CAP 18 CAP18 - Part 4 - Primary Ability Discussion

[alexwolf]

Forgot to include Poison Heal in the list of abilities i like, so i will do it now. Basically, Poison Heal is a more focused Regenerator. Unlike Regenerator, its healing is way less drastic and more gradual, and also costs the user's item slot. However, it has the added benefit of making the user immune to Toxic, Sleep, and Paralysis effects, which comes in very handy against SubToxic Aegislash and Toxic Heatran, both Pokemon that we are supposed to threaten. And because Poison Heal is more focused and less ''generally'' good than Regenerator, it allows us to control better the CAP's role and its effect on the metagame, including potential partners.

I've been sitting on the fence for a while thinking about many of these abilities, but after reading escarlata's post I believe that Competitive is one of, if not the best abilities for CAP18, provided it is partnered with Foul Play. The calc he posted for beating Aegis is quite compelling, as due to the mechanics of Foul Play (correct me of I'm wrong) we wouldn't have to invest any attack evs to defeat him in blade form, and if he does go for the King's Shield then the competitive boost allows CAP18 to roast him with whatever fire STAB we end up with, even with a mediocre SpA stat.
This is why I am putting my support towards Competitive.

Or Aegislash could simply switch out. Not to mention that the idea of using Foul Play just for Aegislash when we already have a super effective STAB against it is ludicrous.

 

[GemOftheDay]

Competitive seems like it could be a good ability to counter aegislash, and it also helps with another mon that can directly harm CAP18: landorus-t. However, My support still remains towards serene grace, as it not only cripples aegislash, but a number of other threats to our core.

also, alexwolf, Poison heal does seem like a great ability for CAP18, as it allows it to absorb the statuses that come towards luke and latias that may harm them. Goodbye to the t-waves and will o wisps that other mons may throw out, and here is a good way to solidify the potential role in the core.

 

[Imanalt]

I dont know why theres so much confusion on this, but Competitive does NOT help us against aegislash. If we have competitive, aegislash will simply switch out rather than using kings shield (which is presumably would do without competitive anyways). The only case in which competitive gives us an edge against aegislash would be with pursuit, but pursuit without stab takes insane attack to do much to aegislash if it just... stays in and attacks, and competitive would by necessity dictate a special attacker... Competitive is useless against aegislash (unless you count boosts of shadow balls, but thats applicable to so much and so inconsistent its barely a difference. All competitive does is allow us to block defog (something that doesn't help the core at all), and grab boosts off of intimidate mons (the only one which would ever consider switching in on us being pre-mega gyarados). Competitive literally makes our chosen core members worse teammates for this cap.

 

[mewtwo15026]

Competitive: I feel like Competitive would only work if CAP18 gets Foul Play, the only contact move that a special attacker would care to run. Or it could go mixed, but that might be tough to build without making it either broken or bad.

Serene Grace: I still absolutely despise Serene Grace. Admittedly, Skymin and Jirachi have left a bad taste in my mouth with their shenanigans, and I don't really want to see the ability proliferate. I do have an objective argument against it, though, and that's that, while Serene Grace would allow CAP18 to combine decently powerful STAB with a high burn rate, Lava Plume and Scald are weaker than Flamethrower and Surf, and the burn rate is still less than an unmodified Will-O-Wisp's. If CAP18 is to consistently deter Aegislash and Excadrill among others, it should have at least one out of powerful STAB attacks or a very high burn rate, and Compoundeyes and No Guard provide these.

No Guard: Provides powerful STAB and a very high burn rate no matter what. If CAP18 doesn't get Inferno, it can still sling around perfect Will-O-Wisps, Fire Blasts, and Hydro Pumps. If it DOES get Inferno...well, let's just say that Machamp gets No Guard STAB Dynamicpunch, and he's UU.

Compoundeyes: This ability is like No Guard, except it's easier to build around because it's far less breakable.

 

[akelly96]

I advocate Poison Heal and No Guard/Compound Eyes as the primary abilities. Poison Heal has two major benefits the first being great passive recovery making it easier to switch in to threats which gives it an edge over Regenerator. The second benefit is the ability to switch into crippling status moves that threaten both Lucario and Latias. The downside of Poison Heal is its lack of item. No Guard/Compound Eyes have three important effects the first is added offensive presence due to 100% accuracy 110 power moves this is important because added offensive presence allows it to invest in bulk and still maintain the ability to force switches. The second reason is that it allows CAP18 to take a more offensive role and be able to KO threats more effectively. The final benefit is a 100% accuracy Will-o-Wisp and or Inferno. Compound Eyes is better than Serene Grace because it is a more reliable means of spreading burn and because it gives CAP18 the firepower it needs to get KO'S.

 

[escarlata]

I dont know why theres so much confusion on this, but Competitive does NOT help us against aegislash. If we have competitive, aegislash will simply switch out rather than using kings shield (which is presumably would do without competitive anyways). The only case in which competitive gives us an edge against aegislash would be with pursuit, but pursuit without stab takes insane attack to do much to aegislash if it just... stays in and attacks, and competitive would by necessity dictate a special attacker... Competitive is useless against aegislash (unless you count boosts of shadow balls, but thats applicable to so much and so inconsistent its barely a difference. All competitive does is allow us to block defog (something that doesn't help the core at all), and grab boosts off of intimidate mons (the only one which would ever consider switching in on us being pre-mega gyarados). Competitive literally makes our chosen core members worse teammates for this cap.

Aegislash can literally switch out of any unstabbed pursuit. Even with contrary, CAP needs a fully invested positive nature Life Orb 116 base attack at +2 to KO an aegislash switching out. It needs the bulk to switch into Shadow Ball, and take another one in the case aegislash doesn't go for the switch. it needs average physical bulk to take 2 sacred sword for the same reason, and average satk if it does get overheat. That means we either have to put a huge limit on speed(physically bulky grounds will destroy us if this happen) or we will end up with something crazy huge for bst.

On competitive however, it only needs 95 SAtk to get the OHKO with Lava Plume at +2 without even needing a boosting item, which means it is more realistic to give it the bulk to take hits switching in, and have a good speed stat to threaten bulky grounds that can destroy us. If CAP18 does get pursuit, if aegislash switches out instead of using king's shield, he will still take massive damage since he will be in attack stance, I will work out the required base att to ohko blade stance aegislash when I'm not on my phone.

At the end of the day, we have no way of preventing Aegislash from switching out at all, so saying that switching will make us worthless basically applies to every viable ability. Competitive is actually one of the most reliable options we have against aegislash, putting every possible course of action to our advantages instead, putting aegislash under offensive pressure, while keeping with a realistic goal of bst. Competitive on CAP18 actually makes having Aegislash being a liability rather than an assert for the opponent, and I think by that, we have succeeded. And with regards to limiting movepool, every viable option we have are somewhat limiting as well, and is no different with needing Foul Play for competitive. and I prefer effectiveness in its job over flexibility in creating a movepool.

If we are going for a defensive ability however, I would like to sell levitate again as the ability of choice. The only ground resist we have is Latias, which means a fast ground type will wreck our core if Tyranitar comes in to trap Latias. Losing bulletproof isn't too huge because the required bulk to take shadow ball+shadow sneak is not too unrealistic tbh

I realised that compoundeyes have been popping up a lot in the recent discussions, and I agree it is one of the best miscellaneous abilities we can have, and since there really isn't any controversy with that, I shall leave it at that without further elab.

 

[turd bunny]

wow Compoundeyes seems really perfect. an almost perfect accuracy WoW and two STAB high-powered attacks with increased accuracy, it is like no guard but not OP. we burn aegis even when behind the KS and we can knock it out or maim switches with a STAB. ground types are scared, bugs are scared, gengar is a bit frail so is scared, fire-types are scared, fairies are... okay we need to deal with those. oh yea and it burns better than serene grace. we can burn mawile but im afraid we need a team member to deal with clefablei think compoundeyes is my favorite with multiscale in 2nd place. and latias can wish pass to CAP 18 to restore the multiscale.

 

[EpicUmbreon29]

My Final Argument:
I believe that Serene Grace is our best bet, as it allows us to simultaneously provide offensive pressure against the opponent and support the core. Serene Grace allows us to have more reliable chances to burn the opponent (with moves like Scald), which prevents Lucario and Latias from being destroyed by Pokemon like Mawile and Azumarill. On top of the lowering of Attack, the burns lower the HP of the foe every turn after the foe is struck by fairly powerful STAB moves. Serene Grace is not as broken as No Guard, which some have argued would be good for spreading burn with no-miss Infernos. Though some have said that Machamp isn't overpowered despite No Guard Dynamicpunch, this is because Machamp is a fairly slow Fighting type, and confusion has a chance to fail each turn, whereas burns don't. Overall, Serene Grace will allow CAP18 to assist the core in the most versatile, reasonable, and effective way.

 

[MudcrabDL]

Final thought: given all the evidence, Contrary seems like the best option. It gives CAP the scope to function as an all out attacker on either the special or physical side, and can reliably ruin Aegislash with both. The physical side makes King's Shield and Intimidate worthless, and bugger it, I've been skirting around the sidelines of this, but Overheat makes CAP absolutely horrifying, which is honestly ideal for our core, punching massive holes in teams for Lucario to clean up. It can still be revenge killed, sure, but it makes Aegislash a really risky Pokemon to have out, and can turn the tides in your favor.

 

[Agile Turtle]

No Guard: Provides powerful STAB and a very high burn rate no matter what. If CAP18 doesn't get Inferno, it can still sling around perfect Will-O-Wisps, Fire Blasts, and Hydro Pumps. If it DOES get Inferno...well, let's just say that Machamp gets No Guard STAB Dynamicpunch, and he's UU.

omg no. noooooooooo. There is a huge difference between burns and confusion. With confusio you can just switch out, but with burns you can't just switch out. And burns can cripple a pokemon entirely. No Guard + Inferno would be way over powered.

remember kids, don't play with fire

 

[akelly96]

Compound Eyes is better than Serene Grace for multiple reasons. Compound Eyes is a more reliable way to spread burn. With a 100% accuracy Will-o-Wisp many counters such as Azumarril or a dragon type would be hard pressed to switch in on it. A powerful STAB Hydro Pump will prevent almost all ground types from switching in if Will-o-Wisp hasn't already. This gives CAP18 more offensive presence and additionally a more reliable burn chance. The reason I am not in support of Serene Grace is because it doesn't make sense to make a CAP around abusing luck. You have a better chance to burn with Compound Eyes Inferno than with scald or lava plume. Luck is never a good place to rest mon's niche.

 

[HeaLnDeaL]

don't actually think that any of those special attackers with 50% recovery moves particularly mind burns. Granted, burns do add incentive to spend a turn Roosting or Softboileding or what have you, and smart play can take advantage of that, but it's still better for them than toxic or paralysis. Besides, if your logic is true, Rotom-W and Lati@s can't reliably check it because burn. I still prefer Compoundeyes for those matchups because the higher-powered STAB deals as much damage to Clefable, Togekiss, etc. as Scald/Plume + burn and allows something else to come in and Toxic or Thunder Wave them.

I don't think I ever said anything about burn countering Rotom-W and Lati@s. In fact, in an earlier post, I even argued against someone who did say that burns would make it hard for Latias to counter CAP18... The point is with either Compoundeyes and pump/blast and with burning from scald/plume that specially bulky Pokemon won't mind too much either way. As was kindly pointed out, the burn's residual damage could potentially allow for player's to take advantage of the turn in which the foe is expected to use a recovery move. Toxic might deal with these bulky special walls better than burn, yes, but as a Pokemon that seems to be something we are expecting to have an offensive presence, Toxic might be hardpressed to fit into the moveset of CAP18. Even allowing to combine w-o-w with stab offensive moves allows a Serene Grace Burner to free up moveslots that could be better spent with other options.

Compound Eyes is better than Serene Grace for multiple reasons. Compound Eyes is a more reliable way to spread burn. With a 100% accuracy Will-o-Wisp many counters such as Azumarril or a dragon type would be hard pressed to switch in on it. A powerful STAB Hydro Pump will prevent almost all ground types from switching in if Will-o-Wisp hasn't already. This gives CAP18 more offensive presence and additionally a more reliable burn chance. The reason I am not in support of Serene Grace is because it doesn't make sense to make a CAP around abusing luck. You have a better chance to burn with Compound Eyes Inferno than with scald or lava plume. Luck is never a good place to rest mon's niche.

Having a 65% burn chance and a 65% damage chance with Inferno/Compoundeyes sounds much riskier than a 100% of damage and 60% chance of burn to me. With Inferno, it's all or nothing. With scald/plume, at least damage is guaranteed.

So, final arguments for Serene Grace:
-Keeps offensive pressure with the defensive/strategic benefits of burn
-Dissuades the opponent from switching willy-nilly to a physical check because of the burn chance
-Burns help with physical Aegislash, and since Aegislash is likely to switch out in the face of CAP18 1-on-1, burns to a potential counter that switches in might be a costly sacrifice to the opponent
-Latias appreciates physical threats being burned to increase her own defensive presence on the team
-Lucario appreciates both the burns and the extra damage of scald/plume, as it helps him getting closer to cleaning with extreme speed
-80BP and 60% burn chance is comparable to Entei's sacred fire, which has not proven to be broken. No Guard Infernos, however, seem much more deadly and have a higher chance of being unfair/overpowered
-Serene Grace scald/plume frees up the need to carry w-o-w; by having moves that act as status and offensive moves, you save moveslots and can carry other tools

 

[PttP]

Slate:

Bulletproof
Analytic
Regenerator
Contrary

reasoning

Abilities that were chosen:

Bulletproof is pretty self explanatory.

Analytic is probably the most surprising slated ability as it really didn't have any discussion. It was brought up really late in the discussion and most people seemed to gloss over it, however, I think it is an extremely viable option. A huge problem CAP faces with its Fire / Water typing is the fact that it cannot prevent Aegislash from simply switching out and threatening the core at a later stage in the game. Analytic somewhat alleviates this problem due to the fact that switching out still activates its power boost, meaning that either Aegislash can stay in and get smacked with a SE STAB, or have a teammate take an excessive amount of damage. This is probably the best ability in terms of minimizing the opponent's likelihood to switch out. In addition to this, Analytic does not poll jump in any of the future stages of CAP, as base stats are completely unaffected by this ability. Low Speed is not required for the reason stated above, and the CAP can still be either physically or specially oriented.

Regenerator is a solid ability in itself and allows the CAP to serve a pivot role easily. The arguments against Regenerator were that it would cause Defog Latias to become obsolete, which I did not feel was a strong enough argument. Although it is true that the CAP can recover off any potential SR damage with Regenerator, this in no way makes Latias obsolete. We have already seen a SR weak Pokemon perform strongly in a past metagame (Tornadus-T) and despite it having Regenerator, many teams still used a Spinner with it because 25% is immediate damage that is a dynamic amount. Regenerator making the CAP good outside of the core has no bearing on the situation for me. If the CAP needs Regenerator to make the core as effective as possible, then what it does outside of the core doesn't matter.

Contrary is a nice ability because of the fact that it doesn't completely restrict the CAP to a physical or specially based focus. It has the added benefit of completely discouraging Aegislash from using King's Shield by turning that -2 into a +2, which an ability like Defiant cannot do. I was a bit hesitant to add Contrary because Overheat Contrary could be a bit broken, but I will hope that a movepool with Overheat won't win.

Abilities that were not chosen:

Poison Heal: Pretty easy no for me. It's quite a bit better than Regenerator, and completely ignores the threat discussions we just had. An entire group of Pokemon that should threaten the CAP is the "walls with minimal means to damage" group. These type of Pokemon use status as their main means of damage...and you can't exactly status kill something that heals from the most lethal status condition.

Competitive: Has essentially no actual practical use. You aren't going to be hitting an Aegislash with a physical move if your ability is Competitive, and there are nearly no other opportunities to make use of this ability. Intimidate users usually don't switch into special attackers, and the most notable defoggers (Lati@s) both wall the type combination of Fire and Water, so even if you do predict the Defog, you won't benefit from it.

Serene Grace: People already complain about Scald / Lava Plume having a 30% burn rate, giving something 2 different STAB moves with 80 base power and a 60% chance to burn is borderline insane. Literally nothing appreciates a burn, and the only type immune to burns are massacred by our Water STAB. It also doesn't really help with our threat list, as Scoopapa said earlier. This ability is just not a smart idea in any sense.

No Guard: It seems pretty clear to me that the only reason that No Guard was up for debate was for like Inferno. A 100 BP move with a 100% chance to burn and absolutely no drawbacks is not meant for the metagame. We want the CAP to be good, but not so much that it is tearing teams apart with great coverage and a 100% chance to burn anything. Fire Blast / Hydro Pump's accuracy is not a big enough concern to have No Guard as the primary ability. If people think Fire Blast is the best option, they will use it regardless of the ability.

Compound Eyes: This ability really doesn't help us deal with anything on our threats list. Fire Blast / Hydro Pump accuracy issues are not a concern, and Will-o-Wisp doesn't help with anything on our threats list except Azumarill. I realize that the threats list is not something to live and die by, but the CAP should use its ability to help the core to the best of its ability. Having a combination like Compound Eyes + Will-o-Wisp would help make the CAP a better Pokemon, but would not progress the success of the core.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

Looking at this slate, Contrary and Bulletproof were fairly obvious selections. Contrary allows for immediate punishment of Aegislash by heavily discouraging King's Shield, and Bulletproof takes away Shadow Ball. I definitely agree with both of these Abilities being slated. Analytic was definitely an oddball; I'll admit I was surprised when Analytic made the list. However, I definitely agree with it being there. Analytic punishes not only Aegislash's teammates, but the teammates of any Pokemon that provides a relatively easy switch-in to CAP18 such as Mawile or Azumarill if we predict well. CAP18 is designed to switch into Pokemon that threaten Latias and Lucario, so by definition CAP18 will be benefiting its core with Analytic.

Regnerator, however, is the Ability I'm most concerned about. It's barely concept-specific; it's really a generic "pivot" Ability and we want to be able to handle Aegislash as more than just a pivot. However, I'm going to allow Regenerator because we should still keep the "pivot" role open for CAP18 and no Ability here lets us repeatedly switch into both Physical and Special Aegislash as well as Regenerator does. Just like PttP, I don't buy the "Regenerator discourages Defog Latias" because with or without Regenerator, Stealth Rock still caps CAP18's health at 75% of the maximum while switching in.

The only Ability in serious consideration for a +1 was Defiant, but there was not nearly enough intelligent support to justify doing so. The slate stays as is, it's time for some polls.