CAP 18 CAP18 - Part 4 - Primary Ability Discussion

[GRs Cousin]

Defiant and Unaware seem like the best offensive options, as Deck Knight above me mentioned.

Defensively, Levitate seem like the better option in that it deals with the Ground-types that still give the core problems. CAP18's weaknesses of Rock and Electric are both alleviated with Lucario and Latias' resistances to those types, meaning Filter is not necessary to handle those common attack types. Regenerator could be considered to allow for free-formed switching with Stealth Rock and Spikes up, letting the trio handle those hazards well enough to not have to run Defog on Latias, but I fear that it otherwise has too much utility of its own. Bulletproof makes it hard-counter Aegislash outright, but again I fear for similar reasons to Regenerator that it might make the CAP18 independent from the core entirely.

 

[JayHankEdLyon]

In general I feel like Bulletproof is too extreme an answer for something like this, simply because it ceases making CAP18 a good member of a Latios / Lucario core (our objective) and starts making it one of the best Pokemon period. A Pokemon that counters Gengar, Zard Y, and most Fairies all at once? Sign me up, Scotty!

Except it can't switch in on the ever-common Earthquake, it can't do a thing to Rotom-W (which is always topping usage charts), its STAB is walled by pretty much every single Dragon and Water type that exists...yeah, I don't buy that slippery slope.

And in any case, I think Contrary is a far better alternative to Defiant, as it not only nullifies King's Shield, but actively benefits from it. It also keeps a nice variety to the core: Luke and Latias both can easily set up, and Contrary keeps our CAP from doing likewise. As long as it doesn't get OPerheat (which would make it way too strong for a specialized place in this core), it'd be so fun.

 

[EternalSnowman]

I would like to throw support behind the following abilities:

Bulletproof: I have been hearing a few people talking about a counter to Mega Charizard Y, but they now commonly carry Earthquake. Although during the playtest time, Aegislash and Gengar may be carrying coverage moves to stop CAP18, once playtest is over, people won't run a weird set on Aegislash just to stop a single core, as their are many other team options. This makes Bulletproof the best answer to Aegislash.

Flame Body: As mentioned before it would discourage the use of Sacred Sword on Aegislash and possibly making Lucario beat it with prediction, otherwise Aegislash gets burned and the game is a lot easier.

Contrary: This ability would allow King's Shield to be less threatening, deal with Landorus-Therian and allow it to possibly Overheat spam? This is a good offensive ability.

Water Immunity Abilities: These would allow CAP18 to deal with Azumarill and other bulky waters much better such as Vaporeon or Jellicent which could potentially ruin the other two members of the core IF they did not carry the particular coverage move.

Serene Grace: I could see this as a great ability for Scald(assuming it gets it), which would make it an outrageous 60% burn chance! I think it might be a bit overpowered as it would cripple a good amount of physical/mixed sweepers.

 

[Mektar]

I agree that Bulletproof seems like it would be the best defensive option, stopping most major threats to the core in their tracks. However, I do share the opinion that the CAP could get out of hand if it had said ability. Other abilities that have been proposed, such as Serene Grace, Contrary, or Drought are also ripe for abuse. If this thing sees major play outside the core during playtesting, we have failed. As I previously stated, an offensive route seems better suited for the task at hand. Therefore, I'm throwing my support behind Rattled. It makes the CAP an even better teammate with Latias, by taking advantage of her weaknesses to set up a sweep or force switches, without any ridiculous immunities.

 

[ghana.7]

I think Regenerator does not lower our reliance on Latias' Defog support, but increases it. Regenerator gives us the option to tailor-make our stats to have to have no hazards up to Regenerator off a priority attack, making CAP18 much better in its core.

On Contrary and Bulletproof,

These abilities seem like they are locking us into countering Aegislash without looking at any of the other threats to the core. People will just run a CAP18 stop and Aegislash, or Aegislash and one of the other threats to the core.

On Water Absorb and Storm Drain,

Our problem with water-types is not defensive, but offensive, Neither of our STABs hit them super-effectively, which makes it seem like Abilities is not the best phase of the process to handle this weakness.

Sorry for any formatting errors, I don't use Smogon on my phone enough.

 

[FMD]

The best offensive abilities are, I believe, would be Sheer Force, Serene Grace and Compound Eyes/No Guard. The former two let it abuse many attacks it would likely get (I literally CANNOT see this Pokemon not getting Scald) to either increase its sweepiness or greatly increase its ability to debilitate the opponent's team. The former would instead allow the CAP to use more powerful moves that would normally be too inaccurate to be reliably used otherwise.
As far as defensive abilities are concerned, Regenerator and Filter seem like the best options, as well as any of the Water immunity abilities. They all have great merit and each could help the core in one way or another. The Water immunity abilities in particular would let us stop Azumarill.
I also think a Contrary physical attacker would be very interesting as a counter to Aegislash with a move such as Pursuit.

 

[Deck Knight]

Hrrrm, looking at Contrary again, I do see its purpose now. Took me a bit. It does seem superior, but I'd like to do some pros and cons - and I'll add Competitive in this analysis.

Contrary:
Pros: Makes King's Shield, Intimidate, and Defog beneficial in their respective stats. Gives Overheat (*should CAP get it) an additional Nasty Plot effect. [Completely counters SwagPlay! >_>]
Cons: Makes traditional methods of stat-boosting impossible. Assuming Overheat and co., allows us to +6 overpower blobs.

Defiant:
Pros: Neutralizes King's Shield, makes Intimidate beneficial, and makes Defog directly defensively hazardous for opponents to use.
Cons: Attack-based boosting helps us deal with Excadrill and friends via priority, but makes the blobs less able counters.

Competitive:
Pros: Can theoretically buff a mixed set by predicting King's Shield with a physical attack (Knock Off seems like a good choice...). Makes Intimidate enable a +2 Special boost, and makes Defog directly defensively hazardous for opponents to use. Special boosting retains the threat the blobs offer while decreasing the threat of other targets.
Cons: Since the strongest (only, really) Special priority available is Vacuum Wave, it still doesn't hit very hard unSTABBED even if it is SE against Excadrill. Would require us to be faster than the Intimidating Pokemon to use the boost.

 

[escarlata]

Surprised no one has actually brought up Competitive as the ability. Fire and water are almost exclusively Special attacking moves (I can't foresee CAP18 getting Flare Blitz or Waterfall), so Defiant and Contrary is rather pointless since we don't really have anything to abuse with that. Competitive inhibits the spamming of King's Shield from Aegislash. At +2, a 252+ Fire type only needs min of 95 SAtk to OHKO Aegislash-Shield with Lava Plume, which both opens up enough room for other other stats, like the Special Bulk to tank Shadow Ball and Moonblasts. The limitation though, of Competitive is that CAP18 will almost exclusively become a mixed attacker if we want her to get the boost, unless we give her stuff like Foul Play. Since the main problem to our core is Aegislash, Competitive severely punishes Aegislash regardless of what he does, which certainly is useful to our core.

 

[JayHankEdLyon]

Surprised no one has actually brought up Competitive as the ability. Fire and water are almost exclusively Special attacking moves (I can't foresee CAP18 getting Flare Blitz or Waterfall), so Defiant and Contrary is rather pointless since we don't really have anything to abuse with that. Competitive inhibits the spamming of King's Shield from Aegislash. At +2, a 252+ Fire type only needs min of 95 SAtk to OHKO Aegislash-Shield with Lava Plume, which both opens up enough room for other other stats, like the Special Bulk to tank Shadow Ball and Moonblasts. The limitation though, of Competitive is that CAP18 will almost exclusively become a mixed attacker if we want her to get the boost, unless we give her stuff like Foul Play. Since the main problem to our core is Aegislash, Competitive severely punishes Aegislash regardless of what he does, which certainly is useful to our core.

Your surprise is doubly surprising considering it was totally brought up. A few times.

I just wish there were more contact-making Special moves; manipulating King's Shield for Competitive boosts would've been so fun.

The issue is that we really can't afford to run mixed seriously if we wanna have any sort of meaningful defense. Foul Play's great as a solution, actually, but I don't think we should pick an ability that so relies on a single move (serious poll-jumping).

 

[CerberusSONE]

I'm disagreeing with those arguing Bulletproof, and although Contrary would work well on a physical Fire/Water type, I'm almost sure that CAP 18 will be specially-based.

Competitive: mentioned initially by Deck Knight, this could be the answer to giving CAP18 offensive leverage whilst benefitting from King's Shield.
Our biggest obstacle is implementing a move that can make contact in order to achieve this boost.
A more specific concern on this stymying factor:

The issue is that we really can't afford to run mixed seriously if we wanna have any sort of meaningful defense. Foul Play's great as a solution, actually, but I don't think we should pick an ability that so relies on a single move (serious poll-jumping).

Wait....
Fear not, I come bearing good news.
There are a few special contact moves that can fulfill Competitive's purpose w/o diverging from a pure Specially-based set.
The only special moves that would allow contact, thus a stat boost, and would fit the general concept of a Fire/Water type are Infestation and possibly Grass Knot. Infestation would be absolutely necessary and abusive to Aegislash. Although the damage after each turn is tiny, the trapping clause keeps Aegislash from switching out from CAP18's boosted special Fire moves!

 

[canno]

The only thing I fear about Bulletproof on CAP 18 is that CAP 18 would become a great answer to Aegislash, meaning that it would be used elsewhere in a potentially better core, since any team can appreciate a Aegislash counter. However, there aren't really many options to help against Aegislash outside of it, making this tough. However, Bulletproof + good physical bulk fits well with the core. The only problem I have is that CAP 18 would fit easy in other cores too.

An option I like that doesn't get much discussion is Intimidate. Intimidate lets us buffer our Ground weakness, since EQ is more common than EP. It also lets us come in on Azumarill and slightly helps vs Talonflame. It also encourages switching, which makes Latias's Defog more important. Also, it helps vs Mixed Aegislash, as it will weaken the Shadow Ball + Shadow Sneak combo, and it lets us come in on Secret Sword easier. Shadow Ball and the SubToxic set are still a problem, but Intimidate helps us cover the rest of our ground.

 

[CJorex]

Just throwing in my two cents in regards to Competitive/Defiant- Although using contact moves to abuse King's Shield would be cool, it should be noted that King's Shield does not protect against status moves, so Aegislash would probably rather just attack or switch than risk doing nothing and getting burned by will-o-wisp. don't know if this will influence it too much, but it is something to be considered

 

[JayHankEdLyon]

I'm disagreeing with those arguing Bulletproof, and although Contrary would work well on a physical Fire/Water type, I'm almost sure that CAP 18 will be specially-based.

Competitive: mentioned initially by Deck Knight, this could be the answer to giving CAP18 offensive leverage whilst benefitting from King's Shield.
Our biggest obstacle is implementing a move that can make contact in order to achieve this boost.
A more specific concern on this stymying factor:

Wait....
Fear not, I come bearing good news.
There are a few special contact moves that can fulfill Competitive's purpose w/o diverging from a pure Specially-based set.
The only special moves that would allow contact, thus a stat boost, and would fit the general concept of a Fire/Water type are Infestation and possibly Grass Knot. Infestation would be absolutely necessary and abusive to Aegislash. Although the damage after each turn is tiny, the trapping clause keeps Aegislash from switching out from CAP18's boosted special Fire moves!

First off, when you typed Deck Knight, I'm pretty sure you meant wh0sy0urpapa, and then JayHankEdLyon, and then Deck Knight, unless my concept of time is off. I've been fully aware from my first mention of Competitive of the physical Special Moves that exist (thanks bulbapedia for your list of contact moves!), hence me saying from the getgo that the issue is a dearth of Special contact moves. The problem with your analysis is twofold:

-We shouldn't make an ability running off the assumption of movepool beyond generic, obvious guesses (that is, we can reasonably assume this mon is getting a burning move, but don't wanna leap and say it should get Foul Play or Infestation this early). Absolutely none of the Special-based contact moves/Foul Play is anywhere close to a reasonable assumption for this mon's moveset, even if we WERE discussing moveset, and we aren't.

-Running Infestation (which assumes CAP 18 would even get it, which is a huge stretch as mentioned) just to get the +2 from King's Shield Aegislash is pretty ridiculous. First off, Slash resists this 20 BP non-STAB move x4. Second, as a ghost, it wouldn't even get trapped. Third, if we want a boost so badly, why would we not aim for, say, a boosting move, rather than an incredibly situational scenario where we fish for boosts by hoping Aegislash uses King's Shield?

Competitive is something I brought up and then instantly dismissed because, while I love the idea of a competitive Competitive Pokemon, it just doesn't work without serious movepooling, and even then, the fact that King's Shield's stat-lowering doesn't at all mesh with what a Special attacker is looking to hit with spells doom for the concept.

 

[MudcrabDL]

You know, thinking about it, I'm starting to like the idea of Serene Grace a fair bit. Both are very good for allowing the application of special effects/conditions while still maintaining offensive pressure, which is essentially what we're planning on doing if I've read the zeitgeist right. Indeed, CAP18 could, with these buffs, run pure attacking sets with Assault Vest, which would help shore up the Shadow Ball issue.

 

[CerberusSONE]

First off, when you typed Deck Knight, I'm pretty sure you meant JayHankEdLyon, unless my concept of time is off. I've been fully aware from my first mention of Competitive of the physical Special Moves that exist (thanks bulbapedia for your list of contact moves!), hence me saying from the getgo that the issue is a dearth of Special contact moves. But the issue is twofold:

-We shouldn't make an ability running off the assumption of movepool beyond generic, obvious leaps (that is, we can reasonably assume this mon is getting a burning move, but don't wanna leap and say it should get Foul Play or Infestation this early). Absolutely none of the Special-based contact moves/Foul Play is anywhere close to a reasonable assumption for this mon's moveset, even if we WERE discussing moveset, and we aren't.
-Running Infestation (which assumes CAP 18 would even get it, which is a huge stretch as mentioned) just to get the +2 from King's Shield Aegislash is pretty ridiculous. First off, Slash resists this 20 BP non-STAB move x4. Second, as a ghost, it wouldn't even get trapped. Third, if we want a boost so badly, why would we not aim for, say, a boosting move, rather than an incredibly situational scenario where we fish for boosts by hoping Aegislash uses King's Shield?

Competitive is something I brought up and then instantly dismissed because, while I love the idea of a competitive Competitive Pokemon, it just doesn't work without serious movepooling, and even then, the fact that King's Shield's stat-lowering doesn't at all mesh with what a Special attacker is looking to hit with spells doom for the concept.

Completely forgot the Ghost typing mechanics (I felt like someone would provide a loophole to my proposition). I agree with the notion that Foul Play and movesets shouldn't guide the discussion of abilities, and I'm not into mixed sets, so until some more Competitive discussion is discussed, I'll have to leave it for now.
Thus, now I believe Contrary could fit for the concept. It would be beneficial to stay with a physically based mon, even if its highest stat isn't Attack. If we can benefit from King's Shield, there'll be a better chance of putting more pressure on Aegislash and discouraging is general presence.
In the assumption that we can run a physical mon, and a Bulky Gooey Goodra just happens to stop by, Contrary can aid in redirecting momentum of the game and perhaps give CAP18 means of becoming a revenge killer late in battle.
Motor Drive: plain and simple, I'm proposing this to find a solution to Rotom-W, who takes neutral damage from Lati's TBolt and can provide problems for our CAP. If it was up to me, I'd like to keep CAP18's Speed stat just average to keep the use of Motor Drive balanced.
Along with the adorable washing machine, Forretress's rising use in Volt Switch may prove beneficial to CAP18's use in ability (this can be an assumption, as the option of STAB U-turn may make Motor Drive pointless).
I was going to mention Flame Body and Rough Skin, but seeing as Fire/Water would most likely suffer from non contacting physical moves (i.e. QuakEdge/QuakeSlide) theyprobably wouln't give any reward for CAP18.

 

[Yilx]

Our threatlist seems to steer us towards the clear direction of being a Special-attacking mon at the moment, and from that I would like to throw my support behind Competitive. It's a relatively unexplored ability with shitty distribution, the "best" mon getting it being Milotic who cannot really utilize it either. No sane Aegislash would leave itself in on a Special attacker who won't really 'proc' King's Shield either, so it's really more for Defog. Bulletproof is a "necessary evil" too, however questionable it might be as an ability...

I would also like to support Regenerator as we will most likely be the one to switch into attacks aimed at the frail Lucario and not-as-frail but still Latias. Mitigating the damage taken from hazards alongside having ample recovery would allow us to complete our job to it's full abilities

 

[Imanalt]

As the guy who originally proposed contrary on irc (during typing stage), i want to chime in saying i don't think its a good fit for this typing. The appeal of it was the ability to reliably pursuit trap aegislash, but without stab it takes a pretty high attack stat to actually beat it. To always ohko blade forme with pursuit on the switch with adamant, max attack and no boosting item takes 124 attack. And if its only taking 50%, it wouldnt switch out on us, as it could still nail us for presumably upwards of 50% with a shadow ball. I'm also a bit hesitant about the possible ramifications in later stages with overheat, as contrary overheat could become very mon defining, and it is not at all targeted.

Competitive, which has been proposed to do similar things to contrary, is good, but in my mind too general. We would risk switching from being a "mon that can beat mons luc+latias is weak to" to being a mon that is useful for defog blocking, of which there are very few. And besides that, all it means is we force aegislash out more. We cant pursuit it, we cant switch in on it, it just cant stay in and kings shield on us, which was already presuambly the case given our fire typing.

Regenerator is also one i'm hesitant about. Its not an ability that says we specifically do better against these threats we need to beat, its an ability that just makes us better overall. In my mind if we are trying to build a mon that works in a specific core, but is limited outside of it, this needs to be accomplished via targeting of threats, and regenerator just doesn't do this.

I've already made myself clear on bulletproof, but i just want to address the argument i've seen a couple times that we will somehow become "too good" of an aegislash counter. There is already a mon that hard counters all aegislash sets other than subtoxic. Its called chesnaught, and doesnt see use in ou because it takes more than beating one pokemon to make a mon viable, and regardless of this, any time you have hard counters for a pokemon, they are going to tend to be used with pokemon that are hard countered by that pokemon, a mold fit by lucario and latias very well.

 

[Elite Lord Sigma]

For those of you who are concerned that Regenerator would make Latias' Defog support useless, I'd like to point out that there's a clear distinction between needing hazard removal to function and merely appreciating hazard removal. I believe that making CAP 18 lean too much in the former direction is undesirable in building this core. Furthermore, CAP 18 is being expected to take hits (e.g. physical blows from Aegislash) that will sting even with bulk. As such, I think Regenerator would be a good ability on CAP 18. As others have mentioned, I believe this would be the case especially if CAP 18 winds up functioning more like Mienshao than Slowbro.

 

[Full_Korbe]

Just my two cents about some abilities that will, I fear, distract us from the main purpose of CAP 18.
Rattled seems like a great idea, and it crossed my mind more than once. The problem is Bug / Dark are already resisted by resisted by Lucario, and one of the only moves he can switch-in reliably : we could "steal" switch-in opportunities. Arguably, Bug mainly consists of U-Turn, and Lucario does not want to switch in U-Turn. But what will we do with a +1 speed ? If, say Scizor, U-Turn into a Rotom-W, well, we just have to go on Latias and forget the +1 speed.
Likewise, +1 speed on Shadow Ball is only useful against Gengar, who will likely have a sub up. All in all, I don't think Rattled is very useful, which is a shame because the possibilities could have been great.

About Motor Drive and Volt Absorb, well, we want to be threatened by Rotom-W. With these abilities, considering we will have at least decent Sp Def (to take Aegis Shadow Ball), we just run over him.

I like the idea behind Static and Flame Body, but they are just too unreliable for my tastes. And it does nothing to help against Ground-moves and Shadow Ball.

Poison Heal seems interesting. One hand, we have a statut absorber for the core (Lucario hates being burned, for one, and it helps against Rotom-W) and on the other hand, the super recovery can be used against Aegis : every turn he King Shields, bam, 1/8 of our live is restored. It's a very flexible ability and while I would have hoped for something more creative (Rattled, for one), Poison Heal does help us a lot.
The idea of No Guard Inferno intrigues me. Ground-type will run away from CAP18 like the plague, and even if it can't kill Aegis in one-hit (which needs tremendous power), the burn + our probably decent spdef will be enough to cripple him. I like to think of it as an Entei with a decent typing.

 

[Sakuretsu]

Poison Heal, No Guard, Contrary, Serene Grace, Unaware, Intimidate, and Competitive all have sound reasoning and applications, and I don't feel that I need to repeat what others have explained.

I think Rattled is not viable, due to all the priority out there - especially against Aegislash. What's +1 speed to a +2 Shadow Sneak?
Bulletproof, I think, is also a bit of a stretch. Using this ability as a way to deal with Aegislash is ridiculous, as Aegi can just run a physical set. Maybe if CAP 18 had some nice physical bulk?

I'd like to look at White Smoke/Clear Body. This would be an acceptable ability to combat Sticky Web, Intimidate, and other stat drops. I do not know if King's Shield's attack drop is negated - if it is, then I feel this ability should be examined more.

 

[ganj4lF]

Bulletproof is a good approach if we think the main issue of our core is Aegislash. While it doesn't completely shut it down because of the physical sets, it allows us to focus on them while basically ignoring anything specially based Aegislash can attempt. This is pretty important, IMHO, since doing well against Aegislash seems to require taking a couple of Shadow Balls in a way or another (he can just switch out afterwards...), so being immune against the only special attack that can harm us allows to focus our stats on the other side without being overly bulky on the special side. I can't really agree with all the abilities that try to take advantage of King's Shield's stat drop since Aegislash will most likely prefer to switch out of a strong Fire type regardless, especially so if the pokemon has a chance to carry stuff like Contrary or Competitive (EDIT: reading again the thread, I guess they can be useful against Land-T and the likes; just wanted to point out they won't help that much against Aegislash though).

If we instead want to focus more on Faeries and Ground types, I guess abilities like Intimidate, Levitate, and to a lesser extent Unaware and Filter are viable choices. I just think we need to choose now what we want to counter more (it was already establised that we can't do everything, I think): ability choice has a significative impact on what we will be able to do in the next stages, and having a somewhat clear idea of what threats do we want to cover seems quite essential to pick the correct ability here.

Finally, while I can see the attractive of Serene Grace Scald / Lava Plume, it just seems to me a powerful option that...is not really linked to what we're trying to accomplish; indeed, we will be probably able to cripple things once we're in, but that doesn't stop Aegislash from coming in, throwing Shadow Balls around and fleeing at the last moment, or Earthquake-spamming mons from ripping us apart if they can hit Latias somehow. That looks something that any team could use quite well (think Entei), which isn't really our goal.

 

[FMD]

For justifying Sheer Force:

252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force (STAB 80 base SpAtk) Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 276-328 (85.1 - 101.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

This would be on par with the SpAtk of Tentacruel and below Nidoking's. The lowest SpAtk that would guarantee a OHKO is 102. This would lead to a degree of specialization in our role, but I do not believe it would make this a stand-alone Pokemon rather than a member of a core. This would be a powerful, but not overpowered, ability that would allow us more flexibility for stats when we reach that point. Depending on what secondary ability is chosen, this could also allow us to take two entirely different approaches to how this Pokemon will fit the core effectively.

 

[vyomov]

252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force (STAB 80 base SpAtk) Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 276-328 (85.1 - 101.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

Actually with SR into account, 91 SpA guarantees an OHKO which allows us to add more bulk during stats

 

[Redwolf]

Sheer force and Poison Heal would definitely encourage widespread usage outside of the core.

 

[pkmn-taicho321]

Regenerator: Wasn't the aim of this to be a defensive pivot? With just a little bit of bulk and Regenerator CAP can keep coming in to assist Luke and Latias without watering down it's movepool with a recovery move. Move over it gives the core a little bit of momentum if we can design it around slow U-Turns or Volt Switches giving both Latias and Luke numerous free switches.

Serene Grace: for that wonderful 60% burn chance on anything that dares to switch in. It's a solid choice too.

Levitate: Should be considered if only because it keeps the core's EQ weakness to Luke.

 

[Psyco_Josho]

252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force (STAB 80 base SpAtk) Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 276-328 (85.1 - 101.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

I was hesitant about it at first, but the power boost from Sheer Force seen here is crazy good. If our choice is to take down Aegislash offensively, then this is a good path to take.

And if Sheer Force makes this mon able to fit into this core the best it can, then does it really matter if it sees usage outside the core? After all, Lucario and Latias are already used oust side of cores, why shouldn't CAP be too?