a +1 boost at best and B. Only lasts 4 turns period no matter what.

Against your first point. You're only looking at one point, the accuracy modifier on 70% moves. 50% moves like DynamicPunch, Inferno and Zap Cannon all go up to 85% hit rate and have 100% effects. Gravity also gives you an effective way to toxic fliers and levitaters. So imagine Latias getting poison from Tspikes for example. EQ on Gengar and Skarm. WoW hits perfectly, same with Stone Edge, something that hasn't got an equivalent. Things that are in the air also take spikes damage un gravity use.

There are many ways to abuse it. And it's a move that isn't seen in any tier, except on like Starmie or something. Which has better things to do.

 

[Spork]

Gravity has soooo much potential utility.

1) Ground-move spam is ridiculously powerful in OU when nullifying immunities. Few teams carry plain old resistances to the type at all.

2) The user can put pressure on switch-ins that rely on the immunity, facilitating switches and grabbing momentum.

3) It optimises the usefulness of spikes and toxic spikes, especially when combined with the switches caused by 2)

4) OBVIOUSLY there's the accuracy boost too, but there are so many moves that could take advantage of it, it works perfectly in tandem Gravity's other effects, and the accuracy boost is huge. A mon oriented around Gravity optimally would never use Hone Claws in its stead.

 

[SotheBlacKnight]

Honestly I think the moves that would be interesting to see are Entertainment, Skill Swap, and Conversion. Both have the potential to be interesting moves and can really catch opponents off guard especially with the right ability/s (Conversion with Tinted Lens or Entertainment with Slow Start sounds pretty badass to me).

Though that brings up the problem I'm seeing with the selections of moves so far, all these moves are only good with the right ability. Because this is a sort of chicken and egg problem, if you talk about the moves then those need the ability to back it up and vice-versa. I just feel that in order to talk about any move listed so far there should be an idea of what ability to go with it. Cause the only good way to use a move like "Soak" is to have Arena Trap/Shadow Tag so you make sure you get the right status on a poke (toxic a poison or steel type, or burn a fire type).

 

[Stratos]

Explosion is essentially the antithesis of this concept. We already know everything there possibly is to know about Explosion, and have had 4 generations where Explosion was a top tier move.

We know the extent of explosion's usefulness and power when it had two major purposes: Special Attackers used it to nab the ubiquitous Blissey without wasting their whole set and leads used it because, well, lead meta. Now Team Preview has ruined lead meta and Blissey is at less than 5% usage (not that most SpAttackers could break her with it now) (or that keldeo or latios need it) (or that heatran or magnezone are common special attackers anymore).

The only reason it isn't used in Gen V to the same extent is that it got a massive mechanical nerf

We know the extent of explosion's usefulness and power when it had two major purposes: Special Attackers used it to nab the ubiquitous Blissey without wasting their whole set and leads used it because, well, lead meta. Now Team Preview has ruined lead meta and Blissey is at less than 5% usage (not that most SpAttackers could break her with it now) (or that keldeo or latios need it) (or that heatran or magnezone are common special attackers anymore).

and yet it's STILL powerful enough to be on OU sets of commonly prepared-for Pokemon.

For kicks i ctrl+f'd literally every ou pokemon's analysis (even the ones who didn't learn it, to see if they needed to watch out for it!) for "explosion" and found these mentions: Cloyster's OO, Forry's OO, Gengar's OO, Magnezone's OO, Metagross's OO, and a secondary slash on Ferro's CB set. (Notably, it was not mentioned at all for Lando-T, who has 145 Atk and the move, or Heatran, which has five different sets with the move in DPP)

17:14 Pwnemon: !usage ferrothorn moves ou
17:14 TIBot: Leech Seed 83.975% | Power Whip 70.537% | Stealth Rock 58.259% | Spikes 53.286% | Gyro Ball 40.783% | Thunder Wave 39.701% | Protect 35.011% | Other 18.448%

Explosion covers absolutely zero new ground

How to make it work in Gen V OU, since nothing we know of does.

Funnily enough, if we go with this, we'll also be doing Birkal's concept by remaking a niche from another meta: the Kamikaze lead

and to top it all off we'd be basing a project around a Pokemon whose key feature is destroying itself in a one-for-one trade-off.

if we were to pick explosion, i wouldn't want a pokemon built around explosion so much as a pokemon which uses explosion on its sets because it serves it with utility (would you call gen IV Azelf 'built around explosion' for example?)

Doom Desire is not only terrible PR, but also is too reliant on a specific type (Steel) and stat (Special Attack) to be the basis for a good project. Future sight is the same except its also too weak to pull it off.

While I'll admit terrible PR, i don't think knowing we'll probably be half-steel and have high special attack is too horribly confining for all future discussions (we knew mally would have high SpD, recovery, a Sun ability, and Rapid Spin by the end of concept asssessment)

 

[Huzzahmaster]

Let me just say that I'm all for Gravity. Both forms of spikes are fearsome enough, but having Dragonite and Tomohawk take damage from all entry hazards can seriously impact their good bulk.
Plus, improved accuracy is extremely useful for both status moves, and offensive moves, giving us a lot to work with.

 

[JacobM]

How about a move like Dragon Tail? I've used a very fun NU Dragon Tail set with lickilicky who has all the tools to make it work effectively. The beauty of dragon tail is that it can be used with many strategies; a utility set to beat boosters, a hazard abuser (and we could play around with gravity too), or simply as a reverse volt turn strategy. We'd also have the opportunity to perhaps play with multi-hit moves to break subs or boosting moves to keep the CAP around. I think there's a lot of potential.

Most Pokemon who get DT are offensive giants so they forgo the set but seeing its versatility and lack of OU usage I think it's worth consideration.

 

[thecanvashat]

I really like the idea of Healing Wish, which seems to be a pretty cool move in all regards. Could be useful on a Pokemon with HP too low to use wish.

Explosion could be interesting, but I can't really see much for this.

Honestly, I like Future Sight better than Doom Desire, in part because of the PR, but in part because of the Dark immunity. While moves like Perish song may pressure your opponent to switch out, they can still switch to any Pokemon on their team, while Future Sight can pressure them to switch into a Dark type specifically.

On that note, what about Ingrain or Aqua Ring? Those moves could be fairly interesting, and the only Aqua Ring user I can think of is Vaporeon.

 

[forestflamerunner]

On explosion

One problem that i have with Explosion is that "the learning process" ends after the stats stage. As many explosion supporters have pointed out, explosion is a fourth moveslot move, which basically means it doesn't really rely on synergy with other moves all that much. That means the movepool stages will almost certainly devolve into "how can we fit this pokemon into OU" coupled with pointless bickering over different coverage moves and whether or not this pokemon should get nasty plot and sword dance and other stupid shit like that. We have five separate stages that help determine our CAPmon's movepool. I for one don't want to see all of them turn into a bunch offpointless flame wars.

 

[vyomov]

What about Venoshock? Venoshock is criminally underrated, boasting a 130 BP when a target is poisoned which can hit VERY hard. While poison isn't a great attacking-type, with the right support Venoshock can be amazing.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

I would like to throw some support out there for Doom Desire.

By itself, Doom Desire is a mediocre move. The opponent gets two turns to prepare for it, it's a Steel-type move, and many walls can weather even 140 Base Power moves. However, people are forgetting the main reason as to why Doom Desire is a great move for this concept: with Doom Desire, you can strike the opponent with two attacks in one turn.

Think of Doom Desire as an extra attack you can add to the Draco Meteor or Outrage that does that last 40% to the opponent. Few walls, even those that resist Steel, can expect to take a hit from a standard wallbreaker, be it CAP6 or a teammate, and a Doom Desire from CAP6. CAP6 can be combined with Choice Banders or Choice Specs wallbreakers to deliver a hit that cannot be defended against.

Remember, Doom Desire's purpose is to let the user's team attack with two powerful attacks in one turn.

 

[inanimate blob]

@Vann Accessible Curse isn't really a viable move in the way you want to use it (in regards to what we want to accomplish).

But, Curse on a Ghost-type would be a unique strategy, once again playing around with either trapping moves or forcing switches. It would even pair well with a bulkier Ghost-type then what we have today (like Dusclops and Gengar and such), alongside a Pain Split or Recover. But who knows.

 

[psykokitty]

I am interested in vyomov's suggestion of Venoshock because it is a great example of a move that would benefit from being paired with Gravity by being able to hit Flying/Levitate 'mons that would normally try to avoid Toxic Spikes. Hex is another move that would benefit from that. This is an example of an interesting way to approach Gravity without trying to simply outclass Landorus in what it does - I'm pretty sure someone has already brought this up but I'm too lazy to go back and figure out who.

I also want to draw attention back to what Birkal said regarding multiple of these uncommon moves working together to create more comprehensive strategies. Many of the arguments in favor of or against certain moves focus upon the merits of that particular move, not how that move can open doors for another move to be successful. In my eyes, the latter is how we will most effectively achieve the concept. I suppose the above paragraph could be considered an example of an argument that shows how Gravity can work with status-related moves. I'm having trouble envisioning how Explosion or Belly Drum would open those doors for other moves (besides the Belly Drum + priority argument) and would appreciate it if somebody could explain how those moves interact with others to create newly viable strategies.

 

[Count Bleck]

I'm going to put a lot of support behind Gravity because it seems to be the best role for the job. While many people are focusing on effectiveness of Ground moves, there is another great eff of Gravity, which is the Evasion decrease. THis allows much more options with not only powerful moves such as Inferno, Dynamicpunch, Focus Blast, etc, but it also means non attacking moves themselves get a boost as well.
Will-o-Wisp, Sleep Powder, and Stun Spore Accuracy all receive 100% accuracy under these effs. As for people complaining about only 4 turns, this problem has already been fixed with Fidgit's ability; it would be as simple as giving CAP 6 Persistent and Gravity has a decent 6 turns to work its magic, as well as giving Trick, Wonder, and Magic Rooms a boost to 7 turns.

This month's STABmons also let me see another move most have probably never even heard of, Conversion 2. This unique move lets CAP 6 change its type to make it resist the last type of move that was used by the enemy. This could essentially turn CAP 6 into an adaptable bulky mon who can maintain the flow of battle in its favor. However, the side effect of this is that it will lose STAB bonuses itself (which wouldn't matter much if it was a wall), and the type could potentially be weak to another move in its disposal.

Mud Sport and Water Sport are some very interesting moves which nerf the powers of Electric and Fire moves respectively. The only problem with this is that when the Pokemon leaves or faints, the effs are gone. The fix for this is simple: create an ability which allows these moves to be permamnet area effs ( I strongly don't recommend this one) or allow it to work as an area eff for the usual 5 turns. This way, CAP 6 can act as a more supporting niche, giving Water Pokemon and Grass/Steel type pokemon some support.

 

[Nyktos]

Well I wrote half a post defending Belly Drum on Wednesday but didn't finish it, and by the time I got a chance to actually work in it further (i.e. now) Doug and others had said more or less what I would have much better than I could. This thread is starting to move in a direction I like: Belly Drum is getting renewed support and I'm more or less okay with what seem to be the most popular options: I quite like Explosion, and setting aside the legendary signature move thing Doom Desire is alright too. So I'm not going to make a giant argument in favour of some particular thing, but I'm going to address a few moves / points that have been brought up.

Gravity
Gravity teams are never, ever going to be a thing. There is absolutely nothing one Pokémon can do to change that. Gravity's effects are simply not high-impact enough to make it worth building a whole team around when you only get four turns to take advantage of it. Deck Knight brought up the fact that rain's accuracy-boosting effects are useful. There are two issues here: first, rain is an unfair comparison because it has several other highly useful effects. Which weather has an accuracy boost as its most useful competitive effect? Hail. Not as flattering of a comparison. Second, rain lasts forever if set up by Politoed, or at least for seven turns with Damp Rock which is a lot better than Gravity. Even if its effects were comparable, rain would still be a way better choice for building a team around thanks to that.

Now, Gravity can be useful outside of a "Gravity team", but we've already seen that in Landorus. Landorus (well, Landorus-T now I guess) can use Gravity to make its strong Earthquake more spammable and Stone Edge less terrible. It can be used alongside a Spikes user, allowing extra residual damage against Pokémon not used to taking it. Landorus is perhaps not the ultimate Gravity abuser, but it can make use of all aspects of the move effectively. Could we build something better at abusing Gravity than Landorus? Probably. Can we make Gravity viable while making something notably different from Landorus in how it uses the move? Probably not.

Using multiple moves
This is a nice idea. However, let's not bite off more than we can chew. Making our Pokémon an optimal user of one move will often pull it away from being optimal for other moves. Birkal suggested picking Belly Drum, Doom Desire, Explosion, and Soak. Consider the impact of these choices on, for example, the typing stage: Explosion strongly pulls toward Normal typing for STAB, since that's the easiest way to set our Pokémon apart from other Explosion users in OU. Doom Desire, similarly, pulls towards Steel typing, since without STAB Doom Desire isn't even much stronger than the average move. Soak practically requires Grass or Electric to be worth it, since the whole point of using the move is making it so that a Water-type is inherently in a poor matchup against our CAP. Well, we can't make a triple-typed Pokémon, so something has to give. It's true that these moves don't necessarily need the STAB to be useful, but at least one move loses one of the best avenues towards making it viable.

The idea of picking multiple moves at this stage is not necessarily a bad one, but if we do it, we need to make sure that these moves don't conflict in what they demand of the Pokémon. All of these moves clearly need some degree of help to be useful; let's not make it any more difficult than it has to be to give them that help. There is nothing stopping us from picking additional underused moves (maybe even ones from this thread) at the movepool stage when we have a good idea of what sort of Pokémon we're making, but having a whole bunch of moves as main foci during the process runs the risk of either hyper-railroading everything toward the one reasonable way of making them all good, or just causing chaos if no such way exists.

Belly Drum is boring

The problem with Belly Drum is that it would make for a horribly binary mon - either it can drum and do massive damage/ruin the enemy team, or it can't and it just flat out dies without doing anything since any mon balanced around +6 attack dealing massive damage will have to have a piss attack stat to compensate.

For the record I used to play NU and Linoone was the least interesting shit ever. He either completely swept you or demolished a lot of your team in totally BS fashion, or he didn't and did absolutely nothing that match.

I can't argue against any of this; it's probably reasonably accurate. That's okay though, because it doesn't actually matter in the slightest. Given the choice between an interesting process and a somewhat boring playtest period or an ultra-linear process followed by a more interesting playtest, the former is the correct choice. Period. One of the strongest arguments in favour of Belly Drum (as Doug articulated) is that it has more freedom in the process than many of the other proposed options. Belly Drum will give us an interesting process. If the playtest ends up suffering as a result, so be it.

 

[loco1234]

I'll admit I was originally opposed to Doom Desire/Future Sight mainly because of the delay and the opportunities it gave the opponent, but I recently tried a Heatran set in Balanced Hackmons that looked like this, and now find myself strongly supporting them:

Heatran @Lum Berry
Trait: Levitate
Timid Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
- Doom Desire
- Fire Blast
- Volt Switch
- Protect

And never once has Doom Desire failed to do me any good. It forces all kinds of interesting positions. Granted, BH is a VERY different metagame than OU, but this example does show that under the right conditions Doom Desire can be a hell of a move. With that said, let's consider the questions we've asked with this concept.

• 
  

  [*]What mechanics of Pokémon determine how viable moves are?--not only the Pokémon's typing, stats, and ability, but also its interaction with playstyles and momentum.
  [*]What new strategies might emerge by giving a new OU Pokémon underused moves?
  [*]What challenges do Pokémon that use lesser-used moves face compared to ones that use a more standard moveset?
  [*]If the Pokémon has options of staple OU moves (high-powered STABs, offensive stat-boosting moves, reliable recovery, Substitute), will those moves be useful to it, even if it's specialized toward a separate and distinct strategy?
  [*]Can underused moves increase other underused moves' viabilities?
  [*]Can one user of a strategy unrecognized in a metagame massively influence a pre-existing playstyle?

The first point here relates to move mechanics, and Doom Desire/Future Sight (henceforth DD/FS) have a mechanic unique to them that no one uses in standard environments due tot here being nothing viable to do it with. Using DD/FS as a focus of CAP6 introduces this new mechanic to OU in a way it actually works (yes jas, I know you have a Rachi set that runs Doom Desire, you beat me handily with that team the one time I faced it). Jas's Rachi set aside though, this is unexplored territory. The only real way we have to look at the viability of these moves at the moment is the Hackmons and STABmons tiers.

The second relates to new strategies. As far as DD/FS go, this is directly linked to the first one. Introducing a viable new mechanic opens up all kinds of new strategies. We saw this when Gen 5 first started. Suddenly permanent weather was available in OU. Trick Room became more viable with the advent of Pokemon like Reuniclus and Conkeldurr. Magic Bounce added a whole new level to entry hazards. The list goes on.

The third point, I think, depends on the movepool we give this CAP. The use of a move like DD/FS would require a set (or team) built to take advantage of the pressure it puts on the opponent. Unexplored territory always brings challenges with it, and it seems to me that whatever move(s) we pick the challenges of basing something around that move or those moves will become more apparent as we get farther along in the project.

The fourth point, I think, depends on us. Going back to my Heatran example, we know Heatran can use its standard moves effectively in the OU tier. It can also use more standard moves effectively in the BH tier. My use of DD on Heatran in the BH tier has been very successful for me thus far. This would indicate that it is possible to have an either/or situation, or a situation in which both a lesser-used move and a more standard move (DD and Fire Blast here) combine to make the set effective. (I believe the Heatran scenario was explored by someone else in this thread too, but I can't find the comment to quote here)

As for the fifth point, all I have to say is yes. We already know from the previous discussion on these moves what DD/FS do mindgames-wise and pressure-wise. Several underused moves can be used to encourage other underused moves that would work in tandem with DD/FS to allow the user to choose whether they want to hit the Pokemon currently in or let the opponent switch. The moves I'm looking at here are trapping moves like Wrap and Whirlpool (and Magma Storm, but the signature moves of 2 different Legendaries is pushing it, I think). Suppose you wanted to hit the Pokemon that was already in with DD/FS. These moves allow for that. I'm not saying the use of DD/FS single-handedly makes Wrap and Whirlpool viable, but it does make them usable. Personally, I'd prefer something more like the Heatran set or Roar, but barring those as options Wrap or Whirlpool may made interesting choices as trapping moves. Additionally, Mean Look and Spider Web trap without the damage but more reliably. Not trying to poll-jump here but along with DD/FS I think Shadow Tag would actually hinder more than it would help since you don't always want them trapped. Often DD/FS and letting them switch is better. It's definitely good for momentum alongside Volt Switch or U-Turn, but having the option to either trap or let switch would open a few new avenues of exploration for DD/FS.

As for the sixth and final point the strategy I see these moves most influencing is VoltTurn, since it's all about pressuring the opponent and keeping momentum. This is something I may explore more in OU with DD/U-Turn Rachi. The idea here is that an effective DD/FS user would force switches to a Steel/Psychic resist/immunity. Everything and its mother gets Protect, it seems, so for the sake of argument I'll say this CAP does too (again, sorry for poll-jumping here, these last 2 points seem to a lot more than I intended). DD/FS, Protect to scout and then U-Turn, or eliminate the Protect step and just U-Turn (U-Turn and Volt Switch are interchangeable here). I haven't tried this yet, so momentum-wise I'm not sure if it's actually as effective as it seems but it seems like it would be wonderful for that, which helps out the VoltTurn strategy tremendously. So my answer to Question 6 as far as DD/FS goes is also yes.

tl;dr: I liek Doom Desire/Future Sight

 

[nyttyn]

IMPORTANT UPDATE ON DOOM DESIRE/FUTURE SIGHT

Apparently, Doom Desire/Future Sight does not give any bonus from items or abilities if the user of Doom Desire is not on the field when Doom Desire hits. All it will factor in is raw SpAtk and typing for STAB if applicable.

 

[DougJustDoug]

Here's an excerpt of a conversation on #cap today between Birkal and me regarding a possible way to frame the project with Belly Drum as the focal point, but allow some other unused moves to be considered too:

Birkal: so when you wrote about Belly Drum, do you feel like you'd solely like to focus on that move specifically, or take a few underrated moves and use them in tandem with belly drum?
DougJustDoug: I think Belly Drum is great BECAUSE it also allows several other underused moves to be part of the mix. I personally think we should just make Belly Drum the single named focal move -- and then leave it to other discussions to shape which other moves might be added. Perhaps make a list of other moves that will be "under consideration" through the process. That way people could mention those other moves in discussions without poll-jumping.
DougJustDoug: But we wouldn't be obligated to fit everything in.
Canis_Majoris: Why are we still only considering one move
Canis_Majoris: instead of a series of moves like quan mentioned with sigilyph
DougJustDoug: We aren't. I am suggesting that we should, because I think multiple moves is problematic for two reasons:
DougJustDoug: 1) If it's a list of possible moves, but not all required -- then we'll have a very fractured discussion in every step as each person focuses on their one favorite move from the allowed list.
DougJustDoug: 2) If all the moves are "required" as a "set" so to speak, that is just too specific and will likely highly constrain our choices in each step.
Birkal: yeah, I think I like that more Doug, now that I think about it
Birkal: having a centerpiece move (Belly Drum), and then bringing in other moves to support the main move.
Birkal: ginganinja and I were talking about how Belly Drum goes great with moves that force switches
Birkal: and there's a lot of underrated moves that can do that
DougJustDoug: Yes, Birkal -- I really liked that point that was brought up in the thread (don't know who posted it) that moves like Soak, etc are really variations of moves that force switches. But rather than viewing that as a flaw, I liked how you presented it as a complimentary move with Belly Drum, because Belly Drummers can really use a forced switch if they can get it.
Birkal: Right, so that's why I'm feeling so strongly about Belly Drum, especially in comparison to Gravity. Because what's more intimidating: switching out of a Pokemon that might make its moves more accurate... or switching out on a Pokemon that can become a +6 Atk behemoth in one turn
DougJustDoug: Yeah, and having a variety of ways to force a switch could allow a LOT of moveset variety and options to play on different teams.
DougJustDoug: But 4MSS almost guarantees you won't be able to handle everything.
DougJustDoug: You would have to choose which switch-forcing move you want, in the context of the team and role you want from your Drummer.​

 

[Jaiho]

IMPORTANT UPDATE ON DOOM DESIRE/FUTURE SIGHT

Apparently, Doom Desire/Future Sight does not give any bonus from items or abilities if the user of Doom Desire is not on the field when Doom Desire hits. All it will factor in is raw SpAtk and typing for STAB if applicable.

That is 3rd and 4th gen mechanics. Smogon itself specifically states that DD/FS get a life orb boost now. However, it does not receive the boost if the user switches out before DD/FS hit.


EDIT: whoops never mind, i didn't read

 

[PokemonMasterDebater]

That is 3rd and 4th gen mechanics. Smogon itself specifically states that DD/FS get a life orb boost now. However, it does not receive the boost if the user switches out before DD/FS hit.

That's exactly what he said. -_-

Apparently, Doom Desire/Future Sight does not give any bonus from items or abilities if the user of Doom Desire is not on the field when Doom Desire hits. All it will factor in is raw SpAtk and typing for STAB if applicable.

 

[The Steam Punk]

I find myself leaning toward Gravity. (heh heh)
There's not really any effective user of Gravity in OU, when it does have tons of untapped potential. Only Claydol has a STAB attack (Earthquake) to use with Gravity, I believe. Could be interesting to see where this goes.

 

[scrake]

I find myself leaning toward Gravity. (heh heh)
There's not really any effective user of Gravity in OU, when it does have tons of untapped potential. Only Claydol has a STAB attack (Earthquake) to use with Gravity, I believe. Could be interesting to see where this goes.

You're forgetting Landorus, who happens to be best user of the move... though it certainly isn't seen often.

 

[Korski]

Doug's most recent post is pretty sound. Focusing on Belly Drum as a "goal" and then peripherally considering underused switch-forcing moves like Soak and Yawn or whatever in later stages is the only decent method of fulfilling this concept that has been proposed in this thread, imo. Much like with Fidgit and its non-attacking moves, we would give our CAP a large handful of these underwhelming switch-forcing moves with which to experiment and see what comes of it, while maintaining focus on the end-game of facilitating a Belly Drum sweep (or mid-game wallbreak). This method speaks directly to the concept and to the questions Quan charged us with answering. And unlike focusing on a group of arbitrary options, which I previously supported, this method does not fragment our attention in later stages in any apparent way. +1.

On another note, I don't want to kick the can down the road all the way to Attacking Moves Discussion regarding Doom Desire, since it has been far and away the most talked about move in this discussion; if we don't get a verdict on it now, it is guaranteed to creep its way into every single thread before movepool and could easily railroad some steps along the way. I say if we're not going to explicitly allow it now as a switch-forcing support move, we should be clear that it is very much banned as stated on the CAPsite and that it's going to stay that way.

 

[capefeather]

Weird how Reflect Type just stopped being talked about... oh well...

I hoped that there would be better discussion on Gravity, but it has been rather disappointing. I was initially thinking of a Gravity user with Ground-type STAB and another STAB to hit Grass-types super effectively. Beyond that, however, nothing has really been brought up. Considering Landorus (Therian) has so much Attack to begin with, I don't think we can improve on that precedent enough for it to be worth it.

With that out of the way, I'd say we're really moving toward Belly Drum and Explosion, with Soak, Reflect Type and Doom Desire / Future Sight as additional possibilities. Belly Drum, Explosion and Doom Desire / Future Sight have had the most discussion, both for and against each. Although I was initially going for picking one move (which was most of why I initially questioned Belly Drum), I like Doug's suggestion of picking one main move, and select some others as possibilities. Belly Drum seems like the best candidate for the main move.

About Doom Desire: I intentionally neglected to discuss optics and legality issues regarding this move. I wanted to give every move a fair chance. Explicitly greenlighting Doom Desire might have been subconsciously interpreted as an endorsement, making it overshadow discussion of other moves, while explicitly banning it would have been premature. My general opinion on these matters is that move bans should be applied to the movepool stage. As far as concept assessment goes, I consider CAP 2 as precedent for possibly allowing the move to be a subject of future discussion. On the other hand, it is still a legendary signature move, and I don't take this any more lightly than Rising_Dusk did, so I want to make sure that people really like this move and that it has enough potential to include alongside the moves already mentioned.

As far as its alleged viability with Jirachi goes, I'm not sure I buy it. Players love talking about various "underrated" things they tried, and they often don't really pan out. I'm not really convinced by anecdotal evidence of viability, when it's not supported by evidence in the form of tournament or ladder usage. It's possible that this is because Doom Desire and Future Sight apparently don't work properly on PS!, but as of now, it's absence of evidence. We can speculate on why neither Doom Desire nor Future Sight are used much, but it seems like this is precisely the reason to explore it. That said, we already have a pretty good set of moves to go off of already, so like I said, your job as a Doom Desire / Future Sight supporter is to show that it is worth including in this set.

I might wrap this up tomorrow night if there aren't any serious objections.

 

[Porii Sames]

Reflect Type is heavily usable on Starmie and, in all honesty, I'm clueless as to how we could make something MORE tailored to using it than Starmie.

Yes, I know it's never used; there's no denying that. Most players prefer to hit Gengar or Jelly or...well, anything. But RT Starmie lets you switch out of Ttar and Scizor (and take on both except for Superpower Ttar), Ferrothorn, Energy Ball/Solarbeam Ninetales, the list goes on. Literally you could not have a user more begging for RT than Starmie. Weak to Pursuit, can use RT to get around some of its common counters, etc. and we see how much RT Starm gets used.

That being said, I do like Gravity; we don't really have a mon that's 100% tailored to using Gravity and I think it could be a very interesting concept that could go many ways; from phasing to rack up Spikes damage on everything, using inaccurate moves, hitting flying types, etc.